whereas his majesty hath received information that some persons who can discover the manner and circumstances of the murder of sir edmund-bury godfrey, are withheld from so doing out of a fear that their persons may be in danger ... england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1678 approx. 2 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32679 wing c3631 wing e845_cancelled estc r34885 14878364 ocm 14878364 102822 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32679) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 102822) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1569:23 or 1588:127) whereas his majesty hath received information that some persons who can discover the manner and circumstances of the murder of sir edmund-bury godfrey, are withheld from so doing out of a fear that their persons may be in danger ... england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, christopher barker, thomas newcomb and henry hills ..., london : 1678. at head of page: charles r. "given at our court at whitehall this twenty fourth day of october in the thirtieth year of our reign. by his majesties command. henry coventry." item at reel 1569:23 identified as wing e845 (number cancelled). reproduction of originals in the harvard university library and the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng godfrey, edmund berry, -sir, 1621-1678. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2008-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-10 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-10 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion c 2 r diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms charles r. whereas his majesty hath received information , that some persons who can discover the manner and circumstances of the murder of sir edmund-bury godfrey , are withheld from so doing , out of a fear that their persons may be in danger from the revenge which the murderers or their friends may take upon them , his majesty is pleased hereby to signifie , and on the word of a king to promise , that if any person shall speedily make such discovery to one of his majesties principal secretaries of state , he shall not onely receive the five hundred pounds and pardon ( promised by his majesties late proclamation ) but his majesty will take such effectual courses for the security of such discoverer , as he shall in reason propose . given at our court at whitehall this twenty fourth day of october , in the thirtieth year of our reign . by his majesties command . henry coventry . london , printed by john bill , christopher barker , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1678. whereas his majesty out of his princely care for securing the true protestant religion, and to satisfie the minds of all his loving subjects therein, for the more effectual discovery and suppression of the most horrid and execrable popish plot ... by the lord lieutenant and council, ormonde. ireland. lord lieutenant (1677-1685 : ormonde) 1680 approx. 3 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a46146 wing i808 estc r36891 16149553 ocm 16149553 104876 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a46146) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 104876) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1595:29) whereas his majesty out of his princely care for securing the true protestant religion, and to satisfie the minds of all his loving subjects therein, for the more effectual discovery and suppression of the most horrid and execrable popish plot ... by the lord lieutenant and council, ormonde. ireland. lord lieutenant (1677-1685 : ormonde) ormonde, james butler, duke of, 1610-1688. 1 broadside. printed by benjamin took and john crook ... and are to be sold by mary crook ..., dublin : 1680. title from first 6 lines of text. statement of responsibility transposed from head of title. "given at the council-chamber in dublin the fifteenth day of november, 1680." reproduction of original in the society of antiquaries library, london. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. ireland -history -1649-1775. ireland -politics and government -17th century. 2007-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-01 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-03 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-03 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms by the lord lieutenant and council . ormonde . whereas his majesty out of his princely care for securing the true protestant religion , and to satisfie the minds of all his loving subjects therein , for the more effectual discovery and suppression of the most horrid and erecrable popish plot , and the encouragement of all persons who have any knowledge thereof , to make discovery of the same , hath thought fit to set forth his royal proclamation , bearing date at his court at white hall the thirtieth day of october last past , thereby promising and assuring his free and gracious pardon to all and every person and persons who within two months after the date of the said proclamation should come in and give further information and evidence concerning the said popish plot. now we the lord lieutenant and council , for the like encouragement of all persons within this kingdom , who have any knowledge of the said plot , to make discovery of the same , do think fit to set fort● , this our proclamation , hereby promising and assuring his majesties free and gracious pardon to all and every person and persons within this kingdome , who within two months from the date of this our proclamation shall come in , and give further information and evidence concerning the said popish plot. given at the council-chamber in dublin the fifteenth day of november , 1680. blesinton . lanesborough . hen. midensis . r. coote rob. fitz gerald. ca. dillon . char. meredith . john keatinge . he. hene . jo. davys . will. stewart . ol. st. george . w. wentworth . mau. eustace . tho. newcomen . god save the king dublin , printed by benjamin took and john crook , printers to the kings most excellent majesty ; and are to be sold by mary crook at his majesties printing-house in skinner-row . 1680. by the king, a proclamation for the more effectual discovery of jesuits, and of all estates belonging to them, or to any popish priest, colledge, seminary, or other popish and superstitious foundation england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1679 approx. 4 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32569 wing c3493 estc r33277 13118514 ocm 13118514 97783 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32569) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 97783) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1547:3) by the king, a proclamation for the more effectual discovery of jesuits, and of all estates belonging to them, or to any popish priest, colledge, seminary, or other popish and superstitious foundation england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, thomas newcomb, and henry hills ..., london : 1679. "given at our court at whitehall the twelfth day of november, 1679. in the one and thirtieth year of our reign." reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. proclamations -great britain. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2008-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-09 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-09 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion c r diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms by the king. a proclamation for the more effectual discovery of jesuits , and of all estates belonging to them , or to any popish priest , colledge , seminary , or other popish and superstitious foundation . charles r. whereas his majesty was graciously pleased by his royal proclamation dated the twentieth day of november 1678. to promise a reward of twenty pounds to any person who should discover and apprehend any popish priest or jesuit , as in the said proclamation is exprest , whereof his majesty hath found good effect , and hopes more will follow by the due putting thereof in execution ; however his majesty having been lately more fully informed of the pernicious practices of the jesuits , and that divers of them do still lie lurking and disguised within this his majesties realm of england , contriving and carrying on their traiterous plots and designs against his majesties person and government , and the protestant religion by law established : his majesty is therefore graciously pleased by this his royal proclamation to add to the reward formerly promised , and doth hereby promise to him or them who shall discover and apprehend , or cause to be apprehended any jesuit , the sum of eighty pounds besides the former twenty pounds , in all one hundred pounds , which shall be immediately paid upon the conviction of such jesuit . and his majesty doth hereby appoint the lords commissioners of his treasury , or the lord high treasurer of england , to pay the same accordingly without delay or abatement . and his majesty is further graciously pleased to declare , that whosoever shall discover any estate , real or personal , belonging to any jesuit or jesuits , or colledge , or seminary of jesuits , or to any popish priest , colledge , seminary , covent , or nunnery of popish and superstitious foundation ( except the same be issuing out , or part of the estate and estates of sir thomas preston , sir john warner , two thousand five hundred pounds charge upon the estate of henry nevil esquire , and fifteen hundred pounds in the hands of augustine hungate , which are already discovered , and now under examination before the lords commissioners of the treasury ) shall have one full moiety thereof . and his majesty doth hereby straitly charge and command all his judges , justices of the peace , magistrates , officers , and other loyal subjects whatsoever within his realm of england , dominion of wales , and town of berwick upon tweed , that they use their utmost care and endeavours to discover , apprehend , and commit , or cause to be committed to safe custody , in order to their trial , all jesuits and priests , as by his said former proclamation is commanded . gi●en at our court at whitehall the twelfth day of november 1679. in the one and thirtieth year of our reign . god save the king. london , printed by john bill , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1679. a poem as it was presented to his sacred majesty on the discovery of the plott, written by a lady of quality. ephelia, fl. 1679. 1679 approx. 4 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). b04744 wing p2668 interim tract supplement guide c.20.f.2[121] 99890576 ocm99890576 181448 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. b04744) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 181448) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books; tract supplement ; a1:1[122]) a poem as it was presented to his sacred majesty on the discovery of the plott, written by a lady of quality. ephelia, fl. 1679. 1 sheet ([1] p.). s.n.], [london? : printed in the year 1679. attributed to ephelia.--cf. oluc rec. 51222023: ephelia / selected and introduced by maureen e. mulvihill. aldershot, hants, england; burlington, vt: ashgate, c2003. verse: "haile mighty prince! whom heaven has de-". place of publication suggested by wing. reproduction of original in the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng charles -ii, -king of england, 1630-1685 -poetry, -early works to 1800. popish plot, 1678 -poetry -early works to 1800. great britain -politics and government -1660-1688 -poetry -early works to 1800. 2008-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-10 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-10 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a poem as it was presented to his sacred majesty on the discovery of the plott , written by a lady of quality . haile mighty prince ! whom heaven has desig'nd to be the chief delight of human kind : so many vertues c●oud your breast that we do alwaies question your mortality : sure all the planets that o're vertue raigns , shed their best influence in your royal veins : you are the glory of monarchial pow'rs , in bounties free as are descending showr's ; fierce as a tempest when ingag'd in vvar , in peace more mild than tender virgins are ; in pitying mercy , you not imitate the heavenly pow'rs , but rather emulate . none but your self , your suffrings could have born with so much greatness , such heroick scorn , when hated traytors do your life pursue , and all the world is fill'd with cares for you ; vvhen every loyal heart is sunk with fear , your self alone doth unconcern'd appear ; your soul within , still keeps it's lawful state , contemns and dares the worst effects of fate , as the bright majesty shot from your eye , aw'd your tame fate , and rul'd your destiny . though your undaunted soul bare you thus high , your sollid judgement sees ther 's danger nigh ; ●vhich with such care and prudence you prevent ●s if you fear'd not but t' would cross th' event . your care so nobly looks , it doth appear t is for your subjects , not your self you fear : heaven ! make this princes life your nearest care , that does so many of your best vertues share : if monarchs in their actions copy you , this is the nearest piece you ever drew : blast every hand that dares to be so bold , an impious vveapon ' gainst his life to hold : burst every heart that dares but think him ill ; their guilty souls with so much terrour fill , that of themselves they may their plott unfold , and live no longer then the tale is told . safe in your care , all else will needless prove yet keep him safe too in his subjects love. your subjects view you with such loyal eyes they know not how they may their treasure prize . were you defenceless , they would round you fall , and pile their bodies to build up a wall . vvere you distre'st , 't would prove a gen'rous strife , vvho first should lose his own , to save your life . but since kind heaven these dangers doth remove , vvee 'l find out other wayes t' express our love. wee 'l force the traytors all , their souls resign , to herd with him that taught them their design . finis . printed in the year 1679. by the king, a proclamation for the apprehending of certain persons therein named, accused of high treason england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1679 approx. 4 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32519 wing c3438 estc r35889 15566214 ocm 15566214 103855 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32519) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 103855) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1588:91) by the king, a proclamation for the apprehending of certain persons therein named, accused of high treason england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, thomas newcomb, and henry hills, ..., london : 1679. "given at our court at windsor the eighth day of september, 1679, in the one and thirtieth year of our reign." reproduction of the original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2008-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-09 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-09 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion c r diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms by the king. a proclamation for the apprehending of certain persons therein named , accused of high treason . charles r. whereas it hath appeared at the tryals and arraignments of the conspirators in the horrid and traiterous conspiracy now under prosecution , that among the several ways and means contrived for the murther of his sacred majesty , four ruffians were appointed to go to windsor , and there to assassinate his royal person ; and whereas lately such information hath beén given upon oath , that there is just cause to suspect , that captain lavallyan , karney , and thomas brahall gent. being all irishmen , and james willson gent. an englishman , are the persons that are guilty thereof , and were hired to commit that execrable crime ; and whereas the said capt. lavallyan , karney , thomas brahall , and james willson , are since fled from iustice , not daring to abide their legal tryal ; the kings most excellent majesty doth by this his royal proclamation straitly charge and command the said captain lavallyan , karney , thomas brahall , and james willson , that they and every of them respectively do before the twentieth day of october , render themselves to the lord chief iustice , or some other the iustices of the kings bench , who are hereby commanded forthwith to commit them to safe custody , there to remain in order to their tryals for this their offence . and his majesty both also charge and command all and every iustices of peace , mayors , sheriffs , bayliffs , constables , and all other his officers and loving subjects , that they and every of them do use their utmost endeavours for the apprehending the said captain lavallyan , karney , thomas brahall , and james willson , and every of them . and his majesty doth hereby straitly forbid and prohibit any of his subjects to conceal , harbour , relieve or receive any of the said offenders , under the peril of being themselves proceéded against ( as by law they may ) for the crime of high treason . and for a greater encouragement of all such as shall do their duty herein , his majesty doth hereby graciously promise to such person or persons as shall discover and apprehend any of the said offenders , the reward of one hundred pounds , which shall be respectively paid upon the discovery and apprehending of the said captain lavallyan , karney , thomas brahall , and james willson , or any of them . and as an encouragement to any of the offenders themselves to come in and render themselves , his majesty doth hereby further most graciously promise , that if the said offenders , or any of them , shall before the twentieth day of october aforesaid , render themselves , and make a full discovery of all their accomplices , that then such person so rendring himself , shall be pardoned for his own offence ; but if they shall refuse to render themselves as aforesaid , then they shall be proceeded against according to the utmost severity and rigour of the law. given at our court at windsor the eighth day of september 1679. in the one and thirtieth year of our reign . god save the king . london , printed by john bill , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1679. an answer to malice defeated, or, some reflections upon madame cellier's case fletcher, william, 17th cent. 1680 approx. 4 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a25557 wing a3360 estc r16436 13618297 ocm 13618297 100808 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a25557) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 100808) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 832:36) an answer to malice defeated, or, some reflections upon madame cellier's case fletcher, william, 17th cent. 1 sheet ([1] p.) printed for the author william fletcher, london : 1680. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng cellier, elizabeth, fl. 1680. -malice defeated. popish plot, 1678. broadsides -england -london -17th century 2006-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-12 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-01 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2007-01 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an answer to malice defeated : or , some reflections upon madam cellier's case . so damnable and malicious are the popes imps grown , especially the female sex , though both as bad a torment to england , as hell to them : they cannot be content to come off with their damnable plots , by running down the kings evidence and upbraiding them : but presently they print and publish a parcel of hellish lies to excuse their cursed infernal practises , thinking thereby to deceive the world with their impudent and deceitful lies : knowing full well the pope will pardon all they do in his service , for they have not been such bad servants to him ; but for the thousand pounds , they say , they spent in their damnable and deceitful plottings against the protestants : he will , you may be sure ; pay them double , and it may be give them three hundred masses for the use : yet , i do not question but god will discover , your hellish cloven foot under your long coats , to your shame and confusion , and the nations good . i do suppose that the pope gave you a pardon before your case was writ , or otherwise you would not have deceitfully said , you did not fear death ; nor the smell of newgate ; and so have sealed such a parcel of damnable lies , and impudent and hellish language up with your blood. your popish , upbraiding hellish speeches shews you have a damnable , wicked and hellish spirit within , and a pocky cloven foot without . but the god of all truth will render unto the wicked according to their deserts , and bring to light all your damnable practices : and release his people from your damnable hellish claws . you say , capt. thomas dangerfield , who is worthy of the name , has been a wicked man ; if he had not , he would not have concerned himself with your damnable , deceitful and cursed plot . but , to make the nation amends , he hath discovered your damnable and ranck-poyson plot ; which in so doing , he hath done the nation more good a hundred-fold , than ever he did them harm : for in his discovering this your damnable and cursed plot , he hath shewed himself an honest man , both to his king and country ; as you will , i am afraid , know to your cost . if the pope , and all his imps stand by you ; ( as , d. b. p. s. a. p. c. ) you will be mightily mistaken , if you think that your female sex , or male sex , can run down a nation , far better than where your old grand-sir , the hatcher of mischief dwels ; i mean rome , where the devil in the pope lives . but , pray madam , before you go any farther , take my advice , ( and do not curse me , when you see this your looking-glass ) which is , make an open confession to god , and all the world , of all your damnable and cursed practises , and this nation will be bound to pray for you : but , if you continue in your falsehood , and believe the popish religion , than i will give you my farther advice ; that since you have done more harm to this nation , than ever you or the popes agents can make good : go you over to rome , and there spend the rest of your daies in a nunnery , there let your cloven foot with your rank body and poisoned mind continue till you dy : but then god have mercy on your soul ; for the pope can give none . london , printed for the author william fletcher . 1680. the last speech of edward fitz-harris at the time of his execution at tyburn, the first of july, 1681 fitzharris, edward, 1648?-1681. 1681 approx. 5 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 2 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a39604 wing f1094 estc r5848 12581206 ocm 12581206 63756 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a39604) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 63756) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 960:21) the last speech of edward fitz-harris at the time of his execution at tyburn, the first of july, 1681 fitzharris, edward, 1648?-1681. 1 sheet ([2] p.) printed for r. harbottle : and sold by r. janeway ..., london : 1681. reproduction of original in cambridge university library. broadside. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng fitzharris, edward, 1648?-1681. popish plot, 1678. trials (treason) -great britain. broadsides 2006-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-12 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-01 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2007-01 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the last speech of edward fitz-harris , at the time of his execution at tyburn the first of july , 1681. this day , pursuant to the sentence pass'd at the kings-bench bar at westminster , on mr. edward fitz-harris , for treason , &c. he was neer the tower gate , on tower-hill , delivered into the custody of the sheriffs of london and middlesex , viz. slingsby bethel and henry cornish esquires ; who upon the place sign'd a discharge for him , to the lieutenant of the tower. then he was put on a sledge , and thence conveyed through the city of london to newgate , where he overtook oliver plunket , who was just before on another sledge , passing to the same place of execution . where being come , ( soon after plunket's private prayers , &c. ) fitz-harris ask'd captain richardson whether the sheriffs had a warrant for the disposal of his body , captain richardson answer'd yes . then he desired dr. hawkins assistance , which the sheriffs ●eadily granted , and called for him to go to him on the sledge ; which the doctor did , and on his knees embraced him , and con●inued a private discourse with him for some time . sheriff bethel ask'd mr. fitz-harris , what have you to say ? mr. fitz-harris answered , the doctor of the tower would answer for him , he having left his mind with him , mr. sheriff bethel . you will do well to discharge your conscience . fitz harris . i have left it all with the doctor in writing , under my hand , who will communicate it with witness to the world. doctor martin of wood-street being at the same time in the presence of the sheriffs , desired master fitz-harris to declare whether he died a protestant or a papist . he answered . having left his mind fully with doctor hawkins , he hoped it might be satisfactory . the doctor replied , it would be more satisfactory to declare himself there , and that it was no shame to die a protestant . to which master fitz harris replied as before . then master fitz-harris said , good people , this infamous kind of death is much more irksome to me than death it self : such judgments as these my sins against god may justly bring upon me , and i do most humbly submit unto it . but as to the crimes which i now die for , i take god to witness , i was no further concerned in the libel , than to discover to the king what practises of that kind were against him , being employed to that end , though those that employed me refused to do me justice at my trial. and i call god to witness , i never had a farthing of money of the king in my life , but on the account of the like service . and as to the witnesses that have sworn against me , i do here solemnly declare , now at my death , that i have not seen the french ambassador since the beginning of the breaking out of the plot , neither have i had any acquaintance with him . and as to his confessor , i never spoke with him in my life ; neither have i had any dealing , either directly or indirectly , in my life with them , though sir w. waller and the rest swore most falsely to the contrary . and how like it is that the french ambassador would give three thousand crowns for writing that libel , i leave the world to judge . what i may further declare , i have left with doctor hawkins . i forgive all the world , and do hope that god will forgive me . i beg the prayers of all good people for a happy passage into the other world. master fitzharris desired to know of the sheriffs , whether his body might not be at the disposal of his wife , without quartering . upon which the sheriff read him the warrant . london , printed for r. harbottle , and sold by r. janeway , in queen's-head-alley , in pater-noster-row , 1681. to the right honourable sir patience ward knight, lord mayor of the city of london. the humble petition of the commons of the city of london, in common-hall assembled, june 27. 1681 1681 approx. 6 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 2 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a62803 wing t1613 estc r213533 99825893 99825893 30284 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a62803) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 30284) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 2219:10) to the right honourable sir patience ward knight, lord mayor of the city of london. the humble petition of the commons of the city of london, in common-hall assembled, june 27. 1681 ward, patience, sir, 1629-1696. bethel, slingsby, 1617-1697. cornish, henry, d. 1685. 1 sheet (2 p.) printed for r. baldwyn, in the old-baily, london : 1681. the verso contains a petition from the citizens to the sheriffs of the city of london and middlesex, slingsby bethel and henry cornish. reproduction of the original in the guildhall library, london. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng sheriffs -england -london -early works to 1800. popish plot, 1678 -early works to 1800. london (england) -history -17th century -early works to 1800. 2006-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-07 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2006-09 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion to the right honourable sir patience ward knight , lord mayor of the city of london . the humble petition of the commons of the city of london , in common-hall assembled , june 27. 1681. sheweth , that we do with all thankfulness acknowledg the great and wonderful mercy of almighty god , in that notwithstanding the daily plots and wicked contrivances of the papists and their accomplices , we do still enjoy our ancient and undoubted right and freedom of assembling our selves together for the choice of some principal officers of this city for the year ensuing . and whilst we attend upon this duty , we cannot but with all gratitude remember the great care , and faithful endeavours of your lordship , the aldermen , and commons in common-council lately assembled in ordering an humble address to be presented to his majesty ; wherein was expressed your lordships and their due sense of the continued danger of his majesty's life , ( which god long preserve ) and of the protestant religion , and of all our lives , liberties , and estates , by the designs and conspiracies , so long projected and prosecuted by the councils of rome and its adherents ; in the pursuit whereof , they are chiefly animated by the continuing hopes of a popish successour . and also your and their just apprehensions that no effectual means can be provided against the impending evils therein mentioned , but by the wisdom and advice of his majesty's great council the parliament . and whereas it hath come to our knowledge , that reports , by mistake or prejudice , have been raised , that the said address did contein onely the sense and desires of a few persons , and not of the generality of this great city . we do therefore most humbly pray your lordship , that you will in such manner ( as shall seem best to your lordships discretion ) humbly represent to his majesty , that the subject-matter of the said address is also the true sense , and doth contain the humble desires and resolutions of his true and loyal subjects the citizens of his city of london , in this their common-hall now assembled . and that his majesty would be graciously pleased to esteem it as such . and we having likewise taken notice that the same common council did at the time of their voting the said address , render their thanks to our late worthy members of the last parliament , for their faithful endeavours to serve this city , according to the desires and instructions to them given and made by us at the time of their election . we do think it our duty at this time to testifie our full concurrence therein , and do return unto them our hearty thanks for the same . and your petitioners shall ever pray , &c. this petition was delivered to the right honourable the lord mayor immediately after the declaring thomas pilkington esq alderman , and samuel shute esq to be sheriffs of london for the year ensuing ; and being read by the command of the lord mayor to the common-hall , had their general consent and approbation of the same , which consisted of some thousands of citizens . to the honoured slingsby bethel and henry cornish esquires , sheriffs of this city of london and middlesex . we the citizens of the said city in common-hall assembled , being sensible of , and greatly satisfied with your faithful endeavours to discharge those offices of trust which we ( not long since ) called you to ; and considering your wise and prudent conduct and management of our affairs within this city , especially in maintaining and asserting of our undoubted rights and priviledges as citizens , and continual provision of faithful and able juries ; especially in such a time as this , when innocency it self is not inrouded from the imputation of the blackest crimes ; and the best and most loyal protestants are exposed to the utmost hazards by the perjuries , subornations , and villanies of the popish party and their adherents . and we cannot at this time omit the mentioning your fair proceedings in our present election of sheriffs for the year ensuing , and dispatch of an unnecessary poll , without putting us off by adjournments to a troublesome and weary attendance . do offer and return to you our most hearty thanks , as the onely compensation we can at present make you ; being confidently assured that you will stedfastly persist in those your most faithful endeavours , as long as you shall continue officers in this honourable city . this address was presented to the sheriffs at the same time ; and being read to the common-hall , had the like approbation . london : printed for r. baldwyn , in the old-baily . 1681. a true discovery of the irish popish plot made by maurice fitz-gerald of killcowan in the county of lymrick, jan. the 20th, 1680 [i.e. 1681] : by way of a guest. fitz-gerald, maurice. 1681 approx. 6 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 2 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a39589 wing f1076 estc r33318 13227987 ocm 13227987 98588 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a39589) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 98588) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1550:31) a true discovery of the irish popish plot made by maurice fitz-gerald of killcowan in the county of lymrick, jan. the 20th, 1680 [i.e. 1681] : by way of a guest. fitz-gerald, maurice. 1 sheet ([2] p.) printed by n. thompson for the author, london : 1681. caption title. signed at end: maurice fitz-gerald. imprint from colophon. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. ireland -history -1660-1688. 2006-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-12 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-01 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2007-01 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a true discovery of the irish popish plot made by maurice fitz-gerald of killcowan in the county of lymrick , jan. the 20 th . 1680. by way of quest . q. vvhat do you know of collonel lacy ? a. i know noting but he is an honest gentlemans . q. were there not great and frequent meetings of papists and popish-priests , and friers in his house ? a. yis , and protestants too , he will turn no man out , but is good , for meat and drink to every gentleman 's wid in and wid out . q. did not you know him , together with sir john fitz-gerald to have consulted and endeavoured the bringing in of the french power into ireland ? a. bee my shoul dey did never told me so . q. the reason why you discover it not , is because you have not yet your pardon which shall be granted you , if you make a full discovery . a. by my shoul i don't care for your pardons , i did steal no cowes , nor horses , no sheepes , nor rob upon de great way , nor little way , nor break prison , as hetherington did to come over to be your kings evidence , so i don't care for your pardons . q. but in your narrative there is a great discovery , i suppose you will confirm the truth of that . a. po , po , de parliaments did vote an irish plot too upon my narrative , and dey did vote it upon a lye , for i never saw my narraty till i came here ; but peoples makes narratyes and plots in london ; and put it upon me fait . q. did you not know the earl of orrery ? a. yis , i did know old roger and young roger too . q. did you not hear of a letter from him to sir john fitz-gerald ? a. yes , and see it too . q. what were the contents of it ? a. it was to put de plot upon de king and de dukes . q. do you know hetherington ? a. yis , but i did not know him here , he vas so brave and fine , and a fite perwig , and shilver buttons , and gold laces upon his coats . q. what did he say to you ? a. he will say , i am sorry to see you in such bad cloads ; and i said , my cloads will be very good for me , and better then his when he vas in ireland ; he say den , he vill give me fine cloads and moneys . q. for what ? a. for no good feat , only for lying and swearing . q. what did mr. st. leger say to you ? a. he said , i vill not vant while i vill be in town . q. why was he so kind to you ? a. for noting but because i was de kings evidence to make a plot. q. are those your holy-day cloaths ? a. yis , and my unholy-day too . q. have you not better for sundays ? a. i have but one cloads always , i wear better cloads in my own country den your kings evidence did . q. who sent you hither as a kings evidence ? a. why tree justices da peace in de county of lamnagh sent vord to lord lieutenant and council , dat i know i plot , dey take me out of my beds from my vife and childrens , and sent me to dublin : dere de d. of ormond ask me did i owne dat examination , so i look upon it , and say , i did not owne it , den i say i vill not declare till i come to de king your majesty ; now peoples vill be giving me tings dat i shud say , as dey did make narraty for me . q. it seems you will or can discover nothing , you are proffer'd your pardon if you would . a. by my shoul , if you vill be giving your pardons and your moneys , you will have a tousand kings evidence ; don't you tink when cow-stealers , horse-stealers and murderers are to be hang'd , but to shave demselves from de gallows , dey will come to london and be your kings evidence ; fait your majesty did a tousand pounds wort of good , you brought a great many rogue to be your kings evidence . q. they did a wise peice of work that sent you hither as a kings evidence . a. i have a vife and childrens at home , and i would beg dat i may be sent back to my vife and my childrens : i desire none of your pardons nor your moneys , but as much as vill bring me home , and dat vill be very little : and i have but one ting more to beg of your majesty , dat is to send dese gentlemens to their own country ; where dey are known , where your kings evidence are known ; den by my shoul you will see who is de rogue . q. you shall go to your wife and children , and they are fools or knaves that sent you ; these gentlemen also shall be tryed in their own country , and now declare your knowledge . a. fait i am ashamed to tell all , there is so much rogury in the world , and by my shoul sir henry ingoldsby know it , and mr. st. leiger , and mr. odell , and me shelf . q. do you know mortagh downey ? a. yes very well , he is my own tennant fait . q. how came he acquainted with sir john fitz-gerald and collonel lacy ? a. mortagh downey did shee him often , but was never in deir companies in his life ; for be my fathers shoul mortagh downey is better for a kings evidence for deir company . q. prethee what do you think of all plots ? a. be my shoul dere is many plots , and many rogue , and de devil take dem all but my shelf . amen . maurice fitz-gerald . london , printed by n. thompson for the author , 1681. a letter written from the tower by mr. stephen colledge (the protestant-joyner) to dick janeways wife colledge, stephen, 1635?-1681. 1681 approx. 7 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 2 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a33884 wing c5226 estc r37677 17000011 ocm 17000011 105692 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a33884) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 105692) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1612:12) a letter written from the tower by mr. stephen colledge (the protestant-joyner) to dick janeways wife colledge, stephen, 1635?-1681. 1 sheet ([2] p.) printed for r.j., london : 1681. caption title. imprint from colophon. reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. great britain -politics and government -1660-1688. 2006-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-08 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-10 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2006-10 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a letter written from the tower by mr. stephen colledge ( the protestant-joyner ) to dick janeways wife . dear jane , my commitment was the more surprizing to me in that it broke those measures we had taken for a rendezvouz that evening , where we were to repeat those satisfactions thee and i have often mntually tasted from the solaces of venus abroad , while dick janeway toil'd contentedly upon his mercury at home ; i wish him better reward of his labour , then i am like to reap by mine . this place affords little pleasure , besides the sweet thoughts of thy dear self ; and my confinement is the more uneasie to me , by the supercilious behaviour of my warder : yet with the help of some yellow-boys , and a few tools , ( both which i desire thee to send me ) i hope to set up to that trade i so long neglected , and to become scaffold , block , and nine-pin-maker to the tower. encourage thy dick to go on , though i can no longer assist , in the true protestant cause , yet he is hard enough for all their observators , heraclitus , and other tantivy-scriblers ; and ( as i often told thee ) our best friends are still behind the curtain , men whose talent is declaiming , and that can out-bark all their towzers , and out-do that she-tory joa — br — with all her guns and crack-farts . had not this commitment prevented me , i 'le swear i was about a piece that would have gone nigh to do their job ; i had chalk'd out my design , and had plain'd my materials , and should have glew'd them well together , and fitted it for dick's never-fading paint . return my thanks in the lowest and most prostitute manner to sh — b — l , ( whom next to alg. syd . i esteem as the chief patron of our cause ) for his true protestant ignoramus-jury , which so honestly discharg'd their conscience , and gave verdict against those seven tory-evidence . thou knowst , 't is in the mouth of two or three witnesses a truth shall be establish'd ; doth it follow then , that six or seven shall do ihe same ? and thou knowest who teacheth when he holds forth , that for a few to be perjur'd for the benefit of the nation , and true protestancy , is not only venial , but a piece of service becoming the godly party , and the favourers of the good old cause . but i find that an ignoramus in middlesex , is no dimittimus out of this limbo ; and i fear those at oxford may speak other latine , and that the jury there may be , at this time , as toryish as their terre-filius : if so , adieu colledge ! who promis'd my self last march to survive all my name-sakes there , and to have seen them crumbled down with my axes and hammers . be sure to convey away all papers , cuts , draughts , &c. specially that of mac-cvt-throat , that represents the oxford-gownmen , and all the bishops too , crouding with father patch to kiss the popes toe , lest goodman hog seize them , as others did the sack-full in the hay-mow , and lest the original of those tories and abhorrers fall into such hands as will open some mouths wider against me at my tryal . which let it come when it will , i hope to make a better bargain then that goose-brain'd mac fitz-harys ; though his jury came short of what was promis'd him , mine shall do more then i can desire , and may help me out with another ignoramus . i 'le never trust mongrel-solicitor , nor shatter-brain'd whitaker , who thought his law-quirks as much treason-proof , as i did my mail and blunderbusses , but will as fairly bring himself to bed , as he did his client fitz-harys : i could play with other edg'd tools then mine own , and this upholsterer can hang himself , though not his room . i 'le have no other solicitors then those true protestants , that pass like popes for infallible , j — s , win — n , t — y , w — p , poll — n , and smith , who are the pillars that must support the cause , and help me their champion at a dead lift . if three of them couid sway five hundred , they may easily cajole two or three judges , whose places they stand fair for next parliament . these , dear jane , must do the job , and must not only talk down the bishops-court , but balder the world out of its reason , and must deny the king any money , that they may have the more themselves : and 't is not a few millions that are yearly swallow'd up by our lawyers , attorneys , and other half-starv'd green-bags and petty-foggers ; 't was these that cow'd our country-gentry the last parliaments , and with a splay-mouth'd little fanatical hypocrisie , and a cramp law-term , appear'd as formidable as gorgon's heads , and by their tickling and noise became the bell-weathers of the flock , while the rest were content to bleat amen to their arbitrary nonsense : but this to our selves . above all , retain our friend win — ton , who with a good my lord ! and a peal of liberty and property , our all is at stake , can silence even sir george , or any other such gigantick abhorrer , and will make more noise for a grain of popularity , then another for 5 l. and let him be col. pury's cloak-boy , a bag ful of nonsense , nay a dull man in ignoramus ; yet give me one that will talk for my money , tho' i lose my cause ; and tho' judge jenkins ( who knew them best ) gives it as his advice , and bids us ( p. 138 ) avoid the lawyers of the house of commons , yet i must shortly put my self into their clutches , as to a point of law or two i intend to start at my tryal ; and let all true protrstants pray for my good deliverance . my next shall be ( if this air , or that of tyburn , choaks not my muse in the mean time ) in such a strain as pleased when thee and i used to meet at the swan ; and so adieu . to the cause and thee most true i 'le prove , till ketch and cord shall end our love. from my lodgings in lobs-pound , near the duke or exeter's daughter . london : printed for r. j. 1681. the information of thomas lander of shutborrow in the county of stafford another of the witnesses in the tryal of the late lord stafford, as it was taken upon oath by edmund warcup, esquire, one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex, and city and liberties of westminster, on the 24th day of december, 1680. lander, thomas. 1681 approx. 8 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 4 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a49279 wing l321a estc r41423 31355324 ocm 31355324 110400 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a49279) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 110400) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1742:16) the information of thomas lander of shutborrow in the county of stafford another of the witnesses in the tryal of the late lord stafford, as it was taken upon oath by edmund warcup, esquire, one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex, and city and liberties of westminster, on the 24th day of december, 1680. lander, thomas. [2], 5 p. printed for thomas simmons ..., london : mdclxxxi [1681] imperfect: print show-through. reproduction of original in the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng stafford, william howard, -viscount, 1614-1680. dugdale, stephen, 1640?-1683. perkin, richard. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-03 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-05 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2006-05 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the information of thomas lander of shutborrow in the county of stafford , another of the witnesses in the tryal of the late lord stafford , as it was taken upon oath by edmund warcup , esquire ; one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex , and city and liberties of westminster , on the 24 th day of december , 1680. london , printed for thomas simmons at the princes arms in ludgate-street , mdclxxxi . the information of thomas lander of shutborrow in the county of stafford , taken upon oath the 24 th of december , 1680. before me edmund warcup , esquire , one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex , and city and liberties of westminster , as followeth ; viz. this informant saith , that having been employed as a workman several times at the house of my lord aston at tixall in the county aforesaid , he was sollicited by mr. francis hind , steward to the lord aston , to become a witness against stephen dugdale , late steward to the lord aston , any way to invalidate or take off his evidence in relation to the popish plot , and he served this informant with a subpoena to come up to london for that purpose , at the late intended tryal of the said lord aston in june last past ; but before his coming up , the said mr. hind , francis aston , son to the lord aston , and thomas sawyear , servant to the said lord aston , &c. sent for this informant into a private room in the s●id lord aston's house ; and there told him , that if he would swear such things as should be dictated to him by the persons aforesaid , to invalidate or take off the said dugdale's evidence , he should have such a reward as should be to his own content , and not want for money and horse , as might become a man of better quality than himself . and this informant agreeing to their proposals , came up to london accordingly . they perswaded this informant likewise to swear that dugdale was a cheating rogue , and had cheated this informant and many more in the country , whilst he was the lord aston's steward . to which this informant answered he would , and saith that hind told him , that if he would do according as they directed him , that he should ( besides the rewards agreed upon ) have his charges born in coming to town , in staying here , and going down again . and likewise saith , that he was to swear that james ansell , ( being a witness in some things relating to the discovery of the plot ) was a perjured rogue , and a thief , and had perjured himself several times ; and all such other things as they should dictate to him when he came up to london , in order to take off both their evidence . and saith those that promised to make good his reward for so doing , was mr. herbert aston , his lordships uncle , francis aston , son to the lord aston , and thomas sawyear , servant to the said lord aston . and this informant saith , that being in london , and my lord aston's tryal not being come on , he received no more of his reward but his bare charges ; however they faithfully promised him when he had made good what he had promised them to swear , he should have his full reward made good to him . and this informant saith , that in september last going up to my lord aston's house , he was made very welcome , and after some time was asked by one of the servants of my lord aston's , where mr. dugdale lay ; and this informant told him , at one richard perkins next house to his own in shutborrow , about a mile distant from my lord aston's ; the said servant , after some discourse had with this informant , told him that he might do them good service , and have a good reward for his pains , if he could devise to set fire on the room where mr. dugdale lay , and burn him in his bed. to which this informant answered , that if he should do so , he should burn his own house , and endanger the whole town : to which the servant replyed , that it were better that his house and the whole town were burnt , rather than he ( meaning mr. dugdale ) should escape , who was a rogue , and had betray'd his lords secrets , with several other gentlemen ; he at the same time telling this informant , that he should ( if he would undertake it ) be well rewarded to his own content ; but perceiving this informant not to be very willing , told him he was a coward , he would not undertake to do so good a piece of service . the said servant at the same time went to one walter moore , another servant of my lord aston's , who was to join with this informant in the said fact ; and this informant going home , saw the said walter moore walking about the said house that was so to be fired ; and this informant not being willing that such a wicked act should be done , acquainted one of his neighbours with it , and so a watch was set to preserve the said house where mr. dugdale lay , and all the town , that night , and all the time after so long as mr. dugdale stayed there : this informant having likewise heard the said moore say , that dugdale was a rogue for having betrayed his lords secrets : and likewise saith , that when this informant was to be a witness for the lord aston , one samuel holt who was another servant of my lord aston's , and also one sawyear , being subpoena'd up as witnesses for my lord aston ; they told this informant , that mr. dugdale was a perjured rogue , for laying the plot of the presbyterians upon the papists , and if they or either of them could meet the said mr. dugdale conveniently , they would do his business for him : and saith , that the said holt had received a sum of money for the said service , as likewise the said walter moore . and this informant saith , that all those things which were so by them , as aforesaid , dictated to him , were altogether false , to any knowledge of this informant , in relation to the said mr. dugdale and the said mr. james ansell . and saith that several other matters and persons he knows of that were concerned herein ( this informant being always made privy to most of their contrivances in this nature ) that would almost hang them , which he is unwilling to discover against them , for that they are related to him . thomas lander . jurat . cor . me edmond warcup . dec. 25. 1680. i do appoint tho. simmons , and no other , to print this my information , witness my hand , thomas lander . finis . the information of eustace comyne, servant to mr. keadagh magher treasurer to the papists in ireland, of their mony to carry out this horrid plot, who was barbarously murthered for discovering the same, and turning protestant : given in writing to the honorable house of commons, the 15th of this present november, 1680. comyne, eustace. 1680 approx. 11 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 5 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a34192 wing c5680 estc r39381 18391596 ocm 18391596 107455 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a34192) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 107455) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1630:16) the information of eustace comyne, servant to mr. keadagh magher treasurer to the papists in ireland, of their mony to carry out this horrid plot, who was barbarously murthered for discovering the same, and turning protestant : given in writing to the honorable house of commons, the 15th of this present november, 1680. comyne, eustace. [3], 7 p. printed for thomas fox ..., london : 1680. imperfect: print show-through. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng magher, keadagh. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2006-08 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-09 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-11 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2006-11 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i do appoint thomas fox to print this my information , given in writing to the honorable house of commons , the 15th of november 1680. and that no other person print the same . evstace comyne . nov. 24. 1680. the information of eustace comyne , servant to mr. keadagh magher treasurer to the papists in ireland , of their mony to carry on this horrid plot ; who was barbarously murthered for discovering the same , and turning protestant . given in writing to the honorable house of commons , the 15th of this present november . 1680. london , printed for thomas fox , and are to be sold at his shop , at the sign of the angel in westminster-hall , 1680. the information of eustace comyne , &c. this informant saith , that he lived with one keadagh magher being his relation in carrignisury in the county of tipperrary in the kingdom of ireland for fourteen years and during that time was privy to all his cencerns . saith that he did observe and see one peter kehow and thomas kehow of carignisury merchants who dealt constantly for france , and the said thomas constantly going too and fro between france and ireland , bring several considerable summs of money from france , and delivered it to the said keadagh magher , he being appointed treasurer by doctor oliver plunket titular primate of ireland ; john brenane titular arch-bishop of cashell , and the rest of the bishops of ireland , and those great and vast summs of money were to be distributed to such persons as the said plunket , brenane and robert power dean of waterford should direct the same to be payed for the carrying on of that horrid plot of the papists in ireland , for to introduce the french into his majesties dominions , and to suppress the protestant religion in these three kingdoms . the distribution of a great part of the said money was as followeth , viz. to sir john pounsonby for to stand firm to that wicked and ungodly design two hundred pounds , and a great deal more was promised when ever there came more money over from france , to the earl of tyrone two hundred pound , to peter cranisborough of waterford merchant two hundred pound , to john vvalsh the duke of ormonds lawyer in the county of tipperrary four hundred pound , to john mandevile of the same county three hundred pound , to michael guyn of the same county one hundred pound , to robert low justice of the peace of the same county two hundred pound , to francis alcock another justice of the same county two hundred pound to michael kearney , james kearney , john kearney , morrice kearney , and bryan kearney , one hundred pound a piece , to richard purcell of thurles in the county of tipperrary merchant two hundred pound . this informant saith , that there was a meeting of four and twenty of the romish clergy , at a place called cloughnecully in the county of tipperrary , who went from thence to wait on the titular primate plunket to the aforesaid john vvalsh , the lawyers house at ballyneiry in the county of tipperrary aforesaid , and consulted together and agreed to give every judge that would go the circuit two hundred pound , if they would take it to stand their friends , and to be surveyors against any discoverers , and to every justice of the peace that would take it one hundred pound . and it was also concluded by the aforesaid john walsh , francis alcock , robert low , two justices of the peace , that whoever should from sun setting to sun rising destroy any of the discoverers of that wicked and horrid plot , should have twenty pound and their pardons , and also an absolution from the romish church . he saith that there was two hundred pound , given or secured to sir william davis by peter lynsey , and patrick commerford for the design aforesaid , he being then judge at clonmell , this informant being an eye witness how the two hundred pound , was secured to be payed to sir vvilliam davis , and being satisfyed on what account the rest of the forementioned summs , were payed to the forenamed persons was touched in conscience , and was resolved to discover all their villany , and in order thereunto went unto the aforesaid alcock and low being two justices of the peace , and demanded a warrant from them in the presence of the mayor of clonmell , for to apprehend primate plunket , the arch-bishop of cashel and robert power the dean of vvaterford , the said plunket and the bishop of cashel , being then at the aforesaid john vvalsh's house , the said justices refused this informant , until the said justices sent word to plunket and the other bishop to be gone , and then gave this informant a warrant , who pursued the said plunket and the bishop of cashell to the county of kilkeney , to one mr. vvalter butlers house a nephew of the duke of ormonds , who meeting with this informant threatned him at a high rate and asked him how he durst come upon his land , that the said mr. butler gave his pistols to one george lee with a design to kill this informant , who narrowly escaped with his life . soon after this informant came to dublin , and applyed himself to his grace the duke of ormond , and informed him of that horrid and wicked design of the papists , who promised this informant a protection . and though this informant petitioned often for the same , yet he was refused insomuch that he was necessitated to go disguised in a beggars habit to the north of ireland , for the safety of his life , but being pursued by sir vvilliam davis , plunket and arch-bishop of cashel , to all parrish priests for to make a diligent inquiry after this informant . who finding him at carrigfergus above fourscore miles distant from dublin he was there committed to goal by one captain davis a justice of the peace , where he remained for three weeks , until this informant sent him the said davis word , that he was taking the advice of the fryer that was in his house for to destroy the kings evidence . upon which he discharged this informant . and this informant coming at least eighty miles distant , an other way backwards for to shelter himself to one esquire lamberts , in the county of meath , where he worked for his living about a months time , and understanding the design of the papists going on apace went to one serjeant osborne one of the kings council , and discovered to him a great deal of the said plot , but instead of acting as the kings council or loyal subject , he to the contrary sent this informant to the goal of trinn in the county of meath , where he remained for 3 weeks in a starving condition in irons , until he was removed from thence to dublin , and his leggs tied under the horses belly , and then was brought before sir john davis secretary of state , who at the first sight called this informant a rogue , and said that he was in prison at carrickfergus ; this informant replied that it was by the unjust means of his brother for discovering the truth against him ; this informant being brought to the council board , the lord chancellor and sir john davis came to examine this informant , who told them , he was not willing to be examined by them , by reason the one was sir william davis his brother and the other his father in law ; yet however to avoid all that they should pretend , this informant told and discovered more to them than they were willing to hear ; for which they returned this informant to prison , who was discharged the next day , but by whose means he cannot tell , neither could he get any protection or safety ; but exposed to the malice of his enemies , this informant went to another remote part of the kingdom in the county of limerick , with an intent to take shipping and to come for england , for to discover all their villanie , but being there discovered was apprehended and brought to justice crocker , who sent this informant to sir william king , who committed him to the marshalsea at limerick , until such time as he would send to dublin to know how he was discharged there ; but sir william davis coming judge of that circuit , and coming to limerick , ordered this informant to be sent to the dungeon , where he continued for eight months in a perishing condition , until such time as the lord chief baron hinne came that circuit , and coming to limerick , this informant could not get a petition delivered to him , but was forced to tie it on the top of a staff , and as the judge was passing by reached it to him out of a window , and the judge having perused it , and understanding the cause of his commitment was to suppress his evidence , which this informant declared often , that would sooner suffer death than conceal such a bloody design , though he was often tempted by offering him great sums of money to conceal what he knew . the popish partie , to prosecute their bloody intent , did most barbarously murther the said keadagh meagher , who was their treasurer , when they understood he detested their design , and turned protestant , and was resolved to discover all their horrid and bloody designs . this informant hath more to discover , but first humbly desires that he may have his pardon and security . evstace comyne . finis a ballad upon the popish plot written by a lady of quality. lady of quality. 1679 approx. 11 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2006-06 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a55598 wing p3118 estc r30116 11245126 ocm 11245126 47100 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a55598) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 47100) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1449:8) a ballad upon the popish plot written by a lady of quality. lady of quality. gadbury, john, 1627-1704. powis, elizabeth somerset herbert, duchess of, d. 1691. [4] p. s.n., [london? : 1679?] attributed by wing to elizabeth powis, and by nuc pre-1956 imprints to john gadbury. bound with "a ballad, the third part, to the same tune." reproduction of original in the university of illinois (urbana-champaign campus). library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678 -poetry. 2005-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-12 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-03 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2006-03 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a ballad upon the popish plot written by a lady of quality . whether you will like my song or like it not , it is the down-fall of the popish plot ; with characters of plotters here i sing , who would destroy our good and gracious king ; whom god preserve , and give us cause to hope his foes will be rewarded with a rope . to the tune of packington's pound . 1. since counterfeit plots has affected this age , being acted by fools , and contriv'd by the sage : in city , nor suburbs , no man can be found , but frighted with fire-balls , their heads turned round . from pulpit to pot they talk'd of a plot , till their brains were inslav'd and each man turn'd sot. but let us to reason and justice repair ; and this popish bugbear will fly into air. 2 a politick statesman , of body unsound , who once in a tree with the rable set round ; run monarchy down with fanatick rage , and preach'd up rebellion i'th at credulous age. he now is at work , with the devil and turk ; pretending a plot , under which he doth lurk , to humble the miter , while he squints at the crown ; till fairly and squarely he pulls them both down . 3 he had found out an instrument fit for the devil ; whose mind had been train'd up to all that was evil : his fortune sunk low , and detested by many ; kick't out at st. omers , not pitty'd by any . some wisperers fix'd him upon this design ; and with promis'd reward did him countermine ; though , his tale was ill-told , it serv'd to give fire ; dispis'd by the wise , whil'st fools did admire . 4 the next that appear'd , was a fool-hardy knave , who had ply'd the high-ways , and to vice was a slave ; being fed out of basket in prison forlorn ; no wonder that mony should make him forsworn . he boldly dares swear , what men tremble to hear ; and learns a false lesson without any fear . for when he is out , ther 's one that 's in 's place : relieves his invention , and quickens his pace . 5 in a country prison another was found , who had cheated his lord of one thousand pound ; he was freed from 's fetters , to swear and inform , which very courageously he did perform . to avoid future strife , he take ' s away life , to save poor protestants from popish knife ; which only has edge to cut a rogues eares , for abusing the people with needless fears 6 another starts up and tels a false tale , which strait he revoked his courage being frail ; but to fortify one that needeth his aid , being tempted with mony which much doth perswade he swore he knew all that contrived the fall , of one , who that day was seen neer to white-hall ▪ where he by the treasurers powerfull breath . more likely by far received his death . 7 a gown-man most grave with fanatical form , with his scribling wit doth blow up this storm ; for moth-eaten records he worships the devil , being now lodg'd at court he must become civil . he hunts all about , and makes a great rout , to find some old prophecy to help him out ; but his friend that was hous'd with him at fox-hall , being joyn'd with his master still strengthens 'em all 8 then com's a crack'd merchant with his shallow brain , who first did lead up this stigmatiz'd train ; he since is grown nuseless , his skill being small , yet at a dead lift , hee 's still at their call . he has pestered the press , in ridiculous dress in this scribling age he could not do less ; but to so little purpose as plainly appears with pen he had as good sate picking his ears . 9 to end with a prayer as now 't is my lot , counfounded be plotters , with their popish plot : god bless and preserve our gracious good king , that he may ne're feel the presbyters sting ; as they brought his fath●r with rage to the block , so would they extirpate all the whole stock : but with their false plots i hope they will end , at tyburn where th' rabble will surely attend . finis . a ballad . the third part , to the same tune . written by a lady of quality . the plot is vanish'd like to a bashfull sprite , which with false flashes , fools could only fright . the wise , ( whose clearer souls can penetrate , ) find's shadows drawn before intrigues of state. god bless our king , the church , and nation too , whil'st perjur'd villains have what is their due . to the tune of packington's pound . 1. the presbyter ha's bin so active of late , to twist himself into the mysteries of state , giving birth to a plot to amuse the dark world ' til into confusion three kingdom 's are hurl'd ; it is so long since , he murther'd his prince , that the unwary rabble he hopes to convince , with jingling words that bears little sence , deluding them with religious pretence . 2. their scribling poet is such a dull sot , to blame the poor devil for hatching the plot ; the mutther o' th ' king , with many things more , he falsely would put on the jesuits score : when all that have eyes , be they foolish , or wise , may see the sly presbyter through his disguise ; their brethren in scotland has made it well known , by murthering their bishop , what sins are their own . 3. the poet , whose sences are somewhat decay'd , takes joan for a jesuit in masquerade ; his muse ran so fast , she ne're look'd behind her , or else to a woman she would have prov'd kinder . his fury 's so hot , to hunt out the plot , that fain he would find it where it is not , although i 've expos'd it to all that are wise , he has stifled his reason , and blinded his eyes . 4. an old ignis fatuus , who leads men astray , and leaves them i' th ditch , but still keep 's his way , in politique head first framed this plot , from whence it descended to presbyter scot , who quickly took fire , and assoon did expire , having grave factious fools their zeal to admire ; who for the same cause would freely fly out , but plotting's more safer to bring it about . 5. here 's one for religion is ready to fight , that believes no● in chr●st , yet swear's he 's i' th right : if our english church ( as he says , ) be a whore , we 're sure 't was jack presbyter did her deflowr ; he 'd fain pull her down , as well as the crown , and prostitute her to every dull clown ; to bring in religion that 's fit for the rabble , whilst atheisme serve , himself that 's more able . 6. a pestilent peer of a levelling spirit , who only the sins of his sire doth inherit ; with an unsteady mind , and chymerical brain , which his broken fortune doth weakly sustain , he lodg'd i'th'city like alderman brave , being fed up with faction to which he 's a slave ; he never durst fight , but once for his whore , which his feeble courage attempted no more . 7. another , with preaching and praying wore out , inspir'd by th'covenant is grown very stout ; th' old cause to revive it is his designe , though the fabrique of monarchy he undermine : he tortur'd his pate , both early and late , i' th' tower , where this mischief he hope to create ; but to countrey dwelling he now doth re●ire , to preach to domestiques whilst they do admire . 8. another , with head both empty and light , for the good old cause is willing to fight ; i'th'choise of fit members for th' next parliament , he spit out his zeal to the rabbles content , whilst his wife in great state chose a duke for her mate , for whose sake a combustion he needs would create for since his indulgence allows her a friend , he 'd make him as great as his wish can extend . 9. there 's one , whose fierce courage is fal'n to decay ( at geneva inspir'd , ) he 's much led away ; he would set up a cypher instead of a king : from presbyter zeal such folly doth spring . he once did betray , a whole town in a day ; and since did at sea fly fairly away : he had better spin out the rest of his thread , in making pot-guns , which disturb not his head. 10. some others , of fortunes both disperst and low , with big-swelling titles do's make a great show a flexible prince they would willingly have , that to presbyter subjects should be a meer slave ; they'd set him on 's throne , to tumble him down , they scorn to submit to scepter and crown ; and into confusion , or common-wealth turn , a people that hastens to be undone . 11. if such busy heads that would us confound , were all advanc'd high , or plac'd under-ground ; we'd honour our king , and live at our ease , and make the dull presbyter do what we please : who has cheated our eyes , with borrow'd disguise , till of all our reason they 'd taken excise ; but let 's from their slavery strive to be free , and no people can er'e be so happy as we . finis . thomas dangerfield's answer to a certain scandalous paper entituled, the kings evidence vindicated as to the imputation of perjury dangerfield, thomas, 1650?-1685. 1680 approx. 11 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a36280 wing d184 estc r24912 08648173 ocm 08648173 41540 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a36280) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 41540) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1254:27) thomas dangerfield's answer to a certain scandalous paper entituled, the kings evidence vindicated as to the imputation of perjury dangerfield, thomas, 1650?-1685. 4 p. printed for richard janeway, london : 1680. caption title. signed: t.d. reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng kings evidence vindicated as to the imputation of perjury. popish plot, 1678. 2006-09 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-09 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-10 jonathan blaney sampled and proofread 2006-10 jonathan blaney text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion thomas dangerfield's ansvver to a certain scandalous paper , entituled , the kings evidence vindicated , as to the imputation of perjury . 't is now come to that pass , that if a man have a design either to play the fool or the knave , the way is ready chalk'd out for him ; it is but pretending he has a friend in the countrey , which has a corn or scruple in his conscience that very much pains him , and then the busie casuist betakes himself to his pen , pretends an answer to his pretended friend , and so takes an occasion to follow the steps of the worst of men ; who , but lately , hath under the same notion scarce left a person , from his king to the meanest subject , on whom he had not made some reflection or other . and these are the usual ways which some men take to expose their quack-salving receits upon the stage of the world. some such kind of charletan is that nimble critick , that pretends to vindicate the kings evidence , as to the imputation of perjury , in a letter to a friend . such a letter , which it may be easily believed , never saw the post-house , or ever lodg'd in carriers pouch : such a letter , that he who occasion'd it , was an over-curious nicodemus ; and he that answer'd it , was a man of too mutable genius , to make his argument hold up to a vindication ; a piece of such double-diligience , and of a tincture so agreeable to that of the meal-tub , as if madam cellier had sham'd an affidavit or two for the delay of her tryal , only in expectation of having mr. d's . evidence more plausibly redicul'd , for her second delivery . how exorbitantly , and without fear or wit , the evidence for the king has been hitherto openly attacked in base scurrilous pamphlets , and accus'd of perjuries , &c. without the least probable ground , is well enough known ; but because all those silly aggressors fail'd , up starts one of the holy catholick stamp , and at a — random-distance in his party-per-pale habit , with a py-bald conscience , thinks to stab their credit in that friendly disguize of a letter to a friend . i am sure , as to the subject , no true protestant could have pitch'd upon it , but for mischiefs-sake , and to some bad end ( a thing which such a person i hope would not be guilty of ) : and as for the person , he scorns your vindication , but strangely admires your confidence in pointing at him so particularly with your base perjuries , as if your hobgoblin-title had only undertaken to bugbear him alone from his assertions of too near approaching truth , because so formidable to the infernal crew of your catholick-party . but to descend from the title to the purulent matter it self , you shall find this same quack-salving operator provoking the sick and weak conscience of his tender friend and patient , to disgorge the undigested uncleanliness of his surmiz'd scruples ; that so , under the covert of dissembl'd protestantism , he might be the better enabled to revive the old wonted method of discoursing by evasions , equivocations , mental reservations , &c. and envenom wounds of his own making , otherwise what can be the meaning of those repetitions of his pretended friends words . you mention his felonies and perjuries ; say you , if such a villain should be credited , &c. what are these but knavsh insinuations , to call the kings evidence perjur'd , and villains , under the pretence of a vindication ; but rather to beget a disbelief of his testimony in the hearts of the people , to create jealousies and fears , to stagger and amuse the more sage persons ; and in fine , it could be intended for no other end than dis-unity and confusion ; by which officious kindness of his , he has endeavour'd to tax me with far greater crimes , than ever madam cellier in the hight of all her spleen could invent : but it seems , that what that bold virago , my open enemy left undone , this same tinker of consciences has undertaken , in the habit of a friend to accomplish . and that you may the better see how he goes on , undermining that reputation which he pretends to vindicate , he lays the soundation of his discourse in these words ; i say , says he , that notwithstanding all the felonies and perjuries you suggest that mr. d. may have been guilty of ; i assert , that his evidence is as good as that of any papist , that is a traytor to a protestant king. and thus you see , while he seems to lick up the vomit of his friend , and swallow the filthiness of his disburthened conscience , he still reserves the venom under his tongue ; in fine , 't is a meer paper-plot , to nip the buds of good opinion in the spring of reformation , and blast the fruit which the safety of the king and kingdom are expecting to gather from it ; for do but consider it , and you shall find the whole conscience bolus , which this empyrick of a casuist has prescribed to his patient in the countrey , to be nothing else but a half-peny question confidently beg'd , false grounds , and fictitious surmizes , to make the world believe a thing that never was ; a piece of smooth lestrangism , and masqueraded knavery , to debauch the juries of the nation in point of my testimony . otherwise why should he suggest me to be guilty of perjury , a crime that among all my miscarriages , was never yet laid to my charge ? certain it is , that even when i was a papist and conspirator , it is well known , how tender i was of an oath , before the right honourable , one of his majesties secretaries of state , before whom i refused to swear for the good of the catholick cause , what i knew to be false , though the whole stress of the sham-plot depended upon it ; for which i was well assured of absolution , and had the fair prospect of a considerable popish fortune ; upon which refusal i lost my warrant ; and as the great all-seeing god would have it , broke the neck of that hopeful ( but hellish ) design , which was laid against so many innocents , by a timely discovery , to the grand detriment of the whole popish cause . a man of integrity and honest principles , would have been sure of some unquestionable instance , before he surmiz'd or suggested such a chimerical scandal , and of such consequence against any person under worse circumstances than mr. d. and therefore they that look upon that person ( whoever he be ) to be a friend and vindicator of my self , or any other of the kings evidence that have yet appeared , are most egregiously mistaken . but for all this , i assert , says he , that his evidence is as good as that of any papists , that is a traytor to a protestant king. now look ye mr. assertor , 't is not a straw matter what you assert , since it is so little to the purpose ; neither have you any thanks for that assertion , until you can appear , and make it out more plain , than your villifying-pen has yet done ; till which time , on the other side , they assert , that you are a dissembler , a busie-body , a man of lost labour , and that which is worse , my equivocating , flattering friend . but , sir , know you are quite besides the cushion , for it is now past the question , whether or no my evidence be but as good as that of any papists , whose principles , as you say , and every body knows , are equivocations , mental reservations , treasons , deposing of kings and princes , together with all the most enormous crimes imaginable ; but yet that which is still worse than all those put together , perjuries ; a sin , which even the greatest criminals ( a papist excepted ) abhors ; and will rather chuse an ignominious death , than to live by a false accusation . now , sir , to let you know how much my evidence is beyond that of any papists , or rebel-traytor . observe that i am rectus in curia , legalis homo ; so that unless you can prove me to have committed what you suggest ( which is certain you never can ) , i boldly tell you , i think my self a better witness than either your self , your friend , or e're a papist breathing : for what have we to do with a sort of people , whose principle it is , not to keep any faith with hereticks ? or who would be in love with that religion ( if i may call it so ) whose bond is perjury , whose badg is rebellion ? therefore come out from amongst them , be no longer a partaker in their most notorious villanies , lest you receive also of the plagues which ( undoubtedly ) god has prepared for them . what a noise have we had with an officious casuist , who gives himself the trouble of raising a question , where there is no question to be made ; which does but create in us a real confirmation , that all his reasons thereupon urg'd , trite and common stories , were only the pretence that gave him liberty to scribble . but his main design and drift was quite of another strain ; that is to say , to invallidate my testimony , by comparing it with that of popish traytors and rebels ; and by starting a remote question , and drawing false conclusions from bare surmizes , to give a plaufible opportunity to call one of the kings evidence perjur'd villain , as a preparative for the great tryals shortly at hand . sir , you will do well to find some better employment for your uneasie conscience , which is to apply your self to the only preserver of kings and kingdoms , for your speedy conversion . after which i could readily embrace you with that sort of tenderness , as is becoming a reformed person and a good christian . t. d. london , printed for richard janeway in queens-head-alley in pater-noster-row . 1680. poor robins dream, or, the visions of hell with a dialogue between the two ghosts of dr. t. and capt. b. poor robin. 1681 approx. 16 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 5 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2006-02 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a55414 wing p2884 estc r30535 11353082 ocm 11353082 47556 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a55414) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 47556) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1468:4) poor robins dream, or, the visions of hell with a dialogue between the two ghosts of dr. t. and capt. b. poor robin. winstanley, william, 1628?-1698. 6 p. printed by m.s., london : mdclxxxi [1681] in verse. dr. t. is ezerel tonge; capt. b is william bedloe. sometimes attributed to william winstanley who wrote under the pseudonym poor robin. reproduction of original in the university of illinois (urbana-champaign campus). library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng tonge, ezerel, 1621-1680. bedloe, william, 1650-1680. popish plot, 1678 -poetry. 2005-08 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-11 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-12 andrew kuster sampled and proofread 2005-12 andrew kuster text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-01 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion poor robins dream , or the visions of hell : with a dialogue between the two ghosts of dr. t. and capt. b. london : printed by m.s. mdclxxxi . poor robins dream , or the visions of hell. when th'charming news had passed charing-cross , and they depos'd , that would dismount that horse . the senators their hated patience forc't , as thames once for sempronia stopt her course . like boys that were just from a vineyard skar'd , all stood amaz'd , but never a word was heard . but when they found they were pursu'd by none , but th' master stood only to keep his own . they then unto their wonted passion flew , and swore they 'd prove those grapes to be their due , next time they came they 'd have the master too i' th city . all their steady-heads they tost , like wives at billingsgate , when a good bargain 's lost . ballads of grief about the town they sent , as if they lost a loyal parliament . such clam'rous consternations , with false cryes , enough to tear great jove down from the skies . none daring to confront those factious atheists , dreading that scand'lous name they call , church-papist . then i e'ne laid me down upon my bed , where sundry contemplations seiz'd my troubled head. in a trembling trance i on a sudden fell , wherein i saw that damned den call'd hell. where ten thousand scenes , with legions of black fiends , of burning rebels , there they made their skreens . old noll and bradshaw , ireton and pride , burning like beacons ; on the other side then perjur'd rogues , drawn up in arched rings , their tongues like serpents , shew'd their flaming stings , thought i , is this the fruit of killing kings ? when that scene chang'd , methought i clearly saw , a solemn conventicle groan out yells of woe . their hats pinn'd to their heads with fiery nails , their ears drawn out as large as spanish frails . their eyes like oval lanthorns ; glowing rouls , or flaming flambois , from their treach'rous souls . their mouths unto their ugly ears were drawn , spirits froth'd out , like poyson'd , foul frog-spawn . upon their backs was writ in bloud , i see , damn'd for rebellion and hypocrisie . ' mongst this prodigious and confused throng , the holder forth was called dr. tonge ; who so excell'd , hugh peters being there ▪ that he was forc'd to fall into the rear . till interposed by a champion stout , with flaming sword made way through th' hellish rout. b. and cry'd to t. thou damned orator , thou art the cause of my soul burning here . t. why what wast thou when first i did thee know ? but one condemn'd for robbery by the law. b. why what wast thou poor fool in forty one ? but a poor weaver then leapt from thy loom . then stept into a tub to preach sedition , and took the covenant for thy commission . which thou pursu'd till all the rump was ruin'd , and charles return'd , and to his right resum'd . and then thou made a breech of thy own mouth , swore back again , but never preached truth , and in thy age , more treach'rous , than in youth . t. that cannot be imputed perjury , to swear for those that rule by tyranny . or for any else , as times may turn by fits , that 's but a knack of living by ones wits . but i ne're rob'd upon the king's high-way , nor boasted on 't unto my friends next day . nor i ne're feign'd my self to be a lord , nor pilfer'd coyn without the help of sword , nor ne're was proved perjur'd by record . b. thou damned hell-hound , hast thou now forgot , who was so active in the popish plot ? 't was thou that patcht up o's depositions , and then deliver'd them without commissions . which thou taught him pretend he had disperst , then thou thy self turn'd tails and was releast . yet still thou didst persevere in thy sin , taught tony and the rest to bring me in . to meet you at cabals , and foxes-hall , where i receiv'd my lessons from you all . you taught me what to speak , who to impeach , all loyallists you brought within my reach . both queen and duke i to the block must bring , nay — had i liv'd , i must have peacht the k — now who 's the cause of my soul's suffering ? t. all this i own was truth , and ten times more , but thy black soul was damned long before . thou hadst committed murther , theft and rape , so 't was impossible thy soul shou'd ' scape . for hadst thou liv'd till each true string had twang'd , thou then hadst surely been both damn'd and hang'd . b. thou splay-mouth'd fiend , i hold thy words in scorn , thou deserv'dst hanging long e're i was born . thou and thy brother baxter , spawns of evil , who kept your correspondence with the devil . and spew'd your poyson over three brave nations , and brought in oates to all their desolations . the devil taught you how to tutor cooper , and belzebub himself his over-looker . one paw upon the tap holds in the bong , the other guides his tottering head and tongue . and cryes , my tony thou shalt live to see englands destruction , and its monarchy , and my chief engine , tony , thou shalt be . and of all the plots and sham-plots thou art father , and all the evidence thou 'st patcht together ; for which indulgence i 'le inspire thee still , and thus the devil helps old machiavel . t. why ? tony was the cause of my damnation , it was his malice that enflam'd the nation . 't was he , under pretence of doing good , that squeez'd poor innocents , and broacht their bloud . 't was he that made his grace a stalking horse , and hid himself behind his pocky arse . 't was he that taught tub-preachers to seduce the people , to choose members for their use . such as in the late rebellion play'd their parts , and now are downright rumpers in their hearts . to all the olivarians that are living , his damned documents he 's daily giving . 't is he that all the rebels now controuls , for fear they should repent and save their souls . or rather that they may come boldly on , by force of arms to end what he begun . or else his head must fly for what is past , and 's tap must burst , to shew his soul is curst . b. for godfrey's death , 't was thou perswaded me to come in guilty ; that black perjury doth gnaw my soul in these infernal flames , that guiltless bloud cryes vengeance through my veins , and showrs upon me in perpetual streams . i swore that of that murther i did know a man , that in my life i never saw , yet three mens lives i took by perjur'd law. t. tony and godfrey's brother that contriv'd , to make the forged plot the more believ'd . the truth of which they never yet would tell , neither oates , nor us that 's now in hell. if e're that stifled murther be unvail'd , old tony's mouthing gang will soon be quail'd . and those cabals which daily now devise , as th' old one dyes , to make new plots to rise . they 'l then disperse , lest they all be trapann'd , and their wise heads forsake their souls that's damn'd . b. thou now speak'st like a subject when't's too late , or one that knew not what they would be at . 't is their ambition to be thrown in gaols , 't would raise the rout if habeas corpus fails . then tony'l grin and prog about for coin , t' encourage his possessed herd of swine . lurk in his hole to see 'em stave and tail , but ne're come out , till he finds who 'l prevail . t. when he was young , he never durst to fight , but in malicious mischief took delight . for when the nation flow'd with bloud before , tony was always thirsting after more . how many thousand pound this plot has cost him , to buy the blouds of those that never crost him ? when he has got poor innocents condemn'd , by his patcht evidence , how eagerly he 'l send to those that have most int'rest in the rout ? he 'l hire them t'come to force the prisoners out , to see them sacrifice before his snout . which they 'l soon do , or else break down their hold ; for why , they 're tony's cattle bought and sold ? while they are butchering , old tony flears , for more such bargains , smells with both his ears . tony hir'd ar. for to cut 's own throat , ar. was cunning , did but half the joke . yet kept his money , and remain'd his debter , and promis'd him the lives of some was better . tho' tony's sides have several teer of holes , he lusts after bodies , as the devil after souls . for if e're this trade of papist-hanging's ended , he 'le bring in presbyter and independent . both care and curtis , smith and pillor'd ben , after the best , he 'le hang the worst of men . all that his pate hath drawn in to support him , he 'le hang them all , if fate do ever thwart him . both lords and evidence that 's now for him , nay perhaps his grace , who now he 's making k — or those who all this prosecution commence , he can hang them with the same evidence . should we have liv'd till such a change broke forth , to save himself he would have hang'd us both . he 's such a knave , and they such silly elves , when he has a mind , he 'le make'um hang themselves . b. heart , bloud and wounds , wou'd he have hang'd up bedlow ? oh — that my lady mother did but know — that cursed cannibal ? had i liv'd two years longer , i 'de have hang'd him , that rotten damn'd whoremonger . let 's out of hell , the porter we can bribe , we 'le bring him tony's soul , or some of that damn'd tribe . we 'le tell the k — that tony is the cause of all this plotting , and subverting laws . that tony is so treacherous and so apish , that he 's the head of all the plotting papists . for 't was his plot , and none but he contriv'd it , and he 's the rogue that ever since reviv'd it . each prison round the town he searches duly for evidence , to recommend to rowly . but takes such pains to teach each tool its chapter , as a man to make a spaniel dog a setter . which must impeach bishop and judges too , and all that for the k — withstand his crew . the courtiers he corrupts till they 're discarded , then by his tribe for him they must be guarded . while he sits at the helm to guide sedition , all legal laws he counts meer superstition . he sits environ'd round with brother-vipers , who imitates his nods like scotch bag-pipers . pendent and bitter , and mare-frigging quaker , keep time , tony , that brave law bear-baiter . for he united them to stand together , ' gainst all that 's lawful , loyal , or whatever that 's direct opposition to the crown , to pull the bishop and monarchy down . but he illustrates his grave dispute , by quaint objections , coyn'd against the d — ' gainst him his bristles hath long time stood snarling , yet cannot spit his poyson beyond sterling . could he wrench out that pillar of the state , he thinks the rest would fall in 's hands by fate , what a graceful noll old tony then would make ? just like a monkey he 'd become the throne , his court buffoons , and pugs of the same spawn . then tony would be sure that all 's his own . could he perswade the k — to sell his brother , he 'd never break his brains to find another . to keep sedition , and support the state , tony himself would be legitimate . let 's give the k — this caution , for 't is true , that he in time may know what 's best to do . with that a thundring noise their contract broke , the den was darkned with infernal smoak . horror of yells and groans the spirits strains , till on a sudden all flasht out in flames . in which the conventiclers sprawling cry'd , for all eternity must this abide ? with that a shower of bloud fell down upon 'um , in which they spew'd and stunk like rebels , dam 'um ▪ for 't was the bloud of innocents they 'd drawn , when they liv'd here , to make the king their own ▪ some of the heads were hang'd up by the tongues , the rest the devils pitch about with prongues . to make way for approaching great procession , which howl'd and roar'd without an intermission . their tongues hung out with froth like lathering soap , these were the rabble burning of the pope . ' mongst whom were curtis , harris , smith and care , the scene was just like that at temple-bar . both pope and pageants , jeffreys and the friers , but every step knee-deep in bloud and fires . of those that did support 'um and the rout , but there they roar'd , and here they us'd to shout . both squibs and crackers from their mouths did fly , ' gainst church and state they belcht out blasphemy . their skins were vail'd with city-mercuries , seditious libels and their forged lyes . which taking fire at once made such a smother , down fell the pageants , rout , and all together did sprawl and howl in that infernal flame , then i awakt , and all was but a dream . finis . the reasons and narrative of proceedings betwixt the two houses which were delivered by the house of commons to the lords at the conference touching the trial of the lords in the tower on monday the 26th of may, 1679. england and wales. parliament. 1679 approx. 19 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 6 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a38267 wing e2694 estc r29781 11205241 ocm 11205241 46757 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a38267) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 46757) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1441:36) the reasons and narrative of proceedings betwixt the two houses which were delivered by the house of commons to the lords at the conference touching the trial of the lords in the tower on monday the 26th of may, 1679. england and wales. parliament. 9 [i.e. 11] p. [s.n.], london printed : 1679. reproduction of the original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. treason -england. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-04 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2006-04 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the reasons and narrative of proceedings betwixt the tvvo houses ; which were delivered by the house of commons , to the lords at the conference touching the trial of the lords in the tower . on monday the 26th . of may , 1679. london , printed in the year , 1679. the narrative , &c. the commons have always desired that a good correspondence may be preserved between the two houses . there is now depending between your lordships and the commons a matter of the greatest weight , in the transactions of which your lordships seem to apprehend some difficulty in the matters proposed by the commons . to clear this the commons have desired this conference , and by it they hope to manifest to your lordships that the propositions of the house of commons made by their committee , in relation to the trial of the lords in the tower , have been only such as are well warranted by the laws of parliament and constitutions of the government , and in no sort intrench upon the judicature of the peers , but are most necessary to be insisted upon , that the ancient rights of judicature in parliament may be maintained . the commons readily acknowledge that the crimes charged upon the earl of powis , viscount stafford , lord petre , lord arundel of wardour , and lord bellasis , are of deep guilt , and call for speedy justice , but withall they hold , that any change in judicature in parliament , made without consent in full parliament , to be of pernitious consequence , both to his majesty , and his subjects , and conceive themselves obliged to transmit to their posterity all the rights which of this kind they have received from their ancestors , by putting your lordships in mind of the progress that has already been between the two houses , in relation to the propositions made by the commons , and the reasonableness of the propositions themselves ; they doubt not to make it appear , that their aim has been no other , than to avoid such consequences , and preserve that right ; and that there is no delay of justice on their part ; and to that end , do offer to your lordships the ensuing reasons and narrative : that the commons in bringing the earl of danby to justice , and in discovery of that execrable and traiterous conspiracy ( of which the five popish lords now stand impeached , and for which some of their wicked accomplices have already undergone the sentence of the law as traytors and murtherers ) have laboured under many great difficulties , is not unknown to your lordships . nor is it less known to your lordships , that upon the impeachment of the house of commons against the earl of danby for high treason , and other high crimes , misdemeanours , and offences , even the common justice of sequestring him from parliament , and forthwith committing him to safe custody was then required by the commons , and denied by the house of peers , though he then sat in their house ; of which your lordships have been so sensible , that at a free conference the tenth of april last , your lordships declared , that it was the right of the commons , and well warranted by presidents of former ages ; that upon an impeachment of the commons , a peer so impeached ought of right to be ordered to withdraw , and then to be committed ; and had not that justice been denied to the commons , a great part of this session of parliament , which hath been spent in framing and adjusting a bill for causing the earl of danby to appear and answer that justice from which he was fled , had been saved , and had been imployed for the preservation of his majestie 's person , and the security of the nation , and in prosecution of the other five lords ; neither had he had the opportunity for procuring for himself that illegal pardon , which bears date the first of march last past , and which he hath now pleaded in bar of his impeachment : nor of wasting so great a proportion of the treasure of the kingdom , as he hath done , since the commons exhibited their articles of impeachment against him . after which time thus lost by reason of the denyal of that justice which of right belonged to the commons upon their impeachment , the said bill being ready for the royal assent , the said earle then rendred himself , and by your lordships order of the sixteenth of april last , was committed to the tower. after which he pleads the said pardon , and being prest , did at length declare , he would rely upon and abide by that plea , which pardon pleaded being illegal and void , and so ought not to barr , or preclude the commons from having justice upon the impeachment . they did thereupon with their speaker on the fifth of may instant , in the name of themselves , and all the commons of england , demand judgment against the said earle , upon their impeachment , not doubting but that your lordships did intend in all your proceedings upon the impeachment , to follow the usual course and method of parliament . but the commons were not a little surprised by the message from your lordships delivered them on the seventh of may , thereby acquainting them , that as well the lords spiritual as temporal , had ordered that the tenth of may instant should be the day for hearing the earl of danby , to make good his plea of pardon . and that on the thirteenth of may , the other five lords impeached , should be brought to their tryal , and that your lordships had addressed to his majesty for naming of a lord high steward , as well in the case of the earle of danby , as the other five lords . upon consideration of this said message , the commons found , that the admitting the lords spiritual to exercise jurisdiction in these cases , was an alteration of the judicature in parliament , and which extended as well to the proceeding against the five lords , as the earle of danby . and that if a lord high steward should be necessary upon tryal , on impeachment of the commons ; the power of judicature in parliament , upon impeachments might be defeated by suspending or denying a commission to constitute a lord high steward . and that the said days of tryal appointed by your lordships , were so near to the time of your said message , that these matters , and the method of proceeding upon the trial , could not be adjusted by conference betwixt the two houses , before the day so nominated . and consequently the commons could not then proceed to tryal , unless the zeal which they have for speedy judgment against the earle of danby , ( that so they might proceed to the tryal of the other five lords ) should induce them at this juncture , both to admit the inlargement of your lordships jurisdiction , and to sit down under these or any hardships , ( tho with the hazard of all the commons power of impeaching for time to come ) rather then the tryal of the said five lords should be deferred for some short time , whilst these matters might be agreed on and setled . for reconciling differences in these great and weighty matters , and for saving that time which would necessarily have been spent in debates and conferences betwixt the two houses , and for expediteing the tryal , without giving up the power of impeachment , or rendring them ineffectual . the commons thought fit to propose to your lordships , that a commitee of both houses might be appointed for this purpose . at which committee ( when agreed to by your lordships , ) it was first proposed that the time of tryal of the lords in the tower , should be put off till the other matters were adjusted , and it was then agreed , that the proposition as to the time of the tryal , should be the last thing considered . and the effect of this agreement stands reported upon your lordships books . after which the commons communicated to your lordships by your committee , a vote of theirs , ( viz. ) that the committee of the commons should insist upon their former vote of their house . that the lords spiritual ought not to have any vote in any proceedings against the lords in the tower , and that when that matter should be setled , and the method of proceedings adjusted , the commons would then be ready to proceed upon the trial of the pardon of the earl of danby , against whom they had before demanded judgment , and afterwards to the trial of the other five lords in the tower , which vote extended as well to the earl of danby , as the other five lords ; but the commons as yet received nothing from your lordships towards an answer of that vote , save that your lordships have acquainted them , that the bishops have asked leave of the house of peers , that they might withdraw themselves from the tryal of the said five lords , with liberty of entring their usual protestation . and though the commons committee have almost dayly declared to your lordships committee , that that was a necessary point of right , to be setled before the tryal , and offered to debate the same , your committee always answered that they had not any power from your lordships , either to confer upon or to give any answer concerning that matter . and yet your lordships without having given the commons any satisfactory answer to the said vote , or permitting any conference or debate thereupon , and contrary to the said agreement , did on thursday the twenty second of may send a message to the commons , declaring that the lords spiritual as well as temporal , had ordered that the twenty seventh of this instant may be appointed for the tryal of the five lords . so that the commons cannot but apprehend that your lordships have not only departed from what was agreed on , and in effect laid aside that committee , which was constituted for preserving a good understanding betwixt the two houses , and better dispatch of the weighty affairs now depending in parliament , but must also needs conclude from the said message , and the votes of your lordships on the fourteenth of may ; that the lords spiritual have a right to stay and sit in court , till the court proceeds to the vote of guilty or not guilty . and from the bishops asking leave ( as appears by your lordships books two days after your said vote ) that they might withdraw themselves from the trial of the said lords , with liberty of entring their usual protestation , and by their persisting still to go on and give their votes in proceedings upon the impeachment ; that their desire of leave to withdraw at the said tryal , is only an evasive answer to the before mentioned vote of the commons , and chiefly intended as an argument for a right of judicature in proceedings upon impeachment , and as a reserve to judge upon the earl of danby's plea of pardon ; and upon these and other like impeachments , although no such power was ever claimed by their predecessors , but is utterly denied by the commons : and the commons are the rather induced to believe it so intended , because the very asking leave to withdraw , seems to imply a right to be there , and that they cannot be absent without it . and because by this way they would have it in their power , whether or no for the future , either in the earl of danby's case , or any other , they will ever ask leave to be absent ; and the temporal lords a like power of denying leave , if that should once be admitted necessary . the commons therefore are obliged not to proceed to the tryal of the lords on the twenty seventh of this instant may , but to adhere to their aforesaid vote : and for their so doing , besides what hath been now and formerly by them said to your lordships , do offer you these reasons following . reasons . i. becaufe your lordships have received the earl of danby's plea of pardon , with a very long and unusual protestation , wherein he hath aspersed his majesty by false suggestions , as if his majesty had commanded or countenanced the crimes he stands charged with ; and particularly suppressing and discouraging the discovery of the plot , and endeavouring to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical way of government ; which remains as a scandal upon record against his majesty , tending to render his person and his government odious to his people ; against which it ought to be the first and principal care of both houses to vindicate his majesty , by doing justice upon the said earl. ii. the setting up a pardon to be a bar of an impeachment , defeats the whole use and effect of impeachments ; and should this point be admitted , or stand doubted , it would totally discourage the exhibiting any for the future ; whereby the chief institution for the preservation of the government , ( and consequently the government it self ) would be destroyed . and therefore the case of the said earl , ( which in consequence concerns all impeachments whatsoever ) ought to be determined before that of the said five lords , which is but their particular case . and without resorting to many authorities of greater antiquity , the commons desire your lordships to take notice , ( with the same regard they do ) of the declaration which that excellent prince , king charles the first of blessed memory , made in this behalf , in his answer to the nineteen propositions of both houses of parliament ; wherein stating the several parts of this regulated monarchy , he says : the king , the house of lords , and the house of commons have , each , particular priviledges : and among those which belong to the king , he reckons power of pardoning . after the ennumerating of which , and other his prerogatives , his said majesty adds thus : again , that the prince may not make use of this high and perpetual power , to the hurt of those for whose good he hath it , and make use of the name of publick necessity , for the gain of his private favorites and followers , to the detriment of his people ; the house of commons , ( an excellent conserver of liberty , &c. ) is solely intrusted with the first propositions concerning the levies of moneys , and the impeaching of those , who , for their own ends , though countenanced by any surreptitiously-gotten command of the king , have violated that law , which he is bound ( when he knows it ) to protect , and to the protection of which they were bound to advise him , at least not to serve him in the contrary . and the lords ●●ing trusted with a judicatory power , are an excellent skreen and bank between the prince and people , to assist each against any incroachments of the other ; and by just judgments to preserve that law , which ought to be the rule of every one of the three , &c. therefore the power legally placed in both houses , is more than sufficient to prevent and restrain the power of tyranny , &c. iii. until the commons of england have right done them against this plea of pardon , they may justly apprehend , that the whole justice of the kingdome , in the case of the five lords , may be obstructed and defeated by pardons of like nature . iv. an impeachment is virtually the voice of every particular subject of this kingdome , crying out against an oppression , by which every member of that body is equally wounded : and it will prove a matter of ill consequence , that the universality of the people should have occasion ministred and continued to them , to be apprehensive of utmost danger from the crown , from whence they of right expect protection . v. the commons exhibited articles of impeachment against the said earl , before any against the five other lords , and demanded judgement upon those articles : whereupon , your lordships having appointed the trial of the said earl to be before that of the other five lords , now your lordships having since inverted that order , gives a great cause of doubt to the house of commons , and raises a jealousie in the hearts of all the commons of england , that , if they should proceed to the tryal of the said five lords in the first place , not onely justice will be obstructed in the case of those lords , but that they shall never have right done them in the matter of this plea of pardon , which is of so fatal consequence to the whole kingdome , and a new device to frustrate publick justice in parliament . which reasons and matters being duely weighed by your lordships , the commons doubt not but your lordships will receive satisfaction concerning their propositions and proceedings ; and will agree , that the commons ought not , nor can , without deserting their trust , depart from their former vote communicated to your lordships ; that the lords spiritual ought not to have any vote in any proceedings against the lords in the tower ; and when that matter shall be setled , and the methods of proceeding adjusted , the commons shall then be ready to proceed upon the tryal of the earl of danby , ( against whom they have already demanded judgment ) and afterwards to the tryal of the other five lords in the tower. finis . a discourse, prepared for the ears of some romanists (at a general quarter sessions, in the north, when they were summon'd to take the oaths.) by sr. christopher wyvill baronet, one of his majesties justices of the peace in those parts: and now profered to the eyes of them all wyvill, christopher, sir, 1614-1672?. 1679 approx. 20 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 9 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-11 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a67231 wing w3782b estc r204134 99825317 99825317 29697 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a67231) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 29697) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 2105:22) a discourse, prepared for the ears of some romanists (at a general quarter sessions, in the north, when they were summon'd to take the oaths.) by sr. christopher wyvill baronet, one of his majesties justices of the peace in those parts: and now profered to the eyes of them all wyvill, christopher, sir, 1614-1672?. 14 p. printed by stephen bulkley, and are to be sold by richard lambart bookseller, york : 1679. with a preliminary imprimatur leaf dated: aug. 29. 1679. reproduction of the original in the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng catholics -england -controversial literature -early works to 1800. popes -temporal power -early works to 1800. popish plot, 1678 -early works to 1800. 2004-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2004-05 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-07 emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread 2004-07 emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a discourse , prepared for the ears of some romanists ( at a general quarter sessions , in the north , when they were summon'd to take the oaths . ) by sr. christopher wyvill baronet , one of his majesties justices of the peace in those parts : and now profered to the eyes of them all york . printed by stephen bulkley , and are to be sold by richard lambart bookseller , 1679. imprimatur , robert feild . aug. 29. 1679. a discourse , prepared for the eears of some romanists , &c. i am not onely sorry and troubled , but afflicted , to see so many persons standing there , who ( could they but quit themselves of one or two needless scruples , pardon me gentlemen , if i use that term ) were fit to sit here and mannage the affaires of the country . realy , i would not wish any of you ( upon the meer accompt either of your purses or persons ) to turn your backs of one fundamentall doctrine , that appears such , upon a serious and impartial enquirie ; but even in consideration of those your temporal concerns , you may have just occasion , to review your notions , and after due search easily find . 1. that that sort of supremacie which the laws require , on the behalfe of our kings , doe's no way violate , or invade the priestly function . 2. that that sort of supremacie , which the pope now clayms , was vtterly unknown to the primitive church ; and is neither consistent with , nor at all becoming the priestly function . 3. that this sort of supremacie has stragled , in the world , to the cost of many crowned-heads , and the destruction of numberless christian people . 4. that this sort of supremacie was ( first ) founded in bloud , and so fostered ever since ; having been formerly , and formally ( in direct , plain words ) declared against , both by a council , and a pope . 5. that the chief and most celebrated authors , in the romish church have writ in defence of their exorbitant supremacie , after such a manner , as does rended it rational , yea necessary ( especially it being compared with their former known actings , and the posture of this day ) to keep on foot the old , and perhaps to make new laws , in prejudice of recusants . 1. that we may discover the truth , or falsehood of this proposition , it will be requisit to know distinctly , what the challinges of the king are . what he absolutely and freely disowns . he expects then to be custos uriusque tabulae ; this was no more then all the kings of iuda exercised ; and those of them that were most zealously active in the purging the temple , in the preserving , or restoring the true worship of god , ( as iosiah ) we find most commended , most celebrated in holy writ : we find too , ( to note that by the way ) they still called to the law , the written law , and to the testimonies , making them their rule . 2. chorn. 17th . iehosophat 29 hezekiah 34. iosiah , he expects further , that all the members of the church within his dominions , should be subject to his courts ; and clergie-men , as well others , ( in case of notorious crimes ) tryable there . he expects to nominate , appoint , and call to any spiritual preferments , what persons he please , without the interposition of any forraign power , or potentate : this is no more then every patron of a parish-church looks at , as his own right . the whole of this is no more , then elutherius , bishop of rome , declared to be in lucius king of brittain , when he sent to him to desire , not his leave , but advice , in the resetling a christian church ; for the gospel had been both preached and owned here before ; and without any help from rome ; tho , at that time sadly over-run again with paganisme . but now negatively , let us see what the king pretends not to ; not the conferring of orders ; not administration of sacraments ; not to preach the word ; not ( of himself ) to define articles of faith ; and herein , both the preamble of the statute , and the injunctions which were afterwards purposely framed , ( to satisfie such as seem'd to mistake the point ) are so plain , that it 's a wonder how a considering man , can have any religious fear or scruple about it . these together , are such an innocent kind of supremacie , so just and so frequently exercised by christian emperors , and kings of england , ( even all that had any thing of judgement , spirit , or good fortune ) as certainly none that has lookt at all into historie only , will deny his prince . 2. doubtless if our blessed lord had meant , that this prodigious sort of supremacie ( joyned with a never failing infallibilitie ) should ever have been the main article of our faith , he would not have answered his inquisitive disciples so unsatisfactorily , as he he did ; mark 9.34 , 35. ver . nor would he have left the world without a clear direction , in a matter of so vast concernment ( to all it 's future generations ) now that he did not so , is evident , since st. paul when he sadly foretold the church , how , after his departure , grievous wolves should enter in ; and amongst them , many should arise speaking perverse things ; advises them not , to make their addresses to any one that should ( then ) happen to be bishop of rome ; but commends them to the word of gods grace , to be built up thereby : as we read acts. 20.29 , 30 , 31 , 32. a shrewd signe , that the apostle did not understand tu es petrus in the popish sence ; nor in that other place , which has a minatorie exhortation to rome ( as well as to other gentile churches ) least she also might be cut off , romans 11.18 , 19 , 20 , 21. ver . what think you , would all the eastern bishops have stood out so vigorously , and so long ( in that controversie about the celebration of easter ) if it had ever been received as a standing rule , that your vniversal monarch , in the west , was gods plenepotentiarie , in all causes ecclesiastical . would the third councill of carthage ( wherein st. augustine was present ) have past a decree , that none should be stiled head , or prince of priests ? would the great gregory ( even when he sat in the pontifical chaire ) have pronounced such a pretender the forerunner of anti-christ . even st. peter ( from whom you seek to derive it ) demonstrates , that he neither had , nor desired any such lordship , or superiority , 1 peter 5.2 , 3. would heirome have said , pari omnes , inter se authoritate fuisse apostolos ? would ambrose have slipt so , as to have writ , non habent haereditatem petri , qui fidem petri non habent ? would b●sil have assigned to alexandria , and antioch , a better title to the succession of peter ? would he , and so many other old fathers , have blamed , chid , derided ; nay , even contemned the bishop of romes pride , if all the world had been obliged to be led by the nose , what way he should please ? 3.4 . it is in vain then to seek after the sort of supremacie , now contended for during the first six hundred years ; but i shall presently lead you it's rise : and that leaning upon the authorities of such authors , as you will not refuse to call your own ; know then , that not halfe an age after gregory was gone off this stage : a certain man that went by the name of boniface had a mind to be paramount in the church , and there ( luckily ) fell out to be at the same time , a person of great power , who long'd to be emperor ; these two , struck a bargain ; mauritius ( the rightfull master of them both ) together with his whole family , cruelly was murder'd : ph●cas got the scepter ; and boniface was by him constituted universall bishop : from hence , all men must date the original of this fatal supremacie ; fatal , i say , because it has been so fruitfull , and teeming in slaughters , rebellions , ( you must bear with the term , since matter of fact , in almost every age bears testimonie thereof ) and massacres . it was indeed a fine cast of this new office , which anno 747. was given to chilpric ( the last of the first royal house in france ) by the then pope zacharie ; poor chilpric was an unactive , easie creature , and therefore must be sent into a monasterie ( where you may suppose , he lived not long after . ) but pepin was a brave young blade , and zacharie stood need of such an one : he presently absolves him from his sworne allegiance , and mounts him up to the throne . but tush ! this was nothing to the freaks ; the subsequent holinesses play'd all the empire , ( nay well-nigh ) all europe over , by pulling , yea kicking off crowns ( anno 1080 , gregorie the 7th . by arming subjects ( yes sonns ) against their princes ( anno 1110. paschal second . ) the two last henry's of paris felt the weight of the two swords , which the pope clayms as his own , though they fell but by two sorry knives in the hands of two wretches , but both disciples of the iesuits ; and all to make room for this monstrous supremacie ; at the cost , not only of albigences , waldenses , hussites , ( and such as they will call hereticks ) but even of their own children , who mistook that stepdame of rome for their true mother . t is true , st. ambrose ( pretty , early when the discipline of the primitive church was yet in it's right state and just vigor ) did stave off the hands of the emperor , from touching the sacred elements , when he found them polluted with it innocent blood . but , i beseech you consider ( for this very perticular may serve to rectifie your judgements . ) 1. what he was . 2. how far he proceeded . he was bishop of millaine , a place alwayes reckoned in the territories of italy ; not bishop of rome : nor acting by any authority derived from thence . he went no farther then the episcopal power would bear him out : he kept him from the holy communion ; but he did not dethrone him : he did not absolve his subjects from their allegiance : he did not give away his dominions , to any that could catch them . that these things were acted in the face of the sun , plaetina , baronius , guiccardin de serres , with i know not how many more , are uncontroulable witnesses . let honest mathew paris ( the monk of saint albans ) tell you , how common it was for every priest , prelate , or fryar , transalpinare , to hite away to rome , and bring back with them an interdict , ( or not unfrequentedly , an excommunication ) against the king , and whole kingdom of england . but let him tell you too , how often the legate ( a later ) and other domineering , extorting agents from that proud see , have been kept on the further side of the dike , and not suffered transfretare , unless upon such terms , as our governours would admit of , and prescribe , notwithstanding all the power they pretended , or produced from his holiness . 5. as to this last charge ( wherein much of the present occasion seems to lie ) whether your church in her head , in her members , in her decretalls , in her canon-law , in some of her approved councills , have not made such declarations as must warn ( nay compel ) all princes and states , to make defensive laws against such encroachments ? doe but ( i beseech you ) peruse what the present right reverend bishop of lincoln has both candidly , and charitably , offered you : i shall content my self with instancing in a few ; let the language of clement the eights brevis ( when queen elizabeth had ( now ) one foot in the grave ) be first heard ; he strictly ( therein ) forbids all his catholicks to suffer any to succeed ( how near soever in bloud , or right ) unless such as should preingage to become a vassal to this romish church . and ( to see the luck of a thing ) these breves were directed to the hand of one henry garnet ; who , not long after , was found to have , more then a finger , in the powder-plot : with one arm he would have kept king iames from ; with the other , he would have blown him out of his three kingdoms . next , be pleased to consult bellermine ( who was made , in his time , and i think esteemed so ever since , but a little lower then the very pope . ) ask him , how we can be assured that his catholicks will prove good subjects ? his answer is legible ( lib. 1. de clericis ) they stand not bound to the laws of any prince coactively ; but directively onely ? ask him further , what if they will not be directed , but tread those laws under their feet ? yet ( says he , with the same front , and truth ) they may by no means receive punishment , by any secular magistrate , nor at all be brought before his trybunal . but what if they should chance ( and what has been may be ) to be found ingaged in treason ? the words of zimanca ( in his aphorismes , de confessione ) are positive , a clerks rebellion is not treason ; for he is not subject to the king : this is pretty well for the clergy , the notion being extended ( as they intend it ) to all their several orders of monks and fryars . but what say they to the laity ? take the summ of the whole matter from creswell , who , in pure love ( no doubt ) to his country-men , gives this forraign advice ; it is an undoubted point of faith ( says he ) that any christian prince whatsoever , if he have manifestly swarved from the catholick faith , and would draw others to do so , falls immediately from his power , and dignity ; and that , even before the pope have given sentence , his subjects may , and ought , if they have power , to remove him : ( andr ' . philopat ' . page 109. edit . 1592. ) it were no hard task , here to rake together , more then a good many of such dictates as these , from men of this stamp , whose works have been licensed , approved , printed , reprinted , and generally sold through all popish countries without contradiction ; and in this case , it may well be said , qui malum non prohibet , cum prohibere potest , perpetrat . 't is true , mariana's shameful book , was once at a crittical season ( for fear of a worse clap ) censured at paris ; but it was never so at rome : and i doe verily doubt the common doctrine of the iesuites ( with their adhaerents ) will be found , that the strongest knots , of promises , oaths , or vows , made for fidelity to temporal princes , may be cut asunder by their spiritual alexander , who ( unjustly ) would usurpe both the swords ; and ( perhaps ) is sorry he hath not more worlds to conquer . suffer me now , for a conclusion , and to abate a little the surprise you may be in , at the severities , at present , exercised towards you , ( though the late proclamations , as well as the statutes , must needs quit us from any blame in that behalf ) to remind you of one or two things , in which i have proof , more then abundant ; and of which , some ( yet living ) can give testimony . 't is confest , some of you gave signal , and very brave assistances to our late soveraign charles the first , in those unhappy warrs , ( upon what accompt , or motive , let it be decided at the last day ; ) but , that the whole body of romanists , could have been content to have sat down under a very bramble , in stead of the true oake , was manifest from the addresses pretended to come from them all ; wherein the catholick gentleman ( in a book publish't presently after anno 1652. or thereabout , with a great many arguments for his favour ) tells oliver , they had generally taken , and punctually kept the engagement : ( in that page , towards the latter end ; which , in that i have , is mark't 41. but should be 127. ) next , it would make one admire , how ( after the good services mr. huddleston , the honest pendrills &c. had done his present majesty ) the irish , of the same communion , and creed , could be perswaded to lay aside , their own commendable purposes . the natives of that kingdom were ( most of them ) upon the accompt of the bloudy insurrection , anno 1641. under the call , and subject to grievous paenalties at his majesties restauration : but he , according to his princely clemency , required them , onely to let him have new tests of their future loyalty , under the obligation of those oaths , you now stick at : he was pleased to allow them ( since they seem'd willing to the thing , but onely were dissatisfied in certain expressions , and those formes were not establish't in ireland ) after consultation with their own priests , to offer him , what might be equivalent thereto : they did so , and after some time , shew'd it to the king : he was willing to accept it , according to that draught : but one of the popes best be-trusts , then at bruxells , hastens ( in that nick of time ) to school them better ; and they neither durst ( it seems ) nor would proceed further in that business : and what use then ) can a through paced roman catholick make of his own conscience ? if , after such means , being arrived at settlement , he must yet throw away all , and implicitly give up his faith , to the most imperiously politick dictates , of an old ( perhaps ) doting mortal-man . and , now sirs , methinks i hear you say , what i have heard some of you say often ( and i verily think sincerely . ) 1. that you are wholly ignorant ( which is , in this case , the best sort of innocency ) of any design against his majesties person , or government . 2. that , if the pope himself should invade this land , and warr against the king , you would fight under the royal banner , and endeavour to cut his throat as soon as any mans . 3. that it 's a sad thing , if a few hare-brain'd fellows have imbarked in a desperate action , the whole communion ( though innocent ) should be involved in the suffering part . as to the two first , i can say little , but this : if i were a papist ( and durst consider the true state of things , and the wilde expectation of the roman see in these matters ) i should not know , how to make my due obedience to my soveraign , and my necessary submission to the pope's commands , lodge in one breast ? and for the last , i doe concurr with you . 't is , indeed , a very sad thing ; but ( gentlemen ) if you will not do it your selves , who can distinguish you ? what i have now said , i have said with clear intentions , with an ardent desire to serve you ; and after a long dilligent search ( to which no man living could be more engaged then my self . ) if any of you desire a farther discussion of things here briefly touched ( either in order to clearer satisfaction , or with a design of opposition ) they shall at any opportunitie command it , from yours , c. w. by the king, a proclamation for the apprehending certain persons therein named, accused of high treason england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1679 approx. 3 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32517 wing c3436 estc r35887 15566133 ocm 15566133 103853 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32517) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 103853) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1588:89) by the king, a proclamation for the apprehending certain persons therein named, accused of high treason england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, christopher barker, thomas newcomb, and henry hills, ..., london : 1678/9 [i.e. 1679] "given at our court at whitehall, the fifteenth day of january, 1678/9, in the thirtieth year of our reign." reproduction of the original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2008-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-10 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-12 john pas sampled and proofread 2008-12 john pas text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion by the king. a proclamation for the apprehending certain persons therein named , accused of high treason . charles r. whereas it appeareth by information upon oath , that francis evers , alias ewrie , alias ireland , late of tixall in the county of stafford , john gaven , late of wolverhampton in the same county , _____ vavasor , alias gifford , late of boscobell in the same county , edward levison , late of wilnott in the same county ( being all iesuits ) and also _____ broadstreet , late of horecross in the same county ( a popish priest ) are guilty of the late damnable and treasonable plot for destruction of the kings royal person , the subversion of his government , and for the extirpation of the true protestant religion established by law within this kingdom ; the kings most excellent majesty ( with advice of his privy council ) doth by this his royal proclamation straitly charge and command all and every iustices of the peace , sheriffs , mayors , constables , and other his majesties officers and loyal subjects whatsoever , that they do use their utmost and most effectual endeavour for the apprehending and securing of the said offenders , and of every of them , and after such their apprehension , they do with all speéd and care , bring them and every of them unto , and before one of his majesties principal secretaries of state , or the chief iustice of his majesties court of kings bench , to be by them , or one of them , examined , and committed to safe custody , in order to their trial. and his majesty doth hereby straitly forbid and prohibit any of his subjects from concealing , sheltering , relieving , or receiving any of the said offenders , under peril of being themselves proceeded against ( as by law they may ) for the crime of high treason . and for the better encouragement of such as shall do their duty herein , his majesty doth hereby graciously promise to any who shall discover and apprehend the said evers , the sum of one hundred pounds ; and to any who shall discover and apprehend any other of the said offenders , the reward of fifty pounds ; which said respective sums shall be immediately respectively paid down to the person or persons who shall apprehend the said evers , or any other of the offenders aforesaid , and shall bring , or cause to be brought , such of them before either of his majesties said principal secretaries , or the said chief iustice . given at our court at whitehall the fifteenth day of january 1678 / 9 ; . in the thirtieth year of our reign . god save the king. london , printed by john bill , christopher barker , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1678 / 9 ; . a further discovery of the plot drawn from the narrative and depositions of dr. titus oates, and fairly submitted to the consideration of all indifferent readers. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1680 approx. 24 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 5 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-11 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47862 wing l1251 estc r21550 12738655 ocm 12738655 93062 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47862) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 93062) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 696:1 or 986:20) a further discovery of the plot drawn from the narrative and depositions of dr. titus oates, and fairly submitted to the consideration of all indifferent readers. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. [2], 6 p. printed for henry brome ..., london : 1680. attributed to sir roger léstrange.--cf. nuc pre-1956 imprints. advertisement: p. 6. this item appears at reels 696:1 and 986:20. another edition with varying subtitle published in the same year (l1252), with author's name on t.p. and having 26 [i.e. 32] p. second and third ed. also published in 1680; 4th ed. published in 1681. reproduction of originals in huntington library and cambridge university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng oates, titus, 1649-1705. popish plot, 1678. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-12 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-07 melanie sanders sampled and proofread 2004-07 melanie sanders text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a further discovery of the plot , drawn from the narrative and depositions of dr. titus oates : and fairly submitted to the consideration of all indifferent readers . no man so blinde as he that will not see . london , printed for henry brome at the gun in s. pauls church-yard , 1680 a farther discovery of the plot . as it cannot be deny'd , but that the kings witnesses have ventur'd as far , and done as much as men could do , ( under their circumstances ) to make out the truth of a damnable , and hellish popish plot upon the life of his sacred majesty , our religion and civil government : so neither must it be deny'd , on the other hand , but that the justice and wisdom of this nation have emprov'd all discoveries , by the strictest inquisition , and scrutiny imaginable ; and done all that was possible also toward the suppressing of the conspiracy , by the highest instances of political zeal and rigour . insomuch , that after so many priests and jesuits , and other leading men of that party removed by the stroke of publique justice ; so many of them under confinement ; so many more reduced to shift for themselves beyond the seas , beside the severe penalties of the law upon the rest , with all sorts of encouragement , both for their detection and punishment : after all this care taken ( i say ) to tear up the accursed plot by the root , we are yet assured , that ( all this notwithstanding ) the plot is still carried on with confidence , and vigour . and this we have , even from those very persons themselves that formerly wrought in the same mine with the conspirators ; till through the grace of a better light they came to govern themselves by other measures . this is a truth no more to be doubted , then that of the plot it self ; which has stood the tryall of so many solemn and publique tests : beside that we have the same authority for the one as for the other ; only the circumstances not being brought into proof , the matter of fact lies a little more in the dark . whether or no the plot goes on still , after all this havock made of the papists , is the common subject of every coffee-house discourse . they that must be presum'd to know best , are of opinion that it does ; and those that are upon the negative , reason the point after this manner . what ? ( say they ) is it a plot that will work without hands ? where are the papists , the instruments that should drive it on ? are they in the aire or under ground ; or are they invisible ? for as they are now dispers'd , and broken , ( beside the terrour that overawes them ) there are at least three thousand protestants , in sight , to one papist . but do they ask where they are , because we cannot see them ? why do they not rather ask where they are not ? because they may be any where , and we not know them : for , as i have been told by persons of great quality , they 'l indue all shapes , and exercise all professions . they speak of one jesuit that cry'd work for a cooper ; another that wrought upon the trade of a shoomaker ; priests in red coats innumerable : and it is observ'd that upon the bringing of the late plot to light , all the little frenchmen with their marionets or puppet-shows vanish'd in a trice : which gave a suspition that they were only a kind of itinerant agents for the faction : to say nothing of their skill and industry , in the managing of all our divisions , and discontents , to the advantage of their own party . these are stories ( i know ) that are much more easily contradicted , then prov'd : and therefore without laying any stresse at all upon common fame , or hearsay , i shall now apply my self to that farther discovery of the plot , which i have promis'd in my title ; and support my undertaking , upon the authority of dr. oates himself ; with a respect both to the validity of his testimony , and to the weight of his observations ; being a person that hath dived deeper into the mystery of this iniquity ( with favour of the rest ) then any other man. as to the hellish design upon the life of our gracious sovereign , by pistol , sword , or poyson , we hope that the neck of that particular plot is broken , to all intents and purposes : but we are beholden also to dr. oates for the discovery of other and of farther plots that are still carry'd on by the same restlesse party ; tending to the defaming of his majesties person , and government ; the subversion of our establish'd religion , and the disturbance of the publick peace . so that unless the remaining , and the still growing difficulties , and hazzards be encounter'd with timely and effectual remedies , the work of our deliverance is but half done , and we shall yet run a risque of being ruin'd at last even in the very port. dr. oates tells us in his narrative , printed by authority of parliament , that the pope , society of jesus , and their confederates in this plot , have a design to reduce england , scotland , and ireland , to the romish religion and obedience , by the sword : pag. 63. which they hope to accomplish , among other means , by disaffecting the kings best friends at home and abroad , and subjects , against his person and government ; charging him with tyranny , and designs of oppressing , governing by the sword , and without parliaments , pa. 67. by aspersing , deriding , exposing , and declaiming against his person , councils , and actions in parliaments , and elsewhere , by mis-reporting , and raising false news of his affairs ; by disaffecting his majesties allyes , holland , spain , the german emperor , and princes by false intelligence . by seditious preachers , and catechists , set up , sent out , maintained , and directed what to preach in their own , or other private , or publick conventicles , and field-meetings . by setting up false pretended titles to the succession of the crown ; and animating different parties , one against another , on this or such like false pretences , to arm and put the people in blood , upon the kings death . we have found dr. oates's observations ( as to these particulars , ) so punctually true , that every syllable of what he has here deliver'd , is from point to point , the very matter now in agitation . for there 's not a day passes without a libell upon his majesties authority , administration , designes , and solemn resolutions of state , and council ; belying the condition of his affairs , and endeavouring to create distsrusts , and jelousies among forreign princes , and states , by false intelligence ; animating , and exciting of turbulent factions , and anticipating of confederacies , to involve us all in blood ; upon a remote and undutifull supposition of the kings death . and finally , we have sedition preach'd as well as written , and our conventicles both instructed themselves , and instructing others , in the methods and principles of rebellion , this may suffice for the doctors judgment upon the present state of things , which in truth looks liker a revelation , then a conjecture . as to his reflexions upon the interest which the papists had in our past troubles ; these are his words in his preface to the aforesaid narrative . who beside these were the first authours and contrivers of the late unnatural war , by their known diabolical art of enflaming parties , and passions against each other ? and ( addressing to the king ) of your royal fathers unspeakable sufferings , and barbarous usage ? it was these that brought him to his end , and flourish'd swords , and trumpets over his dead body , whom they durst not approach when living . the putney projectours ( says he ) were in most , if not all the councils , that contriv'd his ruine . what broke the uxbridge treaty , but the romish interest , and policy ? who continu'd to baffle all designs of peace , and settlement to this nation , and prosperity to his majesties family , but those incendiaries , milton was a known frequenter of a popish club ; who more forward to set up cromwell , and to put the crown of our kings upon his head , thenpapists ? and his new fangled government was contriv'd by a popish priest ; and lambert a papist , for above thesethirty years . i have inserted these passages as a curiosity in the history of those times ; which may perhaps have escap'd other men as well as my self . for though i never made any question , but that the church of england , as it stands established by law , in the purity of doctrine , and the venerable sobriety of discipline , was ever an eye sore to the church of rome ; yet i was of opinion too , that a licentious vein of ambition and sch●sm among our selves , had carry'd a great stroke also in that fatal revol●tion . but however , this is a point wherein a man may without loss of honour , or credit , admit the possibility of his being in a mistake . wherefore we shall now ( with the doctors leave ) advance to plain matter of fact , whereupon we have his deposition ; the only case wherein a man may , without vanity pronounce himself within a degree of infallible . we finde pag. 8. that richard nicholas blundell had every day in the week his several places in the city of london , where he taught the youth treasonable , and malicious doctrine , against the interest , and person of his sacred majesty . also ( pag. 25. ) that richard ashby had a conference for the sending of new messengers into scotland , to promote the commotions there ; and to inform the people , of the great tyranny they did ly under , by reason of their being deny'd the liberty of their conscience ; and that not being to be procured but by the sword , they must take that course to purchase their liberty : by which means ( sayd the fathers thus assembled ) we shall weaken both the presbyterian , and the episcopal faction . at which conference , the deponent was present , and heard the words . and again , two messengers were sent intoscotland , one by the name of father moore , and the other by the name of father saunders alias brown , with instructions to carry themselves like non-conformist ministers ; and to preach to the disaffected scots , the necessity of taking up the sword for the defence ofliberty ofconscience . these the deponent saw dispatch'd , &c. take notice , in the first place , that here 's a designe carry'd on for the destruction of the king , and the embroyling of the government . secondly , the pretence of the quarrel is to be matter of liberty and conscience . thirdly , it is to be promoted by popish emissaries , in the councils , and conventicles of the non-conformists . fourthly , the means by which the papists propound to compass their ends , are by making interests with the separatists , under the disguise of ministers , and teachers , respectively of the several parties they have to do withall . and fifthly , let me recommend this particular to your special remark , that dr. oates , throughout the whole course of his depositions , charges no part of the popish design upon any intelligence , or communication with the church of england ; but makes it only to be a practice upon the dissenters from the english communion , to transport them into tumults , and distempers against both church and state. we have here in few words , a scheme of the whole business ; here 's the designe , the pretext , the instruments and the methods : and upon the whole matter , here is the church of england acquitted , as to any point of unwarrantable affinity with the principles or practises of the church of rome ; however that testy frenchman is pleas'd to speculate in his fanatical reve'ryes upon our approaches to that communion : wherein it may be a question , whether he is more out in his history , or in his morals . we are , in short , very much obliged to the doctor , for clearing our church to all gainsayers , from those obloquies which by both the extremes are indifferently cast upon us . it must not be any longer a supposition , that which dr. oates has given us his oath for ; so that taking it for granted , that there is such a project on foot , that the papists are in the bottom of it ; and that it is promoted by the sectaries , only as passive agents that are blindly bringing about the others ends : the question is now how the government may fairly discriminate the protestants from the papists ; being so blended in their interest , as well as in their councils ; and mask'd under such resemblances , the one , of the other , that they are not easily to be distinguished . it cannot be expected that a pretending protestant shall own himself to be a papist ; so that there 's no believing any man in the case . and then the epithete of a reputed so or so , is so slender an evidence , that many a reputed papist is found to be a true protestant , and many a reputed protestant as true a papist . the known and legall expedient which has been hitherto found competent enough to answer the reason and intent of state , is the test of the two oaths of allegiance and supremacy : and yet this very provision will not reach all cases : for there are many papists that will take them without any difficulty ; and there are severall that call themselves protestants , that will as obstinately refuse them . now though the latter ( primo eliz. ) was a provision for the abolishing of foreign power , and the former ( tertio iac. ) an act for the discovering and repressing of popish recusants ; the scope and equity yet of both these provisions has a regard to the securing of the government against any sort of people , and against any pretensions whatsoever : so that whoever refuses , upon a lawfull tender , to take these oathes , he 's a papist in the eye of the law , let his perswasion be what it will : for it is the only priviledge of omniscience to reade the heart : or if ( for discourse sake ) we should suppose him to be no papist , he is yet in the prospect of common reason , liable to that imposition , because it is exacted as a proof of his allegiance , not of his faith ; and men of different judgements in religion may yet agree in common principles of disloyalty . and then again , there 's no appealing in this case from the prudence and caution of the law ( which is allways presum'd to intend the common good ) to the testimony of a friend or neighbour in favour of a recusation . for the law is a general rule , that takes no notice of any exceptions to it . the law requires me to take these oaths in proof of my allegiance to the government ; and my answer is , that i am a very honest man , but i cannot take them . what is this to the law , that takes no cognizance of my honesty , but of my obedience ? and this rule holds in common , as well to the papist as to the protestant recusant ; they both vouch for their own loyalty , and at the same time they do both of them refuse to comply with the law. the common way of reply in this case , is to cast it in a mans teeth ; but what ? will you make no difference betwixt a papist that refuses and a protestant ? yes , i would , if you would but shew me how i may certainly know the one from the other . who knows not that interest governs the world ? and that for reasons best known to themselves , he that is a protestant in his heart may be induced rather to appear a papist ; and the other , though a papist in his heart , may find it his interest yet to seem a protestant ? but we 'l yield that point too ; and put the case , that the law should be relax'd , on the behalf of any man living , does not this open a gap ( let him be never so honest ) to the admittance of ten thousand men that may plead honesty too , and yet betray their duties ? and is it not better then , that some few particulars should suffer by keeping firm to the law , then that the whole should be endanger'd by remitting it ? so that there is neither reason nor safety , nor equity , in such a relaxation , nor any regard of common justice and duty in demanding it . but what if it be said , that it is not the thing sworn , but the oath it self , that is scrupled ? and that there are several sorts of perswasions that will not bear any swearing at all ? this i must confess , is a case somewhat nice , and unhappy , to those people that are so straight-lac'd in that particular : but then , on the other side , it is to the government the most dangerous of all pretensions , and lets in all the priests and jesuits in nature , under that colour . so that now take it both ways ; if the law be partially executed , the jesuits and priests will shelter themselves under that indulgence : or , if the law should be suspended , out of a respect to those that would be thought to make a conscience of an oath , the priests would all flow into those parties that should be exempted from this test , and carry on their designes without either triall or danger . now to wind up this discourse , in a plain and clear dilemma . it must be granted , either that the papists have a design upon the king , religion , and government , and that they advance it by acting the parts of quakers , anabaptists , presbyterians , and other sectaries , or not . no man , i presume will dare to question the truth of the doctors deposition ; for in so doing he would imply a strange abuse impos'd upon the nation . but on the other side , admitting it to be true ; there can be no security to this government , without either dissolving all separate meetings , or bringing all dissenters to this legal test ; for otherwise , the papists have all sorts of liberty , and security in herding themselves among the conventicles ; where upon the beating of a bush , it will be an even wager whether you start a jesuit , or a fanatick . and in effect , in this case , there is not much difference betwixt them , where the jesuit plays the fanatick , and the fanatick the jesuit . if the main assertion be true , there 's no way of finding out the papists , but by this test : and the dissenters themselves , if they would have popery ferretted out in good earnest , cannot chuse but encourage the proposition . either they have priests among them or they have not : if they have , why do they not do the best they can to find them out ? if they have not , why do they say they have ? and again , either the non-conformists are influenc'd by the jesuits or they are not : if they be , why do they not do all that is possible toward the purging of their congregations ? if they be not so influenc'd , why do they pretend that they are , and so set the saddle upon the wrong horse ? and yet again ; either it is possible to clear their conventicles of this dangerous mixture , or it is not : if it be possible , why do they still complain of it , and do nothing in 't ? if it be impossible , there is no way of extirpating popery , but by rooting out fanaticism . let the world judge now , with what injustice , the order , and the ritualls of the church of england are charg'd with a tincture of superstition , and popery , when upon manifest proof , the calumniators themselves of our ecclesiastical state are , throughout the whole body of them , tainted with this leaven . we are now come to the bottom of the popish plot. this liberty of wandering from the rule , is the trojan horse , which under a religious colour , we have entertain'd within our walls ; with discord , and destruction in the belly of him . an advertisement . whereas the subjects right of petitioning has been of late in such manner asserted , as if his majesty had no right of refusing , this is to advertise , that from the 3d of ed. 3. to hen. 8. ( as appears upon the parliament rolls ) it was constantly the first thing done , upon the opening of all parliaments , after the cause of summons declar'd , to appoint out of the lords spiritual , and temporal , certain receivers , and tryers of petitions ; and still as they found any petition not fit to be admitted , it was rejected with a non est petitio parliamenti , ( as we find it endorsed upon the rolls ) and there was an end on 't . note , that all petitions were dedicated to his majesty , and that in many cases , when the parliament had not time to go thorough with them all , the king referr'd diverse of them to the chancery . now why the king may not as well reject a petition out of parliament , as in parliament , and why he may not as well reject it by anticipation , and prevention in a previous and express prohibition and exception to the matter of it , as afterward , is a point worthy of a resolution : and when his majesty ever lost the one right , or the subject gain'd the other : this postscript is wholly forreign to the subject of this pamphlet , but more accommodate to the season . the end. a cordial for england, or a character of true britains [t]ogether with a narrative and recital of all popish plots in england since the days of queen elizabeth. and a prophesie of romes downfal, by a loyal britain. loyal britain. 1678 approx. 10 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a80568 wing c6284a estc r229632 99899297 99899297 152920 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a80568) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 152920) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 2333:13) a cordial for england, or a character of true britains [t]ogether with a narrative and recital of all popish plots in england since the days of queen elizabeth. and a prophesie of romes downfal, by a loyal britain. loyal britain. 1 sheet ([1] p.) s.n., [london? : 1678] imprint from wing cd-rom, 1996. printed in three columns. reproduction of original in dr. williams' library, london, england. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678 -early works to 1800. broadsides 2007-10 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2007-10 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-08 olivia bottum sampled and proofread 2008-08 olivia bottum text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a cordial for england , or a character of true britains : together with a narrative and recital of all popish plots in england since the days of queen elizabeth . and a prophesie of romes downfal , by a loyal britain . nemo sibi nascitur . we love our mony , and we love our blood , we value neither for our countrys good ; mars and apollo both conjoyn'd in one ▪ will say an ajax and a hector strong . in time of peace we 'll fight by englands law , and when in field , we 'll fill their hearts with aw that dare oppose us with an open face , they 're all dead men unless they quit the place : we 'll neither quarrel , duel , swagger , swear , we will be patient , for we britains are ; we will be lambs in time of publick peace , and when in field , we 'll lions rage increase : when as we come to hewing , hacking work we 'll neither fear the french , the pope nor turk , nor any other instruments of hell , that would contrive our land and laws to sell . base pensioners they are , who under ground combine to smite us by a dang'rous wound . the head is very sick , our body too is in an inward hecktick ; what shall 's do ? let 's call a good physician speedily ; he 's able , upright , and he 'll seek no fee ; to save his patients life is his desire , and for his pains he will not much require : and rather then the patients life should go , he 'll buy the cordial , he 's a friend , not foe : then call him quickly , call him ; come , i pray , i fear me much i 'm near a critick day . there 's many symptoms , and there 's omens too , of a most sad distemper that doth grow : t is ready for to seize the vital seat ; when once it seizes , then it is too late . oh englands clergy ! look about you now , you are the men that have great work to do : t is not your work you do , fat flocks to fleece ; when once the fox gets in beware the geece . and we for our parts , that souldiers are , will of our work and duty have a care . and tho the flower o' th flock is gone away , yet men remain that can fight in array . and god almighty bless us , blast our foes , and give success and victory over those that do combine and plot to take away our sacred soveraigns life without delay , and protestant religion desire quite to extirpate and raze out by fire ; and great dissentions which they daily raise within the church of england , seeking praise , they 'l plot in england in the open sun , and massacres in ireland they have done : they thirst for blood , and long to see one night of stabbing skean-work english to affright . revive , oh england ! cheer thy heart agen . thy old commander marches in the vann , and he can quickly put thy foes in fear , when once he bringeth up his knocking rear : and though at present , we , in forlorn hope , shall see a day of terror to the pope . and to all those that plot , combine , and lye in wait for blood , to spill it secretly . oh god of england rise , awake agen , in days of old we have thee glorious seen . in eighty eight they did invade our land , the spanish ships armadoes did command ; they came on boldly to the very coast , and in a full career they hop'd for roast : but god almighty put them all in fear , and with his fire-ships did scatter vann and rear : he rais'd up brave conductors , englishmen , that made the spaniards homewards go agen ; all this was done in queen elizabeths days , to god almighty england give the praise . and in king james's time did they contrive to blow up mortal men while yet alive ; but heaven forbad the stroak , and turn'd the blow unto their final fatal overthrow . and in the time of charles the first our king mighty combustions on the land did bring ; they stirr'd up fathers wrath against the son , and almost was the nation quite undone by civil wars , which they fomented so , as laid poor england all in blood and wo , and sent our gracious prince , of blessed memory , by fatal blow into eternity . when this was done prince charles , our present king , they sent into exile , ah cursed thing ! but god was good , and brought him back again ; and now the crown doth on his head remain : this was not all enough , but into court these monsters creep agen to make some sport . and while this toad in bosom warm doth lye , it soon begins to plot conspiracy . so deep their plot was laid , so under ground , so dark , so hellish was th' intended wound , by poyson , pistol , and by silver slug : but heaven defeated this their fatal drug ; and while the horse was eating a few oats his griping belly filled was with bots ; and thus the plot came out ; and truth it was , though now there is no plot : so let it pass ; 't is no great matter , jesuits and priests may sit on rotten eggs ; curst be their nests : and tho the house of lords and commons have voted a hellish plot ; yet still they wave the name of plot ; it is a cursed thing ; but had almost to ruine brought our king. all this is nothing , there is yet no fault , t is not so bad to steal as to be caught : and though the fact be plainly prov'd on tryal , their faces can persist in bold denyal . what can his holiness and rome devise , such cursed things as plots , all are but lies ; and we poor martyrs dye expos'd to scorn , yet are as innocent as th' child unborn , alas poor men ! they 're gone , much wrong they had coleman and plunket , many more as bad : but silence now ! they 're dead ; silence , i pray , they 'll never plot agen , i 'll boldly say ; yet nevertheless , if pluto could but grant these martyrs leave , they 'd play another prank ; they'd find a sham-plot , if it could be found , that should lay england level with the ground : and though they dye , they are resolv'd , like men , to wish success unto the plot agen : they dye in faith , that wasps are yet behind . that will the self same plot and project mind . and this is comfort to their wicked brest , they sent poor godfrey before them to rest . the king and kingdoms martyr sure was he ; england he sav'd alive , although he be now dead , yet still he lives , and speaketh still , avenge my blood on them that did it spill . alas ! what mean you ? do not charge men so ▪ it was not they , but his own sword did do the execution ; upon primrose-hill after he strangled was , they prove it will and will you not believe it , hereticks and infidels , you 're men out of your wits . now england judge , i pray you , men most wise , come near , and view the cradle-babe that cries , his name is plot , compare well , and see which is his father , pope or presbytry : the former hath his limbs , his hands , his face ; yet must the latter bear the brats disgrace : 't is no new thing indeed ; for every whore will lay her bastard at anothers door ; but lord have mercy on us ; must not we that guiltless are deny this bastardye : no , no , the whorish womans word is very great , and 't is enough ; she says you did the feat : but heavens forbid that protestants should be abused by a whore that 's all pocky . and send our king a solomons heart , to make a judgment just , who shall this bastard take : and make her an example to all whores , who lay their bastards daily at mens doors . lord god almighty wake , arise , i pray , and send to dawn that clear sun shining day , when kings and kingdoms all shall joyntly hate the scarlet whore , and bring upon her pate the vengeance written long ago , foretold and prophesied in former days of old : and when this work is done , lord take the praise , and to thy self a generation raise , to serve thee in a glorious gospel-day . when all the world shall walk in one good way . and though i dye and never live to see . let god fulfil this ancient prophesie . my countrys friend jacob sontley . the english states-man, the protestant oracle being the earl of shaftesbury's famous speech. shaftesbury, anthony ashley cooper, earl of, 1621-1683. 1688 approx. 9 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 2 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-12 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a59470 wing s2891 estc r13035 12426649 ocm 12426649 61886 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a59470) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 61886) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 297:12) the english states-man, the protestant oracle being the earl of shaftesbury's famous speech. shaftesbury, anthony ashley cooper, earl of, 1621-1683. 1 sheet ([2] p.) printed by f.c., london : 1688. two columns to the page. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -politics and government -1660-1688. broadsides -england -17th century. 2005-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-03 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-04 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2005-04 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the english states-man the protestant oracle , being the earl of shaftesbury's famous speech . mortuus loquitur vivâ voce . all good protestants , and true english-men are greatly obliged to that noble and generous soul [ whose famous speech you have here reprinted ] for those laws of the tests , of the habeas corpus bill , of the statute against quartering of souldiers , and for abolishing the writ de haeretico comburendo , for detecting of the horrid and hellish popish plot in the late king's time , who with undaunted courage exposed himself unto extreamest hazards whilst he alarm'd the parliaments and kingdoms of the imminent danger of popery and slavery from the contrivances of the then and still detested ministers of state , and pensioners of france , in conjunction with jesuited bloody papists , and in his endeavours to preserve the protestant religion , and the english government , whereby the liberties and properties of the subjects are most happily provided for and secured ; had it not been for this great man , the papists had found a much easier task to have effected their devilish design , and our total ruine ; therefore those who adore the eternal majesty of heaven , and highly honour the glorious instruments he uses for restoring our religion and laws , cannot read this speech without reflecting with delight upon the memory of this wise and great peer and patriot of this kingdom , and her little sisters : of this noble states-man , the non-such of his age , it may truly be said , no man deserved better , and no man was ever worse requited by many of his country-men ; but they have , or will change their opinions and characters of him , if they consider this amongst other the monuments of his true worth , of his own erecting , which time nor malice can never ruinate , whose epitaph may properly be , virtutem incolumem odimus , sublatam ex oculis quaerimus invidi : for those who whilst he lived ( whose mistakes time has rectified ) were his severe enemies , now he is dead , with reason and justice , are and will live and die his grateful admirers . the right honourable the earl of shaftesbury's speech in the house of lords , march 25 , 1679. you are appointing of the consideration of the state of england to be taken up in a committee of the whole house , some day next week . i do not know how well what i have to say may be received , for i never study either to make my court well , or to be popular ; i always speak what i am commanded by the dictates of the spirit within me . there are some other considerations that concern england so nearly , that without them you will come far short of safety and quiet at home : we have a little sister , and she hath no breasts , what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for ? if she be a wall , we will build on her a palace of silver ; if she be a door , we will inclose her with boards of cedar . we have several little sisters without breasts , the french protestant churches , the two kingdoms of ireland and scotland ; the foreign protestants are a wall , the onely wall and defence to england ; upon it you may build palaces of silver , glorious palaces . the protection of the protestants abroad , is the greatest power and security the crown of england can attain to , and which can onely help us to give check to the growing greatness of france . scotland and ireland are two doors either to let in good or mischief upon us ; they are much weakned by the artifice of our cunning enemies , and we ought to inclose them with boards of cedar . popery and slavery , like two sisters , go hand in hand , sometimes one goes first , sometimes the other , in a-doors , but the other is always following close at hand . in england , popery was to have brought in slavery ; in scotland , slavery went before , and popery was to follow . i do not think your lordships or the parliament have jurisdiction there . it is a noble and ancient kingdom ; they have an illustrious nobility , a gallant gentry , a learned clergy , and an understanding worthy people ; but yet we cannot think of england as we ought , without reflecting on the condition therein . they are under the same prince , and the influence of the same favourites and councils : when they are hardly dealt with , can we that are the richer expect better usage ? for 't is certain , that in all absolute governments , the poorest countreys are always most favourably dealt with . when the ancient nobility and gentry there , cannot enjoy their royalties , their shrevaldoms , and their stewardies , which they and their ancestors have possessed for several hundreds of years , but that now they are enioyned by the lords of the council to make deputations of their authorities to such as are their known enemies ; can we expect to enjoy our magna charta long under the same persons and administration of affairs ? if the council-table there can imprison any noble man or gentleman for several years , without bringing him to tryal , or giving the least reason for what they do ; can we expect the same men will preserve the liberty of the subject here ? i will acknowledge , i am not well vers'd in the particular laws of scotland ; but this i do know , that all the northern countries have by their laws an undoubted and inviolable right to their liberties and properties ; yet scotland hath out-done all the eastern and southern countries , in having their lives , liberties and estates subjected to the arbitrary will and pleasure of those that govern. they have lately plundered and harrassed the richest and wealthiest countries of that kingdom , and brought down the barbarous high-landers to devour them ; and all this almost without a colourable pretence to do it : nor can there be found a reason of state for what they have done ; but that those wicked ministers designed to procure a rebellion at any rate , which , as they managed , was onely prevented by the miraculous hand of god , or otherwise all the papists in england would have been armed , and the fairest opportunity given in the just time , for the execution of that wicked and bloody design the papists had : and it is not possible for any man that duly considers it , to think other , but that those ministers that acted that , were as guilty of the plot , as any of the lords that are in question for it . my lords , i am forced to speak this 〈◊〉 plainer , because , till the pressure be fully and clearly taken off from scotland , 't is not possible for me , or any thinking man to believe that good is meant us here . we must still be upon our guard , apprehending , that the principle is not changed at court , and that those men that are still in place and authority , have that influence upon the mind of our excellent prince , that he is not , nor cannot be that to us , that his own nature and goodness would incline him to . i know your lordships can order nothing in this ; but there are those that hear me , can put a perfect cure to it : until that be done , the scottish weed is like death in the pot , mors in olla . but there is something too , now i consider , that most immediately concerns us , their act of twenty two thousand men to be ready to invade us upon all occasions . this , i hear , that the lords of the council there have treated as they do all other laws , and expounded it into a standing army of six thousand men . i am sure we have reason and right to beseech the king , that that act may be better considered in the next parliament there . i shall say no more for scotland at this time , i am afraid your lordships will think i have said too much , having no concern there ; but if a french noble-man should come to dwell in my house and family , i should think it concerned me to ask what he did in france ; for if he were there a felon , a rogue , a plunderer , i should desire him to live elsewhere ; and i hope your lordships will do the same thing for the nation , if you find the same cause . my lords , give me leave to speak two or three words concerning our sister , ireland : thither , i hear , is sent douglas's regiment , to secure us against the french. besides , i am credibly informed , that the papists have their arms restored , and the protestants are not many of them yet recovered from being the suspected party ; the sea-towns , as well as the in-land , are full of papists : that kingdom cannot long continue in the english hands , if some better care be not taken of it . this is in your power , and there is nothing there , but is under your laws ; therefore i beg that this kingdom at least may be taken into consideration , together with the state of england ; for i am sure there can be no safety here , if these doors be not shut up and made sure . london , printed by f. c. in the year , 1688. a brief account of the proceedings against the six popish priests, condemned for high-treason on the 17th day of this instant january, 1679/80 viz. lionel anderson, alias munson, william russell, george parry, henry starkey, james corker, and will. marshal, two benedictine monks, formerly tryed with wakeman : with whom was likewise tryed alexander lumsdell : who though he appeared to be a priest, yet being born in scotland, he continues upon a special verdict : the heads of the evidence against each of them, and their defences and behaviour. 1680 approx. 12 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a49468 wing l3484 estc r13910 13587512 ocm 13587512 100597 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a49468) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 100597) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 464:30) a brief account of the proceedings against the six popish priests, condemned for high-treason on the 17th day of this instant january, 1679/80 viz. lionel anderson, alias munson, william russell, george parry, henry starkey, james corker, and will. marshal, two benedictine monks, formerly tryed with wakeman : with whom was likewise tryed alexander lumsdell : who though he appeared to be a priest, yet being born in scotland, he continues upon a special verdict : the heads of the evidence against each of them, and their defences and behaviour. anderson, lionel, d. 1710, defendant. corker, james maurus, 1636-1715, defendant. kemish, david joseph, defendant. lumsden, alexander, defendant. parris, charles, defendant. russel, william, defendant. starkey, henry, defendant. 4 p. s.n., [london? : 1680] caption title. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng anderson, lionel, d. 1710 -trials, litigation, etc. corker, james maurus, 1636-1715 -trials, litigation, etc. kemish, david joseph -trials, litigation, etc. lumsden, alexander -trials, litigation, etc. parris, charles -trials, litigation, etc. russel, william -trials, litigation, etc. starkey, henry -trials, litigation, etc. popish plot, 1678. trials (treason) -england. 2006-08 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-09 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-10 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2006-10 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a brief account of the proceedings against the six popish priests , condemned for high-treason the 17th day of this instant january , 1679 / 80. viz. lionel anderson , alias munson . william russel . george parry . henry starkey . two benedictine monks , formerly tryed with wakeman . james corker , and will. marshal , with whom was likewise tryed alexander lumsdell , who though he appeared to be a priest , yet being born in scotland , he continues upon a special verdict . the heads of the evidence against each of them , and their defences and behaviour . there were eight priests in all brought down and arraigned this day ; but the first , called david joseph kemish , being a very aged man , and appearing extream weak and ill , the court upon his request was pleased ; after he had pleaded not guilty , to remit his tryal to another opportunity , when he might be better able to make his defence . the other seven were tryed singly and successively one after the other , by one jury , consisting of persons of good worth , against whom none of them made any challenge or exceptions . corker and marshal before they pleaded , insisted on their former tryal , pretending they were then acquitted of all treasons : but the court ( many of the judges , and particularly the lord chief justice scroggs being present . ) answered , that this was another sort of treason , for which they were not then questioned , so that this vain suggestion was over-ruled . they were indicted upon the statute of 27 eliz. to this effect : that being born in the kings dominions , they had received ordination from the see of rome , and after that came into and abided in the kingdom , contrary to that law which had made that offence high-treason . the kings council opened the indictments learnedly , and set forth the necessity and just reason for making this law , because of the many treasons practised and promoted by jesuits and popish priests against queen elizabeth ; and shewed , that whoever does take orders from rome , does in effect renounce his allegiance to the king , for he thereby owns another supream power , viz. the popes ; which is such , according to the doctrine of that damnable church , that he can excommunicate and depose the king , and absolve all subjects from obedience to him . the evidence that appeared and were made use of , were doctor oates , mr. bedloe , mr. dugdale , mr. prance , and mr. dangerfield . the first that came upon his tryal , was lionel anderson , alias munson , an antient man , and seeming to be sick ; against him three witnesses swore , that they had seen him officiate as a priest , receive confession , say mass , consecrate and administer the eucharist , &c. and particularly mr. dangerfield deposed , that while he was in the kings-bench for debt , and this anderson there likewise a prisoner , he told the witness he had a letter from the lady powis , that the said mr. dangerfield should skower his kettle , by which phrase ; they mean , confess his sins ; and that acordingly he did go to confession with the now prisoner , and received the sacrament , after which the prisoner put him upon drinking hard with another person , to pump out some things for the invalidating mr. bedloes evidence ; and mr. dangerfield being scrupulous so to do , lest he should be drunk on the same day that he had received , this precious father told him , 't was all one for that , he would give him leave to be drunk , since 't was for the good of the cause . next corker was brought on , against whom two of the evidence testified , that he had likewise officiated in the same manner at the savoy , and seen him in his preaching habit. 't was also proved that he had a patent to be bishop of london . against mr. marshal there was only dr. oates , that could swear that he had heard him say mass ; yet mr. bedloe had seen him in his habit , and when he put it off , was told he was going abroad to receive confessions : but to put the matter out of doubt , it was proved by two witnesses , that when he was tryed for the plot , he owned himself in open court to be a priest ; which though he now denyed , yet several of the court well remembred it . this gentleman as he had a voluble tongue , and affected eloquence , took up much time with his rhetorical harangues , and urged much his acquittal by the former jury ; whence he would infer , that dr. oates and mr. bedloe were perjured , in swearing they were concerned in the plot , when yet they were found not guilty ; and that thence they were never more to be counted credible witnesses . but mr. justice pemberton took him up roundly for that sawcy reflection , telling him , a witness might give a just and true evidence , and yet it might happen , a jury not to believe it ; but god forbid thence the witness should be censured as perjur'd or invalid . the prisoner likewise call'd their old voucher ellen rigby , who said she never saw mr. oates in the savoy at the times he mentioned ; which seemed very little to the purpose , for he might be there and she not see him : besides , they made a mighty stir , that mr. oates could not see them there at mass , because he was then but newly reconciled to their church , and so it was not likely they should trust him : but to that they were told , that in 1677. and 1678. they were not so very shy of saying mass , or cautious who heard , especially being a new convert . william russel was used to harbour in wildhouse , where 't was proved that he had said mass , and at other places . his vestments were likewise taken with him , which at that time he owned to be his , as was sworn by the honourable sir william waller , though now his fatherhood thought fit to tell a lye , and disown it . george parry was well known by several of the witnesses to be a priest , who had been at mass with him sundry times ; and mr. prance was so well acquainted with him , that he seized him long since the discovery of the plot in the street ; and he had indeed reason to remember him , for that he had dealt with him in his trade , bought silver boxes for hallowed oyl , and other knacks of him ; and once sold him a consecrated chalice , by the same token he would not let the witness touch it , till he had broken off a piece of it , lest the sacred vessel should be prophaned whilst it was intire , by a lay-mans handling . henry starkey was a lusty ancient gentleman , with but one leg , the other being lost , as he alleadged , in the kings service in the late civil wars . though the witnesses named several places where they had heard him say mass , he stiffly denyed it , and made solemn imprecations that he was never at such places in his life . alexander lumsdell was a fryar , and predicator-general of his order . he was proved as plain as the rest , to be a priest ; but by his voice and affirmation it appearing probable that he was a scotchman , and born , as he said , at aberdeen , it seemed a point of difficulty to the court , whether he should come within those words of the statute , born within the queens dominions , since at that time scotland was under another monarch : and therefore it was thought fit to direct the jury to a special verdict . so that without sentence , he must remain so convict till the judges shall have determined the matter . their defence in general appeared rather crafty than solid , allowing themselves a liberty of denying the most apparent truths ; the main plea of them all being , that they were not proved priests , because none of the evidence were by when they received orders ; but as to that the court resolved them , that it was enough that they had exercised those pretended sacred offices , which none but priests in their church are allowed to perform : for otherwise the statute were vain , and its force wholly eluded ; besides , some had confessed themselves priests , and the orders of one had been seen by one of the witnesses . then they all lay at catch about circumstances of time and place , wherein it was morally impossible that the evidence should be positive ; or if they could have been so , the prisoners would have had some of their own gang that , to serve their turns , should have alleadged they were then at other places . to this purpose one of them produced two young lads that affirmed very roundly , that the prisoner was from christmas 1677 , till hollantide next , at such a place in the country ; that they saw him every day , because he constantly dined at their house : yet one of these ill-tutor'd youths that could name the year of our lord so readily , being askt how many years ago this was , could not tell ; so that the juggling was apparent . being further askt , whether they were sure they dined every day , and particularly on ash-wednesday and good-friday , they answered affirmatively , though 't is well known no such thing is usual with papists . they were very frequent in appeals to heaven , and pawning their salvation at random , on trivial circumstances , and things no way credible , their main designe being to scandalize the evidence . the jury , after about a quarter of an hours withdrawment , brought them in guilty : and thereupon the six before-mentioned being severally asked , what they had to offer why sentence should not pass ; anderson and starkey pleaded their former loyalty and services to the king , which mr. recorder promised to relate to his majesty . marshal with a multitude of words cited the lord cook , to prove priesthood in itself no crime ; but was shewn by the court the impertinency of that argument . he likewise insisted on the kings declaration for liberty of conscience ; but was answered , that of whatever force the same was , yet it was never meant to extend to popish priests . thus after a full and fair hearing , mr. recorder in a grave and excellent discourse proceeded to pass the sentence , usual in cases of high-treason . these were the heads of this days transaction ; which for the present may satisfie people of the just and equal proceedings of the court. but for all particulars , we understand the whole tryals , exactly taken , will be made publicque by authority , to which the more curious are referred . finis . the information of thomas dangerfield, gent. delivered at the bar of the hovse of commons, tuesday the twentieth day of october in the year of our lord 1680 / perused and signed to be printed according to the order of the house of commons by me william williams ... dangerfield, thomas, 1650?-1685. 1680 approx. 17 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 8 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a36304 wing d187 estc r6224 13222123 ocm 13222123 98540 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a36304) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 98540) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 451:13) the information of thomas dangerfield, gent. delivered at the bar of the hovse of commons, tuesday the twentieth day of october in the year of our lord 1680 / perused and signed to be printed according to the order of the house of commons by me william williams ... dangerfield, thomas, 1650?-1685. williams, william, sir, 1634-1700. england and wales. parliament. house of commons. 15 p. printed by the assigns of john bill, thomas newcomb, and henry hills ..., london : 1680. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678 -sources. great britain -history -sources. 2006-09 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-09 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-11 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2006-11 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i appoint thomas newcomb , and henry hills , to print this information , according to the order of the house of commons ; and that no other person presume to print the same . novemb. 10 th . 1680. wi. williams , speaker . the information of thomas dangerfield , gent. delivered at the bar of the hovse of commons , tuesday the twentieth day of october , in the year of our lord 1680. perused and signed to be printed , according to the order of the house of commons , by me william williams , speaker . c2 r honi soit qvi mal y pense diev et mon droit london , printed by the assigns of john bill , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty , 1680. the information of thomas dangerfield gent. about the months of september or october 1679. when mrs. cellier and my self waited on the lord peterborough , to be introduced to his highness the duke of york , his lordship enquired of me , if the lady powis had given me any directions how to discourse the duke ? i replyed , she had . then he desired to know what they were . upon which i shewed his lordship a little book ; in which was contained a scheme , and the pretended discovery which i had made in the presbyterian plot. which book his lordship carefully perused , and finding some omission therein , he ordered me to write , while his lordship did dictate to me these words , viz. that the presbyterian party intended to make an insurrection in the north , and so to joyn with an army of the scots . immediately after this his lordship took us into the dukes closet ( at whitehall ) where we both kissed his hand : and me he took from the ground ( for i was kneeling . ) then i gave his highness the aforementioned little book , which he after some short perusal thereof , thanked me for : and also for my diligence in the catholick cause : did advise me to go on , and wished good success to all my undertakings : adding in these very words , viz. that the presbyterian plot was a thing of most mighty consequence , and if well managed , would be very conducible to the safety of the catholick cause : and i do not question but the effects of it will answer our expectation , especially in the northern parts : where i am well assured the major part of the gentry are my friends , and have given sufficient demonstration of their affections to me , as also of their intentions to prosecute this presbyterian plot to the utmost ; for they are no strangers to the design . immediately after this his highness ordered that mrs. cellier and my self ( in the hearing of the lord peterborough , who was privy to the whole discourse ) to be very careful of what we communicated to the persons who were to be the witnesses in that new plot , lest we should be caught in the subornation , and so bring a ●errible odium upon the catholicks , and make our selves uncapable of any further service . after this the duke informed us , that in a month or two's time the commissions would be ready : but ordered us in the mean time to bring our part to bear with the commissions : and particularly ordered me to find out some persons ( as there was enough such among the catholicks , as well as elsewhere ) which were fit to be trusted , and that should accept of such commissions , which should be delivered them by a person appointed for that purpose , but not to be known to them to be any other but a presbyterian : so that when occasion should require , they might , together with those which we then had , be ready to swear in the plot , and that the presbyterians were raising forces against the king and government , and had given out commissions to that purpose . and in order to this , i did in some short time after , procure one bedford , curtice , grey , hill , hopkins , and others , to accept of such commissions , when they should be ready : whose business in the mean time was , to spread reports in the coffee-houses , that the popish plot was a contrivance of the presbyterians , &c. now for our encouragement in the prosecution of that sham-plot , the duke promised that he would take care that money should not be wanting : but ordered us to use all the expedition the thing would allow , to make a discovery thereof to the king. after which the duke said , the catholick party would be eased of the charge , in regard he was sure it would be defrayed some other way . then the duke made divers vows , and bitter execrations , to stand by us in the thing : and engaged on his honour to be our rewarder . adding , that such considerable services were not to be slighted : and further promised , that to whose lot soever it should happen to be imprisoned , according to their fidelity and stedfastness in the cause , so much the more should their reward be augmented : and that all care possible should be used to support and preserve them : but particularly desiring me to keep up to the couragious and active character which his highness had heard of me . all which i promised to do . whereupon we withdrew to the lord peterboroughs lodging , where we continued till his lordship had introduced sir robert peyton to the duke . which being done , his lordship left them together , as he said , and came to us : where among other discourse his lordship told me , i had a great opportunity to make my fortune what i would my self , if i would but follow the advice of his master the duke of york , who , as 〈◊〉 lordship said , would certainly be my king in a very short time . adding , that i must be resolute in my undertakings : for , said he , the duke much affects resolution , but hates mortally the timorous man. then i answered his lordship , that i valued not my life , provided , to lose it would be serviceable to the duke's interest . at which expression he seemed fully satisfied ; and from that time called me captain willoughby : and at our coming away , his lordship gave particular order to his servants , that at what time soever , day , or night , either mrs. cellier , or my self , should come to speak with his lordship , we should be forthwith admitted . and then we parted . some short time after , i went to wait on his lordship from the lady powis , at midnight , to desire him to move the duke , to get me with all expedition to the king : for then i was ready . about four days after this , his lordship sent for me , and took me to the duke again ( who was in his closet at whitehall ) and the duke told me , i must prepare my self to wait on the king , to give his majesty a more particular account of the presbyterian plot than what the little book made mention of , ( which book , the duke said , he had given to the king ) and that he had so ordered the matter , that i should be furnished with money , to enable me in the prosecution thereof . but his highness charged me to consider well my story , before i waited on the king. then the duke told me , i had gained , by my diligence , a good reputation among the catholicks , and that i should highly merit by my services to that cause : adding , that i should in a short time see the catholick religion flourish in these kingdoms ; and heresie torn up by the roots : and that he had heard of the proposal which had been made me by the lords , powis , and arundel , about taking off the king , and of my refusal ; as also of what i had accepted , touching my lord shaftsbury , and of all my transactions in the presbyterian plot : saying in these very words , viz. if you value the religion you profess , my interest , ( as you say you do ) and your own future happiness , take my advice , and depend upon my honour and interest for your advancement : for , sir , you look like a man of courage and wit : therefore less discourse may serve with you than another : so that if you will but move by the measures which i will give you , you shall not only escape with safety , but be rewarded according to the greatness of your actions . to all this i replied , i would stand and fall in the defence of the roman catholick religion , and his highness service ; and was not a little concerned for my refusing to kill the king , whom i was then well satisfied by my ghostly father , stood condemned as an heretick . but this i did offer , that if his highness would command me to the attempt , i would not fail either to accomplish it , or lose my life . upon which the duke gave me twenty guineys , and said , if i would be but vigorous in what i had undertaken already , he would so order it , that my life should not be in the least danger : adding in these words , viz. we are not to have men taken in such daring actions , but to have them make an effectual dispatch , and be gone . upon which i took my leave . some short time after this , when i was ready to convey the letters into colonel mansel's chamber , i went to the lord peterborough , who brought me to the duke , to whom i told , how i was ready to fix the letters in the colonel's chamber . to which his highness answered , i must make haste , that i might be impowered to make a general search of the like nature . for , said the duke in these words , viz. since i saw you last , the lady powis has informed me , that there are abundance of letters and witnesses ready : so that 't is now high time to begin . by this time there was some great man come to wait on the duke , so i withdrew . about four days after this , when i had been pressing earnestly with mr. secretary coventry , for a warrant , and could not prevail , i went to the lord peterborough's , and did desire his lordship to make application to the duke , to use some means for a warrant . to which his lordship answered ; 't was my fault there was not a warrant granted , and that the duke was sensible of my neglec●ing to make an affidavit . so that now he did b●●in to doubt my courage . thomas dangerfield . in and about the months of june , july or august 1679 , the countess of powis sent me with a letter to the lord privy seal , who was then at his lordships house in kensington : but the contents of the letter i remember not , more than that it was to pray some favour in the behalf of one anderson alias munson , a priest , and then in the kings bench , and was reported to know something of the plot. which papers contained matter of fact , drawn up to render strouds testimony invalid , in case he should make any discovery . and by my ladies order i was to pray his lordship to take the papers : so that if stroud should be sent for on examination before the council , that his lordship would produce them to stop his evidence : which his lordship promised to do . but stroud was not sent for , and so the papers were of no use : but i suppose they may still remain with his lordship . at the same time i did , by order from the lady powis , inform his lordship , that the presbyterian plot would be ready for discovery in a months time . to which his lordship answered , that i should tell the lady powis , he was of opinion that a month would be too soon , in regard things then moved with too much violence , for such an affair to have any success . so i took my leave . some short time after i went , by the lord powis's order , with another letter to his lordship ; the contents of which i never knew : but was ordered to acquaint his lordship , that the presbyterian plot still went on , and that we had divers letters and witnesses ready , to lay open the matter , when it should be thought fit . to which his lordship answered , he feared the lords in the tower were too vigorous in that design : but promised , when the rigorous prosecution against the catholicks were somewhat abated , he did intend to move it to the king and council . adding , that if things of that nature were but well timed , they could not fail of success . so i took my leave . some time after , mistress cellier and my self went to wait on his lordship at kensington ; where we both had admittance . then 't was mistress cellier , in my hearing , informed his lordship , that she came in the name of her great master ( the duke of york ) and at the most earnest request of the lords in the tower , to pray his lordship to use some means , that the proceedings against the catholicks might be more easie , and that the presbyterian plot might be discovered . then his lordship desired her to let the lords in the tower know , that he was not idle in the considering their safety : for , added his lordship , in these words , i have my self discoursed lately with all the great ministers of our party , and my lord peterborough has done the same , and we both find there is favour intended : but we must wait the time : for things of that nature must be moved gently , or the whole royal party may be destroyed at once , for there are many eyes upon us . then mistress cellier informed his lordship , that sir george wakemans trial had broken the ice , and of the great difficulty there was in prevailing with the lord c. j. to come over : and also of the meeting that was between the lady powis and the lord c. j. to which his lordship replied , that the lord c. j. had taken more time to consider of his part , than five other far greater men had done ( who they were i know not ) and that his lordship was forc'd to shew the lord c. j. the duke of yorks letter , before he would believe any thing . nay , said his lorship , notwithstanding this i was forc'd to get a particular letter sent him from the duke , before he would make any promise . truly , madam , said his lordship , 't is no small pains i take to serve the duke , and their lordships , and that you may assure them . then mistress cellier acquainted his lordship , that dugdale was come about , and intended to throw himself at the dukes feet , with a recantation of all that he had sworn in the plot. and , said she , i am in the name of the lords , to pray your lordship he may be secured in your house , as being a place more proper than any other . to this his lordship answered , he was glad to hear of mr. dugdale's ingenuity in that affair , and did assure mrs. cellier , that dugdale should be entertained in his housse , and that his lordship's priest should be his companion : so that it should be impossible for him to do any more mischief . but his lordship desired she would tell the lords , they must use all the means imaginable to get him sent beyond sea , left a too strict enquiry should be made after him . to which mrs. cellier replied thus ; my lord , we do not intend he shall stay in your lordship's house above nine or ten days : for though he must do us service by a general recantation , yet we can never think him safe , till we have got him into the inquisition : for such persons are to be encouraged , not trusted . so upon this his lordship sent a compliment to the lords in the tower , and so we came away . thomas dangerfield . jurat vicesimo die octobris , 1680. coram nobis will. roberts . will. pulteney . finis . mr. smyth's discovery of the popish sham-plot in ireland, contrived to correspond with their sham-plot in england by which it appears that it has been the joynt design of the papists in both kingdoms, to make people believe their real plot to be a sham-plot, and their sham-plot a real plot : necessary for the information of all his majesties protestant subjects. smith, william, 17th cent. 1681 approx. 12 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-12 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a51030 wing m2275 estc r16472 13033160 ocm 13033160 96788 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a51030) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 96788) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 745:18) mr. smyth's discovery of the popish sham-plot in ireland, contrived to correspond with their sham-plot in england by which it appears that it has been the joynt design of the papists in both kingdoms, to make people believe their real plot to be a sham-plot, and their sham-plot a real plot : necessary for the information of all his majesties protestant subjects. smith, william, 17th cent. 4 p. printed for r. baldwin, [london : 1681] signed at end: william smyth. caption title. imprint from colophon. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2005-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-07 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-08 jonathan blaney sampled and proofread 2005-08 jonathan blaney text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion mr. smyth's discovery of the popish sham-plot in ireland , contrived to correspond with their sham-plot in england . by which it appears , that it has been the joynt design of the papists in both kingdoms , to make people believe their real plot to be a sham-plot , and their sham-plot a real plot. necessary for the information of all his majesties protestant subjects . the discourse that past between one father st. laurence and william smyth , gent , at the said smyth's chamber , on or about the 7th day of july , 1681. in the kings-arms marshalsea , in dublin , viz , after many discourses between him and me , in which he seemed to be compassionately concerned for my having been a prisoner so long ( which i told him was nigh four years both in waterford and here , ) he adding ; said , he much lamented my misfortunes , by reason that my face promised that i was no ordinary person , and that there could be no greater torment in the world than for a generous soul to be debarred of liberty , and pent up in a close , stincking and loathsome confinement . he went on , saying , i would soon procure you as much money as will set you at liberty and put you in a good equipage , if you will condescend to some things to be by me proposed ; in answer whereunto , i said i should willingly embrace the offer , provided it was both legal and possible ; and so bad him continue his discourse , who replyed , you must first take an oath of secrecy , it being a matter of weight and consequence , and without which he durst not acquaint me with it . after a short pause , i imagined by his preceding discourse that it might be some grand design he had to inform me of , whereupon seeing me at a stand , he then said , you seem to be scrupulous of what i endeavour for your enlargement ; but be assured , if you will be rul'd by me , you are and shall be a happy man ; and so he drew out of his pocket a small bible or testament , and administred to me this following oath , viz. i conjure you by our lord and saviour jesus christ , by his bitter death and passion , by the blessed virgin mary , and all the blessed and holy saints and angels , by the holy mother the church , by this sacred scripture , and as you hope for salvation , if you do not act what i shall by and by tell you , at least that you keep it concealed during life without any equivocation , dissimulation , or mental reservation , so help you god and all his holy saints . amen . after this he said you cannot but be sensible that the church of rome is the only catholick , apostolick , and unfeigned church , and the pope , being god's vicegerent on earth , hath power to pardon and forgive all sinners that are members of the said church , be their sins never so great and heinous ; i question not but you believe all this , and that there is not , nay cannot be any salvation for any one but such as die in the roman-catholick faith , therefore consequently whoever believes any other than what is allowed by the said church are not only heriticks but damned to the pit of hell , as being the just reward of their demerits ; for as there is but one god so there is but one church of which the pope is christ on earth . now to swear any thing against any of those hereticks for the catholick good is to do god service , and that oath being taken upon a protestant bible needs no scruple of conscience nor inward remorse , it being all one as to swear on an aesop's fables . besides , what you swear in the behalf of the catholicks ( especially in these times ) though never so false , yet by a power from the pope to every priest in orders is fully , clearly and absolutely pardoned and forgiven by their absolution , after confession to any such priest. now what i would have you to do , and whereby you shall obtain your liberty , is as followeth . in primis , you must swear that several heretical ministers , viz. one parson jack and dr. harrison , since your being in prison here in dublin , came to you and offered to pay your debts , and support you with money to carry on your designs , if you would make affidavit as follows , and that they brought it to you in writing , and caused you to copy it out , and took the original along with them ( the words ) that there was a popish plot , and that they desired you to swear that some priests and others ( naming any one that you know ) told you that the duke of york was so far concerned in the plot as that he sided with the pope and french king , to introduce the french to invade the kingdoms of england and ireland , and to put the king to death , and to murder all protestants in his majesties dominions , and to bring in the popish religion ; and that they , the said hereticks , should farther require you to say , that you have divers times heard papists declare that they would bring it about to be a presbyterian plot , and so subborn witnesses against the earl of shaftsbury first , and then against the duke monmouth and divers other protestants , and bring their heads to the block . he farther said , that the king would easily believe this information , by reason he would gladly have any occasion to destroy them , as being the people that murdered his father . also he said , you must swear that the said ministers , viz. jack and dr. harris , or harrison , called his majesty papist , that he designed the distruction of his subjects , and to establish the popish religion in his dominions , and that they plainly perceived his intention was to bring his said : subjects under a tyrannical government , and that they and the rest of their brethren intended e're this time to have had him ( meaning the king ) in their power , and to have disposed of him at their pleasure , nay to have made him shorter by the head , if he had not condescended to all their designs ; but failing in their designs were resolved to spend their lives and fortunes to make it out a popish plot , by which ( said the above father ) we will make the world believe there was no popish plot but a presbyterian plot , and they will be utterly confounded , and we cleared , and all presbyterians and other like dissenters , be accused not only of the said plot , but be reputed guilty of all the blood that hath been spilt . if you will undertake this , you need not doubt but that you shall have the prayers of the catholick church to prosper you ; and besides other witnesses shall be procured to second this your information without any show or colour of suspicion , if by gold and silver they may be obtained . further , said he , the catholick lords in the tower have already given large sums of money , to subborn witnesses against the earl of shaftsbury ; forty will appear against him , and see how it is likely to go with him ; and you will be assisted beyond expectation ; for we are all resolved to make it a presbyterian plot ; and it is as easie for you to carry on this business , as it is for you to say the pater-noster . so i told him i did not know the above parson jack or dr. harris , or harrison . then quoth he , you must write to them , and in your letters say , that you have been a leud and wicked sinner , and that you have been a long time out of the way , and now , god touching you with an inward remorse of conscience , you desire them to come to you for christ jesus sake , to administer some spiritual comfort to you , and you 'l be sure to have them come to you , they being the notedst of their function , where they are : and after they have been with you , and been seen with you by others in this house , it is enough for this business , and will turn to the ruin of themselves , and many thousands of them , whose blood i hope to live to see spilt by the hands of the catholicks ; and i am certain , in three years time , things will be so effectually done , that there will not be a protestant living in england or ireland . after you have made this affidavit to the king and council , there shall be a large allowance , during your life , given you ; for the pope , jesuits , and our clergy will contribute largely to any one that will prove so faithful , as to prosecute any thing in the like kind ; and for your part , you will meet with no opposition , but be credited , you being an english-man , and none in england knowing you to be a catholick , wich you must always deny , and you will be dispensed with for your so doing . moreover he would now take his leave , and leave me to consider of it , and that he expected i would give him an absolute answer the next morning , but i desired seven days time , which with much ado he consented to , putting me in mind , for my souls sake , not to reveal it , if i would not do it ; but said he , if you wll do it at the seven days end , after you have confessed and received the holy sacrament of christ , to be true and just in this affair , you shall know from me more at large , and be at liberty , and have money and cloaths like a gentleman : so he made a short extempore prayer , exhorting me to a true performance , adding , how dangerous it would be for me to prove false , and so went away . but coming at the seven days end , i told him my conscience could not do it : well , said he , ( after a deep sigh ) you are damned to eternity if you disclose it ( which indeed i promised not to do ) then he told me that they must get some other , for they had enough to do it at their command , and taking his leave , he bad me to send to him for any thing i wanted , and i should have it freely . i do acknowledge all this to be an unfeigned truth , and that i never saw or heard from the said jack or dr. harris , alias harrison , all my life long , but when i had spoken to one of my fellow prisoners , of this business , one captain page being told of it , came to me , desiring this relation : but i never saw them ; yet it is true , i cannot be positive in the day of the month , but god knows it is exact , as near as i can call to mind : and i declare to the world , there is nothing causes me to do this but a good conscience , and to make known the obscure and villainous crimes of the papists . and for the testimony of the truth and satisfaction of the world , i hereunto set my hand and seal ; this 14th day of september , anno dom. 1681. william smyth . francis cook , george harrison , daniel blackmore , john page , witnesses . elizabeth , the wife of john welton , cordwainer , brought the above-named father st. laurence to me . this plot was contrived in the kings-arms prison , in dublin , by father st. laurence , an irish secular priest , and one william smyth , an english-man , but a roman catholick , then prisoner there , about the month of july , 1681. the lord primate and council have this information before them , and have examined the priest , and committed him to safe custody , the 17th of september , 1681. finis . london , printed for r. baldwin , 1681. the confession of edward fitz-harys, esquire written with his own hand, and delivered to doctor hawkins minister of the tower, the f[i]rst of july, 1681 ; being the day of his execution ; together with his last speech. fitzharris, edward, 1648?-1681. 1681 approx. 13 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 4 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a39602 wing f1092 estc r5611 12901330 ocm 12901330 95254 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a39602) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 95254) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 982:7) the confession of edward fitz-harys, esquire written with his own hand, and delivered to doctor hawkins minister of the tower, the f[i]rst of july, 1681 ; being the day of his execution ; together with his last speech. fitzharris, edward, 1648?-1681. 6 p. printed for s. carr, london : 1681. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2006-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-12 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-02 robyn anspach sampled and proofread 2007-02 robyn anspach text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the confession of edward fitz-harys , esquire , written with his own hand , and delivered to doctor hawkins minister of the tower , the first of july , 1681. being the day of his execution . together with his last speech . london , printed for s. carr. 1681. the confession of edward fitz-harys esq . i edward fitz-harys , having been indicted of high treason , for endeavouring to dethrone the king , was thereupon found guilty , and sentence of death passed upon me . i the aforesaid edward fitz-harys do voluntarily and freely , without any hopes to save my life , but as a dying man , and to discharge my conscience towards god , and for the better satisfaction of the world , make this declaration following , in the presence of god , and unto doctor francis hawkins , chaplain of the tower of london . i do profess and declare my religion in the general to be that which hath been truly and anciently delivered in the first four general councils ; and in particular , my belief is that true faith of a christian briefly contained in those three creeds commonly called the apostles creed , st. athanasius's , and the nicene creeds : and i die a member , and in the communion of christ's holy catholick church , hoping for mercy through the alone merits of the passion of our lord and saviour jesus christ . i do also confess and declare , as to the crimes which i die for , i was no further concerned in the libel , than as employed to give the king notice of what libels or other accusations there were against him ; and to this intent and no other i endeavoured to get this libel , which at length i did , from mr. everard ▪ all written under his own hand , and carried it to mrs. wall , by whose means i conveyed all matters of this or the like nature to the king. i told her i had a business of great consequence to acquaint the king with : but she answered me , that my lord sunderland being out , there would be no money had for secret service , and advised me to go to the lord clarendon or hyde : but before i could do this , i was taken . as for that part of the libel which i left with everard , as a pledge to assure him i would not betray him , i received it of the lord howard : and the money i received from the king , was for bringing a libel called the king vnvail'd , and the lady portsmouths articles . i call god to witness , i never had a farthing charity from the king. i do further confess and declare , that the lord howard told me of a design to seize upon the king's person , and to carry him into the city , and there detain him till he had condescended to their desires . heyns and my self were privy to this design , and had several meetings with the lord howard ; and as an encouragement , the lord howard assured us of breaking the settlement of ireland , taking of the additional revenue of the bishops , forty nine men , and grantees , whose estates were to be shar'd amongst the party . i do confess and declare , that while i was in newgate , the sheriffs , bethel and cornish , came to me , with a token from the lord howard , which i knew to be true , and brought heads with them from everard , wherein he accused me of being a court emissary , or yorkist , put on by the king to put the libel into protestants houses , to trepan them . but i declare upon my death i had no such intent , nor do i know any such thing : the sheriffs likewise told me i was to be tryed within three or four days , that the people would prosecute me , and the parliament would impeach me , and that nothing would save my life but discovering the popish plot ; and then the sheriffs aforesaid gave me great encouragement from my lord howard , that if i would declare that i believed so much of the plot as amounted to the introducing the r. c. or if i could find out any that could criminate the queen , r. h. or make so much as a plausible story to confirm the plot , that the parliament would restore me to my fathers estate , with the profits thereof since his majesties restauration . i finding my self in the condition i was , in newgate , fettered , moneyless and friendless , my wife ready to lye-in without any subsistence , my children in a miserable condition , and must needs be in a worse by my death , and i could see no other refuge for life but complying with them , so , not with ambitious intent , but to save my life , i did comply : the sheriffs brought instructions which they said came from the lords and commons , who met that day in order to address to the king in my behalf , if i should confirm the instructions ; and they made use of the lord shaftsbury's name , and others , what advantage i might have thereby . at the first i made a formal story concerning the plot , which was not prejudicial to any body , but most relating to general heads known publickly ; upon which mr. cornish told me , these were things cryed about the streets two years ago : i replyed , i could say no more : mr. sheriff said , he was sorry for me with all his heart , but thought i could say more if i would , and pressed me hard to speak to several heads , unto which unless i spoke , he said , there was no hopes of life ; the heads i was to speak to is what the examination taken by sir robert clayton and sir george treby contains , and a great deal more that i did not say then , relating to the queen , r. h. earl of danby , declaring french pensioners , lords , hallifax , hyde , clarendon , feversham , seymer , and others ; the burning the fleet , forts and governments in popish hands , meal-tub plot , prentices plot , the contrivance of the libel on the lady portsmouth , being a french design to destroy protestants : these and many other heads were brought me by the sheriffs . i do farther confess and declare , that sir robert clayton and sir george treby coming to me to examine me , sir robert clayton asked me what i could say concerning godfrey's murder ? i answered , something . he replied , it may be i was in a confusion ; recollect your self . and what i said concerning father patrick , was forced out of me ; and what i said concerning him is not true . sir george treby was with me three hours , or thereabouts , and pressed to say concerning godfrey's death , and said , unless i could speak to that murder , i could say nothing ; whereupon , i said something i had from others . he asked me if i could say no more ? i replied , is not this enough to save my life ? am i not rogue enough ? the recorder hereupon swore gods wounds , what were you ever but a rogue ? then the recorder entred upon the heads of the examination ; which being done , he told me , all this would not save my life , unless i would speak to the libel , which was a court-trick ; and it was not for nothing that i had been so often seen at the lady portsmouth's . the lord shaftsbury said , you know more of these matters than any man. sir george would have me speak to the consult ; that the duke was at it , the lords , belasis , arundel and powis were at it ; you have seen them go to it at st. james's ; without doubt they were there ; do you but say it , we have those that will swear it . i do further declare and confess , that what i said against the queen and the duke , i was put upon , in the matter of sir edmundbury godfrey's murder ; and do further declare , that what i swore against the earl of danby ; the threatning words that were uttered i did ( to the best of my remembrance ) hear , but whom they concern'd i could not well know , by what my lord himself said . and what de puis told me concerning my lord of danby , i do believe was spoken out of ill will ; and what i said against him , was to stave off my try●● till a parliament ; and they were the more desirous to accuse the lord danby of godfrey's murder , because the crime of murder is not incerted in his pardon i am sorry for what i said against the queen , his royal highness , and the earl of danby ; i desire god to forgive me the wrong i did them , and do heartily beg their pardon . i do further declare and protest , that this confession and declaration of mine i own sincerely , as a dying man , and not to save my life ; and i call god and all his angels to witness the truth of it ; and i renounce mercy at the hands of god almighty , if this be not true . and i do further declare and protest , as a dying man , unto james walmesly , edward pattel and mary walmesly , that i have made this confession and declaration unto doctor hawkins , freely , and of my own voluntary accord , without any manner of promise made , or hopes given me by him from the king of saving my life by this confession ; i having given him to understand beforehand they were matters of consequence , and such as chiefly concern●d the good of the king and kingdom . i give the doctor my hearty thanks for all his prayers , counsel and charitable offices he hath done me , and i pray god to bless him for ever for it . i forgive all the world , and desire all the world to forgive me ; and the lord have mercy on my soul. edward fitz-harys . this protestation was made by mr. fitz-harys , july 1. between the hours of 7 and 8 in the morning , in the presence and hearing of us whose names are hereunder-written . james walmesly . edward pattel . mary walmesly . i do hereby declare , that mr. fitz-harys , before he began to write any part of this narrative , was , more than once , assured by me that there was no hope of his life , whatever he should say ; nor of his salvation , if he should say any thing that he knew to be false : of which he being throughly sensible , and perfectly convinced , proceeded to write the narrative aforesaid . and i continuing to admonish him upon every point that was material , not to say any thing but what was exactly true , he took occasion , at several periods of his narrative , to kneel down , and solemnly to protest the truth of every word therein contained . and this i do again declare upon the faith of a christian , and the word of a minister of the gospel . francis hawkins . mr. fitz-harys's speech at his execution , at tyburn , july 1. 1681. good people , this infamous kind of death is much wore irksom to me , than death it self : such a judgment as this my sins against god may justly bring upon me , and i do most humbly submit unto it . but as to the crimes which i now die for , i take god to witness , i was no further concerned in the libel , than to discover to the king what practises of that kind were against him , being employed or that end , though those that employed me refused to do me justice at my tryal . and i call god to witness , i never had a farthing of money of the king in my life , but on the account of the like service . and as to the witnesses that have sworn against me , i do here solemnly declare , now at my death , that i have not french ambassador since the beginning of the breaking out of the plot , neither have i had any acquaintance with him . and as to his confessor , i never spoke with him in my life ; neither have i had any dealing , either directly or indirectly , in my life with them , though sir william waller and the rest swore most falsly to the contrary . and how like it is that the french ambassador would give three thousand crowns for writing that libel , i leave the world to judge . what i might further declare , i have left with doctor hawkins . i forgive all the world , and do hope that god will forgive me . i beg the prayers of all good people for a happy passage into the other world. edw. fitz-harys . a brief answer to mr. l'estrange, his appeal 1680 approx. 38 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 4 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a69629 wing b4543 estc r18986 10624231 ocm 10624231 45435 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a69629) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 45435) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 731:32 or 1399:9) a brief answer to mr. l'estrange, his appeal blount, charles, 1654-1693. appeal from the country to the city. 7 p. printed for t. davis, london : 1680. caption title. imprint from colophon. charles blount wrote an appeal from the country to the city. this item can be found at reels 731:32 and 1399:9. reproduction of originals in the harvard university library and huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng l'estrange, roger, -sir, 1616-1704. -answer to the appeal from the country to the city. popish plot, 1678. 2006-06 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-07 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-10 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2006-10 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a brief answer to mr. l'estrange his appeal . every body that carries his eyes in his head , and hath but an ordinary reason and understanding , may see through this fine spun appeal of mr. l'estrange ; it is plain enough , that having rendred himself obnoxious not only to particular persons and parties of a nation , but to the government , and the peace and quiet thereof , by his wicked and malicious pen , he would , now , fearing to be called to justice for the same , endeavour by this his last appeal , to palliate his crimes and hide his knavery , with this cloak of seeming honesty . but at the same time , for all his justification in words , he takes a wiser course , in slipping out of the way to avoid justice , and flies from those very persons to whom he appeals , the king and the 3 estates . as this very act shews him not so very innocent as he would make the world believe , or that he little confides in the justice and integrity of those to whom he had appealed , so it might sufficiently serve for answer of his appeal to all the world. however , since the gentleman has been ever very free of his pen , and medling where it little became him , he may expect that some who have as little to do as himself , will also find time to return answer to his scribling , and in a far better cause , endeavour to unblind the eyes of the people , which may be easily done , and in a very few words , in a case so plain and easie : for truly mr. l' . e. uses nothing but sophistry , and tho' he believes he writes well himself , every body else is not of that opinion , but considering the badness of his cause , we may give him allowance . in this his appeal , this gentleman thinks , or at least would have others believe , that he had justify'd himself by shewing you sufficient proofs of his loyalty and innocency , brought out of his own printed writings , and that way hopes he has stop'd the mouths of all his gain-sayers , and rendred himself innocent and clear of all those accusations laid against him ; but should we grant all those proofs he has brought out of his printed pamphlets , to be true in terminis , it is not for any of his good deeds or good words that he is accused , but for the many wicked and scurrilous , and indeed most horrid and pernicious abuses , he has put upon most part of the nation , and truly on all that love not to see their nation inslaved , nor the protestant religion subverted : it is now plain enough of what party and faction he has been , and for what end he has made all this stir and pudder with his writings ; hoping to blind the eyes of the people , and under the colour of a protestant , set protestants together by the ears , to advance popery . it shall not be my work at present , to make roger sight with l'estrange , and to turn over all his impertinent scribbles , to shew you how contradictory the whole scope of his writings are to those shreds and parcels he has pick'd out to justify himself withal . i have something else to do , and it would swell this beyond the bulk of a pamphlet , which i intend not ; but let any one impartially read over his books , and they will finde enough , to oppose against what he hath wrote in his appeal , in his own justification , when the whole byass , and stream runs contrary : and all those six particular charges , which he has observed in his 2d page of his appeal , very sufficiently made good against him from his own words ; and would , had he staid , have found witnesses vivâ voce that would have said more . but we will descend from generals to particulars , and briefly as may be , consider the several parts of his appeal , which he has cast into 5 heads , the 1st . is the subject matter of his libellers as he calls e'm : the 2d . to vindicate himself therefrom : the 3d. the rancour of the libellers : the 4th . to shew their designs and practises upon the government ; and lastly , how much it concerns the state to protect him the assertor of their laws , rights and priviledges . this man knowing for whom he had undertaken , believed he had a publick cause in hand , and like another coleman , priding himself in his parts , believes himself a states-man , and one already advanced to the helm of government , he has link'd the security , honour and justice of the government , with his particular quarrels , intreagues and wicked abuses , and made his very apology a publick duty . alas ! that it should so much concern the king and the 3 estates , to take notice of this man , and of his appeal , and that he should vanish in a mist , that when they would grasp this honour and support of the cause , they can find nothing but air ! but notwithstanding the vanity and ostentation of this man , there is no body that can see the honour , justice and security of the nation , with what circumstances soever his case is complicated , to be at all concerned in any of his pamphlets , and much less in his appeal . this is but a taste of the vanity this self-conceited states-man , and machivillian politician would have shewn us , if once the wheel had come about , and his lord of the faction , come to be head of the kingdom . but to our business , the matter of his charge , which he has himself very well drawn up into 6 heads . 1. the ridiculing the plot. 2. countenancing the sham-plot . 3. discrediting the kings witnesses . 4. in abusing the nation under the names of cit and bumpkin . 5. in misrepresenting the late petitions and their promoters as scandalous and seditious . 6. in embroyling the kingdom by his writings . this is the charge that he finds is fixed on him , and which he very slenderly acquits himself of , by bringing some seeming proofs out of his own writings to the contrary : but his enemies , and such as he has made to be justly so , have more to charge him with than this , though this be enough , and more than he can ever clearly wipe off : but as i am none of his accusers , i shall not say any more as to that point , how far he has rendred himself obnoxious to justice , but only consider a little , how far he has made himself innocent , and how cleverly he has wiped his mouth , and looks demurely and full of loyalty , after he has rendred himself odious to a nation , by his calumnies and abuses . in the first place , he brings you , as he calls them , the undeniable evidences of his own papers , which testifie his opinion of the plot ; and here he would have you to believe , that he could not turn the plot into ridicule , because he believ'd it , a very fine way of arguing , mr. l'estrange cannot be a dishonest man , because i know him . i would be loath to stretch this point too far against him , and rather think , for all his proofs , that he did not believe the plot , and that he laughed at it , as many other fools do , because they are blind , and led away by the nose by jesuitical cunning , and so think there is no such thing . we know , that none knows better that there has been a plot , and an horrid plot and conspiracy against the kings life and government , than the jesuits and several of the papists , and yet who i pray is there that more laughs at a plot than they ? who more hard to believe any such thing ? who more ready to turn it into ridicule ? to lampoon it , and to write against it ? therefore this can be no argument that you could not ridicule the plot , because you have own'd it ; and indeed it hath been too manifestly made evident that this plot was no fiction , and since you had undertaken its history , you must of necessity own the matter of fact ; and you could do no less than justify your proceedings thereon . yet in the very entrance of your narrative you are so full of it , that you cannot forbear jeering at the narratives of the plot , which were set forth for the satisfaction of the people . yet there you say , those authors should hang a table at their doors , and say , here you may have a very good narrative for threepence , a groat or sixpence a piece , or higher if you please , for we have 'em of all sorts and sizes : the only danger is of popping upon us cat and dogs flesh for venison , for take 'em one with another at the common rate of narratives , there 's hardly one in five will pass muster . then by and by we have narratives of things visible and invisible , possible and impossible , one of fact , and another of imagination ; so , by and by , he plays again with the word plot . plots of interest , plots of passion , plots to undermine governments , plots to support them , plots simple , and counter-plots , plots jesuitical , plots phanatic . and such like stuff . and then pag. 4. he plays upon dr. otes , and as one says , serenades him , but as he says himself , improving his plot , and raising a superstructure out of his own words , of a schismatical plot , and this pag. 21. he calls the transmigration of conspiracy . it would be too tedious to trace him in his own steps throughout , neither have i all his pamphlets by me , as not thinking them worth the keeping , that i might quote the particular pages , for enough of his ridicule might be gathered together , and in his cit and bumpkin , p. 11. his cit says , if we were but once at the bottom of this plot , which bumpkin is a most hideous one , and wanted matter for another . then he cunningly jibes at the belief of it , by shewing many ridiculous and impossible things imposed on the people on purpose by cit. and pag. 12. a fourth fancies two plots . now all this , and a great deal more in the sense of a great many , seems a laughing and jeering at the plot , and did lessen the esteem of it in many people that were too credulous of what mr. l'estrange writes . but it is not enough to laugh at it , and to jest and jibe with it , but the drift of the latter part of his narrative is to lessen this plot , by representing to you the several false belief of it , concerning powels being trepann'd on ship-board , and of the arms found at sir henry tuchburns , of bedingfields being dead , and yet alive ; the conspiracy of the apprentices ; the stories of the booksellers ; and the miscarriages of some forward magistrates . to what did all this tend , in the understanding of any judicious and loyal person , but to the lessening the plot ? or putting it wholly on the presbyterians , whilst a suspicion is so fiercely raised of their dangerousness to the state , and of their cunning and malicious inventions , that the plot might be forgot , or be lessened in the esteem of the people . and this truth , a few quotations of mr. l'estranges of his belief of the plot , will never blot out , nor will all honest men be so blind , as not to see he hath sufficiently , nay too too much ( for one that pretends to so much loyalty ) laugh'd at the plot , and turn'd it into ridicule . in the second place , as to shamming the plot , this is a new invented word , and asks explaining , but if i am not mistaken , it signifies belying or discrediting the plot , or making it a blind only to some other plot in hand , viz. that of the presbyterians , which he has been always so careful to remind the world of , even as he says himself , p. 6. ever since 61 , and here he quotes what he then said , and i think has as good as said nothing , for everybody that knows him is sufficiently convinced of his dear love to those people ; but still to be harping on the same string , and especially at this time , when it was so palpably known , as he himself confesses , that there was a most horrid and damnable popish plot , to murder the king , and to subvert the whole protestant religion , when all parties of the reformed church were concerned , then i say , to reap up the old gleanings , and evil miscarriages of the rump of presbyterians , concatinated with some few other sectaries , and others of desperate principles and fortunes , and at this time to put them upon the whole body of dissenters , who have hitherto shewed themselves loyal in all respects , and hate and abhor those principles he would fling upon them , and with so much earnestness , with great labour and pains almost in every pamphlet , represent these persons doing and acting the same things over again , to stir up jealousies in the king , and to make them odious to the people , and this to be as he calls it , pag. 2. the superfoetation of another plot. now let the world judge how far this gentleman agrees with that most horrid design of the jesuites and papistical party , of framing a sham-plot , in which mrs. celliers was so stirring an agent , and putting it upon the presbyterians , by which means they would have cut off the chief and most loyal of the nation , by telling the world , and endeavouring to make the world believe , that these persons whom he calls dissenters , are framing a plot , and have a plot in hand to ruine the king and the bishops , and to set up themselves and a common wealth in their stead . if this be not shamming the plot , as he calls it , i know not what is , for unless his papers had been found in the very bottom of mrs. celliers meal tub , they could not have been more like those , so evenly are they yoak'd , and draw both one way , to make the king and kingdom believe it was the presbyterians , not the papists , that were in hand of a desperate plot , and therefore he says , pag. 5. he is convinc'd there are several sham-plots contriv'd and started , where there is no colour or pretence at all , for a blind to the advancing of a fanatical design , and as he is convinc'd , so he endeavours to convince others , but what these sham-plots are , unless those of his and the jesuits framing , we are yet ignorant of . as to the third charge of endeavouring to discredit the kings witnesses , mr. l'estrange has again brought his own quotations , every one of which , rather makes good the charge , than any way excuses it , for all the world cannot but see that those civilities as he calls 'em , and complements to dr. otes , are down right jeers and scoffs , and have been ever taken so , by every one that has read or heard them , and yet this gentleman has the confidence to bring them as proofs of his innocency and civility to dr. otes , and would have all the world put out their eys , and not see the true force and meaning of those words , but according to his false glosses . and for what reason is he an enemie to dr. otes , but because he is one of the kings witnesses ? and one of his chief witnesses ? and by discrediting his person , and making him ridiculous , or of small esteem with the people , that he may that way lessen the esteem of the plot ? pag. 7. they are wonderful things which the doctor has done already , and am perswaded he is yet reserved for more wonderful things to come , when truth shall deliver her self from the rubbish of oppression and slander , and in despight of envy and imposture , render his name as famous to posterity , as his virtue has made it to the present generation . and this he says he writes with little less than the genius of a prophet . this may be true , though not as he intended , and may be a prophesie , tho' he to himself may be a false prophet . but this though palpably a jeer , he calls a panegyrick , and that you may take notice of his meaning , and as if there were emphasis , or something more than ordinary in the words , wonderful , things to come , truth , oppression , slander , envy , imposture , name , posterity and virtue , they are all put in a different character , that you might observe the force of his most ingenious complement , that like janus looks two ways at once . the rest of his quotations are much after the same nature , and how gladly he traces the doctor , as he calls it , in making it plain that the jesuits and the schismaticks in the late rebellion , went hand in hand in dethroning and murthering our late sovereign . who was it but you that found out the conspiracy it self ? and then the conspirators , & c ? thus would he also fix it on dr. otes , to be an author of accusing the presbyterians to have a plot in hand , because he had said that the jesuites formerly , in the shapes and disguises of presbyterians and other sectaries , were a great means of promoting and of fomenting the late rebellion , therefore mark his conclusions by dr. otes , his own testimony , they are so still ; this is to do honour to the dr. as he calls it , yea more than ever any did him , except the person that first called him the saviour of the nation . the fourth charge , that he abuses the nation under the names of cit and bumpkin . and here mr. l'estrange takes the pains to quote his own characters of them , that they represent a couple of rascals , and not lords , citizens or commons , &c. but i suppose the disgust was not so much at the names of cit and bumpkin , as at the matter cit and bumpkin discours'd of , and how far that book has disgusted and offended the sober and good people , hath been already manifested by the several answers has been wrote to it , though mr. l'estrange will tell you that all was to no purpose . yet all that read his dialogues both first and second part of them , will confess that he has not only been severe upon the presbyterians , but has abused almost all that are not like himself , driving on a faction , though of the church of england , and no dissenters , except from the romish church . he would perswade the world that he wrote those dialogues of cit and bumpkin , in answer to the virulent appeal , which gave a direct encouragement to a rebellion , but to help it forward , he takes a course to irritate the presbyterians , by making them worse than the papists , and favourers of the appellants principles . and after he has sufficiently abused the citizens , by his rascally and fanatical cit , he now in his appeal seeks to cajole them . but what a business he makes , what words and distinctions he flies to , what inferences he draws , and what a grammarian he shews himself in 2 or 3 whole pages to salve his cits discourse of the parliament ! and when all is done , the cloud of dust he has raised , will not put out the peoples eyes from seeing his good intentions therein : then he thought the sitting of the parliament a great way off , but now he would mince his discourse ; then was then , and now is now , it speaks too plain , his conceptions of the parliaments not being for his purpose . but there has been enough spoken of this already . as to the fifth particular , that he has scandalously represented the late petitioners and the promoters of them , he would evade also by his own self quotations . he grants petitioning lawful , if the thing be simply good petitioned for . if so , surely the calling of a parliament to ease the burthens of the people , to rectifie errors in government , and to bring offenders to justice , is simply good in it self , and therefore lawful ; and yet he tells you it belongs not to the multitude to interpose in matters of state , that is , in plain english , for the people to petition their sovereign to call a parliament , to ease their grievances , so that he grants , what in effect in the very next words he denyes . by no means , he will not hear of the peoples petitioning , it is of dangerous consequence , and he tells in many particulars , in the late times . they began with petitioning against evil counsellors and grievances , then petioned for the militia , the kings towns and forts , till they brought the king to the block . and after this manner they procoeded now again , p. 18. what think you , is not this man an abhorrer of petitioning ? and is not this a rendring the petitioners , and petitions also scandalous and odious ? then he tells us of several undue courses and practises , used in former times , therefore he says , he has good authority for apprehending the danger of popular petitions . goodman , because some have been choaked with eating plumbs , none must ever eat them hereafter . if the abuse of any thing must make the lawful use of any thing suspected or avoided , we must forsake our meat and our drink , and our garments . men must by no means intermeddle with that they have no skill in ; that is , petitioning for a parliament ? what has the people to do with that ? it is the kings business and prerogative ; why may not 20000 plow-jobbers as well subscribe a petition to the lord mayor of london , for the calling of a common council ? p. 17. a very good conclusion , because it is out of the sphear of these plow jobbers to petition the lord mayor for what they have nothing to do with , therefore the people of england have no business to petition the k●ng for the calling of a parliament to ease their burthens and to rectifie their grievances . but though it be the kings undoubted prerogative , to call and dissolve parliaments , we may now say , since the votes of this honourable house now sitting , has given us new boldness , that notwithstanding the assertions and opinions of these abhorrers , that it is the undoubted right of the people of england , humbly to petition their sovereign , when grieved , for the calling of a parliament , and to redress their grievances . but mr. l'estrange doth not abuse the late petitioners by no means ; have a care of that , he abuses no body , though he gives them never so vile terms , and renders them odious and ridiculous . cit says , p. 2. speaking of subscriptions , there was hardly a register about the town that escaped us for names , bedlam , bridewell , all the parish books , nay the very goals and hospitals , we had our agents at all publick meetings , courts , church , change , and all the schools up and down , masters underwrit for their children and servants , women for their husbands in the west indies , nay we prevail'd upon some parsons to engage for their whole congregation ? we took in jack straw , wat tyler , and the whole legend of poor robins saints into our list of petitioners , and some names served us for 4 or 5 several places . and then bumpkin replies ; and you shall see how now that we were put to our shifts in the country , as well as you in the city , i was employed , you must know to get names at 4 shillings an hundred , and i had all my real subscriptions written at such a distance one from another , that i could easily clap in a name or two , betwixt them , and then i got as many school-boys as i could to underwrite after the same manner , and after this i fill'd up all those spaces with names , that i either remembred or invented my self , or could get out of 2 or 3 christening books . there are a world you know of smiths , browns , clarks , walkers , woods , so that i furnished my catalogue with a matter of 50 a piece of these sir-names , which i christned my self . and besides we had all the non-conformist ministers in the country for us , and they brought in a power of hands . thus the gentleman plays with the petitions , and shews his abhorrency of petitioning , seeking to deter the people from using their modest rights in petitioning their sovereign . but now , if all , or most of these scurrilous things , which he has made cit and bumpkin say , be false ; and falsly applyed to , and fixed upon the late petitioners , is not this man guilty of scandalously misrepresenting the late petitioners , and the promoters of the late petitions ? let all the world judge . to the last of his charge he says , that he is extreamly out of his measures , to be still creating misunderstandings in the very act of endeavouring either to rectifie or prevent them . and to be indangering the peace of the kingdom , in the design of preserving it . no doubt but mr. l'estrange is the unhappy man , if those were his measures , as to be utterly mistaken in them , for i know not what could have created a greater misunderstanding , or more tended to the embroyling of the nation : not in asserting the law and government against all opposers , as he would make you believe , but in ridiculing the plot , abusing the kings evidence , writing against petitioning , railing against the presbyterians , and raking in all the old dunghills . not by laying open the malice of many bold libells against his majesties person , authority and government , but by railing against every body that gives an answer to his scurrilous pamphlets , and by abusing all that he believes not of his way and faction : not by maintaining the apostolical order and constitution of the church against schism , but in rendring the whole body of dissenters odious , factious and seditious . not by maintaining the powers and priviledges of the state , against all principles of sedition , but by making his cits and bumpkins to blow about the coals of sedition . not by inculcating reverence and obedience to superiours , but by abusing , scoffing at , and terrifying inferiours . not by recommending the blessings and duties of vnity , but by widening the breaches , and making greater the gap of dissention . these are the things that have created ill blood , and have tended to the embroyling the kingdom , but whether defignedly , or whether he mistook his measures , i shall not say . the next thing he passes to , is to give you a scurrilous description of the quality of his libellers as he calls them ; for all those who write in answer to his idle and abusive pamphlets , he calls so . and here he is satyrical and abusive , and the things touching particular persons , i shall leave him ; for whether the things he charges them with , be true or false , it shews his railing disposition and foul mouth , nothing becoming the gentility and breeding he would pretend to . but yet i cannot but take notice of his extream pride and vanity , in thinking and ranking himself as a state and church martyr , and his justly suffering for his abusive pen , he calls suffering with the king and with the church , and for their sakes also . the jesuites say as much , and it is a vanity inherent to such martyrs . but it now appears , that the representatives of the whole kingdom , have no such opinion of the service he has done , either to king or church , but rather to the contrary , by his many abuses put upon the people in his pamphlets , has much disserted either . he says it is the part of the devil himself to blacken and defame , and after he has thus said grace , falls to with open mouth , and blackens and defames all he can , with the spleen and rancour of a cynick : especially one little creature as he calls him , which little creature indeed has been a goad in his side , and has prick'd the bull so hard , as has made him bellow full loudly . but he is not only splenetick at mr. care , for writing smartly against him , but has also put mr. curtis in several of his pamphlets , among the libellers , for exercising his trade of publishing printed books and pamphlets . he is so very dogged a cynic , that he will let no body live in peace , that he thinks loves not him , or believes not well of his railing . the very acquaintance of any that writes against him , is enough to make him a libeller , and there are several to my own knowledge that hardly spake of him , that he has abused because friends or relations to those who have answered some of his scurrilities . but he is no ways genteelly satyrical , but a down right abuser and scoffer , without salt or wit , and where he cannot charge 'em with any thing of crime or dishonesty , rather than be wanting to his own malice , he will seek for natural defects ; which also if he cannot find , he will create , and rather than want matter for his buffoonery , will play with the visage of a man , and render it like a visard , an ape or a monky , or any thing that will render the person ridiculous . an old jesuitical trick , who upon the reformation in england , and the establishing of the protestant religion , made the common people of spain believe that all the english were turned into m●nsters , and were all metamorphised into strange creatures , with asses heads , and monkies tails , so that when our late sovereign arrived there with all his train , they were not a little amazed to find han●some men instead of monsters , as the jesuites had sworn them all to be . just so does this satyrical wit play upon the visages and postures of several persons , rendring them almost as disguised as his own , but this is pitiful and mean. however they have since thought it good , par pari referre , and to answer his skeldri , as he had made others owls and monkies , so have they changed him into the cur towzer . as for his particular malice to dr. oates , that plainly appears to be the business of the party , who set him on , who thrust this silly scratching cats foot of his into the fire , to pull out the nut , that is to abuse him , and to render him ridiculous , and to endeavour to make him in little esteem with the people , that his evidence might be slighted , or else he , certainly would never have so publickly scofl'd at a person that has merited so much of all good men , and all protestants in this kingdom , in first discovering this most horrid popish plot. now to use his own words ; is not the world come to a fine pass now , when such a fellow as this , shall hold the ballance of empires ? that shall be the pillar to support the crown and miter ? that shall charge the whole body of presbyterians with fanaticism and rebellion ? that makes sport with that tool the plot ? as the buffoon calls it : and to canton out all people that write against him , or the plot to be libellers , fools , egyptian locusts , and what not ? but as to his reasons of his libellers rancour against him , first , he says , that they say he began with them ; but that i suppose is not the true ground of the quarrel , they endeavoured to take up the cudgels against him , seeing him lay about him so furiously , that he might not sight with his own shadow , and like an over-grown colossus of wit , terrifie an whole nation , as if none durst cope with him . but the chief and true ground was indeed to undeceive the people , and to let them see this papist in disguise , and as he says himself for harping so unseasonably on that one string of 41 , without any ground at all , and this he terms their rancour . this he would evade by his old way if you will believe him ( he 'l make you think the moon is made of green cheese ) for he tells you the weighty reasons of all his frivolous , scurrilous and scandalous scribling , which were either to defend himself , or to unmask the fallacy of imposing on the people : ( that is , that you might believe him and no body else ) or to lay open the arts by which the city of london was formerly betrayed to slavery and faction ( that is , to have most of them thought rascals ) or for the undeceiving the credulous people , that had been misled unhappily by the accursed libel called the appeal , and therefore he wrote his cit and bumpkin , which grosly abuses both city and country ; glorious ends , and as well acquitted . as for dr. otes , he has but improved his discoveries , and help'd his evidence towards the rooting out all the priests and jesuites out of the land : that is , by destroying presbytery , and all the disguised romish priests and papists amongst them , that the protestants masqueders may throw off their v●zards , and appear bare fac'd . he still proceeds to tell you his good intent and meaning , in putting forth his many pamphlets , nay and the good they have effected , by making some converts , and satisfying and confirming others , if you will believe him . it is very hard , that he should do those things by those very means which has offended most of the nation , especially the more sober and moderate sort , and rendred himself of being suspected no true son of the church , nor faithful servant of the king , but all the while serving another interest . he says , p. 24. he has lived long enough in the world to understand in some measure both men and books , and that popular passions are moved by popular discourses , as the waves of the sea by the power of the winds . it is the first office of political pamphlets in all case of design upon any eminent alteration of the state to possess the people with false notions , &c. now may not we suppose that mr. l'estrange well knowing these maxims , has followed them ( or at least seems so in the eyes of many ) and now , when so great a design of the alteration of the government was in hand , which is the plot , has most fairly and opportunely taken the time of troubling and muddying the waters with the silth of 41 , nothing but all the miscarriages of the schismaticks and sectaries must be now laid open afresh , to beget disgusts and murmurings and jealousies of one part against another , and instead of closing up the breach , as a good man ought to have done , and of calling to unity , he nothing but roars out 41 , 41 , in every paper , whilst the jesuitical design in the mean time is working the ruine of 3 kingdoms , divide & impera , set them together by the ears , and we shall do the work ; but yet do it under the notion of serving the king and kingdom by all means . the gentleman is angry at the liberty of the press , i cannot blame him , but 't is hoped whatever restraint should be put thereon by authority , that it shall never fall under mr. l'estranges hand to be a licenser , for then 't will be very hard to get any thing licensed that should be wrote against the papists , but should be stifled , as he had served several when he had power ; writing against the plot , he calls writing against the government : and writing against him , he calls writing against superiours and magistrates : writing against papists , is an undutiful and intemperate practice against the publick peace , to the extream hazard and dishonour of the state. and yet this is the doctor who professes in his papers , antidotes against all pestilent and poysonous infusions , the state quack , who purges the nation of its errors . the hocus pocus that resolves all its riddles and expounds their meaning . the zealot for the church , and one who has dedicated soul , body , fortune , interests to the service of his prince and country . he next proceeds to discover the designs and practices on the publick peace , by the spreading scandalous and dangerous libels , a great many of which he quotes , and we agree with him , that such pernicious libellers do much mischief in a state , but as they have always been , and ever will be as vermine in a state , so they are liable to the laws and answerable to them , let such be punished , but let not all that write against mr. l'estrange be thrust among these pack of libellers ; nor let it be in the power of mr. l'estrange to be the only judge of what is sit to be printed , and what not . in the last place he troubles himself to little purpose , how far in honour and justice a prince or state ought to countenance and protect the assertors of their rights or priviledges ; we grant 't is much to their honour and great justice to do it , but yet we will not say , therefore mr. l'estrange ought to be countenanced or rewarded , as such an assertor of the rights or priviledges of the king and kingdom . i shall leave him with his politicks , and draw to a conclusion , which is , that i have wrote this very brief answer to mr. l'estrange's plausible appeal , without any thing of rancour or malice , or particular spleen against the man , but to shew the world that all is not gold that glisters , and that mr. l'estrange is not the loyal person he pretends to , nor a state martyr , but one that suffers , ( in the opinion of most , ) justly for his own folly . finis . london , printed for t. davis , 1680. by the king, a proclamation for the more effectual and speedy discovery and prosecution of the popish plot england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1679 approx. 3 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32568 wing c3492 estc r33276 13118494 ocm 13118494 97782 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32568) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 97782) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1547:2) by the king, a proclamation for the more effectual and speedy discovery and prosecution of the popish plot england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, thomas newcomb, and henry hills ..., london : 1679. "given at our court at whitehall, the one and thirtieth day of october, 1679. in the one and thirtieth year of our reign." reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. proclamations -great britain. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2008-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-09 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-09 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion c 2 r diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms by the king. a proclamation for the more effectual and speedy discovery and prosecution of the popish plot. charles r. whereas the late horrid plot and conspiracy of divers priests and jesuits , and other papists , against his majesties sacred person , and for the subversion of the protestant religion and government established in this kingdom , hath beén so far discovered that the sad effects thereof have by his majesties care , and the blessing of almighty god , beén hitherto prevented , and the most notorious offenders therein , brought to condign punishment , or are secured , or fled from justice ; and his majesty considering that nothing would more conduce to the lasting safety of his majesty , his kingdoms , and the protestant religion therein established , then that there might be a full and perfect discovery of the said conspiracy ; and whereas it is to be suspected that many persons contrary to the duty of their allegiance , do still conceal their knowledge of the said plot , and the conspirators therein , presuming that at any time hereafter ( though never so late ) when they shall offer a discovery , they may obtain his majesties pardon for all their offences : now for the more speédy and full discovery of the said conspiracy , and to deter all persons whatsoever from concealing any longer their knowledge thereof , his majesty doth by this his royal proclamation ( with the advice of his privy council ) strictly require and command all and every person and persons whatsoever who know , or can make discovery of any person or persons ingaged in the said conspiracy , or of any matter or circumstance relating thereunto , to discover and make known the same to the lords of his majesties privy council , or one of his principal secretaries of state , or to the lord chief justice , or one of the justices of the court of kings bench , before the last day of february next , his majesty declaring , that after that time his pardon is not to be expected for any such treasons , or misprisions of treason . given at our court at whitehall the one and thirtieth day of october 1679. in the one and thirtieth year of our reign . god save the king. london , printed by john bill , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1679. irelands sad lamentation discovering its present danger in some remarkable passages which have happened since the discovery of the horrid popish plot : in a letter from a person of honour to his friend in london, upon the dissolution of the late parliament. f. l. 1680 approx. 12 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 2 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a48271 wing l18 estc r36235 15620100 ocm 15620100 104206 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a48271) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 104206) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1151:21) irelands sad lamentation discovering its present danger in some remarkable passages which have happened since the discovery of the horrid popish plot : in a letter from a person of honour to his friend in london, upon the dissolution of the late parliament. f. l. 1 sheet ([2] p.) [s.n.], london printed : 1680. dated and signed at end: dublin, january 1680. f.l. reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. ireland -history -1660-1688. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2006-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-11 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-12 emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread 2006-12 emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion irelands sad lamentation : discovering its present danger , in some remarkable passages which have happened since the discovery of the horrid popish plot . in a letter from a person of honour to his friend in london , upon the dissolution of the late parliament . my pen is not able to represent to your view the dusky scene , which the dissolution of the parliament hath drawn on the hearts and countenances of all loyal protestants in this kingdom ; from this great sessions , we hoped some commiseration would have been had of us , considering the great and eminent dangers we now lie under : but these hopeful joys being frustrated , and expecting neither redress from or by the assistance of our present governor , nor any other part of the government here , we do , as men in a general wreck , give up our selves to the protection of god almighty , and the mercy of those incessant billows that threaten us with death . we have little hopes , if at all any , of being secured from that popish cruelty which most of us have felt in this age. you of england may object , your danger is equal to ours , that our governor and other magistracy are all protestants , the arms ours , ( or at least ought to be so ) and all other strengths . this indeed , were it so , might abate our jealousies , but i shall make a collection of some remarkable passages , such as at present will occur to my memory , and then i leave you to be the impartial judge . in the year 1677. at the height of the plot , the duke of ormond , by the interest of the duke of york , received his commission to supersede the earl of essex in the government of ireland , and accordingly , on the 24 th of august , in the same year , made his entrance with great solemnity . the next spring ( being a time when the grand consults were held for putting an end to their infernal designs ) he takes a progress over the whole kingdom , to see in what posture the same lay , ( for what design i know not ; ) in which journey he was much attended by popish gentry , freely conferring ( i will not say to make proselytes ) the honour of knighthood on many undeserving persons , as he passed through the countrey . the plot being discovered in september 1678 , there was little or no notice taken of it here at court , though it was proved those of the plot of england held a correspondency with some in ireland , and that many black bills , &c. were , or was to be sent over for the massacre intended , yet no means were used by the lord lieutenant , with assistance of the council , for the security of the nation , or prevention of that horrid design ; but the vigorous protestant magistracy of this city raised their militia , both foot and horse , part of whom were ordered to guard every night in their turns , but in the outward part of the town , so intolerable was the usage we received , they would not suffer our companies to guard in the city , ( which must be the refuge in time of extremity ) alledging the king's guards were appointed to defend the same ; so that upon any attempt , our voluntier inhabitants must certainly have perished , before the king's soldiery , who receives pay , had enter'd into any dangerous engagement . of this city the earl of arran , son to the duke , is governor . thus were we all exposed every man to provide for his own safety : the first vapor of popish venom which might give us occasion not to doubt what they intended for us , was this , the lord mayor went in person , with some of his brethren , to demolish the mass-houses of this city , by removing the altars , and other idols , locking up the doors , and committing the keys to the church-wardens of the respective parishes : it happened that at one of those obnoxious houses an officer of the mayors , a waggish fellow , taking some of their popish trumpery , ( and in derision of that superstitious religion ) began to act the priest ; then taking their holy-water , and sprinkling part of it on some of his fellows , the rest on the floor , like a shopkeeper 's apprentice to lay the dust , he was told by one who stood by , he should dearly repent those direful actions . and that very night going to his own house , about ten a clock was set upon by four or five persons , who stifling him , threw him down , then wounded him in several places , crying , kill the rogue , kill the rogue ; which they had certainly done , had he not had armor on , which he always wore for his own safety in the execution of his office : yet this assassination had no more effect at court , than a sport to laugh at , how the poor catchpole was served in his kind . when the duke received a command to seize colonel talbot , the colonel was revelling at the duke's table , sitting with him at dinner ; and most people think if he had not been there at the duke's receipt of the commands , he had not been apprehended . the reasons which induced them to that opinion , is , when the colonel attained his liberty upon surety , the aforesaid earl of arran was his bail. not long after the discovery , upon several suggestions of the protestants against the insolence of the popish clergy and their assemblies , the lord lieutenant and council issue forth a proclamation , for the apprehension of priests and jesuites ; therein inserting a reward of five pounds for a priest , and ten pounds for a jesuite . in obedience to which , a captain of the trained-bands , took several in one saints eve , privately celebrating mass in their popish vestments , and the next morning brought them before the duke ; where , upon examination , some of them produced the duke's own protection , some protected by colonel fitz-patrick , and other eminent popish gentry . in fine , they were all dismissed , as well those who were protected , as those who were not , as was all who were afterwards taken , the apprehenders being gratified with no other than a reproof for their too much diligence , by which means the papists have found no discouragement nor obstruction in their proceedings ; and i do believe their hopes are raised to as great an extasie as ever , having so much influence on the present government of this kingdom . when the irish plot broke forth , and bourke accused the earl of tyrone , all endeavors possible were used for the vindication of the earl ; but when he was cleared at waterford , and bourke did not appear , then had the papists got cock-a-hoop again , and no man durst say within the castle of dublin , ( or anywhere else , if it came to the duke's ear ) that there was any such thing then on foot , or lately designed , as a plot to invade this kingdom , extirpate the protestant religion , and subvert the government thereof . i say , no man under pain of gaining the duke of ormond's displeasure , durst speak his apprehension of such a thing as a plot in this kingdom . the inclinations of the duke hath been more visible of late , by the actings of his son , ( who , without doubt , did nothing without his fathers permission ) in the tryal of the lord stafford , basely pledging his honour , to acquit that most culpable and undeniable traytor ; which hath given so great a wound to his reputation , that the name of the butlers is grown a load to almost the generality of this nation . when complaint was made against the duke in england for his misbehavior in this government , he applied himself to the council for a certificate , that he had acted nothing vnjust in his station : but 't was refused by several privy-counsellors , who are good and just men , valuing the protestant interest , and abhorring all foreign jurisdiction or authority from or under the see of rome . i shall say little of our chancellor , who , by the duke of york's interest , was made primate also of this kingdom , the two onely places that can sway the government , and , without doubt , will not be so ungrateful to his promoter , but , when occasion shall serve , he may command his service either as to ecclesiastical or civil matters , or what else will best tend to his advantage ; part of his injustice hath already appeared before his majesty in council , which would seem but a grain or drachm , were it weigh'd with his other insulting oppressions . by this you may see the tender care that hath been taken of us ; what strength the protestants can have in a conscientious war , i mean , against the papists or foreign enemies ; when we can judge no less but our leader is our opposite ; when we cannot enjoy the presence of our dread soveraign to awe those rebels who daily combine against us . we want an essex again , whose judgments and justice were so equally ballanc'd , that even his worst of enemies without shame to themselves cannot calumniate his honourable proceedings . i must tell you again , we want an essex , a shaftsbury , that is to say , a good and zealous protestant that will stand up for us in this time of eminent and scarcely-to-be-avoided danger . i can assure you , here 's no man harbours an evil thought of his king , no man doubts of his excellency and compassion towards us ; but rather are given to think he is under the same misfortune of some of his predecessors , lead by evil counsellors , which god of his mercy grant may not prove fatal : we onely , with sufficient cause , reflect on his ministers and officers here , and unanimously say , with the prophet isaiah , his watchmen are blind , they are all ignorant , they are dumb dogs that cannot bark , sleeping , lying down , loving to slumber ; yea , they are greedy dogs that can never have enough ; they are shepherds that will not understand ; they all look to their own way , every one for his gain from his quarter . and now that his majesty , with the assistance of his great council of parliament , would purge the officers of his dominions , and those who shall be found defiled and unclean , to cast out ; and those who are pure and clean , prone to the advancement of his honour , to establish , ought to be the prayers of you and all good protestants , as 't is of , sir , your faithful humble servant , f. l. dublin , january 1680. post-script . we hear that colonel fitz-patrick , a manager of our kingdom , and who married the duke of ormond's sister , is of late turn'd protestant , and now in england : i like no such masquerade , turning upon an exigent . one whose generation hath been counted primitives of the romish church , cannot surely forget his ancestors fame : his father a hainous rebel , and his mother hang'd for making candles of englishmens grease in the time of the late rebellion . london : printed in the year 1680. a narrative of the popish plot in ireland for the murdering the protestants there, and the introducing of popery : and the assistance they depended upon from england / discovered by me james carrol, in the year 1672 ; with an account of my sufferings for discovering the same. carol, james. 1681 approx. 46 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 9 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a34683 wing c644 estc r12089 13302901 ocm 13302901 98956 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a34683) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 98956) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 448:17) a narrative of the popish plot in ireland for the murdering the protestants there, and the introducing of popery : and the assistance they depended upon from england / discovered by me james carrol, in the year 1672 ; with an account of my sufferings for discovering the same. carol, james. [4], 12 p. printed for richard janeway ..., london : 1681. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. ireland -history -1660-1690 -sources. 2006-06 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-07 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2006-09 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a narrative of the popish plot in ireland , for the murdering the protestants there , and the introducing of popery , and the assistance they depended upon from england . discovered by me james carrol , in the year 1672. with an account of my sufferings for discovering the same . london , printed for richard janeway , in queens-head-ally , in pater-noster-row . 1681. march 25. 1681. ordered , by vote of the house of commons , that the examination of fitz-harris and others , taken by sir george treby , be printed : which accordingly this informants examination was taken before the said sir george treby , as in the title page appears . to the right honourable , arthur , earl of essex , viscount malden , and baron capel , of ●●dham , sometime since lord lieutenant of ireland , and lately one of his majesties privy-council . may it please you lordship ! that zeal and unwearied diligence which your honour has on all occasions demonstrated to preserve the protestant religion , and prevent the still advancing plots of bloody papists , has most justly rendred all english protestants your debtors , and fill'd them with veneration for your name and person . were all noble-men endued with a like prudence , and integrity , the popish plot had long since lost its head , and england been secured ( as with a brazen wall ) against all the malicious effects of rome . the trojans of old had not been destroyed , had they not trusted to sinon's flatteries , and admitted the fatal horse , cramb'd with treacherous greeks , within their walls . nor can england and ireland become enslaved to the pope , or any other forrein power , unless some of our own ( intrusted subordinately with the administration of affairs ) clandestinely joyn with our open enemies . but where thieves keep the keys , well may the house be rifled ; and if wolves , though in sheeps-cloathing , be once made shepherds , 't is not difficult to imagine what will become of the flock . nor can that nation but be esteem'd in a condition deplorable , and on the very precipice to wilful ruin , where 't is a matter of greater hazard to discover treasons , than to contrive them . the following narrative will partly shew the figure which potent papists have made for some years past in the kingdom of ireland , and what influence they have had ( like malevolent planets ) to blast and crush all that durst go about to detect their disloyal hellish designs . it will here appear , that there hath been for many years a treasonable conspiracy carrying on in that kingdom , and that the popish irish were in an expecting readiness to give the blow , and act over their butcheries of 41 , but with greater barbarity : only one thing there was that hindred , viz. the dutch ( a powerful protestant state , very powerful till some late jesuitical designs weakned them ) must first be ruined . so that it seems the project was general to root out and destroy all the protestants throughout europe ; for this declaration to me was made in the year 1672 , a time when england and france were so hopefully united , and vigorously engaged in a war with holland , and the same juncture when the never tobe forgotten camp at blackheath was on foot . what intervening accidents might make the conspirators defer their rising in arms , or whether my making this discovery might not cause them to be more wary , though through some peoples kind connivance , it rendred them never the more disabled to have gone on , i determine not : 't is enough that as i knew it my duty to divulge it : so , although meerly for the same i have now past through a nine-years . purgatory , and am thereby reduced to poverty , debt , and great extremity ; yet were it still to do , i would discharge my conscience , though a thousand popish lords were concern'd to be angry , and i were sure not only to lose my livelyhood , but my life likewise on that account . at your lordships feet i humbly lay these papers , and presume to shelter them into the world under the patronage of your truly honourable name ; as well because your lordship is so excellently qualified to judg of the truth of them by your great insight into the complexion of affairs and persons in ireland ( which had the honour of having your lordship for some ( too short ) time her lord lieutenant ) as in regard of my particular obligation , that the same might remain as a publick testimony of my gratitude . your lordships most humble and fatithful servant , james carroll . errata . pag. 3. l. 45. r. seven . p. 5. l. 36. r. hen. the information of mr. james carroll , junior , of the city of dublin , in the kingdom of ireland , spanish leather-dresser ; and also a freeman of the city of london , an english protestant , born at new castle upon tyne , the first discoverer of the horrible and bloody irish plot against the protestants of that kingdom , upon the 12th day of april , anno 1672. taken upon oath before the right worshipful sir george treby , knight , recorder of this honourable city of london , by his majesties order in council . this informant saith , that he , together with james carroll , the elder , this informants father , having occasion to travel in the said kingdom of ireland , to buy wool , skins , and other commoditie relating to the trade or calling of this informant , did on the said 12th day of april , anno dom. 1672. arrive at portumna , in the county of gallway , a town belonging to william burke , earl of clanrickard , and took up their lodgings at the house of one thomas allen , an inn-keeper , then living at the sign of the black-spred eagle , in the said town of portumna , which said allen then was a tenant or steward unto the said earl of clanrickard ; and this informant saith , that the said thomas allen then and there falling into discourse with this informant and his said father , supposing them to be irish , this informant's said father speaking the irish tongue , did enquire of them what news there was abroad : whereunto they answered , that they had been travelling up and down the country , but heard no strange news : whereupon he said to this informant and his said father in english , as followeth : if ( said he ) we have news , that the dutch are beaten , whom we are in great hopes utterly to destroy , for that 's the l●ght we must put out , we have so good assurance not only from france but england too ; for there 's one , we are sure , will stick by us ; then my lord clanrickard will presently sound a trumpet , and i will go along with him , and three or four score more of this town , well horsed and armed , and every man five pounds in his pocket ; and i hope i shall kill an hundred of the protestants , anabaptists , independents , and such like phanatick rogues , before i am killed ; for i expect a quarter-masters place in the troop that is here to be raised , and i will have some of them upon the point of my sword before the last of june : and as for those that are here in this country , we will soon cut them off , they shall have no help to come from the other side of the brook ( meaning england ) for we have taken care to prevent that , by having an embargo put on shipping , that none can come from thence to help them ; so that we shall be twelve to one , and leave them neither root nor branch , nor spare them as in their former rising . whereto this informant and his said father answered , and said , this is strange news indeed : whereupon the said allen askt this informant's said father ( thus ) why did not you hear what was spoken at mass yesterday , being easter-munday ? and the said thomas allen still continued to declare to the effect aforesaid ; furthermore cursing the english in a most horrid manner , declaring their wicked and bloody designs against them . and this informant saith , that upon his return from portumna to dublin , aforesaid , through his duty and allegiance to his majesty , and natural affection to his country-men , the protestants of that kingdom , resolving to reveal and , make known such the treasonable and dangerous words of the said thomas allen , did immediately repair to one dr. topham , a master in chancery , before whom the informant did upon his corporal oath declare and make the same known : and saith , that presently after this informant was sent for , and did accordingly appear before the lord berkley , his majesties then lord lieftenant , and the council at dublin , and by them examined touching the premises , which this informant again confirmed upon three several examinations before the said lord lieftenant and council : and after that this informant was sent for before . sir robert booth , lord chief justice of the common-pleas at dublin , and by him ingaged to prosecute the said thomas allen for the said treasonable and dangerous words . and this informant saith , that soon after this examination aforesaid , a certain english man , who , as this informant was informed , had been an old souldier , or officer , and lived in , or about the county of wicklow in ireland , whose name this informant hath forgot , came also before the said lord lieftenant and council , and there upon his corporal oath declared , that there were some certain irish-men about the time of the said thomas allen's speeches , offered him a commission to raise men , and also to impower him to give commissions for that purpose to whom he should think fit ; and advised him to get all the assistance he could , and told him , he should be supplied with money to carry on the business , and they should be in a readiness within twelve days , then next following ; for that they expected about that time to rise , and be up in arms against the protestants in ireland : and saith , that about three weeks or a month after , all the said english-mans stock , cattle , goods and substance were taken from him , whereby he was ruined and quite undone : and although the said english-man petitioned the lord lieftenant and council for relief , in such his distressed condition , yet could he not obtain any relief , as the said english-man declared , and told this informant , who since that time could never see him , or hear any thing of him . and this informant saith , that being , as aforefaid , engaged by the said lord chief justice booth , to prosecute the said thomas allen , a pursevant was accordingly sent for the said thomas allen , but he could not be found ; and immediately after this informant saw the said allen and the earl of clanrickard together in the said earls coach , come into dublin , where the said earl appeared with the said allen , as his assistant ; and the said allen , together with this informant , presently appeared before the said lord lieftenant and council , and by them was examined concerning the said treasonable words and speeches so by the said allen spoken , as aforesaid : all which the said allen denied ; and also denied , that this informant , or his said father was , or were at the house of him the said thomas allen , or in portumna , at the time aforesaid : whereupon this informant being again examined , in the said thomas allen's presence , did again confirm the truth of the premises , and then also proved , that this informant and his said father , were the 12th of april in the house of the said thomas allen , in the town of portumna . and this informant the better remembers it to be on the day and year aforesaid , for that he had a bond which was then and there sealed and delivered to this informants use , where simon allen a brother to the said thomas allen , had set his name as a witness . and upon this informants then producing the said bond , and shewing the same to the said thomas allen , he could not deny the hand-writing of his said brother . thereupon the said lord lieutenant and council declaring they were very well satisfied of the truth of this informants evidence , did press and importune the said thomas allen to make an open and ingenuous confession of the whole truth of the matter ; telling him if he did not confess , it would be worse for him . but the said thomas allen notwithstanding obstinately persisting in his said denial , was by the lord lieutenant and council ordered to stand committed close prisoner without bail or mainprise , and so commanded the gaoler to take him away . nevertheless the said thomas allen was the very same day , by the prevalency , interest , means and procurement of the said earl of clanrickard , or otherwise , set at liberty upon his giving his own security of one-hundred pounds penalty , personally to appear within ten days next after notice should be given for that purpose , to be left at the house of one thomas lowe , scituate in st. thomas street in dublin , before the lord lieutenant and council , and not to depart without license . and this informant further saith , that some short time after this informant and his said father having further occasion to travel in the said county of galway , they came to the river shannan , where the wind being very high , it was late before the ferry-boat could pass them over to the said town of portumna , where they arrived on a saturday in the evening ; but finding the inhabitants there to gaze upon them , and draw tumultuously together , conceived it altogether unsafe to lodge there ; and therefore altho' they were both very wet and weary , did rather chuse to travel four miles further , to a lone house on the road to loughreak , and six miles short of loughrea , whither they intended that night to have gone , had they not been prevented by the delay of the ferry-boat , as aforesaid ; and the next morning , being sunday , about eleven a clock in the morning , they came to loughrea , wherethey rested that day and night ; and yet at or by the instigation of the said earl of clanrickard , and thomas allen , or others his accomplices , the constable of loughrea and several other persons with him , came very early the next morning , being monday , to the house where this informant and his said father lodged that night in loughrea aforesaid , and there very rudely throwing open the chamber-dore , frightned them out of their sleep , and there by virtue of a warrant from one iames donnallan , then a steward also to the said earl of clanrickard , a papist , but yet a justice of the peace living near loughrea , seized this informant and his said father upon a pretence that they travelled on the sabbath or lords day , whereas several of the inhabitants there travelled and came all that sabbath-day into loughrea , with their carts and horses loaden from athlone faire , twenty miles distant from loughrea , and yet none of these inhabitants were any ways troubled or molested for their so travelling on the same sabbath day . and the said constable and those persons with him , then also seized and took away a case of pistols , and two swords belonging to this informant and his said father , then lying on the table in their chambers , and said this informant and his father intended to kill some body with the pistols and swords , whenas in truth they only carried the same about with them for their own defence . and this informant nor his said father could never get their said pistols or swords restored again to them . and the said constable , and those other persons then with him , as aforesaid , having seized and forced this informant and his said father out of their bed , did also then force them to travel six miles to one dean peirse , a justice of the peace , and minister , living at that distance from loughrea ; and the said justice of the peace , or minister , reproving this informant and his said father for such their travelling on the said sabbath-day , told them withall , that he had heard they had given in evidence against the said earl of clanrickard , and thereupon committed this informant and his said father to the gaol at loughrea aforesaid , whither he commanded the constable to carry them , and gave him private directions , as this informant knows , because he overheard him , that no bail should be taken for them , or either of them , altho' he the said justice or minister just before pretended to this informant and his said father , that they might give bail . and this informant further saith , that he and his said father being accordingly carried by the said constable and those with him , into the said gaol in loughrea , were by the instigation , prevalency , and directions as aforesaid , there kept close prisoners for about five or six days , and by the keepers of the said gaol denied and not suffered to have any bed to lye on , but only the ground in the said gaol wherein they were so kept ; nor any clothes to cover them , save only their own wearing clothes on their backs : and altho' they earnestly requested to have some sheepskins-brought to cover them from the cold , yet could they not obtain leave to have the same done : neither would the said keeper , having receiv'd such directions as aforesaid , suffer any friend to come into or near the said gaol or prison , to speak with , or do any thing for this informant or his said father , or to bring them any relief , or suffer them to have any victuals or drink ; neither had they any whilst they continued there , but what they could privately get of the poor prisoners in the same prison . and altho' this informant just as he and his said father were so brought to , and going into the said gaol , did employ an english man , a person living in loughrea , and gave him money , and lent him this informants horse , to convey or carry a letter from this informant and his said father to galloway , but fourteen miles from loughrea ; yet within an hour or two after , fearing the earl of clanrickard's displeasure , being ( as this informant hath great cause to believe ) charged by some or other of the earls agents or tenants there , at his perril , as he told me , not to convey or carry the said letter , did return this informant his money again , and said , that the said constable , christopher poor by name , and a popish constable in loughrea , told him , the said person , that if he should carry the said letter , or any other ways appear to do any thing for this informant or his said father , that the said earl of clanrickard would ruin him and his family : and the better to colour the said malicious and injurious prosecutions against this informant and his said father , several persons by such instigations and prevalencies as aforesaid , were procured to report , that this informant's said father had a design to burn the said town of loughrea ; and that besides the said information against this informant and his said father for such their travelling , as aforesaid , on the sabbath-day , there would be seven or eight other indictments preferred and prosecuted against them , at the then galloway assizes : and in such condition this informant and his said father lay in the said goal or prison in loughrea , aforesaid , for some considerable time , and perhaps might there have layn ( if not destroy'd or famish't before by their cruel usages ) had not this informant , through a window of the said prison , accidentally seeing a stranger riding by , conveyed to him a letter , directed to some friends of theirs , then living in galloway , where , by such means , the said letter was received , and understanding thereby such the sad condition of this informant and his said father , their said friends did presently make application to the judges of the assizes , then sitting there at galloway , and of them obtained an order for the removal of this informant and his said father thither . and they being by the said keepers of the said goal thereupon brought to galloway at night late , were put in the vilest prison in that town , amongst the condemned malefactors , and without any accommodation at all ; and the next morning they were brought before the said judges , baron heu and judg cusack in the court of assizes , they then sitting , where an indictment was then preferred and read against this informant and his said father , for such their travelling , as aforesaid , on the sabbath-day ; and another malicious indictment was then also preferred there , and read against this informant's said father , whereby it was charged , that he as before ( which was most falsly and maliciously reported ) had a design to burn loughrea . and to the first of the said indictments this informant and his said father upon the courts demand submitted ; and to the last , this informants said father put in his traverse ; and altho' no prosecutors or witnesses then appeared against either of them ; yet were they ordered to give one thousand pounds security not to depart the said town of galloway without leave of the said court : and some time after , on the last day of the said assizes , they were ordered by the said court to give , and accordingly did give new security to appear there again at the next assizes , and to keep the peace , and be of good behaviour in the mean time ; and having given security , and the said assizes being ended , they then repaired to dublin , which is about one hundred miles from galloway ; and from thence were forced to repair back again at the next assizes accordingly to galloway , to their great trouble and charge ; and when they came there , none appeared to maintain the aforesaid indictment . but as if all these malicious and most vexatious proceedings had been nothing , this informant was again arrested the fourth of november following , in an action of ten thousand pounds in the name of william earl of clanrickard , and thereupon being hurried to prison , within four days procuring bail , he was again detained on another action in the said earls name , of twenty thousand pounds , bearing date the eighth ditto ; and being ready to come forth again , was a third time detained at the said earls suit in an action of thirty thousand pounds , in all amounting to sixty thousand pounds , laid upon him on purpose to ruine him utterly . and further saith , that within fourteen days , or thereabouts , after , the informant procured a habeas corpus to be brought to the common-pleas bar , where tendering bail to all the said actions , the said earls council moved for time to consider of the sufficiency of the said bail ; which was granted them till the next day , when and where this informant was again brought ; and then the said earls standing council told the judges , that they had no directions or instructions to prosecute this informant from the said earl ; and that they conceived some persons had prosecuted him out of malice only to curryfavour with the said earl ; and therefore desired he might be discharged of the foresaid actions , and accordingly he was discharged paying his fees ; but then left without all remedy to recover his charges and damages ; the said earl being at the said bar , declared to be no prosecutor , tho' the said actions were in his name , and carried on by secret order ( as this deponent has all the reason in the world to think , and does most assuredly believe ) . but all these vexations sufficed not , but being fully resolved on the destruction of this informant , and a discouragement to others ; for his innocence , though zealous in performance of his duty in revealing the said treasonable words , he was again shortly after arrested by a writ of two thousand pounds out of the kings bench , at the suit of the said earl of clanrickard ; to which he gave bail ; and again in some short time was arrested at the suit of the said earl , in another action of two thousand pounds out of the said court , to which he also gave bail : and being bound , as aforesaid to appear at galloway assizes , this informant and his said father did accordingly attend , and were there cleared , as appears by the the following discharge . at a general goal-delivery , held at st. francis abby , near galloway , march the 4th , 1672. memorandum , that at the said assizes , james carrol seignior , and james carrol junior , appeared upon their recognizances , being bound over from the last assizes ; and nothing now appearing against them , were discharged by proclamation . dated ut supra , per jo. caroll , d. car. cor. the first of the last mentioned actions being laid for two thousand pounds damages , was dismiss'd for non-prosecution : on the second action of two thousand pounds was declared , that this informant had scandalized the said earl to the damage of the foresaid action ; and though the said actions were taken out of the kings bench , dublin , and the declaration fyled there ; yet the said earls council moved the court , that the venire might be laid in galloway , and the action tryed there : whereupon this informant petitioned the court that the venire might abide at dublin , and be tryed there ; setting forth , that dublin was the place where he had made discovery of the treasonable words spoken by allen , on which the said william earl of clanrickard's action was pretendedly grounded ; and that his witnesses to prove the said allen had spoke those words , were in dublin : that galloway was a place where the said earl was very potent , and above an hundred miles distant from this informants and his witnesses habitations , which journey would be to their great costs and charges , besides the imminent danger of their lives in going thither , or coming from thence , by those rude and exasperated persons that live on the way : that what he had done was in discharge of his duty to his majesty , and preservation of the protestants , and wherein he had done the said earl no wrong . but if the said earl were slandered , or was any wise scandalized , it was by the said thomas allen his tenant or steward , against whom in right and justice he ought to have taken his remedy ( if he had thought it safe so to do ) and not against this informant : yet ( notwithstanding ) several petitions , and some affidavits taken in court , and also pleaded by this informants council , sir richard reynolds , and counsellor whitfield , to have the tryal kept at the kings bench bar , dublin , they were still put off and denied by justice oliver jones , an irish man , a reputed papist ; and there being no other judg on the bench , he in a great passion adjourned the said court from ten of the clock till the next day , and continued the adjournments for two or three days together , merely upon the motions of this informants council , to have the said tryal held at the bar , being the proper place ; but the said judg still denying it , answered , he had resolved to the contrary ; and thereupon this informants said council told him , they had lost the judges favour for that term , for being so much concerned for the informant , and likewise assured this informant it was contrary to law and justice , and common practice , for the judg so to do . then this informant was forced with his said father his witness , to travel to galloway to attend the said tryal there ; where though he was there three days before the day of tryal , yet could he not get any council for money to plead his cause . then at the appointed time , petitioning the judges to assign him council , and allow one day to advise with them ; justice jones would allow no time . the earls council urged there were three councils unretained by the said earl , whom this informant did retain , giving them their fee , eighteen shillings each man , with the breviates of his cause , which were drawn by counsellor whitfield , the informant being forced to be content with the said council , who were all irish papists . the only matter and issue for this informant was , to prove that the said thomas allen had spoken the said treasonable words , which was so well proved by his said father his witness , that one of his council told the court the evidence was sufficient , but was over-ruled by the said justice jones , saying , that that was not the case now ; and beckoning with his hand to this informants council when he spoke the words ; so that none of the informants council spoke a word more on his behalf at that time . but judg povey declared to the court , that it was sufficiently proved that thomas allen had spoke those words ; however the jury being some of them outlaw'd , and most of them papists , and some of them tenants , others bayliffs , and all of them some way or other related to the said earl , who was then present at the said tryal , brought in a verdict against this informant for two thousand pounds damages , and six pence cost ; upon which the said earl hath since in dublin obtained a judgment against this informant for the same to his utter ruine , the said earl being a dangerous papist , of great power in ireland , and as this informant is credibly informed , he then was and still is admiral of the irish seas belonging to galloway under the duke of york , and it was then reported he was to be governor of galloway , in the year 1672. and this informant further saith , that at galloway the same day after the tryal was over , he was endeavoured withal to be perswaded to submit himself to the said earl , and to declare what he had done was at the instigation of some others , as being his only way to be safe ; and that the earl would then pay him his charges , and discharge him of the said verdict , which he only obtained for his credit : and it was then also added , by john carrol clerk of the crown , that otherwise , let this informant return to dublin which way he would , there were those related to the said earl would wait to do his business for him . whereunto this informant replyed . that he never was put on by any one ; that what he had declared was no more than what the said thomas allen had said ; and that if it was to do again , he would do it ; looking upon it a duty incumbent upon every good subject , and that he would take the best care of himself he could in returning home , trusting in god to preserve him from such as sought unjustly to do him hurt : and to that purpose finding himself often threatened , and many times abused in galloway , he was forced , together with his said father , to get thence by night , and forsake the common road , and to go all the by-ways they could to secure their lives ; they having since been credibly informed , that they were pursued by seven persons near sixty miles , to have done them mischief ; and lately this informant was credibly informed , that there was a life-guard man hired to kill him upon the earl of clanrickard's account at , dublin . furthermore , in november , 1678. the said earl of clanrickard understanding that this informant and his said father had made a relation of their great sufferings by the said earls unjust prosecutions , and the great charges and damages they had thereby sustained ; he the said earl on the thirtieth of november , took out writs of one thousand pounds out of the kings bench against this informant and his said father , and by virtue of the same arrested his said ancient father , and there most inhumanely abused him , and laid him in prison from the thirtieth of november till the expiration of two terms , before an appearance could be allowed of in the kings bench ; and also another writ out of the common pleas of one thousand pounds laid upon this informant's said father , which occasioned his imprisonment until the twelfth of may following , to the great charge of this informant . and this informant further saith , that one burke , a steward or agent unto the said earl of clanrickard , declared to his face , that he would be the death of this informant if he could conveniently light on him ; and to accomplish in part his bloody resolution , did so severely strike this informants wife , who was the daughter of captain thomas ellis , merchant of the city of bristol , that from that time she lay in a languishing condition until she dyed , being the second of november , 1680. it being in the house of this informant that he committed the said assault , he the said burke bringing bayliffs and sub sheriffs officers , eight in number , to assist him ; and this informant by great providence escaped from them , and since for several months they have been seen to watch for him , insomuch that he durst not appear or converse with any , fearing his life or perpetual imprisonment by the said earl or his confederates , until he made his escape for england to make known his grievances . two years since also this informant was set upon by several papists near the city of dublin , and received wounds , but narrowly escaped his life by gods providence ; and the said earl for further vexation , hath lately fyled a large declaration in the common-pleas , stuft with many false suggestions , containing near three skins of parchment , it being an action of slander , grounded upon the statute made at gloucester , in the second year of richard the second , and laid to this informants said fathers charge , damages to the value of one thousand pounds , to which the defendant pleaded the general plea not guilty , and then there was no further prosecution , as by the records may plainly appear . whereupon this informant and his said father presented several petitions unto the lord lieutenant and council at dublin about september last , representing and setting forth their damages , and the vexatious suits brought against them for many years passed , and prayed that the before mentioned thomas allen might be sent for , and the earl of clanrickard living in dublin , and that we might be ordered to appear and prove these treasonable words which the said allen spoke , and have satisfaction ; and thereupon we might be dismissed from those unjust prosecutions from the said earl of clanrickard ; but nothing would be done , save leaving them to the common law ; whereas this informant and his father being so ruinated as aforesaid , are not now in a capacity to prosecute or desend themselves against the said earl of clanrickard , he being a near relation to the duke of ormond . about the twelfth day of may , 1680. one mr. robert downing came to this informants house , and shewed him a paper written , which was as he said by the earls order ( viz. ) that if this informant and his said father would give under their hands and seals , that they do verily believe in their consciences , that the said earl of clanrickard was not any ways guilty of the things spoken of him in the affidavit against the said thomas allen , that then the said earl would forbear all further proceedings , and discharge them from all things past , by sealing mutual releases to each other : but this informant refusing so to do , declared he had good grounds to believe to the contrary , and did hope in time to have satisfaction for the great damages he sustained by the said earl of clanrickard . one robert potts sworn before two justices of the peace , the fourteenth of april , 1679. and declared he heard one john venge , a gunsmith of portumna , say , that he had fixed up for the said earl five hundred fire-arms about five or six years since , and that he had a great many more to fix up for the said earl ; and that the said gunsmith and his men with forge and tools did work in the castle of portumna , belonging to the said earl. this informant petitioned the lord lieutenant and council for a copy of potts affidavit , and some other copies he thought necessary , but the clerk of the council said my lord would not grant them . and this informant further saith , that in the year 1678. there were proclamations to disarm papists in ireland , and banish popish priests , jesuits , and fryars , &c. and this informant hath been credibly informed , that several papists , &c. having not obeyed the said proclamations have been seized on , but producing licenses from the lord lieutenant have been discharged and set at liberty ; insomuch , that the said city and country swarms with them , and that there are several irish and french officers lately come into ireland , papists , and by the names of collonels , majors , captains , &c. nor were any officers permitted to search the said earls castle , or seize any arms to him belonging , being prohibited so to do , as follows . by the lord lieutenant-general ; and general governour of ireland . ormond . for reason● best known to us , we think fit hereby expresly to w 〈…〉 and require all his majesties officers and souldiers whatsoever , whom it may concern , to forbear searching for , or seizing upon any of the arms belonging to our very good lord , william earl of clanrickard . given under our hand this 26th of novemb. 1678. william ellis . and this informant further saith , that by the unjust prosecutions which followed his honest discovery , he is damnified above 1000. l. ster . besides the loss of his trade , and was forced to sell an estate of 100. l. per annum in defending his innocency , and preserving his life and liberty , and paying his just debts , contracted by the continual prosecutions of the said earl or his agents ; whereby this informant and his said evidence are utterly ruined by the never to be forgotten unkindness , or rather apparent injustice of the said justice oliver jones , in fuffering the said venire to be altered , as aforesaid ; and that now this informant is so much impoverished , being forced to leave his trade and habitation , that he hath not wherewithal to help himself , neither doth he know any place of safety , but has incurred the displeasure of many ; and being in great danger , fears he shall be destroyed , as others have been , for declaring the truth ; all which , the before-mentioned premises , this informant hath received , and endured by , and through the means of the said unjust and notorious prosecutions of the earl of clanrickard , these eight years past , which hath created great discouragements to many , and stifles discoveries of treasons , coming to their mind and knowledg since the yeer 1672. jurat , 7th die february , anno dom. 1680. coram me , geo. treby , recorder . this informant further saith , that what he did in discovering of the said treasonable words , was out of sense of his duty to god , and for the preservation of the protestants there ; nor could he then in the least imagine , by such a proceeding , to be uttterly ruined , as appears by the depositions aforesaid . another inducement of his discovery , was the bloody massacre that broke forth there in the year 1641. which will never be forgotten by the protestants , nor ever be repented of by the papists : and that notwithstanding the present apprehensions of great danger from the discovered plot , there are in , and about the city and suburbs of dublin divers mass-houses , publickly frequented by hundreds and thousands , connived , at although several proclamations have been issued out against them . again , had not this information been fully and clearly proved to the lord lieutenant and council , he this info●●●●t would certainly have been by them severely and deservedly punished . but let all moderate protestants , and true english men consider the calamity that this informant and his father have suffered in making the said discovery , and the necessity he is reduced to for so doing ; for all the proccedings have been ( as you may observe ) managed against him with that cruelty and injustice , the earl of clanrickard shewing his implacable wrath and malicious hatred to all english protestants , as he hath in the former rebellion given sufficient demonstrations of his bloody-mindedness towards the english protestants in all parts : when old vlick , earl of clanrickard , living in the beginning of the rebellion in portumna , and sometimes at loughred ; did endeavour to save some of the english protestants , and commanded his nephew , the present earl , so to do ; but the new earl refused to obey his unckle , old vlick , but went to the army of the rebels , and instead of being kind to the protestants and english , he most cruelly handled them in all parts wheresoever he found them , and was always found to be most cruel and unmerciful in the time of the massacre and rebellion , and so hath continued ever since upon all occasions , as you may see in his late passages concerning this informant . many other cruel and unjust actions in that county hath he done to many of the english since he was restored , especially to a gentleman of quality , and a justice of peace in that county , because he lived in an abby which stood upon land that he bought with his money , and refused to give it to popish clergy and fryars ; they made the earl to begin a suit against the said gentleman , to his ruin , by hiring witnesses to testifie for the earl : the said judg jones was the judg for the said earl , who never makes any scruple to give judgment against a protestant ; which all english and protestants have reason to take notice of . finis . a full and final proof of the plot from the revelations whereby the testimony of dr. titus oates and mr. will. bedloe is demonstrated to be jure divino, and all colours and pretences taken away that might hinder the obstinate from assenting to the truth and sincerity of their evidence : dedicated to all roman-catholicks and infidels / by e.c., doctor of the civil law. e. c., doctor of the civil law. 1680 approx. 40 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 10 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a31907 wing c23 estc r9091 12924716 ocm 12924716 95476 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a31907) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 95476) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 732:13) a full and final proof of the plot from the revelations whereby the testimony of dr. titus oates and mr. will. bedloe is demonstrated to be jure divino, and all colours and pretences taken away that might hinder the obstinate from assenting to the truth and sincerity of their evidence : dedicated to all roman-catholicks and infidels / by e.c., doctor of the civil law. e. c., doctor of the civil law. [6], 12 p. printed for thomas simmons ..., london : 1680. reproduction of original in duke university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2006-10 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-10 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-03 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2007-03 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a full and final proof of the plot from the revelations : whereby the testimony of dr. titvs oates and mr. will. bedloe is demonstrated to be jure divino , and all colours and pretences taken away that might hinder the obstinate from assenting to the truth and sincerity of their evidence . dedicated to all roman-catholicks and infidels . by e. c. doctor of the civil law. london , printed for thomas simmons , at the princes arms , and jacob sampson , next door to the wonder tavern in ludgate-street . m dc lxxx . the preface to the members of the romish church . notwithstanding the dedication of this pamphlet be directed to you , i have , contrary to custom , address'd it to those of our own church ; the great zeal i ever had for her prosperity causing me to observe a considerable party under her shelter that expressed but a cool resentment of a plot , though they cannot deny one ; and my design being as well to confirm the wavering , as to soften the obstinate , i inferr'd , they could not be without a just claim to the meaning of these papers : and thinking it not proper to link you together , i have chose rather to make of you standers-by , and hearers , in order to a conversion , whilst i freely exert and lay my self out upon them . i hope to obtain my end here , whatever ill success i meet with from you ; it being the only way i can propose to secure us from the effect of a plot ; for 't is well known , after your conspiracies are discovered , your first artifice is to insinuate an opinion of your innocence , and then to induce men to argue against , and question circumstances , by your arts adulterated and made contradictory , and lastly , to drill them on to a disbelief of all ; than which nothing can he more menacing the safety of the government ; your interest hereby being unshaken , and a liberty given of entring into new cabals , and of acting as with more security , so with more power and strength . i wish you could part with a little of that stiffness and obstinacy which is seen amongst you all , reason then might probably hope to be caress'd , and matters without bitterness impartially discuss'd ; but i confess i always had slender hopes of your acknowledging a conviction in cases of this nature ; and therefore am prone to think my labour will turn to no account upon so hard and stony a ground . however , i could not but give you this opportunity of being disabus'd , in imitation of st. paul , who thought it the duty of his apostolical function to preach the gospel in many places where he was assur'd before-hand it would never be received . i know there are great difficulties to be encountered before you dare think of owning a plot ; for the most of you are so inslav'd , nose-ring'd , and drag'd by your ambitious priests , that a man under their tuition has no more to do with his own soul , than a bear with his snout , that veers and answers to every check of his testy keeper . a popish-priest accounts himself god's church-warden of souls , seizes them , and manages their eternal concerns as he pleases ; the consciences of his seduced flock exactly resembling the poors boxes that are made to receive any thing he shall think fit to put in , brass , copper , or any other base metal ; how should we expect then a confession from you , when your priests keep the keys , and you cannot unlock without them ? or if you could , conscious of the great disparagement and disgrace that would accrue to your religion thereby , you would think it your best interest to deny and for swear any criminous informations against you . again , there is a sort to most of you comparatively harmless , i mean the modish sparks of your church , who will not acknowledge a plot in point of honour , lest it should condemn that religion which they believe entail'd upon them with their ancestors estates ; and therefore judge it as great a scandal to change hereditary errors , as to assume new coats of arms , and deface the old , both of them being esteemed as the ancient bearings of their families . but in short , whatever guesses me may make at the reasons of your aversion to reveal and discover , this is undeniably plain and palpable , that you are so muzled by infallibility , that you must believe upon pain of damnation every thing your church says , both in relation to this plot , and all other affairs in the world touching his holiness . but i look upon this as a curse the almighty usually annexes to a false religion , to give the members of it over to be deluded and infatuated , to have their judgments corrupted and depraved , and to create in them a disposition to believe all manner of lies , falshoods and dissimulations : and then the consequence of this delusion is their having a perverse notion of good and evil , an inverted sense of sin and villany , which is the sole cause of that violent ferment and fever we so often find in distemper'd governments . 't is from hence the sacred heroes of your church endeavour to destroy the morals and religion of nature it self , to rase out and annihilate the first and greatest principles of humanity ; as to account it no breach of the 6th commandment to kill any that shall not favour their designs , or cherish their opinions ; to state it as a meritorious act to murder the lord 's annointed , when they have branded him with the mark of heretick ; as assuring the impious aggressor he will be hurried to heaven , though the almighty has declar'd he shall be damn'd . these outrages of barbarity they practise , as necessary requisites to promote the interest and pomp of your church ; the commission of all kinds of sins , they account but a slight cracking the tables of stone , which because it is done upon the score of god and religion , any of their wicked casuists can cement , and make more firm than ever . religion heretofore recommended it self to the world by the piety and vertue of its votaries ; they that led the best and most innocent lives , were concluded to be of the soundest opinions , and worthy the imitation of good men ; but now the scene is changed , a modern fashion has invaded us that 's better received , and more zealously practised : men in these times choose their religion by the viciousness of her professors ; he that can shew the largest catalogue of crimes , is supposed to have acted best for the honour and reputation of his church ; the most eminent sinner is adjudg'd the greatest saint ; and as we reckon him a sneaking butcher that never stole a hide , or kill'd a sheep , so he , by the pope , is reputed a rascally jesuite , of a spurious litter , that has not fir'd a house , or stab'd a justice . the first order and discipline in your seminaries , for the training up youth , is long since taken to pieces , and a new one instituted ; your novices are instructed not in talkative argument for religion , but a real athletick contest for it ; your schools of disputation are turned into those of fencing ; and he that can boast himself the greatest proficient in the art of poisoning , slight of stabbing , and skill in making fire-balls , is esteemed better qualified for the service of holy church , the defence of her usurpations , than either of her impertinent champions baronius or bellarmine . and i must confess , you have hit upon right measures , this is infallibly the most expedite and successful manner of promoting religion that can be ; that of reason and argument is very teadious , and people are won but slowly by it ; in this case , if you meet with a man tough and tenacious of his own sense , 't is but cutting his throat , and the work is done ; for 't is in effect gaining a proselyte by destroying a heretick . gentlemen , in short , i am of opinion , 't is as impossible to find a violent papist without a head full of crafty designs and tricks to advance the credit of his religion , as it is to conceive any man to be careless and negligent of the thing he most esteems and values ; but that which most impetuously drives you on in the pursuit of your aims , is a perswasion that your works justifie , and are merit of themselves to save you , without the necessary condition of a good life ; and within this magick circle the devil himself wants skill to fright you ; no hazards , no wickedness can daunt you . hanging and quartering you embrace as the illustrious badges of martyrdom , and what we term the ignominy and desert of traitors , you call the glory and reward of saints ; so that justice which should lop off and deaden your villanies , by this means seems preposterously to assist and succour them , and to give life to new plots by preventing the old . and , gentlemen , will you not confess there is a plot ? will you deny that your priests are of such restless and furious tempers ? will you still stile it the slander of innocency , the misfortune of good men , and the affliction of saints ? with the same impudence we expect you will deny the noted powder-plot , the savage massacre in ireland , the several barbarous assasinations in france , others in poland and lituania . you will deny too , that some of your harmless jesuites were hang'd in , and the rest drove out of china by the emperour for their plots and underminings there . 't is not long since they grew so dangerous in the court of france , that they were sentenc'd to perpetual banishment by that monarch ; and though by their subtilties and arts they have wound themselves in again , yet he employs them with the same fear and circumspection the common people do fire , which though it be necessary to warm them , and boil or roast their meat , yet are they loath to trust it out of sight , without a faithful watch-man . therefore , gentlemen , be better natur'd , acknowledge you have your share of evil and turbulent men ; they are in all societies more or fewer , 't is no shame to own it . this is all i desire and beg of you , 't will be a great point gain'd , and the most reasonable request in the world , for then you cannot say 't is impossible there should be a plot ; there may be one , and there may not , shall be your card , which is the fittest preparative i can hope or wish for in order to your candid reading the following pages . farewel . a full and final proof of the plot from the revelations : whereby the testimony of dr. titvs oates and mr. will. bedloe is demonstrated to be jure divino , &c. dear brethren of the church of england , the prevailing motive ( as i hinted before ) towards this essay , is my great concern at the unbelief of some , and the doubts of others about the late popish plot ; having heard men of all sorts and qualities in coffee-houses , and at other publick meetings , constantly singling out this for the topick of their discourse . amongst this mixture of men , as their sense is differing , so their opinions are various ; some doubting and questioning many circumstances of the evidence ; others objecting against the reputation and honesty of the witnesses ; one condemning the plot in gross , looking upon it as a forgery , and meer fiction of interest to depress the romish faction ; another concluding it a sly trick of demeur jack presbyter to set the papist and the loyal protestant to worry one another ; to weaken and enfeeble the party of the church of england , and then , like a rebellious cheat , to vault himself into the great saddle of government . 't is not my purpose to determine which of these designs the plot was form'd for ; a plot there was , and for ought i know still is , against the best of kings , the purest of religions , and the freest of governments : and of how dangerous a consequence it is not to have a firm and earnest belief of this plot , is the whole design of this pamphlet to insinuate . as i always thought , usurping the sovereignty of censure , and assuming the monopoly of judging , was not to be tolerated ; so on the other side i ever look'd upon a loosness of talking , and liberty of thinking any thing , no less insupportable , and therefore concluded extravagancies in belief were as punishable by the magistrate , as corruptions in manners ; errors in opinion upon any small disgust of the disaffected party being soon hatch'd into disorders and breaches of the publick peace and repose . thus it is in relation to the plot ; if every man must be his own carver , and permitted to believe what he pleases of it , it will soon dwindle into a chymera , and vanish into the contempt of a romance ; for whilst one denys what the other believes , and a third rejects what both of them believe , and so forward , till there are as many opinions as men , and these proceeding from perverse apprehensions , passions or interest , must necessarily enervate the force and reality of a plot ; for though all the matter of fact and substance of it be not disown'd by any one singly , yet if you take them all together , and allow every man the refusal of his particular , you 'l find by calculation the whole fabrick no more than a strong phantasm , or enthusiastick vision ; and this great machine but a stately paper-building contriv'd to amuse and afright an easie and credulous people . 't is necessary therefore in this distraction to establish an hypothesis , on which to rear a certain and unerring belief ; humane reason , i know , wants sinews to effect it , every one being conceited of his talent , and thinking it as much against the priviledge and freedom of nature to have sense impos'd upon him , as chains : we must have recourse to a more awful standard , to a supreme being , that has an absolute authority over our opinions , a despotick power to controul our thoughts , and to set up an universal unanimity in belief sifted from the spurious whimsies of ignorance and conceit . to settle in all men such an entire confidence and assurance of this damnable conspiracy , i do my business , if i prove , that the evidence of dr. titus oats and mr. william bedloe is jure divino , of divine authority , and that whatever they say in reference to the plot , can be no contrivance or figment of their own , but the dictate of a spirit long since promis'd out of the revelations by john the divine . my intended explanation of the text i hope will put the plot out of all controversie , and force us all to confess , that dr. oates and mr. bedloe discover by illumination , or a supernatural light , and thereby render their evidence unquestionably true jure divino . to be short , the holy record in john is this , and i will give power unto my two witnesses , and they shall prophecie one thousand two hundred and threescore days cloathed in sackcloth . revelat. chap. 11. v. 3. ruminating with my self upon the aptness of these words to the present times , i was invited by my curiosity to reflect and dive into their sense , whereupon i found they related to other chapters , as well as the matter in this ; their latitude comprehending all the remarkable revolutions foretold by john. but above all this verse has such a direct , immediate aspect and intuition upon the fall of babylon , threatned in a following chapter , which our protestant divines conclude to be the church of rome ; that it seems to squint only , and look awry at other passages , but to appear with a full and gazing face upon this prediction . the prophecy of the down-fall of the see of rome we all know to be yet uncompleated ; the foreboding signs and tokens of this calamity are two preliminary witnesses that shall prophecy ; and as it is gods usual method when he intends to strike , to give warning of the blow ; so here it was reveal'd to john to declare , that the almighty would send two witnesses to prophecy , and give evidence of the whoredoms and villanies of this spiritual strumpet , to discover the dark intrigues of this hellish plot , to bring the conspirators to a just punishment , to free us all from the tyranny and yoke of popery , and finally to batter down that monster of religion , and bawd of sin and iniquity , the pope himself . it may perhaps be ask'd , why holy john mentions two witnesses indefinitely without offering at some description of the instruments in this great work ? i answer , 't was policy in him to mention them by the general character of witnesses ; he would not give plain and signal marks of the persons that were by an eternal providence pitch'd upon to over-turn this damnable design , an ignatian sort of people , whom he well knew to be ready charg'd with revenge and malice , by such a light given of the discoverers , might have murdered or strangled them as instruments intended to mischief their cause , and quench the red-hot iron upon the anvel . without doubt he could have supplied us with their names , at least their two first letters , for this any ordinary jugler can do by erecting a scheme , or casting a figure ; but then this would have expos'd the divine mysteries to the busie curiosities of prying men , who too often impiously attempt to rifle the cabinet of heavens decrees , and prostitute them to humane knowledge : i cannot believe that john talk'd at random as men do in their dreams , many of his prophecies have been fulfilled ; and to say he was not privy to the mystick sense he uttered , were to make no more of a prophet than a puppet , that squeaks by the voice , and moves by the hand of the manager . the next thing to be explained is the latter part of the verse , which says , they shall prophecy one thousand two hundred and threescore days cloathed in sack-cloth . by this is suggested dr. oates's first disclosing the intrigue , and heard with prejudice and aversion , to his great discouragement ; telling a wonderful and strange story , a hideous and dismal conspiracy , and not believ'd ; at length they shall both be received as oracles of truth by the parliament ; but by reason of some occurrences and conjunctures of state , that great council shall be prorogued , and afterwards dissolved ; then shall these two witnesses prophecy in sack-cloth , i. e. they shall be for some time under a cloud , expos'd to the publick censure and infamy of cheats , being deprived of that which chiefly invigorated their evidence : however , they shall still prophecy , and stoutly adhere to their first affirmations , though sorrowful and dejected , and with heavy hearts , and sad countenances , for the safety of the kingdom , preach up the imminent danger of a plot ; and so from parliament to parliament , till one thousand two hundred and threescore days are expired , they shall with great constancy and hopes of justice expect to have a final period put to it . and this i dare avouch is no distorted or wrested sense of this branch of the verse , but a free and natural understanding of the metaphor . and ver. 7. of the same chapter . when they have finished their testimony , the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit , shall make war against them , &c. which interpreted , is , the jesuites , with the remains of an inveterate and cruel malice , shall persecute , and be ever attempting to revenge the ruine of their cause upon the persons of these two witnesses . but i foresee it will be ask'd by the curious and inquisitive , why are only two witnesses nam'd by the diviner , when there is so great a herd of guilty reformades come in to give their testimony of , and assert the same numerical plot ? why should these be omitted , who are certainly assisting to win our perswasion of it , and but two mention'd ? why , i 'le tell you : dr. oates and mr. bedloe were the principal men commission'd by providence to unravel this bottom of iniquity ; the rest were only followers appointed by secret purposes of the divine will to corroborate and dignifie the evidence of the former ; it being rather an attendance of state and triumph annex'd to their testimony , for the greater splendor of the protestant cause ; for 't was not necessary to intimate any but the capital witnesses ; the evidence of dr. oates and mr. bedloe being in law sufficient to hang all the subjects in england , if they were guilty . two oaths in court for the king and country are like a brace of dragons that depopulate whole cities , and devour all they approach ; the zealous breath of honest witnesses in point of treason , carrying the same force with a strong west-wind of aegypt , that in a trice scours and cleanses the land from locusts , malefactors , and traitors . thus i hope i have made out the sense of john's prophecy , and i appeal to all the orthodox divines in europe , if this be not the most proper and genuine exposition of the text. and now what strange impiety will it be for any body to deny or question the truth of this plot ? we must not censure where heaven has set his stamp ; when the testimony comes from the eternal source of truth and wisdom , 't is our duty to believe , though we despair to apprehend ; for where we cannot rely upon our reason , we must exercise our faith. every good christian and loyal subject ought to believe as much of the plot as is positively sworn , nor does it become us to question or stagger at any thing that they with so much courage and assurance have asserted . 't is impossible in this case to be impos'd upon , or allured into the snare of falshood ; for if john were inspir'd , which we believe as certainly as the miracle of cloven tongues , we are sure to be grounded upon a firm faith : his prophecy being a secret of divinity imparted to illustrate the attribute of gods goodness , we have no more reason to boggle at the truth of the two witnesses , than the doctrine of an apostle : 't is impossible for them upon this basis to speak a falshood ; they are engines , the diviner says , actuated by him , witnesses he has chosen to lay open the destruction our enemies design'd us . and as it is from hence both irrational and highly irreligious to deny the being of a plot in general ; so to clip and pare part of it off , and believing it by halves , is no less impious ; for owning the discovery of the whole to inspiration , 't were to imply a contradiction in divinity to condemn part , and approve of the rest . we must therefore acknowledge every tittle of it , or it will be to no purpose to believe it mincingly . 't is not my design here to discourse of the probabilities of mens innocence , or guilt , by weighing circumstances and matters in a humane method , and in the scale of partial reason ; mine is a shorter and more compendious way , and not liable to fundamental errors ; heaven has revealed the plot , and 't is needless for me to make wrangling scrutiny into it ; for after i have done my best in such a search , i must , whether i will or no , acquiesce in a supine judgment of its truth , because holy john hath said it , and i told you before whence he had it . but if we should stoop a little to the cavils of the contentious , what would this avail or signifie ? what if you alledge you have good reasons to doubt of the truth of some particulars laid to the charge of the late malefactors ? why , suppose you have , the main of the accusations , and that which hang'd them , was high treason ; the throng of such important business in a witnesses head may easily be conceived to justle out trivial circumstances of time and place , and trapan him unawares into a false computation : the witness believes it was so and so , there done , and in such an order of time , and then punctually swears to it ; this is no crime in conscience ; if he errs , 't is only a fault in memory ; and so not a lie , but a mistake , which a court of justice readily passes by and pardons : this maxime being in vogue with us , as well as the romish casuists ; nemo peccat nisi actu voluntario . so this bubble of an objection vanishes . but to humour the captious a little further . granting these are lies couch'd under , and mix'd with the truth of the evidence , and supposing the witnesses knaves , which is the utmost malice can do ; yet cannot i think there is any reason to separate our selves from a total belief of every thing they say , since the main of the plot , in spight of the most sear'd obstinacy in nature , will compel us to acknowledge a great part of it : and though we wholly depend upon them for our information , and pin our faith upon their sleeves , yet ought we not to be so uncharitable , as to bring a suspicion of imposture upon the whole : 't is true , in this case we are liable to abuse , and if they will deceive us in some things , they may ; but for as much as we want a certain criterion to judge of , and winnow truth from falshood , and that , if i choose to be my own conductor , 't is an even wager but i embrace a lie , and reject a saving truth ; therefore if there were a hundred times more of the plot sworn than there now is , i think it prudence to swallow all , and disgorge none ; nay , i affirm , if there were ten millions of lies , i am obliged by the law of nature slightly to believe them all , rather than earnestly dissent from one precious truth , which , unespous'd , would prove my utter ruine ; for otherwise the bloody machinators have as fair play at our throats as ever , and the discovery will be as ineffectual to frustrate their designs , as looking upon a train of powder with a lighted match laid to it , will hinder it from taking fire : the sum is then , seeing we cannot distinguish between truth and falshood , it behoves us passionately to embrace both together for our own safety and preservation . and pray let this be a bug-bear to no body ; for what is there in all this ? shall i keep a clutter and ado about assent and dissent , and in the interim have my throat cut for my curiosity ? shall i grin , and have an ill opinion of the evidence , because the plot is not contriv'd as i would have form'd it , had i been a conspirator ? this is such nonsense , as nothing but a pragmatical conceited asse would be guilty of : we thank them very heartily for their critical wisdom and skill in plots ; i am rather perswaded they are angry and peevish , because it was not rightly projected , and would be though to storm at the folly of the design , when they secretly blame the ill fortune and success of the undertakers . but it may very materially be urg'd , that in this mist of evidence innocent men may be condemned wrongfully , their estates forfeited , and their lives taken away , to the great scandal of government , and the impious abuse of the sword of justice . to this 't is answer'd , that in cases of this moment and weight relating to the body-politick , 't is better that now and then an innocent suffer , than that all malefactors escape ; for as in the body-natural , labouring under a fever , the chyrurgeon , to preserve the whole mass from dissolution , draws from it both good and bad blood together ; there being so subtil and close a union between the corrupted and sound part of it , that no art or skill of his can free the body of one , without taking a portion of the other : so in matters of justice , 't is impossible for any magistrate to make such nice discriminations between innocence and guilt , as he shall be sure always to punish one , and acquit the other ; bare innocence being no vindication of it self , must bring proofs and violent presumptions to plead for it ; when these are wanting , the law devests her of that title , and sets her in the rank of criminals . but above all , the witnesses that are upon their oaths are to be heard and believ'd , notwithstanding any contrary conjectures and surmises , an oath being to be esteemed and valued with all reverence as the most sacred engagement in the world : and for as much as a witness is oblig'd to stake his soul ( a thing of inestimable price ) to the body of every man to be arraigned and tryed , i think a judge and jury are bound in conscience to belive one , before the defence of the other ; the damnation of a witnesses soul being a far greater loss , and infinitely above any advantage he can propose to himself from the destruction of his body whom he impeaches . there being therefore this vast disparity between the condition of the accused and the evidence , we ought to listen to no stories , or imaginary allegations of honesty in the reputed offenders , but to lay them aside , and proceed to sentence them as criminals ; and justice all this while remains unblemish'd ; the witnesses being her compurgators , though , if they be surprized in a falshood , they can be none of their own . thus the reputation of well govern'd societies skreens it self from all imputations of cruelty ; and the person condemn'd is not hereby so much injured in his temporal estate , as bettered in his spiritual , the most important concern of his being ; for if a witness is pleas'd to forfeit heaven by perjury , the dying man has a clear conscience to support him under his misfortune , and 't is probable may be a greater gainer by a sentence of death , than a concession of life , having a bless'd opportunity tendered of claiming salvation by a signal instance of innocence to that god , who never fails to consider it in the other world. but to drive the matter to a higher point : i am of opinion , that a jesuite , priest , or any other fiery papist , ought to be hook'd within the penal cognizance of the law , as effectually as if he stood convicted of being a party to the conspiracy ; but this , they say , would be barbarous and most unparallel'd injustice , because there are no overt acts tending to the prejudice of the government . but i look upon every the least of persons before-mentioned to be as so many plotspies , and as deserving punishment as a scout from the enemies camp by martial law : though they cannot all perhaps be proved to engage in the beginning of the plot , they will be sure to be seen in the end of it : and state-doctors say , physick by way of prevention or anticipation , is safer than remedies applied to encounter a disease upon the spot ; it being very difficult when the savage beast has fastened upon the throat of government to shake him off before he has strangled it . again , suppose jesuites , priests , and other the zealous bigots of the romish religion have not yet actually committed any mischief , or been corporeally active in any distractions amongst us ; yet ought we not to be so simply good-natur'd to look upon them as harmless , inoffensive persons , intenders of the publick peace and tranquillity : are we not acquainted with their tenets , their principles , the absolute dominion the pope has over them , their obligation to blind obedience , without the liberty of disputing the most impious of his commands ; the constant charge given them to promote their religion upon any terms , the vilest courses and means imaginable ; their accounting it no murder to assasinate a heretick prince , and all his subjects , when the holy vizier has excommunicated them ; but on the contrary , the highest merit and claim that they can prefer to the most glittering crown of saints ; and all these horrible credenda own'd and defended in the volumes of the most learned , and best casuists of their church ; since , i say , we are as certain that this is the substance of their religion , as that goodness , patience and loyalty is the sum of ours ; and that these principles are not by them to be maintained in notion only and speculation , but as the deposited bullion of the soul , upon advantageous occasions to be brought forth , and minted into action ; we have more reason to fear them , than those that have already made their attempts ; for as much as we cannot guess when they will pour upon us , their malice being quick and sudden , and like a granada , bursting on all sides into death and ruine . we all know that treason but intentionally prov'd , comes within the verge of the law , and condemnation is awarded accordingly ; and why pernicious , destructive , rebellious opinions publickly own'd and abetted , should not have the same force to condemn , i see not the least jot of reason : he that harbours an ill and dangerous principle in his bosom , lodges an enemy and traytor in the country of his prince , that lies couchant under that covert , till he has a fit opportunity to rouze , and fly in the face of majesty . every violently evil man ought to be capitally secured from a power of doing mischief ; for seeing we cannot execute his bad principles without himself , and whilst there is life , thene will be villany , 't is but justice they both should suffer together ; and in this case , though the man perhaps , in pursuance of his judgment , for want of a due time to humour his secular interest , never was a notorious rogue in practice , yet this preponderates nothing ; for whether he acts or no , the vicious , traiterous will ought to pass for the deed ; 't is high treason in intellectu , and that 's enough . but i find my too great passion and love for honesty , integrity , and allegiance has unawares made me deviate from my purpose , it being far from my design to think to convince any one of the reality of all and every part of this plot by dint of ratiocination ; and therefore i did at first institute another method , which i intend to end with , and which is the only expedient to allay our heats and animosities ; 't is this must hinder us from contradicting one another ; 't is this must make us come to a combination in judgment concerning the plot , to believe it , and make no more hums nor ha's about the matter of it ; for we are told by divine authority , 't is a damnable design against our throats ; we may believe too little , but not too much of it ; and i do not think in so doing i enlarge and stretch my conscience ; that is not to meddle here , being a judge only of reason , and her jurisdiction confin'd to equity : in this case i do but load my faith , which heaven has made with a flat bottom , not to be sunk by a moderate burden . and as i am in obedience oblig'd to receive , so in duty am i forbid curiously to examine and flaw-find the plot , which prohibition is only intended as a means to prevent differences and disputes amongst us . do we seriously consider the sense of the wisest heads in the nation , the judgment of many cunning daniels that have been most laboriously sollicitous in our interest , the unanimous declaration and vote of the house of commons , the faithful and ingenuous reports of the privy-council , the sagacious opinions of all the judges , we are no more able to resist the evidence of this plot , than we can with christianity reject articles of faith agreed and concluded on in a general and lawful council : therefore in framing doubts about it , we implicitly tax the government with silliness and credulity , and do in effect call our rulers fools , and magistrates asses . 't is an approved opinion , that in all great assemblies and consults for the well-fare of a good king , a true religion and government , there is a presiding spirit to direct and steer their resolutions : god almighty , ever when he is pleased himself to be the discoverer of the enemies of his church , enlightning the ministers of justice , enlarging and amplifying the powers of their understandings , that they may be able to grapple with stratagems and intricacies , and to pierce through the darkest shades and recesses of night : so that the assiduous care of the king and his council , the incessant prosecutions of parliament , the vigilance and activity of justices of the peace , do as fully evince the reality of a plot , as all the oral depositions of the witnesses ; these extraordinary motions being never raised in publick magistrates but by divine instigation to confront malicious against a people whom heaven has a mind to protect . what a folly is it then for men to shufle and cut , to carp at one passage , and laugh at another of the plot ▪ and when they have done all they can to expose the matter of it , to take sanctuary at slander , asperse and vilifie the witnesses , derogate from their integrity , bespatter their lives , and rail against irregularities of their conversation ? this can be nothing certainly but the virulent spleen and malice of such who are not to be answer'd , but physick'd for satisfaction , purg'd from those gross humours that thus fly up into , and annoy the head. but if there be really any adult , personal vices , or extravagancies of the witnesses , these are so far from proving a ground to suspect the credit of what they say , that it bespeaks rather an itch of objecting , than a rational scruple in the calumniators ; for st. ambrose says , veritas a quocunque est , est a spiritu sancto ; and at this rate we have a fathers word for it , the devil , when he speaks truth , does it by divine impulse ; 't is not his being the father of lies that will evacuate a truth ; and therefore let the malice of our adversaries urge what it can , truth is truth in spight of hell. in fine , there is a plot , a plot of many years standing , assisted and encouraged by a conjunction of popish interest throughout all christendom ; the total extirpation , ruine and murder both of man , woman and child threatn'd , intended , and resolved on ; and shall we not believe there 's a plot ? for my part , i think it a necessary article to be inserted in my creed ; it being certain , that nothing but a mistrust of it can prevent the due effect which the discovery should have upon the publick : i am so satisfied and convinced from all outward circumstances of the real existence of a plot , that i 'le suffer my self to believe all impossibilities , rather than be perswaded there is none . i passionately repeat once more , and lay it home to your consciences , that dr. oates and mr. bedloe are mediums and pipes employed by the almighty to convey the knowledge of this master-piece of villany to us : i have demonstrated this , leo any man prove the contrary ; for unless you pronounce john an impostor , i am in the right ; you cannot without atheism deny the antecedent , ergò you must own the sequel ; from whence will follow this corollary ; if you believe not these witnesses , dr. oates , and mr. bedloe , the prophets you have now with you , neither would you believe one though he rose from the dead . finis . to the right honourable the lords spiritual and temporal, and to the honourable the knights, citizens, and burgesses in this present parliament assembled, the humble petition of titvs oates, d.d. oates, titus, 1649-1705. 1689 approx. 6 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a53539 wing o57 estc r7462 12588240 ocm 12588240 63811 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a53539) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 63811) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 770:10) to the right honourable the lords spiritual and temporal, and to the honourable the knights, citizens, and burgesses in this present parliament assembled, the humble petition of titvs oates, d.d. oates, titus, 1649-1705. 1 sheet ([1] p.) ; 40 x 32 cm. printed by j.d., and are to be sold by richard janeway, london : 1689. broadside. caption title. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng oates, titus, 1649-1705. popish plot, 1678. broadsides -england -london -17th century 2008-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-05 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-06 john pas sampled and proofread 2008-06 john pas text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion to the right honourable the lords spiritual and temporal , and to the honourable the knights , citizens , and burgesses in this present parliament assembled ; the humble petition of titvs oates , d. d. most humbly sheweth , that your petitioner in the year 1678 , discovered a horrid popish conspiracy for the destruction of the late king charles the second , his present majesty , and the protestant religion within these kingdoms ; and prov'd it so fully , that several parliaments , and courts of justice , before whom he gave his testimony , declared their belief of it by publick votes , and the condemnation of several of the conspirators . for which reason and because your petitioner would not be terrified by their threats , nor seduced by their promises of great rewards ( with both which temptations they often assaulted him ) to desist in his discovery ; the jesuits and papists pursued him with an implacable malice , and endeavoured to take away his fame and life , by suborning witnesses to accuse him of capital crimes ; but being defeated in that villanous attempt , they first procured king charles the second to withdraw that protection and subsistence his majesty had , at the request of several parliaments , allowed to your petitioner ; and then instigated his royal highness the duke of york to prosecute your petitioner in an action of scandalum magnatum , for speaking this notorious truth , viz. that he the said duke of york was reconciled to the church of rome ; and that it is high treason to be so reconciled wherein a verdict and judgment for one hundred thousand pounds damages were obtained against your petitioners and your petitioner was committed to the king's-bench-prison . after this , the same popish party obtained leave from king charles the second , to prefer two several indictments against your petitioner , for two pretended perjuries in his evidence concerning the said conspiracy , which they brought on to tryal in the reign of king james the second ; and your petitioner was upon the evidence of those very witnesses , who had confronted him in three former tryals , and were disbelieved ; and through the partial behaviour of the chief justice jeffreys , in brow-beating his witnesses ; and misleading the juries , convicted of the said pretended perjuries , and received this inhumane and unparallel'd sentence following , viz. to pay two thousand marks to the king ; to be devested of his canonical habit : to be brought into westminster-hall with a paper upon his head , with this inscription , titus oates convicted upon full evidence of two horrid perjuries : to stand in and upon the pillow two several days , for the space of an hour : to be whip'd by the common hang-man , from aldgate to newgate on wednesday , and to be whip'd again on the friday following from newgate to tiburn : to stand in and upon the pillow five times in every year of his life ; and to remain a prisoner during his life . which sentence being intended , as your petitioner hath just reason to believe , to murther him , was accordingly executed with all the circumstances of barbarity ; he having suffered some thousands of stripes whereby he was put to unspeakable tortures , and lay ten weeks under the surgeons hands . neither did their cruelty cease here , but because your petitioner , by god's mercy miraculously supporting him , ( and the extraordinary skill of a judicious chirurgion ) outlived that bloody usage , some of them afterwards got into your petitioner's chamber whilst he was weak in his bed , and attempted to pull off the plaisters apply'd to cure his back , and threatned to destroy him : and that nothing within their power or malice might be wanting to compleat your petitioner's misery , they procured him to be loaded with irons of excessive weight for a whole year , without any intermission , even when his legs were swoln with the gout ; and to be shut up in the dungeon , or hole of the prison , whereby he became impair'd in his limbs , and contracted convulsion fits , and other distempers , to the great hazard of his life . all which illegal proceedings , and barbarous inhumanities , your petitioner humbly conceives were not only intended as a revenge upon him , but likewise to cast a reproach upon the wisdom and honour of four successive parliaments who had given him credit , and upon the publick justice of the nation . and your petitioner humbly hopes that since the papists themselves have verified and confirmed his evidence by their late open and avowed violations of our religion , laws , and liberties , this honourable house will vindicate the proceedings of former parliaments , and discharge your petitioner from those arbitrary and scandalous judgments , and the unjust imprisonment he lies under . your petitioner doth therefore most humbly beseech your lordships and your honours , to take his deplorable case into your generous and tender consideration , and to give him such redress therein as to your lordships and your honours great wisdom , justice , and goodness , shall seem meet : and your petitioner shall ever pray , &c. london , printed by j. d. and are to be sold by richard janeway , 1689. by the king, a proclamation for the further discovery of the late horrid design against his majesties sacred person and government england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1678 approx. 2 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32551 wing c3473a estc r34815 14867220 ocm 14867220 102745 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32551) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 102745) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1566:47) by the king, a proclamation for the further discovery of the late horrid design against his majesties sacred person and government england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, christopher barker, thomas newcomb, and henry hills ..., london : 1678. "given at our court at whitehall, the twenty seventh day of november, 1678. in the thirtieth year of our reign." reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng proclamations -great britain. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2008-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-09 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-09 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion c2 r diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms by the king. a proclamation for the further discovery of the late horrid design against his majesties sacred person and government . charles r. the kings most excellent majesty ( at the humble request of the lords spiritual and temporal in parliament assembled ) doth by this his royal proclamation publish and declare , that if any person or persons shall before the twenty fifth day of december next , make any further discovery of the late horrid design against his majesties sacred person and government , to one of his majesties principal secretaries of state , he or they making such discovery , shall not onely receive from his majesty for every such discovery , the reward of two hundred pounds , to be immediately paid , upon due proof of the truth thereof ; but if he or they were a principal or principals in the said design , or guilty of the former concealment thereof , he or they shall have his majesties gracious pardon for such his or their respective offence . given at our court at whitehall , the twenty seventh day of november , 1678. in the thirtieth year of our reign . god save the king. london , printed by john bill , christopher barker , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1678. london's flames being an exact and impartial account of divers informations given in to the committee of parliament, by divers members of parliament, and many other persons of quality (whose names are inserted in this book) concerning the dreadful fire of london in the year 1666, and the many other strange fires which have happened since : together with what was said by m. langhorn, now a prisoner, and condemned for the horrid popish plot, concerning the great fire : wherein is plainly proved, that the papists were the contrivers and actors in the burning of that great and noble city. england and wales. parliament. house of commons. committee to enquire into the burning of london. 1679 approx. 57 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 10 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a49094 wing l2927 estc r22192 12619888 ocm 12619888 64490 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a49094) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 64490) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 964:19) london's flames being an exact and impartial account of divers informations given in to the committee of parliament, by divers members of parliament, and many other persons of quality (whose names are inserted in this book) concerning the dreadful fire of london in the year 1666, and the many other strange fires which have happened since : together with what was said by m. langhorn, now a prisoner, and condemned for the horrid popish plot, concerning the great fire : wherein is plainly proved, that the papists were the contrivers and actors in the burning of that great and noble city. england and wales. parliament. house of commons. committee to enquire into the burning of london. [2], 17 p. [s.n.], london : 1679. reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng langhorne, richard, 1654-1679. popish plot, 1678. london (england) -fire, 1666. 2006-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-11 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-01 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2007-01 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion london's flames : being an exact and impartial account of divers informations given in to the committee of parliament , by divers members of parliament , and many other persons of quality ( whose names are inserted in this book ) concerning the dreadful fire of london in the year 1666. and the many other strange fires which have happened since . together with what was said by mr. langhorn , now a prisoner , and condemned for the horrid popish plot , concerning the great fire . wherein is plainly proved , that the papists were the contrivers and actors in the burning of that great and noble city . london , printed in the year 1679. informations given in before the committee , &c. in a letter from alanzon , of the 23d of august , new style , written from one dural , to a gentleman lodging in the house of a minister of the french-church in london , called monsieur heralt , were these expressions , viz. pray acquaint me with the truth of certain news , which is common in this country , that fire from heaven is fallen upon a city called balke , scituate on the side of the river of thames ; where a world of people have been killed and burned , and houses also consumed . this name was given to london by its godfather cabal , who thereby inform their own , but amuse the adverse party . mrs. elizabeth styles saith , that in april last , in an angry dispute she had with a french servant of sir vere vane's , he hastily replyed , you english maidens will like the french-men better , when there is not an house left between london-bridge and temple-bar , which she answering , i hope your eyes will never see that , he replyed , this will come to pass between june and december . william tisdale informs , that he being , about the beginning of july , at the grey-hound in st. martins , with one fitz-harris an irish papist , he heard him say ; there shall be sad desolation in september , and in november a worse . for in december all will be united into one ; hereupon tisdale asking where this desolation would be , the said priest answered him , in london . mr. lite of ratcliff , having some discourse with one mr. langhorne of the middle temple , barrister , reputed a zealous papist , about february last ; after some discourse in disputing about religion , he took him by the hand and said to him , you expect great things in 1666. and think that rome will be destroyed ; but what if it be london ? one kiteley of barking in essex , informs , that one yaxley a papist , of ilford in the said county , came into their house august the 13th . who falling into discourse with his mother , said , they say that next thursday , will be the hottest day that ever was in england . she replyed , i hope the hottest season of the year is now past . to which he answered ; i know not whether it be the hottest for weather or action : the said yaxley , coming to the same house , the week after the fire , mr. kitely said to him with some trouble ; i have often thought upon your hot thursday , to which she replyed , it was not indeed upon the thursday but it hapned upon the sunday come sevennnigt after ; mr. yaxley bearing these evidences produced against her , prompted her to avoid the words , saying , that upon the 13th of august , she did tell mr. kitely , that they say next thursday , will be the darkest thursday , that ever was in england , but not otherwise ; which she affirms to have received from one fynchman . an old woman of ilford , who next being examined before a justice of peace , to discover the truth thereof , denyed that ever she said any such words to mrs. yaxley , or that she had any discourse with her about any such matter ; as to the subsequent words she the said yaxley denyed ever to have spoken them , but mr. kitely offered in her presence , if it should be demanded , to bring his mother and wife to testifie the same . william ducket member of the house , informs that one henry baker of chipnam , in the county of wilts , coming from market with one john woodman of rolloway in the same county , the thursday before the fire began in london , they had some discourse about buying a yoke of fat bullocks , which woodman was to sell , and was desired by baker to keep them a while in his hands , but woodman replied that he would not stay so long in the county , whereupon baker demanding whither he was going ? he refused to tell ; asking , what he had to do to ask that question ? and riding a little farther , the said woodman expressed these words ; you brave blades of chipnam , you made bonfires lately for beating the dutch , but since you delight in bonfires , you shall have your belly full of them ere it be long ; adding , that if he lived but one week longer , he should see london as sad a london as ever it was since the world began , and in some short time after , he should see as bloody a time in england , as ever was since england was england : this discourse was not much taken notice of at that time when it was spoken ; but when the city of london was burning , the said baker gave this imformation to the said ducket ; hereupon was issued out a warrant to apprehend woodman , but he was gone out of the country , and cannot be yet heard of . robert hubert , of roan in normandy , confessed that he was one of those that fired the house of mr. farmer a baker in pudding-lane , from whence the fire had its beginning ; and also sayes , that he came out of france with one stephen pedilow , about four months before the fire began in london , and went into sweedland with him , where he stayed also with him as his companion four moneths , and then they came together into england in a sweedish ship , called the skipper , where he stayed on board with the said pedilow , till that saturday night on which the fire broke out , where pedilow taking him out of the ship , carryed him into pudding-lane , and he being earnest to know whither he was carrying him , he would not satisfie him , till he brought him to the place , and then he told him that he had brought three balls , and gave him one of them into his hand to throw into the house , but he desiring further satisfaction about that design before he proceeded , pedilow began to chaff and would not hear him , seeing which , hubert consents , and according to his orders puts the fire-ball to the end of a long pole , which after he had lighted it with a match , he put it in at the window , and there staid till he saw the house on a flame ; to this fact he confesses three accomplices whereof pedilow to be chief . mr. graves , a french merchant , living in st. mary ax , informs ; that he had known hubert ever since he was four year old , and he ever observed him to be a person of a mischievous inclination , and therefore fit for any villanous enterprise , and because of the knowledge he had of him , he went to visit him in prison ; when he saw him , he could not but commiserate his condition , whereinto he had brought himself ; and for his better discovery of the fact , he told him the said hubert , that he did not believe that he had done that fact which he had confessed himself guilty of , to which hubert replyed , yes , i am guilty of it ; and have been brought to it by the instigation of pedilow , and not out of any malice to the english nation , but from a desire of that reward he promised me , upon my return into france . [ it is observable , that this miserable creature , who confessed himself before the commissioners to be a protestant , was a papist , and dyed so ; ] and as to the aforesaid pedilow , the said mr. graves informs , that he had a full knowledge of him , and knew him to be a very debauch'd person , and ready to any wicked design ; and moreover , for a clearer conviction of the guilt of the foresaid hubert , lowman the keeper of the white lyon was commanded to set him upon an horse , and go with him , to see if he could find out the place where he threw the fire-ball ; upon which hubert , with more readiness than those who were well acquainted with the place , went to pudding-lane , where the very house which was first fired stood , saying , here stood the house ; the jaylor did endeavour do draw him off from that belief , and put him upon seeking for some other place , but he positively persisted in what he first said , and affirmed that to have been the said house . it being intimated to the committee , that notwithstanding the confession of the said hubert , it was confidently reported , that the fire in the fore-mentioned farmer his house began by accident , so the commissioners sent for the said farmer before them , who being examined , said , that it was impossible that any fire should happen in his house by accident , for that , after twelve of the clock at night , he had gone through every room thereof , and found no fire but in one chimney , where the roome was paved with brick , which fire he raked up in the embers : he was then asked , whether no window or door might let in wind to displace those coals ? he affirmed , that it could not be conceived that wind should there disturb them , but rather that it was absolutely set on fire on purpose . dawes williamson esquire , one of his majesties justices of the peace , informs , that he saw a man apprehended near the temple , with his pocket stuffed with combustible matter , made of flax and tow , and such like stuff . dr. john parker informs , that he saw a person throw some combustible matter into a shop in the old bayley , which he thinks was the shop of an apothecary ; that immediately thereupon he saw a great smoak , and smel't , as it were , the smell of brimstone ; that the person that did this immediately ran away , but upon the outcry of the people he was taken by the guard. randal harsland and humphry bowyer , they both agree , that they saw a person fling something into a house near st. antholins church , and that thereupon the house was on fire , and the smoak thereof filled the house on the other side of the way ; and when this was done , there was no fire near by a quarter of a mile . michael march , an officer of the trained-bands , in a company of sir richard brown's , apprehended a woman in the time of the fire , at the nags-head in leaden-hall-street , with an instrument like a dark lanthorn , made , as is conceived , to lay a train of powder , and it was filled with gunpowder , ( there were two more in her company ) they being asked for what use they imployed the said instrument , they would give no account thereof . nawson killingworth esquire , informs , that he apprehended a person during the fire , about whom he found much combustible matter , and certain black things of a large figure , which he could not endure to hold in his hand by reason of their extream heat ; this person was so surprised at first , that he could not answer to any question , but being on his way to white hall , he acted the part of a madman , so continuing while he was present with him . sir john maynard , a member of this house , informs , he had some of that combustible matter in his hand , and though it was in its natural consistency unfired , yet the heat was scarce to be endured by the touch . mr. freeman of southwark brewer , whose house there was lately burned , informs , that the same day his house was fired , about a quarter of an hour before three , was found a paper with a ball of wild-fire , containing near a pound wrap'd up in it , in the nave of a wheel , in an outer house , where lay a great quantity of timber ; how this house was fired he knoweth not ; but this he affirms to the committee , it could not be by accident , because there had not been any candle or fire in the house where the hay lay , that whole day ; and the hay being laid up before midsummer very dry , it could not possibly be set on fire within it self ; and moreover , he said , the hay-loft was on fire on the top of the house , and that the fire spread from one end of the roof to the other in an instant . mr. richard harwood saith , that he being near the feathers tavern by st. pauls , on the fourth of september , something like wild-fire by the sparkling and spitting of it , appeared , whereof he gave notice to some souldiers there , who caused it to be quenched . a letter . sir , hearing that you are chairman of the committee , for examining the firing of london ; i thought good to acquaint you with this information that i have received . william champress hat-band maker , now living on horsey-down , was on tuesday morning september 4th 1666. in shoe-lane , and there met with a constable , who had apprehended a french-man , whom he had taken firing an house with fire-balls , and charged the said champress to assist him ; he carried the said french-man to salisbury court , but finding that burning down , he went into fleetstreet , and was presently called upon by the commander of the guard , to know what the matter was ; the constable told him , he had apprehended one firing an house in shoe-lane . he examined the person in french , and committed him to the guard of the souldiers , and told the constable he would secure him , and carry him along with him , the constable asked him , if he should go along with him to give in his evidence , he replied , he had done enough ; but what became of the french-man , he knoweth not . your most humble servant s. g. taken up at leeds by mr. thwaits's man , a recusant . cover the fire ye hugonots , that have so branded us with plots : and henceforth no more bonfires make , till ye avaunt the stygian-lake , &c. dated the 5th . of november , anno salutis 1666. & anno primo restitutionis romanae religionis in anglia . in a letter directed from ipswich , for the honourable sir robert brooks in the parliament at westminster , is intimated that about the 30th of august last , one of the constables of scoton in horse-mear hundred , being upon the search of that town about hearth-money , was told by one mr. wiliam tompson a roman catholick in that town , that though times were like to be sad , yet if he found any cause to alter his religion , he would see that he should not want ; and farther said to him , what would you say if you should see that london was burnt ? an affidavit of a french-man , that said , there was three hundred engaged in the firing the city of london . the information of richard bond , of the parish of st. giles in the fields , ironmonger ; samuel page , francis cogin , william coales , edmund dakins , and richard pardoe , taken the 18th of september 1666. by me justinian truin , knight , one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex , upon oath , as follows . richard bond saith , that on thursday last , about twelve or one of the clock at night , there was a french-man brought by the watch to the informers fathers house , at the sign of the white hart in kings street , taken as a suspitious person ; and the said person being questioned by them , the informant , and others present , whether he was not one of those that fired the city , or had any hand therein , or any private knowledge thereof , or knew any that had designed it ; the said person answered a great while in a perverse manner , quite differing from the questions ; but being further desired to tell the truth , and being told , that if he were guilty , it was the only way to save his life , he did at first obstinately deny that he knew of any plot , whereupon a young man took the prisoner aside to the end of a room , and after some discourse between them , they both returned to the informant , and the rest of the company , and the said young man said to us plainly , in the hearing of the prisoner the french-man , that he had confessed that there were three-hundred french-men in a plot or conspiracy ; upon this the informant and others spake o the french-man in these words ; well master , you have done very well to confess , and no doubt but you may have your pardon if you confess all that you know of this plot ; and thereupon asked him , if there were no more than three hnndred persons in the said plot ? he answered , no , there are no more than three hundred ; then we enquired who they were , and how he came to know they were three hundred , to which he would give no direct answer , but put it off with other extravagant discourse , and being asked why he came to st. giles parish where he was apprehended , he told a story that he came from islington fields , where his masters goods were , but the goods were now removed he could not tell whither ; but his master bade him go up and down the fields , but would not tell him upon what occasion , or for what end he was so to do ; and he being asked whether there were three hundred men engaged in this design ? he replyed , that there was three hundred engaged in it . and the names of the persons present at the prisoners confession of the plot were , edmund dakings seniour , of holbourn near turn-stile , littingam bell living by holbourn , and another young man. the information of william coles of cow-lane london , and samuel page of s. gyles in the fields weaver , edmund dakens of the same parish , and francis cogin of st. andrews holborn , and richard pardoe victualler , and one other tending to the confirmation of the foregoing walloone . an extract of a letter from hiedleberge in the palatinate , september 29th 1666. sir , yours of the 6th currant came to me on wednesday , and brought me tidings of the burning of london , constantly believed amongst the irish to my knowledge , this fifteen years since , was to happen this year , on which they do also promise to themselves and others , the introduction of the publick exercise of the catholick religion . this was sent to mr. john altock , who lived in gravel lane in shadwel , and negotiates the business of the palatinate , and will produce the original if there be occasion . in a letter to sir john frederick and mr. nathaniel herne , from northampton , the eighth of september 1666 , subscribed henry chowne ; wherein is mentioned , that he the said chowne had thoughts to come to london that week , but they were in distraction concerning the papists , fearing they would shew themselves all that day ; and that he had been to search a papists house within six miles of that place , he with another justice of the peace met with the gentlemans brother , who is a papist , going to london , whom they searched , and found a letter which he had received , coming from his sister , twenty miles off from him , wherein is expressed , that a great deal of business is in hand , not to be committed to paper , as the times are . bakers information to ducket , concerning john goodman , about the destruction of london . upon the ninth of september 1666. being the sunday after the fire began in the city of london , one henry baker of chipnam in the county of wilts , butcher came and gave in this information , that the thursday se'night before the fire began in london , coming from the devizes market , he hapned into the company of one john goodman , husbandman , who discoursed with him about a yoak of oxen , as is inserted before in the report . the information of one cherrel , a schoolmaster in enfield . upon friday august the one and thirtieth , mrs. st. george and her eldest daughter susan , both popish recusants , came to visit mrs. rebeccah eeves at her house in enfield ; where , speaking concerning the session of parliament drawing near , mrs. st. george told her , that some were like to be called to account for a plot ; being asked for what ? told her in her ear , for burning the city . when mrs. eeves heard of the fire , going to a place where she might see it , she met with mrs. susanna st. george ; and among other discourse , told her , how much her mother's words which she spake before the fire , did run in her thoughts , which she repeated to her daughter ; who made this reply , that her mother was very apt to talk , and that she had been forc'd to keep her mother within doors during the fire , fearing that she should talk . after this destruction by fire , mrs. eeves met with mr. coale , another recusant , and one of the same family ; she also related mrs. st. georges words to him ; who made this return , that she was a worthy woman to keep counsel . the lady st. george at enfield , at the lord of lincoln's house , declared to mrs. rebeccah eeves , that in few dayes london should be in ashes , this was spoken about two dayes before the fire happened . mrs. eeves of enfield . before mr. holland and mr. mervil , members of parliament , decemb. 20. 1666. concerning mrs. st. george . mrs. rebeccah eeves of enfield , three or four dayes , or within a week before the fire , receiving a visit in her own house from mrs. st. george , among other discourse , mrs. st. george asked her , what news she heard ? and if she knew when the parliament sate ? she replyed , she thought suddenly . the other asked , if mrs. eeves heard of any that were to be call'd in question before the parliament ? eeves . about what ? st. george . about a plot. eeves . what plot ? st. george . about firing the city . eeves . i hope god will preserve the city ; people use not to be called in question before the fact. so that discourse was waved at that time . at the time of the fire , mrs. eeves and mrs. st. george went out to look towards the fire , and one in the company ( but she cannot fix the person ) replyed , a fine woman to keep counsel . after the fire , mrs. st. georges daughter coming to mrs. eeves's house , mrs. eeves asked her , if she remembred what her mother said ? who answered , my mother is such a woman , she will speak what she thinks . and afterwards said , that she had much ado to keep her mother in , in the time of the fire , for fear she should speak something that she might be questioned for . at this discourse mrs. eeve 's daughter and others of her family were present . mr. st. george hereupon , with his wife and family , left enfield about six weeks after , but left many more in the neighbourhood . it 's reported , that at the house of mr. cook and other recusants , there was great coaching , drinking , and rejoycing at the time of the fire . december the 20th . 1666. rebecca eeves . a letter directed and sent by a papist to mr. lamb , from tarleton in leicester-shire , from a person unknown ; as follows . my friend , your presence is now more necessary at london than where you are , that you may determine how to disp●se of your estate in southwark , for it is determined by humane council ( if not frustrated by divine power ) that your liberty will shortly be destroyed ; your capacity is large enough to understand : proceed as your genius shall instruct . vale , cave , fuge . the liberty of haring in the county of essex . the information of robert hubert , a frenchman ▪ taken at rumford , the 11th . of september 1666. before cary harvie , alias mildmay esquire , one of the justices of the peace for the liberty of the county aforesaid . he saith , that about mid-lent he came out of france , with one stephen pedilow a frenchman , with whom he stayed about four months , as his companion , and then they came together into england in a swedish ship , called the skipper , which was laden with iron , steel , and copper-plates ; and saith , that the master's name of the ship is also skipper , and that pedilow kept the examinant on board that ship , which lay at st. katharines brewhouse , but pedilow himself went several times into the city , and came on board again , and had often private discourse with the said master of the ship ; and saith , that when the city was on fire , he , this examinant , was sent out by pedilow , who had given him a fire-ball , and bade him fire an house near the kings palace , for which the said pedilow gave him a shilling , and promised him a greater reward when he came into france ; which fire-ball , this examinant saith , he fired , and threw into the window of an house near white-hall , on tuesday night , which fired the same house , and he stayed there , and saw it burn two or three hours ; and further saith , that pedilow bade him not make use of this fire-ball till he saw the city on fire , and then to do it ▪ which he did accordingly , and then went to find the ship , but it was gone ▪ and further saith , that pedilow had two fire-balls himself ; and the said examinant saith , divers other frenchmen have fire-balls ; and saith also , that when this examinant came last to the ship , the said master directed him to find his comrade pedilow , at his chamber or lodging , but at what house he confessed not ; and said , that not finding the ship aforesaid , he came this way to go towards the sea coasts , in hopes , either by that or some other vessel to get a passage home . the information of john lowman , keeper of his majesties gaol for the county of surry . in obedience to an order to me directed , from the right honourable the committee of the house of commons , then sitting in the speakers chamber , on thursday the 24th . of october , i carried robert hubert to st. katharines-tower by water , to shew me where the swedish ship lay , that brought him and other frenchmen from stockholm ; he brought me to the dock , over against mr. corsellis his brewhouse , and did certifie to me and mr. corsellis , that the ship lay there till such time , as he with mr. pedilow and others , did go and set fire to mr. farmers house ; and the examinant saith further , that mr. pedilow did fix two fire-balls to a long pole , and that the said robert hubert did fix one in the same manner , and did put it in at the same window , but with all the enquiry and diligence i could make or use , i could neither find , nor hear of any such ship or vessel ; and from thence i carried the said robert hubert to tower hill , and desired him to shew me the house they did fire , and he said it was near the bridge , but we went along thames-street , towards london-bridge , but before we came at the bridge , the said robert hubert said , the ▪ house was up there ; ( and pointed with his hand up pudding-lane , ) so i bad him go to the place , and he went along upon the bricks and rubbish , and made a stand , then i asked one robert paine a porter , which was the bakers house , and he told me that was the house where hubert stood , so i went to robert hubert and stood by him , turning my back towards the bakers house , and demanded which house it was he fired , directing to some house contrary to that house , but he turning himself about , said , this was the house , ( pointing to the bakers house ) that was first fired ; then by reason of his lameness , i set him on an horse , and carried him to other places ; but no other place he would acknowledge , but nodded back again to the bakers house , and said again , that was the bakers house , pointing to the said bakers house : and this is humbly certified , to the honourable committee by me john lowman keeper of his majesties goal , for the county of surry . at the committee appointed to receive information touching the insolency of popish priests , and the increase of popery . ordered , that the said several informations by this committee taken , be reported to the house in order to the discovery and suppression of the insolency of popish priests , and increase of popery . concerning the increase of popery . as to the increase of popery , mr. hancok minister of ghilnock informs , that meeting with one mr. thompson , about a moneth since , coming from masse out of somerset-house-chappel , and discoursing with him about his religion , asked him if there were many turned lately ? to which mr. thompson answered , thousands , and being demanded what encouragement there was to believe it ? replyed , there will be a change suddenly . the report of his carriage at the committee . mr. thompson being summoned before the committee , carried himself very insolently , which behaviour of his i am commanded to report . being asked whether he had not a shop in somerset-house , where popish books and popish knacks are sold ? he said , he had , and that his men sold such books and beads and other things , and confessed a crucifix and some reliques ; he said he was a roman catholick , and thanked god for it ; that he was no priest , but wished he was in a capacity to be one ; that he had not taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy , nor would he ; that he would take any oath that any christian prince should require , but not the oath of allegiance , intimating some mixture in it ; he said further that he had then taken the oath of allegiance to the king of spain , and so was his subject . mr. ash minister of cluppel in surrey , informs , that being at cofield in leicestershire this last summer , he saw a great resort on sunday to cofield-house , the house of a papist ; and asking some that were going thither , what the occasion of their resort thither was ? they told him they were going to masse , and that one mr. robinson a priest , did say masse . mr. ash did likewise inform , that he thought the number of those that went thither to masse that sunday , was as great as that of the protestants that went to the parish-church . mr. wiling deputy-ordinary of middlesex , did inform , that in his attendance on the prisoners in newgate , he had observed , that the romish priests , particularly one harvey a jesuit , did constantly , about the times of execution , frequent that prison , and by perswasions endeavour to fix their principles in the prisoners ; of whom the said harvey had seduced many . mr. hatton informs , that on the sixth of october , he went to newgate ; and meeting with one haward , under-keeper at the door , desired to speak with hubert the frenchman , who was then condemned . haward told him he could not speak with him yet , for mr. harvey the queen mothers confessor was in private with him , and said , that this harvey used frequently to come to the prison after condemnation , and where one prisoner , dyed a protestant , many dyed papists . mr. hatton said , that after some stay he saw mr. harvey come out from hubert , after which he was admitted to him . mr. hawking keeper of newgate , did inform , that the said mr. harvey the jesuit did frequent the prison under pretence of the queens charity , and did spend much time with the prisoners in private , and particularly did so night after night before last execution . mr. hawking said likewise , that of the nine that suffered , eight dyed papists , whereof some he knew to have been protestants when they came into the prison . it appeared further upon several informations , that mr. harvey and other priests , did not only resort to newgate at times of execution , but likewise to the white lyon in southwark , and other places in the countreys , and used their endeavours to pervert dying prisoners . thomas barnet , late a papist , informs , that while he was of that persuasion he often resorted to the houses of such gentlemen in barkshire as were roman catholicks , every of which houses had its romish priest ; and of this he gives instances in the houses of several private gentlemen in that county . the like information give others against the county of surrey . mr. cottman did inform , that one mr. compert ( late a preacher at s. hall , ) did in discourse tell him the said cottman , that the judgments of god upon this kingdom by the plague last year , and lately by the fire in london , were come upon the land and people for their forsaking the true roman catholick religion , and shaking off their obedience to the pope ; and that if they would return to the church of rome , the pope would rebuild the city at his own charge . compert said likewise to the said cottman , that if he would come and hear him preach the next sunday , at his house in queens-street , he would give twenty reasons to prove , that the roman catholick was the true religion , and his the false , and that our bible had a thousand falsities in it ; and that there was no true scripture but at rome , and in their church . compert at the committee confessed , that he had formerly taken orders from the church of rome ; but said he had now renounced that church , and taken orders in england . the next thing is the information of their insolency ; and i shall begin with their scorning and despising the bible . one thomas williams , an officer in sir william bowyers regiment , informs , that one audley , a papist , seeing a woman reading in a bible , asked her why she read in that profane presbyterian bible ? and said , a play-book was as good . thomas barret of bingfield informs , that being at one mr. youngs house in bingfield , at bartholomew tide last , mr. young said to the brother of this thomas barret , in his hearing , that within two years there should not be a protestant in england . thomas barnet informs , that being at mr. doncasters house in bingfield , one mr. shellers , son in law to mr. doncaster , both papists , said to this informant , who was then likewise a papist , the people take me for a poor fellow , but i shall find a thousand or two thousand of pounds to raise a party of horse , to make mr. hawthorns and mr. blackwels fat guts lye on the ground ; for it is no more to kill an heretick , than to kill a grashopper ; and that it was happy for this thomas barnet that he was a catholick , for by this means he should be one of those that should be mounted . mr. linwood a scrivener in white-chappel , informs , that about the 20th . of october last meeting with one badley a papist , and discoursing with him , he told him , that there was amongst the papists as great a design as ever was in england , and he thought it would be executed suddainly . being asked how many papists there were about london ? he answered , about seven thousand , and in england an hundred thousand well armed . mr. oaks his affidavit . mr. oaks , a physitian dwelling in shadwell , informs , that a little after the burning of the city of london , one mr. carpenter , a minister , came to his house on tower-wharf , and spake to him to this purpose ; i will not say i am a papist , but this i will say , i had rather dye the death of the papists , and that my soul should be raised with their resurrection , than either of presbyterian , independent or anabaptist ; and i tell you , the papists have hitherto been his majesties best fortification ; for when presbyterians , independents and anabaptists forsook and opposed him , they stood by him and helped him ; and take it on my word , the papists in a short time , will lay you all as low as that house ; ( pointing to an house that was demolished ) for they are able to raise forty thousand men , and i believe , the next work will be cutting of throats . this was sworn by mr. oaks , before sir john frederick member of the house . mr. pilkington being present when the words were spoken , doth affirm them all . henry young a distiller of hot-waters , informs , that about the moneth of april in the year 1661. being in the jesuits colledge in antwerp , one powel an english jesuit perswaded him to turn roman catholick , and said , that if he intended to save his life and estate , he had best to turn ; for within seven years he should see england of that religion . young replyed , the city of london will never endure it . powel answered , that within five or six years they would break the power and strength of london in pieces , and that they had been contriving it this twenty years . the said young did likewise inform , that after coming into england , one thompson and one copernel , both papists , did several times say to him , that within five or six years at farthest , the roman catholick religion should be all over this kingdom . joseph goodwin of darking in the county of surrey , informs , that about a moneth since , one edward complin , a papist , said to him , you must all be papists shortly , and that now he was not ashamed to own himself a roman catholick , and to own his priests , ( naming two that were in darking , in the house , with two papists ) and likewise said , that in twenty four hours warning the papists or roman catholicks could raise thirty thousand men as well armed as any in christendom . william weaver of darking , informs , that the said edward copernel did tell him , the roman catholick in england could , in twenty four hours raise three thousand horse and arms ; and upon saying so , pull'd out his crucifix and beads , and said , he was not ashamed of his religion . john graunger of darking , informs , that about a year since , being in his house reading the bible , one thomas cooling , a papist , said to him , are you still a church-goer ? had you not better turn roman catholick ? if you stay whilst you are fetched , none will abide you . and said further , that there was a man beyond the seas had prophesied , that anno 1666. if the king did not settle the roman religion in england , he would be banished out of his kingdom , and all his posterity . and cooling further said , that he , being lately turned a roman catholick , he would not be a protestant again for all the world ; wishing graunger again , in the hearing of his wife , ( which she affirmed to the committee ) to turn his religion ; for all the said prophecies would come to pass in the year 1666. robert holloway of darking aforesaid , informs , that one stephen griffin , a papist , said to him , that all the blood that was shed in the last civil war , was nothing to that that would be shed this year in england . holloway demanded a reason thereof , in regard the kingdom was in peace , and no likelihood of trouble , and said , do you papists intend to rise and cut our throats when we are asleep ? griffin answered , that is no matter , if you live you shall see it . ferdinand de marcedo a portugal , and some few years since a roman catholick , but now turned protestant , informs , that one father banto , a jesuit , did the last year tell him at paris , that if all england did not return to the church of rome , they should be destroyed the next year . mr. samuel wightman of the middle temple , barister , informs , that about two years since , one mr. genison a popish priest , wished him to turn catholick , and he should want neither profit nor preferment , mr. wightman objected , that he intended to practise the law , which he could not do if he turned papist , for he must take the oath of supremacy at his being called to the bar , and if he were a papist he must not take it . mr. genison replied , why not take the oath ? it is an unlawful oath , and void ipso facto ; and after some pause , said further , first take the oath , and then i will convert you ; and further said , that the king would not own himself head of the church ; and also said , you in england that set up the dutch to destroy our religion , they shall be the men to pvll down yovrs . mun stanley , an officer in the duke of ormands own regiment , informs , that coming lately out of ireland , and with him one oriel , who owned himself of the order of jesuits , and commissionated from the pope to be lord primate of ireland , and archbishop of armagh ; oriel discoursing with him , told him , that there had been a difference between him and some others of the jesuits in ireland , and that particularly one of the occasions was , that one father walsh and some others of the jesuits there , did dispense with the papists in ireland ; to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy , by virtue of a standing commission from the pope they had , to do it during this kings reign ; and oriel thought they ought not to do it by virtue of the standing commission , but should take a new commission from the pope every year to do it . and said likewise , that he brought eight boys out of ireland to carry to flanders to breed up in the colleges . and at his taking ship to go into flanders , he shook his feet towards england , and termed it aegypt , and said , he would not return to england , till he came with fifty thousand at his heels . an information concerning the late fire in fetter-lane . mr. robert bird , whose house it was that was set on fire , informed , that his wife retained one elizabeth oxley to be her servant ( supposing her to be a protestant ) upon monday the 24th of february last , but she came not to her service until the 6th of march after . that upon wednesday night the 9th of april last , about two or three of the clock in the morning , the said servant came to his bed-side and awaked him , telling him there was a fire in holborn : whereupon he asked her , how she knew it ? she answered , by the noise in the street . whereupon he arose , and look'd into the street , but there was little noise or light ; so he staid at his street-door , until he was informed by two men that passed by , that there had been a fire , but it was put out again : whereupon he returned to bed , well pleased he had so watchful a servant , and fearful of fire : but none of his family heard any thing thereof , until informed by the said oxley , as he believeth . that on thursday the 10th . of april , he was told , the said oxley went not up to bed till about eleven a clock : that before he went to bed , he looked to the doors , windows , and rooms , to see if all were safe from fire and thieves , ( as his custom was ) and was the last up in the family , as he thought . that being in bed and asleep , about twelve of the clock that night he was awaked with a great beating at the door by the watch , and the said oxley coming immediately to him , told him , there was a fire : to which he said , he was sure it was not in his house , but gave her the key of the street-door ; who ran down , and let in the watch and company ; and he coming down , found a large press in his closet , ( for keeping books , papers , and writings , on a light fire , but by the mercy of god , and the great help he had , the fire was put out , and his house preserv'd . that his wife with some neighbours immediately going to the said oxley's lodging room to see if all was safe , found that she had packed up her clothes and things ready to carry away , and her trunks lock'd up , but nothing left in them of value : whereupon he demanded of the said oxley why she had packed up her clothes ? she answered , that she and his other maid martha had packed up her things to save them . then he asked the said martha , why she had packed up in that time , when the lives of the children and family were in that danger ? who positively denied that she packed up any thing ; whereupon , and for that he was sure when he went to bed there was not a spark of fire in the closet , and considering that the said oxley at the first knocking at the door , though she lay two pair of stairs above his chamber ; and being informed that she had not put out her candle into the candlestick , nor burnt it , but pulled it out , and hid the candlestick ; and from the manner of her carriage used when she perceived she was suspected ; he positively charged the said oxley with firing his house , and caused her to be kept safe all that night : and the next day being charged by the neighbours with firing the house , she at last confessed the same , by setting the press in the closet and his papers on fire about twelve of the clock , when he and his family were asleep . and he said ▪ that she the said oxley might have gone out at a back door of his house , and carried away any of his goods and plate , if she pleased at any hour in the night , without firing his house ; the key of the back door lying in the kitchin , and laid there by her self . and he said , nothing of value was found in the said oxley's pack , made up by her , as aforesaid , but her own things . elizabeth oxleys examination . elizabeth oxley upon her examination said ; that about michaelmas last she became acquainted with nicholas stubbs , who had several times used many perswasions to turn her papist ; and after her shewing a liking to it , and that he supposed she had embraced that perswasion ; in his discourse to her at several times , he told her , that before the 28th of june next , she should see all the protestants destroyed that were in england ; that the pope should be king over england ; that all that would turn to the popish religion should live far better than now they did ; that all the land were hereticks , and it were a meritorious act to destroy them ; and that all such as were papists should have marks upon their hats , whereby to distinguish them from protestants , that they might not be destroyed amongst them . adding , that the nation do believe that all things will be over before the 28th day of june , but they would be deceived , for all should be destroyed at or before that time . that the duke of york was the bravest prince living , and that he was gone out of the kingdom , lest the hereticks should cut off his head , and he would not return till they were destroyed ; that the lords in the tower would not one of them suffer , for they would come off well enough , being to be tryed by the lords ; and that the scaffolds were set up but for fashion-sake . that she telling the said stubbs that she was hired to live with one mr. bird about the middle of fetter-lane , he used perswasions to her at several times to set fire on her masters house ; telling her , if she would do it , he would give her five pound , and gave her half a crown , and said , he would have other houses in holborn fired at the same time by others : that she being with the said stubbs on sunday before the said fire , promised to fire her master's house on thursday or friday night following ; and accordingly on thursday night she took a candle and set fire to her master's papers in his study , which were in a kind of a press ; and then being on a light fire , she shut the doors , and went up stairs into her own chamber in the top of the house , and packed up her own things , and undressed her self , lest her master should suspect her , and there stayed till a great knocking was at the door , and the watchmen crying out fire ; whereupon she run down stairs , and cryed out fire , and her master gave her the keys to open the door ; which done , all hands were employed to quench the fire . and she saith , she did not set-fire on her masters house out of any malice to him , nor with intent to rob him , but meerly to carry on the design which stubbs had proposed to her , and out of hopes of his reward . the examination of nicholas stubbs . nicholas stubbs upon his examination owns , and sets forth to have used such discourse to the said elizabeth , as she declareth in her examination ; and saith , he did perswade her to fire her master's house , and was to give her five guineys for doing it , besides half a crown in hand : and saith , that one father gifford , a priest , and his confessor , had put him on this business , and told him it was no sin to fire all the houses of hereticks and hugonites . that he acquainted flower , alias darby , a barber in german-street , and one roger _____ another irish man , that lodged at the coach and horses in the same street . that the said father gifford promised him 100l . for the same , and told him he was to have the money from the church . that they used to meet the said gifford , and other two persons in st. james's-fields in the dark of the evening , and to discourse of these matters ; and that the several informations that he had given the said elizabeth oxley , he had from the said father gifford ; and saith , flower and roger _____ told the said stubbs , they would carry on the said fire , and that they had fire-balls for that purpose , and that they would fire other houses in holborn at the same time : that he was at the fire in the temple , but was not engaged to do any thing in it . and said , that gifford told him , that there were english , french and irish roman-catholicks enough in london to make a very good army ; and that the king of france was coming with 60000 men , under pretence to shew the dauphin his dominions ; but it was to lay his men at diep , bulloign , callis , and dunkirk , to be at an hours warning to be landed in england , and he doubted not but it would be by the middle of june , and by that time all the catholicks here will be in readiness ; all were to rise ; in order to bring him in . that the papists here were to be distinguished by marks in their hats ; that the said father gifford doubted not but he should be an abbot or a bishop when the work was over , for the good service he had done . that , at their meeting , father gifford used to tell them , it was no more sin to kill a heretick than a dog , and that they did god good service in doing what mischiefs they could by firing their houses . that it was well sir edmondbury godfrey was murdered , for he was their devilish enemy ; that coleman was a saint in heaven for what he had done . and saith , he is fearful he shall be murthered for this confession , father gifford having sworn him to secresie ; and told him he should be damned if he made any discovery , and should be sure to be killed ; and that he should take the oaths because he was a house-keeper , and that it was no sin : and saith , that gifford and roger _____ told him , when their forces met about the middle of june , then have at the — finis . by the king, a proclamation for the discovery and apprehending of several persons justly suspected to have contrived and acted in the felonious burning of houses in and about the city of london england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1679 approx. 4 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32541 wing c3465 estc r39183 18241446 ocm 18241446 107252 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32541) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 107252) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1629:94) by the king, a proclamation for the discovery and apprehending of several persons justly suspected to have contrived and acted in the felonious burning of houses in and about the city of london england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, thomas newcomb, and henry hills ..., london : 1679. "given at our court at whitehall the fourth day of may 1679. in the one and thirtieth year of our reign." reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. arson -england -london. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2008-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-09 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-09 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion c r diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms by the king. a proclamation for the discovery and apprehending of several persons justly suspected to have contrived and acted in the felonious burning of houses in and about the city of london . charles r. whereas due information hath beén given , that morrice gifford a popish priest , roger clinton , derby molraine , alias flower , and several other persons of the romish religion , have ( out of their detestable and barbarous malice ) conspired and agreéd together to set on fire the city of london , the suburbs thereof , and the places thereunto adjacent , and have in prosecution of such their devilish and wicked design procured divers mansion-houses within the said city , suburbs , and parts adjacent , at sundry times , and in divers places to be set on fire and burnt ; the kings most excellent majesty ( at the humble desire of the commons in parliament assembled ) doth by this his royal proclamation straitly charge and command the said morrice gifford , roger clinton , and derby molraine , alias flower ( who are fled from iustice , so that at present they cannot be apprehended to be proceéded against according to law ) that they , and every of them do before the tenth day of this instant month of may , render themselves respectively to the lord chief iustice , or some other of the iustices of the kings bench , who are hereby commanded forthwith to commit them to his majesties gaol of newgate , there to remain in safe custody in order to their tryals for such their offences . and his majesty doth also charge and command all and every iustices of peace , mayors , sheriffs , constables , and other his officers and loving subjects , that they and every of them do use their utmost endeavours for the apprehending aswell of the said morrice gifford , roger clinton , and derby molraine , alias flower , as of every other person or persons who shall be justly suspected of being guilty of the said wicked and detestable crimes . and for a greater encouragement hereunto , his majesty doth hereby graciously promise to such person or persons as shall discover and apprehend any of the said offenders , the reward of fifty pounds ; which shall be respectively paid upon the discovery and apprehending of the said morrice gifford , roger clinton , or derby molraine , alias flower , and immediately after the discovery , apprehending and conviction of any other of the said offenders . and as an encouragement to any of the offenders themselves , to discover the rest , his majesty doth hereby further graciously promise , that if any of the said offenders shall discover any of their accomplices , whereby they or any of them shall be apprehended , that then such discoverer shall not only be pardoned his own offence , but shall in like manner receive the said reward of fifty pounds for each offender so by him discovered , immediately upon the respective conviction of such offender . given at our court at whitehall the fourth day of may 1679. in the one and thirtieth year of our reign . god save the king. london , printed by john bill , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1679. an account of the proceedings at the guild-hall of the city of london on saturday, september 12 [i.e. 13], 1679 with the substance of sir thomas player's speech, and the lord mayor's answer thereunto. 1679 approx. 10 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a25716 wing a357 estc r224596 11742095 ocm 11742095 48504 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a25716) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 48504) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 3:10) an account of the proceedings at the guild-hall of the city of london on saturday, september 12 [i.e. 13], 1679 with the substance of sir thomas player's speech, and the lord mayor's answer thereunto. clayton, robert, sir, 1629-1707. player, thomas, sir, d. 1686. city of london (england). lord mayor. 3, [1] p. s.n., [london : 1679] an attack on the popish plot. caption title. reproduction of original in yale university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng city of london (england). -court of common council. popish plot, 1678. 2006-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-08 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 jason colman sampled and proofread 2006-09 jason colman text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an account of the proceedings at the guild-hall of the city of london , on saturday , september 12. 1679. with the substance of sir thomas player's speech , and the lord mayor's answer thereunto . upon saturday , september the thirteenth last past , several hundreds of the principal citizens of london , accompanied sir thomas player , to wait upon the lord mayor , and the court of aldermen sitting at guild-hall , where sir thomas player , in the name of himself , and all the inhabitants of this city , addressed himself to his lordship , to this purpose : that it was apparent , what advantage and encouragement the duke of york's being a papist , gave to the rise and progress of this horrid and damnable plot , which the parliament had already declared to be one of the greatest encouragements that the papists had for the carrying of it on : and that what they have already voted against the duke , we all ought to take special notice of ; for though it came not up quite to a law , yet it came very nigh it , as being the voice of all the commons of england . and that both houses of parliament had unanimously declared this plot , to have been contrived , and still carrying on by papists , against the life of his sacred majesty , the protestant religion , and the government of this kingdom . that therefore all protestants are fully satisfied , the papists do still design the murder of his majesty ; but that they should find the english nation would value his majesties life at a higher rate than ever any princes life in europe has been valued at : and that for his part he was not afraid of his own life , especially upon so good an account ; for that he was very well assured , that though his enemies should kill him , they would but thereby hasten his departure to a greater glory . that there was a popish priest lately come in , who had made a further and more clear discovery of the horrid design of murdering his majesty ; that the whole contrivance was managed at rome , and was to have been suddenly executed here , an account of which he did not doubt but would be published to the world in a short time ; that therefore they the citizens of london , addressed themselves to his lordship , as their head and chief magistrate in the city , and did therefore desire his lordship , that their guards might be doubled ; and that instead of two companies , four might go out every night , they not coming upon duty , but once in twelve nights , which would be very easie , and which charge the citizens were very willing to bear ; especially since they apprehend that there is as great a necessity to strengthen our hands now , as when there went out eight companies in a night , their present danger being rather greater . he offered also one politick reason to his lordship , which was this , that the late long parliament , and also the last parliament , took so much notice of the great charge , care and diligence of the city , for the preservation of his majesties person , and the protestant interest , which had so much influence toward the preserving of the whole kingdom , that they were extremely inclined to shew their good affection and kindness to the city , by all ways imaginable ; and that therefore the slackning their care and guards at such a time as this , ( when danger seems as apparent as ever , and the fears and jealousies of the people are so very great , as the like were hardly ever known ) might possibly it may in some measure lessen that kindness to the city in the next parliament , which was so remarkable in the last ; since it is no way to be doubted , but the popish faction will endeavor , by all means imaginable , to make the councels and advices of the next parliament ineffectual ; that it cannot be forgot , that thirteen years ago this city was a sad monument of the papists cruelty , being brought into a most deplorable condition , by their cursed designs : it being now out of all doubt , that it was they that burnt the city ; and if they had not been disappointed , would have cut our throats too at the same time , while we were endeavoring to save the small remainder of our goods which the fire had left unconsumed ; that though men may seem to be regardless of their own lives , yet when the lives of their wives , children , and their estates also , are like to be destroyed in the general ruine , it calls for pity from the most careless . and that therefore it was high time for us to seek the preservation of the whole , by all ways in our power ; concluding , that he would desire his lordship to proceed in this great and necessary affair , as god should direct him . with several other excellent expressions to this purpose , which we should have been very glad , if it had been possible for us , to have repeated . at the end hereof the people gave a very great shout , and his lordship desired them to withdraw . after a short time the citizens mere called in , and his lordship gave them an answer to this purpose . that he had considered of their desires , and was very willing to gratisie them : and thanked them for their care and zeal for the preservation of the kings life , and of the protestant religion . and then told them that he could not answer their desires of himself , without calling the lieutenancy , and therefore he would cause the lieutenancy to meet on thursday next ; that being the first day that would be at liberty from other business already assigned ; or else they should have been called sooner , for his lordship told them that he would lose no time in it ; his lordship also further assuring them , that as he had both a life and an estate , so he should readily and frankly hazard the loss of both , in defence of the protestant religion : his lordship was also pleased to declare , that he was very well satisfied , that there was no person who served the city of london in the quality of an alderman , but would be ready to spend his blood for the preservation of the protestant cause . his lordship also desired , that for the time to come , they would not be so numerous in their addresses , since they might as well make known their minds by few , as by many ; especially having so worthy a person to speak for them , as sir thomas player ; and therefore desired that sir thomas player with half a dozen of the most eminent citizens would meet the lieutenancy on thursday next ; for that by so numerous an assembly as was then present , they might possibly give some occasion of offence . his lordship also told them , that he hoped before thursday next there might something sall cut , that might very much conduce to take away the cause of their present fears , for that he was very well assured the duke of york was making preparations for his departure on tuesday or wednesday next . his lordship having ended his speech , sir thomas player spake to this effect . that he did not doubt but that his lordship would take all the care that was possible for the security of this city and the protestant religion , and the safety and preservation of the kings life in the first place , upon which not only the happiness of this city , but of the whole nation depended ; and that he took the more liberty so to speak , because it was very well known , though to the grief of all good protestants , that there are a certain sort of men who make it their business to lessen the plot , and some would make it no plot at all , others say that it was a plot made by the protestants , and then cast upon the papists ; others would have it to be altogether a protestant plot ; and that this sort of persons were the most dangerous , and had been deservedly styled protestants in masquerade , adding , that he had rather have to do with an open profest papist , than with one of these disguised protestants : for that an open enemy was much more eligible than a false friend : but he hoped that in a little time such kind of persons would be taken notice of , and receive the reward due to their merits . after this the court adjourn'd into the common hall , in order to the choosing a sheriff for the year ensuing : where several being nominated , the choice seemed to be between mr. lewis and mr. jenks ; and because it appeared somewhat doubtful , a poll was desired , which being made , the choice fell upon mr. lewis , who was chosen accordingly . postscript . it cannot reasonably be expected that the speech of this worthy and deserving knight , nor the lord mayor's generous reply thereunto , should be published exactly , since in so great a concourse it was hardly possible to be taken ; however least so considerable a transaction should be altogether buried in silence , we have endeavoured to give as full an account thereof , as could be done by strength of memory , which we hope will therefore be kindly accepted instead of a more correct copy . a letter out of scotland from mr. r.l.s. to his friend, h.b. in london. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1681 approx. 9 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47881 wing l1269 estc r39026 18206620 ocm 18206620 107093 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47881) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 107093) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1127:7) a letter out of scotland from mr. r.l.s. to his friend, h.b. in london. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 4 p. printed for n.f. ..., [london] : 1681. caption title. imprint from colophon; place of publication suggested by wing. reproduction of original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-12 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-01 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2004-01 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a letter out of scotland , from mr. r. l. s. to his friend , h. b. in london . honest harry ! according to my promise , i should have wrote to you long since , to have given you an account how squares go , but the grief and affright of heart i was in , and the long and tedious journey , had so tyred me , that i was forced to lye a bed and think of my wicked fate ; and whilst i was musing , i received the skeldry , or that damn'd picture of towser , which so inraged me , that it put my before-heated blood into a feavor . what rogues were these , to tye my dear friend to my arse too ? i must confess they are now even with me for my iack-an-apes on horse-back . i know hal , thou wantest me , for i do not hear of any great feats thou hast done since i left to brandish the pen : and i as much long to be scribling again , and having a longing desire , after i had rested a while , i had begun a dialogue between iockey and blew-cap , but a friend of mine coming in , made me burn my papers , for he told me , that 't would prove to me more fatal than citt and bumpkin , or that between richard and baxter , or any other dialogue i had ever wrote , for that these plaguy scots , if they but smelt i was writing of dialogues would knock out my brains , and would never take it so patiently as the english had done , he advis'd me therefore not so much as to think of writing in this place . i find indeed they are a company of surly fellows , and that they but look a squint at greater persons than my self . i am not here known to be r. they would take me then for a papist in masquerade , and then i should surely go to pot , for they have an invetrate hatred against all papists , so that i am now putting on a new shape , and appear like a presbyterian : what a sad thing is this , that i should feign the thing i so much hate ? but hal , life is sweet , and tho' i am old , i care not to leave this world , for i know not if there be any scribling in that to come ; and since i am now at the worst pass , except hanging , i desire to live to see a little more mischief . well hal , let me tell thee there are some besides my self of my mind , and i am now scouring up my old pistols , which i must now handle instead of my pen ; we are preparing , and things will not always run with so smooth a stream , we are pudling the waters all we can , and let the citts look to themselves , we may chance to have a brush at their jackots . those furious gentlemen at westminster , that go on so vigorously , may perchance find some repulse , if the interest and power of my master and the popish party , are able to do it : we yet believe that it will not be so easie a matter for you to put the duke besides the saddle , what do you think he has no friends ? no money ? no interest ? nor allies to help him ? we are yet upon terra firma , and it will not be long e're my master will give you a civil visit , he has intreagues in his head , and some friends at the helm who yet know how to steer for his interest . i confess that my hopes are not so very great as they have been , for i did once believe that you should not have been able to have taken off any of the heads of the lords in the tower , but i see i was mistaken , for one of them is taken off : you have droven furiously like ieheu , impeached the judges , and almost all my masters secret friends : on my word 't is high time for him to look about him , least they pull the painted iezabell of the plot out of the windows , that the little currs that have worried her hitherto , may lick her blood. i had your peers speech too , 't is brave that any durst speak so plain english , but this comes of the liberty of the press ; when i sat at the helm , these things never were , i would have given it a squeese , you know my fingers were like pitch , what ever they laid hold of , stuck to them so fast , they could never be got from them ; i tell thee that speech was almost as bad as the appeal , a dangerous libell . had i been at london , i would have answered it , but i tell thee that i have been so terrified with the inveterate hatred of these blew-caps against scriblers , that i am fain to make them believe i never wrote in my life : i dare not adventure to give you a visit , tho' my master should come , and tho' the parliament , that bug-bear , should be prorogued , for i dare not be seen , least the bayliffs should seize me , for i have not yet got the money i was promised , and therefore i now write to you to certifie my mind ; but i know my master is just to his word , and i have hopes hal , if we thrive , i shall requite your kindness . i am thinking of some great place for thee , i will be thy true and constant friend , and that broom which was tyed to towsers tail , shall be advanced to thy crest , ever hereafter . but if we fail of our hopes , i cannot be worse than i am , and therefore give me leave to hope a little . i intend , when i dare to write again , to write a new history of the popish-presbyterian-plot , i will license it my own self , and no body shall print it but you , i will set them forth in their colours , i have an excellent defamilory black taught me by an italian iesuit . but yet i cannot but sigh to think of the dismal present time ; i am got into a cold country , where in silence i often hear my self rail'd at most profoundly . i was ask'd by a pyde-mouth'd rogue the other day , because i was an english-man , whether i knew r. l. s. or as they term it , the s. r. and shewing me the picture of towser , ask'd me if it was not like him , and if it was drawn by the life ? i could willingly have dashed his teeth out if i durst : but hal , since i cannot write as i was wont , because i must be employed , i am now learning to play upon the scotch bag-pipes , which i will endeavour to set up instead of the organs in churches : i am also learning to speak thorough the nose , and am getting by heart the scotch-covenant , i may be a proselite at last , and put on that vizard , as well as that of the protestant . i know not how to end when once i have begun to you , but all i have now to desire of you , is , that you will send me all the news you can , both good and bad . i long to know if the parliament shall sit again , for some of us have here great expectations : i saw all the votes and resolves you sent me ; god bless me , said i , from falling under the clutches of a parliament ; i think i did more wisely than justice scroggs , when i fairly run away ; 't was a madness i thought to fight with four or five hundred resolute men. i remember that black prophet dr. oates , once told me at white-hall , twirling his hat about , well sir , we shall have a parliament ; but i did not then believe him ; i now acknowledge him as great a prophet as mother shipton , which the scots i assure you have in veneration . our astrologers here predict strange things from the comet that has been lately seen here ; some say it portends the downfall of the pope , another of the popish-plot , another of monarchy , some of the king of france , others of the hierarchy of the bishops , they cannot agree , and to tell you the truth , i believe none of them ; i rather think it signifies the advancement of some great man in our northern parts , to high honour and dignity ; tho' a bold fellow with his bonnet on his head , the other night , looking at the star , told me , when my masters beard was as long as the train of that star , he should be king of england , and not before ; thus the world goes , and people i see will speak their minds , and i cannot help it , i am forced now to endure all . i have no present to send you , if i had any thing by me for you to get a penny by , i would . if you please , you may print this letter , which i wrote by stealth , for if my name be set to it , you know it will sell , what ever stuff is in it : pray you therefore accept this as a new-years gift , for i have nothing else to send you . let me hear from you as soon as you can , and direct your letter for mr. crack-fart , lodging at old sawny's the bagg-pipe-maker , in the high-street in edinborow . farewel . i am your faithful friend , r. l. ianuary 10. finis . printed for n. f. in the year , 1681. the reasons & narrative of proceedings betwixt the two houses which were delivered by the house of commons to the lords at the conference touching the tryal of the lords in the tower on monday the 26th of may 1679. england and wales. parliament. house of commons. 1679 approx. 18 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a38266 wing e2693 estc r27347 09818607 ocm 09818607 44169 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a38266) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 44169) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1356:20) the reasons & narrative of proceedings betwixt the two houses which were delivered by the house of commons to the lords at the conference touching the tryal of the lords in the tower on monday the 26th of may 1679. england and wales. parliament. house of commons. 4 p. s.n., [london : 1679] regarding the earl of danby's pardon and the trial of the five lords: earl of powis, viscount stafford, lord petre, lord arundel of wardour, and lord bellasis. caption title. reproduction of original in the huntington library. in this printing, the headline contains 23 ornaments, crowned emblems of england, france, scotland, wales and ireland; line 4 of text ends 'appre-'; first line of text on p. 3 begins "wards to the tryal"; last line on p. 4 reads "demanded judgment ... in the tower." created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng leeds, thomas osborne, -duke of, 1631-1712. popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-03 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-06 derek lee sampled and proofread 2006-06 derek lee text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the reasons & narrative of proceedings betwixt the two houses : which were delivered by the house of commons , to the lords , at the conference touching the tryal of the lords in the tower. on monday the 26 th . of may , 1679. the commons have alwayes desired , that a good correspondence may be preserved between the two houses . there is now depending between your lordships and the commons , a matter of the greatest weight : in the transactions of which , your lordships seem to apprehend some difficulty in the matters proposed by the commons . to clear this , the commons have desired this conference ; and by it they hope to manifest to your lordships , that the propositions of the house of commons , made by their committee , in relation to the tryal of the lords in the tower , have been onely such as are well warranted by the laws of the parliament , and constitutions of the government , and in no sort intrench upon the judicature of the peers ; but are most necessary to be insisted upon , that the antient rights of judicature in parliament may be maintained . the commons readily acknowledge , that the crimes charged upon the earl of po●●● , viscount stafford , lord petre , lord arundel of wardour , and lord bellasis , are of deep guilt , and call for speedy justice : but withall , they hold , that any change in judicature in parliament , made without consent in full parliament , to be of pernicious consequence , both to his majesty , and his subjects ; and conceive themselves obliged to transmit to their posterity , all the rights which of this kind they have received from their ancestors , by putting your lordships in mind of the progress that has already been between the two houses , in relation to the propositions made by the commons , and the reasonableness of the propositions themselves : they doubt not to make it appear , that their aim has been no other , than to avoid such consequences , and preserve that rights and that there is no delay of justice on their part. and to that end , do offer to your lordships the ensuing reasons and narrative : that the commons in bringing the earl of danby to justice , and in discovery of that execrable and traiterous conspiracy , ( of which the five popish lords now stand impeached , and for which some of their wicked accomplices have already undergone the sentence of the law , as traytors and murtherers ) have laboured under many great difficulties , is not unknown to your lordships . nor is it less known to your lordships , that upon the impeachment of the house of commons , against the earl of danby for high treason , and other high crimes , misdemeanors , and offences , even the common justice of sequestring him from parliament , and forthwith committing him to safe custody , was then required by the commons , and denyed by the house of peers , though he then sate in their house : of which , your lordships have been so sensible , that at a free conference the tenth of april last , your lordships declared , that it was the right of the commons , and well warranted by presidents of former ages ; that upon an impeachment of the commons , a peer so impeached , ought of right to be ordered to with-draw , and then to be committed . and had not that justice been denyed to the commons , a great part of this session of parliament , which hath been spent in framing and adjusting a bill , for causing the earl of danby to appear , and answer that justice from which he was fled ; had been saved , and had been imployed for the preservation of his majesties person , and the security of the nation , and in prosecution of the other five lords . neither had he had the opportunity for procuring for himself that illegal pardon , which bears date the first of march last past , and which he hath now pleaded in bar of his impeachment : nor of wasting so great a proportion of the treasure of the kingdom , as he hath done , since the commons exhibited their articles of impeachment against him . after which time thus lost by reason of the denyal of that justice , which of right belonged to the commons upon their impeachment , the said bill being ready for the royal assent , the said earl then rendred himself ; and by your lordships order of the sixteenth of april last , was committed to the tower. after which , he pleads the said pardon ; and being prest , did at length declare , he would rely upon , and abide by that plea ; which pardon pleaded , being illegal and voyd , and so ought not to bar , or preclude the commons from having justice upon the impeachment . they did thereupon , with their speaker , on the fifth of may instant , in the name of themselves , and all the commons of england , demand judgment against the said earl , upon their impeachment : not doubting , but that your lordships did intend in all your proceedings upon the impeachment , to follow the usual course and method of parliament . but the commons were not a little surprized by the message from your lordships , delivered them on the seventh of may ; thereby acquainting them , that as well the lords spiritual as temporal , had ordered , that the tenth of may instant , should be the day for hearing the earl of danby , to make good his plea of pardon . and that on the thirteenth of may , the other five lords impeached , should be brought to their tryal : and that your lordships had addressed to his majesty , for naming of a lord high steward , as well in the case of the earl of danby , as the other five lords . upon consideration of this message , the commons found , that the admitting of the lords spiritual to exercise jurisdiction in these cases , was an alteration of the judicature in parliament ; and which extended as well to the proceeding against the five lords , as the earl of danby . and that if a lord high-steward should be necessary upon tryal on impeachments of the commons the power of judicature in parliament , upon impeachments , might be defeated , by suspending or denying a commission to constitute a lord high-steward . and that the said days of tryal appointed by your lordships , were so near to the time of your said message , that these matters , and the method of proceeding upon the tryal , could not be adjusted by conference betwixt the two houses , before the day so nominated . and consequently the commons could not then proceed to tryal , unless the zeal which they have for speedy judgment against the earl of danby , ( that so they might proceed to tryal of the other five lords ) should induce them at this juncture , both to admit the inlargement of your lordships jurisdiction , and to sit down under these or any hardships , though with the hazard of all the commons power of impeaching for time to come ) rather than the tryal of the said five lords should be deferred for some short time , whilst these matters might be agreed on and setled . for reconciling differences in these great and weighty matters , and for saving that time which would necessarily have been spent in debates and conferences betwixt the two houses , and for expediting the tryal , without giving up the power of impeachment , or rendring them ineffectual . the commons thought fit to propose to your lordships , that a committee of both houses might be appointed for this purpose . at which committee ( when agreed to by your lordships , ) it was first proposed , that the time of tryal of the lords in the tower should be put off till the other matters were adjusted , and it was then agreed , that the proposition as to the time of the tryal , should be the last thing considered . and the effect of this agreement stands reported upon your lordships books . after which , the commons communicated to your lordships , by your committee , a vote of theirs , ( viz. ) that the committee of the commons should insist upon their former vote of their house , that the lords spiritual ought not to have any vote in any proceedings against the lords in the tower , and that when that matter should be setled , and the method of proceedings adjusted , the commons would then be ready to proceed upon the tryal of the pardon of the earl of danby , against whom they had before demanded judgment , and afterwards to the tryal of the other five lords in the tower. which vote extended as well to the earl of danby , as the other five lords ; but the commons as yet received nothing from your lordships towards an answer of that vote , save that your lordships have acquainted them , that the bishops have asked leave of the house of peers , that they might withdraw themselves from the tryal of the said five lords , with liberty of entring their usual protestation . and though the commons committee have almost daily declared to your lordships committee , that that was a necessary point of right to be setled before the tryal , and offered to debate the same ; your committee always answered , that they had not any power from your lordships , either to confer upon , or to give any answer concerning that matter . and yet your lordships , without having given the commons any satisfactory answer to the said vote , or permitting any conference or debate thereupon , and contrary to the said agreement , did on thursday the twenty second of may , send a message to the commons , declaring , that the lords spiritual as well as temporal , had ordered that the twenty seventh of this instant may be appointed for the tryal of the five lords . so that the commons cannot but apprehend , that your lordships have not onely departed from what was agreed on , and in effect laid aside that committee which was constituted for preserving a good understanding betwixt the two houses , and better dispatch of the weighty affairs now depending in parliament : but must also needs conclude from the message , and the votes of your lordships on the fourteenth of may , that the lords spiritual have a right to stay and sit in court , till the court proceeds to the vote of guilty or not guilty . and from the bishops asking leave ( as appears by your lordships books two days after your said vote ) that they might withdraw themselves from the tryal of the said lords , with liberty of entring their usual protestation , & by their persisting still to go on and give in their votes proceedings upon the impeachment ; that their desire of leave to withdraw at the said tryal , is onely an evasive answer to the before-mentioned vote of the commons , and chiefly intended as an argument for a right of judicature in proceedings upon impeachment and as a reserve to judge upon the earl of danby's plea of pardon , and upon these and other like impeachments ; although no such power was ever claimed by their predecessours , but is utterly denyed by the commons . and the commons are the rather induced to believe it so intended , because the very asking leave to withdraw , seems to imply a right to be there , and that they cannot be absent without it . and because by this way , they would have it in their power , whether or no for the future , either in the earl of danby's case , or any other , they will ever ask leave to be absent , and the temporal lords a like power of denying leave , if that should once be admitted necessary . the commons therefore are obliged not to proceed to the tryal of the lords on the twenty seventh of this instant may , but to adhere to their aforesaid vote : and for their so doing , besides what hath been now and formerly by them said to your lordships , do offer you these reasons following . reasons . i. because your lordships have received the earl of danby's plea of pardon , with a very long and unusual protestation ; wherein he hath aspersed his majesty by false suggestions , as if his majesty had commanded or countenanced the crimes he stands charged with ; and particularly suppressing and discouraging the discovery of the plot , and endeavouring to introduce an arbitrary and tyrannical way of government : which remains as a scandal upon record against his majesty , tending to render his person and his government odious to his people ; against which it ought to be the first and principal care of both houses to vindicate his majesty , by doing justice upon the said earl. ii. the setting up a pardon to be a bar of an impeachment , defeats the whole use and effect of impeachments ; and should this point be admitted , or stand doubted , it would totally discourage the exhibiting any for the future : whereby the chief institution for the preservation of the government , ( and consequently the government it self ) would be destroyed . and therefore the case of the said earl , ( which in consequence concerns all impeachments whatsoever ) ought to be determined before that of the said five lords , which is but their particular case . and without resorting to many authorities of greater antiquity : the commons desire your lordships to take notice , ( with the same regard they do ) of the declaration which that excellent prince , king charles the first of blessed memory , made in this behalf , in his answer to the nineteen propositions of both houses of parliament : wherein , stating the several parts of this regulated monarchy , he says : the king , the house of lords , and the house of commons , have each particular priviledges : and among those which belong to the king , he reckons power of pardoning . after the enumerating of which , and other his prerogatives , his said majesty adds thus : again , that the prince may not make use of this high and perpetual power , to the hurt of those for whose good he hath it , and make use of the name of publick necessity , for the gain of his private favourites and followers , to the detriment of his people ; the house of commons , ( an excellent conserver of liberty , &c. ) is solely intrusted with the first propositions concerning the levies of moneys , and the impeaching of those , who , for their own ends , though countenanced by any surreptitiously-gotten command of the king , have violated that law , which he is bound ( when he knows it ) to protect , and to the protection of which they were bound to advise him , at least not to serve him in the contrary . and the lords being trusted with a judicatory power , are an excellent skreen and bank between the prince and people , to assist each against any incroachments of the other ; and by just judgments to preserve that law , which ought to be the rule of every one of the three , &c. therefore the power legally placed in both houses , is more than sufficient to prevent and restrain the power of tyranny , &c. iii. until the commons of england have right done them against this plea of pardon , they may justly apprehend , that the whole justice of the kingdome , in the case of the five lords , may be obstructed and defeated by pardons of like nature . iv. an impeachment is virtually the voice of every particular subject of this kingdome , crying out against an oppression , by which every member of that body is equally wounded : and it will prove a matter of ill consequence , that the universality of the people should have occasion ministred and continued to them , to be apprehensive of utmost danger from the crown , from whence they of right expect protection . v. the commons exhibited articles of impeachment against the said earl , before any against the five other lords , and demanded judgment upon those articles : whereupon , your lordships having appointed the trial of the said earl to be before that of the other five lords , now your lordships having since inverted that order , gives a great cause of doubt to the house of commons , and raises a jealousie in the hearts of all the commons of england , that , if they should proceed to the tryal of the said five lords in the first place , not onely justice will be obstructed in the case of those lords , but that they shall never have right done them in the matter of this plea of pardon ; which is of so fatal consequence to the whole kingdome , and a new device to frustrate publick justice in parliament . which reasons and matters being duely weighed by your lordships ; the commons doubt not but your lordships will receive satisfaction concerning their propositions and proceedings : and will agree , that the commons ought not , nor can , without deserting their trust , depart from their former vote communicated to your lordships ; that the lords spiritual ought not to have any vote in any proceedings against the lords in the tower ; and when that matter shall be setled , and the methods of proceedings adjusted the commons shall then be ready to proceed upon the tryal of the earls of danby , ( against whom they have already demanded judgment ) and afterwards to the tryal of the other five lords in the tower. finis . the full narrative and further discovery of edward tvrbervill of skerr in the county of glamorgan, gent. of the horrid popish plot containing many remarkable passages concerning the trial of william late viscount stafford : with an account of the gent. of greys-inn, who appeared in court before the lord high steward to invalidate mr. turbervill's evidence. turberville, edward, 1648?-1681. 1681 approx. 31 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 10 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63855 wing t3251a estc r6968 11967272 ocm 11967272 51755 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63855) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 51755) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 519:43) the full narrative and further discovery of edward tvrbervill of skerr in the county of glamorgan, gent. of the horrid popish plot containing many remarkable passages concerning the trial of william late viscount stafford : with an account of the gent. of greys-inn, who appeared in court before the lord high steward to invalidate mr. turbervill's evidence. turberville, edward, 1648?-1681. [5], 14 p. printed for norman nelson ..., london : 1681. reproduction of original in university of pennsylvania library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng stafford, william howard, -viscount, 1614-1680. popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-12 ali jakobson sampled and proofread 2006-12 ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion jovis 11. die novembris , 1680. ordered , that mr. turbervill have leave of this house to print his information relating to the horrid popish plott . will. goldesborough . cler. dom. com. by vertue of this order i appoint norman nelson to print this narrative , and and that no other person print the same . edw. turbervill . the full narrative and further discovery of edward tvrbervill of skerr in the county of glamorgan , gent. of the horrid popish plott . containing many remarkable passages concerning the trial of william late viscount stafford . with an account of the gent. of greys-inn , who appeared in court before the lord high steward to invalidate mr. turbervill's evidence . london , printed for norman nelson , at grey's-inn gate in holbourn . m. dc . lxxxi . to his grace james duke of monmouth . may it please your grace , as i have had the honour to march under your banners in the field , so i now presume to appear under the ensigns of your impartial justice . i am fully satisfy'd , that in the delivery of my evidence , i utter'd nothing but the truth . so that if by this humble address to your grace , i presume to make you the patron of truth , i hope your grace will pardon my presumption , when you shall be pleas'd to consider that i had no other way to make a publick acknowledgment to the world , how deeply i am engag'd to your grace for those many favours which you have bin pleas'd to showr upon my vndeserts . and for those ill reflections that have bin thrown upon me by the guilty for my duty to my soveraign , i value them but little ; and far the less , as one that has some reason to believe that your grace has a better opinion of me . that honour i shall alwayes study to advance by a studious observance of your graces commands , humbly hoping that to the rest of your signal favours , you will be pleas'd to add the acceptance of this small offering from your graces most devoted and most obedient servant , edward turbervill . it cannot be expected that a person , who gives an information to a parliament , taken up with multiplicity of important and weighty affairs , should trouble such a great and solemn assembly with more than what is at that time absolutely necessary , the bare matter of fact. but there are still many other requisite and material circumstances , which are reserv'd for a more copious rehearsal . as to the first , the forwardness of some printers has bin too nimble for me . and therefore as to the latter , which was that which i alwayes intended to do , i have here made publick those additions and recollections of memorie , which being truths necessary to be known , and full answers to the demands of public satisfaction , i have here joyn'd to the rest , and made all into one body . and first , that i may give some accompt of my self , ( for the popish priests and traytors , though careless enough at another time , are very inspective into the credit and conversations of those that appear as evidence against them ) i am to tell the world , that i was born at skerr , in the county of glamorgan ; being descended from the antient family of the turbervills , that came in with william the norman , commonly call'd the conquerour , of whom it is recorded in story , that in the time of rufus the son of king william , that paganus turbervill , was one of the twelve knights that assisted fitz-haimon in the conquest of the county from one of the princes of wales . the ancient seat that belong'd to the family , was coycey castle , which after it had continu'd in the name for thirteen generations successively , was at length carry'd away by marriage into the family of the gamages ; and after that into that of the earls of leicester , in whose possession it now remains . during my infancy , my father and mother being both papists , and strict in their way , even to the height of bigottisme and superstition , i was brought up in all the most exact precepts and doctrine of the church of rome . so that it was no small part of my devotion , not onely to hear , but very often to say prayers my self for the good success of the affairs of the church ( meaning the church of rome ) which were to be transacted in the year 1666. and i very well remember , that one night , my fathers house being full of strangers , i was lodg'd with two priests , who at the same time told me , that i had had a greater honour then if i had layn with two angels . for that the angels were but the servants and messengers of god ; but that a priest could command him from his heavenly throne , and give him to whom they pleas'd to be eaten . a piece of blasphemy , which i not being then able to contradict , made me very much admire the vast power of those holy incarnates : but having better since consider'd of it , has not a little augmented my astonishment at the irreligion of those pretended votaries . in the year 1672 , which was the eighteenth of my age , being a younger brother , i was recommended to wait upon the lady molineux , daughter to the earl of powis , as her gentleman usher ; in which capacity i was by her entertain'd , and liv'd in the said earl's house about three years . by which means , and by my sedulity in attending and assisting at mass , i became very intimate with father william morgan , then confessor to the said earl of powis and his family . this morgan was also a jesuit , and as it were a kind of provincial and director of all the jesuites in the several counties of north-wales , and those of shropshire and staffordshire . i will not undertake to particularize all the treasonable discourses and communications between this jesuitical confessor , and the said earl and his lady ; but among the rest , this i have often heard the said morgan several times repeat to the said earl and his lady , that the kingdom was in a high feaver , and that nothing but blood-letting could restore it to health ; for then the catholick religion would flourish . to which the said earl would many times reply , that it was not yet time ; however be made no question but that such means would be us'd with all convenient speed ; or words to that effect . and so confident they were of this revolution , that i have often heard the said lady powis tell the said morgan both publickly and in private , that when the true religion ( meaning that of rome ) should be resto●●● , which she doubted not would be brought to pass in a short time , she would perswade her husband to make a gift of a parcel of land to the value of 300 l. per annum , toward the foundation and maintenance of a nunnery . and for a farther instance of their confidence and assurance in this important particular , while i continu'd in the said family , there was one madam remige , a french woman , and a violent papist , living at the same time with my lady . this gentlewoman marry'd my brother , and was a person in whom my lady greatly confided ; upon which accompt the countess would frequently take her along with her , when she went into confessor morgan's chamber , at such time as they had their private consults ; where i have also frequently observ'd father gawen , tow●●s , evans , sylliard , roberts , parry , owens , white , the earl of castlemain and other priests and jesuits to meet . when they met , they were wont to shut up themselves sometimes for one , sometimes for two hours , more or less ; and when their consults brake up , the said remige and morgan the confessor would seem to be in raptures , frequently repeating their joy for the hopes they had that the romish religion would suddainly be establish'd in england . which they did not doubt but to bring to pass , notwithstanding they had met with a very great disappointment , which was the peace made up with holland . for , said they , if the army at black-heath had bin sent into holland to assist the french , when they lay with their armies about amsterdam , holland had certainly bin conquer'd , and then the french would have bin able to have assisted them with his forces to establish popery in england . which assurances of theirs in these and many other expressions of the same nature , importing their confidence to set up the romish religion , they frequently repeated as well to my self , and in my hearing . in prosecution of which design , the said morgan , as i have just cause to believe , took several journeys to london and several parts of england , and voyages also into ireland , to give and take directions for carrying on the grand plott . upon the discovery whereof , the said madam remige and her husband , having privately sold their estate , fled into france either in may or june last past , for fear of being apprehended : the said madam remige , as i am assur'd by many circumstances , being privy to all or most of the transactions of the conspiracy . and for the earl of castlemaine himself , about may last was two years , i was present at mass with the lord powis in vere-street , when the said earl said mass in his sacerdotal habits , according to the rites and ceremonies of the church of rome . among the rest of the masses at which i assisted for this so earnestly expected restoration , it happen'd , that one time a spider fell into the challice after the consecration of the wine : which the priest observing , went on however with his lurry , till he came to the consummation of the wine ; at what time fearing that the liquor of life might prove the potion of death , he made a full stop , and sent me away to father morgan the confessor , to know what he should do ? whereupon the confessor considering well the danger of the draught , in a very surly manner , as being vex'd either at the accident or the carelesness of the priest , commanded me to bid him let it alone . which caus'd me not a little to suspect the credit of their faith. for it was my belief , that the most venomous animals in the world must of necessity lose their poison in the real blood of christ . nor did i observe that the said spider was taken out , wash'd and burnt , and the ashes lockt up in the sacrarie , as ought to have bin done . much about this time great lamentations were made , as well by my lord and lady , as by the priests that resorted to the house , and many curses pronounc'd against capt. john scudamore of kent-church in the county of hereford , for having apprehended and sent to gaol one eliot , a priest . which was a great disturbance and disappointment of their designs , and occasion'd them to take new councels , and make new provisions for the carrying on of the plott . having thus continu'd very devout in this same secular course of superstition and false worship for the space of three years or thereabouts in the said earl of powis's house , my lady his countess , and the said morgan were very pressing with their arguments to perswade me to enter into religious orders . particularly the said countess highly encourag'd me thereto , by willing me , that if i would but follow my studies , and make my self capable of advancement , i could not want ecclesiastical preferment . promising withal , to take care of me her self : and further saying , that she did not question but to get me made a bishop in england by her interest . for that upon the restoration of the romish religion , there would be great occasion for men of parts , of whom to make bishops , and to employ in the management of the affairs of the church . this was a course of life which no way corresponded with my humour , altogether martial : however , being allur'd by the hopes of preferment , and relying upon the promises of my lady , i resolv'd to submit my self to the perswasions of the countess , who thereupon gave me ten pounds to carry me to doway . in order to this religious design , as i then thought it , i took shipping for newport ; where i was no sooner landed , but i found my self presently in the embraces of two fryers , who upon intelligence of my coming , were sent to meet me . they seem'd to be very glad to see me , caressing and entertaining me with all the kindness i could expect , all the way to doway . where being arriv'd , i was presently admitted into the convent of recollects , who are a sort of franciscans , that pretend to a purity above all the rest , and are therefore collected together to make that profession . in this same monasterie i spent about three weeks ; but instead of that seraphic piety , and purity of religion which i expected , observing nothing among those pretended brethren , but malice , envy , backbiting and detraction of one another ; and instead of refin'd devotion , nothing but refin'd hypocrisie , my zeal grew cold , and i began to think of nothing more , than how to make my escape . i observ'd their nastiness , in the ceremonious burial of their lice . for the purity of their religion not admitting them to shift their habits , once a fortnight they make a great fire , and then shake their nasty garments over it , to the dismal consumption of thousands and ten thousands , singing certain psalms or hymns over the funeral piles of their filthy numerous vermin . i observ'd their hypocrisie , when they carry'd me to one of their exercises , which they call disciplining themselves . for the performance of which piece of severity , they betook themselves to a dark gallery , and there stood with their cloaths tuck'd up about their middles , and their lower parts all bare . every one had a kind of whip in his hand , which is compos'd of an iron chain of about a foot long , with three other smaller chains branching from the bigger , well furnish'd with fishhooks . but i observ'd they layd on with so much mildness , and so much favour to one another , as if it had bin rather a sport than a penance . however , i at that time would not seem to take notice of their remissness , but looking upon it as my duty , gave my next neighbour , an old fat haunch'd lay-porker , a clawing lash , as he did also to the next to him ; which put all the rest into a very great disorder . upon which i ran away to my chamber , and lock'd my self in , not without some bodily fear of what might have bin the reward of my pretended mistake , had i staid . but soon after the father or master of the novitiates came to my chamber , and bid me not be surpriz'd at the sight of such a severe penance , as being the effect of an extraordinary zeal to subjugate and mortifie our sins of the flesh . which would have bin a very sowr piece of mortification indeed , had the punishment bin as terrible as they made the world believe , by the terrible visage of their instruments of execution . believing therefore that neither hypocrisie , nor nastiness were any signs or marks of true religion , i resol'vd to make my escape from those dens of lice and dissimulation ; which i did soon after , though not without great difficulty . for whether they suspected my intentions or no , i cannot tell ; but this i am sure of , that some few dayes before i got loose , one father cudworth , guardian of the monasterie , told me , that if i did not continue with them , i should lose both my life and my friends : adding farther , that the king , meaning his majestie , should not last long , and that his successor should be wholly for their purpose . and after my escape , meeting with father cross , the provincial of the said monks , he told me , that had he bin at doway , when i made my escape , i should never have come into england again . with such a mortal hatred they pursue all those that have had the opportunity to have any knowledg of their vain and abominable superstitions . upon my return into england i found my entertainment very cold . for the earl of powis , and his lady , together with all the rest who had encourag'd me to betake my self to a monastic life , were become my utter enemies , threatning to take away my life , or at least to get my brother to dis-inherit me . which vast . piece of their malice and revenge they easily wrought upon my brother to accomplish . being thus left friendless and destitute in england , i went over to paris , where i had another brother that was a benedictine monk in that city . at paris i staid a considerable time , and during my residence there , came acquainted with one father clifford , who told me among other things relating to this kingdom , that the lord stafford was a person of that undoubted and extraordinary zeal , that he would run the utmost hazards for the benefit and advantage of the church of rome ; further saying , that there were a great many devout and zealous people in staffordshire , that were persons of discretion , and such as were fit to be entrusted in the management of any affair that tended to the support of the roman catholic faith. another time , one latham , a priest , and benedictine monk , being upon his departure with cardinal howard for rome , with great confidence told me , that though the retinue of the cardinal were at that time but ordinary and slender , yet he did not doubt to see his eminency return into england , with a splendor befitting his degree , and dignify'd with the highest characters that the pope could bestow upon him . and that for his part , though he had been proffer'd to be made prior of the benedictines at paris , he had refus'd it ; rather choosing to follow the cardinal's fortunes , and to depend upon the hopes of that preferment , which he was well assur'd he should obtain by the means and favour of the cardinal . and indeed it was the general discourse among the monks at paris , especially the english , who should be an abbot , and who a prior , upon the suddain restoration of the catholic religion in england . more then that , an eminent monk of the great abby of st. germains declar'd in public , that the english were a very unhappy nation , that had not a man , who had the courage to restore religion by taking away the life of one single person . and that the world may be sensible , that there was no degree in the church of rome that did not concern it self in the grand design , a father of the carthusians told me , that were he not oblig'd by the vow of his order , never to stirr from his convent , he himself , although he were not of the english nation , would be the person that would undertake the work , for the general good of the universal church of god. one mr. rivers also , a gentleman well known to many of this nation , advis'd me to get the recommendations of the prior of the benedictines at paris , and of the lord thomas somerset , who was a canon of st. peters in rome , then at paris , with what other recommendations i could get , and to hasten to rome , by which means there was no question but i might get to be admitted into cardinal howard's family , who would shortly be in great authority in england ; adding further , that had he not engag'd himself to be tutor to sir charles shellies children , with whom he was then going for la fleche , he would take the same course as he had propos'd to my self ; for that upon the restoration of religion , they who had taken the most pains , would be the best provided for . but these arguments not prevailing , i was by my brother perswaded to return into england ; and in order to that journey by my said brother and the said prior of the benedictines , recommended to the acquaintance of the lord stafford , then at paris , by whom about the latter end of novemb. 1675. i was readily entertain'd , and being look'd upon as a gentleman , had the honor of a frequent and free access to his lordship . during my attendance upon my lord , which was about three weeks , his lordship having , as i am apt to believe , receiv'd some private intimations from the prior and my brother , began very gradually with me , telling me in the first place , that being a gentleman , who had bin bred up to no calling , and was now deserted by my friends and relations , i must inevitably fall into such ill courses , as would bring me to some unhappy end . for the preventing whereof , it would be better for me to undertake an action , wherein if i succeeded , it would make me happy in this world ; or if i miscarry'd , would procure me an everlasting crown in heaven . having thus rais'd my expectations , at another time he added , that he had a piece of service to propose to me , that would not only restore me to the good opinion of my own relations , but for ever oblige both them and their posterity . as i was willing to embrace all opportunities to advance my own fortunes , so it may be certainly thought , that i was no less inquisitive , what piece of service it was , that was expected from me . but my lord stafford , being unwilling presently to commit so great a discovery to my knowledg , would by no means open his mind to me , but exacted from me , all the imaginable obligations to secresie , which i gave his lordship in the most solemn manner he could possibly invent . which being done , he again repeated to me the great advantages that would accrue both to my self and the whole catholick cause , if i stood firm and prosper'd in what i was to undertake ; and then told me in direct terms , that i might make my self and the nation happy , by taking away the life of the king of england , who was a heretick , and consequently a rebel to god almighty . this being a proposal very surprizing , i desir'd his lordship to allow me some short time to consider of it , and promis'd withall to give him my answer at diepe ; where his lordship at that time had signify'd his intentions to me to embarque for england . accordingly i went before to the place appointed : but my lord altering his journey , went with count grammont to calais , and from thence sent word to me , expecting him at diepe , to make haste for england , and to attend him at london . but then growing sensible of the impiety of the proposal made me , and well knowing that my answer would be nothing satisfactory to his lordship , i resolv'd to go for england , and so to avoid all farther importunities from his lordship , by receiving any farther obligations from him , i enter'd into the french service , and had the honour to be admitted into the duke of monmouth's regiment , by a particular recommendation from his grace , at the humble request of my worthy friend sir ▪ ed. stradling . having spent some time in the french army , i return'd for england , and by the kind favour of philip hoby esq continu'd with him at his house at neath abby in the county of glamorgan , till the late levies of souldiers for flanders , at which time i made haste away for london , and understanding the lord powis was not a little in the favour of his royal highness the duke of york , i made my addresses to his lordship , to recommend me to the duke for an employment , giving his lordship an accompt of my condition , and desiring him to believe , that though i could not conform to a religious life , yet i made no question but by my services in the field i should retreive the good will of his lordship , and the rest of my friends and relations . his lordship , with a seeming compassion made answer , that i ought in the first place to implore the heavenly assistance ; and that in order thereunto , i should go and make my confession to the earl of castlemaine , who was then in my lords chamber ready to say mass . accordingly i went and made my confession in obedience to his lordships directions . but notwithstanding my compliance in spirituals , i was altogether neglected , as to those temporal favors which i daily sought by his lordships means . for which as i have just cause to suspect , i have great reason to thank his countess , who is so much a romanist , as never to trust a person whom she has once injur'd . thus finding the professors of the romish religion so full of treachery , malice , hypocrisie and revenge , i absolutely renounc'd all future hopes and dependencies upon it , and seriously resolv'd sincerely and heartily to conform to the discipline of the church of england . and i hope there is no true protestant will have the worse opinion of me , for listening to the voice of conscience , and choosing to follow the light of truth , because i was once a wanderer in the by-wayes of popish darkness . 't is not to be thought but that i must expect to be prosecuted and pursu'd by the malice of their tongues : for indeed it was a main endeavour of my former friends and still unkind relations , because i could not confine my self to one of their cloysters , by exposing me to hardship and necessity , to precipitate me into evil courses , that so i might become obnoxious to their fury . but as i am one that know they can fix nothing upon me for truth , so i value not their scandals or reproaches , from which i make no question but to clear my self , when ever there shall be occasion . at the time of the tryal of william viscount stafford , when i was to give my evidence , i was not a little concern'd at first , not doubting but that all the opposition in the world would be made against me , and that all the scandals and reproaches would be thrown upon me , that all the craft of papistical equivocations could fix upon my shoulders ; but on the other side , i was not a little encourag'd , when i saw who the persons were that after so long a preparation were brought to make their appearance against me . the first was the lord powis's butler , whose particular interest and dependance i leave to publick censure . the second a gentleman of grey's-inn , who has often declar'd to the world his calamitous condition , that he was so pocky and so poor , that he was weary of his life , and for that reason provok'd several people to cut his throat , to the end he might be quit of his misery ; but by the charity of a gentleman who is physitian to the lords in the tower , he was patch'd up and supported till he was call'd to the barr ; by the credit whereof he marry'd a wife with a small fortune , which is now almost spent . now i leave it to all the world to judge , what such a man , unprincipl'd , would not do to gratifie a person that had preserv'd him from starving , and to ingratiate himself with a party , which he thought would be prevalent , and from which no doubt he had very large promises , according to the usual custome of those people . my brother appear'd next , who declar'd that my elder brother gave me seven pounds never to see me more ; which money he said i received , after i went from doway ; though in truth i never did . a very kind brother to give , and certainly a very much injur'd brother to be satisfy'd with such a small pittance of his future expectations for the continuance of such a mortal separation . but 't is no wonder , since the difference in religion engages brother against brother , that they who could prevail with my elder brother to dis-inherit me , could prevail with a younger brother to play the fool in publick , by appearing against me to so little purpose . however i believe he was deluded to it , and so i pardon him . the last that appear'd against me , was my lord castlemaine's steward , which was more then his lord himself could do , and therefore a testimony of little value . he pretended , that for three years he had not bin half a week out of my lord's company ; though upon examination it was found that he had mistaken fifteen months in his accompt . from all which we may make this judgment , what a sort of people we have to deal with , and what difficulties we labour under , that we are not only requir'd to give in evidence upon oath , but must be forc'd to prove by collateral testimonies of our lives and conversations , that truth is truth ; and that our evidence must be cavill'd at by those that bring such poor and pitiful sons of reproach to confront us . hoewever , it was my happiness , that my circumstances were attested by several persons of great estates , and unquestionable reputation . finis . the unreasonableness and impiety of popery: in a second letter written upon the discovery of the late plot.. burnet, gilbert, 1643-1715. 1678 approx. 66 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 21 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a30477 wing b5935 estc r7487 11632923 ocm 11632923 47937 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a30477) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 47937) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 484:41) the unreasonableness and impiety of popery: in a second letter written upon the discovery of the late plot.. burnet, gilbert, 1643-1715. [2], 36 p. ; 20 cm. printed for r. chiswell, at the sign of the rose and crown in st. paul's church-yard,, london : 1678.. attributed to gilbert burnet, bishop of salisbury. cf. mcalpin coll., halkett & laing. "imprimatur c. alston, nov. 12. 1678." last line on p. 1 has "endless". reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2003-10 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-10 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2003-12 olivia bottum sampled and proofread 2003-12 olivia bottum text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the unreasonableness and impiety of popery : in a second letter written upon the discovery of the late plot . imprimatur c. alston , nov. 12. 1678. london , printed for r. chiswell , at the rose and crown in st. paul's church-yard , 1678. the unreasonableness and impiety of popery , in a second letter written upon the discovery of the late plot . sir , you are pleased to tell me that my last letter has had some good effect ; and that many who were before carried away with the false colours of the romish religion , are now a little awakned , and seem not unwilling to examin things , which they took formerly upon trust : and therefore you desire me , since you are not master of so much spare time your self , to set down the most material and convincing reasons , and in as few words as may be , that are most likely to open the eyes of honest and simple persons , that have been hitherto misled , and are now willing to be instructed . in all such cases i first consider the temper of the persons to be dealt with : such as take up their religion out of interest or humour , and think it point of honour to continue in it , and so will examine nothing are not to be spoken to . others that are naturally superstitious and credulous , are very hard to be wrought on ; for they believe every thing that is said on the one hand , and distrust all that is told them by any body else . some of those have a vanity in coming to talk with divines , but it is an endless labour to deal with them ; for at every time one must begin of new . but the only persons to be dealt with , are those that are sincere and inquisitive , that having been bred in that religion , or brought over to it by some specious pretences , are now willing to hear reason , and resolved to follow it wherever they find it . and therefore in the first place , their minds must be disingaged from these unjust prejudices , that they conceive of our religion : and such just prejudices must be offered them against the romish religion , as may at least beget in them some jealousies concerning it , by which they may be brought so far , as to think the matter suspicious . if then there be such reasons offered them , for susspecting foul dealing from their priests and church , as would make them suspect an attorney , physician , or any other person with whom they were to deal , they will be prepared to hear reason ; which is all that we desire : and upon this head these following considerations may be laid before them . 1. all people that pretend to great power and dominion over our consciences , are justly to be suspected . if any man designed to make himself master of any of our other liberties , we would examine his title , and suspect all his other motions , when we see they tend to subject us to him : therefore a church that designs to keep all her votaries under an absolute obedience , is justly to be suspected : and our church that pretends to no such power , is more likely to deal fairly . 2. a church that designs to keep her members in ignorance , is more to be suspected , than a church that brings every thing to a fair trial. a church that denies the use of the scriptures in a known tongue , except to a few , and wraps up their worship in a language that is not understood , is reasonably to be suspected , more than a church that gives the free use of the scriptures to all persons , and worships god in a language , which the people understand . 3. a church whose opinions tend to engross the riches of the world to its officers , is more to be suspected , than a church that pretends to nothing but a competent maintenance of the several officers in it . the redeeming souls out of purgatory , and the enriching the shrines , or reliques of saints , pardons , jubilees , and many more tenets of the church of rome , are so calculated for enriching their societies ; that every cautious man must needs suspect some design in it : which he cannot charge on a church that has none of these arts to get money . 4. a church that has carried on its designs , by the most dishonest methods possible , the forging of writings , and deeds , of miracles , visions , prophesies and other things of that nature , is more justly to be suspected , than a church that cannot be charged with any such practices . the forging so many epistles for the popes of the first ages , which are now by themselves confest to be spurious , with many other forgeries , were the engines by which the papal power was chiefly advanced . the legends and extravagant fables of which they are now ashamed , were the chief motives of devotion for many ages . and by these , saints and images were so much magnified , and monasteries so enriched . a noted liar after a discovery is no more to be trusted . 5. any that considers the present state of rome , the manner of electing popes , the practices of that court , and the maximes they move by , must see that every thing there is secular , corrupt , and at best directed by rules of policy . but to fansie the holy ghost can come upon any election so managed , as their own books shew that is , is the most unreasonable thing that can be devised . therefore a church that neither pretends so high , nor can be charged with such proceedings , is more likely to be the true church . 6. a church that teaches cruelty against poor innocent people , that differ in opinion ; and sets on plots , conspiracies , and rebellion against princes , that are judged hereticks , is more likely to be corrupted , than a church that is so merciful , as to condemn all capital proceedings for difference of opinion , and teaches an absolute submission to the soveraign power , even when it persecutes and oppresses them . 7. a church that is false to her own principles , is not so likely to instruct her members aright , as a church that is in all things consistent to her self . the great foundation of their doctrine , is , that there must be a speaking judg to decide all controversies : now they have no such judg , for it is not of faith , that the pope is this judg , or is infallible : and for a general council , they have had none these 112. years , nor are they like to see another in hast . so they have no speaking infallible judg among them . and thus they deceive people by a false pretence : whereas we appeal to nothing , but what we really have among us , which are the scriptures . 8. a church that appeals to marks , which are not possible to be searcht out , is more likely to mislead people , than a church that pretends to nothing but what can be certainly proved . the great thing they appeal to ▪ is the constant succession of the bishops of rome , and their other pastors . this cannot be known , no not by a probable conjecture . but there are on the contrary , as great grounds for history to deny it in the see of rome , as in any other ancient see whatsoever : but though they have it , both the greek church , and our church has it likewise . these are such plain things , and the truth of them is so notoriously known , that i should ask any of that communion , whether upon the like reasons he would not be jealous of any person or sort of persons whatsoever ? and if these grounds of jealousie would work in other matters , it is much more reasonable , that they should take place in matters of religion ; in which as an error is of far greater importance ; so impostors in all ages have studied to make gain by religion . therefore it is most just upon these violent presumptions , to look about us , and take care we be not cheated . but before i would descend to particulars , there is one general prejudice that works most universally , on weaker minds to be removed , which is , that the true church cannot erre . if then it be made appear unanswerably , that the true church may erre , and that in a most weighty point , all these arguments fall to the ground . that the church of the iews , in our saviours days was the true church , cannot be denied ; for our saviour owned it to be such . he joyned with them in their worship , he sent the lepers to the priest , he commanded them to hear the doctors that sate in moses chair , and himself acknowledged the high priest. this is sufficient to prove that it was the true church , and yet this church erred , in a most important point , whether jesus christ ▪ was the true messias , in whom the prophecies were fulfilled or not ? they judged falsly : the high priests with all the sanhedrim , declared him a blasphemer , and condemned him guilty of death . here the true church expounds the scriptures falsly , and erred in the foundation of religion . and it is well known , that the chief arguments which they of the romish party bring to prove , that a church cannot err , do agree as well to the iewish , as the christian church : the one being the true church , under that dispensation , as well as the other is now . if then this decision made by the true church in christs time , did not oblige all in that church , to go on in that error , but private persons might have examined their sentence , and depart from them upon it ; then upon the same reasons , though we acknowledge the church of rome a true church , yet we may examine her doctrines , and separate from her errors . this grand prejudice being thus removed , there are two things in the next place to be laid before them . one is , that the scriptures , being acknowledged to come from divine inspiration , on all hands , can only decide the controversies among us : and the places i shall make use of , shall be cited according to the doway translation , to which , being made by themselves , they cannot except . another is , that a man must judg of things as they appear plainly to his reasonable faculties . it is against all reason to say that because it is possible for a man to be mistaken , therefore he ought to doubt his judgment in things that are clear to him . this must turn a man sceptical both to all religions , and all the concerns of human life : therefore every man must follow his judgment , when after a diligent inquiry , any thing appears plain to him . and now to come up close to those of that perswasion , they are to consider , that the chief parts of religion are , first , articles of faith : secondly , rules of life : thirdly , the worship of god chiefly in the sacraments : and fourthly , the government of the church . if then in every one of these heads , the church of england agrees clearly with the scriptures , and the church of rome does either manifestly contradict them , or differs matterially from them , in all these points , in which we and they differ ; then the resolution of the question , whether a man ought to joyn himself to our church , or theirs ? will be easily made . for articles of faith , if either the apostles creed or the creeds of the first 4. general councils , contain a just abstract of the faith ; then we who receive every article in these creeds , do agree more exactly to the apostolical doctrine , than they who have added many new articles to their creed . the chief article of faith , is , the covenant made between god and man through iesus christ , by which upon the account of his merits and intercession , all who follow the rules of the gospel , may expect the blessings of it , both here , and hereafter . pennance toward god , and faith towards our lord iesus christ , being the conditions upon which we hope for eternal life . this we plainly teach , without addition or change : but in how many things have they departed from this simplicity of the gospel ? first , in teaching people to address to god , for the merits and by the intercession of the saints : from whom these things are asked , for which the scriptures direct us only to god and christ. and in the very words pronounced after absolution , the merits of the blessed virgin and the saints , are joined with the passion of christ ; as the grounds on which we obtain pardon of sin , grace , and eternal life . secondly , in perswading people , that a simple attrition with the use of the sacraments , without any real conversion of the soul or change of life , is sufficient to salvation . thirdly , in perswading people , that there is a communication of the merits of saints to other persons , though the scriptures mention only the communication of christs merits . fourthly , by teaching that tho our sins are pardoned thorough christ ; yet , there are terrible and long lasting torments to be endured in another state. fiftly , that saying masses , and going of pilgrimages can redeem from these . now in all these , the two chief designs of the gospel are plainly contradicted : which be ; first , to change our hearts and lives : secondly , to perswade us to a humble dependance upon christ , and an high acknowledgment of him : but these doctrines of theirs as they shew us a way to be sure of heaven , without a real conversion ; so they take off so much from faith in christ as they carry us to trust to somewhat else . these are errors of great importance : since they corrupt the fountain , and overthrow the chief design of the christian religion . they are also late devices brought in , in the dark and ignorant ages . no mention is made of praying to saints , in any ancient liturgie . there is a great deal against it in the most ancient authors . and though in the fourth century , upon the conversion of many heathens to the christian faith , to humour them in their conceit , of some intermedial agents , between the divinity and us mortals , there was a reverence for the saints set up , to drive out the worship of those secondary deities ; yet , this was no direct adoration , though they then began to use rhetorical addresses to saints like prayers : yet , even in gregory the great his time ( in the beginning of the seventh century ) we find no prayers made to them in all his liturgies . and for the belief of a simple attrition being sufficient with the sacrament , no body ever dreamed of it , before the schoolmen found out the distinction , between attrition and contrition in the later ages . for the communication of the merits of saints , the whole fathers in one voice , speak only of the merits of christ being communicated to us . the fryers first invented it , to invite people at least to die in their habits , by perswading them , that all the merits of the saints of their order , were shared among the whole order . and for redeeming out of purgatory , the first four ages knew nothing of it . in the beginning of the fifth century st. austin plainly speaks of it as an opinion which some had taken up without any ground , and that it was no way certain , nor could we ever be sure of it . and though in gregory the great 's time , the belief of it was pretty far advanced ; yet , the trade of redeeming out of it , by saying masses for departed souls was not even then found out . so that all these are both gross errors , and late inventions . the next branch of religion , is the rule of human life : which one would think could be taken from no other standard so certainly , as the 10. commandments : and the expositions given of these in scripture , chiefly our saviours sermon on the mount. let malice it self appear , to declare wherein our church strikes at any of these : or teaches men to disobey even the least of them . if then our rule of life be exactly the same ; with that which the scriptures prescribe , we are safe as to this , which may be well called , the most important piece of religion . for it is to be considered that god making man after his own image , the end of his creation was , that he might be made like god. the attributes of god to be imitated , are goodness , mercy , justice , wisdom and truth . and it is certain that the design of revealed religion was to give men clearer notions of these moral perfections , to press them by stronger arguments , and encourage cur endeavours by suitable rewards and punishments . so that if any religion contradict these moral duties , we are sure it is false ; for the revelation of god's will must be designed to make us better than we would otherwise be , following barely the light of nature , and not worse . if then the church of rome over throws morality , and contradicts any of the ten commandments we are sure it is not of god. and how far it has done this , they may judge by these particulars . first , whatever church offers cheap and easie pardons for sin , does take off so much from our sense of the evil of sin . we cannot have a very ill opinion of any thing that is easily forgiven . now what are the popes pardons , indulgences , jubilees , priviledged altars , the going of pilgrimages , the saying of some collects , the wearing of agnus dei's , peebles , or other such like trash , but so many engines to root out of mens minds any deep horrour or great sense of sin . is not this the very thing which the people of the iews of old offered at , to bring thousands of rams , ten thousand rivers of oyl , their first born , or the fruit of their body , to offer for their sins ? all which were rejected in the name of god in these words , i will shew thee o man what is good , and what our lord requireth of thee : verily to do iudgment , and to love mercy , and to walk solicitous with thy god. this is a moral matter and unchangable ; therefore whoever go to beat down the sense of sin , by the offer of pardon , on any other terms , but the sincere change of a mans life , destroy morallity , which is the image of god in man. if from this general consideration we descend to examine the commandments in particular , we shall find matter enough for a severe charge against their church . is not the first commandment broken when devotions are offered to saints which import their being omniscient , omnipresent and almighty ; that are the incommunicable attributes of the god-head : and when pardon of sin , preservation , grace against temptations , and eternal life , are immediately begged from saints . it is true , they say the sence of these prayers , is only that we desire their assistance at gods hands for these blessings . but the words of their offices import no such matter . and though for above one hundred and sixty years these things have been complained of ; and in the correction of their offices , some of them were cast out ; yet , many of them do still continue : in which the plain sence of the words of their offices is idolatrous : only they make a shift with another and forced sence put on them , to defend themselves from that charge . and for such devotions they can shew no warrant for the first thousand years after christ. the second commandment is so openly and confessedly broken by them , that many of them maintain , it does not all oblige christians : but belonged only to the jewish dispensation . and in all their catechisms it is left out , which was done very wisely ; ( with what honesty let them answer ) for it was not fit the people should look on that as a commandment , which they saw so notoriously broken throughout their whole church : a great trade being also driven by the breach of it . that this was not in the primitive church , themselves confess : all the books the fathers wrote against the idolatry of the heathens , demonstrate this . nor were images so much as set up in churches before the sixth century . and then care was taken that they should not be worshipped : and not before the eighth century were they worshipped in any place of the christian church . the doctrine of the popes power of relaxing of oaths , and discharging men from the obligation of them , joyned with the practice of their popes for above 800 years , is as formal an opposition to the third commandment as can be imagined . this was also begun in the eighth century . the vast multiplication of holy-days , made the observation of the lords day of necessity slacken . they have destroyed the order of societies , established in the fifth commandment ; by the power they allow the pope to depose princes , and absolve subjects from their alleageance . they teach the murdering and burning all hereticks , that is to say , all that will not submit to their tyranny : by which infinite numbers of innocent persons have been murdered , against the sixth commandment . and these two doctrines of deposing princes , and putting hereticks to death , were abhorred by the church for the first eight ages , and were brought in by the popes since that time . the frequent practice of the court of rome , in granting divorces , on the pretence either of spiritual kindred , or of degrees not forbidden , either by the law of nature , or the word of god , and allowing second marriages to both parties , upon such divorces , is an avowed breach of the seventh commandment . the setting on , some princes to invade other princes in their just rights , is the doctrine , as well as it has been the practice of their church for some ages . and as their popes have wrested many territories from temporal princes , so for many ages they set on publick robbery against the eighth commandment . the doctrine of equivocating , both taught , and practised , the breaking of safe conducts , and publick faith decreed by their general councils , is also against the ninth commandment . for the tenth i shall say nothing of it , because the meaning of it is not so generally agreed on . but thus we see all the rules of morality are contradicted by that church . it might be justly added to swell up this charge ; that of late there have been doctrines published to the world by the approved casuists of that church , with licence , which subvert all justice , destroy all security , and take away the most sacred ties of mankind . by the doctrines of probability , and of ordering the intention aright , there is no crime how black soever ▪ but a man may adventure on it with a good conscience . these things were long and openly taught amongst them , without any censure . and when many of the french clergy complained of these at the court of rome ( perhaps more out of spite to the jesuits , than zeal for the truth ) it was long before these so just remonstrances , were heard . and in conclusion a trifling censure was past on them : by which they were declared scandalous ( neither impious , nor wicked ) and all were forbidden to teach them any more , but they stand yet , in the books formerly published with licence . after all these particulars , is it to be wondered at , if the morals of the men of that church be vitiated , when their doctrine is so corrupted , for peoples practices are generally worse than their opinions . and thus the second point is made good , that in our church , we teach the same rules of living that are in the scriptures , which are grosly corrupted by their doctrines . the third branch of the christian religion is the worship of god and that chiefly the use of the sacraments . for the worship of god , let it be considered that we pray to god , and praise him only , for all these things about which the scriptures command us to address to him . our worship is in a language that all the people understand , and so are edified by it according to st. paul , who has enlarged so much on this matter , in a whole chapter , that it is strange , how any who acknowledg the authority of that epistle , can deny it . our liturgies are such , that the romanists cannot except to any part of them : our ceremonies are few , and these be both decent and useful : so that in all the parts of our worship , we do so exactly agree to the rule of the scriptures , and the primitive church , that they cannot blame us for any one rubrick or collect in it . but for their worship , it is in a language not understood by the people : who to be sure can receive no edification , from that they understand not ; nor can they say amen to such devotions . this is as it were in spite to st. paul , who took special care that as long as his authority was in any esteem in the church , such an abuse should never creep into it . nor is there a shadow of authority for such a practice , from the primitive church , in which for many ages , the worship was still in the vulgar tongues . next their worship is so overcharged with many rites and ceremonies , that the seriousness of devotion must needs be much alloyed by them . a great part of the worship is so whispered , as if they were muttering spells . their books of exorcisms are the most indecent things that can be : full of charms and other ridiculous rites . and for the pontifical and ceremonial of their church , they may match with heathenism for superstition . their offices are so various , and numerous , and the rubricks seem so full of disorder , that a man may as soon learn a trade , as know all the several parts of them . how this can be reconciled to the simplicity of the gospel , or the worshipping god in spirit and truth , may be easily judged by those who can compare things . for the sacraments , we have the two that christ instituted , baptism , and the lords supper ; and for pennance , confirmation , ordination and marriage , we have them also among us , as they were appointed by christ and his apostles : though we do not call these sacraments . for extream unction we find no warrant at all for it , as a sacred ordinance : and we are sure the church for many ages did not think of it . for baptism it is done among us , in the very form our saviour appointed : and this they do not deny . but among them they cannot be assured that they are at all baptized : since according to the doctrine of the necessity of the intention of the priest , to the being of a sacrament , they cannot be assured of it : for an atheistical priest can spoil their baptism , so that unless they can be certain of that , which is impossible for them to know , i mean the intention of the priest , they are not sure that they were ever truly baptized . but for the lords supper , if any person will so far trust his own reason and senses , as to compare all the warrants we have in scripture for that ordinance , with the practice of our church and theirs , they will soon see who agree most to them . christ took bread which he blessed and gave , saying , this is my body which is given for you . he also took the chalice and said , drink ye all of it , &c. all this we doe , and no more , so that it is indeed a communion among us : and those who have read the account that iustin martyr gives us of the rites in the communion in his days , would think he were reading the very abstract of our office. but in the church of rome , besides the less material things , of the form of the bread , the consecration of altars and vessels , with the numberless little devices in the canon of the mass , that they seem not of such importance let these considerable changes they have made be looked into . 1. they have brought in the doctrine of transubstantiation , against the clearest evidence both of sense and reason , against the nature of a sacrament , and its being a memorial of christs death , and that by the very words of consecration , the bread and wine are christs body and blood , as the one was given for us , and the other shed for us , on the cross : and not as he is now at the right hand of god. the belief of this crept in by degrees , from the eighth century , in which it was first set on foot , but much contradicted both in the eastern and western church : and was not fully setled till the 13th century . we are sure it was not the doctrine of the churches of rome , constantinople , asia , antioch , nor africk in the 5th and 6th centuries , by express testimonies from the most esteemed authors of that time , gelasius , chrysostom , ephrem , theodoret , and st. austin . 2. they deny the chalice to the laity against the express words of the institution ; and contrary both to the doctrine and tradition of the church for 1300 years . 3. they have declared the priests saying mass , to be an expiatory sacrifice for the dead , and the living , though the scripture plainly says , that christ was once offered for us . it is true the primitive church used the words sacrifice and oblation as our church yet does , but their meaning by that , was only in the general sense of these terms , as prayers , praises , and alms are called sacrifices . 4. they have brought in a new piece of worship , which is the hearing of mass , without receiving the sacrament : and it is now the great devotion of their church . though by the institution , it is as express as can be , that the consecration is only in order to its being a communion . and by the apostolical canons , which some in their church believe to be the work of the apostles , and are by them all acknowledged to be a collection of the rites of the first ages , all persons that were present at the worship , and did not communicate were to be severely censured . 5. the adoring the sacrament , the exposing it on the altar , and carrying it about in solemn processions , to be worshipped , as they are late inventions ; so if transubstantiation be not true , they are by their own confession the grossest idolatries that ever were , and are not these considerable variations from the first institution of this sacrament ? as for their own sacraments , though there is no reason to equal them , to either of these that were instituted by christ ; yet some of them we use , as they were at first appointed . persons baptized , are confirmed with imposition of hands , the only ceremony used by the apostles . we allow the use of confession , and do press it in many cases ; and give the benefit of absolution : but we do not make this an engin to screw peoples secrets from them . for which there is no warrant in scripture ; nor was it thought necessary for many ages after the apostles . confession of publick scandals was enjoyned , and for private sins it was recommended : but this latter was not judged simply necessary for obtaining the pardon of sin . and what noise soever they make of the good that confession , and the enjoyning of pennance , may do , if well managed , we need only appeal to some of their own best writers , now in france , whether as they have been practised , they have not rather driven all true piety out of the world . if these abuses had been only the faults of some priests , the blame could not have been justly cast on their church ; but when the publick rules given to confessors , printed with licence , are their warrants for so doing , then their church is in fault . so that nothing is more common among them , than for persons after a confession made of their sins , with a slight sorrow ▪ and some trifling pennance undergone , together with the priestly absolution , to fancy themselves as clean from all sin , as if they had never offended god. and this being the doctrin of their church , it both lessens the sense of sin , and takes men off from making such earnest applications to god through christ , as the gospel commands . for orders they are among us with the same rites that christ and the apostles gave them first : and a learned man of their own church has lately published the most ancient forms of ordinations he could find : from which it appears , that all the ceremonies in their ordinations , for the want of which they accuse us , were brought in since the eighth century : so that even by their own principles these things cannot be necessary to ordination , otherwise there were no true orders in the church for the first eight ages . for marriage we honour it as gods ordinance ; and since the scriptures declare it honourable in all , without exception , we dare deny it to none who desire it . st. paul delivers the duty of clergy-men towards their wives , with rules for their wives behaviour , which had been very impertinent if clergy-men might have no wives . we find a married clergy in the first ten centuries : and we know by what base arts the caelibate of the clergy was brought in ; and what horrid ill effects it has produced . neither do we allow of any devices to hinder marriage , by degrees of kindred not prohibited in the law of god , or the trade that was long driven in granting dispensations in those degrees , and afterwards annulling these , and avoiding the marriages that followed upon them , upon some pretences of law. thus it appears , how they have corrupted the doctrine of the sacraments , together with the worship of god. the last head of religion is government ; and as to this , we can challenge any to see what they can except to us . first in reference to the civil power , we declare all are bound for conscience sake to obey every lawful command of the supream authority , and to submit when they cannot obey . we pretend to no exemption of clarks from the civil jurisdiction , but give to caesar the things that are caesars . we do not obey the king only because he is of our religion : much less do we allow of conspiracies or rebellions upon our judging him an heretick , so that we deliver no doctrin that can be of any ill consequence to the society we live in . and for the ecclesiastical government we have bishops , priests , and deacons , rightly ordained , and in their due subordination to one another ; every one administring these offices due to his function , which has been the governemnt of the christian church , since the times of the apostles . so that we have a clear vocation of pastors among us , from whose hands every person may without scruple receive all the sacraments of the church . but for the church of rome , how unsafe is the civil government among them ? not to mention the doctrin of deposing princes , for which i refer you to my former letter ; what a security does the exemption of clerks from the civil courts in cases criminal , give to loose and debauched church-men ; and what disturbance must this breed to a common wealth ? the denying the civil magistrate power to make laws that concern religion , or oblige churchmen , takes away a great deal of his rights ; for scarce any law can be made but wrangling and ill-natur'd churchmen , may draw it within some head of religion . and that this was frequently done in former ages , all that have read history know . the quarrels that were in the beginning of this century between the pope and the republick of venice were a fresh evidence of it . but for the ecclesiastical government , they have spoiled it in all the parts of it . the pope has assumed a power of so vast an extent , and so arbitrary a nature , that all the ancient canons are thrown out of doors by it . we know that originally the bishops of rome were looked on by the rest of the church , as their colleagues and fellow bishops . the dignity of the city made the see more remarkable ; and the belief of st. peters having founded it , with his suffering martrydom there , with st. paul , made it much honoured : so that when the empire became christian , then the dignity of the imperial city made the bishop of rome be acknowledged the first patriarch . from this beginning they arose by many degrees to the height of pretending to a supremacy both civil and spiritual : and then they not only received appeals , which was all they at first pretended to , but set up legantine courts every where , made the bishops swear obedience and homage to them , and the arch-bishops receive the pall from their hands , in sign of their dependance on them : exempted monasteries , and other clarks from episcopal jurisdiction , broke all the laws of the church by their dispensations : so that no shaddow of the primitive government does now remain . and though gregory the great wrote with as much indignation against the title of vniversal bishop , as ever any protestant did ; yet his successors , have since assumed both the name and thing . and to that height of insolence , has this risen , that in the council of trent , all the papal party opposed the decree that was put in , for declaring bishops to have their jurisdictions by divine right . the court party not being ashamed to affirm , that all jurisdiction was by divine right only in the pope ; and in the other bishops , as the delegates of the apostolick see ; and they were in this too hard for the other party . so that now a bishop , who by the divine appointment ought to feed the flock , can do no more in that , then as the pope gives him leave . the greatest part of the priests have no dependence on their bishops . the monks , fryars , and iesuits , being immediately subordinate to the pope ; so that they do what they please , knowing they can justifie any thing at rome , and they fear no censure any where else . from this so many abuses have crept in , and the canonists have found out , so many devices to make them legal , that there is no hope of reforming these at rome . the whole state of cardinals is one great corruption , who , from being originally the parish priests of rome , and so under all bishops , have raised themselves so high that they do now trample on the whole order ; and pretend to an equality with princes . the giving benefices to children , the unlimitted plurality of benefices in one person ; the comendam's , the reserved pensions , with many other such like , are gross , as well as late corruptions . and no wonder if all men despair of reforming the court of rome , when these abuses are become necessary to it , by which the greatness of the cardinals and the other officers , or ministers there , is kept up . i need not mention the gross simony of that court , where all the world knows , every thing may be had for money . the popes themselves , are often chosen by these arts : and if their own rules be true , such elections , with every thing that follows on them are void . the infinite swarmes of the inferiour clergy , do plainly drive a simoniacal trade , by the masses they say for departed souls , for money . and for publick pennance , they have universally let it fall , in stead whereof private pennance is now in use . and if their own writers say true , this is made an engine to serve other ends , when by enjoyning slight and easie pennances , they draw the people after them ; upon which the jesuites have been loudly accused , these forty years last past . in sum , all the corruptions or rather defects , that are in the government of our church , are only such as they brought in and have not met yet with such effectual remedies , as must cure the church of these inveterate distempers , their ill conduct did cast her into . if any of that party will review these particulars , and so far trust their own reasons , as to judge according to the plainest evidence , they cannot resist the conviction that they must needs meet with : when they see the simplicity of our faith , the morality of our doctrine , the purity of our worship , and our primitive government ; and compare it with their vast superfetation of articles of faith , the immorality of their rules of living , the superstition , if not idolatry of their worship , and the most extravagant innovations in government , that are in the church of rome . and indeed these things are so clear that few could resist the force of so much plain truth , if it were not for some prejudices , with which they are so fettered that they cannot examine matters with that freedom of mind , that is necessary . therefore much care must be taken , to clear these , in the most familiar and demonstrative manner that is possible . they may be reduced to these five chief ones . first , that the true church cannot err. secondly , that out of the true church there is no salvation . thirdly , that the case of the church of rome is much safer than ours is ; since the church of england acknowledges a possibility of salvation in the church of rome ; which they on the other hand deny to the church of england . fourthly , that unless there be a supreme judg set up , we can be sure of nothing in religion , but must fall into many factions and parties . and fiftly , that the reformation was but a novelty begun in the former age , and carried on in this nation , out of an ill design ; and managed with much sacriledge . the first of these seemed necessary to be cleared in the beginning of this discourse , and i am deceived if it was not done convincingly . and for the second we agree to it , that out of the true church there is no salvation . but then the question comes , what makes one a member of the true church ? the scriptures call the church the body of christ , of which he is the head. so then whoever are joined to christ according to the gospel , must be within the true church . but the deceit that lies hid under this , is , that from hence they fancy that the unity of the church , does consist in an outward communion with the see of rome . and upon that they calculate , that there must be an unity in the body of the church : and that cannot be , except all be joined to the see of rome . now , we grant there is but one church , but this unity consists not in an outward communion , though that is much to be desired , but consists in an unity of belief , about the essentials of christianity . there is nothing more evident , than , that even according to their own principles , other churches are not bound upon the hazard of damnation to hold communion with the see of rome ; for it is not an article of faith , nor certain according to their own doctrine , that the pope is infallible : and except that were certain , we cannot be obliged to hold communion under such a sanction with that see. for if it be possible that a pope may become an heretick or schismatick ( which many of them confess , and all agree that the contrary is not of faith , ) then other churches are not in that case obliged to hold communion with that see. if therefore the possiblity of error in that see be acknowledged , then holding communion with it , cannot be the measure of the unity of the church . so we bring it to this issue , it is not heresie to say , the pope may err : therefore this is no just prejudice against our church , because we have departed from communion with him , when he imposed his errors on us . so all the high things they boast of that see , come to nothing , except they say , this proposition is of faith , that the pope is infallible . and for these meetings that they call general councils ; they were at best but the councils of the western patriarchate artificially packt , and managed with much art ; as appears even from cardinal pallavicini's history of the council of trent . for the third prejudice , it is the most disingenuous thing that can be ; because our church is charitable , and modest in her censures , and theirs is uncharitable , and cruel in her judgments ; therefore to conclude , that communion with them is safer , than with us . if confidence , and presumption , noise , and arrogance , are the marks to judge a church by , we must yield to them in these : but if truth , and peace , charity and holy doctrines , be the better standards , then we are as sure , that our communion is much safer . let this rule be applied to the other concerns of human life , and it will appear how ridiculous an abuse it is to take measures from so false a standard . if a man were sick , the question comes , whether he shall use an approved physitian , or a montebanks . on the one hand , the montebank says , he will certainly cure him , and the doctors will undoubtedly kill him . on the other hand , the doctor modestly says , he will undertake nothing , but will do the best he can ; and for the montebank he tells him , it is very dangerous to trust to him , though he will not deny but sometimes great cures are done by them . the insolence of the montebank will never carry it against a doctors modesty , but among weak and credulous people ; and such must they also be , who are taken with this montebankry in religion . but if this be taken to pieces , the folly of it will yet appear more manifest . for first , the reason we give for a possibility of salvation in the church of rome , is , because we look on such and such things as the essentials of christianity , which are yet retained in that church : and either this reasoning is true or false . if it be true , then it is as true , that we may be saved , who retain these essentials of christianity : if it is false , then no inference can be drawn from it . secondly , though we yield a possiblity of salvation in that church , we declare that they are in great danger , by many opinions among them , which if fully understood and believed , do even vitiate the essentials of christanity ; particularly that foundation of religion , the covenant between god and man thorough christ , formerly insisted on . so that we declaring a certainty of salvation to those who sincerely follow the rules of our church , and a great danger in their church , the preferring their communion to ours , upon this account , is , as unreasonable , as to sleep without shutting our doors , because it is possible we shall not be robbed , in so doing : or when we are at sea to prefer a cock-boat to a good clean ship. these are such absurdities , that an ordinary measure of weakness cannot swallow them down . thirdly , we are not so forward as they imagine in yielding a possibility of salvation in their church . for our concession amounts rather to this , that we do not deny it , than that we positively affirm it : and therefore they have no reason to draw these advantages from it . 4. a great difference is to be made between what god in the infiniteness of his mercy may do , and what he is bound to by the covenant made with man in the gospel ; for the former we acknowledg , it is impossible to fix the limits of that mercy which is as far above our thoughts , as the heavens are above the earth . and how far it extends to all sincere minds , we are not so presumptuous as to define ; therefore we will not damn at pleasure , as they do , but we do assert , their church is guilty of such gross corruptions , by which the vitals of religion are vitiated , that they have not that reason to claim the mercies of the gospel due by that covenant . 5. the church of rome has a dark and fair side ; the dark side is , what the true consequence of their opinions is , the fair side is , what some witty men have devised to palliate these corruptions with , and to deceive the vulgar by . we know many of that communion , either do not at all know these corrupt doctrines , or have such a fair representation made of them , that they are thereby both more easily and more innocently misled . from hence it is that we are inclined to hope more charitably concerning some , that are abused by them . but for those that have examined things more fully , or that having been bred among us , yet reject the truth , and go over to them , we are not so much enclined to have so good hopes of them , as they imagine : so this is a weak and ill grounded conceit in all the parts of it . the fourth prejudice , is concerning the necessity of submitting to some common judg , of distrusting our own reasons , and believing the church , without which there must be many sects and divisions : and this they aggravate from the many different parties that are among us . but these are only specious pretences to deceive weak people by . for first , if-it is necessary that there be a common judg , it is most necessary that it be known , who this judg is , otherwise it is to no purpose to talk of a judge , if they cannot point him out . this is like him that came to discover a huge treasure that he knew was hid under ground ; but being asked in what place it was ? he answered he did not know that : and he believed no body else knew . some say the pope is the judge , others as confidently , that the council is judge even without the pope , others think it is sure work to say , the pope and council together : and others say the body of the church spread over the world. for the popes , some of them have been condemned for heresie , and others for making schism ; many of them have been most horrid men : they are generally ignorant in divinity , being for most part bred to the law : so that a great part of their own church rejects the popes infallibility . for councils , they have had none these 115 years , and the last was so over-ruled by the popes , that no other has been desired since : so that if either a council without the pope , or with him , be the infallible judge they have lost their infallibility ; and except a council were constantly sitting , they can shew no living and speaking judg. so that either this is not necessary to a church , or otherwise they are not a compleat church . and for the body of the church , how shall a man find out their sense , unless gathered together in some assembly ? or must a man go over christendome , and gather the suffrages of all the pastors of the church ? upon the whole matter it is plain that after all their canting about the church , they must say , that it is of faith that the pope is infallible , otherwise they have no infallible judg , and since a council cannot be called but by the pope , what ever authority the council has it can never be exercised , but by the popes leave . and for all the sad consequences they say , follow the want of a common infallible judg , it appears they are under them as well as we ; but with this difference , that we plainly acknowledg , we have none , but do the best we can without one : but they , as they have none , no more than we , yet are under the tyranny of one , and though they are not bound to believe him infallible , yet are as much enslaved to him , and obliged to obey him , as if he were really exempted from all possibility of erring . so that in short , they are slaves and we are freemen . and for these ill consequences , they are , we confess , unavoidable ; for which we have very good authority , from his words , who on all sides is acknowledged to be infallible , that said , wo be to the world for scandals , for it is necessary that scandals do come . but to discuss this objection , which works much on ignorant people , let it be considered that sin and error are the two things , that do chiefly cross the design of the gospel : and of these two , sin , is the more dangerous and destructive : since there is great reason to hope that error cannot be so fatal , when it infects a mind that is otherwise sincere , as sin , which clearly defaces the image of god in the soul. we ought not therefore to expect that the gospel , should give any further security against error , than it gives against sin : on the contrary we should rather expect a further security from sin , because it is most hurtful . but all the provision made against sin , is this , that in the scriptures we are warned of the evil of it , and are directed to such methods , and have the promises of such assistance , that if we use our endeavour , we shall not be overcome by sin , nor perish in it : so as to error , we have the same security . the gospel affords us a very clear light for directing our belief in the most important things , which if we study with due humility , and sincerity , imploring god for the grace of his holy spirit , for our instruction , we shall be preserved from error . and thus the same provision is made against error , that is against sin. and we have no reason to expect more . and as it were not fit , that salvation should be offered without obliging men to use their utmost endeavours , so it were not fit to give such an easie remedy against error , as that a man should not need to employ his reason to discover truth , and avoid mistakes . if our gospel be also hid , it is hid in them that perish . therefore that our searches after truth , may be both encouraged and rewarded , god sets it before us in such a light , that it is our own fault if we do not see and follow it . but if men will either blindly give themselves up , to the conduct of such guides , whose interest it is to mislead them , which is the case of the church of rome ; or out of humour , or other base ends , will invent or follow some erroneous tenets , as other hereticks do , they have themselves to blame ; and shall bear their own iniquity : but they have nor reason to cast the fault upon god , or accuse the scriptures , of darkness , or defectiveness , in these things that are necessary to salvation . i come now to the last prejudice , which will require a fuller discussion , because it relates to matter of fact : which as it is better understood , so it makes deeper impressions on people , that are not so much wrought on by speculative points , as by these things that fall under their senses . they first except to the novelty of our reformation , and always insult with this question , where was your religion before luther ? to this , these things are to be opposed . first , we turn back the question and ask them where was their religion the first six hundred years after christ ? where was the worship of images , the doctrine of the corporal presence , of redeeming out of purgatory , of deposing princes , and of the worshipping saints , before the eighth century ? if the reformation be now to be condemned , because of its novelty , these things were then to be as much condemned , because they were then novelties . secondly . if the reformation had brought in any new doctrine , its novelty were indeed a just prejudice against it : but it was only the throwing out of these corruptions which had been brought in , in some dark and ignorant ages . thirdly . the doctrine of the reformed church , is no other than what christ and his apostles taught ; and what the church believed for many ages after them . and as to the positive part of it , it has been still held by the church of rome , and is yet acknowledged by them : but with so many additions , that there was a necessity of reforming these : and this is often to be inculcated in them , that there is no article of faith , nor any other material point of religion , among us that is condemned by the church of rome . they only blame us because we do not in many other points believe as they do : and this we ought not to do , unless we could see an equal authority binding us to all alike . another exception is , that in the reformation we made a schism , and broke the unity of the church , whereas if there had been any things amiss in the church , they say the reformers should have endeavoured to remove them , without tearing the body of christ in pieces . but in answer to this , we acknowledg if the things complained of , could have been continued without sin , they ought not to have departed from the communion of other churches : but when the publick liturgies and the worship was found to be full of such corruptions , that without idolatry and superstition , they could be no longer kept up , then it was not time to stay for the leisure of their neighbouring churches . yet if there had been any probable hopes , that the see of rome , would have concurred in such a reformation , it had been worth staying for , as long , as was possible . but when it was on the contrary , apparent , that all the most just remonstrances made to that court , were answered at best with delays and excuses if not with excommunications and other censures ; they had no reason to expect any concurrence from thence . so the case being thus put , that they discovered such corruptions in the worship of god , with which they could not comply any longer ; either they were obliged to worship god against their consciences , or to lay aside all publick worship , or else to cast out these corruptions by a reformation . let any man of good reason judge , whether the last of these was not to be chosen ? there was no obligation lying on this church to wait for the pleasure of the court of rome , or our neighbouring churches in this matter . we are a free and independent church : we owe a charitable and neighbourly correspondence to forreign churches ; but we are subject to none of them . and according to the express decision of one of the first general councils , in the like case , we were no way subordinate to the see of rome , even as it was the patriarchate of the west . themselves do confess that it is no heresie to say , that see is fallible : and therefore we were not obliged to dance attendance at that court , when we discovered the corruptions , with which it had deceived the world ; but might in our national or provincial synods at home , examine and reform whatever errors were among us . and the multitude of those who held these errors , could be no just ground for delaying any advances towards a reformation ; no more than in the ancient church , the orthodox bishops when chosen into a see corrupted with arrianism , were obliged because that contagion was generally spread , to make no attempts toward reformation . they except further , that the reformation was begun here by a vitious prince , king henry the eighth , who partly out of revenge , because the pope would not grant his desire about the divorce of his queen , and partly to enrich himself and his courtiers with the sale of abbey-lands did suffer these doctrins first to take head here : and therefore they can have no good opinion of any thing that came from so wicked a man , and upon such ill motives . if this be a good argument against the reformation , it was as good against christianity upon constantine's turning christian ; for the heathen writers represent him with as black a character as they can do king henry . but we must not think ill of every thing that is done by a bad man , and upon an ill principle : otherwise if we had lived in iehu's days , the same plea would have been as strong , for keeping up the idolatry of baal : since iehu had in a very unsincere manner destroyed it : and yet god rewarded him for what he had done . but whatever might have been king henry's secret motives , his proceedings were regular and justifiable . he found himself married to her that had been his own brothers wife , contrary to the express words of the law of god. the popes legat , and his own confessor and all the bishops of england ( except one ) thought his scruples were well grounded . upon which according to the superstition of that time , he made his applications to the court of rome for a divorce : which were at first well received , and a bull was granted . afterwards some defects being found in that , a more ample one was desired , which was also granted : and legats were appointed to try the matter . but the pope soon after turned over to the emperors party , whose aunt the queen was : and was thereupon prevailed with , to recal the legats commission , destroy the bull , and cite the king to appear at rome , where all things and persons were at the emperors devotion . upon all this , the king did expostulate with the pope , that either his business was just , or unjust : if it was just why did he recall what he had granted , and put him off with such delays . if it was not just , why did he at first grant the bull for the divorce . this was unanswerable , but the pope did still seed him with false hopes , yet would do nothing . upon which he consulted the chief universities , and the most learned men in christendom , about his marriage . twelve famous universities , and above an hundred learned doctors , did declare under their hands and seals ( some writing larger treatises about it ) that his marriage was against the law of god. and that in that case the popes dispensation , which had allowed the marriage , was void of it self . so after the king had been kept in suspence from december 1527 till february 1533 / 4. above six years , he set his divines to examin what authority the pope had in england , either by the law of god , or the practice of the primitive church , or the law of the land , and after a long and accurate search , they found he had no authority at all in england , neither by the laws of god , of the church , nor of the land : so this decision was not made rashly , nor of a sudden . the popes authority being thus cast off , it was natural in the next place to consider , what doctrines were then held in england , upon no other grounds-than papal decrees . for it was absurd to reject the popes power ; and yet to retain these opinions , which had no better foundation than his authority . upon this many of the things , which had been for some ages received in the church of rome , fell under debate : and , a great many particulars were reformed . yet , that king was so leavened with the old superstition , that the progress of the reformation , was but slow during his reign . but it was carried on to a further perfection , under king edward , and queen elizabeth . in all their methods of proceeding , there is nothing that can be reasonably censured : if it be confessed that the pope is not infallible , and the whole church of rome , acknowledges that it is no heresie to deny his infallibility . and for the sale of the abby-lands , they only spoiled the spoilers . for the monks , and fryers , had put these publick cheats on the nation , of redeeming souls out of purgatory , going on pilgrimages , with the worship of saints , and images , which were infused in the vulgar , by many lying stories , pretended apparitions , the false shew of miracles , with other such like arts. and the credulous and superstitious multitudes were thereby wrought on , to endow these houses with their best lands , and adorn their churches with their plate and richest furniture . it was not to be expected that when their impostures were discovered , they should enjoy the spoil they had made by them : nor was it for the publick interest of the nation , to give such encouragement to idleness , as the converting all these houses to foundations for an unactive life would have been . many of them were applied to good uses , bishopricks , cathedral and collegiat churches , hospitals , and free schools : and more of them ought indeed to have been converted to these ends . but the excesses of king henry , and his courtiers must not be charged on the reformers ; who did all they could to hinder them . and thus all these prejudices with which the vulgar are misled , appear to be very unjust , and ill grounded . in conclusion , if by these or such like considerations , any that are now of that communion , can be brought to mind religion in earnest , considering it , as a design to save their souls , by making them truly pure and holy ; and so reconciling them to god through christ : and if they will examine matters without partiality , seeking the truth and resolving to follow it , wherever they find it ; and joyn with their enquiries , earnest prayers to god , the father of lights , to open their eyes , and grant them his holy spirit , to lead them into all truth ; there is little doubt to be made , but the great evidence that is in truth , will in due time appear so clear to them as to dissipate all these mists , which education , implicite faith , and superstition have raised , by which they have hitherto darkened . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a30477-e170 acts 20. 21. micha 6. 8. 1 cor. 14. matt. 28. 19. matt. 26. 26 , 27. 28. ver . heb. 9. 26 , 28. acts 8. 17. morinus . heb. 13. 4. 1 tim. 3. 2. 4. 11. eph. 1. 22 , 23. matt. 18. 7. 2. cor. 3. 3. lestrange's narrative of the plot set forth for the edification of his majesties liege-people. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1680 approx. 83 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 19 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-11 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47888 wing l1275 estc r14939 12940453 ocm 12940453 95866 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47888) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 95866) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 388:11) lestrange's narrative of the plot set forth for the edification of his majesties liege-people. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. [2], 34 p. printed by j.b. for hen. brome ..., london : 1680. first ed. cf. wing. reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. church and state -england. dissenters, religious -england. great britain -politics and government -1660-1688. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-12 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-09 melanie sanders sampled and proofread 2004-09 melanie sanders text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion lestrange's narrative of the plot . set forth for the edification of his majesties liege-people . london , printed by i. b. for hen. brome at the gun at the west-end of s. pauls , 1680. l'estrange's narrative , &c. in this age of narratives , we should do with our books , methinks , as vittlers do with their ord'naries ; every authour hang up a table at 's door , and say , here you may have a very good narrative , for three-pence , a groat , or sixpence , or h●gher if you pl●ase ●or we have 'em of all sorts and sizes : the only danger is , the popping of catt and dogs flesh upon us , for cony , and venison . for take 'em one with another , at the common rate of narratives , there 's hardly one of five that will passe must●r . but what is a narrative ? you 'l say . a narrative is a relation of something that may be seen , felt , heard , or understood : or otherwise ; it is a relation of something that cannot be either seen , felt , heard , or understood : for we have our narratives of things visible and invisible ; possible and impossible ; true and false : our narratives of fact , an● our narratives of imagination . in one word : there was ne●er any thing said , done , or thought of , since the creation ; nor so much as the fansy of any thing , tho' it was never said , done , or thought of , but it will bear a narrative . so that the only point will be , out of this infinite diversity of narratives , which is the narrative here in q●●stion . now the narrative here in question , is the narrative of the plot ; but then there will arise another question ; of what plot ? for there are as many sorts of plots as there are of narratives . there are pl●ts of passion , and plots of interest ; plots genera●l and particu●ar ; publick and private ; forreign and domest●que ; ecclesiasticall and civill : there are plots to u●dermine governments , and plots to support them ; plots simple , and counter plots ; plots to make plots ; and plots to spoil plots ; plots to give credit to sham-plots ; and plots again to baffle , and discountenance reall ones : plots jesuiticall , and phanatique ; plots great and small ; high and low ; in short , there is not any thing under the sun , that may serve us either for pleasure , or convenience , but we have a plot upon 't : and the master-plot of all , is the plot how to get the money out of one pocket into another ; as is well observ'd by one of the antients . for what is it that sets all trades and professions a work , nay and all wickednesse too ; as murther , calumny , oppression , perjury , subornation , corruption , &c. but a plot upon mony ? now to come to my point . this discourse is not a wild and rambling narrative of some indefinite plot , that no body knows what to make of , or where to find it : but it is a narrative ( by way of excellence ) of the plot : that is to say , the capitall and hellish plot which is now in agitation , for the destruction of our prince , religion and government , to the horrour and amazement of all the reformed catholiques in christendom . i call them reformed catholiques , rather then protestants , because i take the catholique to be the antienter family of the two : the denomination being used in the primitive church ; and not only to denote a generality , or universality of profession : but also to distinguish orthodox , and obedient christians , from schismatiques , and heretiques . 't is cast in my dish i know , as a reproach , that i will not own my self to be a protestant . now so far as protestant is a catholique , or as the church of england is that which they call protestant , 't is all one to me , whether i passe for a reformed catholique , a church of england-man , or a protestant . but when heresie , and schism comes to shelter it self under the cover of protestantism , ( which is but too common a case ) i have no ambition to be accounted any of those protestants . so that my crime is only that i am a church-of-england-protestant . but to return to my theme . let the reader take notice , that as these papers are only a narrative of that plot which is notoriously known , and distinguished from all other plots , by the emphasis of the plot : so it is l'estrange's narrative of that plot ; from whom no more light can reasonably be expected then what arises out of matters within the compasse of his observation . he does not pretend , either directly , or indirectly , to have been entrusted by any of the priests , or jesuits ; or to have been present at any of their bloody and desperate consults ; or privy to any of their letters , messages , or commissions : so that we can say nothing at all to the particulars that have been given in by the kings witnesses : or if we could , the doing of it would signify no more then the holding of a candle to the sun : for whoever carefully peruses their writings and depositions , compares their testimonies ; and yet doubts of the plot , is litt●● better , certainly , then seal'd up under the spirit of blindness , and delusion . let no body therefore expect from these sheets , any repetition of what the kings evidenc●s have delivered , and deposed with so much solemnity allready ; but rather repair to the memorialls that they have committed to the publique , which are many , and copious , for a full , and finall satisfaction . and in the mean time i shall apply my self to the making out of the plot here in question , my own way , ( which , in strictnesse of speaking is not so properly a plot , as an intrigue . ) the difference betwixt a plot , and an intrigue , i take to be this ; a plot may be solitary , as when a man contrives or casts about with himself how to get a dinner , ( for the purpose ) an office , a pension , &c. he brings his ends about by his own wits , as by cogging , wheedling , hectoring , swearing , lying , or the like , as best makes for his purpose ; but an intrigue is alwa●s social , and menag'd by intelligence and confederacy ; so that it seems to be a kinde of a plot with complices , and yet it is not absolutely that neither . for the critiques will have a plot to import only a general resolution , or agreement upon some common end ; and an intrigue to signifie a certain artifice , or mystery in the manner of bringing it about . of intrigues , some are direct conspiracies ; as where a designe is govern'd by the contrivance , advice , and consent ; and emproved to the common advantage and behoof of all the parties therein concern'd . of this kinde , were the late intrigues of the fanatiques against the government ; where , as they all contributed to the ruine of the pub●ique , so did they all , in some measure , partake of the quarry . there are other intrigues which are not so much a ●●rmal confederacy as a blinde co-operation of sev●ral part es , toward the gaining of such or such an end , by wo●king upon the passions and weaknesses of one anothe● , without ever concerting the matter betwixt them ▪ and this is the quality of the plot whereof i am now about to treat . we have been told abundantly of the popish plot , the booksellers ware houses are cram'd , and there stalls charg'd with the memorials of it ; all our courts of justice , and journals of state bear witness to it . it has set all tongus and pens agoing ; and all christendom rings of it ; so that since nothing can be added to what is allready delivered upon this single subject , my business will be only to take up the story where the great evidences of the truth of it have been pleased to let it fall . after a nice and particu●ar deduction of the mayn plot , they do unanimously close upon this assertion ; that it was a jesuiticall influence that ruin'd the late king , and irritated the faction : and that it is a popish ferment still at this day , that puts all the sch●sms into motion . and for p●oof thereof , doct●r oates refers us to the instance of the four jesuits , and the dominican that mingled with the fifth m●narchy men , for the burnin● of london ; ( deposition 3● . ) and to the care that ●as taken for tampering scotland into a rebellion as ap●●ars in everal other parts of his depositions . the dr. having made it out upon oath that the papists make use of the fanatiques to compass their own ends upon the government ; so soon as he has done this , he gives over the poynt . it must be my part now , to tack my own observations to the doctors ; and , by shewing , on the otherhand , what advantages the sch●smatiques make likewise of the papists , for the compassi●g of their ends , to lay open the effects of so dangerous a complication . this addition we must take for granted would have been supply'd by the dr. himself , both as a ●oyall subject to his prince , and as a true son of the establisht church , if matters of gr●ater moment had not taken him off at mid-way : so that in truth , this is rather a continuation of the drs. narrative , then a composition of my own . we are not to imagine that these interests are ty'd up by any instrument of compact , or covenant ; to joyn in a league offensive against the government ; but our mischief arises from a resemblance of their principles and not from any correspondence of understanding betwixt them . and yet while they seem to be blowing up and countermining one another , they do really destroy us ; and it is the church in the middle that suffers by the distemper of the two extremes . now though i cannot allow it upon any t●rms that they help one another by consent ; nothing can be plainer yet then that while they play , each of them their own game , the one still leads into the others hand . if popery influences sch●sm , that schism slides as naturally into popery , as motion from one place of rest tends to another . there 's the principle espoused allready , and the rest is only the changing of the name ; the very unfixing of a man is half the work done allready ; for he is so far advanc'd upon his way toward a new settlement . it is a thing worthy of note , the different manner of dealing with the church of rome , betwixt the episcopall clergy , and the non conformist ; the ●ormer proceed by dint of argument , the otoer only by opprobrious clamour , and reviling ; and ●or one fair blow at the pope , they make a hundred rude ones at the bishops ; and ( which is yet a fouler scandal ) the most eminent , and venerable champions that ever put pen to paper in the defence of the reformed communion , have been the persons which they have still singled out for the subject of their exemplary cruelty , and rigor . which shews that their ( pretended ) quarrell is to the name rather then to the opinion . i call it a pretended one : for if they quarrell in earnest with the name of popery , they fall foul upon the best friend they have in the world : for it is that single pretext that supports their cause . it is observable also on the other side ; that notwithstanding all their fierce and virulent exclamations against priests and jesuits , the church of rome does not vouchsafe them so much as one syllable in return ; and the reason is this ; the conventicles are doing the papists business to their hands ; and the enlarging of the schism is the readyest way imaginable for the bringing in of popery : so that it is but commuting a real service for a little dirty language . but is it true then , that the popish emissaryes are so busy , and bear so great a sway among our dissenters ? yes ( says dr. oates in his dedicatory to the king ) they were the first authours and contrivers of the late unnatural war ; and of his late majestyes unspeakable sufferings and barbarous usage . it was these ( says the dr. ) that brought him to his end , &c. and again , they were in most , if not all the councells that contriv'd his ruine . two jesuits ( simmons and compton ) were to pay the thousand pound promised to the discoverer of the king after the battle of worcester , and milton was a known frequenter of a popish club ; lambert a papist of above thirty years standing . what promises ( says the dr. again ) did they make to cromwell after his majestyes escape , to perswade the french king for our sovereigns banishment out of france ? and is not this now as clear an evidence as a body would wish , to prove the industry , the power , and the malice of that restlesse party ; and to shew how they were in at all destructive plots and councells ? was it not a strange zeal too , that when cromwell was master of the three kingdoms , and had so great an interest at stake ; the king might have scap'd yet for want of a price upon his head , if father simmons and compton had not engaged for the thousand pound reward that was promised to him that would deliver him up ? nay they were fain to quicken cromwell himself , to get the king banisht out of france . which shews first , that the papists trusted more to their power with cromwell , though a schismatique , then to their power with the french king , tho' a roman catholique . and secondly , that they thought the french king would do more for a schisme , then for the holy church it self : which implies a high degree of mutuall confidence betwixt their priests and our dissenters . it is a common objection in this case , that the dr. is too young to speak many of these things upon knowledge ; and that it would have been well , if he had produced some historicall authority in confirmation of the reports , that lambert was a papist , and milton a frequenter of a popish club : and so in other like cases . this is a doubt easily resolved , for the thing it self being a privacy in its own nature , it was only proper for the registries of the society , and not of a quality to be inserted into our publique annals . the dr. tells us further , pag. 29. ) that father moor and brown were sent into scotland , with instructions to carry themselves like non conformist ministers , and to preach to the disaffected scots , &c. he tells us likewise ( pag. 67. ) of seditious preachers , and catechists , set up , sent out , maintained , and directed what to preach in their own , or other private conventic●es , and field meetings , &c. now this , i am told , is no proof of the thing done ; but only of a proposition and design for the doing of it . but yet we find in the drs. reflexions upon the late times , that the thing was there really done ; and pag. 8. that blundel did actually teach treason in severall places of london . now if it be true , ( as who dares question what the d● . averrs ? ) that the papists managed the separatists in the late war ; and that all our miserie 's proceeded from the influence of their councells ; and that they are at this day , as active , and as powerfull as ever : it follows , that the d●nger is as great no● , as ever it was ; and that there is no security for ●his nation , so long as the agents for p●pery have this retreat . we should never have known that the papists had had so great a hand in our late broils ; and in the counsell , and execution of the murther of the late king ▪ if dr. oates had not discover'd it . for the late king himself knew nothing of it and all the memorialls we have of those times , even ●rom the most popular writers , are wholly silent in it , in such sort as we find it , here to be represented . there was a seditious clamo●r , i remember , against an army of papists , ( as they call'd them . ) that were on the kings side ; but not one word of a p●p●st that was to be found among the schismatiq●es , in their conventicles ▪ nor should i readily believe the story at large , as it is now reported , if any man but dr. oates had said it . i have run through the list of the re●ici●es i have had opportunities of knowing the princip●l men of the party and tracing all their committees ; and i cannot say that i found any one man upon that roll , wh●m i so much as suspected for a papist . so long as the work went smoothly on ▪ they call'd themselves ( i remember ) a covenanting , a fasting and a praying people : but so soon as ever the wind turn'd , the godly party was presently transform'd ; and those that i took before for dissenting protestants , are now made appear to have been , the greater part of them , priests , and jesuits . it seems to be somewhat unequally divided , that the schismatiques should have the benefit , and the papists support all the scandall of the rebellion ; would it not be better to let them fairly share the profit and the losse , betwixt them ? and that 's the drs. sense too ; for he does not deny but that the separatists acted their parts also : tho' only as men imposed upon , and outwitted , and under the guidance , and direction of the papists . i shall now appeal to any man : that has either seen , or diligently read the transactions of those times , whether or no he could ever have imagined that such a world of priests , and papists had worm'd themselves into the councells and congregations of that faction , as the dr. now assures us there did . and what was the business , but this ? the papists carry'd the matter so close , and lookt so like schismatiques , that it was morally impossible to discern the one from the other , now upon the admission of the same mixture , and danger , at present , and the same difficulty likewise of distinguishing a disguised papist from an outlying protestant ; we are lost unless we absolutely clear those kennells , since there is no pu●ging of them . and the means of doing it , is fair , honest , and obvious ; and i would sa● , ( if i durst open my mouth so wide ) of absolute necessity too . let but the laws be vigorously put in execution , and the great work is done . we shall not need to declaim upon the probable inconveniences that will arise from a longer sufferance of this license : but we shall in good time shew the approaches they have already made , toward the government ; and that the non-conformists make as good use of the papists , one way , as the papists do of the non-conformists , another . the encrease of the schism is the true measure of the churches detriment ; for the one looses just as much as the other gets . but the greatest mischief of all is the dissolution of order ; for it is not only the double losse and disadvantage of so many friends , degenerated into so many enemies ; but the loosening of the band makes all fly to pieces ; and turns that community into a multitude , which , ere while , was a government . and this dissolution does highly gratify our adversaryes , on both hands ; for once out of discipline , we are as bad as out of protection : and in the condition of a routed army , when twenty men in good order value a thousand fugitives ; for o●r strength , as well as our reputation leaves us with our union ; and the bulwark of the reformation is left naked , and without either honour , or defence . if this should come to be the case , what can we expect , but either to be at the mercy of a forreigner , or for want of a common enemy to become a prey to one another ? it is as natural , this , ( though we know it upon experiment too ) as it is for one grain of sand to fall from another , for want of a morter , or ciment to bind them together : or as it is for poynt blank contradictions to crosse one another . and when the day of controversy comes , what will all the fractions of dissenting protestants signify , more , then so many loos● atoms that will need a more miraculous concourse of accidents then ever the philosopher dreamt of ▪ to jumble them into a body . i will not deny but that they may so far unite as to make head against a common danger ; but they must live then like salamanders , allways in the fire ; as being by their very principles in a perpetual state of war ; impatient of one another , and consequently encapable of any political establishment . he that thinks otherwise needs only look behind him to be convinc'd ; where he will finde , that thorough all the late turns and changes of state , the prevailing party did still set up for it self , to the exclusion of all others : endeavouring to erect a new government , by order , and restraint , out of the ruines of the old one , which they had destroy'd by liberty , and confusion . how wretched now is the condition of those people who by dividing themselves , ( upon meer capricio's ) from regular societys , do in effect , cut themselves off from their claim to the ordinary comforts of providence , and nature ; turning peace it self into a curse , which to all men in their right wits is undoubtedly the greatest of blessings . after a long , and i hope not ( altogether ) an impertinent preface , i shall now draw neer to my text. the kings wittnesses have given evidence of a popish conspiracy ; and not only of a conspiracy carry'd on among themselves , but of a practice also upon the schismatiques , by casting of scruples into their heads ; by instilling dangerous positions : by preaching , in fine , & catechising among them in disguises ; to embroil the government . now let the world bear me witness that i have nothing at all to do with the original plot ; or the priests artifices of moulding , and cajolling the dissenters any further then in a resignation to truth and authority : my purpose being only to set forth the emprovements that have been made , under the cover of one plot , toward the advancing of another . i shall date this my narrative from the transmigration of the conspiracy ; and so carry it on through all the steps of its progression ; as the manner of representing matters , the probable intent , and effect of that way of proceeding ; the translating of a popular odium , from the papists , to the government , and so mounting by degrees from a zeal against popery , to a sedition against the state. it is no lessening of this execrable plot , to say that subjects ought dutyfully to acquiesce in the resolutions of their superiours : and that all clamorous appeals from the magistrate to the multitude are only so far pardonable , as the abundance of good will may help to excuse the want of moderation and discretion . so that a great part of those fierce and unmannerly transports that have been employ'd upon this unhappy occasion , and without any regard , either to quality or sex , or , in truth , to the very foundations of christian charity , might have been much better let alone ; since they serve only to enflame the vulgar , without any sort of avail to the cause in question . it is no better , then either a translating of the judicature from the king and his courts of justice to the rabble ; or else a complaint to the people brought in with a side-winde , against the government ; which are two dangerous points ; striking at his majesties sovereignty the one way , and at his reputation the other : and yet all this is tolerable , if it goes off so ; and without blowing up a passion into a designe . but we shall better understand the drift of it by the sequele . if it rests here , it is only a laudable zeal ill menag'd : for it is not the cutting strictures of a sharp tongue or a virulent pen , but the sober and impassionate sentence of law ; that by prisons , axes , and gibbets , determines these controversies . in one word , let them vent their indignation against the principles and practices of the church of rome , in what terms they please , and make popery as odious as they can , provided that they do not encourage tumults ; and that they contain their passions within the bounds of truth and justice . if they once passe those limits , knowingly , and by consent , 't is no longer zeal , but confederacy . this caution of keeping so strictly to the rules of truth , and justice , has a respect , first , to the manner of representing both persons , and things ; and secondly , to the matter of fact. now if to the intemperance of words there be added a malitious aggravation of circumstances , with fiction , and imposture over and above ; 't is to be fear'd that all is not right at the bottom . i shall be here encounter'd with a reproof , for being so tender , forsooth , of the reputation of the papists ; and yet any man that is not intoxicated with popular fumes , or led hood-winkt into a false conception of things , must necessarily see , that my great concernment is for the honour and dignity of christians ; it being our duty , to proceed according to the measures of good faith , and justice , even with the worst of infidels . but people you 'l say may be mistaken , and give credit to false reports , without either malice or designe . this is confest , and none of those errours shall be put to account . if you ask me , to what end ? or , what 's the benefit of imposing these flams upon the nation ? it is easily answer'd , first , that the plying of the multitude perpetually with allarms , and terrors , does in a manner turn their very brains , take away their judgements ; and render them fit instruments for the boldest , and most unwarrantable undertakings . so soon as they are once touch't in the crown with these conceipts : 't is but sadling their noses with a pair of state-spectacles , and you may perswade them upon new-market heath that they are tumbling down dover cliff. secondly , the very perso●s that so artificially make the people sick , are to reap the profit of the cure ; which is such an●ther kind of remedy as if a man should beat out his brains for fear of the headach . briefly , they do first make the people m●d , and then by the consent of the madmen they themselves ar● m●de governours of the bedlam . but without any m●●e des●anting upon the good or the evill the grounds or cons●quences of matters ; we shall now deliver some few instances to our present purpose . at the time when mr. powell the merchant was so long missing , what a rabble of formal relations went about then , of his being t●epann'd a shipboard , in what company ; what mony in his pocket ▪ what forebodings of his fate : and all terminating in a peremptory conclusion that he ●as murther'd by the papists ; and not so few as five and twenty or thirty pamphlets trumpetting these tidings all over the kingdom . and yet not one syllable of truth in 't at last . what a noyse was there about sir harry titchbourn's house : even to the very catalogue of the arms that were there taken : as 166. muskets , 54. case of pistols , 37. saddles , 47. daggers , 2. barrells of bullets , 3. bundles of match ; letters sent expresse to certify the truth of the story ; and copies of them dispersed presently at st. albans , and elsewhere , without any colour in the world for the report . and so for the herse full of arms that was intercepted at banbury , the hampers of fire balls that were found in the savoy , and somerset-house ; which were only certain rockets , serpents , and other artificiall fire-works which mr. choqueux had publiquely prepar'd for the entertainment os a solemn festival : and yet all these shams were blown up and down the kingdom , by news-letters and printed libells , with as much confidence as if they had been articles of faith ; and no doubt of it , but many thousands of his majesties good subjects believe them to this day , for want of being better enformed . what a bustle there was about mr. langhorns being bury'd in the temple , and what remarks upon the government for shewing that countenance to papists ? and upon the persons also that assisted at that funeral ; when all this while , there was no more in the case then only the body of a gentleman that dy'd in holburn , and was there interr'd , upon the night to the day of mr. langhorns execution . the history of bedingfields being privately convey'd out of the gate house , and a dead body left in his place , past so current , that sir william waller himself ( tho' he perhaps could smell a jesuit as far as another body ) took a long journy into the north upon 't , to catch the wrong bedingfield . the circumstances of that adventure would be too comicall for this place . we could tell you the conduct of the whole stratagem , and what names here at london went into the black book for not believing it . a man would really blesse himself to see the romances , the glosses , and the scurrilous buffoneries that were published by the ribald scriblers here about the town , upon this subject . but then , the landing of forty thousand french upon the i le of purbeck , shook the very foundations of the earth : the factions drew presently into cabals , upon the tidings of it , with horrible and contumelious reflections upon those in authority , as parties to the conspiracy . at coventry they brake up the market upon the news on 't ; and the common people immediately divided into knots , and consultations ; some of them coming very fayrly to this resolution , that there was no way but cutting the papists throats , to hinder them from joyning . but this advice was soon contradicted , and so the mischief went no farther : who knows what this invention might have produc'd , if the credit of it had continued but four and twenty hours longer ? the most formidable story of all , is the conspiracy of the prentices : and there was such work made with capt. tom , as if the grand seignior had been powring down highgate hill with a hundred and fifty thousand men at 's heels . there were so many thousands of them upon the list by tale and most of them papists too ; an account of what contributions to the charge , ( alas ! ) of a three-penny or groat-clubb ; whose throats were to be cut ; and through what constables teritoryes they were to take their march ; and this scandal upon the body of this loyal , and honourable city , exposed in ballads and libells by every rascally pamphletier . and what was all this mighty matter at last , but a parcell of good jolly ladds that had been busy at the burning of the pope , and prevail'd upon to set their hands to the petition that was then afoot ? these blades , finding that the petition had given offence , propounded the doing something on the other side too , that might shew they were neither fanatiques , nor papists ; and so they gave publique notice in thompsons intelligence of their intentions upon the anniversary of his majestys restauration to burn the rump . the first time perhaps that ever a conspiracy against the government was notified in a news-book . i shall now shew you in an instance or two , how bold they make with the kings wittnesses , as well as with the rest of his majestys subjects ; and what slurs they put upon the world ( the citizens of london especially ) under the countenance of the plot , and authority of the kings evidence . there' 's a pamphlet entitled , a narrative of unheard of popish cruelties toward protestants beyond seas : or a new account of the bloody spanish inquisition , published as a caveat to prot●stants , by mr. dugdale . printed for , &c. this new account ( as i am credibly inform'd ) is only an old thing reprinted ; the subject suited to the humour of the present season , and mr. dugdale upon the title-page exhibited as the authour of it , and ric. dugdale subscribed to the dedication . this was the second slur that past the presse under that name . the first impression went off clear with mr. richard dugdale in the title page , as the composition of mr. dugdale the witnesse ; but the booksellers finding the businesse to be smoakt , the wittnesses name being taken notice of to be stephen , and not richard , he very prudently left out the christen name in the second impression , and made it only mr. dugdale , and so it went for the witnesses again . his work being only to find out a witnesses namesake , by great good fortune he pitcht upon an alehouse-keeper in southwark of that name , to carry off his project ; and the man ( as i am told ) is a very honest man. now here are three abuses fobb'd upon us at once , first , an old book for a new one ; secondly , one that knows nothing of the matter in question , under the semblance of one of the kings wittnesses . and thirdly the counterfeit of a false authour . but the most remarkable piece of all is yet to come . it was my hap , some three or four months since , to cast my eye upon a book , entitled , a narrative and impartial discovery of the horrid popish plot : carry'd on for the burning and destroying of the cities of london and westminster , with their suburbs , &c. and dedicated to the surviving citizens of london ruin'd by fire , &c. i came to this pamphlet with expectation of some notable discovery ; especially finding a promise in the title page of depositions , and informations never before printed : but when upon the perusal , i found the narrative part of it to be taken , verbatim almost , out of two or three old seditious libells against the government , that were printed by stealth , some ten or a dozen years agoe , ( before mr. bedloes time of action ) and scatter'd up and down in most of the publique houses upon the great roads of england ▪ by half a score sometimes in a place , according to the ordinary method● of the faction in such cases ; i made a strict enquiry into the matter , and this was the business . there was a consult of three or four booksellers over a bottle of wine , what subject a man might venture upon at that time , for a selling copy : one of the company was of opinion that a book of the fires would make a smart touch ; and so they all agreed upon 't ; and propounded to get some of the kings wittnesses hands to 't ; naming first one , and then another , they came at length to a resolution ; and pitch't upon trap ad crucem , and the history of the fires ; as two books that would afford matter enough , if they could but get them put into a method , and have a certain persons hand to the owning of ●hem . hereupon they apply'd themselves to one to draw up the story ; and so it went to the press under his hand , all but what was printed copy ; and he made several alterations too in the epistle , out of his own head , after it was composed at the presse . so that here are a couple of old libells turn'd into a new narrative , and the kings magistrates , and officers defam'd afresh , and the menage of this scandal committed to the hand of a common calumniator . as to what concerns mr. bedloes evidence i have nothing to say ; nor to the papists burning the city ; nor to any one poynt in the pamphlet which mr. bedloe can pretend to speak to upon knowledge ; but this i shall say ; that there are several groundless and dangerous passages in it ; and that the most inslaming and seditious of them are only libels of ancient date , reprinted ; that it was a contrivance set afoot by booksellers for profit , drawn up according to their order and direction , and an abuse in the very original intendment : th● citizens and the kings wittnesses being only propounded as a property toward the gaining of it some reputation . it is sufficiently known , with what greediness these , and a thousand other impostures , and aggravations have been swallow'd by the common people ; and made use of as instances to illustrate and confirm the plot. but what ? you 'l say , there 's a mourneval of booksellers upon a tryal of skill in their own trade : one knave invents a story , and a thousand fools believe it . how does all this amount to the proof of a faction ? why truly ; tho' it looks very suspiciously , considering who they are that advance and encourage , and the interest that is promoted by these mistakes : considering also with what violence , and industry they are carry'd on , and that the cry too run all one way : i shall yet content my self with a probable surmise that there may be a factious-intent ; as if i should see a man riding post from barnet towards london , i would lay ten to one that this man is going for london ; and yet 't is not impossible neither but he may take up by the way : if i finde afterward that he went thorough , i should think it a hundred to one that his purpose was for london , when he first set out : this is the very case . these practices are the high way to sedition , and 't is ten to one that they 'l come up to 't at last : which if they do 't is a hundred to one that they design'd it , from the beginning . it is a very ill sign too , the fiercenesse of the abettors of these shamelesse , and ridiculous forgerys ag ainst any man that has not faith enough to believe that the moon is made of green cheese : and this they call a ridiculing of the plot ; and making sport with sentences of parliament , and judicial proceedings . i would fain see where either the king , the parliament , or any court of justice has verify'd any single poynt that i have reflected upon : and i defy the devil himself , in any of his servants , to say wherein i have not pay'd all due respects , as well to the persons of the kings witnesses , as to their evidence . what diminution is it to dr. oates his narrative , to say that the contrivances of the mercenary book-sellers , and scriblers herein mentioned are shams . what contradi ction or abatement in it to the truth , or credit of the popish plot , to shew that there is a schismatical plot afoot too ; and that one moves under the countenance of another : now to pretend a plot , where there is none , is next door to the denyal of it where it is. shall any man argue that the disparagement of a juggle , weakens a truth ? sr. edmondbury godfrey was never the less murther'd , because mr. powel escaped . shall any man infer that there were no black bills provided , because there were no arms found in sr henry titchburns house ? or because the prentices were but in jeast , that therefore the bloudy pilgrims were not in earnest : the justification of mr. choqueux's fireworks has no effect at all upon the teuxbury mustard-balls . what is my affirming that langhorn was not bury'd in the temple , to the business of valladolid , or salamanea ? the herse of arms was a flam. and what then ? must the evidence therefore of the pistol and the dagger be one too ? and i would fain know what relation bedingfields escape out of the gatehouse , ( after he was dead ) has to the consult at the white horse tavern in the strand . as to the popish plot that is sworn by the kings witnesses , i lay my faith at their feet , without any further enquiry , or dispute . but where i finde rank and palpable falshoods and contrivances imposed upon the world for certain truths , and nothing but passion and confidence to support them ; i reckon my self bound in duty ( so far as in me lyes ) to lay open the abuse . for this way of bruiting up a plot where there is none , is a design of a most dangerous consequence , and a snare to all honest men . it is a kinde of experiment upon the humour of the multitude , to try what they will bear , and whether they be yet mad enough or not , to swallow impostures without examining . if they finde the people in tune for their purpose , and charm'd into such an aw , that at the very name of a plot they shall dare like larks under the dread , even of a painted hobby ; there 's the foundation of a civill war , and an arbitrary power layd allready . they shall make what plots , and what plotters they please ; and every man that stands in their way , shall be a papist or a traytor , according as they think fit to represent him to the rabble . if this be the fruit of being given over to believe lyes , we have great reason sure to take all possible care that we be not deluded , and to distinguish betwixt the voyce of authority , and that of rumour . the common way of reply upon this topique is to break out into exclamations , and to hit a man in the teeth with the sham of the meale-tub , and twenty such fooleries ; as if there were no more in the bus'nesse then a malicious imagination ; and only a more colourable invention to discredit a real plot , under pretence of a counterfeit , and casting a mist before the peoples eyes , that they should not know one from t'other . my answer is short ; that we have the matter of fact in proof here before us : that the true plot and the counterfeit are in such manner separated , that the one is not at all in dispute , and the other is condemn'd . and we shall now shew you what use is made by a faction under the disguise of prosecuting papists , to defame , and to destroy several of his majestys loyall subjects and church of england protestants . for let a mans actions , his conversation , his religion be what they will , 't is but besmearing him with the scandal of being popishly-affected , and his work is done . there is a kinde of spell in the word popery . it transforms a man into a beast : and like the great medicine , it turns ●hatever it touches into plot. if a man will not believe it to be christmasse at midsumer , he 's in the plot ; if he loves his church , his prince , and his country , and stands for a burgesse or a common councell-man , 't is but saying that he 's popishly affected , and he becomes presently as an heathen or a publican . if he refuses to associate , or petition , he shall be markt ; and well too if he scape so ; for we have gotten a trick , when men will not do as we would have them , of laying them up for treason ; ( no matter for evidence ) and when we have put them out of reach of a habeas corpus , 't is but shewing them a payr payr of heels our selves , and leaving them to struggle with the law. as for example . on the 6th of april last , about 7. in the morning , major ovington and mr. thomas king were taken out of their beds and charged with high treason ; their boxes and papers rifled , and themselves examin'd apart ; but nothing of ill appeared against them . the magistrate began with the major ; and when he had try'd both by fair means and foul , to get him to sign such papers and informations as he himself had ready drawn ; finding that he would not be wrought upon , he left the major , and went to mr. king , telling him how sorry he was to see him drawn into such a horrid business : how that his majesty had the matter before him , and that there were 6. or 7. wittnesses that appear'd against him . mr. king , in great admiration , askt what this mighty businesse might be : but he went back to the major , without giving any reply : and after a little while return'd to mr. king. major ovington ( says he ) has dealt generously with me , and he shall fare the better for 't ; for i do not desire the destruction of any man : but still professing more kindnesse to mr. king , for his fathers sake , and looking upon him as a person only drawn in . so he prest mr. king to a confession , and told him , if he would but subscribe such a paper as he would draw up , and knew to be true , he would not commit him , and it should be the better for him . mr. king askt him what he would be at , and told him that if the major had charg'd him with any ill thing toward the king , or the government , he was an unworthy man. whereupon he went his way , and committed the major to the gate-house . the magistrate having left mr. king at his own house , came back to him immediatly , and told him , 't is well mr. king ( says he ) that you are faln into my hands ; for if i please , there 's but a step betwixt you and death ; i am loth to commit you , because i know it will be your ruine ; every thing being made out so clear against you ; mr. king still urging to know what all this meant , the magistrate went to the further end of the room , and fell to writing ; mr. king , being desirous to see what he wrote ; he held the paper in his hand and ask'd him if he did not know of a design to seize the tower , and rescue the lords ; and severall other lewd things . to which mr. king reply'd , that it was all villany . the magistrate gave mr. king a bottle of syder , and treated him with an appearance of much kindnesse . after a while , he took mr. king in his arms ; telling him he saw he was resolv'd upon his own ruine . mr. king desir'd that he might apply himself to the secretaries of state to be examined by them ; which the magistrate took ill , pretending that his majesty had left the bus'nesse to him. he was trying a long time to prevail upon mr. king to swear against major ovington ; but not succeeding , he threaten'd to lay him in irons ; and so committed him to the gate-house , with order to the keeper , that the gentlemen should not come together , nor receive any message , without having taken any examination upon oath , before his commitment ; neither after it , was there one word of treason sworn against him . he was committed betwixt twelve and one upon the 6th , and the deposition against him was taken the day after he was committed , at the rhenish-wine house in channell row , threatning also to lay the witnesse , in irons , if he would not depose what he the magistrate had drawn up . the coppy of the mittimus follows . whereas oath hath been made before me , that the person i herewith send in custody to you ( mr. thomas king ) hath treasonably contrived a rebellion , and falsly designed the accusing severall of his majesties loyal peers and subjects of the said treason . these are therefore to will and require you in his majesties name to receive and keep the body of the said thomas king in safe custody . untill he shall be discharged by due course of law. given under my hand and seal the 6 th day of april . 1680. these gentlemen being brought into the court by their habeas corpus the next term , the prosecution was lookt upon to be illegal , and ridiculous , to the highest degree ; there appearing no colour from the information , or examination , either for the matter charg'd upon them , or so much as the bare commitment ; only it was observ'd , that beside the injustice of a commitment without evidence , the crime was laid treason , on purpose that they might not be bail'd in the vacation . this i hope will not be deny'd to have been a sham-plot ; and promoted by a faction too : for it was the work of twenty libells to defend the proceeding : the persons accused are gentlemen of approved loyalty , fair and honourable conversation , and men zealously affected to the church of england . there was an attempt made by the same magistrate at the same time upon another gentleman in the same house , ( a cavalier of unquestionable loyalty and honour ) and upon a like pretence too ; but that trepan was let fall again . here' 's the fruit of taking up plots upon trust ; and running headlong from the fear , nay , from the very name of popery , into the thing it self . let any man shew me a more imperious tyranny , if he can , or a more implicite faith ; then for men to be worse then spirited away thus , contrary to the law , and without remedy ; and and run down for criminals by a popular consent , without understanding one syllable of the matter in question . these practices and excesses are the subject of my narrative ; and so far from misrepresenting the popish plot , that there is not any sort of correspondence , in this case , betwixt the one , and the other . and i defy any man to shew , whereever i let fall so much as one word of the popish plot , but with a modest and due respect to the government . neither , in effect , am i become the mark of every paultry libeller , for reflecting upon the reality of the one plot ; but for the exposing the juggle of the other . and it is time certainly for every man to look about him , when our lives , liberties , and fortunes lye all at mercy ; and every honest man expos'd to the animosities of faction , and revenge : for we are not judg'd by what we are in our selves , in our conversations , and opinions ; but by what we are said to be . what becomes of magna charta , at this rate , and the priviledges of an english mans birth right ? if men shall be hurry'd into jayls without evidence , because they will not subscribe either confessions , or accusations , touching matters which they know nothing of , and witnesses tamper'd afterward by menaces , for proofs ex post facto , to colour such illegal commitments ? we have had but too much of this allready ; and no body knows whose turn it may be next : since what was the case of these gentlemen , may be any mans . does it not behove us , now , to distinguish betwixt reason , and clamour ; betwixt truth , and calumny , betwixt the acts of authority , and the license of tumults ; betwixt the just and temperate deliberations and resolutions of government , and the violent heats and partialityes of the common-people ? how come the multitude to be judges of plots , and popery , more than of other crimes and misdemeanours ? for that 's the tribunal of the faction , where every man is to be made a traytor , or a papist , as they think meet . and it is not enough neither to be fairly acquitted upon a tryal before a court of justice ; for the bench and the jury are presently arraign'd upon 't by an appeal to the rabble . it is a great poynt gain'd , where a faction has gotten so much the command of the people , as to make them believe every thing that they say , and approve of every thing that they do . there is a plot no doubt on 't ; but that plot does not yet create another plot , where there is no plot at all . the popish plot has bounds , and limits ; the kings wittnesses tell us what it is , and where it lyes ; and we have had nothing new of that plot , now a good while . but this imaginary plot , is a plot upon a perpetual plot , and to keep the nation so long in awe of the popish plot , till the faction may execute another plot of their own. and what is that other plot of their own , but , first ▪ to break in upon the ministers and friends of the government ; and secondly , to undermine the very foundations of it . this is no more sayd , then what their practices make good ▪ and the series of the design hangs as naturally , one piece to another , as if they were but so many links of the same chain . as to what concerns the capital plot , in the proceedings upon the conspirators , and the subsequent severityes upon the papists ; all this is an act of the government . but the superfaetation of other plots , which neither the state , nor the witnesses take any notice of : plots that have no affinity or connexion with the principal ; nor , in truth , any existency in nature , other then in the forge of a phanatical , and republican brain . these plots are not so sacred , i hope , but a body may ask , whence they come , and whither they go , without any offence , either to authority or good manners . nay , what if a man should examine them , by what commission it is , that they change their stile , and render papists , in the original , into popishly affected , in the translation ? how it comes , of a down right popish-plot , to be a popishly-affected-plot ? this stretch puts the church-of-england men into a worse estate then the very papists . for there are certain known and political conditions , whereupon a papist may come off , by satisfying the law ; but popishly-affected is such a drag net , it sweeps all. in other cases , there must be probata , as well as allegata ; but here , the simple allegation does a mans bus'ness ; for how is it possible for any man to prove a negative , and a thought , which he must do , to discharge himself of being popishly-affected ? the common people take popishly affected i know , for one of the devlishest things that can be sayd of a man ; especially as it is drest up with plots , massacres , conflagrations , &c. to make it the more terrible . and therefore whensoever the faction has a minde to expose any man to the outrages of the rabble , they are pleas'd to give him the honour of this character ; which presently raises the country upon him , as if he were a woolf , or a common enemy . now this brand of popishly affected is not set upon a man for any correspondency of dangerous or erroneous principles that he has with the church of rome ; but they make use of it as a discriminating mark betwixt themselves and other men . he that will not believe all the fooleries they tell him , nor joyn in all the iniquityes that they propound to him : he that will not contribute , swear , petition , vote , associate , as they would have him , that man comes immediately to be popishly affected . he that ●peaks reverently of the dignity , or the persons of bishops ; the orthodox clergy , the ministers of state and justice ; the service-book , the rites and appointments of the church in opposition to the assemblyes-directory , with the practices of their slovenly and licentions conventioles ; that man 's popishly affected . to preach up obedience to civil magistrates ; to cry down schism ; to chuse a good fryday rather , or an ash-wednesday , for a fast , then a whitson-tuesday ; to lay more stresse upon the oaths of allegiance and supremacy , then the solemn league and covenant ; to advance the king above the two houses ; to deny the sovereignty of the people ; and to maintain that god is the god of order , and not of confusion , all this is to be popishly-affected . but let us now consider how this calumny comes to be taken up ; what 's the drift , and ( if this work goes on ) what will probably be the issue of it . it may be observed , that so long as we were upon the scent of priests and jesuits ; the plot in motion ; and that every day presented fresh game of papists , and conspiracyes : so long , i say the faction joyn'd with the government in a common care , for the peace and safety of the publique : only with this difference ; that whereas the magistrate proceeded to the necessary punishment of offenders , according to the gentle , and impartial methods of law and justice : and with humanity and compassion for their persons and errours , the faction , on the other hand , precipitated all things with violence , and clamour . not contenting themselves with the bare oblation of so much blood , for the satisfaction of publique justice , unlesse they turn'd the tragedy into a farce too , and made sport with the calamityes of the miserable . and what was all this vehemence and pudder , but to elevate the opinion of their zeal ( in proportion to the noyse they made ) above all others , and tacitly to reproach the government for their candour , and moderation . nor did they keep themselves within the bounds of inferences , and tacit implications , long neither ; but so soon as ever any man came off , whether through the insufficiency of proofs , or the incompetency of witnesses , they flew open-mouth'd in the face of the bench and jury : and in so bold a manner too , as if the tribunal were only to hear the cause , the jury to stand with their fingers in their mouths , and the pit to decide it ? what is become of the manhood , and generosity of the english nation ; that we are fal'n into this insatiate thirst of bloud ? where 's our respect to our superiours ; while we thus arraign authority ? where to our selves , in the seditious usurpation of a right that does not belong to us ; and in contradiction to the duties of allegeance , and common prudence ? where to our fellow-subjects ; in our needlesse , and unmannerly importunities , for more rigour then the very letter of the law will bear ? is this doing as we would be done by ? or is it doing either as we have been done by ? but i shall now come to the transition of the one plot into the other , and the turning of papists into popishly-affected ; wherein i must distinguish betwixt the words and intent of authority , and the unwarrantable application and construction of the faction . in all changes of state the pillars must first be remov'd , before the frame of the government can be dissolv'd . and therefore 't is discreetly done , for a faction to begin with persons , ere they broch their opinions ; for it would be a great over-sight to pick a quarrel with the administration , and at the same time to be laying of new foundations . it is also another point of skill , the running of people down ( as i find it in a coffee house authour ) without the assistance of the penal statutes , or the formality of trying men by their peers . and nothing does that exploit more effectually , then the device of popishly affected . it is a snare , that all the precaution in the world cannot avoid ; and a most insensible slip from religion , to sedition ; as we find in the progress of our present distempers . for the bus'ness of popery is now in a great measure laid aside ; and the dissenters and republicans at work as hard as they can drive ; the one to undermine the church , and the other the monarchy ; and joyntly engaged in a common endeavour and design for the ruine of both. so that the same plot , in effect , is carry'd on still , but in other names , and by other hands . the original quarrel was to the papists : this is to the popishly-affected . the church of rome was struck at in the one , and the church of england is struck at in the other : and what the jesuits began , the schismatiques are now to finish . let no man question the truth of this , unlesse he will first put out his eyes for his credit ; or bring a certificate from the colledge that he is non-compos , and does not know chalk from cheese . provided allways , that these people prove not at last to be dr. oates's jesuits in the shape of schismatiques ; as i have heard of some schismaticks too in the shape of ●esuits . i shall be told that this is only a blind to cover the popish plot ; whereas in truth that pretext is only a blind , to cover the other ; and all their shifts are but so much lime thrown in the people eyes , to blear , and confound them that they may not distinguish prelacy and popery , papists , and church-protestants , the one from the other . and another trick they have got ; which is , to run canting with their appeals to the king and parliament ; as if the very suggestion of this plot were a contradiction to the evidence of the other ; and consequently to the authority , justice , and resolution of his majesty and the three estates . are not our impost●rs come now to a prodigious degree of boldness , when they shall dare to father such shams as these upon the supreme authority of the nation . but what 's all this , to the old story of fathering murther , sacriledge , and rebellion upon god himself . 't is very true , that the king and parliament have agreed upon 't , and declar'd themselves fully fatisfy'd that there is a damnable popish plot , but not one word of a popishly-affected plot ; neither do i finde that our refiners , and improvers of mischief have any commission for the extending of the popish plot so far ; and themselves at last to be the judges of that popish affection : much lesse for the turning of that reproach upon the church of england , which was intended only against the opinions , and practices of the church of rome . it will be sayd that they do not blast the church of england , but here and there a rotten member of it , that carrys on the popish interest under that masque ? 't is very right , that , take them in the good humour , and they will yet allow two bishops of the twenty six to be protestants ; and four protestant divines in the city of london ; so that here 's no formal attaque made as yet upon the body of the church ; only dr. owen , mr. baxter , and two or three more of them ly pelting at the out-works , while the lay-brothers are employ'd , some in mining ; others in drawing here and there a principal stone , or timber out of the building ; and every man , in his place , and station ( according to the covenant ) contributing toward a total ruine : only the work is now carry'd on by other hands ; or at least under other appearances . the plot in substance seems to be much the same , saving only the exchange of popery for schisme . we shall now briefly touch upon the methods by which these ends are to be brought about . by this invention of popishly affected they can pick their men , and cast out all that are not for their turn ; the word being only made use of for a distinction betwixt the adherents to the church , and the protestant disenters . pray'e see ( says the author of englands great interest ) that you chuse sincere protestants , men that do not play the protestants in design ; and are indeed , disguised papists ; ready to pull off their masque when time serves . [ when the barefac'd papist cannot do it , ( says the instrument of association , pag. 4. ) the protestant in masquerade shall ; the stratagem of this very day : and above all to be watch'd against . ] and in an account from guild-hall , they are called protestants in masquerade , in good time to be taken notice of , and receive the reward due to their merits . [ to be marked ( says another ) as the worst of papists , and so dealt with in city and country . ] now for variety-sake they call them courtiers ; pensioners , and the like ; and the clergy are treated ( as upon the late election of knights of the shire at chelmsford in essex ( in the stile of jesuitical , dumb doggs ; dark lanthorns ; baals priests ; damned rogues ; jacks and villains ; the black guard ; the black regiment of hell , &c. and a general exception made ( by the writer of the seasonable warning ) to all men in office , preferment , salary , or court-employment . so that here 's in a manner the one half of the kingdom ( and the legal half too ) as much as in them lyes ) excluded from a share in the common interest of the nation ▪ with what a●m● and intent , let the world judge . the popish plot is sworn by all the witnesses to have been level'd at the life of his sacred majesty , the subversion of the government , and the destruction of the protestant religion . now whosoever well considers the manner of proceedings , together with the s●ile , and doctrine of the positions that are now afoot , ( though pretendedly upon another bottom ) will finde many passages that look untowardly the same way . first , as to the life of the king , and the direct subversion of the government , the faction is not advanc'd so far yet ; for that 's a villany that must be imposed upon the people , as a thing in such and such cases to be lawful , before there can be any thought of putting it in practice . and herein , our late reformers have out-done the jesuits themselves : for over and above the exposing of a prince , on the one side , for heresy , and , on the other side , for not submitting to christ on his throne ; and equally on both sides to the vtmost extremities ; we have got here the start of them , in erecting a principle that makes the s●vereign further accountable to the people , upon a point of state ; as we shall presently make appear by severall instances . now if it be once laid down for a maxim , that upon such or such conditions , the subjects may take away the life of their prince if they will ; 't is damnable odds that upon such a supposition , some reprobated wretch or other will do it if he can . i shall begin with the acute authour of the weighty considerations consider'd . i will hope ( says he ) pag. 6. there are very few in this nation so ill instructed , that do not think it in the power of the people to depose a prince who really undert●kes to alienate his kingdom , or to give it up into the hands of another sovereign power ; or that really acts the destruction , or the universal calamity of his people . the authour of the plea to the dukes answer says that when kings themselves be ill ones , god not only approves of their removal , but even himself does it . the political catechism places the government in the two houses of parliament . the late letter to a person of honour , &c. says , there may be a self-deposition of a prince actually regnant . and again , the weighty considerations consider'd , lodges the government in the major part. and almost every fresh libeller speaks to the same purpose . now do but once admit , that a king may forfeit his royal authority , and you shall never fail of those that will say , he has don 't ; so long as there are men in the world that had rather govern , then obey : and the stress does not lye upon the quality of the kings actions neither , but upon the construction that shall be made of them , by any reprobated band of conspirators , that shall presume to censure them . whatsoever the faction shall think fit to call mis-government , must be so interpreted , and reputed : and to them only must we repair , as to the oracles of law , and conscience . the safety of the king and government , our religion , laws , and freedoms , are only , according to this position , dependent upon the humour of the multitude : so that it is but their bare saying , that the king has forfeited his cronn , the church their priviledges , the nobility their session of peerage ; the commons their chara●ter of representation ; the merchants their liberty of trade ; the gentry ▪ and commonalty their lives , freedoms , and estates , and the work is done . this was the course of all our late violent changes of government ; and the positions which are now every day recommended to the nation toward the playing of the same game over again , were the groundwork of all our late miseries and confusions . now as to the church : are not the dissenting ministers at work again tooth and nayl against the act for uniformity ; and preaching up a schism , under the colour of formalizing upon scruples ? do they not first instigate the people ( in contempt of law , and order ) to a separation ; and then furnish them with the best pretences they can , for their disobedience ? what will become of the protestant religion , when the restraint of ecclesiasticall discipline and jurisdiction shall be taken away ; and men left to themselves to go their own ways , and chuse their own religions at pleasure ? if this be not an attempt upon putting the last ●ranch of the popish plot in execution by an extirpation of the protestant religion ; then the church of england , ( as it is legally establisht ) must be confest , in their opinions , not to be protestant : and consequently be call'd to an account for that supposed defect , as not being comprehended within the equity of their good will and ●rotection . i could multiply these instances without end ; but here 's enough said to give evidence of a pestilent design . but whether it be a design of a popish contrivance , tho' set a foot by the fanatiq●●s ; or purely a fanaticall design ; i shall not determine ; but leave the animadversion of it to the consideration of authority , and appeal to the most partial reader for the truth on 't ; concluding with this observation . that there is great malice as well as danger in the project : for thorough all this audacious license of libelling the king himself , the privy-councell , the judges , the jury ; &c. of tearing the church to pieces , and treasonably undermining the very foundations of the government , by the erecting of republican maxims wholly inconsistent with , and utterly destructive of this imperiall monarchy : i do not finde yet so much as one dissenters pen engag'd in the vindication of his majesty , or the support of the government , to expiate for the numberlesse pamphlets they have publish'd toward the scandal and destruction of both ; or in justification of themselves to the world , that they are as great enemies to the substance of the popish plot as they would be thought to be , and as great friends to the king and government . the end. the popish massacre as it was discovered to the honorable house of commons, sitting in a grand committee for the suppression of popery, in the month of june 1678 at the time of the parliaments prorogation / by richard greene ; or, the iv part of the present popish plot, farther discovered and demonstrated ; being part of dr. tonges collections on that subject, published for his vindication ; whereby it may appear, who were the inventers, and contrivers of this plot, and who the movers of the first discoveries of it, in which he is still a great sufferer and no plotter. greene, richard, 17th cent. 1679 approx. 57 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 7 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a70144 wing g1827 estc r21002 12405153 ocm 12405153 61362 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a70144) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 61362) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 927:22 or 1149:31) the popish massacre as it was discovered to the honorable house of commons, sitting in a grand committee for the suppression of popery, in the month of june 1678 at the time of the parliaments prorogation / by richard greene ; or, the iv part of the present popish plot, farther discovered and demonstrated ; being part of dr. tonges collections on that subject, published for his vindication ; whereby it may appear, who were the inventers, and contrivers of this plot, and who the movers of the first discoveries of it, in which he is still a great sufferer and no plotter. greene, richard, 17th cent. tonge, ezerel, 1621-1680. jesuits assassins. part 4. selections. [4], 8 p. printed by t.d. for john smith ..., london : 1679. appears on reel 927:22 as wing t1880 (cancelled in wing 2nd ed.), and on reel 1149:31 as wing g1827. reproduction of originals in bodleian library and huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 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selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2007-10 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2007-10 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-08 olivia bottum sampled and proofread 2008-08 olivia bottum text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the popish massacre , as it was discovered to the honorable house of commons : sitting in a grand committee for the suppression of popery : in the month of june 1678. at the time of the parliaments prorogation . by richard greene , or , the iv part of the present popish plot , farther discovered and demonstrated . being part of dr. tonges collections on that subject , published for his vindication . whereby it may appear , who were the inventers , and contrivers of this plot , and who the movers of the first discoveries of it , in which he is still a great sufferer and no plotter . london , printed by t. d. for john smith , bookseller , in great queen-street . 1679. the publisher to the reader . courteous reader , whilst dr. tonge finds many lets and discouragements to go through with the solid history of the plot , he hath been importuned by nothing more then his charity towards this poor witness to part with and permit , and assist him to publish in print these his papers , the originals whereof received from him at several times are still in the doctors custody , written in his own hand . the collections the doctor prepared for the other 3 parts , namely , his discoveries and demonstrations of the jesuites acting in this plot , as assassines , regicides and incendiaries are already in the press , on designs of like charity , and to the end , that if he shall be still disenabled or disappointed in his publication of his intended history , posterity may have sufficient ground , to believe , publish to the world , and relate to all ages , the bloody , treacherous , and ungrateful practices of these restless beautefewes , against the most gracious princes , king james , king charles the martyr , and his majesty that now lives , ( an unparallell'd miracle of gods wonderful and merciful providence , ) and against the churches and kingdoms , wherein they did or might have lived , with as much liberty and less suspicion at least , as some dissenting protestants , had they known any moderation . if we find these have favourable entertainment , we shall be encouraged to proceed to other parts , which the doctor hath provided as materials for his history , and may with better satisfaction , as we hope , to the publick , be dispersed into many hands by the press , then concealed for his own use only in his private papers . and it is hoped , that whilst the doctor thus waves both his credit and profit , with a greater respect to charity and publick good , it will not be expected that these things should appear in any other dress , than that of their native simplicity . da veniam subitis , non displicuisse meretur , festinat patriae qui placuisse suae . pardon kind readers , what you can't commend , this hast to please deserves not to offend . to the honourable , the committee of the house of commons , appointed for the examinations of the popish conspiracies . i commend unto you this plain relation of the first discovery of the popish plotted conspiracy for subverting the government and religion , and massacring the people of the kingdom of england , and other his majesties dominions , and the assassinating his royal person : as i drew it up ( for my own satisfaction ) out of several pieces at several times ; and of the first discoverers thereof ; according to the notices i have been able to procure of them , and so far as they are willing to be known . you will be pleased to excuse the rudeness and imperfection thereof : it is one part of a large rough draught of the general narrative which i have in hand , and wherein i propose to my self to omit nothing that i conceive may by your wisdom and diligence improved , conduce to the clearing the simplicity , sincerity , integrity , ingenuity , candor or truth of the witnesses produced , or to be produced in this affair , or for the discovery of any matter of fact or circumstance that may tend to the disclosing of this conspiracy , or any , the conspirators therein , or any further evidence against them , or refuting the scandals , lyes , aequivocations , forgeries , briberies , subornations and perjuries , wherewith they so mightily impose upon multitudes of people , darken the clearest evidences , and contradict most manifestly the truest narratives . i know some minute circumstances and passages , and such as relate to some accidental occurrences by which these things were brought to light ( which i have purposely inserted to refute some studied cavils , representing them as politick contrivances ) are lyable to exceptions , and sinister interpretations of some concerned persons , but those who are candid , will find therein cause to give god all the glory : who by the accidental circumstances of undesigned , uncontrived events discovers , disciphers , displays suddenly the long projected , most craftily contrived , deeply hid , and vigorously prosecuted unjust machinations of wicked politicians and conspirators against his secret purposes . by these ▪ next to nothing , and many times meerly imaginary appearances , jealousies and panick fears , he rejoyceth to expose to contempt , and render altogether ridiculous and ineffectual what in all humane appearance was wisely designed and strongly built ; and as he first made all things out of , so he often shakes heaven and earth with things that do not appear ; whilst he chuseth not the mighty and wise of the world to confound such as themselves , and frequently catcheth most subtle machiavellian politicians in the crafty snares they have laid , and the deadly pits they have digg'd for others , &c. not unto us , not unto us , but to thy name be the praise . so let all thy enimies perish , o god. amen . the right reverend father in god , herbert , lord bishop of hereford , had long since some notice of this plot , either from the information or depositions of mr. robert woodhouse , richard green , and several others ( made about whitsuntide 1676. at hereford , before sir james bridges ( now lord shandoes ) and other justices of the peace of the county of hereford , by order of his majesty , upon a report spread in those parts of change of government and insurrections of papists : which examinations and depositions were by the said justices sent up to his majestie , and captain thomas bowyer was committen to prison upon them ) or else from other persons , or by other means , as his words following will shew , taken out of his epistle prefixed to his legacy , printed anno domini 1678 , and dedicated or directed to his diocess . it is now a year and half since ( viz. in the year 1676. ) i told you of my sad apprehensions of popish design , to destroy both us and our religion , for though no particular discovery could then be made , yet the discourse and actings of several papists in these parts did plainly shew they were then preparing that which is now discover'd , for they were then providing horses and arms , they posted about day and night , they threatned many , that they must ere long turn or burn ; and some told their friends , that if it came to cutting of throats , they should be saved ; which made it evident , that not only they had some bloody design , but also thought themselves sure to effect it : whereupon i besought you to arm your selves against the day of tryal : and preached a sermon to that effect . and not knowing what kind of pastor you might have after my death , whether a protestant pastor not well verst in such matters , or a popish pastor wholly devoted to them ; i resolved at my decease , to leave you these sermons as a legacy , &c. 1. dr. tonges relation of the general massacre , intended and plotted by the papists : 2. brought into parliament by his direction and assistance : 3. near the time of their prorogation , about the 22th . of june , 1678. by richard greene of dilwin , in the county of hereford , who first informed the doctor of it . greenes relation , delivered to dr. tonge , about the 20th . of june , 1678. as he had written it long before with his own hand , for his own better remembrance : the original whereof , the doctor keeps for his own justification , and will produce when he shall be required . sunday the 23. of january 1674 / 5. 1. i greene coming from dilwins church on the lords day , being the 23d . of ian. last , with thomas boyer , servant ( and kinsman ) to mr. thomas boyer , of luntlow , in the parish of dilwin , had a discourse as followeth : said thomas boyer , mr. iohnson doth take a great deal of pains to preach against the papists , but they care little for it . said green , because they come not to hear him : and said boyer , no , nor never will come now , green , i wish that the lord would be pleased to open their ears and hearts , to hear and know the truth . boyer , i could wish so too , ( said he ) but it is to no purpose now , for they be further off now than ever they were . then green said , you have been amongst them lately , what did you hear from them ? bowyer said they be devilish high , higher than ever they were , i pray god grant , they may never have their wills , they make account it will all be their own . note , he was lately returned from staffordshire , with his master , captain boyer . 2. thomas boyer of luntlow , in the parish of dilwin , gentleman , papist convict , lately returned from a journey into staffordshire , meeting him , the said richard greene accidentally in the fields , asked him , what newes ? to which he replyed : that he had heard of an earthquake , and that at london , the foundations of several houses were sunk by it , and worse news then all that , that the king was dead , and that it was a week before the news of the king was contradicted : to which the said boyer replyed , that the said earthquake was generally all over england , but no houses sunk at london , and that the news was there where he travelled , that the king was dead , but it continued not above 24 hours , that if it had continued 48 uncontradicted , the news of his recovery had come too late , for had it ( the news of his death ) continued , it would have been an earthquake indeed , such an earthquake as had not been in england this hundred years , it had not only shaken , but overturned the very foundations . whereupon green said , you have good intelligence , to hear that news , and to have it contradicted in 24 hours : boyer answered , the best intelligence in england * he the said boyer also said , that this was the third fit of an apoplexy or trance , that the king had had . to which , when green replyed , that god be praised , the proverb was not fulfilled on hic majesty ; which is , if a man have two shrewd turns , let him beware of the third . boyer said , its true , he hath escaped the third , but let england beware of the next , said boyer . see some particulars here omitted , below numb . 5. and marginal notes there inserted of their design upon the kings death , set out by dugdale . memorandum , this was the effect of greens depositions , put in with his petition into the grand committee of the house of commons , iune 78. then assembled for suppressing popery . 3. green says , in the latter end of the same week , the said thomas bowyer ( servant and kinsman to captain boyer ) cometh into my shop , it being after i had discoursed with his master , and then after some friendly greeting had passed between us ; i the said green , said , cousin thomas ( for green was his kinsman ) what were the papists ( whilst you were amongst them , ) ready to get up on horse back , to cut our throats ? said boyer , i , sure enough ; it seems so said green , for had not their news been quickly contradicted of his majesties being dead , they were ready to mount , said boyer , who told you , said green ; you are very close , but i have had some discourse with your master , since you came home ; said boyer , did he tell you so ? i 'le tell you nothing , they be a bloody sort of people . god bless us out of their hands , and so boyer , departed with that prayer in his mouth . upon chance within the space of one year since , i met with mr. boyer , walking along his grounds , and after we had greeted each other according to the time of the day , boyer , asked me , what news ? green , told him , i heard not any , i pray , what have you heard ▪ boyer answered , i have heard none , but that the parliament is adjourned : green asked him , what they had done , boyer , told me nothing at all ; but they were about to make a most unreasonable act : green , asked him what it was ; boyer told him , it was that which he had told me of , which was to settle the inheritance of the crown upon a protestant successor : green asked him , if the parliament would have made such an act , i pray you what did hinder them , and boyer told me , that all the parliament were not so enclined , but only a factious party of them , in hatred towards the duke of york , because he is a papist ; green told him , that i wished the succession of the crown might be settled whilst his majesty doth live , to prevent a bloody dispute , which is very much feared by many will be , except the succession of the crown be settled : after which boyer told me , that the crown after the death of his majesty , doth absolutely belong to the duke of york . green asked him , how could that be , being that the king hath a son , which is the duke of monmouth , whom all the protestants which i have heard speak thereof , do declare to be his fathers lawful heir . boyer told me , that is not , nor cannot be : green , wished him to take heed what he said , for the duke of monmouth is legitimate , for mr. benge of pembridge , told me , that a very honest gentleman told him , that a bishop told him , he married his majesty to the duke of monmouths mother ; boyer said , i do not say the duke of monmouth is a bastard , but the objection is , that the king was not married to his mother with the consent of the parliament ; green told him , that their objection i supposed , would signify little or nothing : for if there be a difference between the duke of york , and the duke of monmouth , and the parliament do not settle it , i believe that all the protestants in england will adventure their blood , before the duke of monmouth shall lose his birthright , and we lose the liberty of our religion too : and boyer answered , and we will adventure all our lives and fortunes in the behalf of the duke of york , and for the interest of our religion : green asked him , what can you do , for you be nothing to us , said boyer , do not you think so , for although we be but thin here , yet there be many in other places , and powerful persons too : i will raise a company ; said green of what ? boyer said of horse : green , asked him how many his company should be ? boyer said , an hundred : green , said unto him , by that time you have bought an hundred horses , and armed an hundred men , i suppose you will make a great breach in your estate : then boyer turned himself to me , and said , i believe i can raise and arm threescore well , and do my self no harm , what think you ? but said green , where is your commission : said boyer , i am now gotten into the acquaintance of them , by whose assistance i can obtain a commission from the duke of york , assoon as another can : and this discourse was ended in a meadow , called the mill meadow , with his face towards a style , between that and a piece of ground , called the low furlong , at the west end of luntlows mill garden , presently after the long prorogation of parliament for 15 months or more . n. b. this agrees well with mr. ienisons relation of a commission promised him . and shews by the proportion , this captain out of a small estate , proposed to raise what numbers they would have had to cut our throats , had not god prevented their design of assassinating his majesty , the signal of this massacre . and here it may be noted by what false , sly , and pernicious suggestions and insinuations , the jesuits sow the seeds of sedition and rebellion in the minds of simple and well meaning persons of all degrees ; as here in the present case , pretending and raising false titles to the crown , and thereby dividing the loyal subjects thereof into bloody feuds and resolutions : which practices are dangerous to the kingdom of england above all others , whose people , as may be seen in the example of this informant , a poor weaver from the yeoman to the meanest mechanick , are all sensible of , and concerned for the publick affairs ; and therefore are ( as a wise gentleman long since observe ) the only kingdom of gentry in the world , without mixture of slaves , all intelligent of , and touched as gentlemen in other countries with , and ready to assist with their persons and estates in all publick extremities . sir rowland stanly about two years since about lady day , 1677. held a like discourse , concerning the duke of york and monmouth , with mr. becket , by which it appears , this pretence of their massacre was universally laid , how little soever it may be believed or considered by some concerned , to lull us asleep . some particulars omitted in the foregoing relation of greens discourse with boyer , numb . ii. boyer told greene , that it would be the latter end of next summer , before they should effect their design . then green asked boyer , why it should be delayed so long , seeing you were ready to execute the same immediately upon the receipt of your intelligence ? to which he answered , that if that advantage or opportunity had fell or happened into our hands , we would have made the best advantage we could have done of the kings death , but by that time we shall be in a sufficient order to effect our design ; * and told me also , that all the papists universally , were engaged in the carrying on of their design , and not only in england , but in all places , and especially the french papists . boyer also affirmed that this plotted * massacre was to be truly catholick , and to be executed not only in all parts of the kingdom , but against all protestants of whatever sect or perswasion , presbyterians , independents or others , quakers themselves not wholly exempted , though by him weakly pretended to be favoured : and that in case they could not execute this designed massacre that summer , yet before the next session of parliament at farthest they would do it . by which it appears , that if they did not procure that long illegal prorogation purposely , the more securely to execute their plot against the king , yet at least they feared to be discovered in parliament , and thought their recefs the securest season for them to carry on their bloody design against him and his people . greenes memorandum omitted in my first discourse with mr. boyer , which was presently after the prorogation of the parliament , in the latter end of the year 74 / 5. in which , as in all the rest of his discourse , the said thomas boyer said , what saith mr. rawnel ( which was their priest , as he himself declared him so to be ) the king did but jeer the parliament , when at his prorogation of them , he gave them thanks for their care of him and of the protestant religion , and that that prorogation was in favour to the papists , whom the king looked upon to be his best friends . i omitted this on purpose , because i looked upon it to be one of their jesuitical forgeries , whereby they thought to encourage protestants that were but weak principled , to become their proselytes , and also to animate and provoke to rebellion against the kings sacred person , and established government all these phanatical partyes , which they by their busy , subtle , and devilish policies , have torn , rent and divided from our communion . a very sad effect thereof appears in scotland , i pray god grant that it may not be as a shower of rain , to cause their seeds of rebellion to spring or grow up here in england . in my second discourse , i left not out any thing material , but his boasting of the power of their wealth , which boyer expressed in these words . money is the sinew and strength of war , by that time we make our attempt , we shall be well furnished with that ; and having money , we shall not want men : for there be many of the common sort of people , that will fight for him that will give them the most mony , and besure we will not starve our cause . also in the latter end of ian. 74 / 5. mary boyer , sister to the said thomas boyer papist , being at my house , with other discourses told me , that the king was very sickly , and would not live long , and then the duke of york will be king , and will set up our religion . the said mary boyer had before that time contracted her self with a protestant gentleman , but after her brothers coming out of staffordshire , and when she did understand the protestants were all to be destroyed , she broke off with her protestant lover , and gave him 15 l. and after she did marry with a papist , whom before she did very much despise . iohn marshall , captain boyers sunday fidler , for that service only , hath meat , drink , washing and lodging , and all his week time to himself , to employ in playing , fishing , fowling , &c. all for his own advantage . this was the man who disarmed his master boyer , he was baily , and both treated and threatned greene , as is elsewhere said , and would have forsworn the fray between mr. robert woodhouse , and his master , &c. thus greene. an account or narration of what mr. thomas boyer papist convict , declared to mr. robert woodhouse , of the parish of stanton upon arrow , in the county of hereford , in the evening of that day , january 74 / 5. being pot-valiant , on which he had fresh and fasting , more at large declared himself in the morning to me richard greene , as the aforesaid mr. woodhouse declared with his own mouth unto me . mr. boyer said robin , i will tell thee some news : woodhouse , what is that : boyer , there will be a great many bloody noses in england this summer : woodhouse , what will become of mine then : boyer , thou art an honest fellow , there shall not one hair of thy head perish , i will stand between thee and all harm : woodhouse , what must i be under thy protection ; art thou to be so much concerned in it : boyer , i will raise a troop of horse for the duke of york : mr. woodhouse not complying with him , nor yet giving him any thanks for his proffer'd protecting of him , the said boyer being riding along with , and being something behind the said woodhouse , boyer said , god damn me , robin , look to thy self , for i will run thee through the back : the said woodhouse although he slighted his proffer'd protection , yet took notice of his danger , and thereupon spurred his mare which he did ride upon , which received all the wounds that was given in the combatt , upon the receipt of which , she started with her master out of danger , and being out of the same , he drew his sword to defend himself , and with as fair warning to his old friend and new enemy , he said , now boyer look to thy self , my sword is drawn as well as thine : which words sounded so shrill in mr. boyers mans ( iohn marshal aforesaid ) ears , that he did ride in between them , to part the fray , which he did by disarming his master , and by giving mr. woodhouse good words , who woodhouse did afterwards entertain them both at his house that night ; but all the words that passed between them before , mr. boyers man would not acknowledge upon his examination , that he heard any of them , and would have denyed that ( the fray ) too , but that his master let fall the scabbard of his sword in the 〈◊〉 , and mr. woodhouse in kindness did send one or more of his servants with himself , with a lanthern and candle to find the same , for at the present the barrel ended all the quarrel , they drunk the other bout , and the drunken fit being over , it was no more thought upon for a while : but afterwards the aforesaid boyer did desire one edward price a saddler by trade , to make for him some holsters for pistols , but how many i know not : the said edward price , having neer the same time more papist customers for such tackle , was jealous of them ; and thereupon he informed a justice of the peace therewith : upon which information several justices met in order to examine the said price . and it happened so , that the said woodhouse being in a market town called presteyn , and at the house where the justices met upon the aforesaid business , and in the company of iohn adams and richard hill of the same , he asked them what was the meaning of the justices meeting there ( which was but lately before , ) who told him that price the saddler had informed that one mr. thomas boyer , a papist , had bespoke of him ten pair of holsters for pistols , to which the said woodhouse replyed , surely then he is going to raise the troop of horse for the duke of york , which he told me he would raise , and therewith declared the aforesaid discourse between mr. boyer and himself to them , who informed a justice of the peace , or lord bishop of hereford therewith , whereupon the said woodhouse was forced to witness the same ; and then afterwards ( as it is before declared ) in the whitsun week , 1676. i went in with my information , and then after that , the justices had many times met together upon the same concern , the said boyer was committed to prison , there to remain until the next great assize : and we the witnesses , edward price , robert woodhouse , gent. and richard greene were bound over to the same , to justify our evidence in his majesties behalf against mr. boyer , before the judge of the assize , to which accordingly we all very diligently gave our attendance . but judge wilde who rode that circuit , called the said boyer , and did not trouble himself ( as was expected in a business of that weight ) to examine either the prisoner or the witnesses , but told him that he had read the depositions against him , and that therein he did find that he had spoke very dangerous words , and did very sharply chide him , and told him it did not become such a one as him to talk of the overturning of kingdoms , and of the carrying on of the changing of governments , &c. and that he might by the law take a severer course with him ; but because he was a young man , he would only bind him to his good behaviour , and therefore bid him produce his surety quickly ; and he the said boyer , as before knowing the issue thereof , produced two papists for his suretyes standing by him ready for the same purpose . which binding of him , was but a letting of him loose , ( as it did afterwards appear ) to spit his popish venom at poor richard greene , which he and his accomplices did to the purpose ; for they prosecuted me with four malitious law suits , and threatned me with many more , and at last , wrongfully imprisoned me : and both before i went to prison , and in the prison , he demanded nothing of me , but submission and recantation ; and to declare those truths which i before upon oath had witnessed against him , were false , and to acknowledg that i had done him wrong thereby ; and that by doing so , i may expect his love and favour as formerly : and in not doing so , i should never come out of prison , which though i never did ; yet i am out of prison , thanks be to god ; but when i came out i was so much impoverished , so much threatned , so much slandered , and so much forsaken of friends ( for many sought to merit the favour of my adversaries by doing me injuries ) by which i was forced to sell my goods and cattle ; and , my wife my fellow sufferer with me in all this , took our flight together from our native country . these are the poor mans own words , written down in his own hand , who in another proceeds thus in his relation . anno domini 1676. about whitsuntide , one thomas woodhouse of standbeach in herefordshire , hatter , bringing richard greene a hat , said , my brother robort woodhouse was in a great deal of trouble about mr. boyer ( aforesaid ) and very sorry he had occasioned him to be questioned for words spoken to him . greene questioned thomas woodhouse about what time the words were spoken by mr. boyer to mr. robert woodhouse , the said hatters brother , and he found by him that it was the same time that he the said greene had the same conference with captain thomas boyer , viz. ianuary 75 / 6. which confirmed him more in his fear of a massacre . thomas woodhouse related this discourse with greene to his brother robert , who sent for him to speak with him , and r. w. related that boyer had told him , there would be many bloody noses that summer , but a hair of his head should not be touched , and that the said boyer would raise a troop of horse for the duke of york , and enquired what boyer had spoken to him ; greene replyed , he would be excused ; then woodhouse said , he would have him summoned to hereford , where he was himself to appear the next day ; to this he replyed , he scorned to be forced to witness for his king and country , if he would lend him a horse , he would go with him , and accordingly he did , and testifyed his knowledge in the particulars aforesaid , before the justices of the peace , then and there assembled as hath been related above . and then it was ( viz. about whitsuntide 1676. ) that the said robert woodhouse , richard greene , and several others were examined before sir iames bridges now lord shandoes , and other justices of the peace of the county of hereford , as aforesaid ; upon whose examinations the said captain tho. boyer was committed to prison , &c. it is to be observed , that against the said assizes following when the said richard greene attended to give evidence against captain thomas boyer , he had reserved many considerable particulars of his evidence against the time of the tryal , to which he expected that captain boyer would have been then brought in the face of the whole county . so that the depositions taken before the said justices are not so full as these informations in several particulars , judge wilde who went that circuit at that assizes , never suffered any witnesses to be produced or examined against captain boyer ( as is said ) but only said he had read the affidavits , and ordered him to be bound to his good behaviour . let it be examined by whose order or advice he suppressed the evidence of so horrid a massacre , its probable some of them in question did contrive thus to suppress this discovery , their names also who bespoke the other cases of holsters should be inquired , as probably conscious and agents in this suppression . that by this means greenes evidence being suppressed , the discovery which he designed upon his oath to make in the face of the county of a general massacre of all protestants , of what profession soever , and that universally over all the kingdom to be made by the papists armed and conspired together in that plot , was concealed in a great part , and the papists thereby encouraged to go on ever since more confidently and fiercely in their plot both against the kings life , whose death was their signal , and against all his protestant subjects that were to be massacred thereupon , as far as the papists swords could reach , and those whom the massacre reach 't not weakned thereby , were to be pursued and cut off by war and foreign assistance , under the duke of yorks authority . in iune 1678. about the 20th . day , a little before the parliament was prorogued dr. tonge attending on the parliament with some propositions for suppressing of popery , and relief of the poor , happened accidentally into the company of richard greene , with whom he entred some discourse about promoting the linnen manufacture , and his , the doctors employing so many poor women to spin , as might find the said greene constant work , but found he had sold his loomes , and fled his country for fear of the papists . that upon this occasion greene related the whole plot unto dr. tonge , and his sufferings occasioned by the discovery thereof , and the accidental manner of his being brought for an evidence against his kind kinsman and landlord , and great confident by mr. woodhouse . then out of compassion to the said greene , and for encouragement of the like discoverers and discoveries for the future , dr. tonge advised the said greene to complain to the parliament then sitting in a grand committee for suppressing of popery , drew him a petition and articles out of his , the said greenes own information , and directed him how to deliver it , and least by any accident he might miscarry , wrote a note for him to the door keeper , to call out some worthy member to receive his petition , and followed him himself to the house , and saw his papers delivered into sir trevor williams hand , and heard they were read in the grand committee . richard greenes petition to the honourable the committe for suppressing of popery . the humble petition of richard greene , late of biton in the county of hereford his native country , and thence terrifyed and forced by malicious suits and terrours by thomas boyer gent. papist convict , and his accomplices . most humbly sheweth , that your petitioner being a poor weaver , held a house and land of thomas boyer of dilwins in the county aforesaid , papist convict , for several years paid him his rent constantly , had never any difference with him till about whitsuntide 1676. at which time your petitioner with several others , was examined upon reports spread in those parts of change of government expected , and insurrections to be made thereupon by the papists . that after such time as your petitioner had made oath of the particulars upon which he was examined for his majestie , contained in a paper hereunto annexed , whereupon the said boyer was committed to prison , and was discharged ; he the said boyer after caused your said petitioner to be causelessly arrested at the suit of him the said boyer , demanding only by persons sent to him during his imprisonment , submission and acknowledgement that your petitioner had done him wrong in his said deposition , without which he should be kept in prison and have no discharge , notwithstanding your petitioner did tender common bayle , which as your petitioner was advised , was all the law did require ; and your petitioner was accordingly detained in prison about a fortnight , till he could procure a supersedeas from the sheriff , ( who was then in london ) to his great expence and loss of his whole subsistence for himself and family , depending on his labour and trade . that the said boyer having given out that he would arrest your petitioner again , as he was credibly informed , which would have been his utter ruine , and refused 16 shillings rent , tendred as soon as due , he was forced to sell off the necessary looms , and other tooles and instruments of his trade to discharge his debts , contracted by his imprisonment , and to fly his native country , to which he still is in fear to return , for reasons hereunto annexed . humply prayes that your honours would according to your wisdom provide and apply such relief for your oppressed petitioner , and satisfastion for his unjust imprisonment and ruine of his family , as may stand with iustice and honour of parliament ; that your petitioner , and other his majesties faithful subjects may not be deterred from testifying their knowledge on behalf of his majesty , when they are thereunto required , nor to bayl , assist and relieve one another when malitiously prosecuted by papists , as in your petitoners case . and your petitioner shall pray , &c. the effect of richard greenes depositions against thomas boyer may be seen above in the second paragraph of this relation , which he put into the committee with his petition and these articles . the means by which richard greene hath been forced and terrifyed out of his country by thomas boyer , papist convict , and his accomplices , annexed to and put into parliament with his petition . 1. he arrested the said greene without cause , and detained him in prison , ( refusing legal bayl , ) till he had got a supersedeas . 2. he terrified the special bayl he had procured , by his agents , that he shrunk from him , though he knew him innocent . 3. he terrifyed all his neighbours , so that when he was to pay 16 s. his last rent due to boyer , for a tenement and land he held of him , none durst tender it for him , nor witness it , and boyer himself refused to take it , when he tender'd it before witness , that he might terrify him with pretence of a suit. 4. he had so frighted the neighbours that none would help him reap his crop of rye , nor carry it for him , and was forced to get strangers to do it , that when he had brought a team to carry his grain , a threatning message was sent to him that carryed it , that by those means being in a very destitute condition , and in fear of his life , or some other mischief to befal him ; he hath been compelled ever since to wander from place to place like a banished man , to seek employment for himself and wife amongst strangers . the fear of this massacre , and his hard usage by his landlord boyer terrifyed greene so , that he advised with his wife to go out of england to virginy or elsewhere , but his wife not consenting , he removed himself ( assoon as he could ) further from the said boyer , as distrusting his pretended kindness * if any rising should be , and with an intent also to be more free and at liberty to testify what he knew of this plotted massacre , when further off from him . this was in february and march. 1676. dr. tonge having laid this foundation of a discovery of this plot , and brought it thus into parliament with one witness present to attest it ; he hoped that by the wisdom , industry and intelligence of that honorable house , upon examination of greene and other two witnesses formerly sworn , and of the two thomas boyers , master and servant forementioned , some effectual course might have been taken to prevent such bloody designs of the papists , as were then on foot , and suppress the growth of popery for the future , and so thereby to avoid the danger of such plots , tumults and massacres for the ages to come , from which otherwise these kingdoms can never be secured , as is now most manifest . n. b. this captain thomas boyer hath since taken the oath of allegiance , &c. albeit the prorogation of the parliament , which followed shortly after , did render this first attempt of the doctors producing this plot into that high court , and propositions for suppressing popery ineffectual at that time ; yet it much encouraged him in his proceedings in the next discovery , which he made shortly after , in the latter end of iuly 1678. by mr , oats's papers , and relation of the same universal massacre , in that he had given some light of it to the house of commons before , and had some evidence of the general design , by the testimony of greene and others , whom he hoped to produce in parliament , if he could by any means bring mr. oats's papers into that high court , and caused his oath to be taken by sir edmund bury godfrey for that purpose , in three several depositions , one of 73 articles , september 6th . and two of 81 articles , september 28. 16●8 . that in case he had failed of success in the privy council , he might have one copy at least , to produce in parliament . in the latter eny of december 1678. richard greene after he had been examined before the secret committee of the house of commons , was ordered to go before sir william scroggs , the lord chief justice and make affidavit of the truth of his information , the tuesday following , that the persons concerned , and the other witnesses might be sent for , but the parliament was prorogued on the munday , the day before that tuesday appointed for his appearing before the lord chief justice , so that this purpose was defeated , and he remains yet either not fully examined , or not sworn to his information , and particularly not to the point of the universal massacre intended by the papists in the long recess of parliament in the summer 1676. that dr. tonge hath not beenable as yet , to procure a copy of the affidavits or examinations of richard greene , robert woodhouse , and the other witnesses taken in herefordshire before the lord shandoes , nor the transcript of them sent up to the privy council as he desired , and intreated the assistance of the committe therein , for the greater certainty of his narrative of this discovery , and the confirmation of the evidence , and the refutation of the scandals raised against both him and it . against him as a contriver or inventer of this plot and its discovery to king and parliament , and the plot as his malitious invention . richard greenes depositions . put into the secret committee of the honorable , the house of commons , by dr. tonge in may 1679. richard greene , late of dilwin in the county of hereford , weaver ; maketh oath , that he received the relation of the following particulars of the several massacres designed by the papists against his majesties protestant subjects , from the mouth of captain thomas boyer of luntlow in the parish aforesaid , and he verily believes the said relation to be true. i. that in case his majesty had dyed of the swooning fit he had in the latter end of the year 1675. the papists had then risen in arms , and overturned all the foundations of the government with such an earthquake as hath not been in england this hundred years . ii. that albeit the king recovered of that which was his third fit , contrary to the proverb , yet they hoped to be ready by the latter end of summer 1676. for their design . iii. that if they could not then fully accomplish their design , yet at farthest before the next session of parliament , then prorogued for 16 or 17 months , they hoped to effect it . iv. that in this design all the papists at home and abroad were engaged , and especially the french , and expected no assistance from any other separate party . v. that no protestants , presbyters , independants , &c. were to be spared . vi. that thomas boyer aforesaid , was to raise a troop of horse for this design . vii . that this deponent was to be at first examined at hereford assizes with other witnesses , where iustice wild put off the tryal ; and only bound the person aforementioned , ( viz. boyer , ) to his good behaviour 1676. and secondly , before the house of commons in june 1678. who , shortly after his petition delivered into the grand committee of the house for suppressing popery , was prorogued : thirdly , before the lord chief iustice scroggs , by order of the secret committee , the last sessions of parliament , who immediately thereupon , was first prorogued , and then dissolved . viii . that he was never yet examined upon oath since , though he attended the secret committee several times . richard greene. juravit coram me , iohn hoskyns , master of chancery . may the 12th . 1679. advertisements doctor tonge doth hereby disown whatever books or papers have hitherto been printed or published in his name , as composed by him ; or seen and allowed by him to be printed or published , or shall hereafter ; unless attested under his hand ; as revised by him from the press , exept some translations out of french. courteous reader , there are in the press , and will shortly be published , an abridgment of controversies , being a brief and solid confutation of popish errors , by express texts out of the bible of their own translation . also , the history of the turkish asfassins ; and a parallel of the them with the popish ; and other papers of that subject , the former long since translated , and both now published by dr. tonge . be pleased to take notice also of that excellent treatise , intituled the hearts sovereign , long since published at the charge of the author , mr. tho. jones , late houshold chaplain to his highness the d. of york : in which family he so vigorously opposed the favorers and connivers at the growth of popery : of which he is able , if called , to give a good account , that , for that cause he was removed from that place , to make way for them to pervert his highness's family : and since , hath been by their contrivance , ruined in his estate and reputation , as he hopes to make appear if admitted to audience . errata , for 1674 / 5 read 1675 / 6. finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a70144-e550 note , it appears though green , hath not named the particular day , wherein he had his conference with this boyer , that it was betwixt sunday , the 23d . and saturday , the 29th . of january , 1674 / 5. and that captain boyer ; made the like discourse ( whereof his mind was very full ) the very same day to mr. robert woodhouse , another of the witnesses , mentioned in the following relation ; as they rode together to mr. woodhouses house : vide infra . note , that mr. dugdale , in the tryal of whitebread , harcourt , gavan and the rest , saith , that if the kings death should happen , they should have been ready to give the first allarm in the country : and that a letter was sent into the country to shew it was the opinion of them at paris and st. omers , to give out that it was ( in case the king had been kill'd ) still those king killing presbyterians that had done the fact , thereby to bring the protestants over to their side , to revenge themselves of the prefbyterians , and cut them off ; that they might more easily deal with the protestants themselves , and cut them off likewise afterwards : and this shews both what overturning earthquake , boyer spoke of . * this agrees with dugdales deposition , that they had three times a week constantly , and sometimes by expresses , letters from london . viz. about the 29 of january 1674 / 5. note , that by these words compared with other passages in this relation , richard greene wrote this paper within a twelve month after his aforesaid talk with captain boyer ( viz. ) before february 1675 / 6. * which was the kings being dispatched or killed by the papists ; for mr. dugdale saith , in the tryal of whitebread , harcourt and the rest , that two years before the said tryal , which was about the time of these discourses of green and boyer ) he heard it discoursed for the first time in the little parlour at my lord astons house , and at mr. ewers chamber by mr. ewers and mr. gavan ( who were the first that broke the matter to him , that the king was to be kill'd : that he saw a letter under whitebreads own hand , enclosed in one from groves to mr. ewers , wherein he gave mr. ewers a caution , to be sure to chuse those who were trusty , hardy and desperate , &c. to kill the king. that there were several consultations at mr. ewers chamber at boscobell , and several other places , for conspiring the kings death : that at one of these consultations held at tixall , about the 21 of september 1678 , were present , mr. gavan , mr. ewers , mr , peters , mr. lewson , my lord stafford and others , that he was chosen as a sit person to kill the king , entertained by my lord stafford and mr. ewers for this purpose ; and to be sent for this purpose to london , to be under the tuition of mr. parsons : that he saw mr. turner , when he was going to his brother turner in nottinghamshire , with mr. ewers , mr. lewson and others , and they did consult and agree there in his hearing , about conspiring the death of the king , introducing popery , &c. that he saw and received several packets of letters from several persons beyond seas , which were by mr. harcourts instruction , and communicated by grove to mr. ewers , which letters did contain matters in them , for the introducing of popery , and killing and destroying the king. he likewise intercepted and read a hundred letters , given under mr. harcourts own hand to the same purpose . that mr. gavan used several arguments to prove the lawfulness of , and shewed him several examples for king-killing . nay , for the killing of any to introduce their own religion : he endeavoured to prove it by scripture , the text mr. dugdale could not call to mind , but it was to shew , how it was lawful and good to destroy any , for the advantage of their religion : shewing the example of father garnet , how , by several of his relicks beyond sea , great miracles had been done . and in the tryal of langhorne , he saith , he was in most of their consultations for the murder of the king , that he heard the very words used , was hired to be an actor in it , was to have a summ of money , and a place appointed him to do it : and that the persons who put him upon it , was mr. ewers , gavan , lewson , vavasser ; who were all iesuits . the sum promised by lord stafford , and confessed by lord aston , was 500 l. advance mony , and farther reward , preferment , &c. note , that mr. dugdale saith , in whitebreads tryal , that at some consultations he heard speak of a massacre , that there was a massacre intended , and an army to be raised , that if any did escape the massacre whom they could not be sure to be papists , they might be cut off by the said army ; and in langhorns tryal , he saith , that ewers , gavan , lewson and vavasser , did always speak of an army that was to be raised , but not actually till the king was kill'd . that it was first concluded to raise an army , but the last resolutton was , that no armies should appear till the king was kill'd ; upon whose death was to be the massacre , and then a pretty considerable army to be raised , which was to cut of those who escaped the massacre . note , that the summer 1675. in which this plot was designed to be executed , and consequently , the king to be killed , was in the time of the 15 months prorogation of the parliament , and boyer said , that was to be begun so , that it might be fully executed before the time that the parliament was to meet again . * for greene was boyers kinsman and had been very intimate with him till called to witness against bim . the trial, conviction and condemnation of andrew brommich and william atkins, for being romish priests, before the right honourable the lord chief justice scroggs, at summer assizes last at stafford held there for the county of stafford, where they received sentence of death accordingly together with the tryal of charles kern, at hereford assizes last for being a romish priest. bromwich, andrew, defendant. 1679 approx. 68 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 11 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63169 wing t2176 estc r18341 12658015 ocm 12658015 65428 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63169) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 65428) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 677:12) the trial, conviction and condemnation of andrew brommich and william atkins, for being romish priests, before the right honourable the lord chief justice scroggs, at summer assizes last at stafford held there for the county of stafford, where they received sentence of death accordingly together with the tryal of charles kern, at hereford assizes last for being a romish priest. bromwich, andrew, defendant. kern, charles, defendant. 20 p. printed for robert pawlett ..., london : 1679. advertisement: p. 20. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng bromwich, andrew. kern, charles. catholic church -england. popish plot, 1678. trials -england. church and state -catholic church. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-02 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-05 john latta sampled and proofread 2006-05 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the trial , conviction and condemnation of andrew brommich and william atkins , for being romish priests , before the right honourable the lord chief justice scroggs , at summer assizes last at stafford held there for the county of stafford ; where they received sentence of death accordingly . together with the tryal of charles kern , at hereford assizes last for being a romish priest . london , printed for robert pawlett , at the bible in chancery-lane , 1679. i do appoint robert pawlett to print the tryals of andrew brommich , william atkins and charles kerne , and that no other person presume to print the same . william scroggs . the tryal , conviction and condemnation of andrew brommich . vpon wednesday the 13th . of august 1679. at the assizes held at stafford for the said county , andrew brommich and william atkins being both seminary priests were brought to their tryal , and convicted before the right honourable sr. william scroggs knight , lord chief justice of england and one of his majesties justices of assize there . the court being sate they proceeded to their tryal thus . the lord chief justice having the night before charged the sheriff to returne a good jury , and the court being sate , he enquired of him if he had observed his directions ; the sheriff acquainted his lordship that since he had impannelled the said jury , he had heard that one _____ allen of _____ in the said county , being then returned to serve on the said jury , had said in discourse with some of his fellows , that nothing was done against the popish priests above , and therefore he would do nothing against them here , nor find them guilty : whereupon his lordship called for the said allen , and one randal calclough one of his fellows jury men and another witness upon oath who proving the words against him , his lordship discharg'd him of the jury , and committed him to prison , till he found sureties for his good behaviour , and likewise 3 more of the jury were discharg'd upon suspicion of being popishly affected , his lordship commanding the sheriff to return good men in their places , which was accordingly done , and the jury sworn , viz. thomas higgin , john webb , edward ward , thomas marshall , john beech , randal calclough , richard trindall , james beckett , william smyth , william pinson , daniel buxton and richard cartwright . jurors . cl. of arraign . gaoler set up andrew brommich to the barr : cryer make proclamation . cryer . o yes ! if any one can inform my lords the king 's just the king's serjeant , the kings atturney or this inquest now to be taken , of any treasons , murders , felonies or other misdemeanours committed or done by the prisoner at the bar , let them come forth and they shall be heard . cl. of arr. andrew brommich hold up thy hand , these good men that were lately called and have now appeared , are those which must pass between our soveraign lord the king and you upon your life or death : if you will challenge any of them you must speak as they come to the book to be sworn , and before they be sworn . [ the prisoner challenging none , the jury was sworn , ut ante . cl. of arr. gentlemen of the jury , look upon the prisoner and hearken to his cause , you shall understand that he stands indicted by the name of andrew brommich , late of perry barr in the county of stafford gentleman , for that he being born within the kingdom of england , the thirteenth day of january in the thirtieth year of the reign of our sovereigne lord king charls the 2d . by the grace of god of england , scotland , france and ireland king , defender of the faith , &c. then being a seminary priest made , professed and ordained by the authority and jurisdiction challenged , pretended and derived from the see of rome , the said thirteenth day of january in the year aforesaid , within this kingdome of england , viz. at perry barr aforesaid , in the county aforesaid , trayterously did come , was and did remain against the form of the statute in that case made and provided , and against the peace of our soveraign lord the king , his crown and dignity . upon this indictment he hath been arraigned , and hath pleaded thereunto not guilty , and for his tryal hath put himself upon god and his country , which country you are : your charge is to inquire whether he be guilty of the high treason whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty : if you find him guilty , you are to inquire what lands , goods , or tenements he had at the time of the treason committed , or at any time since ; if you find him not guilty , you are to inquire whether he did fly for the same , and what lands , goods or tenements he had at the same time of such flight , or at any time since ; if you find him not guilty , nor that he did fly for the same , you are to say so and no more , and hear your evidence . cl. of arr. cryer , call ann robinson , who being sworn . l. ch. just . ann robinson , what can you say against andrew brommich . a. rob. my lord , i can say that i received the sacarment of him according to the church of rome in a wafer . l. ch. just . when ? how long ago ? a. rob. about christmas last . l. ch. just . what company was there ? how many were there in company ? a. rob. my lord , i cannot possitively tell how many , but i beleive there were about seven or eight . l. ch. just . did they all receive at the same time ? ann. robinson . yes , my lord they did all receive at that time . l. ch. just . are you a papist ? a. rob. no my lord. l. ch. just . how long were you a papist ? a. rob. several years . l. ch. just . who first seduc'd you ? a. rob. my lord i cannot tell his name . lord chief justice . did you ever receive the sacrament according to their way of mr. brommich before the time you speak of ? a. rob. yes . l. ch. just . how often ? a. rob. four times , my lord , twice at mr. birch's , and twice at mr. pursal's . l. ch. just . how came you to give her the sacrament ? ( to the prisoner . ) pris . my lord i never did . l. ch. just . why , she has sworn you gave it her several times , once in particular at christmas last , and 4 times more , twice at mr. birch's , and twice at mr. pursall's . pris . my lord , i cannot help it . i desire your lordship will take notice of one thing , that i have taken the oaths of allegeance and supremacy , and have not refus'd any thing which might testifie my loyalty . l. ch. just . that will not serve your turn , you priests have tricks to evade that . pris . besides my lord , i never absconded . l. ch. just . you never absconded , what is that to giving the woman the sacrament several times ? pris . my lord i desire she may prove it . l. ch. just . she does so . pris . my lord i humbly conceive it was no sacrament unless i were a priest . l. ch. just . what an argument is that ? you expect we should prove you a priest by witnesses , which saw you take orders , but we know so much of your religion , that none undertake to give the sacrament in a wafer , or say mass , but a priest : and you gave the sacrament to that woman in a wafer , therefore you are a priest . cl. arr. cryer , call another witness , swear jeoffery robinson . l. ch. just . what can you say to mr. brommich ? jeoff. rob. i can say nothing against him . l. ch. just . did you ever hear him say mass ? jeoff. rob. i cannot tell ; i have heard him say something in an unknown tongue , but i know not what it was . l. ch. just . was it latin that he said . jeoff. rob. i cannot tell , i am no scholar . l. ch. just . had he a surplice on ? jeoff. rob. yes my lord he had . l. ch. just . robinson , are you a papist ? jeoff. rob. yes my lord. l. ch. just . i thought so , it is so hard to get the truth out of you . cl. ar. cryer , swear jane robinson . l. ch. just . come what can you say ? did you ever see brommich give the sacrament ? jane rob. not to my knowledge . l. ch. just . did you ever hear him say mass ? jane rob. i never saw him doe any thing ; for i only went up and said my prayers , i took no notice of any thing . l. ch. just . did you not see brommich there ? jane rob. i cannot tell . l. ch. just . why , don't you know him ? jane rob. no my lord. l. ch. just . your husband knows him . you jeoffery robinson , do not you know mr. brommich ? jef. rob. not i , my lord. l. ch. just . that 's right like a papist , did you not but just now say you heard him say something in an unknown tongue , and saw him in a surplice , and yet now you do not know him ? you have no more conscience than what your priests allow you . but though your priests can perswade you to take false oathes , i would not have you think they can protect you from the punishment due to them here or hereafter . an. rob. my lord , they both took the sacrament with me at the same time from him . l. ch. just . look you there , was ever the like impudence seen , come friend , consider you are upon your oath , and do not bring your self into the snare of a pillory . come robinson , i ask you by the oath you have taken , did you receive the sacrament with an. robinson at the time she speaks of at mr. parsall's ? jeoff. rob. yes my lord. lord chief just . how hard is the truth to be gotten out of you . but within this country , which abounds so with priests and swarms with papists , that you get popery here like the itch ; if they but rub upon you , you ketch it . jane rob. my lord , he 's a weak man. l. ch. just . who gave it you . jef. rob. i do not know . l. ch. just . he 'l say no more then his wife and priest will give him leave . l. ch. just . look you gentlemen of the jury , here are 2 papists that are witnesses , you are to consider how far they tell the truth , and how far they conceal it , how they tell their tail so as to serve a turn : for here you see the man said at first he heard him say somewhat in an unknown tongue , and that he saw him in a surplice , after that he denies he knows him , but now you see by this woman the truth is come out , he hath confess 't and own'd he received the sacrament at pursall's with her . we cannot expect more positive evidence from such people , come read the statute . anno 27 eliz. cap. 2. whereas divers persons , called or professed iesuit , seminary priests , and other priests , which have been , and from time to time are made in the parts beyond the seas , by or according to the order and rites of the romish church , have of late comen and been sent , and daily do come and are sent into this realm of england and other the queens majesties dominions , of purpose ( as it hath appeared ) as well by sundry of their owne examinations and confessions , as divers other manifest means and proofs , not onely to withdraw her highnesses subjects from their due obedienee to her majestie , but also to stir up and move sedition , rebellion and open hostility within the same her highness realms and dominions to the great indangering of the safety of her most royal person , and to the utter ruine , desolation and overthrow of the whole realm , if the same be not the sooner by some good means foreséen and prevented . for reformac̄ whereof be it ordained , established and enacted by the quéens most excellent majestie , and the lords spirituall and temporall , and the commons in this present parliament assembled , and by the authority of the same parliam̄t , that all and every iesuits , semininary priests , and other priests whatsoever , made or ordained out of the realm of england or other her highness dominions , or within any of her majesties realms or dominions , by any authority , power or iurisdiction , derived , challenged , or pretended from the see of rome since the feast of the nativity of st. john baptist , in the first year of her highness reign , shall within forty days next after the end of this present session of parliament depart out of this realm of england , and out of all other her highness realms and dominions , if the wind , weather , and passage shall serve for the same , or else so soon after the end of the said forty days as the wind , weather and passage shall so serve . and be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid , that it shall not be lawfull to , or for any iesuit , seminary priest , or other such priest , deacon , or religious , or ecclesiastical person whatsoever , being born within this realm , or any other her highness dominions , and heretofore since the said feast of the nativity of st. john baptist in the first year of her majesties reigne made , ordained or professe or hereafter to be made , ordained or professed by any authority or iurisdiction derived , challenged or pretended from the sée of rome , by , or of what name , title or degrée soever the same shall be called or known to come into , be , or remaine in any part of this realm or any other her highness dominions , after the end of the same forty days other then in such special cases , and upon such speciall occasions only , and for such time only as is expressed in this act. and if he do , that then every such offence shall be taken and adjudged to be high treason , and every person so offending shall for his offence be adjudged a traytor and shall suffer losse , and forfeit as in case of high treason . and every person which after the end of the same forty days , and after such time of departure as is before limited and appointed , shall wittingly and willingly receive , relieve , comfort , aid or maintain any such iesuit , seminary priest , or other priest , deacon or religious , or ecclesiasticall person as is aforesaid , being at liberty , or out of hold , knowing him to be a iesuit , seminary priest , or other such priest , deacon or religious , or ecclesiasticall person as is aforesaid , shall also for such offence be adjudged a felon without benefit of clergy , and suffer death , losse , and forfeit , as in case of one attainted of felony . l. ch. just . come what have you more to say ? prisoner . i desire that there may be notice taken what robinson and his said wife said upon their examinations before the justice of peace . l. ch. j. we are to take notice only of what they say here . pris . my lord , they said here they did not know me . l. ch. just . n● did not robinson say he heard you say something in an unknown tongue , that he then saw you in a surplice ? did we talk of any one but you ? come jesuit , with your learning , you shall not think to bastle us : i have of late had occasion to converse with your most learned priests , and never yet saw one that had either learning or honesty . l. ch. j. have you any witnesses ? have you any more to say ? pris . no. l. ch. j. then gentlemen of the jury , the question you are to try , is whether ●●drew brommich be a popish priest or not : to prove that he is , here is a woman , one anne robinson , that swears she received the sacrament of him in a wafer once at christmas last , and twice at mr. birch's , and twice at mr. pursals , and that he gave it to several others at the same time . there needs not much to perswade you that he who gives the sacrament is a priest , for in their church they allow no one but a priest to give the sacrament , so there is one express evidence against him : and now i must satisfie you in one thing , that you are to give a verdict not that he is a priest , but that you believe him in your conscience upon the whole evidence , to be a priest . to make you do this here is one positive evidence . the other man , when i came to examine him whether he ever heard the prisoner say mass ; he answered , that he heard him say something in an unknown tongue , and that he was in a surplice . this is as much as we could expect from one of their own religion , who dare say no more than their priests will give them leave to do . so gentlemen i must leave it to you , whether or no you will not believe the testimony of this real positive witness , and the circumstantial evidence of the other man : for you see in what dangers we are , i leave it upon your consciences whether you will let priests escape who are the very pests and dangers of church and state ; you had better be rid of one priest than three felons , so gentlemen , i leave it to you . the jury having staid some time , returned to the court to give their verdict . cl. arr. gentlemen of the jury , have you agreed on your verdict ? jury , yes . cl. arr. who shall say it for you ? jury , the foreman . cl. arr. goaler , set up andrew brommich to the bar. gentlemen , do you find andrew brommich guilty of the high treason he hath been arraigned of , or not guilty . jury ; guilty . l. ch. j. gentlemen , you have found a good verdict , and if i had been one of you , i should have found the same my self . upon wednesday the thirteenth of august , 1679. at the assizes held at stafford , for the county of stafford ; william atkins was brought to his tryal for being a seminary priest , before the right honourable sir william scroggs , knight , lord chief justice . the court proceeded to his tryal in like manner as in the former , there being the same jury . cl. arr. goaler , set up william atkins to the bar. cryer , make proclamation . cl. arr. gentlemen of the jury , look on the prisoner and hearken to his cause . you shall understand that he stands indicted by the name of william atkins late of wolverhampton in the county of stafford , gent. for that he being born within the kingdom of england , the fifth day of december , in the thirtieth year of the reign of our soveraign lord king charles the second , by the grace of god of england , scotland , france , and ireland king , defender of the faith , &c. then being a seminary priest ; made , professed , and ordained by the authority and jurisdiction challenged , pretended , and derived from the see of rome ; the said fifth day of december in the year aforesaid within this kingdom of england , viz. at wolverhampton aforesaid in the county aforesaid , traiterously did come , was , and did remain against the form of the statute in that case made and provided ; and against the peace of our soveraign lord the king , his crown and dignity . upon this indictment he hath been arraigned , and thereunto pleaded not guilty ; and for his tryal he hath put himself upon god and his country , which country you are . your charge is to enquire whether he be guilty of the high treason whereof he stands indicted or not guilty : if you find him guilty , you are to enquire what lands , goods , or tenements he had at the time of the high treason committed , or at any time since ; if you find not guilty , you are to enquire whether he did flee for the same : if you find he did flee for the same , you are to enquire what lands , goods , or tenements he had at the time of such flight , or at any time since ; if you find him not guilty nor that he did flee for the same , you are to say so and no more , and hear your evidence . cl. arr. cryer , call the witnesses ; call william jackson , francis wilden , jo. jarvis , &c. swear jackson , which was done . l. ch. j. come friend , what can you say concerning atkins the prisoner being a priest ? jack . my lord , i can say nothing at all , i was there when he was apprehended , and bound over to prosecute him . cl. arr. cryer , swear francis wilden , which was done . l. ch. j. what can you say concerning atkins being a priest ? w. my lord , i have seen him at prayers . l. ch. j. was he in a surplice then ? w. yes my lord. l. ch. j. did you ever see him say mass ? w. i cannot tell . l. ch. j. in what language were his prayers ? w. in an unknown tongue . l. ch. j. were they in latin ? w. i cannot tell , my lord , i am not a scholar good enough to know . l. ch. j. are you a papist ? w. i have been a protestant since christmas . l. ch. j. 't is the principle of a protestant to tell down right truth , and the principle of a papist is to equivocate ; come speak truth and your conscience will be lighter : did you ever see atkins deliver the sacrament in a wafer , according to the manner and way of the church of rome ? w. my lord , i never received it of him my self , but i have seen him give it to others . l. ch. j. where ? w. at mrs. stanfords , at wolverhampton . l. ch. j. to how many ? w. to seven or eight at a time . l. ch. j. was he in a surplice then ? w. yes my lord. l. ch. j. i do not know whether the prisoner can hear what the witness says , 't is fit he should know : the prisoner being told , he replied he knew not the witness . cl. arr. swear john jarvis , cryer , my lord , he refuseth to be sworn . l. ch. j. jarvis , why will you not be sworn ? jer. my lord , i was troubled with a vision the last night . l. ch. j. you mistake friend , old men dream dreams , 't is young men see visions , and you are an old man : speak the truth , and i 'll warrant you , you will not be troubled with visions any more , this is a trick of the priests . swear him cryer , which was done . l. ch. j. come jarvis , what can you say ? jar. my lord , he is a man that hath relieved me and my children oftentimes when i was in want . l. ch. j. did you ever hear him say mass ? jar. my lord , i am an ignorant man ; i cannot tell : i have heard him say somewhat in an unknown tongue . l. ch. j. did you ever confess to him ? jar. yes , my lord , i did . l. ch. j. did you ever receive the sacrament of him according to the manner of the church of rome ? jar. yes my lord i have , i must speak the truth . l. ch. j. how often ? jar. a great many times . l. ch. j. and had he not his priests habit on when he gave it you ? jar. yes my lord , he had . cl. arr. cryer , call joan wright , who was called but did not appear . call henry brown , who appeared and was sworn . l. ch. j. come mr. brown , what can you say against the prisoner ? did you ever receive the sacrament of him , or hear him say mass ? br. my lord , i was almost turned from the protestant religion to that of the church of rome ; but i never went further than confession , and that was to this man , and then i left them . l. ch. j. indeed you were the wiser . cl. arr. cryer , call tho. dudley who was sworn . l. ch. j. what can you say against the prisoner ? dud. i was a little given that way , and have been at confession with one atkins , and have seen him perform several rites of the church of rome at well head , at ham. l. ch. j. do you believe this to be the man ? dud. yes my lord i do . l. ch. j. have you any more to say ! dud. no my lord. l. ch. j. read the statute . which was done . have you witnesses atkins , or any thing to say for your self ? p. no my lord. l. ch. j. look you gentlemen of the jury , here is as full and as positive an evidence as can be against the prisoner : the two first witnesses , wilden and jarvis , are positive . wilden swears he heard him say his prayers in an unknown tongue ; and further says , that he gave the sacrament to seven or eight according to the manner of the church of rome in a wafer , at mrs. stamford's house in wolverhampton . jarvis the other witness , swears that he hath been at confession with him , and hath oftentimes received the sacrament of him . here are two other honest men , that speak very full as to circumstances ; so that in the whole you cannot have a more clear evidence : and gentlemen , i must tell you , it is to these sorts of men we owe all the troubles and hazards we are in , the fear of the kings life , the subversion of our government , and the loss of our religion . it is notorious by what they have done , that they are departed from the meekness and simplicity of christs doctrine , and would bring in a religion of blood and tyranny amongst us . as if god almighty were some omnipotent mischief , that delighted and would be served with the sacrifices of humane blood . i need not say more to you , the matter 's plain ; i think you need not stir from the bar , but do as you will. the jury having considered of the evidence some time , gave in their verdict . cl. arr. gentlemen of the jury are you agreed of your verdict ? jury , yes . cl. arr. who shall say for you ? jury , the foreman . cl. arr. goaler , set up william atkins , ( which was done . ) gentlemen of the jury look on the prisoner , what say you , is he guilty of the high treason whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? jury , guilty . cl. arr. what lands , goods , or tenements had he ? jury , none to our knowledge . cl. arr. look to him goaler , he is found guilty of high treason . the sentence . you the prisoners at the bar shall be conveyed from 〈◊〉 to the place from whence you came , and from thence that you be drawn to the place of execution upon hurdles , that there you be severally hanged by the neck , that you be cut down alive , that your privy members be cut off and your bowels taken out and burnt in your view ; that your heads be severed from your bodies , that your bodies be divided into quarters , and those quarters be disposed at the kings pleasure : and the god of infinite mercy be merciful to your souls . on monday the fourth day of august , at hereford ; charles kerne was brought to the bar , and being arraigned , he pleaded not guilty to the indictment : then the court ( after the usual formalities performed ) proceeded to the tryal of him , as followeth . cl. arr. gentlemen of the jury , look upon the prisoner and hearken to his cause : you shall understand that he stands indicted by the name of charles kerne , late of the parish of webly in the county of hereford , gent. for that he being born within the kingdom of england , the twenty ninth day of april in the thirty first year of the reign of our soveraign lord king charles the second , by the grace of god , of england , scotland , france , and ireland , king , defender of the faith , &c. then being a seminary priest , made , professed , and ordained by the authority and jurisdiction challenged , pretended , and derived from the see of rome , the said twenty ninth day of april in the year aforesaid , within this kingdom of england , ( viz. ) at webly aforesaid in the county aforesaid , traiterously did come , was , and did remain against the form of the statute in that case made and provided ; and against the peace of our soveraign lord the king , his crown and dignity . upon this indictment he hath been arraigned , and thereunto pleaded not guilty ; and for his tryal hath put himself upon god and his country , which country you are . your charge is to enquire whether he be guilty of the high treason whereof he stands indicted or not guilty : if you find him guilty , you are to enquire what lands , goods , or tenements he had at the time of the treason committed , or at any time since ; if you find him not guilty , you are to enquire whether he did flee for the same : if you find he did flee for the same , you are to enquire what lands , tenements , or goods , he had at the time of such flight , or at any time since ; if you find him not guilty , nor that he did flee for the same , you are to say so and no more , and hear your evidence . cl. arr. call edward biddolph , who was sworn . l. ch. j. give the jury pen , ink , and paper . l. ch. j. biddolph , do you know mr. kerne ? bid. i do not know him now : i did know such a man about six years ago , i have seen him once or twice at mr. somersets at bollingham about six years ago . l ch. j. how long is 't ago since you saw him last ? bid. about a year . l. ch. j. had you any discourse with him ? bid. no , i never had any . l. ch. j. look on the prisoner , can you say that is the man ? bid. no my lord , i cannot . l. ch. j. can you say you ever saw or knew him ? bid. i cannot . l. ch. j. set him down . call another witness . cl. arr. swear margaret edwards , which was done . l. ch. j. do you know mr. kerne ? edwards . yes , my lord , i do . l. ch. j. how long have you known him ? edwards . five or six years . l. ch. j. where did you know him ? edwards . at sarnffield , at mrs. monington's . l. ch. j. were you a servant there ? edwards . no , i went thither about business . l. ch. j. where did you first see him ? edwards . at mr. wigmore's of lucton . l. ch. j. had you any discourse with him there ? edwards . no. l. ch. j. how came you to see him at mrs. monington's ? edwards . my lord , one james harris's wife being very sick , i was desired by him to go to mrs. anne monington to seek some remedy for her : he desired me the rather , for that she being a papist , and i of the same religion ; he believed for that reason she would be the more kind to her . l. ch. j. were you a papist then ? edwards . yes my lord. l. ch. j. well , what said mrs. monington to you ? edwards . my lord , she told me she was glad that they had sent me , for that she did not care to discourse the distempers of a woman to a man. l. ch. j. well go on . edwards . my lord , after she had discoursed to me concerning the sick woman , she desired me to go with her , which i did ; and she brought me into the chappel , where i saw mr. kerne in his robes . l. ch. j. were there any more in the room besides him ? edwards . yes , my lord , four or five : he was in his robes and surplice , and was at the altar , and gave the sacrament to the rest , but i did not receive it . l. ch. j. what did you see him do ? edwards . i saw him give the sacrament . l. ch. j. what did he say ? edwards . he said corpus christi , or some such words . l. ch. j. did you see him deliver the wafers ? edwards . yes my lord. l. ch. j. to how many ? edwards . to four . l. ch. j. you swear positively to four : did they confess to him ? edwards . yes i believe they did . l. ch. j. did you ever see him since ? edwards . no my lord , i never saw him between that and this . l. ch. j. did you ever receive the sacrament before , and of whom ? edwards . yes i received several times : the first time was of mr. duffres , next of mr. kemble , then of mr. rowenhill , mr. standish , mr. morgan , mr. trindal ; i have received from mr. draycot at mr. berrington's , i have received at mr. blounts , but the last time was from mr. jennings at mr. wigmore's house . pris . my lord , i desire she may be askt whether she came to mrs. monington's of her own accord , or was sent for physick ? edw. i was sent . p. did the man send you or his wife ? edwards . the man. p. have a care what you say , harris's wife is here to trapan you . l. ch. j. give good words , you begin to triumph too soon . woman , was it harris or his wife sent you ? edwards . it was harris himself that desired me to go , because i might have more favour , being a papist . p. where did that harris live ? edwards . at lempster . p. i am satisfied , 't was a mistake , i thought it had been harris of lawton she had meant . l. ch. j. will you ask her any thing else ? p. i desire to know the time when she saw me at mrs , monington's . edwards . it was in last may was twelvemonth , the twenty ninth day to the best of my memory . l. ch. j. do you take it to be certain , or do you believe it only that it was that day ? edwards . my lord , i am certain it was that very day , for the woman died that day , and that day is writ on the gravestone . p. i desire to know of her whether she was ever askt upon her oath , whether she was ever at mrs. monington's since that time . edwards . i was not there since , nor ever askt the question to the best of my knowledge . l. ch. j. what a question is that ? p. 't is very remarkable , for she was askt by a jury-man last assizes , it was not upon the tryal , but before the grand jury , and she denied then that she was ever at mrs. monington's in her life . edwards . i have been there above twenty times . p. call roger hyet . l. ch. j. by and by your defence will be proper , in the mean time , what will you ask her more ? p. i desire to ask her what discourse she had with mary jones , the other witness , for she has been instructing her what to say ; and that they may be examined asunder , ( which was granted . ) l. ch. j. what discourse had you with the other woman ? edwards . my lord , she told me that she had never in all her life been before a judge or justice of peace , and that she was afraid of coming before one , for she did not know how to behave her self . l. ch. j. did you tell her what she shouly say ? edw. no my lord. l. ch. j. what did you say to her ? edwards . i told her that she would hear her name call'd , and then she must answer , and i bid her have a care that she spoke what she knew , and no more or less than the truth . l. ch. j. did she tell you what she could say ? edwards . she did . l. ch. j. what ? edwards . that she lived at mr. somerset's where mr. kerne usually was , and that several people used to come thither and go up stairs into the chamber ; and she went once to hearken , and she heard mr. kerne say something in latin , which she said was mass . p. here is a material question to ask this witness . i desire to know where this woman saw me first . edwards . at mr. wigmore's of lucton , as they told me it was him , for i did not know his name . p. i would know if the man she saw at mrs. monington's , was the same person she saw at lucton ? edwards . to the best of my knowledge it was . p. i never was at lucton in all my life . l. ch. j. call the other woman , you shall now see how these women agree . cl. arr. call mary jones . cryer , swear her , ( which was done . ) p. i desire they may be examin'd apart . l. ch. j. let the other woman go out . l. ch. j. when was the first time you saw margaret edwards ? jones . yesterday , and again to day . l. ch. j. did she tell you and instruct you what you should say against the prisoner ? jones . no my lord. l. ch. j. did you tell her what you could say against him ? jones . no. l. ch. j. did not you tell her that you lived at mr. somerset's , and that several people used to come thither and go up stairs into the chamber , and that once you went up to hearken , and heard mr. kerne say mass ? jones . she did say so to me , but i did not answer her any thing . l. ch. j. did she ask where you saw mr. kerne ? jones . yes . l. ch. j. where , at bollingham ? jones . i did tell her that i saw him at bollingham , and that i heard him say somewhat aloud , i think it was latin. l. ch. j. how you answer ? i askt you but just now , whether you told her that you saw mr. kerne at mr. somerset's house , and that you went up to hearken , and heard him say somewhat in latin ? and you then said you did not , and now you say you did . jones . she spoke to me first about it , and i did but answer . l. ch. j. what , did she ask you what you could say against mr. kerne ? jones . yes . l. ch. j. and what did you tell her you could say ? jones . i told her , that one sunday morning several people came to bollingham out of the town and out of the country , and went up after him , and he said somewhat aloud that i did not understand . l. ch. j. did you not tell margaret edwards that you heard him say mass ? jones . no my lord. l. ch. j. call margaret edwards again . margaret edwards , did mary jones tell you that she heard mr. kerne say mass ? edwards . yes my lord. l. ch. j. now , mary jones , what say you ? did not you tell her that you heard the prisoner say mass ? jones . no , i am sure i did not , for i never heard the word before , nor do not know what it means . l. ch. j. the one witness says she did not name mass , for she did not understand what it was ; the other says she did , so they contradict one another in that . l. ch. j. mary jones , when did you see mr. kerne ? jones . seven or eight years ago . l. ch. j. where ? jones . at mr. somerset's at bollingham , he lived there half a year . l. ch. j. what did you see him do ? jones . one sunday morning i was busie a washing the rooms , and i saw several people follow him into the chamber . j. ch. j. did you see him do any thing ? jones . no , i heard him say somewhat aloud which i did not understand . l. ch. j. how neer were you to him ? jones . there was only a wall between . l. ch. j. did you ever see him give a wafer , marry , or christen ? jonss . no my lord , there was a child christned in the house . l. ch. j. who christned it ? jones . i cannot tell . there was no one there but my master and mistriss , mr. latchet and his wife , and mr. kerne : i was in the next room , and i heard words spoken by the voice of mr. kerne . l. ch. j. what can you say more ? jones . i wash'd a surplice . l. ch. j. whose was it , the prisoners ? jones . i cannot tell , because i did not see it on his back . p. how could you know a voice ? jones . very easily , there was but a wall between . p. was there no room between ? jones . no , there was not . l. ch. j. the woman speaks sensibly , if you have done asking questions , you had best call your witnesses . pris . call mr. hyet . l. ch. j. mr. hyet , you cannot be sworn , but you must speak the truth as much as if you were : well , what can you say ? hyet . i askt margaret edwards if she had been at mrs. monington's : she said she had ; i askt her if she knew mr. kerne ? she said she did not . l. ch. j. was she upon her oath when you askt her this ? hyet . no my lord. l. ch. j. have you any more witnesses ? pris . call mr. weston's maid . l. ch. j. what can you say ? west . m. i saw those two women talking together , and that woman instructed the other what she should say . l. ch. j. what say you to this ? edw. and jones . my lord , we did not . l. ch. j. look you , they both deny it on their oaths . l. ch. j. how often between the first time and the twenty ninth of may was twelvemonth , did you see mr. kerne ? edwards . twice or thrice in weobly . l. ch. j. what can you say for your self ? pris . my lord , i am very happy that i receive my tryal before your lordship . l. ch. j. come , setting aside your apologies , tell what you have to say ; if you have any more witnesses , call them . pris . my lord , here are several witnesses who will prove that that woman was never at mrs. monington's . l. ch. j. that 's very improbable ; but call whom you will. pris . my lord , here 's mrs. monington , the person she pretends shewed her up , will swear she never saw the woman in her life ; and upon my salvation i never saw either of them before . l. ch. j. mrs. monington , the law will not allow you to be sworn , but i presume that a person of your quality will speak the truth , as much as if you were upon your oath . do you know margaret edwards ? mrs. mon. my lord , i do not . l. ch. j. woman , tell mrs. monington from whom you came . edwards . i came from james harris of lempster . l. ch. j. mrs. monington , do you know james harris of lempster ? mrs. mon. my lord , i do not . l. ch. j. do you remember that about may was twelvemonth this woman came to you for physick for a woman that was sick ? mrs. mon. a great many people come to me on that errand , so that it is impossible for me to remember any particular person . l. ch. j. did you ever take up that woman to hear mass ? mrs. mon. that i am sure i did not , for i never took up any stranger in my life . l. ch. j. did mrs. mon. know you by face or by name ? edwards . i had been at the house several times , but this time i was carried up to mrs. monington by mary lewis her maid : mrs. monington told me that she was very glad that i was sent , for she said she would not give the man so just an account because he was a man. l. ch. j. mrs. mon. do you remember this ? mrs. mon. this is frequent . edwards . then she told me that i must put a plaister of diapalma to the womans back , and give her a drink of malt with raisins , &c. mrs. mon. as for the plaister , 't is possibly i may prescribe it , but the drink is no receipt of mine . edwards . my lord , the maid when i came in , was making a cheese in the dairy , and i askt for mrs. monington , and she told me she was within , and straightway brought me up to her : mrs. monington in a little time fell into discourse with me about religion ; and understanding what i was , desired me to go into the chamber with her . l. ch. j. what kind of chappel was it ? edwards . i will give an account of it as well as i can remember : when we came up stairs , we turn'd in at a door on the right hand the altar stood just before the door ; it was richly adorn'd , the altar-cloth was white , and a fine crucisix on the altar . mrs. mon. what were the cushions of ? edwards . as i remember they were needle-work . l. ch. j. what was the chappel adorn'd with ? edwards . with abundance of pictures : i think the window was on the left hand of the altar . mrs. mon. she has fail'd in the first description , for we go not off the stairs into the chappel , as she says ; neither is it adorn'd in the manner as she says it is , nor is there any needle-work . here is a maid that i deliver all my medicines to , that perhaps can give a better account whether this woman were at my house , than i can . l. ch. j. call the maid . you wait on mrs. monington , did you ever see that woman ? maid . no. l. ch. j. i 'll shew you how you shall remember her : she came to mrs. monington on the behalf of one harris's wife , and askt if she were within , and you carried her to your mistriss . edwards . my lord , i was there several times besides this , for i carried the child mr. thomas monington thither several times . l. ch. j. do you remember this ? mrs. mon. i do not remember that she ever brought the child to me , but another . edw. my lord , i always lay with him , and tended him , and carried him abroad . l. ch. j. if you have any thing more to say , speak . what say you for your self ? pris . i hope your lordship will summ up the evidence . l. ch. j. that i will : i will tell the jury all i can remember on both sides ; i will not shed innocent blood , neither will i help the guilty ; for i , by the duty of my place , am counsel for the prisoner in all things fit and legal . pris . i desire the statute may be read . l. ch. j. let it be read . what statute do you mean , that of 27 eliz ? pris . yes my lord. then the statute was read . pris . now gentlemen , i desire you to take into consideration whether my blood shall be drawn by the evidence of a woman , that says she saw me give a wafer ; or on that evidence of the other , who says she heard me read she knows not what through a wall : my lord , it is an oppression that statutes should be construed otherwise than they are intended . i hope my lord , that the statute will not take hold of a man for saying mass , for many say masses that are not in order . l. ch. j. it is one of the greatest evidence to prove a man to be a priest that can be , for we cannot think of bringing witnesses who saw you take orders : do any say mass but priests ? is it lawful for any one but a priest to say mass ? pris . that of bread and wine they do not , but the other they do . l. ch. j. do any bury or christen but priests ? pris . yes they do in extremis ; and , my lord , i do acknowledge that tread prayers sometimes , and sometimes others did it . and i desire your lordship and the jury will take notice , that i have taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy . l. ch. j. is that all you have to say ? pris . yes , my lord. l. ch. j. then gentlemen of the jury , the matter you are to try is , whether charles kerne the prisoner at the bar , be a popish priest : an englishman i suppose he does not deny himself to be ; the question is then if he be a romish priest ? if so , he is guilty of high treason by the statute of 27 of eliz. this was a law made for the preservation of the queen , for the preservation of our religion , and for the preservation of all protestants . the witnesses are margaret edwards and mary jones : margaret says , the first time that she saw the prisoner was at mr. wigmore's , who told her it was mr. kerne ; and she says that she hath seen him several times since ; twice or thrice at weobley , and the last time was the twenty ninth of may was twelvemonth at mrs. monington's , where she saw him deliver the wafer , which is the sacrament , to four persons that were there , but she her self did not receive it ; and then she gives you an account of the reason of her coming then to mrs. monington's , which was at the request of one harris whose wife was sick , to seek some remedy from mrs. monington for the sick woman : she tells you how the maid brought her up to her mistriss , how she acquainted her with her errand , what advice mrs. monington gave her for the sick woman , and how that mrs. monington understanding what religion she was of , took her into the chappel , whereof she gives you a description . 't is very probable she may go on such an errand , and yet mrs. monington not know her ; but mrs. monington cannot positively say , but believes she was never there : mr. kerne , i suppose , will not deny but that he who gives the wafer is a priest . pris . there is blessed bread which others may give . l. ch. j. when you give such bread , do you not say accipe corpus christi ? pris . we use no such words . ( but it appeared upon his own repeating of the latin words they used upon the giving the sacrament , that those were part of the words . ) l. ch. j. the prisoner made an offer to prove some disagreement between the witnesses ; 't is true , they did differ in some small things , as the saying the word mass , but from hence can no great matter be infer'd against the evidence ; so here is one positive evidence . there must indeed be two witnesses ; now the question will be about the second womans testimony : she says she knew mr. kerne about eight years ago , when she lived at mr. somersets , and that mr. kerne lived in the house about half a year : she tells you that she hath seen several persons come thither , and amongst the rest she says , that one sunday morning several persons came thither and went up with mr. kerne , and that she was so curious as to hearken , and did hear mr. kerne say something in an unknown tongue : kerne objects that she could not know it was his voice , but for that , i think men are easily distinguished by their voices , but that i must leave to your consideration . but now the main question will be , what it was she heard him say ? mr. kerne says that in times of straitness , persons that are not priests may read prayers , and so perhaps he may be then reading the collects . but then again : she says there was a child christned in the house , and no one there but mr. somerset and his wife , mr. latchet and his wife , and mr. kerne , to do it : she did not see him christen it , and 't is true likewise what he says , that in their church they allow others , as midwives , to christen in extremis ; not that he confesses he did christen . l. ch. j. call mary jones again . mary jones , was it a sickly child ? jones . no , my lord. l. ch. j. then that is answered : so that if you believe that he did christen the child , there are two witnesses against him : i must leave it with you as a tender point on both sides ; i would not shed innocent blood , neither would i willingly let a popish priest escape : there is one positive witness , and if you believe upon the womans hearing his voice , that he did say mass , or did christen , for i must confess she says she did not see him christen , then you must find him guilty : so i leave it to you upon the whole matter . the jury return'd and were call'd over . william barret , &c. cl. arr. goaler , set up charles kerne . gentlemen , are you agreed of your verdict ? jury . yes . cl. who shall say for you ? jury . the foreman . cl. look upon the prisoner : what say you , is charles kerne guilty of the high treason whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? foreman , not guilty . finis . there is lately printed the lord chief justice scroggs his speech , in the king's bench , the first day of this michaelmas term , 1679. occasioned by the many libellous pamphlets which are published against law , to the scandal of the government and publick justice . together with what was declared at the same time on the same occasion , in open court , by mr. justice jones , and mr. justice dolbin . sold by robert pawlett at the bible in chancery lane. by the king, a proclamation for the apprehending certain offenders therein named and for the better security of his majesty and his government from dangers arising from popish recusants england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1678 approx. 8 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32516 wing c3435 estc r35886 15566084 ocm 15566084 103852 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32516) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 103852) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1588:88) by the king, a proclamation for the apprehending certain offenders therein named and for the better security of his majesty and his government from dangers arising from popish recusants england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, christopher barker, thomas newcomb, and henry hills, ..., london : 1678. "given at the court at whitehall, the seventeenth day of november, in the thirtieth year of his majesties reign." reproduction of the original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng coniers, george, 1646-1711. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2008-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-10 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-12 john pas sampled and proofread 2008-12 john pas text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion by the king. a proclamation for the apprehending certain offenders therein named , and for the better security of his majesty and his government , from dangers arising from popish recusants . charles r. the kings most excellent majesty , upon the humble petition , and at the desire of the 〈◊〉 spiritual and temporal , and commons in parliament assembled , doth by this his royal ●tion straitly charge and command george conniers , _____ symonds , charles walsh , _____ le phaire , _____ prichard , and _____ biston , otherwise beeston , ( late servant to the lady bellasise ) who stand charged as persons guilty of the damnable and hellish plot for the destruction of the kings royal person , and the subversion of his government , and for the extirpation of the true protestant religion established by law within this his kingdom , and are fled from justice , so that they cannot at present be apprehended to be proceeded against according to law , that they and every of them do before the tenth day of december next ensuing , render themselves respectively to the lord chief justice of the kings bench , or to some other of the iustices of the same court , who are hereby commanded forthwith to commit the person or persons so rendring him or themselves , to his majesties gaol of newgate , there to remain in safe custody , in order to their trials for the facts aforesaid : and his majesty doth hereby give the said offenders to understand , that if they shall not render themselves as aforesaid , his majesty hath commanded that a bill shall be presented to his house of peers , to be passed into a law for attainting such of them of high treason , who shall not so render themselves . and his majesty doth also charge and command all and every lord-lieutenants , deputy lieutenants , iustices of the peace , sheriffs , constables , and other his majesties officers , and loyal subjects , that they and every of them do use their utmost endeavour for the apprehending of the said persons , and every of them , and for their imprisonment , and safe custody in manner aforesaid . and for the greater encouragement of such as shall discover and apprehend any of the said offenders , his majesty doth hereby graciously promise to any who shall discover and apprehend any of the said offenders , the reward of one hundred pounds , which shall be immediately paid to the person or persons who shall discover and apprehend , or cause to be apprehended , any of the said offenders , upon notice and proof thereof . and further , his majesty doth hereby strictly charge and command all constables , churchwardens , headboroughs , tythingmen , borsholders , and other parish-officers within this his kingdom of england , dominion of wales , and town of berwick upon tweed , that they and every of them do with all possible expedition make diligent search and enquiry in all houses within their respective parishes , hamlets and villages , and there take an exact account of the names and surnames of all such persons as are popish recusants , or reputed so to be , as well housholders as lodgers and servants , and every of them , and to make up a present list of the names and surnames , age and quality of all such persons being of the age of sixteen years or upwards , and forthwith to deliver such list to one of the iustices of the peace , dwelling in or near adjoyning to the place where such list shall be taken ; which said justice , and such other justice or iustices of the peace of the same county , city , liberty or place , who shall be made acquainted with such list , are hereby required to send for the said persons so listed , or such of them to whom by law the oaths of allegiance and supremacy may be tendred , and to tender to them and every of them the said oaths , and in case of a refusal to take the same , to require the said person so refusing , to enter into a recognizance with two or more sufficient securities , to appear at the next sessions of the peace for such county , city , liberty or place ; and in default of their entring into such recognizance , to commit them respectively to the common gaol , there to remain under safe custody until the next quarter sessions of the peace of the said county , city , liberty or place where such persons so refusing are to be proceeded against according to law ; his majesty hereby giving the said iustices to understand , that the better to enable them to tender the said oaths , his majesty hath commanded respective commissions to be issued under the great seal of england , directed to the several iustices of the peace of such counties , cities , liberties or places , to authorize and require them or any two of them to administer the said oaths accordingly . and moreover , his majesty doth hereby straitly charge and command all and every the said lord-lieutenants , deputy lieutenants , and iustices of the peace , that they and every of them do within their respective iurisdictions , proceéd without delay to disarm all such persons as shall so refuse to take the said oaths . and for the better effecting thereof , his majesty is graciously pleased to declare , that if any person shall discover any considerable quantity of the arms of any popish recusant , or person so reputed , he shall have as a reward for the same , the sum of ten pounds , the same to be paid unto him by the sheriff of the county or city where the same shall be done ; which said sum shall be allowed unto such sheriff upon his account in the exchequer . and lastly , his majesty doth hereby further charge and command all and every his officers of or belonging to any of his sea-ports , that they and every of them do take special care , and use their utmost diligence for the apprehending of all popish priests , and all other persons being his majesties subjects , whom they shall find any just cause to suspect to be popish recusants , coming into or going out of this realm , and to carry every such persons before some iustices of the peace , who are hereby required to tender to every of them the said oaths , and upon refusal thereof , to commit the person so refusing to the proper prison of that place , and to certifie their proceedings therein to his majesties privy council from time to time , that such further course may be taken for the safety of his majesty and his government , as to his majesties royal wisdom shall be thought fit . given at the court at whitehall , the seventeenth day of november , in the thirtieth year of his majesties reign . 1678. god save the king . london , printed by john bill , christopher barker , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1678. vituli labiorum. or, a thanksgiving sermon, in commemoration of our great deliverance from the horrid powder-plot, 1605 and also of gods merciful discovery of a bloody conspiracy against his majesties person, and the protestant religion, 1678. both intended by the papists. preached at st. peter's, exon, nov. 5. 1678. in prosecution whereof the churches persecutions, foreign and domestick, by the hands of popish votaries, ever since the reformation, are briefly recapitulated. their charge of novelty on our church and religion is retorted. the absurdity of many of their doctrines and principles, and how destructive unto civil government, is detected. by john reynolds, m.a. reynolds, john, d. 1693? 1678 approx. 59 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 18 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-05 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a57190 wing r1318 estc r219030 99830566 99830566 35019 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a57190) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 35019) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 2111:02) vituli labiorum. or, a thanksgiving sermon, in commemoration of our great deliverance from the horrid powder-plot, 1605 and also of gods merciful discovery of a bloody conspiracy against his majesties person, and the protestant religion, 1678. both intended by the papists. preached at st. peter's, exon, nov. 5. 1678. in prosecution whereof the churches persecutions, foreign and domestick, by the hands of popish votaries, ever since the reformation, are briefly recapitulated. their charge of novelty on our church and religion is retorted. the absurdity of many of their doctrines and principles, and how destructive unto civil government, is detected. by john reynolds, m.a. reynolds, john, d. 1693? [6], 29, [1] p. printed for tho. cockeril at the three leggs in the poultry: and walter dight bookseller in exceter, london : 1678. with marginal notes. caption title on p. 1: a thanksgiving sermon in commemoration of our deliverance from the powder-plot, and of the discovery of the late bloody conspiracy of the papists. reproduction of the original at the union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng gunpowder plot, 1605 -sermons -early works to 1800. popish plot, 1678 -sermons -early works to 1800. gunpowder plot -sermons -early works to 1800. popish plot -sermons -early works to 1800. 2003-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2004-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-02 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2004-02 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion vitvli labiorvm . or , a thanksgiving sermon , in commemoration of our great deliverance from the horrid powder-plot , 1605. and also of gods merciful discovery of a bloody conspiracy against his majesties person , and the protestant religion , 1678. both intended by the papists . preached at st. peter ' s , exon , nov. 5. 1678. in prosecution whereof the churches persecutions , foreign and domestick , by the hands of popish votaries , ever since the reformation , are briefly recapitulated . their charge of novelty on our church and religion is retorted . the absurdity of many of their doctrines and principles , and how destructive unto civil government , is detected . by iohn reynolds , m. a. london , printed for tho. cockeril at the three leggs in the poultry : and walter dight bookseller in exceter , 1678. to the right worshipful sir thomas carew , knight , judg of the sessions for the county of devon , and recorder of the city of exceter . honoured sir , no sooner could i make my thoughts to comply with the motion of publishing this sermon , ( which i presume for its seasonableness unto the present juncture of affairs , more than from any intrinsick worth therein , some that heard it were pleased favourably to estimate ) but it presently became the matter of a deliberation with my self , what could discourage me from hoping but that your worthy name might prove auspicious unto it , by lending it something of a credit to pass out into the world ? i foresaw nothing that could check my pleasing aims herein , but might arise either from the subject treated of in this discourse ; or from the person whose it was , and doth now present it unto your candid acceptance ; or from the defectiveness of the management and handling of it . as to the first of these , i did the more easily perswade my self , that it could not offend you to see and read in this sermon the deformities of a false religion in any degree exposed , who have your self zealously espoused , and are so good a friend unto the true and best religion in the world . a religion never sufficiently to be praised and commended for the certainty of its rule , which are those books of canonical scripture , of whose authority there was never any doubt in the church : for the compactedness of her fundamentals , determined and summed up in the apostles creed , explained in those others which are called the nicene and athanasian : for the simplicity of her sacraments , and all her administrations managed , in a language , and performed with that decent plainness as may be understood by all that are concerned in them : for the gravity and soundness of her ordination and ministry ; for the peaceableness of her tenets , in obedience to the magistrate ; for her conformity to the apostolick and primitive pattern in all things , so far as the looseness of this age will bear : for the undoubted assurance of finding salvation by its rules and precepts , if we continue in them and do them . these and the like are the lineaments of our and your religion , which cannot be displeasing unto you to assert , and therefore neither to oppugn the contrary . but neither , in the second place , could i suppose any disrespect unto the person , submitting those papers unto your candor , that should be able to create unto you any ill resentment of the sermon it self . in that what never had been , i could easily hope , must have a greater occasion than this to beget it . for indeed it is a pleasure to me to let the world to know , that under him who is the giver of every good and perfect gift , next unto the memory of my exeellent and worthy patron deceased , i owe most unto your care and providence , for the comfort and bene esse of my being and ministry in the place where i am : whereby you have buoyed me up above the necessity of depending upon the precarious benevolence of a people ; which i wish no good or honest minister were ever put to trust to . a good part of my books deservedly bear your honoured name upon them for their donor : the first and the most seasonable news-years gift i could possibly have received for the encouragement and assistance of my first studies in this your own dwelling-parish . you never yet denied me any request ( which notwithstanding have been very many ) that in consistency with your honour and power i durst move unto you : nor ever spared to take any pains ( which yet have been very great ) whereof the success in prospect hath promised fairly on my behalf . so sure hath been my happy interest in your ever valued respects , that i never found it hitherto checked with the least change of countenance or carriage . so noble and generous , that whereas anothers kindnesses would have necessitated a man to the study of an answerable gratification ; you have always taken my relation to you as your minister for so sufficient a supersedeas to such designs , that i have never apprehended any adventure more hazardous of yours , than only to attempt it . i cannot really admit any diminutive account of your goodness to my self , otherwise than by considering you in that larger sphere which god hath placed you in , as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , a common good to your country ; of which for me to say any thing , would be altogether unnecessary , forasmuch as there are every day so many mouths open to acknowledg it . there being therefore no room for the scruple of a personal prejudice : it remains in the third place , that only the defectiveness and blemishes of my speaking unto this subject , can render it unworthy of your acceptance : and as to this , i confess the charge ; and relye upon your known and experienced candor to excuse and lay your finger on the naevi of this discourse . indeed it is a small and a slight thing in it self , to have your name prefixt unto ; but yet it is not unusual for maps in single sheets to carry their dedication on their forehead . and as for the failances in the manner of handling it ; forasmuch as it is a time for every one of us to shew his zeal for his religion , the fear of smaller miscarriages that are frequently incident to zealous actings , will no more dispense with their total neglect , than it can warrantably prescind or supercede any other moral or religious duty , in that we cannot acquit our selves therein with an absolute perfection . hoping therefore that upon the removal of those bars first supposed , my way of access unto your favourable reception of these few pages is plain and open , i shall in gratitude for ( what i presume of ) your pleasing countenance reflecting on them , and all other signal pledges of your kindness , think my self now and ever obliged to pray , that the father of mercies would still make good the multiplied effects of his infinite love and goodness , for your temporal and eternal welfare . that the generation rising may by an hundred-fold recompence unto the hopeful branches of your family , all the good that your self have been the instrument of unto the generation shining ; and that he who is now your humble orator at the throne of grace , may never want the opportunity or power of approving himself to the last day of his life . st. thomas novemb. 13. 16●8 . sir , your most faithful and affectionate servant iohn reynolds . a thanksgiving sermon in commemoration of our deliverance from the powder-plot , and of the discovery of the late bloody conspiracy of the papists . psal. cxxix . 1 , 2. many a time have they afflicted me from my youth , may israel now say . 2. many a time have they afflicted me from my youth , yet they have not prevailed against me . baronius the great annalist for the church of rome , hath indeed made a very proud and lofty claim on the popes behalf , viz. that christ after his resurrection translated upon the popes both priesthood and kingdom . but by what a thin and faint argument doth he grasp at so large a jurisdiction ? namely , that this was signified , by that shadow of st. peter , whereby the sick were healed ; that the popes should always have the same power , which christ himself had , though never so far different from him in good life and manners ; because they should ever at least retain the shadow . but i pray what consequence is there from the shadow of st. peter , unto the shadow , and from thence unto the power of christ ? and that power likewise that should not serve to heal the sick as did st. peter's shadow , but to destroy kings and kingdoms ? for what other miraculous power have they made proof of this thousand years ? a cruel instance thereof we had in the conspiracy plotted against us this day seventy-three years ago , wherein the pope and his agents taking counsel with the prince of darkness , were agreed and sworn together , yea and approached within a few hours of accomplishing their hellish design , to blow up the king and royal family , the clergy , nobles , knights and burgesses in parliament ; the very confluence of all the glory , piety , learning , prudence and authority in the land , with one sulphureous blast . but because age and length of time generally brings with it the oblivion and forgetfulness of the most notable occurrences ; and that we experimentally find our irreligious age to be grown so remiss and negligent in the recognition and celebration of this once renowned deliverance : god is pleased from time to time to awaken and rub us up by suffering this bloody brood of the papacy to engage upon such like attempts afresh ; though ( to his only praise be it ascribed ) hitherto without accomplishing their wicked aims and purposes . such was the traiterous design wherewith we have been alarm'd this last month ; the consequents whereof , had it taken effect , i dread to think ! in respect of both which , and manifold other repeated occasions , our merciful god having so often preserved and shielded our princes and their kingdoms , our church and religion , from their implacable rage and fury ; good reason have we to make our hearts and spirits thankfully to accord with this psalm of praise , part of which you have heard read in the words of our text. many a time have they afflicted me from my youth , may israel now say ; many a time have they afflicted me from my youth , yet they have not prevailed against me . this is one of the fifteen psalms that is intituled a song of degrees , a song of ascensions or of heights , either to note the excellency of the song ; and without doubt much more sweet and captivating would these psalms appear unto us , if the nature and reason of the hebrew musick and poesie were better known unto us than it is : or a song of degrees , with respect unto the stairs or steps which by degrees went up into the house of the lord , whereon the singers should stand ; or in reference to the several stages of their coming from babylon . the design of the psalm is to recount the churches past troubles and deliverances , occasioned by some good success of affairs , in evading the hands of their enemies , then fresh in memory , many a time have they afflicted me from my youth , may israel now say . from my youth ] from the time of my being in egypt , from whence i came forth , when i grew up to be a church , or from my first constitution . the words do afford us three principal heads of discourse . first , here are the persecuting attempts of the enemies of religion against the israel of god , or against gods church , which we have twice delivered , either by way of poetical elegancy , or out of a zealous affection to the praise and glory of god in reciting it , or the better to express the malignity and spight of the enemies themselves : many a time have they afflicted me from my youth , &c. secondly , here is the frustration of those mischievous attempts against the church : yet they have not prevailed against me . thirdly , here is the churches bounden and thankful reflection on her afflictions , and the happy issue of them , suggested by the psalmist : may israel now say ; which stands in the middle between the churches persecutions and deliverances as respecting both ; the misery and the malice of the one excellently serving to enhanse the mercy and the value of the other . i. in the first of these generals we have again three branches . 1. here is the churches affliction or persecution by the hands of her enemies : they have afflicted me . 2. here is the frequency of the enemies inflicting trouble and persecution on the church : many a time have they afflicted me . 3. here is the earliness of the enemies spight and malice against the church of god , attempting to blast it in the bud : many a time have they afflicted me from my youth . 1. the first branch of this division shews us the ordinary case and state of the church of god , to be a state of affliction ; being to grapple with enemies , and that at first seeming with very great odds and disparity ; for thus you find the enemies of the church to be expressed in the plural number , they ; whereas the church it self is simply spoken of in the singular number , they have afflicted me. the iews while they inhabited canaan , the land of promise , how vastly were they out-numbred by their enemies that surrounded and compassed them on every side ? on the east they had the moabites , ammonites , assyrians , and chaldeans ; on the west the philistines ; on the north the syrians ; on the south the arabians and egyptians ; and these were all alike maliciously bent against them . compare but the popish and the protestant interest in the world , how few are the protestant kingdoms and territories in comparison of those large dominions which do strike sail to the see of rome ? and even amongst those who sculk under the name of protestants , how few are there who would adventure any thing in a critical time upon that profession , which in a calmer state of things they are ready to protest unto ? now from these their numerous enemies what can the church of god expect but affliction and trouble ? either , 1. by open force ; as cain did furiously imbrue his hands in his brothers blood , and so christened the church with her first martydom . or as pagans and infidels in the primitives times of christianity , when they could not tell where else to lay the charge of their publick calamities ; that which was presently uppermost with them , was christianos ad leones , away with the christians , let them be thrown to the lions . and 't is hard to say in those first ten persecutions , which had less remorse or more barbarity with them , either the beasts themselves unto which the christians were frequently condemned ; or their unjust persecutors , who did sentence them unto such kind of violent torments . 't is most probable that st. paul's fighting with beasts at ephesus is to be understood de hominibus ferinis , concerning those who had the nature of savage beasts in the shape of men . and we frequently find up and down the scripture , such kind of unrelenting blood-thirty persons metaphorically called strong bulls of bashan , leopards , leviathans , and what not ? the papists in their intended powder-plot had conspired to act such a part , that would have convicted them to have been more unnatural than the very wild beasts of the desart . for to make this work of darkness sure , they were content to have blown up some of their own friends , which they must have done to bring it to pass . like cursed herod , who is said to have murdered his own son among the infants of bethlehem , because he would be sure not to miss of the new-born king of the iews . 2. but if the enemies of gods church cannot bring to pass their spightful purposes against it by open force , then they fall to work by subtile close undermining practises ; sometimes by their sophistical insinuations perverting the church in point of sound doctrine , or soiling the churches purity ; and surely this is enmity destructive enough . thus the first council of nice had an arrius to find work for then ; the first council of constantinople had a macedonius , if possible , to instill poyson into them . the council of calcedon had an eutiches to go about to deprave them . chrysostome had the manichees , and st. augustine had a pelagius his * cotemporary to deal with them . sometimes the enemies of gods church subtilly compact the loose pieces of some pernicious enterprize against her , by matching great relations and interests with those that are of principal note and renown in the church ; facile is exambit filiam qui matrem habet propitiam . thus our ecclesiastical history telleth us of valens the emperour , when he , first took upon him the empire he was an orthodox professor , a man well-furnished and accomplished with the principles of apostolical doctrine ; but being once married to an arrian lady , she soon acted the part towards him , that eve did unto adam , insnaring and captivating him to the same heresie ; insomuch that he afterward became a most bloody persecuter of the orthodox church of christ. but besides this of making affinity with some of the churches worthy patriots , they can otherwise slily pretend themselves her friends for a time ; hanging out false colours till they see their own opportunity to change the scene . after this manner came many of the scribes and pharisees , and lawyers to our saviour , like so many devils in samuel's mantle , silvering their viperous tongues with fair language ; but in the mean time the odious device of their hearts was how to entrap him in his words . such there were who crept into the church under the benign aspect of constantine the great , hypocritically putting on the christian name , though they were nothing such . another such race of these two-faced men we have ezra 4. who delighted in the ruins of the temple , and fretted with indignation of heart against zerubabels endeavours to rebuild it ; and to the end that they might effectually hinder the work , they subdolously offer their service to promote it , let us build with you , for we seek your god as ye do . thus as in the building of solomon's temple , all things were before hand so framed and fitted in mount lebanon , that not so much as the sound of an axe or hammer was heard in ierusalem , when it came to be erected : so on the other hand , those desperate destroyers of the temples of the living god , have their hidden ways of executing their purposes , without being obstreperous to an open discovery till the blow be given . they work in the fire with erostratus , but it is a fire like that of hell , that yields no light before it blow up and consume . neither is it to be wondered that our popish incendiaries are so expert this way , forasmuch as they dare wholly mancipate and sell themselves to the devil , for the compassing of their horrid ends . even of the popes themselves some have reckoned up a catalogue of twenty four , others more , who have been practitioners or masters rather of the black art ; as if they had resolved upon this for their principle , that if god will not help , the devil shall . how much of the devil was in the conspiracy of this fifth of november ! as if from the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone , this master of the damned crew had opened a running spring of fire and brimstone in the hearts of those traytors . and as for the jesuitical conspiracy which is the matter of our present heart-aking , and which deservedly checks our rejoycings with trembling , what the just depth and extent thereof was , and might have proved , must be the business of many months further search and discovery , if as yet through the great mercy of our god , it may be happily frustrated . the ground of all those troubles and afflictions under which the church of god labours by the hands of her enemies is the contrariety of temper and spirit between them , the antipathy sown in the natures of the seed of the woman , and of the seed of the serpent towards each other ; in respect of which they can no more be reconciled than light and darkness . and this is very much fomented and stirred up on the one hand by the devil , in order to the enlargement of his kingdom : and yet on the other hand doth god see fit to permit it as most congruously suiting with the militant state of his church here on earth ; unalterably forewarning us to expect that through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of god , act. 14. 22. this hath been the common lot of the church militant from time to time , elijah-like to be always ascending to god in its own flames ; taking up her cross to follow christ , and to become conformable to her head ; hereby also approving her integrity unto god and the world : for the real saint would not be distinguishable from the false and rotten hypocrite , at least unto the eye of the world , did not a tempest of persecution sometimes arise and blow off the hypocrites mask . besides , the church of god never gains more assured proofs of gods power and providence over her , than when the exigency and necessity of her condition drives her to lay hold on him . as the stars shine brightest in the night , so in the blackest night of the churches troubles and adversities kind heaven opens so many the more eyes to watch over her and guard her . in respect of those spiritual and blessed ends and advantage of the griefs and troubles of the church we may well say with st. augustine , infaelix ecclesiae faelicitas , the outward felicity and prosperity of the church would be one of her greatest infelicities , as that which would rob her of much of her best interest . and yet this will not in the least excuse or extenuate the crying guilt of those who are the instruments of the churches persecution and bloodshed . no , let them look to it , if the fire of persecution be permitted to try the gold , surely the fire of hell it self shall burn up the dross . if the green tree that hath both his sap and fruit may sometimes be roughly shaken with a violent storm , what shall be done in the dry ? if the saints must drink of the bitter cup of affliction , surely the unjust tormenters of the saints may expect a cup of the wine of astonishment , and that they should have the dregs thereof wrung out unto them : yea that this cup should be compounded with so many the more bitter ingredients of wrath , by how much the oftner they have afflicted gods israel . which brings us to the second branch . 2. and that is the frequency of the enemies inflicting trouble and persecution on the church : many a time have they afflicted me . we are to look for afflictions and troubles as familiarly as for our bread : for as we are taught to pray for our daily bread , so we are taught to buckle to our daily cross too , luk. 9. 23. had our reformed church of england no other enemies in hell , or upon earth besides the papacy , their incessant rage , like a fiery aetna continually belching out new flames , and smothering exhalations out of its bowels against us , were enough to warrant our ingeminated moans and complaints unto god and man with a many , many a time have they afflicted me . did they ever forbear to strike when they had their opportunity ? not to trace their bloody footsteps in foreign countries , in their butcheries committed upon the poor waldenses , whom they so hotly pursued for many years together with fire and sword , and all kinds of hostility , as that they reduced them to their master 's own forelorn case , not to have any corner or hole in the whole world granted them where to lay their heads . not to mention how many thousands have been swallowed up in that gulf of cruelty , that hell upon earth , the inquisition . to say nothing of the outragious inhumanity of the duke of alva in the netherlands . nor with what prodigious massacres the protestants have been surprized in germany , paris , lyons , piedmont , and many other places ; what criticisms of cruelty have been invented and exercised , and all upon the quarrel of the reformed religion . i say , not to lead you any farther by the way of this red sea ; let us a little consider what tragedies have been acted , and what desolations threatened and endeavoured by the same sort of men nearer home in our own israel . no sooner had king henry the eighth allowed the bible to be read in english , and enjoined the lords prayer , the decalogue , and the articles of the christian faith to be translated into english , and taught the people ; but as if those things had had the force and power of a conjuration to raise evil spirits by , presently hereupon the monks in lincolnshire blow the trumpet to rebellion . insurrections are made in divers other parts of the nation , to the number of twenty thousand , and forty thousand in bodies ; no less than six or seven such swelling waves of the multitude fell in , one upon the neck of another , enough to have utterly ingulphed and swallowed up the little ark of gods church amongst us , had not the heavenly pylot lent it his steerage . in the reign of king edward the sixth , the religious iosiah of our israel , besides the rebellion that brake out in several other counties , instigated by popish priests and friers , for the setting up of their fond idol of the mass again ; this very city hath a reckoning with the papists not yet fully satisfied for , for the long distress of siege and famine by arundel and his confederates , wherein besides the eating of horse-flesh , the inhabitants were forced to make bread of coarse bran moulded in rags or clothes , because it would not otherwise knead together , as our chronicles report . the reign of queen mary was such a continued bonefire , not of dead mens bones as were the bonefires of old , but of living saints and protestants , that one would think the memory of her flames should still enkindle and heat our spirits with indignation against the name of popery . for in her short reign ( the shortest of any since william the conquerour , except that of richard the tyrant ) no less than two hundred seventy-seven , suffered martyrdom upon the cause of religion . in the reign of queen elizabeth pope pius the fifth excommunicated the queen , absolved her subjects from their allegiance , and oath of fidelity , and gave away her kingdoms unto the spaniard . in pursuance of which high-way title , that which they called the invincible armada was set out with the popes benediction to invade this poor nation . at which time they boasted that they would carry away our land in turfs ; an arrogant flaunt ! much like that of benhadad , and followed with much alike success and event , who swore ( 1 king. 20. 10. ) that the dust of samaria should not suffice for handfuls for all the people that were to follow him . almost innumerable other were the plots attempted against her state and person by popish votaries and adherents . in king iames his reign the conspiracy of the gun-powder villany will be enough to brand the damned principles of this kind of men with everlasting odium and infamy , in the account of all true gospellers . if religion can produce or hallow such hideous projects , one may certainly expect religion among devils . in the reign of king charles the first , who but this miscreant brood contrived and acted the massacre in ireland , wherein about three hundred thousand were starved , pined , and murthered . and without doubt although men of other professions too shamefully imbrued their hands in the execrable murther of king charles the first , yet the iesuits and other papists also needed more than a sprinkling to clear them from being partakers in that crying guilt . neither do i question but that the unhappy toleration was an egg of their laying ; and that these furies spit forth the sparks that fired the famous city of london ; and turned it into a kind of dismal colepit . although but one french papist were at that time executed upon that tremendous occasion , yet perhaps more of them may be raked out of their dark cells by the search that is and will be made after the complotters of this new grand treason and massacre ; which is yet but in the dawn of a perfect and full discovery . and here we have matter of horror and astonishment unto every soul amongst us ! who can tell what an universal sweeping calamity the forcing open of one principal sluce would have let in upon us ? what , more murdering of kings yet ! nay then pray we with pious mr. herbert , god help poor kings . we this day find new argument to excite us to pray for the life of the king , as the primitive christians were wont in their ordinary liturgy to pray pro morâ finis ; namely , that it would please god to defer the end or fall of the roman empire , thereby to put off the lamentable times of antichrist from their days , very well apprehending the apostles meaning in 2 thess. 2. that that wicked one could not be revealed until the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , that which withholdeth or letteth were taken out of the way : and what that was which letted , the apostle durst not speak out , for fear of incurring the rage of the romans on their new planted churches ; but the thing that letted was the roman empire , the decay of which the apostle foresaw , and that antichrist would build up himself upon the ruins of it . accordingly , when the empire came to be broken into various kingdoms , by the coming down of the northern nations , and by other intestine occasions ; then did the pope with all his creatures invade the vacant seat of the empire . now whether or no we have not a like parity of reason , earnestly to pray pro vitâ regis , that they had to stir them up to pray pro morâ finis , i leave to your selves to judg . and thus having shewed you the frequency of babylon's troubling or afflicting zion ; i am sensible that i have herein somewhat anticipated my self in the third branch . 3. branch of this part of my text , and that is the earliness of the enemies spite and malice against the church or israel of god : many a time have they afflicted me from my youth . yea , this is their sagacity and wicked policy to take the first advantages , and if it were possible , not to suffer the church to grow up to strength and stature , but to oppress and crush it betimes , while it is tender and least able to resist . this was the merciless policy of pharoah and the egyptians to drown the hebrew children as soon as the tender midwifes hand had received them into the world : to doom them to die in water as soon as they began to breath in air. this was the bloody subtilty of herod , to cut off him that was born king of the iews ( if he could ) as soon as the very name of him began to be noised . and this was the vigilant policy of the grand professor of all such destructive arts , revel . 12. 4. the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered , for to devour her child as soon as it was born . oh , how implacable is the malice of the churches enemies ! that although the church could not be supposed to do any thing to exasperate and provoke them in its early minority and youth , yet unprovoked they have afflicted me from my youth . what , could nothing of her youthful prettinesses and beauties charm their pitiless adamantine hearts to spare the church in this her so pleasant age ? no , not infancy or tenderness , not innocency or causelesness ; nor all her insinuating excellencies besides are able to make an oratory perswasive enough unto the enemies of the church for one drop of compassion , but notwithstanding all this , have they many times afflicted me from my youth . what meekness so great that can forbear at least to chide with this kind of ruffian adversaries ? o daughter of babylon , happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us . happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones , psal. 137. 8 , 9. object . but what , shall we yield our popish enemies so great an advantage to acknowledg that our church is so young and so late a thing ? that our protestant religion is but of yesterday ? our supposed novelty is that which they do incessantly charge us with : sarcastically demanding of us , where was your religion before luther . sol. no , no , with respect to our adversaries of rome , we say , many a time have they afflicted us from our youth ; not meaning the youth of our church , but only from the youth of our reformation . and in answer to the question , where our religion was before luther ? we boldly affirm , where-ever the christian religion was imbraced , and the holy scriptures were received , there was our religion . and as it bears the denomination of the reformed religion , although luther were a very happy instrument in the reformation ( the meanness of the person so much the more commending the power of god that accompanied the work ) yet there were clouds of witnesses in all ages of the lapsed state of rome that bare testimony against that spreading canker of her corruptions , before luther was in being . our own king edward the first , four hundred years ago in session of parliament , under the subscription of the peers , utterly renounced the popes supreme authority . no less man than lewis the twelfth of france , in defiance of the pope , coyned money with this inscription , perdam babylonem , i will destroy babylon ; several years before luther began to stir . but suppose we date the beginning of the reformation from the rise of luther's name in the christian world , which was in 1517 , may we not retort their question , where was your religion before luther , with another more significant ? where was your popish religion before the council of trent ? which commenced not till at least six or seven and twenty years after luther entred upon the reformation : until which council there was never such a body of popish doctrines or heresies intirely and professedly owned and received in the world , as now there is . for that council of trent decreeing many things to be points of faith which were not so accounted before , hath made no small distraction among the papists themselves . before this time we can calculate unto them out of the best historians , when and how their several heretical innovations and idolatrous abuses crept in . the popes usurped supremacy took place in boniface the third , which was above six hundred years after christ , though gregory the next immediate pope save one before him , earnestly declared against iohn of constantinople , that whosoever should claim to himself the title of universal bishop was the immediate forerunner of antichrist : and urgeth this good argument against it , if there be one called universal bishop , then must the universal church go to the ground , if he which is universal happen to fall . before these times , instead of the blasphemous titles of your holiness in the abstract ; the most great and excellent god on earth ; the invincible monarch of the christian commonwealth , &c. the popes were then content with the sober stile of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , your gravity . the setting up of unwritten traditions in equality with the sacred oracles , as it were the bringing of another trojan horse into the place of our palladium , the word of god , came to be ratified in the seventh age. the use of images in churches grew up into an occasion of idolatry about the same time ; although the first suggestion thereunto was only by a pictured table of some of the chief of the fathers that assisted in the sixth general council , hung up in the porch of st. sophia in constantinople . both the name and doctrine of transubstantiation was no earlier broached than in that laterane council that convened in the year 1215. and how well ( think you ) did bernard the dominican believe this doctrine of transubstantiation ( and the popes legate that instigated him thereunto ) who about the year 1309 poysoned the emperour henry the seventh with the consecrated host ? or the sub-deacon that poysoned victor the third in the chalice ? or hildebrand , alias gregory the seventh , that threw the consecrated host into the fire , because it answered not his demands ( as the heathen gods did ) concerning his success against the emperour ? i could further open this pack , and shew you much more of the same stuff : but these are instances enough without an induction of more particulars , to warrant our inference from thence , that the popish charge of novelty on us is justly to be recriminated upon themselves . and as for the antiquity of our religion , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , we appeal unto the holy gospel , and the four first general councils . but so much for the prejudice and the spite of israels enemies against her , even from her youth . i must forthwith betake my self unto the second principal part of the division of my text : and that is , ii. the frustration of the churches enemies in their mischievous attempts against her : yet they have not prevailed against me . whatsoever probability of success may appear for a while on the adversaries part , there shall be no final or total prevailing against the church . haman for a while seemed to be in a fair way to have prevailed against all the iews , when he had the letters of execution sealed with the broad-seal , and posts sent forth ; whereas in the mean time he was but twining a rope for his own neck . the enemies confidences and insultings may grow high , but such kind of heights can serve for no other purpose , than like the silver and golden precipices , which the emperour heliogabalus devised and would have prepared for himself , to make his ruin to be the more observed and taken notice of . sennacherib may boast that with the sole of his feet he would dry up the rivers of the besieged places ; but god was able to make the hearts of his soldiers as water to fill up the channels . god disappointed the devices of the crafty , so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise . he taketh the wise in their own craftiness , and infatuates their counsels when they are carried headlong in a bad cause : he makes them to lose themselves in the labyrinths of their own wily brains ; and their crafty policies so intricately woven , serve oftentimes but as a key of many wards to open the chambers of death unto themselves : as is famous in his rendring this days conspiracy fatal unto its own authors . on the other hand , on the behalf of those whom god undertakes to protect and shield ; he hath infinitely more ways and methods in the course of his wise providence to secure and preserve them , than their most deadly lurking enemies can find how to hurt and injure them . gods israel have the captain of salvation on their side , the lord jesus christ who so leads on the army of saints against their enemies , as that you may be sure he will bring them honourably off again . we have in him not only the vertue of his death and resurrection , but also the benefit of his intercession , supplying us with invincible strength to overcome our enemies ; we have with him also legions of powerful angels to fence and guard us , one of whom in one night smote in the camp of the assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand . so that whatsoever enemies think effectually to prevail against the israel or church of god , must first make account to cancel all the promises that are given for israels security ; he must first overcome god himself , his power , his wisdom , and all his other attributes concerned for his people ; he must subdue the captain of our salvation , storm heaven , and put all the glorious host of those guardians of the saints there to the rout , before he can perfectly and fully prevail against gods israel . bravely therefore doth the prophet in an ironical apostrophe upbraid the enemies of ierusalem upon this very consideration , isa. 8. 9 , 10. associate your selves , o ye people , and ye shall be broken in pieces ; and give car all ye of far countries , gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces . gird your selves and you shall be broken in pieces . take counsel together and it shall come to nought ; speak the word , and it shall not stand , for god is with us . yet here i must caution you , that you do not imagine by what hath been said , that you have any absolute security given unto any particular churches but that they may be prevailed against . this attestation of gods providence for israels safety in the text , and that other promise of our saviour in mat. 16. 18. vpon this rock i will build my church , and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it ; are to be understood to speak of the church universim , and not partitim , any farther than particular churches do still stand firm upon the rock of sound faith , and a good christian life , on which christ hath founded the whole . we know particular churches have been broken off , as that of ierusalem , corinth , the seven churches of asia , &c. and yet christ hath still his church in the world , and will have till time shall have an end . as for the church of rome it self , it was long since forewarned ( though she take but little notice of it ) that she should not be high-minded but fear , lest she her self were cut off after the severe example of the iews before her , rom. 11. 20 , 21 , 22. nay , the words sound like a clap of thunder , otherwise thou also shalt be cut off . undoubtedly god might have cut off this church of england with the cursed powder-plot , or with the dreadful stroke which was intended us in this new forged conspiracy , and yet have been justified in so doing : especially considering how highly we have provoked him thereunto , by the prophane and customary neglect of most of the duties of religion , and divine worship among the general sort of men ; by the uncharitable factions and divisions of others , by the loose drunkenness and the loud swearing ; by the gross whoredoms and uncleanness ; by the universal lukewarmness that is amongst us . but perhaps god foresaw that our ruin had been a mortal wound to the protestant religion throughout christendom , or might have set the whole true church of god in the world a-bleeding , in such an hopeless manner , as would not have been easily stanched again : and so considering his church amongst us as so main a part of the true catholick body , perhaps god hath spared and delivered us who were a part in faithfulness to the whole . iii. and now let me obtain a little of your patience for the third thing remarked in my text , and that is the churches thankful reflexion on her afflictions and the happy issue of them , suggested by the psalmist , let israel now say . just the same triumphing epenthesis in the midst of a sense , that we find psal. 124. 1 , 2. if it had not been the lord who was on our side , now may israel say : if it had not been the lord , who was on our side , when men rose up against us : then they had swallowed us up quick , &c. let israel now especially say and glory hereof , in that the lord hath been pleased to warm our hearts a-new , with the fresh sense of a discovery , perhaps of little less moment than that which this day commemorates unto us . let israel now say , yea and as our psalmist descants upon it , let us say it over again and again , many , many a time have they afflicted me , yet they have not prevailed against me . you come home to the very heart of god by a grateful acknowledgment of his mercies ; you set him up a new pearl in his crown ; for thus we sometimes find god himself , as it were , decking his name with new titles , taken from the mercies and deliverances which he hath wrought for his people , i am the lord thy god which brought thee out of the land of egypt , out of the house of bondage ; and the lord which brought up , and which led the seed of the house of israel , out of the north-country , and the like . in psal. 22. 3. he is elegantly said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inhabiting the praises of israel , that is either dwelling in and among the tribes of israel who celebrated his praises , or inhabiting the place , the tabernacle , the ark , whither they brought and rendred his praises to him . but why inhabiting the praises of israel ? were there not many other sorts of offerings which the devotion of israel prescribed him besides praises ? yes , but praises carry the garland from them all , because he should not so soon be dislodged out of them , but should longer inhabit praises than any legal services whatsoever : according to that saying amongst their iewish writers , that every corban or sacrifice should cease , but that the sacrifice of praise . therefore with all the most signal praises , let israel now say , and say aloud too , that , if possible , the eccho of our rejoycings might carry terrour and trouble over all their papal monarchy , that although they have many times afflicted us , yet they have not prevailed against us . can you do less in zeal for your religion , than celebrate the praises of god for the preservation of it ? especially when the safety of your persons , your lives , and all that is near and dear unto you is concerned equally with your religion ? but unto you that are in authority above others , i humbly remonstrate , doth not the blood of that worthy knight , and justice of the peace , sir edmundbury godfrey , unto whose title we may now superadd the martyr ( a thousand times more deservedly than the romish party do canonize for martyrs , garnet , winter , digby , and other instruments of the powder-plot ) , i say , doth not his blood cry loud enough , to rouse and awaken all your zeal , care , and courage against those catholick murderers ? are not his wounds so many mouths to bespeak you plain enough , that he hath but acted that part which you all must do , if you ever come to lye at their mercy ? i do believe indeed that this county of ▪ devon is as clean and free of this sort of locusts , as any one shire in england ; yet had this late conspiracy taken effect , you would have found by this time such numberless swarms of them filling the city , and the whole country about , as if the marian generation had risen out of the earth again . and had this come to pass , then instead of an opportunity to celebrate our deliverance from the treason of this fifth of november , it would have been accounted on the other hand , a new fifth of november's treason , only to dare call it such . we could not have adventured here to meet together , for the offering up our sacrifice of praise to god , without the danger of the galileans fate to have our blood mingled with our sacrifices ; and for you in special that wear the badg of magistracy on you , to have your scarlet-gowns dipt afresh in your own gore . now therefore to excite you to vigilancy , against the seeding of any of those evil tares amongst us , i shall only present you with two considerations : 1. the absurdity of their doctrines ( i mean their doctrines distinctive and characteristick of papists , as such ) even to common sense and reason , and much more to become matters of faith. for example , as to their doctrine of indulgences , which gave the first offence unto our reformers , what more ridiculous than to believe what the preachers of pope leo the tenth , published out of their pulpits ; that at the sound of the money , as it was cast into the bason , those souls whom they intended to buy out of purgatory , skipped and leaped for joy amidst the flames , and presently mounted out of purgatory ? what greater violence to reason than to believe their doctrine of infallibility ? place it where you will , either in their popes or in their councils ; of both which , there have been manifold instances of their contradicting and nullifying the acts of each other , and yet both must be held infallible . can you reconcile it unto any honest mind and understanding , that the common people should be able to serve god acceptably in a publick worship sealed up in an unknown tongue ? that doctrine of transubstantiation , what is it but an opium that stupefies all the senses of a man ? for a man must belye not only his own , but the senses of all the world besides , whereby we know bread to be bread , and wine to be wine , because we see it , and taste it , and feel it , before we can receive this gross tenet . what an unreasonable thing is it to have their not-written traditions imposed upon us for a rule of faith equally with the holy scriptures , and yet none of them in the mean time vouchsafe to inform us how many these traditions be ? or to be continually forging new articles of faith as indispensably necessary to salvation , and yet never tell us when there will be an end of coyning any more ? who that hath but well learnt his primer , or can turn to the second commandment there , can brook their worshipping of images ? the publick scandal of which is more than any one thing besides , to prejudice both iews and turks against their imbracing of the christian religion ; neither of whom can indure the use of images in their oratories or places of worship . as for the various measures of the taxes of the apostolical chancery , as they call them , where you may have dispensations and absolutions of all kinds , and which are no less commonly used amongst the popes brokers , then the books of customs and entries among merchants . what strange traffick is that by which the absolution of impoysonings , sacriledg , simony , fornication , adultery , incest , nay sodomy , brutality , and other the most horrible and enormous crimes are rated at a less price , than the least dispensation of eating of flesh on days forbidden by the pope . now if a man can utterly abdicate natural reason , let him give himself up to believe such strange incongruous lies . 2. my second consideration is the dangerousness of their principles unto civil government , and unto the peace of states and kingdoms ; such as are their dispensation with oaths , their allowance of breaking faith with those whom they are pleased falsly and abusively to call hereticks ; their excommunication of kings and princes , and then despoiling them of their kingdoms , and murdering their persons by any that can first come at them , if they refuse to own fealty to the pope , or are not obsequious to all his placita . tell them of giving unto caesar the things that are caesars , pope vrbane the sixth hath an excellent evasion for that , viz. that those words of christ , give unto caesar the things that are caesars , took place only till his ascension , but after his ascension they were of no moment , seeing that christ himself saith , ioh. 12. 32. if i be lifted up from the earth , i will draw all men unto me ; that is , all kings and kingdoms under the empire of the pope : whom he therefore concludeth to be king of kings , and lord of lords : thus abusing the sacred word of god , as if it were no better than a meer pasquil or burlesque . but may it be ever hoped that this proud apocalyptical beast will yield himself to be cicurated and tamed ? alas , his lofty claim of infallibility renders him too stubborn and untractable for that . yea , it hath long since been believed by many ; that so great is the pestilent infection of this chair of rome , that with the contagion thereof it instantly infected him , whosoever sat in it * . i conclude therefore unto you as luther , when in a great sickness he made his will , bequeathing his detestation of popery to his friends and pastors . or as the reverend dr. holland for twenty years together regius professor of divinity in oxford , when he went any journey , he is said to depart with this valediction unto the fellow of the colledg ( which is all i have to say ) commendo vos dilectioni dei & odio popatus & superstitionis : i commend you to the love of god , and to the hatred of popery and superstition . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a57190-e150 jam. 1. 17. notes for div a57190-e370 baron . annal. tom. 1. ann. 34. art. 275. ann. 57. art. 39. act. 5. 15. 1 cor. 15. 32. psal. 22. 12. dan. 7. 6. rev. 13. 2. isa. 27. 1. psal. 74. 14. baron . out of philo. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , &c. clem. alex. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . * dempsterus ex walfilda refert eodem die quo ille in angliâ natus , tenebras errorum toti mundo effudit , summum ecclesiae lumen augustinum in africâ emicuisse . theodor. hist. eccles. lib. 4. cap. 12. luk. 20. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , eus●o . de vitâ constantini , lib. 4. cap. 54. ezra 4. 2. hoc consilio ut illis intermixti personas inter se committerent , & ita opus interverterent . iun. in loc . nehem. 4. 11. prideaùx his introduct . to hist. in the fifth rank of aegyptian magicians . ●lectere si nequeo superos , &c. gen. 3. 15. act. 14. 22. luk. 23. 31. psal. 75. 8. 1 pet. 4. 17. luk. 9. 23. mat. 8. 20. sir rich. baker in k. edward 6. k. rich. 3. 1 king. 20. 10. in poem stiled church-musick . tertul. lib. apolog. advers . gentes . cap. 32. 2 thes. 2. 6 , 7. rev. 12. 4. psal. 137. 9. vid. philip. mornayi mysterium iniquitatis , in oppositionibus per totum lib. spondani epit. baron . an. 606. art. iii. ego fidenter dico , quisquis se universalem sacerdotem vocat , vel vocari desiderat , in elatione suâ antichristum praecurrit , quia superbiendo caeteris se preponit . greg. i. 6. epist. 30. so constantine saluted miltiades bishop of rome , as also chrestus bishop of syracuse . euseb. l. 10. c. 5. de progressu hujusce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , vid. morney . p. 292 , 293. lat . edit . carranzae summa concil . in concil . primo later . cap. 1. nicaenum , constantinopolitanum , ephesinum , chalcedonense . esih. 7. 9 , 10. 2 king. 19. 24. job 5. 12 , 13. heb. 2. 10. isa. 8. 9. 10. mat. 6. 18. grot. in loc . see also dr. hammond . rom. 11. 20 , 21 , 22. jer. 5. 7 , 8 , 9. rev. 3. 16. psal. 124. 1 , 2. exod. 20. 2. psal. 81. 10. jerem. 23. 8. psal. 22. 3. buxtorf . lexicon rabbin , in voce 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . an advertisement to magistrates . rev. 9. 3. luk. 13. 1. new survey of the turkish empire : tit. of their oratories . in lib. scripto per quendam ioh. de therano , sed jussu urbani pap. 6. joh. 12. 32. * as it did pius 2d , and paul the 4th . who before they were made popes were zealous reformers , but afterward all was forgotten . fuller in his life . reflections upon a paper intituled some reflections upon the e. of danby in relation to the murder of sir edmund-bury godfrey, in a letter to a friend. christian, edward. 1679 approx. 7 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a69741 wing c3937 estc r35573 15367496 ocm 15367496 103529 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a69741) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 103529) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1148:8) reflections upon a paper intituled some reflections upon the e. of danby in relation to the murder of sir edmund-bury godfrey, in a letter to a friend. christian, edward. 4 p. printed for freeman collins, london : 1679. caption title. signed: edw. christian. imprint from colophon. reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng leeds, thomas osborne, -duke of, 1631-1712. godfrey, edmund berry, -sir, 1621-1678. some reflections upon the earl of danby. popish plot, 1678. 2006-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-07 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 jonathan blaney sampled and proofread 2006-09 jonathan blaney text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion reflections upon a paper intituled , some reflections upon the e. of danby , in relation to the murder of sir edmund-bury godfrey . in a letter to a friend . sir , i will not stay much upon those reflections in relation to the earl of danby , because i doubt not but god will clear his lordships innocencie in due time , to the shame of his enemies , and to the exposing those , by whose insatiable malice his great worth and honour is calumniated to the parliament and kingdom . onely i hope no man can fail in his observation what sect of men his lordship is beholding to for their good-wills , who knew they must destroy not onely kings , but such ministers as his lordship , before they can compleat their bloudy reformations . for it is well known , not onely to me and others who have had the honour of serving that lord , but even to the worst of his enemies , who are acquainted with him , ( if they will confess truth ) that no man was ever a greater assertor of the church of england , ( which is the best bulwark against popery ) nor any man more constant both in his own devotions , and in the care of seeing them duely performed in his family ; so that i do not fear but god will reward him accordingly . a little time ( when men will but have patience to be truely informed ) will serve to wipe off such scandals from so eminent and so good a man : but one so inconsiderable as i am , may suffer under so foul and false an aspersion , if i should not vindicate my self against it ; besides that by the falsity of that part which concerns me , men will judge of the truth both of that , and the rest of those scandalous and false libels which are dispers'd every day , not onely against the earl of danby , but against the king himself and his government . the author of that fore-said libel would have done well , if he could have concealed his religion , as well as his name , that he might have got some little belief in the world : but although they be workers of darkness , i hope their works will at last , all come to light . and upon condition that j. b. the author would appear , and might be hanged in case he doth not prove what he says against mr. christian , ( whom he says took water with sir edmundbury godfrey at whitehall the day of his being murthered ) mr. christian will submit himself to that judgment which j. b. deserves , if either he , or any man else can prove mr. christian to be within threescore miles of london that day ; mr. christian being that very day , the whole day , and night following , at stamford in lincolnshire , as will be sufficiently testified . j. b. desires in gods name , that this may be examined ; but he must come in the devils name to prove it : and just such truths upon examination will be found , the earl of danby's having had any discourse with sir edmundbury godfrey in divers months before his death , and his being at the lady cokes chamber , either at two a clock , or any other time , ( although i have heard he did go through hambden-house , where the lady coke then lodged , about eleven of the clock that day ) nor was he seen after that hour at the earl of danby's house by any i can hear of , but the author j. b. with the same truth is the earl of danby said to have meetings with doctor tongue and oates at fox-hall ; and yet j. b. draws a great many conclusions from those things , being ( as he saith ) certain ; and takes upon him to abuse the house of commons , by saying , this is the true cause of their adhering to their votes . i must confess , that at first sight , i wondred to think how a man who designs like j. b. to be thought a good protestant , and concern'd for the safety of the kingdom , could make this relation consist , without blemish to the reputation of mr. bedlow , and mr. praunce , and others , by whose testimony so many were condemned and have suffered : but before i had read it half through , his design was as plain to destroy their evidence , and make that pass for nothing , as it was to blast the honour and reputation of the earl ; although he would fain seem to say something in their excuse , by making it worse , ( viz. ) that we must not altogether rely upon what the evidence say , because a great deal of it is by hear-say : which is to put a worthy character upon the judge and jury . i should believe this j. b. to be author also of that pretended paper , intituled , an answer to the objections against the earl of danby ; but ( to give him his due ) it is too silly , and would be thought to have some pitty and good nature in it : but i am confident , he is the author of the print intituled , a perfect catalogue of all the lords treasurers to this present year , with particular observations on thomas earl of danby , because of the falsity and malice it speaks against this earl ; and yet in spight of his teeth , he hath said more for him in calling him a great royallist , than he can do for some he has endeavoured to commend . and as to this lords gentility , as it is a great deal more antient than he would have it thought , ( although he allows it as long a date , as divers great men , and some lord treasurers can pretend to ) so his estate when made lord treasurer , was known to be better than any of the greater number of the lord treasurers for one hundred years before him have brought into the kings service ; although many of them have left their places with much greater estates than he hath done . as wickedness is ever put under the disguise of religion and piety , so j. b. ends his paper with very good prayers and thoughts , which i fear are least in his heart , ( viz ) that none will escape from gods vengeance , but such as from their souls love truth , and preserve their hearts from malice , and hands from seeking innocent blood. whatever j. b. thinks , i am intirely of that opinion : and that both he and they may repent , and turn to the truth , is the prayer of edw. christian . finis . london : printed for freeman collins , 1679. a supplement to the narrative in reply to the dulness and malice of two pretended answers to that pamphlet / written by e. settle. settle, elkanah, 1648-1724. 1683 approx. 92 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 11 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2006-02 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a59348 wing s2720 estc r37374 16412447 ocm 16412447 105379 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a59348) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 105379) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1158:18) a supplement to the narrative in reply to the dulness and malice of two pretended answers to that pamphlet / written by e. settle. settle, elkanah, 1648-1724. [2], 18 p. printed and sold by thomas graves for the author, london : 1683. reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng narrative. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2005-09 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-10 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-12 john latta sampled and proofread 2005-12 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-01 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a supplement to the narrative . in reply to the dulness and malice of two pretended answers to that pamphlet . written by e. settle . carmine dum tali sylvas animosque ferarum threicius vates & saxa sequentia traxit , ecce nurus ciconum — ovid. metam . london ; printed , and sold by thomas graves for the author . 1683. a supplement , &c. well , lord have mercy upon us ! what a crying sin is turning honest , and telling truth , to those red-letter'd saints the whiggs ? how many rogues , dogs , rascals and villains , has poor elkanah been call'd by them ( for they raile as loud as they pray ) and all alas , not for libelling the brother of a king , ( for that was his virtue ) but for doing ill and being sorry for it . how many reprobates , monsters , and what not , has his apostacy from that heavenly whig-gift of lying and scandal transform'd him to : whilst he raked up dirt , and falshood to throw in the face of princes , tho stoln from that sink of forgery the history of the black box , what honesty and oracles hung upon his lips ; and what an angel of light was such a protestant champion ! but from that minute , that accursed minute , that he speaks truth , and owns and repents of that malice that animated him , tho into the very unchristianity of revenge , what a falling lucifer have they made him ? besides , this is but the crime of his preface and post-script ; but oh for his narrative ! his lewd , his filthy , his abominable narrative . reprobate of reprobates , and monster of monsters , having no fear of god before his eyes , but led by the instigation of the devil , he has dasht their dear , their darling , their adored dagon to pieces ; and the disconsolate saints want power to joyn the poor stumps of it together again . but alas ! where reason cannot help them , railing and lying shall . and for an essay of that nature , we meet a harmless sucking devil of theirs coming abroad , call'd remarks upon e. settles narrative , an extraordinary piece for their dagons justification , being all billings-gate and no argument from the beginning to the end . that scurrilous sensless scribble that i should have answer'd with silence and disdain , had not the barbarous impudence of some intended personal reflections in it , a mass of as brazen-faced romance and forgery , as ever ink and letters brought forth , extorted this vindication from the rancour of abuse and villany . but truly there 's a great deal of cause for it . for where any thing comes in print a little too unanswerable for them , and they cannot make their attempt that way , the authors person must be attacqued , and an assault made upon his reputation is their old practised way , to baffle that reason they cannot otherwise overthrow ; whilst they write as they preach only to ignorance and fools , such as can be caught by empty noise , and charm'd by sounds . but before i convince the world , how notorious a lyer the remarker is in those rascally stories laid at poor elkanahs door . i shall endeavor to answer some few passages in his book , which to the unwary at first sight may look a little like sense , tho god wot , but a little indeed : he puts the narrative writer this question . p. 11 whether it were not more probable that the papists a people of debaucht and murderous principles , that bear no conscience towards hereticks , persecuted by poenal laws [ not when the plot was hatching sure ] should be induced out o● their hatred of the protestant religion , and for the advancement of ther own , to remove the obstacles of their freedom and happiness by the destruction of a heretick prince ; then that a few inconsiderable persons without any support or encouragement should dare to create such a horrid and bloody plot of their own heads , and then venture their lives by daring to justifye it to the face of king and parliament . now what a doubty question has this remarker made ; and what an oedipus must he be that answers it ? that the papists are those debaucht and murderous principled men i acknowledge ; but that their killing the king by those open day-light assassinations sworn in the plot , could have been an advancement of their religion , and a removing the obstacles to their freedom and happiness i utterly deny . for the bare-faced shooting the king by pickerings gun , by such a hand , at such a place , and in such a manner , as attested by the plot-swearers , had been so remote a way from advancing either the papists or their religion , that on the contrary it had been the direct means to have drawn down that vengeance upon their heads , from the hundred fold stronger protestant hands in england , as might have almost blotted them from the face of the earth . and as the narrative tells you , if that were the highest reach of an intrigue of a hundred years hatching , much good may do them with their politicks . but had the discoverers no support nor encouragement from making their discoveries , when from infamy jails and beggary they stept up to ten pounds a week maintenance , and the honor of whitehall lodgings , whitehall guards to attend them , with the pomp of bended knees and up lifted eyes from the adoring crowd , and the continued hosannas of all hayle the saviours of the nation . was it no encouragement for such a poor marshalsea bird as bedlox , newly releast from feeding on the basket , to leap at the kings proclamation of 500l for the discovery of sir edmond-bury godfreys murder ? and tho several unhappy unforseen discouragements have befaln them since ; yet , they are not so desperately unfortunate yet , but they have some friends left . the reverend dr. the despised at the profane : whitehall , is still honored by the sanctifyed citty brotherhood . a large house well furnisht , with servants , attendants , and all good things at command , and all to the son of a weaver with not one farthing worth of patrimony or preferment is a sign that providence has not quite forsaken him ? 't is true his disheartened plot has left him in a little wilderness at present . yet let me tell you ther 's a sort of birds of prey , your kind fat amsterdam buntings , that like elisha's ravens , take care to keep him well fed still . and the true blew protestant guinneys collected and raised for the late defeated city feast , were yet very honorably disposed of , and the rewarded dr. had a round lump of that corroborating gold to enliven his fainting spirits , and strengthen his true protestant zeal . for i assure you 't is but necessary ; for great and long causes require often feeing ; the clients must be bountiful to keep the advocates safely retain'd . and tho some people may lay poverty to his charge : to confute that error , the dr. i assure them , does not pinch himself into a jump for want of cloth enough to make it up into a gown . besides why must it follow ( suppose the plot a piece of subornation ) that those inconsiderable persons should create it of their own heads . what if the heads of some considerable tower jail birds should joyn with the inconsiderable marshalsea jail-birds for the production of it . 't is not the first time that quality and rascality have club'd together , and like the spurious off-spring of nilus , there goes some sun-beam not all mud to make up the monster . oh but the greatest and most damnable crime in the narrative is , it has ridiculed the whole popish plot , and consequently affronted the king lords and commons , that have so unanimously and so frequently asserted their belief of the popish plot. now to clear this imputation from the narrative and the author , he hereby declares , that no man in the world can pay a greater reverence to the king , or his parliaments then himself : but in the height of all that veneration due to heavns vicegerent , both from a subject and a christian , i must say that the king lords and commons together are but men , and as such not infallible . and inadvertency and surprize may sometimes deceive both kings and potentates . the king and his parliament have declared there was a plot against the kings life ; and yet they have decreed no penalty or punishment to him that says , that pickering was one of the worst gunners in christendom , and st. james's park the worst spot of ground for such an assassination . the plot discoverers have been credited by the king and parliament ; and yet if any man shall but assert what the discoverers swear , as sacred as their testimony has been , the law will lay him by the heels for it . for he that shall aver that wakeman was engaged to poyson the king , or kerney one of the four ruffians was hired to stab him , is lyable to be punisht for it ; for they have stood tryal , and been acquitted by law , and as such they have their action against him that asperses , and traduces the innocent . 't is true , i neither do , nor dare say that poor pickering and groves were innocent : and why because the law has pronounced them guilty . and yet i may safely say that had they had the good fortune to have lived a year and a half longer than they did , 't was not impossible nor unlikely they might have dyed in their beds , for all their screwed guns or silver bullets . besides without derogation to kings or their great councels , not only their votes have been several times humane and fraile ; but even their deliberate acts and statutes are not always gospel ? for instance king henry the 8th . and one of his parliaments made an act that illegitimated both mary and elizabeth his daughters ; and decreed a punishment for any man that should but assert their right to the crown , or so much as call them legitimate [ 28th of hen. 8th . ] and the same henry and another of his parliaments [ 35th of hen. 8th . ] legitimated them both again , by virtue of which legitimation they both successively wore the crown of england . and all this legally done by the king and the great councel of the nation . and yet in the case of legitimacy which relates to their birth and blood , which is unchangeable , either the pro or the con must be erroneous . and what if in our case , in the same nature , only vice versâ , the king lords and commons assembled in parliament anno 78 and 79 , should have declared the popish plot sworn by titus , bedlows , dugdale , france , dangerfield , duffy , murfey , macnamar , zeale , lewis &c. was legitimate , and the king lords and commons in another parliament in 83 , ( or when his majesty pleases ) should declare the aforesaid plot to be illegitimate , i know nothing to the contrary but it lyes in their breasts and pleasures to do it . but however elkanahs narrative has scurrilously and basely arraigned the justice , and judges of the nation : — and why so ! is there one passage through the whole book that says or hints that the popish conspirators had not their legal tryals ; and tho amongst so many hundred treasonable letters , commissions and what not , against them , their accusers produced nothing but hearty swearing for their conviction , yet do not the lord chief j. at whitebreads tryal say that 't is by the oaths of two witnesses that our lives and fortunes stand or fall . and does the narrative say or insinuate that they had not two or more witnesses whose oaths condemn'd them ; for which the jury brought them in guilty , and the judges according to their duties condemn'd them as such ; and how then is the justice or judges of the nation impeached , when on the contrary they were so far from dying unjustly , that they dyed even summo jure , by the highest justice in the kingdom . besides , suppose pickering was never engaged to pistol the king , and has yet dyed for it : so i have heard of some people that have been hang'd in chains for a murder , when the supposed murdered person has some years after been found alive , and all this while the judge and the unfortunate jury neither arraigned nor arraignable for their sentence or execution . who then has the narrative wronged , the kings evidence ? no. that 's impossible ; for to tell truth can wrong no body : and the narrative is so far from belying them , that it recites not one passage but is recorded from their own oaths . and why a recital of what is sworn in the plot should be a burlesquing of the plot i cannot understand . oh but telling truth , says the proverb , may sometimes do harm ; and in this case the whole book tho with never so much truth in it , tends to the lessening the discoverers testimony and a stifling the whole popish plot. now 't is true indeed , why should elkanah be such a cudden as to endeavor the stifling of the popish plot , when it saves him the labor , and stifles it self . the meteor wanted a body to last , and so the short liv'd exhalation has spent it self , and is expired . but for my part i pay such a profound respect to the plot , that i heartily wish that it may have that preheminence above all plots whatsoever , as to be the only more than phoenix of the kind , and be never equalled from the beginning to the end of the world ; and that it may find its just merit in deathless records , i de have it annexed to the history of amboyna , and when the turk comes farther into christendom , have it presented him to bind up with the alcoran . besides , i solemnly avow the plot was a good plot , especially whilst 't was hot and fresh ; and if it has been set by till 't is cold and stinks , 't is no fault of mine . i acknowledge the ingredients of the plot are rarities in their kind ; but if the plotters and discoverers between them , have unfortunately made a hotch potch instead of an oleo , and put them so fulsomly together till they nauseate , can i help it . if the swearers have contradicted each others testimony , and sometimes their own , is elkanah to answer for it . besides as the discoverers have sworn the jesuits to be the greatest rogues in the world through the whole popish plot , so elkanahs narrative has proved them through the whole plot to be the greatest ideots in the world. and pray what indignity is it to the honor of king lords and commons , or scandal to the justice of the nation to add one blot more to the scutcheon of a jesuit , and from a pack of knaves to make them a pack of fools too . if this be a crime , heaven mend all . i but elkanah is criticising upon dr. oats his commissions , and the innumerable invisible forreign thousands all ready for landing , upon the kings murder . however as chimerical as armyes of pilgrims may appear , and the rest of the popish battalias designd for the protestant destruction , the remarker gives you an assurance , that all those forreign forces are plainly demonstrated from colemans letters . what else means this signal passage , we have a mighty work upon our hands , the subduing of a pestilent heresy which has domineerd over great part of the northern world , a great while . there never was greater hopes of success , since the death of queen mary , till these our days . but the opposition we are like to meet with , is also like to be great , so that it imports us to get all the ayde and assistance we can . now can i find nothing so signal in this passage as so plainly to demonstrate the popish forces , sworn into the plot. i declare i have read over colemans papers , attentively , and time was if i could have found but the least hint of popish ruffians , popish poysons , popish screwd guns , or popish armies , either from spain , france , jago , messina , or any other popish country , in all his papers , the world should have had it through both ears . but since no such thing occurs in all his letters , give the devil his due the popedreaders of the world i am afraid , are mistaken in that garagantua of a conspiratour coleman . if this passage in his letters , to father le chese , was for calling in of french armies , how comes it we have no answer in all le chese's letters to coleman relateing to arms and men , or one proposition , how when or where his master the king of france was to land them if this ayde and assistance was meant for armies , and those to be landed , upon the king 's being kil'd , how happens it , there is not some relation too in the letters to the kings death . these conspirators wrote in cyphers and characters , and therefore i know no reason they had , but they might treat upon that subject too upon occasion ; especially when ( if you 'l beleive the popish plot ) they wrote so many hundred treasonable letters seen read and carryed by oats , bedlow , dugdale &c. and so many of them in such downright plain english treason . i , but say those sort of people that see thro milstones ; t 's evident that coleman burnt all his papers relateing to the more dangerous part of the plot ; for example we find his correspendence ending in the year 76 , and that of his two last years 77 and 78 was never found to this day , in that no doubt we should have had the 4 irish cut throats , wakemans poyson , connyers dagger , blundels fireballs , and all the mistery of pilgrims and black bills as apparently made out , as demonstration and record could manifest . now what a sort of credulous latitudinarians , can fear , and jealousy make men . because the papers found in colemans closet were not evidential enough to prove the kings murder and the protestants massacre , we must charge him with crimes of which there is not the least shadow to convict him of . for i appeal to any man of common sense ; wheither if coleman had continued his correspondence for the 2 following years , and it were true , that upon the breaking out of the plot he burnt those letters relating to that correspondence ; how comes it upon his searching his closet for some papers he did not burn all. he must needs be sensible that those very papers he left ( to a nation so jealous of popery as england , ) were enough to hang him , and as certainly life's dear , the same preservation that had prompted him to burn the one , had infallibly instructed him to burn the other . no ; as 't is plain he was surpriz'd , he had no time to secure any of his papers , and the want of the two last years correspondence , is a more evident signe , that the treaty was broken off , and that either the subduing the pestilent northern heresy , was given over as a work impossible ; or else that grand intriguer coleman had only dreind the french confessours and the rest of his brethrens pockets ( for money money thro all his letters is the great burden of the song ) and those wonderful promises of converting of nations and subduing of heresies , were all but ayr and rhodomontado ; till the poor cullyed bigots at last had found out the cheat , and so ended the commerse . but before i could finish my observations on the remarks a new whig champion starts up with an other pamphlet calld reflections on settles narrative . for that paw book sets them all upon the ferment , and blood and gall in the angry saints , let me tell you , boyle high . and therefore if rogue , rascal , villain , traytor , &c. fly at random , you must consider the nature of the beasts , and therefore excuse whatever grossness you meet , for the sordidness of their writings is so essential to their constitutions , that they cannot possibly auoy'd it . these two dead doing adversaryes being much of an equal prowess and their arguments and batteries much of the same strength , i shall not trouble my self to make two distinct replyes to them , but give you my sence of their best , though weake arguments promiscuously as discourse or occasion shall offer . this last antagonist falls vehement foul too upon the narrative for all the absurdityes ; incohecencyes , clashing of evidence , contradictions , improbabilitys , and impossibilitys found in the popish plot , and in page 7th gives you this universal salvo for all the blunders in the whole discovery . by mr. settles leave , rome , in the several attempts , it has made for the perversion reduction and apostacy of great brittain to the popish superstition and power , having been still frustrated , notwithstanding its designs were contrived with all the art and skill that humane witt , and devilish policy could suggest , and therefore having incurred the just resentment , and indignation of all those who have in detestation all its abominable practises ; i say , the frequent disappointments of their projects may be reasonably supposed to have made them use the precaution that in case they should agen prove abortive , and their machinations be detected , that they might nevertheless appear in such lights as to seem improbable to the world , and that , then let the issue be what it will , it must turn to their advantage ; since if the plot had taken effect , they had gain'd their main point . but the discover'd , and disappointed , yet the puzling circumstances , and the improbabilities of the means , as it might bring the reality of it into question , so it might also the truth of its former conspiracies , how manyfest soever . and they from thence have an occasion of retorting them as contrivances of their enemies , and by that means purge themselves of the scandal and odium which they had justly brought upon their church by such unchristian-like , nay inhumane undertakings . well ; never was nonsense more nonsensically defended . how far fetcht , and sophistical is this feeble crutch to help out the lameness and inconsistencies in the plot. if the reflecter had proved that the plottets had amuzed their agents such as bedlows dugdule oats &c. with interlarding shams with truth to invalidate and confound their discoveries upon any revolt from their cause , he had done some thing . but that 's apparently false , for they never doubted their truth , for instead of having their great april consult , subscribed by so many several mens hands , convey'd from chamber to chamber by any of their head conspirators , the very underling oats has that great trust imposed in him , and the invincible demonstration of the most monstrous design against the kings life , expresly in plain english , put into his power . besides all the treasonable papers daily trusted in oats , dugdale , and bedlows hands , upon the least falshood in the messengers , had put them past all hopes of bringing the reality of their present or former guilt and treasons into question . so that , ( tho truly i cannot make sense of what this huddle of words means , ) if the plot be true , rome was so far from being guilty of so much foresight as the reflecter gives it , that precaution is the least crime it has to answer for . thus far we have their confirmation of oats his truth and honor , and the reasonableness of the plot in general ; and now we shall give you their particular comments , on the narrative , at least those that so much as look like reflections , or arguments against it . the reflecter very heroically falls upon the first line of the narrative , viz. narrat . in the year 78. it pleased those powers that inspired them to raise up mr. oats , bedlows , dugdale , prance , &c. which says the reflecter , i must own i do not understand . what does mr. settle mean ? that it pleased those powers that inspired those powers ? that 's grammar indeed , but no sense ; but there 's neither grammar nor sense in these words , as mr. settle has set them down . you see reader , what an adversary settle is like to encounter by this first attaque he gives him . when a school-boy in the under form at westminster would tell him that [ them ] only relates to oats , bedlow , dugdale ; and to have made it that non-sense the reflecter intends it , viz. those powers that inspired those powers , it must have been those powers that inspired themselves . just such another remarkable correction he gives to elkanahs false grammar page 15. says elkanah , here the reader is desired to take notice of the most matchless example in mr. bedlow that ere he met with , to which replies the reflecter instead of [ they have met with ] if mr. settle will allow me to make it true grammar for him . now unless a fellow had studyed to print himself a block-head , nothing besides stupidity incorrigible could have made [ reader ] a plural number . this egregious stumble in the very first step into the narrative , and this strength of his syntax is a little ominous , and he shews you what a grammarian he is , to let you expect what a casuist you 'le find him too . and as he says he understands no better , t is very likely he tells you true , by the cudgels he takes up ; for indeed men of understanding begin to quit the whig cause so fast , that grammar and logick , and indeed common sense will go a great way amongst them . but first for the killing the king. after the reflecter has repeated the narratives comical description of pickcrings puissance in king killing , he says , now i appeal to mankind if they can find any thing of a jest in so sad and so serious a theme , an attempt the most execrable that was ever hatcht in hell , the very thought whereof , tho suppose it but a fiction , capable of creating a terror and trembling in the most unhumane barbarians . this is the first , and last time he is in the right . truly such a fiction , the most execrable indeed that was ever hatcht in hell , and the thought of so much infernal impudence and diabolical perjury that must attend that fiction on one side , and so much innocent loud tongued blood on the other side , is enough indeed to create a terror and trembling in barbarians and infidels . but settle tells you that the loosness and failure of pickerings gun in oats his narrative was in january as whitebread send word to st. omers , but at pickerings tryal expresly in march , being askt . sir ch. l. do you know any thing of pickerings doing pennance and for what ! oats , yes , my lord , in the month of march ( for these persons have followed the king several years ) but he at that time had not lookt to the flint of his pistol , but it was loose , and he durst not venture to give fire , he had a fair opportunity and because he mist it through his own negligence he underwont pennance , and had 20 strokes of discipline . upon this says settle . can any thing be more strange than that whitebread should send the st. omers fathers in january a perfect relation of a crime not committed till the march following . now ( hereupon says the reflecter ) i cannot for the heart of me see an elliotism in this whole matter ; for might not pickering commit the crime in january or before , and not suffer the pennance till march following : for the question is only to the doing pennance , and the answer is in march. now observe the damnable trecherous eye-sight of a whig , that always sees too little or too much . oats swears that pickering suffered pennance in march because he at that time had not lookt to the flint of his pistol , and yet the reflecter spight of the heart of him cannot see but that very that time must be january two months before . just such another fault spight of the heart of him cannot the remarker forbear seeing too . says settle . the reader is humbly desired not to be puzled to imagine how pickering should present a gun ( between a pistol and carbine , ) twice at the king , which one time for want of prime , and another time ( as bedlow swears ) by being charged with all bullets and no powder would not go off , and yet not be apprehended or so much as seen by any one of all the kings attendance , and that too in so publick a place as st. james's park , a place where there is not so much as a bramble or bryar , or any one covert throughout it enough to shrowd a pigmey , much less too man-slayers , excepting the osiers within the canal ( but those are moated round , and therefore inaccessible . ) to which the remarker by a certain old game call'd cross purposes makes answer . the devil 's in settle for putting shams upon the world. in the first place the oath does not affirm that pickering presented the gun , but that finding the defect of the flint he deferd the action till another time . besides he forgets that there was a very thick grove at the end of the pell-mell where his majesty might have made his unfortunate approaches . and the reflecter upon the same passage wisely observes , the traytor might sculk behind one of those great trees , between which , he might have used his hat or cloak or twenty other things , for the hindering a discovery . but settle with his brambles and bryars could not see wood for trees . that is to say , a couple of fellows with each of them a screwd-gun could shelter themselves in a grove without one branch of underwood , where the trees stand three or four yards asunder , and the largest of those trees have publick walks all round them , in a place too where no man is suffered to wander out of the common walk , but the very centries shall call him back . oh but they concealed their guns behind their hats cloaks or twenty other things . but surely when the gun miscarryed once for want of powder in the barrel and another time in the pan , was the gun under the hat , or the cloak ; or were the silver bullets to go through hat cloak trees and all ? but now for the massacre . the discoverers give you an account of commissions given out , an army to be raised ; and elkanahs narrative makes it apparent , that army could consist of none but papists , it being impossible as they had managed it , to have drawn in any other malecontents into the conspiracy . well , and where 's the wonder of all this says the reflecter , is it not possible to list a popish army in a protestant country without being discovered till they themselves think convenient , being tongue-tyed , awed , and spirited by superstition . oaths &c. all this granted , how will the reflecter reconcile that concession of his p. 19th . in which he yeilds that there were some of the papists in the old kings reign , ( some thousands he might have said ) that ventured their lives estates and freedoms in the royal cause ; for in the most barbarous nations ( continues he ) there are some persons found who are just , upright , honest and loyal . now if this popish army was listed in england , as the discoverers swear , the blow being ready for striking , i wonder how the conspirators did to single out and list only those disloyal papists fit for their turn , and not unluckily communicate their intended rebellion to so much as one man of those thousands of just , honest , upright , and loyal men of that religion , that consequently with all those good principles would not have fordorn to have detected the conspiracy . the papists were not gods , and 't is not a little miraculous that as but men , they should have that assurance of all the hands and hearts they trusted , as not to be mistaken even in one false brother through a whole army . besides the reflecter is very unlucky in this point , for as elkanah affirms , and the reflecter does not deny , that the papists by computation are not the 150th . part of the nation , and therefore in the heretick massacre one man must have kill'd near a brace of hundreds for his share , if as there are so many loyal men amongst the party that would have stood neuter at least , if not resisted them , the reflecter has unfortunately put them to the push of each mans killing at least twice as many , and the possibility of all this , the reflecter does not at all doubt , it being as feazable an archievement as the knaves of popeland ere contrived , or the fools of whigland ere believed . nay to make the motions of the jesuits a little more wondrous , bedlow swears before the house of lords , that the papists had an army of forty thousand strong all ready to rise in london at 24 hours warning , besides those that should have been posted at every ale-house door to have kill'd the soldiers as they come out of their quarters , and lord petre and powis were to have marcht with another english army through pembroke-shire : and yet as the devil and ill luck would have it , 't is undeniably manifest that all the papists in england are so far from forming so many terrible armies , that they are not 40000 in all , men , women and children through the whole kingdom . yet all this we are obliged to believe as true as the evangelists , and he that dares deny it , flies in the face of kings , lords and commons , and arraigns the whole justice of the nation . besides , to eternize the memory of this glorious preserver of the nation , tho t is notoriously known he died raving , yet the true blue bristol protestants could honour him with no less an inscription on his herse , than testimonium quod vivens exhibuit , moriens constanter obfirmavit . but now to leave mr. bedlows armies , and take a view of dugdales plot-forces ; the best jest we have in all the reflections , ( for 't is all but farce ) we meet in the 11th . page . settle gives an account how preposterous , nay how impossible an undertaking 't was for the papists to have laid the kings murder upon the presbyterians , ( as dugdale swears ) and to have engaged the episcopal party in the massacre , upon the issue of pickerings gun , the said pickering being too shallow a headpiece for so great a masterpiece of cheat and villany , as to lay it on the dissenters , and too known a popish face to pass for a presbyterian . to this the reflecter answers ( for there is nothing so chimerical , but he finds an expedient for ) seeing the papists were ever hovering about the kings person ; upon the blow given , might not they out of a pretended officious zeal fall upon the assassinate , mangle him in such a manner as to render him altogether unknown again , for the person he was , and then lay it at whose door they pleas'd , either by real or forged words ( forged words i understand not ) that execrable murder , and upon this the church of england men out of a just resentment and indignation for the loss of their all in so divinely good a prince , are reasonably to be supposed would revenge it with all the heat , and all the vigour imaginable . now one would think , we had had popish plots enough in all conscience ; but this subtle reflecter has wonderfully detected one popish plot more , and heaven knows an heroical one , being no less than a plot of the great and mighty popish nobles , against the poor little popish pickering . lord ! what will not popery do , and reflections find out ? but dear mr. little plot , what if the protestant nobility about the king , which i fancy are always much stronger than his popish courtiers , had stopt these lordly popish hands from carbonading the poor desperado , and preserved him for a gibbet , and if they could not have stept in time enough to have prevented a popish stab , yet at least have snatch'd his carcase from those bloody popish mince-meat-makers , and kept his physnomy unmangled to have discovered the assassinate ; in what a condition had this reflecters great and lordly plot been in , and mr. dugdales presbyterian sham-murder . nevertheless ( says the reflecter page 12th ) let mr. settle not think to render the matter improbable by hinting the majority of the protestants thoughout the kingdom , ( though a 150 to one odds , and a great part even of that uery infinite minority of papists just upright honest and loyal men ) to surpass by much the papists seeing the latter meant to decoy the church of england men into the fact , which though they should not have effected , yet so unexpected a surprize upon people unprepared , and at disseution and distrust amongst themselves , by persons martializ'd and used to arms , as is well known the papists had been , and who for a long while before had been making all things ready for the well managing of their undertakings , they might well enough promise themselves success , each not needing to be an almanzor or a mars , or have the strength and soul of a hercules . now hang me if i can find out how 't is well known the papists have been martializ'd & us'd to arms more then the rest of their country-men . i 'm sensible , heavn be prais'd , they have had no opportunity , nor occasion to improve their martial skill since the kings return , and if it consists in their former experience , to our nations eternal shame , we had too many protestants , ( such as they were ) that had as much martial learning at that time , though in a worse cause , then the papists . but , alas , the refllecters meaning is , that they have practised martial discipline of a latter date , & in order to this great work in hand , like the 25000 messina soldiers have had their rendezvouz invisible . the reflecter we consider , writes to the rabble , where nothing so monstrous or impossible but must pass currant . how long was the mobile possest , ( nor are they yet undeceived ) that the papins had their places underg round to discipline whole bodyes of men. nor shall ye beat it out of the heads of ten thousand english foot to this day , but that mr. choqueux's innocent squibs , and rocket cases , desigped for his master prince ruperts divertisement , were fireballs , and cartrages and other romish ammunition belonging to the great devil the plot. but all this while the remarker and reflecter never take care to answer that part of the narrative that demonstrates the protestants throats were to have been cut by spanish armies , another while by french armies , one time by english armies , and another by no armies at all . one while the protestants throats were to have been all cut , another while but half ; one wh●le the episcopals were to joyn in the massacre with the papists to murder the fanaticks , and another while the fanaticks were to joyn with the papists to kill the episcopals : and all these irreconcileable contradictions expresly sworn to be the mature and deliberate results of the conspirato●s . 't is true the remarker , page 13. makes a feeble essay to adjust the different tales from the bewkblwers jarring testimonies , and tells you ; would we have had all the several gangs and clubs of plotters have jumpt in one and the same sense and opinion ? where several people are engaged , there will be several sir politick woodbee's that will be putting their oars in the boat where they are concern'd ; one will be proposing this , and tother that , and many a fools bolt will be shot , and this discourse , though never so simple is treason , and fit to be known by way of circumstance . and is the great and wonderful popish conspiracy , so dreadful as to require a two and forty days raising the whole militia of england , come at last to an alarum but of so many politick woodbees ? is the jesuits treasou of a hundred years hatching , and at last in the fatal 78. run up into consults , resolves , and final decrees , dwindled into a fools bolt ? are their terrible commissions sealed by johannes paulus d' oliva , and his substitute whitebread , with the whole process of tho●e royal conspirators the french and spanish king 's joyning in the confederacy ; nay the very actual landing of 25000 , messina soldiers at carlingford haven , such notorious matter of fact , but meer tittle tattle ? were the great and damnable popish generals immured in tower walls for this ? now certainly what higher affront could this impudent remarker put upon the whole nemine contradicente of our late parliaments , when by insinuating that the results of so many popish consults for the subversion of our religion , lives , and liber●ies , and the engagement of such princes and potentates against us , was only a simple discourse of so many politick woodbees , and consequently the many sacred and anful committees of secrecy in all their indefatigable plot-mauling sat so long a brooding only over a nest e●g that was addle . but now whereas elkanah the impertinent plot-thrasher , as the remarker calls him , has proved the work was to have been done by no armies at all . : the generous complaisant remarker makes answer , why truly had he had any thing else in the world to do , he might have spared himself the labour , for so long as it was to be done , the cheaper they did it , the less it would have cost 'em ; smartly replied , i prosess , and an inference ●● ingenious as deserves sugar-plumbs . besides , what a pretty turn of state is here made , popery way to pop into the throne , like the kings of brentford out of the clouds , without either noise or tumult , and a pox of all these unnecessary tools call'd armies to introduce it . in my opinion these two scriblers are a brace of such dull rogues , and manage their cause so imp●tently , that the very answering of the impertinents , is enough to uauseate any man of sense , if but to think what dirt and rubbish he has to deal with . however the remarker wheels about age● , and to convince you there were armies in the case , says , that ireland one of the executed jesuits , was of opinion that there was no way to bring the business about , but by a considerable force , which he mustered up to fifty thousand , assirming a less number would not suffice . neither did langhorne absolutely deny at his trial the having of commissions , only he denied them to be seen upon his desk . was ever so much impudence not to be matcht even in eustace commins , to obtrude that confession of commissions and armies upon those very men , that to the last gasp attested their innocence , even to the renouncing of god and heaven , if they were guilty , and that too with a full and perfect abjuration of all dispensations or equivocations whatever . but truly , continues the remarker , he will not dispute the case any farther with e. settle , for perhaps he might know more of the plot than they that were hang'd for 't . not more my sweet friend , but possibly as much , and never the worse man for 't , it being a knowledge , i assure you , that would neither burden his head nor his heart . from this we come to the plot in ireland . here the remarker makes short work , and indeed as much as the cause would bear , and tells you , he 'll say no more to 't , but that if the king of spain was a block-head in it , and the king of france a lunatick , as the irish plot makes them , they ought to come to e. settle to learn politicks . and for his part because settles romantick objections depend upon , plunkets trial , upon which he was condemnd , he shall not troubl● himself to make any further defence for courts of judicature . t is true , the reflecter is a little more prolix upon this business , but so abominably lew'd is the ignorance or impudence of this nameless wretoh , that he doubts not but the spanish king had 30 thousand pilgrims ready mustered , and to be landed at bradlington 〈◊〉 , and ten thousand flandrians at hull , tho when he wanted hands to save his own kingdoms , and another army to joyn with the french king , tho to make his most mortal enemy king of ireland ; nay , tho not one of these martial pilgrims were ever seen in the world from that day to this ; yet all these armies were rais'd , and this stupendious alliance of france and spain was undeniable truth , and why , as he says , because the spanish king is priest-ridden , and the jesuits rule his ascendant ; there he has hit it . popery , plot and jesuites can do every thing ; incorporate even fire and water , and make confederacies between the greatest and most implacable of enemies ; nay , it can unman kings , and make the wise and politick french king be for bringing a royal navy into that very port of ireland where a fisherboat can scarce live , and maugre that foolish obstacle call'd impossibility ; neither the king of france can forbear attempting all this , nor the reflecter believing it . nay the most hellish , hideous masterpiece of all dr. oats his discovery , his information to the parliament , that the french had already landed a great army of 25000. messina soldiers in ireland , goes as inoffensively down with the reflecter , as the least puny exploit in the whole plot. nay to outdo the doctor a bow-shoot , the doctor only brings them on , but let the devil bring them off again ; but the reflecter both lands and unlands them invisible . for page 14 he says , why might not their designs be disappointed upon the discovery of the plots , and they retire again , or forbear acting till better strengthen'd and prepared for bringing their designs about ? that is , why may not a body of no less than 25000. men land in a foreign kingdom , and come , go , or stay from that day to this , without so much as one mothers son of 25000 being seen by human eye . heaven ! what a gorge has the reflecter to swallow such unprecedented plot-romance , or what impudence to vindicate such execrable forgery ? quanta est ficti constantia vultus . the next thing we come to is sir edmundbury godfreys murder , and there the reflecter to vindicate mr. bedlows wonderful refusal of 4000 l. to be one of the six to murder sir edmund , and afterwards 2000 l. to be one with them to carry off the body , makes answer that such is the generosity of some mens tempers , how meanly soever born , that they cannot be bribed nor wrought into an ill thing . [ so generous a man was bedlow , and so averse to any thing that 's ill , that only the greatest part of his life was spent in horsestealing , cheating and pocketpicking , ] or rather the providence of god who had otherwise ordain'd , might make him make use of the proposal of that very act to create a reluctance in him , and to work him to a discovery of that and the rest . this last point indeed is unanswerable : but possibly , upon a review , his discovery , to give providence no trouble in it , might come a shorter journy than from heaven , only from the prince of the air by the way . but elkanah is a little satyrical on the strange and different account of the whole continued contradiction in bedlows and prance's testimony , sir edmund by bedlows evidence being stifled with a pillow in a lower room of the great court in somerset-house , between four and five in the afternoon ; and the murderers walsh lephaire my lord bellasis 2 gentlemen &c. but by prance evidence , he was strangled with a twisted handkerchief at 9 at night , by the stablus in the outward court of somerset-house , by green , girald , hill , kelly , berry and prance , &c. to reconcile with contradiction , the reflecter tells you page 16th . that miles prance owns to have been present , and to have had a hand in that murder , mr. bedlow knows it only by a relation , and by a relation of a thing which he had already refused to have a hand in , and at a time he was so much suspected by that party ; as that they made him take the sacrament twice a day for fear he should reveal . now he being a suspected person , and knowing the murder to have been committed by papists , they varyed in their account of his death from the truth , to baulk his evidence in case he should fail them . now observe how bedlow only swears to a relation . in his testimony before the house of lords he swears , that walsh and lephairé two jesuits proffer'd him 4000 l. to be one of the 4 or 6 that were to kill sir edmond-bury godfrey , and that upon his taking the sacrament to do it , he should have the money before hand paid , where or to whom to himself or what friend he thought fit : thus far mr. bedlows i hope was not suspected by them , neither was this only a relation , for he had the proffer of present payment ; and of a swinging summ too ; besides supposing that the concern of walsh lephaire , and his cut-throats was only a sham , and that no such persons were concern'd in the murder , put the supposition that bedlow had accepted the money and sacrament , as t' is stupendious he did not , how must walsh and lephaire have excused this sham ? must they have cryed peccavi , and said sir , we beg your pardon , we are concern'd in no such murder , and tho we have given you the sacrament and 4000 to no purpose in the world , we have no service to desire of you for it , 't is an inconsiderable trisling sùmm , and it burnt in our pockets ; and therefore much good may do you with it . also that very night that sir edmund was carryed out from sommerset-house , bedlow swears , that at the hour of 9 he was showed the body , at which were present walsh , lephaire , my lord bellasis gentleman , mr. atkins , mr. pepys clerk and one irish man more : here was he offer'd half the 4000 l. to be one with these very numerical men to help to carry off the body , and this but two hours before it was carryed forth . and yet these very men it seems were none of the persons engaged , and upon bedlows acceptance of the two thousand pound ; they must have still excused themselves by saying , sir we have told you a notorious lye , the body is to be conveyed out by a pack of mr. prances friends , to whom we are wholly strangers , and altogether unconcern'd with . nay and to make out the oddness of this wondrous matter of fact sworn by bedlows , we have mr. prances crew of cut-throats sir edmonds real murderers ; and those cut-throats are expresly sworn by him to have had the keeping of the dead body all along , and to have carryed it up and down from room to room , upon every shadow of danger . nay their fears and terror was so great , that on wednesday night being removing the body back to the first room it lay in , mr. prance happening to come upon them at that instant they all ran away , and left the body in the entry , till he call'd to them and made them come back again &c. and yet but two hours before they carryed out the body , 't was left in a room , exposed to the view of bedlows , lephaire and the rest of his brethren to the number of half a dozen men all strangers to prance , with neither prance nor one of his comerades upon the spot tho all so apprehensive of a discovery . but next , says the reflecter , let us see mr. settles most remarkable observation , viz. that few or none of those numerous letters and packets , seen , read , carried and intercepted by the several discoverers should be couch'd in ciphers , seeing they contain'd no less than all the proposals for regicides , massacres , assassinations , and all the rest of their villanies whatsoever . now might not all those letters , ( says the reflecter ) that had no cipher be conveyed by such hands and means as they might rely on for the safety of the delivery , and be couch'd in such terms , tho not in cipher , as to seem to an unprepossess'd reader to contain nothing but indifferent matters , tho they were stuft up with rank treason ? now nothing but impudence unparallel'd would pretend to answer a book at this rate ; does not the narrative in that very place prove all dugdales letters received by him tho directed all to other men , to be all conveyed by the common post , and that there was so far from any caution used in the conveyance , that he swears he broke them all open , to above a hundred in number , and those that he could not hansomely s●al again , he threw by , and never delivered , and all without the least outery or uproar from the discoverers at the miscarriage , though for the loss of treason in grain . nay were not the contents of those letters of such a treasonable nature , that dugdale at corkers trial , swears he received a letter with [ killing the king ] in express words in it . just such another reply the reflecter makes to the narratives other as remarkable observation , viz. why coleman should spend so much labour and waste paper in ciphers and characters , and foreign correspondence , sometimes pushing on a toleration , and otherwhile labouring for prorogations and dissolutions of parliament , upon their every least motion in disfavour of the roman catholicks , if at the same time they had that vaster machine a working , that would have crown'd their utmost wishes without it , when upon killing the king , and murdering the protestants , they had not only dissolved the parliament , but likewise involved the members in the common ruin , and by the entry of popery by the sword they had put an end to the very being and constitution of parliaments . to which answers the reflecter , well , might not these proroguings and toleration projects be managed in the interim , in case an , obstacle should happen to the putting their main plot in execution . does it not appear throughout the whole course of the conspiracy , that the jesuits would leave no stone unturn'd for the bringing about their ends , and play at small games rather than stand out . a small game indeed , and the dullest gamesters in christendom ; for had the papists intended such an universal massacre ; in my judgment nothing so convenient for their purpose , as to have done it in the very sitting of a parliament . how much more easie had it been out of mr. bedlows three english armies , to have planted some few popish champions at the parliament house door , or the parliament mens lodgings , to have killed them too as well as the soldiers as they came out ; then to begin a massacre in a prorogation time , when so many great men as those of the two houses , di●perst most of them in their country seats , ●●ad had the opportunity to arm both themselves and tenants , and encourage all those numerous hands that would immediately have laid down their lives and fortunes in such a cause , and under such leaders , especially to make head against so hated a party as the papists , and that too after no less than the murder of the king , and the approach of their own threatned destruction . well! but pickering and coleman did not confer notes , and his gun with bullets or no bullets , powder or no powder , might have kill'd the king , and not one s●llable of this convenience thought on . and th●n for mr. oats not seizing any of those letters , pacquets , memorials , proposal , and comm●ssions that might have corroborated his discovery ; the reflecter answers , as some he had only the sight of , so it would be madness to think he would take 'em away by force ; as to those others he carried , he does not say but that he was accompanied by some of the conspiracy ; or if he was not , so manifest a proof of his trechery , if one may call it so , to his party , would cut off all means of his diving farther into their resolutions ; and yet might be of little use , since perhaps he could not have proved the hands . and as for that courage of mr. oats which our narrative hero is pleas'd so to droll upon , it shows that mr. oats whole care was even after the discovery not to give the jesuits the least cause to suspect his being fallen off , that so by a fair appearance he might insinuate and grow so well acquainted with the results of all their debates , even concerning the discovery , as to reveal and prevent any hasty and fatal resolutions , they might have taken thereupon , &c. was ever such a blind excuse sound out for so damnable a piece of villany in the doctor , viz. that the doctor should discover the plot to the king on the 13th of august , and upon the kings disbehef of it , return to the jesuits to trapan and betray 'em , and yet not so much as surprize one treasonable consult after it , nor seize one paper of theirs , amongst so many trusted in his hands , ( and why ? in the name of dulness , possibly he could not have proved their hands . ) and that too not only for so eminent a service to the king , and three protestant kingdoms ; but likewise for his own interest and glory : when so plain a proof of the popish plot , had for ever gain'd him the universal love of a whole protestant kingdom , and consequently all the encouragement that he could wish or ask . whereas on the contrary , the lameness of his narrative , and the inconsistency of all his evidence , has markt him like cain , and to all impartial men of sense , has given him the brand both of cain's guilt and cain's infamy . oh! but he staid for diving farther into the papists resolutions says the reflections . now what farther treasonable resolutions the papists could have after killing the king , and cutting all the protestants throats , and setting up popery as already design'd , i profess i cannot comprehend ; unless they had had a mind to have used the king as unmercifully as they did sir edmundbury godfrey , and have kill'd him twice over , stifled him with a pillow at the banquetinghouse , and strangled him with a twisted handkerchief at the stone-gallery . well , but mr. oats his courage in trusting himself to come alone to whitebreads chamber , after the receving three blows with a cane from him , and a box on the ear for his discovery , and dr. tongue his confederate no less than being threatned to be murder'd , might be to prevent the papists hasty and fatal resolutions taken thereupon . nothing more likely sweet mr. impertinence : but for a taste of dr. oats his prevention of the papists fatal resolutions , i 'le refer the reader but to the lxvi . paragraph in his narrative . item , that on the 22th of august , money was sent from the society by a servant of theirs to supply the expences of the four irish ruffians above-mentioned , who were gotten to winsor on the 21st at night , and the sum so sent was eighty pound , which the deponent saw told , and they were bidden not to be frequent in one anothers company , and always to profess but small acquaintance one with the other , &c. now mark the unexampled villany of the saviour of the nation he had discover'd the plot ( as his preface tells you ) on the 13th . of august , for the preservation of the king and the protestant religion , and yet after that very day , after his return and conversion , from treason and plots to honesty and loyalty , he is privy to four bravoes , men of quality and resolution , being from the 21st of august to the 7th of september at winsor , upon no less an expedition than cutting the kings throat , without giving the king the least notice or hint of his danger . well , let the remarker and the reflecter fall down and worship our salamanca deliverer ; for hang me if i can . and tho some fools in the world are pleased to mistake him for a king-saving mordecái ; i profess i think the character of a haman and his preferment too would much better suit him . i am afraid , reader , i have already tired you with a subject i my self am weary of , a reply to two such ridiculous adversaries , being a quarrel not worth engaging in , but only that the whigs , right or wrong , are those opiniated fools both of their scriblers and their cause , that to have kept silent had being giving them an occasion of triumph : and the necessity of allaying that vanity has given you this trouble . thus far i have shewed you the extent of their little reason , and now i care not if i give you the latitude of their larger consciences . amongst the numerous repeated rasscals and traitours they call me , the reflecter more particularly in ( page the 1st ) tells you that in my epistle , i have shew'd my self the greatest villain that perhaps has been upon the face of the earth , in that spight and revenge , and those accumulated wrongs against a prince of such honor and virtue . but ( page 2d ) he proceeds , and says , when i wrote the popish character , did not that sad juncture threaten the nation with a direful revolution , and what i now mask under my private resentments and revenge , was it not making my court to a party whom i consider'd as the moneyd part of the nation , and ready inclined to reward and succor all those who had sufficiency and probity . but now that the tide is turned , that all the efforts of zealous patriots for settling the peace , and procuring the happines of their country have been diverted , and that an inundation of torisme seems to threaten the whole land ; is it not to be suspected that my recantation and repentance are only to save my bacon , &c. and again , page 4. when whiggism and protestantism began to be a barrener soil than pernassus , when all evidence and proceedings against popery began to be discredited , and the papists began to appear again in such shoals , that the crafty trimmers of the party thought it prudence no longer to oppose the torrent , then sir politick elkanah thought fit to wheel about . here do but mark the cloven-foot of my accuser , and see how impudently vice corrects sin ; for i desire but any honest unprejudiced reader to scan but these lines , and find if they bear any other sense , then that the very king is here maliciously and venomously accused for diverting the settlement of his kingdoms peace and happiness , and that by his conduct of late years he has obstructed that zeal , and those very patriots that were labouring to establish them , and downright encouraged and promoted that inundation that no less than threatens the land. and now as i am so over and over accused for ridiculing the justice of the nation , how much more visibly does this impudent scribler arraign both judge and jurors , and by the evidence against popery being so discredited insinuate that wak man , corker , kerney , and the rest acquitted by law , had not justice ; and that the testimonies of their accusers , though made up of nothing but malice , scandal , combination and trechery , was oracle and gospel . nay , he strikes at the very government it self , and by the barrenness of the protestant soil , and the shoals and torrents of papists , would make the world believe that the church of england is undermining , and rome a setting up . now what this nameless fellow is , that dares write this , i know not , but the soul of a ferguzon could have said no more . and if a man would learn who this scribler is , 't is ten to one the unknown authors name may never come to light , 'till we see it in a proclamation . and now to shew you that these two authors , like the unclean beasts in the ark , go paird , they are as well matcht in their principles as satan could wish . for instance , the remarker ( page the 6th . ) tells you , that i was the author of that damnable lampoon call'd a game at cards , presented inconsiderately by joshuah bows to mr. duboys , which brought him to the pillory and banishment : and no doubt 't was the hard fate of my friend that frighted me into my conversion . and yet this very remarker with all the bitterness and gall that rage and malice can infuse , brands and stigmatizes my begging of pardon for all my faults whatever , with no milder terms than a villanous rascally recantation , a recantation in the devil's name , &c. and what 's all this , put it together , ( supposing me the author of that damnable libel , ) but that i am a villain , a rascal , a devil for repenting and recanting even from crimes of so black a dye , from those very lyes and libels , the dispersing but of which imprisoned , fined , pilloryed and transported the very publisher , ( much more the author deserved . ) good heaven ! how black a sin is repentance in a true blue protestant : and how heavy a guilt is such a recantation in the scales of a remarkers conscience ? but having started that unfortunate fellow bows his case ; i care not if i give the world the odd but true story of his hard fortune . the man in the first place , was one of the most vehement whiggs in his little capacity that perhaps was in england , and as little for succession or gospel in the right line , as the brotherhood could desire him ; nay has as often and as devoutly paid his orizons and adorations so-ho wards , as any man i know : insomuch that whatever his sufferings have been in their cause , maugre his particular resentments against mr. duboys , the whole party are still his demi-gods , ( unless the new-market expedition when it shall reach his ears may convert him . ) this poor man having poetry enough to reach to a sonnet , or an epithalamium , and being likewise possibly one of the best scribes in the kingdom , in gold , silver , vermillion letters , with flowers , birds , beasts , and other ornamental flourishes of the pen , fit to please women ; he got his bread by presenting ladies and persons of quality with gay copies of verses in this kind . but one time above the rest , ( as he did not always traffick in his own manufacture ) it happened he pickt up a whiggish lampoon , a little too rank as it fell out , of which possibly twenty copies had been disperst without noise or danger at peters and dicks , and that quarter of the town . these ( as thinking them acceptable ) he sent to the worthy mr. duboys , and a day or two after , went to ask if he had received them , in hopes of a gratuity of five or ten shillings for them . but instead of that , he was immediately seiz'd for a jesuit . a new meal-tub plot was discover'd ; treasonable popish papers were shamm'd into mr. duboys his hand , some say into his sleeve , and others into his pocket ; and all ( god wot ) to betray him , and bring him into a plot. besides a copy or two of his own harmless rhimes , beautified with the forementioned ornaments , and the verses damnd unfortunately writ in red ink , design'd for some city present , were found about him : and those were no sooner spied , but all was confirm'd : the conspiracy was made as apparent as the sun : he was an emissary from the pope , that is plain , for he had papers found writ in blood , and contracts with the devil . this alarum ran through the city immediatly ; captain toms plot for burning of rumps and listing of apprentices was not half so formidable . the poor man used his utmost endeavor to pacifye and convince his accuser both of his innocence and his principles : but faith was strong , and dudgeen was high , and all would not do . the papers were popish , the messenger popish , the delivery popish , and plot plot , nothing but plot at the bottom of it ; whilst truth and sense were either not understood or not believed . and tho he made a shift to get off at present by bail , yet he was retaken again , stood thrice in the pillory , and though his papers deserved all this , and worse ; yet see the oddness of the thing ; to one half of the city he was himself viz. a rank whig ; to the other , a notorious priest and jesuit : in one place his papers were fanatick in another popish ; insomuch that he came to his wooden casement unpittyed by all men , and stood the battery of rotten eggs ; and other flying artillery even from all hands . nay , the delivery of his lampoons came with such a plot thunder-clap upon the brethren , that it has addled their understandings ever since , and the rumbling of it is not out of their heads yet . but alas , popery and jesuites do all things ; and poor little joshuah by the true blew protestant opticks , like a flea in a magnifying-glass , was instantly transform'd into that huge , black popish devil , as nothing more terrible : nay , had this business happened in 79. i fancy the lobby , and all the great buildings round it , would have been scarce able to have held it . but to return from this digression , nothing gives my antagonists so great a disgust , as that my aldersgate-street patron should make some correction in the character of a popish successor , and for amendment bid the author speak more favorably of rebellion , to which says the reflecter , how can mr. settle think to impose , and make the world believe that ever the patron he mentions should make such a blunder in politicks as to send this worshipful author a message of this nature , and that too to a poet and a professd one , people not much admired in this age for continency , or fidelity , &c. that this very patron did make this correction , and in these very words , the friend i intrusted to carry it to him is ready to attest , ( tho indeed he did not then know the author , for that i conceal'd till the book was publisht ) and upon that very correction of his , i alter'd the latter end of the character and wrote all those paragraphs in it , against passive obedience and in justification of taking up arms against a popish successor , which when i had finisht i sent him the copy again , and he approved of the amendments . i know not why the adorers of that great man should so extravagantly deifye him , as to make him guilty of no one humane failing , not one lapsus linguae in so many years of gall and bitterness . surely one bold word or two , might now and then drop from so bold a patriot , and so angry a state pilot. i remember a good friend of mine . mr. coke barrister , the translator of magna charta , told me that once upon discourse between him and the right honorable anthony earl of shaftesbury , he asked the said noble peer , why he advised the king to shut up the exchequer , to which the worthy earl made answer to make him odious to his people . so that as i said before , a bold word has now and then fallen from the lips of that true protestant oracle . now , i hope my good friend mr. coke has so much honor and honesty as not to deny his own words : but if he wronged the honorable lord in this story of him , it behoves him to do justice to his memory , and publickly own his repentance for so black an aspersion against so great a personage . i , but i am a very impudent fellow says the remarker , for saving in my preface that the plot writ the association , for ( continues he ) if i mean the pretended association 't was a bastard &c. faith , i 'll not say much to that , but if 't was a bastard 't was so much the nearer of complexion to the great son of thunder that was to head it . but says the reflecter , settle tells us in his preface , that he now dares look sense and quality in the face , intimating at the same time that it is what the whigs dare not : whereas 't is well known , there be those who are call'd whigs , who dare nose both sense and quality , and defye the courage as well as the arts and machinations of their enemies . now if this fellow would make his words true , he might do himself and the nation no small kindness , nay , instead of their nosing of quality , could he make them but face day-light , that whiggism and treason might receive their reward , and the ungratefullest of subjects and most unnatural of ●ons , the late head of a most infamous band of ra●i●acs might be exposed to the abhorring world , and show the misled and deluded rabble what idol 't is they have so long adored . these two insipid animals , after the greatest efforts against my narrative , that two such champions in such a cause could make , being con●cious no doubt of the weak batteries they have rais'd against it , have endeavored to help out their stingless remarks , and reflections , by blasting my reputation by the most audacious abominable lyes , that ever the devil the father of lyes could have forged . an instance of which we have in the 6th page of the remarks as follows . this is not the first recantation that settle has made sometimes out of fear and sometimes out of necessity . he has twice given it under his hand , that his mother was a whore ; once to mr. 〈◊〉 as finding himself not prepared to dye . another time there was a certain gentle-woman that he would have marryed , but she well understanding that four naked legs in a bed , are not sufficient to maintain a family , rejected his suit , which so provoked his lust of revenge , that he came and br●ke her windows , resolving to set a bowdy-house mark on her lodgings . presently the gentlewoman complained of his ill usage to a friend , who soon called the valiant window-breaker to an account , and gave him so severe a cane correction , that mr. settle fell immediatly into his never failing way of recantation , and amongst the rest of the conditions proposed to him , readily , patiently , and willingly condescended to acknowledge himself the ●●n of a whore. the first of ●●ese villanous forgeries is taken out of a certain inveterate filthy libel against me , called the character of a true blue protestant poet , where amongst the impudent lyes and detraction that fills that paper , i was accused of being the author of a scandalous copy of verses call'd the sessions of the poets , an ill-natured scurrilous lampoon , written some years since , and now laid as believed at the fathers door , being printed amongst the lord rs. — poems . amongst the other extravagancies in that base and malicious libel against me . it was said that i gave it under my hand to mr. o — a gentleman highly wronged and affronted in that paper of verses , that i was the author of that sessions of poets , and that for which i was the son of a whore. which is so damnable a falshood , and so publickly known to be so too , that on the quite contrary i disown'd and abjured the writing so much as one syllable of it : and to vindicate my self from the scandal of such a lampoon , at that time so unjustly and so universally laid at my door , and so much to my disreputation , if to clear my self by no less a potestation then that i was the son of a whore if i wrote one word of it , when indeed i did not write one word of it , be calling a mothers honesty into question , let the world judge . but for the gentlewoman , the window breaking , and the cane correction story , and the second part of son of whore , that , all such pure invention , such unparrallell'd romance as was scarce ever matcht . but to confute the brazen impudence of this villanous libeller : i make this challenge to the world if ever i broke a window in my whole life , and as my good fortune would have it , was ever so much as in that company that broke windows , ( as debaucht as the remarks or reflections have render'd me ; ) or if any body can prove there is or has been that man in the world that ever corrected me as he calls it or strook me with cane staff or cudgel for above two seaven years last past , ( for my school-boys days i le not answer ) i do here submit to own my self the burner of london , the murderer of sir edmond , or the greatest criminal or traytor in europe witness my hand , elkanah settle . another as lying a story i meet in the reflections pag. 5th . reflect : to show you that interest is the main spring of this mans affections , that he hates and loves only according to its dictates , that he squares mens virtues and vices according to its measures , and can be fond of , and detest in a moment the same persons sutably as they contribute to , and jump with his designs . this man having a book to present to one of his patrons , he prevailed with his book-seller to go with it , dawbing this patron to him at a high rate , extolling his wisdom , benignity of temper , and generosity , &c. whereupon the book-seller trooped with the offering to the lord ; but coming back with disappointments in his countenance , and telling mr. settle that he had delivered his book , but that the lord had return'd no other thanks than what consisted in words , he began to curse and damn the sordidness of his patron , wished he had been in hell , when the thought came into his head of making him that oblation , vomiting out all the imprecations &c. until the book-seller to direct this torrent of rage , shewed him some few guinneys , which his patron had sent him as a present : and then to see the wonderful effect , that that metal has upon mr. settles intellectuals , he immediatly saw that good lord again through quite different opticks , and found in him a 1000 more fine qualities then he had ever done before . just such another piece of forgery is this with the former ; and to prove so : all the books i ever wrote , except the popish character , were printed by one book-seller , who is ready to make oath , that there is not one syllable of truth in all this story , and that he never delivered any such book or books for me , or ever received guinneys or guinney for me from any patron or lord whatever . but truly , of all mankind i have the lest reason to admire or complain at this usage , when i consider that nothing but malice makes a whig , and nothing but lyes and rancor are the spawn of malice . and when i reflect on my own past sins , i acknowledge i am but punisht in my kind ; and all this , and ten times worse i have justly deserved ; and tho with all the deepest sense and hum●● contrition for my offences , i shall never think i have made any part of an expiation till the whole study of my life and the endeavors of my pen are entirely employed in the service of those royal brothers , whose least beam of their so highly forfeited mercy can never be recovered under a less attonement sacrifice . there is one pen more drawn against me , call'd a letter to e. settle ; printed by nat. thompson . the writer whereof has no quarrel against my narrative , but the author ; and seems to suspect not only the truth of my penitence , but also of my confession , and that there still lyes some undiscovered anguis in herbâ in the breast of so high an offender . he very much doubts whether those motives exprest in my preface were the true incendiaries to so inveterate a pen as mine ; and believing that an author so eminently serviceable to those false patriots , that always make religion and liberty the specious pretences to mask the blackest and foulest purposes , he seems to be very confident i must be trusted in their intrigues and cabals : and thereupon has put me a whole roll of quaraees to answer . to which book i can only make this short reply . in that confession made in my preface , i have given the world the whole truth of my soul. and tho my unhappy resentments for having a play remanded to the dukes theatre , may appear a very idle provocation for so implacable a spight and revenge as mine ; yet as that command was occasionally the ruine of my well being in the world , the circumstances of which are too tedious to recite , from that very cause ( tho never so unjust and unchristian a one ) i drew in that poyson and virulence against the son of a king and a martyr , the greatest of heroes , and the best of friends and brothers . but as my soul , too much loaded already , has no farther sins to answer for ; i am so wholy uncapable of solving this gentlemans queries ; that ignorance and innocence is all the plea i can make , i being so far from a confident , caballer , or indeed company-keeper with those antimonarchical matchevils , that i can safely swear , i never so much as drank at the kings-head club ; excepting on a publick queen elizabeths night : perhaps the voluntary tribute i brought them made me esteemd a profitable servant enough , without exacting any farther task from my hands ; or otherwise , they might be those skillful physiognomists that they could read souls , and found me so uncapable even of a thought against my king , that in prudence and safety , they made their machinations against the crown , those secrets that were to be laid out of my reach ; for i declare in the presence of god , i know no more by them , then that the bill of exclusion , and the other parliamentary projections for liberty and religion were the utmost end they drove at . and if i have belyed my conscience in this protestation , and am any wise guilty of those crimes , that the letter-writer suspects , there is now that justice wakened , that would soon o'retake me . for thanks be to heaven , the great mystery of iniquity begins to be unfolded , and the detection of this last truly damnable and hellish plot , begins to set the staggering world upright again : a plot not discovered by the rakings of jails , and scumm of mankind ; but by clouds of witnesss of substance and quality : a plot , not universally denyed with vows , oaths , and imprecations even at gibbets and death ; but confest in jails with horror and trembling . a plot , that i hope will so fully restore those senses that delusion and frenzy have so long set a wandring , that union and loyalty shall so perfectly flourish again , till the hearts of his people and parliaments so intirely return to the best of men & kings , that they shall meet him with no less caresses and endearments then those at his restoration . advertisement . whereas mr. care in one of his courants , has said that mr. cademan durst not print my narrative till it had mr. l'estranges blessing , these are to signifye 't is wholy false , for tho 't is true , mr. l'estrange read some part of it , yet on the other-side he advised and councelled mr. cademan by no means to venture to print it . finis . an account of the growth of knavery under the pretended fears of arbitrary government and popery with a parallel betwixt the reformers of 1677 and those of 1641 in their methods and designs : in a letter to a friend. parallel l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1678 approx. 88 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 37 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2003-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47796 wing l1193 estc r13376 12936036 ocm 12936036 95760 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47796) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 95760) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 388:7) an account of the growth of knavery under the pretended fears of arbitrary government and popery with a parallel betwixt the reformers of 1677 and those of 1641 in their methods and designs : in a letter to a friend. parallel l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 72 p. printed by h.h. for henry brome ..., london : 1678. a reply to andrew marvell's an account of the growth of popery and arbitrary government in england. attributed to roger l'estrange. cf. bm. first ed. published anonymously as: the growth of knavery. 1678. cf. dnb. reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng marvell, andrew, 1621-1678. -account of the growth of popery. popish plot, 1678. 2002-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2002-12 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2003-01 john latta sampled and proofread 2003-01 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2003-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an account of the growth of knavery , under the pretended fears of arbitrary government , and popery . with a parallel betwixt the reformers of 1677 , and those of 1641 , in their methods , and designs . in a letter to a friend . london , printed by h. h. for henry brome , at the gun in st. paul's church-yard . 1678. an account of the growth of knavery , under the pretended fears of arbitrary government , and popery sir , to give you my opinion freely of the two libels that you sent me , methinks the design of them lies too open to do much mischief ; for i never saw so bare-fac'd an araignment of the government , and all the parts of it : king , lords , commons , iudges , ministers of state ; they are all of them made conspirators ; against the sovereign multitude , forsooth ; and when the libeller has done with the body of the commons , he gives you a defamatory list of betwixt two and three hundred of their members , provoking and abusing all sober interests ; insomuch , that he has left himself nothing to trust to , but the contemplation of a general tumult , which is the very point he drives at in his appeal to the rabble . the man , i confess , is a great master of words ; but then his talent is that which the lord st. albans calls matter of wonder without worthiness ; being rather the suppleness and address of a tumbler , than the force and vigor of a man of business . and you cannot but observe too , that his excursions , many of them , are unmannerly and vulgar , and fitter for the stage of a merry-andrew , or a iack-pudding , than for a paper of state. you would have me guess at the author ; and you might as well bid me tell you the right father of a child by a common strumpet : but i think i may call him legion , for they are many ; and there 's a club to his pen , as well as to his pocket . this i dare assure you , that the author of a letter from a parliament-man to his friend in the country , concerning the proceedings of the house of commons , &c. in 75. is very particularly acquainted with the author of an accompt of the growth of popery , and arbitrary government , &c. and the seasonable argument , &c. that follow'd it , in 77. the pretence of the former pamphlet is exhibited in the title of it : viz. an account of the growth of popery , and arbitrary government in england : and more particularly from november 1675 , to iuly 1677. upon these nineteen months the composer has bestow'd precisely nineteen sheets of paper , and laid himself out most wonderfully in his politicks and conceits , for the better grace and relish of the discourse : but the malignity of it is so rank , that there 's scarce a page where the poyson has not eaten quite thorough the vernish , and discover'd the spring and malice of the design . view it narrowly , and you shall find the pique to be as well personal as seditious , and the work only of some mercenary pen to serve his principall's animosity , as well as his ambition . for a man may see with half an eye , how he aggravates , or extenuates ; disparages , or commends , reflects upon , or passes over , as well actions , as men , according to the various aspects of affections or parties ; and without any regard to the pulse or truth of publick proceedings . by his vein of improving the invective humour , it looks in some places as if he were transprosing the first painter ; only he has chang d his battery , which is a property peculiar to his party , constantly to hate those that are uppermost . i was once a thinking to write a just reply upon the whole relation , and to lay open the falshood of many passages in it in matter of fact ; the partiality of it in others ; how perverted , and misapply'd it is throughout ; and to shew what gapps , and maimes the compiler of it has left in the story , purposely to divert the reader from minding the coherence of actions , and the reasonable congruity of counsels , and affairs : what uncharitable and illogical inferences he has drawn from matters as remote as tenterden steeple from being the cause of goodwin sands . this was the method i had propounded to my self ; but upon second thoughts i quitted it , for these reasons . first , it would have been too tedious ; for i must in honesty have printed the libel as well as the reply , which in proportion would have amounted to near forty sheets of paper . secondly , it would have been superfluous ; for part of my business being the vindication of truth from calumny : i find the thing already done to my hand , in the common sentence is that pass'd upon it for a lew'd and shameless imposture . and thirdly , the author himself , you see , has upon better consideration reduc'd his pamphlet of 19 sheets , into another of three , as a more compendious exposition of his meaning : i speak of that libel which you sent me , under the name of a seasonable argument to perswade all the grand iuries in england to petition for a new parliament ; or a list of the principal labourers in the great design of popery , and arbitrary power , &c. so that my task is only to make good in my discourse the parallel that i promis'd you in my title , and then to pass some remarks upon the scope , and venome of the pamphlets themselves . now to the end that you may not take the libels here in question for originals , let me assure you that these notable pieces are neither better , nor worse , than the old declarations of 40 , and 41 only turn'd , and new trimm'd ; the contrivance , the positions , and the drift the very same ; and upon the whole matter , there is so near a resemblance betwixt them , that one egg is not liker another . if you would have a full history of the faction , you may read it at large in bancroft's dangerous positions , or heylin's aerivs redivivvs . but my purpose is principally to compare the project of 77. with that of 40 and 41. and by tracing the foot-steps of that rebellion , from the undeniable fact of things pass'd , to gather some probable conjecture at things to come . to begin my parallel with the alarm of popery , and arbitrary government in 1677 , take notice that it was likewise the pretext and the very foundation of the rebellion in 41. a malignant and pernicious design ( says the remonstrance of december 15. 1641. ) of subverting the fundamental laws , and principles of government , upon which the religion , and iustice of this kingdom is firmly establish'd . husband's collections , p. 4. and in the same page he tells us of such counsellers and courtiers , as for private ends have engag'd themselves to further the interest of some foreign princes or states , to the prejudice of his majesty and the state at home . which counsellers , and courtiers of those days , are now translated into french pensioners and conspirators in 1677. but if you would see the reformers in their colours , read the declaration , and protestation of the lords and commons in parliament ( as they stile it ) to the kingdom , and to the whole world : where , beside the horrid invocation of almighty god to countenance the juggle , the whole stress of the quarrel is laid upon the kings being popishly inclin'd ; and the war founded upon that execrable cheat. the kings counsels , and resolutions ( say they ) are so engag'd to the popish party , for the suppression and extirpation of the true religion , that all hopes of peace and protection are excluded ; and that it is fully intended to give satisfaction to the papists , by alteration of religion &c. and a little further they say that the king endeavour'd to keep off all iealousies and suspicions , by many fearful oaths and imprecations of maintaining the protestant religion . but what were all their stories of popish plots , intercepted letters , dark , conspiracies , but only artifices to gull the credulous and silly vulgar ? for the king was so far from being popishly affected , that never any prince purg'd himself of an imputation , by two more credible and dreadfull solemnities : the first , publickly upon the sacrament in christ-church oxon. 1643 ; and afterward , at his death upon the scaffold . now see the harmony betwixt those remonstrants , and our libeller in his growth of popery . there has now for diverse years , says he , a design been carry'd on to change the lawful government of england into an absolute tyranny , and to convert the establish'd protestant religion into down-right popery . p. 3. he begins in the method of the remonstrants with a general charge upon ill ministers , and he shall advance with them too , next step , to an attaque upon the king himself . and not a pin matter what is said on either side to the contrary . it is true , ( says the growth of popery p. 155 ) that by his majesty and the churches care , under god's special providence , the conspiracy has receiv'd frequent disappointments , &c. and do not the remonstrants on the other side say as much for the late king ? that his majesty indeed had past more bills to the advantage of the subject , than had been in many ages , pag. 16. but how comes our libeller to be so kind to the church all on a sodain ? from whose pen there never fell any thing yet but poyson upon that subject . can any thing be kinder than the remonstrants were to this late king ( pag. 2. ) where they promised to support his royal estate with honour , and plenty at home ; with power , and reputation abroad : and by their loyal affections , obedience , and service , to lay a sure and lasting foundation of the greatness and prosperity of his majesty and his royal posterity after him . but what do you think rather of the pretended loyalty of these people afterwards , even in the state of an actual rebellion ? p. 663. we the lords and commons in this present parliament assembled , do in the presence of almighty god , for the satisfaction of our consciences , and the discharge of that great trust which lyes upon us , make this protestation and declaration to this kingdom and nation , and to the whole world , that no private passion , or respect , no evil intention to his majesty's person , no design to the prejudice of his iust honour , and authority , engag'd us to raise forces , and take up arms against the authors of this war , wherewith the kingdom is now enslam'd . and does not our libeller follow the remonstrants in their hypocrisy too ? this book ( says he , p. 156. ) though of an extraordinary nature , as the case requir'd , and however it may be calumniated by interressed persons , was written with no other intent , than of meer fidelity , and service to his majesty ; and god forbid that it should have any other effect than that the mouth of all iniquity , and flatterers may be stopp'd ; and that his majesty having discerned the disease , may with his healing touch apply the remedy : for so far is the relator himself from any sinister surmize against his majesty , or from suggesting it to others , &c. the pamphlet , i confess , is , as he calls it , a book of an extraordinary nature ; but why does he say , as the case requir'd ? where 's the importance of it ? unless he means , that it was the very nick of time for him to embroyl the nation : and for the interessed persons , who ( he says ) may calumniate it ; they are only the king and his ministers , who are all of them the subject of his scoptical and malevolent satyre . of his intent , we shall speak hereafter . this is not the first time that we have heard of words smoother than oyl , which yet are very swords . it is the very stile that brought the late king to the block ; and the saviour of the world was betray'd by a hail master , and a kiss . it is the very crown of the parallel betwixt 77 , and 41. now to proceed : what was the old remonstrance , but a spiteful and invidious misrepresentation of the state of the kingdom , under the notion of declaring common grievances ? ( for his majesty's healing touch too no doubt ) and is not that also the very aim , and profession of these two libels ? what is the publication of this same scandalous list , but the old trick over again , of posting those members for straffordians , that would not consent to the death of the earl of strafford ? and is not their tampering of the grand iuries to petition for a new parliament , the old practice reviv'd of drawing and solliciting petitions against grievances of their own framing ; and menaging affairs of state by tumults ? would not our remonstratour of 77 , rather than his life , be at the old sport again , with a kennel of brutes at his heels , in full cry , with no bishops , no popish lords , no evil counsellours , no rotten members , no porters lodge ; and at last , no king too , which was the very fact in consequence upon this method . so soon as the remonstrants ( those sons of cham ) had laid open their father's nakedness , with a malicious aggravation of all errours and misfortunes , ( beside falshoods innumerable ) to irritate the multitude against their superiours ; their next art was to draw that party to themselves , which they had now detached from the government ; with an oh! that we were made iudges in israel ! boasting what wonderful things they had then upon the anvil for the publick good ; and not forgetting to arrogate all those acts to themselves , which his majesty had pass'd of his proper grace and bounty . other things ( say they , p. 15 . ) of main importance for the good of this kingdom , are in proposition ; as the establishing and ordering the king's revenues , that so the abuse of officers , and superfluity of expenses may be cut off , and the necessary disbursements for his majesty's honour , the defense and government of the kingdom , may be more certainly provided for : the regulating of courts of iustice , and abridging both the delays and charges of law-suits , &c. see now if our reformer of 77 , does not fish with the very same bait. the house of commons ( says he , p. 63 . ) took up again such publick bills as they had on foot in their former sitting , and others that might either remedy present , or prevent future mischief : as the bill for habeas corpus ; that against sending men prisoners beyond seas ; that against raising of mony without the consent of parliament ; that against papists sitting in either house , &c. the libels in fine of 77 , are so exact a counterpart of the others of 41 , that two tallies do not strike truer : and undoubtedly such a correspondence in method , cannot be without some conformity also of design . there needs no other argument to prove the late rebellion to have been originally a conspiracy against the government , than the proportion that appears betwixt the means , and the end ; and the orderly connexion of proper causes and regular effects . for it was a perfect train of artifice , hypocrisie and imposture , from one end of it to the other . the confederacy was form'd in a cabal of scotch and english presbyterians ; as appears not only from their correspondent practices in both nations ; but from his late majesties charge against the five members ; and likewise from the care that was taken upon his majesties restauration to date the english act of indemnity from the beginning of the scotch tumults ( jan. 1. 1637. ) which was three years before the meeting of the long parliament in november 1640. the two ministers that stood in the gap betwixt the conspiracy , and the government , ( and who were only cut off , as appear'd by the sequel , to clear the passage to the king himself ) were the earl of strafford , and archbishop laud : so that their first attaque was upon the earl , and their next upon the archbishop , under the notion of evil counsellors ; and upon the common charge of popery , and arbitrary proceeding , their impeachments were carry'd on by tumults , and these brave men were rather baited to death by beasts , than sentenc'd with any colour of law , or justice : and as they liv'd , so they dy'd , the resolute assertors of the english monarchy and religion : the earl of strafford in may 41 ; but the archbishop was kept languishing in the tower , till ian. 44. and their crime was not in truth , their being men of arbitrary principles themselves , but for being the opposers of those principles in others . as the remonstrants in 41 , for want of papists , in practice , and profession , directed their spleen against the kings ministers , only as persons popishly affected , ( which in time came to be most injuriously apply'd to his majesty , and his whole party ) just so does our libeller in 1677. were these conspirators ( says he ) but avow'd papists , they were the more honest , the less dangerous , and their religion were answerable for the errours they might commit in order to promote it : but these are men ( says he , in the next pag. ) obliged by all the most sacred ties of malice and ambition , to advance the ruine of the king and kingdom ; and qualify'd much better than others , under the name of good protestants , to effect it . as who should say ; popery is to be brought in by some that pass for good protestants . ( as rebellion and tyranny were brought in by the remonstrants , under the prosession of loyalty and duty to their country . ) a very compendious way of making every man , that will not be a traytor , a papist . for who can say what any man is , or what he is not , in his heart ? from his majesty's yielding in the business of the earl of strafford , the faction took their measures how to deal with him in other cases ; and never left , till by gradual encroachments , and approaches , they first stript him of his friends ; secondly , of his royal authority ; thirdly , of his revenue ; and lastly , of his life . whereas , had but this pious and unfortunate king follow'd the advice of his royal father to prince henry , he might upon cheaper terms have preserv'd himself , and his three kingdoms . take heed , ( says king iames ) to such puritans ; very pests in the church , and common-weal , whom no deserts can oblige ; neither oaths , or promises bind . breathing nothing but sedition , and calumnies , and making their own imaginations ( without any warrant of the word ) the square of their conscience . i protest before the great god , ( and since i am here as upon my testament , it is no place for me to ly in ) that ye shall never find with any highlands or border-thieves , greater ingratitude , and more lyes , and vile perjuries than with these phanatick spirits . k. iames his works , p. 305 , and 160. upon the ripping up of publick grievances , it was but matter of course to follow their complaints with petitions for redress ; and the good king , on the other hand , to heap coals of fire upon their heads , deny'd them nothing : but the two first bills that his majesty pass'd , were fatal to him : that for the attainder of the earl of strafford , and the other for the continuance of the parliament . they complain'd of the star-chamber ; high-commission court ; ship-moneys ; forrest-laws ; stannary-courts ; tonnage , and poundage , &c. and had every point for the asking : nay , and as an instance of his good faith and meaning , his majesty took some of their principalls even into his very council . but so soon as he had parted with so much , as almost put it into their power to take the rest , they began then to think of setting up for themselves ( see his majesties declaration of august 12. 1642. ) and nothing but a thorough reformation they said would ever do the work. now see the gradation . first , the people must be alarm'd with the noise of tyranny , and popery ; and the evil counsellors must be remov'd , that are said , not prov'd , to stand that way inclin'd . his majesty must be humbly petition'd by both houses to employ such counsellors , ambassadours , and other ministers , in managing his business at home , and abroad , as the parliament may have cause to confide in , &c. nay , it may often fall out , they say , that the commons may have just cause to take exceptions at some men for being counsellors , and yet not charge those men with crimes ; for there be grounds of dissidence , which lie not in proof ; there are others which though they may be prov'd , yet are not legally criminal ; to be a known favourer of papists , or to have been very forward in defending or countenancing some great offenders questioned in parliament , &c. so that at first dash all the king's officers are but tenants at the will of the faction . the next step is , to fill the places of those whom they cast out , with ministers , and officers of their own chusing ; as well privy counsellors , as iudges . as in the 19 propositions of ian. 2. 42. wherein they demand , the translation of the power of chusing great officers , and ministers of state , from the king to the two houses . secondly , all matters of state in the interval of parliaments to be debated , and concluded by a council so chosen , and in number not above 25 , nor under 15 ; and no publick act esteem'd of any validity , as proceeding from the royal authority , unless it be done by the advice and consent of the major part of that council ; attested under their hands , and these also sworn to the sence of both houses . thirdly , the lords , and commons must be intrusted with the militia . fourthly , his majesty may appoint , but the two houses , or the council ( in such manner as afore-said ) must approve of all governours of forts and castles . lastly , no peers hereafter made , must sit , or vote in parliament , unless admitted thereunto by the consent of both houses . by this time the plot is ripe for a rebellion ; they levy war , impose oaths , seize the revenues of the church and crown ; kill , plunder , and emprison their fellow-subjects ; depose and murther their sovereign , under a form of publick iustice ; by these means advancing themselves into that arbitrary power which they pretended to fear ; over-turning the government , under the colour of a zeal to support it : and instead of setting us right in our religious and civil liberties , they left us neither church , nor law , nor king , nor parliament , nor properties , nor freedoms . behold the blessed reformation ; and remember that the outcries against tyranny , popery , and evil counsellors , were the foundation of it . what was their covenant , but a blind to their designs ? a popular sacrament of religious disobedience ; and only a mark of discrimination who were against the king , and who for him ? nay , in the very contemplation of their purpose , they knew before-hand , that there was no gaining of their point , but by rapine , sacrilege , perjury , treason , and bloud . after these notorious violations of faith , honour , humanity , and religion ; to the common destruction of prince , government , and people , and all upon the same bottom with our late libels ; what can this vnderminer of parliaments , what can our geneva-faux find to say for himself ? is not mercury as good poyson in 77 , as it was in 41 ? do we not strike fire the same way now , that we did then ? and may not a spark in the gun-room do as much mischief this year , as it did thirty , or forty years ago ? are not the people as much tinder now , as they were formerly ? and as apt to take ill impressions ? what if the same method should work the same confusion over again ? or in truth , what is there else to be expected ? for the same cause , acting at liberty , must eternally produce the same effect . there 's no chance-medley , or misadventure in the case ; but the thing is manifestly done with prepense malice , and on set purpose , to embroyl the state : as upon examination of the matter will undeniably appear . you cannot but take notice , that the author of the growth of popery , does upon the main , principally labour these two things . first , to insinuate that the king is in some cases accomptable to his people , ( of which hereafter . ) and secondly , to provoke the people , by suggesting that their souls , and their liberties are at stake , to make use of that power . from the former proposition he passes into a florid and elaborate declamation against popery ; and when he has wrought up the figure to a height , to make it terrible and odious , his next business is to tell the people , that this gobling is coming in among them , and to possess the multitude with the apprehension of a form'd conspiracy against our religion and government : and this too , under the countenance of an historical deduction of affairs ; but with the faith of a iesuitical legend ; wherein all the kings ministers are in general terms branded for conspirators . his hand being now in , he is resolv'd to go thorough-stitch , and nothing scapes him that falls in his way : he makes the house of lords ( p. 72. ) to be felon of it self ; and ( p. 82 . ) non compos ; arraigning their proceedings in several cases with boldness and contempt . but he makes a great deal bolder yet with the house of commons ; he divides them into three parts . it is too notorious to be conceal'd ( says he , p. 73. ) that near a third part of the house , have beneficial offices under his majesty in the privy council , the army , the navy , the law , the houshold , the revenue both in england , and ireland , or in attendance upon his majesties person . upon this exception , he expounds himself , that 't is to be fear'd , their gratitude to their master , with their own interest , may tempt them beyond their obligation to the publick . what can be more audacious than this charge upon king , lords , and commons , in the face of a sitting parliament ? he says that it is too notorious to be conceal'd &c. and where 's the crime , or the shame , i beseech you , for an officer of the kings , to be a member of the house of commons ? as if he that has an office , and he that has none , had not both of them the same master ; or that a man might not as well be a knave without an office , as with it . this was the complaint also of 41 , against officers , till the complainants had gotten those offices themselves , and then all was quiet . this is only a flyer way of declaring the king's servants enemies to the kingdom , and erecting an opposition betwixt the common , and inseparable interests of his majesty , and his subjects . beside that , the same reason would reach to the excluding of the king's servants from any other trust in the goverment , as well as from that of a member in the house of commons ; and his majesties favour should at that rate incapacitate any man for publick business . if the libeller had open'd his mouth a little wider , he would have told us in plain english , that there are three , or four of oliver's old servants out of office , and that the king is strangely over-seen to bestow his boons upon a company of fellows that never had any hand in the bringing of him to the crown , by the murther of his father , as they did . but yet he is content upon some terms , that they may be admitted , provided that they do not croud into the house in numbers beyond modesty , ( pag. 74 . ) which may seem to be some amends for the rascalls he made of them the very page before . suppose ( says he ) that the question concerning this prorogation , were by the custom of parliaments to be justify'd , ( which hath not been done hitherto ) yet who that desires to maintain the reputation of an honest man , would not have laid hold upon so plausible an occasion , to break company , when it was grown so scandalous ? and then he assigns the matter of scandal . for it is too notorious ( says he ) to be conceal'd , that near a third part of the house have beneficial offices under his majesty , &c. here 's a great deal of business done in one period . first , he pronounces this parliament void , and consequently all their proceedings to be nullities . secondly ; he will not allow any man to be honest , that right or wrong would not improve the opportunity of breaking this parliament . thirdly , he makes the house of commons to be scandalous company , and scandalous for having beneficial offices under his majesty . the first time that ever i heard the king's bounty was a scandal to any man. but to my point . and yet ( says he , p. 77. ) these gentlemen being full , and already in employment , are more good natur'd , and less dangerous to the publick , than those that are hungry , and out of office , who may by probable computation make another third part of this house of commons . and a while after , they are all of them , he says , to be bought , and sold. and when he goes on ; ( p. 78. ) there is a third part still remaining , but as contrary in themselves , as light and darkness . these are either the worst , or the best of men ; the first are most prostigate persons , &c. concluding ( p. 79 . ) that it is less difficult to conceive how fire was first brought to light in the world , than how any thing good could ever be produc'd out of a house of commons so constituted . and ( p. 149. ) he calls them this house , or barn of commons ; treating the members accordingly . they list themselves ( says he ) into some court faction , and it is as well known among them to what lord each of them retain , as when formerly they wore coats and badges . and he has not done with them yet neither ; for nothing will do his jobb , but a final dissolution ; considering ( says he , p. 81. ) how doubtful a foot this long parliament now stood upon by this long prorogation , there could not have been a more legal , or however , no more wife , and honest a thing done , than for both the lords and commons to have separated themselves , &c. i could wish that he had not appeal'd from the legality of the thing , to the wisdom , and honesty of it : but however legal , or not legal , the thing is to be done : for he knows very well that so long as this house of commons continues in being , rebellion can never turn up trump again . but it was otherwise order'd , he says , and so he betakes himself to an experiment of tampering all the grand iuries in england , to petition for a new parliament , upon the credit of his story concerning the corruptions of this . wherein by the foul reflexions he has past upon many persons of known , and eminent example , for piety , integrity , and moderation , he has utterly disappointed the malice of his scandal upon the rest. it was well enough said , me thought , by a worthy member of the house of commons ; do not you see , says he , how they have libell'd me in that damn'd list of the parliament-men ? one told him that he was mistaken , for his name was not in 't . why , that 's the business , says he , for 't is only a libel upon those that are left out . nay , rather than fail , he does as good as advise a downright insurrection , ( in these words , p. 155. ) it is now come to the fourth act ( says he ) and the next scene that opens , may be rome , or paris , ( by the plot , it should be rather geneva , or edinburgh ) yet men sit by , like idle spectators , and still give mony toward their own tragedy . and why does he blame them for sitting by ? and like idle spectators ? unless he would have them enter into tumult , and action . a very fair encouragement to make men bestir themselves , and without more ceremony , lay violent hands upon the publick . good god! that ever such a creature as this should propound to himself by the dash of a pen , to move the foundations of the english government . from the parliament , he descends to the iudges . alas ! ( says he ) the wisdom and probity of the law went off , for the most part , with good sir matthew hales , and iustice is made a meer property . and then he raves upon the constant irregularities , and injustice from term to term , of those that administer the iudicature betwixt his majesty , and his people ( p. 154. ) this poysonous arrow ( meaning the choice of the judges ) strikes to the very heart of government , and could come from no quiver , but that of the conspirators . what french counsel , what standing forces , what parliamentary bribes , what national oaths , and all the other machinations of wicked men have not yet been able to effect , may be more compendiously acted by twelve iudges in scarlet ( p. 66. ) and is not this directly 41 again ? when no iudges would serve the turn , but those that betray'd the people to slavery , and his sacred majesty to the scaffold ? he has another fling at the sheriffs . if any worthy person ( says he , p. 80 . ) chance to carry the election , some mercenary or corrupt sheriff makes a double return ; and so the cause is handed to the committee of elections , &c. and truly he does not give either the king , or the monarchy of england , much better quarter than he allows the rest ; as you shall see by and by : so that nothing less than the thorough reformation of 41 will do the work of 77. and the whole frame of the government must be unhing'd , to gratify the caprice of a pragmatical mal-content . the passion , and malice of the libeller is so evident , that he does half confess it himself , by an anticipation of the charge . the relator , ( says he , pag. 155. ) foresees that he shall on both hands be blam'd for pursuing this method . some on the one side will expect that the very persons should have been nam'd : whereas he only gives evidence to the fact , and leaves the malefactors to those that have the power of enquiry . if he can but acquit himself on the other hand for writing the libel , as well as on this for not naming the persons , he will do well enough . for first ; it is not his business to prove , but to defame . secondly , the naming of particulars would have restrein'd the calumny : whereas his work is to wound all the kings ministers that faithfully adhere to their master in the generality of the scandal . thirdly ; he judges it safer , and more expedient to amuse the multitude with iealousies that cannot be disprov'd , than point-blank to fasten upon particulars an accusation that cannot be prov'd . what does he mean by saying that he gives evidence to the fact ? it is the first libel certainly that ever was given in evidence . but where 's the relator himself all this while , upon whose bare word , parliaments are to be dissolv'd ; ministers of state arraign'd ; judges displac'd ; and the whole government new modell'd ? what if he should appear , and be found at last to have been one of oliver's cabal ? would any man desire a more competent witness for charles the second , than the murtherer of charles the first ? but he has been so us'd to call the king himself traytor , that he may be allow'd to call his friends conspirators . on the other hand ( says he , pag. 155. ) some will represent this discourse ( as they do all books that tend to detect their conspiracy against his majesty , and kingdom ) as if it too were written against the government . for now of late , as soon as any man is gotten into publick employment by ill acts ; and by worse continues it ; he , if it please the fates , is thenceforward the government , and by being criminal , pretends to be sacred . this is only crying whore first , to call those people conspirators , who are likely to censure him for a libeller : which with his learned leave , is but a course figure neither ; and runs much better in the common billinsgate of you are a knave yourself to say that i 'm one . which in few words is all that 's in 't . for he does not offer so much as one syllable in his justification , but with another lash or two at the king's ministers , winds up his period . now of late , says he , ( he means i suppose , since oliver went out of play ) as soon as any man is gotten into publick employment by ill acts , &c. he should do well to consider who governs , before he says that villany is the ready way to preferment ; he , if it please the fates , is thenceforward the government , and by being criminal , pretends to be sacred . i answer , that in the case of a publick , and legal accusation , the minister is not the government ; for the charge terminates in , and operates no further than his person ; but in the affront of a nameless , and indefinite libel , the king himself is wounded in a general reflection upon his ministers ; for it is his choice , and commission , not the officers misdemeanour , that is there in question : nor does he pretend to be sacred because he is criminal ; but the libeller ( who still writes after the remonstrance ) makes every thing criminal that is sacred , and gives the construction of rebellion to loyalty , and of loyalty to rebellion . but if there be not mischief in the very project of this libel , there 's nothing at all in 't ; for i cannot frame to my self the least colour , or possibility of any other end. he says , it was his design indeed to give information , but not to turn informer . that is to say , he would set the people together by the ears , and no body should know who did it . now see the end he propounds . that those ( says the relator ) to whom he has only a publick enmity , no private animosity , might have the priviledge of states-men to repent at the last hour , and by one single action to expiate all their former misdemeanours . which is e'en as civil a way as a body would wish , of recommending a publick minister to his last prayer . it remains now to speak a word to the timing of his enterprize , which , in a wicked sence , is in truth the glory of it . i shall not need to speculate upon the power , and designs of france , the deplorable state of flanders , or the consequences that must inevitably reflect upon england in the loss of the spanish neitherlands : the matter being agreed upon at all hands , that an union of affections , counsels , and interests , was never more necessary to this nation than at this instant it is ; and that delay is death to us , this being given for granted , it is likewise as certain , that nothing under heaven , but the credit of this sitting parliament , and the blessing of a fair understanding betwixt his majesty , and his two houses can preserve this kingdom ( morally speaking ) from irreparable ruine . and yet this is the critical juncture that the libeller has made choice of , for the blasting both of the government , and the administration of it ; for the violent dissolution even of this most necessary parliament ; for the sowing of jealousies , and alienating the peoples hearts from their duty to their sovereign . let the world now judge betwixt the libeller , and the pretended conspiratours ; who are more probably the pensioners of france ; those that are only calumniated in the dark , and without any proof , or the least colour of it , or the calumniatours themselves , ( i mean , the libeller and his adherents ) who are doing all that is possible toward the facilitating of the work of france , and the putting of england out of condition to defend it self . what is it , i beseech you , that can now support us in this exigent , but the wisdom , and reputation of a parliament ? which they are at this very instant , labouring to desame and dissolve : distracting and dividing the nation , at a time when our best union is little enough to preserve us ; and obstructing those parliamentary supplyes , without which we must unavoidably perish : for it is to this session , that the libeller directs the mock of still giving mony toward their own tragedy . but sure we are not so mad yet , as to take the subverters of our church and state , for the advocates of our religion and freedom . i would know in the next place , what any man can say to excuse his growth of popery , from being a daring , and a spightful libel against the king , and his government . and i shall begin with the liberties he takes with his majesty , sometime in direct terms , and otherwhile under the blind , of the conspiratours . speaking of the shutting up of the exchequer ( pag. 31. ) the crown ( says he ) made prize of the subject , and broke all faith , and contract at home , in order to the breaking of them abroad with more advantage . the copy has in this point out-done the original ; for the remonstrants were in arms , before they presum'd to word it at this audacious height . take it in the insolent representation of the fact ; the malicious construction and presumption of the intent ; and to both these , add the sordid manner of reflecting upon an extraordinary thing done upon an extraordinary occasion , and wherein the subject has since receiv'd so ample , and generous satisfaction ; the clamour is so foul , as if an aegyptian plague were broken in upon us , and the frogs of geneva crept into the king's chambers . and 't is much at the same rate that he treats the king about his declaration of indulgence , ( pag. 33. ) hereby ( says he , ) all the penal laws against papists , for which former parliaments had given so many supplyes , and against non-conformists , for which this parliament had pay'd more largely , were at one instant suspended , in order to defraud the nation of all that religion , which they had so dearly purchased , &c. observe here how ungratefully he charges the design of this declaration to be the defrauding the nation of their religion ; which , on the contrary , was a manifest concession , only to gratifie the restless importunities of his own gang. and see what sport he makes , but five or six lines further , with the very reason of that law which he takes here so hainously to be suspended . it appears ( says he ) at the first sight , that men ought to enjoy the same propriety , and protection in their consciences , which they have in their lives , liberties , and estates : but that to take away there in penalty for the other , is meerly a more legal , and gentile way of padding upon the road of heaven ; and that it is only for want of mony , and for want of religion , that men take these desperate courses . now , by his favour , there is a great disparity betwixt a pretence to propriety , and protection in consciences , and a pretence to them , in lives , liberties , and estates ; for the latter are lyable to violence , and may be taken away , but the other cannot . and now he talks of padding upon this road ; the remonstrants ( as i remember ) were very good at it , that drove away from their churches , 85 ministers , of 97 , within the walls of london . we 'll agree in the matter with him , that want of mony , and want of religion will put men upon despesperate courses ; for my charity perswades me , he would never have written these libels else . he is a little positive , me thinks , in averring that a great lord lost his place for defending the protestant religion , ( pag. 44. ) but he has forgotten the statute of his own citing ( pag. 15. ) that makes it incapacity , for saying that the king is a papist , or an introducer of popery , and that it was the king himself that remov'd his lordship . and what do you think of his irony , ( pag. 43 . ) where he says , that the parliament , by the conspiratours good leave , was admitted to sit again at the day appointed . he tells us of another affair too , pag. 51 ; which being transmitted to his majesty , was easily chang'd into a court intrigue ; and ( pag. 63. ) that the conspiratours might so represent things to his majesty , as to incense him against the parliament , and distrusting all parliamentary . advice , to take counsel from themselves , from france , and from necessity . in this disloyal and irreverent licence ; he drops you a word or two now and then , before he is aware , against the king himself ; and other whiles , discharges his malice to the government , upon the heads of publick ministers . the subject matter of his complaint is a tendency of counsels , and actions towards tyranny , and popery . but the king ( says he , pag. 4. ) can do no wrong ; and so goes on , nor can he receive wrong . what is this , but a justification of all the violences that were acted upon the late king ; even to the very murther of him ; under that mortal , and treasonous distinction betwixt his avthority , and his person ? and an allowance , that the same course may be taken with his royal successours ? the king can receive no wrong ; ( he says ) what does he mean by this ? is not his majesties breath in his nostrils ? is he not flesh and bloud ? is not his body lyable to wounds , distempers , emprisonment , and death ? he 'll tell you , yes ; but this is not the king , but the man , the person : but the king , all this while , that is to say , the authority , is sacred , and invulnerable . now for peace , and brevity sake , let us suppose that this charge of a popish , and arbitrary design , does neither intend nor reflect any imputation upon his majesty ; ( his religion , and his tenderness of nature being unquestionable ) it is yet a worse libel another way . worse ( i say ) both as to the drift , and to the scandal of it , by how much contempt is more dangerous to a prince , than hatred : for he employes his utmost skill to represent his majesty only passive in all his administrations , and so to lessen the indubitable fame of his royal prudence , and courage among his people . you see , sir , the freedom he takes with the king , and his ministers ; the next point will be to enquire how he stands affected to the government it self . the subjects ( says he , pag. 3 . ) retain their proportion in the legislature . in which saying , he makes them partners of the sovereignty , and turns the monarchy of england into a tripartite and coordinate government ; which is as well destructive of parliaments , on the one hand , as of royalty , on the other . upon the admittance of this co-ordination , any two of the three may destroy the third : the two houses may destroy the king , and the king , with either of the houses , may destroy the other . which , if it be so , what prince that is imperial in the intervalls , would ever hazard the dethroning of himself by a session ? the making of law is a peculiar , and incommunicable priviledge of the supreme power , and the office of the two houses in this case is only consultive , or preparatory ; but the character of power rests in the final sanction , which is in the king : and effectually , the passing of a bill , is but the granting of a request : the two houses make the bill , 't is true , but the king makes the law ; and 't is the stamp , not the matter , that makes it current : nor does the subject any otherwise make laws , than the petitioner makes orders of council . it is a suspicious , and ill-looking passage that he has , pag. 14. as to matter of government , says he ; if to murther the king , be ( as certainly it is ) a fact so horrid , ( he does not say how horrid ) how much more hainous is it to assassinate the kingdom ? here is first involv'd in this clause , the deposing position of 41 , that the king is singulis major , vniversis minor : for it is clear that the comparison was only made to draw on the preference , and to possess the people that they have a greater prize at stake in the hazard of their religion , than in the tye of their civil obedience . ( the very translation still of 41. ) and for their further encouragement , he tells them ( pag. 4. ) that we have the same right ( modestly understood ) in our propriety , that the prince hath in his regality : which carries with it an innuendo , that the king may as well forfeit his crown , as the subject his free-hold . it cannot be imagin'd that all these leading and desperate hints should fall from a man of brains and sense by chance ; and you see the whole tract takes the same biass . no king of england ( says he , pag. 58. ) had ever so great a treasure of his peoples affections , except what those ill men have ( as they have done all the rest ) consum'd ; whom , but out of an excess of love to his person , the kingdom would never ( for it never did formerly ) so long have suffer'd . here 's still the crocodile of 41 ; nothing but love and reverence to his late majesty too , till his head was off . but let us reason the matter in a word . these ill men have no names , it seems ; so that any man that 's near the king , is by this libeller set up for a mark to the outrage of the people . and then he says , the kingdom would never have suffer'd them . who are they , i pray , that he calls the kingdom , but the rabble still of 41 ; the execrable instruments of that rebellion , and the hopes of another ? but if the kingdom would not suffer it , what would he have them do to help themselves ? the law is open , in case of any legal impeachment , and 't is too early days yet for a tumult . in his descant upon the , test he is wonderfully free of his figures . never ( says he , pag. 59. ) was so much sence contain'd in so few words ; no conveyancer could ever in more compendious , or binding terms have drawn a dissettlement of the whole birth-right of england . this test has made a great noise , and it will be worth the while to examine what is said against it . the form of it is as follows . i. a. b. do declare that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take up arms against the king ; and that i do abhor that trayterous position of taking arms by his authority , against his person , or against those that are commission'd by him in pursuance of such commission . and i do swear that i will not at any time endeavour the alteration of the government , either in church or state. so help me god. he says , pag. 57 , that it was thrown out of the house in the plague-year at oxford , for fear of a general infection of the vitals of this kingdom ; whereas in truth , it was brought into the house as an antidote against that poyson which had seiz'd the vitals of this kingdom already ; and amounts to no more than the vnswearing of that on the behalf of thegovernment , which had been formerly sworn for the destruction of it . the author of a letter from a person of quality , &c. calls it , p. 1. a state-master-piece , and design'd to these ends. first , to make a distinct party , from the rest of the nation , of the high episcopal man , and the old cavalier . now i took it rather to be a design of vniting all parties , under one common bond of duty , and obedience to the government : and where that could not be obtain'd , to distinguish who were for the government , and who against it ; for the late king was murther'd upon this very distinction betwixt his authority and his person , nor is there any government upon the face of the earth , without some obligation upon the subject , equivalent to this test. next , says he , they design to have the government of the church sworn to as unalterable , and so tacitely own'd to be of divine right . this , is under favour , is a fallacy . the test does not concern it self whether the government be changeable , or not , but only provides that the state may be serv'd with magistrates and officers , that stand well . affected to the establishment . those that do so , will never scruple the oath ; and for those that do not , it is the very intent of it to discriminate , and to exclude them : and to encounter the covenant , by virtue of which they dissolv'd the late government , with an oath never to endeavour any further alteration in this. and certainly , a man may better swear the maintaining of a government according to the law , than the alteration of it against law. thirdly , says the author of the letter , in requital to the crown , they declare the government absolute , and arbitrary , and allow monarchy , as well as episcopacy , to be jure divino , and not to be bounded , or limited by humane laws . how this test does either declare , or pretend the government to be absolute , and arbitrary , i cannot imagine : but on the contrary , every man is ty'd by it from endeavouring to make it so , if it be not so already , in swearing that he will not at any time endeavour the alteration of it . and then in his explication of the meaning of church , and state in the test , by monarchy , and episcopacy in his reflection upon it , he has done us a greater kindness than he was aware of ; for he has wholly disappointed the spight , and the intent of his next clause . and ( as he goes on ) to secure all this , they resolve to take away the power , and opportunity of parliaments , to alter any thing in church or state , only leave them as an instrument to raise mony , and to pass such laws , as the court , and church shall have a mind to : the attempt of any other , how necessary soever , must be no less a crime than perjury . see now whether or no this be fair dealing . it is , by his own confession , the form of monarchy , and the order of episcopacy , the government it self , and not the administration of it , that is here in question . he would have it believ'd , that by this test , parliaments are barr'd upon pain of perjury from attempting any alteration in church or state : whereas they are left at liberty to debate what alterations they please in the parts of the government provided they do not strike at the root of the government it self . and the deliberation and result of the whole matter , is no more than this. many of the people ( and all the principles ) are yet living , that destroy'd the king , and the bishops in the last rebellion ; let us have a care of the same hands again , and trust none of them in the government but under an oath , not to endeavour the alteration of it . that is to say , of the monarchy into a republique , or of episcopacy into presbytery ; as they did before . and this was the clear scope of the test. the author of the growth of popery , discoursing upon this subject ; there is nothing ( says he , p. 57. ) more portentous , and of worse omen , than when such an oath hangs over a nation like a new comet , foreboding the alteration of religion or government . a word first to the oath , which , for want of an epithete to express the hainousness of it , the libeller so emphatically calls svch an oath . it is an oath founded upon the same consideration with the oath of allegiance , and directed to the same end ; and every jot as necessary under this king , as that was under his grand-father . the iesuited papist's had invited the spaniard to invade england : the iesuited protestants in the late rebellion , did , in like manner apply themselves to the french. the former laid on plot for the blowing up of the parliament : the other executed the plot of destroying parliaments , changing the government , and murthering the king. the people were misled in the one case , upon the iesuitical principle , that a prince being excommunicate by the pope , the subject is discharg'd of his duty to him , and they were seduc'd in the other , by a persuasion that the sacred character of a king rests in the authority , and is separable from the person ; which authority they lodg'd in the two houses , and so did their business . this practice of the iesuites occasion'd the oath of allegiance in the statute 3 o iacobi , entitled an act for the discovering , and repressing of popish recusants . in which oath , you have this clause . and i do further swear that i do from my heart detest and abjure , as impious and heretical , this damnable doctrine , and position , that princes which be excommunicated , or deprived by the pope , may be deposed , or murther'd by their subjects , or any other whatsoever . here was an act for the discovering and repressing of popish recusants , with an oath , under a penalty , and a declaration against , and an abhorrence of that impious position , whereupon the treasons of those times were founded : and why not a provision as well against those people that with premeditated malice , as well as ambition , over-turn'd the late government ; and against that principle , of dividing his majesties authority from his person , which was the countenance and support of the late rebellion ? take it in short , and the test is but a supplement to the oath of allegiance . the scottish faction impos'd upon the people that they might be true to the king , though they levy'd arms against his person : and the end of this oath is only to expound that position to be treasonous , and to secure the government for the future against men of such principles : according to equity and conscience , and to the common practice , and according to the prudence of all well order'd states . is this the oath now that he calls svch an oath ? the oath , than which there is nothing more portentous , and of worse omen to a nation ? he has forgotten the fore-boding , and portentous omens of forty one , and the dire events of those presages . what do you think of a deliberate design , to spoil the crown , the church , and the subject : and all this in the name of god , for the honour of the king , and the good of the people ? and then the entitling of providence to all the advantages that the faction got by the ruine of three kingdoms ? here 's the unrepented guilt of sacriledge , treason , and bloud , to the highest degree , and so transcendent an ingratitude , that some of the very men that were pardon'd for one rebellion , are now the advocates for another . if these practices should be suffer'd , there would be no need to consult the stars for a prognostick of change of government . the oaths ( says he , pag. 58. ) in our late king's time taught the phanaticks , because they could not swear , yet to covenant . his memory fails him , i perceive , for the covenant was a foot in scotland before any oaths complain'd of here ; by the token that the assembly at glasgow , in 1638 , came to this resolution upon the point . it is lawful for subjects to covenant and combine , without the king , and enter into a bond of mutual defence against him . take notice next that the oath complain'd of , was the oath ex officio , which oath was abolish'd , before any covenanting in england : and he is so much out again , in saying that the phanaticks covenanted , &c. because they could not swear , that in truth they covenanted because they car'd not what they swore . witness their covenants , negative oaths , and oath of abjuration , in opposition to their oaths of allegiance , and canonical obedience : there was no compounding , no living in their quarters , without swearing . there was an oath , given at a communion at fife , obliging people not to take the king's covenant ; and it was one condition upon the treaty at the isle of wight , that his majesty himself should give assurance by solemn oath under his hand , and seal , for settling religion according to the covenant : so that they made no conscience ( you see ) either of swearing , or forswearing ; either of taking oaths themselves , or of forcing them upon others for the advancement of their design . he takes exception ( pag. 59. ) to the two declaratory points of the test. first , that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever , to take up arms against the king. and he reasons the matter in these words : it were difficult to instance a law , either in this , or other country , but that a private man , if any king in christendom assault him , may , having retreated to the wall , stand upon his guard. that is to say , a private man may kill his prince in his own defence . for he puts this case in opposition to the declaration ; only translating the taking up of arms against the king , into a man's standing upon his guard. all that 's honest in 't is this , that he refuses to declare that to be vnlawful , which he holds to be lawful . his second scruple is the abhorrence of that traiterous position of taking arms by his authority , against his person ; or against those that are commissioned by him , in pursuance of such commission . here ( says he ) is neither tenour , or rule of any such commission specify'd , nor the qualification of those which shall be armed with such commissions , expressed , or limited . the author of this frivolous shift , knows very well , that the rules , and measures of commissions vary according to the circumstances of time , place , fact , person ; that the qualification of the commissioner does not at all operate upon the authority of the commission : and that if the bill were drawn out to the length of the book of martyrs , there would not yet be room enough to obviate all cavills , and objections . but in the next page , he speaks his mind a little plainer . as to the commission , ( says he ) if it be to take away a man's estate , or his life , by force , yet it is the king's commission : or if the person commissionate be under never so many disabilities by acts of parliament ; yet his taking this oath , removes all those incapacities , or his commission makes it not disputable . this seditious hint , ( for i cannot call it an argument ) lyes open so many ways , that i am only at a loss where to begin with it . first , let the commission , and commissioner be what they will , no man is to be a iudge in his own cause ; but the law must be the iudge both of the legality of the one , and the capacity of the other . secondly , if upon this ground an injur'd person may take arms , in one case ; so may a criminal , upon the bare pretence of it in any other : for 't is but saying that the commission is vnwarrantable , or that the officer is a rascal , and there 's his justification . thirdly , suppose a double abuse in manner , as is here suggested ; that abuse does not yet void the authority , to which the law on the one side requires obedience , or at least submission ; and there is no law , on the other side , that allows resistance . fourthly , the end and prospect of all laws is publick convenience , and there was never any law invented , so profitable to a community , but it was in some respect or other , to the detriment of some particulars : so that the very admittance of his suppositions , does not at all affect the reason of the test , if the benefit be general on the one hand , and the mischief only particular on the other . how many men are sworn out of their lives , and fortunes by false witnesses ? shall we therefore quarrel the method of proceeding secundum allegata , & probata ? a man is arrested upon a fobb'd action , for a sum of mony , knowing first , that he ows not a penny ; secondly , that the consequence of it will be his ruine ; thirdly , that the action is meerly malicious ; and fourthly , ( to make it strong enough ) that the officer that serves the writ is consederate with his adversary , and that they have both complotted his destruction : all this will not yet authorize a resistance ; but if an officer that has the king's writ , or any other lawful warrant , though erroneous , shall be slain in the execution of it , this is mvrther . a word now as to the occasion of it . the people of 41 , when they had forced his majesty from his palace , by affronts and arm'd tumults , publish'd this doctrine to the nation , that though his person was gone , his authority resided in the two houses : under which colour they imposed ordinances upon the people , for laws , and by degrees proceeded to an exercise of all the acts of sovereignty ; making war against the person of the king , and those that were commission'd by him , under the pretence afore-said : as rebellious , traytors , and conspirators . now to prevent the same mischief again , from the same principles , it was thought fit to propose this declaration of abhorrence . the objections against it are , that the king may grant a commission to take away a man's life , or estate , and employ any man at a venture to execute it : which is first , the supposal of an vnjust , and tyrannical commission : secondly , a case so rare , that it would be a hard matter to produce a president for it , without a reference to a tryal at law : and thirdly , what would be the fruit of such a resistance , but the turning of an oppression on the one side , into a rebellion on the other , and the forfeiting of that life , and estate to the law , which was otherwise invaded contrary to the law ? for 't is a thousand to one that the power that issu'd the commission will find assistants to execute it . so that the resistance pleaded for in this case , is first , of a very remote supposition . secondly , of dangerous consequence to the resistent : and , thirdly , of no avail to him at all . if we may not resist ( says the faction ) under these circumstances our lives , liberties , and estates are at the king's mercy ; for that which maybe . one man's case , may be any man's and so because of this possibility of wrong to particulars , we judge it reasonable , that every particular man should be allow'd to defend himself . see now the inconvenience , which , upon the allowance of this liberty in favour of particulars , will redound to the publick . an honest man is charg'd with treason in the king's name , and by his majesties order to be taken into custody , and by an officer too , under what disabilities you please . here 's the whole case . an innocent person ; life , liberty , and estate at stake , and an vnqualify'd commissioner . if one man may resist , because he is innocent , another upon the same pretence may resist too , although he be guilty . for no man under a charge , is either guilty , or innocent in the eye of the law , till he be legally , either convicted , or acquitted . so that the innocent , and the guilty , are to be try'd indifferently by the same law , and so are the pretended errours either in the commission , or commissioner . take matters once out of the channel of tryal by our peers , there 's an end of magna charta ; and the government it self is become passive , and precatious . will you have the true reason now , why this abhorrence goes so much against the hair with some people ? the position is to be cherish'd , and kept in 〈◊〉 till the time comes for us . no man can be so blind , as not to discern by the correspondent motions of the consistorians in scotland , and the scottish english , that they act already by concert ; and it is as plain by this bold and adventurous way of libels all on the soddain , that they depend upon france for a second : which is no more than was done in the late rebellion , by the same faction , as appear'd by a letter of the lord lowdens to the french king , for his protection and assistance , for which he was committed to the tower ; and it was also confirm'd by the fourth article against the five members , accusing them to have trayterously invited and encourag'd a forreign power to invade his majesties kingdom of england . husband's collections , p. 35. these are the french pensioners , and the betrayers of our religion and freedom , under oaths , and covenants to preserve them . were not our divines pillag'd , sequestred , imprison'd , either for praying for his majesty , or for refusing to abjure him ? how many reverend divines were poyson'd in peter-house ? i could give you the history of their spiriting away several persons of honour for slaves ; their sale of three , or four score gentlemen to the barbadoes . their sequestrations , decimations , exclusion from all offices , plunders , banishments , consinements , prohibition of correspondence with the king , upon pain of death : the juggles of the irish adventures ; money , and plate upon the propositions ; confiscated estates ; twentieth parts , weekly assessments , and a hundred other pecuniary , and arbitrary stratagems , till they finish'd the ruine of the nation , in the dissolution of the government , and in the bloud of their sovereign . it is not less certain that this is in sum the design of their second reformation , than that it was the effect of their former : and they are fools that take men of these practices to be of any religion . to understand these people aright , a man must read them , like the original tongues , backward . they are never so deadly , and dangerous enemies to the government , as when they prosess the dearest affection to it ; and i do not know but that the author of the growth of popery may be the greatest friend in the world to the church of rome , when he professes himself the bitterest adversary . i pray , bestow a second thought upon his declamation against popery ( with which i shall conclude ) and tell me next time i see you , whether he has not taken more pains to shew his skill , than care to deliver his opinion . adieu . growth of popery , pag. 5. popery is such a thing as cannot , but for want of a word to express it , be call'd a religion : nor is it to be mention'd with that civility which is otherwise decent to be us'd , in speaking of the differences of humane opinion about divine matters . were it either open judaisme , or plain turkery , or honest paganisme , there is yet a certain bona fides in the most extravagant belief ; and the sincerity of an erroneous profession may render it more pardonable : but this is a compound of all the three , an extract of whatsoever is most ridiculous , and impious in them , incorporated with more peculiar absurdities of its own , in which those were deficient ; and all this deliberately contriv'd , knowingly carry'd on , by the bold imposture of priests , under the name of christianity . the wisdom of this fifth religion , this last , and insolentest attempt upon the credulity of mankind , seems to me ( tho' not ignorant otherwise of the times , degrees , and methods of its progress , ) principally to have consisted in their owning the scriptures to be the word of god , and the rule of faith , and manners ; but in prohibiting , at the same time , their common vse , or the reading of them in publique churches , but in a latine translation , to the vulgar : there being no better , or more rational way to frustrate the very design of the great institutour of christianity , who first planted it , by the extraordinary gift of tongues , than to forbid the vse even of the ordinary languages . for having thus a book which is vniversally avow'd to be of divine authority , but sequestring it only into such hands as were entrusted in the cheat , they had the opportunity to vitiate , suppress , or enterpret to their own profit these records , by which the poor people hold their salvation . and this necessary point being once gain'd , there was thence forward nothing so monstrous to reason , so abhorring from morality , or so contrary to scripture , which they might not in prudence adventure on . the idolatry ( for alass it is neither better , nor worse ) of adoring , and praying to saints , and angels ; of worshipping pictures , images , and reliques , incredible miracles , and pable fables to promote that veneration . the whole liturgy , and worship of the blessed virgin ; the saying of patter nosters , and creeds , to the honour of saints ; and of ave maryes too , not to her honour , but of others . the publique service which they can spare to god among so many competitours in an vnknown tongue , and entangled with such vestments , consecrations , exorcisms , whisperings sprinklings , censings , and phantastical rites , gesticulations , and removals , so vnbeseeming a christian office , that it represents rather the pranks , and ceremonies of iuglers , and conjurers : the refusal of the cup to the laity ; the necessity of the priests intention to make any of their sacraments effectual ; debarring their clergy from marriage ; interdicting of meats ; auricular confession , and absolution , as with them practiced : penances , pilgrimages , purgatory , and prayer for the dead . but above all their other devices , their transubstantial solecisme , whereby that glorify'd body , which at the same time they allow to be in heaven , is sold again , and crucify'd dayly upon all the altars of their communion . for god indeed may now and then do a miracle , but a romish priest can , it seems , work in one moment a thousand impossibilies . thus by a new , and anti-scriptural belief , compil'd of terrours to the phancy , contradictions to sense , and impositions on the vnderstanding , their laity have turn'd tenants for their souls , and in consequence tributary for their estates to a more than omnipotent priesthood . i must indeed do them that right to avow , that out of an equitable consideration , and recompence of so faithful a slavery , they have discharg'd the people from all other services , and dependance ; enfranchis'd them from all duty to god , or man ; insomuch that their severer , and more learned divines , their governers of conscience , have so well instructed them in all the arts of circumventing their neighbour , and of colluding with heaven , that , were the scholars as apt as their teachers , there would have been long since an end of all either true piety , or common honesty ; and nothing left among them but authorized hypocrisie , and licentiousness ; had not the natural worth of the better sort , and the good simplicity of the meaner , in great measure preserv'd them . for nothing indeed but an extraordinary temper , and ingenuity of spirit , and that too assisted by a diviner influence , could possibly restrein those within any the terms , or laws , or humanity , who at the same time own the doctrine of their casuists , or the authority of the pope , as it is by him claim'd , and exercis'd . he by his indulgences delivers souls out of the pains of the other world ; so that who would refuse to be vicious here , upon so good security ? he , by his dispensations , annulls contracts betwixt man and man ; dissolves othes between princes , or betwixt them , and their people ; and gives allowance in cases which god , and nature prohibite . he , as clerk of the spiritual market , hath set a rate upon all crimes : the more flagitious they are , and abominable , the better commodities , and men pay only an higher price , as for greater rarities . so that it seems as if the command of god had been invented merely to erect an office for the pope . the worse christians men are , the better customers ; and this rome does by the same policy people its church , as the pagan rome did its city , by opening a sanctuary to all malefactours . and why not , if his power be indeed of such virtue , and extent , as is by him challeng'd ? that he is the ruler over angels , purgatory , and hell ; that his tribunal , and gods , are all one : that all that god , he can do , clave non errante ; and what he does , is as god , and not as man : that he is the vniversal head of the church ; the sole interpreter of scripture , and iudge of controversie : that he is above general councils : that his power is absolute , and his decrees infallible : that he can change the very nature of things ; making what is iust to be vnjust , and what is vice to be virtue : that all laws are in the cabinet of his breast : that he can dispense with the new testaments , to the great injury of the devils : that he is monarch of this world ; and that he can dispose of kingdoms , and empires as he pleases . which things being granted , that stile of optimum , maximum , & supremum numen in terris , or that of dominus deus noster papa , was no such extraordinary stroke of courtship , as we reckon'd : but it was rather a great clownishness in him that treated so mighty a prince under the simple title of vice-deus . the exercise of his dominion is in all points suitable to this his pretence . he antiquates the precepts of christ , as things only of good advice , not commanded : but makes it a mortal sin , even to doubt of any part of his own religion ; and demands , under pain of damnation , the subjection of all christians to his papal authority : the denying of two things so reasonable as blind obedience to this power , and an implicit faith to his doctrine , being the most vnpardonable crime , under his dispensation . he has indeed of late been somewhat more retentive than formerly as to his faculty of disposing of kingdoms , the thing not having succeeded well with him in some instances ; but he lays the same claim still ; continues the same inclination ; and , tho' velvet-headed , hath the more itch to be pushing . and however in order to any occasion he keeps himself in breath always , by cursing one prince or another upon every maunday thursday . nor is there any , whether prince , or nation , that dissents from his vsurpations , but are mark'd out , under the notion of heretiques , to ruine , and destruction , whensoever he shall give the signal . that word of heresie misapply'd , hath serv'd him , for so many ages , to iustifie all the executions , assassinations , wars , massacres , and devastations , whereby his faith hath been propagated ; of which our times also have not wanted examples , and more is to be expected for the future . for by how much any thing is more false , and vnreasonable , it requires more cruelty to establish it : and to introduce that which is absurd , there must be somewhat done that is barbarous . but nothing of any sect in religion can be more recommended by all these qualities , than the papacy . the pagans are excusable by their natural darkness , without revelation . the jews are tolerable who see not beyond the old testament . mahomet was so honest as to own what he would be at , that he himself was the greatest prophet , and that his was a religion of the sword. so that these were all , as i may say , of another allegiance ; and if enemies , yet not traytours : but the pope avowing christianity by prosession , doth , in doctrine , and practice , renounce it ; and presuming to be the only catholique , does persecute those to the death who dare worship the authour of their religion , instead of his pretended vice-gerent . and yet there is nothing more evident , notwithstanding his most notorious forgeries , and falsification of all writers , than that the pope was for several hundreds of years an honest bishop as other men are , and never so much as dream'd upon the seven hills of that vniversal power , which he is now come to : nay , he was the first that oppos'd any such pretention . but some of them at last , growing wiser , by foysting a counterfeit donation of constantine , and wresting another donation from our saviour , advanc'd themselves in a weak , ignorant , and credulous age , to that temporal , and spiritual principality , which they are now seiz'd of . tu es petrus , & super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam . never was a bishoprick and a verse of scripture so emprov'd by good menagement . thus , by exercising , in quality of christs vicar , the publick function under an invisible prince , the pope , like the maires of the palace , hath set his master aside , and deliver'd the government over to a new line of papal succession . but who can , unless wilfully , be ignorant what wretched doings , what bribery , what ambibition there are ; how long the church is without an head upon every vacancy , till , among the crew of bandying cardinals , the holy ghost hath declar'd for a pope of the french , or spanish faction . it is a succession like that of the egyptian ox ( the living idol of that country ) who dying , or being made away by the priests , there was a solemn , and general mourning for want of a deity ; until in their conclave they had found out another beast with the very same marks as the former ; whom then they themselves ador'd , and with great iubilee brought forth to the people to worship . nor was that election a grosser reproach to humane reason , than this is also to christianity . surely it is the greatest miracle of the romish church that it should still continue , and that in all this time the gates of heaven should not prevail against it . it is almost vnconceivable how princes can yet suffer a power so pernicious , and doctrine so destructive to all government : that so great a part of the land should be alienated , and condemn'd to ( as they call it ) pious vses . that such millions of their people , as the clergy , should , by remaining vnmarry'd , either frustrate humane nature , if they live chastly ; or , if otherwise , adulterate it : that they should be priviledg'd from all labour , all publique service , and exempt from the power of all secular iurisdiction : that they , being all bound , by strict othes , and vows of obedience , to the pope , should evacuate the fealty due to the sovereign : nay , that not only the clergy , but their whole people , if of the romish perswasion ; should be oblig'd to rebel , at any time , upon the popes pleasure . finis . the tryal of william staley, goldsmith for speaking treasonable words against his most sacred majesty and upon full evidence found guilty of high treason : and received sentence accordingly, on thursday, november the 21th, 1678. staley, william, d. 1678, defendant. 1678 approx. 30 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 7 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63205 wing t2237 estc r228446 11800782 ocm 11800782 49375 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63205) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 49375) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 554:5, 2046:39) the tryal of william staley, goldsmith for speaking treasonable words against his most sacred majesty and upon full evidence found guilty of high treason : and received sentence accordingly, on thursday, november the 21th, 1678. staley, william, d. 1678, defendant. 12 p. printed for robert pawlet ..., london : 1678. item at 2046:39 identified on reel as t2237b. reproduction of original in the university of illinois (urbana-champaign campus). library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng trials (treason) -england. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685 -sources. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-03 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-05 derek lee sampled and proofread 2006-05 derek lee text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the tryal of william staley , goldsmith ; for speaking treasonable words against his most sacred majesty : and upon full evidence found guilty of high treason and received sentence accordingly , on thursday november the 21 th 1678. . london , printed for robert pawlet at the bible in chancery-lane near fleetstreet . 1678. november 20. 1678. i do appoint robert pawlet to print the tryal of william staley : and that no other presume to print the same . william scroggs . the tryal of william staley , goldsmith ; for treasonable words . upon which he was condemned for high treason , nov. 21. 1678. mr. staley being accused of high treason , was on the 20th day of november 1678. brought from newgate , and arraigned at the kings bench bar , and the next day was brought to the same place to receive his tryal ; where being come , and the jury impannelled , the court told the prisoner , that if he would challenge any of the jury , he must speak unto them as they came to the book to be sworn , and before they were sworn ; the prisoner challenging none , the jury were sworn , viz , jury . sir phillip matthews . sir reginald foster . sir john kirke . sir john cutler . sir richard blake . john bifield , esquire . simon middleton , esquire thomas cross , esquire . henry johnson , esquire . charles vmfrevile , esquire . thomas eaglesfield , esquire . william bohee , esquire . the indictment read. you stand indicted by the name of william staley , &c. cryer . if any can give evidence on the behalf of our sovereign lord the king , against william staley , let him come forth and he shall be heard . sir creswel levins . the prisoner stands indicted as not having the fear of god before his eyes , being led by the instigation of the devil , not minding his allegiance , but traiterously endeavouring the death and destruction of our sovereign lord the king , he did on november the 14th , in the thirtieth year of the king , falsly , wickedly , , and traiterously compass , imagine , devise and invent the killing the king ; that he did maliciously contrive ( i say ) the death of our lord the king of england . to this he hath pleaded not guilty . you are to try whether he be guilty or not . kings serjeant , maynard . the offence is as great as can be , and will be prov'd as clear as can be . call the witnesses to prove the offence . attorn . gen. it would be fitting before we enter upon the evidence , to give some account , why ( among so many offenders , some of them of greater quality than william staley ) we chose first to bring this man to tryal . it is not unknown to any man that lives in england , what a discovery there hath been of horrid and damnable designs against the king's person , and the protestant religion . there are a sort of men in the world , that endeavour what they can to cry down this discovery , as that it was altogether suppositious , and a fable . it is true , some are so charitable as to think the roman catholicks in england might endeavour to promote the roman catholick religion , but that they should have a design against the kings person is a fiction . but they shall be convinced by the tryal of this man , that there was such a design , seeing the prisoner even since the discovery of this devilish plot , and after so many have been imprisoned for it , doth persist in a treasonable mind , and a trayterous attempt against the king's person ; the clear evidence of which , is his speaking those words with which in the indictment he is charged . this prisoner by religion is a roman catholick , he calls himself so ; in plain english he is a papist : and finding that since this plot was discovered , his trading decay'd , ( being one that was a banker for the catholicks ) he grew enraged that their money was called so fast for , and being in the company of one fromante a foreigner , at a cook 's shop , he takes notice of the discovery of the plot , ( being a very great well-wisher to it ) and enters into a great passion , and spake these words of the king : that he was a great heretick , and the greatest rogue in the world ; then holding up his hand , he clapt it upon his heart , and said , i would with this hand kill him my self . these words were heard by two gentlemen that were present , but spoken in french. william carstaires , a witness . attorn . gen. acquaint the court and jury what you know of any words spoken by the prisoner about killing the king. witness . so far as i know or can give an account , it was about eleven of the clock in the day , on the fourteenth day of this month ; he call'd for a pot of ale , and a slice of rost beef , which when it was called for , his landlord said it should be brought him : there was another frenchman with staley , a stranger to me : they discoursed together in french , and staley then said twice over , the king was a grand heretick , making this demonstration , with his hand upon his breast , and stampt five or six times with his foot in great fury . the old man bartholomew fromante , his friend , said , that the king of england was a tormentor of the people of god , and he answered again , the king of england , and repeated it again in a great fury , the king of england is a great heretick and the greatest rogue in the world ; there 's the heart , ( striking his hand on his breast ) and here 's the hand that would kill him my self , and he said further , the king and parliament think all is over , but the rogues are mistaken . lord chief just . did you know staley ? witness . no my lord , i had never seen him before . l. chief just . what did you do upon this ? witness . i did not know what to do , being ignorant of the laws of the country , i thought it was a great matter , and being sensible that staley was gone out , i caused one to attend him , and came to his fathers shop , and looked up and down , and the next day i apprehended him . l. chief just . are you sure ( looking upon the prisoner ) that was the man ? witness . yes . l. chief . just . did you see him when he spake the words ? witness . yes i saw him ; there was no more distance betwixt the two doors , but just as far as that gentleman and me ; his face was strait toward us . l. chief just . were you in the same room ? witness . no , but just over against it ; the doors were open . l. chief just . how near were you to him ? witness . seven or eight foot from the place where i was and where he was . he was standing at one door , and i at the other . in french the words were spoken , he making a demonstration , stamping with his foot , i would kill him my self , ( which the prisoner would have evaded by saying , the words signifie , i would kill my self . the prisoner farther said , that the king and parliament thought all was over , but the rogues were beguiled and deceived . alexander sutherland witness . mr. sutherland , tell what you heard the prisoner at the bar say , were you there ? witness . yes . l. chief . just . which was nearest to him , he or you ? witness . he was nearest to him , and i just by the gentleman . he said afterwards , when a word or two past betwixt them . the old man said , that the king of england , was a tormentor of the people of god : the prisoner answered , the king of england , and repeated it again with a great fury , the king of england is the greatest heretick and the greatest rogue in the world there 's the heart , ( striking his hand on his breast ) and here 's the hand that would kill him my self ; and the king and parliament thinks their business is over , but the rogues are mistaken . pris . i said ( replyed the prisoner ) i would kill my self . l. chief just . would you kill your self because you said the king was a heretick ? you acknowledge your self to be a roman catholick . pris . and in that faith i intend to dye . attorn . gen. here the prisoner doth not deny but he said the king of england was a great heretick ; and can we imagine him to be for that reason in such a passion that he would therefore kill himself ? whether that be a natural conclusion from such premises , i must submit to any impartial hearer . l. chief just . did you see mr. staley perfectly , was the door open ? witness . i saw him perfectly . l. chief just . did you know him before ? witness . i never saw his face before . l. chief just . did you write the words presently ? witness . i writ them down presently , as god shall be my witness . l. chief just . look upon the writing , is it your hand ? witness . it is ; and it was writren the fourteenth of november . 1678. about eleven a clock they came to the black lyon in kings-street , and call'd for a quart of ale , and a slice of rost beef , and it was answered , it should presently be had . william staley said , having struck on his breast , and stamping with his foot five or six times , i my self would do it . l. chief just . did you write all that is in the paper at that time ? witness . i writ the words in french as i heard them from him , then formed it as to the person and time afterwards when i was gone . l. chief just . who told you it was staley the goldsmith ? witness . we asked the man of the house ; and we found he went to his fathers house in covent garden ; we asked his fathers name , and his name ; and that 's the very man l. chief just . he confesseth he was in this place at that time with the old man. he acknowledged that he spake some words , but denied he spake those : that he was the man , he doth not deny . attorn . gen. the third man is a gentleman that doth not understand the french tongue , he was in the company of these two men at that time ; we do not call him to prove the words , because he doth not understand the language , but to prove what followed . l. ch. just . there is no mistake of the person , the prisoner doth not deny he was there . call the third person to know what he hath to say . phillip garret , third witness . wit. all that i can say is this ; my captain william castaries came to me in a great passion , and said , i cannot suffer this , i will run upon him , i cannot be quiet . l. chief just . what are those things he charged upon him ? witness . that he would kill the king himself : it is impossible to suffer it , i will run out for a constable presently , this cannot be suffered . i went to enquire for his name ; the answer was , he was a goldsmith , and that his name was staley . that 's the very man ( looking upon him ) i saw there , and heard him speak . l. chief just . what were the first words ? witness . [ the french words were spoken twice , [ in english thus ] the king was a grand heretick [ french again ] here 's the hand , here 's the heart , i would kill him my self . l. chief just . what can you say to this ? prisoner . my lord , the matter of fact hapned thus : this gentleman , mr. sutherland , comes over to me in the morning when i was in the shop , and said , sir , i would have a red button like this , i said i had none of that nature , you had better go to the exchange . i would have one of a true stone ; you must ( i reply'd go to the jewellers , i have none of these . upon that i dismist him ; he went over , and presently comes in a quarter of an hour after , and tells me that an honourable person would speak with me : i went over ; this gentleman makes a great many ceremonies to me , and reads me this paper ; he tells me you see what the gentleman reads , i would advise you to look to it , then taking me aside by the window . i said , i do not understand you , i am innocent , you must not put any bubble upon me ; with that the captain runs out in a fury , and fetcheth a constable , and carrieth me to the gate-house . i was in my shop the day before , which very day i did intend to go out with a friend into the country , and prepared my self accordingly ; and mr. fromante , the old man that was the friend of mine , comes , saying to me , the constable would have something , i know not what it is , come and assist me ; i went to the place , the constable told me , that i was to appear by ten of the clock ; with that comes the old man out . i owed him a little money , i went and paid him the money which i owed him . i came back , and sate down by the window out of sight , the old man sate at the right hand , so we sat and discoursed as innocently , as i thought , and ( before god ) as ever i spake in my life . l. chief just . what discourse had you ? prisoner . our chief discourse was about the materials of our business , and it was about the king of france his usurpation over his subjects , and the happiness of our little people , the commonalty of england , that was indeed usually our discourse when we met together . l. ch. just . did you say you would kill the king of france ? and that he was a great heretick ? do you believe the king of france is an heretick ? prisoner . i know not what his opinion is , that 's to his own conscience . l. chief . just . did you name the word heretick ? prisoner . not to my knowledge upon my soul , not of the king of england ; we might have discoursed of the happiness and of the difference of their governments . i have been thought a person of some intelligence , and of some understanding in the world , and not to expose my self to speak in a publick large room , the door being open , with so high a voice that these gentlemen being in the next room should hear me in french , and in a street where almost all are frenchmen , to speak these blasphemous words , words that i abhor . i have been a great admirer of my prince . court. read the statute of decimo tertio , &c. l. chief . just . speak the words in english about killing the king , speak them all . witness . that the prisoners companion did say , the king was a tormentor and persecutor of the people of god. the prisoners words were again , the king of england is the greatest heretick , and the greatest rogue in the world ; there 's the heart , and here 's the hand that would kill him ; my self . prisoner . here 's the hand , and here 's the heart which would kill my self : not would kill him my self . l. chief just . what jesuit taught you this trick ? it is like one of them , it is the art and interest of a jesuit so to do . the statute read. l. chief just . have you any thing more to say for your self than what you have already said ? court. sir john kirk , do you understand french ? one of the jury . i do , my lord ; the words have been interpreted all right . l. chief just . let me ask you one question , when you said the king was a great heretick and a rogue , and there 's the heart , and here 's the arm that would kill him my self ; was it not the king you would kill ? prisoner . i have this to say in justification of my self , and allegeance to my prince and king , that i never thought , nor imagined , or contrived any way , but have been a true subject to the king upon all occasions ; i am sorry it proves so , gods will be done , my soul depends upon it ; i am a dying man by the statute , never with intention , or any thought or ill will , spake i any word about this matter . l. chief . just . out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks , the statute hath been read , which hath made it criminal . call a witness for the prisoner . prisoner . the old man to whom i spake is not here , i had so short notice of my tryal , that i could not find him . attor . gen. that old man hath been examined upon oath . the prisoner shall see the examination if he please , he shall have it read , if he will not , i will not press to have it read . ( here the examination being shewn the prisoner , he gave it back to mr. attorny general again , then the prisoner called for a witness who was present in court. one anselm spake . they came to my house , where i live , at the cross-keys in covent garden , about eight a clock in the morning , these two gentlemen , the day they took him away , was the day after these words were spoke , and he was kept prisoner from eight till eleven of the clock without any constable , they had five bottles of wine , and bespake meat , but they did not stay to eat the meat . l. ch. just . how came you to stay so long ? witness . i was two hours in looking for a constable , they would not come with me without a warrant from a justice of peace . l. ch. just . who told you you had best take it up ? prisoner . the middlemost man , the first witness . witness . we were about three long hours , i sent out this gentleman for a constable , in the mean time the prisoners father sent his maid for him to come home , i told him he should not go , if he desired to eat we would eat there . i sent to vvhite-hall and desired a guard , the officer of the guard told the messenger it was the constables part . court. call another witness for the prisoner . vvitness for the prisoner . i have heard him often declare as much loyalty to his prince as any person . one day we fell into a discourse of these affairs , the business of the jesuites , which are a people he did as much condemn as any : for in padua he saw so many cheats , that he forsook the jesuitical religion , and if he knew any of the persons concerned in this plot , he would be the executioner himself , and vvhoever comes to reign aftervvards , they shall never enjoy so much peace as novv ; and i heard him often say , he vvould lose his blood for the king , and heard him speak as loyally as i ever heard any man speak in my life . l. ch. just . that is vvhen he spoke to a protestant . court. have you any thing else to say for your self , or have you any more witnesses , that you would have examined on your behalf ? prisoner . no. lord chief justice his speech . the statute hath been read , which was made since the king came in , for the preservation of his person , and during his life : the parliament thought it reasonable , even to make desperate words to be treason , although there was no other thing but words , that is , such words , as if the thing had been done would be treason , the speaking it is treason . when we come to observe the manner of this speaking , methinks there is no great difficulty to satisfie the jury that they were spoke advisedly and maliciously . they were in a publick house , and by accident heard : they concealed them not a moment , and not from the man that did not understand french. to hear a man say in a great passion , that his king was a heretick , and the greatest rogue in the world , and that he would kill him , to write down the words presently , they slept not upon it , they found out who he was , the next day they came to attach him : they kept him , for what ? till they could get a constable . so that here is nothing doubtful either in the circumstance or substance of his case : so that you cannot have a plainer proof in the world then there is in this . for my own part , when it is in the case of a man's life , i would not have any compliance with the rumors or disorder of times that should be an evidence against him , but would have a verdict depend upon the witnesses , that swear the fact down right upon him . you and we all are sensible of the great difficulties and hazards that is now both against the kings person , and against all protestants , and our religion too , which will hadly maintain it's self , when they have destroyed the men ; but let 'em know , that many thousands will lose their religion with their lives , for we will not be papists , let the jusuits press what they will ( who are the foundations of all this mischief ) in making proselites , by telling them , do what wickedness you will it 's no sin , but we can save you , and if you omit what we command we can damn you . this they will not own when it comes to be an objection and penal upon them , but they will never get the pope of rome to declare he hath not a power to excommunicate what he calls a heretick , king , and if he does , that the subject is not discharged from his obedience , they would do great service to their papist friends , if they could obtain such an edict . they print , preach , dispute , and maintain otherwise , and thereby lead people to their own destruction and the destructions of others . excuse me , if i am a little warm , when perils are so many , their murthers so secret , that we cannot discover the murther of that gentleman , whom we all knew so well ; when things are transacted so closly , and our king in so great danger , and religion at stake . t is better to be warm here than in smithfield . but that the man might have justice done him , he hath had his witnesses , and might have had this old man , if he had named him to mr. richardson : and to shew what fair play he has had , mr. attorny tells you the old man hath been examined upon oath , and offers him the copy of his examination to use , but he thinks not fit to use it for his defence , therefore nothing is smothered the offence you have heard in words plain enough , unless the sence is perverted by jesuitical cunning and equivocation , the best part of their learning and honesty . they swear it expresly , that the king was a heretick and the greatest rogue in the world , and here 's the heart and hand , that he would kill him himself ; and hath and can have no other signification . the statute saith advisedly and maliciously . the manner of speaking , and the words spoke , prove both : when a papist once hath made a man a heretique , there is no scruple to murther him . whoever is not of their perswasion are hereticks , and who ever are hereticks may be murthered , if the pope commands it , for which they may become saints in heaven ; this is that they have practised . if there had been nothing of this in this kingdome , or other parts of the world , it would be a hard thing to impose it upon them , but they ought not to complain , when so many instances are against them . therefore discharge your consciences as you ought to do ; if guilty let him take the reward of his crime , and you shall do well to begin with this man , for perchance it may be a terrour to the rest . vnless they think they can be saved by dying in the roman faith , tho with such pernicious and traiterous words and designes as these are ; let such go to heaven by themselves , i hope , i shall never go to that heaven , where men are made saints for killing kings . william staly , hold up your hand . court. is william staly gulty of the high treason whereof he hath been indicted . jury . guilty . court. what goods , chattels , lands or tenements ? jury . none . l. ch. just . novv you may die a roman catholique , and vvhen you come to die , i doubt you vvill be found a priest too . kings councel . i pray judgement according to the verdict . court. you have been indicted of high treason , you have put your self upon your country , vvhich country have found you guilty , vvhat have you to say for your self , vvherefore the court should not proceed to judgement against you ? prisoner . i have nothing to say . l. chief justice . i pronounce judgement upon you . you are here found guilty by the jury of high treason , for saying you vvould kill the king , vvith other irreverent vvords ; but the matter vvhich makes you a traitor is proved upon you by most apparent evidence . the matter , manner , and all the circumstances of it make it plain , you may harden your heart as much as you vvill , and lift up your eies , but you seem instead of being sorrovvful , to be obstinate , betvveen god and your conscience be it , i have nothing to do vvith it , my duty is to pronounce judgement upon you according to lavv , vvhich is this . the sentence . you shall return to the prison , from thence shall be drawn to the place of execution , where you shall be hanged by the neck , cut down alive , your quarters shall be severed and be disposed of as the king shall think fit , and your bowels burnt , and so the lord have mercy upon your soul. finis . a reply to the excellent and elegant speech made by sir thomas player, the worthy chamberlain of london, to the right honble the lord mayor &c. on friday the 12th of september, 1679 by h.b. h. b. 1679 approx. 7 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a30922 wing b77 estc r28327 10526080 ocm 10526080 45203 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a30922) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 45203) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1394:35) a reply to the excellent and elegant speech made by sir thomas player, the worthy chamberlain of london, to the right honble the lord mayor &c. on friday the 12th of september, 1679 by h.b. h. b. player, thomas, sir, d. 1686. 4 p. s.n., [london : 1679] caption title. published also under title: an answer to the excellent and elegant speech made by sir thomas player. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -1660-1714. 2007-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-01 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-02 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-02 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a reply to the excellent and elegant speech made by sir thomas player , the worthy chamberlain of london , to the right hon ble the lord mayor , &c. on friday the 12th of september , 1679. by h. b. an unworthy member of the said citie ; but could not be heard or understood then . my lord , i cannot but wonder at the manner as well as the subject matter of sir t.p. his discourse . as to the manner , i suppose he might have inform'd your lordship and the court of aldermen of any danger the citie were in , upon any account whatsoever , without bringing an hundred persons at his heels . i must take the boldness to tell him , that it lookt more like a tumultuous number of apprentices doing execution upon bawdie-houses , than any solid considerate way of advising good for the citie or kingdom . but i suppose the great policie of that , might have three considerations : one , to shew that he is able to lead up his men : another , that he is able to make an excellent speech : or thirdly , that he , for his great zeal and love to the citie and nation , was sollicited by those persons , out of their great fears and apprehensions of dangers partly created by himself . i am very sorry that a gentleman should have given occasion for any citizen to have said so much : but any thing concerning his highness had been received better from another hand than his , because of the known grudge . next , as to the subject matter , he seems to be very much offended at the citie 's being libell'd in the intelligencer , by saying that the citie should send to congratulate his highness his return : as if it were such an immortal stain to the reputation of the citie , never to be deleted ! i wonder it was never taken notice of before . had we congratulated him now , it had not been the first time . when he return'd from sea , where he hazarded his life for the maintaining of our trade , ( which we are the gainers by ) and had been in the heat of fight , where several noble-men were killed about him , we could then congratulate him , as also did the nation with a present . he did not want honour or preferment , to do this for us . but we might have congratulated him , as he hath condescended to be a member of us . if his highness had so much malice in him as to necessitate us to be upon our guards in the nature proposed , surely he would never have ventur'd himself as a private sea-man , for our service . neither can i conceive any such great danger of our religion , since his majestie is living , and well ( god be thanked . ) his highness his title may never happen . besides , the assembly of parliament , and our members there , will take care of us in that point . we speak well of our king generally , although i am afraid there be some amongst us that are sorry they can't speak otherwise , to further their designes of enslaving us under a parcel of factious and ambitious fellows . and i hope there be yet persons sufficient amongst us ( upon discovery of any such designes ) to correct any sort of faction against the king , laws , and established government , whether popish , or any other predominant among us : for neither the one nor the other ( i am assured ) consist with the freedom of the subject . we cry out of arbitrary government , and i know not what besides , with which the vulgar are amused : whilst we in our government in the citie are the most guilty of arbitrariness in the execution of the laws that we be judges of , of any body else . for how many thousand pounds per annum come into our purses by a knack of chusing sheriffs , in making choice of persons whose occasions we know will not permit them to serve that office ; and then , to excuse them , we must have four or five hundred pound apiece ? with many suchlike devices . and how many young citizens have been undone by moneys paid for coming on of our liveries ; a tax more considerable than twenty publique taxes for the support of the government ? these things , besides a great number more , we have and shall finde will lessen our trade and interest ; else would not our houses stand unlet , and our shops be uncustom'd . when the king had thanked us for our care in raising the militia , and making the citie a garison , for the preservation of his person ; his majestie told us he would take care of himself , yet this would not make us lay down our arms. nor do i know by what law the lieutenancie there can make us keep them up . 't is true , the lieutenancie themselves , or we that are the principal men , value not the charge , being little to us , in comparison of what it is to the poor trades-men , who had more need be minding their business , than they or their servants so employed , to the debauchery of the youth of the citie . and many of those mean persons that are forced to be at this intolerable charge , will be fit for nothing , but to give assistance in any new rebellion . and if you please to peruse the statutes for setling the militia , you 'll finde there how our trained bands are to be marshal'd : that in case of invasion or insurrection , every souldier is to be provided of one months pay ; but no person to be charged further , until the said months pay be reimbursed him . and in times of peace , the general muster and exercise of regiments not to be above once a year . that the training and exercising single companies be not above four times a year , unless upon special direction by the king or privie council ; and the same not to continue above two days , &c. these acts were made with abundance of consideration for the liberty of the subject , that the king should not lay any extraordinary burden upon our estates , upon any pretence whatsoever . and i wonder how it hath been submitted unto by our pretence of authority so long , being absolutely against law. it 's impossible for us to thrive in the citie , whilst we amuse our selves with these kinde of fears . let us trust god and the king with the government : let 's mend our selves at home , and endeavour to encourage and increase the trade of the citie . when the king or government is in danger , we shall hear of it time enough : or if the king hath a minde to make us of his privie council , he knows his own time for it . certainly the king hath more to lose than any of us . i must refer it to your lordships consideration , whether we ought to take notice of this intelligencer as a libeller or not ; and also whether there be occasion for any guards at all , for the considerations aforesaid . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a30922-e10 13 car. 2. cap. 6. 14 car. 2. cap. 3. a true narrative of the late design of the papists to charge their horrid plot upon the protestants by endeavouring to corrupt captain bury and alderman brooks of dublin, and to take off the evidence of mr. oats and mr. bedlow, &c. as appears by the depositions taken before the right honourable sir joseph williamson, knight ... and the several examinations before sir william waller ... bury, john, capt. 1679 approx. 43 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 10 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a30681 wing b6215 estc r4408 13679795 ocm 13679795 101286 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a30681) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 101286) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 839:26) a true narrative of the late design of the papists to charge their horrid plot upon the protestants by endeavouring to corrupt captain bury and alderman brooks of dublin, and to take off the evidence of mr. oats and mr. bedlow, &c. as appears by the depositions taken before the right honourable sir joseph williamson, knight ... and the several examinations before sir william waller ... bury, john, capt. brooks, william, alderman of dublin. [3], 16 p. printed for dorman newman ..., london : 1679. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng bury, john, -capt. brooks, william, -alderman of dublin. oates, titus, 1649-1705. bedloe, william, 1650-1680. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2006-05 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-05 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 jonathan blaney sampled and proofread 2006-09 jonathan blaney text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion this narrative of the late design of the papists , &c. published for general information , doth exactly agree with the examinations taken by sir joseph williamson and my self . william waller . march 25. — 79. a true narrative of the late design of the papists to charge their horrid plot upon the protestants . by endeavouring to corrupt captain bvry and alderman brooks of dublin , and to take off the evidence of mr. oats and mr. bedlow , &c. as appears by the depositions taken before the right honourable sir joseph williamson , knight , one of his majesties late principal secretaries of state ; and the several examinations before sir william waller , knight , one of his majesties justices of the peace . published for general information . london : printed for dorman newman at the kings arms in the poultrey , 1679. the depositions of captain bury . on the 11th of this instant january , i received the annexed note from mr. james nettervile ; on the 13th i went to him ; as soon as i came , he told me , he had something to impart to me in private ; we went into a room alone , and he asked me if i did not hear that there were persons making inquiry to find out some that would amuse those that had impeached the lords , and those concerned about the plot. i told him i heard nothing of it . he told me there were such , and that i should find the game would turn another way ; and that i might do my self a kindness , if i pleased . i told him my affairs called me for ireland , that i must be gone on the thursday following . he told me it would be worth my while to stay ; and asked me if i could nor prove that one mr. digby had meetings with mr. oats and mr. bedlow . i told him no , for he knew there had been no great friendship of late betwixt us ( this i lookt upon as an introduction to the design ) ; but he came close to me , and told me , a person had been with him concerning this matter , and that indeed they had a jealousie of mr. blood ; and if i would discover any thing of that nature against him , i should have 4 or 500 l. for my pains . to this i seemed to hearken ( but was much surprised at this unexpected discourse ) , and did plainly see their design was to turn the game another way , as he said before . i did not discourage him , but told him i would consider of it ; and if i did not go on thursday , i would see him again ; and that he knew well i was very hard to believe this plot ; and then he told me that he could bring a prisoner in that place to drink a pot of ale with me , that could give me an account what a rogue mr. bedlow was ; but i being in haste , took my leave of him , he injoyning me to secresie . at my return i could not meet with mr. blood , but having some business with sir ralph dalaval , and the lady elizabeth his daughter , and being full with this devilish design , i told the story to them , and said , when i was in ireland , i should hear , and they should find that this was the game they intended to play , to turn the plot from themselves , and doubted not they would find some to carry it on . on the 14th ( in the morning ) i went to mr. bloods house , and acquainted him with it ; he desired me to meet him in the evening , because he desired to consider of it ; but told me then , he had no reason to slight it , because the morning before , a knight [ sir thomas longvile ] had been with him , and told him there was a design against him of the same kind , and desired him to inquire after it . in the evening i met with mr. blood , who desired me to keep my correspondence with the said nettervile , and to know of him how i should be secured my payments , and what it was they would have me do . on the 16th i went accordingly to him , and told him i had considered of what we had discoursed before , and had stopt my journey as to that day ; he was very glad to see me , and told me , that the party [ russel ] had been with him again about the business , and i might get 500 l. without any prejudice to my self ; i told him that money would do me a great kindness at this time ( for he knew i had waited a long time here , and that it was very hard with me ) , therefore desired to know what they would have me to do , and how i should be sure of the 500 l. for i expected it should be a person of good credit that would lay down the 500 l. he told me i should not need to question that , for they were of credit enough . but he that came to him [ russel ] , was only imployed to pay the money ; and if i shall tell him that you will do the business , you shall be sure of the money ; not so , said i , first let me know what it is distinctly , and how i shall be sure of the 500 l. or else i will not stir a foot in it , but be gone on monday . saith he , would you have the money before-hand ? then it may be you will not do it . no , said i , that i do not desire . but will you deposite it in a third hand ? truly , said he , that is very fair , and i doubt not but they will do it ( for i told him none was better able to carry it on than you ; for mr. blood 's man was formerly your servant , and preferred by you to him ) , and told me , that on saturday by two or three of the clock , his friend would be with him again ; but that he would be shy of discoursing with me ; and desired that i would come to him [ russel ] on monday , and then i should understand more . upon my return i acquainted mr. blood with the whole discourse , and that i was to leave the town on monday , having stayed my utmost time , because i had a suit depending in chancery , at dublin ; and that if i were not there the beginning of the term , it would be great damage to me , because my absence would be looked upon as a contempt ; but mr. blood requested me to stay until he had acquainted his majesty , or one of his secretaries with it , to know his pleasure as to my going or stay . john bury . sworn before me the 17th of jan. 1678. j. williamson . saturday the 18th day of january , i was with james nettervile in the evening ; he told me his friend [ russel ] had left him about half an hour before i came , and that he acquainted him with what i propounded ( to wit ) that 500 l. should be deposited in a third persons hand ; and he told me his friend was contented it should be so , and thought it but reasonable , and therefore was willing to put it into a goldsmiths hand . i asked him if they had considered the method we should carry this on ? and whether they had drawn up the heads of what i was to swear ? he told me , no ; but his friend would be with him again upon wednesday , and that all things should be prepared and ready for me by thursday morning . i asked him if it would be convenient for me to meet his friend ? he told me not as yet , for he was very wary , shy , and fearful of being betrayed . i told him i thought my meeting with him was not material ; only , said i , let him be sure to secure the money , and he needs not doubt of effecting the business . but , said i , 500 l. is not all that i expect from him for this service , that is but a melting cash , and i have a great charge , and a wife and six children , and you know i have lyen a long time waiting here , almost to my utter ruin , and have been very hardly dealt with . now , if i accomplish this , i shall lose my interest in all other parties , and therefore expect he should make me a very good interest with that party . never fear that , said he , you shall have interest enough with them ; and if we can but turn off this plot , there is no danger of effecting our business ; for , saith he , the king will believe nothing of it . well , said i , i must trust to you to make my interest ; but i partly see how things are like to go , and think it wisdom to come in with the beginning of the game . sa it he ( swearing by his maker ) never fear , if we turn off this plot , we do our business , and you will be made for ever . but , said i , why will you defer this while wednesday ? that is a great while , and delays are not good . said he , i did not expect you till sunday : but if i hear any thing in the mean time , i will write to you , and it shall be left at mr. brooke's lodging . i hear , said i , the parliament is prorogued ; and that is true enough , said he ; and till they meet again , we can receive no great damage . but , said he , i hear the apprentices are ready to rise and pull down newgate . said i , then i suppose that is , because the men [ jesuits ] are not executed . what else , said he ? and that is our great danger , that the people should run into a rebellion before we accomplish our business . i asked him if he had taken an abstract , as he said he would , of what that man in the prison could swear , to take off mr. bedlow's evidence . i have not yet , said he , but we are sure enough of him , and shall make bedlow rogue enough . pray , said i , what will he swear ? that the very morning the proclamation came forth concerning sir edmondbury godfrey , mr. bedlow came to his chamber , and asked him if he had ever seen sir edmondbury godfrey : for , said he , if i knew what a like man he was , i could easily get 500 l. and however , i am resolved to hazard my neck , but i will have it ; and that he would have had this man go with him to somersethouse to see the rooms , and promised to get him money , if he would go with him . but , said i , mr. nettervile , it is said mr. bedlow was out of town before the proclamation came out ; that is not so , saith he , for this mans wife went into the countrey with him . a great deal of discourse more we had , all tending to the incouraging of me to carry on this business , to turn this plot to be a protestant plot for the destruction of the papists , and then i should be made for ever . when i paid the reckoning , and was coming away , said he , you will always come to your charge , but i hope the end will pay for all . on wednesday the 22d , at night , i went to mr. nettervile , expecting to have the model how they would have me swear , and in what goldsmiths hand they would put the 500 l. but as soon as ever i came to him , he told me that he had been put into such as fright , that he was never in all his life before ; for , said he , mr. oates , mr. bedlow , sir william waller , and another justice have been with me ; they called for irons , one would have fifty pound weight , another would have an hundred pound weight put upon me . at length sir william waller began to examine me , and told me , he knew i could discover a great deal ; so i desired the rest might be put out of the room , and i confest all to him and the other justice , they both promising me my pardon . have you confest all , said i ? how could i help it , said he ? i was never in such a fright in all my life ; and they promised me my pardon . what have you confest , said i ? i have told them , said he , that 500 l. was to be deposited in a goldsmiths hand , and that i had sent for a gentleman , and treated with him about it . have you told them my name , said i ? he paused at that ; no , said he ; but i must tell them , but i thought first to acquaint you with it . then said i , it seems you have left me in the lurch , and have made no provision for me ; therefore since it is so , you will give me leave to play my own game ; and seeing you have confest , let us now play our game as well as we can on the other side , and be sure to be ingenuous , and confess whatever we know . i will immediately to sir joseph williamson , and declare the whole story . pray do so , saith he , neglect no time , but go this night . and so we parted . john bury . the deposition of alderman brooks . that on or about the 23d of december , 1678 , i was at the marshalseys in southwark , where was one james nettervile , a prisoner there for debt ; who desired me to do so much for him , as to carry a note for a friend of his that was a prisoner also , unto one pierce butler , that lived in germanstreet , near my lodging ; and said , if i would procure any of his friends to come to his friend there , he would have money enough , whereof he should have a share ; and also it would be a great kindness to him ; whereupon i told him i would , provided he would write it quickly . whereupon he called forth his friend , and they two consulted together , and he wrote two or three lines , and gave them me for the said butler . but when i came to the place where i was directed , they told me he was gone out of town in obedience to the kings proclamation . and so i troubled my self no further , but put the note in my pocket : the next morning he sent a messenger to me , to know what i had done in it ; i desired him to tell the said mr. nettervile , that the said mr. butler was gone out of town in obedience to his majesties proclamation . about ten days after , i had occasion for some waste-paper ; and putting my hand in my pocket , i lit on this note that i should have delivered to butler , and opened it , and read it , and found in it these words written , or to this effect . sir , i am here committed by the name of daniel edmonds , by a justice of the peace in the country , as being a recusant . and therefore i desire of you , that you will come unto me here , that i may advise with you ; and in so doing , you will oblige your friend , dominick kelly . this run in my mind , till about the 5th instant at night ; and then being at mr. proctors coffee-house at charingcross , i there met with a paper , intituled , mr. praunces discovery of the plot , and of sir edmondbury godfreys murtherers ; wherein ( amongst other things ) there was mentioned two irish priests to be guilty , the one named gerrald , and the other kelly ; whereupon it came into my mind , that the man that i carried the note for into germanstreet , must be the same kelly , because by that note he was committed by the name of edmunds , and his name was kelly . the next morning being the 16 of this instant january ( thinking to have found the same kelly there ) , i came there ; and coming to the aforesaid nettervile , and after some secret discourse , i asked him how his friend did that i carried the note for ? he told me he procured bail. then i asked him what he was ? he told me that he was a priest , and one of those that oats ( that rogue ) had impeached . i asked him how he could get bail , being a priest ; he told me , they did not know that he was a priest ; and those that were his bail , would be bail for any for money ; and he gave them ten shillings a piece , and the fellow that procured them , five shillings ; and he got them the copy of his commitment for them to move by ; and the priest promised him , the said nettervile , seven pounds . but he had not left it him as yet ; and so we left this discourse , and came to other . that he having sent by me a letter , and a petition to mrs. eleanor wall , a gentlewoman that belongs to the dutchess of portsmouth ( whom he calls cozen ) , whereby to get him some money for his present supply : but i having no opportunity to meet with her , could give him no account of that matter ; whereupon he said , that he was in such want , that if he had not help speedily , he should be turned into the common-side : i told him that money was so scarce with me , that i could not lend him any ; but if i could , i would . whereupon he called me aside into the corner of the yard , by the gate , and told me , that if i would be rul'd by him , he would put me into a way whereby we should have money enough . i asked him how ? he told me , if i would but joyn and assist to villify the evidence of oats and bedlow , those two rogues ; whereupon i laughed at him , and said , it is impossible ; their evidence was grounded upon too good a foundation : he told me i was mistaken , and i should hear otherwise in a little while . upon the 17th of january i went again to him , thinking to have gained something of him , what was become of this priest , but could not ; and was taking my leave of him , saying , i must go home , for i had some business to write for ireland , to send by captain bury , who was to go on monday ; he told me , he believed he should stop captain burys journey ; i told him , i hoped not so ; he answered , it should not be to his prejudice . to which i answered , why then with all my heart , for i would not be against any thing that should be for his good . and so there came in one russel an irish man , that had some business with him . and so we parted . william brooks . the second information of mr. brooks . i being with mr. nettervile at the marshalsey in southwark , mr. nettervile desired me i would do him the kindness as to carry another letter for his friend to one capt. kelly , who had three or four employments in the tower of london . i told him i would if it was any kindness to him . so nettervile with dominick kelly went together , and wrote a letter to this capt. kelly of the tower ; the contents were much the same with that i carried to pierce butler . i carried it to the tower , and capt. kelly was not at home ; so i delivered it to his wife . as soon as she read it , the tears were in her eyes ; she struck her hand on her breast , saying , alas poor man , is he taken ? i was in hopes he had been safe , of all the rest . she thankt me very kindly , and told me , as soon as her husband came home , she would give it him . when i went to mr. nettervile again , he thankt me for carrying the letter for his friend dominick kelly to the tower ; and told me capt. kelly had been with them , and treated them very civilly with wine and meat , and had spent five shillings upon them . i asked nettervile what capt. kelly was ? he told me he was a true irish man. i asked him if he was a papist ? he hath taken the oaths , said he ; but he is a well-wisher to us . on thursday the 16 of january , nettervile desired me to carry a letter from himself to capt. kelly , which letter signified to him that his friend dominick kelly was gone , and how that he had promised him 7 l. to discharge himself out of the prison , but had not yet been so good as his word ; therefore desired that he would take some speedy course that he may have the 7 l. to discharge himself out of prison . this letter i delivered to capt. kelly's own hand in the tower. he read it , and told me he was very glad his friend was out ; but that he had never seen him since ; pray , says he , remember me kindly to mr. nettervile , and tell him , for his kindness to my friend , i will do him all the service i can . upon the 28th of january i was desired by sir joseph williamson , to go to mr. nettervile , to try what more i could get out of him . on the 30th i went to him , and told him , that i had met with sir joseph williamson ; and he seemed to be angry , and thought we had not discovered all we knew . and i told nettervile , that although he had promise of his pardon , yet it was expected he should do more for it than he had done : as for my part , said i , you know i could discover nothing , but what discourse passed betwixt you and i , and that i have done to the full . therefore , if you know any more , i would advise you to discover it ; for since you have gone thus far , i think you ought not to conceal any thing of what you know more . the grand thing i perceive they desire of you , and that which i think is all they can expect from you , is , that you would declare from whom the 500 l. was to come . he thankt me for my advice , and told me , that he believed sir joseph williamson had not perused all his examinations , for he had answered all the questions they had asked him . and if they had any thing more to ask him , he would answer them . upon friday the 31th of january , i acquainted sir joseph williamson with what he said ; he ordered him to be brought to the council on saturday morning , where i met him at the door , before he was call'd ; i told him , i supposed the chief question that would be put to him , would be , whose this 500 l. was ? and begged of him that he would discover what he knew of it . upon his coming out from the council , i asked him if that was not the question they put to him ? he told me it was : i asked him what account he had given them ? he told me he thought they were satisfied , for they were very kind to him , and promised him , that so long as they lived , he should have the protection of that board . on tuesday , the 4th of february following , sir joseph williamson seeing me at the council-door , called me in , and asked me if i thought i could get any more out of nettervile ? i told him i thought he had given him satisfaction when he was before them , concerning whose the money was . i told sir joseph the discourse i had with nettervile at his going into the house , and at his coming back ; then he told me , that he had not been ingenuous with them , for he would confess nothing at first ; but after some questions being asked in general terms , he told them that it was to come from some of the lords in the tower ; and desired me that i would go once more to see if i could get any thing from him . the next morning the earl of essex desired to speak with me ; i waited upon him at the council-chamber ; and he desired me also , that i would go to mr. nettervile to see what i could get further from him . so on thursday the 6th of february , i did go to mr. nettervile , and told him i was not come on a bare visit ; but i was commanded by the earl of essex , and sir joseph williamson ( whom he knew had both been very kind to him ) to advise him , that he would be ingenuous , and discover what further he knew in this business . truly , said i , i suppose all they do expect from you , is , that you would make some clear discovery unto them whose money this 500 l. was ; saith he ( swearing by his soul ) i did tell them all i knew , i thought they had been satisfied ; no , said i , they are not ; and sir joseph williamson saith , you were not ingenuous ; for you only in general terms told them it was some of the lords money in the tower. now if you can remember which of the lords money it was , it may satisfie them ; for they judg , and so do i , and every one else , that russel would as easily tell you whose it was , as to tell you it was some of the lords in the tower. i could get no more from him a great while ; but after we had sate and discoursed some time , he told me that brewer was to be before the council the next day , and he believed he should be sent for too ; i suppose not , said i , unless i have some better account to give them from you : so just upon my coming away i told him ; mr. nettervile , i am sorry i can give no better account of my journey to you ; therefore pray , if you have any thing more to say , let me know it before i go . after he had paused a while , by my soul , said he , i cannot remember the particular name of any lord but one . who is that , said i ? my lord stafford , saith he ; but all the rest were to contribute to it ; for russel told me he was to go immediately to the tower , to get the money raised ; and that it was a difficult thing to get all the lords together ; and if he should go to them apart , they might make scruples , and so delay the business ; and therefore he should make all the haste he could to get the money ready . a relation of other material circumstances and discourses , in reference to the before-mentioned design . lest the jesuitical party should say of the following proceedings , that they are false and feigned , as their impudence affirmeth in all other inventions of theirs , when detected ; 't is necessary the world should understand the occasional circumstances , introducing this hellish attaque to be made upon this honest gentleman , captain bury , who for his worth and reputation is known to several persons of honour and good quality in this nation . the affairs that brought him into england , from his habitation in the kingdom of ireland , was to petition his majesty , and the honourable privy-council , touching a debt due to his father , sir william bury of grantham in lincolnshire , deceased , for his service in being one of his majesties lords commissioners for managing the government of ireland ; and in prosecution thereof , being several times in company with mr. nettervile , who was formerly a clerk in the court of claims , in dublin , and who pretended to inform the captain of several concealed lands and houses in ireland , which he might place his debt upon ; and upon the captains receipt of his said letter of the 11th of january , 1678 , desiring a speedy conference with the captain , touching matters which may redound to his advantage , which the captain readily embraced ( supposing it referred to the said concealed houses and lands ) ; and according to netterviles request by his note , on the said 13th of january last , the captain visited the said nettervile in the marshalsey in southwark ; when instead of a communication as to the aforesaid concerns ( the said nettervile being no stranger to the captains long abode here , and the expence he had been at in his solicitation ) took the opportunity to feel the captains pulse , as to the horrid fact before-mentioned . prima facie . it astonished the honest captain to think that nettervile had discovered a matter of that nature to him ; and considering if he should reveal it to any one , there would be but his asserting it , and netterviles denial , besides the censure the world would pass on the captains reputation , from the apprehension in netterviles breast , that the captain would be , or was fit to be profligated in such a concern , which with the danger and hazard he might expose his life to by such discovery , and the urgency of his particular affairs requiring his personal and speedy attendance in dublin ( having two conditional decrees awarded against him , which would have been made absolute this last hillary-term for want of his appearance there ) . all these considerations made him sometimes resolve within himself , to stifle the wicked proposal of nettervile . but weighing the direful effects of such a contrivance , which if prosecuted by some other instruments , when he was departed this kingdom , would not only have been the destruction of his intimate friend , and old acquaintance , mr. blood , but prejudicial to his majesty , and the whole kingdom , in taking off the evidence of mr. oats and mr. bedlow ; and thereby the papists might still carry on their devilish design and plot , when they had washed their own hands , and made such an alteration ; when the innocent would have been ruined , and the true bloodsuckers acquitted . this consideration so affected the captain , that he resolved to leave the event of his particular concerns to providence ; and as you read by his deposition , he repaired to mr. blood , and gave him intelligence thereof . and having so imparted the same to him , the goodness of god appeared much to the captains satisfaction , touching his troublesome thoughts about his particular concerns , by his majesties gracious pleasure , in ordering sir joseph williamson to write to the lord chancellor of ireland , that the captain might sustain no damage in his concerns , by his non-appearance there , being commanded by his majesty to attend his service here , which letter was sent accordingly . upon the 17th of january last , as the captain was going to attend sir joseph williamson , to give in his deposition , meeting with alderman brooks , and discoursing with him of nettervile , he told the captain he had been at the marshalseys the day before with nettervile , and feared he had done a very ill thing ; which upon the captains enquiry what it was , the said mr. brooks was somewhat unwilling to acknowledg , until he had searcht further into it . but before their departure , mr. brooks told the captain , that nettervile had procured bail for one dominick kelly , who was one of the murderers of sir edmondbury godfrey ; which relation of the alderman gave a confirmation to the captain of the wickedness of nettervile , and gods goodness in animating the captain to what he was then going about , touching his own information . which when he had signified to sir joseph williamson , he was much affected with it , and told the captain of what great concernment it was , to have the said dominick kelly in custody ; and desired the captain to bring the said alderman brooks to him ; which the captain desired respite in , that mr. brooks might make some further inquiry , as he said he would , into the concern ; and also least the information given by the said captain should be discovered , before there was a further progress made for the obtaining a full discovery of the design , and persons acting therein . upon the [ 19 january ] sunday morning , mr. brooks came to the captains lodging , to know whether his journey held for ireland the next day ; and then told the captain he had been the day before with nettervile ; and upon the captains demanding whether he had learnt any thing more touching dominick kelly , the said mr. brooks gave the captain the full account , which the captain caused to be put in writing , and carried him to sir joseph williamson , to make oath of the same , which he did , which appears by his foregoing information . and the captain could not but take notice of a series of providence all along in this business ; for by what alderman brooks attested , dominick kelly was so infatuated , as to send the letter unsealed to pierce butler by the alderman , although he was in such dangerous circumstances . upon mr. brooks his free acknowledgment of these passages , the captain ( desiring his secresie ) acquainted the said mr. brooks of netterviles prank with him ; which on the monday following , mr. brooks ( being to meet mr. lowman and mr. glover , the keeper and clerk of the marshalsey , to consider some way for the discovery of those who were bail for dominick kelly ) happened to give some hints of the captains information to the said mr. lowman , and mr. glover ; whereby mr. oats coming to have some understanding thereof , with mr. bedlow , and by an untimely process therein , going to nettervile with sir william waller , spoyled the proceedings , which otherwise might in a little time have produced the 500 l. deposited in the goldsmiths hand , and full intelligence of the parties concerned in the project , and of the depositions which the captain was to have sworn , when he received the 500 l. from russel , and the seizure of the said russel , &c. upon thursday the 23d of january , mr. brooks met with the captain , and told him what nettervile had related to him of the business of captain kelly in the tower ; he told him the story , as you find in his information . and further told the captain , that he had another letter , which he was going to carry to captain kelly in the tower ; and nettervile told him the said mr. brooks , that if captain kelly did not send him the 7 l. he the said nettervile did know enough to turn him out of the tower. i have , saith brooks , taken a copy of this letter , and the captain desired he might see it , which he did ; and the contents were to signifie to captain kelly , what a fright the said nettervile had been put into by mr. oats and mr. bedlow , having been with him . and therefore nettervile desired captain kelly to send him the 7 l. to discharge him out of that prison , lest wrose should come on it ; and upon the captains reading the copy of the said letter , he desired mr. brooks not to be too hasty in delivering that letter to captain kelly ; but that he would draw up by way of information what he had told him , and go along with the said captain to sir joseph williamson , and give in the information , and take his advice . so that on friday the 24th of january , the captain and mr. brooks went to sir joseph williamson , and gave him the information , and the said letter with the copy thereof ; then sir joseph told the captain and mr. brooks , that the committee of lords was going to sit , and that they should attend at the council-door , and he would call them in , that they might know their lordships pleasure , as to the delivery of the letter to captain kelly . after debate , their lordships were of opinin , that the letter should not be delivered , but thought they had sufficient ground to seize capt. kelly , and to search his house for dominick kelly , and for papers ; in order to which , sir joseph williamson was sent for his grace the duke of monmouth , who immediately came to the council , where the lords acquainted his grace with the business , and desired he would give mr. brooks a warrant to fetch capt. kelly . his grace was pleased to send for his secretary , and ordered him immediately to draw a warrant directed to sir john robinson , to assist them with a guard , for executing the warrant , and nettervile was ordered to be brought to the council that afternoon . and so the captain and mr. brooks accompanied with sir william waller , went to the tower ; and being guarded by sir john robinson , came to captain kellys house , and there his foot-boy came to the door ; and upon enquiry for his master , the boy replied , he was not within ; they askt him if he knew where he was ; the boy told them no , for he dined abroad : they went into the house , and in the room where the lord stafford lodgeth , they found capt. kelly , and brought him to the council with what papers they could find ; but nettervile had been examined , and was gone away before , and had confessed the sending the letters , and capt. kellys being with them in the marshalseys , &c. the captain thereupon was put into the messengers hands , and ordered to be brought before their lordships next morning , and nettervile also ( who were face to face at the council-table ) . capt. kelly denied that he knew this dominick kelly : nettervile told him he would not deny surely that he was with them at the marshalseys , which capt. kelly then confessed ; some of their lordships asked what he did at the marshalseys ? captain kelly said , he went to visit mr. nettervile : truly , said nettervile , 't was kindly done of you , sir , for i never saw or heard of you before , until your cozen dominick kelly told me of you , and desired me to send a letter from him to you . capt. kelly after examination , was committed to a messenger again ; but soon after he put in bail , and i have heard there was an order of council to turn him out of his employment . but whether it be so , or no , i know not . that russel ( upon the thursday after mr. oats and mr. bedlow had been with nettervile at the prison ) came again to nettervile , and instead of being apprehended , as nettervile promised lowman he should , nettervile gave him notice of the discovery , and he went out immediately and scaped . and after he was gone , nettervile then told lowman he had been there ; they pursued him , and saw him take boat , but could not overtake him . but mr. brooks had a warrant from sir joseph williamson to search for him at his house ; but his wife told them , that he was at the french ambassadors house , and had not lain at home in ten or twelve nights ; which the council being informed of , were very diligent to apprehend him , and offered 20 l. to those that could discover him . this russel , mentioned in the deposition , is a rank papist , and an irish-man , who married madam rowse , the dutchess of portsmouths gentlewoman : nettervile and brewer are of the same faction , and are now prisoners in the marshalseys . the deponents , capt. bury and alderman brooks , are both honest gentlemen , and good protestants ; and such whose principles detested either to engage in , or conceal such abominable villany : however , nettervile was so infatuated , as to conceive them fit to be profligated . now reader , thou hast seen the whole contrivance , &c. and mayest easily discern what the intentions of the romanists were ; what the natural consequence thereof would have been , i leave to thy own conjecture , and shall only add this true circumstance , as a farther confirmation of their wicked design in this matter , viz. that several persons ( by them appointed ) were a little before this discovery at the houses of some presbyterians , well known in the city of london , to pray their charitable contribution towards the maintenance of mr. oats and mr. bedlow , upon this specious , though false suggestion , that his majesties allowance was not sufficient for their incouragement ; but the parties to whom they applied themselves ( supposing their intentions were to abuse their king and countrey , and to procure coyn for themselves ) , rejected them with checks ; and it was well they did ; for otherwise , who knows what advantage they might have made thereof , in order to the effecting their wicked enterprize ? and thus i have done , trusting to the readers candor ; which if a protestant , i do not doubt of ; if a papist , neither expect or care for it ; i being one of quite different principles , and one whose prayers , as well as endeavours , shall be constantly engaged , for the frustration of their hellish attempts . concerning my intentions in the publication of these depositions , they were only for the publick good , and to expose to view the wicked subtilties of these men , that the nation ( and all true protestants ) may be made sensible of their devices ; that if ever they use the same , or the like again , they may be with the more ease detected , and rendred abortive . and also that all sincere christians , may ascribe the praise of all their deliverances ( as well of this as others ) to that god who hath so visibly and constantly appeared for the vindication of his people , and for infatuating the persons , as well as rendring unsuccessful the attempts of his and their implacable enemies . finis . raree show, or, the true protestant procession a new ballad to the tune of the northumberland man. 1681 approx. 5 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 2 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a33886 wing r280b wing c5226a_incorrect wing c5226b_incorrect estc r29641 99895787 99895787 46603 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a33886) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 46603) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1438:15; 2357:23) raree show, or, the true protestant procession a new ballad to the tune of the northumberland man. colledge, stephen, 1635?-1681, attributed name. 1 sheet ([2] p.) printed for a.b., [london] : 1681. sometimes attributed to stephen colledge. cf. nuc; wing. verse "this is the cabal of some protestant lords (had,". item identified on umi microfilm as c5226b (entry cancelled in wing 2nd ed.). reproduction of originals in: harvard university library; folger shakespeare library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng protestantism -humor -early works to 1800. popish plot, 1678 -humor -early works to 1800. political satire, english -early works to 1800. 2006-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-07 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2006-09 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion raree show or the true protestant procession . a new ballad to the tune of the northumberland man. 1. this is the cabal of some prot●stant lords a forging the turne that not long since they had , here w — ● sitteth and searcheth records ▪ to find flaws in good statutes , & varnish the bad . 2. this is the lord tony that slyly sits here who to sham and contrive has never deny'd and rather then the good cause shou'd fall through his fear he 'l let out rebellion by broaching his side . 3. this is popular perkin that smirks and looks gay the women extols the spark up to the sky , none danceth with so great a grace , as they say , yet some body thinks that he capers too high . 4. here flourishing e — the tongue o' th gang vvith rhetorical artifice fancies fine things , first vainly composeth a taking harangue then fosters a villain in libelling kings . 5. here 's docter informant that ne'r wou'd stick out to traffick in oaths or tell a state-lye , observe how he firks all the jesuits about , first blaws on a beuk , and so papists god b — y. 6. here 's wilmore that 's troubl'd with scruples & stings his citizens conscience is nice and demure , a traytor 's indicted for treasonable things , but he tells you t is false , he 's a protestant sure . 7. these are some sage cytizens that you see there , vvho out of their zeal all our rights to maintain and to keep out all slavery , have taken a care to put up in the streets two posts and a chain . 8. the seare some apprentices that still do retain some tenets their masters approve and allows , they come to direct a wise monarch to reign instead of sweeping their shop and cleaning of shooes . 9. this is the committee where greivance is scann'd which remonstrates the danger that threatens the state good service is here by suspicion trapan'd and allegiance is reckon'd malignancy streight . 10. her 's the synod of saints that will sometimes refresh the failings of nature with means of their own . they 'l preach you the mortification of flesh with eyes up to heaven and breeches let down . 11. these are the cabal of the covenantiers that think they maintain the religion the best by pulling down churches and their overseers and routing the defender of faith with the rest . 12. these are the remains of the levelling rump that stink in the house and fresh commons annoy , and least the right james shou'd be turn'd up for trump they cry out , a court card will their gaming destroy . 13. that lumber of trumpery buzzing about are silly subscribers that come at first dash , to make up a large petitioning rout of link-boys and all such true protestant trash . 14. these there are the hucksters that treason retail , they 'l sell you a sheet with a penniworth in 't ; that 's courantier care that never will fail to scribble , whilst langly dares publish and print . 15. that 's the club of a pack of ingenious friends that made charles a scotch pedlar in the rare show , and i hope that our monarch to make them amends will give them a yard of st. johnstons or two , printed for a. b. 1681. an impartial consideration of those speeches, which pass under the name of the five jesuits lately executed viz. [brace] mr. whitebread, mr. harcourt, mr. gawen, mr. turner, and mr. fenwick : in which it is proved, that according to their principles, they not only might, but also ought, to die after that manner, with solemn protestation of their innocency. williams, john, 1636?-1709. 1679 approx. 59 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 15 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a66402 wing w2710 estc r211881 17870181 ocm 17870181 106692 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a66402) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 106692) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1110:3) an impartial consideration of those speeches, which pass under the name of the five jesuits lately executed viz. [brace] mr. whitebread, mr. harcourt, mr. gawen, mr. turner, and mr. fenwick : in which it is proved, that according to their principles, they not only might, but also ought, to die after that manner, with solemn protestation of their innocency. williams, john, 1636?-1709. [2], 26 p. printed for richard chiswell ..., london : mdclxxix [1679] attributed to williams by wing and nuc pre-1956 imprints. reproduction of original in the union theological seminary library, new york. includes bibliographical references. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng whitbread, thomas, 1618-1679. barrow, william, 1610-1679. gawen, john, 1640-1679. turner, anthony, 1628 or 9-1679. caldwell, john, 1628-1679. popish plot, 1678. anti-catholicism -england. 2007-06 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2007-06 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-07 emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread 2007-07 emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an impartial consideration of those speeches , which pass under the name of the five jesuits lately executed . viz. mr. whitebread . mr. harcourt . mr. gawen . mr. turner , and mr. fenwick . in which it is proved , that according to their principles , they not only might , but also ought to die after that manner , with solemn protestations of their innocency . london : printed for richard chiswell , at the rose and crown in st. paul's church-yard , mdclxxix . an answer to the late speeches of the five jesuits . the words of dying persons have always been esteemed of greatest authority , as mr. harcourt in his speech doth observe : and at the first sight , what was spoken by him and his associates just before their execution , doth seem to command it ; when mr. gawen after the like preface doth add , i do solemnly swear , protest and vow by all that is sacred in heaven or on earth , and as i hope to see the face of god in glory , that i am as innocent as the child unborn , &c. a speech of so great assurance , that if it were not for the clearness of the evidence that was brought in against them , the impartiality of the court which they stood before and were condemned by , the order which they were of , and the cursed principles held by that order ; and lastly , other things spoken by them at the same time that were manifestly untrue , i should have had so much charity as to believe . but when all this and more doth appear against them , and confute what they have with so much confidence maintained before god and the world , it will be a work of justice and charity to detect their hypocrisie , and to shew that the jesuits have a gospel by themselves . and this i shall do : first , by shewing that their present case is such , that although they had been guilty , such a protestation of their innocence was necessary , if it might be consistent with the principles of religion . secondly , that such a protestation is consistent with their principles , and what is agreeable to the practice of their order . thirdly , that from the consideration of their circumstances , and a careful perusal of what was said by these persons at the time of their death , there is sufficient reason to believe that they acted upon such principles . first , it was necessary for them at this time , and in their circumstances , tho never so deeply guilty , to stand upon their own vindication , and to vindicate themselves after the most solemn way imaginable . for if this plot should be believed , and they discovered to be the contrivers and promoters of it , it would be a foul blemish to their religion , and so great a disparagement to their society , that all their art and industry could never be able to wipe it off . it would awaken the princes of christendom , and they would never think themselves secure till this order followed that of the templers , and was universally dissolved and extirpated . it would make those that mean well too among themselves to abhor them , and open a fair way for protestantism to enter in upon them . and therefore it concerned them as much as might be to prevent it ; and how could it be prevented , but by this way that they have taken . for if they had been silent under so great a charge as this , all the world would have concluded them guilty ; or if they had but faintly denied it , when the evidence was so full and peremptory against them , the suspitions that are abroad would have increased , and the evidence already given in would be further enquired into and made out . it was not a sorry evasion , or some puny equivocation that would put a stop to these mischiefs , and set them right in the opinion of the world , as they well enough understood ; and therefore it concerned them , if the honour of their religion , or that of their society was dear to them , to betake themselves to the most formal protestations to ensure it ; if so be it might be done with consistency to their religion , or their own safety in another world. secondly , i shall therefore shew that such protestations are consistent with their religion , and that altho they were never so guilty , they might stand upon their own innocency and justification to the death . and that is to be done upon these principles . ( 1 ) if what they are charged with be made legitimate by a superior authority . ( 2. ) if they are under a precedent and sufficient obligation not to confess what they are justly charged with . ( 3. ) if they are indemnified and declared innocent . ( 4. ) if they are charged before an incompetent authority . ( 5. ) if the charge it self be laid wrong . first , if what they are charged with be made legitimate and allowable by a superior authority ; which may be done two ways . first , by a dispensation from the pope , or by others ordinarily deputed thereunto in their church . this is what they do now deny amongst us , confidently maintaining that a dispensation is never given beforehand . but this is vainly alledged , whether we consider the nature of a dispensation , which hath a relation to an action yet to be done , or to the continuation of it ; or whether we consider the practice of their church , of which we have a very modern instance . for whereas the marrying of a brothers wife , the brother being yet alive , is both contrary to the law of god and nature ; there is a prince now in the world that is dispensed with in that matter , and enjoys the wife and kingdom of his brother by virtue of the popes authority . now if the pope hath a power of altering the nature of things , and of giving a dispensation for what would without that dispensation have been in it self unlawful ; then the doing of an action otherwise evil is , by virtue of that dispensation , no sin ; and he that hath that for his authority , is so far innocent . secondly , the action may be made legitimate , by virtue of the command of such a superior , as they are bound fully and universally to obey . and this is the case of the jesuits , who are under a perfect subjection to their superiors , and whose commands they are not to dispute . this is the first thing which they are taught , to be so conformable to the catholick church ( which in their sence is the pope ) that if it defines that to be black , which appears to them to be white , they are notwithstanding without more ado to account it black a . and this is an obedience which they are not only bound to yield to the apostolick chair , but to the rest of their superiors , and which their founder ignatius writ an epistle on purpose to confirm them b in . an epistle , that nothing can be added to , or taken from , saith their general fr. borgia c . an epistle that is truly divine , saith their general mutius vitellescus d . in this epistle it is that ignatius doth lay down these things . first , that they must look upon their superior , not as a person obnoxious to error , but as christ himself — who could not be deceived , nor would deceive . secondly , that whatever their superior commands or thinks , that they must always be ready to defend , and by no means to reject . thirdly , whatever he commands , that they must resolve to look upon as the command of christ , and with a blind resolution without any doubt or delay , resolve to do e without giving way to any humane reasonings and discourses , as their general aquaviva expounds it f , that they renounce not only their own wills , but understandings also , and submit them wholly to his , without calling any thing into question ; for otherwise the excellent virtue of blind obedience would fail , as ignatius saith g . that every one must perswade himself , that he is acted and governed by divine providence , through his superiors orders , and that he ought to be in that case as a carkass , which suffers it self to be carried or disposed of any way ; or as a staff in an old mans hand , which he directs as he pleaseth , as it 's fully expressed in their constitutions h . now if they are thus obliged blindly to obey their superiors , and that whatever they command them , is without any demur to be done , they are so far innocent in their own account , and think that they may safely without doubt , purge themselves as such . but they may say that they are only obliged to this obedience in things lawful , and no further , according to what ignatius himself doth say i , and is further confirmed by their constitutions k . but is this likely to be the sence , when their superior is in the place of christ l , and whom they are to submit to as to him , and whom they are to attend to , whatever he be , how weak or insufficient soever , as he represents the person of him , whose wisdom cannot be deceived , as ignatius saith m ? is this likely to be , when they must universally and wholly submit their own understandings to his , and are without delay or doubt to do what he requires ? and that it is not so , whatever they pretend , is evident from their own constitutions n , where the title of one chapter is , that the constitutions do not bring any under an obligation to sin ; but how little it answers that title , any one that reads the chapter may perceive ; for it's the●e said , that it seems to us — that no constitutions , &c. can bring under an obligation to mortal or venial sin , unless the superior in the name of christ , or in the virtue of obedience should command it : and then that may be done in the cases so judged of , which tends much to a private or universal good . so that a general or particular good may make it lawful for a superior to command what otherwise would be a sin ; and the vow of obedience makes it necessary for him that is under command to obey . by which means any sin shall be none , and the greatest criminal be innocent . 2. they may justifie themselves if they are under a precedent and sufficient obligation not to confess what they are justly charged with . and such an obligation is ( 1. ) the disadvantage of religion , or the injury of another . for which reasons it was that sir everard digby did clear all the priests before the lords ; and when asked by the lord chief justice , if he had not taken the sacrament to keep secret the plot as others did , boldly said , that he had not ; because , saith he , i would avoid the question , at whose hands it were . * and upon this principle parsons the jesuit doth proceed , when he saith , ‡ that if a priest taken in a mans house , of whose overthrow he either must be a cause , or doth suspect that he may be so , should be asked whether he is a priest , he is bound to deny himself so to be . 2. such an obligation also is confession ; of which i shall give you their sence in the words of parsons . ‖ if a confessor that hath heard another man's confession should be demanded , whether such an one had confessed such a sin unto him or not , he may not only say i know not , but answer directly , that he hath not confessed any such thing unto him , albeit he had so done ; and that the said confessor may not only say , but swear also this answer of his , understanding and reserving in his mind , that the penitent hath not confessed unto him so as he may utter it , &c. all divines and lawyers do hold that in this case of confession , the obligation of secrecy is so great , as for no respect whatsoever , nor to what person soever , though he be never so lawful a judg , prince , prelate , or superior , nor for saving of a whole kingdom or commonwealth , and much less the lives of any particular men or women , or of the confessor himself ; no , nor of the whole world together , if it were possible , or to work never so much good thereby might he utter the same . to which another author of the same order * adds , though the matter confessed was no less than the subversion of religion , and the destruction of the sacraments . this was the defence which garnet made for himself , why he at the first did not discover the conspiracy of the gunpowder-treason , and why he afterwards did obstinately deny his knowledg of it ; because as he pretended , it was disclosed unto him by greenwel the jesuit in confession , and that it would endanger the lives of divers men * : by which he said he was so bound up , that if one confessed this day to him , that to morrow morning he meant to kill the king with a dagger , he must conceal it ‖ . the case then is , that if at any time a dangerous conspiracy is made known to them in confession , which they themselves were actually before egaged in ; yet it being thus complicated , that their own concurrence in it is joyned with the others confession , they then may and are bound to stand upon their own innocence , because they cannot plead guilty , though they are so , without betraying what they heard in confession . 3. they may justify themselves , when they are indemnified and declared innocent by absolution . pardon is a discharge from punishment , and absolution is a legal declaration of pardon ; and in it self is not a making innocent , but only an assurance , that a person , notwithstanding his former crimes , shall be dealt with as if he were such . but they extend this further , for such a growing thing is power in the roman church , that it would bring every thing within its compass . sometimes sin by the pope's power shall be made none ; and a man shall violate his oath , and by virtue of a dispensation from his holiness shall become perjur'd without sin. sometimes the guilty shall be made innocent , and by the power of absolution shall be able to swear it . for if a person by confession to a priest , and absolution from him , hath what is sufficient to salvation , and to set him right in the sight of god ( as is the common opinion among them * ) then it may be thought sufficient also to make him innocent amongst men , and to give him reason to think so . this seems to be the ground of the present practice amongst them ; as when gurphy , after his absolution denied at his death with all assurance imaginable , that he was guilty of that burglary , which he was in ireland condemned for ; though the rope breaking he lived to confess it † . and this principle hath so far prevailed at this day ; that mr. prance doth ingenuously acknowledg ‖ , that if he had been absolved after the murther of sir edmond-bury godfry , as hill , and his other accomplices in it were , that he should have probably persisted in avowing his innocence , as they did , and never , or without extream difficulty have been brought to any acknowledgment . agreeable to this is that which is said by lud. lopez , 1. p. instruct . c. 42. who is quoted as good authority by raynaudus the jesuit , ut supra . a woman that hath been false to her husband , doth sin , if she without cause doth swear that she is innocent , and doth so swear because she hath done penance for the same ; unless her husband doth unjustly compel her to swear . the meaning of which is , that if she doth swear it vainly , when not put to it , and there is no reason for it , then she offends ; but if her husband threatens , and she is in danger ( for that is often the meaning of unjustly in the sence of these casuists ) then she may safely swear that she is innocent , forasmuch as she hath repented , and given satisfaction to the priest , and been absolved by him . from whence it appears , that if persons be compelled to swear unjustly , as ( in their opinion they all are when made to swear before hereticks ) that then they may swear , though never so guilty , that they are innocent and without fault , as having been absolved for it . 4. they may plead their own innocency , and justify it with an oath , &c. if they stand charged before an incompetent authority . of this opinion is parsons , for he saith , a if a judg be not lawful or competent , the party charged may answer as if he was alone , and no man by , for that he hath no necessary reference to him at all , &c. and much to the same purpose saith lessius . b now an incompetent judg , is one that hath no lawful jurisdiction over a person ; as may be gathered from parsons . c and such with them are ( 1. ) all hereticks , who are incompetent , because they are uncapable of rule , as gab. vasquez saith ; d and as soon as a prince is fallen from the catholick religion , he presently falls from all his power and dignity , saith parsons . e and thus was the case determined with an especial respect to england , as you may see in greg. martin in lib. resolut . cas . and dr. stillingfleet's sermon , on matt. 10. 16. p. 42. ( 2. ) such again , according to them , are all lay-magistrates , with respect to the clergy . a priest being exempted from all civil jurisdiction , saith bellarmine f . the belief of which led emanuel sa , so far as to say , g that rebellion in a clergy-man is no treason , because he is not subject to the civil power . and bellarmine saith little less , when he maintains h that kings are not the superiors of the clergy , and therefore such are not bound to obey them , but only as to matter of direction . this is clearly stated and applied to our purpose by parsons i ; if a judge , saith he , be not lawful or competent ; as if a lay-magistrate in a catholic country would enquire of matters not belonging to his jurisdiction , as for example , sacred or secret : then he may answer as if he were alone , and no man by , for that he hath no reference to him at all . for , as he saith afterward . k priests both by divine and humane law , according to catholick doctrine , are exempted from lay-mens jurisdiction . when therefore priests are brought before lay-magistrates , and catholics before heretics , they have a liberty to say what they please , and what may best serve their purpose and convenience : they may protest and swear that they are innocent , though never so guilty , that they know not what they know , and did not what they did . and if they may thus stand upon their own vindication , how unjustifiable soever their case be in it self , before incompetent authority ; then they may as well do it before incompetent witnesses and auditors . for the hereticks at tyburn have no more right to truth , than those at the old baily ; and they may as well protest and vow by all that is sacred , that they are innocent , when they come to die , as when they were upon their trial ; since the people there , as well as the judges here , were alike incompetent and heretical . 5. they may plead innocency when the charge is laid wrong . this we acknowledg , when we say that a person guilty of the fact , may yet plead not guilty as to matter and form . but now the charge with them shall always be laid wrong , when they answer to it by equivocation or mental reservation . for then it is not what the charge is in it self , but what they charge themselves with , that they direct their answer to . as if a person be charged with a crime , but by an incompetent authority , or illegally , he may securely say , i did not do it , reserving within himself that he did not do it in prison ; or that he had no design upon the king , thereby meaning a painted king l . and this is a current opinion among them . if a judg be not lawful or competent , the defendent may answer as if he were alone and no man by , and may frame to himself any proposition that is true of it self , and in his own sence and meaning , though the other that heareth , understandeth it in a different sence , and be thereby deceived , saith parsons m . if he be guilty , in such cases he is to turn himself to almighty god the judg of all , and frame to himself some true reserved sence , may say , i have not done it , i have not seen him , i have not killed him ; understanding thereby that he hath not done it , so as the examination or punishment of it is subject to that tribunal , or he subject to their jurisdiction , whereby he is bound to utter the same to them ; as that author further saith n . but what if he be put to his oath ? lessius answers , o that as often as it is lawful to use a doubtful speech , or a secret reservation , it is lawful to use an oath , if necessity or some notable cause requireth it , namely , to avoid a great evil , &c. and accordingly parsons p doth lay it down from azorius , &c. if the judg that exacteth the oath be not a lawful judg , or proceedeth not lawfully in exacting the same ; then hath he that sweareth , no obligation to swear to his intention at all , but may swear to his own , &c. amongst other examples of this way , we have in dr. abbot's antiologia , p. 12. b. of one john vnderwood , that being examined before the arch ▪ bishop of canterbury , 1612. denied that ever he was beyond sea ; and affirmed , that he was married , and had six children , and was an husbandman . and yet acknowledged afterward , that he had been formerly six years at rome in the college , was admitted there into orders , and was a jesuit , and that his true name was cornford ; and that in what he said before , he meant , that he was married to his breviary , and that he had six spiritual children ; and that he had not been beyond sea , so as to confess it to the arch-bishop . this answer was much talked of , and what sancta clara hath defended under his own hand , as is yet to be seen . this was also the opinion of garnet , and the way he took q , for having an oath administred to him , and being examined upon the word of a priest , whether he had ever sent or writ to greenwel the jesuit , since they were together at coughton ? answered , no ; and when convinced of it by the letters produced , said , he had done nothing in his denial but what was lawful . but supposing this should be at the point of death , may this then be practised ? lud. lopez r saith , that if a woman having been excommunicated for not living with her husband , should at the point of death , to obtain absolution , swear , if she recovered , to return to him ; reserving in her self , if it might be without sin , she shall not be guilty of perjury ( if she knew an impediment ) though she recovers and lives from him . and this was mr. tresham's case , a who having accused garnet of the spanish treason , for fear this might be to the prejudice of the jesuit , three hours before he died subscribed a paper , in which he testified upon his salvation , that he had not seen him of 16 years before : whereas garnet himself confessed , that within two years before they had frequently been together . all which garnet said he believed , mr. tresham might have done , as he meant to equivocate . and it is an example may safely be followed , as he maintained b . this was the case of parry , that attempted the life of queen elizabeth , who upon his apprehension , and after at his trial , confessed it ; but at last denies it , lays his blood upon the queen and judges , and summons the queen to answer for his blood before god c . but what if they voluntarily renounce all equivocations , and mental reservations , or are required so to do in oaths and protestations ; is this defensible upon their principles ? so saith parsons d ; when thou answerest to a judg , that is incompetent , by equivocation : if he ask , whether you equivocate , or not ? you may answer , no , but with a further equivocation . if he urges again , and asks whether you did not equivocate in your denying it ? you may answer , no , with another secret equivocation , and so as often as you are asked . nay , he saith further e ; when a judg is not lawful , though a person hath first sworn to answer directly , he may use doubtful words ; which if they prevail not , then say the doctors , that he may deny , and say , i know nothing , i have seen nothing , &c. reserving in his mind , that he knoweth nothing which in that unjust examination he is bound to utter . this was the measure garnet the provincial of the jesuits took ; for when he was called before the lords , and was asked , whether hall the jesuit and he had any conference together in the tower ? and being desired not to equivocate ; he stifly denied it upon his soul , reiterating it with many detestable execrations : and yet when proved against him , cryed the lords mercy , and said , he had offended , if equivocation did not help him * . of this we have a notable instance ‖ in one john coome , that anno 1609 , being examined by the bishop of london , and required to set down his answer in writing , did it after this manner ; whatsoever i now affirm , i affirm upon the faith of a christian , without all equivocation and mental reservation , or secret interpretation kept to my self ; and affirm it according to the plain sense of the words by me spoken ; so god me help , through jesus christ . first , i say , therefore that my name is john coome , neither have i been called by any other name here , or beyond seas ; and particularly that my ordinary name is not scammel , neither is it my true name . furthermore i affirm , upon the faith of a christian , that i never was in orders according to the way of the church of rome , and did never enter into a vow according to the rule of the jesuits ; nor ever studied in any english seminary in spain or flanders . and to the truth of all this i have subscribed , and of my own accord have subscribed , john coome . these things he swore , and yet did all by equivocation and reservation ; for he afterwards confessed that he was a priest , and jesuit , and did commonly write his name scammel . and that they may use equivocation when they declare against it ; see it further made good by dr. stillingfleet in the sore-quoted sermon , pag. 39. if we reflect upon these propositions , we may be able to reconcile all that mr. whitebread and his brethren did declare at their late execution , or whatever they are made to say in these speeches that pass up and down in their names , to the justice of the sentence they suffered by . it 's true , amongst protestants , nay amongst heathens , such solemn protestations would be hearkned to ; and those that are honest and sincere , could hardly think those that use such asseverations to be otherwise . but if we consider what hath been before said , we have reason to judg of them by other measures . for some of their principles do shew that they may do it . as those of being dispensed with in it ; and of having absolution after it ; and of denying and swearing , with reservation before an incompetent authority . but others of the abovesaid principles make it necessary , and shew that they ought to do it . as if they were required so to do by their superiors , whose commands they are not to question or dispute : if it were for a notable good , or preventing a considerable mischief ; or if they heard it in confession ; in these cases they are obliged to deny , and to deny again ; to equivocate upon equivocation ; to die , and , i had almost said , to damn themselves , rather than confess when they are thus bound to be secret . but that they need not fear , for besides the security that they have otherwise , it 's said , in a famous book of theirs , * that god granted to their order , that for the first 300 years , none of them should be damned . and perhaps they may think it worth the while to venture purgatory to secure their present plot from miscarriage ; as the lord cordes is said ‖ to have been content to lie seven years in hell , on condition calice might be recovered from the english . that if we consider their circumstances , and peruse their speeches , it may be presumed that they acted according to these principles . and here i shall not repeat what i before said to make it evident , that if they had been guilty , this way of proceeding was necessary to maintain the credit of their religion and society , &c. but shall observe , ( 1. ) that there are not in any of these speeches , higher protestations and appeals to god , than what was in the words of garnet , and the writing of co●me before spoken of ; which yet were plainly sophistical , as the sequel shewed . ( 2. ) that there is in the most material parts of them such an agreement , and that in the phrase it self , ( as hath been already observed ) as if they were to act a prescribed part , and to observe particular orders in what they should say . ( 3. ) that the elder , and those who it's likely were to give absolution , spake with greater caution and reservedness , whilst the others spoke with greater freedom and boldness . ( 4. ) that notwithstanding all , there are some things notoriously false , and in which at least they do equivocate ; which may give just reason to suspect that they do equivocate also where it is not so evident . and this falls the hardest upon mr. gawen , who thus delivers himself ; because they [ jesuits ] are so falsly charged for holding king killing doctrine , i think it my duty to protest to you with my last dying words , that neither i in particular , nor the jesuits in general , hold any such opinion , but utterly abhor and detest it ; and i assure you , that among the multitude of authors , which among the jesuits have printed philosophy , divinity , cases or sermons , there is not one to the best of my knowledg that allows of king-killing doctrine , or holds this position , that it is lawful for a private person to kill a king although an heretick , although a pagan , although a tyrant ; that is to say , not any jesuit that holds this , except mariana the spanish jesuit , and he defends it not absolutely , but only problematically , for which his book was called in again , and the opinions expugned and sentenced . now towards the clearing of this , four things are to be enquired into . 1. what the opinion of mariana was touching killing of kings ? 2. whether mariana held it problematically only ? 3. whether and how mariana was censured for it ? 4. whether any of the jesuits besides mariana were of that opinion ? 1. what the opinion of mariana was touching killing of kings ? mr. gawen saith , that he held it lawful for a private person to kill a king , if an heretick or tyrant , &c. his opinion is to be sought for in his book , de rege & regis institutione * ; where he thus delivers himself , ( 1. ) if a lawful prince becomes a tyrant , and doth oppress and violate the publick laws , &c. he is to be admonished ; and if he afterward persist therein , he may be declared a publick enemy , and may be killed ( if otherwise the common-wealth cannot be defended ) and that by a private person . ( 2. ) that in case there cannot be a publick convention of the people ( as a parliament ) that then the common voice of the people shall be sufficient to warrant it ; and he who then favouring the publick wish doth attempt his life , doth nothing unjustly . ( 3. ) that yet it is not lawful for any private person to kill a king. so that he takes a private person in two sences ; ( 1. ) for one that doth it upon a private account , as for his own pleasure , or revenge ; and then he declares it to be unlawful for such an one to kill a king. ( 2. ) for one that is commissioned by authority , as by a pope , or convention of people , or that doth it for a general good ; and then it is lawful and honourable for him so to do . 2. whether mariana held this problematically only ? so saith mr. gawen , and so did also eudaemon . johannes * , saying , that he delivered his opinion with doubt the advantage they take of saying so , is from what mariana saith towards the conclusion of chap. 6. viz. this our opinion doth certainly proceed from a sincere mind ; in which , since i may be deceived , as a man , i will thank any one that shall bring better . but this is no more than what is ordinarily said , even by those that write most positively . thus did father barns begin and end his book against equivocation ‖ ; if i commit an error , yet since i submit my writings to the canonical censure of your holiness , ( writing to the pope ) my error is not obstinate . i am a man , and if i err , it is only an humane error : and yet that learned person was conceived to be so dogmatical in the point , that he was fetched to rome by the contrivance of the jesuits , against whom he wrote it , and died distracted in prison . but there is nothing more evident , than that mariana was as positive in this opinion , as mr. burns in the other ; for he not only commends the murder of henry the third of france a , but also saith , that the lawfulness of killing a king , in the cases above mentioned , is as clear as the day b ; and who is so void of counsel as not to believe it c ? and saith , to exterminate such out of the society of men , is a glorious work d : and determines for the lawfulness of killing him by poison , provided it be not in his meat e . 3. whether and how mariana was censured for this ? mr. gawen saith , that the book was called in again , and the opinions expugned and censured . but i would fain know when the former of these was done . i know that there was once a great talk of a book of mariana's censured by the pope , and the jesuits took an occasion from thence to stop the mouths of those that understood no better ; but alas , it was far from any thing of this nature ; for whereas a book of the change of money was written by mariana ; in which , saith an author of theirs * , he had sharply censured some corruptions in that kind ; he contracted there by so much displeasure , that at the instance of the spanish ambassador , pope paul the 5th did prohibit it for a while till the storm was over . but as for the other book , de rege , &c. there is not a word in the foresaid author concerning any such censure , tho he is so particular as to tell where and when it was first printed ; and who would doubtless have made some remark upon it , if any such thing had been . which doth mightily confirm what is said by the abbot sylvius a ( or whoever was the author of the inscriptio ad gallos ingenuos ) that the censure of this book of mariana by the jesuits at paris , in 1606 , and the letter of aquaviva their general to them upon it , was wholly fictitious , and brought in by father cotton to serve a turn , and a little to cast off the odium from themselves , after the murther of henry the 4th , and the decree of the parliament of paris for burning this book of mariana's by the common hangman , as containing many cursed blasphemies against king henry the third ; and principles pernicious to the lives of kings , &c. b as it 's there declared . and that which doth more discover the imposture is , since aquaviva is there made to say , that he was troubled that he knew nothing of this before ; which how unlikely it is , will be evident , if it be considered , that it was about seven years betwixt the first publishing of this book of mariana , and this letter said to be written by aquaviva ; the book being licensed decemb. 1598 , and printed at toledo 1599 , and the letter was written 1606. now that their general should be so long ignorant of a book written by one of their order , and by so learned a man as mariana , and a book that had set the world in a flame , cannot be conceived . but indeed i do not find this censure at paris much insisted upon by themselves . and the recalling of it is much like the censure , for besides that edition at toledo , there was another at mentz by balthazar lippius , which the jesuits there did revise sheet by sheet ; not to speak of that printed at frankford by the heirs of wechelus , which a learned person saith they did by the instruction of a famous jesuit c . but however the principles of it are expugned and censured , saith mr. gawen . i will take that at the present for granted , which an author of theirs saith d , viz. that upon a consultation of the jesuits at rome , their general aquaviva , made a decree , whereby he forbad to teach , either by word or writing , that it was lawful for any person whatsoever under any pretext of tyranny , to kill kings , or to plot their death . a decree that looks very speciously ; but ( 1. ) we are here to observe , that there is no censure of what hath been already written or taught , or the persons so writing or teaching . ( 2. ) we may very well suppose that the any person whatsoever , will admit of their common limitation , and is to be understood of any private person , that doth it without the command or sentence of the judg , according to the words of the decree of the council at constance e . and i have the greater reason so to think , because when it was objected that the council of constance had condemned this position ( that the tyrant may and ought to be kill'd by any one of his subjects whatsoever ] . suarez f answers , where do you find , in the acts of that council , that it 's spoken of princes excommunicate by the pope , or degraded ? ( 3. ) there is no little exception to be taken against the word king , as it 's here laid ; for in their sence , an heretical , excommunicated and deposed king , is no king ; and he only is with them a king that is not under such a censure , and so the killing of such an one only is to be declared against . ( 4. ) and this we may be the more assured of , since it 's said only under any pretext of tyranny ; but it 's not said under any pretext of herefie , excommunication or deposition . so that after all , here is no security for a king , if an heretick ; or for a catholick king , if deposed or excommunicated : and the doctrine is still left much where it was before the decree . so that this deserves the like censure given by the abbot sylvius of that before spoken of , that it 's a censure full of equivocations and doubtful expressions g . but the best way to find out the strength and validity of this decree , is to observe their practice . were these principles never reassumed by them ? what must we think of the book of suarez , printed at colein , 1614 h , and which was condemned by the parliament of paris to be burnt , as containing propositions highly scandalous and seditious , and which tended to the subversion of kingdoms , and the stirring up subjects to murder their kings i . and upon which occasion the senate sent for amandus , and the chief of the jesuits , to let them know how little respect was had to the above said decree of their general , in anno 1610. what shall we say to a book of sanctarellus the jesuit , printed at rome 1625 k , not only under the eye of vitelliscus their general , but with his express allowance ? in which were eleven propositions condemn'd by the parliament of paris , and for which it was commanded to be burnt by the common hangman . amongst which it is maintained , that the pope may depose princes , if insufficient or negligent , and adjudg them to death , &c. when this book was produced , the parliament sent for several of the jesuits , and asked them what they thought of that book ? father cotton answered in the name of the rest , that they disapproved it . being further examined , how it came to pass that they condemned what their general did allow ? he replied , that their general being at rome , could do no less . when it was asked again , what they would do if at rome ? he replied , they should think as they do at rome . this you may see particularly set down by gramondus l , a friend of cottons . so that such declarations as these are of no force , but are only to serve a present need , to pacify princes , or please the people , but what they themselves are not obliged by : therein making good that character of them , which i find in a sober author of their own , m that a jesuit is every man ; of which that book will afford some other instances , p. 235 , 236. 4 and so way is made to consider : whether any of the jesuits besides mariana have bin of that opinion ; i hope it will be granted , that some there are , by what hath been already said ; and it will be further allowed , ( 1 ) that they are of the same mind with him that do commend him for having well acquitted himself upon that argument : such are stephen hoieda , visitor of their society in the province of toledo , that licensed it , and those that gave their approbation of it to him ; such again are scribanius n gretser , becanus , &c. ( 2 ) they again are of his opinion , that do hold , not only that a king may be deposed by a prince or people ; but that also , when deposed , he is no king. so suarez o , when a king is deposed , then he is neither lawful king nor prince . so p lessius , greg. valentia , and many others . ( 3 ) they are of mariana's opinion , that hold a deposed king may be killed . so lessius * , any having authority , may , if a prince's tyranny grow intolerable , depose him , &c. whereby any thing may be attempted against his person , because he then is no more a prince . so becanus a , the pope may deprive princes , and if contumacious , he may have them deprived of their life . so suarez b , eman. sa c , molina , &c. ( 4. ) they are of his opinion , that say , a private person may kill a king so deposed ; the sentence being issued out , any one may be the executioner of it . so eman . sa d ; so molina e . the people may depose their king , and punish him when he is deposed . so that we see mariana is still a jesuit , and they have no reason to clamour against him , and to cry out of the rashness of one man , as mr. gawen doth , when as it 's the prevailing opinion amongst them ; and it is disingenuously done of them , to do by him as the deer by one that is wounded , clear themselves of his company , when he is of the same herd with them . indeed after all that mr. gawen hath said towards the vindication of himself and his order , he hath said but what mariana did before him ; for mariana held , as i have before shewed , that it 's not lawful for a private person to kill a king ; and therefore saith , ‖ that john duke of burgundy was condemned by the council of constance , because he caused lewis duke of orleance to be killed , non expectata sententia superioris , without attending the sentence of a superior , as the pope , i. e. he did it upon his own head , and out of private revenge . and if this be the meaning of mr. gawen , which is the received sence of those of his order , we are much beholden to him . for then our prince is left to the mercy of the pope's bull , or that of the people ; for as soon as he is by them declared against , or is an heretick , or grows intolerable , or is deposed , then any private man is the minister of justice , and doth right to god and his church , or the people , if he kill him . if mr. gawen had meant honestly , he should have told us that it was not his opinion , that a king may be deposed , or that upon deposition he is no king , and that tho thus deposed it was unlawful for any person whatsoever to attempt his life . but as long as he useth the current phrase among them , we must take their interpretation of it also ; and then he must say any private person may kill a king in the circumstances before spoken of ; so that a king is only secur'd against private revenge , or the present rage of his subjects ; but if they have warrant for so doing from the pope or people , then lord have mercy on him , for he is like to find none from them . so that after all his renouncing of equivocation , &c. he in his last dying words is found basely to equivocate , whilst he neither tells us what the king is whom a private person ought not to kill , nor what that private person is , that ought not to kill him . and when if he means according to the stile of his order , it is no more but that whilst a lawful king is not excommunicate , an heretick , or deposed , no one may kill him : and when he is either of those , no one of a private revenge or malice may be allowed so to do : but if the publick good be concerned in it , or there be authority or commission from superiors [ that is , pope or people in parliament ] then the private person is no private person , and there is no bar to secure a prince's life from the assaults even of such . and if there be such a notorious equivocation in this so set a performance of his ; and that he acted so conformably to his own principles , of obeying his superiors in whatever they commanded , in denying whatever may be to the prejudice of their cause or party , in using mental reservations , even whilst he renounced them , for these and the other ends before spoken of ; what hinders but we are to think that all the rest wrote after the same copy with him ; as when they say that they are as innocent as the child unborn , of treasonable crimes ; is not this reconcileable to the principles of dispensation and absolution ? ( which last they might , and it 's probable did give one to another ) is it not reconcileable to the excommunication and deposition of his present majesty , and to the title which the pope challengeth to these kingdoms , by the ancient claim of surrender ? when they speak of the king , might they not apply it either to the pope or a successor , doing therein much as a certain priest did , that when asked who was supream in all causes in the church of england , presently answered the king , meaning thereby the king of heaven , as he afterward expounded it ? * when they do declare against a plot for the alteration of government , is not that easily applied to the kind or form , or some main parts of it ? when they renounce equivocations , &c. did not garnet and coome do the same , and yet in the mean while did equivocate or lye ? did they do all this at their death , and call god to witness , and pawn their souls to verifie and confirm what they said ? is this more than what was practised by mr. tresham and gurphy ; and what is frequently done by villains at their execution without such reasons for it from religion or interest as these men had ? when i read their speeches , i can hardly but believe them ; when i think of their accusations , their principles , and the practices usual amongst them , i begin to tremble : to think that at such a time , and in so great a case as this is , men should prevaricate , and to deceive the world , care not what becomes of their own souls ; or else that they can be so stupid as to think that the salvation of their souls can be consistent with such impieties . i question not but that time will make this as clear as the day , and then what they did to strengthen their cause , will be the greatest blow to it that perhaps it ever yet had . when it shall be upon record , and published before all the world , that so good may come of it , the good of their church and order , they care not what evil they do , nor how they subvert the laws of god and nature , so they may establish their own . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a66402-e150 a ignatii exercit . spirit . p. 141. reg . 13. antw. 1635. b epist ad patr. & fratr . societ in lusit . c epist . ad patres & fratres aquitaniae , p. 63. num 9. d epist . ad patres prov . societ . p. 441. e n. 16. 17. f cl. aquavivae industriae , cap. 5 num . 6. g ibid. n. 3. 9. & n. 12. h pars 6. c. 1. i epist . p. 25. n. 18. k pars 6. c. 1. p. 234. l aquavivae industriae , c. 5. n. 6. constitut . par . 6. c. 1. p. 234. & par . 4. c. 10. p. 183. &c. m epist . n. 3. p. 13. n pars 6. c. 5. p. 256. visum est nobis nullas constitutiones , declarationes , vel ordinem ullum vivendi posse obligationem ad peccatum mortale vel veniale inducere , nisi superior ea in nomine d ▪ n. j. christi , vel in virtute obedientiae juberet , quod in rebus vel personis illis in quibus judicabitur , quod ad particulare uniuscujusque vel ad universale bonum multum conveniet , fieri poterit . * sir everards first paper , printed at the end of the gunpowder-treason , 1679. ‡ mitigation , c. 13. p. 549. ‖ ibid. c. 10. sect. 1. p. 408. * henr. henriq . sum . theol. moral . de sacr. poenit . l. 3. c. 19. praeversie religionis , & omnium sacramentorum intentata demolitio . * proceedings against the traytors , p. 190. ‖ ibid. p. 215. * navar. man. c. 25. n. 38. dia. sum. v. reus . n. 12. &c. † vid. the late printed relation of it , in a letter to the earl of essex . ‖ pag. 24. of his narrative . a mitigation in equiv . c. 8. part 3. sect. 2. n. 52. b de just . & jure , lib. 2. c. 42. dub . 9. n. 47. c mitig. c. 11. sect. 9. d com. in 1. 2. thom. tom. 2. dist . 152. sect. 8. e in his philopater , p. 194. for he is said to be the author of it , by watson in his quodl . p. 11 , 71 , 284. f lib. de cler. c. 30. p. 554 , 80. g apher tit. clericus . edit . antwerp . & colon. h ibid. c. 28. p. 538. i mitig. c. 8. part 3. sect. 2. n. 52. k ibid c. 10. sect. 3. p. 415. n. 11. l lessius de instit . l. 2. c. 42. dub. 9. n. 47 , 48. m mitigat . c. 8. part 3. sect. 2. n. 52. n ibid. c. 10. sect. 4. n. 21. o ibid. n. 48. p ibid. sect. 6. n. 29. q is . casauboni epist . ad front. ducaeum p. 118 , 123. r 1 p. instruct . c. 37. as quoted by raynaudus in his defence of lessius against barns , c. 15. n. 9. a proceedings against the traytors , p. 176 , 219 , 220 , 221. b in some papers of his , quoted by is . casaub . epist . ad ducaeum . p. 122. c foulis romish treasons l. 7. c. 4. p. 442. d as quoted by barns , contra aequiv . sect. 20. p. 174 , and sect. 22. p. 200. e mitigat . c. 10. sect 5. p. 426. n. 26. * proceedings , p. 195. casaub . epist . p. 117. ‖ rob. abbotti antilogia . c. 2. p. 12. * imago primi saec. societ jesu . p. 650. ‖ bacon's henry the 7th . 3 general . mr. gawen's speech . * lib. 1. cap. 6 , & 7. edit . 2. typis wechel . p. 59 , 60. * in respons . ad amic . c. 1. ‖ dissertatio contra aequiv . epist . dedio . & p. ult . libri . a c. 6. p. 53 , 54. b c. 6. p. 60. c ibid. p. 62. d c. 7. p. 64. e p. 66. * alegambe in biblioth . scrip. societ . jesu , p. 258. a continuat . thuani p. 101. francof . 1638. b ibid. p. 86. c casauboni epist . ad ducaeum , p. 48. d eudaem joh. ad amic . c. 1. e non expectata sententia aut mandato judicis concil . const . sess . 15. f defens . fid. l. 6. c 4. g continuat . thua . p. 101. h defens . fidei cath. adv . angl. sect. i contin . thuani , p. 410. k tractatus de haeresi , &c. l gram hist . p. 676. francof . 1674. m jesuits cat. l. 3. p. 234. engl. 1602. n for he is said by alegambe to be the author of amphitbeat . honor. o defens . fid. l. 6. c 4. sect. 4. & 18. p de instit . l. 2. c 9. dub. 4. sect. 10 , 12. * ibid. a controv. ang. p. 115. b ibid. ut prius . c aphor. tyrannus . d ibid. e de instit . tom. 4. tract . 3. disp . 6. sect. 2. ‖ cap. 6. fin . * abbot . autilog . cap. 2. p. 12. b. l'estrange no papist nor jesuite discussed in a short discourse between philo-l'estrange and pragmaticus. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1681 approx. 22 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 10 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a70423 wing l1328b estc r22051 12740328 ocm 12740328 93124 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a70423) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 93124) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 696:5 or 1725:14) l'estrange no papist nor jesuite discussed in a short discourse between philo-l'estrange and pragmaticus. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 18 p. printed for henry brome ..., london : 1681. a different work from the one entitled: l'estrange no papist : in answer to a libel (l1267). attributed to l'estrange by halkett and laing and by g. ketchin, sir roger l'estrange, p. 415, though not by wing (2nd ed.). this item appears at reel 696:5 as wing l1267a (number cancelled in wing 2nd ed.), and at reel 1725:14 as wing l1328b. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng l'estrange, roger, -sir, 1616-1704. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2007-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2007-04 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-05 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2007-05 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion l'estrange no papist nor jesuite . discussed in a short discourse between philo-l'estrange and pragmaticvs . odi profanum vulgus & arceo . london : printed for henry brome at the gun at the west end of st pauls 1681 l'estrange no papist nor jesuite , & c. prag . well and what is become of your l'estrange now i trow , your great goliah l'estrange , and your so much idolized diana ? philo. very wel ; and is this all you can say ? no less than a gyant and a goddess both in a breath ? could not you have said your gogmagog and your penthesilea queen of the amazons ? it would have done every whit as well , and have made a more noble sound , but that such hard names might have chanced to have stuck in your throat and choaked you . but pray tell me mr. pragmaticus , what makes you so inquisitive after l'estrange ? i shall shrewdly suspect you are the man that sent out the hue and cry after him , unless you give me very good reasons to believe the contrary . prag . no really not i : but i hear there is one gone out after him , but cannot overtake him , and i cannot imagine why it should not , unless you have sent him away post upon pegasus , or swept him into a corner with your broom amongst your refuse stuffe . t is great pity a man of parts as he is should ly sculking about at this rate , and not dare to show his head . i fancy he looks very pleasantly upon it , and dare swear a cut of him in the present posture he is in would sell rarely well . philo. come leave off your silly scoffs , and witless reproaches , and let us know what is the quarrel you have against l'estrange . prag . quarrel quoth he ? why he is a papist , and is not that quarrel enough in all conscience ? and you deserve to be called in question , if you take his part , or maintain that he is not . philo , so , very good still . then i perceive it is become now as criminal to speak well of l'estrange , as to drink the dukes health , and all because one is supposed to be a papist , and the other is so . but pray tell me one thing , supposing , though not granting l'estrange to be a papist , may not a man for all that speak in his behalf , quatenus an honest man ? prag . that is a good one : an honest papist ? who ere heard of that before ? no let me tell you , it is an absurdity , nay an utter impossibility . an honest man perhaps may be a papist , but a papist can never be an honest man : and there is the short and the long of the business pithily delivered in few words . philo. all pith i confess , and no sap . but under favour is this learned and nice distinction your own , or did you borrow it ? prag . no matter for that . i say still the papist l'estrange is a papist ; and whosoever speaks a good word of him is a popeling , an abettor of the diabolical party , and an ill common-wealths man. and if you say the dukes health may be drank ; i affirm that such an assertion destroys the liberty of the subject , as much as denying the right of petitioning , and therefore as a filthy , abominable and superstitious thing ought to be laid aside . philo. acutely argued . i perceive by this you are a man of parts and perhaps can give me the reason ( which i confess i never heard yet ) why you think l'estrange is a papist . prag . what need of any reason , when all the town and country say so ? sure their words may be taken without any farther reason . philo. and therefore you believe him to be a papist , because he is generally reported one . prag . yes marry do i : and every good christian ought to do the like . philo. i always thought that every mans own persuasion and practice had made him of this or that religion , and not anothers saying so : but it seems you think otherwise , and l'estrange must needs be a papist , because the people vote him one : then i say , according to your way of arguing , if he be a papist , they ought to be punished for being accessary to his being such , for it is evident he was none before they talked him into it , what have you to say to this ? prag . ay but it is sworn against him ( they say ) that he is one , and sure that will serve your turn . philo. indeed this has prevented me from asking you one question , which was , how the town and country , which you say generally believe him to be a papist , should come to know so much , unless he had declared it to them himself , and given a certificate under his own hand to put the matter out of dispute , for his publick profession has all along spoken the quite contrary . but now i understand that the ground which you or they have to believe him a papist , is only because such and such have sworn against him that he is one . doth their swearing then make him a papist , whether in his own opinion he be so really or no ? prag . i say if they swear he is a papist , i am bound to believe it : and if they should do as much for you i would endeavor to have you prosecuted . philo. i grant you that then in the eye of the law he is one , for that proceeds and judges according to the testimony given upon oath : but this is not the business in dispute . i would fain know whether any impartial person ( these oaths that you speak of notwithstanding ) may not , all circumstances well considered , still conclude that l'estrange is all this while an honest man , and a true son of the church of england ? prag . not at all : for i tell you , as i said before , if it be given upon oath that he is a papist , i dare pawn my life that he is one , and i look upon the testimony to come from such well meaning persons , and true lovers of the church , that i dare safely swear the same my self . philo. very pretty : but what if two or three well meaning malicious fellows should swear that you was in the plot , would you therefore be such a fool to belive it , and swear the same , and so e'ne be fairly trussed up for your pains . prag . why no , the case is altered then : and i would say , that they were a company of rascals , that should swear i was in the plot , when i know no more of it than the child that is unborn : besides , what need i care ? i am clear enough , so long as my conscience plainly tells me that i have no hand in it : philo. so , then the kings evidence it seems may be a company of rascals , if they should chance to depose any thing against you , when in the mean time whatsoever is said or sworn against another man passeth with you for an oracle . this is very fine is it not ? but may not another mans conscience give these bold swearers the ly as well as yours can do ? and will you not allow poor l'estrange the liberty to make use of the same plea which you would your self ? this is very hard measure . prag . how can that be , when his own conscience tells him he is a papist and uses to go to mass ? if he would but have dealt ingenuously , he might have gone to the council , and informed against himself , without putting any body else to the trouble of doing it . philo. and have told them he had a great mind to be hanged , and therefore came to swear that he was up to the ears in the plot , though he never so much as dipped his little finger in it . pray friend have a care what you say , for if dr. oates and the rest should come to know that you should offer to advise any man , papist or not papist to do any such thing ; take my word for it , they would certainly fall foul on you for going about to take away their livelyhood . but you said that his conscience tells him so and so : have his conscience and you had any late conference together ( i dare not say consult , because it is grown a dangerous word ) about these matters , that you are so peremptory in asserting , that it will flatly declare him a papist ? prag . nay , if you go on cavilling at your rate , there is no talking with you : pray tell me one thing , how can his conscience chuse but tell him that he is a papist , when it is so evident , that all the world knows it ? philo. so evident , that all honest understanding men believe the quite contrary . for to say nothing of his constant and approved loyalty all along to the king , when he had opportunity enough to be otherwise , of his good carriage and reputed honesty , and the notorious ill manners of his accusers , though this might be a large theme for discourse : what rational sober man could ever think him so ill advised , or ( to use the term which some slanderous tongues would fix upon him ) so mad , as by publick writings , and a practice corresponding to his private sentiments , to derive a great and everlasting odium upon himself from two different parties , seemingly as far distant and opposite as the two poles , though both concentring in one fatal mischief , the ruin of this poor church and state ; i say who can suppose that this man , out of his affectionate love to his king and country , and filial duty to his mother the church of england , should expose himself so undauntedly to all the malice and spleen that could be vomited out upon him from the mouths of those foul-mouthed beasts , and yet be all this while a secret favourer of one of these parties , whilst he pretends to be an open abhorrer of both ? prag . a very fine speech , neatly harangued , as if you had a pention for doing it : but i understand never a word on 't : what parties , what beasts are these you talk of , or do you but dream ? philo. to be more plain with you , i mean the papists on one hand , and the fanatics on the other . prag . oh , now i understand you : and this is wonderful strange you say , that he should be a profest enemy to the papists , and yet be one himself underhand : i pity your ignorance ; as if the pope could not grant a dispensation for all this : why it is ordinarily done in such cases , and i thought you had not been so shallow as not to apprehend it . philo. you will make a mear changling of his holiness by and by , if you could but prove that he would grant a dispensation to have his own throat cut . when the pope sends emissaries into england to promote the catholic cause , perhaps he may allow them to make use of some pious frauds the better to carry on their designs , and when some of them have the honour to die martyrs at tyburn with a lye in their mouths , then goes the common cry , that they have the popes dispensations and absolutions to lick all whole again : and granting this to be so , nay and more than that , that l'estrange had a dispensation too , what great harm would it do , so long as it is only to preserve his allegiance and approve himself true and faithful to his church , king and country ? prag . ay but these confounded dispensations are of a strange nature , for i have heard that by the strength of one of them a man may come to our church , wear a peruque and a sword by his side , flatter and fawn upon the king , and cry god bless your majesty , i wish you a long and prosperous reign , and then stab or poison him at the first opportunity , and yet for all at last go to heaven in a string . and i think on it a little better , might not l'estrange be a jesuite and be like enough to do some such like prank at the long run ? philo. what and no papist ? for i hope i have convinced you that he is not . prag . yes for ought i know he may . philo. and a married man too ? prag . that does not signifie a rush : for i tell you that plaguy dispensation , ( would it was hanged ) has done more mischief to this kingdom than all the french kings garlick eaters would do if they should come over : for they say priests and jesuites cannot marry , but i 'le warrant they may upon a good account , and therefore i say still , for ought i know l'estrange may be a jesuite , though he is a married man , and no papist neither as you say : and that is nothing but a blind , a mere blind . philo. you might as well say a man may be bred and born in london , and yet be no english-man . i tell thee plainly , thou art one of those smatter-braind fellows , that catch at all they can hear , and understand things by halves , and get the names of papist and jesuite into their mouths , and make a great rumbling noise with them enough to sour all the milk in the kingdom , and do not know one syllable what their meaning is . prag . not know what their meaning is ? i thank you heartily for that : you might as well say i did not know my own name . no i 'le warrant , when they would have blown up the parliament-house on the fifth of november , when they stirred up rebels in scotland and ireland , and raised a civil-war in england , and caused the king to be put to death , and when they fired the city , and now in this present plot endeavoured to kill our most gracious soveraign , we did not know what their meaning was ; what other meaning could they have but to kick good old protestanism out of doors , and introduce popery , and set up a company of shavelings in the church ? uds my life , he that does not at this time of the day see plainly what their meaning is ; i affirm him to be a stark blind ass , and i stand to it . philo. these are bloody things you lay to their charge , and perhaps some of them may be true ; and for avoiding contention we will grant them all to be so for once , whether they be or no ; but don't you think the papists were the contrivers , the plotters , or the authors ( call them which you will ) of the last great plague among us too ? prag . nothing more likely in my judgment ; for what with their mass mumbling , their exorcisms , conjurations , incense and holy-water ( god bless us ) they have raised such a pother and sent such a foule stink among us enough to cause an infection to spread not only over the city , but the whole nation too . philo. ingeniously made out , if you had added their squibs and crackers too . but this is nothing to the business i was mentioning ; for when i spoke of papists and jesuites , i said you did know what the words meant , and if you do , pray do me the favour to tell me . prag . that i will. why look you now , if you could get a painter to draw a company of ill looked fellows with bags of gun-power and pistols in one hand , and daggers and long knives in the other , that would be the very picture of papists and jesuites . philo. but then i suppose it must be writ under them , these are papists , and these are jesuites , as they use to write a company of verses underneath to explain the frontispiece . prag . no there would be no need of that ; for i tell you their very looks would betray them and speak what they are . philo. this is the notion then i perceive you have of them : but you forget to describe their religion : do you think they are christians or no ? prag . no by my faith , hang me if i do : for i look upon the grand signior or the great mogul to be a thousand degrees better christians than they . philo. but what if i should prove that they are christians ? prag . do that , and i 'le say as you say . philo. all proof would be needless to a man of understanding : but first , i 'le take it for granted that ours is but a reformed church ; and wherever there is a reformation , there must be supposed some errors and abuses which were to be reformed . now the●e errors and abuses were and are still in the church of rome , which no more hinder it from being a christian church ( though grosly corrupted ) than a company of boils and sores should make you cease to be a man ( though an infirm one ) the case then is thus ; should some of these boils and botches , which i will suppose to be in your body , be cured and done away , that part which had them may be said to be whole again : so our church of england being but part of the catholic church was once infected with those abominable impurities and foul diseases the church of rome now labours under , from which being cleansed , and purged , it became a pure church , sound and healthful , whilst the church of rome remains tainted at this day . and so you your self being ( as you would make me believe you are ) a true protestant , are neither better nor worse than ( be not started at the word ) a reformed papist by derivation from your ancestours . this i hope will convince you that the papists are neither dogs nor cats , wolves , dragons , nor fiery serpents , but men like you and i , and christians too , but not so good as they ought to be , nor as it is wished they were . prag . this somthing gravels me if it be true : but what is all this to the proving l'estrange no papist ? so long as people write and talk against him and call him papist , i cannot find in my heart but believe them . philo. and so some impudent malicious rascals call him hang-dog , and towzer , &c. and do you therefore think in your conscience , that he is either a bull-dog , spaniel , mongrel or the like ? i have not much time to talk with you about this matter , but will only tell you in few words , that l'estrange is yet a true and sincere protestant notwithstanding all the trifling reasons that you or any one else could ever yet bring against him . we are not to make ill conclusions from the present misfortunes of the manner , frame , unreasonable and uncharitable conjectures and surmises , from his absconding for a time , which may be for reasons best known to himself , and not so fit to be known to his enemies : but i hope it will not be long ere he will return with a whip and a bell to lash these barking curs , that durst hardly snarl or grin whilst he showed his face . t is sure there was never a more impudent and brazen-faced age , than this we live in , when the best men shall be aspersed with foulest calumnies , and the best protestants , the bishops themselves not passing scot-free , be branded with the odious names of papists for being zealous for their king and countries good . it is to be wished that we could once see a reformation in our manners instead of seeking one continually in our religion . and then we should let protestants be protestants still , and l'estrange might live quietly without having the imputation of popery belched out upon him through every poisonous and malicious throat . and so farewel till we meet next time . finis . a proclamation commanding all papists, or reputed papists, forthwith to depart from the cities of london and westminster, and from within ten miles of the same england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1679 approx. 3 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32369 wing c3239 estc r12006 12277588 ocm 12277588 58521 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32369) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 58521) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 863:37) a proclamation commanding all papists, or reputed papists, forthwith to depart from the cities of london and westminster, and from within ten miles of the same england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 sheet ([1] p.) printed by john bill, thomas newcomb, and henry hills ..., london : 1679. reproduction of original in bodleian university. at head of title: by the king. at end of text: given at our court at whitehall the fourth day of may 1679. in the one and thirtieth year of our reign. broadside. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng catholics -great britain -legal status, laws, etc. popish plot, 1678. broadsides 2008-03 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-05 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-06 john pas sampled and proofread 2008-06 john pas text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion by the king. a proclamation commanding all papists , or reputed papists , forthwith to depart from the cities of london and westminster , and from within ten miles of the same . charles r. whereas notwithstanding the several acts of parliament , and his majesties late royal proclamation to the contrary , there is at this time a very great resort of papists , and persons justly reputed papists , to and about the cities of london and westminster , and places thereunto adjacent ; the kings most excellent majesty ( at the humble request of the commons now in parliament assembled ) doth by this his royal proclamation strictly chgarge and command all papists , and persons reputed papists , and such as have been so within six months last past , that they and every of them do forthwith depart from the said cities of london and westminster , and from all places within the distance of ten miles of the same ; and that they or any of them do not presume to return again upon any pretence whatsoever , within the space of six months from the date of these presents . and lest they or any of them should do the contrary , upon pretence of any licence formerly granted by any of the lords , or others of his majesties privy council , his majesty doth hereby declare , that he hath caused all licences of that nature formerly granted by any of the lords , or others of his privy council , to be revoked . and his majesty doth hereby further straitly charge and command all and every iustices of the peace , constables , and others his officers and ministers of iustice within his said cities , and either of them , and within ten miles of the same , that they do make strict search and enquiry for , and with all vigour proceed against all and every person or persons who shall be found within the said cities of london and westminster , and within ten miles of the same , during the said space of six months , contrary to the effect of any of the said statutes , and the purport of this his majesties proclamation . provided , that nothing herein contained shall be construed to extend to any person or persons who being formerly of the popish religion , have fully conformed to the protestant religion , in such manner as is by law appointed , nor from the time of their respective conformity , to such as shall hereafter in like manner conform themselves . given at our court at whitehall the fourth day of may 1679. in the one and thirtieth year of our reign . god save the king. london , printed by john bill , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1679. a narrative of the proceedings and tryal of mr. francis johnson, a franciscan, at worcester last summer-assizes anno dom. 1679 written with his own hand as followeth. wall, john, saint, 1620-1679. 1679 approx. 104 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 13 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a70694 wing n205 estc r1380 11240356 ocm 11240356 39761 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a70694) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 39761) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1447:6) a narrative of the proceedings and tryal of mr. francis johnson, a franciscan, at worcester last summer-assizes anno dom. 1679 written with his own hand as followeth. wall, john, saint, 1620-1679. 16, 8 p. s.n., [london : 1679] caption title. imprint suggested by wing. reproduction of the original in the harvard law school library. with: mr. johnson's speech : which he deliver'd to his friend to be printed (as he mention'd at the place of execution). created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng wall, john, -saint, 1620-1679. popish plot, 1678. trials (treason) -england. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-02 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-05 john latta sampled and proofread 2006-05 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a narrative of the proceedings and tryal of mr. francis johnson a franciscan , at worcester , last summer-assizes , anno dom. 1679. written with his own hand as followeth . to which is annexed his speech at his execution , august 22. 1679. i being at london on all-saints-day , when the proclamation came forth to command all catholiques to depart from thence by the friday following , i obeyed , and came to a friends house in worcestershire , not intending to stay there ; but the king 's second proclamation being presently published , that no catholique should walk above five miles without being stopt , and carried before a justice to have the oaths tendred , i asked counsel of the wisest i could , both of protestants ( whereof one was a lawyer ) and another a constable , as also of catholiques , whether that proclamation did so strongly oblige , that it permitted me no longer to go further ? they all concluded it was not secure to go , so i resolved to obey , and stay where i was , and with good reason . first , because all catholiques are obliged to obey the king's commands in all things that are not against our religion and conscience , and his commands in this nature are against neither . secondly , should i have disobeyed , and have been taken , in penalty i should have suffered , which would not have been so directly for my conscience and religion sake , as for disobeying the king's command ; because in case i should be taken by staying there in obedience to the proclamation , and be carried before the justices to have the oaths offered , whatever i was to suffer for refusing them , i should have this double comfort before god , and the king ; before the king , because i rather chose to go to prison , than to remove from his law , by taking the oaths against my conscience — therefore i was taken and put in prison . the manner of my being taken was as followeth . the sheriff's deputy came to the house where i was with six or eight men , to arrest a gentleman in the house for debt : the officers coming into the house in the morning , and not finding the person they came for , broke down all the doors , and among the rest mine , before i was out of bed , and by a mistake arrested me , instead of the other gentleman ; and although the deputy , coming into my chamber , looking on me , told them they were deceived , for i was not the man they came for ; yet other soldiers coming into my chamber , one of them said he knew me : it seems he had been a servant in the house seven years before , therefore he said he would have me to the justices , and bid his companions secure me , and so they did , and would not let me go out of their sight , until they carried me before the justice ; and this they did , without either constable , or warrant , law or justice . when i came before the justice of peace , i told him the occasion that had brought me to him ; and if i would have taken the oaths , i had been presently freed : but i told them that persuaded me to take the oaths , that it was against the faith and religion i professed , and against my conscience , and i would never offend against either , by so complying , whatever i suffered for the contrary . the justice's wife was compassion ate towards me , and desiring to speak privately with me , she used her best persuasions to me to comply with what was desired of me concerning the taking the oaths , for fear of further trouble or danger . i answered her with thanks , and told her , that i was sorry she had no better opinion of me , than to think i had prosest such a faith and religion all my life-time , and now upon the trial could be moved with any fear or danger ( which god sorbid . ) i told her it was such a faith , that in it i deposed my soul , my confidence , heaven and eternal life , and therefore i neve r did , nor ( by god's grace ) never would fear to suffer for it what pleased god ; for who could fear even death itself of the body whose life is momentary , for profession of that faith wherein he deposeth the eternal life of his soul ? this answer satisfi'd both her and my self , for i was resolved to make a publick profession of my faith and religion ; upon which i return'd to the justice , who thought fit i should go to another justice , who was sir john packington , whither also he went with me . when i came to sir john , he asked me who i was ? i answered him , i was a gentleman sufficiently known for these 20 years in worcestershire to all sorts of people . he asked me of what calling i was ? i answered him , of none . he asked me what estate i had ? i answered , i was no landed man. then he asked me , if i would take the oaths ? i answered , i understood them not . he replied , will you take them , or will you not ? i told him if he pleased to let me see them , i should return him my answer . now the reason why i desired to see the oaths , was , because i was resolved to make a publick declaration of my faith , that they were against my conscience , and therefore by declaring publickly the reasons why i could not take them , it should be publickly known , that whatsoever i was to suffer for not taking them , was for no other cause but for my faith and religion , because i would not swear against my conscience — for , would i have taken them , i had been there also freed . when the oaths were brought to me , they told me i must read them out aloud , but i told them that because it was a publick place , and many there present of several degrees , as well of the housholders , as strangers , i feared least reading them aloud , some that heard me might think i sware what i read , and so might go and report they heard me take the oaths before the justices . but they declared they would not think so l so i read them over and over , which when i had done , i said aloud , god save the king ; and then declared to both the justices , and all the rest , in this manner . i am ready to swear as followeth : that i ever all my life-time have been , and now am , and ever will be to my last breath , as saithful a subject to the king , as any subject whatsoever , and as faithful as if i should take the oaths now offered by them to me an hundred times over ▪ but as for taking these oaths offered me , i could not take them whatever i suffered , and the reason was , because i understood what an oath was , and the conditions which god has prescribed to us , before any could call him to witness lawfully in taking of any such oaths . the conditions which god has prescribed i told them were these . thou shalt swear the lord liveth in truth , and in judgment , and in righteousness ; so that in every oath , the life of god , the truth of god , the judgment of god and his righteousness , are included by all which we swear , and the oath we take is to have all these conditions , truth , judgment , and righteousness , jerem. 4. — therefore if i should take these oaths which are concerning damnable doctrines and heresies , i must call god to witness that i no more believe him to be a living god and true god , a just and righteous god , than i believe these things contained in the oaths to be true , just and righteous , to swear to which oaths i do not nor cannot in my conscience believe to be so . for , before i or any man else can understand the contents of these oaths to be true , as to call god to witness that i believe them to be as true , just and righteous , i must be able to desine what is faith or heresie in these contents i swear to , and i must know the full extent of all cases of this nature that god has left to all temporal princes and their power ; i must also understand the full extent of all cases of this nature of power spiritual which god hath left in his church in or over christian kingdoms of temporal monarchs , which power in these oaths i am to swear on the one side , and forswearing the other . i told them i was not of capacity nor knowledge to set the confines to each power , or to determine or define the extent given by god to all in this nature , so as to swear and call god to witness i am as sure of it , as i am sure he is a living god , as i must do if i take these oaths , the extent of which i did not understand in my conscience to be so as to believe them ; therefore i could not nor would not swear to them . i having spoken these things , no body said any more to me , but the justices going out of the hall made my mittimus and sentence for worcester prison , because i would not take the oaths they tendred me . i have been since called to the bar at the sessions , where i spake to the same effect before judge street , and the justices , as i had spoken before to sir john packington , having first asked their leave to speak , which they gave me for a little time , and then bid me return to the prison . — but first they were urgent with me to answer positively , ay or no , was i a jesuitical priest , or was i not ? to which i answered , it was an easie thing for me to say no , but by saying no , i might prejudice others , who hereafter being asked the same question , if they did not answer no , it might be an argument that they were guilty , if they did not deny it as others before them had done . — therefore i desired that what proof could be brought against me , might be produced against me , and i would answer for my self : but i desired i might not be urged to answer ay or no , to any thing , before some witness or argument came against me ; for , i told them in such cases , neither law of god nor man obliged any one ( although he was guilty ) to bear witness against himself without some proof were alledged against him , for , that was no less than to be his own executioner . the judge answered there were witnesses would swear against me . i answered , if witnesses could make out what they sware of me , then my life was at the king's mercy : but in the mean time i told them i remained guiltless , though i did not answer them to their questions ay or no , because i told them that being my saying no in my own behalf would not be sufficient testimony to acquit me , therefore there was no reason why any man should be urged to say ay to accuse ones self though he was guilty . upon this the judge sent me to prison again at worcester , where now i am , which imprisonment , in these times especially , when none can send to their friends , nor friends come to them , is the best means to teach us how to put our confidence in god alone in all things ; and then he will make his promise good , that all things shall be added to us , luke 12. which chapter , if every one would read , and make good use of , a prison would be better than a palace ; and a confinement for religion , and a good conscience-sake , more pleasant than all the liberties the world could afford . as for my own part , god give me his grace , and all faithful christians their prayers , i am happy enough ; and as for others , i beseech god that the evil example of those that swear against their consciences , may not be guides for the rest to follow , nor their deeds a rule to their actions . we all ought to follow the narrow way , though there be many difficulties in it : it 's an easie thing to run the blind way of liberty , but god deliver us all from broad , sweet ways . we know what job saith of libertines , they lead their lives in the goods of this world , and in a moment they descend into hell. but , as our saviour saith , what doth it profit a man to gain the world , and lose his soul ? god gave job a goodly increase for all the riches he took from him , and blest his latter end more than his beginning , and gave him an hundred and forty years of flourishing life for his short affliction , in which , his constancy and faith in god was tried ; and our saviour promiseth an hundred-fold to all that leave goods , and every thing willingly for his fake . — who well considers this , will be content to leave both ▪ friends and fortunes , and freedom by imprisonment , for their faith and religion-sake , till such time as it shall please god and the king ( in obedience to whose command they suffer ) to release them . and in the mean time they will have this comfort , that they give a testimony they fear god , and honour the king ; they fear god , because they choose rather to suffer persecution , than swear against their consciences ; they honor the king , because they are willing to suffer the penalties he commands , and yet remain faithful subjects to him , whom god long preserve , with his parliament and people , in all happiness . on tuesday , april 15. 1679. i came before judge atkins at worcester , to have my cause tryed at the sessions , having been committed five months before to worcester-castle by two justices of the peace , sir john packinton , and mr. townson , because i refused the oaths of supremacy and allegiance , and therefore was suspected to be a jesuitical priest . the manner of my tryal was as followeth . four witnesses were brought in against me ; three of them were forced by warrant to come in , whether they would or no , from several towns , and were fore'd to speak all that they knew , had heard , or seen , concerning me ; neither i , nor any of my friends knowing , that any would be compelled so to do , before the time of my tryal was come . the fourth witness came of his own accord for lucre sake , who , the same day that i was first brought to worcester prison , offered himself to swear before the mayor of the town , that i was a priest , before ever he came to see who i was . the testimony which he gave against me before the judge , was this . he swore he had been at confession with me , and that he had received the sacrament at my hands about two years before at his fathers house , whil'st he was a catholique ; and after he became a protestant he said i told him afterward he should turn back from whence he had fallen , else he would be damned . the other three witnesses that were forced to come in against me , when they came before the grand jury , and were urged to take their oaths , to tell that which they never had known nor seen concerning my being a priest , they all unanimously declared , that they had nothing to say against me , and that they were by violence forced to appear there , and therefore they said they would never swear nor say any thing against me , for they knew nothing to accuse me of : which when the jury heard , they called for the jaylor to take the party that fitst denied to swear to prison , thinking by this violent way of proceeding so to afright them , that they should say something , out of which advantage should be taken against me ; which thē better to effect , they made them first lay their hands on the bible , and then kiss it , which they did . then the jury told them , that now they were to tell all the truth according as they were asked . — first they asked whether any of them had ever heard me read ? one answered , yes , the bible , and sometimes any other book . then they asked , whether they had ever seen me pray ? it was answered , yes . then they asked what cloaths i had on when i prayed ? and whether i used to change my cloaths when i came to pray ? in these and other like questions they sifted them , to get out any thing that might do me hurt . but how charitable or christian-like these proceedings of the jury were , let the world judge now , as god will hereafter ; for , if this be a charitable way of proceeding among christians , that our neighbors should by such strange violence , as by warrant and oath be brought against their wills from any part of england , to swear whatever they have seen , heard , or known of their neighbors , what horrid confusions and odium's must this make among all sorts of people both friends and foes ? — but i do not blame those three witnesses , after they had been inconsiderately induced to lay their hands upon the bible , and kist it ; i suppose they judged themselves bound to say what they did . after this , when the jury had got out of them what they could , the four witnesses and i were called before the judge . the first witness that came to swear against me , as the custom is , repeated his testimony over again before the judge , and so did the other three that were forced ; which when i heard how absurd and insignificant some of their testimonies were , i inconsiderately smiled , at which the judge being offended , i humbly begged his pardon , and told him i was sorry for it . — but forasmuch as laughing or smiling were passions of nature , over which no man had a free course or power , i hoped and beseeched him not to impute it to me ; he told me he would not be displeased at me for it . then he asking me , whether i was guilty , or not guilty of my accusations ? and i answering , not guilty , he bad me shew it , by answering for my self ; i told him i was ready to do it ; but told him first , i had an humble petition to his lordship , which was , that i desired a full and free liberty without hindrance to answer to every objection , and plead for my self ; i also desired he would reflect in my behalf , that as he was to be my judge , so he was to be my advocate . and forasmuch as all earthly judges were to imitate the heavenly judge , who as advocate ten thousand times mitigates the severity of a judge , whil'st his hand of mercy is infinitely stretched forth beyond the hand of judgment . and therefore i begged of his lordship , that i might find the favor of an advocate from him , rather than the tigor of a judge , especially in those things which according to law may be advantageous or disadvantageous to me , which i understanding not how to make the best use of them , desired his lordship would vouchsafe to do it for me ; which that the better he might be moved to do , i desired he would be pleased to consider that this my life and concerns were ( in comparison of others greater ) not so much considerable , i being but a private person , yet my little was to me much , because my little was my all ; and my life to me were as much as caesars or solomons were to them ; and as great a gift from god to me , as theirs to them ; and therefore god has laid as great an obligation on me to defend my self and my life , as he had on them for theirs , and also had given to every one a strict command not to impair or prejudice me in the least , no more than the greatest potentate . therefore being i was now brought before him in a case , where the world as much as concerns me , lay at stake , and my life , and my credit , i did humbly beseech his lordship to proceed accordingly with me , as i presumed according to his prudence and worth he would . he assented to what i petitioned , and did bid me speak for my self . in answer therefore to the first voluntary witness against me , i told his lordship it was true , i had been at such a night at his fathers house , and accordingly , as i was desired by him , i staid all night . — but as for this witness , i was a stranger to him , and he to me , as he confest himself . then the judge asked him , whether he knew me before or no ? for he declared publickly , that he never knew me , nor saw me before or since , till he saw me at worcester , and yet he said the next morning he made his confession to me , and i gave him the communion at mass as he supposed in my chamber ; but he said that none of all the family was present at that time , only he and i alone ; whereupon i desired the judge to consider what possible likelihood could be of the truth in this his affirmation , that i should come to a house where i was acquainted with them all , father , mother , and children , with all but this witness , who as he declared knew me not , nor ever had seen me before , what likelihood is there i should say mass before him alone , hear his confession , and give him the sacrament , and so go away without any one of the family ( with whom i was so well acquainted ) hearing , seeing , or knowing the least of this that past between him and me . — i therefore desired my lord to ask him , whether i spake of confession or communion ? or what i said to him when i gave it him ? or whether i told him i would give him the sacrament ? which when the judge had asked him , he answered , that indeed i never had spoken to him either about confession or communion to come to either ; neither did he know what i said to him , when i gave him bread like a wafer ; but he of his own accord did desire me to hear his confession , and give him the wafer which he took . — whereupon the judge asked how it came to pass that he , never having known nor seen me before , nor i spoke with him about confession or communion , how could he now tell who i was , or how could he desire such a thing of me who was a meer stranger to him , neither of us knowing any thing of one anothers condition ; sure , said the judge , we do not give the communion on such terms . — to which he answered , that his father had told him , that if he would he might confess to me , and that i would give him the communion . — so although he had sworn before , that none in the house was witness , or saw him confess or receive , yet rather than be confounded , he would bring his father into confusion , and accuse him as guilty of being the cause of what he did , which might be the ruine of his family . but the judge taking no notice of what he had accused his father , spake to me , and told me , by this it might appear , that i had taken upon me what belonged to the priests office , by hearing his confession , and giving him the wafer . to which i replied , that with his leave , i would make it appear , that all which this witness had said against me , did not at all prove me to be a priest , or to have taken the office of a priest upon me ; for all he said i had done , i might do it lawfully though no priest , so might other men that never were nor would be priests do the same , as many thousands had done and did do through the world . he asked me how i could prove that ? i answered , as to his confession he spoke of , in the nature he declared it , it was only an act of charity for me to do as i did , and every christians duty obliges every man to do the same that he said i had done for him , and the same was practised by all sects whatsoever , that never knew what belonged to priesthood ; for , if our neighbor have any thing that perplexed his mind , there is no better way to ease it , than by speaking of it to any whom he supposed might know how to take away or mitigate his grievances by counsel or advice ; and therefore this witness having understood something from his father , that might move him to confide in me , came of his own accord , as he said he did , to impart his mind to me , and therefore i should not have fulfilled christian duty , if i should have slighted his trouble , and not have given him leave to ease his mind to me , and , in the best way i could , endeavor to assist him , and divert his trouble , though i was a stranger , being that he of his own accord , as he said , came to me for that intent , and therefore i desired the judge to ask him , if it were otherwise than what i had told his lordship ? the judge replied that i went further ; for , as he says , i gave him the wafer or communion . i answered , that suppose i had given him the wafer or communion ( which whether i did or no i was not certain ) yet according to his own word , this could no way prove that i gave him the sacrament ; for , let him speak if i told him it was so ; or let him declare if i said any thing to him concerning the communion , or what i said ; he could not say i did , only i gave him something ; therefore i told the judge , that if he pleased to give me leave , i would tell his lordship what practice ever had been , and is constantly used in the catholick church throughout the world , in giving hollowed bread or water , which is nothing belonging to the communion or sacrament ; for , i told my lord , as there was holy water kept in all private houses , as well as in the chapels , and places of prayer , so there was also holy bread , and sometimes of the same nature as the wafer or the communion , and of this as well as of the other sort of bread , was on sundays , and other certain daies , not consecrated as the communion , but only blessed as holy water by the word and prayer , and so distributed to men , women , and little children , of two or three years old ; and such like hallowed bread thousands of men , women and children , take , and may carry about them , and keep in their houses , and eat it at any time , and give it when , and to whom they would , to children , or others ; and for my part , i have many times in my life taken it from others at any time ; when i had it , or was in any private house where i found it , i have taken it to eat my self , and given it to any man , woman , or child , sometime they desiring it , sometime of my own accord i gave it , and so possibly i have given it to the man that witnesseth here against me ; and if he know the contrary , but that it was as i said , i desire that he would speak : but he had nothing to say of me to the contrary . i appealed to my lord to judge whether this testimony , or any other testimony this witness brought against me , were of any force or value to make me guilty in this matter , which no waies could be made out against me . i proceeded therefore to answer his third accusation against me , which was , that i should have told him , that if he did not return to the faith from whence he had fallen , he would be damned . to this my answer to my lord was , that i had all my life time been so fearful of such rash judgment , that i do declare it in the presence of god , as i did before him , that i had rather dye , than presume to pronounce the sentence of damnation against any man ; but i told his lordship , that if he pleased to give me leave , i would relate what i had said to him , and others , upon the like occasion , which the judge being willing to hear , i told him , that i being at this man's mother-in-law's house , who was of no religion , no more than this witness , and the mother desiring to hear what catholicks held , and the reasons for which we believe such points of faith , i told her what we held , and shewed her the proofs for what we held in her own bible , and when she made any difficulty whether such texts of scripture were to be understood as we understood them , or in any other sense , i shewed her out of the protestant practice of piety , and out of the protestant common prayer-book , that not only catholicks ▪ but all protestants understood them in such a sense ; and she having those books by her , i turned those places to her to read in her own books , and so she did , and yet neither the bible , nor common prayer-books , nor practice of piety , could satisfie , or make her believe ; whereupon i told her , that if she were a christian , she must believe something ; for , as she believed , so she should be saved : — i told her also what the bible declared to her , that without faith it was impossible to please god , and i bad her consider the text that saith , whatsoever is not of faith is sin ; as also the text that saith , the just man liveth by faith , and desired her to read those words of our saviour , where he saith , he that believeth shall be saved , but he that believeth not shall be damned ; which she did read ; and this witness being then present , and i saying the same then before him , i suppose , from this text , he accused me that i should say , he would be damned , because i repeated , and shewed them our saviour's words , as they appear in that place of scripture . i having thus answered all the testimonies this witness could bring in against me , i referred my self to his lordship , and all the bench , to judge whether any thing this witness had said against me , would make me guilty : the judge said but little to it , but called for the next witness ( who was father to this first ) who was so much grieved at the proceedings of his ungracious son , that he could not forbear to shed tears all the time that his son produced such ●ccusations against me ; so that he appeared more witness against his son's ungodliness , than a witness against me : yet the judge asked him many questions , whether he had ever heard , seen , or known any such or such things of or from me : to all which questions he answered , no , he knew nothing against me ; so that the judge seeing he shewed so much kidness , he asked him what he was ? he answered , a catholick ; whereupon the judge bade him go away , saying , he was too much my friend , and therefore he would not accept of him as a witness , but called the third . this witness was an old man , and very deaf , who was forced to come against me by a warrant , swore against his will : the judge asked him several questions , whether he heard me say any prayers ; he answered , yes , but he could not well understand or hear what they were , because he was so deaf ; he asked them whether they were english or latin ? he answered , he could not well tell , he thought it was both ; and , i think , it might be neither , for ought he could hear , he was so very deaf : then he asked him what cloaths i had on ? he answered , he could not well tell ; i had something on that was white , a surplice he thought ; and the judge was willing to suppose this to be a priests habit at mass , or when he gave the sacrament ; but i told his lordship , that this could be no proof of any such matter , because , all over the world , among catholicks , such garments were worn by thousands in time of prayer , who never were , nor will be priests , as is well known to those that have been travellers : and i told his lordship , that if he pleased to call for them , there may be several travellers , of several sects and opinions present in the hall , that would be sufficient witnesses as well of this , as of the holy bread and water , which the other witness as well as this old man said i had given them , which they suppose to be the sacrament ; but the judge would call for none , but called for the fourth witness . — this witness was a young woman , who was also by violence forc'd to come and swear what she had heard , seen or known concerning me about the matter in question . the judge asked her whether i had taught her any thing , whether she had been at confession or communion , what i said to her , what pennance i gave her ; and he asked also the like questions of the old man , the former witness , to all which they were both very unwilling to answer ; for which some of the rude people curst the old man for an old doting fellow , and were as much vexed at the young woman , because she was so dejected , that she could not speak , but lookt like one that was half dead , as some of the people said in anger she was so . the judge perceiving in what condition she was , said aloud , what men are these priests that have such power over people , that they are not able to speak against them ; he therefore bid them remember they were in the presence of god , and were bound in conscience to speak the truth of what they had heard or seen ; so at last they owned that i had read in the bible , and other books to them , and that they had confest what troubled them , and had received something like a wafer from me , and that they had believed what i read to them ; yet they both declared publickly , that i did not bid them come to confession , or take the wafer or bread ; and when they took it , that i did not tell them it was the sacrament , neither did they know whether it was or no : by all which it appeared according to the letter of the law , and in conscience , that none of these testimonies were of sufficient force to make me guilty . a mans life is not to be taken away upon surmises , or possibilities , that this might be the communion , as well as other holy bread. for , the law requires , that it must be proved that there was an administration of the sacrament by one that had taken orders from a foreign power ; of taking orders there was not the least accusation mentioned against me by any of the witnesses , much less could it be proved , no not so much that i pretended to give the sacrament any more than it might be holy water , or holy bread , as i desired my lord to consider ; neither was it the wearing of a surplice that could prove i said mass ; for priests never wear surplices at mass : and if a mans wearing a surplice at prayer , prove him a priest , then all the singing-boys in every protestant cathedral church , and in all other churches in christendom , all those boys , though but of ten or twelve years of age , must be by consequence all popish priests ; and all jews who constantly in their synagogues put on a white garment like a surplice , as i and all travellers have seen them do when we have gone to see them pray : at these jews must be romish priests : — out of all which it evidently appears , that none of these testimonies the witnesses brought against me , were any way concluding according to justice to make me guilty of being a priest . as for my reading the bible to them , or in satisfying them in what they doubted , or bidding them say their prayers , and particularly the lord's prayer , which the last two witnesses told the judge i had done , and the like ( he fearing to answer to all the questions he asked them ) to these i answered , that i own i had done so ; whereupon the judge said , that out of this it appeared , that i had taken upon me the priests office. i told him , that with his leave i would shew how it did no ways follow ; for , out of this it only followed , that i had done the duty of a good christian , and every man in the like circumstances is bound as a christian to do the like that i had done : i told him , that they , doubting of such things , and desiring me to shew them if such places were in the bible , or not , and desiring to know what i did believe of those points , and the reasons why i believed them , i turned to such places in the bible , and read it to them , and bid them read the same themselves , which they did , and so were satisfied . and i told my lord , for what i had done , i had the scripture warrant , and scripture command also to do it , and so had every christian command to do the like ; for the scripture commands all to be redy to give an answer to every man concerning the reason of the hope which is within us , and this i had done to them , or to any other that had asked me as they did . but i told my lord withal , that i knowing the statute of perswasion , had alwaies so much regard to that , when any would discourse with me concerning my faith , or theirs , i told them , that ( being there was such a statute as the statute of perswasion ) though i was bound to give them an account of my faith and hope , if for conscience sake they asked me , yet i told them i would not incur the penalty of that statute by using any force or perswasion against their consciences ; for violent forcing of consciences was against the law of god ; yet i told them what i did believe , and shewed them the places of scripture on which my faith was grounded , according as they desired me to do for them , and then i would leave it to god and their own consciences ; and if they did not believe those texts , i had no more to say to them ; and if they did believe them , they best knew before god and their consciences what they had to do ; so that it was not my perswasion , but god and their souls salvation that was to determine them in the belief of what they read in the bible : and i bade them bear witness that i told them thus , if in case we should ever be called in question before any judge ; and thus i have discoursed , as several would bear witness for me . i told his lordship this was true , and so did those witnesses ; for , they declared publickly what i said was true , whereupon i did appeal to my lord , if i was not innocent in this point ; and as for my bidding them say their prayers , or when they desired to ease their minds by declaring what troubled them , i desired to clear my self by asking my lord , with his leave , what nation or sect in the world ought not , and did not counsel and wish their neighbours in their troubles to ease themselves by prayer to god ; and much more every good christian ought , when he understood that his brother had acted the prodigal son , offended his heavenly father , and therefore was troubled in conscience , ought , i say , to perswade him to return by repentance , and beg mercy of our father which is in heaven : i having done no more but this , have only done a pious christian duty to my neighbours , which any man , though no priest , may and ought to do the same . i having pleaded these things for my self , the judge was pleased to tell me , i had a nimble tongue , and wit , and that by those discourses i strove to make the jury attend more to my pleading for my self , than to the witnesses arguments against me : to which i replied , i spoke nothing but truth , which i ought to do to defend my self against my enemies , therefore i hoped his lordship would not be offended : but if i have exceeded ( as his lordship said i did ) because i hindered him from speaking , i humbly craved his pardon , & hoped i should obtain it , being my concerns and reasons to plead , as i did , were of no less consequence than life and death . but for all this the judge told the jury , that they were to consider the accusations of the witnesses against me , as having done such and such things which priests use to do ; neither was it necessary that the witnesses should prove me to have taken orders from foreign power , and so to prove me positively to be a priest ; for , that ( they not having seen me take orders ) they could not do , but it was sufficient they had seen me do such things , by which it might be presumed it was so . whereupon i answered , that there was never a proof yet alledged , that did or could make that appear , or be sufficient to conclude me to be so , and therefore i was no more guilty than many thousands , of whom all these things alledged against me might be verifi'd , who never were nor would be priests , as i had sufficiently shewed , why therefore should they be thought sufficient to conclude against me . i therefore desired the judge , before he sent out the jury , he would give me leave to speak a word or two to them . he answered no , he would not . i then desired his lordship would give me leave to speak again to him before them , ere they went out ; to which he assented : i therefore desired his lordship to give me leave to ask this question of him , which the jury might hear . — suppose all the proofs which had been by all the witnesses brought against me , were to be alledged against the jury , or some of them , so that if the arguments were judged by them to be of force or concluding , some of those of the jury should lose part of their estates and credit , and being in some danger of their lives , who of all the jury on whom this peril were like to fall , would judge those arguments alledged against me , sufficient to condemn them to the loss of part of their estates , or part of their credit with some danger of their lives ? i therefore desired it might be considered , that my all lay at stake , all my concerns in the world ; credit and life not only in some danger , but certainly to be condemned , if those arguments brought in by them against me should be judged to be of force . therefore i desired they would deal by me as if it were their own case , according as i had proposed it to them , and so i should give no further trouble in speaking , being it was not judged fit i should say any more ( as i had desired ) to the jury . i had only one favor more to beg of the judge before they went out , which was , that his lordship would read a paper before them which i had ready , whereby i could prove , that the first and chiefest vvitness against me , which was rogers , ought not in justice to be admitted as a competent vvitness against me , as the vvriting i offered the judge would shew ; which vvriting i gave to the judge , and he read it over privately to himself , and seeing the hand of him that wrote it at the bottom , who offered to swear for me against rogers , the judge asked where this vvitness for me was , and why i had him not ready ? i answered he was hard by in the prison for debt , if he pleased to send for him ; but the judge would not send for him . i then desired the judge that at least i , or any else here present , might read my paper publickly , that all might know it was true , that i had such a sufficient vvitness for me against rogers ; but the judge neither would let me , nor any else read it openly , but however i made bold to tell publickly all the contents of the paper , which were word for word as the vvitness wrote it with his own hand and name at the bottom ; thus — memorandum , that upon the 12th of december last past , or thereabouts , came three men to the castle of vvorcester , and as they came up the stairs , rogers desires one of them to call for one mr. johnson , and see if he would answer to that name or not ; and entring into the room , he asked where was mr. johnson , and which was he , though he was at that time present in the room , and none else but one man and my self drinking at the door , and in my conscience knew him not . in witness to this i 'll lay down my oath . henry holland . by this it may appear , that if the judge would let my witness appear to have sworn , i might have cast rogers , the chief witness against me ; and why it was not granted , let all that hear it judge . however , i still continued to plead , that all proofs alledged against me were insufficient , which i can make appear even in the judge's own opinion , though i did not tell him so ; for you must know , that before in his circuit , though witnesses swore against a gentleman ( whom they would have proved a priest ) that they saw him marry people and baptize , which are the actions of a priest , yet the judge declared , that because these actions might be done by such as were no priests , as well as by priests , as it appeared , because justices of the peace married people in cromwel's time , and any man or woman might at some times christen children ; therefore such common actions , as he declared , could not prove the accused gentleman to be a priest for doing them , and thereupon the judge freed him . whereupon i infer , that all the actions the witnesses sware they saw me do , as wearing a surplice , giving the wafer , exhorting to prayer , shewing points out of the bible , hearing others grievances , which they of themselves declared to me , and the like , being these are things done as well by those that were no priests , as by priests ; according to the judge's own opinion , these actions ought not to have been judged sufficient proofs against me , no more than such actions were judged sufficient against other gentlemen ; although i did not alledge this to the judge , yet it was sufficient he knew it , and might , if he had pleased , done with me accordingly , though he did not , but sending the jury out , sent me from the bar. i being afterward called again to the bar , and it being declared unto me , that the jury had found me guilty , the bill was read against me ; and then i was asked what i had to say for my self , why i should not dye , that i might speak before the sentence of death past against me . to which i answered , i only desired to know for what i was to dye ; for i have shewed that all things alledged against me heretofore , were insufficient to prove me a priest , or take away my life . the judge answered , that the jury had found me guilty , and that now there was no more to be said concerning the proof , but that i was to be condemned as a priest . to which i replied , that though the jury had found me guilty , yet i was still innocent from any guilt of death , and with his lordships permission i would prove it . he asked me how ? i answered , thus ; i had not been out of england , to take any orders from foreign power since the king's restauration to his crown , neither had i any opportunity to take any orders in england ; therefore if i were a priest , i was so before his majesty came into england : but whatever i had done before the king came into england , cannot make me now guilty , supposing i had transgressed the law before because his majesty before his return , put out several proclamations , that none should ever be troubled for their religion or conscience-sake ; and since his coming into england , he had done the same by several proclamations : and what was yet more , not long since , had set forth his declaration , that every one should freely practise his own religion of what sect or persuasion soever , which declaration , if i were a priest , i might safely relie on , as well as all others . to which the judge replied , where had i the seal to that declaration ? i answered , i never questioned but that a subject might take his king's word declared in his publick proclamation without his seal . the judge answered , however if i were a priest now in england , i was guilty . i replied , that supposing i had formerly taken orders before the king came to england , i could not altogether degrade my self , or be otherwise now , than what i was ordained then ; therefore if i were a priest , i cannot now be guilty for it , because all that ever was done before the king's restauration , in what respect soever , was all forgiven and blotted out by the king 's general pardon to all subjects , even to those who had a hand in the death of his royal father , and so the catholicks for their religion were not excluded out of the general pardon , wherefore i told his lordship i was not guilty . whereupon he told me i was guilty , and presumed far to plead so resolutely , and with such confidence before him and all the bench. i craved his pardon for my fault , but desired his lordship to consider , that i was bid speak if i had any thing to say for my self , before the sentence of death past against me , and therefore i had reason to plead home , since this was the last time i was like to speak for my life in this world , which i hope his lordship and the bench would consider ; but if notwithstanding so many proclamations , grants for liberty of conscience , and his majesty's general pardon to all who had rely'd on them , if all this would not secure me , but my believing those things had caused me to err , and my error must cause me to lose my life , i had no more to say . so the judge sate down , and pronounced against me the sentence of death , that i should be drawn , hanged , and quartered , disbowelled , my intrals burnt , my head cut off , my body to be cut in four quarters , and my quarters to be at the king's disposal . which sentence being pronounced , i bowed , and said aloud , thanks be to god , god save the king ; and i beseech god to bless your lordship , and all this honourable bench. the judge replied , you have spoken very well , i do not intend you shall dye , at least not for the present , until i know the king 's further pleasure . i was not , i thank god for it , troubled with any disturbing thoughts either against the judge for his sentence , nor the jury that gave in such a verdict , nor against any of the witnesses ; for i was then of the same mind , as by god's grace i ever shall be , esteeming them all the best friends to me in all they did or said that ever i had in my life , or ever shall have , except upon the like occasion . and i was , i thank god , so present with my self , whil'st the judge pronounced the sentence to deliver me to death , that without any concern for any thing in this world , i did actually at the same time offer my self and the world to god. after the judge was gone from the bench to the other end of the hall , i stayed with the keeper in the hall , where several protestant gentlemen , and others , who had heard my tryal , came to me , though strangers , and told me how sorry they were for me . to whom , with thanks , i replied that i was troubled they should grieve for me , or my condition , who was joyful for it my self ; for i told them i had professed this faith and religion all my life-time , which i was as sure to be true , as i was sure of the truth of god's word on which it was grounded , and therefore in it i deposed my soul , and eternal life and happiness ; and therefore should i fear to lose my temporal life for this faith , whereon my eternal life depends , i were worse than an infidel ; and whosoever should prefer the life of their bodies before their faith , their religion , or conscience , they were worse than heathens . for my own part i told them , i was as ready by god's grace to dye to morrow , as i had been to receive the sentence of death to day , and as willingly as if i had a grant of the greatest dukedom : so we sate talking half an hour , and i returned to the prison , there to remain , as long as it pleased god and the king , whom god long preserve in all happiness . there was another objection which i forgot to put in , until i had finished the former writing , and it was an objection which the judge was pleased to put against me himself , and it was that i had changed my name , and went in several places by several names . to which i answered , the reason was , because in cromwel's time , in the great troubles , our family suffered much , my father was imprisoned , and a fellow-prisoner with sir thomas ashton , both confined together , which sir thomas is now one of his majesties admirals of the fleet. and for my own part , i going beyond sea to travel , i changed my name ; and then coming into england again , before the king's restauration , i was glad to conceal my self , and go by several names , as many others of the king 's loyal subjects did , the better to be able to do his majesty the best service i could , which , according to my small ability , i did endeavor both before and since the king came into england , like a dutiful subject , and like the rest of our family , who all endeavored to serve his majesty : for i have two brothers served him , the one a voluntier at sea in sir william reeve's ship , which sir william was killed in the last engagement with the dutch ; and the other brother had a command under his royal highness the duke of york at land : therefore i hope the changing of my name on such an occasion as i did , could not be imputed as a guilt upon me , nor speak me other than a dutiful subject ; which i could have made further appear before the bench , but i did not judge it convenient to say any more to the judge there in publick . but before his lordship went out of vvorcester , i presented him with a petition , to acquaint his lordship , that i having had the honour to kiss his majesties hand , before his restauration , in the low-countries ; as also i have had the honour to be one of those whom his majesty was pleased to grace with being entertained by us , his then best subjects ; his majesty was pleased to make us a gracious promise , that when it should please god to restore him to his crown , we should not live so in banishment as then we did . of this in my petition i did acquaint the judge , and beseeched him that he would be pleased , by declaring this to the king , to endeavor to obtain some gracious favor from his majesty for me , my condition now being such , that i could never have greater need to be partaker of his gracious promise and clemency . the judge promised me he would make an address to his majesty for me in this behalf , which whether he hath done or no , i wish some body may put him in mind to do it for me . i do not here mention the place where in particular , nor the other persons to whom his majesty made that promise , but if you remember , you know i did tell you , with several other particular circumstances , which i need not here make any further mention of . the last speech of mr. francis johnson priest , of the order of st. francis , who was executed ( as a priest onely ) at worcester , upon the 22d of august , anno dom : 1679. which he spake , for the most part , upon the ladder , immediately before his execution , ( but being interrupted ) and that which he did speak , being taken by an unskilful scribe , was printed by the halves , and so imperfect , that it was in some places nonsense . to correct that abuse , this which he left ( written with his own hand ) is publish'd by a friend . almighty god , out of his infinite goodness to this world , through the merits of his son christ jesus , ordained or made choice of three virtues whereby we must walk , which are these , viz. faith , hope , and charity . first , by virtue of faith , we are to believe all things that are done in this world ; secondly , by virtue of hope , we are to believe and hope for all things in another world. and the reason why christians do believe this hope , is to bring and conduct them to salvation in the other world. and if we hope in god , we cannot but believe god ; for with the mouth confession is made , but with the heart ( and through faith ) we must believe unto salvation ; so that faith is not to be trodden under foot , or to be hid under a bushel , but to be set upon a candlestick , luke 12. whosoever doth confess me before men , him will i confess before the angels of god ; and therefore all are bound to believe that there is but one faith ; and if but one faith , then but one christian faith. there is but one faith , one lord , one baptism ; if it be so , how can this stand with so many sectaries as there are ? if there be but one faith , how can this be ? i believe the creed of st. athanasius , ( which is in your common-prayer book ) there it is said , that whosoever will be saved , 't is necessary before all things that he hold the catholick faith ; and that if he keep not that faith whole and undefiled , he shall perish everlastingly . and as st. james saith , jam. 2. 10. he that keepeth the whole law , and yet offendeth in one point , is guilty of all ; so they that believe , must be all of the same faith. and that this ought to be done , i appeal to all the saints that are gone before , of whom it is said , that their faith was such , as by it they stopt the mouths of lyons , they turned the edge of the sword , and caused the fire to cease that it should not burn ; so they were oppressed , they wandered about in sheeps-cloathing and goats-cloathing , heb. 11. therefore i say there must be an unity of faith. i desire all catholiques to consider this , that it is better to be reviled by man now in this world , than be reviled by god in the world to come . mat. 16. it is said , the catholique church is built upon a rock . and mat. 18. he who will not believe the church , let him be as a heathen and publican . this faith must be establisht so in every one , because christ said , he would send the holy ghost , and he will shew us ( or them ) what to do . this is the rule of faith : this faith was publisht at rome . and st. paul writing to the christians there ▪ rejoyceth that their faith was renowned in the whole world. go ye therefore , baptizing all nations in the name of the father . and this is the faith i confess and believe in , and which i dye for . i come now to speak of the second virtue , which is hope . i hope i shall have such reward , that neither eye hath seen , nor ear heard , nor can it enter into the heart of man to conceive . those that have hope , shall be as mount sion , that shall not be removed ; those that have firm hope , there 's nothing can disturb them ; as david faith , god is round about those that do hope in him , as the mountains are round about hierusalem . i come to the third virtue , and that is charity . it 's true , now this body of mine in this shipwrack is full of sin , but when that shipwrack is over , i shall come to inherit that rock that shall never fail . now welcome shipwrack that makes the body suffer , but brings the soul to that haven which is joyful . now many there be that talk much of charity , few understand it , and fewer that practise it . this is the greatest virtue , 1 cor. 13. though ye speak with tongues of men and angels , and have not charity , it availeth nothing . so then we ought to have love and charity , or else it prevaileth nothing . 't is expected i should say something of the plot. as to this , i shall declare two points of my faith. first , i believe that all are bound to obey the king's laws . secondly , i do declare , that those that do break the law in word , or any action , or that do act any thing against his majesties life , that is a sin unto damnation , as much as it was a sin in judas to betray christ . an oath is a taking god to witness , and is as much as if he took his life and justice to stake . so that he who takes a false oath , is guilty of destroying the life of god and his justice , and of his own damnation . and if i were but guilty of this , i do declare , that all the sin of damnation would fall upon me , because i denied the truth , and so struck at god by my sin , in denying the truth ; that 's one damnation . a second damnation is , that if any man know of an evil against his majesty , his kingdom and nation , and to hide and not discover it , he shall answer for those mischiefs that come thereby ; so that a man would have made and committed as many sins , as there be men in england that had suffered . a third damnation , is to dye in this lye and with this perjury in his mouth ; whereby he loses heaven , and all its enjoyments , and dies in greater sins than the devils themselves . fourthly , i should have been guilty of my own death ; for that judge atkins offered me my life if i would confess what i knew of the plot , which had i known , and not discovered , would have made me the cause of my own death , which would have been a fourth damnation . i would have said more , but that i gave my speech to a friend to be printed . mr. sheriff . i pray sir speak on what you have to say , and none shall interrupt you . mr. johnson . now i have no more to do but to make my address to almighty god , with all the powers of my soul , that i may have his mercy and pardon of my sins ; and therefore i beg that all catholiques who join in union of this same faith , would make an address unto god for me , that we may receive pardon for our sins . -i have nothing now but wishes left . -i wish i may imitate david in his repentance , and that my eyes may run down with tears , because i have not kept god's law. i wish with the prophet jeremiah , that rivers of waters may fall from my eyes , by reason of sin , lam. 3. 48. but tears will not be proper for me at this time ; i have kept my self from them , lest by shedding tears , some might say i was unwilling to dye , or feared death : but instead of tears , i offer all the blood in my veins , and i wish every drop were an ocean , and i would offer it up to god. i wish i might become a man like david . i wish i had mary magdalens penitential tears ; i wish i had her arms to embrace the feet of mercy . i wish i had all the graces of saints and angels , i would offer them all to god for the remission of my sin . this is my desire , and this i wish for as much as is in me . i offer first my life , and i beseech and desire of god to turn his face from my sins , but not from me . i offer up my life in satisfaction for my sins , and for the catholick cause . and i beg for those that be mine enemies in this my death , and i desire to have them forgiven , because i go to that world of happiness sooner than i should have gone . and i humbly beg pardon from god and the world : and this i beg for the merits and mercy of jesus christ . i beseech god to bless his majesty , to give him a long life , a nd a happy reign in this world , and in the world to come . i beseech god to bless all my benefactors , and all my friends , and those that have been any way under my charge . i beseech god to bless all catholicks , and this nation , and his majesties privy council , and grant that they may act no otherwise than what may be for the glory of god , who will bring to light and to judgment all both good and evil , luke 12. so i beseech god that he will give them grace to serve him . i beseech god to bless the parliament that is now in election , that they may determine nothing , but what they themselves do hope to be judged by at the last day . i beseech god to bless all that suffer under this persecution , and to turn this our captivity into joy ; that they who now sowe in tears , may reap in joy . i beseech god to accept the death of my body , and to receive my soul. i have no more to say . mr. sheriff . i give you no interruption ; but only whereas you said , that you dyed for the faith , that is not so , you do not dye for that , but because you , being his majesties subject , received orders from the church of rome beyond the seas , and came again into england , contrary to the law. mr. johnson that was pardoned by the kings act of grace . mr. sheriff . that act pardoned onely crimes committed before the making of it , but not those done since , as your continuance in england was . mr. johnson . i am sorry if i have given offence in any thing i have said ; my ●●ason for it was , because when i was sent for to the judges upon sunday night , ●●dge atkins told me , i dyed not for being concerned in the plot , but for being a priest . mr. sheriff . no , but for your continuance in england against the law ( being a priest . ) mr. johnson . god receive my soul. mr. sheriff . sir , you may take your own time , and you shall have no interruption ; sir , will you be pleased to have your own time ? jaylor . sir , pray give the sign when you please to be turned off . mr. johnson . i will give you no sign , do it when you will. and so he was executed . mr. johnson was of an honourable family ( in norfolk ) born to an estate of 500 l. per annum , ( all which he left for the sake of religion ) his third brother now enjoys the estate . finis . mr. johnson's speech which he deliver'd to his friend to be printed ( as he mention'd at the place of execution . ) advertisement . mr. johnsons's tryal , and what he spoke at his execution , being finisht , there came to the printers hands his speech at large ( of which his foregoing words are only the heads ) as the reader will see , and as mr. johnson also mentions , viz. ( i would have said more , but that i gave my speech to a friend to be printed ) therefore his friend has now faithfully publisht it accordingly , being written by mr. johnson himself , as followeth . god almighty ( honoured friends ) having been pleased of his infinite mercy through the merits of our saviour jesus christ , to bestow o● all christians the theological vertues of faith , hope and charity , by vertue of faith all are to believe whatever god hath revealed to us in this world , & by hope all are to expect what he hath promised we shall receive in the world to come . and because , where god bestows such a faith and hope , it is in order to bring all to a true charity and love of him ; for who can have faith to believe an infinite goodness , in which he hopes , but he must love that infinite goodness in whom he hopes , which bestows on him such gifts ? therefore all ought to honour god , and shew their love to him by a due profession , and a due practice of this faith , this hope , and this charity , otherwise they cannot be saved , because , as st. paul saith , with th●●● art it is believed to righteousness , but with the mouth confession is made to salvation , romans . 10. for those that will not shew their faith , which is a light not to be hid under a bushel , but to be set in a candlestick , to give light to all , such can never have neither true hope for themselves , nor true charity towards god , or their neighbour , nor god to them , because our saviour saith , luke 12. he that confesseth me before men , him will the son of man confess before the angels of god ; but he that denieth me before men ( as those do that act or swear against their conscience ) him will the son of man deny before the angels of god. and as all are bound to confess him , and his faith ; so likewise all are obliged to own and profess that this faith can be but one only faith , as we are taught , ephes . 4. where st. paul declares , there is one lord , one faith , one baptism , one god , even as you are called , saith he , in one hope of your calling . this being most true , let every rational christian , in his most retired thoughts , consider how this unity of faith , and this hope of our calling can stand with such multiplicity of sects and opinions , all so divers one against the other , with which the nation now so abounds : for according to the text , a man may as well say , there are diversities of gods , or diversities of christs , as that there are diversities of faiths , because faith is nothing but the truth of one god , which truth or faith he hath revealed , which none can alter . we are all therefore bound to believe alike , in one faith , and in one holy catholick church , as our creed teacheth us ; we are all obliged to believe in one catholick faith , as the creed of st. athanasius in the protestant common-prayer-book declares , saying , whosoever will be saved , it is necessary before all things , that he believe in the catholick faith , which faith , unless every one keep whole and undefiled , he shall without doubt perish everlastingly : all and every one are to keep this faith whole , because as it is writ , st. jam. 2. v. 10. whesoever keeps the whole law , and yet offends in one point , is guilty of all . all are to keep the whole faith , because our saviour saith , matth. 16. 15. go ye into the world , and preach the gospel to every creature : all are to believe alike the whole faith of the gospel , else they shall perish everlastingly ; because our saviour saith in the same place , v. 16. he that believes shall be saved , but he that believeth not shall be damned . we all must keep the unity of faith whole and undefiled , because our saviour also saith , st. matth. 5. 16. heaven and earth shall pass , but ▪ one jot , or one tittle of the law shall in no wise pass , till all be fulfilled ; as well the law of faith , as the law of works . in confirmation of this , i appeal to the faith , and works , and sufferings of all the saints from the beginning , who to keep their faith whole and entire , have made such profession and practice of it , and confirm'd it by such works as are recorded in st. paul , heb. 11. where first he registers the faith and deeds of the believers in particular , and then in general , of what they did and suffered by vertue of their faith , as there you read ; by faith they stopt the mouths of lions , extinguished the force of the fire , repelled the edge of the sword ; they were racked , they were tryed by mockings and stripes ; they were in chains and prisons , they were stoned , they were hewed , they were tempted , they died in ●he slaughter of the sword , they were so persecuted and impoverished , that they were fain to go about in sheep-skins , and goat-skins , needy , in distress , afflicted , wandring in desarts , in mountains , in dens , and caves of the earth . dear catholicks now in your present persecution , think of this , and be willing to follow these examples , that you , as in the same place it followeth , being appointed , as they were , by the testimony of your faith , may receive , ere long , those better things which god , as 't is there writ , provides for you : happy those that have this faith , but thrice more happy those that suffer these persecutions for faiths sake , because by this faith , as st. paul saith , gal. 3. 11. the just man lives , and those that have not this faith , are dead to god , because , as 't is written , heb. 11. 6. without saith 't is impossible to please god ; and yet though we have this faith , except we joyn , when god requires , our works of sufferings to this faith , both we and our faith are dead to god , because , as st. james saith , chap. 2. ver . 17. faith is to be shewed by works , because faith without works is dead . and he further shews us in his first chap. v. 25. 't is the works make a man happy , although there can be no good work without a firm faith in nothing doubting , as he saith , ver . 6. christian faith is a firm , established , and an infallible faith , because it is grounded upon a rock , against which the gates of hell shall not prevail , matth. 16. v. 18. this faith is firmly established by such authority of god and his church , that he that will not own the authority , is as a heathen and a publican ; god hath declared him so ; and what the church binds on earth , god binds in heaven . this church and faith is firmly establisht , because our saviour hath promised , that the holy ghost , the spirit of truth should teach the believers all truth , remain with them for ever , shew them things to come to be believed , and should cause the believers to remember all things which christ had already taught , which you read in john 14. and 16. chap. this faith is firmly established , because it was believed and published from the beginning , throughout the whole world , as st. paul proclaims , romans the first , where he speaks thus to all that be in rome ; beloved of god , called to be saints ; first i thank my god through jesus christ for you all , that your faith is published throughout the whole world . finally , this faith is established and infallibly confirmed , that it can never decay till the worlds end , because our saviour hath promised to be with the believers unto the worlds end , matth. 28. 19 , 20. go ye therefore and teach all nations , baptizing them in the name of the father , and of the son , and of the holy ghost , teaching them to observe all things whatsoever i have commanded you , and behold i am with you alwaies even to the end of the world . thus much briefly concerning my christian faith in which i truly believe in all points infallible , and in confirmation of which one only faith and catholick church , i will and do lay down my life ; and whosoever will as he ought consider the text that proves this faith and church of the living god , to be the pillar and ground of truth , as 't is evident it is , 1 tim. 3. 15. i question not but who i say considers this , will believe the same , our faith being assisted by our second divine vertue , which is our christian hope . this hope is that vertue which assures us , that for the reward of our faith , and the profession and due practice of it , as we ought , there are those heavenly gifts laid up for the christian believers , which neither eye hath seen , nor ear hath heard , nor the heart of man can conceive or comprehend , as st. paul declares : this hope gives such confidence , that death cannot overcome it , because , as the prophet saith , although he shall kill me , yet i will hope in him . why then shall any sear to die for his faith , having this hope ? 't is for want of making due reflection and use of this hope that causes so many to be fearful to suffer , and makes them fly the field of persecution , and forsake the banners of their christian faith , that all ought to fight under , and would still fight under , would they make use of the divine hope of gods promises , which are such , that as david saith , psal . 125. that he that hopes or trusts ▪ in our lord , shall be as mount sion , which cannot be removed , but remain for ever . as the mountains , saith god by the mouth of david , are about jerusalem , so the lord is round about his people ; that is , such as will place their hope in him , as the prophet did , and exhorts us to do the same , saying , psal . 130. 5 , 6. my soul hath hoped in our lord ; from the morning watch , even until night , let israel hope in our lord ; that is , from the beginning of the day of our life , till the night of death ; as well in the morning of prosperity , as in the evening of adversity : because 't is also writ , god is my hope for ever ; and whosoever can truly say with david , psal . 31. 1. in thee , o lord , have i plac'd my hope , shall be assured of what there follows , not to be confounded for ever , because , as st. paul saith , hope consoundeth not . there is a contrary vice to this virtue , a worldly fear that brings all things to confusion ; it makes worldlings swear , and forswear , and perjure ; for which perjuries and false oaths , as the prophet saith , judgment springs up as hemlock in the furrows of the field . and therefore dr. thorndick , in his book of just weights and measures , saith , that coaction of oaths is the crying sin of this nation , to call down the wrath of god upon the kingdom . what better remedy than to secure our selves against all worldly fears , and these ensuing dangers , but by relying on the hope of future blessings , which god , if we fight and suffer for his sake , hath promised . god is the god of hosts , and we fight under him , and if we trust in him we are happy , as david saith , psal . 84. 5. o lord of hosts , blessed is the man that trusts in thee , in whom to hope is to be secured ; and therefore david also saith , psal . 91. he shall cover thee with his feathers , and under his wing shalt thou hope , especially if we fight for our faith ; and therefore he adds in the same verse , his truth shall be thy shield and buckler , if we will hope in him and his reward ; for if we hope for our great wages , we shall easily undergo our little work : as for example , if we hope to drink of the torrent of pleasure , as god hath promised we shall in his kingdom , who will fear to taste now of the chalice of some small persecution ? if we hope hereafter to be numbered amongst the sons of god , as he hath promised we shall , and have our lot among the saints , why should we now fear to be reviled of men , or be reputed ignominious , as our saviour and his apostles were ? if they have , so will they do you also ; the scholar is not above the master , nor the servant above his lord. if they call'd the master of the family beelzebub , so will they do his servants ; therefore we must with the apostles rejoice , as you read in the acts they did , because they were accounted worthy to suffer contumely and reproaches . if contumely and reproach seem so hard for us to undergo now for a good cause , as is our conscience before a few enemies , what contumely must those undergo who for now acting against their conscience , shall undergo at the great judgment before god , angels , saints , devils , and all the damn'd in hell ? if for our reproach now we hope that after a short sorrow , god will honour us so , as to wipe away with his own hand every tear from our eyes , as he promiseth in the revelations he will ; and that henceforth there shall be neither grief , nor labour , nor pain , or the like ; why should any now grieve either to see himself or others suffer ? it will not last , this tempest will soon be over , and if now in this storm the small vessel of my body suffer shipwrack , or some others the like vessels , if our souls can but carry off our goods of faith , hope and charity , all is very well ; for as soon as the vessels of our bodies sink , our souls will come to shore at the land of promise , and we shall be secured in the rock which is christ , and ever remain safe in the eternal hills , where neither winds nor waves of persecution can ever reach to assault us : then welcome shipwrack , that sinks the vessel of the body , to bring the passengers and their goods so happily to the haven , the heaven of bliss . let us therefore weigh these things in a prudential balance , and see which scale is the heaviest , of present fears , or future hopes ; of present sufferings , or future glories . let us remember our saviours words to his apostles , you are those that remained with me in my temptations or tryals ; for which , said he , their reward was , he disposed the kingdom of heaven to them ; partners in sufferings , partners in glovles : which if well considered , we shall say with st. paul , the sufferings of this present time are not condign ▪ or of equality to the future glory which shall be revealed in us ; and we shall with his joyful spirit say , 2 cor. 4 17. our light affliction , which is but for a moment , worketh in us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory . 't is a happy weight that lifts both sufferings and sufferers up as high as heaven , to eternal crowns , of which we are all assured of as a reward for our faith , if we will make good use of our christian hope ; which that we may the better do , let us endeavor to help our selves by the third and greatest virtue that follows our faith and hope , which is charity . this is that greatest virtue of which all sorts of christians speak much , understand little , and practise less ; though without the practice of it , 't is in vain for any to pretend to have a saving faith , or hope ; for as st. paul saith , 1 cor. 13. though he speak with the tongues of men and angels , and have not charity , he is but as sounding brass ; and although he should know all mysteries , and have faith to remove mountains ; and though he should have such hope , understand for reward , that he should give all to the poor , and deliver his body to burn , and yet not have charity , it profiteth nothing . charity , as he saith , ver . 7. suffereth all things , believeth all things , hopeth all things , beareth all things . do all that pretend to charity do thus ? if to speak with the tongues of angels without charity be nothing but vanity , what charity is there in those that speak with the tongues of detraction , scandal , slander , false-witness and perjuries against their neighbors ? if those that give all to the poor may want charity , so that all which they give profits them nothing , what charity is there in those that take all from their neighbors , to force them to forsake their faith ? if alms profit nothing without charity , can such injuries profit persecutors , that take all away-against charity ? if a man may give his own body to burn , and yet be cold in charity , what charity is there to kill others bodies , take away their lives with ignominy and violence , because they will not kill their own souls , by acting against god and their conscience ? if charity consists only in those that suffer all things , believe all things , hope all things , what charity is there in those who will make their neighbor suffer all things of persecution , because they believe and hope according to their conscience , and profess their faith and hope as they are bound before god upon their salvation so to do ? 't is certain , that though men may pretend persecution of others for gods sake , to reduce others to him , yet 't is evident that for any kingdom to persecute any , meerly for conscience-sake , is against the law of god ; and therefore whil'st they would seem so zealously to keep the first command , of loving god above all , and force others to conform to their opinions , they break the second command , because they do not love their neighbor as themselves , because they persecute them , and so they dash one commandment against the other , and so crack both commandments together : for wheresoever the second command is broke , by not loving our neighbor as our selves , the first is broke with it , because did they love god above all , they would do better by their neighbor . but i do not come here to beat down others pretence to charity , but endeavour to advance charity in my self and others ; and the way to do this , is not to reckon what others have not done according to charity , but to call to mind what others have done to raise charity towards god and their neighbors . we read in holy writ , that moses love was so to god and his neighbor , that to repurchase a peace and charity 'twixt god and the people after they had offended , he desired that his own name should rather be blotted out of the book of life , than that the peoples names should not be put in , by obtaining forgiveness ; and therefore he saith to god , either spare the people , or blot me out of the book which thou hast writ . how superlative a motive is this , to move christians to a perfect charity towards their neighbors ; well may a christian be willing to lay down his temporal life for good example sake , rather than offend god , and scandalize others by deserting his faith ; since others could be willing to hazard their eternal lives , to reduce their neighbors to god by charity . the like examples of love to god and his neighbors , we have in st. paul , in his manifold expressions both towards god and men ; first to god , as rom. 8. where he makes this proclamation , who shall , saith he , separate us from the charity of christ ? shall tribulation , or distress , or persecution , or famine , or nakedness , or peril , or sword ? as it is written , for thy sake we are kill'd all the day long , we are accounted as sheep to the slaughter . he adds , i am certain that neither death nor life , nor angels , nor principalities , nor powers , nor things present nor things to come , nor heigth , nor depth , nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of god which is in christ jesus our lord. and for this charity in order to his neighbor , let what he suffered to serve them testifie , as he relates , 2 cor. 11. by being in labors and stripes , in prison , in death , in scourgings , in shipwracks , being day and night in the bottom of the sea , in perils , in weariness , in painfulness , in hunger , in thirst , in fasting , in cold and weariness , besides what he suffered through his care of all churches , ver . 28 , 29. where he saith , who is weak , and i am not weak ? understand by compassion , as fellow-sufferer ; who is scandalized , and i burn not ? understand by zeal . let those now consider this , who never more rejoyce than now , when they see their passive neighbors scandalized , and were never better content in their own apprehensions than now , when they behold us suffering , though before god we are innocent . were st. paul on earth again , he would rather give himself for others , to ease them of their sufferings , according to his wonted charity exprest , 2 cor. 12. 15. saying , i will very gladly spend and be spent for you : and he would rejoyce to suffer in charity for his neighbor , as he abundantly declares , colos . 2. 4. saying , i rejoyce in my sufferings for you , and fill up that which is wanting of the passions or afflictions of christ in my flesh for his bodies sake , which is the church , and this example is given for us to do the like , and therefore he saith , 1 cor. 4. 9. we are made a spectacle to the world , to angels , and to men ; and therefore god forbid but some of us , if we be christian men , should endeavor to imitate some of his examples , though we cannot all ; for he ascended to so superlative a degree of charity towards his neighbor , that he declares to the world , that he could be a cast-away himself to save others ; for thus he saith , rom. 9. 3. i could wish my self were accursed from christ for my brethren . christians do not then henceforth so easily ruine your neighbors , neither in their lives , nor estates , or credits , by persecutions and scandals , the scripture holds forth no such doctrine , nor gives any such examples , but , as you see , the contrary ; but if our persecutors will not imitate these examples , let us that are persecuted and suffer endeavor to imitate them , by choosing rather to lose all we can call our own in this world , and life also , rather than to break charity to god and our neighbor , either by denying or dissembling our faith , and scandalizing the church , or bearing false witness against our selves , or our neighbors , to save our lives or fortunes , or enrich our selves by false witness . and if we will put in practice the virtues of faith , hope and charity i have spoke of , we ought to do it thus ; what we profess by words , we must confirm by deeds and actions . our profession of catholick faith is this , i believe all divine revelations delivered to the prophets and apostles , proposed by the catholick church in her general councils , or by her universal practice to be believed as an article of catholick faith , knowing this to be our faith , the confirmation of this knowledge , or the practice of this by our deeds , is , as st. paul teacheth , ephes . 3. 8. to esteem all worldly things as dirt , in respect of this eminent knowledge of christ and his faith ; and therefore for my own part , i now being ready to leave all in the world , and my life in testimony of my catholick faith , which i profess i desire and hope to manifest to all , i value my knowledge of christs faith , more than i value the universal world. and as for my christian hope i profess to have , the confirmation of it , or the practical part is to be fulfilled thus , being that we must , as st. peter saith , 1 pet. 3. 15. be always ready to give an account to every one concerning the hope which is in us . i have already by words expressed it , and by deed i express it thus ; that whereas i do believe that god , as the scripture saith , kills , and brings to life again ; ▪ carrieth down to the depth , and bringeth back again ; so now i do by this my present execution , which i am now to undergo , willingly give my body to be mortified in death for my faith , hoping in gods infinite mercy he will restore my body and soul to eternal life ; and i do willingly resign my self to be carried down to my grave , hoping by my saviours cross and passion , death and burial , he will raise me up again to a glorious resurrection . and as for the confirmation of my charity , to shew by deeds , the love i owe to god and my neighbor , it hath pleased my saviour by his own words to declare which is the best proof or practice of charity , where he saith , no man hath a greater charity , than he that lays down his life for his friend . i therefore do willingly undergo this death i am to suffer now , to testifie i love my friend , my neighbor as my self ; whil'st i undergo this death for my self and them , that seeing it is for the profession of my faith i dye , they , whil'st they live , may the more happily serve god in the same belief ; and i testifie i love god above all , because i forsake the world and my self in death , rather than offend him by doing any thing against my conscience . and forasmuch as for these many years i have had occasion by discoursing and reading the holy scriptures with others who desired to find out the true faith , i have by words declared what faith i did believe , and what faith they ought to believe ; i now declare that for every point of faith that ever i believ'd my self , or read to others , or told them that they might believe as a point of faith ; for all and every such points of faith , in confirmation of them , as well to my self as others , i here lay down my life ; and omitting all other particular points , i believe obedience to our king to be a divine law , and that we are bound to obey his commands in temporal laws ; and i believe it too a sin of damnation , for any subject of his to rebel against him , or his kingdom ; and i believe it as certain a sin to damnation , for any subject to endeavor , either by thoughts , words or deeds , to take away his life , or act any thing of that nature , either by himself , or any others , or other against his sacred majesty , as i believe it was a sin in judas to damnation to betray christ . and i do declare upon my salvation that i never did , nor do know any catholick , that ever was or is the least guilty , either by thought , word or deed , by any plot or otherwise , to have any design or concurrence to kill his sacred majesty , or rebel against his kingdom , whom god long preserve with his subjects in all happiness in this world , and crown him in the world to come with eternal glory . and now it remains , that with all the powers and forces of my soul , i make my address to god for mercy ere i appear before him for judgment ; and you , dear friends , here present , who believe in one holy catholick church , and communion of saints , be pleased in charity to make the same address to god with me , and for me , that we may obtain true sorrow and repentance for all our sins , and a merciful forgiveness ; and first let us wish from the bottom of our hearts , that we could express and make good our sorrow , as david did , psal . 119. whil'st rivers of waters run down our eyes like his , because we have not kept according to our saith gods commands ; for which had we that fountain of tears which the prophet wished for , we ought spend it all ; we ought with jeremy , lam. 3. 48 , 49. to weep till our eyes , as his , failed and as his eye with tears afflicted , as he saith his heart , so ought ours to do , because we have made so ill use of that faith , hope and charity , which god hath bestowed upon us . but forasmuch as tears now at this present , and in these circumstances of rash censuring times , tears , i say , from me , might seem to some , either the off-spring of fear to dye , which god forbid i should have in so good a cause as my religion ; or lest others might judge my tears might fall by reason of some other guilt , of which i am free and innocent , i have endeavoured to stop the course of tears , and instead of drops of waters from my eyes , i 'll spend the drops of blood from every sorrowful vein of my heart , and my whole body , that god may please to wash away the sins of all my life past , and i wish each drop an ocean for my self and all the world , because i have nothing now left more than wishes , which i beseech thee , o gracious god , of thy mercy to accept of ; and if you will vouchsafe to accept of wishes to supply the deeds , by wishes i offer up all that 's good to you , that ever you gave to any since the worlds creation ; i offer up david's broken heart , together with my own , that so like him , after my repentance , i may become a man according to your own heart . i offer up the sighs of magdalen , and wish i could make such use of them as she did , to sob out my sins . i wish her repentant arms , that i may lay fast hold at the feet of thee my gracious god. i wish i had the longanimity of all the holy confessors . i wish i had the sufferings of all thy constant martyrs . i wish i had the lamps of all thy sacred virgins , that i might offer all to thee that in them was pleasant in thy sight . i wish i could offer up to thee , o god , the sacrifices of just abel , lot , job , and all other sacrifices that ever did gratefully ascend up in thy sight ; that thou being pleased by the sight of them , thou mightst look no more upon my sins : for if thou wilt observe iniquities , who shall endure ? let therefore thy mercy hide thy face from my sins , but let not the rigor of thy justice cast me away from thy presence ; cast me not away from thy face , and thy holy spirit take not from me , but turn away thy face from sin , and blot out all my iniquities , and i will offer my body as a sacrifice to thee by death to appease thy just anger . i own my sins , and i own your mercies . you gave me faith to know and believe what was the will of you my heavenly master , but i acknowledge my fault , that although i knew your will , i did not fulfill it , and therefore i ought to be beaten with many stripes , because you foretold me , that many are the stripes of a sinner ; but be pleased , dear lord , also to remember , that in the same place you promised , that notwithstanding this , yet mercy should encompass him that hopes ; you have given your divine hope , vouchsafe to let this hope defend me ; and although i know i have not made good use of hope , and hope not well us'd , of which i am guilty , makes a sinner defer repentance , and so puts in danger to fall into presumption by long neglect , yet the last hour of calling being not yet past , and your mercy being above all your works , i hope and humbly beg to be partaker with those who were accepted at the last hour . i humbly acknowledge with thanks , o gracious god , that you gave me charity as your livery , in which i always ought to have appeared in your sight , and never to have been divested of it ; but how oft have i been spoiled , through my own fault , of this garment ? how oft have i , by descending to jericho , instead of going up to jerusalem ? how oft , i say , have i been rob'd of this garment of charity ? even as often as i have preferred any sublunary object , and the love of that before the love of you , and before your goodness , which is above all goodness , and the object of all beatitude . vouchsafe again , o gracious lord , to restore in mercy to me this nuptial vestment , ere i dare appear at the supper of the lamb. make me , o heavenly father , a penitential prodigal , and then i shall have put on me again this best robe of charity . this i beg from the bottom of my soul for his dear sake , who was devested of his garments out of charity , that i might be invested in his charity , who also suffered his garments to be divided , that he might purchase grace , that we might never be divided from the unity of his faith and church , but rather willingly suffer for his sake the separation of our lives from our bodies the separation of our bodies from our souls , and the separation of our bodies into its quarters , that we may the more perfectly by these sufferings and separations from our selves be united to him . therefore in the faithful communion and perfect union of the sufferings of all saints that ever have been , or now are , or ever will be , in the union of the most sacred merits of the life , passions and death of god and man , my dear redeemer and saviour christ , i offer my self willingly to what i am now to suffer , begging by all that 's good in heaven and in earth , remissions of sins for my self and all the world , particularly for all that may appear to have been my enemies in the concern of my life , as witness , jury , judge , and others , whom i do not esteem as enemies , but as the best of friends ; i heartily forgive them , and beg the best of blessings for them all , as being the cause of sending me sooner than otherwise i might have gone , to the happy state of hope for the other world. whither , before i go i humbly beg pardon of all in this world , for whatever in thoughts , words or deeds i have committed to offend them , or omitted to do for them , by which any thing might have been mended in them , or my self , i beseech god to bless them all . i beseech god to bless also all my friends , spiritual and temporal ; all benefactors ; and all by whom i have received good or evil , by words , deeds or desires . i beseech god to bless all those of whom i ever had care or charge spiritually or temporally . i beseech god bless his holy catholick church , and our chief bishop thereof , with all other bishops , priests and clergy . i beseech god bless this nation , and unite all amongst themselves and to god , in true faith , hope and charity . i beseech god to bless his majesties privy council and make all the secrets of their hearts and their desires such , as that both charles our king on earth , and god our great king in heaven and earth , may be serv'd , pleas'd and honour'd by them , that men and angels may rejoyce at it now , and be publick witness of it at the last great day , at the great and last council table , where every secret shall be laid open , luke 12. as solomon saith , eccles . ult . when god will bring into judgment every secret thing , whether it be good or evil . i beseech god to bless the parliament now elect , and be so present with them when they sit to judge and discuss the causes of this nation , they may imitate the assembly of those that are to sit upon the twelve thrones at the last great assembly , that they may now judge or determinate of things no otherwise than they hope or fear then to be judged themselves , and determined of to all eternity . i beseech god to bless all that suffer in this persecution , and let the blessing exprest in the 126th psalm light upon them speedily , that god turning their captivity , all mouths may be filled with joys , and tongues with singings . convert , o lord , our captivity , as streams in the south , that those who now sowe in tears , may reap in joy ; and for this temporal death , o blessed trinity , give me eternal life ; let my body dye to the world for the love of thee , that my soul may live for ever , and love in thee my god and dear redeemer amen . sweet jesus amen . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a70694-e2720 rom. 10. 10. luk. 12. 8. ephes . 4. 4 , 5. jam. 2 , ●● . mat. 5. 16. heb. 11. gal. 3. 11. heb. 11. 6. jam. 2. 17. jam. 1. 25. mat. 18. 17. john 14. 16. mat. 28. 19 , 20. psal . 130 ▪ 5 , 6. psal . 84. 5. 1 cor. 13. rom. 8. 2 cor. 11. 2 cor. 12. 15. coloss . 2. 4. 1 cor. 4. 9. rom 9. 3. eph. 3. 8. 1 pet. 3. 15. psal . 119. 8. a true and brief account of the proceedings between mr. david fitz-gerald and william hetherington before his majesty in councel on friday the 11th of february, 1680/81 ... and also the articles of the said hetherington against mr. fitz-gerald : with mr. fitz-gerald's answer to each article : with six high and transcendent articles preferred by the said mr. fitz-gerald against the said hetherington, fully proved before his majesty in councel. fitzgerald, david. 1681 approx. 60 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 9 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63351 wing t2415 estc r37907 17151291 ocm 17151291 105932 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63351) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 105932) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1160:34) a true and brief account of the proceedings between mr. david fitz-gerald and william hetherington before his majesty in councel on friday the 11th of february, 1680/81 ... and also the articles of the said hetherington against mr. fitz-gerald : with mr. fitz-gerald's answer to each article : with six high and transcendent articles preferred by the said mr. fitz-gerald against the said hetherington, fully proved before his majesty in councel. fitzgerald, david. hetherington, william. [2], 12 [i.e. 14] p. [s.n.], london printed : mdclxxxi [1681] imperfect: print show-through. reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng fitzgerald, david. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2006-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-12 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-01 jonathan blaney sampled and proofread 2007-01 jonathan blaney text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a true and brief account of the proceedings between mr. david fitz-gerald and william hetherington , before his majesty in councel , on friday the 11 th . of february 1680 / 1. where the attorney-general was ordered to prosecute the said william hetherington , and one bryan mac donagh , ( that goes under the name of bernard denis ) a dominican frier that came out of ireland in october last , who formerly belonged to a convent at sligoe in the kingdom of ireland : and also the articles of the said hetherington against mr. fitz-gerald : with mr. fitz-gerald's answer to each article . with six high and transcendent articles preferred by the said mr. fitz-gerald against the said hetherington , fully proved before his majesty in councel . london : printed in the year mdclxxxi . the ensuing interrogatories were preferred by mr. fitz-gerald against hetherington , and upon hetherington's own confession , and full proof , as afterwards appeared before the king and councel , on friday the 11 th . of february instant . mr. fitz-gerald grounded his charge against the said hetherington , and one bernard dennis ( called in ireland , bryan mac donaugh ) a dominican frier , who is of the county of sligoe in ireland , as he says : this is he who used sinister means to perswade one hugh duffey , and several others , to swear against the queen ; which was fully proved upon him , and an order made to the attorney-general to prosecute both the one and the other to the utmost of the law , which will be speedily done : the quaeries are as followeth . interrogatories put to mr. hetherington , before his majesty and privy-councel , on mr. david fitz-gerald's petition . 1. mr. hetherington , have you any misdemeanour , or other crime to lay to mr. fitz-gerald's charge ? 2. do you know of any collections of money that have been made in london for the irish witnesses ? if so , who were the collectors by name , and who were the pay-masters by name ? by whose direction or authority was those monies demanded or received ? what method was used in applotting the same ? where was their usual place of meeting ? 3. mr. hetherington , how much did you receive of this money ? who appointed you to receive it ? what have you done with it ? how much of it did you keep to your own use ? how much did you pay of it to others ? name their names , and the particular sums you paid them ? what were they to do for that money ? and who treated with them , or to what purpose ? declare your knowledge at large to each particular . the consequences of mr. hetherington's answers i humbly submit to your majesty , and crave leave to proceed to further interrogatories grounded on my petition . 4. mr. hetherington , you said i tamper'd with the king's evidence , and endeavoured to suppress it ; you complained of me to justice warcup ; you said i endeavoured to stifle the evidence of one mr. dennis against the queen ; i was summon'd to appear before a committee of the house of commons thereupon : now declare , what evidence was there against the queen , sir john davis , or any other , that i endeavoured to stifle ? name the witnesses i tamper'd with , who have any thing to say against the queen , or any other ; i desire they may be called in . now i desire the opinion of this honourable board , whether i was unjustly conven'd before the committee of the house of commons ; whether i am guilty of stifling the king's evidence , or deserve a vindication : and i desire i may proceed further on the matter of my petition . i alledge in my petition , that the practices of mr. hetherington and others are of dangerous consequence to the government : and before i come to shew that , i humbly ask leave to ask mr. hetherington the ensuing questions . 5. mr. hetherington , how came you first acquainted with mr. edm. morphy now in town , one of the king's evidence , and where ? and where was it in prison ? if so , in what town ? how came he committed , and for what ? and how came you also committed , and for what ? and how were you enlarged ? were not you in for debt ? if so , how much was it ? at whose suit ? did you pay it ? did not you get your self removed to the kings-bench prison , or the marshalsea of the four courts , so called in dublin ? do you know mr. lovet the keeper thereof ? how got you out of prison ? in plain terms , did not you break prison , or steal away thence ? what sums was he forced to pay by your escape then ? and durst he touch you the last time you were in dublin , you being ( as you pretended ) one of his majesties evidence ? and if you are not , who commissioned or appointed you , or stiled you the manager of the irish evidence ? 6. mr. hetherington , how long were you and mr. morphy in dondalk gaol together ? were you both under one crime ? if otherwise , declare the particular cause of your commitment ? what time of the year were you both , or either of you committed ? how long were you in restraint before you knew any thing of the plot ? how , when , where , and by whom were you made privy to it ? did you reveal your knowledge of it to any of the privy-councel in ireland ? if you did not , tell your reason why ? was it because you broke prison and ran away from dublin ? be punctual , how long were you a prisoner in dondalk and dublin before you came away ? 7. mr. hetherington , have you any estate in ireland ? if you have , name the lands , county , and place , and the yearly value : were you ever a justice of the peace in any county there ? if so , in what county there ? did you ever , as a justice of the peace , examine mr. morphy in ireland , as a discoverer of the plot ? did not you perswade the people in london to believe these things ? 8. mr. hetherington , how came you and mr. morphy so great ? did you declare , that mr. morphy endeavoured to suborn witnesses to swear that mr. smith and baker were confederates with the tories in vlster ? where was mr. morphy then , and some time before ? of what life and conversation ? did he then discover the plot in ireland ? or did he say that he knew any thing of it ? 9. mr. hetherington , what money did you bring with you into england , and how much ? was it in cash , or by bill of exchange ? if by bill , who drew it ? and upon whom in london ? name the parties . now sir , you have an account of mr. hetherington's life and conversation , the principal manager of the irish evidence , as he stiles himself . i will now go on and prove , that instead of doing his majesty service , or rightly managing the evidence , he endeavoured to render his majesty odious to his people in london , and to perswade them that the popish subjects of ireland , were discharged from their allegiance by the pope . and that he shewed the popes bulls , or briefs to that purpose , to his majesty , and that his majesty took no notice thereof ; that he concluded therefore his majesty was actually in the plot , or a favourer of it : and that the earl of essex called him rogue and rascal for producing those bulls . all these things he endeavoursd to insinuate into the hearts and minds of the people here , to do the king harm , and to breed confusion and mischief . 10. let mr. hetherington declare if he e're received any such bulls or briefs , where they are now , who gave them to him , and to whom did he deliver them ? but let the reader observe , that when hetherington found himself to be impeached , he popp'd in the ensuing charge against mr. fitz-gerald , though he could neither justifie nor prove any or either of the ten articles , which defeated his malice . articles of misdemeanour humbly proposed by william hetherington , against david fitz-gerald gent. with mr fitz-gerald's answer to each article , read before his majesty in councel . 1. the said fitz-gerald , at the first coming ●●er of the witnesses o●t of ireland , to prove the hellish po●ish plot , did s●em to be very glad of their coming to justifie their evidence , and in particular that of eustace comyns , saying that he was an honest man , and was wrongfully ●lept up in prison by the means of sir william davis , for discovering of the plot , which he swore he could say more to then any of them all , and that he could charge the greatest men , or man in ireland therewith , or in words to that effect : but after he saw comyns narrative printed , and found that several of his friends , as he pretended , were charged therein , then he began to rail and reflect upon him , and threaten to be the death of him ; and afterwards took occasion to abuse and revil● the rest of the witnesses . 1. the said david fitz-gerald , saving to himself all advantages and benefit of exceptions , in answer to the first article saith , that he was then , and would be still heartily glad to see honest and credible men ( such as neither the said william hetherington , nor eustace comyns in the first article named , are reputed to be ) to come in and discover any plot that should be against your majesties person or government ; but abhors villany , combination , and contrivance to disturb the peace and tranquility of your kingdoms . and further saith , that it was impossible for him to commend the said fustace comyns , as in truth he did not , he having little or no acquaintance with him ; only seeing him sometimes threshing and ditching for mr. manus o brian , this respondent's neighbour in the county of limerick , and knowing that he was a fellow not above the quality of a daily labourer , who commonly wrought for 4 d. per diem in that country , and hearing by credible persons that he was esteemed a rogue , and threatned to burn the said manus o brian's house , and stole out of limerick gaol , as mr. hetherington did out of the black-dog prison in dublin ; and the said eustace comyns being of no other quality or reputation as aforesaid , ( as the lord bishop of limerick , sir william king governour of limerick , and lieutenant croker and others can testifie ) it was unreasonable that this respondent should think ( as he never did ) that the said eustace comyns could charge the greatest men , or man in ireland with any plot , any more then he thinks , it was otherwise then wicked in mr. hetherington to bring over honest men from their habitations in carrick and clonmell , thinking to bribe them groundlesly to accuse some of your majesties loyal subjects , thereby to affirm and countenance the contrivances of the said hetheringtrn and others . 2. that amongst other matters that he pretended he could prove touching the plot , he said he could prove the day and time that the duke of york was to be proclaimed king in ireland , and that he would tell the king of it ; and that he did acquaint the earl of burlington , coming out from the committee of the lords , that he could and would hang those he had accused , and bring great ones to prove the matters he had charged them with . 2. this respondent absolutely denieth the charge of the second article ; only that he told the earl of burlington , that the lord brittas and bishop mullony must stand to your majesties mercy , or undergo the rigour of the law : he confesseth , that since his coming into england , he was very often solicited and entreated by divers persons , whom he shall name when your majesty shall be pleased to command him , to accuse her majesty , his royal highness the duke of york , the duke of ormond , the lord chancellor of ireland , and sir john davis with the plot , which the respondent ( having nothing to lay to their charge ) always refused ; and then they earnes●●y requested this respondent , since he could not swallow oaths , and gallop along with them , not to contradict others , or to hinder them to accuse her majesty , his royal highness , and the rest of the persons aforesaid . 3. that notwithstanding the said fitz-gerald hath since endeavoured by many ways and means , to bring this informant and the said witnesses into his majesties dis ▪ favour , and to cast reproaches upon them , the better to invalidate their evidence ; alledging untruly , that they had received three thousand pounds from the city of london , or some of the citizens thereof , or some others , whom he would mention if he could . 3. to the third article this respondent saith , that he believes that neither the said hetherington or comyns ever were in your majesties , or any good mans favour , and therefore to endeavour or take the least pains to bring them and their witnesses into your majesties dis-favour , or to cast reproaches upon them , is needless , the character enstamped upon them already by oral testimony , and matter of record , sufficiently evidencing their demerits : he confesseth he said that he heard , and doth verily believe that three thousand pounds have been collected from some of the citizens of london , and that part thereof was paid to sir william waller , and other part thereof to the said hetherington , where , ( in breach of his trust ) paid but little or nothing of it to the witnesses . 4. that the said fitz-gerald hath sometimes by threats , other times by feasts , treats , monies , promises , and other ways of perswasion , laboured to take off the said witnesses from giving their evidence on his majesties behalf ; particularly in the case of sir john davis ; and when all that would not prevail upon them , told them that his majesty was displeased with this informant's proceedings , and would be so with them , if they followed his directions ; and by these devices so affrighted them , that he got them to sign to a petition to his majesty did not look upon them as coming to do him service , and that if it were so , they should readily desist appearing further , though their intentions were really to serve his majesty therein . that the said fitz-gerald , when he knew the said witnesses were to be called into either houses of parliament , or some committee relating to them , to give in their evidence , hath endeavoured to hide them , or some of them , that they could not be found ; and when they have been found , he hath laid violent hands on them , or some of them , and would not permit them to go , until they forced themselves away from him ; and then he threatned them , and those that called them , and with an oath said he would break shaftsbury's knot ; and the better to prevail with the witnesses , acknowledged he had received for his service one hundred pounds of his grace the duke of ormond , five hundred pounds from the king , and a commission to be a captain ; and that his majesty had given him two blank patents for baronets , the one for his father-in-law , and the other to be at his own disposing ; and also a grant of the commons of rakeale , and all the commons of knock-greary , in the county of limerick . 4. to the fourth article he saith , that he never in his life-time laboured or endeavoured by any ways or means to stifle or keep back any evidence against sir john davis , or any other ; though at the same time he firmly believes , that sir john davis is a loyal faithful subject to your majesty , and doth from his heart abominate any villany or contrivance against your majesty , he having been as scrutinous to find out the truth upon the several examinations of this respondent , taken before him and several others in ireland , as any person whatsoever . he confesses he said he would break hetherington's knot , but denies he ever mentioned the earl of shaftsbury to that purpose : he confesseth he received one hundred pounds of your majesties money out of your treasury in ireland , by order of the lord lieutenant and councel there , and not a peny of the duke of ormond's own money , as is maliciously suggested ; and he received also one hundred pounds sterling more out of your majesties treasury in england , by your majesties order in councel , and no more , which is all the respondent ever received to defray the extraordinary great charges expended by him in several journeys in ireland , and his voyage from thence to this place , in prosecution of his discovery , being far short of the real sums laid out by him purely on the account aforesaid , having spent seventeen months entirely in that service , wholly neglecting his own private concerns . he confesseth , that he was desired by some of his friends and relations , to procure ( if he could ) two blank patents for baronets in ireland , from your majesty ; denies that ever he said he had a grant of the commons in the said article mentioned , but confesseth that he intended to apply for the same , being parcel of his ancient estate , and would have raised a considerable sum of money for the procuring thereof , if it could be obtained ; and as to all and every other matter and thing in the said fourth article contained , this respondent denieth the same . 5. that he the said fitz-gerald had not only vilified and threatned the said comyns , but had also informed several of the members of the house of commons , that the said comyns was a very rogue , and that he could produce many records against him , and that he was not fit to be credited ; and also terrified and threatned to kill him the said comyns , so that he was forc'd for some time to keep himself in obscurity . that the said fitz-gerald hath not only vilified and abused him this informant , and the evidence which he was concerned for , but also mr. thomas samson , who came over upon his own accord to serve his majesty in that matter , who by his testimony therein hath given great satisfaction to both houses of parliament . 5. to the fifth article the respondent answering , confesseth and saith , that he did inform the house of commons , that comyns was esteemed a fool and a knave : whereupon , and by reason of the incoherency of the said comyns narrative , as the respondent humbly conceives , the same was rejected ; but denieth that ever he threatned to kill him , or do him any other bodily harm : he also confesseth , that being provoked , he did correct samson in the said article named , for some sawcy language he gave this respondent , whereof the said samson did complain to the house of commons , who did in hearing of his complaint , adjudge it to be idle and ridiculous : this respondent denieth that the said samson came over out of ireland of his own accord to serve your majesty , but was wrought upon to come over out of wicked ends , by persons not yet named , ( whom this respondent shall name , whensoever your majesty shall be pleased to command him ) to disturb and destroy some of your majesties good subjects in both kingdoms . 6. that the said fitz-gerald being examined by a committee of the house of commons , against sir john fitz-gerald , refused to give his evidence ( being his relation ) unless the committee would promise to intercede to his majesty for his the said sir john's pardon : and before a committee of the lords , in his evidence he charged col. john fitz-patrick , and sir edward scot , to be confederates in the plot , but at the lords bar would not , though asked ; and left their names out in his narrative published in print , of his own knowledge , in that matter hts mind being since altered , upon what considerations may well be judged : he also said before the said committee , that he fared the worse because they knew the king had a kindness for him . 6. to the sixth the said respondent saith , that he did never mention to the committee of the house of commons for a pardon for sir john fitz-gerald , otherwise then as followeth : ( viz. ) that the committee asking this respondent what he knew concerning sir john fitz-gerald , and the respondent answering , that what he had to say against him , was mentioned in his narrative then in his hand , which he adhered unto ; a member of the committee thereupon demanded , whether the said sir john would own his being in the plot ? to which the respondent then replied , he did not conceive it would be proper for sir john fitz-gerald ( if he knew he was guilty ) to accuse himself , before he was sure of his majesties pardon ; or words to that effect . he also saith , that he declared at the bar of the lords house , that by flying report he heard that col. john fitz-patrick , and sir edward scot were concerned in the plot ; but how far they were concerned therein , this respondent did not , nor doth not charge them with of his own knowledge : he denieth to have altered his mind , or to deviate from truth or justice ; and hopes that god will not leave him , after the example of hetherington and others , to follow evil ways , and promote wicked designs , upon any temptation whatsoever : and therefore he doth not understand hetherington's meaning , who saith that the respondent's mind is since altered , upon what considerations may be well judged , the same being absolutely false , and scandalously insinuated . and the respondent further answering , saith , that he being summoned to answer hetherington's complaint , before a committee of the house of commons , the said hetherington urged as a great crime in this respondent , that he was a favourite of your majesties ; to which this respondent answered , that supposing he were , ( as he never had the vanity to pretend unto any such thing ) he hoped he should not fare the worse for that . 7. that the said fitz-gerald asked the witnesses , or some of them , whether they retained the romish religion yet , or no ; who replied , they did : for which the said fitz-gerald commended them for so doing , for that the protestants would only make use of them for their own purpose and advantage , and afterwards would hang them . 7. to the seventh the respondent saith , that he was , and is still of opinion , that the testimony of such witnesses as were all their life-time papists , would bear more credit , by their not publishing their changing of their religion , until they had first given in their evidence ; but after that done , it behoved such of them as were priests , and whose judgments were convinced , to declare their conformity to the church of england , lest they be questioned upon the statutes . 8. that the said fitz-gerald also told the said witnesses , or some of them , that the king was satisfied that the late lord stafford was innocent , denying the fact at his death , or words to that effect ; and that his majesty was resolved not to try any more of the lords in the tower : and after the parliament was prorogued , he told the said witnesses , or some of them , that he would remove their nests . 8. as to that part of the eighth article , ( viz. ) that the respondent also told the said witnesses , or some of them , that the king was satisfied that the late lord stafford was innocent , denying the fact at his death , or words to that effect ; and that his majesty was resolved not to try any more of the lords in the tower : the respondent saith , the same is utterly false , malicious and hellish , and humbly submits it , whether any man in his right wits , would utter such horrid things , which never entred into the imagination of the respondent : so as he humbly hopes , your majesty will look upon this as a design of the said hetherington's merely to defame this respondent , and render him as obnoxious to your majesty , as the said hetherington has made himself infamous to such as know his pernicious practices : and as to the residue of the said article , this respondent confesseth he would endeavour , if he could , to have the said hetherington removed from the said witnesses , to prevent his continuing of those attempts he had formerly used , of perswading the witnesses falsly to accuse persons , against whom they declared they had no crime to object . 9. that he the said fitz-gerald had kept continual correspondency and familiarity with the four witnesses which were brought over by a messenger from ireland ; and a person of quality perceiving it , told him that he had not observed the orders the commons gave him , which was , that he should not come near any of the evidence , nor converse with them : the said fitz-gerald reply'd , that he was commanded by the king to come there ; and also gave the said person of quality very scurrilous and abusive language . the said fitz-gerald also abused the said four witnesses , or some of them , and asked if they came to hang poor plunket . 9. to the ninth the said respondent answering , confesseth , that he had ordinary converse with the four men , that lately came from ireland , namely manrice fitz-gerald , morlagh downing , george coddan , and paul gor●ly , the two first giving him an account of his wife and family , which he conceives to be no crime in him ; knows not what person of quality the said hetherington means ; if it be sir henry ingoldsby , as he can guess no other , this respondent hath already given an account of what pass'd betwixt sir henry and this respondent , though this respondent cannot but admire what sir henry had to say to those persons , and to what purpose , and on what design , or by what authority did he come to them : but to what pass'd betwixt this respondent and the said four persons , this respondent referreth himself to them , who are yet in town . 10. that the said fitz-gerald said he was abused , because he would not accuse the duke of ormond , and the chancellor of ireland , which he knew to be as honest men as any in the three kingdoms . william hetherington . a true copy , john nicholast 10. to the tenth this respondent answering , confesseth that he said , and he still saith , and is ready to depose , whensoever your majesty shall think fit , that several persons did labour to perswade this respondent to accuse the duke of ormond , and the lord chancellor of ireland , of the plot , as also her majesty , his royal highness , and others , as he hath already in his answer to the second article declared ; and he also confesseth , ( which he conceives to be no misdemeanour in him ) that he in his conscience believes that the duke of ormond , and the lord chancellor of ireland , were never concerned in any plot or contrivance against your majesties person or government , but are true and firm to your royal interest : and ●e further saith , that he believes that the persons who designed , or do still design to impeach or accuse them thereof , or of any such abominable practices , do ●bhor and detest your royal government , and the happy state and condition of your kingdoms : and the respondent also saith , that the reason why the said hetherington has so much falsly abused this respondent , was for that he the respondent would not comply with the said hetherington to ac●use the aforesaid persons . and this respondent having in obedience to your majesties order in councel , bearing date the 4th ▪ day of february instant , answered the said articles exhibited against him by the said hetherington as aforesaid , doth with all humility submit himself , and his said answer , to your majesty and this honourable board , and doth humbly pray your majesties severe reprehension , or gracious vindication , as his case shall deserve . and as in duty bound shall ever pray , david fitz-gerald . mr. david fitz-gerald's arguments against hetherington's articles before his majesty in councel . the said david fitz-gerald being convened the last session of the last parliament before a committee of the house of commons , upon the complaint of the said hetherington , alledging that the said david fitz-gerald stifled evidence against the queen , and others , in relation to the plot , was discharged by the said committee , and received a just vindication : whereupon the said david petitioned the house of lords to the same effect , with the following petition ; and before any progress could be made thereon , the parliament was dissolved : so as he was forced to address himself to his majesty and councel by petition , the substance whereof is briefly thus . that some collections of money hath been made , and applied to the disposal of the said hetherington and others , the said hetherington pretending himself to be the manager of the irish evidence ; that the petitioner hath great reason to fear , that the consequence thereof will be prejudicial to his majesty and the nation in general ; that the said hetherington had publickly defamed him , as a person that should endeavour to stifle some irish witnesses against the queen , sir john davis , and others , and by sinister means to prevent their testimony ; that the petitioner conceives , that this is a practice set on foot of purpose to prevent the true discovery of the plot , and hath just cause to suspect the same ; and that the said hetherington will attempt his life , as he did his reputation ▪ and because the petitioner can prove by several instances , that he hath always encouraged the witnesses to discover the whole truth , and to conceal nothing thereof ; and because he hath just cause to fear the great disadvantage and dishonour that may ensue such practices to his majesty , ( if not speedily prevented ) he made this address to his majesty in councel , that such foul and dangerous practices may be detected and defeated , and that the petitioner himself ( if guilty ) may receive condign punishment , but if innocent , a just vindication . and so he prayed a speedy day for the hearing of the matter of his petition and summons , requiring mr. hetherington , and such as shall appear to be his confederates , to answer ; and summons for his own witnesses to prove the charge in his petition . hereupon the said hetherington appeared personally at the councel-board , where he was examined by the lord chancellor in full councel ( his majesty then present ) upon the interrogatories before specified , which the petitioner delivered in writing under his hand : and by hetherington's own answers thereunto , ( appearing by the minutes taken by the clerk of the councel ) it is evident , that some money hath been collected in london ; that hetherington received part of it ; that there was no evidence against the queen , or any other , that the petitioner ●…fled ; that hetherington is a fellow of ill life and conversation ; that he was in dundalk gaol for holding correspondence with the outlaws and tories in ireland ; that he was these two years past in the marshalsea in dublin , and broke prison there , and so came for england ; and that he is not worth a shilling , &c. now to anticipate mr. fitz-gerald's proceedings against him on the said petition , hetherington exhibits ten articles of misdemeanour against mr. fitz-gerald , the substance whereof is briefly thus . 1. that mr. fitz-gerald at the first coming of the witnesses out of ireland , cherished the witnesses , commended eustace comyns one of them , and said he could accuse the greatest men , or man in ireland : but afterwards threatned to kill him , and took occasion to abuse and revile him , because he accused some of mr. fitz-gerald's friends . answ . 1. that he would be glad to see honest men to appear for the king ▪ that hetherington and comyns were none ▪ th●● he never did commend comyns ; that he was but a thrasher and a labourer at 4 d. per diem with mr : o brian , mr. fitz-gerald's neighbour in the county of limerick ; that it was unreasonable to think such a fellow could accuse the greatest men , or man in ireland . 2. that mr. fitz-gerald said he could prove the day and time when the duke of york was to be proclaimed king in ireland ; and that he acquainted the earl of burlington he would hang those he accused , and bring great ones to prove the matters he had charged them with . 2. he denies this charge ; he told the earl of burlington , that those he accused must submit to his majesties mercy , or undergo the rigour of the law ; he saith he was earnestly solicited , since he came to london , to accuse the queen , the duke , ormond , chancellor of ireland , and sir john davis of the plot. 5. that mr. fitz-gerald laboured to bring mr. hetherington and the witnesses into his majesties dis-favour , and to cast reproaches upon them ; and that 3000 l. was collected for them in london . 3. he says it is needless to labour that , witnesses and records prove him and his witnesses to be villains ▪ be confesseth , that he believeth such collections have been made ; that sir will. waller received part of it , and hetherington another part of it , but paid nothing of it to the witnesses . 4. that he endeavoured to take off the witnesses from giving their evidence on his majesties behalf , particularly in the case of sir john davis ; that he told them , his majesty was displeased with hetherington's proceedings ; that he procured them to petition his majesty , intimating they were informed his majesty did not look upon them , as coming to do him service ; and that if it were so , they would desist appearing further . that he did use to hide the witnesses , when they were called upon by either of the houses of parliament ; that he laid violent hands on some of them ; that he swore he would break shaftsbury's knot ; that for this service he had 100 l. from the duke of ormond , * 500 l. from the king , a commission to be a captain of foot , and two blank patents for baronets . 4. he denies to have stifled any evidence against sir john davis ; he confesseth he said he would break hetherington's knot , but dou●●s he ever mentioned the earl of shaftsbury to that purpose ; he confesseth to have received 100 l. out of the treasury in ireland , by order of councel there , and no more , and not a peny of the duke of ormond's money ; 100 l. more in england by order of councel , out of the treasury , and not a peny more ; he confesseth he was desired to procure the blank patents ▪ and that he would lay out money for a grant of those commons , being part of his ancient estate , if it might be obtained . 5. that he informed several members of the house of commons , that comyns was a very rogue ; that he could produce many records against him ; that he was not fit to be credited ; that he threatned to kill him : that he also abused mr. thomas samson , who came over upon his own accord to serve his majesty , who by his testimony gave great satisfaction to both houses of parliament . 5. he confesseth that he did inform the house of commons , that comyns was a knave and a fool , and that by reason of the incoherence of his narrative , he conceives it was rejected ; he denieth to hare threatned him ; he confesseth , that being provoked , he did correct samson for sawcy language ; he denies that samson came out of ireland to serve the king , but was wrought upon to come over to disturb and destroy your majesties good subjects . 6. that before a committee of the house of commons he refused to give evidence against sir john fitz-gerald , unless the committee would promise to intercede to the king for his pardon : that at the lords bar he accused col. fitz-patrick and sir edward scot , and left their names out in his narrative . 6. he denies the first part , prout answer more particularly ; he only heard by flying report they were present at consults in dublin , and said no more of them at the lords bar. 7. that he commended some of the witnesses for retaining the romish religion , for he said , that the protestants would make use of them for their own purpose , and hang them afterwards . 7. he saith , he was and is still of opinion , that the testimony of such witnesses as were all their life time papists , would bear more credit by not publishing the change of their religion ; but after that done , the priests must conform , lest they may be questioned on the penal statutes here in england . 8. that he told some of the witnesses , that the king was satisfied of the innocency of the lord stafford , and that his majesty was resolved not to try the lords in the tower ; and said , that after the parliament was prorogued , he would remove the witnesses n●●●● . 8. he denies that presumption ▪ but confesseth he did and will endeavour to remove him , he being a wicked suborner , &c. 9. that he kept continual correspondency and familiarity with the four witnesses that came lately from ireland , contrary to the order of the committee of the house of commons ; that he reviled and abused a person of quality , that reprehended him for so doing ; that he abused those four witnesses , and asked them if they came to hang poor plunket . 9. he denies this ; he refers himself to the four witnesses , namely maurice fitz-gerald . mortagh downing , george codden , and paul gormly ; if he means , by that person of quality , sir henry ingoldsby , he refers himself to the board as to that . 10. that he said , he was abused because he would not accuse the duke of ormond , and the chancellor of ireland , which he knew to be as honest men as any in the three kingdoms . 10. he confesseth , as in his answer to the second article , he was solicited to accuse them , and also the queen , and the duke of york ; he knoweth nothing against them ; he saith , hetherington abuses him thus because he would not comply with him to accuse the said persons . hereupon an order was conceived by his majesty in councel the 4 th of february instant , that a copy of the said articles should be delivered to mr. fitz-gerald , to return his answer in writing , and also that mr. fitz-gerald should exhibit his charge against hetherington ; both which mr. fitz-gerald performed , the substance of his answer being briefed in the margin to each article , as before ; and his articles against mr. hetherington , with the proof of each article , is briefly as followeth . read the articles at length . 1. that he broke prison in dublin ; that he corresponded with the outlaws and tories in the north of ireland ; that he was for the same imprisoned at dundalk ; that after breaking prison in dublin , he fled over into england ; that he pretended to be a justice of the peace in ireland , to gain himself reputation here ; that he had no money in his purse but 1 s. 6 d. and his apparel not worth half a crown ; that he procured himself to be stiled , the manager of the irish evidence ; that he endeavoured to suborn witnesses to accuse persons of the highest quality under the king , of treason . as to his breaking of prison , vide his confession to the 5 th interrog on the minutes ; that he corresponded with the tories , vide his confession at to the 5 th interrog . that he was upon su●pi●ion of it committed to dundalk geol then , call ja. murphy , owen murphy , read their letters or depositions , or examine them personally upon oath 〈◊〉 that he pretended to be ; but was no justice , vide his confession on the 7 th article ; to prove his poverty ; call mr. bradly and mr. roberts , vide his answer on the 9 th interrog . constat , he is so called ; ask him who made him a manager : that he endeavoured to suborn witnesses against the queen , the duke of york , &c. call hugh duffy , john mac cleve , john moyre , george murphy . 2. that hetherington got 100 l. of the kings money , that he kept all to himself , and did not distribute it according to orders , only 10 l. he gave the four priests ; and that he received monies in london for the irish witnesses . let mr. hetherington prove what he did with the money , and bring witnesses viva voce , if he can . to prove he received the 100 l. call mr. squib an officer of the treasury , and shew the orders and receipts ; that he did not pay the money over as he should , call john moyre , edm. murphy , daniel fynane , james callahan , these were to receive part , and did not : to prove the money collected and received in london , call mr. roberts on oath , &c. 3. that he laboured to bring an odium upon the king ; that he declared he brought a bull or brief out of ireland , under the popes seal , &c. as in the article . let mr. david fitz-gerald have his oath ; let him declare the place at westminster , the place with the parliament-man , the place in london before capt. morley . let john mac nemarra's oath to this point , upon the last and 10 th of my interrogatories , be read ; and let mac nemarra be asked , if he did not confess it before a committee of the house of commons : let burk also be examined to this ; though they both now , to prop up themselves , side with hetherington : so as i desire to know whether there be good proof without them . fully proved . 4. that the said hetherington intending to take away the lives of the queen , and the duke of york , and to weaken the kings interest in ireland , &c. did endeavour to suborn witnesses against the queen , the duke , ormond , and the chancellor of ireland . this is proved on the first article ; but if you require it call hugh duffy , john mac cleve , john moyre , george morphy ; all proved by the aforesaid persons . 5. to prove his correspondence with hanlan , and the rest of the tories in ireland , and endeavoured to procure them to come in to discover the plot , ( though falsly . ) first , that hanlan and his confederates are proclaimed rebels and traytors , call the right honourable lord conway , one of the councel in ireland . this appears on the first article , hetherington being committed to dundalk gaol : and if your majesty be not satisfied , call james morphy and owen morphy , and let secretary jenkins shew james morphy's letter . james morphy proved the same . 6. that he hath brought over witnesses out of ireland , as he pretended , &c. call john luker , peter linch , michael rely , and keho ; fully proved . let them declare if one geoghan a frier did not go hence from england , and had his majesties warrant , ( which is the same that mr. hetherington procured ) and that they were harrassed upon this warrant : that john power esq a justice of the peace , was on his relation imprisoned in waterford ; so was mr. richard fitz-gerald , a great dealer and trader ; so was matthew hore esq john nugent esq mr. dalton the minister of dungarvan , a justice of peace , threatned : he hath got a deal of monies in several places ; others he forced from their houses , &c. let him declare the misery and trouble the country is put in ; and that this geoghan is now for his great villany committed in dublin by the lord lieutenant . now it is easie to make appear , that there was but one blank warrant obtained , and hereupon these carrick men were brought over . the charge proved to the full . articles of a most high and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 presented and exhibited to the kings most excellent majesty , and to the right honourable the lords of his majesties most honourable privy-councel , by david fitz-gerald , against william hetherington , in obedience to his majesties order in councel bearing date the 4 th day of february instant . 1. the said david fitz-gerald , praying the liberty at any time hereafter , as occasion shall require , to explain the articles hereafter following , and ●urther to impeach the said william hetherington , doth now most humbly say and propose , that the said william hetherington , having broken prison in dublin , corresponded with hanlan , and the rest of the outlaws and tories in the north of ireland , and having defrauded and cheated many of his majesties good subjects in that kingdom , repaired into england , and untruly pretended to some of his majesties good subjects here , to gain himself reputation and credit in england , that he was sometimes a justice of the peace in some county in ireland , and had a considerable estate there , though he had but eighteen pence in his pocket when he came to london , and all his apparel was not worth half a crown ; procured himself ( but by what , or whose means or authority , this proponent doth not yet know ) to be stiled , the manager of the irish evidence , thereby to have the opportunity to relieve his distress ▪ though by the shipwrack of his conscience , and utter ruine of his soul ; and also by suborning witnesses to accuse persons of the highest quality , next and under his majesty , of treason , and to accuse others of the like crime , thereby instead of serving his majesty , according to the duty of his pretended office , to disturb his majesties happy reign over his subjects , and the peace and tranquility of his kingdoms . 2. that the said hetherington , the better to effect his said wicked designs , got into his hands one hundred pounds of his majesties money , to be distributed amongst the irish witnesses , who were all needy , and miserably poor , which sum he converted to his own use , but ten pounds only he distributed amongst four priests , and others of the witnesses ; and hath also received divers sums collected in the city of london , for the irish witnesses , wherein he hath not justly discharged his trust . 3. that the said hetherington laboured all ways and means he could , to render his majesties royal person and government odious , as well to his subjects of england , as of ireland , and to induce them to a belief , that his majesty is a favourer of papists and popery , thereby to stir up the people to rebellion , both in england and ireland ; for he the said hetherington did divers times , in open companies and places in the city of london , and elsewhere , publish and declare in the hearing of his majesties subjects , that he brought with him out of ireland into england , a bull or brief under the seal of the pope , or bishop of rome , discharging his majesties popish subjects of ireland from their natural allegiance to his majesty ; and that he himself in person , did shew and produce the aforesaid bull or brief to his majesty , and acquainted his majesty with the tenour thereof ; and that his majesty took no notice of it , but in and towards the favouring and countenancing of papists , and for the introducing of popery , did reject the same . 4. that the said hetherington , intending to bring the queens majesty , and his royal highness the duke of york , into the hatred of his majesty and of all his subjects , and to deprive them of their lives , estates , and royal dignities , and also intending to weaken his majesties interest in ireland , and draw away the affections of his subjects there from him , hath by entreaties and other ways of perswasion , endeavoured to suborn witnesses to swear , that the queens majesty , his royal highness the duke of york , and the duke of ormond , as also that the lord chancellor of ireland , and others his majesties loyal and faithful subjects , were privy to , and principally concerned in the plots both in england and ireland , against his majesties person and government . 5. that the said hetherington , the better to compass the enterprizes aforesaid , and to strengthen his proof against her sacred majesty , his royal highness the duke of york , the duke of ormond , and others as aforesaid , as also to anticipate the said duke of ormond , lord lieutenant of ireland , his endeavours to reduce hanlan , and the rest of the tories in the north of ireland , to their due obedience , hath for some time past held , and still doth hold , private correspondence with the said hanlan , and other outlaws and tories in the north of ireland , though many of them are guilty of murthers , and outlawed or proclaimed rebels , according to the course of the laws there : and did by his letters invite the said hanlan and his confederates , to give out in speeches , that he and his confederates were privy to the plot in ireland against his majesty , and that he and they could prove that her majesty , his royal highness the duke of york , the duke of ormond , and the lord chancellor of ireland , were principally concerned therein , so as such declaration might be made publick here in england : that then if hanlan would but send him the said hetherington a competent sum of money , and would really swear ( though falsly ) against the queen , his highness , and the rest , he would under pretence of such his discovery of the plot , and giving evidence as aforesaid , obtain his majesties pardon for the said hanlan and his confederates , for all treasons , murthers , felonies , and all other offences whatsoever ; thereby intending no good to his majesty and people , but confusion and trouble , and to put a piece of hanlan's money into his own pocket , and to suborn the said miscreants to swear as he should dictate to them , hoping to better his condition by the ruine of his majesties good subjects , that he projected would ensue thereupon . 6. that he pretended to have a great many substantial and credible witnesses in ireland , to prove the irish plot , whose names he could not then remember , as he alledged , and therefore obtained a blank warrant from his majesty , to fetch over the said witnesses into england : that under colour thereof , he hath by his emissaries there caused several gentlemen , as well papists as protestants , and justices of the peace in many counties , towns , and places in ireland , to be imprisoned , forced other ignorant men to pay monies for not troubling or molesting them , and at length brought over into england ( amongst others ) six honest persons , inhabitants of carrick and clonmell , as witnesses , and on their arrival in london , imployed one eustace comyns to perswade them to swear against their knowledge , in affirmance and justification of what comyns had already untruly sworn ; and this he did purposely to abuse his majesties warrant and royal authority , to put his majesty to great charges , to amuse the vulgar , to hinder the said persons in their own private concerns , because they would give his emissaries no monies , to discourage trade and dealing in ireland , and to create an universal disquiet , and terrible apprehensions in the hearts and minds of his majesties subjects there , of imminent and sudden dangers and calamities , the said hetherington thereby labouring and wickedly designing to bring an odium and scandal upon his majesty , and his royal government . all which articles the said david fitz-gerald is ready to aver and prove , as his majesty and this most honourable board shall award : and humbly prayeth , that the said hetherington may be committed , or so secured , as that he may be compelled to answer the same : for that the said david fitz-gerald hath good reasons to believe , that the said hetherington will not abide a hearing in this cause , but will make his escape with impunity , to the encouragement of ill men , and in contempt of his majesty and this honourable board ; wherein the said david fitz-gerald humbly submitteth to his majesty , and your lordships great wisdom and direction . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a63351-e210 granted . in dondalk gaol . after his denials , as last confessed that he brake gaol in dublin , and stole away . no answer to that . made no discovery . no. very little , but borrowed , but forgot the mans name . stood up to justifie the bull or brief , but at last was utterly convinced . sir john davis is clerk of the privy-councel in ireland , and a member thereof . the said hetherington has spread several libels and pamphlets of mr. fitz-gerald , which he and the printer are like to smart for . nota. * note here , he would make the king author of stifling the evidence of the plot , and the discovery of it ; which ought not to pass without due reprehension . note , this samson is one of the witnesses that accuses the earl of tyr●ne . note , that he would make it a crime for a man to declar the honesty of these two great men . as to hetherington's life and conversation , shew se● jeant osborn certificate , who goes jud● in the north circuit in ir l●nd sometimes . an additional discovery of mr. roger l'estrange his further discovery of the popish plot wherein dr. titus oates and the rest of the king's evidences are vindicated from the aspersions cast upon them in that pamphlet : together with some new observations upon the said discovery not heretofore publisht / in a letter to dr. titus oates by b.w. b. w. 1680 approx. 90 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 11 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a71292 wing w3 estc r7902 10526123 ocm 10526123 45206 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a71292) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 45206) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 522:12 or 1394:39) an additional discovery of mr. roger l'estrange his further discovery of the popish plot wherein dr. titus oates and the rest of the king's evidences are vindicated from the aspersions cast upon them in that pamphlet : together with some new observations upon the said discovery not heretofore publisht / in a letter to dr. titus oates by b.w. b. w. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. oates, titus, 1649-1705. 20 p. [s.n], london : 1680. this item is identified as wing b205b at reel 1394:39 and as wing w3 at reel 522:12. wing number b205b cancelled in wing (cd-rom, 1996). reproduction of originals in the harvard university library and the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -1660-1714. 2007-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2007-04 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-05 emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread 2007-05 emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an additional discovery of mr. ●oger l'estrange his further discovery of the popish plot : wherein dr. titus oates , and the rest of the king's evidences are vindicated from the aspersions cast upon them in that pamphlet . together with some new observations upon the said discovery , not heretofore publisht . in a letter to dr. titus oates , by b. w. london , printed in the year . 1680. sir , i having been lately presented by a friend with a pamphlet , entituled , a further discovery of the plot , dedicated to your self doctor , by roger l'estrange , and called the second edition : i have perused the same , and weighed it seriously , and considering the consequences thereof , as it is full of gross mistakes , fallacies , equivocations and ironies , both in the title page and body of it ; i have spent a few leisure hours to make my observations upon it , which i recommend to your better judgment . in the title page is imployed new fact to deceive the reader , but the said author's subject is only his own fallacious inferences of part of your fact , as the devil did by the scriptures with our saviour , for his own ends. in the beginning of his epistle to your self , as a theam to work upon , he sets up a man of straw , a spawn of his own brain by charging you with saying , that you told him he was a papist , and that he reported you were a fanatick , and upon this foundation he frames his whole discourse , good gentleman , as he says , to discharge himself and you from those two calumnies ( as he calls them ) and as a proof of this assertion ( if you will believe him ) he tells you , it was improved by a couple of nonsensical and seditious libels , which he names in his pamphlet , as also give you the style and character of the author by hearsay , a small thread-bare sollicitor in the old bayly , which , as he says , often uses your name , and makes bolder with it than stands with the dignity of your figure in the government . it seems he would monopolize the abusing of you ; but this i take to be a much more unequal coupling , than was by doctor wilde between monsueir l'estrange and strange lee : for whether or no there be any such sollicitor there , or if there be , that he was author of such things , or if he was , that it was with your privity or knowledge , which is thereby plainly and strongly implied , but aspersedly and groundlesly insinuated , is altogether uncertain , and i am satisfied will hardly be found true by a packt jury ( to use his own phrase ) upon that evidence of his , and for the truth of it , i doubt he cannot find a second . then the author proceeds to tell you , he is reviled by being called a papist , a lessener of the plot , a disparager of the king's evidence , which he cannot bear , but resolves either frankly to acquit himself , or sinke under it , and i appeal to your self and every impartial man , if by that book he merits not the latter , and also the same reward he allows due to his fellow scribler , though upon several foundations , and i am sure the unerring rule is , he that is not with , is against . i think the author conceives he hath done you doctor no small honour , to make you his ghostly father , and indeed it 's enforced very vigorously by an imprecation of his hopes of heaven , and therefore he thinks you cannot without breach of the rules of charity , but believe he is a true son of the church of england . indeed doctor , i cannot foresee why you should doubt of the veracity of this assertion , seeing you have it from the mouth of one that never brake faith with man or woman , nor ever betrayed any , unless you mean to have further and more demonstrable evidence before you lend him your belief ; for in these cases i know you generally direct your judgment by the infallible rule of our blessed saviour , that trees must be known best by their fruit ( not their leaves ; ) if so , then give me your patience further to acquaint you with my sentiments of this his second elaborate work , and see what i can find how he hath made good his title page or his assertion , and how good a son mr. l'estrange hath proved himself thereby , to his mother the church of england . he says , he is not without bowels of humanity to men of other perswasions , but i am perswaded one that dares not take upon himself to affirm he deserves such a title with that epithite he challenges , yet would àlso allow them bowels of christianity ; but i know there are various degrees of members in a true church ▪ as babes , and others of a stronger constitution , but i shall not determine by his expressions which of them i take , the author but leave that to more discerning judgments . he pretends to be mighty plain and open hearted to you , for he tells you as a friend , as he saith , he hath moxe charity for a moral pagan than twenty hypocritical christians . i shall not give you any trouble of my thoughts , who this worthy author means , either by pagan or christian , but only assure you , if it were true , this is one of the main parts of his discovery in that pamphlet , especially as to me , for indeed i have not learned that distinction of a christian afore , but always from the woes pronounced in scripture against hypocrites , i took them not to be christians . this kind author says , he hath a natural veneration for the government , and all that love it , the king 's loyal witnesses , and preservers of his life , he believes the plot , as much of it as every good subject ought , nay , and pawns his conscience ( which doubtless is large ) you do not believe more of it , for all this give me leave to tell you doctor , i am of a quite contrary opinion , for i know you are of a sharper sight than to have your judgment eclipsed with a fogg ; yet truly upon the whole scope and matter of his discourse in that pamphlet , i am satisfied he could not ( though i know others do and would , and know they ought ) have afforded more than a natural veneration for all those things ; but i may tell you doctor , though not the author ( lest i should be offensive to hi● natural judgment ; ) that things of god ( as i take this in a great measure to be ) are not to be rightly understood by meer natural men , and in that capacity only he must herein be certainly apprehended , as may more fully be deduced from his following words , that he cannot believe what he does not , nor cannot , as that bedingfield is alive again , and what is this to you , and what can rationally be deduced from it , but that a crack-fart of the nation having stuffed it into his fardel , without any privity of yours , for ought appears , it must be made use of as a reflection upon you , and truly this as strongly seconded by a learned instance of buttered turnips , but it 's a very slippery one , and indeed as saucy as all the rest , and of as little moment with men of sound understanding , because it plainly intimates your evidence is as little to be credited as that assertion , but perchance his opinion may have some influence upon those two sorts of persons he appropriates to his party by these words ( our crafty knaves and our foolish ) but i hope of no other . but when i came to consider of the conclusion of that paragraph ( that where authority had passed a sentence , there is no longer any place for hesitation or demurr ) and an hand of remark upon it by capital letters ; i had been amazed , but that i did awaken and rouse my self by calling to mind some proverbial sayings , that there is none so blind as he that will not see , and that some sort of persons had need have good memories , and the like ; for this made me conclude , that either the author of that pamphlet did not understand what he had uttered in his unworthy reflections upon you doctor , or else he did not consider that by this his conclusion ( which all sober men must agree to be true ) he had produced and published a full and sufficient proof against himself , how he had thereby ( i mean his reflections ) put an affront not to be forgiven or forgotten , not upon you alone , but upon his sacred majesty , the government , the justice and reputation of the nation ; in regard his majesty publickly in his gracious speech to both houses of parliament had so far owned yours and others discovery of this damnable and hellish plot , that he was graciously pleased therein to declare his real satisfaction in it , and gave them his royal assent and direction to prosecute the same , which was followed with an eloquent one of the right honourable the lord chancellor , and pressed and forced with cogent arguments and reasons , and in regard the house of peers had owned the same by their votes , their committing of criminals therein , and other their proceedings thereupon , as also the house of commons by their votes , their addresses , their impeachments , their committings of criminals therein , and other their proceedings thereupon ; the lord chief justice his joyning with the opinion of the then house of commons , and his ready and chearful committing of persons accused thereof upon your single oath , his and other the learned judges and justices of the peace in a judicial manner proceeding against several of the said criminals , and the verdicts of many juries , consisting of many loyal persons given upon yours and others testimony , with much more of this kind , which is so well and generally known , that i need not give my self the trouble of writing , nor you of reading them , and truly doctor , the consideration of these things have given me ample satisfaction , and so i doubt not but it will do every really true christian english-man , or else to me it seems only strange . but before this author comes to his full vindication , he must have another fling at you doctor , for he says he hath a great value for your function , imployment and charracter ; what these are in his equivocal meaning , no body certainly can tell but himself , and you need not doubt but he well understands himself , or at least he would have you and the world to believe so by his publishng it , for he still keeps the staff in his own hands for to make himself judge ; for he believes you as far as he ought , which according to true enterpretation , is , that he dares not speak plain english , and hath what ever the author says , too much of the french droll in him . i must confess i must declare my self , not to have so much christian charity , as to belive all those characters the author gives of himself ; that is , i do not believe he is friend to down-right dealing , but i can without hesitation believe that he is a great friend to liberty of speech ; to an easie gloss an easie companion , as much as any man , or else he is much wronged : but then he tells you doctor of your calling him rogue twenty times , for which he thanks you and forgives you ; but this is but a copy of his countenance , and used as a meer shooing-horn to draw on the like likewise of calling you rogue i know its a word you often use , and its twenty to one you were right nineteen of the twenty if not all , but it s not to be taken in the common sense of the vulgar usage , to a man of vile and base actions ; but as a differing character of an adversary to the truth of your's and other's evidence , in the great matter in question ; and in that sense only you so frequently use it , especially when your zeal is too much provoked with opposition , and i fear his hopes will fail him in your better acquaintance ; for i know if ever it may be it must be upon his amendment , and what hopes there is of it that i see not . for in his next paragraph , he tells you barefacedly and shews it in plain terms , how much he is your friend , for he slights your favour , and sets you at defiance , and all he hath to ground it upon is , that currs ( as he calls them ) hunt him and therefore he must snarl at you , as if you doctor were confederate with men , of whom and their extravagant actions , there is not one tittle of demonstration you were any way so much as privy to : indeed this discovering mounsieur is very hardly put to it , to find a way to bespatter you ; but i am sure the foundation is so invisible , that the spots will never be seen , for he would make the world believe , that because as he says , another of his fellow-pamphleteers hath injured him , therefore you are blame-worthy ; and to vindicate himself , as he calls it , he hath the confidence upon search and examination , of his fellow-scriblers works to try the truth of that to reflect upon you , but in which it doth not appear in the least you are any way concerned ; but i think you have more wit than to meddle with such matters , and know how to spend your time to better advantage , both to the publique and your self , than to be lead by a will in the wisp . now the author leaves you doctor , and invites his reader ; and here he begins somewhat to unvail : for he tells him nothing so difficult as the mystery of this detestable plot , a judgment of our sins , augmented by our follies ; then he shews him , how by the difference between believers , and vnbelievers , that truth and christianity are in danger to be lost ; then he quarrels with his fellow-scriblers , and compares it to the late times , and bids us have a care of the same incantation over again ; he tells him nothing was more narrowly sifted , or more vigorously discouraged than this conspiracy . reformation is the business of government , but if begun at the wrong end its tumult . an effectual provision against the danger of the romish practices , will not serve their turn , whose quarrel is barely to the name of popery : if they cannot find popery , they will make it ; for it is now new thing in a popular out-cry in the matter of religion , to have a state-faction in the belly of it ; and then again compares it with the late times , and so concludes that paragraph . what an hotch-potch chimera is this , and as forreign to the case in hand , as the east is from the west ? what is the scribling of pamphleteers , now there is no licenser ( when it was altogether as bad , when there was one ) or what is the babling at coffe-houses to be regarded , or be thought to have any share in the prosecution of this discovery ? it 's bare matter of fact , and not at all mysterious to men of understanding ; and although as the truth of the evidence is , it doth solely and principally centre in the roman catholique party , yet i cannot with all the skill i have , with this learned authors assistance to boot , understand wherein religion is concerned in the least , especially , the differences between the church of england , and the dissenters from it , as he aims to inforce it . nor is the question the same as to the plot , you have discovered , nor the transactions thereupon , nor in any possibility can be paralelled with those of the late times ; nay i know some of the roman catholick religion , take it quite otherwise , for a person of honour of that perswasion , lately told me ; that he believed , neither the king nor the nation , would be happy or safe until they were well rid of the jesuites , and their king-killing doctrine , and i think with mr. strange his favour , it was not mannerly done of him , to arraign the judgments of the representatives of the nation in parliament , to say nothing was more narrowly sifted , nor more vigorously discouraged ( i conceive that was intended ( incouraged ) but mistaken by the printer ) than this conspiracy ; for certainly had it been so , they would never have made the neglect of it , a considerable part of their impeachment against the earl of danby , and doubtless they did not make that without due consideration of such authentick proofs as they had before them , to make it good . and the author of that pamphlet , having thus by stating a case , that is not in the least the case you doctor have in hand , he draws a conclusion suitable to it ; that it might be useful , and find credit upon its own account ; and then giving an encomium of himself , he casts off the reader , and enters into the lists , with you again . in the beginning of his book , the author gave you the allowance , of a figure in the government ; but now he 'l make you as little as a cipher ; he thinks you of so little understanding , that you by his incoherent arguments are now perswaded out of your senses , and of the reallity and truth , of that case you have with so much danger avowed and justifed , by , and with a fictitious case of his own making , and proved it by fallacious arguments : and it is so far unlike yours doctor , as instead of four feet , it doth not go upon one of them ; and upon the credence the author hath , of this supposed conquest over you in a great part , he proceeds to make it compleat , and is resolved in another point , right or wrong , to stand fair in your opinion , and that is ; that he is free from the itch of scribling unless where his genius tells him his pen may be of publique use , and where he is prompted on by such an incontinence of a publick spirit as you find in your self , and he ( injured gentleman ) never was but upon the defensive part , and received no reply but reproaches ( as he terms them ) of popishly affected , or a villifier of the kings evidence . indeed this comparison of his is of the same stamp , with the other , but doctor you may well pardon him , because he pardoned you for calling him rogue , and this is only out of a great desire he hath , to be esteemed like you in publick spiritedness , but i am afraid his temper is more like baals , that was only sollicitous to die the death of the righteous , but i do not remember one word of his living their life . i think as to the matter in hand , i have had as much experience of your actions , and as seriously , and impartially and duely weighed them , as another ; but it s very probable the eyes of mr. l' estrange , and my understanding differ , which may occasion from us , various inferences and conclusions . it s true i have observed you often to be earnestly zealous for truth in the fact that you have discovered , and against all opposers of it , under what circumstances soever ; but that you have in the least promoted it , either for this or the other party , or against this or that party , but only against particular persons guilty , sparing none of what perswasion soever , that are within your knowledge , not in the least by any overt act yet occurrs to my knowledge , that you have any wayes made it your business , either to set up or pull down , or to make division amongst parties of differing perswasions . i am sure it hath not yet appeared to be your business , but rather of an healing temper , but how much it is that learned authors is manifestly apparent , and he that runs may read it , besides do but observe the different foundations between you and him ; for , doctor , you go upon occular and auricular experiences , and he upon coffee-houses discourses , only seconded by a report of the strenuous affirmation of a lady , and that by hearsay too , and then how naturally it follows that these malicious rumors ( as he calls them ) put upon himself , must needs promote and stir up him to vindicate you , that was not in the least concerned or named in it , nor either wanted or craved his aid to defend you , however with cause or without cause , he hath no mind to part with you yet ; not out of love to prove you no fanatick , but to other more sinister ends and purposes , that is , to get a small reward for his pamphlet , and vindicate the papists , and crush the phanaticks ( as he calls them ) as i hope i shall plainly and evidently demonstrate . but now warmly clad with these wonderfully erroneous considerations that incumbred his disturbed brains , with the help of taking your works to pieces ; he had now fallen under such a conception from which the world might expectsuch a product , as was expected from the mountain ; but you know that proved a mouse . now the author glories in his acquisition of materials to defend you , and now magnifies his thoughts of his being armed to suppress popery ; and is as sure of his way as any blind man in town , for he will as certainly hit it , as he that takes the way to oxford , to be the right and strait way to go to canterbury . when this author hath pleased himself with these incomprehensible thoughts , by your clue as he says , he enters into the almost inextricable labyrinth of the plot , till he found out some priests you pointed at , lurking in holes like foxs , and then he could not forbear publishing it to the nation in his first edition of this pamphlet , and all this upon your credit , as he tells you . but if this author should fall under this misfortune that neither you doctor , nor any sober wise man , should approve of his abortive births from his false conceptions , how can he make the nation a compensation for these abuses ; as without all peradventure , the case will appear to every one that considers impartially the plot it self , that it is not an inextricable labyrinth , but in truth is pure and easie matter of fact , and the essence thereof lies not at all in any of those by-circumstantials mr. roger hath made use of ( and as he says ) for his own ends , which is certainly true , for they are not in the least to the advantage of the nation , the governors or government , the protestant religion . nor the kings witnesses , but in apparent and great dishonour to all . in his next paragraph , he cries out , what innocence can warrant against envy or authority ? protect when le strange comes to be arraigned as a papist , for shewing the likeliest was to extirpate popery , and yourname cannot protect him in it ? nay he tells you it is well if you can uphold your self , if this goes on , and concludes , that none can fall foul upon that discovery without wounding your evidence . now certainly had this author as well believed the truth of this reason , as he cannot but imagine others do , he would never under this disguise of friendship to you doctor , have undertaken thus publickly to villifie you . alas he talks of innocence , that is begging the question : i know not of any that can be allowed him by any one in his right wits , nor do i know nor never heard , but from himself , that ever he did or could shew any way that is likely to extirpate popery . i admire at his confidence to adventure upon such a subject to the people , which only and singly appertains to the magistracy , and i think he hath cause to rejoyce that he is not questioned for a seditious pamphletteer , for that his work in such a time as this is , which calls . for our union not division . he says , some call his book jesuitical ; for my part . i think there is no man in his right wits , that can judge less of his book , than call the scope and drift of it , of a jesuitical stamp : but what is that to you doctor , does it therefore follow that because he hath written a book deserves that censure , you must be accounted a papist that was no way privy to it ? but this consequence is like the rest , but upon hard pumping he has indeavoured to bring you in by head and shoulders ; for he says he hath your word and oath for it , for you swear the priests and jesuites herd themselves amongst the non-conformists ; they denie it , and yet prove themselves in the plot and discredit the kings evidence . what hocus pocus is here ? i am sure in no part of your evidence is it sworn , they herd with non-conformists , nor have i yet ever seen or heard any proof , that any non-conformists have proved themselves to be in the plot ; or that any of them whatsoever , discredited any of the kings evidence , but this must be accepted upon his veracity , or else his strain of wit , by his subsequent querie ; for thus the author argues , if they shelter not themselves in conventicles , and field-meetings , to stir up broyls in the government , what becomes of your testimony ? and none but papists would oppose the ferretting them out . what he means , or what he would be at , if you know doctor , it s well , but for my part i understand not the sence of it ; but because you have proved there were some jesuites , or their agents sent into scotland to facilitate their design , amongst the discontented scots , if they could , therefore all the dessenters from the church of england in england , are guilty of the plot ; i am very confident the meanest of grammarian school-masters in england , would have whipped the dullest boy he had under his tuition , for using such a nonsensical argument . in confirmation of this , the author further tells you , nothing can be clearer according to your evidence of wright and others sent amongst the scots , with other evidence , to that purpose , and then says , all this will not serve to convince some of the priests mingled with fanaticks , till the pilgrims and the forty thousand black bills come to open their eyes . this author is in much wrath , that every body does not wear his spectacles ; for i am fully assured there is not a sober english christian of what perswasion soever ; except such sons of the church of england , as he and god-dam-me sons ( that see no further than the church-yard ) but do believe your evidence in that particular , as fully as your words , or intention thereby extended . then he concludes that paragraph , with a clamorous acclamation . if these infidels ( i presume he means the dessenters from the church of england ) have any priviledg for the defaming publick justice , and blasting the kings evidence , above other people , they should , do well to produce it . but i am sure it would have been better done of him , to have produced some proof of the slander , before he had aspersed the parties with it ; i never heard of their guilt of the one , nor the other , but from his pen which i take to be as little slander as his mouth . then he proceeds to tell you , he hath read , considered and studied you , and what wonderfull things you have done for him in the dark , and at length brought him into the light ; and when he hathlent you these ironical expressions , he comends you in the same dialect , and further tells you of his sensibility of the roundness of your periods , the luxuriancy of your invention ( where there is scope for it ) the frankness of your stile , and the harmony of your c●●ceptions . indeed had it been your design doctor , to have made your trade , of living and getting dinners by scribling , or had those things which you have published in print , been otherwise than pure matter of fact , to satisfie the governors , government and people of the nation ; and limitted and bounded to the nature and quality of the thing in question , and in a great part in the nature of a report ; it s morally possible you might as well have observed your periods as the fault-finder ; nay i can say it with some assurrance , it is so in all impartial mens judgments , all things duely considered ; which answers may also serve you for your inventions , and conceptions , for i know not of any such in all your works ; and doubtless those that do as well know you doctor , and understand you as mr. le strange , are clearly of opinion , that had you imployed your genius that way , if it had been but in making a play against your own mother , you might and would have come off with as much reputation , made as good syllogismes , and had as pertinent coherences as any that have undertaken or performed the like ; and for the frankness of your style , it being in the pursuite of truth , it s very well known your zeal for that , makes you no more spare any one guilty , than you did the author when you called him rogue , which he agrees , you did well in , as your apprehended him . then he tells you , this epistle had been monstrous in any other age ; but why not in this ( when its twice the length of the rest of his pamphlet ) is not discernable by any body but himself ; then he tells you knavery and hipocrisie were in fashion , thirty or forty years ago . but spares the telling with whom , therefore i cannot give it any particular answer , but must leave it with him and his acquaintance in those times ; he says now the present humour of france runs upon poysoning , the enemies of our government , altogether upon the vein of plotting . indeed that 's too true , and the plotters , as the case is are of several sorts , some have the hellish and audacious impudence to contrive his majesties death by violence , his magistrates , his witnesses , the overthrow of our government , the extirpating of the protestant and introducing the romish religion ( so called ; ) and there are another sort which i apprehend , little inferior to the other in the consequence of it , who by their poysonous principles and frothy strains of wit , with their paper-squibs audaciously traduce and fly in the faces of the governors and government ; and make nothing of turning the justice of the nation into ridicule both at home and abroad , and instead of healings broach divisions amongst the dissenters from the church of rome , thereby to give all advantage imaginable ( according to your evidence , to weaken the parties ) to our professed enemies , without the least just occasion , or any other rationally than to do that for our adversaries , they themselves could not effect , but by making us fools , or knaves , to one another . then this author takes it positively upon him to tell you doctor , that he hath acquitted himself ; that he is no papist , and now he resolvedly undertakes so to acquit himself of the charge upon him by you , and your father , of his reporting you for a fanatick . in my opinion , if he doth the one no more than he hath done the other , he might have spared his labour ; i fear if the matter had been true , he will not give you any cause to thank him , for i do not remember one authentick proof , nor any other rational argument yet produced by him , that he is not a papist unless such an argument which he used that took upon him to confute bellermine , by telling him it was not so : is it out of pure kindness , or at your request he takes this pains for you ? truly , i think both alike , for i verily believe , if the thing be true that he said , you do not esteem it such a scandal as you need to be vindicated from it , either by him or any one else ; but he says , your exhortation to indulgence opened the mouths of some ignorant people to that effect ; i doubt not in this but you may take mr. l'estrange at his word , and keeping to solomon's rule , not to answer him in his own way , let it pass as it is , and although you went no further than as an exhortation , mr. roger hath the confidence to take upon him to instruct and to give judgment too . then he exclaims against a persecuting spirit , how this coheres with the precedent matter , it 's a riddle to me , and seriously i cannot fancy who or what he means by it ; certainly he dares not be guilty of so much confidence , as rather than he would not bespatter and traduce you , he will arraign the whole justice of the nation , for if that should be his meaning ( which to me seems very obvious ) i believe not ignorant but wise people would think he did not lie under any aspersion , but rather take that character already given him to be far short of his true demerit ; but i am sure the whole drift of his pamphlet is for causeless persecution , but blessed be god our governours are of a more healing spirit , now he tells you , that by this time you see what a church of england man is to trust to , when he ( the true son of the church ) is boxed on both sides , and then he concludes that paragraph with this question , with what face shall any man dare to charge him for a papist , that hath done so much for the protestant religion , or a fanatick , that hath done so much for the church of england ? i think it may be thus resolved , that if it be without cause , it must be with a brazen face ; but if the party he means be one that can tell what the church-yard wall is made of and not the church , he may then lie open to all sorts of censures , especially when he hath acted on all sides , as he puts the case . the plot indeed is represented to be triplicite , viz. against the king , government and religion ; but what question or distinction this author will make , we shall see anon , for there is his diana ; but that you doctor , or any other of the king's witnesses in this case have in the least occasioned such a question , is not in my apprehension to be deduced from any of your evidences , and i believe that no man that hath ever heard , read of , or seen the arts of those persons charged with that horrid plot in any of their massacres , either at home or abroad , that ever they made any distinction of persons that were dissenters from themselves in doctrine or practice : from what can it be imagined they would have done it by , or in this plot , or that they did so intend by it , only to cut off the members of the church of england , and leave the dissenters from them , or only cut off the dissenters , and leave the members of the church of england , there is no shadow of colour for it , and it 's fully proved by you to be intended general to all dissentets from the church of rome . now like a knowing son of the church of england , mr. l'estrange acquaints you how far he understands , and what is religion , he fixes it in the word government , in which , says he , is comprehended regiment , ecclesiastical and civil , and inclusively the order of bishops , and doctrine and discipline of the church , and then concludes positively , that that and no other is the protestant religion designed in the plot ; and he thinks in his second position he makes it good , for he says , they ( meaning the dissenters from the church of england ) are religious and their name is legion ; and his third is as good as that , for therein this author affirms , they ( the said dissenters ) are christian arbbs ; but the fourth goes beyond all , that it stands not with common sense for papists to plot the ruine of their own auxiliaries , and this he lays at your door , that it 's against the reason of your depositions that they should contrive their destruction , when at that time they are making use of them to destroy us , and then most abhominably christian-like he briskly lets fly at the dissenters from the church of england with a most dismal judgment , that heaven and hell is as easie to be brought together , as to reconcile those people to any terms of piety or civil order , that corruptly style themselves protestants . i must confess here perchance the author may apprehend he hath the whip hand of any one that will undertake to answer , in respect of the law ; but i think , without offence , i may put you in mind of the words of the bishop of donn in his preface to his grand exemplar , which are , that when it appears a kingdom is converted to christianity , the common-wealth is made a church , gentile priests are christian bishops , the subjects servants of christ ▪ the religion turned christian , and the laws of the nation made part of the religion , there is no change of government , but christ is king and the temporal power his substitute , and is to promote obedience to him . now i must confess i am , and i doubt not but every really true son of the church of england , will be much more inclinable to take doctor tayler for an authentick author in this point of religion than mr. l'estrange ( though he does not use the word protestant ) and without all peradventure his judgment is upon truth , i mean the word of god , which mr. roger altogether omits ( to the great proof of his sonship ) and only grounds himself in that case in my apprehension upon several and vulgar errors ; as first , i take it to be an undeniable truth from our saviour and his apostles , that there is but one religion , and not legions , and that under two heads ; 1. loving god with all your heart ; 2. love our neighbours as our selves ; unless it may be said that every chimera of mens brains , or every notion ( as the author calls religion ) or every form is a religion . i am of opinion it's nonsence , and i cannot but concur with dr. tayler , that the antiochian or christian religion is the religion , catexochene , and what ever forms in true and due order to that are framed , doubtless they are praise-worthy , and ought to be observed by all that love the kingdom of christ ( but yet i take it the form is improperly called a religion ) but for this author that hath the confidence to style himself the true son , and would fain be esteemed the champion of the church of england , to leave out the only essential part of a true church , whose foundation ought to be upon the rock of ages , and to place it only in humane laws , which as dr. tayler says , are but part , and only in substitution to that which is really true , is as i said before , to take the church-yard and all for the church , or instead of commending the vine to praise the hedge or fence about it ; for as dr , tayler's opinion is , the temporal power is to be used primarily and principally to promote obedience to christ , not to its self , or any thing contrary to christ's doctrine , practices or precepts ; therefore to me it seems apparent that the author hath not done right to his mother , the church of england , which makes me fear in regard the fathers of the church seem to be of opinion against him in discription of a church : i conceive it may without straining be rationally conjectured he was not suckled by his mothers milk , but by a foster nurse , otherwise certainly he would not have omitted so essentiala worth of the church of england , and the rather , for that he might with ease have proved , that when the body of this kingdom began to shake off that spiritual slavery imposed on our ancestors by the romish yoke they then lay under , the alteration that then was made by the governours and government of this nation , was the nearest and most agreeable by the articles , cannons and injunctions then agreed and established to the apostolical rule , and pursuant to dr. tayler's judgment therein , as they could ; for that our religion should solely depend upon humane law , it must be and may be as changeable as that of which i am sure we and our ancestors have had woful experience , as by repeals of statutes for that purpose in the reign of queen mary , witness . another vulgar errour , i conceive him with some clearness gullty of , is , in calling the church of england the only protestant religion aimed at in this case by the papists . indeed i have heard once the question was debated amongst persons of an higher sphere than mr. l'estrange what the protestant religion was , and it was thought fit to be left undetermined , and doubtless not imprudently , for if we should make that the basis of the religion of the church of england , it would give our adversaries the papists a vast and inevitable advantage ; for if history be in that case to be depended upon , the lutherans , the calvinists , &c. were before the church of england , under the denomination of protestants , and i do doubt it will appear if it should be brought into dispute , they differ in many and main points ; but then the consequence would inevitably follow , that we must be put to prove which is the true one , another advantage the papists would have ( and which i have heard often made use of ; ) that they ( i mean the church of rome ) are the mother church , and of many hundreds of years before the church of england , and doubtless they may be too hard for us in that point , if our foundation begun only in protestantism , but in truth the foundation of our apostolical british church , which is fully , clearly and elegantly proved and made out ( by the learned and judicious author of the book intituled of the heart and its right sovereign ) to be ancienter than rome's , especially here in this nation by many centuries of years , and for his saying , by your evidence it appears the fanaticks ( as he calls them ) are to be papists auxiliaries , and therefore it s not rational they ( the papists ) would work their ruine : it 's true according to the common and vulgar term , you in your depositions call it the protestant religion indefinitely ; but why this must not concern all manner of dissenters from the romish church , i am sure does not in the least appear , nor can any other thing rationally be expected , but the extirpation of all dissenters from them of rome without distinction , nor is it proved by you doctor , the jesuitical party endeavoured to make any other use of them , but as all conquerors do , to divide their dissenters to facilitate their intended enterprize ; if so , then his unchristian like censure must of necessity be unwarrantable and groundless . dear doctor , i must beg your pardon for my prolixity upon this paragraph , but finding this the author's corner-stone , i could not pass it over slightly , being so really zealous for the ancient british apostolical religion , that as god was heretofore pleased to honour this island to have the first christian king , and a british woman to be mother of the first christian emperour in the world , so to me the finger of god seems plainly to point at , and shew that in this latter age he intends further to honour this nation with a king and government , that will be his true and real substitutes to promote sincere obedience to his son , and to bring us with healing under one shepherd , and all to be of one sheepfold . then taking that forgranted , which is denied him ; that the protestant religion aymed at in the plot , is the established religion of the church of england ; the author tells you , that you cannot be a friend to the state without being one to the church too . this as i have said before , is but a begging of the question , and then he concludes from thence , that he that phancies you doctor not canonical and orthodox , supposes you build with one hand , and pluck down with the other ; here is begging question upon question to bring something out that is no way applicable to you ; for your business doctor , hath been solely and only to acquaint the king and his councils with matters of fact , and leave the building and pulling down to their wisdoms , and not therein in the least to concern your self as the author hath done in that pamphlet too much . then he puts the case the general way , and says , the dissenters from the church of england cannot any way be ayding in a reformation , but by their prayers and good wishes upon pain of sedition . it 's much such a man as mr. l'estrange , who takes himself to be of such profound parts and knowledge , should so much mistake himself , for certainly as men and subjects under his majestie 's obeysance , they are as capable and legally of serving his majesty in any such commands , as any other men or subjects whatsoever . i think his case put , whether or no , and how far protestants may unite , is fully answered in the solution to the last paragraph , but what the dissenters to the church of england , meeting and assembling as to religious worships , is any way material to the defence of his majestie 's person or government , or what it signifies to the plot i am to seek for , and what offence it is against law , i shall not presume to meddle with it , and i am assuredly satisfied in all sober mens judgments he would not have lost reputation , if he had not shot his bolt thereat so suddenly ; but indeed much better fruit cannot well be expected from one that hath sucked in an opinion , that he dares tell you doctor , that religion is a spiritual notion ; i think no man in his right wits will conceive he knows what he says , and certainly doctor , this author will be extreamly fortunate , if such notions as he hath uttered in that pamphlet make not him reputed and legally judged seditious . in the conclusion of this large epistle , in a jeer and scoff he tells you , they are wonderful things you have done , and would fain have you condescend to believe , that he is perswaded you are yet reserved for more wonderful things ; but on the other hand , i am perswaded he did not believe himself when he wrote it , nor designed any body else should , if he could prevent it ; but to his shame , if he had any , his betters have done it , and notwithstanding his flurts of your name , being as famous to posterity as your vertue hath rendred you to the present generation : it may be true that you have not that stock of confidence he hath , and to conceit your self without personal infirmities , and i dare say , that in justification of his innocence in that particular , he will not be so hardy or bold as to adventure to throw the first stone at you . but he tells you doctor again , that none in his right wits should take you for no friend to the church of england . i concur with him in it , and certainly had he been in his , he durst not have taken the confidence to have reflected so much upon you , in regard by so doing he hath much wounded and unworthily traduced the wisdom and justice of the governours and government of this nation , for which he says , he hath a natural veneration , by turning all their transactions in this affair to mere sophistical ridicule , then he tells you of the evidence you have made of the intrigues in the late times , and now by the priests and jesuits with schismaticks , and that you have given the sectaries a great blow , so that they have nothing to say why they should not be sifted with all exactness imaginable . doubtless it 's as great a mistake of , and as forreign and remote from the scope and drift of your evidence , as is possible to be supposed : for although the jesuits and their legates are for leaving no stone unturned that may advance their design in every or any particular of it , and to that purpose , as much as in them lies , do endeavour to creep into societies , and all sorts of men : yet must it therefore needs follow , that such societies or men are confederate ? it 's a remote and forreign supposition , it 's a meer non-sequitur . nevertheless , though i have not asked any of them the question , nor shall make it my business to open my lips to them further , or other than truth will clearly warrant me ; i dare be bold to say so much for them , that there is not one society or sect whatsoever ( called dissenters from the church of england ) but will with all true zeal earnestly lend their helping hands to find out and be purged from any such corrupt member that may lurk amongst them , and if that author , or any other can further them , will well reward them . then mr. roger in his jeering and flouting manner , says , that after gleaning up about 35 priests in the whole , it was you that informed the government where they were to be had by sholes . it seems he is very exact in keeping the account of their suffering members , but whether out of pity or friendship to them , or for publick service , i leave the doctor upon the whole matter to judge , but he was too exact in charging you with that information , for i am sure he neither hath or can prove to whom , nor when given , unless it must be taken for granted , because he hath said it , which really i cannot do , nor have any grounds to perswade you , or any other to it . then he asks some questions , if it be not true that the plot goes on still ? i am justified by the opinion of the governours and and magistrates in the nation to answer the question in the affirmative ; his next is , if it be not true that we are all undone if it be not disappointed ? i must answer that affirmatively in part and negatively in the rest , that is , all honest and loyal men and true dissenting christians from the church of rome are but papists and popishly affected , are not , but he making the answer and construction of the questions otherwise , and without colour of a true cause upon them , he draws this inference , that it 's a matter of absolute necessity to fetch these plotters out of their holds : that is ( to use his own expression ) he that winks may perceive mr. l'estrange his meaning , and of what spirit he is of ; that all such ( guilty or not guilty ) that are under the notion of dissenters from the church of england must be destroyed as plotters ; but not one word in all that his pamphlet against any one papist , priest or jesuit elsewhere , for he seems to be satisfied their number as to sufferers is full : then his last question is , if it be not true that whoever doubts of the truth of this matter of fact , or of the necessity of this way of proceeding , is undeniably a blaster of the king's evidence , and a favourer of the conspiracy ? i think i have fully demonstrated to you doctor , why the fact as he states it , and would have it taken for granted , is not true , but altogether fallacious , and shored up with untrue glosses and inferences for the by-end he drives at , and therefore cannot in the least be apprehended to be any ground to judge him that doubts it a blaster of the king's evidence , a favourer of the conspiracy ; but if doctor you will take my opinion , and that with some clearness , i rather judge the author of that pamphlet to be such an one , by wresting the construction of your evidence contrary to the words and meaning thereof . then he closes his long epistle with desiring you doctor to lay to heart what he hath writ , but i am glad to see you do not concern your self thereat so far as it concerns you alone ; then he desires you to cast your eye upon what follows , which indeed is the second part to the same tune , and then prays heaven and earth to reward you , and that you may be as happy as he wishes you ; i doubt not but that you are happier already , and if you expect any further happiness by others prayers it must not be by such sort of people of whom it 's said their prayers will not prevail . he stiles what follows , a further discovery of the plot drawn , he says , from your narrative and depositions : it is certainly drawn out , but it 's by violence enough , and that by forreign and remote inferences and conclusions : but what ever there is further in that pamphlet , but in truth it 's no further discovery of your discovered plot , but of his own it is , and what that is , what i have by my observations already made , to that of which part of this is in matter but repetition , and of that of which i shall make to that which is new ; i doubt not , doctor , but will give you full and evident satisfaction . the author tells you , it must not be denied , the kings witnesses have done as much as men could do to make out the truth of this plot ; so must it not be denied that the justice and wisdom of this nation , hath improved all the discoveries , by the strictest inquisition and scrutinie imaginable , and done all possible to suppress it , yet it goes on with confidence and vigour ; as we have it from those that wrought in the same myre , till better light brought them to other measures ( but to lay a foundation for his next fallacie ) he tells you the fact lies in the dark , and truly , doctor , in my opinion it must and will do so , unless we have better light to see it by than a meteor . i do not doctor at all doubt of what the ▪ witnesses have done , and as little of what hath been done by the justice and wisdom of this nation , for the finding out and suppressing this hellish plot. but i have before told you as in the case of the earl of danby all was not done , that might and ought to have been done , or else the commons house of parliament , did mistake in their charge against him , which i think becomes no man to presume . but , doctor , mr. l'estrange tells you that after all this havock made of the papists , the coffee-house discourse is the plot goes on , as they that must be presumed that know best say , but those on the negative ask , if it will work without hands , where are the papists , in the air , or under ground , or are they invisible ? for as they a●e dispersed , besides the terrour that over awes them , there are three thousand protestants to one papist . indeed , doctor , i am in admiration of his confidence to call the just proceedings of the authority of the nation , an havock , he shews much of his natural veneration to the government , and his true sonship to the church of england by it ; and then he lays a mighty stress upon the tatling at coffee-houses ; and indeed he hath some reason , for i perceive he hath been much beholden to them , for matter and evidence , or otherwise he had been exceeding barren in both , and in all probability , i am apt to conjecture and not without ground , either he hath lost some intimate ( in the havock as he scandalously terms it ) or his bowels of compassion , are strongly towards that party , because he always expresses their suffering with great reluctancy , and his negative arguments which are for them , are the strongest . but now the author again begins to lay his meaning more open , for ( he says they ( meaning the popish party ) may be any where , and his reason is , he says , persons of great quality have told him they will indure all shapes , exercise all prosessions ; they speak of one jesuit cried work for a cooper , another a shoe-maker , others read coats . ' its observed upon bringing the plot to light all the little french men with their marionetts , and puppit-showes , vanished , which gave suspicion , they were agents for the faction . i do now , doctor , plainly preceive why he is so angry with you , for now it appears , much of his loss this discovery of this hellish plot hath brought upon him , for it seems these persons were of his acquaintance , otherwise he could not have been so well knowing of their hard condition : and truly i think he may cry work for a tinker , for instead of stopping one hole he hath made many , but for the matter , he not charging it upon you , i need not give you the trouble of answering it , only let me observe this to you , that although at most the author can and does make no more of these assertions but hear-says , and no body knows from whom nor can well guess , for it s not to be presumed that any persons of quality ( but such as are in prison for the plot ) use such company , yet he takes it for a granted truth and makes use of it to be a ground-work for what follows , which he tells you , doctor , shall be supported upon your authority ( for you still must come in to help the lame dog over the stile ) with respect to the validity of your testimony , and weight of your observations , you having dived deeper into it than any other . alas , poor gentleman he is forced to speak truth sometimes against his will , but his truths and fallacies do not make good musick , in wise mens eares , no more than his musick did in olivers , and i am sure he hath not ; and believe he cannot make any further discovery of this plot by any thing by you published ; nay , it s without all contradiction , absolute nonsense , that a discovery can be made out of a discovery , for without all peradventure a discovery must and doth imply new fact , otherwise it s no discovery . then the author tells you , that that part of the design against his majesties life broke to all intents and purposes ; but we are beholden to you , for the discovery of other and further plots in defaming the king and government , subversion of our established religion and disturbance of the peace , so that our deliverance is but half done . i stand amazed with what considence he dares write such things , but as the proverb there is , is none so bold as blind bayard , for his so that our deliverance is but half done , is his and none of your's , and what you have done is meerly making known matter of fact , and that long since and only as to one plot. and besides , doctor , had he considered the whole truth of the fact , as to that part of this hellish plot ; that the same hands attempted his sacred majesties life beyond-sea ; that 's its strongly to be presumed mr. killigrues man that was murthered at windsor on his majesties couch , was by the same hands , and intended his majesty ; that although the gun is taken that pickering should have made use of for that purpose , yet neither coniers , nor his dagger , nor the ruffians , nor many others you have in your depositions charged , are , that the contrivance was as well beyond-sea as at home , and that since your discovery of , mr. dugdale , mr. balldron , mr. jennison , mr. danger-field , and others ( which daily come in ) have severally deposed that at several places and times , and by divers persons they have been accosted to be hired to undertake to attempt it . methinks the consideration of these things which have undeniable truths should make him blush , for that by broaching such falsities amongst the subjects to delude them , he may make them neglectful and careless in the preservation of his majesties life , in which they have so much and great an interest ; but i only mention this , doctor , as it is to me a clear demonstration of the contrivance , and often repetition of the jesuites and their parties ; indeavouring to put in execution , their hellish design against his majesties person whom god preserve . then he repeats part of your narrative , wherein you , doctor , as he says , mention some circumstantial actions the jeuites do , in order to the facilitating this their impious design ; which is , by making and promoting differences between the king and his people , and the king and forraign princes , and the like ; and amongst the people in case their design as to his majesties life , took effect , that they might be ready to rise up in arms against one another ; and then in a glorying manner the author tells you , we have found your observations in these particulars , so punctually true , that every syllable is the matter now in agitation ( as thus , ) not a day without a libel upon his majesties authority , belieing the condition of his affairs , indeavouring to create distrusts and jealousies amongst forraign princes and states by false intelligence , animating and exciting turbulent factions , anticipating confederacies , involving us in blood upon a remote and vndutiful supposition of the kings death , sedition preached as well as written , our conventicles both instructed themselves , and instructing others in the methods and principles of rebellion ; this , he says , may suffice for your judgment upon these things , which look liker a revelation than a conjecture . i know not , doctor , who the author means by we ; for my part , i think no man in his right senses can close with him in his finding , for as i said before , yours are not observations but only matters of fact , and those charged upon the jesuites and their party . but if there are any such libells holding forth those particulars he mentions , but as much as his own , from any man or , from any society of men , i am very clear in my opinion with all humble submission to the governors and government , the authors may well be suspected to promote the design , and may deserve to be called in question and punished for them , according to their demerits . and the rather as to him because he hath the boldness in capital letters , and of remark to call it , a remote and undutiful supposition of his majesties death . if this be not a giving the lie to the representatives of the commons of the nation , affirming their credit of your's and other's evidence in that particular , by their vote ; that if his majesty ( which god forbid ) should dye a violent death , they would revenge it on the papists , and this concurred with by the house of peers ; but these are such small and minute things in mr. le strange's consideration , he can easily pass them by , as an evident and undeniable proof of his natural veneration of the government , and his true son-ship to the church of england . but as to the preachings he talkes of ; ( if amongst those he means under the term fanaticks ) when he can name the persons , i hope i may without offence say , the persons charged or some body for them , will give an answer , satisfactory to the governours , government , and the world ; in the mean time i believe no man of understanding will credit it upon his bare and general assertion . and because mr. l'estrange , as may be supposed , did apprehend these things had not been sufficient to finish his intended fabrick , and that his pamphlet , he makes some further repetition of part of your preface to your narrative , in reference to the late troubles : as , that the jesuitical party were the contrivers of the last war , by their known diabolical art of inslaming parties and passions against each other , and addressing to the king ; of his majesties royal fathers unspeakable sufferings , and barbarous usage : it was those brought him to his end , stourished swords and trumpets over his dead body ; the putney projectors were in most , if not all the councils that contrived his ruine . what broke the uxbridge treaty , but the romish interest and policy ? who contrived to baffle all designs of peace and settlement to this nation , prosperity to his majesties family , but them ? milton was a known frequenter of a popish club. who more forward to set up cromwel , and crown him with the king's crown than papists ? his government was contrived by a priest , and lambert , a papist , for above thirty years . from whence he concludes in this point , he says , a man may without loss of honour believe you to be in a mistake . i could wish he would have given some reason for it , that he might have received a more full answer , than otherwise can be given to it ; for although this is not , nor cannot be said or deposed by you , as an immediate part of your discovery of the present damnable plot , nor as any thing of your own knowledge , because all , or most of it was done before you were born , or at least , able to judge of things , yet by the access you had to the jesuits memoirs , when admitted amongst them , you found those things ( except the addresses to the king ) which made good those assertions ; and you report it only as such , and yet with such demonstrable circumstances as might easily gain a credit , as to the truth of them , with any man that is a dissenter from the church of rome , and is not such a son of the church , as dives and his brethren were ( as they were lately proved by a learned and reverend doctor ) who were not to be convinced but by an angel , or some immediate revelation from heaven ; but as that was denied them , so i believe , it will be these , since they will not believe that , which in my apprehension , comes very near it : but in truth , to me it seems obvious and plain , that the author hath made a very ample and full discovery of himself in his said pamphlet , but not of you , doctor , nor of any further discovery of your revealed plot ; for by his own shewing , and as the truth is , you charge all our miseries , mediately or immediately , upon the papists , and he affirms you are mistaken . now on which side can it rationally be judged he is ? the next thing he chargeth in fact , is in your page 8. touching blundel 's teaching of youth treasonable doctrines against his majesty : page 25. ashby 's sending new messengers into scotland to promote commotions there , and inform them of the tyranny they lay under , by being denied liberty of conscience , not to be procured without the sword , by which means they should weaken the presbyterian and episcopal faction , and you heard the words , and two messengers were sent into scotland with instructions to carry themselves like nonconformist ministers , to preach necessity of taking up the sword , which you saw dispatched . now observe his several inferences from hence ; first says he , take notice here is a design for the destruction of the king , and embroyling of the government . i admit it him in terms and literally , but if he hath any equivocal or fallacious meaning i cannot . secondly , he says , the pretence of the quarrel is matter of liberty and conscience ; that is an absolute mistake for it 's but a circumstantial engine so prepared and wrought by the jesuits to carry on their grand design by dividing and weakning their opposing party . thirdly , he says , it 's to be promoted by popish emissaries in the councils of the non-conformists : it is the first time , and i believe cannot be seconded , that ever the non-conformists had any councils , and as to their being in the conventicles , as to the charge it 's only by you said to be in scotland ; but admit it in england too , it is not nor cannot be charged originally upon them , but meerly accidentally and contingently as the jesuites and their agents could prevail , whereof i am satisfied if the author could have found but half an instance to make it good , it 's not to be doubted with his ingenuity he would have stretched it to an whole one , if not more for the good of the cause he hath so visibly by his pamphlet espoused . fourthly , he says , by making interests with the separatists under disguise of teachers ; this is answered in the last . but fifthly , lastly , and remarkably , he says , that you charge none of the church of england . what yet more blindness ? was it possible for the jesuits and their party to carry on their several designs in the late times , without some of the church of england-members being concerned in it ; he , nor any man can say , that there was not members of the church of england on both sides in those unhappy wars . but by this you may plainly see what he drove at by saying , you were mistaken as to those times : for he could not have otherwise come off from his assertion , that you charged not the members of the church of england , though he assumes to say , he hath perused and considered all your works , as to that particular ; yet he hath not rightly judged of them ; and although it be apparently the design of the author to put a variance and division between those that are dissenters from , and those who are members of the church of england : i know it s none of yours , nor shall be mine ; for i take the healing way in that case best , and therefore shall not give any further instances therein than may serve to disprove him . but mr. roger taking his mistaken inference from thence for granted , he draws as erroneous a conclusion , yet very positively , that you have altogether cleared the church of england and her sons , from the calumny of being either mediately , or immediately guilty of this horrid plot. but as i said before , doctor , you have not in the least in the whole scope of your discovery shewed your self partial , by charging , or sparing this , or that man , that is within your knowledge guilty , because he is of this or that party , or faction , as may plainly appear by what is aforesaid . then mr. l'estrange says , it must not be any longer a supposition , which you have given oath for : so that , saith he , taking it for granted , there is such a project on foot , the papists are in the bottom of it , and it s promoted by the sectaries ; the question is , how the government may discriminate the protestants from the papists , being blended in their interests , as well as in their councils , and not easily distinguished : but the legal expedient is the oaths of allegiance and supremacy ; yet that will not do , for many papists will take them , and many that call themselves protestants , will absolutely refuse them . i agree it to be true , that what is judicially proved ought not , nor cannot be esteemed a supposition ; but then it must , and ought to be taken litterally , and not with a strained or remote construction , contrary to the deponents words , intent , or meaning ; for though it may be taken for granted there is such a project on foot , and the papists in the bottom of it , yet is it not to be so , that the sectaries promote it from any thing you have sworn , but that the jesuitical party have endeavoured to blow up sectaries ( so called ) into a division amongst themselves , and with others the dissenting party from the church of rome , thereby to lessen and abate the strength of them , is litterally agreeable with the words of your depositions afore-cited by him , that thereby they might weaken both the presbyterian and episcopal faction , it 's not in the least to be questioned , or doubted , but that the jesuites , or their party , are knowingly and willingly the contrivers and carriers on of this horrid plot. but that the dissenters from the church of england are in any part of it , is both to be questioned and doubted , and the rather , for that neither by yours , nor any others testimonies is it so proved , nor from thence can be inferred , without a violent , or at least , strange construction : and for my part , i do not at all know , or suspect that any one true member of the church of england , is , or will in the least joyn with the jesuitical party in it ; but do hope both they and the dissenters from them will unite to defend his sacred majesty , and the government from it . then he tells you , the law is general in that case , there is no relaxation , the law takes not notice of honesty , but obedience : and this rule , he says , holds in common as well to the papists , as to the protestant recusants : with something more to the same purpose ; but truly , i think , to very little purpose ; for , as i take it , those statutes he cites , are by their title , preamble and body , only and litterally against the popish recusants . for the dissenters he talks of , or the greater part of them were not then publickly in being , nor in the least mentioned in any of them , and if so , i think they cannot be concerned . but that being under the construction of a power above me , i shall not be positive in it , or determine it . then he rivets this , he thinks , by saying , but what if it be said , that it is not the thing sworn , but the oath it self that is scrupled at ? this he tells you , doctor , is nice , and unhappy to those that are so strait-laced , and from thence he infers , its dangerous to the government , for it lets in all the priests and jesuits in nature under that colour ; for they will all flow in thither , ( that is , amongst the dissenters from the church of england ) for shelter , and carry on their designs without trial or danger . is not this most incomparable jugling ? he can blow hot and cold at his pleasure , an excellent artist ; for observe , when he had some trouble of spirit upon him for the papists sufferings upon this hellish plot , and to take off the edge of the magistrate , and the opinion of the people , as to the further and severe prosecuting of it , that there might not be any more havock made with them , then there was not a papist to be seen , they were invisible ; but now when the tables must be turned upon the dissenters to the church of england , then because of some of the dissenters scruplesomeness in swearing , his opinion is changed ; for now there is a great deal of danger he says ; but if you will believe the author before , it must be of no body , or at least , so few , that they are not worth the looking after , but one to three thousand , if so much ; so here is mr. roger against mr. l' estrange : and indeed i take the author's inference from hence to be altogether foreign and remote from your words or meaning in your deposition , or the truth of the case ; for though your deposition in fact is true , and common experience joyns with you in it , that the jesuits and their party are so active , that they will , if possible , thrust themselves into any society of men , to try their skill in disturbance of governments ▪ and carry on their design , yea , even as well where there are dissenters from the church of england , as where there are none ; and according to what he said , equally safe to themselves . now to conclude all , he tells you , doctor , it must be granted , that either the papists have a design upon the king , religion and government , and advance it by acting the parts of quakers , anabaptists , presbyterians and other sectaries , or not ; and admitting your deposition to be true , there can be no security to this government , without either dissolving all seperate meetings , or bringing in all dissenters to this legal test , otherwise the papists have all sorts of liberty and security in herding themselves amongst conventiclers ; where upon the beating of a bush , it will be an even wager whether you start a jesuit , or a fanatick ; and in this case there is not much difference between them , where the jesuit plays the fanatick , or the fanatick the jesuit : and then says , if this main assertion be true , there is no way of finding out the papists but by this test ; and dissenters cannot chuse but incourage the proposition , either they have priests amongst them , or not ; if they have , why do they not the best they can to find them out ; if not , why do they say they have ? either they are influenced by the jesuits , or not ; if they be , why do not they purge their congregations ? if not , why do they pretend they are , and so set the saddle on the wrong horse ? either its possible to clear their conventicles of this dangerous mixture , or not ; if so , why do they still complain , and do nothing in it ? if not , then there is no way to extirpate popery , but by rooting out fanaticism ; and then he calls to the world to judge with what injustice the orders and rituals of the church of england are charged with a tincture of superstition and popery , when the calumniators are tainted with this leaven : and then concludes , he is come to the bottom of the popish plot. i am sure a blind man would be glad to see it ; for i , that have both my eyes , can neither see top , middle , nor bottom of what he promised , of a further discovery of your discovered plot : and all he hath said i take to be but a meer groundless phantasm ; for in the beginning of his pamphlet he undertook a further discovery of the plot than you discovered ; and could you , or any other rational man have from thence expected , or looked for any thing else but some new matter , and clearly made out , and evinced either by authentick testimony , or undeniable arguments ? but instead thereof he hath spoiled three or four sheets of paper , by stuffing them full of strained and wrested constructions of , and inferences from some part of your depositions and observations , many manifest contradictions , and apparent mistaken conclusions thereupon . nevertheless , to do him what right i can , perchance if you take not his litteral expression , but his mystical meaning , i am perswaded you will go nigh to judge , he hath made , or really intended to make a further discovery of a plot , but not the plot you have discovered : for if you well and seriously observe the subject matter of his discourse and arguments , and to what they tend , and add to it the time when this learned piece came forth , and compare it with the invented plots of the earl of castlemain , countess of powis , john gadbury , mrs. celier , &c. i may easily suppose , doctor , you may without any great stress readlly conjecture with whom he conversed , for what meridian this elaborate piece of his was calculated , and for whose use by its image and superscription , but the all-mighty providence having taken them in their own snares , both in those and other things hath thereby plainly proved to the world the manifest untruth of his assertions ; for although is be undeniably true what you have deposed , that the jesuits and their agents endeavoured to work amongst all parties whatsoever , nay , and by his own shewing , as he puts the case , they may be as secure amongst the members of the church of england , nay and more than the dissenters from the church of england ; for , although he says , because many of the dissenters will not take oaths , therefore there the jesuites &c. may hide themselves ; so also he says many of the jesuites and papists , will take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and so will the members of the church of england : if so , then what can hinder the jesuites &c. to herd and hide there ? into what confusion hath this author brought us , if all his suppositions be true , but certainly had the earl of castlemain , the countess of powis , john gadbury , mris. celier and their accomplices been of opinion that their security had lain amongst the dissenters to the church of england , they would not have been so injurious to them , as to have endeavoured to have turned the plot upon them , and besides its to all rational men a strange proof against this authors assertion in that particular ; for if the jesuites , &c. herd only amongst dissenters from the church of england , and they had been their fellow-conspirators or agents in the plot ; it could not be unknown to them , and then certainly there had not been such necessity as they conceived , to go about by desperate and false oaths , to make them either authors , abetters or contrivers of the plot ; and doth it not evidently and plainly demonstrate the contrary ? for had those assertions been true this author would have you , doctor , and the world believe in that particular , surely there had not needed a sham-plot , to bring the dissenters from the church of england into the real plot , for had it been true it might have been proved by other means , but yet to this day there is not one man of the dissenters from the church of england , come to my knowledge , that is either charged with , or detected of any such thing ; ( unless the authors bare word be to be taken for granted ) so that though the jesuites and priests have according to your depositions endeavoured to draw them in , yet have they not prevailed , for what appears ; so that for ought i can preceive its undeniable that the saddle was , and is upon the right horse , and then all his queries of if's or not's fall to the ground , and needs not any answer but what is before upon the like questions . but that the dissenters from the church of england have jesuites and priests actually amongst them , doth not by your's or any other deposition , proof or experience whatsoever appear , there is any , or if there be , that they have not wrought any influence at all upon them , or at least such an one as may from the government , merit a total extirpation , which the author strongly presses for , but i presume an healing plaister is better . but he having been heretofore accustomed to write new's-books , thought his book would not appear authentick or at least would not be vendable without an advertisment annexed to it ; which advertisment is indeed as much to the purpose , and coherent to the subsequent matter of his pamphlet as comes just to nothing , and truly he is so ingenious as to tell you so , for he says in the close of it that its forraign to the subject of his pamphlet , but more accomodate to the season . but for my part i think its forraign to both , for it is , that the subjects right of petitioning , hath been of late in such manner asserted , as if his majesty had no right of refusing ; and then answers it with some instances , from edward the third , to henry the eight , of granting and refusing ; i know not his author nor i believe he did not , for that assertion , for if he had certainly he would have named him . but if any one did so he was to blame , and was i suppose as much under a mistake as the author is in his pamphlet , and the subject matter of it ; for i take it to be undoubred , that the person or power that may be petitioned to , hath a power of granting and denying : as for instance ; if a party of his friends should in a petition to his majesty set forth according to their apprehension , his merits by his pamphlet and pray a reward for him , his majesty might refuse it , and on the other hand if you , doctor , and others by petition to his majesty , should set forth how he hath traduced his majesty , the government and the kings witnesses in his said pamphlet , and pray that the same , and he , might be left to the law to be punished according to their demerits , the same might and would be granted ; but in regard he could not , or at least would not make a further discovery of that damnable and hellish plot discovered by you ; give me leave to tell you , if he could have been convinced by any other evidence , or testimony , than dives and his brethren , how he might have done it , by publishing to the world , as the truth is , that the singer of god hath been in this discovery of your's throughout ; for it cannot proved , be that you , doctor , had the least advice or assistance of any one man , to guide or help you to contrive the way you took , and was to take , ( and that with eminent danger and vast hazard , and great difficulty ) for the making your self master of this discovery in less than a year . that you had not the least advice or assistance of any one man to help you to contrive the time , the way , and method how to publish this discovery to authority , but came barely and nakedly to it ; yea , and with a proof in your mouth , from those you were to discover , you nor any one else should be credited . that when many of the material measures you had proposed to your self , and depended upon to make good , and for the manifestation of your discovery ( as coleman's latter papers , langhorne's papers , the foreign pacquets ) were removed , and you deprived of them , and by reason thereof barely stood as a single witness , and inevitable ruine and destruction ghastly and grimly staring in your face , yet your spirits were supported , and you not at all discouraged from sticking to the truth . but then the jesuitical party being infatuated , and raging with madness , must needs , to hide their villanies , as all notorious sinners commonly do , by committing another sin ; so did they by committing that barbarous and inhumane murther of sir edmundbury godfrey , which proved otherwise than they designed it ; for instead of suppressing the discovery of the plot , it did , as it were give a new life to what you had delivered . then doubtless , moved by the same spirit you were , did not the then representatives of the nation unanimously by their votes testifie their credit of your evidence ? then by the same hand apparently were sent in , to your assistance and confirmation , mr. bedlow , mr. dugdale and many others , who have proved many other particulars , and concurred in the general to a tittle with you . that until you , and the rest of the witnesses in this hellish and damnable plot , had been made use of at a publick trial , you did not converse , or associate with one another , as can be proved by a multitude of authentick witnesses , so far as is provable in a negative ; and i am confident cannot be proved in the affirmative . that not any two of you that are the king's witnesses in that plot , or any part of it ; were of any familiarity or acquaintance , before your being ingaged in that business , and you all lived remote from one another ; and although you do not all swear to the same particulars , yet do concurr in the whole , as to the generality of the plot. that not any one of them but your self ( who for some short time was under a necessity to counterfeit your self a papist . ) these things , doctor , i only mention to put you in mind by what hand , you , as i conceive , have been supported in this discovery , and to shew you according to my apprehension , what improbability , nay , i may say , impossibility , there is , that this discovery of yours , of this hellish plot , is in the least any thing of an invention , or contrived design by you , but is pure matter of fact , and of undeniable verity , and not to be so slighted , as that invention of beddingfields , being alive again . all which i was prompted to , as i conceived as a duty incumbent upon me , upon and by the obligation of the loyalty i truly owe to my natural prince , the real veneration i have for the government and true christian religion , and justice of the nation , the cordial love i have to my faithful fellow-subjects , and my profess'd and faithful friendship to your self ; and therefore keep up your spirits , and be not dismayed , or in the least discouraged ; for it is my opinion , and i hope not without good grounds , and presume i may with reverence , and without offence say it ( unless to the tender ears of some captious masquerade and strange sons of the church of england ) that god will neither forsake you , nor this cause , but in despite of all opposition will therein glorifie himself , and in truth set up the kingdom of his son. but give me leave to tell you my judgment , that if this author's assertions and arguments your cordial friend , b. w. finis . the doctor degraded, or, the reward of deceit being an account of the right perfidious and perjury'd titus oates, who recieved [sic] sentence at the kings-bench-bar, at westminster the 16th day of may, 1685. 1685 approx. 7 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a36193 wing d1760 estc r1104 12264975 ocm 12264975 57996 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a36193) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 57996) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 181:6) the doctor degraded, or, the reward of deceit being an account of the right perfidious and perjury'd titus oates, who recieved [sic] sentence at the kings-bench-bar, at westminster the 16th day of may, 1685. england and wales. court of king's bench. 1 sheet ([1] p.) : ill. printed by george groom ..., london : 1685. partially in verse. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng oates, titus, 1649-1705 -trials, litigation, etc. popish plot, 1678. broadsides -england -17th century. 2008-05 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-09 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-11 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-11 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the doctor degraded ; or the reward of deceit : being an account of the right perfidious , and perjury'd titvs oates ; who recieved sentence at the kings-bench-bar , at westminster the 16th day of may , 1685. on saturday the 16th day of may 1685. titus oates , being then brought to the kings-bench-bar , westminster , about a 11 of the clock by a strong guard , my lord chief justice and others of his brethren being on the bench , was called ; the attorney general , craved judgement of the court against titus oates , for his perjuries ; oates craved time till monday , but it was denied him ; then the right honourable the lord chief justice proceeded to declare the heinousness of his crime . saying , it was formerly , by the law of this land , punishable with death . and after that , being somewhat moderated , the penalty was , to have the parties tongue cut out . and being yet farther taken into consideration , the punishment was left to the discretion of the court. so they proceeded not to life or member , notwithstanding his lordship said he had consulted with all the judges of england , and that they were unanimously of opinion , that the power was in the court to proceed to any sentence under that restriction ; and having in a most emphatical speech , from point to point , related the matter at large , his lordship left the pronounciation of the sentence to judge withens , who told the prisoner , that his nature was compassionate , and that he delighted not in passing sentence on his fellow here stand i for perjury depiction of titus oates in the pillory creatures ; yet in case of such a crime , he must confess he did it without remorse , and having further expressed himself in detestation of the prisoners offence , and eloquently discoursed it at large , he was pleased to pronounce the following sentence , viz. fined on each indictment 1000 marks . that on munday the 18th of this instant he walk about westminster hall , with a paper upon his forehead , mentioning his crime : and afterwards stripp'd of his canonical habit , stand upon and in the pillory before the hall gate between the hours of 11 and one , for the space of an hour to stand . tuesday the 19th . at the royal exchange . wednesday the 20th . to be whip'd from aldgate to newgate . friday the 22d . from newgate to tyburn . aug. the 9th to stand at westminster . august , the 10th at charing-cross . august the 11th at temple-bar . september the 2d at the royal exchange . aprill the 24th 1686. to stand in the pillory at tyburn , facing the gallows . to lie in gaol during life . and to stand annually in the pillory , august the 9th . at westminster . august the 10th at charing-cross . august the 11th at temple-bar . september , the 2d at the royal exchange . o cruel fate ! why art thou thus unkind , so wavering and unconstant in thy mind , to turn ( like weather-cocks ) with every wind ? did'st thou not once make oates thy favourite , thy only darling , and thy dear delight ? and mounted him upon thy wings so high , that he could almost touch the very skie , and now must oates stand in the pillory ? there to be battered so with rotten eggs , both on the face , the body and the legs , that he will wish himself in hell for ease , and beg as beggars do for bread and cheese , that oates might not be thresh'd as men do pease . and must he too ( when once he has stood there ) be sent to ride upon the three-leg'd-mare ? zouns what 's the meaning of it with a pox ? is that the way to pay his christmas-box ? was he not once the saviour of the nation , and must he be contemn'd and out of fashion ? call'd perjur'd rogue and slighted be by all , and toss'd about just like a tennis-ball . what if he did forswear himself a little , must his sweet bum be rubb'd thus with a nettle ? o fie ! 't is not well done to rob the spittle . but 't is in vain i see to mourn for oates , for if we roar until we split our throats , we cannot help the poor distressed thing ; no hopes to get a pardon of the king , therefore he must endure his suffering . indeed ( if to lament would do him good ) then we would weep that's to be understood : but , my beloved brethren in the lord , that cannot keep him from a hempen-cord , or from his peeping through a two-inch-board . and so 't is needless that we vex or fret , god's holy will be done , we must submit . however let poor oates be brisk and bonny ( long as he lives ) he shall not want for money , for to his hive we 'll bring both wax and honey . yet ( if he should be hang'd and die that way ) oates will spring up again at judgment day , altho there will not be a bit of hay . but 't is a great disgrace that o brave oates ( the rampant doctor of religious plots ) is not ( in state ) promoted up on high ; the just reward of bloudy perjury . yet he 's no coward , fearing to be halter'd , unless of late his courage should be alter'd : fight dog , fight bear , he values not a fig , he always was and e'er will be a whigg , and stand up for the cause we know full well , tho he were sure almost to go to hell. therefore if he be hang'd , and in a cart carried to tyburn , what cares he a fart , at last the dearest friends of all must part. and now beloved brother oates adieu , altho this story looks a little blue , yet what i wrote of thee is very true. london , printed by george groom , at the sign of the blue-ball in thames-street , over against baynard's-castle . 1685 notes upon stephen college grounded principally upon his own declarations and confessions, and freely submitted to publique censure / by roger l'estrange. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1681 approx. 101 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 28 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47895 wing l1281 estc r7200 12920163 ocm 12920163 95363 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47895) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 95363) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 986:23) notes upon stephen college grounded principally upon his own declarations and confessions, and freely submitted to publique censure / by roger l'estrange. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. [4], 48 p. printed for joanna brome ..., london : 1681. reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng colledge, stephen, 1635?-1681. popish plot, 1678. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-11 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2003-12 rina kor sampled and proofread 2003-12 rina kor text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion notes upon stephen college . grounded principally upon his own declarations and confessions , and freely submitted to publique censure . by roger l'estrange . london , printed for ioanna brome ; at the gun at the west-end of st. pauls church-yard , 1681. to the reader . it is not the part of a christian , nor indeed of a man , to insult upon the miserable , either in their memories , or in their persons : beside that the criminal here in question has already satisfied publique iustice , and is gone to his place to receive according to his works . this does not hinder yet , but that a man may honestly endeavour the putting of a check to those clamorous out-crys that are daily sent forth against the government upon this occasion ; as if the whole business of college were only a perjurious combination of papists against protestants , in the person of that wretched malefactor ; and the protestant religion to stand or fall with the protestant joyner , it is the intent now of these papers , to lay open the malice , and the falshood of these calumnies : not so much for the vindication of the proceeding , as for the disabusing of the common people ; for the best argument for authority is the reason of the laws ; and in these cases the vigorous execution of them upon the seditious , is the only effectual remedy . it is not that i pretend to illustrate the iustice of the court , or of the verdict , by any additional remarques of my own , but effectually ( upon other grounds and evidences ) to bring the offender to a new hearing ; wherein i shall remit my self to the iudgment and conscience of any indifferent reader , whether there be not matter sufficient , from whence fairly to infer , and to presume him guilty of the most material parts of his accusation , even without the aid of anything that was produc'd against him at his tryal . as for those that are curious to be more particularly inform'd , i must refer them to the printed tryal it self ; and so i shall close up my preface with my lord chief justices opinion upon the verdict . lord chief iustice ( to the pris'ner . ) these things when i look upon them , and consider the complexion of your defence , it makes an easie proof have credit . but i think there was a full proof in your case ; yet i say , if there had been a great deal less proof , the jury might with justice have found you guilty . and because you now declare your self innocent of all you are charged with , i think my self bound to declare here in vindication of the country , and in vindication of the justice of the court , that it was a verdict well given , and to the satisfaction of the court , and i did not find my brothers did dislike it . this i say to you out of charity , that you may incline your mind to a submission to the justice that hath overtaken you , and that you may enter into charity with all men , and prepare your self for another life . notes upon stephen college . §. 1. the proceeding against college represented as a design against the protestant religion . the main stress of the cause here in controversie , lies upon a pretended zeal for religion , and in such a manner too , as if the very name of a protestant were a supersed as for a traytor , and an exemption from the ordinary methods of law and iustice. [ this design ( says college ) is not only against me , but against all the protestants . trayal , p. 5. ] and again [ this is a most horrid conspiracy to take away my life ; and it will not stop here ; for it is against all the protestants in england . ibid. p. 6. ] [ 't is time to have a care ( says aaron smith ) when our lives and estates and al are beset here . ibid. p. 13. ] [ my lord ( says college again ) i do not question but to prove this one of the hellishest conspiracies that ever was upon the face of the earth : and these the most notorious wicked men ; an absolute design to destroy all the protestants in england , that have had the courage to oppose the popish plot. ibid. p. 36. ] and then in his last speech , [ i am as certainly murder'd by the hands of the papists as sr. edmundbury godfrey himself was , though the thing is not seen . ] and once again in his other speech , printed for edith college , [ i dye ( says he ) by the hands of the enemies of the great god , his christ , his servants , his gospel , and my country , to which i willingly submit , and earnestly pray mine may be the last protestants blood that murdering church of rome may shed in christendom . ] it is no wonder if the ringing of this emphatical reflection [ the blood of protestants ; a design upon all the protestants of england , &c. over and over in the ears of the multitude , create unquiet thoughts , and work some extraordinary effects upon the minds of the common people . it will be well therefore to ask stephen college what he means by that protestant religion that is so much endanger'd ; and who and where those papists are , upon whom he charges this hellish conspiracy : for we have none as yet in sight that can fall within the compass of his challenge ; but his majesty himself , and the ordinary ministers of iustice acting according to the known laws , and in the regular methods of iudicial proceedings . now upon a due examination of this matter , there will be found a great difference betwixt colleges protestants , and ours ; and betwixt our papists and his : so that the snare lies in the double acceptation of the word , by which they labour to impose upon the world , that the schismatiques are the only true-protestants , and those of the church of england , in a confederacy against them with the papists : but we shall take colleges religion as he has deliver'd it with his own lips ; and gather from thence what may be the cause , and the profession that he contends for . §. 2. the meaning of colleges protestants . i was ever a protestant ; ( says college ) i was born a protestant ; i have liv'd so , and so , by the grace of god , i 'le dye : of the church of england , according to the best reformation of the church , from all idolatry , from all superstition , or any thing that is contrary to the gospel of our blessed lord and saviour . colleges last speech . in this clause he declares himself upon his death , to be a protestant of the church of england , according to the best reformation , &c. now there is no church of england but that which is established by law , both in doctrine and discipline ; unless you will make the dissenting protestants , to be assenters , and consenters ; and feake's , owen's , ralphson's , baxter's , meade's , ienkins's separate congregations to be severally the church of england ; which no man certainly in his right wits will pretend to do . so that either he dy'd a true son of the established church of england , according to the genuine import of the expression ; ( and as most manifestly he would have it thought , he did ) or else his design was to go off with a desperate equivocation betwixt his teeth , if he was any other than what he pretended to be : and it comes all to a case , as to the truth of his profession , whether ye take him the one way , or the other . there may be another note upon it , which is , that he would give to understand by this profession that he had always liv'd , and that now he dy'd , the same sort of protestant ; which is a point-blank-contradiction to that which now follows . upon the sheriffs desiring him , for the satisfaction of the world , to declare what church he meant ; whether presbyterian , or independent , or the church of england ; or what ? his answer was [ good mr. sheriff , for your satisfaction , for twenty years and above , i was under the presbyterian ministry , till his majesties restauration . then , i was conformable to the church of england , when that was restor'd ; and so continu'd , till such time as i saw persecution upon the dissenting people , and undue things done in their meeting-places . then i went among them , to know what kind of people those were ; and i take god to witness , since that time i have used their meetings , viz. the presbyterians ; others very seldom , and the church of england . last speech . by this it appears that college was a presbyterian before the late rebellion , as well as quite thorough it . he saies nothing , what brought him over to the church of england at last ; but that it was the persecution of the dissenters that carried him off again : and yet he told us but just before , that he was of that reformation which was freest from superstition and idolatry ; though there was nothing of that we see in this pretended cause of his relapse . the remainder of this paragraph is mysterious , and perplext ; and there is too much reason to fear that it was intricated on purpose that he might be vnderstood one way , and mean another . but however , if there be any thing to be made out of it at all , it is , that he dy'd of the presbyterian persuasion . i would not force any thing , to discredit the words of a dying man ; but if any man can reconcile this passage , either to it self , or with several other expressions of his in prison , some two or three days before his death , they will do him a kind , and a charitable office ; for i must confess , i cannot bring them to any sort of consistence . a matter of two or three days before his execution , two divines of eminent piety and worth , gave the prisoner a visit , and among other discourses suitable to his condition , and the occasion , it was ask'd him , q. what church are ye of ? a. of the church of england . q. as by law establish'd ? a. no , i am not . q. how d' ye mean the church of england then ? a presbyterian ? a. no. q. an independent ? a. no. q. an anabaptist ? a. no. q. a quaker ? a. no. q. where 's that church in christendom then , that you will own your self a member of ? a. that 's to my self ; i will not tell ye . and he gave at another time his reason for 't . if it were known ( saith he ) what church i am of , my faults would be laid upon my whole church . how does this agree now with his profession at the place of execution ? or where shall we find that individuum vagum of colleges protestant ? there were some circumstances concerning my lady rochester , of which hereafter ; and others grounded upon the information of a somerset-shire gentleman , that have prevail'd upon many people to take him for a papist , which information runs thus . that the informant lodging at the house of one p. a victualler in wich-street , in michaelmas term , 1677. there came into the room where he was ( upon a sunday in the evening ) a certain person who was called by the name of college ; and sitting down there , enter'd into a discourse concerning the lord of rochester , whereupon the informant told college that he heard the lady rochester was turn'd papist ; who thereupon demanded , what he meant by a papist ? to which he answer'd , one that maintain'd the tenents of the church of rome , mentioning some of them ; as purgatory , prayers to saints , &c. whereupon the other undertook to defend the said tenents , and with great vehemence told him , that he would bring him books the next day that should overthrow all arguments to the contrary : and told him farther , that his name was gollege , and not college ; and that he had wrought for my lord of rochester at eumore : but the informant never saw him before , nor since , only his landlord told him that he was a joyner , and liv'd at the back-side of his house . colleges answer to this point was , that he believ'd this might be his brother , who was a ioyner by trade , and dy'd a papist , in october , 1678. he wrote his name gollege ; lodg'd near wich street , and ( as he conceiv'd ) had done work for my lord rochester at eumore ; which seems to have been the ground of that mistake . beside that , college had several times confess'd that he had strong and frequent impulses on his spirit against popery : insomuch that if he did but see any book in defence of it , he would prefently set all his work aside to get it answer'd ; declaring himself also against it at the place of execution , in these words , [ i do with all my soul , and did ever since i knew what religion was , abhor and detest the church of rome , as pernicious and destructive of humane society . ] i shall leave it now to the readers choice whether a papist , or not ? although for my part , i am strongly persuaded of the negative ; but what kind of protestant to make of him , we are yet to seek . we shall see next how he stood affected to the church of england ; but so as to separate his opinions from his practices , which are reserv'd for another place . he received his sentence , aug. 18. and suffer'd upon the 31. in this interim the bishop of oxford provided all that was possible for his relief and consolation , with infinite compassion and honour ; appointing several eminent pious and learned divines to administer unto him in his distress . the reverend dr. marshal went to him first , who being call'd away by bus'ness , dr. hall supply'd his place , from whose hand he receiv'd the blessed sacrament soon after his sentence ; but his devotion-duties were still distracted with some interjected excursions of his own ; and he was heard to say , that as he did not disdain the prayers of the church , so he did not delight in such prayers , neither could he joyn heartily with those that did not pray by the spirit . it was observed by one of these reverend gentlemen that assisted him , that when he came to the prayers for the king , queen , and the bishops , instead of amen , he said lord have mercy upon them , though he joyn'd in an amen to all the rest . two days before his execution , one of them desir'd him to prepare himself for the holy eucharist , to whom he return'd this answer . it is no more than a shell and form of your own making ; as if i eat a piece of bread , and drank a glass of wine , and at the same time remember'd my saviour . in this manner he refus'd it : nor would he suffer this gentleman to pray with him at all upon the day of his execution ; declaring that nothing gave him satisfaction but extemporary prayer . the doctor administer'd to him by the liturgy , and so did dr. marshal pray with him likewise ; but still he would have sallies also of his own . little schismatical ianeway tells a long story , ( and against himself too ) ( num. 42. ) where he says that college was urg'd with divers arguments to make a publique confession ; whereas it was only propounded to to him to confess , conditionally , and not absolutely , as he maliciously represents it . true it is , that he gave hopes at first of some tractable inclinations toward the entertainment of the liturgy ; but upon munday morning there was found with him a certain unknown quaker ; and from that time till the next wednesday ( the day of his execution ) he was harden'd against all attempts ; and this obstinacy of his was said to arise from a suggestion of the quakers , that without dashing the credit of those witnesses , the protestant cause would be in danger to be lost . he press'd very earnestly that titmarsh , the preaching-anabaptist-tanner , might come and pray with him ; and he was privately sent for , but not suffer'd to come at him . you have here an account of the protestant-ioyners religion from his own lips , which is resolv'd at last into a meer enthusiastical whimsie . the quaker pleases him ; the anabaptist pleases him ; and yet he is neither the one nor the other , nor a presbyterian ; nor an independent ; nor a church-of-england-man , and yet a friend to all but the right ; and conciliable even to those opinions that are yet at an inconciliable variance one with another . let the reader now determine under these circumstances , whether that protestant persuasion that makes such a noise in this controversie , be a religion or a faction ; or how it is possible either to destroy or to defend that religion which is no where to be found . §. 3. what is meant by the papists in conspiracy against colleges protestants . the protestant ioyner has left us at a great loss in the fore-going section , about the meaning of his protestant religion : but then he makes some amends for 't in telling us very plainly what he means by the papists . it is a part of his charge , that he reckon'd the church , the king , and all his adherents for papists ; and we have his own words and papers to prove every jot as much as that amounts to , even to the minutest circumstances of the accusation . [ this ( says he ) is not the first time , my lord , the papists have design'd to take away my life ; though it be the first time they went about to take it away by a law. tryal . p. 39. what is this now to say , but that the ordinary ministers of justice , in the orderly execution of their duties , are murtherers and papists ? and it is yet more explicitly set forth in the first section , as we have seen already . how often has he been heard , even in the presence of mr. harleton of st. pauls church-yard , to whom he appeals from mr. masters's evidence , that old rowly ( his cypher for the king ) was a papist ? and it was his common discourse in coffee-houses at a venture , as numbers of persons are able and ready to justifie , if need should require it . what 's the meaning of his drawing the king with two faces in his raree show , one towards popery , the other towards protestantism ? and the two houses at his majesties back , in a chest of rome ( as he calls it ) in the ballad ? what 's the meaning of the english clergy riding tantivy after a iesuite in another of his prints ? with these words of explanation , room for the church ? for rome boys : with this conceit at the church-door , out phanatiques ; in , popery : and the bishop of bath and wells personated in it , with a patch on his check , and the mark upon him of a church-papist ? or what say ye of the same bishop again , kissing the popes toe in another of his pieces , entitled hats for caps ; with the whole hierarchy in 't , making court to his holiness for preferment ? and then there 's the learned device of a scale to the papacy , 1. servitor . 2. pupil . 3. batchelors . 4 master . 5. priest. 6. doctor . 7. dean . 8. bishop . 9. cardinal . 10. pope . with these words to 't . [ the gradual way to make a pope infallibly : all done by the sign of the cross , and a little school conjuring . here 's abundantly enough to shew what , and who they are that he calls papists , without need of any other evidence or explication . but it will be said perhaps that these pictures , and especially the raree show are not yet prov'd to be colleges . §. 4. the libellous pictures , and particularly the raree show prov'd to be colleges . my lord , ( says college ) as to the papers charg'd upon me to be mine , i declare i know not of them . tryal . pag. 74. i cannot deny but that they were in my house ; but that i was the author , or did take them in , is as great a mistake as ever was made . ibid. i know nothing of the printing of them , nor was i the author of them . ibid. i do declare i know nothing of the original , the printer , nor the author . p. 75. there 's a great deal more of this stuff in the tryal , to the same purpose ; but i shall lay no hold of any thing he says in his defence , save where he confesses : but it will be allow'd , i hope , that some weight might be laid upon what he delivers in that which is publish'd under the title of a true copy of the dying words of mr. stephen college , left in writing under his own hand , and confirmed by him at the time of execution , aug. 31. 1681. at oxford , publish'd by his own relations , and printed for edith college . as to the printed papers ( says he ) which dugdaie produced in the court , i do declare , i never saw them , call'd the raree show , and intercepted letter [ in his hand ] before that time , ( the meaning of these words [ in his hand ] i do not understand ) and therefore could not , and did not decypher any of the pictures to him . it 's utterly false . i was not the author of those verses call'd the raree show , neither do i know who was , or the printer , or ever own'd my self the author of either of them papers to him in my life . now by this train of wild circumlocutions , a body would think that college had been wholly innocent of any hand in the promoting of that scurrilous and malicious libel , especially considering some passages of his in the other speech that was printed for t. basset . i take god to witness ( says he ) and do freely acknowledge , i have sought my god with tears several times , to inform me if so be i had with any word transgressed at any time . ] he does not find himself guilty it seems , of so much as one word amiss , but appears to purge himself upon his death , as to that particular , which naturally resolves into this conclusion ; that either he had nothing to do with that paper , or otherwise that he approv'd the design and contents of it , though one of the most insolent pieces of seditious ribaldry that ever saw the light . [ monstrous foul beast , thief , child of heathen hobbs . ] this is the language of the protestant ioyner to his sovereign . let the world judge by this of his religion , and of theirs too that side with him ; and in so doing , become abettors and partakers of his crimes . but we shall now make it as clear as the light it self , that he went off the stage with a sad account to answer for upon this very point . first , he own'd to mr. atterbury ▪ the messenger , all the papers that were found in his house to be his own , whereof the raree show was one ; telling him moreover , that if there was any treason in those papers , the wisest man in england was mistaken . and so says aaron smith in his paper of instructions to him at oxford . [ the raree show , &c. and the pictures are not treason . ] taking for granted that the raree-show , &c. would infallibly be made out against him . the design of this raree-show , drawn with a pencil upon dutch paper in black-lead , was found , it seems , lying upon his table , and afterwards mis-lay'd . so that college dodg'd them upon that point , at the tryal , and disown'd it in these words [ i am sure you could never find the original of any such thing in my house . ] but though this was a point-blank denial of a truth ; there is this to be said yet in extenuation of it , that his life was at stake , and he made the best of his plea. but this is no excuse yet for his double-dealing after his sentence , and upon the place of execution . he was interrogated in the castle some few days before he suffer'd , whether he did not with his own hand draw the design for the ballad of a raree-show ? and whether that very draught was not taken with the other prints , in his house ? his answer was , that he was neither the author of the verses or ballad , nor did he know either the author , or the printer . and then for the design , he bad them shew it ( knowing it to be lost ) and he would own it , if it were his . now to expound this riddle , 't is probable he did not know the author , nor the printer ; and yet it is clear that the first design was of his drawing ; and by him accommodated to the verses , without so much as knowing who was the poet. he might possibly deliver that draught also to have it cut , without knowing the graver ; as it is certain that he did deliver the verses to be printed , though perhaps without knowing the printer : and this does evidently appear from the testimony of the printer himself . the printer confesses and declares upon the sight of one of the papers found at colleges , that it was wrought at his press ; that he did it for franck smith , who told him that it was a merry ▪ ioking thing , but a truth ▪ which corresponds with the evidence , that college said it was [ as true as that gods in heaven . the printer informs likewise , that francis smith , upon the reading of the staves to him expounded them ; ( but without the picture ) and told him that there was a captain with a pack at his back , and that was the king ; and that he in the mire was the king ; and that he with the two faces was the king again ▪ and that it was a merry iocose thing , and had been sung before several lords at oxford : which particularities do punctually agree with the evidence against college , from whom undoubtedly franck smith receiv'd the manuscript ; and college , it seems , told smith no more upon this occasion , than what he had told before to other people . the book-seller , i find , knew well enough what he did too , being very earnest with the printer not to discover his name , but to say that he had the copy from a gentleman , to him unknown ; adding moreover these words [ a body may be troubled about it , but there 's no treason in it ▪ ] now after all that is said , lest it should be suggested that there 's no positive proof yet against college , that he had any thing to do with this libel , we shall now put that question out of all dispute . there was a paper of colleges intercepted , which upon examination he utterly deny'd at first ; but finding himself discover'd , he confess'd it . this was some few days before his execution . the paper here intended , was the speech , word for word , that was printed for edith college ; which being 〈◊〉 to the joynor , he acknowledg'd it to be of his own hand-writing ; and so is the manuscript also of the raree-show from whence that ballad was printed ; and i have the original at this instant by me , to satisfie any man that shall make a doubt whether or no it was of colleges writing . besides that , he sung the ballad in several places , and particularly at sir philip matthews's , at southcot , as divers persons of credit are ready to attest : and by the token that sir philip charg'd him to forbear , for he would not suffer any such thing in his house ; or to this effect . i cannot but deplore the infatuated blindness of this unhappy creature , that should now at his last extremity , instead of discharging his soul by a publique and sincere repentance , be troubling of his head with shifts and reservations , as if he were contriving how to cast a mist before the eyes of god and man ; and in a case so open too , that half an eye sees thorow it . and yet i cannot but have more charity for his endeavour to shuffle it off in the one speech , than for his saying just nothing at all of it in the other : unless as he has wrapt up the particular crimes for which he suffer'd , in his last general act of charity and confession . [ whomever i have of fended in word or deed , i ask every man's pardon ; and i forgive the world with all my soul all the injuries i have received ] this is the best that can be made on 't : and without large allowances for distraction of thought , and want of consideration , 't is more than a man can justifie . in basset's speech , he cannot so much as charge himself with any offensive word , though upon the scrutiny , he had sought the lord with tears for information . [ i as little thought ( says he ) to come to this as any man that hears me this day ; and i bless god , i have no more deserved it from the hands of men , than the child that sucks at his mothers breast , i bless god for it . ] now in the speech printed for edith college , he seems to contradict this , but it is in terms so entangled and dubious , that i must leave the reader to make his own ghess upon it , only recommending this to his observation ; that he speaks intelligibly enough in all other cases , but where either his religion , or his crime is the question : as for example , there be some other scandalous and malicious reports thrown upon me , as that i should own all that was sworn against me , except hains's evidence , and the like : to all which i have been examined by dr. marshal , whom the bishop of oxon did voluntarily send to me the day after i was condemned ; and that worthy and pious dr. hall , who came to me , and from whom i received the blessed sacrament on sunday last , to whom i did make the same confession and acknowledgment as i have here inserted ; particularly the which i do again affirm is truth , as i shall answer it to god almighty : only i did acknowledge as my fault , i did believe i might have been guilty on some occasions , and in heat of talk , to have uttered some words of indecency , not becoming my duty , concerning the king or his council ; and if so , i do beg their pardon . ] now the reader is left to his choice , whether to understand [ only ] as an exception to the truth of his confession , as who should say 't is all true but that ; or to take it for an acknowledgment , of having been intemperate that way : or otherwise , as a bare supposition , as if he had said , i do rather incline to think i might sometimes lash out that way ; but if i did , it was in a passion ; and if i ever did any such thing , i ask their pardon . so that here 's nothing clear and open , to answer , either the expectation of the world , or the duty of a person in his condition ; but only a wandring vein of ambiguity , and incoherence , to amuse the reader , and to perplex the period . or if it means any thing else , it bears only the countenance of a faint acknowledgment of a mildemeanor , in a direct contradiction to what he delivered by word of mouth at his death ; confirming the truth of what he confesses in the one paper , and denys in the other ( in his own words ) with his last b●eath , and sealing it with his dearest . blood. it is with great unwillingness that i have enter'd upon this office ; but since the faction has taken the freedom to arraign the justice of the nation , on the behalf of this pretended innocent , i reckon'd it my duty on the other hand , to expose in some measure the fraudulent practices of the pris'ner ; and i make no doubt but to evince unto any man whatsoever , that will but hear and attend common reason , that over and above the proofs and circumstances that appear'd at his tryal , there is in these sheets sufficient to make out the credibility of his accusation . but in my way to the main bus'ness , i shall give ye in the next section some short touches of his disingenuous proceedings in other cases . §. 5. colleges doublings and mistakes about the bus'ness of the lady rochester , and father thompson , and his entertainment of mr. sergeant . some notes upon the evidence of sir william jennings , and mr. masters , and his complaints of ill usage . i shall not charge my self with a critical dissection of all colleges disguises and mistakes , but make my observations upon such , and so many of them as may serve for a foundation to the reader , for some competent judgment upon the rest . and first to the report concerning the lady rochester . it pass'd for current here in the town , that the lady rochester , upon her death-bed declar'd that college was the man who first brought the priest to her , that perverted her to the faith of the church of rome ; which being a thing true in it self , is not unlikely to have been in such manner declar'd by the said lady ; but whether it was or was not so , it matters not . but this rumour however open'd all peoples mouths about the town , that college was a papist . upon his report , college , pretended to purge himself of that calumny , in both the speeches afore said formerly cited , and first in that of edith colleges , in these words , 't is reported i should be the occasion of perverting the lady rochester , and brought a priest to her ; one tomson , alias conyers : i deny it , all i did was at the request of the earl of rochester , who gave me a letter to deliver to him ; which i did , but knew not the contents ; neither did that lady report any such thing of me at her death . there be a great many other strange reports that i have heard since i have been a pris'ner ; that i should be a means to convert the countess of rochester , by bringing one thompson a priest to her . truly all that i was concern'd in , was some fifteen or sixteen years ago , i lodged at col. vernors , that married the lady brooks : the family were papists , the brooks's were papists , and there was this thompson ; and i did suppose him a priest in the house , though i never saw him at popish service , or worship , though i was there half a year ; but comeing afterwards to my lord rochester's , about some business i had to do for him , and several other persons of quality , he sent for me one afternoon from the parsonage in adderbury , to his house , and his lady and he stood together : he sent to me , and asked me if my horse were at home ? said he , i would have you carry this letter to mr. thompson , if you are at leisure this afternoon : my lord i am at leisure to serve you . so i took a letter from his hand , and his lady 's too , as i remember , ( he made an offer that way ) sealed with his own seal , and carried it to thompson , and deliver'd it to him , and he told me that he would wait upon my lord , for it was for some lands my lord did offer to raise money for some occasions . this is the truth of that scandal . note that in the former speech he says , all i did , was , &c. and in the other all that i was concern'd in , was , &c. and at the bottom [ this is the truth of that scandal . ] giving the reader to understand by this way of delivering himself , that he had spoken the truth , the whole truth , and nothing but the truth ; so help him god. now to confront these peremptory assertions of his , it is certain , that the day before the lady rochester fell sick , she said that college was a papist , in the hearing of several persons ; having said the same thing also before , publiquely at the table of a lady in that neighbourhood , as will be sufficiently attested by many people of unexceptionable credit , living near the place ; if the matter shall be in such sort question'd , as that it may be worth the while to prove it , and that the persons concern'd in the enquiry shall think fit to own their names . the ground of this honourable ladies mistake , is supposed to have been the zeal of colleges interessing himself in the good offices of bringing the said priest unto the lady . that which he says of carrying a letter to thompson , upon such considerations , and in such manner as he represents it , is probably a truth : but it is not as he renders it , [ all that he did , or [ all that he was concern'd in upon that affair ; for he has several times told a worthy gentleman , a trustee to the lord rochester , and divers others , that he the said college being about fourteen years since a trooper under the earl of rochester , my lord imploy'd him to bring one thompson a priest to his lady , to draw her to the romish faith ; and that he brought him to my lady several times ; and that by this thompsons means she was perverted . this will be prov'd ( if insisted upon ) by several persons of worth and credit in and about bridgwater . the inducement to the employing of college upon this errand , was his being in league at that time with a maid-servant of my ladies , who was afterward his second wife , and made use of as a proper instrument for the obliging of college to a service of that kind . nor was this the only letter , as may be undeniably prov'd , that college carried upon that subject . we 'l see now what he says to the bus'ness of mr. sergeant . it 's said i harbour'd priests and iesuits ; and they instance in one sergeant , who lay at my house in carter-lane , nine years since , by the name of dr. smith , a doctor of physick ; brought to me by one monless an apothecary in the old baily ; and one mr. field a wollen-draper within ludgate ; and was there as a dr. of physick , and i knew for no other , ( speech by edith college . it is said that i had a priest several years in my house , viz. sergeant that came over from holland to discover . about some ten years ago , that very same man came to me , but was a stranger to me ; and he came to me by the name of dr. smith , a physitian , and there was an apothecary in the old bailey , and a linnen-draper within ludgate that came with him . they brought him thither , and took a chamber , and lay about half or three quarters of a year , at times , by the name of dr. smith , and as a physitian . this is the truth of that , and no otherwise . this is the entertainment of sergeant . ( bassets speech . ) upon the comparing of these two passages , you will find in the former , that he denys the knowledge of sergeant , any further than as a dr. of physick ; and in the latter , slips it over with saying only that he was a stranger when he came to him . now it is a certain truth , ( and proveable beyond dispute , so to be ) that college knew this dr. of physick to be mr. sergeant , even while he lodg'd in his house . and then for the draper ( whom he makes to be a linnen-draper in the one speech , and a woollen in the other , it is absolutely averr'd ( as i have it from a sure hand ) that this draper never knew where mr. sergeant lodg'd , till he himself told him his lodging . next to the bus'ness of sir william iennings , and mr. masters , it is remarkable , that though he fenc'd and shifted upon his tryal , and takes express notice of them in his speech printed for edith college , yet he makes no particular mention of them at his last speech by word of mouth , notwithstanding the weight and effect which those witnesses had with the jury : but in his written speech , which was published by his relations , you have these words . as to what mr. masters swore , he was vnjust to me in omitting that part of our discourse concerning the parliament in forty ; for when he curs'd them , and the last parliament at westminster also ; and said they were alike ; and charged them in forty with beginning the war , and cutting off the kings head : i denied both , and said it was the papists that began that war , and the death of the king was the fatal consequence of it , which mr. charleton the draper in pouls church-yard countessisse ; the discourse being at the further end of his shop , and he present ; into which , masters seeing me go , came apace from towards his own shop , and as i believe , on purpose to quarrel with me , for which god forgive him . i shall have occasion by and by to handle this point more at large . so that no more needs to be said at present , but that college has several times in mr. charletons company , iustifi'd the proceedings of 1641. and pronounced the king to be a papist , as mr. charleton i presume will easily call to mind , if there should be any occasion to refresh his memory upon that subject . [ and that which he says to sir william iennings likewise , is no more than an empty cavil , without any colour of a defence . ] to come now to the ill usage that he complains of [ i was ( says he in his last speech ) under most strange circumstances as ever any man was . i was kept pris'ner so close in the tower , that i could have no conversation with any , though i was certain the popish lords had it every day there , though i could have none . i could not tell the witnesses that were to swear against me ; i could not tell what it was they swore against me ; for i could have no copy of the indictment , nor no way possible to make any preparation to make my defence , as i ought to have done , and might have done by law. i had no liberty to do any thing , as i am a dying man. ] now for the truth of this , i shall refer the reader to his two petitions to his majesty ; the one of iuly 28. and the other of august 11. prefix'd to his tryal , and two orders of council thereupon . in the former , he prays that leave may be given to mr. thomas smith , and mr. robert west , to come to him ; and also to have the use of pen , ink , and paper , in order only to make his legal and iust defence ; and also to have the comfort of seeing his two children ; which was all granted him as he desired . in his second petition of august 11. he makes a preambular acknowledgment in these following words . in full assurance therefore of the great iustice and clemency of your majesty , and this honourable board , which he hath lately had some experience of , and doth with all humility and thankfulness acknowledge , &c. and then he further prays , your petitioner doth humbly beseech your majesty and this honourable board , that he may have a copy of the indictment against him , or the particular charges of it : that his council and solicitor may have free access to , and private conference with him ; and because their own private affairs , or other accidents may call away some of his council from his assistance , that mr. wallop , mr. smith , mr. thompson , mr. datnel , mr. west of the middle-temple , mr. holles of lincolns-inn mr. rotherham , mr. lovel , mr. rowny of creys-iun , mr. pollexsin , mr. ward of the inner-temple , may be assign'd him for council ; and aaron smith for his sollicitor , and that he may have a copy of the jurors to be return'd upon his tryal some days before his tryal . hereupon it was order'd by his majesty in council , that the friends and relations of stephen college , a pris'ner in the tower , shall have liberty of visiting , and freely conversing with him , and the lieutenant of the tower , ( having first caused their names to be taken in writing ) is to suffer such friends and relations to have access to the said stephen college without any interruption from time to time accordingly . here 's a clamour , ye see , upon a false and groundless suggestion , deliver'd upon the credit of a dying man , as the true state of his condition , when yet it was no other in effect , then the saying over of his lesson from the dictate of his sollicitor . before ye plead ( says aaron smith in his paper of instructions ) speak to this purpose . my lords , i have been used not only unlike an innocent , or an english-man , but i believe more barbarously than any convicted villain under the tyranny of turky , or france : when i was first apprehended , i was , contrary to the privileges of a citizen of london , hurried out from thence before a secretary of state. here 's the king and his government charg'd with tyranny , and his majesties authority subjected , even in a case of treason , to the jurisdiction of my lord mayor . [ i might with as much iustice have been hang'd at tyburn by the way , as to be brought hither to be murder'd , with a little more formality . and then a little lower : [ i will not be murder'd in hugger mugger . ] answer thus ( says aaron smiths paper ) if the attorney general , or any other of the kings councel interrupt ye ; or when you have done , tell ye , you arraign the iustice of the nation . when you come to open your own evidence ( says smith's paper again ) speak to this purpose : [ i hope you will not bring so much scandal upon your selves [ my lords and gentlemen of the jury ] as to be the popes drudges ; and give the first blow to the protestant cause , by convicting me upon such infamous evidence . and lastly , give an account of your going down to oxford , and that you went , because haines had sworn the papists design'd to destroy the parliament there . ] so that college , ye see , was instructed , not only in a scandalous method of reviling the court , but he was also told what cause he should assign for his going to oxford , and directed to cast it upon haines ' s oath , as a colour rather of his sollicitors invention , than the true and real motive that carry'd him thither . before i go any further , it will become me to distinguish betwixt colleges two speeches . the one was deliver'd by word of mouth , upon the cart , at the time of his execution . the other was convey'd from him out of the castle , to some of his relations in writing ; and this was the paper , which at the first he deny'd the sending of , and afterwards confess'd . having now laid open what it is , or rather what it is not , which in colleges case is call'd the protestant religion ; the meaning of colleges protestants and papists : having prov'd the libellous pictures upon him , and given the reader a tast of his vnfaithful dealing , even to the last : we shall here proceed to a fair and impartial deliberation upon the subject matter of his charge , and leave the reader to his own thoughts , whether guilty or not guilty upon the whole matter . §. 6. notes upon colleges ordinary way of discourse and conversation . in my way to the capital branch of his charge ( i. e. the design of seizing the king , and subverting the government ) it will not be amiss to take some notice of the humor of the man in the ordinary way of his behaviour and conversation : the biass of his inclinations and opinions , and other circumstantial discoveries of his imaginations and purposes , with a respect to those seditious ends . and yet it may be looked upon , perhaps as an idle and a superfluous undertaking , to put my self to the trouble of proving that by particular instances , which might be as well done by a general appeal to all the clubs and coffee-houses about this town wheresoever he haunted : for they can every one of them bear witness to his intemperances against the government ; and that when he was not making himself and the company sport in his way of ridiculing the king , the duke of york , the church , and the court , the man was as good as out of his element . they told me ( says he , speaking of some of the lords of the council ) there was treason sworn against me ; truly they surprized me when they said so ; for of all things in the world i thought my self as free from that , as any man. i asked them if any man living had the confidence to swear treason against me ? they said several , three or four , as i remember . last speech . as to what dugdale , smith , turberville , and hains swore against me , they did swear such treason that nothing but a mad-man would have trusted any body with . ibid. and again [ it is a very unlikely thing that i should speak treason to dugdale . ] there are two things now worthy of consideration in this point ( even setting aside the positive proofs of the treason spoken . ) first , did he speak the treason whereof he stands accused ot not ? secondly , it may be a question , what it is that he calls treason ? it is notoriously known to most that ever knew the man , that it was his common guise to talk of his majesty at such a desperate rate , that people were afraid to give him the hearing ; and that he has been caution'd hundreds of times to keep his tongue in 's head ; or , if he did not , he would talk himself at last to the gallows . why should it be such a surprize , now , to this rash and violent man , to hear that there was treason sworn against him ; when every man ( almost ) that kept him company , warn'd him of it , and foretold him what it would come to at last ? and then , how frivolous again is the manner of his discharging himself from the treasons sworn against him by the witnesses ? none but a mad-man ( he says ) would have trusted any body in such a case . and yet it appears from the tenor of his whole conversation , and the frequent advices of his friends , that he trusted any man that came next , with as much as that amounts to . and now once more , to the unlikelihood of his speaking such things to dugdale : let the reader ask and answer himself , as to the probability of his being as free with dugdale , as he was with other people . let not any man take this for a rambling story upon a bare hear-say ; for i am ready to prove and justifie the truth of every particular : not as the author of the no protestant plot takes upon him , with an [ i do assure all the world , &c ( page 19. ) my self and divers others have seen the original , &c. ( page 18. ) and this same i , and my self , a quidam all this time , that a man does not know where to find : but for the satisfaction of any man that doubts , i have here expos'd the authors name with this pamphlet . they told me ( says college again ) it was sworn against me that i had a design to pull the king out of whitehal , and to serve him as his father was serv'd , or to that purpose : the loggerhead , his father , or that kind of language . i did deny it then , and do now deny it , upon my death . last speech . this denial i suppose , speaks to both the members of this period : the design upon the person of the king ; and the villany of the foul language upon his late , blessed father . to the former we have allotted a section by it self , and the latter may be fairly concluded ( i think ) out of his own mouth . first ( says he ) i thought that the parliament that sate last at westminster , did stand up for the peoples rights after the same manner that the parliament in forty did , ( tryal , page 83. ) so that after a most abominable scandal upon the last parliament at westminster in the comparison , he justifies the rebellion in the application . and then again , i did maintain ( says he ) that they ( the parliament of forty ) were an honest good parliament , and much of opinion with the parliament that sate last at westminster , which was for the true interest of the nation , page 81. now if i understand this matter aright , it is tacitly to call the king all the tyrants and murderers which that traiterous faction call'd him . and besides , what 's the meaning of [ like father like son ] in his raree show ? but first , as appears by the context to involve them both in the same fate : and secondly to represent them both under the same character . that is to say ( in short ) to apply all those brutalities of language which he has in that libel and elsewhere , bestow'd upon the son , to the reproach and dishonour of his martyr'd father . to finish this point , he had a kind of idiome by himself , and seldom discours'd of his majesty , his royal highness , the hierarchy , or the privy council , but in the style of old rowley , mack , tantivies and tories . [ old rowley ( says he ) is as errant a papist as his brother . ] and this was his note at every turn . [ old rowley ( says he again ) cares not a half-penny what becomes of the crown , or how he leaves it in debt , or what becomes of his people as to matter of religion , &c. ] at an other time [ they are come ( says he ) to change candles at court already ; but we 'l make them eat 'em too , before we have done . [ when we have done with the papists ( says he in another company ) we 'l do well enough with the bishops . ] now here 's another passage to a very honest man of his own trade , and a loyal subject . this person being out of town about a week before the opening of the oxford-parliament , fell into company with college ; well mounted and a case of pistols before him , not far from enfield . mr. college ( says he ) what will the parliament do at oxford ? by god ( says college ) i know what they 'l do . they 'l begin with the bill of exclusion . the king has no money , and he gets not a penny without it . well ( says the other ) but what if his majesty will not pass it ? we shall see then ( says college ) who are the papists . we 'l run them down first , and then we shall do well enough with the clergy . we 'l level them with the ground . we are ten to one. is not this a broad sign made at the king ? and does it not precisely answer the very pinch of the evidence ? and methinks he spake home to another ioyner too , that charg'd him with the neglect of his trade ; and all the reply he made , was the laying his hand upon his sword , as if he had said , this is it that i intend to trust to . there are so many instances of his pragmatical medling humor , that the recital of them would cost more time and paper than the thing is worth . a gentleman in discourse with college in the castle at oxford , was telling him ( after many professions of his innocency ) mr. college ( says he ) you know i have my self at cornbury heard you many times talk undutifully of the government . now methinks , you that are but a mechanick should not presume to meddle with things so much above ye . was it any harm ( says he ) for amos to leave his cows ? nay he was so bold and inconsiderate when things went otherwise than he would have them , that upon the dissolution of the last westminster parliament , he went presently away to dick's coffee-house in a hufl . well ( says he ) i perceive here 's no good to be done . we must e'en draw our swords and fight it over again . these were the words , or to this effect . the turbulence of his spirit was seen upon all occasions , where there was but the least colour for the fastening of a scandal upon the king , the church , and his majesties ministers of state and justice . his vein lay much toward doggerel and designing , as he has plentifully given the world to understand in his learned drawings , which are still charged with the utmost rudeness , malice , and scurrility imaginable : insomuch that the treason of his heart is laid as open in those cuts , as that of his tongue was at his trial ; with this single difference , that the one was only a wish , and the other an overt act , and a declared resolution . this device call'd the catholique gamesters , is a venemous libel upon all the orders of the government ; and first upon the king himself , charging all the pretended miscarriages of state , in shew , upon the papists , but in truth , and effect , upon his majesty . it is a libel upon the house of peers , by the culling out of so many lords by name , under the title of protestants , and representing in that number only two bishops , that is to say , hereford and lincoln , implying all the rest to be papists . in the house of commons , he tells us of pensioners who voted by contents , got bills to pass against the common good , &c. and then he descends to the bench , and the iury , where he brings in the pope , speaking of the priests and jesuites in these words : hell keep the rest from justice ( we call fury , ) and send them wakeman's or a gascoign jury : pick'd , brib'd , instructed how to murther truth , from grand st. martins bull , and cits wide mouth . and take them quite through , they are all of the same style and design : and i would have any man tell me now , if a body may not charitably enough conclude , that whosoever defames the government at this rate , wishes it overturn'd ; and if he had but power and opportunity , would do his part toward it . i should be ungrateful , now i am upon this subject , if i should not acknowledge the honor he has done me in divers of his emblematical pieces . he has presented the world with six towzers , and l'estrange with four fair pair of gallows . here 's nothing hitherto , but what may very well pass for the preamble to a conspiracy , and he that considers his haunts , the company he kept , the access he had to the private cabals and consultations of the faction ; together with his forwardness to thrust himself into all popular brawls and contests , and that stubborn obstinacy which was natural to him , will undoubtedly look upon him as an instrument every way qualified for such a purpose . as they were carrying away sam. harris about the treasonous libel that cost mr. fitz-harris his life , and a crowd of people about him , a very honest gentleman , a friend of mine , saw college whispering with a person then in power , from whom he went immediately to make his way to harris ; but the press was so great that he was forc'd to deliver his message to him over three or four heads , and so call'd to him just over the shoulder of the gentleman , my friend . come sam. ( says he ) take a good heart , mr. such a one — ( naming the person ) makes no doubt but to bring ye off . and to shew ye now what credit college had with his party , ( but to what purpose in this particular i cannot say ) he took his hat which was very broad brim'd , and holding it in his hands with the inside upward , i have given away ( says he ) twice as much money as this hat would hold , brims and all . now i suppose this money was not thrown away to make ducks and drakes ; so that i cannot reconcile this declaration of his to a certain passage in his last speech , viz. [ i take god to witness , i never had one six-pence , or any thing else , to carry on any design ; and if it were to save my life now , i cann't charge any man in the world with any design against the government ( as god is my witness ) or against his majesty , or any other person . ] the explication of this clause depends upon the knowledge of what is meant by these words , [ any design : ] for the expression is too large to be true , if it be taken in the latitude : and if it be understood with a restriction , i.e. that he knew of no design against the king , or the government , the principle of forty one ( by him asserted in his tryal ) brings him off , when the rebellion it self was declared to be for the king , and the government ; so that 't is but his placing the government in the people , or the two houses , to countenance the equivocation : and finally , the disclaiming of a design against any other person goes a little too far methinks ; for by his own confession there was a design carried on against the papists . it would be proper enough in this place to render some account of his deportment at oxford in the prison . he was , at first coming , stubborn and captious , insisting upon the rights of an english-man , and menacing his keeper till he was brought to better terms , by telling him plainly what he was to trust to . nothing put him more out of patience , then telling him of his pictures . in his behaviour in company he seem'd always to be very little concern'd ; but his keeper says he had terrible agonies when he was by himself that kept him waking sometimes whole nights . a little before he dy'd , mr. gregory the sheriff came into his room with an order to have his body deliver'd whole to his friends . upon the sight of the seal , he leapt from his bed with a great deal of joy ; expecting it might have been a pardon ; but upon finding the mistake , he threw himself down again in a deep disquiet . he says in his dying words ( printed for e. college ) that the messenger who brought him the message of his death , told him he might save his life , if he would confess who was the cause of his coming to oxford , and upon what account , which was ill done of the messenger ; for it was not only without , but contrary to orders . he was in the main very ignorant of any thing of religion ; and he would say that he found , and that he was guided by the spirit ; and this was his perpetual refuge . what principles he had were enthusiastical . as for instance , he said that eating and drinking in the eucharist , and so washing in baptism was to be understood in a spiritual sense , aud declar'd that he receiv'd no benefit by the prayers of the church . he spake of the quakers as the people of god , and particularly of one that had been with him as the honestest man that ever he knew . it was reply'd to him by a reverend divine , that the quakers deny'd in effect , christianity it self : as the two sacraments , and a succession of ministers . and next they deny'd both the divinity , and satisfaction of our saviour ; naming pen , whom college said he very well knew , but did not own him in that principle . his favourite was mr. baxter , whom he heard more than dr. owen ; and his opinion was , that god had a church in all the sects in england . § 7. college iustifies the grounds and the proceedings of the late rebellion . after these pregnant and undeniable proofs of so many virulent and audacious outrages upon the person , and dignity of his majesty , and the very form , as well as the administration of the government . it remains now only to be considered how far the malefactor was principled toward the actuating of that malice , and by what methods he proponnded the putting of those disloyal inclinations into execution . first , as to his opinion of the sovereignty , according to the constitution of this kingdom , we shall not need to look any further for 't , than into his own words , and the inevitable conclusion which naturally arises from them . he appeals from mr. masters to mr. charlton in st. paul's church-yard , about his justifying the parliament of forty , and yet it is a known truth , that he has several times justify'd that parliament in the hearing of mr. charleton . he does acknowledge in his tryal ( page 82. ) that he said , that parliament did nothing but what they had just cause for , and that the parliament that last sate at westminster , was of the same opinion . now in saying this , he takes upon himself the owning of all the principles , whereupon they proceeded in that controversie betwixt the king and the two houses : and in so doing , strips the king of all his regalities , and lodges the supremacy in the lords and commons . [ the papists began the war ( he says ) the papists broke off the treaty at uxbridge ; and the papists cut off the kings head , page 81. ] and in that case , he justifies the old parliament . what can be clearer now , than that if this king should have been press'd upon the same terms with his royal father , after the same manner as the papists began , and pursu'd the former war , and brought his late majesty to the block , just so it should have been call'd another popish exploit , the reducing of this king to the same extremities : and as they made the late king , the church , and the royal party , papists in the one rebellion , they would have treated this king , church , and all his faithful subjects too , as papists too in another rebellion . these are the oxford papists fairly expounded . and under this ambiguity it is , that he covers and disguises his pretext of faith and affection to the king and his government : that is to say , as he intends the kings authority to be virtually resolv'd into the two houses : and this seditious maxim is a little more expresly set forth in his raree show . in which libel , there is a figure of a man with a chests at 's back , which he explains to bemeant of the king , with the lords and commons in a box , and pluck'd down in the mire by three fellows , with these words to illustrate that passage , so , so , the gyant 's down , let 's masters out of pound , &c. in which two verses is laid open , both the design of dethroning the king , and in the word masters the doctrine of the supremacy of the two houses . now for a further confirmation of his opinion , he declar'd to mr. crosthwait in the castle at oxford , that he believ'd it lawful to resist the king , in case he should invade his property ; and he endeavour'd to defend it by several arguments , till at length he was ( at least ) seemingly convinc'd of his mistake . this makes it abundantly evident what he thought of the lawfulness of such resistance , if the case of property should come to be the question ; and it rests only now to make it out that he did take property to be the question ; and then all his pretensions of respect to the king , and to the government fall to the ground : as what 's the meaning of that passage in his raree show , where he charges the king with fleecing englands flocks , long fed with bits and knocks , &c. but to denote the king to be a tyrant and an oppressor ? now to sum up briefly what is already delivered ; here are all the fore-runners of , and dispositions to a rebellion , as clear as the noon-day , and college deeply engag'd in every point . first the general pretence of a design upon the protestant religion , as the foundation of a popular discontent . 2dly . that general religion , in such a manner as it is represented , is not any where to be found . 3dly . under the notion of the papists , to invade this religion , the church establish'd , the king and his party are most apparently struck at . 4thly . all manner of defamatory libels are contriv'd , publish'd , and promoted by college himself toward the enflaming of a sedition . 5thly . it is remarkable , colleges shuffling and equivocating , to evade the charge , which is , nevertheless made out against him at last . 6thly . there is an undeniable discovery of his disaffection , even to the degree of a mortal hatred , both to church and state. and 7thly . considering the method of colleges proceedings , with the tendency of his practices , principles , and persuasions , what could any man believe less ( even without any further evidence ) than that college meditated , and designed the improvement of all occasions to the subverting of the government ; and , in such manner too , as it is imputed to him ? §. 8. there was a design upon the king at oxford , and college manifestly engag'd in the conspiracy . that there was a plot to be executed at oxon , will be granted , i presume , by any man that has but eyes in 's head , and looks that way : and this a republican plot too , carried on under the pretended apprehension of a popish one . but the multitude were to be mov'd and prepar'd for 't : and see the course now that they took to work upon the passions of the common people . the first thing to be done was throughly to possess them that the papists had a design upon the parliament at oxford ; and consequently upon the protestant religion ; the liberties and properties of the english nation . to this purpose , how many impudent and ridiculous shams , by counterfeit tickets , and letters were expos'd in the daily papers of intelligence , which at that time were swallowed whole , as the very oracles of the vulgar ? [ several papers ( says the protestant mercury , numb . 24. ) have been dropt about the city , that there would be a massacre at oxford on the 25th . instant , and that the 5th . of november will be turned into the 25th . of march , ( 1681. ) and one of these was thrown into a shop in grace-church-street . but you shall now have the letter it self at large , with all its appertinences . london , march 16. this very morning , letters were found in several places in this city , unseal'd ; purporting a warning of a dangerous design to destroy the parliament ; particularly one letter was found in mr. brett's shop , a linnen-draper in grace-church-street , which was supposed to be put in at a cleft in the window : his man finding it when he open'd the shop , communicated the same to his master , who caused him to subscribe the paper , that he might be able to testifie it was the same that he found ; and then presented it to one of our city magistrates , who we suppose by this time has made his majesty acquainted with the contents , which were as followeth : to all the noble members of this most honorable ensuing parliament in general . noble lords and gentlemen , though i dare not , nor am i in a condition to discover the whole substance of some hellish designs now on foot against his majesties royal person , and against you all at oxford ; yet though i was sure to be racked for it , i must and will give you a hint of them as followeth . remember the fifth of november , which is now to be the 25th . of march ; which , if not prevented , will be the utter destruction of both king and parliament , and all true protestants in his majesties dominions . and if that fail , beware of many thousands that lie in wait for your lives , whose design is so closely carried , that it will , i doubt , be a hard matter to discover it , until it be too late . mark well what i say , and make not slight of it , as ye tender your lives and fortunes , and the kingdoms safety . i say , make not slight of it , as you tender your lives and fortunes , and the kingdoms safety . i am in a mean condition , and under many afflictions , but cannot discover my self as yet . thus wishing you all happy success , i take leave . this letter was superscribed as followeth . to all true protestants , who love the king and parliament , whosoever finds this note , let him with all speed repair to some elected members of the parliament , and present it to them . ( ben. harris ' s protestant domestique , numb . 107. ) you shall see now how the humor is followed , numb . 110. a letter importing some cursed and treasonable designs still carrying on ( by the ever plotting papists ) against his majesties royal person , and the protestant religion , being lately found in the wood of bally-holly in the county of cork , in the kingdom of ireland , by a gentleman of the county of lymrick as he travelled through that wood : he thought it of that concern to the publique , that he immediately gave it to the earl of barrimore , to be by him transmitted to his grace the duke of ormond , lord lieutenant of that kingdom , which was done ( as we are inform'd ) by the said earl accordingly . a true copy of which letter followeth , viz. brother david , i received a letter lately , wherein i understand that we shall go on with our design before easter-day . we shall have encouragements to destroy heretiques , lord br. will be one of the persons to destroy the heretical king , and monmouth . encourage all our friends to keep their arm private . i am yours till death , allen condon . jan. 8. superscribed to david raach , parish-priest of bally-holly . this was publish'd april 1. 1681. there would be no end , if i should go through with all the cheats upon that juncture , of the same stamp . one more only and i have done . letters from ireland say that there was a great leading priest , a man of great request among the popish party , having been very active in carrying on their designs , was somewhat troubled in conscience ( being upon his death-bed ) at some things which he had kept secret , sent for some protestants of the neighborhood , unknown to the papists , whom he had formerly been obliged to , to come and see him e're he departed ; who coming according to his request , the priest expressed himself to this effect . god hath put it in my heart to warn ye to have a care of your selves ; for you , and all the rest of the protestants are design'd to be massacred ; it was to have been done some time since , but an accident obstructed it ; so that the day is not certainly appointed , though the thing is fully concluded on : therefore defend your selves as well as you can . the same thing is designed in england . ib. numb . 112. now as all these stories were only forgeries and contrivances to put the hot-headed and credulous fools of the faction into a ferment , and prepare them for any violent attempt ; the project did so far also take effect , as to draw together armed multitudes into a resolution and confederacy , to oppose whatsoever should be presented unto them under the colour of a popish design : and they that had so little wit or honesty , as to run to oxford , and so accoutred , upon such an april-errand , would undoubtedly have gone through with their work upon a good occasion , when they were so far onward in their way . here was a very extraordinary concurrence of palpable impostures , accommodated to the same end , and meeting upon the same nick of time too . and this is not all neither ; for there were several printed papers , of clamor , and complaint , against the kings taking his guards with him , under a pretext that they would hinder the liberty of debates , and over-awe the parliament . this circumstance does very much favour the presumption of a plot upon the government ; far if they were afraid of a popish attempt , his majesties guards would have been a good security against it , and no inconvenience to them at all , unless in case of a phanatical conspiracy : so that their apprehension of the guards is a very fair interpretation of what they meant by the papists . if there was not a plot , what meant the distinguishing marks of the same-colour'd-ribbon in their hats , with no popery no slavery in them , for their motto : and such quantities of them distributed for the discrimination of the party ? and why that motto either ? but first to intimate a notorious scandal upon the king , as if his majesty were popishly , and tyrannically inclin'd . and 2dly . as an ostentation of their force and resolution to oppose any power whatsoever , even under the colour of that bare pretence . from this probability of a seditious design , we shall come closer now to a proof of the thing it self ; and see how far college was concern'd in 't , both from his own words and actions ; and from the agreement of other evidences with the points of his accusation : not medling at all with the merits of his cause , as they appeared upon his tryal . as for what arms i had ( says he ) and what arms others had , they were for our own defence , in case the papists should make any attempt upon us , by way of massacre , or any invasion or rebellion , that we should be ready to defend our selves . god is my witness , this is all i know : if this be a plot , this i was in ; but in no other . but never knew of any numbers or times appointed for meeting ; but we said one to another , that the papists had a design against the protestants when we did meet , as i was a man of general conversation ; and in case they should rise , we were ready : but then they should begin the attempt upon us . last speech . it is to be noted first , that they were all armed . 2dly . that they communicated among themselves , and enter'd into a kind of league of conjunction . 3dly . that they reputed themselves strong enough to encounter such a body of men , as ( if we may believe them ) threatned destruction to the government . and 4thly . that they were resolv'd to put it to the hazard , if the papists should attempt any thing : so that here 's a form'd conspiracy acknowledg'd ; and so many men as good as listed , but however link'd in a common design , without any authority or commission : and we know very well what the law says in this case , let the intent of it be what it will. we said to one another ( says he ) that the papists had a design against the protestants ; and then that we were ready , but they should begin the attempt ; which may seem to qualifie the matter by making it only a defensive war. but still , even that war it self , without the kings commission , is a plain rebellion . and this is not yet the worst on 't ; for in vindicating the war of the two houses in 1640. &c. and their proceedings under the same disguise of calling the kings friends papists ; and pretending that the king in his person made war against his authority in the lords and commons ; and under that colour , representing themselves to be only upon the defensive : in vindicating that war ( i say ) which was a hellish rebellion , it is but consonant to their principles , to justifie the same proceedings over again , under the same pretensions . he says further in his other speech , [ i never was engag'd in any manner of plot or conspiracy whatsoever in my life , against the kings person , laws or government , or know of any that is or was , the papists only excepted — it is utterly false that i was to have seiz'd the king , either at white-hall , or at oxon ; and i do here solemnly declare i knew not of so much as one single person on gods earth that was , or would have stood by me in that attempt . ] and to the same effect he says over again in his last speech . i shall not force these words of his beyond a fair congruity with the tenour of what he says in other places upon this subject ; though the liberty he has taken throughout , of speaking more or less than the just and naked truth , and wrapping himself up in disguises and reserves , so as best to serve his purpose , might justifie me in the freedom of taking him at the worst , where there is any place for a double meaning . [ he never engag'd against the kings person ( he says , &c. ) did not that parliament , whose cause , doctrine , and proceedings , college has so highly approved , say the same thing ? and not only disclaim their being against the person of the late king ; but declare openly to the world , the greatest tenderness and veneration for him that was possible ? what shall we say then of him that speaks their very words , upon the same grounds , and under the same circumstances ; but that he has the same thoughts also ( which he in truth confesses too ) with those , who under that pretence advanc'd a rebellion against their sovereign ? what does he mean again by saying that [ he was not to have seiz'd the king , &c. ] is it that he himself was not to do it with his own hands ? or that the sovereignty being lodg'd in the two houses , his person might be seiz'd , and the king remain untouch'd ? there is another sentence in the same speech , that speaks a little plainer yet . [ i did not understand ( says he ) but when i serv'd the parliament , i serv'd the king too . ] which in the acceptation of forty and forty-one , sounds as much as king and parliament on the one side , in opposition to charles stuart on the other . now as to the plot of seizing the person of the king , if the witnesses had not made it out accordingly to the very letter , i should rather have suspected a design under the countenance of loyal service , to interpose a force betwixt his majesty and some pretended danger . and this officious zeal to be follow'd with seizing half a dozen ( perhaps ) of his majesties most necessary ministers and friends . and then a proclamation immediately of some damned hellish plot ; a parcel of good statutable knights of the post to make it good , and there had been the work done . this would have been no ridiculous thing to imagine , if his majesty had not had over and above his guards , the honour and fidelity of the two houses of his security . there are a great many slippery passages in colleges two speeches [ had the papists ( says he ) or their party offer'd to destroy the parliament , as was sworn , and fear'd they would , i was there to have liv'd and dy'd with ' em . ] here 's a disjunction of the papists , or their party ; which i cannot tell what to make of , unless he ranges the servants of the king , and the church in a confederate subserviency to the papists , which is but consonant to what he has said elsewhere . there is a doubtful clause too in his last speech [ men ( says he , speaking of the presbyterians ) without any manner of design ; but to serve god , serve his majesty , and keep their liberties and properties . ] now colleges way of keeping his property , is to fight for 't , in case the king should invade it , as he profess'd to a divine a little before his execution : beside that the word [ keep ] seems to lean a little that way , especially from a man that first supposes his property to be invaded ; and then declares his resolution to resist the king , in case of such invasion . we shall now as briefly as may be , apply matter of fact to the capital parts of his charge . the designing of the sculpture to his raree-show is prov'd upon him so point blank , that he himself had not the face to deny it : and that draught made him as guilty of , and as answerable for the malicious intent of it , as if the ballad had been originally his own : his publishing of it was a further aggravation of the crime ; and the pleasure he took in singing it up and down ( as he did to several eminent persons of quality ) and in exposing it , made all that was in it his own too . in that doggrel copy there is chalk'd out the very train of the whole conspiracy ; and so plainly too , that it will not bear any other construction : as for example . help cooper , hughs and snow , with a hey , with a hey , to pull down raree-show , with a ho. so , so , the gyant 's down , let 's masters out of pound , with a hey tronny nony nony no. here 's first the king to be pull'd down ( under the rarce-show ) and cooper , hughs , and snow ( being officers belonging to both houses ) are to represent the lords and com●●●●s in the doing of it ; which reflects as odious a scandal upon the two houses as upon his majesty . in the next place he supposes the king to be down ; and to answer that phansie , there are three fellows in the plate , lugging of him in the dirt : and then follows [ let 's masters out of pound : ] which is only to say , that now the king is down , the lords and commons are to take upon them the administration of the government . but let us see how he goes on . and now y 'ave freed the nation , with a hey , &c. cram in the convocation , with a ho ; with pensioners , all and some into this chest of rome , with a hey , &c. the first line here makes the freedom of the nation to ensue upon the deposing of the king. the second sends the convocation after him . the third , all those whom he is pleas'd to call pensioners : and the fourth makes them all to be papists . here 's the king , the convocation , and the pensioners gone already . now see what 's next . and thrust in six and twenty , with a hey , &c. with not guilty , good plenty , with a ho : and hoot them hence away , to cullen or breda : we have here the very track of the conspiracy , as it was prov'd at his tryal . the bishop's are to be dispatch'd away too , and the not guilty-lords , in the vote upon my lord stafford . and at best , to be all of them driven out of the nation , as the late king was , and a great part of his adherents . we shall now conclude this point with the two last lines : halloe , the hunts begun , with a hey , &c. like father , like son , with a ho , &c. i have in my hand the manuscript of colleges own writing , from whence this ballad was printed ; where it is to be noted , that instead of halloe , it was in the original , stand to 't ; but that struck out , and halloe interlin'd in the place of it ; the other being too broad a discovery of the violence they intended . let me further observe , that this song was calculated for oxford ; that is to say , both for the time , and the place , when , and where this exploit was to have been executed . and now for a close ; what can be the meaning of like father , like son ; but a design and encouragement ( as appears from the connexion ) to serve them both alike ; and to conclude both father and son , under one and the same condemnation . the faction did , without dispute , flatter themselves that they should find friends , even in the parliament it self , to authorize them in their enterprize ; ( but they were egregiously mistaken it seems in their measures . ) and they grounded their hopes upon the interest they had made in most places of the kingdom to secure an election for their turn . this prospect and confidence does most notoriously appear in the contrivance of the raree-show , which in truth looks liker a song of triumph , as for a thing already done , then a bare project and exhortation toward the doing of it : insomuch that they have in this ballad delineated the very scheme of their intentions . it is a thing very remarkable too , that the same pulse beats still in all their pamphlets of appeal to the multitude ; which speaks them clearly to be animated with the same souls , and directed to the same end . as vox patriae for the purpose , ( among forty others . ) what is it , but under the notion of petitions and addresses , in the name of the people of england , a certain compendium of instructions toward the forming and carrying on of a conspiracy ? this libel lays out the very model of the plot , for which college was try'd , condemn'd , and executed . it prescribes the removal of councellors and officers , the ordering of the militia , the retrenching the power of the king , the dissolving the order of the church , the setting all sorts of heretiques at liberty , the calling and continuing of parliaments at the peoples pleasure . and all this address'd to the commons in parliament in such a manner ; as if his majesty were scarce worth consulting upon the matter ; only instead of seizing the king , and governing without him , they have found out a way of giving their representatives some blind and general hints of what they would be at ; and then honestly tell them , that they 'l stand by them with their lives and fortunes , let them do what they please . it is also a further confirmation of this plot , the correspondence betwixt mr. fitz-harris's declaration , and the several points given in evidence against college . mr. fitz-harris declar'd that there was a design to seize the king. of this he spake often , and said , when the party had seiz'd the king , they would have oblig'd him to call a parliament , which should sit until the bill of exclusion against the duke were pass'd ; all evil councellors remov'd , and men of their chusing put into places of trust ; the militia settled , and the navy put into good hands ; all grievances redress'd ; and all things order'd to their own liking . and had this design succeeded , he said the bishops and others of the clergy would have suffer'd severely . ( dr. hawkins's narrative , pag. 4 ) this account of a combination does not only nick the several parts of the evidence against college , but it does most exactly answer the method of one and forty , which college justifies ; and consequently approves of the same thing over again in so doing . now mr. fitz-harris being demanded as a dying man , whether this that he had declared concerning the design to seize the king were true ; he call'd god to witness that it was every word true . and does not the information against george wetheridge , taken september 21. 1681. speak as home to the same effect ? is not the tyde strangely turn'd ( says he ) were not the parliament men at oxford , and those that were with 'em , ( being to the number of 40000 men arm'd ) great fools that they did not seize the king there ? and if that they had wanted strength ( says he ) i would have been one to have assisted them : and that they should have brought the king to london , to guild-hall ; and there the parliament should have sat , and have kept his majesty there till they had made their own terms with him . and the same information adds further , that wetheridge said the king was a papist ; and had a design to bring in popery and arbitrary power , and reign as the king of france , &c ] to m●ltiply instances would be to over-do the thing that i pretend , wherefore this shall suffice . if i were bent upon unnecessary cavils , i might enlarge my self abundantly in farther observations upon the insincerity both of college himself , and some of his evidence , and prove that one of his prime compurgators ( how honest a man soever he reputed him in the court ) has more than once declar'd what warnings he had given him to have a care of his tongue ; and that he talk'd at such a desperate rate , that it was not safe for any man to keep him company . colleges dying words are , that he rode his own horse , spent his own money , and neither was invited , or had dependency on any person whatsoever : when yet the people of the red lyon in henly do affirm , that he and a companion of his drank one quart of raw sack , one of mull'd , one of butter'd , and then a pint more of the last ; beside one quart of butter'd sack in the morning , which was all plac'd to the account of another person . it will not become me to descant upon any inconsistencies among colleges evidence's at his tryal , out of the respect and veneration that i both owe , and bear to the honour of the court , and to the methods of publique justice : i could otherwise in the case of lun , and even of dr. oats himself , find mr. colleges advocates picking-work . nay they were so hard put to 't , that they brake in upon justice warcup himself ; a person that has been , even by themselves celebrated all along for his zeal in the discovery of the horrid plot ; a person particularly interessed by the lords , in several examinations ; and by their lordships particularly recommended to the king for his faith and sedulity in that great affair . but these people understand no other measures of honesty , then as it squares with their designs . as to turbervile and dugdale ( the two principal evidences ) college himself had very little to say against them . in one word , the matter is here plainly and nakedly set forth . the protestant ioyner has left the world wholly at a loss for his religion : he has both in his words and practices declar'd himself a deadly enemy to the government . his last speech is a compound of equivocations and disguise : he justifies those that destroy'd the late king ; and by the same reason he may justifie the same design upon this. to conclude , let the reader judge upon what is here deliver'd , whether or no there was a design against the king at oxford ; and how far college was engag'd in the conspiracy . the end . by the king, a proclamation for the discovery of the murtherers of sir edmund-bury godfrey england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1678 approx. 3 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32552 wing c3474 estc r33421 13304399 ocm 13304399 98963 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32552) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 98963) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1546:35) by the king, a proclamation for the discovery of the murtherers of sir edmund-bury godfrey england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, christopher barker, thomas newcomb and henry hills ..., london : 1678. "given at our court at whitehall, the twentieth day of october, 1678, in the thirtieth year of our reign." reproduction of original in the harvard library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng godfrey, edmund berry, -sir, 1621-1678. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2008-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-09 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-09 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion c r diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms by the king. a proclamation for the discovery of the murtherers of sir edmund-bury godfrey . charles r. whereas it appears by an inquisition lately taken before one of his majesties coroners of his county of middlesex , upon view of the body of sir edmund-bury godfrey knight , one of his majesties iustices of the peace for the same county , that the said sir edmund-bury godfrey was in a barbarous and inhumane manner lately murthered , by persons whose names were to the iury unknown ; the kings most excellent majesty out of his royal inclination to iustice , and to the intent that so horrid and detestable a murther may be with utmost severity punished , whereby all others may be deterred from committing or attempting such bloudy and wicked crimes , doth , by this his royal proclamation , strictly charge and command , all his iudges , iustices of the peace , and other magistrates , and all his officers , and other his loving subjects , that they do use their utmost diligence in their several places and capacities , to find out and discover the murtherers of the said sir edmund-bury godfrey ; and if they make any considerable discovery by whom the said murther was committed , to give speedy information thereof to one of his majesties principal secretaries of state ; and likewise to use their utmost endeavour to apprehend the murtherers : and as a reward to such as shall make a discovery of the murtherers , his majesty is graciously pleased hereby to promise , to any person or persons , who shall make such a discovery , whereby the said murtherers , or any of them shall be apprehended , the sum of five hundred pounds , which shall be immediately paid down , upon sufficient testimony , that such persons or person apprehended , are , or is guilty of the said murther : and if any one of the murtherers shall discover the rest , whereby they , or any one of them shall be apprehended , such discoverer shall not onely be pardoned his offence , but shall in like manner receive the said reward of five hundred pounds . given at our court at whitehall , the twentieth day of october1678 . in the thirtieth year of our reign . god save the king. london , printed by john bill , christopher barker , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1678. the true narrative of the procedings [sic] at the sessions-house in the old-bayly. or the trial and condemnation of six notorious popish priests & jesuites, for high-treason viz. william russel, alias napper, james corker, lionel anderson, alias, munson, charles parry, and alexander lunsden. at a commission of oyer and terminer there held, on saturday the 17th of this instant january 1679. 1680 approx. 7 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63601 wing t2827ab estc r215582 99827419 99827419 31837 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63601) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 31837) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 2220:14) the true narrative of the procedings [sic] at the sessions-house in the old-bayly. or the trial and condemnation of six notorious popish priests & jesuites, for high-treason viz. william russel, alias napper, james corker, lionel anderson, alias, munson, charles parry, and alexander lunsden. at a commission of oyer and terminer there held, on saturday the 17th of this instant january 1679. england and wales. court of quarter sessions of the peace (london) 4 p. [s.n.], london : printed in the year, 1679 [1680] the year is given according to lady day dating. titus oates is cited as witness. reproduction of the original in the guildhall library, london. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng oates, titus, 1649-1705 -early works to 1800. trials -england -early works to 1800. crime -england -early works to 1800. criminals -england -early works to 1800. popish plot, 1678 -early works to 1800. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-03 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-05 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2006-05 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the true narrative of the procedings at the sessions-house in the old-bayly . or the trial and condemnation of six notorious popish priests & iesuites , for high-treason , viz. william russel , alias napper , james corker , lionel anderson , alias . munson , charles parry , and alexander lunsden , at a commission of oyer and terminer there held , on saturday the 17th of this instant january 1679. london printed in the year , 1679. the trial and condemnation of the six notorious traitors . the kings witnesses attending on the court there were eight romish priests and jesuites brought to the barr , to receive their trials upon the account of high-treason , viz. joseph kemish , william russel , alias , napper , henry starkie , william marshal , james corker , lionel anderson , alias , munson , charles parry , and alexander lunsden ; but the evidence not being prepared for the trial of the former , viz. kemish , he was reserved till another time ; but against the other seven they proceeded as followeth , according to their indictments , that they being priests and english-born , after having received orders from the see of rome , came over and remained in england , the which by a statute of the 27th of queen elizabeth is made high treason , mr. attorny-general and the kings council laid open the cause to the jury and evidence , and the jury being charg'd with them , according to law , lionel anderson was first brought to the barr , where dr. oats , mr. bedlo , mr. dangerfield , mr. prance , and mr. dugdale were sworn for the king , mr. dangerfield first standing up , did give a fair and large account , that the prisoner was a priest in orders . and that he had not only confessed him , but had given him the sacrament , and in his priestly vestments celebrated mass ; not only at wild-house , but also at several other places , and that after he had confessed the witness , he bid him go and be drunk with such a gentleman , for it was for the good and propagation of the romish cause , that he was a priest likewise dr. oates did affirm , and that he had at several times repeated mass and given the sacrament to his knowledge , with many other plain and possitive circumstances , to this he pleaded not guilty , with many horrible execrations . afterwards james corker was brought to the bar , his plea was that he had been once tryed with sr. george wakeman , and that he ought not twice to be put in danger of his life : but the court satisfied him in this point , whereas he before was tryed as a conspirator , that he now was tryed as a popish-priest , and then he pleaded not guilty , at which mr. attorny general laying open the indictment , the evidence were sworn , viz. dr. oates and mr. prance who likewise did against him as against the former , affirm that they had seen him cellebrate mass , give the sacrament , and in his priestly robes at somerset-house , and other places , and was to have been a bishop : but he absolutely denied that ever he had acquaintance with the witnesses , or scarcely seen them before his last arraignment , and in a jesuitical obstenancy , made many vows and execrations endeavouring to scandalize the evidence the next was william ma●shal who was likewise tryed before with corker , and did plead the same , and made a long oration in his own defence , courting the acts of parliaments and statutes made and to be put in force on that account , and did , to speak the truth , seem to be a learned and most proficient man , his place of executing of his priestly function , was for the most part in the savoy , where doctor oates affirmed that he had heard him more then twelve times say mass in 1677. this he denied , and brought the woman that keept the house to testify that dr. oates was never there , but she bogling in her testimony did confound her evidence , saying that he might be there , but that she knew not she had seen him there , mr. prance and mr. bedlo did affirm him likewise to have taken orders , and that they had known him to have been a plotter , and a most notorious priest , as likewise upon the same indictments and statute of the 27th of queen elizabeth which makes it high-treason for any english born subjects to go and take orders at rome , and after come over into england , whereupon william russel alias napper henry starky , charles parry , and alexander lunsdel were brought to the barr , who pleaded not guilty , but the aforementioned evidence for the king , did so plainly make it appear , that they were not only priests , but had at several times administred according to their priestly function , the sacraments , and also confessed and absolved some of them , and that mr. prance had received chalices , oyl-pots , and several other trinkets belonging to the al●er , of them to mend , scour , and refine ; upon this plain evidence , six of them were by the jury brought in guilty of high-treason , and sentenced by the court to be drawn , hang'd and quarter'd , viz. russel , alias , napper , starky , marshal , corker , anderson , and parry , but lunsden being a scotchman-born , was not thought to come within the verge of the said act of parliament , and therefore reserved for a special verdict in that case . thus may we see , tho haughty rome does bend her frowns at this our english nation , nay and prompt our native subjects to conspire our downfall and immediate ruine . heaven stands most firmly on our side , and that pernicious snare that they had laid to catch the innocent , themselves have fallen in ; for sure it is , eternal vengeance will not sleep for ever , when such dire contrivances hatched in the dark shades of night ascend and pierce the blushing clouds , therefore let both tirant rome , and her thrice fatal emissaries now beware , least they incur the high displeasure of a dreadful god , and pull down most deserved ruine on their heads , whilst that they think to dare omnipotence , by their endeavouring to destroy such as are protected by his providence : finis . by the king, a proclamation for a general fast england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1678 approx. 3 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32417 wing c3308 estc r39171 18241146 ocm 18241146 107239 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32417) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 107239) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1629:81) by the king, a proclamation for a general fast england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, christopher barker, thomas newcomb, and henry hills ..., london : 1678. "given at our court at whitehall, the twenty fifth day of october, 1678. in the thirtieth year of our reign." reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. great britain -politics and government -1660-1688. 2008-03 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-07 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-08 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-08 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion by the king. c2 r diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms a proclamation for a general fast . charles r. whereas the lords spiritual and temporal , and commons in parliament assembled , having beén made acquainted by his majesty , that there is information given of an horrible design against his sacred life ; and being very sensible of the fatal consequence of such an attempt , and of the dangers of the subversion of the protestant religion , and government of this realm ( which god in his infinite mercy hath hitherto prevented , and it is to be hoped will prevent for the future ) have most humbly besought his majesty , that a solemn day of fasting and humiliation may be appointed , to implore the mercy and protection of almighty god to his majesties royal person , and in him to all his loyal subjects ; and to pray that god will bring to light more and more all secret machinations against his majesty and the whole kingdom : the kings most excellent majesty , out of his own religious disposition , hath readily inclined thereunto ; and doth therefore by this his royal proclamation , command a general and publick fast to be kept throughout this whole kingdom , in such manner as is hereafter directed and prescribed , that so both prince and people may send up their prayers and supplications to almighty god , to and for the purposes aforesaid . and to the end that so religious an exercise may be performed at one and the same time , his majesty doth hereby publish and declare to all his loving subjects , and doth straitly charge and command , that on wednesday being the thirteénth day of november next , this fast shall be religiously kept and celebrated throughout his kingdom of england , dominion of wales , and town of berwick upon tweed . and that the same may be performed with all decency and vniformity , his majesty , by the advice of his reverend bishops , hath directed to be composed , printed and published , such a form of divine service as he thinketh fit to be used in all churches and places at the time aforesaid , and hath given charge to his bishops to disperse the same accordingly . all which his majesty doth expresly charge and command shall be reverently and decently observed by all his loving subjects , as they tender the favour of almighty god , and would avoid his wrath and indignation against this land , and upon pain of undergoing such punishments as his majesty may justly inflict upon all such as shall contemn or neglect so religious a duty . given at our court at whitehall , the twenty fifth day of october , 1678. in the thirtieth year of our reign . god save the king. london , printed by john bill , christopher barker , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1678. to the reverend dr. thomas ken, feb. 1, new stile, 1680 l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1680 approx. 2 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-08 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47925 wing l1314 estc r29942 11225480 ocm 11225480 46922 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47925) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 46922) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1445:10) to the reverend dr. thomas ken, feb. 1, new stile, 1680 l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1 broadside. s.n., [s.l. : 1680?] reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng l'estrange, roger, -sir, 1616-1704. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-11 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-04 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2004-04 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-07 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion to the reverend dr. thomas ken. feb. 1. new stile , 1680. sir , in or about october last , mr. oats represented me to the king and council for a papist ; prance swore , that he saw me several times at masse at somerset-house , about two years before ; but swore withall , that he never see me receive the sacrament : i was summoned , heard , and acquitted . since that time , some people ( as i am inform'd ) have sworn , that they have seen me receive too ; wherein i think my self bound in conscience and common prudence to clear my self . sir , by the grace of god i purpose to receive the blessed sacrament from your hand , to morrow ; may it be life or death to me as i speak true or false ; may it be to me what the sop was to iudas , if either i am , or ever was , or ever pretended to be of the communion of the church of rome . i never received the sacrament from a romish priest in my life ; i never was under the roof of a popish chappel in england , since the king was restor'd in 1660. i have no reserve , but intend by this letter , as i desire you may understand it . sir , i am with infinite reverence for your function and esteem for your friendship and person , your most affectionate humble servant , roger l'estrange . l'estrange received the sacrament accordingly , sir gabriel sylvius , mr. plot , mr. sidney's secretary , mr. blagrave chaplain to the princess , received at the same time . a prophetick demonstration of many remarkable passages ... as they were found in a manuscript intitled, the mistery of observable predictions upon the present state of reynelus & romulus, or, the unrid[d]led] hyraglip of a she fox nurs'd by a she wolf in a stile answerable to miltons heroick verses on lost paradise ... bryan, robert, 17th cent. 1680 approx. 52 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 13 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a29937 wing b5249 estc r1248 11781517 ocm 11781517 49083 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a29937) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 49083) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 17:8) a prophetick demonstration of many remarkable passages ... as they were found in a manuscript intitled, the mistery of observable predictions upon the present state of reynelus & romulus, or, the unrid[d]led] hyraglip of a she fox nurs'd by a she wolf in a stile answerable to miltons heroick verses on lost paradise ... bryan, robert, 17th cent. [6], 18 p. printed by j.s. for r.b., london : 1680. in verse. "the first part of seasonable cautions, &c. now published for publick benefit, which being divided into four chapters, therein is treated the matters ... having relation ... to the discovery made of the late popish plot" pref. signed: robert bryan. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2006-05 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-10 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-11 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2006-11 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a prophetick demonstration of many remarkable passages ( observed and gathered together ) as they were found in a manuscript intitled , the mistery of observable predictions upon the present state of reynelvs , & romvlvs , or , the unridled hyraglip of a she fox nurss'd by a she wolf in a stile answerable to miltons heroick verses on lost paradise , causes discovering how death first contracted , vpon the stage , stands where its part is acted . the first part of seasonable cautions , &c. now published for publick benefit , which being divided into four chapters , therein is treated , the matters contained in the following table ; having relation ( by the unridled hyraglips , ) to the discovery made of the late popish plot . london , printed by j. s. for r. b. in the year , 1680. a table of the contents . concerning i. all changes come upon the body of nature , 2 ly . the mistery of the golden fleece 3 ly . the enchanted kingdom , and dominion of the draggon , &c. 4 ly . the several transformings of the wolvish nature . vnder some weighty considerations vpon . i. eternity . 2 ly . the creation of the world. 3 ly . paradise . 4 ly . what is most aptly and chiefly hince applyable , unto the present state of new rome . she being built nurssed up and maintained by the french interest , in the same manner , as romulus ( being nurssed by a wolf , ) was the builder of old rome . the preface , or , epistle to the reader , reader , forasmuch as the insuing treatise , bareth an unusial stile ; it being a comment upon the hyraglips of the antients , and those poetical fixions , wherein hath been buryed their knowledge of a deaty ; whom under divers signeficant terms and charectors , do in effect confess the same things published , by that holy and worthy prophet of god moses : who it is believed did write our first four cannonical books of scriptures : [ from genises , to joshua , ] for this reason , we give you to understand , first that by those many names of the power of god , which is but one is lively displayed , the virtue and power of that one , upon whom all second causes have their dependance . and then because what is attributed to this one , who hath variety of names [ to make him so distinguishable , in his works ] secondly the use of those many names , are to let you understand ; how by the variety of opperations , in that one spirit , god did , hath and will , effect the purpose of his decreed resolutions , [ to bring to pass all things , which by the counsell of his will , and wisdom , he eternally intended ; ] and therefore considering that the same which those poets , do call aether , and dies , coelus , and terra , coelum , and vesta , &c. is intended by moses , concerning the generations of the heavens , and earth , [ wherein the firmament and day , were the two first seperated properties , of the work of god ; ] you by the same rule , may trace a coherance between the writings of these the poets , [ or prophets to the gentiles ] and moses , the prophet of god , unto the jews , [ who then were accompted his only people . ] moreover thirdly , concerning the names of those healthenish gods and godesses , [ saturn , jupiter , neptune , pluto , juno , venus , &c. ] they being the names of certain powers , properties and virtues , of the heavens , and earth , attributed unto persons that in the older ages , of the world , might and did bare those names ; as doth also the stars of that birth , [ under which each , hath it particular signification ] you are to consult , that as by saturn , time is signify'd , so whatever is generated [ in time , ] being the product of saturn and ops , [ signifying natures necessity of help in that work ; ] occeanus also , signifying the mighty deeps , or abiss , upon which the darkness remained ; while the earth was in its chaos , [ void of form ; ] it doth appear , that untill the spirit of god , had breathed and did move , upon waters of the unform'd world , [ in its first nothingness ; ] the generations of oceanus , which now are brought forth of such abiss , did nevertheless till the spirit of nature became separate from its heavens , [ by the disjoyning of time from eternity , lay hid in the chaos [ of terra . ] so that fourthly , where any word or term remains dubious ; you are to proceed unto that part , by which it is explained , and you will finde such a coherence in the whole , that shall give you to understand a prophetical interpretation of those mistical charactors , and hyraglips of the antients , [ under which knowledge hath been lockt up from the more vulgar capacities ] until this time , come for every thing to be reveal'd and stand unseal'd : the reason of which , both why was lockt up [ in proverbical dark sayings and sentences , ] those misteries now to be unridled ; and also of the time for its unsealing , every one will come to read in themselves , [ who are once come to finde the key : ] as also why the arms of englands principality , are signify'd and represented by that noble species , of a lyon [ rampant , passant , couchant , or dormant ; ] and why by the principality of france , is signifyed a wolf , pawing on the flower de luce ; these with the fox , ape , swan , peacock , goose , &c. being heraglips that we have seen : and of the reason of our application , have so much on our side , as every one must be forced to confess unto the truth thereof , ( that owns or pretends to such reason ; ) unless while scrupeling whether or no romulus was nurss'd by a wolf , they fall into a flat denyal of new builded rome , to be nurssed and supported by the french power and interest . but our indeavours are candidly for the readers benefit , who am reader , in all service of love thine , robert bryan . a prologve to the insuing treatise . gods wisdom first found out away , foundations of all worlds to lay , vpon a cause more firmly fix'd ; then all the seeds of nature mixt , in one great mass , the chaos was , of matter unform'd [ by natures laws , ] though we confess the abiss was , to every thing a second cause : of form distinct to natures soul , and every orb , about doth rowl , of the great worlds universe : on whom gods power did impress , the seal of forms , that are distinct among themsels [ as causes link'd , together in one golden chain , intelligable to remain . ) and this doth draw about the whole , of all the parts , that have one soul causing the end , with the beginning to meet together [ as one wining , the game and prize , at stake was laid , in natures womb , none can upbraid ; ] because eternity did will , a cause eternal to fulfill , those things which being brought about , are the effects of what doth sprout , from cause of nature , in a lump in whom all second causes jump ; according to purpose decreeing , all causes of nature and being , [ as well unto the parts , as whole of matter and great worlds soul. chapter , i. concerning all changes come or made upon and in the body of nature , ( subject to the revolution of matter in time ) under some weighty-considerations upon eternity . where what is past and flown , meets in that one whence causes present effecteth things to come , before and after are those parts of time , nature ( in whom's pur forth the measuring line ) by labour ( in motion ) strives to undermine ; which to prevent eternity contriv'd , how all the laws of nature might be reviv'd , on a foundation firmer then that of self ; ( which undermined , may be by natures elph : ) but kingdom of self , thus undermin'd doth cause , establisht ( under the draggons jaws ) this new revive of nature and her laws . for ii. where sathan had made his seat , those now do dwell , whom god will make witness against his hell ; ( as nature renewed , unto her rights once lost : comes up adorn'd , with beauty of wisdoms cost : ) thus nature a subject was to a first cause , of being to the whole , and of those laws , wherein the minde of god , ( on her impress'd ) had a commanding power to make all bless'd ? before was open'd the eternal womb , of seeds eternal ( eternally there sown ) by an eternal power thus generating , causes of form ( to all of gods creating . iii. before ( we say ) unseal'd was that shut down under eternal silence ( without renown ) a hiden cause there was of all that 's thence ; awaken'd from natures womb , to complyance . which cause of form , was cause of births there strove , according to a power each seed did move , where lurk'd the cause why man , from god was drove . for matter of form , while closing with its cause , is subject unto natures will'd form and laws . who like an ass , is bended down between two burdens born , ( while couchant she is seen ; yeilding compliance , to all within the scene . ) iv. unmanifest ( as god ) eternally , that one ( before and after all ) was he ; therefore what we eternal nature call , dwelling of god ( unmanifest the all ) was the before and after cause adorn'd ; will'd manifest ( in matter once unform'd , ) being to forms of nature , from that cause of all in one gold chain ( so powerfull draws ; ) where cause of self , as whole stands now divided , variety disclosing , the strif decided . by vnity , in whom ( qualities distinct ) are swallowed up in one the whole is linkt ; v. but while shut up , were various opperations , ( in one eternal womb , ) all seperations : of matter ( will'd by causes ) did obey , the seperating cause , without delay , thus causes in god ( of soul to natures frame ) was one creating cause , caus'd him supream ; to be over those causes , had a dependance , on will to seperation , caus'd by attendance . ( of seeds unformed ) occasion to imbrace , they took ( by opertunity to come in place , where births distinct , accordingly were form'd , from cause of self , as self now stands adorn'd . vi. from the intelligable ( ideas made seperate ) are causes of form ( in nature ) uncreate , in nature , as seeds , ideas thus were plac'd : but shaddowy ( in matter ) they form imbrac'd ; for in gods minde was plac'd ( in unity , ) ideas of form that had community , with him the one of all , while uncreate was form to matter , he did seperate ; according to causes distinguishable , ( among themselves ) from the intelligable ; as such the worlds soul , that did admit variety of seeds , so causing it . vii . but will of causes , atracting forms distinct , was will unable , till quicknings there had linked , ( in one , that golden chain , ) nature complying caus'd will of one to be a cause denying , power otherways to causes , then they serv'd to magnify that cause , in whom reserv'd ; was a reward of justice , by equal measure , proportioning effects , to be the treasure , of will to all causes , made seperate , to serve that one , whose power did antidate ; all disobedience made by will inthrawl'd , another lord to serve , then truth instawl'd : viii . thus changes in nature had variety , of causes subjecting unto vanity : not willingly ( by god ; who otherways subdued in hope our forms again to rise . throw all these changes , he suffering did will eternal glory form'd ; that to fulfill , which our frail natures wakened , by deaths sting unto his praise decreed about did bring ; ) for he decreed effects to every cause , proportionable unto natures laws : ( as cause of whole , and consequent of parts , dependant upon one , whom causes thwarts . ix . thus thwart , as they are thwarted by decree , ( of god that one ; who holds supremecy ) did causes of hurt ( by change ) first operate , till god , had turn'd the course of natures fate brought ( through her changes ) to a better state. and hence all cause of various opperations , effects produceth , as various in their stations , while we under the moon-light walk of will , ordained to rule the changes ; do fulfill his purpose decreed , that then shall stand reveal'd , ( to be lights fountain , when its suns unseal'd : ) under whose righteous wings , nations are heal'd . x. mean time as children of the day let 's walk , and not like bats by night , the sun doth bawk seeing a better state , god hath ordained , for those who by his power have sin refrain'd , and him doth love , whom evil hath restrain'd . changes must be , before our resurrection compleated is , to out live that infection , which death by 'ts sting , hath made on nature frail while her comply did misery intail , on us her subjects , may the hurt bewayl : but le ts arise in life , unchangable and leave behinde the form tangable . xi . for act of causes , sinfull comes of self where cause of act , was will'd by natures elph ; who seperated birth , is of that seed which sown in natures garden prov'd a weed ; for though to will , god being first did give which will of different seeds , came thence to live , yet will of self , no power had to act , till change prevail'd , to natrulise wills fact which self intaild upon the will of nature , not absolute , though free ( in every creature : ) where causes of will , are link'd all in one chain , draws after will effects , caus'd to remain . and xii . where change of minde , preceedent cause is made of change on bodys , to glory ( ne'er shall fade , repentings are a needfull change begun , till unto the unchangable , were come where united stands a body with that minde ; which glorify'd is , glory to finde . therefore though we in bodys vile , have dwelt this change begun on nature we have felt , ( as well as on our minds , ) having a part in the first resurrection , where our heart , with its affections , plac'd above are set , on heavenly things renewings doth beget . chap. ii. concerning the creation of the world , ( in nature ) wherein stands represented , the mistery of the golden fleece , that was carryed to colchos . when god the word began first to create , the earth being void of form was nihils seat , while darkness oceanus over spread , and on the face of neptune spirit shee l ; which was a power supream , will'd seperation of light from darkness of his first creation . but while the heavens and earth , were thus created the stage of nothings form therein stated . fixation was requir'd , while apt to fly was matter volatile , bove natures sky ; gods spirit therefore breathing on those waters , whose face was the first beauty of all matters . ii. a firmament thus made , the curtain was of nature ( forms ) out-spread shewing a cause , why unto coelus and terra ; aether and dies parents were feign'd under natures surprize , as also how nature surpriz'd , ( while reign'd , the youngest son of coelus and terra thus feign'd ? ) both why and how ( we say ) became disjoyn'd , such coelus and terra ; from unity of minde , and what were the three sorts of children born , gyants , cyclopes and tytans from heaven torn ; ( as saturn the youngest race , of powers destructive with crooked sith did cut off parts productive . ) iii. the cause ( we say , ) of all these things appears , when once the curtians drawn in aethers sphears , that he on dies form'd , when seperated was light from darkness , by what god created ; to be the heavens and earth ; ( were void of form while oceanus cover'd as one unborn , ) stood capable , of heavens impregnation , on vesta made the fruit of gods creation : ) for vesta's praise , who thence receiv'd her light , all then stood cloath'd , with coelums nature bright , cause vayld the temple was whence light appear'd , made th' outward nature of all things be fear'd : iv. but till their nature , by earths heir was worn , and outward pomp , was from mans heavens torn ; the outward nature of all things did bare , an image form'd in gods own heavenly sphear , till neptunes brats ( we say ) were born , all stood capable of form from the eternal good : good 't was to him , thus to create them so , while evil lurk'd ( unform'd ) mens mortal foe , proceeding whence took place the guilt of wo. but his decree hereby was brought about , his head to break that caus'd the reble rout , conspir'd by death , whence all our evils sprout . v. 't was amphitrite , to whom stood first united , our powerfull neptune , ( whom hell fiends thus spited , having contriv'd the way to frame desire , of ewe to self ( in kinde and sheeps first sire , from natures harmless dress and best atire : ) desire thus fram'd of one , in twains partake the tye in wedlock did fond neptune brake : for of theophiness , neptune soon grew fond who her in ewe-skin cloath'd , wolf to abscond , from near approach ( because fear held the bond . ) while he her other lovers had transform'd , under the wolf-like shape , they stood adorn'd ; vi. in nature bliss and fortunes direct way , all labouring mov'd untill thus went astray , subjects created one lord to obey ; before our adam did his nature stain , to be this one , did neptune strive amain , and how to get the fleece ( did gold remain . ) on fair theophiness in such form of ewe , who from such other lovers amazed flew , ( that by enchantment , neptune wolf-like form'd to fright his fair theophiness , with shaps scorn'd ; in form of ram ( we say ) neptune begot , the golden fleece , which of the ram out shot ; vii . before the ram of this his fleece was shorn , or shape of wolves , were thus brought under scorn , on such the ram , by whom was first begot , the golden fleece of neptune , ( now lusts blot ) phryxus to colchos , rod a journey hence , before the golden fleece , was carryed thence , to colchos from this our elesian shore , the ram carryed our gold to deck the whore ; when shorn and fleec'd he came , ( now doth adore the beasts form'd image on a fleshly score , ) because while wounded was one head of power , six others grew and spread , for mans devour . viii . the ram thus fleec'd , as phyxus then did ride , to carry gold away o're neptunes tide : ceres dismayed was , to see transform'd , from ram to horse , ( with crest and huffs adorn'd ; but yet prepar'd was there a cave to hide , her from the shame and loss , that did betide her wandring fancy , after proserpine by jupiter begot ( in seeds of time : ) cause jason entering in that open cave , thence brought his plutus out from natures grave , while neptune on ceres , venturing like attempt from cause of shame , could not ceres exempt . ix . for daughter of time , ( in saturn signify'd ) was ceres the mother of seed , that did abide the loss of proserpine ( her daughter ) when , she rang'd in natures field to gather in , ( to self ) the flowers thereof ; until found ravish'd was she , by pluto carry'd who time had lavish'd , ' mongst her companions , ( what nature did then yeild , wisdom , beauty , and wealth , to grace her field , while thus from her companions ( in her prime , she 's snatch'd to hell , and there held a rapine , ) to dwell six months with pluto , as one famish'd , who thus from venus , juno , and minerve , stood banish'd . for what cause ? x. again to grace the world with beauty new , and shew the power of him , by whom then grew , what she had gather'd in , which did revive , ( other six months , ) upon the earth to thrive ; a seperated seed of natures soyl , made subject to bare the fruit of adams toil ; by fancy of his own that love imbrass'd ; who his theophiness was , on whom was plac'd , that virtue of his minde , in nature grac'd ; till love turn'd lust , was such a change in man , that nature favour'd in the cave of pan , whence ceres lighted torches , ( read who can . ) — what xi . devided species of the draggon was , such beast of prey the wolf , that sets his paws , upon the flower of crowns , in natures sphear , where subjects of that crown , which kings do ware , are armed men sprung up , in natures soyl , who ' gainst each other fight , for his prevail whose teeth knockt out , by our medeas hand , were sown to make the world to understand , how sleepy death over powr'd the grim assays , ' gainst her was made ( who tract the draggons ways , whom by no wit or art , could then uphold the breach of tottering walls ( from fall foretold ) xii . while bulls with fiery mouths , both huff'd and horn'd , ( with ire of sparkling brass ) medea scorn'd , although they were a guard , to apples fair which grew in hespers garden by such air ; to grace his orchard , with such fruit of time , he holds in hell , for our natures rapine . thus was out charm'd the draggon of his prize , when once the seed first sown again did rise , hurt to prevent of natures open tyes , but how the enemy did with mischief tange , what thus became misplac'd , to work such change , if you 'l finde out consult , in natures range . chap. iii. concerning paradise , and such the draggon , beast , and whore under whose power and dominion , ( by their enchantments , ) put upon the same , ) our felecity ( of these enjoyments ; in a life of nature ) hath been lost , and the golden fleece hence carryed . one was the tree , ( in midst of garden plac'd , which also with the tree of life , was grac'd ; but senssed , though one ; divided stood the form , of twain , who from that one , quickly was torn , to re-unite all causes of twins born : for ( while thus one ) the fruit of both was senss'd ; and from that one , the taster soon was fenss'd ; where glory of paradise ( in a better state , then that wherein exsists , our love and hate , ) on wings of angels fleed , to her new seat. seeking redress for loss , she had sustain'd by death on life , ( where adam first remain'd . ii. whence death sprung up , in what was seperated , the twain of one ( from whom life thus retreated , towards the center ; wherein it was retain'd , the tree of life , from lustfull eyes restrain'd . ) cause thus the fence broke down , the tree did yeild the taster ( pain for pleasure ) in her field ; as good and evil , springing from that tree ; good fruit did bare , but evil unto we , did prove by tasting , ( as forbid to us , who disobeying fell under the curse : ) of that which self procur'd ( in nature frayl , o'er whom the enemy came , thus to prevail . for iii. watch'd over was the tree , ( such fruit did bare by the old serpent , and enchanted were , both fruit and garden , where pluto did feed , his queen of pleasure , who grasp'd flowers of seed , that ravish'd was , by gathering such a prize , which coveted , now opens natures eyes , to sense the good and evil of that life , which she in hell must loose , to end the strife ; as he the draggon ( out charm'd ) his art doth loose , by strength of teeth to bite or to abuse , the power in nature plac'd ; which must arise to glory in such draggons first surprise , iv. dying to live , was then the way prepar'd , against the sting of death , that all men fear'd . while living to dye , nature her course thus stear'd , by death to kill a death , ( in life once cur'd , all pangs on life by death eas'ly indur'd . are unto those in whom lifes crown insur'd , but how nature from its paradise , did sink into a lower station , where did link , causes together , of that golden chain ; under whose drawing power doth remain : subjects of her dominions , now become vasels unto a lord ( for what was done , ) v. how he the draggon , thus came to prevail o'er nature subjects , and his sting intaile , on her posterity , by allowance took , that heavens suffering caus'd in her forsook ; by angels of that sphear , ( their station kept , of glory from heaven reveal'd ( where adam sleept . ) the mistery of which a secret was , that angels into prying became a cause ; seals ( while remaining on gods book ) none can , vnloose , untill times come , that god in man , hath taught a world misterys to understand ; of whole to be fulfill'd is now at hand . vi. in order unto which take observation , of what befell the world in its first station , where saturn ( angel of time ) with his sharp sith , did seperate what from coelus , he did deprive by circumcise of parts , that terra did catch ; when he by hand and sith , did thus dispatch ( cause of coelus's sufferings ) to seperate , that which blood of such wounds did generate : forms of those causes , from coelus once disjoyn'd their mother earth imbrased , under like kinde of a disjunction made twixt her and coelus , ' gainst whom she did conspire , with natures bellows what to do ? vii . to blow up natures cole unto a fire , her subjects could not quench , under the ire of instigated saturn to unthrone , his father coelus , when an eunuch grown : for from heaven was then cast down , those monsterous shapes which were cut off by saturn ( as coelu's escapes , until this time of circumcision came ; thereby made circumventive to coelus of blame , ) whence gyants these sprung up monstroufly form'd , with many heads of beast , that was ten horn'd , for unto earth was cast , members defil'd , no more to generate in heaven a child , viii . but then sufferings of coelus from that cause , blood spilt and sown on earth , ' gainst natures laws , ( created vengance from the throne of power , retaliated on him who did devour , ( in cutting off those members ) his own race , whom when made vomit up did him displace , from the usurped seat , whence he disthron'd , of members was depriv'd , and unbemoan'd in his exile , where none but janus dar'd , in italy to harbour what was spar'd , by sword of jove , ( who nourish'd was in creet ; ) and was confind where miseries do meet . how ? ix . as into time was brought , hells hot desire , which did create eternal flames of fire , those forms to destroy , which nature gave in childhood to be nurss'd , towards their grave ; while open throat of saturn down doth swollow , all principles to blood , in whom did wallow , natures first birth , cast forth in open field , vnswadled there , while none respect did yield , like to celeus , ( unto saturns daughter , ) who took in ceres , while she wandring after her proserpine , whom ravish'd and led to hell , from her was lost , ( with pluto constraind to dwell . ) what ? x. a subject of pluto , though in hell a queen she in natures adorn , doth sometimes seem ; while plutus her mothers son by jason hides , the gold that ram , did carry o'er neptunes tides , whom horse begot ( on cerees ; ) did cause that shame ; she bares for neptunes sake , where rests the blame of what she having let in , the first was lost while second in earth appear'd hers , in third crost but angel of justice , heavens did retain , a thundering jove ( in vesta did remain ; ) whom saturn on ops , did generate to be , heavens restitution made of liberty . but do you ask ? xi . how from the fall of lucifur did rise , the draggon unto power for our surprize ; how lucifur cast down , and under chain of darkness there kept was so to remain , reserv'd unto the judgment of a day , by fire trys , what thus from god did stray ? and yet how loos'd was such the draggons power , who in all ages labour'd to devour ? how he both loose and bound , at once could be to serve gods justice , and himself go free ; how ( while christ in his suffering saints did reign , ) he vengeance could escape ( from being slain ? ) xii . this all to answer is a task too great , for humane wit or art ( that may create , more scruples then requir'd it to explain ; ) because the book thus seal'd , must so remain . untill the time is come to stand reveal'd , all misterys ( in nature ) to be unseal'd : for how bound [ think ye ] was he thus did prevail , by such vice-roy [ the beast ] over that tail , made up of heavens third part , that had been drawn after the draggon their head [ on whom did fawn , slaves of his dominion , flattery did love , from such his tail , he after him did move . ] chap. iv. concerning the kingdom , power and dominions of such the draggon and whore , in and unto the beast , deliver'd up [ under several forms , he had power to transform himself into ; ] wherein by the appearance of the wolf , [ the nurse of old rome ] is unridled a prophetical demonstration of a mistery including , the power of france , [ under the kingly dominion of a wolf , pawing on the flower deluce . ] neptune with triple forck , thrust triple crown , from earth towards natures heavens , for her renown ; to whom by crook she drew its glory down . who now grown whore , upon that beast doth ride , that carryed phryxus o're this neptunes tide ; which beast , ( in the lambs form ) hath draggons voice : and is the now grown ram , of the whores choice , that life unto the beast with wounded head , recover'd , by healing that once almost dead , unto which beast the draggon , gave up his power , ( with seat and great dominion to devour ; all those who were not shelter'd in his tower. ii. and cause his wounded head again was heal'd , unto and in his image , life stood reveal'd ; the mistery of power reviv'd , [ once was fast seal'd . ] that he both live and spake , did with a voice of a commanding power ; with natures choice , unto a shape , ( with monsterous heads and horns ; ) wherein he worship'd was in several forms , for with seven heads , ( and horns ten ) came he , on the septentrion angle where waters be . that fills the sea , whence he came up to shew how out from thence being come , his power doth grow , over those waters that do over-flow . iii. those waters many ( whereon she doth set , lady of pleasure , that doth pain beget , ) are peoples , tongues and nations , o'er whom she rules , ( as queen ) who is that whore , the world befools : on seven high hills also , spread forth her sate , did she who rides on him , whose horns shall hate , that bloody city built on mountains high , which plainly doth the beast , and whore discry ; who both when taken alive , with draggon great are cast into the lake fire uncreate , eternally prepar'd to be their fate , that ' gainst god did presume ( from such their sate , ) iv. for while this whore exalted was on him , whose frightfull and monsterous form unto men , fray'd first the ewe theophness , with wolfs shape ( as things transform'd , thus stood for her escape , who flying from the wolf , while ram prevail'd , hath on her shoulders , eagles wings intail'd , while thus ( we say , ) the wolf man was fear'd he like a wolf to theophiness appear'd : who now stands cloath'd , the ram that once was shorn and is enchanting neptunes better form , whose fleece again being grown , all men adore the rising sun who once went down before . v. 't was romulus , that first began to build the city call'd by 's name in natures field , the wolf that nurss'd him was nature adorn'd , in such a shape , that neptune had transform'd : lovers of theophiness , as frightfull beasts of prey , they did appear the harmless ewe to fray , which caus'd the flight ( on eagles wings ) of she , our true theophiness is , ( mother sets free ; her seed and children dear , from the wolfs ire who in his stomach nurss'd , brood of hells fire , ) for what romulus , thus built she fox became , call'd reynelus , thus nurss'd ( under wolfs blame . ) of what ? vi. of nurssing him did build , a city great whom thus she fox became , found in the cheat was ( of her mother wolf ; who sought advise , from reynelus , how they an interprise , might bring about , to storm the lyons den ; to whom wolf reynalds , sent ( it to look in ) and view the state of lyon , how stood guarded the palace of that prince ; and how warded , was fort of leo ? and who there stood centry ? or kept the gates ; through which he mak's his entry ? fox taking leave of wolf , his errand run having more craft then wolf , ( whose tale was done . ) vii . and when to lyons den come , in did peep who unto wolf brought word , lyon did sleep , which did encourage wolf to travel on , towards the lyons fort , ( as fox had done ; ) and thither coming without fear of danger , found fox a lyer , and no forrest ranger : for wolf no sooner peep'd in lyons den , but rous'd he stood to meet wolf half-way in ; ( while crafty fox , fleed towards henroost to hide , her self from danger , of the wolfs betide , under whose paw , was left ( wolf who had nurss'd , a city builder ( she fox became now curss'd , ) so that viii . who plow'd hath with our heifor may be bold , that they this ridle , shall come to unfold ; mean while consider , where the wolf was left and whether fleed the fox guilty of theft ; who while to goose doth preach , on goose doth ride , to whom she proves a grave , ( the goose doth hide ; therefore let goose beware , while fox doth teach peacock a lesson ( ' gainst pride ) he don't impeach ; goose for an ape of france , and leave the swan , in his white plums to pride , reade they that can for now on stage are brought , with their black feet , both peacock , swan , and ape , whom fox doth greet , for what ? ix . to hear a sermon made , although the text she would not give , till goose to her sate next , upon whose back she leapt , setting a stride the prey she made ( of goose whom fox doth ride : ) for hen-roost fox was hunting , while she left the wolf to lyons paw , of power bereft , ( to help her self , thus fallen under paw , of lyon rampant , keeps all beasts in awe . ) while necessity indeed of justice was , a foster mother , and a second cause , ( as death awakend , justice to execute , made hungry grave , its power to prosecute . ) what ? x. causes ( in nature ) why thus hath prevail'd , death unto heirs , on whom it stands intail'd , and how needfull 't was , the wolf should come they know , who are awakend ' against deaths overthrow ; till then the wolf may paw , upon the flower , ( that is no meat with ease he can devour , whose stomach crav's to nourish deaths hungry power : and feeds upon those bodies wherein life , is cas'd remaining years , of natures strife , throw death to live again gods loyal wife . 11. and thus her sate , on whom the change prevail'd , over the seed , to whom death stood intail'd , is now seen ram , by whom the wound was heald : of head on monster heaven hath reveal'd to be the form reviv'd , for him to whom the draggon gave up his seat , power , and throne ; so that you plainly now may see what rides , and what unto the who such beasts betides , him that hath carry'd her who rules the form on her begotten in a blustring storm : ( carry'd once to colchos in form of a ram , phryxus that rod o're neptunes ocean . 12. through all transformings hitherto hath appear'd , uncloath'd the wolf , that in a ewe-skin fear'd self in a shape begot , by fire of lust ; ( 'twixt twain ) what 's made a grave to hold the just ; when crucify'd ( by her , that was the nurse to romulus the sire of natures curse : ) the form was held , ( as wolf then did afford her nourishment of twain with one accord ) who though she be thus inwardly a wolf , yet stands in sheeps-skin clad a greedy gulph , and swallow'd in ( by craft ) beguiled minds while bait was cover'd hurtfull as flock finds . 13. now mark you well , the cause of false larums , by shepheards of that flock , and sound of drums , have cry'd the wolf is come to stupify , the ears so oft deceiv'd by their grossly , till come he did , and shall ( though self secure , they all are grown , who look not to indure tryals by fire , preparing for a day brings sheep to sold again had went astray when naked , such wolf time will bewray who though a wolf , he thus be inwardly yet in sheeps-skin , is clad from their discry by sheepheards , are lead and left when dangers by 14. but how the wolf doth come , if you will know , ( considering thus his cloathing her below ) mark well , no time that 's past can time prevent , ( decreed to bring about the whole event ) untill is ripend fruits by fire try'd that its consuming flames cannot abide , though on the flower de luce this wolf doth paw , in him nurss'd up , ( by her keeps kings in awe ; contented are , their subjects should be hers , the time those horns have power that she confers , yea , and transfers from those shall disobey to drink her cup brimfull , the prize doth sway . ) errata . reader , thou art desired with thy pen to amend any litteral faults that have escap'd in correcting , chiefly hiraglip make hyragliphick . finis . mr. sheridan's speech after his examination before the late house of commons on wednesday the 15th of december 1680 sheridan, thomas, 1646-ca. 1688. 1681 approx. 24 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2003-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a59755 wing s3228 estc r26917 09581294 ocm 09581294 43710 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a59755) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 43710) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1340:3) mr. sheridan's speech after his examination before the late house of commons on wednesday the 15th of december 1680 sheridan, thomas, 1646-ca. 1688. 4 p. printed for jo. hindmarsh, london : 1681. caption title. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng sheridan, thomas, 1646-ca. 1688. popish plot, 1678. 2000-00 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2001-11 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2002-02 tcp staff (oxford) sampled and proofread 2002-02 tcp staff (oxford) text and markup reviewed and edited 2002-03 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion m r. sheridan's speech after his examination before the late house of commons , on wednesday the 15 th of december , 1680. t is , i confess sir , a great misfortune to fall under the displeasure of the honourable house of commons , it is a burden that no man , tho' never so great , is able to bear ; it cannot then be a wonder , if so inconsiderable a person , and of so little strength as i , should stoop under the weight ; not that i fear any danger to my person , but grieve for the wounds it gives my reputation , which i have always valu'd above my life , and that it might be preserv'd spotless , i have ever made it my study to keep a good conscience , void of offence , towards god and towards man ; and therefore i little expected to be brought as a criminal to this bar , or any tribunal . but i am convinc'd , innocence is no security against the darts of envy or malice , and that he who will hazard his body or his soul , may take away the life and fame of any one at pleasure ; 't is to men of such principles i owe my present trouble : i do not say this to reflect upon any member of this great and honourable assembly . my evil is from without doors , and i know the authors and the contrivance so well , that , if it were convenient , i cou'd name them , and trace the whole chain , link by link , to the very first , hammer'd by prejudice , and particular interest . i do not wonder that , in the present circumstances , you shou'd have an ear open to all reports that any way relate to the publick , this is due to your station , and to your prudence ; and because justice and your honour require it , i as little doubt your reserving the other ear for the pleas and defences of the accus'd , or that you will condemn any man unheard : upon this assurance it is , that i am bold to beg , with all due respect and reverence , that i may have liberty to speak for my self without interruption ; if you are pleas'd to grant me this favour , i will use it as fully and briefly as i can , for your satisfaction and my own vindication . i have been represented ( i hope without offence i may say , traduc'd , for so i can make it appear ) for a person of no fortune , a papist , a second coleman , and what is more ridiculous , tho' not more false , a jesuit , and the duke's confessor . in clearing my self from these aspersions , i must be forc'd to say something , which nothing but necessity , that either has none , or breaks all laws , can excuse from vanity . as that i was born a gentleman , of one of the antientest families , and related to many considerable , in ireland ; in one county there is a castle , and a large demean , and in another a greater tract of land for several miles together , yet known by our name , i need not say who was the head or chief , 't is too much that my grand-father was the last who enjoy'd the estate , and that my father left an orphan in the beginning of king iames's reign , soon found himself dispossess'd and expos'd to the world , that whole county , with five others , being intirely escheated to the crown . my parents protestants , my mother a gentlewoman of england , of good fortune , a foster , who for my fathers sake quitted her country and her relations , both fam'd for honesty , for their loyalty and sufferings in the late rebellion , when my father scap'd twice narrowly with his life , and at last was forc'd to fly , for relieving and protecting both the fortunes and persons of very many english. to my birth i had a suitable education ; i have some slender pretence to letters , am not altogether a stranger to the civil-law , nor the laws of england , the means intended for my livelyhood . but , without my seeking or knowledge , some friends procur'd for me the collectorship of the customs of cork , and the management of most of the inland-revenue of that country : this employment , and the accidents attending it , together with that of the east-india prizes , and others in the last war with holland , put into kinsale , enabl'd me to bring for my own proportion of advance-money , for the present revenue-farm of ireland , 9532 l. as appears upon record in the chancery of england ; and being by a brother of mine , then here , without my privity or desire , engag'd in this undertaking , and a stranger to all the partnership , excepting one , iune last was 3 years i sold my interest for 4000 l , profit . this money i employ'd in corporation and church-leases , in mortgages and other securities , at 10 l. per cent , the interest of that kingdom . and after this account , if i have no visible real estate , i hope no man can doubt but that i may live independently , tho' besides i happen to be a younger brother , so far from being a prejudice , that it 's possible to prove my advantage , being defign'd the heir of two elder brothers , who neither have , nor are like to have any children . the bills of exchnge drawn and remitted to and from ireland , by sir iohn frederick and company , mr. d. arthur and other known merchants , will shew my proper fond , and no man's bounty supported my expences ; and therefore , because i can with great truth , i do the more freely declare , that i neither have , nor ever had any relation to the duke or dutchess of york , as a servant or dependent , a sallary-man or pensioner , and was so far from succeeding mr. coleman , that his employment never enter'd into my thoughts taken up with affairs of a far different nature . my journey to flanders was no way criminal , and in a great measure the effect of curiosity , having before seen very little of that country , holland or germany ; and as i went not with the duke , so my return in his train was purely accident . for my religion , as i was born of protestant parents , so i was all along bred a member of the church of england , and ( by the grace of god ) will live and die in this profession ; for it is not so much owing to the chance of education , as to my choice , being satisfi'd by reason , by scripture , and the laws of my country , no inconsiderable argument , that of all , it is the most purely christian. since i was seventeen years of age i have gone duly to church , and several times in every year receiv'd the sacrament ; i did so twice while in flanders , as dr. lake and dr. doughty ( the duke's chaplains ) and others can witness ; and i have done so six times since my return thence , there are in this honourable house that can testifie some part of this truth . i have taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy eleven times , am ready to submit to all further injunctions of law in matters of religion , have in disputes encounter'd , tho' unwillingly , with many of the several orders abroad , remain'd unshaken in my principles ; this at ghent , putting a jesuit ( more zealous than the rest ) into great passion , made him pronounce me obstinate , and declare , he cou'd sooner bring over ten of the most rigid phanaticks of england , than hope to make me a proselyte . now if all this be not sufficient to wipe off the imputation of popery , i confess i am to seek for a defence . among others 't is objected , that by my interest in his r. h. i got my brother made a bishop , in opposition to the lord lieutenant of ireland , and contrary to merit . to this i answer , that my brother has been as much , and as injuriously , though not so publicly defam'd as i ; that he came off with honour ; that a peak between two great lords of that kingdom , and one of the greatest of this , did not only prevent his being sooner promoted , but was the occasion of his being bespatter'd with many falshoods and calumnies ; that few in ireland deserve it better ; that what he enjoys , he obtain'd not in opposition to , tho' without the recommendation of the chief governour , nor by the mediation of the duke , but of a great minister , in the presence of my lord bishop of london , from the king 's immediate grace openly shewn in council , and with a particular mark of his royal favour . i hope 't is no crime to honour and revere the duke as he is a prince , or if a private man to love and value his innate worth and qualities ; or to have said , as it is reported ( i wish nothing else had been with less truth ) that i wou'd hazard my life and fortune to do him any lawful and just service ; if it be a crime , as i can no ways apprehend of the brother of my king , while publickly pray'd for in all the churches of the three kingdoms , i confess my self guilty ; but i am not so wedded to his interest , as to espouse or pursue them , if he can have any such , contrary to the duty i owe , and ever will pay my sovereign , my country , my religion and my god. and i do here most solemnly protest , as i hope for heaven , if i knew him in any instance a conspirator or a traitor , i wou'd not only detest , but endeavour to bring him to publick justice ; and if ever he can be prov'd a criminal of this nature , i will have no more respect nor regard , but less , for him , than i wou'd for any common offender . and therefore , without the hopes of reward , or the fears of punishment , i declare in the presence of the almighty , if i knew any part of the popish-plot , or the persons concern'd in 't , i wou'd long since have reveal'd the whole contrivance . but none in their senses can believe , that a known protestant cou'd be made privy to such a conspiracy ; to which , if necessary , might be added , that i was in a country remote from that , where the design is said to be hatch'd . i own my self of so extensive a charity , to love the persons of all honest men , notwithstanding their differing from me in opinion , about the modes and circumstances of religion , and to be for liberty of conscience , when consistent with the safety of the state , to all quiet and peaceable dissenters ; but when 't is urg'd and made use of to other ends , or as a cloak for rebellion or treachery , i abominate all such indulgence . but i will no longer dwell on this subject , than to mind you of collonel mansel's mistake or forgetfulness , when he informs this honourable house , that in or about july , 1678. i din'd at his treat for a german lord , in order to a design of his upon a foreign command , and that 2 or 3 days after , i shou'd advise him against it , telling him the duke wou'd very soon have occasion for such officers . first , i do say , to have said so was no crime ; but i easily see through this artifice , 't is to serve as an argument , that i understood somewhat of the plot , of which i am as ignorant as any man living , beyond what i have since learnt from the prints and public fame . in the next place , i do utterly deny i ever said the words , because i do not know the duke had any such design , and am certain i cannot invent . besides , by many circumstances , needless here to mention , that dinner was after the courts return from windsor , and consequently after the breaking forth of the plot. i desire the gentleman wou'd recollect himself ; at that time he was very great and intimate with a roman catholick , h. n. from whom if he heard not the words , as i am not apt to imagine , i am confident he dream'd them . he cannot be ignorant that i knew why he was disbanded in ireland , &c. and that i always declin'd , not only as having no interest , but as unwilling for other reasons , to introduce him to the duke , as he often press'd ; and therefore he made his application to others , but with as ill success . and now give me leave , i beseech you , mr. speaker , to answer an objection , that i have prescrib'd a way how the king shou'd live without parliaments : i am so far from entertaining such a thought , that i ever esteem'd the constitutions of england by king , lords and commons the happiest kind of government in the world ; and if the discourse called , the rise and power of parliaments , &c. be mine , of which many will have me the author , the reading it , would be of this a sufficient confutation : in that , parliaments are magnifi'd , their power rather enlarg'd than lessen'd , and their frequent meetings recommended as most convenient . in a word , whatever character my adversaries have given of me , i am not a protestant in masquerade , i can neither lie nor dissemble , i am really what i profess , and as the word is commonly taken , no lover of arbitrary government , in any single or complicated body . as to the letter subscrib'd by fitz-iames , i do sincerely protest i have no acquaintance with any of the name , nor ever saw the hand before , nor the intended messenger c. who not finding me , left it with the maid-servant : but in this there is nothing criminal . as to the computations , they are a transcript from a paper of sir peter petts , containing the number of conformists , non-conformists and papists throughout england , taken by the bishops order , in , or about the time of the general indulgence and by him produc'd presently after the plot , upon the talk that there were fifty thousand papists , able to bear arms , within temple-bar and about westminster ; a number near double to what , at the taking this survey , they were found men , women and children in the whole kingdom . for the copy of my cousin wilsons writing , i confess it the only thing i endeavour'd to evade , having ingenuously and without reserve answer'd all other questions . that individual paper i never saw before the preceding night , when meeting it in the drawer of my bed-chamber , ( always open , whether i am at home or abroad ) i laid it uppermost with purpose of inquiring how he came by it , and whether he knew the author ; but not seeing him till next day in presence of the members sent to search my lodgings , i cou'd not ask him , and was surpriz'd to have so indiscreet and reflective a paper found in his hand , and among mine . 't is true , that about three weeks before , i found another of the same contents , in an old crabbed hand , to me unknown ; which after i had read , and concluded it might possibly be left by some of my acquaintance in their visits , and being unable to guess at the perso●● not knowing how long it had layn there , being dated above a month before i immediatly threw it into the fire . yet in this paper , which has made so great a noise , there is neither felony nor treason ; and being the act of another , and never by me publish'd , having neither sub , nor superscription , nor writ to , nor for from me , nor copi'd by my order , cannot , i presume , be a libel , nor i hope imputed to me , to whom it came perfectly by accident : if it were lawful to speak ones guesses from the contents , it shou'd seem to have come from a learned gentleman , one of your own members , then in the country skill'd in the spanish tongue , to which both my cousin and i are perfect strangers ; nor was either of us out of london then , or for sometime before : if i cou'd as well hit upon the person , as his quality , i wou'd give a more satisfactory account of this matter ; and i hope this honourable assembly will the sooner credit me , when they reflect , that upon seeing another paper of my kinsmans writing , i wou'd not by a lie deny this to be his hand . as for my writing to mr. gadbury , i refer my self to the letter in sir w. waller's hands : i have told you the accidental occasion ; i desir'd from him , ( whose acquaintance i knew large , even among the members of that parliament ) the most material of public news ; i neither ask'd for schemes or figures , i have ever laugh'd at the idle and ridiculous art of judicial astrology , invented , at least practis'd , to impose upon , and pick the pockets of the ignorant and the credulous . and now as to the cause of my commitment : the story dr. d. told me as news , of peter norris his knowing as much of the plot as any man in england , his going , or being gone into france to fetch a priest to be a witness . i can only say , as near as i remember , i gave the same account to mr. secretary ; not as an informer , but as news ; for not being look'd upon as such , i was not desir'd to swear , nor cou'd i to a hear-say . in this i call heaven to witness i had no sinister design , but an honest intention of having the full truth brought to light : nor do i know , nor have i any reason to believe , that mr. secretary's after proceedings were from any other principle . upon my telling him the name of norris , and his saying he had never before heard it , and commanding me to send the doctor to him , or the others description ; as soon as i met with the doctor , which was several dayes after this discourse ; and he as not knowing mr. secretary refusing to go , i desir'd from him the description , which some time after he brought me ; i gave or sent to mr. secretary , for i cannot tell whether . but of this i am certain , that all i knew of the affair , was from the doctor only ; and that i never communicated it to any , but mr. secretary , and that by what i writ under the description , appears to be near a month after norris his departure , and consequently cou'd not be design'd to stop his journey , or prevent the priests coming over , or obstruct the fuller discovery of the plot , which no man living desires more than my self , believing it the interest of every honest subject and protestant , ( out of which number i cannot be excluded ) to have all in 't , from the highest to the lowest punish'd according to merit ; and that tranquility it has so long disturb'd , re-settl'd in the kingdom : and now i hope none of the members of this honourable house can imagine i cou'd be guilty of so horrid a crime , as having any knowledge of the priests being poison'd , as is suspected , or given out he might be . i am so ignorant of this , or any part of the conspiracy , that i do not so much despise , as decline , because not needing it , the generous offer of mr. speaker , or other membe●s intercession for my pardon : i acknowledge , as i ought ; the favour with all fitting respect ; but i thank god , i am so innocent , that i dare , as now i do , challenge the whole world , to make out one particular , where in word or action , in the whole course of my life , i have done or spoken falsly , or unjustly ; and yet no man ever suffer'd more calumnies , without any cause , or the least shadow of truth , beyond the witty malice of those , whose eyes are blinded , and consciences sear'd by envy and interest , who from pretended friends are become my real adversaries , contrary to reason and justice . but further , none can believe i cou'd keep any dangerous correspondence , when it s well known that for these three years and a half all my letters were no otherwise directed , than for me at the royal coffee-house . besides it appear'd at the committee by norris his own papers , that this priest dowdall , ( whose name i never heard before ) died september last was twelve months , eight months before i heard there was such a man in the world as norris , and at a time when i was in another country . and since you have thought fit to acquit dr d. who was my author and principal , and who own'd himself a roman catholick ; i hope you will not think it equal , that i a known sincere protestant , and but an accessary , shou'd stand committed , and committed after such a manner , as neither felon nor traitor , not only accus'd , but convicted , cou'd suffer a closer confinement . and here , mr. speaker , i intreat your leave to ask pardon , if at the committee my behaviour has offended any of the members of this honourable house , and to say , whatever heat i express'd , was the effect of passion , to which i was mov'd , by hearing several of them in public , as at locketts and other eating and coffee-houses , had call'd me papist , and a second coleman , with other aspersions i cou'd not bear without resentment : to this was added my being commanded a messenger for : dr. d. an office beneath me , and wherein i cou'd not expect to be s●ccessful , not knowing whether he wou'd appear without compulsion . i hope it will not be accounted an unexpiable crime for a gentleman of more years and discretion , than i can pretend to , to shew himself disturb'd at a conceiv'd indignity or affront ; and in hopes it may not be accounted so hainous , i do once more withall due submission beg pardon . there is one thing more i cannot without trouble touch upon , the reflections the written votes , very different from the printed , bring upon my reputation ; in those 't is said , it appears that i have succeeded mr. coleman , than which there never was a more groundless , false , or malicious invention : and also that i question'd your authority , and said your proceedings look'd like the late rebellion . however sir william roberts came to make the report , my words were to sir iohn morton in another room , and to him i appeal , whether they were not thus . upon his advising that i shou'd fare the better , if i freely shew'd my papers , i told him i wou'd not hid one , nor dispute their power , thò i had heard others did ; and that the seizing closets and writings , was not only illegal , but look'd upon as one of the causes of the last rebellion ; thereupon he wish'd i had not said the words : i reply'd , i meant no harm by those objections , and notwithstanding my mentioning them , they shou'd find in me a readiness to obey , and an intire submission ; and added , if they were offensive , i unsaid them , and ask'd his pardon , as i now humbly do from the whole house , if i am thought herein to have offended . and to do sir iohn justice , he was pleas'd to promise he wou'd take no notice of the discourse , unless commanded ; to whom with the rest of the committee i refer my self , whether of my own accord i was not going along with them , when i met your messenger . if i had been guilty of any crime , i had not only warning , but threats and advices to fly many days , some weeks before , when i was told by letters from unknown hands , and by several persons of honour and quality , that i was design'd to be brought into trouble ; i need not in this place say , for what reason . and here i cannot by the way but take notice of a report made by justice warcup at this bar , and spread at coffee-houses ; that he shou'd have search'd mr. sheridans lodgings , and there found only a parcel of popish books , whereas he never was in mine , but at mr. brunetty's house , an italian merchant , whose books those must have been , and therefore i hope this was some clarks , rather than his mistake . and now since no man can be plac'd beyond the reach of malice , and the devices of the wicked , and that i happen to be brought hither as a suppos'd criminal , i am extreamly pleas'd , i have the good fortune to meet with so wise and equal judges , as compose this august and honourable assembly ; where i am so far from fears , that i do not doubt , but upon an exact scrutiny , and an impartial examination , my having been so infinitely traduc'd , and so wrongfully expos'd to the publick ; will be so far from gratifying my adversaries unjust desires , that they will not only be defeated , but my self greatly advantag'd ; and therefore i leave my cause at the footstool of your justice , and willingly submit to your pleasure and determinations , praying no other favour , than what i am sure you wou'd grant without asking ; your full consideration of the whole matter , your speedy condemnation or acquittal , as i shall be found guilty or innocent . london , printed for io. hindmarsh , anno domini , 1681. the several informations of mr. simeon wright, thomas launders and richard perkin concerning the horrid popish plot in england : and the several ways that have been used to take off the kings witnesses, and to hinder the further discovery of it : the two former, being witnesses in the trial of the late lord stafford, their informations were taken upon oath by edmond warcup, esq., one of his majesties justices of the peace for middlesex and westminster, in december last 1680 : the latter was taken upon oath by sir robert atkyns, kt. at the assizes at stafford, 1679 : the whole informations being nothing but matter of fact. 1681 approx. 38 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 15 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a59378 wing s2767a estc r10186 12927106 ocm 12927106 95547 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a59378) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 95547) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 990:16) the several informations of mr. simeon wright, thomas launders and richard perkin concerning the horrid popish plot in england : and the several ways that have been used to take off the kings witnesses, and to hinder the further discovery of it : the two former, being witnesses in the trial of the late lord stafford, their informations were taken upon oath by edmond warcup, esq., one of his majesties justices of the peace for middlesex and westminster, in december last 1680 : the latter was taken upon oath by sir robert atkyns, kt. at the assizes at stafford, 1679 : the whole informations being nothing but matter of fact. wright, simeon. lander, thomas. perkin, richard, 17th cent. [6], 15, [3], 5 p. printed for thomas simmons ..., london : 1681. reproduction of original in huntington library. "the information of thomas lander of shutborrow in the county of stafford ..." has special t.p. and separate paging. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng stafford, william howard, -viscount, 1614-1680. popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-01 taryn hakala sampled and proofread 2007-01 taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion we do appoint thomas simmons and no other , to print these our informations , concerning the horrid popish plot . simeon wright . thomas lavnders . december the 29. 1680. the several informations of m r. simeon wright , thomas launders and richard perkin . concerning the horrid popish plot in england . and the several ways that have been used to take off the kings witnesses , and to hinder the further discovery of it . the two former , being witnesses in the trial of the late lord stafford , their informations were taken upon oath by edmond warcup , esq ; one of his majesties justices of the peace for middlesex and westminster , in december last 1680. the latter was taken upon oath by sir robert atkyns , kt. at the assizes at stafford , 1679. the whole informations being nothing but matter of fact. london , printed for thomas simmons , at the princes-arms in ludgate-street , mdclxxxi . the publishers preface to the reader . it is a truth notoriously known to all considering persons in this nation , that since the happy discovery of the late hellish and damnable popish plot , against the life and government of his majesty , and against our protestant religion , and liberties , and especially upon the trials of several of the conspirators many deep artifices have been used by the plotters for defaming the kings witnesses , and for invalidating of their testimonies ; for these ends witnesses have been fetch'd from saint omers , and have appeared at several trials , but how ill they acted their parts , and how unworthy they were of the names of just and lawful witnesses , all men know . besides these we may remember , mr. readings , endeavouring to take off mr. bedloe ; and price and tasboroughs tampering with mr. dugdale , though all issued in their own shame ; and they all receiv'd their just demerits . nor can the designs , of knox , osborn , and lane , to take off doctor oates's evidence be obliterated , it is well known how they also made use of mr. dangerfield , who , as himself acknowledgeth , was engaged through the wicked and malicious instigation of the countess of powis , the five popish lords in the tower , and their accomplices in a horrid and damnable design of charging the presbyterians with a pretended plot against the present government and religion by law established . a very fine trick to take the odium of the plot off from themselves ; but it pleased almighty god out of his infinite mercy to this discoverer , and to many innocent persons that were to be accused , yea to the whole kingdome , to bring him to a true sense of the guilt he had contracted , and to a resolution to make a free discovery of whatever he had been privy to , in this design ; the popish cause still being exposed , by discovering the artifices above , they were put upno new contrivances to hide it , or blast the discovery of it , several of which are in the following informations fully laid open . one thing i dare not omit here , viz. my own observation all along in the progress of this matter , that since the first discovery of this plot , when ever the kings evidence hath seemed to be as it were at a bay , as discouraged by the power or policy of malevolent persons , then by the providence of the most high another witness hath risen up to retrieve and confirm what before seemed to be at a loss : thus after the endeavours to disparage and vilifie dr. oats , in came mr. bedloe , then mr. dugdale , to assert , and more fully to evince the truth of the doctors testimony , which was then and since , by many interested persons endeavoured to be shaken . after this god raised up mr. praunce , who fully discovered the horrid and bloody murther of sir edmundbury godfrey , and confirmed the plot in several particulars , viz. as to the designed murther of his sacred majesty , the right honourable the earl of shaftsbury , and others : and since him a cloud of witnesses , to put the plot past dispute , have appeared , as mr. jenison , mr. smith , mr. bolron , mr. mowbray , mr. turbervil , seignior francisco de faria , and several others : and besides this plot in england , there hath been another , altogether as cruel and bloudy , carried on in ireland , which hath been fully discovered by several persons of good credit , as mr. hetherington , mr. macnemarra , mr. boork , mr. fitz-gerald , mr. sampson , and others . but notwithstanding these great discoveries how many wilfully ( or at least pretendedly ) shut their eyes , but tho they will not see ( according to that scriptural expression ) yet in time , they shall see and shall be ashamed , for the hand of god hitherto hath been more then ordinarily seen in these matters . the reader hath here before him a few of the very many decrees of popish adversaries against the discoverers of their plot. enough to satisfie any unprejudic'd and unbiassed man of the truth and reality of the plot , ●ince such wayes as these , viz. stabbing , forswearing and burning , were to be used to take off those that revealed it . the first information you have before you is mr. wrights , who hath fully discovered , the several ways wherein he was instructed for the taking off mr. dugdale , and having so great opportunities to have muthered him , his preservation is only to be ascribed to the wonderful mercy of god , and that failing , his next work was to blast his reputation , by swearing subornation of perjury against him , but when this was to be done his conscience misgave him , and god at length brought him to discover the whole intreague . the second information is that of thomas launder , who hath also discovered the several ways by which he was perswaded to take off mr. dugdale , and when it was perceived that he was not a tool for their purpose , then to sacrifice mr. dugdale to their fury , the house in which he lay must be fired , in order to destroy him , but herein also god wonderfully appeared for his preservation . that none of these gracious providences of the almighty may be lost upon this kingdome , but all improved with wisdome to an humble acknowledgment and thankful obedience , ought to be the prayer of every true protestant . the third contains a horrid story of romish priests , and their followers impiety , a story , the like ( but among papists ) has not been heard of , no wonder that a dying traytor may go out of the world with a lie in his mouth , since so notorious falshoods as these are allowed by their priests themselves , since such truths , may be so solemnly denied , and that with such horrid imprecations , and dreadful oaths . these papers are published to the end that all such as are concerned for the welfare and prosperity of their religion and country , may be the more fully convinced , how much it is their interest , to endeavour for the future to disappoint all the contrivances of this cruel bloody party , who are so active , and so indefatigably industrious to promote their own designs under the pretence of religion , this is the benefit , that is heartily wished may accrue , by the publishing of these informations to all english-men , and to all the true lovers of the true protestant religion . vale . the information of symeon wright , barber chirvrgeon in chancery-lane in london , taken upon oath this 17th . day of december , 1680. before me edmond warcup esq ; one of his majesties justices of the peace in the said county and city . mr. plessington coming from beyond the seas went into stafford-shire , and at the right honorable lady gerards at saudon , he became acquainted with a sister of mine , that then waited on the young lord , by whose meanes , he came to the knowledg of my father and mother , who then and still live at stone in stafford-shire ; at his return to london he brought recommendations from them to me , to my masters a barber and periwig maker in chancery-lane . this was the beginning of our acquaintance , which was afterwards improved to those wicked ends , i am now about to relate . this was about the year 1672 or 1673 , and to the best of my memory he did then belong to lincolns-inn , from thence he went to serve the lady marchioness of clinrickard in covent-garden , and was from thence advanced to be the lord bellasis his steward , which place i suppose he still holds . after the discovery of the hellish and damnable popish plot i gave him a visit in german-street , and told him the talk of the town about his lord , whereupon he replyed , dear child it is a false thing , and my lord is as clear as the child unborn , and is with the king at new-market , and as great a favorite as any one whatever . it is well , said i , if it prove so , and he told me i need not fear it . when strict enquiry was made after the murtherers of sir edmond-bury godfrey , mr. plessington was upon suspition taken into the custody of mr. wickham a messenger , and upon a saturday night came to the ship tavem without temple barr with his keeper , whether he sent for me , and when i came to him , after some other discourse , told me his condition , and pull'd out a small book with a lock and key to it , which his keeper immediatly searched , but upon perusal of it , restored it to him again ; then at his request i went to the lord marques of winchesters to acquaint his lordship with the greatness of his charge , and to beg his lordships favour : his lordship sent for me into his bed-chamber , and asked me how mr. plessington did , and after i had delivered my message , he bad me remember his kind respects to mr. plessington , and tell him he did not think it convenient so soon to move for his enlargment , but that it should not be long before he should hear from him . it was upon the lords day , that i waited on the marques , and on the tusday following he was discharged and came to return me thanks for my care and paines , adding , that he would not be ungrateful to me when occasion should serve . whereupon i replyed ; sir i am very glad that you have so good a friend , meaning my lord marques of winchester , to which he thus answered , ah child if you were in my condition , you would have as good and better . upon the first rumour of mr. stephen dugdales discovery mr. plessington was very inquisitive whether i knew him , i told him yes very well ; upon which , he answered , that he was sorry that i knew such a base fellow or words to that effect . and after mr. dugdales coming to town , he observing a great intimacy betwixt us ; told me , that he would come oftner to see me , but that he did not care to see dugdale ; and yet at the same time would express his desire to see him , but would bid me take no notice of it to dugdale , and was very frequently asking questions concerning him , alwayes speaking very scurrilously of him . he told me he was very well satisfied of my truth and honesty , and that it should not be long before i should know more of his mind , which discourse was soon over . not long after he came to me again , and told me he wanted some secret discourse with me , and thus went on . you are ( said he ) dugdales barber still ; yea ( said i ) i am ; pray ( said he ) where do you trim him ? i answered in my shop , with three or four souldiers about him . do you , said he , never trim him privatly ? i told him i never yet had , but was once asked by him to trim him at his chamber at the cock-pit . vvell said he , if that fellow were aside it would be well for him that did it , and he thought me a very fit man to be imployed in that affair , and went on making me very fair promises of great rewards , and at length came to a sum certain , saying that if i would destroy him or blast his evidence , i should have seven hundred pounds paid me . and to confirm me that he was real , he bid me make provision to have it secured to me , accordingly i spoak to mr. reaves an apothecary , and one mr. cross , at the horshoo-tavern , both in chancery-lane , about security for such a summe , mr. cross went twice with me to speak with mr. plessington about one of the hundred pounds , but my great necessity dayly encreasing upon me , i was the more inclined to attempt mr. dugdales person , which accordingly i did , after this manner . mr. dugdale being late one evening at the horseshoo-tavern in chancery-lane , sent so me ( as he used frequently to do , ) to accompany him home to his lodging at the cock-pit , and calling a coach we two only went into it , this was an opportunity i had expected , and accordingly had provided a dagger , which cost me 3s . and 6d . which i bought at a shop near walling ford house ; when we came into the strand near summerset house , i sitting opposite to mr. dugdale in the coach felt how low his bodice came , that i might know were to stab him securely , but mr. dugdale mistrusted me so far that he called to the coach-man to stop , but i perswaded him on , but at charing-cross , i again was attempting him , and he again was calling to the coach-man to let him out ▪ but i endeavoured to perswade him that i intended him no harm , yet he still so far mistrusted me , that when we came to the cook-pit , he immediatly stept out of the coach , and paid the coach man , and gave him a 1 s. more then his pay to carry me back to the hors-shooe tavern , i would have come out with a design to follow him , pretending to return by water , but he would not admit of it , but would have the coach-man carry me back . when i saw i had missed this opportunity of murthering him , i bid the coachman take notice where i had left him well , fearing he might be dispatcht by some other hand , and that i should be questioned for it . the coach stood at the sarazens head in camomil-street near bishops gate , this was in the month of july , 1679. mr. dugdale perceiving his person was attempted , obscur'd himself for several dayes , and then his enemies reported , that he was run away from his evidence , which mr. plessington understanding , he beleived i had given mr. dugdale his pas-port for another world , and comming to me then at the horseshooe tavern , he gave me thirty guinnies ; but mr. cross comming into the room at that instant of his delivering them me , i immediatly return'd them him again , not desiring any eye witnesses of my receiving his gold , at which he seemed to be very angry . some time after this some unexpected troubles overtaking me , i was for the security of my person obliged to quit my habitation , and the night before i went , i met with mr. plessington , near middle row in holbourn , and told him i feared i could not performe my promise to him , because i wanted mony to carry on the design , he desired me to be as true to him as he would be to me , and then gave me three guinnies , and ordered me to meet him the monday following at billings-gate , this was in september 1679 , but i failed then meeting him . i then took a lodging in wapping , unknown to mr. plessington , but he meeting mr. leacroff of walton in stafford shire , my very good friend , enquired of him where i was , and pretended that i had much damnified him , in not meeting him at billings-gate according to appointment , mr. leacroff told him that i was under a cloud , at which he seemed very sorry , and said , he might notwithstanding have met me , for he knowes i design him no hurt but should have met him for his advantage . after this he understanding that i was removed to a cheesmonger in ratcliff , caused me frequently to visit him in the tower , and if at any time i was questioned whether i went , he ordered me to make use of my own friends names in the tower , as mr. shenton in the minte , mr. hubbard at sir george whartons , or mr. spenser at sir jonas moores , any of which names would have gained me admittance . at one of our meetings there , i told him that mr. dugdale had appointed me to meet him on such a day ( which day i then told him ) at the fleece tavern at billings-gate , then he desired me to call of him , that day before i went to dugdale , which i did , and dined with him at his lords lodging in the tower , it was the day after his grace the duke of monmouth returned from beyond the seas or thereabouts . when we had dined mr. plessington conveyed me to an ale-house in the tower near the lieutenants house , the house had the model of a ship or two hanging in it . there came two or three gentlemen with mr. plessington , who importuned me to get mr. dugdale away from billins-gate by water , designing to attempt him upon the water , as i supposed . i told them i would go to him to the fleece and see what company was with him , and if he were alone would acquaint them . accordingly i went , and found two persons with him , and a third came to him whilst i was with him , but i had staid there longer than they expected , so that when i returned back to the dog , they were gone , and had taken with them my cane , which i left there . the next day i went to mr. plessington for my cane , who said to me we missed a brave opportunity yesterday , i replyed , not as good as when i missed my designe upon him in the strand , no said he , but have at the third time , and then he seemed to suspect me for refusing the thirty guinnies at the horseshoo-tavern , which i told him i did fearing mr. cross should discover something of our designe , hang him ( said he ) if he do , wee l tell him another story . i then asked him what i should say to persons that asked me how i came so soon to want monies , when i so lately had seven hundred pound to put out to use ; pugh ( said he ) tell them that it was mine , and that i being ( as you feared ) concerned in the plot , you were to put it out in your name for my use , in which i observed his directions . but be sure said he , that you continue to blast dugdale all you can , for we can have no fitter person for the purpose than your self , but i will suddainly be with you again , and contrive a way for you to do it more easily and effectually . accordingly he came on a saturday ni●ht and lay with me , an then told me that i being a witness or mr. dugdale in the trial of price , might do them the service they desired , by swearing that mr. dugdale profered me i monies , maintenance , and protection as a kings evidence , if i would swear against sir james symons , mr. gerard , and others , this i promised to do ; but before the trial having seriously considered what it was that i was about to do , my purpose was altered , and therefore desired mr. plessington to put it off , and told him i would be out of the way before i was subpaena'd , designing to go to chelmsford in essex , but he would by no meanes consent to it , and so i was at the trial of anne price and john tasborough , but did not swear against dugdale as i had promised , and as they expected , at which i after perceived they were much startled . soon after mr. plessington coming to me ; told me that i had lost my self , and that i was not the man he took me for , and after some other discourse , said that if i would yield my self forsworn in what i had witnessed at the trial , he would get a friend to speak to the duke of york , and did not in the least question but by his meanes to get me a pardon for perjury . and he then instructed me to say that mr. dugdale threatned me ( if i owned a word of our meeting at billings-gate , or of his promises to me ) that he would bring two to swear treason against me and have me hanged , or at least such crimes as should cause me to be pillored . and at his instigation i did tell several in and about london , that dugdale was a rogue , and that i would do his business for him ' ere long , that he had made me forswear my self to do him a kindness , with more such notorious falshoods . about four days after the trial , i was upon suspition apprehended for a priest , and carryed before sir william waller , but was releast by the meanes of a letter from my honored friend , sir humphery doleman , this was in february , 1679. after this i began to stand firm to the popish interest , and was intended to be a witness against mr. dugdale in the trial of the lord aston and sir james symons , this was in the beginning of the year , 1680. that which confirmed me more to their intrest was the misinformation i had receiv'd by their meanes concerning mr. dugdale , viz. that he was the cause of my being apprehended for a priest , and that he designed mischief against me , and that he had profered ten pounds , to take me before the lord astons tryal ; with which i acquainted sir thomas whitegrave , who bid me if any trouble of that nature came upon me , to send to mr. thomas robinsons in cursitors alley , where he and his son bromley lodged , and either of them would be my baile . sir thomas was subpaena'd as a witness for the lord aston , and was a witness for the lord stafford , i therefore was forced frequently to shift my lodgings , and was entertained at major general egertons , he being from home : within a short time mr. germin drayton , butler both to mr. heningham and sir james symonds , and one samuel holt a black smith to the lord aston of tixal , which holt was also a witness in the lord staffords trial , came to me frequently to the bull-tavern in southampton street , mr. drayton oftner than the other , and did interceed with me to write somthing that might blast dugdale , which i did , and he called for it at the time appointed . two or three dayes after mr. drayton told me that he must bring a gentleman to speak with me , but would not name him , accordingly the next day he called me , and we went together to the crown in kings street in blooms-bury , whether he brought one mr. longner , reputed to be the lord staffords solicitor , vvho thus accosted me ; that he was glad to see so honest a good face appear in their cause , and that any one would take me for an honester man than ever dugdale was , adding that sir james symons was better able to perform than dugdale was to promise , and that i should not need to fear a gratuity ; for they were the strongest side . upon this i replyed , that i was i ready to serve them in such ways , as they should propose to me , then they desired me to write a paper to destroy dugdales evidence , i told them that i had already written one , yea said mr. drayton , but this we now desire , is to satisfie sir james symonds , yet i often denyed them for that very reason , because i had before given them one , but at last agreed to vvrite a paper in their method , and they vvere to pick the best out of both for their purpose , which when done , i vvas to svvear to , i cannot undertake to remember the very vvords of it , but they dictated to me , and i wrote to this purpose . sir , i can , i bless god for it , with a safe conscience swear , that mr. dugdale did at a private meeting betwixt him and my self proffer me money and a maintenance , and protection as one of the kings evidence , if i would stand by and swear for him against sir james symons , and mr. gerard and others ; this i do neither for fear nor favour , nor in hopes of any future gratuity , as i hope to be saved . simeon wright . this was by their direction , and then mr. drayton invited me to the kings-bench prison , whither i went , and after dinner , sir james symonds sent for me to him to mr. coolings , and when i came , told me he hoped i was sensible how great his future gratitude should be , and that he hoped i would stand and fall by them when occasion should serve , and that he was sorry that he had no occasion for me at present , and then thrust twenty shillings into my hand . many other contrivances they had which i omit , because i would not be tedious , but can easily prove this , and a great deale more . this paper before mentioned , is the paper that william viscount stafford produced in court , upon his trial. they have another paper of this nature ; would they be so just to produce it , which i delivered to mr. drayton , but i know not in whose hands it is now ; mr. henry lee ( bayliff to walter heningham esq ; who was accused to be one concern'd in this hellish popish plot , ) did frequently make it his business to revile and asperse mr. dugdale , especially about the beginning of october last , to one mr. moore , at the house of thomas aspery , of aston , in stafford-shire , which mr. moore then questioning him for , and asking his name , he reply'd his name was simeon vvright a barber , in chancery-lane ; by which it is very plain , that he was knowing to my being imployed to ruine mr. dugdale , as aforesaid , as indeed he was , and therefore made use of my name to obscure his own . they had within three monthes last past , told me , that theirs is the strongest side , and have given me severe charge to stand or fall with them , and not be danted , from which encouragement , i did all that in me lay , to blast mr. dugdale whereever i came ; but it hath pleased god to bring me to an acknowledgment of the truth , partly by meanes of his majesties late proclamation , for the encouragment of witnesses , and partly by the good advice of severall friends , but especially my own conscience prompting me to this declaration of the truth , for the clearing of the innocent and exposing the guilty . simeon wright . jurat ' 17. december , 1680. cor ' me edmond warcup . finis . the information of thomas lander of shutborrow in the county of stafford , another of the witnesses in the tryal of the late lord stafford , as it was taken upon oath by edmund warcup , esquire ; one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex , and city and liberties of westminster , on the 24th day of december , 1680. london , printed for thomas simmons at the princes arms in ludgate-street , m dc lxxxi . the information of thomas lander of shutborrow in the county of stafford , taken upon oath the 24th of december , 1680. before me edmund warcup , esquire , one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex , and city and liberties of westminster , as followeth ; viz. this informant saith , that having been employed as a workman several times at the house of my lord aston at tixall in the county aforesaid , he was sollicited by mr. francis hind , steward to the lord aston , to become a witness against stephen dugdale , late steward to the lord aston , any way to invalidate or take off his evidence in relation to the popish plot , and he served this informant with a subpoenae to come up to london for that purpose , at the late intended tryal of the said lord aston in june last past ; but before his coming up , the said mr. hind , francis aston , son to the lord aston , and thomas sawyear , servant to the said lord aston , &c. sent for this informant into a private room in the said lord aston's house ; and there told him , that if he would swear such things as should be dictated to him by the persons aforesaid , to invalidate or take off the said dugdale's evidence , he should have such a reward as should be to his own content , and not want for money and horse , as might become a man of better quality than himself . and this informant agreeing to their proposals , came up to london accordingly . they perswaded this informant likewise to swear that dugdale was a cheating rogue , and had cheated this informant and many more in the country , whilst he was the lord aston's steward . to which this informant answered he would , and saith that hind told him , that if he would do according as they directed him , that he should ( besides the rewards agreed upon ) have his charges born in coming to town , in staying here , and going down again . and likewise saith , that he was to swear that james ansell , ( being a witness in some things relating to the discovery of the plot ) was a perjured rogue , and a thief , and had perjured himself several times ; and all such other things as they should dictate to him when he came up to london , in order to take off both their evidence . and saith those that promised to make good his reward for so doing , was mr. herbert aston , his lordships uncle , francis aston , son to the lord aston , and thomas sawyear , servant to the said lord aston . and this informant saith , that being in london , and my lord aston's tryal not being come on , he received no more of his reward but his bare charges ; however they faithfully promised him when he had made good what he had promised them to swear , he should have his full reward made good to him . and this informant saith , that in september last going up to my lord aston's house , he was made very welcome , and after some time was asked by one of the servants of my lord aston's , where mr. dugdale lay ; and this informant told him , at one richard perkins next house to his own in shutborrow , about a mile distant from my lord aston's ; the said servant , after some discourse had with this informant , told him that he might do them good service , and have a good reward for his pains , if he could devise to set fire on the room where mr. dugdale lay , and burn him in his bed. to which this informant answered , that if he should do so , he should burn his own house , and endanger the whole town : to which the servant replyed , that it were better that his house and the whole town were burnt , rather than he ( meaning mr. dugdale ) should escape , who was a rogue , and had betray'd his lords secrets , with several other gentlemen ; he at the same time telling this informant , that he should if he would undertake it ) be well rewarded to his own content ; but perceiving this informant not to be very willing ? told him he was a coward , he would not undertake to do so good a piece of service . the said servant at the same time went to one walter moore ▪ another servant of my lord aston's , who was to join with this informant in the said fact ; and this informant going home , saw the said walter moore walking about the said house that was so to be fired ; and this informant not being willing that such a wicked act should be done , acquainted one of his neighbours with it , and so a watch was set to preserve the said house where mr. dugdale lay , and all the town , that night , and all the time after so long as mr. dugdale stayed there : this informant having likewise heard the said moore say , that dugdale was a rogue for having betrayed his lords secrets : and likewise saith , that when this informant was to be a witness for the lord aston , one samuel holt who was another servant of my lord aston's , and also one sawyear , being subpoena'd up as witnesses for my lord aston ; they told this informant , that mr. dugdale was a perjured rogue , for laying the plot of the presbyterians upon the papists , and if they or either of them could meet the said mr. dugdale conveniently , they would do his business for him : and saith , that the said holt had received a sum of money for the said service , as likewise the said walter moore . and this informant saith , that all those things which were so by them , as aforesaid , dictated to him , were altogether false , to any knowledge of this informant , in relation to the said mr. dugdale and the said mr. james ansell . and saith that several other matters and persons he knows of that were concerned herein ( this informant being always made privy to most of their contrivances in this nature ) that would almost hang them , which he is unwilling to discover against them , for that they are related to him . thomas lander . jurat . cor . me edmond warcup . dec. 25. 1680. i do appoint tho. simmons , and no other , to print this my information , witness my hand , thomas lander . finis . the parallel, or, an account of the growth of knavery under the pretext of arbitrary government and popery with some observations upon a pamphlet entitled an account of the growth of popery etc. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1679 approx. 79 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 9 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-05 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47900 wing l1284 estc r26838 09566478 ocm 09566478 43627 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47900) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 43627) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1334:49) the parallel, or, an account of the growth of knavery under the pretext of arbitrary government and popery with some observations upon a pamphlet entitled an account of the growth of popery etc. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. [2], 12 p. printed for henry brome, london : 1679. attributed by wing to roger l'estrange. reproduction of original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng marvell, andrew, 1621-1678. -account of the growth of popery. popish plot, 1678. great britain -politics and government -1660-1688. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2004-01 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-02 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2004-02 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the parallel or , an an account of the growth of knavery , under the pretext of arbitrary government and popery . with some observations upon a pamphlet entitled , an account of the growth of popery , etc. london , printed for henry brome at the gun in s. pauls church-yard , 1679. to the reader . there came forth about two years since , a couple of seditious pamphlets in quarto ; the one , just upon the heel of the other : the former was entitled , an account of the growth of popery and arbitrary government in england , &c. which was followed by a seasonable argument to perswade all the grand juries in england , &c. the latter being only an abstract and explication of the designe of the other . this parallel was in the same year printed and published by way of reflection upon the aforesaid libles , with references to the pages of that edition ; and the controversy should have rested there , if the authour had not found himself honestly oblig'd to reprint the reply ; the other side having reviv'd the occasion of it , since the death of andrew marvell , by a posthumous impression , with his name at length to it . there was at that time no mention or thought of the plot ; and a man may see with half an eye that his buzzing so much about the matter of religion , was only to make the sedition go down the better . for the main drift and bent of his discourse is only the paring of the kings nails , clipping the wings of his prerogative , advancing a pretended soveraignty in the people , and cutting his majesty off from the most essential privileges of all government , defaming his administration , and furnishing the world with cases and expedients how a subject may kill his prince with a good conscience . now if a body should speculate upon the reasons of re-publishing mr. marvells pamphlet at this time , it would make the preface longer then the book , to recount them . first , there is money to be got by it , and that 's five and fifty reasons in one . secondly , the writing or publishing of a libell , is lookt upon by some to be the high-way to preferment , as a prick-ear'd anabaptist said t' other day , about the appeal from the country to the city ; 't is a nationall quarel ( says he ) and the nation will stand by me in 't . thirdly , as the designe gets ground , so it gathers confidence ; and that which in 77. would have been worth two or three hundred pound to the discoverer , may be worth twice as much now in 79. to the publisher and printer . there may be a fourth end in it , to canonize mr. marvell ( now in his grave ) if not for a saint , yet for a prophet , in shewing how pat the popish plot falls out to his conjecture ; and that he sees further into a millstone then another man : and why may not the replicant as well be taken for a prophet , that foretold the growth of fanaticism , as well as he did the growth of popery , and upon as good grounds too ? dr. don in his ignatius's conclave , makes ignatius to be so indu'd with the devil , that he was able to possess the very devil himself . now whether the fanaticks bring on the jesuits plot , or the jesuits the fanaticks , by counterpossessing one another , is not a farthing matter : but that the devil and his dam are now at work in the shape of angels of light , to destroy our sacred soveraign , the church of england , and the civil government , there is no more doubt to be made , then that if it were not for the hope of another world , a man had better be hang'd out of the way , then be honest in this . if the malevolent intent of the book it self were not so gross and manifest , that a man may run and reade it , we could produce several other instances of the same temper that fell from the same pen , and spake the man as much an enemy to the monarchy of england as to the ministers : and it is no wonder , that the secretary to a common-wealth should write with the spirit of a re-publican : but we shall spare his memory in that particular , and only tell the reader in one word more , that tho' the many turns of state that have hapned since mr. marvells account of the growth of popery and arbitrary government came first abroad ; have laid the book open to further confutation and censure ; we shall yet take no advantage of those events , but leave this following discourse to shift for it self , naked and unlick'd , as it came first into the world . the paralel , or an account of the growth of knavery , &c. sir , to give you my opinion freely of the two libels that you sent me , methinks the design of them lies too open to do much mischief ; for i never saw so bare-fac'd an araignment of the government , and all the parts of it : king , lords , commons , iudges , ministers of state ; they are all of them made conspirators , against the sovereign multitude , forsooth ; and when the libeller has done with the body of the commons , he gives you a defamatory list of betwixt two and three hundred of their members , provoking and abusing all sober interests ; insomuch , that he has left himself nothing to trust to , but the contemplation of a general tumult , which is the very point he drives at in his appeal to the rabble . the man , i confess , is a great master of vvords ; but then his talent is that which the lord st. albans calls matter of wonder without worthiness ; being rather the suppleness and address of a tumbler , than the force and vigor of a man of business . and you cannot but observe too , that his excursions , many of them , are unmannerly and vulgar , and fitter for the stage of a merry-andrew , or a iack-pudding , than for a paper of state. you would have me guess at the author ; and you might as well bid me tell you the right father of a child by a common strumpet : but i think i may call him legion , for they are many ; and there 's a club to his pen , as well as to his pocket . this i dare assure you , that the author of a letter from a parliament-man to his friend in the country , concerning the proceedings of the house of commons , &c. in 75. is very particularly acquainted with the author of an accompt of the growth of popery , and arbitrary government , &c. and the seasonable argument , &c. that follow'd it , in 77. the pretence of the former pamphlet is exhibited in the title of it : viz , an account of the growth of popery , and arbitrary government in england : and more particularly from november 1675 , to iuly 1677. upon these nineteen months the composer has bestow'd precisely nineteen sheets of paper , and laid himself out most wonderfully in his politicks and conceits , for the better grace and relish of the discourse : but the malignity of it is so rank , that there 's scarce a page where the poyson has not eaten quite thorough the vernish , and discover'd the spring and malice of the design . view it narrowly , and you shall find the pique to be as well personal as seditious , and the vvork only of some mercenary pen to serve his principall's animosity , as well as his ambition . for a man may see with half an eye , how he aggravates , or extenuates ; disparages or commends , reflects upon , or passes over , as well actions , as men , according to the various aspects of affections or parties ; and without any regard to the pulse or truth of publick proceedings . by his vein of improving the invective humour , it looks in some places as if he were transprosing the first painter ; only he has chang'd his battery , which is a property peculiar to his party , constantly to hate those that are uppermost . i was once a thinking to write a just reply upon the whole relation , and to lay open the falshood of many passage in it , in matter of fact ; the partiality of it in others ; how perverted , and misapply'd it is throughout ; and to shew what gapp● , and maimes the compiler of it has left in the story , purposely to divert the reader from minding the coherence of actions , and the reasonable congruity of counsels , and affairs : vvhat uncharitable and illogical inferences he has drawn from matters as remote as tenterdon steeple from being the cause of goodwin sands . this was the method i had propounded to my self , but upon second thoughts i quitted it , for these reasons . first , it would have been ' too tedious ; for i must in honesty have printed the libel as well as the reply , which in proportion would have amounted to near forty sheets of paper . secondly , it would have been superfluous ; for part of my business being the vindication of truth from calumny : i find the thing already done to my hand , in the common sentence that is passed upon it for a lew'd and shameless imposture . and thirdly , the author himself , you see , has upon better consideration reduc'd his pamphlet of 19 sheets , into another of three , as a more compendious exposition of his meaning : i speak of that libel which you sent me , under the name of a seasonal le argument to perswade all the grand iuries in england to petition for a new parliament ; or á list of the principal labourers in the great design of popery , and arbitrary power , &c. so that my task is only to make good in my discourse the paralel that i promis'd you in my title , and then to pass some remarks upon the scope , and venome of the pamphlets themselves . now to the end that you may not take the libels here in question for originals , let me assure you that these notable pieces are neither better , nor worse , than the old declarations of 40 , and 41 only turn'd , and new trim'd ; the contrivance , the positions , and the drift the very same ; and upon the whole matter , there is so near a resemblance betwixt them , that one egg is not liker another . if you would have a full history of the faction , you may read it at large in bancroft's dangerous positions or h●ylin's aerius redivivus . but my purpose is principally to compare the project of 77. with that of 40. and 41. and by tracing the foot-steps of that rebellion , from the undeniable fact of things passed , to gather some probable conjecture at things to come . to begin my paralel with the alarm of popery , and arbitrary government in 1677 , take notice that it was likewise the pretext and the very foundation of the rebellion in 41. a malignant and pernicious design ( says the remonstrance of december 15. 1641. ) of subverting the fundamental laws , and principles of government , upon which the religion and iustice of this kingdom is firmly establish'd . husband's collections , p. 4 , and in the same page he tells us of such counsellers and courtiers , as for private ends have engag'd themselves to further the interest of some foreign princes or states , to the prejudice of his majesty and the state at home , which counsellers , and courtiers of those days , are now translated into french pensioners and conspirators in 1677. but if you would see the reformers in their colours , read the declaration , and protestation of the lords and commons in parliament ( as they stile it ) to the kingdom , and to the whole world , where , beside the horrid invocation of almighty god to countenance the juggle , the whole stress of the quarrel is laid upon the kings being popishly inclin'd ; and the war founded upon that execrable cheat. the kings counsels , and resolutions ( say they ) are so engag'd to the popish party , for the suppression and extirpation of the true religion , that all hopes of peace and protection are excluded ; and that it is fully intended to give satisfaction to the papists , by alteration of religion &c. and a little further they say that the king endeavour'd to keep off all iealousies and suspicions , by many fearful oaths and imprecations of maintaining the protestant religion . but what were all their stories of popish plots , intercepted letters , dark conspiracies , but only artifices to gull the credulous and silly vulgar ? for the king was so far from being popishly affected , that never any prince purg'd himself of an imputation , by two more credible and dreadful solemnities : the first , publickly upon the sacrament in christ-church oxon. 1643 ; and afterward , at his death upon the scaffold . now see the harmony betwixt those remonstrants , and our libeller in his growth of popery . there has now for divers years , says he , a design been carried on to change the lawful government of england into an absolute tyranny , and to convert the establish'd protestant religion into down-right popery . p. 3. he begins in the method of the remonstrants with a general charge upon ill ministers , and he shall advance with them too , next step , to an attaque upon the king himself . and not a pin matter what is said on either side to the contrary . it is true , ( says the growth of popery p. 155. ) that by his majesty and the churches care , under god's special providence , the conspiracy hath received frequent disappointments , &c. and do not the remonstrants on the other side say as much for the late king ? that his majesty indeed had past more bills to the ▪ advantage of the subject , than had been in many ages , pag. 16. but how comes our libeller to be so kind to the church all on a sodain ? from whose pen there never fell any thing yet but poyson upon that subject . can any thing be kinder than the remonstrants were to the late king ( pag. 2 ▪ ) where they promised to support his royal estate with honour , and plenty at home ; with power , and reputation abroad : and by their loyal affections , obedience , and service , to lay a sure and lasting foundation of the greatness and prosperity of his majesty and his royal posterity after him . but what do you think rather of the pretended loyalty of these people afterwards , even in the state of an actual rebellion ? p. 663. we the lords and commons in this present parliament assembled , do in the presence of almighty god , for the satisfaction of our consciences , and the discharge of that great trust which lies upon us , make this protestation and declaration to this kingdom and nation , and to the whole world , that no private passion , or respect , no evil intention to his majesties person , no design to the prejudice of his just honour , and authority , engag'd us to raise forces , and take up arms against the authors of this war , wherewith the kingdom is now enflam'd . and does not our libeller follow the remonstrants in their hypocrisy too ? this book ( says he , p. 156. ) though of an extraordinary nature , as the case requir'd , and however it may be calumniated by interressed persons , was written with no other intent , than of meer fidelity , and service to his majesty ; and god forbid that it should have any other effect , than that the mouth of all iniquity , and flatterers may be stopped , and that his majesty having discerned the disease , may with his healing touch apply the remedy : for so far is the relator himself from any sinister surmize against his majesty , or from suggesting it to others , &c. the pamphlet , i confess , is , as he calls it , a book of an extraordinary nature ; but why does he say , as the case requir'd ? where 's the importance of it ; unless he means , that it was the very nick of time for him to embroyl the nation : and for the interessed persons , who ( he says ) may calumniate it ; they are only the king and his ministers , who are all of them the subject of his scoptical and malevolent satyre . of his intent , we shall speak hereafter . this is not the first time that we have heard of words smoother than oyl , which yet are very swords . it is the very stile that brought the late king to the block ; and the saviour of the world was betray'd by a hail master , and a / kiss . it is the very crown of the paralel betwixt 77 , and 41. now to proceed : what was the old remonstrance , but a spiteful and invidious misrepresentation of the state of the kingdom , under the notion of declaring common grievances ? ( for his majesty's healing touch too no doubt ) and is not that also the very aim , and profession of these two libels ? what is the publication of this same scandalous list , but the old trick over again , of posting those members for staffordians , that would not consent to the death of the earl of strafford ? and is not their tampering of the grand juries to petition for a new parliament , the old practice reviv'd of drawing and folliciting petitions against grievances of their own framing ; and menaging affairs of state by tumults ? would not our remonstratour of 77 , rather than his life , be at the old sport again , with a kennel of brutes at his heels , in full cry , with no bishops , no popish lords , no evil counsellors , no rotten members , no porters lodge ; and at last , no king too , which was the very fact in consequence , upon this method . so soon as the remonstrants ( those sons of 〈◊〉 ) had laid open their father's nakedness , with a malicious aggravation of all errours and misfortunes , ( beside falshoods innumerable ) to irritate the multitude against their superiours ; their next art was to draw that party to themselves , which they had now detached from the government ; with an oh! that we were made judges in israel ! boasting what wonderful things they had the● upon the anvil for the publick good ; and not forgetting to arrogate all those acts to themselves , which his majesty had passed of his proper grace and bounty . other things ( say they , p. 15. ) of main importance for the good of this kingdom , are in proposition ; as the establishing and ordering the king's revenues , that so the abuse of officers , and superfluity of expences may be cut off , and the necessary disbursements for his majesty's honour , the defence and government of the kingdom , may be mor● certainly provided for : the regulating of courts of iustice , and abridging both the delays and charges of law-suits , &c. see now if our reformer of 77. does not fish with the very same bait. the house of commons ) says he , p. 63. ) took up again such publick bills as they had on foot in their former sitting , and others that might either remedy present , or prevent future mischief : as the bill for habeas corpus ; that against sending men prisoners beyond seas ; that against raising of many without the consent of parliament ; that against papists sitting in either house , &c. the libels in sine of 77 , are so exact a counterpart of the others of 41 , that two tallies do not strike truer : and undoubtedly such a correspondence in method , cannot be without some conformity also of design . there needs no other argument to prove the late rebellion to have been originally a conspiracy against the government , than the proportion that appears betwixt the means , and the end ; and the orderly connexion of proper causes and regular effects . for it was a perfect train of artifice , hypocrisie and imposture , from one end of it to the other . the confederacy was form'd in a cabal of scotch and english presbyterians ; as appears not only from their correspondent practices in both nations ; but from his late majesties charge against the five members ; and likewise from the care that was taken upon his majesties restauration to date the english act of indemnity from the beginning of the scotch tumults ( jan. 1. 1637. ) which was three years before the meeting of the long parliament in november 1640. the two ministers that stood in the gap betwixt the conspiracy , and the government , ( and who were only cut off , as appear'd by the sequel , to clear the passage to the king himself ) were the earl of strafford , and arch-bishop laud : so that their first attaque was upon the earl , and their next upon the archbishop , under the notion of evil counsellors ; and upon the common charge of popery , and arbitrary proceeding , their impeachments were carried on by tumults , and these brave men were rather baited to death by beasts , than sentenc'd with any colour of law , or justice : and as they liv'd , so they dy'd , the resolute assertors of the english monarchy and religion : the earl of strafford in may 41 ; but the archbishop was kept languishing in the tower , till ian. 44. and their crime was not in truth , their being men of arbitrary principles themselves , but for being the opposers of those principles in others . as the remonstrants in 4● , for want of papists , in practice , and profession , directed their spleen against the kings ministers , only as persons popishly affected , ( which in time came to be most injuriously apply'd to his majesty , and his whole party ) just so does our libeller in 1677. were these conspirators ( says he ) but avow'd papists , they were the more honest , the less dangerous , and their religion were answerable for the errours they might commit in order to promote it : but these are men ( says he , in the next pag. ) obliged by all the most sacred ties of malice and ambition , to advance the ruine of the king and kingdom ; and qualify'd much better than others , under the name of good protestants , to effect it . as who shauld say ; popery is to be brought in by some that pass for good protestants . ( as rebellion and tyranny were brought in by the remonstrants , under the profession of loyalty and duty to their country . ) a very compendious way of making every man , that will not be a traytor , a papist . for who can say what any man is , or what he is not , in his heart ? from his majesty's yielding in the business of the earl of strafford , the faction took their measures how to deal with him in other cases ; and never left , till by gradual encroachments , and approaches , they first stript him of his friends ; secondly , of his royal authority ; thirdly , of his revenue ; and lastly , of his life . whereas , had but this pious and unfortunate king follow'd the advice of his royal father to prince henry , he might upon cheaper terms have preserv'd himself , and his three kingdoms . take heed , ( says king iames ) to such puritans ; very pests in the church , and common-weal , whom no deserts can oblige ; neither oaths , or promises bind . breathing nothing but sedition , and calumnies , and making their own imaginations ( without any warrant of the word ) the square of their conscience . i protest before the great god , ( and since i am here as upon my testament , it is no place for me to ly in ) that ye shall never find with any highlands or border-thieves , greater ingratitude , and more lyes , and vile perjuries than with these phanatick spirits . king iames his works , p. 305 , and 160. upon the ripping up of publick grievances , it was but matter of course to follow their complaints with petitions for redress ; and the good king , on the other hand , to heap coals of fire upon their heads , deny'd them nothing : but the two first bills that his majesty pass'd were fatal to him : that for the attainder of the earl of strafford , and the other for the continuance of the parliament . they complain'd of the star-chamber ; high commission court ; ship-moneys ; forrest-laws ; stannary-courts ; tonnage , and poundage , &c. and had every point for the asking : nay and as'an instance of his good faith and meaning , his majesty took some of their principals even into his very council . but so soon as he had parted with so much , as almost put it into their power to take the rest , they began then to think of setting up for themselves ( see his majesties declaration of august 12. 1642. ) and nothing but a thorough reformation they said would ever do the work. now see the gradation . first , the people must be alarm'd with the noise of tyranny , and popery ; and the evil counsellors must be remov'd that are said , not prov'd , to stand that was inclin'd . his majesty must be humbly petition'd by both houses to employ such counsellors , ambassadours , and other ministers , in managing his business at home , and abroad , as the parliament may have cause to conside in , &c. nay , it may often fall out , they say , that the commons may have just cause to take exceptions at some men for being counsellors , and yet not charge those men with crimes ; for there be grounds of diffidence , which lie not in proof ; there are others which though they may be prov'd yet are not legally criminal ; to be a known favourer of papists , or to have been very forward in defending or countenancing some great offenders questioned in parliament , &c. so that at first dash all the king's officers are but tenants at the will of the faction . the next step is , to fill the places of those whom they cast out , with ministers , and officers of their own chusing ; as well privy counsellors , as iudges . as in the 19 propositions of ian. 2. 42. wherein they demand , the translation of the power of chusing great officers , and ministers of state , from the king to the two houses . secondly , all matters of sate in the interval of parliaments to be debated , and concluded by a council so chosen , and in number not above 25 , nor under 15 ; and no publick act esteem'd of any validity , as proceeding from the royal authority , vnless it be done by the advice and consent of the major part of that covncil ; attested under their hands , and these also sworn to the sence of both houses . thirdly the lords , and commons must be intrusted with the militia . fourthly , his majesty may appoint , but the two houses , or the council ( in such manner as afore-said ) must approve of all governours of forts and castles . lastly , no peers hereafter made , must sit , or vote in parliament , unless admitted thereunto by the consent of both bouses . by this time the plot is ripe for a rebellion ; they levy war , impose oaths , seize the revenues of the church and crown ; kill , plunder , and emprison , their fellow-subjects ; depose and murther their sovereign , under a form of publick iustice ; by these means advancing themselvs into that arbitrary power which they pretended to fear ; over-turning the government , under the colour of a zeal to support it : and instead of setting us right in our religious and civil liberties , they left us neither church nor law , nor king , nor parliament , nor properties , nor freedoms . behold the blessed reformation ; and remember that the outcries against tyranny , popery , and evil counsellors , were the foundation of it . what was their covenant , but a blind to their designs ? a popular sacrament of religious disobedience ; and only a mark of discrimination who were against the king , and who for him ? nay , in the very contemplation of their purpose , they knew before-hand , that there was no gaining of their point , but by rapine , sacrilege , perjury , treason , and bloud after these notorious violations of faith , honour , humanity , and religion ; to the common destruction of prince , government , and people , and all upon the same bottom with our late libels ; what can this underminer of parliamenns , what can our geneva-faux find to say for himself ? is not mercury as good poyson in 77 , as it was in 41 ? do we not strike fire the same way now , that we did then ? and may not a spark in the gun-room do as much mischief this year , as it did thirty , or forty years ago ? are not the people as much tinder now as they were formerly ? and as apt to take ill impressions ? what if the same method should work the same confusion over again ? or in truth , what is there else to be expected ? for the same cause acting at liberty , must eternally produce the same effect . there 's no chance-medley , or misadventure in the case ; but the thing is manifestly done with prepense malice and on set purpose to embroyl the state : as upon examination of the matter will undeniably appear . you cannot but take notice , that the author of the growth of popery , does upon the main , principally labour these two things . first , to insinuate that the king is in some cases accomptable to his people . ( of which hereafter ) and secondly , to provoke the people , by suggesting that their souls , and their liberties are at stake , to make use of that power . from the former proposition he passes into a florid and elaborate declamation againg pop̄ery ; and when he has wrought up the figure to a height , to make it terrible and odious , his next business is to tell the people , that this gobling is coming in among them , and to possess the multitude with the apprehension of a form'd conspiracy against our religion and government : and this too , under the countenance of an historical deduction of affairs ; but with the faith of a iesuitical legend ; wherein all the kings ministers are in general terms branded for conspirators . his hand being now in , he is resolv'd to go thorough-stitch , and nothing scapes him that falls in his way : he makes the house of lords ( p. 72. ) to be felon of it self ; and ( p. 82. ) non compos ; arraigning their proceedings in several cases with boldness and contempt . but he makes a great deal bolder yet with the house of commons ; he divides them into three parts . it is too notorious to be conceal'd ( says he , p. 73. ) that near a third part of the house , have beneficial offices under his majesty in the privy council , the army , the navy , the law , the houshold , the revenue both in england , and ireland , or in attendance upon his majesties person . upon this exception , he expounds himself , that ' t is to be fear'd , their gratitude to their master , with their own interest , may tempt them beyond their obligation to the publick . what can be more audacious than this charge upon king , lords , and commons , in the face of a sitting parliament ? he says that it is too notorious to be conceal'd &c. and where 's the crime , or the shame , i beseech you , for an officer of the kings , to be a member of the house of commons ? as if he that has an office , and he that has none , had not both of them the same master ; or that a man might not as well be a knave without an office , as with it . this was the complaint also of 41 , against officers , till the complainants had gotten those offices themselves , and then all was quiet . this is only a slyer way of declaring the king's servants enemies to the kingdom , and erecting an opposition betwixt the common and inseparable interests of his majesty , and his subjects . beside that , the same reason would reach to the excluding of the king's servants from any other trust in the government , as well as from that of a member in the house of commons ; and his majesties favour should at that rate incapacitate any man for publick business . if the libeller had open'd his mouth a little wider , he would have told us in plain english , that there are three , or four of oliver's old servants out of office , and that the king is strangely over-seen to bestow his boons upon a company of fellows that never had any hand in the bringing of him to the crown , by the murther of his father , as they did . but yet he is content upon some terms , that they may be admitted , provided that they do not croud into the house in numbers beyond modesty , ( pag. 74. ) which may seem to be some amends for the rascalls he made of them the very page before . suppose ( says he ) that the question concerning this prorogation , were by the custom of parliaments to be justify'd , ( which hath not been done hitherto ) yet who that desires to maintain the reputation of an honest man , would not have laid hold upon so plausible an occasion , to break company , when it was grown so scandalous ? and then he assigns the matter of scandal . for it is too notorious ( says he ) to be conceal'd , that near a third part of the house have beneficial offices under his majesty , &c. here 's a great deal of business done in one period . first , he pronounces this parliament void , and consequently all their proceedings to be nullities . secondly ; he will not allow any man to be honest , that right or wrong would not improve the opportunity of breaking this parliament . thirdly , he makes the house of commons to be scandalous company , and scandalous for having beneficial offices under his majesty . the first time that ever i heard the king's bounty was a scandal to any man. but to my point . and yet ( says he , p. 77. ) these gentleman being full , and already in employment , are more good natur'd , and less dangerous to the publick , than those that are hungry , and out of office , who may by probable computation make another third part of this house of commons . and a while after , they are all of them , he says to be bought , and sold. and then he goes on ; ( p. 78. ) there is a third part still remaining , but as contrary in themselves , as light and darkness . these are either the worst , or the best of men ; the first are most profligate persons , &c. concluding ( p. 79. ) that it is less difficult to conceive how fire was first brought to light in the world , than how any thing good could ever be produc'd out of a house of commons so constituted . and ( p. 149. ) he calls them this house , or barn of commons ; treating the members accordingly . they list themselves ( says he ) into some court faction , and it is as well known among them to what lord each of them retain , as when formerly they wore coats and badges . and he has not done with them yet neither ; for nothing will do his jobb , but a final dissolution ; considering ( says he , pag. 81. ) how doubtful a foot this long parliament now stood upon by this long prorogation there could not have been a more legal , or however , no more wise , and honest a thing done , than for both the lords and commons to have separated themselves , &c. i could wish that he had not appeal'd from the legality of the thing , to the wisdom , and honesty of it : but however legal , or not legal , the thing is to be done : for he knows very well that so long as this house of commons continues in being , rebellion can never turn up trump again . but it was otherwise order'd , he says , and so he betakes himself to an experiment of tampering , all the grand iuries in england , to petition for a new parliament , upon the credit of his story concerning the corruptions of this . wherein by the foul reflections he has past upon many persons of known , and eminent example , for piety , integrity , and moderation , he has utterly disappointed the malice of his scandal upon the rest. it was well enough said , methought , by a worthy member of the house of commons ; do not you see says he , how they have libell'd me in that damn'd list of the parliament-men ? one told him that he was mistaken , for his name was not in 't . why , that 's the business , says he , for 't is only a libel upon those that are left out . nay , rather then fail , he does as good as advise a downright insurrection , ( in these words , p. 155. ) it is now come to the fourth act ( says he ) and the next scene that opens may be rome , or paris , ( by the plot , it should be rather geneva , or edinburgh ) yet men sit by , like idle spectators , and still give mony toward their own tragedy . and why does he blame them for sitting by ? and like idle spectators ? unless he would have them enter into tumult , and action , a very fair encouragement to make men bestir themselves , and without more ceremony , lay violent hands upon the publick . good god! that ever such a creature as this should propound to himself by the dash of a pen , to move the foundations of the english government . from the parliament , he descends to the iudges . alas ! ( says he ) the wisdom and probity of the law went off , for the most part , with good sir mathew hales , and iustice is made a meer property . and then he raves upon the constant irregularities , and injustice from term to term , of those that administer the iudicature betwixt his majesty , and his people ( p. 154. ) this poysonous arrow ( meaning the choice of the judges ) strikes to the very heart of government , and could come from no quiver , but that of the conspirators . what french council , what standing forces , what parliamentary bribes , what national oaths , and all the other machinations of wicked men have not yet been able to effect , may be more compendiously acted by twelve iudges in scarlet ( p. 66. ) and is not this directly 41 again ? when no iudges would serve the turn , but those that betray'd the people to slavery , and his sacred majesty to the scaffold ? he has another fling at the sheriffs . if any worthy person ( says he , p. 80. ) chance to carry the election , some mercenary or corrupt sheriff makes a double return ; and so the cause is handed to the committee of elections , &c. and truly he does not give either the king , or the monarchy of england , much better quarter than he allows the rest ; as you shall see by and by : so that nothing less than the thorough reformation of 41 will do the work of 77. and the whole frame of the government must be unhing'd , to gratify the caprice of a pragmatical mal-content . the passion , and malice of the libeller is so evident , that he does half confess it himself , by an anticipation of the charge . the relator , ( says he , pag. 155. ) foresees that he shall on both hands be blam'd for pursuing this method . some on the one side will expect that the very persons should have been nam'd : whereas he only gives evidence to the fact , and leaves the malefactors to those that have power of enquiry . if he can but acquit himself on the other hand for writing the libel , as well as on this for not naming the persons , he will do well enough . for first ; it is not his business to prove , but to defame . secondly , the naming of particulars would have restrein'd the calumny : whereas his work is to wound all the kings ministers that faithfully adhere to their master in the generality of the scandal . thirdly ; he judges it sufer , and more expedient to amuse the multitude with iealousies that cannot be disprov'd , than point-blank to fasten upon particulars an accusation that cannot be prov'd . what does he mean by saying that he gives evidence to fact ? it is the first libel certainly that ever was given in evidence . but where 's the relator himself all this while , upon whose bare word , parliaments are to be-dissolv'd ; ministers of state arraign'd ; judges displac'd ; and the whole government new modell'd ? what if he should appear , and be found at last to have been one of oliver's cabal ? would any man desire a more competent witness for charles the second , than the martherer of charles the frst ? but he has been so us'd to call the king himself traytor , that he may be allow'd to call his friends conspirators . on the other hand ( says he pag. 155. ) some will represent this discourse ( as they do all books that tend to detect their conspiracy against his majesty , and kingdom ) as if it too were written against the government . for now of late , as soon as any man is gotten into publick employment by ill acts , and by worse continues it ; he , if it please the fates , is thenceforward the government , and by being criminal , pretends to be sacred . this is only crying whore first , to call those people conspirators , who are likely to censure him for a libeller : which with his learned leave , is but a course figure neither ; and runs much better in the common billinsgate of you are a knave your self to say that i am one : which in few words is all that 's in 't . for he does not offer so much as one syllable in his justification , but with another lash or two at the king's ministers , winds up his period . now of late , says , he , ( he means i suppose , since oliver went out of play ) as soon as any man is got into publick employment by ill acts , &c. he should do well to consider who governs , before he says that villany is the ready way to preferment ; he if it please the fates , is thenceforward the government , and by being criminal , pretends to be sacred . i answer that in the case of a publick , and legal accusation , the minister is not the government ; for the charge terminates in , and operates no further than his person ; but in the affront of a nameless , and indefinite libel , the king himself is wounded in a general reflection upon his ministers ; for it is his choice , and commission , not the officers misdemeanour , that is there in question : nor does he pretend to be sacred because he is criminal ; but the libeller ( who still writes after the remonstrance ) makes every thing criminal that is sacred , and gives the construction of rebellion to loyalty , and of loyalty to rebellion . but if there be not mischief in the very project of this libel , there 's nothing at all in 't ; for i cannot frame to my self the least colour or possibility of any other end. he says , it was his design indeed to give information , but not to turn informer . that is to say , he would set the people together by the ears , and no body should know who did it . now see the end he propounds . that those ( says the relator ) to whom he as only a publick enmity , no private animosity , might have the priviledge of states-men to repent at the last hour , and by one single action to expiate all their former misdemeanours . which is e'en as civil a way as a body would wish , of recommending a publick minister to his last prayer . it remains now to speak a word to the timing of his enterprize , which , in a wicked sence , is in truth the glory of it . i shall not need to speculate upon the power , and designs of france , the deplorable state of flanders , or the consequences that must inevitably reflect upon england in the loss of the spanish neitherlands : the matter being agreed upon at all hands , that an union of affections , counsels , and interests , was never more necessary to this nation than at this instant it is ; and that delay is death to us . this being given for granted , it is likewise as certain , that nothing under heaven , but the credit of this sitting parliament , and the blessing of a fair unnderstanding betwixt his majesty , and his two houses can preserve this kingdom , ( morally speaking ) from irreparable ruine . and yet this is the critical juncture that the libeller has made choice of , for the blasting both of the government , and the administration of it ; for the violent dissolution even of this most necessary parliament ; for the sowing of jealousies , and alienating the peoples hearts from their duty to their sovereign . let the world now judge betwixt the libeller , and the pretended conspiratours ; who are more probably the pensioners of france ; those that are only calumniated in the dark , and without any proof , or the least colour of it , or the calumniators themselves , ( i mean , the libeller and his adherents ) who are doing all that is possible toward the facilitating of the work of france , and the putting of england out of condition to defend it self . what is it , i beseech you , that can now support us in this exigent , but the wisdom , and reputation of a parliament ? which they are at this very instant , labouring to defame and dissolve : distracting and dividing the nation , at a time when our best union is little enough to preserve us ; and obstructing those parliamentary supplys , without which we must unavoidably perish : for it is to this session , that the libeller directs the mock of still giving money toward their own tragedy . but sure we are not so mad yet , as to take the subverters of our church and state , for the advocates of our religion and freedom . i would know in the next place , what any man can say to excuse his growth of popery , from being a daring , and a spightful libel against the king , and his government . and i shall begin with the liberties he takes with his majesty , sometime in direct terms , and otherwhile under the blind of the conspirators . speaking of the shutting up of the exchequer ( pag. 31. ) the crown ( says he ) made prize of the subject , and broke all faith , and contract at home , in order to the breaking of them abroad with more advantage . the copy has in this point outdone the original ; for the remonstrants were in arms , before they presum'd to word it at this audacious height . take it in the insolent representation of the fact ; the malicious construction and presumption of the inteut ; and to both these , add the sordid manner of reflecting upon an extraordinary thing done upon an extraordinary occasion , and wherein the subject has since receiv'd so ample , and generous satisfaction ; the clamour is so foul , as if an aegyptian plague were broken in upon us , and the frogs of geneva crept into the king's chambers . and 't is much at the same rate that he treats the king about his declaration of indulgence , ( pag. 33. ) hereby ( says he , ) all the penal laws against papists , for which former parliaments had given so many supplyes , and against non-conformists , for which this parliament had pay'd more largely , were at one instant suspended , in order to defrand the nation of all that religion , which they had so dearly purchased , &c. observe here how ungratefully he charges the design of this declaration to be the defrauding the nation of their religion ; which , on the contrary , was a manifest concession , only to gratifie the restless importunities of his own gang. and see what sport he makes , but five or six lines further , with the very reason of that law which he takes here so hainously to be suspended . it appears ( says he ) at the first sight , that men ought to enjoy the same propriety , and protection in their consciences , which they have in their lives , liberties , and estates : but that to take away these in penalty for the other , is meerly a more legal , and gentile way of padding upon the road of heaven ; and that it is onely for want of money , and for want of religion , that men take these desperate courses . now , by his favour , there is a great disparity betwixt a pretence to propriety , and protection in consciences , and a pretence to them , in lives , liberties , and estates ; for the latter are liable to violence , and may be taken away , but the other cannot . and now he talks of padding upon this road ; the remonstrants ( as i remember ) were very good at it , that drove away from their churches , 85. ministers of 97. within the walls of london . we 'll agree in the matter with him , that want of money , and want of religion will put men upon desperate courses ; for my charity perswades me , he would never have written these libels else . he is a little positive , methinks , in averring that a great lord lost his place for defending the protestant religion , ( pag. 44. ) but he has forgotten the statute of his own citing ( pag. 15. ) that makes it incapacity , for saying that the king is a papist , or an introducer of popery , and that it was the king himself that remov'd his lordship . and what do you think of his irony , ( pag. 43. ) where he says , that the parliament , by the conspirators good leave ; was admitted to sit again at the day appointed ? he tells us of another affair too , pag. 51 ; which being transmitted to his majesty was easily chang'd into a court intrigue ; and ( pag. 63. ) that the conspiratours might so represent things to his majesty , as to incense him against the parliament , and distrusting all parliamentary advice , to take counsel from themselves , from france , and from necessity . in this disloyal and irreverent licence , he drops you a word or two now and then , before he is aware , against the king himself ; and other whiles , discharges his malice to the government , upon the heads of publick ministers . the subject matter of his complaint is a tendency of counfels , and actions towards tyranny , and popery . but the king ( says he , pag. 4. ( can do no wrong ; and so goes on , nor can he receive wrong . what is this , but a justification of all the violences that were acted upon the late king ; even to the very murther of him ; under that mortal , and treasonous distinction betwixt his authority , and his person ? and an allowance , that the same course may be taken with his royal successors ; the king can receive no wrong ; ( he says ) what does he mean by this ? is not his majesties breath in his nostrils ? is he not flesh and bloud ? is not his body lyable to wounds , distempers , emprisonment , and death ? he 'll tell you , yes ; but this is not the king , but the man , the person : but the king , all this while , that is to say , the authority , is sacred , and invulnerable . now for peace , and brevity sake , let us suppose that this charge of a popish , and arbitrary design , does neither intend nor reflect any imputation upon his majesty ; ( his religion , and his tenderness of nature being unquestionable ) it is yet a worse libel another way . worse ( i say ) both as to the drift , and to the scandal of it , by how much contempt is more dangerous to a prince , than hatred : for he employs his utmost skill to represent his majesty only passive in all his administrations , and so to lessen the indubitable fame of his royal prudence , and courage among his people . you see , sir , the freedom he takes with the king , and his ministers ; the next point will be to enquire how he stands affected to the government it self . the subjects ( says he , pag. 3. ) retain their proportion in the legislature . in which saying , he makes them partners of the sovereignty , and turns the monarchy of england into a tripartite and coordinate government ; which is as well destructive of parliaments , on the one hand , as of royalty , on the other . upon the admittance of this coordination , any two of the three may destroy the third : the two houses may destroy the king , and the king , with either of the houses , may destroy the other . which , if it be so , what prince that is imperial in the intervals , would ever hazard the dethroning of himself by a session ? the making of laws is a peculiar , and incommunicable priviledge of the supreme power , and the office of the two houses in this case is only consultive , or preparatory ; but the character of power rests in the final sanction , which is in the king : and effectually , the passing of a bill , is but the granting of a request : the two houses make the bill , 't is true , but the king makes the law ; and 't is the stamp , not the matter , that makes it current : nor does the subject any otherwise make laws , than the petitioner makes orders of council . it is a suspicious , and ill-looking passage that he has , pag. 14. as to matter of government , says he , if to murther the king , be ( as certainly it is ) a fact so horrid , ( he does not say how horrid ) how much more hainous is it to assassinate the kingdom ? here is first involv'd in this clause , the deposing position of 41 , that the king is singulis major , universis minor : for it is clear that the comparison was only made to draw on the preference , and to possess the people that they have a greater prize at stake in the hazard of their religion , than in the tye of their civil obedience . ( the very translation still of 41. ) and for their further encouragement , he tells them ( pag. 4. ) that we have the same right ( modestly understood ) in our propriety , that the prince hath in his regality : which carries with it an innuendo , that the king may as well forfeit his crown , as the subject his free-hold . it cannot be imagin'd that all these leading and desperate hints should fall from a man of brains and sense , by chance ; and you see the whole tract takes the same biass . no king of england ( says he , pag. 58. ) had ever so great a treasure of his peoples affections , except what those ill men have ( as they have done all the rest ) consum'd ; whom , but out of an excess of love to his person , the kingdom would never ( for it never did formerly ) so long have suffer'd . here 's still the crocodile of 41 ; nothing but love and reverence to his late majesty too , till his head was off . but let us reason the matter in a word . these ill men have no names , it seems ; so that any man that 's near the king , is by this libeller set up for a mark to the outrage of the people . and then he says , the kingdom would never have suffer'd them . who are they , i pray , that he calls the kingdom , but the rabble still of 41 ; the execrable instruments of that rebellion , and the hopes of another ? but if the kingdom would not suffer it , what would he have them do to help themselves ? the law is open , in case of any legal impeachment , and 't is too early days yet for a tumult , in his descant upon the test , he is wonderfully free of his figures . never ( says he pag , 59 ) was so much sence contain'd in so few words ; no conveyancer could ever in more compendious , or binding terms have drawn a dissetlement of the whole birth-right of england . this test has made a great noise , and it will be worth the while to examine what is said against it . the form of it is as follows , i , a b. do declare that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take up arms against the king ; and that i do abhor that trayterous position of taking arms by his authority , against his person or against those that are commission'd by him in pursuance of such commission . and i do swear that i will not at any time endeavour the alteration of the government , either in church or state. so help me god. he says , pag 57. that it was thrown out of the house in the plague-year at oxford , for fear of a general infection of the vitals of this kingdom ; whereas in truth it was , brought into the house as an antidote against that poyson which had seiz'd the vitals of this kingdom already ; and amounts to no more than the unswearing of that on the behalf of the government , which had been formerly sworn for the destruction of it . the author of a letter from a person of quality , &c. calls it , p. 1. a state-master-piece , and design'd to these ends. first , to make a distinct party , from the rest of the nation , of the high episcopal man , and the old cavalier . now i took it rather to be a design of uniting all parties , under one common bond of duty , and obedience to the government : and where that could not be obtain'd , to distinguish who were for the government , and who against it ; for the late king was murther'd upon this very distinction betwixt his authority and his person . nor is there any government upon the face of the earth , without some obligation upon the subject , equivalent to this test. next , says he , they design to have the government of the church sworn to as unalterable , and so tacitely own'd to be of divine right . this , under favour , is a fallacy . the test does not concern it self whether the government be changeable , or not , but only provides that the state may be serv'd with magistrates and officers , that stand well affected to the establishment . those that do so , will never scruple the oath ; and for those that do not , it is the very intent of it to discriminate , and to exclude them : and to encounter the covenant , by virtue of which they dissolv'd the late government , with an oath never to endeavour any further alteration in this. and certainly , a man may better swear the maintaining of a government according to the law , than the alteration of it against law. thirdly , says the author of the letter , in requital to the crown , they declare the government absolute , and arbitrary , and allow monarchy , as well as episcopacy , to be jure divino , and not to be bounded , or limited by humane laws . how this test does either declare , or pretend the government to be absolute , and arbitrary , i cannot imagine : but on the contrary , every man is ty'd by it from endeavouring to make it so , if it be not so already , in swearing that he will not at any time endeavour the alteration of it . and then in his explication of the meaning of church , and state in the test , by monarchy , and episcopacy in his reflection upon it , he has done us a greater kindness than he was aware of ; for he has wholly disappointed the spight , and the intent of his next clause . and ( as he goes on ) to secure all this , they resolve to take away the power , and oppertunity of parliaments , to alter any thing in church or state , only leave them as an instrument to raise mony , and to pass such laws , as the court , and church shall have a mind to : the attempt of any other , how necessary soever , must be no less a crime than perjury . see now whether or no this be fair dealing . it is , by his own confession , the form of monarchy , and the order of episcopacy , the government it self , and not the administration of it , that is here in question . he would have it believ'd , that by this test , parliaments are barr'd upon pain of perjury from attempting any alteration in church or state : whereas they are left at liberty to debate what alterations they please in the parts of the government provided , they do not strike at the root of the government it self . and the deliberation and result of the whole matter , is no more than this. many of the people ( and all the principles ) are yet living , that destroy'd the king , and the bishops in the last rebellion ; let us have a care of the same hands again , and trust none of them in the government but under an oath , not to endeavour the alteration of it . that is to say , of the monarchy into a republique or of episcopacy into presbytery ; as they did before . and this was the clear scope of the test. the author of the growth of popery , discoursing upon this subject ; there is nothing ( says he , p. 57. ) more portentous and of worse omen , than when such an oath hangs over a nation like a new comet , foreboding the alteration of religion or government . a word first to the oath , which , for want of an epithete to express the hainousness of it ; the libeller so emphatically calls such an oath . it is an oath founded upon the same consideration with the oath of allegience , and directed to the same end ; and every jot as necessary under this king , as that was under his grand-father . the iesuited papists had invited the spaniard to invade england : the iesuited protestants in the late rebellion , did , in like manner , apply themselves to the french. the former laid a plot for the blowing up of the parliament : the other executed the plot of destroying parliaments , changing the government , and murthering the king. the people were misted in the one case , upon the iesuitical principle that a prince being excommunicate by the pope , the subject is discharg'd of his duty to him ; and they were seduc'd in the other , by a persuasion that the sacred character of a king rests in the authority , and is separable from the person ; which authority they lodg'd in the two houses , and so did their business . this practice of the iesuits occasion'd the oath of allegience in the statute 30 iacobi , intitled an act for the discovering , and repressing of popish recusants . in which oath you have this clause . and i do further swear that i do from my heart detest and abjure , as impious and heretical , this damnable doctrine , and position , that princes which be excommunicated , or deprived by the pope , may be deposed , or murther'd by their subjects , or any other whatsoever . here was an act for the discovering and repressing of popish recusants , with an oath , under a penalty , and a declaration against , and an abhorrence of that impious position , whereupon the treasons of those times were founded : and why not a provision as well against those people that with premeditated malice , as well as ambition , over-turn'd the late government ; and against that principle , of dividing his majesties authority from his person , which was the countenance and support of the late rebellion ? take it in short , and the test is but a supplement to the oath of allegiance . the scottish faction impos'd upon the people that they might be true to the king , though they levy'd arms against his person : and the end of this oath is only to expound that position to be treasonous , and to secure the government for the future against men of such principles : according to equity and conscience , and to the common practice , and according to the prudence of all well order'd states . is this the oath now that he calls such an oath ? the oath , than which there is nothing more portentous , and of worse omen to a nation ? he has forgotten the fore-boding , and portentous omens of forty one , and the dire events of those presages what do you think of a deliberate design , to spoil the crown , the church , and the subject : and all this in the name of god , for the honour of the king , and the good of the people ? and then the entitling of providence to all the advantages that the faction got by the ruine of three kingdoms ? here 's the unrepented guilt of sacriledge , treason , and bloud , to the highest degree , and so transcendent an ingratitude , that some of the very men that were pardon'd for one rebellion , are now the advocates for another . if these practises should be suffer'd , there would be no need to consult the stars for a prognostick of change of government . the oaths ( says he , pag. 58. ) in our late king's time taught the phanaticks , because they could not swear , yet to covenant . his memory fails him , i perceive , for the covenant was a foot in scotland before any oaths complain'd of here ; by the token that the assembly at glasgow , in 1638 , came to this resolution upon the point . it is lawful for subjects to covenant and combine , without the king , and enter into a bond of mutual defence against him . take notice next that the oath commplain'd of , was the oath ex officio , which oath was abolish'd , before any covenanting in england : and he is so much out again , in saying that the phanaticks covenanted , &c. because they could not swear , that in truth , they covenanted because they car'd not what they swore . witness their covenants , negative oaths , and oath of abjuration , in opposition to their oaths of allegiance , and canonical obedience : there was no compounding , no living in their quarters , without swearing . there was an oath , given at a communion at fife , obliging people not to take the king's covenant ; and it was one condition upon the treaty at the isle of wight , that his majesty himself should give assurance by solemn oath under his hand , and seal , for settling religion according to the covenant . so that they made no conscience ( you see ) either of swearing , or forfwearing ; either of taking oaths themselves , or of forcing them upon others for the advancement of their design . he takes exception ( pag. 59. ) to the two declaratory points of the test. first that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever , to take up arms against the king. and he reasons the matter in these words : it were difficult to instance a law , either in this , or other country , but that a private man , if any king in christendom assault him , may , having retreated to the wall , stand upon his guard. that is to say , a private man may kill his prince in his own defence . for he puts this case in opposition to the declaration ; only translating the taking up of arms against the king , into a man's standing upon his guard. all that 's honest , in 't is this , that he refuses to declare that to be unlawful , which he holds to be lawful .. his second scruple is , the abhorrence of that traiterous position of taking arms by his authority , against his person ; or against those that are commissioned by him , in pursuance of such commission . here ( says he ) is ●either tenour , or rule of any such commission specify'd , nor the qualification of those which shall be armed with such commissions , expressed , or limited . the author of this frivolous shift , knows very well , that the rules , and measures of commissions vary according to the circumstances of time , place , fact , person ; that the qualification of the commissioner does not at all operate upon the authority of the commission : and that if the bill were drawn out to the length of the book of martyrs , there would not yet be room enough to obviate all cavils , and objections . but in the next page , he speaks his mind a little plainer . as to the commission , ( says he ) if it be to take away a man's estate , or his life , by force , yet it is the king's commission : or if the person commissionated be under never so many disabilities by acts of parliament ; yet his taking this oath , re●oves all those incapacities , or his commission makes it not disputable . this seditious hint , ( for i cannot call it an argument ) lyes open so many ways , that i am only at a loss where to begin with it . first , let the commission , and commissioner be what they will , no man is to be iudg in his own cause ; but the law must be the iudg both of the legality of the one , and the capacity of the other . secondly , if upon this ground an injur'd person may take arms , in one case ; so may a criminal , up●n the bare pretence of it in any other : for 't is but saying that the commission is unwarrantable , or that the officer is a rascal , and there 's his justification . thirdly , suppose a double abuse in manner , as ●s here suggested ; that abuse does not yet void the authority , to which the law on the one side requires obedience , or at least submission ; and there is no law , on the other side , that allows resistance . fourthly , the end and prospect of all laws is publick convenience , and there was never any law invented , so profitable to a community , but it was in some respect or other , to the detriment of some particulars : so that the very admittance of his suppositions , does not at all affect the reason of the test , if the benefit be general on the one hand , and the mischief only particular on the other . how many men are sworn out of their lives , and fortunes by false-witnesses ? shall we therefore quarrel the method of proceeding secundum allegata , & probata ? a man is arrested upon a fobb'd action , for a sum of mony , knowing first , that he ows not a penny , secondly , that the consequence of it will be his ruine ; thirdly , that the action is meerly malicious ; and fourthly , ( to make it strong enough ) that the officer that serves the writ is consederate with his adversary , and that they have both complotted his destruction : all this will not yet authorize a resistance ; but if an officer that has the king's writ , or any other lawful warrant , though erroneous , shall be slain in the execution of it , this is murther a word now as to the occasion of it . the people of 41 , when they had forced his majesty from his palace , by affronts and arm'd tumults , publish'd this doctrine to the nation , that though his person was gone , his authority resided in the two houses : under which colour they imposed ordinances upon the people , for laws , and by degrees proceeded to an exercise of all the acts of sovereignty ; making war against the person of the king , and those that were commission'd by him , under the pretence afore said : as rebellious , traytours , and conspirators . now to prevent the same mischief again , from the same principles , it was thought fit to propose this declaration of abhorrence . the objections against it are , that the king may grant a commission to take away a mans life , or estate , and employ any man at a venture to execute it : which is first , the supposal of an unjust , and tyrannical commission : secondly , a case so rare , that it would be a hard matter to produce a president for it , without a reference to a tryal at law : and thirdly , what would be the fruit of such a resistance , but the turning of an oppression on the one side , into a rebellion on the other ; and the forfeiting of that life , and estate to the law , which was otherwise invaded contrary to the law ? for 't is a thousand to one that the power that issu'd the commission , will find assistants to execute it , so that the resistance pleaded for in this case , is first , of a very remote supposition : secondly , of dangerous consequence to the resistent : and thirdly , of no avail to him at all . if we may not resist ( says the faction ) under these circumstances , our lives , liberties , and estates are at the king's mercy ; for that which may be one mans case , may be any mans : and so because of this possibility of wrong to particulars , we judg it reasonable , that every particular man should be allowed to defend himself . see now the inconvenience , which , upon the allowance of this liberty in favour of particulars , will redound to the publick . an honest man is charg'd with treason in the king's name , and by his majesties order to be taken into custody , and by an officer too , under what disabilities you please . here 's the whole case . an innocent person ; life , liberty , and estate at stake , and an unqualifi'd commissioner . if one man may resist , because he is innocent , another upon the same pretence may resist too , although he be guilty . for no man under a charge , is either guilty , or innocent in the eye of the law , till he be legally , either convicted , or acquitted . so that the innocent , and the guilty , are to be try'd indifferently by the same law , and so are the pretended errours either in the commission . or commissioner take matters once out of the channel of tryal by our peers , there 's an end of magna charta ; and the government it self is become passive , and precarious will you have the true reason now , why this abhorrence goes so much against the hair with some people ? the position is to be cherish'd , and kept in countenance , till the time comes for putting it in practice . no man can be so blind , as not to discern by the correspondent motions of the consistorians in scotland , and the scottish english , that they act already by concert , and it is as plain by this bold and adventurous way of libels all on the soddain , that they depend upon france for a second : which is no more than was done in the late rebellion , by the fame faction , as appear'd by a letter of the lord lowdens to the french king , for his protection and assistance , for which he was committed to the tower , and it was also confirm'd by the fourth article against the five members , accusing them to have traytero●sly invited and encourag'd a forreign power to invade his majesties kingdom of england . husband's collections , p. 35. these are the french pensioners , and the betrayers of our religion and freedom , under oaths , and covenants to preserve them . were not our divines pillag'd , sequestred , imprison'd , either for praying for his majesty , or for refusing to abjure him , how many reverend divines were poysoned in peter-house , i could give you the history of their spiriting away several persons of honour for slaves , their sale of three or four score gentlemen to the barbadoes . their sequ●strations , decimations , exclusion from all offices , plunders , banishments , confinements , prohibition of correspondence with the king , upon pain of death . the juggles of the irish adventures , money , and plate upon the propositions , confiscated estates , twentieth parts , weekly assessments , and a hundred other pecuniary , and arbitrary stratagems , till they finished the ruine of the nation , in the dissolution of the government , and in the bloud of their sov●reign . it is not less certain that this is in sum the design of their second reformation , than that it was the effect of their former : and they are fools that take men of these practises to be of any religion . finis . memoires of the life and death of sir edmondbury godfrey, late justice of the peace for middlesex, who was barbarously murthered by the papists, upon the first discovery of the horrid plot together with a full account of the strange discovery of the murther, the tryal of the murtherers, and the sham-plot of the papists to charge the murther of sir edm. godfrey upon himself, detected. tuke, richard, fl. 1672. 1682 approx. 145 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 81 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-12 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63832 wing t3227 estc r40676 19504455 ocm 19504455 108904 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63832) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 108904) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1679:2) memoires of the life and death of sir edmondbury godfrey, late justice of the peace for middlesex, who was barbarously murthered by the papists, upon the first discovery of the horrid plot together with a full account of the strange discovery of the murther, the tryal of the murtherers, and the sham-plot of the papists to charge the murther of sir edm. godfrey upon himself, detected. tuke, richard, fl. 1672. [9], 150, [2] p. : port. printed for john hancock..., and enoch prosser ..., london : 1682. dedication signed: ric. tuke. engraved frontispiece portrait of godfrey. advertisement: p. [1]-[2] at end. errors in paging: p. 80 misnumbered 10, p. 145 misnumbered 115. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng godfrey, edmund berry, 1621-1678. popish plot, 1678. 2005-05 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-06 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-07 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2005-07 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the true effigies of s r. edmondbury godf●●● knight and iustice of the peace who 〈◊〉 murthered by papists the 12 th day of october an̄ . dom̄ . 1678. f. h. van hove . sculp●●● memoires of the life and death of sir edmondbury godfrey , late justice of the peace for middlesex , who was barbarously murthered by the papists , upon the first discovery of the horrid plot : together with a full account of the strange discovery of the murther , the tryal of the murtherers , and the sham-plot of the papists to charge the murther of sir edm. godfrey upon himself , detected . protomartyr pro patriâ moriendo restituit rem . london , printed for john hancock at the three bibles over against the royal exchange in cornhill , and enoch prosser at the rose and crown at the east end of the royal exchange in cornhill , 1682. to the kings most excellent majesty . most gracious and dread soveraign , that i should presume to lay this little treatise at your royal feet , and to implore your majesties most gracious patronage of it , is not out of any vain ostentation of leaping from the distances of my mean station to approach majesty ; but rather to do that right to my subject , as to shelter it against malicious censurers , under your royal and powerful protection . those that persecuted him while living , and at last took away his life , at once bereaving your majesty of a faithful subject , and the nation of a useful member , will i question not , endeavour ( as they have often attempted ) to bear down the true value of his merits by unjust slanders : but he was too well known to be scandaliz'd by such men , who are as well known ( as they were his , so ) to be enemies to your sacred majesty , your kingdoms , and the true protestant religion . it was for his firm adherence to all these that he fell an innocent sacrifice to their revenge and malice . he faithfully served your majesty and countrey , while he had life to spend in such services . 't is fit the world should know what he was . he dyed for his zeal in such services , for his loyalty to your majesty , and constancy to the protestant religion . to whom then should the protection of his memory upon such accounts be better ( though with a humble respect to your greatness ) dedicated , than to our gracious king and defender of the faith ? honorantes me honorabo , is the royal promise of the king of kings to his worshippers . sir edmondbury godfrey was one that dutifully honoured and served your majesty : and your majejesty , according to your native clemency and goodness , and ( after the pattern of him whose vicegerent you are ) was pleased in compensation of his duty , to confer many honours upon him . you honoured him with the dignity of knighthood , with admitting him into the commission of the peace , and that great character your majesty was pleased to give him of his abilities for that service . he was honoured with the freedom of access to your royal presence , and being imployed for your majesty in some great services . after his death , your majesty was pleased so far to honour him by your gracious sympathy with your people in his loss , as to extend your justice by your royal proclamation for the discovering of his murtherers , and then to grant a special commission of oyer and terminer for their tryal , and to bring them to condign punishment . unto all these honours that living and dead your majesty has graciously been pleased to extend to him ; may it please your sacred majesty to grant one more in his behalf , in graciously condescending to vouchsafe your royal patronage to these memoires of your late faithful , loyal and protestant subject ; and of your princely goodness , as well to pardon the presumption of the author , as the defects of his undertaking . may the divine goodness that hath hitherto ( to the unspeakable joy of your subjects ) preserved your sacred person and your government against all the plots and contrivances of your enemies , continue to defend you , and increase such loyalty in the hearts of your subjects , as this man dyed for . that the crown may long flourish on your royal head , and that you may be bless'd with a long , happy and peaceable reign over these kingdoms , is the hearty prayer of , great sir , your majesties most humble , loyal and obedient subject and servant , ric. tuke . memoirs of the life and death of sir edmondbury godfrey . a good name ( sayes the royal moralist ) is better than precious oyntment , eccl. 7. 1. 't is this , that while the body of a good man is prey'd upon by corruption , and insected with stench and faetor in the grave , perfumes the world with the odours of grateful and pleasing remembrances fit as well for the delight , as use of the living . that the worthy sr. edmondbury godfrey left such a name behind him , needs not the confirmation of this narrative ; there is no place where ever he had a mention , but is scented with it . the confection of those great and imitable vertues with which this good-name was by himself in his life time compounded , i am now to spread before you , and to open this box of nard for your delight and benefit . the very last act and apotheosis of his life , though tragical and bitter to him ; yet , as it was occasioned by that loyal zeal and resolution for the service of his king and country , which provoked the malitious papists to cut him off , was an offering of a sweet-smelling savour , and made this precious unguent to savour in the nostrils of all good men with the greater redolencie and sweetness : and notwithstanding the cursed designs of his revengeful enemies , after having taken away his life , to take away his good name too ; it was not in the power of those dead flies to corrupt this oyntment . if the accessions of a gentile stock , and generous breeding thereto suitable , might be any advantage to own personal worthiness , he might boast of both ; but he had more to boast of ( had he been given to that idle humour , which he never was ) from his own acquirements ; so that whatever bequests of honour or estate he received from his worthy ancestors , were accumulated by the acquests of his own industry and vertue ; by both which he became tam famae quàm fortunae suae faber ; and ennobled the coat of his ancestors with his own atchievements : yet , to render him a gentleman of the truest stamp , he was so qualified as well by descent as purchase . the moralist thought the former sufficient , that nobility was nothing else but ancient wealth and ancient worship ; but this was not sufficient for him without building upon an ancient basis a new superstructure of a personal merit . his father was sir thomas godfrey knight , of an ancient and reputable family in the county of kent , where not only his said father , but his grandfather , and elder brother were justices of the peace , as was this worthy knight himself afterwards for the county of middlesex . so that in this kind of series and succession of magistracy from father to son , he seemed as 't were born to be a justice of peace , as 't is observed by that learned and worthy prelate dr. lloyd in that excellent sermon he preach'd at his funeral . his father ( by several wives ) had a numerous issue , no less than ten sons , our sir edmondbury being the sixth by a second venter : yet though the father himself was but a younger brother , the grandfather left so plentiful an estate to him as served to afford sufficient allowances to his children ; none of them but with what was left them , besides the laudable improvements they made to it by trade and traffick , lived plentifully and in good repute . sir edmondbury had in his youth bestowed upon him an education suitable to his birth and quality , being first put to westminster school ( that prime nurserie and pae dagogie of tyronick learning , ) where in a little time by the strength of his extraordinary parts he arrived to that proficiency as to be sent to the university in order to his maturation in studies of an higher nature . having continued there for some time a diligent and industrious student in those parts of learning , which afterwards qualified him for great and worthy employments ; he was afterwards sent over to travel in foreign parts , to advance the theorie of his speculative acquirements by observation of men and manners , and became thereby the better qualified to discharge himself in those publick places to which he was afterwards called . during the time of his travels , he kept himself ( by the aids of the divine grace ) as well free from the contagion of the immoralities as the ( equally dangerous ) false religion of the places in which he conversed ; the two destructive rocks , upon which most of the unseasoned youth of the gentry of this kingdom , when exposed to the like temptations by their incautelous parents ( out of a vain humour of a fancied accomplishment to be gained by travel ) do infortunately split . for by those sound principles of religion and vertue which he had imbibed by the means of his careful parents and instructors , he was sufficiently antidoted against both ; returning home rather informed than corrupted ; like the laborious bee extracting the hony of useful experience and observations from the worst of things . after his return home to his native countrey , his careful father , to render him as well accomplished in domestick learning as foreign experiences , sent him next to 〈…〉 , and admitted hi● 〈◊〉 member of the honourable society of greys-inn , there to study the regal and municipal laws of this kingdom ; and in this place though he continued not long enough ( according to the rules of such societies ) to assume the graduates robe of that profession ; yet he arrived to that mature proficiencie as gave him a good title to it : and wanted nothing but a complement of time to make him capable of it . but the reason of his so soon leaving the societie was a sense he had in himself of a defect in his hearing , or a kind of deafness , which ( though not very great ) was alwayes natural to him , and was judged by himself and friends might be an hindrance to him in the nice and difficult practice of pleading , where the circumstances of debated matters from the mouths of pleaders or witnesses not being audibly received might be a great prejudice to the clyent 's business ; and withal some unhealthiness in his body , which in the laborious employment of the law-practice might be prejudicial to him . for these reasons after some years continuance in that inn he removed himself into the countrey amongst his friends . amongst whom he diverted himself for some time : but his generous soul being too active to be confined to the retirement of a private solitude and conversation , could not long rest in this inert and useless capacity , but put him upon some undertakings , wherein he might improve the activity of his industrious spirit for the good of himself and others ; idleness being alwayes a burthen to him to whom labour never was so ; the fatigues of the latter in its most difficult managements were so little ungrateful to him , that he seemed never better pleas'd , than when he had least case : for indeed business was so natural to him that it was never uneasie ; he was most in his element , when he was employed in publick or private offices of doing good , and none was ever more indefatigable in such offices than himself . and providence was so auspicious to him in these generous designments , as in a short time to offer him a fair occasion of putting them in execution , by means of an intimate friend and relation of his , who had lost a great part of his estate by reason of his services for the king in the late wars ; and having reduced the rest into stock , resolved to improve the same in way of trade by taking a wood-yard , and buying and selling wood and coals ; an employment not only creditable , but known to be usually very gainful to the undertakers ; especially such as have any considerable stocks to manage it with . sir edmonbury godfrey being a younger brother , and what estate he had , consisting in moneys to the value of 1000 l. or thereabouts , was advised ( as a fair way of improvement ) to join stocks with the aforesaid gentleman , and to come in a partner with him , in managing the trade of a wood-wharf , which he accordingly did ; setling themselves first at dowgate , within the city of london ; where in a few years that they continued trading together , it pleased god so to bless their honest industry and indeavours , that they advanced their stocks to a very considerable increase & advantage ; so indulgent is providence commonly to the honest endeavours of industrious persons , that the more laborious they are in the employments they are called to , the more they thrive and are blessed in them . how may the example of these two trading gentlemen , reproach the unthrifty humours of too many of the gentry of these dayes , who study no other arts but that of spending , and wastefully to consume the patrimonies , that their careful fathers had gathered for them , in all the expensive modes of luxury and riot ? and while they scornfully disdain those laudable employments and means of thrift by which they might be * serviceable to the common-wealth and advance their families , what do they by taking the contrary courses , but precipitate themselves upon the rocks of unavoidable contempt and beggery ? and so become themselves the scorn of those industrious persons whose wayes of thriving they formerly contemned . having thus by their joint trading ( as i have said ) acquir'd considerable advantages to their particular estates , in a few years that they dealt together ; it afterwards happened that mr. harrison , sir edmondbury godfrey's partner , altered his condition by marrying a near relation of sir edmondbury's ; the other continuing still , and to the day of his death in the state of coelibacy : but whether it were upon this account , the family being too much inlarged for their commodious cohabitation ; or that their stocks being likewise so much inlarged , there might be a necessity ( as was the case once between abraham and lot ) of a separation , i know not ; but these two partners having first fairly and justly stated the accounts betwixt each other , agreed upon a parting : and accordingly sir edmondbury ( resolving still to follow the same employment ) having found out a convenient house and yard fit for his purpose at the other end of the town , at hartshorn-lane , near charing-cross , removed thither ; and having furnished his yard with a good stock of wares , began now to trade for himself : and found the same providence that had hitherto been propitious to him , to succeed his industry and endeavours in this his new undertaking , with a suitable blessing . the arts he used as means ( subservient to the divine providence ) of his thriving in the world , were no other than those of an ingenious industry and unreproveable integrity , the two best and most solid bases of a prosperous condition . he being in his private capacity , as strict an observer of the rules of commutative justice , as he was afterwards of the distributive , when called to the exercise of a more publick function . and it was not long that he continued in this private way of commerce and trading ; but that the great abilities both of estate and parts of one so near residing to the court being represented to his majesty ( who as of his piercing wisdom , he is most able to judge of ; so of his native clemency and goodness is most ready to prefer such persons to places of trust and honour , wherein they may become serviceable to himself and people ) it pleased his majesty to admit him into the commission of the peace , as one of his justices for the county of middlesex , and city of westminster ; in which place he faithfully served him , till such time , as for the last services wherein he performed the greatest act of loyalty to his prince and countrey , that lay in the power of a subject to do , he was by the malice of his , and our implacable enemies , the papists , taken from us . we are now therefore to consider him in his more publick capacity as a justice of the peace , in which place as he spent many and the last years of his life , we may remark more solemnly those graces and excellencies which alwayes did illustrate his most imitable conversation . but whether or no any happy conjunction of sydereal influences might auspicate this honour to him by way of succession to his worthy ancestors ; 't is certain one of the greatest of princes thought him not unworthy the office. and was so well satisfied in his choice of him , that in confirmation of his approvement , he [ that ought to know best ( sayes the learned doctor in his threnodia ) hath often said , he took sir edmondbury godfrey to be the best justice of peace in this kingdom ; ] and adds a great word of his own in the first clause of that paragraph ; that [ he was perhaps the man , the man of our age , that did the most good in that station ; he did ( saith he ) dedicate himself wholly to it ; made his countrey his family ; his parish his wife and children ; attended wholly to their good ; to keep up law and justice , and safety and liberty ; to save others from violence and wrong , to reduce them from disorder and violence . what greater testimonies , than these of so judicious a prince , and so learned a prelate , could be expected or desired to illustrate the merits of a worthy and deserving magistrate ? but if we may comment upon this royal theme , it will be worth our while to consider those excellencies apart which rendred him capable of so great a character . and here we may not unfitly take the opportunity to give you in brief the character of this excellent person , both as to his natural and moral indowments ; by which it may be easily judged , how well qualified he was as well for the honour as trust of that eminent place in which he served . as to his person , the graver hath furnished you in the frontispiece with a copy ( not much disagreeing to the life ) of his comely and graceful countenance ; in which , as if nature had cast him into a mould fit for the purpose of his future office , we may perceive a duly composed feature equally mixt with gravity and sweetness , a becoming mien that carried as well authority as ingenuity in it , and commanded at once both awe and love from the beholders . the gracefulness of a mans presence ( in the fancies of some ) adds much of respect and reverence to their persons , especially where their characters require it or deserve it . and therefore howell treating of the qualifications of embassadors , gives this for one : that being to represent the person of his prince , he ought to be a comely and graceful person . and such an one was sir edmondbury ; his stature was elevated somewhat above the common size of ordinary tall men : the habit of his body spare , far from corpulencie ; but well set and exactly proportioned . he was indeed ( as most tall men are ) somewhat inclined to stoop in his going , which might be occasioned by the thoughtfulness of his musing head , mostly working upon some good and generous designs in the way of his business . his disposition and humour were such as obliged love and respects from all that knew him , being naturally of a kind , courteous , and affable temper , free of access , and ready to hear the meanest persons , that in way of complaint , or business , had any thing to do with him ; and this accompanied with a faceteness and pleasancie of humour , that was no less natural him , rendred his conversation lovely and delightful to all persons . if it may not seem impertinent , i will give you one instance for all of the urbanity of his temper . that he being one night attending at the council table at whitehall , till it was somewhat late , and being then to go to the temple upon business , called a coach at the court gates ; and perceiving a gentleman standing there , whom he had observed likewise attending upon business at the board , was pleased courteously to enquire of him , whether his way lay towards the temple : understanding which , he was pleased , though a stranger , to take him into the coach with him , and gave him his passage thither . civility and courtesie were the flowers and ornaments of that excellent temper ; the ground of which consisted of an exact justice and compleat charity ; both these were eminent in this worthy : none more punctual and exact as to the commutative parts of justice than he ; in his dealings , in the keeping of his accounts , in performance of his promises , rendring to every man his right , and discreetly looking to his own . and for his charity , as he was naturally indued with a large and bountiful spirit , so the expressions of it were visible in such circumstances and instances , as may perhaps be parallel'd by few men of this age , if we respect either the charity of his mind , or the charity of his hands . and as to the first , how free was he from a censorious spirit ; the unhappy temper of too many of this age ; and no doubt the main ground of our present differences both in church and state ? when men not content to enjoy the satisfaction and liberty of their own perswasions , do injuriously censure and perhaps maliciously despight those that are of the contrary : but this good man was none of that leaven ; he was himself of a sound and orthodox perswasion and principles ; yet censured none that differed from him in lesser circumstances not material to the essence and vitals of religion ; but honoured many such for the characters of a solid goodness appearing in them from whom he differed in his own private judgment and opinion : though he was most strict in reproving and punishing grosser enormities ; yet he could charitably bear with the lesser infirmities of such in whom a controuling vertue did more eminently prevail . in fine , though he had a severe regard to himself , and his own actions ; yet he could bear with others for greater miscarriages than he allowed in himself : though he alwayes frown'd upon the frontless sinner ; yet ( such was his candour ) that he would rarely put a modest transgressor to the blush . as to the charity of his hands , it must be a labour ( though a delightful one ) to any that should go about to enumerate those labours of love , those offices of a true christian charity in which he abounded . it may now be lawful to declare to the world , that which in his life he most laboured to conceal ; for indeed his charity was so truly christian and heroick , that in the expressions of it , his left hand was a stranger to what his right hand did : few have more merited applause in this kind than himself , none sought it less ; being co●●ted to have done his duty , expecting his reward from his heavenly father , and leaving the fame of it to the contingent notice of a posthumous memorie . it is now known which durst not before be mentioned , how kind he was to a religious , but suffering family in the city of westminster , allowing them ten pounds per annum , towards their support , and this annuity he continued to them for several years together . but this was but one family of many that were in the like nature , though in different proportions , relieved by him . although he was ever severe against idle beggers and vagabonds , such as refusing the honest wayes of industry and labour to maintain themselves , lived altogether upon the alms of others ; yet he was so much a friend to those that were necessitatedly poor , and whose poverty was neither occasioned by ill husbandry , nor continued by idleness , that such should never want his charity ; but he would either set them on work , or otherwise relieve them by some charitable donation . although , as i have said , it was the christianity of his temper to do his alms in secret , there are many hundreds of living witnesses that are able to give in their testimonials to this part of his character , that he was a truly charitable man. and as he arrived to this grade of the beatifying scale of being merciful ; so he declared himself to be a true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , a child of god by ascending another ; he was a peace-maker , one that coveted not so much the triumph of the lawrel as the shadow of the olive-bough : moderation and peace were the proper elements of his nature . if he observed any differences to arise betwixt any of his friends or neighbours , how industrious would he be to reconcile them ! nor would he rest , whatever pains he was exposed to , till he had accomplished his ends . the reputation of his peace-making humour occasioned him much trouble by such as desired the benefit of it , by putting him frequently upon arbitrations and composing of differences : which province as by reason of his great judgment and experience , he was very capable to manage ; so he rarely declined it , though it were a great hindrance both to his publick and private business ; it is well known by the neighbourhood amongst whom he lived , how much of his time and pains were laid out in such friendly services . thus was he as a man : take him as a christian , and a religious man ; and i cannot give you his character more truly and fully than is mentioned by the aforesaid learned prelate in his funeral sermon : one who as by reason of his intimacy with him , he had the greatest opportunity ; so by his faculty was most capable to judge of him in this particular . his words are these : as to those things which belong to a private christian , i ought to know him better than most others . and i did know that by him which gives me abundant comfort in his death . i knew him to be a just and charitable man ; a devout , a zealous , and conscientious christian . his religion was more for use than shew . and yet he was constant in all the acts of gods worship , as well out of judgment as affection . and though the compassion that he had for all men that did amiss , extended it self to all manner of dissenters , and amongst them he had a kindness for the persons of many roman catholicks : yet he alwayes declared a particular hatred and detestation of popery . i say this on purpose to be remembred ( because some would have him a papist , or inclined that way ) i never pleased him with any duty i performed , at least he never thanked me for any so much , as he did for those sermons which i preached here against popery . thus far the worthy doctor , whose words i have quoted at large , as a noble confirmation of what has been before hinted , of his piety , charity , moderation , and religion ; and withall ( under this head ) to take off that groundless and malicious calumny , devised no doubt by the papists themselves , of his inclination to their religion ; a scandal so grosly absurd ( to them especially that were acquainted with his conversation ) that if the known opposition he made against them and their practices in the first discovery of their present plot , and his dying for it by their violent and malicious hands , were not a sufficient refutation ; we have here an unexceptionable confirmation from the mouth and pen of this worthy bishop ; whose judgment was too great , and who knew him too well , to be deceived in so material a cirstance . we have by these rude touches given you a rough draught of some of those lineaments that made up his excellent composition ; some faint ideas of his well featur'd soul , whose several graces as they were singly most excellent and lovely , so the harmony of their contexture agreeing in an exact symmetry , rendred him a pure form of vertue : the complexion of which was not of a faint or fading nature , like some tender constitutions that change with every air ; but strong and permanent , not to be altered by any vicissitudes of fortune or condition : what he was , he was alwayes , of whom it may be said , as it was once of the great athanasius , that he was a living and immortal pillar of vertue . we shall lastly consider him in his more publick capacity as a magistrate or justice of the peace , in which province as he stood more lyable to vulgar notice , we shall observe those remarkables of him that may be satisfactory to the readers attention and his own due merits . how well he deserved this office , needs no higher or greater confirmation , than that he was elected to it , and approved in it by him that bestow'd it on him : a great and wise prince , who as he is himself the fountain of justice , cannot be thought to commit the administration thereof ( especially to one in vicinity , so near , and so well known to him , as sir edmondbury godfrey was ) but to persons of exact approvement . besides , what we have before hinted of his fitness for this service by the happiness of his education , having been brought up a student in the laws of england ; he was otherwise qualified for it , by many excellent endowments of nature , requisite to the composition of a good magistrate ; a deep and piercing judgment to search into the niceties and intricacies of such difficult business as he often met with , and to determine accordingly ; an indefatigable patience mixed with a genuine serenity of mind , whereby he could bear with the clamours and impertinencies of such as came before him , leisurely attending to the allegations both of appellants and criminals , and fully hearing whatever ( and so long as ) they had any thing in reason to offer to him ; rather than the truth on either side should be undiscovered by any prejudicate fore-stalling of the evidence . a right and sound integrity of mind , the golden vein that ran through the whole body of his actions , and all the parts of it , not to be corrupted by gifts , bribes , or pensions ( the common taint of justice ) nor to be warp'd or byas'd by any sinister interests , but plain and upright , uninterested , and regularly conformable to the exactest rules of justice and honesty , in all the particular administrations of his province , being well known , as to any partiality in his actings , to be no respector of persons . add unto all these , an heroick fortitude , and invincible courage of mind , which was the shield of his other vertues , and whereby he was bravely armed and defended against all the difficulties and discouragements ( which were not a few ) that he met with ; still keeping his ground with a stedfast uprightness , and unmoved vertue amidst such tryals , as persons of less courage than himself would have sneaked and grovel'd under ; fortitude is stiled by plato , one of the most fair and excellent vertues ; and is by aristotle in his ethicks made to bring up the van of the four cardinal vertues , quia haec virtus circa res arduas & difficilimas versatur ; virtutis autem proprium est versari inter difficiliora . a vertue therefore certainly most becoming a good magistrate , who must dare to be such in the worst of times , and greatest of dangers . 't is vulgar vertue ( says the learned prelate , speaking on this head ) that puts men only upon safe good things ; 't is vertue in its perfection , when one dares do well , and suffer for it : and of this degree he shewed some as great proofs as perhaps have been given in our days . we shall in the first place give you one instance which ( with due allowance to the unusualness of the practice ) may give sufficient proof of the greatness of his mind , in daring to be just to himself , ( justice as well as charity beginning at home , ) in a case wherein a sneaking softness or complyance might have betray'd him to the ruining advantages of a sconc'd and insulting adversary . having a considerable debt owing to him from a great person at court , to whom he had made many and often applications for the payment of it , without any other satisfaction than that of fair promises , from time to time , and nothing performed : sir edmond-bury well knowing the ability of the person , and that his pretences were but so many formal delays to deferr the payment of that which ( though justly due ) he knew ( by reason of his priviledge ) he could not in an ordinary course of justice be troubled for , resolved however to sue him at common-law , ( notwithstanding his said priviledge ) and rather to cast himself upon his majesties clemency , for infringing the priviledge of his houshold , than to suffer himself to be unjustly defrauded of his due debt , by one that would make such a protection an asylum to that injustice , which he knew his majesty would never patronize or allow of . accordingly after all other fair ways , unsuccessfully attempted ; he got the said courtier arrested by vertue of the kings writt , and a warrant thereupon granted by the sheriff : and the defendant was thereupon taken into custody , till such time as he should give in sufficient bail to answer the action , instead of which the defendant insisting upon his priviledge : sent to white-hall , and got an order for the commitment of sir edmond-bury , for breach of priviledge , upon which he was taken into custody , and so remained for the space of six days a prisoner , and was so to continue till such time as he should discharge the other of the arrest , which sir edmond-bury would not consent unto , but rather suffered the severity of that uneasie restraint , than to gratifie his adversaries stubbornness with a too easie compliance : his majesty being then acquainted with the circumstances of the case , was pleased graciously to order sir edmond-bury godfreys discharge ; and taking notice , in his princely judgement , of that magnanimity and heroick disposition he shewed , in hearing the brunt of this trouble , was pleased not only to pardon the misdemeanour ; but by this action to take such farther notice of him , as to conferr upon him the honour of knighthood : and as a more special token of his grace and favour , to admit him again into the commission of the peace , out of which he had , by means of his adversary , been then lately before strucken out . but a more noble instance than this to prove the fortitude of his mind , as well in daring dangers , as bearing troubles , appears in his staying in town in the time of the last great sickness , when the two great cities of london and westminster were in a manner deserted by their inhabitants , and few left but such of the poorer sort who wanted mony or friends to remove themselves farther ; when the arrows of the almighty were scattered abroad in every corner : when almost every house was turned into a sepulchre , and epitaph'd with the doleful inscription of a miserere domine , while the dead and living seemed buryed together ; when the fear of the contagion rendered the few inhabitants as unsociable to each other , as they would with wild beasts in a wilderness , every man fearing to come near another , lest he should meet with his own executioner , when their very words ( conveyed with a lethiferous air ) were feared as bullets : when breath it self the instruments of life in one , should be death to another as it passed from him . in fine when death and danger filled all places , and turned the whole town into one universal scene of misery and mortality : then it was that this worthy magistrate shewed the greatest proofs of a true christian courage and resolution , in adventuring to stay for a publick good in all the greatest heats of this dangerous contagion . the famous roman , curtius , is celebrated in history for his unexemplary courage , in that for the love of his country , and to evert a great judgment then upon them , he fearlesly rode headlong into a vast devouring gulph , becoming so the sacrifice of their redemption . the action was full of gallantry and bravery , suitable to the heroick temper of a true roman spirit : but sir edmond-bury , from a better principle , of a truly christian zeal , at least equalliz'd his courage in this great undertaking ; wherein death in a thousand several appearances , seemed ready to devour him , if his tutelar angel ( consigned by the divine providence ) had not preserv'd him to greater purposes . it was no unadvised forwardness , or injudicious temerity that put him upon an exploit so hazardous as this was to his life and safety , neither any designs of advantage by it , but a just and conscientious regard to his duty in that place wherein he knew he might ( in the absence of those his fellow magistrates that were fled from the danger ) be instrumental as well to preserve the lives , as properties , of such as should be exposed both to the danger of the contagion , and the rapine of some ill minded people , who frequently take the advantage of such publick calamities to inrich themselves with the spoils of the miserable deceased . these were the only ends he had of his staying in town , for a publick good , and was therefore esteemed by the inhabitants of westminster , as their guardian genius ; as the asylum and sanctuary of their distressed conditions . he was the man ( shall i say the only man of his place , ) that stayed to do good , and did the good he stayed for ; shall we go about to instance in particulars ? 't is impossible , they are innumerable . 't is easier to say , what good did he not that lay within the verge of his province ? his house was not only the seat of justice , but an hospital of charity , where besides that relief which he commonly afforded the poor at other times for the necessity of living , he now extended his charity to give them physick , to preserve them from dying , when they were in a more immediate danger by the contagion , then of starving ; he was the man , ( and where was there such another , ) that laying aside the grandeur of his circumstances , would familiarly visit his poor sick neighbours , and administer suitable reliefs to them ; he was the man , that at that time durst venture himsel● into the very garrison of death the pest-house ( the ordering o● which , he took into his peculiar care and administration ) and there amidst the deadly fumes that arose from their putrid sores , would he stand by the diseased lazars , and see them dressed , not denying them any relief or assistance that lay in his power to afford them . his justice was no less remarkable then his charity , when there was any need of it , as many times there was , to right the dead , as well as to relieve the living ; a notable instance whereof , we shall give you in this following narration . a profligate wretch that had taken up a new way of thieving , ( yet 't is said too much practised in those times ) of robbing the dead , notwithstanding the horror that is naturally concomitant to such actions , had in the dead time of the night used to invade the cemeteries and church-yards that were now more peopled then the places they belong'd to ; and there breaking up the mournful clods , would sacrilegiously ransack the graves , and pillage them with as much freedom , as souldiers do the bodies of their vanquisht enemies in the fields of war , taking from them their dying apparel , the sheets and other linnen in which they were inhumed , and decently covered , leaving the poor carcasses inhumanly naked . this trade he followed so long till he furnished a ware-house with the spoils of the dead ; and had gotten into his possession ( some say ) to the number of a thousand winding-sheets : when by some means being at last discovered , information of these barbarous actions being given in to sir edmnud-bury , he condiscended to go himself with the constables guard , to the place where ( he was informed ) the good , were harboured , and seized them . in the mean while the criminal having got notice of the design against him , was fled ; and being hardned against the fear of infection by his too much familiarity with the dead , had taken sanctuary in the pest-house , where he thought himself sufficiently secured against the attacques of any that should pursue him ; for who should venture upon so imminent a danger , as to seize a malefactor in that place , where possibly they might run upon their own deaths ? and indeed , the officers to whom sir edmund-bury had directed his warrants to that purpose , were too faint-hearted to do it , and declined the service ; but then the noble knight himself ( as a pattern of unpresidented magnanimity ) out of his zeal to justice , ventured in his own person to go unto that fatal place ( made sacred against all approaches by the danger of it , ) and there with his own hands seized and carryed off the offendor , then delivering him into the hands of the officers to be secured , in order to be at a convenient time examined about the fact. and upon due proofs made out to him by several witnesses , the criminal being convicted , sir edmond-bury godfrey in respect to justice , and to make so great a villain an example for the future to all that should be tempted to any such execrable designs , pronounced this sentence upon him , as most suitable to the nature of his crime , that he should be carryed to the church yard , the place where he had perpetrated his nefandous villanies , and there to be strip'd naked to the waste , and by the beadle belonging to the parish , to be severely scourged round the place ; which sentence was accordingly executed upon him , in the presence of a great number of spectators , who were assembled out of curiosity to see so remarkable an execution : mortui non mordent , it is proverbially said ; but one that durst so boldly venture to spoil their passive carkasses , found an active revenge inflicted on him , for so doing , in the very prospect of their injured relicks ; yet neither the smart , nor shame of his punishment could mollifie the hardned wretch to any kind of relentings for his notorious villanies ; but rather excited in him a spirit of revenge against the authors of it : which he especially designed against the worthy sir edmond bury , by whose sentence it was inflicted , so that turning his covetous designs against the dead , into a malicious revenge against the living , he vowed and resolved upon his death whenever he should find an opportunity for it : and in pursuance of such his devilish resolves , being one time late at night , unhappily befriended with an occasion of meeting sir edmond-bury godfrey , in the street going homewards towards his own house , the barbarous villain , in an inhumane manner , assaults him with a cudgel that he carryed about him ( perhaps for that purpose ) and had certainly brained him , if sir edmond-bury , perceiving his design , had not prevented it by a timely defence , which he did by drawing out his sword , and therewith warding the blows that were aimed at him , yet without any offensive violence or hurt to his adversary , but only to defend himself , which he did till such time as company coming by , and taking notice of the out-rage , rescued him from the assault , and seized upon the ruffian , who was thereupon committed to newgate , where he continued till the next sessions of the peace holden for london and middlesex , at the old-bayly , and there ( besides for this ) several other indictments comming in against him for felony , he was convicted , and received sentence to dye ; but by the mercy of the court he was only transported into some foraign plantation , where persisting still in his wicked courses , not withstanding these seasonable warnings , being convicted of some criminal fact , that by the laws of the country deserved death , he had judgement of death accordingly passed upon him , and was hanged . during all the time of this great and dreadful sickness , sir edmond-bury godfrey , ( as we have said ) continued his station : and did worthily , that while , supply the defect of those that out of a pusillanimous phil-auty , had deserted their charges to secure themselves ; such selfish principles as theirs were abhorrent from his generous and publick spirit , who durst attend his duty in the face of the greatest difficulties and dangers . and it pleased god ( as an incouragement to others in the like discharge of their duties ) to reward his faithfulness with a singular protection , preserving him from those imminent perils , that he was ( by his forwardness to be useful ) continually exposed to , that he might continue to be farther serviceable to his king and country in better times . and many years after this it pleased god to continue him to us for a publick blessing : in which time , though we cannot note any great remarkables of him to supply a history , yet remarkable it is , and worthy note , that he was still the same ; the same good useful man that he always was ; none of the fleeting mobile that aspire at names , and to be made the discourse of the world by their fluctuating and giddy changes , he kept his station , and contented himself with a private and retired acting in that sphere , wherein he had opportunity enough of doing good , and being useful to the world , the greatest thing that he ever aspired to . about the year 1678. having been by the constant fatigues and labours of his business , reduced to a sickliness of body , and distempers growing upon him , he was advised by the phisicians to go to montpellier in france , the air of that country being accounted very restorative to wasting and decaying constitutions ; according to whose advice , having setled his affairs in england for the short time of his intended stay , he went over thither , and took , together with , the benefit of that salutiferous air , a prospect of several remarkable places in that kingdom ; especially of a great work that the french king was then undertaking , in making a navigable river through those countries into the levant . he continued for some months in that country ( in which time it having pleased god to restore him to a good measure of health , ( the end he went for ) he returned again to bless his own country , and relations , with his much long'd-for presence . and not long after his return it was , that the late ( i fear we have too much reason to say the present ) hellish and damnable plot of the papists against the king and government , broke out in england . an unhappy juncture in which his last actings , that concluded the catastrophe of his worthy life , exposed him to an untimely and cruel death , by the hands of those bloudy-minded papists ; the proto-martyr of those innocents that were designed by them to a merciless destruction ; but blessed be god , his death , however maliciously designed by them , occasioned a prevention of the ill effects of their malice against others , by awakning the magistrates , and generally the whole kingdom , by this early instance of their treachery to a more narrow watchfulness of them and their proceedings . the history of the first beginning and discovery of this plot , is so generally known , and mentioned in so many narratives and informations published of it , that it were needless for us to say much of it , or more than is necessary to let you know how far sir edmond-bury was concerned about it . dr. oates , reputed the first discoverer of this plot , having been beyond the seas , and here in england , a long time conversant with the managers of it , as being listed one of their party , and privy thereby to all their designs and managements , was resolved to make his discovery of this mystery of iniquity , and the intrigues of it , upon the first fair opportunity that offered it self to him . and having got into some acquaintance with dr. tongue , a worthy and learned person , who had lately before translated a book , intituled the jesuits morals , into english , the said book reflecting so severely upon that brood of vipers , exasperated them to that height , that nothing would satisfie them but his blood ( the usual alloy of their merciless revenges ) and dr. oates , then a great confident of that party must be the man ( injoyned thereto by their provincial whitebread ) that should dispatch him . dr. oates could do no less than accept the service , but ( as it never was in his purpose ) was so sar from executing what he had promised that after a little time of acquaintance with the doctor , he discovers to him not only what they had designed against his own life , but the plot in general , with their designs against the king and government , and protestant religion established in these kingdoms ; and looking upon the doctor ( as he was ) as a person of approved trust and integrity , did at the same time communicate to him the general heads of this multi-form treason , with the names of the actors concerned it it . but the business being of so extraordinary consequence , and mighty opposition and difficulty supposed to be met with upon the discovery of it ; it was consulted between them , what fit person they should pitch upon to acquaint his majesty with it . and accordingly they agreed upon collonel kirby , a person of known fidelity to the king , and zeal to the protestant interest ; the collonel chearfully undertakes the service , and taking a convenient opportunity of meeting the king walking in st. james's park , begs his attention , and informs him some heads of the treason , and particularly , of the designs of the papists , to take away his sacred life , and that pickering and grove , besides others , were ingaged to attempt it in that very place of his recess ; his majesty was much surpriz'd , to hear of a danger , ( that by reason of his native innocency and goodness ) he needed not to have feared , but graciously accepting at the hands of his loyal subject , this seasonable notice , was pleased thereupon to order him , together with dr. tongue , to wait upon him that evening at white-hall with the informations , which they accordingly did ; delivering to him an information consisting of forty three articles , drawn up by dr. oates : the origional of which , ( this being but a coppy ) he kept in his own hands his ; majesty graciously received the papers , but being to go the next morning to windsor , was pleased to order them to be left in the hands of a great lord and eminent minister of state , whom his majesty would intrust as well for the safety of them , as his secrecie in the affair , and accordingly they were left with him , and several attendances were spent upon his lordship , in order to acquaint him with other matters relating to the concern . in the mean while dr. oates discovered himself to collonel kirby , who had not had all this time any acquaintance with him ; and gave him in some further information , as namely , of the coming to town of the provincial whitebread , bedingfield a jesuite , and others of that gang and that they having by some means got intimation of this discovery , had him in suspition for it ; and had design'd to prevent his progress therein , by making him away : this they thought in their devilish policy the likeliest way to forward their designs , by first removing such persons out of the way as should be likely to be instrumental in the intended discovery . this they then attempted against dr. oates , and this they afterwards executed upon the worthy sir edmund-bury , who was not so lucky to escape their murderous hands , as he was . for the doctor more than mistrusting their designes against him , had the good luck to avoid the brunt of their revenge against him , by a timely flight ; the particulars of which , he related to dr. tongue : and that now having thus got himself loosed from his treasonable company , he was resolved to cast himself upon the mercy and protection of his majesty ; which resolution of his , dr. tongue very well approved , and till such time as they could meet with a convenient opportunity of accomplishing it , did kindly invite him to continue with him ( as a good place of safety and retirement to him , ) at his lodgings at fox-hall . during which time , dr. oates wrote over fair copies of his informations , and upon the king 's return to white-hall , notice was one day given to dr. tongue and collonel kirby , that it was his majesties pleasure , that they two should attend him the next morning in councel , to be examined before that great presence , about the particulars of their informations . in order to which , it was necessary , that their several copies should be sworn to , to render them the more authentick when they should be delivered into the councel ; and sir edmund-bury , as a person of known loyalty to his king and country , was the magistrate whom they chose to be sworn by , and to intrust with this great secret. a loyal , but unhappy piece of service to this poor gentleman , who having with horror and astonishment perused the said informations , and taken their oaths of the truth of them ( which they swore to before him ) would needs desire a copy of them , to be left with him , that he might in his own loyal and judicious thoughts take them upon an after view into a more serious consideration , and so be the better inabled to act in that province he was in , if need should be , for the prevention of the growing mischief . little dreaming ( dear soul ) at that time , that his loyal intentions therein , should expose him to that malice of his enemies ( who too well knew the honesty and integrity of his mind , not to be concern'd at it ) that should be the occasion of his death ; the sad and doleful narrative of which , as it was by this means occasioned , we shall presently give you : the two informants having thus sworn to their informations , went with them before the king and councel , who afterwards sent for dr. oates , and they were all three severally examined before them , and their services herein so well accepted , that to secure them from the malice of their enemies , his majesty ( out of his native clemency and goodness ) was graciously pleased to take dr. tongue and dr. oates into his royal protection , and to order them lodgings in his pallace at white-hall . the plotters ( that had spies in every corner to observe the progress of their designs , and the successes of them ) were now strangely surprized , that the scent was taken , and that we were already in pursuit of the game , before they were aware of it ; they dreaded the rumour of it more then any particular informations ; they knew that information had been given in and sworn to ; they knew who it was that gave them their oaths , and that he had copies of the informations ; they knew so loyal a person , so true a protestant , would be more then a speculative or idle observator upon such treasonable subjects , they knew his place , they knew his parts , they knew his power , they knew his interest at court ; his free access to the king , his esteem amongst the people , and were not ignorant how able , how ready he might be to improve all these advantages to the ruine of their designes : they knew his integrity , that there was no hopes of corrupting him , and therefore resolved to destroy him ; that by such an execrable instance of their revengeful temper they might deter all other loyal magistrates from intermedling with their affairs , and to render their arcana inferna sacred against all such intermedlings by the danger of their revenges . his murther now is fully resov'd upon , and several persons imployed to effect it . the persons principally concerned were father girald , and father kelly , two irish priests , robert green cushion-man to the queens chappel , laurence hill , servant to dr. godden treasurer of the said chappel , henry berry porter of somerset house ; mr. miles prance a goldsmith in covent-garden , and captain william bedloe , who though he was not an actor in the design , yet was made privy to it , and afterwards made his discovery of it : besides there were others that were likewise privy to it , as namely , one lawson a priest , and phillip vernatti ( belonging to the lord bellasis ) who afterwards fled , prichard , le fair , welch , kains , and others ; these last five being all jesuits . vernatti and the priests were the persons ( it is believed ) that first undertook the design , and then drew in first green , hill and berry ( the actual murtherers ) and afterwards mr. prance , to engage with them in this hellish conjuration . the scene of the contrivance was the plough-ale-house , near the water-gate by somerset-house : the time upon a sunday after evening-prayer , when the said preists coming from the chappel met with mr. prance there , and upon conference with him , told him , that sir edmundbury godfrey was a bitter persecutor of catholicks , and a particular enemy to her majesties servants , ( of whom mr. prance counted himself one , as being imploy'd to work in work of gold and silver for her majesty : and that he had very lately examined people against them , and got depositions to fix base crimes and scandals on their religion , and that catholicks would be ruined unless he were taken off ; and therefore it was necessary , for the glory of god and good of the church , that it should be done : and when mr. prance seemed to scruple at what they proposed to him to ingage him in the murther , the two priests girald and kelly told him , it was a meritorious work , and no sin , but a work of charity — how cruel are the very mercies of the wicked ! how impious the religion of such unsanctified zealots ! they prevailed with him , at least he seemed to be prevailed upon , to ingage himself in the design , and several consultations were afterwards had about the management of it . upon saturday the twelfth of october , lawrence hill , one of the conspirators ( as they had laid their design ) was imployed to go to sir edmondbury godfrey's house in the morning about the time of his stirring , to speak with him , but what his errand was , is unknown : afterwards the said hill meets with girald and green , and they three together way-lay sir edmonbury at his coming forth , which was about ten or eleven a clock ( the usual time of his setting out ) being all alone ; they follow'd him and watched him all that day from place to place , till about six or seven a clock in the evening : and then these that lay in wait to shed blood , having lodg'd their innocent prey at a place where they saw him enter , sent their fellow green ( while they in the mean watched his forth-coming ) to mr. prance , to summon him with all speed to hasten to somerset-house water-gate leading down to the thames , where kelly and berry the other two designed executioners were to meet him , in order to accomplish the tragedy . these three assassinates abided for some hours the horrors of the night , with a devilish impatience of seeing their expected prize ; when about nine a clock their companion hill comes with cruel hast to inform them he was coming : and now for a gin wherewith to intrap him into their bloody hands , it is presently contrived , that kelly and berry should begin a seeming quarrel ; and in the mean while hill that watched for that purpose , was to ingage sir edmondbury at his coming by , to come down and use his authority for the parting of them . when theeves fall out ( it is said ) honest men come by their goods ; when murtherers feignedly do so , it appears such men may lose their lives . the innocent gentleman not dreaming of any other treachery ( if he thought of any ) than what he knew intended against the publick , soon after comes by , when hill ( the judas in the plot ) having treacherously insinuated himself into so much acquaintance with him as to be known by him ; meets him upon his approach , in a seeming great earnestness and counterfeit concernedness , intreating him for gods sake to come in , for there were two men a quarrelling , and he was afraid there would be blood shed : murther be sure there was , as it was by this artifice designed and executed ; his presence ( as a magistrate ) was urged as a likely means to chill the heats of their fury , and to make them quiet . sir edmondbury was unwilling to ingage himself , especially at that season of the night ; but the other by his importunity in a manner forced him to it , hill leading the way , and sir edmondbury godfrey following him through the gate leading down toward the place ; girald and green were watching near by , and observing the motion , immediatly fell in after them ; mr. prance as soon as sir edmondbury was entred the fatal limits , goes down to secure the water-gate , that no body should enter that way to disturb their proceedings ; and berry at the same time ( that the scene of their mischiefs might be altogether inaccessible ) was to watch the stairs and passage by the chappel ; but first he and kelly the pretended quarrellers stood about the rails by the queens stables ; and as sir edmondbury went down towards them , ( sweet soul whose thoughts were only then affected with generous designs of hindring the effects of a pretended outrage , and little dreaming that himself was the designed subject of it ) that villa in green suddainly threw a twisted handkerchief about his neck , and forthwith all four of them pulled him down and throtled him , drawing between them the ends of the strangling instrument so hard , that at last his pure and innocent soul , after some convulsive struglings against the violences of such an unnatural dissolution , was dislog'd from the body , and convey'd by angels to the place where blessed and martyr'd saints lye under the altar , crying out their quousque domine's , for a just revenge of their innocent blood upon the heads of their malicious enemies : it was no easie death , and he being a man of a strong make and constitution , they were fain to use the more violence to dispatch him , giving him ( when prostrate on the ground ) many violent punches on the breast with their knees ; and green to perfect the execution , wrung his neck almost round with all his force . prance and berry being come to them by that time he vvas quite dead , they alltogether help'd to carry the murthered body into dr. goddin's lodgings , where the said hill lived ; who went before and opened the door ; when they were got in , they carried him five or six steps into a little room on the right hand , and there left him that night and sunday all day and night . there were some unhappy omens of this tragedy which sir edmondbury himself had conceived ( it seem'd in his ovvn mind ) some time before the execution of it , which he not long before declared to dr. oats , after he had received the informations ; that he had received affronts from great persons , for being so zealous in that business of the discovery of the plot ; and that ( being threatned by some great men of the popish party ) he went in fear of his life by that party , having been dogged by them for several dayes ; but ( being advised to take his man alwayes with him ) answer'd , that he did not fear them , if they did but come fairly . and to thomas robinson esq ; ( discoursing with him about the plot ) he declared himself to him in these words : upon my conscience , i shall be the first martyr ; but i do not fear them if they come fairly , i shall not part with my life tamely . but notwithstanding these ( more than suspected ) dangers , being fortified with his own innocence , that meant wrong to no man , he adventured so far as to become at last a prey to his malicious enemies . but to return to our history : the monday night following , hill and some others of them removed him into a room in the upper court ; and prance having a mind to see where they had laid him , they all went together with a dark lanthorn to the said place ( dr. goddins lodgings , ) where also captain bedloe came , who had not hitherto before ingaged himself in any actual performance with them , and perceiving mr. prance there amongst the rest , took s●ch particular observation of him , as served him aftervvards to make a discovery of him and the rest concerned in the murther . on tuesday night they convey'd the body to another room in the long entry over against dr. goddins lodgings ; and the wednesday night following , being removing it again from thence to the place where , it was first lodged , mr. prance happening to come suddenly upon them at unawares , they fearing it had been a stranger , left the body in the entry and ran away together in a fright , till such time as mr. prance ( perceiving their mistake ) called out to them , and discovering who he was , they went back together , and carried the body into the little room where it was first placed . and now to perfect their villany to the heighth of malice , ( that they might as well murther his reputation as they had done his person , a thing more than once by them attempted ) the two priests , girald and kelly advised to carry him out into the fields , and there to leave him , run through with his own sword , in some obsure place ; where ( upon discovery ) he might be supposed to have murther'd himself ; and therefore his money , rings and such other things of value as he had about him , were all to be left with him . captain bedloe had before the murther been acquainted by them with the design , and fain they would have ingaged him to have assisted them in the execution ; for which they told him there was 4000 l. to be given by a great lord of the popish party ; and acquainted him with the time when they intended to dispatch him , then desiring his assistance , but he honestly failed them ; which made monsieur le faire ( one of the undertakers ) very angry with him ; but meeting him on the munday following , told him that the business was done without him ; and having shewed him the body ( as we have before told you ) would then have ingaged him to assist them in carrying it off , according to their last mentioned contrivance ; and bound him to it upon the sacrament he last took ( a pretty knack of prophane conjuration , by which they usually adjure their parties to trust and secrecy ) captain bedloe promised to meet them at twelve a clock that night to that purpose , as judging that the fittest time for such deeds of darkness to be transacted in ; but failed them again , and came no more at them ; but instead thereof taking a journey to bristoll , where some time after , the horror of this fact had made such impressions on him , that thereupon changing his mind as well as he had done his company , he sent up to one of the secretaries of state , in writing , together with a discovery of other matters relating to the plot , an account ( so far as he knew ) of this murther . but in the mean while the aforesaid complices being thus defeated of his assistance , went about the work themselves ; to which end they had procured a sedan , into which ( though with some difficulty , by reason of its stiffness ) they crouded the murthered body ; this was done about twelve a clock ( the hour appointed , ) prance and girald carrying him out at the great gate , the door of which berry the porter opened to them ; having ( to avoid their taking notice of the action ) invited the souldiers who used to attend there , to his house , and there treated them with drink and tabacco , till such time as they had conveyed away the body . what breasts besides those of these hardned and cruel wretches , would not have quiver'd with the horror of such inhumane actions ? to deal so familiarly with the carkass of a murder'd person , a person murdered by their own hands , and whose blood they could not but think at the same time cryed loud for vengeance upon their heads ! but oh the stiffness of a romish zeal ! how immalleable does it render their stony natures to the force of all humane impressions ! yet neither the horror of the fact , nor yet that of a dark night , could scare them from their hideous purposes ; but they proceeded with their dead burthen ( carrying it in the sedan by turns between them ) till they came to so-hoe fields , near the grecian church there lately built ; and there hill attended with an horse ready for their purpose , upon which they placed the body before hill , who held it from falling ; ( oh horrid boldness ! ) mean while the rest conveyed the sedan into an house that was building , but unfinisht , that stood near by , to remain there till they came back : and then girald the priest said , i wish we had an hundred such rogues as secure as we have this . mr. prance then because he was an house-keeper , took his leave of them and returned home , and the other four went away with him , one leading the horse , hill riding and holding the body , and the other two walking by . they carried him into an obscure place , about two miles out of town , towards hamstead , near a place called primrose-hill , and there in a ditch they left the body , after all these harrasings to its quiet repose ; this was the grave they had prepared for him ; but before they left him ( as a token of their malicious design ) girald runs sir edmondbury's own sword through him , laying the scabbard together with his gloves on the bank , at a small distance from the body . in the mean time sir edmondbury's servants , and then his friends , and then the whole town were not a little concerned for his absence ; and there was once a proclamation order'd to discover him , but countermanded , by reason of false informations spread about by some of the popish party , that he was living and well : and there were several persons that went designedly up and down to coffee-houses to spread false reports upon this subject ; as that he was gone into the countrey to be married to a certain lady , whom they took upon them to name , and that they saw him in such and such places . upon saturday the twelfth of october , the very evening that sir edmundbury was murthered ; father harcourt the jesuit afterwards executed , sent away a letter to father ewers a priest at the lord astons in stafford-shire , wherein were these words ; this night is sir edmondbury godfrey dispatcht . this letter was received there on the monday , and shewn to mr. dugdale , as he hath since made oath at seveveral tryals , and the same since confirmed by mr. chetwin a worthy gentleman , who being then in that countrey , heard a report of it there by means of that letter on the tuesday ; vvhich was before ever there was any discovery of it at london . but as murther the great object of the divine justice , does most unseldom escape discovery ; but that the murther is detected , and the murtherer by some means brought to light ; god was pleased by his providence so to order it , that the murther of this good man ( the miss of whom had caused great thoughtfulness of heart ( i may say ) all the kingdom over ) was in a fevv days after discovered . for upon thursday the seventeenth day of october , which was the next day after they had left him in his uncover'd grave , two men by chance passing over the fields , spied the gloves and scabbard , and upon further search discovered the body it self lying in the ditch , with the sword run through it , in such manner as his murtherers had left it ; besides that they found about him , his rings , watch , and some moneys both gold and silver , all which the covetousness of his enemies dispensed with the loss of , to gratifie a more unjustifiable end thereby , of a malicious slander , which they thought might be thereby occasioned , of being his own murtherer . these two honest discoverers well weighing the circumstances of what they had seen , and that there was no blood any where appeared , upon the wounds made by the svvord run through him , concluded it vvas some extraordinary case , and thereupon one of them fetching a constable and some others to assist them , convey'd the ( yet restless ) body to an house , vvhere he lay not long before upon the rumour the body vvas , knovvn to be the relict of the much desired and wanted sir edmondbury godfrey . the coroner of middlesex vvas then sent for ( as is required in such cases of unnatural deaths ) to inquire of the death of this person ; who by the oaths of a jury of substantial credits , found that sir edmondbury godfrey vvas murthered , ( not murthered himself as the design vvas laid ) and the verdict vvas recorded . but yet the felons concerned in the murther , could not be yet discovered . his majesty being graciously inclined to be concerned as vvell as others in the loss of this good man and faithful subject ; understanding that vvhat vvas feared vvas novv certainly proved , that he vvas murthered , vvas pleased upon the twentieth day of october following to issue out his royal proclamation ; commanding all his subjects and officers to use their utmost diligence to find out and discover the murtherers of sir edmondbury , graciously promising 500 l. reward to any that should make such discovery ; and if any one of the murtherers should discover the rest , he should not only be pardoned , but likewise have the same reward . but this royal offer could not prevail with them to come in for the present , ( guilty consciencies are aw'd as well by the clemency as justice of the magistrate ) but they seem'd more hardened in their wickedness by its success . for it was not above a fortnight afterwards , that they drew up a narrative of this so meritorious act of theirs in killing a protestant magistrate , in writing , which vernatti read in an insulting manner at a meeting they had at the queens-head at bow , where he declared that the same was drawn up to be shewed to one of the popish lords ( now in the tower ) and other great persons that were the original designers and promoters of the business , for their satisfaction , by whom it might possibly be sent to rome ; and there no doubt it would find a great approbation and acceptance . the murther we see is found out , but the murtherers yet undiscovered , notwithstanding his majesties gracious proclamation , with promises of reward ( besides pardon ) to the discoverer : captain bedloe had ( as we have told you ) sent up a general account of it , but not being himself present at the murther , could not give a particular account of those that were actually concerned in it : so that the assassinates for about ten weeks had lull'd themselves into a fond security , becoming almost as fearless as they were graceless : but the keeper of israel , that neither slumbereth nor sleepeth , and from whom no secrets are hidden , was then pleased ( to make the triumphs of his own wisdom and justice the more illustrious , when all humane attempts to that end seemed in a manner defeated ) to work out a discovery by such unthought-of means , as plainly shewed it was digitus dei and the lords own doing . we have before informed you that mr. prance was drawn into the cursed combination , and how far he acted in it ; vvho as he was bound by the tyes of secrecy to a sinful silence , had hitherto concealed the fact : but there happening some misunderstanding betwixt him and a neighbour of his , the latter knowing mr. prance to be a zealous papist , and having understood by some of his servants that one time about michaelmas then last , he had absented himself two or three nights from home ; an imagination came into his head , that mr. prance might be concerned in sir edmondbury godfrey's murther ; although indeed , such his absenting was a fortnight before sir edmondbury's death , not upon the account of that , but some others more dangerous to him ; the proclamation being then newly issued , prohibiting all papists and popishly affected persons from staying in town ; about which time , when the plot was first noised abroad , fenwick , ireland , and others of the conspirators were seized , whom he was so zealous to defend in a publick coffee-house ; that for some words then spoken , he was threatned by some persons present to be prosecuted ; and upon that account only lay from home the said two or three nights , ( as he was able to prove by credible witnesses ) till such time as the business might be composed ; however , this neighbour of his , upon the bare suspition , took out a warrant against him to appear before the council ; which mr. prance readily obey'd , as knowing him not able to prove any thing against him upon that account . but being taken by vertue of that warrant , upon the tvventy first of december , and being first carryed into the lobby by the house of commons , captain bedloe ( whom he did not then know , having been seen by him but once before , ( viz. ) upon the view of sir edmondbury godfrey's body in somerset-house , before mentioned , at which time mr. prance took no great notice of him ) knew his face again , and charged him with that murther , whereupon , after a strict examination , he was committed prisoner to newgate . the next day being the 22 th of december , he made his discovery , ( the narrative of which is since by license of authority printed , and thereby charged the before named dominick kelly , robert green , henry berry , and laurence hill , as confederates in this murther ; of whom the three last were apprehended , but the two first escaped ; the subtil priests , according to the old proverb of those that have the better luck , shifting for themselves , and leaving those whom they had drawn in to answer for themselves . although afterwards kelly was taken up in surrey , by the name of daniel edmonds , as a recusant ; but understanding prances being taken , got out upon bail ( hired by him for that service ) before he was known to be kelly , though afterwards the same was discovered ; the account of which , because it is not so pertinent to our present history , we shall here omit . the 24 th . of december mr. prance was examined before the king and council , and having given in the particular circumstances of the murther , and in what respective rooms and places the body was kept as aforesaid , several lords were ordered to go with him , to see if there vvere such rooms as he had described , and whether he could readily go to them ; which he did to their full satisfaction . but some time after , remaining in prison without any assurance of his pardon , he was so far prevailed vvith , to retract by vvord of mouth what he had truly confessed upon oath ; as once upon a further examination to say before the king and council , that he was innocent , and they all were innocent : but as to the temptations he was under , and the circumstances that sway'd him to that ill action he hath since ( in that narrative which he hath published to the world of these matters ) so ingeniously set them forth , as may satisfie any unbyass'd person , and take off that calumny vvherevvith the papists have endeavoured to bespatter him , and to invalidate his evidence on that account : in ansvver to vvhich , he offers these considerations ( as the just and true sentiments of his soul ; ) these are his words , as you may find them in his book , pag. 24. that vvhat he had declared concerning the murther in manner herein before set forth , was solemnly upon oath : that the supposed retractation was suddenly done , under consternation and fear , and not upon oath . 2. that he vvas at this time under certain danger of his life , if he had persisted in that confession , for he had no pardon granted , nor any certainty of obtaining the same . 3. that if he should obtain his pardon , he considered that yet his life vvould be still in danger , from the revengeful and bloody priests and jesuits . 4. that his mind vvas sorely troubled , as vvith all these dangers , so vvith this further apprehension ; that if he should escape vvith his life , yet by this discovery he should lose his livelyhood , and in all humane probability , both he and all his family be certainly undone ; for he vvas the queens servant , and that his trade and subsistence chiefly or indeed vvholly depended on her majesties custom ( vvhich vvas certain and considerable ) and that of other roman catholicks ; so it vvas not to be doubted but the most crafty and implacable priests vvould soon use means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 representations and scandal to deprive him thereof , if he proceeded in his discovery . 5. that he retained still a certain respect to the popish religion , in which he had so long been educated ; for that he had not yet intirely got his soul out of that snare ; and therefore he did then conceive , being swayed by such powerfull inducements , that he might lawfully say he was innocent , and so they were all ; which in popish construction , is not to deny that they killed sir edmondbury godfrey ; for that , according to their divinity , and what the said priests had solemnly declared , was no sin or crime , and consequently they might all in such their catholick sence still be innocent : yet this he must acknowledge , he somewhat doubted , because he never was at confession nor received absolution since the fact committed ; which all the rest ( as some of themselves had declared ) had done , and so might more peremptorily persist ( as they did ) in averring themselves to be innocent ; and he does ingeniously declare , that had he received absolution , 't is his fear he should never without extream difficulty have been brought to any acknowledgment . these circumstances together with a great distemper of body , contracted by the incommodities of confinement , want of air , &c. occasioned that suddain revolt of his reason and duty , under that perplexity of spirit ; but as soon as he had done it , conscience slew in his face , and would no longer be laid asleep with any delusive popish charms . when he began to recollect himself , the power of truth dispersed all these temptations of interest , fear and superstition : if it were true , that he might hazard his life and lose his trade if he did persist in the confession of the murther , it was as true , and he found it by experience , that he never should have peace of conscience if he denyed it . and therefore , he was no sooner returned from the king and council to newgate , ( which coming in a coach , 't is certain was not half an hour ) but he most earnestly requested captain richardson , ( who had been with him , and heard what he had said that morning ) for gods sake to go back , and assure the king and that honourable board from him , that the first confession which he made on oath , was true in all circumstances , and that whatever he had said before them that morning , was occasioned only by the consternation , fear and perplexity of mind he was under : which the captain immediately did , and hath since declared the same upon oath . thus far the words of mr. prances own narrative , which we have thought pertinent to be inserted : the perusal of the narrative it self , may serve not only for the readers satisfaction in this , but as vvell to inform him of the several notorious villanies of a great number of popish priests , therein by name exposed ; to vvhich as a very confirming circumstance vve may add , that falling very dangerously ill soon after , he then vvhen he had nothing but a certain prospect of approaching death before his eyes , declared and asserted to divers persons his first confession to be true in all points ; and also aftervvards as soon as he had recovered his health , he repeated the same vvith all stedfastness before the king himself , and the lords of the council : whereupon his majesty was most graciously pleased to grant him his pardon . from all which it is most plain , that all the noise which the priests and jesuits have made about this matter is but empty air , as good as nothing , and the just truth thereof is become evident to any ingenious person that will but impartially look into these transactions , and consider them as they are , and not as they are represented by their false perspectives . thus far we have given you ( according to the most exact accounts that have been hitherto produced ) a narrative of the discovery of this most horrid and execrable murther , and by what strange and unthought of means it pleased god to effect it . in order of history , we should before this have acquainted you with the passages of his funeral ; it was fit so good a man , so loyal a subject , so great a sufferer for the publick interest , should not goe without honour to his grave . after his relicts , so long disturbed by his restless murtherers , had been view'd by the coroner , and then quietly deposed into the hands of his relations , care was taken that he should have a burial suitable to that general esteem that all persons had of him ; which accordingly upon 31 th of october next after the time of his murther , was performed by his said relations in a most decent and becoming manner , without any pomp or pageantries of ostentation ( that which in his life-time he was most averse to , and no man ever declined more than he did : ) the body being first carried to old bridewell , a place agreed upon for that purpose ; as being for its amplitude most fit to receive the numerous congress of persons , that out of the city and other places adjacent , came thither to pay their last respects to this martyr'd worthy . from thence accompanied with great numbers of persons of quality , eminent citizens , ministers and others , that were all hearty mourners upon this sad occasion : he was carryed in a solemn manner through fleet-street and the strand , to the parish church of st. martins in the fields , and there decently interred : the funeral sermon upon this occasion being then preached by the late reverend and learned prelate dr. lloyd , then incumbent there , and since by him published ; a discourse so sympathising with the subject , and so excellent in all its parts , as deserves better than a transient mention . we have hitherto given you a summary of the excellent life , tragical death , and lastly the discovery of the murther of this worthy gentleman : it remains now ( and it may be expected by the reader ) that we give some account of the trial and execution of those villains that were concerned in the murther . you have heard before , how that upon the discovery made thereof by mr. prance , and of the actors in it , three of them , viz. robert green , henry berry , and lawrence hill , were taken and committed to the common gaol , in order to their tryals . the parliament sitting about that time , were pleased to take such notice of the fact ( considering what relation it had to the plot , about which they were then sedulously inquiring ) that it was order'd by the house of commons , that sir john earnly a member of that house , should immediately carry an address from them to his majesty , that his majesty would be pleased to issue out a commission of oyer and terminer for the tryal of the aforesaid malefactors : which address his majesty graciously accepted , and was pleased to say , that a commission should forthwith be issued out for that purpose . which was accordingly done ; and upon wednesday the 5 th of february , the said green , berry and hill , were brought to their tryals at the kings-bench barre at westminster , where before the judges there sitting , they were severally arraigned , and pleaded not guilty — and a rule of court entred for their being brought to tryal on friday the tenth of the same month ; and then a jury of able and worthy persons ( being impannel'd by the sheriff ) were sworn to trye the fact : their names were as follow , viz. sir william roberts , bar. sir richard fisher , bar. sir michael heneage , kt. sir thomas bridges , kt. william avery , esq charles umphrevile , esq john bathurst , esq richard gowre , esq tho. henslow , esq john sharpe , esq john haynes , esq william moyle , esq dominick kelly and girald the two priests , and philip vernatti , ( whom we have before mentioned to be principal actors in this murtherous design ) stood charged in the same indictment for the murther , but they being more wary than the rest , were fled , and for that time escaped the hands of justice . mr. prance ( the principal evidence ) according to the informations he had before given in to the council , declared the series of the whole matter from first to last , according as is before related , but declared that he never had any conference with captain bedloe in his life , before he was committed to prison . captain bedloe swears , that a little before the fact , le fair , prichard and keynes , three of the confederates and some others of them , ( all of them priests ) discours'd him about killing a cercain gentleman , whom they would not name : and incouraged him with the promise of a very considerable gratuity to be assistant to them ; and then directed him to insinuate himself into sir edmondbury godfreys acquaintance . which in complyance to their wicked humours , ( which he durst hardly refuse to do ) he did : and did under several specious pretences insinuate himself into an acquaintance with sir edmondbury , ( who was never hard of accesse to any ) but made not that advantage of his acquaintance that they maliciously had designed . but he informed the court , that the very day sir edmondbury godfrey was murther'd , le fair ( at a tavern near temple-barr ) told him there was a gentleman to be put out of the way , ( that is , in their popish sence , ) to be murther'd , that night ; and would engage his assistance : and that there would be 4000 l. reward given by a great lord of the popish party to recompence the undertakers : for ( said these devilish polititians ) should not this gentleman be cut off , things would be discovered to that degree , that they should not be able to bring their designs to pass ; they knew what a remora the activity of his loyal spirit would be to their proceedings : to prevent which , they request captain bedloe to meet them at somerset-house near the cloysters that evening , being the place in which they designed to act the tragedy . this he promised to do , and ( as we have said before ) he durst do no less ; but knowing against whom their designs were intended , he wilfully failed them . that on the munday following , le fair again meeting with the said captain bedloe , charged him with breach of promise , and appointed him to come to somerset-house about nine of the clock that evening ; where he told him he had done ill , in that he denyed to assist them in this business , but if he would help to carry him off , he should still have part of the before mentioned reward : why , said the witness ( as surpriz'd at the news of it ) is he murther'd ? yes , replyed le fair. whereupon the witness askt if he might not see him ? which was granted , and le fair led him through a dark entry into a room where there were several people , that had no light but a dark lanthorn amongst them , and were consulting together how to carry him off : when one of the company throwing off the cloth with which the body was covered , captain bedloe had a view of his face and presently knew it to be sir edmondbury godfrey's , with whom ( by the instigation of these murtherers , ) he had been so well acquainted as easily to remember him . the captains advice to them was , to tye weights to his head and feet , and throw him into the river : but this they did not think fit to do , but said they would put it upon himself . and to that end resolved to put him into a chair ( or sedan ) the porter berry being to sit up to let them out at the court-gate , and at twelve a clock that night was the hour appointed to carry him off ; captain bedloe promising to them , upon the sacrament which he had took the sunday before , to return again to them , and help them ; but being got from them , never came at them more . the constable that view'd the body in the ditch , gave an account how he found it with the sword sticking through it , but no blood appearing upon the ground . and that he found a great deal of gold and silver in his pockets . the two chyrurgeons moreover swore , that they verily believed the sword was run through him after he was dead and cold ; but that he died of suffocation and breaking of his neck , together with the bruises on his breast . to confirm mr. prances evidence , that they had been several times at his house , inquiring for him , and that hill ( as he and the rest told prance ) was there on the morning of that day in which he was murther'd , there was produced one elizabeth curtis , that at the same time dwelt with sir edmondbury , his menial servant ; she swore directly that green had been at her masters about a fortnight before her master was killed , and talked with him about a quarter of an hour in french : and that hill was there that very saturday morning on which he was murthered , and spake to him before he went out , and was there a good while in the parlour with him , but could not tell what his business was : that the night before , there was a strange man brought a note to her master , which she gave to him , and the man staying for an answer , prethee ( said sir edmondbury godfrey ) tell him i do not know what to make of it : but this was none of the three persons at the bar , but supposed to be one of their fraternity . as for hill , she was sure he was there on the said saturday morning , by the same token he had then on the same cloaths as he now had at the bar ; though now he denyed he was there , yet he acknowledged he had not changed his cloaths , but wore the same suit ever since before that time . the man at the plow alehouse ( where mr. prance swore the murther was consulted ) and his servant , did both swear , that prance did use to come thither with hill , girald and kelly , several times within five weeks before the murther . the relation that mr. prance gave of the meeting at the queens-head at bow , is confirmed by a messenger that they sent for a gentleman living about a mile from that place , to come to them . sir robert southwell deposes , that mr. prance having related these things to the council , and being to attend the duke of monmouth and the earl of ossery , to shew them the places he mentioned , he readily went to them , and they appeared to be all such as he had described them ; only as to the room in the upper court , where the body was laid one night , having never been there but once , and that in the dark too , he said he could not positively assign it , but pointed to some rooms , and said he was sure it was thereabouts , and this doubtfulness the court observing did give more credit to the rest of his evidence . for a person that right or wrong will swear any thing , will stick at nothing . lastly , it was proved that berry the porter , pretended orders given him , that he should suffer no strangers or persons of quality to come into somerset-house on the twelfth , thirteenth and fourteenth days of october , the first being the day on which sir edmondbury godfrey was murthered , and the two days following the time that he lay there ; and that prince rupert coming in there within that time , was denyed entrance . these were some of the principal heads of the evidence that were given in against the prisoners , which , notwithstanding the directness of the circumstances to prove the fact upon them , they had all the stoutness to deny . and it was no wonder that men of such profligate consciences that would not stick at the perpetrating such villanies , should not boggle at the denying of them . the defence they made for themselves was very strained and unconvincing . hill would needs except against mr. prances testimony , because he once formerly denyed it ( the reason of his so doing you have had before related , from the words of his own narrative . ) but this exception the court easily over-ruled , for that besides the before mentioned reasons that induced him to it , he had now affirmed the truth upon oath , and his denying of it was but his bare saying , and so he could not be now perjured upon that single assertion , nor the credit of his now evidence be any wise the more mistrusted , considering the circumstances he was then under . and further , the said hill to evade , offers some witnesses of his own religion , to aver he was never from his lodgings after nine a clock at night . but these did it so nicely and generally , that no stress could be laid upon them , it being proved that they had several keys to the door , and hill might go in and out without their knowledge ; and one of his witnesses makes a palpable mistake of an whole month , p. 55. and two of green's witnesses a whole week , p. 66. so unhappy were they in their calculations of the time they were brought to speak to . the evidence that berry gave in to the court were the souldiers who were placed sentinel at the gate . they say they saw a sedan come in , and so far they agree with the kings evidence , but then they confidently aver that they saw none go out all night . but what was this to matter of fact ? or what did it relate to the murther committed , so positively in all its circumstances sworn to by the kings witnesses ? the sentinel might be from his post , and 't is most probable he was so : for mr. prance had before informed the court that berry had inveigled the sentinel in to drink , and so not being in the way at the time of doing it , he might truly say without any discredit to the evidence of the other side , that he did not see the sedan go out , it might be morally impossible he should ; at least the sentinel knowing he had committed a dangerous fault by so doing , might be so wise for his own safety as to conceal it . yet these poor and slender evasions were the best defence these wretches could make for themselves ; which besides their own weakness being opposed with so many undeniable arguments of truth and certainty by the witnesses of the other side , found so little credit with the jury , that after a little time of consideration , they brought them in all three guilty of the murther . upon tuesday the eleventh of february , they were brought again to the bar in order to receive their sentence , which ( after a grave and seasonable speech made to them upon that occasion by mr. justice w●ld , whose province it then was , as being second judge of the court ) was pronounced against them in common form : that they should be carried back to the place from whence they came , and from thence to the place of execution , and there be hang'd by the necks , till they were dead . according to which sentence robert green and lawrence hill were executed at tyburn on the twenty eighth day of the same month. at the place of execution they behaved themselves with the courages of true romans of the new stamp , denying the crime they suffered for , with that their formal evasion of being innocent as the child unborn ; that is as no body . a child unborn may be a non ens — had it been as a sucking child , i question whether their dying consciences could so well have dispensed with the expression . but what other might be expected from consciences so charmed as theirs was , by the sophisticating juggles of their superiours , ty'd up by so many oaths and sacraments to conceal that truth which by the divulging must necessarily turn to the scandal of the romish church — whose principles will rather admit the blame and punishment of a crime than the shame of it . and that there were some designs contrived to oblige them to such a prophane concealment ( in so solemn a case as dying i can give it no fitter an epithet ) is evident by one notorious circumstance : that when hill and green were hang'd and dead , captain richardson the keeper of newgate , with several others , saw the executioner ( amongst other things ) take a paper out of hill's pocket , purporting to be the form of the speech that he should use to the people at the gallows , which being penn'd in a singular way of expression , i shall take leave to insert verbatim , as followeth . i am come now to the fatal place where i must end my life , and i hope with that courage that may become my innocence . i must now appear before the great judge who knows all things and judges rightly ; and i hope it will be happy for me a sinner , that i am thus wrongfully put to death . i call god , angels and men to witness that i am wholly ignorant of the manner , cause , or time , of the death of justice godfrey ; although on that account by the malice of wicked men brought to this shameful death , which i hope will give me a speedy passage to eternal life . in this hope i dye chearfully because of mine innocence , and the benefit of the precious wounds of my blessed saviour , by whose merits i hope for salvation . i dye a roman catholick , desiring all such to pray for me : and i beseech god in his justice to discover this horrid murther , with the contrivers thereof , that my innocence may appear . and though from my heart i forgive my accusers , yet i cite all such as have a hand in this bloody contrivance , before the great tribunal of gods justice to answer for the wrong they have done the innocent ; and particularly the lord chief justice , and the brothers of sir edmondbury godfrey , with jury , witnesses and all their partakers . oh lord bless and preserve his majesty and be merciful to this poor nation , and lay not innocent blood to its charge . dying words ought to have their just allowances of credit , as supposing men , if ever they dare speak the truth , will do it then when they are within an immediate prospect of a sudden appearance before the omn●●ient and righteous judge of heaven and earth , to answer for what they have said and done . but when the truth has been once determined ( as in this case ) by no less than a cloud of witnesses , some of them unknown to the other , yet all of them harmoniously agreeing in the particular circumstances of the fact ; and the fact it self sufficiently proved on all hands by persons that prosess such a religion as gives no allowances to lying or dissimulation . when on the other hand the truth so proved shall be denyed by persons instructed in such false principles as these ; to deny the truth when the secular interest of their idoliz'd as well as idolatrous church shall be indanger'd by it ; to invert the moral nature of good and evil , and to account those actions and things good , vertuous and meritorious , which in their own nature ( besides the express commands of gods word ) are wicked and sinful ; no wonder if such persons upon such principles should deny or conceal the truth , especially when they can make such unhappy distinctions betwixt the form and reality of a fact ; as to deny the crime of murther when they know themselves to be guilty of killing a person , killing in their sence being sometimes no more murder than it was for the priests of old to kill a sacrifice , or for the jews to slaughter the reprobated amalekites , they arrogating to themselves the same dominion over the lives and properties of hereticks ( as we are accounted by them ) that the jews ( that priviledged people ) of old had over the execrated pagan nations ; so that in their sence , killing is no murder . upon which considerations it 〈◊〉 easie for any impartial man to judge how much credit such dying attestations may admit of , against such clear and undeniable proofs as were brought against them . and it is more than probable , that the words of the aforesaid paper were not hill's own words , but dictated for him in that form by those of his party that were afraid of a confession , and durst not trust the reputation of their cause to the hazard of any unwary expressions , that the consternation of death might extort from him . wherefore otherwise might not a verbal expression of his innocency ( if he were minded to declare it ) be lookt upon as more credible from one in his dying circumstances , than a set and studyed form of speech calculated for the purpose ? but they feared either the terrors of death would force him to a plain confession , or that the power of truth fortified with such awful sentiments , would over-bear his tongue in some circumstance ; or at least that he would not deny the fact so resolutely , and in such a taking manner as might fix a suspicion and odium upon the witnesses , judge and jury in the minds of the people , which was the great thing they aimed at . no doubt therefore this form of what he should say at his execution , was drawn up for him by some of the religion , that every word might be according to their mind , and to the purposes of their designs , how remote soever it were to his thoughts or the truth . and no wonder it is that they should instruct their proselytes to make speeches just as they say prayers , resting in the opere operato , without any understanding or attention , or consent of mind to the words they use , when a bare doing or a bare saying can excuse an intention . to conclude , it is evident that the words were framed by another for him to con by heart , and not of his own doing , by this undenyable circumstance , that he never had pen , ink nor paper all the while he was in newgate , and his wife being examined about it , testified that it was not of his hand-writing , nor did she ever see it before , or know how he came by it ; yet he began his speech with these very words , and repeated as much thereof as his memory under such confused circumstances would serve him to do . in the speech it self we may observe the great charity of the author of it ( whoever he were ) in citing all such as had any hand in his death , before the great tribunal of gods justice , particularly the lord chief justice , sir edmondbury godfrey's brothers , with the jury , witnesses , and all their partakers — and yet , but in the words just before , he declares that he does from his heart forgive his accusers . we may see by this passage of what nature such mens forgiveness is ; seeming to pardon , when at the same time they cry out for vengeance upon their adversaries . the papists ( for the still better colouring of the business ) have commonly reported that berry was alwayes or at least dyed a protestant , which is notoriously false , having been known to be a papist for many years ; induced thereto ( as he confessed to the ordinary ) out of lucre , and to get an imployment ; and though he did not believe many things ( as he declared a little before his execution ) which the romish doctors teach as necessary articles of faith ( which is no more than many other papists will affirm ) yet the said berry neither before nor at his execution , would ever disown the romish church , nor in the least declare himself a protestant . i would not have these last passages thought altogether an ( at least impertinent ) digression from our subject , the design of their rehearsal being chiefly to evidence the truth , against the subtil designs of the papists to suppress it , which they have managed not only by suborning ( if i may so say ) or at least seducing their mischievous agents to persist to the very death in denying of what they did : but ( despairing upon just grounds of the success of that imposture , so lyable to detection ) they have since by their malicious slanders endeavoured to remove the charge of the fact from those that were the real actors , and from all their own party , to those that were most clear of it . and perceiving that the belief of their designs and actings against the life of this innocent gentleman , was in the length of time not only the more confirmed , but that the credit of it had a fatal influence upon their further proceedings , they were so effrontless in their villanous prosecution , that they stuck not to commit a second murther upon the good name as well as they had before done upon the person of this worthy martyr for his king and countrey , by endeavouring to charge the murther upon himself , a brief account of which , to shut up this tragical discourse , i shall now give you . but by the way it may be observed from this last account of hills confession , that he or his party had at that time no thoughts of fixing such a slander upon him , of his being felo de se , but did own it as a murther committed upon him by others ( though hill would have shifted it off from himself ) as appears by the words of his confession — i beseech god in his justice to discover this horrid murther : the manner of the expression may sufficiently evince that he meant it not of his being murther'd by himself , but others . the popish plot , which by the goodness of the divine providence was hitherto prevented in its progress by surprizing discoveries , was forced to shift its scenes , and assume new forms of enterprize , upon the defeats of the former : and now a new instrument of theirs is brought upon the stage : one fitz-harris lately executed for treason ; who upon his first arraignment before the justices of the kings bench , did offer upon a private examination to discover to them some persons ( before unknown ) who were instrumental in the murther of sir edmondbury godfrey , himself ( by his own confession ) being one that was concerned in it , and so had the better opportunity to know the rest . these examinations were taken in private , and therefore what the effects of them were , and who the persons particularly were that were thereby accused , time ( the parent of truth ) may hereafter discover . but whether the accusation of some persons mentioned in the informations might provoke them to it ; or that the revival of this new evidence might stimulate the malicious party to the undertaking , a new design is contriv'd to fix this murther upon the murther'd person . this was one of their sham-plots ; many of which they have set up with an irrefragable persistance , by such methods ( if possible ) to amuse us into a disbelief of the real one , then and yet in prosecution . they never want instruments to effect their villanies , when they have once contrived them ; and had one at this time fit for their purpose , an irish-man , mac-gar by name , a zealous papist , and one of a suitable reputation ; who coming lately over from ireland , and judged by them to be a man fit enough for the purpose of an ill design , they engage him to spread about reports up and down the town , that sir edmondbury godfrey had murthered himself ; but that to save his estate from a forfeiture , by reason of his so doing , his brothers had engaged him ( the informant ) to run sir edmondbury godfrey's own sword through him , and so to leave him in that condition in which he was found in the ditch upon the first discovery . this tale could get little credit amongst the towns-men — who were upon just grounds more apt to abhorr it than believe it ; so that not succeeding with the mobile ( as the people by the wits of this time are finely termed ) it is resolved that he should apply himself to persons of greater note and influence . and to that purpose mac-gar is next instructed to apply himself to a great person then a prisoner in the tower , to whom he sends word , that he had such a matter to inform him of concerning this murther . but the other refused to have any discourse with him about it , till he had acquainted the constable of the tower with it ; who upon notice thereof came and examined mac-gar about what he had to say of the business ; he formally relates the story as aforesaid : but the constable of the tower judging it to be a matter of too great importance to be slightly canvas'd ; resolved to acquaint the privy council with it , and mac-gar was carryed before them to be examin'd about the particulars — he there gives in the same information , and obstinately persists in the asserting of the truth of it ; but that honourable and judicious assembly , though sufficiently convinced in their own minds of the maliciousness of this calumny , yet the better to find out the depth of the design of it , order'd the said mac-gar to be taken into a messengers hands , in order to a further examination at such time as he should be appointed again to be brought before them . while he continued thus in custody , being conscious to himself as well of his crime , as of the likelyhood of its discovery , and the disgrace that thereupon would fall upon him and his party ; he contrives with himself how to acquaint his imployers with his condition , and to desire their further direction and assistance , either to carry on the design , or to bring him off ( as to what he had already acted ) impunè . to this purpose he gets leave of the messenger ( in whose custody he was ) to have pen , ink and paper , in order to writing to one of the secretaries of state some things that he had in his mind about the present business ; which favour being granted him , he seals up a paper directed to one of the secretaries as he pretended , but withall , at the same time had written a letter to m ris celliers the popish midwife , ( so notoriously infamous for her contrivances and actings in the popish plot ) acquainting her with his proceedings , and what kind of success he had met with ; that if she and the rest of the friends that ingaged him in the design , would not now stand by him , the cause must perish and he too . the aforesaid letter to the secretary , was but a colour to make way for the pasport of this ; so having gotten a messenger to carry the former ( which was allow'd him ) he slips the latter ( directed to m ris celliers ) into his hands , expecting no doubt but it would be delivered , and to have a certain return of it . but his confidence failed him , for the wary messenger partly knowing his circumstances , and knowing what a person m ris celliers ( to whom the letter was directed ) was ; instead of carrying it to her , convey'd it to white-hall to be perused by the council , who upon consideration of the particulars of it , perceiving the intriegues of the design , were resolved to take it into a more strict examination : and to that end order'd mac-gar ( at a time appointed ) again to be brought before them ; when at first taking no notice to him of the surprized letter , they began to interrogate him about the points of his former evidence , which he still stiffely stood to the justification of , so far as lying and dissimulation would help him , but at last perceiving his incorrigible obstinacy , they produced the aforesaid letter against him , the autography of which he had not then confidence enough to deny , but by the irresistible convictions of his now over-powered conscience was forced to confess both the writing of that , and ( upon questions put to him ) to discover the whole design ; upon what account it was contriv'd , and who were the contrivers of it ; denying all his former evidence , as false and forged , without any grounds of truth . so it pleased the divine goodness , alwayes propitious to the innocent , to detect this new upstart villany ; which if it could have met with any hopeful success , must have been both a second fate to the reputation of that martyr'd worthy whom they themselves had murther'd , and to the repute of those worthy and honest gentlemen his brothers ; whose pious zeal in vindicating his memory , and pacifying the cryes of his blood , by a just avenging it upon the heads of his murtherers , is too well known to be in any wise contradicted by such sly and malitious artifices of a plotting faction . thus we have given you some short ( yet we hope , not unsatisfactory ) accounts of the most imitable life and tragical death of this excellent person ; taken off by the hands of his bloody enemies in the six and fiftieth year of his age , and in a time of our greatest expectations from him : gods providence suffer'd it , though wicked men contrived it , and our sins deserved it , that he must then dye : there was such a sinful necessity for it , as was once pronounced by caiaphas against the life of our redeemer ; he was too much a friend to religion and goodness , too much an enemy to irreligious men and their practices , to be suffered to live by such men : had he been less good , less useful , less just , he might have lived unto this day . but had he lived ( they thought ) their cause must have dyed , their treasons would not have prosper'd ; they knew he was firm and fixed to his duty ; they could not scare him from it , they could not bribe him , but they could kill him . they could not have thought of a more compendious way than this . we have related to you , the strange manner of the discovery of this murther , the tryals of the murtherers , their execution and manner of their dying ; and lastly , the happy discovery of their sham-designes , to turn off the murther from themselves upon his friends . we shall here conclude our memoirs ; only by way of postscript , with which we shall entertain you , instead of musick , upon the close of this tragedy , with some strains of excellent poetry , composed by two of the greatest wits of this age ( as their writings testifie ) upon this subject ; the one a pindarique stanza , selected out of an ingenious poem ( by an unknown hand ) called bacchanalia , or the drunken club , printed in the year 1680. the other a poem calculated for the very purpose , upon the issuing out of his majesties proclamation against the murtherers , by that late prodigie of wit and fancy , dr. robert wild : we recommend and leave them to the readers judgment ; but as to our own present undertaking , we shall here conclude with finis . bacchanalia , or the drunken club . stanza 11. are these the popes grand tools ? worshipful noddies ! who but blundering fools would ever have forgot to burn those letters that reveal'd their plot ? or in an alehouse told that godfrey's dead , three dayes before he was discovered ; leaving the silly world to call to mind that common logick , they that hide , can find ? but see their master policy on primrose-hill , where their great enemy like saul upon mount gilboa doth 〈◊〉 , fal'n on his sword , as he himself 〈◊〉 . but oh the infelicity ! 〈◊〉 , that blood was fresh and gusht 〈◊〉 the this so congeal'd that not one spot was sound , no not upon his sword , as if it wou'd tell us 't was guiltless of its masters blood ; some carkasses by bleeding do declare , this by not bleeding , shew'd the murtherer . but to his broken neck i pray what can our politicians say ? he hangd , then stab'd himself , for a sure way ; or first he stab'd himself , then wrung about his head for madness that advis'd him to 't ; well primrose , may our godfrey's name on thee ( like hyacinth ) inscribed bee : on thee his memory shall flourish still ( sweet as thy flower , and lasting as thy hill. ) whil'st blushing somerset to her eternal shame shall this inscription bear , the devil 's an asse , for jesuits on this spot broke both the neck of godfrey and their plot. the proclamation promoted , or an hue-and-cry and inquisition after treason and blood ; upon the inhumane and horrid murder of that noble knight , impartial justice of peace , and zealous protestant , sir edmondbury godfrey of westminister . an hasty poem . o murder ! murder ! let this shriek fly round , till hills and dales , and rocks and shores rebound . send it to heav'n and hell ; for both will be astonish'd and concern'd as much as we . first send to endor where of old did dwell an hagg , could fates of kings and kingdoms tell . if that cannot be found , to ekron go , to pluto's oracle and hell below . there serve this hue and cry , for there 't was hatch'd , ( except the priests their gods have over-match'd . ) methinks belzebub , if he be outdone in his grand mysteries , and rome needs none of his black arts , but can out-devil hell , his envy and revenge this plot should tell : and by disclosing in his own defence , not only vindicate his innocence ; but hasten their destruction , and prevent loss of his trade , ( the jesuites intent ) unless he fears them , as indeed he may ; when once in hell , none shall command but they . but if this tragedy be all his own , and roman actors ( taught by him ) have shown how they can play all parts he can devise ; female or male , with or without disguise : and need no cacodoemons prompting art or whisper , but can fill up any part ; fast , pray and weep , swear and for swear , decoy , trappan , kiss , flatter , smile , and so destroy , stab , pistoll , poison kings , unking , dethrone , blow up or down , save , damn , make all their own . knows not he then , tho' founder of the stage , the laws of theatres in every age ? that th' actors , not the author of the play , do challenge the rewards of the first day ? make then their names renown'd , and come to hide such children of thy revels and thy pride ; send to their father , and thy eldest son that lucifer of rome , what feats they 've done : that he may make their names be understood , written in kalenders of martyrs blood. but if the fiends below be deaf and dumb , and this conjuring cannot overcome , they and their imps be damn'd together : i to gods on earth will send my hue and cry. arise just charles three kingdoms soul and mine , great james thy grandfather could wel divine ; and without spell the bloody riddle spell , writ by like secretaries of rome and hell. and if thy proclamation cannot do , we pray gods spirit may inspire thee too . if thy prophetick usher did not erre , the mass would enter by a massacre . the wounds thy godfry found were meant for thee , and thou ly'st murder'd in effigie . in gods , kings , kingdoms cause this knight was slain : let him a noble monument obtain , erected in your westminsters great hall , that courts of justice may lament his fall and may ( when any papist cometh near ) his marble statue yield a bloudy tear . yet let him not be buried , let him lie , the fairest image to draw justice by . there needs no balm or spices to preserve the corps from stench , his innocence will serve . ye lords and commons joyn your speedy votes : a pack of bloud-hounds threaten all your throats . and if their treason be not understood , expect to be dissolv'd in your own blood. o vote that every papist ( high and low ) to martyr'd godfreys corps in person go ; and laying hand upon his wounded brest , by oath and curse his ignorance protest . but oh the atheism of that monstrous crew , whose holy father can all bonds undo : whose breath can put away the heavi'st oath ; who fears no heaven nor hell , but laughs at both . therefore a safer vote my muse suggests , for priests and jesuites can swallow tests as hocus pocus doth his rope or knife , and cheats the gaping farmer and his wife . oh vote each sign-post shall a gibbet be , and hang a traytor upon every tree . yet we 'le find wood enough for bone-fire piles , t' inlighten and inflame our brittish isles upon th' approaching fifth november night , and make incendiaries curse the light . november fires septembers may reveal , one burn ( we say ) another burn will heal . lastly , and surely , let this hue and cry reach heaven , where every star looks like an eye : to that high court of parliament above , whose laws are mixt with justice and with love ; whither just godfrey's soul 's already come , and hath receiv'd the crown of martyrdome ; where murder'd kings and slaughter'd saints do cry , their blood may never unrevenged lie , ye saints and angels , hath that scarlet whore , whose priests and brats before your shrines adore , and in their massacres your aid implore ; staining your altars with the precious gore . pour down your vials on their cursed heads , and in eternal flames prepare their beds . and thou judge jesus hang'd and murder'd too , by power of rome and malice of the jew , in godfrey's wounds thine own do bleed anew . oh rend thy heavens ! come lord and take thy throne , revenge thy martyrs murder and thine own . finis . advertisement . there is now published a book , intituled , the plot in a dream , or the discoverer in masquerade ; fully and truly relating the history of the present popish plot , from its original until this time ; as namely , the first contrivement of it beyond the seas : the ways and methods there resolved upon for the effecting of it : the manner of its first discovery : the description of the papists grand consult , and proceedings upon it : sir edmonbury godfrey's murther related : the several trials and executions of staly , coleman , the jesuits that were employed to kill the king : reading's subornation and punishment : the story of the meal-tub-plot , and other sham-plots since : the proceedings against the lords in the tower , with the trial and execution of the lord stafford : an account of the last parliament held at oxford , with the proceedings against fitz-harris , &c. intermixt with verses and variety of fancies ; with several cuts to illustrate the design ; and the whole digested into chapters , with contents for the better satisfaction of the reader . by philopatris . price bound 1 s. 6 d. the life and death of captain william bedloe , one of the chief discoverers of the horrid popish plot ; wherein all his more eminent cheats , and whatever is remarkable of him , both good and bad , is impartially discovered . 8 o. price bound 1 s. both these are sold by john hancock , and enoch prosser , booksellers , at their shops at the three bibles at the end of popes-head alley over against the royal exchange , and at the rose and crown in sweetings alley , at the east end of the royal exchange in cornhil . 1681. notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a63832-e920 sed genus & provaos & quae non fecimus ipsi . vix ea nostra voco . ovid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ; plutarchus lib. cont . nobilitatem . sr. edm. godfrey's funeral sermon , page 14. quis autem vir bonus & erectus ad honesta , non est laboris appetens justi , & ad officia cum periculo promptus ? cui non industrioso otium poena est ? senec. lib. de providentia . * quis est istorum qui non malit rempub . turbari quam comam suam , qui non solicitior sit de capitis sui decore quam de salute , qui non comptior esse malit quam honestior ? senec. de provid . cap. 12. sir edm. godfrey's funeral sermon . howels treatise of embassadors . mat. 5. 9. funeral sermon pag. 12 , 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . vita arhan . 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . plato in lachete . funeral sermon pag. 16. flectere si uequerunt superos acheronta movebunt . vide narrative of the tryals of green , berry and hill. murus hic ●heneus esto — nil conscire sibi . horat. vide mr. prances narrative , pag. 20 , 21. mr. prances narrat . pag. 24. ☜ note note the sincerity of popish principles , where such equivocations are allowed of to justify the greatest villanies . see narrative of the trials . funeral sermon , p. 28. tho. dangerfield's answer to a certain scandalous lying pamphlet entituled, malice defeated, or, the deliverance of elizabeth cellier together with some particular remarks made from her own words, an acknowledgment of matter of fact, and a short compendium of the principal transactions of her life and conversation / all which are wrote by the hand of tho. dangerfield ... dangerfield, thomas, 1650?-1685. 1680 approx. 68 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 11 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; 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(eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a36268) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 97511) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 413:10) tho. dangerfield's answer to a certain scandalous lying pamphlet entituled, malice defeated, or, the deliverance of elizabeth cellier together with some particular remarks made from her own words, an acknowledgment of matter of fact, and a short compendium of the principal transactions of her life and conversation / all which are wrote by the hand of tho. dangerfield ... dangerfield, thomas, 1650?-1685. 20 p. printed for the author and are to be sold at randal taylor's, london : 1680. reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng cellier, elizabeth, fl. 1680. -malice defeated. popish plot, 1678. 2006-09 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-09 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-11 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2006-11 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion tho. dangerfield's ansvver to a certain scandalous lying pamphlet , entituled , malice defeated , or , the deliverance of elizabeth cellier . together with some particular remarks made from her own words , an acknowledgment of matter of fact , and a short compendium of the principal transactions of her life and conversation . all which are wrote by the hand of tho. dangerfield , a lover of truth vndisguis'd . london , printed for the author , and are to be sold at randal taylor 's . 1680. tho. dangerfield's ansvver to elizabeth cellier's scandalous pamphlet . this age , by the unwearied diligence of the romantick handicraft-women , hath produc'd divers monsters of both sexes , or rather i may more properly call them devils in that mischievous dress of humane shape , who to blear the eyes of an unthinking croud , still matter not to offer the greatest provocations to the all-seeing god , ( who either has , or in his good time will discover to the world the bottom of their mischiefs , not to be fathom'd by humane nature ) by dressing their diabolical contrivances in the charming shape of religion , hopeing if their designs fail , that the pretences of piety may render them fit objects of pitie ; and if successful , confirm their devices . thus is the true worship of god abused by those miscreants , and christianity used as a mask only . in short , mrs. elizabeth cellier is a woman that has forfeited her fidelity to her nuptial bed , and when a woman has once lost her modesty , she is fit for all sorts of mischief , and there ought to be no farther credit given to her ; and therefore i hope the eyes of the people are not to be opened now by such an operatrix as she , or their apprehensions to be infatuated by a sort of people who wholly devote themselves to the service of hell , and think to gain heaven by the deserts of mischief and villany . a vertuous life , full of humility and repentance , might make some impression in the hearts of good people , but this woman and her associates are a sort of catterpillers , whose whole studie it is to canker and destroy the very root of the nations happiness . and while they seem to give a dutiful adoration to sovereignty , make it their business to depose and rob their native king of his life , and deprive his best subjects of their hereditary shares of right and property , clandestinely designing no less then a total destruction of three flourishing kingdomes . yet after all this , when once discover'd , to the height of impudence still with a daring and reflecting contempt both of the king and his ministers , they publish vindications , and impute their punishments to malitious prosecutions , and pretend to acquit themselves from treasons of the highest nature , by a continu'd series of confident justification , still acting the same or worse crimes if possible . so far do these true off-springs of the devil , the father of lies , out-vie and over-reach those their dull contrivances acted in the days of yore , that they are past parallel , so that i may safely say that some of their collatteral practices , ( so lately experienced in these kingdoms ) may challenge hell for wickedness , and the devils themselves for subtilty . yet these are the poor distressed catholicks , and as they boldly call themselves royalists , who to accomplish their designs , can insinuate , court , cringe , lie , wade through whole oceans of perjuries , — subornations , &c. nay they can assume any shape , and are bound to do so for the good of the cause , nay and such little things , as audaciously branding the peers and princes of a nation with false and scurrilous reproaches : a fine way to repair the losses of a distressed midwife : yet these are the people who pretend to stand up for the king and country , and hypocritically assume the reputation of being concerned for the safety thereof , when they of all enemies are the most dangerous , and could they but lull us into a new security , by such stories and fables of their innocency , as these are , which they dayly publish , i fear me , we should soon feel the fatal effects of their sorcery . to make which more apparent , i must now fall to unravel a certain bottom of lies , spun to the best advantage by the hand of impudence , which is entituled , malice defeated ; or , the deliverance of elizabeth cellier . which book i have perused , and find my self therein displayed so much beyond the life , her so much short of her true colours , and such material subject matter fit for my reply , that i have taken the pains to draw from it , so far as concerns my self , these following observations , and shall confine my self to most of her own words , which ( as she says ) were wrote by her own hand , ( which may pass well enough among the rest of her lies ) but , as i am well satisfied , was pend or rather scribled , by the hand of a certain lowsie dominican fryar , now under the sentence of death , being in newgate , and convicted as such , and for being in the plots by the names of anderson , alias munson , whom i do not question but to see hang'd by the same names one day , with many others of the same tribe . the first i begin with , is matter of fact , such as she has been forc'd to own , and to use in her vindication , which is ( viz. ) pag. 4. about the 10th . of april ( 79 ) i went to the grate at newgate to speak with him , ( viz. my self ) he was in irons , and said his name was willoughby , &c. pag. 7. that i received from him some articles drawn against captain richardson , and thereupon gave him half a crown . that i sent him at several times after by my servant sixteen shillings , and money to pay his fees that day on which he was discharg'd . pag. 8. that i paid sixteen shillings more to fetch a coat from pawn . that i paid dangerfield's fees in newgate , ( which amounted to near 6. l. ) and removed him afterwards to the kings-bench , in order to a discovery of one stroud ( which cost three pounds . ) pag. 10. that the papers relating to stroud's business , were found between the pewter in my kitchin , &c. pag. 12. that i collected some money , and did pay five pounds for him , and the same day he came out of prison i gave him ten shillings more . pag. 13. that i offered to get him an ensigns place under the duke of monmouth , or an employment to go to sea. that i gave him a stuff suit and other necessaries , which cost about three pounds ten shillings , &c. thus we have her bill of charges according to her own reckoning , which amounted to nineteen pounds fourteen shillings six pence ; a very extravagant piece of charitie to a person that she never knew or saw before in her life , it was pity and compassion in a singular degree , to cull me out for the object of her profuseness , meerly for the sake of my tears and beging , as she pretends ; no , no , mrs. elizabeth , the world is not yet so stupid to believe you were so mightily enamour'd with my disconsolate ejaculations , out of meer and pure charity ; men of reason will easily believe you had other ends , other aims than that of charity , and that out of your smart insight into men , for which you so much commend your self , you had another kind of prospect of my phisiognomy and lineaments , beyond the spell of dominican mumping , and far beyond the reach of cold , dull , and insipid charity . and therefore after i was once in a condition , by means of your ill-boasted of charity , to appear upon your intended tragic stage , i shall give the reader from your own words a tast of some of your publick imployments which you were pleased to confer upon your servant so munificently rigg'd and launched into the world by your innocent charity : you say , to use your own words , pag. 13. that he would often bring me news of the great designs of the factious , and that they had drawn forces into the citie while his majesty was sick at windsor , with intent to subvert the government . pag. 14. that many of the old rump officers were new rigg'd , and had pensions paid them by the gentlemen of the kings-head club. that commissions were giving out by the names of the keepers of the liberties ofengland , and that he was promised one among the rest , i encouraged him to go on , and gave him money to defray his charges , &c. that he writ down at several times , that which was found by sir william waller in my meal tub. that i went to the lord of peterborough and acquainted him with it , and he presently handed us to the duke , ( of york ) to whom willoughby delivered the paper . that about the latter end of september , dangerfield brought me stories of the great preparations of the faction , that they did publickly own their . treasonable designs . that goodwin and alsop had made great collections among the brethren to carry on their rebellious designs . that sir william waller had three hundred horsemen ready for action in an hours warning . that the city was ready to rise , and expected only the word from the confederate lords , &c. then says she , these discourses being general , made me the easier credit him in particulars , so i encouraged him to go on , gave him more money , and bid him observe their actions and designs , &c. lord , gentlemen , what had this lady of the wicket to do to be so watchful for the good of the common-wealth , what did politicks and state affairs concern her ? as if the kingdom had been in labour of a by-blow , or like the vanquish'd and near-conquer'd french , that now the english in the same distress , had wanted another joan of arque , to deliver them by the dint of her care and zeal , as the other hair-brain'd amazon had endeavour'd to do by the dint of her sword ; certainly had such designs been really on foot , the king had better means of discovery than by such a female intelligencer as mrs. elizabeth cellier , and therefore notwithstanding all her charitable cloathing of me , the naked truth is still the naked truth ; that all the strange news , and formal stories which she pretends i brought her from time to time , were no more than the forgeries , which the lady powis , her midwife and my self contrived , so that i cannot say but that the woman did bring forth with my help , but it was nothing but the embryo of an ill coddl'd plot , and was the very bastard that was afterwards found almost stified in the meal-tub . those surmises and accusations which she endeavours to fix upon honest gentlemen , about horses , arms , and money , ( out of her zeal to his majesties service , if any body will be so mad to believe her ) were those very individual lies , hatcht as i said before , and of which the meal-tubb was so miraculously brought to bed , and what i was charm'd to insist upon as often as i waited on the king , as appears by my charge against them both in my first narrative ; truth far more probable , than any of the foregoing female tittle tattle of mrs. elizabeth cellier . page 14 , 15. that willoughby got drunk , and pick'd a quarrel at the rain-bow coffee-house , with one kenestone , about sir thomas player , and thereby made himself obnoxious ; so that having lost the hopes of obtaining a commission himself , he sought to get one by means of others , and then swore god dam him , now the papists would give him no money , he would go to the presbyterians , and they would give him enough . how far she thinks this may amount to her excuse , i know not ; but as well living as dying , i must declare in the presence of god , ( my quarrel being first by accident with that gentleman , mr. kinastone , who i would now be glad to know ) that the countess of powis , as well as her self , were the persons that put me upon the tumultuous part of it , and did it on purpose not only to baffle the electing that worthy member of this present parliament , sir thomas player , but also to create a mutiny , or uproar in the city : for look ye , gentlemen , to what purpose else should i leave a challenge for mr. kinastone at the coffee-house , have 30 men , or upwards , ready arm'd with trunchions , pistols , poinyards , &c. had it been my quarrel only , and i so extreamly poor as she expresses : where should i have rais'd 25 l. or upwards to buy the said arms , or to gratifie so many people ? but the question is easily answered : i had the money from the lady powis , and her self , who were purely my abettors and encouragers of the action . pag. 15. in the beginning of october , he pretended he understood that several treasonable papers , importing the whole design of the factious , were in a house at westminster ; and that if he could get a warrant to search the house , he doubted not but that he should lay open the whole conspiracy . that he went to his majesty to pray a warrant . that the king refer'd him to mr. secretary coventry , who suspected him and his shallow contrivances , but i being induc'd to credit him , did upon his complaining that he was denyed a warrant , advise him to go by the custom-house way ; which de did , and then seized the papers which were put there by himself . &c. never did midwife tell a story more sillily than this pretended wit of a midw . has done , certainly she either wanted a cup of hippocras to refresh her memory , disturb'd with continual watching for the good of the nation , or else she had drown'd her brains in more provocative tent ; for , gentlemen observe , she says but just before he swore god dam him , now the papists would give him no mony , he would go to the pr●sbyterians , yet saith almost in the same breath , i being induc'd to credit him , did adv●se him to go by the custome-house way , &c. here is a tale so inadvertently told , that one would think mrs. eliz●beth had never told a tale in her life before , but that all the world knows that gossiping is so much the soul of midwifery , that 't is impossible for the profession to subsist without it . but certainly the devil owed her a shame when she told this story ; for any man would think it a strange neglect in self-preservation , ( a thing to be preferr'd before all others ) should one person tell another that he had attempted to rob him of his life , and that he still intended the same , and yet that after so fair a warning he should still be embrac'd and entertain'd as a bosom-friend , and as strong a credit as before given to his words and actions ; for , by way of application , gentlemen , the intent of this blind story , as i conceive , was only to shew you , that the falling out of lovers is the renewing of love. she says we fell out , but yet says we fell in again , and so she hugging the presbyterians friend , to do the king service , we became hand and glove once more , which indeed could not well be avoided ; for she knowing of the treasonable papers , where they were to be laid , and what was to be done with them , and not liking the secretaries mistrust , advis'd me to the custom-house way . and thus you see what a strange way of clearing her innocency this mother midnight has found out , by confessing almost the half of what she was accus'd with ; so that now , gentlemen , let me have but fair play , since mrs. elizabeth cellier has owned one part of what was charg'd against her , let her have her due , that is , let her be beleived so far , and then be so kind as to let the oaths of 17 or 18 witnesses besides my self pass only for the rest . i wonder what some men think , to find so great a criminal owning in a vindication those very crimes for which she was so calmly acquitted ! she wanted advice before she publisht her labours , for neither she , nor her rampant dominican , have that same knack of disguising truth which they think they have . well , it appears then by her story , that the papers were conveyed into collonel mansell's chamber ; but who put them there ? why , she says in all likelyhood it was my self . truly she guest very right , and the reason was , because she knew it to be so . but who was i ? why , a certaine villain that at the same time she entertain'd in her house , upon an inducement to credit me . where was now the jealousie of woman-kind , to trust a quarter reconcil'd enemy with fresh advice , upon such a piece of trepanning fraud ? thus the confederacy continued : for though i had sworn a desperate oath , yet she was induc'd to credit me still . now to the meal-tub , she confesses the plot was put in her meal-tub : better two dead plots then one living rat in such a place : but how came it there ? why i my self gave her a paper , she gave it her maid , and the maid put it into the meal-tub ; who discover'd this plot ? not mrs. elizabeth you may be sure , that was none of her business to do ; and yet no wary woman , but having received a paper from such a villain as i , that was to be so strangely conceal'd , but would have taken the paper out of it's mealy coffin , and viewed it , and finding it of such dangerous consequence , would have carried — meal-tub and all to court , had the service of his majesty been the aim of her double dilligence ; but it was for the service of her minions , the roman catholicks , an ugly cub of her own handing into the world , lick'd into form and shape by others already named ; and therefore doing no injury to any but her self and her own party , what became of it ? why , it return'd into the meal-tub again , grew mealy mouth'd , was dough-bak'd , and so said no more ; i cannot say 't was born mute ; for it made a wicked noise at first , very ungrateful to her ears : but midwives have always good nurses to friends ; and they found a way to still it . but now to return once more to the letters , i must needs say what i had almost forgot ; that had not she been well assisted by several others , privy to that hellish conspiracy indeed , as she calls it ( viz. the conveying the letters into that innocent gentlemans chamber ) neither she , nor near a single devil of them all , could have been capable of such a contrivance ; but now see what this innocent midwife has omitted to mention in the paragraphs of the letters , which is , ( viz. ) that i shewed her the letters before they were put into the chamber , that her self , and her co-contriveress , the countess of powis chastised me , first , for refusing to make affidavit to mr. secretary coventry , that the papers were in col. mansell's chamber before i had put 'em there , telling me at the same time i was obliged by my religion to part with my life for the good of the cause , much more to make an affidavit , no matter whether true or false . secondly , for refusing to murder my gracious king and sovereign ; for which i was also about the same time severely rebuk'd by them both . thirdly , that it was by the order of the popish lords ( my then masters ) in the tower , not hers altogether , that i should make use of the custom-house officers for the seizing of the afore-mentioned papers . — fourthly , that about the same time when we frequently spoke treason , she ordered me in all publick discourse to call the king lady mary , the duke lady ann. pag. 15. but now to return to her own words , ( viz. ) that upon wednesday the 22th of october , willoughby was examined and went upon bayle till the 24th , in which time he gave me a paper desiring me to lay it up safely , for by the help of it he hoped to defend himself . that it was the same paper which lay before mr. secretary coventry . that i gave it to my maid ( ann blake ) and she put it in the meal-tub . but not a word of burning papers , or her helping me to overlook both hers and my study , where for half a day or better , ( as the servants have testifyed ) there was such tearing and burning of letters and pamphlets as they admired to see ; and that the lady powis her self , and i , were forming a defence for me against i was to attend the king and council , till which time her cornuted husband and son were bayl for me , at her request ; neither does she mention one word of the strict charge she gave the maid for the securing the papers , alias meal-tub plot , so that they might be safe , in case the house should be search'd , because they did import such matter as was of too great consequence to be committed to the flames ; neither does she tell us that that was the very original paper from whence was taken the little book i presented to the duke , wherein was contain'd the whole scheme , and the pretended discovery i had made in the sham-plot , &c. thus far i have related matter of fact and truth , the first part of that which she her self has only disguised , no way fairly contradicted , in that mealy pack of lyes , which she has called mallice defeated : and now i shall come to a second part , which she either evades in an elaborate manner , or with down right impudence denies , viz. pag. 17. that willoughby sent for susan edwards my servant , to the prison , ( after he was committed by the king and councel ) by whom he sent me a long epistle , how he had been tortured that night , then i sent him again this following note . i have said you were taken into my house to get in desperate debts — they bring me to l. s. they will ask me who encouraged me to go to him , i will say it was you , it cannot worst you . to this i deny that i ever sent to her till the maid came first to me ; with a letter from her mistress , wherein she told me the countess of powis had commanded her to bid me be of good courage , and i should be removed to the kings-bench , and be well provided for : that her lady-ship would make immediate application to four or five great men , who should soon do my business , to this she desired my answer , the contents of which i am not obliged to remember , but probably i might mention , in the same , something of the torture i had undergone the night past , and the dread of worse for the night to come , but she willingly mistakes what i meant by torture , for 't was not such a sort which she seems to represent to the world , such as irons or cords , but 't was the horror of an evil conscience lasht in every part with crimes of the deepest hew , which she and her accomplices had engaged me in ; for to use her own words , where she sayes , when she first fetcht me out of prison , he exprest much sorrow for his past crimes , and made great protestations of future amendment , it was that which indeed i had done , and was fixed for a reformed life , and did intend to have undertaken a pilgrimage to st. jago , but what by her often attacks on the one side , and the devil 's her grand associate , on the other , that resolution proved but a prologue to the worst tragedy i ever was engaged in , which was the real occasion of the tortures which she expresses , though not explains , a good part of which mischiefs are to be inclusively understood in the letter which she sayes , her maid brought me soon after , wherein she uses these words , i have said you were taken into my house , to get in desperate debts . how like an excuse this looks let the world judge , or let her but rove , by any one of her husbands debtors , who is an unbias'd man , that i ever treated with him to any such purpose , i will give her the conquest ; if not , both my self , and the whole vniverse i hope may freely challenge her , for what she has been from her cradle , a most notorious lying doxey , who having once made use of a lye for an excuse , tells it so often , that with her self , it becomes a currant truth . she knew very well i was cut out , neither for a broaker , nor a solicitor , and that those plodding employments were no way suitable to my more airy genius ; and therefore the excuse of her desperate debts , was as desperate as her debts , some of which were so desperate , that i am fully perswaded she never had any such . is it for any man of reason to imagine a woman , that was building castles in the air , dreamt of nothing but maxims of state , and was designing to be a countess on earth , and a saint in heaven , ever thought of such trifles , as desperate debts ? 't was an excuse that never will be believed , and therefore it was very femininely done , to put such an over-ridden stale pretence upon the nation . come , come , mrs. elizabeth , your ramping dominican , had no mind to hide your nakedness , but only to throw a tiffaney vindication over it , rather by contraction to display , than cover the prospect : where , by my advice he should be pictured peeping , like the satyr in aretines postures , with a line and plummet , in his hairy fist . they bring me to l. s. they will ask me who encouraged me to go to him , i will say , it was you , it cannot worstyou . if i had been the person had sent her thither , what occasion could i have had for this instruction , for truth needs no such support : but by the way observe how the scene alters , for i , who as she sayes , was at the tryal of the five jesuits , employed to fetch victuals and drink , for the witnesses , run on errands , call coaches , &c. am now produc'd by her , for the person who sent her of an errand to the earl of shaftsbury ; nay and for my credit sake i must own it too , or else i do nothing ; such are the devilish practices of those people , who first insinuate themselves into the good opinion of one they intend an instrument in their black ( or as they call it , the wounded ) cause , then gradually engage him to act in their designes , and when over head and eares , or catcht by a discovery , prevail with him to take all upon himself , perswading him by the insinuations of some priest , it is meritorious so to do : and that if he be sentenced to death he shall have a pardon , but alas when it comes to that , good night nicholas , then there 's nothing to be done , but to send his betrayed soul to the devil , and to keep a constant application to hold him steady , till he comes to be executed , binding themselves by bitter vows and execrations , that he shall be saved , and that such things must be deferred till the last minute , to keep others of less faith right , whereas if a man should make any discovery , why then , 't is all lyes , was not the rope about his neck ? he did it to save his life , he is a villain and a stigmatized creature , and a thousand such pretences , and therefore can be no lawful witness ; but if a man , by such delayes , will silently devote himself to the halter with a lye in his mouth , why then , his death is brought in competition with the testimonies of the living , and hirelings must be employed to disperse their lying speeches with new additions , and to spread rumours throughout the kingdoms , to prepossess the more charitable people , that they knew nothing of the matters laid to their charge , but dyed innocently , and wrongfully , and indeed , that the people must not believe , there either was or is any such thing as a popish plot. in these meritorious practices , i was an instrument , and therefore am the better able to make it out to their faces . but to return to the former matter , our lying jezabel would once in her days perhaps do well , if she would declare ingenuously to the world in time , who it was sent her to the earl of shaftsbury , though i am clearly of the opinion ( to use as she sayes , my lord chancellors words to her at the councel board ) no body will believe a word she sayes . pag. 17. that he desired my maid to speak to me , that victuals might be sent him from my house dayly , and that i would send him a promise of it of my own hand writing , by which ( request ) i perceived he was already a rogue , and endeavoring to get something of my writing to make evil use of . 't is very clear , that while i was acting in their labyrinth , i was from the first , very honest , and she her self declared as much to several persons of honor and quality , but particularly to the earl of peterborough , when she told his lordship i was a man had done great services for divers forreign princes , and was a very honest , modest man ; but now i have discovered what in truth i knew of their practices , and have put my self upon a second reform'd resolution , i must be branded and stigmatiz'd with i know not what villanies , and such as i still offer to be hang'd for , if either she or any of them , can produce any record for it , more then what were allowed by my self at the kings-bench-bar , when my tryal was , not hers , which records were in number seven : four of which were from salisbury for uttering counterfeit guinneys , one from the old-bayly for uttering counterfeit guinneys , one for an outlary for felony from chelmsford , and one for felony from the old-bayly , as she sayes . pag. 18. november the 1st . before his majesty and the lords of the councel , willoughby accused me of all the forged stories he tells in his lying narrative ; and i unfeignedly told the truth . what she meant by the word truth is much to be disputed , as being a thing altogether eloign'd both from her practice and profession ; i am apt to believe she lighted upon the word by accident , as the gentleman did , when he prayed to cupid in the words of the common-prayer-book , o thou whose service is perfect freedom : for my part i cannot otherwise conjecture what she intended , unless it were her owning a great part of what i charged her with , at the same time ; for , as for those which she calls truths , it is such a sort of truth , that neither any of the lords of the councel , nor any other person whatsoever , that i ever yet heard of , allowed it as such , ( her own party excepted ; ) so that it can be no other than the venome of an unhang'd dominican , and her own lying tongue . pag. 19. willoughby was brought to a window over against me ( in the prison ) to talk with me ; where note she says i discours'd her to this effect , ( viz. ) madam , pray speak low , and tell me how you do , and do not discompose your self . i am sorry for your confinement : i could not help what i have done , you shall not die ; nor receive any other hurt . look here how i have been used , and then shewed me his arms , saying , he had been miserably tormented , and was forc'd to accuse me and others to save his own life . that he had told the king more than he could make out , and was forc'd to joyn with confederates to get his pardon . madam , there are two persons found that will lay worse things to your charge , than i have done , therefore come in while it is time , and joyn with the most powerful , you may make your own conditions ; then he said that the king was bought and sold , and here would be a republick . that the duke would be destroyed in scotland . that if i would say the duke gave me the original of those papers that were found in my meal-tub , and bid me cause them to be put into mansels chamber , and kill the earl of shaftsbury , that then i should have a pardon , and more money than all the witnesses had had together ; for the earl of shaftsbury , and the rest of the confederate lords , would raise ten thousand pounds , which i should pass over by bills of exchange . that i should have twenty pounds per week setled on me by act of parliament as long as i lived : and if i would do all this , some person of honour should come and treat with me . pag. 21. that he shewed me his arms , where the irons or cords had worn off the skin , telling me he had been wrack'd , and cruelly us'd to force him to accuse me . that he ask'd me , if i thought other persons , whom he had accus'd , would forgive him ; as well as my self . that he told me he would write down all the intreague , with the names of those lords and others that set him on work , and give it me . next morning he was at his window by day-break , and propos'd if i would not belye the duke , to say the earl of peterborough gave me those papers , and that i had received a thousand pounds in gold of sir allen apsley , to pay him for the murthering of the earl of shaftsbury , and to raise soldiers against the king , &c. in answer to all this christening gossipry , we are first to consider the probability of these matters , and handle them with the more care and scrutiny , in regard here are divers noble-peers under her female reproaches ; a thing strangely to be wondered at , that the press should be so open , for scandals against the nobility , and so closely barricadoed against what would have been more truly said against persons far less considerable . the forgoing discourse , as she says , pass'd from me to her , at the time when we were both under confinement : a lye not only of the more monstrous sort , but also impossible ; for , as to my part , i was a close prisoner at the top of all the prison , by a special order , and that from the time of my recantation , till i had finished my depositions ; and i have been since credibly inform'd , she was not committed to newgate till within a very short time before i was discharg'd ; and i have been also inform'd , that she was committed close prisoner , and kept so a considerable time ( after i was discharg'd ) in captain richardson's house , who for divers reasons ought to use her with respect : and therefore how i could communicate any thing to her , in captain richardsons house ; from the top of newgate , either of that or any other nature , i refer to such as best know the prison , and the apartments , which have a yard , called the press-yard , and divers rooms between them , and shall also have my faith upon 't , that there was nothing of a speaking-trumpet in the case ; but on the other side i must confess , at that time the intimacy which had for some considerable time before been between us , was fresh in memory , and that would have gone a great way with me , could i possibly have come near her , but not to have insisted upon , as she pretends , but to have directed her prayers to the god of heaven , ( who had opened my eyes ) to have done the same by her , that she might have taken a true prospect of the evil consequences , wherein she had embroyl'd both her self and me , and ingeniously to have discover'd them to the world ; not that i could have wanted her testimony to confirm mine , but for her own soul's sake : and besides , admit she had been so wicked to have accus'd any innocent person , as she pretends i requested her to do , how far it would have been concurrent with my testimony , let the world judge ; for whereas she says , i requested her to accuse the duke of being privy to the conveying the meal-tub papers into collonel mansels chamber , and bid her kill the earl of shaftsbury , nothing could be more improbable , in regard the world sees i never yet mentioned one tittle to that purpose in all my depositions ; and besides , the papers that we put into collonel mansels chamber , imported matters of a clearly different nature from those of the meal-tub . therefore 't is strange , that i should be so idle , as to propose a thing of that detestable consequence to her , that would no ways amount to the least tittle of service to my self , unless she as a confederate , had encouraged me to it , and supplied me from her wonted fountain : and then what should have hindered , but that i might have repeal'd that as well as other things ? and farther , that which is still more improbable , is , that i desired her to say , she received a thousand pounds in gold from sir allen apsly , to pay me for the murthering the earl of shaftsbury , and to raise forces against the king , &c. a thing i mention no where , nor did i ever charge her with being the person which was to pay me for that ; for one ricaut a virginia merchant , and her great familiar , was to pay me five hundred pounds for the murthering the earl of shaftsbury , according to the appointment of the lords in the tower. and as for her lame invention of my being tortur'd with cords or irons , 't is directly false , and such a like lye as that of mr. prance , or one coral a coachman , which she tells of in her third page ; but if both her self , and my self , and indeed every such wicked miscreant , had been worse tortur'd than what she has exprest , yet it would have been far short of our deserts . pag. 20. she says , ( viz. ) god is merciful , and if i live , i may repent , i was deserted by every body , and if i had not been hang'd , i should have been starved ; it is a sad thing to depend upon an ungrateful and disunited people , i have reason to take some care of my self ; those i belong to now , are very kind to me , and send me great encouragements , i shall have a pardon , and be set at liberty ; but before i go , i would be glad you would consider your own condition , &c. to this no man has more to say than my self , for i have been all my life time delivered by the mercies and great goodness of the all-seeing god , whom i bless particularly for my last great deliverance from among that infernal crew ; and restoring me to his grace and favour , in which , by his infinite mercy , i will abide to the last minute of my life , rather than be again corrupted for the greatest advantages , that ungrateful disunited pack , as she calls them , can propose to me ; for however vicious my past life has been , the amendment only time will produce , and i make no doubt , but that it will prove to the general satisfaction of all such as delight in the conversion of a sinner . then he shewed me gold , and told me great advantages were to be made by becoming the kings evidence . by the word encouragement i am intended for some ridicule , as i suppose ; for all persons may easily know what encouragement i have met with ; yet nevertheless there is no man can say i have exprest the least impatience for my sufferings . the gold she speaks of , would , no doubt , have been as welcome to my pockets , as to another mans , ( could i have justified the occasion of earning it ) where perhaps it might have met with an old hoarded piece , which mrs. elizabeth had us'd twice , as a contracting piece , upon marriage of two husbands ; but to prevent any such farther use , was by her presented to a certain young spaniard , some time since , as an earnest-peny for his good service , who intends it a present , wherewith to tip the cornudoes horns , if he 'l take the pains to come or send his kind wife into the city to fetch it . pag. 21. that about twelve days before dangerfield was taken , he told me my name was entred into sir william waller's black bill , and therefore he adviz'd me to write to the earl of shaftsbury : i told him i durst not do that , but would go to his lordship , and then i desired him to go with me . here is another plain acknowledgment ; for i must confess , that that very time she did request me to go with her ; but i then being under a most dreadful discomposure of mind , out of a deep apprehension of the fatal errand , upon which i had been there twice before , was not to be drawn thither again , which backwardness of mine was the reason she her self offer'd to go , and do the work i was intended for , in plain english , to kill his lordship , which was all the business she had there . but being dash'd in the face with the foul guilt of a terrifying conscience , she came away ( to use her own words ) without any success . the stories of jacob clement and ravillac had intoxicated her courage ; but when she saw it was a man she was to kill , she could not find in her heart to injure the sex she loved so well . pag. 29. in january i was brought before the committee of lords , where dangerfield was asked , if i did not set him on to create a mutiny at the rainbow coffee-house ; to which he replied , i cannot say she set me on . that i was angry with him for it , bid him be gone out of my house , and removed his quarters into the garret for that cause . as to the mutiny , the remark i have made of it already is sufficient ; but how she could be angry with me , for so good a piece of service , as that was like to prove , is as probable , as her putting me out of her house , by removing my quarters into the garret , as she pretends , which she could not find in her heart howsoever to do , as being a place very unfit for the intimate and near correspondence we then held ; and besides , a place only fit to receive a lackey , and which she ought not in conscience to have offer'd to a — &c. that pay'd no less at that time than eight shillings a week for a more convenient lodging , in the same house , and four shillings six penee per week for one much more convenient than either of them at westminster . that i being examin'd about a walk , that was upon tower-wharf , with the lord c. j. and the lady powis , and offering ten thousand pounds concerning sir george wakeman , made this reply , yes , my lords , i read it in a pamphlet ; which pamphlet was printed some where in china in the two and twenty thousandth year of the world , and shewed to her in one of st. dominick's visions , for after all the enquiry i have made , i never could meet with one person , who ever saw any such pamphlet besides her self : and thus the trully at newgate , being ask'd where they had their purloyn'd booty ? cry , they found it . such was the impudence of this woman , rather to droll with , than answer the ( demands of the councel ; which made them look upon her only as a bold and incorrigible bigott . pag. 23. if any thing in the world could give a probable light where the true plot is managed , mine and my accusers cases would do it . indeed i am much of the same opinion , for your very defence accuses you ; and there is no question to be made , but tho management of your deliverance was as convincing an argument to all persons of understanding , how the true plot was managed , as might appear by your soft and gentle , and your accusers harsh and undeserved usage , which are the true cases of you and your accuser . ibid. that singly and alone , without the advice or assistance of any one catholick man or woman , i was left to study , manage , and support my self , to my own expence which above a thousand pounds , never receiving one peny towards it , but ten pounds given me by a condemn'd priest , five days before my tryal , nor have i since received any thing , or the least civility from them . madam , this rodomontado will not pass , as being a meer bundle of lies and equivocations , which they of your acquaintance , that know better , cannot but blush to hear you tell , as if you were pratling over your sack and sugar , and others that believe , may as well believe the story of bell and the dragon . you would fain be sainted for your merits , which has produc'd this extravagant huff of yours , and so perhaps you may , as that strumpet the egyptian st. mary ; so famous in your callender for exposing her body to relieve the necessities of the holy monks and hermites of her time . as for the expence she mentions , i take it for granted , and the only truth she ever told in her whole life , but that those expences came out of her needy pocket , i utterly deny ; for surely her midwives fees can never be imagin'd to have been able to bear the expences that amounted to much above a thousand pounds ; which argues the falsehood of her assertion in this particular ; for indeed things of that nature , are not to be managed at the expence of a midwives purse , nor does it look with the face of innocent or ordinary conduct , as she pretends , for here are matters of divers kinds , such as wanted the support of good friends , or the devil himself , who is said to be the god of riches . mammon himself was only able to feed those greedy mercenaries that suck'd the canvas teats of her charity , who by that means were made fit instruments for her and her confederates , and then the devil came in to act his part , which was to stock them with fit creatures , so that by the loss of one , three might be produc'd by way of fresh supply ; therefore i give the more credit to the expence she mentions ; and am apt to think it not much short of one of the like nature , which was sir george , wakemans case , which how fitly this woman or her husband were quallified in state to manage , i refer to all that know them : therefore in all probability there was a general contribution , to make good that breach ; for it was a close attack , which if lost , would have shook tho whole work , without making the kingdom rue it . as to my own sex i hope they will pardon the errors of my story , as well as those bold attempts of mine that occasion'd it , since what i medled with , though it may be thought too masculine yet was it the effects of my more than religious zeal to gain proselytes , &c. and no one can truly say , but that i preserved the modesty , though not the timorousness , common to my sex. religious zeal and modesty ! jesu maria ! what a president of an apology is here ? we shall have shortly , by the example of this midwife , the whole town fill'd with vindications by all the trulls in whetstones-park and all the lewd corners in the suburbs ; we shall have such upholding of fame , and good name and honor among the common harlots , that women that are truly honest will be asham'd to own it . well — this mrs. elizabeth cellier has a stupendious memory : i had thought , seeing it was so long ago , that she had forgot the practice of religious zeal and modesty , that she had forgot the very words ; but i see she has not : however gentlemen , since she has been so nimble with my life and conversation , i will give you a compendium of hers ; and then you shall be judges of her religious zeal and modesty , yourselves . the way then she hath taken for many years to preserve her modesty , as she calls it , hath been the greatest forfeiture of it , and occasioned the worst reflections upon her morals , that ever any of the sex has had made upon them . for about twenty years since , she then being the wife of a certain merchant of this city , did as she sayes , by accident receive into her house a comely italian by the name of seignior pedro de viacho ; who had to attend him , a negro as charming in her eye , as his master ; at one and the same time she fell in love with them both , to that degree , that it expos'd her to publick report , which the seignior being inform'd of , made immediate application to the lady , and soon confirm'd the report for truth ; some time after , the sight of the black one day at dinner , as he waited on his master , so suddenly made a deep impression in her heart , that she was taken most violently ill of a love passion , which she for the space of ten days underwent with great impatience , but having in this time watch'd all opportunities , one evening by twilight , when the seignior and her husband were at a tavern , she took the black into her chamber ; where having allow'd him more freedom than his heart could wish for , she gratified her own lascivious desire . and such opportunities she often made use of , insomuch , that both the husband and the seignior were jealous of the moore , for the rogue was extreamly fond , and could not forbear to express great demonstrations thereof at several times when he was in her company ; so that a little time produc'd the effects of her intimacy , for this passionate lady fell in travail , and in some short time , and with no great difficulty , was out of her religious zeal deliver'd of a brave tawny face'd boy , to the great amazement of all the beholders . this made a terrible noise among the neighborhood : so that the seignior being a man of some repute , and not enduring to hear such reproaches as he often met with , pack'd up his tackling and departed for rome , the husband being overborn with grief , soon after departed for legorne , where he became a factor and ended his days . how she spent her time for three or four years after i know not ; but about twelve years since , she lived near holbourn , and was then become very exquisite at the cracking trade , from thence she removed to a certain lodging in westminster , where she met with a second husband as she sayes , hearing the first was dead , by the second she had divers children , and whilst he lived was not much expos'd , but the world in time ( thorough her extravagancy no doubt on 't ) frown'd on him , and he departed for the barbadoes where he dyed , after this she was scarce young enough to be a whore , and scarce old enough to practice bawding ; so that for some years she turn'd procuress ( as she her self has often told me , to a certain great person ) by which she recovered her self , and then return'd to house-keeping , and in two years had gathered together , a very devout convent of beautiful strapping young daughters , of joy , whose remote practice at the wells in the country , and elsewhere in three or four years replenish't her purse ; but finding the great inconveniency of such a constant resort of doctors , pimps , bullyes , &c. to her house , and the great threats she had often undergone , of being sent to bridewell for a bawd , she removed into the city of london ; where , being by her absence become a stranger , she set up , and profest the craft of midwifery ; still now and then by the by entertaining a young courtizan for the space of a month or so , during the time of delivery . this trade was in a short time discovered by the neighbourhood , and as soon by the prentices , who , had not the request of some particular persons prevail'd , did intend to have made a shrove-tuesday invasion upon her inchanted castle . yet , notwithstanding all this , she had cunning enough to insinuate her self into the affections of one mr. cellier a french merchant , and by degrees prevail'd with him to marry her , to the great lamentation of all his children and relations . some time after , she removed to arundel-street , the place where she now lives , and then undertook to sollicit the good-mans business ; during which time , partly by her modest compliance with lascivious requests , and partly by compulsion , she raised the estate , and recovered a good part of it into their own hands , which produced a plentiful livelihood , together with the help of her moving hand . in all which time there was still room to be found for a gallant ; for the good-man was aged , and consequently troubled with the usual infirmities of his years . this sort of life held for three or four years , still turning out and taking into favour fresh gallants , and among the rest a young spaniard , who after some large demonstrations of his abilities , was received into favour . it seems at first he did not perform his part of complacency so well as was expected ; but in time , being apt , he was soon fit for the purpose , after having undergone some correction , and received some instructions from her self , such as the school of venus , &c. so that in a little time , the spaniard had made her sensible of divers new transports , such , as she declared in her whole life-time she had been a stranger to before , as you may guess by the following letters , sent to the spaniard , who was her agent in business of a difficult nature here in london , when she was at a place called petersley in buckinghamshire . the first letter . my dear spaniard , this morning about four a clock , i awaked , and by the help of the light i discovered my self in the arms of a dull and drousie husband , but my expectations were not answered by the usual enjoyments which onght to have attended that hour , so that forc't i was to be silent , and only divert my self by wishing my spaniard here . i received yours with great difficulty , and my husband would have read it , but i told him , it was business concerned the l. p. but i read it with great content ; and as soon as i return , i do resolve to try the effects of a short absence . i am very uneasie when i eat or sleep ; i think i dream of you . your company is more dear to me , then a thousand husbands : what is the country or the company of relations ? give me that company i most delight in . my dear spaniard , in the day time i retire into the woods , in the evenings to my chamber , where i embrace your letter with ten thousand kisses , and am still unsatisfied for want of your company . here is a lady desires you to make some anagrams on these enclosed names , pray do so , and send them in your next , on thursday night . i am unwilling to let my husband know when i receive any letters , and therefore i will walk in the woods to meet the messenger that comes from the coach , before he come to the house , that i may read yours with more freedom . from peterly . adieu dear spaniard . the second letter . dear rogue , i did by great accident meet the messenger , and my husband was very near me , gathering nuts , when i received it , but i had the good luck to read it before he came to me ; i protest it has so pleas'd me , that i resolve to be in town to morrow sevennight . give me the man of conduct , that can turn and wind an intrigue to the best advantage ; i hate a dull impenetrable skull . if the lady and the servants be at the tower , i know no place so fit as the house where you are ; but if there be any suspition , 't is easie to take a lodging at a place in westminster , which i have been formerly acquainted with , and will be very convenient . i fear nothing but that i shall not prevail with this old fond fool to stay behind me ; and if he does , 't will not be for above a week , so that we will make the most of the time. if you can take a coach and meet me four or five miles on this side london , i shall take it kindly . farewell . yours e. c. these two letters by accident miscarried by her own mistaking the superscriptions , and were sent to two ladies of quality , who well knew the hand writing , and therefore no doubt blusht sufficiently in the reading 'em , but yet did not forget to expose them as far as they thought fit , so that now the intrigue being discovered by her own bad conduct , she made application to the ladies , and so obtained the letters , which let her deny if she can . many other pretty close passages i could relate , but i shall reserve some for another time ; and doubt not but this will demonstrate to the world how modest a creature she is , and how much she deserves the charitable opinion of a religious zealot . in the postscript she tells us pag. 43. that on wednesday the eighteenth of august , i appear'd before the lords of the council , and did then accuse sir william waller , mansell and dangerfield of high treason , and offered to make good my charge ; but by delayes i lost the opportunity of meeting the gentlemen ( my witnesses ) , and could not examine the principal part that day , and by the next he was taken speechless , as he still continues . that she did accuse me of high treason , is a thing unknown to me ; but i know she might well enough do it , for she had engaged me in treason enough to hang a hundred , and therefore 't was strange if she could not find enough to charge one with . but now whether she or i were the first impeachers , that every body knows , but how we should both own a fact of that nature publickly to the world , and yet both escape hanging , i know not , farther then as to my own part , as having by the grace and special favour of my sovereign received my pardon . as for the delays she pretends that hindred her making good her accusation , they might well enough be ; for she saith , the gentleman her witness was taken speechless , a thing somewhat strange ( and that no miracle could be done to set him right again ) and to me , perhaps a deliverance . here may the world see how the judgements of god trod upon the heels of some cursed design ; for my accusation was only the introductory part ; but how many others might have been shipwrackt by that black silenc'd mouth , god knows : and therefore in his good time , he stopt it with a terrible judgement . and mrs. cellier has expos'd it to the world , as i pray all the rest may be in time : she wanted nothing but that great or ragamuffions testimony to make good the charge ; and for want of it , our midwife was repulst , by this following expression , ( viz. ) you must not pretend to make discoveries here , unless you can make them out plainer , as for your self we believe not a word you say , &c. that upon his single evidence the countess of powis , lord castlemain , my self and other considerable persons of quality were committed to prison . what a fine reflection is this upon the king and council , as if right or wrong they had been committed by my single evidence . no , 't was not so ; for 't is a plain argument , that both the king and council were well satisfied with a considerable deal of coroborating testimony in my discovery , before that hapned , or indeed any commitment ; otherwise i question , whether my neck should not have been in as great jeopardy , as hers now is . as for the treasonable practices she mentions sworn against me by mr. foster , a justice of the peace , it was just such another piece of villany as her own , wherein he accuses himself , not me ; which may , perhaps , be known sooner than he thinks of . but every person is capable of accusing others of treason , according to this account , no matter whether true or false ; as you may see in some discourse which past at the ( lord castlemain's tryal ) in these times no man knows when he is safe from the perjuries which so much abound , we have men grown so insolent now adays , that upon what account , or what sort of confidence to tearm it , i know not , run at whole societies of men , and persons of all qualities , as if there were any thing in their confidence could render them better , then their own villainous actions proclaim them to be . 't is an easie matter to swear a man out of his life , if such persons might be admitted , and i believe the devil has sent such men abroad , to render truth ridiculous , and for to fill the world with nothing but lyes and perjuries ; but be it known to the world , that a man of a profligate life , though necessity might expose him to rob , yet is as tender of a faise oath , as those who pretend more largely to honesty and modesty ; and without going any farther , i think this may serve , that when i waited on mr. secretary coventry for a warrant ( on which the stress of the whole sham plot lay ) he refused it , unless i would make affidavit , and i refused so to do , because it would have been folly : for the truth of which i refer my self to that honourable person . now 't is very strange that a man who had but one single step to make , to the aggrandizing himself , and he being one who could so easily digest false oaths , as they seem to render me , should be so squeamish as to boggle at one single oath , and so consequently lose the great opportunity of making my fortune ; but i bless my god , who hath always preserved my thoughts free from such villanies , and i hope , and it is my dayly prayers , that i may become as serviceable for my king and country , as i have been against them . as for mrs. cellier's exposing me to the world , and the enlargements which she has made of her own , i value them no longer , as being obliterated upon earth , and i hope , forgiv'n in heaven . yet of all women under the skie , she had the least reason to take notice of them . for had not i been taken for what she makes me to be , she had certainly been e're this either in purgatory , or else in a worse place . there was no way to save her , but by making me ten times worse then i was : so that she ought to have prais'd the bridge she went over ; and to have the greatest veneration imaginable for my crimes , which were the only engines made use of for her deliverance ; which nevertheless would never have prevail'd , had they not been in the hands of artists , that knew very well how to use them to the best advantage . and so , mrs. elizabeth cellier , adieu for this time . you may go on , if you please , and write another apology to the people upon the occasion of this answer . thomas dangerfield . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a36268-e130 pag. 8. pag. 13. an answer to the excellent and elegant speech made by sir thomas player, the worthy chamberlain of london, to the right honble [sic] the lord mayor, etc. on friday the 12th of september, 1679 / by h. b. ... answer to the excellent and elegant speech made by sir thomas player ... on friday the 12th of september, 1679 h. b., citizen of london. 1679 approx. 7 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a30893 wing b72 estc r665 13170059 ocm 13170059 98264 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a30893) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 98264) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 445:9) an answer to the excellent and elegant speech made by sir thomas player, the worthy chamberlain of london, to the right honble [sic] the lord mayor, etc. on friday the 12th of september, 1679 / by h. b. ... answer to the excellent and elegant speech made by sir thomas player ... on friday the 12th of september, 1679 h. b., citizen of london. 4 p. s.n., [london ? : 1679] caption title. another issue has title : a reply to the excellent and elegant speech made by sir thomas player. reproduction of original in harvard university libraries. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng player, thomas, -sir, d. 1686. -speech, at the guildhall of the city of london, concerning the popish plot. popish plot, 1678 -sources. 2007-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-01 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-02 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-02 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an answer to the excellent and elegant speech made by sir thomas player , the worthy chamberlain of london , to the right hon ble the lord mayor , &c. on friday the 12th of september , 1679. by h. b. an unworthy member of the said citie ; but could not be heard or understood then . my lord , i cannot but wonder at the manner as well as the subject matter of sir t.p. his discourse . as to the manner , i suppose he might have inform'd your lordship and the court of aldermen of any danger the citie were in , upon any account whatsoever , without bringing an hundred persons at his heels . i must take the boldness to tell him , that it lookt more like a tumultuous number of apprentices doing execution upon bawdie-houses , than any solid considerate way of advising good for the citie or kingdom . but i suppose the great policie of that , might have three considerations : one , to shew that he is able to lead up his men : another , that he is able to make an excellent speech : or thirdly , that he , for his great zeal and love to the citie and nation , was sollicited by those persons , out of their great fears and apprehensions of dangers partly created by himself . i am very sorry that a gentleman should have given occasion for any citizen to have said so much : but any thing concerning his highness had been received better from another hand than his , because of the known grudge . next , as to the subject matter , he seems to be very much offended at the citie 's being libell'd in the intelligencer , by saying that the citie should send to congratulate his highness his return : as if it were such an immortal stain to the reputation of the citie , never to be deleted ! i wonder it was never taken notice of before . had we congratulated him now , it had not been the first time . when he return'd from sea , where he hazarded his life for the maintaining of our trade , ( which we are the gainers by ) and had been in the heat of fight , where several noble-men were killed about him , we could then congratulate him , as also did the nation with a present . he did not want honour or preferment , to do this for us . but we might have congratulated him , as he hath condescended to be a member of us . if his highness had so much malice in him as to necessitate us to be upon our guards in the nature proposed , surely he would never have ventur'd himself as a private sea-man , for our service . neither can i conceive any such great danger of our religion , since his majestie is living , and well ( god be thanked . ) his highness his title may never happen . besides , the assembly of parliament , and our members there , will take care of us in that point . we speak well of our king generally , although i am afraid there be some amongst us that are sorry they can't speak otherwise , to further their designes of enslaving us under a parcel of factious and ambitious fellows . and i hope there be yet persons sufficient amongst us ( upon discovery of any such designes ) to correct any sort of faction against the king , laws , and established government , whether popish , or any other predominant among us : for neither the one nor the other ( i am assured ) consist with the freedom of the subject . we cry out of arbitrary government , and i know not what besides , with which the vulgar are amused : whilst we in our government in the citie are the most guilty of arbitrariness in the execution of the laws that we be judges of , of any body else . for how many thousand pounds per annum come into our purses by a knack of chusing sheriffs , in making choice of persons whose occasions we know will not permit them to serve that office ; and then , to excuse them , we must have four or five hundred pound apiece ? with many suchlike devic●s . and how many young citizens have been undone by moneys paid for coming on of our liveries ; a tax more considerable than twenty publique taxes for the support of the government ? these things , besides a great number more , we have and shall finde will lessen our trade and interest ; else would not our houses stand unlet , and our shops be uncustom'd . when the king had thanked us for our care in raising the militia , and making the citie a garison , for the preservation of his person ; his majestie told us he would take care of himself , yet this would not make us lay down our arms. nor do i know by what law the lieutenancie there can make us keep them up . 't is true , the lieutenancie themselves , or we that are the principal men , value not the charge , being little to us , in comparison of what it is to the poor trades-men , who had more need be minding their business , than they or their servants so employed , to the debauchery of the youth of the citie . and many of those mean persons that are forced to be at this intolerable charge , will be fit for nothing , but to give assistance in any new rebellion . and if you please to peruse the statutes for setling the militia , you 'll finde there how our trained bands are to be marshal'd : that in case of invasion or insurrection , every souldier is to be provided of one months pay ; but no person to be charged further , until the said months pay be reimbursed him . and in times of peace , the general muster and exercise of regiments not to be above once a year . that the training and exercising single companies be not above four times a year , unless upon special direction by the king or privie council ; and the same not to continue above two days , &c. these acts were made with abundance of consideration for the liberty of the subject , that the king should not lay any extraordinary burden upon our estates , upon any pretence whatsoever . and i wonder how it hath been submitted unto by our pretence of authority so long , being absolutely against law. it 's impossible for us to thrive in the citie , whilst we amuse our selves with these kinde of fears . let us trust god and the king with the government : let 's mend our selves at home , and endeavour to encourage and increase the trade of the citie . when the king or government is in danger , we shall hear of it time enough : or if the king hath a minde to make us of his privie council , he knows his own time for it . certainly the king hath more to lose than any of us . i must refer it to your lordships consideration , whether we ought to take notice of this intelligencer as a libeller or not ; and also whether there be occasion for any guards at all , for the considerations aforesaid . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a30893-e10 13 car. 2. cap. 6.14 car. 2. cap. 3. the godly exhortation of holy father bradford which he gave to his wife, children and friends a little before his death, who dyed a martyr for the gospel in q. maries days : wherein is plainly shown the excellency of the protestant religion and the happiness of those that profess and live the same : as also the damnableness of the romish religion with their bloody and rebellious crimes laid open : with the relation of the murder of that just justice sir edmund-bury godfrey. bradford, john, 1510?-1555. 1683 approx. 15 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 11 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a29095 wing b4105 estc r35784 15561138 ocm 15561138 103748 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a29095) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 103748) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1586:12) the godly exhortation of holy father bradford which he gave to his wife, children and friends a little before his death, who dyed a martyr for the gospel in q. maries days : wherein is plainly shown the excellency of the protestant religion and the happiness of those that profess and live the same : as also the damnableness of the romish religion with their bloody and rebellious crimes laid open : with the relation of the murder of that just justice sir edmund-bury godfrey. bradford, john, 1510?-1555. [21] p. printed for t. passenger ..., london : 1683. in verse. contains added t.p. with woodcut illustration. attributed by wing to bradford. reproduction of the original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng godfrey, edmund berry, -sir, 1621-1678. catholic church -controversial literature. anti-catholicism. popish plot, 1678. 2006-05 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-05 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-05 taryn hakala sampled and proofread 2007-05 taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion holy father bradfords exhortation to his children . depiction of burning at stake 〈◊〉 description of the manner of the murder of sir edmund-bury godfrey . printed for t. passenger , at the three bibles on london-bridge . 1683. the godly exhortation of holy father bradford , which he gave to his wife , children , and friends , a little before his death : who dyed a martyr for the gospel in q. maries days . wherein is plainly shown the excellency of the protestant religion , and the happiness of those that profess and live the same . as also the damnableness of the romish religion , with their bloody and rebellious crimes laid open . with the relation of the murder of that just justice sir edmund-bury godfrey . revelations 6. 10. and they cried with a loud voice , saying , how long lord , holy and true , dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth . with allowonce . london , printed for t. passenger , at the three bibles on london-bridge . 1683. an exhortation which a learned father of the church gave to his friends and relations a little before his martyrdom . the words , or advice of a person departing , are generally very taking . no wife so wilfull , no son so stubborn , or daughter dull , in my apprehension , but would willingly watch for the words of him that is leaving the world , more specially they would , or at least-wise should be attractive and attentive to the sententious speeches of a sober sollid suffering servant of iesus christ ; but although godliness be the greatest gain , it hath few followers , because so many fools . persecution is the thorn in you , ye messengers of satan ; must piety be punisht ? what a pitty is it ; that which is the garland of glory , the gate to heaven , should be so slighted , it increases my sorrow : but why should i be singular ? solomon saith , and what he said was true , that there is no new thing under the sun , for since sin entered into the world , by consequence there must be sorrow and suffering . persecution is not only a legacy , but is intail'd on the godly and to their heirs , whilst godly , so long as sun and moon shall endure , for all that will live godly must suffer persecution ; therefore my dear friends , wonder not at the prosperity of the wicked , for they have only theirs here , but not hereafter ; and though there be no bonds in their death , yet are they curses from the cradle , and their punishment will be perpetual . my advise to you is , if you love me , your selves , and your souls , strive with all your strength to secure that good part which can never be taken from you ; so shall you be blest , and your prayers be presented as sweet perfumes in the presence of him who rewardeth every man according to his deeds . i who was once zealous for the papists , have through grace my eyes inlightened and , see my errors and sorrow for my simplicity , and am now ready to offer my self as a sweet sacrifice to and for my dearest saviour . depiction of father bradford speaking father bradford's last speech , or sayings in prison , and at the place of execution , to his wife and children , and his friends , fit to be remembred . give ear my friends , relations dear , whom in the flesh i love ; of all things whatsoe'r , sin fear , and trust in god above . my dying words hark well unto , let each of them conduce ; and highly be esteem'd by you , observe for a good use . since i must suffer for the truth in furious flames of fire : i you advise from lusts of youth , you strive now to aspire . in these distracting times provide , and save your selves from sin ; your souls securely , safely hide , beware of satans ginn . he waits and watches to devour , it is his whole delight ; to that intent each day and hour , his bait hides from your sight . sit not admiring at worlds splender , nor bear it in esteem ; for in the end 't will no more render , then doth the vainest dream . pleasures and treasures all are vain , no comfort could i find : they nothing but distract the brain , likewise perplex the mind . if that you would hark unto me , i 'de learn you somewhat more ; the which would profitable be , which you ne're heard before . now therefore unto me attend , and let my dying words prevail ; in that i draw unto my end , and from this world lanch with fresh gall . in waies of piety proceed , and fear not frowns of popish party ; and so shall you be blest indeed , if that you love gods laws most hearty . the word of god take that for rule , there lies the touchstone for to try ; learn therefore by no other school , that shews the faults of popery . and furthermore i advise you , if that you mean your soul to save ; never to trust that bloody crew , to do with them , o never have . if that before them you they call , to give a ransom of your faith ; be fearful not in iudgement-hall , but tell them thus the scripture saith . and if that reason won't take place , and she persist in acts of ill ; by chearful countenance let your face declare that you your blood will spill . rather than that you any way the laws of god for to condemn ; or heavenly master disobey , you value not the wrath of men. fear not the furious flames of fire , therein to broyl be well contented ; of heavenly honours none there 's higher , of martyrdom none e're repented . to seal the truth with dearest blood , flinch not nor fearful be at all ; i it esteem as chiefest good , and glory in that god doth call . me unto martyrdom that those , who love the truth and live therein ; and likewise to confute my foes , which in dark ignorance live in . when that unto the stake i come , i trust that fear will take its flight ; i hope converted will be some , although it be a fearful sight . christians to see in fire to fry , disdaining pardons which they bring ; away with them , will then say i , i fear not death , no , nor his sting . i have a life to lose 't is true , and i must breath in truth resign ; what though it be by wicked crew , the breath i have is none of mine . my loving friends , relations who have heard these words of mine ; you 'l likewise such a pattern shew , declaring a power divine . the time is short i must live in , therefore my words pray mark ; of all things fearful be of sin , and mind gods word to hark . so shall you in the end attain to perfect bliss and joy ; although it be through fiercest pain , the which will seem a toy . when to your masters house you come , and a royal throne attain ; repent you won't the work you 've done , no sufferings , with great pain . for there all tears are wip'd away , and sorrows they are fled ; no night is there , but alwaies day , with bliss to be bestead . therefore me follow , nothing fear , disdain the worlds grand glory , for gospel promises shall chear , and mind not lying story . thus have you reader , by my scant capacity , a catalogue of very choice sayings and expressions , the which you should lay up in your heart , that you may be able to lay it out in your life , when such sad occasions shall call you to it : it is usual with the world to wonder at every thing that is not wicked ; but alack poor souls , when they shall , as i hope they will come to have a sense of their sin , which is the cause of sufferings here and hereafter to all eternity ; i heartily wish that that word eternity was more minded , and more made of then it is at this day . to tell you what is minded , which you cannot but mind ; the pride of your looks , the pride of your locks , the pride of your gate and gesture , the pride of your garb and vesture , the pride of your outward injoyments , the pride of your inward indowments , and what follows , poverty , a punishment who hath no pitty . this good man met with many conflicts in the world , yet waded through the worst of them all , and is now launcht into the ocean of eternal bliss , the which is possible for you likewise to injoy , following his directions . and as they are the advise of so grave a pattern , i hope they will not be slighted , but seriously sought for by all serious , sober , sollid servants of our saviour iesus christ . a song of these present times , shewing the bloody villanies of the papists , by their contriving of the ruine of the king and kingdom : as also their bloody cruelty on the body of that worthy knight , sir edmond-bury godfrey , as is now made appear by one of that wicked crew , affirming that two jesuites running him into a house in the strand , fell upon him , and with a handkerchief choaked him ; 't is reported that they laid him under the altar the space of two days , and then conveyed him in a coach to the place where he was found with his own sword run into his body : thereby thinking to stigmatize his name with the infamy of slaying himself . hearken my friends to what i have to say , for it relates unto this present day wherein we live , and dayly we may see the plots and practice of impiety . therefore i you advise for to take care of such that would intrap us in a snare : the popish party wicked have designed , our ruine they most cunning have combined , never to trust them i would you advise , who wickedly ' gainst king and country rise , and that you may behold their cruelty , the murder mind of edmond godfrey . that worthy knight , whose blood doth dayly cry for vengeance for their grand impiety ; and as they served him , so would they do , if that they could , unto the best of you . their malice , wrath , and rage , indeed is such , to murder prince with people they not grutch ; how can you trust them therefore , who conspire death of our persons , and our houses fire ? take my advice the which i am sure is iust , and in them have no considence or trust ; but pray that god would frustrate their concealings , and bring to light their horrid wicked dealings . stand up for truth , and stedfastly proclaim , that unto death you will maintain the same , as loyal subjects unto charles your king , declare and shew you are in every thing . and for his welfare pray most zealously , that god would save him from all destiny : and with him those that love & fear his name . and church of protestant preserve the same . pray likewise that the popish party may be intrap'd in the snares the which they lay for those who wish our king & country well , and whose demeaners us the same do tell . pray for the downfall of that man of sin , and those likewise who have combiners been , against the welfare of our english realm , and of our soveraign sitting at the helm . loud as a trumpet lift up voice and cry to the all-seeing god that dwells on high : for nearer never were to destiny , then now ; record it to posterity . that after ages having intimation , may banish popery from out this nation ; and as your prayers , so let your praises be ascribed to his gracious majesty . who hath took care to seat his crown upon , o're hateing popish superstition : sure 't was the mighty work of god indeed , that him unto so worthy act should lead . great charles thy goodness to extol and praise , we must and will , and wish thee happy days : and as we wish and pray for dayly bread , so that thy crown may flourish on thy head . thus let your prayers be pouring night & day a remedy like this there 's none i say : to blast and bring to nought such acts of evil , which have assistance only from the devil . therefore my words to mark & mind i would and my directions follow that you should : and if that to my words you do address , expect you may that god he will you bless . and save you as he hath unto this day , if that in faith you humbly to him pray ; craving of him his mercy to obtain , whereby a crown of glory you may gain . advised be , and choose the waies of truth , and that especially in time of youth : and so i leave you unto his protection , who wont your suit deny , or give rejection . finis . an account of, (together with) the writing it self that was found in the pocket of lawrence hill, at the time he and green were executed, (friday the 21st of february, 1678/9) for the murder of sr. edmond-berry godfrey kt. hill, lawrence, d. 1679. 1679 approx. 6 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 2 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a26241 wing a425 estc r17180 12656176 ocm 12656176 65369 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a26241) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 65369) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 679:2) an account of, (together with) the writing it self that was found in the pocket of lawrence hill, at the time he and green were executed, (friday the 21st of february, 1678/9) for the murder of sr. edmond-berry godfrey kt. hill, lawrence, d. 1679. 3 p. printed for robert pawlet ..., [london : 1679] caption title. imprint from colophon. reproduction of original in cambridge university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng hill, lawrence, d. 1679. green, robert, d. 1679. godfrey, edmund berry, -sir, 1621-1678. popish plot, 1678. 2008-10 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-12 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2009-01 scott lepisto sampled and proofread 2009-01 scott lepisto text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an account of , ( together with ) the writing it self that was found in the pocket of lawrence hill , at the time he and green were executed , ( friday the 21st . of february , 1678 / 9. ) for the murder of s r. edmond-berry godfrey k t. t is very fit the world should have some account of what was said at the execution of these men , and how they came to say what they did . their confession ( as 't is called ) was a denyal of the fact , which was pen'd and prepar'd in a very formall manner , and taken out of the pocket of hill , who had neither pen , ink nor paper , all the while he was in newgate ; yet after he was dead , captain richardson the master of newgate , saw the executioner take it out of his pocket ; which is verbatim as follows . i now come to the fatal place where i must end my life , and i hope with that courage that may become my innocence : i must now appear before the great judge , who knows all things and judges rightly ; and i hope it will be happy for me a sinner , that i am thus wrongfully put to death . i call god , angels and men to witness , that i am wholly ignorant of the manner , cause or time of the death of justice godfrey , although on that account by the malice of wicked men brought to this shameful death , which i hope will give me a speedy passage to eternal life . in this hope i die cheerfully , because of my innocence , and the benefit of the pretious wounds of my blessed saviour , by whose merits i hope for salvation . i die a roman catholick , desiring all such to pray for me : and i beseech god in his justice to discover this horrid murder , with the contrivers thereof , that my innocence may appear : and though from my heart i forgive my accusers , yet i cyte all such as have had a hand in this bloody contrivance , before the great tribunal of gods justice , to answer for the wrong they have done the innocent ; and particularly the lord chief justice , and the brothers of sir edmond godfrey , with jury , witnesses , and all their partakers . oh lord bless and preserve his majesty , and be merciful to this poor nation , and lay not innocent blood to its charge : so i bid you all farewel in jesus christ , into whose hands i commend my spirit . this paper was shewn to hills wife ; and she being demanded whether it was her husbands hand-writing ; affirmed it was not : and being further asked whether she convey●d it to him , she protested she knew not how he came by it , and declared that she never saw it before . of this lesson hill repeated as much as ( in such an ill time for conning ) he could remember ; wherein these particulars are very observable . first , that these words were not the prisoners own words , but prepared by another for him to say . and that in a matter which required only plain truth , but not art , and so the writers skill was needless . for all that the prisoner could instruct the penner in , must be , that he was not guilty of the fact ; which certainly would have been much more credible out of his mouth from his heart , then out of this paper from his memory . but the obedience of the dying proselite , and the charity of the instructing priest , ( for such without question is the indicter , ) is very remarkable . for no man certainly in articulo mortis would have troubled his mind with a parcel of formal words , if the awe of the priest had not been prevalent , even above his considerations for a future state . but above all , the exemplary charity of the holy father is not to be forgotten ; who after he has made his dying penitent say that from his heart he did forgive his accusers ; yet in his very next breath ( which was almost his last too ) he makes him cyte both judge , jury and witnesses , with all their partakers , before the great tribunal of god's justice , to answer for the wrong they have done him which ( besides the incoherent non-sense ) contains in it , first the very spirit of a romish priest. then it manifests what regard they have to the souls of their dying disciples , to make them call for vengeance , when they should forgive : and it shews the direct equivocation of a priest too , who when he says from his heart he forgives , yet hopes god will not ; else why does he cyte them before the dreadful tribunall , to answer the wrong they have done ? and when the prisoner was to say this at his death , i would fain have any man tell me , why he might not as well at his last hour denie the truth , as depart from charity , if his priest requires it ? i commend the priest for his care of their church , in that the world should know he died a roman catholick , but not so much for his care of the man , when he would not let him desire the prayers of any but papists . let any unprejudic'd person consider well vvhat is naturally to be collected from this paper , and he vvill easily judge , vvithout breach of charitie , upon vvhat grounds men of that persvvasion are first seduced to commit a sin , and then obstinately to denie it to the last . london , printed for robert pawlet at the sign of the bible in chancery-lane near fleet-street . mdclxxix . the speeches of the five jesuits that were executed at tyburn on friday the 20th of this instant june, 1679 1679 approx. 14 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a61045 wing s4876a estc r37621 16988627 ocm 16988627 105635 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a61045) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 105635) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1159:35) the speeches of the five jesuits that were executed at tyburn on friday the 20th of this instant june, 1679 whitbread, thomas, 1618-1679. barrow, william, 1610-1679. caldwell, john, 1628-1679. gawen, john, 1640-1679. 4 p. s.n., [london? : 1679?] caption title. imprint suggested by wing. includes the speeches of thomas whitebread, william barrow (alias harecourt), john caldwell (alias fenwick), and john gavan; turner's speech was omitted as too long. reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2006-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-04 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-06 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2006-06 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the speeches of the five jesuits that were executed at tyburn on friday the 20 th . of this instant june 1679. these speeches which i have here published , being most exactly taken verbatim from the mouths of the condemn'd persons who spoke them , i thought i could do no less then make them publick to the world , as well for the satisfaction of the curious , as to let the world see how little faith is to be given to any of that religion , wherein lying is so much more prevalent than repentance , and where to commit a sin , and deny it , is more meritorious than not to sin at all . i could ▪ were it to my purpose , give you a thousand instances of what lyes have been suffer'd by the church of rome to be made use of as lawful , under the helps of equivocation , mental reservation , &c. but this is not time of day for such things , when they have so lately had the impudence to deny , that there was ever born alive such a man as sir edmondbury godfrey , because he was neither knighted nor christned at the hour of his birth . in the same manner the priest ( conditionally that they shall deny such and such things ) absolves them of all things from the time of their birth , which makes them as innocent as the child unborn , the very expression they so often use : tantum religio potuit suadere malorum . mr. whitebread's speech . i suppose it is expected i should say something as to the matter for which i am condemned , and am brought hither to suffer . it is no less then the contriving and plotting his majesties death , and alteration of the government of the church and state : you all either know , or ought to know , i am to make my appearance before the face of almighty god , and with all imaginable certainty and evidence to receive a final judgment for all the thoughts , words and actions of my whole life . so that i am not now upon terms to speak other than truth , and therefore in his most holy presence , and as i hope for mercy from his divine majesty , i do declare to you here present , and to the whole world , that i go out of the world as innocent , and as free from any guilt of those things laid to my charge in this matter , as i came into the world from my mothers womb . and this i do , renouncing from my heart all manner of pardons , absolutions , or dispensations for swearing , as occasion or interest may seem to require , which some have been pleased to lay to our charge , as matter of our doctrine and practice : but is a thing so unjustifiable , that i believe , and ever did , that no power on earth can authorize me , or any body else so to do . and for those who have most falsly accused me , ( as time either in this world , or the next , will make appear ) i do heartily forgive them , and beg of god to grant them his holy grace , that they may repent of their unjust proceedings against me ; otherwise they will in conclusion find , they have done themselves more wrong , than i have suffered from them , though that hath been a great deal . i pray to god to bless him majesty both temporally and eternally , which hath been my daily prayers for him , and is all the harm i ever intended or imagined against him . and i do with this my last breath , in the sight of god declare , that i never did learn , teach , nor believe that it is lawful , upon any occasion or pretence whatsoever , to design or contrive the death of his majesty , or any hurt to his person ; but on the contrary , that all are bound to obey , defend and preserve his sacred person , to the utmost of their power . and i do moreover declare , that this is the true and plain sence of my soul , and as i hope to see his blessed face , without any equivocation , or mental reservation : that is all i have to say concerning the matter of my condemnation . that which remains now for me to do , is to recommend my soul into the hands of my blessed redeemer , by whose merits and passion i hope for salvation . mr. harecourt's speech . the words of dying persons have always been esteemed of greatest authority , because uttered then , when shortly after they are to be cited before the high tribunal of almighty god. this gives me hopes that mine may be look'd upon as such : therefore i do here declare in the presence of almighty god , the whole court of heaven , and this numerous assembly , that as i ever hope ( by the merits and passion of my sweet saviour jesus christ ) for eternal bliss , i am as innocent as the child unborn of any thing laid to my charge , concerning the matter for which i am here to die : and i do utterly renounce , abhor and detest that abominable and false doctrine laid to our charge , that we can have licence to commit perjuries , or any other sin , to advantage our cause , being expresly against the doctrine of st. paul , saying ( non sunt facienda mala ut eveniant bona ) evil is not to be done that good may come thereof ; and therefore we hold it in all cases unlawful to kill or murther any person whatsoever , much more our lawful king now reigning , whose person and temporal dominions we are ready to defend against any opponent whatsoever , none excepted . i forgive all those that contrived my death , and beg pardon of almighty god , and i also pardon all the world. i pray god to bless his majesty , and grant him a prosperous reign , and the like to his royal consort , the best of queens . i humbly beg the prayers of all those who are of the roman church , if any such be present . mr. fenwick's speech . i suppose you expect i should say something , as to the crimes i am condemned for , and either acknowledge my guilt , or assert my innocence : i do therefore declare before god and the whole world , and call god to witness , that what i say is true , that i am as innocent of what is laid to my charge , of plotting the king's death , and endeavouring to subvert the government , as the child yet unborn , and that i know nothing of it , but what i have learnt from mr. oates and his companions , and what comes originally from them . and as to what is said and commonly believed of roman catholicks , that they are not to be believed or trusted , because they can have dispensations for lying , perjury , killing kings , and other the most enormous crimes : i do hereby utterly renounce all such pardons and dispensations , and withall declare , that it is a malicious and most wicked calumny cast on them , who do with all their hearts and souls hate and detest such wicked and damnable practices , and in the words of a dying man , and as i hope for mercy at the hands of god , before whom i must shortly appear , and give an account of all my actions . i do again declare , that what i have said is most true , and i hope christian charity will not let you think , that by the last act of my life , i should cast away my soul , by sealing up my last breath with a damnable lye. mr. gavon's speech . dearly beloved countrymen , i am now come to the last scene of mortality , to the hour of my death ; an hour , which is the horizon between time and eternity ; an hour , which must either make me a star to shine for ever in the empire above , or a firebrand to burn everlastingly among the damned souls in hell below ; an hour , in which if i deal sincerely , and with a hearty sorrow acknowledge my crimes , i may hope for mercy ; but if i falsly deny them , i must expect nothing but eternal damnation : and therefore what i shall say in this great hour , i hope you will believe . and now i do solemnly swear , protest and vow by all that is sacred in heaven or on earth , and as i hope to see the face of god in glory , that i am as innocent as the child unborn of those treasonable crimes which mr. oates and mr. dugdale swore against me in my tryal , and for which sentence of death was pass'd against me the day after my tryal : and that you may be assured , i do in like manner protest and swear , as i hope to see the face of god in glory , that i do not , in what i say unto you , make use of any equivocation , mental reservation , material prolocution , or any such ways to palliate truth ; or if i do make use of any dispensation from the pope , or any body else , or of any oath of secrecy , or any absolution in confession , or out of confession , to deny the truth ; but i speak in the plain sence which the words bear : and if i do speak in any other terms , to palliate , hide or deny the truth , i wish with all my soul that god may exclude me from his heavenly glory , and condemn me to the lowest place of hell fire : and so much to that point . and now , dear countrymen , in the second place , i do confess and own to the whole world , that i am a roman catholick , and a priest , and one of that sort of priests which you call jesuits . and now , because they are so falsly charged for holding the king-killing doctrine , i think it my duty to protest to you with my last dying words . that neither i in particular , nor the jesuits in general , hold any such opinion , but utterly abhorr and detest it : and i assure you , that among the vast number of authors , which among the jesuits have printed philosophy , divinity-cases , or sermons , there is not one to the best of my knowledge that allows of king-killing doctrine , or holds this position , that it is lawful for a private person to kill a king , although a heretick , pagan , or tyrant : there is ( i say ) not one jesuit that holds this , except mariana the spanish jesuit , and he defends it not absolutely , but problematically , for which his book was called in again , and the opinion expung'd and censured . and is it not a sad thing , that for the rashness of one single man , ( whilst the rest cry out against him , and hold the contrary ) that a whole religious order should be sentenced ? but i have not time now to discuss the point at large , and therefore i refer you all to a royal author , i mean the wise and victorious king henry the 4th . of france , the royal grandfather of our present gracious king , who in a publick oration which he pronounced himself in defence of the jesuits , ( among other things ) declares , that he was very well satisfied with the jesuits doctrine concerning kings , as believing it conformable to what the best doctors of the church have taught . but why do i relate the testimony of one particular prince , when the whole catholick world is the jesuits advocate ? for to them chiefly germany , france , italy , spain , and flanders , trust she education of their youth , and to them in a great measure they trust their own souls to be governed in the sacraments . and can you imagine so many great kings and princes , and so many wise statists , should do or permit this to be done in their kingdoms , if the jesuites were men of such damnable principles , as they are now taken for in england ? in the third place , dear countreymen , i do attest , that as i never in my life did machine or contrive either the deposing or death of the king , so now i do heartily desire of god to grant him a quiet and happy reign upon earth , and an everlasting crown in heaven . for the judges also and the jury , and all those which were any ways concerned either in my trial , accusation , or condemnation , i do humbly ask of god both temporal and eternal happiness : and as for mr. oates and mr. dugdale , who ( i call god to witness ) have brought me by false oaths to this untimely end , i heartily forgive them , because god commands me so to do , and i beg of god in his infinite mercy to grant them true sorrow and repentance in this world , that they may be capable of eternal happiness in the next . and so having discharged my duty towards my self , and innocence to wards my order and its doctrine , to my neighbours and the world , i have nothing else to do now my great god , but to cast my self into the arms of thy mercy , as firmly as i judge that i my self am , as certainly as i believe that you are one divine essence , and three divine persons , and in the second person of the trinity , you became man to redeem me ; i also believe you are an eternal rewarder of good , and a chastiser of bad : in fine , i believe all you have revealed , for your infinite veracity , i hope in you above all things , for your infinite fidelity , and i love you above all things , for your infinite beauty and goodness , and i am heartily sorry that ever i offended so great a god ; with my whole heart i am contended to undergo an ignominious death for the love of you my dear jesus , seeing you have been pleased to undergo an ignominious death for me . as for mr. turner , he spake twice , much to the same purpose and effect with his brethren ; whose speech being too long to be contain'd in this sheet , i thought fit to omit it : but in sum , he professed that he was wholly innocent as to any plot , or conspiracy against the life of his sacred majesty , or the subversion of the government ; which he declared with great earnestness and asseveration , praying god to forgive his judges , jurors , witnesses and accusers . and so laying all their heads to whitebread's , after some secret conference , they made their final exit and catastrophe . reflections upon the murder of s. edmund-bury godfrey the design of thompson, farwell, and paine to sham off that murder from the papists : the late endeavours to prove stafford a martyr and no traitor, and the particular kindnesses of the observator, and heraclitus to the whole design, in a dialogue ; with a dedication from mrs. cellier. 1682 approx. 128 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 18 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a58385 wing r731 estc r36706 15987708 ocm 15987708 104686 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a58385) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 104686) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1155:18) reflections upon the murder of s. edmund-bury godfrey the design of thompson, farwell, and paine to sham off that murder from the papists : the late endeavours to prove stafford a martyr and no traitor, and the particular kindnesses of the observator, and heraclitus to the whole design, in a dialogue ; with a dedication from mrs. cellier. cellier, elizabeth, fl. 1680. [4], 32 p. printed for a.b. and published by l. curtiss, london : 1682. dedication signed: eliz. cellier. imperfect: print show-through. reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng godfrey, edmund berry, -sir, 1621-1678. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2006-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-08 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-07 taryn hakala sampled and proofread 2007-07 taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion reflections upon the murder of s. edmund-bury godfrey : the design of thompson , farwell , and paine , to sham off that murder from the papists : the late endeavours to prove stafford a martyr , and no traitor : and the particular kindnesses of the observator and heraclitus to the whole design . in a dialogue . with a dedication from mrs. cellier . london , printed for a. b. and published by l. curtiss , anno domini 1682. to the counts of the empire , &c. my lords , there has been a great hurly-burly about the death of sir edmund-bury godfrey , publick justice has made her report to heaven , that he was murdered by the papists ; but the papists scandaliz'd at the wickedness of the action , would fain have made the world believe that he killed himself . my lords , 't is well known , how far i have contributed my personal pains , before and since that my advice to bring this noble design to pass . but i think the devil owes us a shame , we have always the ill luck to meet either with fools or knaves : when it comes to the pinch , what we well contrive is defeated , by the ill management of our instruments . the observator indeed did indifferent well ; for he gave a sparring-blow at praunce's reputation , and back'd our friend thompson i'the very nick , the very morning before the trial. i chuckl'd again when i heard of the vintner's boys ; they put me in mind of the st. omers lads . but as for f. and p. and all their witnesses , 't was money meerly thrown away . but let us not despond my lords , if one thing fails another will hit , and we shall hit it at last : in the mean time , 't is my advice , that you keep up the observator's spirits and double his salary . it will be a thorn i' their sides that swore him at the queens chappel , as long as he lives . facit indignatio dialogos , my lords — and though the heraclitick cabal be of little moment , let it not sink : all helps , as the wren said : but above all ( since you may have so many protestant booksellers to do it ) let the ld. c's vindication of the english catholicks , his memento , and the ld. stafford's memoirs be reprinted . those gentlemen puzzl'd the people with their if's and their ands , and how is it possibles , at a strange rate . they had a brave design to persuade men out of their reason and their senses ; and i am persuaded all that believe in the observator , and heraclitus , will believe in them. i beseech you , my lords , take these things into your considerations ; for you have leisure enough , and believe that she will never forsake you , unless you forsake her , who is ▪ your lordships most devoted servant , eliz. cellier . reflections , &c. a. think on 't ? why i think on 't as bad as ever i did : i think that the papists did murther sir edmund-bury godfrey : and i think it was one of the most horrid and barbarous murders that have been perpetrated upon a private person for many ages . b. not so barbarous neither by what i can find by the relation , for they did not put him to any lingring torments : they only flung the handkercher about his neck , and pull'd i' the devil's name . the turkish mutes could not have done it with more dexterity . a. you must know they were in hast : but had they had leisure enough , i hold you a wager , they would have kept him a whole fortnight a dying ? b. why so malicious ? a. the papists tell ye the reason themselves , he had examined people against them , and had got depositions to fix odious crimes upon them and their religion . b. did the ruine of all their designs depend upon sir edmund-bury godfrey's life ; or did they think they had got caligula's wish to have all the necks of the english protestants in the twisted handkercher that strangl'd him ? a. what e're they thought , it fell out ill for them . for the kingdom alarum'd by the first discoveries of the plot , was almost hush't asleep again by the double diligence of the plots true friends and abettors : the whole nation seem'd to have swallow'd opium for a time , till the murther of this innocent gentleman , no body knew why nor by whom , rouz'd it out of that lethargic humour , and the loud cries of his blood put all honest men upon a diligent enquiry after the authors of the murther , neither was it long before the discovery was fully made out . b. and then the plot was believ'd . a. it was so — and good reason too , when it was clearly found out that papists , and popish priests were the main actors in the tragedy . b. well but who made the discovery ? a. prance . b. pox o' prance — he — he 'l lye and swear any thing — he 'l swear an oyster to be a dark lanthorn for five shillings — a. how ! take heed what you say — did you ever see his narrative — b. no — nor never will — i see such a rascals narrative ! a. why , this is right hair-brain●s , right tory all over , yet i must tell ye , the narrative is licens'd , sunderland , in pursuance of his majesties order in council . b. puh ! that was in shaftsbury's reign — but alass a day there have been a hundred since that have contradicted him . a. who can contradict matter of fact ? he was an actor in the tragedy , and saw the business done . b. hang him i don't believe a word he says — why look ye , to confront him , there 's the lord c. and viscount staffords ghost . a. and what of them ? b. why the one puts the question very solidly , i say very solidly , how it could be ? and the other says absolutely , it was impossible it should be so . two arguments that are never to be answered . a. this 't is to be a man of an implicite and easy faith 〈…〉 considering that these murder-shammers are parties concern'd — it behooves them with all the cunning that jesuitism 〈…〉 ruse into their brains , to repair the contaminated credit of the romish church . the murder of sir e. b. g. is one of the great corroboratives of their popish plot. so that if they could but wash away the stains of his blood , they would soon ease themselves of the burthen of the hellish conspiracy laid to their charge . therefore hic labor , hoc opus . what a coyle did they keep after this , with their farwells , their paines , and their thompsons ? they thought the day had been their own : they were cock-sure that now they had obumbrated truth with a cloud of witnesses : and what is become of the project ? now the deluded fools look like monkeys that have swallowed aloes . b. whig juries — whig juries — a. no — no — that 's your grand mistake — a jury of transilvanians would have done the same — their own evidence evicted 'em — & so the hugeous mountain brought forth a mouse — the tower-politicks — the newgate-consultations , and the fair ladies female travel and assistance came to nothing . b. don't talk on 't , the jury did not read — a. no — the jury don't use to read at the bar. b. i mean they did not read the observator — the observator that came out that morning . a. what about the scale and impertinent story of the antipendium and the brass screws . b. no , no , not that . a. oh , i find ye our , ye mean the story of the vintners boys . a hopeful story indeed of a protestant observator . though i must confess 't was well nick'd , and well improv'd to help a lame popish curr over the stile . by which you may see how the observator and thompson hung together , and drove on , both , the same interest . what he got by 't , he may put in his eye ; if the tories are not wholly wedded to their own blindness , and it is thought that that mornings work has open'd the eyes of a good many already . b. why did not p. swear that he never sent for l. s. the night before , when he did ? a. what if he had sent for him , and then rashly sworn the contrary ? ( though that cannot be prov'd neither ; it being another person that sent for him ) what signified a rash oath in a tavern to enervate a judicial oath in a court of justice ? only it shew'd the nimble double diligence of the observator to send his emissaries to drill a leash of raw boys into a sort of fram'd forms of affidavits , that signified nothing to the purpose had they been sworn , and how zealous he was to have protected his three friends that were running post to the devil to serve the popish cause . wink with one eye , and see whether you can spie nothing . b. there 's no such necessity sir — one pope , one king of france , one observator's enough at one time . a. nay you do well to make much of him , for you 'l never get such another . they say he 's such a parlous observator , that he 'l observe a mutiner among the mites in a cheese , & that he smells so of loyalty , that there 's never a monarchical bee in england will offer to sting him . he labors day and night drudges like a camel , & so profusely fills the world with his volumes of wast paper , as if he foresaw a famine of bumfodder . b. however he has done a great deal of good , he has knockt down fanaticism like an ox , & dissenterism like a calf , he has trod upon the asp and the basilisk , as alex. he trod upon barbarossa's neck . a. yes , and you see how fairly he let drive at the reputation of the kings evidence ( a reputation of much more consequence to the kingdom than forty such as his is ) on purpose to ward the stroke of justice from subornation , and to ease the papists of the load of the most barbarous murther , that the lust of woman , or the ambition of a caesar borgio ever committed . which could he have done , the coach & six horses must have return'd again , for the popish mints could have done no less then have wrought a month for his satisfaction . hereafter too he shall be canoniz'd , and all the popish ora pro nobis's shall be addressed to him , the most proper to be their intercessor in heaven , that did them such faithful service upon earth . but for men of sense and reason , unless it be some few of his own flie-blown party , they deride his mummery and impertinence . b. but i hope you 'l grant ther'e 's somthing due to the witty heraclitus . a. not the value of a straw — that corporation of duncerie has but just brains and rhume enough to keep the ship afloat . they are many , but they have exhausted themselves like silk-worms , or rather like gentleman ushers in the harlotry service of their own prostituted conceits ; and so you may leave 'm to the scorn and contempt where you found ' em . as for thompson , paine , and farwell , should this world deal with 'em according to their deserts , it is resolved that they shall escape purgatory in the other , though it were very requisite , one would think , that they should have a little purgation by fire , from the dross of willful submission to subornation , and premeditated perjury : for else it can never be expected that the popes single pass should ever give them entrance into heaven . well but wee 'l suppose , they are never like to come there . then care must be taken by his holiness on the other hand , and great means used to rhadamanthus besides , that when they come into the lower regions , they be not thrown into harpie's wood , under the title of ruffians ; for though they did not murther the poor innocent gentleman , yet after he was murthered , they endeavoured their utmost to assassinate the memory of his good name and reputation . now this wood is a terrible wood , purposely for the punishment of ruffians , wherein they are no sooner entred , but down come the harpies from the top of the boughs , and make most miserable havock of their flesh and sinews , and then hunt them with other ruffians in the shape of dogs , into the center of the wood , where having no other way to escape , they are forced to leap out of the frying-pan into the fire , and plunge themselves into a great lake of brimstone and flame , through which they sink down right into utter darkness , in secula seculorum . amen . but now what says the ld. staffords hobgoblin , a main stickler in this business of sir edmund ? in the first place he braggs of the education in the flesh , and his endowments of grace , which italy indeed , according to custom , connived at , but which germany had like to have punished with the utmost severity of her laws , had not his nearest relations been as careful then of his redemption , as before of his education . next he tells us of his high marriage , and his being made a baron by his late majesty . the more ingrateful he to turn traitor to his prince , the most gratious son of such a gratious father , to whom he had been so paternally beholding . then he boasts his sufferings for his loyalty to the king. not so much it seems out of love of loyalty , as out of reward . for because k. charl. 2d , did not satisfie his expectation , therefore he mutter'd & grumbled , & entred into a conspiracy to take away his life . for this , saith he , the lord was accused of high treason , and because he did not presently betake him to his heels , as a wiser man would have done , therefore he was innocent . but in such cases , to out-face danger is no sign of innocence . for catiline took his place in the senate , when he knew his conspiracy was detected ; and biron , though he knew himself engaged in a deep design against his prince , was so hardy as to appear before the king to justifie himself , and to demand justice upon his accusers ; so idle a thing it is to judge of innocence by the daring boldness of the criminal . nor was the over-confident coleman the more innocent for approaching the council chambers at the same time that his own treasonable letters were under examination . after this he would insinuate , that because . as he says , the evidence was yet weak , for farther discovery , indempnitys were promis'd , rewards propos'd , and encouragement given by proclamation to any that would make cut upon oath th● particulars of what was in substance already declar'd . which he supposes to have bin wrongfully done , or else why this insinuation ? and thus the king and his parliament are by a skulking traytor accus'd of injustice at the first dash . and thus it is apparent that we are to expect from him nothing but calumnies thrown upon our sovereign and obtrusions upon the people , of the highest nature . for as for indempnities promis'd , there was all the reason in the world ; it not being to be thought , that any guilty persons should run themselves into a halter , before they had some assurance of their lives . nor were they then safe neither , unless they made out to the discerning judgment of the king and his council ; what they alleadg'd to be sacred truth ; and then assuredly they deserved their indempnity , as it was but all the reason in the world they should have it . but this impartial gentleman would have had 'em come in of their own accords , confess'd their treasons , and so his work had bin done , by stiffling the plot in the birth of discovery . but tho this were for his interest it was neither for the kings nor the nations . as for rewards promis'd , there was no such thing at first done , any farther , than to such as should come in and discover the murtherers of sir edmondbury godfrey . which in such cases has bin the practice of those in authority in all ages and governments . by this , saith he , and the like sedulity of the king and the succeeding parliaments ( his traytorship had as good have call'd it by some other enormous name , for we know what he means ) came in captain bedlow . wherein he most impartially tells a most notorious falshood . for bedlow came in of his own accord , or rather , as he himself declar'd , by the impulse of heaven , as being convinc'd by the wicked designs of mr. impartial's fellow conspirators . next , faith he , dugdale and prance : by which wilful mistake of order , he driven on the continued fallacy of his story : for prance came not in , but was accus'd by bedlow and apprehended . before dugdale came in , coleman and staley were both executed ; which gave the king such high satisfaction , that then indeed , and not before , he issued forth a proclamation upon the 28th . of november , with offer of pardon and two hundred pounds to any person concern'd in the plot , that would come in before the 25. of decemb. for by the conviction of staley , the malice of the papists hearts appear'd , tho they conceal'd it with better discretion . by the conviction of coleman , the whole nation and they that doubted most were convinc'd of the truth of the design . so that it was then high time for his majesty to use all possible diligence to dive into the bootom of a contrivance so deeply and villanously laid . however , we may from hence take notice , that the impudence of the papists is arrived at a strange height , when their champion , mr. impartiall , shall dare to tax the king with injustice for endeavouring his own , and the preservation of his kingdom . certainly they have some strange confidence of sudden revolutions , which ought to make all true protestants the more vigilant . there is one thing more observable in the first paragraph of this section , where he says , that stafford was in his impeachment , charg'd together with other papists . speak out sir , you should have said , other false traytors . how finely would mr. impartial mince the matter ? but 't is well known the vicount was not charg'd as a papist , but as a traytor . nevertheless those words false traytors had too much aloes in them for the niceness of popish mastication : however he might have swallow'd 'em for once , though it had bin only for impartialities sake . but let mr. impartial mince the matter as he pleases , the lord stafford was charg'd as a traytor with other false traytors nam'd in his impeachment , and so fell before a high authority , illustrious judges , and an august assembly . all which being true , it argues a transcendent presumption in mr. impartial , to encounter such a high authority , such illustrious judges , and such an august assembly , with his dwindling memoirs . as if so high an authority , so illustrious judges , and so august an assembly were not competent judges of vicount stafford's treasons , and the validity of the evidence . let the whole nation take notice of that . after a recapitulation of the several depositions he comes to the second paragraph of this section . which he calls the papists plea. wherein he has these words at the beginning . wherefore though it be not my design to defend popery , yet i think it very pertinent and necessary to insert here some of those many things the papists in general did and do still constantly alleadge in vindication of their innocence . in which lines he manifestly gives himself the lye. for he will not undertake to defend popery , but will vindicate the papists ; as if the papists did not profess popery . pull off your vizard sir , that we may know who you are : for there is a considerable wager laid , that you your self are one of the bloudy conspirators themselves . now , if you are not , win if you can . else all the world will believe it impossible for any protestant to be so baulingly , yawlingly zealous to dishonour his prince and native nation . sir , the protestants are men of as much learning , of as much knowledge , and as acute judgments as ever the papists were , since the first usurpation of your pope ; men free from the blinds of silly superstition , men of a clearer and more noble religion , which inspires a clearer and more illuminated reason , than ever popery could pretend to . and you must not think that the sence and reason of the protestant english nation is so stupify'd , that they cannot understand truth from falshood without the assistance of a piece of monstrosity in nature , that appears centaur-like , with two shapes in one body , protestant before , papist behind , or papist before , protestant behind , no matter which ; or if this simile please not , like a spread-eagle with two necks . this is a meer piece of papistical cunning , and pure sham , and already discover'd . you must profess your self a protestant , and then the papists must cry out . oh! we are innocent , for the protestants themselves have defended our cause . you had better have appear'd as you are , for double shapes must have double tongues and double hearts . deal fairly now , and tell us what you had of the papists for this laborious piece of ingenuity , and you shall have the same piece to answer your own book ; for 't is the trick of a mungr●l to bark at friend and foe . well — but what say your employers the papists ? some papistical pharaohs certainly , that set you thus to make brick without straw . the papists plead , that 't is not the clamour of the h●inousness and horrour of a crim imputed , but the guilt and clear conviction of a crime prov'd , that renders a man accountable to justice . what a cunning evasion has mr. impartial found out ? the stress of this plea lyes upon the words , imputed and prov'd . but sir , vicount stafford did not lye under the single imputation of a crime , but under an impeachment in parliament of the commons of england , which is many degrees beyond a single imputation . it was vox populi , vox dei , no clamour that prosecuted the heinousness and horrour of the crime . then for proof . he was convicted by a proof allow'd of by a high authority , illustrious judges , and an august assembly , and therefore most consequently be guilty . the second plea is , that as treason is the worst of crimes , so is the stain of innocent bloud ( when shed by perjury ) hard to be washed off . you should have told us some news , mr. impartial , this is that which all men know . where 's your proof of any act of perjury committed ? that you should have made out first , before you had thus maliciously gone about to besmear the king and the kingdom with such a bloudy stain , as if they had taken off the lord staffords head by perjury . for the inference is plain ; and if you pretend to be a subject to the monarch of great britain , i must tell you , mr. impartial , your way of pleading for the papists is very sawcy . your next plea is , that the positive swearing of every person in every matter or manner hand over head , is no conviction of anothers guilt . i know not what you mean by hand over head , unless it be to impose upon the ignorant . but if there are any who understand not yet so much ▪ they are to know that the testimony against vicount stafford , pass'd all the sorutiny and sifting imaginable of both houses ; the lords of the council , and two committees of secresie . the attorney general also , the sollicitor general and the kings council had the scanning of the proof — and yet mr. impartial is such an unreasonable man that nothing will satisfie him . what prodigious parts does mr. impartial aspire to , that after so much serious debate and deliberation , he should think so many great , venerable and learned personages should not understand whether witnesses swore hand over head or no , as well as a popish advocate . certainly he must think so high an authority , such illustrious judges ; such an august assembly had very little to do to put themselves to the solemn trouble of hearing hand over head evidences . the papists next plea is , that false accusations may be so laid , as that the contrary cannot possibly be demonstrated by the party accus'd ; seeing no mortal man can distinctly prove where he was , and what he did , said or heard every day and hour of his life . wonderful ! how condescendingly does mr. impartial court and flatter the assistance of his own dreams . alas , sir , you may assure your clients , that there was no such heavy task impos'd upon his lordship as to be so particular or so punctual . but such remarkable passages as overt acts of treason , the times and places of consultations and making promises , nay large promises too , are not so easily to be forgot , but that with a willing mind a man might rub up his memory . but what 's the grand inference from this minute assertion . 1. that the accuser ought to be a credible witness , that is not tainted with crimes and villanies . 2. that accusers be strengthened with probable circumstances , circumstances that bring along with them some appearance of truth distinct from the bare accusation it self . but neither of these two essential conditions are found in the evidence given of this pretended plot. for first , what manner of men the witnesses are , they who make these discoveries , how notorious , infamous ; how stigmatiz'd with all sorts of felonies , forgeries , cheats , debaucheries and wickedness . — stop sir — now we are come to the devil 's sheepshearing : here 's a great cry and little wool : why , sir , you know the proverb , like will to like . such as these were onely fit for your turns . you have been told often enough of this , and yet you will take no notice of it , but bring your plausible stories over and over again . who do you think would undertake to assassinate princees but such ? who do you think would do the drudgery of your mischief but such ? i am confident if you should expect to have had it done by any other hands you must have done it your selves . but all this while here is onely clamour and noise , and the imputation of crimes . you tell us indeed of intelligent protestants that know much , and publick records , but produce neither persons nor parchment . so then to give you an answer by your own words ; it is not the clamour of the heinousness and horrour of a crime imputed , but the clear conviction of a crime prov'd , that renders a man guilty and lyable to your accusations . but now suppose they had been guilty of the crimes you lay to their charge , and had added to the rest one more of being guilty of that conspiracy which you so vigorously defend ; if the king find they have been so considerably employed in your service , that they are able to do him service in the disclosing and bringing to punishment such traitors as your self against his person ; and to that end give them his royal pardon , in full of all crimes and treasons , and grant them firmam pacem fuam , whereby they become new men , homines legales ; and consequently lawful accusers and witnesses : will not you allow them so much gratitude , as to lend so great a benefactor the assistance of their discovery , and their testimony for the preservation of himself and his kingdom ? 't is a common thing at every gaol-delivery to pardon a little rogue to hang a greater , the pope himself would do what has been done upon the same occasion . for example , can any man think that pius the 4th . was so ungodly as not to reward those that discovered to him the conspiracy of accolti : 't was well for him there were rogues i' the company , or else it might have cost him his sweet life . you know these things mr. imparrial , well enough , yet such is your ambition to defend a bad cause , that you will vindicate treason rather than want honour . now for the circumstances , they do not please him at all . there are none he says , confirm the bare oath . no! that 's strange . there are the circumstance of time and place : there are the circumstances , of by such and such a token ; what would this treason-varnisher have more ? but of that let the impartial reader be judge . that 's nothing : they are a meer bundle of contradictions , moral impossibilities and nonsence . as how ? here is a plot forsooth contriv'd by the papists . is that such a moral impossibility ? 't is not the first that they have contriv'd by the first in queen elizabeths time , by the second in king james's time , by the third in charles the first 's time ; and now by the fourth in charles the second 's time. 't is their frequent practise ; you need not so much wonder at it . but it was at a time when they had the least or rather no reason to seek changes ; the fittest time in the world , when they thought they were most trusted and least suspected . to kill the king ; by whose merciful indulgence they lived in peace . the more ungrateful beasts they . but what 's that to the purpose ? they kill'd two of their own natural sovereigns ; and is it such a miracle they should attempt the life of a heretick ? to wade through bloud to an uncertain liberty , which they already sufficiently enjoy'd ; not so sufficiently neither ; they wanted their abby-lands ; their priests lay under the lash of the penal laws ; and what they enjoyed was onely by stealth . to free themselves from which bondage , they thought themselves cocksure of one stroke that would have done their business . and for wading in the bloud of hereticks , 't is as natural to a papist , as bathing in a cool stream in summer . witness the massacres of france , and ireland ; the monuments of their cruelty all over germany , piedmont ; q. maries persecutions ; and the implacable and merciless cruelty of their spanish inquisitior . but then to overthrow the government , for the re-establishment of which they so frankly in the late wars expos'd their lives and fortunes . this is a fair story , but a false one . for if there were any that expos'd their lives and fortunes in the late wars , they did it meerly for their own ends , for preservation and protection , as less fearing their episcopal , then their puritan enemies . neither will the author of vindiciae caroli regis , who had not a little reason to examin the popish loyalty of that time allow it to be otherwise ; nay , he positively asserts it for the true reason . but they were so far from exposing their lives and fortunes for the government , that they as well fought against it in the field , insomuch , that salmonet , a popish priest , affirms in his history of the troubles of england , that several popish priests were found dead among the slain at edghill ; and besides that several roman catholicks serv'd in the parliament army . and in one of his late majestie 's declarations in answer to the long parlaments false imputation of his favouring and employing roman catholicks in his army , we find these words , all men know the great number of papists which serve in their army , commanders and others . so your boasting the papists so frankly exposing their lives and fortunes for the late king , is a meer rodomontado , and the contrary is justified by the king himself : nay it is plain by his own words in the same declaration , that he forbad them to come to his succour . and therefore let mr. impartial not think to flatter the nation with such an officious lye , under the pretence of a moral improbability . for 't is the roman catholick interest in this nation , that interest which they can never recede from , not onely to abrogate the penal laws , and to become capable of employment in the commonwealth , but to introduce their religion , restore the rights of their church , and extirpate all that they esteem as hereticks . they that fondly otherwise believe , do but accelerate the ruine of their religion , and their country . if there were any that did well , to assist their prince then , they did as ill now to conspire his destruction . neither is it any reason , because there may be some papists good subjects , that others may not be as wicked , which may in part suffice to answer his next wonder . for we have nothing else but wonders and miracles deliver'd for arguments . wonders that any man of sense would wonder how they should be wonder'd at , but onely wonder-working mr. impartial , as for example , this plot , saith he , must be carried on by persons of quality , most remarkable perhaps for firmness and loyalty ) that perhaps was well put in and now through age and infirmities , retired from publick business , and weary of the world ; that is in english impeached of high treason , and locked up in the tower. now i would fain know where the wonder lies , that a plot should be carried on by persons of quality . persons of quality are most apt to think themselves injur'd ; persons of quality are most subject to revenge ; and persons of quality are most able to head parties and factions in a nation . nay , rather , let mr. imparial tell me whereever any plot was carried on without persons of quality ? the very plots of simnel and perkin warbeck were carried on by persons of quality against henry the 7th . there were more persons of quality in bycons conspiracy , than henry the 4th . would venture to provoke by a present detection . what was the holy league , while it was private , but a plot , carried on by the pope himself , a person certainly of very great quality , against henry the 3d. and why might not their popish plot be managed by persons of quality , as well as other popish plots ? and if so , why not by the persons of quality accused , rather than others not accused . the wonder is how those persons of quality have escaped their punishments so long as they have done . that 's a wonder makes more people wonder , than will ever admire at mr. impartial's silly , simple miracles of persons of quality being in a plot. but then here 's another wonder , that the whole body of roman catholicks , men before this hour , of known worth , virtue and integrity , and unblemished reputation , must be all involv'd by vows and sacraments in a design so black and execrable , that god and nature abhor to think of it . setting a side your complement to god and nature , for god we verily believe is displeased with , and nature abhors many foul deeds , which the papists neither abhor , nor are displeased with ; the rest of your wonder , is a meer hyperbolical fallacy , as groundless as vanity it self . for the body of the roman catholicks , that is those persons which mr. impartial , for his feo , calls persons of known worth , virtue integrity , and unblemished reputation , are the very persons most likely to be combin'd together in this design , which he has leave from his employers to call black and execrable ; for such is the nature of popish bigottism ; such the infatuated heat of its professors ; such the awe and dread of their consciences under the charms of their priesthood : so pinching and terrible are the chains of their oath ; such their inbred enmity to hereticks that the more conscientious and devout they are they more religiously they believe themselves bound to conceal what ever designs are on foot for the propagation of the romish interest , and the extirpation of hereticks ; so that if mr. impartial mean by the whole body of the roman catholicks , those persons whom he calls , men of worth , virtue , integrity and uublemished reputation , that is , such as the grand conspirators thought fit to trust with their intreague ; 't is but very weakly supposed , that such persons should think it any loss of those high characters which mr. impartial gives them ; to conceal a design so highly to the advantage of the see of rome . the whole body , mr. impartial ▪ there is the juggle of your supposition . we do not believe the whole body of roman catholicks , knew of the blackness and execrableness of your design ; but many were told by their priests and confessors , that there was a design carrying on for the good of the catholick cause ; and that was necessary to procure the milk of contribution . and so far this nation has all the reason to belieue , that the whole body of roman catholicks was concern'd in this plot. then for the loss of their honour , and hazard of ruining themselves and their families , they that were in darkness knew not their danger , and the rest knew there was little . for had they compass'd their ends , they had had their advantages ; and we are too deeply sensible that they had some strange assurances how little they should suffer , if they 〈◊〉 he goes on with a mighty wonder , if it be not a greater wonder that he could be so impudent as to write it ; in this plot , says he , are said to be engaged , for several years together divers nations , england , scotland , ireland , france , italy , spain , germany , &c. what a deal of high-flown forgery and fallacy is here● a meer amusing 〈…〉 y-eatching piece of cajolry : with which , if the english protestants will let their indignation against the late discover'd plot be laid asleep , they will not want for worse . where are those mountanous accusations against all england , all scotland , all france , all ireland , all spain , all germany ? no true englishman can doubt but that for the carrying on the late plot there were romish correspondencies , spanish correspondencies , irish correspondencies , and for the french correspondencies we have testimony sufficient . but to make inferences from national accusations , where never any were , was a romance of mr. impartials own hyperbolical 〈◊〉 . and therefore to say truth , whoever undertook to put such fallacious shamms and tricks upon the already too much injur'd english protestants , in the vindication of treason and villany , deserves more the whip and the pillory , than those persons he calls rak'd out of jayle : for no person rak'd out of hell can be worse than himself . but yet to shew that there may be that thing that comes very near a national concealment of a conspiracy . the rebellion in ireland , how closely , how cunningly was it managed , without the least discovery till the kingdom ran with bloud , and massaere lay in heaps , yet none of all that vast number had any remorse for so bloudy a treason , none all that while had the worth , wit of grace to reveal it . this was somewhat hard to believe , and yet was true . being got into his romances he cannot get out of 'em , but goes on raving , and still amusing the ignorant with a noise of armies improbable for their numbers ; which is nothing to the purpose ; for all this riffraff makes it nothing the less improbable , but that men engag'd in such designs of universul massacre , intended convenient levies , and convenient quantitys of arms and ammunition for those levies , and therefore is a thing not so much to be wondred at . 't is no matter for number or quantity , 't is the intent of raising forces against the establish'd government , and providing arms and ammunition for these forces , and that discours'd of , and consulted upon that makes the treason our , as effectually in the eye of the law , as if the men had bin levy'd , or the money paid into the lord staffords hands . so then , the intent of raising forces , and the actual banking of money for arms and ammunition being positively sworn , as it was , and all for carrying on this detestable , tho as detestably vindicated plot , mr. impartial must not think to bury such a plot in the rubbish of his impertinent raillery . but he runs on in his poetical raptures ( a very pretty way of refuting a demonstrated plot ) and crys , we are told of hundreds of seal'd commissions , for all sorts of military officers ; and god knows how many bushels of letters and papers , all containing most damnable treason , sent nevertheless up and down at random , some by the common post , others by such messengers as oates , bedlow , dugdale and dangerfield , who , as bosom counsellers , were still made privy to what was sent . understand sir , once more , that number and quantity signifie nothing , and all your hyperboles of hunderds and bushels are not worth a rush ▪ but where is the improbability of granting commissions ▪ who more fit , or who had greater authority to grant these commissions than the great general of your religion the pope , from whom you and the rest of the conspirarators , deriv'd all their power . dr. oates , whose testimony your ridioulous memoirs , that have nothing in 'em but defamation and railing , can never invalidate , tells ye of several commissions that he gave to several persons by name himself . that whitebreads commission together with several papers and letters were seiz'd , at the same time that his person was apprehended . at another time harcourt's papers were seiz'd , and after that a plentiful parcel of letters were publickly printed , full of cyphers , all relating to the plot , then add to this , that several of your seals have bin produc'd in court. more than all this , there was nothing more frequently boasted in the common discourses of the papists at that time one among another , then that the roman catholick religion would suddenly flourish in england , that they had considerable armies , raising for that purpose , and that the lords in the tower had not only commissions themselves , but had given out commissions to several others , viz. one to talbot of langford , another to sir h. beningfield of oxborough , another to one mr. stoner , and several others , ireland declar'd in his own chamber at that time , that there would shortly be fifty thousand men in arms , and being ask'd for what ? we must have them speedily , said he , to settle our religion here , or else all will be ruin'd . which argu'd , that there were plenty of popish commissions then in england , whate'r is become of them . but mr. impartial , being a protestant , as he pretends , too easily , 't is to be fear'd , takes his employers words . where is next the improbability that your packets , tho full of damnable treason , might not be sent by the common post ? the king has no inquisitor that sits in his publick office to break open gentlemens letters , and examine the contents . more then that , there was a packet , and a large one too , sent by the common post , directed to father benningfield , that by a lucky fate to you and your employers , mist falling into the hands of those that would have made better use of it . lastly , where 's the improbability that such persons as you strive to defame , should not be trusted by those profound head-pieces your employers . they were under the same , as you call'd them , sacred oaths of secresie , and sent to be charm'd with your idolatrous eucharist thrice a week . what great policy had vicount stafford that he might not trust dugdale so firmly bound ? what more than ordinary piercing wits or discerning faculties had any of the lords in the tower , that they might not trust dangerfield under the same sacred obligation ? or what reach above common women had that busie , lustful cellier , she that was your jayle-raker , sir , and not ours , i say , what sublimity of judgment had she , that she might not trust her so highly gratify'd favourite ? if they were not fit to be trusted , why had they those oaths of secresie given them ; why were they treated so often with those holy morsels at your chappels ? but if those religious tyes were put upon them , as most certainly they were , what wonder is it then they should be trusted ? certainly , were they those rakeshames that the worshipful mr. impartial makes of 'em ; solemn oaths of secresie and the eucharist go at a cheap rate among the papists , that they should be so often forc'd upon the whip'd and the pillory'd , and the infamous , meerly to be sent to buy mapps for a jesuites colledge , or to pick up a broken merchants debts , so then it remains , that these persons that could not be other than demy-saints when they were papists , as having so much holy wafer lodg'd in their bodies , are only turn'd reprobates since they made their discoveries . which being so plain , it is not to be question'd but that they had opportunities enough to make their discoveries according to their various trusts and employments , as being persons of quality sacredly bound up by so many holy obligations as they then believ'd they were . since then it was impossible that among papists they could be miscreants , after so much purification and sanctification , tho without the kings pardon , we will make no dispute to justifie their honesty , their integrity , and their loyalty now they have obtain'd the kings forgiveness . for the papists are to understand , that the king of england's pardon is of greater efficacy to cleanse a man from his offences , than if he should bath in a tub of holy water every day i' the year , and then receive absolution from ten thousand lubberly priests . being then made good men by the high prerogative of the kings mercy , tho fools and knaves still take the boldness to defame them , they are witnesses legal , every way justifiable , and not to be disputed against by any good or loyal subject of the king. and since they have sworn to a plot wherein they were actors themselves , design'd to the destruction of the king and kingdom , the nation is bound to believe 'em , notwithstanding all the frivolous clamour of the lord staffords memoirs . from these and other the like grounds , the protestants do infer , that there is no credit to be given to the bare suppositions of a memoir-monger , scribling at such a wild and incoherent rate , and so scandalous to the king and the whole government . and they further appeal to the judgment of every impartial conscientious man whether it be not more likely that the papists , a people generally of debauch'd and murderous principles , that bear no consciences towards hereticks , persecuted by penal laws , allur'd by the recovery of their abby-lands , encourag'd and supported by great interest in the kingdom , should be induc'd out of their hatred of the protestant religion , and for the advancement of their own , which is the popish interest , to remove the obstacles of their happiness by the destruction of a heretick prince , and all his most loyal subjects , then that a few inconsiderable persons , without any support or encouragement , should dare to create such a bloudy and horrid plot of their own heads , and then venture their lives by daring to justifie such a plot to the face of king , lords and commons of england , had it bin true , that so many noble , prudent , loyal and virtuous persons , as mr. impartial calls 'em , were not really concern'd in it . no , no , mr. impartial , had not this horrid , bloudy , tho as you call it absurd and morally impossible plot bin true , really , morally , unquestionably true , your employers , who have spent so many thousand pounds , besides the plodding , designing , contriving labour of great and politick headpieces , to subdue this plot , and yet for their souls cannot do it , would soon have trip'd up the heels of three or four debauch'd wretches , of lost consciences and desperate fortunes . in the next place he comes to coleman's letters , tho he make but a short stay upon 'em , as finding 'em too hot for his fingers . he is forc'd to bring forth a confession , but disliking the countenance of his brat , he endeavours to murder it again with a piece of sordid sophistry , so palpable and notorious , that any one but an impartial papist would be asham'd of it . he confesses that those letters manifestly denote the busie designes and activity of the writers ; yet so far from confirming dr. oates plot , that they directly evince the contrary . as how ? for the whole subject and context of those letters , bear a plain and open face of what the authors intended . and did not the tryals and convictions of the jesuites , and the lord stafford himself bear an open face of what the authors intended ? was not coleman seen at the grand consult , at wild house , at l●nghorn's chamber with harcors and white-bread , and others , all members of dr. oate's plot , ordering money to the assassinates , and giving money to the messenger ; and did not this beat an open face of what he intended and if what he , then what the rest of his correspondents ▪ no , for the writers were persons who ( had there been a plot ) were the most likely to have been the main engines and contrivers of it . whither the main or no is not material ; but 't is plain they all did lend their helping hands and heads to it . no , says mr. impartial again , for , we do not find one single syllable in them from whence 〈◊〉 be gathered any such design . look you mr. impartiall . you well know , that the 〈◊〉 discovered by dr. otes , was for the destruction of the king , and subversion of his government . now then pray what mean these passages in coleman's letters ▪ we have here a mighty work upon our hands , no less than the conversion of three kingdome , and by that perhaps the subduing of a pestilent heresie , which has domineerd over a great part of the northern world a long time , there were never such hopes of success since the death of queen mary , as now in our days ; but the opposition we are like to meet with , is also like to be great , so that it imports us to get all the aid and assictance we can ▪ again , your friends the emperour and the pope will have a fair occasion of giving marks of their friendship to mr. — to make the great design succeed , to undermine the intreagues of the merchants , who trade for the parliament and the religion ; and to establish that of the associated catholicks in every place . here is pope and emperour , which confirms what dr. oats swore , as to emissaries being sent into germany . here is designs , and associated catholicks , which denotes that the plot was general . then there was 100000 crowns promised by the pope himself . for what 〈◊〉 to satisfie the imaginary conceits and overweening policiey of four or five aspiring men ? sure mr. impartial , you could not imagine your holy father the pope to be such a buffle head . then observe this passage . the reports of a bishop for england are chimeras , that having bee● long since disposed of . by which it is plain , that the bishopricks of england were disposed of at rome , in hopes of what ? of the success of four or five aspiring men ? ridete mortules . and then you see coleman setting up a new prince , in every part of his letters , which could not be done without the removal of the present possesour ; which is sworn to have been the intention of your employers . by all which it appears that coleman's plot , and the plot discovered by dr. otes are still the same , viz. the destruction of the king , and the subversion of his government . and thus you see the plot which you would have so sophistically divided , is again coagulated into one . nevertheless , by the way , let all the world take notice , that it was not onely knavishly done to cover coleman's treasons with the tender epithites , meerly , of busie design and activity , but also wickedly done , to infer the innocency of your employers from so notorious a falsehood . but , sir , it fares with you , as it does with many a destructive fox , who being taken by the leg in a trap , is forced to bite off the hampered member to save the rest of his body . he proceeds next to the murther of sir edmundbury godfrey ; to which he puts all his strength , as if he was heaving at a capstal ; but with what success let all the world judg . there is nothing , says he , with an audacious arrogance , to fasten the death of sir edmundbury godfrey upon the roman catholicks , but the bare improbable , though gainful oaths of two infamous persons , bedlow , notorious for cheats and misdemeanours ; and prance self condemned of falshood by the testimony of his own-mouth . and thus you see still the onely four props of the papists defence supposed improbability , scandal , defamation , and downright lying . surely , had mr. impartial had ever any reverence for the lord stafford's memory , he would never have stuft his memoirs with such gulleries and impostures . as for bedloe , he is since deceased , however he stood then , by the king's favour , right in the eye of the law , and therefore here needs no other answer than what has been already given to this stale exception of mr. impartial . as for mr. prance , he , 't is well known was a person never taxed for his life and conversation , before he was drawn into that vile conspiracy by the charms of those infamous ( to return mr. impartial his own word again ) and more then wicked popish priects , who assur'd him , that horrid fact was meritorious both before god and man , and a deed of charity to do it . and being freed from that crime , by the king's mercy and his own cordial repentance , he has made no other alteration in his former life and conversation , then in abandoning that hateful religion that seduc'd him to that misfortune . and for the gain that he got by his oath , he is ready to bequeath it all to mr. impartial for the kindness of his calumnies . there is yet another thing behind . that he condemned himself of fashood from his own mouth ; in which mr. impartial , boldly and very unmannerly gives the lye to the whole court , who upon the plea of the murtherers themselves , absolutely cleared him of that aspersion , but mr. impartial , in this , as in all other things , thinks to carry the day by foul misrepresentation . he swore himself , saith he , an actor in the murther , and afterward before the king and council , unswore what he had said : which is a positive falshood , for that which mr. impartial calls unswearing , was only a bare denial , or rather a retracting in these general & abrupt terms : he was innocent , and they were all innocent . his oath at large was solemnly sworn ; the latter under consternation and fear , in a distemper of body and mind . he consider'd the danger of his life after he had made his confession , as having no pardon . he fear'd the revenge of the bloudy priests and jesuites themselves . he fear'd the loss of his livelihood , which depended upon the work which he had from the queen . and these were the circumstances which caus'd that sudden revolt of his reason ; and that general retractation , which mr. impartial , according to his papistical gift calls a protestation , that he knew nothing of it . but no sooner had he overcome those disturbances of his mind , but he confirm'd his first impeachment upon oath ; and with repentance acknowledg'd that his retractation was occasion'd by consternation and perplexity of mind : of which he requested the keeper of newgate to give an immediate account to the king and council ; who thereupon went accordingly , and declared the same upon oath ; the prisoner himself then falling desparately sick . having thus endeavour'd to sham the world with no less then three apparent fourberies , enter his old friend mr. improbable , like volpone in the play. sir ed. godfrey , saith he , was esteem●d a moderate man , and particularly indulgent to the papists ; and 't is not credible the papists would murther their friend . so much their friend , that when none of the justices of the peace would meddle with dr. otes's depositions , he onely adventur'd to take ' em . after which he himself with his own mouth often declared , how he had bin continually dogg'd by the papists , which caus'd within him strange fears and apprehensions of the danger he was in ; insomuch that he forebeaded of himself , that he , to use his own words , should be the first martyr . alas ! before that time sir edmund might have walk'd the streets at all hours of the night ; there was no body watch'd him , no body dogg'd him before ; but no sooner had the papists received the alarum of the discovery , and that sir edmond had bin so bold as to perform the duty of his office , and take the depositions , but he could not stir a foot without a private lacquey at his heels ; which double diligence and care of his person never ceas'd till they had acted their intended tragedy . so then the reason that mr. impartial urges why the papists were not likely to commit this murder , was the reason why they were most likely to do it . for esteeming him their friend , they took it heinou●ly that their friend should be so unkind as to take depositions against them , and dive so narrowly into their affairs . next the scene must be ( forsooth ) the publick-yard of somerset-house , a thorough-fare of continual intercourse , setting aside the force of that emphatical word forsooth , this is all a story . for somerset-house yard , then inhabited by few or none but priests and papists , at that time of the year , at that time of night , after nine of the clock , is well known to be no common thorough-fare . but it was within twenty paces of the common guards where watch is kept night and day . how notably he has dropt in the word is ( for he would fain be thought to tell truth but then there were no common guards , no watch day or night , but only a file or two of souldiers in respect to the kings palace , that never watch'd at that time but only at the great portal , and they well employ'd by the murtherers with drink and tobacco ; and this is the truth . now where would mr. impartial have had the papists have murder'd sir edmondbury godfrey , but in a place ▪ wholly at their devotion ? then saith he , to feign a quarrel , to call sir edmond out of the street ▪ and yet that neither passengers , souldiers nor neighbours should observe any thing of the tumult , and this he calls , ironically , a notable policy . oh sir , 't was a loving quarrel , a silent quarrel , a trapa 〈…〉 ing quarrel , there was no noise or tumult for passengers to take notice of , or for invisible neighbours or souldiers to hear ; an amicable quarrel to inveigle sir edmond not so much to appease that quarrel , but to prevent a further pretended mischief . and so , sir , it was a notable policy , especially so well succeeding , and such a one that a popish priest for all his high-flown parts , might not be asham'd to own . but then , they strangled him with a handkerchief , a very proper instrument , studied and contrived before hand to strangle a man. you should have put in long sir , for so 't is in the original . i confess . i know not what experience in strangling or hanging mr. impartial may have , for he assumes to himself to be a great iudge , and yet if he will not believe a long handkerchief to be a proper instrument for the business , he may , when he pleases , try the conclusion upon himself . but then after the business was done , they let him lye expos'd in this open place . and thus the world may see how the concatenation of this fallacious mr. impartial's imposture depends upon meer storys of his own framing . he has expos'd the murdered carcass , he his expos'd it in an open place . the priests were no such fools . they had done their work in a by corner , they had set one to watch at one gate , another to watch another ; and the street at the same time empty . how was this exposing him ? 't is a thousand pitys mr. impartial had not bin there , that he might have given a truer and better account of the passages . this is the strangest way to vindicate a detestable murther that ever was-known ; with whims and conceits and imaginations of things done as he would have had 'em done , to contradict one that was personally present , and saw all the transactions ! here is one swears he saw the murder committed , where , when , how , and by whom , tells ye the memorable circumstances of thumping his breast , wringing his neck , an intention of running him through with a sword , and the reason why 't was not done , lest his bloud should betray the murther , and that memorable exultation of girald the priest over his body : well if we could not have entir'd him here , i resolv'd to have dogged him to his own house , and there would have run him through with my own hand . and yet after all this , here comes a nicodemus of a skeptic , and framing absurdities and improbabilities of his own , asks how this could be done , or how this is possible ? 't is very true , had they done , as he pretends they did , they had bin the greatest coxcombs in the world ; but they knew better how to do their work . and then again , is it likely the papists should murder their friend ? why no : for had he bin their friend , 't is very probable they would not have murder'd him , but not being their friend , or rather their great enemy they did . certainly the devil ow'd the papists a shame to set such a memoir-man as this at work . in the next place , he is setting the witnesses at odds , to see if he can find his dearly beloved friend mr. perjury among ' em . bedlow says he , deposes . sir edmund was throttl'd with a cravatt . prance swears it was a handkerchief . oh , i have hit the scotism of the business . mr. impartial would have had it spruce crauat , a fashionable cravat , a cravat according to the proper acceptation of the word ( would you have had it lac'd or plain sir ? ) for then indeed there might have bin some glimpse of a perjury , in calling a handkerchief a cravat . but do but forgive mr. prance this peccadillo , and you shall have the liberty to call any thing of linnen that a man may wear about his neck , tho it be a sheet , either cravat or hankerchief , which you please . the names of the assassinates cited by bedlow are la phaire , pritchard , wells and others . but the murderers nam'd by prance were green , hill , bury , girald and kelly . bedlow nam'd none for assassinates , and therefore that 's some of your own coin. he swears indeed that la phair would have had him have done the business , and proffer'd him money to do it ; but the business was not done by that gang. for you must understand , mr. impartial , that there were two parties ( so eager were the papists to destroy that poor gentleman , their friend ) bedlow's party , and prance's party . now it so fell out , that prance's party were too yare for bedlows , and had dispatch'd their business , while la phaire went hawking about with his great rewards for a chapman . but when the business was done , both parties joyn'd and rejoyc'd together . now bedlow swearing that his party were privy to the concealment , and intended the same thing , and prance swearing that his party committed the fact , where could be a more harmonious concordance of two oaths for the impeachment of a wicked murther ? the murther was said to be committed the 12th . of october 78. at nine at night , and the body convey'd away the wednesday following at midnight . in opposition to this , he brings the long ago over-rul'd attestations of mrs. tilden and mrs. broadstreet ▪ the sum of whose testimony was , that hill had bin a trusty servant , that he never kept ill hours , but always came in by eight of the clock : that he could not go out afterwards , because the doors were lock'd up ; and that they were constantly up till eleven a clock at night . that the room where the body was said to be laid , was not only over against the dining rome , but that the key was always in the door , and that every day they went into it for something or other , and that there was but one key to the door . but mr. impartial omits how fatally mrs. tilden trip'd in her story , when she affirm'd that the family had never bin out of their lodging since they came to town , and being ask'd when they were out of town , she reply'd in october . upon which the court told her , she had spoyl'd all , and had undone the man instead of saving him . with that she would have recanted , and said , why , my lord , i only mistook the month. by which , mr. impartial , it was apparent , that either her devotion had stupify'd her consideration , or that she appear'd in court only to say what would serve the turn , as having bin lessen'd at your swearing-school . as for mrs. broad-streets evidence , it was delivered with more confidence than became her sex. for after she had deny'd that there were more than one key to the lodgings , she confess'd before the duke of monmouth , after mr. prance had clearly made it out to her face , that there were six or seven . and in the question about hills leaving the doctors lodgings , she had so hamper'd her self , by saying and unsaying , saying one thing , and setting her hand to another , but more especially by her stout averments that the key was always in hill's door , that the court told her , 't was very suspicious , if she went so constantly in and out , that she must either hear when the body was brought in , or see it while it was there ; and further added , that 't was well she was not indicted . and thus you see what excellent witnesses you have brought to prove contradiction , and this after a sentence pronounc'd by judges as wise as your self or any of your employers . as for the sentinels that you say kept strict guard at the great gate , there was but one could be thought to speak to the purpose . and as for him , to give you plenary satisfaction , there was strict order taken with him , that tho he might see the sedan carry'd in , he was better employ'd than to see it go out . and now what may the world think of such a shammoking vindicator , that having taken upon him to vindicate murder and treason in the highest degree , and the innocence of the papists under such a bloudy charge of horrid plot , and hellish treachery , and following others , as if he had out-done and surpass'd all others that went before him , can find no other way to throw defamation and perjury upon the kings evidence , and to invalidate their testimonies against a horrid and prodigious murder , than by making use of the openly trapp'd and as openly rejected attestations of female papists , subborn'd by their own bigotisme , and ready to swear any thing to save their popish friend ( an infamy and perjury as bad as can be recorded in any court of justice ) i say , what may the world think of such a shammoking vindicator as this , but that he would never have stuck to commit the same inhuman act himself : for he that will so openly and so zealously defend a murder , will never scruple to commit one . and yet after all this , he is so far from having answer'd expectation , that he has not done so much as others of his fellow penmen . however he has empty'd his quiver for this bout , and shot all the darts of his malice against the face of justice , thinking to have all deform'd her lovely countenance , but that it proves impenetrable to the yielding weapons of such a feeble assassinate . certainly 't is an impudence beyond impudence it self , to throw infamy and defamation in the faces of witnesses , and bring nothing but a tinkers fardel of lyes and forgeries to disprove their testimony . and as certainly it must be a very bad cause that has no support but the meer invalidation of the evidence against it ; but a worse , that after so much ineffectual toyl and cunning , cannot be able to vanquish the evidence of 3 or 4 ordinary persons , when their perjuries are so apparent , and the stress of criminals innocence depends so much upon it . now to shew you , sir , what credit is to be given to popish witnesses when they come to swear in a heretical court , especially in points that nearly concern themselves , i will give you now signal presidents , not of madam impertinents , or mrs. confidences , but of the fathers of your church , holy , pious , worthy men , saints by this time . the one in the cause of newnam abby then in chancery , martin the jesuit trustee plaintiff , and savage defendant , about the year , 1671. wherein those reverend fathers , whitebread , harcourt and charles poulton now provincial of the english jesuites came in as witnesses in their own cause , and under assumed names and disguises , very briskly swore for themselves . and no longer since then in december last , the reverend father barton , a jesuite , took a journey from leige to london , and swore under the borrowed name and person of — colborn for the jesuits , in another cause now depending also between the king and the jesuites . nay more than this , the time was here at london , and that not long ago , when some of your employers kept a swearing-school , and a perjury-master , at what time the st. omers youths were taught and lesson'd to damn their souls at the last tryals of langhorn and the jesuites , the effects of which appear'd in open court , to the shame and derision of their instructor . and it may be very probably from hence presumed , that they who had one , have many more of the same kind , or that they will not scruple to erect 'em when they have occasion . so that 't is the opinion of most men , that it had bin much more honourable and advantagious to the popish religion , for that noble gentleman to have kept a vaulting school . and yet the discoverers of your villanies must be rogu'd and raskall'd with perjuries of all sorts by perjury-doctors and perjury-abettors , traytors , plotters and assassinates , ten times worse than ever they were , when at the worst . here mr. impartial , for ought i find , no better than the rest , to vindicate the papists from a murder , the most barbarous that was ever committed , has brought a company of flams and stories , how can it be 's , and how is it possible's ? and such kind of plausible riffraff ; he should do well to have taken mr. prance's narrative in his hand , and to have spent his lamp and his labour in confuting the concatenated circumstances of the murder , which i will defie ever a jesuite in england to contrive with such a face of probability had they not bin true . which because mr. impartial has not done , to find him work for new memoirs , and to quicken the memory of the nation , i will set them down with as much brevity as i can , and then let the world judge between his shams and the reality of the murder committed by the papists . the charge is , that the barbarous murther of sir edmondbury godfrey , was committed by the papists , prov'd by the oath of mr. prance , who was an actor in the whole contrivance , and relates the matter briefly thus . he tells ye first the reasons that engag'd the conspirators to design the murther . because he was a busie man , and was going about to ruine all the catholicks in england , and that it was necessary to destroy him , else they were all undone . for he had examin'd people against them , and had got depositions to fix odious crimes and scandals upon them and their religion . next the motives that induc'd him into the conspiracy . girald told him , it would be a piece of good service to the church ; that it was no sin , but a work of charity ; that it was no murther , but for the good of the church , and the glory of god , and therefore he ought to do it . the murther being agreed on , he comes to the manner . that about saturday the twelfth of october , green , hill , and gerald dogg'd him from his first going out , all the rest of the day till about six or seven at night , at what time they fixed him in a house in s. clements . that then green came to him , and missing him at home found him at a pub●ck house , and bid him hasten down to somerset-yard ; which he did , and there found berry and kelly together , where they continu'd , till hill came running to them , and told them sir ed. was coming . upon which they prepar'd for their work. in order to which kelly and berry pretended a quarrell , while hill , who was well-known to sir ed. watch'd for him at the gate to drill him in . that sir edmund ▪ at first refus'd , but at length was overperswaded , and went in . that thereupon hill enter'd first , sir ed. next , and behind him girald and green. that being now sure of him , prance went to watch the water-gate , and berry to watch the passage up the stone-stairs . that as sir ed. was going toward the pretended quarrellers , berry , kelly and green threw a long twisted handkerchief about his neck ; and then immediately girald , kelly , green and hill fell upon him , threw him down and throttled him ; and drawing him behind the rail , gave him several punches upon the breast with their knees . that after all this , fearing he was not yet quite dead , girald would have run his sword through him but was not permitted , lest they should be discover'd by the bloud ; however that green , to make sure , wrung his neck round . next as to the disposal of his person , the relator tells ye , that they carried the body in at the door right against the place where he was murthered , and so up such a pair of stairs , into such an entry , into such a lodging , where hill was concern'd , and opened the door ; then up five or six steps into a little room on the right hand , where they set the body with his head leaning against a bed. that the body lay there till monday-night , and was then remov'd into another room , for fear notice should be taken of keeping the other so long private . that on tuesday at night they would have remov'd him back to hill's chamber ; but he going before , and finding some body there , they were forc'd to carry it to another room on the left hand . from thence about nine a clock on wednesday night they remov'd it again to hill's lodging , by a memorable token , that prance coming that way , and they not knowing who it might be , they left the body , and began to run away , till prance calling to them , and they knowing his voice came back , all but berry , who run quite to his lodg. that there they consulted the carrying him into the fields , and laying him in the posture he was found , which was done in a sedan . that berry open'd the gate upon a humm ; having before invited the souldiers into his lodg with drink and tobacco . that gerald and prance carried him to the end of s. james's street : then kelly and green took him up , and carri'd him through king-street , and rose-street to long-acre-end . that then the two first carri'd him as far as the grecian church , where they met a horse . that there they set him upon the horse , by this token , that when he was mounted , gerald uttered these words , i wish we had a hundred such rogues as s●cure as this . then hill , gerald , kelly and green went away with the body , one leading the horse , two walking by , one on each side , whilst hill held him on before . there are also several material post-circumstances ; that upon the news of the body being found , one vernatti , who should have been concerned in the murder , but was absent , being at the tavern with mr. prance , said to him , lord ! is this mans body found already , that was carried away but yesternight ! that girald gave an exact account in writing to the said vernatti , who read the same to one leneson a priest , that should also have been concern'd in it , but miss'd , at the george near the stocks-market . afterwards at one cusne's at bow to one dethick that liv'd not above a mile from the place , and was sent for to rejoyce for the blessed news over a barrel of oysters , and a dish of fish . thus mr. impartial , i have lighted a candle to your dark objections . and now , sir , how do you like the story ? do you not want a cordial to relieve your sinking spirits ? does not the ghastly apparation of such frightful circumstances strike a terrour to your souls ? could any but a papist , the friend of massacre , believe , that so many circumstances of persons , manner , time , place , and words , besides by tokens , all cohering together , yet all the acts of several days , be so readily contriv'd by a poor man in affliction , under consternation dismai'd , distemper'd , to be as readily , and so particularly deliver'd in a verbal confession , before so aweful an assembly as the king of three kingdoms , and his great council , had not truth solely taken upon her the conduct of his utterance . truth that needs not none of your frame-work-weaving , mr. impartial , to cover over the stains of bloud so unhumanely shed with old objections , and studi'd absurdities new trimmed and furbish'd . after all this , mr. prance was punctual , direct and positive as to all the places where the murther was committed , and where the body was conveigh'd , at what time the d. of monmouth , the earl of ossory , and sir robert southwel were order'd to take a particular accompt from him upon the place ▪ and therefore mr. impartial , your best way would have been to have spar'd these loud cries of nonsence and absurditie ; and to have true champion like , outdar'd , outboun'd , outbrav'd , outfac'd the world , that there never was any such person as sir edmundbury godfrey upon the face of the earth ; and that he never was , or ever shall be born . then your st george-ship had slain the dragon with a vengeance . where are old ireland's protestations , imprecations , and bold summonings of god to witness the innocence of the papists ? had yee no more powerful charms than these to conjure down the walking ghost that so torments your quiet ; here 's a murther suffocated indeed by a crown of a hero ! — which the dexterity of a deluded virgin would have done more artificially . for still , by silly justifications , it appears far fowler than ever . all the washball protestations of suffering malefactors , whether persons of meaner rank , or lords , cannot wash off this bloudy stain ; mauger all your suborn'd mograffs , and other deep-laid contrivances ; — then let it lye on — and it will , as long as history can utter to the world the story of this age. certainly , villany and impudence were never so unluckily coupled since the creation . villany to commit , impudence to justifie the most prodigious of crimes . but so heaven order'd it , that this unfortunate gentleman should fall by the bloudy hands of those that seek the nations ruine , to awaken the drowsie kingdom , whenever it should grow careless of its safety . how much then does it concern all true protestants to be careful and vigilant , when they see the papists so sedulous to exercise into perpetual oblivion the murther of that person , whose body heaven permitted them to sacrifice , that so his soul might be , as it were , one of the guardian angels of their safety and religion . in the next place he endeavours to complement the two houses of parliament out of their honour , their justice , their reason , their understanding , their prudence , and all that advances the lustre , the grandeur , and the high reverence due to the most aweful , and most renowned assembly under heaven ; telling them with a fawning — snarle , ( with all due submission to the government in defence of the innocent ) that it is not impossible , nor altogether without president , that a lawful authority proceeding secundum allegata & probata should be abused ; and consequently drawn into a mistake by the malice and perjury of wicked men . how meanly , how lowly , does this mushrom of a memoir-monger , after his sneering complement , think of the lords and commons of england ? that which good manners would not impose upon an ordinary sessions of oyer and terminer , he most audaciously throws upon the two houses of parliament ; weakness and mistake , and to be cajoll'd by the malice and perjury of wicked men . after so many daily debates and consultations ; after so many siftings and scannings of charge and proof the high wisdom and prudence of the two houses of parliament was led away by weakness and mistake to give credit to the malice and perjury of three or four inconsiderable , malicious and wicked men ; and so to proceed to the effusion of innocent bloud . what is this , but to charge the two houses of parliament , either with folly , or impiety the most egregious in the world ? an indignity for the nation not to endure . there is no question to be made , but that mr. impartial's allegata & probata , all his probables and improbables , all his contradictions and absurdities were duly way'd and ponder'd with all the thoughtful diligence and sedulity , that justice and conscience could invent . which not being to be call'd into doubt , there is no reason in the world for the nation to believe that so much justice , so much conscience , so much elaborate prudence could err . the truth of which he himself confirms , while he brings an argument to undermine their reputation , by saying , all have not been convicted who were impeached and try'd at the bar ; but as some have been condemned , so others have been acquitted . which apparently shew'd the equality and impartiality of their proceedings , and that they were not in quest of innocent bloud , but onely sought the deserved punishment of those that were guilty . and therefore for such a flyblow of a pretended protestant to go about to taint the honour and justice of the two houses of parliament , whom he confesses so fair in their proceedings , was an unparallel'd piece of arrogance , then which nothing more confirms the truth of the plot , and the crimes of his employers . so that he might have reserv'd his crafty cringes , and his presidents for some high german senate of mum brewers in the land of brandenbourgh . lastly , to excuse tho instances given of popish malice , and bloudiness from the examples of q. maries cruelties , the irish barbarism , the french massacre , &c. he recriminates upon the protestants in germany , france , bohemia and holland . but that is not the point ; for there is a great difference between a massacre , or a persecution , and a war , though it be a rebellion ; wherein there are preceeding expostulations , something of a seeming 〈◊〉 pretended claim or grievance ; but in massacre or persecution there is nothing but propense villany and impiety . had the christians bin in arms against their emperors , they could not have bin call'd persecutions , and the christians had bin in the wrong ; but as they were persecutions , we find how infamous they have render'd those emperors . rebellions are headed by persons of high quality , as the dutch by the prince of orange , a free prince of the empire , that in france by the coligny's , and consequently reduc'd into a formal hostility . massacres are only tumultuary riots and surprises of the innocent . rebellion pretends a seeming provocation , but massacre destroys without exception of sex or age , those that dream'd no harm . so that nothing can be more foul , more wicked , more malicious , more spiteful , more inhuman , more faithless , treacherous and destructive to the bonds of human society . and this is the charge we lay upon the papists , besides that of rebellion . for if we should muster up the rebellions of the papists against their princes , they are innumerable , and frequently authoriz'd by the pope himself . as for that same execrable murder of the late king charles the second , of blessed memory , as it was never committed , so it was never own'd , but always condemn'd and abominated by all the true professors of the protistant religion . it was the nefarious act of a nefarious usurper , who having at his devotion an army , which he had long headed with a successful and dareing conduct , took the opportunity , when the nation was quite try'd out with an intestine war of near twenty years standing , as it were to conquer the whole kingdom , to seize and murder his distressed sovereign , and instead of a king to make himself a tyrant . all this the protestants lamented and bewailed , while the tyrant , having like otho and vitellius unjustly invaded the imperial dignity , environ'd with and engadg'd and well pay'd hodge-podge of veteran levellers , fiftmhonarchy-men an such like enthusiasts , ( not worth the name of protestants ) and ador'd only by those that sought more the preservation of their unlawful purchases , then the good of the kingdom , trampled not only over all true religion , but morality . but should we number up the murder of kings committed by papists , we should find more then one . richard the 2d . and edward ●d . were both depos'd and murder'd by their popish subjects . henry the ●d . henry the 4th . of france were both murder'd by the contrivance of their popish subjects , and openly justify'd by the priests of that time ; nay the murder of the one was applauded even by the pope himself in a publick harangue . what does your worship think of the emperour henry the seventh , who was by a predicant frier of the order of st. bernard , murder'd with a piece of the eucharist sop'd in poyson ? by which the monk evinc'd two things , the impiety of the popish religion , and the folly of transubstantiation , as if the real body of christ could be capable of such a damnable infection . the emperor frederick the second was excommunicated by gregory ix . with that impudence that the cardinals themselves were asham'd of it , and express'd their dislike ; and tho that pope dy'd , yet the papal fewd continu'd , so that at length the emperor was depos'd at the instance of innocent the fourth . history affords plenty of examples to this purpose , but these may suffice for the present . after all which , mr. impartial , i must be bold to tell you , that notwithstanding all your nonsensical improbables and absurdities you have endeavour'd to defend the innocent , like a fool to your friends , and to asperse and calumnize the kings evidence , like a knave and betrayer of the religion you profess . having gone thus far , we might well here make a conclusion , in regard that all that follows is a meer precarious ●uddle of impertinences , built upon a sandy foundation . for the certainty of the late horrid plot being still unshaken , and the legality and credit of the witnesses undeniable , there needs no further argument to evince the lord staffords guilt , and the justice of his condemnation , for that the one could not be just unless the other were true , nor the other true unless the other were just . by which means , mr. impartial hath brought himself into this noose , that either he is in the right , and the embody'd justice and prudence of the nation were in the wrong , or that the embody'd justice and prudence of the nation are in the right , and then he deserves to suffer severely for his boldness . however , because there still remains behind some dashes of his malice continu'd upon the witnesses , and some sprinklings of his venome yet remaining , with which he endeavours to bedew the unspotted reputation of those highly learned and most worthy gentlemen that manag'd the tryal , the pursuit of his lame story engages me to make some remarks upon the most encroaching and plausible passages of his arrogant raillery . for the whole plot and design of his janus-like pate , is rather to ridicule and puzzle than evince the truth . to leave the rest then , to mind their own affairs , he assailes the dr. the chief eye-sore of his papistical tribe , with his old , rusty weapons of absurdity , perjury and contradiction . first then , by way of premising , let me put this question to the whole kingdom , why mr. impartial should presume to put a greater value upon the testimony produc'd on the behalf of the lord stafford , than the witnesses that gave evidence against him . since mr. impartial can never prove that ever the protestants kept a swearing-school , under the quaint instructions of a perjury-master , as he and his gang did . in which 't is shrewdly suspected that there might be many more disciples brought up than the youths of st. omers : of whose industrious education i would refer my self , were it proper , to the judges themselves that sat upon the tryals . nay , was it not very pretty , that the master himself should be present too , to hear how well his pupils had profited under his instructions ? of how little value oaths and perjury are among the papists is well known . nay we find in that undoubted history of the council of trent the pope commanding the emperor to perjure himself , and break his oath sworn to the protestants of germany , tho for the publick repose of that vast continent . so then if popish princes may perjure themselves for the popes pleasure , dare the meaner rabble refuse to perjure themselves when their priests shall hold it necessary ? and thus the papists having invalidated the credit of their own testimony , by that unsanctified custom of keeping swearing schools ; there is as much reason to believe that the lord staffords witnesses were forsworn as dr. oates . nay far more ; for they were not only not believ'd , but frequently were found out , and rejected with ignominy ; dr. oates always still steady to the truth , always gain'd credit to his testimony . so then all true protestants being to take notice , that there is little credit to be given to the popish witnesses , who may perjure themselves to day , and be absolv'd to morrow , and that their own representatives have given great credit to dr. oates , we shall now proceed to the reflections themselves , observing this by the way , that 't was the perjury of ladislaus king of poland and hungary , in obedience to a clamorous pope , that lost him the battel of varna , and extended the dominion of the turk , almost to the walls of vienna . in the first place mr. impartial wonders that the priests had no more plausible or less dangerous argument to convert a protestant minister , than by telling him ▪ the church of england was upon its last legs , from whence he infers , that surely they took the dr. for some notorious fool or knave . it may be they might , what then ▪ fools and knaves are no such contemptible instruments to carry on a plot. the one may be impos'd upon , the other wrought upon . a bigottiz'd popish fool may become fool hardy , and then he is fit for any mischief ; and for a knave , you cannot , mr. impartial , but know your self what use may be made of such a one . but suppose they thought him a very honest man , and that out of that confidence , they did open their hearts to him a little ; nay i will put ye one supposition more , suppose they had taken a cup of the creature , 't was no such miracle to tempt a young man with the hopes of preferment . all this while , these are only suppositions ; now that you should extract perjury from the suppositions of your own brain , is a strange piece of chymistry . your next wonder is , that the ( sotish careless ) jesuites , should trust a neophite with all their most damnable intreagues , as the adventures of pickerings flint , whipping , thirty thousand masses , &c. the manner of firing the city , and introducing chymerical armies , french , irish , spanish , &c. truly , mr. impartial , you are in a very pleasant humor , though i 'm afraid , you laugh but a one side of your mouth . but now suppose they did ; suppose those sotish , careless jesuites did trust this neophyte , how can you help it ? you must blame the sottish , careless jesuites , not him . and yet he was no such neophyte neither , they had try'd him and trusted him , long before they trusted him with these damnable intreagues you speak of . beside they had his conscience under the lock and key of an oath of secresie . truly mr. impartial , in my opinion you are too merry with these damnable intreagues . for 't is as probable that a villain might seek an opportunity as well to shoot as to stab a prince ; and if providence order'd the prevention of mischief , must you laugh at that ? as little reason have you , mr. impartial , to make chimerical armies the sport of your little wit. for so you may call them chimerical , out of the abundance of your fancy , yet the intent of raising armies , and the promises and expectations of foreign assistance were not onely sworn by the doctor , but evidently demonstrable out of coleman's letters , and therefore you must not think to cheat the world by burlesquing guilt into innocence . but then the dr. deposes that some of them were so desperately mad , as to preach treason to a company of boys . you triffle with the world , mr. impartial , and think to fright people with rattles and gewgaws . as if it were such a strange thing that a jesuite , within the walls of his own seminary , before a society with which he was well acquainted , before youths under the aw of their superiours , and bred up in the same principles that he preach'd , and this too out of the kings dominions , should be afraid to declaim treason , and to abuse and villifie a prince under excommunication , and depos'd by the authority of rome . all men of understanding know that the treason then utter'd , was accounted no treason where it was taught . you would believe a man that should swear he saw st. dominic take a caper from the top of st. peter's church over the moon , and light upon the top of te●ariff and yet will not believe that a craven jesuite should crow upon his own dunghil against a king , at the same time un-king'd by the grand disposer of kingdoms , the teacher's idol , and your adored sovereign , the pope . his last wonder , and which methinks , i see him with his hands and his eyes lifted up to heaven , looking upon with most amazing astonishment , is the most nonsensical and ridiculous of all . for it centers in this , that the dr. feigned himself a roman catholick to make discoveries for the preservation of the king ; yet though he knew the king to be in so many and hourly dangers and hazards of his life , he did not presently cry out murther upon the lords anointed . from whence he would infer , that all the dr. has sworn concerning the plot is damnable perjury . where were you , mr. impartial , when the lord staffrod was tri'd , that you did not out with your budget , and spread these weighty objections before his judges ? you are certainly guilty of his death , for not lending him your assistance in such a time of distress . but i find you are a politick man , and suffer'd the lord stafford to lose his head , that you might have the honour to write his memoirs . now to the point . because the dr. did not make his discovery so soon as he ought to have done , b●t did it as● soon as possibly he could , therefore the dr. is perjur'd . have you been in labour , mr. impartial , this three years , to bring forth such an abortive piece of nonsence as this ? this is true heraclitus-like indeed , to make sportive comments upon the intended assassination of a sovereign monarch ; and then to infer , because the discovery was not made so soon as it should have been , that therefore the discovery was nothing but forgery and perjury . 't is well known with what difficulties the dr. met , when he made his discovery : and for him to have made it , before he was well-arm'd with proof , ( the thing which mr. impartial would have had him done-was to have sacrific'd the kingdom and himself to a certain destruction . 't was not for him to cry , like a frantick , murther upon the lords anointed , where there were so many ready to have stopped his mouth . had he discover'd and fail'd , you would have made him perjur'd indeed . and therefore since providence has order'd it for the best ; 't is not for any mortal miscreant to fix obl●quies and perjuries upon the disposal and governance of the almighty from strain'd surmises , farfetch'd suppositions , and sportive burlisque upon impiety . having thus done with your particular and punie essay , i will say somewhat in general the world cannot but take notice , that all your endeavour is to lay the stress and weight of your malice and fury upon the doctor : he is the chiefest mark of all your envenom'd arrows . let him alone , if he be such a perjur'd monster , he 'l fallof himself . the heathens themselves will tell yee , — 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is no avoiding the vengeance of heaven . in the mean time to fling and kick and wince to no purpose ; to bring evasions , flams , flashes and stories ; to bribe , to suborn , to set up swearing schools , to defame and scandalize , to cry out perjury , nonsence , absurdities , improbabilities ; these are not waies to clear the innocent , but rather demonstrations of the treason pretended to be vindicated . you have some reasons to believe that you have now some paticular advantages over the dr. and therefore you take the oportunity to hunt him quite down . the pitiful wretch so contemn'd & dispis'd by the benedictine rabbies , and jesuitical flamins , must be trod upon , and die the death of a worm , because he out-witted their cunning : the most convincing argument of his integritie , that such goliahs of policy and reason , as they , should fall by his imbicillitie . now all this stir and turmoyl , is to prove the dr ▪ perjur'd . which makes me to admire that mr. impartial , and the rest of his fellow jesuites , who account themselves the topping order of the catholick religion , and conceit themselves to have engross'd all the learning in the world into their societies , should so grosly mistake themselves , as to err in the very foundation of their design . i cannot therefore apprehend 'em to be such bugbears as they are , but that it is onely the fond opinion of our deluded gentry , that causes them to throw their children into the bosom of their education . rather i take mr. impartial and them to be like our splitters of causes , who onely study the snaps and quirks of false practice , but know little of the fundamentals and body of the law ; and that as they study onely the knavish part of the law ; so these onely study the knavish part of divinity , that is how to cheat and amuse by vertue of their profession . now then for mr. impartial , to go about to prove a man perjur'd , before he had asserted what perjury was , is a very preposterous way of defending the innocent . a perjurer , then , is one , that swears wilfully and wickedly against the opinion and judgment of his heart . so that there is a great difference betwen perjury and swearing false . a perjur'd person is one , who wilfully and willingly swears a false thing . but he who swears false , does not do it with an intention to deceive , but because he believes the thing so to be . non falsum jurare est perjurare , saith cicero , sed quod ex amini tui sentencia , sicut verbis concipitur more nostro , id non facere perjurium est . now the dr. swore there was a plot , as knowing it to be really true , examini sui sententia , but as to circumstances , he onely swore as believing them to be so , ita rem se habere . so that it being impossible to impute animum decipiendi to the dr. from bare surmises and conjectures ; fram'd impossibilities and absurdities , which have no efficacy to force belief , but are left indifferent , as not being the subject of reason , but of passion and interest ; so is it much more impossible ( if there may be degrees of impossibility ) to infer perjury from the triffling shifts and evasions of guilty iniquitie , which sort of managing the defence of the innocent does but discover the vermin in the snare , and carries such a face of guilty fallacy , that while men observe the doublings and elusive slights of the writer , rather to disintangle , then justifie his dear friends , it loses the reputation of a defence , and becomes rather an accusation then a vindication . this is also a most observable circumstance on the drs. side , that he has accus'd no man hand over head , as mr. impartial calls it , but charges one with one thing , another with another , as he knew they acted in their several sphears of treason and mischief . which charges being afterwards prov'd by other persons that the dr. had never seen or heard of in his life , and centring exactly as he had fixed the delinquents in their employments , proves that the dr. was not so little acquainted with the design as they would fain pretend him to be . and therefore let mr. impartial get his memoirs translated as soon as he pleases ▪ and send them abroad with all the speed he can ; certainly the rational part of the world must believe , that it had been impossible for dr. otes to have born up his head in the publick face of the world , to have stood the strict examination of a wise and discerning monarch ▪ his council and his parliaments ; which implies all the prudence , judgment , policy and justice of the nation , had not his discovery been absolutely true ; which could never have been so , had he been deceiv'd in the persons of the actors . unless there be any so stupidly brutish as to believe , that the king and the whole flower of the nobility and gentry of the nation were in a conspiracy with dr. otes against a company of tatterdemallion jesuites , and half a dozen popish lords and their delued associates , who might all have been buried among the forgotten crowd , had not they like the firer of the ephesian temple made themselves famous by their infamy . i may add this farther for the drs. reputation , and the papists shame : who though they continually tax him with vice and debauchery , could never yet charge him but it prov'd to their treble disadvantage . once they brought a ridiculous evidence from hastings , which was exploded in open court , and when that fail'd , not being able to find out any thing more , they fell to their old trade of subornation , and purchas'd the release of rake-hells out of jayl to taint him with the hazard , if not the eternal loss of their souls . surely , had the dr. been so openly vitious , they did very ill to stain their own reputation so foully to fully his . and now he comes to his observations upon the tryal it self ; to which there needs little or no answer to be given , as being a ridiculous piece of foppery , scurrilous mess of instances and inferences , contradictions and absurdities , evasions and impertinent cavils handed into the world by a pretended protestant in defence of the papists ; and all depending upon a precarious supposition , that our witnesses are perjur'd , and his not . in short , a mischievous avernus of fallacy and impudence , exhaling nothing but scandal and reproach against his sovereign and his applauded government . and indeed , if we consider his own words , the daring mr. impartial has given such an answer to himself , that had he not been blinded with some ponderous bribe , or deeply engag'd in the fatal concern that threatens both his own and his employers heads , might have stopp'd the career of his extravagant pen , while he himself gives the rational world all the sufficing satisfaction can be imagined . for he acknowledges the whole process was heard before a high authority . ilustrious judges , and an august assembly . and so most certainly it was . for there was his majesty himself every day present ; the greatest peers of the nation were the judges ; and there was a full assembly of the lords and commons of england . now whether these were not competent judges of perjury , contradiction and absurditie — i am forc'd to stop , because human invention can say no more . earth could afford no more : unless his lordship expected that some court of angels should have descended on purpose from heaven . howsoever , he had those to hear and determin his cause to whom sacred writ has attributed the solemn character of divinity : and yet all this will not satisfie mr. impartial , nor his crew of diabolical papists . diabolical in this , that they will be continually spurning against terrestrial majesty , in imitation of their grand master in perpetual enmity with the majesty of heaven . but on these the viper dares not fasten his envenom'd teeth : and therefore he endeavours to nip the reputation of those learned and noble gentlemen that manag'd the tryal , that from the wounds of their honour he might draw a tincture to varnish the horrid deformity of the plot , and besmare the justice of staffords condemnation . for of them he says , that nothing was omitted , nothing neglected , but every the least circumstance enforc'd and advanc'd to its full proportion ; with such a vigour of wit and industry , &c. as if they had laid aside their consciences , and made use of all their wit , their industry , and their eloquence meerly to advance false accusation and perjury . for this is the clear exposition of mr. impartials wicked insinuation . we 'l take the rest in their order . the lord stafford had brought evidence to testifie , that dugdale before his discovery , had deni'd , and with execrations forswore any knowledg of the plot , which the managers said was no objection . for he swore it at a time when he never intended to reveal the plot , and was in danger of life ; but that afterwards he chang'd his mind , and discoverd all to southel and others . to this mr. impartial answers , that 't was strange so palpable a perjury should he so sligh●ly evaded . and thus mr. impartial , casting a mist before his own eyes ; for he cannot surely chose but know what perjury is , throws a most heavy aspersion upon the sanctity of the most illustrious judges of the world , that they slightly pass'd over all palpable perjury . now how does he make it out ? by crying , this is a criminal answer ? meaning that of the managers . yes it was . for dugdale denying the plot before he intended to discover it , though with imprecations , was onely peccatum in foro conscientiae , not determinable by the law , and 't is the law that must tell you what perjury is . did dugdale deny the plot upon his oath before the king and council ; and upon the same oath affirm it again ? had you prov'd that , you had said something . otherwise you have done nothing but brought your impartialship under the lash of the law , which indeed , mr. impartial , you mightily deserve ▪ for your crime is heinous . in the next place , he charges the managers with common sophisms and weak objections . and yet but now they were the most eloquent and wittie men in the world. here 's more work for the stripes of the common hangman ; for certainly such illustrious judges knew better what belong'd to common sophisms and weak objections , then such an atome of a memoir-monger , as mr. impartial . and besides . sir , you don't know but my lord's servants have been at the swearing-school . for proof of which , 't is notorious in the printed tryal , how furness was trapp'd by the lord high steward and himself , p. 83. in p. 37. he taxes the court of shifting off perjury by a trifling jest . which requires no other then the firm answer , and the same correction . for the scandal still lies upon the court , who whatever the managers said , where to consider the weight of the matter . i must confess , the world may well wonder , that such a malicious piece of pretended protestantism should adventure with his frivolous objections so insinuatingly to bespatter the learning and integrity of those most worthy patriots , that so highly deserve by their great circumspection and industry , from the whole nation , and the protestant religion . but the profession of true protestantism being the most refin'd in the world , 't is no more then could be expected from a maggot of that common proverb , corruptio optima est pessima . whose whole diabolical design being onely to traduce ; and by traducing true worth and virtue , to assert the innocence of trayterous popery ; it cannot be thought , that reason and loyalty will judge the better of the lord staffords innocency ; because they behav'd themselves so nobly and renownedly in the prosecution of his treasons . and thus you see the most gigantic force and strength of his arguments for the injustice of the lord stafford being brought to the block . a bold and audacious recrimination upon the united wisdom and justice of the whole kingdom . what such a foul-mouth'd mr. cover-plot may deserve , i will not be so adventurous as to put the question : however , it is not to be doubted , but that all his majesties most true and loyal protestant subjects hope in time to see him duly rewarded according to his deserts . in the next place , he troubles the world with my lords principles of truth and loyalty . what does it concern us , what his principles were , if his actions were otherwise ? nor will mr. impartial easily perswade the world , that a traitor in his actions could be loyal in his principles . the sacred lips of christ himself hath taught us , that we must judg of the tree by its fruit. cromwel , that committed that unparallell'd murther of god's anointed , was the most compleat counterfeiter of outward sanctity of any of his time. so that the ridiculous account of my lords principles was most unseasonable and insignificant . as little to the purpose is that vain recapitulation of the cream of the pa 〈…〉 tenents . for that religion can be no religion , that has not some tenents tending to 〈◊〉 and morality ; but what signifies that ? we know the rules of all the popish orders are very strict , and savouring of a most seraphic holiness ; yet none more generally wicked and dissolute then they that live under those holy vows . even the order of jesus cannot exempt the professours of it from being the most pernicious of men . but mr. impartial , since you have been picking and culling the strawberries of your religion , what think you of the p 〈…〉 sonous mandrake-aples that follow ? since you have politickly taken this oportunity , to sow the choisest of your grain , on purpose to seduce and win the multitude ; i will take the boldness to throw a double quantity of you own darnel seed among it , to prevent the growth of it in the hear●s of the people . to which end i begin thus , that the popish religion is a scandal to all europe , burlesqu'd and pasquin'd by those that daily behold the foolleries and debaucheries of its most exalted aaarns and high priest . a religion that maintains that inveterate , implacable and imbred hatred to protestantism , contrary to the character of christianity , that the instances of it in history would serve to compile a volume . read but the lives of the popes , and there you shall find a progeny of christs vicars , and s. peter successors , as they call themselves , infamous for their frauds , perjuries , blasphemies , lost consciences , buggeries , defilements , and prostitutions of their own daughters , adulteries , poysonings , atheism ; and in short , for all manner of villany and debauchery . and when the fountains are so filthy and impure , let the world judg what the streams that flow from thence must be . their monasteries sties of bestialitie , their nunneries brothel-houses . their doctrine , common principles , and practise the frequent excommunications and murders of princes , the legallity of equivocation and perjury ; that there is no faith to be kept with hereticks ; that libertie of religion granted to protestants is repugnant to the law of god : that it is the duty of the papists to destroy the protestants , by fire , sword , poyson , gun-powder , or any other way most oportune . that there is no obligation or allegiance due to heretical magistrates and princes . these are the singular and genuine principles of popery . which they that will not believe , let 'em read the works of simancha , conradus brunus , martin becanus , cardinal baronius , mariana peter de ouna , creswel , fresham , and the decree of vrban the 2d . that they should not be accounted murtherers , that kill any of the enemies of the roman ctholick cahurch . and thus after a rambling , impertinent , story of his lordships behaviour , that looks like a piece of romance enterlanded with love-letters , he brings his lordship to the scaffold , where he avers to the world three notorious rappers , two of them in a breath after a short pause he stept to one side of the scaffold , and with a graceful air and intelligible voice pronounced his last speech . a very graceful air indeed , encourag'd and highten'd with stupifying , and therefore undaunted inebriation , which the near spectators well observ'd . however , this is as true as the next , that he pronounc'd his speech , when they that were at a distance might easily perceive he read it every word ; and as they that stood by related , very fumblingly too . and indeed it could not be otherwise expected . for you know , mr. impartial , his lordship was never accounted a speech-maker in his life ; and for a person under his circumstances , and of his mean parts , to read the sence of other men intelligibly , and with a graceful air , is a thing more improbable then any of your absurdities . and therefore , mr. impartial , you must lay your stories closer together next time . but when the head was held up by the excutioner , what then ? the people made no acclamations at the sight . by which bloudy untruth so bloudily averr'd ; it is most plainly apparent what credit is to be given to all than mr. impartial has been clamouring all ●his while . it being apparent , that he who shall tell such a publick falshood so easie to be evinc'd , would never scruple to make a thousand wilful mistakes clandestinly . surely , he was either deaf , or he had stopp'd his ears with plaister of paris . for certainly such a number of people could never have fill'd the skie with lowder shouts and hollows , unless they had had the throats of stentor himself . and therefore if there were any that went away with confusion and remorse , or cri'd him up for a just man , they were onely some of his own gang , the papistical tribe , of handcherchief-dippers . it seems there were others , that said , he was drunk with brandy ; and then 't was no wonder his air was so graceful indeed . truly , mr. impartial , you had better have left that remark out of your memoirs , for now you put me in mind of it , 't was so reported , nay asserted , and by many still so believ'd : and indeed it is an an observation , most agreeable to your discription of his behaviour toward the people , and his intelligible pronunciation . and 〈…〉 i 'd this famous traitor , whose cause if it were innocent , there was never such a mistake committed since adam was expell'd the garden of eden . which because it cannot be thought within the verge of suspicion ▪ therefore the popish plot remains a popish plot still ; the lord stafford remains a traitor to posterity ; the evidence against him legal and unquestionable , and the lord staffords memoirs not worth a straw . post mortem nulla voluptas . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a58385-e490 ☞ to all persons of true integrity , whether this were not a holy cheat beyond guilding of shillings ? the one is but a breach of a single statute , the other perverts the whole course of justice , and scoffs at the whole law of the land. yet these , and their defenders , are they that would defame and perjure the kings evidence , that will not allow the king the prerogative of his mercy . these are they that exclaim'd against the ill life and conversation of dr. otes ; who if he were at any time guilty of those things wherewith they taxed him ; we know now from whence he learnt ' em . the examination of captain william bedlow, deceased, relating to the popish plot taken in his last sickness, by sir francis north, chief justice of the court of common pleas ; together with the narrative of sir francis north at the council board, and the letter of sir francis north to mr. secretary jenkins relating to this examination. guilford, francis north, baron, 1637-1685. 1680 approx. 12 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 8 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a70153 wing g2215 estc r519 12181365 ocm 12181365 55667 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a70153) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 55667) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 101:4 or 353:16) the examination of captain william bedlow, deceased, relating to the popish plot taken in his last sickness, by sir francis north, chief justice of the court of common pleas ; together with the narrative of sir francis north at the council board, and the letter of sir francis north to mr. secretary jenkins relating to this examination. guilford, francis north, baron, 1637-1685. jenkins, secretary. williams, william, sir, 1634-1700. bedloe, william, 1650-1680. 16 p. printed by the assigns of john bill, thomas newcomb and henry hills ..., london : 1680. "perused and signed to be printed, according to the order of the house of commons, by me, william williams, speaker" royal arms on t.p. reproduction of original in university of michigan libraries and union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng bedloe, william, 1650-1680. popish plot, 1678. 2004-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2004-12 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-01 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2005-01 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i appoint thomas newcomb , and henry hills , to print this examination , narrative and letter ; perused and signed by me , according to the order of the house of commons ; and that no other person presume to print them . wi williams , speaker . the examination of captain william bedlow deceased , relating to the popish plot , taken in his last sickness , by sir francis north , chief justice of the court of common pleas. together with the narrative of sir francis north , at the council board : and the letter of sir francis north , to mr. secretary jenkins , relating to this examination . perused and signed to be printed , according to the order of the house of commons , by me william williams , speaker . c2r honi soit qvi mal y pense diev et mon droit royal blazon or coat of arms london , printed by the assigns of john bill , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty , 1680. the examination of capt. william bedlow , taken upon oath before the lord chief justice north , at bristol , on monday the 16 th of august . 1680. the examinant saith , that the duke of york hath bin so far engaged in the plot , as he hath seen by letters in cardinal barbarini's secretaries study , that no part that hath bin proved against any man already , that hath suffered , but that to the full those letters have made him guilty of it ; all but what tended to the kings death . and at rome i asked father anderton , and father lodge , two jesuits , what would the duke do with his brother when he was king ? and they answered me , they would find a means for that : they would give him no trouble about it . then i told them , i believed the duke loved his brother so well , he would suffer no violence to be done to him. they said , no : if the duke could be brought to that , as he had bin religiously to every thing else , they might do their work : their other business was ready ; and they might do it presently . but they knew they could not bring him to that point : but they would take care for that themselves . they had not begun with him , to leave him in such scruples as that . but they would set him into his throne ; and there he should reign blindfold three or four days : for they had settled some they should pitch the action upon , should clear their party . and then he should flie upon them with the sword of revenge . and this examinant doth further add , that the queen is not , to this examinants knowledge , nor by any thing that he could ever find out , any way concerned in the murder of the king : but barely by her letters consenting and promising to contribute what money she could to the introducing the catholick religion . nay , 't was a great while , and it made her weep , before she could be brought to that . william bedlow . jurat . 16. die aug. 1680. coram me , fra. north. the narrative of sir francis north lord chief justice of the common-pleas , at the covncil board . at my first coming to mr. rumseys house , where i was to lodge at bristol , upon munday the 16 th day of august in the afternoon , being the first day of the assises , sir john knight came to me , and said , that mr. bedlow lay dangerously ill of a feaver , and had little hopes of life ; and desired that i would give him a visit , that he might impart something of great consequence to me before his death . i told him i would give him a visit that night after supper , about nine a clock , if i might be satisfied of two things : first , that there was no infection in his distemper : secondly , that the time would not be inconvenient , but he might discourse to me without prejudice to his condition . after a little while , two physicians came to me , and assured me , that there was no danger of infection , and that the time i had appointed would be most proper ; for commonly he took his repose in the afternoon , and at nine a clock he would in all probability be refreshed , and fit to discourse with me . thereupon i declared my resolution of going , and desired the company of the two sheriffs , and my brother roger north , and appointed my marshal william janes to go with me . as we were upon the way , mr. crossman , a minister in that city , told me mr. bedlow had desired him to come with me to him : i said , it was very well , and i should be glad of his company . whereupon we went all together ; and being come into the room where mr. bedlow lay , i saluted him , and said , i was extreme sorry to find him so ill . i came to visit him upon his own desires . i did imagine he had something to impart to me as a privy-councellor ; and therefore if he thought fit , the company might withdraw . he told me , that needed not yet , for he had much to say , which was proper for the company to hear : and having saluted the sheriffs , and mr. crossman , he discoursed to this purpose . that he looked upon himself as a dying man , and found within himself that he could not last long , but must shortly appear before the lord of hosts , to give an account of all his actions . and because many persons had made it their business to baffle and deride the plot , he did , for the satisfaction of the world , there declare upon the faith of a dying man , and as he hoped for salvation , that whatever he had testified concerning the plot , was true. and that he had wronged no man by his testimony , but had testified rather under than over what was truth . that he had nothing lay upon his conscience upon that account . that he should appear cheerfully before the lord of hosts : which he did verily believe he must do in a short time . he said , he had many witnesses to produce , who would make the plot as clear as the sun : and he had other things to discover , which were of great importance to the king , and the countrey . hereupon he making some pause , i told him , the plot was so evidently made out , that no reasonable man , no protestant , i was sure , could doubt of the truth of it : but he ought not to have concealed any thing that concerned the king so highly . he ought to discover his whole knowledge in matters of treason , that traitors may be apprehended and secured ; who otherwise may have opportunity to execute their treasonable designs . to this he replied , that much of that which he had not discovered was to corroborate his former testimony : that he had concealed nothing that was absolutely necessary to the kings preservation . that he thought it not fit to accuse more persons , till he had ended with those whom he had already accused . he expressed great grief and trouble at the condition of his poor king and countrey ( so he termed them ) whom he knew at that time to be in eminent danger from the jesuits , who had resolved the kings death : and he was sure they would spare him no longer then he continued to be kind to them . he said , he was privy to their consultations at salamanca and valladolid , where they used to observe the favourable conjuncture they had to introduce their religion into england : which consisted in their having a head , who must be set up whatever came of it : and , if they let slip that opportunity , they should never have such another : for without a head they could do nothing . he said further , he knew the wickedness and resolution of the jesuits : they stuck at nothing to compass their own ends . they had attempted to poison him , but he had escaped . when he had finished this discourse , ( which lasted about a quarter of an hour ) i asked him , if the company should now withdraw ? and he said , yes : and ordered his nurses to go out , and only his wife to stay to tend him . and thereupon all went out , saving mrs. bedlow , my self , and my servant william janes . then i told him , i thought it convenient that what he should then say unto me ; should be upon oath . he replied , that it was necessary it should be so : and called for a bible . but my servant having brought a book with him , administred the oath to him ; and laying his paper upon a chair by the bedside , writ down his deposition as he delivered it . when mr. bedlow had concluded , and said , that was all he had to inform me of , i took the paper , and read it over distinctly to him , and he approved it , and signed it , laying the paper upon a pillow . i thought it not fit , considering his condition , to perplex him with questions , but took his information as he offered it , and held no discourse with him when the company was withdrawn , but concerning the true setting down his depositions : and when he seemed to be weary , to mind him of taking cordials , which his wife reached to him as he desired them . the next day mr bedlows brother came to me , and told me that his brother desired a copy of the deposition he made before me . but i told him , i had well considered it , and could not give him a copy without the kings leave . but i would move the king in it : and if he gave leave , i would take care to send one to him . and mr bedlows brother then told me , that it was his brothers desire that i should represent to his majesty his condition ; and that his sickness was very chargeable : and move his majesty on his behalf for some supply of money for his subsistence ; which i promised to do . this is all that i can recollect of what passed upon this occasion , and is in substance true : but the very words , or the order , i cannot positively remember . fra. north . to the right honourable sir lyonell jenkins , one of his majesties principal secretaries of state . sir , i always intended to write from hence , to pay my thanks for the whole circuit , which was much more pleasant , by your favour of holding correspondence with me . but now i have business of some importance : for as soon as i came to this city , i received a message from mr. bedlow , by sir john knight , that he being very ill , and in the judgment of physicians in great danger of death , had some business of great moment to impart to me . i knowing the man , and the season , would not refuse the pains to give him a visit : and being satisfied by physicians that there was no contagious quality in his distemper , ( though i did not much fear it ) i went well accompanied ; and in the presence of the company he declared , that whatever he had said relating to the plot , was true. and he being a dying man , had nothing lay upon his conscience upon that score . the greatest trouble he had , was the danger the king ( whom he loved above all things ) was in from the papists at this time : who would attempt his life as soon as ever he should cease to be kind to them : and many other expressions of this kind . after this i asked if he had any thing to impart to me in private . he told me , he had . and having made the company withdraw , all but my clerk , i took the inclosed examination upon oath ; you may imagine i was not curious to perplex him with questions . i took it just as he delivered it . of what signification it will be , i leave to wiser men. i think my duty is to send it to you , that you may inform his majesty of the truth . i shall wait upon you at windsor upon sunday next , to receive your further commands . your most humble and faithful servant , fra. north . ten at night . the copy inclosed is hastily and ill taken . i shall bring the original with me . finis . a sermon on the gunpowder treason, with reflections on the late plot by thomas wilson ... wilson, thomas, 17th cent. 1679 approx. 49 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 20 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2003-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a66585 wing w2936 estc r8248 12922494 ocm 12922494 95425 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a66585) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 95425) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 991:35) a sermon on the gunpowder treason, with reflections on the late plot by thomas wilson ... wilson, thomas, 17th cent. [2], 35 p. printed for henry brome ..., london : 1679. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng gunpowder plot, 1605 -sermons. popish plot, 1678 -sermons. sermons, english -17th century. 2002-02 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2002-03 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2002-04 tcp staff (michigan) sampled and proofread 2002-04 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2002-05 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion imprimatur . feb. 1. 1678. guil. jane , r. p. d. hen. episc. lond. à sacris domesticis . a sermon on the gunpowder treason , with reflections on the late plot . by thomas wilson rector of arrow in warwickshire . london : printed for henry brome , at the gun in s. paul's church-yard . mdclxxix . a sermon on psalm cxxiv . if it had not been the lord who was on our side , now may israel say , &c. to the end . no notice is given what was the particular occasion of the penning of this psalm ; but we see in general it was some eminent deliverance ; which the psalmist commemorates , acknowledging god to be the author of it , and exciting israel to bless his holy name for it . the whole is sutable to our present business of celebrating our deliverance from popish conspiracy . the which i wish we may do with the devotion and hearty affection of this holy man , for this will be acceptable to god , who delights to hear his people speaking of his mercies , and shewing forth his power and wonderful acts , and singing of his righteousness cordially and reverently . and it will be obligatory to him to follow us still with his goodness , and to heap more benefits upon us : and pleasant will it be to our souls , when in a sensible manner we remember how the god of heaven owned and favoured us , and mightily wrought for our deliverance . and finally it will be profitable to us , our hearts upon the due consideration of his love and bounty , and power and marvelous doing , being excited both to serve and trust in him the more at all times , and to the end . in the psalm there are these things to be observed , every one sutable to our present solemnity , which therefore i shall accordingly apply : viz. i. a danger . ii. a deliverance . iii. a thanksgiving . iv. a confidence in god. i. the danger . it is variously expressed , and with great emphasis : first , it is said , men rose up against us . which i judge rather means an open insurrection , than a secret combination : and herein indeed there is some difference betwixt israels case and ours . but yet our danger was not the less for this , but rather the greater . for open enemies we may either hide our selves from , or else make preparation against : whereas there is no defence , neither escape ( unless heaven assist ) when men work under ground , and lay in barrels of powder , which kindles in a moment , and as suddenly destroys . and there is something in the psalm sutable to this . it is this expression ( which again shews the danger : ) if the lord had not been on our side , they had swallowed us up quick . like as when the earth opened and swallowed up korah and his company : or like as when fire fell down from heaven suddenly upon sodom , and consumed the inhabitants : or like as when an hungry lion tears his prey , or rather when a whale swallows a man alive : or like as when a deluge overflows , or a violent torrent snatches us away , or the raging waves of the sea involve us . and so is it said , then the waters had overwhelmed us , the stream had gone over our soul : then the proud waves had gone over our soul. and no more mercy in our adversaries than in those creatures , either the lion or the whale , or fire , or water , or the earth when it cleaves asunder and sinks under our feet : and i may add , no more mercy than in the devil . for his children they were , acted by his spirit , and his work they undertook , which is to destroy : we have had experience of their bloody hands and cruel nature ; * who have slain thousands of those they call hereticks , and have racked and tortured and mangled their bodies , burned them alive at the stake , bored out their eyes , ripped up their bellies , held their hands in the flames of candles and their feet in boyling oil , and in such cruel manner have tormented and killed , as only infernal furies could invent : and there is something in the psalm that signifies this ( which we are further to take notice of , as that which expresses the danger : ) for it is said , their wrath were kindled against us . and truly not a little did our enemies rage , but even like the fire of a furnace , or like the fire of hell it self : and they rage so still , for they have been long vexed that they have lost their precious things , and are spoiled of their glory ; that their wealth is departed from them , and masses and indulgences , and their trumpery of beads and girdles , candles and oil , and such like stuff is undervalued and will not sell at the old rate : and that which hath vexed them as much as any thing , is that light is broken forth which reproves their deeds of darkness and discovers their shame and nakedness , and that holiness is advanced , which troubles their sore and evil eyes . for cain hated his brother for no other reason but because * his own works were evil and his brothers righteous . and the wicked ever since the beginning of the world have persecuted the just out of meer enmity of nature . and then as our romish adversaries have been long vexed , so have they as long hoped for a day of vengeance wherein they might satiate their fury . and no question it would be like hungry dogs , or like lions that have been long tied up without meat , by devouring ; as they have often made it manifest enough by shewing their teeth and barking , by houling and roaring , by their hellish conspiracies and bloody attempts . and remember we again ( as it is here said ) that if the lord had not been on our side , we had been swallowed up . as we were near perishing , so we had perished , if he the almighty and gracious god had not stretched out his hand and saved : for as for us we knew not the matter , till he by his providence discovered it ; and therefore could do nothing for our delivery . there is yet something more in the psalm which expresses the danger ; and that is the saying , our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers . and as israel was like a bird in the snare , so were we : the net was cast about us , and there wanted only the drawing of it ( which a small force could do ) and the fowlers were hastning to the slaughter : the train was laid and instruments of death prepared , and there remained nothing but putting the lighted match to the powder : so near were we unto death . and the expression , our soul is escaped , invites me to observe that our souls as well as our bodies were in this eminent danger . for their design was to introduce their abominable doctrines and idolatrous worship , which are as dangerous as poison it self , and of a worse consequence than their fire and fagots ; tending to kill eternally , the soul in the other world , as their cruel hands kill the body in this : and let me tell you , when government is altered , and a false worship commanded and established , and upheld by supream authority ; then alass poor souls are easily seduced , and some through fear , some through flattery , some for worldly gain , some by example , and some through custom and education fall away , and multitudes by one means or other turn about presently , though to their own destruction . and therefore let me insert here my earnest request and exhortation in the lord , that all protestants pray for our protestant governors and government . now considering all this , the secrecy of the plot , and the rage and malice , and power and bloodiness of our enemies , and their abominable doctrins and worship , and the near approach of the execution of their intended villany , we cannot but be sensible that our danger was exceeding great . reflecting upon what hath been said , i cannot but demand your judgment in one particular before i proceed ; and that is this , whether these men that are so conversant in plots and conspiracies ; that plot and conspire the death and ruin of others ; that plot and conspire against their prince , and the supream council of the land ; that plot and conspire after such a bloody and devilish manner ; that kill and destroy , and exercise such barbarous and inhuman cruelties ; and all this against peaceable and quiet people , and such as are more sound in the faith , and more holy in their lives than themselves : whether i say these men have the spirit of god and the power of holiness in their hearts ? whether they are ministers of iesus christ , priests of god , priests of righteousness ? whether their head and father the pope that abets them in these practices and stirs them up to them , be the successor of saint peter ? whether christ's holy vicar ? it seems to me , and it is altogether true without contradiction , that they are like the beast in the apocalyps that kills those that will not receive his mark in their foreheads , nor worship his image : and that they are like that babylon ( if not the very same ) the great whore , whom st. iohn seeing things to follow afterward in the church , saw drunken with the blood of the saints , and with the blood of the martyrs of jesus . * for i see them not so cruel to any as to saints , as to those that fear god and worship him purely according to his plain truth , as it is recorded in the scriptures . i demand again , whether these men ( like good christians ) do according to st. paul's admonition , † study to be quiet , and as much as lieth in you , live peaceably with all . and whether they observe his other like injunction , * endeavour to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace . and whether they are like our saviour that came not to destroy mens lives , but to save them : and that † rebuked his disciples for desiring him that they might command fire to come down from heaven and consume the samaritans , because they did not receive him . and in a word , whether bloody iesuits and merciful iesus are alike . ii. the deliverance , which we have set down in these words , our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers : the snare is broken , and we are escaped . alass the strength of a bird is as nothing to the breaking of the fowlers net ; so that if she get out thence and fly away , it is a strange accident : and no more was our strength to the extricating of our selves out of the net and gin and trap , all the subtil devices and complicated intanglements and killing instruments of our enemies . that we escaped then was a wonder , and that the snare was broken whereby we did escape , was the work of gods own hand : and is it not his doing , when ( according as it is said again ) proud waves did not swallow us up ; when waters and a stream coming upon us , did not overwhelm and drown us : when kindled wrath did not consume us : and in these words also we are shewed our deliverance and whence it was , the lord did not give us as a prey to their teeth . for he could have delivered us up into their hands , and he might have done so with justice enough , because of our sins : and therefore as it was his power , so it was his goodness that saved us . and seeing that the combination was secret and the plot carried on with all subtilty , we discern again that it was his eye ( to which nothing is hid ) that discovered it . and add we , that the deliverance was from death and murther , from war and confusion , from popery , which is stuffed with all that is naught , with pride and avarice and luxury , with lies and feigned miracles , with wicked craft and treachery and dissimulation , with rebellion and horrid cruelty , with superstitions innumerable , and abominable idolatry . and that the deliverance was of king and parliament and a whole realm , and of those that deserved no such thing at their hands as they intended . and finally that it was the deliverance of gods own people , that have abandoned the corruption of his religion , and that have embraced the truth as it was delivered to the world by his servants the prophets and apostles of our lord iesus christ , and that desire to live in his fear , and to serve him acceptably with pure worship according to his own will , not mans , that their souls may be saved . considering all this , i say , the deliverance was wonderful , and a good work , and from god it came . so that upon the whole we may justly say with the psalmist , if it had not been the lord who was on our side , when men rose up against us : if it had not been the lord who was on our side , they had swallowed us up quick . our help was in the name of the lord , who made heaven and earth . and therefore unto him is due praise and blessing , and glory and thanksgiving : which is our next particular . but before i enter upon it , let me put in here one thing which is worthy of the observation both of us and our adversaries : and that is , that as god hath delivered us , so he will deliver us still , if we still hold his truth without corruption , and keep our selves in innocence ; renounce error and false worship , and live soberly , righteously , and godly . for he will maintain his own doctrine , and defend them that profess it , and that withal fear his name ; and he will punish his enemies , and bring to nought their devices , and dissolve the attempts of deceivers and bloody-minded men . he is the tower and strong castle , and the rock and mount of israel : he is their shield and defence . we have seen by long experience that god hath defended his saints and true worshippers , every age from the beginning of the world affording numerous instances hereof . and not only so , but we have his promise written down , and an hundred times repeated in his book , that he will defend them . read a little : prov. xi . 3 . the integrity of the upright shall guide them : but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them , v. 6. the righteousness of the upright shall deliver them : but transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness . v. 20 , 21. they that are of a froward heart , are an abomination to the lord : but such as are upright in their way , are his delight . though hand join in hand , the wicked shall not be unpunished : but the seed of the righteous shall be delivered . and chap. xii . 3 . a man shall not be established by wickedness : but the root of the righteous shall not be moved . v. 7. the wicked are overthrown and are not : but the house of the righteous shall stand . v. 13. the wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips : but the just shall come out of trouble . and seeing that this is so , it is without cause that we fear what evil men can do , whilst we do not make our selves like unto them , turning aside from god into crooked paths , and provoking him by the like offences against our selves : and it is also but a vain thing , meer folly and madness , for our adversaries to attempt any thing against us , and to think to establish themselves by wicked enterprises , though carried on with the greatest subtilty and adjutant power . for do they think to kill , and so to flourish ? to rebel against the lords anointed , and the higher powers which he hath ordained , and so to prosper ? to drink the blood of saints , and so to grow fat ? blood hath a cry , and a loud cry , and it will be heard : and right dear to god is the blood of his saints . and iezebel , ( such an one that had little sense of holy things , and indeed little knowledge of gods ways and works ) could ask the question , * had zimri peace who slew his master ? as having observed this , that such slayers are slain themselves , are pursued with troubles , and commonly come to a fearful end : as there are many instances of this nature recorded in the history of the iudges and kings of israel and iudah . and this woman might have reflected upon her own action , and have said to her self in like manner , shall jezebel have peace who slew naboth ? and the same indeed was verified in her : † for as soon almost as she had spoken the word , she was cast out of the window of her chamber , and dashed upon the ground and trodden to pieces by iehu's horses . wherefore the only way for our adversaries to prosper is to keep themselves in the ways of righteousness : and let them do so as much as they please , and effect against us what they can : for we know that then they will not have the heart to hurt us , and not only will forbear to lay axes and fagots , and such tormenting things upon us , but will not so much as press us with an heavy hand . but as for iniquity , they will never establish themselves by that ; and their unrighteous machinations and actions are but like making ropes of sand to pull down a tower , and like the thief 's twisting of cords to hang himself . for david hath told us from his experience and observation , that * the wicked are snared in the works of their own hands . and not only so , but he hath delivered it unto us from the mouth of the lord as an established truth , that so it shall be ; that † their mischief shall return upon their own heads , and their violent dealing shall come down upon their own pates ; and that their swords which they have drawn out to slay the upright , shall enter into their own hearts ; and their bows which they have bent against the poor , shall be broken . only in this one thing may our adversaries be feared , namely in their enticing of us to sin ; as balaam taught balak to draw israel to fornication and idolatry , for which cause ( they yielding thereunto ) the wrath of god fell upon them , and they were destroyed by a plague . * and therefore in this matter let us take good heed to our selves : for their temptation , and this kind of smooth and soft dealing is more to be feared than their plots and menaces , and murthering instruments : their fornication and idolatry , if we hearken to their charms , and betake our selves to these abominations , will do us more injury than their gun-powder and knives , and bills and swords . but yet though by this means they may bring down judgments from heaven upon us , yet shall they not hereby establish themselves , but shall be punished with us for the same wickedness , and for their temptation . and so it fell out both to the midianites that tempted and defiled israel , and to balaam that gave the counsel . for god said thus , vex the midianites and smite them : for they vex you with their wiles , wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of peor . num. xxxv . 17.18 . and so it was done , as we read chap xxxi . 7 . &c. they warred against the midianites , as the lord commanded moses : and they slew all the males ; and they slew the kings of midian ; balaam also the son of beor they slew with the sword . and the children of israel took all the women of midian captives , and their little ones . and moses said unto them , have ye saved all the women alive ? behold , these caused the children of israel through the counsel of balaam to commit trespass against the lord in the matter of peor , and there was a plague among the congregation of the lord. now therefore kill every male among the little ones , and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him . so that by no wicked way , neither by temptation , nor by conspiracy , can our adversaries prosper . flourish they may for a time ; but then they shall wither as the grass : and lay their hands and rods upon our backs they may ; but they shall not alwaies abide there , for the lord will deliver his people out of the hand of the oppressor and the unrighteous man. and so speaks david , with whose eminent and comfortable words i conclude this matter : psalm xxxvii . 24 . to the end , the good man though he fall , shall not utterly be cast down : for the lord upholdeth him with his hand . the lord loveth judgment , and forsaketh not his saints ; they are preserved for ever : but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off . the wicked watcheth the righteous , and seeketh to slay him . the lord will not leave him in his hand , nor condemn him when he is judged . i have seen the wicked in great power , and spreading himself , &c. iii. the thanksgiving . we have it in these words , blessed be the lord , who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth . and considering that if we had fallen into the power of romanists , they would have used us as hungry and ravenous beasts do their prey , tearing it in pieces and devouring , we must acknowledge that the blessing which we render unto the lord for our deliverance , must not be a faint breath , but all the affections of our souls , the most hearty praise . and what is due to him that hath saved us from the fowler , from the lions teeth , from the stream and proud waves , from the wrath of enemies , and that wrath kindled of hell and boiling-hot ? for truly we cannot reasonably believe that the wrath of any enemies is hotter than that of ours , papists , who have all along exercised the sharpest severities . now a man looking back upon the dangers which he hath escaped , and remembring how he walked over a deep well slenderly covered , and did not fall into it ; and how he passed through a company of wolves and bears and lions , and was not devoured : oh how will he rejoyce , how will he thank the lord , and what a lively sense of the mercy will he carry in his heart all the days of his life ? and may the remembrance of this mercy which this day we received from the lord , never be defaced so long as time shall endure ; nor the quick sense of it abate , neither in us , nor in our children after us , till we shall be free from the cruelties and malice and conspiracies of popish enemies . which will be when they shall be converted from their errors , and changed from their savage nature , and the mystical babylon shall be destroyed ; or when we shall be removed from earth to heaven . if we owe god praises for our life , health , and food , for preservation in time of war , famine , and pestilence , for recovery out of desperate sickness ; what greater praises do we owe him for the enjoyment of our protestant religion , and for our deliverance from slaughter , from confusion , from strange tortures , from cruel deaths , from popery , which is a mass of evils ? for i put you in remembrance again , that not only evil to our bodies was designed , but a worse mischief to our souls . blessed be god then , that our religion , which is spiritual , substantial and lively , is not turned into idle and dead ceremony , shews and gazings , crosses , beads and reliques : that the holy scriptures are not kept from our people , and that we have not prayers in a language which they understand not , whereby the affection ( which alone makes the service acceptable to god ) is quite deadned and killed : that we are not taught to pray to angels and dead saints , and to ask of them protection , grace , pardon ; saying , * o blessed peter , to whom power is given to open and shut heaven ; loose by thy word the bonds of our sins . † o ye apostles , who shut and open heaven , heal our sick minds , increase our vertues . * o mother of god , establish us in peace , loose the bonds of the guilty , bring light to the blind , drive away our evils , procure for us all good things . make us free from sins , and mild and chast . and blessed be god that we do not creep and kneel to an image and say , * tree on which christ did hang. o cross , † hail [ or , peace , or happiness to thee ] our only hope , increase the righteousness of the righteous , blot out [ or , abolish ] the sins of the guilty . o cross which alone wast worthy to bear the talent [ or , price ] of the world : sweet wood , bearing the sweet nails , the sweet weights : save the present company gathered this day together to praise thee . and blessed be god that we are not taught nor incouraged , nor tempted to rely upon the penances and satisfactions , masses and sacrifices , absolutions , pardons and indulgences of others , as if they could hereby prevent our falling into hell-torment , and being fallen into purgatory-torment , could deliver us out of it . and blessed be god that we call not sacramental bread and wine , our lord and saviour , falling down and adoring them with divine worship . and blessed be god that we see not his faithful servants imprisoned and tortured , and burned for refusing to submit to these abominations . all which evils we might have seen , if our adversaries had prevailed : blessed be god for our king and parliament , our wholsom laws , our peace and safety , and our lives . blessed be god for our ministers , and for sound doctrin , and the pure truth of the gospel . blessed be god for the salvation of our souls : all which we might have lost , some of which we should certainly have lost , if romes design now and at many other times had succeeded . blessed be god from our whole heart for his manifold mercy to us both now and evermore . iv. the confidence in god , which these words describe , our help in the name of the lord , who made heaven and earth . that is , our help was , is , and shall be in the lord of heaven : they had found that god had saved them , and they were resolved to trust in him ever after . and well may we do so , who have had the same help and favour from him in like eminent danger : and as his goodness invites us to trust in him , so doth his power , he being the almighty and only supreme that made heaven and earth , and therefore can do what he pleaseth , dissolve the forces of the mighty and blow away the devices of the cunning , fetter all the devils of hell that rise up against us , and by his command turn them back in their furious rage . and we are again to remember his eye that seeth in the dark and secret places where wicked men plot mischief : and his providence that is over all his works even to a small sparrow : and his promise , that he will defend his people , and oppose his enemies . and now as we trust in him , there remains nothing else for us to do , but to keep his laws diligently and to walk before him with an upright heart : for then shall we surely find his help . they work wickedness ; and can they trust in him ? if they do , it will be in vain : the impudence indeed they have as to look up to heaven when they are as deep as hell in their wicked consultations , and to say masses and make prayers to the god of righteousness for the cutting of innocent mens throats , and for the accomplishing of such unrighteousness as the devil only puts into the hearts of his slaves , and which only he and his children would rejoyce to see accomplished . but do they indeed trust in god ? it is rather in the devil , in their invented visions and feigned miracles , in their plots and perverse deeds , in their dissimulation and treachery , in their rebellion and murthers : for i see that to these they betake themselves continually , as those that have no hope otherwise to prevail . and no wonder , for a false religion must have indirect means to help it up , and a bloody faith will make bloody work ; they devise a cunning device , and gather together the powers of the earth ; and now say they we shall prevail ; we will fall upon them before they be aware and will destroy ; we will terrifie with torments , and we will take away their chief men by death , and as for the rest they will not dare to speak . but , alas , all this is as weak as a feather , and as vain as that which is most so , because he is against them that made heaven and earth . for the lord hateth the workers of iniquity ( as the psalmist speaks ) and abhorreth bloody and deceitful men . he loveth the faithful , and plentifully rewardeth proud doers . the righteous lord loveth righteousness , and his countenance doth behold the upright . he will be a refuge for the oppressed , a refuge in time of trouble . and they that know his name will trust in him ; for he hath not forsaken them that seek him . for who is god save the lord ? or who is a rock save our god ? arise , o lord , and let not man prevail ; let the heathenish people be judged in thy sight . put them in fear , o lord , that they may know themselves to be but men . destroy thou them , o god ; let them fall by their own counsels : cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions , for they have rebelled against thee . but let all those that put their trust in thee rejoyce ; let them ever shout for joy because thou defendest them : let them that love thy name be joyful in thee . for thou lord wilt bless the righteous , with favor wilt thou compass them as with a shield . amen . but let me add a few words more because of the new attempts of our adversaries , who like their fathers have again consulted with the devil and the grand wickedness of their hearts , to kill our king , subvert our government , and change our religion . but remember , dear brethren , that men cannot curse those whom god will bless , except it be with their tongues , which is only a brutum fulmen , a popes bull , a clap of thunder without the bolt . and be ye sure that those god will bless that love and serve him , keeping themselves from sin and following peace and holiness with a pure heart : as balaam ( after he had attempted several times to move god against israel ; for this end building seven altars and offering upon every one a bullock and a ram , and repeating this again and again ) confessed , saying , * god hath blessed , and i cannot reverse it . he hath not beheld iniquity in jacob , neither hath he seen perverseness in israel . the lord his god is with him , and the shout of a king is among them . surely there is no enchantment against jacob , neither is there any divination against israel . and if the case be so , that god sees not iniquity among us ( not such as that he will curse us for it , perverseness , and rebellion ) then may we boldly say , let the sons of belial conspire and contrive what they can : let the covetous priests build seven altars and add seven more to them , and let them offer upon every one seventy times seven bullocks and as many rams , masses , reliques , candles , hosts , and what they please : let them lay their crafty heads together , and call up all the devils of hell to their consultation : let them prepare all sorts of deadly instruments , and fortify themselves according to their cunning , and gather together the kings of the earth against us : tush , it is in vain , and the evil which they devise they are not able to bring to pass : * he that sitteth in the heavens will laugh ; the lord shall have them in derision : he shall speak unto them in his wrath , and vex them in his sore displeasure . we fear , i see , deceitful workers , ungodly plotters , serpentine jesuits , bloody papists ; and so we do witches , sorcerers and conjurers . but much rather may we fear our wickednesses , than all the generation of this black rabble in earth and hell. and as the presence of some of these malicious and mischievous creatures strikes some into trembling ; so would to god we were all as much afraid of sin , and did not take this more dangerous enemy so near unto us and love its company so dearly as to invite it to our house and put it into our bosom and let it lodge with us from day to day all the year about . but sirs , what can you do ? you that put the nation into fear with your evil machinations , you sons of rome ? you can smite , you 'l say ; you can torment , you can burn , kill and destroy us . some of us you may , but all you shall not : and the devil can do as much as this , and this is right well in his eyes . but can you pull the sun out of heaven , or toss about the mountains ? neither shall your hell-gates prevail against the church of christ , to throw it down and lay it wast utterly , which is built upon the firmest rock , and which that mighty son of man , the son of god , compasseth with his arms. for god is stronger than the devil , and will save his people from that evil spirits rage and yours ; otherwise he were not what assuredly he is , a loving and watchful father . you remember the voice from heaven , saul , saul , why persecutest thou me . and you may thence observe that the troublers of his church contend not with frail man only , but with the mighty iesus , who can dash you into pieces in a moment : and you may conclude from the same words , that he will not always suffer himself to be bruised and beaten , persecuted and afflicted . and do you not think that we can pray to our father in heaven , who can send us more than twelve legions of angels , which shall vanquish the devil and his powers of darkness , your confederates in your wicked enterprises ? and what ? can we not kill you , as well as you kill us ? our strength is as great as yours , but our will ( thanks be to god ) not so wicked . you cannot say in conscience that you fear any such thing from us as we do from you , death , and burning , and tortures . and did you fear so much as loss of goods or imprisonment ? were you not in quietness ? lived you not in peace and safety ? who troubled you ? did you not enjoy as much liberty in the exercise of your religion as you could in reason expect ? more i dare say you had than your religion deserves : that is , than your latin-service , your half-communion , your denial of marriage to priests , your masses , indulgences , purgatory , and papal-supremacy , your image-worship , your invocation of saints and angels , your adoration of sacramental bread and wine , and such like stuff deserves . all which is properly your religion , that which we call popery , wherein you differ from us and from the truth of the gospel . i think you were blind and did not understand your own happiness ( as you esteem this liberty to be so : ) or you were mad and foolish and would endeavor to deprive your selves of it by abusing your indulgent friends . but god now intends you a greater happiness ; and that is , to shame you out of your adherence to rome , and to convert you from her corrupt religion ( i wish you were so wise as to embrace the opportunity and good providence : ) when his providence namely discovers to your face your popes and priests , and other friends unrighteous doings , and raises up the spirits of all honest men against you for the same , and lays upon you some restraints and penalties to curb in your insolencies and exorbitant actions , and to secure us from your swords and daggers , your poysons and stabs , your coleman's confusions , your fauks's powder , your irish rebellion , your spanish inquisition and invasion , your paris massacre , your queen mary's faggots , and bishop bonner's butchers hands . you boast of your loyalty to our present king and his father . but what you have done like loyal subjects , did it proceed out of a loyal principle , or out of necessity ? was it faith that acted you , or fate ? what you have done well , was it not for want of opportunity to do worse , or for want of a popes bull , which tolerates and commands rebellion ? if loyalty to an heretick prince ( especially when he is declared excommunicate ) be your conscience and faith and principle , then abhor and renounce your pope and church which teach you another lesson . for says your * lateran council under pope innocent the third , thus : si dominus temporalis requisitus & monitus ab ecclesia terram suam purgare neglexerit ab haeretica pravitate , per metropolitanum & caeteros comprovinciales episcopos excommunicationi vinculo innodetur , & si satisfacere contempserit infra annum , significetur hoc summo pontifici , ut ex tunc ipse vasallos ab ejus fidelitate denuntiet absolutos , & terram exponat catholicis occupandam , qui eam exterminatis haereticis sine ulla contradictione possideant . that is , if a temporal lord being admonished by the church , neglects to purge his dominion of heresie , let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and the other comprovincial bishops , and if he refuseth to satisfie within a year , let this be signified to the pope , that thence he may declare his subjects free from allegiance to him , and expose his dominion to be possessed by the catholicks , who expelling the hereticks may justly possess it . and thus thundred pope paul the third in his bull against our king henry the eighth : * because he hath cast off obedience to the church , he is therefore deprived of his kingdom , and his fautors of all their goods , honors and fortunes , his subjects commanded not to obey him , foreigners to have no commerce with him , and all to take up arms against him and his people , and to take unto them his kingdom and fortune for a prey and reward , and to keep his people in servitude , and thus says pope pius the fifth , in his bull against our queen elizabeth : regnans in excelsis hunc unum super omnes gentes & omnia regna principem constituit , qui evellat , destruat , dissipet , disperdat , plantet & aedificet . illius auctoritate suffulti , qui nos in hoc supremo iustitiae throno voluit collocare , de apostolicae potestatis plenitudine , declaramus praedictam elizabetham , haereticam & haereticorum fautricem , eique adhaerentes in praedictis , anathematis sententiam incurrisse : quinetiam ipsam praetenso regni praedicti jure , necnon omni & quocunque dominio , dignitate , privilegioque privatam : et item proceres , subditos & populos dicti regni , ac caeteros omnes , qui illi quomodocunque juraverunt , à juramento hujusmodi , ac omni prorsus dominii , fidelitatis , & obsequii debito , perpetuò absolutos , prout nos illos praesentium auctoritate absolvimus , & privamus eandem elizabetham praetenso jure regni , aliisque omnibus supradictis . praecipimusque & interdicimus universis & singulis proceribus , subditis , populis , & aliis praedictis , ne illi ejusve monitis , mandatis , & legibus audeant obedire . qui secus egerint , eos simili anathematis sententiâ innodamus . that is , christ hath wade peter and his successor , prince over all nations and kingdoms , to pluck up , destroy , scatter , consume , plant and build . by his authority , who hath placed us in this supreme throne of iustice , we out of the plenitude of our apostolick power , declare elizabeth , as being an heretick and a favourer of hereticks , and her adherents , to have incurred the sentence of excommunication , and moreover to be deprived of her pretended right to the kingdom , and of all dominion , dignity and priviledge whatsoever , and also the nobility , subjects and people of the kingdom , and all others , who have sworn unto her in any sort , to be absolved for ever from the said oath , and from all duty of dominion , allegiance and obedience , and by these presents we do absolve them , and deprive elizabeth of her pretended right to the kingdom , and of all other things before named . and we command all the nobles , subjects and people , that they presume not to obey her , or her orders , mandates and laws : and those that shall do the contrary we bind with the same anathema . we swear in the oath of allegiance , to bear true allegiance to our king , and to defend him against all conspiracies and attempts which shall be made against his person and crown to the uttermost of our power , and to do our best endeavour to discover all treasons and traiterous conspiracies which we shall know or hear of to be against him . and is this an unlawful oath ? and may we break it ? and can any one absolve us from it ? would you plot treason , and attempt the death of your present king and the ruin of his crown ? and them that do so , will you not disclose , if you know them ? and we that have sworn to disclose such persons , if we can , ought we not in your judgment so to do ? you see what your pope and council teach you , and in mr. fowlis's history of romish treasons , you may see an hundred or two hundred more popes and doctors of your church which teach the same traiterous and rebellious doctrin : but i hope some of you are of a better mind . and i desire you to read again the former citations , and then with the words of st. peter and st. paul , that you may see how contrary to the apostles your men teach you . for says the one apostle thus : * submit your selves to every ordinance of man for the lords sake : whether it be to the king as supreme , or unto governours . for so is the will of god , that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men . honour the king. and says the other apostle , * let every soul be subject to the higher powers . for there is no power but of god : the powers that be are ordained of god. whosoever therefore resisteth the power , resisteth the ordinance of god : and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation . render tribute to whom tribute is due , custom to whom custom , fear to whom fear , honour to whom honour . and is this plucking up , destroying , scattering and consuming ? is this absolving subjects from their allegiance , and commanding them to take the kingdom from their king ? is this depriving kings and temporal lords of their dominions ? and remember that nero , an heathen and monstrous wicked man , and a persecutor of the christians , was at this time king of the roman empire . and yet says the apostle whosoever resisteth the power ( be he peter then , be he pope ) he shall receive to himself damnation . forbear , bold actors , for it is not now night , that you should play your wicked pranks among us and not be discerned . nor are our hearts so bad ( though bad enough ) as to love , or favour , or comply with your gross errors , idolatrous worship , and hellish practices . you and the devil have too much corrupted us : but we are not yet corrupt enough to joyn society with you . you have not yet bored out our eyes , that we cannot look into the bible , nor have you yet burned those sacred writings ( and i trust never shall do either . ) but if you should , yet can you not extinguish the light of our souls , any more than you can take the holy spirit from us : and whilst that remains we shall abhor your ways . there are thousands in our land that will not bow down to your baal ; so clear is their knowledg , so great their courage , so strong is their faith , so mighty their zeal for god , so upright are their hearts , so good their consciences : though some timerous and more ignorant souls you may deceive , and fright into a base compliance ; but yet neither these , by all that you can do , will love your popery . smite us ( if god please ) and we shall abhor your church the more which delights in blood and cruelty ; and feeling the unrighteous plagues of your hands , we shall more sensibly know what manner of persons you are ; and we will unite together ( who are not yet so close and kind among our selves as we should be ) with one soul and shoulder against you . smite us , and we will kiss the rod from our heavenly father's hand , and will keep his laws more perfectly . smite us , and we shall be better . and resolved we are , do ye what you can , either tempt or kill , to serve the lord , and to serve him better than we have done ; not after your manner , with shew and pageantry , trifles and empty shadows , blind minds and stupid devotion , in candles , images and agnus dei's , oil , chrism and water , beads and shaven crowns : but with heart and soul , purified and inlightned , in love , peace and patience , in sobriety , justice and mercy . and then i tell you ( what i know will sound strange in your ears ) that you are undone , and your kingdom 's ruin'd . go on in the imaginations of your hearts , and fill up the measure of your fathers , and then fall and die . for as basil taught the christians to say to their persecutors , * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , if you shall again prevail , you shall again be overcome . the end . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a66585-e190 * usser . de eccles. succes . cap. 9. 10. temple 's irish rebellion . fox 's acts. clark 's martyrol . * 1 ioh. iii. 12 . * rev. xi . 15 , 16 , 17 , & 17.6 . † 1 thes. iv . 11 . rom. xii . 18 . * eph. iv . 3 . † luke ix . 53 , 54 , 55 , 56. * 2 king. ix . 31 . † vers. 32. &c. * psal. ix . 16 . † psal. vii . 16 . & xxxvii . 14 , 15. * rev. ii . 14 . num. xxv . 1 . &c. num. xxxi . 16 . * rom. breviar . fest . jan. beate pastor petre , clemens accipe voces precantum , ●●iminumque vincula verbo : resolve , cui potestas tradita aperire terris coelum , apertum claudere . † ib. commun . apost . apostolorum gloriam tellus & astra conci●●nt . vos seculorum iudices qui templa coeli clauditis sanate mentes languidas : auge●e nos vi●tu●ibus . * ib. offic. mar. dei mater alma , funda nos in pace . solve vincia reis , profer lumen caecis , mala nostra pelle , bona cuncta posce . nos culpis solutos , mites fac & castos . vitam praesta puram , iter para tutum , ut videntes iesum semper collaetemur . * ib. fest. maij. arbor , orna●a regis purpura , electa digno stipite tam sancta membra tangere : cujas brachiis pretium pependit saeculi . o crux ac● spes unica , piis ada●ge gratiam , reisque de●e crimina . o crux , quae sola fuisti digna portare talentum mundi , dulce lignum , dulces clavos , dulcia ferens pondera : salva praesentem catervam in tuis hodie laudibus congreg●tam . † ave. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 luk 1.28 . * num. xxiii . 20 , 21 , 23. * psalm ii . acts ix . 4 . * cap. iii. * hist. concil . trident. p. 68. camb. annal. elizab. p. 179. * 1 pet. xi . 13 . * rom. xiii . 1 . mat. xxiii . xxxii . &c. * isa. viii . 9 . the tryal and condemnation of dr. oliver plunket, titular primate of ireland, for high-treason at the barr of the court of king's bench at westminster, in trinity term, 1681. plunket, oliver, saint, 1629-1681. 1681 approx. 173 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 31 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2006-06 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63140 wing t2139 estc r25660 09054008 ocm 09054008 42345 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the 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(eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63140) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 42345) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1296:27) the tryal and condemnation of dr. oliver plunket, titular primate of ireland, for high-treason at the barr of the court of king's bench at westminster, in trinity term, 1681. plunket, oliver, saint, 1629-1681. england and wales. court of king's bench. 60 p. printed by joseph ray for eliphal dobson, dublin : 1681. reproduction of original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. trials (treason) -great britain. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-02 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-03 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2006-03 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the tryal and condemnation of d r oliver plunket titular primate of ireland , for high-treason , at the barr of the court of king's bench , at westminster , in trinity term , 1681. i do appoint francis tyton , and thomas basset , to print the tryal of oliver plunket . fr. pemberton . dublin , printed by joseph ray at colledge-green , for eliphal dobson bookseller on cork-hill . 1681. the tryal and condemnation of dr. oliver plunket titular primate of ireland . the third of may 1681. in easter 33. carol. secund. reg. dr. oliver plunket was arraigned at the kings-bench bar for high treason for endeavouring and compassing the kings death , and to levy war in ireland , and to alter the religion there , and to introduce a foreign power , and at his arraignment , before his plea , he urged for himself , that he was indicted of the same high treason in ireland , and arraigned , and at the day for his tryal the witnesses against him did not appear , and therefore he desired to know if he could be tried here for the same fact ? the court told him , that by a statute made in this kingdom , he might be tried in the court of kings-bench , or by commission of oyer and terminer in any part of england , for facts arising in ireland , and that his arraignment there ( he being never tried upon it ) was not sufficient to exempt him from being tried here ; because till a tryal be passed , and there be a conviction or acquittal thereupon , an arraignment , barely , is no plea : for in such cases the party is not put twice in danger of his life , which only is the thing the law in such cases looks after to prevent . he then desired time for his witnesses , which they told him he could not do till after plea pleaded ; whereupon he pleaded not guilty , and put himself upon the country for his tryal ; and after some consideration had about time to be allowed him to bring his witnesses from ireland , the court appointed the day for his tryal , to be the first wednesday in next term , which was full five weeks time . and accordingly on wednesday the 8th . of june , in trinity term , he was brought to his tryal , and proclamation , as in such cases is usual , being made , it proceeded thus . clerk. of crown . oliver plunket , hold up thy hand , those good men which thou shalt hear called and personally appear , are to pass between , &c. plunket . may it please your lordship , i have been kept close prisoner for a long time , a year and an half in prison ; when i came from ireland hither , i was told by persons of good repute , and a counsellour at law , that i could not be tried here ; and the reasons they gave me were , that first the statute of hen. 8. and all other statutes made here , were not received in ireland , unless there were an express mention made of ireland in them : so that none were received there but such as were before poyning's act. so i came with that perswasion that i could not be tried here , till at my arraignment your lordships told me it was not so , and that i must be tried here , though there was no express mention made of ireland . now , my lord , upon that , whereas my witnesses were in ireland , and i knew nothing of it , and the records upon which i very much relye were in ireland , your lordship was pleased to give me time from the 4th . of the last month to this day ; and in the mean time , as your lordship had the affidavit here yesterday , and as captain richardson can testifie , have not dispatched only one , but two to ireland : into the counties of armagh , dublin , &c. and where there were records very material to my defence : but the clerk of the crown would not give me any copy of any record at all , unless he had some express order from your lordship ▪ so that whether it were that they were mistaken , or wilfully refused . i could not get the records which were very material for me . for in some of those records some of these that accuse me were convicted of high crimes , and others were outlawed and imprisoned , and broke prison ; and there were other records also of excommunication against some of them , and i could not get the records , unless your lordship would instruct me in some way or other , how i can get over them that are most material for my defence . the servants that i sent hence , and took shipping for ireland , were two days at sea , and cast back again , and from thence were forced to go to holly head , and from holly head in going to dublin they were thirteen or fourteen days , the winds were so contrary ; and then my servant went about to go into the county of armagh and derry , that were a hundred miles from dublin , and meath , and other places ; so that in so short a time , my lord , it was morally impossible for them to have brought the witnesses over ; and those that were ready to have come , would not stir at all , unless they had a pass from hence , because some of them were roman catholicks , and they had heard that here some were taken prisoners that were roman catholicks , and that none ought to come without a pass ; and they being witnesses against the king , they might be clapped up here , and brought into very ill condition : so they sent one over that made affidavit . l. c. j. it was the affidavit was read here yesterday . plunket . so that , my lord , i conceive your lordship will think i did it not out of any intent to put off my tryal ; for captain richardson is here , who knows that i writ by the post , and desired them to come with the pacquet-boat , and they writ over to the captain after they were landed ; so that i depended upon the wind and the weather for my witnesses , and wanted your lordships order for the records to be brought over , and that their examination might be brought into court , and their own original examination here might be compared with it . so i humbly beg your lordships favour , the case is rare , and scarce happens in five hundred years , that one should be in my circumstances . i am come here where no jury knows me , nor the quality of my adversaries ; if i had been in ireland i would have put my self upon my tryal to morrow without any witnesses , before any protestant jury that knew them and me . and when the orders went over , that i should be tried in ireland , and that no roman catholick should be upon the jury , and so it was in both the grand and other jury ; yet then when i came to my tryal , after i was arraigned , not one appeared : this is manifest upon the record and can be proved . l. c. j. there was no prosecution of you there . plunket . but , my lord , here is no jury that knows me , or the quality of my adversaries ; for they are not a jury of the neighbourhood that know them , and therefore my case is not the same with other cases . though i cannot harbour , nor do not , nor will not , nor ought not , the least conceipt of hard measure and injustice ; yet if i have not full time to bring my records and witnesses altogether , i cannot make my defence . some were there then , some afar off , so that it was a miracle that in six or seven counties they could do so much as they did : but they got in seven or eight of them , yet there were five or six wanting : therefore i beseech your lordship that i may have time to bring my records and witnesses , and then i will defie all that is upon the earth and under the earth to say any thing against me . l. c. j. look you , mr. plunket , 't is in vain for you to talk and make this discourse here now ; you must know , that by the laws of this kingdom , when a man is indicted and arraigned of treason or felony , 't is not usual to give such time ; 't is rare that any man hath had such time as you have had , five weeks time to provide your witnesses : if your witnesses are so cautions , and are such persons that they dare not , or will not venture for fear of being apprehended , or will not come into england , without such and such cautions , we cannot tell how to help it ; we can't furnish you with witnesses , you must look to get your witnesses your self ; if we should stay till your witnesses will come , perhaps they will never come here , and so you will escape out of the hands of justice . do not be discouraged in this , the jury are strangers to you peradventure , but they are honest gentlemen , and you shall have no other upon your jury ; and you may be confident , that if there be not some fact proved against you , that may amount to treason , you shall be discharged ; they are persons that understand so much , and we will direct them so much . you shall have as fair a tryal as if you were in ireland ; but for us to stay for your witnesses , or send you back to ireland , we cannot do it : therefore you must submit to your tryal . we heard your affidavit yesterday , and we did then tell the gentlemen that moved it , as much as we tell you . you are here to be tried , look to the jury as they are called , and except against them if you will. plunk . my lord , i desire only to have the favour of time , some time this term. l. c. j. we can't do it . cl. of cr. swear sir john roberts . plunk . i humbly present this to your lordship , i am then in eminent danger of my life , if i cannot get ten days to have my witnesses over : i desire i may have but to the 21th . of this month , and then if they do not come you may go on . l. c. j. we cannot do it , you have had five weeks time already . plunk . i desire but a few days . cryer . sir john roberts , take the book , look upon the prisoner ; you shall well and truly try , &c. plunket . my lord , i desire to know whether they have been of the juries of langhorn , or the five jesuits , or any that were condemned ? l. c. j. what if they have ? that is no exception . then the jury was sworn , whose names follow . sir john roberts , thomas harriot , henry ashurst , ralph bucknall , richard gowre , richard pagett , thomas earsby , john hayne , thomas hodgkins , james partherich , samuel baker , william hardy . cl. of cr. oliver plunket , hold up thy hand . you of the jury look upon the prisoner and hearken to his charge . he stands indicted by the name of oliver plunket , late of westminster , in the county of middlesex dr. of divinity , for that he as a false traytor against the most illustrious and most excellent prince our sovereign lord charles the second , by the grace of god , of england , scotland , france , and ireland king , and his natural lord , the fear of god in his heart not having , nor weighing the duty of his allegiance , but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil , the cordial love , and true and due natural obedience , which true and faithful subjects of our said sovereign lord the king , towards him our said sovereign lord the king do and of right ought to bear , utterly withdrawing , and contriving , and with all his might intending the peace and common tranquillity within the kingdom of ireland , as also of this kingdom of england to disturb , and war and rebellion against our said sovereign lord the king in the kingdom of ireland , then being the dominion of our said sovereign lord the king in parts beyond this seas ; to stir up and move , and the government of our said sovereign lord the king there to subvert , and our said sovereign lord the king from his regal power & government there to depose and deprive , and our said sovereign lord the king , that now is , to death and final destruction to bring and put , and the true worship of god within the said kingdom of ireland , by law established and used , to alter to the superstition of the romish church ; the first day of december , in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord charles the second , now king of england , &c. the 32th , and divers other days and times , as well before as after , at dublin in the kingdom of ireland , in parts beyond the seas , with divers other false traytors unknown , traiterously did compass , imagine , and intend the killing , death and final destruction of our said sovereign lord the king , and the antient government of his said kingdom of ireland to change , alter , and wholly to subvert , and him our said sovereign lord the king , that now is , from the crown & government of his kingdom of ireland aforesaid to depose & deprive , and the true protestant religion to extirpate , and war and rebellion against our said sovereign lord the king , there to move and levy . and to fulfil and accomplish his said most wicked treasons , and traiterous compassings , imaginations and purposes aforesaid ; he the said oliver plunket , the said first day of december , in the abovesaid 32th . year of the reign of our said sovereign lord the king , that now is , with force and arms , &c. at dublin , in the kingdom of ireland , then being the dominion of our said sovereign lord the king in parts beyond the seas , maliciously , devilishly and traiterously did assemble and gather together himself , with divers other traitors unknown , and then and there devilishly , advisedly , maliciously , subtilly and traterously did consult and agree our said sovereign lord the king , that now is , to death and final destruction to bring , and from his crown and government aforesaid to depose and deprive , and the religion of the romish church into the kingdom of ireland aforesaid to introduce and establish ; and the sooner to fulfil and perfect his said most wicked treasons and traitorous imaginations and purposes , he the said oliver plunket , with divers other false traitors unknown , then and there advisedly , maliciously and traiterously did further consult and agree to contribute , pay and expend divers great sums of mony to divers subjects of our said sovereign lord the king , and other persons unknown , to procure them the said persons unknown , our said sovereign lord the king , that now is , traiterously to kill , and the romish religion into the said kingdom of ireland to introduce and establish . and that he the said oliver plunket and other traitors unknown , afterwards , to wit , the said first day of december , in the two and thirtieth year of the reign of our said sovereign lord the king abovesaid , at dublin aforesaid , in the kingdom of ireland aforesaid , within the dominion of our said sovereign lord the king , with force and arms , &c. unlawfully , maliciously devilishly and traiterously did receive , collect , pay and expend divers great sums of mony to divers persons unknown , to persuade and induce divers other persons also unknown , the said false traytors in their said treasons to help and maintaintain , against the duty of his allegiance , and against the peace of our said sovereign lord the king , that now is , his crown and dignity , and against the form of the statutes in that case made and provided . to this indictment he hath pleaded , not guilty . mr. heath . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , this is an indictment of high-treason against dr. oliver plunket the prisoner at the bar , and it sets forth , that in the 32th . year of the king , at dublin in the kingdom of ireland , he did compass and imagine the death of the king , and to deprive the king of his kingdom of ireland , and to raise war to extirpate the protestant religion in the kingdom of ireland , and to establish the romish religion there . and it sets forth further , that for the accomplishment of these treasons , the defendant with several others did meet together at several places at dublin in the kingdom of ireland , and elsewhere , and at these several meetings did consult and agree to put the king to death , to raise war , to extirpate the protestant religion , and set up the romish religion . and the indictment further sets forth , that to accomplish these treasons , the defendent did raise great sums of mony in the kingdom of ireland , and did get several persons to contribute several sums for these treasons : and that the defendent with others did disburse several sums of mony to several persons , to persuade them and entice them to be aiding and assisting in these treasons , and to recompence them for them . to this indictment the defendent hath pleaded , not guilty . if we prove these things , you are to find him guilty . mr. serj. maynard . my lord , we will quickly come to the evidence . but in short , you have heard his charge is as high as can be against the king , and against the nation , and against all that is good . the design and endeavour of this gentleman was the death of the king , the destruction of the protestant religion in ireland , and the raising of war : and to accomplish this , we charge him , that there was a confederacy made , assemblies and consultations had to these ends , and raising mony to accomplish it . gentlemen , dr. plunket was made , as we shall prove to you , as they there call him , primate of ireland , and he got that dignity from the pope upon this very design . he did by vertue of that power , which he thought he had gotten , make out warrants , significations , i know not what they call them , to know how many men in ireland could bear arms from sixteen to forty ; he raises taxes upon the people and the clergy there . but , my lord , the particulars will best fall from the witnesses that we shall call and prove it by , and we need not make any aggravation ; for such a thing as this cannot be more aggravated than ' t is . mr. att. gen. may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , the character this gentleman bears , as primate under a foreign and usurped jurisdiction , will be a great inducement to you to give credit to that evidence we shall produce before you . we shall prove , that this very preferment was confer'd upon him upon a contract , that he should raise 60000 men in ireland , for the pope's service , to settle popery there , and to subvert the government . the evidence that we shall give you , will prove how it leads to destroy the king , and i take it according to the resolutions that have been , to raise war in the kingdom , and to introduce a foreign power ; will be certainly evidence of an attempt and machination to destroy the king. assoon as he was in possession of his primacy , he goes about his work . there are two great necessaries to be provided , men and money . for men , having this great spiritual jurisdiction , whereby , indeed , all that are under it are become slaves , he issues out his warrants to all the clergy of ireland , to give an account , and make return from the several parishes , of all the men in them above fourteen and under sixty . and returns were accordingly made by them , that he might accordingly take a measure what men to pick out for the service . the next thing was money , my lord ; and your lordship takes notice , that when the mind is enslaved , the purse , nay all the body bows to it . he issues out his warrants to his clergy , to make a collection of mony , in all parts great sums were levied , and when they were levied , we shall give you an accompt by our proofs , that several sums were issued out , and sent into france to further the business . there was also provision made of great ammunition and arms , and we shall prove in particular , several delivered out by this gentleman's order , to carry on this thing ; and to go through stitch with this business , he takes a view of all the several ports and places in ireland , where it would be convenient to land : for they were to have from france an auxiliary force , and upon his view he pitched upon carlingford as the place . we shall prove the several correspondencies between rome and him , and france and him , and several messengers imployed , and monies issued out from time to time for their maintenance . this will be the course of our evidence ; and we shall begin first with some that do not speak so particularly to this doctor , but prove there was a general design in all parts of the kingdom of ireland , to bring in the king of france , and extirpate the protestant religion : and then we shall call the particular persons to the particular facts against him . first we call florence wyer . [ who was sworn . ] mr. sol. gen. are your sworn , sir ? wyer . yes , sir. mr. sol. gen. pray give the court and the jury an account of what you know of any plot in ireland , to introduce the romish religion , or to bring in the french king. wyer . yes , i know there was a plot , both before plunket's time , and in his time ; for it was working in the years 65. and 66. but it was brought to full maturitie in the year 1667. for then col. miles rely , and col. bourne was sent to ireland from the king of france , with a commission to muster as many men as he could , promising to send an army of 40000 men with a commission , upon st. lewis day in august next following , to land at carbingford , to destroy all the true subjects , to destroy the religion as it was established there , and to set up the french kings authority and the roman-catholick religion . and one edmond angle that was a justice of peace and clerk of the crown , sent for all the rebels abroad in the north to come up into the county of longford , and they marched into the head town of the county and sired the town ; the inhabitants fled into the castle : then they came up to the gaol , thinking to break it open , and by seting the prisoners free , to join them with them ; but then angle was shot , received a deadly wound , and drop'd off his horse , and they fled . so then when they were without the town , one charles mac canell alighted , and took away all the papers out of his pocket ; which , if they had been found , would have discovered all . this occasioned col. bourne to be suspected ; and being so suspected , he was taken prisoner , and turned to newgate in dublin . then col. reiley sled away again to france , and the plot lay under a cloud during the life of primate reiley the prisoners predecessor . this primate reiley died beyond sea. then many of the popish religion would have had the primacie conferred upon one duffy ; but the prisoner at the bar put in for it ; which might have been opposed , if the prisoner had not engaged and promised that he would so manage affairs , that before the present government were aware , he would surprise the kingdom , provided the pope and king of france would send a competent army to join with theirs for the effecting of it . so the first year of his coming over , i was in the friery at armagh : i was an acquaintance of the friers , and they invited me . and one quine told the prisoner , that they thought duffy would have been primate . said he , 't is better as it is ; for duffy hath not the wit to do those things that i have undert●ken to do ; meaning that he did undertake to supplant the protestant religion , to bring in popery , and put the kingdom under subjection to the king of france . mr. sol. gen. how do you know that ? wyer . those were the words , and the meaning i knew before , because i had heard it talked of . l. c. j. who was the first of these primates you speak of ? wyer . edmund reiley . he set this business on foot first . l. c. j. about what ? wyer . about calling the rebels together out of the north when they came to longford . l. c. j. what year was that ? wyer . it was in the year ( 67. ) l. c. j. when died he ? wyer . he died a little while afterwards . l. c. j. then duffy would have it conferred on him ? wyer . yes , after reileys decease he would have had it conferred upon him ; and there was a contention between him and the prisoner , who did engage he would bring things to that full maturity , that before the present government were aware he would do the work . l. c. j. how do you know this ? wyer . i know this , because i had an account of it from certain school-fellows that were with me in ireland , then studying in rome ; they wrote this to me , desiring me i would take a good heart with the rest of my country-men , and assuredly in a short time the kingdom would be relieved , and the irish restored to their former patrimonies . l. c. j. this you speak of their information . what do you know of your own knowledge ? wyer . all that i know of is , he coming into the friery of armagh — l. c. j. about what time ? wyer . it is either 10 or 11 years ago , and there was a fast there , and i was invited by the friers , being their acquaintance ; one quine one of the friers told him — l. c. j. told whom ? wyer . the prisoner , that he did expect duffy should have been primate ? but the prisoner made answer , 't is better as it is ; for duffy had not the wit to manage the things that i have undertaken for the general good of our religion . l. c. j. now tell me this ? what things were those he had undertaken ? did he explain himself ? wyer . no further than those words : but i did conceive this was his meaning ; because i knew partly of it my self , knowing of the former plot. l. c. j. i ask you only what words came from him ; and you say they were , that duffy had not the wit to manage what he had undertaken for the general good of their religion . wyer . yes ; and then again in his assembly , kept by him , he charged his inferiours to collect such several sums of mony as he thought fit , according to the several parishes and dignities , to assist and supply the french forces when they came over . l. c. j. how know you that ? wyer . i have seen the mony collected ; and i have seen his warrant sub poena suspensionis to bring it in , to redeem their religion from the power of the english government . again , there were those rebels that went to longford — l. c. j. what time were those collections ? wyer . from time to time since he came into ireland . l. c. j. about what time ? wyer . 9 year , 8 year , 7 year ago , and the last year of all . l. c. j. then it was several times , you say ? wyer . yes ; and he procured the macdonels a piece of mony out of the exchequer , pretending to do good service to his majesty ; but he sent them for france , meaning they should improve themselves and bring themselves into favour with the king of france , and come over with the french king to surprize ireland . this one of the said rebels told me . so i have seen the prisoners letter directed to the grand tory flemming , desiring that they should go to france , and he would see them , in spight of all their enemies in ireland , safe ashoar . and flemming should return again a colonel , to his own glory , and the good of his country . mr. att. gen. do you know his hand ? wyer . yes , i do as well as my own . i have seen capt. o neal , son of general o neal , coming every year into ireland , and carrying three regiments to the french king into france ; and he used to come over to ireland every year to get a recruit ; and he did get my brother to go with him , and so much importun'd me , that i could hardly withstand him ; but i did not yield to his desire : he told me it was to improve me for my good ; to improve my self in military discipline , and then i should return for ireland a captain under the french king , to surprize the kingdom and settle the popish religion , and then i should be restored to my estate . l. c. j. who told you this ? wyer . oapt . o neal. and in the mean while , says he , i hear dr. plunket is the only man entrusted in ireland to make these preparations , and get things ready against the french king 's coming , who is to land at carlingford . mr. att. gen. how often were you in the doctor 's company ? wyer . not very often . plunket . i never saw him with my eyes before in all my life . wyer . i have seen him in the priory the first year that he came over to ireland ; and you know the meetings held at george blykes house in the fives ; and i have seen him in his own house . mr. just . dolben . how came you to know the prisoners hand ? wyer . because i was well acquainted with his hand , seeing his hand amongst the priests . mr. just . dolben . did you ever see him write ? wyer . yes , in the priory , and in his own house . mr. just . dolben . how often ? wyer . not often . mr. just . dolben . how often ? wyer . ten or a dozen times : i should know his hand from all the writing in london , if it were among never so many . let me but see it ; i will know it . l. c. j. have you ever heard him own himself primate ? wyer . yes , my lord , he writes himself oliverus armacanus primas & metropolitanus totius hibernioe , that is his stile . l. c. j. who did he say made him primate ? wyer . the pope , my lord. l. c. j. have you heard him say so ? wyer . yes , i heard him discourse of it in the priory . mr. att. gen. he was a publick officer , and they might well know his hand . l. c. j. i believe any body that hath seen us write but a little , would soon know our hands . wyer . his hand is as well known over ireland , as mine is among my acquaintance . l. c. j. well , go on . wyer . during the time of his imprisonment , i have seen his commands to some of his inferiour dignitaries , commanding them sub poena suspensionis , to bring in the monies assessed for bringing in the french army ; and that there was no better time than the time of his imprisonment to bring it in . l. c. j. who were they , you say , that were commanded sub poena suspensionis ? wyer . since his taking , i have seen in the time of his imprisonment his commands to his inferiour dignitaries , not to be forgetful of the monies that were assessed towards the supplying the french army ; and that there was no better time to bring in the french , than when he was in prison . l. c. j. how long ago was that ? wyer . the first of february ( 79. ) the second and last of it was in july and november last . l. c. j. and this was to bring in the mony ? wyer . yes , to supply the french army . and that there was no better time than during his imprisonment , and they should not be so much suspected . l. c. j. and these mandates you have seen under his hand ? wyer . yes , i have , my lord. mr. att. gen. what do you know of his summoning or issuing out these warrants for lists of men ? wyer . i have not seen any of the warrants ; but the priests have told me they were commanded by his warrants to let him know how many there were in all their parishes from 16 to 60. mr. att. gen. you say you never saw the mandates ? wyer . no , i did not . mr. scrj. jeff. what do you know about the prisoners viewing the ports ? wyer . i have seen him going about from port to port , to derry , to carriefergus , castle down , and carling ford , and all about . mr. scrj. jeff. when he went to take a view of those ports , can you tell to what purpose he did it ? wyer . yes , i heard it among the church , that he went on purpose to view the sea-ports to know the strength of all the garrisons , and to see which was the most convenient way to bring in the french army . mr. serj. jeff. did you ever speak with the prisoner at the bar about his going ? wyer . no. mr. serj. jeff. what place did he pitch on as most convenient ? wyer . carling ford . mr. att. gen. were you in the prisoners company when he viewed the ports ? wyer . i have seen him go to and fro ; i did not go all the circuit round with him . plunket . did you ever see me at carlingford ? wyer . no plunket . did you ever see me at any other of the ports ? wyer . i have seen you at hamiltons coming back from derry . do you not remember that you lodged at at sir geo. plunket . i never lodged there in my life . sir fr. withings . have you any thing more to say concerning the plot in general ? wyer . no , in general i have not . mr. serj. jeff. he hath not only given an account of the general , but fixed it upon the prisoner . mr. att. gen. dr. plunket , will you ask him any questions ? plunket . you say you remember you saw me at my first coming as primate 10 years ago , and that you were at the priory when i was there ? wyer . yes . plunket . you were invisible to me . l. c. j. if you will ask any question , do ; but do not make these kind of observations . plunket . tell me this , why did not you acquaint some justice of the peace then with what you knew , that which you had heard 7 years ago ? wyer . when i first kn●w it , i was as willing to have it conceal'd as they . l. c. j. what is your question , dr. plunket ? pray tell it us . plunket . he says , my lord , that 10 years ago i had such a design in hand , and he knew the mony was collected for these very ends , and he knew of the design from that same capt. o neal whom i employed and sent abroad ; and that i had a design to bring in the french at carlingford , and went about to all the ports in ireland , and pitched upon that as the most convenient ; and yet it is so inconvenient for the bringing in a foreign force , that any one that knows any thing of the maps of the world , will easily conclude it otherwise . but , i say , my lord , why did not he tell some justice of the peace that i was upon such a design , but let me live in ireland 10 years after , and never spake of it till now ? l. c. j. what say you to the question ? plunket . when he saw me all the time , and to the time of my taking prisoner , and never said one word ; for i was a prisoner 6 months only for my religion , not one word of treason spoken of against me for so many years : why did not he acquaint some justice of the peace with it before ? l. c. j. what religion were you of then ? wyer . i was a roman catholick . plunket . and are you not so now ? wyer . yes , i am so . mr. just . dolben . therefore it will be no wonder that you did not discover it . mr. serj. jeff. but i ask you , why did not you discover it all this time ? wyer . because i was a papist my self : the first that did discover it , he and i did consult about it , i had charged him so to do , and i set him on work ; but he was ill paid for having discovered it : you got him to be trepann'd , that he hath gone in danger of his life for it . plunket . who is that man ? wyer . moyer . sir fr. withins . call henry o neal. ( who was sworn . ) what know you of any design in ireland to introduce the popish religion ? o neal. in august ( 78 ) . bishop tirril came with 40 odd horse-men to vicar-general brady's house , and alighted at the door ; and he gave them there an oath , which they took willingly and freely from hand to hand , to forward the popish plot against the protestant religion , to make an end of them all in one hour from end to end in ireland ; and said he , i will come within two days with an order from the lord oliver plunket ; and you need not be afraid , for the lord oliver plunket and i have sent some gold and mony into france to get men and bring them from france over sea : and do not fear , this will go on in one hour through all ireland from end to end . in september ( 78 ) a little while after , the same meeting was in a place which they call virginia , in the county of connaght , where they took a priest , he is here , and he was with me , and desired me to come up to dublin and discover this ; and there i did discover it to sir john davis ; which is all that i can say : for this plunket i never saw him in my life . mr. jones . you were a papist then ? o neal. yes , i was . mr. jones . are you a roman-catholick still ? o neal. yes , i am . mr. jones . and were you acquainted with all these orders ? o neal. yes . l. c. j. how came you to know of this oath ? o neal. i was in the house with them ; i was concerned to take my oath with them , and i durst not but take the oath . l. c. j. had you the oath of secresie given you ? o neal. yes : and so this priest commanded me to go along to dublin and discover it . mr. serj. jeff. what is his name ? o. neal. john macklegh . sir fr. with. do you know of any other transactions about the plot ? o neal. no , i will not swear for all the world more than i know . sir fr. with. — then call neal o neal. ( who was sworn . ) what do you know of any design carrying on in ireland against the government and the protestant religion ? n. o neal. i will tell you all i know : i was at vicar bradey's house the 21. of august . l. c. j. what year ? n. o neal. ( 78. ) and bishop tirril came with 40 horsemen to the house , and went into the house , and discoursed a little while ; and they took their oaths every one round to keep secret the plot , to destroy the protestant religion and the protestants , that they might have their estates again . and he said they did not need to fear : for , said he , you have a very good man to assist you , and that is the lord oliver plunket , and you need not fear but it will go through all ireland . mr. at. gen. will you ask him any questions ? plunket . why did not he discover it before ? mr. serj. jeff. were you a roman-catholick at that time ? n. o neal. yes , and i am so still . mr. paget jury-man . i desire he may be asked how he came to be there ? l. c. j. you say , i think , this was at vicar-general bradey's ; how came you to be there ? n. o neal. i was there several times before that ; for my nurse , or my foster-mother ( i don't know which you may understand best ) was house-keeper to him . l. c. j. were you required to take the oath ? n. o neal. no , my lord , i was acquainted in the house , i had been there two or three weeks before . plunket . why did not you tell it to some justice of the peace ? l. c. j. he was a papist , and so he is now . n. o neal. there were many that were wiser than i , that did not discover it . l. c. j. how old are you ? n. o neal. i believe about two and twenty years old . l. c. j. and this was but in ( 78. ) mr. att. gen. swear owen murfey . ( which was done . ) come , what say you ? o. murfey . mr. edmond murfey discovered the plot ; he went to one lieutenant baker and did discover the plot to him , that there was a design to bring in the french. l. c. j. speak out aloud , i can't hear you . o murf. all i know is from mr. edmond-murfey ▪ l. c. j. what do you know of any of your own knowledge ? o murf. mr. lieutenant baker told me , that he did hear of the french ▪ l. c. j. speak what you know your self . o murf. if it please your lordship , this is more : i saw that evidence that edmond murfey did produce in ireland , when he was sent to the gaol there ; but without trial or any thing . mr. att. gen. then swear hugh duffy ( which was done . ) speak aloud , and tell my lord what you know of this plot and the prisoner . you know the prisoner , don't you ? duffy . i know him , yes , i know him well enough . l. c. j. what say you more of him ? duffy . my lord , i say , i have seen this dr. oliver plunket raising several sums of mony to carry on this plot ; sometimes 10 s. per ann. sometimes 20. mr. sol. gen. of whom . duffy . of all the priests in ireland ; of every priest according to his pension and parish . l. c. j. in all ireland ? duffy . yes . l. c. j. and towards the proceedings of the plot ? duffy . it was to give to his agent which was at rome , and for the carrying on the business . mr. att. gen. how come you to know this . duffy . i was servant to dr duffy , who was infinitely beloved by this man : he was father confessor to the queen of spain : there was nothing that happened between them , but i was by all the time . l. c. j. were you chaplain to him ? duffy . yes . l. c. j. you are a papist then ? duffy . yes . mr. att. gen. this is a friar , my lord. l. c. j. were you in the company with them ? duffy . yes , i was . l. c. j. what did pass there ? duffy . about the plot , how they could confirm the plot : and this man plunket said he could prevail with the king of france and the other with the king of spain . mr. att. gen. pray acquaint my lord particularly when this was , and in what place , and what they said . duff . it was in ( 73 ) ( 74 ) and 75 ) at his own house ; and at he kept 3 or 4 jesuits there , and a matter of a hundred priests . mr. att. gen. what passed in the company ? l. c. j. who else was there ? duffy . the discourse , my lord , was always about the plot , how they could contrive the matter between them ; and so they did conclude afterwards to raise so much mony upon several priests , all the priests in ireland , sometimes 20 s. sometimes 40. l. c. j. apiece , do you mean ? duffy . yes . mr. att. gen. what discourse had they about the french at any time ? duffy . yes a hundred times ; he talked several times , that he did not question but he should prevail with the king of france not to invade spain : and i have seen his letter to cardinal bouillon to expostulate with him about the king of france , why he should wage war with the king of spain who was a catholick , but rather should come and redeem ireland out of its heretical jurisdiction . mr. att. gen. did you see the letter ? duffy . yes . mr. att. gen. why , do you know his hand ? duffy . yes i know it as well as i know my own ; i know it if there were a thousand papers together . mr. att. gen. and what was the import of it , pray ? duff . that cardinal bouillon should prevail with the king of france not to invade spain : and the contents of the rest of the letter were , that he did admire he should not rather wage war with the king of england , who hath been an apostate , and help their poor country that was daily tormented with heretical jurisdiction . mr. att. gen. how came you to be in france ? were you employed ? duff . i went to france to live there in a covent . plunk . did cardinal bouillon shew you my letter ? duff . yes . plunk . what year ? duff . ( 77. ) mr. att. gen. pray sir , you were speaking of raising of mony ? duff . yes . mr. att. gen. did you see any precept about it ? duff . yes , i have seen several procepts ; i was curate to one father murfey ; and while that man was with dr. oliver plunket , and other jesuits , i did officiate in his place , and he sent his letters to me to raise 40 s. and 20 s. a time , several times . l. c. j. you your self ? duff . yes . mr. att. gen. what for ? duff . it was to send to dr. _____ . who was at rome . mr. att. gen. did you send any mony that you know of ? duff . yes . mr. att. gen. tell what time you gave the mony your self . duff . in ( 73 ) ( 74 ) and 75. mr. att. gen. where ? duff . at his own dwelling-place at _____ mr. just . jones . of what quality was the prisoner amongst you ? duff . he was primate of all ireland . mr. just . jones . under whom ? duff . under whom ? under the pope . mr. just . jones . how do you know he was so ? duff . we had it in his writings . l. c. j. did he stile himself so in his letters ? duff . yes , if he writ but to the least man in the country , he would write , oliverus armacanus primas totius hibernioe . l. c. j. and so you always understood him ? duff . yes . mr. att. gen. were you present at any of the general consultations or meetings ? duff . yes , i was . mr. att. gen. what number might meet at that time ? duff . five hundred men and women . mr. att. gen. where was this ? duff . at clouds . mr. att. gen. what was the occasion and design of that meeting ? duff . confirmation from the bishop . mr. att. gen. and what was done there besides ? duff . the second thing was , that the gentlemen of the three counties should conclude together about this matter . l. c. j. about what ? duff . about joining the french and spanish together . mr. just . dolben . where was that meeting ? duff . in the county of monaghan . mr. just . dolben . was the prisoner there ? duff . yes , he was the chief man. l. c. j. when was this . duff . in ( 71 ) to the best of my knowledge . mr. just . dolben . were you there your self ? duff . yes . mr. att. gen. what was the transaction of that day , besides the sacrament of confirmation ? duff . it was agreed that the gentry of armagh , monaghan and conaght should join together ; and then they went into a private council to get a list of all the officers that were in the last rebellion , and those that lost their estates . mr. att. gen. how do you know that ; did you go into the consult ? duffy . yes , i was in the same consult my self , and was as willing to proceed in the matter as any one in the world . l. c. j. where was this ? duffy . within two miles of clouds , at one father house . l. c. j. was that at the time when there were so many persons met ? pray speak what was done there besides confirmation . duffy . why , they were withdrawn aside into a garden ; some stood up , and some sat down ; and oliver plunket stood in the middle of them all as a prelate , and every one kneeled before him and kissed his hand . mr. att. gen. what was then said ? duffy . then they did consult and gave special order to some of them to get a list of all the officers in the late rebellion , and that losed their estates , and that they should be more forward than others to proceed in that wicked design . l. c. j. what was that design ? duffy . to destroy all the protestants together . mr. att. gen. was it to mingle the irish , and spanish , and french army together ? duffy . yes , it was . mr. att. gen. did you hear the prisoner speak about it ? duffy . yes , and he made a speech before them concerning our own faith and religion . mr. att. gen. was there any mention of mony at that time ? duffy . it was , that every man of them that could dispose of mony should provide some for those gentlemen that would soon come into ireland . mr. serj. maynard . who were those gentlemen ? duffy . the french army and the spanish army together . mr. att. gen. were you at any other meeting ? duffy . no. mr. att. gen. after he was taken , do you know of any order he sent out to gather mony ? duffy . yes , at the assizes of dalkieth , i think it was in june two years ago , he was apprehended — mr. att. gen. indeed he was first apprehended as a very busie papist . duffy . i have seen two or three several ordors to raise mony , and for the same purpose ; and that it was the only time to bring the matter to an end when he lay in gaol himself . mr. att. gen. was that the effect of the letter ? duffy . yes ; and that the french and spanish kings should take this advantage that now was offered whilst he was in prison . mr. just . jones . you say some mony was sent to dr. cray ? duff . yes . mr. just . jones . to what end ? duffy . to comply with this design . mr. jones . where was that dr. cray ? duffy . he was at rome , he was made a bishop there . mr. att. gen. who employed him there ? duffy . this man employed him always , l. c. j. what was his name ? duffy . cray . mr. jones . you say some of the priests paid some 20. some 40. duff . yes . mr. jones . did the lay gentry agree to pay nothing ? duffy . i don't know for the gentry . l. c. j. but i think you paid something your self ? duffy . yes , i paid for two or three years my self . l. c. j. and that was for the design ? duff . yes , for the french & spanish army , & all the purposes together . mr. att. gen. what do you know of any precept to be given in of all sorts of persons of such an age ? duffy . i gave a list of the age of every person from 16 to 60. mr. att. gen. by whose order ? duffy . by his order . m. serj. jeff. to whom did you give it ? duffy . to dr. plunket . mr. serj. jeff. that is , to the prisoner ? duffy . yes ; out of my own precinct . mr. att. gen. had you an order from him ? duffy . yes , it was directed to the parish-priest ; and i being curate in his place , received the order . sir fr. with. to what purpose was it ? duffy . to know what men in ireland were able to bear arms. m. just . jones . what was the number contained in your list ? duffy . 250. mr. just . jones . what in one parish ? duffy . yes . mr. serj. jeff. what was the parishes name ? duffy . coghan . mr. att. gen. do you know any thing of his going to view the ports ? duff . i accompanied him to carlingford , mr. att. gen. did you ? duff . yes , in person i did . mr. serj jeff. what did he say ? duff . he went round about the place where some of the custom-ships come in ; there was a great castle there near the sea , and he went to view the place , and could not get a boat : and there was a great talk of carlingford to be one of the best havens in ireland ; there was no great garrison at the place , and any ship might come to the gates of the town and surprize it , being a little town . mr. att. gen. what did he conclude upon that ? duff . that he might get the french army to land safely there . mr. att. gen. what do you know of delivering any amunition and arms ? duff . he did send some of this mony to get amunition into ireland . plunket . you say you were murfey's curate ; can you shew any such institution as you say came to you to raise mony ? duff . i could have brought them , but i thought it needless . plunket . can you name any other person i received mony from ? duff . i have seen your paper of the county of monaghan . plunk . have you seen any of them pay any monies ? duff . yes , i have seen twenty of them pay mony . mr. just . dolben . why , you are acquainted with this man , are you not , mr. plunket ? plunk . my lord , i believe i have seen him . mr. just . dolben . don't you know he was chaplain to bishop duffy ? plunket . no ; i never was in his company . mr. serj. jeff. pray tell him what time of the year it was that you were at carling ford . duffy . it was at the end of the year ( 77 ) and the beginning of the year ( 78. ) mr. att. gen. pray , if you can recollect , was you once , or twice , or twenty times in his company ? duff . as i am a christian , i have been a hundred times in his company . and when you were creating priests , you would always send for me to be present ; and i wonder how the man should forget himself ? plunket . i do not say i have not seen him , or that i am a stranger to the man ; but in the company of bishop duffy i never saw him , nor i never sent him orders to pay any mony : and if he did pay any mony , he might shew the order . mr. serj. jeff. if he did pay any mony , you did ill to take it . mr. att. gen. pray let him have fair play to ask any questions . mr. soll. gen. tell how you came to remember that you saw him at sir nich. plunkets . duff . dr. duffy did send me to sir nicholas plunkets , and i met dr. plunket as i was coming out of the city . i had been half a year at the spanish embassadours , and he sent me for ireland again , and then i lived at the convent in dublin ; and then when i knew that he would come to town , i went to rings end , where the ships came in , to meet him . plunk . you say you were with him at my house ? duff . yes . plunk . if you were , you were invisible : but i ask you , why did not you tell this to some justice of the peace ? mr. just . dolben . good mr. plunket , he tells you he was as willing to forward it then as you . l. c. j. how come you now to change your mind ? duffy . i went into france in ( 77 ) and i was not a year there altogether ; but when i have seen how the poor people there are brought into such slavery by the french king , i thought of it , and had rather the devil should reign over us , than the frenchman . mr. just . dolben . he gives you a very good rational account why . duff . i have been at sir nicholas plunkets , and dr. patrick plunkets , where there fell some variance about something this man had done to father duffy . says bishop duffy , i might have had you drawn and quartered , if i were as ill a man as you : and i might have been primate of ireland , if i would have undertaken those things that you undertook . upon that , says sir nicholas plunket , what is that ? why , it was said it was to raise 60000 men in ireland at any time whenever the french or the spanish king should wage war with england , scotland or ireland . and this man did confess before my face to father duffy , that it was not only to exalt himself , but all the roman clergy , and all the gentry that had lost their estates . plunk . mr. duffy , one word with you ; is not this out of malice to me for correcting some of the clergy ? duff . you had nothing to do with me , for i was a friar . mr. att. gen. swear edmond murfey . ( which was done . ) tell your whole knowledge of dr. plunket and the irish plot. murf. may it please you my lord. i was one of the first discoverers of this plot ; but of nine witnesses , i have but one in town . l. c. j. well , tell your own knowledge . murf. now i beg your lordship as to dr. plunket , that you will respit it till next term , i could bring ten witnesses . mr. att. gen. do you speak your own evidence . murfey . i refer it to the king and council what evidence i have given . l. c. j. do not trouble your self , be directed a little ; you are here now to speak what you know concerning any treasons , or any other matters against the king , done by dr. plunket ; speak your own knowledge ; for as to other witnesses we do not call you . murfey . if i be called in question for this evidence — mr. att. gen. come , sir , you have been at the spanish embassadors lately , answer my question : have you ever been with plunket in ireland ? murf. yes , sir. mr. att. gen. have you ever heard him own himself primate of ireland ? murf. yes , titular primate . mr. att. gen. under whom did he claim that authority ? under the king , or under the pope ? murf. i think he could not be under the king at all . mr. att. gen. under whom then ? murf. it must be either the king or the pope . l c. j. answer me directly . did he claim to be titular primate under the pope ? murf. i suppose he did . l. c. j. was he reputed generally so to be ? murf. yes , my lord. mr. att. gen. mr. murfey , remember what you swore before the grand jury ; pray recollect your self whether that be true , and tell all . l. c. j. you are upon your oath , you must speak the truth and the whole truth , you must not mince or conceal any thing . mr. serj. jeff. were you sworn before the grand jury ? murf. i was sworn before the king and parliament . mr. serj. jeff. did you give in any evidence to the grand jury ? murf. yes , i did . mr. serj. jeff. was that you swore before the grand jury true , upon your oath ? murf. i can't say but it was . mr. serj. jeff. repeat it , tell my lord and the jury what it was , and tell the truth . murf. i have forgot it . mr. att. gen. why then i would ask you a little ; you remember i was by , and 't is no laughing matter , mr. murfey , you will find it so . what do you know of any orders issued out by mr. plunket , to raise mony from the priests ? murf. i know there was orders , and i took the orders my self in my hand . mr. att. gen. from whom had you those orders ? murf. from another , and not from him . mr. att. gen. under whose hand were those orders ? murf. they were from the primate . mr. at. gen. did you see any order under plunket's hand for raising of mony ? murf. no , but under the vicar-generals , by his authority , as i suppose . mr. att. gen. upon your oath , did you not swear before the grand jury , that you saw the orders under his hand ? murf. no , i did not : or i was mistaken , for it was only by his direction . mr. att. gen. pray had you any converse with o. plunket about the raising of mony ? murf. o. plunket about the raising of mony ! mr. att. gen. yes , that is a plain question . murf. it was about other matters i conversed with him . mr. att. gen. but did you converse with him about mony ? murf. no , not about the mony . mr. att. gen. upon your oath , did you converse with him about bringing in the french ? mr. serj. jeff. declare the truth , come . l. c. j. come , don't trifle ; what discourse have you had with the prisoner about raising of mony , or bringing in the french ? either of them , sir. murf. i know this , if the d. of york and d. of ormond had proceeded according to their intentions , it was a general expectation at the same time , that all the french and irish would come and fall upon the english nation , as i understood . l. c. j. pray answer the question directly , you must not come and think to trifle with the court , you must speak the truth , you are sworn to it ; you must not come to quibble and run about to this and that and t'other , but answer directly : have you had any discourse with the prisoner about orders for raising of mony in ireland ? murf. yes , i have seen orders from his vicar-genral for the raising of mony . l. c. j. hath he owned them to be by his direction ? murf. not before me , but others he has . mr. att. gen. have you seen any mony paid to him ? murf. to whom ? mr. att. gen. to plunket . murf. to the vicar-general i have . l. c. j. but to plunket . murf. none to plunket . l. c. j. have you had any discourse with him at any time about the raising of mony , which the vicar-general gave order for ? murf. i have had discourse with the vicar-general . l. c. j. sir , don't trifle , have you had any with him . murf. with him ? l. c. j. yes , with him . murf. yes , i have had some discourse with him . l c. j. tell me what that discourse was ? murf. i think it was about this . if the d. of york , and the d. of monmouth fell out together , that he had some men to raise about that matter , and if the d. of monmouth would raise the protestant religion — m att. gen. you see he hath been in spanish hands . l. c. j. were you a protestant , sir ? murf. no , i am a priest . mr. serj. jeff. he is to seek yet . murf. i am indifferent whether i be protestant or a papist . mr. att. gen. my lord , he is a priest in orders , and so hath acknowledged himself . murf. yes , i am a priest , but it makes me forget my self to see so many evidences to come in , that never knew plunket . l. c. j. sir , you refuse to answer those questions that we put to you here . murf. what i said before the parliament i answer punctually . l. c. j. you are asked questions here , and produced as a witness , will you answer directly or not ? murf. yes , i will. l. c. j. then let me hear what discourse you had with the primate plunket concerning any mony raised by him or his vicar-general . murf. may it please your lordship , first of all i did not impeach primate plunket , but the officers and justices of the peace . mr. jones . had you any discourse with him , yea , or no ? murf. that he should find so many catholicks in ireland if the d. of york and the d. of monmouth fell out . mr. just . jones . why it plainly appears what you drove at at first , to put off this tryal if you could . l. c. j. the papists in england have been at work with you . mr. serj. jeff. i perceived this gentleman was very busie looking upon his hat , i desire he may be searched if he have no paper about him . mr. att. gen. mr. solicitor and my self heard the evidence he gave to the grand jury . then he went out of the court and would scarce be perswaded to come back again . mr. att. gen. we both heard him , and he gave the fullest evidence , much suller to all instances , and particulars of this high treason , much suller than duffy to the grand jury . afterwards about 3 weeks ago the tryal coming on , he ran away and lay hid , i took a great deal of pains to find him out , and sent messengers about ; at last i heard he was got to the spanish embassadors , i sent , and they spied him in the chappel ; but the spanish embassadors servants fell upon the messenger and beat him ; the embassador was first sent to about it , and his excellency promised that he should be brought , and when he was found he told me but the last night , that all he had sworn before the grand jury was true , and he was ready to make it out again . l. c. j. and now he says , he knows not what he said then , and pray take notice of that . murfey . i told the grand jury this , that my lord plunket had a design to get 60 or 70000 men in ireland , if the d. of york and the d. of monmouth should fall out . mr. att. gen. did you tell a word of that to the grand jury ? murfey . yes , sir , or i was mistaken . mr. att. gen. not one word of that did he then say . l. c. j. do you own this man , dr. plunket , to be of your religion ? mr. serj. jeff. do you know this seeker ? plunk . he says himself he is indifferent to be a protestant or a papist . mr. serj. jeff. i will only try you by one question more , for you are sought out , and it may be you may be found ; do you know how many men he was to raise in ireland ? remember what you said to the grand jury . murf. 70000 men. l. c. j. what were they to do ? murf. for establishing if occasion should be — mr. serj. jeff. establishing , establishing what ? murf. of the romish religion . mr. serj. jeff. well , so far we have got 70000 men to establish the romish religion , what , was plunket to do this ? murf. as far as i understood . mr. just . jones . and you understood it by himself ? murf. i received letters from the vicar general to get so much mony collected , and assoon as i got the letters to my hands , i sent them to a privy councellor . l. c. j. do you not know that he was ingaged to assist the french army ? murf. i do not know that by him , but by others . mr. just . dolben . did you ever discourse with him about it ? murf. i did discourse with him about several matters . mr. just . dolb. about the french army ? murfey . yes . l. c. j. do you know that he did endeavour to bring them into ireland ? murf. i had a correspondence in france at the same time — l. c. j. with whom ? murf. with one mac carty . l. c. j. and do you know that he had correspondence in france ? murf. yes , i know that . mr. just . dolb. with whom had plunket correspondence in france ? murf. he had correspondence with dr. cray , and others in france as i understood by others . mr. just . dolb. was the end of that correspondence to bring men from france into ireland ? murf. yes , so far as i understand . mr. just . dolb. you understood the letters when you read them , did you not ? murf. i know not how these people come to swear this business , whether they had not malice against him — mr. att. gen. well , sir , pray give you your evidence , we will take care of the rest . mr. just . dolb. i reckon this man hath given the best evidence that can be . l. c. j. yes , it is evidence that the catholicks have been tampering with him . mr. serj. jeff. i desire he may be committed my lord , because he hath fenced from the beginning . [ which was done accordingly . ] mr. att. gen. swear john mac legh . [ which was done . ] sir fran. wyth . tell my lord and the jury what you know of any plot in ireland to bring in the french. mac legh . i was a parish priest in ireland in the county of monaghan , and dr. oliver plunket received several sums of mony in ireland , and especially in the diocess where i am . i raised some of it , and paid him 40 s. at one time , and 30 s. another time , in the year ( 74 ) i paid him 40 s. in the year ( 75 ) i paid him 50 s. and it was about july , and it was for the better advancement of the french coming in . mr. jones . did he tell you that the mony was to be employ'd that way ? mac legh . yes , that the mony was to be kept for arms and amunition for the roman catholicks in ireland . l. c. j. before you paid it , did you receive any order from him ? mac legh . yes , i received an order sub poena suspensionis , and there was a publick order throughout ireland , or we would not pay it ? nay several would not pay it , and they were to be suspended . plunk . can you shew any of the orders under my hand ? mac legh . yes , i can shew them , but only they are afar off , i did not expect to have them asked for . plunk . have you no superiors of your own ? mac legh . yes , but you being lord primate , you could suspend bishops and inferiour clergy together . plunk . when was this ? mac legh . in the years ( 74 ) and ( 75. ) plunk . what is the reason you kept it secret all this while ? mac legh . in the year ( 77 ) i did discover it to one mr. o neal , who i sent to dublin to discover this plot. i was in france my self , my lord. plunk . how many years is it since you returned from france ? mac legh . in may in the year ( 78. ) plunk . why did you not speak all this while till now ? mac legh . i did send one mr. henry o neal to dublin , for i durst not go , lest i should have been suspended and excommunicated . mr. att. gen. this is the priest that henry o neal speaks of . l. c. j. is not this a very good reason ; if he had come to dublin to discover , you would have suspended him . plunk . but my lord , then he might have shewn my suspension and brought me into a premunire . mr. serj. jeff. if you please , doctor , let us who are for the king have done with him first . i would ask you another question sir , were you at one vicar bradeys house ? mac legh . yes , i was . mr. att. gen. tell what was done there . mac legh . there was bishop tyrrel came there with 40 horsemen well mounted and armed , he came into the house about 10. in the morning , and staid till about 11 at night . i was very much among them , and was as willing to be of the plot , as themselves . mr. att. gen. tell what was done there . mac legh . there bishop tyrrel said , that he had order from dr. oliver plunket and others , to pertake of the plot to bring in the french , and subvert the government in ireland , and destroy the protestant religion and the protestants . mr. att. gen. was there an oath given ? mac legh . yes , they were all put to their oaths , which they did take willingly to keep it private during their lives time , and the reason was they were to have their estates during their lives time . mr. serj. jeff. now tell us when this was . mr. att. gen. my lord , henry o neal and phleem o neal speak to the same purpose . mr. serj jeff. do you remember whether henry o neal was there ? did he take the oath of secresie ? mac legh . yes . mr. att. gen. what do you know of any letters from plunket ? mac legh . in france i landed at brest , and going through britany , i met with bishop tyrrel and dr. cray , who was my lord oliver plunkets agent , and duke john of great britany came into them ; for he heard of these 2 bishops being newly come out of rome , sent for them , and i being a priest of tyrrels diocess , i went along with them , and they were well accepted , and shewed dr. oliver plunkets conditions with the king of france , which was this ; to get dublin and london-derry , and all the sea-ports into their own hands , to levy war and destroy the protestant religion , and that they should have him to protect them during his life-time . l. c. j. did you see those conditions ? mac legh . a copy of them i did , the governour of britany did shew them to the bishop . mr. serj. jeff. what language were those conditions in ? mac legh . they were in latine , sir. mr. serj. jeff. was edmond murfey put out of the diocess . mac legh . not as i know of . l. c. j. what do you know of his being primate ? upon what conditions was he made primate . mac legh . he was made primate by the election of the king of france . and upon his election , he made those conditions with the king of france , to raise men to join with the french , to destroy the protestant religion . mr. just . jones . you know that man , dr. plunket ? plunk . yes , my lord. mr. att. gen. will you ask him any questions ? plunk . none , but what i asked the others . mr. just . dolben . then if that is all , he hath given a good answer to that already , he was as forward then as the rest . mr. att. gen. then swear john moyer , ( which was done . ) mr. just . jones . what do you know concerning any plot in ireland , and dr. plunkets being in it ? moyer . i know him first , my lord , to be made primate of ireland , ingaging that he should propagate the roman faith in ireland , and restore it to the catholick government , and i know the time by relation , that i came to rome within two months after his being made primate of ireland upon the same conditions , that have been related to you , and i was brought into the convent of st. francis in rome by one father , and this father was very intimate with cardinal spinola , and when he used to go abroad he used to carry me along with him as a companion , and there i found several of the roman cardinals say , that the kingdom of ireland should come under the catholick government by the way and means of the lord primate plunket . mr. att gen. what do you know of your self ? moyer . as i was coming then from rome , i happened to come into a convent of the order of st. francis , and there came out of ireland a young gentleman of the family of the o neals , who hath been my lord primates page . plunket . i never had a page . moyer . you termed him so my lord in ireland , and as i came , this young man had a pacquet of letters with him , as though they were commendations to enter him into the colledge de propaganda fide , directed to the secretary of that colledge . and thinking them to be letters of recommendation , an old father , called one thomas crawley , and i thought it not prejudicial to open the seal ; and the contents were these , i translated them 5 years ago , and here are the contents following , if you please they may be read , i will do my best to read them in english , the original were in latine , and some phrases in italian . and when i was surprized by mr. murfey the last year , and taken suddenly , all my papers were taken away before i could return back again , by the soldiers and the tories , i only kept a copy of this letter i had in english as near as i could , and if i did not diminish any thing by the translation ; upon the oath i have taken , i have not put any thing in it , but what the contents of the letter were . l. c. j. was that letter under his own hand ? moyer . my lord cannot deny that . plunket . do you know my own hand writing ? moyer . does your lordship deny , that i know your hand ? plunket . pray sir will you answer it . moyer . yes , i do very well . plunket . when did you leave ireland ? moyer . i will tell you that , my lord , 't is some 14 or 15 years ago . mr. serj. jeff. you were giving an accompt of the letter , read it . moyer . here is the contents , illustrissime domine , it was directed to seignior who is now secretary of the colledge de propaganda fide , ( so then he read his paper . mr. sol. gen. you say , you translated that out of a letter under the prisoners own hand . moyer . yes , i translated it immediately , and to prove it , i have statutes which his lordship made in the general national council , which are under your own hand , my lord. mr. sol. gen. when did you make this translation ? moyer . five years ago . mr. sol. gen. where did you make it ? moyer . i made it out of the original in ireland . mr. sol. gen. where is the original ? moyer . when i was taken by mr. murfey and mr. hethrington the last year , the souldiers and tories came and took them away with other papers i had of the same business . l. c. j. was the paper you translated that from , of his hand writing ? moyer . no , my lord , the paper i took this out of , was a copy of the original . l. c. j. was the original of his hand writing ? moyer . yes , it was . l. c. j. where did you take it ? moyer . in caprennica , when i met with my lords page . l. c. j. what made you take a copy of it ? moyer . it was in latine and italian , and i translated it afterwards . l. c. j. and the english father , you say , made bold to open it . moyer . yes , because he thought 't was a letter of recommendations , but the original of the statutes made at clouds , i did take the original and gave a copy to the page . l. c. j. have you the original here ? moyer . yes , my lord , under his own hand . plunk . that 's another thing . l. c. j. but we would know that other thing . mr. serj. jeff. my lord , i desire that he would produce it , 't is his own hand writing , see whether his grace can deny it . moyer . the signing of it is his own hand writing , i got the writing along with the letter , and thinking to have a copy of the one as as well as of the other ; it was the statutes i got , and i never knew i had them till i was in madrid in spain . then the paper was shewn to the prisoner . plunk . my lord , 't is my hand . moyer . indeed , my lord , 't is your own hand . mr. serj. jeff. he owns it . moyer . and there is an order in those statutes , wherein ireland was bound to send so much mony to rome upon such a design . the the witness read the title in latine . mr. just . dolb. look out that clause for the raising of the mony . moyer . my lord , 't is that i look for . cum toti clero in hibernia necessarium sit . mr. just . dolb. that is but negotia generally . mr. serj. maynard . that was to solicite their affairs . mr. att. gen. 't is 500 l. in the whole . plunk . is it 500 l ? moyer . 't is in figures , a 5 and two [ 00. ] plunk . my lord , this is counterfeit , 't is put in by other ink. mr. just . dolb. like enough so . l. c. j. nothing more ordinary , yau leave a blank for for the sum , and then , may be , you put it in with other ink. mr. just . dolb. how much do you say was the mony , dr. plunket ? plunk . my lord , every agent that is kept at rome hath a maintenance , as all countries have their agents at rome . mr just . dolb. how much was it ? plunk . it was 50 l. a year . l. c. j. look you , mr. plunket , consider with your self , 50 or 500 in this case is not 5 farthings difference , but the money was to be raised by your order . plunket . ay , but whether it was not raised to this effect ; there is never a nation where the roman catholick religion is professed , but hath an agent for their spiritual affairs at rome , and this was for the spiritual affairs of the clergy of ireland . mr. serj. jeff. and the letter was for spiritual affairs too , was it not ? plunk . i desire nothing , that is a truth , every nation hath an agent , and that agent must be maintained ; and the reason is this , because we have many colledges beyond sea , and so there is no country of roman catholicks , but hath an agent in rome . l. c. j. you had better reserve your self till by and by , to answer that & the letter together ; for this is but a small part of the evidence . mr. att. gen. about this letter you were speaking of , pray , will you tell what fell out about it . moyer . i will tell you how it fell out afterwards . then i came along into marseilles in france , and there were 2 captains that had as much notice as i had in that letter , for they were discoursing that they would advance themselves in the french kings service , and hoped , that by the king of france's help to have the roman catholick faith set up in their own country ; why , that discourse passed off , for i was mightily afraid of any such thing , because i was of another opinion ; for perhaps i might think the roman catholick faith would flourish as well as ever it did , and hoped so as well as any body else , but not by the sword. as i came to madrid , there came one hugh o donnell , son to o donnell , with letters of recommendation , and those letters were to intitle the young man earl of tyrone , and likewise that his majesty the king of spain should help him for ireland , according to the form of the letters he had . and then as i came for ireland , speedily after there came letters of recommendation to me , that i should present sent my self to my lord primate , to hear confessions , and be heard preach . i came to his lordship at his own house the 9th . of december ( 74 ) and there he kept me several hours , and approved me ; and the copy of the approbation i have to shew . and after a long dispute we went aside , and went to look father patrick , and there he shewed me such and such things . and after a long discourse i told my lord primate , i see your lordships letter , which you sent by young o neal , in such a place , and he shewed me the contents of it ; and , said i , ay , my lord , 't is a good intention & design , if it can be done without bloodshed ; then my lord mused a little , and , said he , well father francis , ( which is my name in religion , my christian name is john ) pray will you keep it secret , well my lord , said i , you need not fear ; for , said he , what ever i have done herein was not for my own good , but for the publick good of the catholicks . well , said i , 't is well , then does he commend me into the parish of where this mr. murfey here was to put in a bull , that i had from my lord primate , which bull was brought here last year ; and there he proferod me high promotions , if i would further such things , and solicite such gentlemen as i knew would be private in such a business , such as were old commanders among my friends and relations . shortly after this i saw plunket and bishop tyrrel , and captain con o neal practising to bring souldiers ready for ireland , assoon as they could get opportunity . this captain con o neal coming to the place where we kept our priory , and he and his brothers were sons to general o neal. and there captain con comes in the night time and lodges with us , and discoursed with his brother and i , because i was his companion beyond sea , about these matters , that he expected my lord primate and bishop tyrrels coming thither that night , to make some proposals about the church and other assairs . after ten a clock , or thereabouts , my lord primate and bishop tyrrel came with others in their company , and there they and father o neal did consult amongst themselves , that they should send captain con to france , and to barcellona , with such and such instruments ; and sending those instruments away , captain con departs the country and goes for france soon after ; and speedily my lord primate undertook , that he and bishop tyrrel should view munster and vlster , and other parts of ireland , to see how affairs stood . soon after my lord primate calls a general provincial council , and sends out his orders to levy such and such taxes and subsides , and warrants to all the parish priests , that they should give them new lists to know whether the numbers they had sent to rome before , would comply with that list . and then o neal went to view the forts of charlemont and dun gannon , whilest those lords did collect the mony ; the orders i have seen with my own proper eyes , and his own man confessed before the council in ireland that my lord gave them under his hand . mr. serj. jeff. what year was this ? moyer . it was in ( 76 ) to the best of my remembrance : l. c. j. look you sir , was this at a provincial meeting ? moyer . yes , my lord , a general national council , to send over instruments to tell them , that they were ready to assist any foreign army , that should help on the design . l. c. j. and to raise mony ? moyer . yes , my lord. mr. just . dolben . have you paid him any mony ? moyer . i was exempted my self ; but i have seen others . mr. just . dolben . how many ? moyer . i believe 30. mr. just . dolben . it was not then a secret thing , but openly done by them . moyer . yes , i saw them when they came with orders , there were four priests , and they had a great cloak-bag going with orders up and down . mr. serj. jeff. why were you exempted ? moyer . because i am a regular priest . sir fr. withens . you say you saw the orders for raising of mony , how do youknow for what it was to be employed ? moyer . it was there specified down . plunket . can you shew any of the orders ? moyer . i could not take them , they did not concern me . sir fr. withins . how was it specified ? moyer . to levy so much mony per priest . i cannot remember the particular sum ; but that every priest should give so much towards an agent in rome to solicite their business and forward it . l. c. j. what year was it ? moyer . ( 76. ) l. c. j. was any of the mony specified for raising an army or bringing in the french ? moyer . it was both for the agent and to summon a national council , to get things ready prepared to entertain and accept the french army when it should come . i am not so good in expressing my self in english . l. c. j. your sence is good , 't is no matter for your expression . mr. jones . what more do you know ? moyer . i know that he had the same council , and that they did agree upon the business , and this i know by one patrick borne , and i being willing that this wicked action should be hindred , sent to the next justice to discharge my self of it , which justice was as favourable to the business as my lord himself was . l. c. j. will you ak him any questions , mr. plunket ? plunket . i desire to know when he left ireland ? moyer . i cannot tell how to number the years , but i think it was in 62 or 63 , to the best of my remembrance it was 16 or 17 years ago . plunket . when did you return ? moyer . i came back in 74 , you know it , my lord. plunket . very well , when did you see the letter with the young man in caprennica ? moyer . in ( 72. ) plunket . how then did you know my hand which you had never seen ? moyer . i have seen it several times to several instruments , to seignior and i have seen several other letters of your hand . plunket . how did you know my hand ? moyer . i cannot positively say , i then knew your hand , but according to relation , i heard it from those cardinals i conversed with at rome . l. c. j. but now you are acquainted with his hand , is it the same hand which you have seen up and down in writings with his name to ? moyer . yes , my lord it is the very same hand . mr. serj. jeff. i ask you , sir , when you came back again and told him you had seen such a letter under his hand with o neal , did he own it to you ? moyer . yes he did own it , and that he did not do it for his own benefit , but for the publick . mr. serj. jeff. did he desire you to be secret ? moyer . yes , he did , and to be discreet , and he would see me highly promoted . and , my lord , you sent proposals to me , to give me 100 l. that i should not prosecute you , according as they told me , and they gave me one guinny in hand for it . l. c. j. some of it came to the hands of murfey i believe . plunket . my lord , i cannot say any thing to this , my hands are tyed , because my witnesses are not here . my lord , if i had my witnesses and records , i did not care for all these witnesses . l. c. j. but you know , you had time to bring them . plunket . my lord , i desire to know whether this be his hand , ( shewing the paper to mr. moyer . ) moyer . yes , i believe it is . plunket . i desire it may be read . moyer . yes , i am very well satisfied it should . cl. of cr. reads . for my very reverend father anthony guardian of armagh , your letter & citation — 't is dated in july ( 78. ) plunket . he can best read it himself . cl. of cr. read it right ( the paper being delivered him . ) moyer . my lord , i pity him with all my heart , that a man of my own function , should be brought into question for such things as these are , ( he reads ) very reverend father guardian , 't is dated 1 july ( 78. ) your paternities paternal letter and citation homeward , i did instantly peruse . as for my lord o. plunket , i wrote a letter to him the day before i saw your reverends last , that he might cause my fame , which is as dear to me as my life , to be recalled ; or i should cause his name to be fixed at every publick place , which by the almighty i will do , nature and all reason compelling me to do it . plunket . my lord , i say this , he says he came to my house when he came over , and i imparted this secret to him , yet you see i had denounced him throughout my whole diocess , and he here calls me by all those names of elemas , simon magus , and barjesus , and 't is impossible if i had communicated such a secret to him , that i would deal so with him . mr. just . dolben . he does not say , you imparted this secret to him , but he says , when he told you of the letter , you answered him , but you seemed surprized and mused first . l. c. j. you seemed to flatter him then , and told him you hoped to see him , the best of his order , highly promoted . mr. just . dolben . how came you to fall out , moyer ? moyer . when first they had this meeting at brantry , seeing a cloud coming , and dreading a war , and the consequencies of it , i went and applied my self to sir hamilton , one of his majesties privy councellors in ireland , and i gave in all my informations december 7 ( 76. ) mr. just . dolb. and thereupon he denounced you excommunicate ? moyer . yes , and afterwards , when he saw i was in communication and familiar with these privy councellors , then he was certain i had discovered the matter , and then he got a great many devices to get the letters out of my hand . plunket . you shall see under his own hand all the stratagem of this , if i had my witnesses here , you should then see under his own hand , upon what account he fell out with me . pray , my lord , ask him if this other letter be his hand . moyer . i believe it is my own hand . l. c. j. read it . moyer . ( reads ) very reverend , father guardian ( then speaking ) my lord , you know that i was loth to discover my self , being among people knowing of the plot. l. c. j. well , read it over . moyer . ( reads ) the 23. of april ( 78 ) i was somewhat comforted by your letter . but now i hope your reverence hath considered what wrong i have sustained , by my envious adversaries calumnies , only for standing , as i have a soul to save , for your rights and priviledges , as also for endeavouring to hinder my native countries ruine and destruction . mr. just . dolb. read that again . ( which he did . ) plunket . observe , that i was his adversary , for standing for the rights and priviledges of the fryers . mr. just . dolb. as also for endeavouring to hinder his countries ruine and destruction . l c. j. the one and the other were the reason of your falling out . moyer . ( reads on . ) moyer . my lord , i was i confess a begging fryar , and stood up for the priviledges of the fryars . plunket . did you write any process to rome against me ? moyer . no , i never did it . plunket . my lord , does not he say i was in disgrace at rome ? moyer . no , nothing of that . l. c. j. i don't hear it , but what if he did ? what is that to the purpose . plunket . to shew his contradictions , now he says , i was great in rome , and but then in his letter he says , i was in disgrace at rome . now he says , all that he had against me , was for his fryers , and to hinder the destruction of his country ; because i hindred the fryers to beg there , is the destruction of his country . as he was doing there upon that he fell out with me , and upon that his own superiors sent this order . l. c. j. we can't meddle with your superiors orders , they are no thing before us . mr. serj. jeff. my lord , i think for the present we have done with our evidence . plunket . my lord , to shew what was part of the falling out , i would ask him if he was indicted for any crime , and found guilty by a jury ? moyer . that was for discovering , for i discovered it before . plunket . my lord , he confesses he was convicted for giving powder and shot to the rebels . mr. just . dolben . no , no , he does not say so ; produce the record , if you have any of such thing . moyer . to satisfie the court. mr. serj. jeff. look you , dr. plunket , if you will ask him any questions , that by law he is bound to answer , do it of gods name , we will not interpose , but if you ask him any questions that may tend to accuse himself , we must tell you , he is not bound to answer them . plunk . he hath been convicted and found guilty , he will confess it himself . l. c. j. he is not bound to answer such a question . moyer . it was a tory swore against me , that you did absolve . mr. just . dolb. don't tell us a story of your tories . l. c. j. look you mr. plunket , don't mispend your own time ; for the more you trifle in these things , the less time you will have for your defence , i desire you now to consider , and well husband your time for your defence ; what have you to say for your self ? plunk . my lord , i tell you , i have no way to defend my self , in that i was denied time to bring over my records , and my witnesses , which are 10 or 12. and if i had them here , i would stand in defiance of all the world to accuse me ; but i have not sufficient time to bring over my records and my witnesses , and i am brought here from out of my native country ; were i in ireland , there both i and they should be known : but when i was to be tried there , they would not appear ; and it is all false and only malice . these men used to call me oliverus cromwellus out of spight . mr. serj. maynard . you are very like him , a destoyer of the government . mr. serj. jeff. were not you acquainted with him ? plunk . this is all i can say , if i had my witnesses here i could make my defence . l. c. j. here are some things , that if you can give an answer to , you will do well to do it ; for they stick close to you . they do testifie against you here , that you did undertake to raise a body of men in ireland , 70000 men they speak of out of in your own nation , and all these were to join with the french , for the introducing the religion of the romish church into ireland , and setling that again there . and that you , in order to this , did take a survey of all those roman catholicks that were able to bear arms , from 16 to 60 ; and there is plentiful evidence , that you did go a circuit there to peruse all the towns , and see which might be most convenient for the taking in , and entertaining the french , and landing their forces ; and charlemont , you did design that for one strong place to be taken , and dun-gannon for another , and that you did design the french army to land at carlingford , and all that was with you , tells the reason you gave , why that should be the place , that they might come up with a burdened ship to the very gates of the town , that you did , in order to the entertaining these foreign forces , raise mony , that you did send out your orders sub poena suspensionis to all that were of the roman clergy , and that this mony was received , several of them testified that they paid it to you , and this man hath seen great numbers of persons pay mony to you upon these accounts . all these are treason , what say you to them . it does import you to consider what answer you can give . plunk . my lord , first as to the first point , i answer , that i never received a farthing of mony out of my own district , and but for my own livelihood , and that i can prove by those that have received it for me , that i never received over threescore pound a year in my life , unless some genleman would now and then give me 10 s. for my relief . for , my lord , this is the way in ireland , every priest hath so many families allotted to him , and every roman catholick family gives 2 s. a year ( as they that profess that way , know ) and the priests give me who am superior over them , in my own district , some 20 s. some 30 s. and i never got so much in my life as to maintain a servant , and this was attested before the council in ireland . mr. just . dolb. ay , but the witnesses say , out of your own district you sent into another bishops diocess to collect mony . plunk . my lord , i say i could never get so much as to keep a servant , and till now i never got a farthing out of my own diocess , unless i have been called to an arbitration or some such thing , it may be for my journey and expences 40 or 50 miles they would give me something for my maintenance ; if you should find any thing else , i will be content to suffer ; and if my evidence were brought from ireland , there is nothing but what would be made clear , both under their own hands and by records , and that is all well known , and was attested in his presence before the council in ireland , which threescore pounds was a very small thing to maintain me , and i never had above one servant , and the house i lived in was a little thatch'd house , wherein was only a little room for a library , which was not 7 foot high , where once this fellow came to affront me , because i had hindred him from begging , and that 's for the mony. for the men , i defie any one that ever see me make a list of men in my life , or can produce any list made by my order . i was never in my life at kinsale , at cork , at dun-gannon , at limerick , &c. or those parts of munster which were the chief ports where the french should come in , and not in carlingford , which is the narrow seas in vlster , which any one that knows the world will judg to be a very improper place for the french to land in . 't is all one as to say that the french should come in at a poor place where they could get nothing , it being at the narrow seas , and they never saw me there in their lives . l. c. j. yes , one does say , he was with you . plunk . well , one does say he saw me there , but if i had my witnesses here , i could prove he was a friar , and declared an apostate by his own provincial , as this gentleman is , and because i hindred them to beg in my districts , therefore they have this malice against me , that is all . well , my lord , that is for that : i was never in my life in connaght ; and they cannot say , i took any list in vlster , nor was twelve miles in munster in my life : but thus , my lord , sometimes there would be , as our way is , so many families assigned to every priest , ( and this is the plain truth ) this priest perhaps complains to me of the inequality , my companion near me hath 150 , and i have but threescore , which i must rectifie ; though i never knew but one of these complaints . and if i had my witnesses from ireland , and the records , i would defie all these witnesses together . for my sending to rome , i had never an agent in rome for these seven years past , because i was not able to maintain him , and indeed it was a great shame to us ; because there is never a community of fryers , that hath a colledge beyond sea , but hath some agent at rome . l. c. j. 't is a shame to have one there , not to want one . mr. just . dolb. well , if you have witnesses , i cannot tell what to say . plunk . if i had gotten but to the latter end of the term , i had desied them altogether . and your lordship should have seen under their own hands what they were . l. c. j. you forget this all this while , your own letter , wherein this matter is , that you had searched the towns and considered it . mr. att. gen. he does deny there was such a letter , he does not own there was such a letter . plunk . i my lord , i never did write such a letter . and that young man that he speaks of , i could prove , if i had my witnesses , that he never was in any service or company in ireland , nor writ any letters by him . l. c. j. did you never send any letter by one o neal ? plunk . no my lord , but he went over a begging . moyer . this young mans brother in law will testifie , that he was your lordships page . plunk . i have 3 witnesses that he came there begging , naked , and was sick 3 months , and went over a begging , and was at rome as a stragler . moyer . call hanlet , ( who came in ) sir fr. wyth . did you know neal o neal ? hanlet . yes . sir fr. wyth . whose servant was he ? hanl. my lord plunket sent him to rome ; he was sent there with his letters , and i saw the young man and the letters . mr. jones . did he come a begging there ? hanl. no. plunk . where did you see him ? hanl. at mant. plunk . where is that ? hanl. in france . plunket . and you saw him with my letters ? hanl. yes . plunk . and this man says , the letters were opened at caprennica , because he thought they were letters of recommendation . hanl. why , he went that way afterwards , and they were not opened when i saw them . mr. serj. jeff. did you know he was the doctors servant ? hanl. yes , he was . plunk . did you see him in my service ? hanl. i saw him in mant. mr just . dolb. how do you know he was the bishops servant . hanl. because he shew'd me his letter . l. c. j. was he owned for his servant , and was he taken for his servant . hanl. yes . plunk . did he go on foot or on horsebak . hanl. he went on foot . plunk . he was in a poor condition in a place not above four miles from rome , that i can prove . l. c. j. did he beg as he went ? hanlett . no. l. c. j. mr. plunket , if there is any question you will ask of the witnesses ; or if there be any evidence you would give your self , this is your time for the doing of it ; if not , we must leave your case to the jury , who have heard the evidence all along . plunk . only this , my lord , your lordship sees how i am dealt with . first and foremost , i have not time to bring my witnesses , or my records , which if i had , i would not weigh one farthing to leave my cause with any jury in the world . besides all this , i am brought out of my own native country , where these men lived , and i lived , and where my witnesses and records are , which would shew what these people are . i sent by the post and did all that i could , and what can i say when i have not my witnesses against these people , they may swear any thing in the world ; you cannot but observe the improbability of the thing in it self , and unto what a condition i am brought . my lord , my life is in iminent danger , because i am brought out of my own country , where these people would not be believed against me . mr. sol. gen. my lord , i think this matter lies in a narrow compass , the evidence hath been long ; i would only repeat the short heads of that which hath been given at large . he is indectid for a conspiracy to kill the king , the overt act is an endeavour to introduce a forreign power into ireland , to raise an army , and levy war there ; and the proof of it hath been very full . the proof in general , that there was a plot to introduce the french , is plain by all the witnesses , and the proof in particular upon this person at the bar , hath been as plain as any thing can be . they prove to your lordship in general , that there was an expectation that the french should come in , that there was an invitation of florence wyer the first witness , to go over into france , and speedily he should have a command upon his return , in ireland , that there were preparations ; for this appears by the oath of secrecy given to several men . forty men that came along with bishop tyrrel to keep it private during their lives ; and there was a farther proof of that general conspiracy by duffy , that when there was a general meeting of so many thousand people for confirmation , there was by the gentlemen at that meeting a secret consultation how to carry on the design , and how to list men , and to look out the old officers in the late rebellion , and to see what posture they were in , as to the management of this design , and this comes now particularly to the prisoner who was by at this consultation , so the witnesses do tell you . but that that comes nearer to him , is , that he did issue out orders for the raising of mony , and that he did raise mony pursuant to those orders , and did receive mony for that very purpose ; this is proved by three witnesses , duffy , and mac legh , who paid the mony , and by moyer the last witness , who saw him receive it from several persons . this is positive upon him ; nay , they say farther , that there was a list made of the several men , in the several parishes , that were able to bear arms upon occasion , from sixteen to sixty , and there was a list of a matter of threescore thousand men that were ready upon any occasion to rise for the purpose , and this list was delivered over into the hands of the prisoner at the bar. there is one witness , duffy , that says farther , that he saw a letter under his hand in france to the cardinal bouillon , to invite the french king into ireland , and he did wonder that he should spend his time and blood in wars against spain , which was a roman catholick , and not come into ireland to extirpate the hereticks . and this letter is confirmed by another letter , which was seen by moyer , a copy of which is produced , which he translated from the original in latin , and the letter was sent to rome by neal o neal , whom the prisoner says he had no concern for , but to give him some recommendations . plunket . i gave him no recommendations . l. c. j. no , he says he did not give him any , nor sent any letter by him . mr. soll. gen. then he urged , that he went along begging by the way , but 't is proved he was sent by him , and sent with letters , and that by his brother in law , who met him at mants . and 't is proved by moyer , who saw the letter opened , taking it to be but a common letter of recommendation , he read the letter and took a copy of it , and translated that copy , which translation is enough to verifie all the matter which the witnesses have sworn , for 't is agreeing to what he said to cardinal bouillon in his other letter , that it was more proper for the catholick princes to agree together to extirpate heresie , than to vary amongst themselves , that now was the time : for there were threescore thousand men ready to rise upon such an invasion . this is the substance of the letter , and this proves fully the conspiracy this man was ingaged in , his receiving mony , his listing men , and his invitation of foreign princes . and this is fully proved . mr. serj. maynard . and so his viewing the ports too . mr. sol. gen. it was likewise agreed that carling ford should be the port , and 't is like enough to be the port , for 't is a very large port , that ships of the greatest burthen may come up to the town , and the town it self but a weak town . this is the substance of the evidence , and this is proof enough , we think , to convict any man of this fact. mr. serj. jeff. my lord , i shall trouble you but with one word that hath been omitted . i think 't is a cause of great example , and that thing which the prisoner seems to make his excuse hath been answered by a favor and indulgence from the court in a very extraordinary manner . for , in as much as this gentleman would make it a very hard case , that he is brought out of his own country , and hath not his witnesses ; it is very well known that by a particular favor of the court , which is not usual in these cases , he had between five and six weeks time for preparation for his tryal : so that truly as to what does appear , i think all the witnesses that have been examined , are witnesses to be credited , except you gentlemen , of your selves can convict upon your own knowledge these persons of any misdemeanor , which i think you cannot , much less of perjurie . but besides , the witnesses we have produced , all which speak to the plot in general , and four of them fix it upon the person at the bar ; they speak particularly , and every one agrees in circumstances , and that other that spoke mincingly , i put it upon ; it is the greatest evidence that can be . for that person that could come before a grand jury , and there be the main witness , but when he comes here , must be scru'd and pump'd to discover the seventy thousand men . and i suppose you did observe how difficult it was to know of him , whether this person was primate of ireland , or whether it were from the authority of the king or the pope , a very probable thing , that he should be such a one as the king designed to be primate and superintendent of ireland . further , my lord , this i desire to take notice of too , that wyer , the first witness , fixes four particular things upon the prisoner at the bar , which have not yet been taken notice of . first he fixes a discourse with another person that was competitor with him for this very office , bishop duffy , and he gives the reason why he was admitted into the office rather than the other , because he was a man of greater ability to carry on the design , and though he does not give you an account of the design ; yet the rest of the evidence do , and make it to be the design then carrying on . another thing is , he tells you of the sending one into france , that was to come back again in order to this design , i think his name was mac donnel , and then the great tory flemming and he were to come back again colonels in the army that was to be raised . the next person , that fixes it upon him , is mr. han o neal , and he gives the plainest circumstances , that at a time in august when bishop tyrrel came to the house of one bradey with so many men well equipped with such and such arms , and took the oath of secresie ; he himself , but not only he , but the other priest mac legh , was present at the same time , and took the said oath , and he does tell you that that very priest was sent to dublin to discover it at that very time , and so he hath fixed the person , and time , and the business they came about . then mac legh comes and tells you the same thing in every circumstance ; ay , but says the prisoner at the bar , and he would make it to be a great objection , how chance that they have concealed this all the while , and not discovered it to some justice of the peace ? why , says one , i was under your jurisdiction in that place , that is the very reason he gives wherefore he durst not , and says another , i was concerned and as earnest as the prisoner or any body else , but going into france , i observed the slavery that all the subjects were under , under the tyranny of that king , and apprehending that the same king was to come into ireland by the means of these gentlemen ; i was concerned at it , and had rather the devil should reign over us than such an one , and therefore i will discover it . and he said very well i think , that he had rather have the devil to reign ; for it seems to be him , or one in his shape that reigns after that manner . and there are two persons that swear to the very year that they were obliged to raise the mony , and swear positively , they saw his orders sub poena suspensionis , i do not know whether they mean hang'd or suspended from their office. but it seems it was so terrible that it made them pay twenty shillings a piece for three years successively . and there is another gentleman that tells you , that out of a small living , wherein he was concerned only as curate to a third person it had been paid two or three times ; and another , though he was exempt himself from the payment , yet so great a confident was he of the prisoner's at the bar , that he was present when he saw thirty or fourty pay this tax , and whereas the prisoner at the bar would make it thought a strange thing , that he should raise so much mony , who had but a house seven foot high , it seems there is above that thatch'd house a chappel . plunket . there is no chappel . mr. serj. jeff. but now , my lord , that which substantially proves what these witnesses say , is the letter that is sent to rome to the secretary of the college de propaganda fide , which is the last letter that the last gentleman speaks of , wherein he does particularly take notice , that he had taken care to raise such moneys , and view all the ports and places of strength . and , my lord , that which is a very great circumstance to back the evidence of the first letter to the french cardinal bouillon which was taken notice of by the first witness , and there is such a passage in this too , that the catholick princes should not spill one anothers blood , when they might better employ it here in ireland for the propagation of the faith ; this last letter takes particular notice of that very instance too , that instead of drawing their swords against one another , they had better come to promote the catholick faith in ireland . these four witnesses are punctual and precise in every particular circumstance of the case , and against them there is nothing but the common objection . if i had such records , and witnesses here , i could make my defence ; that is , if he had those things that he has not , he might appear to be another man than he is ; but i am sure , as it appears upon the evidence that hath been given by all the witnesses , there is a plain proof and a full proof of every treason laid to his charge . plunket . my lord , i desire these witnesses may be called [ giving in a paper . ] cryer . david fitz-gerard , eustace commines and paul gormar . l. c. j. who gave him this paper , he had it not before ? stranger . i was told that these were good evidences for dr. plunket , and i gave him the names . l. c. j. where are they ? stranger . they are hard by . mr. att. gen. where is eustace commines , for he was one that gave in evidence against the prisoner . [ then paul gormar appeared . ] l. c. j. what would you ask him ? plunket . i desire to know of him , whether mr. moyer did allure and intice him to swear against me ? gormar . indeed , my lord , he never did . l. c. j. will you ask him any more ? gormar . but this , my lord , mr. moyer and i were in discourse , and he said if there was law to be had in ireland , he would shew mr. plunket his share in it . l. c. j. well , what of that ? gormar . my lord , i did come out of ireland to reveal what plots the irish had against the king , and as for this mr. plunket , as i have a soul to save , i never heard of any misdemeanor of him . mr. just . dolben . how came you here to day ? gormar . i was summoned . mr. just . dolb. by whom ? was it the attorney general or plunket that summoned you ? gormar . here is the summons . mr. serj. jeff. it is a common sub poena . plunket . i never sent for him . gormar . it was not against you , they know i had nothing against you , i thought you did more good in ireland than hurt , so i declare it . l. c. j. have you any more witnesses ? if fitz gerard or commines will come , we will hear them . plunket . my lord , i have not any more witnesses . l. c. j. look you , gentlemen of the jury , this gentleman here , mr. plunket is indicted of high-treason , and 't is for conspiring the king's death , and endeavouring to bring the french army into ireland for to invade that kingdom , and to plant the romish religion in that kingdom . you have had evidence against him that hath been fully examined . and these things do seem to be very plain by the witnesses , that he himself hath taken a commission , or a grant , or what you will please to call it , from the pope to be primate of ireland , that he hath taken upon him to make laws as the provincial and that he hath undertaken and endeavoured to settle the popish religion in that kingdom , and in order to that , he hath invited the aid of the french army , and that he hath for the better landing of them , looked out what places were most convenient for them ; that he hath set a tax upon the clergy within his province for the facilitating of all this , and for the making preparations for the entertainment of this army . this the witnesses testifie against him , and that there were some towns , as dungannon and another town , that were to be betrayed to the french. now you must consider concerning these witnesses : if you believe the evidence that hath been given , and which hath been repeated by the kings counsel , and if you believe that he did design to bring in a french army , to establish the roman religion there again , and that he took upon him to raise mony for that purpose , survey'd the ports , and made such provisions , as the witnesses speak of , and was in that conspiracy ; you must find him guilty , i leave it to you , it is a pretty strong evidence , he does not say any thing to it , but that his witnesses are not come over . plunket . i can say nothing to it , but give my own protestation , that there is not one word of this said against me is true , but all plain romance , i never had any communication with any french minister , cardinal , nor other . then the jury withdrew for a quarter of an hour , and being returned gave this verdict . cl. of cr. oliver plunket , hold up thy hand . how say you , is he guilty of the high-treason whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? foreman . guilty . plunket . deo gratia. god be thanked . then the verdict was recorded , and the court rose . and the keeper went away with his prisoner . on wednesday 15. junii 1681 , oliver plunket was brought to the bar to receeive his judgment . mr. att. gen. my lord , i pray your judgment against the prisoner oliver plunket . cl. of cr. oliver plunket , hold up thy hand ; thou hast been indicted of high-treason , thou hast been thereupon arraigned , thou hast thereunto pleaded not guilty , and for thy trial hast put thy self upon god and the country , which country hath found thee guilty , what hast thou to say for thy self , why jadgment of death should not pass upon thee , and execution be thereupon awarded according to the law. plunket . my lord , may it please your lordship , i have something to say , which if your lordship will consider seriously , may occasion the courts commiseration and mercy . i have , my lord , for this fact been arraigned in ireland , and brought to my trial there . at the day of my trial all the witnesses voluntarily absented themselves , seeing i had records and witnesses to convince them evidently and shew what men they were , and the prepensed malice that they did bear to me , and so finding that i could clear my self evidently , they absented themselves on the day of my tryal no christian appeared , but hither over they come , and procure that i should be brought hither , where i could not have a jury that knew the qualities of my adversaries , or who knew me , of the circumstances of the places , times , and persons ; the juries here as i say were altogether strangers to these affairs , and so , my lord , they could not know many things that conduce to a fair tryal , and it was morally impossible they should know it . i have been accused principally and chiefly for surveying the ports , for fixing upon carlingford for the landing of the french , for the having of seventy thousand men ready to join with the french , for collecting mony for the agents in this matter , for the assisting of the french and this great utopian army . a jury in ireland consisting of men that lived in that country , or any man in the world that hath but seen ireland in a map , would easily see there was no probability that that should be a place fit for the french to land in , though he never was in ireland , yet by the map , he would see they must come between the narrow seas all along to vlster , and the rocks , and such places would make it very dangerous ; and by their own confession it was a poor town , and of no strength , a very small garrison , which had not been so , if it had been a place of any consideration . and whereas i had influence only upon one province , as is well known , though i had the title of primate of all ireland , as the archbishop of canterbury hath of all england ; yet the arch bishop of york will not permit him to meddle with his province ; and 't is well known by the gentry there , and those that are accustomed to the place ; that in all the province of vlster , take men , women and children of the roman catholicks , they could not make up seventy thousand . this , a jury there , my lord , had known very well , and therefore the laws of england , which are very favourable to the prisoner , have provided that there should be a jury of the place where the fact was committed , as sir thomas gascoine , as i have heard , had a yorkshire jury , though he was tryed at london . and then after my coming here , i was kept close prisoner for six months , not any christian was permitted to come at me , nor did i know any thing , how things stood in the world. i was brought here the third of may , to be arraigned , and i did petition your lordship to have some time for my tryal , and i would have had it put off till michaelmass , but your lordships did not think sit to grant so long , but only till the eighth of this month , when my witnesses who were ready at the sea side , would not come over without passes , and i could not get over the records without an order from hence ; which records would have shewn that some of the witnesses were indicted and found guilty of high crimes , some were imprisoned for robberies , and some of the witnesses were infamous people , so i petitioned the eighth of this month , that i might have time but for twelve days more , but your lordship thought when the motion was made , that it was only to put off the trial , and now my witnesses are come to coventry yesterday morning , and they will be here in a few days , and so for want of time to defend my self in , i was exposed to my adversaries , who were some of my own clergy , whom for their debauched lives , i have corrected , as it is well known there . i will not deny my self , but that as long as there was any toleration and connivance , i did execute the function of a bishop , and that by the second of elizabeth is only a premunire , and no treason . so that , my lord , i was exposed defenceless to my enemies , whereas now my witnesses are come , that could make all appear . i did beg for twelve days time , whereby you might have seen as plain as the sun , what those witnesses are that began the story , and say these things against me . and , my lord , for those depositions of the seventy thousand men , and the monies that are collected of the clergy in ireland , they cannot be true , for they are a poor clergy that have no revenue nor land ; they live as the presbyterians do here , there is not a priest in all ireland , that hath certainly or uncertainly above threescore pounds a year , and that i should collect of them forty shillings a piece , for the raising of an army , or for the landing of the french at carlingford ; if it had been brought before a jury in ireland , it would have been thought a meer romance . if they had accused me of a proemunire for the exercise of my episcopal function , perhaps they had said something that might have been believed , but my lord , as i am a dying man , and hope for salvation by my lord and saviour , i am not guilty of one point of treason they have swore against me , no more than the child that was born . but yesterday . i have an attestation under my lord of essex's hand concerning my good behaviour in ireland , and not only from him , but from my lord berkley , who was also governour there , which the kings attorney saw ; but here i was brought , here i was tried , and having not time to bring my witnesses , i could not prove my innocency , as otherwise i might . so that , if there be any case in the world that deserves compassion , surely my case does ; and 't is such a rare case , as i believe you will not find two of them in print , that one arraigned in ireland , should be tried here afterwards for the same fact. my lord , if there be any thing in the world that deserves pity , this does , for i can say , as i hope for mercy , i was never guilty of any one point they have swore against me , and if my petition for time had been granted , i could have shewn how all was prepense malice against me , and have produced all circumstances that could make out the innocency of a person . but not having had time , and being tried , i am at your mercy . l. c. j. well , you have nothing further to say in bar of judgment , you have said all you can ? plunk . i have nothing further to say , but what i have said . then proclamation was made for silence , while judgement was passing upon the prisoner . l. c. j. look you , mr. plunket , you have been here indicted of a very great and hainous crime , the greatest and most hainous of all crimes , and that is , high treason ; and truly yours is a treason of the highest nature , 't is a treason in truth against god an your king , and the country where you lived . you have done as much as you could to dishonour god in this case ; for the bottom of your treason was , the seting up your false religion , than which , there is not any thing more displeasing to god , or more pernicious to mankind in the world : a religion that is ten times worse than all the heathenish superstitions , the most dishonourable and derogatory to god and his glory of all religions or pretended religions whatsoever ; for it undertakes to dispense with gods laws , and to pardon the breach of them . so that certainly a greater crime there cannot be committed against god , than for a man to endeavour the propagation of that religion ; but you , to effect this , have designed the death of your lawful prince and king. and then your design of blood in the kingdom where you lived , to set all together by the ears , to destroy poor innocent people , to prostitute their lives and liberties , and all that is dear to them to the tyranny of rome and france ; and that by introducing a french army . what greater evil can be designed by any man ? i mention these things , because they have all been fully proved against your , and that you may take notice , and repent of them , and make your peace with god , by a particular application for mercy for all these faults : for it seems to me , that against god , your prince , and fellow subjects , you have behaved your self very ill , designing very great evil to all these ; and now it hath pleased god to bring you to judgment . i must tell you , peradventure what you urge for your self might introduce pity , if it were to be believed , that is , that you are innocent , and had witnesses to prove it , but we cannot suppose any man innocent , that hath had a legal and a fair trial , and a trial with as much candor to you , as your case could bear , or as perhaps any man in such a case ever had . you had time upon your request to send for your witnesses , to help you in your defence , and to have proved your innocence , if you could have done it ; time long enough to your own content , you your self thought it so , at the time it was given . to give a prisoner under your circumstances five or six weeks time to send for witnesses , is not usual , we could have put you upon a present defence , and hurried you out of the world by a suddain trial , if we had had any design against you ; but we go on in a fair way , and with legal proceedings , and with as much respect to you , as in such a case could be used , for we gave you all the fair hearing and liberty that you desired to have . look you , as to what you urge , that your trial was in this kingdom , whereas your offence was in another , that is a thing that does not become you by any means to object ; for you have had a trial here by honest persons , and that according to the laws which obtain in this kingdom , and that too of ireland , which is by a statute not made on purpose to bring you into a snare , but an ancient statute , and not without presidents of its having been put in execution before your time . for your own country will afford you several presidents in this case , as o rurke , and several others that have been arraigned and condemned for treason done there . so that you have no reason to except against the legality of your trial. you say , now you have witnesses that could prove all this matter , why that lies in the mouth of any man that is condemned to say ; but pray consider with your self , what regard ought to be given to this . we cannot help it , if your witnesses don't come , you may remember they wanted not time nor opportunity to come over , but you told us they would not come unless they had a passport . plunket . my lord , they got a pass to come over afterwards , and so in eight days they came hither . lord chief justice . you might have provided your self , if they wanted such a thing . in the first place , no body is bound to give it them ; much less could you expect it for them without asking . plunkett . i could not get the copies of the records neither by any means , unless i had an order from the council , and they would not give that order , unless your lordship appointed it . l. c. j. we cannot tell that , you should have petitioned in time . plunkett . how could any one foresee , unless he was god almighty , that they would deny it , or that he could not get out a copy of a record , paying for it , without a petition . all the friends i had told me , upon motion there it might be had , but here i have it under the lieutenants and councils hands , that they would give no copy of records without order from hence , which before i could know it , it was impossible for me to have them ready against my trial. l. c. j. look you sir , i do speak this to you , to shew you that those objections , which you seem to make against your trial , have no weight at all , but in this case it is not the jury that are so material as the witnesses themselves . i appeal to all that heard your trial , if they could so much as doubt but that you were guilty of what you were charged with . for consider here were persons that were of your own religion , the most of them priests , i think almost all of them in orders . plunkett . there were two friars and a priest , whom i endeavoured to correct this seven years , and they were renegadoes from our religion , and declared apostates . l. c. j. look you sir , they gave an evidence very home to your matter ; you had liberty to examine them , and they gave you a rational accompt of any thing you ask'd . let me but put you in mind of one thing . you made exceptions to one's evidence , ( and indeed that was very much of your exception to all ) why he did not reveal this in all that time : truly he told you he was of your mind , till he went into france , and saw what a slavery and mischief you endeavoured to introduce upon his and your own countrymen , and this his spirit rose against , to see what a condition ireland was like to be brought into . and pray , did not he give you a full answer to that question ? plunkett . i had sufficient witnesses to prove he was an apostate , and was chastised by me , and therefore had prepensed malice against me . lord chief justice . therefore i have spoken this to the satisfaction , i hope , of your self , and all that hear it . i do now wish you to consider , you are near your end . it seems you have lived in a false religion hitherto ; it is not too late at any time to repent , i wish you may have the grace to do so ; in the mean time there is no room for us here , to grant you any kind of mercy , though , i 'le tell you , we are inclined to pity all malefactors : who ever have done evil , we are inclined to pity them , and wish heartily that they may repent , as we do , that you may of what you have done . but all we can do now , is , to say what the law says , and that is to pass judgment upon you . plunkett . may it please your lordship to give me leave to speak one word . if i were a man that had no care of my conscience in this matter , and did not think of god almighty , or conscience , or heaven , or hell , i might have saved my life ; for i was offered it by divers people here , so i would but confess my own guilt , and accuse others . but , my lord , i had rather die ten thousand deaths , than wrongfully accuse any body . and the time will come when your lordship will see what these witnesses are , that have come in against me . i do assure your lordship , if i were a man that had not good principles , i might easily have saved my own life ; but i had rather die ten thousand deaths , than wrongfully to take away one farthing of any mans goods , one day of his liberty , or one minute of his life . l. c. j. i am sorry to see you persist in the principles of that religion . plunket . they are those principles , that even god almighty cannot dispence withal . l. c. j. well , however the judgment which we give you , is that which the law says and speaks . and therefore you must go from hence , to the place from whence you came , that is to newgate , and from thence you shall be drawn through the city of london to tyburne ; there you shall be hanged by the neck , but cut down before you are dead , your bowels shall be taken out , and burnt before your face , your head shall be cut off , and your body be divided into four quarters , to be disposed of as his majesty pleases . and i pray god to have mercy upon your soul. plunket . my lord , i hope i may have this favour , of leave for a servant and some few friends that i have , to come at me . l c. j. i think you may have liberty for any servant to come to you , i know nothing to the contrary . plunket . and some friends that i have in town . l. c. j. but i would advise you to have some minister to come to you , some protestant minister . plunket . my lord , if you please , there are some in prison , that never were indicted , or accused of any crime , and they will do my business very well ; for they will do it according to the rites of our own church , which is the antient usage , they cannot do better , and i would not alter it now . l. c. j. mr. richardson , you may let his servant come to him , and any friend in your presence , to see there be no evil done , nor any contrivances that may hereafter have an influence upon affairs . mr. just . jones . be you present , or some body . plunket . my servant i hope may come , without his being present . l. c. j. yes , yes , his servant may be with him alone . well . sir , we wish better to you , than you do to your self . plunket . god almighty bless your lordship . and now , my lord , as i am a dead man to this world , and as i hope for mercy in the other world , i was never guilty of any of the treasons laid to my charge , as you will hear in time ; and my character you may receive from my lord chancellor of ireland , my lord berkley , my lord essex , and the duke of ormond . then the keeper took away his prisoner , and upon friday the first of july , he was executed according to the sentence . finis . advertisement . some passages of the life and death of john earl of rochester , who died the 26. of july , 1680. by gilbert burnet , d. d. are to be sold by eliphal dobson bookseller on cork-hill , 1681. a dialogue between sir r.l. knight, and t.o.d l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1689 approx. 43 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 17 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47840 wing l1235 estc r39017 18206347 ocm 18206347 107084 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47840) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 107084) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1127:6) a dialogue between sir r.l. knight, and t.o.d l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. [2], 31 p. printed for robert waston ..., london : 1689. "author's initials, sir r.l., appear on title page"--wing. "t.o.d. [titus oates, dr.]"--halkett and laing. imperfect: stained. reproduction of original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng oates, titus, 1649-1705. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-12 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-12 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2004-12 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-01 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a dialogue between sir r. l. knight , and t. o. d. london : printed for robert waston , and are to be sold by the booksellers of london . 1689. a dialogue . doctor o. hold , sir , why so fast ? should your worship now be found scampering again , and upon the wing , ( though not i hope for holland ) for all your pilloring of me , you may chance pass with some people for a knight of the post too . sir r. indeed doctor you find me habited somewhat like a man of expedition , but not , as you would maliciously insinuate , running away : i see you have none of that distinguishing faculty which has alway attended my way of writing : though i may look like one that is making a sort of fashionable retreat , and have the habitus of a man in the mode , yet i am not come to the modality it self , which is the very actus that must denominate a man a run-away . dr. o. so then , all this rhetorical circumlocution serves only to tell us , you are only , what we call in our vulgar tongue , absconding . sir r. truly i were , as they commonly call it , actually absconded ; but it was my fate to fare , as in the business of your old friend sir patience ; when they were hunting for one knight , they stumbled in a garret upon another , who gave them the slip , left me in the lurch ; and the greater hypocrite of the two had the better luck ; and so good night sir nicholas . dr. o. why , methinks you might have taken warning by me too ; i staid also a little too long after the tide was turn'd : faelix quem faciunt , &c. was as good a lesson as ever you learnt on the fiddle ; and you know what follow'd , friend , from my fool-hardiness ; i was forc'd to follow the cart for it ; and your fiddling observators help'd to lead me such a dance , that you would be loth to have such another to the same tune . sir r. you had a little hard measure , i must confess , doctor , and i were a little too smart upon your misfortunes , when your back-side sufficiently smarted ; and when you were fast enough in the pillory , i had so little conscience as to toss you from pillar to post in my papers ; but i hope , since you have been so much passive , and such a gospeller , you have learnt somewhat of that christian temper , the doing good for evil. dr. o. why , friend roger , i must tell you t●●● in verbum sacerdotis , if my passiveness would do thee any good , i could suffer whipping once more to tyburn to see thee hang'd . sir r. i must confess dr. o. ( for till now i could never call thee any thing but plain titus ) , i have been twice very near hanging : you remember when your old friend colledge had truss'd me up in his picture ; but you know towzer broke the rope , and left the joyner to hang in his room : and i han't forgot when my old master noll was like to have spoil'd me for an observator , but my fiddle brought me off , like arion with his harp , and so i weather'd the storm . dr. o. but there are some unlucky sayings that may now spoil your comfortable expectations ; the third time is commonly fatal too ; and the pitcher that comes oft from the well , may be broke at last . sir r. and so you think at last may my neck too ; but i hope better times : however , i must tell you , titus , after all my service to the king and government , and especially the church of england , i am a little hardly us'd . dr. o. hardly us'd , say you ? soft there , i pray , hemp and halter are hard things , i confess ; but yet they may be easily born with , for the good of the publick , for the administration of justice , and the giving every man his due . but how comes the church of england to be so much oblig'd to you ? and the church of rome not at all ? sir r. why truly , as i manag'd the matter , i writ for both churches , accordingly as they paid me , but still that of rome i reserv'd to reap the benefit of all that should be done or said for the good of any other ; by the obligations of honour and gratitude i was retain'd to that party ; for though a counsel learned in the law , may allow himself to take fees on both sides , yet he is bound in conscience to plead most strongly for that side which has feed him most ; and he that disciplin'd your hide so to tyburn , titus , that officer of the law being over-feed by the adverse party , did not spare you in the least for all your guineys that you gave . dr. o. so that , if i apprehend you a-right , there is some honesty even in playing the knave ; and that you had a constant sallary for the catholick cause , and but some poor collections from the church of england . sir r. though you were once in my opinion but a very bad evidence , i see you are very good at guessing : but for all this , though i design'd to serve none but the popish party , i had that jilting trick to pretend with them too now and then some coyness , when i had a mind to screw up my gallants to be more liberal . dr. o. verily , friend roger , this looks like playing the rogue , or picking their pockets , and instead of serving your king's interest , it was only cheating his exchequer . sir r. i car'd not for that , the most that could follow , was but being counted a knave by both sides , or being call'd so behind my back ; and that will break no bones : and sure they 'l have more manners than to call a man of worship so to his face . dr. o. why , this worshipful face of thine was never so graceful upon the sign-post in fleet-street , in any print-shop or coffee-house , as when it looks through the grates of newgate : nothing but a gibbet can make it look with a better grace . sir r. pray be not so severe , let us come to some understanding ; methinks that place and the kings-bench should have some correspondence . dr. o. i scorn your words , sir , we keep there better company than such observators ; for that 's only latin for a spy ; and those , like the worst of villains , have never any quarter given them any where . sir r. come , come , bona verba precor ; you don't know what service i did you when you were swearing up your popish plot : as i told you above , when the papists did not pay me well , i could leave them a little in the lurch . don't you remember a shrew'd book that would have baffled and burlesqu'd all your evidence in the very bud , call'd the compendium ? dr. o. i , i , some popish rascal , as well as your self , had a mind , as he thought , to run me down . sir. r. hold there a little ( but you are scandalum magnatum proof ) , it was lookt upon under the rose , rather to come from some popish peer ; a man of parts , and seem'd to carry some weight with it ; but i took care , for all he was a lord , because he had not consulted me in composing it , or let it all alone to me and my two narratives ; therefore , i say , i took care to get it suppress'd ; besides , my pay was then behind , and my pension not yet agreed on . dr. o. yes , yes , friend roger , we know all that peice of roguery of yours too : can you think such an evidence as i was , can be ignorant of your shams and devices ; you inform'd against the printer , got him prosecuted with the bookseller , and had the confidence to tell them afterward in confession , that it was only because they begun without your leave to ridicule the popish plot too soon ; that you had better materials for that work ready cut out ; but some encouragement was wanting , and then as soon as your mercinary pen had compounded for its pension , you fall a dialoguing and observatoring it away , with my black bills and spanish pilgrims , till you had spirited away ( as you thought ) all my plot. sir r. prithee man , i believ'd more of that than you do imagine : but why may not a man run down what he has reason to believe , and what he is really convinc'd of , when there is ready money going ? why , man , dost not thee think i believe the apostles creed ? yet i could have observator'd that away for a good sum of gold ? dr. o. but why so dear ? when their master himself was sold for thirty pieces of silver ? sir r. all things were cheaper in those days , and a judas might then better betray his god or religion for those thirty , than i can now for five hundred broad pieces ; i could not have kept my coach upon it : but by the way , titus , i must tell thee , he was more fool than villain , for beating down the market , and doing such a desperate jobb for so vile a price ; why that would have made me hang my self too without repentance . dr. o. gad ha' mercy , trusty roger ! i see religion and the observator shake hands indeed ; but 't is to take leave of one another : thy precept is not , believe and be sav'd , but to doubt , though thou art damn'd . sir r. why , indeed , i have that dexterity in writing , that i can make the world believe i am the only great grand-son to thomas a didymus : besides scepticism , even in sacred matters , is such a perfect evidence in this age , of a man's being an extraordinary wit , such a specimen of his gentile breeding and excellent parts , that i might as well have walk'd abroad without my sword , after i was knighted , as to be servilely bound to believe my senses . dr. o. indeed that honour was bestow'd in haste ; but the sun , you know , indifferently shines on dunghills ▪ yet some are of opinion that your dubbing might have been better perform'd at windsor , where there are many honester poor knights made out of decay'd old gentlemen . sir r. fy , fy , this is not fair : i 'le tell you no more of salamanca : come , come , you are a doctor , and i a knight . dr. o. indeed you have done more exercise for your degree , than ever i did for mine ▪ but that 's no matter . sir r. but do you not think , now af●er all , that i did very great services to your late king , and promoted , with my excellent papers , very much his coming to the crown ? dr. o. doubtless ; and yet after all , some honest men are of opinion , and ever thought thee not so much to write for thy king as for thy self for bread , or for those ▪ whores that would otherwise have brought thee to a morsel of it . ketch could as well have boasted of his loyalty , when he was so well paid for exercising my hide , as the observator for scourging the dissenters only for his sallary . sir r. oh! oh! i see what you would be at ; you would have had me acted like an honest man , without interest and design : gad , i was so far from that , where-ever i met with any copies that came from such hands as seem'd to have nothing but honesty for their ends , and such as i was sure had no quarterly payments with me and my fellow-labourer , johnson ; ( i don't mean thy fellow-sufferer julian , titus , but his namesake , and a doctor of another faculty ) : why then , though they were never so learned , or what we call'd loyal ; i first pickt out the finest paragraphs , and prettiest periods , and then put them into observators , that were ready cut out for contents : taylors and fiddlers , you know , are allow'd to be light finger'd , and then why not observators too ? then i either kept the papers ●nd writings , or else return'd them , after long keeping , as unseasonable ; as i did by the works of a worthy divine , and some others : for faith , i having gotten into my hands the whole monopoly of observations , could no more suffer an interloper , than the gentlemen of the east-india company ; and i being deputy-governour of all the province call'd scribble , there was not a tory song , or loyal ballad , could pass muster without my leave . dr. o. very likely : the poor ballad singers had a very hard time of it , when their wind-pipe must be stopt , and the wretches starv'd , unless they would first spit in thy mouth , or grease thy fingers . i am inform'd , if it were a good selling ballad , you alway went snacks for half . but how the devil came the irish ballad out ? sir r. o tempora ! o mores ! the iniquity of the times , titus : this liberty of conscience brought in liberty of the press again ; and you know i never was for any liberty , but when i was in a goal . dr. o. o! yes , roger , for the liberty of scribling , the liberty of evil-speaking , the liberty of lying and slandering , the liberty of whoring , or any christian liberty , except liberty of conscience ; and yet you would fain have been nibbling at that liberty too , in your hocus pocus answer to the letter to the dissenter : and by this thy confounded piece of nonsense and contradiction , hast quite baffled all thy works that ever went before . sir r. i' faith , now you have hit upon my master-piece : there were all parties concern'd in that matchless , unparallell'd , unimitable , incomprehensible piece , of tergiversation , calumniation , equivocation , and replication for moderation . dr. o. poo ! this stuff is just of the same stamp with all that nonsensical answer : was there ever a fellow that would set up for a wit in a coffee-house , who did play the fool so , as to write a book that no body could tell what to make of it ? like the painter of the sign-posts , that was forc'd to put to his pictures , this is the lyon , this is the bear , lest they should be taken for camels or elephants : why , hadst thou not put answer in the title page , it might have past for a vindication . sir r. 't is all one to me : pox , i cou'd not answer it as it should be ; but i was oblig'd to say somewhat , harry care would have got away my pension else , for saying somewhat to the purpose , so i put upon my masters the papists , as workmen do when they are hir'd by the whole , make slight work of it ; besides , i printed over the whole letter ( and that was as much as to say ) let them answer it that can for me : and there i was on the protestants side again before i was aware of it , for it spread the letter all over the kingdom , and was ten times better than my licence . dr. o. this indeed is excellent , roger ; and roguery all over ; if thee canst but cheat the devil too , thy work is done : that old serpent is said to be full of subtle invention , and yet thy distinguishing faculty , thy playing fast and loose , could almost revenge mankind , and beguile him ; it is said , there never was but one word ever puzzel'd him , and yet thy answers , like his oracles , are as full of amphibologies ; thy formal quiddities , and political modalities are indeed such nonsensical nullities , that , in my conscience , the devil himself does not know what to make of them . sir r. so they said once of thy plot too , titus ; but time will show what i have been . dr. o. the greatest knave , i hope , that ever put pen to paper . sir r. fy , fy , that 's too broad a word for a knight . dr. o. no , no , it was the old english word for it , and you have mightily help't to restore it to its primitive signification . sir r. i must confess , titus ( as thy friend tom. hunt has it in the characters he gives of thy excellencies ) i have been a little incurious in what some men call strict honesty , and a little too apert in my prevarications ; but i hope that is not presently down-right knavery : i writ once a notable piece against popery , but that did not take with the court ; then out comes my book of toleration discust , and there i think i tickl'd off the presbyterians , and laid liberty of conscience , scruple and zeal , upon their backs as flat as a flounder ; but as the devil would have it , presently after out comes king charles his indulgence , and then you know i was bound by my place to say somewhat for that too ; but as bad luck would have it again , soon after the parliament damn'd it , and then again my cake was dough , so to work i went , and tantivy'd away the toleration i had tickl'd up and down before . then in came'st thee , titus , soon after , with thy discoveries , which at first i was for magnifying very much ; for i had not receiv'd my money , my ready rayno , for running it down ; so hesitating some time for the title of my next book , ( for you must know i have writ many a book only for a title sake , without considering the subject ) then i say , doubting whether i should make thy discovery , an horrid plot and conspiracy of the papists ; or the history of titus and tale of a tub , out came the geldt man ( for we must have a little dutch for these times ) and then i sell a roguing of you , and you fell a rascalling of me : but i think i spoil'd your plot for you . dr. o. and i think , roger , i made you run away for it too , as i remember . sir r. but when i return'd again , you know best what work i made , i did you no small mischief in the management of your demetrius ; made your silver-smith , prance , pay you off in your own coin ; i manag'd his retractation just as you had done his evidence ; and as great a maker of shrines as he was for diana's temple , i paid him off , i think , with the brass screws and antipendiums . but then , you know , i soon sanctified him again , when i had brought the poor penitent to confession ; and a little pillory-penance , a better expiation than you put upon pickering's bum. but i did him some good offices for the durance he underwent , and sav'd him from dancing the courant you had led up but a little before , since he was so civil and good natur'd as to depose upon oath to the recantation i had ready , and make me famous for a discoverer as well as observator . dr. o. he could never make thee worse than thou wert before , roger. sir r. you interrupt me now , sir , as if you had me at the old baily , and none to speak but the king's evidence ; i were giving you at large an history of the observator , all famous authors write their own lives , you know . after i had thus observator'd away a volume or two for the papists , and made the churchmen believe 't was all for themselves , i got my briefs to go about among the clergy for collecting their eleemosynary contributions ; when i was thus farting full , like virgil's harpys , i fell a squirting upon the tables that fed me : i came to my modalities , my court-trimmers ; from thence i advanc'd to my non obstante , dernier resort , last appeal ; and were before-hand with the judges in my suspending power , dispensing power , repealing power ; from my richard against baxter , i came to roger against l — str — from my dissenters sayings , to my answer to a letter to dissenters ; from toleration discust , to my taking away tests and penal laws , till these dutch devils came and cast me into this dungeon ; but i see i must say somewhat for them too . dr. o. but it seems you have nothing to say for dealing thus ungratefully with the reverend the clergy , that so charitably supplied your necessities . sir r. no matter for that , i had gratified them before-hand , my politicks helpt many of them to most excellent notions in divinity : you may talk of their metropolitans and diocesans , i gad ! i was always the guide of the inferiour clergie , i taught them at first the fam'd passive obedience and non-resistance against higher powers , till the reverend gentlemen ran it up so high , that at last , gadsookers , we could get no one to make any resistance at all for the king : they went , i say , beyond the copy i set them : their obedience was at last too passive , and we could not get them to exercise a little active valour for their destruction , against those that came to preserve them . dr. o. could any confidence but thine set up thus for a dictator to such a learned body , and defame the most eminent of the london-clergy , by pretending to instruct them , only because some young deacons would come to edifie at the delivery of thy oracles over a dish of coffee ; and yet you find after all your knavery , you could infatuate but few of them to be such fools , as to believe all that was said in an observator . sir r. i foresaw that too , and so was before-hand with them ; i found , for all their being posted for papists in your courantiers , intelligences , packets , and the like , what would follow ; i had a better nose than your cares and curtises , and knew , when it came to pinch , they would shew themselves the stoutest opposers of popery ; and that it was to no purpose for me to think of wheadling them into down-right converts : and therefore notwithstanding their kind collections , i gave them now and then some sharp touches ; i told them plainly , i found even in my church of england many trimmers and tekelites ; that the court was full of them , who crost my interest , and would have stopt my pay ; then i singl'd out some of them , and observator'd them to the purpose ; and , like a deer that i had wounded , would not let them herd again with the church . dr. o. prithee with what countenance , but thy own , couldst thee offer , roger , to abuse so many persons of more quality , honesty , and loyalty than thy self ? sir r. why , man ? what dost thee talk of quality and loyalty ? i neither spar'd the loyal parliament it self , that kept your late king out of monmouth's clutches ; for thou knowest , titus , they hung an arse afterward , when it was come to qualifie all papists by an act of parliament ; but you know i was for it , with my brother member and amaneunsis , both you know of b — d h — d's making , and we were bound to do somewhat for our benefactor ; but tho' i could not speak so much in the house , having not that gift of tongues , i made it up the next day in observators , and there you would be sure to have my speeches and answers of parliament ; insomuch , that , when a certain bold gentleman ( whom perhaps an ordinary capacity may respect and esteem , as of a noble family , an ingenuous person and excellent lawyer ) did but venture to pass a little reflection upon me in the house of commons , i answer'd him the next day in my news-book ; and there i think i met with his membership for all the priviledge of parliament : but i had my revenge at last , for i never left him till from a court-trimmer , as he was , and for speaking against me , he was helpt from solliciting any more for the king ▪ dr. o. thy answers and orations in parliament , roger , i perceive were all like that of mr. chaloner's , which was call'd a speech without doors ; but did it not deserve the bar for abusing your members out of door , for what they said in it ? sir r. look you now ! a man cannot talk of his prowess , but you must be plucking down his plumes with bars and imprisonments : i think they ought to have spew'd me out also ; but i fear no bar now but that of the old baily . prithee let me go on with my narrative of my self ; by those two i gave you of your plot , you may perceive i am as good at narrative as you are : you see how i serv'd my churchmen with a bit and a knock , that they hardly saw who hurted them ; and you know how i had har'd the dissenters , till i had almost hunted them into the church , and when some grave and moderate divines , by their mediation , had brought them quite in , and many began to come to common prayer : this was like to make an union among protestants , and gain our church of england many proselytes and much reputation . dr. o. but i dare swear you were for none of such converts . sir r. no , you may be sure of it : and so to work i went to spirit them out again : i laid my self up a whole week from greater concerns , to prove , that for all they came to confession , tho' they conform'd to all the ceremony of the liturgie , responces , postures , and received the very sacraments in the form the church requires , all this signified nothing , they long'd still for the flesh-pots of egypt ; their hearts were not with us , and therefore must be against us . they trimm'd only with god almighty , and so i put this hook into their nostrils , and return'd them to the place from whence they came ; i prosecuted them into the church , and then persecuted them out again ; that the church might not be the better for them , nor they the better for the church . dr. o. but i think you were once about shewing the dissenters a scurvy trick , and worse than all the rest ; and that was about sir edmondbury's business , only some unlucky circumstances would not let it hang together . sir r. i saith , i had feagu'd them else ; i had certainly made him their martyr indeed , that is , i mean , martyr'd by them . my two books would have bid fair for that too ; for when my hand is in , i can prove any thing : but for some certain reasons i found felo de se , and the killing of himself , to be the better way . he fell upon his sword , 't is certain , and that upon primrose-hill , i say : which i've made out so plain in my two treatises , on that subject , that you may as well disbelieve the bible , or think saul never fell so on mount gilboa . dr. o. but there was a plaguy observation that a certain chirurgeon made against this , which seems to have some weight with it : when persons do destroy themselves , fall voluntarily on their swords ; when they are thus run through , the orifice in the back from the bent and position of the body , must be higher than that before in the breast ; whereas the quite contrary appear'd here , and the orifice behind , where the sword came out , was lower than that before where the sword went in . but besides , mr. observator , if violent presumptions may take place , and , which a great lawyer call'd a plain proof , mr. sp — 's being pluck'd in at the same water-gate only for resembling so much sir edm. and his hearing hill bidding them to let him go , and that they had mistook the man ; this seems not so ridiculous a connexion as an observator may be ready to make it . sir r. all this i value not a rush : what is spence to godfrey ? they are two different names , they were two different persons , and perhaps the one is alive , and i am sure the other is dead . dr. o. but are not these a sort of arguments which you use to call trifling , and ribaldry ? sir r. i , and so they are in any body but the observator : pray have not i , that have the licensing of the press , leave to call things as i please , and make them what i please too ? there were indeed two or three plaguy affidavits taken by justice dolb — n about the business , of persons that saw this unfortunate gentleman parlying with some certain fellows the same night at the same water-gate , when and where he was sworn to be destroyed ; and whatever was the profligate life of the witness ( whom you know i set forth with a witness too ) some credulous men may think bedloe might be believed on his death-bed , and his testimony then taken by the lord chief justice , and publisht under his own hand ; these ( i say ) are mighty matters with men of ordinary capacities ; but what is all this to such a man of wit and parts as my self to confute ? why prithee , had they not been things vnanswerable , it had been below my pen to give an answer to them . you know 't is one of my old maxims , that nothing but print can answer print ; so that if judges take affidavits and tryals , and the like , and print them ; and the parliament their journals and votes , and put them into print ; i say , my print is as good as their print , and i make no more to put them all in an observator , than i would a spaniel dog , or a stoln horse in an advertisement . dr. o. yes , yes , i remember when it was come to that , that honest gentlemen were posted up by your pestilent papers , like so many dogs and horses ; only a man might be observator'd cheaper than they gazetted : even porters and carmen , instead of boxing it out , could threaten one another with an observator . sir r. why , you know an old saying , better play at small game than fit out : and when i had drawn the general history of your plot and conspiracy quite dry ; then i came to my minutes and particulars ; and every day my mercuries and mirmidons brought me in a new man , and more matter . dr. o. the office of intelligence for lying and slandering , should have been writ in capitals over they very door . how many honester men have been carted by it to tyburn , only for picking a pocket , while you sate with authority to rob people of their reputation that was dearer than life ? but what think you now , roger , of my plot and conspiracy you say you had drawn so to the dreggs ? i think it begins to work again , and ferment a little upon the lees : my consult at the white horse tavern , will appear now no tale of a tub. sir r. prithee titus , don't tell me that ; why i tap't it so low , you may remember , till it would run no longer . dr. o. but the master of the house has broach'd a new pipe not long since . what dost thee think , roger , of the late petition of the vintner that drew then the reverend fathers their wine , representing , to the kings most excellent majesty , the great service he had done him , in concealing and harbouring in his house the jesuits , under all their consultations , to the hazard of his life , and loss of his trade ; desiring humbly some consideration , or some office in the custom-house ; and this notable petition order'd to be referr'd to some persons you know , to consider of some recompence for his fidelity — this instrument ; for we will not call it evidence , lest you should make it perjury , may be produc'd as occasion shall serve . sir r. fie , this is not fair ; now you come in with new matter , when i can write no longer : you know the late rules of court , there was never to be any more speaking after the king's council had summ'd up what they had to say , though it was to save a man's life . but you may talk of introducing popery by plots and secret consults ; i had a better way than all that : i undertook to perswade the king to make it a case of conscience , to promote his religion , and declare openly , we must all be of it ; for this purpose , you know , i spent several observators upon the theologo-political casuistical thesis and opinion , that every supream magistrate and prince was bound in conscience to answer to god for the religion of all his subjects , and make them to conform to that which he thought best . dr. o. but what if the turk , by the help of the most christian , had over-run all christendom , and not met with that unlucky rub at vienna : must he not have been bound in conscience too , to have made us all mahometans ? sir r. no matter for that : my reasons will be reasons still ; and all the sayings of the observator are like some propositions in the schools , aeternae veritatis , and that in spight of turk , jew , pope or antichrist . dr. o. i think by this time we have had a fine and fair history of thy life and conversation ; and ( but that i don't care for the word ) i could call it a compendium of the observator , or call it compendium , or antipendium , or what you will ; or what is more usual with us evidence , a narrative : in my conscience 't is all a true story . but we king's witnesses are better acquainted with the nature of testimony than some justices that take it : you have told us the truth , and nothing but the truth ; but you have not told us the whole truth : after all thy pumping for evidence , to dogg that unhappy gentleman out of his reputation , after he had been so barbarously dogg'd out of his life ; after thy two books for the making sir edmondbury but a felo de se , didst thee never say or think thy self , roger , that he was made away by papists ? sir r. whatever i thought , i am sure i had more wit than to say so . dr. o. then once more upon my verbum sacerdotis ; or what is more solemn , upon my reassuming my priesthood , and redintegrating my self again into my canonical habit , which you would have divested me of , in spight of my indelible character ; by this good delivery i have found , and by that goal-delivery thee dost fear , i can prove this upon thee , and all that has been here offer'd , as plain as coleman's letters , from thy words and from thy works , to thy face at noon-day ( since you say , i cannot remember faces so well by candle-light ) : i have some of thy writings to shew for it , besides a letter under thy scrawling hand , to a gentleman in the city , desiring him to lend you some assistance in discovering this barbarous murder , which , say you , i am satisfy'd was committed by some zealous and bloody papists . sir r. oddssookers ! hold thy tongue ; thou wilt spoil else two of the best books i ever put out for the government . dr. o. but do not the brothers and relations of that miserable gentleman you have so defam'd for the worst of felons , a murderer of himself , stand bound by the ties of blood , to pursue thee for thus tainting of theirs , as well as arraigning all the justice of the nation , the proceedings of parliament that were upon it , the solemn and judicial process , judgments and executions that follow'd in the inferior courts of judicature . sir r. i can hold now no longer in good language ; i see , titus , thou art still the same malicious , lying , swearing villain , and wouldst hang me , if thou couldst . dr. o. i am as good at that sort of language as you are ; and now no more sir knight , but , sirrah , you are a rascal , and i shall live to see thee hang'd without my swearing : and when all honest men are rid of such a knave , then thus i 'le write thy epitaph , and piss upon thy grave . the epitaph . m. s. cave viator ! his mortuus mordet , his jacet observator inclytus , nasutus ille telescopus iudiciarius reipublicae astrologus qui secundum poli elevationem vel quemlibet meridiem politicas suas scripsit ephemerides : circulator egregius qui crambe sua repetita et stylo versatili per , retrogrados movebatur epycyclos , ecce totam activitatis suae sphaeram ! in qua celebrata regibus fides hoc solum habuit primum mobile optimam scil . intelligentiam angelicum illud , aurum ! si operam spectas ingens volumen , si probitatem codicillus . dictitator dogmaticus scriptitator perpetuus observator sibi contradictorius . qui dictitavit scriptitavit ( et tandem ) pessundavit omnia . pro rege , phil-aulicus ; procromwello , proto musicus ; de ecclesia anglicana romana presbyteriana quam vere catholicus ; de omni , & nulla , bene meritus : dissentientium flagellator satyricus ; vindicator responsorius ; sic & concordat rogerus , dissentiente suo cum ricardo baxterus , & le'strangio ; ultra quod carmina possunt fortunati ambo , per octoginta annos , totidemque libros . hic habes lector virum integrum , haud integerrimum ; non ultra est quod quaera : operibus ; post varios bissextiles fatalem climacter cum invenit scribendi cacoëthes ann. dom. 1688. finis . the shammer shamm'd, in a plain discovery under young tong's own hand, of a designe to trepann l'estrange into a pretended subornation against the popish plot by roger l'estrange. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1681 approx. 85 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 22 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-11 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47918 wing l1306 estc r13119 11832368 ocm 11832368 49721 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47918) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 49721) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 540:6) the shammer shamm'd, in a plain discovery under young tong's own hand, of a designe to trepann l'estrange into a pretended subornation against the popish plot by roger l'estrange. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. [2], 41 p. printed for joanna brome ..., london : 1681. reproduction of original in bristol public library, bristol, england. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng tonge, simson, b. 1656 or 7. popish plot, 1678. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-12 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-09 melanie sanders sampled and proofread 2004-09 melanie sanders text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the shammer shamm'd : in a plain discovery , under young tong' 's own hand , of a designe to trepann l'estrange into a pretended subornation against the popish plot . by roger l'estrange . london , printed for joanna brome at the signe of the gun in s. pauls church-yard , 1681. the shammer shamm'd . &c. it is no new thing for l'estrange to be baited by the mercenary agents of a seditious , and schismaticall faction ; and 't is hard to say , whether the scurrilous libells , or the obscure authors of them be the more contemptible : but yet this is a case , wherein i cannot ; either with honour , safety , or with good discretion be silent . in short ; there is a knot of little fellows ( but under the government of better heads ) that are now at work to revive the old story of my tampering with young tonge , to invalidate oates's evidence ; and severall lies and scandalls are printed in favour of that imposture . my purpose in these papers is , in the first place , to lay open , the notorious falshood , and malice of this practice . and 2 ly , to prove that very design , which is charg'd vpon me , to be managed against me . it will not be amiss to enform the reader by the way , that in october , 1680. upon two full hearings before his majesty and councell ( in despight of all that oates could say , and tong swear against me ) i had the honour to be twice acquitted by the unanimous judgment of the whole board : the particulars of which proceedings may be seen in a dialogue under the title of l'estranges case , &c. which i caused to be publish'd upon that occasion . i shall now , as briefly as i can , set forth how the same calumny comes to be started again . on the third of january last past , the loyall protestant-news-paper had this following passage in it concerning tong , but mistaking samuel , for simson . whereas mr. samuel tonge , son to dr. tonge deceased , has formerly sworn , that his own father was the chief contriver of the popish plot ; discovered by a man who then went under the name of dr. o — ; now the religious good party , seemed at that time to be much dissatisfied , that an intrigue so well layed , and so effectually managed , ( tho never so ill contrived , ) should be thus miscarried , and then fell upon young tonge , and declared that he was an ill man for offering to charge his father with such horrid crimes , after so many men suffered upon the account of the said plot , and though that it were but a contrivance of his father and dr. o — ( so call'd then ) that it was an advancement to all protestant dissenters in england , ireland , and scotland , and used many moderate reasons with the said tonge , that at last mr. tonge complyed with the request and prayer of the good party ; and when he was sent for again to come before the king and council , utterly denying all that he had sworn before ; but since being touched with remorse of conscience , offers to justifie what he had sworn unto by his own testimony alone ; but by such papers , circumstances and witnesses , as he is now able to produce , without hopes of favour or reward , but as a penitent sinner , that expects mercy from god almighty . young tong was so hot upon this publication , that the very next day , he directed a paper to mr thompson by way of an advertisement under his own hand , in confirmation of what was there publish'd : though it was not notified by thompson till jan. 19. and in the words following . mr thompson , i have read your intelligence of the third of this instant , and do acknowledge that all you write concerning me is very true , and i will justify it to my death ; and i do believe that the great poverty and misery that i lye under , is fallen on me , by the just judgment of god , because i was seduced by the enticements of my uncle , and others , to deny the truth ; but you mistake my name ; for i am not samuel but simson tonge . he speaks truth as to his miserable condition ; for there was not a poorer creature in the prison ; and cutting of pegs for shooes ; ( and working hard too ) for three-half-pence a day , was the best part of his entertainment . it was thompson's paper of jan. 3. that gave the alarum , and stir'd up the charity of some of the well-affected brethren to hearken a little after him . he was taken one day out of the prison ( as he said ) by a printer ; and at his return talk'd of something to be publish'd toward the middle of the next week concerning l'estrange . this visit put him presently into cloaths , and money in his pocket , by a providence , which must be left to time and further scrutiny to un-riddle . upon thomson's first publication of jan. 3. out comes the buffoon-courant , of jan. 6. with these words in 't . [ has not this very young tonge set forth at large how he was at first trepann'd so suggest that story against his father , in a book printed by mr c — in the new exchange ; but for i know not what reasons stifled , and never suffer'd to be publish'd ? has not this young tonge a hundred and a hundred times with tears in his eyes , bewayl'd , and repented of that unnaturall villany ? nay but a fortnight ago , he voluntarily declar'd that the sense thereof lay so heavy upon him , that if ever he got out of prison ( where he was like to starve , and had scarce cloaths to cover his nakedness ) he would forthwith transport himself to the west-indies ; for his shame for that false and wicked accusation was so great , that he should not be able to walk in the streets . and is this pittifull fool furbish'd up to make a new attacque ? but on the contrary ; what if this be only a contrivance of the popish traytors , and their implement nat ? what if herein he most in pudently abuses , both old tonge , and young tonge and the publique ? then no doubt his majesties most honourable privy councell , the judges , and all inferiour magistrates , and every protestant english-man will think it necessary to punish exemplarily the villain that in print has broach'd such a horrid scandall on the honour , justice , prudence and safety of the nation . ] [ truly i do hope , and wish , with all my heart , that the government may , and will proceed against all cheats of this kind , with the most severity imaginable : but how comes care to know more of tongs doings then tong does of his own ? for every syllable which thompson says of tonge , tonge says of himself : and the question is not here , whether it be true , or false ; but whether or no tonge sayd it . the matter rested here till jan. 19. upon which day , came forth tong 's advertisement in justification of thomson , and tong 's pretended vindication , in contradiction to that advertisement . 't was publish'd by curtis ; and the author of it may be as well known by his paw , as by his face : the pacquet , and the vindication bearing all together the same style , and design , and , in many particulars , the very same words . so that the courantier , the vindicator , and simson tonge are all one and the same person . it carries the title of [ mr. tongs vindication , in answer to the malicious and lying aspersions thrown upon him by thomson , and the observator . ] as to what concerns the observator [ being deeply sensible ( says tong 's deputy-vindicator ) of what evil consequence this notorious lye may be ; i do solemnly declare that what was printed by thomson , was done without my knowledge , or consent , having some time since given a true , and full account of those persons ( that would have trepan'd , and endeavor'd to make me swear , that my father and dr. oates w●re the contrivers of the popish plot ) in my case , which was printed by mr. c — in the new exchange in the strand ; but by some indirect means or other , was stifled , and never suffer'd to come abroad : in which narrative , i have discover'd nothing but the naked truth , with the several arguments and inducements they made use of , to make me accuse my deceased parent , and yet notwithstanding all this , thomson and the observator have the impudence to affirm the contrary , &c. observe first , that the printing of it [ without his knowledge or consent ] is no denial of the thing said . 2 ly , neither tonge , nor care or curtis , in his name says one word in opposition to the truth of tong 's advertisement , in affirmation of what thomson deliver'd . 3 ly , take notice , that the case or narrative which curtis'es libell says , was printed by mr c — and stifled ; was layd up in lavender , for the opportunity of imposing an abuse upon the oxford-parliament , as appears by the title-page , and the appointment for the printing of it , bearing date , feb. 2. 1681. and i am likewise enform'd , that several copies of it were dispers'd to divers members of that convention . 4 ly . that pretended narrative and case was printed for langley curtis , with this express authority for the printing of it . i do appoint langly curtis , to print this my narrative , and case : witness my hand , this second of february , 1681. simson tonge . 5 ly . beside that , the narrative is false , and libellous , it is undoubtedly the same hand with the pacquet , and the vindication ; and three cheats put upon the publique , by one and the same person . 6 ly . it is remarkable , that there is a new title-page clapt upon the old book , ( which is just now made publique ) pretending to be printed for c.w. instead of langly curtis ; the better to disguise , or conceal curtis and cares confederacy and interest , in the pamphlet . lastly , the very title-page it self is a juggle . as for example , [ the narrative and case of simson tonge , gent. being a true account deliver'd upon oath , before mr. justice bridgeman , in the presence of dr. titus oates ; relating to capt. sam. ely , mr. choqueux , &c. and my self , who would have induced me to swear th●t my father and dr. oates , were the contrivers of the horrid popish plot ; with other material passages omitted in the affidavit . together with some short reflections upon mr l'estrange's dialogue between zekiel , and ephraim . ] who knows how far this [ &c. ] and his [ other materiall passages omitted in the affidavit ] may extend , especially from the mouth of prostitute falsifyers ? and under the manage of an ignoramus-iury ? and it is a fair hint in janeways history of popish sham-plots from the same hand again , p. 139. where he says , that [ simson made a considerable confession of this conspiracy , upon oath , before mr justice bridgeman , though happily he hath reserv'd many more particulars to another opportunity . ] at which rate , 't is but rubbing up his memory at any time , to call to mind things that never had a being , and to lay the plot at whose door he pleases . but to return to his vindication . [ having now sufficiently vindicated my self ( says he ) from the malicious , and lying aspersions cast upon me by thomson and the observator ; i return to the pacquetier , ( that is to say , to himself again , for there 's not one word of the pacquetier before ) who amongst them all is the only person that has done me that justice , candidly to represent my condition to the world , performing the part of an honest man , in declaring the great sorrow wherewith my spirits have been oppress'd for the unnaturall villany i was perswaded to perpetrate against my deceased parent , &c. ] and what is all this , but an exchange of civility betwixt harry in the vindication , & care in the courant ? [ i bless god ( says he again ) i have not so sear'd a conscience , as to justify so false and villanous a thing as is cast upon me . — i did not verify or assert any thing by dreadfull imprecations . — it behoves me to stand upon my guard , and by the force of truth repell these vicious calumnies , which i hope is here perform'd to the content and satisfaction of all true , unbiass'd protestants ; and now having fully discharg'd a good conscience , the main end of the vindication , &c. ] to pass over now the most daring and blasphemous hypocrisy that ever call'd upon almighty god for the grace of a mock-repentance , see how dreadfully this personated penitent concludes his paper . [ i do solemnly protest ( says he ) in the presence of the great jehova ) it is nothing but truth . witness my hand , simson tonge . ] ( alias henry care had nick'd it . ) i shall proceed now to janeways popish sham-plots , which is only the same jack-pudding still in another dress . [ choqueux ( says he p. 138. ) brings mr. l'estrange into simson's chamber , where among other discourse , honest roger had these words : that he heard mr. simson tonge was upon a very good design for the good of the nation , to find out the truth and contrivance of this plot , and pray'd he might have good successe in it , adding , he would give mr. tonge what furtherance and encouragement lay in his power . ] [ he has another snap at me in the courant of jan. 27. where he says , that friend hodge , &c. lately renew'd their acquaintance with mr. tonge , and endeavour'd a fresh intrigue of the old stamp ; but finding upon recollection , that he would not correspond further with them ; and fearing all their roguery would come out , the reverend clergy-guide found himself oblig'd to cry whore first . ] i am coming now to his narrative ; where in the first page he has these words . [ hearing that it is commonly reported , that i should swear against my father , to take away his life , it is as false as god is true. ] this is no denial of his swearing against his father ; but of his swearing against him to take away his life . and he declares a little lower , that he was all along very tender of his fathers safety ; with which shuffle he thinks to come off . he tells a story , page 11. of my refusing to licence a book of his fathers , called the royal martyr , unless i might model it to my own capricious humour ; and that his father was much troubled at my sawciness , and sent for his book again . the word sawciness is an expression that fits no bodies mouth but care 's . but to his story now . a book under that title was brought to me to licence ; which upon the perusal , i refused to do : and the bookseller that brought it , gave me to understand who was the author of it ; and a fair hint in his very countenance , what might come on 't in case i would not pass it . upon this , for fear of after-claps , i went to whitehall , and discours'd the matter with dr. tonge himself , in words to this effect . doctor ( said i ) you must excuse me if i dare not licence your book ; for there are reflections in it upon the com't : where you say , that the bed-chamber men pick the king's pockets ; and not without a mixture of reproaches upon the king himself . beside , that you are mistaken in your annals ; there 's matter of fact misplac'd , mis-tim'd , and misapply'd ; and from thence we proceeded to a reasoning upon some passages in his preface . doctor ( said i ) 't is well that both you your self , and dr. oates ( in those days a dr. ) have so absolutely purg'd your selves to the world , that there can be no longer any doubt of your integrity ; for otherwise , there are two or three passages in your preface , that people would go near to stumble at . as to the business of the bed-chamber-men , i 'le justifie it ( says the doctor ) and if there be any slips in the story , we can set them right . but what 's your exception to the preface ? so i told him , that in substance the matter was thus : [ you tell the world , that you have , with great care , drawn up the history of the old popish plot ( the business of habernsfelt , &c. ) and that shewing it to dr. oates , ( who very much approv'd of the draught ) you told him , titus , it were worth the while to know if this plot does not go on still . go you , and put your self among the jesuits , and enform your self whether it does , or no. you say further , that dr. oates did go among them , pretending to be one of them ; and that when he came back , he told you that the business went on , and that it was no new plot , but the old one continued . ] well! ( says the dr. ) all this is true , and where 's the offence ? so i told him , that it might be look'd upon as a strange councel , either to give or to take . the advice given is this , go you over , titus , and pretend to be a papist : take all their oathes and tests ; joyn with them in an idolatrous worship , and swear your self to the devil through thick and thin , only to see whether it be cross or pile . this seems to be the advice given : and the following of this advice , upon fore-thought , and consideration , may be taken for a resolution very extraordinary . the doctor 's answer was to this purpose , god almighty will do his own work , by his own ways and methods . i have been the more punctual in this relation , to shew as well the reasons why i would not licence that book , in respect of my self , as the tenderness i had for the credit of the doctor , and for the common cause ; by not consenting to expose any thing to the publick , that might be liable either to a censure , or a mistake . he says further in his narrative , p. 1. [ that l'estrange in his abusive lying dialogue , makes choqueux to speak of l'estrange ' s refusing to licence the royal martyr ; which tonge took very ill at l'estrange ' s hands , — but choqueux knew nothing of it . ] the truth of these things shall be made appear in their proper place . and again in the same page . [ mr. choqueux ( saies he ) recommended me to l'estrange , as a person very worthy of my acquaintance , and told him ▪ i had drawn up several papers , as objections against the plot ; and he did presume , i should be very glad of his assistance therein . l'estrange told me he would to his power assist me what he could , and asked me where my papers were ; for he would gladly peruse them : for he was enformed , those papers had very material things in them against the plot. that he was a great admirer of all such things , as he did not question he had demonstrated to the world by his collections he had made concerning the popish plot , where dr. oates was pleased to be silent , and said that for his part , he found the whole plot was replenish'd with nothing else , but improbabilities , and ridiculous absurdities , &c. and then choqueux , and l'estrange discours'd concerning the late wars , &c. ibid. ] take notice , that tonge had drawn up some objections against the plot ; and l'estrange desired a sight of 'em , and yet no papers shew'd him , nor any answer return'd him to that question ; but thereupon he went his way . now see forward [ going out with l'estrange ( sayes the narrative , pag. 12. ) i ask'd him when i should wait upon him , and if he had any writing , i would transcribe any thing for him which he had to print , but he said he had no such business , but that any evening he should be glad to see me , and mr. choqueux at his house in holborn , and went away from us . here 's tonge pinning himself upon l'estrange , and l'estrange shuffling him off , as far as decently could be done in such a case . but see now how tonge plies him yet with importunities . [ the next day after ( sayes he ibid. ) mr. choqueux went to l'estrange's house , and told me he was newly gone out , but he said to morrow in the evening i should go along with him to l'estrange . ] you will see by and by that i went out of the way on purpose to avoid him ; and that tonge wrote me a letter next morning , desiring me in regard that he miss'd me last night , to appoint him some other time , for he had something to say to me , whereupon i appointed him at seven that evening . and see how he proceeds . [ crawley ( sayes he ibid. ) coming to the savoy before we ( choqueux and tonge ) were gone , went along with us , whom i suppose l'estrange had no acquaintance with . but crawley went , thinking he might have something to say to him in relation to his papers . so soon as we came into the room where l'estrange was , he desired mr. choqueux and crawley , to withdraw ; ( for he said it look'd too much like a consultation ) who went out and expected my coming out into the street . ] it is false , that choqueux and crawley were desir'd to with draw ; but mr. crawley , and a fourth person that came with them in company , were fairly hinted to withdraw , because ( as i said ) it would look like a consult . and they did withdraw ; but choqueux stay'd a while after them . [ then being together ( sayes the narrative , ibid. ) meaning tonge and l'estrange ) he asked me whether i had a copy of that enformation which was delivered to the king , i told him i had not , only some loose papers relating to it ; but i could recite several material passages of it . then l'estrange writ them down , and asked me whether i had no more to say , i told him i had not , and said when he had more leisure , and had all my enformations , he would swear me to them . i told him , i did not care to be sworn to any of my papers , &c. ] this point shall be clear'd hereafter , where it will fall more naturally in my way . i shall not need to amplify upon the particulars above-mentioned any further in this place , then to recommend it to the reader 's observation . first , that the persons visibly concern'd in these scandalous libells , are only tonge , ( as a fool for the faction to make use of ) curtis , ( the publisher of the narrative , the pacquet , and the vindication ) janeway , ( the publisher of the popish sham-plots ) and care , the presumptive author of these four pamphlets : of whose character and credit , the world is sufficiently sensible already , without need of any further enformation . now though as it is the common business of these fellows to bespatter the government , and all degrees of men , as well as particular persons , that interpose toward the vindication of the king and the laws . their spleen and forgeries are yet so peculiarly bent at me , that i dare be answerable to produce at least three hundred scandalous , rank and notorious lyes , that these servile wretches , ( taking in baldwin for another ) have published barefac'd against my single self ; and i do verily believe , i may safely say , as many several libels : but having already made an express application to the magistracy of the city , for justice , publick , and private upon the infamous authors of these defamatory papers : i make no question , but the generous , and loyall governours of this city , having both the crimes and the criminals openly lay'd before them , and the matter , in both respects falling expresly under their cognizance and jurisdiction ; i make no doubt , i say , but my lord mayor and the court of aldermen will exert their authority to the uttermost , in calling these flagitious incendiaries to a strict account . so that i shall now pass forward to my main business . that is to say , first , to shew that there is a conspiracy , by hook or by crook , to make me a suborner . secondly , to discharge my self of that impudent , and senseless calummy , by clear and undeniable proofs , inferences , and presumptions to the contrary . thirdly , to make it out , beyond all dispute , that the project has been , from first to last , to trepan me , by trying how far i might be prevail'd upon to entertain any propositions of discrediting , shamming , or ridiculing the damnable hellish popish plot ; which has been attested , and confirm'd , by the authority and declaration of so many parliaments . there needs no more for the making out of the first point , than what is said already ; which for order sake , i shall briefly sum up yet once again : care in his courant of the 27 th of jan. 1681 , charges me with renewing my acquaintance with mr. tonge , and endeavouring a fresh intrigue of the old stamp . care again in tonge's pretended narrative , has hook'd me into the [ &c. ] in the title page , and his other material passages omitted in the affidavit , [ &c. ] — by drawing my name into the book , within the compass of that , [ &c. ] and the supplemental reserve . the same care again , in janeway's sham plots , gives an account pag. 139. that over and above tonge's oath to mr. justice bridgeman , he hath reserv'd many more particulars to another opportunity ; which gives him liberty till the day of judgment , to supply his evidence . it is a farther presumption of a design ; first , the calculating of their narrative , for the oxford parliament , to take me unprovided , and by surprize . secondly , by the keeping it so close ever since , for fear of having the villany of it detected , and expos'd ; and then the publishing of it now at last , under a false name , is a further confirmation of the foulness of that practice . it might suffice to the second point , that i was honourably discharg'd by the king and council ; oates and tonge being present , and not having one word to say in contradiction to my defence : but it is not a likely matter , over and above , that i should have a design upon tonge , and at the same time shake him off from fastening himself upon me . that i should enter into that liberty of discourse : of censuring the plot , drawing him in to raise objections against it , and to represent it as the invention of his fa●her , and oates ; and yet at the same time , caution both captain ely , and mr. choqueux , to have a care of him , for he would lay hold of any thing to ruine them . is it not a likely matter again , that i should ask him for his papers , and he should give me no answer ; and that i should so greedily interest my self in a zeal and curiosity to be dabbling with him , and yet at the same time , refuse any information from him , but under his own hand : and with this condition annex'd , that he should declare it to be his own voluntary act , and ne●ther directly , or indirectly drawn from him at my instance , or procurement ? now all this will be laid as open as the day in that which follows . it will be objected perhaps , that though this plea may serve well enough for what 's past , or at least for what has been produc'd against me upon legal testimony : but what if he should come upon second thoughts , ( as other people have done ) to refresh his memory , and re-inforce his evidence , or charge me ( as care calls it ) with [ a fresh intrigue of the old stamp ] till i found ( as the pacquetier has it ) that tonge w●uld correspond no further with me ? i would ask no more for my acquittal , then that curtis might be strictly examin'd , who was the author of those three insolent impostures ; the pacque● ; tonge's vindication ; and tonge's narrative and case ; which were all publish'd by him ; and that janeway might be interrogated , who was the author of his popish sham-plots ; not but that any man may know whence they all came , they are so like the father . i would ask this , for the publiques sake , as well as my own ; for 't is impossible for any state to live at peace , or any community or person to scape untainted , where these pests of humane society are suffer'd in a common-wealth . i shall say nothing now to the many , gross , virulent , and scandalous falshoods that are scatter'd up and down these venemous papers ; but refer the reader to what i have to say upon the third head , wherein i shall set forth the naked truth of the matter ; and make it evident , that the shamming and tampering has been on the other side ; and that instead of my wheedling of tonge into a complication against his father ; it has been the business of young tonge , his fellows , and directors , from one end to the other of this affair , to draw l'estrange into the toil. this is the third and the last point , and i shall handle it at large . the design of tonge 's putting a sham upon me ( by the order and instruction , i suppose , of his superiors ) must bear date a good while before i ever so much as saw the face of him ; as appears by his propounding me ( though an absolute stranger to him ) as a fit person for him to advise withal , about the menage , and government of his design : and making twenty sleeveless pretences for getting into my acquaintance ; besides the visible importunities of pressing upon me , after i knew him ; and the use he made of the most frivolous accidents , to improve all circumstances to my disadvantage . and then the whole story is far●'d with lyes , from one end to the other ; as the reader will observe upon comparing the several parts of this relation . the first time that ever he saw me , ( as himself confesses ) or that i ever saw him , was at monsieur choqueux's , by the occasion of my going thither to enquire about some memorials of the late war. this was some months after his impious swearing , and counter-swearing , backward and forward , at windsor ; so that there could be no pretence for my tampering of him in a matter , where he had so perjuriously contradicted himself already ; neither did choqueux bring me to him , ( as he suggests ) but the servant , upon my enquiry for her master , desir'd me to walk into a low room ●till she call'd him down ; and there i found a person to me unknown , which , it seems , was young tonge , as i was afterwards enform'd by the master of the lodgings when he came down . i found the fopp to be talkative , and so i let him run on in a nonsensical story of the privacies that had pass'd betwixt oates , and his father , certain papers concerning the plot that were written in greek characters , and hid behind the wainscout ; and a foolery of one green , a weaver , that meeting his father in the court of requests , told him for news ( and without any knowledge of him too ) that e've long , there would be a popish massacre : whereupon , ( says young tonge ) my father made an acquaintance with him , and out came the plot. he shew'd me likewise an abuse upon some of the king's evidence , in a kind of a disguise like a romance , which he said was of his own composing , and i found he had a mind to unriddle it to me ; but i stopp'd him short ; adviz'd him against it ; and made what haste civilly i could , to get quit of his company , and to deliver my self from the nauscousness , as well as the danger of so impertinent , and suspitious an acquaintance . this was before i had ever seen the eyes of capt. ely ; but coming soon after to the knowledge of him , it was my lesson both to him , and mr. choqueux , to have a care of that young fellow for fear of having a trick put upon them : so far was i from making that fool my confident , that i did not think it safe to have any thing at all to do with him ; the incredibility of his evidence being the best security that any man can have that keeps him company . soon after this , capt. ely returns from windsor , ( where he had been it seems upon tonge 's errand ) and my having some inkling of his business there , made me a little curious to find him one , and learn from him the truth of the matter . presently upon this there , was bruited a report about the town , that oates had exh●bited a ●omplaint to the councel against ely and choqueux , and that l'estrange was brought in for a third man. this alarum put me to bethink my self , and to provide for the worst that malice and perjury could pretend against me : for i could easily see thorough tonge ; and oates had already pronounc'd me , in all his haunts and gangs , as deep in the practice , as the most confident and shameless asseveration of any thing ; short of a verbum sacerdotis could make me . hereupon i apply'd my self to captain ely , and monsieur choqueux , ( being both clear of the councel ) to make oath before some master of the chancery to the truth of certain particulars , wherein i might possibly come to be concern'd , if there should happen to be any combination carryed on against me . they did me the right to comply with my desire , and the affidavits are as follows . the affidavit of samuel ely , &c. samuel ely of the parish of st. martins in the fields , in the country of middlesex , gent. maketh oath , that he this deponent hath not known the person of roger l'estrange in the county of middlesex , esq till about a fortnight before the date hereof : and that he this deponent never saw the said l'estrange and mr. simpson tonge together , nor ever heard of any correspondence between them , more then that mr. choqueux told this deponent that he had brought the said tonge to mr. l'estrange to desire him to take tonge 's enformation upon oath , as a thing that might much justifie us ; this being before we heard of any order to attend the councel . this deponent further enformeth , that the said tonge made mention of mr. l'estrange in a certain paper about the latter end of july last , ( to this deponents best remembrance ) as a person that might be a very good evidence against his father , for some seditious passages in a book of dr. tonge 's called , the royal martyr ; which the said mr. l'estrange refused to license , and d. tonge took it very ill at his hands ; tonge the younger declaring , that he had a great mind to be acquainted with the said mr. l'estrange . this deponent moreover saith , that being at windsor about the middle of august last , he this deponent● was told , that young tonge had denyed the enformation given in by him to his majesty , and declared , that he was set on by the papists ; whereupon this deponent went immediately to young tonge , being then in windsor , and told him what he had heard . who there in the presence of two other persons , did presently take pen , ink , and paper , and drew up a short declaration to this following effect . ☞ being informed that my uncle , captain tonge , hath maliciously aspers'd me , that i have made a recantation , and disown'd my former enformation given in to his majesty ; as i hope to be saved ; i never did make any such recantation , though i was mightily urg'd thereunto by my uncle , and to lay it upon the papists . but the enformation was all true , and in the discharge of my duty and conscience ; and that it was my own spontaneous act , without the expectation of any advantage , benefit , or reward ; or by the procurement , direction or abetting of any person whatsoever . this declaration being by him the said sympson tonge written in the presence of two other persons , and this deponent , of his own proper motion , and without any advice thereunto ; and it was likewise attested by this deponent and the two persons above-mentioned . and all this was done in the space of one half hour , ( as this deponent verily believes ) from the time after this deponent's first hearing the report . and finally , this deponent saith further , that he heard mr. l'estrange ( being in discourse with mr. choqueux ) caution the said mr. choqueux to have a care what he said to that fellow ( meaning young tonge ) for he would lay hold of any thing to ruine you . this was the effect of mr. l'estrange's caveat to mr. choqueux , who returned this answer , that he had nothing to do with him in the world , but in relation to his cure ; and this deponent heard mr. l'estrange say further at the same time . remember mr. choqueux , what i told young tonge and you together , i do declare , i will not receive any enformation from tonge , but under his own hand ; and i will have a clause in it too , wherein he shall acquit me upon the same oath , of having any thing to do with him by way of advice or encouragement ; that i did not directly or indirectly move him to it , but that it was all at his own motion , and at his own request : and more this deponent hath not to say , sam . ely . jurat . coram me . jo. coell . 4 die octobris anno xxxii . car. ii. r. an. dom. 1680. upon the perusal of this affidavit , the reader will be able to satisfie himself what tonge's donyals of any imprecations ; his invocating the great jehovah to the truth of what he said ; his prophane manner of obtruding upon almighty god , his mimical forms of contrition and remorse , for the ardent affections of a true repentance ; the oppression of his spirits for his villany against his father : what all this ( i say ) amounts to upon the comparing of the gross , and scandalous contradictions : and yet the testimony of this prostigate wretch is made use of by the managers of this infamous cause , as an authority sufficient to obliege the world into a belief of any thing against l'estrange ; just according to the measures of their proceedings in other cases , where the credit of the witnesses , is rated by the malice , and interest of the faction ; and none , either so fair , or so foul , as not to be blasted or justifi'd , in order to the common end of serving a party . i shall go forward now to the second affidavit . anthony choqueux of the savoy , chyrurgeon , this 4th day of octob. 1680. maketh oath , as follows , viz. impr. i. that about the beginning of septemb. last , mr. tho. neucomb brought mr. l'estrange to his house to enquire about some memorials of prince rupert's actions in the late war , and in flanders : but because it was somewhat late , they drank a bottle of wine , and put off farther discourse upon that business to another meeting . ii. that some few days after this , mr. l'estrange came to his house a second time ; and after some discourse with him , the deponent , before mr. tonge , ( whom he had then under cure ) about the memorials , and papers concerning the prince , he told him that the person there present was young mr. tonge ; whereupon mr. l'estrange took notice of him , and ask'd him if he had ever seen him at his father's chamber , who answered no , he had never seen him before , or words to the same effect . iii. that at the same time , mr. tonge said he remembred that he had been told , mr. l'estrange refused to license a book of his fathers , ( called the royal martyr ) which refusal , dr. tonge took very ill , he said . and so he went on in several discourses of div●rs meetings betwixt his father and dr. oates , and how many clerks his father kept constantly a writing ; and such kind of talk ; mr. l'estrange onely giving him the hearing , without any encouragement , or asking him any questions , but slightly telling him that all this signifi'd nothing ; or to that purpose . iv. that finding mr. l'estrange to wave the discourse , he whisper'd the deponent in the ear , to desire him to acquaint mr. l'estrange , that if he had any thing to transcribe , he was ready to do it for him ; and should take it for a great kindness . after this ; that there pass'd nothing but common talk : onely , at parting , that mr. tonge desired of mr. l'estrange that he might wait upon him at his house , setting the day and hour himself , to which mr. l'estrange seemed to agree . v. that at the time appointed , tonge went , ( as he afterward told this deponent ) but mr. l'estrange was not at home ; so that he sent him a letter next morning , desiring him to appoint some other time ; which letter this deponent saw , and likewise mr. l'estrange's answer to it , which he convey'd to mr. tonge . before the writing of the said letter , mr. l'estrange said ( by way of caution ) unto this deponent , a man had need have a care what he says to such fellows , for they 'l lay hold of anything ; or to the sam● purpose . that the substance of the answer ( to the deponent's best memory ) was this ; that if mr. tonge had any thing to say to him , he should be within at seaven in the evening . vi. that at seven in the evening , ( or there abouts ) upon the earnest desire of mr. tonge , this deponent went into holbourn with him to mr. l'estrange's ; and told him how great a desire mr. tonge had exprest to be better acquainted with him ; and how ready he was to serve him , in transcribing any thing for him : to whom mr. l'estrange answer'd , that he should be glad ( upon occasion ) to do him a kindness . vii . that hereupon , this deponent told mr. l'estrange ( upon mr. tonge 's desiring it ) that mr. tonge offer'd to inform him of what he had delivered to the king ; and that mr. l'estrange reply'd , if he has any thing material to present to me , as a justice of peace , for the king's service , i 'le give him his oath and receive it ; upon condition that he declare it to be his own act , without any motive to it from my self ; otherwise i will not meddle in it ; or words to the same import : and that mr. tonge said this was reasonable , but that he had not such an information ready drawn : that so this deponent went away to a place hard by , and about a quarter of an hour after , returning that way , saw mr. tonge come out of mr. l'estrange's house with two or three little printed books in his hand , which he said mr. l'estrange had given him . viii . and lastly , that after this the deponent heard tonge speak no more of mr. l'estrange or of any papers given unto him . a. choqueux . jur ' 4. die octob. 1680 . coram me magist. cancel . adam ottley . here 's the occasion set down in the first paragraph that brought me first to the savoy ; where i did not so much as see tonge , that night , though the libellers would have it thought , that my design upon tonge was the thing expresly that carryed me thither . it may be noted upon the fifth clause , that tonge came to my house at the time appointed , ( according to the tenor of the foregoing ) and afterward , told choqueux that i was not at home : so that it is plain , that he press'd upon me , and i avoided him ; beside that his secretary reports it , as if mr. choqueux had only told him so , and he had not been there himself . neither does he take any notice at all of his solliciting me by letter to set him a time of meeting , or of my answer in return to that letter . and it appears also in the next paragraph , that monsieur choqueux did not bring tonge to me , but upon the earnest desire of tonge , monsieur choqueux coming along with him . upon the whole matter here 's more then enough said to this point , and to prove that it was thus far an intrigue carryed on in a direct train for the inveighling of me into a share . i shall now proceed to the laying open of a continuation , or rather a repetition of the same project , under the countenance , and assistance of the same prosligate agents . i shall here publish the whole truth of the matter , in hope that the government will proceed for the securing of honest men , in their lives and reputations , against a band of sanguinary libellers , and prostitute knights of the post ; and not suffer the popish plot to be shamm'd , and expos'd to the highest degree of contempt and discredit imaginable , only in the contemplation of drawing in some conscientious protestant or other , that has a true veneration for the king , and the church , barely to the hearing of the story ; for that 's sufficient to the case here in question . the first contriver , and promoter of the villany , brings himself off by setting up for the informer . in the first business of tonge , i kept my self upon such a guard , as in honesty and prudence , i thought my self oblig'd to do , and it was well i did so , for a much wiser man then my self might have ventur'd further , perhaps , then in that case i thought it convenient to do . i do not speak as to the entering into any unlawfull act , or consultation ; but to the keeping of my self clear from any reasonable ground for the least jealousie , or suspicion . and yet all this pre-caution notwithstanding ; how did the weekly news-papers publish me over the three kingdoms for the greatest villain in nature ! for a matter of six weeks or two months together , without either truth or controll ; and no more in the whole matter , than the impudence of two or three mercenary rascals to raise all this scandall and clamour . this experience taught me so much wit , ( though to my cost ) as for the future , never to have any thing to do with this sort of catell again , but upon terms of stricter reserve ; so that i took up a resolution ; if ever any further attempt of the same kind should be made upon me , i would fairly endeavour to spoil the jest , and set the saddle upon the right horse . and this is my present case , wherein i shall govern my self by the rules of a good christjan , a good subject , and an honest man. there was a whisper about a quarter of a year ago , of tonge's being touch'd in conscience for a false oath , about the business of his father , and the late dr. oates . this coming to my ear , and a paper of his to my hand , with strange circumstances in it , i sent him a letter by my servant , which i thought might very well become me in several respects : and especially for so much as the matter of it did particularly relate to my self . the copy of it follows . for mr. simson tonge , &c. sir , you will wonder at this letter , perhaps , from a person that has neither directly nor indirectly had any thing to do with you , either by word , writing , or message , since october last was twelvemonth , when , upon your enformation , i was question'd , and wrongfully accus'd in many particulars before the king and councell . i look upon it as my duty , to forgive ye ; and at this good time , to tell ye so ; and i have the charity to believe , if it had come into your thought , you would have found it your part to have desired it . i know very well , that oates and college had the handling of ye before you gave your evidence ; and i have reason to believe it should not have stop'd there if they might have had their will. but however , i had kept my self upon such a guard , and so clear , that i was acquitted without the least doubt of my innocence . i ask ye no questions , nor do i desire any thing from ye ; though i should be glad to find any instance of your conversion , and that the truth of the whole matter might appear . i do wish you ( in sine ) such a sense of what you owe both to god and man , as may lead ye to a just , and a conscientious discharge of your duty . after all , i am decemb. 27. 1681. your loving friend , r. l'estrange . i thought i could not do less in honour and religion , ( especially upon this festival occasion● ) than to mind him of his duty by the discharge of my own ; but my charity was not so well requited , it seems , as it deserv'd : for instead of keeping himself to the subject of the wrong he had done me , he presently falls to his old play again , of throwing out baits upon the question of the plot , to try if he could get any better hold of me this bout than he did the last . upon december 30. i received a letter from him , in acknowledgment of mine of the 27th , in the terms and date following . directed , for his ever honoured friend , roger l'estrange , &c. ever honoured sir , i humbly thank you for your charity , in forgiving the wrong i did you , in october was twelve month ; and i assure you , it hath been a great trouble to me ; and if i could have hoped for pardon , i should have begg'd it of you long since ; but i am confident , if you had known how i was used by my uncle first , and afterward by college and oates , to force me to accuse you falsly , you would sooner have pitied my weakness , and forgiven me what i have done against you : but this generous charity which you have now shewed , in giving me that pardon , which i durst not ask for , hath encouraged me to entreat you to intercede with his majesty , to grant me his gracious pardon , for the great offences which i have committed against him . and that he would be pleased to let me be brought to my tryal , and have the perusal of my father's papers , to help to make my defence . and i hope to make out the truth , to the satisfaction of all honest men , and discharge the conscience of , ●ings bench , the common-side , dec. 28. 1681. honoured sir , your veriest commandable servant , simson tonge . this letter came accompanied with the draught of a petition ; and both in his own hand . there needed no great sagacity to chop right upon this train , being the very trick over again , that he had so lately serv'd me before : so that i was e'en resolv'd to look to my self , and to let nature work ; clapping this endorsement immediately upon the letter for a memorial . the endorsement . the letter whereupon this is endorsed , was delivered to the person , who hath hereunder subscribed the two first letters of her name . it was delivered to her yesterday being the 29 th of december , 1681. with an acknowledgment that he had done the person to whom it is directed , a great deal of wrong ; that he was sorry for it , and would have acknowledg'd it sooner had he had opportunity : but that he was put on by his uncle , and others , to do what he did ; and desir'd the bearer hereof to deliver the letter , together with the contents above written . all which he did of his own accord . decem. 30. 1681. in the presence of , &c. the petition that came in company with this letter , is word for word as follows . those names only excepted , that are inseparable from the matter in question . for my business is only to expose the falshood of this miserable wretch , without involving others in the consequences of his calumnies . to his most excellent majesty . the humble petition of simson tonge prisoner in the king 's bench. sheweth , that after your petitioner had declared the truth to your majesty , concerning the contrivance of his father , and mr. titus oates ; your petitioner being in great want of necessaries , his uncle captain tonge having sent for him , was compelled to go to him for relief , and captain tonge made your petitioner drunk , and then threatned and forced him to deny the truth , and to sign a paper which the said captain tonge had written , your petitioner not knowing what he did ; and afterwards when your petitioner was committed to newgate , college came to him , and by threats and promises , forced your petitioner to deny the truth ; for the which your petitioner hath been ever since under great trouble of mind , for his great wickedness and cowardize to deny the truth . but your petitioner doth protest , in the presence of almighty god ; that it is very true , that the plot was contrived by my father , and titus oates , when he returned the second time beyond the seas : my father and he writ much of it out of [ houselife ] queen elizabeth , ( that word houselife i could not make out . ) and out of the book writ by hooper or hocker that came from rome , and swore against campjan , and the other jesuites ; as will appear both by the said books , and by my father's papers ' if your majesty please to cause them to be searched into : they first writ at — where the plot was written by oates in greek letters ; and afterwards went to fox-hall , and one of the jesuites letters is in my father's hand . wherefore your petitioner doth most humbly pray and beseech your sacred majesty , to pity the sad condition of your petitioner , and to pardon his great crime of going from the truth : and to let him be brought to his tryal , and to have his father's papers deliver'd to him , to make his defence : and your petitioner hopes to make what he hath written , so clear ; that your majesty will think him more fit for your pity , than your anger : and forgive the great wickedness of your petitioner , for the which he is truly penitent ; and will rather perish here in prison , than ever be guilty of the like : as he hath shewed to those that have been with him , since his great poverty , to pervert him farther from the truth ; but your petitioner would not : therefore your petitioner doth most humbly beseech your majesty , to pity the sad and miserable condition of your petitioner , and not to let him lie here and starve for want of cloth and bread. and your petitioner [ as in duty bound ] shall ever pray , &c. simson tonge . this petition made it as clear as the day , that he was entring anew upon the old haunt ; and that he lay upon the catch for an opportunity to do me a good turn : so i thought it but reasonable to keep my self out of his reach , and return'd him for answer this following letter : addressed , for mr. simson tonge , &c. mr. tonge , yours of the 28 th instant , came yesterday to my hand , with the draught of a penitent petition , which you desire may be presented to his majesty . you must be more particular and clear , before i presume to undertake the office. as for instance . 1. you say that you were prest by your uncle first , and afterward by college and oates , to accuse me falsly . but you say nothing what they would have had you to accuse me of , more than you did : what means they us'd to bring you to 't ; whether there was any money , or reward , either given or promised : by whom ? what ? or how much ? how ? or in what manner this was done ? ( if any thing of this kind ) or if any man can prove this besides your self ? 2. that captain tonge made you drunk ; and sign a paper of his writing , when you knew not what you did . but you do not say , either where ; what liquor ; what quantity ; at what time ; who saw you together ; or afterwards saw you drunk . 3. that the captain sent for you ; and that you were compelled by your necessities to go to him for relief . but you do not say how often he sent for you : by whom : to what place , or places : whether by word of mouth , or by letter : or if upon your going , when sent for , he made you drunk at the same time : who can prove his sending for you : nor what relief you had from him ; either in money , or otherwise : or what promises : what conditions : or what discourses toward , or concerning all this , passed betwixt you . 4. you say , that your uncle threatned , and forc'd you to deny the truth . but you do not say , what those menaces were : what truth you were to deny : what arguments , or discourses he made use of to prevail upon you : or if any conditions were offer'd ye , in case of your compljance . 5. you say , that college came to ye in newgate . and threaten'd and forc'd you also to deny the truth , but you say nothing to the queries upon num. 1. 6. you say the plot was contrived by your father , and oates , upon oate's second return from beyond the seas : and name some books ( the names of them you cannot make out ) upon the subject of queen eliz. out of which they have a good part of the contrivance ; and refer to those books for the agreement of the matter . but you do not speak to particulars ; what that contrivance was ; how managed ; who privy , or assistant to it : or what discourses past upon it . so that here 's no matter of fact set forth : neither do i understand what books you mean. 7. you say that oates wrote the plot , first , at — in greek characters ; and that afterward they went both to fox-hall . but you do not say , why in greek ; what became of the copy ; what discourse upon it ; what assistants , or advisers ; what was done afterwards at fox-hall ; how they came to go thither . 8. you say that one of the jesuits letters is in your fathers hand . but not which of them : nor ( in one word ) how you come to know all this ; or who can speak to all these particulars ? 9. you desire the sight of your father's papers ; but say not in whose custody they are . you protest the truth of all you say , as in the presence of almighty god : and in the name of that almighty god , i adjure you , and entreat you , to say nothing but truth ; if you shall think sit to make me any return to this letter : and if you shall by such an explanation as the matter requires , furnish me with a reasonable ground to proceed upon ; i will plainly and honestly represent the state of the case , as you lay it before me : and do as may become , from my house in holbo●n , dec. 31. 1681. your kind friend , r. l's . p. s. this is my second to you , in answer to your first , and onely letter to me , since one in september was twelve month. pray keep an account of what you send , and receive ; for i 'le do every thing above-board 〈…〉 to take the matter in order as it rises ▪ the next i received from tonge , was , that which follows , being dated jan. 2. and received the day following , mr. l'estrange , i received yours , and am very desirous of the truth , being very confident that a great deal of roguery and villany lyes still undiscovered at the bottom of the plot. but i am no wayes able to answer those questions you propose to me , so as to give you any tolerable satisfaction , unless that i were in possession of my fathers papers , which would best clear what you desire . after my fathers death , i was enform'd , that those papers he left at colleges house , were seiz'd by the counceil , and my uncle , under pretence of administring for me has seiz'd on the rest . this i am certain of , that if those papers ever come to light they will discover very strange things . i have been now confin'd upwards of a twelve-month ; and am now in a very indigent condition on the common-side of the kings-bench , having no other subsistence then the basket : and the place i am in is no wayes suitable for writing , or any thing of serious thoughts . i question not your zeal for his majesty , and the royal family ; and i think you could not do a greater service than to enquire , if you can any wayes know which way my fathers papers were disposed . untill that be found out , i shall be in the dark , and no way able to give ye any tollerable result to any questions : for the popish plot , by reason of the several persons concerned in it , is so intricate a thing , that to unravell it from first to last , and give you a particular account of all the several transactions , is more then i dare assume upon me ; and by reason of my confinement , i have forgot many material things , which before would have occur'd to my memory : and therefore of necessity must have some assistance of my fathers writings e're i can proceed . i am your loving friend , and servant , simson tonge . kings-bench the common-side , jan. 2. 1681. p. s. i request a word of answer from you to this letter . any man with half an eye may see the drist of this paper . the charity of a single six pence would have pass'd for a subornation . my bare enquiry after his fathers papers would have been a tampering , to invalidate the kings evidence . and such an answer as he desires in his postscript , to this letter , would have ruin'd me to all intents and purposes . at the same time with the former of the second , i received from him also this following letter . superscribed , for his honoured friend roger l'estrange . honoured sir , i received yours of the last instant , ( mistaken for dec. 31. ) and do briefly return you this answer , untill i can better recollect my memory . 1. as to your first question , what means was used to bring me to accuse you , when i was examind'd before mr. bridgman , at captain richardson's house , oates asked me if you were not concern'd with me , i told him i had seen you once , but could not accuse you of any thing ; then he replyed he knew the contrary , and if i would not discover it , it should be the worse for me , and threatn'd me very much , but proferred me no money ; and none were present with me , but mr. bridgman , his clerk and oates . 2. the first message i had , from my uncle captain tonge , was by a young man that waited on him ; who brough me a letter , and desir'd me to come to him to the golden anchor in the strand , whether i came , and having drunk several bottles of canary with him , i desir'd to take my leave of him ; who importun'd me to stay , and then call'd for several bottles more : and said he had a paper that i must sign , and sinding me unwilling , he drunk me to such a pitch that i was quite drunk , and then i sign'd the paper . he sent likewise twice for me to the half moon in the strand , where he likewise drunk me very high , and said he would give me some allowance towards my relief , and sent one mrs. lamb to me with half a crown , and promised that hence forwards he would send me three shillings and six pence a week , which i constantly had sent me till of late . the arguments he made use of were , that though i were imprison'd , i should be supply'd with what necessaries i wanted , and that he would endeavour to purchase me my liberty , and discharge my chamber rent , and fees on the master-side of the kings-bench . my father used to take notes out of a great book , it was a suppliment after hollinshed left off , and was joyn'd to his , and was writ as i have heard him say by one how , or how 's , and there were other little books written by hocker or hopper , that was the witness , and prosecuted the jesuits . i do not very well remember which , but it may be found by comparing the letters with oates and my fathers hand . one e — knows much , for he helped to write some of the papers which my father left were taken at college's house , and my uncle sent one mr. h to me , in the kings-bench , and brought one who was a stranger to me , with a paper , to administer on my behalf , and sign'd it , and under pretence of administring for me hath seiz'd on the rest of my fathers papers . that mr. h — studies physick , and lives not far from c — but i cannot remember the court , but the person he lodges near , is high-constable . sir , i can make no better answer at present , because i have no place to recollect my self : in the mean time i desire you would accept of this , which is no other then the truth , from your humble servant , simson tongue . here follows my answer , jan. 3. to two from tonge received together . mr. tonge , mrs. — has brought me a letter from you this morning of jan. 2. 1681. and another enclosed in it without date . the account you pretend to give of your affairs , is very imperfect ; and you mistake your self , in seeming to understand me , as if i had put any questions to you : i only told you , that your relation concerning the matter , whereupon you propounded to petition the king , fell short in many particulars . i know very well how liable words are to misconstruction , and i will not meddle in any thing which is not as clear as the sun. i know nothing of your father's papers : if you have any thing to offer me , you must either declare in the same paper , that it is your own voluntary act , or else i 'le not meddle in it . but wherein soever i can do you a civility , that i may honestly justifie , i am ready to shew my self , your loving friend , ro. l'estrange . jan. 3. 1681. here follows another letter of tonge , of jan. 5. king's bench , the common-side , jan. 5. 1681. mr. l'estrange , finding that my two last letters to you were imperfect , i send you this third , and request you would be pleas'd to send me the largest letter , that i may take a copy of it . the contrivance was thus : that under the pretence of a popish plot , ( which my father first imagin'd was on foot , and afterwards oates at his second return , swore to be true ) their main and principal design was to disinherit his royal highness . the first persons that manag'd the plot , and were privy to it , were my father oates , &c. the last time i was with b — , he told me he had something to write , that was not sit to be nam'd , but he had burnt it ; and said , he was afraid those papers would make him mad , should he write any longer ; and that my father would trust none but him to transcribe them , and he could not deny him , because he had no other livelihood . my father advis'd oates to write the plot in greek letters , because that none but themselves might be privy to what was doue . the copy which was in greek letters was burnt by oates . when they came to fox-hall , mr. — was taken in for an assistant , after he had been sworn to secrecy . they went to fox-hall by my father's advice , to the end they might be the more private , where those papers they wrote at — were put into form , and deliver'd into the council . after they all three remov'd from fox-hall , and nail'd up the chamber-door , having left several papers behind ; and my father understanding by mr. lambert , that the door was broken up by the landlord , and the papers like to be seiz'd on , was much troubl'd at it , and sent away the rent that was due by his man richard — now living at — who brought back the papers with him , and can testifie the same . sir , i have no chamber nor conveniency to write , and besides have a very great cold upon me ; but request you would be pleas'd to accept of this , which is upon a second recollection of my thoughts , which is my own voluntary act ; and i have been under great trouble of conscience ever since i went from my evidence , ana many times ready to despair , but that mrs. — coming to see a prisoner , i desir'd her to look out some papers i had left at her house ; and i sent to you , being you were the person i had wronged , and therefore thought it my duty to acknowledge my fault , which i do now again , and protest , that what i have done is neither in hope of favour , nor reward , but to discharge a good conscience , and to shew that i am truly penitent . and am your veriest commandable servant , simson tonge . in answer to this as follows . jan. 6. 1682. mr. tonge , although you have so exceedingly forfeited your credit in the former abuses you put upon the king ; and others that believed you , that you cannot expect much weight to be laid upon your single word , for any thing , yet having dealt so openly , and so particularly , ( and all on your own accord too ) in a letter to me of yesterday , i cannot but hope that you are a true convert . you have named several persons that were privy to the matter of fact there in question . you shall do well to bethink your self both where they may be found , and what particulars they can speak to . and what you say , let it be in the awe of devine justice , and eternal damnation if you bely any creature . i will endeavour to do you good some honest way or other : but i dare not venture to see you , or speak with you , for fear of mis-construction . this is all i can say at present . your loving friend , r. l'estrange . this was followed by another , from tonge , jan. 6. 10. jan. 10. 1682. mr. l'estrange , i am very sensible that my single word will be but of small moment . however as i declare nothing but the truth , yet if by declaring what others can testifie , i can be anyways instrumental to the further discovery of it , i should not a little r●joyce . [ — having writ all the papers which related to the history of the plot , can give account of the whole contrivance , and the several meetings that my father , oates , &c. had . he is the only man in town , could he be found out , &c. ] i have a great cold with sitting on the ground to make pegg● , as i do all the week , and must work very hard for three-half pence a day , which is all i have , &c. — i am barefooted , and almost naked . i must confess , i have deserved far worse than this ; but god that hath promised that at what time soever a sinner doth truly repent , he will have mercy , will , i hope , look upon my unfeigned repentance , and encline his majesties royal heart to pitty and pardon me , if you please to impart my sorrowfull estate unto the king ; and to let his gracious majesty know how i was trepann'd by my uncle ; for the which i am very sorrowfull , and am still . pray sir consider the sad condition of your poor servant , simson tongue there never was such a penitent certainly to all manner of purposes ; but i began now to have enough of him , and in a short letter of the day following put an end to the correspondence . jan. 11. 1682. mr. tonge . i dare not presume to trouble the king in your affair . but i will do you all the good i can in what case soever the matter will honestly beare it . your loving friend , r. l'estrange . by this time , tonge , and his advisers , finding that they could not compass their end ; and mr. thompson's news-paper having given vent to the design , they lay'd their heads together to make the best retreat they could ; and to face a shamm upon the world , as if l'estrange had been already up to the ears in a new plot : but they were so thankful however as to cover the back-side of the poor fellow for his good-will , put some few pence in his pocket , and preserve him from starving this bout , in hope of a more favourable opportunity . but this shall not serve their turn , if there be any reverence left for the memory of the popish plot ; or any justice to be obtain'd upon those miscreants that make it their business to teare up the very foundation of it by the roots ; for the worst is yet to come , and under tonge's hand , and by him attested , as well as all the rest . when i came from the university ( says he ) in the year 77. i found oates with my father , in a very poor condition , who complained he knew not what to do to get bread ; who went under the name of ambrose . my father took him home , and gave him cloaths , lodging , and dyet , saying he would put him into a way . and then he perswaded him to get acquainted among the papists ; and when he had done so , then my father told him , there had been many plots in england to bring in popery , and if he would go over among the jesuites , and observe their ways , it was possible it might be one now ; and if he could make it out , it would be his preferment for ever . but however , if he could get their names , and a little acquaintance from the papists , it would be an easie matter to stir up the people to fear popery . ] and again , my father and he ( dr. oates ) went and lodg'd at fox-hall , at one lamberts , a bell-founder , ( which house was call'd by the neighbours the plot-house ; and there oates's narrative was written ; whereof several copies were vvritten , very different , the one from the other ; and the four jesuites letters ( wherein oates pretended was the whole discovery ) were counterfeits , &c. all this i have to shew under tonge 's hand , and i appeal to men and angels , if , it be not the boldest attempt that ever was yet made upon the credit of the popish conspiracy : and sufficient to shake any man's faith , as to that point , that were not proof against the utmost effects of malice , impudence , and imposture . so many particulars , so boldly , and openly attested ; in the face of so many witnesses , tryals , convictions , sentences , and executions ! and all this , expresly level'd at the honour of our parliaments , and the dignity of publique justice with only the profligate , and faithless practices of the instrument to weigh against the impious design , and the desperate effects and consequences of so daring a scandal . but let the suggestions be never so incredible and ridiculous ; it is a thing of great mischief yet to suffer the authors of these b●●its and rumours to pass unpunish'd : for malevolent spirits will be apt to say ; if there were not something into , how is it , that the reporters of these fables come to scape ? the best thing he has to say for himself , will be , perhaps , that he has not so much publish'd ▪ these shamms by way of affront to the plot , as thrown them out for a bait for l'estrange to chop at : so that the credit of the protestant religion , and the english government must , at this rate , be expos'd , upon the experiment of trying to engage , and hamper l'estrange in the intrigue . but alas ! i am so thoroughly satisfied in the business of the plot ; and the whole scheme of it is so perfectly , and distinctly in my head , that i have not the least curiosity in the world to know more on 't ; beside ; that in vain is the net spread in the sight of the bird. i have not concern'd my self to hunt after his fathers papers , to trace out his fathers agents ; nor directly , or indirectly made any sort of applications pursuant to his purpose , and desire ; but innocently held him in play with letter for letter , to keep up the rest. the only thing that stuck with me upon the thought of this publication , was the nicety of committing those papers to a publique view , which might seem perhaps to be deposited in my hands under some sort of confidence , and trust : but when i consider'd , on 〈◊〉 other hand , that these letters were meant only as snares to me under the semblance of that confidence , i was my own confessor in the case , and easily discharg'd my self of that scruple : and not without a further sense neither of duty to the government . in conclusion ; i have here made a fair discovery of a foul practice , both upon the publique , and upon my self ; i was to have been trappan'd the one way , and tonge is detected the other . i shall remit the rest to the wisdom of my superiors , how far it may be either safe , or expedient to encourage this way of proceeding ; even to the violation of common-faith , and society . the plot 's a sham ( says tonge ; ) if l'estrange says so too , 't is almost as much as his neck 's worth : why should not this scandalous affront now , be as dangerous to tonge for the starting of it , as it would have been to l'estrange if he had joyn'd in 't ? trapanning will become a trade , ( nay , and forswearing too ) if men shall find it their interest , first to play the knaves , or the cheats , and then ( as i said before ) come off for the discovery , and set up for enformers . this is the case ; and if i had done less , i had been wanting both to the publique , and to my self . finis . a narrative of the depositions of robert jenison esq with other material evidences, plainly proving that mr. william ireland, lately executed for high treason, was in london the nineteenth of august, 1678, notwithstanding his condfident denial thereof both at his tryal and execution / collected by charles chetwind, esq. chetwind, charles. 1679 approx. 89 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 9 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a69734 wing c3792 estc r9115 11906211 ocm 11906211 50678 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a69734) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 50678) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 864:4) a narrative of the depositions of robert jenison esq with other material evidences, plainly proving that mr. william ireland, lately executed for high treason, was in london the nineteenth of august, 1678, notwithstanding his condfident denial thereof both at his tryal and execution / collected by charles chetwind, esq. chetwind, charles. jenison, robert, 1648-1688. [5], 13 p. printed for henry hills, thomas parkhurst, john starkey, dorman newman, thomas cockeril, thomas simmons, and jacob tonson, london : 1679. reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng ireland, william, 1636-1679. popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-02 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-03 ali jakobson sampled and proofread 2007-03 ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion at the council chamber whitehall the 16th of july 1679. present lord arch-bishop of canterbury lord chancellor lord president lord privy seal marquess of worcester earl of bridgwater earl of sunderland earl of essex viscount fauconberg viscount halifax lord robarts mr. secretary coventry mr. chancellor of the exchequer . it was this day ordered by their lordships in council , that the depositions and letter of robert jenison esq with the attestations of sir michael warton , george booth , robert bowes , william burnet esquires , and ralph marshal gentleman , together with the narrative of charles chetwind esq ( relating to william ireland lately executed ) be printed by such persons as mr. chetwind shall appoint , the same having been examined and approved by mr. treby late chairman to the secret committee of the house of commons . john nicholas . by virtue of this order , i do appoint henry hills , thomas parkhust , john starkey , dorman newman , thomas cockeril , thomas simmons , and jacob tonson , to print this narrative , and that no other presume to print the same . july the 17th 1679. charles chetwind . a narrative of the depositions of robert jenison esq with other material evidences , plainly proving that mr. william ireland , lately executed for high treason , was in london the nineteenth of august , 1678. notwithstanding his confident denial thereof both at his tryal and execution . collected by charles chetwind esq london , printed for henry hills , thomas parkhurst , john starkey , dorman newman , thomas cockeril , thomas simmons , and jacob tonson . 1679. the publishers preface . it is not unknown to all considering and judicious persons in this kingdom , that , upon the happy discovery of the late horrid popish plot against his majesties person and government , and the establisht protestant religion ; and upon the apprehension , arraignment , trial , and condemnation of several of the conspirators , many artifices have been used by persons of the same persuasion , to defame the witnesses produced for the king , and to invalidate their testimonies ; in order whereunto , several witnesses have been procured , first at the trial of ireland , and after at the trial of white alias whitebread , &c. ( many of them scholars belonging to the english seminary at st. omers , instructed no doubt , and sent over to act viis & modis , for the preservation of their conducters and leaders ) to testifie that dr. titus oates , one of the principal witnesses for his majesty , was at st. omers , at the same time when he upon his oath affirms himself to have been in london ; other witnesses have been also produced , to prove that mr. ireland ( lately executed ) was in staffordshire , at those days and times when dr. oates , mr. bedloe , and one sarah pain , attest upon their oaths , that they saw him in london , as by the printed trials of ireland , and whitebread , &c. does appear such a failure in circumstance of time and place , is of so great consequence in this case that if made out , it would render the said persons unworthy , the names of just and lawful witnesses ; and for that reason their adversaries put so much stress upon it , that ( not contented with the determination of the matter , at the trial and condemnation of ireland ) they again resume it at the trial of whitebread , &c. and by their st. omers youths , endeavour to fasten falsehood on dr. oates , and by consequence to impeach the credit of his testimony , and the justice of their condemnation . as to the first particular concerning dr. oates , his testimony is justly secured , and he himself indubitably proved to have been in london , at the times by him mentioned and deposed , by the concurrent evidence of divers creditable persons , given in upon oath at the trial of whitebread ; so that the stratagem which his antagonists did use , to destroy or at least depretiate his testimony , hath by a gracious emergency of divine providence , turned to a strong confirmation thereof , and for ever set him , as to this point , rectus in curia , a good and lawful witness , in reference to all the evidence already given , and which hereafter may be given by him in any future trials . their design failing herein , their next attempt was to entrap him and the rest , in relation to mr. ireland , whom the witnesses they produce , affirm to have been in staffordshire , and other places out of london , all the month of august , from the fifth of august , to the fourteenth of september ; whereas dr. oates , mr. bedloe , and sarah pain , depose , that they saw him in london within that time . to clear the truth of this particular , and to justifie the evidence of dr. oates , and the rest , the testimony of mr. jenison is a pregnant demonstration , which i thought truly to deserve my utmost dilligence to bring to light ; and in order thereunto , communicated the same to the right honourable the earl of shaftsbury , and by his appointment to justice warcup ; before whom mr. jenisons depositions , and the attestations of the worthy gentlemen hereafter mentioned , were taken ; and in whose hands , if not transmitted by him to the clerk of his majesties council , the originals of the ensuing papers are to be seen , and whose joint endeavours for the discovery of the truth in this , as well as other particulars relating to the plot , deserve an honourable mention . the occasion of what is here publisht arising from several passages in the trials of ireland , and whitebread , &c. those passages are here extracted and presented to the readers view ; that having the case before him , he may apply this evidence thereto ; whereby his judgment will be clear . the reader will find this short discourse divided into three parts . the first relates the means and manner of obtaining the letter and depositions of that worthy person , mr. jenison . the second exhibits the letter and depositions . the third , some observations thereupon , for the full satisfaction of all unbiass'd minds in the matter controverted . the narrative . upon the 15th . of june in this present year 1679. charles chettwind of westminster esq had occasionally some discourse with a gentleman till then unknown to him ; to wit , mr. griffith of grayes-inn , barrister at law , concerning the five traitors that had been condemned the saturday before , and their attempt to prove mr. william ireland , alias ironmonger , lately executed for high-treason to have been in staffordshire , and on his journey thither from the 5th . of august 1678 till the 7th . of september following , and not to have been within that time in london , which as mr. oates and others , had upon his tryal affirmed him to be there , about the 12th . of that month , and to be returned thither again about the beginning of september : whereupon the said mr. griffith , told mr. chetwind , that sir michael warton of beverly in the county of york knight , a worthy member of the honourable house of commons in the last parliament told him , that since the execution of ireland , mr. jenison ( a gentleman of very good quality , and a student in grays-inn , who was a romanist till about january last ) affirmed , that mr. ireland was in london about the middle of august , and that he was with him then at a scriveners at the sign of the white-hart in russel-street in covent garden , which relation he confirm'd with several other notable circumstances . mr. chetwind , having heard this , went to whitehall , and there attending on the right honourable the earl of shaftsbury , lord president of his majesties privy council , acquainted his lordship with what mr. griffith had told him ; upon which , the said earl of shaftsbury told mr. chetwind , that it would be very considerable , if it could be made out . mr. chettwind thus encouraged by the said earl , did by his order , make it his business the next morning , being tuesday june the 16th . to find out sir michael warton , and coming to the coffee house in covent garden , where sir michael used to be when in town , mr. chetwind met there with mr. ralph marshal secretary to the earl of craven , who upon discourse told mr chetwind that sir michael lived at hampstead this summer . mr. marshal , understanding something of the business for which mr. chettwind enquired after sir michael , said , that sir michael had often related to him , and he was sure he would justifie it , that the said mr. jenison of grays-inn ( who was lately come over to the protestant religion , a person of considerable quality , and heir to a good estate , his elder brother being a priest , and in newgate ) told him , the said sir michael , in the presence of several other gentlemen of quality presently after the execution of ireland the severall following particulars which they had hitherto taken no care to discover , because they expected not that the evidence given in the triall against him the said ireland , would after his execution come into question or debate . the particulars were these . that in the month of august 1678. when his majesty was at windsor , mr. jenison going to windsor on saturday the 17th of august and returning the 19th , immediately upon his return that night , he went to give mr. ireland ( the same person who was afterwards executed ) a visit , and found him at the sign of the hart in russel-street in covent garden , and after a salute , mr. ireland asked him several questions , as , what newes from windsor ? how his majesty spent his time ? and what recreations he followed ? and whither he walked abroad much , and how guarded ? to which mr. jenison answered that his majestie delighted much in hawking and fishing , but most in the latter , which his majesty followed early in the morning with some few persons attending him ; upon which mr. ireland replyed , i wonder his majesty is no better guarded , he were easily taken off , whereupon mr. jenison said god forbid , or words to that effect , which made mr. ireland stop his discourse . mr. marshal reporting this to mr. chetwind in presence of mr. ash and mr. spicer , two persons of unquestionable reputation ; mr. ash replied , that he was last night in company with mr. griffith , and mr. booth , son to my lord de la more , where he heard them discourse of this very business ; mr. booth saying that he heard mr. jenison speak the same things , whereupon mr. marshall undertook to go that very day to hampstead to sir michael warton , and give mr. chetwind an account of it the next morning . mr. ash and mr. spicer also , before mr. chetwind and they parted , having promised to go to mr. booth , met him , who justified every syllable of what he had said , and withall , remembred very well that when sir michael warton took some particular notice of it , mr. jenison seemed to be surprised , and was sorry he had uttered those words , and began to recall them , as to the time only of ireland's being in town : but says mr. bowes , ( who was there present , a person of quality of grayes-inn , and well esteemed in your house ) jenison you cannot retract your words , for i have a letter under your own hand which will put you in mind of the time , and repeats the very same thing . the fryday following being the 20th . of june , mr. booth and mr. bowes met with mr. jenison , and discoursed the matter with him , who then owned all the questions which ireland asked him , namely , what news at windsor ? how his majesty spent his time ? &c. but , says he , i desire a days time to consider , that i may be exact as to the day when they were spoken ; for several persons have told me of a great many out of staffordshire , who upon the tryal of the 5 traitors , whitebread , &c. had proved mr. ireland to be in staffordshire from the 5th of august to the 7th of september ; and therefore i must seriously consider what time it was that i saw him in london ; upon which they appointed to dine together on saturday following , being the 21 of june . which day being come , there met sir. michael warton , mr. jenison , mr. bowes , mr. booth , mr. griffith , and mr. marshall , and there they shewed mr. jenison his letter , which he acknowledged to be writ by his own hand ; and further told them , that upon the 15th of august he came to london from tunbridge , that upon the 17th he went to windsor , and upon the 19th he returned to london again , and either that night or the next day , he had this discourse with mr. ireland at the sign of the hart in russel-street in covent garden ; further he related that on the 4th of september following he went from london into the north , returning back to london in the ensuing november , and so presently after removed to reading , from whence he writ the forementioned letter of mr. bowes . this confession of his mr. marshal took in writing at that very time ( when they dined together ) all of them being present , as also a true copy of his letter writ from reading , both which he brought to mr. chetwind the same night ; immediately upon which mr. chetwind and he carried them to my lord of shaftsbury , his lordship the next day ( being the 22d of june ) communicating them to my lord chancellor and several others of his majesties privy council . the following day ( viz. june23d . ) mr. chetwind brought mr. bowes and mr. marshall with the original letter to the earl of shaftsbury , before whom mr. jenison acknowledged the letter to be his own , with the circumstances thereunto referring concerning time and place . these things will receive a sufficient confirmation if we do but seriously peruse all the ensuing informations taken before one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex ; as you will see by his subscription at the close , as also the subscriptions of those that gave the informations . the information of sir michael warton knight . about the month of february last mr. bowes and mr. burnet of grayes-inn and my self , went to dine together at the mirmaid at grayes-inn gate in holborn , whither mr. jenison , an acquaintance of mr. bowes , accidentally came into the room , so that we dined together ; and upon general discourses at dinner , we were talking of mr. irelands tryal or execution , whereupon mr. bowes begun the discourse of a letter he had from mr. jenison which ( he thought ) if he had received timely enough might have very much cleared the point of irelands being in london in august last ; mr. jenison owned the letter , and continued the discourse ; sometime after i saw the letter , and by the reading judged it might have been very material , the matter of the letter being perfectly owned by mr. jenison . june 26th 1679. m. warton . the attestation of george booth esq i do attest this matter that sir michael warton has here attested . george booth . the information of mr. burnet . what sir michael warton has here said , i know to be true ; the day that mr. jenison went to windsor , i do believe to be the 17th of august last , it was on a saturday , the day of dochets horse-race , for i met him riding to windsor as i came from the horse-race . w. burnet . the information of robert bowes esq about the latter end of december last i received a letter from mr. robert jenison , which a little time after i shewed to mr. savill and mr. ewers of lincolns-inn , and have now by me : mr. jenison hath owned it all along , and doth so still . i have several times since discourst with him upon it ; i went to windsor on the 12th or 13th of august last , and staid a night there , and from thence to henly , where i staid untill the 6th of september following or thereabouts . june 26th 1679. rob. bowes . the information of ralph marshal gent. is , that in or about the month of february last , being in discourse with sir michael warton , concerning mr. irelands being about that time executed , and concerning his denying his being in london in august last , sir michael told this informant , that if mr. ireland were to be tryed again , it would be proved that he was in town in august , by mr. jenison , a gentleman of quality of grays-inn ; sir michael then telling him also , what discourse mr. jenison , and mr. ireland had at that time together , which discourse is particularly mentioned in a letter , in the hand of mr. bowes of grays-inn , which letter i have read , and heard mr. jenison own to be his own hand writing . and this informant further saith , that he hath often heard mr. jenison say , that he believeth the time he had the discourse with mr. ireland , mentioned in his said letter , was the 19th of august last , in the afternoon , he being come that morning from windsor , and that it was at one mr. coynoes house , at the white-hart in russel-street . ralph marshal . these informations above written , were all written and subscribed by the parties above named , on the 26th of june 1679. before us , edmond warcupp . charles chetwind . not to put you off with the informations of others , concerning mr. jenisons letter and words , we shall in the next place give you the true copy of the letter , and also of two differing informations of his , both of them full as much , if not more home to the purpose than what had been reported by others . mr. jenisons letter from reading in barkshire , upon his return from the north. to robert bowes , esq son to sir francis bowes . ( mr. jenison then being a papist . ) reading december 19. 1678. sir , yours i have , bearing date the 15th instant , and have not missed a post i could send to you ; i am not ignorant of the offer made by his majesties proclamation , and lay hold on nothing but pardon for concealing that circumstance i have known so long ; yet i did not altogether conceal it neither : for i told my cozin smith of it within two or three days of the breaking out of this damnable conspiracy , which how much it weighs i am not a fit judg of ; and i would not , were it to gain a million , nay , a million of worlds , if possible , draw the least drop of innocent blood upon me ; for i know it is a crying sin , therefore i pray god avert it from me . all that i can tell you , as i hope for forgivness of my sins and eternal salvation , is , ( if you will distinguish between the times ) what follows . being come from windsor , where i promised my self the happiness and satisfaction of seeing you , that i might take my leave before my journey for the north , ( which to the best of my memory was about the latter end of august , ) i went to do the same to mr. ireland , whom then , ( with all the rest , ) i did believe to be a man of the best conversation and life in the world , ( for you know the law does presume every man good until it be proved otherwise . ) after my salute , and i had told him i had been at windsor , his interrogatory , or question was , what news ? my teturn was the usual no news , but good ; then he proceeds to ask me to the best of my memory , how his sacred majesty and the court were diverted ? i replied , that i heard , his majesty took much delight in hawking and fishing , but chiefly in the latter , which his majesty followed early in the morning , as i heard , accompanied only with two or three lords , or other attendants : i wonder , said mr. ireland , why his majesty should be so thin guarded , he were easily taken off or removed , or some words to that purpose , so sounding ; god forbid , i returned ; no , subjoyns he , i do not say it is lawful , and something else i cannot call to mind that did qualifie the former words , that i did then think his meaning was , he was then sorry his sacred majesty should go so weakly guarded ; i then took it by that handle , having no other reason ; for i did believe him a saint , never hearing him , nor any of them , as i hope for everlasting life , defend or maintain in the least , that damnable doctrine of deposing kings ; but now i know that passage may be taken by the other handle ; and i am not fit to judg how far , yet you know words are to be taken in the milder sense unless they be positive , which these , with their qualifications as they were spoken , are not . i suppose there is clearer evidence from mr. oates , that better know it than i. there is only another thing ( and i have cleared my soul , ) has run in my fancy ever since this , ever to be detested immergency happened , which applyed to these times has an ill sound with it ; you know whom i accuse now , tho. je. but in other times is capable of a good construction , viz. he had some business to acquaint me with , and this for two or three times at our parting ; for i did not see him above four or five times , as i remember the while i was in london . once i urg'd him to tell me the business , he replied , he would take some other occasion ; now i did believe he meant somewhat about my setling in the world as a match , having propounded one to me of a knights daughter half a year before , or of that sort of business ; and 't is capable of that construction still , if there be no clearer evidence to give a luster and a great light on the other side . we have a good author that commands us to give unto caesar what is caesars , and to god , who is truth it self , what belongs to him , which i would do to the dividing the minutest atom in the presence of that truth which made me . but i can now remember no more if i were to gain heaven , unless my cozin smith put me in mind of a word or two more relating to one of these two passages , that now i don't remember , which i will own if i said it , otherwise not ; for i will have nothing to do with their blood , further then what i can with a clear and safe conscience swear , which i am ready to do , if sent for , as far as i have declared ; i am in the mean while , sir , your assured friend , and faithful servant , rob. jenison . this be pleased to shew to collonel tempest , our knight of the shire , or whom you please to acquaint with it . postscript . i hear since i have writ this , that 4 of the jusuits are condemned , which if the included 2 be in , this might be spared , only for your satisfaction i send it ; and what i have said in this letter is all i can justly swear except my cozin smith remember a word , or more about one of these passages , the former i mean ; as for the latter , all what i have said is by all that 's sacred , ( and i hope 't is no offence to swear to the truth ) all , and some , i say , of what i know , if it were the last moment i have to live , i could confess no more . the information of robert jenison of grays-inn esq son of john jenison , of walworth in the county palatine of durnam , esq taken upon oath this 26th . day of june , 1679. before me edmund warcup esq one of his majesties justices of the peace , in the county of middlesex . mid. ss . this informant saith , that he went from london to see windsor , and to meet mr. robert bowes , at or about the 17th . of august last past , and returned back to london the 19th . day of the same month ; on which day in the afternoon , he made a visit to mr. william ireland , alias ironmonger , at his lodgings in russel-street , who was this informants relation ; at which time and place , he ( this informant ) had the discourse with the said mr. ireland , mentioned and contained in this informant ; letter to the said mr. bowes , and now shewed unto him , being all of this informants own hand writing , dated at reading in barkshire , on the 19th . day of december last past . and this informant doth very well remember , that he went from london into the north , in the york coach on the 4th . day of september last past , and came thence back to london , in october following ; and thence went to reading in obedience to his majesties proclamation , from whence he wrote the letter aforesaid to mr. robert bowes , and further at present saith not . reb. jenison . jur. die & anno supr . dict . cor. me edm. warcup . the further information of rob. jenison of grays-inn esq taken upon oath this 2d . day of july , 1679. before me edmund warcup esq one of his majesties justices of the peace , in the county of middlesex . mid. ss . this informant saith , that he being returned from windsor upon the 19th . day of august last , went to mr. william ireland's lodging in russel-street in covent-garden , to visit him ; and passing through the entry , went directly two pair of stairs to the said mr. william ireland's chamber , the door whereof being somewhat open , he entred , and there found the said william ireland , whom this informant having told , that he came just then from windsor upon a hackney horse , hired at 3s . per diem , which had much tired him ; the said william ireland replied , that he was then newly arrived from wolverhampton in staffordshire by post , and was not weary ; upon which this informant replied , that he thought that scholars , as he was , had rather choose to ride ambling horses , than to ride post . and this informant further saith , that he very well remembers , that about the beginning of october last past , sir edward smith came to walworth in the county of durham , and then read a letter newly come from london , purporting the discovery of the plot , and that the king was to have been killed at windsor ; which made this informant call to mind the expressions of the said william ireland , on the said 19th . day of august , viz. why his majesty should be so thin guarded , he was easily taken off or removed , or words of that sounding , &c. and thereupon this informant did the next day after the reading of the said letter , relate all the passages between this informant and the said mr. ireland , to this informants father , and the said mr. smith , as they are contained in this informants letter to mr. bowes , dated on the 19th . day of december last ; and so the said mr. smith hath lately by letter signified to the said mr. bowes . and this informant further saith , that in the year 1678. several papists have in this informants hearing declared , that they doubted not , but their religion would shortly be uppermost , or to that effect ; and further at present he saith not . observations deducible from the aforesaid letter and testimony , and from the manner of obtaining the same . 1. it is a remarkable instance of divine providence , that this latent evidence casually discovered to mr. chetwind ( when he had not known or heard of mr. jenison ) should be thus recovered by him ; and that in his pursuit thereof , so many worthy persons likewise unknown , should accidentally occur to him , and contribute their great assistance . 2. the ' foresaid mr. jenison at the writing of his letter to mr. bowes was of the romish church , and in obedience to the kings proclamation for banishing papists out of london , had retired from london to reading , so that the discovery made by his letter cannot rationally be imputed to any other inducement , or incitement , save only the power of truth ; especially considering that mr. ireland was related to him . 3. the main plot is evidently confirmed , not only by the papists expecting some great change and alteration , mentioned in one of mr jenisons informations , given in upon his oath , but also by those suspicious questions proposed by the said ireland to mr. jenison after his return from windsor to london , as , what news from windsor ? how is the king guarded ? and especially those dangerous words of his , then he may easily be taken off , or to that effect ; which do sufficiently argue , not only his being privy to the design , but go far to prove his being an instrument therein . 4. for the readers fuller satisfaction concerning this subject , these particulars are to be noted , viz. that the king went to windsor about the 13th of august 1678. as appears by sir tho. dolemans testimony at the tryals . that mr. jenison came from windsor the 19th of august , and went into the north the 4th of september following . as to the latter , his going into the north , the books of entries of passengers in the northern coach have been examined , and the 4th of september is found to be the very day he took coach for the north at london ; his going to windsor is proved by mr. burnet , who met him the 17th of august as he came from dochets horse-race , which was on that day . that mr. jenison in his letter writes thus , being come from windsor , i went to take my leave of mr. ireland before i took my journy into the north , and mr. ireland asked me what news from windsor ? how does the king pass his time ? &c. which notoriously proves , that his discourse with mr. ireland , was when the king was at windsor , and also that it was after mr. jenison came from windsor , and before he went into the north , viz. betwixt the 19th of august and the 4th of september , and it implies that it was immediately after his coming from windsor , by the question , what news from windsor ? and seems also to intimate , that mr. ireland had not long been in london , as being eager of news from windsor , which at that time he might if resident in london have had every 2d day by bedingfield's , and other letters . that this time does nearly agree with sarah pain 's evidence at irelands trial , who swears that she saw ireland here in london about the time the king went to windsor ; and there is not above 5 or 6 days difference , see whitebreads trial , fol. 87. there as gavan repeats their evidence , sir jo. southcot and his family staid with ireland till the 19th . which 19th was the very day he came post from staffordshire to london , and was seen by mr. jenison . that ireland was tryed the 17th of december , and mr. jenisons letter was writ from reading the 19th following ; and it is clear by the letter , that mr. jenison had then no notice of irelands being tryed . that mr. smith ( a priest ) hath since by his letter to mr. bowes confirmed the truth of what mr. jenison relates , viz. that he told his father and him at his fathers house at walworth , immediately upon the first discovery of the plot those very words mr. ireland had spoken to him ; then certainly it remains scarcely possible to imagin that unless the matter were exactly true , mr. jenison , a gentleman of a very fair temper and sober life , should report such words as delivered by mr. ireland , his kinsman , and a kinsman very dear in his esteem , and report them to his own father old mr. jenison and mr. smith , and that at that time when they were all romanists , and ireland highly valued by them all ; nor is it less absurd to conceive , that mr. smith , as is said , a priest as ireland was , should confirm the words of mr. jenison , so long after spoken , and that when to witness to them , was even to cut the throat of irelands reputation and truth , and give a very severe stab to the romish cause . certainly the thing seems to look as it writ with a sun-beam . 5. it appears then an undeniable truth , that mr ireland was in london the 12th or 13th of august 1678. and thence taking a journey into staffordshire ; he returned and was seen in london and discoursed by mr. jenison the 19th of the same month , from whence 't is probable , having transacted something of the matter in hand , he might immediately return . neither do i know any rational objection against the clearness of the truth evidenced thereby , unless the three following objections weigh with some . obj. 1. the credit and quality of some of the witnesses , who testifie , they saw mr. ireland in staffordshire on those days , wherein he is affirmed to have been in london . ans . to this i shall only answer , that the credit of the witnesses , of both sides may be so far salved , as t is possible to affirm , one and the same person may be in london and stafforshire some part of the same day ; the distance being not so great betwixt both places , but the journy ( especially by post ) may be easily performed ; neither is it improbable , that mr. ireland , who was so actively concerned in the plot , and in the nature of a treasurer therein , should have frequent occasion to travel by day and by night betwixt london and staffordshire , his presence being equally necessary to both places , especially in such a critical time of expectancy , as that of the kings being at windsor then wa● . add hereunto , that mr. ireland himself confessed in his discourse with mr. jenison , that he had rode post from staffordshire to london that day , yet was not weary : a journey , which many other persons have performed in less then the space of one day , part of the night being also , in that usually very hot month of august , more convenient for travelling then the day ; now if such a journey were undertaken by ireland one day ? why not another ? why not many days , according as the urgency of his grand affairs , and the teeming pregnancy of them might require ? obj. 2. if this evidence be true , why was it not produced before , or at the tryal of whitebread , &c. being so material for the clearing of the truth ? ans . the matter was a long time kept secret in the breasts of young mr. jenison and his father , being both ( then ) romanists , and smith a priest , and secured from the knowledge of any protestant ; neither did mr. bowes receive mr. jenisons letter of discovery ( though often pressed by him to declare his knowledge , upon the kings proclamation of pardon ) till december 19th 1678. which was two days after the tryal of ireland , now the matter having received it's determination in the arraignment and condemnation of the said ireland , no probability appearing , that it would be again resumed and reinsisted on , no further divulgation was made thereof ; and unless new provocation had been given by reviving the matter at whitebreads tryal , it had possibly lain asleep for ever ; so that what of indecency may be imputed in combating the ghost of the deceased is more properly referrable to the importunate arguings or instances of his surviving friends , then then even to the just vindication of the truth . obj. 3. the confident asseveration of the said ireland , and the solemn protestation of his innocency , and of his continuing in staffordshire the days he was alledged to be here in london , shall have the room of the third and last objection . ans . 1st . i confess this had not a little influence upon me ; for i acknowledge myself subject to the compassionate sentiments of humane nature ; but the same evidence above mentioned which convinced me , will i doubt not , banish all hesitation as to this matter from the minds of others , except of those , who out of guilt or interest are resolved to shut the door against all kind of satisfaction whatsoever . 2 how far equivocations , falsities , mental reserves , and other salvoes may be allowed , even to dying persons , in the roman church , provided they contribute to the advancement of the catholick cause , as they phrase it , would require a large field of discourse ; but the clearness of the evidence justifying mr. ireland's being in london , notwithstanding his and his witnesses affirmations to the contrary , doth give just ground of scruple , that a large freedom is allowed to them on that account ; but it would be too tedious to turn over the popish casuists , for the deciding of that controversie ; leaving therefore the scholastical and skirmishing part to abler pens , i shall content my self to exhibit one passage ( relating to the matter in hand ) mentioned in a book called the jesuits catechism , composed ( almost 60 years since ) by a member of the roman church , but not of the ignatian order . his words mentioned , lib. 3. cap. 12. at the end of that chapter are there . they ( says he , speaking of the jesuits ) have a rule in practice , that men are bound to accuse themselves to their confessors , and not themselves only , but all their confederates also ; and ( for the magistrate ) the malefactor being condemned to die , after he hath once made confession of his sins to his ghostly father , he is not tied to reveal it to his judge , nay it is lawful for him to stand in stiff denial thereof at the time of his execution , as being clear before god , though he persist in a lie , after he hath once discharged the depth of his conscience to his confessor . a thing ( that the same author subjoyns ) that breedeth much scruple in the mind of a judge , who otherwise is greatly quieted in conscience , when an offender adjudged to die , howsoever he have beforetime stood in denial of the fact , yet at the time of his death confesseth the truth . an abstract of the material passages at the trials of mr. ireland and mr. whitebread , relating to mr. ireland 's being in london about the middle of august 1678. tending to clear much of the matter of fact mentioned in the foregoing papers . the things for which ireland was indicted , were , the conspiring the king's death ; also , that he did indeavour and contrive to change and alter the religion established in the nation , and introduce popery in the room of it . ( pag. 13. of ireland's trial ) and in order thereunto that pickering and grove should assassinate the king ( p. 19. ) which resolve ireland signed about the 24th of april . 1678. ( p. 19 , 20. ) pickering and grove failing , in august following , mr. ireland and others met at harcourt's chamber , and their held a close consultation how to accomplish their design of killing the king , which they determin should be by four russians , whom they actually hire and dispatch away to windsor , in order to the accomplishing that most barbarous and most treasonable project : where dr. oates saw mr. ireland present . ( p. 26. and 40. ) the russians also failing to kill the king at windsor , they determin , that pickering and grove should go on , and that conyers should be joyned with them , to assassinate the king in his morning-walks at new-market ; this they had taken so strongly upon them that they were very eager to accomplish it . ( p. 41. ) these things ireland was accused of by mr. bedlce ; dr. oates affirming that he took his leave of mr. ireland in his own chamber between the twelfth and four and twentieth of august , ireland being then writing a letter as dated from st. omers , and that afterward when dr. oates went to fenwicks chamber , ireland came thither also ; so that he saw him twice about a fortnight within august . ( p. 60. ) sarah pain confirmed both their evidence by swearing , that she saw him about the same time at the door of his own house : ( p. 57. ) these things mr. ireland denys , and indeavours to disprove their evidence only as to time , because not in london in august last , ( i. e. in a. d. 1678. ) but in staffordshire ; ( p. 46. and 56. ) and this he attempts chiefly to prove against dr. oates , in order to the nullifying his evidence , and so confidently affirms himself not in london , for the whole of that august , this he offers to prove by twenty witnesses , ( p. 44. and 56. ) and says , first , he would indeavour to prove that there was not two witnesses against him ; for that which mr. oates said of his being at harcourts chamber in august , was false for he was all august long out of town in staffordshire ; upon the third day he went down to staffordshire , with my lord aston , and his lady , and his son , and sir john southcot , and his lady ; and saith he , all these can testify that i went down with them , here is mr. john aston in town , if he may be found , who was in my company all august in staffordshire , ( p. 56. ) but to save him that labour , the kings evidence offered to prove that he was in town at that time , for which they swore sarah pain , who affirmed she knew mr. ireland , and that she saw him in town in august last at his own house , ( which was at a scriveners in russel-street in covent garden ) about a week before she went with my lord arlington to windsor , which was about a week after the king was gone thither ; which sir tho. doloman said , was about the 13th of august . how she knew him , was , because he came often to her masters house , that was mr. groves , the person condemned with him , averring that he was the man that broke open the pacquet of letters , that her master carried about aterwards ; and he sealed all the pacquets that went beyond the seas , and he opend them still when the answers returned them back again . p. 57. against whose evidence he opposed that of his sister ann ireland , and his mother elinor ireland , who both said , that on saturday the third of august he set out to go into staffordshire , and he continued there till it was a fortnight before michaelmas , which ( says the sister ) i remembered by a very good circumstance , because on the wednesday before , my brother , and my mother and i were invited out to dinner , we staid there all night , and all thursday night , and friday night my brother came home , and on saturday de set out for staffordshire . p. 58 , 59. sarah pain being again asked , if she was sure that she saw him in the place she mentioned , and about the time ? she answered , yes , i am sure i saw him at that very place and at that time ; but mr. ireland then confidently professed he never knew her , although she was mr. groves servant , and used to carry him letters from her master 's ; his words are , i profess i do not know her , 20 people may come to me , and yet i not know them , and she having been mr. groves servant might have brought me letters , and yet i not remember her . p. 58 , 59. but my l. c. justice thus recapitulates sarah pains evidence against him : she says that she saw you in london about the 10th or 12th of august , and she makes it out by a circumstance , which is better evidence , then if she had come and swore the precise day wherein she saw you ; for i should not have been satisfied , unless she had given me a good account why she did know it to be such a day . she does it by circumstance , by which we must calculate she saw you about the 12th or 13th day ; she went to my lord arlingtons at such a day , a week after the king went to windsor , and that was about the 13th , and she saw you a week before she went to my lord arlingtons , which must be the 12th or 13th . you say you went out of town the 3d of august , who can swear you did not come back again ? to which ireland says , all the house can testify i did not come to my lodging ; his mother also affirmed it , but they were parties . p. 59. dr. oates , here comes in with his information , and reports it to my lord c. justice thus . my lord , whenever we had a mind to come to town , we commonly writ our letters , and let them come to town two days after us ; so that we might prove by the writing of such letters , if any question did arise ; that we could not be at such a place at a such time ; and when we pretended to go into the country , we have gon and taken a chamber in the city , and have had frequent cabals at our chambers . there mr. ireland writ a letter as dated at st. omers , when i took my leave of him at his own chamber , which was betwixt the 12th and 24th in london ; he was there ; and afterwards when i went to fenwicks chamber he came thither , a fortnight or ten days at least , i am sure it was in august . — p. 60. upon which , and what went before my lord ch. justice reflects as follows . here are 3 witnesses upon oath about this one thing : here is mr. bedloe , that swears the fact upon which the question arises to be in august ; that you deny , and say you were out of town then ; he produces a maid here , and she swears that about that time , which by calculation must be about the 12th or 13th , she saw you going into your own house . and here is a 3d witness , who swears he knows nothing of the matter of fact , but he knows you were in town then , and that he took his leave of you as going to st. omers . p. 60. in the next place ireland produceth one harrison , a coachman , to testifie that he was in his company from the 5th of august to the 16th , and at that time he was with him 3 or 4 days at my lord astons house at tixall in staffordshire , p , 62. [ in which time mr. ireland might easily steal a journey to london , and return without notice being taken of it ; and this might be the time in which sarah pain saw him . ] also harrison affirmed that he was with mr. ireland at westchester , and that there he left him ; [ and here let it be remembred that mr. ireland confidently averred himself to be in staffordshire all august , p. 56. and one of his own witnesses declared him to be even in another county , which he granted to be true , but came off with this evasion , in staffordshire or thereabout . p. 61 , 62. ] you may here take a view of irelands dying words , concerning the thing in hand , delivered january 24. at the common place of execution . we are come hither upon the theatre of the world , and we do conceive we lye under an obligation to speak . and 1st we do confess that we do pardon all and every one whatsoever that had any interest or concern , or hand in the taking away our lives . 2dly . we do here profess and acknowledge , we are obliged , that if we were guilty of any treason , or knew any person faulty therein , although he were our father , we would detect and discover him . and as for our selves , we would beg a thousand and a thousand pardons both of god and man ; but seeing we cannot be believed , we must beg leave to commit our selves to the mercy of almighty god , and we hope to find a pardon of him. as for my own part , having been twenty years out of england , and then coming over , i was resolved to take a journey into staffordshire ; and setting out in august , and not returning back to this town untill before the 14th day of september , as many witnesses can testifie : for i believe an hundred or more saw me there ; therefore now , how in this time we should be accused of treasonable stratagems , i do not well know or in any wise understand . thus much out the tryals of ireland , &c. but because mr. ireland's not being in london , from about the beginning of august till about the beginning of september , a. d. 1678. is urged and prosecuted with more importunity in the tryals of white aliàs whitebread , &c. i shall here present you with the whole that referred to this matter , as debated in the court , only leaving out every thing that had not a special reference to the thing intended , to wit , the proving mr. ireland out of town for the whole forementioned time . whitebread . my lord , i have only this , and i desire to be heard in this point , to prove that mr. oates was mistaken in his evidence that he gave at the last tryal against mr. ireland . l. c. j. look you . i must break in upon you ; you have been told so often , all of you have been told it , and yet you are upon the former trials again . you are now upon your tryal for your life , if you could have disproved any thing that he said at a former tryal , you should have taken a legal way and convicted him of perjury ; but now to charge him with a printed paper is not fair . you must speak to what he says now . whitebread . he says the same now . but all that i say is this , if he be not honest , he can be witness in no case . i suppose if any one can prove him not probus testis , his testimony is not to be received in any case . l. c. j. but how will you prove that ? come on , i 'le teach you a little logick : if you will come to contradict a witness , you ought to do it in a matter which is the present debate here ; for if you would convict him of any thing that he said in irelands tryal , we must try irelands cause over again . but if you will say any thing against what he says now , do . whitebread . that which i would aledge is this , if he be convicted of perjury in one case , he is not to be believed in another . l. c. j. you say right , if he be convicted . whitebread . he is not only then an incompetent witness , for he cannot be said to be probus testis . but he is improbus . now this is that i can prove . mr. just . pemberton . nay , you must shew it by a record . l. c. j. you cannot have so little understanding , you that have been , and were to be so great a man among them , had been provincial , and was to have been somewhat else . i have told you already that to prove him to be a man that hath no faith in him he must be convicted . you must have indicted him , and convicted him , of the thing wherein he did commit perjury , and then he had been prepared to justifie himself . but shall you come now , and at this your tryal , and prove what he said at staley's tryal , and colemans tryal , and irelands tryal ? and must we examine what matters have receiv'd a verdict and a judgement there ? for consider what will be the consequence of it ; if it should be false , you there arraign a verdict : you should have convicted him of the falshood first . whitebread . i desire the jury to take notice , that he does not stick to the testimony that he gave then , for if he does it was false . l. c. j. they must not take notice of any thing that was done at a former tryal , unless it be spoken of now . p. 69. l. c. j. north. do not call any witnesses to prove what he said then , but to disprove what he hath said now . harcourt . mr. oates did accuse me of paying fourscore pounds at my chamber , and he did say afterwards it was at wild-house . i have persons to justifie what was done at my own chamber ; and he says , mr. ireland was by ; now here are witnesses to prove that mr. ireland was in staffordshire all the month of august , therefore he could not be present . p. 70. mr. j. pemberton . that was urged before ; pray do not insist upon that , it hath received a tryal . l. c. j. i 'le tell you what he says , and i 'le ask him the question : dr. oates , it is supposed by your testimony , that mr. ireland and mr. harcourt were together when this fourscore pounds was paid , for the villains that went to windsor to murther the king. dr. oates . i never said such a word . harcourt . here it is in the tryal . l. c. j. i stand not by the printed tryal , it is no record in law. in short , were mr. ireland and mr. harcourt together at that time ? dr. oates . no , they were not . gavan . he did then say , that he did receive of mr. ireland , the 2d of september , 20s . that he borrowed of him : now the 2d of september he was at boscobel . dr. oates . my lord , i was not positive as to the day ; but as near as i remember ( those were the words i said ) it was the 2d of september ; but whether it was the first , second , seventh , eighth or ninth , i would not be positive in it . then the prisoners called pendrel and his wife , and gifford and his wife ; and gifford stood up . gifford . my lord , i was here the last sessions , where i did testifie the seeing of mr. ireland in staffordshire on the 24th of august , bartholomew-day , and the next day after ; at which time mr. oates said that he saw him here in town . but mr. oates could not be particular in every thing ; but at last he came to a circumstance , and averred that the first or second of september he did receive 20s . of mr. ireland in harcourts chamber ; he said it was about the fast-day . dr. oates . that was as near as i remembred . gifford . here is in court at least six people that know it ; i saw him several other of those days there ; but these six people conversed with him every day . mr. j. pemberton . how do you know all that ? l. c. j. north. come , come , you must not speak as to what he said in irelands tryal . l. c. j. what time was it that mr. harcourt and mr. ireland conferred together about this same business ? dr. oates . my lord , i do not charge ireland , but i charge harcourt with being at wild-house , and that there coleman met him , and that there was greatest part of the money , which was carried back to harcourts chamber , and given to the person that was to carry it down to windsor ; but mr. celeman was gone away before , and had left a guiny behind him , which was given to the messenger for expedition . l. c. j. i am mistaken if you have not testified that ireland was in town in august and september with harcourt . dr. oates . ireland took his leave of london betwixt the 8th and 12th of august , as to go to st. omers , p. 71. lord ch. just . here is the matter , they must have right , though there be never so much time lost , and patience spent : say they , we must prove and contradict men by such matters as we can ; people may swear down-right things , and 't is impossible to contradict them ; but we will call witnesses to prove those particulars that can be proved : say where mr. ireland was in august ? dr. oates . he took his leave of us in town in august , and that was between the eighth and twelfth at harcourts chamber l. c. j. what do you infer from irelands being there then ? dr. oates . i le tell you what i design in it ; your lordship may perceive that i did methodize my evidence according to the time ; for i said this was our business in april , this in july ; and now we come to the business of august , said i , we took our leaves of mr. ireland between the eighth and twelfth . i said in july mr. fenwick was out of town , but then if your lordship remembers i said he was in town , and took his leave of mr. ireland between the eighth and the twelfth of august . l. c. j. was mr. ireland in fenwicks company at that time in august ? dr. oates . yes my lord he was when he took his leave . l. c. j. did they talk then of this business . dr oates . they took their leaves one of another , but as to what particular things of the plot they spoke about , i do not remember . l. c. j. look you now , mind what he says , ireland and fenwick were together in august between the eighth and the twelfth , but b●ing 〈◊〉 , whether they were met on purpose to talk of the plot ? he says he does not remember the particular : here the lady southcot , her son , and her daughter , were called . l. c. j. did you say that fenwick there at the bar , had converse with ireland in august , for the carrying on of the plot ? dr. oates . yes , my lord. l. c. j. my rule is this in doubtful cases ; when men are upon their lives , i had rather hear what is impertinent , than not ●● them make a full defence . l. c. j. north. i had rather hear things at a venture , than forbid things at a venture . lady southcot stood up . l. c. j. how long were you in mr. ireland ; company ? lady southcot . from the fifth of august to the sixteenth . l. c. just . what every day ? lady southcot . yes every day . dr. oates . my lord , here is sarah pain , who before hath testified what she hath known in this matter . if your lordship 〈…〉 , i desire she may be called in readiness to speak to it . l. c. j. are y●● sure it was the fifth ? lady southcot . yes , as sure as i can be of any thing . mr. recorder . d● . oates , you had best keep your evidence intire till the last . then sir jo. southcot was called , and appeared . l. c. just . did you know mr. ireland ? sir jo. southcot . yes , i did know him by face . l. c. j. where did you see him ? sir jo. southcot . i saw him the 5th . of august at sir. albans . l. c. j. and did he travel along with you ? sir jo. southcot . yes , he did travel along with us , the sixth , seventh , eighth , and ninth . l. c. j. how many days did he travel along with you ? sir jo. southcot . he travel'd along with us , four days together , i am sure . l. c. j. what from the fifth to the ninth ? sir jo. southcot . yes , sir. l. c. j. is this all that you can say ? sir jo. southcot . yes , my lord. l. c. j. but we would know where he was afterwards ; did you see him after the ninth ? sir jo. southcot . my lord , i saw him at st. albans , and we went from thence to northampton , and from thence to coventry , and from thence to my lord astons , that is four days ; and i saw him thursday , i saw him friday , saturday , and monday following : tuesday , i had occasion to go further into the countrey , and he went along with us ; so i saw him tuesday , wednesday , thursday , and fryday , afterwards . l. c. j. why then , you saw him at least twelve days ? sir jo. southcot . yes . l. c. j. have you any more . then mr. edward southcot stood up . l. c. j. were you here , when ireland was tried ? sir jo. southcot . no. l. c. j. did you see mr. ireland in august last ? mr. southcot . the third of august , he came down to my lord astons at stanmore , they said so ; but i cannot swear he came that night , but i saw him very early the next morning ; the 5th . we went to st. albans , and we kept on till we came to tinall , and i was in his company from the 4th . to the 16th . l. c. j. why , you hear what he says , he was in company with him every day from the 4th . to the 16th . gavan . call mrs. harewell and her daughter , mrs. gifford , and mrs. pendrel . then mrs. harewell stood up . l. c. j. did you see mr. ireland in august last ? harewell . i saw ireland in august last , the 17th . day ; he came then to my house at wolverhampton , and there he continued every day , and lay in my house every night till the 26th . day . then young mrs. harewell stood up . harewell . mr. ireland came to our house in staffordshire the 17th . of august , and stayed there till the 26th . i saw him every day , unless it was friday , the day before bartholomew-day , when he went to litehfield , and returned again . gavan . my lord , there is a prisoner now in newgate that can testifie the same . l. c. j. north. would you ask your fellow if you be a thief ? he is in for the same offence . gavan . my lord , i desire to know , if a man be not convicted of the same offence , whether he be not a good witness ? l. c. j. north. if he stand charged with the same plot , his evidence is of little weight . then elisabeth keiling stood up . l. c. j. did you see mr. ireland in august ? keiling . yes , my lord , i did . p. 73. l. c. j. where did you see him ? keiling . i saw him at wolverhampton , there he was from saturday the 17th . to monday , and then i went to see my mother , and came back again on thursday , and found him there , and there he was till the 26th . then stood up mr. gifford . l. c. j. when did you see mr. ireland ? gifford . my lord , mr. ireland came to wolverhampton the 17th . of august , and he stayed there till the 26th . it was of a monday , i remember it by several circumstances . l. c. j. did you know mr ireland ? gifford . i never saw him before . l. c. j. do you know it was the same that died ? gifford . my lord , here was my brother in town , who saw him executed , and he did assure me he was the same . i saw him again the 2d of september , and the 7th . of september again , and the 10th . and the 11th . my lord , he was the same man i believe , because my brother told me so . p. 74. sir cr. levins . gentlemen of the jury , you have heard the prisoners , and they have had a great deal of time to make their defence ; but the greatest part of their defence hath been to invalidate the testimony of mr. oates ; and what is the evidence they have brought against him ? they tell you first , that he did not come over in this company that he says he came over with . and whereas he hath sworn he was here the 24th of april , they have taken a great deal of pains by fifteen or sixteen witnesses , to prove that he was all the time at st. omers . — p. 76. sir c. levins . — now as for mr. oates testimony , and what they have to say to him ; in the first place , they have brought a young gentleman , mr. hilsley , and he says he did not come over with him , and there 't is one against one , but dr. oates hath sworn it , and hath given you such convincing circumstances how he lost his money , &c. so that i leave it to you , which of the two is in the right , and ought to be believed . but then , my lord , as to the rest of the witnesses , here are a great many brought over to prove that dr. oates was all the while at st. omers ; but i shall bring you a considerable number of witnesses , to prove that dr. oates was then in london , and that all these persons are mistaken : they do all pitch upon the first of may , to six it upon a time , wherein he says he was here in town : but gentlemen , i hope you did observe , that as to other things and time that were not so necessary as to this matter , there they were pleased to mistake , and to differ one from another , to contradict one another ; for some of them said he went away and left st. omers the 10th of june , others the 23d others , which was the same flemish gardiner , that he stay'd till july : truly half that variance in the time which is necessary , would serve our turn , we are but for eight days time , that is , he was not above eight or ten days here ; truly these gentlemen will be sure to speak punctually to all those eight days that hurt the prisoners , but they will vary thirty days at another time , that hurts them not : why may they not be mistaken as well with that portion of time , as they were in the other , wherein they so much differed one from another ? but i shall give you most infallable proof by and by , that mr. oates was in england at that time , that he said he was in england : this he does in the trials of whitebread , &c. from pag. 79. to pag. 85. to which the reader is referred . pag. 77. sir ch. levins . — then truly , my lord , they are fixed upon another great matter to blemish dr. oates as to mr ▪ ireland , a person that is dead and out of the way . mr. ireland hath been hanged upon that evidence , so far it was believed , but now after all this will these gentlemen come to question the evidence that was given against mr. ireland . they have likewise , my lord , brought my lady southcot , and some other persons who give you an evidence concerning mr. ireland , that he should not be here at this time ; but gentlemen under favour , mr. oates hath sworn before , and he hath now sworn it again , that mr. ireland was at that time in london , and gentlemen , i will confirm him in that by another witness that did see him here in town at that time . and when you have two witnesses for the king upon their oaths come and testifie it , i hope you will beleive them , rather then other persons that testifie only by hear-say . it was the matter then in issue , and had saved his life if it had been true , but though it be now setled , and none could think it would be again started , they would make that an objection , but by chance we have a witness still to give you satisfaction , that mr. ireland was in london at that time that mr. oates did swear him to be . we will begin with that witness about ireland . and then we will call our witnesses to prove that mr oates was in england , and did come over when he said he did . call sarah pain ( who was sworn ) sir ch. levins . what time did you see mr. ireland in london ? did you see him in august last ? s. pain . i saw him about 7 or 8 days before i came to my lord chamberlain , and that was about a week before the king went to windsor . l. c. j. where did you see him ? s. pain . at his own door in russel-street . l. c. j. did you speak to him ? s. pain . no ; i knew him very well , and saw him as i came by . sir ch. levins . had not you carried many letters to him ? s. pain . yes , several letters , p. 78. sir ch. levins . but where did you live before ? s. pain . i lived at mr. grove's . sir ch. levins . did not mr. ireland use to come there too ? s. pain . yes , he did often . l. c. just . was any one talking with ireland then ? s. pain . no. sir ch. levins . how long did you look upon him ? did you see him go in ? did you see his face or his back ? s. pain . i saw his face , and made him a courtesie . l. c. j. this she said to irelands face . mr. j. dolben . your evidence is , that mr. ireland went out of town the 5. of august , and she says she saw him about that time , which must be the 12th or 14th of august . gavan . how does she prove it ? she does not say she spoke with him . mr. just . dolben . she swears it . sir ch. levins . now we must prove what time the king went to windsor . l. c. j. sir tho. doleman , what time in august did the king go to windsor last summer ? sir tho. doleman . i believe ( i cannot charge my memory so well ) it was the 13th , it was about the 12th or 13. l. c. j. was my lord chamberlain there then ? s. pain . my lord chamberlain went after the king. l. c. j. and when do you say , you saw ireland ? s. pain . i saw him seven or eight days before i went to my lord chamberlains , which was before my lord went to windsor , and that was a week after the king went thither . sir ch. levins . now i 'le tell you what she says ; she says she saw ireland a week before she went to my lord chamberlain's , and she saw him go into grove's house , where he did usually go for letters . she says she saw his face , and made him a courtesie ; and that this was a week before she went to my lord chamberlains , and that was a week after the king went to windsor . now the time that mr. oates pitches upon , is between the eighth and the twelfth of august , which by computation is the time she speaks of . p. 79. gavan . — my lord , we have here 16 at least staffordshire witnesses , who give you an account of mr. ireland's being out of london from the 3d of august till 14th of september . so that in these two things he hath been contradicted without any answer , for he says , the 12th of august he was with him , when they say he was in staffordshire . l. c. j. you have forgot the maid that saw him in london the 12. or 13th . gavan . no , my lord , i have not . and this is it , i answer to it ; she is a witness that only says , she just saw him , but did not speak to him . l c. j. she made a courtesie to him . p. 86. gavan . we were talking now of seeing ireland in august , and we prove by sir. jo. southcot and all his family , who say they began their journey with him the 5th of august ; and staid with him till the 19th , after the particular day that she speaks of , you find 7 or 8 of them swear that they saw him all the time . p. 87. i will close up the whole with a little of my lord chief justices speech , at the end of the tryals of whitebread , &c. p. 92 , 93. which though it may not at first seem to answer our particular design , the demonstrating ireland's being in london , yet it truly answers our general design , to con●●●● the reality of the plot , and in order thereunto it is a most noble argument , and really merits not only the transcribing into this tract to fill up an empty space , but even into the memories of all true protestants . l. c. j. i will challenge all the papists in england to satisfie any man that hears me this day of one piece of evidence , which will turn every protestants heart against the papists . if so be , they murdered sir edmund-bury godfrey , the plot even by that is in a great measure proved upon them , by that base murther . and what can be a plainer proof of it , than the evidence of this day , which mr. dugdale produces ? who had notice ( saith he ) on monday night , that on the saturday before it , sir edm. godfrey was kill'd ( which falls out to be that very saturday he was first missing ) which notice was given in a letter writ by harcourt to ewers ' another priest , that same saturday night , wherein were these words , this night sir edmund-bury godfrey is dispatched ; and i am sure if this be true , then no man can say but they murdered him. now the question is , whether it be true or no ? to make it out , he produces mr. chetwind , whom i hope you will not deny to be a gentleman of one of the best families of his country , and of honest reputation , who says ; that on the tuesday following that saturday sir edmund-bury godfrey was miss't , he and another were walking together in staffordshire , and that the other person asked him if he knew of the death of any justice of the peace at westminster , and when he told him , he had heard of no such thing ; no , said he , that is strange , you living sometimes about westminster ; for said he , the wench at the ale-house says , that this morning mr. dugdale said to two other gentlemen , there was a justice of peace of westminster killed ; and mr. dugdale swears , that was sir edmund-bury godfrey ; now if dugdale be fit to be believed , that he saw such a letter , as he must be if he be not a very great prophet , to be able to foretell this : or if the maid that said this , did not invent it ( a thing then impossible to be done : ) or mr. chetwind feigned that he heard the man make his report from the maid ; this thing could not come to pass , but by these men . nay , if mr. dugdale could not do as great a miracle as any are in the popish legends , how could he tell that it was done on the same night when it was done at london ? or speak of it on the monday night after , when it was not known in london till the thursday following ? this will stick , i assure you ( sirs ) upon all your party . for my own part , this evidence of mr. dugdals , gives me the greatest satisfaction of any thing in the world , in this matter , and whilst we rest satisfied in the murder of that man , and are morally certain you must do it , knowing of what principles you are , you cannot blame us , if upon such manifest reasons we lay it upon you . and this is occasional evidence , which i for my part never heard before this day ; nor can i ever be more or better satisfied , then i am upon this point , viz. the testimony that i have received this afternoon , concerning the murder of sir edmund-bury godfrey : as to the defences they have made , they are exceptions in point of time , but do not effect mr. dugdale ; for they have hardly the confidence to deny the things he says to be true against them . they fall foul indeed upon mr. oates : he appears to have been their agent ; and whilst so , bad enough ; but if he had not had a mind to have become a good man , he would not likely have done us that good that he hath done , in discovering the design you had engaged him in : let any man judge by your principles and practices , what you will not do for the promoting of the same . finis . by the king, a proclamation for incouragement of the further discovery of the popish plot england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1680 approx. 2 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32437 wing c3337 estc r36162 15613451 ocm 15613451 104133 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32437) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 104133) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1588:58) by the king, a proclamation for incouragement of the further discovery of the popish plot england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, thomas newcomb, and henry hills ..., london : 1680. "given at our court at whitehall the thirtieth day of october 1680, in the two and thirtieth year of our reign." reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2008-03 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-09 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-11 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-11 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms by the king. a proclamation for incouragement of the further discovery of the popish plot. charles r. we out of our princely care for securing the true protestant religion , and to satisfie the minds of all our loving subjects therein , have thought fit , for the more effectual discovery , and suppression of the most horrid and execrable popish plot , and the incouragement of all persons who have any knowledge thereof , to make discovery of the same , to set forth this our royal proclamation , hereby promising and assuring our free and gracious pardon to all and every person and persons , who within two months next ensuing the date of these presents , shall come in and give further information and evidence concerning the said popish plot. given at our court at whitehall the thirtieth day of october 1680. in the two and thirtieth year of our reign . god save the king. london , printed by john bill , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1680. tom tell-troth, or, a dialogue between the devil and the pope about carrying on the plot oldham, john, 1653-1683. 1679 approx. 14 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 5 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2003-05 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a62856 wing t1785 estc r25654 09053788 ocm 09053788 42337 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a62856) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 42337) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1296:18) tom tell-troth, or, a dialogue between the devil and the pope about carrying on the plot oldham, john, 1653-1683. 8 p. s.n., [london : 1679?] caption title. in verse. attributed to john oldham--wrenn catalog. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2002-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-02 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2003-03 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2003-03 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2003-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion tom tell-troth : or , a dialogue between the devil and the pope , about carrying on the plot . devil . my dear adopted heir , mine only son , thou that hast fought , and all my battels won , inlarg'd my kingdom , and with thousand souls fill'd up the cat'logue of my sulphury rowles ; whose fi'ry bulls , and bloody inquisition , feign'd purgatory , and thy false tradition , beads , images , thy relicks , crucifix , indulgence , pardons , and such taking-tricks , have more augmented my infernal host , than pagan rome her self could ever boast , and damn'd more souls , than hereticks e're lost . this to thy glory i acknowledg — pope . grand-sire of popes , 't is kindness thus to own what duty we thy nose-led sons have shown . that letter which i lately did receive from thy dark court , did me such courage give , ( which i had answer'd ( sir ) but for this reason , so many of our men of late for treason have ply'd old charon so , that he did swear , go and be damn'd your self , d' ye think i care to be your porter ? i must tend my fare . d. is he so flusht ? i shall abate his fee. p. and well you may , since 't is encreas'd by me . ) that welcom packet ( you may it believe ) to me , i say , did such new vigour give , as had not that mysterious english monster , which popes or devils ne're could truly conster , who all our policies do circumvent , that many-headed beast call'd parliament , cross'd my designs , englands admir'd prince had fall'n a sacrifice to thee long since . but since your devilship is pleas'd to come in person , to your lower court at rome , my zeal's blown up to such an heat , nay flame , that i resolve it ( in the devils name ) neither to stop or stay , i 'le take no rest till i have once more fir'd that rebel nest of hereticks ; and if my jesu'ts falter , i will my self provide them each an halter . had not base cowardise appear'd our foe at white-hall , windsor , and new-market too our work , i 'am sure , had not been now to do : but since they are so fearful of the rope , they shall expect it from their father pope . the next occasion that doth happen fair , he that shall slip it , i'faith , i 'le send him where he shall do penance for his pannick fear . d. heroickly resolv'd , i like it well : but how will you go forward , can you tell ? p. that i expect from you ; but the old mask i think will serve till we have done our task . d. what mask is that , my son ? p. religion . d. right , this mannag'd well , with policy , and might , will do the business : wrest it as you please , this way , or that , to give the actor ease . make it a shooing-horn , that will eas'ly draw any thing on , and make it seem a law. a stalking-horse , whereunder you may lurk , till you 've accomplish'd your intended work . 't is a brave guil●ed mask that blears the eye , and makes a lye seem truth , and truth a lye . you 've put it on already , use it well , and expect aid from all the powers of hell. p. i hope , most infamous apollyon , you will be pleas'd to see how we go on ; and new inspire us with ignatian zeal , to make such rents as none shall ever heal . d. doubt not my utmost aid , for 't is the pope and his adherents are the only hope i have on earth ; 't is by your heads and hands my kingdom in the world so strongly stands . besides , if you consider well how i have taught you to equivocate and lye , then to confirm it by the sacrament , you 've little cause to doubt my male-intent . a thousand ways i 've shewn you how to gull the cred'lous multitude , and do you — ? p. nay , pray , sir , be not thus enrag'd , that i ask the assistance of your pollicy . preceding popes have by tradition told what you by them , and for them did of old . and i confess ( dear father ) you have done as much for me as e're you did for son. for which , i vow , i will not fail to sac're those dues to you , i owe unto my maker ; and dayly more endeavour art and powers t' assure you ( sir ) i am obliged yours : yet am i but a passive instrument in your wise hands , to perfect your intent . the conquests that i win , belong to you , and i hold it just , to give the de'il his due , and truer trojans , sir , you have but few . d. i am appeas'd . — observe now what i say , till all obstructions lying in our way be beaten down , my scepter cannot sway . p. name what they are , sir , and the devil take me if i don't do 't , unless my imps forsake me , which i don't fear , for they have plighted troth to be thy faithful drudges and mine both : and no reserves shall serve , that they can mint ; if devil cheat devil , then the devils in 't : equivicate they may with hereticks , but not with thee or me , who know their tricks . thy counsel therefore great abaddon — d. first set on work your engines , to prevent that ador'd idol , called parliament ; hells greatest envy , popery's mortal foe , popes plague and pest , and rome's eternal woe . these must not sit , for they 'l be laying ope all our ambushments , and sinister scope : see this be done , and then there is no doubt , but we shall yet bring matters brave about . p. but grant they do , if we the members chuse , our party by it then can nothing lose . d. but that 's a devilish hazard , if we shall ; 't is sufer , therefore , there be none at all . p. agreed , and to this end , in us , i 'le see that nothing shall be wanting . d. nor in me . next , i advise , you speedily depose him , whom th' almighty his vicegerent chose : let not that bugbare , idol , name of king , into your spirits any terror bring . he is heretical declar'd ; — 't is good to get his crown by shedding of his blood , 't is our great loss that he so long hath stood . then england's gloyr , king and parliament destroy'd , we cannot fail of our intent , to pull down laws both civil and divine , and in their room to set up yours and mine . a cunning cheat , the church and state to mend by killing him that should them both defend . p. st. coleman good success unto it send . d. this done , to trap again , and with that game , cutting won't be amiss , that so the flame may ne're extinguish'd be , but by a flood of the accursed hereticks heart-blood . and to this end , see you an army fix , that you ben't bafl'd as in sixty six , and do your work by halves — p. each man shall strive who shall burn and kill most , and i will pray , the devil take the hindmost . d. it shall be so ; and so adieu . p. nay , stay , and think if you 've not somewhat more to say . d. what is the shipping you should set on fire ? p. 't is well remembred , my mischievous sire . ] a little of that i' th' thames , at chatham too , would greatly weaken our imperial foe , and to our friends , the french , huge service do . 't is well you stay'd , what more ? — d. justice corrupt with bribes ; you see the bait is pleasing , and if large , is taken strait . make rents in church , fire the non-con's zeal , and con's 'gainst him , till they each other peal . preach up the ceremonies now , and when you know 't will tickle , preach them down again . sometimes the bishop you must stile divine , that under those alone the church doth shine : that all fanaticks , and their false opinion , are wholly mine , and set up my dominion . sometimes iohn presbyter commend , and cry , they are the preaching , gospel ministry . then for plebeans , you 'll do very well , to banish from their minds all fear of hell. far from the guilt take punishment of sin , and love to god will not restrain 'em in . this to do better , take away the law , give them the reins , force not , but slyly draw ; the law being ta'ne away , sin is not known ; and so the game is up , the day your own . stile grossest sins , slips of infirmity , and christian duties , false idolatry . tell them that christ hath dy'd , there needs no more but bare belief , the rest may pass oth'score . that heaven 's their own by letters-patents granted ; and there 's no sin can damn the covenanted ▪ and i believe a small arithmetick may count the number that to god will stick . how like you this my son ? p. like it sir ? 't is like thy self , adored lucifer . d. once more farewell , for i must to my vault , where i have some already for this fault . p. nay , father stay , by mentioning your cell or vault , where you and your companions dwell , a secret you have brought into my mind , i fain would be resolv'd in : be so kind to tell how langhorn , coleman , gavan , grove , with th' rest do like our purgatory stove ? do they not cry that they were all betray'd , and curse the feast too , now the reck'nings paid ? d. son , i would tell , but if it comes to light , it is enough our vassals all to fright , to make them tack about , and leave us quite . and save their souls by a full confession , which these have lost by damn'd equivication . hark then , my darling son , put close thine ear , for i must only whisper it , for fear some heretick should chance to over-hear . p. i listen , father , with my greatest care . d. such is their carriage son ( the truth to tell ) they make thy purgatory a meer hell. they 're so inrag'd to see themselves defeated , and flaming-mad to think how they are cheated of soul and body both , they vex me more than half the damned that i had before . hark , methinks i hear them ! hark — coleman , langhorn , gavan , &c. o horrid folly ! where were our wits , our faith , to credit him , who lies what e're he faith ! ah! popish zeal , which we before thought right , proves now the devil turn'd to an angel bright . o had we but one hours reprieve from hell , to fetch him there , that taught us to rebel ; with father pope , and all his smooth-tongu'd tools , who made us bloody traytors , knaves and fools ; whose curs'd indulgence , absolutions , bull , do silly souls thus into mischief gull . let 's break our chains and fly into the world , and pull down him , that hath us hither hurl'd ; lay ope the plot , the people undeceive , that never man may papist more believe . wee 'l tell the king what danger he is in , although they swear , and swear , and swear again , wee 'l tell the duke too , whither he is going to his eternal ruine and undoing . we will inform each protestant we meet , of every disguis'd priest that walks the street . there 's not a romish factor in the nation , but we 'l disclose him fully , and his station : bring them to tyburn , and fill charon's boats , fuller than bedlow hath , or dr. oates . thus with one mouth your holiness they curse , threaten those things , yea , and ten thousand worse , could they get out . p. and will you let them go , to ruine all our fair designs ? d. no , no , never fear that , my son , do thou but hast all the rest thither , and i 'le keep them fast , till thou thy self come to them at the last . where popes , and jesuits , and all the crew , which greatly hath enlarged been by you , together shall lye down in infamy , torment and shame , to all eternity . finis . the tryal of nathanael thompson, john farewell, william pain before the right honourable sir fran. pemberton, kt., lord chief justice of england, by nisi prius at guild-hall, london, the twentieth of june, 1682, for writing and publishing scandalous letters to mr. miles prance, in relation to the death of sir edmund-bury godfrey thompson, nathaniel, d. 1687, defendant. 1682 approx. 41 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 9 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63184 wing t2206 estc r22848 12490765 ocm 12490765 62376 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63184) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 62376) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 299:7) the tryal of nathanael thompson, john farewell, william pain before the right honourable sir fran. pemberton, kt., lord chief justice of england, by nisi prius at guild-hall, london, the twentieth of june, 1682, for writing and publishing scandalous letters to mr. miles prance, in relation to the death of sir edmund-bury godfrey thompson, nathaniel, d. 1687, defendant. pemberton, francis, sir, 1624-1697. prance, miles, fl. 1678-1689, defendant. paine, william, defendant. farwell, john, defendant. england and wales. court of king's bench. [2], 16 p. printed for william mason, london : 1682. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and 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in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng thompson, nathaniel, d. 1687 -trials, litigation, etc. farwell, john -trials, litigation, etc. paine, william -trials, litigation, etc. godfrey, edmund berry, -sir, 1621-1678. popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-02 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-05 john latta sampled and proofread 2006-05 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the tryal of nathanael thompson , john farewell , william pain , before the right honourable sir fran. pemberton k t. lord chief justice of england , by nisi prius . at guild-hall , london , the twentieth of june , 1682. for writing , and publishing , scandalous letters to mr. miles prance , in relation to the death of sir edmund-bury godfrey . london , printed for william mason , 1682. the tryal of nathanael thompson , john farewell , william pain . mr. farewell only appeared personally , being a prisoner in the kings bench , and brought thence : but thompson and pain , though called , appeared not , but only by council . the jury being impannel'd , were as follows : mr. peter hubland forem . mr. ellis . mr. barry . mr. brooks . mr. bifield . mr. lee. mr. whitwood . mr. sambrook . mr. jacob. mr. denew . mr. bailey . mr. howard . who being sworn , the information was read , the substance of which , was this : mid. ss . the informations sets forth , that on tuesday next , after the purification of the virgin mary in hillary term , in the thirtieth and thirty one year of this king ; robert green , _____ gerrald , henry berry , lawrence hill , dominick kelly , and philbert vernatt were indicted , for that they feloniously and out of malice forethought did make an assault upon sir edmund-bury godfrey , and with a linnen handkerchief did strangle the said sir edmund-bury , and afterwards on wednesday next after the purification of the virgin mary in hillary term , in the thirtieth and thirty one year of this king , the aforesaid robert green , henry berry , and lawrence hill , by writ of habeas corpus , were brought to the kings bench bar to plead to the said indictment , and thereupon they said they were not guilty , and put themselves upon their country , and thereupon issue was joyned , and were found guilty by a jury of the felony and murder aforesaid , and thereupon were executed . and that one miles prance being produc'd as a witness for the king , then gave evidence against the said green and others , to prove them guilty of the felony and murder aforesaid . and likewise william bedlow , john brown , elizabeth curtis , and others , were produc'd as evidence for the king , against the said hill and others . and that one nathaniel thompson , william pain , and john farewell being devilishly affected to scandalize the said prance , bedlow , brown and others in their said evidence , and abscond and detect machinations of the papists against the king , &c. and endeavouring to perswade all persons that the said hill and others were executed unjustly , and that the said sir edmund-bury godfrey murdred himself , and the said thomson , paine , and farewell , to fullfil their wicked intentions falsly and devilishly made a scandalous book intituled a letter to mr. miles prance in relation to the murder of sir edmundbury godfrey which follows in these words , ( thomsons intelligence recited verbatim , ) and the said thompson , paine , and farewell knowing the said libel to be wicked , scandalous , and false , unlawfully and devilishly did utter and publish in the great contempt of publick justice , in the evil example of all others in the same case offending , against the peace , &c. to this they pleaded not guilty . cryer . o yes ! o yes ! o yes ! if any man can inform my lord the kings justice , the kings attorney , before this inquest be taken , against any the persons informed against ; let them come forth and they shall be heard . c. thompson . my lord , and you gentlemen of the jury , this is an information against nathaniel thompson , william pain and john farwell , for printing and publishing several scandalous libels about the death of sir edmundbury godfrey ; whereas we are satisfied that green , berry and hill were indicted , tryed and found guilty , and executed for the murder of the same person , upon the tryal of the same matter , several witnesses were examined , viz. mr. bedlow , mr. prance and others ; and by the inquisition of the coroners it appears that the said sir edmundbury godfrey was killed by persons unknown , though after this it has sufficiently appeared who were the murderers , and some of them have received their due reward for that so horrid a crime , by the publick justice of the nation . yet these persons have maliciously printed and exposed several scandalous letters to mr. miles prance , reflecting on sir edmundbury godfrey , as if he had murdered himself , and likewise on all the witnesses as if they had contradicted themselves in the tryal of green , berry and hill : now if we can prove them guilty of these scandalous libels remitted , we doubt not but you will find them guilty of the matter of the information . clark. read the the indictment of green , bury , hill and kelly , the 12th . of october , the 30th of the king ; which being read , it plainly appeared , that they were indicted and found guilty of the murder of sir e. b. godfrey . c. thomp . mr. saunders [ being of council with one of the defendant , ] will you put us upon proof that they were executed for the same ? mr. saunders . yes . cryer . captain richardson come into court. c. thomp . captain richardson , were green , berry and hill executed for this crime ? capt. rich. yes sir , they were executed for the murder of sir e. b. godfrey and i saw them executed . council . mr. prance , did you give evidence against green , berry and hill , for the murder of sir e. b. godfrey ? prance . yes sir , i did . council . was brown a witness too ? prance . yes . coun. was elizabeth curtis ? prance . i don't know , but i think she was . coun. eliz. curtis , were you a witness for the murder of sir e. b. godfrey . e. curtis . yes if it please your honour , my lord. cryer . sir john nicholas , sir philip floyd , w●lliam bridgeman esquire ; make room there officers , go out , make room there for the witnesses to come in . these three gentlemen were sworn . l. c. j. sir philip floyd , were these papers owned by thompson , farwel , and pain , look on them . sir ph. f. my lord , these are the two papers i indorst with my own hand , and they owned them to be their writing , farwell writ one of them , and pain the other , and they acknowledged that thompson printed them , and thompson likewise consest the same before the council . sir john nicholas , and esquire bridgman spoke to the same effect . sir fra. withins . my. lord , and you gentlemen of the jury , you see that farwell and pain owned the writing of them and thompson the printing of them . mr. saunders . which was it that farwell did own . sir j. nicholas . farwell did own the first read in council , and the other the second , but i cannot certainly say which , but i markt them . l. c. j. do you believe those notes and minutes to be true ? sir john. yes i took the notes my lord. council . sir philip , did thompson own the things produced the 29th of march as printed by him ? sir phil. yes . l. j. c. read the letters . both the letters being read , and nath. thomsons intelligences , numb . 125. and 127. read likewise . serj. maynard spake here very learnedly , and descanting on these letters , and pamphlets , but with so low a voice that was not intelligible to the writer . mr. sanders . my lord , of all this charg'd there is nothing against pain but the second letter . my lord , he owns it as a very rash and unadvised act , but no malicious act. pain nor none of his family ( my lord ) have been enemies to the government , or charged with malicious designs against it , but this act its foolish and inconsiderate , and we cannot justify it , we submit our selves to your lordship . l. c. j. you have promised to prove it , and i will hear whatsoever you can prove , i will hear any kind of proof you can make for it . it is a business of mighty concern , and therefore not slightly to be past over . council , we are sorry at what we have done , and we have offered to give the brothers any satisfaction they desire , or we are capable of . l. c. j. do not say so , for they told me themselves that they would make out what they had said by five hundred witnesses . council . farewell and pain are not papists as they are reputed to be , but are protestants , for they have received the sacrament . l. c. j. pray call your witnesses , and make the best on 't you can . cryer , — boales , — scot , mr. pains witnesses . l. c. j. you shall be admitted to prove any thing you can , because they did say , that they would prove it by five hundred witnesses , and make it as plain as the day . c. thomp . since their hearing before the council they vaunted in thompsons intelligence , that they were ready with threescore witnesses to prove all they had said . council , call thomsons witnesses . cryer , william ward , fra. hacker , tho. scot. one of them present , said i 'le go call the rest . cryer , and will you come again ? council , i am council here for mr. thompson , who by the direction of mr. pain , and farewell , printed these papers upon their promise to make them good , and they have both confest that they were written by them , and printed by him , although now they design to cast the burden upon his shoulders ; my lord , as its a great mercy ( the murder being committed ) that persons concerned therein , have been detected and punished , so it is a great mercy that the authors of these letters are discovered , and so also of the two intelligences , they were as much the authors of the one as the other ; my lord , thompsons intelligence is well known to be open to all that will come and put any thing into it , and he is paid for his pains . l. c. j. he will be paid for his pains too , i hope . cryer , edward fisher , john hazard , mr. culling , john rawson and his wife , witnesses for farewell . l. c. j. hazard , begin , what say you sir ? john hazard , my lord , it was early in the morning about six a clock , and happened the same day after sir e. b. g. was found , mr. pain desired me to walk with him , and coming towards the white house we understood sir e. b. g. was found , i had known him full twenty years before , and therefore knew him at first sight , his shoes were clean bottom and top , with seeds sticking to them , as if he had been in a hay-mow . l. c. j. where was he ? hazard , upon a table when i saw him , then mr. pain desired me to go to the place where he had lain in the ditch , and mr. pain conducted me to the place , where i saw several gobbits of blood by the ditch side . cryer , william batson , — sworn . william batson , mr. farewell and i walked into the fields in the morning . williams , did you invite mr. farewell to go thither ? batson , no ▪ he desired to walk . williams , did he carry you to the white-house before he went to the place where his body lay ? batson , no. w●lliams , did farewell bring you to the place where the body lay , when it was carried to the white-house ? batson , yes sir , farewell shewed me the place , and then conducted me to the house . council , how came you to go to this place ? batson , the news was brought by a fellow who was not believed , and by consent a porter was sent out to inquire the truth , when the porter returned , he said the body of sir e. b. g. was found , and carried to the white-house , we ran thither and were there quickly , and there was not above six there beside our selves . council , did farewell when he carried you to the ditch , say that was the place ? batson , yes . council , did any body shew you the place beside farewell . batson , i had no acquaintance with any but him . council , did any shew you the place , but farewell , i say ? batson , no sir. council , did he go directly ? batson , we went directly , we went the straitest way to the place , and past over some ditches . council , was any there beside mr. farewell and you , at the time you went over ditches , did any direct you ? batson , no. another witness — call'd and sworn . witness , my lord , that morning the murder was discovered i went with two or three of my neighbours to see as others did , and when we came to the white-house i saw sir e. b. g. lie on the table , his face looked swarthy , and he seemed as though he had been strangled , thence i walked to the ditch , where they said his body had lain , they showed me blood there , but whether his or no , i cannot swear . l. c. j. was it a frost then ? answer , i do not know whether it was a frost or no , it is so long since , it to me looked like blood that was laid there , rather then any thing else . another witness , my lord , i was carpenter to my lord — and i was sent for to the white-house , and as i went to take orders , i heard the report that sir edmond was found , i went on to my designed place , and when i came there , i saw sir edmond lie dead on the table , i turned his coat up , i saw two wounds within an inch and half of one another , the one went no further then the bone , and the other through his back , and they brought to me the sword which they said , they had pull'd out of his body . there was an order to get him stript , i pull'd off his shoes , his shoes were clean , i pull'd off three pair of stockings , and a pair of socks , i pull'd off his black breeches and drawers , we set him on his breech upon the table , with his leggs hanging down , unbuttoned his coat and wastcoat pull'd them off , but we could not bend his arms when we came to his shirt , so we tore it open . upon his back , there was some blood , but upon his flannel there was none . i have one thing more to say , there was a place black round about his throat , which looked as if he had been strangled , and his neck was weak and loose , and had no strength at all in it , by which its evident he was murdered . farewell , the blood is one of the arguments which induced me to do what i have done : for as to the circle about the throat it is no more then sometimes attend persons in an ordinary way , i was not present in the court at the tryal of the supposed murderers , when it was strongly pretended there was no blood there , whereas i 'le swear there was near a handful of blood ( my lord ) and i will tell you who laid it there . call rawson and his wife . cryer , rawson and his wife — sworn . farewell , this man was the man that helped the body out of the ditch , and carried it to the house , let him speak to it . rawson , i was the person who upon the first discovery of the body , pull'd him out of the ditch , when i had so done , pull'd the sword out , which was run through him , and then removed him to the house , there was blood , or like blood and water came from him , and carrying him into the house , while going in at the door his back did swing against the side of the door , and there was some blood and water left there , and likewise upon the table where he was laid , and the floor , and some in the cellar . l. c. j. did the blood run from the body on the table , from thence to the floor , and then into the cellar . rawson , there was blood in all these places , but i cannot say how it came there , unless it came from the body . l. c. j. upon your oath do you know that was blood ? rawson , i will not swear whether it was clear blood or no. ( at which was a great noise in the court. ) cryer , silence . farewell . my lord , i desire the same question may be asked rawson's wife ; whether the blood did not run from the body on the table on the floor , and down into the cellar . raws . wife , as sir e. b. godfrey's body laid along on the table , the blood and water ran from the table on the floor . l. c. j. and did it run into the cellar too ? raws . wise , i am sure the bottles were wet with blood there . farewell , my lord , now to the next point , it is the difference between mr. bedlow's and mr. prance's evidence , i have the journal of the house of lords , and i will undertake to prove it . call john stanly . cryer , john stanly , come into the court. l. c. j. what is it you would have of him ? farewell , i would have him prove the copy of the journal of the house of lords . l. c. j. what use do you then make of it ? farewell , i say there is a great difference between the evidence of bedlow and him , and i will produce the journal to prove that whereas prance said he was strangled with a handkerchief , bedlow in his depositions before the house of lords asserted he was stifled with a pillow . l. c. j. can you prove that bedlow gave that evidence ? farewell , yes my lord , by mr. whinyard , walker , and others . call them . cryer , mr. whinyard , mr. walker , mr. hobbs , mr. john chase , mr. james chase , — sworn . farewell , i ask mr. james chase but this question , who it was unbuttoned his collar ? james chase , that day , after the body was found , i went in company to the field , and then to the place where they said the said body had been ; i look'd into the ditch , and could see no sign of blood there ; but on the side of the ditch , four or five yards distant , was some , as appeared to me ; which they said had followed the sword when it was pull'd out of the body . then i went where the body lay , and view'd it . i saw two wounds under the left pap , his throat was black and blew upon opening the collar near the breadth of an hand , and his face was very much swelled : i believe he was strangled by others , for i cannot believe all those injuries could otherwise attend him after he was dead . cryer , mr. hobbs — sworn . farewell , i desire that mr. hobbs may be ask'd , if he did not propose to mr. michael godfrey that his brothers body might be opened , whereby he might certainly know whether he was murdered or no. mr. hobbs , my lord , i did believe he was strangled . l. c. j. mr. hobbs , did you desire his body might be opened ? and did you say , it might be very well , if mr. michael godfrey would send for a doctor and surgeon from the court , to have him opened , that all might be fully satisfied that he was murdered ? mr. hobbs , my lord , i was satisfied in my self that he was strangled and had those wounds from others ; i did not advise it for my particular information , but that of others . l. c. j. pray what colour was his face ? mr. hobbs , he was black and swarthy , and the white of his eyes and the blood vessels were as full as those that are troubled with sore eyes . farewell , i desire to know whether he had fly-blows in his eyes ? l. c. j. had he fly-blows in his eyes ? mr. hobbs , no my lord. mr. john chase , i walked to see this body which i heard was found , i found a great contusion upon the left muscle . i troubled my self no more at that time . i was desired after this by doctor lloyd to go with him , and coming there to review the body , i observed a swelling under the left ear , together with several other contusions , which were very surprising , for ( my lord ) i never found any so contused in all my life . my lord , when we had heard the matter of evidence and the persons charg'd with the crime , mr. farewell one day called me aside , and told me what proof he could make in this business against the evidence . then said i , mr. farewell you are my friend , i would advise you for your good ; i believe nothing can be made appear against it . i saw not mr. farewell for a considerable time after : afterwards on the eve of easter-day i met mr. farewell , and it was thus ; i had been drinking a glass of wine with some friends , mr. farewell came in and asked for one ; so they knowing him , called for another bottle ▪ said i , because mr. farewell is come , i will drink another glass with him , although i was taking my leave . we fell into some discourse , and talking of this subject , he told me , that six months before i had given him good counsel , if he could have taken it . cryer , mr. smith the cook , mr. tho. smith , mr. brown , — sworn . l. c. j. mr. farewell , what would you have from these witnesses ? farewell , my lord , i would have you to ask , whether sir e. b. godfrey's eyes were not fly-blown ? l. c. j. mr. brown , it 's proposed to you by mr. farewell , whether the eyes of sir e. b. godfrey were fly-blown ? mr. brown , no my lord , not that i saw . l. c. j. was there any specks that were like fly-blows ? farewell , my lord , i 'll call two witnesses more , and will prove it . mr. brown , no my lord , i saw no specks like fly-blows . mr. farewell was with me , and told me his eyes were fly-blown , and would fain have me said such things , if i would have said them . [ a great notse about the court. ] cryer , my lord the kings justice commands all persons to keep silence upon pain of imprisonment . mr. brown , he came another time , and told me , that i was wrong in my affidavit , as though he knew it better than my self . l. c. j. where was this ? mr. brown , he was at my house . l. c. j. was mr. pain with him ? mr. brown , my lord , i did not know mr. pain , and therefore cannot say whether he was there or no. council , do you know mr. thompson , was he with him ? mr. brown , i know not thompson , therefore cannot say that he was . cryer , mr. nath. thompson and mr. pain , being called , did not appear . l. c. j. what do you ask mr. smith ? farewell , the same question about the blood , and whether he did not carry some of it away in his handkerchief ? l. c. j. pray tell mr. farewell whether you took up any of sir e. b. godfrey's blood , and carried it home in your handkerchief ? mr. smith , my lord , when i went that way sir e. b. godfrey's body was removed , before i got thither ; i viewed the place where they said he laid : and indeed i was ask'd , whether i saw any blood there ? l. c. j. did you not take any of sir e. b. godfrey's blood in your handkerchief ? smith , no not i , my lord. farewell , call rawson and his wife . my lord , i will prove by these witnesses that his eyes were fly-blown . l. c. j. rawson , mr. farewell enquires of you , if you saw any thing like fly-blows in sir e. b. godfrey's eyes ? rawson , yes , my lord. l. c. j. did you observe the flies busie at that time of the year ? [ a great laughter in the court , the time being in the midst of octob. and snowy weather . rawson , i did see something like fly-blows . farewell , call rawson's wife . cryer , rawsons wife , come into the court. rawson . i must fetch her then . cryer , make room there for rawson and his wife . people , they will not come . cryer , make room for them if they will come . rawson's wife , rawson's wife , come into the court. answ . here. cryer , make room there , stand clear there , make room . l. c. j. woman , mr. farewell desires to know if there were fly-blows in the eyes of sir e. b. godfrey . r. wife , my lord , people said they were fly-bows . l. c. j. he asks too what you say to the corners of his mouth and nostrils . r. wife , i did not take much notice of them ; but they did say they were fly-blown . farewell , i have seen many a one who have dyed a natural death , in whom i have seen as much alteration as in him , and my lord , i can prove , that the discolouring of the face , and the circle about the neck , might have another cause then they make the world believe . cryer , call — the kings surgeon . — sworn . l. c. j. farewell says , that many persons dying a natural death may look as he did . surg. my lord he was certainly strangled , and sometimes persons may be strangled and yet look pale : if that which strangled him had been taken away while his body was warm , the vessels would have been less , and his face would have been very pale : therefore it 's evident that that which strangled him , was not removed till his body was cold , which was the occasion of that blackness ; for the knot remaining , the blood could not run away : he had as high a colour as if in a scarlet feavor ; and the blood that was seen by me four yards from the ditch , i put my finger into it , and it smelt like blood a fortnight or three weeks from any body . my lord , i presume it was blood came off the womb , &c. his neck was very much swell'd and black , on one side of his mouth he was discoloured ; where-ever any man is bruised while he has life , or while warm , the parts so bruised when dead will soonest corrupt ; as is a common thing . mr. chess the apothecary unbuttening his collar found two great creases about his neck , and desired me to come and see it ; and the mark was like that of a strait ring upon a finger , and while we with-drew to drink two or three glasses of beer , there remained only this crease above . sir f. winington , do you believe he killed himself now mr. farewell ? l. c. j. were his eyes fly-blown and shut ? surgeon , there was something in the corners of his eyes that looked like matter ; but i can't say it was fly-blown . his eyes were open and blood-shotten , like a man that has had an extraordinary violence used toward that part ; or like a man that hath had an extraordinary cold. farewell , were not his eye-lashes closed ? l. c. j. were his eye-lashes closed ? surgeon , no my lord , his eyes were open . farewell , when i saw him his eyes were shut i am sure . surgeon , i am sonsible , my lord , that a great storm of hail and rain had faln the night before , and that his cloths were as dry as mine , and as whole as mine ▪ farewell , i will tell your lordship the reason of that , he was removed by the constable at seven a clock the night before , and they made a great fire , and so dried his clothes . [ a laughter in the court. ] l. c. j. mr. farewell , will you call any more witnesses ? farewell , i will call no more , my lord , i am look'd upon with an evil eye ; they 'll censure me as a papist , &c. council , you are guilty of a worse crime , sir ▪ farewell , i submit my self to the law. l. c. j. it matters not what religion you are of , since ye are guilty of such crimes . serj. maynard , here is a high offence against the government and justice of the nation , against the reputation of a person of worth and integrity , after they had murdered his person , to endevour the murdering of his good name . these persons have undertaken to manage it ; all the witnesses mr. farewell has brought , have contradicted him in all he have said . no blood , no fly-blows , but stranglings , stabs , and bruises ; and for a man that should stab himself , how could he bruise himself too in that manner ? yet they have asserted they would prove it by 500 witnesses , but could he produce but one substantial one , it were well for him . but what have he or they to do with a matter of this nature ? the justice of the kingdom has past upon green , berry , and hill for the said murder upon clear evidence ▪ but suppose something might have been said , it became them not to arraign the government and the justice of the kingdom in its administrations . sir e. b. godfrey was certainly murdered , and we know by whom . i 'll produce two or three witnesses that shall produce more than ever yet ; and if there were no more , there would be evidence enough . my lord , i desire that mr. prance may tell us the manner of his murder and the circumstances . sol. general , mr. farewell has told us many lies , and he leaves the world to make inferences from them , and has brought witnesses to prove some pretended contradictions ▪ and therefore sir e. b. godfrey murdered himself ; this fellow is guilty of the highest malice in the world , he has told you all these things which appear false , and from those falsities they would have inferred another , that he murdered himself . l. c. j. brother maynard , i have given him leave to bring what evidence he would , not that i think it material ; and if he could have proved never so much , his malice had been never the less ; but we see that his own evidence runs counter to him . what had he to do in that case ? to what purpose should he write books about the government , to traduce the justice of it ? this ought not to be done under whatsoever pretences . it has been sufficiently proved that sir e. b. godfrey was murdered , but there are other witnesses yet can speak to it . — call them . cryer , john okely , mary james . people , make room for the witnesses there . cryer , mary james . sol. general , gentlemen , it 's beyond contradiction that sir e. b. godfrey was murdered , and therefore shall not need further witness to prove it ; we shall leave it to you , and shall not trouble our selves or you any further about it . l. c. j. they did design , and would , no doubt of it , have been very much satisfied , if they could have made some probable proof that he kill'd himself : but i was desirous to hear what they could say for themselves . all the evidence they call , go as much against them as can be ; the evidence is as plain as the day that the man was killed , and kill'd by strangers . besides , sirs , a private person must not undertake to controul the justice of the nation : to say he was a just person that suffered , and i will justifie it ; this is not to be indured : but i was willing to hear all that could be said , and whether a doubt could be made ; and you see his very evidence conclude him kill'd , and kill'd by strangers . they are all three in this mischief , there is a combination of them to affront the publick justice of the nation , but the end of this design is to make you believe here was no popish plot ; the snake lies under the bush , if they could have vomited it , and made a tolerable proof , that sir e. b. godfrey had not been kill'd . but it 's very plain if that could have been brought to be a doubt , then presently you would have had a full cry , oh this is a sham , a sham , a thing raised against the papists ; and then the plot and all such things had been nothing . i leave it to you , whether upon this evidence you do not believe them all guilty of traducing the government and the justice of the nation . [ then was a great hum. ] after which , the jury having a while consulted together , gave in their verdict without going from the bar , that the said nathaniel thompson , mr. farewell , and mr. pain , were all guilty of the matter contained in the information . [ vpon which the people gave a great shout . ] and mr. farewell was carried back to the kings-bench , but thompson and pain not appearing , the judgment of the court is daily expected against them all three . finis . the papists new-fashion'd allegiance a letter lately seiz'd in the house of an eminent roman catholick in hereford-shire, and produced at the late assizes there held / written by father harcourt. barrow, william, 1610-1679. 1679 approx. 9 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a45528 wing h696 estc r25409 08951468 ocm 08951468 42071 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a45528) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 42071) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1286:9) the papists new-fashion'd allegiance a letter lately seiz'd in the house of an eminent roman catholick in hereford-shire, and produced at the late assizes there held / written by father harcourt. barrow, william, 1610-1679. 4 p. s.n., [london : 1679] caption title. signed: w.h. reproduction of original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng jesuits -england. popish plot, 1678. 2006-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-05 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-10 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2006-10 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the papists new fashion'd allegiance : a letter lately seiz'd in the house of an eminent roman catholick in hereford-shire , and produced at the late assizes there held : written by father harcovrt the jesuit , lately executed ; concerning taking the oaths of supremacy and allegiance . upon a late search in herefordshire , the ensuing letter was found by a justice of the peace in a papist's house , very choicely laid up amongst a parcel of crucifixes , reliques , and popish trinkets : it was written as from a woman , as some expressions would make one believe ; but both the matter , style and character , evidently shew'd it to be in truth from some jesuit or popish priest , who now commonly maintain their correspondencies in the names , and by the mediation of their female-disciples . for as that sex is by nature ignorant , superstitious , and pertinacious in their opinions ; so these crafty seducers imitating their father , the original deceiver , make special use of these weaker vessels , to imbibe and propagate their false doctrines . the author of this epistle therefore , is generally reported , and on good grounds believ'd to be no other than that late executed traitor , father w. harcourt , the jesuit , as well because the letters of the name subscribed , agree with his , and that 't is certain he was intimately familiar in that family , and at that time sculking up and down the countrey ; as also , because some acquainted with his hand-writing conclude it to be of the same character . and though the matter thereof seem to be good and commendable , as persuading , or if you please , giving leave to papists , to do that which in it self is most lawful , and no more than their duty , yet the manner and grounds on which this is here advised , evidently demonstrate , that 't is done meerly to serve a present turn , and elude the law by swearing in such an abstruse equivocating sence , as renders the government never the more secure : the necessary preservation whereof , was the grand end for which these oaths were originally enjoyn'd , and still impos'd . — the letter follows . dear cousin , i am glad to hear you continue so well after your hard bargain , for i was afraid all our friends had been quite lost , they have been so disturbed and letters are so uncertain , that one dares not trust any but by a special messenger , and scarce so . i might have been as happy as you , but the sudden frights of searchers , which i fear'd might have plunder'd in all , and hurried my good gentleman to london , caused a miscarriage , which went harder with me than child-bearing . the times are sad at present , but we ought not to despond , a little patience may mend all . my privacy affords but little news , and how the great wheel turns , i am not certain , but hope and pray for the best . we are all well as yet , at our little pathmos , and after serious examination and advice , which we think fit to communicate to you , and the rest of our friends , approve of it as requisite for a catholick man to express his true loyalty in such circumstances to his king by taking the oaths , when necessitated thereunto . for though there be much harshness in the words , as to exclude our acknowledgment and adherence by faith and obedience unto our purely spiritual head ; yet since we be admitted to make our own sence , as indeed , whoever swears cannot be hindred by any words impos'd from swearing , in such sense as is agreeable to his own understanding ; so that here we only swear within such bounds as the catholick church and our duty allows , that is , only acknowledging a temporal power over spirituals , as in contentious courts due to the temporal sword , and not in foro conscientiae , as by the proviso in the statute quinto elizabethae may be seen . therefore to take off this ignominious censure of denying our allegiance , and let the world know , that we may give to caesar what is his due , we may not refuse the oaths when legally tendered , especially at such a time when catholicks lye under so many suspicions and scandals , in point of loyalty , which 't is an indispensable duty , incumbent upon us all , to prevent to the utmost of our power , and this especially when we are not compelled to the rigour of the words , as formerly ; but only to allow his majesty a supream , temporal power in spiritual things , and not a purely spiritual power , which is due only to the supream spiritual pastor of our souls . without denying god his right , we may attribute in a sound sence to the king , that spiritual coercive power , which he or his ancestors gave to the church . now he claims it to himself , and with more justice than the first framer of one of these oaths that began it by pillaging the church , and usurping its power : for he now quietly possesses the church livings , and had not he the authority in the spiritual courts , upon every disagreeing , the obstinately contentious or best monied litigants would appeal to rome , which would be as inconvenient to our peace , as those harsh words , which some devout catholicks now scruple at , though without reason , when their ghostly instructors have signified their concurrence , &c. for when the sweet lenitive is admitted , by owning the king hath such a temporal coercive power over spirituals , we do not deny the purely spiritual power of our supream pastor . as for example , the pope creates a bishop , and gives him power to administer sacraments ; this was the power of the keys given to st. peter by our saviour : but 't was constantine gave st. sylvester his temporal command , and had constantius his son , reassum'd it again , he had but destroy'd his father's gift . now then when all the lands be in the crown , we may acknowledge the king the supream head , and as they be called spiritual livings , because they belonged to the church ; so he may not improperly be styled a spiritual head , that has command of them ; which at his pleasure he may again bestow upon spiritual persons . this is what i thought fit to signifie to you at present on this matter , wherein you desired directions , and might have been more plain , would the times have born it . i should be heartily glad to hear from you as often as you can , but you know the necessary cautions . pray present my duty to my aunt ; and so with my prayers to almighty god for you all , and most cordial love remembred , i ever am april the 12th . 1679. your most affectionate cousin w. h. though this letter be written in so strange and affected cloudy style , and those words , miscarriage , child-bearing , husband , &c. cast in to make it the better pass for a woman 's penning , which yet possibly may have some other determinate meaning , well known by confederacy amongst the correspondents ; yet the main drift of it seems plain enough to be the signification of some dispensation lately granted to english papists , to take the oaths ; and this merely suited to the present juncture of affairs , to avoid the penalties of the laws , prevent scandal , and possess protestants with a good opinion of their loyalty : the better to dispose zealous and scrupulous roman catholicks thereunto , here is the use of equivocation recommended , and such an unaccountable distinction framed about temporal power in spirituals , and that so warily laid down , that the jesuits may at any time give a different or clean contrary interpretation , whenever opportunity and their interest shall require it . by these , and the like dealings of these men , we may evidently perceive that they make use of religion only as a politick engin , which they manage variously at their pleasure , as it may be most serviceable to their designs : and that there is no oath , test , or obligation , which by the help of an equivocation and a distinction they cannot accept , and presently evade or break through . finis . a letter from the lady creswell to madam c., the midwife, on the publishing her late vindication, &c. also, a whip for impudence, or, a lashing repartee to the snarling midwifes matchless rogue, being an answer to the rayling libel. creswell, lady. 1680 approx. 17 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a48089 wing l1529 estc r13692 13137495 ocm 13137495 97944 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a48089) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 97944) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 426:10) a letter from the lady creswell to madam c., the midwife, on the publishing her late vindication, &c. also, a whip for impudence, or, a lashing repartee to the snarling midwifes matchless rogue, being an answer to the rayling libel. creswell, lady. 4 p. s.n., [s.l. : 1680] caption title. signed at end: from the ancient place of my habitation, sept. 1680 ... creswell. date of publication from wing. reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng cellier, elizabeth, fl. 1680. -malice defeated. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -restoration, 1660-1688. 2006-08 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-08 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 john latta sampled and proofread 2006-09 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a letter from the lady creswell to madam c. the midwife , on the publishing her late vindication , &c. also a whip for impudence : or , a lashing repartee to the snarling midwifes matchless rogue : being an answer to that rayling libel . dear daughter , i was strangely surpriz'd the other morning , when being awakened out of my first morning-sleep , ( for you know our concerns are most in the night-watches ; ) i heard one of the ragged regiment , or a bookseller in masquerade , bawling out , madam cellier's vindication , &c. i then immediately concluded to have it , cost what it would ; ay , and read it too : though i have but two usual books for my library which have layen in the dining-room-window these 30 years untoucht by me , or by any of my children ; yet i was now resolved to make an addition to ' um . and now having read it over in a full assembly of my children , ( for i have some that are plaguy jades at state politicks , and sham plots ; but to say truth , 't is only to get an honourable and a handsom livelyhood , or supply the defects of a weak husband , or so : ) i must needs tell you , i did admire which way 't was possible you should arrive to that prodigious knowledge in the intrigues of plots and treasons , and such like matters : surely i have known you many years , and i never thought you such a parlous woman ; well , the world is well amended with you . but how , in the name of aretine , came you to light upon such a don quixot as dangerfield , to carry on the honourable designs which you were engaged in ? surely had you consulted the westminster augury , you would have been better informed ; but in that case it seems you did not , and so you brought your self into a very dangerous condition . yet now i think on 't , 't is well you did meet with such a person , for had he not been an abominable over-grown rogue , for all your vindication , i am afraid the justice of the law would have sent you after those innocont babes , that were sledg'd up holborn-hill not long since , for the testimony of your holy church . and thanks to the clerk that drew up the parden , for omitting the most material facts he had been guilty of ; or truly daughter , you could not have escaped as i think . for when i consider how first you engaged in the concern , and the reasons that perswaded you thereto , and what advances you made therein ; i declare to you , i cannot see over-much innocence in you , but a confounded deal of impudence . pray forsooth good madam , where was your modesty in answering the lord chancellor , as if he had been your companion ? and if susan would have spoke all , where was your modesty , or at least what might you do , when your husband was at church in a chamber with a man alone ? why , truly we must give you our judgment , that deep mysteries of state must be secret , and private refreshments must be kept for the eye of the world. you know i am a woman of experience , and can guess shrewdly in such affairs . but pray daughter tell me , what perswaded you to leave your honourable calling off , for these political concerns ; surely you have a desire after glory , and to be esteemed one of the eldest daughters of the whore of babylon . alas ! what was s. coleman or s. ireland , &c. to you , madam , meer children in politicks ; you have not only been as deep in the mire as ever they were , but you have vanquisht all that rise up against you . no doubt but ere now , our sisters of the seraglio of rome have heard of your fame , and are singing there io paeans , for joy that they have got so valiant a she-champion on the side of the great harlot . well , daughter go on and prosper , for i account if the romish cause takes , we shall have a more fixed and establisht trade than ever we had ; though the truth is , i cannot complain of late years , since justices of peace instead of punishing offenders in our way , are sinners themselves in the same — . however , we are liable to the law , and so we shall not , when we have license and tolleration to follow our profession with quietness , and without any disturbance . but then again i consider , as to the point of your religion , 't is the best in the world for us , for we can whore and whore again , and confess and fess , and obtain pardon , and be pardoned to all intents and purposes , and go out of the world after a whole life of sinning , as innocent as children unborn . so that i say , 't is much to our comfort that you are driving on such a design , though for my part 't is all one to me what religion goes up , i am old , and hope to live and die honestly in my calling . one thing daughter i am resolved on , never to concern my self with state matters , as you have done , and am afraid was much out of your way : you have an honest calling , and though i say it , a very ancient one , and was of great esteem in all ages of the world ; i admire who bewitched you to this trade of sham-plotting ? it could not be my lord of s — nor his servants , for he is too wise , and his servants too wary sure , to concern themselves in such afairs ; we have had experience enough of his wisdom and policy , and introth he hath lived to a fair age , if a newgate bird and a midwife shall out-wit him at politicks . i protest seriously , daughter , i am afraid you have taken in a club of s. omers saints to help you out at this dead lift : for to say truth . i believe you lost abundance of reputation by being in newgate , and try'd for your life ; and consequently your trade , and that is able to vex any woman in england , especially one of your lofty spirit . but i would fain know , daughter , why you parted with you money so freely to capt. dangerfield in getting him out of prison , and cloathing him ; was it to get in your husbands debts only or no , or was it for some other private intrigues ? truly i am afraid so . and so would i have all tradeing french-men served , that know not how to get in their own debts , without employing felons , and such sort of men to do it . i hope in the next edition of your book , we shall have a true account of it , for i am not satisfied , that that was the only reason of your kindness to him . and then again , i protest i am not satisfied ( nor any of my children , who are hugely concerned for you ) that the presbyterians should contrive a plot against the present government at this time when your friends are so hard at work to do it ; surely they will not joyn hand in hand with you ; their principles are diametrically opposite , and besides , they have got nothing by former practices of that nature , which yet were contrived and carried on by the cunning-men of your church , as my old friend and son harry martin has often in private told me in those daies , and though i say it , he was able to judge as well as the best of 'um all . now methinks its strange , that this great meal-tub-plot should have so few heads and hands concerned in it , and after all the consultations you and your friend dangerfield had about it , you should discover no more ; truly daughter , i should be glad ( and so would a great many more ) to have the whole truth out , of the several conferences with the lord p. and some other your great acquaintances : that would be worth the while , but you will not be so candid . 't would satisfie abundance of people that cannot find in their hearts to believe all you have writ , nor indeed hardly any part of it . well! i find company coming in , and must conclude with some grave and motherly advice . beware what you do , and repent what you have done , lest capt. richardson gets you into his clutches again . for i am afraid , you will find my lord s. and his servants , sir r. p. and sir w. w. mr. prannce , and a great many more substantial evidences will come against you for the political lies you have told in your book ; and for endeavouring to invalidate the kings evidence , and representing your popish plot as a thing of no consequence . and yet in charity to you as of the weaker sex , i believe some wilde house chaplains have foisted in a great many things into your narrative , that you were not the author of your self . but let it pass : i pity you with all my heart , and i make it my earnest request , you would mind only your lawfull and honourable calling , and getting in your husbands debts , and be usefull to all good men , in an honest and civil way : and don 't trouble your self any farther with plotters , and plots , and treasons . i have a kindness for you , and what further i have to say ( for trading begins to come in apace ) i will tell you , if you will oblige me with your company , at my house at any time , and will have a bottle of rhenish or two at your service . daughter , in much hast i conclude , your loving monitor , creswell . from the ancient place of my habitation , sept. 1680. i may seem as mad as this snarling midwife , to go about to answer madness it self ; for by her rage and fury one would think the gentlewoman fit company for the pewterers wife in bethlem , who run mad through pride : so the pride and vain glory of this womans mind makes her self believe , that she is a brave she championess , and able to cope with all the world : otherwise she would have desisted after her first essay , seeing so many pens levell'd against her . but i perceive her branded with impudence , which as it still accompanies madness , usually also goes hand in hand with folly. therefore , let this woman be either fool or mad , we will endeavour to cure her of the last by lashing ; and soloman saies , that sometimes 't is requisite to answer a fool according to his folly , that he may not appear wise in his own conceit . but indeed i shall be at a loss for apt words and expressions , to set forth this she-donna quixot , for she encounters with many wind-mills , and is armed cap-a-pe with impudence and lying : she smells rank of rome , and stinks of plots and conspiracies ; she is armed with a jesuits launce and a sword for the cause , which she furiously brandishes , and would at least cut off the head off poor thomaso , the chiefest object of her anger , for betraying her hopes , and for over-throwing all her wicked designes , and malicious projects . but it seems strange to me , that she who so lately escaped the halter , should so soon run her self in danger of wearing the wooden ruff , and to be pelted to death with rotten eggs and apples . but she defies scandalum magnatum , and all the statutes , and all the persons of honour she has abused and defamed ; but unless the world will be so charitable as to believe her mad , and that all her railing is her barking and howling against the moon , the employ of an irrational animal , i know what will betide her . well , but this learned gentlewoman , for so she would seem to be by her similes , had many reflections and imaginations crept into her head , as she saies in her paper , but these were worms and maggots , which trouble her brain , and set her again to writing , and would make you believe her whole book was made up of irrefragable truths : but worthy madam , it will not do , for all the world believes , nay your selves know , whose nodles composed it , that 't is made up of nothing almost but lies and untruths , and is indeed from the beginning to the end a grand libel , endeavouring to bespatter and belie a whole nation , and therefore may well be confuted with that one word , not bellarmine , but madam celliers thou liest . the lady is desparately angry at the title of captain given to dangerfield , but methinks he is not so fond of it , and may as well deserve it as she of the title of madam , which affects her much : but if it be his fortitude of suffering that makes him deserving of the title , perhaps e're long you may also be worthy of that of madam : in the mean time mistress is too good for you , for the old english word goody or goodwife celliers may serve your turn , though you give a dove and an anchor with a rope for your arms. though now captain be a name too good for dangerfield , he has often enough been intitled so by your self when time was , and had he stuck close to you and your intrigues , he should have been a colonel at least before this , and all his blew stigma's been forgot . though the living captain be the object of your spleen , yet the dead captain might lie quiet in his grave , and it becomes not a woman of your profession to wear long nailes , to scratch the dead out of their tombs , and to abuse their names , which the very heathen abhorred . but madam celliers is one that neither fears god nor man , for she defies all , even captain richardson himself . have a care , madam , you come not within his inchanted castle again , lest you want a knight errant to release you , for he is a fell gyant as you have made him . it is but just and requisite the jesuitical crew should stick close to this mother-midnight , for they will never be able to find again so laborious and skilfull a woman ; and therefore she was chose out to bring the plot to bed of its twins : but the birth of the first , proving monstrous , she miscarried in the delivery of the latter , and smothered it in the meal tub. the next work she is to do , being so very dexterous , will be to bring the whore of babylon to bed of her litter ; and had she been alive in the time of pope joan , she had not so publickly miscarried in her procession . it is therefore but fitting that the memory of this memorable madam , be preserved , which that it may be , we have endervoured here among the rest to make known her worth and excellent parts , which has imployed so many pens , that after ages will admire the monster . finis . an exclamation against popery, or, a broad-side against rome occasioned by his majesties last gracious speech, when he was pleas'd to express his willingness to maintain the truly antient protestant religion / by r.w. wild, robert, 1609-1679. 1678 approx. 6 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a67654 wing w92 estc r26479 09479585 ocm 09479585 43237 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a67654) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 43237) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1319:6) an exclamation against popery, or, a broad-side against rome occasioned by his majesties last gracious speech, when he was pleas'd to express his willingness to maintain the truly antient protestant religion / by r.w. wild, robert, 1609-1679. 1 broadside. printed for t.g., london : 1678. in verse. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng charles -ii, -king of england, 1630-1685. popish plot, 1678. 2003-08 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-09 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2003-11 john latta sampled and proofread 2003-11 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2003-12 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an exclamation against popery : or , a broad-side against rome . occasioned by his maiestie's last gracious speech , when he was pleas'd to express his willingness to maintain the truly antient protestant religion . by r. w. d. d. licensed , november the 14 th . 1678. plot on , proud rome ! and lay thy damn'd design as low as hell , we●ll find a countermine : wrack thy curst parts ! and when thy utmost skill has prov'd unable to effect thy will ; call thy black emissaries , let 'em go to summon traytors from the shades below , where infant treason dates its monstrous birth ; is nurst with care , and after sent on earth : to some curst monks ; or wand'ring iesuites cell ; where it thrives faster , than it did in hell ! call bloody brutus up , lean cassius too ; let faux , and catesby both , be of the crew ! — nay , rather than want help , let your bulls run ; and damn the devil , if he do not come ! yet after all your plots , and hatchings , we , ( so long as charles , and 's senators agree ) will warm our hands at bone-fires , bells shall ring ; and traytor 's knells no longer toll , but sing . we doubt not rome , but maugre all thy skill , the glorious god of our religion will , in spite of all thy art , preserve it still ! and his peculiar care of it to shew , defend in health , it s great defender too ! i' th' interim , do thou new crimes invent , and we 'll contrive as subtle punishment . 't is autumn now with us ; and every tree , instead of fruit , may bend with popery . 't would be a novel , tho no hated sight , if every bough should bear a iesuite ! we 'll meet your plots with pikes , dangers with swords ; and stead of long cravats , we 'll lend you cords . each stab in private , we 'll with use return : and whilst one hangs , the other he shall burn ; till tybourn's long impoverish't squire appear gay as the idol , fills the porph'ry chair . yes , mighty charles ! at thy command we 'll run through seas of rebels blood , to save thy crown . our wives , estates , and children too , shall be but whet-stones to our swords , when drawn for thee . we 'll hack and slash , and shoot , till rome condoles ; and hell it self , is cloy'd with traytors souls : 'till godfrey's wronged ghost ( which still does call for shoals of rebels to attend his fall ) cryes out , dear protestants , no more pursue their guilty blood , my manes have had their due ! this , mighty monarch ! at thy beck or nod , shall be effected , as thou wer 't a god ; with so much readiness , thy royal tongue shall hardly speak , e're we revenge the wrong on thy curst enemies ; who whilst they state thy death , shall feel themselves th' intended fate ; and by a quick reverse , be forc't to try the dire effects of their own treachery . poor scarlet harlot , could'st thou stand in want of a genteel , and generous gallant , whose noble soul to baseness could not yield ; but wou'd have try'd thy int'rest in the field , we had not thus thy policies condemn'd ; but thought thee worthy of a foe , or friend : both which , with equal estimate thou 'lt find , vvere alwayes valu'd by an english mind . but thou of late , so treacherous do'st grow , that we should blush , to own thee either now . base , and perfidious too , thou dost appear ; sland'rest a pope , and spoyl'st an emperor . vvhat ! is the eagle from the mitre flown ? is there of caesar nothing left in rome ? must that renowned city , here-to-fore fam'd for her vertues , well as for her pow'r ; instead of consuls , vagabonds imploy ? and suborn felons monarchs to destroy ? bribe men ( thro vvant made boldly desperate ) to fire-ball cities , to their grov'ling fate ; vvhil'st hellish iesu'ts porters garbs profane ; assist the fire , and bless the growing flame ! must romes great pope , whose piety should run as an example , thro all christendome ; vvhose signal vertues , arguments should be of his admir'd infallability ? does he hire ruffains , iustices to kill ; and send the murd'rers pardons at his vvill ? bids them in hereticks blood their hands embrue ; tells them withal , 't is meritorious too ! — if this thy practice be , false rome fare-wel ! — go , teach thy doctrine to the damn'd in hell ! where , by black lucifer's destructive pride , thou may'st in part thy future fate decide : whil'st from our city we thy imps remove , to shake their heels in some cold field or grove . since both by ours , and all mens else , esteem , they 're fitter to converse with beasts , than men. finis . london , printed for t. g. 1678. the oaths of irish papists no evidence against protestants, or, a warning piece to jurors in a letter to a friend. penn, william, 1644-1718. 1681 approx. 31 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 7 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2006-06 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a54184 wing p1333 estc r32177 12353484 ocm 12353484 60050 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a54184) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 60050) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1025:9) the oaths of irish papists no evidence against protestants, or, a warning piece to jurors in a letter to a friend. penn, william, 1644-1718. philanglus. 12 p. printed for william inghall ..., london : 1681. caption title. signed at end: "philanglus", which is a pseudonym for william penn. imprint from colophon. reproduction of original in the union theological seminary library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng catholic church -controversial literature. popish plot, 1678. 2005-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-08 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-01 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2006-01 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the oaths of irish papists no evidennce against protestants : or , a warning piece to jvrors . in a letter to a friend . sir ! the present state of things affords such various matter of serious reflection , that to give you my opinion concerning it , would be to confound and intangle my thoughts in the most intricate labyrinths of popish villanies , and render my discourse as confus'd a chaos as the subject of it . i have therefore singled out this one question , as more particularly deserving a satisfactory answer : whether notwithstanding many full and positive oaths of irish papists , a protestant jury may with a safe conscience give their verdict contrary to the matter sworn in the present business of a presbyterian plot ? and in answer hereunto , i humbly offer to your more solid judgment these following considerations . i. protestants in the general are suppos'd to be very well satisfied of this real truth , that 't is a popish principle inseparably annext to that faithless religion , that faith is not to be kept with hereticks . and the experience of all ages confirms their practice to be conformable to principles of their own making , however unsuitable they have been to those of christianity . to instance in particular persons , nay to enumerate popish princes as well as their council of constance , who have given abundant testimony to the truth of this assertion , would take up too much room in this short discourse , and insinuate that you are either not at all , or ( at least ) a very ignorant protestant . but since 't is more consonant to the present design , i can't forbear to refer you to the several accounts which have been given of the irish rebellion in 41. and those yet living witnesses of the truth thereof , by which you may be satisfied that this one excuse cut the throats of many thousand protestants in that kingdom , who surrendred themselves upon the promise of life and safe convoy into the english quarters ; and yet were forthwith most barbarously butcher'd . this principle , i say , was the only funeral-service of those poor credulous murder'd innocents . ii. we have therefore very little reason to expect that any other oath should be thought more obligatory than that of allegiance hath been ; or that perjury should be more scrupled by a roman conscience than massacres and murders . but the papists in that kingdom did not only by the martyrdom of some hundred of thousands , give as great testimony to the falseness and cruelty of their religion , as the primitive martyrs did to the truth of christianity : but as they had treason enough to forfeit their estates , so they had liberty of conscience enough to save them too in this very point of perjury . for the price of an irish papists oath was as generally known at the court of claims , as that of all sins is at the court of rome : and the multitude of persons in that kingdom that enjoy their estates , tho' actually concern'd in that horrid rebellion , is a sufficient evidence of the truth hereof . so that if it were demanded , i doubt not but most of the protestants in ireland would sign a certificate to this purpose ; and if oaths were so plentiful a commodity that a small sum could purchase them to save the estates of others , and that only for the advancement of a particular papist ; how will those in whom want , and baseness , and lewd principles , all concur to qualifie them for such a purpose , judg an oath or two an easie purchase of wealth and favour , fame and saintship to themselves , the advancement of the catholick cause , and the utter destruction of three nations of hereticks ? alas ! 't was a small piece of policy to teach their cubs of five or six year old to stab the protestants children ! a butcher's trade , ev'n in the irish shambles , is not worth an apprenticeship , if their childrens tongues can do so much more than their fathers hands , by making them dye like traytors , whose ancestors they destroy'd as innocents , if not martyrs ; whilst a protestant jury by believing their evidence , will be unhappily assistant to make them as impudent in this way of murder , as they were in the other . iii. but let me a little consider the gift of swearing more particularly : certainly an oath unless given by lawful authority , is not more considerable than we so abundantly hear in common discourse ; and therefore if these irish witnesses are of opinion that the king , nor any person deriving authority from him , have power to administer an oath , and the courts of judicature no more material in this case than the market-place , a jury may as well believe the full-mouth'd oaths which have these many months infected the air , as a proof of a presbyterian plot in general , as they can the depositions of such persons to fix it on any protestant in particular . but that our kings have been , and his present majesty ( as he is a protestant prince ) is now actually excommunicated by the pope , not only by his bulla cenae , but particularly and by name ; and his subjects absolv'd from their allegiance , and any acknowledgment of his authority , is past all contradiction ; so that upon the matter , i am as much bound to believe every damn-me , as such mens oaths . but besides , 't is universally known , with what contempt the papists have at all times us'd our english bibles , and especially in ireland , where they have depos'd that on the evangelists which they have refus'd on the mass-book . agen : their doctrine of equivocation has such influence on this affair , that the assertion of a protestant must be far more considerable than a romanists oath . for when they have sworn matter most intelligible , and in expressions most emphatical , no juror can possibly know what they mean. for still they may have a reservation in their minds of a quite contrary sense , for ought he knows . and it can be no objection , that they boggle at the oath of supremacy ; for the foundation of their religion is so directly contrary to the matter of that oath , that the very sound of the words in the ears of protestants out of a roman mouth , is not to be endur'd by the holy see , unless dispenc'd with on particular occasions . neither can it be urg'd with any success , that protestants at this rate could not possibly live and enjoy their estates in that kingdom : for ( as every climate has peculiar medicine suited to the predominant maladies thereof ; so ) their want of honesty is tolerably remedied by their want of sense ; and they have been so often detected , that 't is the invincible charity of the english which preserves the whole herd from the common fate of lyars . and here i cannot forbear to instance in one example of their prodigious want of thought . i could name the persons , parties to the action , in which two irish men swore that they were witnesses to a deed of lease made by a certain lord there on a set day , and a set place ; when upon examination it was found that the lord was dead ten years and above before the time depos'd : and they will generally , tho' they can neither read nor write , swear to limitations of estates at thirty years distance , which the councellor himself will scarcely undertake to remember the next day after the conveyance . and here i must not neglect the objection , that if they be such block-heads , they will easily discover themselves : for there never was a nation of fools , tho' that qualification may be most predominant ; and the popish party in england have exprest so much both of the subtilty and poyson of the serpent , that it must not be thought strange tho' some prove more docible than the st. omers lads . iv. but i expect it will be retorted , that upon the evidence of these persons protestant juries have not scrupled to pronounce many guilty of the most horrid crimes . and that this may give pretence to popish juries , if we must ever be so miserable as to be tryed by such , to give as little credit to a protestant oath as we do to a popish . to the first i answer : that there is no other evidence can be expected of popish treasons , but some of their own confederates ( i mean as to oral testimony ) : those oaths of secrecy which have been administred in their respective plots since the gunpowder-treason , and were so lately renew'd in ireland , exclude all protestants from the knowledg of their practises : and the discoverer of the horrid irish rebellion in 41. was forc't to take oaths and sacraments enough to damn a world , before he was capable of that service which he did in preserving the city of dublin . besides , he must be suppos'd more likely to speak truth , who pretends to discover a plot among persons of his own persuasion , and intimate acquaintance , than against those whom they always reckon their most formidable enemies , and have so often us'd as such , especially when the discovery of it exposes him to the greatest dangers , and makes him forfeit both his religion and relations ; and he swears without the assistance of the forementioned principle , or any temptation : such an one , i say , is much rather to be credited than he who will needs be a discoverer of designs among persons of a far different judgment , and his professed enemies ; and who will be reckon'd almost as much deserving pity for their more than irish folly , as hatred for their detestable treasons , should they be guilty of the crimes pretended . but perhaps 't was not the oaths of the irish witnesses , so much as the irresistible evidence of concurring circumstances , and violent presumptions , which 't is probable did most influence the jurors in those verdicts : for he that either knows ( or has heard ) any thing of the state of ireland , must confess , that since they became subject to the english government , every forty years at least hath produc'd an actual rebellion , and the seeds thereof are continually sowing , and more industriously cultivated amongst them since the reformation , by the romish emissaries . and why should we not think protestant plotters ( if such there be ) as prudent to keep their intrigues from the knowledg of such weather-cocks as the irish are generally reputed ; as the romanists , who never discover theirs unless to persons fixt to their party with all possible obligations ? for such reasons as these we believe papists against papists : but cannot ( their principles consider'd ) allow them to be sufficient evidence against protestants , as well for the causes before-mentioned , as also for this considerable difference : a protestant believes perjury in any case against any person , be he papist , jew or infidel , to be a damnable sin ; and that no person on earth can pardon it , or absolve him for such a guilt . but a papist either believes that 't is meritorious to forswear himself against an heretick , when it may considerably advantage holy church ; or at worst , if it be a crime , he knows 't is but going to confession , and he can get an absolution , which you need not doubt but in such cases as we are speaking of , the ghostly father will grant a very easie penance : which being once performed , our irish popish evidence reckons himself as clear from the guilt of the perjury , and all the murders thereby occasion'd , as the child unborn . v. but as to the other part of the objection , drawn from the fear of such usage from them , viz. that if we won't believe popish witnesses now , they won't believe protestant witnesses another day . the answer is very plain . surely no protestant expects to be troubled with a trial for treason , in case we must be blest with a popish successor . heresie is a ready and greater crime , and that in the roman sense every true protestant will be convicted of by his own confession , without verdict . but supposing the wolf should parley with the lamb , and give a protestant trial on an accusation for treason ; or upon issue join'd between a papist and protestant under such a government , unless they can charge the protestant principles with the same justice , with which we condemn theirs , equity demands more credit to our depositions : but the sad instances in the neighbour-nation , of what right protestants find in popish judicatures , makes this objection of as little weight , as their oppressions are heavy and intolerable . vi. once more consider , what a special case the lord shaftsbury ( for example ) or any other protestant so publickly engag'd against popery , should be in , if coleman and that herd of priests and jesuits , who have lyed and equivocated themselves into the other world , were alive , and the plot undiscover'd ? will any protestant believe that the authors of those speeches which they left behind them ( those prodigious untruths of seared consciences , which had not the divine oracles warn'd us of , we could not believe any thing of humane shape could utter on this side of hell ) would have made any more scruple to accuse others , than they did to excuse themselves ? and yet they had not that emphatical addition of irish witnesses ! the case indeed had been extremely difficult to have clear'd a person charg'd by so many witnesses ; especially when the quality of the persons might have been better conceal'd , than that of modern swearers . but the reason , why noted protestants have so long liv'd free from such hellish attempts , must , next to the protection of divine providence , be imputed to their spotless loyalty and prudent circumspection ; and on the other part , to the fear of detection , which hath a far greater awe on catholick consciences than that of damnation . vii . i observe , that when mr. f — had chang'd his coat , and was grown too court-like for his former acquaintance , he presently chang'd his note too ; and the influence of surprizing gold was such , that his foolish ostentations were render'd ridiculous by mr. m — himself , to whom he often produced his handful of temptation : and i no sooner saw mr. m — new thatcht , but he had found a new plot ; i suppose in the pockets of his new cloaths . for will any man of common sense believe , that if the protestant interest had been so far left of god , that they should endeavour to secure themselves by subornation , they would not also have put these men beyond the temptation of a piece of cloath and a few guinies ? but if some persons of the protestant religion , out of pity to their seeming necessities , who pretended to leave their country and their gods , to save innocent blood , did contribute so far as not to suffer these wretches to starve , who can conclude hence the guilt of subornation ? that they did so much as to keep them alive , is an evidence of christian charity ; and that they did no more , is an invincible proof of their christian truth , loyalty , and innocence . viii . but ( some say ) one positive oath , nay oftentimes presumptions without an oath are sufficient evidence to a grand jury . to this what i have already said , may i hope give some answer . the question is not , whether a jury may give their verdict against evidence ? but whether such oaths are any evidence to a jury , where the things sworn are improbable , nay morally impossible ? can a jury find a bill , because some fellows say , ( for i have before proved an oath with them to be no more ) that the person is guilty , when the matter of the accusation is absurd ; and 't is apparent their principles , their cloaths , their pockets and their salvation incline 'em to such an assertion ? but this is but an accusation , say others ; and the business of a grand jury is only to bring the party accused to answer : but not to say a conspiracy , because some people say a conspiracy , was a caution given long ago by the prophet . and certainly , a false accusation is but few degrees less devilish than a false condemnation ; and he that will accuse another without grounds , will make but little conscience to condemn him too . but there are peers concern'd , and according to the present scheme of our laws , a peer seems to be in a worse condition on any criminal charge , than the meanest commoner . for the latter , besides the grand juries accusation , must have another jury impannell'd by the sheriff , who is sworn impartially to execute his office ; and he has the liberty in case of treason to except peremptorily against thirty five without assigning any cause , and against as many more as he can shew just reason ; and then the twelve that he puts himself upon , ( who must be of his own neighbourhood ) are upon oath , and can make no verdict against him without every man of them agree to it . whereas when once a bill is found against a peer , his tryal ( unless in case of impeachments ) is by a select number of peers ( commonly twenty five ) constituted by royal commission ; against any of whom , tho' his known and profess'd enemies , he is allowed no liberty of challenge . and as they are not sworn , so likewise the majority of their voices includes the rest ; so that if any thirteen of them are pleased to pronounce him guilty , to the gibbet , or at least to the ax he must go . and therefore certainly it concerns grand juries ( especially in such cases ) to be duely circumspect and well satisfied of the evidence on which they find bills , wherein a mans life , and estate , and honour , and the utter ruine of his family is concern'd . for should we ever fall under a popish successor , 't is to be feared in such cases , accusation and condemnation will differ only objectivè in intellectu . for should a bill be found against a protestant lord , one might without consulting the stars , or breach of prerogative , venture to name the triers , and foretel the verdict . for though i have a just deference and veneration for the english nobility ; yet 't is not easily to be decided , whether in case of this vast consequence to the popish interest , the honour of popish lords , or the oaths of their commons , deserve the greater credit . ix . but still 't is objected , that a lawful witness is according to the general sense of the law , such a witness as is allow'd by the laws of the realm ; and if what has been said be true , how is it that there is no law disabling persons of this character to be allow'd as evidence ? 't is true , the law admits almost all persons to be sworn as witnesses ; but the oath of every lawful witness ( in this sense ) is not evidence , as was remarkably adjudg'd in the case of mr. dangerfield . and if the debauch'd practices of a witness will destroy his evidence , for the supposition that he dare be perjur'd , tho' he is also suppos'd to know it to be a sin , what influence will debauch'd principles , which make perjury a duty , have to take away the credit of a witness ? if the oaths of swearers were sufficient to rule the conscienees of twelve men , without any consideration of the persons , or their principles , or the matter sworn ; how little are we beholding to that clause of magna charta , which confirms the antient law of trials by jurors ? it is a wonderful grace in a protestant kingdom , that the romanists , who own allegiance to a foreign power , are permitted to enjoy liberam legem ; and while such undeserved favour is continued , they can't be excluded from swearing , or challeng'd to be witnesses ; but still 't is left to the jury to value their testimony ; and ( especially in this case of concern to holy mother church ) they are , as in cases of alliance , relation , and parties in interest , to be sworn indeed ; but their credit left to those of the jury , which in civil causes may be considerable ; but where the catholick cause is concern'd , cannot be so . x. but what is it which these fellows would swear upon the world ? a plot ! a plot of protestants against themselves ! and ( the only security they have under god ) the life of their prince ! a sham so often discover'd , and so generally known , that by attempting to retrieve it , they demonstrate their matchless impudence , and the desperate condition of their cause . mr. dangerfield ( how honest soever he be grown ) is not yet arriv'd to such perfection , as to pretend a prophetick spirit ; yet his particular narrative will well serve for a history of the presbyterian-plot . the paper-designs indeed were ruin'd by the meal-tub , his and fitz-harris's business ; and there was no hiding treason in presbyterian houses or pockets ; but downright swearing will serve as well ; and the 500 l. which dangerfield had merited by one stab , will go a good way in irish oaths . you must know , sir , these watchful loyalists spy'd treason just peeping out of presbyterian mouths , and sink down agen into their hearts ! and if oaths will do , they will have it out blood and all . but we in the countrey can never believe that his majesty ( who was pleased to declare in council , that he gave no credit to dangerfield's private pretended discovery , because the business was impossible , can encline his royal heart to believe the same sham on such paltry testimony ; or that the army listed in the meal-tub , can ever attempt much on his person ; but rather , that the whole business is a story contriv'd , and consented to , and carried on in general by the popish party , and intended for a mask , hoping that whilst the king , if his majesty should believe it , was preparing for the safety of his sacred person , against the pretended conspiracy of the presbyterian party , they might have the more time to move on with their own plot , which was still to possess the king with the real belief of the said sham-plot . see dangerfields narrat . p. 34. xi . nor is it sufficient to apologize for these witnesses , that possibly they profess themselves protestants ; considering how easie 't is for a romanist to take a new epithete according to the nature of his design . therefore what profession he was of when his thoughts were free and undisturb'd with the temptations of honour and wealth , must be the rule of judgment , especially when his actions are still apparently calculated for the interest of the religion , which he pretends to have abandoned , and against that which he would be thought to have embraced . and tho' the small remains of humanity , which antichristianism leaves , improved by the probability of advantage , might provoke them to discover the irish treasons ; yet when the hopes of the reward vanishes , and the traytors seem to have weather'd the point , and have reason to promise themselves success , what can be more natural than to accept of reconciliation to the prevailing party on terms of such extraordinary advantage both to the cause and themselves ? 't was no slight argument of the lords of the philistines to disswade achish from accepting davids service , wherewith shall he reconcile himself to his master , but with the heads of these men ? and the same argument can't be inconsiderable in our case to any man of tolerable understanding . and truly these mens circumstances duly considered , tho' they were persons otherwise of some credit ; their testimony in this case seems very unhappy : for either there is a popish plot or no : if there be , the design of the casting the odium of it on the prsbyterians , evidently appears ( in the business of claypole and the discoveries before mentioned ) to have been from the most labour'd scene of that horrid tragedy ; and then for a protestant to be credulous of such a forg'd design , is little less than self-murder . but if there be no popish plot , these persons are already perjur'd ; and consequently their evidence wholly insufficient . xii . but there is a corner of the world near oxford , where , as if the university did not only monopolize the learning , but the very sense of the county too , there are ( they say ) twelve men to be found , who notwithstanding all this , are ready to shew their implicite faith , that they have lately approved themselves fit for this ( pretended loyal ) service , without all contradiction , in a very remarkable manner ; for some persons in that county being lately presented for conventiclers , and the evidence proving only an assembly of four beside the family ; the jury was directed , that according to the very letter and sense of the statute , they could not find the persons guilty ; yet such was the zeal of these blessed jurors ( you must believe ) for the protestant religion established by law , that notwithstanding the mathematical demonstration , that 4 are not 5 or more , they could do no less than find them guilty . but sir , in what i have said , i would not be understood to excuse treason in men of my own religion . i should abhor my very being , should my soul be contaminated with the least spot of treason against my sovereign ; and nothing is more seriously my desire , than that all persons who are guilty , may be brought to condign punishment ; neither will i affirm , that 't is impossible for a man zealous for the protestant religion , to be betray'd into treason by his passions , tho' i am sure he can never be so by his principles . and if any such person suffer for it , there 's no reason that protestants should be reproacht on that account . but this general design of protestants so much talkt of , if it be impos'd on the belief of english men upon no better grounds than i have yet heard , enter rome triumphant , i●paean to the whore of babylon ; we are fit to pay peter pence once more ; when we begin to deny mathematical demonstration , and to believe a presbyterian plot on popish evidence , we are just moulded to receive the impression of all absurdities , even the popes infallibility and transubstantiation it self . yours philanglus . august 1st . 1681. london : prined for william inghall the eld. book-binder . 1681. an appeal from the country to the city, for the preservation of his majesties person, liberty, property, and the protestant religion blount, charles, 1654-1693. 1679 approx. 50 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 16 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a28432 wing b3300 estc r228069 11899042 ocm 11899042 50574 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a28432) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 50574) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 55:11) an appeal from the country to the city, for the preservation of his majesties person, liberty, property, and the protestant religion blount, charles, 1654-1693. [2], 29 p. [s.n.], london : 1679. reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york. written by c. blount. cf. halkett & laing (2nd ed.). signed: junius brutus [pseud.]. erroneously attributed to robert ferguson. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2003-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-05 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-01 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2004-01 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an appeal from the country to the city , for the preservation of his majesties person , liberty , property , and the protestant religion . salus populi , suprema lex . laopolis . london , printed in the year mdclxxix . an appeal from the country to the city . most brave and noble citizens , as the city of london is the great metropolis and soul of our once flourishing and glorious kingdom , so is it no small honour to you the inhabitants thereof , to be citizens of so brave a city . wherefore 't is the hopes of the whole nation , that you have spirits and courage to act according to the character you bear , that upon all necessary occasions you may vindicate the just concerns of your city : in them we are all involv'd ; with you we stand , and with you we fall ; your example directs our conduct , and they who desire to lay you in ashes , are the only persons who would subvert our religion and property ; for when you are once ruined , the next thing will be , vp ahab , and take possession . now gentlemen , before we represent to you the estate of our misery , and ground of our jealousies and fears , 't is our humble request , that those who have most power amongst you , would so far trouble themselves , as to go to the top of your new rais'd pyramid , and from thence take a survey of that magnificent pile of building , whereof you are yet masters : in which posture , to animate you with true english spirits , be pleas'd to fancy to your selves these following objects , which you will infallibly see come to pass , when ever popery prevails . first , imagine you see the whole town in a flame , occasioned this second time , by the same popish malice which set it on fire before . at the same instant fancy , that amongst the distracted crowd , you behold troops of papists , ravishing your wives and your daughters , dashing your little childrens brains out against the walls , plundering your houses , and cutting your own throats , by the name of heretick dogs : then represent to your selves the tower playing off its cannon , and battering down your houses about your ears . also casting your eye towards smithfield , imagine you see your father , or your mother , or some of your nearest and dearest relations , tyed to a stake in the midst of flames , when with hands and eyes lifted up to heaven , they scream and cry out to that god for whose cause they die ; which was a frequent spectacle the last time popery reign'd amongst us . fancy you behold those beautiful churches erected for the true worship of god , abused and turn'd into idolatrous temples , to the dishonour of christ , and scandal of religion ; the ministers of god's holy word torn in pieces before your eyes , and their very best friends not daring even to speak in their behalf ; your trading's bad , and in a manner lost already , but then the only commodity will be fire and sword ; the only object , women running with their hair about their ears , men cover'd with blood , children sprawling under horses feet , and only the walls of houses left standing : when those that survive this fatal day , may sigh and cry , here once stood my house , there my friend 's , and here my kinsman 's ; but alas that time is past ! the only noise will then be , o my wife , o my husband , o my dearest children ! in fine , what the devil himself would do , were he here upon earth , will in his absence infallibly be acted by his agents the papists ; those who had so much ingratitude and baseness to attempt the life of a prince so indulgent to them , will hardly be less cruel to any of his protestant subjects . wake drowsie subjects , and prevent your doom , let england not be twice enslav'd by rome . if the approaching ruine of the father could open the dumb son's mouth , then all that are either true protestants , good english-men , or well-wishers to the interest of this nation , have now the same reason to speak and complain , when without a miracle our apparent ruine is at hand , the sword already hangs over our heads , and seems to the supported by no stronger force than that of one single hair , his majesties life . we in the country have done our parts , in choosing for the generality good members to serve in parliament ; but if ( as our two last parliaments were ) they must be dissolv'd or prorogu'd , when ever they come to redress the grievances of the subject , we may be pitied , but not blam'd . if the plot takes effect , ( as in all probability it will ) our parliaments are not then to be condemn'd , for that their not being suffer'd to fit occasion'd it . the plot is now got so far out of our enemies reach , that no subtil evasion or trick can ever hope to extinguish it ; wherefore they must either suffer all to come out , or begin by force to justifie it , which we see they are going to do , by their endeavouring to get those worthy and brave commanders banish'd , who ( as they think ) are the most likely persons to conduct and lead us up against any popish army ; the wolf hath nothing more to do , but to destroy the shepherd , and then fall upon the naked sheep . but gentlemen , be not dismaid , the lord of hosts will be of your sides ; for so long as you fight his cause , he will fight your battels ; and if god be for you , who dares be against you ? fear nothing , but as your interests are united , so let your resolutions be the same ; and the first hour wherein you hear of the king 's untimely end , let no other noise be heard among you but that of arm , arm , to revenge your soveraign's death , both upon his murtherers , and their whole party , for that there is no such thing as an english papist who is not in the plot , at least in his good wishes . let not fear of losing part by your action , make you lose the whole by your patience : think not to fare better than the rest , by medling less , for that conquerours promises are never kept , especially coming from that sort of people , whose maxim it is , never to keep their words with hereticks . wherefore if ever a popish successor comes amongst you , let his promises of keeping your religion and laws , or of his conversion , be never so plausible , credit 'em not ; for if you do , you will infallibly be deceiv'd , and in time find them to be but like the bait to a mouse-trap . or if you think to bind and fetter him by laws , that will be no better than the wise men of gotham's hedging in the cuckow ; for when he ( as all other popish kings do governs by an army , what will all your laws signifie ? you will not then have parliaments to appeal to ; he and his council will levy his arbitrary taxes , and his army shall gather them for him : therefore you may much easier prevent the distemper at first , than remedy it when it has once got a head . now gentlemen , lest any amongst you should be ignorant either of your enemies , or their designs both against the king and kingdom , be pleas'd to consider what follows , and then think how to prevent it . i. first then , that you may know who are your enemies at this time : they are young beggarly officers , courtiers , over-hot church-men , and papists . the young officer or souldier his interest makes him wish for a standing army , not considering any further than his own pay and plunder , and so helps to ruine you that way . the courtier endeavours to advance taxes , oppress the people by vast and illegal impositions , when looking upon his prince but as his ox , he fattens him upon his neighbours pasture , only for his own eating . over-hot church-men are bribed to wish well to popery , by the hopes ( if not of a cardinal's cap ) yet at least of a command over some abbey , priory , or other ecclesiastick preferment , whereof the roman church hath so great plenty . these are the men who exclaim against our parliaments proceedings , in relation to the plot , as too violent , calling these times by no other name but that of 40 or 41. when to amuse as well his sacred majesty as his good people , they again threaten us with another 48. and all this is done to vindicate under-hand the catholick party , by throwing a suspicion on the fanaticks . these are the gentlemen , who so magnifie the principles of bishop land , and so much extol the writings of the late same spirited prelate dr. heylin , who hath made more papists by his books , than christians by his sermons . these are those episcopal tantivies , who make even the very scriptures pimp for the court , who out of vrim and thummim can extort a sermon , to prove the not paying of tithes and taxes to be the sin against the holy ghost , and had rather see the kingdom run down with blood , than part with the least hem of a consecrated frock , which they themselves made holy . these are the persons who commend oates and bedlow , but yet find fault with their evidence , when by crediting some part of the plot , and suspecting the rest , by speaking three words for it , and two against it , they cunningly endeavour to invalidate the whole . lastly , the chief and most dangerous of your enemies are papists , who to make sure of their own game , allure all the three fore-mention'd parties to their side , by the arguments aforesaid . their design is to bring in popery , which they can no ways effect , but either by a popish successor , or by the french arms : the first of these we may our selves prevent ; and for the latter , if they conquer , they will undoubtedly conquer for themselves , and not for him that brought them in . and if we ever should be reduced to that extremity , either to submit to the french , or to our own popish successor , every man that hath any brains or generosity , will soon find it his interest of the two , rather to submit to a foreign power , who hath not violated the laws of nature , in fighting against his own subjects , and who will also be less revengeful , and more likely to let us enjoy our own religion and liberties , than any popish successor will : besides , 't is natural for every noble spirit , to bear a cudgelling from another man's servant with less regret , than from his own ; however , god deliver us from both . ii. in the next place , to discover to you how long this plot hath been on foot ; i must acknowledge , that there is some coherence between the beginning of the late civil wars , and this our present age ; for as well then , as now , the ambitious popish and trench faction were the chief , nay the only incendiaries which set us all in a flame ; the catholick cause , like the chesnut in the fable , hath ever since queen maries reign been in the fire : wherefore as the fox made use of the ape 's , so both then and now the papists make use of the episcopal and court-parties claw , to take it out ; the first of these they allure to their assistance , by the fright of presbytery ; the latter , by the apprehension of a republick : although nothing is less design'd , or more improbable . secretary windebank's many orders ( which stand recorded at this day ) to secure the roman catholicks from the execution of all penal laws against them , in the late king's time , are a sufficient evidence , that they then received no less countenance , than now : and for that vain pretence of their loyalty to the late king , nothing will appear more ridiculous , if we consider , i. that they had no other party to expect any advantage from , for that no government but monarchy , can in england ever support or favour that religion ; neither ( notwithstanding their many offers ) could they ever be entertain'd or received by the parliament-party , unless 't was under a disguise , which many for that purpose made use of : so as their loyalty and good service paid to the king , was merely in their own defence , well knowing , that the foundation of those commotions , was only in opposition to their party : who as well then , as now , had a desire to run the hazard of a war. 2ly . and lastly , their fidelity to their soveraign appear'd in its true colours , when they were so earnest with oliver to accept of the crown ; which shew'd , that since nothing but a crown'd head could do good to the popish religion , they did not care who wore it , so long as it was but worn . now in acquainting you herewith , i do in effect shew you what is at this time acting amongst them , for 't is the same play , though an old one newly revived : and as that which the papists then acted , was laid upon the fanaticks , so was the like to have been done in this present . plot ; in order whereunto , just before the discovery of the same , they had seiz'd upon , and imprison'd one mr. claypole , for having ( as they pretended ) a design to murder his sacred majesty ; thinking , when it was once reported abroad , that he andthe old oliverian party had a conspiracy to take away the king's life , then in the mean while the papists themselves might safely do it , ( as we see they had at that time , viz. august 1678 , resolv'd upon ) and that then it would all have gone upon the non-conformists score ; for however there was never any person living more generous and obliging to the king 's whole party , than this very man the lord claypole was , when he bore that honour ; yet he having married oliver cromwell's daughter , rendred him a sit subject to put this tick upon : which by dr. oates's discovery of the plot , came to light , the evidence against him vanish'd , and the poor gentleman releas'd . much such another design was that of the papists in scotland , who first by their counsels procured the poor inhabitants to be oppressed , and then sending their disguis'd priests and emissaries amongst them , encouraged the poor silly natives to mutiny against those oppressions , hoping yet by this second stratagem to cast the plot upon the presbyterians : for not only dr. oates mentions this in his evidence , but we all know the papists themselves were so well assur'd of this rising , before it happen'd , that at the disbanding of this late popish army , many of the officers and souldiers had secret orders not to sell their horses , but to be in a readines , for that they should have occasion to use them again within a fortnight ; and so it happen'd , for within less than a fortnight after the disbanding , the rebellion broke out in scotland : so well acquainted were the authors of this mischief , with the time when it would happen . now this insurrection was in two respects advantageous to the catholick party ; for first , among foreigners and strangers who were not acquainted with the depth of their intrigues , it seem'd to cast the plot upon the non-conformists ; and 2ly . being beaten by the king's forces , ( whereof no other was to be expected ) it might make both them and us less apt to rise upon any account whatsoever . but here give me leave to present you with one observation , which is , that if this had been a fanatical plot , the same party would certainly have risen in england , at the same time when their brethren of scotland were in arms , the encouraging of one another being of more consequence to both , than the expectation of the others success . iii. after the catholicks had thus brought the father's head to the block , and sent the young princes into exile , let us reflect upon their usage of them in france , and see whether the kindness that the french catholicks then paid to our king , was sufficient to bring us into that misery wherein we are immers'd , by so entirely espousing the french and papists cause , even almost to the destruction of the protestant religion , and ruine of all christendom besides . did their banishing of his majesty , and slighting of him whilst he was amongst them , deserve this kindness at our hands ? what charitable christians are we grown , thus to return good for evil ? i must confess they did ever treat his r. h. with some respect , as finding him to retain more favourable inclinations both towards their religion and government , than his gracious majesty did ; whose understanding and wit , as it made him contemn their superstitious idolatry and fopperies ; so did his lenity and good nature , render their tyranny altogether odious in his sight : besides , if his majesty had then discover'd in himself the least inclinations to popery , it might in all probability have rendred the crown of england unaccessible . however , i cannot but ascribe great part of our present calamities , to his highnesses education in that arbitrary and popish government : with what eagerness have we assisted them in their conquests , even to the defamation of our own honour , and violation of our publick faith with all the rest of christendom ? we first made them an idol , and now we worshipt it ; we first taught them the art of navigation , and now are ready to strike sail to them our selves . not any new invention that is of use either in building ships , or making ordnance , can be discover'd here , but immediately we charitable english ( for fear we should be too strong for them ) must communicate it to our dear brethren the french. nor have we been altogether unkind to the rest of our neighbours , when by procuring a general peace , we have pluck'd the thorns out of their feet , to put 'em in our own ; made a peace for them , in order to bring a war upon our selves . i confess , when i think how faithful we have been to the french in all these late wars , as also how much service our english cannon ( whereof we have too great plenty ) did them at their siege of valenciennes , i cannot but call to mind commines relation of king lewis the eleventh's bribing our english councel , paying at that time yearly pensions to the lord chancellor , master of the rolls , hastings lord high chamberlain , lord howard , and all other persons who had any power or interest with their master king edward ; for is something of this nature did not prevail amongst us , his majesty would never have adher'd to any but the dutch , whose perpetual interest it is to keep the crown upon his head , for that nothing would so much advantage france , and ruine holland , as to have england become a commonwealth ; when like rome and carthage , being continually clashing together , the french might in time ruine both . iv. having but now mentioned commines , give me leave to insert another story of his , which may be very much to our purpose , to shew you that when god designs the destruction of a king or people , he makes them deaf to all discoveries , be they never so obvious . this account is concerning the duke of burgundy , who being at war with lewis the xi . of france , entertain'd as his chief minister and favourite the earl of campobache , upon whom he bestow'd great gifts , committing to his care his whole concerns : but this earl having no sense either of honour or gratitude , took the advantage of his masters the dukes troubles , and set up a resolution to destroy him . for which end and purpose , he began under-hand to treat both with the duke of lorrain , and with divers of the kings officers that were quarter'd in champaigne , near to the dukes camp. now to the duke of lorrain he promised so to order the marter , that this siege of his masters ( the duke of burgundy ) against nancy , should take no effect ; for he would take care that such things as were necessary either for the siege or battery , should be wanting : which promise he was able to perform , for that the principal charge thereof was committed to him , neither had any man so great authority as he , in the army under the duke of burgundy . but to the kings officers he promis'd either to kill his master , or take him prisoner , demanding for his recompence thereof , the charge of those 400 lances which he had then in keeping , with 20000 crowns in ready money , and some good earldom in france . now whilst the earl of campobache was plotting these treasons , one cifron a gentleman belonging to the duke , and that was acquainted with this earl's conspiracy , happen'd ( in attempting to relieve the town of nancy ) to be taken prisoner by the duke of burgundy , who was set down before it : whereupon this cifron being condemn'd to die , in hopes of a pardon , offer'd that if the duke would give him audience , he would reveal a secret to him which concern'd his life ; whereof certain gentlemen ( to whom cifron had told this ) went to advertise the duke ; with whom at their arrival they found this earl of campobache , come thither ( as was suppos'd ) on purpose to be always ready , fearing left cifron , to save his own life , should have any such intent to reveal the conspiracy . the duke return'd this answer to the gentlemen , who brought him the message , that the prisoner used this delay only to respite his own death , and commanded them that he should discover what he knew to them ; which way the earl of campobache well approv'd of . upon this cifron reply'd , that he would communicate it to no man but the duke of burgundy himself : so that he was again by the duke 's special command led out to execution ; but in his way thither , he desired divers gentlemen once more to acquaint their master from him , that it was such a secret that the duke would not for a dutchy but know . many hearing this , went again to intreat the duke to vouchsafe him a hearing , but this treacherous earl , keeping the duke's chamber door , would not permit these gentlemen to enter , saying ; that the duke had resolv'd to hear no further from him ; wherefore he dispatch'd away new messengers to the provost , to hasten his execution . thus was this cifron hang'd , to the utter ruine of the duke of burgundy , his house , and his dominions ; so infatuated was his understanding . after this our wicked earl began to put in practice his treachery , for the which purpose he agreed first with a french wakeman or physician dwelling in lyons , call'd mr. simon of pavia ; and afterwards with the kings embassador in savoy : neither of which ways succeeding , he offer'd to flee with all his forces from his master to king lewis ; but the king detesting such . treasons of a servant against his master , sent by the lord conté to acquaint the duke of burgundy with it : but the duke ( as if he had been himself in the plot against his own life ) was so sottish and stupid a prince , that he receiv'd this second warning with no more sence than the former , saying , that if this discovery were true , the king ( being his enemy ) would never have advertised him thereof ; wherefore he ever after that loved the earl rather better than before . but this folly of his was justly rewarded ; for in a short time after , when the duke of burgundy and the duke of lorrain were engaged , this earl of campobache , with many of his forces , revolted to the enemy , whereby the duke of burgundy's forces were routed , and he himself actually slain . never did prince fall more unpityed than this duke did ; nor did his people know which most to blame of the two , either he who began this conspiracy , by his wickedness , or the duke himself , who gave it success , by his folly : the application of which story , i shall leave for you to make . v. there are four several arguments , which many times prevail with princes , to be incredulous of all pretended conspiracies against themselves . the first is drawn from their being in , or made privy themselves to part of the plot , but not the whole . the second , from their own good nature and clemency . the third , from the nature of the evidence . and the fourth , from the nature and interest of the pretended conspirations . to begin then with the first : when the prince hath been made acquainted with the design of introducing a new government , or new religion , but not with the design of taking away his own life , this sometimes hath prevail'd with him not to believe , that the same party with whom he himself is in a conspiracy , should have any such other plot against his life , but this i hope is not our case , for that no religion or government can be so much for his majesties advantage , as that which is establish'd amongst us : since in popery , although his majesty would be made absolute over his subjects , yet his slavery to the pope would be so great , that as well his liberty as his revenues would be much less than now . for besides the vast sums of money that would then go from the exchequer to the church , i dare boldly affirm , that had his majesty been never so absolute , he could not in this time have squeez'd more money from the subject , than he hath already received in taxes since his coming in ; and that must have been done by a standing army , which would make him odious , and eat up half his profit . 't is policy in the prince not to take away all at one , but to leave a nest-egg , if he designs they should lay again ; but for the church of rome , who ever reads our chronicles will find , that no school-boys have been greater slaves to their masters , than many of our english kings were to the pope ; and those who were above his discipline , the romish church ever found some way or other to cut him off , either by setting his own people against him , as they did by king iohn , or by some infallible catholick poyson , or by some bloody godfrey dagger . king edgar for his incontinency was enjoyn'd by dunstan abbot of glassenbury , not to wear his crown for seven years , to which he was forced to submit . king henry ii. to expiate the murder of thomas becket , ( committed by his countries ) was forced to walk bare-footed three miles to visit his shrine , and then to receive fourscore lashes upon his bare back from the monks . king iohn for opposing pope innocent iii. was ( after interdicting the realm for six years and three months ) forced to render his crown to pandulphus the pope's legat , and take it again in fee-farm at the rent of a thousand marks yearly ; nor did this satisfie the popish malice , for he was at last poyson'd in swinsted . abbey by one simon a monk. furthermore to let you see , that in the time of popery princes lived not so peaceably as now , be pleas'd to observe , that betwixt the conquest and our reformation , seven of our english kings were murther'd , viz. king iohn , richard i. edward ii. richard ii. edward v. henry vi. and richard iii. ( not to mention the emperor henry vii . who was poyson'd in the eucharist by one bernard a monk , nor henry iii. of france , stabb'd by clement the monk , nor henry iv. of france , stabb'd by raviliac , or those many hundred examples of this nature , which i could produce out of other chronicles . ) so that what ever prince considers these things aright , i think he can have no interest to introduce popery , unless he desires either to be whipp'd by a monk , or stabb'd or poyson'd by a jesuit ; for in such a case , 't is the jesuits that govern , and not the king. vi. the second motive which may incline a prince to disbelieve the report of a plot , is from his own good nature and clemency , which makes him not expect any ill from those to whom he has been so kind . but this is a fallacious way of arguing ; for a prince who would preserve himself against conspiracy , is to have an eye rather upon those he has oblig'd , than those he has offended , for those that are offended , have not such frequent opportunities , nor such easie accesses to him as the other have ; and for their disposition , it is much alike , the desire of dominion being as great if not greater than the desire of revenge . we see therefore , that where any great conspiracy has been made , it has been most commonly begun by such as were most familiar with the prince , and most in his favour ; for so it was in the conspiracy of perennius against commodus , plautianus against severus , sejanus against tiberius ; all which were favourites , and highly oblig'd by their several emperors . so that what ever prince trusts too much to the friendship of his dearest favourites , nay to his own brother , may sometimes find himself deceiv'd . the earl of campobache ( whom i mention'd before ) had received favours , sufficient to have oblig'd him more faithfully to his master the duke , than he afterwards proved . brutus was as dear , and ( many think ) as nearly related to caesar , as any brother , but yet we see he had a hand in his murther . the nearer a friend is , the nearer is he to be my heir , therefore the more likely to wish my death . friends are oftentimes as dear to us as our relations , therefore the laws of kindred may as well be violated as the laws of friendship , than which , nothing is more usual . who betrays you in your bed ? your friend ; for your enemy is not admitted to your house . who betrays you in your estate ? your friend , for your enemy is not made your trustee : so that nothing is more dangerous than a blind friendship . the turks well know , how much more prevalent interest is amongst brothers than affection , which makes the laws of their empire , take so severe a course with the grand seigneur's younger brothers . how many princes have been ruin'd by their next impatient heirs , nay even sometimes by their own sons ! that most prodigious empire which tamberlain the great had acquired , how was it torn in pieces , and destroy'd by a division betwixt his two sons ? did not cain kill abel ? and was not ioseph sold into egypt by his brethren ? had not agrippina her wakeman , wherewith the poyson'd her own husband the emperor claudius ? and was not she her self afterwards kill'd by her own son nero ? if ( as we often see ) little petty interests make one brother wish the other's death , how much more prevalent will the interest of a crown be ? nay of two crowns , viz. one here , and another hereafter in heaven , promis'd him by an old fellow with a bald pate , and a spade beard : si violandum est jus , violandum est regnandi gratià . and besides all this , when a successor observes , that the life of one single person , not only keeps him from three kingdoms , but also makes him , his family , and whole party , be banish'd and persecuted , you must needs acknowledge , that he lyes under a great temptation to violate the sixth commandment : which things being consider'd , together with that law which wipes off all attainders , whether of treason or murder , by the descent of the crown , i cannot but think , that a prince's good nature , renders him secure only in his own conceit , and not in reality . we all know , that his r. h. hath held correspondence with cardinal norfolk , and other the pope's nuncio's , about introducing popery ; and we are likewise inform'd , that popery was to be introduced by the king's death : so how a man could be privy to the effect , without being acquainted with the means , seems very prodigious . vii . thirdly , most princes believe or disbelieve the information which is given them of a plot , according to the nature of the evidence , and credit of the informants . first , for the nature of the evidence , what is it ? that they had a design to murther the king , and introduce popery . what is there improbable in all this ? was there never any prince murther'd before by a conspiracy ? was there never any attempt before , to introduce into a countrey a new religion ? why then have we so many laws made to prevent such a thing , if it seems so improbable ever to be done ? when the romans forbore to make any law against parricide , it was out of a presumption that it would never be acted : but we all know , that these are things which the papists have several times before attempted amongst us ; witness the gunpowder-treason , the invasion of the spaniards in 88. and their many attempts both against queen elizabeth's and king iames's persons . so that i cannot apprehend any thing strange in their relation : the only miracle that appears to me is , that any one ( but those that are in the plot ) should question the truth of it ; especially when they consider the wonderful manner of its discovery , wherein the providence of god appear'd most remarkable , that still as one man's evidence has been censured , a fresh witness hath risen up to supply and strengthen the former . had this plot been a forged contrivance of their own ; they would at the very first discovery of it , have had half a dozen or half a score crafty fellows , ready to have attested all the same thing ; whereas on the contrary , ( notwithstanding we are now on a burning scent ) we were fain till here of a late to pick out by little and little all upon a cold scent , and that stained too by the tricks and malice of our enemies : so that had we not had some such good huntsmen as the right noble earl of shaftsbury , and our late secret committee , to manage the chase for us , our hounds must needs have been baffled , and the game lost . in my whole life-time , of all the histories i have ever read or heard of , i do not remember to have met with any action more bold or gallant , than was that of dr. oates's discovery ; for one single man ( as he did ) to flie in the face of so prevailing a party as they were , without any second to back him ; to persist and justifie his evidence , after the many discountenances were at first shew'd him ; to accuse persons of that high quality , power and revenge , when everard had before been denied the benefit of the sun , and kept close prisoner in a dungeon four years together , only for coming over to discover , that the papists beyond sea had a design to bring in popery here : when justice godfrey had been murder'd , only for acquainting the council with what he told him ; and yet for him to adhere to his information , certainly nothing could be more bold or brave . how many and how great discouragements hath this discovery met with : first , when the lord of danby was so long acquianted with it , and conceal'd it time enough for the plotters to convey away both their persons and papers . secondly , the visit of her r. h. to see the princess in flanders , at the first breaking out of the plot , in which voyage many priests , jesuits and plotters , made their escape . thirdly , the conveying away all coleman's letters , which treated of these two last years . fourthly , the getting france to recede three several times backward and forward from his own evidence . fifthly , the suffering priests to have access to tamper with the condemn'd plotters in newgate , to make them deny all , and with a lye in their mouths die as innocent as the child unborn . sixthly , these frequent dissolutions and prorogations of parliaments , to prevent the tryal of the lords . seventhly , suffering sir philip floyd , clerk of the council , at the tryal of wakeman , to come and testifie against the king , in behalf of the prisoner , what he heard at the council-table , a place where all things that are done , ought to be kept secret , and so had this , had it not been in favour of wakeman . eightly , the freeing wakeman , and questioning the truth of that very same evidence , whereon the same judge had hang'd so many before : but however my lord chief justice and the jury had so good an opinion of his innocence , yet sir george himself had not so , as appears by his flying away beyond sea , so soon as ever his tryal was over . these and innumerable other discouragements hath the plot met with , which being observ'd , together with the due circumstance of the evidence , i think no man that is not in the whole or part of the plot himself , can doubt the verity of it . indeed at the first many thought to cast a suspicion upon what oates and bedlow inform'd , as being two persons of an idle life and conversation ; but how ridiculous is this ? as if such rogues would trust such a villany with honest men , or any but those that had been as bad as themselves ; you might as well expect a highway-man should go and acquiant my lord chief justice , or my lord of canterbury , when he meant to commit the next robbery ; but a bad shift is better than none at all . so that from the nature of the evidence , or credit of the informants , no man can take exception against the information either of dr. oates , mr. bedlow , or any of the rest , to whom mr. iennison hath lately given no small credit , in discovering the four villains , that ( as mr. oates had said ) were to have assassinated his majesty at windsor . viii . the fourth and last argument ( which may sometimes prevail with the prince to disbelieve any report of a conspiracy ) is taken from the nature and interest of the pretended conspirators : but neither of these motives can pretend to influence our prince into a disbelief of this popish plot : for first , as to their nature and principles , we all know that in one of their own councils , viz. the lateran , were introduced those two hellish tenents of murthering kings , and eating their god : but the papists will tell you , that they do not murther kings , for the pope he first deposes them at rome , and then if they kill him , they kill but a private person : we all likewise know , that 't is held an act of merit amongst them , to murder an heretick , witness their massacre of the poor protestants at paris : and to murder a husband , a brother , or any such near relation that is an heretick , the greater is the merit , by reason of the self-denial and injury done to our selves , in the loss of so near a friend ; but to murder an heretick king , ( especially where there is a popist successor ) they hold to be the greatest of all merits , even sufficient to canonize him for a saint , by reason of the vast advantage will thereby accrew to the popish religion , not doubting but that the rest of the kingdom will , regis ad exemplum , soon after turn papists . having thus therefore shew'd them to be prepar'd with principles , sufficient to undertake any such villany , let us in the next place examine their interest , as it stands at this time , where we shall find , that their interest does unavoidably excite them to murder his sacred majesty : for first , they know he cannot long subsist without a considerable sum of money , which he must receive either from their party , or from the parliament : now for them to supply him with so vast a sum , is a charge , that ( you may well imagine ) they would desire to get rid of , if they could , though by the king's death : on the other side , for the parliament to supply him with money , that they know cannot be done , but by taking off the heads of their faction , excluding their succession , and consenting to such laws as must of necessity ruine them : besides , his majesty hath already permitted the executing so many of their party , as they never can or will forgive it . all which put together , with the great expectation they have from a popish successor , will make them vigorously and speedily attempt the king's ruine , unless he suddenly prevents it , by adhering to his parliament , and ruining them first . if his majesty would be pleas'd for one month to think himself henry viii . and we his subjects for the same time ( forgetting we are protestants ) do by the papists , as they would do by us , were they in our condition , what would become of portugal and brussels ? even rome it self would tremble at us . something must speedily be done ; and if we will not begin with them , they will begin with us : for all the favour his majesty can shew them , will not satisfie that greater expectation which they have from a declared popish king. so that nothing does more justifie the plot , than their corrupt principles , and present interest ; which will make them ( being sure to have the succeeding king on their side ) rather venture to push for it now , and run the hazard of the peoples revenge , than suffer any longer the inconvenience of an english parliament , or danger of the next successor being a protestant . ix . having thus therefore shew'd you the danger wherein his majesties person now is ; give me leave in the next place , to inform you gentlemen , wherein is your greatest danger , both in relation to your city , and your selves : first then , as to your city , the chiefest danger whereunto it is obnoxious , is that of fire ; for wheresoever the iesuits interest prevails , they will above all things desire the burning of london : first , because it is the only united force able to withstand arbitrary government ; and without that , popery can never prevail . secondly , it is the only place where by reason of their excellent preaching , and daily instruction in the protestant religion , the people have a lively sense thereof , and doubtless will not part with it to pleasure a prince ; but perhaps rather lose their lives by the sword in the wars , than by the faggots in smithfield . thirdly , it is too powerful for any prince , that governs not by the love of his people , which no popish successor can expect to do . we read in our english chronicles , that henry the 3d. of england threatened to burn the city of london , for their taking part with the parliament and barons , who at that time made war upon the king , for his too great countenancing of foreigners . also in our great fire of london in 66. ( if you will believe either mr. bedlow's relation , or the account which was then given in to the committee of parliament appointed for that purpose ) many were actually taken a firing it , and brought to authority ; but all let slip away , and none hang'd for it , but one poor frenchman , who contrary to the judge's perswasion , would violently accuse himself . there is one most eminent great papist , who in the time of that fire pretended to secure many of the incendiaries , but secretly suffer'd them all to escape : who this person was , is already mentioned by mr. bedlow : for a popish king , or a popish successor , cannot but rejoyce in the flames of such a too powerful city . secondly , the greatest danger accruing to your persons , as well as to the whole kingdom , upon the king 's untimely death , will proceed from a confusion and want of some eminent and interessed person , whom you may trust to lead you up against a french and popish army : for which purpose no person is fitter than his grace the duke of monmouth , as well for quality , courage and conduct , as for that his life and fortune depends upon the same bottom with yours : he will stand by you , therefore ought you to stand by him . and remember , the old rule is , he who hath the worst title , ever makes the best king ; as being constrain'd by a gracious government , to supply what he wants in title ; that instead of god and my right , his motto may be , god and my people . upon the death of alexander the great , when there was so great a confusion amonst the officers about choosing a successor to the empire , no other expedient could be found out to pacifie the uproar of the multitude , but the choosing of king philip's illegitimate son aridaeus , who nothwithstanding he was a man but of reasonable parts himself , might ( as they thought ) perform that office well enough , by the help of his wife protector perdiccas . i confess upon the news of his grace's banishment , the countries were much surprized , and the more , for that we all knew they could have no interest or advantage by his absence , till his majesty was near his end . which puts me in mind of the story that iosephus relates concerning herod ; viz. that antipater ( to secure to himself the crown ) having by his treachery and false accusations prevail'd with herod to banish his two innocent sons alexander and aristobulus , as also in his life-time to declare antipater for his successor , did after that , the better to confirm his title , exasperate herod to put them both to death ; which was no sooner done , and antipater freed from the jealousie of their succession , but he begins to think herod himself had lived too long : wherefore entring into a conspiracy with herod's own wife , as well as with pharoas and many others , he decreed to poyson him : yet not being willing to be present himself at the execution of it , ( for fear of some popular tumult ) he absented himself and went to rome . but providence discovering this plot to herod , it soon after cost antipater his life ; and may all such traytors succeed accordingly . these things ( most worthy citizens ) i have presumed to offer to your perusal , in respect that upon the death of any king , your lord mayor ( then in being is the only magistrate in the kingdom that retains any office of power capable of serving the subject : you are the persons who must revenge our soveraigns violent death ; which if ever it should happen , the countries one and all would be ready to assist you : but heaven defend us from the occasion ; god preserve the king , and send your city to prosper : which is the constant and hearty prayer of , your friend and servant , iunius brutus postscript . as well to justifie part of my preceding discourse , as to acquaint you with the pernicious tenents of the church of rome , how dangerous they are both to prince and people , i have here inserted some few of their canons , which all papists are oblig'd to believe and submit to . canons which the romish church holds , to the ruine and dishonour of princes , are these which follow . 1. the emperor is the bishop of rome's subject , and the bishop of rome may revoke the emperor's sentence in temporal causes . 2. princes laws , if they be against the canons and decrees of the bishop of rome , be of no force nor strength . 3. all kings , bishops , and noblemen , that believe or suffer the bishop of rome's decrees in any thing to be violate , be accursed , and for ever culpable before god , as transgressors of the catholick faith. 4. the bishop of rome may excommunicate emperors and princes , depose them from their states , and dis-ingage their subjects from the oaths and obedience to them , and so constrain them to rebellion . these and many more there are to the same purpose ; wherefore that prince , who thinks himself so weak as to need a governour , who thinks himself too rich , or desires to be a slave to an old bardasso , let him turn papist . more romish canons , fitting to be consider'd by all abby-landed men . 1. the goods of the church may in no wise be alienated , but whoseever receiveth or buyeth them , is bound to restitution , and if the church have any ground that is little or nothing worth , yet it shall not be given to the prince ; and if the prince will needs buy it , the sale shall be void and of no strength . 2. it is not lawful for the bishop of rome to alienate or mortgage any lands of the church , for any cause whatsoever ; except it be houses in cities , which be very chargeable to support and maintain . so that if any men ( who have estates in abby-lands ) desire to beg their bread , and relinquish their habitations and fortunes to some old greasie bald-pated abbot , monk , or friar , then let him vote for a popish successor and popery ; for when once that religion is established amongst us , these canons will all come in play ; and the pope will then tell you , ( whatsoeuer he may pretend at first ) that his predecessor had no right to give away what belong'd to the church . and this mr. coleman well knew , when he promised himself no less than to be once master of the earl of bedford's estate : but unluckily the gallows prevented it , in making him a saint before his time . he that desires to be further satisfied about these canons , let him look into dr. burnet's late excellent history of the reformation , and there he shall find the original and authentick quotations , which were too tedious here to insert . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a28432-e80 phil. com. l. 6. c. 2. phil. com. l. 5. c. 6.8 . a vindication of the history of the gunpowder-treason and of the proceedings and matters relating thereunto, from the exceptions which have been made against it, and more especially of late years by the author of the catholick apologie, and others : to which is added, a parallel betwixt that and the present popish plot. williams, john, 1636?-1709. 1681 approx. 215 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 51 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-12 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a66435 wing w2741 estc r214885 12927227 ocm 12927227 95553 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a66435) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 95553) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 991:30) a vindication of the history of the gunpowder-treason and of the proceedings and matters relating thereunto, from the exceptions which have been made against it, and more especially of late years by the author of the catholick apologie, and others : to which is added, a parallel betwixt that and the present popish plot. williams, john, 1636?-1709. [4], 95, [1] p. printed by j.d. for richard chiswell ..., london : 1681. reproduction of original in huntington library. attributed to john williams. cf. nuc pre-1956. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng williams, john, 1636?-1709. -history of the gunpowder-treason. gunpowder plot, 1605. popish plot, 1678. 2005-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-04 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-05 simon charles sampled and proofread 2005-05 simon charles text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a vindication of the history of the gunpowder treason . and of the proceedings and matters relating thereunto , from the exceptions which have been made against it , and more especially of late years by the author of the catholick apologie , and others . to which is added , a parallel betwixt that and the present popish plot. london , printed by j. d. for richard chiswell , at the rose and crown in st. paul's church-yard , 1681. errata's in the history of the gunpowder-treason . page 8.1 . ult . for 20 read 16. after p. 20 , false paged . p. 28. l. 23. r. catesby . p. 30. l. 19. f. everard , r. gerard ; f. when , r. where . p. 31. l. 12. expunge that . in the vindication . page 17. lin . 4. read reserve . p. 32. marg. l. 2. r. 9. p. 36. marg. l. 14. r. 313. p. 40. marg. f. ibid. r. antilog . p. 146. p. 47. marg. dele l. ult . p. 48. marg. dele l. 9. p. 54. l. 1. r. wykes . p. 55. l. 18. r. conjurationis . p. 57. l. ult . f. yet r. that . marg. dele paper 418. p. 60. marg. f. ibid. r. proceeds . p. 61. marg. l. 8. r. 248 , p. 63. l. 20. r. 338. to the reader . in compiling the history of the gunpowder-treason , published two years since , i had a particular respect to brevity and truth , that i might neither burthen nor abuse the reader . how far i attained the former , the book it self doth shew ; and that i might not mistake in the latter , i did with good heed and diligence consult not only the histories foreign and domestick , but also all other books which i could meet with , written pro and con upon that subject . but all this while i had neither seen nor heard of the large reply in vindication of the catholick apology , written by a person of as great wit as honour ; in which i afterwards found there was a particular discourse upon this argument . i must confess that the honourable author hath as well acquitted himself as could be expected in a case of this nature , and by the reviving and skilful disposing of what hath bin said by others , and starting many things not taken notice of , that i know of , before , hath put a pretty varnish upon the cause , and made it passable with inconsiderate persons . but if what is there said be warily view'd , i do not question , but it will appear to be founded rather upon conjecture , than solid history , and to have more of fancy than truth in it . but whether this be so or not , or whether what i have here said will make it evident or no , i must now leave to the judicious and such as will be concerned impartially to inquire into the merits of the cause . if it should be expected that i should have taken notice of some other late books of our adversaries that touch upon this subject , i have only this to say , that i have not willingly overlooked any ; and as for those that i have seen , i find little or nothing which is not the same with what is said in the foresaid reply , and that hath not for the most part bin borrowed from it . the history of the gunpowder-treason vindicated . the conspiracy of the gunpowder-treason , carried in its front , so much of unnatural cruelty , that with all their art the party could put no colour upon it : and therefore there hath been nothing wanting amongst them to vindicate themselves and their religion from being concerned in it . sometimes they will slander authority , and make the judges and council to conspire against them . sometimes the whole was the contrivance of a minister of state. sometimes the traitors were but very few , and they such as were young and rash , quick to resent a provocation , and easily inclined to revenge it . sometimes it was in those discontent , & not religion . and if any or all of these will serve to stop the mouths of their adversaries and protect themselves , they will boldly stand up in their own vindication ; and that they have reason to say all this , is what they do maintain . i shall therefore consider their several pleas , and do think that i shall take in all that they say , and shew it to be very weak and insufficient , if i make good , 1. that this was a plot of their own , and not contrived to their hands by their adversaries , 2. that more were concerned in it , than were at that time publickly known and accused . 3. that those that fled and suffered for it were really guilty . 4. that this conspiracy was purely upon the account of religion . 5. i shall add , that they never yet gave to the world any real and good satisfaction of their abhorrency of it . of what great use it will be , if they could prove the whole to be anothers device , i cannot well understand . for if it could be made as clear as the day that a minister of state drew the conspirators into the nooze , and had such as from time to time did give him intelligence how their affair stood , will it serve to clear their innocency , and make the plot on their part to be none ? was there all the while no evil inclination of their own to work upon , and no mischief intended by them ? were they drawn in without their consent ? or were they not drawn in at all , but the whole accusation a fiction , and it no better than a seeming plot , as one suggests ? if not , why is this so vigorously urged , and so much enlarged upon by our late apologists ? but yet how little shadow of proof there is for this , will appear if we consider how inconstantly these speak as to this matter . for if we will hearken to the man of 70 years when he died ( who is for that reason presumed to be a person of some credit in the case by the honourable author above said ) he saith , fuit non levis suspitio , &c. that there was no light suspicion of a certain peer's being acquainted with the conspiracy long before its discovery , who cunningly pretended ignorance that the more might be involved in it . it was in his time ( it seems ) a suspicion , and a suspicion that that noble-man knew of the conspiracy , i.e. by the intelligence he kept with some of them . but in the current of ten or twelve years , from a suspicion it comes to a certainty ; from his being privy to it , it comes to be his proper invention . for now it s said to be set a work by the discoverers ; to be a trick invented by the states-man , and to be a seeming plot ; and that they were drawn into it by the dexterity of a protestant . it was in more 's time some noble man thus was suspected , but now upon the sole credit of mr. osborn , it must be the treasurer ( meaning i believe cecil , tho at the time of this treason he was secretary only ) and he for his good service was made an earl , as our author saith ; altho as luck would have it , he was so created on the saturday after st. george's day , ann. 1605 , which was above six months before this treason broke out . so inconsistent are persons with themselves , when they have not truth on their side ; and so apt are they to catch at any little thing , when they serve a cause or a party . for is it not an easie thing to raise such a report , and have we not reason to believe such will do it , whose interest it is to discharge themselves of it , and who as they would deny it if they could , so would to be sure extenuat it when it is not to be denied ? can we think that they who contrived to cast the whole upon the puritans , if it had succeeded , were not as able and willing when it miscarried to place the name of cecil in their register , as the master-workman ( as the above said author saith that sanderson doth acknowledg ) and to make him the deviser of it ? furthermore is it not usual for such as would be accounted men of wit ( which the apol. saith mr. osborn was noted for ) to allow little of that in others ; , and for such as pretend to be inquisitive & politicoes ( as the apol. saith tacitus did ) to have every thing a mystery ? can we think that he that slubbers over what k. james did well , and continually exposeth him in what he thinks he did ill ; that will hardly allow him to have any sense of honour and religion ; would not be shy also of allowing him one dram of sagacity above other men to find out a riddle , or any greater title to divine providence to help him to unfold it ? can we think that he , that was a frequenter of company , and inquisitive , ( as this author saith osborn was ) could be ignorant of such rumours as were scattered at that time abroad by the party concerned ( if such there were ) ; or that he that had a spite at the court , would not maliciously improve them ? and is there any reason to believe the one or the other upon their bare affirmation ? i do not think that the credit of such will pass at this time abroad without better certificates , and therefore since this honourable person is he alone that hath urged some arguments for it , as he affirms ; i shall consider what he hath said . and , in the first place , i think what he hath said concerning the letter sent to the lord monteagle to be very remarkable , upon which he observes , that it 's pleasant to see in most of the relations and accounts of this business , how the letter appeared nonsence forsooth to cecil , and with what a particular adulation he seemed all along to admire the king's comment and exposition ; for though his majesty had as much wit as any man living , yet the affair was so plain , that one of a far less capacity could not miscarry in it . herein i must confess he is very singular , and i am of his mind when he saith , perchance i have bin the first that urged the present arguments . for to this day all the world hath bin of another opinion ; and without doubt whoever had seen the letter before the event did unriddle it , must have no more thought of such a design then those that read the case , that del rio put , of powder being placed so , that the prince and all that are in the city would be thereby destroyed , could think of the respect which that had to england . will we hearken to their stout apologist , he acknowledgeth that rex & ingenio per se acer , & periculo factus acrior , &c. the king naturally of a sharp wit , and by his danger made more quick , when he could conceive no other way by which the parliament should be destroyed , suspected , as it was , that it must be by some mine , and so caused the place to be searched . if barclay be to be heeded , the king was divinely inspired . nay , if bellarmine * be to be credited , it was not discovered without a miracle of divine providence . and after all these it will be of some authority with protestants , not only that king james in his speech on that occasion saith it was miraculous ; and that when a general obscure advertisement was given of some dangerous blow at this time , i did ( saith he ) upon the instant interpret and apprehend some dark phrases therein , contrary to the ordinary grammar construction of them ( and in another sort than i am sure any divine , or lawyer in any vniversity would have taken them ) to be meant by this horrible form of blowing us all up by powder . but also the lords and commons in parliament declared , that the plot would have turned to the utter ruin of this whole kingdom , had it not pleased almighty god , by inspiring the king 's most excellent majesty with a divine spirit to interpret some dark phrases of a letter shewed to his maiesty , above and beyond all ordinary construction , thereby miraculously discovering this hidden treason . after all which , whether i shall , with the aforesaid author , say that the words of that letter are obvious ( and which he by way of scorn calls the miraculous letter ) or , with sir edward cook in his speech , say upon the authority aforesaid , that the king was divinely inspired by almighty god , the only ruler of princes , like an angel of god , to direct and point out as it were to the very place , to cause a search to be made , out of those dark words of the letter , concerning [ a terrible blow ] i leave the world to judg . but he will not only have the letter plain for the matter of it , but also undertakes to find out the authour , which he will needs have to be the states-man ; and thinks to come off with a pretty query or two . is it possible ( saith he ) to imagin that any man could be so mad , after he and his partizans had brought their plot to that perfection , had so solemnly swore by the trinity and sacrament never to disclose it directly or indirectly , by word or circumstance ; and had resolved to blow up all the catholick lords , and the rest of their friends , &c. to fancy that a man should write a letter , that had more in it of a plot against the state , than the bare saving of a friend . again , suppose this , yet what need was there to write , that god and man would punish the parliament , &c. and a hundred other circumstances not only suspicious , but to no manner of purpose , unless intended for the detection of the whole intrigue ? besides , no man really engaged in the treason ( had he bin never so great a fool ) would have given warning ten days before the plot was to be executed . and so he goes on to shew how this warning was quite opposite to the designs of a conspirator , &c. but beneficial to a machiavilian . from all which we may observe how much may be said by a man of wit , to baffle any cause that he undertakes to overthrow ; since this that he hath said , is in the ground of it false ( as hath elsewhere bin shewed● ) and what if i had no proof of it , yet what this honourable person saith , is far from proving what he designs . for he discourseth as if no one ever had bin false to the oath of secrecy which he had taken in any conspiracy ; or as if there were no persons in the world had ever done this with allowance . he discourseth as if no person that had a design to destroy multitudes without compassion , could not be over-ruled to spare one alone from a particular affection . he supposeth that no one in writing a letter to that purpose could unwittingly let fall such things as might beget suspicion , and be a means of discovering the design . he supposeth again that no one in so doing can be over-ruled by the providence of god to go beyond what he did intend , and to betray what he resolved to keep secret . now if any , or all of these things be true , the letter might have bin written by one that was privy to the plot , by percy or any of the rest , without the help of his machiavilian , notwithstanding what ever he hath bin pleased to say to the contrary . but if it was writ by him , why was it put into my lord monteagle's hand , who was a roman-catholick , and who must have bin a confident of cecils , and privy to the whole affair ? or else it might have miscarried through the hands of the person that carried it , or the hands of him that received it ( it being a kind of a note , and delivered in the evening ) or that lord might have contemn'd the admonition , as coming from an idle fellow in the street , as this authour saith , and throw it aside ; or he might have concealed and disowned it . or if it had come safe , and that lord did , as he did , discover and deliver it , yet the king himself might have happened not to have had the sharpness of our authours wit , and bin alike dull as others ; and then the whole intention of the letter had bin lost , which was as he saith , to have the thing discovered ; and so the secretary had lost the opportunity of making his vigilance appear , and missed of the reward of being made an earl for his service ; which are the reasons the above said author gives of the whole . and now i should have dismissed this long discourse of the letter , but that he spends above a page in shewing the folly of giving ten days warning , if all had not bin by the design of the aforesaid statesman . why it was delay'd on the secretary's part , thuanus and others do give the reason , viz. that the king being then at royston , they kept the letter till his return , which was friday novemb. 1. when it was shewed him , and it was the next day brought into the council , where it was ordered that search should be made , which was deferrd till monday evening , that they might give no occasion to rumour or jealousie . and why it was sent so long before ( if i may guess for once as well as our author hath often ) i conceive it might be that the lord monteagle might have time to find out some pretence for his absence , or because the person that wrote it had a sure hand to send it by . having thus fixed upon one for a contriver of the conspiracy , and withal made him to be the author of the aforesaid mysterious letter , this ingenious person did perceive that he had still said nothing , unless he was able to point to one that should be a constant spy upon the conspirators , and an useful intelligence to the projecting states-man ; and in so doing he spares not to charge one who may be well supposed as little liable to a temptation to be thus made use of , as any of the fraternity , and that is mr. tresham . for what should induce him to so great perfidiousness ? could it be a vile education that should thus debase his mind to decoy his dear relation ( for i am told by a certain author , that he and catesby were sisters children ) and intimate friends into such a design , and having thus decoy'd them to leave them to the rigor of the law ? this might perhaps lie against a bates , who was but a menial servant ; but tresham was a gentle-man of an ancient family , and had an education suitable to his extraction . could it be necessity , and this a course made use of to patch up his broken fortunes ? this might have bin a reason for a keyes , whose fortunes were sunk ( as he acknowledged upon the trial ) but tresham had a plentiful estate and promised to contribute 2000 l. towards the design . could it be a coldness in their religion , or that he really was of none ? the contrary to that is evident , in that rather than put garnet into danger , or not clear him of what he had before confessed against him , he chose to die with an apparent lye in his mouth , and did pawn his salvation to verify it . could it lastly be from a doubtfulness of the issue , and a resolution to provide for his own safety ? that we find not a title of ; but that he might have done and provided for theirs too by obliging them to desist from their design for fear of discovery ; that he might have done and never discover'd them , or taken such a base course to procure . so that if we consider the thing in it self , it might have bin as well catesby or percy ( whom an author of theirs would also fasten a suspicion in that kind upon ) or any , as tresham . but there are some reasons offered from this suspicion ; for tresham was suspected by themselves saith the apol. but what was he suspected of , not of being a spy or a setter , but of having sent the letter to the lord monteagle ; so saith tho. winter in his confession ; when catesby , tresham , and i met at barnet , we questioned how this letter should be sent to my lord monteagle , but could not conceive ; for mr. tresham forsware it , whom we only suspected ; and this he might write , and be no such person ; nay it 's certain if he had writ this letter , he could be no decoy , since there would then have bin no need to give his lordship any such warning ; when he , being privy to the whole transaction , was sure that the design would be discovered , and prevented , and so neither the lord nor any else , but the conspirators , be in danger . well , but tresham hanckered about the court when all his fellow conspirators fled , and so it 's likely he did , that he might not by his flight give any suspicion ; but when he was suspected , he shifted his lodgings , saith thuanus , and so for a time escaped . and surely this was more wisely done than to fly with the rest into the country , where they could not but be discovered , and when nothing but plain force could secure them when discovered ; and that they could have little hopes of , as long as king and parliament and london were safe . but if he had bin a decoy , what need he have hanckered about the court , or sculked afterwards for fear of discovery ; if he was cecils instrument , and had access to him at midnight ( as one , that is ready to swear to the certainty of whatever the foresaid honourable author doth with greater modesty only suspect and conjecture at , doth say ) he knew where to be safe , and by whom to be received . but a setter may be hanged , that his patron 's art might not be suspected — and if his creature will not be satisfied with words , and is like to be dangerous and unruly , 't is then only saying he died of a strangury , or some sudden distemper in prison , as it happened here to tresham , who , lest he should discover it , was never brought to a publick trial , but was with another [ nameless person ] sent to the tower , and they were never seen afterwards , lest they should tell tales , as an excellent romancer tells us . surely tresham was in the deepest dungeon , where none but the sowr keeper could come to speak with him . surely he never spoke word , but all on the sudden by the power of some poisonous potion was made to sleep his last , and being found dead , it was given out he died of the strangury . but now what if this man did indeed die of the strangury ? what if he did die while his wife and servant were with him ? what if he did not die so suddenly , but that his wife dealt with him to recant what ever he had said against garnet , and to subscribe a paper to that purpose ? why then it 's to be feared that they must seek for another to bear the part of a spy , and let mr. tresham die as the rest of the knot did , true so far to one another , tho never so false to their king and country . and this i shall prove beyond any question ; for if cecil was the contriver of this plot ( as they give out ) then tresham could not be his agent ; since the whole was communicated to winter in the latter end of the year 1603 : but tresham was not acquainted with it , nor taken in to the number till about august 1605 , as appears from winters confession . so that either the plot must not be cecils , or cecil must carry it on for a year and a half without such a factor , or else he must have another that he did thus employ than tresham . but if there was such a satesman to contrive , and such an intelligence to carry it on ; how came the conspirators , who had some suspition it seems of tresham , not to make use of such a plea to excuse themselves , or mitigate their crime , either upon their examination and trial , or at their execution ? whence again was it that those , that in those days writ apologies for them , never offered at this , altho they were such as were furnished with intelligence enough to have found it out , and sagacity enough to have made use of it , if it had bin true ? to the latter of these the answer is ready : the first apologists ( saith our author ) were strangers , as bellarmine , eudaemon , johannes , &c. who perchanceeither knew not the grounds of our suspicion , or if they did , would not in print accuse a great noble-man of a crime , while , though true , could not yet be made good , and sufficiently proved by them , for time and patience can only bring such deeds of darkness to light . it must be confessed that the persons he speaks of were strangers , but whether strangers to our affairs or not , is hardly to be questioned : there being so constant , settled , and exact a correspondence maintained betwixt the superiours and inferiours of the order of the jesuits ( of which order these apologists were ) that hardly any be greater . for the rectors and superiours of any college must every day write down the transactions of their house , and every week write to the provincial , if in europe , and with such exactness , ut omnia tanquam praesentia provincialis cernat , that the provincial may understand all things by that means as if he was present . the missionaries , who are employed abroad , are obliged to write also to the provincial every week concerning such affairs as they are concerned in , and such matters as they observe . the provincials are under the same obligation of writing to their general at rome once every month ; and in that manner also , ut omnium rerum , omniumque personarum ac provinciarum statum , quoad ejus fieri possit , ante oculos habeat : so that the general may as it were have before his eyes , as much as can be , the state of all things , persons , and provinces : but if this monthly and weekly writing be not sufficient ; in extraordinary cases , it is to be as often as there is a necessity for it : provided that in matters of secrecy it be in such cyphers as the general shall appoint , and none but him shall have a key to . now who can apprehend , that any thing in a case fit to be observed should not be known as well at rome as london ; and that those who are so punctual in lesser matters should not be as precise in understanding and making their observations upon a case , which the reputation of their religion and society were infinitely concerned in . and as for eudaemon-johannes ; besides he saith neque verò mirum , &c. let not any one wonder , that i write freely , not only of the manners and customs of england ; but also sometimes of secret affairs , when from my youth up i have bin very conversant with them . so that his converse with them , and the intelligence of his order furnished him with all things necessary for an apologist , and withall he further pretends that etiamnum versatur romae , &c. there are those now at rome , who took not only the words but the syllables garnet spoke before his execution . so punctual do they desire and would be thought to be in things of this nature , but further the apologist saith , that those persons would not in print accuse a noble-man of a crime , &c. as if they were very backward to speak ill of any ; though it be in their own vindication . but what then shall be said to the above said author , who calls sr. edward coke an impudent man , and the greatest forger of lyes and calumnies . and saith of him , that he looks upon it as dishonorable to himself , to let any thing pass from him without a lie to back it ; and yet this person whom he thus reviles was at the time of his writing lord chief justice , as he owns . what shall we say to bellarmine in his reply to king james under the name of tortus , who treats his majesty in such terms , as neither became a church-man to give , nor a prince to take ( saith dr. hakewel ) giving me nine times the lye in express terms , and seven times charging me with falsehood , which phrase is equivalent to a lye ; as king james himself saith . and besides other things of that kind there enumerated , compares him with julian the apostate , and saith jacobus non est christianus ; that james ( not vouchsafing to call him king ) was no christian. whence it appears they are not over thrifty of reproaches where there is occasion , and the greatness of the person shall not protect him from them , where they have a mind to bestow them . but what can we expect from such as will tell us in the face of the world that tresham was a decoy , that there were but four gentlemen in the powder-treason , that these four were necessitous or loose persons ; and that if any of these were papists , or so died , they were not so long before ; things altogether as true , as that percy and catesby had no weapons but their swords ; and that there was little intimacy betwixt the lord monteagle and percy . and yet all these falshoods are to be met with in a few pages of an advocate of theirs . such as will dare thus to contradict , not only our , but their own books in such evident particulars ( as those above mentioned , and which any one may be satisfied about in the books referred to in the margent ) when it may serve their turn ; such as will not spare their own party in such a case , may be presumed to sacrifice the reputation of others without difficulty for the same end ; and if they can perswade us to believe these , we may be brought to believe in time there was no such plot at all , and ( to make use of the words of a learned person ) if they go on in this way , without the least shadow of proof , to lay the contrivance of this plot on a professed protestant : for all that i know , by the next age they may hope to perswade men , that it was a plot of the protestants to blow up a popish king and parliament . so that for all that hath been said to the contrary , we have reason to believe king james , who hath published to the world , that the gunpowder-treason was only plotted by papists . now if we reflect upon all that hath bin said , and what pains hath bin taken to make cecil the deviser of all this mischief ; one would think that there was nothing else could be charged upon them ; and that they had never bin before concerned in any design of this nature . who would have thought that either the pope had issued out breves to keep any protestant prince ( such as k. james was ) out of the throne : or that ever any means had bin used by this sort of men to prevent it ! and yet pope clement 8. sent two breves , one to the laity , and another to the clergy , to this purpose , in which it was required , that quandocunque contingeret miseram illam faeminam ex hac vita excedere ; whensoever it shall happen that that miserable woman [ q. elizabeth ] should depart this life ; whosoever should lay claim or title to the crown of england , quantumcunque propinquitate sanguinis niterentur , &c. tho never so directly interessed therein , unless they were such as would not only tolerate the catholick [ romish ] religion , but swear with all their endeavours to promote it , they should not admit them to be king of england . but these breves , saith an author of theirs , were so far from being a prejudice to king james , that it was intended for his advantage ; for there was a letter sent to the said clement ( some two or three years before our queens death ) under the king 's own hand and seal , by the hand ( as they said ) of the scots secretary of state ; and therein his majesty gave his holiness assurance of his being a catholick , or to that purpose ; therefore the breves could not be intended to put him by , whom the pope had already such confidence in : but their drift it seems was against several english pretenders , as my lord of hertford , &c. thus far that honourable person . but if the pope was so much a friend to king james as to assert his title against all his opposers , whence was it that such care was otherwise taken to set up another , and that such books were written as doleman , for that purpose ? and whence was it that money was sent over to maintain it , as garnet himself did confess ? whence came all these prophecies of the confusion and misery that this nation should be involved in upon the death of queen elizabeth ? and why then did the jesuits tamper with catholicks , as well to diswade them from the acceptance of king james at his first coming , saying , that they ought rather to die , than to admit of any heretick to the crown ; and that they might not under pain of excommunication accept of any but a catholick for their sovereign ; as also to diswade catholicks from their loyalty , after the state was setteled ? as watson and clark two seminary priests did confess upon their apprehension . what ever is pleaded now , i am sure king james thought otherwise , who saith , it may be the like excuse [ viz. the rashness of the pope upon wrong information ] shall hereafter he made for the two breves , which clement 8th sent to england immediately before her death [ queen elizabeth ] for debarring me of the crown , or any other that either would profess , or any ways tolerate the professors of our religion , &c. catesby also was of another opinion : for when garnet seem'd to desire that the pope's consent might be obtained to the powder-treason : catesby answered , that he took that as granted by the pope in the two bulls or breves before ; for if it were lawful not to receive or repel him [ k. james ] ( as the said bulls do import ) then it is lawful also to expel and cast him out . garnet also himself had no such thoughts , for instead of alledging that the king was not concerned in them , he only pleads that altho he received them from the pope , yet he shewed them to very few catholicks in the queens time ; and when he had understood the pope had changed his mind , then he burnt the bulls . by which he owns that they were directed against the king , or else it were no plea for him to make , that the pope had changed his mind , and no excuse for himself , that he had burnt them . so king james himself argues against one that made use of the same shift with our author , if the breves did not exclude me from the kingdom , but rather did include me , why did garnet burn them ? why would he not receive them that i might have seen them , that so he might have obtained more favour for him and his catholicks ? so little was it then thought either by friends or foes that these bulls were sent over on that prince's behalf . but it seems the pope had some broad intimation given him of king james's affection both to his holiness and his religion ; our author calls it , an assurance of his being a catholick under his own hand and seal . and truly if it had been so , i know no better certificate could be given at that distance ; but this honourable person did with caution add , [ to the kings hand and seal ] that it was obtained by the fraud ( as they said ) of the scotish secretary of state. for indeed thereby hangs a tale , and tho the intrigue of this matter hath been sufficiently discovered and made evident to the world by several learned persons ; yet because this story hath bin revived not only by this author , but also by a spightful pen amongst our selves , * ( whom i shall not be so severe upon , because he lately upon his death-bed recanted that mischievous book ) i shall insert a brief account of it . in the year 1598 , the lord balmerinoch secretary of state in scotland , at the instance of his cousin sir edward drummond , a professed papist , did solicit the king to write a letter to clement the viii in the behalf of the bishop of vaison , their kinsman , for a cardinalship : suggesting withal that it would be a means to secure the succession of the crown to his majesty . but the king obstinatly refusing , they did contrive to shuffle in a letter , to that purpose , amongst others ( omitting the titles given to the pope and leaving room for their insertion afterwards ) and to wait when the king was ready to go on hunting to procure his hand to that with the rest . this letter so obtained , drummond carried to rome ; but within a while this being discovered to queen elizabeth , she in the year 1599 sent to the king about it . he thereupon questions balmerinoch , who absolutely denied it , and to give the king satisfaction sent for drummond , who abjured it . thus it continued , till in the year 1608 , when cardinal bellarmine undertaking to reply to the king's apology for the oath of allegiance , charged him with inconstancy upon the account of this letter . balmerinoch happen'd then to come into england about other matters ; the first thing put to him at royston ( where the king at that time was ) was the business of this letter , which he then confessed . upon this he was remitted to scotland , and there arraign'd , and condemn'd ; all the while acknowledging , as he wished god to have mercy upon his soul , that his majesty was wrongfully charged with the writing that letter . and that he was so , ( and so it could not be an argument for the popes kindness to the king in those breves ) will be evident , if it be considered , ( 1. ) that in the year 1599 ( as above said ) the thing was known , and the whole denied and abjured by the persons concerned , which the pope could not be ignorant of . for drummond was not only sent for over by balmerinoch to forswear it , but was notwithstanding upon suspicion imprisoned , and after he had obtained his liberty , going to rome , did , upon the importunity of balmerinoch , by some art procure that letter , and sent it back to the secretary , as he confessed . ( 2. ) while the pope had this letter , he did shew it to all scotsmen that came to him , enquiring if they knew the hand , and suffering some to take transcripts of it ; which if he had not suspected , he would certainly have kept to himself , or communicated only to such as he could trust such a necessary secret , as that was , with . ( 3. ) the pope never did return an answer to his majesty , nor did at all concern himself to do what he did desire of him ; whereas if he had believed the letter to be the act of that king , he would not have so far neglected the interest of the church , as to have slighted it . ( 4. ) when not many years afterwards he , did upon his own accord write an obliging letter to the king , he did not only omit the title of son , &c. which he doth give to all princes of their communion ; but also did not take any notice of that letter pretended to be written ; which would have been a very good ground to have fastened a desired correspondence upon . ( 5. ) this was the sense of the priests upon the point ; for after this parsons the jesuit did declare that the king was an obstinate heretick , and that there was no possibility of his conversion . and garnet , when in the last days of queen elizabeth he was solicited by a gentleman of his own religion to favour the king's title , answered , he would have nothing to do in it , for the king was so obdurate in his religion , that there was no hopes of his conversion . now , ( as the earl of northampton then said in his speech ) every one may guess that it was no sleight or ordinary degree of despair that made them renounce their portion in the son and heir of the renowned mary q. of scots , a member of the roman church . from which it appears that this letter was the letter of balmerinoch , and not of king james ; and that the pope had no more a respect to it in those breves , then there was in them intended a kindness to that king. and from all that hath been said will also appear , how little reason there is to make any other a contriver of this treason than the conspirators , and their own party . sect . ii. more were concerned in this conspiracy , than were at that time publickly known and accused . the author of the catholick apology , saith that the traitors were but thirteen laymen , viz , catesby , piercy , the two wrights , tresham , faux , keys , bates , grant , rookwood , the two winters and digby , as all writers have it , nor can any thing be more clear than that there were no more conspirators : and he is so confident as to say , that no body was privy to it [ except owen ] but these few there mentioned . where , as he would clear the jesuits of it , so he is forgetful of the five laymen , besides hall the jesuit which suffered upon the same account at worcester ; and of those that fled , mentioned by thuanus . however that few were taken and convicted upon it , is what , with our historians , i freely acknowledg . i shall further yield to this noble author , that the commons , lords and privy council were so vigilant , that they left no stone unturned to find out the depth of the plot : but that no more were concerned than were discovered , or that no more were discovered , was because no more were really concerned , is what none , but such as are blinded by prejudice , or biassed by being of a party , can imagine . this will appear if we consider , the design it it self , which was not only to blow up the parliment-house , the place , as catesby said , where they had done us the mischief , or the persons that did there contrive it ; but also to strike at the root , and breed a confusion fit to beget new alterations ; as winter did then observe to him , it was to blow up the established religion to make thereby room for their own , and to disturb the government in order to it ; and this was not to be done by fourteen lay-men , tho we cast in the four jesuits also to their assistance . whilst the plot lay under ground , and was to be carried on by mining , there needed only a few heads to contrive , and a few hands to execute : and that part of it which required only the match and the tinder , a faux alone was sufficient for ; these might manage the more secret negotiation . but if that had succeeded , there must many more have appeared upon the stage to quiet or curb the multitude ; to keep things safe at home , and maintain a fair correspondence abroad . and can it be thought that such persons , as were found to have been imployed herein , did not understand as much , or when they understood could neglect it ? can it be thought that such persons as ventured all they had in the world ; the gentlemen their estates and honours ; the jesuits their own , and the reputation of their society ; and all of them the honour of their religion , and their own lives , would put all this into jeopardy , without weighing the case , and all circumstances relating thereunto ? can it be thought that catesby , who was a cautious man ( as thuanus saith ) and one not more eminent by birth than the endowments of his mind , as another saith ; or garnet , who was one of a sharp wit , solid judgment and of long experience , as another saith , ( being several years provincial of his order ) and the rest , could lay the whole stress of such an important design upon so few as twenty persons ? can we think again such should be guilty of this omission who had been engaged in plots from time to time ; and that they who could assure the king of spain in the spanish treason , that upon his invasion the catholicks of england would have in readiness for his use and service 1500 or 2000 horses , could forget the like provision now , or that they could think of horses and provide no riders for them ? it was without doubt upon a better army than that of a few servants and horse-boys ( as the author of the apology reckons them up ) that sir everard digby was assured , that if the design had taken place there would have bin no doubt of other success ; and that there would have bin a league answerable to that in france . the persons concerned herein were not such novices as to undertake so much upon no prospect of good and sufficient assistance . this they well foresaw , and did in the beginning advise about , as winter confessed ; whilst we were together , we began to fashion our business , and discoursed what we should do after this deed was done . the first question was , how we might surprize the next heir , &c. and what we should do for money and horses , which ( saith he ) if we could provide in any reasonable measure , having the heir apparent , and the first knowledg of four or five days , was odds sufficient . this we find them consulting how to do without suspicion ; for garnet did hereupon write to baldwin the legier jesuit in the low-countries , in the behalf of catesby , that one should move the marquess for a regiment of horse for catesby ; not with any intent , as it was agreed , that catesby should undertake the charge , but that under colour of it , horses and other necessaries might be provided without suspicion to furnish the traitors . this we find further that they had done ; for watson and clark , priests , at their apprehension , did affirm that there was some treason intended by the jesuits , and then in hand ; as for other reasons , so for that they had collected and gathered together great sums of money to levy an army therewith when time should serve : and had both bought up store of great horses about the country , and conveyed powder and shot , and artillery secretly to their friends , wishing them not to stir , but to keep themselves quiet , until they heard from them . and it seems that they had met with good success in it , for there was in june 1605 a conference and consultation betwixt garnet , catesby , and tresham concerning the strength of the catholicks in england , to the end that garnet might by letters send direct advertisement thereof to the pope , for that his holiness would not be brought to shew his inclination concerning any such commotion , until such time as he should be certainly informed , that they had sufficient and able force to prevail . by which they must suppose not only that the catholick party was strong in it self , but also that that strength should be in readiness upon this occasion , or else their message to the pope had been to little or no purpose . this sir everard digby in his papers often glances at . for he saith , i shall not need to clear any living body either private or publick , for , i never named any body , but reported that those that are dead did promise , that all forces in those parts round about mr. talbot would assist us , but this can hurt nothing , for they openly spoke it . so again , we all thought if we could procure mr. talbot to rise , that — and we had in our company his son in law , who gave us some hope of , and did not much doubt it . ( this i conceive to be mr. talbot of peper hill , from what i find of him in a manuscript in my possession . ) let us hear sir everard further as to this matter , the greatest of our business ( saith he ) stood in the possessing the lady elizabeth , who lying within eight miles of dunchurch , we would have easily surprized , &c. if she had been in rutland , then stoaks was near , and in either place we had taken sufficient order to have been possessed of her . in either place , we see was sufficient order , but that could not have been without a party in rutland , that we read nothing of . nay , we find sir. everard after his imprisonment to be not without hopes of good seconds , and of making his terms by the fear which the court might be in of them . for thus he saith , i have some guess that it worketh , but the lieutenant maketh all shew to me of the contrary ; for , saith he , the catholicks are so few in number , that they are not to be feared on any terms , for on his knowledg there were not above 4000 in all england . besides , he said they were easily pacified ; i would not at all argue the matter with him , but if the number should be objected to me , &c. whereby we may perceive what his opinion was in the case , who could not but understand in some measure what the condition and strength of his party was , and what expectation they might reasonably have from it . the catholicks were in his judgment many , and to be feared , and he did apprehend they would not be wanting to their cause or them in that juncture . which agrees with what we find observ'd by the secretary , that by diverse advertisements from beyond the seas , he understood that the papists were making preparations for some combination amongst them against this parliament time , for enabling them to deliver at that time to the king , some petition for toleration of religion : which should be delivered in some such order , and so well back'd , as the king should be loth to refuse their requests . it 's likely that it was given out amongst , and by themselves that there was such a petition preparing , and if they could but possess their own party by that means , so as to be in expectation of it , it might serve to satisfie them about any report of an insurrection ; and keep them from enquiring into that which they endeavoured to keep within the breasts of a few . and this will serve to give light to what i have before said at the beginning of this section , viz. that more were concerned in this conspiracy than were at that time publickly known , that is , more than we read of did know of the very manner of a plot , for the destruction of the king , &c. ( as those that were to surprize the next heir ; ) and many more of a plot to bring in and set up their religion by force of arms. to this purpose it was that care was taken at the first for assistance from abroad ; and that a continual negotiation was maintained with spain by the jesuits , as watson and clark did depose ; which they said they were sure tended to nothing , but a preparation for a forraign commotion . it 's true that king james speaks favourably in this case of forraign princes , and their ministers ; but if we may believe osborn , he saith , that the king of spain had an army then in flanders to land , in the huge mist so black a cloud must needs have caused over the nation ; and that when the people heard that his catholick majesty sent an agent on purpose to congratulate king james ' s preservation , he could not tell it the cardinal d'ossat without laughing in his face at so palpable a piece of flattery , as he conceived it to be . to this purpose was it that prayers were appointed to be used by those that were romishly affected throughout the whole nation , as not only osburn relates , but also as it hath been this last year confirmed from sancta clara's , &c. own mouth by mr. s. in his depositions before the council ; and is yet to be seen in a book of theirs wrote in the beginning of king james's reign , where are many passages relating hereunto ; in a consolatory psalm ( as it 's there called ) its said , confirm your hearts in hope , for your redemption draweth nigh . the year of visitation draweth to an end , and jubilation is at hand . england shall be called a happy realm , a blessed country , a religious people . those which knew the former glory of religion , shall lift up their hands for joy to see it — returned again . righteousness shall prosper , and infidelity shall be plucked up by the roots ! again , false error shall vanish like smoke : and they which saw it shall say , where is it become ? the daughters of babylon shall be cast down , and in the dust lament their ruin . proud heresie shall strike her sail ; and groan as a beast crushed under a cart wheel . — the memory of novelties shall perish with a crack , as a ruinous house falling to the ground . repent ye seducers with speed , and prevent the dreadfull wrath of the most powerable . — he will come as a flame that burneth out beyond the furnace , his fury shall fly forth as thunder , and pitch upon their tops which maligne him . so in the fifth psalm of his composure — they [ enemies ] shall perish in thy fury : and melt like wax before the fire . i have repeated the more from this book , because it was made about that season , and also because it 's very hard to be got . from which we may observe ( 1. ) that the jubilee they expected was very near . ( 2. ) that this was to be by the destruction of their enemies . ( 3. ) that it should be such a destruction as would render the enemies uncapable of resistance or recovery . ( 4. ) the manner is as much pointed out as a thing of that nature ( that was a secret , and charily to be kept as such ) could be ; heresie shall vanish like smoak ; the memory of novelties shall perish with a crack ; he will come as a flame that burneth out beyond a furnace , &c. as the time drew on , so they were more secure of success , and more confident and open in their expectations of it . thus it was abroad ; for henry flood a jesuit caused the jesuits at lisbon to spend a great deal of money on powder , upon a festival day , a little before the gunpowder-treason in england , to make experiment of the force of it ; and perswaded one john how ( a merchant whom he had perverted ) and diverse other catholicks to go over into england , and to expect their redemption there ( as he called it ) a while ; as we have the relation of it . thus it was also at home , for a few days before the appointed time , garnet meets the other traitors at coughton in warwick-shire , which was the place of rendezvouz , whither they resorted out of all countreys . and upon the first of november garnet openly prayeth for the good success of the great action concerning the catholick cause in the beginning of the parliament ; adding these verses of an hymn in the end of his prayer , — gentem auferte perfidam credentium de finibus , vt christo laudes debitas persolvamus alacriter . this garnet never denied , but pleaded that he went thither with a purpose to disswade mr. catesby , when he should have come down — an answer most absurd ( as the earl of salisbury replied to him ) seeing he knew catesby would not come down till the 6 th of november , which was the day after the blow should have been given ; and garnet went into the country ten days before . if this had been his errand , it would rather have kept him in london , where catesby was , than carried him from it . as to the prayer he used , he had prepared this answer ( as he told hall in their secret conference together ) it is true ( saith he ) that i prayed for the good success of that great action , but i will tell them , that i meant it in respect of some sharper laws , which i feared they would then make against the catholicks : and that answer shall serve well enough . in which ( 1. ) he plainly grants that he had another end in reciting that verse , than he would own to them that should examine him upon it . ( 2. ) it appears that the end which he did it for , was what he was very much afraid to have discovered . as is evident from his own letters , in one of which he saith , i know not how i shall satisfie them about my journey to coughton ; and in another , there is a rumour of a sermon preached by me at hall ; i am afraid it 's that which i made at coughton . and he further said to hall , if i can clear my self of this ( which i hope to do ) i care not what otherwise they have to object against me , &c. and can we then think that it was by chance that he recited those verses ( being used in the octaves of all-saints day ) as his apologist saith ; or that the prayers then used were only for toleration , as the english apologist would have it . if this had been true , what need he be so careful about it , what need he take such care for an answer to it ? if it had been by chance , the thing would have spoke for it self . or if it had been for favour and toleration , it was not what they needed to be afraid to own : for how could it be more dangerous to pray to god for success in it than it would have been to frame a petition and present it to their prince for it ? it sounds somewhat better , which one of the above said authors doth frame upon further consideration ; that when garnet despair'd of hindring the conspirators , the good man having tried all humane wayes in vain , adds the publick prayers to his own , ut deus , vel pestem eam averteret , vel si ita expedire videret , felicem certè funesto facinori exitum daret ; that god would either divert it , or grant an happy conclusion to this villanous enterprize ; and that what ever happens it might turn to the good of the church , as he again expounds himself . by which we see how much they are put to it that would give a colour to an ill action ; how they say and unsay , ( as this author doth ) one while its by chance , another while by choice ; and how they contradict one another . unhappy man ! that could not light upon these answers that are since made for him ; and very fortunate are they that can frame apologies for actions which those that were intimately concerned in them never thought upon . but as long as this prayer was then used , and no better account can be given of it by him or those that speak for him ; we have all the reason in the world to believe it to have a respect to the action that he , and the rest , were condemned for ; and that this was a part of those forms of prayer , that were sent down and used for the success of that great errand , as king james saith . it is granted then that there was an intimation given out of some great design on foot against the session of parliament ; but whether it did respect a petition against , some sharper laws at that time feared to be made against catholicks ( as garnet said ) or whether a toleration ( as another ) or whether the powder-treason and an insurrection upon it , i hope what hath been already said will help in good measure to resolve ; although we cannot so particularly point to time and place , persons , and counsels herein concerned , & what are indeed impossible , in our circumstances , fully to discover . the author of the catholick apology saith , that winter , in his printed confession descends to all particulars ; which , if true , would have afforded an excellent light to us . but that is far otherwise , for that confession was taken the 23 of november 1605 , not long after his apprehension ; and it was immediately published to give some satisfaction to the world ; but being imperfect , he was afterwards taken into further examination , and many other things were confessed by him upon it . in his printed confession , we have an account of the beginning and progress of the gunpowder-treason , ( strictly so called ) , there we have an account of what was debated and projected by them in the vault , and what provisions they were further to make for the accomplishing the design : but all the while there is not a word of what was done in order to it . all this could not be done without men , and arms , horses and mony ; but we read nothing then of the levies that were made , of the horses that were in readiness , nor of the treasure that was provided ( except what was subscribed by tresham and digby ) and yet we are as sure that such a design was not to be carried on without these , as we are that there was such a design . therefore it will be fit to enquire from whence it is that we have no fuller account as to these matters . and we shall be helped in this , if we consider , ( 1. ) that in the beginning of such a design as this was , there was no need of many assistants , ( as i have before shewed ) and so they took into it no more then they had present occasion for , either in working in the mine , &c. or bearing the charge . whatever accomplices they had abroad , had nothing else to do , but to lye quiet , and wait till the hour did approach and the signal was given . so watson the priest confessed , that they had brought up store of great horses , and conveyed powder , &c. secretly to their friends , wishing them not to stir , but keep themselves quiet until they heard from them . from hence it was that either none were discovered but the head contrivers of it ; or those , that upon presumption of the success above , got too early into arms , as grant &c. or such as being sure , if any , to be discovered got into a body , and endeavoured for that reason to provoke others to joyn with them , as catesby , &c. but the rest that were to lie still , and to keep themselves quiet till the blow was given , thought it best in prudence , when it had miscarried , to continue so . ( 2. ) the encreasing of assistants , and the communicating of their counsels to many at the first , was so far from being needful , that it would have been dangerous . it would have endangered the whole , for by that means the design might have got air , and been defeated . it would have endangered their friends ( if it had been discovered ) and needlesly exposed them . this was the reason that owen gave , why sir william stanley would not be acquainted with any plot ( though a hearty well-wisher to it ) as having business a-foot in the court of england , ( for fear , i. e. if the plot should be discovered , and he discoverd to be privy to it , he should then lose his interest there ) and not that he would not trust him with such a secret , as the author of the cath. apol. would have it . ( 3. ) when they did communicate their design to any , and take them into their counsel and assistance , it was with all the caution imaginable . for they took an oath of secrecy , and the sacrament upon it ; the sum of the oath was ; you shall swear by the blessed trinity , and by the sacrament you now purpose to receive , never to disclose , directly or indirectly , by word or circumstance , the matter that shall be proposed to you to keep secret ; nor desist from the execution thereof , until the rest shall give you leave . the like care was taken with respect to owen , bates , and digby . and garnet himself confesseth , that by word and writing , he had often protested that he would never betray them . so that it seems they had obliged even him after some solemn manner to secrecy . ( 4. ) their caution was further remarkable , that , neither the manner of the thing was known to many , nor the persons frequently to each other . it was enough to prepare their party by some general intimation ; but the how , or the what , or the where , was what the principal cabal and consult kept for the most part secret to themselves . so much is acknowledged by sir everard digby ; as i did not know it directly , that it was approved by such ( referring to some persons of great authority either in point of dignity , wisdom , or conscience ) so did i hold it in my conscience the best , not to know any more if i might . so again , this answer [ of garnet's ] with mr. catesby ' s proceedings with him and me , gave me absolute belief that the matter in general was approved , though every particular was not known . he that was privy to the main , and a principal undertaker in one great part of the design , which was to seize upon the princess , and head the party that was thereabouts , was ignorant in some other things relating to it . and what he did not desire to know if he might , others its likely might not know , if they desired it . those that knew their own work , and were assigned to some particular office , might know no more what they did , or were to do , who were above , than every little officer in a reigment , is acquainted with the debates and resolves of a secret council of war : and they that were ready to obey , and whose work it was to observe the motions of the commander in their eye , might think no more of killing the king , or of blowing up the parliament , than that they should be blown up themselves . the good of the catholick cause , and an insurrection for promoting it , is what perhaps such might be trusted with the knowledg of ; but the destruction of the royal family ( excepting one whose name they were to make use of ) and setting up a protector , might be as little known to them , as their commanders are to us . they might have an intimation of a great alteration coming on , and of the happy days that were approaching ; and half a sentence might serve to break the business to them ( whom they would prepare for it ) and a nod to supply what was farther to be revealed , but that should be left till time and success should interpret it . thus speaks henry morgan , who being asked by hammond the jesuit ( unto whom he amongst the rest made confession ) what led him to joyn with winter , &c. answered , i did not , saith he , well understand it , but they told me that religion and life was at stake , and so it was matter of conscience induced me to it . when therefore the case is thus , we can have no better information , or understand more from such , then they were permitted to understand . for the same reason was it , that , as it was in the invasion 1588 , the conspirators were not generally known to one another , unless those who were of the cabinet council . every one knew his immediate fellow or partner , and perhaps his commander ; but the number and strength , or persons otherwise he could in such a case at best but suspect ; so we find that neither littleton , nor rookwood knew greenwell . and that they did practise according to this principle is evident from winter's confession , where we read that catesby desired leave , that he with mr. percy , and a third , whom they should call , might acquaint whom they thought fit and willing to the business : for many , said he , may be content that i should know , who would not therefore that all the company should be acquainted with their names . so sir everard digby , i knew , saith he , that faux could reveal me , for i must make choice of two besides mr. catesby , which i did of him and mr. winter . he had a part which he would not have every one acquainted with . but above all garnet was most cautious herein , who was wont for a good while to converse only with catesby , and those of his own order about this business ; insomuch as sir everard digby saith , in the place before quoted , i did not know it directly that it was approved by such ; which he principally understands of garnet ; for he saith further , before that i knew any thing of this plot , i did ask mr. farmer [ i. e. garnet , for that was one of the six names he was called by ] what the meaning of the pope's brief was ; he told me that they were not ( meaning priests ) to undertake or procure any stirs , &c. and this answer , with mr. catesby's proceedings with him and me , gave me absolute belief that the matter in general was approved , &c. so that he understood garnet's meaning indirectly only by the answer given to that question , and by the account which catesby also gave him of the provincial's opinion in the case . catesby being his mouth to the company , and giving them assurance that it was garnet's judgment as well as his own . this garnet doth acknowledge , in a letter of his , what should i do ? saith he , first of all the other conspirators did accuse me ; and again , catesby always made use of my authority with them , by which means he perswaded almost every body to think well of the matter . thus carefully did this subtile man proceed , that he might preserve his own honour and life , and that which seemed to be as dear to him as both , the honour of his order and society . from all which we see , that though the party hung together , yet it was by such strings that few could perceive among themselves , the clue being in the hands of the chief of the conspiracy : and that consequently we cannot expect that full and clear evidence , as we might have had , had such of them as catesby and piercy lived to make discovery ; or had such of them as lived to be examined and tryed , been inclined to it . but that we find otherwise . for , 5. when they were discovered , and apprehended , they did with great obstinacy deny every thing that either was not forced from , or could not be directly proved against them . thus faux laid all the blame upon himself , and would confess none of his complices , till he was carried to the tower and shewed the rack . thus resolved , we find sir everard digby , who saith , more reasons i had to perswade me to this belief , than i dare utter , which i will never to the suspicion of any , though i should to the rack for it . so again , i will do as much as my partner wisheth , and it will then appear , that i shall not hurt or accuse one man : and however i might in general possess them with fear , in hope to do the cause good ; yet my care was ever to lose my own life , rather than hurt the unworthiest member of the catholick church . tell her i have ever loved her and her house , &c. and i will not live to manifest the contrary . where we find that they were much afraid of him , who was able to do them a great deal of mischief from the knowledge that he had of the party and the design ; and who perhaps they thought might be induced to it from the desire of life , being but about 24 years old , and one of a plentiful estate ; but he shews himself to be true to his principles and engagements . of the like temper and resolution do we find mr. habington , for saith he , my lord chief justice fell in the end to two points . the one , if mr. tesmond ever moved me to joyn with sir everard digby , mr. catesby , mr. winter and others in rebellion against the king , but that they could not prove ; the other if i knew of mr. garnet ' s being in my house . i too confident they would not confess any thing against me , denied them both . he doth not deny but that the whole was true ; only the one wanted proof , and he did believe the other would never be confessed . and he had good reason for it ; for he tells us , that it was mutually resolved by garnet , hall and himself , that if those two were at any time taken in his house , we should , saith he , absolutely renounce all knowledg and acquaintance one with another . of this we have also another instance in one owen , who was garnet's man , that rather then be tortured ( which he was in fear of ) and any thing should be wrested from him to the damage of his party , ript up his own belly , and so died ; by the wound , i say , which he gave himself , and not by having his bowels forced out by torture , as garnet's lying apologist would perswade the world. but amongst all their accomplices they were most of all bent to conceal their priests , and by no means to own any of them to be in the confederacy . there was nothing sir everard digby seem'd to be more concern'd to clear himself of the suspicion of offending in ; as yet , saith he , they have not got of me the affirming that i know any priest particularly , nor shall ever do to the hurt of any , but my self . and i have before all the lords cleared all the priests in it for any thing i know . and this he was so resolved in , that he would not utter any thing to the suspicion of any such , though , saith he , i should to the rack for it . and to testifie his affection further that way , he was resolved to clear them at the bar , for thus saith he ; sure i am that i never did yet confess to know him [ one that he calls brother , who is a priest , and , by his being said to give the sacrament to five at one time , i conceive is meant gerard , who did administer it to catesby and four others of the conspirators at the beginning of the plot ] nor any of the three . i do it not in regard of my self , as it shall appear at the bar : for whatsoever i could do for him or any of his [ i. e. his order ] i would do it though it cost me never so much sufferance : but i have been sparing in that , because i may do more in publick , which will i think be best ; as you wish , i will do , &c. this also he did , seeking by protestations to clear all jesuites of those practices which they themselves confessed , ex ore proprio ; as the earl of salisbury said . in order to which they though it allowable , nay , praise-worthy , to lye , and perjure themselves . as to the former we have too many instances in sir everard's papers , for he denies that ever he took the sacrament to keep secret the plot ; because , saith he , i would avoid the question ; at whose hands it were . he denied that father wally [ i. e. garnet , for that is another of his names ] was at coughton with him ; though garnet confessed it afterwards himself . he affirmed that he did not know darcy [ who was also so called ] to be the same with garnet , and that he did not take him to be a priest ; though he was very well acquainted with him . and if we will put their principles to it , we may see how far they will go in tresham ; who when he had before let fall some words tending to make garnet guilty of the spanish treason ; rather than he would be guilty ( as he and his wife thought ) of so great impiety , as to bring a priest into danger by a true accusation , chose to perjure himself , and as he was a dying man ( for within three hours after he died ) and hoped for salvation , did acquit him of it , saying , that he had not seen the provincial in sixteen years before ; whereas by garnet's own confession they had had frequent conversation with each other for the three years last past . but if these gentlemen ( who usually stand upon the honour of their word ) would go about to excuse all jesuits how foul soever , out of an opinion that it is meritorious so to do , at such time as they had no hope of themselves , as the earl of salisbury observed : then what may not be expected from the jesuits themselves , who had so powerfully instilled these principles into persons otherwise generous , and when their own life and honour , and the honour of their religion and society came deeply to beconcerned . we may then expect obstinacy and subtilty should meet together , and all that art and nature can do shall be made use of to clear them of the scandal and danger that would otherwise befall them . and we shall not fail of an example herein , if we do but peruse the examinations , and trial , the answers , and confessions of garnet , who at this time was the provincial of that order in england . we shall find his great care was not so much to speak truth , as to serve his cause , and excuse himself ; and if he could but dress up a story , and make what he calls formalis fabula ( in one of his letters that was intercepted ) , he would not want confidence , and the most powerful asseverations to confirm it . i shall not trouble the reader with the petty ways he had of saying and unsaying as might serve his turn ; as when before the lords commissioners he truly and freely confessed his treasons , being ( as himself under his own hand confessed ) overwhelmed , tanta nube testium , yet , ad faciendum populum , to delude the people and preserve his own reputation ; in his letters which he wrote abroad , he cleareth himself of the powder-treason , as sir edward coke relates . these are tricks not to be taken notice of in comparison of the boldness which he at other times did take to excuse and clear himself . is he charged with having writ letters to greenwell , and when he had denied it , required to give his answer upon the word of a priest ? he again denies it obstinately ; and yet the commissioners had then the letters in possession ▪ upon which , he contented himself to say , that he denied it , because he thought they had them not . is he demanded whether hall and he had conference together , and desired not to equivocate ? how stifly did he deny it upon his soul , reiterating it with so many detestable execrations , as the earl of salisbury said , it wounded their hearts to hear him ; and yet when it was proved to his face , confessed the thing ; as not only the proceedings , but his own letters do declare ; coming off with this salvo , that when any one is charged before a magistrate , he is not bound to answer before witnesses are produced ; quia nemo tenetur prodere seipsum , because no one is bound to betray himself . this is a new way of arguing , but it 's not the only singular thing befel him in that kind ; for whereas all mankind do practise sincerity at their death ; yet even then he could not forget to prevaricate ; for he said upon the scaffold immediately before his execution , , that he only had a general knowledg of the fact by mr. catesby , &c. and what he knew in particulars was in confession : when yet the king had under his own hand-writing to the contrary ( as the recorder wished him to remember ) as shall be shewed in the next section . so that upon the whole he abundantly made good what the earl of northampton said to him at his tryal , i confess that never any man in your state gave less hold or advantage to examiners , than you have done in the whole course of proceeding , to us that were in commission : sometime by forswearing , as upon the confession of hall your fellow : sometime by dissembling , as about the places of your rendezvous , which was the lapwings nest : sometime by artificial equivocation : sometime by sophisticating true substances : sometime by adding false qualities : yet sat superest , as may appear , to the defeat of your inventions , and the defence of the kings majesty ; quia magna est veritas , & praevalet . now if we lay all these things together , and consider , how few the design , ( as far as it went ) , needed to have actually concerned in it , how cautious they were in choosing persons for their turn , and in obliging them to secrecy when they were chosen ; how cunning they were to shew the plot by parts , and in disposing of persons ; so that few amongst them did know , and so should not betray each other , ( if through fickleness or fear they might be so disposed ) ; how firm and resolute they were upon discovery and apprehension ; it is so far from being an objection against the history of this plot , which makes it popish , that so few were discovered ; that it's matter of wonder there is so much reason as there is to prove it to be so . now it may be worth our while a little to consider how they came by so much evidence as they had in the case . as , ( 1. ) some things were evident of themselves , and not to be denied , they being taken in the fact ; as it was with faux , and those of them that were openly in arms. ( 2. ) other things were confessed , for fear of the rack , or the little tast they had of it ; as it was with faux in his first confession . ( 3. ) so much intelligence being obtained ; the commissioners shewed this to the others , and so drew them on to confess more . this is one of the reasons garnet gives to excuse himself for confessing so much as he did , in one of his letters that was intercepted . this is the account he also gave of himself as to that matter at his death . being upon the gibbet he said — to whom [ the lords of the privy-council ] i remember my humble duty , and i am sorry that — i did dissemble with them ; but i did not think that they had such proof against me , till it was shewed me : but when that was proved , i held it more honour for me at that time to confess , than before to have accused . ( 4. ) sometimes it was by several examinations , at some distance of time ; this put garnet to it ; as he acknowledgeth in his letter to mrs ann ; let any one think , saith he , after 23 several examinations by the wisest men of the nation , besides particular discourses with the lieutenant of the tower , what could be done . it s nothing but truth can in such a case make a man constant to himself , and he therefore that had nothing but , what he calls formalis fabula , a forged story to save himself , must needs be often at a loss . as it happened to him ; for sometime he would say greenwel told him the business in confession , sometimes it was by way of consultation : one while upon the word of a priest he burnt the popes breves as soon as king james was proclaimed ; another time he burnt them at coughton . ( 5. ) sometimes they did discover themselves through want of understanding one another . as it was with garnet , who knowing catesby was dead , and thinking greenwell had made his escape , concluded he might then safely say any thing , and so would own no other knowledg of the plot but what he had in confession : but afterwards understanding ( through misinformation ) that he was taken , least greenwell should confess and prevent him in it , he then acknowledged that he had it out of confession . ( 6. ) sometimes a confession was extorted by confronting of evidence . so when garnet declared that he had no design of writing in behalf of baynham , but to prefer him to a command ; being opposed herein by the testimony of faux , who said that he was sent to rome on purpose to implore the pope's aid for their assistance upon the success of their design ; he did then confess it . so it was betwixt hall and him ; as it follows . ( 7. ) sometimes a discovery was made by the intercepting of their letters or discourse ; and both these befel garnet . for undertaking to write a letter to one rookwood a priest , at that time in the gate-house ; and another to mrs. ann vaux ; and a third to the fathers and brethren , &c. they were all taken , and much discovered by them . again , having a mind to discourse with hall the jesuit , then also a prisoner in the tower ; and prevailed with the keeper to find out a way for it . the keeper did so , but withal discovered it ; and two gentlemen of unquestionable reputation being placed secretly within the hearing of it , gained considerable particulars against him , which he was forced by that means to confess . by these and the like means was their obstinacy and subtilty conquer'd , and the intelligence drawn from them which we have as to this matter . but where these reasons were not , we are little beholden to them . for what is said of garnet in a more especial manner ; that there was no truth gained from him , which he did not find himself constrained to confess by witnesses and testimonies of undoubted credit ; is also in proportion true of all the rest , forasmuch as i can perceive by the most diligent enquiry . the author of the cath. apol. saith , that there were no more conspirators , because no gentleman was discovered , [ besides those that were killed , and taken , and owen ] which could not happen out of design to save their friends . this he offers two reasons for : ( 1. ) because several particulars ( which might have been easily kept secret ) were revealed , as may be found in their printed confessions . ( 2. ) the malefactors did accuse their confessors , and therefore certainly they would never have spared others , had there been any guilty . this cannot be supposed , saith another , that they had not tenderness enough to leave any other undiscovered ; whose conscience compelled them , to expose their own confessors to their deserved penalty . to which the last author adds , ( 3. ) that not one nobleman , or any other of the catholick gentry did know or approve of that wicked conspiracy ; because the catholick lords [ all of them , saith the cath. apol. ] were to have undergone the same barbarous fate with the rest . but i cannot conceive the force of the first argument ; for what if there were several particulars revealed by them , which might easily have been kept secret ? might not that be so , and yet there be nothing of sincerity and conscience in the case ? might it not be done for the connexion of one thing to another ? ( which often times makes circumstances to be necessary , as it is there . ) might it not be done to impose upon the examiners , and to let them think that when they are so exact in the less , they will not let slip the greater ? and have we not just cause to think this to be the reason , rather than what the apologist doth offer for it ? if indeed these printed confessions had been so exact ( as he will needs suppose ) then there had been some colour for what he says ; but when the contrary is manifest , his argument falls of it self . and that this is so , appears from what i have before observed , for faux and winter upon second examination confessed more ; and what they did afterward confess was so material , as could not be forgotten by them before , had they not been willing to have concealed it , if they well could . but again , where is the consequence ( setting aside the conscience in it ) that because they did sometimes let fall some things of little importance , therefore they must needs also reveal things of an higher nature ; therefore they must betray those friends , who had not by any overt acts discovered themselves ? so that before this argument must be granted , we must grant that faux and winter were privy to the whole plot ; and that part in which they were not personally concerned , as well as what they were . we must grant , that they made conscience of not concealing any part or particular of it , ( as far as they knew ) ; and we must further grant that all these particulars are contained in their printed confessions . or else we may safely conclude , that notwithstanding there are several particulars revealed in their printed confessions ( which might have been easily kept secret ) they might have a design to save their friends ; and there might be more persons in the plot than are recorded in their confessions ; and ( which is pity ) a pretty argument is thereby lost ; and which is worse than that , it might be a popish and general plot notwithstanding . but however , will they say , if they were sincere in those confessions , then a part of it still remains good ; and what greater argument can there be for that they were sincere , than that they did accuse their own confessors ( which is a thing , that nothing but the power of truth can force them to ) and if they did not spare them , they would certainly not spare others . in answer to which i shall consider , 1. whether they did thus accuse their confessors ? 2. whether if they did , their conscience ( as is pleaded ) compelled them to it ? as to the first , 1. it is notorious , that there were several of them did not at all accuse their confessors ; this is certain as to sir everard digby , that he ( against his own knowledg ) did all he could upon his trial to vindicate them : and if we peruse the printed confessions , we shall not find a word to that purpose . if faux and winter did afterwards accuse any , it was what they were , if not very backward and cold , yet very imperfect in . for the earl of salisbury tells garnet ; let it not be forgotten that this interlocution of yours with hall , overheard by others , appears to be digitus dei : for thereby had the lords some light and proof of matter against you , which might have been discovered otherwise by violence and coercion . implying , as morus observes , that they had not matter before sufficient to charge him with . the great thing charged upon him seems to be , that some of the others confessed , that his name was used to them by catesby to justifie the lawfulness of the act , as garnet in one of his letters doth say ; but what he there adds , that all did so confess , is manifestly false . since , besides what is abovesaid of sir everard , morus doth declare , that nothing was confessed against the jesuits , but what bates said of greenwel [ or greenway ] viz. that he was in the company of the conspirators ; and which sir everard said , he heard he should confess of wally ( or garnet . ) so that when these late apologists say the traitors did all accuse and expose their confessors , it s more than was true , and more than the jesuits will thank them for . for all of them that hitherto pleaded the cause of the jesuits do say the contrary ; more shall speak for the rest ; who saith , for ought i can perceive , the accusation of the jesuits hath no other foundation than the confession of bates , who is said to have accused greenway , &c. and he would perswade us also , that persons of good credit reported that while in prison he confessed that he had accused him falsly . how true this is i shall afterward consider ; but i produce this to shew what contrary things these men will say if it may serve their cause ; when in the last age it was pleaded none did accuse the jesuits , and when in ours they would have it that they were accused by all . but ( 2. ) supposing they did accuse their confessors , yet it was not because their conscience did compel them to it ; this more will have them so far from , that he saith , bates did accuse them in hope of life , and afterward recanted . but whether bates did so or no ; yet in point of reason it is evident that it was not from any such motive : for then they that thus accused them would have repented of the eact it self , and look'd upon it as an evil , & fit to be repented of . for what could move them in point of conscience thus to expose them , if it was not that the fact was evil , which their confessors together with them had been complicated in ? but this we find them far from acknowledging : for sir everard digby ( though for a little while after his imprisonment he doubted of the warrantableness of it , yet being confirmed in it by the letters of gerard , whom he calls brother ) was so well satisfied , that he calls it the best cause . of the like mind were robert winter and faux ; for having found an opportunity for conference in the tower from the nearness of their lodgings , robert winter said to faux , that he and catesby had sons , and that boys would be men , and that he hoped they would revenge the cause : nay that god would raise up children to abraham out of stones . and they added , that they were sorry , that no body did set forth a defence or apologie of their action ; but yet they would maintain the cause at their deaths . and so it 's likely they did , for king james saith , that some of them continued so obstinate , that even at their death , they would not acknowledg their fault ; but in their last words , immediately before the expiring of their breath , refused to condemn themselves , and crave pardon for their deed , except the romish church should first condemn it . of this we have a particular example in grant , when being admonished just before his death by a learned and reverend person to ask pardon of god for his offence ; he confidently and readily replied ; that he was so well satisfied that there was no sin in the case , that on the contrary , he thought that he deserved so well for that generous and brave attempt , that it would abundantly suffice for a satisfaction for all the sins of his whole life . so little did they generally repent of the fact , and so little reason have we to think that what they confessed proceeded from compulsion of conscience ; but rather that it was from some other reason ; as fear of the rack , or surprize , or because others had confessed , or that they themselves had given occasion from what they had before confessed for a further enquiry , &c. so it happened with faux and th. winter who at the first accused none of the jesuits ; but having confessed that they received the sacrament , that led the way to a further examination about the priests , whom they at last confessed also . this sir everard foresaw , and therefore he took another course , ( as is before observed ) and denied that he had received the sacrament at all upon this occasion . now that what i have before said is true , will appear from the behaviour of stephen littleton , who though he had confessed that he sent to hall ( after their defeat ) for advice whither to retire ; and had , with others , acknowledged that he and the rest had confessed to hammond ( a little before ) yet he absolutely refused to answer whether he received absolution from him for the fact , or had his conscience satisfied by him about it ; and added , that he would rather dye than reveal the secrets of that matter . and robert winter , who had at first confessed that all the jesuits named , were privy to and engaged with them in the conspiracy ; yet , as is before observed , did maintain their cause , and resolve to defend it at his death . truly i find none of them that had any touch of remorse but rookwood and tho. winter ; and for the latter it is observable that when he said , i shall set down mine own accusation , &c. which i shall the faithfuller do , since i see such courses are not pleasing to almighty god ; yet was so far from doing so , that he speaks there not one word of gerard ( whom upon a further examination he discovered ) or any other jesuit ; so that his confession at that time seems rather to be owing to his second reason that he there gives , than his first , and that is , because the most material parts had bin already confessed . to conclude this , when the traitors did accuse their confessors , either they did this sincerely , and because compelled by their conscience , or not ; if not ( as i have shewed ) then what doth the argument signify ; that if the tenderness of their conscience did compel them to expose their own confessors , then they would not have spared others . but if they did thus confess them sincerely and out of conscience , then their confessors were guilty of what these charged them with . and then let them take their choice . i shall now proceed to the consideration of the last argument , by which they would endeavour to prove that it was not a popish plot , and , that not any besides the abovesaid conspirators were concerned in this treason , viz. that all the catholick lords were to have undergone the same barbarous fate with the rest . supposing this was true ( as it is not ) yet is not the pope's interest to be promoted and the cause of the jesuits maintained , though the nobility of their own way be destroyed ? was there not a time when in an intended invasion to be carried on by force from abroad , and a secret conspiracy at home , that it was not the persons they regarded , but interest ? it was to make room , place and space for my master , said the duke of medina . and might not this be the case in 1605 , as well as it was in 88 ? and so their religion be thereby settled , and place and space made for the master of rome , as well as spain , and authority and power gain'd to the society ; it is no matter though the innocent perish with the nocent , and friends as well as foes fall by the same stroak . this was foreseen in the present conspiracy , ▪ and when it was made a case of conscience by catesby , it was resolved in the affirmative by garnet , that for the good and promoting of the catholick cause against hereticks ( the necessity of time and occasion so requiring ) it was lawful among many nocents to destroy and take away some innocents also . so that it might be a popish plot , though the catholick lords , and all the catholick lords were to perish with the other . but notwithstanding what these writers do say , that the catholick lords , and all the catholick lords , were to be thus barbarously dealt with : yet we shall find that this is a great mistake in matter of fact also . the confession of thomas winter ( if they had read it ) would have informed them otherwise ; for , whilst we were in the vault , we discoursed , saith he , what lords we should save from the parliament ; which was first agreed in general ; as many as we could that were catholicks , or so disposed : but after we descended to particulars . and sir everard digby doth give a clear account of this matter ; i dare not , saith he , take that course i could , to make it appear less odious ; for divers were to have been brought out of the danger , which now would rather hurt them than otherwise . i do not think there would have been three worth saving that should have been lost . to this purpose one of them that was privy to it took the way of writing to the lord monteagle . other lords , as the hour drew on , might be admonished of it , or called off ( as an author of theirs saith they were to be ) ; or perhaps such a kind of letter might have been thought of also , as the author of the catholick apology hath drawn up to serve upon such an occasion ; and which he thinks would certainly have kept the person , to whom it was written , at home . by one , or the other , or the like waies , we see that care was taken to secure all those that would be true , or whom they could presume would be assisting to them . and when this was done , if the author of the catholick apology , that tells us that the catholick noblemen then were not only considerable , but the considerablest of the nation ; the first marquis ( there being at that time no duke but the late king ) the first earl , and the first baron being of that profession ; if after these , and the four other lords he there names , he had filled up the catalogue of all those that were professedly of his religion ( besides what were so disposed ) we might by deducting of three ( according to sir everard's calculation ) have told him the number and quality of the noblemen that were to be saved ; and by doing so , have shewed him that it was so far from being true , that all the catholick lords were to have been destroyed , as he saith , that scarcely one of them would have undergone that fate ; and so it might be a popish plot , and an universal popish plot , without a contradiction or a riddle , notwithstanding what that author hath said thereupon . as for what he there saith , that a plot is looked upon as general , when a good number of the chief of a party are intrigued in the design . i grant that such a plot is general ( if with them men of other states and degrees generally joyn with them in it ) but yet it may be a general plot of a party , and the nobility not be intrigued in it ; and they may be intrigued , and yet it not be known . for what more common then to send a forlorn-hope before , that are willing to venture their lives and fortunes , and who if they perish , perish alone ? what more common than for persons to have such intimations given them of a plot as are sufficient to prepare them ; and again to give such intimations of their consent and approbation , as shall be sufficient to assure the undertakers of their assistance ; such as shall secure the one , if it should happen to be discovered ; and warrant the other to go on with the greater resolution ? what more common than to have a general notice of this , and to be willingly ignorant of the particulars ( as hath been already observed ? ) and so the lords might know of a design in general ; but that this was to be begun by blowing up the parliament-house , it was not necessary they should know ; because they were to be kept out of that danger ; nor fit to know that they might not , if it miscarried , be brought into another . what more ordinary than to raise and joyn contributions , and covertly to convey it , so that it shall serve the cause without hurting themselves ? and though this was not then publickly known , yet afterward their relations and descendents found that it must be by some such secret ways that their estates were broken and impaired ; and i am assured that some of them ( as captain dingly told a relation of his , whom he believed for that reason , and others to be concerned in it ) did smell of gunpowder some years after , if not to this day . and if this may be ( as often it is ) then a good number of the chief of the party might be intrigued in the design , and little knowledg of it come abroad then , or down to us now . the parliament then was to receive a terrible blow , and yet they should not see who hurt them ; for there was no appearance of any stir ; as the person that wrote the letter to the lord monteagle saith . there were indeed store of great horses bought up , and powder , &c. conveyed secretly to their friends ; but at the same time they were wished not to stir , untill they heard further ; as i have shewed from watsons information . it was somewhat strange , that when the roman-catholicks were prepared for tumult , and hardly to be restrained by the jesuits themselves , as garnet in his letters complains ; and were neither then wanting in courage or force , as another saith ; that yet they should be so profoundly quiet about that time ; and that the broils that were in wales in the may before , should be so easily and suddenly hush'd , as not to be observed by the government . but this shewed the diligence and dexterity of those that were concerned , and we have the reason of it : for garnet wrote to the pope that a strict order might come for the staying all commotions of the catholicks here in england , intending to set their whole rest of the romish cause on the powder plot , as faux confessed , and lull us asleep in security in respect of their dissembling quietness and conformity , as sir edward coke saith . the jesuits by the management of gerard , had been the means of bringing watson's treason to light , , and him to the gallows ( as more doth own ) thereby at once revenging themselves upon him for all the stories that he had told of them in print ; and also securing to themselves some respect and reputation from the government for their seeming fidelity : and to this they added all their endeavours to keep things quiet , and themselves by that means free from suspicion . but now that all this was but a piece of art , appears ; ( 1. ) because all the while , even for twenty months space , garnet kept catesby's practices secret ; which , by his own confession , he did assuredly believe to be of very destructive consequence . ( 2. ) because by the pope's letters to him it appears , tho care was taken as to general commotions , yet as to particulars it was then said , there needed no prohibition , because what was said about generals would suffice . the meaning of which , will appear from what sir e. digby saith , paper 9. ( 3. ) it appears that the commotions in wales were rather hush'd than disheartned , and rather put off than brought to an end . for we find , after the discovery of the powder plot , and the defeating that part of the design , the traitors had an expectation of assistance from wales ; and therefore digby and catesby , &c. did write to garnet that he would go along with them thither , where they might expect help ; and use his interest with theirs to make an insurrection , and to put that fire , which was before cautiously raked up , into an open flame . if we now reflect upon what hath been said in this section , and consider the design it self , which , in the beginning might be managed by few , yet , in the process of it , did require the help of many to take it up , to back and carry it on . if we further consider the persons at first engaged in it ; who were not only men of experience , but also experienced in the same way , and would not venture upon such a design without a sufficient force . if we lastly consider the provisions that were made for such a design ; together with the other circumstances relating to it , it will appear that what the author of the catholick apology saith , viz. that it is impossible that the catholick party should be engaged in it , is so far from being true ; that it may with much greater assurance be affirmed , to be impossible that the catholick party should not have been involved in it . sect . iii. those that fled and suffered for it , were really guilty . the flight of persons upon a charge and accusation , though it is not always a certain sign of guilt , yet is so generally presumed to be so , upon the supposition that he that flies is conscious to himself of being criminal ; that it 's a question always asked upon trial , whether the person fled for it ? but because this is only a general and not an universal mark of guilt , i shall not take the advantage of it , but leave that for another and more certain evidence , which is , good and sufficient testimony . thuanus relates that many were banished or fled upon this account ; and that when some of them were courteously received by dominick wilkes , then governour of calice , and were pittied by him as they were thus forced to an exile ; one of them smartly replied , that is the least part of our grief ; but that which doth afflict us indeed , is that we could not accomplish so brave and good a design . these were so daring as to own and glory in it ; but , on the contrary , the jesuits , gerard and greenwel , when it miscarried , and brought the ill opinion of the world upon them and their society , did disown it , and would neither be said to encourage it or know it , however they might have been pleased with it , if it had succeeded . and therefore it will be necessary to shew that they were really as guilty , though they fled from the persuit of justice , as the others that were taken and suffered by it : but because much of this story will fall in with garnet's , i shall chuse rather to begin with his . that any of the lay-men that suffered upon this account were not really guilty , i think no body undertakes to prove . only more doth offer somewhat to lessen the guilt of sir everard digby , making him to say at his trial , that he was guilty only of concealing the plot , but otherwise he had done and conspired nothing . but this account is partly imperfect , and partly false . sir everard indeed upon his apprehension , did deny , with solemn protestations and execrations , that he was privy to the plot of powder ; but being herein confronted by the testimony of faux , who confessed that sir everard told him when he was at his house , that he was afraid the powder was dank , &c. he at last did acknowledge it , and upon his trial confessed the indictment ; which none of the rest did . by which instance , we may conceive what kind of dealing we are to expect when we come to the case of the persons of their own order , when the jesuits write after this rate about the case of those that are not . for of them also we shall find several concerned ; as father creswell legier jesuit in spain , father baldwin legier in flanders , parsons at rome , garnet provincial in england , gerrard , tesmond [ alias greenway , ] hammond , hall and others , who are known to have dealt and passed through the whole action , as sir edward coke saith . but amongst those , garnet , gerard , tesmond , hammond and hall were more immediately concerned ; and garnet and hall were taken and executed for it . but , notwithstanding , their trial was in the face of the world ; and garnet's at guild-hall in the open court , before five earls , three of the chief judges , and the lord mayor of london ; notwithstanding all the proofs produced , and a fair hearing of whatever the prisoners could say for themselves ; notwithstanding they were tried and cast by a jury of impartial persons , and such as they , nor any else , could have any exception against ; yet they shall be said to suffer as martyrs , and pulverariae conjuraritionis obtentu , upon the pretence of the powder-treason , as one saith : to be accused through envy and malice , and condemned by a very unjust judgment , as saith another . but with how little truth or pretence all this is said , will be evident , if we consider , ( 1. ) that they knew of this plot in confession at least . this garnet more particularly pleaded for himself , and this is the chief plea insisted upon by his apologists . and to make this plea the more effectual , they speak much of the sacredness and inviolableness of that seal and sacrament ( as they call it ) which ought not to be broken , or the secrets of it betraid for the avoiding of any mischief how great soever , as one saith ; or , the saving christianity from ruine , as saith cath. apol. this ( saith the former ) is of divine right , and if god had not thus secured it , he would be carnifex , & fidem falleret ; he would be a murderer , and breaker of his faith. this garnet did offer in his own behalf , that he was bound to keep the secrets of confessions , &c. and when asked by the earl of nottingham , if one confessed this day to him , that to morrow morning he meant to kill the king with a dagger , if he must conceal it ? answered , that he must conceal it . now , if this be true , what a case is the world in , that when a design is laid to destroy the royal family , the flower of the nobility and gentry , and thousands of persons besides ; a priest shall be obliged more to secrecy upon confession , than to a discovery , notwithstanding all the mischief that shall thereby ensue . a principle so much contrary to the peace of the world and the welfare of mankind , that i am confident if it was turned against themselves they would be the first that should condemn it ; and that if such a plot had been undertaken and carried on against the pope and the whole colledge of cardinals , ( as widdrington hath the case ) to send them out of the world by the like means , ( as this was ) : neither his holiness would have condemnd the confessor if he had discovered it ; or have commended him , if he had concealed it upon this reason , and thought himself obliged to him for his fidelity that way . without doubt they would all say , as garnet at last did — i must needs confess , said he , that the laws made against such concealing are very good and just , for it is not fit the safety of a prince should depend upon any other man's conscience . and if the laws are good that make them guilty of treason , who do ( though upon account of confession ) conceal it , then those that thus do conceal it are far from being innocent , or fit to be inrolled amongst the number of martyrs . but supposing it was only in confession that they had any knowledg of it , yet there are several cases excepted and which it is lawful for them to divulge it in . such a case is heresie ; according to that known verse amongst the casuists , haeresis est crimen , quod nec confessio celat . thus dominicus soto determines , ( who is rigidior custodia sigilli , as bishop andrews saith of him ) such crimes are not to be concealed , but immediatly to be disclosed , quod plurimùm timendum est in crimine haeresis , because there is very much danger in case of heresie . such again is any crime that tends to the damage of a community . such again are all those crimes which are of pernicious consequence in themselves , and that are only in intention , but not committed by the penitent . such again are those where the confession is not by way of contrition , but advice . in these and the like cases the casuists of their own church have accounted it lawful and necessary to disclose them ; and accordingly these secrets of confession have often been divulged ; as hath been shewn by bishop andrews upon this occasion . so far is the author of the catholick apology from speaking truth , when he saith that this sacrament [ of confession ] is of such reverence among us ( unless he mean the jesuits and some late writters ) that we cannot lawfully disclose a secret known by it , though 't were to save christianity from ruin . and so far is dr. stillingfleet from having nothing but confidence , malice , &c. to drive him on , when he saith , their casuists acknowledg , that heresie told in confession may be revealed . but ; further supposing this was told in confession , yet the confessor is to disswade the penitent from it ; ( as the catholick apology at least seems to own , ) and it is to be supposed , that if he is not to be disswaded ; yet , then to divert the mischief , the confessor may and ought to discover , ( for else he leaves the case as he finds it , with respect to the person or persons concerned ) provided , say their casuists , that whilst he discovers the crime , he doth conceal the criminal . now if all this be true , that a secret may be communicated in confession , and the confessor not sin in revealing it ; then what will it signifie that the gunpowder-treason was discovered in confession , if the matter confessed was of that kind as would make it lawful , fit , and necessary to be revealed ? and certainly , next to the saving christianity from ruin , there can scarcely be a greater reason for breaking the seal of that sacrament ( as they call it ) than that a royal family , the nobility ( in great part ) and gentry , &c. of a nation would have bin by one blow destroyed . and yet this was patiently heard , and the penitent not so much as really disswaded . for all that garnet could say was , that he did oblige greenwel to desist , and that he hoped that he had so done : and that he went unto warwick-shire with a purpose to disswade mr. catesby ; though he knew catesby would not come thither till the day after the blow was given ; as hath been before observed . ( 2. ) but all this while this is far otherwise , it being very notorious that this plot was discovered out of confession to garnet and greenwell , &c. as will appear from the account which garnet himself gives of it , ( as far as he was concerned . ) in which he delivers his mind very uncertainly . sometimes he saith , it was in confession . sometimes , he saith it was out of confession , but it was with relation unto confession ; sometimes it was by way of advice . again , let him be asked , what he thought of greenwell's intention in it ? he saith , that perhaps greenwell had no thoughts of confession , but might discover it to him under a lesser seal and obligation of secrecy . now what can a person more discover himself by , than that in so solemn a thing as confession , and such an extraordinary case as was then revealed unto him , he yet knew not , if we may believe him , what the person confessing did intend , or in what way he himself received it ; whether it was communicated to him as a friend for advice , or as to a confessor for the disburthing of the conscience . but if we further enquire how this was discovered to him , we are still further to seek ; it was first walking in the field , and afterward what they had frequent conference about ; as about the way of doing it , the progress in it , and the course they were to take after the first blow was given . this plainly proves it to be matter of consultation rather than confession ; and that it was rather what he was pleased with , than what he sought to hinder . so that the whole story about greenwel's confession to garnet , and catesby's confession to greenwel , seems to be no other than fabula formalis , a story of garnet's own invention , as he in his private letters doth acknowledge . lastly , if we would understand the case , let us follow him to his death ; and yet there we are at a loss , where he saith , what he knew in particulars , was in confession ; and yet when minded by the recorder , that the king had it under his own hand , that greenway [ or greenwell ] told him of this not as a fault , but by way of consultation , &c. he answered , whatsoever was under his hand was true . to which he added , that inasmuch as he disclosed not the things he knew , he confessed himself justly condemned , &c. from which it appears , that either he thought it was lawful upon good reasons to divulge what he heard in confession , or else what was discovered to him was not in confession . ( 3. ) but this was so far from being discovered to the jesuits in confession , that it was by them that the consciences of the scrupulous were satisfied : as that of catesby by garnet ; that of bates by greenwell ; that of littleton by hall ; and all of them at holbeach , as far as absolution for the fact could do it , by hammond . that catesby was herein guided by the resolution and opinion of garnet ; both the case he put to him , and the satisfaction that he ( upon the provincial's answer to him ) gave to the rest , of the lawfulness of it , will sufficiently prove . the catholick apology doth say , that nothing is more false than that garnet should determine that the innocent and guilty might lawfully in this plot be destroyed together , if it were for the greater good ; and takes it upon the word of father more and the other apologists , that catesby pretending to go a souldier into the low-countries , did propose only what might be done in a just war , when in blowing up a mine the innocent would suffer as well as the nocent ? it is well he shifts it off to them , since this person of honour knows better , and cannot but be sensible that the records of a nation , and the proceedings of a court of justice in england , are much more to be heeded than a company of partial apologists . but as it is plainly affirm'd all along in the proceedings ; so it is otherwise very evident , that this case was not put by catesby to garnet , nor understood by garnet himself , with respect to any war , or employment , that catesby pretended to have in it , in the netherlands . for ( 1. ) if it had been so , garnet would most certainly have pleaded after that manner , and not as he did ; i thought , said garnet , it had been an idle question , though afterwards i did verily think , he intended something that was not good ; here is not a word of a war , or of the low-countries , or of his going thither . nay , garnet saith expresly , only mr. catesby asked him in general the question . but ( 2. ) if this had been the case , and that it was so propounded by catesby , as they would have it , yet what needed so great a privacy , that he should come to garnet by way of secret confession ? since the case , as they now dress it up , is what might be put in any place or company . ( 3. ) if the case was such what needed catesby to be so solicitous in it ; and after the first resolution of it by garnet to come again upon the same business ? ( 4. ) especially considering that garnet knew very well , if catesby had put it after that manner , that he was not in earnest ; for there was another reason for his pretence of obtaining a regiment , and going to flanders , as hath been before observed . ( 5. ) it s a sign that the case was not so put by catesby ; since it is acknowledged by garnet , that he did verily think , that he in that queston intended something that was not good . now how could he well discern so much from thence , if catesby had pretended only scruple of conscience about what he might lawfully do , now he was going to serve in the wars . the question if put after that manner hath in it nothing but what is fair , and gives no reason to suspect any thing that is not good ; and therefore its likely , to avoid the objection that might be made against this way of framing the case , it is that more adds , that garnet discovered that catesby had some great design by frequent converse with him . and that indeed is also true , and it is as true that the case was never so put under the disguise of a war. for lastly , garnet himself doth acknowledg , that catesby in his name and by his authority did satisfie the rest of the lawfulness of the fact. now it cannot be supposed that catesby did not understand garnet , from whose side he never was , as they say ; or that he should abuse his friend that trusted him above all the rest , from the knowledg and experience he had of him . it 's certain that when rookwood made it a matter of conscience to take away so much blood , catesby replied , that he was resolved and that by good authority ( as coming from the superior of the jesuits ) that in conscience it might be done , yea though it were with the destruction of many innocents , rather than that the action should quail . in like manner was keys satisfied . so sir everard digby doth say ; for my keeping it secret , it was caused by certain belief that those which were best able to judge of the lawfulness of it , had been acquainted with it , and given way unto it . and of this we have a clear proof from him . for whereas there was a breve obtained from the pope by garnet , for quieting some broils amongst the papists in wales , in may. 1605. ( or rather upon the pretence of such broils , as eudaemon would have it ) which some now would make us believe were to forbid all insurrections and conspiracies whatsoever , and which it seems some did then so understand ; we are told the meaning of it , in sir everard's papers , who writes thus : before i knew any thing of this plot , i did ask mr. farmer [ i.e. garnet ] what the meaning of the pope's brief was ; he told me that they were not ( meaning the priests ) to undertake or procure stirs : but yet they would not hinder any , neither was it the pope's mind they should , that should be undertaken for catholick good. and he presently adds , this answer with mr. catesby's proceedings with him and me , gave me absolute beliefe that the matter in general was approved , though every particular was not known : by which means he came to so great satisfaction in it , that he saith , i could give unanswerable reasons for the good this would have done the catholick cause . but garnet was not alone ( though his opinion and judgment in the case was of greatest authority ) for others also did follow him in the same practice ; so greenwel , ( whose true name was tesmond , (a) but who abroad went under the name of beaumont ) (b) did satisfie bates ( mr. catesby's servant ) when he feard the unlawfulness of the action , assuring him that it was no offence to conceal it , nor sin to do it for a good cause . (c) they tell us (d) that bates recanted of this information ( for it was he that accused greenwel . ) but ( 1. ) that is no credit to them ; for in that letter , which he is said to have written to his confessor , he recants also that he had seen greenwel and garnet , which he doth there declare to be true in it self (e) . ( 2. ) this report was spread of him , at the first , when all could bear witness of the falsness of it ; he not recanting to , nor at his death (f) so gerard did absolve and give the sacrament to the five first of the conspirators . the author of the catholick apology (g) doth say that he did deny both by a publick writing in which he called god to witness , that he knew not of the plot , no not so much as in confession ; and also upon oath at rome when examined by the general of his order . he did also saith another appeal to his familiar friend sir everard digby . but in confutation of this , we have the confession of faux and thomas winter , the only survivers of the five that did thus receive the sacrament of gerard , and were absolved by him : whom though they did deny at the first to name , yet did afterward accuse him of it ; and that he was thus charged by some , sir everard saith , he was told . as for his appeal to sir everard , he knew that he might do it with safety and confidence , since that gentleman had again and again satisfied them , that he would not confess his knowledg of any priest , nor of him above any . and if he could work thus upon another person to protest and deny , even to the death , it may well be supposed that he himself was not without those principles which be had furnished another with ; nor would be wanting in the use of them , when his own life and reputation , and the honour of his religion was concerned to have it remain a secret. and this also is no new thing ; for we find fitz-herbert taking the same course for his own vindication , in a charge of the like nature . hammond the jesuit is another , whom we find concerned in this capacity , who did absolve the conspirators at the house of rob. winter , when they were in actual rebellion : and for which the apologist hath nothing else to say , but who can tell whether hammond did not oblige them to lay down their arms before he did absolve them ; or whether they did not bring such arguments for continuing in them , as might render it probable , and then he was bound to absolve them ? but as to the former , it is certainly otherwise ; for they not only continued in the same posture of rebellion after absolution , which they were in before ; but also hammond advised henry morgan to defend the cause to the utmost before he absolved him . which is further confirmed by what stephen littleton did say ; who when asked whether he was absolv'd for the fact , or had his conscience satisfied by any about it , viz. at that time ; answered , that he would rather dye than reveal the secrets of that matter . which doth imply that he had bin thus absolved , and was confirmed . as to the latter , viz. the doctrine of a probable opinion , it serves rather to condemn than excuse them ; for if the opinion of a doctor , or their own ( and the good of the cause shall serve to procure both ) may make an opinion probable , then jac. clemen s , and ravilliac , and all the regicides in the world , may be defended , and defend themselves . but yet , even this will not salve the reputation of hammond ; for rookwood believed his concealment of this treason to be a sin , and confessed it so to him : but he absolved him from all his sins notwithstanding , without taking notice of this particular . rookwood thought it to be unlawful , and yet hammond absolved him , as if he never had so thought . another of the jesuits is hall , or oldcorn , who was privy to it , and did satisfie humphry littleton , that did begin to suspect the lawfulness of the plot , and to think god was not pleased with it from the disaster catesby , &c. met with ; but hall told him that we must not judg the cause by the event , and gave him several instances to confirm it . this humphry littelton did confess . but saith the apologist , he did at his execution beg pardon of hall for it . but if he did , he must ask his pardon for what was true ; for hall himself in the substance of it did confess what littelton accused him of . but how could that be , that he should beg pardon of him at the place of execution ; when , though they suffered the same day at worcester , yet not at the same time , and littelton was dead before hall came thither . 4. the jesuits did not only satisfie the consciences of others and absolve them ; but also were parties in the treason themselves . i shall not here insist upon what smith , the bishop of chalcedon said of gerard , that he boasted that he had largely sweat with working in the mine ; because i find it not upon record . but there are several things laid to their charge that will sufficiently prove , that they were actually concerned in it . as , ( 1. ) we find that at the first beginning they were present at their most private consultations ; and so intimate in that juncture was gerard with catesby , that he lodged with him in percy 's house , as faux confessed . ( 2 ) we find that some of them administred the oath of secrecy to the conspirators ; so gerard to catesby , &c. and greenwel to bates . ( 3. ) they were also busie in buying up store of horses and arms ; and gerard was more particularly imployed herein , as he had skill , and pretended to teach the riding of the great horse . ( 4. ) that they had frequent consultations about it ; as garnet with catesby and tresham about the strength of the catholicks : greenwel with garnet about a protector . and garnet , gerard and greenwel with sir everard digby , &c. for they seem to be the three whom sir everard is so careful to conceal ; and whom he therefore is so careful to conceal , because of some particular charge that might be brought against them , for what was said or done when together with him ; as may be collected from his papers , ( 5. ) when the conspirators were in arms , greenwel came to them from garnet , and so had garnet come likewise , but for fear his order might irreparably suffer by his appearance . greenwel went from them to raise a party and make an insurrection . and hammond continued with them . now if to satisfie the scrupulous and absolve the guilty , and to oblige to secrecy ; if consulting , advising , assisting , and accompanying with the traitors will bring the priests into the number ; then they will be guilty . and it s not all their own declarations , or apologies written by others on their behalf , will make them innocent , as long as such a charge remains upon record against them . it is no wonder then , that garnet after all his confidence , should profess that he would give all the world to clear his innocency ; and that he that hoped at the first to escape for want of proof ; should have nothing to say for himself , when he was overwhelmed , as he said , with so great a cloud of witnesses . from which evidence , as he did at last confess , what they could from other proof charge upon him ; so from his own confession given under his hand , he was , when he would have stray'd from the path of truth at his death , forced into it again by the admonition of the recorder then present . for a little to palliate his case and clear himself , he said , that what he knew in particulars was in confession , which was contrary to what he before had confessed in four points ; as the recorder then shewed ; and how he could thus equivocate or worse , and yet behave himself like a faithful servant of jesus christ at his death , as the author of the catholick apology saith , all mankind , but themselves , cannot , i believe , understand . sect . iv. this conspiracy was purely upon the account of religion . as our adversaries before have done what they could to cast off the odium of this conspiracy from the party in general , and from the jesuits in particular , by making a few gentlemen only and their dependents concerned in it : so they use as much art to clear their religion from the guilt of it ; being sensible that if this be found faulty , the others are not to be defended , but the whole party must fall under censure . therefore they labour might and main to acquit themselves well herein , and tell us that as these persons were few in number , so they did proceed upon discontent , and not upon the score of religion . sometimes they plead , the king did before his coming into england give them good hopes of the exercise of their religion , which when deceived in , they were exasperated . sometimes their persecutions were so great , that they almost hated life it self for their sake . or as the author of the catholick apology words it ; that which drove these gentlemen into this wickedness , was the want of christian patience , or a despair of any ease by this king from queen elizabeth's cruel and horrid laws , &c. now supposing ( 1. ) that thus it was , that the king had before promised favour to them , and instead of that had permitted the horrid and cruel laws , as he calls them , to have their course ; is this sufficient to excuse their cursed design , or to prove that religion was not concerned in it ? was it upon any other account ( if we grant this ) than religion , when they hoped for toleration ; and was it not religion that put them upon rebellion , because they had not that toleration ? but ( 2. ) indeed there was no such reason for their conspiracy ; for they had no such assurances from the king. such a report was spread abroad by themselves , as watson doth acknowledge ; but with what truth will appear not only from watson's confession , who two days before his death protested upon his soul to the earl of northampton , that he could never draw the smallest comfort from him in those degrees ; but also from watson's treason , who would never have attempted that , if he had been satisfied of the king 's good intentions towards those of his religion . it is not unlikely but that the king , who after his coming in did receive them freely and favourably , might before treat them after the same manner ; but how far it was from any promise , watson further declares , i could never draw more from the king , saith he , than that he would have the catholicks apprehend , that as he was a stranger to this state , so till he under stood in all points how those matters stood , he would not promise favour any way but how far the king was from affording them any such favours , as they pretend , is further declared in a memorandum in the star-chamber ; for some of the puritans having spread a rumour , that the king intended to grant a toleration to papists , the lords severally declared , how the king was discontented with the said false rumour , and had made but the day before a protestation to them , that he never intended it , and that he would spend the last drop of blood in his body before he would do it , and prayed that before any of his issue should maintain any other religion than what he truly professed and maintained , that god would take them out of the world. as false also , and less ground is there for that of their persecution . for he was so far from it that he gave honour at his first coming to many of them , and did admit all without distinction to his presence upon just occasion of access , as the earl of northampton shews ; and took away the mulcts that were laid upon them . and in his first speech in parliament mar. 19. 1603 the king did make a proposal of clearing the laws of such interpretations as might tend to the hurt of the innocent as well as the guilty , as he saith ; which speech was made after the treason of watson was discovered ; that not provoking the king to change his behaviour toward any other of them than those that were confederates in it . so that if we truly enquire into the case , unless lenity and favour is persecution , we shall hardly find what may be so called , and so much indeed doth suarez say ; that king james's kindnesses ( inasmuch as they proceeded from political reasons ) may be well esteemed part of their persecution . but ( 3. ) there could be no such reason for this conspiracy ; for they had laid the foundation of it , and were carrying it on before the king was settled in his throne . this watson confess'd ; and it s also manifest ; for christopher wright was dispatched into spain to engage that kings assistance immediatly upon queen elizabeths death , and the powder treason it self was formed in the first year of king james's reign . we see then they had no such provocation given them as is pretended , and that if they had , it doth not at all infer that they engaged upon this design not upon the account of religion . but if we should grant that they had such a provocation , and that the provocation and religion did not go together in it : yet we have other reasons to shew , that it was upon a religious account that this was undertaken , and that i shall make evident , ( 1. ) from the principles which they went upon . ( 2. ) from their own declaration . from their principles . as , ( 1. ) they held that an heretical prince might and ought to be deposed ; so faux said he was moved to this ; because the king was not his lawful sovereign , or the anointed of god , in respect he was an heretick . ( 2. ) that the pope had sufficient power , by vertue of his supremacy , to depose such ; this was catesbye's reason , for saith he , if the popes breves were of force to keep him [ king james ] out , they are also of no less authority to thrust him out . ( 3. ) that it was lawful for the good of the church , and the furtherance of the catholick cause to kill and to destroy ; this was the reason upon which catesby and all the rest were satisfied ; and from whence sir everard did with a great confidence affirm , i could give unanswerable reasons for the good that this would have done for the catholick cause . which it seems he was furnished with from a latin book that he met with , perhaps delrio . if these and the like be not principles of their religion , then we are to seek for them ; and if these are the principlss upon which they were satisfied , then it was the cause of religion that they fought in . ( 2. ) but if this will not do , let us attend to their own declarations . i was moved hereunto , said faux , only for religion and conscience sake , the king not being my lawful soveraign , &c. so sir everard digby , no other cause drew me to hazard my fortune and life , but zeal to gods religion . from all which we have reason to say with king james , that it cannot be denied , that it was the only blind superstition of their errors in religion , that led them to this desperate device . and must think the author of the catholick apology let fall a great truth , though against his own mind , that when dr. stillingfleet had asserted , that the plotters motives were from their religion : doth reply , ' t is as true that the plot had its rise from clem. 8. breves . for so it had in a great measure , as i have before shewed . sect . v. they never gave to the world any real and good satisfaction of their abhorrency of this bloody design . the catholick apology doth tell us , that cardinal bellarmin doth express the treason , not only by the name of horrid , but also adds , i excuse not the fact , i abominate king-killing , i detest conspiracies . and presently adds of his own , did ever writer , whether priest or lay-man , english-man or stranger , own the real plotters not to be villains ? but the question is , first , who are those he calls real plotters ? not the jesuits , or hardly catesby , whom they do so much applaud , not only for his parts but his piety . again , what doth he mean by owning the real plotters to be villains ? is it by calling them by hard names ? is it that they do abominate the thing in words of the highest detestation ? all this may be , and hath been done by more than bellarmin or this author , and yet it is not good satisfaction . is it by writing apologies and supplications ? that was done in 1603 and 1604 , just whilst the powder-treason was in its agitation . how shall we give credit to them ? when the principles these persons went upon were never disowned to the world , upon any sufficient authority ; and the persons that escaped from publick justice , were cherished , and those that suffered by it to this day , honoured . they can hardly forbear extolling even the chief of the conspirators [ catesby ] to the heavens , as a man very eminent for great endowments of mind , and an incredible sweetness of temper . nay , the whole pack of them , setting aside this business , were persons of very pious minds and consciences . but when they come to the jesuites , they spare no words nor rhetorick to describe their merits , and not contented with proclaiming their innocency , they will canonize them for saints , and enrol them in their catalogue of martyrs . thus we find they did quickly by garnet , who in their college at rome had his picture set up with verus christi martyr , and his name is still with oldcorn ( i. e. hall ) to be seen in their catalogues of martyrs ; which may be done , and is , without that great formality of the church , which the catholick apology doth speak of , and thinks to controul widdrington's information by . but this is not enough , for at their death are several miracles pretended to be wrought , as they would have us believe : for oldcorn's bowels , saith the legend , burnt sixteen days togegether , which answered the number of years that he laboured in propagating their religion in england . and garnet was no sooner dead , but presently his face must be pictured to the very life by a drop of blood that fell upon a straw . though those that did then see it ( which was about 19 weeks after garnets execution ) could not see much in it like the face of a man without a great power of fancy , and much less any thing like the face of garnet more than that of another . the cath. apology indeed doth tell us , that it fell in the form of a face so exactly alike , that all men knew it that had ever seen him . but we are to receive that upon the same credit as what he further saith , that he was quartered for an article of faith. but there was a further wonder in it ; for this straw which had before but a little touch of a beard , and that had eyes and features hardly to be discerned , by that time it was presented to the spanish embassadour , 〈…〉 it grew to greater perfection ; and from a bare head , in some time after , it had its head encircled with a glorious crown ; as it is described by themselves . it is no wonder then , that this straw which could work so great a change in it self , should also propagate its kind ; for within a while many others were to be seen . what shall we say more , if the grass where garnet and oldcorn last set their feet in mr. abington's house , grew up into the exact shape of an imperial crown , and remain'd so as not to be trod●● down by the feet of those that came thither , or eat up by the cattle , as an author of theirs saith ? what if there was a spring of oyl broke forth suddenly in the place where garnet was executed ? as father david at ypres did affirm . what if gerard did escape by garnets merits , as he himself did declare . after all this who but an heretick , can believe otherwise than that he was innocent , and died a martyr , and is now a saint ? that it was a meritorious act to get a straw or a splinter of his bones , and keep them for reliques ? and that its lawful to pray , as it s said they of lovain did , sancte henrice ora pro nobis . but now what if after all this adoe , garnet should confess that he sinned , what if he should say ( as he didin his this letter to mrs. vaux ) that he died for treason and not for religion ? then he was not innocent , not a martyr , and whether a saint or no , another world must tell us . then also we may admit the story of the straw and others explication of it ; who said , that it was no wonder to find his face in blood , who was a man that did thirst after it . this is what thuanus , as well as widdrington , report , and i shall end with a remarque that the former hath upon it ; so perilous a thing is it in these times to say such things for the honour of another , as do exceed belief and the common course of nature ; for they may presently be retorted to his disparagement . this is the honour that they have done to the dead , and they were not without shewing favour to the living and those that made their escape , who were never called to account for it by the pope , much less punished for so scandalous and enormous business , as king james saith . two of these greenwel and gerard lived in rome ; the one greenwel , [ i. e. tesmond ] the popes paenitentiary ; and the other gerard , a confessor at saint peters in rome , as widdrington reports . but here the author of the catholick apology thinks he hath the advantage of dr. stillingfleet , from what he relates of these two persons from widdrington ; for he saith the pope's paenitentiary and confessor at st. peter's are but different names for the same thing . but if it was a mistake it is to err with one of their own church ; viz. widdrington ( otherwise called preston ) who was not only of their communion , but also a priest , as i have heard from such as knew him in the clinck ; and i find in a ms , now in my possession , that he was one of the thirty priests that were in prison here in england , an. 1632. but what if after that stir made in this matter , they prove to be different offices , then greenwel might be the pope's penitentiary , and gerard a confessor some while in st. peter's ; and the doctor not be ignorant , notwithstanding all that honourable person hath said . for how meanly soever he describes or indeed may think of it , i find the pope's penitentiary is an office of respect , and is called by that name , because it s called the court of penitents , but properly is the court of conscience where he officiates ; this office is usually deputed to a cardinal , who is major paenitentiarius , under whom are many subordinate . this is a stated office , and what such a person ( as greenwel ) might be employed in , as subordinate , at least . but gerard's office was occasional , and what , tho he lived in the english colledg at rome , he might very well perform . for widdrington saith , that many had seen him publickly hearing confessions at st. peter's . it is not that these are high and mighty preferments , which those persons were advanced to , that made the doctor revive this story , ( though they are honourable enough amongst them ) but that from thence we may see how little they did discourage such proceedings , as those jesuits were here in england concerned in , when such as were equally engaged with those that suffered , should live quietly and respectfully within rome it self , and under the very eye of his holiness . from all which we may well say with king james , what a large liberty is by this doctrine left to church-men , to hatch or foster any treasonable attempts against princes , i leave it to your [ speaking to monarchs , &c. ] consideration , since do what they will , they are accountable to none of us : nay all their treasonable practices must be works of piety , and they being justly punished for the same , must be presently inrolled in the list of martyrs and saints , &c. if this be their practice , that traitors are thus excused and protected ; and the principles upon which they acted not recalled or censured ; we have little reason to think the world secured against practices of the like kind , when time shall serve and the necessity of things , in their estimation , so requires . and we shall not then need to vindicate the history of the powder-treason ( as we now are forced to do ) since we shall then see they will repeat it ( mutatis mutandis ) and we can never hope to be freed from attempts of that kind , till they quit their principles , and the romish church come to be reformed ; which will more please us than the destruction of it , and what is by all good protestants heartily prayed for . i should now have concluded , but that i find there are some that do make use of the case and circumstances of the gunpowder-treason to overthrow the belief that is given to the present plot , and by comparing one with another , one doth not question , as he saith , but to convince all those whose hearts are not of pharaoh's temper , and whom the violence of passion has not totally deprived of all exercise of reason , that there is no truth in the thing , nor reason to believe any of the evidence we have for it . now because of the relation which , this way that they have taken , hath to the design that i have pursued in this treatise ; i shall add somewhat by way of answer to it , and in doing so , 1. i shall consider the case as laid down by them . 2. i shall shew that there is not so much difference betwixt plot and plot , betwixt the criminals then and conspirators now , as there is an agreement ; which i shall do by my making a parallel betwixt the one and the other . 3. i shall shew the ground of that difference which is betwixt them ; and how that what hath been said in their way of comparison , to invalidate the discovery made of the present plot , serves little to the purpose it was produced for . there are four things , which the foresaid author doth collect from the history of the powder treason . 1. there was then visible the overt act of barrels of powder laid in the place . 2. there was a flight of some of the conspirators , and their resistance at their taking . 3. those that were executed , did all confess the fact at the time of execution . 4. all persons indifferently , both papists and protestants , forreigners and natives believed the thing , &c. and from this he doth proceed to shew , that all things in the present conspiracy run counter to every particular in that . when he begins to discourse upon the first , he saith , this hainous plot is built upon the bare testimony of the swearers , and that there is not any matter of fact visible and apparent , that has any proper tendency , or relation to a conspiracy for destroying the king , and levying of war. indeed he cannot deny , but that there are two things , which if they could be proved to be done by them , as well as it is manifest that such things were , would be just matter of accusation ; and they are the death of sir edmonbury godfry , and the consult : but he can put off these ( he thinks ) with a wet finger ; and if this be done , leaves all the world to challenge them further with any thing of that nature . let not the death of sir edmond be urged , saith he , as matter of fact , because the unfortunate end of that gentleman , as to the true manner of it , is a mystery yet unreveal'd , and is laid at the papists door , just as antichrist is charged upon the pope . but is the death of that gentleman so easily to be put up ? or is it indeed a mystery yet unrevealed ? was it not plainly made out that this gentleman was murdered , and that he could not both strangle and thrust himself through ? and was it not so revealed that bedlow , that was to have been one of the assasinates , and did see his body when dead , did of his own accord confess it ? and prance that had an hand in his death did upon his apprehension also acknowledg it ? and was it not so reveal'd that some fled for it , and others that were taken , after an open trial according to course at law , were executed for it ? and shall it be still a mystery unrevealed ? but saith he , there are few unbiassed and discerning men , that are convinced , that these poor creatures , that suffered upon that account , were truly guilty . what in the mean while doth he make of the judges and the jury , were they neither unbiassed nor discerning ? or shall they be neither , who do believe them to have been guilty upon the same evidence which the court was then satisfied with ? but what should hinder unbiassed and discerning men from being convinced ? was there reason to think the matter of the evidence not to be sufficient , or the persons giving it not to be of sufficient credit ? let us consider the case , and that will best inform us . the persons were such as were either actually engaged , or invited so to be ; that either helped to do it , or did see it when done : both , though not known to one another , concurring , as far as they were concerned , in the same circumstances , as to the person murdered , the posture of his body , the place where it was , and the way in which it was to be disposed of , &c. and as they did not vary from one another , so not from themselves , in above one point , that the adversaries ( as i remember ) can after all their diligent search find them out in , ( if that be true too ) and all this fortified by several collateral and concurring testimonies . whilst in the mean time , the prisoners were manifestly convinced of the contrary ; saying and unsaying , affirming and denying the same things : sometimes berry did know prance as he passed up and down the house only ; at another time he knew him so , as often to drink with him . sometimes he never had such an order , as he had the 13 th and 14 th of october , to suffer no strangers , nor any persons of quality to come into somerset-house ; at another time he had received such orders before . sometimes hill knew not kelly , at another time he owned that he knew him , ( for 't is kelly and not girald that he speaks of more expresly , notwithstanding what an advocate of their saith . ) sometimes , he left the lodgings before sir edmonds death ; at another time it was a week or fortnight after , &c. but the above said author , saith prance , did once disclaim his evidence before king and council : this 't is true he did , but was so little resolute in it , that as soon as he came to newgate he most earnestly begged of captain richardson to go back and assure his majesty , that all he had that day said at council was false ; and that he retracted before for fear of his life , having not a pardon ; or if he had , knowing that he should never enjoy it , because of the attempts he might expect to be made upon him ; or if both , that however he should lose his trade & livelihood : these , together with his perswasion that it was lawful to say or swear any thing in his way of religion , did induce him to it . but however he is not rationally to be believed , saith the author , until he shall in the same circumstance of dying , declare their guilt , in which they so solemnly declared their innocency . by which way of arguing no man can ever dy with a lye in his mouth ; nor is any person or company of men to be believed , in whatever they affirm against such an one , or upon what grounds soever they affirm it , unless they are , or till they come to be in the same circumstances with him , that did thus deny it ; which is very absurd to say . but to put it so far out of question , we are not without this kind of evidence also ; for prance himself , when his life was despair'd of , continued to affirm the truth of whatever he at first deposed , and as soon as he was recovered , did own it afresh before the king and council . and bedlow upon his death-bed did declare upon the faith of a dying man , and as he hoped for salvation , that he had wronged no man by his testimony , and what ever he had testified concerning the plot , was true . here is then the affirmation of persons , not concerned to take away the life of those men , against their denial , who were concerned to save their own lives ; and the evidence of persons declaring their guilt in the same circumstance of dying , in which the others did so solemnly declare their innocence . and lastly , here is the affirmation of such persons , who had no principles of religion to lead them thus to affirm , against them , whose principles did encourage them thus to deny . but , saith the above cited authour , berry at the same time [ of his death ] declared himself both innocent and a protestant . that persons may declare themselves protestants whilst they are papists , is not what we are at this time a day ignorant of ; and of which we have store of instances : and that professed protestants may deny at their death those crimes which they are justly charged with and condemned for , is what we need not the help of an author of theirs to shew us precedents in ; for 't is what we freely confess . but that our religion should be the worse for it , or that the protestant doctrine is guilty of it , as he would have it , needs more than his bare affirmation to gain credit and belief ; when we have no such thing as a dispensation before-hand or absolution after it , without detestation , &c , to befriend us . now whether berry did declare himself a protestant , and deny the fact upon their principles ; or whether he did deny the fact upon no principles , is one in effect as to the present case : but that he did deny what he knew to be true , besides the evidence otherwise against him , we have no little reason to think from his silence at his death , when he said not any thing , either in asserting his innocence as to the murder of sir edmund , neither as to the religion he died in ; as one that was present , and not a little concerned to observe , doth affirm . it looks very odd that he should profess so much remorse for his dissimulation in his religion , and so much innocency in the point he was condemned for ; and yet at his execution , should not clear himself , but pass by both as if he had not bin concerned . this is so irreconcileable either to his sincerity in the one , or innocency in the other , that it was foreseen ; and therefore as a speech was prepared for hill , before his death , so another is made for berry after it . he then declared himself both innocent and a protestant , saith one : he absolutely denied at the very gallows , the fact : nay , as the cart was drawing away , he lifted up his hands , and said , as i am innocent , so receive my soul , o jesus ; as another telleth us . and yet he spoke not one word to either . now what reason have we to believe his silence beyond others protestations at their death ? and yet some mens protestations of that kind are no more to be believed by this author , ( as that of the lord castlehaven's , which he mentions ) than we believe those of hill and green. so far then we are not without reason to convince us , that these persons were some of sir edmund's true murderers . but then if we shall add to this , the strange circumstances of prance's apprehension , and the description bedlow gave of such a person before it . if we consider what sir edmond himself did foretell about his being the first martyr ; and the notice that dugdale gave of his death , two days before it was known at london what became of him , and many other circumstances which might easily be collected ; we have good marks to find out the murtherers by , and the door , at which his death is to be laid . the second thing owned by the abovesaid author for an overt act , is the consult in april 24 ( not the 14th as he mistakes ) but that he would have to be only a triennial meeting in course . but then what needed so great secresie as to time and place , and such care to be taken not to hasten to london long before the time , nor to appear much about the town till the meeting be over , lest occasion should be given to suspect the design , which the letter doth speak of ? then , how came it to pass , that there were other consults , and that mr. ireland should take such a journey , as from stafford-shire to london , by post in august , to be present at it ; as besides the then proof , mr. jennison doth affirm , and his own hand hath made evident ? or if the register spoken of , was only about consults for that purpose , why was not that book produced , as desired , for their vindication ? what other overt acts there were , as coleman's letters , seals for commissions ( upon which whitebread only answered , the taking them out of his chamber was more than they had power to do ) and the like , i shall not further search after , but leave it to what is , and will be further made publick by authority . but what hath been said already is sufficient to shew , how little truth there is in what the abovesaid author doth fantastically affirm , viz. that the charge of the plot is only supported by the breath of the witnesses coined into oaths . 2. he saith that in the powder-treason there was the flight of some of the conspirators , and the resistance at their taking . but not one person in this pretended conspiracy did either fly , or abscond ( except only the priests , who were obnoxious to the law for their priesthood ) nay the greatest part of them , upon the first rumour of their accusation , came in and render'd themselves . but i deny , ( 1 ) that its an undoubted mark of a person's innocency , that he did not fly when a treason was discovered , and he had an opportunity of making his escape . for the case may be , that he may not be charged with it , and then if he flys he brings it upon himself . so tresham in the powder-treason still continued about the court , that he might thereby seem wholly free and innocent ; as an author above quoted observes . ( 2. ) he may stay and yet be guilty , upon a presumption that the charge may not be made good , and he may escape for want of proof , as garnet hoped . ( 3. ) he may stay and yet be guilty , as presuming , that though the charge be made good ; yet he hath persons of power and interest great enough to interpose betwixt him and danger . and therefore rather than be declared guilty by flight , or betray and discredit his cause , or distrust his friends , he may choose to stay , though he be no more innocent than those that fly . but after all , is it not possible that not one should be found , whose guilt , or fear did prevail upon him to fly and secure himself , &c. as he saith it is not ? he grants the priests did fly ; but it was because they were obnoxious to the law for their priesthood . if that was the reason , then there had been no priest but what would have fled ; those that were not charged with this treason , as well as those that were : for , setting aside this new charge , all as priests are alike obnoxious ; and yet we find all did not alike fly . but were there none but priests that fled , then where are those laymen that were concerned in the charge of sir edmund's murther , and that are so often mentioned in the tryals ? what are become of many persons whom it is not for me to name , but are known to have resided beyond seas , ever since the examination into this business ? now if what one of themselves saith be true , that flight is a sign of guilt , then these are self-condemned , that put it upon this issue , and say that the stoutest man , had he been guilty , would have fled upon such warning : but the most timerous of nature did not fly , because he was innocent . 3. he saith , those that were executed for the powder-treason , did all confess the fact at the time of execution : whereas those that have been executed for this plot have at their death 's denied the fact , and resisted all temptations of pardon , and reward , &c. that the traytors in the powder-treason did confess the fact , we readily own ; if they mean thereby the treason , as it was at first hatched : but that they did thus confess , and not persist in the protestation of their innocency to the death , was not because their consciences would not dispense with it , or their religion not permit them to be obstinate and for swear themselves , ( as a late author of theirs would have us believe ) but for other reasons ; as i have shewed at large before * . for i question , not but that as faux did lay the blame at first wholly upon himself : so he would have sworn to it also , if it had not been the torture that he stood more in awe of , than his conscience . it was upon this score and not his religion , as the author of the compendium doth suppose , that the lords laught at his huffing and bravadoes , since otherwise they would rather have put him to his oath , than to the rack , to have extorted a confession from him ; and therefore to make use of his case amongst others , as the abovesaid author doth , to oppose to the case of the persons that were lately executed , and that denied the fact at their execution , is nothing to the purpose . before their case then will be of use to the vindication of these , now , they must prove that the whole plot was at that time confessed by the conspirators , that they never denied any thing which they were upon oath charged with , and that they had no principles to warrant them if they did . but the contrary to these is manifest , as hath been already shewed , and so can do them little service . without doubt had the traytors then had as much power to conceal the whole , as they did the greatest part of it , and could as well have kept to themselves what they did confess , as well as what they did not , we had been little the wiser . they then were of the same religion , & acted upon the same principles as the others now ; and therefore that they then did confess , and these did not , was because their circumstances were different , and not because they were guilty , and these were innocent . for if the other had been in these mens condition , i do not doubt but they would as obstinately have denied ; and if these had been in their condition , i as little doubt but that they would have confessed according as they did then . the others denied , as long as denial would do them good , and till they saw it could not be denied , having clear proof against them : and these did deny and obstinately persist so to do , for want of other proof than the oaths of others ; and so their denial being opposed to the others affirming , their forswearing it to the other oaths , their dying words to the others that were to live , they did not question but the world would believe they had truth on their side . and when the principles and honour of their religion , their own credit , and safety of their friends , and the fear of damnation to boot ( which often prevails with men more then the hopes of a present reward ) do engage them ; it 's not impossible that they should deny , and dye in the denial of what is true . 4. the abovesaid author adds , that all persons indifferently , both papists and protestants , &c. believed the thing [ the powder-treason ] and no soul living did deny it . deny it ; how could they , since there was powder , and match discovered , and faux was apprehended upon the place ? deny it how could they , since some of the traytors were actually killed , or taken in an insurrection ; and those that were taken did confess it more or less ? but what the conspirators would have done themselves , and what others also of the same perswasion would have said , if there had been nothing , but the oaths of witnesses against them , we must go to their principles and practice to conjecture . but though they could not deny the matter of fact , yet they have done what they could towards it ; for some tell us , as hath been shewed , that cecil ( to ruin the party ) drew those fiery men in by his subtile tricks and artifice . others , that this desperate attempt seemed rather of a private kindred or acquaintance , than of any religion . nay they have the confidence to say , that the true priests and catholicks of england knew them [ the traytors ] not to be papists &c. and they were never frequenters of catholick sacraments with any priest , &c. if men will dare to say these things , when their own writings are against them , and when we read there of the great endearedness 'twixt catesby's family and the jesuits , 'twixt catesby and garnet , twixt sir everard and gerard , &c. they may as well deny the whole , and we may thereby know what they would do if they had not matter of fact , and overt acts too visibly and apparently in their way . if they will say things so notoriously and evidently false , what may we not expect when a plot is made out purely by the dint of swearing ? ( as one doth phrase it ) : though in our present case there is more then the credulity of people to corroborate that testimony , notwithstanding whatever he is there pleased to say . from what hath been said , we may see how little foundation there is for the opposing the plot of the powder-treason to the late one amongst our selves ; and how little the proceedings and confessions of the conspirators in the former , will serve to clear the innocency of those that suffered in the later . but because they have thus opposed the one to the other , i shall on the otherside , before i conclude , consider how they do agree ; and that we may observe , 1. as the plots were in prosecution , & before discovery . 2. in the way by which they were discovered . 3. in the event , and what happened upon and after discovery . in the first of these , i have the way in part traced out by sir samuel baldwyn , one of his majesties serjeants at law , in mr. ireland's trial , who doth there mention two or three particulars , in which this plot doth resemble that of the powder-treason . and that it doth , in the matter of it , the principal agents concerned in it , the principles which they proceeded upon , and the way in which it was managed , &c. ( 1. ) there is an agreement in the matter , so saith that worthy person , that horrid design [ of the powder-treason ] was to take away the life of the then king , to subvert the government , to introduce the popish religion , and to destroy the established protestant religion in england ; and so we think our proofs will make it out , that in each of these particulars this design is the same that that was . thus far he . that it was so in that former plot is universally acknowledged ; and that it was so here is what the evidence doth concur in . how far it was to introduce the popish religion , mr colemans letter doth shew , who saith , we have here a mighty work upon our hands , no less than the conversion of three kingdoms , and by that means the utter subduing of a pestilent heresie which has domineer'd over a great part of this northern world a long time ; there was never such hopes of success since the death of our queen mary , as now in our days . and how all this could be done without subverting the government , or how both the one and the other could be done without taking away the life of his majesty , is not easie to be understood . ( 2. ) there is an agreement in the principal agents concerned in it . the great actors in the powder treason , saith sir samuel , were priests and jesuits , &c. and so are they in this . that chiefly guided and managed by henry garnet , provincial of the jesuits in england ; and the great actor in this design is mr. whitebread , provincial of the same order . ( 3. ) there is an agreement in the principles which they proceeded upon . as first in general , that any thing is lawful which may serve the cause , and in particular that an heretick prince may be deposed and killed ; that an heretick people may be destroyed ; and that a forreign force , to serve those ends , may be invited over , and introduced . that these were the principles which they in the powder-treason went upon , is evident from the history it self , and what hath been said before * : and they were the same considerations which gave birth and encouragement to the present design , as we may see throughout the trials . this was the ground of staley's displeasure against the king , that he was an heretick ; this was the ground of the other practices against him not only here , but also in ireland . and the subduing the pestilent heresie which domineer'd here , was the great reason of mr. colemans correspondence with the french king's confessor , and of soliciting aid and assistance from thence . ( 4. ) there is an agreement in the management of both ' ( 1. ) in point of secresy , obliging one another by oaths and the sacrament . i have shewed that so it was in the powder-treason . * and that it was so here , all the witnesses do maintain . ( 2. ) in the secret preparations that were made . so it was in the other , as i have shewed * and the like information we have here of moneys , (a) forces , and (b) commissions , &c. ( 5. ) they agree in the state they were in , and the little provocation that was given them to begin and form such a design . so it was in the powder-treason , when they had not so much as a pretended cause of grief , as k. james in his speech said , but were obliged by him , as i have shewed † . and so it had been here : for whereas by the statute of 25 eliz. the priests might be tried as such , and ought to die for it , yet they at this time have been so mercifully dealt with , as they have been suffered to live amongst us under the danger of the statute , as sir creswel levins observed : and the laity hath been little disturbed by the enforcements of the laws made against them . thus it was in england ; as the parliament in their late address to his majesty , hath abundantly shewed ; and how it was in ireland , a gentleman of that nation gives us an account . ( 6. ) there is an agreement in the prophecies ( as they would have them accounted ) of the great change that would happen in a short time . so it was before the powder treason , as i have shewed * . and so it was now ; what cardinal barbarin should say of this nature , hath bin deposed before the lord's , and reports of the same kind have been very common at home and abroad , as hundreds can testifie . 2. as there was an agreement in the state of things before it was discovered ; so there is no little resemblance in the way by which they were discovered . for , was there a letter writ ? so were here papers found of coleman's , and harcourt's . did there some confess then ? so some did here . did some of them fly and abscond for it then ? so they have done here also ; as i have shewed before . 3. there is great resemblance in the event , and what happened and was done upon and after the discovery . as , ( 1. ) more was left undiscovered than was discovered . what kind of help the design of the powder-treason required in it self , and what intelligence the state had then of forces , arms , horses and moneys , i have before shewed * . and yet little of any of these was found out ; insomuch as an apologist of theirs doth venture to plead , as to one branch , where was that great sum of money , talk'd of , found ? or , how much of it was confiscated and brought into the kings exchequer ? and so it happened now ; for tho the design could not be carried on without , and information accordingly hath been given of provisions made in that kind ; yet what from the pretences those forces and moneys were raised under ( as we have the account * ) what from the distribution of arms into several hands , without keeping stores and magazines ; what from the timely notice they had to dispose of them ; not so much hath been discovered , but that also an advocate of theirs , doth plead after the like manner as before , there has not been found any ill letter , any commission , any bill of exchange , any mony , any arms , any horses , or any thing else suspitious . with how much tr●●● this is said in all respects , coleman's letters , and arm in some quantities taken , and other particulars , do prove . but yet it must be acknowledged that though much is proved against them , yet more is still undiscovered than discovered . ( 2. ) there is a great resemblance in the ways taken to fling off what hath been discovered , and to conceal what hath not . as , 1. by charging it upon others . thus we find them practising in the business of the powder-treason . if it had succeeded , the whole was to have been laid to the charge of the puritans ; and when it did not succeed , they tell us it was the trick of a minister of state , and that the conspirators were not papists , as hath been before declared . and that same method hath been observed now . for if the present design had taken , and the king had been killed ; they had settled some , whom they should pitch the action upon , and intended to lay it upon the presbyterians , as hath been deposed . but since it s now broke forth , and hath not hitherto succeeded , they have taken care to charge as much of it as they can otherwhere . first , there is a sham-plot started , and a design laid to make the presbyterians , or whomsoever they pleased so to call , to be the only conspirators . and because the death of sir edmund-bury , if found upon them , would lend us a great light toward the revealing the plot , and be no little inducement to mankind to believe it , they had thoughts of charging it upon debauched persons , of whom he was a prosecutor . when that was not likely to take , they did endeavour to make the earl of danby the contriver of it . and because that was soon disproved , then , it s said , that his own party did murder him , and laid it upon the papists to make them odious . 2. there is the like method taken to avoid the charge , by calumniating of authority . so they did in the powder-treason : then the judges were lyars ; the privy-councellors cruel , for ordering garnet , and hall , &c. to be tortured ; ( as they published , but publish'd falsly to the world , as hath been shewed before * . ) and the publick writings , and what was justified to be true by authority , were said to be forged . in like manner have they now proceeded , for they tell us that those that suffered by the sentence of the court were innocent in the judgment of unbiassed and discerning men . that prance was threatned by the lords that went to examine him , and was tortured to make him accuse others . 3. to avoid or weaken the charge , false reports are raised upon those that amongst themselves do confess . so in the powder-treason we are told that bates and littleton recanted , and that what ever bates accused the rest of was through the hopes of life , as hath been shewed before . * so they have proceeded at this time mnch after the like manner . not to repeat all the stories that they have made , or made use of to impair the credit of the witnesses ; nor to undertake to distinguish betwixt what 's true and what 's false in this matter , i shall only instance in that which is made publick to the world. of this kind was the design which was laid to charge oates with sodomy , and him and bedlow with a conspiracy against the lord treasurer . and , which is somewhat a kin to this , the tampering with bedlow , to recall what he had said , or to make him easie in what he should say against the great conspirators ; that so they might either make him theirs , or render him less able to hurt them , when they could accuse him of listning to such proposals . 4. they did endeavour to disguise and conceal it , by being obstinate when apprehended . this hath been before discoursed of with respect to the gunpowder-treason * when they denied whatever could be denied , and equivocated in what was not to be denied , even to the death . and thus it was in this present plot. without doubt had coleman's letters not been taken , all the correspondence that was maintained in that way betwixt him and the french king's confessor , would as obstinatly be denied , as it was by him , that any such was continued after 1675 , which was the year the last of those letters was dated in . or had not the letter been found amongst harcourt's papers , which mentions the consult april 24th , they would sooner have denied the thing , than have rack'd their wit to have put it upon the score of a triennial meeting . things that were not to be denied , 't is no wonder if they do confess ; but things that depend upon yea and no , 't is no wonder that they do deny . this hall and garnet did practise , and the same liberty that they took , 't is likely the persons of late amongst us also did use , when they have the same principles , to allow it . from what hath been said we see , that the powder-treason and this present plot do agree in far more circumstances than they differ , and those that they differ in are not so great but they are capable of an easie accommodation . and this leads me to the 3. general . to shew the ground of that difference which is betwixt plot and plot , criminals and criminals . and the great instance is , the confession of the one , and denial of the other . this an author of theirs doth triumph in ; i challenge , saith he , all mankind to assign a cause of this difference with the least colour of reason and humanity . but , as i have before said * , he must first prove that the conspirators then did confess ingenuously , candidly and freely . for if they confess'd what they could not deny ; if they again would have denied what they had confessed ; if , further , they did often equivocate when they did pretend to confess ; if , lastly , they did deny and conceal more of what they knew , then they did confess and discover , as i have made it evident they did * : then garnets confession is equal to whitebread's denial ; and whitebread's denial differs not materially from garnet's confession . both these may be , and yet there be no new creed , nor new faith since those days amongst them ; as the aforesaid author would infer there must , upon this different event , if we allow not both to be innocent . denying and confessing are indeed in themselves incompatible , and had it bin true which the above-cited authors do say , that all of the conspirators in the powder-treason did acknowledge their treasons , and asked god and the king pardon ( which i have shewed to be otherwise * ) and impartially confessed all that they knew of that matter ; then their confession might be well opposed to these men's denial : but when the confession was so restrained and qualified ( as i have above shewed ) it 's a plain sign , that had there bin nothing but conscience and principles in their way ( as these pretend ) they would have taken another course ; and the scaevola faux , that had the courage to say , and without doubt to do what he said , that if he had happened to be within the house , as he was without , when they took him , he would not have failed to have blown up himself , them , house and all : and he that also laid all the blame upon himself , and would own no complices , would have died with the same roman resolution , had not the rack brought him to better manners * . this sir everard digby did believe of him , i knew , saith he , that he [ faux ] had been imployed in great matters , and till torture , sure he carried it very well . there is a time that it is either not possible , or to no purpose to deny , and then there can be no trial of a man's principles . thus it was with watson and clark in king james's time , who knew that they were betrayed by the jesuits , and so were thereby disabled to prevent the danger and scandal likely to befal their party by their confession , had they been willing to swear they were innocent , and to take it upon their death . there was not an opportunity for them to make that experiment upon themselves , nor to give us an evidence how far their consciences would have dispensed with so doing . and so it was no fit case for the above said authour to oppose to this at present for that reason as well as another , viz. that they were not jesuits , nor of their party . they must make the circumstances the same , and shew that what was then confessed , was sincere & free , full and particular ; that they never did deny when asked upon oath , nor equivocate in what they did confess , nor ever unsay what they had said ; before we can believe they did confess meerly because their consciences could not dispence with so horrid a thing ( as that author calls it ) as swearing they were innocent , and taking it upon their death . but if they cannot prove this , and the case is apparently otherwise , as i have before shewed ; then for all this discourse and bustle of theirs , in comparing the powder-treason with this plot , and the passages and comportments of the criminals upon that occasion , with these of our modern pretended ( as they say ) conspirators , we are still where we were , and have good reason to believe that both those then , and these now did act by like principles and measures ; and that they did confess or deny with the like sincerity that our author gave a book that he writ in defence of the papists and popish traitors , the title of the new plot of the papists , to transform traitors into martyrs ; and call'd that a new plot , which we in england know to be as ancient as the days of thomas a becket . finis . contents of the vindication . sect. 1. p. 2. the conspiracy of the powder treason was not the contrivance of a minister of state. an account of the letter wrote to the lord monteagle , that it was not written by a decoy , and that tresham was no such . a character of the apologists that wrote upon this subject . the correspondence that is maintained betwixt the jesuits . their calumnies . an account of the breves of clement the 8th ; and of the lord balmerinoch's letter . sect. 2. p. 20. that more were concerned in the powder-treason than were publickly known . the design it self considered . the character of the persons chiefly concerned in it . the provisions made for it . the prayers which were then used . an account of the evidence then given . the confession of the traitors imperfect . that what they confessed was not from conscience . their obstinacy , especially in concealing the priests . sect. 3. p. 53. those that fled and suffered for the powder treason were really guilty . what jesuits were in it . the tryal of garnet . that something related in confession may and ought to be discovered . garnet had the knowledg of the plot out of confession . that he and the other jesuits did satisfie the consciences of the scrupulous . sect. 4. p. 67. that the powder-treason was undertaken upon the account of religion . that king james gave them no assurance of favour . sect. 5. p. 71. that the church of rome never gave any real and good satisfaction of the abhorrency of that treason . the commendations which they give of the traitors . the saintship which they give to garnet and hall. the favour which those that fled for it found at rome . sect. 6. p. 76. the powder-treason and the present popish plot compared . that they agree in more things than they differ ; and what they differ in , are not so material as what they do agree in . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a66435-e450 catholick-apology with reply . p 404. p. 412. mori ●ist , prov . p. 310. apol. p. 403 , 404. p. 538. apol. p. 411. baker's chr. an. 1605. wilson great brit. p. 32. p. 412. apol. p. 414. p. 236 p. 413. p. 410. p. 413. p. 413. v. discourse of the original of the powder-plot . p. 4. &c. apol. pro. garneto . p. 266. * tortus p. 83. edit colon. act of parliament for 5. nov. p. 408. p. 405. proceedings p. 118. p. 405. p. 406. p. 407. p. 409. p. 410. history of the gunpowder-treason , p. 19. p. 410. p. 411. advocate for liberty p. 226. proceedings p. 56. proceedings p. 177. advocate of liberty . p. 225. apol. p. 416. proceedings p. 58. apol. ibid. advocate for liberty . p. 225. apol. p. 415 , 416. advocate for liberty . p 225. proceedings p. 176. proceedings p. 47 , 56. apol. p. 411. regulae societatis iesu authoritate congregat . generalis auctor . cap. formula scribendi . reg. 2 , 3 , 4. reg. 5. reg. 7 , & 11. reg. 9. reg. 18. apol. pro. garneto p. 3. apol. pro. garneto c. 12. p. 332. apol. pro. garneto p. 13.212 . p. 227. p. 1. & 22● . answer to carrier . p. 235. premonition in his works p. 294. v. tortur . tort. p. 101 , 102. advocate for liberty of conscience p. 218 , 219 , 226. p. 225. p. 224. apol. pro garnet . p. 4. k. james p. 229. dr. stillingfleets serm. nov. 5. 1673. premonition to all monarchs in his works . p. 291. proceedings p. 160 , 161. cath. apol p. 364. watson's quodlibets . p. 107 , 241 ▪ &c. proceedings p. 186 , 187. weston , de triplici hom . offic. proceedings p. 123. apology for the oath of allegiance in k. james his works . p. 257. proceedings p. 167. proceedings p. 195 , 196. tortus's lies confuted in k. james's works . p. 341. bp. andrews tort. torti p. 190. &c. spotswood's hist. scotl. p. 508. * dr. moulin advances of the church of en. towards popery . spotswood's hist. p. 510. respons . ad tort. p. 194. id. 195. id. 196. watsons quodlibets . p. 218. printed 1602. resp. ad tortum . p. 197. proceedings p. 136. catholick-apology p. 401. p. 528. apol. p. 401. winter's confes. in proceedings p. 48. eudaemon . apol. pro. garneto p. 4. mori hist. miss p. 311 ▪ proceedings p 92. cath. apol. p. 402. paper . 9. proceedings p. 53. proceedings p. 170. proceedings p. 123 , 124. proceedings p. 169. digby's paper . 1. paper . 9. paper . 9. pap. 4. proceedings p. 27. proceedings p. 123. speech in parliament . proceedings p. 11. osborn king james s. 14. from d'ossat's letter . v. proceed . p. 167 & abb. antilog . p. 173. b ibid. s. 10. seven sparks of the enkindled soul , &c. p. 25.26 , p. 29 , 30. pag. 28. p. 31. p. 32. p. 33. robinson's anatomy of the english nunnery at lisbon . proceedings p. 170. proceedings p. 216 , 217. proceedings p. 189. abbot to antilogia , p. 144 b. 145 b. apolog. pro garneto . p. 201. cath. apol. p. 436. apolog. pro garneto , p. 265 , & 320. ibi● pp 320. premonition to monarchs in k. james's works . p. 291. cath. apol. p. 528. proceed . p. 46. abbati antilogia p. 113. a p. 162. b proceed . p. 124. proceed . p. 56. cath. apol. p. 528. proceed . p. 41. p. 51. proceed . p. 166. ibid. p. 56. 104. & 241. tort. torti . p. 286. paper 1. paper 9. abboti . antilog . p. 154. b. cambden . eliz. abbot . antilog . p. 164. b. winter's confession , in proceed . p. 55. paper 9. casauboni epist. ad ducaeum p. 94. pap. 1. paper 9. proceeds p. 144. tort. torti . p. 286. proceed . p. 38. paper 1. paper 9. preface to his papers . mss. h. thuanus abboti antil . p. 114. apol. pro garneto . paper 1. ibid. & pap . 7. proceed . p. 166. morus in hist. saith gerard p. 314. was very familiar with digby . paper 5. proceedings p. 220. paper paper 3. paper 7. proceed . p. 220.1 . abboti antil . p. 137. a 146. b. proceed . p. 174. abboti . antil . p. 136. b. proceed . p. 195. abboti . antil . p. 146. a. casaub. epist. ad ducaeum , p. 117 , 118. proceedings p. 225 proceedings p. 201. proceedings p. 227. ibid. tortura torti . p. 285. abboti antil . p. 137. tortura torti . p. 285. abboti anti p. 141. a proceedings p. 173 , 200. these are quoted often in abboti antilog . and tortura torti , &c. proceed . p. 189 , & 199. casa●uboni epist ad ducaeum p. 116. abboti antil . p. 136. b. cath. apol. p. 401. rom. chur. vindicated p. 65. cath. apol. p. 406. proceedings p. 194. mori hist. p. 315. antilog . p. 146. b. mori hist. p. 314. digby's paper . 3. mori hist. p. 313. ibid. p. 314. v. preface to his papers . & paper . 1. pap. 4. proceedings p. 125 & 126. k. james's premonition , in his works . p. 291. casaub. epist. ad ducaeum p. 91. abboti anlog . p. 159. b ibid. 152. ibid. 155. ibid. p. 154. b. ibid. p. 154. a. proceedings p. 46. ibid. 154. b rom. ch. vindicated p. 64.65 . watson's quodlibets p. 177. proceed . p. 156. & p. 249. proceed . p. 165. proceedings . p. 54. paper 9. eudaem . apol p. 240. cath. apol. p. 408. cath. apol. p. 400. proceedings p. 29. ibid. p. 124. abboti antil . p. 149. a and 165. b eudaem . apol. proceed . p. 168. antilog . p. 138. b. antilog . p. 138. b proceed . p. 168. mori . hest. p. 325 antilog . p. 160. b ibid. p. 137. b & 138. ibid 139. b antilog . p. 149. a & 163. b cath. apol. p. 402. hist. 1605 ▪ mori hist. p. 312. antilog . p. 110. a. proceedings p. 140. ibid. p. 127. proceeds p. 96. widdrington append. p. 141. tort. torti . p. 291. antil . p. 9. alegambe biblioth . index martyr . an. 1606. mori hist. p. p. 312 , & 334. eudaem . apol . p. 337. ibid. 336. proceedings p. 215. casaub. epist. ad ducaeum p. 137. widdringtoni appen . p. 149. proceed . p. 186. tort. torti . p. 295. soto de rat . deteg . secret. mem . 3. q. 4. cons. 2. tort. torti . p. 291 , 292. cath. apol. paper 418. p. 426. cath. apol. p. 418. proceedings p. 216. antilog . p. 143 b. tortura torti . p. 285. ibid. p. 296. antilog . p. 140. b. widdrington app. p. 137. procee p. 226. cath. apol. p. 422. ibid. p. 188. tort. torti , p. 282. antilog . p. 137. b. proceed . p. 170. eudaem . apol p. 284. mori hist. p. 325. casaub. epist ad ducaeum . p. 99. tort. torti . p. 282. proceed . p. 105. proceed . p. 167. paper . 1. proceedings p. 168. eudaem . apol p. 255. paper 9. paper 1. (a) tort. torti . p. 281. (b) mori hist. p. 336. (c) proceed . p. 105. (d) mori hist. p. 314. (e) ibid p. 315. (f) proceed . p. 221. antilog . p. 4. b & 162. proceed . p. 166. (g) cath. apol. p. 423. mori . hist. p. 282. antilog . p. 159. b paper 5. ibid. antilog . p. 123. a. proceedings p. 123. eudaem . apol. p. 273. &c. antilog . p. 154. b ibid. p. 155. proceedings p. 172. antilog . p. 150. b eudaem . apol p. 270. antilog . p. 150. b ibid. p. 151. b. antilog . p. 160. a proceedings p. 113. proceedings p. 113. ibid. p. 124. antilog . p. 160. b proceed . p. 167 & 169. ibid. p. 125. antilog . p. 160. a pap. 5. compared with pap . 3. proceedings . p. 216 , 218. casaub. ad ducaeum . proceedings p. 173. proceedings p. 196 , & 174. proceedings p. 225. p. 420. proceed . p. 127. eudaem . apol . p. 233. ibid. p. 290. cath. apol. p. 416. antilog . p. 137. b proceedings p. 137. ibid. crook's reports . an. 2d jac. proceed . p. 132. casaub. ad ducaeum p. 75. k. james's works . p. 491. tortura torti . p. 85. suar. def. l. 6. c. 10 de persec . angl. tortur . torti . p. 83. proceed . p. 38. paper . 4. paper 8. paper 1. k. james's speech . proceed . p. 10. cath. apol. p. 427. k. james's works p. 463. eudaem . apol. p. 4. ibid. p. 275. k. james's works p. 333. widdringtoni appendix p. 123. alegambe biblioth . cath. apol. p. 421. mori hist. p. 335. antilog . p. 199. a. widdrington appendix p. 145. antilog . p. 200. cath. apol. p. 422. mori hist. p. 319. eudaem . apol . init . mori hist. p. 335. bishop hall serm. before k. j. sept. 19. 1624. mori hist. p. 339. widdring . app. p. 150. fowlis l. 10. c. 10. antil . p. 3. a widdringt . app. p. 145. k. james's appol . in works p. 274. widdringt . apol. p. 151. cath. apol. p. ●●● . ms. cui tit. summar . de rebus relig . in anglia . an. 1632. crashaw's mittimus , in advertisement to the reader . catho . apo. ibid. king james premonition , in his works . p. 333. compendium of the late tryals , &c. new plot of the papists . new plot. p. 13. new plot. ibid. tryals of green , &c. p. 24. p. 49. p. 41. & 48 , compared . compendium p. 18. tryals p. 57. new plot p. p. 14. tryal's of green , &c : p. 26 , & 70. prance's narative . p. 23. &c. new plot. prances's narrative . p. 24 , 25. bedlows examination in his last sickness . p. 10. new plot. ibid. v. abboti antilog . p. 34. a compendium . p. 75. smith's account of the 14 malefactors , &c. p. 18. new plot. ibid. compendium . p. 20. tryal of whitebread , &c. p. 26. the trial of ireland p. 53 p. 40 p. 47. p. 54. new-plot . p. 15. ibid. compendium . p. 74. tryal of green , &c. p. 21 , 43. &c. ibid. p. 67. new plot. ibid. new plot p. 13 , 15. compendium . p. 75. compend . p. 73. * v. pag. 35 , 40 , & 46. compend . p. 73. vid. pag. 35. &c. compend . p. 74. advocate of conscience p. 226. ibid. & a plea for engl. priests printed 1621. p. 55 , & 58. new-plot . p. 12. tryals of ireland , &c. p. 12. coleman's 2 d letter in his tryal . p. 69. * p. 25 , 46 , 48 , 56 , &c. stayley's tryal p. 5. fitz geralds nar. p. 7. * vid. p. 31. ireland's trial , pag. 10-28 . dugdale's further informat . p. 16 * vid. p. 31. ireland's trial , pag. 10-28 . dugdale's further informat . p. 16 (a) colemans trial. p. 26. (b) fitz-geralds nar. p. 4 , &c. † trials of whitebread , &c. p. 10 , 11. address , novemb . 29. fitz geralds narrative . p. 30. * p. 16 , & 25. smith's narrative p. 27. * p. 20 , &c. eudaemon apol. p. 278. * fitz. gerald's informat . p. 11. smith's narrat . p. 30. compend . p. 85. bedlow's last examinat . p. 5. dugdale's informat . p. 5. dangerfield's nar. dugdale's informat . p. 8. reflections on the e. of danby . * hist. p. 26. vindicat. p. 13. & 36. eudaem . parallel torti , &c. p. 261. compendium . p. 16. & 67. malice defeated . p. 3. * p. 63 , & 65 v. the printed narat . mr. reading's trial. * p. 34 , &c. p. 63 , & 84. new plot p. 16. * p. 85. * p. 37 , &c. new plot. ibid. * p. 46. proceed . p. 37. * as i before observed p. 84. paper 9. compend . p. 73. the tryal and conviction of thomas knox and john lane for a conspiracy to defame and scandalize dr. oates and mr. bedloe thereby to discredit their evidence about the horrid popish plot : at the kings-bench-bar at westminster, on tuesday the 25th of novemb. 1679 ... : where upon full evidence they were found guilty of the offence aforesaid. knox, thomas, 17th cent. 1680 approx. 176 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 37 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2003-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63162 wing t2165 estc r21831 12739575 ocm 12739575 93087 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63162) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 93087) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 370:13) the tryal and conviction of thomas knox and john lane for a conspiracy to defame and scandalize dr. oates and mr. bedloe thereby to discredit their evidence about the horrid popish plot : at the kings-bench-bar at westminster, on tuesday the 25th of novemb. 1679 ... : where upon full evidence they were found guilty of the offence aforesaid. knox, thomas, 17th cent. lane, john, 17th cent. england and wales. court of king's bench. [3], 68 p. printed for robert pawlett ..., london : 1680. advertisement on p. 68. reproduction of original in library of congress. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual 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the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng knox, thomas, 17th cent -trials, litigation, etc. lane, john, 17th cent -trials, litigation, etc. popish plot, 1678. trials (treason) -england. 2002-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2002-09 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2002-10 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2002-10 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2002-12 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i do appoint robert pawlett to print the tryal of thomas knox and john lane , and let no other person presume to print the same . william scroggs . the tryal and conviction of thomas knox and iohn lane , for a conspiracy , to defame and scandalize dr. oates and mr. bedloe ; thereby to discredit their evidence about the horrid popish plot : at the kings-bench-bar at westminster , on tuesday the 25 th of novemb. 1679. before the right honourable sir william scroggs , knight , lord chief justice , and the other judges of that court. where , upon full evidence , they were found guilty of the offence aforesaid . london : printed for robert pawlett , at the bible in chancery-lane , near fleetstreet . m. dc . lxxx . the tryal and conviction of thomas knox and iohn lane for a conspiracy to defame and scandalize dr. oates and mr. bedloe , thereby to discredit their evidence about the popish plot . on tuesday the 25 th . day of november 1679 at the kings bench bar at westminster , thomas knox and iohn lane were tryed for the misdemeanour and offence herein after in the indictment expressed , and which tryal was in manner following . proclamation being made in usual manner for information and the defendants called to their challenges , the jury were sworn , whose names follow ; the jury . sir iohn kirke thomas harriot henry iohnson simon middleton hugh squire francis dorrington iohn roberts rainsford vvaterhouse thomas earsby ioseph radcliffe iames supple richard cooper . who being numbred the clerk of the crown charged them with the indictment thus , clerk of the crown . gentlemen , you of the jury that are sworn , hearken to your charge , you shall understand that the defendants stand indicted by the oaths of twelve honest and lawful men of the county of middlesex , by the names of thomas knox of the parish of s. margaret's westminster in the county of middlesex labourer , and iohn lane of the same parish and county labourer , for that whereas edward coleman , william ireland , and iohn grove , and other false traitors against our soveraign lord charles the second by the grace of god , of england , scotland , france , and ireland , king , defender of the faith , &c. to the jurors aforesaid unknown , the 24 th . day of april , in the 30 th year of the reign of our said soveraign lord the king , at the parish of s. margarets westminster in the country of middlesex , traiterously amongst themselves had conspired , consulted ; and agreed , to bring , and put to death and destruction our said soveraign lord the king , and war against our said soveraign lord the king within this kingdome of england to stir up , and the religion in the said kingdome of england rightly , and by the laws of the said kingdome established , to the superstition of the romish church to change and alter , and the government of the said kingdome of england to subvert ; for which their said most wicked treasons , and traiterous conspiraries , consultations , and agreements , they the said edward coleman , william ireland , and iohn grove , in due manner and according to the laws of this kingdome of england were afterwards attainted , and underwent the pain of death for the same . and whereas william earl of powis , william viscount stafford , iohn lord bellasis , henry lord arundel of wardor , william lord petre , and sir henry tichbourn baronet , the 30 th . day of nov. in the 30 th . year of the reign of our said soveraign lord the king aforesaid at the parish of st. margarets westminster aforesaid , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , of the treasons aforesaid , were lawfully accused , and thereupon according to due form of law were committed to the tower of london , being the prison of our said soveraign lord the king , there safely to be kept to answer for the treasons aforesaid , whereupon they the said william earl of powis , william viscount stafford , iohn lord bellasis , henry lord arundel of wardor , and william lord petre , were in parliament impeached by the commons in the same parliament assembled . and whereas thomas earl of danby , afterwards to wit the said 30 th . day of november , in the 30 th . year aforesaid , at the parish aforesaid , in the county aforesaid , of certain treasons and other misdemeanours , was lawfully accused , and thereupon , according to due form of law , was committed to the said tower of london , there to be safely kept to answer for the treasons and misdeanours aforesaid , of which said treasons and misdemeanours , he the said thomas earl of danby is impeached in parliament , by the commons in the same parliament assembled , that they the said thomas knox and iohn lane well knowing the said william earl of powis , william viscount stafford , iohn lord bellasis , henry lord arundel of wardor , william lord petre , and thomas earl of danby , to be accused of the treasons and misdeameanours aforesaid , and they the said thomas knox and iohn lane , being devillishly affected towards our said soveraign lord the king their supream and natural lord , and devising , and with all their strength intending the peace and tranquillity of this kingdom of england to disturb , and to hinder and stifle the discovery of the said treasons , by the said vvilliam earl of powis , vvilliam viscount stafford , iohn lord bellasis , henry lord arundel , and vvilliam lord petre , as aforesaid supposed to be committed , and as much as in them lay to elude the due course of law , and the prosecution of justice against the said vvilliam earl of powis , vvilliam viscount stafford , vvilliam lord petre , iohn lord bellasis , sir henry tichbourn , and thomas earl of danby , to retard , they the said thomas knox and iohn lane afterwards , to wit the 30 th . day of april , in the 31 th . year of the reign of our said soveraign lord the king , at the parish aforesaid , in the county aforesaid , falsly , maliciously and unlawfully did consult and agree among themselves , titus oates clerk , and vvilliam bedloe gentleman , who informations of the treasons aforesaid had given , and whom they the said thomas knox and iohn lane the day and year aforesaid , well knew to have given information of the treasons aforesaid against them , the said vvilliam earl of powis , vvilliam viscount stafford iohn lord bellasis , henry lord arundel , and vvilliam lord petre , to scandalize , and upon the tryal of the said william earl of powis , william viscount stafford , iohn lord bellasis , henry lord arundel , and william lord petre , to represent them to be persons of evil conversation , and witnesses not deserving credit . and that he the said thomas knox afterwards , to wit the said 30 th . day of april , in the 31 th . year aforesaid , at the parish aforesaid , in the county aforesaid , in the names and with the consent and agreement of the said iohn lane , and one vvilliam osborn , to disgrace the information of the said titus oates and vvilliam bedlow , against them the said vvilliam earl of powis , vvilliam viscount stafford , vvilliam lord petre , iohn lord bellasis , and henry lord arundel , for our said soveraign lord the king , to be given falsly , maliciously , subtilly , and advisedly , did write and cause to be written three letters , and those letters , so written falsly , craftily , unlawfully , and advisedly , did direct and cause to be delivered to himself the said thomas knox , by which said letters falsly , craftily , and deceitfully , it was declared that they the said iohn lane and vvilliam osbourn were greatly troubled in their consciences by reason of certain things which they well knew , and had concealed concerning the nnjust contrivances of the said titus oates and william bedloe , in accusing the said thomas earl of danby , to be guilty of the treasons and other misdemeanours aforesaid , and that the said titus oates was a person of a wicked and vitious life , and made an assault upon the said iohn lane , and with the said iohn lane to commit that detestable sin called sodomy before that time had endeavoured . and that he the said thomas knox , the sooner and more effectually to perswade the said iohn lane and vvilliam osbourn falsly to accuse the said titus oates and vvilliam bedloe , that they the said titus oates and vvilliam bedloe unjustly , and against all truth had accused the said thomas earl of danby , of the treasons and other misdemeanours , aforesaid , and so to affirm against the evidence of our said soveraign lord the king , upon the trial of the said thomas earl of danby , for the treasons and other misdemeanours aforesaid , to be had afterwards , to wit the said 30 th . day of april , in the 31 th . year of the reign of our said soveraign lord the king aforesaid , at the parish aforesaid , in the county aforesaid , falsly , advisedly , corruptly , and against the duty of his allegiance , unlawfully gave to the said iohn lane , and william osborn divers great sums of money , and also further falsly , advisedly , corruptly , and against the duty of his allegiance , the day and year aforesaid , at the parish aforesaid , in the county aforesaid , did promise unto the said iohn lane and william osbourn , that they the said iohn lane and vvilliam osbourn , within a certain time by the said thomas knox , to the said iohn lane and william osbourn , propounded divers other great sums of money , and other great rewards therefore should have and receive against the duty of their allegiance , to the great retarding , obstructing and suppressing of justice , in manifest contempt of the laws of this kingdome of england to the evil and pernitious example of all others in the like case offending , and against the peace of our said soveraign lord the king , his crown and dignity , to this indictment , the said thomas knox and iohn lane , by their attorney plead that they are not guilty , nor either of them is guilty of the offence aforesaid , and further withal put themselves upon the country , and the kings attorney likewise . and your charge is to inquire if they are guilty or not guilty , &c. clerk of the crown . make an , o yes . cryer . o yes , if any one will give evidence , on the behalf of our soveraign lord the king , against thomas knox and iohn lane , of the misdemeanours and offence whereof they stand indicted , let them come forth and give their evidence . then trenchard esq of counsel for the king in this cause opened the indictment thus . mr. trench . may it please you lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , thomas knox and iohn lane , stand indicted for a great and high misdemeanour , and the indictment sets forth , that whereas coleman , ireland , pickering , and grove , and other false traitors did conspire to destroy the king , and change the religion established by law , to levy war against our soveraign lord the king ▪ and to introduce popery , and for these treasons were convicted , attainted , and executed , and further sets forth , that the lord powis , lord arundel of warder , and others were accused of the said treasons , and were committed to the tower , and afterwards were impeached for the same by the commons in parliament assembled , as also that thomas earl of danby , was impeached of high treason and other misdemeanours , that the defendants knowing mr. oates and mr. bedloe had given information of these treasons to stifle the evidence , and to scandalize them , did falsly conspire to represent them as wicked persons and men of no credit . and the indictment further sets forth that the defendant knox , with the agreement of lane , and one osbourn did cause several letters to be writ , in which it was contrived to accuse the said oates and bedloe , that they had conspired falsly to accuse the said earl of danby , and that oates was a person of a vitious conversation , and had a design to attempt an assault upon the person of the said lane , with an intention to commit that detestable sin of sodomy , the better to effect which wicked designs , the said knox gave several sums of money to osbourn and lane , and had offered great rewards unto them . to this indictment they have pleaded not guilty , and you are to try whether they are guilty or not , of this misdemeanour . then sir iohn maynard the kings eldest serjeant at law persued the charge thus . mr. serj. mayn . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury ; this cause is of great consequence , and my lord i desire the jury to observe that their question this day is not to inquire whether the lords or the other persons accused and impeached in parliament are guilty or not , but the question before them , is , whether the persons that stand here indicted are guilty of wicked and vile endeavours , to discountenance and suppress the evidence and scandalize their persons , who were to give evidence against these lords , we are not to give evidence against the lords , but against these persons . l. chief , iust. you are right brother . mr. serj. mayn . gentlemen , something i must observe to you , that is an inducement to this matter , that there hath been an horrid and abominable conspiracy against the king , the nation , the religion , and the law , appears ( my lord ) by the proceedings in parliament , wherein the lords and the commons , have several times joyntly declared , and , i think , 't is so publick that no body will doubt there is such a thing ; who is guilty that is another matter . l. cheif . iust. this court must take notice of that ▪ because , some have been tryed , convicted , and condemned for it by this court. mr. serj. mayn . your lordship says right . but , my lord , the first discovery of this conspiracy came from a single person , one that stood single and discouraged a long time , and that there were endeavours to discourage his further discovery that will appear . my lord , when it stood so , it happened that sir edmondbury god. frey had taken his examination , and these things will be material in the end of the cause . sir edmondbury godfrey having taken the examination of oates , then the endeavour was to suppresse this examination that he had taken , and that by no less a wickednesse then the barbarous murder of that honest gentleman , whom you all knew , and they not only took away his life , but they did strive to baffle and defame him when he was dead , and that will appear too , and is publick and known . my lord , all this while stood oates single , it fell out by the mercy of god , that a further discovery was made by bedloe , he was examined , and it is publickly known , and publick justice hath gone upon it . the next attempt was to corrupt the testimony of bedloe , with bribes and rewards , and by other ways , and the person that transacted it , reading , is attainted of it , scelere tutandum est scelus , when men have invented and designed any great wickednesse , they are forced to enter upon others to cover and conceal the former . my lord , it proceeded now , and comes to that which will be the question this day . having gone all these wayes , now they return again , to see if they can disgrace and baffle the evidence oates and bedloe had given , and the way to that is by disparaging and scandalizing them with foul offences , especially dr. oates , and that was thus ( as we shall prove to your lordship ) lane had been a servant with oates , and the other was one of the like condition , and he was tampered with to accuse dr. oates of that horrid sin of sodomy , and i think if he were such an one , little credit were to be given to such a man. this was the design they were to accomplish . and we shall prove to you , in order to it there were letters ( written and contrived by knox indeed ) written by osbourn who is not now before you , but a contrivance of them all . and , my lord , there must be a pretence ) for in truth these persons had been examined , and had charged him with this offence , but upon further examination they had renounced their discovery . l. chief . iust. had they all given evidence ? or who did ? mr. serj mayn . no , my lord pardon me , i am not speaking of their evidence but only of their examination , before the lords . l. chief . iust. what was it that was there witnessed ? mr. serj. mayn . then they pretended this matter , that they were touched in conscience , and now they repent , and must discover the truth for the truths sake , that themselves were false in the making of the charge , and this , my lord ▪ must be furthered with bribes and rewards as we shall prove to you . we shall make out the particulars by witnesses , and then we think we may leave it to your lordship and the jury to determine . in truth , my lord , it happens in this case as it did long ago , when the first discovery was of a like design , and as is told us by the historian . multi ob stultitiam non putabant , multi ob ignorantiam non videbant , multi ob pravitatem non credebant & non credendo conjurationem adjuvabant . then sir creswel levins his majesties attorney general , further opened the evidence thus . mr. attorn . gen. may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury . i am of counsel for the king in this cause whose suit it is . the evidence hath been opened fully by mr. serjeant . i shall only say this , that this is a counter-part of mr. readings case , only it seems in this to differ , that the counter-part exceeds the original , for , i think , that it is of a further extent then his was . it hath been told you by mr. serjeant , and , i know , the court will tell you , that it matters not whether those persons that are accused of the plot , and impeached for it were guilty or not , it is sufficient that they are accused , and that by these persons . for any body to endeavour to suppresse and withdraw the kings evidence , or to disgrace the kings evidence , that is not lawful , be the crime what it will be , but it is a much greater crime in a case of this nature of high treason , where the life of the king , the government of the kingdome , the religion , and the true worship of god established in it , and the laws of the nation are in danger : some of these persons are guilty , for mr coleman and several others , have been found guilty , and have been executed for it , the design in this case that lies before you gentlemen to try , was to throw a disparagement upon the testimony of those persons by whose evidence those traitors were principally attainted and executed . this is gentlemen to affront the justice of the nation , and indeed to cast a disparagement upon it ; and that sure is as great an offence as can be ; the matter of the evidence hath been opened to you , i shall only acquaint your lordship and the jury , that it hath been designed a great while , and so long designed , that one of the persons here accused , mr. lane , one of oats's servants , had the opportunity to get into his masters secrets , thereby the more effectually to betray him , and as it will appear by witnesses , did carry on the design till it was discovered , and by that discovery prevented as to any success . mr. recorder , your lordship is pleased to observe in the indictment that is now to be tried , there are but two persons that stand indicted , that is , lane and knox. i presume the gentlemen that are on the other side for each of the prisoners ( for i perceive those that are for the one are not for the other ) may expect that there should be proof made of what is laid as inducement in the indictment , and will not tend immediately to that which will be the question in this case : for there is recited in the indictment the conviction of coleman in this place , and others in other places , for the high treason the evidence whereof these persons are indicted for scandalizing , we have here the records ready to prove it . lord chief iust. i suppose they will admit that . mr. recorder , if they will not , we have that which will prove it . mr. withins , my lord , we shall not stand upon that . sir francis winnington , we are ready if you did . mr. serjeant maynard , and you will admit that doctor oates and mr. bedloe were witnesses upon those trials ? mr. withins , yes , and gave evidence very considerable . mr. recorder , then my lord , we must hint to you , that lane , who is one of the persons taken notice of in the indictment , was a servant to doctor oates , knox was not in his service ; but knox is a man that made use of lane as a handle to the matter he had designed ; therefore letters are prepared , but by whom ? that we shall give you an account of was by the direction of knox , though the letters that will be produced are directed to knox himself . lord chief iust. your indictment says so . mr. recorder , but we shall give you an account , that he was director of those letters himself ; but as your lordship may observe , there are not only letters , but some accusations or informations . we shall prove to your lordship whose hand-writing they were , and who dictated those informations : for i think that mr. knox is pretended to have the most brains ; and i believe mr. knox in the consequence will appear to have the most malice . and we shall prove in the next place , that inasmuch as it would be natural in the course of justice to ask , whether these persons should not have money for the reward of such a business ; we shall prove that there were treaties with mr. lane and one mr. osborne who is not indicted , ( but was likewise a servant to doctor oates , and had thereby an opportunity of deceiving him ) that they had meetings ; how guineys have been cunningly dropt down , which was to prevent , as i was acquainting your lordship , any such question that should be asked , what moneys and rewards they were to have for this great discovery of any wickedness that mr. oates should be guilty of . mr. knox he prepares them in this manner , at every meeting , when they were discoursing and pursuing this business , then by some unlucky accident or other mr. knox he is to drop a guiney or two , according as mr. lane and the other person had occasion or a desire to have it ; but none were to be given , but as by accident , as if knox holding his guineys in his hand , or in some other accidental way should drop them , and then osborne and lane were to pick them up in a kind of a jest only , as if knox had accidentally let them fall , and they had as accidentally taken them up . how this came to be discovered we must give you an account . matters being thus prepared by the instigation of knox , and transacted so far by lane and osborne , they thought it then fit to put their design in execution . accordingly their informations are produced before a justice of peace , who finding the matters were improbable ; ( for i think they had some scrutiny before the justice of peace , and before the lords committees of the lords house ) one of them gentlemen , though now he is pleased to say he is not guilty , yet at that time had a little more ingenuity , and did confess the whole matter , and how he was drawn in , and how far he was concerned , and how mr. knox had directed him , and the money and rewards he had received , and that besides divers other summs of money had been promised , and great rewards offered in case this design had taken effect . we shall call our witnesses before your lordship , and give in evidence the informations that they had intended to offer ; and if we shall prove the matters that have been opened to you , i believe the consequence of this case will appear as much to concern the government as any that hath come to this bar. sir francis winnington , my lord , if your lordship please we shall now go to prove our case ; the question was asked whether they would admit the several attainders of those persons that have been executed for this plot. i now ask them whether they will admit the several impeachments that are also mentioned in the indictment , both of the five lords in the tower , and also of the lord of danby . mr. withins and mr. scroggs , yes , we do . mr. iustice pemberton , all that they will allow . mr. recorder , then we begin with mr. radford . who was sworn . mr. attorn . gen. what is your name sir ? mr. radford , robert radford . mr. attorn . gen. come on , mr. radford , tell my lord and the jury what you know concerning this business , about lane and knox. mr. radford , sir , if it please your honour , r. lane , father of iohn lane was a yeomen of the guard extraordinary , and i am one of his majesties yeomen of the guard. as he was in waiting he was telling me a story — lord chief iust. richard was ? radford , yes , richard the father was telling me that doctor oates did attempt his son many times to do such and such things to him that was in the way of buggery ; said i , richard , i am ashamed of you , that you should cherish your son in such things as these are , so i went away in an anger , and told him , that if he were my son i would correct him severely for it , and said no more , knowing him to be a lying fellow , and all the whole guard know him to be a lying fellow , and that there is no truth in him . lord chief iust. all who ? radford , all the guard , and that is all i can say . mr. iustice iones , when was this ? radford , above a twelve moneth ago . and i knew that he was a lying man , and i durst not speak of it , because i knew he was so , and was afraid he would have put it upon me . lord chief iust. what , he told you that his son told him so ? radford . no , he told me only that his son was weary of doctor oates his service , and i told him that he was come away once before , and why did he go again ? he said his son could not be quiet . lord chief iust. did he say his son told him ? the question is plain , did he speak it of himself , and not that his son told him ? radford , he said only that he had attempted his son. mr. attorn . gen. my lord , we will call thomas allen. who was sworn . lord chief iust. what is this mans name ? mr. attorn . gen. mr. allen , my lord. what do you know of any application to bring this lane into oats's service ? tell your whole knowledge of the matter . mr. allen , my lord , about the month of december last , when he was gone out of doctor oates his service — lord chief iust. who was gone out of doctor oats's service ? allen , ●ane ; he desired me to intercede for him again and again , and accordingly he was admitted into his service again . mr. attorn . gen. did you hear any discourse before this of any attempt upon him . allen , how attempt ? mr. attorn . gen. did you ever hear of any complaints made by lane against doctor oates ? lord chief iust. did you ever hear lane complain that his master would be uncivil with him ? allen , no , i remember nothing of that . mr. recorder , now , if your lordship please , we shall give your lordship an account , that when he was admitted again , he bragg'd he should get a great summ of money , and for that we call mr. samuel oates . who was sworn . lord chief iust. are you brother to mr. oates ? mr. s. oates , yes sir. mr. attorn . gen. what do you know of any summ that this mr. lane did pretend to get , and on what account ? mr. s. oates , my lord , about a matter of a fortnight before he went away from my brother , i was in the withdrawing-room — lord chief iust. how long is it ago since he went away ? mr. s. oates , it was in april last , as near as i can remember . lord chief iust. well , go on sir. mr. s. oates , so there were several servants in the room , and they were talking and laughing together , and he was wishing , said he , i wish i had a thousand pounds ; said some of them to him , what would you do with it ? said he , i would take it and fling it upon the ground and tumble it : says one of them , you may wish long enough before you have it : i que ion not , says he , but ere long to find a way to get a thousand pounds . mr. recorder , do you hear him gentlemen ? this was a fortnight before he went away . mr. s. oates , i can only speak as to osborne as to the thing it self . mr. attorn . gen. did you ever hear him say which way he did intend to get this thousand pounds ? mr. s. oates , no , i do not remember that , but upon these scandalous things coming out , i was considering what he had said , and how he behaved himself in his service , and upon recollection i did think of this saying of his . mr. iust. pemberton , ay , he recollected it afterwards . mr. williams , speak those words over again , as near as you can remember . then mr. s. oates repeated his evidence to the same effect . sir francis winnington , what is that of osborne that you can say ? lord chief iust. what does that signifie to these defendants ? sir francis winnington , although he is not a party that does defend this matter , yet it is all one intire act that they three were in combination to corrupt the king's evidence , and to stifle it ; and though so far as it does relate of osborne , it will not convict him being absent , yet it will inlighten the king's evidence about the conspiracy , for he is mentioned in the indictment . lord chief iust. well , if you think it material , you may ask what questions you will about it . mr. s. oates , i was asking osborne a little after he was let out of the gatehouse , how he came to repent himself — lord chief iust. who had repented himself ? mr. s. oates , osborne . lord chief iust. had osborne repented himself , of what ? mr. s. oates , of what he had given an account of before the committee . mr. iust pemberton , do you know any thing of that ? mr. s. oates , i know nothing but what they did say upon their examination . l. c. iust. were you by , and present at their examination ? mr. s. oates , i heard nothing but what they said for themselves . i was at some part of their examination . m. iust. pemberton , what did knox and lane say ? mr. s. oates , osborne was a saying , that as we walked , said he , in the cloisters of the abbey , where he did dictate what we were to do . l. c. iust. this is no evidence . shall what osborne says at one time and apart from the rest be any evidence here ? mr. recorder , no my lord , we offer it only as an evidence of the general conspiracy . l. chief iust. osborne is a telling how knox and lane and he did conspire and contrive this business , is this evidence against these defendants ? i ask my brother maynard . mr. serj. maynard , my lord , if this were single clearly it were no evidence , but if it fall out in the evidence , that we shall prove osborne , knox , and lane were all in the conspiracy , though it is not direct evidence to convict the other , yet it will inlighten that evidence we give against them . lord chief iust. why did you not make osborne a party ? mr. serjeant maynard , he is laid in the indictment to joyn with them , but he is run away . mr. iustice pemberton , my brother intends it thus , that the business is so interwoven between them all , that to make it be understood , it is necessary to bring in something about osborne . mr. sanders , i pray they may bring something against them first . lord chief iust. ay , the counsel say very well on the other side ; first prove some fact against knox and lane , and then prove what you will afterwards . mr. serjeant maynard , it is an inducement to it , but i beseech you , in all cases that are capital , are not the king's counsel at liberty to prove circumstances as well as the substance ? lord chief iust. the court will direct it is no evidence against the now defendants , unless you prove the fact upon them . mr. serj. maynard , unless we do bring it down to knox and lane afterwards , that they were guilty , it will not be any evidence i know . mr. holt , if it be not evidence , we conceive with submission to your lordship , it ought not to be heard . lord chief iust. prove something first , brother , against the defendants , and then urge this . mr. recorder , they need not labour it on the other side , we shall . we agree it is no evidence against the defendants , but only circumstantial as of the general conspiracy . l. c. iust. but pray how can it be circumstantial evidence and yet no evidence ? prove the conspiracy or it signifies nothing . mr. serj. maynard , if it be circumstantial to make good the evidence of the fact , it will be material for us to urge it . l. c. iust. but first prove the fact . mr. recorder , we shall now prove , if your lordship please , that knox , who is one of the persons indicted , hath made his applications to others that had relation to dr. oates , to endeavour to perswade them to pick out something or other against dr. oates . call thurston and ray. mr. serj. maynard , my lord , we shall first go to the substance of the evidence , and then the circumstantial thing will be material which before were not material . l. c. iust. now you go right brother . mr. serj. maynard , we shall go this way , to shew that lane and osborne did accuse dr. oates , and after they had accused him , they were convicted in their own consciences , and did confess they had falsely accused him , and afterward did repent of that repentance , and that knox had an hand in all this . l. c. iust. i think you have not opened that clear enough ; before whom was that accusation ? mr. serj. maynard , before the lords , and before sir william waller . mr. recorder , for they were in the gatehouse , and there they sent for sir william waller to come to them , and there did confess the matter to him , whom we desire may be sworn . which was done accordingly . sir william waller , my lord , upon the 29. of april , during the sessions of parliament , there was a committee of lords appointed for the taking instructions about this plot ; being there attending upon the lords , this complaint of mr. oates was brought before them , of the horrid abuse of two of his servants . and the lords were pleased to order mr. warcup and my self to take their examinations . l. c. iust. what two servants were they ? sir william waller , they did belong to dr. oates . l. c. iust. vvhat were their names ? sir william waller , osborne and lane. l. c. iust. vvhat found you upon their examination ? sir william waller , upon the examination of osborne and lane , i did find they did agree together to a tittle . l. c. i. then tell us lane's evidence first . if they agreed in a tittle , tell it us what it was . sir w. waller . my lord , mr. lane did confess this . l. c. i. what , upon his oath ? sir w. waller . yes , upon his oath , my lord. l. c. i. to you ? sir w. waller . yes , my lord , that he had been induced by mr. knox to betray his master , and for to swear several things against him which knox had drawn up , and dictated to him . he did not write them himself , but osborne writ them , and he did sign them . there were four letters that were brought before us , there were three or four memorials , as they called them , three or four informations , which were those papers that they carryed to mr. cheyney to chelsey . l. c. i. who carryed them ? sir w. waller . knox took osborne and lane with him , and carryed them thither , as lane swore . and when they came thither , and he was acquainted with the business , he looked upon it as so foul and notorious a thing , that he would not meddle with it : but he advised them that they should go ( because knox pretended the lord of danby was much concerned in it ) to some other justice of peace , or some of the privy council that were friends of my lord of danby . l. c. i. knox advised this , did he ? sir w. waller . no , they said mr. cheyney did . they went afterwards ( and they did all confess it ) to mr. dewy , and m. dewy gave them the same answer , that he could not meddle with it ; and after this , mr. knox went and took several lodgings for them , fearing that dr. oates would hunt after them ; and one lodging , amongst others , was i think the three flower-de-luces in white-fryers . and afterwards they removed to a place in the paved alley , betwixt lincolns-inn fields and chancery-lane . during which time , knox did bid them stand firm to what they were to do , and they should not want for a considerable reward ; and have wherewithal to maintain them with their footmen , and live very well . and , my lord , lane did confess this , that he brought mr. osborne to knox first into the painted chamber , and made them acquainted there . and , my lord , there is one thing that i omitted ; mr. lane did confess to me , that mr. knox did at the one-tun-tavern , i think it was , drop a guinney upon the table , and said , i will not give it you , because now i can safely swear that i never gave you any money ; but be sure you stand fast to these informations , and to what i have dictated to you , and you may be sure you shall be well rewarded for your pains . and he told them this more , my lord treasurer would never have surrendred himself to the black rod , unless you had promised to stand fast to this evidence ; that was to swear to what evidence he had dictated to them . l. c. i. did lane produce the informations , and those things that knox tempted him to swear ? sir w. waller . my lord , they were produced before us . l. c. i. what were they ? what was the substance of them ? sir w. waller . one part was to swear , that m. bedloe should come to mr. oates , and say to him , that my lord of danby should offer him a considerable sum of money to go beyond sea. l. c. i. to whom ? sir w. waller . to bedloe . and that was only considerable as relating to mr. bedloe in any part of the examination : but as to mr. oates , they were to accuse him of having a design of abusing his body : for he sent to me — l. c. i. who did ? sir w. waller . lane sent twice . upon his first examination he did seem to be very shy : but upon the second , he sent one rix to me , one of the yeomen of the guard , to let me know , that he was troubled in his conscience at what he had unjustly done in charging mr. oates , and that he was desirous to discharge his conscience of the burden that lay on it , and to wave his own reputation , that he might acquit the innocent . l. c. i. why , where was the villany done that he repented of ? sir w. waller . my lord , it was in reference to his swearing against dr. oates . l. c. i. where ? before the lords ? sir w. waller . he was brought that very morning before the lords ; but notice being come that the king was come in , and the house was sitting , he was remanded , and afterwards sent rix to me , to tell me , he was sensible of the injury he had done to dr. oates , and would make a confession of all . l. c. i. where had he done him injury ? sir w. waller . in reference to those abuses that he had offered to swear , and i think had sworn , but before whom i don't know . i suppose you will have an account of that by and by . l. c. i. so then , this is the substance of what you say as to mr. oates , that lane sent to you , and shewed you several papers and informations against the credit of oates and bedloe , and told you that knox did tempt him to justifie this , and swear it ; and that he went with them to a justice of peace in order to do it , but he did not care to meddle with it , and bid them apply themselves elsewhere , and afterwards they came to you ; and whether it was sworn or no , you cannot tell , but you say he did confess he had wrong'd mr. oates in those scandals that he would have put upon him ; and that this was by knox's advice and direction . sir w. waller . but there is this thing further , he said truly that mr. oates would be something hasty and passionate , but that he was very religious , and was very constant in sending his servants to prayers ; and that what he had accused him of , it was an abominable falshood , and was done by the instigation of knox , who had incouraged him to it by the promises of a great reward . mr. iust. pemberton . and it was he that told you of the dropping of the guinney , was it not ? sir w. waller . my lord , he did confess that himself , but he said he lent it . sir fr. winnington . pray did lane confess to you from whom this money and reward was to be had ? for he was not a person that was likely to bestow so much money of his own . was it from any of the conspirators ? or from whom that the rewards , and this money should come , upon your oath ? sir vv. vvaller . i have examined them many times as to that , but could never learn any thing . mr. iustice pemberton . sir vvilliam vvaller , was knox ever before you ? sir vv. vvaller . yes , my lord , i took his examination , and it was only to excuse himself , that he received the letters from them , which they said they writ out of trouble of conscience , and would have him to take their examinations , and to go along with them before a justice of peace . l. c. i. that was knox's defence ? said he , they came to me , and i did not go to them , but they desired me to go along with them to a justice of peace . mr. iustice pemberton . did you let him know what they had said to you ? sir w. waller . no , my lord , i kept that private ; but there is one thing very material . that morning we took knox's examination , we were so long about it , that we could not dispatch it in the forenoon , and therefore ordered lane to be brought before us in the afternoon ; and then did knox write a note , and sent it up by a woman that was a nurse there in the prison , and there was a paper conveyed through the door to him to this purpose , we paid our — l. c. i. who writ that note ? sir w. waller . knox did , and confessed it to me . l. c. i. to whom was it convey'd ? sir w. waller . to mr. osborne from knox. and it was , we always paid our club — mr. sanders . how do you know it was from knox ? sir w. waller . he confessed it . mr. sanders . did he shew it you ? sir w. waller . no , i did not see the note , but he confessed it . mr. iust. pemberton . pray mr. sanders don't interrupt them , they are in their evidence . mr. serj. maynard . they must do that , for that is the best part of their defence for ought i know . sir w. waller . the words my lord were these , we always club'd , and you paid two shillings at the sugar-loaf . tear this . l. c. i why , what could this be ? sir w waller . why , i will tell you my lord , it was upon this account , that he should not gainsay what he had confessed and agreed to , that so they might not be in two stories . mr. serj. maynard . my lord , osborne and lane had formerly accused , and given some informations against dr. oats , afterwards you see what happened before sir w. waller , they renounce what they had done , and then my lord , was knox imprisoned , and thereupon he writes this note , we always club'd together , and you paid two shillings at such a place : the circumstances will come out by and by , they met at several places , and we shall prove that knox bore their charges , and paid for them , though by this note he would make it , that they bore their own charges . m. iust. pemberton . the succeeding evidence will open it . sir w. waller . my lord , here is one thing more that i had forgot , lane did confess , that for the preventing of any discovery of this horrid fact , it was agreed amongst them , that if any one should make a discovery of it , the other two should murder him . m. solicit . gen. we desire that the jury may observe that . sir w. waller . he did likewise declare , that the lords in the tower , would not be wanting to acknowledge the kindness in disparaging the kings evidence . mr. iust. pemberton . that was lane and osborne did confess that ? sir w. waller . yes , both lane and osborne swore it positively . sir fr. winn. if you have done as to lane , pray acquaint my lord and the jury , what you know of the confession of knox upon his examination . sir w. waller . knox confessed not any thing , but stood stiff to it , that the papers and letters were written by them , and contrived by them . m. iust. pemberton . and that what he did was at their request ? sir w. waller . yes , but the rest did both confess , that what was done was wholly by the contrivance of knox. l. c. i. did you ask knox if he had dropt a guinny ? sir w. waller . my lord , he confess'd he had dropt a guinny , but it was only to lend them , and they promised to repay him ; and that one morning he dropt , 10 s. upon the bed , and they took it up . l. c. i. knox said he only lent it ? sir w. waller . yes , but they positively swore both the one and the other . m. iust. pemberton . what said knox to that ? sir w. waller . he lent them only . l c i. well , go on sir , sir w. waller . and lane did positively confess , that at all the places , and the several lodgings , and the treaties and entertainments they had been at , they were all at knox's charge , except twice which might amount to about 18 d. and that he paid . l c. i. what said knox to it ? sir w. waller . he denied all . mr. iust. pemberton . as to the manner of it , what said knox to the dropping of it ? sir w. waller . he confess'd he dropt it , but only lent it them . sir fr. winn. you say lane was a servant to dr. oates , pray whose servant was knox ? sir w. waller . he did belong to my lord dunblane . and moreover m. knox did confess to me , that the papers so drawn up and delivered into his hands had been in the custody of my lord latimer for a long time . sir fr. winn. did he so , i hope the jury will believe him then . l. c. i. sir w. waller does swear , that knox confessed that all those scandals raised against dr. oats , had been by his hands delivered into the hands of my lord latimer , and were there for some time . sir w. waller . yes , my lord. sir fr. winn. i did not well hear you sir , one thing , you were saying in the beginning of your evidence , that these gentlemen spoke of my lord of danby's not surrendring himself , pray let us hear that over again . sir w. waller . mr. lane said this , that my lord of danby would not have surrendred himself to the black rod , but that he did depend upon their standing to what informations they had given in . l. c. i. upon your oath lane did say this ? sir w. waller . yes , my lord. mr. serj. maynard . my lord , now we will call another justice of peace , that took their examinations , and we shall then particularly apply our selves to mr. knox , that seems to make these excuses for himself . call mr. justice warcup . who was sworn . mr. warcup . i must beg the favour of the court , because my memory is bad , that i may refer to the informations that were taken before me . m. iust. pemberton . you may look upon them for the refreshment of your memory . mr. warcup . i answer to every part of this that hath my hand to it , i desire it may be read . mr. recorder . no that can't be , you must not read them , but only refresh your memory by them . mr. warcup . this iohn lane did confess he lived with dr. oats , and about the 7 th . of april he left him , and while he lived with him , he said , he sent his servants dayly to prayer in the morning to the chappel , and left but one at home to dress him , and whilst he was with dr. oats , he was never charged by his master with the opening of any letters , and that the informations marked 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 & 5. — mr. williams . pray sir acquaint the court as far as you can by your memory . mr. warcup . lane my lord , before me deny'd all that he had said , that is , that what he had said before the lords was true , but that particular examination before sir vv. vvaller was by him alone . sir fr. vvinn . was he upon oath before you ? mr. vvarcup . yes , i find he was . l. c. i. did you examine him after sir vv. vvaller , or before ? mr. vvarcup . to the best of my remembrance it was before . mr. iust. iones . he was upon his oath there too ? mr. vvarcup . yes , and i must acquaint you i find it at the bottom to be ( iurat . ) he was brought before the lords of the committee for examinations , and did there likewise at first swear the things in these notes contained , and did afterwards come to the said committee , and beg their pardon , and gods pardon for what he had sworn , for it was false . l. c. i. who did ? mr. warcup . lane did . l. c. i. did you hear him ? mr. vvarcup . yes . mr. iust. iones . was he upon his oath the last time , when he said this to the committee ? sir vv. vvaller . yes my lord , i was by too , i heard him . l. c. i. so he swears backwards and forwards . sir fr. vvinn . such people use to do so . mr. vvarcup . that particular of the note , that mr. knox sent up by the nurse , i was by and did hear him confess it . sir vv. vvaller . but he did declare there to the committee , that it was his voluntary repentance , and that he was exceeding sensible of the abuses he had offered to dr. oats , in this design of accusing him in such a manner . mr. iust. iones . what , before the lords ? sir w. vvaller . yes my lord. mr. warcup . mr. knox did say he sent such a note up to osborne , and that the words were as i remember , we always club'd , and you paid two shillings at the sugar-loaf , tear this . l. c. i. look you , the use i see that would be made of this , is , that knox in a secret way , should give intimation to this osborne , that he should not own that he had been treated by him , or any money spent upon him , and this note is the cunning way of insinuating that matter , as i understand it . mr. warcup . i shall humbly acquaint your lordship with one thing further ; knox did confess that he had lain with these people in several private places , for there were warrants out for the apprehending them , upon the information given by dr. oats of this contrivance , that he had lain with them at white fryars , and charing cross , and at other places . mr. iust. pemberton . that he had obscured them when they were in danger . mr. warcup . that he had layn with them at that time . sir fran. win. pray , upon your oath , when he had told you he had layn with them in any private lodging — mr. iust. pemb. did he say he had advised them where to lie ? mr. warcup . he said he had been with them , and advised them where to lie . mr. iust. pemb. did he say he had taken lodgings for them ? mr. warcup . yes , he did . sir. fr. win. your question , sir , hath prevented mine ; but i would ask him a question further . did he confess to you he paid for those lodgings ? mr. warcup . truly , my lord , unless i read the information , i cannot tell . sir will. waller . my lord , i perfectly remember this , that knox did confess he had paid for their lodgings , but they were to pay him again ; but both osborne and lane did positively swear he did pay for all , and several times at several taverns where he treated them , he bid them call for what they would , and they should have it . mr. soll. gen. what do you know of being at the sugar-loaf at any time ? mr. warcup . i tell you what i find here he confess'd , that they complaining they knew not where conveniently to lodge , this examinant told them he would endeavour to find them a lodging , and the very self-same day , he went by the direction of one of my lord dunblain's servants , a coach-man to the sugar-loaf in white-fryers & took lodgings as for himself & two of his friends , and lay there with them to the time of his going from the same lodging , which was five or six days . mr. iust. pemb. and he did it by the direction of my lord dunblain's coach-man ? mr. warcup . yes , my lord , it is so in the information . mr. serj. maynard . is that information true ? mr. warcup . yes , my lord , i am sure he said it , or i should not have writ it down . lord chief iust. mr. warcup , had lane recanted what he had said against mr. oates at that time when the lodgings were taken ? mr. warcup . my lord , it was before they came to the lords that they took these lodgings . mr. iust. pemb. ay , that 's clear , it was before all came out . mr. warcup . i was commanded by the house of peers to give my warrant for the apprehending of them . lord chief iust. the lords sent to apprehend th●m upon the slander of mr. oates , and then he concealed them . mr. recorder . my lord , sir william waller speaks of one rix that was sent by lane to him to make a discovery , this is the gentleman . who was sworn . rix. may it please your lordship , there was one osborne that was concerned with this lane , who is since run away : osborne came first upon the guard to me , and desired me to get him into service . he desired to come into my lord treasurers service , and what he desired of me was to frame him a petition to my lord treasurer . we had no answer till two days after , and i being upon the guard with dr. oates , i did suppose i might get him into his service , i spoke to dr. oates , and he entertain'd him ; and after he had entertain'd him a while , this lane then being a servant with him , they both told me they were going off now from mr. oates . lord chief iust. who told you ? rix. lane and osborne , and that they should get preferment ; they were sworn brothers together , if one did go the other would go . i asked them why they would go away ; oh , said he , i shall keep my man my self . say you so , said i , i have been in town so long , and i could get no such preferment . then they told me they should have 100 l. a year , and 500 l. in money . mr. iust. pemb. who told you so ? rix. osborne and lane both . mr. iust. pemb. what , 100 l. a year , and 500 l. a piece . rix. yes : so i asked them how , but they would not tell me , but , said osborne to me , for your preferring me to mr. oates , you shall be no loser . i met him another time , for osborne came to desire me to lend him a cravat . said he , i must come down to your house to morrow morning to get a cravat , i desire i may have a good one , for i am to go before one of the greatest peers of the realm , to dine with him : where , said i , to which end of the town ? the other end of the town , said he to me : but , said i , why do you leave mr. oates ? oh , said he , let mr. oates look to himself , for i have enough against him . then i smelt something of some design against dr. oates , and brought it before justice warcup , and gave in my testimony , and upon further inquiry into it , the lords ordered him to send out his warrant for the taking of those fellows , knox , lane , and osborne , which he assigned over to me ; in a short time after they were taken , first lane was taken , and in a day or two osborne and knox , and were examined and taxed with it . osborne he made a confession before justice warcup , and they desired me to see knox and lane in prison , and i did see them in prison , and when they did come there , knox said , where is osborne , why don't he come to prison as well as i ? i am a better gentleman than he . oh , said i , he hath confessed ; so he was turned up into the prison . said i to mr. lane , will you drink a pot of beer ? said he , i don't much care if i do : and , said he , mr. rix , if i have not gone too far against my self , if you will stand my friend , i will make an honest confession . said i , i am glad there is so much grace in you , i will then do you all the good i can . pray , said he , will you please to go and call sir william waller : why not justice warcup , said i , who was first concerned in this discovery : no , he would have only sir william waller . i came and found him in the court of requests , so i went with him to smiths the tobacconist near the gate , and sent for lane ; the keeper brought him : i think this was about nine or ten in the morning , and from that time till about six at night he was in examination . i went then to mr. oates , and told him lane had made an honest confession . i waited on sir william waller till the afternoon , and then he made an order , that he having made an honest confession , should have the enlargement of the prison , and not be confined , as others were , which he had . lane sent for me the next day , i came down in a day or two after , and his sister was there with him , they were eating butter and radishes , and when i would have paid for the drink , lane cry'd no , by no means ; for knox hath sent me in three and twenty shillings the other day , and that will serve me , i hope , till i come out : but now , said he , i have made a confession , i believe i shall have no more money from him ; and i desire you would speak for my enlargement . i came down to him another time , and he told me he had received a note , which note was put up from a gentlewoman in the street , that if he would stand firm to his text , he should have five hundred pounds ; nay , he should not want one thousand pounds ; but in case they would not stand firm to their text , the lord treasurer would never have come in ; and if yet they did not stand firm , he would lose his head. lord chief iust. who came that note from ? sir will. waller . he told me this , that there was such word brought to him by the nurse , and she told him , that a gentlewoman very well clad came to her , and desired her to speak to him to stand fast , and that osborne and knox would be sure to stand fast , and that they two should be too strong for the other , he being but a single evidence ; and more than that , he should not want a thousand pound , if he had occasion for it . i asked the nurse what the gentlewomans name was , she told me , she had asked , but she would not tell her . lord chief iust. where is this woman ? this nurse ? sir will. waller . she was nurse to the gaol , and was turned out upon this discovery by the gaoler . mr. iust. pemberton . you had this from lane sir william waller . sir william waller . yes . rix. my lord , after this was done , lane's father and mother told me this at my own house , that had it not been upon their sons account , my lord treasurer would never have come in ; and they told me that one hest should come and tell them so : and lane himself told me , he thanked god that now he had made an honest confession , that now his heart was very light , he had a burden upon him before , but now he had confessed , and his heart was light . lord chief iust. what did he confess ? rix. he did confess , that my lord treasurer would never have surrendred himself , if he had thought they would not have stood firm , and if they did not stand firm , he should lose his head , mr. williams . you say lane confessed this as of himself ? rix. yes , and afterwards his father and mother told me so , and he did say as of himself , that he had a note put under the door . l. c. i. but from whom had he that note ? rix. from a gentlewoman in the street , he told me so . mr. iustice pemberton . what did he say as to knox ? rix. he told me he was set on by knox , and he drew up all the writings for him ; and knox told him , if you come to be examined at such or such a thing , make a stop , and turn this way and that way . mr. williams . pray acquaint the court and the jury , did lane tell you how he was drawn into this , and who drew him in ? rix. knox was the man that drew up the writings , and promised him those rewards he said . m. iustice pemberton . you say he told you that knox promised them ? how far knox will be concerned in this evidence , will be considered afterwards . mr. serjeant maynard . now we come to knox's own particular actings . what hath been said already , hath been out of other peoples mouths , now we come to him himself , and we call richard slightam . ( who was sworn . ) mr. att. gen. pray mr. slightam will you tell my lord and the jury what you know of this knox , what offers have been made you , by whom , and when , and for what ? slightam . i was offered money to carry notes from the one to the other . mr. sol. gen. why , what office had you there ? slightam . i was a prisoner there my self , and under-goaler too , and i was offered money to carry notes between the one and the other , that they might not betray one another . mr. recorder . by whom ? slightam . by knox l. c. i. what did they offer you ? slightam . i had three half crowns given me at one time by knox , and he promised me he would give me a considerable sum . l. c. i. but he did not name the sum ? slightam . no. l. c. i. what did he desire you to do for that money ? slightam . he desired me to carry notes from the one to the other , that they might not betray one another . mr. att. gen. between whom ? name them . slightam . knox , lane , and osborne . l. c. i. what did you say , that they might not betray one another ? why ? slightam . yes , that they might not betray one another , for they were fearful that they should , because they could not speak together , to lay their stories together . mr. at. gen. and hark you sir , what messages did you carry between them ? sligtham . none , i never carryed any . l. c. i no , what had you your money for ? slightam . i told them of it below , and they would not let me carry any . l. c. i. but you got your money ? slightam . yes , i got some money . mr. att. gen. knox you say gave you the three half crowns . did you speak with lane and osborne ? slightam . lane i spoke with every day , and lane said , he hoped that the lords would not put him in the pillory , for all he had sworn falsely . l. c. i. what lords ? slightam . my lord shaftesbury , and my lord privy-seal . mr. smith . what did knox say to you after osborne had confessed ? slightam . that is nothing , said he , if we do but stand firm together , what osborne hath given in evidence will signifie nothing . mr. smith . why ? slightam . for two , he said , were better than one . sir fra. winn. i think you say you had three half crowns given you by knox , pray who was the first that offered you money to carry the notes ? slightam . it was knox. sir fra. winn. ay , he carried the purse . slightam . yes , i suppose he did . mr. iust. iones . they were both in the gate-house prisoners at that time . slightam . yes , so was i. but they were lock'd in several rooms , and none could come at them . l. c. i. but you carried no note nor messages , upon your oath ? slightam . no. mr. williams . pray call mr. dewy , ( who was sworn . ) pray mr. dewy will you acquaint the court and the jury , what discourse you had with knox , who he came from , what he came about , and what recommendations he brought with him , and from whom . mr. dewy . my lord , sometime in the sitting of the last parliament that began in march , about ten a clock at night a message was sent in to me that one would speak with me from my lord latimer : i was either in bed or going to bed ; and i did not think there was really any such message , because my lord latimer did not know me , nor i him . they were very pressing to come in , insomuch as my man could hardly keep them out . i told them there was nothing sure of so much haste , but what might be done to morrow , or some other time : so i spoke not with them that night . either the next day , or some short time after , as i remember , mr. knox came to me with another gentleman , and he brought papers in his hands ready written ; he told me that they were informations of one lane and osborne ( as i remember those were the names he mentioned then ) and they were against mr. oates . then i began to look upon it as something extraordinary , the parliament being then sitting , and the committee of each house having the examination of this business . said i , mr. knox , you have been a justice of peace's clerk ( for i knew him so ) and you know 't is very unusual to take informations against a person without the parties being present , if he may be had to cross-examine the witnesses upon interrogatories , as the case may be : and besides , this looks as if it were to take informations against the king ; which we never do upon oath . so i dismissed them , and directed them to the committee of secrecy of the house of commons , for whom it was most proper . this is all i know of this business . mr. williams . did mr. knox tell you any thing what was contained in those examinations ? mr. dewy . yes , he did give me some information , that osborne and lane did repent of something , but i can't give you information particularly . mr. williams . pray tell the substance of it . mr. dewy . i can't remember what the particulars were , but lane and osborne were the parties to be examined , and i shifted them off as well as i could . l. c. i. did they come along with knox ? mr. dewy . they were not in my room , but they were without , i believe . l. c. i. and did he tell you at the same time that they had recanted ? mr. dewy . truely , my lord , i can't well remember ; but he said they repented of what they had falsely accused my lord treasurer of . l.c.i. did they say they had falsely accused mr. oates ? mr. dewy . no , they did charge mr. oates with some crime ; and they did speak something of false accusing , i can't remember what . l.c.i. did not they say , mr. oates ? mr. dewy . i remember it now ; it was as if mr. bedloe and mr. oates had made a conspiracy against my lord of danby . sir fr. win. i think you say , you knew mr. knox a justice of peace's clerk : pray sir , you are an ingenuous man , from whom did he pretend to come to you ? mr. dewy . he came to me from my lord latimer , as he said . sir fr. win. did he say so , that the lord latimer wished him to go to you ? mr. dewy . yes ; and i wondered at it , because i did not know my lord , nor my lord me . mr. withins . when was this ? mr. dewy . it was the latter end of april , or the beginning of may , as i take it ; i do not very well remember : but the substance of it i remember was , that they had over-heard mr. oates and mr. bedloe conspiring against my lord of danby . l.c.i. mr. dewy , can you remember whether they did come to give you information against mr. oates for abusing their bodies , or oates and bedloe's conspiracy against the earl of danby ? mr. dewy . truely , my lord , i can't be positive in it ; for the parliament was then sitting , and i shifted them off . mr. iust. pemb. you never looked into the information at all ? mr. dewy . no , i did not , i thought it not proper for me . mr. recorder . call henry wiggins and his mother : ( who were both sworn . ) mr. att. gen. come on mr. wiggins , what do you know of any endeavours of knox or lane , or any of these persons , to take off or scandalize mr. oates or mr. bedloes testimony ? l. c. i. what is this mans name ? mr. att. gen. henry wiggins . wiggins . about the latter end of february last , mr. knox and i met at charing-cross , and we went in and drank together ; and he proposed several things to me ; first he desired that i would get for him a copy of the papers my master had . l. c. i. who is your master ? wiggins . mr. bedloe . and especially what concerned my lord treasurer ; as also to take a journal of all my masters actions , and the names of the persons that came to him ; for , said he , my lord hears that my lord of shaftesbury and the duke of buckingham do cabal with him against my lord. but if my lord could but find out his enemies , he would oppose them , and strive to baffle them . my lord , to encourage me to this , he told me he would carry me to his lord , though it were at mid-night , to discourse with him . l. c. i. what lord ? wiggins . my lord treasurer : and he said he should give me incouragement to go on . said i , does my lord know of this ? yes , said he , i told my lord i had a friend lived with mr. bedloe , and he gave me incouragement to go on and treat with him . and he said moreover , my lord , mr. oates and bedloe were two great rogues ; that the king believed not a word they said ; and as soon as he had heard all they could say , they should be hanged . mr. williams . pray did he propose any reward to you ? wiggins . he told me his lord should give me encouragement . l. c. i. what should you do ? wiggins . he desired me to give my lord the papers , and then my lord should tell me what i should do about my master . sir fra. winn. what did he say of oates and bedloe , sir ? wiggins . he said , that oates and bedloe were great rogues , and that the king knew them to be so ; and when he had heard what they could say , he would hang them . mr. williams . pray upon your oath , did he offer you any money , or any reward ? wiggins . he offered me not any particular sum , but he told me i should have satisfaction and reward , or any place in my lords disposal i should be entertained into , if i went away upon this business . mr. williams . did he say any thing to you , to invite you , or incourage you to swear against your master ? wiggins . no , but he told me my lord should give me directions how to go on . mr. recorder . what say you as to lane and osborne ? wiggins . i did not know them at that time . mr. recorder . what time after was it that you did know them ? wiggins . i met with them a little while after , and they were discoursing all together , but i had no discourse with them . mr. recorder . did knox at any time speak to you , to bring him into the company of lane and osborne ? wiggins . no , sir. mr. recorder . this was the first time you met with him about this matter ? wiggins . yes , it was . l. c. i. what did you promise knox you would do ? wiggins . i told him i would do him any service that lay in my power , but nothing that would be to my masters prejudice ; and i was appointed by him to meet him at my lord treasurers . l. c. i. and what other meetings had you besides ? vviggins . i was but twice with him . l. c. i. you never agreed to any thing ? vviggins . i told it my master , and it was discovered soon after , so that the lords came to hear it . mr. att. gen. where is mrs. vviggins ? what do you know of any endeavours to corrupt this evidence ? mrs. vviggins . i know no more than what my son knows ; he first came to my house . l. c. i. who ? mrs. wiggins . mr. knox ; and asking me where my son was , i told him he lived with mr. bedloe : and he said , he very much rejoyced at it , and desired to speak with him . i told him , no , he could not , for his master had so much employment for him , that it was very seldom i my self could get a sight of him . said he , i have a little concern with him ; and he living with mr. bedloe , may do my lord treasurer great service ; and doing my lord treasurer service , he does his majesty service ; for his majesty loves my lord treasurer above all things in the world . and he would not be contradicted , but he would see him . then the next day i told him he should come , and we appointed to go to him ; but he should not see him alone without me , i told him ; he told me he desired it not . he came according to the appointment , and i carried him to charing-cross to an ale-house , and there i sent a porter for my son , and he came : and the first thing he said to him was , i am mighty joyful to know you live with mr. bedloe ; you may do my lord great service : in what , says my son ? in letting my lord know what company your master keeps , and what lords they are that dayly and hourly keep company with your master , and cabal against my lord. said i , mr. knox , that is the way to bring my son's neck to the stake ; that he shall never do . but , says he , i will tell him a way how he shall do himself no harm at all : and then he up and told him , he desired him to write him letters when he found any thing of secrecy , and set no name to it ; and if he came at twelve a clock at night , he would let him in to my lord treasurer's , and no body should take notice of it : and he would have had him taken a coach to have gone to my lady danby presently , to have an assurance from her mouth of encouragement , and that he should have any place in her lords disposal . l. c. i. were you ever with my lady danby ? mrs. wiggins . no , we deni'd it ; and it was discovered . and besides , my lord , i told him , if he would lay down my son a thousand pound he should not do it ; he should not betray his trust. and then he said , that the king knew mr. oates and mr. bedloe to be two great rogues ; and when he had got what he could out of them , he would hang them . mr. williams . have you had any offers of late not to come here as a witness in this case ? mrs. wiggins . no , my lord ; but there have been persons three times at my house to know whether i were subpoena'd yea or no , as from mr. knox. mr. williams . did ever any body perswade you not to come to give evidence ? mrs. wiggins . no. l. c. i. when was this you speak of ? mrs. wiggins . in february , the latter end . mr. serj. maynard . mr. dewy , who came in company with mr. knox to you ? mr. dewy . one mr. blayden . mr. serj. maynard . who is that ? mr. dewy . steward to my lord of danby , i think . mr. serj. maynard . here is slightam again , my lord. mr. att. gen. what have you to say more ? slightam . mr. lane told me they had many treats , and had so much money , a guiney , as i think he told me , to swear against mr. oates . l. c. i. who gave it him ? slightam . mr. osborne , or mr. knox , i can't tell which . l. c. i. where did lane tell you so ? slightam . in prison . l. c. i. in what prison ? slightam . in the gatehouse . mr. williams . call mr. palmer . ( who was sworn . ) we call him to corroborate what that young man vviggins hath said . mr. palmer . what he hath told here , he discovered first to me , and i discovered to his master , that mr. knox would have had him to take a journal of his masters actions , and to give it him every day . my lord , i am one of the yeomen of the guard , and i waited upon mr. bedloe , and he desired me to help him to a clerk : i helped him to vviggins , this young man. he had not been there three weeks , or a very little time , when knox came to him to tempt him ; and being a stranger to his master , he knew not how to discover it to him , and told me , such a thing is offered to me , but i am a stranger to my master , and i know not how to break it to him . l. c. i. the use you make of this , is no more , but onely to corroborate what he hath said , that he told it him while it was fresh , and that it is now new matter of his invention now . mr. recorder . it is very right , my lord , that is the use we make of it . call thomas dangerfield . ( who was sworn . ) mr. vvilliams . pray , sir , give an account what you know concerning mr. knox and mr. lane , and what designs they have had against mr. oates , and who supported them and maintained them in it . mr. dangerfield . my lord , all that i have to say in this case , is this : i do think it was in the month of iune i was at my lord castlemains , and he asked me , if i had been imployed in a business of knox and lane , that were prisone●● at the gatehouse : i told him , not. his lordship then wrote a letter to my lady powis , and desired i might be imployed in it : and she did tell me that it was a thing of material consequence , and that i should be furnished with money for the getting of knox and lane out . i took all opportunities for the doing of it that were necessary . i went to the gate-house , made enquiry after lane , and took care with his mother to relieve him , for i heard he was in an indigent condition at that time . l. ch. iust. did you give his mother the money ? mr. dangerfield . yes , my lord , twenty shillings , and i had that money from mrs. cellier by my lady powis's order . after that time there was one mrs. airy , who used to carry money to the catholicks in prison , she said that it was possible , as she had been informed from some of the priests in the gate-house , that some things might be had under the hands of knox and lane that would be very material against mr. oates : she said she had been informed so . i then desired that mrs. airy that pen and ink might be conveyed to them , that they might have the convenience of giving it under their hands , which she promised , and they did convey pen and ink under the door to this mr. lane. l. ch. iust. how do you know that ? mr. dangerfield . as mrs. airy told me . then she came again , and withal told me , that it was mr. knox's desire that lane should do something to signifie to him , or satisfie him that he did stand fast , then lane wrote a little note , and that note was to this effect . i will die before i will comply with that villain oates , and if any good people will do me the kindness to get me my liberty , i will do the catholicks the greatest service imaginable in discovering what i know about mr. oates . this i write from the bottom of my heart , and shall die in it . so help me god. l. ch. iust. how came you by the note ? mr. dangerfield . this note was written by lane's own hand , and given from under the door to one mr. parsons a priest in the gate-house . this parsons ga●● the note to mrs. airy , and she gave it to me . l. ch. iust. do you know lane's hand ? mr. dangerfield . yes , very well , as i shall shew you anon . l. ch. iust. what became of the note ? mr. dangerfield . my lord , i don't know what became of the note , for the countess of powis had it afterwards . l. ch. iust. do you believe it was of lane's own writing ? mr. dangerfield . i am very well satisfied of it my lord , according to the judgment i am capable to give of hands ; indeed i was not acquainted with his hand then , but that was the first to my knowledge , that ever i saw of it ; but after i having parted with the note , and seeing some of his hand-writing , upon recollection i can say i believe it was his own hand . l. ch. iust. did you ever see the note again ? mr. dangerfield . never afterwards . and then my lord , my lady powis was exceeding glad upon the hearing of it , and as i was informed of it afterwards , she was the greatest part of the following day upon her knees , giving god thanks for the great advantage , and strength that was come to their cause . l. ch. iust. what! for having a villain to come over to her side , that swore backwards and forwards ? mr. dangerfield . afterwards i received money several times , and gave his mother more to furnish and relieve him . and several times afterwards i received money from mrs. cellier by order of my lady powis for the doing of lane's business , that is , for his liberty ; and i had the papers from one lawson an attorney , that had been employed in the same business before ; and as i was informed by him , a motion or two was made at this bar for their liberty , but however he began to despair of it , and i was to undertake it ; but withal he said , he was glad he was rid of it , for he had been often employed in the business of the catholicks , and it had impaired his credit very much , and very freely delivered the papers to me , which indeed were not many . after that , my lord , i retained mr. sanders , as i think it was he , but there was a motion about it , and with great difficulty i did get lane out upon common bail ; and when i had done so , according to my lady powis's order , i brought him to powis house ; and then my lady powis ordered , that he should go by the name of iohnson ; because if any of the servants should talk of one lane being in the house , it might come to oates's ear , the house might be search'd , and if he were found there , it might be prejudicial to the lords , and all their business . and then , my lord , mr. wood came a little after with the same command from his lord , and he had some order — l. ch. iust. who is wood ? mr. dangerfield , that wood is my lady powis's gentleman : and he came and ordered that my lady powis gave particular command to the porter of the house , in my hearing , that he should give order to all the servants , to have a particular eye and care that he did not go from the house , for they were very dubious of him , having made so many equivocations before , for they feared mr. oates might find him , or he might go voluntarily and make a discovery of himself , and so contradict all he had given an accompt of there . for , my lord , before this , as soon as ever lane was gone out , they were very desirous to have what he had to say put in writing ; but they had not opportunity then , but we let it alone to some other time . then , my lord , soon after , about three weeks or a month after ; i cannot be positive in the time , because i had a great deal of business upon my hands ; but i suppose it was about three weeks or a month after , my lord powis sent for me to the tower ; and told me he was informed that mr. oates was then making search after lane , and if he found him at his house , it would be very prejudicial to their business ; and he desired me to take care , and to send him out of the way , that mr. oates might not find him , which i did ; and thinking of several places , i could not find any so convenient as gray's in essex , by the water-side . i came to lane , and told him that he should be furnished with mony and necessaries for his journey , and , in order to it , that very day i took him and gave him a pair of shooes and ten shillings in his pocket , and sent him to gray's . i received two letters afterwards from this lane , by which letters i am very well satisfied , that that note that he wrote before that was given under the door , was his hand . so then i received a third letter ( i think ) my lord , and in the letter he told me that some person of mr. oates's acquaintance had been in that town and seen him , and he thought it was not material that he staid any longer there , and desired to be removed . so then i shewed my lady powis the letter , and i suppose my lord powis had an accompt of it also ; but i cannot be positive in that , but i had order to remove lane , and by my lady powis's means i sent down one on horseback , and he discharged some debts lane had contracted in the house , and sent him away to london ; and after his return to london , he continued three days more at my lord powis's house : at which time , he says , he was forced to lye upon the chairs , for at that time were the st. omers witnesses removed from mrs. celier's , because they were afraid of being taken up by sir william waller , who was in search for them . so having some other business , i did not send him away presently , but i had particular order to send lane into some other place : and i did advise with mrs. celier where to send him , and she said , i think it will be necessary to send him to peterly , at one mr. waites's house in buckinghamshire ; for , said she , they are catholicks , and will be sure to take a particular care of him : but i told her it would be too far ; and i would think of some place nearer ; and then i thought it would be necessary to send him to tottenham , to the white hart ; and there he stayed , i suppose , four or five days , or a week . this was after the tryal of the five jesuits , as i remember . my lord powis sent to me , and told me ; says he , i am in several doubts about this lane , and if it should be known that he is countenanced by me , or any of our people , it would not be well ; so i leave him wholly to you , do what you will with him ; but i advise you to send for him up to town , and give him ten shillings a week , to live upon . so when i was at leisure i sent for him again from tottenham , and i told him ; mr. lane , it will be very necessary that you do take some care for a livelihood about town ; it is not safe nor adviseable for you to be about powis house ; and at that time i took care he should come there no more , and that if my lord powis's servants should meet him , they should take no notice of him ; which they did perform i suppose , and as i was told . but before this , and before i sent lane into the country , the second time , as near as i can remember , knox was at liberty ; i had been endeavouring , as soon as i had got lane out of the gate-house , to get knox out also ; but i found i could not , and i left that . but i have been informed by mr. knox himself , that one mr. nevil , aliàs paine , was furnished with mony from the lords in the tower , for the getting of knox's liberty ; and this nevil himself did say , as mr. knox told me , that he did it by their order ; and from this knox , by mrs. celier's perswasion , i received several papers , which were informations against oates ; or , at least , those papers that they had drawn up before they were in custody . these papers were sent by me to the tower , and from thence to mr. nevil to enlarge upon , i suppose , as he thought fit ; and after to my lord castlemain , and afterwards they were re-sent to me by mrs. celier , who ordered me to draw up an affidavit according to those directions , and get lane sworn to the same , which i did , and took lane , and asked him , said i , mr. lane , here is an affidavit , can you swear it ; yes , said he , i can swear it , before i read it to him . l. ch. iust. i believe so . m. dangerfield . nay , said i , you know not what it is ; so i read it to him ; said i , do you know this to be a truth ; yes , said he , i do know it to be all true : said i , i will read it again to you , because you are to make oath of it , and i would not have you do any thing , but what is safe , and then we went to sir iames butler , but he was not at home then to have it sworn . l. ch. iust. what was the purport of that affidavit ? mr. dangerfield . my lord , i cannot well remember the words , but it was about accusing mr oates of sodomy . l. ch. iust. on whom ? mr. dangerfield . it was for attempting buggery on the body of this lane. l. ch. iust. that was the substance of it ? mr. dangerfield . yes , my lord : and i did take this lane to sir iames butler , and he did make affidavit that it was true : and it was left there before sir iames butler . i suppose the affidavit may be in court , or a copy of it . so my lord , after that lane being gone from powis-house , and i having no manner of converse with him more ; but only that every saturday i took care he should have his money , sometimes i went to his mother's lodgings and left it there for him , sometimes he would come to me for it : after this we were remov'd from powis-house to mrs. celliers ; but he was always certain of ten shillings a week . sometimes he would pretend that it was too little for him to live upon ; and sometimes i would give him two , or three , or four shillings more of my self ; but i had no order to do that from any body . this is all my lord , i do know of lane as i remember . mr. justice iones . what do you know of knox ? mr. dangerfield . knox first delivered to me those papers , that were sent first to the tower , and afterwards to nevil , and afterwards to my lord castlemain , and redelivered to me ; and i did deliver them again to knox , after they were inlarged upon : and i believe , after that , knox had prevailed with lane to write them in his own hand . l. ch. iust. why do you believe so ? mr. dangerfield . because being writ in a fair hand , knox told me when the papers were delivered , these are the main things that i am to work by , and these must be produced against oates , and be writ over in a fairer hand , and by that i believe he prevailed with lane to write it in his own hand . l. ch. iust. whose hand were they in ? mr. dangerfield . it was a strange hand ; i knew not , and i do not believe it was knox's hand , though indeed , i can't tell , i know it not . mr. justice iones . did knox ask you who had the perusal of those papers ? and who had made additions to them ? mr. dangerfield . no , he took the papers , and took no notice of any addition or inlargement . mr. justice pemberton . pray sir , tell the manner of the delivering of those papers . mr. dangerfield . first , by mrs. cellier's perswasion , knox delivered to me the papers , which imported the whole matter of the charge against mr. oates : these i sent to the tower by mrs. cellier's hands , from thence they were sent to nevil to be enlarged upon , from thence to my lord castlemain , who was also to inlarge upon them , and from thence they were sent to mrs. cellier again , and from her delivered to me , and i delivered them to knox again . i found by his discourse and every thing else , that mr. knox was desirous of my correspondence , but yet seemed as if he were shy of any body 's taking notice of it . said i , to mr. knox , there is one mrs. downing , that lives at lambeth over the water , where mr. oates and dr. tongue , and several other persons used to meet , where i had been informed by some of the catholicks ; by parsons , my lady powis , and several others , that mr. oates , dr. tongue , my lord of danby , and others , did meet at the almes-houses there , where the plot was contrived and formed ; for they pretended to me there was no such thing really . so , said i , if you will go with me , we will discourse with her about the matter , for i heard she talked very freely in several matters nearly concerning mr. oates , and my lord of danby , and other persons . so , as i said , i told him , if you will go along with me , i have not been there yet , i will go and discourse with her , and put down what she says in writing . then mr. knox , my brother , and my self did go over to this mrs. downing , and had much discourse with her , where she did repeat many transactions that were very agreeable to the story that i had received from my lady powis , and several other persons before . knox did seem to be very well satisfied about it , and promised to take cognizance of it , and said , it was very material , but we did not put it down in writing . i did not , i know not what he did afterwards . we promised to come again another time , but i do not remember we did ever go afterwards . but mr. knox solicited me to go with him , and some business or other did still intervene ; that is all that is remarkable of mr. knox , which i do remember at that time ; but i do remember that after we were removed from powis-house , when i was at mrs. celiers , nay i think both before and after he was often treating with mrs. celier , but i know not what was their discourse , nor was i desirous to know . but mr. knox came then to me , and began to renew his correspondence , and withall told me , that he had some likelihood of bringing osborn over to their party . said he , i find he is gone again to his master , but he shall do his business , ( meaning , as i suppose , mr. oates ) for he had , as i understood by him at that time , been tampering with osborn , but he did tell me it was osborn's voluntary act , that he did own it , and that he did go to mr. oates again only ●o do mr. knox service . my lord , some time after this , knox came to me at mrs. celiers , and told me he had done the business , expressing the greatest joy that could be . what business , said i ? osborn is come over , said he , and i have had an account from the beginning to the end of all the transactions of his master oates , and i have not only an account of it , but it is put into writing , and i took osborn before a justice of peace , and he hath made affidavit of it . when i heard this , i thought it would give great satisfaction to the lords in the tower , and desired mr. knox to let me have a copy of that affidavit . he told me , no , he thought it would not be material to let me have a copy , for by that means it might become publick and be discovered ; and , said he , i have some further design in this , mr. oates is going down to my lord lovelace's in oxfordshire , and osborn is going with him , and he hath promised me to be a spy upon his masters actions , and to give me an account of all . and this will be material , but i do not think fit to let you have a copy of the affidavit at present . some time after this , i told mrs. celier the story , who i suppose went to the tower and gave the lords an account of it . and the next time i had the honour to see my lady powis , she was pleased to say , she liked it very well , but did not as i remember say any thing of the copy ; but being desirous to see what osborn had sworn , and whether it were agreeable to lane's affidavit that i spake of before , i desire knox to let me see it , but he had it not about him at that time . some time after that , as near as i can remember i was at proctor's coffee-house at charing-cross , and mr. knox came thither , whether by my appointment , or his , i can't well tell , but there we met , and one bedford was with me ; at that same time mr. knox desired we would go into a back-room , and now , said he , i will give you satisfaction , and drew out of his pocket an affidavit , it was a sheet of paper , if not written of every side , i believe of three sides ; it was very long , and he read it , my lord , and i did find by the contents of it , that it did imply the same thing that lane had sworn before sir iames butler ; that is , that mr. cates should attempt upon lane's body to commit sodomy , or something very agreeable to it . i told him , mr. knox , said i , this is very material , this will do you a great deal of service , the term is coming on , you would do well to get an indictment drawn up against mr. cates. said he , i will do his business , and will advise with persons able to instruct me in it , and i don't doubt but to carry on the business effectually . and to that purpose i desired him to let me have a copy of the affidavit ; he promised me i should , and said he would bring it several times , and he came several times to my lodging , but did not bring it ; but i having it read to me , and remembring the contents of it , the next time i saw my lady powis , i gave her an account of it . said she , this man is very diligent , and deserves to be encouraged , and as i believe gave the lords in the tower an account of it too , for then she was lodgd at the tower with her lord , and so her ladishop told me : and , said she , do you know whether this man be in a condition to prosecute this business against mr. cates ? said she , i believe he is put upon this by my lord of danby , and he i believe takes care of him to furnish him with money . said i , i have endeavoured to trace him out in that thing , and by all his correspondents i could never find , but only by one , that mr. knox was ever acquainted or held correspondence with my lord of danby , and that person is mr. nettervile , who is a worthy gentleman of my acquaintance in the pall-mall : and being in his chamber , knox came in , and speaking merrily after his manner to him , said he , knox when were you at the tower with my lord of danby ? said he , i hold no correspondence with him . yes , said mr. nettervile , 't is plain you do , and i believe a friend of mine saw you go in the other day : but knox did positively deny it ; that was all that ever i heard of his correspondence with my lord of danby . after this , when her ladiship came to me to ask me what condition he was in to prosecute the tryal ; i told her , i believed his condition was very mean , and it would be very acceptable , if he might or could be furnished with money . well , said she , i will take care of it , and give an account of it to my lord , and he shall be furnished . and in the mean time , if mr. knox wants money , be sure you take care and furnish him ; but you need not let it be very considerable , till you see what is raised . some time after this , mr. knox came to mrs celiers house to ask for me , i was then in my chamber , but not ready ; he came up to me , and told me , said he , really i am very poor , i am going to pavvn my sword , or something to that purpose , can you lend me five pounds ? really mr. knox , said i , i will tell you , the affidavit that you read to me i have given an account of it to my lady powis , and i suppose some other persons of honour have had an account of it also ; i am satisfied they are , and that the lords in the tower will take care that money shall be raised for your prosecuting of mr. oates . he seem'd to smile at this ; but said he , if this should be known , it would be very prejudicial to the business , and spoil it ; but yet however if you can furnish me with money at this time , you will do me a great kindness , for i have very great occasion . i told him , said i , i have not so much money by me , you come at an unseasonable time , though indeed i told him a lye , but i thought it not safe to part with money without further order . mr. knox went away , and i gave an account of it to mrs. celier , who went either every day , or every other day to the tower ; i told her what mr. knox said , and i do believe ( as she told me afterwards ) she told my lady powis of it , and mrs. celier seem'd to be angry that i did not let him have the money , and order'd me that at what time soever after that mr. knox should come to me , i should let him have what money he wanted . some time after this , mr. knox did come to me , and said his condition was very mean , and you told me , said he , that care should be taken by the lords in the tower to furnish me with money . said i , mr knox i can let you have 30 or 40 s. if that will do you any kindness ; i have no order for any sum at present , but as soon as it comes , it must come to you through my hands , and it must pass as if i lent it you , and you shall give me a note for it to repay it , lest any thing should come to be discovered , and coming to mr. oates hearing , should prejudice the business ; though i had been too forward before in giving mr. knox an account that the lords in the tower would contribute to this business . at that time i went up stairs and fetch'd down 40 s. and gave it him : he came afterwards , and would have borrowed more of me at other times , once or twice after that , but i did not furnish him , for i had received no order to furnish him any further . and this , my lord , is all the correspondence i had with him , and as near as i can remember , i have given nothing in but what is a very true account of the transaction . sir fr. win. my lord , i crave one question of him , if he have done : after the papers were corrected and written fair , and enlarged upon by the several persons , did you read them ? and what were the contents of them ? mr. dangerfield . my lord , i did not read them , nor did i draw them , but i do believe that the contents were the same for substance with the affidavit that lane made before sir iames butler . mr. williams . sir , you mention several sums of money that you paid to knox , and paid to lane , pray where had you this money ? mr. dangerfield . the 40 s that i gave to knox it was my own money , but if i must give an account where i had it , i believe it came originally from the tower. mr. williams . the ten shillings a week , whence came that ? mr. dangerfield . sometimes from the hands of my lady powis , at other times from mris. celier ; sometimes from mr. wood , and sometimes from my self , and i placed it to accompt . mr. serj. maynard . if your lordship please , we will now proceed to another part of our evidence . mr. williams . about what time were they to endict mr. oates ? was not this project on foot when the presbyterian-plot was on foot ? mr. dangerfield . my lord , i don't know what time ; but it was by my advice to be done this term , and so did nevil advise too . mr. serj. maynard . my lord , i would read some of the memorials or informations , that they were to swear against dr. oates concerning the business that you have heard . lord chief iustice. would you have them read , brother ? mr. serj. maynard . yes , my lord. lord chief iustice. who proves them ? then the iustices of peace swore them . mr. justice pemberton . sir william waller , did he confess he left them with my lord latimer ? sir william waller . these are the papers that were confessed to be carryed to my lord latimer . mr. warcup . osborn did swear , that the informations marked 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , & 5 , were all of his own hand-writing , and were dictated by the said knox. mr. just. pemberton . and he did confess , that these were the informations that he had delivered to my lord latimer . mr. vvarcup . yes , he did so . mr. serj. maynard . it will lie on his part , to prove that they were true . mr. just. pemberton . which will you have read , one , or all of them . mr. serj. maynard . one , or two ; take knox's first . which was delivered to the clerk of the crown , who read it in haec verba . [ numb . 1. ] the information of thomas knox , sworn before me this day of 1679. this informant doth upon his oath declare , that on the first of this present april , there came one william osborne to the informant in the painted-chamber in westminster , and told to him the said informant , that he had somthing of moment to reveal to him ; and did also desire the informant to go with him into the abby , and he would reveal it to him ; upon which the said osborne , and the informant being together , the said osborne did tell the informant , that his conscience was mightily troubled for that he found the lord treasurer was maliciously prosecuted by mr. oates and mr. bedlow ; for that he having been a servant to mr. oates , and had often heard mr. oates and mr. bedlow consult together , in mr. oates his chamber in whitehall , and resolve how they might contrive a way whereby to destroy my lord treasurer : and that he had chosen to reveal this secret , and ease his conscience to the informant , rather than to any one else , because he thought he would keep it secret , for his own sake , because he had already suffered by endeavouring to serve the said lord treasurer , and thereupon the said osborne shewed to the informant some papers written , as he told the informant , all in his own hand , and which were relating to the said lord treasurer ; upon which the said informant , told the said osborne , that he was no servant of the said lord treasurers , and did not therefore desire to meddle in it ; and that particularly , because he had never spoke with the said osborne before , and desired to be excused ; upon which the said osborne did press the informant , and withal did tell him , that if he did not assist him in this affair , it was resolved both by him , and one mr. lane , that they would come in on the day of the said lord treasurers tryal , and declare the truth concerning what they knew , concerning the malicious design of the said mr. oates and mr. bedlow , against the said lord treasurer ; for that they could not rest for fear he should suffer innocently , whilst they could with so good a conscience , as they thought , save him : and the said osborne did withall declare , that the aforesaid mr. lane was resolved to speak to the informant , upon the foresaid matter : and the said lane did accordingly , upon the said first of april , in the evening , meet the informant , and shewed him some papers , wherein he had taken several memorials , relating to his majesty , the queen , my lord treasurer , and several other persons : and did withall declare to the informant , that his conscience was so troubled , to see the malicious proceedings of the said mr. oates and bedlow , against the said lord treasurer , that he could not rest in his bed , untill he had disburdened it , by telling the truth ; and if he had not met with this informant , he was resolved to declare it speedily to some one else ▪ or come himself at the day of the said lord treasurer's tryal , and there declare all that he knew , relating to that affair . and did withall conjure the informant , as also the said osborne , to keep all they had told him secret : for if it should come to the ears of the said mr. oates and bedlow , they would endeavour to poison , or murder them , the said osborne and lane , the first time they should see them . tho. knox. then a second was offered to be read ; but there appearing scandalous matter to be in it , reflecting on the king ; the court thought not fit , to suffer the same to be read through . mr. serj. maynard . my lord , i think it appears by the evidence sufficiently , how they did designe to accuse mr. oates . lord chief iustice. ay , brother , come let us hear what they can say to it on the other side . mr. withins . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the iury ; i am of councel for the defendant knox , and for knox only . mr. williams . pray sir , hold : my lord , we have here two witnesses more , that will fortify mr. dangerfield in what he hath said . call susan edwards , and mrs. blake . then mrs. blake appeared , and was sworn . mr. williams . pray mrs. blake , what can you say of any reward lane was to have , for accusing mr. oates ? or any promises were made to him ? mrs. blake . all that i can say of lane , is this ; that lane did say once to me , i am here ; and i was dr. oate's man , and he would have buggered me : and he did make complaint for want of linnen ; and spoke to me , to wash him some linnen . said he , here i have no linnen , neither will they let me have any ; and his boy here , will not stir to look for any , unless willoughby speak to him . then the boy was spoke to . lord chief iustice. what is all this ? what sayes the other woman ? mr. williams . he is called willoughby sometimes , & sometimes dangerfield ; for he went by both names : but i ask you , what money you know was given to him ? blake . he told me , he was to be allowed ten shillings a week ? lord chief iustice. this is only to strengthen his evidence . blake . he never said to me , from whom it was . then mrs. edwards was sworn . mr. serj. maynard . what do you say mrs. ? edwards . may it please you , i don't know lane ; i never saw him in my life , but only when he was sent for , by mrs. celier , to get an habeas corpus for willoughby , who was then in newgate ; and he did come the next day , and gave his answer to me . lord chief iustice. she sayes nothing , but only he was desired to get an habeas corpus for vvilloughby . mr. sol. general . yes , my lord , she is called to shew you , whether lane had not money from mrs. celier . edwards . that was the first time i saw him ; and the next morning , i saw him him again : and when he came to the door , he told his errand to me . he said , he could get no habeas corpus : for he was such a rogue , no body would meddle nor make with him . mr. dangerfield . i would fain have her asked this question , my lord , if you please ; did you ever see mr. knox , at mrs. celiers house ? edwards . if i see him , i can tell . then the defendant , knox , was shewn to her . edwards . i cannot say , this is the man : i have heard much talk of mr. knox , and that he hath been there ; but i cannot swear , this is he . mr. dangerfeild . my lord , if your lordship pleases , when lane was first brought to me to the countess of of powis house , he was very meanly equipag'd , and the countess of powis was informed of it , and did desire me to take some particular care to cloath him , and that i should put him into a disguise ; but at that time i had a suit of cloaths , that were lined with blew , which i gave to him ; and i also advised him to cut off his hair , and to put on a perriwigg , which he did , and hath worn it ever since , as i believe . lord chief iustice. well , let us hear what they say to it . mr. withins . may it please lordship , i am of counsel in this case for mr. knox ; there are two persons here made defendants : as for mr. lane , i have nothing to do with him , nor to say for him ; and his case hath made him appear to be a very evil man. but my lord , i do observe that indictment consists of two parts : the first is , that these two defendants did conspire together ; and this was the thirtyeth of april ( and the proof comes to that time , for it will be material in our case ) that they did maliciously and deceitfully combine , and conspire against titus oates clerk , and vvill. bedloe gentleman , who had discovered this horrid popish plot , and whom they knew to have given informations of it , to take away their reputation , and make them witnesses of no belief or credit ; that is one part of the indictment , the other part is that to further the same ; mr. knox did cause two or three letters to be written , as from osborne and lane to him purporting those aspertions to be layd upon oates and bedloe : for the last part of the indictment , the council for the king have not thought fit to proceed upon it , and they have not given an account of the letters : but for the first part , their conspiring to take off the reputation of oates and bedloe is the only thing they have proceeded upon as i conceive . i must needs say , my lord , that mr. knox as well as doctor oates and mr. bedloe , have had a very great misfortune to meet with these men . l. c. i. to meet with whom ? mr. vvithins . to meet with osborne and lane , for i do not here pretend to lay any aspersion , or make any reflections upon the credit or reputation of doctor oates or mr. bedloe . i think they have serv'd the nation too well to be villifi'd here . but i shall say this , that as osborne and lane had a great designe to disgrace and discredit mr. oates and mr. bedloe ; so they had a designe to draw my clyent mr. knox in , to pursue their malice . i did shew you , that they did begin their evidence as to time in april , and they have laid it so in the indictment : we shall prove to your lordship , and shew you , that before this , and before that mr. knox knew either osborne or lane , that they had drawn up this accusation against mr. oates , and read it to several witnesses , which we shall produce . and afterwards , when they came to advise how they should prosecute the same , they were advised first to go to mr. thewer : he told them that it was a dangerous thing to meddle about , and he would not involve himself , but bid them take care what they did in it . upon this they apply themselves to my clyent mr. knox , he told them the same thing ; it is a matter of great consequence , i desire not to meddle with it . said they , will you not assist us in this business , when we only discover this to acquit our own consciences , who knew these things to be treating and contriving against the king and my lord of danby ? for my part , says one of them , i cannot leave the town till i have discovered it . notwithstanding this , mr. knox would not undertake to meddle with it , but left them . they come to him the second time , and mr. knox being a young man , and it seems , being a servant in the family , entered into a corresdence with them , to prosecute what they had design'd to do . there is nothing appears ( and this i would observe , if your lordship please ) in the whole evidence , that mr. knox was to swear any thing against dr. oates , or mr. bedloe , ( as i remember ) but he was indeed engaged to carry on the prosecution , these witnesses enforming him of it ; and that it was a truth , i must observe to your lordship upon their evidence , they did insinuate , as if mr. knox had been at the charge of maintaining lane : but i think , that mr. dangerfield hath pretty well cleared whence that maintenance came , that he gave to mr. lane ; that it came through none of the hands of my clyent mr. knox. lord chief iustice. no , mr. withins , he is not accused for giving him a constant maintenance ; but for the money , the guinneys , and ten shillings . 't is true , it was said , it was to be paid again ; but from him they had the money : and it appears , that he provided lodgings for them , and paid for their lodgings . mr. just. pemberton . and pray observe this , that what mr. dangerfield speaks of , is of a time afterwards , after they had been taken and imprisoned , and confessed the matter . mr. withins . but this you observe i hope , my lord , from mr. dangerfield's evidence ; that knox was very poor , had not any thing to maintain himself with . lord chief iustice. the sums indeed , don't seem to be very great ; a guinney , and ten shillings in silver : but whatever it was , he gave it them , and took lodgings for them , and paid for them . mr. withins . i did intend to observe to your lorship , that 't is a pretty strange thing , that there should be a designe to corrupt persons , to commit this foul and horrid offence ; and nothing of a reward or corruption proved , but two guinneys , and ten shillings . mr. just. pemberton . what say you to the promises of five hundred pound , and a hundred pound a year a peece ? mr. vvithins . that was lane's own evidence . lane and osborne might brag what they would , of what they were to have , and from whom : but i believe , not one in the court , believed a word they said . for it does appear , that lane did forswear himself backwards and forwards , as the wind blew . so that , as for what lane hath said , it weighs not ; but we shall call two witnesses , to whom lane declared this matter in february and march , before the time that knox was concerned : so that if we make it appear , that the contrivance was theirs , and there was only a great deal of weakness and indiscretion in mr. knox , to believe such idle persons , against persons that had shewed themselves so considerable in this discovery . i hope it vvill not be thought such a crime in us , seeing there is nothing in it , but that a young man was led away ; and only his folly , and his indiscretion drew him in ; not any malice or ill design . sir vvill. vvaller . my lord , mr. knox did confess to me , that he did throw down a guinney , and then lane and osborne took it up ; but they both positively swore , that he threw it down for this reason , that he might safely swear , he never gave them it . mr. saunders . all that they swear is not agreed to be true ; my lord , if your lordship please , i am of counsel for the defendant knox , and as to that part of the indictment that charges him with writing the letters they do not proceed upon . mr. serjeant maynard . yes , we do , we proceed upon the whole — l. chief iustice. they proceed upon the whole , but you may say if you will , they give no proof of it . mr. saunders . then , as to that , with submission to your lordships judgment , the defendant is to be found not guilty . mr. iust. pemberton . you must observe , these are not several crimes , but one continued crime , and therefore the evidence must go to the whole . l. ch. iustice. you do well to observe it for your client , but if you require it of the counsel on the other side , it may be they will give you an answer , if you will undertake to affirm that they have given no evidence as to that part of the indictment wherein it says , mr. knox contrived three letters to scandalize mr. oats . mr. saunders . we submit it to the court whether they have or no. for the other part of the indictment wherein it is charged that he should maliciously contrive with lane to lay a calumny and scandal upon mr. oates and mr. bedloe , the very point we are to answer to is this , whether this were a malicious contrivance or no , and for that we shall give your lordship this evidence , that knox was a young ignorant man , and drawn in by lane and osborne to patronize their mischief they intended against oates and bedloe ; for my lord , mr. knox was not acquainted with them , or had any thing to do with them till that they had contrived this matter among themselves : for , my lord , we shall call you witnesses to prove , that before knox had to do with them , they would have had another person to prosecute this business for them . and if wel satisfie you that he was drawn in , i hope it will acquit us ; notwithstanding i will observe to your lordship and the jury , whether lane be guilty or not guilty does not affect us , if we were onely drawn into the contrivance . l. ch. iust. where ever lane's testimony stands single against knox , it is no evidence . mr. iust. iones . but if he was not in the plot at the beginning , but was drawn in , and did after proceed with them , as dangerfield proves , i doubt it will not acquit him . mr. iust. pemberton . consider a little your case , you say here was a contrivance of two , that knox was not in the beginning , but they offered it to others with whom it would not take , why let knox come in when he will , if he does come into the contrivance and takes the papers and manages the business to fix these scandals and encourage them to carry them on , knox is as guilty as all the rest . mr. saunders . but if these men come and tell him these things are true and we can swear them , and so is drawn in , it takes away the malice of the contrivance . l. ch. iust. this is the use the defendant knox his counsel make of it , at first knox was not acquainted with the matter , and when he did come to understand it he thought it to be true , as they affirmed it was true , and , said they , we will go before a justice of peace and swear it : he was willing , there being a discovery of several conspiracies against his lord's life , as they said , he being his servant , he was willing to prosecute the business , and this is the use they make of it . mr. iust. pemberton . come let us hear your witnesses . mr. scroggs . call frances lane and mary lane. l. ch. iust. but i 'll tell you what , it will be necessary to clear your selves as well as you can of those papers that were delivered by knox to dangerfield , and went about to the lords in the tower , and afterward to nevill , and by him amended , and after delivered to knox again by dangerfield : this does shew as if you were concerned in the whole affair , and in all the matter of the information before it was cooked and after it was dressed . you must give some account of that , for that sticks strongly upon you . [ then mrs. frances lane and her daugher mary lane were sworn . ] mr. scroggs . mrs. lane , are not you mother to lane the defendant ? frances lane. yes . mr. withins . pray will you give an account what your son said to you in february last . mr. serj. maynard . we pray they may ask their questions in general . mr. iust. pemberton . don't you point her to a time . l. ch. iust. answer me , what hath your son said to you at any time concerning oates ? frances lane. he spoke it about march. l. ch. iust. what did he say ? frances lane. he used him uncivilly , he had no mind to stay with him . l. ch. iust. what said you ? frances lane. i desired him to stay longer . l. ch. iust. how often did he tell you this ? frances lane. several times . l. ch. iust. he had left his service once , had he not ? frances lane. yes . l. ch. iust. was it before or after he left his service ? frances lane. before and after too . l. ch. iust. if he complained he had so used him before , why would he go to him again ? frances lane. because the times were hard and i perswaded him . l. ch. iust. ay , but would you perswade him after such an abuse of your son as that ? frances lane. i thought then he would not do so again . mr. iust. iones . when was the first time he complained to you ? frances lane. it was about christmas . mr. iust. iones . was it before christmas ? frances lane. it was after . mr. iust. pemberton . consider here you bring lane's mother to accuse him to excuse your self . l. ch. iust. but is this material ? mr. scroggs . it is material to our client mr. knox , who was drawn in here by a couple of rascals . we prove that before this time , which justice warcup and sir william waller have in their informations , they offered the same discovery to others . l. ch. iust. call them and prove it , but you will never have the better name for calling them ill ones . mr. scroggs . we lay all upon lane and osborne who inveigled knox. mr. saunders . pray mrs. lane tell the court and jury how and when your son came acquainted with mr. knox. frances lane. may it please you my lord , osborn brings a paper to our house and would have had my son have read it , but he could not , so he read it himself ; and there were some desperate things in it . l. ch. iust. what were they ? frances lane. i can't tell , they were concerning the king and the queen and my lord treasurer . l. ch. iust. when was this ? frances lane. in march last , at our house , and i desired them they would not meddle with such things , for i said they were things beyond them . my son promised me he would not meddle with it , but let osborne alone with it , but said i , pray go to one captain thewer , he is a good civil man , and a man of understanding . so they did go as i directed them . mr. iust. pemberton . who went ? frances lane. osborne did . mr. iust. pemberton . who went with him ? for you say they . frances lane. iohn lane my son. l. ch. iust. was there any thing particular in those papers concerning mr. oates being guilty of sodomy ? frances lane. i cannot say in particular , it is a great while ago , but he went to captain thewer , and he wish'd him , after he had read it , said he , don't meddle with any of these things for it will be the worse for you . l. ch. iust. as your son told you , you were not by . f. lane. yes they both told me so . with that says mr. osborne , i 'll find out one mr. knox , who had been some acquaintance of mr. wiggins , mr. bedloe's clerk , and so , said he , i will ask mr. wiggins , if he be acquainted with mr. knox. l. ch. iust. did your son at that time know knox ? f. lane. no , my lord , he had never seen him at that time : so my son went , and they found mr. wiggins and mr. knox walking in the abby . l. ch. iust. was lane with him then ? f. lane. he went with osborne , and came and told me , knox would not meddle with them . l. ch. iust. who came and told you so ? f. lane. osborne came and told me so and my son. l. ch. iust. you were not by ? f. lane. no , not i , but said he , as he told me , i will go to him again , and afterwards he did meet him again , as he said , and delivered them to him . mr. withins . did you ever see knox in your life ? f. lane. i had never seen him then . mr. withins . did you ever hear your son say he did know knox before that time ? f. lane. never in my life . mr. iust. pemberton . but you do not prove that they were not acquainted . l. c.iust . do you believe osborne said true , mr. saunders ? mr. saunders . not when he spoke to sir william waller to accuse my client of the contrivance . l. ch. iust. in that case when 't is against your client he did not , but in other cases he might , well go on . mr. withins . which is mary lane ? m. lane. i am she sir. i can say no more then my mother hath said , i was by at the same time . mr. saunders . do you know when iohn lane came acquainted with knox ? was it before april last or after ? mr. iust. pemberton . how is it possible that any one can swear a negative ? mr. saunders . if we can't prove the negative , nor they the affirmative , it will be presumed they were not , because it is not known . mr. iust. pemb. nor do you prove any informations before given to any one . mr. saund. yes , to thewer . mr. with. we will ask the daughter about that . f. lane. she can onely prove it by hearing it , for she was sick . mr. with. young mrs. lane , what was there in that paper that osborne brought to your house ? m. lane. there was concerning the king and the queen and my lord treasurer . l. c. iust. was there any thing in it concerning mr. oates ? m. lane. yes , there was concerning his beastliness . mr. iust. pemb. who read it ? m. lane. osborne i did hear reade it . mr. saun. your brother was not acquainted with knox then ? mr. iust. pemb. how can they tell that ? 't is impossible . l. ch. iust. the nature of the thing is such , that it can be proved no otherwise . but it seemed to them that they were of no acquaintance , it is hard to prove when an acquaintance begins . mr. saund. and further then this we cannot go in such a case ; for that thing of the great sums of money , certainly it was as little a thing as could be ; there was no more in the case then a guiney , and ten shillings and three half crowns as proved , and he was cheated of them it seems , for they would not do the work . mr. scroggs . 't is an improbable thing that he should be so poor as to sell the handle of his sword , and yet be ingaged in the management of such a plot , and not have money for it . l. ch. iust. there is no great store of money appears to be given to lane , but he was kept upon a mean maintenance . mr. iust. iones . but it was not without expectation of a reward . mr. iust. pemb. he tells you the wages was to be paid when the work was done . l. ch. iust. and when the roguery was discovered , they had no more money then . mr. iust. pemb. when the business came to be controverted thus , they had no reason to give it . mr. saund. though lane had maintenance , yet our client knox was not taken such care of , still there was provision made for him , but none for us , because we were drawn in and did not contrive it . mr. iust. pemb. but remember mr. saunders , by the same hand there was forty shillings given at one time . mr. with. well my lord we have done : we say that we had no part in the malice of the contrivance , and therefore ought not to be punished with them . l. ch. i. well mr. holt , what say you for lane ? mr. holt. my lord , i am assigned of counsel for the defendant lane. i have no witnesses at all to examine , but onely shall make some little observations upon the evidence that is given for the king. as for the indictment it self , though it is not several crimes , but one complicated crime , yet the evidence that is given is onely to one part thereof , and therefore i submit it to your lordship if the proof be proportionable to the charge , and whether the defendant ought not to be found not guilty . there hath been great mention made of the writing letters , yet it would be hard that the defendant should be found guilty of such an offence when the proof does not come up so high : that would introduce a severer punishment then the crime proved would justifie . mr. just. pemb. pray mr. holt don't go away with that : i must set you right a little there , the crime that is laid is , to discountenance the kings evidence , and to make them that they should not be believed ; the means are several , partly by casting of crimes upon them , partly by writing letters ; that crime is another thing , and therefore if they do not find them guilty of every one of the particular means , yet the crime must be found . l. ch. j. you are in the right thus far mr. holt , they have laid in the indictment , that they endeavouring to disparage the credit of oates and bedloe , have for money's sake , and by promises and contrivances , and writing of letters wherein was scandalous matter against oates and bedloe , they thereby did attempt to discredit them . now say you if this matter be not proved that there was any scandalous matter concerning oates and bedloe , then the contrivance is not proved : but what though all the facts in the indictment are not proved , yet if there be enough to prove your contrivance to discredit them , and if you suppose the evidence true that is given , it rests i think plainly upon your client , and you cannot get off from it : but if there be not sufficient proof to maintain the indictment for the crime of endeavouring to discredit oates and bedloe , unless they prove the letters also , you say something , but there is the business that sticks on you , they have proved enough without that . mr. holt. if the jury do not find them not guilty generally , may they not find them not guilty of writing the letters ? l. ch. i. no ; for if the other part of the evidence did not amount to a proof of a design of disparaging their testimony , you had a very strong objection of it : but if they lay five things , and they prove but one of them upon you , if that one serves to the disparaging of oates and bedloe , which is the substance of the indictment , that maintains the indictment . mr. holt. it does so my lord , but not the aggravations . l. ch. just. all that you say then is in mitigation of a fine , but if all be true that is proved upon your client , as i see no reason to doubt it , you will save but little by this defence . mr. holt. my lord , as to the matter , it all depends upon the credit of the witnesses , and credibility of the circumstances in themselves and one with another . some of the evidence is but very slight , and sure were but produced to spend time . l. ch. just. indeed there was a great deal of it to little purpose ; for ought i see this tryal needed not to have been above an hour . mr. holt. as for his saying he should have 100 li. a year , and the bettering of his fortune , it was but his vanity and extravagance . l. ch. just. mr. holt does argue as much for his client as the case will bear . mr. holt. they have endeavoured to lay all upon us , now if so be we are affected with any severe evidence , i think the same evidence ( to requite them ) does affect them . l. ch. just. this is a kind of battel-royal , where every one hath two enemies to oppose . mr. holt. here is mr. dangerfield he comes , and in his evidence tells you , that my lady powis was so long upon her knees to thank god that her party was so much strengthned by the accession of law , my lord , i desire the quality of mr. lane may be taken notice of , a footman and a young rash fellow , one that both for age and quality could not be very considerable . lord chief iust. but two witnesses is better than one , mr. holt , do you remember that ? knox used that expression , if lane do but keep firm , we shall be too hard for osborne alone , for two witnesses are better than one , but by that he counted lane worth something . mr. holt. you must consider what he was to swear they could scarce get an evidence so proper for what they would have him swear . lord chief iust. mr. williams , what answer can you give to all the transactions that mr. dangerfield tells you of about knox ? besides , take notice of this , you would have this to be a contrivance by lane and osborne to be between themselves , and that your clyent must be a stranger to it ; and when he comes to know it , he knows it only as a remorse of conscience that they tell him they have , and desire him to go with him before a justice of peace to swear it , and he hearing something that might affect his master the earl of danby , and believing that always true , did encourage that matter onely for his masters service , and thought he did a good act in it : but your subsequent behaviour shews it was a conspiracy rather ; for , first , your secret wayes of sending your cunning notes , we all club'd together , and you payd two shillings at the sugar-loaf , bear this , which shews , and does to my apprehension , signifie as if he would never own that he spent any thing upon them , and that he was bountiful to them . and then the giving of money to the man to convey notes , that they might not betray one another ; does not all these subsequent actions , especially those dangerfield tells you of , and receiving the papers after they were enlarged upon speak it a conspiracy , what can you say to all this ? mr. vvilliams . my lord — mr. iust. pemberton . stay a little , and answer all together ; do but consider with your self , those informations your clyent knox did own he took , and before they were sworn , and carried them to my lord latimer's lodgings , and he himselfe owns , that he took lodgings for them , and lay with them , and when the lords were in pursuit of them . lord chief iust. and then does he steal them from place to place , takes lodgings for them , and payes for them . mr. iust. iones . he brings one of them to make affidavit , and will keep it by him , is shie of shewing it ; afterwards does shew it , this makes him a contriver too , as well as an executer . mr. saunders . if your lordship please — mr. iust. pemb. consider too the papers that were put in too of caution , that knox and they should not be found in several tales ; for knox had been examined before they were , that was the meaning of those instructions ? lord. ch. iust. if you have any witnesses to wipe your selves clean from the matter of receiving the papers from dangerfield , & taking lodgings for them when they were under that accusation , do . mr. saunders . i have a word to answer upon the testimonie of mr. dangerfield . mr. iust. pemberton . consider this , that he attempted another man upon the same account ; your clyent did tempt vviggins to do the same thing to his master . mr. saunders . that was in february before , and all that he said , was , that he would have had out of mr. bedloe's servant , what company his master kept , and what he did . lord chief iust. you do observe right . mr. iust. pemb. and to have betrayed his papers to him . lord chief iust. that does not reach this indictment indeed but that thing that he would have tempted him to , was to have discovered , and to have a transcript of all the papers that concerned my lord of danby ; that he should watch his company , and know what lords were with him , that he might make his opposition as well as he could , and that he should have what place he did desire under my lord. it does not affect the case of the indictment , but if shews you are a tempter of men , and that you are a cautioner , that you would hire a man to betray his masters papers , which is not fair , let the master be who he will. mr. iustice pemberton , it facilitates the belief of this . lord chief iustice , yes : ay , ay , it is to make the jury more apt to credite what the evidence of this particular fact is . mr. saunders , my lord , let me offer this word and i submit , mr. dangerfield himself does swear , that lane brought him a paper containing the same matter that he did falsly accuse m. oates of , and he read it over three times to him , and then he swore it before sir iames butler , my lord , i will put my cause upon that point , whether mr. dangerfield did not believe it to be true at that time . mr. iustice iones , your clyent is the more mischievous man to contrive it so as to make the thing to be believed when it was false . lord chief iustice , the use of the argument he makes is this , that as mr. dangerfield might be deceived into a belief that the information was true ; so might mr. knox as well , when he saw one ready to swear it ; but hath dangerfield done those subsequent acts which he hath done in the confederacy , for which he is now indicted ? mr. saunders , he swears in his information , that they came to his hands from lane and osborne . lord chief iustice , well gentlemen , you of the kings counsel and of the jury , you need not any summing up of the evidence , i think the thing is evident . mr. iustice pemberton , gentlemen , 't is a very clear case , as clear as the day , i think you need not go from the bar , but do as you will. then the iury laying their heads together , agreed without delay , and without moving from the barr. clerk of the crown , gentlemen are you all agreed of your verdict ? omnes , yes . clerk of the crown , who shall say for you ? omnes , foreman . clerk of the crown , how say you , are the defendants guilty of the offence and misdemeanour whereof they stand indicted , or not guilty ? foreman , guilty . [ at which the people gave a great shout . ] mr. serjeant maynard , my lord , i pray the verdict may be recorded . mr. iustice iones , let it be so . come , where are these two young fellows ? let us see if they can shew their faces now . [ and they were brought into the middle of the court. ] knox. will your lordship give me leave to speak one word for my self ? mr. iustice iones , no : no , there 's no speaking now , take them into your custody marshal . [ vvhich was done , and the court broke up . ] finis . books lately printed . the tryal , conviction , and condemnation of anthony brommich , and william atkins , for being romish priests , before the right honourable the lord chief justice scroggs , at this last summer assizes at stafford , held there for the county of stafford . where they receiv'd sentence of death accordingly . together with the tryal of charles kern , at hereford assizes last , for being also a romish priest. the lord chief iustice scroggs his speech in the kings bench the first day of this michaelmas term , 1679 occationed by the many libellous pamphlets which are published against law , to the scandal of the government , and publick justice . together with what was declared at the same time on the same occasion in open court , by mr. justice iones , and mr. justice dolben . sold by robert pawlet at the bible in chancery-lane . the further information of stephen dugdale, gent. delivered at the bar of the house of commons pursuant to an order of the said house, on the 30th of october, 1680. dugdale, stephen, 1640?-1683. 1680 approx. 30 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 12 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a36786 wing d2474 estc r505 11778778 ocm 11778778 48960 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a36786) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 48960) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 489:28) the further information of stephen dugdale, gent. delivered at the bar of the house of commons pursuant to an order of the said house, on the 30th of october, 1680. dugdale, stephen, 1640?-1683. [2], 20 p. printed for thomas parkhurst and thomas simmons, london : 1680. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project 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will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2006-10 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-10 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-12 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2006-12 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the further information of stephen dugdale , gent. delivered at the bar of the hovse of commons . pursuant to an order of the said house , on the 30 th of october , 1680. novemb. the 24th . 1680. by vertue of an order of the honourable house of commons , i appoint tho. parkhurst , and tho. simmons , and no others , to print my informations , given at the bar of that honourable house . stephen dugdale . london : printed for thomas parkhurst , at the bible and three crowns in cheapside : and thomas simmons , at the princes arms in ludgate-street . m. dc . lxxx . the further information of mr. stephen dvgdale , given to the honourable the house of commons , pursuant to an order of the said house , on the 30th of october , anno dom. 1680. as followeth : ( viz. ) that about the 21 st of september 1678 , i being in company with mr. evers and one hobson ; in discourse had amongst us , they both then declared , that their design in carrying on the plot , was to kill the duke of monmouth as well as the king ; which horrid acts the lord stafford about the same time proposed for me to do : and that one george north ( who was nephew to pickering , and servant to my lord aston ) declared to me , that they had lately taken his said uncle ( who was likewise one appointed to kill the king ) , and put him in newgate ; which if true , he said he thought the king deserved an execrable death , as was intended him , by reason of his whoring and debauchery . that in september 1678 , mr. evers told me , that mr. beningfield had a pacquet of letters delivered to him from the post-house , which he feared the lord treasurer danby had notice of ; therefore he delivered them to the duke of york , who delivered them to his majesty , who was pleased ( after he had read them ) to give them to the treasurer , not much crediting them , for that they had after such manner been transmitted to him ; by which unwariness the design was undiscovered , which the said pacquet of letters wou'd have confirmed of the plot. that i have received many pacquets of letters for evers , some of which i have broke open , and found them to be , and tend to the establishing of the romish religion here : as also several sums of money , which by several persons imployed to put forth , was for the use of the jesuits to carry on the design . to which end mr. evers told me , that there was several gentlemen in the county of stafford had monies in their hands , though they were shy of being so known ; but nevertheless had entered into covenant to do it at st. omers : to confirm which , i received a letter from mr. warner a jesuit , that the money should be speedily returned to mr. harcourt the jesuit here . that in another letter directed to mr. evers , which i broke open , and found the same to be my lord stafford's hand-writing : the contents of which was , that things went well on beyond the seas for carrying on the plot , and hoped it did so here in england ; and for the pardoning of those that were concerned therein , mr. evers told me , that there were several indulgencies , which he believed came from mr. ireland , to whom they were transmitted from rome . that the night before i went away from my lord astons upon discovery of the plot , i took several letters and papers which related thereunto , and burnt them , fearing the same wou'd detect me , if found ; not then having thoughts to discover my self ; which if i had happily kept and preserved , wou'd have much more evidenced the whole design in carrying on the plot : in several letters relating to the same , i have heard the names of oates and bedlow , named as persons therein imployed ; but i did not then know them . that i very well remember , that the jesuits had a meeting in london , in april 1678. for that mr. evers , and other jesuits went up from staffordshire unto it , who desired me when i went to escape , to be secret ; and that i should , if i were ever brought to examination , deny my knowledge in every particular , which i then , and when i burned my papers , was resolved to do : and the said mr. evers at several times told me , that the pope out of his revenue had granted several sums of money , in order to put the irish into a condition of opposing the now establish'd government ; for it was his gracious pleasure , to consider what a tyrannical government they lived under . to which purpose i opened a letter from paris , which was directed to mr. evers , the persons name i have forgotten ; but it was to this purpose , that he had lately received a letter from rome , to confirm , that the pope did still hold his good purpose , for the relieving the poor irish , and that they were considering how to procure them men as well as money : but as to that and other things , there wou'd shortly be an express from thence to england , which wou'd be about the latter end of march 1677 / 8 , as i best remember ; and that mr. evers company , with mr. cottons , mr. vavasors , mr. gavens , and mr. peters , were requested to be at london , whither mr. evers and mr. peters went ; and when mr. evers came home again into the countrey , he told me , that mr. ireland and mr. simons wou'd be in the countrey the latter end of june , for considering the best way and means , for the carrying on the great work , as they called it . that it was always agreed at our meetings , that to disturb the peace in ireland and scotland , wou'd be a means to weaken england so much , that their attempts might be easier managed , which cou'd not be done without a good assistance beyond the seas , which mr. gaven said , we needed not to fear ; for though they had great troubles with them both in flanders and france , and those countries , yet there wou'd not be men or money wanting to carry on their design , for the glory of god : and if so , their endeavours shou'd be no ways wanting here ; which was not only to kill the king , but the duke of monmouth also , but to lessen the power of the rest of the prot●stants : to which mr. peters asked , if they were assured , that the gentlemen were all true to them in assisting them with money ? for if that should fail , our own stock will serve us little . upon which i told them , i wou'd give them one hundred pound more , to the four hundred pound i had before setled on them , which was taken very thankfully , with promises that i needed not to fear to have a free pardon procured for my sins past , and to be a saint in heaven , placed to all eternity , for that i had been so much instrumental in so pious a work : and mr. vavasor said , that the monies which was out at use to carry on the said design , for that there wou'd be occasion for it speedily ; and to that end , one mr. jackson was chosen by the jesuits , as likewise mr. evers , to gather in the money about him , who in his place appointed me to go to mr. dracott , sir james simons , mr. heveningham , and other persons that were contributors thereabouts . mr. peters was appointed to receive of one mr. gerrard his contribution-money ; but being the priest of the house , mr. evers was willing to do it for him . mr. gaven undertook for several private gentl●m●n about wolverhampton ( viz ) of mr. gifford of chillington , mr. fitz-herbert , mr ▪ gravener , mr. winford , mr. humphrey elliot , with several others ; of which money i received five hundred pound at wolverhampton of mr. vavasor and mr. gaven , which sum of mr. evers , with other monies , returned here to mr. harcourt ; and it being then asked , who was to speak to mr. howard for his money ? it was answered , mr. broadstreet , though mr. evers said , he wou'd do it himself : but for mr. herbert aston , who was also a contributor in the said design ; and being in debt , ought to be looked on accordingly : to which mr. vavasor replyed , that it was for a good and charitable use , and god wou'd the more encrease his store ; or to that purpose : which monies so collected and received , or should come in , should be returned to mr. harcourt and mr. ireland , who should receive orders how they should dispose of the same ; and if any doubt should arise , they should repair to mr. benefield , who wou'd resolve the same . that at another time mr. ireland told me , when i came to london , he wou'd give me instructions , and order how i should proceed in my undertakings . to all which i did seem very content ; and told me he wou'd speak to groves , that i might have notice how the design went on , for then he cou'd not tell , till he had spoken to my lord bellasis , and my lord arundell of warder , who would prove the loyal'st men of trust and council of any persons in the world ; but before i received my letter from mr. ireland , the said groves was in newgate . that i saw a letter from mr. harcourt , who told mr. evers , that he had lately received a letter from mr. warner ; wherein was mentioned , that mr. warner had used all care imaginable for the helping on the design in hand , and that there was four hundred pound of the said money in mr. ireland's hands for that purpose ; and i heard mr. peters tell mr. evers , that he was very glad that mr. whitebread was made provincial of the jesuits , for that he wou'd be very careful in carrying the design on , and a close man in his business ; and they then agreed that my lord arundell of warder was the only man we had to trust to , being a wise man , and much in favour with the duke of york . that in a little time after this discourse had ; i received in a letter of mine , 3 letters inclosed from mr. beningfield , one from paris , and one from mr. harcourt ; that from mr. beningfield , was to let mr. evers know , that he had spoken with my lord arundel of warder , and that my lord was very willing to assist in what was requested by mr. evers and mr. vavasor , which letters i intercepted , and i never let mr. evers know , to whom they were directed , that i had received them ; but being not long after in discourse with him in his chamber , i asked him what persons of quality or note did ( besides those he had mentioned to me ) countenance our design , to which he answered , that there were several in other places , where the business went on aswel as here , and at the same time told me , that he had writ to mr. beningfield , to request my lord arundel of warder to be assisting in the matter which then was in hand , and i desiring to know of him whether my lord was concerned in their design , he told me , that his lordship was to undertake the most part of the design , and with my lord bellasis to give order , both as to the taking the king's life away , and the duke of monmouth's ; and for the establishing the romish government here . that about the middle of september 1678 a letter came to my hands , of mr. evers ( which i opened ) the contents whereof were to this purpose , that he had been with my lord arundel , and my lord told him , that he spoke to the person he was requested , and it was both their opinions , that it was the best way to speed their design . the persons name , which sent the letter i know not ; for there was two letters for his name , which were i. w. that when the design was set on foot , it was not for the taking the king's life away , but to provide for themselves money and arms against the king died , for it was always thought amongst us , that the d. of m. would stand for the crown after the king's death ; and then our hopes would be frustrated for ever having here the romish religion established . but the perceiving and seeing it was his majesties whole endeavours , to establish and secure the protestant religion so firm , that it should not be removed for the future . it was by decrees thought fit , that this way that is now designed and endeavoured to be carried on , would most answer their wicked ends , and for those that had bin active therein , they agreed should have rewards , and thinking that i ( amongst the rest ) had deserved somthing , ordered i should have an equal share with one captain aderley , who was an agent in the said plot ; but how much it should be , and in what , after the design took effect , was not then declared , but was to be determined by the d. of y. and my lord arundel and some other persons ; but it should be such a share , as should make me , and my posterity happy . which i accepted with great thankfulness to mr. evers , mr. gavan , mr. peters , and mr. leviston , who then promised to see it fulfilled to me , alledging at the same time , that there would be lands enough of the protestants , to reward every one , that had been active in the said design . that in the summer 1678 , i met with one humphry elliot , who fell into discourse with me about mr. ireland , who , said he , had told him , that i was to go up to london , upon an occasion that would also oblige him to come up , which discourse something startled me , which he perceiving , told me i need not fear him , for if i suffered , he was like to suffer as well as i , and begg'd of me not to impart my mind to any one except my lord stafford or mr. evers , or whom they should appoint . that for the carrying on the whole design in several other counties , mr. peters , evers and pool told me , that there was for a part of worcester appointed one mr. turner , and three more whose names i have forgot : and for a part of darbyshire , and a part of nottinghamshire was appointed one mr. turner , mr. bennet , and mr. pool of spnikehill , and one mr. heaton , which were to take care of their several liberties , as well for engaging persons in the hellish design , as for raising of mony of the gentlemen to carry it on , and to give in their several accounts to the provincial , who was then appointed for that purpose , to see which was the best benefactor , though at the same time mr. pool told me , that he thought mr. turner was no ways fit for such an employ for that , though he was a priest he was given to drinking . that being sent to dr. richard needham with a letter , and discoursing him , found him very zealous to promote the plot , who told me he had been 200 miles about it , and that his pains he thought were well bestowed in so good a work , and that it should fall out in his days , that might be spoke of in after ages : that honest dick needham was a promoter , and one entrusted for the establishing of the romish religion , and the subversion of the heretical government . and being sent at second time to dr. needham's and mr. pool's , and going first to the said mr. needham's at satton in scarsdale in darbyshire with letters , in order that mr. needham might transmit them from place to place , according as he was thereby directed to the gentlemens houses near adjoyning , the purport of which letters were for the promoting and carrying on the design of subverting of the protestant religion . and mr. pool being there , i dispatched my business with him , which was to the same purpose , and mr. needham being to receive orders from mr. pool and mr. bennet , mr. pool after mass gave him further instructions , as to what business he was to undertake , who made this reply , that both he and his son should be at their command , to serve in so good a cause , in the destroying of the protestants , and introducing their own religion , and having received his letter from me , and what i had to communicate to him by word of mouth , the content of which letter was , that he should go to westhallam to acquaint mr. pawdrels , that mr. evers , mr. vavasor and mr. peters would be at westhallam , within a short time , and desired that one mr. busby might be at home , for they and some other gentlemen would be sure to be there at the time appointed about the great work they knew of which so much concerned them all . that i have intercepted several letters that came to mr. evers from st. omers , and paris , wherein was mentioned , that they were in good forwardness , and that they had disbursed 500 l. upon account for arms , as also 700 l. was mentioned in other letters to be laid out for the same purpose , in some of which letters , it was pressed to mr. evers for return of monies for discharging those accounts . and i have likewise seen letters to grove , ireland , beningfield and harcourt , for the sending mony over to those persons , and that mr. ireland , and mr. vavasor differed in their accounts about the same , the last time ireland was in the country . that about july 1678 a pacquet came directed to me from mr. evers , which came to 2 s. 6 d. which i open'd and there it was expressed , that all things were ready which were bespoke , and all paid off , but how it was ordered i never knew , and when i have been in business with them , it hath been often given out , that the king of france did know of this design , and would be aiding and assisting therein , which i was ever of another opinion , and they then declared that there was in england above 200000 men , which would prove true , if occasion were , with some supplies , which they said they were sure of from other parts beyond the seas . that about august or the beginning of september 1678 mr. peters and mr. vavasor told me that there was to be a great meeting of the jesuits and secular priests at boscobel , besides several private . gentlemen that were to be there , to receive the oath of secrecy ▪ which mr. gavan was appointed to administer to about forty persons , particularly at that time , it was given to sir james simons , mr. gerard , mr. fitzherbert , mr. vavasor , mr. lewson , mr. broadstreet , mr. turner , mr. manley . mr. francis lewson , and several others , the said mr. gavan at the same time publishing an act of indulgence , which he lately received from rome to those that were active in promoting the wicked design of killing the king , and the subversion of the protestant religion , i promised to be there , but went not , for which they were angry , and mr. peters and mr. vavasor both told me , that the occasion of their meeting was to consult means how to carry on the plot. that presently after i had made my discovery to the justices of the peace , they issued out their warrants for the apprehending of george hobson and george north beforementioned , who were both thereupon apprehended , which my lord aston hearing of , it was reported that his lordship should say in great passion , that he was sorry he did not run me through before i went out of his house . that about the beginning of september 1678. mr. evers told me in great secret , that my lord aston was to go in october next following to st. omers , and probably from thence to paris , which my lord afterwards told me , he was to go over , in order to dispose of the arms , which were provided there ; the number whereof were as my lord and mr. evers told me 30000. which were to be landed here and in ireland , and further discoursing mr. evers in that affair , he told me , that some out of caution to themselves , would have their names entred at st. omers , as it had been before , the better to disguise their design , and that about two years last past , he with mr. cotton went over to enter their names , and that several of them had continued to do the like in this affair and design : but after the news was , that the plot was discovered , i never heard my lord aston speak to me more of his going over . that in addition to what i have already declared concerning my lord stafford , is , that his lordship in september 1678. in the great parlour at tixal discoursed mr. evers and me , and told us , that the reason of his dissatisfaction against his majesty , towards whom he had always carried himself with all sort of loyalty , as he had done towards his father , whereby not only he , but others and their families had been hereby ruined , and that in particular , of the old lord aston , who had been a great sufferer , and his father the ambassador had spent 30000 l. out of their own estate , was for all this no hopes of any recompence , for he plainly saw , as any thing fell to be given , it was rather disposed of to rebels and traytors , than to those that had served him , and that were loyal ; and therefore these things had wrought with him , and were sufficient to change his mind against the king , if there were not the matter of religion in question , which was a consideration above all others ; and his lordship also took notice , that at any sessions of parliament when there fell out any thing to the prejudice of the catholicks , the king was always willing to expose them to the parliaments mercy , both in estates and in any thing else , that might befal them . that at a general meeting in september 1678. had at tixal aforesaid , where there was present the now lord aston , lord stafford ▪ sir james symons , mr. hevennigham , mr. howard mr. gerard , mr. vavasor , mr. lewson , mr. peters , mr. symonds , mr. herbert aston , mr. fitter , mr. broadstreet , and to the best of my remembrance mr. dacot ; upon a full debate had of all their precedent transactions and instructions in carrying on their design ; it was then by them severally agreed and resolved upon , to perform the oaths they had severally before taken , which was to kill the king , and to establish their romish religion here in england ; and they did there also severally promise to aid and assist me , in what i was to undertake , as well for money , as other necessaries : and then my lord stafford promised me , to make good his promise formerly made me , both as to money and other necessaries . stephen dugdale . jur. 15 o novembris 1680. coram , tho. stringer . will. roberts . the gentlemens names in the plot , viz. lord stafford . lord arundel . lord bellasis . lord aston . sir francis symons . mr. hevennigham . mr. howard . mr. fowler . mr. gerard. mr. gifford . mr. baz . effits herbert . mr. elliot . captain atherley . mr. dracot . mr. richard needham . mr. grove . mr. hobson , and mr. north. jesuits names in the plot. mr. ireland . mr. bedingfield . mr. harcourt . mr. vavasor . mr. evers . mr. catmer . mr. lewson . mr. peters . mr. broadstreet . mr. poole . mr. turner . mr. anthony turner . mr. gavan . mr. heatne . mr. fitter . mr. pearson . mr. whitebread provin . mr. busby . mr. arthur . mr. white . sir john warner . mr. clifford . mr. worstley . father mumford . mr. godwin . mr. winford . father james . mr. symons . mr. charles , and mr. peters . priests names in the plot. sir francis luson . mr. tomers . mr. fitter . mr. smith . mr. atkins . mr. morley . mr. cunney . mr. thompson . mr. sheppey . mr. dowdell . mr. fitzherbert . mr. trill . mr. fanford . mr. weeden . mr. bennet . mr. gravener . messengers imployed in this design . mr. oates . mr. bedlow . john carrington . joseph tarbox , and mr. needham . persons imployed to get company together . william hanson . rob. pullinger . john harker . gerard , and briscoe . finis . an advertisement . having given in this information , by memory , at the bar of the honourable house of commons ; which when i perused , as it was taken in writing from my mouth , i found that i had misplaced many paragraphs as to order of time : for instance . i begin with sept. 1678 , and afterwards give an account of things done in march 1677 / 8 , and in april and july 1678 : it was not thought convenient to alter it in the printing , but to publish it as delivered . of this i thought good to give the reader notice . errata's in the transcriber and printer . pag. 6. line 17. next to the word design , add should be called in . pag. 7. line 8. dele of . pag. 18. line 17. read dracot . pag. 19. line 5. read sir james simons . pag. 20. line 2 d. read mr. francis luson . line 3 d. read towers . a true narrative of that grand jesuite father andrews who lived at hardwick in monmouthshire. how he fled into a large wood to escape justice. how he came to an untimely end, and the manner of his burial. in a letter to a friend in london. j. d. 1679 approx. 5 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a82013 wing d46 estc r225941 99897220 99897220 136199 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a82013) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 136199) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 2479:10) a true narrative of that grand jesuite father andrews who lived at hardwick in monmouthshire. how he fled into a large wood to escape justice. how he came to an untimely end, and the manner of his burial. in a letter to a friend in london. j. d. 4 p. [s.n.], london : printed in the year, 1679. signed and dated at end: j.d. skenfreth, july the 2d. 1679. reproduction of original in the folger shakespeare library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678 -early works to 1800. 2008-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-02 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-03 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-03 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a true narrative of that grand jesvite father andrews ; who lived at hardwick in monmouthshire how he fled into a large wood to escape justice . how he came to an untimely end , and the manner of his burial . in a letter to a friend in london . london , printed in the year , 1679. a true narrative of that grand jesuite father andrews , &c. sir , i have here given you a short but perfect account of one father andrews a jesuit , sometimes inhabiting at a place called hardwick in monmouth-shire , and sometimes at his brothers , thomas andrews's house in the parish of skenfreth , about eight miles distant from hardwick in the same county . upon the discovery of the late plot , warrants being issued out by several justices of the peace , for the apprehending of the said father andrews ; so that he was forced to abscond from those places above mentioned , and fled into an adjacent wood , where he lay incognito , for the space of three months and upwards ; his food being conveyed to him by a servant boy , which his brother sent daily to him . he finding that place not to agree well with his constitution , one hills a priest and a visiter of his , got him a private lodging in a poor widdows house , whose name was jane harris . hills came often to visit him during the space of three or four days . the poor woman was imployed by hills to go several times to a butchers , ( who lived in a small village about half a mile distant ) to buy meat for father andrews ; she was not to buy much at a time , because he must have it fresh and fresh ; the sight of a large joint was enough to have taken away his stomack , being a weakly man , and much stricken in years . this butcher taking notice of this poor womans coming so often to him to buy meat , which formerly she did not use to do : for she was not in a condition to buy it for her self ; he took an occasion to ask her who it was for ; she ingeniously confessed , that it was for an antient gentleman who was newly come to lodge at her house ; whereupon the butcher suspecting that he must be either a priest or a jesuit , presently went to one mr. arnal a justice of the peace , ( and a great prosecutor of the papists ) and gave him information what the woman had said , upon which mr. arnal went himself with several of his servants , and some neighbours to search the house ; but old father andrews , having some private notice of it , made his escape before they came . the widdow woman was examined what became of the old gentleman which lodged at her house ; she said he was newly gone , but whither she did not know , he was a stranger to her , and had been there but four days . the justice committed the woman to the common goal of vske , for the said county , where she now remains . after this escape mr. arnal could hear no more of him , till about the 27 th of june last ; and then a farmer living at wengothan near abergaveny ; who having occasion to lay some hay in a barn of his , which was formerly a chappel belonging to some abby or priory ; and there clearing away some old stubble-straw to make room for the hay , under which he found a place digg'd like a grave , and newly filled up ; whereupon he was at first surprised , and could not tell what to do , at last he thought it his best way to go to a justice of the peace , and inform him of it , supposing somebody might have been murthered and buried there . the justice presently ordered the place to be searched ; and there they found the corps of a man who had been newly buried ; he had no coffin , only a sheet wrapt about him , with a cross made of wax on his stomach , with several beads , crucifixes , and other romish fopperies about him . then presently the coroner was sent for , and called a jury of inquest , who sate and found the body had been poysoned , for it was very much swell'd . the body was exposed to publick view , for two or three days ; in which time it was discovered , that it was the body of the aforesaid father andrews the jesuite . search was presently made , to see if they coul'd find out how he came to be buried in that place , and how he came to his end ; but it could not be done , so that 't is thought he was privately conveyed thither in the night , and there buried , because it was antiently a religious place . this is a just account , i am , sir , your humble servant , j. d. skenfreth , july the 2d . 1679. finis . the general london epistle of quirinus kuhlman a christian, to the wiclef-waldenses, hussites, zuinglians, lutherans, and calvinists being an explication of a vision and prophecy of john kregel : wherein the reformation from popery is fundamentally asserted, and the union of protestants convincingly urged : together with a postscript relating to the present popish plot : translated from the latine copy printed at rotterdam in may 1679. epistolarum londinensium catholica. english kuhlmann, quirin, 1651-1689. 1679 approx. 131 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 40 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47594 wing k754 estc r17471 11862163 ocm 11862163 50034 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47594) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 50034) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 499:23) the general london epistle of quirinus kuhlman a christian, to the wiclef-waldenses, hussites, zuinglians, lutherans, and calvinists being an explication of a vision and prophecy of john kregel : wherein the reformation from popery is fundamentally asserted, and the union of protestants convincingly urged : together with a postscript relating to the present popish plot : translated from the latine copy printed at rotterdam in may 1679. epistolarum londinensium catholica. english kuhlmann, quirin, 1651-1689. 78, [1] p. : coat of arms. printed for the author, london : 1679. at head of title: a-z. translation of epistolarum londinensium catholica. page 26 is tightly bound in filmed copy. pages 20-35 photographed from union theological seminary library, new york, copy and inserted at end. reproduction of original in bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng kregel, john. popish plot, 1678. protestantism. 2005-09 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-11 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 ali jakobson sampled and proofread 2006-09 ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the general london epistle of quirinus kuhlman a christian , to the wiclef-waldenses , hussites , zuinglians , lutherans , and calvinists . being an explication of a vision and prophecy of john kregel . wherein the reformation from popery is fundamentally asserted , and the vnion of protestants convincingly urged : together with a postscript relating to the present popish plot. translated from the latine copy , printed at rotterdam , in may 1679. london , printed for the author . 1679. the prophecy of john kregel , the 12th of january 1626. concerning the present application of the vials to the state of the reformed churches . ● . and as the voice spake unto me , at the same instant a very plain church was built , which had six steeples all of one form . and out of the church issued forth a pleasant and clear transparent river , out of which gods faithful ones did drink ; but some troubled the waters before they drank . write down what i speak unto thee , and nothing else , thus saith the lord ; this church is the vine in which the lords faithful ones do labour , whose foundation was laid in the last days , concerning which the lord saith : and the gospel of the kingdom of christ shall be preached through the whole world , for a testimony unto them , and then shall the end come . this church is built and re-built in the last days of the world. 3. the first steeple began to be built by the people towards the west ; in the kingdom of england , and its builder was john wiclef a good man and fearing god. 4. the second was built in a countrey towards the east , ( bohemia ) and the builders of it were two men fearing god , john hvs and jerome of pragve , who shed their blood ; neither loved they their lives unto death : and their followers enlarged and carried on this building until three days were fulfilled . 5. the third steeple was built by a people towards the west , and its builder was vlric zvinglivs . he enlarged the vineyard , and the fourth day began , when the number of years from the birth of christ was 1505. 6. the fourth was built by a people of the north , and its builder was martin lvther , an experienced man , fearing god , and very eloquent . he built the church , to the great wonder of many , and spread the same through germany . 7. the fifth steeple again , was built by a people towards the west , and its builder was calvin . he built the church in france and the neatherlands , in dangerous places : for as in dangerous places men are obliged to build with great care , so was this church built , and the building advanced against the will of all the wicked . 8. the sixth steeple shall be built by a people towards the east , and its builders will be all preachers and teachers , fearing god , these shall begin to build this church a-new , and re-build the same from sea to sea. now as all builders must be proved , so shall also these teachers and leaders be proved by the cross and suffering . and this church is a-building , and shall be wholly finished the sixth and last day . for as god built heaven and earth in six days ; so likewise the church of god shall be built in six days , and shall have rest the seventh day . kvhlman his fulfilling and explication of the fifth section of the fore-going prophecy , written by him at smirna in natolia , in october 1678. the fourth day is one of those mentioned , rev. 11. v. 11. in which the two witnesses and prophets ( viz. the orthodox teachers of the old and new scripture ) suffered martyrdom : and they are the same with 42 lunar months , which makes 1176 years , thus : one day is 336 years . two days 672 years . half a day 168 years . as the angelical revelation of kotterus doth expresly declare , chap. 10 v. 34. twelve months are one time , four and twenty are two times , and six are half a time : which according to the course of the moon make three years , and near an half more ; and so are they three days and an half . but according to longer time ( 28 years being reckoned for one month ) this one time , two times , and half a time , are thus to be numbered : one time is 336 years , two times 672 , and half a time 168 ; which being added together make 1176. in this time the treader-down will have power , and afterwards he shall be converted . which things being thus laid for a foundation , it most clearly appears , that the two witnesses were raised to life again in the year 1674 ; and that the 11th and 12th verses of the 11th of the revelations are now fulfilling . and it was by impulse of the holy spirit ( as was before prophesied ) that my book printed the same year at amsterdam and leyden , had the title of neu-begeistert ( new-spirited ) because in the said writing all the teachers of scripture began to appear with a new spirit and life : moreover , after that time the first foundation was laid in the east , for the conversion and overthrow of the down-treaders . the first day therefore began in the year of christ 498 ; the second 834 , the third day 1170 , the fourth day 1505 ; the half of which must needs be elapsed in the year 1674. a general epistle to the wiclef-waldenses , hussites , zuinglians , lutherans and calvinists . 1. to the pastors , sheep and lambs of the churches of the five first angels of the seven , which have the seven last plagues , quirinus kuhlman ( called a christian , not by man , but by christ , and their brother , and of all those who glorifie god , and his only begotten son jesus christ , in whatsoever ceremony or language ) heartily wisheth the first love , and unanimous concord , to flee with the greatest haste out of babylon . 2. most beloved , the present applying of the revelation , wherein i joyn you wiclef-waldenses , hussites , zuinglians , lutherans and calvinists together , will seem strange and wonderful unto you ; yet more wonderful my wishing you to flee out of babylon ; whereby i declare you have not yet fully rejected all that is of babylon : but most of all wonderful , will appear to you , the title of brethren , which i give to you , and all that fear god , without any modern respect . 3. my applying of the revelation will justly seem wonderful to you , when ye shall see that one god called you all ( though at divers times ) to one work , and withal consider your horrid wranglings , bitterness , and condemning of one another ; as well as your open wars , offences and proceedings against one another . 4. my wish to you to flee out of babylon will most justly appear yet more wonderful to you , because ye believe your selves long since to have left it , in shaking off the papal yoak , whereas here you will hear that you are yet in babylon , and that that saying , go out of her my people , belongs to you . 5. the title of brethren , this will seem most wonderful ; because ye have esteemed all those ( though of the same denomination with you ) who have only differed from your way and mode , not as brethren , but as enemies ; not thinking them worthy of burial when dead , and defameing them for damned wretches when alive : and much more have you done this to those who have quite cast off your denomination , or set up articles contrary to yours ; whereas now you shall learn from the scripture , to your shame and confusion , that ye have done all these injuries to no other than your own brethren . 6. for all the secrets of scripture , hid for so many ages , shall be daily opened before the eyes of all the world ; and the fore-play of the last judgment will be seen in the sixth general judgment , which is now a carrying on by the present wars . 7. for not onely did your five angels ( whose remainders ye are ) pour forth the vials of the wrath of god upon the earth ; but the sixth angel also followed them with the prophets , wise men , and scripture-learned , and will follow them so long , until that terrible war of turks and tartars ( so fatal to the whole world ) have fully opened to the seventh angel , the gate to the general reformation of all kingdoms , which is to make way for the thousand years paradisical reign of the saints . 8. for all the fore-praised reformers , were fore-runners of the reign of christ upon earth ( which is the lost life of paradise ) are so still , and will be so , though they know it not themselves ; who , as oft as they went about to judge of things to come , so oft they pass'd the bounds of their calling , because those things to come were to be attained in a riper age , than that to which they had yet attained . 9. for the reformation hath seven ages , corresponding to those of a man ; and there is as great a difference to be found amongst the reformers , as is between an infant , a boy , a youth , a young man , a man , an old man , and one that is decrepit . this one line is a key to the signature of the past , present and future christendom , and will most lively decypher your mistakes to you , my most dear brethren . 10. the outward reformed church ( for at this time i shall be silent concerning the inward reformed church , and the ages of its seven angels sounding forth the everlasting gospel ) was an infant under john wiclef , and the waldenses , a boy under john hvs , a youth under vlric zvinglivs , grew to a young man under martin lvther , became a man under calvin , and doth draw unperceivedly toward old age under the prophets , wise men , and scripture-learned , favoured with an extraordinary divine call ; whom they , who have not yet reached their old age , have , do , and shall , yet for a while , despise and contemn . 11. it s true , that wiclef , hus , zuinglius , luther , and calvin , were chosen by a true call , to promote the work of god against antichrist ( i mean the pope of rome ) yet were they only furnished with such a knowledge as the age wherein they lived required , beyond which they could not raise themselves . 12. that great and wonderful sign in heaven , was fulfilled in wiclef , in the state and degree of an infant , in hvs , in that of a boy , in zvinglivs , of a youth or stripling ; in lvther , of a young man ; in calvin , in the state of manhood ; in the prophets , wisemen , and scripture-learned , in that of old age. and wiclef had the first plague to pour forth , hvs the second , zvinglivs the third , lvther the fourth , calvin the fifth , the prophets , wisemen , and scripture-learned the sixth ; and their successors shall have the seventh to pour forth . the seven last plagues , because in them is finished the wrath of god. for then the seventh day of the world hath found its beginning , and the six days of labour are ended , when the reign of christ ( the prefiguring type of eternal rest ) is come . 13. o pope of rome ! the fall of thy antichristian state , was the restauration of true christendom , and they were raised by god , whom thou hast accounted hereticks , even wiclef , hvs , zvinglivs , lvther , and calvin ; who came out of the temple of the tabernacle of witness in heaven cloathed with pure and white shining linnen , and girded about their paps with golden girdles . 14. o king without a queen ! the present fall of thy kingdom is the restauration of the true reign of christ ; and christopher kotterus , christina poniatovia , nicholas drabicius , and all such like , are prophets of god , receiving together with the foresaid garment , the golden vials of their predecessors wiclef , hvs , zvinglivs , lvther , and calvin , full of the wrath of god , who lives for ever and ever . 15. o god of this world ! the approaching fall of thy vicegerency , will be the restauration of the heavenly vicegerency ; and the paradisical communion of saints , shall immediately follow the earthly communion of saints , representing one sheep-fold under the seventh angel ; though subject as yet to many frailties , from which the paradisical communion will be altogether exempt . 16. hence it is that these seven reformations are called the seven last plagues , and every plague is so much the greater , as it is later ; which the experience of the past reformations do abundantly witness . for during these seven plagues , the temple was filled with smoak , from the glory of god and from his power ; and no man was able to enter into the temple , until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished . o words of greatest importance ! pointing out to us the whole defect of our age ; thus i see in the spirit , it hath been , is and will be , and still the worse , the nearer the end . 17. every age hath its excellence and weakness , both common in the proverbs of all nations ; and the same you will find in the several ages of the reformation , if you mind it . the praise of infancy is innocence , its stain is misery ; and the singleness of manners in a child is spoil'd by his untowardliness and weakness ; the vigor of youth is stained with fickleness and inconstancy ; and the great courage of young men is marr'd by their rashness ; the strength of manhood , by their want of moderation ; the gravity of aged men , by self-love ; and the perfection of a full old age , by cowardliness . 18. apply to your selves , my brethren , these praises and reproaches of the several ages , which ( will ye , nill ye ) by the following discourse you will find in your selves . in the mean time we shall follow the text of the revelation , and all along apply it to you , that you may have the more reason to know your selves and your predecessors . 19. peter wald a citizen of lions , by his reproving the errors of the church of rome , was the first by whom the reformed church conceived ; and in his time preparation was made for the pouring forth of the seven vials , which the roman beast did vainly endeavour to prevent by so many bloody wars . for a great voice ( according to scripture prophecy ) was heard out of the temple , saying to the seven angels , go and pour forth the vials of the wrath of god upon the earth . 20. and the first angel went , in the person of john wiclef , and poured forth his vial , in teaching that the pope was antichrist , and that purgatory , the worshipping of saints and images , transubstantiation and indulgences , were his contrived inventions , upon the earth of universities and monasteries , in which the beast doth dwell , which ascendeth up out of the earth . 21. and there was an evil and sore boil , because the before suppressed doctrine of the waldenses was now revived and rectified , upon men , academicks and monks , who had the mark of the beast , the popes academical and monastical institutions , orders , and dignities , and that worshipped his image , the body of the canon law , compiled to maintain the popes vicedeity against the scriptures . 22. thus the reformed church brought forth the child it had conceived by wald , and the first hill of the papal throne was levell'd ; for wiclef being banished out of england , by divine providence inlightened all bohemia ( the pathmos of the waldenses ) which was the full effusion of the first vial upon the earth . 23. the praise of this first reformation was its innocence , for it was a most just thing ; its stain and reproach was ( not from it self , but from the genius of the time and age ) misery , even cries and tears , by reason of the antichristian yoak ; because infancy was not capable of any greater perfection . 24. view your selves , my brethren the waldenses , in this looking-glass , and take notice of this first vial compared to infancy , that you may with the more clearness come to know both your selves and your brethren ; that so you may together with them , co-operate to the total ruin of the pa●al power , which is now to be accomplished under the sixth vial. 25. the persecution acted by the duke of savoy in the year 1655 , and for ever to be detested for so many frightful instances of unparallell'd cruelty , will give the pope his deaths wound ; and that in this the prophet spake true , the event will shortly declare : the very remembrance of which persecution hath oft inflamed my mind ( in the strength given me by god ) undauntedly to promote the down-fall o● the cursed pope and all his councellors employ'd by him , for the propagating of the faith , and the rooting out of gods instruments . for as the beginning and foundation of the outward reformation was first laid by wald , so from this massacre of the waldenses ( which happened in the fifth year of my infancy ) the fatal foundation was laid of the outward ruin of the papal seat. 26. from the waldenses , who scattered their seed through germany , france , bohemia , italy , croatia , bulgaria , and dalmatia , under the cross of christ , wiclef was born in england , being the infant of reformation , who soon after happily grew to be a lad in bohemia , under the blessing of the most high. for the second angel poured forth , in the person of john hus , being confirmed by the writings of wiclef , his vial of the doctrines of wiclef , and communion under both kinds , upon the sea of the roman-papal german empire . 27. and it became like the blood of one that is dead , john hus and jerome of prague , being ( contrary to the faith and safe conduct given them by a synod of 346 archbishops and bishops , 564 doctors , and 1600 dukes and nobles ) burnt alive . at which synod these cursed doctrins were confirmed , that faith was not to be kept with hereticks , and also , that ( notwithstanding christ both instituted and administred the supper in both kinds ) lay people were to be deprived of the cup ; and every living soul , retaining christs true institution of the supper in both kinds , died ; being involved in wars upon account of the forementioned breach of faith , in the sea of the whole empire ; every one being forced to sight , either for the truth or against it : both hussites and papal imperialists , being now in arms. 28. now as soon as the reformed church grew to be a lad , the vice also which is proper to that age , began to appear in it ; for the hussites grew so intractable and untowardly by their intestine hatred and dissentions ( being divided into calixtines and taborites ) that they fell upon one another with no less fury than they did upon the pope ; so that in this sense also it was true , that every living soul died . 29. yet the childish simplicity which at this day is found amongst the bohemian brothers and sisters , conveighs to us the sweet odor of this second reformation , notwithstanding that all bohemia groans under the cursed papal yoak . rejoyce ye hussites , my brethren ! rejoyce ! for i bring you glad tidings ; your countrey shall be restored to you after a few weeks , according to a divine , not humane account . o learn to know the time of your visitation , and put off the untowardliness and weakness of children , and instead thereof put on their simplicity of christian manners . 30. the whole world stood amazed at the second angels pouring forth his vial upon the sea , for almost an hundred years together , in the overthrows given by the hussites , which were the shame of the empire , the reproach of the pope , and the wonder of all the godly ; which yet were onely preparatory for what was to follow . 31. for the third angel poured forth , through ulric zuinglius , his vial of papal errors , upon the rivers of the rhine , and upon the fountains of water of switzerland and suevia . and it became blood , by reason of the civil war of switzerland , which was fatal indeed to zuinglius himself , who was therein mortally wounded ; but much more fatal to the papists , who had their blood spilt by the sword themselves had first drawn . concerning which john saith ; and i heard the angel of the waters saying , righteous art thou , o lord , who art , and who was , and the holy one ! that thou hast thus judged , because they have shed the blood of thy saints and prophets , thou hast also given them blood to drink , for they are worthy : and i heard another voice from the altar saying , yea lord god the almighty , true and righteous are thy judgments . 32. o bloody youth of the reformation ! not alone terrible by reason of the wars which grew more bloody every day than other : for it was most bloody to our fellow brethren , because of their ficklenes ; whereby their liveliness and vigor failed , before it failed , for a plague to the enemies of christ , who follow him in words but not in deed . 33. for almost at the very self-same time , the fourth angel poured forth , through martin luther , his vial , by declaring that the pope of rome was the great antichrist , and the great whore of the revelation , upon the sun of the roman-german empire , being the head of the church of rome , and of ten kingdoms , and consequently upon the city of rome it self , who calls her self the sun. 34. and it was given to him , viz. the roman empire ; to scorch , with a very great fear of things to come : men , all under the papal power , , with fire , of the religious wars , as well those which were between the protestants and the emperor , as that between the emperor and the pope . and the men were scorched with a great scorching , whilst the emperors general , having taken rome , treated the pope and his creatures with the greatest insolence , and the greater part of the german empire siding with the protestants , did strike a terror into the emperor , and those other kings which still adher'd to the pope . and they blasphemed the name of god , who had power over these plagues , by ascribing this reformation to men , and not to god , from whom they were sent : and they repented not to give the glory to him , but persisted to establish the popes antichristian inventions . 35. zuinglius had scarce poured forth the third vial , but luther comes and pours forth the fourth , and the difference between them was the same , which is between a youth and a young man ; so that no wonder if they drew all mens eyes upon them ; for zuinglius with great force evinc'd that the pope was antichrist , but luther with greater : the former was indued with an extraordinary vigour and liveliness , the later with a most undaunted courage : and they carried on successfully the work of reformation , as long as they turned the edge of their endeavour only against papal traditions . 36. but when they began to write concerning the mysteries of the christian faith , without the inward and outward light of the holy spirit ( according to the comprehension of their own reason , from the dead letter of scripture ) there presently arose amongst them those lamentable controversies and contentions about the holy mystery of the body and blood of christ received in the lords supper , by means of which , this one tree became first divided into two contrary branches , as it happened in the old testament . 37. for the first and second spirit mostly joyning it self with the fourth , and the third with the fifth , have produced two capital sects , and together with those two , innumerable others , which at length , by means of the sixth spirit , shall be either brought to one sheep-fold in the seventh spirit , or else be utterly rooted out . but which are those seven spirits of which you here speak ? ( for i perceive you 'll ask this question . ) they are the seven spirits which are before the throne of god , proceeding from god by an eternal emanation , whose properties are most clearly to be seen in these seven last plagues ; insomuch as they do abundantly reveal the signature of the whole reformation past , present , and to come , to the inlightened sons of god : concerning which ye have already read something revealed in the fore-going application of the seven ages of mans life , and will read more in that which follows . 38. the switzers , and many dwelling about the rhine , followed zuinglius , whereas luther's doctrine took most in saxony , with his own countreymen ; and zuinglius conferring with luther at marpurg , but not agreeing , because luther took those words , this is my body , to be understood corporally and really ; but zuinglius significatively , at parting they promised to bear with one another in mutual charity , without coming to any thorow union and agreement . 39. this was the spring of the tears of the godly ; from hence arose those sacramentary wars , as they are pleased to name them ; and in that name retain the mark of romanism 666. o zuinglians ! o lutherans ! my brethren ! hear these true words . zuinglius was fickle , and luther rash in his contention about the supper ▪ the matter not deserving such disputes , much less those bloody wars , by which you now distinguish your sects from each other ! you have made your love-feast in imitation of the bloody roman feasts ; and know that as long as ye continue thus , ye have , are , and will be seduced by the devil , the father of lies and hatred . 40. the words of christ , this is my body , this is my blood , are to be understood concerning his coelestial body and blood , not concerning his earthly body and blood , which hung upon the cross : under his earthly , visible , body , his invisible , heavenly , body , hung upon the wood of the cross ; and under the appearance of his outward blood , his invisible , heavenly blood was shed ; neither do our souls stand in need of the mortal body or blood , but of the immortal and new body , which springs from christs immortal body , that therein it may become partaker of christ , and member of his true , every where present , eternal , and divine body . 41. the mouth receives bread and wine , which it sends into the belly as other common meat ; but the word , this is my body , this is my blood , proceeding from the eternal body and blood of christ , and containing the said heavenly body and blood , is put on by the soul as its new body , which it lost by the fall ( yet lying hid in the lapsed body ) that so when this adamical body is broken , it may arise in christs new eternal body . 42. for jesus christ with his heavenly body ( which was hid under his outward ) hath , doth , and shall at once , altogether , and always fill the angelical world , notwithstanding his comprehensible , ●●●ane form , which appears now in the same proportion in heaven , in which he walked here upon the earth . i speak this by experience , for i my self ( though a poor , miserable , and afflicted man ) have seen christ appearing in our earthly form , and yet at the same time filling all ; and with these very eyes i saw all the saints appearing in his body , who yet were every one of them distinct and divers from his humane body . 43. see here , i pray you , my dearest brethren , what hitherto ye have not seen ; it is the letter that kills you , the spirit of which alone doth quicken . the devil doth extreamly envy men the body and blood of christ , because christ could not have left us a more precious treasure than that of his body and blood ; which is the reason why the enemy ( whilst zuinglius and luther were contending together ) did sow such tares in the matter of the lords supper , insomuch as the mischief done thereby can never be sufficienly expressed . 44. o ye zuingliaens and lutherans ! learn hence who your zuinglius and lutherans were , and with all how rashly you have carried it toward your brethren , abusing the divine call of zuinglius and luther . o lutherans ! lutherans ! how are ye degenerated ? ye have no reason to be so puft up with luthers call , because nothing that is perfect appears during the seven plagues , much less under the fourth , which is yet subject to great frailties . ye have framed articles according to your own good pleasure , and have established your own opinions , to the prejudice of truth , and in so doing have brought the pope , and lateinus 666 again upon the stage , though in another dress ; and alas ! have only increased the number of wolves and bears for to devour the flesh of the pope . 45. o ye lutherans , my brethren ! i observe that the modern prophets , in an hidden parabolical way , do attribute far worse things to you , than they do to your brethren , whom ye have condemned . o consider that youth is like wax , most easie to yield to vice , but as hard as stone to relent and turn from it ! consider it i say ; and now shew your selves as easie to receive the day of truth , as ye have been to admit the darkness of your most antichristian prejudices . 46. the manly age of the calvinists ( who are so hateful to you ) will shew you , that you are the youthful age of the reformed church , and will unteach you your hatred , caused by the envy of the devil . luther the angel of the fourth vial , was the plague of the pope of rome throughout all the german empire , and the several kingdoms belonging to it , whilst he lived , and dying will be the death of that son of perdition , in the three following angels . 47. for the fifth angel poured forth , by john calvin his vial , not only rejecting the pope , but likewise all papal ceremonies , images , rites , and institutions , upon the throne of the beast , france , being the inheritance of the most christian king , and eldest son of the pope , and where for 74 years together the pope kept his residence . and his kingdom was darkened , because of the parisian massacre , and the kings terrible end ; and they gnawed their tongues , because of the unhappy success of the accursed league , for pain , for the fruitless pains they had taken ; because the blood of the martyrs did make the church to grow and thrive the better . and they blasphemed the god of heaven , when they saw the progress the reformation made in the low countreys , upon their revolting from the king of spain ; because of their pains , taken in the spanish inquisition , and tyranical government , and their sores , of so many overthrows received from the persecuted french and dutch. and they repented not , because they did not attribute these signal instances of the divine vengeance unto god ; of their works , their persecutions , massacres and cruelties committed under pretence of defending the christian faith. 48. sure enough the church of the fifth vial was arrived to mans estate , which grew up under the pressure of such horrid persecutions , and was never purer than when it counted most martyrs . it was this church held forth most lively instances of patience and humility , and is therefore to be praised before others for her strength and fortitude , though at the same time to be blamed also before others , because of her immoderation in the point of the divine predestination and call to salvation . for this only error , so big with many gross errors , was that dangerous rock , which whilst the luh●eran church endeavours to avoid , she was driven upon that most antichristian hatred against calvin and the reformed church , for his sake , forgetting christian charity and brotherly kindness , wherein this later church far excelled her . 49. the greatest error of all the reformed churches , hath , is , and will be , the vain perswasion , whereby they think themselves happy in the knowing and owning of this or that article , and that all who do not know , oppose , or condemn the same , are damned . 50. know o man ! it is not knowledge can make thee blessed , nor ignorance that can damn thee , but a righteous , or unrighteous life ; the former of which consists in loving of god and your neighbour , the other in hating them . what if it pleased god to try thee , o lutheran church , with this error , whether thou wouldst prefer the life and love of christ , before subtle disputing about opinions ? how wilt thou blush at the last judgment , when thou shalt see many condemned ; whom thou hast blessed , and many blessed whom thou hast condemned ? these are no slight words , but well worth your serious consideration . 51. but as for you , o calvinists or ( if you would rather ) reformed , quicken your attentions , open your understandings , that you may see your error in its very root . st. paul in his epistle to the romans saith , we know that all things work together for good , to them that love god , even to those who are called according to his purpose . for whom he did fore know , he also did praeterminate to be conformed to the image of his son , that he might be the first-born amongst many brethren . now whom he did praeterminate them he also called , and whom he called , them he also justified , and whom he justified , them he also glorified . 52. the apostle saith well , whom he did fore-know , them he also did praeterminate , placing gods fore-knowledge before his praetermination , not whom he did praeterminate , them he also fore-knew , putting praetermination before fore-knowledge , as ye calvinists do , when you expound this place , not understanding the infinite difference there is between the one and the other . again , these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , are thus to be rendered , whom he did fore-know , them he also did praeterminate : and the compilers of dictionaries seduce us , when they render the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , praedecrevit , antedecrevit ( he hath or did fore-decree . ) and when they render the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , ( which properly signifies praeterminavit , he did preterminate ) improperly praedecrevit , praefinivit , praedestinavit ( he did or hath praedecreed , praedeterminate , praedestinate ) and have in so doing made way for this gross popular error . 53. for this fore-knowledge and praetermination of the most high god , is the most just ballance , wherein your common error is weighed : for hence it appears , that god did fore-know us from eternity , and from this fore-knowledge did praeterminate all of us ; but not praeterminate us that he might fore-know us . it is certain that in god fore-knowledge and praetermination are , beyond all humane comprehension , together and at once , but not so in us , in whom fore-knowledge and praetermination are two different things , as all humane actions are . god fore-knew the fall of adam , and from this fore-knowledge he did praeterminate the whole work of redemption ; but god did not praeterminate the fall of adam , that from this praetermination he might fore-know the whole work of redemption , which is contrary both to scripture and nature . 54. these few words ( if you have rightly understood me ) my most dear brethren , do unanswerably determine all your controversies about this matter ; neither do they ascribe , or prescribe any thing to man ( because all stands most freely in the will of god ) and yet do not destroy mans free-will neither . hence will appear how unprofitable and idle a thing your reason is , by which you have endeavoured to deduce gods eternal decree from the scriptures , especially from the writings of st. paul , and will be a burning light to dispel your own and your brethrens darkness , with which ye have plagued your selves and others , and thereby cast your selves into the greatest dangers . 55 ye have shewed your selves to be of manly age , o calvinists , by your adding weight to the youthful age of reformation , and by being authors of the last general sect ; but at the same time you have also had manly vices , whereby you have out vied those who were before you . 56. you have had the synod of dort , where the churches of britain , the palatinate , brandenburgh , hassia , zuitzerland , wetteravia , geneva , bremen , and embden , beheld the unity of the belgick churches , but such a unity as was not yet pure , but stained with many antichristian proceedings and tenets , full of prejudice and opposition against the divine light ; and instead of correcting , corrupting the interpretation of the holy scriptures , by adding to them without the dictate of the holy spirit ; yet was it for all this , in some respect worthy of the fifth vial. 57. my brethren of the reformation , ye have had an humane national synod , o that ye might shortly have a general and divine council ( which must needs be ) wherein not onely you and the lutherans may be fully united ( having first laid aside whatsoever is amiss in either of you ) but also a door may be opened for the turks , persians , and tartars to enter into christendom ! o israel and juda ! how have you rent our selves from one another ? and continue yet to rend your selve● daily ? 58. ye lutherans , of whom i am born , ye i say , are israelites , and the reformed , whom ye have rejected , are the tribe of juda , god himself ( whom ye cannot resist ) affirming it ▪ hear therefore , o israel and juda , the wor● of the lord , whom ye have forsaken ! how long will you build up a verbal christendom , and destroy and pull down that which is real ? how long will ye despise the prophets sent to you by god himself ? have ye not yet long enough doated upon the whore of babylon ? or are ye resolved to perish with her ? one sect after another grows up amongst you , and are all ready to devour you : and the sixth judgement threatens not onely the pope of rome , but the wolves and bears also , who have been his devourers . how long , being blinded , will you draw down upon your selves the sixth vial , part of which is already poured forth , as a fore-boding sign and figure of what is to follow . the 1st . year . the 1st .. month. the 1st . four weeks . the 1st . twenty eight days . 59. for the sixth angel , poured forth through the fore-runners of the most high , the prophets , wise-men , and scripture-learned , his vial , by declaring that the ruin of the dragon , leopard-bear , and lamb-dragon is come , in this sixth judgment , and that the eastern monarch , who is to execute the same , shall be converted , and that the lost tribes of the jews , shall ( to the great commotion of the whole world ) of a sudden appear , and assist at the fore-said execution . vpon the great river euphrates of the asiatick , as well as european babylon . the 2d . year . the 2d . month. the 2d . four weeks . the 2d . twenty eight weeks . 60. and its water was dried up , by a daily clearer understanding and fulfilling of prophecies , whereupon many leaving the papal and sectarian babylon , did return to the one true christendom , owning no other name but that of christians , joyning themselves unanimously ( according to their different states ) to one of the three armies of god , viz. either to that with the steel , or to that with the golden , or to that with the leaden sword. that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared , especially the kings of natolia ( the lesser asia ) which are the turks , and next of the persians , tartars and jews , which in another respect will be further fulfilled under the seventh vial , after the sixth is past . the 3d. year . the 3d. month. the 3d. four weeks . the 3d. twenty eight days . 61. and i saw [ come ] out of the mouth of the dragon , of the roman-germ in empire , which from augustus caesar , borrowed the name of augustus , as well as that of dragon ( for the latins tell us that his mother att●a conceived him by lying with a dragon ) and out of the mouth of the beast , of the roman papal kingdom , long since receiving his power from the imperial dragon ; and out of the mouth of the false prophet , which are the universities and monasteries , three unclean spirits , viz. politicians ( or men concerned in the government of the state ) ecclesiasticks and philosophers ( or private men ) all which three orders our modern jesuits do comprehend , like unto frogs , because they leave the springs of the holy scriptures , and hide themselves in the stinking ditches of heathenish phylosophy and law-knowledge , croaking whilst the summer of mans favour lasts , but being silent in the autumne and winter of tribulation , and are not able to indure the light of a candle in darkness . the 4th year . the 4th month. the 4th four weeks . the 4th twenty eight days . 62. for they are the spirits of devils doing wonders , being pourd forth in the wrath of god upon church-men , lawyers , physicians , philologers and philosophers , who despise the truth ; being full of falseness , pride , covetousness , and envy ; and who by their monstrous wickedness , blaspheme god in their universities and monasteries ; which go forth as embassadors or envoys , or as academicks , under what form soever , whether of states-men , church-men , or private persons ; unto the kings of the earth , that is , of europe , and of the whole world , of asia and affrica ; to gather them together , as well by their words as by their writings , in opposition to this sixth judgment , and the reformation of christendom , by the conversion of the jews and turks . to the battle of the great day , even of the sixth general judgement , of god the almighty ; who will as certainly , to the astonishment of the world , accomplish the same ( as soon as the 1260 years of the roman dragon are expired ) as he hath already certainly fulfilled the five fore-going judgments . the 5th . year . the 5 month. the 5th . four weeks . the 5th . twenty eight days . 63. behold i come as a thief , the roman babylonish whore not believing , nor so much as thinking of it ; because it will be at a time , when ( if ever before ) she will be guarded with armies , and power ; and when being deluded by the persuasions of her flatterers , she shall firmly expect the subjection not only of the reformed churches , but of mahumetanisme also . blessed is he that watcheth in the outward inward life of christ , that he be not seduced by the whores felicity , and keepeth his garments , which he hath once received under the vials of reformation , that he may not walk naked , by apostatizing from the reformed churches , because of the tryals by god laid upon them ; and they see his shame , his temporary and changing faith , which seeks the good things of christ , but not his cross . 64. and he gathered them together . upon the expiring of a time , times , and half a time , into a place called in the hebrew tongue armageddon , to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the greek renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , tahanach upon the waters of meghiddo , a place famous for the overthrow of the canaanites , after their twenty years tyranny and oppressing of the jews : for then the threefold papal army , opposing it self against the three armies of god , will at length appear to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 harmageddon an unfortunate troop , and accursed of god ; and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hhermagheddon their army a curse , which shall pierce through all the members of the papal body , according to what the rabbins deliver concerning the force and efficacy of this word ; or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hhormagheddon , their army hhorma , which was a city totally overthrown by the israelites : and therefore shall not always be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 armageddon , a treacherous army , and an holy league designed for the ruin of the reformed churches . the 6th . year . the 6th . month. the 6th . four weeks . the 6th . twenty eight days . 65. neither is the sixth plague poured forth alone , but the seventh meets it , and is poured forth together with it , even as the third and fourth adolescence and youth , did meet together , so also do concur the sixth and seventh vial , old age and decrepid age : the said seventh vial being already poured forth during the sixth vial , and shall yet daily be poured forth with it , until the full accomplishment of the sixth general judgement shall put an end to this sixth vial. for the seventh angel poured forth , by the restorer of true christianity , and his eastern and nothern associates , his vial , by putting an end to the four monarchies , and by founding the universal christian kingdom , into the air of the whole earth , whether known , or unknown , and of all men whether of the highest , mean , or lowest condition . the 7th . year . the 7th . month. the 7th . four weeks . the 7th . twenty eight days . 66. and there went forth a great voice , of the universal effusion of the spirit , out of the temple of heaven , from the throne , of the heavenly reign of christ restored upon this our globe , saying with the voice of jesus christ himself , now appearing and working in a manner which hitherto hath been strange and accustomed . it is done what was to be done ; the sixth judgment is accomplished according to my prophets , the whole mystery of god being now also to be fulfilled . 67. and there were voices of the greatest forebodings , and thunders of most vehement commotions ; and lightnings of most quick and sudden actions . the 8th year . the 8th month. the 8th four weeks . the 8th twenty eight days . 68. and there was a great earth-quake of uuniversal changes amongst all nations , and their conversion to the christian faith , such as was not since men were upon the earth , so mighty and so great an earth-quake , because jesus of nazareth king of the jews was owned and acknowledged under the whole heaven , to be the true son of god , and the three-one god began to be worshiped by j●phet , sem , and ham. the 9th year . the 9th month. the 9th four vveeks . the 9th twenty eight days . 69. and the great city , the universal babylon of all kingdoms , by reason of so great commotions , was divided into three parts , and the cities of the nations , all idolatrous kingdoms , fell , the universal divine reformation advancing happily . the 10th year . the 10th month. the 10th four vveeks . the 10th twenty eight days . 70. and babylon the great , which from the fall of adam , the tower of babel and confusion of languages hath been propagated through all men , came in rememberance before god , as it also happened at the building of the tower of babel , to give unto her the cup of the vvine of the fierceness of his wrath , by the universal destruction of all confusions and falsities , all divided languages being reduc'd to that one , which was lost in the adamical and babylonish confusion . 71. and every island of particular government and worship , with estrangement from others , fled away , nothing but the universal truth being now promoted in all places , at the command of god , and the mountains of opposing and resisting powers , were not found , because god by his wars did root out all that were disobedient . 72. and there fell a great hail , of the wrath of god , of the weight of a talent out of heaven , not from humane instruments stirr'd up in the wrath of god , upon the men , who were disobedient to gods commands , and the men blasphemed god , like unto pharaoh , and the israelites in the wilderness , because of the plague of the hail ; for the plague thereof was exceeding great , as being intollerable to adamical men , and indeed the heaviest of all plagues , which the holy spirit in other places of scripture hath more largely declared and discovered . 73. for when it shall be fulfilled , and they were both cast into the lake of fire burning with brimstone ; then also will that be fulfilled which is here spoken concerning the great hail , and soon after also will be fulfilled that which is spoke concerning the devil , and he bound him a thousand years , which most desirable time will put an end to all plagues . 74. the sixth plague shall destroy the papal antichrist , who hath already reigned above a thousand years by succession , the last of which shall then kill himself ; but the seventh plague shall cast the personal antichrist ( of whom the papists have more knowledge than the reformed , bating their preiudices in favour of their own antichrist ) alive , together with his false prophet into the lake of brimstone , during a thousand years ; who because there are only a few months allotted for his reign , is no other than covertly hinted at in scripture , under the notion of the roman antichrist . 75. hear these things o reformed house of israel and juda ! and wonder at , or rather ponder your blindness ! for you will find that this my explication of the sixth and seventh vial doth so much agree and harmonize with the writings of the modern , divinely inlightned prophets , wisemen , and scripture-learned , that you will be forced , whether ye will or no , to confess that they have left us and you a more particular explication , and a fuller and clearer revelation of the revelation , which they received from god. 76. my dear brethren ! hitherto you have been mistaken in your blind zeal , and being loaded with prejudices , have rejected those who were sent to you from god , should you go on to do so against your conscience and knowledge , how dangerous would it prove to your souls ? 77. o lutheran israel ! god was pleased to send to thee at one time three men who were furnished by the holy ghost ( far beyond thy comprehension ) with the true gift of prophecy , wisdom , and scripture-learning ; the prophet was kotterus , the wise-man behmen , the scripture-learned engelbrecht , whom thou hast regarded as israel of old did the messengers which were sent unto them , to thine own great damage . hast thou despised them ? despise them so no more ; seeing them to be sent by god , but think them worthy your serious reading again and again , and amend your errors and antichristianisms , as you are commanded by god in them , and others of their fellow servants . 78. and thou house of juda ! god hath chosen thee in thy king frederick the fifth , with whom he might take his delight , speaking all those things concerning a man of the fifth reformed church individually , which were to happen to the whole reformed church under the sixth and seventh vial ; and again concerning a man of the antichristian church ferdinand the second , revealing all things contrary . hath thy ignorance hindered thee from understanding this ? now understand it : examining them diligently , whom hitherto because of the riddle of their prophetick stile ( as yet either lost or unknown ) being seduced by some of thine own party , thou hast undervalued and neglected . 79. pray what is more common in our ordinary way of speaking and writing than such expressions as these ? the king of france dies not , rudolf is yet alive , king charles of england is not dead yet , julius caesar flourisheth still . and why so ? because though a prince be mortal , yet in his children and successors he becomes immortal and eternal . and what is more common in scripture prophecies , than to have a thing fore-told of one and fulfilled in another ? 80. frederick the fifth is not yet dead , not ferdinand the second , the first lives in the elect of the reformed church ; the later in the sons of the antichristian whore. frederick indeed was mortal , but the church he was of , immortal and though ferdinand be dead , yet the papal church is not so yet , in whom ferdinand is yet to be found . as long as god shall have any in the reformed church , who endeavour the conversion or ruin of the papal , to the end that the propagation of christianity amongst the nations may be no longer obstructed , so long will frederick yet be fighting for god against the pope , and be king of bohemia , which was the mother of the infancy and child-hood of the reformed church , and consequently of the whole church of god , which shall at length arrive to its full and perfect age. and on the contrary , as long as the devil shall have his ministers , who revere the papal blasphemies , instead of the word of god , and do in any manner persecute the truth , so long will ferdinand continue to be the bloody defender of the beast . 81. frederick doth not live in his family , which is his bodily off spring , but in his spiritual off-spring ; and though all his family should die , yet would not he . and the same may be said of ferdinand , whose bodily house is now nearer to death than ever , that it might be a figure of his spiritual house and family . frederick is dead indeed to us , but not to god ; and so likewise ferdinand ; and they shall both see the day of deliverance ; the one shall rejoyce , the other grieve and mourn ; of which ( considering the present ignorance ) it is better to be silent then to speak further . 82. this is the true key to open the greatest difficulties which are found in our modern prophets , and with the same key the mysteries of time may be unlocked , which are by so much the more truly and securely lock'd up in a most wonderful account of numbers , by how much the more dark they are to be understood . 83. what i here speak of kotterus , the same is to be applied to kregel , christina poniat via , and more especially to drabicius , who is not yet beheaded , but sounds his last trumpet with his assistant joh. amos comenius , stronger than ever . 84. they who would weaken the truth of his prophecy , urge that place concerning the end of his life in these words ; rev. 264. thou shalt go to thy rest in peace , at the age of fourscore and four , in thy own country , even the same place i have formerly nam●d to thee . the power of thy enimies shall not hurt thee , thou shalt be laid in thy grave in peace . and yet we are told that he was beheaded by the emperor the 17th of july 1671 ; after he had made a kind of recantation . again , they say that at the time of his death he was not fourscore and four years of age ; for he was born the fifth of decemb. 1588 , and accordingly was not to die till after the fifth of december 1672 , neither ( say they ) was he laid in his grave in peace in his own countrey , nor in the place which had been formerly mentioned to him . 85. but they understand these words as all the rest ; for he was indeed aged fourscore and four lunar years ( which together with lunar months , we find that our modern prophets commonly make use of in their calculations ) when he went to the rest of the martyrs in peace , in his own countrey , even hungary ; concerning which he had prophesied so much , and in the same place which the revealer had before mentioned ; rev. 212 , 213. thou shalt stand before caesar with honourable persons ; which is expresly confirmed in the sentence which was past upon him ; where he was also crowned with the first crown , rev : 129. to wit , with the crown of thorns , which was covertly intimated to him ; rev. 132. which christ at his death did bear most willingly , drabicius most unwillingly . 86. which place of his martyrdom was often afterwards mentioned unto him , though he did not understand it so , as rev. 410. i will lay a burthen upon thee , which thou wilt hardly bear ; again , rev. 429. do thou trust in me ! for they shall come to carry thee where thou hast never been , and whither thou wilt go unwillingly ; rev. 438. thou art blessed like peter , to whom also christ said , thou walkest whither thou liftest ; having before said to him , blessed art thou , rev. 538. thou shalt not see the end of all these things , because i thy god will bring thee over to my self , into the inaccessible light . do not ye observe that his approaching martyrdom was fore-told to him , especially rev. 429. formerly mentioned v. 7. where it is expresly said , i will not as yet tell thee whither thou art to go , to the end thou mayst not afflict thy self , yet shall my right hand there lead thee . 87. the power of drabicius his enemies did not hurt him , neither in respect of his second crown of prophecy , nor in respect of his third crown of glory ; and that passage , rev. 608. is to be understood concerning the second crown ; whom be not thou afraid of , as having in me an abundant protection and blessing too , which is now ready waiting for thee at breslaw , as surely as if thou saw●st it with thine own eyes . 88. for i am of breslaw , and do examine drabicius , together with kotterus , kregeln , christina , and all other witnesses of god , intending to go to new rome in the power of god , being now just upon the point of undertaking my roman journey ; and shall in gods due time , in rome it self , in the presence of the pope and emperor , expound and defend the prophets raised up by god , and that , its like , with an unusual power , to the end the two slain witnesses , viz. the regenerate sons of both scriptures , may rise more gloriously . if the pope then shall find himself furnished with the golden sword of the mouth , from the holy ghost , he will kill me with it ; but if not , the holy ghost in me shall kill the pope with the sword of the mouth , as being antichrist , devoid of the spirit , and who 's strength lies not in a spiritual , but material sword , and yet even that also shall be broke by the steel and leaden sword. 89. wherefore it is your duty , o ye lutherans and reformed , my brethren ! to lift up your heads at the news of this approaching deliverance , and having first united your selves together in a true concord and agreement , and heartily repented of your mis-deeds , to set upon the reforming of your churches , by an unanimous recantation of all your errors . 90. will you not receive the prophets ? at least receive the revelation of the scriptures you own , which doth most lively describe you and then according to the said scriptures , you will understand the praedictions of all the prophets of the sixth and seventh vial. receive the extraordinary heavenly witnesses , which for the time of a prophetical month , have been visible to you and all the inhabitants of the earth ; i speak of stars and comets , which are to all nations , as so many natural commentators upon the supernatural scriptures . 91. memorable is that comet which appeared the very self-same day wherein the orders were signed at vienna , for a reformation in my native countrey silesia , being the 19th day of decemb. 1652 , and was fore-told eight days before by drabicius ; which comet came out of the ark of noah , and did arise with us in that very place of the heavens , where noahs dove , with its olive branch is seen , and took its course directly toward that place where the famous new star of 1572 first appeared to the world. 92. memorable is that solar eclipse of the year 1654 , 12 of aug. which returned the sun its light from west to east , in the appearance of a sickle , after it had been darkened from nine of the clock till after mid-day ; which great prodigy was not onely visible to all christendom , but beyond it too , and was divinely interpreted by stephen melish in his 115 vision , as not onely concerning breslaw , but the whole world. 93. memorable was that third conjunction of the two superior planets in the fiery trigon , in 1663 , together with the preceding great conjunction of all the planets in the fiery sign sagitary , the 1st . of decemb. 1662 , a thing not to be parallell'd by any known instance of former ages . 94. yet more memorable was the comet which appeared in decemb. 1664 , which joyn'd it self with the comet which appeared about easter 1665 , near the ears of the ram , where it become the suns companion , beyond what hath been known in any former age. 95. but most memorable of all was the comet which appeared about easter 1677 , being the swift executor of all the fore-going stars , comets , and conjunctions , and the introducer of changes upon the whole world. 96. these ordinary and extraordinary witnesses , the fore-runners of the greatest alterations , though they surpass the wits of heathen astrologers , yet do they so clearly attest the change of all kingdoms , that the publick and private , written and oral conjectures of all men agree in this , that some unheard of revolution is to be expected . 97. but there is no astrologer ( of those i have seen ) whose conjectures have come nearer the truth , than the almanack writer of staden , who expresly compares the two comets of 1664 and 65 , to two who give in their evidence before a judge , and the third to a publick herald , proclaiming the sentence given in upon the fore-going evidence ; and therefore declares his opinion , that within 24 months time the work of god will be manifested , by preparing the whole roman and turkish empire for quite another war , then is now believed , which is to last till the next age , and to run over the greatest part of the whole world , and that the end of it will be , the propagation of the gospel in the east , and the return of the christian church to the place of its first rise . 98. i confess i could not read these things in an astrologer without tears , who i found had with his ordinary skill , more diligently examined these extraordinary witnesses of heaven , than those who are learned in the scripture do examine the extraordinary prophets of god , and besides determined the exact time of two years ( in which he will not be mistaken ) though at that time there was no appearance of any such thing , whilst our church-men being drown'd in the sleep of vanities , deny that ever any such things shall be , much more that within two years we shall see the beginning of them . 99. many , many of the nations which are now strangers to christianity , shall with denis the areopa●ite , own and acknowledge the approaching reign of christ , which our pharisees do reject , and our sectarian hypocrites shall not believe the destruction of the ecclesiastical jerusalem of all sects , till they feel it . 100. o ye lutherans and reformed , my most dear brethren ! you have gazed upon the comets , you have read the conjectures that have been made concerning them , which you may further inspect and judge of infallibly from the writings of the prophets , wise-men , and scripture-learned , sent to you by god ; since the fore-mentioned comets are nothing else but so many natural commentaries upon the scriptures , and their commentators christopher kotter , john kregel , herman de hude , nicholas drabits , stephen melish , christina ponialovia , and the like : and again , these are so many supernatural commentaries upon the fore-said comets ; search them both , and you 'll find the one confirm the other . 101. these comets are all witnesses of the sixth and seventh vial , which are in part already poured forth , and partly to be poured forth hereafter ; their whole time being comprehended in such a number , as contains ten years , and ten months , and 40 weeks and 280 days , and almost full 7 hours , the number ten , the number five , and a unity , and yet is but one number . if you understand it , keep it to your selves ; but if not , do not underta●e to judge concerning the modern prophetick numbers , because this our number is the root of prophetick numbers . 102. and that you may have no quarrel with the prophets , my dear brethren , i shall apply to the two fore-mentioned vials this very number , which because i have set down before , i 'll only point you to here , to avoid repetition ; which number do you seriously ponder and revolve in your minds , for it is the most secret and absolute number of the scripture , being sealed , and leads us to the very year of the manifestation of the terrestrial paradise , necessary to be known by us of this age ; for the hour of the last judgement must abide sealed up for reasons known to god , being hid under the number of a thousand years . 103. the afore-said number will be found to agree with the years , months , and weeks , of our modern prophets , and i had already began in the fore going line , to apply them to the numbers of our witnesses , which are yet alive , which yet after two days pause i blotted out again , contrary to my custom ; because both the impulse of my mind , and a two days consideration , abundantly perswaded me , that i had much more reason to be silent than to declare any thing about this matter . 104. i say contrary to my custom ; for whatever from my soul-mind-spirit , flows once into my pen , never needs any blotting out , because our inward dictator , who is incomprehensibly hid under the outward , scarce ever suffers us to mistake , it being rare for our hand to make a blot , insomuch , that what is once writ continues written , though i want the prophetical dictation , which is very different from our way of writing . 105. the impulse of my mind ; because i remember the past contentions , by which our yet living witnesses ( whether standing in the first , second , or third principle ) did greatly trouble and hinder me , who was yet ignorant of such frailties ; for they measuring others , with the measure of their own principle , went astray from their call , and led others into the same error with themselves . 106. and two days consideration ; for the longer time some intervening occasions gave me of considering , the greater need i found to blot out what i had begun to write , and not at all to meddle with the numbers of such as were yet alive ; for i considered that they being caught in the riddle of their own principle , would not be able to understand nor bear the clear opening of the term of years , which was given to them infolded in a prophetick riddle ; and being too tender promoters of their own will , did shorten this fearful and universal work of god , according to their affections , not seeking the glory of jesus christ with their whole heart . 107. you do not purely seek the glory of god in his son , whosoever you are , that do so anxiously call for a shortning of the time ; whereas it would become you wholly to leave the time in the will of god , till all that is to be done , be accomplished . make haste , my brethren , make haste , to sow the seed ye have received from god , in the hearts of men , least contrary to natures order , you should seem to hope for a harvest before the seed time , as hitherto ye have done , and by the same mistake have unhappily lost your sowing season . 108. the seed being once cast into the ground , will spring up abundantly , and at the time of harvest will give its ripe fruit ; our forefathers shall enjoy their hope in us , and we shall enjoy ours , in our posterity , as being all but divers members of the one glorified body of jesus christ . 109. if ye understand this , my brethren and sisters , whether prophets , wise , or scripture-learned , understand it , you are onely the more particular appliers of scripture , and i relying upon the base and center of scripture , do expresly declare , that all your numbers will follow mine , if they be from the holy spirit ; neither shall my number follow yours , except they be consonant to the scriptures . 110. wherefore give ear , o my brethren of israel and juda , to this revelation of the sixth and seventh vial , and not to your false academicks , if you would learn the disposition and genius of the future , as well as present and past time ; and have a more careful esteem of the living servants of god , whom having once laid this foundation , you 'll easily distinguish from false ones . 111. the two years time of the last comet expiring in may 1679 ( at which time my double * quinary , given to me alone by god , expires likewise ) will rouse you out of your sleep of security ; for this most wonderful work of god doth daily dawn and discover it self in such an harmony , where in heaven and earth , all above , and all below shake hands , and are agreed together ; so that through the grace of god , the pouring forth of the sixth vial upon euphrates ( which is the turkish and persian empire ; and in another respect , whole rome the eighth , and the spanish dominion in europe ) is at hand . 112. when you shall see those new christians flourishing in the life of christ , and the three-one light despised of christians , to shine forth beyond belief in the hearts of many under the turkish and persian empire , and that with far brighter rays than ever it did in our named christendom ; then let this be a certain sign to you , that the first year is expired of those 10 mentioned before ; the time of which being rightly counted , will open to you all the rest . 113. my heart melts with joy , whilst i write these things , and the splendor of the light world , being open to my inward eyes , doth triumph with me . rejoyce o ye fasterlings ! rejoyce ! the sun of righteousness shall suddenly arise to you , with the lustre of innumerable rays , and shall change your half moon ( which the dragon will endeavour to devour ) into the sun. the great and wonderful things of god are a preparing to be preached unto you , which the seers neither have seen nor shall see . holy , holy , holy is the three , one god , who was , and is , and will be one god! 114. o that ye lutherans and reformed , understood these things ! i know that with an unanimous agreement you would cast away your sectarian discord , and get you out of babylon , according to my former apprecation , which i shall more fully explain in that which follows : for to you wicklef-waldenses , hussites , zuinglians , lutherans , and calvinists , my fellow brethren , hath the voice , as well of the inward as outward eternal gospel , sounded from heaven , by the prophets , wisemen , and letter-learned , saying , go out of her , by a total rejection of all babylonish papal , roman , latine , and heathen rites and errors , my people of the reformed church , from its infancy to its manly age , that ye may not be partakers , as hitherto ye have been in your love , manners , words , and actions , with her sins , and that ye may not receive , if wanting true repentance , you continue so at the appearance of this sixth judgement , of her plagues , which your selves have poured out upon her , as having been the rod to punish her , which afterwards is also to be cast away , as having no further use . 115. for your political or civil state , o israel and juda ! is corrupted with the laws of the dragon , i mean the institutions of justinian ; and your ecclesiastical state is no less ruin'd with opinions taken from the papal canon law , being nothing else but so many palliated antichristian errors : and your private academical state is changed into perfect heathenisme . 116. reform therefore the government of your church and state , and the discipline of your schools , according to the form and rule of the holy ghost , that is , the scriptures , and their divine commentaries , the prophets , wise-men , and scripture-learned , as well those before commended , as others of the same stamp , who may easily be known by being compared with them ; and in so doing you will erect such a christendom as the scripture describes to be agreeing with the sixth vial. 117. restore the one onely name of christians , having rejected the names of wiclef-waldenses , hussites , zuinglians , lutherans , calvinists , and all other names of authors ; and herein follow me , or rather christ in me , who am the first that by a publick and solemn confession , and by a real , not verbal rejection of all other names , have re-taken the name of christian . 118. having restored the name of christians , restore also with me one catholick christian confession , to wit the holy scripture ; and at the same time make one universal christian confession , full of the everlasting gospel , out of the augustan , basil , suevian , both the switzerland , saxon , witteberg , french , english , and last bohemian confession , and then burn all but it , together with all their voluminous commentaries . 119. what was said concerning confessions , the same is to be understood of catechisms , out of all which , with the assistance of divine light , let one universal christian institution be compiled for the instruction of youth ; which by its evident truth may be able to recommend it self to all christians , not by force and violence , which hath been the fruitful womb of antichristianisme . 120. collect also bodies or systems of the doctrine of the reformed church : as for example , out of all the writings of the wiclef-waldenses , select and make up one body of the doctrines of the reformed church in its infancy ; out of all the writings of the hussites , a body of the reformed child-hood : out of the zuinglian writings , a body of the adolescence or reformed stripling age ▪ out of the lutheran , a body of the reformed young-manly age ; out of the writings of the calvinists , a body of the reformed manhood ; and out of the writings of the prophets , wise-men , and scripture-learned , a body of the reformed old age : that so a perfect concord and harmony may be established , and all mistakes and errors utterly cast away . 121. this is the sum of my intention , as to those systems or bodies i mentioned in my forerunner , neither have i writ or said any thing ( though it may have surpassed your belief ) which i could not really effect by the grace of god ; and am most willing , my most dear brethren , to communicate all these things and such like more to you , which are of force enough to transmute all the lead of your babel into pure gold , if you will but heartily set upon the work of reformation . it was for this i was born , and called before i was born , that i might change babylon into gold , without the use of any material sword , whether of steel or of lead , and the strength of my enemies falling upon me in vain , shall fall by their own strength , the lord of hosts fighting for me , you your selves being witnesses . 122. but in the first place restore one onely scripture , as well in its text , as interpretation ; and as soon as ever you have restored the scripture , with one consent burn all your modern bibles , which are the instruments of sectarian confusion , abounding with many additions , emendations , explications , divisions , disjoyntings , and changes of humane reason . 123. for my chiefest design is to restore the scripture , with the assistance of divine light , in order to an universal conversion , and to expose the same , not only to the censure of you , my lutherans and reformed ; but also to that of all people , nations , and languages of the four corners of the earth ; to the end that one god may be known in one scripture , under one sun. 124. the very letter of scripture hath been very much blurr'd by jews as well as christians , upon several accounts : but if this have hapned in the text , much more in the interpretations , which do so vary from the text , and from one another ; that i have scarce had freedoom to alledge the text of scripture in the former part of this epistle , when i considered the many errors in the various readings and interpretations occasioned by the neglect of writers and printers . 125. if i had the outward letter of the scripture in its genuine truth and purity , i should easily with the outward letter have conquered all sectaries ( the inward spirit of the scriptures being opened to me ) and therefore i can no longer bear these dark evasions of a corrupted text , but shall retrieve the scripture , as to the truth of the letter , by the help and assistance of the dictator himself ; which i am in an assured expectation i shall accomplish in the view of the whole world. 126 and to this end ( in the strength of god ) i shall cast away all humane additions whatsoever ; as those of contents , divisions of chapters and verses , and much more all additions to the text it self ; and in so doing , shall discover the faults of the original scripture amongst the jews , as well as christians , which are all stained with these blots , and much more the errors which are in the interpreted scriptures of all people , nations and languages . 127. i shall restore the text it self , both hebrew and greek , not by mine own knowledge , but by the grace of god alone ; and at the same time shall expose to view an instance of a true translation in the la●ine , german , and arabick tongues , for a pattern to all other people , nations , and languages , that so our universal work may come to be of universal use and service , as being designed onely for the glorifying of jesus of nazareth , king of the jews , in every people , nation , and language . 128. the last five volumes of this universal work , shall present the twenty four books of the bare text of scripture ( according to the number of the elders in the revelation ) dress'd up in a comely garb to the eyes of the world , and compleat ( if it please god ) the number 77. of our universal writings , with respect to the 77. persons of lucifer's restored throne : in which writings both scriptures shall by way of paraphrase be explained , according to the three principles severally and conjoyn'd . 129. the intended paraphrase of the scripture beginning from the fall of the angels , and thence proceeding to the creation of this world , shall open all the arcana , secrets and mysteries of scripture , which are necessary for the present age ; and shall beyond the belief of men of this age , unfold the whole work of the redemption of mankind , from adam through all the patriarchs , prophets , and kings , unto christ himself , and from christ through all the apostles , and their successors , unto the thousand years of paradise ; to the end that all people , nations , and languages ( will they , nill they ) may acknowledge and own jesus christ to be the true son of god , and the saviour of the world. moreover in this paraphrase , the true chronology , which hitherto hath been lost , shall be restored to the world , and all the mysteries of numbers past , present , and to come , unvailed : but above all , herein , as in a clear looking-glass , the great whore of babylon shall be exposed naked to the view of all , to the end that all prophecies may be fulfilled . 130. the scripture being opened according to the first principle of the seven arts , to the mystical posterity of japhet , shall discover the true and solid principles of all arts , consonant to whole nature , in so many thousand aphorisms , as shall exceed those of all academical writings put together in number , but much more in worth and value , as being true refined gold , in comparison of the others lead : which discovery will promote the ruine of the present universities , and make way for the restoring of true christian schools . 131. the scripture opened to the off-spring of sem , according to the second principle of grace , shall first of all unvail the mystical kingdom of christ in us ; by means of which the whole scripture , from the beginning to the end , is contain'd in every one of us , and shall discover all those most holy pearls of divine mysteries , which hitherto have onely in particular been disposed of to a very few friends and spouses of christ , unknown to the world : and then it will be as clearly understood , that every man is really a micrographe ( that is a little scripture ) either for heaven , or hell , as now it is ignorantly denied . 132. the scripture opened according to the third principle of whole nature , unto the children of ham , shall reveal the most universal master-piece of nature , and shall discover the science of all adepts , that have been , or shall be , together with the signature of the stone of the wise-men ; and wholly lay open the very root of that tree , beyond the belief of all adepts who live in the third principle without the second . hearken ! ye adeptists , my brethren , ( whether ye be in the east-indies , or in any other part of the world. ) hearken ! nature shall be reduced to scripture , and scripture to nature ; to the end that all hidden things may be revealed : the time of your gathering together from the four corners of the earth draws near , which will be as soon as the vial of the wrath of god shall be poured forth upon the air ; to the end that in a fuller measure , than ever heretofore , you may be made partakers of the infinite son of the infinite tincture , being the very image of jesus christ in nature , when the first principle shall dwell in the second , and the third shall serve the second . 133. the scripture opened according to the three principles conjoyn'd , is yet to continue sealed , until the lord shall be pleased to unseal the same , either in me or some other person ; because i see that the sound of the trumpets of the lord grows every day stronger and stronger , one witness of god following the other at the heels , the later still excelling the former . 134. the present writing will intimate to you , what wonders may be expected from the restored text of scripture , and will most plainly lay open to you lutherans and reformed , the infancy , childhood , stripling-age , youth , and manhood of your interpretations : all which of right are to give way for old age to succeed them , having already fulfilled their service amongst infants , children , striplings , young-men and men. 135. hitherto i have been a shewing you your divine call , and withal pointed out to you your babylon . and though i have already abundantly made it appear , that you are fellow-brethren , yet shall i in what follows more particularly make it out to you ; to the end at length you may learn to be wise , and leave the ways of cain . for the spirit of god in his prophets doth every where accuse the coldness of your charity to your fellow-brethren , without which charity , your reformation is nothing but a deformation of christianity , and an appearance without reality . 136. o my lutheran-brethren , ye have been colder than the iseland snow in your charity to your brethren the calvinists , and they again to you , notwithstanding you were nearest to one another ; and that by reason of your contentions about some articles of faith , not about the life of christ : in which articles ye have most antichristianly placed your salvation , and not in the holy life of christ . 137. christ taught you to pray , forgive us our debts , even as we also forgive our debtors ; which you have indeed daily prayed , and yet continue to pray to your own damnation . you do not forgive your debtors their debts , and yet you ask the same forgiveness of god , and receive it too , even the same you have exercised towards others , and askt of god. 138. you have out of envy laid great debts to the account of many holy men of god , who have been extraordinarily call'd amongst you ; which if they had really been chargeable with , yet ought ye to have forgiven them , as having daily promised to god so to do ; but in stead of this , ye have contrary to your prayers and conscience , condemned those alive and dead , who are a thousand times more happy than your selves . 139. hence it was , that at the beginning of my coming forth , such a flame of wrath burst out against you , and openly discovered your nakedness , not being able to see such antichristrian actings covered over with the name of true christianity ; which i desire you to blot out with the repentance of a serious amendment : turning the edge of your anger , not against me , but against your selves . 140. i have in this discourse , o lutherans and reformed , most nakedly opened my peaceful heart to you all ; i have distinctly shew'd you the good and the evil which is amongst you : i have laid before you the means of a true reformation ; under the title of fellow-brethren i have lasht your most antichristian enmities : i have entirely forgiven all my debtors amongst you , and at the present do forgive you my dearest brethren , any debts of your threatned writing against me , if so be you esteem the same as not written ; having only design'd it in your ignorance , to the end your nakedness may not be expos'd to the view of the world. 141. the truth , which is become man , will in me triumph against all his enemies , and your posterity in sweden , denmark , saxony , holland , england , france , and venice , will be of my side , not of yours , when in the time of their great tribulation , they shall understand their call out of the prophets , if ye in your time should refuse to hear and understand it ; which god forbid . 142. for then the eternal gospel which ye had rejected , would be taken from you , and translated to our brethren of the east , the turks , persians , and tartars , and from thence would onely reflect its light to you , as from its center ; so that then you would never again be able to buy that living water , to quench the thirst of your souls , so nigh unto you for nothing . 143. as long as there is yet hopes of your repentance , so long shall ye be my fellow-brethren ; but as soon as your last breath is past your lips , you shall then either be my fellow-brethren ever or never . 144. what i have said of you , the same may be said of the turks , persians , and tartars , as well as of nominal christians ; because turks and persians , with others who are strangers to the name of christ , if they heartily glorifie christ by a righteous life towards god and their neighbours , though they have no explicite knowledge of christ , are notwithstanding partakers of him , and that in a nearer degree than our nominal christians , notwithstanding their mahometanisme , which in time must be totally done away . 145. would you know the reason of this assertion ? consider the rise of mahomet ; was not he raised in the wrath of god to be a scourge to the roman antichrist ? and if you view the roman idolatry with their saints and saintesses , you 'll find that the mahometans are justifiable , not in respect of their own law , but in regard of the scandal they received from rome ; for which reason also the execution of the sixth judgment ( which is to pass upon universal rome ) is committed by god to mahometans . 146. wherefore take heed of those three frogs , before explained in the sixth vial , who by their contrary opinion , will be generally very pleasing to sectarians , in maintaining that the ruin of mahometans is at the door . take heed ye do not vainly perswade your selves that the mahometan empire will have its period with the expiring of the dominion of the watry trigon , about the year of christ 1782 , because the said empire had its first rise under the same ; for supernatural prophecy doth assure us , that the sword of the mouth , not a bloody one , shall destroy the mahometan destroyers of european rome . 147. a hard message this is , but yet a very true one ; nor to be feared by any of my fellow-brethren that follow the words of god! for our god hath pointed out a pella for his own to retire to in the north , and in the east , in those words which he spoke to christina poniatovia , when she was a figure of this our sojourning , saying ; behold i will scatter my people amongst the nations , and i will send them into a strange land ! i will lead them out before the storm of my swift wrath break forth , that they may be preserved when i shall rain down fire and brimstone . wherefore as thou didst flee , so shall they ; many with trembling , not knowing whither to turn themselves ; but i will shew them their way , neither will i take my mercy from them . and i will give unto them their spiritual bread in abundance , even my holy word , that with it they may more freely , quietly , and undisturbedly feed and satisfie their souls : i will moreover add thereunto the bread of the body , and all necessaries of life ; neither will i be wanting to them in any thing , so they do but confide in me , and take me for their refuge . for my name is a most strong tower , if the righteous flee to me , he shall be saved in the evil day . 148. this our god fulfilled to the bohemians and moravians , who , to praefigure our dispersion , were driven into exile by the most antichristian wickedness of ferdinand the second . 149. and our heavenly father doth yet daily fulfil it in us , who in a figure live amongst the nations , being led forth , and daily more to be led forth , into a strange land : and the words before alledged will put you upon great thoughts , who do not understand that this our leading forth will be before the breaking forth of the storm of the swift wrath of the lord. 150. will you yet continue to call them fools whom god hath adorned with his threefold crown of wisdom ? will you proceed to afflict your fellow-brethren , with your corporal and spiritual imprisonments , whom god will deliver from your eternal captivity ? alas ! open your eyes ! open them i say : what ye have done to your fellow-brethren , ye have done to your selves temporally , if you be converted , but eternally , if ye be damned . 151. o waldenses , hussites , zuinglians , lutherans and calvinists , who are now divided by your sectarian names , but i hope ere long will be christians with me ! acknowledge your new babel to be of the same colour , with old papal babylon , being overcome by so potent a conviction ! for indeed ye are not able with any arguments whatsoever , to overthrow this application of the revelation , because you cannot apply it any other way in such harmony . 152. ye lutherans have proclaimed luther to be the angel of the eternal gospel , and have slain your selves with your own sword , because there are seven angels mentioned , corresponding with the angels of the seven vials ; who was then the first of these ? who the second ? who the third ? and so forth ; and which of them was luther ? answer me : but i know you 'll be silent . 153. john speaks thus concerning the fourth angel , answering to luther : and i saw , and behold a white cloud , and upon the cloud one sitting like to the son of man , having upon his head a golden crown , and in his hand a sharp sickle . 154. to whom i pray can this be applied in luthers time ? the devil indeed in luthers time exerted his strongest endeavours to overthrow the kingdom of christ , in the anababtist kingdom at munster ; neither was it without a cause that he mingled these tares amongst the good wheat of the kingdom of christ , that the angels of the external and eternal , literal and spiritual gospel , might not joyn their force together . 155. where there is wheat , there commonly also are tares ▪ where there are true prophets , there also are false prophets , which the whole tenor of the scripture declares : for it is most certain that in the same age in which writers give us an account of the rise of so many diabolical inspirations , revelations and ecstasies ; there were also divine inspirations , revelations , and true ecstasies . 156. and therefore they were not all arch-hereticks , who are so commonly accounted ; but rather promoters of the eternal gospel under their proper angel , and fore-runners of the paradisick reign of christ , all which ( being armed with divine assistance ) i shall publickly examine in the sight of the world , the devil in vain raging against it . 157. neither shall those execrable heresies , which are almost by a general consent adscrib'd to david george , deter me from an undaunted defence of his innocence ; since those things which are brought in against him by hornius and others , though seemingly proved by his own writings , have no more truth in them , than had the pharisees testimony against christ about his re-building the temple in three days . 158. that place of the revelation hath most truly been fulfilled in the restorers of the everlasting gospel ; where it is said , and none could learn the song , save onely the hundred forty four thousand who were bought from the earth : and will yet daily be fulfilled more and more . 159. the everlasting gospel , is nothing else but the everlasting knowledge of the whole gospel , which never was the same it is now , nor never will be the same it hath been : and in this one line you have the whole foundation of the everlasting gospel , which none , under the outward letter of the seven vials , hath , doth , or will be able to understand , without the teaching of the holy ghost , who is the dictator of the everlasting gospel ; neither will it be fully known to all , until the seven plagues of the seven angels be finished . 160. as great a difference as there is between the outward letter of scripture , and the spirit of the letter ; so great is the difference between the reformers of the outward , and the reformers of the inward papacy , as to their knowledge of scripture . 161. neither are the failings of each of them to be measured by any other rule ; and the fearful errors which have been publickly exposed under the name of the eternal gospel , by mistaken inlightned men , shall be publickly examin'd by me in a letter , where ( in the strength of jesus christ ) all the antichristian tenets of the quakers , and other such like , are totally overthrown . more might be said , than hath been ; and yet more may not be said at present , than hath been . 162. learn to know your selves , o lutherans and reformed , by your fruits : and thou house of juda in holland , who art not the least amongst the reformed churches , learn to know thy self , by thy mistaken proceedings and actings against rothe ; know thy self i say , and amend thy mistakes . 163. it was thy duty to have examined rothe according to the scriptures , but not to imprison him ? all thy preachers who deny prophecy in this our age , and do endeavor to confute the paradisick reign of christ , and the fore-going conversion of the turks , jews and heathens , to that one sheepfold of christendome , are blind sauls , if their zeal be sincere ; but devillish frogs if maliciously they persist to oppose the truth . 164. set rothe , mine and your brother , at liberty , and after publick prayers , examine him with a burning zeal for truth , taking care above all things that he distinguish , what in his writings is his own , from what hath been dictated to him by god ; adjuring him that he deliver the same without any addition or diminution whatsoever . in those which are his own writings , bear with his human frailties in brotherly love ; in his divine writings you must admit of none ▪ which divine writings of his you may then compare with the writings and prophecies of kotterus , christina , drabicius , kregel , herman , immediately received from god , with which they will be found to agree in all main points , if they come from god ; but on the contrary will be found to disagree , in case they proceed from a lying spirit . 165. having found their agreement , then be also obedient to god , and rejoyce in that thou art also called ; listening not only to the voice of the ancient , but also of thy new prophet . but in case thou findest them to disagree , then commit him to the mercy of god , and the prayers of the church , not to prison , that so thy christian charity may re-appear . this is the true way of knowing true prophets , but the other is antichristian ; this agrees with the scripture , the other is contrary to it . 166. i shall conclude , with repeating my hearty wish , that you may be found in the exercise of the first love , and that you may unanimously agree to flee from babylon ; and so i commend you , o pastors , sheep and lambs of the catholick reformed church , to the divine protection . the grace of our lord jesus christ be with you all , amen . this writing was finished at b. b. b. near london , 26 of january ( 5 th of february ) 1678. a most weighty postscript annexed instead of a seal , after my safe return ( through the grace of god ) from eastern rome ( which is constantinople ) into the north. 1. dearly beloved , i am about to seal my weighty london epistle ( which i wrote about fifteen months ago for a farewell ( being then ready to take my journey for rome ) with the seals of a most weighty postscript , after my safe return into the north , from my eastern voyage ; with which seals it hath pleased the lord of hosts to seal the said letter , in the east as well as in the north. 2. in the east , because the most high hath led me most wonderfully ( according to what he had before shewed to kotterus , and pointed out the way by the late comet ) for the space of five months , even unto eastern rome , for the ruin of western rome , at the same time when the eastern turk and northern moscovite were fiercely engaged together ; and the book which christina saw fall from heaven ( being all covered with gold , and of a triangular form , between the eastern and northern contenders , will ere long be visible to the whole world , to the amazing of the lions , who by reason of the fierceness of their contest do not yet see it . 3. in the north , because the almighty hath there discovered the fatal decrees and designs of western rome , against his people , for the fatal frustration of which he had sent me towards rome of the east ; as also for the fulfilling and promoting of all our modern prophets , wise-men , and scripture-learned ; and he , even he himself , hath been pleased to put his work in such a forwardness against my return , that at length his people being affrighted with so great dangers , and forced by so many necessities , might double-fill that cup to the whore of rome and babylon , in which she hath mixed her poysons for the destruction of reformed israel and juda. 4. o most accursed pope ! how will now the rumours from the east , and from the north affright thee ? didst thou think to establish thy tottering throne in london ? sure thou hast forgot what place london is ; but well hast thou done , in so doing , for thou hast destroyed thy self by thine own blindness . for england in her wiclef brought forth that infant which the church had conceived by peter wald of lions , and the first spirit is so nearly conjoyn'd with the seventh , even the infancy of the reformed church , with its old age , that it will appear that thou hast hereby hastned thine own ruin in england . 5. hence it was , that when at cadiz ( a place famous amongst academicks ) i heard the first news of the english conspiracy ( notwithstanding i was then beset with many troubles ) i rejoyced with great joy to see that my jehova was making way according to his promises . 6. hence it was , that when at my first arrival at amsterdam , i understood , not onely that one coleman was one of the chief of the conspirators , but also that there had been strange reports raised of me in remote places , and particularly at breslaw , my birth place , because of the likeness of my name with his , it raised very various thoughts in me , and at length moved me with indignation ( yet being unmoved ) until at last i found reason to praise again and again so wonderful a providence of god , upon such a special and unlook'd for occasion . 7. hence it was that at rotterdam , on the self same day on which drabicius fifteen years ago ( after that a draught of the seat and throne of glory had been presented to him ) had together with the youth cryed the cries of a crier ( 27 [ 17 ] of may 1665 ) i likewise cried again and again the cries of a crier , whilst with my outward and inward eyes i ran over the history of the particulars of this english conspiracy : indeed i was astonished , and joyfully praised the wonderful , yet visible direction and guidance of god amidst the horror and dolor of these modern commotions . 8. for reading the 81 articles of titus oats his discovery , which he dedicates to the king himself , i found so great an agreement between the dates of the conspirators transactions , and the time of my countermotions , for the ruin of the pope and his creatures , that it appears i was diametrically oppos'd to them , who , when they intended to subdue london under their yoke , was from thence to begin my journey for constantinople , which will prove so fatal to the pope and all romanists , and was at the same time to write this present letter ( of so great moment ) for a farewell , which during my absence , hath been in vain suppress'd by the self-love of some , because jehovah hath made it the more remarkable by the shame of those seeming heroes , who presumed proudly to judge and hinder so great an undertaking . 9. read , my brethren , my fifteen songs , and mind well their several dates , and you 'll find that the truth of christ hath destroyed the accursed foundations of papal falshood ▪ at the same time when they were most busie to raise them . review the whole train of papal designs , for these last fifteen years , and with all consider my secret leading centrally opposing them : he thus sporting with me , whose sport is with the sons of m●n . 10. it was for very great reasons that our examined fore-runner of the wonderful five , years , was by a perpetual dedication presented to the three charles's of europe , viz. to the lutheran charles , the reformed charles , and the papal charles , all at one time , and of one name defending the three great names of religion . 11. as for the lutheran charles , he by his many crosses and losses , and besides , having been at the very point of death , hath been exposed as a pleasing spectacle to the papists , at the same time when they designed the murther of the reformed charles , by so numerous a knot of ruffians , and whilst the papal charles is taken up with nuptial consultations . it is your duty o reformed israel and juda , to dive more deeply into the secret designs of the papacy than hitherto ye have done , which sets you together by the ears , hiding their aims under various fallacious pretences and seeming assistances , till at length being tired and weakened through these wars , ye , are forced to an agreement , because ye can fight no longer . 12. quirinus , built rome , call'd the inhabitants quirites and constituted the feasts called quirinalia : a quirinus also is chosen of god to consummate and fulfil the divine pleasure upon rome , the quirites and quirinalia . 13. coleman intended to subject london , the metropolis , not onely of three kingdoms , but of all protestants in general , to the kiss of the popes toe , with a design as black as his name : kuhlman on the contrary received london from the most high for his sixth city , where he might sensibly perceive the application of the seven revelation spirits , to the end the execrable papal and roman senary 666 , might eternally amongst all hellish spirits abide a senary 666 , with a design too , which answers and agrees with his name . 14. breslaw was the first place in which kotterus declared his prophetical commands to his mystical king frederick , and discovered the papal designs of secretly poysoning gods chosen servants , by which all other violent and murtherous ways are to be understood : breslaw also now is the first place from whence all modern prophets are opened , unfolded , and applied to you , the chosen ones of the east and north , at a time when the malicious plots of the papists appear again to the terror of the world. 15. wherefore at length learn to be wise , and own gods visiting of you by his prophets , wise-men , and scripture-learned , and with serious thoughts consider the historical application of the vials in this present epistle , which is the one onely mean to recover the true unity of the reformed churches , and their first love : for let the cursed pope know , that this very epistle shall yet strike him with more horror than an army of an hundred thousand warriours ; and five smooth stones taken out of the valley of the prophets , which i have put into the scrip of this writing , will be sufficient in my sling , to destroy him in the name of the lord of hosts , according to the prophets . 16. and as for you wiclef-waldenses , hussites , zuinglians , lutherans and calvinists , my most dear fellow-brethren , joyn all your forces together , and call a general covncil , wherein you may examine , follow , and fulfil the writings of your prophets , wise-men , and scripture-learned ; and as for all the grievances and scruples which are yet found amongst you , since they owe their rise onely to prejudices and opinionative conceits , they will in due time fall of themselves . it is most true , because under the pouring forth of your plagues , so much matter hath been made for more plagues , that the papal fury before its own fall will threaten yours , as hath been prophesied , but the almighty will turn it by , of which this writing may give you a fore-taste . 17. take heed of rejecting ( as hitherto most antichristianly ye have done ) what ye never read or understood , but examine all in the gold-ballance of scripture , according to the literal and spiritual sense of the holy spirit ; examine , i say , those who are spiritual spiritually ; and those that are literal literally , and all antichristian mistakes will presently discover themselves . the literal sense of the scripture is but one , whereas the spiritual and mystical sense is a thousand-fold ; and to confound the literal sense , with such infinite mysteries of the spiritual sense , as some carnal academicks do , must needs produce a strange confusion . 18. the prophets , wise men , and scripture-learned , do often seem to contradict one another , when their literal sense is not clearly distinguished from their mystical : and prophets indeed , at all times , because of conditions expressed or implied , and because of the riddle of the mystical future sense , as to places , persons , and times , have been suspected of falshood , by carnal and literal men , are , and will be so , until a corresponding event oblige posterity to esteem and revere their prophecies . 19. have not the modern prophets of this age in their own days , as well as at this present , been suspected of falshood and little regarded , because of the darkness of their words , and the seeming contrariety of events ? but what will ye say if amongst such differing and at divers times appearing prophets , who all lived before i was called or inlightened ( whose names i have here and there alledged in these and other writings ) ye shall read and hear that these following 28 particulars ( all which point at me individually , and have their proper fulfilling at this very time ) were fore-told , as it were with one mouth ; viz. my father , mother , the year , month and day of my birth , my malignant constellation , my christian name , name and surname , my countrey , city , ascendant , the year and month when i was inlightned , the year of the holland motion , my seal , learning , writings , leaving of the vniversities , my rejecting the degree of doctor , my restoring of scripture , unsealing of the prophets , my voyage to constantinople , my hasting , and fall thereby occasioned , my foster mother a widow , my doubled five years time , and lastly my age of twenty eight years . 20. all which things i intend , if god permit , to publish in their due place and time , to the glory of god , the confirmation of the prophets , the terror of the pope , the instruction of all , and the quieting of my own conscience , in so many doubtful cases ; though the angel of sathan who buffets me day and night for the superabundance of revelations , doth so much endeavour to suppress it , that by reason of so great loads wherewith i am burthened by my self , my friends and enemies , i scarce know my self , nor am able to serve my self or others . 21. what i have said concerning the one mouth of the prophets in their fore-telling of my call , the same i affirm concerning all other matters ; and i have abundantly demonstrated the unity and truth of the numbers of kotterus and drabicius , in the treatise i wrote at smirna , intituled , the mystery of kotterus his 21 weeks . and to adde further weight , for a weighty enquiry into these mysteries , i will here set down three capital concordant places , which in few words contain great and weighty matter , and from which so great a light will appear in and out of darkness , as will be abundantly sufficient to establish the authority of the revelation of these revelation commentaries . 22. the first place shall be that of drabicius , rev. 395. count the number of the 70 weeks from the day of my departure , if thou hast vnderstanding , where an end must be made of the days of battels and wars which are at present ; for when they shall cry out peace and security , i will come to execute judgment , the time of times and half a time drawing to an end . the 70 weeks of daniel ( concerning which the revealer had said before , that he was come before they were ended ) do end in the 37 year after his birth ; from which time of his departure , if you again count those 490 yearly weeks , they point us to the year 527 , and to the antichristian birth of that cursed body of the civil law , compiled in the reign of justinian the emperor , when the one time of the apocalyptical dragon began , even in the year 527 ; his two times began in the year 887 , and his half time 1607 , whose end will be in the year 1787 , when the 1260 apocalyptical years will be ended . 23. the second place is that of kotterus , chap 1● . v. 40. where he begins to reckon the half time of the two treaders-down , from the year 1260 , as the original sheweth ( the translation being faulty here , as in many other places ) according to which one time begins with the year of christ 612 , two times at the year 948 , and half a time at 1620 , which accordingly expires with the year 1788 ; which half time being 168 years , do agree with the 21 weeks of kotterus , which makes 147 years , and end in the year of christ 1768 , which time is aenigmatically , yet most truly and clearly discovered under the number of the years 1620 and 1624. whatsoever therefore the holy scripture hath fore-told concerning the papal and turkish state under the time , times , and half a time , of 1176 years , will be fully accomplished in the year 1688. 24. the third and last place is that of kotterus , chap. 24. ver . 50 , being the most notable of all : these are the times of the woundings of the beast : take notice of these that follow , 1329 , 1428 , 1527 , 1626 , about these times it must be fulfilled , seven years backward , and three years after . these numbers contain each of them 42 , being thus placed one above another . 13 14 15 16 29 28 27 26 42 42 42 42 the two angels command him to reckon seven years backward , and three years after , and tell him that every one of these 14 numbers contain 42 , being placed as before , which is the true key to underderstand these numbers . the seven years numbred backwards , are 1230 , 1131 , 1032 , 933 , 834 , 735 , 636 ; and the three years after , 1725 , 1824 , 1923 , every one of which numbers ( which is wonderful ) contains 42 , being placed as the angel appointed , thus , 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 17 18 19 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 25 24 23 42 42 42 42 42 42 42 42 42 42 25. these three places will abundantly bear witness of the harmony of these numbers , and of the mistakes of all those who hitherto have interpreted them , and i should have been afraid of opening this last place ( which takes so large a compass ) but that i read in the prophets themselves , that it is lawful at present to unlock that mystery of numbers : for the 1176 years of the two witnesses expired five years since , and their 1260 year-days , and solar months , which are expresly allotted to them in the revelations , will according to the same explication , end with the year 1685 , after another double quinary is past . and in this regard the first day begins with the year of christ 425 , the second with 785 , the third with 1145 , the fourth with 1505. so that both according to the solar and lunar months , the determined time of the two witnesses is come ; and now that is fulfilled , the spirit of life from god came upon them , and they stood on their feet , and a great fear fell upon those that saw them ; this present epistle witnessing to the truth of it . 26. and you 'll easily know the reason why the numbers extend themselves as far as 1923 , so you do not confound the time of the sixth vial with the seventh : now the end of the sixth vial is the total exclusion of the cursed pope , the period of the four monarchies , and the full conversion of the turks ; upon which shall immediately follow that interval of the seventh vial , in which the universal conversion of all nations shall be carried on , and way made for the thousand years apocalyptical reign . 27. all the confusion which hitherto hath been amongst the good as well as the bad , hath proceeded from the ignorance of these vials ; the material object of the prophets , wise-men , and scripture-learned of the sixth vial , being the 17th chap. of the revelations , whose chief contents is , come hither , i will shew thee , the judgment of the great whore , who sits upon many waters : but that of the prophets , wise-men , and scripture-learned , of the seventh vial , is the 21 and 22 chap. of the revelations , whose main scope is , come hither , i will shew thee the woman , the bride of the lamb. this one thing is sufficient to overthrow all erroneous opinions , about modern prophecies , and to shew the difference of the sixth and seventh vials ; the former of which doth chiefly prophecy concerning the judgment which is to pass upon the pope ; the later concerning the reign of christ , and the utter overthrow of all other kingdoms . those very words , come hither i will shew thee , do fundamentally declare , that there will be a calling of prophets under the sixth and seventh vials ; neither do they understand the letter , and historical context of scripture , who do not understand the emphasis of these words , come hither i will shew thee . 28. it remains yet that i should speak concerning the angel of the seventh vial , and of other applications of the modern prophets , of the secret designs of the papacy , to destroy the english , dutch , french , german , and all other protestants , which are hinted at by the prophets ; and many other such like matters , were i not to keep my self within the limits of a postscript . and you o pastors , sheep and lambs of the reformed israel and juda , weigh in the equal ballance of christian truth , what hath been here propounded to you , and do not kick away your salvation , least at last ye be wise too late . the grace of jesus christ the onely begotten son of the living god , be with you , and with us . amen . this postscript was written at rotterdam the 26th of may ( 5th june ) in the year 1679. finis . errata . p. l.     23 8 read lutheran . 26 27 your . 28 3 days . 31 2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 — 8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 32 17 unaccustomed . 50 4 the catechisms of luther , embden , bohemia , poland , the palatinate , geneva , and augspurg , these following books of the author will be translated into english with all convenient speed : 1. the fore-runner of the wonderful five years examined . 2. ten london epistles , of which the present epistle is the ninth . 3. the lilly-rose-sprout , or behmen new-spirited . 4. the lilly-rose-bud . 5. the 1st . 2d . 3d. and 4th . book of songs . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a47594-e220 1st . day 499 , 2d . day , 835 , 3d. day 1171 , 4th . day 1505 ; which ends at the year 1674. [ see sect. 101 , 102 , 103. ] see v. 59. * the number five . see sect. 59 and 102. the narrative of mr. william boys, citizen of london faithfully relating what came to his knowledge concerning the late horrid popish plot, and the death of sir edmund-bury godfrey, by his acquaintance with, and attendance upon mr. miles boys, william. 1680 approx. 61 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 10 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a29064 wing b4067 estc r19616 12221544 ocm 12221544 56408 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a29064) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 56408) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 128:10) the narrative of mr. william boys, citizen of london faithfully relating what came to his knowledge concerning the late horrid popish plot, and the death of sir edmund-bury godfrey, by his acquaintance with, and attendance upon mr. miles boys, william. [2], 17 p. printed for dorman newman ..., london : 1680. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng godfrey, edmund berry, -sir, 1621-1678. prance, miles, fl. 1678-1689. popish plot, 1678. 2006-05 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-10 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-11 john pas sampled and proofread 2007-11 john pas text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the narrative of mr. william boys , citizen of london : faithfully relating what came to his knowledge concerning the late horrid popish plot , and the death of sir edmund-bury godfrey , by his acquaintance with , and attendance upon mr. miles prance , before , and after his being taken and imprisoned , wherein many things not yet discovered to the world , relating to the truth of the kings evidence , and the guilt charged upon philiberd vernatti ( formerly servant to the lord bellasis ) gerrard , kelle , and lusan priests ; all fled for the said fact is made manifest . published for the conviction of all gain-sayers , and the vindication of the said mr. boys from the aspersion the popish party would have cast upon him , for his faithfulness in finding out their divellish designs , made evident by the many snares laid for him . london , printed for dorman newman at the sign of the kings arms in the poultry . 1680. i do appoint mr. dorman newman and no other , to print this my narrative . william boys . the narrative of mr. william boys . the malicious slanders , and scandalous reproaches thrown upon me for my good intentions to serve my king , and country , being the contrivances of that never-sleeping party , who have left no stone unturn'd to abolish the belief of sir edmund-bury godfrey's murther , at least as any way reflecting upon romish design , have occasioned me to publish these few sheets , not only for the vindication of my own innocence , but also for the general satisfaction of the nation , and for its farther confirmation by several particulars never yet made publick to the world . that i was a faithful instrument to procure the discovery of that inhuman and deeply meditated murther , is a thing well known to many , as having been particularly employed by his majesty and the council , to persuade mr. prance to discharge the conscience of a christian , by making a true confession , because of my great acquaintance and dayly familiarity with him . which they , who felt the fatal consequences of my sincere endeavours , so deeply laid to heart , that they sought several ways to ensnare my life , and undermine my reputation , accusing me of being a party concern'd , and one that spoke by the dictates of fear or imposture ; and therefore not to be credited , whereby they aim'd to kill two birds with one stone , that is to say , to stop the progress of protestant belief , and satisfie their revenge upon me . therefore for the satisfaction of the world , and my own vindication , i thought it but necessary to give this real and faithful account of my proceedings and transactings in reference to my accusations . in the first place , i was bred up in a protestant family from my infancy , as being the son of mr. rowland boys , a clothier in the city of worcester ; and i have all along profess'd the same religion . true it is , that neighborhood and a sociable temper brought me into the acquaintance of several roman catholicks , with whom i had frequent converse , but with none so strictly obliged in friendship as with mr. miles prance , between whom and my self there was a more than ordinary intimacy , which gave cause of suspicion to many , that i was of the same persuasion ; though indeed the true ground of such familiarity was only upon the frequent occasions of mutual commerce . a reason for intimate converse so fair , that a more probable cannot be given , nor more frequently in practice , there being nothing that familiarises even familiarity it self , so much as the league of friendship and profit , and the dependency of trades one upon another , i being an artist in lampwork , for the making all manner of curious representations in glass . upon the 29 th . of september was twelve-month , at my return out of the country , i was by my neighbour mr. prance invited to dinner , in token of a courteous welcome-home . while we were merry at table one thomas haddon , a lodger at that time in mr. prance's house , came in very hastily full of private intelligence , which mr. prance having understood in a corner of the room , return'd to his guests with a sorrowful and pensive countenance . which sudden alteration occasion'd me out of friendship , to be more than ordinarily inquisitive into the causes of so disconsolate a change. at first he seem'd very shie and reserv'd , but when i press'd him more closely , he told me , that several of his friends had been taken out of their beds the night before , and carryed to prison . i ask'd him whether he knew the cause of their apprehension ? he answer'd , no. perhaps said i they may prove to be highway-men , and then your grief will soon be over , though they should receive the reward of their misdeeds . to which mr. prance return'd , that they were persons falsly accused , but that th●i● crime was not for robbing upon the high-way . whereupon i bid him be of good comfort and tear nothing , for that innocency would justifie it self . while we were thus discoursing , in came one grove , a school-master , living in princes-street , in the company of another stranger , who both took mr. prance aside to the end of the room , where they whisper'd for some time together , so that i could not understand any thing of their discourse ; only grove was over-heard to say , his unkle grove ( who was since hang'd ) was taken . after we had staid till toward night , the company that had din'd together , that is to say , mr. prance , haddon , my self and others , went all to a coffee-house in drewry-lane , where mr. prance being known to be a papist , was greeted with a very sowre welcome by one of the company , in these words . now all the bloody designs of you papists are discover'd , and several of your priests and jesuits are apprehended for high-treason , for attempting to kill the king and destroy the protestant religion . these words did not a little nettle mr. prance , who therefore to vindicate the innocency of his own party , smartly reply'd , that they who were taken were honest men , and that he would prove them so to be . which dispute ( one word begetting another ) grew to that degree of heat , that i was afraid of an absolute quarrel , which would have ended in nothing but blows . whereupon i took an opportunity to persuade mr. prance to leave the place , and to retire to the tavern ; where being in private , i endeavour'd to get out of him the truth and the occasion of these odd passages ; but he would give me no satisfaction , only continued stiff and firm in the vindication of his friends , the apprehended papists . on the first of october , mr. prance was sent for to the same coffee-house , and threaten'd by some persons , that they would have him before the king and council for his vindication of traytors , and the extravagant expressions he had utter'd the last time he was there . to which mr. p. more calmly answer'd , that he would send for me , and hear what i would say to it , which he accordingly did . when i came , i told him , he was much to be blam'd for delivering himself in such high terms , but that i hop'd there would be no farther notice taken of his words , in regard he was known , or at least verily believ'd to be an honest man , and no way concern'd in designs of so wicked a nature . to which he reply'd , that he was as innocent as the child unborn . after he made this protestation , we went both of us to the parties that had threaten'd him , and i , undertaking to be his advocate , desired them that they would not call a man in question for a few rash words , especially since they knew nothing of ill in his behaviour , but had rather experienc'd the contrary : who being by that means pacifi'd and oblig'd to a kind promise of civility , i advised him to be more careful for the future and go home about his business . about a 11. or 12. a clock the same night , mr. p. being a bed , was put into a most terrible affrightment ; for hearing as he lay , the noise of a constable and his watch passing along the street , he verily imagined that they had been come to apprehend him . this sudden terror caus'd him to call up his lodger haddon ; who having made himself ready , and observ'd the coast to be clear about his house , away went mr. p. to seek a safer harbour : which when i understood the next day , i check'd him for his idle fears and groundless apprehensions , and counsel'd him to stay at home . to which he made this short answer , that he was afraid , and could not help it . thereupon , in point of friendship i offer'd him my own house , and there entertain'd him for two nights , viz. the 2 d. and 3 d. of october ; but withal i advis'd him that if any officer should come to enquire for him at his own house , that he should immediately surrender himself , for that the bare suggestions and surmises of his neighbours could be no proof against him , and that his own innocency would overcome all . upon the coming forth of the kings proclamation , mr. p. not being willing to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy , was resolv'd to have gone out of town . but when he communicated his intentions to me , and had discover'd the scruples of his conscience , i perswaded him not to be so over nice , but to take the oaths , and not only used all the arguments my own capacity had furnish'd me withal , but also for his clearer information and instruction profer'd to go along with him to the bishop of london , dr. stilling-fleet , or dr. burnet , who , i did not question , would give him those convincing arguments that would oblige him to embrace the protestant religion and forsake popery . which discourse of mine so far prevail'd upon him , that he went and took the oaths both of allegiance , and supremacy , in obedience to the kings command : and after that , went along with me to hear dr. sharp , whose sound divinity confirm'd him in what he had done . this success engag'd me to improve my industry with others , that were his friends and visiters ; particularly with one mr. edwards , a most severe roman catholick , living in browns-court in the old-bayley , whom i met at mr. prance's house , and there endeavoured to perswade him to a conformity with the church of england . but his obstinacy was such , that he utterly refus'd to think of any alteration in his opinion ; not but that he loved the king , as he said , but that he would not swear allegiance to him . upon which some discourse arising between the said mr. edwards and my self , wherein mr. edwards seem'd to complain of the hard measure which was dealt to the roman catholicks , that being subjects and freeborn-men , they should be forc'd like exiles , from their homes and habitations , meerly for not acting against their consciences . but here , i met with so angry arebuke for declaring , in justification of the proclamation , that no good subjects would scruple to take those oaths which were commanded by him , to whom they ow'd their protection , that i thought my self in some danger of my life . for one mr. owen a zealot of the same leaven , taking up the cudgels against me , flatly told me that i was no honest man to speak in defence of his majesties publick command , call'd me , in a vehement passion , great heretick , and with a menacing fury bore up so close me , that i expected some immediate act of violence , which perhaps he had executed , had not my sister , in a trembling sear stepp'd between and pull'd me away from the company . however i accounted my self not a little happy in the good office i had done my friend mr. p. and i make this short instance , not only to shew how difficult a thing it is , to cure the canker'd obstinacy of men intoxicated and stupified with the destructive principles of popery , but in some measure to let it appear to the world , that the good service mr. p. has done , was not an act , so much proceeding from the hopes of future advantage , but by the inducements of a fair and candid reformation . soon after these passages had happen'd , there was a secret murmuring among the neighbours , that doubtless mr. p. was concern'd in the murther of sir edmund-bury godfrey , for that he was so timorous as to lie from his house , and because he was also the queens servant . but for my part , when i heard these dangerous rumours , i still reprov'd the reporters for going about to bring a person causlesly into trouble , not deeming him in the least to have been guilty . at another time , when vernatti was with mr. p. at the horse-shooe tavern , in the company also of the before-named haddon , dr. parratt's man , whose office it was to collect money from the friends of deceas'd papists to have masses said for their souls in purgatory , it happen'd that i came in , i knew not what their discourse was before i enter'd the room ; but so soon as haddon was gone , vernatti fell upon me with all his persuasive arguments to reconcile me to the church of rome , and would have us'd perhaps many more words , but that mr. p. told him , it was in vain to trouble himself . and indeed it was but an ill time for him to think of converting me , who had the same design upon his present friend . upon the 20 th . of december , when mr. p. was apprehended and carried away , his wife with tears in her eyes came to me , and requested me to go and give my testimony for him , that he lay at my house such and such nights , and therefore could not be guilty of the crime that was laid to his charge ; i went accordingly to speak what i knew , but my testimony would not then be admitted . yet in regard i had discovered so much kindness for him , and such an intimacy with him , it was order'd by some of the members of the house of commons , that my house should be searched ; believing there might there be found some letters perhaps belonging to mr. prance , from whence they might collect some farther discovery of a truth which they were so diligently labouring to find out . for the execution of this order , the officers appointed came to one mr. robert sexton's house in princes-street , who understanding their business , and being my very good friend , persuaded them to desist , or at least to stay for some time , till i came thither my self , in regard it might bring a scandal upon me , and breed an ill opinion of me among my new neighbours ( for i was but a little before removed to my house near ludgate ) luckily i came into mr. sextons , while the officers and he were in this debate . they strictly examined me what i knew of mr. p. and his actions , and told me they came to search my house . i readily desired them to do it , while i staid where i was ; but entreated them to do it with as little noise as might be , for the reasons before-mentioned ; assuring them withal , that i had no letters , books , or papers that any way in the world concern'd mr. p , which gave them sufficient satisfaction . much about this time mr. p. was more strictly examined before the king and council , where he first made a confession , and then denied all again ; whereupon he was sent back to newgate . but the honourable board having been informed that i had been intimate with the prisoner , sent for me , to trie whether any thing to the purpose might be gather'd from me in point of circumstance or otherwise . i answered directly to all questions demanded , to the utmost of my knowledge . but not being privy to any thing of the murther , i could not give that satisfaction which was sought for , so that i was order'd to attend the next day being the 4 th . of january , and to bring along with me my wife and servant . we were severally called in , and narrowly examined about many things in relation to mr. p. what he was ? when he lay at my house ? we answered , that we knew no ill of him , but that we thought him to be a very honest man. we also told them the time that he lay at my house , and the occasion , as is before declared . which gave the council such satisfaction , that we were all discharged . the council being thus satisfied that i was a protestant , and a person of honest repute , sent for me again upon the 10 th . of january , and commanded me to go to newgate , and to endeavour to draw what i could out of him , concerning the murther of which he was accused , and to see whether i could persuade him to make a full confession of the truth . accordingly i went , put several questions to him , and begged of him over and over to discharge his conscience , and to tell the truth . mr. p. seemed to be very joyful to see his old friend , but would confess nothing , and to all my questions made only this general answer , that he was innocent of the horrid murther ; however he entreated me to come again , and not to forsake him in his distress . i promised to return the next day , and did so ; but then i found him like a person almost distracted , and observ'd that in his frantick passions he would often repeat his innocency , and his ignorance of the murther , but yet when he was asked any question about it , he never answered to the purpose . seeing therefore that i could by no means engage him to confess the fact , and that all my labour had been hitherto in vain , i returned back to the council and gave them an account of what i had done . nevertheless they ordered me to persist , and to make use of all the means and persuasions that i thought might take effect to oblige him to discover the particulars of a murther , in which they were fully persuaded he was none of the least active conspirators . and indeed such was the care and diligence of those great personages in the discovery of that detestable murther , that they gave me great encouragement to return again , and seemed to intimate some hopes of favour to the relenting prisoner . the two sorrowful brothers of the murthered knight went along with me , and staid in another room while i discours'd , entreated and persuaded the prisoner , and spent many kind and friendly words in vain , for nothing yet could prevail . in the evening upon the 11 th . of january d. lloyd , the dean of bangor , came to him , and calling for me , shewed me before mr. prance's face a warrant for his pardon , intreating him withal upon his majesties so gracious and condescending mercy , to discover his knowledge . he would not at first believe the warrant to be real , for , said he , to me , if it were so , why had not you brought it as well as the doctor ? after many persuasions reiterated in vain , the doctor perceiving him in a bad condition of health , would not urge him any farther that night ; only wish'd him a physician to give him such prescriptions as he wanted ; whereupon i besought him to take care that some one of the kings physicians might be sent him ; which he procured accordingly . so that about one of the clock the same night i being left with him all the while , mr. dickyson came to him , and gave him such proper remedies as perfectly recover'd him . the next day , being sunday the 12 th . of january i return'd to him again , and spent the whole afternoon with him , intreating him with many persuasions as well for his own and his families sake , as for the publick good , that he would not conceal from merited justice , those whom now i was fully convinced , that he knew to be such notorious offenders ; but that he would at length declare his knowledge . urging him withal , not to loose the fair opportunity that was offer'd to him to have both his life and his liberty , which if now neglected , might cost him a dear and too late repentance . at that time i press'd him so effectually , that he began to speak something to the purpose , telling me that he had seen a relation of the murther , but , that never being personally concern'd in the fact , he knew nothing more than what he had learnt from that narrative . i ask'd him who shewed him the relation ? he answer'd , vernatti , but this seemed not satisfactory to me . for upon farther discourse with him , i perceived that he gave me an account , not as from a second hand , but as one that had been all along concern'd in the fact. after a long debate , and many persuasions , at length i told him , that i was assur'd of his pardon , if he would ingeniously and in time confess the whole matter , and how far he himself had been concerned . that i knew there were others in prison for the same crime , who if they should first reveal the business , his confession would only serve to condemn himself ; and therefore i advised him , as he lov'd his life , speedily to prevent his own misfortune , by giving a free and exact account of the murther ; in regard it was plain , that vernatti would never have trusted him with the relation of such a secret , had he not been a confederate . that night i could get no more out of him , so that i left him to ponder upon what i had said to him . which had that good effect , that by break of day the next morning being the 13 th . of jan. i was sent for to the prison , to speak with mr. p. and that very morning it was , that he discovered to me all that he knew of the murther of sir edmund-bury godfrey , and of something more relating to the plot it self , and gave me a full account of the manner of the action , if not in the same words yet altogether the same in substance , which he himself hath already made publick to the world , to which , for avoiding a needless repetition i refer the reader . when i brought the account to the king and council , they gave me my oath to confirm that the recital of it came immediately from mr. prances mouth which i readily took , as being a most certain truth . i farther told his majesty what mr. p. had revealed to me of the design of prossers matteson , adamson , and bradshaw ; to have murthered the right honorable the earl of shaftsbury . and indeed such was the indefatigable care and industry of that noble peer in prosecuting the discovery of the plot , such his unwearied endeavours to secure his majesty and the kingdom , by his wisdom and councils from the attempts of our enemies , that they have merited the thankful applause of the whole nation . no wonder therefore that the papists should be so zealous to remove so great an obstacle of their wicked conspiracies out of the way . i also gave an account of what mr. p. had revealed to me concerning the plot , or at least of so much as he know . all which things mr. p. has since himself more amply declared either in his own narrative , or in the testimonies which he gave against the several persons , since convicted and executed for the crimes in some part by him proved against them . when the kings most excellent majesty had received a full information of all these things from me , part in writing , part by word of mouth ; he caused warrants to be issued forth for the apprehension of prosser , bradshaw , &c. and by me sent an order to captain richardson to bring mr. p. up to the council the same day . the king was then present , and took the pains to examine him himself , to every particular of what i had delivered and declared ; all which mr. p. confirm'd as he had before confess'd to me in the prison ; and further declar'd to his majesty , that he would stand by his said confession with the hazard or loss of his life . in consideration of this confession , his majesty was pleased to command that mr. p. should have his pardon , and that captain richardson should suffer him to want for nothing . i was also ordered to keep him company every day . for the kings majesty and council were pleased to be so sensible of the pains i had taken , to bring that horrid murther to light , that the earl of essex , a most noble and prudent counsellour , with the rest of the honourable board , did me the high favour to return me a particular thanks . and sir robert southwell afterwards declared in the lobby before several persons that i had discharg'd a good conscience both toward god and man. and therefore in requital of my good service upon that occasion , upon the 29 th . of jan. his majesty in council was most graciously pleased to make the following order in my behalf . at the court at white-hall the 29 th . of january 1678 / 9. present the kings most excellent majesty . the lords of the committee of examinations , having this day represented to his majesty in council , the necessity of having a stock of three or four hundred pounds , to answer the occasions of the committee , did among other particulars make mention of the service which had been done by mr. william boys , who had for a long time left his own occasions , and the following of his trade , to obey the orders of the said committee , and frequently to resort to his neighbour mr. prance , in order to discover the truth of the evidence which he had given touching the murther of sir edmund-bury godfrey , and their lordships praying that his majesty would please to bestow some mark of his favour upon him to the value of 30 l. his majesty was pleased to order , and it is hereby ordered accordingly , that the right honourable the lord high treasurer of england do forthwith cause to be paid to the said william boys the sum of thirty pounds sterling , as of his majesties free gift and bounty to him , out of the stock , which by the said committee is desired to answer the service which is under their care. robert southwell . after the tryals of the murtherers were over , i waited upon the right honourable , the earl of essex to intreat his favorable assistance and his kind word to his majesty and council in behalf of mr. p. that he might be releas'd out of prison ; that as i had been an aid and succour to him in the time of his trouble , i might not be thought to leave the work imperfect , which i had in friendship begun ; having no other end or aim in all my actions relating to this affair , than to approve my self a good and loyal subject , a true protestant and a cordial friend . neither am i conscious to my self of having fail'd in any one of these particulars ; for which , my innocency will at no time refuse with all humility to make its appeal to those noble lords who were the discerning witnesses of my behaviour , as having frequent occasion to attend upon them , during mr. prance's imprisonment . therefore for several reasons , i thought it but necessary to give this short account and narrative to the world as being , first , 1. an eye-witness of his majesties most princely and tender care , and unwearied pains , which he took at that time for the publick security of the nation , and to bring the offenders to condign punishment . and that the lords of the council were no less vigorously active to second his soveraign resolutions with their most prudent advice , and continual and laborious scrutinies . 2. to confirm the relation of the murther made by mr. p. as being first received by my self from his own mouth , which i do attest before god and the whole world to agree in all particulars with what he himself has published , and so absolutely consent , that i should but have incurr'd the blame of tyring or abusing the reader with a repetition of the same words again . nor was it extorted from him by any other wrack or torture , then that of a dismaid and distracted conscience , which could not disburthen it self till it had thrown off the shackles of those fears and jealousies that usually perplex the guilty , especially considering the remediless dilemma that was put upon him ; that labyrinth of life or death , wherein he found himself intrigu'd without hopes of ever getting forth , unless he made use in time of the silken clue that was offer'd . 3. in the third place , i thought it was a duty owing to my own reputation , to disengage it from the scandals throw upon me by the papists , who would make the world believe me to be a phanatick . as also to rescue it from some ill thoughts of the protestants who suspected me to be a papist , in regard of my frequent converse with those of the roman catholick profession . as for the papists , it was no more than i exspected from them , who being unwilling to believe so horrid a murther , perpetrated by the contrivance of their dignifi'd priests and confessors , or ashamed that such an eternal blur should contaminate their ecclesiastical history , care not what blemishes and scandals they throw upon others , to wipe off the reproach from themselves . which in regard it has been their continued practice from the beginning of the first discovery of that villanous murther , the effects whereof have only redounded to their farther shame and confusion , i have great reason not to question but that the reports which they have rais'd upon me , will be as little regarded , as those vilifying imputations , which they vainly cast upon others . although , were it true , that i were a phanatick , i should not account my self so ignominious , as if i were in the number of the papists , with that weight of blood and intended massacre upon their shoulders . i lightly pass over that other reproach of theirs , that i was a presbyterian rascal , and that if it had not been for such a presbyterian rogue as i , mr. p. had never made his discovery , as being of little or no value . as for the protestants , i must confess that their suspicions do not a little trouble me , and i cannot but look upon their unkindness as proceeding from somewhat of ingratitude ; since that familiarity with which they so upbraid me , happened to be so fortunate for their advantage . but for their satisfaction , i do declare that i never was a papist , nor of any other profession then that of the church of england , in which i also intend to live and die . nor was i ever concern'd in any of the foul actions of the papists relating to the plot , or the barbarous murther of sir edmund-bury godfrey , but as an instrument to discover the truth : being look'd upon by his majesty and his most honourable privy council as the fittest , and most likely person to succeed , by reason of my acquaintance and familiarity with mr. prance . and to shew how careful and faithful i was in the management of that secret wherewith i was entrusted by his majesty , i must farther declare , that when mr. redding , who had often sought for me at my house , and having at last found me out , and by all persuasions and arguments imaginable , had endeavoured to get from me a copy of mr. prance's confession and depositions ( which was highly press'd upon me at the dog tavern near ludgate ) i refus'd him with indignation of all his promised encouragements and rewards ; telling him withal , that as i had been entrusted by his majesty in the business , i would by no means or persuasions in the world falsifie so great a trust , nor discover what mr. p. had revealed before the season of due allowance . when mr. reading had given me over , there came two other gentlemen to me with the same proposals ; assuring me of a great reward in hand , to let them have mr. prances confession , and what he had discover'd concerning the murther , and the plot. but all their promises could not move me in the least to betray a trust , so graciously repos'd in me by my sovereign ; and with the honour and satisfaction of having so done , i hope to live with a more quiet conscience upon the small gains of my lawful industry , than upon the more abounding ways of treachery , and infidelity . neither may i here omit to tell my revilers , that while i was in the midst of that service which i performed , i was not without some disencouraging apprehensions of being in danger of my life . for being one evening at mr. sexton's house in princes-street , three persons living hard by , and well known to be of the popish gang , were observed to stand waiting at the corner of the same street , who when they perceived that i was coming forth , withdrew themselves towards lincolns-inn-fields , which was my directest way home ; of which , notice being given to mr. sexton , both he and the rest of my friends advis'd me to take another way , in regard it was dark , and fearing those persons were upon the watch to do me a mischief . the persons names were , one tarleton , a guilder , since fled for being concerned in guilding mill'd shillings , and one aldrige a turner , and neighbour thereby , with one more who was a stranger ; which , with what i have already said , i hope may serve to quash the mistrusts of my religion , and satisfie all good protestants of the reality and sincerity of my intentions . now so soon as i had obtain'd mr. prance's absolute enlargement , i brought him to princes-street to see his wife , whom he had not seen all the time of his confinement , and there alighted at mr. sextons house . at that time the same aldrige above-mentioned , with his wife and some others , began to renew their former malice , muttering one to another that the rogue p. was come out of prison , and that the presbyterian rogue boys was with him ; which not sufficing , they also began to vent their spleen in irreverent language against his majesty himself ; for which i had them seiz'd by vertue of a warrant from several of the justices of the peace , who committed them to custody , where they remained two days , and were then carried before the lords of the council , who were pleased to discharge them upon their submission . after this , i took mr. p. together with his wife , home to my own house near ludgate , where he continued for a month. thither also came several of the relations of both to visit him , as i thought , out of love , but indeed for nothing but to teaze and perplex him , by pealing continually in his ears , that they were afraid he had wrong'd his conscience , and wishing that the blood of those that died might not lie at his door . all which for a while mr. p. took patiently enough , but told them withal , that he had done nothing but what justice oblig'd him to do , and that had it not been for those wicked priests and papists who had deluded him before , he had never come into that trouble and disgrace which he had undergone . perceiving then , that they came rather to vex him , than congratulate his delivery , i made bold to tell 'em , that i believ'd they were sorry that his life was sav'd , and that they had rather he should have died than have discover'd the truth , and so with mr. prance's leave , forbade them all my house , excepting only his wife . being thus disgusted , and meditating new projects , they endeavour'd all they could , to get mr. p. from a place so inconvenient for their purposes . which when they had effected , then they began to form new designs , for the bringing about whereof , they thought they could find no better way , than to create a difference between mr. p. and my self , which they intended to heighten afterwards to an absolute quarrel and breach of friendship . the design was very silly and like the rest of their vain imaginations ; however they were resolv'd to put it in execution , hoping that when they had set us once at defiance , that some strange incongruities and incoherencies would have dropt from us for them to lay hold on , and to make their advantages of . so carefully is that great maxim of the pope , divide and reign , diffus'd from the hand to every particular member of the romish doctrine . to this purpose the women were the first that attempted to make tryal of their female cunning. the first that began to lay her trains to blow up the long friendship between mr. p. and my self was one mrs. billing , as mr. p. himself acknowledg'd , a profest roman catholick , set on by those of her own religion . but her plot failing , mrs. prance her self went to one mrs. dorothy sherborn , her own sister , and a zealous papist ▪ and cunningly inform'd her , that the time was now come to be reveng'd upon me for being instrumental in the discovery of the murther of sir edmund-bury godfrey ; for that her husband and i were quite fall'n out . though i have so much charity for mr. prance's wife , to believe , that she had no unkindness for me , but upon the score of her religion . this wheedle encouraging mrs. sherbons zeal , away goes she to the lady powis , and inform'd her of the difference which themselves had forg'd between mr. p. and my self , and advis'd her not to let slip the opportunity that offer'd it self of making their advantage of it . the lady , believing the overture real , and consequently a thing probable to take effect , employed mr. dangerfield , a person at that time altogether unknown to me , to make his way into my company , and to use his art to the best advantage of their design , which was to entrap me , if possible , by prolixity of discourse , and to gain what ever disconcurrencies of former evidence he could , relating to the transactions between me and mr. p. to which end he came to me by no name , but only as from mr. p. upon a pretence of desiring me to cut him some amber . to which i made him answer , that it was a thing quite out of my rode , and wonder'd that mr. p. who knew me better , should so far mistake my calling . the gentleman perceiving his errour , desir'd to be more private with me over a glass of wine . as for wine i refus'd him , considering how he had fail'd in his address , which had rendered him very suspicious to me ; but in regard he came from mr. p. as he said , i yielded to drink a dish of coffee or a glass of ale with him , yet with this caution to my self , that i resolv'd the master of the house , as much as possible he could , should be by , all the time of our stay . when we were together , mr. d. then as i said before ) unknown to me , began with the death of sir edmund-bury godfrey . upon which he applauded my kindness to mr. p. by telling me how great a friend i had been to him in saving his life . but then coming to his point , he fell on the other side to bemoan my misfortune that i should be so ill requited for my kindness , for that mr. p , strangely ungrateful and forgetful of my successful friendship , did nothing but rail at me , and speak ill things of me , behind my back . to all which i made only this short reply , that i was very sorry for it , but for the occasion , left it to god and mr. prances own conscience to be the judges . to this purpose he went on much further , and left no instigations and incentives unessay'd to heighten my provocation against my friend . however i still persisted in my good opinion of him , believing mr. p. to be the same person in reference to his honest affections toward me ; and therefore desired m. d. to desist from any further attempts , which would be but vain and fruitless . which , though it silenc'd his farther prosecution at that time , yet he again the next morning , still concealing his name , and pretending only came to be an admirer of art ; and therefore , seeing certain counterfeit necklaces in my room , ask'd me , whether i made them or no ? i told him , i did . thereupon he bought some three or four , with some slight questions before-hand , what the true value of them might be ? to which i repli'd , that in regard he was mr. prances friend , i would have no more of him , than what i sold them for to the exchange . but he repli'd , he was so much an admirer of art , that he could not but believe himself oblig'd to give me a price according to his own judgment , and the value , that he himself had set upon them ; which was more than i demanded . after that we parted , and i saw him no more till about ten days , or a fourthnight afterwards , at what time i met him accidentally in fleet-street , when he would have press'd upon me a bottle of wine at the castle tavern . but i refus'd it , and excus'd my self , by telling him , i did not care to drink with strange company , as being known to have been instrumental in the discovery of sir edmund-bury godfrey's murther , and therefore did not know what designs some people might have upon me . after which , i only met him passant upon a sunday in fleet-street with a lady in his hand . all this while mrs. dorothy sherborn kept an intimate correspondence with me and my wife . but with no other design than to blow the coals of discord between mr. p. and me , with often repetitions of my kindness to her brother-in-law mr. p. and telling me how much he was beholding to me for his life , for which reason , he was a very unworthy person to speak so ill of me , as he did , in all companies . on the other side i still took his part , and justifying , that what he had done was no more than what it behoov'd him to do , told her , her brother-in-law could have no reason to speak ill of me , and that therefore i should be very cautious of believing what she said to be true . notwithstanding all this , mrs. sherborn continu'd without ceasing her undermining projects , so that neither my wife nor i could pass by her house , but she call'd us in , and was still exclaiming against the good service mr. prance had done , which she call'd one of the greatest pieces of villany that possibly could have been committed . and so changing her note , accus'd me , to have wrought him to make a confession of tales and stories to save his life and hazard his soul. so that it was no wonder her brother-in-law was so much offended at me as he was . applauding providence therein , that would by means of their differences unfold the mysteries of both our iniquities . which insinuation might perhaps have wrought some effect upon my belief , well knowing how indefatigable the papists are to bugbear and terrifie the consciences of persons not well resolv'd , and consequently that mr. p. might possibly be wrought upon to have some ill thought of me , but that i knew , that i had only compleated what mr. p. himself had begun ; by fortifying him in his resolutions to stand to that confession which he had made before the lords of the committee , and to confirm him in the ratification of his own act and deed. seeing then , that mrs. sherborn prest these things so hard upon me , i resolv'd to put the question as severely to her , and desired her punctually to tell me , whether she thought there was any plot or no ? to which she answer'd , that she believ'd there was a plot against the king and government , but not that it was carried on by the papists , but that i should find in a short time , that it was a presbyterian plot : which made me very much admire , in regard that neither by my converse with my acquaintance of that profession , nor by my reading of their books , i could find them inclin'd or principl'd to any such acts of irregular violence . mrs. sherborn being thus at a loss , one james pemberton , living near ladgate , tracing her steps , undertook to accomplish what she had begun , though he made his batteries with the same plausible insinuations that she had used before ; as , that i had been a great friend to mr. p. &c. however that i had over persuaded him to confess things of which he was no way guilty , meerly to save his life ; arguing from a supposition , that he was insufficient to be entrusted with so great a secret , that he was altogether innocent . finding my self thus frequently and so severely encounter'd , i retreated to my former question and ask'd him likewise , whether he thought there was any plot or no ? whose answer was to the same tune that mrs. sherborn had sung before , that he believ'd there was a plot , though not of the papists contrivance , but by the contrivance of the presbyterians , and that in a short time it would be so prov'd : and his grand argument was , that the papists had died wrongfully , or else they would have made a true confession of themselves . i repli'd , that was no true proof , and shewed him a book upon the tryal of parry , wherein it was made out , that he first confest the treason against the queen , and at his execution denied it , against the letters which were produced under his own hand writing ; which book he desiring to see , i lent it him ; but he found it so ill for his turn , that though i often re-demanded it of him , i could hardly get it again ( by which i shrewdly conjectur'd that he had a mind to have embezel'd it , and dispose of it as a heretical story ) but at last i did . all these contrivances ill succeeding , i receiv'd the following letter from an unknown person at westminster . sir , i am informed by a friend of mine that you are a very great artist for making artificial eyes . i do want two or three , and if your leisure would give you leave ; i am a stranger to you , but i am in good hopes , you will do me the favour to come to me to the dog tavern in the palace-yard at westminster to morrow by eleven of the clock , and enquire for the number 2. and there you may find me , for my occasions will not give me leave to come into the city , or else i would not give you the trouble . so i remain hoping to be better acquainted . sir , i am yours , william odriffe , angel-yard october 31. 1679. this letter i shewed to several friends , but they all concurr'd that it was only a trapan , and a design laid to ensnare me , and advis'd me not to go without some other persons to bear me company . with this caution i went , and enquired for the number 2. but there was no such person as had subscribed his name to the letter . i understood indeed that there was an honest gentleman of the same name that liv'd at westminster , but being sent to by me , he utterly disowned any knowledge of the matter , or that he had appointed any business at the said tavern . but it seems there was a gang that watch'd my coming , and hearing my smart enquiry for the number 2. and my expostulation with the servant of the house , one of them came to me , and told me , that he and some others staid for mr. odriffe , and that it could not be long ere he come ; and thereupon invited me to the rest of the company . then i concluded t was time for me to march off ; so i thank'd him , for his kindness and took my leave with a resolution not to come near him nor his mr. odriffe neither . when all these designs prov'd fruitless , then they gave it out , that i held a correspondence with the earl of danby , and that he had given me ten pounds to pay my rent ; which , as they pretended was for some private service , that i had either done or was to do his lordship . a thing which i utterly disown ; for i cannot remember , that ever i so much as saw the earl of danby in my life but once , and that was , as i was coming down with mr. p. from his grace the duke of monmouths lodgings in the cockpit at white-hall , and the said earl was passing by through the place where the sentinel stands ; and then neither did i know who his lordship was , till the sentinel , of whom i ask'd the question , had inform'd me , nor did i so much as speak to him , as all that were present can testifie . and indeed it would have been a strange confident . presumption in me to have gone to speak to a person of honour to whom i was utterly unknown , having no business with him , as i neither had at that , or at any other time . so that how his lordship should come to know my wants , and be so bountiful as to give me ten pound , i can by no means understand . however , if his lordship were so liberal , i had the misfortune to be basely cheated , for i never had it . and i wish mrs. sherborn would do me the kindness to inform me , who the person was , to whom his lordship gave order to pay the money , for i promise her , did i know the person , i should go and demand it . for if it were true , both his lordship , and my self , are very much abus'd . on the other side i should have been extreamly to blame , that i should not ere this have returned his lordship my most humble thanks for so great and special a favour : neither do i know of any person from whom i ever received a kindness , that can tax me of so much ingratitude . but this is like the rest of the actions of the papists , that care not what they say , or swear to , so it be to advance the interest of their holy mother the church of rome , though never so much to the prejudice and defamation of the innocent . at length mrs. sherborn declares , that mr. dangerfield told her this story , and that he came to have imposed upon her . a tale which seems very incoherent with truth , that he should go about to amuse or trapan her , when they were both at the same time in the fame confederacy together . for mr. dangerfield hath since declar'd , that he never knew me , but by her means , and that they had a real design to have ruin'd me , if they found that they could not win me to serve their purposes , though with this intimation , that my complyance with them would prove a thousand pound in my way . but now that the scene is chang'd , mrs. sherborn rails against mr. dangerfield as much , or more than ever she did against me , and prosecutes his failings with as loud invectives and aggravations , as her anger can express . so that it is evident that the papists do not bear so much malice against the persons , or the vices of men , as against their reformations , and recantations of their errours . the wicked shall be saints among them , so long as they will be instrumental to carry on their designs ; but if once , out of an apprehension of their mistake , or an abhorrency of the facts which they put upon them to execute , they seek to retrieve themselves and their reputation , by a seasonable repentance and detection of the romish treacheries , then the most ponderous crimes and scandals are too light to over-whelm their recover'd reputations . as for mr. prance himself , his own relations began to be his most bitter enemies , and rais'd a report , that he was concern'd in making of fire-balls ; and that he was seen in perpole-lane , the night before the new-prison was burnt , and that several fire-balls had been found near the place where he had been drinking , in that lane , the night before . this report so terrifi'd mr. prance's wife , as fearing it might swell to the prejudice of her husband , that with a mind very much troubled and perplexed , she came and found me out , in a place in the city , where i was with her husband and some other company , and calling me aside , told me the whole relation , and desired my assiistance to search out the truth , which i promised her . accordingly i went the next day to satifie her . but after i had made all the diligent enquiry i could , i found the whole business to be grounded only upon the idle twattle of an old-woman that lodg'd in perpole-lane , who the next day after the fire went to a female relation of mr. prances in bride-lane , and a protestant , and told her of the fire that had happen'd the night before , and that mr. prance was suspected about it : who made her answer , that she knew nothing of the fire , neither did she believe her kinsman any way concern'd in it . however she went in friendship to her sister , that was a papist , and giving her an account of what the old-woman had told her , desir'd her to give mr. prance notice of it , as being more familiar with him . she on the other side meditating to make another sort of use of the information , improves the surmise , intending to have kindled a more destructive flame to mr. prances disadvantage , and endeavour'd to have brought not only mr. prance but her sister into trouble about it . but it prov'd such an idle and silly invention of popish contrivance as only serv'd to shew the inveterate malice of their dying revenge , ready to lay hold upon any seeming opportunity to have blasted the credit of mr. prance's evidence , as i made it clearly out . about the beginning of january mr. prance came to me , and told me i was to be examined in reference to a very great and weighty concern . i asked him whether he knew what it was ? to which he made answer , that it was not convenient for him to speak of it : but said withal , that there was a woman to be examined also with me . upon which i endeavour'd to recollect my memory , but could not call to mind any person with whom i had had any discourse about any thing of state affairs , as not becoming me to meddle with them . thereupon i ask'd him who the person was that should cause me to be examin'd ? which he refus'd to tell me ; a thing that i took somewhat unkindly from him , telling him that i could not have conceal'd any thing from him , which might have fore-arm'd him against the information of any person whatsoever ; but all i could say signifi'd nothing at that time . upon the twenty second of the same month , he invited me to a glass of wine at the feathers tavern in fleet-street , whither i went along with him . there we met ( as i thought accidentally ) with mr. warcupp , one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex , and captain cresset , in whose company i had not sate long , but mr. warcupp sent for mr. bedlow . after some salutations that pass'd betwixt us , in came another person , who saluted me by the name of mr. boys . i return'd him his salute , but could not divine who he was , till one in the company taking up the glass , presented his service to him by the name of mr. dangerfield . so soon as i hear'd that , i ask'd mr. prance if that were the same person who was employed to make the plot as acted by the presbyterians ? he told me it was . then said i , this is the person that came the last summer to have inveigl'd me . whereupon i ask'd him if this were the person who intended to have me examined ? to which he repli'd , it was : whereupon i staid somewhat longer than i meant to have done ; expecting what mr. dangerfield or any other person in the room might have to say to me ; but there was nothing said that night . upon the 29 th . of january mr. dangerfield came to my house , and told me i must appear before the lord mayor to be by him examined , but told me nothing of the occasion . thereupon i went that day to my lords house , but his lordship being that day busie , i had orders to attend the next , which accordingly i did . before i went mr. prance came to me , and offered to go along with me ; but i refused his curtesie , because he had conceal'd the name of the person from me , when i desired him to let me know it : telling him withal , that i did not question but to be able to answer any thing that should be alledg'd against me . when i came before my lord i found the occasion of my being summoned to be quite contrary to what mr. prance had intimated , as that , i had talk'd at a strange rate of things of high and great concernment . for indeed the business was only this ( and i was conscious to my self it could not really be for any other reason ) that i should declare and justifie the truth of mr. dangerfields coming to ensnare me , how i came to have a distrust of him , and the ways and method which he us'd to engage me to a discovery of the secrets which the most honorable privy-council had entrusted me withal , and what mr. prance had confessed touching the murther , and farther to attest my constant refusal of his temptations , and resistance of his plausible batteries . of all which i made an affidavit before his lordship , since printed in mr. dangerfields second narrative , to which i refer the reader ; which gave his lordship satisfaction , and serves as much as any thing , to confirm mr. dangerfields evidence . this is that which in vindication of my self , i thought not only fit , but necessary to declare to the world . a relation altogether plain , and without any fallacy of expression , which he that will go about to disprove , may do it if he can . finis . by the king, a proclamation for the discovery and apprehending all popish priests and jesuits england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) 1678 approx. 3 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a32540 wing c3463 estc r35900 15578557 ocm 15578557 103866 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a32540) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 103866) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1588:102) by the king, a proclamation for the discovery and apprehending all popish priests and jesuits england and wales. sovereign (1660-1685 : charles ii) charles ii, king of england, 1630-1685. 1 broadside. printed by john bill, christopher barker, thomas newcomb, and henry hills ..., london : 1678. "given at our court at whitehall, the twentieth day of november, 1678, in the thirtieth year of our reign." imperfect: faded with loss of print. reproduction of the original in the society of antiquaries library, london. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. anti-catholicism -england. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2008-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-09 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-09 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion c r diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms by the king. a proclamation for the discovery and apprehending all popish priests and jesuits . charles r. whereas it is most notorious and evident , that a great number of popish priests and iesuits are at this time secretly disguised , and lurking within this realm , where they do not onely endeavour to pervert his majesties subjects from the true protestant religion , to romish superstition , but do also contrive and set on foot divers traiterous plots and designs against his majesty , his government , and the protestant religion by law established : the kings most excellent majesty ( upon the humble petition of the knights , citizens , and burgesses now in parliament assembled ) for the better discovery and apprehending of such popish priests and iesuits , doth by this his royal proclamation strictly charge and command all his iudges , iustices of the peace , magistrates , officers , and other his loyal subjects within this his realm of england , dominion of wales , and town of berwick upon tweed , that they do use their utmost care and endeavour to discover , apprehend , and commit , or cause to be committed to safe custody , in order to their tryal , all popish priests , and iesuits ( except john huddleston , who was signally instrumental in his majesties escape after the fight at worcester , and such foreign popish priests or iesuits as by contract of marriage are to attend the person of his royal consort the queen ( the names of whom shall be signified under her great seal , and such signification inrolled in his majesties court of kings bench ) and except such foreign popish priests and iesuits who are by the law of nations to attend foreign ambassadours . ) and for the greater encouragement to such of his majesties loyal subjects as shall discover and apprehend any popish priest or iesuit ( except before excepted ) his majesty is hereby graciously pleased to promise to him or them who shall discover and apprehend , or cause to be apprehended , any such popish priest or iesuit , the reward of twenty pounds , which shall be immediately paid upon such discovery and apprehension , and due proof thereof . given at our court at whitehall , the twentieth day of november , 1678. in the thirtieth year of our reign . god save the king. london , printed by john bill , christopher barker , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1678. a letter written upon the discovery of the late plot burnet, gilbert, 1643-1715. 1678 approx. 91 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 25 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a30379 wing b5825a estc r23836 07915509 ocm 07915509 40390 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a30379) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 40390) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1199:16) a letter written upon the discovery of the late plot burnet, gilbert, 1643-1715. [2], 45, [1] p. printed for h. brome, and r. chiswell, london : 1678. "licensed w. jane, octob. 17, 1678." attributed by wing to g. burnet. this item is identified in the reel guide as wing b5825. it is actually wing (2nd ed.) b5825a. reproduction of original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2003-10 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-10 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-02 paul schaffner sampled and proofread 2005-02 paul schaffner text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a letter , written upon the discovery of the late plot . licensed w. jane , octob. 17. 1678. london : printed for h. brome , and r. chiswell , both living in st. paul's church-yard , 1678. a letter , written upon the discovery of the late plot . sir , i heartily thank you for the news your last brought me , of the discovery of that horrid plot , both against his majesties person , and the whole kingdom . i doubt not but all good men are offering up their acknowledgments to god , for so great a blessing ; which is a fresh demonstration of his care of this church , and state : and that all our crying sins have not provoked him yet to abandon us : of which i pray god make us all sensible , that we may not continue to pull down such judgments , as the malice of wicked men would readily become instrumental in , if the providence of god did not so wonderfully and seasonably interpose . there is only one passage in your letter , that i wonder at . you tell me every body is surprized with this plot now discovered . i confess i am not of their mind ; for although i know there are persons of high honour , and untainted loyalty of the roman religion , who abominate the thoughts of all secret assassinations , much more of murdering his majesty ; yet such practices are so necessarily consequent to the principles of that church , that no member of it , who throughly understands them , can , while they continue in that communion , avoid the being involved in conspiracies , as oft as a sit occasion presents it self . these several years past they have boasted much of their loyalty , and their services and sufferings for his majesty , during the late civil wars . all this was necessary to make the government put confidence in them , that so they might more secretly lay their designs : which were to take effect , when a conjuncture was offered that seemed favourable . but i must again and again repeat , what i often told you in discourse ; that no member of that church can thorowly understand and believe the principles of it , and be a good subject even to a king of his own perswasion : but he can be much less so , to a prince whom he looks on as an heretick , who thereby lies under a general excommunication , and may be brought under a particular and formal one , before he , or any body else , but such as are fit to be entrusted with the secret , shall know it : and then the prince is at the mercy of all his popish subjects , who if they consider aright the doctrine of their own church , must depart from their allegiance to him , and be ready to do any thing that is laid on them , by those who are either directly their superiours , if they have taken religious vows ; or at least , have some authority over their consciences . this i shall open to you in as short and plain terms as is possible ; and the rather , that you may communicate it to some persons of honour of that religion , who i hope upon so fresh a discovery of these practices , may be now not unwilling to examine a point , the consideration of which they before rejected , as an imputation cast on their religion . this will now , i imagine , move them so far to demur , as to consider impartially whether such practises flow only from the ill tempers of particular persons , or from the received principles of their church . this latter i undertake to make out , from the undeniable maximes , to which all of that communion are bound to adhere . there are two principles , which i may well call the fundamental principles of the roman church : since all opinions that are not inconsistent with them , can be tollerated among them : but whatever strikes at these , must needs be abominated , as destructive of that , they call the catholick faith. the one is , the authority of the church , the other is , the certainty of tradition . if then the doctrine of deposing kings , and by consequence killing them ( for if they are justly deposed , it 's as just to kill them as to kill any usurper ) is such , that without denying the authority of the church , and the certainty of tradition , it cannot be denied ; then all men must resolve either to acknowledg it , or to renounce their subjection to a church that must needs believe it . about the authority of the church , two things are to be observed , that serve for clearing what i design to make out . the first is , that the church in any one age has as much authority as ever it had , or can have in any other age : for if christs promises , together with the other arguments they bring for the authority of the church , be good , they are alike strong at all times , and in all ages : and therefore though in writing books of controversies they muster up authorities out of the former ages , because we profess we pay little esteem to the latter ages : yet among themselves all ages are alike , and the decrees of them are of equal authority . secondly , the authority of the church is as little to be disputed in moral matters , that fall under practice , as in articles of faith that only fall under speculation , and in a word , the church must be the infallible expounder of the ten commandments , as well as of the creed . all the arguments from christs promises , from the hazard of trusting to our private reasonings , and the necessity of submitting to a publick judg , are by so much the more concluding in practical matters , as it is of more importance , that men think aright in practical than in speculative opinions . if then there arises a question about a moral matter , or the exposition of any of the commandments , the only certain decision must be expected from the church . for instance , a question arises about images , whether it is lawful to use them in the worship of god , upon the seeming opposition which the worship of them has to the 2d commandment ? since the church has once determin'd that it may be lawfully used , it is heresie to deny it , on this pretence , that we fancy it is contrary to one of the commandments . so if a controversie arise upon the fifth commandment , how far a king is to be acknowledged , if the church has determined the limits of that , it is heresie to carry it further . if also another question arise how much the sixth commandment obliges ? it must be carried so far and no further than the determination of the church allows . i confess by the doctrine of that church , even a general council may err in a point in which any matter of fact is included : because they may be deceived by a false information . but in a general rule about morality , and the extent of any of the ten commandments , the decision of the church must either be certain , and for ever obligatory , or the whole doctrine of the infallibility of the church falls to the ground . concerning the certainty of tradition , the general opinion of that party , is , that tradition is an infallible conveyance of divine truth : and that whatever any age of the church delivers to another as derived from christ and his apostles , must be received with the same veneration and obedience that we pay to the holy scriptures . and for the ways of distinguishing a tradition of the church from any imposture , or novelty : there be four of them . the first , that is the most doubtful , is , that the greatest and most esteemed doctors in any age deliver as a divine truth . nor is it necessary that they formally say , this is a tradition : but if many of them mention an opinion , and declare their own assent to it , this passes as a sufficient proof of the tradition of any age of the church . so in all points of controversie between them and us , the greatest part of their writers , ( some few later and suspected ones only excepted ) think they have sufficiently justified their church , when they bring testimonies out of any of the writings of the fathers , that seem to favour their opinion : and will call it unreasonable for us to reject these , because they only deliver their own opinion , and do not call it the tradition of the church , but conclude , that many writers in any age asserting an opinion , it may well be looked on as the tradition of that age. but , because this is more liable to exception , there is another way , that is more infallible to judg of tradition : and that is , by the conveyance of the see of rome , which they judg the chief depository of the faith ; and for which they fansie they have so many proofs , from the high things some of the fathers have said about the dignity of that see. now if these conclude any thing , it must follow , that whatever has been delivered in any age by a pope , as conveyed down from christ , or his apostles , must either be so indeed , or the see of rome is not a faithful transmitter of tradition . but , there is yet a more certain way of judging of tradition , by what the chief pastors of the church have delivered , when assembled in a general council . this being the supreme tribunal in the church , there can lie no appeal from it : nor can the doctrines delivered or approved by it be questioned . for instance , if it were under debate , how the tradition about transubstantiation can be made out in the thirteenth century ; it is needless to seek any other evidence , than , that one almerick is condemned for denying it , and in opposition to that , it was formally established in a general council . this is as much as can be had , and he were very unreasonable that were not satisfied with it : so if it be asked , how can the tradition of the doctrine of deposing kings , and giving away their dominions in the same century be proved ? the answer is plain , that same very council decreed it : upon which a great prince was deposed , and his dominions were given to another . these are the common standards by which traditions are examined . but to these a new one has been lately added : which is indeed a much shorter and nearer way : and that is , whatever the church holds in any one age , as a material point of religion , she must have received it from the former age , and that age from the former , and so it climbs upwards till the days of the apostles . if this be a certain track of tradition by which we may infallibly trace it ; then for instance , if in any one age , it hath been believed , that st. peter had power from christ , which he left to the see of rome , by which his successor in it can depose kings , then this must be an apostolical tradition , and by consequence of equal authority with any thing written in the scriptures . to these general considerations about the authority of the church , and the certainty of tradition ; i shall add two other , about the nature of supreme and soveraign power : by which we may judg of what extent the popes power must be , if he have an authority to depose kings , and transfer their dominions to other persons . first , when the soveraign powers proceed in a legal way against its subjects ; if either they abscond , so that they cannot be found ; or have such a power about them , that the sovereign cannot bring them to punishment ; he may declare them rebels , and set prices on their heads ; and in that case it is as lawful for any subject to kill them , as it is for an executioner to put a condemned person to death . these being the several ways the law provides in those several cases . so when a pope deposes a prince , he may as lawfully set on private assassinates to kill him , as oblige his subjects to rise with open force against him . for if the pope has a power over him to depose him ; this clearly follows from the nature of sovereign power , and it is the course that sometimes must be followed , when the rebel can be no other way brought to deserved punishment ; and if the pope has the power of deposing , then a prince who after such a sentence , carries himself as a king , is a rebel against his supreme lord : and is also an usurper . for his title being destroyed by the sentence , he has no authority over his subjects : and therefore may be as lawfully killed as any rebel or usurper . secondly , the supreme power may in cases of great necessity , when the thing is in it self materially just , pass over such forms as ought in ordinary cases to be observed . i need not tell you , that in a great fire , subordinate magistrates may blow up houses . but doubtless the supreme power of all , as a king in an absolute monarchy ( and such is the papal power if these opinions be true ) may dispence with some forms , when the matter is in it self just ; and if the chief design of a law be pursued , the circumstantial parts of it may upon extraordinary occasions be superseded : therefore , if the pope is supreme over all kings , and has this deposing power ; then though by the canon , a king ought to be first a year excommunicated for his heresy or favouring hereticks ; and at the years end he may be deposed by the pope , ( there are also other rules for excommunications , tho the summary way in some cases may be used ) yet all these are but circumstantial and lesser matters . the design of that law , is , that no heretical prince , or favourer of heresie , be continued in his power ; the other , are but forms of law , that cannot be indispensibly necessary in all cases . besides , the very canon law teaches , that when there is both a notorietas juris & facti , summary proceedings are legal ; when then it is notorious , that the doctrines of the church ( of england for instance ) are heretical , and that the king is an obstinate favourer of these heresies , and will not extirpate them , summary and secret proceedings are justifiable . there is no hope that bulls , breves , or citations would do any good in this case : these would on the contrary , alarm the state , and bring all the party under great hazards : therefore from the nature of supreme power , it is most justly inferred , that though there have been no publick sentence of deposition ( according to the forms of the canon law ) yet all these may be dispensed with , and a secret and summary one may do as well . these positions are such , that i cannot fansie any just exceptions to which they are liable ; and from all these laid together , the inference will undeniably follow : that according to the doctrine of the church of rome , the power of deposing kings is lodged with the pope , by a divine authority ; and that , by consequence , private persons may conspire to take away the life of a king so deposed : even though there be no publick sentence given about it . but before i bring the evidence for all this , i shall desire the reader will a little reflect on the positions i have laid down : in which he will find an answer to all the exceptions , that can be made against the following evidence . by the first , the authority of the church , being the same in all ages ; he will see it is to no purpose to pretend these were dark ages : so that what was done in an ignorant time , cannot oblige the world when things are seen in a better light . but if the church has an authority from christ , that shall last till the end of the world , it must be the same in all ages . the ignorance of the age is a very good answer when made by a protestant , but can signifie nothing in a papists mouth . by the second , of the churches authority in setling moral rules for practice , it appears how fond that distinction is , which they make between a canon and a decree . it is true , a decree about a particular case , in which there is some matter of fact , may be wrong according to their principles , and yet the authority of the church remain entire . for instance , in the deposing a prince , or condemning a man for heresie , the church may either by false witnesses , or mistaking a man's words , be drawn to pass an unjust sentence , by reason of a mis representation of the fact. but that is nothing to the purpose here , where a decree is made as a perpetual rule of practice ; this must be of the same authority of a canon about any article of faith. otherwise it will follow , that the church may mislead the people in matters indispensably necessary to salvation : for such is the obedience to the ten commandments . by the first way of judging of the tradition of the church , from what the most received writers in any age deliver , as the doctrine of the church , it will appear ; that the schoolmen and canonists are as competent conveyers of tradition from the twelfth age downward , as the fathers were from the sixth age upward ; and laying this for a principle , that the church is the same in all ages , they are really more competent witnesses than the fathers were . first , because they write more closely to the subject they have in hand ; they consider what is said for , or against an opinion in a more exact manner , than the fathers did , who being carried with the heat they are sometimes in , go off from the purpose : and generally affect eloquence , which is the most improper stile for nice matters : whereas the schoolmen write in a blunt way , only considering the purpose they are about , coyning the most barbarous words they can light on , when they think them the fittest to express their notions . secondly , they were divided into two famous schools , among whom there were great heats , the scotists and thomists : so that if either of these had asserted any thing that was not the received doctrine of the age they lived in , the other party had such emulation against them , that they would not have failed to have laid them open : as they did in the matter of the immaculate conception of the b ▪ virgin. whereas the fathers writing only against hereticks , or other enemies to christianity , they might have mistaken some things , without so publick a discovery as was likely to happen among the schoolmen ▪ 3dly . the schoolmen wrote on purpose to deliver the doctrine of the age in which they lived , to those who were to succeed them . their books being generally the divinity lectures they read , either in colledges or religious houses , to their scholars , whereas the fathers wrote upon emergent occasions , either letters or treatises to private persons , regarding more the present , than the succeeding age. in which we cannot expect that exactness , that is to be looked for in a publick lecture . upon all which i assume , that allowing the church to have the same authority in all ages , the schoolmen are more competent witnesses of the tradition of the church in their ages , than the fathers were in theirs . by the second rule for judging of traditions , from the conveyance of the see of rome , it does undeniably follow , that the popes from gregory the sevenths time downward , were as sure depositories of the traditions of the church , as were the popes from gregory the first his time upward . they were both alike christ's vicars , and st. peters successors . so that all the high words that the fathers bestow on the see of rome , were either complements , in which they are not wanting , or were said because of the worth of the bishops , whom they had known in that see. but if they be to be understood in that sence in which the writers of controversy obtrude them on us , then it will follow manifestly , that as to the conveyance of tradition , p. gregory the 7th is as much to be believed , when he says any thing in the name of st. peter , or of christ , as any of the popes are . for in the preamble of bulls and breeves , the reasons are given of what follows , which are most commonly vouched from apostolical authority and tradition . so let the pope be ever so ignorant , or so corrupt in his manners , what he asserts to be apostolical tradition , must be either received as such , or the authority of that see is overthrown : therefore they must either cease to press us any more with tht authority of the see of rome , or acknowledg that all the popes declarations , which they make about traditions , are to be received . it is an answer to be made use of only to ignorant persons , to say , these depositions were the deeds of some popes , who might be ill men , and the church is not concerned to justify them . i confess , whether this or that deposition was justly or lawfully made , is a personal thing , in which only the pope who decreed it is concerned . but if he declares in the preamble , that the power of deposing upon those reasons , is grounded on an apostolical tradition , then the see is concerned in it : for either he declares true or false ; if the former , then that power of deposing comes from apostolical tradition ; if they acknowledge he declares false , then we are not any more to be urged with the authority of that see , as the certain depository of the traditions of the church . by the third mark , to judge of the tradition of any age from the decision of a general council , it appears , that the decisions of the fourth council of lateran are as obligatory as the decrees of the first council of nice : the church having the same power in all ages . if it be said , it was only a council of the western church , the like may be objected against the first general council , which were generally made up of eastern bishops , and very few of the western bishops sat in them . and if we esteem a council general , because it was received by the church , then the whole church of rome having received that council , it must be acknowledged to be general as much as any ever was . but to this , others answer , that a council is only infallible , when a thing is decreed by it according to the tradition of the church . if this be true , the whole controversie between the roman church and us , about the authority of councils , is decided on our side . for if a council has only authority to declare traditions , then it is free for every person to examine , whether this declaration be according to truth or not ? and if it be found that it is not so , they may lawfully reject such decisions . for instance in the second council of nice , the worship of images was established upon a mock-shew of tradition : and yet all the world knows , there were no images allowed in the church the first four ages after christ ; and even in the sixth age p. gregory declared , that though they might be in the church , yet they ought not to be worshipped . nor was there any contest about it , before the eighth century . this being thus examined , and found to be true , then according to the foregoing answer , that decision was of no force , though made by the second council of nice . in a word , if this maxime be true , that councils are only to be submitted to , when they decree according to apostolical tradition , then they have no authority in themselves : and their decisions can have no more force than this , that it may seem probable that they were not mistaken , and in an ignorant age , even this probability will vanish to nothing . no body will reject the decision of a council , when the decrees are just and right : but if it be upon that score alone , that they are to be submitted to , then none are bound by them , before they have examined them : and if upon a search it appear they decreed against tradition , then their decrees are to be rejected . so it is apparent this answer does plainly , according to their principles , lay the foundation of all heresie ; since it gives every man a right to question the decrees of a general council . besides , how can those persons be assured , that the fourth council of lateran did not decree according to tradition ? the acts of that council are lost : so we cannot know upon what reasons they made their decrees . and it cannot be said , that because there is no mention made of any tradition in the decree , that therefore they considered none . it is seldom found that the reasons of any decree are put with it . but we may reasonably enough believe , that they followed the method in this council , that had been used in some former ones ( particularly in the second council of nice ) which was this , a writing was read , penned perhaps by the pope , or a patriarch , in which the tradition of the church was confidently alledged ; and some quotations were brought ; and very oft out of some later writers . the paper was no sooner read , than a loud and often repeated shout of applause followed , without any further search or canvasing about these authorities . and upon that the decree was made . this was the practice both of the second nicene , and of some more ancient councils ; whose journals are hitherto preserved ; and where the journals are lost , we have reason to believe they followed the same method : so that it is very probable there might have been some such writing read in the council of lateran . and if they did not found their decree upon tradition , they were much to blame ; for they had as venerable a tradition , as either the second council of nice , or some other councils had : a practiee about 150 years standing from the days of pope gregory the vii . so that it is not to be denied but they had as good authority from tradition , to make this decree , as to make most of the other decrees , on which they insist much , in the books of controversies that are written by them . by the fourth rule of judging about tradition , the matter is yet much plainer : for if the generally received belief of any age of the church , is a good thread to lead us up to the apostles times , then there needs no more be said . for it is certain , that for near four ages together , this was the universally received doctrine of the church of rome . and the opposition that some princes made to it was condemned as heresy , rebellion , and every thing that was evil . and it is remarkable , that both ockam that wrote much for the emperors cause against the pope , and gerson and almain , no great favourers of papal power , are cited by cardinal perron , as acknowledging the ecclesiastical power of deposing , if a prince were guilty of spiritual crimes . so that the controversies in this matter that were managed between the writers for the popes and emperors , were not , whether the pope in cases of heresy might depose a prince ? but were concerning two things very remote from this . the one was , whether the pope had a direct temporal power over all kings , by which as being lord of the fee , he could proceed upon any cause whatsoever against a king , and take his dominions from him . to this indeed gregory the 7th pretended tho more covertly , and boniface the 8th more avowedly . there was great opposition made to this by many writers ; but at the same time they all agreed on it , as an undeniable maxim , that the pope had an indirect power over princes , by which in the cases of heresy he might excommunicate and depose them ; nor was there so much as any debate about it . a second thing about which there was some controversy was , whether the particulars that fell under debate came within the head of heresy , or not ? so in the case of princes giving the investitures into bishopricks , the pope brought it in within the head of heresy , and condemned those persons as simoniacks . the writers on the other side denied this , pretending it was a civil matter , and a right of the crown . the like debates fell in , when princes were sentenced on any other account . the authority of the sentence in the case of heresy was not controverted ; all the question was ; whether the point under debate was heresy or not ? and concerning these things , any who have read the writings in the great collection made of them by goldastus , will receive an easy and full satisfaction . by which it appears , that the popes power of deposing kings in the case of heresy was the received doctrine of the church for several ages , and by consequence it must be looked on as derived down from the apostles , if the doctrine of any one age of the church can lead us backward in a certain track to discover what it was in the apostles days . by the first position about the nature of supreme power , it is apparent , that in the case of heresy , a prince deposed by the pope , if he stands out against the sentence , may be as lawfully killed as any tory or moss-trooper , or bantito , may be ; for he is a rebel against his lord , and an usurper over the people , from that day forward . and therefore tho mariana told a secret too publickly , yet it cannot be denied to be a certain consequent of their principles . it had been indeed more discreetly done to have ordered this only to be infused unto peoples consciences , by their confessors in secret . and for mariana , tho the book in gross is condemned , as they give out , yet the opinions set down in it are not censured . but a suarez writing against k. james , tells him in plain terms , that a king , who is canonically deposed , may be killed by any man whatsoever . this was not only published with an ordinary license , but the whole university of alcala declared every thing in it to be according to the doctrine of the church . valentia , tho he disguises it a little , yet says , that an heretical prince may by the popes sentence be deprived of his life . b foulis cites ten more doctors for the same opinion of killing kings by private persons . i do not build upon the assertions of these jesuits , as binding authorities in that church , but make use of them to shew , that some of their own eminentest writers acknowledg the force of this consequence ; which is indeed so evident , that nothing but good manners , and some small care not to provoke princes too much by such bare-faced positions , keeps others from asserting it . few princes are so tame as childeric was , to go into a monastery after they are deposed . therefore this doctrine is but a lame provision for the churches security from heresie , if the lawfulness of killing does not follow that of deposing kings . and it was so generally received , that it is told of gerson , that he was at great pains to get it declared that no private cut-throat might kill a king , and that by consequence it was only the popes prerogative to order them to be destroyed . by the second position about the nature of supreme power , that in extraordinary cases forms of law may be superseded ; it is also clear , that tho we know nothing of any sentence of deposition given out against the king , yet he is not a whit the safer , for he lies under an yearly curse every maundy thursday . the notoriousness of his heresy will sufficiently justify a particular sentence , without any further process or citation , according to the maxims of the canon law. and there may be for ought we can know , as valid a deposition as parchment and lead can make it , already expeded . and if it be not yet done , we are sure it may be done very suddenly , and will be done whensoever they see any probability of success . bellarmine hath very sincerely told us the reason why heretical princes are not deposed , because the church has not strength enough to make such a sentence good , or does not think it expedient ; that is to say , they will do it whensoever they find a prince who will execute the sentence , and yet by that conquest not grow so strong , as by that means to turn the ballance . so the two considerations to which we owe our security are , the want of force , and the fear of another prince his becoming too powerful by the conquest . but i must add , that bellarmine , while he was a jesuite , had taught , that heretical princes were not to be deposed , except they endeavoured to turn their people from the faith : this was all his bounty to them of which we could not pretend to a crumb , since there were such laws made against popery among us . yet when he became a cardinal , he considered better of the matter ; so that in his recognitions he retracts that , and says therein be followed durandus his opinion , who maintains it against aquinas , but he thinks the latter was in the right , and says , even in that case they may be deposed , only the church does it not always ; either because she wants strength , or does not judge it expedient . but he concludes , if princes endeavour to draw their subjects from the faith , they may and ought to be deposed . so in our case there is no mercy to be expected , unless we repeal all laws against that religion . but after all this there is another device in the canon-law , called , ipso facto , by which a sentence is incurred immediately upon the doing of a fact. this began in the priviledges granted to monasteries or churches , in most of which this clause is to be found , that if any king or prince , &c. did any thing contrary to these priviledges , he thereby fell from his power and dignity . now that heresy is one of the things upon which a prince is ipso facto under excommunication and deposition , we have the authority of father e parsons , or creswel , who tells us , that the whole school of divines and canonists agree in it , and , that it is certain , and of faith , that a prince falling from the catholick religion , and endeavouring to draw away others from it , does immediately fall from all his power and dignity , even before the pope has pronounced any sentence , and that his subjects are free from their oaths of obedience , and may eject such an one as apostate and heretick . but there is a clearer evidence for this ; the great and famous college of the sorbon , ( seventy doctors being present ) when consulted , whether the people of france were not freed from their obedience to henry the third , upon his putting the duke and cardinal of guise to death ; they , before ever the pope had given sentence , declared , that they were absolved from their obedience , and might with a good conscience make war upon him for the defence of the catholick faith. upon which the parisians wrote to the pope to desire the confirmation of that decision . from all which it appears , that if the deposing power be in the pope , the king is not a whit the safer , because we know nothing of any such sentence pronounced against him . and thus having made good and illustrated the positions i laid down , against all the exceptions which that small and condemned party of widdrington's followers make use of , to cover themselves from the charge of treason , that lies against their church ; i go next to lay open the evidence , after which i shall leave it to every man's conscience to pass the verdict . there are in f pope gregory the great 's works , four priviledges granted ; one to the abbey of st. medard , another to the hospital , a third to the nunnery , a fourth to st. martin's church of autim . in which after the priviledges are granted , a sanction is added in these words ; if any kings , &c. shall endeavour to countervene this writing , let him lose the dignity of his power and honour . or shorter , in that of st. medard , let him be deprived of his dignity . these are to be found both in all the mss , and printed editions of that popes works . it is true , the first of these to saint medard's monastery , is looked on as a forged piece , both by cardinal perron , sirmond , and lannoy . but as it went for a true one till of late , and is still defended by others , baronius in particular , concluding from thence for the popes power over kings ; so the other priviledges are not denied to be true by any , except lannoy of late , for ought i know . these have been for above 600 years looked on as the grants of that pope . but this may seem a private writing , and not of such force . about 130 years after that , pope g gregory the 3d deposed leo the emperor , from all his dominions in italy , because he would not tolerate the worship of i , mages . and if that single heresie merited such a sentence what may we look for , among whose many imputed errors this is but one , and none of the most considerable ? not many years after that , did his successor zacharias upon a message he received from france , absolve that nation from their oaths to childeric , and ordered boniface to crown pepin in his stead and not long after that pope adrian gave the empire of rome , and of the west to charles the great . as h bellarmine proves from above 30 of the historians of that time , and the testimony of many soveraign princes . yet these being dark ages , in which there was more of action than dispute , we do not find the grounds laid down , on which those proceedings were founded . but the constant maxim of the papacy , was , once to begin a practice , and then to find arguments to defend it , among which the practice it self was no inconsiderable one ; for he was a mean spirited pope , that would in a title fall short of what his predecessors had assumed . about 250 years after charles the great had assumed the empire of the west , there arose a pope ( gregory the seventh ) that resolved to make the most of his see that could be : and reckoning , that the empire of the west was the gift of his predecessors , and building on that known maxim , that none can give that which they have not , he looked on the supreme dominion of it , as one of the perquisites of the see , which he would by no means part with . and therefore in his i dictatis , in which he asserts the several branches of his prerogative , these be three of them : that the pope only may use the imperial ensigns . that he may depose emperours . and , that he can absolve subjects from their fidelity to wicked princes . and to shew he was in earnest in these doctrines , he began soon to lay about him . his first threatnings were against king philip of france , who was a vicious prince : in a letter to the bishops of france , he requires them to admonish the king for his faults , and if he did not mend them , to put the whole kingdom under an interdict : and if after all that he continued still disobedient , he swaggers out in these words , k we will have none to be ignorant , or doubtful , what we intend to do upon it ; for by the help of god we will endeavour by all means , to wrest the kingdom of france out of his possession . but upon the submission of that king , these threatnings came not to any effect : yet he went on against the emperor , hen. the 4th , at the rate he had threatned the king of france . i need not tell what all the world knows : that he first excommunicated and deposed the emperor , in the year 1076. then upon his doing of penance , he received him into his favour . but upon new provocations he deposed him a second , a third , and fourth time , in the years 1080 , 1081 , and 1083. in all which he had the concurrence of so many roman councils , and set up against him , first rodolph , after that herman : as his successors did ; first conrade , and then henry , that emperor 's unnatural sons . the prosecution of the history , is needless to my design . but in his letter to herman , bishop of mets , l we meet with that which is more considerable . for there he largely justifies his proceedings , which he grounds on the keys of the kingdom of heaven , being given to st. peter ; and the power of binding and loosing joined to them . more places of scripture he sought not , but his successor , m boniface the 8th , made use of ecce duo gladii , and the power given to the prophet jeremiah , over kingdoms , to root out , pull down , destroy , throw down , to build , and to plant : and they took it in great dudgeon , if any would compare a single prophet under the law , to christ's vicar under the gospel . but gregory goes on in his proofs , to the tradition of the church : and says , the fathers had often both in general councils , and in their particular writings acknowledged , that this power was in the see of rome ; that it was the mother and head of all other churches : that all matters were to be judged by it , from whose sentence no appeal could lye : nor could there be a review made of the judgments passed in that see. and to confirm what he had asserted , he cites some passages out of gelasius , and julius , and that clause in the priviledges granted by gregory the great , formerly mentioned . so here he very fully and formally delivers the tradition of the church , and builds upon it . he also cites the precedent of pope zacharias , his deposing childeric , not for any fault he found in him , but because he thought him not fit to govern. from that he goes on to some reasons , ( such as they are ) for the justification of his proceedings . the pope having thus declared the tradition and doctrine of the church , it is not to be wondered at , if both the schoolmen mixt it with the instructions they gave their scholars , and the canonists made it a part of the law of the church . n hugo de sancto victore , alexander alensis , bonaventure , durand , peter of aliac , john of paris , almain , gabriel biel , henry of ghant , john driodo , john de terre iremata , albert pighius , thomas waldensis , petrus de palude , cajetan , franciscus victoria , dominicus a soto , and many others , ( in all 70 are reckoned by bellarmin , but foulis enlarges the number to 177 , whom he cites , who ) did formally assert it . aquinas also taught it ; tho' in some places he contradicted himself . but a boniface the 8th , thought his predecessors had proceeded in this matter too cautiously , and therefore he went more roundly to work . in the jubilee in the year 1300 , he shewed himself the first day in the pontifical habit , but the second day , he was clothed with the imperial habit , a naked sword being carried before him , and cried out with a loud voice , i am pope and emperor , and have both the earthly , and heavenly empire . this upon so publick an occasion looks very like the teaching the church ex cathedra : but because words vanished into air , he left it in writing , in these terms : p we say and define and pronounce , that it is absolutely necessary to salvation for every humane creature , to be subject to the bishop of rome . this being put into the text of the canon law , in which it is continued to this day ; we cannot think it strange that panorimitan , ostiensis , silvester , with all the other canonists assert the popes direct dominion over all the world. and what can they say less , believing him to be christs vicar on earth , to whom all power in heaven and earth was given of his father , therefore the power in heaven being judged enough for christ to manage himself , they thought all the power in earth was committed to the vicar . this passed down without contradiction among them , but was not received by the rest of the church : yet the indirect , or as they termed it , the ecclesiastical power in cases of heresie was universally agreed to : not one person opposing it , till luther and his followers came , sawcily to look into the popes title to this , and many other pretended rights of the see of rome . but because the plea for an indirect power , was not sufficient , since if a prince did not favour heresie , it was of no use : and the pretention to a direct power was of an harsh sound : therefore a title of another kind was set up . it was pretended , that all the kingdoms in the western and northern parts of europe were by formal surrenders offered up to st. peter , and st. paul ; and therefore whatever the popes did , was said to be done in defence of their rights ; which made gregory the 7th fly to them in that flanting address , with which he begins his sentences against the emperor . first of all , the donation of constantine the great was forged : by which the power of all the west , italy , sicily , sardinia , germany , france , spain , and england , were given to the pope . this was put into the text of the canon law : and was stood to , by all the canonists . it is true the civilians wrote generally against it . among whom bartholus may be reckoned , for in his preface to the digests having mentioned the opinions of some against it , when it comes to his own , he delivers it thus ; take notice that we are now in the territory of the church ( for he taught at bulloigne ) and therefore i say that donation is valid . but till valla discovered the impostures of it so manifestly , that they are now ashamed to maintain it any longer , their plea from it was never laid down . but augustinus steuchus , who undertakes the vindication of that donation against valla , does likewise alledge from some instruments in the vatican , that both the kingdoms of spain , arragon , france , england , denmark , muscovy , sicily , and croatia and dalmatia , did subject their crowns to the see of rome . b krantzius tells us , that lakold king of poland , made it tributary to rome . and for the german empire , tho steuchus says nothing of it , perhaps that he might not offend charles the 5th , yet there is both in the canon law , and the letters of popes , more to be said upon that head , than for any of the rest . they pretend the popes set up first the empire of the west : then gave the princes of germany the right of choosing the emperor , and does still give the imperial crown , upon the emperors swearing an oath of homage to them , according to the verse under that insolent picture set up by pope innocent the 2d . in the lateram r of the emperor lying prostrate at his feet , and receiving the crown from him . post homo fit papae , sumit quo dante coronam . but all these surrenders were made use of only to strengthen the great pretention they had of being christs vicars , and st. peters successours ; which from the end of the 11th century , till the beginning of the 16th . for above 4 ages together was as authoritatively asserted by popes , as positively taught by divines , and as tamely received by the whole church , emperors and kings not presuming to contradict it , as any other article of faith. and for proofs of this we need appeal to no other witnesses than those 3. great cardinals baronius , bellarmin and perron , who may be presumed to have understood the doctrine of their own church , better than any body else . the first of those , through his whole work strains his industry , to discover as many instances as he can of it : and never parts with any without expressing the particular satisfaction he had in so pleasant a discovery . i shall only set down what he says on the two 1st . occasions that he met with . when he takes notice of gregory the great 's priviledges formerly mentioned , he adds , s you see reader , that the popes can make laws , to which if kings themselves do not yield obedience , they shall lose their kingdoms . upon the first deposition m●de by gregory the 3d. he adds , t the faithful in the west being awakened by this thunder , do immediately fall from the obedience to leo , adhering to this apostolical pope . so this gregory left a worthy precedent to posterity , that heretical princes , be not suffered to reign in the church of christ , if having been often admonished , they continue to persist obstinately in their errors . such strains as these do so often occur afterwards , that they can scarce be reckoned . it is well known what advice he gave p. paul the 5th in the quarrel with the venetians , applying the voice to st. peter , arise and kill , to the case in hand ; and that , with his insolent paraenesis to that republick , are clear evidences of his sence in this matter . what bellarmin taught more shortly and obscurely in his controversies , was afterwards made more plain both by his writings , about the translation of the roman empire , upon the interdict of venice , and against king james , and william barklay : and cardinal perrons eloquent speech against the bill put in by the third estate of france , for condemning those pretensions of a deposing power , shews us not only his own sense , but the sense of the whole clergy of france ; in whose name he delivered it . u he calls the contrary opinion , a doctrine that breeds schisms , a gate that leads unto all heresie , and so detestable , that he and his fellow bishops will choose to burn at a stake rather than consent to it . he affirming that all the parts of the catholick church , and of the church of france in particular , and all the schools of divinity , till the coming of calvin , held the affirmative , and says , that no where in france since the divinity schools were set up , can they find any one doctor , divine , or lawyer , any decree , council , or sentence of parliament , or any one magistrate ecclesiastick , or politick , who had held that in case of heresie or idolatry , subjects might not be absolved from their oaths of fidelity to their princes . it is true , at first he spake more modestly , and pretended the thing was problematical , and so was not fit matter for an oath : but when that modester strain ( tho it tended all to depress the regal , and exalt the papal power ) had so far prevailed with the king , that he ordered the matter to be laid aside , and not to be further insisted on . they were not satisfied with this , but made a new address in the name of the clergy ; and the cardinal spake now in a higher tone , asserting formally the popes indirect power in temporals ; and that all who maintained the contrary were schismaticks , and hereticks , even those of the parliament it self ; and did plainly threaten the king , that if he did not raze all the proceedings out of the register , the clergy would leave the assembly , and excommunicate all who denied the popes power of deposing . and if the king would not suffer them to execute these censures , they would proceed upon their hazard tho they were to suffer martyrdom for it . for which zeal , they received a breve from the pope , giving them his solemn thanks for what they had done ; desiring them to persevere in the same mind . so we have in this instance , not only cardinal perrons own mind , but the sense of the whole clergy of france . i do not think it necessary to enquire further into the opinion of later writers ; tho it were easie to shew , that to this day , both the court of rome , the whole order of the jesuites , the writers both of controversies , and cases of conscience , and the expositors of scripture , do as oft as occasion offers , assert the power of deposing kings to be still in the see of rome . and tho some few writers of that religion , since barkelay and widdrington's time , both of the english and irish nation , have adventured to deny this power ; they have been censured for it , and branded with heresy . this has been so notorious in the matter of the irish remonstrance , that i need say no more of it . but whether the writers of this age allow it or not , they are bound according to their doctrine about tradition , to acknowledg it ; since two of the characters of tradition are found to agree to it . for it has been delivered in several ages of the church , as true catholick doctrine by all the publick doctors in these times : so that either this is a tradition of the church , or that is not a true mark of tradition : nor is it a certain conveyance of truth , if we may be thus deceived in a clear tradition , for four ages successively . it does also appear , that if the see of rome be a faithful depositary and transmitter of church traditions , this must be one , since it is delivered to the world by so many popes in the names of st. peter and st. paul , and founded on the power of the keys , and of binding and loosing granted to st. peter . but i shall next shew how the third mark of tradition , the authority of general councils , agrees to this doctrine . when this doctrine had been so well spread over europe , then the popes found it was safe , to trust it to the judgment of such an assembly as they esteemed a general council . and they proceeded in this matter , after the same manner that they had done in the worship of images : and as they did afterwards in the points of transubstantiation , and denying the chalice in the communion . they took care first to infuse it into all the clergy , ( which god wot's was no hard thing ) and then brought them together , and made up the pageant of a council , for giving it more authority . so above an hundred years after gregory the vii . had first taught this doctrine , a thing under the name of a general council sate in the lateran at rome , where , upon the advantage the popes had against the albigenses and others , who were according to their opinion most pestiferous hereticks ; they first procured a decree for it . it is true , many provincial councils had concurred with gregory the vii . ( one of these is called a general one , 110 bishops being present ) and the other popes who had formerly given out these thunders : but now the matter was to be more solemnly transacted . in this council many hereticks are condemned and excommunicated ; and all that had sworn oaths of fidelity or homage to them , are absolved from those oaths : and they are required in order to the obtaining the remission of their sins , to fight against them : and those who die doing penance in that manner , may without doubt expect indulgence for their sins , with eternal rewards . and in conclusion , by the authority of st. peter and st. paul they remit to all who shall rise and fight against them , two years penance . here the council does industriously infuse this doctrine into all people ; and calls rebellion penance ( a very easy one to a poor or discontented subject ) and assures them of a deliverance from purgatory , and that they should be admitted straight to heaven for it . in an age in which these things were believed , more effectual means than those could not be found out , to engage the people in it . by this decree , if we are guilty of the heresies then condemned , ( as no doubt we are of most of them ) without more ado , or any further sentence , upon the declaring us guilty of the heresies of the albigenses , the subjects are delivered from their obligations to the king. and when they conspire or rebel against him , they are only doing penance for their sins ; and he were hard-hearted that would punish men only for doing of penance . about thirty years after that council , the pope had a mind to regulate the former law , that the deposing of kings might be declared a part of his prerogative ; and that thereby he might with authority dispose of their kingdoms to others . for hitherto the popes had only pretended to the power of deposing , and then the states of the kingdom as in an interregne , were to choose a new prince . but p. innocent the iii. thought it was half work , except he could bestow , as well as take away crowns . his predecessor celestine had in a most extravagant humour set the crown on henry the sixth his head , with his two feet , and then kickt it off again ; to shew , according to barronius his comment , that it was in his power to give , to maintain , and take away the empire . a very full assembly therefore being called of about 1200 of one sort or other to the lateran again , it was first decreed , that the aid of secular princes should be required for the extirpating of hereticks ; after that they proceed and enact thus . when the temporal lord required or admonished by the church , shall neglect to purge his territory from heretical wickedness , let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and his suffragans . and if he persist in neglecting to give satisfaction for the space of a year , let him be signified to the pope : that he from thenceforth may pronounce his subjects discharged from their obedience ; and expose his territory to be seized on by catholicks , who having exterminated the hereticks , shall possess it withont contradiction , and preserve it in the purity of the faieh ; so as no injury be done to the right of the supreme lord , where there is such , provided he do not any way oppose himself : and the same law is to take place on them , who have no superiour lord. the deposition of the court of tholouse , being the thing then in their eye , made that the decree runs chiefly against feudatary princes , yet as the last clause takes in soveraign princes , so by the clause before , it was provided , that if the soveraign did any way oppose what was done against his vassal , he was to forfeit his right . i did in the former part of this letter , meet with all the exceptions that are commonly made to this canon . only one pretty answer which a person of honour makes , is yet to be considered . he tells us , that there were so many soveraign princes , or ambassadors from them , at this council , that we are to look on this decree , as a thing to which those princes consented . from whence he infers , it was rather their act , than an invasion of their rights made by that council but be it so , he knows they allow no prescription against the church . if then those princes consented to it , upon which the power of deposing had that accession to fortifie it by , it can never be recalled nor prescribed against . it is true there were many ambassadors from princes there : but they were all such as either held their dominions by the popes grant , or had been either deposed by him , or threatned with depositions , or were the children of those whom he had deposed . so no wonder they stood in such fear of the pope , that they durst not refuse to consent to every thing he had a mind to . for indeed this council did only give their placet to a paper of decrees penned by the pope . henry called the greek emperor , brother to baldwin , that had seized on constantinople , had no other title to it besides the popes gift . frederick the 2d . who had been the popes ward , was then the elect emperor of germany , made so at the popes instance , who had deposed the two immediately preceding emperours , philip and otho the 4th . the last being at that time alive ; so that he durst not contradict the pope , lest he should have set up otho against him . but no emperor , except henry the 4th , ever suffered more from the popes tyranny , than he did afterwards . one sad instance of it was , that the pope having pressed his march to the holy-land much , did at last excommunicate him for his delays : upon which , he to avoid further censures , carried an army thither : which was so succesful , that the pope who hoped he should have been destroyed in the expedition , ( as the first emperor of that name was ) now being vexed at his success , complained that he should have presumed to go thither , while he lay under excommunication , and was in rebellion against him ; and went about not only to dethrone him , but to get him to be betrayed by the knights hospitallers , and templers , into the sultans hands , who abominating that treachery , revealed it to him . john of brenne had the kingdom of jerusalem by that same popes gift , who took it from almeric king of cyprus , and gave it him ; but almeric had no cause to complain , since he held cyprus only by the same copy of the popes gift : so they both were at the popes mercy our john of england was his vassal , as he usually called him ; but his successour went higher , calling the king of england not only his vassal , but his slave ; and declared that at his beck he could procure him to be imprisoned , and disgraced . james king of arragon , who was also the popes ward , had no less reason to be afraid of the pope , who had deposed his father for assisting the count of tholouse . philip augustus king of france , had his kingdom twice put under an interdict , worse things being also threatned . the like threatnings had been made to andrew king of hungary , but upon his submission he was received into favour . and now is it any wonder , that those princes gave way to such a decree , when they knew not how to help themselves by opposing it , which would have raised a storm , that they could not hope to weather ? anothet thing is remarkable concerning this time , by which the belief of the deposing doctrine in that age will better appear . other princes whom popes had deposed , procured some civilians to write for them ; and got synods of bishops sometimes on their side against the pope . because it was evident the pope proceeded not upon the account of heresie , but of private spite and hatred . but in the case of the count of tholouse , who was a manifest favourer of that , which was esteemed heresie , ( the opinions of the albigenses that were his subjects ) not a writer in all that age durst undertake to defend his cause , nor could he procure one bishop to be of his side . so universally was it received , that in the case of heresie , a prince might be deposed by the pope . the 3d general council that confirmed this power , was the council of lions , held by innocent the 4th against the forementioned frederick the 2d , where ( as the sentence bears ) the pope having consulted with his brethren and the holy council , being christs vicar on earth , to whom it was said in the person of st. peter , whatsoever ye bind on earth , &c. declares the emperor bound in his sins , and thereup●n deprived by god of his dominions . whereupon he by his sentence does depose him , and absolves all from their oaths of fidellty to him . straitly charging all persons , to acknowledge him no more either emperor or king. declaring all that did otherwise , excommunicated ipso facto . there are in this process several things very remarkable . it is grounded on a pretence to a divine tradition ; so here the whole council concur with the pope , in asserting this power to flow from that conveyance . and thus either that tradition is true , or the councils are not to be believed when they declare a tradition 2ly . tho this is but a decree in one particular instance , yet it is founded on the general rule ; and so is a confirmation of it , by which it is put out of doubt that the 4th council of later an included soveraign prin●es within their decree . 3ly , when the emperors advocate appeared to plead for him ; he did not at all except to their jurisdiction over him , or power of deposing in the case of heresie , but denyed that the emperor was guilty of the crimes objected , namely heresie , whereby he , at least , waved the denial of their power in that case . he also desired some time might be granted for the emperor to appear and plead for himself in person . whereby he plainly acknowledged their jurisdiction . 4ly when the ambassadors of france and england , interceded that the emperors desire might be granted ; the council gave him near two weeks time to appear in : which was so incompetent a time , and all had declared themselves so prepossest , or rather so overawed by the pope that hated him mortally ; that the emperor would not appear because they were his professed adversaries . and upon that , and other grounds ( none of them touching on the power of deposing in cases of heresie ) he appealed from them , to the next general council ; upon which the pope and prelates sitting in council , with candles burning in their hands , thundred out the sentence against him . here were three very publick judgments , of three general councils on this head , within the compass of sixty years . but it may be imagined , these were councils that wholly depended on the pope ; and so their decrees are to be looked on , only as a ceremony used by the pope to make his own sentence look more solemn . but when upon the long schism in the see of rome , the power of that see was much shaken , and a council met at constance to heal that breach ; in which the bishops taking advantage from that conjuncture , to recover their former dignity , began to regulate many matters . it may be , upon such an occasion , expected , that if any party in the church had disliked these practices , they should have been now condemned ; and that the rather , since by so doing , the bishops might have hoped to get the princes to be of their side , in their contests with the pope . but it fell out quite otherwise . for as the murtherers of his late sacred majesty pretended , when the king was killed , that all his power was devolved on them , and would have even the same precedence allowed their ambassadors in forreign parts , that his had : so the council of constance reckoned , that whatever rights the popes had assumed , did now rest with them , as the supreme power of the church . for in one of their sessions , a decree was framed , made up of all the severe decrees that had ever been made against those who violated the rights of the church : and this clause often returns , that all the breakers of these priviledges , whether they were emperors , kings , or whatsoever other degree , were thereby , ipso facto , subjected to the banns , punishments , and censures set down in the council of lateran . and tho they do not call it the fourth council , yet we are sure it could be no other ; for they relate to that in which frederick the 2d . was consenting to , which was the fourth in the lateran and in another decree , by which they hoped to have set up a succession of general councils , at every ten years end ; this clause is added , that if any person , whether of the papal ( for they had subjected the pope to the council , and had more reason to fear his opposing this decree , than any bodies else ) imperial or regal dignity , &c. should presume to hinder any to come to the next general council , he is declared to be first excommunicated , then under an interdict , and then to be subject to further punishment both temporal and spiritual . and in the pass they gave the king of the romans , to go to the king of arragon , they add this sanction , that whatever person , whether king , cardinal , &c. do hinder him in his journey , he is ipso facto , deprived of all honour , dignity , office , or benefice , whether ecclesiastical or secular . so here the indirect power over princes , by which they may be both deposed and punished , is plainly assumed . it is true that same council did indeed decree , that no subject should murther his king or prince ; upon which some of our english and irish writers , who condemn these practices , think they have great advantages . that d●cree was procured by gersons means , who observing that by the many rebellions that had been generally set on by popes , the persons of princes were brought under such contempt , that private assassinations came to be practised : and in particular that of the duke of orleance by the duke of burgundy : therefore to prevent the fatal consequences which were like to follow on that , and to hinder such practices for the future , he with great earnestness followed that matter : and tho it had almost cost him his life ( it is like from some of the duke of orleance his faction , who were resolved on a revenge ) yet at last he procured it : but this was only a condemnation of private cut-throats . and the article condemned had a pretty reservation in it , for it strikes only against subjects killing their prince , without waiting for the sentence of any judg whatsoever . so if a sentence be past by the spiritual judg , then this condemnation notwithstanding , a prince may be murthered . and the other decree of that council passed in the same session , shew they had no mind to part with the deposing power . besides the answer to this decree is clear . it is acknowledged : by the defenders of the contrary opinion , that it is not lawful in any case to kill a king ; but when one that was a king is no more such , but becomes a rebel and an usurper , then it is lawful to kill him . pursuant , to the decree made at constance , a council met at siena ten years after , in which all the former decrees made against hereticks are confirmed , and the favourers or fautors of heresie are delared liable to all the pains and censures of hereticks , and by consequence to the chief of them all , deposition . after that came the council of basil , which ratified the forementioned decree made at constance about general councils . by which popes , emperors , kings , &c. that presumed to hinder any from coming to the council , are subjected to excommunication , interdicts and other punishment spiritual and temporal . last of all came the council of trent , and tho matters were at that pass , that the council durst not tread on princes , as others had formerly done , lest they should have been thereby provoked to join with the protestants ; yet they would not quite lay aside the pretence of a deposing power , but resolved to couch it so into some decree , that it might continue their claim to a right , which they would not part with , tho they knew not at that time what to make of it . so in the decree against duels , they declare , that if any emperors , kings , &c. did assign a field for a combat , that they did thereby lose their right to that place , and the city , castle , or other places about it . now it is certain , if by their decrees a prince may forfeit any part of his dominion , he may be also dispossessed of all the rest ; since his title to his whole territory being one individual thing , what shakes it in any part , subjects it entirely to him who has such authority over it . here we have found 7 general councils , as they are esteemed by that church , all either expresly asserting the deposing power , or ratifying former decrees that had asserted it . and from such a succession of councils , it is reasonable to conclude , that this third character of a tradition of the church agrees to it ; and if general councils are fit conveyors of traditions , we have as full evidence as can be desired , for proving this to be a church-tradition . this last character of a tradition is what the whole body of the church has held in any one age. upon which , they say , we may calculate that such opinions must have come down from the apostles , since it seems neither credible nor possible , that the belief of the church could be changed . with this arnold has of late made great noise . and as the new fashions that come from france do please our young gallants best , so some of the writers of controversies among us have taken up the same plea here . that the whole church received the deposing doctrine in cases of heresy , may be inferred from what had been said . the church is made up of popes , bishops , & priests : of soveraign princes , and subjects of all ranks . that the popes believed it , none can doubt . so many definitions of councils , shews us as plainly what the bishops and other prelates believed : the writing of the school-men and canonists shew , what the rest of the clergy believed . those princes who suffered under the sentences , give at least a tacit consent to it , since they never question it , but study only to clear themselves of the imputation of heresie . the other princes who made use of the donations of the popes , shew as plainly that they believ'd it . the great armies that were brought about their standards , must have also believed it : and the people who generally deserted the deposed prince , notwithstanding the great vertues of some of them , and the love that subjects naturally carry to their princes , shew that they believed it . so that if st. james his question , shew me thy faith by thy works , be applied to this particular , the answer will be easie . what shall i mention the frequent depositions of charles the 1st , of henry the 4th , of his son henry the 5th , of frederick the 1st , philip , otho the 4th , frederick the 2d , and lewis the 4th in the empire . the frequent depositions in sicily and naples ; the many attempts upon france ; that terrible bull in particular of julius the 2d , against that good king lewis the twelfth . by which , besides the sentence against the king , it appears he designed the total destruction of the nation , promising the pardon of sin to every one that killed one french man ; the frequent attempts upon england , both in hen. the 2d , and k. john's time ; not to mention their later bulls of deposition against k. henry the 8th , and q. elizabeth ; the many attempts in spain ; particularly ; the deposing the king of navarre by p. julius ; and the sentences against henry the 4th , then king of navarre , and the prince of conde . all these , and a great many more , with the strange effects that followed upon them , are so clear proofs of the worlds believing this doctrine , for many ages together , that if men had any remainders of shame left with them , they could not deny it . and to this day all their writers maintain it , tho perhaps now the greatest part of the laity know little of it ; but whenever the tradition of the church is laid before them , they are obliged to submit , or they fall from the catholick faith , the chief branch of which is , to believe all the traditions of the church . and since the church is the same in all ages , according to their doctrine , the traditions of any one age must be as good as the traditions of any other can be , all being grounded on the same authority . and now let all the reasons that arnold brings to prove , from the churches believing transubstantiation in any age , that she must have always believed it , be considered , and applied with a small variation of the terms to this purpose ; and we shall see if they conclude not as strongly in favour of this doctrine , as for that which he has pursued so much . how can it be imagined , says he , that a doctrine so contrary to common sence and reason , could have been so universally received , if every man had not been taught it by those who instructed him in the faith ? will men easily change their faith ? or , tho particular persons would prevaricate , would the whole clergy conspire to do it ? or would the people take it easily off their hands . these and many more topicks of that sort may be so mustered up , and set off by a man of wit and eloquence , that an ordinary person would stare , and not know what to say . the premises will shew , that there is need but of very little art to change the same plea , and fit it to this purpose , with two great advantages beyond what can be fanci'd to be in the other . the one is , that the generality of mankind is naturally more concerned in the preservation of temporal things , than about nice points of speculation ; the one they see and handle every day , and are much concerned about ; the other they hear little of , and are not much touched with them . so that it is less probable there could be a change made in opinions , on which the titles of princes , and the peace of kingdoms depended , than about subtil discourses concerning mysteries . so that the plea is stronger for the tradition of deposing kings , than for transubstantiation . a second difference is , that there was a continual opposition made to the belief of transubstantiation in all ages , which they themselves do not deny , only they shift it off the best they can , by calling the opposers hereticks ; but for the deposing doctrine , there was not one person in the whole world , that presumed to bring it in question , from the first time it was pretended to , till those whom they call hereticks disputed against it ; and tho some few others , who hold communion with them , have ventured on a canvasing of that doctrine , it is well enough known what thanks they got from rome ; nor can they shew any one book , licensed according to the rules of their church , that denies it . and thus the plea for this doctrine has a double advantage beyond that for transubstantiation . upon the whole matter then , if tradition be a sure conveyance , and if we may pronounce what is truly a tradition , either from the opinions of doctors , the constitutions of popes , the decrees of general councils , and the universal consent of the whole church for some ages ; then the doctrine of deposing kings , to which all these agree , must be reckoned among church-traditions . there is but one other mark that can be devised of a tradition , which is , what the church has taught and believed in all ages ; but for a certain reason , which they know very well , they will not stand to that . they know we do not refuse such traditions , and if only such may be received , then the worship of images , the prayers to saints , the worship in an unknown tongue , the belief of transubstantiation , the sacrifice of the mass , the denying the chalice to the laity , the redeeming souls out of purgatory , with many other things of the like nature , will be soon taken off of the file . and indeed in this sence , the deposing doctrine is so far from being a tradition , that we have as undeniable evidences , that the church for the first six ages knew nothing of it , but on the contrary abhorred the thoughts of it , as we have , that their church these last six ages has set it up : from which , among many other reasons , we conclude , that these latter ages have not been acted with the same spirit , nor followed the same doctrine , that was the rule of the former ages . there is more than enough said to shew , that these doctrines are a part of their faith ; from which they can never extricate themselves , but by confessing , either that their church has erred , or that tradition is no true conveyance ; when they do either of these , they turn their backs of rome , and are in a fair away to come over to our church , with which purpose i pray god inspire them . the mean while , it is no wonder , if those of that communion , have been guilty of such horrid plots and rebellions every where , especially in england , since henry the 8th's time . there was in his reign , first a rebellion in lincolnshire , another greater one in the north , and some lesser ones after that . in edward the 6th's time , there were risings , both in the north , and in the west . but these succeeded so ill , and turned only to the ruine of their own party , that they resolved to try secreter ways in queen elizabeth's time ; in whose long and blessed reign , there scarce passed one year in which there was not some plot against her life . there was not matter enough to work upon , for raising any considerable rebellion in england : but in ireland , there were more frequent attempts that way . it is true , the care and providence of god was too hard for all their plots , how closely soever laid ; and they were turned back on themselves , not so much to the ruine of the chief plotters ( who were wise enough to conveigh themselves out of the way ) as of many noble families , that were poysoned with their ill principles . all the blood which the state was forced to shed , lies at their door , who were continually giving fresh provocations . and for king james ( not to mention the conspiracies against him in scotland , nor that plot of cobham and watson , upon his first coming to this crown ) the gun-powder treason was a thing that went beyond all the wicked designs that had been ever in any age contrived . and when his late majesty was embroiled in his affairs in this island , how did they take advantage from that conjuncture , to break out into a most horrid rebellion in ireland , joyned with a massacre of persons of whatsoever age , or sex , or condition ? which was so far set on by rome , that a nuncio came publickly to direct their councils . i will not dwell on particulars that are sufficiently known , but only name these things , to shew , that no reign of any of our princes , since the reformation , has been free from the dismal effects of these doctrines . and for his sacred majesty who now reigns , ( whom god long preserve from their malice ) they have felt such signal marks of his royal clemency , that they can have no colour to complain , except it be , because they cannot bear any office in the nation . for what noise soever they make , of the severe laws yet in force , both against the clergy and laity of their religion , they cannot pretend that since his majesties happy restauration , any priest has died , or any family has been ruined for their religion . but i confess , it is enough , according to the doctrine of their church , to discharge them of their allegiance , that the king is a favourer of heresy ; and if upon this reason they will still plot and conspire against his person and government , we have no reason to wonder at it , for they act according to their principles . nor have these islands been the only scenes , in which those principles have produced such dismal effects . if we look abroad and reflect on what was done in france , we shall find , they have had the same operation there . i need not mention that perfidious and cruel massacre , that as thuanus tells us was so much extolled in rome and spain : and of which the pope has a memorial kept in the hangings , at the entrance of his chappel , to this day . the barricadoes of paris , the design of deposing henry the 3d , only because he had made peace with the king of navarre , and the prince of conde ; the whole progress of the holy league ; their taking arms against that king , when the duke and cardinal of guise were killed by his orders , and at last his being stabbed by clement , a dominican friar , are instances beyond exception . the prosecution of the rebellion against henry the 4th , the attempt made upon his person by john chastel , which was more successful in ravilliack's hands , shew sufficiently , that a princes turning from that , which they call heresie , over to their church , does not secure him , unless he will extirpate hereticks . for tho henry the 4th changed his religion , yet the favour he shewed the protestants , in the edict of nantes , was a thing never to be forgiven . these things were set on and encouraged from rome , and pleaded for by their writers . that the holy league was authorized from rome , that sixtus the 5th , by his bulls , declared the king of navar incapable of the succession , that he intended to have deposed henry the 3d , and that he rejoyced at his death , and magnified the fact ; preferring it to eleazar's killing the elephant , and judeth's killing hollofernes , and ascribed it to a singular providence and disposition of the almighty ; called it a great miracle , and appeared vain that a friar had done it , having been one himself , ( tho no doubt he had liked it better , if clement had been of his own sute ) and would have had himself thought a prophet for foretelling it , ( and so he might well do perhaps ) : and in the end concluded , that unfortunate kings favouring hereticks , to be the unpardonable sin against the holy ghost : these were all so publickly done , that it were a needless labour , to go about the proving them . franois veronne wrote a book , to justify both the facts of clement the dominican , and chastel , ( as well he might from the principles of their church ) . after all these dismal facts , was it not time for the states of france , to think of some effectual remedy , to prevent the like for the future ? and they judged aright , that without condemning the deposing power , it could not be done : to which , as was already hinted , the clergy made such vigorous opposition , that it came to nothing . if these things had flowed only from the heat of some violent spirits , the danger were not so great ; but it is the doctrine of their church , so lessius ( under the name of singletonus ) says , that if the power of deposing lies not in the pope , the church must of necessity err , which has taught it ; and to assert that , is heretical , and a more intollerable error , than any about the sacrament can be . and becanus , confessor to ferdinand the 2d , says , no man doubts , but if princes are contumacious , the pope may order their lives to be taken away . what security then can there be found out from persons , who give up their consciences to the conduct of men of such principles ; and profess an implicite obedience and belief of all that their church teaches and commands , which possesses all its votaries with such cursed rage against hereticks , that not content to adjudg them to eternal flames in another life , they must needs persecute and burn without mercy where they have the power in their hands ; and plot and conspire , kill and massacre without relenting , where they have not power to do it with any colour of law ? men of honour will not be easily drawn in to such practices . but in conclusion , when a fit opportunity appears , they must either forsake their church , or concur in the most mischievous designs , that the masters of their consciences will draw them into ; which i pray god make them see in good time , before they are involved in such snares , that repentance will come too late to do them good , or to preserve the nation from those miseries that they will bring upon it . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a30379-e190 a in regiam majest . br. l. 6. c. 4. sect . 20 , à quocunque privato poteris interfici . in thom. tom. 3. disp. 151. q 12. p. 2. b romish tre●sons , l. 2. cap. 4. the life of gerson before his works , and tom. 1. p. 375. recog . in lib. 5. de rom. pont. e philopater p. 106 , 107. f greg. m. l. 2 post . ep. 38. lib 11. ep. 10 , 11 ▪ 12. siquis regum , &c. contravenire tentaverit potestatis honorisque sui dignitate careat . — in alio honore suo privetur . g baron . ad an. 730. n. 5. h bellar. de trans imperii romani . i dictatus l. 2. post ep. 55. k lib 2. ep 5. ad ep. france . l liv. 8. ep. 21. m extra . de major . & obed cap. 1. n bellar. de pont. rom. lib. 5. c. 151. a cuspiman in vita albert. p cap. de major . ut obed . exter . b in vandal l. 8. c. 2. r chron. hirsaug . in vita abb. hartiingi . s bar. ad ann. 593. num. 86. t bar. ad an. 730. num. 5. u in his diverses oevres and recueil general des affaires dis ▪ clerge de france . conc. late . 3. chap. 27. anno 1287. tom 28. conc. later . 4. can. 3. tom. 28. the same council that established transubstantiation . math. paris . ad an. 1253. conc. lugd. tom. 28. conc. const. tom. 29. sess. 19. sess. 15. sess. 17. sess. 15. con , sien . tom. 29. con. basil. tom. 29. conc. trid. sess. 25 c. 19. bud. de asse lib. 5. diseuss . decree . con. lateran . p. 46. bec. controv. angl. p. 115. the proceedings at the assizes holden at york, the 24th day of july, 1680, before ... sir william dolben ... and sir edward atkyns ... then judges of assize for the northern circuit, against several prisoners then indicted for the horrid popish plot against the life of the king and for subversion of the government and protestant religion : with an accompt at large of the arraignment of sir miles stapleton ... , and of the tryal, condemnation and execution of thomas thwing for the same plot. thwing, thomas, d. 1680. 1681 approx. 87 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 19 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a55936 wing p3557 estc r24478 08203197 ocm 08203197 41078 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a55936) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 41078) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1237:17) the proceedings at the assizes holden at york, the 24th day of july, 1680, before ... sir william dolben ... and sir edward atkyns ... then judges of assize for the northern circuit, against several prisoners then indicted for the horrid popish plot against the life of the king and for subversion of the government and protestant religion : with an accompt at large of the arraignment of sir miles stapleton ... , and of the tryal, condemnation and execution of thomas thwing for the same plot. thwing, thomas, d. 1680. england and wales. assizes (york) [2], 32 p. printed for thomas simmons, london : 1681. "published by vertue of an order of the right honourable the lords spiritual and temporal in parliament assembled, made on the 9th day of november, 1680." errata: p. [2] (1st grouping) reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose 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that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-02 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-05 john latta sampled and proofread 2006-05 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the proceedings at the assizes holden at york . the 24 th . day of july , 1680. before the right honourable sir william dolben kt. one of the justices of the court of kings bench and sir edward atkyns kt. one of the barons of the court of exchequer , then judges of assize for the northern circuit , against several prisoners then indicted for the horrid popish plot against the life of the king , and for subversion of the government and protestant religion . with an accompt at large of the arraignment of sir miles stapleton baronet , and of the tryal , condemnation and execution of mr. thomas thwing for the same plot. published by vertue of an order of the right honourable the lords spiritual and temporal in parliament assembled , made upon the 9th . day of november , 1680. london printed for thomas simmons , at the princes-arms in ludgate-street , mdclxxxi to the reader . the following narrative comprising at large only the evidence given against mr. thomas thwing , and mrs. mary pressicks , ( who was tryed by the same jury with him ) it may be expected that some reason should be given why the tryals of the lady anne tempest , ( daughter of sir thomas gascoyne , ) and of mr. charles inglesby , who were tryed by other juryes and acquitted , are not also published ; and therefore to answer that expectation we shall say . 1. that the evidence , though differing , and that materially in some circumstances , was in great part , especially in what related to the prisoners defence the same that was given in mr. thwings tryal ; and therefore that this narrative might not be swelled to too great a bulk , the evidence is not repeated so often here as it was upon the several tryals . 2. that english protestants inclining rather to mercy than to justice , and so not being forward curiously to examine or to censure a tenderness of proceeding in case of blood , it may be as acceptable ( as necessary for the vindication of the justice of the nation ) to give a particular accompt of the tryal of mr. thwing , who was executed . and because the papists do endeavour to disparage the evidence of this most hellish plot by boasting that the witnesses are such as have revolted from their church , we shall take this occasion of relating the evidence given of the plot in general , upon the tryal of the lady tempest by one captain baines , who then owned himself to be a roman catholick , and declared that he intended to live and die so , but that he came in as a witness out of an abhorrence of the plot. this gentleman testified that the lady tempest discoursing with him at sir thomas gascoyne's house , in 1677 , about his purpose of going to the indies , disswaded him from it , by telling him that he might have a commission , and work enough in england shortly ; that the papists had resolved the destruction of the king , and that they declared him an heretick , and that the pope had excommunicated him , and therefore he was to be cut off . errata . pag. 3. line 11 last word read to for of . pag. 5. line 17 for priest read papist . pag. 12 line 25 read had a warrant . pag. 20 line 11 for servant read senior . whereever you meet with the word barnboro read barnbow . the tryals of thomas thwing and mary pressicks , for high treason , at the assizes begun at york the 24th . of july , 1680. thomas thwing late of heworth in the county of york clerk , and mary pressicks wife of thomas pressicks late of the parish of barwick in elmet , gent. stand indicted , for that they as false traitorsagainst the most illustrious , and most excellent prince , king charles the second , that now is , their natural lord ; god before their eyes not having , nor their due allegiance weighing , but by the instigation of the devil being seduced and moved , the cordial love , and true and natural obedience , which true and faithful subjects of our said soveraign lord the king towards his said majesty ought to bear , altogether withdrawing and imagining , and with all their strengths intending the peace and common tranquility of his kingdom of england to disturb ▪ and his said majesty that now is , to death and final destruction to bring and put , and the true worship of god in this kingdom of england , establisht and used , to alter to the superstition of the church of rome , and war against his said majesty in this kingdom of england to move and raise , & the government of this kingdom of england to subvert , the 30 th . day of may in the 31 th . year of his majesties reign , that now is , at the parish of barwick in elmet aforesaid , in the county aforesaid , with divers other false traitors to the jurors unknown , did traiteterously compass , imagine , and intend , and every of them did compass , imagine , & intend the death and final destruction of his said majesty , and the ancient government of this realm of england to change alter and utterly subvert , and his said majesty of the crown and rule of this kingdom to depose and wholly to deprive , and the true protestant religion to extirpate , and to effect and acomplish their said wicked treasons and traiterous imaginations and purposes aforesaid , the said thomas thwing , and mary pressicks , and other false traitors to the jurors unknown , the said 30 th . day of may in the 31 th . year abovesaid , with force and arms at the parish of barwick in elmet aforesaid , advisedly , devillishly , maliciously , and traiterously did assemble and gather themselves together , and then and there did devillishly , advisedly , maliciously , subtlely , and traiterously consult and agree , and every of them did then and there traiterously consult and agree to bring to death and final destruction our said sovereign lord the king , and to depose and deprive him of his crown and rule aforesaid , and the religion of the church of rome into this kingdom to introduce and establish , and the sooner to fullfil and effect the said wicked treasons , and traiterous imaginations and purposes aforesaid , the said thomas thwing and mary pressicks , and other false traitors to the jurors unknown , did then and there pay and expend , and every of them did then and there pay & expend divers sums of mony of divers other traitors to the jurors unknown , to carry on the treasons aforesaid , and then and there the said thomas thwing and mary pressicks did subscribe , and either of them did subscribe a certain note in writing for the payment of divers sums of mony , for making a contribution for compleating their traiterous purposes aforesaid , against the duty of their allegiance , and against the kings peace , his crown and dignity , and also against the statute in that case made and provided . to this indictment having pleaded not guilty , and put themselves upon their countrey for trial. upon the 29 th . of july , sir thomas daniel high sheriff of the county having returned many gentlemen for jurors . the tryal proceeded thus ; after the jury called , thomas thwing and mary pressicks , being brought to the bar. clerk of assize . thomas thwing , hold up thy hand , mary pressicks , hold up thy hand , ( which being done . ) clerk of assize . this understand ye , that these gentlemen that are now to be sworn are returned by the sheriff of this county , to pass between our soveraign lord the king and you for your lives , therefore if you will challenge any of them , you are to challenge them as they come to be sworn , and before they be sworn . clerk of assize . sir david fowles baronet . thwing . i challenge him , and so as they were called challenged these 25 gentlemen following ( viz. ) john eastoft , esq hugh savil , gent. william bethel , esq nivian collins , gent. townes drisfeild , esq thomas green , gent. william osbaldeston , esq nathaniel elliotson , gent. marmaduke trueman , gent. nathaniel harrison , gent. robert bell , gent. john tomlinson , gent. thomas fletcher , gent. thomas riccaby , gent. thomas wood , gent. john vllithorne , gent. thomas faireside , gent. thomas hincks , gent. roger fretwel , gent. william mastin , gent. simon warrener , gent. george ellis , gent. edward carvil , gent. thomas whaley , gent. john coates , gent.   in the calling of the jury after several challenges made and some of the jury sworn , thwing spoke thus , my lord , i shall willingly stand to other the jury . mr. just . dol. what jury ? thwing . my lady tempests jury . mr. just . dol. oh your servant , you either are very foolish , or take me to be so . the jury being sworn . clerk of assize . cryer count these . sir george cook , bar. henry pinckney , gent. thomas worsley , esq john blackston , gent. william caley , esq william hardcastle . gent. roger lee , gent. nicholas stone , gent. john dixon , gent. george westerby , gent. george wray , gent. charles tucker , gent. cryer . twelve good men and true , stand together and hear your evidence . clerk of assize . thomas thwing , hold up thy hand , ( which he did ) mary pressicks , hold up thy hand , ( which she did ) gentlemen , you of the jury that are sworn , look upon the prisoners and hearken to their charge ; you shall understand that they stand indicted by the names of thomas thwing , &c. and mary pressicks , &c. pro ut in the indictment ; upon this indictment they have been arrained and thereunto pleaded , not guilty , and for their tryal have put themselves upon their country , which country you are , &c. then proclamation was made for evidence , and the indictment being opened and the treasons therein aggravated by the kings council . mr. baron atkyns came into the court to assist in the tryal . the witnesses were called , robert bolron was first sworn . rob. bolr. my lord , in the year , 1674. i came to live with sir thomas gascoyne and was steward of his cole-pits , and in 1675. i turned priest , and about january , 1676. mr. thwing , father rushton , and several others came to my house at shippon , and did there examine me how i stood affected to the roman catholick religion , and whether i was resolved to venture my life and estate in it , if there were any occasion , to which i agreed , and was resolved to obey my ghostly father in all things . just . dol. taking notice of a gentleman near the prisoners , demanded , what is that gentleman ? we are all beset , he was one of the jury yesterday . he being removed , bolron proceeded : father rushton my confessor gave me the oath of secrecy , and in the year 1677 , sir thomas gascoyne , sir miles stapleton , mr. thwing , the prisoner , and several other persons met at barnboro-hall , sir thomas gascoynes house , and there they agreed that in hopes the plot of killing the king would take effect , they would erect a nunnery , at dolebank , but the real intention was to have it at heworth ( within a mile of york ) after the king was killed , and to avoid suspition my lady tempest told them , she would let them have broughton for the present . it was there agreed that the king should be killed , and mr. thwing said , that if they missed this opportunity , they should ne ver have the like again , and the effecting of it would be very beneficial to the church of rome . mr. baron atkyns . repeat it in the same words . bolr. he said , if we miss this opportunity of killing the king , we shall never have the like again , and mr. thwing was to be the confessor of the nunnery for the present . mr. bar. atkyns . where were these these words spoken ? bolr. in the old dineing room . mr. just . dol. who were present ? bolr. sir miles stapleton , sir thomas gascoyne , my lady tempest , mr. thwing , mr. rushton and some others . mr. just . dol. was it agreed that the king should be killed ? bolr. it was my lord. mr. baron atkyns . consider seriously , you speak in the presence of god , and of a great assembly , and that a persons life is at stake , tell it again ; what were the words ? mr. bolr. it was agreed that the king should be killed , and that it was for the good of the catholick religion , and i paid , 10 l. to mr. rushton in mr. thwings presence towards killing the king , and saw a list in mr. rushtons and mr. thwings hands , of the names of several that engaged for promoting the roman catholick religion , which was to be by killing the king. mr. baron atkyns . was it a list of those that were to kill the king ? bolr. the list i saw was of money raised to kill the king. mr. baron atkyns . what was the title of that list ? bolr. a list of the names of the actors and contributers engaged in the design of promoting the roman catholick religion , and also of establishing a nunnery , which was raising money for the killing of the king , and besides the 10 l. i paid towards it , i paid 5 l. to have my soul prayed for . thwing told me afterwards at my house , that in york shire , lancashire and derbyshire , 30000 , l. was raised for the killing of the king , and that the list was sent beyond-sea . mr. just . dol. what can you say against the woman ? mr. bolr. mrs. pressicks told me , that in 1678 presently after the plot was discovered , she being in london did hear a woman cry after her stop the papist , stop the plotter , but she got away , and afterwards durst not appear publickly in london : i had discourse with her at my house about the plot , and she told me , that father harcourt was her confessor , and first engaged her in it , and that pickering told her , that he was to have killed the king , and she said , she was sorry he did not do it , and that oates and bedloe , were two rogues , and the plot had not been discovered but for them , who were the cause of so much mischeif . and she further told me , that the gun wherewith he was to have killed the king , was found with pickering , and she did believe that was the cause of his loosing his life ; and she said , the king was an asse and not fit to govern , that what mony the parliament gave him he spent on whores and concubines . mr. just . dol. well , is this all you have against her ? bolr. yes , my lord. mr. just . dol. he hath done , you may crosse-examine him if you will. thwing . who was at your house when i was there ? bolr. father rushton . thwing . how often was i there ? bolr. several times , i know not how often . thwing . when was it you accused me first of the plot ? bolr. when i went to the council ; i accused him . thwing . he did not accuse me of the plot in several months . sir tho. stringer . come mr. mowbray tell your knowledg . mowbray was sworn . mr. mowb. my lord , what i have to say is only against m● thwing . at an assembly of divers preists at barnboro-hall , amonst the rest , there were father rushton and mr. thwing , and there they determined to kill the king. mr. bar. atkyns . when was this ? mr. mowb. this was near michalmass , 1676 , and they declared it was not only lawful but meritorious to do it ; they also declared that london and york were to be fired , and that force was to be made use of against the king , and all other hereticks , that should oppose the advancement of their religion ; and mr. thwing and rushton declared the king was an heretick , and excommunicated by the pope , and had not kept his promise with the jesuites to bring in their religion , and therefore deserved to be killed , and it was not only lawful but meritorious so to do . mr. belwood of council for the king. was there not a list ? mr. mowb. yes , a list of those engaged in the design of killing the king , and of promoting the catholick religion ; and it was declared the king should be killed , because he had not kept his promise made to the jesuites , when he was beyond sea. mr. just . dol. did the prisoner declare it ? mr. mowb. mr. thwing declared it , and rushton and he managed it . thwing . who was there ? mowb. it was at father rushtons chamber , that i saw you , and there was another thwing there , and also addison a preist . thwing . i went once or twice a year to sir thomas gascoynes and thought it my duty to wait on him , and that i might without offence do it , he being my unkle . mr. just . dol. no , the offence is plotting . sir tho. stringer . mr. thwing , do you know rushton ? thwing . yes , but i had no great acquaintance with him . sir tho. stringer . mr. mowbray , how came you to be entrusted in so great a business ? mr. mowb. i assisted father rushton at the alter at mass , and so came into great favour with him , and was permitted to be in his chamber when the preists were in private with him . sir tho. stringer . mr. mowbrary , did you take an oath of secrecy ? mowb. yes , i took it from father rushton . thwing . how long since did you change your religion ? mowb. presently after the plot broke out . thwing . who where you examined before first of all ? mowb. before mr. lowther and mr. tindal . mr. just . dol. did you at the first accuse him ? mowb. i only charged sir tho. gascoyne , esq gascoyne , my lady tempest , sir miles stapleton , and father rushton in my first , and in my second deposition i accused mr. thwing and that was before justice warcup . mr. bar. atk yns . did thwing abscond at the first ? mowb. he was apprehended at the same time sir tho. gascoyne was apprehended , and at his house . mr. just . dol. well what say you to mary pressicks ? mowb. my lord , i have nothing to say against her . mr. just . dol. mr. thwing , you have heard the evidence , what do you say for your self ? thwing . i shall produce witnesses i was never with him at barnboro ; first i shall shew he never mentioned me when he first mentioned the plot , and he never said any thing against me , when he accused sir tho. gascoyne before mr. lowther and mr. tindal . but mr. bonithen of counsel for the king offering other witnesses for the king against mrs. pressicks , they were called , viz. mrs. bolron senior , mrs. bolron junior and john hutchinson . mr. bolron senior sworn . mr. just . dol. what do you know of pressicks the prisoner at the bar ? mrs. bolr. sen. my lord , she said she knew of the plot , and that pickering was to have killed the king. mr. bonithen . do yon mean shoot the king ? mrs. bolr. yes , i do . mr. just . dol. where did she tell you this ? mrs. bolr. at shippon , my lord. mr. just . dol. at his house ( pointing to mr. bolron ? ) mrs. bolr. yes , and she said that she was very sorry , that pickering did not do it , and that he had done it if it had not been for oates and bedloe . mr. just . dol. was this the very same time , that mr. bolron speaks of ? mrs. bolr. sen. yes , my lord , and she said there would never be quiet in england , untill the roman catholicks had got the upper hand , and there was not a protestant left in england ; and she said , the king spent his money amongst his concubines , and his other women , so that he was not worthy to be king , and she hoped an army of catholicks would be raised to set up popery . mr. just , dolb. that is indeed the principle of the papists , and according to it , within forty years past they murdered 200000 innocent protestants in ireland : did she say it often ? mrs. bolr. yes , several times , more than once or twice . mrs. bolron junior was then sworn and examined . mrs. bolr. jun. i heard her say there was a conspiracy carrying on about altering the government , and establishing the roman catholick religion . mr. just . dolb. where heard you this ? mrs. bolr. jun. in my husbands house . mr. bar. atkyns . and what were her hopes in the conspiracy ? mr. bolr. my lord , i cannot tell . mrs. pressicks . i ask mr. bolron when we had this discourse ? mr. bolr. at several times , about candlemas , 1678 , and at easter and whitsontide , and several times after the plot was discovered , we discoursed it several times at the porch at my house . mr. just . dol. who was present ? mr. bol. my grandmother . mr. just . dol. where was it , old-woman , that you heard these words ? mrs. bol. sen. at shippon , in the hall porch , my lord. mrs. pressicks . had we any discourse of sir thomas ? mr. bolr. sen. none . john hutchinson was then sworn . mr. just . dol. do you know any thing concerning mrs. pressicks . hutch . may it please you , my lord , i came to mr. bolrons house , and mrs. pressicks askt me what news in our country , and what became of the papists ; i told her some had given bond , and some were gone to prison ; then she said , we shall never be at peace until we are all of the roman catholick religion ; for the king is an heretick and spends more money upon his whores , then upon his queen , and we shall never be at quiet until the duke of york is king. mr. just . dol. what say you to this ? you have seen him ? mary pressicks . i never saw him but twice there . mr. just . dol. where was she when she said this ? hutch . she first talkt with me in the kitchen , and at the hall door , as she was just going into the parlour , she told me , that we should never be at quiet until the duke of york was made king. mr. just . dol. mr. bolron , when came she to your house ? bolr. she came to our house about christmass , and stayed about six monthes there . mr. just . dol. six monthes in your house , then you are well enough acquainted with her ? bolr. yes , my lord. mr. just . dol. did you charge mr. thwing before the justice ? bolr. my lord , i gave justice tindal only a short note that sir tho. gascoyne promised me a 1000 l. to kill the king , but what i had to say against thwing , i gave to the king and council . thwing . my lord , this is malice to sir tho. gascoynes family to which i am related , it is out of revenge . mr. just . dol , it was a family quarrel them . thwing . yes , my lord , this i can prove by several witnesses . mr. just . dol. call your witnesses then . thwing . nathaniel wilson . mr. just . dol. mr. babington , why don't you appear , we know well enough that you are solicitor in the cause , call your witnesses . then nathaniel wilson was examined . mr. just . dol. come , what is it you have to say ? nath. wilson . i went to bolron to look on a cow that he had gifted for his cosin bargues and desired to have the cow away , but he would not let me have her , without paying for her gift , so i tendered him his money and we went to talk in the house , and bolron sent for a groats worth of ale , and askt me if i could tell any thing of father rushton , and i told him i could not , and he bid me keep his secrets , and he would give me more then i could * addle in seven years , and he said unless he could shed theblood of some of them , he should get nothing . mr. just . dol. when was this ? wilson . this was about next michaelmas a twelvemonth . mr. just . dol. this is quite other then you told yesterday . wilson . i had not time . thwing . i desire to know whether bolron named me to mr. lowther as a plotter . then mr. lowther was called . mr. lowther . i do not remember that mr. bolron named mr. thwing to me when he was before me . mr. just . dol. when did he come to make the discovery to you ; give an account of it . mr. lowther . i think it was the 24 th . or 25 th . of june 1679 that he came to me , and he told me he had some secrets to impart to me , and he began to tell me a story of the jesuites and priests , what they designed against the government , because the king did not keep his word with them , when he was beyond sea , and then i called for my man and a bible to take his examination , and said , pray friend , be very careful what you do , for here your own concern is at stake as well as the lives and fortunes of the gentlemen you speak against , and upon that he began to be very fearful and timerous , and lookt pale ; whereupon i askt him , what that fear was for , it is said he because i have concealed it so long , and if that were upon you , it may be you would be as fearful as i am ; then i was going to take his information , and he said , i have done it before mr. tindal ; why came you to me then , said i ? he said mr. tindal desired it ; well said i , mr. tindal and i are to meet to morrow and we will do it joyntly . mr. just . dol. did he say he told you all he knew ? mr. lowther . he did not name thwing , but said he should recollect more , and would go to london and give it in to the king and council ; and then i said why may not we take it here as well as trouble them at london ? mr. just . dol. it may be he thought it better to do it there . mrs. pres . he did not accuse me before mr. lowther . bolr. yes , my lord , i did and a warrant to take her . mr. lowther . she was taken the same day sir thomas gascoyne was taken . mr. just . dol. we will be just between you . then the prisoners called obediah moore . mr. just . dol. come tell your knowledg in this business . moor. i say that mr. bolron said that sir thomas gascoyne was not concerned in the plot , nor none of his family , and that he believed there was no plot. mr. just . dol. when was this ? moor. this was about candlemas was twelvemonths . mr. just . dol. he was then a papist , but did not he tell you otherwise afterward ? moor. in august after he told me he had but equivocated with me , in what he said before , and that there was a real plot , and if he had swore a thousand lies he could have been forgiven them . then stephen thompson was called and examined . stephen thompson . mr. bolron was servant to sir thomas gascoyne , and being in his debt , sir thomas did arrest him , and he agreed with sir thomas to give him 60 l. and got me to be bound with him , and when the plot came out , i thought bolron being his servant might know , whether sir thomas had any hand in it , and if so that we were in no danger of being sued , and i enquired of bolron , and he said , sir thomas was as sackless of it , as the child that was unborn ; and on holy thursday i went to him , and got him out on the backside to sir thomas's , and all along he told me , if he sued him , he would do him a greater mischief , and i pleaded earnestly with sir thomas not to sue the bond , and he said he would have his money , but would stay a fortnight , and i prevailed with him to give three weeks time , that bolron might go to sell his house at new-castle , and in that time he went to london and accused him of treason ; and as to mrs. pressicks , i askt his grandmother , what she could say against her , and she said , alas , alas , i can say nothing to it , but bolron said she must say so and so . mr. justice dolben . what mean you friend by so and so . thompson . it was about sir edmondbury godfrey , and that the king was an whoremaster , and such things . then zachary thorpe was called and examined . thorpe . i met with mr. bolron in long-acre before the last assizes , and askt him concerning sir thomas gascoyne my country-man , and he said he was cleared , but god damne the jury they were rogues , then he askt me if i had read harris's intelligence of that day , and i told him , yes , and he then ask't me , if i had seen his wive's name in it ; he then told me , that he was going down to the assizes at york , against my lady tempest , and said god damne me i will ruine them , if one thing will not do it , another shall . mr. justice dolben . what are you , god damn me comes very nimbly out of your mouth ? thorpe . i live at the white hart in charter-house-lane , with the gentleman of the house , i marryed his daughter . mr. justice dolben . and draw pots of ale , that 's your trade , how comes bolron to talk thus to you , is he so mad a fellow to talk thus to every one , this is not likely that he should thus accuse himself to you , your father in law is a poor ale-house-keeper . mr. baron atkins . are not you a papist ? thorpe . no , my lord , a protestant of the church of england . mr. justice dolben . have you never been in newgate , your lane is full of such people , and your house suspected . thorpe . no , my lord. mr. justice dolben . come have you done ? thorpe . bolron came to my lodgings at the plow on holborn-hill before the last assizes , and told me if i would swear that peter shipton knew no harm by bolron , he would do any thing for me . mr. justice dolben . this is a fable , for bolron bound shipton over at the sessions before the last assizes . bolron . yes , my lord , it was for scandalous words against his majesty . thorpe . he ask't me what shipton was , i answered , he is an honest man for ought that i know , i have taken his own bond , said bolron , but i will have him from court to court , i will teach him to meddle with me . mr. justice dolben . how came he to speak to thee . thorpe . i know not why , but it was his discourse to me . mr. baron atkins . what acquaintance was there between you . thorpe . i have seen him several times in yorkshire . mr. justice dolben . you live in charter-house-lane , how came you together in long-acre . thorpe . i met him accidentally in the street . mr. justice dolben . it is a wonderful thing , that he should meet one in the street with whom he had very small acquaintance , and discover such things to him , as he did to you . then william hardwick was examined . hardwick . i was to carry mrs. pressicks before justice lowther , and bolron's wife said she was sorry for it , for she believed her to be an honest woman , and had been a good neighbour amongst them . mr. baron atkins . who was sorry ? hardwick , mrs. bolron . mr. baron atkins . what did bolron himself say ? hardwick . he said nothing to me , he was in another room with his grandmother . mr. justice dolben taking notice of thwing's speaking to mr. hobart , demanded what he said . hobart . my lord , he ask't me , whether bolron did not say that sir thomas gascoyne offered him a 1000 l. i only say that he swore at sir thomas gascoyne's tryal . mr. justice dolben . how doth it appear , what he swore there ? bolron . i acquainted mr. lowther , and mr. tindal with it . mary walker was called . mr. justice dolben . mary walker , what do you say ? mary walker . robert bolron came after mr. thwing was taken prisoner , to my mistresse's . mr. justice dolben . who is your mistress ? mary walker . mrs. lassell's ; and he asked me , if i knew mr. thwing to be a priest , and i told him , no , my lord , he told me that if i would swear that he was a priest , he would give me 10 l. for he would be revenged of him for sir thomas gascoyne's cause ; for he was near of kin to him , and he proffered me 10 l. again . bolron . where were you , you were not here yesterday ? mary walker . i was in the court yesterday . mr. justice dolben . where spoke he this ? mary walker . at mr. lassel's . sir thomas stringer . my lord , he was then searching for preists at that house , and it is improbable that he should endeavour at that time to suborn thwing's sisters servant . mr. baron atkins . is mrs. lassell's of kin to mr. thwing ? walker . yes , my lord. mr. justice dolben . who can beleive he would come to thwing's sisters-house , to suborn her servant to be a witness against mr. thwing ? walker . yes my lord , i have witness of it , both a man and a woman . mr. justice dolben . where are they ? walker . in town . mr. justice dolben . that makes it more improbable that he would offer you 10 l. in the presence of two witnesses to swear that mr. thwing was a priest . sir thomas stringer . let us ask her a question . whether are you a papist or no ? walker . yes , i am a catholick . sir thomas stringer . since it must be probable , that he would ask you such a thing , and knew you to be a papist ; is thwing a priest or no ? walker . no marry is he not . sir thomas stringer . have you not heard him say masse . walker . no , if i were to dye . mr. justice dolben . indeed you are an excellent witness . mr. legget one of the kings messengers produced as a witness by the prisoners , was next examined . mr. legget . in august last , mr. bolron told me he would call his grandmother in and examine her before me , and he then ask't her , if she did not say , that she knew such and such things , and she said , she could not tell , but if she did , 't was true . mr. baron atkins . what was it he askt her ? legget . about harcourt , and i know not what , i took little notice of it , it seem'd to be a thing so idle , that i went away : and meeting me afterwards said , you thought my grandmother knew nothing , but at the bar , when sir tho. gascoyne was tryed , they said they never heard one swear a thing more plainly . mr. justice dolben . legget , did not you desire money yesterday of the clerk of the assizes as a witness for the king ? legget . yes , my lord. mr. justice dolben . did you so ? you are a fine fellow . then one william bacchus was examined . bacchus . all that i can say is that i served a warrant upon mrs. bolron to go before esq lowther , and bolron's wise and grandmother said , they could say nothing against sir thomas gascoyne , nor any of the family . mr. justice dolben . well they say nothing against them now , but what did she say against mrs. pressicks ? bacchus . she said that mary pressicks should say that the king was an whoremaster , and maintained his whores better then he did the queen . cuthbert hamsworth was then called . hamsworth being produced as a witnesse for sir thomas gascoyne owned that he had been a papist . hamsworth . my lord , robert bolron did swear revenge against my lady tempest for prosecuting a suit against him . mr. justice dolben . what is that to the matter in hand ? do you know that he swore revenge against thwing and pressicks ? hamsworth . no , my lord. mr. bar. atkins ( to the prisoners ) what have you more to say ? thwing . my lord , he saith , i was at barnbow-hall , 1677. i have witnesses to prove otherwise . mr. baron atkins . call them then . george twisley groom to sir thomas gascoyne . twisley . mr. thwing was never at our house above a night or two in the year . mr. justice dolben . whose house is your's ? twisley . sir thomas gascoyne ' s. mr. just . dolben . he was there but a night or two at a time . twisley . no , and please your lordship . mr. justice dolben . but was he there in 1677 ? twisley . about a year or two since , i saw him there . mr. justice dolben . but how often in a 12 months time ? twisley . not above once or twice . mr. baron atkins . did you never go out of your masters house in 1677 ? twisley . i have , my lord , but i was there both night and morning . mr. baron atkins . how do you know but he might be there in the time that you were not there ? bolron . and please your lordship , this man was but the groom . twisley . i was the groom , my lord , and took the horses . mr. justice dolben . but were you never absent ? twisley . no , my lord , and he was not there above once or twice in the year . thwing . ask him what company was then there ? twisley . no company at all , my lord , when he was there . mr. justice dolben . was not he there about easter ? twisley . no , not that i know of . mr. justice dolben . what time of the year was he there ? twisley . about michaelmas , not easter . mr. baron atkins . how came you to take such particular notice at what time men come , did you take an account of all the gentlemen that came to sir thomas's house , how often there , and when they came ? twisley . there were none that stayed any time when they came thither . mr. baron atkins . what time of the year was he there ? twisley . it was about a month before michaelmas . mr. justice dolben . you bring witnesses to stretch things even to impossibilities . bolron . he was drunk , my lord , at leeds the same night the consult was . sir tho. stringer . will you speak truth before almighty god ? twisley . yes . sir tho. stringer . pray then are you a papist ? twisley . no. sir tho. stringer . were you never a papist ? twisley . yes . sir tho. stringer . have you heard masse , at sir tho. gascoyne's when you were a papist ? twisley . no. sir thomas stringer . that 's very strange , that you lived there and never heard masse , and yet were a papist . twisley . yes , i heard mass in his house , but not by this man. sir tho. stringer . how long have you been turned protestant ? twisley . about 2 years . thwing . thomas areton did you ever see me at barnbow-hall . areton . i have nothing for nor against him , i never saw him before in my life . thwing . mr. mowbray hath declared he never knew any thing of the plot. mr. justice dolben to whom did he declare it ? thwing . there is witness of it , my lord. mr. justice dolben . call them . thwing . he accused not me of the plot. mr. justice dolben . he was no protestant then . thwing . i never knew any thing of the plot till i came from london . mr. justice dolben . well if you have any more witnesses call them . thwing . mr. cooper . joseph cooper . i have nothing to say in this business about this gentleman , it is concerning sir thomas gascoyne . thwing . yes he declared before these witnesses he knew nothing of the plot. cooper . we were coming from atherton fair , and my father began to discourse with mr. mowbray , and ask't him , if he knew any thing of the plot , that sir thomas was called to london for , he said , he knew nothing of the plot , and he thought sir thomas was guilty of no such thing , for if he had , he should have known it as soon as bolron , and he was a rogue and a knave , for saying any such thing . mr. justice dolben . when was this ? cooper . it was about this time 12 month . mr. justice dolben . were you upon the road then ? cooper . yes . sir tho. stringer . had mowbray then made any discovery of the plot ? cooper . yes , that was the reason we ask't him about it . mr. justice dolben . yesterday ( upon lady tempest's tryal ) you said , that mowbray had not then made any discovery . cooper . yes , my lord , i mean bolron . mr. justice dolben . really methinks you that are preists should be more dexterous , my lady tempest managed her business much better , and had her witnesses in more readiness . thwing . my lord , i call upon the witnesses and they will not come in , i cannot help it . edward cooper sen . was then called . edward cooper . i know nothing ; i met mr. mowbray coming from atherton fair , and he said he thought sir thomas was not guilty of the plot. thwing . mr. mowbray declared for 8 or 10 months together in 77 he knew nothing of the plot ; call mr. hobart . hobart . i know nothing of it . thwing . i am innocent , i know nothing as i hope for salvation . then isabell heyward a girle that lived with bolron as a servant , was called . isabel heyward . my master and mistress fell out about going to london , and she said , she would not go , and he said he would make her go , and she said , if he did she would swear that what he had sworn against mrs. pressicks , was out of malice . alice dawson was next examined . a. dawson . the day after new-years day was 12 month , mrs. bolron , said she was sorry for nothing , but that her husband had meddled with mrs. pressicks . then mrs. pressicks called for john pepper . mr. justice dolben . what do you say to him mistress . pressicks . i ask about my going to parlington at whitsuntide . mr. justice dolben . no it was at candlemas , and they said it was cold weather to sit in the hall porch . pressicks . it was also said at whitsuntide . john pepper . about whitsun-munday ( my lord ) i went to barnbow , and i met there with mr. pressicks , and mrs. pressicks ; and he desired me to tarry and carry his wife to mrs. harrisons at parlington , and she and i went down to shippon , and i carried her from bolron's on whitsun-munday and stayed till thursday . mr. justice dolben . and what is all this to the purpose , she was however as it was sworn against her at shippon at whitsontide . pepper . this is all i can say my lord. zachary thorpe was again called by thwing . thorpe . bolron said he was going to swear against my lady tempest , and if one thing would not do another should , and would have had me to give evidence against shipton . mrs. baynes ( mother to mr. bolron ) called . mr. baron atkins . what do you say mrs. baynes ? mrs. baynes . indeed ( my lord ) i know nothing of this , i know not thorpe , shipton i know , and he told me that if he had not fallen into my lord of shrewbury's service , he and thorpe would have turned highway-men . mr. babington called by pressicks . mr. justice dolben . can you say any thing for mrs. presssicks ? babington . i can say no thing but what i said yesterday concerning sir thomas gascoyne . mr. justice dolben . can you say any thing for pressicks ? babington . no my lord , i can say nothing for mrs. presssicks , yes , thus much i must say that when i came to have the writings sealed by bolron , his wife refused to seal them without delivering up of the bonds . i told her , it would be an additional security to sir thomas gascoyne , he said he did beleive , that mr. pressick and his wife were his enemies , and that they did instigate sir thomas to sue him . mr. justice dolben . ( to thwing ) come what have you more to say ? thwing . i have no witnesses to call , but i hope it will be considered what kind of witnesses these are , what lives they have led , they bring me in amongst the rest , we are all of a family ; i hope ( my lord ) you will consider that those ill men that will , may take away an honest mans life unjustly . mr. justice dolben . i hear no body speak again their lives , and this i must tell you , till men be convicted of some crime that may disable them , you cannot take away their testimony . thwing . my lord , witnesses should be men of credit and reputation . mr. justice dolben . the jury is to consider of that . mr. justice dolben . look you gentlemen , these two prisoners stand indicted of high treason , and it is for conspiring the death of the king , and other heinous crimes ; as designing the subverting the government , and bringing in the popish religion . now the witnesses that have been produced against thwing , are bolron and mowbray ; and against pressicks , mr. bolron , mrs. bolron senior and junior , and one hutchinson , and the evidence against thwing , is one thing , and against the woman quite another ; there is no evidence against her but what they heard her say others were to do , there is no evidence of any action of hers , or that she was present at any consultation , nor acting any thing there , but that she said so and so . now mr. bolron and his grandmother do both say that she said , pickering was to have killed the king , and that she was sorry that he did not do it . that the gun with which he should have done it , was found , and she was afraid that was the cause of his death , and they all say she said , that it would be never well with england , till the catholicks had got the upper hand , and the duke of york were king. now i must tell you , that my opinion is , that a bare saying of this doth not amount to high treason , unless you do beleive from these words , that she knew otherwise then by hearsay , that pickering was to have killed the king , and that she was privy and consenting to the design of killing the king , then she is guilty of treason , but if she only knew it by hearsay , the bare knowledge and concealing of it will make her guilty of misprision of treason ; but knowing of it barely by report doth not make her guilty of high treason . my brother will tell you his opinion herein . now for mr. thwing , the evidence against him is very home ; for they both swear against himone to one meeting , and the other to another , that he was present at their consulttaion to kill the king , subvert the government , and to bring in the popish religion ; that he did agree at the meeting to the killing of the king , they do both swear , and this they say was at sir thomas gascoynes , and that at the several meetings there was a list produced , but bolron saith , that the list when he was present was a list of those that were engaged towards the carrying on of the nunnery ; that which the other speaks of , was a list of those that were engaged about the killing the king , about the whole design which was to be effected by killing the king , this he swears , that thwing did produce this list ; and mowbray saith , that three or four priests were present at that time , and that thwing said , the king was an heretick , and excommunicated by the pope , and it was not only lawful but meritorious to kill him. so that admitting this evidence be true , it is a full evidence of high treason against him ; here is an imagining the death of the king , and here is an overt act , here is a setting hands to it ; so that if this be true , thwing is guilty of high treason . now against this , they have produced many witnesses , and none of them doth go about to prove this impossible but only improbable , but one that is a groom of sir thomas gascoyne's , who saith , he was but once or twice that year there , and not at easter but about michaelmas , is that enough to answer the testimony of these two men , gentlemen , for a groom to take upon him , to say two years after who was at his masters house , and how often , and what time of the year , is to me a very strange thing ; unless it were one that was never used to to come there : but this man , he saith , did use to come there , but that i must leave to you . the rest of the witnesses were the same that were examined yesterday . first they insist concerning mr. lowther , they say , that when mr. bolron first went to mr. lowther , he said nothing of mr. thwing , but it appears , he said then , that afterwards he might remember more , then the man was under a great consternation , and told him , the great and dangerous consequences of having so long concealed it , was the occasion of that disorder upon him , but he said , he should remember more afterwards , and so he did ; the rest of the witnesses do all go this purpose , that either bolron or mowbray should tell them at one time or other , they did know nothing of the plot , nor against sir thomas gascoyne ; and some of them say , that it is out of malice to sir thomas's family , for so thwing would have it , he being his nephew ; that the malice should reach to mr. thwing ; that they would have it , and something to the same purpose they do offer against mr. mowbray . now here is one walker , that swears , that bolron ask't her if she knew thwing to be a priest , and offered her 10 l. to swear him a priest , she is a servant of one mrs. lassel's , mr. thwing's sister , he came to mrs. lassel's to search for preists . it is something strange , that he should offer to perswade her to swear against thwing , who was servant to his own sister , and at the time when he came to search for priests , the truth of it is , the thing doth depend purely upon the credit of witnesses . the kings witnesses are upon their oathes , but on the other hand the others are not on their oaths , but credit is to be given to what they say ; if you consider their evidence and do find a clearness in their testimony , which you must weigh , for certainly he that solemnly in the presence of god will say a false thing , will also dare to swear it , how far their principles will carry them i know not , i can see nothing but bolron and mowbray are good witnesses , i do not see but what they say , is coherent , and that they speak the truth : and if you beleive what they say to be true , then thwing is guilty of high treason , but if do not beleive , what they say is true , but out of malice you must acquit him . they do object the other juries did not beleive bolron and mowbray , the case with the prisoners at the bar is not the same with theirs , but you are to give your verdict according to the evidence that you have heard , and according to your consciences . mr. baron atkyns . gentlemen of the jury , i shall be very short ; the crimes that are laid in this indictment , and charged upon these persons , are the designing to take away the kings life , subverting the government , and introduing popery ; you observe the nature of the evidence which hath been given against the prisoners . and first , i shall speak but one word concerning mary pressicks ; i do fully agree with what my brother hath said ; you do take notice , that the evidence that hath been given against her , hath been what came out of her own mouth ; the witnesses are mr. bolron and his grandmother , and likewise one hutchinson : mr. bolron saith , she did tell him that harcourt was her confessor , and that he had engaged her in the plot ; she likewise told him that pickering was to kill the king , that the gun was found with him , and was the cause of his death ; this is some evidence of high-treason , i must leave it to you of what weight it is , and how far by this you will conclude her privy to the plot : it is true , were she an actor in it , it is plain , she is guilty of high-treason . as to what hutchinson said , that she told him , we should never be at peace , till we were all of the roman-catholick religion , and the duke of york was made king , that will not amount to high-treason : this i take to be the sum of the evidence against her . then as to mr. thwing , there are two witnesses that have sworn against him , that is mr. bolron and mr. mowbray : bolron tells you , that in 1677 , there came to him several priests , to his house at shipton ; and amongst the rest thwing the prisoner , who askt him how he stood affected to the roman-catholick religion , and he then exprest his zeal for it , and they thought him a person fit to impart their secrets to ; then he saith , that in 1677 there was a meeting at barnbow-hall , which is sir thomas gascoyne's house , and at that meeting there were sir thomas gascoyne , esquire gascoyne , sir miles stapleton , and amongst the rest this prisoner thwing ; and that there was a consult held at that time , and design of killing the king , and that this person did agree to it , and declared , that if they should miss that opportunity , they should never have such another ; and that it was for the good of the roman-catholick religion . the next was mowbray , and he saith to the same effect that in 1676. thwing and others declared they did design to kill the king , for he was an heretick , and excommunicated , and had not kept his word with the jesuits , and therefore they thought it not only lawful , but a meritorious act : and this is what both bolron and mowbray do restifie ; this they swear positively against the prisoner ; if you believe what they have sworn to be true , i must declare that it will amount to high treason . you are likewise to consider the evidence he hath produced for himself ; the law , 't is true , doth not allow us to give them an oath ; yet if they be persons of credit and honesty , it is evidence which you are to consider of . the prisoner hath called several witnesses : the first was nath. wilson , i shall not repeat what he saith , being of no import . thwing saith mr. bolron was before mr. lowther and mr. tindall , two justices of peace , who did take his oath , and then he said , he did not accuse him of the plot at that time ; and by that would infer , that he would have said what he had against him , as well then as now , if he had had any thing whereof to accuse him : but bolron answers , he did declare to these two gentlemen , he was not able at that time to recollect his whole knowledge , but gave it in afterwards to the king and council : the next are moore and thorpe , the effect of their evidence is to strike at the reputation of bolron , that it was an act of malice and revenge ; for they say , that bolron told them , that sir thomas was innocent , and knew nothing of the plot. thorpe saith , he met with bolron in long-acre , and that he told him , that though sir thomas were quitted , he would ruine some of them : i say , these things , if true , are ▪ some evidence of a malicious prosecution ; but it seems something improbable that bolron should so openly make a discovery of himself , when it appears he was not greatly acquainted with them , especially with thorpe . there are several other witnesses that speak much to the same purpose . gentlemen , in matters of fact , which depend upon the testimony of witnesses , the credit of the witnesses is greatly to be considered ; if you believe what bolron and mowbray have both positively sworn , the treason is plain ; you must take all the parts of your evidence together , you must weigh all the circumstances ; you must , as i said before , consider the credit of the witnesses of the one side and of the other , and by these steps you will be the better guided in the giving of your verdict . i must leave it to you : and i pray god direct you therein . the jury having withdrawn , after some consultation together , brought in their verdct , that thomas thwing was guilty , and mary pressiks not-guilty . august the 2. 1680. thomas thwing being brought to the bar , the clerk spoke thus : clerk. thomas thwing hold up thy hand , thou hast been indicted , that thou as a false traytor didst conspire the death of the king , &c. and thereof hast been found guilty , what canst thou say wherefore judgment of death should not be pronounced against thee ? thwing . my lord , as i am now upon my life , i know nothing of these things , in the least , that these men have sworn against me ; and on the other side , i say , that before sir thomas gascoyne had his tryal these men said nothing against me , so i hope your lordship will take it into consideration . mr. justice dolben . for your innocency the gentlemen of the jury are judges of that , and they have found you guilty , so that it is not in my power either to acquit or condemn you , i am only to pass sentence according to that conviction . if you have any thing to say wherefore judgment should not be pronounced , i am ready to hear you . thwing . all that i can say is to declare my innocency , and that these men are of no credit and reputation . it is very hard i should be guilty , and none of the rest that were arraigned for the same crimes . mr. justice dolben . no , it is not impossible ; it is possible you may be guilty , and the rest innocent . thwing . for my part , i told your lordship that i was but once or twice in a year at sir thomas gascoynes , being my uncle ; and i do protest i know nothing of the consult these men do charge me with . mr. justice dolben . you say one thing , they swear another ; and for ought i know they are honest men ; they are lawful men , and not convicted in the main : for i do believe there were many great and dangerous consults held at sir thomas gascoynes by several persons , and that there have been many horrid and treasonable things acted there . you have been indicted for high-treason , the highest treason that ever any subject was guilty of , for attempting to kill the king , for resolving so to do upon deliberate advice and consultation , and this for no other end or purpose , but that you might have your religion set up ; for that was your design , to change this religion here , and to settle popery in england ; and the better to bring that to pass , you thought to take away the kings life , knowing you could not otherwise accomplish it . you are i am satisfied a priest of the romish church , therefore all that i can say to you in reference to your future state you will not value , for you account me an heretick as you do the king , and i am content to be so esteemed in so good company , therefore i shall wave it . as you are a gentleman i will give some respect to you , and i will not pass sentence on you among the rest of the prisoners that are found guilty of felony and murder , but will do it by your self . the law doth command the court , and the court doth award , that you be carried from hence to the place from whence you came , that is the prison , and from thence you are to be drawn to the place of execution ; you are there to be hanged by the neck , you are to be cut down before you are dead , and your intrails are to be taken out of your body , and thrown into the fire before your face , and your head is to be parted from your body , and your body separated into four quarters , and your head and your quarters are to be disposed according to the kings pleasure : and the lord have mercy on your soul. thwing . innocens ego sum . the proceedings against sir miles stapleton , baronet . sir miles stapleton , baronet , was indicted at a sessions of oyer and terminer in the west-riding of the county of york , and the indictment was removed by certiorari to the kings-bench , where sir miles stapleton having been arraigned and pleaded to the same not-guilty , was sent down by nisi prius to be tryed in the county of york . the indictment was , for that he as a false traytor against our most illustrious and excellent prince , king charles the second , his natural lord , not having god before his eyes , nor weighing the duty of his allegiance , but by the instigation of the devil being moved and soduced , the cordial love , and true due and natural obedience , which true and faithful subjects of our said lord the king should bear to him , and of right are bound to bear , wholly withdrawing , devising and with all his power intending to disturb the peace and common tranquility of this realm , and to bring and put our ▪ said . lord the king to death and final destruction , and the true worship of god in this kingdom by law established and used , to alter to the superstition of the church of rome , and to move and stir up war against our said lord the king in this realm , and to subvert the government of this kingdom , the 30th day of may , in the 31th year of our said lord the kings reign , at the parish of barwiek in ellmet in the said county of york , in the west-riding of the same county , with divers other false traitors unknown ▪ did traiterously compass , imagine , and intend the death and final destruction of our said lord the king , and to change and alter and wholly to subvert the ancient goverment of this realm , and to depose and wholly to deprive the king of the crown and government of the said kingdom , and to root out the true protestant religion : and to fulfill and accomplish the same most wicked treasons and trayterous imaginations and purposes , the said sir miles stapleton , and other false traytors unknown , on the said 30th day of may in the 31th year aforesaid , with force and arms , at the parish of barwick aforesaid , advisedly , devillishly , maliciously and trayterously did assemble , unite and gather themselves together , and then and there did devillishly , advisedly , maliciously , craftily and trayterously consult and agree to bring our said lord the king to death and final destruction , and to depose and deprive him of his crown and government , and to introduce and establish the religion of the roman church in this realm ; and the sooner to fulfill and accomplish the said most wicked treasons and trayterous imaginations and purposes , the said sir miles stapleton , and other unknown traytors , then and there advisedly , maliciously and trayterously did further consult and agree to contribute , pay , and expend divers large sums of money to divers of the kings subjects , and other persons unknown , to procure those persons unknown trayterously to kill our said lord the king , and to introduce the roman religion into this realm , against the duty of his allegiance , against the peace of our said lord the king his crown and dignity , and against the form of the statute in such case made and provided . the jury being called , mr. justice dolben took notice to sir miles that there were but few appeared , and therefore told him he would do well not to challenge too many of them : sir miles thereupon said he should not challenge many ; and enquired whether those that served on the lady tempests , mr. thwings , and mr. inglebyes juries did now appear ? and the judge answered him , that if they did , care should be taken that they should not be sworn . then the jury being called to the book , sir miles challenged these , viz. sir david fowles , barronet . robert bell , gen. john eastoft , esquire . john dixon , gen. william bethell , esquire . thomas wood , gen. william caley , esquire . robert turner , gen. towers driffield , esquire . john beckwith , gen. marmad . trueman , esquire . sim. warrener , gen. john wright , esquire . gervase hatfeild , gen. john green , esquire . john coates , gen. and only two of the jury returned , viz. thomas fletcher , gen. & robert gudgeon , gen. were sworn . mr. justice dolben . sir miles i see you must stay till the next assizes , for you challenge so many , here will not be a jury gotten . sir miles . if your lordship please , i shall be content , and do desire the jury may be called that served the first day ; nay all the three juries if you please . mr. justice dolben . that is , you would chuse all of one way , and leave the others ; where is the indifferency of the tryal then ? but come call them , i cannot deny it . the three juries called , and five challenged : viz. thomas worsley , esquire . roger fretwell , gen. samuel tenant , gen. roger lee , esquire . robert bushell , gen.   and these sworn : viz. sir thomas pennyman , baronet . thomas rooksby , esquire . william stone . thomas conyers . christopher tankerd , esquire , who was excepted against by sir tho. stringer , as one that disparaged the evidence of the plot , and called his dogs by the names of oates and bedloe ; which the judge allowed to be a good exception , but there being no witnesses in the court to prove it , he was sworn . mr. justice dolben . sir miles , you must stay till next assizes , we have not a full jury . sir miles . here are gentlemen in the court , your lordship may take whom you please . mr. justice dolben . i cannot do it without the kings counsel move for a tales , which as this case stands they will not do . and so he was remanded to prison , and remanet pro defectu juratorum entred upon the record . a reprieve being obtained for mr. thwing , he remained condemned in the castle of york until about the middle of october . mr. justice dolben attended his majesty in council , and gave a full account of the several tryals , and of his satisfaction in the evidence . whereupon an order of council was made for the execution of mr. thwing , and upon the 23. of october , according to the sentence , he was drawn , hanged , and quartered at york , having first protested his innocency of all that was sworn against him , but gloried that he was a priest , and had performed the priestly function about 15 years , and desiring all true catholicks , if any such were there , to pray for him , and begging god to bless and preserve the king , his queen , the duke of york , and all other good christians , he yielded himself to the executioner . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a55936-e430 note that upon sir thomas gascoynes tryal it appeared in his almanack , that he had made this memorial there with his own hand , ( viz. ) the 15th . of april , 1676 memorand . acquaint mr. thomas thwing , with the whole designe . * earn . wilson was a witness the day before for the lady tempest . a true copy of a dispute lately held at rome between father conyer, a jesuit, and alexander thompson, a church of england man and barrister at law, concerning the plot coniers, george, 1646-1711. 1681 approx. 9 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 2 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a34397 wing c5993 estc r29330 11076717 ocm 11076717 46256 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a34397) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 46256) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1420:23) a true copy of a dispute lately held at rome between father conyer, a jesuit, and alexander thompson, a church of england man and barrister at law, concerning the plot coniers, george, 1646-1711. thompson, alexander. 1 sheet ([2 p.]) printed for john bringhurst, london : 1681. caption title. imprint from colophon. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2006-08 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-08 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2006-09 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a true copy of a dispute lately held at rome , between father conyer a jesuit , and alexander thompson a church of england man , and barrister at law , concerning the plot . jesuite , well , sir , you are willing , i suppose , to vindicate the execution of your laws , in every particular , against those roman catholicks , that were sacrificed to your countries vengeance . protestant , i shall give you my apprehensions thereof ; but if my vindication be not satisfactory , i will rather believe it to be my own weakness , than the justice of your cause . jes . i appeal to any man of sence , whether there was any probability , there cou'd be a design of taking off the king ? that very act wou'd have alarm'd the people , and consequently have dasht the design ; for upon that juncture , where had we any forces in readiness to espouse our cause , and to alter that government , which cou'd not be subverted , but by sword ? we cou'd not expect any forreign assistance to evade , before your malitia were embatteled ; and to believe that a caball of some designing heads cou'd execute it , is groundless . protest . as to the fact it self , we know that 't is nothing but what the principles of your religion doth enjoyn you to ; 't is reckoned by your church as meritorious , and is very consistent with your conscience . now , as to the probability , why this shou'd be executed , 't was very apparent ; your party had conspired to sham it upon the presbyterians , and in order to that , you had given commissions , and disposed on preferment to such and such men , as the discovery of the meal-tub-plot doth very clearly confirm ; then where was the need of an army in readiness , when you might expect that justice wou'd be done upon the presbyterians , whilst you free from suspition , might unconcernedly look on the vertigo of the state ? besides , if in the end you had fail'd in this , yet at present such a general consternation had seized the kingdom , that you might easily expect some forreign auxiliaries , before the discovery of your practices , and the nation in a military posture ; your church doth authorize and justifie the actions of that nature ; and you have daring clements , and zealous ravilliats , that think it their duty to attempt them . jes . i confess that mariana doth endeavour to maintain that king-killing tenet , but it was damned as pernicious and vnchristian by the church : 't is also objected against bellarmine ; but it was only inserted into his volumns by an unknown hand , as is apparent in the original copy . but to revert your assertion against your self , if regicide be authorized by our church , and heaven promised as a reward to the actor , we have clements in store , that wou'd assasinate majesty upon the first summons or command ; we need not have contrived so many several sorts of death , and have ventured the abortion of our plot upon the least miscarriage . do you think that pickering would have had the patience to have waited for an opportunity so long in the park , when he might easily have had access to the king's prescence , and might with a surer fate , than an erring gun , have dispatcht , and consequently m 〈…〉 d heaven ? he was unworthy of it , if he durst not dye for 't : the very lashes he had upon the account of his negligence was worse than the pains of death ; besides the forfeiture of those masses that were promised him , upon the performance . protest . though your religion doth warrant heaven to such as dare propagate its interest by such sinister means , yet i do not perceive , that any of you are so reserved from the indulgence of the flesh , as presently to quit your interest upon earth , and yield your selves a victime to appearing death , if your contrivances cou'd but prevent its present execution ; you cou'd be content to live a little here , rather than to purchase your imaginary happiness , by embracing a temporal and bug-bear death . johannes acutus , one of your order , and one that entertained as great a zeal for the interest of his church , as the boldest promoter of your all , and though he had a warrant signed , for the immediate possession of heaven , if he should accidentally be seized after the execution of his design upon the person of count ladowick of nasshaw , yet his mean and dastard soul durst not publickly play the russian , but omitted his opportunities , and was lash't . jes . our talent of time is now so small , we must not employ it in canvassing this point ; let us omit the opinions of our church in this king-killing tenet , and return to our particulars . can you imagine , that a design of this nature , wherein no less than the death of the king , and the alteration of government was endeavoured , shou'd be communicated to every papist of any note through the realm ? ( as the depositions of the evidence would perswade you ) or that letters shou'd be sent , or correspondence kept , in order to that , by the common post ? or , that sir george wakeman and groves , &c. were to have so many hundreds of pounds for their good service , and adventure when four gentlemen that were privy to all the proceedings , wou'd assassinate him for fourscore ? or that any of the conspirators , which you believe to be such profligate villians , wou'd dye and be damned , when they might be prefered upon confession ? or being conscious to themselves of the truth of the information , that they wou'd not endeavour to make an escape , but wou'd skulk about to be ferreted out by justices of the peace , prosecuted and hanged ? pray reconcile these . protest . your first supposition i answer thus , that although you had confided in the generality of those of your religion , yet you might believe the oath of secrecy , you had imposed upon them , to be so obligatory , as not to be violated by either fear or interest . secondly , you argue an improbability that so great a design shou'd be trusted to the duty of the common post ; but 't was apparent , you had so far provided , that to prevent the ill consequence of a miscarriage , you had contrived a character , which none but your correspondent cou'd apprehend . thirdly , it is no argument against the probability of the intended regicide , that the four assassines were so reasonable in their agreement , it only argues their great zeal to your general interest . fourthly , although we shou'd be so candid , as not to insist upon the merit your church asignes to obstinacy of that nature , yet some of you , for the very fear of an injury from their incensed party , durst not betray the cause by confession . now , whereas they rather stood tryal , than attempted an escape upon the first discovery , it might be the effects of their impudence , rather than innocence ; they might expect their design wou'd be sham'd upon the dissenters , and so prevent that inconvenience to their future conduct , that wou'd have attended their flight . finally , that you have endeavoured this before , if we look back to the fifth of november , we must believe ; and why there is now more simplicity and innocence in your religion , is unaccountable : we had not only sufficient evidence , but other demonstrating circumstances to perswade us of the legality of their tryals and execution . finis . london , printed for john bringhurst , at the sign of the book in grace-church-street , near cornhill , 1681. funeral tears upon the death of captain william bedloe duke, richard, 1658-1711. 1680 approx. 3 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a36812 wing d2505a estc r40384 18971664 ocm 18971664 108518 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a36812) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 108518) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1667:12) funeral tears upon the death of captain william bedloe duke, richard, 1658-1711. 1 broadside. s.n., [london : 1680] in verse. attributed to duke by wing and nuc pre-1956 imprints. place and date of publication suggested by wing. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng bedloe, william, 1650-1680 -poetry. popish plot, 1678 -poetry. 2008-05 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-09 john pas sampled and proofread 2008-09 john pas text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion funeral tears upon the death of captain william bedloe . sad fate ! our valiant captain bedloe , in earths cold bed lyes with his head low : who to his last made out the plot , and swearing dy'd upon the spot . sure death was popishly affected , she had our witness else protected : or downright papist , or the jade a papist is in mascarade . the valiant bedloe , learned oates , from popish knives sav'd all our throats : by such a sword , and such a gown soon would the beast have tumbled down . they conquer like the hebrew king , and oaths at rome's goliah sling : and never take god's name in vain ; as many oaths , so many slain . the stoutest of the roman band could not their thundering volleys stand ; but all those missioners of hell by dint of affidavit fell . great things our heroe brought to light ; yet greater still kept out of sight : and for his king , and countries sake still new discoveries could make : in proper season to relieve , he still kept something in his sleeve ; he was become for england's good , an endless mine , a wastless flood ; still prodigal , yet never poor , no spending could exhaust his store . but death , alas ! that popish fiend , to all our hopes has put an end ; has stop'd the course , and dry'd the spring which new plot-tidings still would bring . this witness ( did the fates so please ) had sworn us into happiness ; made the court chast , religion pure ; and wrought an universal cure ; sworn westminster into good order , reform'd chief-justice , and recorder : the land from romish locusts purg'd , and from whitehal the chits had scourg'd had judg'd the great succession-case , and sworn the crown to the right place . england ! the mighty loss bemoan ! thy watchful sentinel is gone . now may the pilgrims land from spain , and undiscover'd cross the main . now may the forty thousand men in popish arms be rais'd agen ; black bills may fly about our ears ; who shall secure us from our fears ? jesuits may fall to their old sport of burning , slaying town and court , and we never the wiser for 't . then pitty us ; exert thy power to save us in this dangerous hour . thou hast to death sworn many men , ah! swear thy self to life agen . contrivances of the fanatical conspirators in carrying on their treasons under the umbrage of the popish plot, laid open with depositions sworn before the secretary of state, wherein it most plainly appears, this present horrid rebellion hath been design'd by the republicans many years, and that james the late d. of monmouth, &c. were long since highly concern'd therein : with some account of mr. disney, who was lately apprehended for printing the rebellious traiterous declaration / written by a gentleman who was formerly conversant amongst them. smith, william. 1685 approx. 88 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 18 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-12 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a60667 wing s4347 estc r41326 31354992 ocm 31354992 110302 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a60667) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 110302) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1753:17) contrivances of the fanatical conspirators in carrying on their treasons under the umbrage of the popish plot, laid open with depositions sworn before the secretary of state, wherein it most plainly appears, this present horrid rebellion hath been design'd by the republicans many years, and that james the late d. of monmouth, &c. were long since highly concern'd therein : with some account of mr. disney, who was lately apprehended for printing the rebellious traiterous declaration / written by a gentleman who was formerly conversant amongst them. smith, william. 34 p. printed by the author, and sold by the booksellers of london and westminster, london : anno dom. 1685. attributed to william smith by wing (2nd ed.) errors in paging: 15-16 repeated, and 23-24 lacking, in number only. reproduction of original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng oates, titus, 1649-1705. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2005-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-05 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-06 john latta sampled and proofread 2005-06 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion contrivances of the fanatical conspirators , in carrying on their treasons under the umbrage of the popish-plot , laid open : with depositions sworn before the secretary of state . wherein it most plainly appears , this present horrid rebellion hath been design'd by the republicans many years . and that james the late d. of monmouth , &c. were long since highly concern'd therein . with some account of mr. disney , who was lately apprehended for printing the rebellious traiterous declaration . written by a gentleman who was formerly conversant amongst them . london , printed for the author , and sold by the booksellers of london and westminster , anno dom. 1685. intrigues of the popish plot , &c. i intend not with a long preamble to trouble the reader , or to wheedle ignorant unthinking fops , or malicious ill natur'd hypocrites into a good opinion of me ; the censure or approbation of both these , i neither dread nor value : it is before the charitable , vertuous , and judicious person i will arraign my self ; and waving all excuses , disclose what i know , and then clear my self so far as the subject will bear , and my ability will extend without rhetorical flourishes ; endeavouring to bring my matter to words , and not words to my matter . i lived ( after i was burnt out of merchant taylors school ) at islington twelve years , where the company of brewers were my patrons ; who stukk shew'd such favour to me , as i never requested any kindness of them they ever denyed me ; and even in my greatest extremity certified for me under their hands ( as shall appear afterwards ; ) neither even to this day , did they eject me : and the neighbourhood , consisting mostly of ale-men , cow-men , or hog-men , i believe never injur'd or defamed me , or will to this hour . two or three years after i was at islington came several persons thither and to clerkenwell , who set up schools without licenses , and were backed by two vicars , which was injurious to the publick school , and directly against the canon . i could get little or no remedy against them ; the reason i shall rather think , than express . two of these were mr. robert ferguson ( a man since well known for his treasons ) and mr. thomas singleton , who is there at this time . one of ferguson's boarders dying , i think of the small pox , the vicar buried , or permitted to be buried , without a word of the liturgy , even in his church . and to the latter of these worthies , the other vicar , sent his only son to be instructed , as he himself had been at the feet of such another gamaliel . notwithstanding i suffered much , teaching the poor children for a very small salary , and these two dissenters canting the rich to themselves , i bore all patiently : and persever'd to discharge my duty justly and honestly , and rubb'd on , doing all the good i could , but harm to no body ; which has been , and is a great comfort to me ; yet though i believe i can make panegyricks upon others , i am unskill'd in making one upon my self : therefore i desist . the first time i saw titus oates , after he went from merchant-taylor's school , where he was my scholar , in the year 1665 , was about bartholomew-tide 1676. he was brought to me by mr. matthew medburne ( who had pick'd him up in the earl of suffolk's cellar at whitehall that day they came to me ) undoubtedly under a fatal position of the heavens . titus was in his canonical garments : i knew him not , till he told me who he was . to the sun-tavern in aldersgate-street they had me . truly i was very melancholy , though i knew no cause for it . may be it pleased the almighty providence , in that little prelude to give me some forebodings of the miseries that were ordained me from this unfortunate renewing of our old acquaintance . after this , matthew medburne introduced oates into a club that met at the pheasant in fuller's rents , at that time kept by one mr. mekins , consisting of several persons , some roman catholicks and some protestants ; where i never heard any disputes about religion or state affairs , it being a particular article of our club , that all such discourses should be forbidden upon the penalty of six pence forfeit for every default of that nature by any member of the society . i had almost forgotten to tell the reader , that before medburne found him at whitehall , and brought him into our society , he had been silenced by the arch-deacon of canterbury , whom afterwards he indeavoured to have brought into his plot , as he will justifie for me , having very hardly escaped his snares , all honest and good . men being ever the greatest mark of his malice . upon this silencing having lost his vicaridge of bobbing in kent , ( where , amongst many other notorious exclamations against him , he was remarkable for petty thefts , his neighbours pigs and hens never escaping his rapacious clutches ) and also his faculty from the late earl marshal , then earl of norwich , being taken from him , he began to rail against the church of england ; intending thereby to wind himself into the good opinion of the roman catholicks , which indeed made his conversation the more acceptable to matthew medburne , as being a zealous romanist . by this means he ingratiated himself to medburne , professing himself a convert to the church of rome , and by him was , as aforesaid , introduced into our club , his principles and himself being wholly strangers to the rest of the company . and truly , for my part , i had that very indifferent opinion of him , that i sometimes advised medburne not to repose any confidence in him , remembring his perverse and wicked pranks , when he was a school boy ; which , indeed , was all i knew of him then : for his suspension and misdemeanors in sussex and kent were then unknown to us both . all this while he continued in the habit of a church of england man ; and coming one day to see me at islington , after we had dined , we intended to go into london to meet medburne : but in our way , passing by sadler's musick-house we met dr. slater , the vicar of clerkenwell , who complemented his seeming brother clergy-man very gravely , and desired him to accept of a glass of ale with him , upon which , growing more familiar , he desired him to give him a sermon next sunday , which oates after much entreaty promised . but i took the dr. aside , and besought him not to accept of it , for some private reasons i knew , which i did not particularize to him . but he thinking it might be only an excuse , resolved to accept oates's proffer , and accordingly oates preach'd ; and in his sermon speaking all along very bitterly against calvin , he call'd him always jack . this sermon gave very heinous offence to two great admirers of calvin , mr. barker , and mr. walsh , then in commission of the peace . who therefore sending for the dr. gave him a very severe reprimand , for suffering such a fellow to appear in his pulpit . the dr. to excuse himself , acquainted their worships , 't was i that introduced him ; which story , though false , proved very prejudicial to me , these persons being my utter enemies ever after . this sermon , by the by , after oates's exaltation , and renown of being a discoverer , for the credit of the author , was sold by him to mr. sawbridge for 40 or 50 guineas ; but answered not expectation , for no other fault but the satyr against their darling calvin in it ; which indeed was no small crime in that season ; and for which , had not his other vertues atoned , might have proved very injurious , not only to his narrative , but , also , his reputation too , amongst his greatest friends and supporters , the phanaticks . soon after this , oates cast off his habit , and put himself into a campagne coat and a sword ; and being entertain'd by the jesuites , he was by them sent into spain , where they were soon weary of him , and remitted him to england ; where applying himself again to the jesuites , especially to father whitebread ( whom afterwads he so fairly requited ) by his interest he was sent over to st. omers . from thence returning in the year 78 , he sculckt about the town in a secular habit , and came to visit me as formerly ; being very intimate also , as before , with medburne , who was instrumental in obtaining him some assistance for his relief from persons of quality of the romish religion . this familiarity continuing between us , one thing was remarkable , that about that time that we had an account of the battel of mons , he met medburne , and mr. thomas hughes ( who is now living , and a member of the church of england , and ready to attest it ) and complaining of his extreme necessity , he told them , he had not eaten a bit of bread in three days ; upon which , they carryed him into the cock in the hay-market , and made him eat and drink , giving him also some money , notwithstanding this was the very time , when in his discovery after he was in the height of his pretended plot , and daily interested and engaged with so many persons of such great quality to carry on the cause of rome . from the middle of july till the latter end of august i saw him not , and the first week of september medburne and john philips brought him to me at islington : we went to the catherine-wheel , where we drank a bottle or two of claret , and my boy brought me some new acts of parliament , then newly publish'd . upon reading of them there happned a very great debate between medburne and titus oates , concerning the three estates ; titus affirming , the king to be one of the three estates , and answerable to the other two which he called the lords and commons . medburne contradicted him , and told him he lied ; insomuch that they grew to very hard words ; philips justifying oates , and i medburne : i showing my reason in the preamble of one of the acts , wherein 't was exprest ; be it enacted by the kings most excellent majesty , with the consent and advise of the lords spiritual and temporal , and commons assembled in parliament , &c. urging , that if the king had been one of the three estates it would have run thus , enacted by the king , lords and commons , &c. here t is observable , the very time when oates was just upon discovering a plot in zeal for the preservation of his majesties life , he was nevertheless talking treason against his prerogative . in some few days after this , he came to me again in the evening , and desired me , with all intreaties imaginable , to write him a paper of verses , in latin , upon our blessed saviour and the virgin mary , which he intended , as he said , to carry to the jesuites as his own , to demonstrate his learning , and try if thereby they would re-entertain him , or get him into some catholick family , where he might teach some children , he being then totally destitute of any livelihood . the verses i made for him , and he fetch'd them the next morning , forcing upon me , as a gift , a pair of tweezers , which he said he brought out of flanders . he particularly desired me , in the afore-named verses , to make a long harangue in the praise of the virgin many , pretending it would very much please the jesuites . but truly i thought not fit to do so , and omitted it . the next , and last time he came to me was on a saturday , some few days after in september : on a saturday which happen'd to be the day before the great noise of the popish plot broke out ; and i invited him to the katherine-wheel , where he pull'd out a handful of money , which seem'd to be about 30 or 40 shillings , offering me the acceptance of it , in return of the many reckonings i had paid for him , and the treats i had made him ; but i refused it . then he ask'd me if i had heard any thing of a plot : i told him , no : upon which , he said , there had been great complaints at whitehall about a i lot of the jesuites , against the king. he promised to come and dine with me next day , but i saw him no more till the first day of november , when he appear'd at the lords bar , and swore falsely against me . the reason why i mention these two passages is this : he told me , after i was got into his favour , that he came both those times to me to trapan me . this i avoided by the great mercy of god , not my own prudence , i being always too credulous and easie to be imposed upon ; never laying snares for any man , and thinking no body would lay any for me . if i had writ what he desired me of the blessed virgin , he had made me under my own hand a papist . if i had taken his money he had swore me into his plot : yet i was brought into the bryars for all this . oates in the interim had given into the council , depositions of his plot , wherein he gave in my name for meeting at a club in fuller's rents . hereupon the lord bishop of london sent for me to the vestry in islington church . his lordship ask'd me , how i happn'd to be concern'd in such a club. i replied , i never had any ill intent in going thither , neither ever saw , or heard any bad action or discourse in the company ; one reason that caused me to be there now and then , was this ; the person that kept the house was a gentleman fallen to decay ; having many children : this being his last shift , i conceiv'd it to be a sort of charity , when i could spare a six pence to spend it with him , rather than another ; especially having the society of ingenuous men. his children likewise i taught , and was not paid , nor ever expected i should : nor am i to this day . his lordship seemed to be satisfied . it was then urged against me , by a doctor there present , that i kept company with one medburne a player , who was a rank papist ; intimating thence , that i must be so too ; and blundering out the old bald verse , noscitur a socio qui non dignoscitur a se : i replied , i reckoned it no crime to keep company with a man , to whom i had seen the greatest men in the kingdom speak kindly ; and amongst others his lordships brother , the earl of northampton ; but if that matter gave offence , i would forbear his company . his lordship ask'd me , if i catechized the children : i assured his lordship , that i had not one in the school but had his catechism as perfect as a , b , c ; yet those two doctors , my neighbours , had never catechized since i came thither , which was then twelve years . his lordship was displeased at it ; however all things were patch'd up for that time . about that time sir edmundbury godfrey was found dead in a ditch , near primrose hill , and the main cry was , that the papists had murder'd him . this business happen'd well for oates , as he afterwards often told me : he would usually say , i belive not a word on 't ; but my plot had come to nothing without it ; it made well for me ; i believe the council would never have taken any farther notice of me else , if he had not been found : he was a cowardly rascal , for when i went with my depositions to him , he was so frighted , that i believe he beshit himself ; for there was such a stink i could hardly stay in the room . this character he would frequently give of that their pretended protomartyr to popery ; and the very person , whose misfortune , even by his own confession , was the very support of his pocket . notwithstanding this made well for otes , and his future colegue , bedloe , it turn'd to a scurvy account for many honest men , and put the unthinking rabble into such a rage , that most of mankind , except phanaticks , were accounted papists ; of which number , i was soon adopted a member . and a certain worthy and learned vicar sent up and down his parish for witnesses , to make out i was such , or something worse : at length , he found two men , as honest as himself , to swear a blind sort of treason against me ; the one formerly a gold-finder , and one of cromwel's jannizaries ; the other a miscreant , that has scarce been in a church since he was christen'd . these hell-hounds , accompanied with the noble vicar , took their way into aldersgate-street , and proffer'd to swear against me before the lord bishop of london ; who generously did refuse to meddle in the affair . thus repulsed , they applied themselves , in all humility , to otes , the saviour of the nation , ( whom the vicar had accustomed to mention kindly in a long , swinging thing , he calls a prayer ) and , after three low reverences , unfolded their supplications to him in words to this effect : that william smith , the school-master of islington , had spoken treason against his majesty ; that they were ready to aver it : but , he being a person of greater authority , it would be much better for him to swear , than for them . ( this i had from otes's own mouth . ) otes readily accepted the offer ; though he knew no more than the man in the moon , any thing of the matter , but what they told him . now , — actum est de vitâ & sanguine turni . otes with great diligence procures a warrant from some peers , ( whose names i forbear ) to apprehend me , and bring me before the house of lords . this warrant and work was recommended to one sarracoal , a flagitious and profligate rascal : he , with about twenty villains of his own gang , ( who , i believe , would have murder'd me , had it not been for thirty souldiers , which , with an officer of the guards , attended them ) came about one of the clock in the night , and , without knocking , broke open my outward door , the other being open to them . they rifled my house , frighted a child of about five years i had , that he dyed soon after . i was carried by these persons into black-spread-eagle-court in the strand , over against somerset-house , to one mr. tomson's . this house the varlet sarracoal had seized upon , and converted into a kind of goal . there was i confin'd in a little room , in which , i believe , forty or fifty smoaked ; and though i smoak't my self , i was almost smother'd . before morning , sarracoal brought in several persons more : and in the morning , this impudent fellow march't us one by one , between two musquetteers , to westminster ; and into the painted-chamber he brought us ; where we were placed upon the forms , and made a publick spectacle . now a porter with a note in his hand , would have been enough to have commanded me before the house of lords : but the children of edom , who managed such like designs in those days of wickedness , knew very well , that their conspiracy would soon fall to the ground , unless kept up by needless noise , clamours , tumults , fears , jealousies , shamms , and abominable lies . after about an hour's space , we were all brought into the house of lords by sir george charnock , then the serjeant at arms attending the house . after we had kneeled sometime , the lord chancellor bade us rise : and in comes otes very gravely , habited in his canonical vestments . he having sworn very profoundly against two or three , my turn came . the lord chancellor ask't him , what he had to say against me ? otes pretended much modesty , replying , he was ashamed to declare the words i had spoken of the king. after a seeming reluctancy , he swore , that i , in company , refusing to drink the king's health , wished the king's b — in a cleft stick . his majesty was then present sitting amongst the barons , near the barr : and being pleased to smile at this ridiculous story , i could hear him say , i believe , he would drink my health . i humbly requested the chancellor , that i might speak . his lordship told me , i might speak what i would . i then besought his lordship , to ask otes , where and when i spake these words , and if he heard me ? my lord reminding him , that he was upon his oath , exactly put these three questions to him . to the first , otes answer'd , he knew not where the words were spoken : to the second , he believed , it was some years ago . to the third , that he did not hear me speak them , but he could produce those that did hear me . after leave to speak , i said thus to the lords : my lords , i am very certain , i never spake any such words in all my life ; for never any such wicked thought enter'd into my heart : and if i mistrusted , that my tongue did , or ever would utter such vile words concerning my king , i would my self here cut it out , and cast it down at your lordship's barr : and as to the king's health , i am sure , i never deny'd it . i then made my humble request to my lord chancellor , to ask otes , if i was in the plot , or a papist ? otes answer'd to both in the negative . then he proceeded to swear against one mr. preston ; declaring he was a romish priest , and his confessor . this mr. preston was known to be so deaf , that he could scarce hear , when he was whoop't and hollow'd to ; so that otes and his confessor must have chose salisbury-plain for their chappel , unless they had a mind all people should hear them : yet mr. preston upon this oath lay in newgate two or three years . well , we were order'd all to withdraw , and re-placed upon the benches , in the painted-chamber , in worse condition than before ; for now we had a souldier planted betwixt each of us . in an hour's time , the lords adjourned till four in the afternoon ; and sir edward carteret , the black rod , came to us with a paper in his hand , importing our doom : some were order'd to the gate-house ; some to newgate ; some discharg'd : i was left among the souldiers , whom the black rod discharged ; telling me , i was his prisoner . he recommended me to one button , a messenger , and charged him to treat me civilly ; which truly he did . this was on fryday the first day of november , 1678. and notwithstanding mr. latimer , and mr. hughes ( whom with gratitude i here mention ) proffer'd to be bound body for body in my behalf , i was kept in custody ; so strong was the ferment of that season . in the afternoon , dr. dean , and mr. wells a minister , visited me ; and next morning , mr. gadbury and major fisher came to me : and these were all the friends i saw in this unhappy juncture . all things were in a most violent hurry ; and i was in such a great consternation , that i knew not which way to turn my self , or what to do . between seven and eight at night , out came my lord shaftsbury , in a great cloak , to warm himself at a fire in the with-drawing green-lobby : by the messenger's perswasion , i followed him . i told his lordship , i was clearly innocent of what otes had sworn against me in the morning ; and i hop'd , his lordship , out of pity and commiseration , would stand my friend . he told me , he would not speak for any one , nor be a friend to any one , that spoke against the king. i replyed , his lordship was too wise , to believe all reports to be true . no , ( says he ) i believe not all reports to be true ; and i think , what was spoke of thee in the morning , was an idle story : but i have this afternoon an account of thee from dr. tonge and mr. ferguson , men that know thee , as well as thou knowest thy self , which will prove of dangerous consequence to thee . i desired his lordship to let me know , what dangerous things they had inform'd against me ? he told me , i had made a practice of talking for , and desending the church of rome , in every place where i came , which was treason . i humbly did beseech him again , to stand my friend . he reply'd ; if thy friends can get thee out of these bryars , wilt thou be an honest man ? i told him , yes , i would to my power . i then told him again , i could justify my self against that which otes had sworn . but , ( says he ) if thou goest about to justify thy self , thou'lt be utterly lost ; for thy friends had very much ado to keep the house from sending for those two persons otes mention'd : petition therefore the lords , to be discharg'd . and so he left me , promising he would assist me the best he could ; which i believe , he did . i shall make a short observation upon this dialogue . i had not , to my knowledge , ever before that day seen tonge ; and with ferguson i had never been in company , save once ; and i 'm sure , we talk't nothing of the church of rome : so that , i believe , these men were then as busie to bring people into the plot , as otes ; and doubtless , were as deeply concern'd . it may be consider'd likewise , that i then was intended for the future work , because i was to be , in his lordship's sense , an honest man ; a term of art i have had cause to understand the meaning of very well , since . thus , instead of getting out of the bryars , i got much faster in . i had not stay'd so long , as the reading this digression , in the lobby , but a prelate repair'd thither to warm himself , as i imagine : i made my address , as well as i could , to him for his help and assistance : it seems , dr. tonge was this prelate's great confident ; which , i presume , made me fare the worse . the prelate told me plainly ; that i , having kept company with so many papists , and perhaps one my self , must needs either be in the plot , or know something of it ; and that it would be best for me to deal freely with the lords , they having been so kind to me , as not to commit me to prison ; i might imagine , they meant not to ruin me , but only to make me an honest man. i protested , by all that is sacred , i knew nothing of any plot. here i cannot but remark , that this prelate was much severer than the lord shaftsbury ; for now i was a papist , and a plotter ; notwithstanding the very oracle , titus himself , had upon oath clear'd me from being either of them , and that but just before , in his lordship's hearing . this good man had certainly read all the major and minor prophets , together with the book of revelations , with incomparable judgment , and singular advantage to himself , else he could never have known more of me , than i knew of my self ; and that i must be undone , before i could be made an honest man. this was a sharp use of an evening consolation , and more severe than otes's morning-lecture . saturday came , and i petition'd the house to be discharged ; my petition was read , an order being made to this effect ; that my license for teaching school was to be taken from me , and that i was to give an account of what i could , that might deserve the favor of the house . in the mean time , my old friend , the vicar afore-mentioned , was not idle ; he being all this while as strenuous and sedulous to take away my livelihood , as others were to take away my life : he , i say , together with a broken brewer , introduced one clatterbuck ( a parson's son ) into my house and imployment , without any order from the company of brewers , who are the patrons ; they being of a different opinion , as this following certificate , given at that time , will evince : we the master , wardens and assistant , of the company of brewers , london , governours of the lady owen's free-school at islington , whereof william smith , master of arts , hath been for twelve years school-master , who now is suspended from his said imployment ; do , on the behalf of the said william smith , humbly certify , that he was an industrious and careful person in his place ; and is a very loyal subiect to his sacred majesty and government , for any thing we know to the contrary . james reading , master . joseph lawrence , thomas morton , william courtis , wardens . ralph bowes , richard hammond , jo. raymond , david knight , assistants . now the vicar had atchieved his design ; namely , he had got me fast enough , and almost in as ready a road to the gallows , as mr. staley : he had put the afore-said clutterbuck into my place ; yet he ceased not to persecute me still : trudging to brewer's-hall to say grace , and replenish his gutt , he there most falsly bespatter'd me in a fustian-harangue after dinner ; having not leisure , i suppose , till he had filled his belly , to rail against , and abuse the innocent . yet observe what came of all this : clutterbuck has since spent his patrimony , which was considerable , and ruin'd , by his illiterature and negligence , the school , with his own reputation ; and even flown in the face of his promoter and patron , the vicar . on saturday in the afternoon , i was examin'd by a certain p — . he perswaded me , that i was one of the black-bill-men , or one of the dagger-men of drury-lane . this struck me into a profound amazement , i not having heard of any such kind of creature , till that very minute . but how unknown soever those dreadful names might be to my self , certainly the apparition must be not a little terrible , which even gravity , learning , and wisdom was so apprehensive of . however , all i could offer to clear my self from being either of the fore-mention'd dangerous things , or any other sort of guilty person , it all avail'd the little ▪ for now i was not only a papist , but a plotter , and a small officer into the bargain . really , i then believed my self gone . in the interim , such speedy care was taken to send the lord's order to doctor's-commons , as that night , by the exemplary vigilance of sir thomas exton , and his careful register , newcourt , i received a command , to deliver my license ( which i had bought and paid for ) to the messenger , and not to teach school in the diocess , or any where else . my license thus taken from me , it was impossible that i , under my circumstances , should ever be so connived it , as to teach without one ; as some others did then , and do so to this day : therefore i was , if not in duty , yet in fear of the statute , obliged to desist , otherwise i might have proceeded in my school , for the governours thereof never discharged me . here 't is observable , that my whole livelihood , and all i had in the world being thus taken from me , and that upon no other ground , than either the fore-mentioned unintelligible treason , swore to by otes , without either the how , when , and where to it , or else , for my being suspected one of the above-named dagger , or black-bill-men : either of these chymaera's having influence enough to undo me . here was ruin and poverty ( laid-on ) my back , but two necessary preparatives , to make me embrace that honesty , that was so requisite to give my lord shaftsbury satisfaction . a blow of this kind being but too apt to make men malleable to purposes and impressions , not so easily taken and received in prosperity . on monday-night following , the lords discharged me ; and in their very order , as will appear by the journal of the house of lords , they express'd me a protestant , yet see , the caprice of fortune , and what fatality attends the unhappiness of some men. by this most just and generous acquitment of their lordship's , from the imputation of popery , and the dangers thereunto belonging , i was re-instated into my former innocence . nevertheless , though by this re-instatement , all my daggering , black-billing , treasoning , and plotting , wholly disappeared , yet the guilt vanish't , but the punishment remain'd : for my license , and my school , were never restor'd me again , though the phantom that took them from me , was dissolved into air. soon after this , otes spoke to major fisher , to find me out and bring me to him , which the major promised him to do ▪ for indeed , the major then lodg'd in the same house with me , though he did not tell otes so , as suspecting it might be to my prejudice , because otes threatned , it should be the worse for me , if i came not . considering this menace , i attended my lord bishop of london , and pray'd his advice ; who counsell'd me to go to otes , but to be cautious of what i said , and likewise , to have a friend with me , to be witness ( if occasion requir'd ) of what past between us ; and also , to attend his lordship again , to give him an account of the particulars : all which i perform'd ; mr. thomas hughes ( before mentioned in this discourse ) being the friend i made choice of to go along with me . we came to white-hall , and were permitted to speak with otes , whom we found in his chamber , and mr. thomas smith , a counsellor of the temple , with him . after we had talk't of some indifferent things , otes ask't me , what i knew of matthew medburne ? ( who was then in prison , and whom he had preferr'd to be a captain . ) to which i answer'd , i knew no ill of him . then he question'd me , if i had never heard him cry up the french king and disparage and speak ill of the king of england ? i reply'd ; that truly i heard him often applaud and extol the french king ; but i never heard him speak an ill word against our king ; but on the contrary , defend him to his power against others , that spoke reflectingly of him . then counsellor smith began to speak ; and , in a long harangue , told me to this effect : that he believed , i was an honest man , and that i would do what service i could to my king and country , as became a good man , and loyal subject : and therefore , since it had pleas'd god to make discovery of this hellish design and conspiracy , if i had heard or known any thing done or said tending thereunto , i ought to disclose it . and therefore , he prest me very earnestly , to be frank with the doctor , in my knowledge and conversation with medburnet and in the questions made me by the doctor , concerning him . but to all this i still positively answer'd him , that i neither knew any thing at all of a plot , or any thing against medburn . then otes desir'd me to step in with him into his closet ; where he privately told me , that if i would appear against medburne , he could procure an order from the king to the brewers , to re-instate me in my school ; which he promis'd to perform , upon the condition afore-said . the answer i made him , to excuse my self , was , that the school would be little worth to me now , under my present aspersions and circumstances . upon this , he offer'd me his power and interest , in promising me any thing else i could find convenient ; with reiterated protestations of serving me , and intreaties to accuse medburne . all this i refused , with a compliment , that i would consider of it : upon which we return'd into the chamber , to our company again : and soon after , parted friendly . this interview was about christmas , in the year 1678. after which time i saw otes no more , till june 1679. though he desired major fisher , who sometimes visited him , to tell me , he would have me call upon him : and the reason why i was but a little while troubled with that importunity from him , was , that mr. medburne soon after died in newgate . however i cannot omit one divertive story that intervened : oates being exalted with his high dignities and great name of , the saviour of the nation , wanted to know his coat of arms ; and major fisher sometimes waiting on him , and being also skill'd in herauldry , the doctor communicated himself to the major for his assistance herein . the major , to favour so comical a request of the doctor , consulted with mr. wright and mr. blackamore , two herauld-painters , who readily embraced the search into records for the honourable original of so illustrious a personage as titus the famous ; but after diligent and tedious inquiry , it so fell out that titus oates was either the first hero of his family , or the heraulds had been unkind in not transmitting his name and arms to posterity , for neither could be found . our discoverer , it seems , being like the champion mentioned by silius ita icus , ast illi sine luce genus , surdumque parentum nomen — these men being unwilling nevertheless to defeat the doctor 's honourable expectations , or that the major should lose his reward expected for this eminent piece of service to him , found out a coat which they believed no body now could claim , viz a chevron between three crosses croslet fitchee . being the atchievement of sir otes swinford , husband to the lady katherine swinford , afterwards married to john of gaunt , duke of lancaster . this the doctor believed , and joyfully received , and most triumphantly engraved it on all his plate , and in a large seal ring , requiting the major with 20 s. but into the bargain obliged him to bring him his pedegree , all which he would pay for ; but that being as hard to be produced as one of his own commissions , the major's non-performance quite lost the doctor 's favour . but to return to our purpose . in may 1679. the parliament then sitting at westminster , i met one mr. barrow , since prebendary of windsor ; we went into a house to drink together ; after some common discourse , he began to tell me a long story , how the saturday last he had met the bishop of chester's chaplain , who enquired of him concerning me : i asking him for what , and also telling him i knew not the man ; he made answer , that the parliament being going to try the lords in the tower , i was wanted to prove oates's being in town , for which end he told me the chaplain had sent for him to enquire me out . i was very much surprized at this , and reminding him of the great troubles i had lately been in , which he very well knew , i desired to be excused from any such thing , as being mighty unwilling to be brought upon the stage again . i confest indeed i very well remembred he had been with me several times that last summer , as indeed he had ; but however i besought him not to desire any such thing of me , expressing my great aversion thereunto ; but he urged the great service i should do to the publick , and told me , i should be highly gratified by the parliament : nevertheless i persisted in my denyal , continuing to express several reasons for my dislike in doing any such thing ; till at last he plainly told me he had order to bring me , and that if i would not go , he would send for a constable , and i should not stir from thence till he had sent the parliament word of me ; in which finding him in earnest , rather than be so compell'd , i thought it better to go quietly along with him ; and to westminster we went , and coming to the house of lords , we sent in to the bishop of chester , but he being that day ill of the gout , and not there , we sent in to the bishop of london , who was pleased to come forth to us : we signified to his lordship the intention of our coming , who was pleased to say , i did ill i had not told him of this thing before ; to which i replied , i did not know there was any occasion for my testifying any such thing : my lord was pleased to say , i had done well if i had come sooner , there being testimony wanting in that point ; but now the papers concerning the popish plot being this morning carried down to the house of commons , the lords would say nothing to me ; we then desired his lordship to instruct us what we should do , who order'd us to go to the house of commons , and send in a note to sir thomas meers , letting him know we came from his lordship . but before we went , his lordship gave me caution that i did nothing but what was just and honest , and that i should no ways wrong my conscience . accordingly we went , and coming into the lobby , where the crowd was great , after the note was sent in , i lost mr. barrow , whom i then saw no more , but sir thomas meers came out to me : i acquainting him with the business , he required me to stay in that place till he went back into the house , which he thought would soon adjourn , and return'd to me . i staid a little while , and the house adjourning , he came to me again , and told me i must go to the secret committee in lincolns-inn-fields , at serjeant maynard's house , about six a clock at night , and in his name enquire for sir thomas lee : but , says he , i shall see him before then , and prepare him to send for you in presently , when you come thither . at six i went , where i found the committee sitting , where meeting mr. banister of grays-inn , who was order'd to be their door-keeper ; as a confiding man , and signifying my desire of speaking with sir thomas lee , he went in , and sir thomas immediately came out , and told me i should be presently call'd in , which was done , and the door very carefully shut after me with two locks , as i remember : sir thomas lee sat at the upper end of the table , i suppose as chairman , who made an harangue , much such another as councellor smith had done before , expressing the great deliverance this kingdom had received from the late discovery , and how it was every mans duty to do all that lay in his power to be instrumental in serving the nation and the protestant religion , &c. he required me to inform him what time oates was with me the summer before ; i answered , several times about midsummer and after , to the best of my remembrance . another of the committee ask'd me if i did not see him in april , or the beginning of may 5. i told him i could not remember certainly : but they all prest upon me that it must be in april or may ; promising me , that if i would tell the truth , they would endeavour with the king and house of lords , to have me restored to the place i lost , or a better ; urging withal , that if i would not tell the truth , things would be worse with me , and much more to that threatning purpose . i being apprehensive of danger , and having already suffer'd too much considering too i was not upon my oath , i ventured to say that truly i thought it might be about may ; which sir thomas lee wrote down , and afterwards required me to subscribe to ; which i not suspecting they would ever demand of me , was surprized into , and durst not deny them . they enquired likewise where i lodged , and to find me again wrote down that too , which i durst not deny likewise ; fearing to be laid by the heels upon refusal . then they all said we are now ready , and will acquaint the house to morrow morning ; and something else they said they would do with the house of lords , which i cannot particularly remember . vvhen they had put down the place i lodged at , one of them stood up and said , we shall have all the rogues out of every hole and corner by degrees ; which not a little troubled me ( though now too late ) to think how they had drawn me in , and before i went out of the room with what a course appellation they treated the tool they had made . however at parting they returned me thanks , and promis'd me also the whole house of commons would thank me too , and so with much civility , and many good words , dismist me . but the commons soon afterwards falling upon the succession , the parliament was dissolved in some few days after . upon which i heard no more of this business , and indeed expected to hear no more on 't . but in june i coming late home one night , found a subpana for me to appear at the old-baily by 8 a clock next morning ; the subpana imported a cause depending between the king and thomas whitebread , whom i do declare in the presence of god , i did not then know what or who he was , for tho all the town at that time was full of no other discourse than of the jesuites in newgate , and other popish criminals ; yet their names i never troubled my self to enquire into , being then very melancholy under my long adversity , and scarce daring to shew my head abroad . now to shew the oddness of the circumstances that surprized me in this thing , i was found out at my lodgings by the paper sir thomas lee had made me sign . neither should they have done this , had i had the least suspicion that i should have been subpoena'd in this cause ; for when i appear'd before the committee , their pretensions were wholly of using me in the tryal of the lords ; which the parliaments dissolution made me conclude was now over , and therefore not in the least imagining i should have been call'd upon in this case at the old-baily , i had not provided me any other lodgings , or sought any concealment or preventions against it . to the old-baily accordingly in the morning i went , and coming to the door , i spoke to an officer , and show'd him my subpana , not then knowing what i was summon'd thither for , by reason i came home late the night before , and this was the first enquiry i made , for the fellow that brought the subpoena staying till 11 a clock at night for me at my lodgings , and not finding me come in , left it with strict orders with my landlord to deliver it me ; and being asked what it concerned , he would give him no account of that , but in general terms told him it was business of great consequence , and so repeated his strict charge of not failing the delivery of it , and sending me next morning accordingly ; the officer made me no other answer , than that i must go to the fountain tavern at snow-hill ; where coming , i found the two oates's , father and son , ( that being the first time that i had ever seen the father ) together with councellour smith , and many other persons , strangers to me . this likewise was the first time ( as before-mentioned ) that i had seen oates from about christmas before . after a glass or two of vvine drank to me , and some other usual civilities past , the two oates and councellor smith retired , and in some minutes after sent a messenger to tell me there was one would speak with me in another room ; whereupon i went out , and found it was they : they had likewise a bottle of vvine there , and after some further civilities , councellor smith began to speak much to the purpose he had done at white-hall , which for brevity i pass by . but at length they came to insist upon my testimony for oates his being in town in the month of may beforementioned , which i endeavouring to evade , they answered , i had confest it to the committee , and subscribed my hand to it , which they said they had ready to produce against me , if i retracted from it , and refused to do him justice , and own the truth ( for justice and truth were then words of course with him ) till , in fine , they plainly told me , this i must averr , or there was a jayl ready hard by to receive me ; which truly would have been soon done , for the court was then sitting , and undoubtedly that accursed and unlucky paper , with the strength of oates his credit and sway at that time of day , would have laid a bigger man than my self by the heels . reflecting upon the impending danger , and withal my own already too ruinous condition , i being then under that extreme poverty that i had long lain in a lodging of but 13 d. a week , and was reduced to the most pressing want ; and more than all this , having been lately informed of the dismal effects of newgate , of those great numbers of preists and other prisoners on the popish account , that daily died through the unhealthiness of the place , occasioned by the infinite swarms there : my own poverty , and the imminent danger of my life , not only this way , but also by some of the old stories formerly charg'd upon me at the house of lords , which might still have been revived , with other additions that the malice of oates and his great abettors , upon that refusal , through the prevailing vvickedness of those times might have raised against me . all this , i say , together with my own want of money , advice , or friends at that time , and indeed not leisure enough throughly to consider the fatal consequences , the tryal then hastning on , my own vveakness at last forced me to comply , whilest my apprehensions , surprize , and fears overpowred my vanquisht reason , and husht all other sentiments . thus was i unfortunately ensnared by a continual chain of cross contingencies , together with an humane frailty which some time or other attends all mankind . yet truly , that the vvorld may not lie in a mistaken opinion , i profess before god , men and angels , that i neither had any malice against any of the persons then impeacht , whom till then i had never seen ; nor did i comply through any prospect of reward , or mercenary end whatever , having never had so much as one farthing from that day to this , no not so much as one shilling at the delivery of the subpoena . the rest of the summer i was very quiet , being very kindly treated by oates whenever i came to visit him . and after michaelmas following dangerfield sets up his plot ; which when i heard of , in curiosity i went the next morning to oates to hear his opinion of it ; he was in his chamber , and when i had stayed some small time with him , in came sir will. waller , coll. mansell , peter gill , mr. chetwyn , and tho. merry , vvith some others . waller had a very great bundle of papers vvhich he pulled out from under his coat , they having that night searched mrs. celliers house , and brought these from thence : oates then ask'd sir william hovv matters vvent , sir william made a discourse of half an hour long ; as much of which , as i remember , was to this purpose : vve , says he , have searcht celliers house from top to bottom , with all the care and diligence that men could use , and we thought vve might have found some priests or jesuites , or such ill persons , or else some treasonable papers , but vve found none , and so vve vvent out of the house ; but when we vvere in the street , in troth doctor i had an impulse upon my spirits to go back and search again ; so vvere entred , and i remembring a meal-tub vvhich i had seen before there , but had not search'd ; i examin'd that , and under some flovver at the bottom of it , i found all these papers . likevvise aftervvards i found some papers , but of no great consequence behind a pevvter dish in the kitchen : says oates to this , vvhat are those papers , vvhat is there in them ? quoth sir william , the papists have throvvn a plot upon us ; they have made the duke of monmouth a general , and my lord macklesfield a lieutenant general , and a great many other officers ( vvhich sir william named , but i forgot ) but sir william proceeded , nay , they have done me the honour to make me a collonel . from thence they vvent to the council vvith the papers , and only oates and i vvere left behind ; and no sooner vvere their backs turn'd , but says oates ; by the lord they have put these papers into the meal-tub themselves , and found them when they have done . and truly taking the circumstances all together , and sir williams true protestant impulse for the safety of the nation that made him return again into the house after so through a search before ; oates's plain dealing in this matter , look'd vvith a shrevvd suspicious face of truth and reason . but having mention'd sir william , i cannot omit another prank of his , vvhich vvas his producing of pickerings gun : he and his gang got a gun of a confiding brother , a gunsmith in the minories , vvhich cost them a considerable summ of money . after this purchase , sir william , vvith the aforenamed gang , pretended to make a search into pickerings house in the savoy ; and in this sham search they convey'd the gun into the house , and amongst a parcel of feather-beds , vvhich vvith other goods lay in a confused heap , they opend the seam in one of the beds , and clapt in the gun , and sovved up the seam again ; and next night making a nevv search , upon pretence of some second impulse of sir williams , that he had not search'd narrovvly enough before , they found the gun vvhere they had left it ; and tho this king killing trophy vvas undiscover'd till this second search , yet a more harmless and softer metal in the same room , viz. 3 or 400 l. in old gold and silver , did not scape him at first search ; vvith the fore-mention'd trophy , thus heroically gain'd , these true protestant champions march'd in great triumph to the king and council , where sir william upon his knees made a present of it to his majesty , vvho commending it for a very pretty gun , made a present of it back again to sir william . but that sir william brought the money to his majesty as well as the popish gun , historians make no question . i cannot pass by one more of sir williams adventures ; amongst the many apparitions of popery , visible only to true protestant eyes , there happened an information of a lady abbess and a house of nuns at hammersmith ; this vvas about march 1680. sir william procured a vvarrant from the council to search this popish seminary ; vvhich vvas accordingly done , oates himself going along vvith him ; and to make the greater bustle in so doughty an undertaking , they put the whole tovvn of hammersmith into an uproar , and then most manfully broke open the doors , where they found an old gentlewoman , with 3 or 4 little girls which she taught needlework ; and to make out this formidable discovery they found out a discipline , which they had formerly taken amongst the spoils of some popish houses : and which oates had a long time before carried in his pocket . vvith this infallible demonstration of a monastery they returned : vvhich relique oates kept afterwards in his pocket still , and i have seen him flaug his menial ganymedes with it . but to return to titus again . his great and stupendious fortune brought his mother up to town from hastings in sussex , where she was a midwife , to see her son ; which was a little before christmas in 79 , who lay with her husband at his lodgings in york buildings , where one day i happen'd to dine with them . some time after dinner the old man went out , and left only me and the old woman together ; i staying indeed the longer for a friend , whom i had order'd to call upon me there . the old woman , ( much unlike her husband and son ) was look'd upon by all that knew her to be a very pious and vertuous woman in her way , and at this time treated me very kindly ; where discoursing with me , she said thus : mr. smith , you have known my son titus a great while , pray what do you think of him , and this business ; ( meaning the plot ) to which i answer'd , very well ; not thinking fit to tell her my real sentiments : the old woman shaking her head , replied , indeed i do not like it well . pray god bless him . you know , mr. smith , i have had a great many children , and by my profession i have skill in womens concerns . but i believe never woman went such a time with a child as i did with him . i could seldom or never sleep when i went with him , and when i did sleep i always dreamt i was with child of the devil . but when i came to my travail , i had such hard labour that i believe no woman ever had ; it was ten to one but it had kill'd me : i was never so of any of my other children . then when he grew up i thought he would have been a natural ; for his nose always run , and he slabber'd at the mouth , and his father could not endure him ; and when he came home at night the boy would use to be in the chimney corner , and my husband would cry take away this snotty fool , and jumble him about , which made me often weep , because you know he was my child . this is verbatim what his mother said of him , for i took special notice of her words . he was born at oakam , in the county of rutland , his father being then chaplain to collonel pride , where he was brought up in his childhood . in the year 1664. he was brought to merchant-taylors-school , as a free-schollar , by nicholas delves , esq now living ; he happening to be in books that were taught in my forms , i was sent for down to receive him into the school , which i did in a very unlucky hour . and truly , the first trick he served me , was , that he cheated me of our entrance-money which his father sent me , which the doctor generously confest in his greatness at whitehall , and very honestly paid me then . i wish he had been as just in all his other greater matters ; if so , the kingdom had not been in such tormoyls , nor so many honest men destroyed and undone . coming one evening to visit him at whitehall , i found bedloe and prance with him ; amongst other discourses , they talkt of sir edmundbury godfrey : oats laught at the business , and said , here is bedloe , that knew no more of the murder than you or i did . but he got the five hundred pound , and that did his work , and gave this blockhead 30 l. of it . he pickt him up in the lobby of the house of lords , and took him for a loggerhead fit for his purpose ; at which bedloe laught heartily , and prance look'd a little dull , as displeased . at this rate i have heard oats and bedloe discourse very often , who used always themselves to make the business of godfrey a ridiculous story , and entertain'd themselves when private with the jest on 't . at the lord staffords tryal , i got in for curiosity amongst the witnesses against him ; and that morning the sentence was past , when the question of guilty or not guilty passing among the barons , we being so near them as to hear what past , when the major voices at first went not guilty , dugdale walk'd about very melancholy and dejected , muttering to himself : i ask'd him , what was the matter ? he replyed , i believe he 'l be quitted , and i am undone ; but let what will come on 't , i am ruin'd . i hapned the winter after this to be in dugdales company , in the kitchin at the three-tun tavern at charing-cross one night ; where an old gentleman happening to come to the bar to inquire for some person there , i observed dugdale to startle and stare : i ask'd him , what was the matter ? he made me no reply , but in much disorder rose up , and went to the woman at the bar , ( the gentleman being then gone ) and ask'd , who that antient gentlemen was ? she told him , she knew him not . god bless me , said he , i believe 't is my lord stafford ! ( as the woman inform'd me afterwards ) and returning again to me , i ask'd him what he went out for ? lord ! says he , did you not see a gentleman come to the bar , and speak to the woman of the house ? no , said i , my back was towards the bar , and i saw him not . i protest , replyed he , i thought it had been my lord stafford ; and continued so terrified with the apprehension , that he was very uneasie , and went away . this story coming to his landladies ear , who lived within a few doors of the place , her name mrs. beak , she and i discoursing this matter , she told me also something of the like nature of him , which was this : having occasion to come into his bed-chamber for something , one night , that she wanted from thence , when dugdale was in bed , she went in softly with a candle in her hand , and a white apron on , designing if asleep not to wake him ; no sooner came she in , but dugdale in a very great fright and start , cryed out , stafford ! stafford ! stafford ! with many other expressions of a most terrible fear , till the woman with much ado at last undeceived him . it will not be amiss , in this place , to add the relation of turbevils death , the other great witness against the lord stafford : falling sick of the small-pox at his landladies , mrs. holmes in the savoy , near his death he began to rave extreamly of stafford , crying , take away stafford ! take away stafford ! with several other continued crys upon the same subject ; which several persons , both the landladies relations and others will testifie : and at the minute of his death , his bed shook so extreamly , that his landlady and several other people then present , thought it would have fal'n to pieces . nay , and there came such a strong blast of wind , that the people were afraid the house would have been blown down . and 't is not unknown also , that a much greater man than turbevil , at his exit demonstrated an extraordinary remembrance of stafford . i have given the reader these particulars of my conversation and knowledge of those villains , hoping that this small detection , ( being what lay in my reach ) of these hellish impostures , which then ruled our ascendant , will not be ungrateful : and how unhappy soever i have been to my self , i have nevertheless always been a faithful and loyal subject , and in those worst of times , in my greatest familiarity with oats , i have used my little power with him , to divert him from his wickedness , having at several times , ( as far as i durst with safety ) disswaded him from divers of his malitious accusations . in the year 1681. i wholy deserted his company , and have never spoken to him since , and also gave mr. secretary jenkins an honest account of things that i heard and saw , intending it as a service to the king , as these following depositions will attest for me . september 19 th 1681. i delivered this to mr. secretary jenkins at his office in whitehall . about the time that mr. colledge was taken , i well remember one mr. william smith , a fifth-monarchy-man , askt me in otes ' s chamber in whitehall , in the presence of james creswel , william dalby , and william powel , ( the two first being otes ' s menial servants ) where smith the priest , macnamarra , and the other irish witnesses lodged ? i askt him why he enquired their lodgings ? he replyed , that himself and others would take them and carry them to tyburn , and hang them on the gallows , and pin papers on their backs , to enform the world why they were hanged . the said smith likewise told me at greys in scotland-yard , that he and others would be about henly , and meet colledge , and rescue him as easily as they formerly rescued mason . this was in the presence of the aforesaid powel and dalby ; smith then called dalby into the next room , and talked with him some time . about bartholomew-tide 1680 , alderman wilcocks gave a treat at the crown tavern without temple-barr to divers gentlemen , of which ( he being my very good friend ) i was one , the time appointed was one a clock , about which time otes , his brother sam , and counsellor smith came ; and about half an hour after , up comes john smith and colledge ; i not then well knowing colledge , askt john smith , who he was , which he told me , saying , it was mr. colledge the protestant joyner : one of the company ( i think it was colledge ) produced a pamplet in quarto of two sheets , about the duke of york , which was read : it was long before dinner came up , which being ended , mr. otes , mr. savage , and mr. john smith , fell into a friendly dispute in divinity ; mr. colledge was so far from sleeping during their discourse , that he was often interrupting them with his quibbles and rhime-doggrel , for which otes rebuked him . i am very certain , neither colledge , nor any body else , slept in the room before dinner or after : we parted , and i left otes , smith , colledge , and others of the company in an alley by the palsgraves head . the very day after ( as i take it ) that colledge was condemned , about nine in the morning , i was walking through st. margarets church-yard , westminster , and mr. hunt the lawyer hum'd to me ; i met him , he complained of colledges ill usage in many bitter expressions ; among others , i very well remember , he said these words at our parting : by god , this pace will not carry it ; we must take another course i askt him , what ? he replayed , we must dagger them , nothing but a dagger will do it . dagger who , quoth i ? these rogues the judges , says he ; we must make a tumult in the street , and stab them like villains in their coaches , for an example to others ; for no good will be done , we shall have no justice , till these rogues be served so . mr. merry said to me in mr. ote's chamber at whitehall , when the parliament was sitting at oxford , 1680 / 1. that the king had a design to seize upon all the protestant honest lords and gentlemen at oxford , and chop off their heads ; but , says he , they are well provided for defence and offence ; yet the king will cut off all the honest party , and bring in popery at last by the help of the king of france ; but if he travels once more , neither he , nor any of the race of him , will ever return . rhoderick mansel at lambs ordinary in march 1679. told mr. savage , mr. hughs , mr. button , and my self ; that there were commissions given out , that sir william waller had seized them , that he had seen them , that he knew of twenty horses in divers stables ready , that he and collonel disney would head the prentices ; that he would fight for the cause in blood up to the knees , and that the king resolved to bring in popery . this was before the business of captain tom. nicholson , when he was fitting up otes's pistols , a little before the parliament met at oxford , said to me ; come , come , we shall have occasion for these before we come back again from oxford ; i shall be once again on horseback : i would i were twenty years younger . he was a trooper in cromwells army . the aforesaid creswel is a most audacious villain ; his many horrid expressions against the king , and the great ministers of state , would fill many sheets . his ordinary execrations against the king , are , the devil confound him , he is a papist ; the devil run through him with a scythe at 's back : the devil run through that papist whore , that bitch , the queen with a scythe at 's back . the like curses against the chancellor , mr. seymore , secretary jenkins , privy seal , &c. i have heard him express , ( i do really think ) above a hundred times . doctor oates hath in my hearing , i belive , a hundred times , affirmed very peremptorily , that the supream power was in the people , that the king was but the peoples servant and steward ; that the people had power to depose him , and set up another when they pleased : that the king was as deep in the plot , and was as errant a papist as his brother : that , the king had suborned vvitnesses to stifle the popish plot , and to throw it upon the protestants ; mentioning dangerfield , tongue , and fitz-harris . one day ; when tongue was examined before the council . otes told me , all the subornation will come up to our master at last ; meaning the king. many times otes has said to me , his fingers itches ( meaning the king ) to bring in popery , and the french government ; but it will not do ; we are ready , we are provided against him with men and arms , upon any occasion : he may remember what became of former kings that abused parliaments : let him remember his father ; he must expect the same sauce if he goes on . the persons that most frequented otes's chamber , were , councellor smith , starkey , pascal , charleton , aaron smith , vvilson , burroughs , nelthrop , vvest , hunt , snow , halford , blaney , merry , mansel , sir hugh inglesby , collonel scot , chetwin , colledge , yarrington , harrington , dr. jones , dr. butler , dr. pole , dr. a prebendary of chichester , cannon , billing , penn , and vvhitacre . that afternoon oats returned from oxford after colledges tryal , he laid him down on the chairs in his chamber at whitehall , and said , oh! there is a great man fallen this day in israel ! i wish i may lay down my life in so just a cause : he is his countries martyr . well! well ! we may now see how the game is like to go ; our master ( meaning the king ) is resolved to bring in popery : no man ever had such foul play as this poor colledge ; all the true protestants will be murdered thus one after another . major wildman , and mr. charleton furnished oats at his going to oxford to the parliament with forty pound , his collections are now gathered by elias best the hop-merchant in thames-street . william powel said to me one day in scotland-yard , dam this dog warcup ! by god , if i could light on him handsomely , i would cut his throat , he hath been the cause of all this mischief ; meaning the business of colledge . this powel will commonly say , our family lost a great estate by windsor at the kings coming in , but if things go on we shall get it again i doubt not . i have divers times in oats's chamber in whitehall ( particularly after the dissolution of the two last parliaments , and during that at westminster ) heard henry starkey , aaron smith , mr. hunt , mr. wilson , mr. chetwin , mr. thomas merry , mr. richard halford , mr. vvhitaker , collonel mansel , and doctor oates , affirm and discourse thus , vve have 20000 horse and foot , ready armed upon occasion ; we value not the kings guards a fart ; and if the duke of monmouth will but draw his sword , he 'l find friends enough ; and if the parliament would but sit , their friends could protect them against the king , and all his guards . the means how they can have 20000 men so ready ( as far as i could perceive ) is this , the gentlemen of the three great clubs , and their adherents of the better sort , and the meaner fort of the trained-bands , are double armed ; i have heard many of them say , they would loose their lives before they would part with their arms , and if the king should come to demand them , they would fire upon him . i remember , when the matter of presenting the guards was on foot , that mr. merry said to me , the grand inquest are cowardly and timerous fellows , and dare not go through with the work , they are too much of the court party ; but afterwards upon advice from my lord shaftsbury , the business was laid aside : my lord said , it was better to let the guards alone , because they were of small moment to obstruct our designs , and help'd to impoverish the king ; this dr. otes told me , and i once heard my lord speak to that purpose . otes often visited my lord shaftsbury , and was put upon swearing against the duke of york , by his instigation ; as otes himself told me , and verily , i believe it was true . dr. otes , when i have ask'd him of my lord shaftsbury , hath often told me , my lord was well , and would say , what are they all starved yet at whitehall ? the king will not be able to buy a shirt to his back in a short time . and i once heard my lord say to otes ; i shall see thee bishop of winchester , or canterbury before i dye : this was occasioned by otes's threatning my lord chancellor , and saying , he was a rogue , and he would stick as close to him as the shirt on his back . this was in august , 1679. aaron smith told me in otes's chamber , that a name sake of mine made the ballad of the raree show , i ask'd him , who , he then answered me , you see him . mr. burroughs the glass-seller in york-buildings , commonly repaired to otes's chamber on sunday in the morning . his province is to get to be a jury man at hicks's hall and vvestminster , and to obstruct all business tending to the advantage of the crown , to make a disturbance in the parish , to rail against the bishops , to perswade the people the king is bringing in arbitrary power and popery , and to contribute , and raise money for otes . mr. vvilson one morning in march last , in otes's chamber discoursed to me thus , vve must draw our swords , nothing will be done with these pimps and rogues without it , meaning the ministers of state : the king will never be good till we force him to it ; nor the nation happy till another course be taken ; we shall fee popery and despotical power overwhelm us , unless we draw our swords , and fight for our religion and liberty . this vvilson was continually singing bowdy and treasovable songs reflecting on the king. mr. richard halford is an old leveller , and a commonwealths man ; he was an agitator at new-market , and in thompsons broil at burford , in 1647 : and hath been ( i do believe ) in all the pactious cabals this twenty tears : he is a very close and dangerous man , and hath had the dexterity to preserve himself undiscovered . mr. blaney of the temple , the short-hand writer , did in my hearing in otes's chamber say , there was a printing-press , in the temple , where they could do any thing : and by several hints i have heard , i am perswaded , most of the treasonable libels of late years were printed there . mr. john harrington did at the same time demonstrate how easie it was for a gentleman to compose and print , which , he said , prevented all the discovery by mercenary printers . sir henry inglesby told me , one afternoon in september last , in otes's chamber , that he believed all the true protestants in ireland , would have their throats cut in a short time by the papists , and that by the connivance , if not command of the duke of ormond , and some body else . mr. vvilliam snow , who belongs to the house of lords , is a very great confident of dr. otes's : he , when the parliament sits , informs the factious party what he hears about the house of lords ; shows lists of the lords names , and tells which are honest protestants , and which are rogues and tories : he is a constant singer of all the late treasonable and bawdy ballads , that abuse the king and government . mr. vvilliam dalby , otes ' s clerk , hath often told me , that the king was a papist , that mr. parsons of the temple had many times seen him at mass at somerset-house : that the king was drunk when he dissolved the parliament at oxford , so drunk that he could not stand or speak . i have often heard mr. dalby say , this popish race of the stewarts must be rooted out , there must be a change. he was formerly clerk to the committee of the rebels in rutland . thus far gentlemen , i have given you a small insight into this grand popular cheat , this great mystery of iniquity , and as far as my little walk amongst them has empower'd me to do . and truly , if all persons farther concern'd , would be as candid as my self , undoubtedly the whole imposture would be fully detected , and the yet unsatisfied part of mankind wholly undeceived . finis . postscript , some things being omitted in the preceding discourse , it may not be thought impertinent to insert them in this appendix ; and first , i shall give an account ( so far as fell under my knowledge , ) of the wrong , dr. goade mr. of merchant-taylors school sustaind in the late time of fraud and injustice , hoping that pious and learned person , will not take my honest and fair intentions otherwise than i mean them . the factious party of the company had watch'd with malitious eys to gain any advantage for several years against him ; but either not finding any plausible one , or esteeming him a man so extraordinarily qualify'd , that a better could not be found in the three kingdoms , ( and there i 'm sure they were in the right , ) they attempted not to eject him , but lessen'd him in priviledges belonging to his place , some years ( i think i may say ) before oates's plot appear'd above-ground . it so fell out , in the beginning of the year 1681 , ( as i take it , ) that john smith , ( commonly call'd narrative smith , but his real name is david barry , ) happen'd to dine with elias best the hop-merchant in thames-street ; he having sons at merchant-taylors-school , desir'd j. smith to examine how they benefitted in learning : these boys producing their books , drew out the ch. of england's catcehism with a comment upon it ; in which comment smith positively avow'd there was plain popery upon our b. saviour's descent into hell. this formidable spectrum of popery thus opportunely conjur'd up by smith the renegado priest ; the true prot. elias manag'd so effectually , that bushel , mallery , keys , delves , and other fanatical members of merchants taylors company , caus'd dr. goad to be summon'd to the hall to answer for his comment ; which he undertook , and unhappily did it under his hand , which was the only thing they wanted . next , they consulted their oracles , otes , ferguson , and dr. owen the independant ; the first to swear , and the latter to evict the popery of the comment , and its defence . notwithstanding during the time that this affair was transacted , i was very intimate with oates , yet he cautiously conceal'd it from me , knowing i would endeavour to prevent it , having so great a veneration for dr. goad , he being the best friend i ever found ; however he had before often tamper'd with me to have accused the dr. of being a papist ; which , neither knowing , or believing him so , i refus'd to do , telling oates , that it would be the greatest piece of ingratitude imaginable in him to attempt any such thing ; to which he would always answer , i did not spare you who were my mr. too , and therefore why should i spare him ? and for this aversion of mine , i was then wholly kept a stranger to their projects against him , till they had fully done their work . but to give you the full account of this comment , and the dr's . ruine that attended it ; the matter of fact is as follows . upon a fit of sickness that the dr. lay under , the conduct of his school was wholly left to the ushers , who driving ( as is well known ) a great trade in selling books to the schollars , did at that time , for their own private lucre , introduce this comment upon the church catechism into the school ; which was so far from being popish , that it was both licens'd , and dedicated to the then arch-bishop of canterbury . now tho' the dr. did very honestly in defending it , it was more than he was oblig'd to do , because it was brought into the school without his knowledge ; the fault ( if any had been , ) lying only at the ushers dores , who , by the custom of that school ought first to have consulted the dr. ( which they never did , ) and to have had his approbation , this book being for the lower formes only ; the catechism used in the fifth and sixth formes under the dr's . more immediate care , being only in greek , without any comment at all . now , though the dr. did give his enemies the above-nam'd advantage against him , by getting it under his hand ; and for that only reason , ( this being the only quarrel against him , ) they depriv'd him of his school , and utterly blasted his name and reputation to the world , as a down-right papist , yet that whole tenent on which they grounded their pretended popery , was expresly a particular doctrine of the ch. of england , the descent of our saviour into hell being a special article , even of our very apostles creed . but forsooth , because several fanaticks dissent from us in that point of our belief , those very persons were set up for judges in the cause , and even a defence of our ch. of england ( the dr's . defence of the comment being no other , ) arraign'd , convicted , and condemn'd as popish and antichristian , by the sentence and decree of oates , ferguson , owen , &c. together with the assent of bushel , mallary , keys , and the rest of the lay brethren in inquisition , assembled . why the reforming zeal of dr. owen was so active in dr. goad's ruin , was , for the introduction of his sisters son mr. harcliff , into his place ; a person undoubtedly not unworthy of the preferment , for having once heroically attempted to preach before his late majesty , and not being able to utter one word of his sermon , he descended from the pulpit as great an orator as he went up , treating his majesty with no other entertainment than a silent meeting . but to give you the farther management of this affair , passing by all the injustice done to dr. goad , here was a violation of the custom of the school in introducing this mr. it being agreed ab origine , between famous sir thomas white , merchant taylor , and founder of st. johns colledge in oxford , and the company of merchant taylors , that the mr. of that school should always be a member of that colledge , which this man was not , being an eaton scholar , and consequently of cambridge . now their reason for this illegal election of a school-master , the then over-ruling factious party of the merchant-taylors , ( though offer'd an able man by the colledge ) suspended this custom , pretending that the colledge of st. johns would send none but persons that would propagate popery ; so that here 's the gown men of a whole colledge at one stroke branded with popery by these infallible mechanick ●urs . about the time of this business of dr. goads , nat. thompson had publish'd in his news book the apprentices intent of burning the rump , which being no sooner view'd with a pair of whig-spectacles , but it was turn'd to a popish plot , and to be manag'd by sir w. waller ; in order to which , he attempted to get a warrant from the privy councel for thompson ; but that project failing , he decoy'd him in another persons name without temple-bar , and there by his own warrant charg'd him with high treason , and committing him to the gate-house ; the next day sir will. made it his whole business to boast what great service he had done to the cause in securing him ; further telling me , that thompson had said , and done such things that did amount to treason , and he did not doubt but to hang him . but as providence order'd it , in few days after sir will. was fairly dismist of his justice-ship , and consequently made incapable of plund'ring any more : upon which he stept for holland , and there turn'd his plunder'd relicks , &c. into gold , to the value of 6 or 700 l. one slander more they cast upon me , was , that i writ seditious pamphlets for oates ; truly i will not wrong him , he never desir'd any such thing of me ; indeed he promis'd me 20 l. per annum , and dyet , to translate certain books in latine concerning the institutions , rules and orders of the jesuits ; some of which i put into english , and have part of them yet by me ; all which if printed , would no ways prejudice jesuits , or other persons , but be useful to many curious men . now for all my pains oates never paid me one peny , though he punctually satisfy'd john philips for writing the many lies and villanies that even yet remain under his name on every fanatical booksellers stall . many other wrongs i have long labour'd under , which i believe , if known , would draw compassion from my greatest enemies ; but those having no relation to the publick , shall be now conceal'd . errata . page 4. l. 35. r. bobbing in kent . p 7. l. 19. r. october . p. 8. l. ult . r. plot. p. 17. l. 11. r. mr. clare , barester . p. 19. for 13 d. r. 18 d. a week . p. 21. l. 36. for question r. mention . p. 33. l. 24. r. this comment . the tryal of nathaniel thompson, william pain, and john farwell upon an information exhibited by the kings attorney general against them, for writing, printing and publishing libels, by way of letters and other prints, reflecting upon the justice of the nation, in the proceedings against the murderers of sir edmond-bvry godfrey : at guild-hal on tuesday june the 20th, 1682, where after a full hearing they were convicted : together with an accompt of several affidavits read in his majesties court of kings bench and other matters at the time of their receiving sentence : to which is added by way of appendix, several other affidavits which further confirm the testimony of mr. prance, given upon the tryal of green, berry and hill about that murder, with some observations touching the said thompson, farwell and pain. thompson, nathaniel, d. 1687, defendant. 1682 approx. 136 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 26 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63185 wing t2207 estc r18230 12657986 ocm 12657986 65424 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63185) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 65424) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 677:13) the tryal of nathaniel thompson, william pain, and john farwell upon an information exhibited by the kings attorney general against them, for writing, printing and publishing libels, by way of letters and other prints, reflecting upon the justice of the nation, in the proceedings against the murderers of sir edmond-bvry godfrey : at guild-hal on tuesday june the 20th, 1682, where after a full hearing they were convicted : together with an accompt of several affidavits read in his majesties court of kings bench and other matters at the time of their receiving sentence : to which is added by way of appendix, several other affidavits which further confirm the testimony of mr. prance, given upon the tryal of green, berry and hill about that murder, with some observations touching the said thompson, farwell and pain. thompson, nathaniel, d. 1687, defendant. paine, william, defendant. farwell, john, defendant. england and wales. court of king's bench. [3], 53 p. printed for thomas simmons ..., london : 1682. "an appendix containing several other affidavits, ..." has special t.p. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng godfrey, edmund berry, -sir, 1621-1678. thompson, nathaniel, d. 1687, -defendant. paine, william, -defendant. farwell, john, -defendant. popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-12 ali jakobson sampled and proofread 2006-12 ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i do appoint thomas simmons to print the trial of nathaniel thompson , william pain , and john farwell , and that no others presume to print the same . july the 8th . 1682. fr. pemberton . the tryal of nathaniel thompson , william pain , and john farwell . upon an information exhibited by the kings attorny general against them , for writing , printing and publishing libels , by way of letters and other prints , reflecting upon the justice of the nation , in the proceedings against the murderers of sir edmond-bvry godfrey . at guild-hal on tuesday june the 20th . 1682. where after a full hearing they were convicted . together with an accompt of several affidavits read in his majesties court of kings bench and other matters at the time of their receiving sentence . to which is added by way of appendix , several other affidavits which further confirm the testimony of mr. prance , given upon the tryal of green , berry and hill about that murder , with some observations touching the said thompson , farwell and pain . london , printed for thomas simmons at the princes arms in ludgate street , 1682. the tryal of nathaniel thompson , william pain , and john farwell . trinity term , xxxiv . caroli secundi regis . on tuesday the 20th . of june 1682 , before the right honourable sir francis pemberton , lord chief justice of his majesties court of kings bench , by nisi prius in the guild-hall of the city of london , came on the tryals of nathaniel thompson , william pain , and john farwel , upon an information brought against them for several trespasses and misdemeanours in writing , printing , and publishing letters importing that sir edmondbury godfrey murdered himself , as also for several falsities relating to the said matter printed in several papers , called the loyal protestant intelligence . and the jurors names , were as follow , jur. peter houblon . john ellis . william barret . joshua brooks . gervas byfield . jonathan lee. george widdowes . william sambrooke . william jacomb . john delmee . samuel bayly . samuel howard . the information was in the attorney general 's name . for that in hillery term , in the 30th . and 31th . years of this kings reign , in the court of kings bench at westminster , by a jury of the county of middlesex were indicted , robert green , _____ gerald , clerk , henry berry , lawrence hill , dominick kelly and philbert vernatt ; for that they by the instigation of the devil , &c. the 12th of october in the 30th year of this kings reign , at the parish of st. mary le strand in the county of middlesex aforesaid ; with force and arms , in and upon sir edmondbury godfrey knight , in the peace of god and the king , then and there being , feloniously , wilfully , and of their malice aforethought , did make an assault , and kill and murther him in this manner , viz. green did fold and fasten a linnen handkercheif about his neck , and therewith choaked and strangled him , of which choaking and strangling he instantly died : and the others , viz. gerald , berry , hill , kelley and vernatt were present , aiding , abetting , comforting , assisting and maintaining the said green to kill and murther the said sir edmondbury godfrey in form aforesaid ; and so they the said green , gerald , berry , hill , kelly , and vernatt in manner and form aforesaid , him the said sir edmonbury godfrey feloniously , willfully , and of their malice aforethought , did kill and murther , against the peace of our said lord the king , his crown and dignity : to which indictment afterwards , the said term , the said robert green , henry berry and lawrence hill severally pleaded , not guilty , and put themselves upon the country ; and after in the said term of st. hillary , in the said court of kings bench at westminster , for the felony and murther aforesaid , by a jury of their country , in due manner were tryed , and thereof lawfully convicted and attainted , as by the record thereof in the said court of kings bench at westminster remaining more fully appears ; which said robert green , henry berry and lawrence hill were afterwards executed and suffered death according to the form and effect of the judgment and attainder aforesaid : and whereas one miles prance upon the tryal of the indictment aforesaid , was produced a witness and sworn for the king , and gave material evidence against the said green , berry and hill to prove them guilty of the felony and murther aforesaid : and one william bedloe , john brown , elizabeth curtis , zachary skillarne and nicholas cambridge upon the tryal aforesaid , were witnesses in like manner produced and sworn for the king , and gave diverse material evidences against the said green , berry and hill to prove them guilty of the said felony and murder : and whereas also the said _____ gerald , robert green , lawrence hill , dominick kelly and philbert vernat at the time of the felony and murther aforesaid were papists , and maintainers of the romish superstitions ; and the said _____ gerald , dominick kelly and philbert vernatt have fled and not yet appeared to the said indictment ; and whereas also by the coroners inquest taken upon the view of the body of the said sir edmondbury godfrey lying dead , before john cooper gent. one of the coroners of the said county of middlesex by the oaths of honest and lawful men of the the same county above the number of twelve persons , it was found that certain malefactors unknown , feloniously and of their malice prepense him the said sir edmondbury godfrey did strangle and choak , of which he dyed : the said nathaniel thomson , william pain and john farwel , well knowing the premises , and being persons devillishly affected , devising , practising , and with all their strength intending the peace and common tranquillity of their kingdom of england to disturb , and as much as in them lay the due course of the law to destroy , and subvert and elude , and the justice of this kingdom of england to defame and scandalize , and as well the said miles prance , william bedloe , john brown , elizabeth curtis , zachary skillarne , nicholas cambridge , as the said john cooper , and the honest and lawful men sworn upon enquest aforesaid , upon view of the body aforesaid , to bring into the greatest hatred , contempt and vile esteem with all the kings subjects , and to deter the kings subjects from finding detecting and proving the designes of papists against our lord the king and the true religion now by law established , and impiously and wickedly devising , and intending them the said _____ gerald , dominick kelly , and philbert vernat , from undergoing the pains and sentence ; by law upon them to be inflicted , for the murther aforesaid , and to aid and assist them ( altho' they be guilty ) to be found not guilty thereof ; and to deceive and beguile the king's subjects in the premisses with their false affirmations and arguments , and cause and procure that it should be believed and esteemed , that the said green , berry , and hill , the persons for the murther of the said sir edmondbury godfrey as aforesaid , convicted , and executed , had been convicted and executed unjustly , and that the said sir edmondbury godfrey was felo de se , and himself had feloniously murthered . they the said thompson , pain , and farwel , their most impious wicked and diabolical intentions to fulfil and perfect afterwards , to wit the 23th . of february , in the four and thirtieth year of the raign of our now soveraign lord the king , at the parish of saint mary le bow , london , with force and arms , &c. falsly , unlawfully , unjustly , wickedly , and diabolically , made , composed , and caused to be printed , a certain false scandalous and defamatory libel , entituled a letter to mr. miles prance in relation to the murther of sir edmondbury godfrey : in which said libel amongst other things , it is contained , as follows , and hearing that the coroners jury or inquest were first of opinion , and accordingly declared , he was felo de se , and that there was much art and skill used to procure their verdict to the contrary , more particularly the refusing of the body at their instance and request to be opened : and in another place of the same libel , it is further contained , as follows , they say , that if a man or any other creature , be strangled or hang'd , and his body cold , and the blood setled in the veins ( as he must needs be if your evidence be true ) ( meaning the evidence of the said miles prance ) run twenty swords through such a body , not one drop of blood will come out , but on the contrary , his body when found was full of blood in so much that ( over and above the cakes or great gobbets of congealed putrified blood found afterwards in his cloths ) the constable when he pulled the sword out of his body , it crashed against his back bone , and gobbets of blood and water gushed or gubled out of that wound in abundance , not only in that very place where the sword was pulled out , but in all his passage to the white house : especially , there where his body was lifted over two high s●umps , and also when he was laid upon the table , the blood and water so issued out of that wound , that it ran from off the table upon the floor , and from thence into the cellar ; so that they do averr , that that wound that he received by that sword must of necessity be the cause of his death : and in another part of the same libel it is further contained as follows , they observe that bedloe's before the committee of lords , and your evidence in relation to this gentleman's death , are as different as the east is from the west ; for you dogg him out of st. clements , the other decoys him from charing cross ; you swear he was strangled with an handkercheif near the stables going to the water-side , bedloe that he was smothered with a pillow in a room in the great court in somerset house ; you say that he took horse at sohoe , bedloe says he took coach at clarendon-house , with many more such like contradictions ; and considering the old proverb , fore-warned fore-armed ; a further and fuller accompt of the whole matter expect . and that the said nathaniel thompson , william paine and john farewell , their most impious , wicked and diabolical intentions to fulfil and perfect , afterwards , to wit the third day of march in the said four and thirtieth year of the reign of the said late lord the king , at the said parish of st. mary le bow london aforesaid , with force and arms , &c. falsly , unlawfully , unjustly , evilly , maliciously , scandalously and diabolically , made , composed and caused to be printed , another false , scandalous and defaming libel , intituled a second letter to miles prance , in reply to the ghost of sir edmondbury godfrey . in which last mentioned libel amonst other things , it is further contained as follows , next whereas my letter saith ( and that truly ) that the coroners jury were first of opinion , and accordingly declared he was felo de se , and that much art and skill was used to procure their verdict to the contrary . and in another place of the same last mentioned libel amongst other things it is further contained as follows ; and it would be very material , if the coroner would declare what he received for that job , and of whom ; and what evidence he had to induce the jury to find ( as the inquisition imports ) that he was strangled with a linnen cloth , a matter of fact never so much as spoken of until you came in with your evidence , which was not in some weeks after ; and i do again averr , that the body was required by the jury to be opened , and was refused ; and if the body was in their and the coroner's power ( as the ghost insinuates ) such power was concealed from and denied the jury . and in another place of the same last mentioned libel , it is amongst other things contained as follows : he is to understand , that mr. brown , the two chirurgions , ( meaning the said zachary skillarne and nicholas cambridge ) and mrs. curtis are no competent ( nor can be material ) witnesses in this case . and in another place of the same last mentioned libel , it is further contained as follows ; but mr. prance , it will be fully proved that the body was full of blood , and that there was cakes or gobbets of dry blood found in his cloaths , which with his body stunk extreamly : and it will be also fully and effectually proved that his eyes , nostrils and corners of his mouth were fly-blown . and in another place of the same last mentioned libel amongst other things it is contained as follows : and as to the seventh and last paragraph , which relates only to the difference betwixt you and mr. bedloe's evidence , i must take notice that what you and and he swears is very contradictory . : and in another place of the same last mentioned libel , amongst other things it is further contained as follows , but i cannot omit to take further notice of mr. curtis's affidavit , in relation to the wax found upon the cloths , in which i cannot say , but she may swear true ; but this i do averr , that if it be so , those drops were put upon the cloths long after he was found . and after the jury had set on the body ; for there was no such thing then on the cloths . and , i suppose , this was some artifice used by those , who either out of interest or design , were desirous to comfirm his being murthered at somerset house . and the said attorney general for the same lord the king , gives the court here to understand and be informed : that the said nathaniel thompson , william pain , and john farwell , in their further prosecution aforesaid , falsly , wickedly , and maliciously , their contrivances and intentions aforesaid , afterwards to with the 7th . day of march , in the four and thirtieth year of our said lord the king , at the parish of saint mary le bow , london , with force and arms , &c. falsly , unlawfully , unjusty , wickedly , maliciously , scandalously , and devillishly , composed , made , and caused to be printed , a certain other false , scandalous , and defamatory libel , entituled , the loyal protestant and true domestick intelligence , or news both from city and country . in which last mentioned libel it is contained , as follows , that there is not in the said letter , ( meaning the said false , scandalous , and defaming libel , ) entituled , a letter to mr. miles prance , in relation to the murther of sir edmondbury godfrey , before first mentioned , the least item or circumstance , but what will be by undeniable evidence made out to be the truth : so the said mr. prance , having not as yet vouchsafed an answer to that letter , he will speedily receive a further letter relating to that murther , wherein the further truth will not only be fully set forth , and other circumstances set out : and further , that the said nathaniel thompson , william pain , and john farwell , in their further prosecuting , falsly , wickedly , and maliciously , their contrivances and intentions aforesaid , with force and arms , &c. falsly , unlawfully , wickedly , maliciously , and devillishly , composed , and caused to be printed , a certain other false , scandalous , and defamatory libel , entituled , the loyal protestant intelligence , &c. in which last mentioned libel amongst other things , it is contained , as follows , whereas dick janeway in this dayes mercury , promises an answer to the late letter to mr. prance , &c. this is to give him , and all the world notice , that such an answer is impatiently expected by the author of that letter , who questions not but to prove every tittle of that letter , to the satisfaction of all mankind ; and besides , he is very desirous that the courantier ( according to his last pacquet of advice to rome ) would go on , and use his interest , to procure the lord mayor , court of aldermen and common council of london , to inspect the truth of that letter ; whereby it will appear inevitably , that there is not one papist or popishly affected person concerned in that letter , or in the proof of the particulars thereof ; but the same ( with divers other material circumstances relating to the murther of sir e b godfrey , and the fraud and blind put upon the world in relation thereto ) will be more fully , plainly and manifestly proved , without giving ill words , or scurrilous language or reflections to any persons that really are , or supposed to be therein concern'd in any circumstance whatsoever . and that the said nathaniel thompson , william pain , and john farwell , in their further prosecution aforesaid , falsly , wickedly , and maliciously , their contrivances and intentions , after , to wit : the first day of april , in the four and thirtieth year of the reign of our said lord the king , with force and arms , &c. at the parish of saint mary le bow , london , aforesaid , falsly , unlawfully , unjustly , wickedly , maliciously , scandalously , and devillishly , made , composed , and caused to be printed , a certain other false , scandalous , and defamatory libel , entituled , the loyal protestant intelligence , &c. in which last mentioned libel amongst other things it is contained as follows ; last wednesday , nathaniel thompson vpon summons appeared before the lords of his majesties most honourable privy council , about the letters to mr. miles prance concerning the death òf sir edmondbury godfrey , where he justified the matter , and produced the authors , who are ready to prove ( by undeniable and substantial witnesses , not in the least accused or suspected of popery , as the malicious party do suggest ) that every tittle and iota of those letters are true . and that in another part of the last mentioned libel , amongst other things it is contained as follows ; mr. thompson and the gentlemen his friends are to attend the next wednesday at council , where they do not doubt , but that honourable board will put them into à method to prove the whole , or any particular which their honours in their great wisdom shall think convenient to be brought to the test or examination . and further that the said nathaniel thompson &c. the twenty-third day of february in the abovesaid thirty-fourth year of our said lord the king ; and divers other days and times betwixt the said twenty-third of february and the aforesaid thirty-fourth year , and the day of the exhibiting of the said information at the parish of st mary le bow , london aforesaid , knowingly , and every of them knowing the said several libels to be false , malicious , scandalous and seditious , with force and arms , &c. falsly , unlawfully , unjustly , wickedly , maliciously , scandalously , seditiously and devillishly the said false , malicious , scandalous and seditious libels uttered and published , and each of them uttered and published in manifest contempt of the laws of this kingdom of england , and the scandal and defamation of the publick justice of the same , to the evil example of all others in like case offending ; and against the kings peace , his crown and dignity , &c. then proclamation for information being made , mr. thompson acquainted my lord and the jury with the effect of the information as follows : mr. thompson . my lord and you gentlemen of the jury , this is an information against nathaniel thompson , william pain and john farwell , and it is for writing and printing several scandalous libels about the the death of sir edmondbury godfrey : in which we set forth , that green berry and hill were indicted for the murder of sir edmondbury godfrey , and thereof convicted and attained , and that the said green , berry and hill were executed for it ; that upon their tryal for that matter several witnesses were examined , namely mr. prance , bedloe , curtis and several others to prove sir edmondbury godfrey murthered at somerset-house ; and before the tryal there was an inquest taken by the coroner of middlesex , by which it does appear , that sir edmondbury godfrey was murthered by several persons unknown , and that the defendants to reflect upon the justice of the nation , and scandalize the witnesses produced at that tryal , and to make it believed that these persons died wrongfully , did write and print several scandalous libels and letters , one of them intituled a letter to miles prance concerning the murther of sir edmondbury godfrey , and in these letters did suggest as if he had been felo de se , and do reflect upon every one of the witnesses , as if they had contradicted themselves , and also do reflect upon the coroner as though he had bribed the jury , and do undertake by these arguments and several others ( that you will hear ) to prove that sir edmondbury godfrey murthered himself ; and that in another libel that thompson printed called his loyal , protestant intelligence , he says he will make it out by a cloud of witnesses : this we say is against the peace of the king , and defaming of the justice of the nation : if we prove this matter upon them , you are to find them guilty . mr. serj. maynard . my lord , the matter which you have now before you , is as impudent a thing as ever was done . gentlemen , sir edmondbury godfrey was murthered , and green and the contrivers of it have been executed for it ; the matter hath passed the examination of the parliament , and the king and council and all ; now this thompson is a printer , i may as well say a printer of libels , for he does constantly print libels against the religion established , and the justice of the nation ; the jury that were impannelled upon the coroners inquest , he says of them that they at first did agree that he murthered himself , and afterwards did return and find that he was murthered by others : gentlemen 't is plain that he was murthered by others , and the particular persons have been tryed for it and found guilty . now this person after all this , what does he do ? he takes upon him to write a letter to prance ; ( prance was one of the witnesses in that case ) he writes it by the name of a letter , but it is a foul and wicked libel ; and therein ( 't is too long for me to mention the particulars ) he scandalizes the publick justice of the nation , he undertakes to vindicate the murderers , and to accuse the proceedings of the nation . but gentlemen , we will prove these men guilty of framing and publishing of these wicked libels , and that is all that is needful to be done upon the point of evidence . we will call our witnesses . then mr. clare was sworn , and produced a copy of the record of the conviction and attainder of green , berry , and hill , for the murther of sir edmondbury godfrey . as also a copy of the inquisition , taken by the coroner of middlesex upon the view of the body of the said sir edmonbury godfrey , whereby it is found that he was murthered by them , strangled with a cord by persons unknown . both which ( mr. clare having sworn to be true copies ) were read . l. chief just . this matter of his being thus strangled , was found before it was discovered who did the murder . it was upon the sight of the body , and they supposed it to be done by a cord , but afterwards it came to light that it was done with an handkerchief . mr. thomps . ( to the counsel of the defendants ) if you will put us to prove all , we must prove that these men were executed . then captain richardson was sworn . l. chief just . were these men executed for this murder ? capt. rich. yes , i saw them executed . then mr. prance was sworn . mr. thomps . did you give evidence upon the trial of green , berry , and hill , for the murder of sir edmondbury godfrey ? mr. prance . yes . mr. thomps . do you remember that brown was a witness too ? mr. prance . yes , brown was . mr. thomps . was curtis a witness , and mr. bedloe ? mr. prance . that curtis was , i don't remember , mr. bedloe was . then curtis was sworn . mr. thomps . were you a witness at the trial of green , berry , and hill ? mrs. curtis . yes , i was . then sir john nicholas and sir philip lloyd , and william bridgman , esq were sworn , and the two letters in the information were shewed to them l. cheif . just . were these shewed to the defendants , thompson , and pain , and farwell , at the council ? sir phil. lloyd . these were the same , i know because they are endorsed by my hand ; thompson owned the printing of both , and one other of the defendants owned the writing of one of them , and the other of the other . l. chief just . but thompson owned the printing of both ? sir phil. lloyd . yes , my lord. mr. sol. gen. did pain and farwell own the bringing of both to thompson to print ? sir phil. lloyd . one owned the one , and the other the other . then sir john nicholas and mr. bridgman testified the same . mr. saunders of council with pain , said to sir ph. lloyd . did pain or farwel own that they brought both , or one the one , and the other the other ? sir. ph. lloyd . one the one , and the other the other . mr. saunders . then pray sir , which was that farwel did own ? sir ph. lloyd . my lord my own memory does not tell me which , but here are notes say that farwel owned the first , and that pain owned the second . l. chief just . do you beleive them to be true ? jo. nicholas . yes sir i took the notes . mr. yalding . did he readily discover his authors ? sir ph. lloyd . yes he did . associat . the title is thus a letter to mr. miles prance in relation to the murder of sir edmundbury godfrey . shall i read it all ? l. chief just . all of it . associat . read it in these words . mr. prance . a letter to mr. miles prance , in relation to the murther of sir edmond-bvry godfrey . mr. prance , perceiving by some late pamphlets several rumors rais'd , as if there were endeavours us'd to asperse your evidence in relation to the death of sir e. b. g. and to lay that murther upon himself . and remembring the consternation which then was in all peoples minds by the discovery at that time of a dreadful and most horrid popish plot , which occasion'd divers to report , and most to believe ( even several days before the dead body was found ) that he was murder'd by the papists at somerset-house . and hearing that the coroners jury or inquest were first of opinion , and accordinly declar'd he was felo de se ; and that there was much art and skill us'd to procure their verdict to the contrary ; more particularly , the refusing of the body ( at their instance and request ) to be opened ; and opposing the assistance of the coroner of westminster , ( who is taken notice of to be a knowing and impartial man in the execution of his office ; ) who was desir'd to , and did attend for that purpose , but was dismist with a guiney ; telling him , they had no need of his service . i made it my business , partly for yours , but chiefly for the truths sake , to make a strict enquiry into the farther causes of the aforesaid rumours , and do find these particulars very much urg'd , and discours'd of , ( viz. ) i. in oppsition to the evidence of his being dog'd up and down , and lodg'd in a great house at st. clements on saturday the 12. of october 1678. ( being the day he was first missing . ) it is affirm'd he went out of his house that very saturday morning about nine a clock ; ( which is the last time he ever returned thither ; ) and about 10 that forenoon was in the fields walking towards marybone , ( in which parish his dead corps was afterwards found , ) and was there met by a brewer in st. giles's , who discoursed with him ; and about a 11 of the same day he was seen passing by the lady cooks lodgings near the cock-pit ; after which , he was seen in st. martins-lane , went by the church , and down church-lane into the strand ; about 1 passed by the door of one mr. ratcliff an oyl-man in the strand , and soon after was met in the back court of lincolns-inne by two gentlemen , who observed him to make a sudden turn , and to go out at the back door ; they went out at that door also , and did see him turn the corner wall ; between which place and turn stile , he was met by a barrister at law ; and that a person living near primrose-hill , declared before divers persons , that he saw him about 3 that saturday in the afternoon walking in those fields , his usual walk being that way . ii. they say , the place where , and the posture wherein he was found , are very remarkable . as to the place ; it was in a ditch on the south side of primrose-hill , surrounded with divers closes , fenced with high mounds and ditches , no road near , only some deep dirty lanes made only for the conveniency for driving cows and such like cattle in and out of the grounds ; and those very lanes not coming near 500 yards of the place , and impossible for any man on horse-back with a dead corps before him at midnight to approach , unless gaps were made i' th mounds , as the constable and his assistants found by experience when they came on horseback thither . as to the posture , his breast was unbuttoned , his wastcoat and shirt put by , his sword run in under his left pap next his skin , the point coming out at his right shoulder about six inches , his left arm doubled under him , ( on which his head seemed to lean , ) and his right arm stiff , stretcht out upon the bank , his belly and breast being supported by the side of the bank , his knees knit together , and with his hips a little bending or doubling under him . and they infer from thence , that he being a tall raw bon'd man , ( after he had been several daies dead , ) could never be crooked so as to be cram'd into a sedan , ( which are very low built , and difficult to be carried with proper braces , much more as you evidenced with cords ) then straightned , and his legs opened , and mounted on horse-back , and then put into the posture he was found in , and stiffened again . iii. now altho the matters aforesaid may be said to be only circumstantial , yet they produce undeniable arguments against your evidence , ( viz. ) they say , that if a man , or any other creature be strangled , or hanged , and his body cold , and the blood settled in the veins , ( as he must needs be if your evidence be true , ) run 20 swords through such a body , not one drop of blood will come out : but on the contrary , his body when found , was full of blood , insomuch , that ( over and above the cakes or great goblets of congealed putrified blood found afterwards in his cloaths ) the constable when he pulled the sword out of his body , it crashed against his back-bone , and gobbets of blood and water gushed or gubbled out of that wound in abundance , not only in that very place where the sword was pulled out , but in all his passage to the white-house , especially there where his body was lifted over two high stumps ; and also when he was laid upon the table , the blood and water so issued out of that wound , that it ran from off the table upon the floor , and from thence into the cellar ; so that they do aver that that wound that he received by that sword must of necessity be the cause of his death . and they take notice , that so much of the sword as was in his body , was discoloured and blackish ; and that part that came out at his back was of a dullish colour , and the point thereof was rusty ; also , that the cloaths , belt and cabbard were weather-beaten to rags ; his body stunk extremely ; his eyes , nostrils , and corners of his mouth were fly-blown ; all which must naturally be by his being so long in the air. iv. they say , that when a man is strangled or hanged , his eyes will be extorted , his face will be swelled and black ; whereas his eyes were shut , his face was pale , only the left part of his chin , with his breast and belly being next the earth , were putrified , and looked of a blue and greenish colour , more especially about the wound ; for that the blood , when hot , running to the wound , caused the greater putrefaction in that place ; whenas , if the wound had been made after he was dead , and cold , the rest of his body would have putrified as soon , and as much as there . v. they say , that the cleanness of his shoes makes against your evidence ; for his shoes were cleaned or rather glazed on the very bottoms of the soles , occasioned by his walking in the grass , and grass-seeds were observed to stick in the seams of his shoes ; and besides , there was not one speck of dirt on his cloaths , or legs , not so much as a horse-hair sticking thereon ; whereas , the constable , and those that went with him , were dirty'd and moil'd up to the very saddle-skirts , and not easily to be cleaned ; and mr. prance , you know that a tall dead man on horse-back , cannot lift up his legs to save them from the dirt. vi. as to the looseness of his neck , and the rim or green circle about it , they say they are ridiculous and impertinent arguments against so many demonstrative ones ; especially , when there is not a nurse , or any woman of age , that hath buried any relations , but will tell you it 's very common for people to die with necks as loose as his was . and the rim about his neck was so far from being like one made with a cravat or handkerchief , that it seems to be occasioned by the great height and stifness of his collar , which was fast buttoned about his neck , and on which his head rested , and was unbuttoned about 10 of the clock the next day , before the coroner or jury came . but if that rim , or those bruises , that your evidence seems to make the cause of his death , were really so ; then they alledge , that in such case , the whole mass of blood would have setled there , and his neck and bruises would have swelled , and have been perfect black , which was not in his case . vii . they also say , that all these matters are notorious , and will be proved by divers credible and undeniable eye and ear witnesses ; and besides , they observe , that bedlow's ( before the committee of lords , ) and your evidence in relation to this gentlemans death , are as different as the east is from the west ; for you dogg him out of st. clements ; the other decoys him from charing-cross : you swear he was strangled with a handkerchief near the stables going to the water-side ; bedlow , that he was smothered with a pillow in a room in the great court in somerset-house . you say he took horse at so-ho ; bedlow says he took coach at clarenden-house , with many more such like contradictions ; and considering the old proverb , fore-warn'd , fore-arm'd . a further and fuller account of the whole matter expect , i being loath at present to exceed the bounds of a letter , i am , sir , your very loving friend , trvman . cambridge , feb. 23. 1681. london , printed for m. g. at the sign of sir e. b. g's . head near fleet-bridge . sir. francis win. now read the other letter . associat . this is intitled a second letter to mr. miles prance in reply to the ghost of sir edmundbury godfrey . mr. prance , since my last to you of the twenty-third past , i have seen a prolix , railing , and impertinent phamphlet , intituled , sir e. b. g's ghost , and pretended to be an answer to my said letter . and conceiving you are better acquainted with ghosts than my self , i thought fit to direct my answer to that ghost to you , and thereby shew the ridiculousness thereof , as also vindicate the truths conteined in my said former letter , and shew you and the world further circumstances to justifie the same , and therefore , according to the method of my former letter , i shall proceed by these heads . and first , not understanding what the ghost means , by arraigning the justice of the nation , unless he would assert that all that are legally , ( are likewise justly hanged ; ) and so consequently , that the mother and her two sons were justly hanged in glocestershire , for the murder of the lady viscountess campden's steward , though he afterwards appeared alive ; and i do not find that ever his appearance arraign'd the justice of the nation . and remitting the consideration of mr. browns , the chyrurgions , and mrs. curtis's evidence in relation to the blood , to its proper place ; and affirming , ( as the truth is , ) that mrs. celliers , mrs. mary gibbon , the newgate priests , james magragh , and all other irish men , or irish evidences , or other papist or papists , or popishly affected persons whatsoever ; as also those concerned in the late sham of his having hang'd himself , are strangers to , and had not the least knowledg or intimation of the contents of my said former letter , nor any way concerned therein , or in or with any part thereof ; ( as the said ghost most falsly and maliciously insinuates . ) i take notice that the said ghost seems to admit so much of the truth of the said letter , as that it was reported divers dayes before the dead body was found , that he was murdered in somerset-house by the papists , and which report was made even the next morning after he was missing , ( being sunday 13 octob. 1678. ) now i would fain have this ghost to inform the world who first raised that report : but as to mr. dugdale's letter of it , i cannot give it any better answer , than that as his evidence hath since been disbelieved in matters of greater consequence , so he not producing any such letter , you must give me leave also to suspect him in this . but as to the other evidences of mr. birch and the rest . theirs i believe to be very true ; for it 's no miracle that a report so cunningly raised , ( without any ground ) might as industriously be promulged to most parts of the kingdom before the respective days they speak of , especially when the plot had filled all mens heads with fears and jealousies , without which it had not been in the power or art of the ghost , or any of his tribe , to have suggested the least surmise to contradict his being felo de se . next , whereas my letter saith , ( and that truly ) that the coroner's jury were first of opinion , and accordingly declared , he was felo de se , and that much art and skill was used to procure their verdict to the contrary . this ghost , instead of contradicting that truth , would insinuate , as if that letter reflected upon the reputation of the jurors , when as there was no such thing imployed or intended , they being known to be honest men , of good reputation , and free from fraud or guile , and consequently the easier to be over-reached , by the cunning of those and that party , whose interest it was to deceive them , and who never leave any stone unturned to attain their designes . and i cannot but observe how skilful and industrious these people still are , to hide and prevent the truth of that man's death from clearly appearing and shining forth , as without doubt it would , and must do , was not the matter now ( as formerly ) puzled with legends , and long stories , nothing to the purpose . and as to the coroner's warrant for burying the body , and recited in the ghost , it 's notorious they are common tricks , used by men of his profession , who ( if any money is like to come ) will usually adjourn the jury , and then make such warrants , ( they knowing , that if the verdict be felo de se , it 's then out of their power to give leave to bury the corps . ) and it would be very material , if the coroner would declare what he received for that jobb , and of whom , and what evidence he had to induce the jury to find ( as the inquisition imports ) that he was strangled with a linen cloth , a matter of fact never so much as spoken of , until you came in with your evidence , which was not in some weeks after . and i do again aver , that the body was required by the jurors to be opened , and was refused ; and if the body was in their and the coroner's power , ( as the ghost insinuates ) such power was concealed from , and denied the jury . and it 's very probable the coroner of westminster's assistance was refused , for some such indirect doings , for that there was not the least difference betwixt the coroners in relation to their jurisdictions ; and the westminster coroner came not voluntarily of himself , but was importuned to be there by mr. wigg , and divers others of the chief inhabitants of st. martyn's parish . and particularly , the reverend dr. lloyd ( who preached the funeral sermon ) spoken to the coroner of westminster before he went , so that it had been proper to have given the matters mentioned in that sermon in evidence before the jury . and it 's observable , the person mentioned to give the information to the doctor of the two wounds in the body , and that two hours before it was found , was never produced ; for if he had , and that sir e. b. g. had been murthered , such person might have been secured , and thereby the murderers detected . but i suppose the ghost will not pretend either that sermon , or the pamphlet printed by nat. thompson to be legal , or ( indeed ) any evidence at all . and now mr. prance , being come to the several paragraphs of my letter , i shall take them in order as they are placed , and give the ghost particular answers accordingly . i. as to sir e. b. g.'s perambulations therein mentioned to be on the saturday he was first missing , they are true in every particular ; and will be proved by divers able , credible and undeniable witnesses . and how vain it is for the ghost to ask , why these witnesses did not come in sooner at the tryal of green , berry , and hill , do you judge , when all the world remembers the great torrent that carried all before it in favour of the plot , and the murder of sir e. b. g. by the papists , without which ( as t. o. was heard to say ) his plot had failed ; and when it is duly considered , that the two persons that first found the body , ( for no other cause ) suffered much in their persons and estates , by a long and chargeable imprisonment . and all others that then seemed to doubt of the truth of that mans being murdered by the papists , were stigmatized with the odious names of papists , and discouragers ( if not promoters ) of the plot ; it will appear no wonder , if people were unwilling to discover their knowledges , or to come voluntarily ( without process ) to give their evidence . and how can it be imagined those three unfortunate men , being kept close prisoners , could make enquiry after proper evidences , or ( against the common vogue ) draw into suspition the assertion of his being murdered by the papists . ii. the ghost hath so much ingenuity to grant the 2d . paragraph of my letter , as to the place and posture he was found in , but would avoid the inaccessableness of the place , pretending a lane near , when as that lane is , in effect , unpassable , with two on a horse , and comes not within 500 yards of the place , and the mounds thither very high , and the constable and his assistants , ( though they lived in the parish , and well knew the way ) were forced to break a gap in the mounds , though they were singly hors'd . and whereas the ghost alledges , that you do not depose he was carried to the place wholly on horseback , he hath run himself into a worse dilemma , having made no provision of men ( either as to strength or number ) to carry so great and weighty a corps , in the dead of the night , over such mounds and fences ; but let all inquisitive people , desirous of truth , take the pains but to go to the place ( and that without any burthen on their backs ) they will soon be convinced of the assertion of the difficulty ( if not impossibility ) of the bringing a dead corps thither , either on foot or on horseback . and the pretensions of the ghost's , as to the limberness of the body and joynts , does not answer that part of my letter which relates to the impossibility of his being put into a sedan . for his body , when found , was stiff ; so that what limberness happened or appeared afterwards , hath no relation to the question . for it 's a certain maxim , a dead limber body cannot be stiff'ned . and pray mr. prance , give us an account what became of the sedan , and the cords ? and how you could carry it with cords ; for the meanest sedan-man in town will tell you it is impracticable , or rather impossible ; and you may , if you please , make an experiment with a cord. iii. as to the body being full of blood , when found ; the ghost endeavours to disprove that assertion , by the evidence of mr. brown the constable , the two chyrurgeons and mrs. curtiss , and produceth the evidence given at the tryal of green , berry and hill , and an extrajudicial affidavit since made by mr. brown , and another by mrs. curtiss , to countenance such his denyal . but , mr. prance , ( when you see the ghost ) tell him the matter of the blood will ( and i assure you and all the world it will ) be proved by divers credible and undeniable evidence ; and that i may pacifie the ghost in the mean time , he is to understand that mr. brown , the two chyrurgions , and mrs. curtiss , are no competent ( nor can be material ) witnesses in this case . for mr. brown ; as he did a rash and unaccountable act ( to give it no worse name ) in removing the body before the coroner and jury saw it , ( which hath occasion'd all this despute ) ; so he must not think to help himself by affidavits , or to justify one ill act by another ; and besides , as he unadvisedly ( and contrary to all law and practice ) removed the body before the coroner and jury came ; so he did the same in the dark , ( about eight a clock at night ) when the candle was blown out ; whereby it was impossible for him to look for any blood , so as to find it ; and neither he or the chyrurgeons ( by any day-light ) saw the place where the body was found , or where the sword was pulled out , until after 10 a clock the next day , before which time much of the blood was taken up , and the rest trampl'd out of sight by the great concourse of the people which came thither . and as for mrs. curtiss , she only saw the body after it was brought home , when as the body was stript at the white-house , and a blanket borrow'd there to wrap the body in . so the world may judge of the truth of her affidavit . ( but mr. prance ) it will be fully proved , that the body was full of blood ; and that there were cakes or gobbets of dry blood found in his cloaths , which ( with his body ) stunk extremely . and it will be also fully and effectually proved , that his eyes , nostrills , and corners of his mouth , were fly-blown ; tho the ghost ( without the least colour of reason ) pretends it to be contrary to nature and reason ; when as common experience daily evinces the contrary . and i do observe , that the ghost omits to take notice of two material circumstances in this 3 d. paragraph . ( viz. ) the first as to the swords crashing against the back-bone : the second , as to that part of the sword which was in his body being discoloured . and pray , mr. prance , do you ( or the ghost ) give the reasons thereof , and of its point being rusty ; as also , what was , or could be the cause of the spots in the shirt , wastcoat and drawers , of greenish colour , mentioned in mrs. curtisses affidavit . iv. as to the 4th . paragraph of my letter , i perceive the ghost admits , that when a man is strangled or hanged , his eyes will be extorted ; and admits that sir. e. b. godfrey's eyes ( when found ) were shut ; only he seems to quarrel with the colour of his face ; and , seeing he admits his face not black ( as all hanged mens are , when cold ) i care not to contest , whether his face was pale or ruddy , or a little swell'd , or not , those being very inconsiderable circumstances . but his denying the putrefaction charged in that paragraph , and the consequences deduced from thence , is not only a great untruth , but is directly opposite to the evidence given by mr. skillard , at the tryal before mentioned . page 37. 38. v. as to the 5th . paragraph ; the ghost is so far from answering the assertions therein , as that he only quibbles at words ; and begging the question ; deduces thence impertinent and ridiculous arguments . for it will be proved , that his shoes were glazed at the bottom of the soles , and which must of necessity be occasioned by his walking on the grass . and ( mr. prance ) if you and the ghost will walk thither , you will easily experience it , and so may any body else satisfie himself in this speculation ; as also , as to the grass-seeds that stuck in the seams of his shoes ; which is so far from being impossible at that time of the year , ( as the ghost would argue ) as that it will be proved by undeniable evidence . but ( mr. prance , ) pray ask the ghost how he came there without a speck of dirt ; and who pick'd the horse-hairs off his cloaths ; and let him contrive ( if he can ) a probable or rational way for a dead man on horse-back , to hold up his legs , or to save them or his cloaths from the dirt : for though a man may walk thither very clean , yet it 's impossible at that time of the year to ride , either without being dirtied , and some horse hairs sticking on his cloaths : but perhaps the next account from the ghost will be , that he either rid with gambadoes , or else a pair of fisher-mens boots . vi. as to the 6th . paragraph , pray mr. prance tell the ghost , his railing against popish nurses , and popish midwives , is no answer to the assertions in that paragraph : for all the women in the town are competent judges thereof , and i hope the ghost will not say they are all papists . but pray tell the ghost he takes no notice of the height of the collar , and its being fast button'd about his neck when found . nor the conclusion of that paragraph ; and therefore i suppose he admits it to be all true . vii . and as to the 7th . and last paragraph , which relates only to the difference betwixt yours , and mr. bedlow's evidence ; i must take notice , that what you and he swear , are very contradictory , and much more than i hinted in my said letter : and though part of it be as he and you were informed , yet you and he swear the informations were received from the persons actually concerned in the murder , and who had confidence enough in mr. bedlow ( though he refused 4000l . to help to kill him , and 2000l . to help carry him away , ) as to shew him the dead body , and so were under no temptation of mis-informing either him or your self . and pray mr. prance , will you let the world know what reward you were to have for that job : for certainly you deserved as much as mr. bedlow , and needed more , you having a wife and children , and he a batchelor . thus , mr. prance having gone through each paragraph of my letter , and answered the ghost to your satisfaction ; i should leave here , fearing i have been too tedious already : but i cannot omit to take further notice of mrs. curtis's affidavit , in relation to the drops of wax found upon the cloaths , in which i cannot say but she may swear true ; but this i do aver , that if it be so , those drops were put upon the cloaths long after he was found , and after the jury had sat on the body ; for there was no such thing then on the cloaths : and i suppose this was some artifice used by those , who , either out of interest or design , were desirous to confirm his being murthered at somerset-house , and to carry on the great lie , and impertinent story then invented , and given out ( amongst others ) that he was laid under the high-altar there ; and if my information fail not , there were other such like tricks used , which i shall make bold to acquaint those more nearly concerned therein , than your self ; and shall give them to understand , that it 's no wonder a man in sir e. b. g's circumstances , should kill himself , such accidents being no news to that family , wherein melancholly and distraction ( that often produces such effects ) hath been predominant , and might occasion the words he spake to sir. tho. robinson , as to his being the first martyr . and now , mr. prance , for a conclusion , if you were guilty of the murder of sir. e. b. g. how durst you ( as you did ) on the fryday after he was found , go to primrose-hill to see the body , and not be afraid it should at your approach have bled afresh ? and how came you ( after green , bury , and hill were hanged , ) to declare in answer to a solemn question , that you knew nothing of the death of sir. e. b. g. pray remember me to your old friend and lodger mr. renn , my respects also to your wife , not forgetting your little daughter , who gave you so good advice before you took your journey into nottinghamshire , and help'd to take beddingfield , who was bury'd 14. months . i am your loving friend , trueman . cambridge , march 13. 1681. london , printed for n. thompson . 1682. then the associate read out of a paper , intituled , the loyal protestant intelligence , &c. number 125. tuesday , march 7. 1681. the following paragraph . march 4. 1682. whereas the mayor of gotham , in his pretended true protestant mercury of saturday last , seems mightily offended with a letter therein mentioned to be sent to mr. prance , concerning the murther of sir e. b. godfrey ; and endeavours to avoid the examination of the truth of the matter of fact contained in that letter , by his old way of railing , and stigmatizing all honest church of england men , with the name of papist , or popishly affected : he , and his whiggish tribe , are hereby desired to take notice , that there is not in the said letter the least item or circumstance , but what will be by undeniable evidence made out to be the truth . so , the said mr. prance having not as yet vouchsafed an answer to that letter , he will speedily receive a further letter relating to that murther ; wherein the further truth will not only be fully set forth , and other circumstances set out ; but also it will thereby plainly appear , that the reputation of that dead knight is so far from being therein murthered , or the justice of the nation from being questioned ; as that it will concern mr. prance , mr. m. g. and all parties on that side , to lay their heads together more effectually than they did on wednesday morning last : for truth seeks no corners ; and , were it not for a vitious and unsanctified generation of vipers , need to require an advocate . for , though a lye may prevail for a time , and eclipse the truth , yet at length truth will shine forth , with the assistance of that god , who is the author of truth it self . then a paragraph out of another of the like intelligences , was read. the intelligence was number 127. saturday , march 11. 1681. march 9. 1682. whereas dick janeway , in this days mercury , promises an answer to the late letter to mr. prance , &c. this is to give him , and all the world , notice , that such an answer is impatiently expected by the author of that letter , who questions not , but to prove every tittle of that letter , to the satisfaction of all mankind ; and besides , he is very desirous that the courantier ( according to his last pacquet of advice from rome ) would go on , and use his interest , to procure the lord mayor , court of aldermen , and common-council of london , to inspect the truth of that letter ; whereby it will appear inevitably , that there is not one papist , or popishly affected person concerned in that letter , or in the proof of the particulars thereof ; but the same ( with divers other material circumstances relating to the murther of sir e. b. godfrey , and the fraud and blind put upon the world in relation thereto ) will be more fully , plainly , and manifestly proved , without giving ill words , or scurrilous language or reflections to any persons that really are , or supposed to be therein concern'd , in any circumstance whatsoever . mr. serj. maynord . you see what they have done , they say , what was testified against the murderers of sir edmund bury godfrey , they say was a lye. they go over all the evidence given against these fellows , and undertake , by undeniable witnesses , to prove the contrary . l. ch. just . to the defendants councel , what say you to it ? mr. saunders . i am of council for paine , my lord , the charge against paine is , that he should own , that he did bring one of these letters to be printed ; i have forgot whether sir philip lloyd said the first or the second . l. ch. just . the second he says . mr. saunders . if paine did own it , i think he did more ingenuously , than when he did make it , or bring it to the press : but my lord , it was a rash unadvised act ; but not out of any malice : my lord , we will prove that paine was not a papist , nor any of his family . my lord , this cannot justify or excuse them , it will only extenuate their fault . we will call some witnesses . l. ch. just . i will hear any thing in this case , be as large as you will , you shan't say you are stinted ; for it is a business of mighty concern . mr. gooding . i am of council , my lord , for pain : my lord , we have made application to persons to intercede for us ; we are sorry for what we have done , and have offered to give any satisfaction . l. ch. just . to me he said , he would make it out by five hundred witnesses : they would make it as plain as the day . mr. thompson . since the last time that was appointed for the tryal , they have printed , that they would prove it by threescore witnesses : and was very sorry it did not come on . mr. yalden . i am of council , my lord , for thompson , who , i think , was unfortunately drawn into the business ; and that by pain and farewell , though they turn all upon him now . it was a great piece of ingenuity for him to discover his authors ; and it had been very mischevious if they had not been discovered . l. ch. just . what say you to the two protestant intelligences ? mr. yalden . they are as much the author of them , as of the other . thompson says , the authors would be able to prove it by undeniable witnesses : thompsons intelligence is open to any man that will put any thing into it , and he is paid for his pains . mr. osborne . i am of council for farewell , my lord : it was a foolish thing to do as we have done : but that is no satisfaction , my client says , he hath several witnesses . l. c. j. call them they shall be heard . mr. farewell . i begin with hazard my lord , he and i went to the place . then hazard was sworn . mr. hazard . i went along with mr. farewell . he was at the rainbow coffee-house , it was in the morning , and he desired me to go to the place where sir edmond-bury godfrey was found . l. c. j. what day was it . mr. hazard . i can't tell i went along with him , and stay'd as long as he did . i saw sir edmond-bury godfrey lying upon the table his shoos were clean as if he had been on an hay-mow , and his eyes were closed . l. c. j. where was he ? mr. hazard . upon a table in the white-house ▪ there was gobbets of blood ( that i will aver my lord ) by the ditch-side , and likewise at a place where there were two or three things to go over , there was more blood , i can't tell how he was carried , or how he came there , but i saw him at the white-house . mr. williams . who went along with you , besides mr. farewell ? mr. hazard . no body . mr. williams . did he bring you to the place where the body lay ? mr. hazard . yes . mr. ser. maynard . what did farewell tell you when he desired you to go with him ? mr. hazard . why , word was brought by one hancock a wood-monger , to the coffee-honse , some would not believe him , but sent a porter to sir edmond-bury godfrey's house , and then when the porter came and said the body was found and carried to a white-house on primrose-hill , he spake to me to go and see the body , and i fetched my coate and was there quickly . mr. williams . when you came near the ditch did farewell shew you the place . mr. hazard . he and others that were there . mr. williams . i ask you this , did any body shew you the place where the body lay besides farewell ? mr. hazard . no , mr. osborne did he go to the place directly , or about over ditches ? mr. hazard . truely , i know the way to primrose-hill as well as he . we went as direct a way as we could . lord chief justice . the straitest way to the places . mr. hazard . yes . we went over several ditches . sir f. win. as you were going over several ditches , there was no body with you , but farewell was there ? mr. hazard . no. mr. williams . did you enquire of any body as you went along ? mr. hazard . i can't remember such a small circumstance . then william batson was sworn . mr. osborne . what do you know about the blood that wasin the ditch ▪ where sir edmond-bury godfrey was found ? mr. batson . the morning after the murther was discovered , and that sir edmond-bury godfrey was found in the fields , i went with two or three neighbors , and went to the white-house , and saw him lie upon the table in the white-house , and coming back again , they shew'd me in a ditch , where they said he lay , some blood , i cannot say it was his blood , and going a little farther , i saw some more whitish blood , and this is all i can swear . lord chief justice . was it frosty weather ? mr. batson . my lord , i can't tell whether it was , but i l'e assure you the blood looked to me like blood that was laid there , then any thing else . one fisher sworn . mr. farewell . was you there when sir edmond-bury godfrey was stripp'd ? mr. fisher . yes , i stripped him of his clothes , pulled off his hose & shoes , i was carpenter to my lord wooton , and i was sent for in october a day or two before , and i came to get the house covered up , and to take order with my partner : and as i went , there was a report , that sir edmond-bury godfrey was found and laid up in the white-house , and when i came , the coroner and the jury were there , and i got into the room where sir edmond-bury godfrey lay upon the table and took his hatt off ; and i saw two wounds within an inch and an half one of another , one went no further then his bone , and the other went through his back . and my lord , immediately there was an order come down from the coroner , to get him stripp'd . they ask'd me if i would give an hand , and i told them yes . i pull'd off his shoes and they were clean , and i pulled off three pair of stockings and a pair of socks , his black breeches and his dravvers , and they came off very well . there was a man in the company , that desired to help , so i got upon the table , and set him upright with his breach upon the table and his feet hanging down , we unbuttoned his coat , and pull'd it off , i came to his flannel-shirt , and when i come to his back there vvas blood . but i did not see any blood till i came to his back-part . about his throat there vvas somthing that had girt him . lord chief justice . he looked as if he vvere strangled , did he ? mr. fisher . yes , and his neck vvas so vveak that you might turn it any vvhere . lord chief justice . to the defendant farewell . hovv do you pretend he murthered himself ? that he ran himself through ? mr. farewell . i make no inference my lord. but i would only prove that what i write true . is i writ only the first letter , and there are three heads i am charged with , upon that letter , and that about the blood is one . my lord , i was concerned they should pretend there was no blood at all , when i came there , there was near my hat full of blood . lord chief justice . can you tell who laid it there ? mr. farewell . my lord , if you will hear two witnesses more , i will satisfy your lordship who laid it there . my lord , this man was one of them that helped to remove the body out of the ditch . another witness , john rawson called by mr. farewel and sworn . rawson . my lord , i was there taking him up we fetched the constable , and pulled him out of the ditch , and when we had done we pulled the sword out and removed him to the house , and there was blood upon some posts ( explaining himself to me , on a couple of stumps to go over upon ) and going into the door , his back did sweep a little against the side , and there vvas some vvater and blood lighted there , and likevvise lay upon the table vvhere he lay , and upon the floor . mr. farewell . did the blood of his body fall upon the floor , and go through the floor , into the cellar ? mr. rawson . some drops vvere there , i vvon't svvear vvhether it vvere blood or no my lord. mr. farewell . my lord i desire the same question may be put to mrs. rawson . mrs. rawson svvorn . mrs. rawson . my lord if you please i have not a vvord to say , but there vvas blood and vvater , ran through the table , that is all i can say . mr. farewell my lord as to the difference betvveen mr. prances evidence and mr , bedloes , i desire i may prove the difference betvveen them . l. c. justice . you shall make any proof you vvill . john stanley , called by mr. farewell and svvorn . mr. farwel . i call him to prove the copies of the journals of the house of lords . l. c. justice . what would you infer from the journals ? mr. farewell . my lord they charge me that i should say there is a great deal of difference between the evidence mr. bedloe gave in the house of lords and the evidence that prance gave at the tryal of green , berry and hill. l. c. justice . would you prove any evidence , given by bedloe out of the journals ? mr. farewell . i can prove he gave that evidence before the house of lords . but mr. farewell afterwards went off from that proof , and called mr. hobbs , mr. white , mr. chase the father , and mr. chase the sonn , and mr. lazingby who were sworn . mr. farewell . i ask mr. chase , what he observed about sir. edmoud-bury godfrey . mr. chase the sonn . my lord , on fryday morning the day after the body was found , i went to primrose-hill , in company with my father , to see the body which they said was found , i came into the field where the company in the field said , the body had been laid , the body had been then carried into the house , i looked into the ditch where they said the body was laid , i could not see blood in the ditch , but four or five yards aside off the ditch , there seemed some blood to me , which the constable said , followed thesword when it was pulled out of the body i saw the body in the house and saw the two wounds , he had a great contusion on the left eare , and his whole face was very much bruised . l. c. justice . do you believe there was anyi volence offered to him ? mr. chase . my lord , i believe he was strangled , for i don't believe those injuries that were offered about him , could be after he was dead . l. c. justice . what say you mr. hobbs ? farewell . i desire he may be asked , whether he did not propose to mr. godfrey . that the body might be opened , that any doubt may be laid aside , concerning his being murdered , in that place ? mr. hobbs . my lord ? l. c. justice . had you any doubt , whether he was murdered or not ? mr. hobs. indeed my lord i thought he was strangled , that was my opinion , i cant tell whether i was mistaken . i said to dr. goodall it would be very well if mr. godfrey would send for a chirurgion and a physitian from the court and others from the city to satisfie all persons . mr. farewell . what colour was his face ? mr. hobbs . my lord it was bloted . l. c. justice . did it look as if violence had been used to him ? mr. hobbs ay my lord and the bloody vessels of his eyes were so full as if he had been troubled with sore eyes . mr. farewell . did you observe any fly-blows in his face ? mr. hobbs . no my lord , not that i know of . l. c. justice . what say you mr. chase ? mr. chase . my lord on fryday when i came to see the body at the white house i found a great contusion , and two wounds one yielded towards the right . the other went into the body . i troubled my self no more at that time , but the nex day i was desired by dr. lloyd that i would go to his house and see the body again , and there i found a selling upon the left eare as if a knot had been tyed , there i found him beaten from this place to this ( pointing to the neck and stomack ) i never saw any man beaten so in my life . before this business was broached mr. farewell did take me aside at mans coffe-house , and did tell me what proof he could make of this business , i told him mr. farewell i love you well , don't medle with the business , for i know it is impossible any thing can be said against it that hath the face of truth , i did so a second time ( my lord ) when the book came out i found one before i went to new-market , and the other at new-market i was very much troubled to see them . the night before easter , the eve of easterday , i meet with mr. farewell at an house where i had been with a good friend of his and mine , and farewell came and asked for me , and he came up to the room as they called for another bottle of wine , i told them it was needless , only since mr. farewell is come up said i , i will drink one glass with you and he told me then that 6 months before i had given him good council if he had taken it . mr. farrwell . my lord , i desire m. smith to be called . l. c. justice . let him . but he came not then . mr. brown is called by mr. farewell and sworn . mr. farewell . i desire mr. brown may be asked whether his eyes were not fly blown ? l. c. justice . t is proposed to you by mr. farewell , whether the eyes of sir. edmond-bury godfrey were not fly-blown . mr. brown. no my lord , i did not see any fly-blows . mr. farewell . whether there were any specks , that one might call fly-blows ? m. brown. my lord , i did not see any specks that one might call fly-blows ? mr. farewell . i desire that i might call two witnesses to prove that he said so . l. c. justice . what will you get by that , mr. farewell , to disparage your witness . mr. brown. my lord , mr. farewell would have had me said so , but i never said so . then smith came . l. c. justice . what do you ask smith ? mr. farewell . only about the blood . mr. brown , my lord he came to me another time , and told me i was wrong in my affidavit , as if he knew what i could make affidavit of better then my self . mr. farewel . my lord i was not the party that told him so . mr. brown. he was at my house twice , at mary-bone at the sign of the sun. l. c. justice . was paine with him there ? mr. brown. my lord , there was a man with plate buttons with him there . i don't knovv paine . mr. smith svvorn . l. c. justice . well vvhat say you mr. smith it is required of you by mr. farewell , here to dcelare vvhether you took up any of sir ▪ edmond-bury godfreys blood , and brought it home in your handkerchief . mr. smith . no my lord i knovv nothing of that . mr. farewell . i desire rawson and his vvife may be called again . rawson appears . l. c. justice . what say you , t is required by mr. farewell whether you savv any fly-blovvs in sir. edmond-bury godfrey's eyes . mr. rawson there was some thing like fly-blows , but i cant say they vvere fly-blovvs . l. c. justice . did you observe the flys vvere busie at that time of the year ? mr. rawson . my lord i did not see them . ( then the people laughed ) mr. farewell i desire rawsons wife may come . mr. rawson i must fetch her then . rawsons wife appears . l. c. justice . look you , mr. farewell requires of you to tell us whether there was any fly-blows in the eyes of sir edmond-bury godfrey . mrs. rawson . if it please you my lord , there was a great many people said there were fly-blows , i took no great notice of them , l. c. justice . he asks you what you say to his mouth , and his nostrels , were there fly-blows ? mrs. rawson . if it please you my lord , i cant say nothing to it , for i did not much mind it , but they seemed fly-blows . l. c. justice . have you any more witnesses mr. farewell ? mr. farewell . i pray mr. lazingby ( my lord ) may be asked whether men that kill themselves look as sir edmond-bury godfrey did . l. c. justice . mr. lazingby , mr. farewill requires of you , whether you have seen men that have killed themselves , look in such a manner about the neck and face . mr. lazingby . my lord , he appeared to me to be strangled , and that which strangled him was kept about his neck till he was cold . my lord , people that are hanged & let down while warme , the blood draines away by the vessels that are broaken , and their faces are rather less , and their faces become very pale ; but the thing wherewith he was strangled remaining about his neck , the blood could not draine away , but it made his face look bloody . the two mr. chases , the kings apothecary was there when i was there , and the blood that was some four yards from the ditch , i put my finger in it , and smelt to it and it smelt like that which comes from a body after a sortnights time dead , rather then a weeks ; my lord , it was blood and water . the water will seperate from the blood . sir frances winn. but you believe he was strangled ? mr. lazingby . yes his neck from this place hither , ( pointing to the upper part of his neck , and then to his stomack and breast ) was very much discoloured and black , and his mouth was discoloured . now when ever a man is bruised whilst he is alive or whilst he is warme that part after the person is dead will soonest corrupt . l. c. justice . it stands to reason that the bruised part will first corrupt . mr. lazingby . my lord after mr. chase the apothecary and i had seen him at the white house , i went up to drink a glass of beer , and mr. chases sonn unbuttoned sir edmond-bury godfreys coller which was more then i saw , when i was come in , and unbuttoning the coller there vvere 2 great creases both a bove and belovv , so they sent for me dovvn to come and see it , so i put the coller together and i percieved the coller , made the mark like a straight ring upon a finger , the neck being svvelled above the coller and belovv , by the strangling vvith a cord or cloath . sir frances winn. do you think he killed himself novv mr. farewell ? mr. lazingby . there vvas somthing in the cover of his eyes like matter , but i can't say it vvas fly-blovvs . his eyes vvere open , my lord , and his eyes vvere blood-shed , as mr. hobbs hath given you an account , as if he had an extraordinary great cold , or a man that had a blovv upon the temples or forehead . mr. farewell . whether vvere his eye-lids closed ? mr. lazingby . my lord , his eyes vvere open vvhen i savv him . mr. farewell . when i savv him about 6 a clock in the morning his eyes vvere shut . mr. lazingby . i felt upon his cloaths . i admired that his cloaths vvere not vvet , there having been so great a storme the afternoon before ? l. c. justice . and his cloaths vvere not vvet ? mr. . lazingby his cloaths vvere as dry as mine . mr. farewell . my lord they made a great fire there and dryed his clotahs . l. c. justice . come mr. farewell . there is no man so blind as he that vvon't see . will you call any more witnesses ? mr. farewell . i vvill call no more witnesses ; but i suppose they vvill offer against me that i am a papist . mr. serjeant maynard no , no. l. c. justice . truly your religion is not vvorth the enquireing into , t is not much to the purpose vvhat religion you are of . mr. serjeant maynard . gentlemen you hear he hath been able to make no defence for himself , but for the satisfaction of the world , my lord , hath taken great pains in hearing him . i shall speak but very fevv vvords , and call a witness or tvvo , of some nevv matter ; that if it be possible to covince him vve vvill do it . we need not do it because his ovvn witnesses tell you of the several bruises and wounds he had , that there vvas no fly-blovvs , no putrified matter . hovv can a man that stabbs him sef , bruise and beat himself in the manner that you have heard . there is never a witness that hath spoken on his side , but hath spoken against him , to prove himself as malicious a fellovv as can be . what had he to do vvith this ? sir edmond-bury godfrey vvas murdered , was found , inquiry made after it , and prosecution thereupon , now comes this fellow and permits several arguments against it , every one of them from matter of fact , that is false and yet publishes it to the world , that he will prove it by 500 undeniable witnesses . we will now call some witnesses to prove him as wicked a lyer as lives . i say what had he to do with it , only meer malice . he would have me ask him what religion he is of . i shall not ask him , for i don't think he is of any , none of any religion can be so wicked to own such a thing . we shall desire the favour to call a witness or two , to prove somthing more then hath yet been proved in this murder tho' there was evidence enough upon the tryal to prove it . mr. sol. gen. gentlemen . mr. farewell does pretend that he hath only told so many lies , and hath left the world to make use of it . and hath brought witnesses to colour this matter over , and in hopes to make you believe the matter is true . but mr. farewell hath forgot himself , his paper is quite otherwise , for he hath argued upon it , and made inferences , that therefore sir edmond-bury godfrey murdered himself , therefore he is guilty of the highest malice in the world. he tells a great many falsities , and from those falsities , hath inferred others . the paper is full of arguments . l. c. justice . gentlemen , i did give him leave to go into what evidence he would in this case , not hat i thought it material for if he could have proved never so much , yet his malice had never been the less to have gone and aspersed the government . what had he to do to meddle with it ? to what purpose should he write books , concerning the matters of government to traduce the justice of the nation ? the people had suffered as malefactors , and what had he to do with it ? if they had suffered innocently , he ought to have done no such thing as this is . mr. serjeant maynard . , my lord but one witness . l. c. justice . pray call whom you will. mr. serjeant maynard . john okely , we will prove that he was way-layed that very day he was strangled . mr. sol. gen. we have no need to call any witnesses now , to over do a thing . we may leave it here . jury-man . pray my lord if they have any more witnesses let us hear them . l. c. justice . t is nothing to this purpose to call any for the king , nor hath farewells evidence signified any thing to this . he did design and would ( no doubt of it ) have been very much satisfied if he could have made but some probable evidence that sir edmond-bury godfrey killed himself , and i was desirous to hear what they vvould say for themselves . but you hear vvhat a kind of evidence it is , not a witness he hath called , but is as much against him as can be , and does evince it plainly that the man vvas killed , and that he vvas killed by strangling , and so the evidence vvas upon the tryal of green , berry , and hill. if he could have raised a doubt about it , yet his offence had not been mitigated by it , for a private person is not to arraign the justice of the nation , but i vvas vvilling to hear vvhat could be said in the case , vvhether a doubt could be made in the world , that sir edmond-bury godfrey vvas not murdered . and you see hovv his very evidence hath in all things confirmed the evidence prance hath given , that he vvas killed , and that he was killed by strangling . i must leave it with you gentlemen , they are all 3 in this mischief , t is a combination of them to affront the publick justice of the nation , and what is the end of it , the end of it is to make people believe there is no popish plot , but it is plain he was killed by the popish party ; as prance , upon his evidence against green , and the others attested . but if they could have made it out that he killed himself , all of them would have cryed out the popish plot was a sham , nothing but a thing raised by the protestants against the papists , and all the plot must have gone for nothing . gentlemen , i do leave it to you , whether upon this evidence you do not believe them all to be guilty of this design , of traducing the justice of the the nation . the jury thereupon , without going from the barr sound them all three guilty , of the information . and the people gave a great hum. monday july 3. 1682. nathaniel thompson , william pain and john farwell , were brought up by rule , to the bar of the court of the kings bench to receive their judgment : mr. thompson the counsellor moved for judgment , and particularly prayd they might have some corporal punishment , acquainting the court that since their tryal ( tho they had as much time and liberty given them by the lord chief justice to call their witnesses , and examine whom the would as they could desire , ) the very next news book thompson put out , he took upon him to give an accompt as tho' justice had not been done him ; and further said , if there was any doubt of the fact with mr. thompson , or mr. farwell , or mr. pain , there were affidavits to satisfie the world about it . then mr. spences affidavit was read . richard spence citizen and upholder of london , living in arundel street in the strand in the parish of st. clements daen , in the county of middlesex , having been twice subpaena'd to give evidence for the king , upon an information , exhibited in the crown-office against nathaniel thompson , william pain and john farwell , and not being called at their trial to give evidence in open court , maketh oath that upon thursday the tenth day of october 1678. it being the thursday before sir edmondbury godfrey was missing from his own house in hartshorne lane in the strand , as he this deponent was coming from st. james's market to go to his own house , about seven of the clock at night , there were then at the water gate of somerset house , five or six men standing together , who layd hold on this deponent as he was passing by them , and they taking hold of both this deponents armes , dragg'd him down about a yard within the water gate of somerset house , it being dark ; but one of the said men , which this deponent believes to have been hill , ( for that this deponent knew hill very well , as also his master doctor godwyn , ) cryed out and said this is not he , upon which they immediatly let this deponent go . richard spence . jurat . the 10th . july , 1682. coram me , w. dolbin . whereupon the clerk of the crown sayd , that it was one captain spence , whom he knew very well , and that he was a tall black man and like sir edmondbury godfrey . then john oakely's affidavit was read . john oakely , of the parish of st. martins in the fields in the county of middlesex , servant to mr. robert breedon of hartshorne lane in the said parish and county brewer , maketh oath that on saturday the 12th . day of october , in the year of our lord 1678 , about eight or nine of the clock in the evening , he was in the city of london , in the company of his father robert oakely of bissiter in the county of oxon maulster , and his father came with him so far as ludgate , where they parted . and this deponent going homewards to his master breedns house , coming by somerset house in the strand , when he came near the gate of that house which leads down to the water-side , commonly called the water gate , which was about nine of the clock at night , he there saw sir edmondbury godfrey , and past close by him and put off his hat to him ; and sir edmondbury godfrey put off his hat again to him , and after that this deponent had passed beyond sir edmondbury godfrey , he this deponent turned about and looked upon him again , and sir edmondbury godfrey stood still , and there was a man or two near sir edmond . and this deponent further saith that he knew sir edmondbury godfrey very well , for that he saw him almost daily pass by his master breedons house in hartshorne lane , going or coming from his own dwelling house , which was also in harts-horne lane. and this deponent further saith that about two or three days after when the rumor was that sir edmondbury godfrey was missing , he acquainted his fellow servant elizabeth dekin , that he saw sir edmondbury godfrey near the water gate at somerset house in the strand , that very saturday night that he was reported to have been missing from his house in hartshorne lane. and this deponent further saith that he told the same thing to his uncle ralph oakely of the parish of little saint bartholomew , about a week after the time that sir edmondbury godfreys body was found , and also that he told the same thing to his father the aforesaid robert oakely , and to several others in a short time after . john oakely . jurat . 22 die junij 1682. coram me , john moore major . sworn to again the 1st . july , 1682. before judge dolbin , and is left filed up in the crown-office . vide green , berry and hills tryal , folio 16 , as to the time of sir edmondbury godfreys being at somerset house . after which the court consulted together , and mr. justice jones having first set out the greatness of their crime , gave the judgment of the court , which was , that thompson and farwel , should stand upon the pillory , in the palace yard , the last day of the term , between the hours of ten and one of the clock , for the space of an hour , and each of them to pay an hundred pound fine , and to be imprisoned till they had paid it . and as for pain , he told him because the court did not conceive him altogether so guilty , they would inflict no corporal punishment on him , but did adjudge him to pay an hundred pound fine , and to be imprisoned till he payd it . afterwards the court was moved to explane their judgment , it being apprehended that it was pronounced upon the pillory ; and the court did declare that their intention was ( and so the expression upon the pillory was to be understood ) that they should stand in the pillory . accordingly wednesday the 5th . july , 1682. thompson , and farwell stood in the pillory in the old palace-yard at westminster , with this writing over their heads , for libelling the justice of the nation , by making the world beleive that sir edmondbury godfrey murdered himself . the end of the tryal . an appendix containing several other affidavits , which further confirm the testimony of mr. miles prance ; given upon the tryal of green , bury , & hill , for the murder of sir edmund-bury-godfrey : with some observations touching thompson , pain , and farewell . london , printed for thomas simmons , 1682. an appendix containing several other affidavits , which further confirm the testimony of mr. miles prance , &c. as it hath been of late by many learned pens , made appear , that the papists do justifie and countenance , nay , esteem meritorious , rebellions , murders , and massacres , against any protestant prince or people ( whom they reckon hereticks ) for the advancement of their religion ; so 't is as well known , that if those rebellions , murders , and massacres , be discovered , they can ( if they shall think them needful ) have dispensations to forswear , lie , equivocate , do any thing to make the world believe that they are innocent , or make protestants themselves appear guilty of them . that there hath been a popish plot , ( and a desperate one too ) in england , for the subversion of the protestant religion , and established government , i think no man doubts , only some persons whose interest it is , may deny . and amongst the several concurring evidences of this popish conspiracy , the murder of that worthy gentleman and magistrate by that party , hath not been the least . that which induced the papists to this murder , ( as well as can be guessed by those who are strangers to that wicked action ) was one or both of these considerations ; namely , the hopes of finding and seizing the examination of dr. oats about the damnable popish plot which he had taken , and used to carry about with him , by which they thought to stifle the plot : or else they thought , by this murder , to affrighten all active magistrates from being vigorous in the future examination , and further prosecution of their horrid conspiracy , though ( through god's providence ) they have been very much disappointed in both these ends. and the papists are so sensible how much this murder pinches them , that after the conviction and execution of the persons for that murder , no discouragements or dangers they incur ( by affronting and arraigning the publick justice of the kingdom ) hath been able to deter them from impudent attempts ( impudent i may say , the rather , because done under a protestant-government ) to sham off that murder from themselves , and making the whole prosecution to be only a design and contrivance of the protestants against them . witness first , that notorious sham of james magrath an irish-man , who ( being assisted by the popish priests in newgate , mrs. cellier , and mrs. gibbon , and others ) pretended there were those that could make it appear , and prove , that sir edmond-bury-godfrey hanged himself , and that one moor , who was clerk to sir edmund-bury-godfrey cut him down , finding him hanging . which matter being examined at the council board , and appearing to their honours to be a false and malicious contrivance , the said magrath was dismissed with security for his appearance , and that project fell to the ground . but for the further satisfaction of the world ( though i think no body did believe that idle story ) i shall here insert mr. moors affidavit . the affidavit of henry moore . henry moore , late servant and clerk to sir edmund-bury-godfrey , deceased , maketh oath , that upon saturday the 12th . of october , 1678. his said master having persons come before him about justice-business , till about nine of the clock in the forenoon : when the company were gone , he bade me help him on with his coat , which i did ; and immediately he made me pull it off again , and give him another coat , which i did ; and then he girt his sword about him , and went out from his house , which was the last time i saw him , till after he was found dead in the fields , which was the thursday following . the constable of st. giles in the fields , and several others with him , came to my master's house , and told us , that sir edmund-bury-godfrey was found dead , and laid in a ditch at primrose-hill , and a sword thrust through him ; and said , he had caused him to be carried to the white-house : this being late at night , the next day my masters two brothers , and sisters , and my self , went thither ; and then i saw him lye upon a table in the house where the constable had laid him , which was the first time that i saw him , after he went out of his own house , on saturday the 12th of october , 1678. and then we brought him home to his own house ; and as i am informed that there are several scandalous papers , and words given out , that sir edmund-bury-godfrey hanged himself ; and that they do affirm , that i , the said henry moore , should say that i cut him down ; i do hereby depose , that the said report is utterly false ; and that i did not cut him down , nor ever said any such words to any person whatsoever ; or ever said that sir edmund-bury-godfrey made away himself , or words to that effect : which said scandals are all false and notorious lies , henry moore . june the 28th . 1681. henry moore of littleport in the isle of ely , and county of cambridge , made oath before me william balam , one of his majesties justices for the said isle ; that this , which is contained in the above written affidavit is true , and nothing but truth . in witness whereof , i have hereunto set my hand and seal , the day and year above written , william balam . yet , though this matter had proved so unsuccessful , they could not be quiet , but must make one experiment more , and that is contrary to the former : for now they declare , that he made away himself ( so far they agree with magrath ) but it was by running his sword through his own body . and thompson , farewell , and pain , are the men that are to manage this new invention ; and they write and print the scandalous letters and libels you find in their trial : and lest any one should dare to question the truth of them , they boast , they can prove their assertions by five hundred witnesses . every body thought the murder sufficiently proved upon the trial of green , berry , and hill , and were amazed to hear such a declaration , thinking it hardly possible for men to be so impudent , publickly to declare , they had five hundred witnesses to prove a matter , when they had not one , as may be seen by their trial ; for every witness made against them ; and further proved , that he was murdered , and that by strangling . but for these scandalous libels , they were brought before his majesties most honourable privy council , who ( upon their owning those libels ) committed them to newgate , and ordered the attorny general to prosecute them ; and accordingly you find by the triall he did ; and they were convicted , and have since received judgment , and that judgment hath been executed . but though the murder was clearly proved at the trial of green , berry , and hill ; and though after all these brags , that thompson , farewell , and paine , made , that they could prove so much at their trial , they could make out nothing ; and so it was not necessary to call any more witnesses for the king then ; yet for the further satisfaction of the world , it hath been thought fit to print ( besides what is printed with the trial , upon giving judgment ) the following five affidavits all agreeing with mr. prance's testimony upon the trial of green , berry , and hill ; and as to the first four of them , see john oakly's affidavit , printed in the trial , at pag. 35. the affidavit of elizabeth dekin . elizabeth dekin , servant to mr. robert breedan , of harts-horn-lane , in the parish of st. martins in the fields , in the county of middlesex , brewer , maketh oath , that about two or three dayes after the rumour was published , that sir edmund-bury was missing , her fellow servant , john oakely , told her , this deponent , that he saw sir edmund-bury-godfrey , near the water-gate at sommerset-house in the strand , about nine of the clock that very saturday night that he was first missing , from his house in harts-horn-lane ; and that there was then a man or two near the said sir edmund-bury-godfrey : and this deponent further saith , that her said master , robert breedan , asking her ( before the body of sir edmund-bury-godfrey was found ) what news there was about sir edmund-bury-godfrey ? she , this deponent , told him , that she heard no news of him , but that her fellow servant , john oakely , had told her , that he met sir edmund-bury-godfrey near the water-gate at sommerset-house , the very saturday night he was first missing from his house in harts-horn-lane . and this deponent further saith , that she then asked the said john oakely , if he was sure it was sir edmund ? and he replied , he was very sure it was he , for he put off his hat to sir edmund-bury-godfrey , as he passed by . him ; and sir edmund-bury-godfrey put off his hat to him again : and he also told her , that when he had past sir edmund-bury-godfrey , he , the said john oakely looking back again , saw sir edmund-bury-godfrey stand still , and a man or two hard by him , elizabeth dekin . jurat 22 die junij . 1682. coram me . john moore , mayor . the affidavit of robert breedon . robert breedon of harts-horn-lane in the parish of st. martins in the fields , in the county of middlesex , brewer , maketh oath , that one night , betwixt saturday the 12th day of october , in the year of our lord , one thousand six hundred and seventy eight , and before the body of sir edmund-bury-godfrey was found , he coming home to his house about nine of the clock at night , asked his servant maid , elizabeth dekin , if there were yet any news of sir edmund-bury-godfrey's being found ? or words to that purpose : who replyed , that she heard nothing of his being found ; but told him , that her fellow servant , john oakely , did positively affirm , that he met sir edmund-bury-godfrey near the water-gate at sommerset-house in the strand , that very saturday night about nine of the clock , being the same saturday that he was first missed from his house in harts-horn-lane ; to which this deponent replied , sure john is mistaken : to which elizabeth dekin answered , john oakely said , he was sure it was he ; for when he met him , he put off his hat to sir edmund-bury-godfrey , and sir edmund-bury-godfrey put off his hat to him again . robert breedon . jurat . 22. die junij . 1682. coram me . john moore , mayor . the affidavit of ralph oakeley . ralph oakeley , citizen and skinner , maketh oath , that he was an inhabitant in the parish of little st. bartholomews , london , in the month of october 1678. and that john oakely his nephew , was then and is now a servant to mr. robert breed●n , of harts-horn-lane in the parish of st. martins in the fields , in the county of middlesex , brewer . and this deponent farther saith , that soon after that the dead body of sir edmond-b●ry godfrey was found his said nephew , john oakely , came to this deponents house in a visit , being as this deponent believes , about the sunday after that sir edmond-bury godfreys body was found . and they falling into discourse of sir edmond-bury godfrey's being found murdered , his said nephew john oakely then told him this deponent , that as he was going home to his mr. breedons in harts-horn-lane , after that he had parted with his father robert oakely , about lud●at● , he met sir edmond-burygodfrey about nine of the clock at night , near the water-gate of somerset-house ; that saturday night that he was first missing from his house in harts-horn-lane , and that he then , passed close by sir edmond-bury godfrey , or words to that purpose . whereupon this deponent asked his said nephew , are you sure that it was sir edmond-bury godfrey that you then met near somerset house ? how did you come to know him ? to which his said nephew made answer , i know him very well , for i saw him almost daily pass by mr. breed●ns house , and he lived in harts-horn-lane a little below my masters brew-house , or words to that purpose . ralph oakeley . jur : 4. die julij 1682. coram w. dolbin . the affidavit of robert oakeley . robert oakely of bisseter , in the county of oxon maulster , maketh oath , that he being in london , on saturday the 12th of october 1678 with his son john oakely , servant to mr. robert breeden of the parish of st. martins in the fields , in the county of middlesex brewer , that this deponent did then accompany his said son john oakely without ludgate , and there parted with him about nine a clock at night , and this deponent went out of town on the thursday following ; before the body of sir edmond-burygodfrey was found . and this deponent further saith , that some short time after , he coming to town again , the said john oakely his son , then told this deponent that upon saturday the 12th day of october , 1678. after he had parted from this deponent upon ludgate-hill , as he went home to his said masters house in hartshorn-lane , he saw sir edmond-burygodfrey ; near sumerset-house in the strand , and then put off his hat to him , and the said sir edmond-bury godfrey thereupon put of his hat to the said john oakeley again , all which this deponent hath declared to several persons since that time . robert oakley . jurat 22. die junij 1682. coram me , john moore mayor . the affidavit of john brown and william lock . john brown and william lock , both of the parish of maribone in the county of middlesex , having been since subpaened to give evidence for the king upon an information in the crown-office , exhibited against nathaniel thomson , william pain , and john farwell , and not being called at their tryal to give evidence for the king , in open court , each of them severally for themselves maketh oath , that upon thursday the 17th of october , 1678. the said john brown , being then constable of maribone aforesaid , word was brought to him , that there was a man found dead in a ditch near primrose-hill , whereupon this deponent john brown , charged this other deponent william lock , and several others to go along with him thither ; and when they came to the place where the body lay , the said deponents john brown and william lock , went into the said ditch , as also some other persons , which were then with them , some of which are since deceased . and the said deponents viewing the body in what posture it lay , and finding a sword thrust thorow the body , they each of them , the said deponents , did feel under the body , and found that the pummel of the sword-hilt did not touch the ground by a handfull ; but not knowing whose body it was , they the said deponents and others that were then with them , pulled the body out of the ditch , and found that it was the body of sir edmond-bury godfrey , with whom they were very well acquainted in his life time . the mark of william w. l. lock . john brown. jurat 30 die junij 1682. coram me john moore mayor . the affidavit of benj. man. benjamin man of london , gent. having been twice subpaened to give evidence for the king upon an information exhibited in the crown-office against nathaniel thompson , william pain and john farewell : and not being called at their tryal to give evidence in open court , maketh oath , that about the time green was charged with the murder of sir edmond-berry godfrey , this deponent coming to the gate-house in the morning , found the said green about to be put in irons , and asking the turn-keys what was the matter ? they told him that green was charged with the murder of sir edmond-berry godfrey . and then the said deponent called to see his warrant , and this deponent reading of it , turn'd to mr. green and said i did not think to have found you such a man , whereupon green replyed , i am a dead man , or words to that purpose . benj. man. jur. 3. die julii , 1682. coram me w. dolben . the affidavit of robert forset . robert forset of maribone , in the county of middlesex esq having been twice subpaened to give evidence for the king , upon an information exhibited in the crown-office against nathaniel thomson , william pain and john farewell : and being not called to give evidence in open court , maketh oath , that tuesday the fifteenth of october , 1678. being the tuesday after that sir edmond-berry godfrey was missing , he this deponent was a hunting with his pack of hounds at the very place where the body of sir edmond-berry godfrey was afterwards found , and beat that very place with his hounds , and the body was not then there , nor any gloves nor cane thereabout . the said deponent further saith , that the same day mr. henry harwood , requested him this deponent that he would let him have his hounds the next day after being wednesday , and he would find that hare which they could not find on tuesday , or words to that purpose . and this deponent further saith , that he the said harwood , hath several times since affirmed , that he did accordingly hunt in the same place and beat the same ditch , and said that the body was not there that wednesday at noon , which said henry harwood is now newly dead . w. dolben . jur. 1. die julii , 1682. coram me robert forset . vid. green , berry , and hills tryals , fol. 19. 20. as to the time of removing the body and the gloves , and other things upon the bank. but because it may be thought strange that protestants should espouse the cause of the papists , it may be fit to give some account what these persons are , who have so zealously appeared in this matter ; it is to be supposed ( not without some ground ) that thompson ( notwithstanding his pretence that he was drawn in ) knew those things he printed in the letters or several of them to be falsities , for mr. george larkin does swear as follows : the affidavit of george larkin . george larkin of london printer , maketh oath , that having heard the body of sir edmond-berry godfrey was found , this deponent on the eighteenth of october , 1678. went to see the said body , which then lay at the white house near primrose-hill , and there met with nathaniel thompson , of london also printer , who then proposed to this deponent the writing of a narrative thereof to print , wherein he desired this deponents assistance , and therefore wished this deponent to take good notice of the body and circumstances , and promised to do the like himself , and this deponent staid there with the said thompson till the coroners jury sate on the said body , and did see the said body stripped . and this deponent having conferred with the said thompson , and agreeing with him in the circumstances ; the said narrative , the same day was written in part in the said thompson's house , and being finished , was read over by this deponent and the said thompson , who agreed with this depononent in the truth thereof ▪ george larkin . jur. 22. die martii , 1681. coram me j. moore , mayor . and upon this sight of the body , and comparing of notes with mr. larkin , he puts out a little pamphlet intituled , a true and perfect narrative , &c. in which there is a paragraph or two quite contrary to what he prints in the letters , pray take it in the words of it . a true and perfect narrative of the late terrible and bloody murther of sir edmond-berry godfrey , &c. ( with allowance . ) printed by n. t. 1678. on friday the eighteenth of this instant , mr. cooper the coroner of middlesex impannell'd a jury at the white-house to enquire about the occasion of the death of the said sir edmond-berry : and two chirurgions ( having been first sworn ) removed the body in the presence of the coroner and jury , and found the wounds about it , which one of the chirurgions searched with his probe , and found one of them not above an inch deep , the probe going against one of his ribs , but the other being a little below the left pap , went quite through the body , his face was of a fresh colour , tho' in his life time very pale , somewhat swelled , and a green circle about his neck , as if he had been strangled , his blood being setled about his throat , and the upper part of his breast , the chirurgions having reviewed the body , delivered their judgments , that the wounds they found about him were not the cause of his death ; but that he was suffocated before the wounds were made . and that which may fully persuade any person of the truth hereof is , that there was not one drop of blood to be found in the place where he lay , nor the least appearance of any such thing , tho' the ditch was dry , and it might have been easily seen if there had been any . another thing was , that the very bottom of the soles of his shoes were as clean as if he had but just come out of his own chamber , which was an evident sign that he was carried thither . a third thing very remarkable is , that one of the jury affirmed that a servant of his mothers ( who is owner of the ground were the body lay ) with a butcher and two boys made a very strict and narrow search in all parts of that ground for a calf that was missing upon monday and tuesday last , and at that time there lay no dead body , belt , gloves , stick , or other thing there . and notwithstanding he gives himself the name of the loyal protestant printer , this is not the first time he hath been charged wlth printing popish . books , ( i take still these letters and libels to be a limb of popery ) for wednesday the thirtieth of october , 1678. he was committed to the gatehouse at westminster , by the house of lords for that very matter . as for mr. farewell , he was mightily afraid he should be taken for a papist , mr. serjeant maynard declared he thought he was of no religion : but if he be , i know which is most like to justifie such practises . but tho' i cannot say any thing as to his religion , yet i have reason to think the papists had a great kindness for him , for ( not to mention other things ) he was trustee for fenwick the jesuite that was executed , and that i think will appear by the following affidavit , and also a kind of will made by the said fenwick . the affidavit of john richardson . john richardson of the parish of st. clement danes in the county of middlesex , formerly clark to richard langhorn esq executed ( aged 36 years or thereabouts ) deposeth , that in or about the year 1670. mr. john farwel lately deputy bayliff of westminster , was employed by the said mr. langhorn , in the cause between the jesuits , whitebread poulten , and others , and one mr. john savage in a sutie in chancery ; concerning newenham abby in bedfordshier . and that in the year 1678. about michaelmas day , there having for some time before been another suite in chancery depending between one mr. goodlad , and the jesuits executed and others , all the papers in the said cause being removed by the said mr. langhorns order , ( before his imprisonment ) out of his chamber . mr. farwell met this deponent , and said to him , where are the papers in the cause between the jesuits and mrs. goodlad . the deponent told him in the temple , mr. farwell said he must have them brought to him , ( to follow the suite that mr. langhorn had begun , so the deponent carryed them to him the next day , and within some short time afterwards , the said cause was finally ended , as the deponent hath been since informed , mr. farwell was also concerned for the jesuits , as a trustee for five hundred pounds of fenwick's mony , in benjamin hintons hands , found by a jury and given as the deponent is informed to the sheriffs of london , notwithstanding which he being summoned on a commission of enquiry to guildhal , about may last , and there examined if he had never been a trustee for any of them , he said on his oath no , yet after being charged with his being proved a trustee for this five hundred pound , ( before the jury ) he then confessed he had forgot it : and owned he was a trustee for the five hundred pound before mentioned . john richardson . jur. 3. die aprilis , 1682. coram me john moore , mayor . fenwick the jesuit that was executed , his will. i had taken from me when i was apprehended and brought to prison , two goldsmiths notes , one of 400 l. another of 100 l. the money is in benjamin hinton's hands at birchin-lane end in lumbard-street . there were also two bonds , each of 126 l. due to me from mr. samuel tyrril , but the bonds are made payable to mr. john farwell , and mr. william brewe . there was also a bill of 50 l. due from mrs. olympia wray . of this i owe to mr. hamerton of mark-road 100 l. which i had received from him with order to pay it to another gent. but had not paid it : also 40 l. to mr. edward stockton , which i received for him and had not paid it : also 10 or 15 l. ( truly i rather believe 15 l. ) which i received for mr. tho. pordage , ( who lives now beyond seas , and had an estate in kent of 1000 l. a year since the kings restauration , and is now reduced to that poverty that this 20 l. is all he has to live on ) from mr. tho. lushington in kent , by five or ten pound at a time , it being in part of an annuity of 20 l. a year to be paid quarterly . also 15 or 20 l. to alice kettlewell , who lives with the lady petre , for which she has my note . there are also several deeds and bonds betwixt the late lord widdrington , and george collingwood of eshington in northumberland , esq which the said george collingwood ordered me to deliver to capt. ralph widdrington , upon the payment of 100 l. but the money not being paid , i desire the writings may be restored to the said mr. collingwood , or his heirs . these several sums being paid , the rest of the money belongs to the house of st. omers , for which i was employed . i desire what money is paid in satisfaction of the sums abovesaid , may be paid into the hands of mr. john farwell , attorney at law of covent-garden , who will take care to pay it to the persons to whom it belongs . i hope care will be taken to pay my landlady my chamber-rent since my imprisonment , also half a year or three quarters of a years rent , which i was owing at the time of my apprehension , since all is taken from me and i cannot do it my self , she will tell you exactly the time , for i cannot . as for mr. pain , i shall only say this , that he is brother to nevill alias pain , a man famous for making the traytor coleman's elegy , and for being an agent and scribler for mrs. cellier and the papists , yet that i may do him right , i must tell the world since the prosecution of him for this matter , he hath declared himself sorry for what he hath done , and not carried it so impudently as the others . thus i hope by printing these affidavits , the murder of sir edmond-berry godfrey by the papists , does appear so clear and unquestionable , that no persons ( for the future ) can assume the impudence to attempt any further shams upon it , but at the same time must proclaim their folly in so vain an undertaking . the end . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a63185-e350 examinat . the tryal and sentence of elizabeth cellier for writing, printing and publishing a scandalous libel called, malice defeated &c., at the sesions in the old-bailey, held saturday the 11th and monday the 13th of sept., 1680 whereunto is added several depositions made before the right honorable the lord mayor. cellier, elizabeth, fl. 1680. 1680 approx. 97 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 18 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63166 wing t2171 estc r24639 08256564 ocm 08256564 41247 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63166) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 41247) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1242:16) the tryal and sentence of elizabeth cellier for writing, printing and publishing a scandalous libel called, malice defeated &c., at the sesions in the old-bailey, held saturday the 11th and monday the 13th of sept., 1680 whereunto is added several depositions made before the right honorable the lord mayor. cellier, elizabeth, fl. 1680. england and wales. court of quarter sessions of the peace (london) 39 p. printed for thomas collins, london : 1680. reproduction of original in the university of illinois (urbana-champaign campus). library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng cellier, elizabeth, fl. 1680. -malice defeated. popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-12 ali jakobson sampled and proofread 2006-12 ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion september 13th . 1680. i do appoint thomas collins stationer , to print the tryal of mrs. cellier at the sessions , and that no other do presume to print the same . robert clayton mayor . the tryal and sentence of elizabeth cellier ; for writing , printing , and publishing , a scandalous libel , called malice defeated , &c. at the sessions in the old-bailey , held saturday the 11 th . and monday the 13 th . of sept. 1680. whereunto is added several depositions , made before the right honorable , the lord mayor . london , printed for thomas collins , at the middle-temple-gate . 1680. the tryal of elizabeth cellier , &c. cl. of cr. mrs. cellier , look to your challenges ; for the jury that is to be sworn , is to pass upon you . cellier . am i for my life ? cl. of cr. no , but look to your challenges . ld. mayor . but if you challenge , you must give a reason for it , mrs. cellier . cl. of cr. swear john ainger . ( which was done . ) swear richard boys . cellier . i challenge him . ld. mayor . mrs. cellier , you must shew a cause for your challenge . cellier . i did not know that , my lord. mr. baron weston . you can challenge none in this case without a cause . cellier . my lord , i did not know that , then i agree he shall be sworn . ( which was done . ) then the rest of the jury without any more challenges were sworn : and they were all as follows : jury . john ainger . richard boys . john stephens . thomas phelps . gilbert vrwin . edward allanson . richard liveing . john coggs . henry hodgsden . john barnard . edward low. james southern . then proclamation was made in common form for information , and the clerk charged the jury thus : cl of cr. you gentlemen that are sworn elizabeth cellier stands indicted by the name of elizabeth cellier , wife of peter cellier , of the parish of st. clement danes , in the county of middlesex , gent. for that she being of the popish religion , not having the fear of god before her eyes , but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil , falsly and maliciously endeavouring and intending our soveraign lord king charles the second that now is , and the government of this kingdom of england ; as also the true protestant religion within this kingdom of england by law established , to bring to hatred and contempt ; and also to bring scandal and infamy upon divers persons produced as witnesses , that gave evidence on the part and behalf of our soveraign lord the king , against her the said elizabeth cellier , and other persons indicted of high treason , the 1st . of september in the 32th . year of our soveraign lord king charles the second that now is ; at the parish of st. clement danes in the county of middlesex aforesaid , falsly , maliciously and seditiously , did write and publish , and did cause to be writ , imprinted and published , a scandalous libel intituled malice defeated , or a brief relation of the accusation and deliverance of elizabeth cellier ; wherein her proceedings both before and during her confinement , are particularly related , and the mystery of the meal-tubb fully discovered ; together with an abstract of her arraignment and tryal , written by her self for the satisfaction of all lovers of undisguised truth . in which said libel , are contained these false , feigned , scandalous words and figures following , to wit , i hope it will not seem strange to any honest and loyal person of what way or religion soever , that i being born and bred up under protestant parents should now openly profess my self of another church ; meaning the church of rome ; ) for my education being in those times , when my own parents and relations , for their constant and faithful affection to the king , and royal family , were persecuted , the king himself murdered , the bishops and church destroyed , the whole loyal party meerly for being so , oppressed and ruined ; and all , as was pretended by the authors of these villanies for their being papists , and idolaters , the constant character given by them to the king and his friends to make them odious , they assuming to themselves only the name of protestants , making that the glorious title by which they pretended right to all things . these sort of proceedings , as i grew in understanding , produced in me more and more horror of the party that committed them , and put me on inquiry into that religion to which they pretended the greatest antipathy , wherein , i thank god , my innate loyalty not only confirmed , but incouraged me . and let calumny say what it will , i never heard from any papists , as they call them , priest , nor lay-man , but that they and i , and all true catholicks owe our lives to the defence of our lawful king , which our present soveraign charles the second is , whom god long and happily preserve so . these sorts of doctrines agreeing to my publick morals , and no way , as ever i was taught , contradicting my private ones , commending at the same time to me charity and devotion , i without any scruple have hitherto followed , glorying to my self to be in communion with those who were the humble instruments of his majesties happy preservation from the fatal battle at worcester ; and who , the poor , no temptation could invite to betray him to those who by a pretended protestant principle , sought his innocent blood. these truths i hope , may satisfie any indifferent person in my first change ; nor can they wonder at my continuance therein , notwithstanding the horrid crimes of treason and murder laid to the charge of some persons considerable for their quality and fortunes in that party : for when i reflected who were the witnesses , and what unlikely things they deposed , and observed that many of the chiefest sticklers for the plot , were those or the sons of those , that acted the principal parts in the last tragedy , which history told me too had the prologue of a pretended popish plot ; i say , these things made me doubtful of the whole , and the more i searched for truth , the more i doubted that the old enemys of the crown were again at work for its destruction . i being fully confirmed in this , thought it my duty through all sorts of hazards , to relieve the poor imprisoned catholicks , who in great numbers were lockt up in goals , starving for want of bread : and this i did some months before i ever saw the countess of powis , or any of those honourable persons that were accused , or receiving of one penny of their money directly or indirectly , till about the latter end of january ( 78. ) and in another part of the said libel are contained these false feigned and scandalous words and figures following ; to wit , about this time i went daily to the prisons to perform those offices of charity i was obliged to , and on thursday january the 9th ( 78 i dined in newgate in the room called the castle on the masters side debtors , and about four in the afternoon i came down into the lodge with five women , of which , three were protestants , and we all heard terrible grones and squeeks , which came out of the dungeon called the condemned hole . i asked harris the turn-key what doleful crie it was . he said it was a woman in labour . i bid him put us into the room to her , and we would help her . but he drove us away very rudely , both out of the lodge and from the door . we went behind the gate and there listned , and soon found that it was the voice of a strong-man in torture , and heard as we thought between his grones the winding up of some engine . these cries stopt the passengers under the gate , and we six went to the turners shop without the gate , and stood there amazed with the horror and dread of what we heard , when one of the officers of the prison came out in great haste , seeming to run from the noise . one of us catch'd hold of him saying , oh! what are they doing in the prison ? officer . i dare not tell you . mistriss . 't is a man upon the rack . i le lay my life on 't . officer . it is something like it . cellier . who is it ? prance ? officer . pray , madam do not ask me , for i dare not tell you . but it is that i am not able to hear any longer . pray let me go . with that he ran away towards holborn as fast as he could . we heard these groans perfectly to the end of the old bayley . they continued till near seven of the clock , and then a person in the habit of a minister , of middle stature , grey-haired , accompanied with two other men , went into the lodge . the prisoners were lockt up , and the outward door of the lodge also , at which i set a person to stand , and observe what she could , and a prisoner loaded with irons was brought into the lodge , and examined a long time . and the prisoners , that came down as low as they could , heard the person , examined with great vehemency say often , i know nothing of it , i am innocent , he forced me to bely my self , what would you have me say ? will you murder me because i will not bely my self and others . severall other such like expressions they heard spoken as by one in great agony . about four of the clock next morning , the prisoners that lay in a place above the hole heard the same cry again two hours , and on saturday morning again , and about eight a clock that morning a person i employed to spie out the truth of that affair , did see the turn-keys carrying a bed into the hole . she asked who it was for : they told her it was for prance who was gone mad , and had tore his bed in pieces . that night the examiners came again , and after an hours conference prance was led away to the press-yard . this and many things of the like nature , made me very inquisitive to know what past in the prison . soon after this francis corral a coachman that had been put into newgate upon suspicion of carrying away sir edmond-bury godfrey's body , and lay there thirteen weeks and three days in great misery , got out . i went to see him , and found him a sad spectacle , having the flesh worn away , and great holes in both his legs by the weight of his irons , and having been chained so long double , that he could not stand upright , he told me much of his hard and cruel usage , as that he had been squeez'd and hasped into a thing like a trough , in a dungeon under ground ; which put him to inexpressible torment , insomuch that he soonded , and that a person in the habit of a minister stood by all the while . that a duke beat him , pull'd him by the hair , and set his drawn sword to his breast three times , and swore he would run him through ; and another great lord laid down a heap of gold , and told him it was five hundred pounds , and that he should have it all , and be taken into the aforesaid dukes house , if he would confess what they would have him ; and one f. a vintner , that lives at the sign of the half-moon in ch-si , by whose contrivance he was accus'd , took him aside , and bid him name some person , and say , they imploy'd him to take up the dead body in somerset-yard , and gave him mony for so doing ; that if he would do this , both f. and he , should have mony enough . he also told me , that he was kept from thursday till sunday without victuals or drink , having his hands every night chain'd behind him , and being all this time lock'd to a staple which was driven into the floor , with a chain not above a yard long : that in this great extremity , he was forc'd to drink his own water ; and that the jaylor beat his wife , because she brought victuals , and prayed that he might have it , and threw milk on the ground , and bid he be gone , and not look at him . and in another part of the said libel is contained ( amongst other things ) these false , fained , and scandalous words and figures following , to wit , my arraignment ( which in confidence of my own innocency i continually press'd for ) not but that i knew the danger , as to this life , of encountring the devil in the worst of his instruments , which are perjurors encouraged to that degree as that profligated wretch ( meaning thomas dangerfield produced as a witness against her for high-treason ) was , and hath been since his being exposed to the world in his true colours , both at mine , and anothers trial. and in another part of the said libel are contained these false feigned and scandalous words and figures following . nor have i since received any thing towards my losses , or the least civility from any of them , whilst dangerfield ( meaning the said thomas dangerfield ) when made a prisoner for apparent recorded rogueries was visited by , and from persons of considerable quality , with great sums of gold and silver , to encourage him in the new villanies he had undertaken , not against me alone , but persons in whose safety , all good men , as well protestants , as others in the three kingdoms , are concerned . and in another part of the said libel called , a postscript to the impartial readers , are contained these false , feigned , and scandalous words following , to wit , and whensoever his majesty pleases to make it as safe and honorable , as it is apparent it hath been gainful , and meritorious to do the contrary ; there will not want witnesses to testifie the truth of more than i have written , and persons that are above being made the hangmans hounds for weekly pensions , or any other considerations whatsoever . to the evil and dangerous example of all others in the like case offending , and against the peace of our sovereign lord the king , his crown and dignity . upon this indictment she hath been arraigned , and thereunto hath pleaded , not guilty , and for her tryal hath put her self upon the country , which country you are , so your issue is to try , whether she be guilty of this offence , in manner and form wherein she stands indicted , or not guilty . if you find her guilty , you are to say so , and if you find her not guilty , you are to say so ; and no more ; and hear your evidence . then robert dormer esquire of lincolns-inn , open'd the indictment thus . mr. dormer . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury . elizabeth cellier the gentlewoman at the bar , the wife of peter cellier of the parish of st. clemens danes in the county of middlesex gentleman , stands indicted of being the author and publisher of a libel intituled , malice defeated , or a brief relation of the accusation and deliverance of elizabeth cellier . you have heard the indictment read , wherein some clauses of this libel are recited in the words they were written , and in mrs. celliers own words , and in other words , i will not undertake to repeat them to you . gentlemen , this is a libel so complicated and general , that within this book are contained as many libels of several natures , and against different persons and orders of men as there are paragraphs , his majesty , and protestant religion , our laws , government , magistrates , councellours of state , courts of judicature , the kings evidence , and the publick justice of this kingdom are all aspersed and defamed , by the virulency and malice of this womans pen. she hath charged upon the principles of our religion , the murther of his late majesty , and the greatest impieties that ever were committed . she accuseth all that have done their duties , or been active in the discovery of the present popish-plot , to be enemies of the crown ; and to be the acting over again the tragedy of our late civil-war . she chargeth our laws with cruelties , as inhumane , as they are false , in permitting prisoners to starve under their confinement , in admitting of racks and tortures to be used , and that for the worst purposes , thereby to extort perjuries and false evidence against the innocent ; to which she would make persons of the best quality of our nobility , magistracy , and clergy , privies , and parties . she libels and king's evidences under the characters of the devils instruments , and the hangmans hounds , and defames his majesties government , in saying it is not safe to speak truth , but meritorious and gainful to do the contrary . she will appear to you to be so criminal , that nothing can aggravate her offences , unless the impudence of the delinquent , who hath set her name to almost every page of this scandalous libel ; and snce the indictment hath been depending , owned , published , and put a value on her self , for being the author of so excellent a book . to the indictment , she hath pleaded not guilty , if the kings evidence prove the charge , you are to find her guilty . mr. bar. weston . gentlemen , the charge is but this , first she is charged with the setting forth this book , in the next place there are several clauses in that book , which she is particularly charged with . now that which the evidence will prove must be , first , that the book was owned by her , and published by her , and then that these particulars charged in the indictment were in the book ; and then you will receive the directions of the court , of what nature the proofs are . go on to the evidence that is your work , fall to your proof . mr. dormer . my lord , we will call our witnesses . william downing , john penny and robert stevens . ( who appeared , and were sworn . ) mr. dormer . will. downing , do you tell my lord , and the jury what you know of the printing of this libel : ( shew him the libel , ) and who brought the sheets to the press . mr. downing . my lord , about the 22d or 23d of august . — mr. bar. weston . begin with penny first . pray what say you to that book ? mr. penny. my lord , i was bid to buy a book of that gentlewoman , and i did so . i asked for her by her name . mr. bar. weston . by what name ? mr. penny. mrs. cellier . mr. bar. weston . is that the gentlewoman ? mr. penny. yes , that is the gentlewoman . and she came out to me , and asked what my errand was , i told her it was to have a book ; that you may have , said she , if you please . madam , said i , what is the price ? two shillings , said she. cannot i have them cheaper , said i ? no , said she , i sell them to shopkeepers for 18 s. a dozen , and i must not sell them under here . with that she fetch'd me a book , and i gave her two shillings , and when she had done , she gave me another little paper . mr. bar. weston . that is not in issue , nor your question now . did you ask her for the book she published and set out ? mr. penny. yes , and she did acknowledg that was her book . mr. bar. weston . what , she did own the book she sold to you , to be hers ? mr. penny. this is the book i have in my hand , and i market every sheet of it . and she told me there was another little sheet to be added to it , and if any gentleman pleased to send it into the country , that might be put up in a letter to send by the post . cellier . may i ask him a question ? mr. bar. weston . tell me your question and i 'll ask it . cellier . i desire to know if i said any more than you may have a book , or there is the book . and who asked for a book ? mr. bar. weston . did she say any more than you may have a book , or this is the book that i have published ? mr. penny. when i got the book and paid for it , i turned about again , and asked her if it was her own . she told me it was , and more than that , if occasion were she could have put more in it . mr. bar. weston . why mrs. cellier , you did not deny this book yesterday , for you may remember when you did say , you wanted your witnesses , and if you could but have time to bring them , you would prove the truth of it . we told you , you had nothing to prove on this issue of not guilty , but that some body else did publish the book , and you did not . you owned you writ it your self every word with your own hand . cellier . my lord , if i was foolish vain woman , and did seem to speak some vain words about my self , which i did not understand the consequence of , i hope a word vainly spoke by me , shall not be brought against me to convict me of a crime . mr. bar. weston . mrs. cellier , you do not seem so negligent about your self , that we may not believe what you say of your self . cellier . but vain foolish words spoke in that nature , i hope , shall be no evidence against me . mr. bar. weston . but however it is prov'd against you . cellier . did i say i writ it ? mr. penny. you told me that was your book . cellier . i told you ? pray my lord , put one question to him upon the oath he hath taken ; did i say any more , than it was mine and i sold it , not that i writ it , or was the author of it . mr. bar. weston . mrs. cellier , this is a book that is intituled with your name , and sold by your self . now in any ones judgment , this is both an owning of the book , and publishing of the book . when you sold it , you gave it out as your book , and it hath in the title page your name , as the author of it . cellier . my lord , if i could have produced my witnesses , i could have made my defence : they have been at several places for them , they have been all about town , and several ways , at sir joseph sheldon's , and a great many other places , and can find none of them . mr. bar. weston . to what purpose should your witnesses come ? cellier . i should with them have made my defence . mr. bar. weston . if you would have said to us yesterday , that you had witnesses to prove that any one else writ the book , we would have put off the tryal . but you said you writ it every word of it your self , and so owned the issue ; but now you pretend you want witnesses , to what purpose would you have them come ? cellier . 't is not the honour of the bench , my lord , to give evidence , and i hope you won't take that advantage of my vain words . mr. bar. weston . 't is the honour of the bench , to repeat what you say ; when you ask time to put off your tryal , and the court gives you direction to what purpose witnesses may be used , and you renounce that and take the fact upon your self . cellier . but i hope that is no evidence . mr. bar. weston . it was spoken openly in the court , every body heard it . cellier . i am surprized and have no witnesses . mr. bar. weston . 't is easie to pretend that you want witnesses , but to what purpose would you have them ? cellier . my lord , i hope you will please to remember , he swears , i said only it was mine , not that i was the author . mr. att. gen. if you sold it , that is a publishing in law , and is within the indictment . cellier . but he did not say i writ it . mr. bar. weston . pray mrs. cellier , don't trust your self upon that , for he said after he had it , he asked you , is this your book ? you said , yes , it is my book , and if i had been aware , i could have put a great deal more in it than i have done . cellier . but i did not say i writ it . mr. penny. you said if it were to be writ again you could put more in it . cellier . i said it was my book , and so it was , because it was in my possession , but not that i writ it . this is my fan , but it does not follow that i made it . mr. bar. weston . but the question was concerning the author of the book . cellier . he did ask me no such question . did you ask me if i was the author ? mr. penny. no , i did not . mr. bar. weston . but what did you ask her ? mr. penny. i asked her whether it were her book . mr. bar. weston . and did she own it ? mr. penny. yes , she did . cellier . so it was mine , in possession . mr. bar. weston . did you mean by your question whether that book was hers in property , or she were the author and publisher of it ? mr. penny. i would know whether it was hers or no. mr. bar. weston . but what was your intention in asking , was it whether she or any other person made it ? mr. penny. i don't know who made it , she told me it was hers . mr. bar. weston . but what was your meaning in it ? mr. penny. my intentions was for fear she should have given me some other book , to know whether it was writ by her or no. cellier . my lord , i am not to be judged by his meaning , but by his question and my answer . mr. att. gen. did she tell you she sold more of them ? mr. penny. i turned about when i had the book , and said i , can i have , if occasion be , any more ; she said she had but 4 or 500 left , and in a few days she should have more . mr. att. gen. you told us , she told you what she sold them for by the dozen . mr. penny. yes , 18 s. the dozen to the shopkeepers . mr. bar. weston . then set up downing . ( which was done , ) pray look upon that book and the title of it . ( which he did , ) have you examined that book ? mr. downing . sir , i printed part of it . mr. bar. weston . but have you examined that very pamphlet ? mr. downing . yes , i know it very well . mr. bar. weston . did you print part of it ? mr. downing . yes , i did . mr. bar. weston . who brought it to you to be printed ? mr. downing . mrs. cellier . mr. bar. weston . she her self ? mr. downing . my lord , about the 22d . of august , a messenger came to me from mrs. cellier , to tell me she had something to be printed , and she sent for me to her house , and i went to her house in arundel buildings . she told me she had a bok to print , and it was her own case . i told her i was a stranger to her concerns , if there was nothing in it that was offensive , i would print it . she told me there was nothing but the truth and i might safely do it . she said she had been publickly and wrongfully abused , and was resolved to publish her case , and would make the world sensible of the wrong she had sustained . i was apt upon the plausibleness of her discourse to believe her , and so i agreed with her to have 10 s. a ream for printing , and i was to print four ream of every sheet . and having printed half the book , the messenger found it a printing at my house , and having thus found out the press he carried it before the secretary , sir leoline jenkins , who granted a warrant to bring us both before him ; and having taken our examinations , we were bound to appear before the privy-council as soon as notice should be given us of it : and being discharged by the council we were bound to appear the first day of next term in the king 's bench : since which time she hath printed t'other half of her book at some other place . and whereas she promised to indemnify me from all trouble and charge , when i came to pay the clerk of the council his fees , she refused to pay them for me , and told me i had betrayed her ; and so notwithstanding her promise , i was obliged to pay the fees my self at the council . mr. dormer . pray sir , who was it corrected the sheets ? mr. downing . sir , they were brought to her . mr. dormer . did she read them and correct them ? mr. downing . yes , she looked over them . mr. bar. weston . pray tell me how far it was you printed of the book . mr. downing . it was to folio 22. mr. bar. weston . all the clauses in the indictment are contained in those pages . mr. clare . all but the last in the postscript . mr. bar. weston . have you read it over since ? mr. downing . so far my lord , i did print . mr. bar. weston . you take it upon your oath , that to the 22d . folio of that book that was given in evidence , was printed by you by her direction . mr. downing . yes , i do . mr. bar. weston . then set up stevens . ( which was done . ) mr. stevens . may it please your lordship , i saw this book a printing at mr. downings , and reading some passages in it , i asked him , mr. downing , do you know what you do ? he said , it was a truth ; then i asked him who he did it for , he said he did it for mrs. cellier ; i bid him have a care that he did no more than what he could justifie . he desired me that i would not hurt him , and i was loth to do a poor man wrong , but away i went to the secretary , but i asked him before , what was become of the sheets , he said he carried them to mrs. cellier , said i , did she bring you the copy , said he , she sent it sometimes by one messenger , sometimes by another for she sent several , and when i came to her , she did telll me it was her book , and that she kept a man to write it , and she dictated it to another that sate by her , and she often owned it was her book , and she the author of it . cellier . i never said so in my life . mr. stevens . mrs. cellier , by the same token when you sent for bail , you had occasion to write a note , and i saw you write it , and said , i now find 't is none of your hand-writing by the difference between the note and the copy . said she , i know that well enough , but i keep a man in the house to write it , and i dictated to him , and he wrote . and i have seen there one grange and one sing , but grange hath come to me several times about hers and other business , and she did tell me she did dictate the book to that man , and paid him for writing , it . says she i am up very early every morning , and preparing and dictating things for the press . she hath put out two sheets since , and this day at one a clock she hath invited the mercuries and the hawkers to come and receive a new pamphlet . mr. bar. weston . do you know her hand-writing ? mr. stevens . i have not that note by me . mr. bar. weston . did you see the copy ? mr. stevens . some part of it i did see . mr. bar. weston . was it any part of it of her hand-writing ? mr. stevens . no , i believe it was none of her hand . mr. bar. weston . was it several hands ? mr. stevens . i saw but one part of the copy , and that was all of one hand , but not hers , i believe . she said , she kept a man to write it , and she had several other things for him to write to be printed . mr. bar. weston . did she before you , affirm her self to be the author of the book . mr. stevens . she did ( if it please you ) before the secretary , and before the council ; and said she would answer it . and i have seen her likewise sell several of them several days . mr. dormer . did she deliver any of these books that you know of ? mr. stevens . i have seen her deliver them out , several times before me my self , she can't deny it . mr. bar. weston . compare the book with the indictment . mr. dormer . swear mr. fowler . ( which was done . ) mr. bar. weston . what is that fowler ? mr. dormer . shew him the book if you please . ( which was done ) did you buy any of those books of mrs. cellier . mr. fowler . i bought two of them . i went to her house , and told her i had a letter from a friend out of oxfordshire , that desired me to buy two of her books . mr. dormer . is that the same in your hand ? mr. fowler . 't is the same as i believe . some friends came to my house , and told me they had seen me notoriously in print , so i came to her , and told her i had a letter out of oxfordshire for a book or two of hers . sir says she , i le fetch you one presently , she comes again with them . madam says i , i believe you have forgotten me . cellier . i know you not , i never saw you in my life before . mr. fowler . no i believe not , but yet you could put me in your book . mr. bar. weston . why , what is your name ? mr. fowler . my name is fowler . mr. bar. weston . where do you live ? mr. fowler . at the half-moon tavern in ch-si , when i am at home ▪ cellier . your name is not in the book . mr. clare . there is one f. that keeps the half-moon tavern in ch-si . mr. bar. weston . you swear you had two books of her ? mr. fowler . yes . madam , says i , i see you are full of business , so i paid her 4 s. for them , and away i came . mr. dormer . then you had no discourse with her farther , who was the author , had you ? mr. fowler . no not a syllable farther . i had only occasion to get a couple of books ; for some persons of quality had been at my house , and told me my name was in it , and were pleased to joke with me about it , as particularly , mr. henry killigrew came one day to my house , and called me into the room , says he you are notoriously in print , and known to be company for a great duke , and great lords , you shall drink a gass of wine now with me , and so tells me the story ; and thereupon i went to her house to buy a couple of books . mr. at. gen. you are the man meant by the ( f. ) mr. fowler . i keep the half-moon in cheapside . mr. at. gen. there is something supposed in this book to be done by you , at your going to a man in prison , is that true ? mr. fowler . that i suppose is cleared by an oath from corral the coachman , but withal i gave my oath for it before my lord mayor , my self . mr. at. gen. pray , for the satisfaction of people , tell us what you know of the matter . mr. fowler . the substance of my oath before my lord mayor was this , that i never was with any great people , as they tax me , in my life , with any great duke or lord , that i never did see any of the things that they say there , that the duke should draw his sword , and a lord profler 500 l. or i whisper to the coachman , that he should name some great persons , and then he and i should have mony enough . mr. bar. weston . but i come nearer to you with a question , mr. fowler . mr. fowler . yes , my lord , if you please . mr. bar. weston . was one corral a coachman apprehended for carrying away the dead body of sir edmond-bury godfrey , at your motion and accusation . mr. fowler . as to that i will tell you the occasion of all our discourse , if it may not be too tedious . upon the death of sir edmond-bury godfrey , a coachman was one day called to carry some gentlemen that were in my house ; but they staying a little longer than ordinary he went away , and as they say drop'd them , thereupon another coachman was called , which was this corral mentioned in this libel , and he went up to the gentlemen into the room ; and they to engage him to stay , secured his whip , he comes down and begs a pipe of tobacco of my wife in the bar , ay , said she , thou lookest like a good honest fellow , and i believe thou hast no hand in the plot , a casual word that was passant at that time , whereupon he begins to tell her , it was very well for him , for he had escaped that danger : four of them meeting him against st. clemens church-wall , and swearing dam them he should stand , and do as they would have him ; and he saw four and he saw sir edmond-bury godfreys body in a sedan , and he sham'd upon them , that he could not carry him , for that the axle-tree of his coach was broke . i was in a room by the bar , and i over-heard the fellow talk after this rate , i came out , and asked him , said i , are you sure of this , then he tells me the same story over again , whereupon i began to ask him if he were a master for himself , or drove for another ; the fellow being sensible he had been too lavish in his discourse , pretends to light his pipe in hast , and to run out to see whether the seats of his coach were not stolen out , and i took a candle with me , and went after him to take the number of his coach : by that time i got to the door , he was driving away , though he had left his whip with the gentlemen , as security for his stay . i come in , set down the number of his coach in my book , and drew up the substance of their discourse that hapned between my wife and him ; and i was saying to my wife i had a mind to stop this fellow at the gate , but it rained ; and so i did not , only kept the number of his coach. the next day captain richardson , and the secondary of the counter were drinking a glass of wine at my house , where i told them the story , and they blamed me that i had not stopped him . whereupon captain richardson took the number of his coach , and the next day sent his janizaries abroad , and secured him , and kept him in custody for two or three days . mr. bar. weston . when was this ? mr. fowler . two or three days after the murder was publickly known of , i think , it was tuesday night that this fellow told me the story , to the best of my remembrance ; and the next day i told the captain and the secondary . mr. bar. weston . was that the next tuesday after the murder , or the tuesday sevennight ? mr. fowler . it was the tuesday sevennight after . they blamed me very much that i did not stop the fellow , i told them how the thing was , and the captain sent his people abroad , and took the coachman up by what marks i gave of him . the next day i was ordered to wait upon the lords at wallingford-house , where was the duke of buckingham , my lord shaftsbury , the marquess of winchester , two other lords and major wildman the secretary , where they examined me upon this thing , and what i have declared to your lordships , i declared then . and they brought the fellow in face to face ; and there he does confess the whole matter , and made a great whining and clutter , that john such an one , a coachman , and mrs. such an one , a strong-water woman told him this , and that , and t'other . the lords sent for two of the persons he named , and both of them being brought before them , the lords were very well satisfied , in that one of them keeps a victualling house , and they were both of good reputation , they were satisfied it was only a sham , and that he only named them as the first persons that came into his mind . getting nothing out of him , my lord duke of buckingham told him , sirrah , if you will confess , there shall be nothing of what the king hath promised , but it shall be made good to you , you shall be sure of it , and you shall be protected . my lord shaftsbury told him the same , but withal , if he would not confess ; and tell him who set him on work , then nothing should be severe enough for him ; or words to that effect . mr. bar. weston . upon this accusation , was he sent to prison ? mr. fowler . he was re-ordered to prison , and there continued several months . mr. bar. weston . where ? to what prison ? mr. fowler . to newgate . mr. bar. weston . were you ever in newgate and saw him ? mr. fowler . never , not i. mr. bar. weston . did you never see him but at this chamber with the lords , and at your own tavern ? mr. fowler . never . mr. bar. weston . and you never were in newgate in your life with him ? mr. fowler . no , not i. mr. bar. weston . were you ever in newgate with him with my lord duke of buckingham , or my lord shaftsbury , or any other lord ? mr. fowler . no. mr. bar. weston . or any other duke whatsoever ? mr. fowler . no. mr. bar. weston . or any lord or nobleman whatsoever ? mr. fowler . no , except 4 years ago with my lord petre. mr. bar. weston . there is no danger of him . but as to this affair , were you ever with any ? mr. fowler . no. mr. bar. weston . did you see any sword drawn , or money offerd ? mr. fowler . there was never any sword drawn , nor money offered . mr. att. gen. did you ever see 500 l. laid down upon a table ? mr. fowler . there was never any sword drawn , nor mony laid down . mr. bar. weston he answers that very fully , for he says he was never in newgate with any nobleman , but once with my lord petre four years ago , and if he was with any nobleman , he is accused to be there in the presence of a duke , and another great earl ; and that the duke drew his sword , and the other nobleman laid down a great deal of gold which he said did amount to 500 l. and told him it should be his , and that if he would accuse some other persons , they would maintain him , and then he did draw the fellow aside and tell him can't you name some body ? then you and i may have money enough . this is the accusation of the book , but now 't is denied that ever he was in newgate with any such persons , which is consequentially a denial of the whole charge . cellier . i did not write that this was true , but i writ that the fellow told me so . mr. bar. weston . we will see that in the book in the first place . we have examined this thing by the by , and tho 't is a little out of the way , yet it may be satisfactory , read the book . cl. of cr. malice defeated , &c. mr. bar. weston . compare it with the record , for she shall have a fair tryal , by the grace of god. then the several clauses recited in the indictment were read over again by the clerk out of the book , and compared by the judge with the record . mr. bar. weston . these are the clauses in the book that are proved exactly upon you . now i must tell you , because this book doth cast a very great infamy upon our religion and on the whole government , it ought to be taken notice of ; for in the first place to contrive to get a man into prison , and by tortures to compel him even to commit perjury , then to hale another man to prison , and have him thus barbarously used , as to have nobles to come to him , one with a sword drawn , another with money in his hand laying it down as a temptation , and to force him to discover what he was not willing to confess ; and then to lay accusation upon the king that he makes it a thing of safety to be the hangmans hounds , and to be accusers for pensions , and shall aver that when it is as free for her to speak truth , as it is meritorious for them to do otherwise , she will discover such and such things , is a slander that ought to receive a publick rebuke ; and to satisfy the world of the untruth of it , i would have you prove if prance be here and the coach-man , what usage they received , to avert that publick calumny that is cast upon the nation . for let mrs. cellier know , she hath insinuated as tho the murder of the late king was a sufficient ground to pervert her from protestantism , which avowed such practices , when all the world knows that at that time there were protestants that were far better subjects , and more loyal than ever any papist was in the world ; and as great sufferers for their opposition to that dreadful villany , nay far more than the papists can boast of for their loyalty ; whereas 't is known they were villains under hand all the while , and those that did incourage all that roguery and set that faction on foot which brought things to that ill period they came to . therefore you have set a fair outside upon a damnable lye . and that the arrantest rebelliousest rogues that ever lived under heaven , are great saints in comparison of protestants , no honest man will believe . cellier . i say , they called themselves protestants . i know the protestants were great sufferers for the king , and i my self felt it ; our family , which were protestants , were several times stript and plundered for their loyalty . i grant all this . mr. bar. weston . do you ? then you are an impudent lying woman ; or you had a villanous lying priest that instructed you to begin your book with such a base insinuation against the best of religions . but i have no more to say to that , for that is such a visible notorious falsity to the knowledge of all english men and people of understanding , that it needs no greater conviction than the particular knowledge of those men that lived in that time . therefore for that lye let it go upon the publick infamy that attends on your party , who are notorious lyers , and among whom falshood does so much abound . call correl and prance . mr. att general . we will give that satisfaction to the people ; but the jury are to know , that it does not at all concern the matter in issue . for when all that can b● said by them is declared , i must say in point of law , the publishing of a libel , though it be true , yet is a crime , and deserves punishment . mr. b. weston . i told you so : but mr. attorney , we are to set a fine , and to instruct us for the setting of the fine , it will be a satisfaction to the court , to disprove the things she alledges , if you have the witnesses ready , but if you are not ready with your proof , let it alone . mr. att. general . they are order'd to be here , i only speak that by the way , swear mr. prance . ( which was done . ) mr. bar. weston . mr. prance , pray were you ever tortur'd in prison ? mr. prance . no , i never saw any such thing there in my life . mr. bar. weston . how were you used ? mr. prance . very well , i had every thing that was fitting ; captain richardson did take great care of me . mr. bar. weston . the truth is , the very book it self , implyes , a contradiction . it sayes , there was one tortured in the prison , and the roarings that they heard were like the roarings of a strong man in torture ; and yet , presently after , it sayes , that the prisoner comes up in irons , and is examined : now , could any one having been so lately on the rack be able to walk , and come to be examined ? any man that knows what the nature of a rack is , knows also , that one that has been tortured there , would not be able to heave the irons upon his legs , nor be able to stir or walke , but that is a thing not used amongst us : it was some impudent lying priest that durst venture to broach such a calumny . cellier . i don't say it was , but it was so reported . mr. prance . dr. lloyd was with me many times for half an hour together , and if any such thing had been , he would have seen it . then francis corall was called , but he did not appear . capt. richardson . corral they have got away , for i had him last night , and he was ordered to be here to day , but here is his wife , ( who was sworn . ) mr. baron weston . good woman , were you ever with your husband in prison ? mrs. corral . i was not suffered to come near him when he was of the masters side . mr. baron weston . but when he was out of prison , how did he tell you he was used ? did he tell you he was compelled to drink his own piss ? mrs. corral . sunday morning it was before i saw him , nay , i did not see him then , but i was called to bring him victuals , or he would have been starved ; nay , they said he would be dead before i brought him . so i carry'd him bread and things , and i did not see him then till almost a fortnight after ; and when i saw him he had great fetters on , and i was amazed at them . they put in some char-cole there to warm him , it being very cold , and , said i , lord , what have you done , you have murdered some body sure ? but they said , they put on those things to keep his legs warm . cellier . were you ever beaten at any time for bringing your husband victuals ? mrs. corral . no indeed , i was never beaten , but they would not suffer me to see him on the masters side . lord mayor . her husband hath denyed all upon oath before me . mr. baron weston . was he ever hurt with scrues , or any such thing ? cellier . had he not holes in his legs ? mrs. corral . yes , he had a great many ; i did see holes in his legs . mr. baron weston . did you ? mrs. corral . i did see one , and i can bring them that brought salve to beale it . captain richardson . there is never an iron in the house that i keep , that weighs 12 l. mr. baron weston . they say , you have irons called sheers , that weigh 40 l. captain richardson . if there be one , i 'le be hang'd for it before i go hence . cellier . i hope i shall be allowed to make my defence , and call my witnesses . mr. baron weston . yes , to be sure . cellier . did not you hear your husband tell me , how heavily he was fettered and used ? that he was chained to the floor with a chain not above a yard long ? and was forced to drink his own water ? mrs. corral . madam , he is not sensible many times what he does say . cellier . but , did not you hear him tell me so ? mrs. corral . i can't remember . cellier . did not you tell me , that captain richardson drove you away , and would not let you give victuals to your husband ? mr. baron weston . all this is but over and above , for the great matter that sticks upon your part , is the death of sir edmondbury godfrey , and you are pinch'd there with prance's evidence , and so you would make the world believe , that he was tortured into his confession , and was mad when he did it , that you may the better turn it off from your own party , on some body else , on whom i don't know . cellier . pray , my lord , hear me one word ; as to your saying , i do it to defend a party , i profess i stand singly and alone ; i have been so barbarously used by those you call that party , that the protestants have been abundantly more kind to me then they . and i would not tell the least lye to do them any good turn turn . mr. baron weston . they you are an happy woman indeed , that are beloved by both parties . you have not been serviceable alike to both i am sure , but that is no great matter ; if so be the protestants were so kind , you have requited them ill by such a base libel . cellier . i say nothing against them . mr. baron weston . can you say any thing that you did not make this pamphlet ? cellier . my lord , i bee'nt bound to accuse my self , i desire it may be proved . mr. baron weston . i think it is fully proved . cellier . i cannot say any thing without my witnesses , i desire i may call them . mr. baron weston . call whom you will. cellier . i desire gregory grange may be called . ( who was sworn . ) mr. baron weston . what can you say for mrs. cellier ? tell me what questions you will ask him . cellier . i desire to know whether i did not send him to find witnesses ? who he went for ? what answers they returned ? and where they be ? mr. baron weston . well , what witnesses were you sent to look for ? grange . i went to look for one mrs. sheldon , that lives in sir joseph sheldons house , and they told me she was in essex . i went to the coach to send for her . mr. baron weston . why scoggin looked for his knife on the house top . mr. stevens . this man did see her sell these books . mr. baron weston . who did you look for besides ? grange . one mr. curtis . and his wife said , she had not seen him since yesterday morning . mr. baron weston . what were they to prove ? grange . truly my lord i don't know . mr. dormar . by the oath you have taken , do you know she hath sold any of these books ? grange . yes , i do know that she hath sold some of them . lord mayor . there your own witness , mrs. cellier , proves it against you . mr. baron weston . who would you have else ? cellier . i desire that mary smith may be called ( which was done , but she appeared not then ) i desire john clerke may be sent for from the goal . capt. richardson . he is in execution . mr. baron weston . for what ? capt. richardson . for debt . mr. baron weston . 't is not out of the rules of prison , you may bring him hither , and 't is no escape . capt. richardson . if your lordship orders it so , i will bring him . lord mayor . she should have brought an habeas corpus if she would have had him . mr. att. gen. he must bring him through some part , i suppose , that is not within the rules , and then it will be an escape . cellier . i pray an habeas corpus to fetch him . mr. baron weston . you might have had one before . cellier . this is all because i had no time to prepare for my defence . mr. baron weston . you might have moved the court for it ; they granted you a copy of your indictment . cellier . i had it not till nine a clock to day , and my counsel could not inspect it , nor speak a word with me about it . lord mayor . at what time shall we have done , if we dally after this rate ? mr. baron weston . have you any blanck habeas corpus ? clerk of the peace . it could not be seal'd , and besides , they should fetch it out of the crown-office . cellier . i desire to have him come , in order to the defence of something in my book . mr. baron weston . what would he prove ? cellier . that i have not belyed the government . mr. baron weston . in what ? cellier . that he was sheer'd with long sheers , and unreasonable irons . mr. collins . you cannot do your self greater wrong than by such talk as this . lord mayor . you are not indicted for your whole book , but only for some part of it . cryer . here is mrs. smith now , ( who was sworn ) cellier . what have you heard corral the coachmon say , about his usage in prison ? mr. dormar . i think that question is not to be admitted . mr. baron weston . what is it you would have here asked ? cellier . what she heard the coachman say , for i only say he told me so . mr. dormar . i am in your lordships judgment , i think it is not evidence . mr. att. gen. she keeps the coachman away , and now will tell you what he said . mr. baron weston . that is no evidence , for the coachman might have been here , if you had not sent him away . cellier . let his wife speak that , because she can testifie i did not send him away . capt. richardson . she gave them money before , and told them she would maintain them . cellier . you are not an evidence against me , you are not sworn . capt. richardson . but this that i say is sworn . mr. baron weston . call her . mr. att. gen. ask her a proper question to the issue . cellier . i would know of her whether i kept her husband away . mr. att. gen. it may be you did it without her knowledge . cellier . have i seen her husband without her knowledge ? mr. baron weston . go on with your witnesses . cellier . i desire mary johnson may be called . mr. baron weston . for what ? what will she prove ? cellier . that she was to see for witnesses in order to my defence . mr. baron weston . but if they are not come , what signifies that ? cellier . i have done then my lord ; for not having time to get my witnesses , i cannot make my defence so fully , as else i should have done : only i desire you to consider i am a poor ignorant woman , and have erred out of ignorance : i thought nothing , but that i might publish what others had said and told me , and so i have offended in ignorance , if i have offended . mr. baron weston . i do verily believe there are more wits than yours concerned in this book , tho you bear the name , yet the book is not the effect of your wit only , but you acknowledge enough . and you are to take notice , that the king hath set out a proclamation , that no books shall be printed without a license . cellier . i never heard it . i was under close confinement when the king set it out . mr. baron weston . no , i denie that , for you were enlarged the first day of trinity term , and the proclamation came out towards the end . mr. att. gen. she now does confess she knows of it , because she speaks of the time , and that was before her book was written . cellier . may not my counsel speak for me , i desire you would hear him . mr. collins . i have nothing to say for her . mr. baron weston . he says he hath nothing to say for you . mr. collins . and if you had said less for your self it had been better . mr. baron weston . the question is but guilty or not guilty , whether you published this libel or not ; and if the matter of the indictment be proved , what can counsel say , except you can disprove the witnesses , that you did not the fact ? cellier . well my lord , then i beseech you consider me i am a woman , and deal with me in mercy , as well as justice . mr. baron weston . mrs. cellier . i have not been noted to be a person that use any great severity towards any body , no not towards any of your party , but when i see so much malice as is comprized in your book , and have reason to suspect , that this is not acted only by you , tho you bear the name of it , but some of your wicked priests are the authors of it , as i am sure they are , then i think it is not severe that you , who stand at the stake for all , must bear the blame of all . if you will tell us who it was that set you on work , and assisted you in this wicked business , that will be something towards the mitigation of your fine , but if you will take it on your self you must-suffer the consequence . cellier . i beseech you my lord have some compassion ; his majesty acknowledged before the counsel , that i had suffered for him ; i ventured my life through a sea and an army to serve him ; i lost my father and my brother both in a day for him ; and if you have no compassion for me , have some commiseration for my loyal parents that lost their estates for him . mr. baron weston . if you have done service for his majesty , and thereby deserved any thing of him , his majesty hath been so bountiful in the dispensation of his favour , that he would not fail to recompence you for it ; but we are to proceed according to the rules of law. cellier . but pray have some mercy in your justice . mr. baron weston . gentlemen of the jury ; this gentlewoman the prisoner stands indicted — jury . we have not heard one word that hath been said . mr. baron weston . no , that is strange , i will acquaint you with as much of the evidence as falls under my information : it had been well if you had told us this before : the business is this , she stands indicted here for writing and publishing of a very scandalous libel . but pray did not you hear penny prove that she sold it ? jury . we heard the three first witnesses . mr. att. general . there was the proof of the fact. mr. baron weston . the rest of the evidence was but a comparison of the clauses in the book , with those in the indictment , which you are to have direction from the court in , that they do : she stands indicted for publishing a libel , and the title of the libel is , malice defeated ; or a brief relation of the accusation and deliverance of elizabeth cellier . now this libel branches it self out into several parts ; the first whereof is a very fine insinuation , as tho her leaving the protestant religion , was , because those that murdered the king , and made that very great subversion that was made in the government by the late long parliament , and the army that succeeded them , were protestants — cellier . pray my lord , i say , called protestants . mr. baron weston . by your favour , she pretends it was by those that were called protestants , but if they were only those that were called protestants , and not protestants , what reason had she to go off from the protestant religion , to turn papist , when there was such a body of loyal protestants that did adhere to the loyal party ? therefore that was as villanous an insinuation as could be ; as tho the protestant religion did nourish and teach seditious principles , which in the consequence of them , tended towards the subversion of the government and order , which certainly it does cherish in the highest degree of any religion in the world , and hath the most peaceable principles in matters of duty , both in subjection to our superiors , and of a charitable deportment of men one towards another : and the practice of those principles hath been seen amongst protestants , especially amongst the english protestants , as much as in any nation of the world ; this may be said of it to this day , for the reputation of the english nation , that there is more fidelity , honesty , and generous trust among them , than among all the nations of the world besides ; so that if a man were to go out of england , to any other part of the world , he might very well use the words of demosthenes , upon his going out of athens , at his banishment ; farewell beloved city , i am going into a world , where i shall not find such friends as i have had enemies here ; friends in other places , will be no better than our enemies here ; the carriage of english-men is so much beyond all others , except the germans , who , i must confess , are famed for their honesty and integrity one to another ; but if you take the french , the italian , the spaniard , or any sort of the levantine people , they live like so many wolves , especially in those places where the popish religion is professed . now after this insinuation , there is another part of the book recited in the indictment , there was an horrid barbarous murther that was committed here , and which certainly did fix the accusation of the plot fuller upon them , than all the evidence that was given besides ; the murther of sir edmondbury godfrey , a magistrate in doing of his duty , was most barbarously murthered , and by whom is evidenced by one prance : it hath been the whole labour of the party , to cast this murther upon other persons , and take it off themselves ; for they find if that accusation sticks upon them , it is a thing of so hainous a nature , that it will make the popish party odious to all mankind . and therefore this they labour at mightily , and this task she hath taken on her self ; for knowing prance to be a principal witness , she undertakes to let the world know , that prance was tortured in prison , to insinuate , that the evidence he gave against those persons who were executed for this murther , was extorted from him by ill and cruel usage . but you must first know , the laws of the land do not admit a torture , and since queen elizabeths time , there hath been nothing of that kind , ever done . the truth is indeed , in the 20th year of her reign , campion was just stretch'd upon the rack , but yet not so , but that he could walk ; but when she was told it was against the law of the land , to have any of her subjects racked , ( tho that was in an extraordinary case , a world of seminaries being sent over to contrive her death , and she lived in continual danger ) yet , it was never done after to any one , neither in her reign , who reigned 25 years after , nor in king james's reign , who reigned 22 years after ; nor in king charles the first reign , who reigned 24 years after ; and god in heaven knows , there hath been no such thing offered in this kings reign , for i think we may say , we have lived under as lawful and merciful a government as any people whatsoever , and have had as little blood shed , and sanguinary executions as in any nation under heaven . well , but ( contrary to the law in this case ) she does suppose extraordinary ways were used to make prance give this evidence . she says , she thought what she first heard was the noise of a woman with child , and that harris the turnkey did tell her it was a woman in labour , but when she desired to be let in to help her , he turned her away rudely ; but listening she perceived it was the groans of a strong man that must be in torture : she asked some of the goalers what was the matter ? they told her , they durst not tell her , but it was something they could not endure ; and they heard him cry , what would you have me confess ? would you have me bely my self ? i know nothing of it , and such words as these . whereupon we have called prance , and here , upon his oath , he tells you , there was no such matter : that he was used very kindly , had all things fitting , and under no compulsion , so that this is an high libel against the government . she says furthermore , there was one corral a coachman that was imprisoned by the means of one fowler for the murther of sir edmondbury godfrey , that there was a nobleman a duke , came to him in prison , and drew his sword at him , and would have him confess , that another nobleman laid down a sum of mony , and said it was 500 l. and told him , if he would confess , he should have it ; and that fowler took him aside , and bid him lay it upon some body else , and then he and fowler should have money enough . fowler being examined , and , upon his oath , tells you , upon what accompt he did charge corral ; he tells you , he was never with corral in the goal in his life , and never was with him in the presence of any duke or nobleman , but once in a room , where corral was brought to be examined , and then there was the duke of buckingham , the marquiss of winchester ( who i never heard was a man of cruelty , or harsh nature ) my lord shaftsbury , and major wildman , who was secretary , but there was no such cruel usage there , and he was never in the prison with such noblemen ; and then the consequence is , that the whole story is false . corral it seems , my lord mayor says , hath been examined to this point , and denyes it all ; and is kept out of the way , that he should not give it in evidence here : but if we had him here it were no great matter , for if there were any thing of this nature true , they are to proceed in a legal way against them that make these transgressions of the law , she ought to have indicted the persons , for they are highly punishable for such extravagances as these are . but there is nothing done in that kind , but in stead of that , she hath defamed them all in a libel , and she is not contented to have done that neither , for she hath defamed the king highly in his government , and said , she could have written more . i pass over the business that concerns dangerfield , wherein she complains , that dangerfield had more friends , and was visited more by persons of quality , when she had none came to her ; every one is visited according to the interest they have in the world , and the friends they make : i have nothing to say to that , there is not so much in it , but come to that part wherein she scandalizes the king , which is this , she says , whenever his majesty shall please to make it as safe , and honorable , to speak the truth , as it is apparent , it hath been gainful , and meritorious to do the contrary , their villany will not want witnesses to testifie the truth of more then she had written . so that she supposes , that the king , by the countenancing of lyes , and giving pensions to lyers , chokes the truth , and makes it dangerous for those that know the truth , to divulge it to the world , which is a very vile scandal upon the king and the government . these are the matters of the libel , and the things in proof have been sworn by three witnesses ; one proves , that he went to her to buy one of her books , and he asked her for one , and she gave him a book which bears that title page that you hear in the indictment , superscribed with her name , and she gives it as her book . now she would evade it thus , that she gave it as hers , not as though she were the author , but as if it were hers only in property : but , can any such thing be thought the meaning of her words ? or , can there be any greater evidence that she is the author of the book , then her publishing of it with her name to it ? but the fellow goes further , and tells you , when he had the book he turned about , and asked her , if it were her book ? yes , she said it was : and , said she , i could have writ a great deal more , if i would ; so that her saying , she could have writ more , implyes , that she writ that ; and ( more ) is a word of comparison , which always supposes the positive proposition . the next is the printer , who tells you , that he printed the first 22 folio's , within which , the greatest part of this charge , except only that last about the king , is contained . he tells you , that she sent for him , and employed him to print it as hers ; agreed with him for ten shillings a ream for the printing , and that he did print the first 22 leaves at her request , and as employed by her : fowler tells you , he bought 2 of the books of her ; and these are the witnesses of the publication of this book . i must tell you this , the clauses in the libel are truly set down in the indictment , for i did examine them one by one . now whether or no you can doubt she was the author of the book , when in a manner she did own it at the publication , by selling it as hers , i leave to you , though i must tell you plainly , i leave it as that which is to me under the notion of express evidence ; but i must leave it to you as judges of the fact , and expect your verdict in the case . mr. att. gen. there are three things in the indictment ; first that she writ it : secondly . that she caused it to be printed ; and thirdly , that she caused it to be published . now , if you find any one of these , she is guilty of so much at least , tho i think you have heard evidence enough for all . she told him , it was hers , and said , she could have put more in ; and the selling the book is a publication . so that if you be not satisfyed she was the author , yet if you are satisfied she caused it to be printed ▪ or if you are not satisfied in that , yet if you are satisfied she caused it to be published , you are to find her guilty of so much . cellier . the printer does not say i writ it . mr. att. gen. but he does say you gave it him as yours , and to you the sheets were sent to be corrected . then the jury desired they might have the book with them . mr. clare . my lord , the jury wants the book that was sworn to . mr. baron weston . they can have no papers , without agreement , neither the book , nor any paper else . mr. att. gen. not unless she will consent to it . mrs. cellier , will you consent that they shall have the book out with them ? ( to which , after some pause , she answered , no. ) mr. baron weston . then they cannot have it by law. then the jury withdrew for a little , and returned . clerk of the crown . how say you , is elizabeth cellier guilty of the writing , printing , and publishing of the libel for which she stands indicted , or not guilty ? foreman . guilty . ( at which there was a great shout . ) and the verdict was recorded . mr. baron weston . she must stand committed to receive the judgment of the court. cellier . will you give me leave to speak a vvord now ? mr. baron weston . i cannot give you any judgment , for by the custom of the city , that is to be done by the recorder or his deputy , and so , what you will say to the court , you must say to them , that will be on monday when the sessions is done . cellier . what i would say is only this , that i am a woman , and wherein i offended , i offended out of ignorance , and did not know it was an offence , and if the offence be mine , let not others suffer for me . have mercy in judgment , and consider my loyal parents and relations , and the services they did his majesty ; and let this fault be wiped out by that service and duty i and they paid him ; or at leastwise , let the punishment for this offence be mitigated , in consideration , that all my life , ever since i had the first use of reason , i have been a loyal subject . mr. baron weston . these are things that will be considered on monday , but we cann't take consideration of it now . cellier . i will go away then , and come again on monday . mr. baron weston . no , you are to be committed till then . and so the keeper carried her back to newgate , from whence on monday the 13th of september , she was brought to the bar to receive her judgment , which mr. recorder gave thus , mr. record . m rs . cellier . the court doth think fit for example sake , that a fine of one thousand pounds be put upon you ; that you be committed in execution , till that thousand pounds be paid ; and because a pecuniary mulct is not a sufficient recompence to justice , which you have offended ; the court doth likewise pronounce against you , that you be put on the pillory three several days , in three several publick places ; in the first place , in regard her braided ware received its first impression and vent at her own house , it is thought fit that she stand ( as near her own house as conveniently can be ) between the hours of twelve and one , for an hours space at the may-pole in the strand , on the most notorious day , i think there is a market near that place , let it be on that day . at another time , that she stand in covent-gardeu on a publick day , the like space of time , a third time , that she stand at charing-cross on the most publick day , for the space of an hour . and in the next place , that she find sureties for the good behaviour during her life ; and in every place where she shall stand on the pillory , some parcels of her books , shall , in her own view , be burnt by the hands of the common hangman , and a a paper of the cause , to be put upon the pillory . then the court charged the sheriff , that he take care in every place for a sufficient guard , that the peace may be kept , and she was returned to the goal . whereas in a narrative , or printed book , or libel called , malice defeated , or a brief relation or accusation of the deliverance of elizabeth cellier . it is amongst other things in page the third and fourth of the said book written as followeth ( viz. ) soon after this francis corral a coachman , that had been put into newgate upon suspicion of carrying away sir edmond-bury godfrey's body , and lay there thirteen weeks and three days in great misery , got out ; i went to see him , and found him a sad spectacle , having the flesh worn away , and great holes in both his legs by the weight of his irons , and having been chained so long doubled , that he could not stand upright , he told me much of his hard and cruel usage , as that he had been squeez'd and hasped in a thing like a trough , in a dungeon under ground ; which put him to inexpressible torment , insomuch that he soonded , and that a person in the habit of a minister stood by all the while . that a duke beat him , pull'd him by the hair , and set his drawn sword to his breast three times , and swore he would run him through ; and another great lord laid down a heap of gold , and told him it was five hundred pounds , and that he shall have it all , and be taken into the aforesaid dukes house , if he would confess what they would have him ; and one f. a vintner , that lives at the sign of the half-moon in ch-si . by whose contrivance he was accus'd took him aside , and bid him name some person , and say , they employ'd him to take up the dead body in somerset-yard , and gave him mony for so doing ; that if he would do this , both f. and he , should have mony enough . he also told me , that he was kept from thursday to sunday without victuals or drink , having his hands every night chain'd behind him , and being all this time lock'd to a staple which was driven into the floor , with a chain not above a yard long : that in this great extremity , was forc'd to drink his own water ; and that the jaylor beat his wife , because she brought victuals , and prayed that he might have it , and threw milk on the ground , and not look at him , &c. for the readers farther satisfaction of his great and cruel suffering , i refer to the party himself now living in gunpowder-alley in shoe-lane , and well known by his misfortunes . i francis corral of gunpowder-alley in shoe-lane , being the person before named , make oath that mrs. cellier was never with me in the prison of newgate , and that i never told her there , nor any where else , that ever i was chained so long double that i could not stand upright , nor never told her that i had any hard or cruel usage there , nor that i was ever squeezed or hasped to a thing like a trough in a dungeon under ground which put me to torment , nor that i swooned , nor that a person in the habit of a minister stood by me at any time whil'st in the prison , except when i went into the chappel to prayers ; nor that any duke beat me , pull'd me by the hair , or set his drawn sword to my breast three times , or swore that he would run me through ; nor that any great lord laid down a heap of gold , and told me it was five hundred pounds , and that i should have it all , and be taken into the aforesaid dukes house if i would confess what they would have me ; nor that f. a vintner that lives at the sign of the half-moon in cheapside did take me aside , and bid me name some person , and say they employed me to take up the body in somerset-yard , and gave me mony for so doing , that if i would do this , both f. and i should have mony enough ; nor did i ever tell her that i was kept from thursday to sunday without meat and drink ; nor were my hands ever chained behind me ; nor was i ever locked to a staple driven into a floor with a chain not above a yard long , but what she hath written in her said book or libel is notoriously false and untrue ; but on the contrary , during the time of my imprisonment i was civilly treated by the keeper and his servants . francis corral . jur. 6. sept. 1680. coram me robert clayton mayor . i margaret , the wife of the said francis corral , make oath , that the said goaler never beat me because i brought victuals and pray'd that my husband might have it ; nor threw any milk on the ground ; nor bad me be gone and not look upon him . neither do i know , or believe , that my husband had any hard usage from any of the keepers during his imprisonment ; but on the contrary , was civilly treated by them . this deponent farther maketh oath , that on thursday last she went with her husband to mrs. cellier's house ; and her husband asked her , what she meant by putting such a company of lyes upon him in her book . she answered , she had a mind to do it , and that if some of them were lyes all were not . he told her , that she would ruin him , and bring him to a prison as he was before . she answered , that if he were arrested , she would bail him ; and if he were cast into prison , she would maintain both him and his family , for that she had got money enough , and that she would have me to a lord or lords that would secure him , and bid me cheer up my husband , for that neither i nor my family should want , and gave me then five shillings , and bid me cheer up my husband with that . sig. margaret corral . jur. 6. sep. 1680. coram me robert clayton mayor . i francis corral within named , further make oath , that on thursday last , i went with my wife to mrs. celliers house , and asked her what she meant by putting such a company of lyes upon me in her book . she answered , that she had a mind to do it , and that if some of them were lyes , all were not . i told her , she would ruine me , and bring me into a prison , as i was before . she told me , if i were arrested , that she would bail me ; and if were cast into prison , she would maintain me and my family ; for that she got money enough , and that she would have me to a lord or lords that would secure me . and she bid my wife to cheer me up , for that neither i , nor my family should want , and gave my wife five shillings , and bid her cheer me up with that . francis corral . jur. 6. die sep. 1680. coram me , robert clayton mayor . i matthias fowler , living at the half-moon in ch-si . vintner , make oath , that i never saw any duke or lord with francis corral , in this paper mentioned , in newgate ; nor did i ever see any duke beat him , or set a sword to his breast ; nor did i ever see any lord lay down a heap of gold , and tell the said corral it was five hundred pounds , and the said corral should have it , if he would swear what the duke and lord would have him . nor did i ever take him aside , and bid him name some person , and say , they employ'd him the said corral to take up the dead body of sir edmund-bury godfrey's in summerset-yard , and gave him money for so doing , and that if he would do this , both he and i should have money enough . but that the same is notoriously false and untrue . matthias fowler . jur. 8. die sep. 1680. coram me robert clayton mayor . finis . an answer to the appeal from the country to the city l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1679 approx. 89 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 21 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-05 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47801 wing l1197 estc r36247 15620506 ocm 15620506 104218 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47801) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 104218) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1151:32) an answer to the appeal from the country to the city l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. [2], 39 p. printed by m.c. for henry brome ..., london : 1679. attributed by wing to l'estrange. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng blount, charles, 1654-1693. -appeal from the country to the city. catholic church -controversial literature. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2004-01 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-02 emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread 2004-02 emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion an answer to the appeal from the country to the city . london , printed by m. c. for henry brome , at the gun in st. pauls church-yard , 1679. an answer to the appeal from the country , to the city , &c. this appeal has made a mighty noise about the town ; and yet , heaven knows , there is neither good faith in it , nor argument : but all things misapply'd , or mis-reported , to bring an odium upon the government , and to in●…ame the multitude . the pretended reasonings of it are no more than fallacies and non-sequiturs , from the beginning to the end ; and yet it serves in a coffer-hense for a test of honest men and mutiniers . taking it barely in in self , it is scarce worth an answer : but in the circumstances of the boldness and the malice , it is but reasonable to bestow such a reply upon it , as may give it a recommendation to publique justice ; especially having already taken notice of it by the by , in another place . it is a wonderful thing , the confidence of this audacious pamphlet , in addressing it self to the city , after so fresh , so loyal , and so generous an instance of their scorn , and detestation of any thing that looks like a seditious practice . why should a wat tyler expect better quarter from a lord mayor under charles the second , than he had from a lord mayor under richard the second ? nay , that very rebellion of forty-one is most injuriously charg'd upon the city of london ; for gournay , rica●…t , garraway , and the most considerable of the citizens , were not only against it in their opinions , but oppos'd it to the utmost with their estates and persons . and that honourable society has not yet forgotten either the calamities of the war , or the methods and instruments which brought so great a reproach upon the city . beside , that it is as much their interest as their duty , and as much their inclination as either , to support the government . for by a war they must of necessity suffer doubly : and not only in the loss or abatement of their trade , but in the deep proportion of their taxes toward the publique charge . so that these are not a sort of people to be wheedled out of their honour and allegeance . but we shall now take a view of the pamphlet it self . an appeal from the country to the city . it begins ; most brave and noble citizens : and a little lower ; with you we stand , and with you we fall ; your example directs our conduct , &c. now if the greeting had been to the club of subscribers , that which follows would have been much more consequent ; for it is a great truth , that the conspirators of both sides must expect to stand and fall together ; and that the factions in the country can never make any thing on 't , without a tumult in the city , to lead the dance ; which ( god be prais'd ) there is no fear of , and then for the credit which this busie mutineer can pretend to under this present government , with the noble citizens ( as he claws them ) i am perswaded , if the author of the appeal were but known to the court of aldermen and common councel , it might cost him dear , the very complement . not but that in so great a body , there may be some few little fellows a float too , that cry out with the horse-turds among the apples , in the emblem , how we apples swim . in the next clause , the scribler gives to understand that he has read hodge upon the monument ; and writing after that copy , he follows the phansie of the citizens looking about them from the top of the pyramid . now to match this dismal prospect of imaginary calamities to come , we shall give you a parallel in a brief summary of what this nation has really suffer'd in fact ; and in truth brought upon it self , by believing such stories as these , without either foundation or effect . first ( says he ) imagine you see the whole town in a flame , occasioned this second time by the same popish malice which set it on fire before . first ( say i ) imagine you see the whole nation in a flame , and brought to the extremities of fire and sword , occasioned this second time by the same schismatical and republican malice which embroil'd it before . at the same instant phansie that amongst the distracted crowd , you behold troops of papists ravishing your wives and daughters , dashing your little childrens brains out against the walls , plundering your houses , and cutting your own throats , by the name of heretique dogs . at the same instant , phansie decemb. 1659 , once over again ; whole droves of coblers , dray-men , ostlers , upon free quarter with you , till some of your wives and daughters are forc'd to prostitute themselves for bread ; your councels affronted by armed troops , and your fellow citizens knockt on the head , like dogs , at their own doors , for not so much as barking ; your apprentices discharg'd of their indentures by an arbitrary power ; your houses rifled ; your account-books examin'd ; your servants corrupted to betray their masters ; your ●…ersons clapt under ●…atches , transplanted or thrown 〈◊〉 ●…asty dungeons ; or ( in mercy perhaps ) your throats cut , by the name of popish dogs and cavaliers : and all this only for refusing to renounce god and your soveraign . 〈◊〉 represent to your selves the tower playing off 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , and battering down the houses about your 〈◊〉 . 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 present to your sleves the thimble-maker , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the tower ; your citizens clapt up ; st. pauls and gresham-colledge turn'd into garrisons ; orders for the demolishing of your gates and chains ; and nothing less than military execution threaten'd you , unless you will redeem your selves with icccco l. a moneth contribution , towards the perpetuating of your slavery . also casting your eye toward smithsield , imagine you see your father , or your mother , or some of your nearest and dearest relations ty'd to a stake in the midst of flames ; when with hands and eyes lifted up to heaven , they scream and cry out to that god , for whose cause they die ; which was a frequent spectacle the last time popery reign'd amongst us . also casting your eye toward cheap-side , cornhil , charing-cross , palace-yard , tower-hill , nay , whitehall it self : imagine you see your father , or some of your nearest relations , your citizens , the nobility , gentry ; nay , the king himself , and his best friends , under the hand of the common executioner , appealing to god , in whose cause they dy'd , which was a frequent spectacle , when rebels and usurpers , under the title of reformers , reign'd last amongst us . phansie ye behold those beautiful churches , erected for the true worship of god , abused and turn'd into idolatrous temples , to the dishonour of christ , and scandal of religion : the ministers of god's holy word , torn in pieces before your eyes , and their best friends not daring even to speak in their behalf . phansie you behold those beautiful churches erected for the true worship of god , abused and turned into stables ; the pulpits into iuggling boxes to hocus your wives and daughters out of their bodkins and thimbles ; and nothing to be heard there but heresie and sedition , to the dishonour of christ , and scandal of religion . the ministers of gods holy word cast out of their livings by hundreds , and their children expos'd to the wide world to beg their bread ; and not a friend that dares open his mouth for them . women running with their hair about their ears ; men cover'd with blood , and children sprawling under horses feet , and only the walls of houses left standing . your women running with their hair about their ears , one half to the works like pioniers , the other dancing attendance at some merciless committee , to put in bail perhaps for some malignant friend or husband ; men cover'd with blood , lost limbs , and mangled bodies , from edg-hill , branford , &c. and with horror of conscience over and above ; altars robb'd , churches demolish'd , and only the walls left standing . in fine , what the devil himself would do , were he here upon earth , will in his absence infallibly be acted by his agents the papists : those who had so much ingratitude and baseness to attempt the life of a prince , so indulgent to them , will hardly be less cruel to any of his protestant subjects . in fine , what the devil himself would do , were he here upon earth , will in his absence infallibly be acted ( if they may have their will ) by his agents , the perjurious and hypocritical regicides ; that betray'd their prince and their country by the solemnity of a covenant , and poyson'd the unwary people in that very sacrament . those who had so much ingratitude and baseness , not only to attempt , but take away the life of a prince so indulgent to them as the late king was , who deny'd them nothing but his crown , and his blood , which afterward they took : these , i say again , that are so ungrateful to our present soveraign , as after so much mercy and bounty to the murtherers of his father , and of his friends , have now enter'd into fresh attempts upon his life , his crown and dignity , will hardly be less cruel to any of his majesties obedient subjects . now to shew you that this way of incentive , to the multitude is only the old story new furbish'd , and not our appellants mother-wit and contrivance , as he would have the world imagine . see his majesties declaration of aug. 12. 1642. husbands collections , pag. 540. one day the tower of london is in danger to be taken ; and information given that great multitudes , at least a hundred , had that day resorted to visit a priest , then a prisoner there by order of the lords : and that about the time of the information , about fifty or sixty were then there ; and a warder dispatcht of purpose to give that notice : upon inquiry , but four persons were then found to be there , and but eight all that day , who had visited the priest. another day a taylor in a ditch over-hears two passengers to plot the death of mr. pym , and of many other members of both houses . then libellous letters found in the streets , without names , ( probably contrived by themselves ; and by their power , published , printed , and enter'd in their iournals ) and intimations given of the papists training under ground , and of notable provision of ammunition in houses ; where , upon examination , a single sword , and a bow and arrows are found . a design of the inhabitants of covent-garden to murther the city of london . news from france , italy , spain , denmark , of armies ready to come for england . and again , pag. 536. they cause discourses to be published , and infusions to be made of incredible dangers to the city and kingdom , by that our coming to the house : ( in the case of the five members ) an alarum was given to the city in the dead time of the night , that we were coming with h●…rse and fo●…t thither , and thereupon the wh●…le city put in arms : and howsoever the envy seem'd to be cast upon the designs of the papists , mention was only made of actions of our own . upon a fair understanding of the whole , this supposition of his is no more than the counterpart of the old story : and the declamatory dangers that he foresees in vision , were outdone by those sensible cruelties and oppressions that this poor kingdom suffered in very deed . if it be true , that these and forty times more cruelties were committed : and that the people were frighted into these precipices only by shadows : if it be true again , that those glorious pretenders , when they had the king and his papists ( as they call'd his most orthodox friends ) under foot ; that these people , i say , never lookt further after religion ; but fell presently to the sharing of the church and crown revenues among themselves , it will concern every sober man to look well about him , and to make use of his reason , as well as of his faith , for these fore-boders seldom croak but before a storm . we in the country ( says he ) have done our parts , in chusing , for the generality , good members to serve in parliament . but if ( as our two last parliaments were ) they must be dissolv'd or prorog●…ed , when over they come to redress the grievances of the subject , we may be pitied but not blam'd . if the plot takes effect , as in all probability it will , our parliaments are not then to be condemn'd for that their not being suffer'd to sit , occasion'd it . fol. 1. there are just as many affronts put upon the government in these two periods , as ( in the printed folio ) there are lines in 't . first , upon the house of commons ; for a representative constituted , for the generality , of such men as our appealer calls good members , would l●…y the kingdom in blood , ( which is manifestly the deist of the libel from the one end of it to the other . ) secondly , the appellant usurps upon the kings authority ; as if his majesty were bound to give an account to every libeller , why he prorogues or dissolves his parliaments ( which is a priviledge inseparable from the supreme power ) in all forms of government . thirdly , it is a tacit charge of tyranny upon the king ; for it is done ( he says ) when ever they come to redress the grievances of the subject . and lastly , he makes the king a promoter of the plot ; but whether with more indignity or folly , it is hard to determine , either in the intimation , o●… in the supposal of his majesty to be felo de se , and a party to the conspiracy against his own li●… . the plot ( he says ) will in all probability take 〈◊〉 and he is the occasion of it , that would not suffer these parliaments to sit . the plot is now 〈◊〉 so far out of our enemies reach , that no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or tri●…k can ever hope to extinguish it . wherefore they must either suffer all to come o●…t , or begin by force to justifie it , which we see they are going to do , by their endeavouring to get those worthy and brave commanders banished , who ( as they think ) are the most likely persons to conduct and lead us up against any popish army . fol. 1. the appellants meaning is , that the popish plot is so notoriously publique , there 's no concealing of it , and so far we are agreed : for we have had legal tryals , proofs , verdicts , sentences , and legal executions in the case . but yet to my thinking , we have had also as competent evidences of another plot under that , as a body would wish . but whoever crosses the second plot , is presently libell'd , as a friend to the former . what do we hear , what do we read , what do we see , but seditious discourses , scandalous invectives , and mutinous practices against the government ? is not the kings administration , and his authority publiquely arraigned ? and is not his sacred life struck at in this way of proceeding ? first , they expresly tell the world that his majesty misgoverns . secondly : they lay it down for a maxim , that the people may call him to account , in case he does misgovern . and this being admitted , the next point is , directly ( by an undeniable consequence ) to arraign him as a traytor to the sovereign people . but the faction it self expounds its own meaning . what have they to say for that inhuman and execrable murther acted upon the late arch-bishop of st. andrews in scotland , and to their declaration against the king himself ; which was follow'd with an open , actual , and form●…d rebellion ? this is a plot that , me-thinks , a man may see without his spectacles ; and according to our appellants conceipt , they began by force to justifie it , for fear all should come out . to follow him in his politiques , he tells us further in the passage above recited , that to facilitate the papists work , his majesty banishes the persons most capable of opposing it . so that he makes his majesty evidently a party to the plot ; or at best , no more than a king upon a chess-board , to be turn'd and carry'd which way the gamester pleases : beside , the putting of the illustrious duke of monmouth in the head of popish troops , in contradiction to himself . but ( for all this yet ) gentlemen ( says he ) be not dismaid ; the lord of hosts will be of your sides ; for so long as you fight his cause , he will fight your battels : and if god be for you , who dares be against you ? fear nothing , but as your interests are united , so let your resolutions be the same ; and the first hour wherein you hear of the kings untimely end , let no other noise be heard among you , but that of arm , arm , to revenge your sovereigns death , both upon his murtherers , and their whole party , for that there is no such thing as an english papist , who is not in the plot , at least in his good wishes . fol. 2. and why [ be not dismaid ] where 's the danger , i beseech you ? the popish plot is master'd ; and there 's hardly a roman catholique dares shew his head : nay , and for want of popish matter to work upon , the church of england it self is made papal and antichristian . and whoever looks narrowly into this business , will find these bugbears to be of the appellants own making . what is all this , but curse ye meroz over again : he claps the rabble on the back , and spits in their mouths , and without more adoe , turns them loose upon the government ? the first hour ( says he ) &c. here 's no supposition of the kings marther to qualifie the matter ; but the thing so positively pronounc'd , as if he himself w●…re of the conspiracy . so that without any i●…s or and 's , the murther is given for granted ; and upon this instigation , the least rumour in the world that way , puts the people upon a general massacre , which the bare report lately of the french appearing before the isle of purb●…ck , had like to have done in several places . now if they should arm upon such a mistake , or but an hour too soon , it were enough to put the whole nation i●… blood again : and then his orders to the city , to be ready with their arms at an hours warning , are as peremp●…ory , as if he had the command of the militia . beside that , if a fanatique should murther the king , the papists are to be puni●…d for●…t . because ( says ●…e ) every english papist is in the plot , at least in his good wishes . and it is no less probable on the other side , that every unrepenting covenanter is in the counterplot ; for upon that covenant it was , that they founded the destruction , and the dissolution of the government : and it behoves us to beware of king-killers on the one hand , as well as on the other . now see how he goes on . think not to ●…are better than the rest , by med●…ling less ; for the conquerors promises are never kept , especially coming from that sort of people , whose m●…xim it is , never to keep their word with heretiques , fol. 2. what a wonderful strain of logick is this ? draw your swords ( says he ) and go to the devil for company , for the papists keep no faith with heretiques . this was the song of 41. and he that would see what faith the covenanters kept , either with god , king , church , or people , has no more to do than to compare their 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 with their actions . now gentlemen ( says he ) le●…t any amongst you should be ignorant , either of your enemies , or their designs , both against the king and kingdom , — they are young beggarly offi●…ers , courtiers , over-ho●… church-men , and papists . the young officer , or souldiers interest makes him wish for a standing army ; the courtier endeavours to advance taxes , oppressive and illegal impositions . the over-hot church-men wish well to popery , in hope of a cardinals cap , or at least the command of some abby , priory , or other ecclesiastical pref●…rment , whereof the roman church hath so great plenty . these are the men who exclaim against our parliaments proceedings , in relation to the plot , as t●…o violent ; calling these times by no other name , but that of forty or forty-one , when to amuse his sacred majesty , and his good people , they again threaten us with another forty-eight : and all this is done under-hand , to v●…ndicate the catholique party , by throwing a suspicion on the fanatiques . these are the episcopal tantivies , who make even the very scriptures pimp for the court ; who out of urim and thummim can extort a sermon to prove the not paying of tyths and taxes to be the sin against the holy ghost : and had rather s●…e the kingdom ●…un down with blood , than part with the least hem of a consecrated frock , which they themselves made holy. here 's a very fair and round distribution of the cities enemies , into younger brothers , dependents upon the king ; friends to the church , and into profest papists : and the whole kingdom it self is again split into two parties , the one consisting of m●…iniers and s●…hismatiques ; the other of the loyal servants and subjects of the government , which under the three first heads , he brands as the cities enemies . these men he charges with lessening the plot , with resembling the present times to forty-one , and talking of another forty-eight . now how is it possible but the positions of forty-one should put us in mind of the rebellion of forty-one , and the regi●…idal principles of seventy-nine , mind us of the regicide it self of forty-eight . for these principles and practices are nothing in the world but the venom of the old cause swallow'd and spew'd up again ; and all the treasons of the consistory are cast upon the conclave : as if the murther of charles the first , by the treachery of mock-protestants , were ever the less detestable , because the two harries of france were assassinated by profest papistss . these are the puritan iesuits , that turn the bible into a nose of wax ; that make god the author of sin ; that depose and murther kings by a text ; and intitle their sacrilege and treason to the inspirations of the holy ghost . these are the straight-lac'd christians , that make less scruple of robbing the altar , than of kneeling at the communion : they can swallow the blood of widdows and orphans , and yet puke at a surplice . let me ask the worthy gentlemen of the city now , which of the two carry'd them the easier , the schismatical and sacrilegious , or the episcopal tantivy ? or which they take for the more dangerous enemies , our appellants young beggarly officers , or their old acquaintances , pen , fulks , and their fellows , who violently thrust out the gravest and most substantial of their citizens ( as the late king has it ) and took in persons of desperate fortunes and opinions , in their places . let them compare the appellants courtiers too , with the old sequestring , plundring , and decimating committees ; with their court marshalls , and major-generals : when london was made little better then a shambles ; and their merchants only cash-keepers to the tyrants at westminster ; and then against his over-hot church-men , we 'l set the mechanique pulp●…teers and tub preachers ; that not only divided the people from their sovereign , but wives from their husbands , children from their parents ; and preacht away apprentices , by droves into rebellion : carrying the schism through church and state , into private families . this is the blessed change that is now propounded , and laid before us . lastly , ( says he ) the chief and most dangerous of your enemies are papists , who to make sure of their own game , allure all the three forementioned parties to their side , by the arguments aforesaid . their design is to bring in popery , which they can no ways effect , but either by a popish successour , or by the french arms. there is no doubt of the danger of the papists ; but still while the government has one enemy in front , it is good to secure the flank and rear , from another ; so ▪ that the ci●…yes only safety lies in the mean , betwixt the two extremes of popery , on the one hand , and lib●…inism on the other . the former ( he says ) can never be effected , but by a popish successour , or the french arms. see now how this hangs together : the same faction clamour'd against the late king just at this rate : and yet there was no prospect at that time , of a popish successour , but yet popery was charg'd ( most injuriously as all the world can witnesse ) upon the king himself . and then for the french arms , so far was his majesty from calling them in to his assistance , that upon the scottish rebellion they were sollicited and implor'd into a confederacy against him . and yet we remember to our griefs , that those very rumours and apprehensions of popery , even when there was not any danger of it , east us all into confusion . and now our appellant , to shew how good an english-man he is , as well as a subject , enters his protestation a little lower in the same paragraph , that he would rather of the two , live under a french conquerour , then the duke as successour . i must acknowledge ( says he in the next clause ) that there is some coherence between the beginning of the late civill wars , and this our present age. for as well then as now , the ambitious papists , and french faction were the chief , nay the only incendiaries , which set us all in flame . that the french cardinal did artificially improve the turbulent humour of the english and scottish schismaticks , to the advancing of the interest of france , and to the embroyling of these kingdoms , i make no question : but to call them the only incendiaries is to give the lye to the constant current of history , and the known certainty of fact , even within our own remembrance . how were the papists and french factions concern'd in the scottish uproar of 1637 , and a hundred sacrilegious tumults , after that , in the course of the rebellion ? and to set him right now in his calculation of his majesties french-friends , we shall enform him , that the kings principall supplies of men , arms , money , and ammunition , were furnished from holland . he tells us further , that the catholique cause , like the chesnut in the fable , hath ever since q. marys days been in the fire : and that both then , and now , the papists make use of the episcopall , and court-parties ●…law , to take it out ; the first of these , they allure to their assistance , by the fright of presbytery ; the latter by the apprehension of a republique , tho' nothing is lesse designed , or more improbable . 't is a hard case to have to do with an adversary that has neither candor in his reports , nor any force of argument in his reasonings ; and yet it is the more tolerable here , because it is all that either the story or the cause will bear . he makes the episcopal and court-party to be the passive instruments of the church of rome , for the advance of popery , ever since the reign of queen mary : which is so notorious a mistake , that queen elizabeth , and the hierarchy in her reign oppos'd the errours , and the power of that church , with all possible constancy , and resolution . king iames made himself famous by his pen , as well as by his practices , upon the same subject . the late king lost his life in the defence of the reformed religion , and his majesty that now is , hath manifested his affection to the church of england , ( as by law establisht , ) in despight of all calumnyes , and through extream difficulties , with the highest acts of solemnity imaginable . and now on the other side , let but any man trace the history of the schismatiques , from queen mary to this instant ; and the restlessness of that faction will appear , through every step of his way ; and that whensoever the papists prest upon the government , on the one hand , the separatists never fail'd of pinching it on the other . and yet again whereas he talks of the fright of presbytery , and the apprehension of a republique , as neither designed , nor probable , there 's no man of thirty years of age , but knows the contrary ; and that this nation was actually enslav'd to that double tyranny , under pretence of delivering us from the danger of arbitrary power , and popery . nay , and but two lines further , he charges the late king for countenancing papists ▪ no less then this : which to every honest man is constructively a vindication of them both nay , he goes so far toward the owning of a dislike for the form of our government it self , that he says , no government but monarchy can in england ever support , or favour popery , as who should say ; a common-wealth would put us out of fear on 't . he says again , pag. 3. that the parliament party never entertain'd any papists , unless under a disguise ; and yet we never heard of any more of them , then the kings heads-man in a m●…sque . we could shew him several instances of the contrary ; but no man is so senselesse , as to imagine that the king was depos'd , pursu'd , rob'd , taken , condemn'd and put to death , by a hundred thousand priests in visors : we have nothing to say to the loyalty of the papists ; but yet the incongruity of our appellants charge upon them , we cannot but in honesty and common reason , take some notice of , especially when the dust of his objection flies in his own eyes . their loyalty and good service pay'd to the king ( says he ) was meerly in their own defence ; well knowing that the foundation of these commotions was only in opposition to their party . putting the case now , that they serv'd the king only for their own ends : we have an acknowledgment yet , that there was loyalty , and good service in it , however qualified : and we know that there were many brave , and eminent men among them , that lost their estates and lives in that service . if it lyes as a reproach upon them , that they did not serve the king out of loyalty , that which they did , was yet better then not serving him at all ; and better , in a higher degree still , then fighting against him . but supposing now that they had no known papists in their army the case is not one jot mended ; for they were all schismatiques then ; and it is worth the observation , that not a man drew his sword in that cause , who was not a known separatist ; and that , on the other side , not one schismatique ever struck stroke in the kings quarrel : the one side contending according to their duty , in favour of the law , and the other against it . our appellant lyes open to another objection in the cl●…use above recited . he says , the commotion was only founded upon an opposition to that party . how came it then , that they seiz'd the crown , and church-lands ; put the king to death , plunder'd , sequesterd , and beheaded his protestant friends , if the opposition was only to popery ? but we have seen their pretences , and we have felt the meaning of them . he insists upon the papists desiring oliver to accept of the crown . there 's a little book that will inform us better concerning that transaction . it 's call'd monarchy asserted , consisting of a collection of speeches upon that debate . we are at this time ( he says ) acting the same play still , though an old-one newly reviv'd ; and as that which the papists then acted , was laid upon the fanatiques , so was the like to have been done , in this present plot. it will be easily granted , that this is in a high degree the old-play reviv'd , but we are too well acquainted with the circumstances of the present plot , to carry the resemblance thorough . that which the fanatiques then acted , was layd on the papists ; and when they had master'd the king , under the calumny of a papist , they murther'd him as a protestant . the question at present is not the certainty of one plot , but the superfoetation of another : for it is compossible enough , that a papist may be before his majesty with a dagger , and some rank enthusiast behinde him with a pistol . he proceeds with a story of mr. claypool , not at all to our purpose ; and then gives us further , an account of the papists designe in scotland ; who first by their councells procured the poor inhabitants to be oppress'd , and then sending their disguised priests , and emissaryes amongst them , encourag'd the poor silly natives to mutiny against those oppressions , hoping to cast the plot upon the presbyterians . if the power , number , and industry of these emissaries be such as our appellant would have us believe , a man would think there should hardly be a rat trap in the three kingdoms , without a priest in 't . let us but lay together several circumstances in this appeal concerning the miraculous influences of these men upon all sorts of people , and it will be a hard matter to represent any thing more comicall . first , he says , that the papists have already made sure of all the young beggerly officers , or souldiers , courtiers , and over-hot church-men ; fol. 2. secondly , he makes them to have an absolute dominion over the king and his councill ; for they have made him banish those officers ( he says ) that should lead the people up against the popish army . thirdly , they govern all the conventicles in the kingdom , as our appellant will have it . and fourthly , they procur'd the scots to be opprest , and after that shifted hands , and made them rebell ; and all this is every man bound to believe , as the thirteenth article of his faith. now can any thing be more wonderful , then that these people that can turn the king and his councill with a twine thread ; that have so absolute a command of the multitude ; and can set governors and subjects handy-dandy , to box one another like punchinello's puppets , when they please : is it not a wonderfull thing , ( i say ) that these men with all this interest , are not yet able to save a priest from the gallows ; or any single person of the party from the exact rigour of the law. have they only a power to do the government mischief , and themselves no good ? we insist the more earnestly upon this point , because the comfort of humane society is totally destroy'd , if we come once to be transported , by these stories , into a common diffidence , every man of his neighbour ; and put into such a condition , by the entertainment of these jealousies , that there will be no longer any faith , or confidence in mankinde ; for fear of these invisible and undistinguishable enemies in our dayly conversation . now to support , and fortify himself in his opinion ; he says farther , that not only dr. oates mentions this in his evidence , but that the papists themselves were so well assured of the scotch rising , before it happen'd , that at the disbanding of this late popish army , many of the officers and souldiers had secret orders not to sell their horses , but to be in a readiness , for that they should have occasion to use them again within a fortnight , and so it happen'd ; for within a fortnight after the disbanding , the rebellion brake out in scotland : so well acquainted were the authors of this mischief , with the time when it would happen . with the appellants leave , dr. oates only reports what these agents design'd to do , and the hopes of their succeeding in it ; but says nothing positively , that i can finde , of what they had done : and in his thirty fifth deposition , expresly makes their project to be the weakening of both the presbyterian , and episcopal faction : as to the casting of the plot upon the presbyterians , it was not so well contriv'd ( me thinks ) as it might have been : for it is no clearing of the papists from one plot upon the kings life , the charging of the presbyterians with another . then there 's another slip ; he will have the papists privy to the scotch rising , because at the disbanding of the popish army , some officers were order'd not to sell their horses , &c. first , it is not prov'd that they had any such orders ; secondly , he calls it a popish army ; and implys , that these orders were given to popish officers , which officers either went upon the service or not : if they went , they over threw their own design ; for he makes it the papists interest to entertain those tumults , and these gentlemen made it their business to suppress them . if they did not go , their orders were to no purpose . but why does the appellant call it a popish army ? he should do well to wash his mouth , after so foul and scandalous an expression . but now let us change hands ; and see if it be not more probable that the fanaticks knew before-hand of that rising , then the papists . for though we had at that time greater apprehensions of the french then ever , yet the importunities of some people were so violent for the immediate disbanding of the army , that it lookt like a design to remove that block out of the scots way the next passage is a little misterious . he says , that it was likely the scots would be beaten by the kings forces , that ( says he ) it might make both them and us less apt to rise upon any account whatsoever . so that here is a tacit confession , that the appellant found some inconvenience in this discouragement to a joynt rebellion : and ●…o he goes on , saying , that if this had been a fanatical plot , the same party would certainly have risen in england at the same time . but this , under favour , will not hold ; for the scots tumulted in 37. and appeared in actuall rebellion in 38. whereas their brethren in england did not take up arms till 41 , though privy to and confederate in the tumults of 37. he lays it down for granted in the next line , that the papists murthered the late king , and so proceeds in these words . after the catholiques had thus brought the fathers head to the block , and sent the young princes into exile ; let us reflect upon their usage of them in france , &c. now to give the devil his due , i cannot finde so much as one papist in the whole list of the regicides ; and yet i have turn'd over all the acts and ordinances ; walkers independency ; and in one word , the whole history of those times ; and can hear no news of them . take notice , that it is not the question here whether or no the papists would have scrupled it upon a fair occasion ▪ but whether or no , in the truth of the ●…act , it was the papists that did it : and i do not think it fair , to hang one man , or condemn one party for anothers fault . put the case one man steals a horse , and another robs a church , 't is no vindication of the horse stealer , to discharge him of the sacrilege ; no vindication of him that rob'd the church , to acquit him of the horse stealing ; but it were a high injustice to charge one offender with the crime of another . his following reflections upon the ill-usage the royall family received in france when his majesty was abroad , and the good offices which france has received from hence in requital , are only meant for a sly and invidious reproach upon the government , and there is more of flourish in them then matter of weight ; only he has one speculation not to be past over . i cannot but ascribe great part of our present calamities ( says he ) to his highnesses education in that arbitrary and popish government . here he pretends to tell us of our miseries , and from whence in a great measure they proceed ; but it would puzzle a man to finde out what these present calamities are , more then the froward and fantastical apprehensions of remote and imaginary evils : nay , the very fear it self is counterfeited as well as the danger , and the men that dresse up these goblins to fright the silly multitude , they do but laugh at them themselves . our state-empericks do with our politique , as our physicians do with our natural bodies ( for there are intoxicating opinions as well as passions ) they make their patients many times stark raving mad with that which they are not one jot affected withall themselves . do we not live ( or if we will , at least , we may ) in peace and plenty , under the protection of a gracious and a protestant prince , and under the blessing also of so particular a providence , that when all our neighbours have been at fire and sword round about us , this nation has been yet exempt from the common calamities of christendom ? and shall we now expose and abandon our present quiet and security only for future possibilities , and make our selves certainly miserable before-hand for fear of being miserable hereafter ? whosoever soberly considers what we enjoy on the one hand , and what we fear on the other , comparing and examining both parts with their due and reasonable circumstances , he shall finde all attempts and proposals of popular prevention or reformation , to be as wilde a project , as if a man should cut off a leg or an arm for fear of corns and chil●…lains . but what if our fears were yet juster then they seem to be ? how many things may yet intervene , accurding to the ordinary course of humane affairs , to disappoint the danger ? as mortality , survivorship , change of thought , &c. or can the appellant prescribe us any remedy , that is not worse then the disease ? shall a man cast himself from the top of bow , for fear of tumbling down stairs ? shall we destroy protestantism for fear of popery ? or a good government for fear of a bad one ? shall we run the hazzard of damnation , for fear of oppression ? nay , what if our present apprehensions were gratify'd ? new ones would yet succeed into their places : for the rage of jealousy is boundless , and incurable . and so we found it in the late rebellion , which was built upon the same foundation . never so mean and so despicable a slavery , as that which we then brought upon our selves for fear of slavery . never was any papacy so tirannical , and so ridiculous together , as that persecuting , and non-sensical presbytery , which we had in exchange for the best temper'd ecclesiastical government upon the face of the earth . were not those blessed days when our divines had salesmen , and mechaniques for their tryers ; and the laity a supercilious company of classical , and congregational noddys for the inspectours of our lives and manners : when tone , and lungs , without either learning , or honesty , were the distinguishing marks of a gifted brother ? methinks the very memory of these servile and profane indignities should put the bare thought of the second part of it out of countenance . and he seems as much out in the pretended cause of our calamities , as he was in the calamities themselves . there were no princes educated abroad in the late kings time , and yet the same clamour to a tittle . but if the appella●…t had been so minded , he might have given us a much more rational account of our misfortunes , then he has done . he might , have charg'd them upon those people , who in truth , first sent the young princes into exile , and then k●…pt them there ; and have at present a design upon the exercise of he same arbitrary power again , which they would be thought to fear . they began with a cry against popery , but they concluded in the murther of the king ; the dissolution of the monarchy , and the perpetual exclusion of the royal family , as may be seen in their proclamation of ian. 30. 48. for inhibiting any person to be king. whereas charles stuart king of england , ( say they ) being for the notorious treasons , tyrannies , and murthers , committed by him in the late unnatural and cruel wars , condemned to death , &c. it is remarkable , that though they possest the people against his majesty , as a papist , there is not one word of religion in the reasons , of their putting him to death . the appellant comes now to shew his reading in two passages out of philip de comines , with an application of his observations upon them . the former concerning certain english pensioners ; which lewis the eleventh of france kept in pay. now though i cannot agree the hundreth part of those persons to be pensioners , which out of an envy to the government , the common people are instructed to call so ; yet i shall never differ with him upon this point , that the money of lewis the fourteenth may perhaps have been current in england , as well as that of lewis the eleventh was . the other story is that of lewis the eleventh to charles duke of burgundy in the case of campobache . the french king advertizes the duke of burgandy ( they being then in hostility ) that the count campobache was a traytor to him : but the duke would not believe it . and there was one cifron also , who was of the plot with campobache : this same cifron , being taken prisoner by the duke before nancy , and condemned to dye ; gave the duke to understand , that he had a most important secret to communicate to him . but the duke neither giving admittance to cifron , nor credit to the king ; lost his life afterward , and his dominions , by being too incredulous . the appellant applies this to his majesties case , in language so course and scandalous , that there is no repeating of it . and what does all this amount to , but that a prince may be as well undone by believing too much , as too little ? if he had trusted either less to campobache , or more to the king , it had come all to a purpose . he will have his majesty in danger for not believing enough , of the popish plot : but his royall father was ruin'd on the other side , by not believing enough of the presbyterian plot. and god grant that his present majesty may only believe so much of that plot over again , as may stand with his honour and safety . but it appears in this place , by the coursness of the appellants expressions , and by the byasse of the whole libell throughout , that he is not so much concern'd for the kings believing or not believing , as to fasten a scandall upon his majesty , by perswading the people , that the king does not believe it ; and consequently to possess them , that his majesty is a favourer of popery , tho' never any prince in christendom gave more convincing and irrefragable proofs of the contrary . this passage of the duke of burgundy ( he says fol. 4. ) may be very much to our purpose , to shew you , that when god designs the destruction of a king or people , he makes them deaf to all discoveries be they never so obvious . and having levelled the application in particular , he speculates in general terms ( toward the bottom of the leaf ) upon the whole matter . there are four several arguments ( he says ) which many times prevail with princes to be incredulous of all pretended conspiracies against themselves . the first is drawn from their being in , or made privy themselves to part of the plot , but not to the whole . the second , from their own good nature , and clemency . the third , from the nature of the evidence . and the fourth from the nature and interest of the pretended conspirators . to begin then with the first , when the prince hath been made acquainted with a design of introducing a new government , or a new religion , but not with the design of taking away his own life , this sometimes hath prevailed with him not to believe , that the same party with whom he himself is in a conspiracy , should have any such other plot against his life . but this i hope is not our case , for &c. — and then he reasons that his majesty could get nothing by it . fol. 3. we shall put him together now , and make english of him . first , he makes the duke of burgundies case , in his deafnesse to discoveries to be the kings . secondly , he infers from that deafness that god has design'd his majesty to destruction . thirdly , he takes upon him to philosophize upon the reasons of princes incredulity in such cases ; and very fairly represents his majesty as a party in the conspiracy , and consenting to the introduction of a new government and a new religion , though not privy to the plot of taking away his own life . only he concludes with a [ but this i hope is not our case . ] in such away of doubting as implys believing . and so much for the first point . the second motive ( he says fol. 5. ) which may incline a prince to disbelieve the report of a plot is , from his own good nature , and clemency ; which makes him not believe any ill of those to whom he has been so kinde . but this is a fallacious way of arguing . now by his favour , this is not so much an argument from good nature , on the one side , as from the tye of gratitude , on the other : but whether way soever it be taken , the late king found it indeed a very fallacious way of arguing : for almost all his acts of grace , and bounty turn'd to his mischief , as appears in his majesties declaration of aug. 12. 1642. when after delivering up his ministers to impeachments , his concessions in the business of the star-chamber , high ▪ commission court , ship-mony , forest-laws , stannery-courts , tonnage and poundage , continuance of the parliament , &c. they improv'd all these trusts , and condescensions even to the formal taking away his authority , revenue , and life . and those particularly whom his late majesty oblig'd to the highest degree , laid the foundation of his ruine . nor is the ingratitude of the same party to the son less notorious , then the other was to the father : none flying so fiercely in the face of the kings authority and person , as those that stand indebted to the king for their lives and estates ; who yet act as confidently , as if one rebellion might be placed in justification of another . for they do now afresh and in publick avow the methods and practices of the late times ; while the true sons and servants both of the english church and state , lie in the dust , waiting for the righteous judgment of the lord in want , and patience . now if according to the appellants rule those are the most dangerous , to whom the king has been most kinde , that danger must be understood of the fanatiques ; for otherwise the appealer runs the hazzard of a premunire , upon the act for the safety of the kings person , in scandalizing his majesty for a favourer of popery . it is not yet that the general rule fails , because of this exception : for the greater the obligation , the greater in reason ought to be the confidence , though the appella●…t seems to be of another opinion . who betrays you in your beds ? ( says he ) your friend ; for your enemy is not admitted to your house . who betrays you in your estate ? your friend ; for your enemy is not made your trustee . so that nothing is more dangerous then a blinde friendship . this is an admirable fetch of his , to prove his royal highness dangerous to his majesty , because he is both a friend and a brother ; and still the nearer , the more dangerous : as if the king were safer in the hands of his enemies , then of his friends . but he expounds himself , that they are more dangerous , in respect of greater confidence , and fairer opportunities . there is no sence against that danger , but utterly to cast off and renounce all the bonds , and dictates of society and good nature . we must contract no friendships , and trust no relations , for fear they should cut our throats . how much more wretched then the very beasts , has our appealler at this rate made mankinde , by poysoning the very fountain of human comforts ? nor is it a friend that betrays us ; but an enemy , under that appearance : by which rule an episcopal , a fanatical , a popish friend , are all equally dangerous : for a man has no more security of a friend under one denomination , then under another . but the appellant in this place speaks of the danger of a blinde friendship ; that is to say , a kindness that is taken up without any consideration , or choice , and runs on without fear or wit : which in this application , must either be very little respectfull , or altogether impertinent . he produces instances of perfidious favourits and relations : as if there were no other to be found in nature . by his argument , because one woman poyson'd her husband , all men should destroy their wives : because one son supplanted his father , all parents should drown their children like kitlins . because one younger brother offer'd violence to his elder , there should be no longer any confidence , or faith maintain'd among brethren . if little petty interests ( says he ) make one brother wish the others death , how much more prevalent will the interest of a crown be ? nay of two crowns , viz. one here , and another hereafter in heaven , promis'd him by an old fellow with a bald pate , and a spade-beard . as to the argument , this is only the second part to the same tune ; and a particular instance emprov'd into an universal exception . there are wicked husbands , wives , children ; let there be no more marrying . men have been poyson'd in the sacrament , in their cups , and dishes ; shall we therefore never receive the communion , nor drink , nor eat ? there have been tyrants in all forms of governments , shall we therefore have no government at all ? and moreover , as this way of reasoning lessensall the bonds of human trust , and concord , and runs us back again into mr. hobb's original state of war , so does it as little serve the appellants purpose , even if it were admitted . first , the temptation of a crown does not work upon any man , either as a brother , or as a stranger : but equally upon both ; and more , or less , as the man is more , or less consciencious or ambitious . so that the danger arises from the humour of the person , not from the relation . nay secondly , the danger is greater , from a popular faction that has no right at all to a crown , then from a legal pretendent to it , upon a claim of descent . for the one only waits his time , according to the course of nature , whereas the other presses his end by the ways of bloud and violence , having no other way to compass it : he makes it yet a stronger argument , where there is but one life betwixt a successor and three kingdoms : but does not this argument hold as strong on the other side ? there was only the kings life betwixt the faction of 1641 , and the three kingdoms , which life they took away , and so possest themselves of his dominions . their pretence was only a reformation of abuses ▪ with horrid , and multiply'd oaths , that they designed only the glory of god , the honour of the king , the preservation of the protestant religion . his majesty ( they said ) was misled by popish counsells ; and their business was no more then to rescue him out of the hands of papists , and bring him home to his parliament . and what was the event of all ? a gracious prince was murther'd , and 500. tyrants set up in his stead : our religion , and our laws were trampled upon ; and the free-born english-men subjected to a bondage , below that of gally-slaves : the whole nation becoming a scandall , a hissing , and a scorn , to all our neighbours , round about us . but what were these ●…eople , all this while ? if we may credit the appellant , they were priests and iesuits ; or at least , papists : but the king tells us , they were brownists , anabaptists , and other sectaries ; preaching coachmen , felt makers , &c. the act for indempnity gives us a list of the regicides : the act of uniformity stiles them sch●…smatiques , and throughout the whole history of their acts , and ordinances , there appear none but dissenting protestants : the church of england being the only sufferer , betwixt the two extreams . and these people had the interest of the two crowns in prospect too ; which the appellant descants so jollily upon : almost every pulpit promising salvation to the fighters of the lords battels against the lords anointed , with a cursed be he ( at the end on 't , ) that doth the work of the lord negligently . upon the third head he says , that most princes believe , or disbelieve the information which is given them of a plot , according to the nature of the evidence , and credit of the informants . there is no more in this , then that most princes believe , upon the common inducements that move all men of reason whatsoever , to believe ; viz. the probability of the matter in question , and the credit of the witnesses . now as to the popish plot ; we shall give him these two points for granted , but without discharging a plot likewise , on the other hand , upon the same principles , and no less pregnant evidence . we do not speak here of the popish plot , which the papists would most sillily have turn'd upon the presbyterians ; ( the shallowest contrivance certainly that ever was hatch'd , and the most palpable imposture : ) but we speak of a plot that was bred and born in the fanatical party ; whereof we have as many witnesses almost as readers ; in forty libells of that leaven , and extraction : beside several open and violent attempts upon the government , which do unanimously bear testimony against them . the following parts of this paragraph are wrought into such a complication of zeal and scandal ( one snap at the king , and another at the plot ) that every period is a bait : and whoever touches upon it , is sure of a hook in his nostrills . under colour of asserting and making out the truth of the plot , ( which no sober man doubts of ) he throws dirt upon his majesty and his ministers , for dodging , and imposing upon the people , in favour of it . one while too much comes out , another while too little. the frequent dissolutions and prorogations of parliaments ( he says expresly ) were to prevent the tryal of the lords : and so the squib runs sputtering on , from the king to his privy councell ; thence , to his courts of justice ; and in one word , the whole story comes to no more then a political abstract out of harris's domestick intelligence . but why these pamphlets to the multitude ? first , there 's no fear of the peoples running into popery : for 't is their horrour and aversion . secondly , there 's no need of convincing them of the truth of the plot : but rather to keep them from extravagances , upon the jealousies and apprehensions they conceive of it already . thirdly , there 's no need neither of calling them to our assistance , toward the suppressing of it : for the sifting and examining of this conspiracy , with the bringing of the confederates to publique justice , is a great part of the business of the government . so that these libells cannot be reasonably understood to have any other then these two ends . first , to teaze and chafe the rabble into a rage , disposing and preparing them to entertain any occasion for uproar and tumult . secondly , when their blood is up against this detestable plot , with the contrivers , promoters , and abetters of it ; what does he , but turn the rancour of that outragious humour upon the king , rivy councell , courts of justice ; and briefly , all his friends ; by marking them out for parties in the treason : and so rendring his majesty , and his government odious , by these malicious insinuations , and endangering the peace of the publique , to the highest degree ? the fourth and last argument ( says he ) which may sometimes prevail with the prince to disbelieve any report of a conspiracy , is taken from the nature and principles , and from the interest , of the pretended conspiratours . but neither of these motives can pretend to influence our prince into a disbelief of this popish plot , fol. 7. the appellants observation and inference is this , that the popish plot is to be believ'd , because it squares with the principles and interest of the party . we are better informed in the history and doctrine of massacres and regicides , then to question the malice of the iesuiticall positions , or the credibility of the plot here in debate : and so we shall yield him the hellish tenet , which he insists upon , of murthering kings , and a hellish tenet it is indeed ; and as hellish undoubtedly in a schismatique , as in a iesuit . for his quarrel otherwise is to the faction , not to the maxim which is equally dangerous and detestable in all factions . now wheresoever we find the same principles , we have the appellants leave honestly to suspect the same designs . was not this the doctrine of the fanatiques from forty , to sixty ? and did they not make good their doctrine by their practice ? did they not declare the king accountable to the people ? and did they not put him to death , upon that foundation ? we have the very iournals themselves of those times , to prove what we say ; beside the damned harmony of their best received authors to that purpose . we propound ( say the remonstrants ) that the person of the king may be speedily brought to iustice , for the treason , bloud and mischief he is guilty of . an act ( says another ) agreeing with the laws of god , consonant to the laws of men , and the practices of all well-order'd states and kingdoms . let iustice and reason blush ( says another ) and traytors and murtherers , parricides and patricides put on white garments and rejoyce as innocent ones , if this man ( speaking of the late king ) should escape the hands of iustice and punishment . the government of england ( says a fourth ) is a mixt monarchy , and govern'd by the maior part of the three estates assembled in parliament . whensoever a king ( says a fifth ) or other superior authority creates an inferior , they invest it with a legitimacy of magistraticall power , to punish themselves also , in case they prove evill doers . it is lawfull ( says a sixth ) for any , who have the power , to call to account a tyrant or wicked king ; and after due conviction , to depose and put him to death , if the ordinary magistrate have deny'd to do it . detrahere indigno &c. it is not for private persons to depose a wicked governnour ; but that the universality of the people may lawfully do it , i think no body questions . these seditious pasitions , with many more , ( and some worse , perhaps , ) were publiquely printed and avow'd before his majesties return . and the very same principles , with pestilert additions to them , have been expos'd by the same party , in the face of the sun , since his majesties restauration . and there is scarce a pamphlet without something of this mixrure , that comes from any of the private and pragmaticall intermeddlers in the present controversy . so that the principles are the very same , as to the quality and ingredients , under several colours . and so much for their principles : now to their interests . in his following way of reasoning ; under the countenance of proving it to be the papists interest to murther the king , he does all he can in the world , by a side-wind , to possesse them with the necessity of doing it ; and consequently , to force ▪ them upon it : only , as good luck is , the arguments will not bear that stress . i should not dare to speak his words after him , if it were not , first , that the libell is allready , by several impressions of it , made as publique as a news-book , and secondly , that his propositions are erected upon a false bottom . upon which two considerations , we shall presume to insert only two periods of his , upon this subject . their interest ( says he ) does unavoidably excite them to murther his sacred majesty ; for first , they know he cannot long subsist without a considerable sum of money , which he must receive either from the party , or from the parliament : now for them to supply him with so vast a su●… , is a charge , that ( you may well imagine ) they would desire to get rid of it , if they could , tho' by the kings death . on the other side , for the parliament to supply him with mony , that , they know , cannot be done but by taking off the heads of their faction ; excluding their succession , and consenting to such laws as must of necessity ruin them : besides , his majesty hath allready permitted the executing so many of their party , as they never can or will forgive it . it falls out happily that the force of his argument does not come up to the drift of it . but the weakness of the one takes off the edge of the other . he tells the whole world , that the papists have no way in the farth to save themselves , but by the murther of the king. the one half of this spoken in a corner to a knot of priests and jesuits , and fairly prov'd upon a man , would be as much as his head 's worth . and is the crime ever the lesse for doing the same thing in publique , where the provocation is stronger ? these discourses are not to pass for simple declarations of a mans opinion ; but artificiall encouragements rather , and advises , toward the doing of the thing ; especially coming from the pen of a person that calls himself iunius brutus , and recommends himself to the city by the borrow'd name of a king-killer . tho' i cannot inform my self of any of that family that lives near richmond . his first argument runs thus . the king wants mony ; and there 's none to be got , but either of the papists , of the parliament . the parliament , he says , will give his majesty none ; and therefore the papists will murther him to save charges . this is a policy far fetch'd : the fathers head ( we know ) was set at a price , but we hope better of the sons . now in his prejudging the parliament , upon an assumption that the king gets not a penny of mony of them , but upon such and such terms ; he does not so much speak his thought , as vent his proposition ; rather desiring , then foreseeing that the house of commons will hold the king to such unhappy conditions . and then he finishes his contemplation with this conclusion , that the papists will never forgive his majesty , for what he has done allready . wherein , first , he contradicts himself , in supposing the king an enemy to the papists , whom he has hitherto insinuated to be their friend . and secondly , instead of proving the papists design against the king in this particular , he advances one of his own. now if he would have come roundly up to the point of the papists interest ; he should have told us of the ecclesiastical dignities and preferments that the church of rome has confer'd upon their emissaries into his majesties dominions : and he should have expounded it to the people , what pains they take , and what hazzards they run , only in the playing of their own game , and making way to their advantages in reversion . this is so great a truth , that most of the serious catholiques themselves reflect familiarly upon these busie people , as the common troublers of the peace of christendome . but then i should have oppos'd an interest also on the fanatiques side , to ballance this . for they have their reversionall prospects too : their sequester'd livings and estates ; their plunder'd goods , their profitable offices and commissions , crown and church lands . &c. and they wait for their day again as impatiently as the iews do for their messias . nay to keep their title still a foot , they stand fast to their old covenant still , as the fanatiques magna charta ; by which they pretend to make out a religious claim to all the advantages they got by sacriledge and oppression . so that their principles and interests lying indifferently against the establisht order both of church and state ; there will be no need of casting eithers faults upon the other . after a worse then astrological determination upon the kings fate ; he bestows another cast of his cunning upon the city and citizens of london , which ( he says ) is in danger to be consum'd by fire . it is a lewd and a seditious hint , in both these cases , the putting of it into the head , as it is much in the power of any profligate and desperate villain , to verify his calculation . besides that in telling the citizens what they are to expect , he does at the same time , counsell the papists what to do . they will burn london , ( he says ) first , as the only united force , able to withstand arbitrary government , and without that , popery can never prevail . if ●…opery cannot come in without arbitrary government 〈◊〉 the iesuits design the burning of london , as the only un●… 〈◊〉 ●…hat can withstand that power : either there is no fear of popery and arbitrary government , and ( consequently ) of such a design taking place in this kings ●…ign ; or the whole calumny falls directly upon his majesty himself : or otherwise , if the appellants prospect looks forward into the future , what ▪ s the meaning of all these alarms , so unseasonably , to trouble our present peace with the sickly visions of things to come ? and he should have done well also to have expounded himself a little upon the united force that should withstand , and the arbitrary government to be withstood ? for otherwise , it may be taken for the sounding of a trumpet to a rebellion . for the arbitrary government which he phansies to himself , must be exercised either by a lawful prince , or by an usurper : if by the former , his tyranny is no warrant for our opposition ; if the latter , there 's no appearance of any other usurpation , then ( as we shall see presently ) of his own setting up . secondly , he says that london is the only place where by reason of their excellent preaching and dayly instruction in the protestant religion , the people have a lively sense thereof , and douhtless will not part with it , to pleasure a prince ; but perhaps rather lose their lives by the sword in the wars , than by faggots , in smithfield . the passage now is plain english ; and as many indignities upon the government , crouded into one sentence , as could well be brought together . here is first , an exhortation to a rebellion . for the prince here in question , against whom the sword is to be drawn , can be no other , upon his supposition , then actually the king. and let him take his choice now whether it shall be intended of his present majesty , or of his successour . it is a rebellion against the king that now is , in the one case , and against the next king in the other . and secondly , it is not only a simple rebellion , but ( to the scandal of the reformation , and particularly of the church of england ) a rebellion founded upon the doctrine of the protestant religion : thirdly , it is no other then ( as he himself has worded it ) the hellish tenet of murthering kings , in a disguise : only a iesuitical principle in masquerade . it is , fourthly , a condemnation of the practices and submissions of the primitive christians , and the whole story of our protestant martyrology . he says , thirdly , that the city is too powerfull for any prince tha●… governs not by the love of his people , which no popish successour can expect to do . this is the very translation of his namesake , iunius brutus , in his vindiciae contra tyrannos . ●…f the prince fails in his promise ( says he ) the people are exempt from their obedience . the contract is made void , and the right of obligation is of no force . it is therefore permitted to the officers of a kingdom , either all , or some good member of them , to suppresse a tyrant . here 's a great deal of virulence in his discourse , without one word of weight , to countenance it . for the well-being of this city is so essentially requisite to the well-being of this kingdom , that the very charge of the government is not to be defray'd without it . so that it is the interest of all governours to cherish , and support it . here he trifles away some half a score lines more about the fire ; and then , from the danger of the city , advances to the further danger accruing to the citizens , 〈◊〉 well as to the whole kingdom , upon the kings untimely death . the greatest danger ( says he ) will 〈◊〉 from a confusion , and want of some eminent and interested 〈◊〉 , whom you may trust to ●…ead you up against a french and popish army . for which purpose no person is fitter then his grace the duke of monmouth , as w●…ll for quality , courage and conduct ; as for that his lif●… and fortune depends upon the same bottom with yours . he will stand by you , therefore ought you to stand by him . and remember the old rule is , he who hath the worst title ever makes the best king. does he suppose this confusion upon the death of the king ; or the burning of the city , or before , or after ? or has he consulted either the illustrious person , or the honourable city ( that he makes so bold with ) to know whether or not the one would accept of such a commission upon the appellants terms , or the other offer it ? the character that he is pleas'd to bestow upon his grace , for his quality , courage , and conduct , is not unknown to any man that ever so much as heard of his name . but the appellant never considers that all these glorious circumstances are point blank contradictions to his design . how can he imagine that so brave a person can ever stoop to so mean a thought ; and suffer himself , by a rostitute libell , to be inchanted out of his honour , reason , and allegiance ? or that the most eminent city of christendom for purity of religion , loyalty to their prince , power , good government , wealth and resolution , should be cajol'd out of all these blessings and advantages , by the iesuitical fanaticism of a dark-lanthorn-pamphlet ? but to what end is all this clutter ? the appellant has a mind ( it seems ) to change his master . he who hath the worst title ( he says ) ever makes the best king ; which is a very fair proposition for setting up of a worse title , in his majesties place . from hence he goes forward , still computing upon his majesties death , as a thing to be taken for granted ; and so recommending himself to the most worthy citizens , he finishes his appeal , filling up the page with a postscript concerning some antimonarchical principles in the church of rome . he that has a mind to see these match'd in the scottish kirk , may receive further satisfaction in a little book entitled , tyranny and popery lording it over the consciences , lives , liberties , and estates , both of king and people . also , the comicall christian , in a translation of twenty select colloquies , out of erasmus roterodamus ; pleasantly representing several superstitious levities crept into the church of rome in his days . both printed for henry brome at the gun in st. pauls churchyard , 1680. the history of the plot : or , a brief and historical account of the charge and defence of edward coleman , esq william ireland , thomas pickering , iohn grove : robert green , henry berry , laurence hill , thomas whitebread , william harcourt , iohn fenwick , iohn gavan anthony turner , jesuits : richard langhorn , esq : sir george wakeman , baronet , william marshal , william rumly , iames corker , benedictine monks . not omit ting any one material passage in the whole proceeding . by authority . printed for richard tonson within grayes-inne-gate next grayes-inne lane. 1679. the end. notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a47801-e110 the city of london has been always loyal . hodge upon the monument . 〈◊〉 . 〈◊〉 . appeal . 〈◊〉 . 〈◊〉 ▪ 〈◊〉 ▪ appeal . parallel . appeal . parallel . appeal . parallel . appeal . parallel . the old story we should do well to look 〈◊〉 us . four affronts upon the government in two periods . 〈…〉 . 〈…〉 . he gives the ala●…m . 〈…〉 . 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and court. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . husbands c●…ll . ●…37 . papist●… the grand enemies . inconsistences . the late rebellion 〈◊〉 neither good faith nor argument . the church and court vindicated . the fanaticks trouble some , ever since the reformation . a palpable errour . 〈◊〉 asperse ▪ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 king. ●…idiculous . the papists loyalty was interest . the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 count . the appellant●… voluntary mistake . who put oliver upon accepting the crown . a legendary fable . humane society dissolved . the scotch rebellion charg'd upon the papists . dr. oat●…'s true account of the scotch rising . the scotch fanaticks 〈◊〉 with the english . who brough●… the la●…e king to the block . the treachery of campobache . equally dangerous to believe too much and too little the kings bounty ●…bus'd . an argument destructive of society and good nature . and of evill ▪ consequence . a dangerous proposition ▪ the temptation of a crown reformation the pretence ▪ who they were 〈◊〉 at destroyed the late king. two plots he covers the 〈◊〉 with the plot ▪ why this appeal to the multitude ? popish princip●…es and ●…nterest . puritan jesui●…s . 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . of counsell with the papists . a dangerous hint . the plot encourag'd . he falters in his arguments . the popish and fanatick interest the same . a wicked calculation . mistaken in his computation . sed●…n in plain english. sedition still . a proposition for a new king. a prayer to be used on wednesday november 13 in the office appointed for that day, immediately after the prayer for the high court of parliament (which is to be read during their session:) and next before the prayer of saint chrysostom, both in the morning, and evening service. by the kings special command. church of england. 1678 approx. 3 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a79691 wing c4188ia estc r231298 99899948 99899948 170817 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a79691) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 170817) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 2475:10) a prayer to be used on wednesday november 13 in the office appointed for that day, immediately after the prayer for the high court of parliament (which is to be read during their session:) and next before the prayer of saint chrysostom, both in the morning, and evening service. by the kings special command. church of england. 1 sheet ([1] p.) s.n., [london : 1678] imprint from wing (cd-rom edition). in this edition, the caption ends: "and evening service." in another edition, the caption ends: "during their session." reproduction of original in the folger shakespeare library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng church of england -prayer-books and devotions -early works to 1800. popish plot, 1678 -early works to 1800. broadsides -england 2007-10 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2007-10 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-11 emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread 2007-11 emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion ¶ a prayer to be used on wednesday november 13. in the office appointed for that day , immediately after the prayer for the high court of parliament ( which is to be read during their session : ) and next before the prayer of saint chrysostom , both in the morning , and evening service . by the kings special command . almighty god , who hast in part discovered the designs , and disappointed the attempts of those popish conspirators , who under the pretence of religion , and thy sacred name , have conspired our destruction ; labouring by the most unjustifiable methods of murders , treasons , and the assassination of his majesties sacred person , to introduce the tyranny of a foreign power , and the abomination of superstitious worship ; and thereby to enslave the souls and bodies of thy servants , and to extinguish the light of thy gospel amongst us and our posterity : we yield thee praise and thanksgiving for this thy mercy to us ; imploring thy grace and favour in the farther discovery of these depths of satan , this mystery of iniquity . send forth thy light and thy truth , and let them preserve us . give protection and defence to our sovereign lord the king , bind up his soul in the bundle of life , and let no weapon form'd against him prosper ; clothe all his enemies with shame ; but upon himself and his posterity let his crown ever flourish . to this end , knit together the hearts of all this people , as the heart of one man , in the defence of their king , their laws , and their religion . teach them to see in this their day , the things belonging to their peace , before they are hid from their eyes ; remove from among them the accursed thing , those personal , and those publick guilts , whose cry is gone up to heaven , and calls aloud for thy vengeance ; and being by true repentance reconcil'd to thee our god , let us by christian love and charity be united to one another : that walking in the paths of thy holy law which thou hast given us , its blessing may be continued to us ; and we thy people and sheep of thy pasture may give thee thanks for ever , and shew forth thy praise from generation to generation . hear us , o god , for thy mercies sake , through iesus christ our lord. amen . more shams still, or, a further discovery of the designs of the papists to impose upon the nation the belief of their feigned protestant or presbyterian plot by thomas dangerfield. dangerfield, thomas, 1650?-1685. 1681 approx. 78 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 20 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a36344 wing d191 estc r24288 08118592 ocm 08118592 40874 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a36344) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 40874) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1227:13) more shams still, or, a further discovery of the designs of the papists to impose upon the nation the belief of their feigned protestant or presbyterian plot by thomas dangerfield. dangerfield, thomas, 1650?-1685. [2], 39 p. printed for richard baldwin, london : 1681. imperfect: p. 29-32 wanting. reproduction of original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2006-09 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-09 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-08 taryn hakala sampled and proofread 2007-08 taryn hakala text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion more shams still : or a further discovery of the designs of the papists , to impose upon the nation the beleif of their feigned protestant or presbyterian plot. by thomas dangerfeild . london , printed for richard baldwin . mdclxxxi . to the right honourable sir john more , kt. lord mayor of the city of london . my lord , had i given those opportunities for men of ill converse , and worse insinuations to have drawn me aside , as others have done , to accuse the innocent , perhaps i had had no occasion to give your lorship this trouble : but because the enemies of the king , the kingdom and the protestant religion , observe my resolutions fixt and constant to serve all three , to the utmost of my power and capacity ; therefore , rather than they will leave plotting , they have placed their little sham plots upon me too . however they go on in the old popish track of endeavouring to render scurrilous and scandalous , the person against whom they raise their batteries ; among the rest i find my slef most terribly assail'd by two of these enginees of defamation ; by the one in a publick pamphet ; by the other in a written , but very malicious letter , cunningly distributed about the town to several of the most eminent persons of this city . which being done , without the least proof of the charges therein contained , i cannot but look upon it , as an intended assassination of his majesties most royal grace and mercy towards me . this , my lord , is that which enforces me thus to appear in my own vindication , lest the world should think those reproaches confirm'd by my silence , and consequently those royal favours ill bestow'd , as being unworthily forfeited . this it is that emboldens me to make this address to your lordship , to shew that i am not affraid of contradiction before so worthy and so great a magistrate : whose zeal for the protestant religion is so well known , that you disdain the plotters of its destruction : whose charity , generosity , and candor are such , that you will not lend a forward ear to scandal and reproach : and whose justice is such , that should i be found imposing falshood upon your high dignity , as you would be the first to condemn me to deserved punishment , so you will be as ready to uphold and vindicate the innocent . and it is under the protection of being so , that i here presume to subscribe my self my lord , your lordships most humble and most faithful servant tho. dangerfeild . more shams still &c. the best and most pious men that ever were in the world , could not avoid the scandals and reproaches of venemous and malicious tongues : even the very saints and apostles were not free . nor could our blessed lord and saviour jesus christ so well behave himself in his unspotted life , but that the wicked had their scorns and scoffs ready at hand to blur and defame his immaculate conversation : men as impious as satan found out accusations and false oaths to betray his innocency , and either through the credulity or the obduracy of his judges to condemn and put him to death . if then those devout and holy persons , if jesus the saviour of the world , could not be safe , though it were in an age when the crafts and devises of hell were not so well known , or at least so well practised among men as now they are , how can poor miserable creatures not only laden with original sin , but more obnoxious , once perhaps for crimes perticularly committed than the rest of their fellow creatures , and the transgressions of human precepts , propose immunity to themselves , more especially when the most refin'd villanies and perjuries abound that ever were heard of , such as neither the memory of man or history can parrallel , by swearing , forswearing , counterswearing , and all this made a trade by men-swearers , and women-swearers , that live by the price of blood , who if they can but fasten a moments privacy upon a man , never leave till they have sworn him out of his life ? now is it in the power of man to divine when this their thirst of blood will be quenched , while they still under various pretences endeavour to worry the people of god , and to annihilate the immaculate true religion of christ , set on to the end , that what the jesuits began , but could not accomplish by clandestine contrivance , they should finish by the accursed , but most seemingly plausible procedure of that caitiff jezebel . for always the jesuits were of opinion that the best expedient to introduce popery , and that hellish sting in the tail of it that destruction of mankind , called arbitrary power , was to inflame the nation by false alarums , and impious insinuations of sham-plots , and contrivances laid upon the protestants , to whip and spur on prosecutions against the innocent , hoping thereby to provoke them into mutiny and rebellion , that so there might be a colour to call in a forreign power , the more easily to accomplish their destruction . another sort of men ( so call'd ) there are , who encourage , abett , and uphold those instruments of satan , and their inferior tools , who are of such a malicious and venemous tincture in themselves , that the least appearance of morality or virtue , or the least inclination to penitence or reformation in another , so cu●s them to the heart , that if he be not a proselite of their own , that is a convert to , their wicked designs , he must be presently persued at the heels with a sort of cur-like observations , on purpose to forestal him in the good opinion of men , and to render him odious for well doing ; as if reformation and the imbracing of a christian course of life in him were wickedness and impiety , or that his former m●scarriages were never to be blotted out . a piece of charity which would never be owned by any but a papist , that abhorrer of all mercy , from whom the protestants are never to expect any favour : so that it is no wonder i should be so viperously bitten by one that either professes or upholds , a sham politick , called religion , that bears such an antipathy to charity , that would shut heaven gates , and no● suffer the god of mercy himself to forgive any but such as they should approve of . i have observed , though perhaps not so well read as my persecutor , that the great creator , whom man offends millions of times more than man can offend man , declares himself that he is willing to receive a sinner at what time soever he repenteth ; and that there is no one attribute in which he more glorifies himself than in that one attribute of his mercy . i have also observ'd from the words of our saviour , what great rejoycing there is in heaven at the recovery of one lost sheep . but the custom alters with the place ; for certainly never was there such madness , fury , cursing , swearing , drunkning , whoreing , backbiting , rayling fretting , fuming , grinning and girning , at the retrieving of one penitent sinner , as i have observ'd in my self . all which makes me apt to beleive , that that same person of quality ( so reported to be ) who wrote those celebrated observations , called , observations upon a late libel , called a letter from a person of quality to his friend , concerning the kings declaration &c. was rather led by the custom upon earth , than instructed by heaven ; for besides that the work does not seem to be any way inspir'd by reason of its insipidness ; it has this paragraph , for i shall give it no other title , till i have dissected it . it is said dangerfeild was a rogue , granted , and yet as i hear , this rogue was brought into both houses just before the debate , to whip them up into the bill of exclusion , but now they tell a very strange thing , which is , that dangerfeild is become truly honest . it is much , and in my opinion , it is a lower kind of transubstantiation to beleive dangerfeild is honest , when nothing is visible but the knave . that this man should be made honest would be a mighty cure , and such a one as some of his doctors would be loath to work upon themselves . in the mean time i cannot but put them in mind that it looketh a little popish , not only to give a general indulgence to such a known sinner , but immediately to make a saint of him . if the gathered churches can do such miracles , it is well , but if they should endeavour to put false ones upon the world , it might disparage their prudence , and lessen their reputation ; of which i am so tender , that in kindness to them i give them this warning of it . it is said dangerfeild was a rogue , granted . with mr. person of qualities leave , it is not granted , i was no rogue , nor was it said so by any but mr. person of qualities gang. for before that time he talks of , i had received mine and his soveraigns gracious absolution for my past transgressions : so that it is apparent , this paragraph was jostl'd in by head and shoulders by the observator , to call me rogue , that he might cast an aspersion on both houses of parliament then sitting : for saith he , and yet this rogue was brought into both houses to whip them up into the bill of exclusion . the paraphrase of which runs thus , dangerfeild , then no rogue , though unpardon'd , when he was brought up to kiss the d. of y's , hand &c. to whip up the sham plot , afterwards became a rogue by discovering of the secret : and being brought into both houses to declare the truth of the business , to the end they might be able to justifie such high and national proceedings against the party accused , he was still the same rogue ; from whence that it must be gathered from his words , either the parliament had rogues brought before them to spur them up to look after the kingdoms safety ; or otherwise , that the grand counsel of england , and the noblest in the world , suffered themselves to be dog whipped by a rogue into an ill act : which is the most scandalous imputation that ever any person of quality could have invented where withal to defile his own nest . now was it less injurious to the honour of his majesty to vilify that pardon , which was therefore given me , to the end i might be qualified to appear before those great assemblies ; the very business for which i am by the observator call'd rogue ? this is the quondam c. j. s. with the image of his dear mrs. celliers before him all over — the unlucky fate of your high flown observators now a days to be still against parliaments , and consequently against the rights and liberties of their native country . but , saith he , this rogue was brought into both houses just before the debate . and thus the observator is not only contented to scandalize both houses , but more irreverently to asperse them with an untruth : for the disguised person of quality must of necessity in this beleive me , in regard the journals of the house will otherwise correct him ; wherein he will find that i had not been at the house of commons bar , not in twelve days at least before the bill of exclusion passed , save once , which was to acquaint the house concerning the defect of his majesties pardon to me ; so that the words , just before the debate to whip them up , must needs be looked upon either as an excursion , or deviation , or what ye please to call it , from the truth , or else a most malitious supposition . as to the imputation upon the house of lords , true it is , that i attended several days in expectation of being called in , to inform that , as i had done the other house , how far the d. of y. had been privy to the designs of mrs. celiers , but had for a considerable time failed of admittance , and understanding that the bill was just ready to be brought up , i was very importunate to give my information before the bill came ; and accordingly made my application to a noble peer upon whose motion , as i humbly conceive , i was called in , where i related the whole truth to the best of my knowledge . now was i a little glad of having the opportunity to deliver my self just before the coming of the bill ; as beleiving that nothing could more concern the preservation of the true religion and establish'd government , the safety of his majesties life ( whom god preserve ) the ancient and just rights , and liberties of the nation , than the bill of exclusion did : and besides i thought it no small honour to my self , that it was in my poor capacity , having truth and justice on my side , to contribute to the warmth of debate about the passing of a bill in the lords house , which the commons had passed with so much vigor and resolution but just before . now for doing this , which i have reason to think , was one of the best actions i ever undertook in my life , here comes an observator , with a farc'd paragraph , and calls me rogue , and parliament spurrer . and yet , if he be the author , who is so reported to be , of those observations , he was formerly of another mind , what ever collyrium has cleared the eyes of his judgment : for i well remember that a little before the meeting of the last parliament which conven'd at westminster , i met with a person of quality , in a certain place , at which time amongst other discourses , i took the liberty to give him the epitome of those hellish designs wherein the papists had engaged me ; which being done , his lordship did me the honour to make this reply verbatim as follows . i am so well satisfied that there hath been and stillis , a most hellish plot of the papists against the kings life , our religion and government , and to enslave us to a foreign power ; and i find such demonstration attending all the discoveries thereof , that for my part i am satisfied there is none but fools or knaves , and those must be in it too , that at this time of day doubt the truth of a popish plot. nay he that hath but honour and honesty enough to be concern'd for the safety of his own private affairs , cannot but acknowledg himself most highly indebted to the discoverers , for what he now enjoys ; and for my part my concern for the protestant interest is such , that i desire all men , when ever i am found in the disbeleif of a popish plot , or any ways acting in the least matter or thing whatever , contrary to the interest , safety , and well being , of what i said to you before , ( meaning as i suppose tbe kings majesty , the protestant religion , and government ) to slight , and deem me the worst and basest of men. and yet i have a strong jealousie concluding from rational grounds , that this is the very person that at this time of day , so confounds the popish plot , so vilifies the protestants with shams and fictitious contrivances . i am credibly informed , he is the only person whose zeal and great concern for the prosecuting and detecting of popish traytors and treasons , hath now transformed it self into the shape and real beleif of a presbyterian plot ; but pray heavens he be not the only person that can be found to be in that presbyterian plot , when a parliament comes to look into the bottom of it ; and it s well if he have not made use of my name for a colour only , that he might the more freely lay out upon the parliament , for addressing against him . this is the person of quality that so be-rogues me about whipping the two houses into the bill of exclusion . a town top metaphor that no way agrees with the before mentioned expressions , the dignity of the assembly , nor my business at that time . yet for all this , notwithstanding so great a change of opinion , and such an importunate desire to all mankind , of which i may be looked upon as a morsel ; i have a greater deference for persons of dignity , than to condemn him from his own lips , as he has setenc'd me for acting according to my duty . but now they tell a strange thing . why what is that ? do the beasts in epping forest begin to speak arabick ? or has the thames flowed over the traytors heads upon london bridge ? no , none of these whipping miracles neither . what then ? why dangerfeild is become truly honest . truly i have heard of far greater miracles than this , among the observators friends the papists , i have heard of several hypocritical luberly fryers that have scraped acquaintance with the virgin mary in heaven : others that have been sainted . shall it be no wonder for a company of leacherous dominicans to be the virgin mary's only favourites in heaven , and is it such a wonder that i should become trnly honest ? but i find the temper of this paragrapher : he is so spotless , so clear from stain or blemish of sin , just ready for elisha's chariot , that he cannot endure to hear of the return of a prodigal son. no — let him be whip'd back to his actions again with a wannion . the coldness of his charity has condensed the word knave into a visible substance , so that it comes out of his mouth , like his breath in a frosty morning ; and all this while the only reason why the knave is so visible to him in me , is , because he supposes me to have been lasher to the two houses . but if that be all , seeing his majesty has been pleased to absolve me from my former transgressions , and i defie any person to charge me since , i shall presume fo far by vertue of the kings prerogative of mercy , as to beleive my self as honest as the person that see 's the knave so visible in me . and so his hard strain'd simile of transubstantion vanishes into it's original nonsense . but saith he , persisting in his malice , that this man should be made honest , would be a mighty cure. what is this but to snarle at heaven it self ? for conversion is a cure from thence . he then that questions the strangeness of such a cure , calls in doubt either the power or practice of the almighty , as if it were an unusual thing with god to work such cures . i would gladly know of the paragrapher wherein i have been dishonest either to him or the publick . if i whip'd up the two houses by speaking truth , i was neither rogue nor knave : if i did not , he was bound in conscience , if honest , to have convinc'd the world of my defects . otherwise all he says must be looked upon as meer insinuation of some conceiv'd malice , and an overweaning hatred of reformation . to which if any doctors of mine , as he calls 'em , have been instrumental , it was their duty so to do ; and an evil peice of severity in him to abuse them for it . nevertheless he lets fly at randome at certain individuum vagum's , heaven knows whom , and tells them , it looks a little popish , not only to give a general indulgence to such a known sinner , immediately to make a saint of him . but he mistakes the point extreamly . i never received any such kindness at their hands . t is to the kings indulgence that i ow my forgiveness in this world : nor can i tell , why the supream head of the church , may not as lawfully and with as much authority forgive on earth , as the paragraphers dear friend the pope . had i been fond of general indulgences , or been ambitious of a saintship , i should have moved in the same sphear of iniquity from whence the kings most royal clemency redeem'd me . which had i done , i make no question but i might have had a general indulgence from the paragrapher himself ; now what he means by their making a saint of me , i know not ; i am apt to beleive he was himself in a popish dream when he said it . i must confess the next way to be a saint , is to converse with good and vertuous men , and so to be made a saint , i think is much better than to be made a devil with those incarnates from whose wicked society i am so happily retird . in the mean time what a severe interpreter of other peoples actions is this same paragraphers ? men cannot cherish the sprouting blossoms of reformation and penitency , with the common acts of kindness and civility , but whip , they must be said to saint the person they favour . certainly the papists and their adherents , are the most cruel people in the world , that make so many saints themselves , and will not permit my doctors to make one . but as severe as they are , if any doctors do make me a saint , i am resolved i will make one shift or other to slip in i' the croud . and again , i promise the paragrapher that whoever they be that may make him a saint , i will neither envy him , nor trouble my head about it . in the last place he falls upon the gathered churches , lays the miracle of my conversion to their charge , and very gravely cautions them to finish their work , upon the high forfeitures of disparaging their prudence , and lesning their reputation . so eagerly does this nimrod of inveteracy persue me through all societies of men , as if he envi'd me a being upon earth , and therefore resolved to hunt me out of the world. thus did satan appear among the angels of god , to heap accusation upon accusation against innocent job : and thus the observator endeavors to whip up the gathered churches into an ill opinion of me . but suppose the miracle should be accomplished , as i trust it is ; i hope the observator will not exclaim against justice , if the disparagement of imprudence and the lesning of reputation should redound to himself . for my party i look upon this shimeian paragrapher , as proceeding from providence , contrary to the intent of the writer , to make me the more wary of my future demeanor . for certainly it would whip up any man of ingenuity , how prone soever to vice , to prosecute his intentions of a reformed life , if it were but to spite the fury of such a malicious adversary . as for the gathered churches , as he calls them , he acknowledges both prudence and reputation to be among them . but withal , by way of tenderness would insinuate to the world , that he beleives that the nut-shel which contained homers works would comprehend both . otherwise he could never be so idle as to think , they would forfeit those pretious jewels of prudence and reputation to uphold a rogue or a visible knave or cherish a known sinner in his wickedness . but the mark at which he shoots is apparent . for having fixed the characters of rogue and knave , upon me , he endeavors by the same artifice to undermine the prudence and reputation of the gathered churches , by pretending them to be my abettors : with the stilletto of a tender caution wounding both their reputation and prudence at once , which he seems to be so nice of . in all which he does but verifie the text of holy writ , whose oracles never fail , which tells us , that the tenderness and mercies of the wicked are cruelty . thus the prudence of the gathered churches distinctly discerns , and more than this ; for they cannot but be almost assured from the venemous symptoms of this paragrapher , that their present persecutions proceed in some measure from his councles , and that if a new writ de haeretico comburendo were let loose again , he would be as active and as nimble as ' ere a bonner or gardner in england ever was to remove these eye sores of the protestant religion from his sight . nor do their reputation less appear , by their patient suffering the scorns and contumelies which are daily thrown upon them , with the same patience , and enduring the disturbance of their consciences , by awaking dormant acts against them ; and all this to exasperate their loyalty , and incense them to incur their soveraign's displeasure : while the dreams and buffoonries of the observator and heraclitus are fostered and encouraged , to lighten and enflame our divisions ; those pretty motions that are blindly moved through the fatal cunning of jesuitism , by the great wheel of romish consultation . those corrosives of imbittered language , that keep our wounds still festring , which else might soon be closed without the least appearance of a scar. proceedings so much the more to be wondred at , that we should be vexing and tormenting the native protestants of the land , at the same time when the kingdom rejoyces to be the far applauded sanctuary of exiled foreigners of the same profession , exterminated from their estates , their callings and their habitations , only for the same crimes of conscience and protestant religion . having thus as i hope wiped off the stains of printed reproach , cast upon me by those i never in my life provok'd or injur'd ; i am now to give an account of an accident that lately befel me in essex . an affair that has made such a great noise in the world , and set the clacks of all my adversaries a going , even to a midwives vanity : and would have made a far louder din , had not my innocency , scann'd in the face of justice , brought me off . a gentleman , a friend of mr. colledges , understanding i was to take a journy into essex , and that i was well acquainted at waltham , desired me to take that place in my way ; and to discourse with one george french an inn-keeper in that town , to know what he could truly testifie concerning the life and conversation of one heynes an irishman , who was expected to give evidence against colledge at oxford , and if i could judge him to speak any thing material , that i would serve him with a subpena , he giving me one at the same time . at first , i refused to engage in this affair , as being an evidence for the king in the discovery of several treasons and villanies of the papists ; but the gentleman pressing it upon me , and withal telling me that i was as much obliged to use all lawful and honest means to preserve the kings subjects , as to testifie against them upon any legal prosecution , and having no knowledge more than what was popular and common talk of what was laid to colledge's charge , no way concern'd either for , or against him ; on the other side personally knowing hayns to be a most notorious papist , that had corresponded with mrs. celiers , and the popish lords in the tower , and one that had been employed of her to run of errands to the prisons , and perticularly between her and my self , when i was a prisoner for debt in the kings bench , upon these considerations i thought my self , as much obliged to do that peice of honest service to mister colledge , as the gentleman was willing to have me , and took horse upon the sunday after evening prayer , and rode to the said george french's house at the kings arms in waltham , designing to stay there all night . being shewed into a chamber , i sent for the master of the house , who neither knew me , nor i him . i asked him his name , and how long he had kept the house . to which he replyed his name was french , and that he had kept the house about two or three years ; that he had a few years before served the right honourable the earl of shaftsbury , in the station of an under-groom , by which means he had got together a small parcel of mony , and hapning withal to marry an industrious woman , ( he meant one of buscon 〈…〉 ladies of industry ) all helps brought him into a capacity of taking that house . then he began to relate the disasters he had met with since he undertook that employment , particularly that about a year before , he had entertain'd three irish-men , who continu'd with him till they had run forty or fifty pounds in his debt , that they were often visited by one heynes ; that one mr. ohara , who was one of the three before mentioned , took upon him to pay the debt● upon which the other two came away for london , but that ohara continued in his house for some few days after ; in which time ohara took an occasion to quarrel with him , which gave him an oppertunity of swearing he would do the inn-keepers business , and be revengd upon him : soon after , to make his words good , ohara came to london , and upon information given to sir george treby recorder , he procur'd a warrant to apprehend french for clipping and coyning . about a day or two after this , french having some extraordinary business to london , in a coach upon the road ( and within the county of middlesex ) met ohara and haines , who imediately seaz'd , and carried him before mr. raynton , one of his majesties justices of the peace ; who , upon what the warrant imported , committed french to newgate . french thus took up , before th time of prosecution , ohara desires to withdraw his information ; but being told how villanous such practices were , and how liable he had made himself to an indictment of perjury , better consider'd of the matter , and going to newgate to french , sell upon his knees before him , and ( with an irish ohone ) besought his pardon , offering to repair all the damages he had suffered by that imprisonment ; withall declaring , that what he had ●worn against him was all false ; that he was made drunk and put upon it by that villain haines ( for so he call'd him ) and promised to take care about his discharge at the next sessions , which was accordingly done . upon this relation , which is verbatim as i had it from french , i serv'd him with a subpena , whereupon he demanding my name , i told it him . this being over , french leaves me , saying he would acquaint his wife with it , whom he promis'd to bring up ; and intreated me to rightly inform her about it , being big with child , least she might possibly be too much concern'd for the absence of her husband ; and going away , leaving the subpena upon the table , but before he saw his wife , he went into the next room , in which was a quartermaster belonging to one of my lord of oxford's troops , who goes by the name of bruff , and four or five troopers more , who had been tossing the glasses about all that day , ( as french inform'd me ) and to them he makes his complaint , swearing he had been serv'd with something call'd a subpena to go down to oxford , to be a witness for one colledge , upon which , bruff desir'd to see the warrant , which french fetch'd him . he , upon perusal , swore damn him , that could not force him to go , because there was neither hand nor seal to it ; that it was a new design to draw him into trouble , by making of him be a witness against the king ; that it was a piece of forgery , &c. and then asked french who gave it him ? he answer'd one dangerfield . presently says the coxcombly pollitician of a quartermaster , do you go and tell him here are four or five gentlemen would be glad to drink a glass of wine with him , to have an oppertunity of acknowledging the good services he has done by his discovery , to the king and countrey ; for if i get but once into his company , let me alone to affront him . upon which , french returning to my chamber door , made a stand , and there related the desire of the aforesaid company , bruff all the while standing behind him ; i answer'd french , i was a little disturb'd with riding , and was so unfit either to take , or make a visit , that i did intend so soon as i had sup'd to go to bed : upon which bruff forc'd himself into my room , swearing damn him , the company were honest drunken fellows , and that they were resolv'd to drink a glass of wine with me , and then he sate down . whereupon i demanded if he or any of his company knew me , or if he thought i knew any of them ? to which he answer'd no. then i told him my circumstances would not allow me to be in company of persons i knew not ; withall excusing to him what rudeness i could not avoid being then guilty of , for that i could not allow him to stay longer than the drinking of one glass of wine ; then he swore , damn him , he did not intend to stay any longer with me , and desired me to drink any health to him , what i pleased , which he promised to pledge and be gone : to this i answered , i did not accustom my self to drink healths , in regard it was the only promoter of quarrels . he replied , that was only about the healths of women ; and then pressed me to drink the kings health . i told him i was unwilling to drink any health at all , for many reasons , some of which were these ; first , the lords day was not expir'd . secondly , that the king had caused a proclamation to be published , shewing his majesties dislike about drinking of any health . and thirdly , it was not visible to me , wherein i could in the least measure contribute to the kings service by the drinking of his health ; but if he would undertake to make out that it did , i should think my self as much oblig'd , as he seem'd earnest to have it done , and that with a heart as full of loyalty as he , or e're a man living . upon which he took upon him to make me understand how it would be serviceable to the king , for me to drink his majesties health , by this interpretation : for says he , to drink a health , does imply the honour , good-wishes , and highest obligations to service imaginable ; and in fine , after one man has drunk anothers health , 't is to be understood from that very time , that he becomes his slave and vassal , and therefore , in such a time of distinction as this is , he thought every loyal hearted man , that lov'd his king as he ought to do , oblidged to that interpretation , is an argument prevalent eenough to drink the kings health . to this i replied , the king , i humbly conceived , only expected a peaceable and quiet obedience from his people , whom his majesty calls good subjects , not slaves or vassals ; and i could not hold my self oblig'd to take any notice of his interpretation . then he pressed me in the common dialect of civility , intimating how much i was oblig'd to answer the request of a gentleman and a stranger , and in my own room too . to that i reply ▪ d , that he was only a presumtive guess that had by his carriage , rendred himself more bold than welcome because not invited ; but yet since he had put the thing by the way of common civility , i would not be behind hand with him ; and then i promis'd to drink the kings , provided he would not impose any other health upon me : upon which he let fall a rapsodie of oathes and curses , wherein i thought he had bound himself as fast as that sort of troopery engagement could hold him . but he little regarded those ties : for i had no sooner fill'd his glass but he begins the d. of yorks health upon me . whereupon i stood up and declar'd i would not drink it , because of the interpretation which he himself had made but just before of health drinking ; and for that , i had a thousand reasons best known to my self , besides as many well known to the world , why i would not engage my self , to be his highnesses slave or vassal , and so i refused his health . then he began to catch at the expression , reasons best known to my self ; and said , he would give me one convincing argument for my drinking that health : i being full of curiosity to hear that , desired him to declare what it was ; then he insisted that the duke being of the church england , his majesties royal brother , and next heir to the crown , and pray'd for in the church according to the appointment of the canon laws thereof , i ought to , and that was the very reason that induc'd him and many thousands besides to drink his highnesses health . to which i replied , that though the duke were prayed for as a branch of the royal family , in a distinct prayer ; yet i could not understand that either that prayer , or the common laws of the church , had made any appointment for drinking his health , and therefore i refused it ; adding , that if he were no better acquainted with martial , than he seem'd to be with ecclesiastical affairs , he was very unfit to serve the king ; and so i desired the bugbear to withdraw ; for which he call ▪ d me son of a whore , and gave me some other thunder-thumping complements of the same nature , which i very patiently took , finding his behaviour such , as if he had the popes pardon or dispensation in his pocket , for his own security , in case he had cut my throat . and therefore i courted him divers times to march off , which at length he did , discharging , as he went , such volleys of flaming oathes , as if his jaws had been the vent of aetna . when he came into his own room , he and his crew , drank my damnation , and while he continued there , i went to supper , having sent for the woman of the house , to whom i declar'd how i had serv'd her husband with a subpena , to go the next day , being munday , towards oxford ; and then i asked if she would be content to spare him for five or six days ? she answered yes , if the business he went about were just and honest , and that he might have his charges borne . to which i answered , the business was just and honest ; for which i refer'd her to the words of the subpena , ( viz. ) that he was to testifie the truth according to his knowledg , in a cause between the king and &c. and that what money the law did allow to other witnesses in such cases , i did promise to see paid to her husband . the woman seemed very well content , and after supper leaving mine , went into the troopers room , where by that time , they and the man of the house were gotten sufficiently drunk ; in which condition they laid their heads together to paraphraise upon the writ of subpena . says bruff , dam him for a dogg that made that subpena , ( speaking to the woman ) t is a shamm , and a design to dram your husband into some more roguery . then says the woman , damn that dog , dangerfield , for i will have his business done before he goes hence . damn me , says bruff , do , wel all help you . i being in my own room , and hearing this threatning dialogue , thought i had reason enough to apprehend my life in danger . thereupon i sent my man for the master of the house three times , but he still brought me word he was so drunk that he could not come ; which answer he had every time from the wife , who as often as the husband attempted to stand up ; she struck him down again with a swinging curse or two , interlarded with slaps o' th' face . then i sent several times for the woman , but neither was to be perswaded . presently hearing an extraordinary noise amongst 'em , i thought they were putting themselves into a posture to do my business , ( as they had all call'd it but just before . ) whereupon i betook my self to my sword and pistol , resolving to stand upon my guard , knowing the law justified self-preservation ; as being in my own room , and besides , having nothing wherewith to fasten the door , i found my self so much the more expos'd . then 't was that i sent my man into the street to call a constable , or raise the town , with all speed , that i might be safe ; who was no sooner gone from me , but in came mother industry , sir ( says she ) i understand you sent divers times for my husband , then for me , and now for a constable , i cannot understand your meaning by it . and then stepping out of the room she swears , dam her , my business should be done before the constable could come . which was no sooner said , but in comes the quartermaster , who confidently demanded , what was the matter with me , and what apprehensions of danger i had that made me send for a constable , and put my self in that posture of defence . ( for then i cock'd my pistol ) to this i reply'd ( drawing forth my sword , and making a scratch on the boards of the flowr between him and me ) sir , you are the person from whom i apprehend my life to be in danger , ( i having heard all your design ) and this being my room , and my castle , you having twice forced your self into the same , without being requested thereto by my consent , either be gone , or else i will certainly fire upon you , then the woman ( for she was in the room all the time ) push'd him into a char , swearing and cursing at the old rate , that he should stay there for her pleasure . then i told them i knew their design was upon my life , and if he did attempt to come over that line or scratch upon the boards before the constable came , i would pistol him , laying my sword by at the same time , and recovering a holster pistol , which i also cock'd and held in my sword hand , as thinking my self more secure with two , than with one pistol and a slight sword. upon this , the woman whispered to brnff , who assoon stood up , draws his sword and whistled , which was no sooner done but in came four or five ruffian-like fellows , which i afterwards understood to be the troopers who had been all the time in the next room waiting for notice . two of them bruff commanded to stay in the room , and the rest to fetch their carbines : which was accordingly done . then he commanded the peace ( as he call ▪ d it ) and me to deliver my pistols , at which time i must confess it vvas in my mind to have fired ; but it pleased god in his infinite mercy , for so it fell out , i had just time enough to consider , that i vvas all alone , and among people vvho joyntly sought my life ; and if it should happen that i should kill one of them , tho it vvere in my ovvn defence , and my self invaded by them in my ovvn room ; yet i could not tell hovv the devil might put it into their hearts to svvear the thing upon me ; so that i rather chose to capitulate for my life upon their terms , and be at their mercy , than to run the hazard of being hang'd ; for that in vvhich case i had reason enough to knovv , the plea of my innocency could do me no service : thereupon i told the quartermaster i vvould deliver my pistols , provided i could have any tollerable security for my life . then he svvore dam him , i should have none ( pressing upon me ) was not his honour sufficent enough for me to depend upon ? he ( as he said then himself ) had fought divers prizes at the bear-garden , had been in divers land and sea-fights , and should such an eternal son of a bitch as i was , question his honour ? upon this , i resolv'd upon the considerations aforesaid , not to fire ; and so turning the muzles of my pistols outwards ( not having time to uncock them ) to prevent mischief , i surrendred my self to this man of honour ; which i had no sooner done , but as soon the quartermaster , catches hold of my pistols , and turns the muzels of 'em to my brest , strugling to trip up my heels , at which time i being somewhat stronger in my left arm , than he was in his right with which he held my hand , i forc ▪ d the muzle of the holster-pistol by the hollow of my body , and pass'd it under my arm , believing it their secure : but having been wounded several times in my right arm and shoulder , i wanted strength to secure the small pistol as i had done the other , upon which bruff pressed so hard , that my thumb which was on the top of the cock , and my fore-finger which was at the tricker fly'd off , then down went the cock , giving fire to the powder that was in the pan. however by the infinite goodness of that god who knew the innocency of my cause , the pistol did not discharge ; which had it done , it must undoubtedly have kill'd me ; for it was loaden with a bullet sru'd on , and the muzle was exactly at the middle of my brest . now that i might be so much the more induced to admire and value that infinite goodness of god , which had so miraculously deliver'd me , i have made tryal of the same pistol , divers times since exactly as it vvas then , and it never faild to discharge , this being the second deliverance of that kind , vvhich hath hapened to me vvithin this six months ; for all vvhich , i bless that god vvhom i serve , that he hath made me knovv , 't is he only is able to deliver ; for all vvhich i submit my self to his infinite grace and goodness , and novv return to our quartermaster , vvho by this time , vvith the help of his fellovv ruffiains having gotten the pistols out of my hands , fell upon me with a most outragious violence . toar all my linnen and cloaths , not vvithout some remembrances of the womans malice , vvho vvould novv and then lend her helping hand vvith some small cuffs at my face ; and because their usage to me was too soft , she would often cry to them , damn him , murder him , kill him , kill the dog. and indeed i expected no other ; for they drew me by force , out of my own into their room , where , under pretence of searching for small arms in my pockets , they intended to take my money : but my telling rhem it would make 'em liable to indictments for robbery , they desisted in that , but not in their blows upon my head and face , till the constable come , who was no sooner entred the room , but the quartermaster , not giving me leave to speak , commanded the constable to secure me till the morning , that i might be brought before a magistrate , telling him how he had been forc'd to keep the peace ; upon which , this being the very constable which my man brought , ( whose name is thomas vines ) he took me back into my own room , where i had the oppertunity of informing him what had hapned to me , which he little regarded , but still suffered the quartermaster and his train to come into the room and abuse me . by this time it was near one of the clock , so that i resolv'd not to go to bed ; but when it was day , to take my horse and make my complaint to some justice of the peace , little dreaming that the constable for whom i sent , only to keep the peace for the safety of my life , vvould have had the impudence to detain me longer than i had pleased ; so that about five a clock in the morning i vvas preparing to be gone , and thanked the constable for his care about me ; but he svvore he vvould not suffer me to go , untill i had been before a magistrate . i demanded if he understood the duty and office of a constable ? or if he thought himfelf safe to detain me vvithout a warrant , there being not the least appearance of injury that had been done to any but my self ? or if he look'd upon the quartermasters command to be as vvarrantable to them both , as if it had been given by a civil magistrate to vvhom such matters only belong ? to all which , he replied , he well understood his business ( and so ' t vvas a sign ) and vvould not suffer me to stir from my room . nevertheless the constable thinking i had touch'd him to the quick by vvhat i had said , goes into the tovvn to advise ( as i since understood ) with one tho. north , the high constable of that hundred , to whom he stated the case , fearing that what he had done in detaining me was not warrantable , it being only the command of a millitary person . to which , the high constable , who was either as much knave or fool as any of 'em , replied , that he would justify him in what he had done ; and ordred him , if i did attempt to be gone , he should knock me down , or use any other violence what he pleased . upon this the constable returned , and told me he had very well considered his business , and found himself justifiable , though he kill'd me , if i offered to be gone . whereupon i submitted , only demanding what magistrate he intended to have me before ? and when ? his answer was , whom he pleased , and his own time . when i found him so huffy , i gave him to understand how much he was mistaken in that point ; for that the law did allow me the liberty of chusing my justice , provided it were in the same county , and i were not taken upon a special warrant : but it was all one to him , for he little regarded what i said , only in a short time after he gave me notice to prepare my self . but i was more surprised when i understood what they intended and had contrived to swear against me : for i had overheard the quartermaster , who told the woman of the house they were all undone , if she did not stand their friend , for they could not justify what they had done , unless she would swear the peace against me . that she soon promised to do . and that made me consider of taking some friend along with me to be my bail ; and i accordingly sent for one , that came , and upon my relation of the business , was as willing to go , as i was to desire him , being well satisfied how much i had been abused . my friend being gone before , the constable whispers me to this effect , sir , i believe you are doubtful of what is intended to be sworn against you , and least there should be occasion for bail have sent for that friend , which i do assure you need not have been . for notwithstanding what has happen'd about my detaining of you , yet you had better make use of and depend upon me , who will be bound for you as far as a hundred pounds goes . for that person which you intend for your bayl is a presbiteryan , and will do both you and himself , much prejudice , should he appear in this affair . now as for my friends being of any other perswasion than that of the present church of england , as it is estabish'd by law , i knew to be most notoriously false , and had sufficient reason to think my friend the constable , as great a rogue as any of the rest , whoe 's best principles are all sorts of debaucheries , and therefore i thought my self so much the more oblidg'd to have a friend : because i saw all they drove at , vvas to triumph and rejoyce at my committment to prison . after this , vve set forth tovvards the justices , vvhoes habitation vvas about four miles from waltham , vvho hath formerly been best knovvn by the name of mad wroth : a person as fit for the purpose , as my accusers and the constable vvere . before him , the woman testified vvhat the troopers and she had agreed upon before , the heads of her information being here set dovvn , as they vvere taken by that officious just'ass , vvho out of his abundant care and zeal ( but for vvhat he hardly knevv himself ) took the pains to ride over to whaltham that very same day , to take fresh examinations , or rather to temper vvith suborn vvitnesses against me , as perhaps he may one day be sencible off . lucy french made oath before squire john wroth the 15th . day of august 1681. that thomas dangerfield drew his sword and pistol at her , and swore he would kill her . that he told her she must take leave of her husband , for she should see him no more , that he told her the subpena which he had served upon her husband , was in favour of my lord of shaftsbury , that he did give her husband instructions what to say when he came to oxford , on the behalf of colledge . that he the said dangerfield did swear he would dye upon his sword point , if he did not ruin both her and her husband , before he went out of their house , that he came not out of kindness to the house , but to do them hurt ; that he would cause her husband to be put in the garet , that he would procure their lycence to be taken away in a months time , &c. with this and such kind of stuff did our justice make shift , to patch up an information ; which vvhen it vvas taken , and as i thought , all things over as to that , i desir'd my defence might be heard ; to which he replied , the law did not allow such rascals , as i was , any defence : and besides , i stood there charg'd with subornation , and had taken part with my lord shaftsbury , whom he said was the greatest traytor in the nation ; that i had refused to drink the duke of york's health , because he was a papist : but then he swore , damn him , he knew the duke to be a better protestant than i was , with a great deal more of such like impious riff raff . then i told him , i thought the rest of the justices of the peace , would scarce be of his opinion at the quarter sessions : to which , he swore , damn him , but he was sure they would . however , sir , said i , you are not parliament proof . with that , he swore , damn him , he vallued not a parliament , a fart for a parliament . then i held up my finger and bid him have a care ; upon which , he became somewhat mild , and offered to let me go upon bail , which i had ready , and so the heat was over . but just when i was coming away , says he to me , pray sir , let me desire you to inform your self well about the persons which put you upon serving of this subpena ; for your cannot chuse but find , they had a design to embroyl you by it , and to leave you in the bryers , whereby your prossecuting and detecting of papists , and the popish-plot , might be rendred useless . pray , says he again , take my advice , and sift it to the bottom : and if you find it as i say , make use of me to represent your discovery to the king , vvhich shall serve to restore you to my good opinion again ; which you have at present lost by appearing in so foul a thing , as serving the subpena . now let all the world judge whether or no , this gentleman had not a design to suborn me to charge mr. colledges friend , from whom i had the subpena ; with a design to destroy my evidence in the popish-plot ? and whither or no the overflowing of his gall has not carried him so much beyond the sedate and mild behaviour of a civil magistrate , that i had just cause to think him as bad a person as the woman who had sworn so falsely against me ? for how likely a thing is it , that i who never knew the woman , nor spoak to her in my life before , nor had ever heard of any the least injury , either her self or any thing relating to her had done me , should attempt to kill her , to threaten either her , or her husbands life or ruine , as she had sworn . but now to shew you what became of this affair , which mr. justice overdo , by his double dilligence had taken no small pain to nurss into a subornation , i shall tell you in a few words . being bound over to the quarter-sessions which opened at chelmsford the 4th of october , i attended , and the evidence being heard against me , and my defence against that ; the thing i stood charg'd with seem'd so improbable , that the court ( not being of squire john's opinion , though he had pawn'd his soul upon it , ) by their great justice and honour , discharg'd both me and my bail , leaving those malicious prosecutors to my course at law ; which i soon made use of , for i straight vvay procur'd a bill to be dravvn up against slouch the quartermaster for the assault , and preseuted it to the grand jury , vvho upon direct evidences found it billa vera ; upon the knovvledg of vvhich , the bacchanalian svvash-buckler , notvvithstanding all his health-drinking , leaving , fearing the process of the courr vvould reach him , flead , but our justice remain'd behind , biting and punishing his lips that had so unadvisedly published his ignoronce in the law , his contempt of heaven , and slght of salvation , finding himself not only liable besides to a just complaint in parliament , but in the interval , obnoxious to several informations in the crovvn-office ! not only for his misbehaviour in this single affair , but for several most notorious misdemeaners by him committed , at a special sessions held at epping in the month of september , vvhich he may be sure to hear of on both sides his ears . as also hovv basely he hath represented the kings person to the vvhole country ? that which follows now , is such a piece of unparralel'd impudence , as nothing but a devil in that horrible shape of a papist would be guilty of . the copy of a letter which was sent to the honourable sir thomas player , there having been some scores containing the same matter , sent by the penny-post to divers other eminent citizens and persons of quality . which letters by the stile , the hand writing , and the most notorious and apparent stories and defamations hodg podg'd together in the same , sufficiently demonstrate them to be contriv'd and sent abroad by some rascally lying priest , and subscrib'd by the two first letters of that so famous female politition , madam cellier's name . the letter runs thus , verbatim . i cannot but extreamly concern my self about your great misfortune , in having any thing to do with that monster of a man dangerfield : who though his carriage among you seem very demure , and his cunning such that he yet passes for a very honest man , and is hug'd and caress'd by many eminent citizens ( as i my self have been an eye witness too ) yet i can assure you , since the king came from windsor , he has been to kiss his hand , and has given such a catalogue of name , charged with such desperate , bloody , and villanous treasons , and that for the most part against no small persons ; that when i first heard the account thereof , it made my hair stand an end , admiring how it was possible for a man to have so much of the devil in him , and to conceal it thus long , and so well , as to be taken for the greatest miracle in a correction that hath happened in these latter days . for my part , i am of the church of england established by law , and yet have the charity to be concern'd to see how that subtel emissary , that true emblem of his lord and master , shaftsbury , ( who is certainly a papist in his heart , and would hazard both body and soul to destroy the least thing bearing the name of a protestant were it in his power ) gulls and leads you poor unthinking fanaticks about by the noses , when in very deed he is at the same time endeavouring to destroy all that industry and pains , which you have been so long taking , to secure religion , liberty , and property , and instead of that thing call'd unity ( then which the thinking men of our church nothing more desire ) he is using far worse means than any of those shamming villains have yet done to inflame the nation , put us all into mutiny and confusion . as for what is past in relation to colledge and others , 't is very insignificant ; and all those irish , and the rest of the tools , had rendred themselves useless ; and you will see them as much slighted shortly , because they cannot go through-stitch with what they undertook . but i can assure you , dangerfield is too cunning a rogue , to miscarry in such a weighty affair , where his neck is so much concern'd ; and hath taken such good notes ( as he calls 'em ) , and brought such considerable persons of quality , in disguises , into your several clubs and meetings , that , for ought i see , if the great god stand not firmly by you , you are all lost as one man. it maketh my very heart bleed , to find such villains have any being on earth ; much more to live in conversation with , or have any room in the opinions of honest men. i cannot give you an account of any the particulars of his hellish design as yet ; but hope my diligence in the discovery thereof , will afford you more in a short time ; till which , take this , as it imports perfect truth , and the great esteem i have for the safety and well-being of your self , and all sober honest men. sir , yours in all lawful services , e. c. august 31. 81. from this letter all men of reason , that wilfully will not close the eyes of their understandings , may easily deduce the character of the whole popish gang , of which this same jesuitical caution-monger seems to be one of the great bell-weathers . there is in it malice , envy , treachery , inhumanity , counterfeited-friendship , forgery , dissimulation , lying , and that particular vice which gave to satan the additional name of devil , or diabolus , false accusation ; which makes out the character of a papist to be envious , malicious , treacherous , inhumane , a counterfeit-friend , a forger , a dissembler , a liar , and a false-accuser : a vice so much detested and abominated by all the saints in heaven , that one of the reasons set down in the revelations why they gave glory and honour to god , was this , because the accuser of the brethren was cast down into the bottomless-pit . now to shew the world that this same son of mischief , who wrote the foregoing letter , has accumulated to himself all those rare and diabolical qualities before-mentioned , and made himself the very pandora's box of all the infections that destroy common morality ; his malice , his envy , and his inhumanity appear in this , that believing me to be in the favour of worthy and good men , he endeavours to canker their friendships towards me ; as if all other men were to bear me hatred , because it would be a thing acceptable to the envenom'd rancour of him and his party ; and because he thinks , if they should forsake me , i should be abandon'd by all the world beside . then , thought he , necessity would constrain the miserable and forlorn wretch to seek for succour , to unsay what i have said , to unswear what i have sworn , and make my self the opprobrium of the world , as others have done . no , no , sir , you were mistaken in your measures ; i am not a person of those tottering resolutions , to be shaken by your paper engines : nor shall all the necessities in the world make me recede a tittle from what i have asserted in the face of the nation ; but shall be ready to appear again , whenever call'd , with the same boldness and the same truth that redeem'd me from the vassalage of a burthened conscience . his counterfeited friendship and dissimulation appears in his being so extremely concern'd for the great misfortune of sir thomas player , and other eminent citizens , for having any thing to do with that monster of a man , dangerfield : by which he shews himself an exact follower and admirer of his doctor st. judas , to pretend a kindness , and trouble for their misfortune , while he was seeking to betray them with a kiss . for , his kind paper , and his deep concerns , were contrivances to probe their hearts . had those worthy gentlemen shewed any signs of commotion , had they seem'd to have been startled at the news and discovery of such a monster of a man , thence they would have argu'd a certain guilt : and then you should have had those miscreants observing every motion and lineament of their faces , like picture drawers ; then you should have had 'em diving into the very bottom of their breasts , like indians for pearly oyster-shells : nor would they ever have left 'em , till they had found , tho' it had been but a barley-corns-worth of probability ; knowing well what a mountain of treason they could have built upon such a small foundation . but such was the firm and unspotted loyalty of those gentlemen , that all the efforts of this same hell-prompted son of belial prov'd unsuccessful . but now to compass his design , and to make out his kindness , dangerfield must be a monster of a man : for the papis's never use to slander , but they do it to purpose . and indeed i 'll say that for him , hitherto he has laid the plot of his lie like an artist ; 't is all super-fine roguery , all wimble-mischief . but alas ! by and by , through the diverting direction of providence , the fool spoils all again , and down comes the whole machine of his forgery upon his own head. for , saith he , tho dangerfield pass for a very honest man , &c. yet i can assure you , since the king came from windsor , he has been to kiss his hand , and has given such a catalogue of names , charged with such desparate , bloody , and villainous treasons , &c. a man had been finely serv'd now , that should have made a lying match , and laid a round wager upon this fellow's head. certain it is , that this same intelligencer could not chuse but be assured , that at the same time all this was false ; and yet he has the impudence to make his majesty himself concern'd . had he no body to put his fables and his stories upon , but upon the king ? could he not be content to forge an impudent untruth , but his villainship must be so detestably insolent , as it were to bespeak the royal attestation to make it probable ? however , i gain one extraordinary happiness by it , of which i am not a little proud , that i have the great exemplar of justice on my side , to acquit me from so foul a reproach ; to whom i humbly appeal , and at the same time provoke the engraver of my monstrosity to do the same . nay , he goes on , driving the nail to the head , and thinking to clinch it o' th' other side : the treasons , quo ' he , were so desparate , bloody , and villainous , that when he first heard the account thereof , his hair stood on end. he would seem by these words to be a person that us'd to be frighted with his own shadow ; but he is too desperate a knave to be so easily scar'd . some say it was the devil that stood at his elbow , to help his invention , that made his hair stare : but that can never be neither ; the visit of a dear friend , such as the devil is to him , can never be terrible to any man : therefore there must be some other reason why his hair stood on end : i think i have it ; his conscience appear'd to him in the gastly shape of treason and murder , mantled with perjuries and high-treasons , with a glory of hell-sire encircling her brows ; and that put him into a terror for a while : but it seems he had a charm , and sent her packing with a vengeance ; for he has no sooner done with one lie , but he begins another immediately . for my part , saith he , i am of the church of england established by law. which if he be , i durst be bound to do penance with nebuchadnezzar . he of the church of england ! rather of some of those west-india congregations that worship the devil . no man can believe him to be of that church , of which no sooner has he professed himself a member , but he presently divests it of the true character of christianity : for , saith he , i am of the church of england , yet have the charity to be concern'd , &c. as if charity , without which there can be no true religion , were not a thing usual in the church of england ; only he had pick'd up a little by the bye . truly the church of england is very much honour'd by such a member . but the doctrine and practice of the church of england , i hope , is too well known , to be canker'd by such a polluted gangren as he . they say , indeed , that persons infected with the plague are still de 〈…〉 infect others ; and this , i make no doubt , was the ●●●son why he professed himself to be of the church of 〈◊〉 for , thinks he , if i could persuade the world , that the members of the church of england were without charity , liars , and forgerers , like himself , what a fine church would he make of it ? and thus you see how he levels his porcupine quills at all , in particular , in general ; here , there , and every where ; as if he thought that scab of himself were sufficient to leprosie the whole church of england . but wherein does his charity consist ? why , in being concern'd to see how that subtile emissary , that true emblem of his lord and master shaftsbury , who is certainly a papist in his heart , gulls and leads you poor unthinking fanaticks about by the noses . one would think a person of so much charity , a man of more charity than all the church of england beside , might have reserv'd about the quantity of half a scruple for me too , and not in the midst of all his charity have shewn himself so transported , and in such an agony of raving and railing : and all this to usher in a lie , as long as from dan to beersheba , spun up with a great deal of curiosity and study , and yet not worth the while : it being impossible for a lie of such a magnitude to continue long conceal'd . for lies of this sort , like fire-works thrown in the middle of the street , spend themselves with a bounce , and do no more mischief . and thus it is a strange thing that i should have been all this time inflaming the nation , and putting all into mutiny and confusion , and no body hear of it . nay , i am persuaded , that had this same lie-framer known it himself , he would not have been sparing to have given a piece of intelligence so conducing to the nations safety and my ruine . in the conclusion , he says , he cannot give any account of the particulars of this hellish design . hereby the devil may see what a great care he ought to take , and what a watch to set over that creature man. here is a little conjurer , that has been using his art , and summoning from the infernal regions a whole squadron of lies , to assail my reformation ; and the active hobgoblins are busie at work : when on a sudden out drops an unwary bit of truth from the mouth of their master , and then they all vanish ; as our grannams of old us'd to tell us , the devil was wont to take his heels upon the recital of a gloria patri , or a dose of holy water . for now he is plain with all , and tells the world , he cannot give any account of the particulars of this hellish design . where i shall leave the fool groping in the dark , desiring him nevertheless , that when he has met with his tinder-box , struck a light , and overtaken the particulars which he is hunting after , he will be so candid as not to conceal the least tittle of his knowledge , to the end he may in some measure acquit himself from being those three things , which otherwise i must needs take him to be ; that is to say , a liar , a fool , and a knave . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a36344-e170 a happiness many of the irish have by the benefit of their consciences , that they can pay debts with a jerk , and not be constrain'd to lye lurking and gusling away their precious tune in white-fryers among sharpers . for some my be greater rogues then others . this quartermaster was a profound bacchanalian , of the order of the holy eumenides ; and had read all the folio's of the famous asdriasdust tissofican all over , and has made comments upon them : but bring him a point of war , and you gravel him presently . that must be forgiven him , as being done by the appointment of the ecclesiastical cannon laws , which he had studied . for you must know there are a sort of industrions women that use to swear at this rate . these are other marks of an industrious woman . and yet notwithstanding these reasons , many whelps of bitches , do question the honour of the bears themselves . but it seems , according to that quartermasters arguments , he 's no compleat gentleman , that has not read harry baily's titles of honour , as well as seldons . this justass was certainly cut out , to fulfill the ancient proverb , the devil corrects sin. or had a certain charm , by which such countrey gentlemen , us be is , in commission as they call it , instead of polton's statutes , awaken drowsie or rather bowsie justice . but here we may see what such a countrey justice can do , when he has the law in his own hands . a fine insinuation this , to dull my memory about his durty , billingsgate expressions concerning parliaments . the information of stephen dugdale, gent. delivered at the bar of the house of commons, munday the first day of november, in the year of our lord 1680. dugdale, stephen, 1640?-1683. 1680 approx. 20 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 8 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a36787 wing d2475 estc r504 11778772 ocm 11778772 48959 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a36787) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 48959) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 489:29) the information of stephen dugdale, gent. delivered at the bar of the house of commons, munday the first day of november, in the year of our lord 1680. dugdale, stephen, 1640?-1683. [4], 11 p. printed by the assigns of john bill, thomas newcomb, and henry hills, london : 1680. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2006-10 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-10 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-11 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2006-11 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i appoint thomas newcomb , and henry hills , to print this information , according to the order of the house of commons ; and that no other person presume to print the same . novemb. 10 th . 1680. wi williams , speaker . the information of stephen dugdale , gent. delivered at the bar of the house of commons , munday the first day of november ▪ in the year of our lord 1680. perused and signed to be printed , according to the order of the house of commons , by me william williams , speaker . ·diev·et·mon·droit honi soit qvi mal y pense c2 r royal blazon or coat of arms london , printed by the assigns of john bill , thomas newcomb , and henry hills , printers to the kings most excellent majesty . 1680. the information given at the barr of the honourable the house of commons , by mr. stephen dugdale , on the 30th day of october , anno dom. 1680. viz. that about two or three and twenty years since , i was brought over from the church of england to the church of rome , by one mr. knight a priest , continuing some years under his care , till at length he the said mr. knight , through infirmity of body , not being able to officiate his priestly function , he delivered me to the care of one francis evers a jesuit , who did not only take care to instruct me in matters relating to a future state , as to a future state , but in all things as far as he could in temporal things . likewise he the said mr. evers laid an injunction upon me to visit him every day once , if i was ●t home : and so by such means we grew to such an intimacy , that scarcely any thing that the one knew , but the other was privy to it . so that sometimes as we were talking of affairs of state , and the revolutions of governments , we came to discourse of our own . and he the said evers often hath told me , that it would not be long before we might expect good times , for the duke of york having declared himself to be a roman catholick , had given a good assurance to the pope ; besides he was a prince of that resolution and worth , that if ever he made any ingagement , he would never revoke it , particularly in so high a concern as this , where his soul lies at stake . so that never more hopes than now of dispersing the dark clouds of heresie . he hath not only engaged himself solemnly to us for the establishing of religion , but that he would restore us to all our church lands , and other priviledges taken from the church formerly . and this i had not from mr. evers alone , but from several private gentlemen , besides priests . for my great intimacy with mr. evers did get me great acquaintance with most of the gentry of our religion . so by that means i came with several of them to their private meetings , where it had been debated , what the duke of york's pleasure was , that as he had given them an assurance of his part , they should not be negligent to do theirs . and that they should be in all readiness with all necessaries when the king should dye , to assist the duke against the protestants . for they must expect some opposition from the protestant party : but good care before-hand might prevent a great deal of mischief , and that it was thought fit that every landlord amongst his tenants and servants have some twenty , some thirty , some fourty catholicks , and the priest to instruct them , that they should be ready at an hours warning , and this was the course resolved upon . and that the said evers told me , that there had been great care taken for an honest gentleman to be confessor to the duke of york , and they had found one , a friend to the said evers , who was a worthy honest gentleman ; one mr. moumford , otherwise called beddingfeild . he was presented to the duke sometime before the dutch wars , and was with the duke , being his ghostly father , in the dutch wars on shipbbard . mr. evers hath shewed me letters from him dated from on shipboard , commending the duke , how good and zealous he was in the roman catholick religion : he thought him to be the hopefullest and zealousest prince in the whole universe . i saw in one of those letters from on shipboard to mr. evers , that he the said beddingfeild had given the duke the blessed host twice , in order for the engaging himself with the enemy . that in the year 1677. mr. evers and i being in discourse , mr. evers told me , there were great fears and jealousies , that the king would outlive the duke of york , and then all our hopes were at an end . but to prevent that , he told me , that cardinal howard had sent a letter , that they had excommunicated the king as an heretick , that he was deposed from being king , and that any one that killed him might merit by it . that he maintained a damnable heretical doctrine ; and so consequently was an enemy of christ . at this time i had all the letters directed to me for the carrying on this plot , which were for mr. evers , some of which i opened and read , which all tended to lay hold of this opportunity ; for if they missed this point , they must never look to have the like again for the establishing of their religion . and about the month of july or august 1677. soon after i was by mr. evers admitted into the secret of the design for the romish government , there came one carrington to tixall , whom the jesuits thereabouts imployed as a messenger of trust in their business . he brought a letter to mr. evers from mr. vavasor , who was then at wolverhampton or boscobell , and meeting me in the hall , desired me to give it to mr. evers , which i presently did . the letter from mr. vavasor did inclose in it several others , as one from john grove in london , who in a part of the sheet of paper writ some news in short ; but underneath his signing mr. william harcourt began a long account , how he lately had received the two enclosed letters , one of them from st. omers , which was signed by monfort , warner , and peters , as i remember , and four more whose names i remember not at all . and this letter did refer to another letter from paris , to the three parties first named , and the same was signed from paris by two names , whereof i think clifford was one . this letter did contain the opinion and advice of those at paris , upon a letter which it seems had been first writ from england to st. omers , and from st. omers transmitted to them . the scope of which advice was this , that by all means care should be taken not to let any arms appear , or any appear in arms till after the death of the king , because they had fully considered , that when any sudden death should befall the king , it might be easily laid to the presbyterians , who had killed the late king , and were still enemies to the king and government . therefore they advised , that all ways should be taken to give out and possess the people before-hand , that the presbyterians were the only enemies , so that when the king should be killed , those of the church of england would presently be incensed , and take up arms to revenge it , and rather crave the aid of the catholicks , than be afraid of them : and therefore it was fit they should be in a readiness to make the first alarm , and give out , that all was done by the presbyterians , and then by a little assistance from abroad the work would easily be compassed . this was the substance of the letter from paris : and they did further desire to have the same sent into england , with the opinion of those of st. omers upon it ; and those of st. omers did in their letter much praise the advice from paris , adding nothing else of their own unto it , besides commendation , but passed unto other of smaller concerns , as , that one mr. evers should call to one gerard of lancashire , and gerald of hilderson for fifty pound due for teaching of their children or relations there , and such like things . master harcourt further added , that this letter from saint omers being directed unto him , he had communicated it , as also that from paris , unto master bedingfield , and master ireland , and likewise to the lord arundell , lord bellasis , lord stafford , and six or seven more whom i have forgot , by all whom it was highly commended as good advice , and that all should endeavour upon any differences in parliament , or any other disorders , still to give out , that it was those blood-sucking , king-killing presbyterians , that were the authors of it . that master evers did shew them the said three letters sent from master harcourt , and then soon after , the same day , sent them by the same messenger carrington , under a cover to mistress heveningham at aston , to be shewn to her husband , and to sir james symonds their son-in-law , and to come back that night with the same letters , as he did ; for that i did see evers shew them to the present lord aston in the parlour after supper , his lordship having been abroad before , and he believes them to be the same letters he had seen in the morning : for the messenger was then come back , and two of the letters lay by on the table , and the third they were reading by the fire . and i do verily believe they were the same hands , and the same letters , and the messenger was there detained all night , and made much of by me , according to order ; and in the morning master evers sent him back with an answer to master vavasor , but master evers kept still the letters from master harcourt . and i did afterwards hear master evers and master gavan discourse together touching the said letters , and in commendation of the said advice , and they named several friends in their discourse that were engaged at paris , whom i remember not . and master evers did tell me , that the letters from saint omers were brought by a particular gentleman into england , and from london to master vavasor by some friend , which i do the rather believe , for that i took notice , there was no post-mark upon the said letter to master vavasor . that about february 1677 / 8 ; there came a letter to mr. evers , to acquaint him , from a friend of his in paris , that he had received a letter from rome , which did require the said mr. evers , together with the said cotton's company in london , with mr. gavans , mr. peters , and mr vavasor ; and accordingly mr. evers did come to london , and mr. peters , but whether the other two were there i know not . and when mr. evers came home , he told me , mr. ireland and mr. symonds would be in the country the latter end of june , for considering the best way and means for carrying on the great work , as it was called . and in july 1678. i received a letter from mr. evers , which came from sir john warners , to acquaint him that all the arms were ready that were bespoke , and wanted now nothing but their orders how they should be disposed of . in august following a meeting was appointed at the lord aston's house at tixall , where was present the lord aston himself , and my lord stafford , sir james symonds , mr. dracott , mr. heveningham , mr. symonds , mr. ireland , mr. vavasor , mr. gavan , mr. peter , mr. fitter , mr. fitzherbert , and mr. manley , with several others ; which meeting was for carrying on the plot , the death of the king , with several other things relating thereto . at that time it was agreed , that the said lord aston and sir james symonds should go beyond the seas in the beginning of october , to dispose of the arms that were provided , but the plot breaking out , their journey was stopt . in september following my lord stafford sent for me several times into his lodging chamber at tixall , where we had several private conferences , amongst which he told me , that mr. evers had commended me to him , that i was true and trusty to any thing that i undertook , and that now was the time : that they stood in need of such men as i was : and that if i would i might make my self happy ; and if i would be one that would undertake to kill the king , he would give me five hundred pounds for a present supply ; which i faithfully promised i would do : and he told me i should go up to london with him in october , and sometimes i should be at standon , and sometimes in london ; and should receive instructions from mr. harcourt , mr. ireland , and himself . and going to mr. evers and acquainting him of it , he told me he knew of it before . i must renew my oath of secrecy , which i did do : and the fourteenth of october i received a letter from mr. harcourt for mr. evers ; the contents of which was , this night sir edmundbury godfrey is dispatcht . sir , said i to mr. evers , do you think that this will not destroy all our designs ? sir said i , if it do not destroy it i will be hang'd . not so , said evers , be not so passionate , not so , for he was a man that did use to punish lewd and debaucht people ; and it will rather be cast on them , than any of us . another time i being in company with mr. evers , i pressed of him , to know the reason why they should kill sir edmundbury godfrey ? he told me , that the duke of york had sent a message to coleman , after he was taken , that he should not confess any thing : he returned the duke an answer back , that it had been his misfortune , to declare all that he knew of the matter to sir edmundbury godfrey ; and he heard the said sir edmundbury godfrey would come in a witness against him , in regard he had been so diligent in taking examinations : the duke returned him answer back again , that bid him be sure he did not confess , and he should not need to fear sir edmundbury godfrey , and that there should be care taken , or to that purpose . i saw a letter from mr. whitebread , directed to mr. evers , but inclosed in groves letter to my self , wherein was , that there was great hopes now , that things will go on well , if there be diligent care taken in the management of it , which can never be , if it be communicated to every idle fellow . therefore be sure you do not trust any , but whom you have made tryal of : for if it should be discovered , we both ruine our design , and all concerned in it . for those persons which are for the people , no matter whether gentlemen or not , so they be cunning , desperate and trusty , which choice made here i fear not : for there hath been especial care taken that no opportunity might be lost ; and what persons you think fit , let me have your answer next week . send to boscobel , and there will be a messenger to bring them to me . i need not say much more to you , in regard you are fully acquainted with the business , and how it is to be carried on by mr. ireland . i hope you put the gentlemen in mind , for the getting what mony you can . pray send me word by the next , how my lady is . i think to be at st. omers next week . those gentlemen that subscribed for carrying on this design about us in staffordshire , were as followeth , ( viz. ) sir james symonds subscribed 1000 l mr. heveningham 2000 l mr. dracot 3000 l mr. gerrard 500 l mr. howard 2000 l and as master evers told me , my lord aston paid one thousand pound for carrying on this design to master bedingfield : and that what was paid was returned towards the discharging the accounts of arms , which were provided beyond the seas , and every of the aforesaid gentlemen was to have a share , and offices appointed . but in all our meetings it was never agreed , what their parts should be , and the noted'st gentlemen of all those was ever sir james symonds , being as they said , a very active person , and one that would be found a well qualified person . but as far as i ever understood , their places were to be appointed here in london by some of those great ones whom i have formerly mentioned ; but there are several persons names , besides those i have named , in that same list ; and there are other persons that entred their names beyond seas , for this note was only for master evers private use . and to that end master evers and master cotton were sent to saint omers about two or three years ago , for the sake of other persons which were very fearfull , and some others paid their money to master bedingfield , master ireland , master harcourt : and master evers hath been appointed to receive . acquittances for them ; which acquittances i have seen come in master evers letters , one to sir james symonds at one time was for three hundred pound , which was noted in the acquittance for a charitable use , but it was for the carrying on of this wicked design , or master evers told me not true . most of the persons about woolverhampton , master gavan took care to receive of , and discharge them . i asked master peter how the rest must be had , for these gentlemen when they were all together , would be but a few . he answered me , i need not fear , there was care taken for that , and such a care , that at one hours warning they would be ready . but as he said , they had formerly told , that none , except the gentlemen , were so much as to tell one another , till the very time , of which i never enquired after that time , but i perceived that a great number were knowing , by their fear when i was taken . stephen dugdale . finis . a second letter to mr. miles prance in reply to the ghost of sir edmond-bury godfrey 1682 approx. 20 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 4 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a69994 wing e3548b estc r6207 12416713 ocm 12416713 61689 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a69994) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 61689) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 285:8 or 1614:52) a second letter to mr. miles prance in reply to the ghost of sir edmond-bury godfrey everett, george, shipwright. paine, william. 4 p. printed for n. thompson, london : 1682. caption title. variously attributed to william paine and george everett. imprint from colophon. this item at reel 285:8as wing p192 (number cancelled in wing cd-rom, 1996) and as wing e3548b at reel 1614:52. reproduction of original in the huntington library and the union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng godfrey, edmund berry, -sir, 1621-1678. popish plot, 1678. 2006-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-11 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-01 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2007-01 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a second letter to mr. miles prance , in reply to the ghost of sir edmond-bury godfrey . mr. prance , since my last to you of the 23 past , i have seen a prolix , railing , and impertinent pamphlet , intituled , sir e. b. g's . ghost , and pretended to be an answer to my said letter . and conceiving you are better acquain●ed with ghosts than my self , i thought fit to direct my answer to that ghost to you , and thereby shew the ridiculousness thereof , as also vindicate the truths contained in my said former letter , and shew you and the world further circumstances to justifie the same , and therefore , according to the method of my former letter , i shall proceed by these heads . and first , not understanding what the ghost means , by arraigning the justice of the nation , unless he would assert that all that are legally , ( are likewise justly hanged ; ) and so consequently , that the mother and her two sons were ju●tly hanged in glocestershire , for the murder of the lady viscountess campden's steward , though he afterwards appeared alive ; and i do not find that ever his appearance arraign'd the justice of the nation and remitting the consideration of mr. b●owns , the chyrurgions , and mrs curtis's evidence in relation to the blood , to its proper place ; and affirming , ( as the truth is , ) that mrs. celliers , mrs. mary gibbon the newgate priests , james magragh , and all other irish men , or irish evidences , or other papist or papists , or popishly affected persons whatsoever ; as also those concerned in the late sham of his having hang'd himself , are strangers to , and had not the least knowledge or intimation of the contents of my said former letter , nor any way concerned therein , or in or with any part thereof ; ( as the said ghost most falsly and maliciously insinuates . ) i take notice that the said ghost seems to admit so much of the truth of the said letter , as that it was reported divers days before the dead body was found , that he was murdered in somerset-house by the papists , and which report was made even the next morning after he was missing , ( being sunday 13 octob. 1678 ) now i would fain have this ghost to inform the world who first raised that report : but as to mr. dugdale's letter of it i cannot give it any better answer , than that as his evidence hath since been disbelieved in matters of greater consequence , so he not producing any such letter , you must give me leave also to suspect him in this . but as to the other evidences of mr. birch and the rest , theirs i believe to be very true ; for it 's no miracle that a report so cunningly raised , ( without any ground ) might as industriously be promulged to most parts of the kingdom before the respective days they speak of , especially when the plot had filled all mens heads with fears and jeolousies , without which it had not been in the power or art of the ghost , or any of his tribe , to have suggested the least surmise to contradict his being felo de se . next , whereas my letter saith , ( and that truly ) that the coroner's jury were first of opinion , and accordingly declared , he was felo de se , and that much art and skill was used to procure their verdict to the contrary . this ghost , instead of contradicting that truth , would insinuate , as if that letter reflected upon the reputation of the jurors , when as there was no such thing imply'd or intended , they being known to be honest men , of good reputation , and free from fraud or guile , and consequently the easier to be over-reach'd , by the cunning of those and that party , whose interest it was to deceive them , and who never leave any stone unturned to attain their designs . and i cannot but observe how skilful and industrious these people still are , to hide and prevent the truth of that man's death from clearly appearing and shining forth , as without doubt it would , and must do , was not the matter now ( as formerly ) puzled with legends , and long stories , nothing to the purpose and as to the coroner's warrant for burying the body , and recited in the ghost , it 's notorious they are common tricks , used by men of his profession , who ( if any money is like to come ) will usually adjourn the jury , and then make such warrants , ( they knowing , that if the verdict be felo de se , it 's then out of their power to give leave to bury the corps . ) and it would be very material , if the coroner would declare what he received for that jobb , and of whom , and what evidence he had to induce the jury to find ( as the inquisition imports ) that he was strangled with a linen cloth , a matter of fact never so much as spoken of , until you came in with your evidence , which was not in some weeks after . and i do again aver , that the body was required by the jurors to be opened , and was refused ; and if the body was in their and the coroner's power , ( as the ghost insinuates ) such power was concealed from , and denied the jury . and it 's very probable the coroner of westminster's assistance was refused , for some such indirect doings , for that there was not the least difference betwixt the coroners in relation to their jurisdictions , and the westminster coroner came not voluntarily of himself , but was importuned to be there by mr. wigg , and divers others of the chief inhabitants of st : martyn's parish . and particularly , the reverend dr. lloyd ( who preached the funeral sermon ) spoke to the coroner of westminster before he went , so that it had been proper to have given the matters mentioned in that sermon in evidence before the jury . and it 's observable , the person mentioned to give the information to the doctor of the two wounds in the body , and that two hours before it was found , was never produced ; for if he had , and that sir e. b. g. had been murthered , such person might have been secured , and thereby the murderers detected . but i suppose the ghost will not pretend either that sermon , or the pamphlet printed by nat. thompson to be legal , or ( indeed ) any evidence at all . and now , mr. prance , being come to the several paragraphs of my letter , i shall take them in order as they are placed , and give the ghost particular answers accordingly . i. as to sir e. b. g.'s perambulations therein mentioned to be on the saturday he was first missing , they are true in every particular , and will be proved by divers able , credible and undeniable witnesses . and how vain it is for the ghost to ask , why these witnesses did not come in sooner at the tryal of greene , berry and hill , do you judge , when all the world remembers the great torrent that carried all before it in favour of the plot , and the murder of sir e. b. g. by the papists , without which ( as t. o. was heard to say ) his plot had failed ; and when it is duly considered , that the two persons that first found the body , ( for no other cause ) suffered much in their persons and estates , by a long and chargeable imprisonment . and all others that then seemed to doubt of the truth of that man's being murdered by the papists , were stigmatized with the odious names of papists , and discouragers ( if not promoters ) of the plot ; it will appear no wonder , if people were unwilling to discover their knowledges , or to come voluntarily ( without process ) to give their evidence . and how can it be imagined those three unfortunate men , being kept close prisoners , could make inquiry after proper evidences , or ( against the common vogue ) draw into suspition the assertion of his being murdered by the papists . ii. the ghost hath so much ingenuity to grant the 2d paragraph of my letter , as to the place and posture he was found in , but would avoid the inaccessableness of the place , pretending a lane near , when as that lane is , in effect , unpassable , with two on a horse , and comes not within 500 yards of the place , and the mounds thither very high , and the constable and his assistants , ( though they lived in the parish , and well knew the way ) were forced to break a gap in the mounds , though they were singly hors'd . and whereas the ghost alledges , that you do not depose he was carried to the place wholly on horseback , he hath run himself into a worse dilemma , having made no provision of men ( either as to strength or number ) to carry so great and weighty a corps , in the dead of the night , over such mounds and fences ; but let all inquisitive people , desirous of truth , take the pain , but to go to the place ( and that without any burthen on their backs ) they will soon be convinced of the assertion of the difficulty ( if not impossibility ) of the bringing a dead corps thither , either on foot or on horseback . and the pretensions of the ghost's , as to the limberness of the body and joynts , does not answer that part of my letter which relates to the impossibility of his being put into a sedan . for his body , when found , was stiff ; so that what limberness happened or appeared afterwards , hath no relation to the question . for it 's a certain maxim , a dead limber body cannot be stiff'ned . and pray , mr. prance , give us an account what became of the sedan , and the cords ? and how you could carry it with cords ; for the meanest sedan-man in town will tell you it is impracticable , or rather impossible ; and you may , if you please , make an experiment with a cord. iii. as to the body being full of bloud , when found ; the ghost endeavours to disprove that assertion , by the evidence of mr. brown the constable , the two chyrurgeons and mrs. curtiss , and produceth the evidence given at the tryal of green , berry and hill , and an extrajudicial affidavit since made by mr. brown , and another by mrs. curtiss , to countenance such his denyal . but , mr. prance , ( when you see the ghost ) tell him the matter of the bloud will ( and i assure you and all the world it will ) be proved by divers credible and undeniable evidence ; and that i may pacifie the ghost in the mean time , he is to understand that mr. brown , the two chyrurgeons , and mrs. curtiss , are no competent ( nor can be material ) witnesses in this case . for mr. brown ; as he did a rash and unaccountable act ( to give it no worse name ) in removing the body before the coroner and jury saw it , ( which hath occasion'd all this dispute ; , ) so he must not think to help himself by affidavits , or to justifie one ill act by another ; and besides , as he unadvisedly ( and contrary to all law and practice ) removed the body before the coroner and jury came ; so he did the same in the dark , ( about eight a clock at night ) when the candle was blown out ; whereby it was impossible for him to look for any bloud , so as to find it ; and neither he or the chyrurgeons ( by any day-light ) saw the place where the body was found , or where the sword was pulled out , until after 10 a clock the next day , before which time much of the bloud was taken up , and the rest trampl'd out of sight by the great concourse of the people which came thither . and as for mrs. curtiss , she only saw the body after it was brought home , when as the body was stript at the white-house , and a blanket borrow'd there to wrap the body in , so the world may judge of the truth of her affidavit . but ( mr prance ) it will be fully proved , that the body was full of bloud ; and that the● were cakes or gobbets of dry bloud found in his cloaths , which ( with his body ) stunk extremely . and it will be also fully and effectually proved , that his eyes , nostrils , and corners of his mouth , were fly blown ; tho' the ghost ( without the least colour of reason ) pretends it to be contrary to nature and reason ; when as common experience daily evinces the contrary . and i do observe , that the ghost omits to take notice of two material circumstances in this 3 d. paragraph , ( viz. ) the first as to the swords crashing against the back-bone : the second , as to that part of the sword which was in his body being discoloured . and pray , mr. prance , do you ( or the ghost ) give the reasons thereof , and of its point being rusty ; as also , what was , or could be the cause of the spots in the shirt , wastcoat and drawers , of greenish colour , mentioned in mrs. curtisses affidavit . iv. as to the 4th . paragraph of my letter , i perceive the ghost admits , that when a man is strangled or hanged , his eyes will be extorted ; and admits , that sir e. b. godfrey's eyes ( when found ) were shut ; only he seems to quarrel with the colour of his face ; and , seeing he admits his face not black ( as all hanged mens are , when cold ) i care not to contest , whether his face was pale or ruddy , or a little swell'd , or not , those being very inconsiderable circumstances . but his denying the putrefaction charged in that paragraph , and the consequences deduced from thence , is not only a great untruth , but is directly opposite to the evidence given by mr. skillard , at the tryal before mentioned . page 37 , 38. v. as to the 5th . paragraph ; the ghost is so far from answering the assertions therein , as that he only quibbles at words ; and begging the question , deduces thence impertinent and ridiculous arguments . for it will be proved , that his shoes were glazed at the bottom of the soles , and which must of necessity be occasioned by his walking on the grass . and ( mr. prance ) if you and the ghost will walk thither , you will easily experience it , and so may any body else satisfie himself in this speculation ; as also , as to the grass-seeds that stuck in the seams of his shoes ; which is so far from being impossible at that time of the year , ( as the ghost would argue ) as that it will be proved by undeniable evidence . but ( mr. prance , ) pray ask the ghost how he came there without a speck of dirt ? and who pick'd the horse-hairs off his cloaths ; and let him contrive ( if he can ) a probable or rational way for a dead man on horse-back . to hold up his legs , or to save them or his cloaths from the dirt : for though a man may walk thither very clean , yet it●s impossible at that time of the year to ride , either without being dirtied and some horse hairs sticking on his cloaths : but perhaps the next account from the ghost will be , that he either rid with gambadoes , or else a pair of fisher-mens boots . vi. as to the sixth paragraph , pray mr. prance tell the ghost , his railing against popish nurses and popish midwives is no answer to the assertions in that paragraph : for all the women in the town are competent judges thereof , and i hope the ghost will not say they are all papists . but pray tell the ghost he takes no notice of the heighth of the collar , and its being fast button'd about his neck when found . nor the conclusion of that paragraph ; and therefore i suppose he admits it to be all true . vii and as to the 7 and last paragraph , which relates only to the difference betwixt yours , and mr. bedlow's evidence ; i must take notice , that what you and he swear , are very contradictory , and much more than i hinted in my said letter : and though part of it be as he and you were informed , yet you and he swear the informations were received from the persons actually concerned in the murder , and who had confidence enough in mr. bedlow ( though he refused 4000l to help to kill him , and 2000l to help carry him away , ) as to shew him the dead body , and so were under no temptation of mis-informing either him or your self . and pray mr. prance , will you let the world know what reward you were to have for that job : for certainly you deserved as much as mr. bedlow , and needed more , you having a wife and children , and he a batchelor . thus , mr. prance , having gone through each paragraph of my letter , and answered the ghost to your satisfaction ; i should leave here , fearing i have been too tedious already : but i cannot omit to take further notice of mrs. curtis's affidavit , in relation to the drops of wax found upon the cloaths , in which i cannot say but she may swear true ; but this i do aver , that if it be so , those drops were put upon the cloaths long after he was found , and after the jury had sat on the body ; for there was no such thing then on the cloaths : and i suppose this was some artifice used by those , who , either out of interest or design , were desirous to confirm his being murthered at somerset-house , and to carry on the great lie and impertinent story then invented , and given out ( amongst others , ) that he was laid under the high altar there ; and if my information fail not , there were other such like tricks used , which i shall make bold to acquaint those more nearly concerned therein , than your self ; and shall give them to understand , that it 's no wonder a man in sir e. b. g's circumstances , should kill himself , such accidents being no news to that family , wherein melancholly and distraction ( that often produces such effects . ) hath been predominant , and might occasion the words he spake to sir tho. robinson , as to his being the first martyr . and now , mr. prance , for a conclusion , if you were guilty of the murder of sir e. b. g. how durst you ( as you did ) on the friday after he was found , go to primrose-hill to see the body , and not be afraid it should at your approach have bled afresh ? and how came you ( after green , bury , and hill were hanged , ) to declare in answer to a solemn question , that you knew nothing of the death of sir e. b. g. pray remember me to your old friend and lodger mr. renn , my respects also to your wife , not forgetting your little daughter , who gave you so good advice before you took your journey into nottinghamshire , and help'd to take beddingfield , who was bury'd 14 months . cambridge , march 13. 1681. i am your loving friend , trueman . london , printed for n. thompson , 1682. dr. oates's narrative of the popish plot, vindicated in an answer to a scurrilous and treasonable libel, call'd, a vindication of the english catholicks, from the pretended conspiracy against the life and government of his sacred majesty, &c. / by j.p., gent. phillips, john, 1631-1706. 1680 approx. 188 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 29 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a54760 wing p2083 estc r21048 12610849 ocm 12610849 64376 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a54760) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 64376) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 772:6) dr. oates's narrative of the popish plot, vindicated in an answer to a scurrilous and treasonable libel, call'd, a vindication of the english catholicks, from the pretended conspiracy against the life and government of his sacred majesty, &c. / by j.p., gent. phillips, john, 1631-1706. [4], 52 p. printed for thomas cockerill ..., london : 1680. dedication signed: j. phillips. "humbly presented to both houses of parliament." reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng warner, john, 1628-1692. -vindication of the inglish catholicks from the pretended conspiracy against the life et government of his sacred maiesty. popish plot, 1678. 2002-09 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2002-11 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2002-12 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2003-04 aptara rekeyed and resubmitted 2003-05 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2003-07 aptara rekeyed and resubmitted 2003-10 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2003-10 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2003-12 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion dr. oates's narrative of the popish plot , vindicated : in an answer to a scurrilous and treasonable libel , call'd , a vindication of the english catholicks , from the pretended conspiracy against the life and government of his sacred majesty , &c. by i. p. gent. humbly presented to both houses of parlament . london : printed for thomas cockerill , at the three legs in the poult over against the stocks-market , 1680. to the most renowned and most noble senate of europe , the lords and commons of england assembl'd in parlament . most illustrious and right honourable , a certain pamphlet has lately appear'd in the world without any name , which has daringly presum'd to call that pretended , which you have adjudg'd and voted real , i mean the popish plot. and indeed it has been one of the chief designs of the papists ever since the first discovery , one of their most laborious endeavours , as well by writing as by slanderous reports , to vilifie and render insignificant that evidence , which you have both approv'd and justifi'd ; though not before you found it fairly fix'd upon the basis of important truth . however , that they might not triumph in the conquests of their pens , as in the success of their busie councils , i undertook this brief essay to stop the career of the first , leaving the greater work to a more mighty power . i have not from hence taken any occasion in the least to wander among other differences among us , but kept to the subject ; firmly believing the infallibility of your counsels after such a serious debate , and that it was impossible that your prudence should be impos'd upon by one single person , to weigh and determin as you did . and i thought it would be more for the honour of a national concern to dedicate this small offering to your tribunal , then guiltily to put my self forth into the world like the popish vindicator in disguise . which is the best apology i can make , for the presumption of this publick , but most humble address of your devoted and most obedient servant , i. phillips . dr. oats's narrative of the popish plott vindicated : in answer to a scurrilous and treasonable libel call'd a vindication of the english catholicks , &c. catiline in the hight and heat of his impious conspiracy , at what time he was designing the murther of the consul , the massacre of the roman fathers , and the destruction of rome it self by fire and sword , had yet the confidence to enter the senate , and with a plausible harangue to justifie his innocency . an attempt almost as bold as his march to the intended sack of his native countrey . in like manner an imp of the same brood , a traitor of the same facinorous principles ( for the abettors in such important cases as these are as bad as the contrivers and actors ) after such lucid and apparent discoveries of papistical catilines and cethegus's , after so many examinations of national councils and assemblies , so many convictions and executions , so much unwearied pains and high expences to disintangle the guilty from the noozes of the law ; has presum'd to steal into the world , a malicious piece of labour in vain , which he calls in down-right gibberish , a vindication of the inglish catholicks from the pretended conspiracy against the life and government of his sacred majesty . a specious title indeed , wherein the venerable impostor , by condescending to allow the king his due and undenyable epithite of sacred , thinks to charm the readers ear , and lay the foundation of his delusion . it is a thing very easie to ascribe to the anointed of god the inseparable title of sacred ; but whether such a veneration proceed from the real motives of duty and allegiance , or from the glozing inducements of constrain'd and time-serving adulation , is many times greatly to be question'd : and indeed never more to be suspected than at this time , from a person who pretends to write a vindication of the profess'd enemies not only of our most sacred monarch , but of all protestant , or as they otherwise term them , heretical princes . for if his business be not to vindicate those whom we accuse , his vindication signifies nothing . i must needs say indeed , that his title salutes us with the prospect of a very lame story , and an enterprize undertaken by halves , in regard he only takes up the cudgels for the inglish catholicks ; as if the foreigners were saints : but he will find himself under a foul mistake , and that he ought to have prepar'd his fullers earth and his rubbing brush for both alike , both being equally sully'd with the same crimes , and stain'd with the same bloody principles . the occasion of the dispute is truth . the protestants would have her on their side , the catholicks court her to take their part . to which purpose the private aim of their vindication is to prove there was no popish plot ; the publick design , to render the first discoverer a meer caitiffe ; so not to be believd , and consequently that england was at that time and still is govern'd by persons either strangely credulous , and stupidly unwary , or else as strangely malicious and bloodthirsty . ponderous accusations to be thrown upon the government and religion of a nation . in the first place therefore it behoves us stricttly to examine , who this titan of a vindicator is , who so boldly dares to scale the heaven of soveraign majesty , and impeach at once the prudence and justice of three kingdoms . and then for whom all this bustle is made , for whom all this toyl and labour is undertaken ; who these pretended inhabitants of salem are , that breathe out such complaints of wrong and injury . who if they once appear such as we more than justly suspect them to be , will come very far short of their swelling expectations . there is no question then to be made but that this potent vindicator is a roman catholick ; what title he bears , or what order he musters under , it nothing imports . for of all those religious fraternities , confirmed by those imaginary vicars of christ , call'd popes , there is little or no difference to be made . they are all grown corrupt ; there is not one doth good , no not one . pride was the foundation of their humility ; impiety of their devotion , and interest of ecclesiastical policy confirm'd and supported their hypocrisie . this is not only one doctor 's opinion ; for take them altogether higglede pigglede , one with another , and then hear the character , which the great and famous mezeray , an author of their own profession bestows upon them . on ne sgauroit , sans rougir parler , &c. we cannot , without blushing , sayes he , speak of the vsury , the covetousness , the drunkenness , and dissoluteness of the clergy in general ; of the licentiousness and villanous debaucheries of the monks in particular : the luxury , the pride and prodigality of the prelates ; the shameful sloth , the stupid ignorance and superstition both of the one and the other . in another place the same historian speaks in general , that harry the fourth , during his reign , detected above fifty conspiracies against his life , the most of them contriv'd and fomented by the church-men and religious orders . upon which he makes this remark ; so many pernicious effects does indiscreet zeal produce . if you examine in particular the several guilds and societies of those papistical votaries , that so numerously overspread the several quarters of europe , you shall find the benedictines taxed and upbraided for their excessive pride of habit , their silken garments and their guilded shooes , for their gluttony and epicurism , and for their excessive wine-bibbing , in the primitive times of their institution . nay , you shall find them conspiring to poyson the founder benedict himself , because he held them too strictly to the observation of his rules , from this order sprang the monks of clugny , the monks of camaldoli , val ' ombrosa , grandmont , the carthusians , the cistertians and bernardines , the humiliates , the praemonstrates , and several other petty orders . as for the humiliates , who one would in charity think , should have been the most harmless and dovelike people in the world , they were such a notorious generation of vipers , that pius the v. not able to endure their enormous courses of living , and terrified with their intended assassination of cardinal borroméo , their protector , abolished the whole order , and would no longer suffer such vermin within the limits of his jurisdiction . of the rest , you have this lovely character given in general , without any complemental or partial exception , by an ancient english poet. qui duce bernardo gradiuntur , vel benedicto , aut augustine subleviore jugo , omnes sunt fures , quocunque charactere sancto signati veniant , magnificentque deum . who bernard's rules , or benedict's obey , or covet holy austin's lighter yoak , they 're all a pack of thieves , however they disguize their crimes , or falsely god invoke . more particularly sit and admire the heavy reproaches thrown upon all these sons of corah , said to be the monks of the third classis , by bernard abbot of clairvaux , for their most nefarious luxury and debauchery . venter , saith he , dum nescit , oneratur ; sed varietas tollit fastidium ; and in another place , parcitas putatur avaritia , sobrietas austeritas creditur , silentiam tristitia reputatur . petrus cantor affirms the monastical way of liviug to be supported ex foenoribus & usuris avarorum , ex mendaciis deceptionum et deceptionibus mendacium praedicatorum mercenariorum , &c. petrus cluniacensis will not allow the mansions of the monks to be other than synagoga satanae . and of the reverend fathers themselves , saith he , quid illi sibi de monacho praeter nomen & habitum vendicant ? honorius a presbyter of the church of autun in france , speaking of all the whole rabble , contemplare , saith he , monachorum conciliabula , & videbis in eis bestiae tabernacula , per habitum seculum fallunt , deceptos decepti decipiunt , secularibus negotiis impliciti , in servitio dei desides existunt . if you survey the fourth classis of mumpers , sturdy beggars , scrapcravers , and spittles , of which number are the carmelites , dominicans , franciscans , minors , &c. as for the carmelites , certainly a worse character cannot well be given to men , than that which nicolaus gullus , the seventh general master of their order has conferr'd upon them : who not only in a very high measure impeaches their sloth , their ignorance , their lust and luxury , but calls them reprobates , stigmatiz'd fellows , vagabonds , tale-bearers , citizens of sodom , and the tail of the dragon , drawing after it the third part of the stars . and these were they that to uphold the credit of their mumping trade , reported and defended it for truth , that the virgin mary went a beging . the dominicans had their rise from forgery , fraud and imposture , from feigned miracles , visions and apparitions of the mother of christ , now the derision and laughter of the world ; and the infernal politicks of rome , which having experienced the success of their founder dominick's invectives to the utter destruction of above a hundred thousand murther'd albigenses , thought it a piece of their ecclesiastical prudence to cherish and propagate such dexterous instruments of their cruelty . upon the same foundations were rear'd the great priviledges of franciscans , and minorites , whose crimes , iniquities , impostures , lewdness , and vices of all sorts and sizes , have been the themes that have employed the pens of sundry learned men , that could not forbear to detect their enormities . nor could any thing be more infamous in history , than that hellish piece of villany which was acted at bern in switzerland , upon occasion of the difference between the minorites and franciscans , about the conception of the virgin mary . in which story the reader may find the very person of christ , the virgin mary , and two of their own saints , st. barbara , and st. katherine , most audaciously rather nefariously counterfeited to support their own assertion . the relation is to be read in stumpsius's annals of switzerland . of these mendicants , nicolaus clemangis , arch-deacon of bayeux , raises a very severe and general question : quid commendabile de ipsis dicere possumus ? petrus de aliaco , a cardinal , stiles them , hominibus onerosos . polydore virgil calls them , fraudulentorum hominum sectam . as for the iesuits , how they have behav'd themselves in the world , you may easily see by their expulsions out of so many kingdoms and common-wealths : particularly after that villanous attempt upon the sacred person of henry the fourth by iean chastel , by a particular act of the parliament of paris , it was enacted , that the priests and scholars of the colledge of clermont , and all others of the society of jesus , as being corrupters of youth , disturbers of the publick tranquility , and enemies of the king and kingdom , should depart the kingdom in fifteen dayes , and that their goods and revenues should be employ'd in charitable works , as the parliament should think fit . father guignard , in whose chamber several scandalous libels were found against henry the 3 d. and henry the 4 th . was condemned to be hanged ; and father guerit , who had been chastel's tutor , sentenced to a perpetual exilement . of this same mysterious tribe are all those pretended imitators of iesus , who having made all england ring with their amazing villanies and parricides , have made all europe stare at the impudence of their defences and denials : for what they cannot deny , they vindicate ; what they cannot vindicate , they deny ; as if there were no truth in history , and that all were falshood but what they coyn in their mints of lying and equivocation , to support their unsanctified endeavours to maintain and propagate the power of antichrist . i say what they cannot deny , they try to vindicate . and thus because they could not deny the murther of henry the third , sixtus the first then pope , had the impudence to applaud the fact , with the epethites of insigne & memorabile , & longè majus quam illud sanctae iudith . which when once that lamb of god , who pretends to forgive all the crimes in the world , had done , no wonder mariana and verona follow'd his steps , the one in vindication of iacob clements , the other of iohn chastel ; no wonder there should be a book published at doway , in which the jesuits impeach'd the act of the parliament of paris of absurdity and injustice ; or that the jesuits should excite , exhort and encourage ravaillac to compleat that unhallowed murther which others had so unsuccessfully attempted . this may suffice to give you a short prospect of the credit of the whole roman catholick clergy , of which i may say in brief , as callimacus says of the cretans , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 : — or , as hesiod , in his theogonie of the lying priests of his time , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rather according to the character given to the unruly vain bablers and deceivers of his time , by st. paul , out of epimenides : 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . how then comes it to pass , that men who for so many ages together have been persons of a profligate credit , however they may blind the world with an outward sobriety , they that have long ago forfeited all their reputation for common honesty and morality ; for what signifies the morality of discharging the expences of daily necessities between neighbour and neighbour ? what imports an outward civil conversation in obedience to the law , when at the same time they are clandestinely designing against those very neighbours to deprive them of their political tranquility , and hazarding their estates by invading the soveraign protection of both. i say then how comes it to pass that such persons of profligate credit , the professors of a profligate religion ; a vicious and mishapen mixture of ceremony and superstition , that will not pass the muster of common reason ; should be such sisters and winnowers of truth ? what have they to do to be so strictly inquisitive after the motes in other mens eyes , that have such massy beams in their own ? why should it be such an improbability to believe , that people that were so active in their contrivances against q. elizabeth , king iames , and charles the first , should be so unlikely to plot against charles the second . as if the roman catholicks had but newly entertained the charm of sacred into their breasts , and that it was no protection against their violences , when as truly worn by his predecessors . with what impudence can they presume to be the judges of the pretended perjuries of other man , who themselves trample under foot the solemnity of swearing ; have invaded and corrupted all the laws of testimony , and with the canker and aqua fortis of their diabolical equivocations have endeavoured to corrode and dissolve the very ligaments and bands of humane societies ? because they deny , we must not be believ'd ; because they assert , there 's no contradiction to be made against them . a most ignenious project indeed , to propagate the grand mystery of iniquity . what a golden age it would be among thieves and robbers , ruffians and murtherers , and all sorts of malefactors , were they but once allow'd to defend their villanies by their own bare denyal of the facts , or the recrimitation of their accusers . but this vindicator and his crew , because they are no better than such , would fain have it so to be , that it might be at their own pleasure to govern the belief of the world. because they have render'd all their sayings , their writings and their attestations of as little credit as the alchoran ; therefore it is a thing impossible for any other men to speak truth . and yet while they are sweating , toyling , moyling , panting and labouring to stop and undermine the truth of evidence , encouraging and employing the debauched pens of criminals and protestants in masquerade , setting their mercenary emissaries for pitiful rewards and tavern expences , to fill the town and country with their stories , lyes and fables , to delude belief and trouble the stream of succeeding history , they do but act the same things of which they accuse others , rather disclosing and evincing than concealing their own shame , and manifesting the verity of their foul deeds . 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . the truth is always better detected by a patient silence and contempt of political malice , than by so many boistrous , laborious and forced vindications , which make it evident that so much bustle , so much stir is not for nothing . they confess there was a plot , but they say it was contriv'd by others , and not by them . and to that purpose , they endeavour'd to throw their meal-tub-shams upon the innocent ; but the success of the proof on both sides was far different ; for many of theirs have suffer'd , none of ours were so much as question'd . and yet such was their diligence , such the discouragement of ours , such the strength of their party , that perhaps it might have gone hard with some persons , had there been the least appearance of truth in what was design'd by those knights of the meal-tub , and crafty secretaries of collonel mansel's pretended letters . but all those elaborate engines of deceit being providentially overturn'd and render'd unsuccessefull , what can men of reason judge but that all their windings and shiftings , all their forgeries and reproaches , all their rolling sisyphus's stone , are but the effects of their disappointed fury to see their tottering religion more weakned and expugned by their own diabolical practices , that have thrown upon their nonsensical superstition the additional stains and defilements of treason and murder , and awaken'd the jealousies of all the princes of europe to put in execution the motto of lewis the xii . perdam baylylonis nomen , more than all the opposition either of germany or geneva . seeing then all the several orders of the roman clergy , and this vindicator of the inglish catholicks , being of the same gang , are so far from being persons of credit , that they are not only the subject of every satyrical pen , but the religious scorn and indignation of so many good and grave men of their own profession ; we may presume that those thunder-bolts of perjury and concocted lyes which they toss with so much rage at others , will not prove so fatal as vain malice suggests to men of their own lewd principles . now then to the particular difference between the vindicator and dr. oats . and first let us see whence comes this dismal shower of broad arrows , and barbed defiances . it seems , non omne malum ab aquilone ; a little brush of misfortune from the south , st. omers and doway must club to vindicate the inglish catholicks . two reverend seminaries of mischief , where are the best forges and the best artists , as famous for forming lyes and reproaches against the protestants , as the workmen of montpellier for making of tweezers . what instructors of youth they are , is yet fresh in memory , upon their sending such a knot of young striplings , furnished and fortified with all the sleights of equivocation , to lye and forswear themselves for conveniency ; a vertue which the iesuits thought both rationable and justifiable , as being applauded by lucians philospeudes , the vindicators particular author . so that i am afraid there is but little hopes of truth to come from either of these places , where the masters are so ready , and the scholars so apt to learn the mystery of lying . his address to the reader , he calls to the courteous reader ( for indeed the reader must be very courteous that takes notice what he says ) and tells him , he is to examine a pamphlet , which is singular in its kind . he means something else , whatever it is ; help him mrs. cellier . for certainly this was not the first detection that ever was made of popish conspiracy and treason in england , and therefore not singular in its kind . but he endeavours to explain himself , saying , it is an original ; for its author found none to copy : and he hopes none will ever copy him . in truth , i don't understand him yet ; 't was very discourteously done to chop nonsence upon a courteous reader at the first dash . it was a violent strain to usher in a quibble . but whatever the vindicator meant , the author of the original never meant it should be other . he does well to confess it an original ; for then you may be sure it was the authors own . no work , he says , so like the true narrative , as lucians true history . what did this fool mean to bring the true narrative and lucian's true history together , between which there is no more paralell or similitude than between an oyster and a pippin . if he did it to shew his learning , he is cursedly mistaken to conclude the falshood of the true narrative from the truth of lucians true history . for to tell him the truth , lucian 's true history is no true history ; so that by the force of his antithesis , lucians true history being feigned , the true narracive must be true . however like one that never read lucians true history , he essayes to make out his comparison , and sayes , lucians true history is witty , the true narrative stupid . go on — that delights , this grieves ; that laughs , this bites . a very pretty description of a true history . however in so doing , it did the office it was intended for ; it did both grieve and bite , but none but those that deserved it , which was a greater argument of its being true , than any the vindicator has brought out of lucian to prove it false . so that i am apt to believe , this conceit of the vindicators was conceived in his heel ; as lucian , in his true history tells ye , the men in the moon conceived , and not in his head. however he has placed it in the forefront of his battel , to shew ye the strength of his imagination . he sayes , he never saw the man. non imperte — and so knows nothing of him but by hear-say , and his works , which discover his better part , his soul : i find the shallow vindicators prospective-glass was too short to discover his soul ; but as to his body , it being allowable among the iesuits to abuse those they never saw in their lives , he adds , that his physiognomy in a pamphlet is said to be an index to all villany , and that any letter'd man may read rogue in his face . this denotes in the vindicator two jesuitical perfections , malice and rascality , from the single authority of a pamphlet to call a man rogue , that he never saw in his life . and who wrote this pamphlet ? a certain fortune-teller of their own gang. a very easie way of defamation , to borrow reproaches from one another . however there be that say , if they had had his face , they would not have chang'd it with any of the five jesuits that were hang'd . certain it is , that being presented to the bishop of st. omers for confirmation , he stopt when he came to oats , because he doubted whether his heart was prepared to receive the holy ghost , the spirit of love , in whose face he perceived signs of great malice . it seems then , the vindicator berogu'd the man he never saw , by his own confession , upon trust ; the more knave he for his pains ; for he was not certain of the first , but he is certain of this. and what does this signifie ? as if the bishop of st. omers spoke nothing but gospel . men must be scandaliz'd by such enemies to truth as the vindicator , because such disciples of artemidorus , as the bishop of st. omers , shoot their fools bolts at random against a young scholars face . an excellent reward for a proselite that came to be admitted into their foppish religion . but to return your bishop physiognomie for his physiognomie ; st. francis , one of his great saints , was such a contemptible , ill-look't , beetle-brow'd fellow , that when he came to innocent the third for the confirmation of his rule , the pope bid him go wallow with the hogs , ( for whom he was fitter company than for men ) and not trouble him with his rules . so much may the pope , much more the bishop of st. omers , be deceived in humane physiognomie . the vindicator goes on ; he stiles himself ( quoth he ) doctor of divinity , and sayes he commenced doctor at salamanca . which cannot be ; first , for he never was at salamanca . to which the doctor answers , that it may be , for first , he was at salamanca . now whether the doctors argument be not as good as the vindicators , i leave to any ordinary logician : nay it is more probable that the doctor should know whether he was at salamanca or no , than a man that never saw him in his life . secondly , none but priests , saith he , are admitted to that degree in catholick vniversities , and he never was a priest. to this the doctor makes answer , that the vindicator is in a very great errour : for that father landayada , when he was only a clericus minor was made a doctor , and that he was not made a priest till some time afterwards . but the doctor could not stay for his priesthood , because of his urgent occasions in england . then the vindicator tells ye a story of the archbishop of tuam , how the doctor wrote to him for holy orders , which the bishop deny'd him , because of the ill charracter he heard of his life and manners . who does this vindicator write to ? certainly not to the protestants ; and then what does his vindication signifie ? here is an irish priest , that pretends to an archbishoprick in the king of englands dominions , to which he has no more right than tom thumb , one that lives under the ill character of an exile , a renegado , one that has renounc'd his allegiance to his soveraign , and as a foreigner gives him only the title of most serene king of great britain ; and because this hedge archbishop would not give the doctor what he had no power or authority to conferre , and to excuse himself pretends an ill character of the doctor , therefore this must pass for currant . 't is easily believ'd , that they who usurp all the good characters to themselves , have none to spare for the doctor , the capital enemy of their treasons and impieties . it argues nothing but meer spite and malice to lay general accusations against a mans physiognomy , and reproach him with the general term of an ill character , when they lay nothing in particular to his charge . and so good night to this silly objection . thirdly , he had not learning sufficient for any degree in a catholick vniversity . that 's strange ! how then come so many dunces , blockheads , ignoramus's and stupid theologists , to obtain their degrees in catholick universities . a thing so common , that there is nothing more frequently complain'd of than the doltish ignorance of the romish clergy . but the doctor tells the vindicator , that he is still resolv'd to assume the title in spite of his teeth ; and still asserts it to be his right ; and that he had once a fair diploma to have justifi'd the truth of it , ( if any truth may be justifi'd to such opinionated and headstrong mules as the vindicator and his gang ) but that fenwick , white , and wilmot rifl'd his study , and took it from him , as the monks of doway serv'd a reformed brother of theirs , by robbing him of his letters of orders , to the end he might not be able to justifie his ordination . nevertheless the doctor is not so bare of testimony , but that fenwicks papers sufficiently witness'd before the lords , that the charges of his proceeding at salamanca were payd by the society here in london : a fair argument , that the dr. had as much learning as the quoter of lucians true history , and as well deserved his degree for it , as he will do for his vindication . and thus the vindicator , against his will , happens to speak an unlucky piece of truth , that the doctors doctorship and papists treason were both hammer'd on the same anvil . for no question but salamanca was as deeply concern'd in the plot as st. omers . now , quo he , i appeal to all who know any thing of the iesuites , whether it be credible that oats a scholar , should be employ'd in negotiations of state , of most dangerous nature and highest consequence ? oh! are ye come to your appeals ? then we shall deal well enough with ye . who would think it credible that the iesuites , those doctors of policy , those engrossers and forestallers of learning , should employ such a pitiful poor scholar , as iean chastell the son of a draper , in such a negotiation of state , of such a most dangerous nature and highest consequence , as the murther of a sacred king ? who would think that that same pythagoras of a iesuite , should run the risco of being his tutor and instructer to prepare him for the fact ? and yet so it was without any equivocation , and there was a fair attempt made , for which the iesuits were expell'd france , father guignard was hang'd , and the philosopher gueret condemned to perpetual banishment . now after all this , who would think the jesuits and other papists should be so impudent , as to come with their ifs and and 's , and how is it probables , to vindicate themselves from the guilt of the assassination ? who would think they should go about to lay their crimes upon the huguenots , as the vindicator and his gang lately endeavour'd to father their treasons upon the presbyterians ? and yet they were so impudent , and did so . for with your good leave , mr. vindicator , litera scripta manet , there 's no fence against the record of allow'd history . the author of the libel printed at doway , against the decree of the parliament of paris , was so confident as to averr , that it was fram'd and compos'd on purpose to render the iesuits odious . how is it probable , cryes the same author , that chastel , such a proficient in philosophy , should suffer himself to be perswaded , that kings might be murther'd ? how is it likely , that chastel should so positively affirm , that such approv'd doctors should write and teach the same ? so that the courteous reader may plainly see , this way of iffing and anding , and appealing , is no more than their old way of shamming and shifting , reviv'd by the compendium , and imitated again by this same learned reader of lucian . certain it is , they could not be without some body to do the drudgery of transaction : and why their pupil oats , a scholar , as they themselves call him , might not be as fit a person to go of their messages , carry their letters and open 'em by the way , as any of their learned priests ; why he might not be thought to have behav'd himself so well among them , as to be trusted , and entrusted , and trusted again , there has nothing happen'd in the sequel of his conduct that could make any man think the contrary . neither indeed was there that vast difference between the doctors despised parts , and the elevated capacities of them that were hang'd , but that he might be an associate with better men than they at any time . and there is no greater argument of his being one of their chief instruments , than the mistaken judgment that they made of his physiognomy . for the vindicator confesses they intended him much good , if his nature had been susceptible of good advice . otherwise 't was very ill done of the iesuits , so lovingly to entertain a person in whose face they read rogue , and was so obnoxious for the ill characters of his life and manners , but that through those very errors of their silly skill in phisiognomy , they look'd upon him as a fit engine to carry on their designs . so that from his own conclusion revers'd , since there was nothing of strangeness or improbability in the plot , as being a common piece of papistical practice , it is as little strange or improbable , that oats a schollar should be employed in it . he would perswade us in the next place , that the doctor was never employ'd by iesuits , because he says , he knew the generals hand and seal , and had several times seen his name ; yet in the first place , never hit his name right . it might be very true that the doctor had seen his name , and yet never see it truly written . 't is a frequent thing in england for strangers to misspell one anothers names , and it is as frequent to prosecute and sue persons by names mis-spelt , and yet such a misnomer invalidates neither the prosecution nor the action . he was right in the bulk of the name oliva ; whether it were de oliva , or di oliva , or d' oliva , it was not a straw matter , neither were the letters tak'n in white 's chamber produc'd to prove the wrong or right spelling of the general 's name , but that he was guilty of the plot ; which doing so effectually as they did , 't was not material to examin whether d' oliva's name were spelt right or no. he says the doctor mistakes the inscription of the seal , and that there never was a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in any iesuits seal . a general and therefore very bold assertion . and yet he confesses the seal varies , and sometimes contains one thing , then another . but what is this to the purpose ? for throughout all the true narrative the doctor does not undertake to tell the inscription of the iesuits seal . he saies indeed in his true narrative , that i. h. s. signified the iesuits : he also says that the commissions to the chief conspirators were stamped by the general of iesuits , but concerning the form or fashion of the seal , there is not one single syllable . the vindicators business is to answer the true narrative ; if he do not that , he does nothing . alas poor silly woodpecker ! he come to strike at the root of a discovery with such dull tools as these ! i had thought he would have brought such dismal instruments of ruin , that would have display'd the very foundations of the tower of babel , that he would have put off his doublet , fallen to work , and outdone hercules's twelve labourers : instead of this , he comes in sneaking like some superannuated pigmy , with a couple of formal sentences , which his grandmother taught him , or else collected out of gregories morals , or some such musty author ; as if he had quitted the force of reason , and intended to proceed by the more lazy way of miracle . alas ! we knew that the speaking of material contradictions weaken the credit of a witness ; we knew what truth , and falshood were , without the aid of his nonsensical information . then he rambles into the tryals of ireland , coleman and langhorn , which no way belong to his province , and for reply to which we shall referr the reader to dr. oats's vindication in answer to the compendium , from whence this feeble vindicator has rifl'd both his matter and his observations . then he proceeds and says , the doctor declar'd in parliament , he had no body considerable to accuse besides those he had nam'd , but after he accused some of the very prime , whom before he had not nam'd . from this suggestion , though absolutely false , the vindicator would have the dr. evidently perjur'd . to which purpose he sets up a court of judicature consisting of himself , and by the help of a scrap of latin , and a versicle of scripture nothing to the purpose ( as being far more applicable to himself and his party ) condemns the doctor , and declares himself satisfi'd . and thus you see , gentlemen , the vindicator has got a great victory ; he has convinc'd himself ; and so there 's one of his great labours over . one would have thought he would have stop'd here , as believing the world would have been fully satisfied in his judgment . but he proceeds and sayes , the manner of the accusation is such , as any knave by his oath might bring any person in question . he means , the accusation was an accusation ; for all the world knows , an accusation justified upon oath , will bring the parties accused into question . but accusations of that importance as are contain'd in the true narrative , are too high attempts to be carryed on by ordinary knaves , but only such extraordinary knaves as themselves ; such as they that had so lately contriv'd to put their shamms upon the innocent , to cover their own shame . but there was this difference between the doctors accusation and theirs , that his was providentially upheld , theirs by providence confounded . we have a long story , quoth the vindicator , of treasonable words spoken , and treasonable letters written by several , who all protest they never heard of any such thing , till oats 's narrative appear'd . assuredly this fop of a vindicator wrote his vindication to be laught at ; for men were not such fools to betray themselves . and yet in some measure by the help of their dear minion , equivocation , they protested the truth . they did not believe they had spoken treasonable words , or written treasonable letters , till the doctors narrative appearing , both their words and letters were so adjudged : but then it seems their ears were open'd ; and you do not hear the vindicator urge their protestation any farther than the appearing of the narrative . the story of bedingfield , as he by his own confession relates it out of a pamphlet , scribl'd by one of his confederates ( by which you may see from what muck-hills of treason he rakes his scoundrel observations ) to speak his own language , is a wicked lye. for bedingfield knew there was a pacquet lay for him at the post-house ; but not daring to fetch it himself , sent a friend for it , and when he had it , shew'd it another cordial friend , besought him to carry the letters to court , and to improve them to the best advantage ( which the vindicator calls doing his duty : ) thereupon the letters were shewn in council as disown'd by bedingfield , and an argument drawn from thence of the improbability of the plot , that men should of themselves produce letters of that consequence ; but bedingfield being sent for to be examin'd about them , could not be found high nor low ; he had prudently withdrawn himself out of harms way . the story of atalanta had taught bedingfield that piece of cunning ; who not daring to trust himself to an escape with such papers about him , like those that scatter gold to prevent the swiftness of pursuit , sent his troublesome pacquet to employ the debates of the council , when the business was new and scarcely believ'd , while he shifted for himself . otherwise father bedingfield might as well have carryed his innocent pacquet to court himself , as have troubled his friend . and it had been a noble piece of service for such a grave father to have appear'd , and by the discovery of the doctors knavery , as they call it , to have diverted the tempest so blackly threatning the heads of his dear friends . but to give the vindicator scripture for scripture , out of the very next words to his quotation , in the first epistle to timothy ; 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . the rest of the paragraph is meer canting and mockery of god and men ; the more ridiculous for his quotation of whitebread . as if he had no other supports for his vindication than the hypocritical ejaculations of executed traytors . but now he will follow the deponent step by step . there 's something in that , for all this while he has done nothing . and what he says , shall be confirm'd by the undoubtedly true attestation of arch-bishop of tuam , the perjur'd frye of st. omers and doway , the jesuits of the confederacy , and the rest of his bloody canaille ; murtherers shall give it ye under their hands they are no murtherers , and traitors attest they are no traitors . drive on coachman . for though in equity our bare denyal ought to be preferr'd before his asseverations , when the vindicator is chancellor , not otherwise ; for , in dubio favendum est reo , prius quam actori , which is utterly deny'd him , when hitherto neither justice nor reason have made any doubt of the guilt of his party ; yet he will prove irrefragably what he advances ; that is , if he can . however his heart is good , and he promises fair ; so that if the old proverbs of curst cows and threatned folks do not help us , we are all at a loss . in the two following paragraphs you shall find him accoutring himself to make his publick entry , putting on the vizor of a starched humility , dressing himself in all habiliments of dissimulation and hypocrisie , flattering the king whom he abhorrs in his heart , colloguing with the parliament which he abominates , and acting all the tricks of jesuitical mountebankry that st. omers magazine could furnish him withall . he says , he will not repeat the seditious and traiterous words of his majesties sacred person ; that is to say , he owns 'em all to be true , and therefore he will not put himself upon impossibilities , to vindicate the english catholicks in this particular . as for his complement to his majesty , 't is only to be lookt upon as the forced effect of papistical dispensation , necessary at this conjuncture . there 's never a time that he calls the king sacred , but he receives absolution . else he would endure a long demorage and a severe chastisement in purgatory , to call that person sacred whom he knows to be excommunicated by his lord god the pope , and depriv'd of his dominions by his ecclesiastical censures . certainly , saies he , the words were never spoken by any papist , priest or iesuit . certainly they were ; and some of them were hang'd for their pains ; nor is it the first time they have done so . the papists , and among them the monks and jesuits , were they that unking'd henry the 3 d. of france , and left him nothing but the bare title of henry valois . the monks and jesuits were they that made the pulpits of paris ring with their rebellious declamations against their soveraign . and the whole faculty of theology then among the papists esteemed the chiefest of christendom , gave it for their opinions , that the french were absolv'd from their allegiance to henry of valois . and does the vindicator believe there were neither papists , monks nor jesuits of that facalty ? — credat iudaeus apella . what priest , monk or jesuit durst give the title of sacred to henry of navarr , whom sixtus the v. their head and lord , by whom they all subsist , had condemned for a heretick , depriv'd of his dominions , and declared incapable of succeeding to the crown . the pope , the sorbonne , the iesuits , and allmost all the new orders of religion , ( among which we are to believe there were neither papists nor monks ) were they that contriv'd and fomented the league of the french papists against their two soveraigns , henry the 3 d , and henry the 4 th . father claude matthieu , a jesuit , was call'd le courier de la ligne , because of his continual posting to rome for the advancement of that rebellion . and can any man be so stupid as to imagin , that all this while those fryars , monks and jesuits , never spoke treasonable words , when they utter'd nothing but treason in their pulpits ; never wrote treasonable letters , without which such a rebellion could never be carryed on ; or believ'd the title of sacred belong'd to pope-condemn'd and anathema'd princes ? — credat iudaeus apella . i fetch not these instances out of protestant records , but from their own historians . from whence i argue the falshood and arrogance of this quacking vindicator , and by which all men of sence and story may see what credit there is to be given to the rest that follows . did he see his observations would be offensive to any in authority , he would suppress them . no , no — 't is well enough ; for though this sentence of the vindicators be an impudent reflection upon the supream authority of england , and those who at present govern the helm of state , yet some compassion may be shew'd to his sawcy supposition , and pretended blindness , in regard that by divulging his inconsiderate malice , he has rather justified the proceedings of those in authority , than vindicated those miscreants whom they punished . the lords spiritual and temporal are mightily beholding to him for his acknowledgments , though 't is verily suppos'd , they will hardly return him their thanks , unless he will vouchsafe to come over and fetch it himself . he did ill , when he was in such a courteous vein , not to thank 'em too for voting what was discover'd in the narrative to be truth : then the disproof of the true narrative would render him an illustrious vindicator indeed . nothing could be sufficient for his recompence , but the pontificate it self . but the lewd progress he makes presages so ill of his side , that if he ever come to preferment in the church , it must be by his duncery , and not by his ingenuity . but now he returns to the king , and hopes his majesty will not be displeased with harmless endeavours to vindicate persons wrongfully accused . he forgets his title of sacred already ; and blaspheming that sacred majesty which he pretends to reverence , presumes to tell the king , that those persons whose crimes and treasons he himself had so patiently and with so much consideration examin'd , were wrongfully accused . yet not content with this , under the disguise of humble admonition , from his castle of st. omers , more daringly assails his sacred honour , and taxes him of shedding innocent blood. who would not now believe this miscreant vindicator himself , to be one of those that contriv'd the assassination of his sacred person , that so irreligiously attacks and undermines his sacred reputation ? and what is all this clamor for ? onely for putting to deserved death a company of varlets and vagabonds , who ought to have been hang'd , if for nothing else , for only scaperloytring within the forbidden limits of his dominions . he is now got into a preaching humour , and sayes , defence of life and honour is commanded by the law of nature . 't is so , and therefore his most sacred majesty is resolv'd to take the best care he can to preserve his own , and the life and honour of his subjects , from the villanous attempts of the vindicator and his confederates . for , pursues he , should we admit the reproaches of traitors , conspirators , plotters , king-killers , &c. we were not fit to live in any state. 't is very true ; and therefore because they could not avoid those reproaches , that 's the very reason they have been expell'd out of so many states and kingdoms , and particularly out of this. and so to his observations on the epistle dedicatory . he begins , mr. oats — well — here friend — what 's your business ? why , — if all you say in your narrative be true , if the conspiracy be real — &c. — then so . but if the plot be feigned , if the whole information be a heap of lies , if the persons accused be innocent , &c. — then so — a very worshipful speech in good sooth — for the which , — dii te , damasippe , deaeque — donent tonsore — it is a very irrefragable argument indeed , and i suppose such a one as they call at st. omers , argumentum ad hominem ; that is , the vindicator calls to mr. oats , being a man , and tells him , if it be so — 't is so — if it be otherwise — 't is otherwise — from whence i argue , that if the logick of st. omers be no profounder , it may be easily fathom'd . well then for once we will grant , that if the doctors narrative be true , he merits reward ; if false , he deserves punishment . now what 's the consequence ? why the consequence is this . if the narrative be false , no crime can be greater than his. if true , no reward can be too great . i appeal to both the universities , whether this be not acutely argued ? but , heaven be prais'd , the logical fit is over , and the vindicator betakes himself to his former method of rambling discourse , which better agrees with his humour , if i may not say capacity . you boast , saith the vindicator , of your inbred loyalty , which neither your education nor your discourse confirm . suppose a man be bred a turk or a iew , what is that to the purpose how he was educated in his youth ? he left his fathers education , and came to you to st. omers for breeding ; why did not you teach him better ? we had thought you had intended your vindication against the doctor , not his eather . now for his discourse , you say , the doctor calls concealing treasons and concurring with treasons ( the subject of his majesties pardon ) human frailties , as if he esteemed them little peccadillo's , and venial sins . pray , mr. vindicator , where were your brains ? or how long did you scratch before you hit upon this learned exposition of yours . for he sayes no such words , and the sence of what he writes you most falaciously misinterpret . the doctor sayes only this , that the narrative had its rise from his inbred loyalty , and credits support under god to his majesties gracious pardon for several humane frailties in the management : as much as to say , his majesties gracious pardon of several humane frailties in the conduct of his discovery , were the support of it against the machinations of such subverters of truth as the vindicator . his pardon for concealing your treasons , and concurring with your crew , was a pardon of another nature , which there was no occasion here to mention : by the way , good mr. screw-sence , in your reply , be sure to tell us what you mean by little peccadillo's . to what the doctor says , that the many encroachments of the papists upon princes for these thousand years , prove their inclinations for the future . you answer , what will the encroachments of the presbyterians prove ? what 's that to you , or what is it to the purpose ? the encroachments of the presbyterians are no excuses of the encroachments of the papists . the presbyterians stick strangely in your stomach . i find you want employment . you would fain animate the protestant princes against the presbyterians . 't is true , we know you could help 'em to a massacre or two at a short warning . but at present there is no such occasion . in the mean time , what say you to the encroachments of the papists ? that 's your charge . with much adoe at length you say , that the rebellions , which you mincingly call the disorders of the catholicks , were like agues in the spring , neither painful nor dangerous , and leave the body more healthy than before . so you conclude that the papists may be rebels , massacre , murder , play the devils with two sticks , 't is all for the health of a kingdom . so you murder'd henry the third , and henry the fourth , for the health of the kingdom ? god preserve england from your papistical agues . here 's a vindicator of the inglish catholicks indeed , to support and encourage treason , while he endeavours to vindicate 'em from it ! the catholicks have great hopes of your destroying the true narrative . he is offended that the dr. charges the late unnatural war upon the papists . but 't is very true , for all his ale and history ; for had not the papists perpetrated that inhumane massacre in ireland , those other heats of a few violent spirits had soon been overmaster'd . but when the papists by that bloody means had conjur'd up the fears and jealousies of the nation for the common safety , 't was high time to disarm papists , and put priests and jesuits to death . afterwards , when the kingdom was all in a combustion , the papists flock'd to the king not so much out of loyalty , as to protect themselves from the revenge that threaten'd the crimson fact they had committed . then for the service they did the king , it was none at all , but rather an injury ; for they did but weaken and pull down his , as the huguenots by adhering to henry the third , advanced and strengthened the duke of guises party , to the destruction of both those unfortunate monarchs . we could give the vindicator a cluster of evidences of the disloyalty of the inglish catholicks to their native soveraigns . particularly , how unlikely a thing it is , that they who would have murthered king iames in his cradle , should prove loyal to his father ? that they should fight out of loyalty for the preservation of his majesties crown , and the protestant cause ? no , no , they hop'd by that disunion , which they appear'd in only to advance and render more desperate , that there would be no need of catholick arms to reduce them to the romish church , but that in time they would pave the way to it themselves . but being defeated of their hopes , then they fell to their old way of plotting , according to the method of the doctors narrative . had the dr. added , that the papists were the first contrivers of the late wars for the health of the nation , the vindicator would have been pleased ; but because he did not , therefore he was displeased : and because he cannot be reveng'd upon the doctor , therefore he falls pell mell again upon the presbyterian , asking questions with one side of his mouth , and answering them with the other . who did this ? the presbyterians ; who did that ? the presbyterians . who did the t'other thing ? the presbyterians . but to retaliate his kindness , the vindicator must give us leave to ask a few questions in the same manner . who massacred the poor innocent albigenses ? the papists . who committed that bloody butchery in paris ? the papists . who massacred the poor harmless piedmontors ? the papists . who were the actors of that impious tragedy in ireland ? the papists . who were the contrivers of this last horrid plot ? the papists . so that the vindicator does but sharpen his own weapons against his own and the breasts of his own party ; and the dirt of rebellion still remains as foul as ever upon their own hypocritical habits . i will ask the vindicator but one question more ; who they were that brought a petition to oliver cromrel , wherein they promis'd that if he would tolerate the popish religion in england , they would assist him to extirprate the family of the stewards ? and whether they were not as like to proffer a thousand pounds for the discovery of his majesties escape after worcester fight ? as long as it was the act of the papists , 't is no matter for the mistake of a name or two . upon his next repetition of the following expression in the epistle , what arguments can perswade them to be true to their natural , who profess allegiance , out of conscience to a foreign contrary soveraign ? he answers readily , no english papist doth so . he may well say readily ; for such answers , indeed , are very readily coyn'd . but i say , bellarmine , thou lyest : for if the english papist do not do so , he is no papist , but a mungrel . to prove this , he renounces his religion , and says , that the pope , out of his temporal dominions , is no more regarded than the d. of parma , or the prince of monaco . this is another manifest untruth ; for it is the positive doctrine of the papists , that by meer divine right , the pope is supream and sole monarch of the world ; and that all monarchs and princes are his vassals ( which includes his authority in temporals as well as spirituals ) : insomuch , that the legat of pope adrian told frederick barbarossa to his face , that he held his empire at the pleasure of the holy father ; which if they did not believe for gospel , and that they were not tyed in greater bonds of allegiance to the pope , than to their native princes , they would never so often have revolted and renounc'd their fidelity to their soveraigns , as they have done upon every trifling excommunication from the see of rome . and it would be a ridiculous vanity for the pope to assume to himself a power of depriving princes of their kingdoms , which is a supream authority in temporals , if he thought the people did not believe themselves bound to obey him in temporals as well as spirituals . 't is the fear of temporal accidents , not the spiritual fulminations , that has scar'd so many princes , and brought the empire of germany almost to a morsel of bread. but this same vindicator and his crew , are such a parcel of obstinate , willful vermin , that they will believe nothing in the world , either of history or reason , that makes against them , be it never so certain , never so plain . all the rest of this chapter is nothing but ribble-rabble , as wide from the purpose , as dan from bersheba . now we are come to the contradictions and lyes . chap. ii. a discovery in the address to the reader . 't is very true , here is a prodigious yelping and bawling , a hideous black sanctus of lyes and contradictions , contradictions and lyes , beyond all the yells and dins of green-hastings and mackarel . but now i think on 't , i can tell what 's the matter ; the jesuits are ringing all their bells backward to raise the country upon dr. oates : and yet after all this confounded noise , enough to startle all the wild beasts in a lybian forrest , the vindicator tells us not a word what a lye or a contradiction is ; as if that men of sense were such silly partridges to cowre under the lowbells of jesuitical clamour . these jesuits are a pack of knaves that must be look'd after . 't is a thousand pound to a nutshell , but that this deceitful vindicator may have arraign'd and condemn'd for lyes and contradictions , those things which are not so ; and that for perjury , which deserves no such sentence . and therefore , for the better discovery of the vindicator's fraud , it will not be amiss to produce the several definitions of contradictio , mendacium , and perjurium , that so the vindicator's pretended accusations being brought to their several tests , the juggles of this st. omers pamphleteer , may more easily be made apparent . a lye , then , is that by which a false thing is signified either in word or deed , with an intent to deceive . a lyar is one that delights to speak a falsity which he knows to be so ; or a truth which he believes to be false . on the other side , he is no lyar who tells a thing that is false , which he verily believes to be true ; he may be said to err , not to tell a lye. now in this first chapter he tells us , the deponent says , the narrative was presented to his majesty the 13th of august last , and sworn upon the sixth of september . these , like a great knave ( for 't is fit he should have as good as he brings ) he calls two great lyes ; for as to the first , he says , the narrative contains things averr'd to have happened upon the 3 , 4 , 6 , 7 , and 8 of september following . and what of all this ? the narrative was presented privately in august , at what time , and till the eighth or ninth of september following , the deponent remained undiscovered . to the next he answers , that the dr. and sir edmund-bury godfrey assure it was sworn the twenty-seventh of september . that is false ; for the date of the certificate which he carps at , is only the date of sir edmund-bury godfrey's certificate , that it was sworn before him , not when it was sworn . but suppose these passages had been both false , where is the intent of deceiving , that made them lyes ? the intent of deceiving must have lain in the falsity of the narratives being actually presented , or actually sworn to ; which being really true , the error of a trivial circumstance , is but one of your little piccadillo's as you call them . and now mr. vindicator , are not you a pitiful , idle , inconsiderate , both fool and knave , in a vindication of the english catholicks from so horrid a crime as they lye under , which should have been weighty and great , so unworthily and porter-like to give a gentleman the lye to posterity , upon such silly , illiterate , pitiful and low-conceited inadvertencies as these ? give me leave to tell you , sir , you have hitherto shewed us nothing but the symptoms of your future folly and duncery ; and whereas you are pleased to bespatter the deponent with such lackey-like and slovenly language , dispeream si tu pyladi prestare matellam dignus es , aut porcos pascere perithoi . chap. iii. containing his informations from spain . in this chapter the vindicator pretends to tell us of abundance of lyes : for as yet , i meet with neither contradictions , nor perjury . observe now how he makes them out . he denies that strange the provincial , keines , langworth , harcourt and fenwick did write a treasonable letter to suiman at madrid , concerning the contriving and plotting a rebellion in scotland ; and yet you see there was a rebellion in scotland soon after , which makes it shrewdly suspicious , or in plain english altogether credible . but what 's his reason ? because there was never any such letter . how does he prove it ? by the attestation of strange himself , the very first person accused of the plot in the doctors narrative . and then again , he says , it never was the practise of the iesuits , that many should sign their names with the provincial . neither does the doctor say any such thing ; he says , they wrote the letter , that is , they were present at the writing of it , which is the same thing : so that the attestation of m. k. r. s. c. b. and the rest of his several confederate iesuits was only a trifle of supererogation . he denies that morgan , wright and ireland were imployed to preach as presbyterians to the disaffected scots , &c. how does he know all this ? because no english iesuit was ever sent into scotland . wright was infirm , and went into england for his health . as if england had not been in his way to scotland . but he was recall'd shortly after . how long that might be , god knows , considering how the jesuits are able to stretch such a whitleather word as shortly . and as for morgan and ireland , they never were out of england . just as he denied his being in london , because he was in the liberties of westminster . he denies that the dr. broke up those letters at burgos , and read the contents . his reason ? — because he has told ye , there were no such letters , therefore he could not read the contents . this is just like their silly pleading at newgate . in the third article he has found a nest of lyes , no less than four at a time , denying , that ashly , blondel , and the two peters ' s sent twelve scholars into spain , eight to valladolid , and four to madrid , as appear'd by their several patents , who were obliged by the iesuits to renounce their allegiance to his majesty of great britan in the hearing of the deponent . 1. because the students are never sent away by any but the rector , or vice-rector . with the vindicator's favour , the jesuits have no such laws of the medes and persians , but which the rector or the provincial may dispence with upon occasion : besides the rector has his consultores or assistants , whom he may employ to act for him . 2. never any patent among iesuits had more than one name . there 's nobody says to the contrary ; if twelve scholars have twelve patents , what need of more than one name in a patent ? 3. because there is not one word of renunciation in the oath of those colledges . who said there is ? they might renounce their allegiance to the king , and yet not take the colledge-oath . 4. he could not hear a thing done in a place where he never was : but he never was at madrid ; therefore . but he was at madrid in spite of your teeth , ergo. nor could the dr. hear it done at valladolid ; for the oath is never tendered to the novices , till they have past a whole year in that place . you mistake the point , sir , the dr. talks not of the oath , he speaks of the renunciation , without which , their very admittance would have defil'd the colledge . he denies , as being two more lyes , that dr. armstrong brought letters subscribed by five iesuits , in which was expressed that the iesuits in london intended to dispose of the king. 1. because those letters were sign'd by more than the rector : for which , he brings his former attestation of iohn an okes and iohn a stiles . what a strange thing this is ! he will not allow five men to subscribe their own letters . 2. because there never was any such thing contain'd in those letter , as they protest who wrote them ; as by their attestations appears . he denies , that suiman wrote , that the king of england was poyson'd . upon what ground ? why , because neither suiman nor any other person ever heard such news . he denies that strange , gray , and keines wrote in a letter to suiman , that they were using all diligence to get the king dispatch'd . 1. because it is false that ever strange writ any such letter ; as appears by his own attestation . 2. because it is false that the dr. was ever at madrid ; which they prove by three attestations of their own drawing . he denies that at the same time , at madrid , the deponent ever saw a letter from strange , grey , keines , langworth , fenwick , ireland and harcourt , wherein they exprest their sorrow the business was not done , through the faint-heartedness of their man william . 1. because he was never there . 2. because it was against the custom of iesuits , already repeated . but this was upon an extraordinary occasion ; and besides , they were then in a place where they were not tied to observe customs . 3. because there never was any such letter ; as by their own attestations appears . i marry , sir , here 's the sparring argument at last . he denies , that pedro hieronymo de corduba provincial of new-castile , sent a letter by the deponent to strange , wherein he promised ten thousand pound for their pains , if they could get the business dispatch'd . 1. because p. h. de corduba was never provincial of new-castile . 't is not a straw matter whither he were or no. 2. because he left valladolid upon the 30th of october , and not the third of november . the vindicator was hard put to 't to cavil so strictly for a day . 3. here 's their old friend in a corner , that never fails 'em ; because there was no such letter , as their own knight o' the post avers . but besides this , there are three improbabilities in the case , that the provincial of castile should go about to allure the english iesuits with such a reward , who needed rather a bridle than spurs . you are still upon mistakes ; the money was not to reward the jesuits , ten thousand pound was a fleabite to what they expected ; but to shew there should be no want of money , should their chapmen ask too dear . 2. that he who could not dispose of any money out of his province , should promise them such a sum . by your favour , sir , but he might , when it was money entrusted in his hands , and left to his disposal upon such and such an accompt . 3. that he should trust the dr. with such a letter , whom he had newly cast out of the colledge . that very thing argues all you have said about the doctors expulsion , to be a st. omers lye ; which exceed our english lyes ten times as much in bigness , as one of your onions surpasses ours . thus gentlemen you have seen what this nickapoop of scurrilous vindicator has hitherto called lyes , and how he has proved them . 't was not so , because it was not so — 't was not so , because it could not be so — and it could not be so , because they themselves say so — ergo. — now i would fain know of you , good mr. vindicator , whither if you , and another as bad as your self , should both steal a horse , and your friend escaping , you should be taken , arraign'd , and the matter of fact prov'd , i say , i would fain know , whether if you , being asked what you had to say for your self , should pretend the presbyterians stole the horse ; or if that would not serve , you should protest you knew nothing of the horses being stolen , till you were indicted ; and that your confederate , that was with you , should attest it under his hand , that you did not steal the horse ; do you believe that these evasions should save you from being hang'd ? 't is an experiment , i assure you , well worth your coming into england to make tryal of , in regard , that if you escaped upon those excuses , it would very much conduce to strengthen the arguments of your vindication ; and therefore take notice , i have made you a fair invitation ; we have a colledg ready furnished for your entertainment . chap. iv. from the ninth , to the tenth article : containing what the doctor heard and read at st. omers . this is a long chapter , an oglio dressed by the same cook without any variety , wherein as he proceeds according to his former method , the answers will be the more ready at hand . it is averr'd by no meaner a person than casaubon , a man of great learning and unspotted reputation , that a jesuit in france , with his own mouth , asserted to him , that if iesus christ were again upon earth , lyable to death , as he was , and any one should reveal to him as his confessour , that he had a design to kill him ; before he would reveal that confession , he would suffer christ to be murther'd . in the same manner , we may as well believe , that the vindicator and his trayterous brood , bred up in the same blasphemous principles , so positive in the denyal and evading such apparent truths , and so notoriously prov'd in so many publick courts of national judicature , would deny the very being and coming into the world of that eternal deity whose name and order they profess , were it for their disadvantage to allow it . the vindicator's conceit of his strength , and his fond belief that men of reason will believe his contradictions , because he asserts 'em , and confirms 'em by the attestations of men involv'd in the same guilt , does but help to ruine his papal chimera ; and those swarms of clamours , contumelies and calumnies , which he calls lyes , contradictions and perjuries , will in the end sting his vindication to death . for vindicators losing their end , like bad surgeons , by their ill-applied plaisters , rather inflame and fester , then asswage and heal . and indeed i might well enough conclude , as having shewn the reader , plainly enough , the proportion of this hercules , by what his puny arguments have hitherto been ; but we are forc'd to follow him step by step , as he does the narrative , and to humour the fool in his folly , to prevent the coxcombs crowing upon his own dunghil of st. omers . observe then how this infidel of truth proceeds . he denies that strange , and nine other iesuits wrote a letter to ashby ▪ that they had an intent to stab the king , &c. 1. because strange avers it to be false in attestation g. 2. because nine iesuits never subscribed with their provincial . you must have it over and over again . i tell ye , the customs of jesuits in conspiracies and colledges are different things . besides , the doctor himself has sworn , that he both saw and read the letter , which is much more convincing then your attestation c. now for your observation upon the text ; for i find you are at a loss how to remove this block out of your way . you say to hear the dr. speak , a man would think nothing more ordinary in jesuits letters , then to write of poysoning , shooting , stabbing and dispatching kings . nothing more frequent in their sermons and writings , and therefore not so much to be wondered at in their letters . but you hear , that several of their letters were perused , and no such thing found in them . you heard with your harvest ears . for though you so easily believe your own brethren , we are not bound to believe you . he denies that the same fathers wrote other letters to de la chaize , with thanks for his charity , and care of propagating the catholick religion ; and that the deponent carried it to st. omers , and thence to paris . and his reason is , because the deponents whole journey from st. omers to paris was a lye. as if any man would be such a fool to tell a lye which all the world could convince him of . the vindicator's neater way , would have been to have denied there were any such towns in the world as st. omers or paris , and then he had hit it . he denies that ashby shew'd the deponent , at his return from paris , a letter to strange and others in london , shewing , that they had stirred up the scots to rebellion , and that twenty thousand would be in arms , if france broke with england . he denies that a way was made for the french to land in ireland , that the irish catholicks were to rise , or that forty thousand black bills were ready for them . 1. because the deponent never return'd from paris , as having never beeen there ; which is verified by attestation d. 2. because such a letter was never written , by the averment of attestation g. 3. because no english iesuit ever dealt with scotch presbyterians . 4. because they never dealt with irish papists disposed to rebel . 5. because there were no black bills prepar'd . 6. because there was no way made for french landing . how is this prov'd ? because here are no less then six becauses . and six becauses , with an attestation d. and an attestation g. make an argument sufficient to confound all the reason in europe , were there ten times more then there is . he denies that by letters of the 18th of december it was specified that white was made provincial . because he was not declar'd so , till the 14th of ianuary 1678. this is an evasion . he might not be declar'd till the 14th of ianuary , and yet notice given of his election before , without any violence done to madam probability . he denies that white ordered a sermon against otes in the sodality church . why ? because he had no power before he was declar'd . but what if he took upon him a little more then he needed ? they durst not contradict him . and for the rectors , they have no such power as he talks of by the publick rules of the order . and he denies there was any thing mention'd of oaths ; because coniers protests to the contrary , and the copy shews it ; as if they that copy , could not leave out what they please . he denies coniers was ordered to exhort all to stand by their new provincial , because it was never practised , and then telling us the sodalitie church was not a convenient place for such a sermon , concludes the deponent to be no such confident of the iesuits as he pretends . 't is not to be question'd but that they wish he had not been . but it seems he was more their confident then the vindicator . for he goes only the old pack-horse-rode ; the deponent was acquainted with all their new methods , which the conjuncture of new affairs requir'd . your great men , friend vindicator , were moving out of their sphear , and therefore no wonder if they acted eccentrically . and this answer may serve for your fopperies and strain'd evasions of the 13 th . article . only take notice that evasions are as bad as lies at any time ; for they do not only include a lye , but endeavour to cloak the lye which the evader labours to smother . he denies that blundel was made ordinary of newgate . it seems the word ordinary offends his worship . let him choose what title he pleases , 't was an employment of the same nature , which for once he confesses , yet calls it a lye . for he hopes if the provincial did employ any one in works of charity , order'd him to visit prisoners , to relieve or prepare them for a good end , he was not to be blam'd for it . very true , but he was to blame to send his agents upon messages forbidden by the law , only to debauch the consciences of men in misery , and out of a covetous interest , to prevent the slipping of any grise by their mill. he denies it was done by patent ; call it what you please , patent or order , or commission , it seems it was done ; and that 's sufficient . he denies that the said blundell ever instructed any youth in london , or taught them treasonable doctrine . upon what ground ? because 't is false and improbable . how then came the act of the parliament of paris to call 'em seducers and corrupters of youth ? to evade which common practice of theirs , he says the iesuits might be beg'd for fools , to teach such doctrine ; he means rank downright treason , for then they may be hang'd like knaves for their labours . but for all his tricks , and shifts , and doubtings , let me tell this pumpkin of a vindicator , that the seed and the fruit are very different in shape , and yet the seed sends forth the fruit . from this discourse of so many letters , he takes an occasion to aim full at the deponents face , and thinks to give him a mauling rub : you seem ( saith he ) quite through your fabulous narrative to represent st. omers as the center of iesuits transactions , when they that know . st omers , know 't is the worst serv'd with letters , of any considerable town in the low-countries . well gaffer fabulous , what would you infer from all this ? you infer more than you can answer from what the deponent has sworn ; but not believing that enough , you would be inferring to the same purpose from what he never said . he does not accuse st. omers for being the center of all the jesuits transactions , nor the center of the world , nor the center of europe , or any center . but indeed since you put us in mind of it , it seems to have been the nursery of the conspiracy . but what 's the meaning of this impertinet insinuation ? to prove that there were no treasonable letters sent to st. omers , because they are so ill serv'd by the post. silly mortals ! what need had they of the post , who had such a trusty messenger as the deponent . he denies that upon receipt of the above-mentioned letters , the treasonable words were spoken by nevil and fermor in the iesuits library at st. omers , or that the deponent heard them . for , saith he , the words were never spoken when the letters were receiv'd , because there were no such letters . this , with the vindicators leave , i take to be direct nonsense , when the letters were receiv'd , there were no such letters . but let it be what it will , he has three attestations , e. k. q. to make it out . and lest they should fail , he puts his hand in his pouch , & pulls out a contradiction . here i had thought to have produced the definition of a contradiction . but because this is only a contradiction of the vindicators own framing , i shall defer that trouble till a better opportunity . he says , the letters must be written upon ian. 1 , 2 , but takes the longest time , and then appeals to the post-master , whether a letter could come in 24 hours from england to st. omers . i know not what necessity there was that the letters should be written upon the first of ianuary . the deponent swears no such thing ; but he swears he heard the words spoken upon the third of ianuary , and tells ye where ; 't is no matter when the letters were written . and now what think you , sir ? are not these pretty fables to trouble the world with ? you might have very well spar'd your calculation , and your appeal , unless they had been more to the purpose . but he says the deponent went on the third of ianuary in the morning to watten , and dined there , as appears by the day-book of the seminary , and therefore could not be at st. omers that afternoon . a worthy record indeed ! and much for the honour of st. omers , when they 're at such a pinch to bring their waste-paper in evidence ! what low and ridiculous thoughts has this vindicator of mankind , to think that sense and reason would suffer themselves to be sway'd by the day-book of the seminary of st. omers ? had the dispute been for no more than half an hours absence , they would have brought the record of the seminary day-book to prove the deponent was gone to the house-of-office . to the 21 , 22 , 23 , and 24 articles , he says so very little , that it is just nothing ; so that we are to believe he grants them for truth . and if they be true why not all the rest ? nay since he has given us an inch , we 'l take an ell , and tell the vindicator to his teeth they are all true , for this very reason because they are confirm'd by that worthless oath of the doctor ( as he most jesuitically calls it ) which his railing and reviling language has only barkt at , no where been able to penetrate . it is a sentence of the wise , calumnia semper opprimit meliora . but on the other side we have this to relieve us : iustos mores mala non attingit oratio . and so let us go seek out our vindicator again . as good fortune will have it , see where he comes , all-to-be-new-recruited with the zealous inspirations of brandy and satan , to gratifie his papistical , blind , and superstitious fury . he denies , that white and other iesuits writ a letter on the tenth of march , declaring that the clergy were a sort of rascally fellows , that had neither wit nor courage to manage such a great design , meaning the plot. here , saith he , the deponent throws an apple of discord to sow dissention between the clergy and the society . to pass by his polite metaphor , which shews him to be either a great dunce , or a meer novitiate , i would fain know cui bono ? what should move the deponent to do a thing already done to his hands ? 't is well known what opinion the rest of the clergy have of the unlimited pride of the jesuits in general , and their haughty advancement of themselves above their brethren ; so that it was not the deponents work either to unite or set them together by the ears ; for any man with half an eye may see the deponents intention , which was only to introduce their contemptible reflections upon the clergy , as a circumstance to prove how curious they were in their trayterous instruments . but this is only a surmise of the vindicators , and therefore for fear it should not turn to account , he brings his two never failing friends to nick it , that is , his own averment and attestation e. very proper don quixot's , and sancta pancha's to encounter the wind-mills of his own erecting . he denies , that the deponent saw a letter from white , mentioning that attempts had been made to assassinate the king at several times , by william and pickering , had opportunity offer'd it self . for missing whereeof , he denies also , that william was chid , and the latter had twenty strokes with a discipline . his reason is , because he says , that no body ever heard of it but by the deponents narrative . and then he desires the deponent to give a reason why white should only chide william that was his man , and whip pickering , over whom he had no jurisdiction . by the way william , was not whites man , but a servant to the whole society in london , and so was pickering , being under their hire , and consequently both equally under the jurisdiction of white their provincial now i appeal to common sense , and the judgment of those who have read or understand the extent of papistical authority in penances , whether these lame and miserable shifts be excuses sufficient to vindicate the conspirators from the intended assassination of a monarch ? one would think that mistris cellier had been midwife to the vindicators invention , his vindication is so like the fables in her malice defeated . he denies , that there were any letters from white and others of the fifth of april , that morgan and lovel were return'd from ireland ; who said , 40000 irish horse and foot were ready to rise at ten days warning . he denies also , that the provincial summon'd a general consult to be held at london , and that the deponent was summon'd to assist at it as a messenger from father to father . now what 's his proof that all this was not so ? why because he says , there is not one word of truth in all the article , except the calling of the congregation . and then for the 40000 men , they were never any where but in the deponents addlehead , and lying narrative . here 's a vindicator for ye now ! tell me where ever was such another in the world ! one that carries gunpowder in his mouth , sets fire to his tongue , and with one puff of a denial blows ye an accusation , be it as ponderous as all stonehenge , into a perfect annihilation . caitiffs of newgate , be of good comfort , from henceforth defie justice and the gallows , bid the men of st. pulchers melt down their useless humming passing-bell , and put the money in their pockets . for now let your crimes be what they will , never so plainly prov'd by oaths and testimony , 't is but saying the deponents are addle-heads , and their testimonies , lying narratives , and you shall be forthwith set at liberty without fees . this wonder-working operator lives at the seminary of english jesuits in st. omers . he instructs the rich at moderate rates , the poor for nothing ; he is to be spoken with from eight in the morning till twelve at noon ; and from two in the afternoon till six at night . vivat diabolus . chap. v. of the congregation . the business of the congregation takes up a whole chapter ; 't was an ugly business , my lord , and begat a world of hanging-evidence , and therefore must be deny'd stoutly . but before he begins , he premises , that the truth of the particular concerning the congregation , shall be attested by all that were there , who are still alive . no , they are not , there are some of 'em hang'd . but what need of this advertisement ? we question not the readiness of them that are living , and of hundreds more in the place of them that are wanting , to swear all that , and ten times more , upon such an unavoidable occasion as this . there is nothing safe either in this or the two other worlds from the denials of the jesuits . they deny there is a god by their actions and doctrine ; and should ye affirm there is a devil , because he is the father of lyes , they would deny that easily , as being the fathers of lyes themselves . upon earth you see what the vindicator has deny'd already , and you shall see what he still denies . he denies that upon the 24 th of april 1678 , stil , nov . warren , sir tho. preston , marsh , williams , sir iohn warner , sir robert brett , pool , nevil , in all with the deponent about nine , went from st. omers towards london . for , 1. the rector of liege was not of the number . 2. sir tho. preston never stir'd all the while from liege . 3. sir iohn warren remain'd at watten . 4. sir robert brett , pool , nevil , and the deponent remain'd at st. omers . and to prove this , he bids you see attestations , i , h , f , d , and e. 't is very well , — briskly done , — well go on — he denies , that these met in a consult in london with fenwick , blondel and gray , and others , to the number of fifty iesuits , at the white-horse tavern in the strand . for why ? neither fenwick , blundel , nor gray were there . 2. there were only fifty . 3. they never met at the white-horse-tavern , as they are ready to swear , and protested to the vindicator , they did not know of any such tavern in the strand , till the deponent inform'd them of it . it may be not , because he was to give them notice of the place . he should have done well to have told us where they did meet ; and then the truth might have been easily found out . the deponent swears he was at the consult held in may , to attend the consulters , and deliver'd their concerns from company to company . to this the vindicator says nothing but what was said by the jesuits at their trials , where their defences made 'em ridiculous . he denies , that after they left the white-horse tavern , they divided into several companies , as being against the nature of a congregation . you still forget , mr. vindicator , that this was no congregation according to the statutes of the society , but such a consultation as catiline held at rome for the subversion of his country . and it is the nature of such consults to be kept on foot by private committees , for the better carrying on the design . lastly , whereas the deponent swears , that within 3 or 4 days after , he return'd to st. omers with the fathers that came from the other side of the water . he absolutely denies there was any such thing . and these are the lyes which he pretends to be sworn to in the narrative in reference to the consult at the white-horse-tavern . and now mr. vindicator , give me leave to tell ye , you may be canoniz'd for a fool , but never for a saint ; for you have spoil'd your cause in this very chapter . i expected that here you should have shewn all your wit and rhetorick , the cream of your eloquence , that you should have strewed the whole chapter with your flowers , your metaphors , and your sorites ; that you would have gor'd us with your forked dilemma's ; that you would have displayed all your hocus pocus tricks , all your doublings and shiftings ; that you would have shewed us your wards and traverses , and all your fencing dexterity ; but never was tiptoe-expectation so deceiv'd : here is not so much as one gentile piece of sophistry ; nay , he must be a good chymist that can extract so much as one poor dram of common sense out of all his elaborate undertaking , but you lye , and 't is false : terms of art which i find in no sort of logick , but that of st. omers . he that pretends to such good intelligence , could not choose but know , how these very objections had been canvassed , how the defences of his martyrs were exploded , how the testimonies of his st. omers striplings , sent of fools errands , to swear in verba magistri , were baffl'd ; and therefore in his topping vindication to raise nothing new , but to say less then they then said for themselves , less then what had already been promulgated by others , was but only a lazy epitome of the compendium , and shewed the vindicators brains were dryer then bricks ; for they will yield a useful oyl ; his brains will afford nothing but a putrid matter , which might have been as well blown out of his nose , as seaton'd out upon the muckinder of a nonsensical vindication . chap. vi. what happen'd after his return to st. omers , till he left that place . gentlemen , you may be sure of romances in this chapter by the form of the contents . says he , the deponent swears that tho. white came to st. omers upon the tenth of iune 1678 , and on the eleventh spoke treasonable words against the king and duke in the presence of richard ashby . and further , that white told ashby , a minister had endeavour'd to render iesuits odious , by englishing their morals , and the provincial sent the deponent into england to kill the translator , which the deponent undertakes to do , having 50 l. reward promised him by the said provincial , and then that the provincial and the society in london would procure the death of dr. stilling-fleet . what says the vindicator to all this ? why , he says the deponent lyes ; and the white 's dying speech , and his attestation before his death , justifie that the depositions are false . he forgot to quote the martyrs kinsman , mr. iennison's attestations too , and then like iael , he had nail'd the drs. depositions to the ground . the deponent swears , that ashby told him that the rector of leige , when he was procurator at paris , did reconcile the lord chancellor hyde upon his death-bed . this the vindicator says is false ; for the rector of liege has declar'd the contrary , and that he never saw the lord chancellor in his life . then it seems it was ashby the jesuit that ly'd , and not the doctor . he denies that on the 23d of june the deponent was sent for england to attend the motions of the fathers in london , with 4 l. for his charge , and a promise of 80 l. for his services in spain and elsewhere . these things the vindicator denies stifly , as being circumstances of great moment ; nay , if you 'l let him hold stakes himself , he 'l lay ye a wager of a hundred to one upon his own side . and the reason of this confidence is this , that there is a papistical necessity i' the case , that the thing must be so . in the foregoing fourth chapter there was a necessity that the deponent should be under lock and key at st. omers , from the 10th of december stilo novo , till the 23d of iune ; and therefore they swear , and attest , and damn themselves it was so . now it is not convenient for the deponent to be at st. omers ; now they swear he was never admitted , and only a while there upon ance . he would infer , the deponent could not be sent the 23d of iune to attend the motions of the fathers , because , he says , he was ordered ten days before to go for england to kill the translator of the jesuits morals . as if a man might not be sent into england upon two errands ; or that the fathers would have been so rigid to have check'd the deponent for non-attendance , when they knew how well he was employing his time . the killing of the translator of the morals , and the attending the motion of the fathers , were no such distinct employments , but that they might be both conferr'd upon the deponent together . neither is there any such desperate flaw in the depositions , but a very great probability that the deponent might be promised 50 l. for the murder , and 80 l. for his services in spain . but here the vindicator has ye again , and denies the deponent ever did any services to the jesuits in spain , unless it were in exercising their patience by his unsufferable manners . what those were , the lord knows , for he gives us no account of them . and yet if the vindicator could have spar'd us any instances , we cannot believe but he would have been very ample in his relations . we cannot imagine this concealment of an enemy so outrageously imbitter'd , orco implacabilior , as the effect of his favour . and therefore for want of other argument , he is dropt into such a nonsensical story of a roasted horse , much like the tale of st. francis's wife of snow , that you would think him sitting in some old chimney-corner , canopied with a bacon-flitch , and lulling the credulous ears of the old woman of the house for the benevolence of a rasher . never did the island of dreams produce a more empty piece of vanity ; by means whereof , this nug●poly-loquides would endeavour to prove that the deponent was never admitted , but contemptible , rejected , and did what he did out of revenge . he says , that when that good man , white , as he calls him , but as we with an alias character him , that traytorly jesuit , was made provincial , then the deponent made his addresses , &c. let him say what he pleases , they have confessed the dr. to have been receiv'd into the colledge a month before they will allow white for provincial ; and one of their attestations confirm it : they swear and vow he stay'd there above half a year afterwards , and stirr'd not out but twice all that while . no sign of his being so extreamly notorious for his bad life and conversation . and yet when this bears too hard upon the vindicator , here must be a fable form'd , how his admission was deny'd above a month after he was admitted , and how he was dismissed , and yet kept close in the house . the vindicator should have told us the date of his dismission , and for what particular crime ; but that he carefully conceals . where are his attestations a. b. c. and i know not what flim-flams for that ? but he was admitted and not admitted , dismissed and kept ; and then he swore , he would be reveng'd . a very probable tale , that he should be so plain with such a sort of people , when fast in their clutches , whose ways of preventing his fury , he so well understood . and then he said , he must be a iesuit or a iudas ; if he were not a iesuit he should be damn'd . truly 't was ill done of the provincial , not to use his charitable endeavours to prevent a young man from two such dangerous precipices . but that the reader may be no longer in the dark , we 'l tell him when the doctor was dismiss'd ; he was dismiss'd when upon some glimmering of the discovery , that good man the provincial struck him with his cane , and gave him a box o' th' ear in his chamber at london . a very rude way of dismission indeed , and a very great affront , as the vindicator call'd it . so that we agree about the manner , but not as to the time. after that , the doctor dismissed himself , by running down stairs out of the provincials lodgings , having over heard what a severe chastisement they were preparing for him , if they could but trapan him again to st. omers . truly , if the rest of the jesuites of st. omers were no better then those that were hang'd , or the vindicator , hardly worth that , i see no prevailing reason any man had to be so greedily covetous of their society . nor do i believe the doctor cared a straw for their company , but only for the advantage of watching their contrivances , and disclosing the conspiracies they were then brewing for the destruction of his prince and country . chap. vii . what he relates since his return to london , concerning iesuits , from the 33 to the 53 article . the narrative declares , that in iuly ashby came to town to dispose of the 10000 l. procured by la chaise , and that he should treat with sir geo. wakeman to poyson the king , as also to procure the assassination of the bishop of hereford . to this the vindicator replies , that ashby before his death declared all this to be false , as the iesuits of st. omers themselves attest . and all this he clinches too with a how is it probable , that had there been any such thing , ashby should communicate it to one who had by him been so disgracefully dismist by the provincials order , &c. this is another dismission which we never heard of before ; so that he may sheath his how is it probable again , as being a very blunt piece of business . the 34 article , the vindicator sayes , is all false , and that there is not one word of truth in it , upon the credit of attestation g. to the 35 he says , ashby and blundel both protested it was false . to the 36 he sayes the same upon ashbys ▪ single protestation . thus you see what an esteem one traytor has for another , and how warily they credit each other . like the story of the caldron and the cabbage . as if the vindicator and the rest of his bloody gang , had made a compact together , to this purpose , do you make a vindication , deny , lye , defie , decry , and what ever you assert , we 'l all swear to . now gentlemen , that you are to believe what they attest , i prove thus . the legend of st. germain says , that that saint rais'd up a dead ass to life again . the legend of that saint is to be believ'd , ergo , you must believe the vindicator and his attestators . in the 38 article the doctor deposes , that white wrote to london to fenwick , that he had ordered twelve iesuits to go for holland , to inform the dutch , that the prince of orange intended to make himself king , but they got no farther then watten , by reason of some mischance , which letter the deponent saw . this the vindicator sayes , with more then ordinary choller , is a lye malitious and ridiculous ; malitious , in charging such an odious business upon the jesuits . not so malitious neither , history has charg'd the jesuites with far greater crimes committed in holland then this . no less then the murther of william of orange , and the same as fairly intended maurice nassau , both perpetrated by persons instigated , encourag'd , embolden'd , hired , paid and missionated by the provincial and rector of doway , and other jesuites , as thuanus , whom the vindicator , if he dares , may deny for a good testimony , more at large relates . a ridiculous , in supposing that the english jesuites have either credit or acquaintance with the states of holland . the fool will turn changling before the end of his vindication . as if we thought the jesuites had no more wit than to appear in holland in all their formalities . no , no , they have their shapes and their disguises , and if they want credit or acquaintance , they want neither money nor insinuation to procure both , unless they be all such dunces as the vindicator . he i confess is no great man of language , he 'l tell ye ye lie , and 't is false , — and fearing that neither his malitious , nor his ridiculous would serve his turn , in his own natural delivery , he affirms , the iesuites never had any such design , and that no iesuit or iesuits were sent about it . all which we find him endeavouring to prove thus , for it is sometimes requisite to let you see the quint essence of his arguments . six jesuites could not be spared out of the seminary of st. omers upon such a design . ergo. not twelve out of the whole province . again . they that stopt at watten , could not be sent to holland ; for had they been sent , they had gone . ergo. they were not sent , because they did not go . to the 39 article he answers , that blundel protested he never heard of any such letter , and so refers ye to attestation e. in the 41 article the doctor deposes , that fenwick told him that the jesuits had 60000 l. per annum , and 100000 l. in bank , and that he lent out money at 50 per cent. this he denies , and wonders how it should be true . but it is a proverh fix'd upon the jesuits , quod vultur est milvo , id iesuita est monacho . so that it is no wonder that the most covetous , proling , scraping , racking , cozening , cheating , purloyning order in the world , should have 60000 l. per annum , and a hundred thousand pound in banck . the vindicator little understood what belongs to sums beyond his own seminary exhibition ; and fenwick was a ●illy jesuit-broaker . there be those who have better calculated the jesuits incomes , that could have informed the vindicator that their revenues above 20 years ago , amounted to two millions of crowns in gold yearly , which is above 500000 l , per annum , a sum far greater then what the vindicator admires at . and there is no question to be made , but that they who were contriving the ruin of princes and whole nations , had some of their bulky banck disposed of near the scene of their expences requisite for such a design . and for the jesuits consciences , we leave them to their brethren the jews to take measure of them by their own . the 42 article deposes , that harcourt , fennick , keynes , and another of the society , declar'd their intentions to raise a commotion in the kingdom of england , and dominion of wales , which appear'd also by several letters shewed the deponent . this the vindicator calls a lye without any signe of truth , and would have any one of these letters produced . what would it have signified ? for the vindicator would have brought somebody to protest there were no such letters written , produce their letters , and either they make their equivocating comments upon them , or else deny their own hands , which has not sav'd their necks for all that . that 's such a flim flam story , for a sancha pancha of a vindicator , to bid us produce letters , when he himself has undertaken to venture his soul , and all the pains of hell and purgatory to confound what ever can be produc'd , which bare denials and attestations out of the clouds , and that with such a daring and audacious impudence , as if truth were only confin'd to that foul skulking hole of iniquity and treason at st. omers . and then with a plausible insinuation , they that all our modern histories have character'd for the grand incendaries of the world , they that are chronicl'd for their murders and massacres , and their inflaming all the kingdoms of europe , and disturbing the repose of church and state over all christendom . they shall come to a pitiful , idle , nonsensical vindicator , and bid him cry to the deponent for deposing the truth , and detecting their hateful conspiracies , what a commotion you have rais'd in england , all the world may see . yes , and all the world ( no question ) by the vanity of this vindicators attempt , by the sordidness of his defence , do plainly see who were the original cause of all this commotion ; not the deponent ; for the enterprize , had it not been truth , would have sunk such a mean and despicable slanderer as he . but those aspiring , topping sons of perdition , whose wicked principles oblige them to lay , ( if they can bring it to pass ) all the princes and states of europe at the feet of a leud and prophane antichrist . to the 43 article , that no messengers were sent by the names of moor and sanders , with instructions to carry themselves like nonconformist scots , &c. he says little , but seems to be in an extasie , and wonders whom the deponent means , for he never could hear of any jesuit of those names . a very likely thing indeed , that never any english jesuit ( at any time ) bore the common names of moor , sanders , and brown , so vulgar almost in every society of ten. but what needs all this amazement ? no body says they were jesuits , nor sent as jesuits , but as messengers or emissaries , any thing but jesuits . and thus you see what is the main thing impos'd upon the vindicator to do ; he is to deny right or wrong ; at which his fidelity is so nimble , that rather then not deny , he will deny what was never averr'd . you shall see , when he finds that his vindication has done more harm than good , he will deny there was ever any such thing written , or ever seen in the world. to the 44. that the iesuites communicate the secret counsels of the king , which they purchase with their money , to la chaise the french kings confessor , &c. he sayes positively , all this is false , and to make it out , tells ye , there was no need of purchasing intelligences while the coffee-houses stood . he would make us believe the jesuits were the arrantest ideots in nature , as if we thought that coffee-house intelligence were the purchase which they fish'd for with their silver-hooks . no , no , 't was they themselves , who then , and still do , make those coffee-houses he prates of , the nurseries of rebellion , by their own emisaries , daily employ'd , to divulge their lies and forgeries , et ambiguas in vulgum spargere voces , on purpose to cast a mist before the eyes of the people , and gather strength to renew their disappointed villanies : so that his coffee-house inference is nothing but a meer smoak . the 46 article deposes , that the letters from st. omers expressed great joy , that sir g. w. had undertaken the business . to which he replies , it is false , that ever sir g. w. undertook the business ; for why ? it appears so by the publick verdict of the jury at his tryal . an argument of the vindicators own framing against himself ; for by the same inference it is apparent , that all that was sworn against the rest that were hang'd , was true , because the publick verdict of the jury found 'em guilty . see how these fellows glory in one acquittal , and yet it is a thing frequently observ'd , that many times the greatest fellons escape , when lesser criminals are condemn'd . by which the whole nation may see of what a dangerous consequence it is to shew the least grain of mercy to the unmerciful . and yet the argument is not so potent neither , when we consider how much men of reason are dissatisfied with that acquittal , and how the papists laugh in their sleeves , and sing jubilate , not so much for the escape of the person , as the success of their underhand dealing . the rest of the chapter is so ridiculous , that i pass it over , as being unwilling to tire the reader with impertinencies that may be avoided . chap. viii . vvhat he relates of the iesuites and others inclusively from the 54 to the 81 article . art . 55. mr. jennison said , that if the king did not become r. c. he should not be long c. r. this the vindicator calls a groundless lye ; but says withal , if any such thing were said , it was because of the presbyterians , and not of the papists . so then , the question is not so much , whether mr. ienison spoke the words , but whither he spoke them of the presbyterians or the papists ? if he spoke them of the presbyterians , they were true : if of the papists , they were false . what an open piece of impudence this is , to arraign a whole deposition for a groundless lye ; and yet with the same breath to confess they might be spoke ? if he has not been soundly pickering'd already for this mistake , he notoriously deserves it . article 57. fenwick told the deponent , that he had writ that the king was gone to windsor , and that honest william and the fathers were ready to attend the court. to this he says , the first part might probably be true , but the latter part is false ; as also , that fenwick told him of the contents of the letter . how then came the deponent to know of the information given of the kings going to windsor ? 't is plain he knew it , and he swears fenwick told him , and you mr. vindicator must produce some other intelligencer , or else your vindication will hang o' the hedge . article 58. keines preach'd a treasonable sermon to twelve persons of quality , that protestant princes were ipso facto deposed . nothing more confirms the truth of the thing , then the subject of the sermon . but this he calls a train to blow up any man that the deponent should mark out for destruction . how common a thing it is among the jesuits , to lay trains against , not only the reputations , but the lives of great men , they themselves sufficiently know ; and to requite that knowledge of theirs , we know as well how hard a task it is here for the deponent to pick and choose the subjects of his accusation considering before what judges he must appear . the vindicator should have done well to have come into england , and liv'd half a year or so at newgate before he began his great work , they would have taught him far better pleading then this : and yet he has the effronterie to pretend from hence great inconveniencies , if perjury continue paramount , and knaves be rewarded . never did mortal speak more like a knave then this vindicator ; for the deposition only supposes they were men of quality , and yet he grounds a perjury upon it . see how cursedly this great atlas of the catholick cause crickles at the hamms . a voice i hear , but nothing do i see , speak who thou art , that we may return thee thanks for thy learned paraphrases . article 59. keines advis'd a gentleman in or about westminster , to remove thence , least god should destroy him with the sinners of that city . well! what doth the vindicator say to this ? why — that keines protested he never said any such thing ; and any man that knows both , will take his word , before the deponents oath . and i would advise keines rather to croud among the dominicans , under the virgin maries petticoat , then come hither to try the experiment . article 60. keines said it was endeavoured to dispatch 48 at wiudsor ; that corker and the benedictines had promised 6000 l. that two of them own'd it , and that their business was to remove the stuarts out of the way : and that coniers laid a wager , that the king should not live to eat any more chrismas pies , &c. this the vindicator calls poetry , as being one of the tragical order himself . but whatever is the matter , here 's neither ye lye , nor attestation g : surely the man forgot himself , or else these two great cronies of his were tir'd and gone to sleep . only he throws himself upon corkers acquittal : a very slight bladder to swim with in such an intended sea of blood. for though corker were acquitted , it was for want of double evidence which the law required : not that the court believ'd him innocent ; and therefore they gave new orders to detain him , which was but sour sawce to the sweet morsels of his acquittal . truly this article , great man of might , requir'd a more garagantua like vindication . you should have rous'd all your ye lyes , and 't is falses , and now he lyes under conviction and embodied all your attestations to have given battle to this article : and if you could have got all st. malo's dogs to have help'd ye , all had been little enough . article 61. keines took the deponent to an assembly of the dominicans , where six were met in the name of the rest , with their provincial , to comply with the fathers of the society . there also met five iesuits . keines demanded of the dominicans money to carry on the business of killing the king : the dominicans answered , they were poor , but would give their assistance and counsel . hence the deponent was sent with the proposals to the carmelites , who answered , their prayers to god and the blessed lady should not be wanting , and that was all they could give . what says the vindicator to all this ? why , since you needs must have it , he says , all those that know the emulations that have been , and still are , between the dominicans and the jesuits , will scarce believe those would meet to comply with these . oh! mr. vindicator , you are ill read in history : herod and pilate could well agree to remove the king of the iews . though the dominicans and iesuits jangle about the conception of the virgin , they may agree for all that , about the conception of a plot. nay , the pope himself could reconcile himself to the turk , and call him into the bowels of italy to help him at a dead lift . you are a whole dutch league too short of a vindication yet . art. 62. blundel said his workmen wanted oyle , which the deponent supposed to be sheeps fat. coniers said , the hill people were fools to set upon 48 at windsor , but he would speak to his worship in other language then in tormentillo , but that if his shirt on his back should know how , he would burn it . all this the vindicator denies , and sends ye to attestation s , as the dice in the dutch fortune-book send ye to the philosopher pythagoras . art. 64. that fogarthy is a main agent in this hellish plot . that he told the deponent he was present when sir g. w. was contracted with ; and that he had hir'd four ruffians to mind the kings postures at windsor . to this he says , the first is a lye , the second is a lye , and the third is a lye. most serene and polite vindicator , we greet thee well . cicero himself could have said no more . from whence i argue thus . he that tells another man he lyes three times , has the better of the dispute . the vindicator tells the deponent he lyes three times , ergo , the vindicator has the better of the dispute . now to turn the argument , the vindicator tells me , the pope is not antichrist . i tell the vindicator he lyes three times . ergo. the pope must be antichrist . and so there 's a rowland for his oliver . having thus done with the quintescence of his ingenuity , we shall come to the drossy part of his wit , which lies in his reflections . by which , if he knew how , he would fain insinuate strange chimera's into the peoples heads , as bufalmacco in boccace frighted his master with dor-flies , and bits of lighted wax-candles . and to this purpose he terrifies ye with the inconvenience of blank accusations . for , says he , the deposition concerning four ruffians , was filled up by jenisons naming four innocent persons to get a false witnesses reward to pay his debts , and supply his want of money . there 's now for mr. ienison , i think he had better have held his tongue . the vindicator finds another substantial evidence come in to confirm the narrative , and therefore he must be bespaul'd with his jesuitical drivel . but those innocent persons never came in to justifie themselves , and in regard the law of the land supposes them guilty that fly for it , it is not for his pie-powder-court at st. omers , to determine who are guilty , and who are innocent in england ; or to dive into the reasons of other mens loyalty ; as if none but the necessitous could be loyal , and none but fugitives innocent : or as if the justice of england accus'd or condemn'd any man to please the kings evidence ; or that the kings evidence were so dear to him , that he would sacrifice his justice to their private interest . brain of a taylor you are too sawcy . he goes on , no man can be secure in the way of a mad-dog , or an impudent lying witness , such as your mungrel attestators , as long as the clamours of the rabble are so loud , that neither iustice or reason can be heard . he 's mistaken , reason and justice have both in a good measure been so well satisfyed , that i dare say , they will never appeal to st. omers for the redress of their grievances . by the way , gentlemen , you are to consider whom this brain of a taylor calls the rabble : none but the lords and commons of england , you your selves , and the whole body of the nation . those , says he , were wisest that embraced a voluntary exile . he is mistaken again , they are no voluntary exiles , they were banished by the law of the land , and were but intruders into the kings dominions . they were the pest of the nation , that escaped the provision of divers wholesome statutes , like old cunning vermine , let them that stay behind , look to themselves as well as they can . you speak like an oracle ; let 'em fee their counsellor , and take his advice . article 65. that the deponent at madrid , had seen the lord embassador , sir william godolphin at mass , and was perfectly inform'd by the arch-bishop of tuam , that the embassador held great correspondence with the arch-bishop , and that a iesuite had read to him philosophy and divinity . that suiman a iesuite , in a letter to the deponent the 30th of july newstile , did specifie , that sir william was as industrious as any man could be , to answer the expectation of the society . here , says the vindicator , are as many lyes as periods . for , 1 st , 't is false . 2 ly , 't is false . 3 ly , 't is false . 4 ly , 't is false . 5 ly , 't is false . 6 ly , 't is false . this puts me in mind of a scene in ben. iohnson's alchymist , where face and suttle undertake to teach kastril to quarrel . the jesuites i liken to face and suttle , the vindicator to kastril . face and suttle teach kastril their art , kastril well instructed , takes a peek at the doctor . now kastril , come — shew your parts , — 't is false , — ye lye , quo he — how ! child of wrath and anger , the loud lye ! why so sodain , say we . nay , look you to that , i am aforehand , quo kastril . talk to him of the arch-bishop of tuam , you lye quo kastril ; talk to him of a letter from suiman , you lye cryes kastril . nay , say face and suttle , if you don't quarrel him out of the world , you do nothing . presently kastril , you deponent , if you wont get ye out of the world , ye lye. this is just the vindicators chollerick method of proceeding , the battoons of his rhetorick , with which he thinks to cudgel us out of our senses , and the doctor out of his reputation . but what said the curtesan thais of that same swash-buckler thraso in terences eunuchi ? — ne metuas , sane , quod tibi nunc vir videatur esse , hic nebula magna est . a meer fizzle-sucker , that thinks to blow up solemn oaths and depositions with the windly eructations of scurrility and foul language . language that issues from his mouth with a steam as putrid as the exhalations of the tyrant gelo's breath . language so undecent , so unbecomming any person that pretends to so much learning as to put pen to paper , that it cannot be imagin'd that any man but of common education , of indifferent breeding , or but ordinary generosity , which abominate scurrility and rudeness in conversation , will harbour the least belief of such a nasty and slovenly writer . for as there are some certain ragamuffins that deserve to be kick'd out of all society ; so there are some books to be kick'd out of all credit , and among the rest , none more deservedly then this same fardel of impertinent ruffianisme . he challenges the deponent , to produce the letter of the 30th of iuly from suiman , which he might have done , because directed to himself . what a delusion would he here put upon the people ? he knows that letters of this nature being once read by those to whom they are directed , to their superithey are by them taken away , and laid up among their archiva , and yet he ors , challenges the deponent to produce what he knows to be out of his reach . it seems it was not so convenient for him to be now so punctual in declaring the customes of the iesuits , as upon other occasious , which made him omit this . if , says he , the arch-bishop of tuam , or the iesuit , being subjects of the king , waited on his majesties embassador , they did but their duty . they were under no such obligation , being no subjects of the king , in regard they deny him that allegiance and supremacy which the law of the land requires to make them so . king and subject are the termini relativi , duty and protection are the relations between those termes : no duty , no subject : no king , no protection . and thus it may be said , that no english roman catholick is a subject to the king. they live under his moral protection , as travellers and forraign traders , not under his relative protection , as subjects . but the jesuites are so far from being no subjects , that they are traytors proscrib'd by the law ; and therefore for an embassador to correspond with such , i suppose is a priviledge which no prince or state in christendom allows their forraign ministers . now you shall see how the vindicator strives to dis-intangle himself . he sayes , 't is absolutely false , that their past any intimate correspondence , chiefly in publick concerns : that is to say , 't is absolutely false , and it is not absolutely false . the affirmative was singular , and therefore the negative should have been universal . in the name of st. dominic , what did you mean to meddle with that word chiefly for ? oh , cry ye mercy , 't was to shew your parts , and to let us see , that you could tell a man he ly'd , and yet confess 't was true what he said , both at the same time . to the 67 article he only gives six lyes , sends ye to three or four of his paltry attestations , and says no more . so that six being twice three , by vertue of an argument already drawn from his own topicks , if we tell him he lies six times , the article is true , and we are even with him . to the 69 article , he answers , that blundel the traytor protested he knew nothing of the business . and then , says he , it seems the 22. of august was well employ'd , for though the deponent had neither eat nor drank , nor stopp'd all the day , he went to such a place , and such a place , and such a place ; met with such a one , and such a one , and such a one ; heard this discourse , and that discourse ; saw these letters and t'other letters , and what then ? why it could not be , unless the day had bin as long as that in which joshua fought against the philistines ; or that himself had been as busie as menechmus seeking his brother . who says there 's no wit stiring at st. omers ? here are a brace of similes , the one out of the bible , the other out of plautus's menaechmei ; excellently well-match'd , like a black and white coach-horse both at one pole , and as much to the purpose as his comparison of lucians true history . however , you see by this he had read three books , lucian , ioshua , and plautus . now , what 's the use of these two biblio-plautinian hyperboles ? to prove that a man must be perjur'd , because he went twelve hours without eating or drinking . what a perjur'd fellow was st. marin of r●mini to fast six whole days together ; and batthaeus the hermite to macerate himself so long without eating or drinking , till the worms bred in his teeth ? what a perjur'd knave was st. dominie , to dispatch as many penances in six days , as serv'd for a hundred years ? i think he was much more busie for the time , then the deponent or menaechmus either . what a perjur'd villain was st. francis to fast 40 days together in honor of st. michael ▪ there 's ne're a poor souldier in a campaigne that marches twelve hours without sustenance , but must be perjur'd . not a man in the world that dispatches more business in a day , then the vindicator would have him , but must be perjured . certainly this is some stylite newly crept out of a hollow pillar , that talks so ridiculously of the affairs of the world . mr. asinego , if you want fables , go and read your own legends , the narrative i find is above your fathoming . article 70. on the 24 ●h of august , blundel told the deponent , that the catholicks would shorten the kings days ; and that the protestant religion stood on its last leggs . here we have gain'd one point at length : for saith he , had this been produc'd at the beginning , it might have been tollerable , but to bring it where it stands , was senceless . if it were true at the beginning , it is true where it is . truth is confin'd to no place , and therefore we shall take no care to remove it , if you have no better reason . oh! but he has a reason : for that after the deponent had produc'd the dominicans and carmelites dissenting from the business , he now says all catholicks . he does not say the dominicans and carmelites dissented ; he swears that both pleaded poverty , but the dominicans offer'd them their personal assistance and money : the carmelites promised to assist them with their prayers to god , and our blessed lady . hoping that if god would not hear their prayers , our blessed lady would . so that heaven's be prais'd , this article as if it were the lawrel tree of the narrative , stands not so much as blasted by all his thunder . and then — dato hoc uno absurdo , sequuntur all the rest. to the next article , he says , blundel protests he knows nothing of the business . article 72. blundel shew'd the deponent the bull , by which the two arch-bishopprioks , 21 bishoppricks , two abbey's and six deaneries are disposed of . nor are there any prebendaries or other places undisposed of . to this he answers only with periods , heaven's ! quo he , setting him upon his tayle , and lifting up his two paws like a bear in astonishment . such benefices to be bestow'd without the kings consent ! as if it were likely his holiness would ask the king of england leave to dispose of the popes benefices . all in one bull ! that so carelesly sent ! so carelesly produc'd ! not one protestant to be continu'd ! no , if it were to save his soul. all the promoted persons ignorant of their advancement ! who can swallow such mountains of incredibility ? rub his nostrills with a little spirit of bezoar , the man has been in a desperate agony . what a contraction there is upon the vindicators wind-pipe on a suddain . he will make you believe by and by , that his gullet is no wider then the passage from purgatory to heaven . he can swallow the incredibility that his holiness should ask leave of the king to dispose of the popes benefices : the incredibility that any one protestant should be continued in his living ; which i can hardly swallow m●self ; and yet he cannot swallow the probability of the popes trusting the bull with his own creatures , that one bull should pass for all , at a conjuncture when too many bulls would make too much roaring ; nor the probability that the parties concern'd and promoted knew of it ; because he says , they did not . i warrant ye , were it an attestation g. or d. he would swallow it , though it were as big as the globe of the earth , but i am inform'd by several physitians , that the jesuits stomachs have a particular antipathy against narrative pills ; shew a jesuit a narrative pill , and it puts him into a fit of the quinsie immediately . his vvola will close and shut up like a misers buttery hatch upon the sight of one . he cannot swallow a narrative pill , though it were no bigger then a tobacco seed . and therefore no wonder these incredibilities seem so montainous to one that has drank some sort of styptic water , and purs'd up his wind-pipe , as the gentleman purs'd up his mouth in the ladies chamber . art. 52. that the deponent saw a pacquet from the fathers met at edenburgh , to the fathers here , acquainting them , that 8000 papists were ready to rise , to assist the disaffected scots , when required by the scotch iesuits there . that one westby was destroyed by a servant of lovel the iesuit , for endeavouring to detect the rebellion , &c. to all this vindicator cries , not one word true. what are his reasons . 1. because there never was any meeting of english iesuits in edenburgh . 2. no english iesuits in scotland . 3. never lovel . 4. nor any servant of his were ●ver there . 5. no correspondence of english iesuits in scotland . 6. no knowledge of affairs of that kingdom but by the gazetts . he would make us believe that scotland was one of the happiest kingdoms in europe , as if the air of that country would no more admit of the vermine of popery , then ireland endure the venome of toads and spiders . but how does he come to know all this ? nay , that 's a secret , — some body , it may be suppos'd , has told him , and he tells you , and his ipse dixit you must take for gospel . however , suppose they were scotch jesuites that met at edenborough ( for the article says nothing of english jesuites ) what 's to be said then ? why then he 'l swear there never was a scotch jesuit upon the face of the earth . so that the vindicator is ready prepar'd for ye , come at him which way ye will. now , can any body believe this vindicator cares what he says , that will assert so positively , that never any english jesuits met at edenborough since the creation of the world ? that the jesuites hold no correspondence with scotland . that they who correspond with china and the indies , should forbear to correspond with scotland , where there is such advantagious brewing , to the disturbance and molestation of england . art. 75. tho. white writ to blundel , that he was inform'd of some discovery , yet he should not desist the business in hand . that he should thank fogarthy for his care of the business of 48 , meaning the king ; and for his forwardness to assist those in ireland , for whose good success he would pray . this he confutes by the strength of his politicks : for , saith he had there bin so horrid a plot , and white had heard it was discovered , he should have ordered the conspirators to have desisted , secur'd their persons , and made away their papers . 't is very true , but there are many fool-hardy persons that are often washed to the skin for ventring into the shower , believing 't will presently blow over . the conspirators design was so well laid , and their party so strong , thought nothing would have been heard , much less believ'd against them . and therefore none but such shallow pates , and of as little sence as the inventer of these suppositions , but will believe that white had all the reason in the world to command them to go on . for it is not to be thought , that men of such high undertakings , and that knew upon what foundations they trod , were to be bug-beard out at the whispring of an uncertain report . nay , it behov'd them to go on with more vigour , when they knew how easily the suddain expedition of one single assassination would have prevented the consequences of that rumour . had the deponent , says the vindicator , said that white had desired their prayers for the preservation of himself , his province , and all the catholicks , his narrative might have been believ'd . to what purpose so much praying for persons , that had secur'd their persons and their papers ? but 't is much to the same effect ; for had he gone the vindicators way , and accus'd white for desiring the prayers of his fellow traytors upon such an accompt , he had but made a discovery , and so he did , by taking his own courses , so that the vindicator seems now to be angry at the deponent , not for discovering the plot , but for not doing it that way he would have had him . but to make him amends , if he will be pleased to come and make any farther and real discoveries himself , he shall have his liberty to use his own method . the 77 article , contains the deponents entertainment at the provincials lodging . this he calls coherene nonsence . for none , says he , who knew white in his vigour , will believe he could beat so stout a man as the deponent , considering the weak condition he was in when he came to london . what made him venture his weak carkass at london . it must be no ordinary occasion certainly that made him hazard the inconveniencies of sea and land in that weak condition . this vindicator can believe that st. denis when he was in a weaker condition , when he had his head cut off , could run with it in his hand above a league , and yet now he thinks it such a miracle for the provincial of the jesuites , to give an inferior that durst not resist him , and yet had so highly incensed him , a blow or two of correction with his cane . and yet his condition was not so weak neither , but that he could stand well enough at the bar long after that , to tell a company of flim flam lyes and falsities , without the assistance of aqua mirabiles . the rest is onely a repetition of the words of the narrative , with some few comments , and a story of his own framing , so little to the purpose , as if he had made it his business to play the fool. but at last he concludes , that for all their fears of the deponent , white kept his ordinary lodgings , removed no papers , left those under his conduct in their ordinary stations , &c. which alone to posterity will be a convincing proof of his innocency . that is to say , white believ'd that the deponent was a person , whose information would be easily crush'd by the ponderous weight of the popish interest , and so he resolv'd to go with the plot. it was not his innocency , but the blindness of his zeal , and the great encouragements and probability of success that hardned him to merited destruction . quos deus vult perdere , was the fate that hung over his head. his stay at his lodgings could be no convincing proof to posterity of his innocency , in regard that that very act of his , render'd him a criminal , by which he had at that very time forfeited his innocency to the law of the land. and therefore he could not stay to justifie what he had forfeited by his stay : but he had a longing desire to see the utmost of what he had bin so long a spinning , and was snapt in the midst of an insensible vexation , to see the labour of many months and years lost . as for his chapter upon the commissions given to the nobility , i pass it by , in regard the persons themselves are yet to make their desences ; which if they prove no better then what their officious vindicator present us with , is a very ominous prospect of their success . however to give them an essay of his rhetorick , he tells them what a wise man said , a very bad beginning my lords , for it seems it is not your advocate that is the wiseman , but another man , and that 's apparent by his thus spoiling his own market . for the lords will certainly go to the wiseman , and not to the fool , i mean the vindicator . but what says the wiseman ? why , this wiseman concluded , that either what homer and ovid writ of the lyes , and aesop of beasts , were no fables or the english conspiracy is a fable — truly the wiseman did not speak very good sense , whoer'e he were . he meant , that if what homer , ovid , and aesop wrote , were no fables , then the english conspiracy was no fable . but those were , therefore this is — this i suppose is the wisemans conclusion : but with the wisemans leave , all the world allows there was a great deal of truth couch'd under those fables , and that very considerable truth two , experienc'd and attested to be so by the testimony of several ages . so that if the narrative be so like those fables , it follows that there is a great deal of truth couched in the narrative . had not the vindicator bin a fool , he might have bin as civil to the lords as the wiseman , and not have stood outfacing and denying like a sott in so many pages what a wiseman has granted in two lines . and now being in the company of lords , he is not asham'd to tell ye what he is , as good a traytor , and as worshipful a conspirator , as any of the rest ; never the less , quoth he , we suffer for the truth ; that is , as his brethren faux and ravillac did , for the truth of their crimes . and the truth shall set us free , that is , when they have the grace to believe in christ , as the truth in that place spoken of , and not the popish plot. however , had he bin so ingenuous as to have quoted the scripture right , and put in you instead of us , it had come rightly from him , as thus — we , that is , the vindicator and the lords , suffer for the truth , and the truth shall set you , the deponent free . i would wish the vindicator to let scripture alone , unless he understood it better . and so to his word of advice to the deponent . chap. x. word of advice to the deponent . but here you shall find , that before he comes to play the fool , he plays the knave ; and assumes to himself very arrogantly and audaciously to have convinc'd the deponent of evident vntruths , infamous perjuries , and shameful perjuries , when he has no more done it , than he has remov'd the southern tropic into lapland . he has not assign'd one perjury in all his ribble rabble discourse , but only like the lying products of smithfield wit , swells his title to put off his book . nay he talks so ridiculously , so idly of perjury , that he does not seem to know what it means . he uses the word to fright fools , as nurses make use of raw-head and bloody-bones to fright children with , yet neither know what they say . his party have been told that perjurus is one qui male iurat ex animi sui sententia . that there is this difference between pejerare & falsum jurare . for qui pejerat is sciens & ex animi sententia falsum iurat . qui falsum jurat , non decipiendi animo hoc facit , sed quia rem ita se habere putat . let him prove that the deponent hath sworn any thing through the whole narrative scienter & ex animo sententia — nay , let him prove that the slips of memory as to names or time , were ever accounted perjury , then the pope shall give him the great motto of eris mihi magnus apollo : and we will grant him the cause . the deponent has sworn scienter there was a popish plot. the circumstances he sware only as believing , ita rem se habere . caitiff of a vindicator upon the false and knavish assertions of his own brain to call a man perjur'd ; and to think meerly with din and noise to stop the inquisition and pursuit of truth after treason and murther ! no , he must not imagine england yet so easily scar'd and deluded by such a priapus of a vindicator as he. so that i may say to him , as the ocean said to prometheus — 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . his slanderous tongue will never do the deponent harm — but what sort of counsel is it that this same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , half fox , half goose , pretends so freely to bestow upon the deponent ? he believes that he has disabl'd the deponent to follow the trade of a witness , and therefore advises him to take to some more honest , though less gainful way of living . a very specious piece of advice indeed — but when we consider from whence it comes , and the aim at which our adviser drives , it appears to be only a drowsie piece of exhortation , glaz'd and sweeten'd over for the palate of the common people . good counsel ought to be without respect of interest for the sole benefit of the person to whom it is given . the vindicators advice to the deponent is quite contrary . he and his party have been acting one of the foulest conspiracies that history can parallel ; and he advises the deponent to be quiet for the future , and to forbear his farther prosecution . very good advice truly . now i would fain know of our suttle vindicator , what way the deponent shall take to follow his advice ? the parliament of england are satisfied in the truth of his discovery ; they are satisfied that the vindicator and his accomplices are guilty of the villanies and treasons of which the deponent accuses them ; and they require and expect from the deponent that he should do his duty , and go on as he has begun . which way now shall the deponent proceed to take his advice , and smother those crimes which he has so impertinently attempted to vindicate ? the deponent therefore , good mr. vindicator , not believing either your pittiful rhetorick ; and more pitiful arguments sufficient to perswade him to do a thing so unjust and detestable , gives you this answer out of tacitus , se neque proditoris , neque hostium consiliis uti . he is resolved to make use neither of the counsels of a traytor , nor his enemies . but what is this for ? for the good of the deponents soul. how does he prove it ? from a mis-quoted place of scripture of the psalmes , fill their faces with shame , and they will seek thy name , o lord , psalm 83. not 82. now this was a complaint of david himself , upon a conspiracy against his life and government , as the deponent had complain'd of a conspiracy against the life of his majesty and the english government . the other is another mis-quoted text , from ecclesiasticus in the apocrypha . for , there is a shame that brings glory and grace . and therefore he would have the deponent asham'd of the good he has done for the safety of his prince and country . as to the first of these texts , i cannot well understand how the faces of men could be well filled with more shame than to be publickly condemn'd for treason , and as publickly hang'd for the crime , and yet the vindicator is so far from seeking the name of god , that he still persists in the devils name , lying and justifying those detestable enormities for which they suffer'd . and for the latter text he speaks too late , for the deponent had appropriated that shame long before to himself , when out of an abhorrency of their lewd impieties , he forsook , their cercopum coetus , their dens of treachery and forgery , and betook himself to make his discovery , of which perhaps e're now he might have reap'd the consequences , that is to say , glory and grace , but for your busie machinations to undermine and prevent him . however the deponent understands the bible as well as your worship , and finds a little farther in the same author , strive for the truth unto death , and the lord shall fight for thee ; which he believes to be far better counsel than you have given him . and indeed it had been impossible for him to have swum against such a stream , or rather torrent of opposition , had he not had the strength of verity to support and buoy him up . he has got the hatred of you and your party most certainly ; and the ill will of those whom your sedulity has perverted : he contends dayly with the reproaches of some ▪ the envy of others , the dissimulation of others : only the truth of his narrative begets him some friends among the better sort of the nation , and never more hopes than now , that others will change their opinions upon the sight of your lying and scandalous vindication . you say again , you have advanced nothing material but what is certainly true . which is one of the greatest lyes that ever one single man durst advance in the face of the whole world : there being nothing that is either material or true. for saith he , the chiefest points are attested by witnesses of umblemish'd reputation . — here 's another swinger . for as to their reputation it is so far from being unblemish'd , that it is the fowlest under the sun. the reputation of fugitives , traytors and conspirators with himself in as bloody a design as ever popery hatch'd ; and consequently homines triobolares , propertius's damae , tressis agasones . in the second place they are no witnesses , but vain attestors in their own wicked cause , of whom more anon . upon these rotten surmises of his own unparallel'd confidence , this etnean beetle , the vindicator , this monsieur homme de rien , this pomarius hercules presumes to judge of the deponents conscience , and dispose of his salvation . a sawciness in the pope himself , much more in such a popelin as he. he has been talking folly and nonsence all this while , and now conceited of his misshapen foppery , would needs set himself up for a deus ollaris , and sit judge of another mans conscience and salvation . but i must tell you , sir , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . thou hast philosophiz'd , speaking to earth and heaven ; by whom there is no heed given to thy speeches . so that you would have done well to have forborn this impertinent piece of trouble ; the deponent having now quite done with jesuitical confessors , and besides he does not know that ever he requir'd the vindicators sollicitude for him in this particular , nor believes that his episcopal jurisdiction reaches into england . he makes an idle story of the deponents fainting at the iesuits tryal . if he did , the crowd and season of the year might well excuse him . but homer tells us the reason of such a small accident as that , far more discreetly than the vindicators malitious inference . the deponent had a great deal to remember , and a great deal of business to do . 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 — he took breath a while — rediitque in pectora sensus . the next thing he troubles the world with , is a sentence of the lord chief justices in sir g. w's tryal . which in regard it makes nothing to his purpose , we shall leave to the better construction of those , who no doubt will make a more favourable interpretation of the words . lord , what would these fellows do with this vile heretical deponents body , if they had him at rome , that have with so much inveteracy erected an inquisition of his own conscience , and a chief justices sentence to deprive him of his salvation . usurping a vain authority over both , as well knowing that neither the deponents conscience , nor the chief justices words are at their command . from the lord chief justice he repaires to k. salomon , and tells us , he that is inconsiderate in his language shall feel mischief . from whence he undertakes to be a fortune-teller , and bodes the deponent bad luck . in the first place he has confessed that the narrative was writ with a great deal of consideration , and then why may not the preceding words be as true as these , a man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth . then for his prophetick spirit we value it not of a nut-shell , for the proverb tells us , 't is the wise man that governs the stars , and not such a fool as he. he talks of eternal damnation due to false witnesses and murtherers . what 's that to the deponent ? let him and his attestators look to that . oh but , quo he , i have prov'd him to be both by the fore-going discourse , as he calls it . you have said so several times , but you must come and tell us who you are , and make it out , before any man of reason will believe a word you say . you will find it a hard task to make the world believe you are able to write common sense , much less with your feeble armes to expugn the truth of the narrative . if the english catholicks had such a mind to a vindication , they should have done well to have made choice of some person of more wit and more learning , considering the importance of the charge with which they entrusted him , than your empty skull affords . having thus tost your little squibs of advice at the deponent , you throw your fire-balls at the citizens of london , whom you call the giddy rabble of london . an expression you might have forborn , had you had the least grain of prudence in your hollow pericranium ; considering how much you have already exasperated 'em , by your late devastation of their city , and laying their pretended habitations in ashes . you may be sure they have not yet forgot it , nor who were the authors and contrivers of their calamity . they find it in the narrative , which because you have so slenderly attack'd , they must still and do believe . and therefore you must not blame the rabble of london , for being kind to the person that discover'd your villany . i know not what farther designs you and your confederates may have against the rabble of london , that you threaten 'em so hard , but i believe for all your vindication , they will have a narrow eye upon your future actions , and continue as severely diligent as ever in the preservation of themselves from your clandestine machinations . you say that whitebread and his fellow sufferers pray'd for the deponent at their executions . they had broken the gallows custom else . 't is usual , and therefore no wonder . all your thieves , murderers , and malefactors are mighty tender hearted , and pardon all the world like so many popes , before they turn off . but you may assure your self , 't was more than the deponent ever car'd for , or desired at their hands , and so you may tell the rest of the surviving iesuits , that you say pray for him still : for he is fully satisfied , how far the prayers of the wicked will reach heaven . so that you may go whistle with your friendly admonitions , pack up your awls , and conclude that you have lost both your labour , and your hearts desire ; for that you are never like to have him in your clutches at st. omers again . now for the attestators and attestations themselves , they are such as one would think he had intended a vindication of the spanish and flemish catholicks , not of the english. as for the persons themselves , certainly never was such a parcel of vermin muster'd together out of the temple walks , or the black-pot houses in white-frayars , particularly jesuits and mule-men ; generally fugitives , traytors of the same gang with himself , conspirators in the same plot , and impeach'd for the same crimes for which some of their fellows have already been hang'd and quarter'd by the law of the land , and all after a fair tryal , a deliberate verdict , and the sentence of their judges . to tell you more of them , they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , testes domestici , such as the vindicator has at home , that is , within the verge of papistical jurisdiction , ready for his and their own advantage . and so to bring evidence of this nature , is no more than what cicero , in his third book de oratore , cites , as the saying of catulus , of a certain vain declaimer of that time , stultitiae suae quamplurimos testes domestico praeconio colligere , to bring a rabble of knights of the post , or people of his own stamp to attest his own folly . in a word , they are most of them of st. omers breed , and what ropes of testimony have been sent from thence , we have had experience sufficient and publick enough . as for that same dr. linch that pretends to be arch-bishop of tuam in ireland , what does he at madrid ? if he claim his dignity from the sole head of the church in that kingdom , who is the king of great britain , why does he absent himself from his diocess , an exile from his duty and his prince's favour ? if he claim under any other authority , he is a rebel ; and then , what have we to do with him or his attestation either ? and the same may be said of strange , warren , warner , blundel , and the rest of his english crew . then for the attestations themselves , being only the subscriptions of such unblemish'd gentlemen , could ever any man but a vindicator of the english catholicks imagine , they should be of any value here ? suppose that an english jesuit should commit a felony in england , and fly to st. omers , and being afterwards out-lawd for the crime , should send an attestation under his own hand , that he was innocent and knew nothing of the matter ; is it possible for any man to believe that such a piece of wast paper would be sufficient to acquit the fellon , and perjure the witnesses that accus'd him ? they that inform'd this attestation-monger so precisely concerning the deponents physiognomy , might as well have inform'd him that our law admits of no such rubbish in criminal causes , as the scrawls of forraign publick notaries : viva voce testimony carries all in such cases . our law is so far from admitting a criminal to attest , that it will not allow him to swear in his own cause . 't were a fine thing indeed , that they who dare not shew their faces in england , should be believed upon the credit of a forraign scrip of paper . and it is no less a wonder that such sir politico's as the jesuits , should be such cuckow-brains , as to send their billets into england for the vindication of the english catholicks , where they knew the law so little valu'd them — so that being no more than caeca testimonia , blind certificates , and as the poet ca'ls them , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cunning artifices of deceit , it follows then , that all their protestations to heaven contain'd therein , were fram'd and modell'd animo decipiendi , only to delude the ignorant and unwary people , and surprize their belief with the gaudy luster of most worthy and unblemish'd witnesses . whereas coming to the touch , they prove to be only a company of exiles , traytors and rebels , their attestations for that reason meer trifles , and that for their protestations , they might as well have protested by their skeanes and the winds , like the antient scythians . now then if the english catholicks be not vindicated by their own laws , the vindicator has done nothing , his mountain hath not brought forth at all , the mouse is there still . and then what becomes of his confident assertion , that he had advanced nothing but what was material and true ? what will become of all these forgeries , lyes , contradictions , and perjuries , with which he has so impudently and confidently defam'd and scandaliz'd an approved narrative ? tibullus tells him , — venti irrita per terras & summa freta ferunt . in the mean while the plot is still popish , the english catholicks are ne're the better , and the vindicator loses his hearts desire . three mischievous accidents to one that pretends to have spent so much labour for those very ends and purposes . the vindicator therefore should have done well to have remembred the story of that famous lawyer , papinian , who being flatter'd by caracalla , to vindicate him for the murther of his brother geta , made answer that crimes of that nature were sooner committed than excus'd . 't was easier for his brethren the jesuits to act as they did , than for him to excuse their villany when perpetrated . there is that guard of providence over truth , which is not to be forc'd from her defence by the threatning aspect , or reproachful scandals of a more terrible gorgons head than his . — though power and policy assail her both at once , 't is but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , from which all the fury and state-policy in the world will be forc'd to retire at length with shame and loss . so that considering the difficulty of the task , and the imbecillity of the undertaker , there is no necessity that he should go presently and dispose of his body by way of despair , for the loss either of his labour , or his hearts desire . for to say truth , it was a very confident thing for him to think that the people of england should be hector'd out of their senses by a single gladiator of st. omers . however if it be impossible for him to survive his misfortunes , he may do as he pleases . thus we see upon what supporters the vindication of the english catholicks is founded . upon the ipse dixit of the vindicator himself , and the attestations of the criminals accus'd . the crime from which the vindicator goes about to clear his friends , is the popish plot. the way he assumes to accomplish his ends , is to render the discoverer infamous and contemptible , thereby to make their credit superiour to his . to this end , the vindicator talks big of the deponents life and conversation . but neither he nor any of the attestators , with all their aspick venom and inveterate malice , tax him with any of the common vices incident to youth . you heart not a tittle of those , but only of his ill manners . what these were they do not particularize . but at length we may pick 'em out , and they appear to be passion and aspiring . nay they croud in another peccadillo too , which they call poverty . to all which how many of the greatest among the great , the learnedst among the learned , the most pious among the pious have been subject , i leave to all the world to judge who have read any thing of story . this is still but the misconduct and miscarriage of humane frailty , which it is at our liberty , and which indeed we ought to forgive in one another . but treason , murder , assassination of princes , firing of cities are crimes , crimes of the highest nature , crimes which none can forgive but god and his vice-gerent the king. this person then , who while he liv'd among them , was no more than passionate and lofty , comes and discovers a popish plot carry'd on by a gang of conspirators against the king and kingdom , makes out a narrative of their proceeding , and sweares to the truth of it . to acquit themselves , they do not presently come fairly to the test , but as soon as they think that by their magick policies and industrious contrivances they have lull'd the prosecution of their villanies asleep , they give order to the vindicator to deny the whole matter of fact , from the alpha to the omega of it , and to call the discoverer rogue , lyar , perjur'd , to load him with obloquy , and upon his own dung-hil to crow up their own credit : while their spies on the one side , watch him as the ichneuman does the crocodiles eggs , and supply the pen-man with matter for his scribblement , and they on the other side furnish him with their own attestations of their own innocence , and by that means believe they shall discharge themselves of a passionate man. and why ? because they say the credit of traytors and rebels is beyond the oath of a man of ill manners among them . come , come , beloved , this will never do ; this is not the way to vindicate your friends nor your selves neither , by calling your accuser , who has been smart enough with ye hitherto , perjur'd and lyer a t'other side the sea , like the carrier that defy'd the lord mayor upon high gate-hill . your clearest and most effective course will be to crave passes , come over , enter the lists with him , beard him , face him , out-face him , disprove him , turn him and wind him , and convince him into a niobean silence . then write your vindication , you 'l need no bilbo merchants then to help you out at a dead lift . till you have done all this , your attestations indeed may serve to make pellets for pot-guns , but though you should hit your great enemy full in the brest with a hundred of 'em , they will never do him a pins worth of harm . but now to speak a little more of their credit , since they stand so much upon it , i do find in the edict of queen elizabeth for their expulsion out of england , that their credit is highly there advanced for their lewd and desperate arrogance ; for their prying into the counsels of princes ; for their exciting forraign potentates to invade the queens dominions ; for their libels against her government , and traiterous attempts upon her person . vertues so proper for the carrying on such a plot as these men of credit are accus'd of , and out-facing and out-brazening it at a distance , when they have done , that i find no reason why men that are accus'd of the same crimes , men of the same clay , pot-sherds of the same tincture with those that have been branded for so many ages , should have that ill opinion of themselves , as to think themselves so unlikely to be guilty ; and so good an opinion of their musty attestations , as to put them in competition with the solemn oath of a person never criminal but in their society . this and what has been already said at the beginning , may suffice to shew the value of this same so much exalted credit of the vindicators order of iesus , which if they dare be so confident as to gain-say , i dare be so hold as to produce twenty times as much more . so that with so little credit as they have to call the discoverers oath worthless , was but like the boast of a bankrupt far from neighbors . to say the truth their religion it self is a religion of no credit . a religion founded upon forgery . a sort of devotion that no man of reason can admit into his belief or conscience . a religion in the practice of its professors so diametrically contrary to all the precepts of the founder of christianity that nothing can be more . their muster roll of saints to be sported with , as lucian laughs at the numerous train of the heathen deities in his councel of the gods. their transubstantiation to be contemned rather than disputed against ; their miracles as fabulous as mandevil's travels . their excessive pomp , their inordinate pride , their luxury , their sodomy so infamous , as if they plac'd all their felicity in the enjoyment of the pleasures of this world. their superstitions and ceremonies foppish and ridiculous . in short , a religion which their popes themselves have vilify'd with their own mouths , while one deridingly retorted to his zealous friend . non si chiava in questa religione , non durera . ne're make such a bustle about this religion , 't will not last . and another exulting in his riches , cry'd out . o quantum nobis profuit haec fabula de christo ? certainly then for the professors of a religion of so little credit , to advance their worthless attestations above the oath of a person professing a religion so sincere and orthodox , as that of the protestants , and for them to be believ'd , would be the greatest paradox in nature . but it seems that having lost its religious credit , it must be now supported by bloody maxims of state ; by the murder of princes , and the massacre of their subjects . the first religion in the world , that ever subsisted by its own ecclesiastical politicks . the iews lost all by revolting from the ordinances of god ; they lose all if they revolt from the maxims of the devil . the maxims of the papal government are easie enough to be seen : by which it appears that the popes of rome have taken little notice of the oracles of god , but altogether consulted the most inward recesses and penetralia of humane wit. insomuch as the author of the life of sixtus quintus tells ye , the reason of the diuturnity of the papal government is not to be taken from the verity of the religion , but from this benefit peculiar to the government , that it always falls into the hands of old men , and consequently men grave , prudent and considerative . which is the cause that the papal government still gets ground , or at least never loses . whereas other monarchs being successive , and subject to the misconducts and miscarriages of minors , protectors and favorites , lose more in a few years , than the wisdom of many that succeed is able to make good . so then , what trust or credit there is to be given to the words , actions or protestations of the professors of the refined politicks of humane wit , i leave to all the world to judge . yet certainly this exquisite politeness , this studied exactness of humane policy , is not always the most successful , not does it always obtain it's end . sometimes those men of parts peg up their invention too high ; or else while they weave their designs so thin and subtle , they become transparent , and being discover'd , degenerate into folly. assuredly such a piece of refin'd cunning , was that of the jesuits , to think to clear themselves , by throwing their crimes upon the presbyterians . one of the greatest arguments , no doubt , of their guilt . for never in this world did innocence go about to acquit it self the recrimination of other . reason and justice requires , that the guilty should clear themselves , before they accuse other people . what the papists , what the jesuits , what the popes themselves have been , what their maxims and their tenents are , we have already shewn , and shall do more if they require it , viz. that they have trampl'd upon the heads and crowns of princes , been the authors and fomenters of most of the rebellions of the subjects of europe . that their political tenents are the extirpation of hereticks , otherwise call'd the destruction of kingdoms , the deposition and murther of princes , and to cover all , mental reservations , and equivocations with god and man. these men being now accus'd of no more than what has been their practice for so many years ; these men , because they are detected to have done no more than what is as natural to 'em as their mothers milk ; to have acted only according to those principles which they learn't with their first rudiments of spelling , to clear themselves , would fain throw their crimes upon the presbyterians ; under that notion aiming at the whole body of the protestants in general . but the presbyterians must bear the burthen of their calumnies , by reason of the miscarriages in the years forty two , before and after . as for the protestants in general , the vindicator should have done well to have produced his histories where they have been such recorded mutineers and rebels against their princes . in france how lately were they the chiefest support of their natural soveraign against their rebellious papistical subjects , whom the pope and the jesuits had leagu'd together to their utter extirpation . the protestants of the netherlands could not be call'd rebells , for that they made no opposition upon the account of religion , but for the maintainance of their antient franchizes and priviledges , from the oppression of the spaniard , who was not their lawful soveraign neither . nor did they do what they did , in a tumultary way , but under the conduct of a prince , who had as much right to the soveraignty among them ▪ as philip the second . nor did they during the contest , send any one to murther the king of spain , as the jesuits , his great creatures did to assassinate two great princes of the house of nassau . as for the protestants of germany , their wars were carry'd on by their own princes , who were as free as the emperour himself . the protestants of england never got the power of the government into their hands by rebellion , but by the act of their own monarchs themselves . by the assistance of the protestants queen mary obtain'd the crown . and the protestants were they whom she martyr'd for their kindness , who yet nevertheless made no other resistance against her , but by their patient submission to her cruelty . but the papists were they that were so restless in their conspiracies against her successor . but the chief pretence of their malitious cunning , is the late rebellion in england , of which presbyterians are by them charg'd to be the chief designers , authors and instruments . i must confess , there can be no pen but that of a jesuites , that dares adventure to justifie that rebellion . but since it was his majesties most gratious pleasure that all the publick transgressions of those years , should be buried in the tomb of a general oblivion , it was an unpardonable injury to his majesties act of pardon , to revive forgiven offences , to improve scandals , and raise surmizes of facts committed , for which there is not the least appearance of proof . the vindicator had a greater business then this to do , before he had open'd such a villainous absurdity ; that is , he should have prov'd that the papists and jesuits , were not the abettors and seducers of those presbyterians at that time , in regard they acted nothing but by their doctrine and principles , and that so truly , as if bellarmine , lessius , suarez , mariana , and the rest of that crew had been their only masters . salmonet also in his troubles of england tells us , that after the battel of edge-hill , several priests were found among the slain of the parliaments army . so couragious were popish emissaries to accompany the presbyterian souldiers , for fear they should falter in their rebellious fortitude . and it is the opinion of wise and learned men , that that rebellion was rais'd and foster'd by the contrivances of the court of rome . when those presbyterians saw their errors , and had voted to restore the king with honour and safety , they were no longer for the turn of the jesuitical party , who presently therefore forsook them , and joyn'd with the army party , that was not only the stronger , but driving on the design which they aim'd at themselves , which was the destruction of his majesty , to which intent and purpose they insinuated themselves into the chief committees of the independent and fift-monarchy faction . for proof of which dr. de moulin tells ye of a select number of jesuits , that were sent from the whole number of jesuits in england to the sorbonne at paris , to consult for the advancing and securing the catholick cause in england ; which they found no better way to bring to pass , then by making away the king , who had then yielded to the making several acts for extirpation of popery . he tells ye of one sarabras that was present , and triumphing at the murther of the king ; and of a certain priest and confessor , who when he saw the fatal stroak given , flourished his sword and cry'd out , now the greatest enemy we have in the world is gone . and the author of fair warning affirms , that one father sibthorp , in a letter to father medcalfe , acknowledged that the jesuits were the contrivers of the kings murther . and it was the opinion of secretary m. that the irreligion of the papists was chiefly guilty of the murther of the late king , the odium whereof , they were then about , to file to the account of the protestants . now that men of such leud principles as these , men so strongly accus'd , and so likely to be guilty , and of whose number some have already suffer'd upon the same accusations , i say that such men should go about to invalidate the testimony that appears against them , by recriminating upon another party before they have acquitted themselves , and that so unseasonably and with so little probability of proof , was one of the most sottish pieces of jesuitical cunning that ever history recorded . it seems then , that if the jesuits plot had not been discover'd , the presbyterians never had been heard of . but the jesuits plot being once brought to light , they began to look about 'em , and so they found the presbyterian plot in a midwives meal-tub . here was strange good luck , and strange bad luck ; strange good luck , to find a plot so miraculously ; strange bad luck , to make so little of it . and what was the reason ? because it was a jesuitical not a presbyterian plot. and indeed it was a wonderful symptome of despair , and that they were come to the last push , to hope for success from a plot carry'd on in a hurrey , that had fail'd so unhappily in the confultations and premeditations of so many years . but there is yet a greater argument of the pretended presbyterian plot , for that it was not plac'd right , as being fix'd upon men that were become those foelices agricolae , that now well understood their own happiness . persons that have a fairer prospect of their own interest and safety , as deeply understanding both to be so entirely wrapt up in the safety of his majesty , as absolutely to oblige them to venture their lives and fortunes for the preservation of his sacred person , his crown and monarchical dignity . therefore it was that they were so cordially zealous , and zealously assisting in his restoration ; since which they have enjoy'd those blessed fruits of freedom , rest and peace , of which men of their prudence would never go about to deprive themselves by the folly of a meal-tub plot , or to sully that reputation for their loyalty , wherein they have ever since continu'd , with designs and counsels , the most ridiculous and vain that ever vanity it self produc'd . they cannot be ignorant of that immortal hatred which the court of rome and the jesuits bear them . campian the jesuit has told 'em roundly the intention of his associates . as for our society , saith he , i would have you to know , writing to the counsellers of the queen of england , that all we who are of the order of iesus , where-ever dispersed over the face of the whole world , have made a holy league , to extirpate the hereticks by all means and ways whatever , whereby we shall easily surmount all your contrivances against vs , nor shall we ever despair as long as one of vs remains alive . so then it would be the most inconsiderate piece of rage , the most besotted piece of fury in the world , for protestants to lend their helping hand to assist the malice of such an inveterate enemy for the destruction of each other . and consequently so little to be suspected from the wisdom and piety of the presbyterians , that it would be almost a crime to mention it farther . and now to conclude , let the world take this character of the scandalizer of the presbyterians , and the vindicator of the english catholicks , that he is a man of the most passion , and the least reason that ever put pen to paper , and so i leave him against next time , to learn more wit and more manners . the end . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a54760-e250 some burnt at wild-house . the tryal and conviction of john tasborough and ann price for subornation of perjury, in endeavouring to perswade mr. stephen dugdale to retract and deny his evidence about the horrid popish plot with an intention to stifle the further prosecution and discovery of the same at the king's bench bar at westminster, tuesday the third day of february, 1679/80 before the right honourable sir william scroggs knight, lord chief justice, and the rest of the judges of that court. tasborough, john, defendant. 1680 approx. 149 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 32 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2003-05 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63159 wing t2161 estc r23482 12069038 ocm 12069038 53476 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63159) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 53476) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 583:11) the tryal and conviction of john tasborough and ann price for subornation of perjury, in endeavouring to perswade mr. stephen dugdale to retract and deny his evidence about the horrid popish plot with an intention to stifle the further prosecution and discovery of the same at the king's bench bar at westminster, tuesday the third day of february, 1679/80 before the right honourable sir william scroggs knight, lord chief justice, and the rest of the judges of that court. tasborough, john, defendant. price, ann., defendant. england and wales. court of king's bench. [3], 59, [1] p. printed for robert pawlet ..., london : 1679/80. advertisement: p. 59 and p. [1] at end. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng tasborough, john. price, ann. dugdale, stephen, 1640?-1683. popish plot, 1678. 2002-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2003-03 emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread 2003-03 emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited 2003-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i do appoint robert pawlett to print the tryal of iohn tasborough and ann price ; aud let no other presume to print the same . william scroggs . the tryal and conviction of iohn tasborovgh and ann price for subornation of perjury , in endeavouring to perswade m r. stephen dugdale to retract and deny his evidence about the horrid popish plot : with an intention to stifle the further prosecution and discovery of the same . at the king's bench bar at westminster , tuesday the third day of february , 1679 / 80. before the right honourable sir william scroggs knight , lord chief justice , and the rest of the judges of that court. london , printed for robert pawlett , at the bible in chancery-lane , near fleet-street , 1679 / 80. the tryal and conviction of iohn tasborovgh and anne price , &c. in hillary-term , feb. 3. 1679. this day john tasborough , and anne price , ( who were the last term indicted for the offence in the indictment hereafter recited , and found guilty by the grand iury of the county of middlesex ) were brought to a tryal at the bar of the court of kings-bench , which proceeded thus . first , proclamation was made for information in usual form . then the defendants were called , and appearing , were by the clerk of the crown advised to look to their challenges . then the jurors that were summoned to try the cause being called , and appearing ; the twelve that were sworn , were these persons following . jur. thomas harriot , thomas iohnson , charles vmphrevile , thomas earsby , richard pagett , iohn greene , edward wilford , richard bull , ioseph radcliffe , richard cooper , iames supple , & george read. clerk of cr. gentlemen of the jury , you that are sworn , hearken to the record . the defendants iohn tasborough , and anne price , stand indicted by the oaths of twelve honest and lawful men of the county of middlesex ; which indictment sets forth ; that whereas one thomas white , alias whitebread , william harcourt , iohn fenwick , iohn gavan , alias gawen , and anthony turner , being popish recusants , and false traytors against our soveraign lord charles the second , by the grace of god , of england , scotland , france , and ireland king , defender of the faith , &c. the thirteenth day of iune , in the year of the reign of our soveraign ) lord the king that now is , the thirty first , at the sessions of oyer and terminer , and goal-delivery then held in the old-bailey ▪ in the parish of st. sepulchers , in the ward of faringdon without , london , for the city of london , and county of middlesex , were lawfully indicted for certain . high treasons in the said indictment specifyed ; and afterwards were severally tryed by a ●ury of the said county , and then and there were attain●ed , as appears by the record thereof , to the jurors aforesaid in evidence shewn . and whereas also one richard langhorn esque being a popish recusant , the 14th day of iune , in the year of the reign of our said soveraign lord the king ▪ that now is , the 31th aforesaid ▪ at the sessions of oyer and terminer , then held by adjournment at the old-bailey , in the parish and ward aforesaid , was lawfully indicted for divers high-treasons in the said indictment specified ; and being afterwards tryed by a jury of the county , was then and there thereof attainted , as appears by the record thereof , to the jurors aforesaid in evidence shew● . and whereas one stephen dugdale , upon the several tryals of the indictments aforesaid , was a witness produced and sworn on behalf of our said soveraign lord the king that now is , and then and there in lawful manner , did give material evidence against the said william harcourt , and the said several other traytors , to prove them guilty of the matters in the said indictment specified ; the said defendants , iohn tasbrough and anne price , the premises aforesaid well knowing , and being persons devilishly affected towards our soveraign lord charles the second , now king of england , &c. their supream and natural lord , and devising , and with all their strength intending the peace and tranquillity of this kingdom to disturb , and to hinder and stifle the farther discovery of the said treasons , and as much as in them lay , the due course of law to elude , and the prosecution of justice in that behalf to retard and obstruct ; as also to cause and procure that it should be believed , that the persons aforesaid attainted , were unjustly attainted : the said anne price , before the tryal of the said william harcourt , to wit , the 10th day of iune , in the year reign of our said soveraign ▪ lord the king the 31th aforesaid , at the parish of st. margaret westminster ; in the county of middle●ex ▪ with force and arms , falsly , unlawfully , unjustly , corruptly , and against the duty of her allegiance , did sollicit , suborn , and endeavour to perswade the said stephen dugdale , that he the aforesaid stephen dugdale should not be a witness nor give evidence against the said william harcourt , upon the tryal of the said william harcourt for the treasons aforesaid . and that the said iohn tasborough and anne price , afterwards , to wit , the 12th day of october , in the year of the reign of our said soveraign lord the king that now is , the 31th aforesaid , at the parish of st. margaret westminster aforesaid , with force and arms , falsly , unlawfully , unjustly , advisedly , corruptly , and against the duty of their allegiance , did sollicit , suborn , and endeavour to perswade , and either of them did then and there , falsly , unlawfully , advisedly , corruptly , and against the duty of their allegiance , sollicit , suborn , and endeavour to perswade the said stephen dugdale , that he the said stephen dugdale should retract and deny all the evidence and information which he the said stephen dugdale , as aforesaid , had given against the traytors and popish recusants aforesaid ; the said iohn tasborough and ann● price then and there falsly , unlawfully , unjustly , and advisedly , corruptly promising , and either of them promising to the said stephen dugdale great sums of money and rewards , if he the said stephen dugdale would retract and deny all the evidence and information by the said stephen dugdale , against the traytors and popish recusants aforesaid , as aforesaid given , and would withdraw and absent himself the said stephen dugdale , in places unknown and beyond the sea. and that the said iohn tasborough and anne price , their wicked devices , practices , and intentions aforesaid to fulfil and accomplish , afterwards , to wit , the said 12th day of october ▪ in the year of the reign of our said soveraign lord the king the 31th aforesaid , at the parish aforesaid , in the county aforesaid , by force and arms , falsly , unlawfully , unjustly , advisedly , and corruptly , and against the duty of their all●giance , did produce and shew , and each of them did then and there produce and shew to the said stephen dugdale , a certain note in writing ; the tenour of which note follows in these english words following : being touched with a true remorse of conscience , and hearty sorrow for the great ill i did in coming in a witness against the catholicks , and there speaking things which in my own conscience i knew to be very far from the truth ; i think my self bound in duty both to god and man , and for the safety of my own soul , to make a true declaration how i was drawn into this wicked action . but being very well satisfied that i shall create my self many powerful enemies upon this account , i have retired my self to a place of safety ; where i will with my own hand discover the great wrong that hath been done the catholicks , and hope it may gain belief . and likewise i protest before almighty god , that i have no motive to induce me to this confession , but a true repentance for the mischiefs i have done ; and hope god almighty will forgive me . and that the said iohn tasborough and anne price , the day and year aforesaid , in the parish aforesaid , in the county aforesaid , with force and arms , falsly , unlawfully , unjustly , advisedly , corruptly , and against the duty of their allegiance , the said stephen dugdale the aforesaid note in writing , so as aforesaid , to the said stephen dugdale produced and shewn to signe and subscribe , did sollicit and endeavour to perswade , and each of them did sollicit and endeavour to perswade ; and then & there falsly , unlawfully , unjustly , advisedly , and corruptly , did promise , and each of them did promise to the said stephen dugdale , that if he the said stephen dugdale the aforesaid note in writing would signe and subscribe , that then he the said stephen dugdale great and vast sums of money should have and receive ; to the evil and pernicious example of all persons in the like case offending , and against the peace of our said soveraign lord the king , his crown and dignity , and against the duty of their allegiance . to this indictment they have pleaded not guilty , and for their tryal have put themselves upon the country , and the kings attorney likewise ; which country you are . your charge is to enquire whether the defendants , or either of them , be guilty of the trespass and offence whereof of they stand indicted , or not guilty . if you find them or either of them guilty , you are to say so ; if you find them not guilty , you are to say so , and no more , and hear your evidenee . cryer , make an o yes . cryer . o yes , if any one will give evidence on behalf of our soveraign lord the king , against the defendants iohn tasbrough and anne price , let them come forth , and they shall be heard . then roger belwood esq of counsel for the king in this cause , opened the indictment . mr. belwood . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , the defendants iohn tasborough , and anne price , stand indicted for subornation of perjury . and the indictment sets forth , that whereas thomas whitebread , william harcourt , and others , were indicted , and that for treason , in conspiring the death of the king , and other treasons , and were legally tryed , convicted , and attainted for the same ; and that richard langhorn was likewise indicted and attainted for the same offence : and that upon these tryals mr. dugdale was produced and examined as a witness for the king , and did depose materially against the said traytors ; and the defendants knowing this , and contriving and designing to stifle the discovery of the treasons aforesaid , did before the tryal of the said harcourt , sollicit , suborn , and endeavour to perswade the said mr. dugdale not to be a witness , nor to give evidence upon the tryal : and after the tryal , did farther sollicite him to retract and deny all the evidence he had given on that behalf , and promised him large rewards , and great sums of money for it ; and to accomplish this , they did incite him to withdraw and retire himself , and produced a note which he was to sign , and which hath been read to you , wherein he was to acknowledge that he was in an errour , and had sworn falsely , and therefore had retired himself , and for this they promised him great rewards . and this offence is laid to be done falsely , advisedly , corruptly , and against the duty of their allegiance . to this the defendants have pleaded not guilty : if we shall prove the fact upon them , we hope you will find it . then mr. serjeant maynard pursued the charge . mr. serj. maynard . my l d. and you the gentlemen of the jury , i am of counsel in this cause against the defendants . for the fact that is laid in the indictment , it consists of these particulars . first , an attempt to prevent the evidence before it was given . and secondly , when it was given , and the traytors were convicted and condemned , then to disgrace that evidence , and the proceedings at law that hath been against the traytors ; and this in favour of the catholiks . thirdly , the means they used to perswade him , which was by corrupt promises and engagements to him . and fourthly , that they had prepared a note which hath been read to the jury , whereby he that had swore the truth , should publickly own to the world that he had swore a lye , and that the catholicks had received great injury by him , and that he had withdrawn himself to make this discovery : and this is the substance of the charge upon these persons . this practice , my lord , is not new , it hath appeared here in several other instances . we remember what reading did , and we have not forgotten what knox and lane did ; and this is the third cause of that kind that hath come before you . our evidence will be this : we shall produce mr. dugdale , the person against whom this design was laid , and he can testifie all this matter . now he was but a single person against these two tempters ; and your lordship remembers what was said in the like case , two might convince one , and therefore he thought it safe to acquaint , and he did acquaint persons of publick concern and authority with this attempt upon him . and he did not onely this , but they met several times about it at the tavern , and there we shall prove what they did . part of this hath been confessed , for this hath had another examination in another place . and the gentlewoman hath confessed , that she did offer him sums of money , for it we will call our witnesses . we shall not now aggravate the fault , that will come after the evidence given ; but i think it is hellish enough if it be proved . then mr. atturney general proceeded to open the evidence . mr. att. gen. my lord , this case is of the same nature with those that mr. serjeant hath mentioned of reading , and knox and lane ; but it goes somewhat farther : for this must be done in writing , and subscribed by the partie , to be produced upon occasion , to defame all the evidence that had been given before . and the substance of the note is to recant all that he had said , and aver it to be false : and so all that have died upon that account , must have been supposed to have died very unjustly . this was the designe of the matter : and it was not onely in this case that these persons have been endeavouring things of this nature ; for we can prove , if it be necessary , by another witness , that this gentlewoman hath been tampering to perswade him to retract his evidence against another person , one mr. parsons a priest in custody ; and to bring all about , she did presume upon mr. dugdale's old acquaintance with her . they had been fellow-servants in my lord aston's family , and by that means were of antient acquaintance : and she did presume upon these grounds , that she could withdraw him from all his evidence . and we shall prove , i think , by another witness which does fortifie this testimony , that both these persons have already acknowledged this fact , and that they personated great persons in it ; that is , they pretended to come in the name of very great persons , as you will hear , when they had nothing to do in the thing . they pretended to go to windsor for pardon , and assurances of protection , and they have acknowledged it ; and 't is in proof that they were never near that person ; that is , mrs. price did pretend she should go down to windsor and speak with the d. of york ; for he was the person named , though 't is acknowledged , and was in proof by her companion , that she never came near him ; that is , by mrs. harris , of whom you will hear anon . and mr. tasborough did pretend the same thing to mr. dugdale , and did acknowledge it to the council , but denyed that it was true . we shall call our witnesses , and prove the fact as it hath been opened . mr. se●j . maynard . we will first prove the indictments that are recited , and call for the records of the convictions . l. c. i. sure they will admit that . mr. serj. maynard . we must offer our proof ; if they will admit it , so . l. c. i. what say the counsel for the defendants ? do you admit the indictments and convictions ? mr. pollexfen . my lord , i cannot tell in this case ; if we should not stand upon it that all the proofs be given , our clyent perhaps will take it ill . i pray therefore the evidence may be given according to law. l. c. i. well , if you stand upon it , they must prove it . produce the records . mr. att. gen. give mr. clare his oath . ( who was sworn . ) mr. serj. maynard . put in the copy , sir. ( which was done . ) cl. of the crown . come , sir , is that a true copy ? mr. clare . yes ; i examined it . l. c. i. where ? mr. clare . with mr. adderley , the clerk of the peace of middlesex : and this other , with mr. tanner , clerk of the peace for london . then the copy of the record of the conviction of whitebread , &c. was begun to be read . l. c. i. let them see it that are for the defendants . mr. iust. dolben . don't read it all : if they have any exception to it , let them make it . give it over to them . mr. pollexfen . ay , my lord , let us see it , pray sir , you say you examined this , is this a true copy ? mr. clare . yes , it is . then also the conviction of langho●ne in london was read . mr. iust. dolben . that is the conviction at newgate . mr. iust. pe●b . well , go on with the rest now . l. c. i. go on with the evidence . mr. iust. pemb. who do you begin with ? who do you call first ? mr. belwood , mr. dugdale , my lord. ( who was sworn . ) price . stand nearer me , mr. dugdale . mr. attorney general . he stands near enough . mr. serg. maynard . he will be near enough you by and by mrs. price . l. c. iust. come mr. dugdale , what say you against mrs. price and mr. tasborough ? mr. dugdale ▪ my lord , mrs. price being an ancient acquaintance of mine , ( for she was my fellow servant at my lord aston's , may it please your lordship ) i coming to town as a witness for the king , i did send for mrs. price as one of my ancient acquaintance , i think it was in ianuary was twelve month . l. c. iust. is she a papist ? mr. dugdale . yes , i think she is so now : we used to go to mass together in the countrey . l. c. iust. she was one , but is she ? mr. dugdale . i suppose she is one , we had familiarity together , but never till iune last did she endeavour to take off my evidence . l. c i. when was it she first set upon you ? mr. dugdale . she began to tamper first , the night before harcourts tryal . l. c. i. but she had been before with you in london ? mr. dugdale . several times : for i sent to her presently after i came to town ; but that was the first time she offered to take off my evidence . and she was then perswading me to be out of the way , and not to give any evidence against mr. harcourt , because he was her ghostly father . l. c. i. who was by ? mr. dugdale . there was no body by , but one that was an acquaintance of mine that heard her . l. c. i. what is his name ? mr. dugdale . wright . l. c. i. then you two and wright were together ? mr. dugdale . yes , my lord. l. c. i. what said you to her , when she made that offer to you ? mr. dugdale . i told her i could not do it ; for that i was to appear the next day , and was to give my evidence , or i must be forsworn . in any thing else i told her i would serve her ; but that i cou'd not do , because i should forswear my self : and i was sworn next morning . it continued two or three days , or a pretty while before i saw her again . l. c. i. she was angry for a while with you , was she ? mr. dugdale . she was afterwards well reconciled to me , and afterwards she desired me that i would speak to your lordship , on behalf of one mr. parsons a prisoner in the gate-hou●e , that he might be bailed out , i told her i would , i know not whether i did or no certainly , i suppose i did speak to some o● your lordships servants . i do confess it was not done ; but i was to go into the country into stafford-shire , and just as i was going to take coach , she sent a messenger to me to speak with me before i went. i said i could not stay to speak with her that morning ; but i would remember her business when i came to town again . i supposed it to be this about mr. parsons . i went into stafford-shire , and continued there about six or seven weeks : i was there at the assizes with your lordship . now she had been several times at one mr. crosses ( where we usually met ) to enquire when i came to town ; and did desire ●he might know when i came : for ●he had important business to communicate to me . i think this might be about the eleventh of september last my lord. when i came to town , i came to mr. crosses that very night , and they told me of this , that mrs. price had been there several times to request them , that when ever i came she might have notice . i denied it that night : i am very weary said i , and therefore would not have her sent for . within two or three days after , i came there again , and she was sent for ; i cannot tell whether by my direction , or whether they s●nt for her of their own accord , they can best testifie that . when she came to mr. crosses , the first thing after salu●ation from my journey , she asked me if i had spoken to your lordship about mr. parsons . i told her no , not as yet ; but i would go straight up to your lordships ●ou●e , and speak with you about it . no , ( said she ) you need not now do that : for we have a greater work in hand , which work was this ; she told me she was come from a great person whom she did not then name , to tell me that if i would retract my evidence ( this was the short of it , there were more particulars ) and go beyond sea , i should either be in the d. of york's court , or i should be supported by him . l. c. i. did she name the d. of york then ? mr. dugdale . not the first time ; she said she was come from a great person , but named him not : the second time she named him , when i desired to know who the great person was . l. c. iust. but what said she the first time , if you would r●tract , what then ? mr. dugdale . i was to have a thousand pounds paid into a merchants hands to be secured for me till i came back to give evidence for them . i was to take the plot off from the catholicks , and to lay it wholly upon the protestants . i was to swear against some persons , as mr. tasborough told me , that after i was got on shipboard , i was to do a great deal of more service , and come to swear against a great person , a person of considerable note whom yet they did not name . l. c. iust. but before you depart from what mrs. price said to you , make an end of her discourse , when she told you you should have a thousand pounds deposited into what merchants hand you thought fit ? mr. dugdale . i think not that , but into a merchants hand . l. c. iust. well , what should you do for it ? mr. dugdale . i was to retract all my evidence , and to be no witness against them ; but before i would much encourage this , i went to my lord ●hat was then president of the council , my lord shafts●ury . l. c. iust. who was by wh●n this dis●o●●●e was ; was the third person by you speak of ? mr. dugdale . there was others by afterwards ▪ but there was no body but we tow together , i think at that time : but i went to that noble lord my lord shaftsbury , and acquainted him and mr. hambden , and mr. charlton with it : for she threatned , that all the king's evidence would in a short time be hang'd ; and if i would come over to them , it should all be turned upon the protestants . the duke had a wise council , and had contrived it so , that if i would come over to them , there would not be a papist that should suffer more ; but their religion should be established in half a year , and all the witnesses brought to condign punishment . when i acquainted these persons i named with this , & communicated it to them , they thought fit i should go on a little with her to trepan her , to see what kind of plot it was they were designing ; and i did give encouragement ; but not so far as to set my hand to any paper . but when it did come out , the contrivance they spoke of did prove mr. dangerfield's plot , as appeared afterwards . so , as i was saying , i did encourage this to mrs. price , to see what i could get out of her ; for i knew their plots were dangerous and barbarous when i was amongst them ; but i never designed to prosecute them at any bar , but only to know the depth of their contrivance . and these gentlemen thought it very fit i should have some evidence to testifie for my innocency , if they should prosecute me : and i did get two persons , one dr. chamberlain and his clerk who were to be in a private place to over hear what was the communication between us ; and when i had placed them , i asked mrs. price , whether i first began the tampering or she , she answered she did , and i reckoned up all the heads of our former treaties , though not the particulars . l. c. i. when did mr. tasborough first appear in this matter ? mr. dugdale . my lord , he never appeared but twice , and it was about the 12 th of october , i think , the first time . we appointed to meet at the green lettice , that was with mrs. price , for i never saw the face of mr. tas●orough before that time , and from thence we adjourned to the pheasant in fuller's rents . l. chief iust. there was the first time you met with mr. tas●orough you say . mr. dugdale . yes , my lord. l. c. i. what discourse had you with him when you first met him ? mr. dugdale my lord , when we came there , mr. tasborough was at first pleased to open the business to me , that mrs. price had acquainted him that i would come over to them . i sate a good while and said nothing , and when i did speak , i did rather give encouragement than speak against it . lord chief iustice. what did he tell you ? mr. dugdale . he said , he was brought there to confirm what mrs. price had promised me . lord chief iustice. did he say so ? mr , dugdale . yes , because i would not take it upon her word alone , but desired to have some other sufficient person ; and she told me , he was an honest sufficient gentleman , and i might con●ide in him ; and he said , what she had promised , should be certainly made good , and that he came likewise from the d. of york , as he said , to confirm those promises had been made me of his encouragement and protection . lord chief iustice. did he express particularly of what should be made good ? mr. dugdale . my lord , in general . lord chief iustice. did he mention the money that was to be paid into the merchants hands ? mr. dugdale . in general words only , all would be made good ? lord chief iustice. then he did not say the money ; but what had been said to you by her should be made good ? mr. dugdale . we had some particulars mentioned , but i cannot positively remember which . mr. attorney general . i desire my lord , the jury ▪ ●ay take notice of this , that what she had promised , was ▪ 〈◊〉 would retract his evidence . mr. iustice dolben . did he intimate that ? mr. dugdale . the second time when he came , — lord chief justice . but before you come to the second time , let us make an end of the first : repeat what he told you , when he came to you . you say , he said i am informed by this gentlewoman , that you intend to come over to us , what then ? mr. dugdale . he told me a great many things for my encouragement , if i did come , that it was a very charitable act , and it was nothing but what was acted like a christian , and if i had done amiss , i might have pardon for it ; and he did say , he was encouraged by more than the d. of york , that had taken my matter into consideration . lord chief justice . what was it in general words ? mr. dugdale . it was , if i would come over and retract what evidence i had given . and he said what ever things had been promised me , should be sure to be made good . then my lord , the second time , we did adjourn till tuesday following ; and then we met ( as i think ) at the six cans in holb●r● ▪ and it was pr●tty late that time we met ; so mr. tasborough and mrs. price did tell me it was th● last time they were to come . lord chief justice . what , the second time of ta●borough's coming ? mr. dugdale . yes my lord , and they offered me this note . i had the note before left with me to consider of it . lord chief justice . who had given you the note ? mr. dugdale . mrs. price gave me the note ▪ lord chief justice . did mr. tasborough leave you before the note was given you ? for look you , when he told you about retracting your evidence , and that this is nothing but what you may lawfully do , 't is a charitable act. — mr. dugdale . that was the first time my lord. lord chief justice . did he produce the note then ? mr. dugdale . he and she together did ? lord chief justice . who was it had it ? mr. dugdale . mrs. price had it from me , and produced it before mr. tasborough's face . lord chief justice . did she give it to him to read ? mr. dugdale . mr. tasborough did read it , and reading it said , this is nothing but what you may lawfully do ; there is no hurt in it ? lord chief justice . and then he went away and left you and mrs. price together , what became of the note ? mr. dugdale . then mrs. price , after some importunity left the note with me , and i del●vered it to doctor chamberlain to copy out . and mr. tasborough and mrs. price at the second meeting told me , that was the last time of meeting , and if i did not then sign it , it would be much to my prejudice ; and that they should not be able to do any thing for my advantage , if i did not sign it before the duke went into scotland . he was then going , and it should be much for my benefit if i signed it first ; but mr. tasborough said , he could do me no more service except i did that . lord chief iustice. he said , that that was the last time , and if you would do it , it would be for your advantage . mr. dugdale . yes , my lord. lord chief iustice. what said you then , did they prod●ce the note again ? mr. dugdale . my lord , the note was delivered to mrs. price , and she brought it thither for me to sign it , and laid it upon the table , and pressed me to sign it . lord chief iustice. i thought you had said she had given you the note ? mr. dugdale . yes , but i gave it her again before we met the second time , lord chief iustice. and who produced it then ? mr. dugdale . she again the second time . but my lord , we have miss'd one thing about mrs. price . when she was perswading me , she made use of the d. of york's name , and said , she would go down to windsor to perswade the duke that i should have my pardon : accordingly she did go , as i believe ; for she took coach at charing cross , and as she said , did go to winds●r , and brought me word back again , that the duke did not seem to countenance it much , for fear he should be drawn into a praemunire himself ; and then she told me the duke did wish her to acquaint the spanish embassador with it ; and she did go and acquaint him with it , as she told me . i asked her when i shou●d go to speak with the embassador about it ; she told me , that the spanish emb●ssador could not speak english , and it was not safe to trust an interpreter that they did not know ; and so it was to be deferred a little longer ; but she said , that he would protect me , and that all that she said that the duke had promised for my reward ; and for my safe going beyond sea , he would be ready to do it ; and she told me , that the spanish embassador would write letters into flanders . and so they made use of the duke of york's name ; but i could never find by any thing , nor can say , though they made use of the duke of york's name , that he did countenance any such thing , or ever knew of it . lord ch. i. how long was this before the duke went away ? mr. dugdale , it was about the twelfth or fourteenth of october . the duke went the beginning of novemb. from hence . lord ch. iust. sir thomas doleman , do you know when the king came to town from windsor ? sir thomas doleman , no , i do not know . mr. dugdale , it was before the duke went over into flanders that the king was at windsor . for the king and the duke of york came from windsor , and then the duke went to flanders again , and then she went as she said , to windsor , and came home either the day the duke came from windsor or the day after . lord chief iust. her discourse when she went to windsor , was before the duke went into flanders ? mr. iust. pemberton , the second time you mean. mr. dugdale , yes , my lord , the second time . for may it please your lordship , i do remember now , that the day when the duke of york came back again from flanders i think it was the twelfth of october , that was the time that i saw mr. tasborough first , and that was the time they produced the note , and i shall produce some witnesses to prove that he had discourse with me then . lord chief iust. i would only know the time when she told you she went to windsor , to speak with the duke of york . mr. dugdale . my lord , to the best of my remembrance , and as i think , it was the day before the king came from windsor , that she went down . mr. iust. pemberton , he cannot swear to a day , 't is hard to put him to that . lord chief iust. he is not asked to a day , but we would be at some certainty about the time as near as we can . mr. dugdale , my lord , this i dare positively say , she went down of a tuesday , and that was the day before the duke of york came from windsor . mr. iust. pemberton , he does give us the time as near as possibly he can . mr. att. gen. have you a copy of the note mr. dugdale ? mr. dugdale . yes , my lord , i have . mr. ser. maynard , now we will prove that note . mr. att. gen. for the note it self your lordship observes , mrs. price had the original back again , but your lordship hears dr. chamberlain took a copy of it , and he will prove it . then doctor chamberlain was sworn . lord chief i. did she shew you the note at the time that she went to the duke to windsor ? mr. dugdale , the note was produced when the duke came from flanders , the day i think he came , and that was in october . lord chief i. when did tasborough and she meet with you ? mr. dugdale , when the d. of york came back from flanders . lord chief iust. when was that ? mr. dugdale , my lord , i think it was the twelfth of october . mrs. price had appointed mr. tasborough to come to confirm what she had said before , which was the time that i saw him first . lord chief iust. when was that ? mr. dugdale , the very day the duke came from flanders , as i think . lord chief iust. well then , she talked to you of the duke of york , and going to windsor , before ever you saw tasborough . mr. dugdale , yes my lord. mr. iust. pemberton , and so his evidence was . lord chief iust. so then here is the matter , that the jury may understand the evidence ; she solicited him first the day before harcourt's tryal . then the next was three or four dayes after the tryal , and then she endeavoured to perswade you to retract your evidence and go beyond sea. mr. iust. pemberton , no my lord , that was only to get the man bailed that was in the gatehouse . lord chief iust. did she not the second time propose that ? mr. dugdale , no my lord , not till i came forth out of the countrey again . l. ch. i. then you went into the countrey before the great matter was spoken to ? mr. dugdale , yes , my lord. l. ch. i. and then she left word at the house , that she might know when you came , and when she met with you she began to tamper with you , and said you should have 1000 l. paid into some merchants hand , and be well look●d upon , and after that she said she would go down to the d. to windsor . mr. i. pemberton , but at that time she told him , he should have a place in the dukes court. l. ch. i. did she produce the note the first time you saw tasborough . mr. dugdale , yes , my lord , the note was produced the first time . l. ch. i. and ●asborough read it ? mr. dugdale , and said you might lawfully do it ? l. ch. i. and said you might lawfully do it ? mr. dugdale , yes , my lord. l. ch. i. when was the second time ? mr. dugd. it was within a few days after , about 2 or 3 days ▪ l. ch. i. you are not asked to a day , was the note produced a second time ? mr. dugdale , yes . l. ch. i. and then he was upon the same matter still , when you swear the note was produced the second time ? mr. dugdale , yes , my lord. l. ch. i. and then said he , this is the last time we must offer it to you , if you do not do it now , i can do you no good . mr. dugdale , yes , my lord. l. ch. i. but her discourse was before all this , that she would go down to windsor and get your pardon ? mr. dugdale , yes , my lord. mr. i. iones . before your acquaintance with tasborough ? mr. dugdale , yes , before ever i saw him . mr. i. pemberton , tasborough was to confirm it . mr. dugdale , yes , for i made some scruples about it , for they said before the duke would believe me real , i must subscribe the note , which i would not do without further assurance . she promised a person of good sufficiency and quality should engage for the performance , and one mr. perkins as she said was to be sent for , and was sent for out of the countrey , and 3 l 10● expended in sending for him . and i said to mrs. price when a 1000 l was proposed , lord in heaven , that is too much money , a 100 l is enough to serve me ; said she , we must have a care how we manage this matter , for she told me the d. of york stood upon a tickle point , and if it should be known the duke tampered with the kings witnesses it would ruin him , but she said a 1000 l was prepared for me if i would go beyond sea into flanders , where i should be maintained and protected . but i objected my fear of the inquisition in spain , which i knew to be so cruel a thnig , therefore i would not go beyond sea . then she asked me if i would be contented with the protection of a protestant earl's house . l. ch. i. did she tell you his name ? mr. dugdale , she asked me if i could not be content to be in a protestant earls house , and not go beyond sea ? but she named no body . l. ch. i. when you said you were unwilling to go beyond sea , for fear of the inquisition , she offered you the protection of a protestant earls house , and you desired to know who it was , but she named no body ? mr. i. pemberton , and you say when mr. tasborough came to you , he told you if you would retract your evidence , all the promises that had been made you by her should be made good ? mr. dugdale , yes , my lord , and without i would sign the note , the d. and the rest of the gentlemen could not be serviceable to me . mr. i. pemberton , and he pressed you to do it before the d. went into scotland ? mr. dugdale , yes , my lord. mr. belwood , pray mr. dugdale , what discourse was between you and mr. tasborough concerning the trial of sir g. wakeman ? mr. dugdale , the last time , the 2d time we were together — l. ch. i. then you were but twice with tasborough ? mr. dugdale , no my lord , but that second time , you may see says he what a progress hath been made by the acquitting of sir geo. wakeman , even that the protestants themselves are at a stand about their belief , whether there be a plot or no , and if you come over to us it will overthrow all . l. ch. i. had he any discourse with you about the spanish embassador ? mr. dugdale , my lord , i can't tell whether he had or no , she had . l. ch. i. did she say he would undertake the making good of the promises . mr. dugdale , said i , mr. price , suppose i should come over to you , what would it advantage you ? there is mr. oates , and mr. bedloe , and mr. prance when i am gone . said she , hang them rogues , so as we do but get you over , we do not care , we can quickly do their business . mr. sol. gen. and he said this i observe by the way , that if he came over , all the king's evidence should be hang'd , and the plot turned upon the protestants . mr. i. pemberton , yes he did say so , that he was told by the gentlewoman , if he would come over , the plot should be turned upon the protestants , and the king's evidence be hang'd . mr. scroggs , mr. tasborough did not say so . mr. att. gen. is this a true copy of the note ? mr. i. pemberton , but mr. tasborough perswaded him to sign the note , and tasborough did say it was a good act , and confirmed and assured him , that all should be made good to him that she had promised , and desired him to do it before the d. went , that he might be the abler to serve him with the duke . mr. att. gen. mr. dugdale , is this a true copy of the note ? mr. dugdale , i have read it so often , that i do believe it is a true copy . and here is the doctor and his clerk who will swear it was a true copy examined with the note . mr. att. gen. swear doctor chamberlain and cleave ( which was done ) with what did you examine that copy ? mr. cleave , by the paper given me by dr. chamberlaine . dr. chamberlain , my lord , i received the paper from mr. dugdale , my lord , and gave him order to transcribe it . l. ch. i. and that is a true copy of the paper you had from dr. chamberlaine ? mr. cleave , yes , my lord , it is . l. ch. i. mr. dugdale , did you deliver that very note that mrs. price delivered to you , to dr. chamberlaine ? mr. dugdale , yes , i did , and received it back again from him . l. ch. i. and you copied it out from that note dr. chamberlain had ? mr. cleave , yes , i did . l. ch. i. what is your name , sir ? mr. cleave , cleave . l. ch. i. read the note , ( which was read as in the indictment . ) mr. i. pemberton , was this a copy of the note delivered to you , that you were to sign ? mr. dugdale , yes , my lord , it is a true copy . and if i may not be too troublesome , there is one thing more which comes into my mind , that passed betwixt mrs. price and me . she was instructing me how i should be conveyed beyond sea , and she mentioned the way of the pacquet-boat that comes from dover , and goes every tuesday or wednesday . i made a shew as if i was willing to do it , but the next time she came , said she , we have thought it not to be so safe as to go into a merchant● ship which was the way we sent all our priests over . l. ch. i. when was this ? mr. dugdale , my lord , it was before the duke came home the second time , it was while he was in flanders . and being desirous to know , i pressed her to tell me what became of mr. ewers , my ghostly father in the countrey : it was a longtime e're she would tell me , but at last she told me that he was conveyed over in those yachts that carried the duke of york the first time over into flanders . mr. att. gen. then swear wright . ( which was done ) mr. dugdale , is this the man that you mentioned concerning the discourse about harcourt ? mr. dugdale , he hearkned as he told me afterwards , but i did not then know it . l. ch. i. well what say you , were you present at any discourse between mr. dugdale and mrs. price before harcourt's tryal ? mr. wright , my lord , i was walking to and fro in the room : mrs. price that gentlewoman was talking with mr. dugdale at the window , and i was very inquisitive . i did think it was upon the account of marriage , or some such busine●s , and so hearkning , i did hear her say , that father harcourt had been very kind to her , and that she had visited him before he went to execution , and he bid her not be troubled , he dyed in a good cause , and upon this account i asked mr. dugdale afterwards what her design was , and he said it was to withdraw his evidence . l. ch. i. how often were you in the company of mrs. price and mr. dugd●●e , never but that one time ? mr. wright , yes a dozen times i believe i have been with them . l. ch. i. when was the first time that you heard them talk concerning harcourt ? they were always very private were they not ? mr. wright , yes . l. ch. i. well , what did you hear the first time ? mr. wright , it was at the horsesh●●e ▪ tavern in chancery-lane , and then the great matter that she did desire of him was , to be kind to harcourt , for he had been her confessor , but afterwards i remember , when he was condemned , she said she had been with him , and he had bid her be of good chear , for he dyed in a good cause . l. ch. i. was this the time that you were at the horsesh●oe● tavern ? mr. wright , the first time i heard no discourse of harcourt then . l. ch. i. when was this ? and what said she when she spoke of father harcourt the first time ? mr. wright , it was to desire him to be kind to father harcourt because he was her confessor . they spoke so softly i could hardly hear them . l. ch. i. well how do you know then ? mr. wright , i asked him when he came out , what it was ; and he said it was to take off his evidence against harcourt : and afterwards ( she said ) she had been to visit him . l. ch. i. what more did she say at that time ? mr. wright , i could not hear any more my lord. l. ch. i. then all that you did hear was , she said to him ; pray be kind to mr. harcourt , for he is my confessor ; and to that effect was all their whispering that you heard ? mr. wright , that is all i did hear her say at that time . mr. i. pemberton , but what did you hear mr. dugdale say at that time ? mr. wright , he said it was upon the account of taking off his evidence . l. ch. i. well , what did you hear her say afterwards ? mr. wright , after she was saying she had been with him . l. ch. i. how long after ? mr. wright , i do not know , i cannot say to the time , for i never minded it , they ●ent for me some times at their pleasure , but she said she had been to visit father harcourt , who took her in his arms and said , do not cry for me , for i dye in a good cause . and this i told mr. dugdale of again , and ●he did further say , if the king should command me to be burnt at a stake , i would do it and so would any of the party . then said mr. dugdale , while you give these kind expressions , yet you would cut off his head if you could ; said she , you are a rogue and i am satisfied . l. ch. i. what was it before the time that she said , pray be kind to harcourt ? mr. ser. maynard , we call this witness only in confirmation of dugdales testimony . l. ch. i. but brother , here is the matter : he says at the time that she told dugdale he was a rogue , and she was satisfied , afterwards she came to tamper with him to do harcourt a kindness . mr. wright , she said many times there were not four greater rogues between this and hell gate than the king's evidence . l. chief . iust. what was it before she talked of harcourt ? mr. wright , yes , a great while . l. ch ▪ i. that is the thing , that she should say he was a great rogue , and yet afterwards tamper with him . mr. ser. maynard , there was some love betwixt them , and they did keep company together . mr. sol. gen. this is before she began to tamper with mr. dugdale , but that we call this witness to prove is , that she did afterwards tamper with him as mr. dugdale tells you . l. ch. i. and the thing i say is , would she go to tamper with one she had that opinion of ? 't is not impossible to be so , but it is not likely . mr. sol. gen. it is not impossible nor improbable at all with submission , who should she tamper with but a rogue , or one that ●he thought would be so ? mr. iust. pemberton , she thought as all the other catholicks did , and did desire to withdraw him from his evidence against them . mr. i. dolben , and notwithstanding that she called him rogue , yet still the witness says , he thought there was matter of love between them . mr. att. gen. then we will call you crosse , the man of the tavern . mr. i. pemberton , it was about a matter that concerned the whole catholick party , and if you ask them they will call them all rogues . but afterwards they will begin to tamper one with one , and another with another . mr. ●e●j . mayn . and they take the same method with ev●ry one of them . mr. iust. iones . but this is that that is said in confirmation of dugdales evidence , that dugdale did immediately a●ter tell him , that her business was to get him to retract his evidence . mr. iust. pemb. and he overheard so much , that she desired of him to be kind to harcourt , who was her ghostly father . mr. sol. gen. now my lord , as we have produced one witness to confirme one part of mr. dugdales evidence , now we shall produce another wittness to prove the subsequent discourses and her perswasion of him to retract and to signe the note . and for that we call dr. chamberlain . mr. attorn . gen. we will call crosse first to prove the meetings at the tavern , he is the man of the tavern . ( who was sworne ) . l. cheif iust. come ask your question now ? mr. belwood . pray what can you say concerning mrs prices discourses with mr. dugdale ? l. cheif iust. do you know mrs. price here ? mr. crosse. yes , i do know her very well . l. chief iust. what say you then to her ? mr. crosse. i never heard any discourse from them but what was common . mr. iust. dolben . but they have been often there only them two , have they not ? mr. iust. pemb. did she ever come to your house ? mr. crosse. she hath been there several times . mr. attorn , gen. i would ask you this question sir , whether she used not to come there , and send for mr. dugdale when he hath not been there ? mr. crosse. yes , she hath been there often to enquire for him . mr. attorn . gen. what , frequently ? mr. crosse. yes , a great many times . mr. attorn . gen ▪ about what time of the year ? mr. crosse. last summer in iune iuly and several moneths . l. chief iust. what say you to september and october ? mr. crosse. i can't say the particular moneths , but she hath been there , and desired me to send for mr. dugdale , for she had earnest business with him . mr. attorn . gen. was it presently after he came to town ? mr. crosse. my lord , she sent for him before he went out of town , and a●ter ●e came to town , before he went to the ass●zes , and since he came from the assizes . mr. attorn . gen. pray did you never hear them speak about a pri●st , one parsons ? mrs. crosse. i have heard somewhat about mr. parsons , that mrs. price did speake to mr. dugdale , that he should not proceed f●●ther against him then he had done . l. chief iust. did you hear her talk about harcourt ? mr. crosse. yes , i have heard her speak something , but i do not know the particulars of it . l. chief iust. but you have heard her name harcourt's name ? mr. crosse. yes , i have . l. chief iust. you do not pretend this man was by at the agreement ? mr. attorn . gen. no , we do not . but only to prove they l●●d frequent discourses together , and that she sent for him o●ten about business . l. chief iust. and 't is to the same purpose that the other was called for , only in confirmation . mr. sanders . my lord , we pray he may be asked , whether mr. dugdale did not sometimes send for mrs. price ? mr. crosse. not upon his own accompt as i know of , for i have told you she hath been there , and left word she must needs speak with him , and when he hath come she hath been sent for . mr. sanders . do you know she hath been sent for at any other time ? mr. crosse. not that i know of . but when he was in the country she came to our house , and desired that when ever he came to town she might speak with him about earnest business , and she was sent for . mr. scroggs ▪ but he does not say 〈◊〉 thing of mr. ●a●borough ? l. chief iust ▪ no. he came only to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , and that other place . mr. attorn . gen. no● , my lo●d , if your lor●ship please , mr ▪ dugdale did mention a matter that some persons were by direction to stand by and hear their di●course , we have these persons here , who will tell you how it was , dr. chamberlain and his clerk. dr. chamberlain . my lord , ●ome time in september ▪ mr. dugdale acquainted me , that there was a design to draw him off from his evidence , and he told me that the duke of york was named in it . i said , if it were so , it were a thing of great moment , and if it could be confirmed it were well . ●e told me , if i would come to his chamber some morning ▪ mrs. price should be there , and i should hear the discourse ; and accordingly i did come the 22 th ▪ or 23 th . of september , and was there about an hour , and went into the closset with my clerk , and bid mr. dugdale speak with an indifferent voice , to see if i could hea● what they said . he did so , and we did hear him . at length mrs. price came , the gentlewoman i had never seen , but he called her by that name , and she answered to it . they had several discourses , i could not overhear all , but the sum was that the spanish embassador was unwilling to treat with him , because it was dangerous , and he must make use of an interpreter , and that the duke of york would protect him , pardon him and give him a thousand pound to maintain him : you know says he , mrs. price , that i began not this intrigue with you , but you proposed it to me . she owned it , that she had proposed it to him . l. chief iust. now how can you tell this is the gentlevvoman ? dr. chamb. nay , i don't know that , my lord. mr. attorn . gen. we don't pretend that , but will prove it by anothe● witnesse by and by . dr. chamb. it was about the 22 th . or 23 th . of september , a monday morning as i remember . mr. iust. iones . was tasborough there ? dr. chamb. no , my lord , none but them two . l. chief iust. well , go on , sir. dr. chamb. she did press mr. dugdale very much to go with her to the gate house , he would willingly have excused it , but she p●essed him so earnestly , telling him she would not go without him , that they went together , and he came up afterwards to me , where i had staid all the time . l. chief iust. did you hear her say any thing what she would have him do for that thousand pound ? dr. chamb. i cannot tell truly any thing , but only to be gone . mr. iust. pemb. you could hear that ? dr. chamb. yes , my lord , i did . l. chief iust. whither ? dr. chamb nay , i don't remember that . mr. serj. mayn . this was before the note , my lord. dr. chamb. yes , my lord , for that , was brought me afterwards . mr. recorder . call the other witness , cleave . l. chief iust. how was this before harcourt's tryal ? dr. chamb. i don't know that , my lord , it was in september . mr. iust. pemb. but the tryal was long before that , soon after trinity term. mr. sol. gen. pray , what did mr. dugdale say to her when she pressed him to be gone , did he not make any objection ? dr. chamb. ●ossibly he might , i did not hear all that was said . mr. cleave . i was there the 22 th . of september . l. chief iust. in the closset with dr. chamberlain ? mr. cleave . yes , my lord. l. chief iust. had you ever seen mrs. price ? mr. cleave . no , never in my life , as i know of . l. chief iust. what did you hear then ? mr. cleave . before that mrs. pri●e came . we shut up our selves in the closset , and desired mr. dugdale to make a feigned discourse to see whether we could hear him , and he did so , and we heard indifferently well . we bid him to speak a little loud that we might be sure to hear him . we staid there almost half an hour before she came . afterwards she came up and mr. dugdale saluted her by the name of mrs. price , to which she answered . he asked her , when shall i go to the spanish ambassadors ? [ this i heard distinctly ; for i could see her body , but not her face , she stood with her back to the door ] 't is not convenient at present , said the , to go ; for his interpreter is out of town . then mrs. price was saying , if so be you will come over to the church of rome , and take off your evidence , you shall have 1000 l. secured to you : but how , said he ? said she , i will bring to you in a weeks time a person of quality that shall secure and confirm it to you . dr. chamberlain . that i heard too . mr. cleave . that will be well , said mr. dugdale ; i had rather do that way than any other . said she , you shall have the duke of york's protection , and a pardon not only for your body , but for your soul. mr. serj. maynard . a large proffer ! mr. cleave . and afterwards , said he , if i should come over again to the church , what ●igni●ies my going out of the way when there is dr. oates and others to go on with the evidence . said she , we do not care so much for them , for the dukes eye is only upon you . mr. just. pemberton . did you hear that , dr. chamberlaine ? dr. chamberlain . no , my lord ; the duke was named indeed , but i do not remember that particular . and she several times desired him to speak softly ; and then mr. dugdale was so honest , that he repeated it over again , that if we had not heard him before , we might understand him . l c. i. now prove this gentlewoman to be the person . mr. cleave . she afterwards pressed him to go with her to the gate-house , which he seemed unwilling to , but went , and we have a man here that stood below the stairs , that saw her come in and go out . mr. serj. maynard . call holmes ( who was sworn ) what can you say about this mrs. price ? l. c. i. do you know mrs. price ? holmes . yes , that is the woman . mr. belwood . did you see her at dr. chamberlains ? holmes . i saw her at mr. dugdale's that morning that my master was there . l. c. i. what time do you speak of ? holmes . the 22 d of september i went along with my master . l. c. i. who is your master ? holmes . dr. chamberlain . l. c. i. what day of the week was it ? holmes . on a monday morning between eight and nine a clock . mr. just. dolben . that is the same time you speak of , is it not ? dr. chamberlain and mr. cleave . yes my lord , he went along with us . holmes . this is the woman that came down with mr. dugdale ; i took great notice of her , and know her very well again : there were some words spoke in the shop , but i don't know what they were . l. c. i. dr. chamberlain , she went out of the chamber with him , did she not ? dr. chamberlain . yes , my lord , she did . l. c. i. how often have you seen her ? holmes . i saw her go into the house , come out with mr. dugdale to go to the gatehouse , and when they came back again from westminster from the gatehouse . l. c. i. how often have you seen her besides ? you took notice of her when she came down stairs , and when she came back again ? holmes . yes . l. c. i. and this is the woman upon your oath ? holmes . yes , upon my oath . mr. just. pemberton . she came down with dugdale , and would have him go along with her to the gatehouse . mr. at. gen. my lord , we say that mr. dugdale did acquaint mr. hambden , and mr. charlton , and my lord of shaftsbury with the business ; we desire mr. hambden and mr. charlton may be called , who promised to be here ( but they appeared not ) . mr. at. gen. then my lord , here are the clerks of the council , they will all give your lordship an account , that this woman and the gentleman did acknowledg this matter before the council , and there did deny what they had sworn at first . l. c. i. who do you swear first ? mr. at. gen. sir robert southwell . ( which was done ] . l. c. i. come sir robert , what do you know ? sir robert southwell . my lord , she , this gentlewoman mrs. price , was about the 23 d of october examined before the council , and being examined , we were commanded to take notes , the several clerks of the council , and we did take notes , which were long ; and my lord , i must refer to those notes . mr. just. pemberton . have you those notes ? sir robert southwell . yes . 't is hard for me to give my evidence , unless some particular question be asked me , because they are very long . mr. at. gen. then i ask you , sir , this particular question , whether that gentlewoman did acknowledg the paper she is charged with ? sir robert southwell . my lord , i do remember mrs. price when she was asked who it was that framed the paper for her , ( because it seemed to the lords as if it had been a thing so very well framed , that it was beyond a womans capacity to do it ) . mrs. price said , that she studied it her self , and indicted it her self ; and one mrs. man as i think , writ it out for her ; but she took it upon her self that she had studied it ( that particular word ) and contrived it . mr. at. gen. what did mr. tasbrough say ? sir robert southwell . my lord , i do also remember that mr. tasborough was cited before the council-board ; and being asked about this paper — l. c. i. was it shewn him ? sir robert southwell . i verily believe it was . it was read to him . mr. tasborough did speak very cautiously , and as prudently as he could in the matter . he did not positively say he had pressed mr. dugdale to sign it ; but did tell mr. dugdale , that unless he did sign it , he could not proceed to get him any favour , for that was to be the foundation to testifie that he was a man of that sorrow that he had expressed himself to mrs. price . l. c. i. did he own that to mr. dugdale ? sir robert southwell . yes ; and he added ( my lord ) further ( to do him justice in all he said ) in case mr. dugdale had signed the paper , he would presently have carried it before a magistrate . mr. at. gen. i think we need not trouble your lordship any further at present ; we leave it here till we hear what they say . mr. saunders . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , i am of counsel for mrs. price , that is one of the defendants in this indictment , which as hath been opened , does set forth , that she did contrive to suborn the kings evidence before the trials of those persons , and to suppress it ; and afterwards to retract the evidence given , and go off from what before he had sworn , to disparage the justice of the realm , and to make it be believed that those persons who were condemned and executed for this conspiracy , were innocent , and had wrong done them by him . now for that matter , that which we have to offer for her is this : mr. dugdale and mrs. price were fellow servants in my lord aston's family , and there they did contract a more than ordinary familiarity , for in truth they did contract a marriage , and mr. dugdale did promise her marriage ; but afterwards mr. dugdale having some other design , did desert her , and she came to london , and lived here ; but afterwards when he came up to london , he thought fit to renew his suit , and did not only send for her when he first came to london , but we have it in proof , that from time to time he had continually sent for her , and would not be quiet without her ; and when she denied to come upon his sending in his own name , he sent in another womans name , whom he knew to be an acquaintance of hers ; and thus there continued all along a great intimacy between them , insomuch that several persons , and amongst them one of the kings witnesses , did observe they were speaking about marrying , and did think they did intend to be married in a short time : my lord , what discourse might pass between them , i don't know ; for ought i perceive she is proved to be a papist , and 't is very like she would sollicite one with whom she had that familiarity , for those of her own party , as much as she could ; but as far as i perceive by this evidence that hath been given , he under colour of kindness , and pretence that he would marry her , and sending for her from time to time ; at last ro rid his hands of her , hath put this upon her , that she should sollicite to suborn him against his conscience to withdraw his evidence ; she is a kind of weak solicitrix for matter of judgment and reason ; i know not what other prevalency she might have with him by any other thing ; but for judgment i think — l. c. i. if she penn'd that her self , as she did acknowledg and avow she did , she was a woman of good judgment certainly . mr. saunders . i perceive he was of good judgment to get rid of one he was weary of , by this means . mr. just. pemberton . alas ! alas ! this is such a design indeed of counterproving the kings evidence . mr. saunders . mr. dugdale hath sworn , that this was her intrigue , and she first began with him ; if mrs. price be admitted to swear who is the defendant , as well as mr. dugdale who is the prosecutor , she would tell you that mr. dugdale did contrive this matter himself . mr. just. pemberton . she would destroy his evidence that way , that is very well . mr. just. dolben . dr. chamberlain and his clerks both swear , that he told her , you know it was not i begun this intrigue , but you . mr. saunders . and if she had had but so much wit to have planted witnesses to have taken advantage of his words , she had counter-worked him . mr. iust. pemberton . they will learn such ways soon enough of themselves , you need not teach them . mr. saunders . if you please we will go on with our evidence , and call witnesses to prove , that mr. dugdale had contracted himself to her in marriage ; and this is a very unkind ill thing in him to serve us thus . mr. iust. pemberton . mr. saunders , you ought to remember publica privatis , &c. a man should prefer the publick good and safety of the nation before such a mistress as this is . mr. iust. dolben . but hitherto the proof runs , that she sought him , and not he her . mr. saunders . but they were contracted first . mr. iust. dolben . and you hear what the master of the horseshoe says about her leaving messages for him . mr. iust. pemberton . he hath very good reason why he should not marry her , for what i can perceive . l. c. i. 't is much they should be contracted , when she told him he was a great rogue . mr. saunders . it may be she might ; i know not what cause he hath now to be displeased with her ; but it may be she might be displeased with him then . but i beseech your lordship and the jury to observe , that though she did tell him he was a rogue , yet it was afterwards that she did solicite and suborn him . mr. iust. pemberton . and therefore she thought plainly he was fitter for her purpose , because she took him for a rogue . mr. saunders . but if she had a purpose to suborn him , she would not call him rogue to his face ; that was not the way to insinuate into him . i desire sir iohn nicholas may be sworn [ which was done ] . l. c. i. what questions do you ask sir iohn ? mr. saunders . i desire , my lord , sir iohn would tell us , whether mr. dugdale in his hearing did not own he was contracted to mrs. price ? sir iohn nicholas . no truly sir , that i know of . mr. saunders . pray sir will you please to recollect it ; it was when mr. dugdale was before the council . sir iohn nicholas . mr. dugdale did then own some proposalsof marriage , but nothing of a contract . l. c. i. 't is your women-witnesses are like to do that . mr. saunders . that is all , sir , you remember ? sir iohn nicholas . yes . mr. iust. pemb. have you put the best foot forwards , mr. saunders ? mr. saunders . which is mary benwell ? swear mary benwell ( which was done ) . we will now prove he sent for us several times . we did not go after him so much . what do you know concerning mr. dugdales sending for mrs. price ? benwell . he sent for her to my house several times . l. c. i. did he lye at your house ? benwell . no , my lord , he did not . l. c. i. where is your house ? benwell . in browklow-street . l. c. i. what is it a publick house ? benwell . it is an alehouse , the green-lettice . mr. iust. dolben . he told you so himself , that he did meet her at the green-lettice . l. c. i. what was their discourse when they met ? benwell . i know nothing of that , i did not hear him say any thing ; but only he would come in , and say , let your boy go for mrs. price . l. c. i. when was this ? benwell . the last time was sunday sevennight before she was taken . mr. recorder . she always came when she was sent for ? benwell . yes , if she was within . mr. saunders . how often did he send for her ? benwell . above twenty times . l. c. i. what great inference can you make from that ? methinks 't is as much against you as it is for you ; for it proves there was a great familiarity and frequent meetings between them ; and if it be so , it shews as if she had that great confidence in him , as to attempt upon , and attack him in this affair . mr. justice pemberton . indeed mr. saunders , if you would have proved an inducement to mr. dugdales evidence , you could not have proved it better , that she had a great confidence in him ; she had an opinion , and reckoned he was sure to her , and so had a greater influence over him than another . mr. justice iones . he sent for her to the green lettice , she sent for him to the horse-shoe ; the master of the house sweareth that she sent for him twenty times , so they might send for one another twenty times a piece . mr. justice dolben . and he never came to seek for her but when she had been there , and left word for him before . mr. saunders . now , my lord , if you please , we will go on to prove . that when she refused to come , he sent for her in another bodys name . l ▪ c. i. what will that do ? or what does that prove ? mr. saunders . it is not probable then that she should sollicit him . and just at the last here are some witnesses planted , and some words are taken from her mouth , that it was her intrigue all along . mr. justice pemberton . mr. saunders , you do not shew the time when those frequent sendings and comings were . l. c. i. it shews that which they have proved , that she believed he was fond of her , and she was confident of him . mr. justice iones . i suppose mr. saunders means , and does drive at this , to shew that it was to drive on the intrigue on his part , that these frequent messages were sent . then another woman witness was called and sworn . witness . my lord , at the time that the proclamation was for the banishing of all papists out of town ; she came to me , and said , if mr. dugdale come to ask for me , don't offer to tell him where i am . l. c. i. when was this ? witness . long before easter-term , before the papists were banished out of town . mr. just. pemberton , and mr. just. iones . this was another part of the intrigue . witness . so mr. dugdale came to me , and asked me where mrs. price was ? i told him i could not tell ; but if you have any letters , i will convey them by a messenger , or some foot-boy to her . mr. justice iones . did he send for her at any time in september ? witness . the last time he sent for her was the sunday was sev'night before she was taken . l. c. i. did he frequently send for her a month or six weeks before that ? witness . yes , several times . mr. saunders . then swear bridget lee , ( which was done . ) mr. saunders . pray mistress , you that spoke last , did mistri● ●rice ever deny her self to him , but that once when she left that word with you ? witness . never to me , my lord , but that time . mr. saunders . bridget lee , pray tell my lord , whether mistris price did deny her self , and the way he used to get her to him ? lee. mr. dugdale came into this gentlewomans house , and coming into the house , i was in the passage , he asked me , sweetheart , let me speak with you ; he desired me to tell him , where mistris price was ? i told him i could not tell : i wish said he , you would fetch her to me : no , said i , i would not do it for five shillings : he clapped his hand in his pocket , and said he , i will give you five shillings : no , said i , i will not do it if you would give me five pound , let every tub stand upon its own bottom . l. c. i. what did you mean by those words , let every tub stand upon its own bottom ? lee. i would not meddle nor make with any thing but my own concerns . l. c. i. how long was this before the trial of harcourt ? lee. a quarter of a year before that . lord chief iust. it was before he went out of town , the circuit . lee. yes , my lord , so it was . mr. iustice pemberton . there had been no tampe●● g then , this was before the tampering . l. c. i. it is no matter when the tampering was , but when mr. dugdale sent for her , and she refu●ed . mr. saunders . i wonder what they did together all the time before , if they were not tampering . l. c. i. they made love together . mr. saunders . what was the occasion that she refused ? witness . i understand that mr. dugdale did find i was fearful of my self ; you may venture , said he , for i would not do her the least wrong , nor the least hair of her head shou d not perish . l. c. i. this was long before he went into the country ? witness . yes my lord. l. c. i. before the tampering ? witness . yes , my lord. mr. saunders . where is that other witness mrs. holland ? ( who was sworn . ) what do you know of m. dugdales tending for m●● price ? i would know the last time , and where it was . holland . my lord , i do not know what place it was he sent for her to , nor the last time , but it was since christmass . l. c. i. since christmass ? holland . no , before christmass , i do not remember the day . l. c. i. how do you know that he sent for her ? holland . i was told by the people so , that a messenger was come from him for her . l. c. i. you did not see him ? holland . no i did not . l. c. i. she sayes nothing to the purpose . holland . i know m● . dugdale was in her company one sunday last lent , and was there two houres . mr. iustice iones . 't is agreed of all sides they were acquaintance , and had great familiarity . mr. iustice pemberton . ay , or she would never have had the confidence to have attempted upon him in this manner . l. c. i. well , have you any more ? mr. saunders . here is one more , that is mrs. sheldon . l. c. i. what do you call her for ? mr. saunders . to prove that there was a note left to warne her to avoid mr. dugdales company . mr. iustice pemberton . why did you not ? mr. saunders . it had been better for us if we had . l. c. i. when was that note ? mr. saunders . lately . l. c. i. that will do no good . mr. iustice pemberton . come , call her however , they will say , their witnesses were not heard else . ( and she was called , but did not appear . ) l. c. i. come , she is not here . mr. saunders . then , my lord , we offer this as evidence , that we had no design to suborne him to retract what he had said ; the occasion of our being with him , we have given you an accompt of . mr. iustice pemberton . why did you write your note then ? l. c. i. mr. saunders . what you have said amounts to nothing to avoid the evidence that hath been given for the king ; for all your testimony sayes little more , then what he said at first ; that we were fellow-servants , and well acquainted . we made frequent visits , and when i came to town i went to see her , and she came to me ; they had no discourse of this same matter of tampering till the day before harcourt'● tryal , but sir robert southwell does say , she owned that she did study the note , which is the great business in the case : for if she prepared the note for him to sign , what can be said more ? mr. saunders . we can say no more , but that mr. dugdale might dictate it . l. c. i. no , she owned she dictated it , and got mrs. man to write it for her . mr. saunders . i do not know my lord — l. c. i. but you may know if you will , for sir robert sou●●well ha●h sworn , that she being examined at the council-board , the lo●ds of the council had so good an opinion of the skill of it , that they asked her , who framed it for her ? and she answered , she did it her self . mr. iustice pemberton . mr. saunders , if you be not satisfied , here is another of the clerks of the council . sir iohn nicholas . all that sir robert southwell hath said is true . sir th● . doleman . all that sir robert hath said i can swear to every particular . l. c. i. well , what say you m. pollexfen ? mr. pollexfen . my lord , if you please to spare me a world for the other defendant mr. tasborough ; there is in the indictment two things charged on the defendants , one , that they should perswade mr. dugdale not to give evidence against harcourt ; for that , there is no manner of evidence against mr. tasborough , but he ought to be found not guilty for that part . l. c. i. that is true , of that he must be acquitted . mr. pollexfen . then for the other part of the c●arge , that they should endeavour to perswade mr. dugdale to retract the evidence he had formerly given for a sum of mony , and other rewards , we do reckon , that as this evidence stands before your lordships , whatsoever is proved against m●s. price , will have no influence upon mr. tasborough , for although dugdale and price have had practices and designs amongst themselves , unless he be a party to them , if he have not a part in them , they will not aff●ct him : then the next thing is , we must distinguish the evidence as it stands , or else it may not be by the jury so well understood how they are differenced one from another : for i would not mince the evidence , but let it stand as it is ; and how far mr. tasborough is concerned in it , and how far may be done by him as an honest man in this matter , or how far it is an illegal act , will be to be determined by you . now there is only two meetings that mr. dugdale hath had with mr. tasborough ; and in the next place , there is no other witness to prove it , but dugdale himself , excepting only what sir robert southwell sayes of the conf●ss●on at the council , which i think will not be very much neither , as i shall shew when i come to that par●icular . mr. dugdale sayes , that at the first meeting , the ●● th . of october , at the green lettice in fullers rents , m● . tasborough did say unto him , that mrs. price had told him , mr. dugdale would re●ract his evidence , and he was come to confirm what she had said . l. c. i. nay , but what she had promised . mr. pollexfen . yes , what she had promised . and that he came from the duke , and that it was charitably done of him to retract , he goes no further , and that if he had done amiss , he should be sorry for it . this is the evidence , as near as i can remember to repeat it . l. c. i. part of it . mr. pollexfen . as to the first meeting . mr. iust. pemberton . look you , do not mistake mr. poll●xfen , but observe this ; for mr. dugdale does swear he told him , if you will retract the evidence you have given , then all she hath promised shall be made good . mr. pollexfen . that he came to confir●n what she had promised . i would repeat it as right as i could , because , my lord , i hope , as this case stands , that notwithstanding all that hath been proved , yet mr. tasborough hath done nothing amis● . then i come to the second meeting . mr. iustice pemberton . at the first meeting the note was produced . l. c. i. no , i think not . mr. iustice dolben . yes , my lord , it was . l. c. i. was it mr. dugdale ? mr. dugdale . yes , my lord. mr. pollexfen . yes , he does swear so , and that he read it , and press'd mr. dugdale to sign it ; and that this was the last time , and it must be done before the duke went into scotland , or something to that purpose . this , my lord , under favour , may all stand and be very true , and yet mr. tasborough not criminal , with submission : for if so be mr● . price were so far in her intercourse with m. dugdale , that as appears by his own evidence he did seem to comply and treat , as if he were yielding , and to do what they would have him do , concerning his going beyond seas , or being kept in a protestant lords house , and she had such confidence as to tell him how the priests were sent away , and how he might be conveyed away . all this thus far comes to agree with what mr. tasborough says for his own defence : for mr. tasborough says , m. ● . price did tell me , that mr. dugdale was sorry for what he had sworn , and would retract all the evidence he had formerly given . thus he says : i 'll apply it to our case anon ; and this appears by mr. dugdales own evidence : for when he does repeat what mr. tasborough told him , he says , that he said , mrs. price told him of it , and he hath not told you , that he did contradict it for false . mr. iustice pemberton . pray consider , he tells you , that tasborough said , that m●s. price had acquainted him , with what propositions she had made of 1000 l. and that he was the man that was come to confirm the promises she had made l. c. i. that presses you , that is the truth of it . if that had not been in the case , perhaps you don't talk much out of the way . 't is true , your observation is right . mr. iust. pemberton . 't is ingenious indeed , but 't will not hold our . l. c. i. when tasborough comes into the company to be acquainted with dugdale , at that time m● . dugdale had been advised to comply , or seem to do so to find out the plot and design , and what he could get out by it . and without q●estion , to pursue that end , he did shew yieldingness ; and as you observe , for ought tasborough knew , she might be sincere : but was it a good way for him to tell him ? there is the matter in effect , he does tell him so . if you will retract your evidence according to this note that was produced by her , and read by him , you shall have 1000 l. for your paines , can you answer that ? mr. iustice pemberton . or can you answer th' other , that he should say , she hath acquainted me what you propose , that is , that you would retract all , and go out of the way , and be no more an evidence ; and if you would do that , that she hath acquainted me with her proposition , which i come to confirm , that she would give you 1000 l. ? what can be made of that ? mr. iustice dolben . and withall , formerly there was a discourse of some person of quality that should come to him : he desired that some such one should be a security for the money , and afterwards she brought mr. tasborough , and said , that was the gentleman she told him of . mr. iust. pemberton . come , mr. pollexfon , take this too , what had mr. tasborough to do to use the duke of york's name ? and to say , that he had authority from him to propose these things , which certainly is a very great wrong to so great a prince . l. c. i. that needed not to a penitent person , that was sorry for what he had done . mr. pollexfen . he does indeed say , that mr. tasborough should be the man that should secure the money . mr. sol. general . and there is one thing farther , to take in all that mr. tasborough did likewise say to mr. dugdale , that there is no harm in doing this , that it is a very charitable act , and that he would do well in it . l. c. i. but they answer that , by saying , supposing it to be true , that dugdale had remorse , then it would be a very good action , but to talke of 1000 l. to be given for it , there is the crime . mr. pollexfen . whether my answer will take with your lordship or no , i can't tell ; but the answer i would give is this ; there are several things in that paper , as amongst the rest , that he should fall under great dislike , and danger , and therefore was forced to hide and secure himself for fear of those whom he should make his enemies by it , and that was terror enough to any man that should run into such a retraction . therefore now he must live when he hath done this , and so we should apply the other part of the discourse , whatever money she had promised to take off his fears of want , and so his coming there was to make good that part of the paper , which says , he must be protected and maintained , and preserved , that he may see he hath a subsistance and provision for him , if he did deserve it . and , my lord , it will be greatly distinguishing in our case , and turn much upon this point , with submission , if i give or offer money to any man to swear a falshood or retract the truth , 't is a very great crime , and if we are guilty of that , undoubtedly our crime is very bad ; but in order to the bringing of truth to discovery , and to have a retraction not of a truth but of a falshood , and to preserve that witness from perishing , i may promise him protection and subsistance . mr. sergeant maynard . then you have found out a better way then the devil himself could have suggested to uphold subornation . l. c. i. upon my word , if that were a way that were allowable , then woe be to us , we should easily have all the witnesses tampered with by the temptation of 1000 l. reward . do you think that is a good thing , for a man to say , this thing was rashly said , if you will unsay't , you shall have such a reward . people would be apt to bite at such a bait , and we do not live in so vertuous an age , that 1000 l. will not tempt a man to unsay what he hath said at first , though what he said then was true . mr. pollexfen . it were an unjust and unfitting thing , if it were as you say . mr. iust. pemberton . nay mr. pollexfen , consider , these things must not be done by any one ; their way , if they had been convinced of the truth , had been to have carryed the complaint to a magistrate , and there to detect him by what he had said : not to corrupt him , and persist in it , by telling him , if he would do so and so , he should have 1000 l. by this you let in all mann●e of temptations to witnesses , that we shall never know where we are . l. c. i. come , mr. dugdale ( because i will shew you all very fair play , i think very well of mr. dugdale . ) mr. iustice pemberton . he hath carryed himself always well . l. c. i. yes truely , i know nothing to the contrary ; and pray tell upon your oath , and tell the truth , did mr. tasb●rough , when he read the note , ask of you , is this true ? did he inquire of you , whether or no you were really a convert , and whether your sorrow and repentance were true ? mr. dugdale . no , he never did . l. c. i. did he ask you , if you could do it with a safe conscience ? mr. dugdale . no , nothing of conscience was ever named in it . l. c. i. did he ask you whether it was true ? m● . dugdale . he never named truth or falshood . it was onely to get me over to retract what i had said . mr. iust. pemlerton . what is a temptation if this be not ? 〈◊〉 . truely i ask this question , that the world may see 〈◊〉 would 〈◊〉 out the truth by all the ways we can ; for 〈◊〉 h● had b●en 〈◊〉 〈…〉 , and asked him , whether 〈◊〉 could do this safely , and with a good conscience , and whether the matter of it were true , it would have gone a great way ; but now i have asked mr. dugdale this upon his oath , and he sayes it was only to get him over to them . mr. iust. pemberton . and then consider all that is said against mrs. price , is turned upon you , except that of the contrivance to keep him from giving his evidence against harcourt . a very subtill invention it was ; but whether mr. tasborough was in the business of the note , in contriving it , i cannot tell , and it signifies nothing . but she having contrived as ill a note as can be penn'd , he is as much guilty , for he sollicits as well as she , and countenances it so far , as to undertake farther , that the money and the bribes she had offered , should be paid and made good . l. c. i. mr. dugdale , mr. tasborough talked with you of going away ? mr. dugdale . yes , my lord. l. c. i. advised you to be gone ? mr. dugdale . yes , he did . he told me i were best to absent my 〈◊〉 for a while beyond sea , and shold have convenient passage . l. c. i. did he mention the duke of york ? what said he ? mr. dugdale . yes , he said he had acquainted the duke , and the duke had given him orders to press that note home ; for , said he , the duke will not believe you will be true , if you do not sign this note . mr. iustice pemberton . 't is never to be endured , that you should abuse so noble a prince . l. c. i. did you tell mr. tasborough then , if i come over , there is oates and bedloe , and prance still left ? mr. dugdale . i did say so to mrs. price , but never to him . mr. just. pemberton . you see then what he would have this note signed for , to strengthen the catholick cause . mr. thompson . my lord , will you please to spare me one word for mr. tasborough ; i confess the evidence does seem by mr. dugdale to press us very hard , and particularly upon that matter of the money , but as mrs. price had managed the business , mr. tasborough might have been very innocent . but , my lord , we must make that defence for our selves that we can in a case of this nature , and therefore it will be , i hope , no reflection to say , we must counterprove mr. dugdale , and disprove him as far as we can , to acquit our selves . my lord , it is a very great crime that we are here charged with ; and the crime being so hainous , ought to be well proved , and with unquestionable evidence . mr. tasborough , if he be guilty of what he is here accused of , is a very ill man ; but men are not drawn up to great degrees of illness so soon , as at the first act to attempt such hainous offences ; and 't is not probable that at his first slip he should be guilty of a fault of so high a nature , and so very ill as this is . my lord , we shall call some persons that shall make it appear to your lordship , that after mrs. price had given us information of this repentance of mr. dugdale's , we did make application to a person of very great honour , no less than my lord privy seal , that mr. dugdale might receive the discouragement which it was fitting he should in such a matter . my lord , we must call our witnesses to prove mr. tasborough to be a man of a very good reputation , that he never did any such thing before ; and i hope , we shall give your lordship such an account of him , that the jury will have reason to believe , that mr. tasborough is not so guilty as he is represented ; but was drawn into this matter what ever it is . pray call a witness to shew that mr. tasborough acquainted any lord of the privy council . then my lord chief justice went off the bench , to sit on writts of error in the exchequer chamber . mr. justice pemberton . if mr. tasborough be draw in , 't is by mrs. price , but not by mr. dugdale . mr. thompson . is my lord privy seal in court ? mr. just. iones . you know he is not here . mr. just. pemberton . you toss great names about , and make great noise with them , when you know they are not he●e . mr. thompson . if he had not fallen ill , sure he would have been here . what say you mr. tasborough ? tasbourough . my lord , i was to attend my lord privy seal yesterday , and desired him to do me the honour to be here to day , because i was to come to my tryal . he told me , he had business that would hinder him from coming ; but , said he , if the attorney-general will informe himself of me , i am ready to testify , that you gave me information first of mr. dugdales recantation , before it came before the council . mr. just. pemberton . we will do your client this right , mr. thompson , as to ask whether my lord privy seal was at the council , and said so much then . mr. scroggs . he was not that day , but we acquainted my lord privy seal before that ; but sir robert southwel , does him this right , as to say that he did declare , if mr. dugdale had signed that note , he would have gone with it immediately to a magistrate . mr. just. pemberton . how does that appear , he said so ? sir ro. southwel . my lord , he did further say , after he had said that he would have carried it to a magistrate in that case , he did say he had been once or twice with my lord privy seal . mr. just. pemberton . ay , he did say so , but there was no evidence but his allegation . mr. just. iones . was my lord privy seal at council at that time ? sir ro. southwell . no , i think not , my lord. mr. scroggs . t is a very strange thing we should be so forward to promise for mrs. price , if we had not thought mr. dugdale real . mr. just. pemberton . 't is a sign you had a great inclination to the thing ; well , call your witnesses . mr. thompson . call sir richard ashfield , and alderman barker . mr. just. dolben . 't is a fine thing this to make a long brief with , to no purpose . mr. scroggs . we have a swingeing brief here indeed . mr. just. dolben . ay , you come with a great brief , but no witnesses . mr. thompson . if we do not call the witnesses named in our brief , our client will take it ill ; if they do not appear we can't help it . mr. just. pemberton . you have forgot what you moved the court about tempest . mr. just. dolben . but we have not forgotten , that about 10 dayes ago you moved to put off this tryal , because mr. tempest was your material witness , and being asked what he could prove , you said it was how you were brought acquainted with mr. dugdale ; but because the court did not think fit to put off the tryal , mr. attorney did say he would see if he had been examined , and what he had deposed , and report it to us , and afterwards did so , and did consent here that at the tryal you should make use of his examination if you pleased ; but we do not see that you make any use at all of it . mr. thompson . we that are of councel must make use of our clients witnesses , as we have them in our brief . mr. serj. maynard . we desire they should call their witnesses and not name names . mr. scroggs . we desire that examination may be read . mr. a●t . gen. produce it then . mr. thompson . we have it not . mr. recorder . and we for the king do not use it as evidence . mr. att. gen. come , if it be here you shall have it read , tho i believe mr. tempest swears little to your purpose ; for as i take it he saies he does not know mr. dugdale at all . mr. just. dolben . but i told you that mr. tasborough puts you upon trifles . mr. just. pemberton . but whatsoever they put you upon , you should not trifle with us . mr. thompson . do you desire they should be read , mr. attorney ? mr. just. pemberton . we can't read them without the consent of both parties . do you consent to them first for whom they are produced ? mr. tasborough . i only desire to know by them how i came acquainted with mrs. price . mr. just. dolben . well , you hear what mr. attorney saies is in them ; will you have them read ? mr. scroggs . 't is to no purpose then , if that be all . mr. serj. maynard . i desire to speak but a few words , and i am bound to speak them — mr. just. iones . brother , they have more witnesses . mr. pollexfen . these we shall now call are to this purpose , to prove mr. tasborough's reputation , that he is a very honest man. mr. just. dolben . i don't see but that he may be a fair conditioned man in all other things . mr. just. pemberton . look you , those that are in their dealings sometimes honest fair men , yet when they come to be of that religion , there they are debauched , and there they are brought to do as wicked things as can be , in favour and to support that religion . then alderman barker was sworn . mr. thompson . do you know mr. tasborough ? mr. barker . yes , i have known him several years . mr. thompson . how long ? mr. barker . fourteen or fifteen years . mr. thompson . how have you looked upon him ? mr. barker . i have looked upon him as an honest peaceable man. mr. just. pemberton . you have known him to be a catholick ? mr. barker . yes , that i have . mrs. price . may i beg the favour of this honourable court , that i may speak for my self here . mr. just. dolben . well , come mrs. what will you say ? but we must tell the jury before-hand it signifies nothing for evidence . mrs. price . i desire to speak the truth . mr. just. dolben . but they must not believe a word you say . mr. price . be pleased to give me leave to speak however . mr. justice iones . well , go on . mrs. price . sir , mr. dugdale does here accuse me of suborning him to retract his evidence . i do protest 't is so far from it , that he importuned me , and solicited me to go to the duke of york , and he told me if i would go , he would pay my coach-hire . is it not so mr. dugdale ? mr. just. pemberton . you must not interrogate him . mr. just. dolben . the very first thing you have said hath discredited all you would say ; for if mr. dugdale ( as you say ) had importuned you that you would do this thing for him , how comes it to pass that afterwards you should promise him a reward of 1000 l. and bring a gentleman to make it good ? mrs. price . i assure you , my lord , i never did . mr. just. dolben . t is most apparent tasborough does not deny that . mrs. price . but that which is the real truth , that you say must not be believed . mr. just. pemberton . did he solicit you to draw your note ? mrs. price . yes , he did , upon the word of a christian. mr. just. iones . you did confess that you did study it and draw it your self . mrs. price . i did so , but he importuned me to it . mr. just. pemberton . how do you prove that ? mrs. price . i desire to know by what words i took off his evidence at harcourt's tryal . mr. just. dolben . you desired him to be kind because he was your confessor . mrs. price . i desire to ask him the question by what words it was . mr. just. iones . well , you may ask him , but 't is little to the purpose . can you remember the words or the effect of the words that she spoke to you in the behalf of harcourt ? the night before his tryal , i think it was . mr. dugdale . yes , it was the night before to desire me i would not be an evidence against him , in regard he was her ghostly father . mrs. price . you know you came to me , mr. dugdale , and told me you rid post to town . mr. just. pemberton . we must have no more of these interlocutory discourses . mr. dugdale . mrs. price , i would not do you the least injury in the world. mr. serj. maynard . mr. justice iones , i desire a word . mr. just. iones . if you will produce any witnesses , do . mrs. price . i desire i may speak for my self . mr. just. dolben . 't is but reason she should speak for her self . mr. just. pemberton . but i hope if she ask unreasonable questions she is not to be heard . mrs. price . i only speak truth . mr. just. dolben . but we must not take your evidence of it , produce your witnesses . mr. just. iones . if you have any to prove what you say , call them . mrs. price . whether you will take my evidence or not ; pray let me speak for my self . mr. just. dolben . we cannot believe you , nor must the jury believe you , i 'le tell you that before hand . mr. iust. pemberton . we tell you , you must not be heard . if you have any questions to ask let your councel propose them . mr. iust. dolben . if you apply to jury , you are not to tell the matter of fact , but to prove it to them by witnesses . mrs. price . i desire , however , i may be heard my self . mr. iust. iones . if any thing hath been omitted by your councel , which is material for your defence , and you have witnesses to prove it , they shall be called . mr. iust. pemberton . mrs. price you must know the course of the court , and the way of evidence is , we are not to hear the persons indicted make long speeches to the court , or to the jury , or come with great confidence to deny the thing that is proved against them ; if you have any thing material to say , we will hear you by your councel ; you must not trouble us . mrs. price . my lord , i have matter enough to say , but it can't be heard . mr. saunders . we desire wright may be called again . mr. iust. iones . to what purpose ? mrs. price . to prove that you , mr. dugdale , would suborn him . mr. dugdale . call him if you will , if you can prove any practices upon me . mrs. price . you have good practices we know ; you are a man of excellent practices ; you had need commend your practices . you know very well , mr. dugdale , that you told me you were perjured . mr. recorder . 't is not language fit for you to give . mr. serj. maynard . is that liberty of speech fit to be given ? she tells mr. dugdale that he said himself he was perjured . mr. iust. pemberton . you are an impudent woman to talk so . mr. iust. dolben . your mouth must be stopped if you can use your tongue no better . mr. iustice iones . what would you ask him when he does come ? mrs. price . i have told my councel . mr. saunders . she says she would ask him whether mr. dugdale did not offer him money to suborne him in this case . you are sworn already , sir , are you not ? mr. wright . yes . mr. saunders . then pray answer the court this question , did mr. dugdale at any time offer you any money to take an oath , or give evidence ? mr. wright . offer me money ? mr. saunders . yes you . answer upon your oath . mr. wright . no , my lord. mr. saunders . or any thing else , did he offer ? mr. wright . no , my lord , he hath often sent to me to come , and when i did come , hath said , i am glad you are come , i 'le do you as great a kindness , but he did not know of my coming because his messengers had not met with me . mr. saunders . did any one on his behalf offer you any thing ? mr. wright . no , i think not ; if it was , i think it was in vain . mr. saunders . but did he , or did he not ? mr. wright . no. mr. recorder . if mrs. price hath any more such witnesses , she may call them . mr. serj. maynard . sir , under your favour , here hath been a strange way of defence . consider what a crime we are upon , and in what times we are . that there is a plot of a very high and transcendent nature under question , that divers witnesses have been suborned , and persons tryed in this place convicted for it , 't is undeniable . now after tryals for so high a crime in the most publick way , here come price and tasborough ; what to do ? she indeed before , but both tasborough and she afterwards , by rewards , and such temptations , endeavours to disgrace his evidence , but there is not only that , but the great thing looked after by their party , was , the issue of it ; upon this all the king's evidence were to be hang'd . what hath been said is only to make a jest , and make the company merry , that there was a contract of marriage between them , but what will be the consequence of that ? he that spoke it , has unquestionably proved the probability of our charge , we have made it probable , and he hath proved it ; and the inference drawn by them is , she certainly did not tempt him , because she had an interest in him , which concludes very naturally . but then for the other , mr. tasborough , alderman barker comes in , and swears the gentleman is a very honest man , i hope he did hear the evidence , and then i wonder how he could swear it ; but do we come to prove whether he be an honest man in his life ? 't is not at all our question ' if we should have offered to have disparaged him in another way , we had not , i think , done our duty , and the court would justly have reproved us for it ; but there is one thing , which if it had not been spoken , i would have held my peace : how is tasborough concerned in the case ? divers have been questioned and executed for high treason , upon mr. dugdale's evidence ; and after such an execution , what is mr. tasborough's duty ? it hath been represented as if he had been perswaded by her , and drawn in that way , and he thinking that it was a falsity , that had been sworn before , and that mr. dugdale repented of the injury he had done them , he should help to make this discovery . but what was he concerned ? did he go to a justice of peace , or any just way ? did he not contrive with the devil rather than the justice ? 1000 l. must be paid to daaw off a man , and corrupt him , to make him own himself perjured , in a truth that had been spoken . and this is not the first time that they have done it ; for we remember the case of reading , very well . i shall say no more , but this , under favour , it is not well to say , that a man may persuade another to deny his testimony , that is nothing concerned in the case , in a case of this publick nature especially , and for money too , that was never meant by the law , and i hope is not meant ever to be countenanced here . i hope the court will give that caution to all that hear it , as will discourage any attempts of this nature for the future . and that it shall not be enough to excuse it , for him to say he was persuaded , and thought his sorrow was real , and thereby to put the king's witnesses to prove that thing to be true that they had proved already . what had mr. tasborough to do , as if he were a judge of the proceedings of the court , and witnesses ? nothing at all , under favour , but is a very ill man , and as such i hope shall be punished . mr. iustice jones . gentlemen , you of the iury : these two persons have been indicted for a very great offence . the indictment sets forth ( that which we all know to be true ) that whitebread , and divers others , have been tryed and condemned for a very execrable hellish , popish plot : that upon these indictments , mr. dugdale did give material evidence ; but that , when some other of the conspirators were to be tryed , and brought to punishment , these two persons did endeavour to make mr. dugdale absent himself , and retract his evidence . and not only so , when harcourt was to be brought to his tryal , ( for whom it seems mrs. price had a particular kindness ) ; but likewise , it was endeavoured , he should be gone , and not give any further evidence at all ; and he should have a thousand pound for a reward . this is the indictment . the inducement to the indictment ( that is the tryals of the conspirators ) is all well known : and there have been coppies of the records produced , which have been inspected and per●sed by the councel , on the defendants parts ; and they cannot say , but that the records agree with the matter , in that respect : so that , there is nothing at all , but the bare matter of fact , that you are to inquire into . i shall distinguish the persons : mrs. price , according to the evidence , hath gone through the whole charge of the indictment ; and indeed , hath committed some further crimes , than have been mentioned in the indictment . first , it hath been proved to you by mr. dugdale , that she did not only desire kindness to harcourt , who was her ghostly-father ; but she did designe , as much as in her lay , that he should not come in at all , to give evidence against him : this is proved by mr. dugdale ; and another person that was by , that did hear mrs. price say , she would have him be kind to mr. harcourt , because he was her ghostly-father ; withall , tells you , that immediately after , dugdale did tell him , that she did perswade him , he should absent himself , and not give evidence against harcourt . she is likewise charged , ( as they are both ) that she did treat with mr. dugdale , for to retract all that he had said , to be gone , and to leave a paper behind him , which should signify , that there was trouble of mind upon him ; and that he had done wrong in his testimony , given against the catholicks : therefore , he would be gone , and leave a testimony of it in writing , when he was gone . and she provides for his security abroad , and he should have a thousand pound reward . dugdale is the person , with whom the first treaty was : but because he knew , and it was observed , that it was unsafe to deal with persons , that were tampering with him in such a nature as this was , and upon a matter of this kind ; he does acquaint persons of very great quality , as he swears ; my lord of shaftsbury , and two other persons . they do advise him , that he should get some persons to be by , when they should come to some further treaties concerning this business . and to that purpose , he should hold up a correspondence , and condescend to a kind of agreement and complyance , that he might be able to have further testimony , to confirm his evidence . whereupon dr. chamberlaine , and his servant , are placed in a closet in mr. dugdale's chamber , in such a place that they might hear what was discoursed in the chamber : in comes mrs. price , they being in the closet , mr. dugdale and she discoursed about the business so loud , that dr. chamberlaine and his servant ( as both of them tell you ) heard their discourse upon it . the question was asked , and put , to mrs. price : mrs. price , i hope , you know , you are the person that first moved this intrigue ; it began from you , and not from m● : and this was confessed by her . so that you have , in confirmation of mr. dugdale , the testimony both of dr. chamberlaine , and of his servant , to that part of the charge against her . and withall , 't is added , not only that he was to go beyond-sea , to retract what evidence he had given ; but likewise , it was thought expedient , he should come over again , and swear against all the rest of the evidence that had been given , or should be given for the king . and when it was said by mr. dugdale , what will it avail you , if i do retract my evidence ? there is mr. oates , and mr. prance , to testify the same thing . she said , no matter for that : if we get you on our side , for the catholick-cause , to be our friend , we shall be sure to ba●●le all they can say or do : and we shall not only save the catholicks , but turn the plot upon the head of the 〈◊〉 and all the king's witn●sses shall be hang●d . that , you may remember , was testifyed by some of the witnesses . mrs. price deals frequently with mr. dugdale , to this purpose . dugdale , that he might know ( and 〈◊〉 very like , with that honest intention , and no other , he did it ) ! and that he might discover the bottom of the business , tells her , this is a thing of dangerous consequence ; and it is fit , that i have better security , than your promise of this thousand pound : i will have some substantial person , that shall come and confirm what you promise . and thereupon she tells him , he should have a substantial person brought : and , he should have thanks from very great persons ; naming the duke of york : for he it was , as they said , that would take care to protect him , and procure a pardon for him . now , gentlemen , this is the evidence against mrs. price . in defence of this , what does she o●●en , but that she hath been acquainted with mr. dugdale , and there hath been great familiarity between them ? if there had not been such a familiarity , would there have been such an intrigue ? is this a matter to be communicated to a stranger ? if there were a doubt before , whether there were this contrivance ; does not this give us a better assurance that it was so , because there was such an acquaintance between them ? then , as to mr. tasborough : he indeed is not in the beginning of the designe , at all : there is no evidence against him , for that part of the charge , that he should absent himself , and not give evidence against harcourt . he comes not in at that time : nor can i perceive by mr. dugdale , that he had any acquaintance with him at all , till the twelfth of october . and he sayes , he was but twice in his company . now , gentlemen , what does mr. tasborough do ? first , dugdale is told by mrs. price , that a man of quality should come to him , and confirm all the promises she had made him . tasborough does come to him , and tells him , he hath had some discourse with mrs. price , what she had proposed ; and he is now come to make good and confirm , that all shall be effected , that she had proposed to him . ay! but it is supposed , that mr. tasborough is a very honest man , and a conscientious man ; and does come for nothing in the world , but to perswade mr. dugdale to do the office of a christian : it was a charitable thing of him , to take off the scandal that was upon the innocent . but you do not hear him charge it upon mr. dugdale's conscience , that he had given a false evidence against any of those persons ; nor urge him much to repent : but he must begone : he must give no more evidence against the catholicks : and , what if he do comply with this desire ? then he tells him , he shall have a reward ; what reward ? a thousand pound ; which was made known before ; and protection , and pardon , and security : and he comes to him in the duke of york's name , to inforce it the more strongly upon him , and make him do it : whereas , indeed , the duke of york ( as he himself , and mrs. price have since confessed ) never knew any thing at all of the business . now , gentlemen , to move by honest christian means , any one that hath done an injury of any sort , to repentance , and contrition , and recantation , that is a very good thing , but to do it with promise of a reward of a thousand pound , cannot be justified ; what way is there to insinuate into any person , an intention of doing a mischief , but such a way as this ? will any one come to another , and say , forswear your self ; whereas you know such a thing to be true , swear it to be false , or retract the evidence you have given about it , and i will give you a thousand pound ? no , but serve the catholick cause , a great many have suffered , and by your testimony ; retract , be gone , be secure ; you shall have a certainty , that you shall be secure in another kingdom ; or else you shall have it in a protestant family , though neither that protestant nor any protestant was named . is not this a bait to tempt a man to all the villany in the world ? if a thousand pound be offered , who can resist ? such people as these are , will not easily resist such a temptation . but , mr. tasborough is a very honest man in his life and conversation , he produceth those that tell you his reputation is good , and the like ; there is no doubt of it , and if he had produced twenty witnesses , do you think he would produce any one that should speak against himself ? he chooses out those certainly , as would speak as much in his favour as they can ; but if a man hath been an honest man in his conversation , may he not be inticed or seduced ? especially when it will be told him , if you do this you shall merit heaven ; you shall be sainted and canonized , you do the greatest service in the world , to the catholick cause . these temptations may work upon a man , perhaps that is morally honest , when he is infatuated with this principle , that any thing may be done for the catholick cause , as it is a catholick doctrine , too often instill'd into them , that any thing is become sanctified , when it tends to that end ; 't is easy then to prevail upon them in things of this nature . i should have told you , ( which i omitted before ) one circumstance concerning matter of proof against mrs. price , more than tasborough ; two witnesses said they were in the closet , and heard a woman discourse ; but neither of them did see her face ; but afterwards it is proved by another that he was desired to observe who came into , or went out of the house ; and he swears , he saw mr. dugdale and her come out of the house , that they went to the gate-house ; and he saw her come again from the gate-house with mr. dugdale , and he is sure this is the person . and you remember that part of their discourse was of going to the gate-house . mr. iust. pemberton . they do not deny it neither . mr. iust. iones . i don't see they do . mr. iust. pemberton . 't is a very strong and plain evidence as can be given . mr. iust. iones . there is nothing can be said for mrs. price , little for mr. tasborough . mr. iust. pemberton . i see nothing that can do him any good . mr. iust. dolben . come gentlemen , lay your heads together , and consider of the matter . ( which the jury did at the bar. ) and being asked by the clerk of the crown , vvhether they were agreed ? they answered , yes . cl. of crown . who shall say for you ? omnes . foreman . cl. of crown . do you find the defendants guilty of the trespass , and offence whereof they stand indicted , or not guilty . foreman . guilty . pollexfen . as to part only for mr. tasborough . foreman . guilty of the indictment . mr. iust. iones . we all know he is not found guilty of one part , and that must be considered at the setting of the fine . mr. attorn . gen. mr. tasborough hath been upon bail ; but i suppose he must not go upon bail now ; we pray that he may be committed . mr. iust. pemberton . they must both be committed ; take them both . mr. saunders . mrs. price is still in the gate-house . mr. iust. pemberton . we have her here now , she is in our custody . mr. saunders . if you please , sir , we desire she may be remanded back . mr. iust. pemberton . no , they shall go both into the marshals custody . mrs. price . i beg of your lordships , i may go back to the gate-house . mr. iust. pemberton . what! these are not things to be trifled with . mr. iust. dolben . no , we must not shew● you any favour at all . mr. iust. pemberton . no , we must have no favour for you that would destroy us all . then the prisoners were taken into custody by the marshal , to be kept till their iudgment . finis . books lately printed . the tryal , conviction , and condemnation of anthony brommich , and william atkins , for being romish priests , before the right honourable the lord chief iustice scroggs , at this last summer-assizes at stafford , held there for the county of stafford ; where they received sentence of death accordingly . together with the tryal of charles kern , at hereford-assizes last , for being also a romish-priest . the lord chief iustice scroggs , his speech in the king's-bench , the first day of this michaelmass-term , 1679. occasioned by the many libellous pamphlets , which are published against law , to the scandal of the government , and publick iustice . together , with what was declared at the same time , on the same occasion , in open court , by mr. iustice jones , and mr. iustice dolben . the tryal and conviction of thomas knox , and john lane , for a conspiracy to 〈◊〉 and scandalize dr. oates , and mr. bedloe ; thereby to discredit their evidence about the horrid popish-plot . the whole duty of man is now printed in ●ignificant latine , for the use of schools . sold by robert pawlet , at the bible in chancery-lane , near fleet-street . some short but necessary animadversions on the paper delivered to dr. hawkins together with a copy of the paper it self, entituled, the confession of edward fitz-harris, esq. written by his own hand and delivered &c. / reprinted from the copy published by the doctor, and these animadversions added to prevent the deluding of protestants by it. fitzharris, edward, 1648?-1681. 1681 approx. 15 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 2 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a60861 wing s4612 estc r37576 16976054 ocm 16976054 105588 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a60861) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 105588) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1159:27) some short but necessary animadversions on the paper delivered to dr. hawkins together with a copy of the paper it self, entituled, the confession of edward fitz-harris, esq. written by his own hand and delivered &c. / reprinted from the copy published by the doctor, and these animadversions added to prevent the deluding of protestants by it. fitzharris, edward, 1648?-1681. hawkins, francis, 1628-1681. 1 sheet (2 p.) printed for richard janeway, london : 1681. reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng fitzharris, edward, 1648?-1681. -confession of edward fitz-harys, esq. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2006-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-12 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-01 jonathan blaney sampled and proofread 2007-01 jonathan blaney text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some short but necessary animadversions on the paper delivered to dr. hawkins , together with a copy of the paper it self entituled , the confession of edward fitz-harris , esq written with his own hand , and delivered , &c. reprinted from the copy published by the doctor , and these animadversions added to prevent the deluding of protestants by it . all that have heard of the execution of fitz-harris , and of the paper he left with dr. hawkins , are undoubtedly curiously inquisitive after the sight of it ; it is therefore thus printed in a half sheet , for the convenience of dispersing them throughout the kingdom . but i durst not make this publication , without taking notice of the incredibility of some passages in it , for i do not know the attestors . but admitting fitz-harris did leave this paper , and the attestations be true , it doth not therefore follow the narrative it self is true , i leave any man to judge whether the second paragraph looks like the drawing up of such a layman as fitz-harris , or not rather like the work of a churchman . those that know our present sheriffs , know them to be men of more prudence and honesty , than he would suggest them to be ; and as for our recorder , he is known to be too good a christian to swear at that rate , and too wise a man to tell such a fellow that the libel was a court trick ; nor can he be thought so ridiculous as to tell him , do you say a thing , and we have those that will swear it . but the truth is , the whole contrivance is so foolish , that no wise man will believe it . notwithstanding his so solemn declaring and protesting his paper to be true , yet the whole kingdom can give him the lie in one passage , viz. where he tells us , that the sheriffs brought instructions , which they said came from the lords and commons , who met that day in order to address the king in his behalf ; when all men know the parliament was not sitting during his imprisonment in newgate , ( where onely the sheriffs came to him ) nor did they meet till several days after he was sent to the tower. now when he is so easily contradicted herein , who will believe the rest ? it was reported it would come out by order of council , but that proving false , we may well suspect the story it self , there being so many shams now abroad . the confession of edward fitz-harys esq written with his own hand , and delivered to 〈◊〉 . hawkins minister of the tower , the first of july , 1681. being the day of his execution , together with his last speech . i edward fitz harys , having been indicted of high treason , for endeavouring to dethrone the king was thereupon found guilty , and sentence of death passed upon me . i the aforesaid edward fitz-harys do voluntarily and freely , without any hopes to save my life , but as a dying man , and to discharge my conscience towards god , and for the better satisfaction of the world , make this declaration following , in the presence of god , and unto doctor francis hawkins , chaplain of the tower of london . i do profess and declare my religion in the general to be that which hath been truly and anciently delivered in the first four general councils ; and in particular , my belief is that true faith of a christian , briefly contained in those three creeds commonly called the apostles creed , st. athanasius's and the nicene creeds : and i die a member , and in the communion of christs holy catholick church , hoping for mercy through the alone merits of the passion of our lord and saviour jesus christ . i do also confess and declare , as to the crimes which i die for , i was no further concerned in the libel , than as employed to give the king notice of what libels , or other accusations there were against him ; and to this intent , and no other , i endeavoured to get this libel which at length i did from mr. everard , all written under his own hand and carried it to mrs. wall , by whose means i conveyed all matters of this or the like nature ●o the king. i told her i had a business of great consequence to acquaint the king with : but she answered me . that my lord sunderland being out , there would be no money had for secret service , and advised me to go to the ld. clarendon or hyde : but before i could do this , i was taken . as for that part of the libel which i left with everard , as a pledge to assure him i would not betray him , i received it of the lord howard : and the money i received from the king , was for bringing a libel called the king unvail'd , and the lady portsmouths articles . i call god to witness , i never had a farthing charity from the king. i do further confess and declare , that the lord howard told me of a design to seize upon the kings person , and to carry him into the city , and there 〈…〉 their desires . heyns and my self were privy to this design , and had several meetings with the lord howard ; and as an encouragement , the lord howard assured us of breaking the settlement of ireland , taking off the additional revenue of the bishops , forty nine men , and grantees , whose estates were to be shar'd amongst the party . i do confess and declare . that while i was in newgate , the sheriffs bethel and cornish , came to me , with a token from the lord howard , which i knew to be true , and brought heads with them from everard , wherein he accused me of being a court emissary , or yorkist , put on by the king to put the libel into protestant houses to trepan them . but i declare upon my death i had no such intent , nor do i know any such thing : the sheriffs likewise told me i was to be tryed within three or four days , that the people would prosecute me , and the parliament would impeach me , and that nothing would save my life but discovering the popish plot : and then the sheriffs aforesaid gave me great encouragement from the lord howard , that if i would declare i believed so much of the plot as amounted to the introducing the r. c. or if i could find out any that could criminate the queen , r. h. or make so much as a plausible story to confirm the plot , that the parliament would restore me to my fathers estate , with the profits thereof since his majesties restauration . i finding my self in the condition i was , in newgate fettered , monyless and friendless , my wife ready to lye-in , without any subsistence , my children in a miserable condition , and must needs be in a worse my death , and i could see no other refuge for life but complying with them , so , not with ambitious intent , but to save my life i did comply : the sheriffs brought instructions which they said came from the lords and commons , who met that day in order to address to the king in my behalf , if i should confirm the instructions ; and they made use of the lord shaftsbury's name , and others , what advantage i might have thereby . at the first i made a formal story concerning the plot , which was not prejudicial to any body , but most relating to general heads known publickly ; upon which mr. cornish told me , these were things cried about the streets two years ago : i replied , i could say no more : mr. sheriff said , he was sorry for me with all his heart , but thought i could say more if i would and pressed me hard to speak to several heads , unto which unless i spoke , he said , there was no hopes of life : the heads i was to speak to is what the examination taken by sir robert clayton and sir george treby contains , and a great deal more that i did not say then , relating to the queen , r. h. earl of danby , declaring french pensioners , lords , hallifax , hide , clarendon , feversh●m , seymer , and others ; the burning the fleet , forts and governments in popish hands , meal-tub plot , prentices plot , the contrivance of the libel on the lady portsmouth , being a french design to destroy protestants . these and many other heads were brought me by the sheriffs . i do farther confess and declare , that sir robert clayton , and sir george treby coming to me to examine me , sir robert clayton asked me what i could say concerning godfrey's murder ? i answered , something . he replied , it may be i was in a confusion ; recollect your self . and what i said concerning father patrick , was forced out of me : and what i said concerning him is not true . sir george treby was with me three hours , or thereabouts , and pressed to say concerning godfrey's death : and said . unless i could speak to that murder , i could say nothing : whereupon , i said something i had from others . he asked me , if i could say no more ? i replyed , is not this enough to save my life ? am i not rogue enough ? the recorder hereupon swore gods wounds . what were you ever but a rogue ? then the recorder entred upon the heads of the examination : which being done , he told me , all this would not save my life , unless i would speak to the libel , which was a court-trick : and it was not for nothing that i had been so often seen at the lady portsmouths . the l. shaftsbury said , you know more of these matters than any man. sir george would have me speak to the consult : that the duke was at it , the lords , belasis , arundel , and powis were at it : you have seen them go to it at st. jame's without doubt they were there : do you but say it , we have those that will swear it . i do further declare and confess , that what i said against the queen and the duke , i was put upon in the matter of sir edmundbury godfrey's murder : and do further declare , that what i swore against the earl of danby : the threatning words that were uttered i did ( to the best of my remembrance ) hear , but whom they concern'd i could not well know , by what my lord himself said . and what de puis told me concerning my lord of danby , i believe was spoken out of ill will : and what i said against him , was to stave off my trial till a parliament : and they were the more desirous to accuse the lord danby of godfrey's murder because the crime of murder is not inserted in his pardon . i am sorry for what i said against the queen , his royal highness , and the earl of danby : i desire god to forgive me the wrong i did them , and do heartily beg their pardon . i do further declare and protest , that this confession and declaration of mine i own sincerely as a dying man , and not to save my life ; and i call god and all his angels to witness the truth of it ; and i renounce mercy at the hands of god almighty if this be not true . and i do further declare and protest as a dying man , unto james walmesly , edward pattel , and mary walmesly , that i have made this confession and declaration unto dr. hawkins , freely and of my own voluntary accord , without any manner of promise made , or hopes given me by him from the king , of saving my life by this confession ; i having given him to understand before hand , they were matters of consequence , and such as chiefly concern'd the good of the king and kingdom . i give the doctor my hearty thanks for all his prayers , counsels , and charitable offices he hath done me , and i pray god to bless him for ever for it . i forgive all the world , and desire all the world to forgive me ; and the lord have mercy on my soul. edward fitz-harys . this protestation was made by mr. fitz-harys , july 1. between the hours of 7 and 8 in the morning , in the presence and hearing of us whose names are here-under written . james walmesly . edward pattel . mary walmesly . i do hereby declare , that mr. fitz-harys , before he began to write any part of this narrative , was more than once , assured by me , that there was no hope of his life that i knew of , whatever he should say ; nor of his salvation , if he should say any thing that he knew to be false : of which he being throughly sensible , and perfectly convinced , proceeded to write the narrative aforesaid . and i continuing to admonish him upon every point that was material , not to say any thing but what was exactly true , he took occasion , at several periods of his narrative , to kneel down , and solemnly to protest the truth of every word therein contained . and this i do again declare upon the faith of a christian , and the word of a minister of the gospel . francis hawkins . mr. fitz-harris's speech at his execution at tyburn , july 1. 1681. good people , this infamous kind of death is much more irksome to me , than death it self : such a judgment as this my sins against god may justly bring upon me , and i do most humbly submit unto it . but as to the crimes which i now die for , i take god to witness , i was no further concerned in the libel , than to discover to the king what practices of that kind were against him , being employed for that end , though those that employed me refused to do me justice at my tryal . and i call god to witness , i never had a farthing of money of the king in my life , but on the account of the like service . and as to the witnesses that have sworn against me , i do here solemnly declare , now at my death , that i have not seen the french ambassador since the beginning of the breaking out of the plot , neither have i had any acquaintance with him . and as to his confessor , i never spoke with him in my life ; neither have i had any dealing , either directly or indirectly in my life with them , though sir william waller and the rest swore most falsly to the contrary . and how like it is that the french ambassador would give three thousand crowns for writing that libel , i leave the world to judge . what i might further declare , i have left with dr. hawkins . i forgive all the world , and do hope that god will forgive me . i beg the prayers of all good people for a happy passage into the other world. edw. fitz-harys . london , printed for richard janeway , 1681. discovery upon discovery in defence of doctor oates against b.w.'s libellous vindication of him, in his additional discovery, and in justification of l'estrange against the same libell : in a letter to doctor titus oates / by roger l'estrange. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1680 approx. 120 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 21 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-05 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47844 wing l1239 estc r30937 11731586 ocm 11731586 48393 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47844) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 48393) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1486:17) discovery upon discovery in defence of doctor oates against b.w.'s libellous vindication of him, in his additional discovery, and in justification of l'estrange against the same libell : in a letter to doctor titus oates / by roger l'estrange. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. the second edition. [2], 38 p. printed for henry brome ..., london : 1680. reproduction of original in harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng oates, titus, 1649-1705. b. w. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2004-01 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-02 olivia bottum sampled and proofread 2004-02 olivia bottum text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion discovery upon discovery , in defence of doctor oates against b. w's libellous vindication of him , in his additional discovery ; and in justification of l'estrange against the same libell . in a letter to doctor titvs oates , by roger l'estrange . the second edition . latrant , non loquuntur . london , printed for henry brome at the gun in s. pauls church-yard , 1680. sir , there is a horrible libell come out against you , under pretence of a vindication ; and it is so much the worse , for endeavouring to turn another discourse written in vindication of you into a libell ; and such a libell too , as will not allow any good that is spoken of you , to be true , nor any man that speaks it , to be honest : but the most spitefull and audacious circumstance of all , is the dedicating of the affront to your self ; and in such a stile and way too , that a man had better be half-gibbetted then so commended ; 't is in such an abject , beastly , dawbing way of flattery . he says , y' are bespatter'd ; and he goes such a way to work , as if he should wash you with the reversion of a glister , to make you clean again . this libell is entitled , an additional discovery of mr. roger l'estranges his further discovery of the popish plot ; wherein dr. titus oates , and the rest of the kings evidences are vindicated , from the aspersions cast upon them in that pamphlet , &c. in a letter to dr. titus oates , by b. w. this letter to a man in a feaver might be pertinent enough , for it is so drowsy a piece , so arrant an opiate , that if it had but come out time enough , the old poets should never have needed a mercurial rod for the charming of argus : and who knows but that this same b. w. may be hir'd to write the three kingdoms asleep ; and a foreign enemy , in the mean while , to come in , and catch us napping . and yet this very pamphlet , doctor , has had the honour of your countenance : i would you had read it before you had recommended it : for , as the case stands , i have no other way of delivering either you or my self from the dint of this venemous paper but by exposing some remarks upon it , in a second dedication , to the doctor . you 'l say perhaps , that i 'm a sawce-box , for presuming to dedicate any thing to you , without your leave . but 't is all a case to me , whether with it , or without it ; for i have a common right with my adversary , to the liberty of this application , as well the one way as the other . upon the perusall of it , you will finde it to be miserably weak , and silly ; and yet insufferably abusive ; iesuitically false ; scurrilously rude , and most diabolically malicious . he tells you sir , pag. 3. that you told l'estrange , he was a papist , and that he reported you for a fanatick ; whereas neither is l'estrange a papist , neither did you say he was one but only by hear-say , and that you had been told he was a papist . so that he charges you with speaking a false thing , to the disadvantage of your evidence in greater matters . but for this abuse , he makes you amends in the same page , by comparing l'estrange and the doctor to the devill and our saviour . i am sure ( says he a little after ) the unerring rule is , he that is not with , is against . now this gentleman , ( under favour ) is not sure ▪ ; neither is that rule unerring ; for there are deliberations , suspensions , neutralities , in which cases , we are neither with , nor against . if this hold for a maxim , it is but a natural conclusion from b. w' s premises , that those that are not for the legall order of the church and state , are enemyes to it , and to be lookt upon as cankers in the bowells of the government . and again . he cites this passage out of my further discovery , pag. 2. he tells you as a friend ; ( says he ) i have more charity for one morall pagan , then twenty hypocriticall christians . and in reflection upon it ( pag. 4. ) he has these words . indeed i have not learn'd this distinction of a christian afore ; but allways from the woes pronounced against hypocrites , in the scripture , i took them not to be christians . now the meaning of it upon the whole , is this. that l'estrange has more charity for tully , and seneca , then for peters , and bradshaw . but see his goodly criticism now upon hypocrite : the scribes and pharisees , in propriety of speech , were not hypocrites ; and figuratively speaking , we have but too many christians that are hypocrites ; for hypocrites in religion , are only spirituall stage-players . his next citation is this : i have a naturall veneration for the government , and all that love it ; the kings loyall witnesses , and preservers of his life . now he has thought fit to leave out these words [ in the first place ; with an equall horrour , and detestation for all his enemyes , under what masque or form soever . ] and then he falls in again , that i believe the plot ; as much of it as every good subject ought ; leaving out , [ or as any man in his right wits can believe . ] nay ( says he again ) and pawns his conscience ( which doubtlesse is large . ) you do not believe more of it . observe , first , that whereas l'estrange says , he has naturally a veneration for the government , he makes it a natural veneration , which in nicety of acceptance differs from the other , as a common principle differs from a particular bent , or inclination : as i have naturally a love for musick : this sounds much stronger then i have a natural love for it . and so to say , i have naturally a veneration for the presbyterian discipline , is quite another thing , then to say i have a natural veneration for 't . he tells you a little after , that the plot is in a great measure one of the things of god ; and not rightly to be understood by meer natural men : which is the grossest affront , perhaps , to the kings evidence , that has been yet attempted . you will take notice , in his first omission , that his conscience flew in his face , upon that latitude , of the kings enemies , under what masque soever ; and so he left it out . and then for the second omission of the words , as any man in his right wits can believe , he says nothing on 't , for'tis enough in all conscience to believe so much of the plot as none but a mad man can believe more . good doctor observe him now in his descant upon the quotation abovementioned . i am ( says he ) of a quite contrary opinion ; for i know you are of a sharper sight , doctor , then to have your iudgment eclipsed with a fogg . so that your sharpnesse of sight , is made the cause of his contrary opinion . i do assure you , sir , if you 'l be so kind as to read it , i 'le put you up a bill for him , when you preach next ; for no flesh is able to hold out long , at this ridiculous rate . and yet when sense , and grammer fail , the malice goes on still . now here 's another iesuitism for you doctor . he tells you that l'estrange cannot believe what he does not , nor cannot : which expression , together with the learned instance ( as he calls it ) of butter'd turnips , he makes use of as a reflexion upon you ; because it plainly intimates your evidence is as little to be credited , as that assertion . now l'estranges words are these . the whole earth ( says he , pag. 2. and 3. ) can never bring me to believe , or to say that i believe , that which i neither do , nor can believe : as the businesse of bedingfields being alive again , or that i my self am in the conspiracy . see , first , how he has falsify'd the quotation it self ; and then let any body shew me the reflexion . why does he not point to it with his fools finger , and say , there ' t is . but for a man to be hookt within the statute of dangerous reflexions , for not believing things incredible , or for not saying that he does believe that which he does not believe ; deal frankly with me , doctor , is it reasonable or not ? but the reader has the matter here before him , and let him try what he can make on 't , beyonda loyall affection to the government , and the inculcating of a necessary caution , in dubious , and improbable cases , in order to a fuller discovery , and eviction of the truth : for otherwise b. w. shall cram me with tennis-balls and make me swear they 're sugar-plumbs , under pain of being arraign'd by every little schismaticall setter , as a blaster of the kings evidence ; which is l'estranges case in this very paragraph ; where he 's charg'd with affronting king , lords , and commons , the lord chancellor , the bench , iury , and evidence , in his unworthy reflexions , not to be forgiven or forgotten . this is a teizer , and probably of the old stamp , he flies at the throat so ; and nothing but bloud will content him . you see here doctor what a deduction he has made , and the ground of it : and your candour cannot but acknowledge the inference to be folly , rudenesse , and malignity to a very high degree . mark now what another fling ( as he calls it ) at the doctor , this wizzard has found out . l'estrange has a value for him , and believes him as far as he ought ; now b. w's quarrell is ; that l'estrange has not a higher value for him , and that he does not believe him further then he ought . he pretends to be scandaliz'd at l'estranges equivocall meaning ; but the thing that troubles him in truth , is , that l'estrange has worded the matter so cautiously , that a republican spy can lay no hold on 't . but pray'e read the context to this citation , pag. 4. it was never my humour ( as a french-droll has it ) to commend an orator , for an excellent head of hair ; or a man of state , and bus'ness , for the government of his beard ; or to spend three or four pages , upon such an occasion as this , in flattery , and panegyrick . so that l'estrange ( ye see ) did purposely avoid the temptation of falling into a vein of servile flattery , by any pompous recitall of your good qualities : and rather chose to tell you , like a gentleman , ( short and round ) that he valu'd ye as he ought . but this is heathen greek now to him that is not verst in the true ayre and stile of good manners . l'estrange values the doctors function and character too as he ought , as well as his employment . why does he not complain to the bishops , that he mocks the ecclesiastical order , as well as to the doctor , that he abuses him ; for they are both equally concern'd in the same period ? he cites l'estrange , saying , pag. 5. that he 's a friend to downright dealing ; to liberty of speech ; an easy glasse , and an easy companion . the first , he does not believe , he says , but the rest he does ; ( with a bobb at the end on 't . ) and yet to many peoples thinking l'estrange deals as plainly with himself , and his brethren , as a body would wish . and for the rest , it is so far true , that l'estrange had much rather drink his majesties health in a glasse of wine , then his confusion in a dish of association-coffee ; and that he 's a profest enemy to all sorts of sniveling formalities whatsoever . b. w. proceeds now to certain scholasticall distinctions betwixt rogue , and rogue ; and has found out an admirable invention for the bringing of you , and mee , doctor , to call one another rogues by consent ; and to shew you sir , how far you may call any man rogue , without danger of the law. his words are these , he tells you , doctor , of your calling him rogue twenty times ; for which he thanks you , and forgives you ; but this is but a coppy of his countenance , and used as a meer shooing-horn , to draw on the like likewise , of calling you rogue . i know its a word you often use , and its twenty to one you were right , nineteen of the twenty , if not all : but it 's not to be taken in the common sense of the vulgar usage to a man of vile and base actions ; but as a differing character of an adversary to yours and others evidence in the great matter in question . so that he has here made l'estrange to be precisely nineteen rogues , and nineteen twentieth parts of another . but then to make me amends , they are rogues , you see , of quality ; that is to say , they are ' plot-rogues , sham-rogues , or some other of the more creditable sort of rogues . this fellow has no commission , i hope , to treat men of our condition at this course rate . and a little further , he says , that because currs hunt me , i take the freedom to reflect upon you ; slighting your favours , and setting you at defiance ( pag. 4. of my further discovery . ) pray'e mind the shifting , and shuffling of this fanatical iesuit my words are these . there is no design in this paper , sir , to bespeak your favour , in case of any imputation upon me , either for my words , actions , or writings ; for i defy malice it self to charge me with any sort of malevolence , toward the church or state. now from my defying of malice in the abstract , does he most abusively inferr my defying of the doctor under that notion : whereas any man that runs , may read my intention to be this. here am i threaten'd , doctor , with articles , and impeachments , by a pack of rascalls ; and here am i at the same time , making court to you. do not imagine sir , that this is to curry favour with you for your protection against these blood-hounds ; for my innocence will support me against the very devil and his angels . now this is so far from being a reflection upon you , that it would imply a high confidence in your integrity , even if i should have so little reveence as to defy you . for it would be as who should say ; the doctor can do me no hurt upon the square , and i 'le trust his conscience , for setting false dice upon me . and now what 's the ground of all this exception ? nothing in the world but l'estranges saying , that he has a great value for your function , imployment and character . he picks another quarrel with me for calling the detestable plot , a mystery ; as if it were a denial of the fact : whereas i speak only of the project or contrivance , ▪ not of the fact ; tho' after all this discovery there 's a great deal in matter of fact , that lies yet in the dark . and then he has a bout with me for saying , that it is no new thing , for a popular outcry in the matter of religion , to have a state-faction in the belly on 't . whereupon he modestly acknowledges that he cannot understand how religion is concerned in the least : especially the difference betwixt the church of england , and the dissenters from it . now as to the plot , we are told that religion is the very root of it : and for the dissenters , they have almost all sorts of heresies among them ; which i take to be matter of religion . besides that we have our agenda , as well as our credenda ; and our practical cases relating to civill obedience , brotherly charity , peace , order , &c. wherein the dissenters do exceedingly differ from the church of england in matters also of religion . he has another touch at me , for arraigning the iudgments of the representatives of the nation in parliament , in saying , that nothing was ever more narrowly sifted , or more vigorously discourag'd then this conspiracy . and yet ( says he ) the neglect of it was one part of the earl of danby's charge , which was not ( again ) without due consideration of authentique proofs , to make it good . but bare charges are no proofs ; and 't is well for me that they are not ; for if they were , b. w's libell would have hang'd me twenty times over . but i am glad to hear the dignity , and prudence of that assembly , so well supported ; for the world is well amended , since the house of commons was libell'd for an unanimous clubb of voters ; an infernal regiment of pensioners : since they were call'd a treacherous , and a lewd parliament ; and since a reverend divine told some of the members to their teeth , that they were a pack of as arrant rascalls as ever layd their heads together : and every day some pamphlet or other to the same tune . there 's a long paragraph ( pag. 6. ) which is only a huddle of words , and not three lines in the whole , for a man to make either earnest , or sport of . the man is willing , sir. to do you a civill office ; but then he goes so awkwardly to work , and with such a deal of nauseous , fulsom flattery , 't is half a vomit to think on 't . but at last , after mighty pains taken to no end , he passes sentence upon intents and purposes ; and has found it out at the long run , that the getting of a small reward for my pamphlet , the vindicating of the papists , and crushing of the fanatiques , are the three ends of my scribling . all which ( do assure you dr. ) he speaks by revelation ; but gives you , in the conclusion the hopes of making it out by demonstrations to come : by my troth , sir , this is a strange mortification for a man to be ty'd in good manners to bear all this impertinence as if he were oblig'd to his persecutor . he begins his 7th page with a flower ; and pray'e intend it . but now warmly clad with these wonderfully erroneous considerations , that incumbered his disturbed brains , with the help of taking your works to pieces ; he had now fallen under such a conception , from which the world might expect such a product , as was expected from the mountain ; but you know that prov'd a mouse . this is nothing in the world but the water-poets nonsense turn'd into prose : one line more on 't would make me call for a bason . in the next paragraph , i am arraign'd over again , for a dishonourer of the nation , the governours or government , the protestant religion , and the kings wittnesses : and all this for calling it the allmost inextricable labyrinth of the plot. at the next word he makes half a iesuit of me : and says i vilisie the doctor , under a disguise of friendship : and i think ( says he ) he hath cause to rejoyce that he is not question'd for a seditious pamphleteer . this charge is founded , doctor , upon my saying , that none can fall foul upon my further discovery , without wounding your evidence . this gives him occasion to deny your swearing that the priests and iesuits herd with nonconformists ; and yet you tell us , how they contrived the late war , by inslaming partyes ; that they had their instruments in scotland , expressly to preach to the disaffected ; and that blundel did actually teach the youth in the city of london , treasonable , and seditious doctrine ▪ he says , i 'm in wrath , and speaks as if i doubted your evidence concerning the pilgrims , and the forty thousand black-bilts ; when my business is to set before the people the danger of that defigne taking effect , if the priests be still suffer'd to lurk among the fanatiques . and then when i speak of infidells , as of those that will not believe this mixture ; he turns the word infidells , into dissenters ; and so makes a slander of the propriety only of the term , pag. 8. take notice , i beg of you sir , how he poysons all my respects towards you ; when i tell you that i have read , consider'd , and study'd you ; and the sense i have of the roundnesse of your periods , the luxuriancy of your invention , ( where there is scope for it ) the franknesse of your stile , and the harmony of your conceptions . what is it that makes him call these expressions ironies ? but that he undervalues you , as if you were a person that had no sort of title to these civilities . nay , he will not so much as allow you the common faculty that distinguishes men from brutes ; that is to say , conceptions : for i know not ( says he ) of any conceptions in all your works . he says , indeed , that if you had made your trade of living , and getting dinners by scribling ; or had you employ'd your genius that way , if it had been in making a play against your own mother , what work you 'd have made with your syllogisms and coherences , &c. this is some devillish wipe , doctor , if a body could but hit the drift on 't : but for the trade of getting dinners by scribling , 't is the honourable trade of the nation , from the prime minister , to the sub-sizer . and truly , doctor , as the world goes , 't is well if an honest man can keep himself clear of the almes-basket , or turning mendicant from door to door . now he whips me up again for poysonous principles , and frothy strains of wit ; with paper-squibs , audaciously traducing , and flying in the face of governours , and government : and this is only for saying , that the present humour of france runs upon poysoning ; the enemyes of our government altogether upon the vein of plotting . what 's your opinion , sir , of these inferences ? to the business now of being a papist . i do not remember , ( says he ) pag. 9. one authentique proof , nor any other rational argument , yet produced by l'estrange , that he is not a papist . now i thought sir , that one mans oath might be as well taken for being no papist , as anothers for being a protestant : and that proof i have given for 't . there was indeed a perjurious race of men , that in despite of the late kings piety , and practice ; declarations , protestations , and sacramentall professions to the contrary , brought him to the block , under the same pretence , where at last he deliver'd himself up a martyr for the english communion . but it is not with the sacraments of men of consciences , as it is with the oaths of mercenaryes , and the covenants of conspirators , that look one way and work another . but since my hand is in , doctor , i 'le go a little farther with you . i had the honour in the late times , ( and being then in exile ) to passe a matter of eight months in the house of the cardinal of hesse ; where i was as kindly receiv'd , as if i had been at my own fathers . i wanted neither invitations , nor arguments , to carry me over to the church of rome ; besides the private temptations of a hopelesse interest ( as to the king ) and a broken fortune . now if i had been so easily disposed to truck my religion , for mony ; ( as the whole litter of the town-scriblers will have it ) i do assure you doctor , i could then have made my market . but after this assertion of the faith i was brought up in , i do declare to you , that i reckon my self yet bound , as a christian , to entertain a tendernesse for the whole race of mankinde . i abhor the thought of seeing men of any perswasion worry'd , for a bare appellation : i should reckon my self a villain , if i were not iust , and grateful , even to many papists ; having in diverse extremities , receiv'd offices of great honour , piety , and humanity , from people of that perswasion . beside that providence was pleas'd to make some loyall papists the instruments of delivering my sovereign out of the hands of other protestant rebells . and yet after all this ; i am not such a noddy , as not to see the plot ; though you may look further perhaps into a mill-stone , then another man : but still i discern enough on 't , to make my heart ake . pray'e forgive me this digression . he blunders , in the next paragraph , at something , as if he would hint to the reader that l'estrange has plaid iack on both sides : now in good truth , doctor , i never had that shifting faculty ; and i dare appeal to my most malicious enemies to say that ever i falter'd in my duty to my sovereign , in any kind , or degree whatsoever . and i can safely affirm , that in thought , word , or deed , i did never so much as countenance any disloyal pretext toward his majesty . from this , he passes into a rapture concerning the christians of antioch ; and for a matter of a page and three quarters , doll common in her fits was not half so wise as his worship . he takes me to task again ( pag. 11. ) where i am commented upon , for saying the dissenters from the church of england cannot any way be ayding in a reformation , but by their prayers , and good wishes , upon pain of sedition . now certainly ( says he ) as men , and subjects under his majesties obeysance , the dissenters are as capable , and legally , of serving his majesty in any such commands , as any other men , or subjects whatsoever . now my words are these . put the case that the design strikes at all that call themselves protestants in generall ; as well non-conformists , as church-men ; the dissenters must yet range themselves under the government , to oppose it ; and without intermedling any other way too , then by their prayers and good wishes , upon pain of sedition . so that the dissenters are not excluded any publique service , but subjected to the rules , and orders of authority , and not to act beyond that sphere , any otherwise then by their prayers , and good wishes ; and the word reformation not so much as mention'd in the case . but now sir let me look to my self , sor i think ( says he ) no man in his right wits will conceive l'estrange knows what he says ; and he wonders exceedingly that i should dare to tell you doctor , that religion is a spirituall notion ; and for this notion he would have me to be reputed , and legally judg'd , seditious . i am affraid that this worthy gentleman takes religion for a manufacture : you will now do me a kindnesse , doctor , to give me a hint , upon what statute i am to be indicted for notions . to see now this envious creature again . i never give you a kind word , but i 'm sure to have a lash for 't . they are wonderfull things ( say i ) that you have done already ; and i am perswaded that you are yet reserved for more wonderfull things . and this does the malevolent spleen of b. w. interpret only a ieer , and scoff , in contradiction to the sense and proof of the whole nation : and so he calls it a flurt at your name , to presage that time shall render your name as famous to posterity ( pa. 21. ) as your virtue has made it to the present generation . yes , yes sir ; i do predict it over again ; that your name shall be so : for this grand revolution , wherein you have supported so eminent a part , will transmit your name to future ages so long as there shall be any memorialls extant of the present government . he is at me again for wounding and unworthily traducing the wisdome , and iustice of the governours of this nation , by turning their transactions in this affair , into meer sophisticall ridicule . and this i get for saying ( as he has translated me pag. 12. ) that none in his right wits should take you for no friend to the church of england . and now dr. 't is your turn to be abus'd , for he says that it was forreign , and remote from the scope , and drift of your evidence , to give the sectaries so great a blow , as i affirm that evidence to have done : which truely i take , to be little lesse , then actionable ; for if a man shall be condemn'd in damages only for saying of a taylor , he 's but a botcher , because of the loss it may cause him in his trade ; of much greater moment is it , to disparage a divine , in so necessary a part of his qualification ; to the hindrance of him in his ecclesiastical preferments . for fanaticism , and church-dignities will not stand together . now see sir , what work he makes with my saying that it is a matter of absolute necessity to fetch these plotters out of their holds . from hence , he concludes , that i would have all the dissenters from the church of england to be destroy'd , as plotters : which is none of my proposition ; but only to put them to the test , that we may distinguish , and separate the priests , and iesuits from other people . he comes now to passe sentence upon me , as a blaster of the kings evidence , and a favourer of the conspiracy , for supporting the truth of your testimony , and the necessity of proceeding congruously upon it . his next advance is to my further discovery of the plot , from your narrative , and depositions : he denies it to be a further discovery ; but how and how , i am not able to comprehend . his latin , his french , and his greek ; his nonsequiturs , sentiments and katexochens ; i can make a sh●ft withall ; but i am plaguily gravell'd still at his english. pray'e do me the favour to help me out with it ; and here it is . but whatever there is further in that pamphlet , but in truth it s no further discovery of your discover'd plot , but of his own it is , and what that is , what i have by my observations already made , to that of which part of this is in matter but repetition , and of that of which i shall make to that which is new ; i doubt not doctor but will give you full and evident satisfaction . i should be very glad , sir , to see this clause unriddled . it will concern me now i perceive to look about me ; for b. w. sticks close to me for calling the just proceedings of the authority of the nation a havock , and saying , after all this havock made of the papists . i pray'e take notice , doctor , that i have solemnly expounded my self upon this poynt ( pag. 3. ) where authority has past a sentence there is no longe ▪ any place for hesitation , or demurre . so that his meaning is out of doors : and now give me leave to tell you mine : when goods are taken away from one man , and either given , or sold to another ; when books , good and bad , are swept away together ; or disposed of contrary to the direction of law ; this i call making havock , and i make use of this word too with all possible veneration to the sacrednesse of publique justice . i must needs rectify one mistake in the next paragraph , wherein b. w , ( not for want of ignorance ) follows my printer , and instead of indue says that the priests will indure all shapes : he gives me here a lick by the by , for fiddling to oliver , and then pronounces that without all peradventure a discovery must and doth imply new fact ; otherwise it 's no discovery : and so infers that for want of new fact , mine is not a further discovery . but by b. w's . favour , one discovery leads to another ; as several other discoveries have been superinduc'd upon the circulation of the bloud ; and yet the matter of fact still the same ; as this additional discovery in a pamphlet has produc'd a further discovery of the authour . now blesse your self doctor , at b. w's amasement ( pag. 14. ) with what confidence l'estrange dares write such things : that is to say , that that part of the designe against his majesties life is broken to all intents and purposes , but we are beholden to you , for the discovery of other , and further plots , in defaming the king and government , subversion of our establisht religion , and disturbance of the peace , so that our deliverance is but half done . observe now , how iesuitically this fanatique has guelt this passage , by leaving out these words ; so that [ unless the remaining and the still growing difficulties and hazzards be encountred with timely and effectual remedies , ] the work of our deliverance is but half-done ; beside the maiming of the period throughout . now am i to be question'd and punisht over again , for my dislike of that which i call ( pag. 26. ) a remote and undutiful supposition of the kings death . but i adhere to that dislike ; for it is our part to do all we can to preserve his sacred life , and not by the supposal of his majesties death to set parties and factions a fermenting . and for this , i 'me fetch'd up again , for giving the lye to the representative of the commons of the nation : this fellow calls for iustice , as if he went a snip with the hangman , for an old periwig . you cannot imagine doctor , how it comforts me that i am now entring upon the 16th page ; where he takes it very ill to have the church-of-england-members clear'd of any hand , or interest in this plot ; and to palliate the matter , neither he , nor any man ( says he ) can say , that there was not members of the church of england , on both sides , in those unhappy wars . now , doctor , i am positive , that there was not one church-of-england-man in the parliaments army ( as they cal'd it : ) for how should it be otherwise ? when the order , the discipline , and the service of the church were wholly extinguisht among them ; the use of the common-prayer made penall ; and the whole masse of that seditious body was only a confederate union of so many schisms , to oppose the eeclesiastical government . it will not yet down with b. w. doctor , that you have altogether clear'd the church of england , and her sons , from the calumny of being either mediately , or immediately guilty of this horrid plot ; and his reason is , that you are impartiall . it is not sayd that you have spar'd , but clear'd them , and so you have ; in not accusing them . he reflects ( pag. 7. ) upon my contradicting my self in my computation of the numbers of papists ; one while not above one to three thousand ; but now ( says he ) tables must be turn'd upon dissenters to the church of england ; then because of some of the dissenters scruplesomeness in swearing , his opinion is chang'd ; for now there is a great deal of danger he says . this man is no fair dealer , doctor ; for my expression is three thousand to one in sight : and then , the fewer they are that appear , the greater is the number , and consequently the danger of them in their retreats . this is not to presse a totall extirpation neither , as b. w. weakly and malitiously suggests ; but some such means of distinction as may rationally secure the peace of the government . he values himself much upon one argument out of my own mouth . because many of the dissenters will not take oaths ( says he ) therefore there , the jesuits may hide themselves : and so also , many of the jesuits will take the oaths of allegeance , and supremacy , and so will the members of the church of england . if so , then what can hinder the jesuites to herd , and hide there . the answer to this , doctor , is obvious ; they have not the means , in one place , for the gaining their ends , that they have in the other ; the rule , and the forms of the church are stated , and certain ; and there 's no preaching , but under due circumstances and qualifications : whereas in conventicles , they can take all libertyes , and vent what doctrines they please : the people being already prepared by the humour of separation to entertain undutifull impressions . all the remainder now amounts to no more then the fagg-end of a narrative ; and a great deal of pains taken , doctor , to tell you so particular a story of your own transactions , as no mortal can honestly pretend to know , but your self . you have had enough , sir , i suppose , of the stile , and faculties of the author of this pamphlet , i should be glad now to learn something more particularly concerning the man himself : for this same b. w. may be cloven-footed , for ought i know ; and the spirit of slander couch'd under those two letters . the best way to understand him , is to read him backward ; as enemy for friend , and friend for enemy ; truth for falshood , and falshood for truth : and this unciphers him . one while i phansy him to be a iesuit ; for he 's so damnably cunning , that as he carries it , a body would think he had no more brains then a dormouse . but then methinks , on the other side , if he were one , you should have met him at madrid , or salamanca , doctor , or somewhere else abroad in your travels . i would you 'd cast a figure for him , sir , for nothing but a di-a-mond , you know , can cut a di-a-mond . and yet upon comparing this additional discoverer , with the marks , and tokens of a iesuite , as you have describ'd him ; i am half-perswaded that b. w. may come to be found a iesuite yet at last . do the iesuites change their shapes ? so does he : are they cruel , and sanguinary ? so is he . have they their equivocations , and mentall reservations ? so has he : and not only his own neither , but he pronounces upon the mentall reservations of other men , and brings thought against thought , into evidence . are the iesuites given to scandalize , and undermine societies ? to add , and substract , in the matter of truth ? are they pragmaticall in affairs out of their own province ? are they officious toward men of interest , and power ? so is he you see . are they men of addresse , plausible behaviour , parts , learning ? so is not he . now that 's the difference , i conceive , betwixt a conventicle-iesuit , and another . he does all he can in the world to possesse you that he is your friend , and my enemy : and yet , upou the issue , in despite of his hearts blood ; he proves himself to be your enemy , and my friend . how can that man be your friend , that calls it abusing of you , to speak well of you ? his very flatteryes , are as childish , and as cloying as suger-plumbs ; there 's no ayr , no grace , no vigour in them ; nay his very complements are scandalls . he treats you with an old-fashion'd legg to a queen-elsabeth-iustice ; and he shall pay the same homage to one of your lacquays , if you should but send him to him of an arrand . the poor wretch , in fine , is as humble , as the country fellow that askt my lord mayors horse blessing . what work sir , does he make with the respect ●● paid you in a former letter ? he calls that letter a mock ; but give me leave to tell you doctor that his calling it so , is a libell . i take upon me to affirm , that dr. oates is a canonicall , orthodox person ; but he 'l have this to be an abuse , and so makes you a fanatique . i stand up again , to advance the authority of your evidence , and to emprove the use , and reputation of your discoveries . now this is all ieering , and flouting with him ; as who should say , upon the whole matter : there 's nothing in 't . you swear point-blank that the priests and iesuits haunt the conventicles : and he , as audaciously on the other side , denys it , and gives the ly , point-blank to your testimony . pray'e tell me , sir , if you should say now that l'estrange is a very honest , loyall fellow ; and b. w. cry out that the doctor abuses him ; what construction could any man make of it , but that he takes l'estrange for a disaffected knave ? or suppose that any man should speak of l'estrange , as a man of competent sense ; is it not a clear case , that he that thinks him abus'd in 't , takes him for a fool ? but the best way of finding him out is to let him expound himself . wherefore i beseech you , doctor , do but observe , when the smooth , supple humour goes off with him , how magisterially he behaves himself , and how he grows upon you : under the colour of a friend , how he takes upon him , and plays the part of a governour . he tells you what you are to think , in this case , and what you are to do in that : how to understand one poynt , and how , another : here he spells for you , and there , he puts together : and all this , with the weaknesse of a school-boy , and the arrogance of a pedant . and what 's his end ; but to have it thought in the world , that you are rul'd , and influenc'd by his dictate ? but this is not the first time that other people have layd claim to the reward of your merits . i lost a friend i 'm sure , my self once , because i would not license a book for another person , as the first discoverer of the plot. and it cannot be expected , that a man in your post , and station , should live without envy . but yet how far it may stand with your credit , or good liking to suffer your self to be cokes'd , and thus impos'd upon by every little sir-politique would-be , is submitted to your consideration . in one word sir , can any man be your ( or indeed any bodys ) friend , that has neither brains , nor shame , nor good manners , nor good nature , nor truth , nor honour in him ? this , i do assure you , doctor , is the just character of my antagonist , if a body may measure the man by his discourses . it will be objected perhaps ; what does it concern l'estrange , the vanity of this mans setting up for the doctors friend , and adviser ; or how he behaves himself , in the execution of that office ? if what the one does , the other thinks fit to permit , l'estrange is but a coxcomb for medling . ( nay and 't is well if he scape so too ) for he has been call'd rogue , rascall , thief , turnspit , for much lesse . ) it must needs be acknowledg'd , doctor , that what you two agree upon betwixt your selves , is nothing at all to me ; but by my faith , sir , when i come once to be represented to you as a papist , plotter , or enemy to the government ; and to the kings witnesses ; this touches my coppy-hold ; and 't is well for me that i 'm fallen into good hands ; for such an nformation , given to a man that would have ventur'd an oath upon hearsay , might have been as much as my neck 's worth . but 't is a double happynesse to me , first , that you believe nothing of all this ; and secondly , that he proves as little : for he cannot pitch upon any one line in the whole pamphlet , and say , this is the point i le charge him with . but when he has flutter'd , from one surmise , to another ; falsify'd my sentences , taken up here and there a word by snaps , and left the connexion , behind him ; he is yet forc'd at last to fly from the plain , and genuine sense of my expressions , to the mysticall possibility of another intention . make it your own case , doctor : suppose i should see you upon your knees at the sacrament , and tell some body , look ye : now is that damn'd doctor making a contract with the devil : or that you should see me ( tho' with all the devotion imaginable ) poring upon the four evangelists , and cry out , do ye see that dogg l'estrange ? now is he turning the history of our saviour into burlesque . why where 's christian charity at this rate ? what becomes of the common methods of intercourse , and the faith of human society ; if when a mans words are open , and the construction obvious , his heart shall be torn out of his breast , for another meaning ? the sun shines ; that is to say , ' t is midnight : wee 'l make him a glorious king ; that is to say , wee 'l cut off his head. this is a fanaticall figure sir , and of no account among the orthodox . and yet upon such grounds as these , am i most zealously recommended , by b. w. to your care doctor , to see me hang'd , drawn and quarter'd , in time convenient . you will see at large , sir , in this angry tract of his , that as the gentleman has render'd me to be your enemy , under the masque of a friend , he is no lesse my friend , in the shape of an enemy . first , he 's an incomparable foil ; such a setter-off , that when you come to compare us , i 'le leave you to be the judge , ( and i 'me sure you 'l not spare me ) if even l'estrange himself be not an angell to him . now and then , 't is true , he stumbles upon a right number , or person ; but the nominative case and the verb are mortall enemies with him . secondly , the whole piece is but one grin , from end , to end ; without ever fastening upon any thing ; and at last , he proves me to be innocent , by proving , with much labour , that he cannot prove me to be guilty . thirdly , his frauds , and fallacies are as palpable as egyptian foggs ; so grosse , they may be felt : which does but all serve to illustrate my integrity , and credit . if these be not the offices of a friend , pray what are ? and then all is perform'd too , in such a way of gravity , weighing ( forsooth ) considering , pondering , and advising , at such a supercilious rate ; a body would have thought he had had the whole councell of trent in his belly : and yet at length , when he comes to open , out comes just nothing but gall , and clamour . pray'e advise him sir , if he falls in your way , to be modest , and temperate , and not to bear so hard upon a poor decayed gentleman , ( as a learned author has it in his courant ) that lives by his fingers end. consider , sir , it has been your own case ; and yet you see the advantages that many times attend resolution , and industry , under the blessing of a propitious fate . we are all of us the sport of fortune . she raises from the alms-basket , and casts down into the dungeon ; she sets beggers a horse-back , and turns their masters afoot ; she brings princes to the block , and advances traytors to the throne ; she gives money and credit to those that wanted it ; and takes from those that had it in abundance . and thus the world rolls , as her slippery ladyship pleases . it is cast in my teeth , i know , at every turn , that i write for bread ; which is either true , or false : if true , it is one of the fairest ●leas that a man can have for scribling ; provided that he governs his pen by the measures of conscience , and duty : and within that compasse i have allways contained my self . and yet i cannot admit that pinch to be a truth neither ; without some reflexion of scandall , and ingratitude upon the government ; as if after allmost forty years inviolate loyalty and service to the crown , i should live to see my self thus deserted at last . now if this reflexion be false , and groundlesse , it is but a poyson'd arrow out of the same quiver that has allready furnisht mischief abundantly against my superiors : and this calumny , or any other , that malice it self can invent , touches me no more then if they should report that you and i , doctor , had chang'd heads . but give me your pardon , sir , tho' i am not at all disturb'd , by the common clamours of the vulgar , that draw in contagion with their very breaths , and then blow it about again , till the disaffection , comes to be epidemicall : i cannot yet , but as a friend to the kings evidence , ( in despite of all unkindnesses ) i cannot , i say , but be in some degree sensible of your joyning with the multitude in that popular contempt . and this is more for your sake ( i assure you sir ) then for my own ; for it is not a generous return , toward a person that has render'd you those offices which ( without vanity ) i have done . and truly i should take it very ill from you , in your personal , if it were not for the reverence i bear you , in your politicall capacity . and yet the case is hard , at best ; taken with the aggravations ; that is to say , from the kings witnesse , and a divine , to a person of my known affections to the church , and state ; from the doctor , to his country-man . but i 'le carry it no further . the oates's , and the l'estranges are two names very well known in norfolk . so that i shall not need to tell you , doctor ( being your country-man ) that i am a gentleman ; beside , that i am to presume you , doctor , to be read as well in the heralds , as the schoolmen . it is a long time , sir , that you have done me the honour to mention my name ; and still with rogue , rascall , villain , papist , or some such mark of your displeasure along with it : now these are terms which b. w. distinguishes from reflexions upon persons , or qualities , and imputes them only to an impetuous fervor , of zeal , that transports you , impartially , & without distinction into those freedoms ; so often as difference of opinion , upon the main , happens to be the thing in question ; now i know very well that when a man's tongue has got a habit of walking one way , he can no more forbear speaking what comes next , then spitting , for 't is only matter of course : and i do absolutely discharge you , sir , of any malicious intent toward me , in the heat of that language ; upon this presumption , that it was all grounded upon the mistake of my principle , and an opinion that i did not stand right , as to the matter of the plot , without any malignity ( as i said e'en now ) either to my quality , or person . nay i have heard you my self ( in confirmation of b. w's . remark ) frankly , and openly affirm that laud ( the martyr ) was a rascall , and a traytor ; and that ere long you 'd tell the world as much in print . and what was all this , but still the impulse of a transcendent zeal , upon a full belief that the arch-bishop was a papist ? but who can tye up the winds , or set limits to the dictates of a boundlesse spirit ? i have heard of a beyond-sea-divine , ( a strenuous asserter of the romish communion ) that would familiarly run thorough whole royall families of protestant professors , by the names of rogues , and bitches . well , sir , let it be granted , ( for peace sake ) that i am that wretched fellow , that pittyfull rascall , that scribbles for bread , as you were pleas'd , in great , and reverend company , but upon good-fryday-last , to call me . ( i could wish this had rather fall'n out upon a shrove-tuesday , for good-fryday is not a proper day for such a piece of masquerade . ) why faith , sir , blesse your stars , that you your self are struck into a better way ; and leave me to the liberty of taking up what fair employment i think fit for an honest lively-hood . where 's the hurt , or the shame of this i beseech you ; if i can make a shift by this means to do my duty , and my businesse ? i know there are more expedite , and beneficiall ways of thriving in the world , if i could but bring my conscience to bear ; as iuggling , treppaning , cross-biting , canting , swearing , &c. but alas , sir , i am old ; and for a man to begin late , and go to the devil before he has done his jobb , would not do so well . alack , alack , sir ! what can a man get by a snip in a poor pamphlet of 4 or 5 sheets of paper ? no , no , doctor , 't is your narratives , that sweep all . those are the swingeing coppies . i heard you say my self once , that you lost 500l . at one bout , by having your narrative printed upon you . now your narrative was precisely nineteen sheets . and i am assur'd that you have six hundred more at this instant , ready for the presse ; which in proportion will be worth to you , sixteen thousand seven hundred and seventy pounds six shillings and eight pence , within a fraction . nay , 't is forty guinnyes , the bare signing a narrative of another mans writing . but doctor , that i may not be behind-hand with you , in confidence , and freedom , i do really write for my bread ; and which is more , for my head too , into the bargain : nay , upon my soul , according to my estimat of the case , i write my part for the very bread of my master ; and to shew the people the snares that are laid by anabaptists , and that brood , ( as well as papists ) for the government . you see , sir , what an out-cry this same little fanatical faux makes about my further discovery ; which only advises the plucking of the priests , and iesuits out by the ears , from among the conventicles ; where your testimony , and depositions have lodg'd them . and this is done too with as much respect , and honour to your self , as any man can pay you , that scorns to flatter you : and with a most dutyfull passion for the well-fare of the nation . but on the other hand ; tho' every day brings forth multitudes of poysonous , seditious , and schismaticall libells , that strike at the very root , and branches of the government ; this officious zelote ( i 'le warrant you sir ) is as blind on that side , as a beetle . the kings authority may be invaded ; his person lampoon'd ; the clergy-men themselves affronted , as well as their function : as at the essex-election , and elsewhere : and here 's no libelling taken notice of in these cases . but if a man puts in a sober , and a moderate word another way , presently the plot , and the kings witnesses are topt upon him . the people may remove wicked kings ( says one ) and what says the author of the free-holders choice ? i believe ( says he ) good father jacob had a foresight of these sons of levi , when in his last will and testament he left them a curse for a legacy , instead of a blessing . and if the whole world were now to make their wills , all but knaves , and fools would do the like . here 's no threatening of men with parliaments , or arraigning of them for traytors upon these points ; which does evidently shew a designing partiality , and disaffection . and after all ▪ this , i am so far from questioning the plot , that it strikes me with horror , the apprehension where it will end . but still give me your pardon , sir , if i reckon it to be worth the care of the government , to discourage and suppresse treasonous principles , as well as to punish treasonous practises : for thought is but the root of action . i would have the conspiracy sifted to the last man ; but yet that which is found criminall , on the one hand , i would not have it expos'd to the multitude , as lawfull , as the other : for it is much more dangerous to have the people possest , that such or such an ill thing may be done , then privately to contrive the doing of it . we shall now sir , if you please , put all the rogues , rascals , villains , sauce-boxes , papists , turn-spits , pittifull fellows , and scriblers for bread , upon the account of an exuberant zeal in matter of conjectural opinion . but when you come to matter of fact , ( if i may be so bold sir , ) you should really do well to be a little tender : as when you were pleas'd to say positively the other day , that l'estrange was one of nolls fidlers . the businesse was , he came in once in the middle of a consort , where i was playing a part ; and that was all . now this is a great scandal to me , sir ; aud you must allow me to tell you in your personall capacity , that the aspersion is as false as hell ; but i have nothing to say to you in your political capacity but with submission , and respect . for it is doctor titus oates that defames me in this particular , without aspersing the kings witnesse . so that the falshood of the person does not at all invalidate the strength of the evidence . pray'e doctor take into your consideration how great a sufferer i am render'd by this slander : for it will be understood , either that i went over to cromwell , to betray the king : or else i must be taken to have pretended my self reconciled to his interest , and under that colour to swear and abjure to the pit of hell , for the gaining of some other point . as to the making of me a state-rogue , that would have been pardonable yet , if you had not made a fiddling-rogne of me ; a common statute-rogne . why , doctor , how shall i have the face to shew myself in white-hall again , uuder this character ? what will : people think of l'estrange at this rate ? especially having the authority of the great witnesse of the nation , for the credit of the report . but infallibility , sir , in matter of fact , is a point that the church of rome it self could never yet be brought to swallow ; so that a man may contradict some of your mistakes , without any offence at all , either to your testimony , or doctrine . you were pleased at the same time sir ( according to your wont ) to enlarge your self upon some other loose topicks too , concerning mee ; and with so little regard , either to candour or caution in your reports , that really , doctor , i should chide you , if i durst , for defaming the kings evidence : and , under favour , it is not well done to take up infamous stories upon the high-way , and vent them again presently for pos●●●ve truths : especially for a person under your circumstances , the credit of whose testimony does so much import the nation . the subject being clamour , and reviling , was in it self a very unfitting theme for a church-man . but for a divine , upon a good-fryday , after a passion-sermon , and in his preparatory for the solemn festival of easter , to abandon himself to such an impotence of outrage , without either ground or provocation , and in so venerable a presence too ; ( i need not tell you where sir ) nor , as i am a christian , did i come to the knowledge of this directly or indirectly from any member of the family . ) why will you suffer a violent passion to carry you thus beyond all bounds of decency and consideration ? it takes away your reason , doctor ; and in these fits rather then not do me a mischief , you care not what you say : for you do no more believe me to be as you have represented me , then i believe you to be the ghost of thomas aquinas . i have not deliver'd one syllable here , without a due respect , both to what i say and to whom i speak : and if every particle in this paper should be put to the torture , to force an evidence from it against the authour ; 't is no more then i look for . but so secure am i in the conscience of my own integrity , and so well satisfi'd in the title i have to the common right of defending my self ; that i am not at all sollicitous about the event of this freedom . and to shew you that i have not enter'd rashly upon this undertaking , i 'le give you a clear prospect of my thoughts upon the question , with submission to be better inform'd , where i 'm mistaken . you cannot but observe , doctor , that the stresse of b. w's . charge upon l'estrange lyes with its whole weight upon these four poynts , viz. that he favours the papists , lessens the blot , disparages the wittnesses , and arraigns the government : and all this serves only as a common-place to work upon , when any man is to be render'd odious to the people : for 't is a thing easily sayd , greedily swallow'd ; of violent operation , and hard to be disprov'd ; which is a very great disadvantage , when a man comes to be arraign'd for his thoughts , without any possibility of clearing himself . it is a thing that extreamly confounds , and misleads us in this affair , the governing of our selves by the common forms of speaking , and according to the vulgar understanding of the matter in hand . as for the purpose ; we make a favourer of the plot ; a favourer of popery , and a favourer of papists to signify , for the most part , one and the same thing : and 't is no matter which comes out first , when we would throw dirt at a man : whereas in truth , and equity , there is a great difference ▪ betwixt them ; as will better appear by taking them apart , and distinguishing the one from the other . by the papists is properly intended the whole party among us of that perswasion . by popery , the opinions , or religion of that party . by the plot , is to be understood , the conspiracy ; which is a third consideration , separate from the other two. so that a man may be a favourer of the plot , against the king and government , and yet an enemy to the opinion of the papists , and to the party ; for we see , that the same designe has been formerly carry'd on , and executed by men of opposite iudgements . and likewise a man may have a kindnesse for the opinion , and yet be an enemy to the plot ▪ as ( in despite of detraction ) we have seen many instances . and lastly , a man may have a tendernesse and charity for the party , without leaning at all to the opinion , and with a perfect detestation of the execrable confederacy . [ well doctor , but you will tell me that this popish plot is a complicated plot ; and not barely a plot upon the government , but a plot also supported upon popish principles , and carry'd on by a popish party , for the extirpation of the protestant religion . it is not sir , to extenuate the guilt , and the foulnesse of this plot , if i tell you , that the fanatical revolution matcht it in every point . there was , first , a confederacy ; and then , a design layd : a change of government resolv'd , the lawfullnesse of it debated , and asserted ; and the instruments that carry'd it on , were the fanatical party : and all terminated in the snppression of the protestant religion : that is to say , if the church of england was protestant : or if otherwise , and if they that destroy'd this glorious church were protestants themselves , from such protestants good lord deliver us . but you will say , sir , that prelacy , ceremonyes , habits , and set forms of prayer are not to be accounted matters of religion . i beseech you , sir , what religion is there in a messe of porridge ; or in looking out at the window to see what a clock ' t is ? and yet i take it to be a very material transgression in point of religion , to throw that porridge in the face of my father , in the one case , or to resuse upon his command , to look out at the window on the other . for religion consists in doing , as well as believing , and in the conservation of unity , and order . the resemblance betwixt the face and the glasse , is scarce liker then these two cases ; and i do not know why the same way of reasoning may not hold as well too , upon things so agreeing betwixt themselves . the popish plot is impious , for so much as concerns the destroying of the king , and the laying of the nation in confusion , and bloud ; and so was the schismaticall plot too , and this is a poynt that all men , even of all perswasions in religion ; that have either honour , or brains will easily accord . but you 'l say that this plot is prov'd by witnesses , and iudgments ; and give me leave , doctor , to tell you , that the other was also prov'd , by fact , and the final execution of a fore-layd design . well , but you 'l say sir , that the iesuits principles are bloudy , and dangerous : as that of keeping no faith wiih heretiques ; and the doctrine of absolving subjects from their obedience to such princes . these are hellish positions 't is true ; but in the history of our late troubles , and in that of the kirks proceedings in scotland , you i find these maxims taught in the very schools , and pulpits ; nay , and warranted too , by the most eminent states-men and divines : and not only so ; but authoriz'd by general assemblyes , and the votes , and declarations of a mock-representative of the commons of england . nay and it went further yet ; for all these diabolicall illusions were put in practice . they sought the lord , for a complement of the wickednesse ; they put the king to death , as by a revelation ; and glory'd in the thing done , as a favourable dispensation of providence . once again , sir , there were none but papists ( you 'l say ) in this plot : there were none but schismatiques in the other ; so that vou see the streights of the church of england , betwixt these two extreames ; and the danger is as mortal on the right hand as on the left. and give me leave to think doctor , that as the danger is equall , so the affliction is much bitterer , from those of our own family , then from strangers ; the prophet david himself seem'd to stagger a little under the weight of it : if it had been an open enemy , he could have born it , but to be wounded by those , with whom he had taken counsell , and walkt in the house of god as friends ; this was the almost insupportable aggravation of his calamity . in fine , both plots , and partys were influenc'd alike by fallacies , and impostures both in religion , and state. from this parallell , if you please sir , i will proceed to an application of what is past , to our present use , and purpose . i could wish that every man that had any part whatsoever in the promoting , inflaming , or upholding of our late troubles , would now upon this occasion lay his hand upon his heart , and tell his story : what a variety of errours and corruptions would this tale , truly told , afford us . alas , i was but young ( says one ) and meerly drawn in ; i meant no more hurt to the king ( god knows ) then to my own heart , cries another . they told me the king was gotten into the papists hands , and that they only intended to bring him back to his parliament : but when i was once in , there was no getting out again . i never thought ( says a third ) that it would have gone so farr ; but i should have been well enough content to have seen some grievances redrest . one had a father , or a son on the kings side , and he took the other , to save stakes . some were frighted into the cause by stories of german horse , massacres , &c. i was in the parliament-quarters , and my estate must have gone for 't , if i had not comply'd . one had a good office , a benefice , or an estate to lose ; a family to provide for ; another had a court-grudg , and took his revenge , or fought only for pay , as a soldier of fortune : and at this rate people were hookt in , some through weaknesse , but with good intention ; others , by interest , fear , or misguided conscience , and not one man of a thousand that acted originally , against the government , either by malice , or design . i would have these people that have been thus seduc'd themselves , soberly to reflect upon it . we are all of us flesh and blood alike ; why may not other men be missed as well as we ? or why should we grudg others the same measures of tendernesse , and remission , that we our selves have received . well , but those are papists ; and the other are schismatiques . the papists are men of dangerous principles , and so are the fanatiques ; but then some of the dissemers are better then other ; and so are some of the papists . if the papists lie under the lash of the law , so do the non-conformists ; and in short , this plot ( we hope ) has miscarry'd , the other succeeded ; and yet only the express murtherers of the king were singled out for exemplary iustice , and all the rest of the criminals , and common actors in the rebellion were pardon d in the conspiracy that took effect . now let me ask you , doctor , if you would have the innocents , men , women , and children promiscuouly exposed to more rigour in the case of a plot that is disappointed , then the nocents were on the other hand , where an unparalleld rebellion took place . give me leave now , sir , to put a question ; not to the reason , and equity of the thing , but to the conscience , and modesty of the men : for let the prosecution , on the part of the government , be never so necessary , there may yet be some regard had to the circumstances of the prosecutors . i would have those men , i must confess , that have been so frankly pardon'd , themselves , ( even for the consummated destruction of three kingdoms , ) be a little tender in pressing an utter extirpation of an entire party , because of a conspiracy , among some particulars of that perswasion ; and a conspiracy too , that is crusht by providence , in the very egg. what would you think on 't , sir , if you should see a company of fellows that have been in at a hundred robberyes and murthers , themselves , and got their pardons , and still keep their bootyes ; what would you think , ( i say ) to see these men , of all others , the fiercest sticklers for extremityes upon other felons that had only design'd the outrage which they themselves had actually accomplisht ? besides sir , that it seems to carry a very suspicious countenance to have those men pretend the greatest zeal for the safety of the government , that are most notoriously known to be disaffected to it . and yet upon the mayn , we finde none so eager and prone , as some of these people are , to calumniate the iustice of the nation by remonstrances , and clamorous addresses ; and by violent importunities to precipitate councils , as who should say , we are the arbitrators of the great affairs of the government , and take more care of it , then the government does for it self . pray'e take notice doctor , that this is intended only of licencious , and illegall proceedings , with due submission to all forms , orders , and resolutions of state : and that i do not speak of any sort of favour toward criminals ; and more especially in the matter of sir edmund bury-godfrey ; and this late barbarous inhumanity upon the person of mr. arnold ; which i look upon to be two instances , allmost unpardonable : and i do here protest before the living god , if i either knew or could make a farther discovery , or if i ever can get the means of doing it , i would , and i will , ( though the neerest friends i have in the world ) deliver them up into the hands of the law. now as there appears some affinity betwixt the case , and danger of both the extreams , ( as to the government , ) be pleas'd to enform me sir , if there may not be allow'd some proportion also of compassion from the government , in the matter of mitigation , and redress , toward both these partyes . to which opinion i finde my self induced by these following considerations , but with great readynesse to be overrul'd by better judgements . in the first place , doctor , we are all of us christians , and cannot take a surer measure for the government of our lives , and actions , then the precepts , and practices of our blessed saviour . he commands us in the gospell , to blesse those that curse us , to do good to them that hate us . and these precepts to his disciples , he made good upon the crosse ; in praying for his very crucifyers . our saviour reprov'd his disciples for urging him to call for fire down from heaven : there was no calling rogue , and rascall , but the great work of our redemption was wrought out with meekness , and patience . and there is a regard to be had likewise to the matter of humanity , as we are all of us men , and liable to the same infirmityes , and errours . it is the condition of being forgiven our selves , the forgiving of our neighbours ; and it concerns those men , of all others , that do the most need and presse for relaxation , and mercy , themselves , not to oppose it , in some degree to others . and it is another consideration , as we are fellow-subjects and members of the same community ; for all dissenters from the rule are equally liable to a cheque from the government , and ly under the same ty , of conformity , and obedience . it does not belong to me sir , to speculate upon political expediences , one way or another ; i could otherwise tell you how much we are underpeopl'd already , and the greater the depopulation the deader , upon necessity , must be our trade ; the circulation of money must be lesse ; our lands fall , our commodityes ly upon our hands , and our taxes still run higher : and consequently , the lesse able shall we be dayly , to defend our selves , in case of a foreign invasion : for 't is a foolery to talk of any more holy wars , the hot fit of that unwarrantable and romantique zeal is long since over , and out of the world ; and the bone of contention among princes , is empire , not religion . if i have sayd any thing here contrary to law , conscience , or humanity , i shall submit my self to a fayr tryall for 't : but if i keep my self within the terms of christianity , humanity , and civill respect to my superiours , i do but discharge the part of an honest man , and a good subject . here 's more work sir , for b. w. to ground an action of popery upon ; and you have a sure card at a dead lift , when he stands at your elbow , to help you out with an enformation . but see doctor , how far , ( and no farther ) i approve my self in this paper to be an advocate for the papists ; and that is to say , just so far as i am an advocate for fanatiques ; i wish , with my heart , that the government were clear of all plotters on bothsides ; and that the peaceable , honest mixture in both partyes might have as much ease , as may stand with the security of the state. now having thus equally divided my kindnesse ; it shall be cross , or pile ( if you please , doctor , ) whether i am a papist , or a fanatique , i must confess , i abhor the thought , of christians worrying one another , worse than wolves ; and this , as well on the one side , as on the other . but where people of either perswasion , will be vexatiously , and pragmatically troublesome to the publique peace , it is but reason they should suffer for 't . but then there are several ways of approach , or advance toward the same end ; seditious positions are every jot as ill , as seditious actions , but much meaner : for the one is the authorizing of a villany , as the other is the executing of it . there is something of bravery in him that attempts it ; but the setter on , is a scandall , even to his own party . so that i have now competently explain'd my self concerning the plot , popery , and papists . for the first , i have a perfect abhorrence ; and no sort of kindnesse for the other two , as such . and yet as papists are christians , ( and i my self one ) i cannot but have a conscientious respect , in common for all the members of that profession . beside that as they are men too , there are indispensable offices of humanity due from one man to another ; and then there are certain considerations of alliances , acquaintances , and society , which we cannot wholly divest our selves of , without a violence to the very instincts of reasonable nature , and degenerating into beasts . now as to the poynt of popery , so far as it is made use of as a politicall engine to loosen societyes , and to authorize disobedience ; i look upon it as a plot upon the peace of mankind , in that way of applying it : as the disciplinarian presbytery ; ( on the other hand ▪ ) which is the very counter-part of it . but taking it nakedly , and abstractedly as a particular scheme of faith , and religion ; without any relation to temporall matters ; my being of another opinion will not hinder me yet from having the same charity for another man in that which appears erroneous to me , which , in a thousand cases , i my self may stand in need of from others . and this softnesse has something in it of complexion , as well as iudgment . i cannot endure to see children tormenting of poor birds and spitting of flyes : and it has cost me many a six pence , the redeeming of puppyes , and kitlins from the cruelty of boys in the streets , that were tearing them to pieces . and this , doctor , may be done , i hope , without being of pusses , or ringwoods religion . but here 's more pains taken then needs , to gratify iohn a nokes , and iohn a stiles ; for my adversaryes have yet this modesty in them , that they are asham'd both of their names , and faces . these lihellers follow the example of their fellow murtherers ; they ly in wait for the innocent ; and it is the work of the one to godfrey honest men out of their reputation , as the other did that worthy gentleman sir edmundbury godfrey out of his life . but it shall suffice that my conscience as well as my acquaintances , will acquit me in the matter of conformity to the rites , as well as the doctrine of the church of england ; which i have ever asserted , both with my pen , and practice ; and fully answer'd all the tests of my profession , which the law requires . it will be cast in my dish , i know , that this pretended moderation toward dissenters is only introduced in favour of a common indulgence , wherein the papists may come in for a share ; and wholly inconsistent with the rigour i have promoted in all my writings , toward the non-conformists , but i must desire you , doctor , to observe , that i never opposed the liberty of thought in disagreeing perswasions ; for 't is impossible to bring all men to the same apprehensions of the same thing . but my business has been always , in this case , to lay open the danger of permitting a liberty of practice , which must of necessity dissolve the order , and the authority of the government : for it is ( effectually ) a translation of the power from the magistracy to the people ; and a contradiction to the obligation and intent of laws ; when the rule prescribes to us the doing of this , or that , and the license , on the other side , says we may do what we please . now i have wip'd off all these aspersious , of favouring either plot , popery , or papists ; or of so much as implying any iniquity in the proceedings of the government : ( nay , i have , on the contrary , asserted the iustice of it , in this matter ; ) it only rests , that i purge my self in the point of a becoming resignation , and respect to the kings witnesses ; which is the hardest thing in the world to do , because there appears no foundation for the charge ; and how shall a man prove , or make any thing out of nothing ? at least , if other people can , i must confess that i have not yet the faculty of doing it . but since there is no substantial ground for this charge , pray'e doctor do but cast your eye upon the pretence . i give you the character of a loyal , orthodox man , a lover of your countrey , and a master of your pen ; i tell the government , out of your own mouth , where they shall finde the priests and iesuites ; so that 't is but pursuing the way that you have chalkt out , for the retriving of them . i magnisie your discoveries . i set a just value upon your performances , i prophesy that you will be famous to posterity ; and that the great things you have already done will be follow'd with greater . how comes it now that those expressions which would be panegyricks from another man , should be libels from me ? or how can any man call it a scandall , to speak well of him that endeavours to support the government , without implying it to be matter of reputation to designe the overturning of it ? and how again comes b. w. to lug into his title-page , by head and shoulders , a vindication also of the rest of the kings evidences , without any hint , or mention , in the book he pretends to answer , of any other but your self ? the mystery is this . there are a sort of people that will call a man a defamer of the kings evidence , not as a charge , but 't is a kinde of giving the word to the rabble . as we cry he sweats , to a dog when we would have him take a man by the collar . now as the offence ought to be punish'd , on the one hand , so the scandal methinks should not go free , on the other : and it were well if both parts were agreed , first , upon the force , and intend ●●nt of that which is called the kings evidence ; and secondly , what it is , to defame it . every body knows , what it is to swear for the king ; and that the witnesse must be famae integrae , and probus . but now how far that qualification extends , will be the question . he that gives evidence for the king is no further the kings witnesse , then for so much as concerns the subject matter of his testimony ; though there are some , i know , that will have the whole man to be swallow'd up , in a manner , and transubstantiated into the evidence ; as , if every word , or act ( for the purpose ) of l'estrange were to be reputed as the word , and act of the kings witnesse : ( supposing him so to be ; ) and that nothing could be spoken of him in one capacity , without affecting him in the other . now under favour , sir , this would be so dangerous a mistake , that upon the admittance of it , there would be no longer any security either for king , or i pople . for if my speaking any thing that is false of one of my fellow subjects , should invalidate the true evidence i have given for his majesty ; what becomes of our sovereign ? and again , if my being an evidence for the king , should entitle me to a priviledge of abusing and scandalizing other men at pleasure ; what becomes then of the liberty of the people ? so that though this qualification gives me more credit , and esteem in the world , according to the weight of the cause in question ; it gives me no more power yet , or advantage , over my fellow-subjects , in other cases , then i had before . yours ( i must confess , doctor , ) is very particular , in regard of the important consequences that depend upon it : and yet this does not hinder , but that the same rule holds good throughout . as for example sir ; supposing me now to be one of the kings witnesses , would this character authorize me to place the supreme power in the people ; to say that the king is only as one of the peers , and that the house of commons made him what he is ; to give out , how i 'le order the matter of the succession ; and what course i 'le take with the privy council , when the parliament meets ? to represent his majesty to be popishly affected ; ( though a premunire by the statute ; ) to garble the bench as i please ; and to say who shall out , or who continue ; to call princes , traytors , and canary-birds ; to pronounce upon this or that man ; and say which officer shall stand , and which , fall ; whose offices i 'le shake , and what lawn-steeves i 'le ruffle ; to inveigh against the bishops , as popish ; with their anti-christian holy-days ? to say i 'le be the death of this man ; or i 'le have the bloud of t'other , as the toy takes me in the crown : and all this , as if my being the kings evidence had made me controller of the government ; and subjected the lives , libertyes , and reputations of his majestyes good subjects to my arbitration ? these are excesses that a man cannot well-suppose : but however , this may suffice to shew that all things are not allowable , even to the kings evidences . but still as the witnesses are limited , the one way ; by the rules of good manners , and law. so it is not sit for people to make sport with them the other ; and ( as b. w. says ) to turn the whole history into ridicule . but then doctor , you must distinguish betwixt a mans vindicating of himself and defaming you : for otherwise men must sit down and confesse themselves to be rascalls as often as you are pleas'd to call them so , for fear of blasting your evidence . now though you are pleas'd to call me ten thousand rogues , and villains ; ( and in very good company too ; ) i am apt to think yet , that i 'm never the lesse honest for your calling me any thing to the contrary ; and in passing this reflexion upon your intemperance and choler ; what wrong is this to your evidence ? or if it be , you may thank your self for 't . must i stand upon record for a villain , in a compliment to your testimony ? you tell people that i was a common fidler to oliver , which allmost half the nation knows to be false ; and from this instance , you would infer my truckling to that usurper . you do not imagine that i will yield my self to be a rascall now , for fear of disobliging any man by a contradiction . i do here affirm to you , doctor , that i never took oath , covenant , or any engagement whatsoever , from that party ; or in any sort whatsoever comply'd with them . do but you prove the contrary , and i 'le allow my self to be all the rascalls you call me . nay , it is publiquely known , that when i lay in newgate , condemn'd to be hang'd for serving his majesty , i had the intercessions offer'd me of very powerfull men in the party , if i would take the covenant , to endeavour to bring me off , and i refused it . and , in fine , since i am forc'd upon 't , i shall here annex three papers out of twenty at least , upon the same occasion , which i publish'd upon that bloudy crisis in 1659. here in the town , ( and honest harry brome got them printed too , to his very great hazzard ) when i do assure you doctor , i did not write for bread. you may perhaps take me to be a little bolder in this freedom , then becomes me ; but truly i did not think it safe to discourse this matter to you by word of mouth , for fear of enflaming you further : and to deal freely with you , sir , i had not gone thus far neither , if you had not most injuriously broken in upon my family , in a more tender point : a nicety , that i must entreat you not to proceed any further upon , without advice of counsell . this personal unkindnesse of yours shall not at all lessen the esteem i have for you as you are the kings evidence : i shall go on advancing the reputation of your services , celebrating the good offices you have rendred the church as well as the state , in your plain-dealing with fanatiques and papists alike . but yet i am afraid , doctor , that you are a little too easie of belief : 't is a great wrong to mee , and a greater yet to your self , this way of taking things upon trust ; for truth should be as sacred in a word , as in an oath . i have at this instant before my eyes all the inconveniences that can possibly arise from this way of exposing my vindication . first , i know that you are apt enough to take fire of your self , sir , and that you do not want malevolent spirits neither , to push you forward . i do know very well also your power and interest , with all the ill consequences that can attend it . i know likewise the rancour of a company of little prostigate wretches that will be forward enough to cover their malice under your name , and protection ; and in my conscience ( to give the men their due ) will not stick out at any thing , to do my business : fellows that will make no more of kissing a book , then of kissing a back-side . but sir , i shall oppose my single honesty to all these difficulties , and value their swearing , as little as i do their lying , tho' i am well assured , that they are conferring notes upon that point already . and remember what i tell you , sir ; if ever they come to agree upon 't , that perjury will be found allmost the fairest part of their practice . there is another sort of malignants , that please themselves mightily in the contemplation of having l'estrange run down , ( as they call it ) at the next meeting of parliament . i shall take my time likewise to vindicate that honourable assembly from the scandal of that character which these people would give them in the world : as if we were now coming to be govern'd by ordinances again ; and that honest men , for discharging their duties to their prince , and country , were now a second time to be sacrific'd to a faction . no , no sir ; i have no apprehension of any hard measure from that illustrious assembly , to the degree of oppressing me contrary to law ; and i have as little apprehension from the dint of any known law that i have transgrest . give me your favour , doctor , but for one word more . my believing of the plot , under certain restrictions , and qualifications , is by b. w. exhibited against me , as a great enforcement of my charge . now upon my faith , sir , i am perswaded , that i believe every tittle of the real plot ; but you must give me leave yet to suspend my faith in many cases , where there is a plot pretended , and aggravated , and the supposed principals not one jot concern'd in 't . what do you think , sir , of the quality of those inflaming papers that are publisht in the witnesses names , and yet are only the contrivances of a knot of booksellers , for their own advantage ? papers of manifest scandal against the royall family ; some of the loyall protestant nobility ; and in generall , against his majesties most faithfull subjects ? papers composed for the tumultuating of the rabble ; and if the citizens had not been too honest , and too sober , to be transported with those libells , they had been sufficient to have engaged them in blood : papers , that allmost from one end to the other of them are in effect the very coppies of two libells which i had formerly seiz'd my self . and shall this now be called a dis-believing of the plot , which is only the not giving credit to the most shamelesse , and insolent impostures that ever were put upon any government ? no , pardon me doctor , those mercenaries are the defamers of the kings evidence , that publish lies , and scandalls in their names . and pray'e take notice withall , that these pretended asserters of religion and government , are men of notorious , and pestilent principles against both church , and state. i do not know , sir , what construction you may make of the good office i have done you , as the kings evidence , in this way of asserting you to be a loyall subject , and a good church-man ; or in my freedom of telling you , that in your personal capacity , you have not us'd me kindely . if you take the latter amiss , i 'le leave it to time , to reconcile me to your better thoughts ; but for the other part , doctor , is you will needs misunderstand me , i shall however content my self in this , as well as in other cases , that i have render'd a duty , and a service to the publique , without any profit , to sir , your disobliged , but unchangeable servant , roger l'estrange . p. s. i shall here present you , sir , with the papers i promised you in my vindication from the mistake imposed upon you , as if i had gone over from the king to cromwell . in 1659. lambert was upon his march toward sir george booth , and sir henry vane had listed the separatists in and about london , to be in readinesse at which time i publisht this following paper , under the title of , the declaration of the city , to the men at westminster . gentlemen , we have waited for the good you have promised us ; with a ridiculous patience : but we find you men of the originall , and to be read backward . we are for the religion of the heart , not that of the nose ; and for the law of the land , not that of the sword ; we are likewise for the charter of the city , and for the liberties of free-born englishmen ; with which we are resolv'd to stand and fall. it is high time for us to look to our selves , when we are coming under a guard of your chusing , and when we have only this choice left us , whether we will ▪ adventure to destroy you to day , or be sure to be destroyed our selves to morrow . that 's the short of the case ; for , a massacre is not only the design , but the profession of the party you have arm'd against us ; 't is their very exchange-talk at noon day ; but the work will be either too hot , or too heavy : for my masters , we are determined to suffer these affronts no longer , we are now come to understand one another , the ruine of the nation is your interest , the peace and preservation of it , ours , and the mischief of it is , your destruction is as easie , as 't is necessary : for every creature which either loves god , or his countrey , hates you. you have not so few as 200000 enemies in this town , to dispute the quarrell with some half a dozen of you ; not to multiply words , your practices are such as a generous nature cannot brook , and your power so despicable , that a coward needs not fear it . you have made the city but a cage of broken merchants ; tradesmen are ready to perish for want of businesse ; and their families for want of bread ; nor have the poor any other employment than to curse you . those few amongst you that have any thing , are but cover'd with the spoiles of the nation , and out of the scum of the people you have composed your inconsiderable rest. well gentlemen , play your own cards your selves , wee 'll play ours : you 'll have no single person in the state , wee 'll have none neither in the city ; at least , we 'll have no white-hall-major ; we will neither extend our priviledges an inch , nor abate an hair of them . and in the matter of blood-shed , so let heaven prosper us , as we shall proceed tenderly : but if there be no other way left us than violence whereby to preserve our selves in our just rights , what power soever shall presume to invade the priviledge of a citizen , shall finde 20000 brave fellows in the head on 't . this we do unanimously remonstrate to you , and to the world , to be our firm , and finall resolution . after this , the citizens presented a petition to the common-council , pressing for a free parliament : but they were put off for the present , and upon munday , december 5. 1659. horse and foot were dispatch'd into the city , by violence , to hinder the re-inforcement of the petition . but there was a great number of brave young fellows that opposed them : and if the factious magistracy ( at that time ) had not by a wile , perswaded them home again , the work had certainly been done ▪ that bout. upon this , after five or six days expectation what this affront would produce , i printed this following paper , to quicken them ; entitled , the engagement and remonstrance of the city of london , dec. 12. 1659. although , as citizens we are reduced to a necessity of violence ; and as christians , obliged to the exercise of it ; unlesse we will rather prostitute our lives and libertyes , fortunes and reputations ; nay our very souls and altars , to the lusts of a barbarous and sacrilegious enemy : we have yet so great a tendernesse for christian bloud , as to leave unattempted no means of probability to save it . this is it which hath prevayl'd with us to declare , first to the world , what we propose , and resolve , ere we proceed to further extremities : and to satisfie the publique , as well in the reasons of our undertakings , as to iustifie our selves , in the menage and event of them . we find , in the middest of us , the house of prayer converted into a den of theeves : our counsels affronted by armed troups , our fellow-citizens knock'd on the head , like dogs , at their own doors , for not so much as barking : nay , 't is become death , now to desire to live ; and adjudg'd treason , but to claim the benefit of the law against it . witnesse those infamous murthers committed but monday last , upon our uuarm'd friends : and the glorious insolencies of that rabble , towards such of the rest , as they seized , and carried away . but this is nothing : to make us a compleat sacrisice , we are to be burnt too : a thing not only threatned , in the passion of the tumult , but soberly intended ; for they have layd in their materials for the work already : ( a prodigious quantity of fire-balls in pauls , and gresham college ) briefly , we are design'd for fire , and sword , and pillage : and it concerns us now , to look a little better to our gracious guards . ( not to insist upon the losse of trade ; how many thousand families have nothing now to do , but beg , and curse these wretches ? ) the honour and safety of the city lyes at stake : and god so blesse us , as we 'll fall together . we will not live to see our wives , and daughters ravish'd : our houses rifled , and our children beggers , that shall only live to reproach their cowardly fathers : and all this done too by a people , which we can as easily destroy , as mention : by a party , so barbarous , and so inconsiderable together , that , certainly , no creature can be mean enough , either to suffer the one , or fear the other . in this exigency of affairs , we have found it both our duty and our interests to associate ; and we desire a blessing from heaven upon us , no otherwise , than as we do vigorously , and faithfully pursue what we here remonstrate . first ; we do engage our selves , in the presence of almighty god , with our lives and fortunes , to defend the rights and liberties of the city of london ; and if any person that subscribes to this engagement , shall be molested for so doing ; we will unanimously , and without delay , appear as one man to his rescue . next ; we demand , that all such troups and companies , as do not properly belong to the guard of the city , nor receive orders from the lawfull magistrates thereof : — that such forces withdraw themselves from the liberties , within 12. hours after the publication of this : upon pain of being deemed conspirators , and of being proceeded against accordingly , ( for to this extent , both of judgment , and execution , is every individual qualified in his own defence . ) we are next , to demand the enlargement of our fellow citizens , which were taken away by force , and in a tumultuous manner , contrary to the known laws of the place , and nation . this being performed , we shall acquiesce , in the enjoyment of those liberties , which we will not lose but with our lives . in fine , to remove all impediments of the peace we desire : we do undertake , both as men of credit , and justice ; that such of the souldiers as will betake themselves to honester employments , shall receive their arrears from the city , and such a further care of their future well-being , as is sutable to the necessitys of the one part , and the charity of the other . this paper was so well received , that it encouraged me to follow it with another , entitled , the final protest , and sense of the city . having diligently perused two printed papers , bearing date , the 14th . of this instant december : the one , in form of a proclamation concerning the summoning of a parliament : the other as an order of the common counsell , commanding the city to acquiesce in expectation of that parliament : we find therein contained , matters , so contrary to the honour of the nation , and to the freedom of the city , that we stand obliged both as english-men , and as citizens , to protest against the impositions of the former , as illegal , and the concessions of the latter , as a direct combination against us . these two papers are seconded by a third : ( for the two are one , both in effect , and design , ) and that is , a proclamation of banishment , directing to the late kings party , under the notion of the common enemy : so that there 's no love lost betwixt the committee of safety , and the common councill , when the general provides for the peace of the city , and the mayor for the safety of the army ; not to argue acts of oblivion , and the violation of publique faith in the case : that they conditioned for their lives and liberties , and compounded for their fortunes . this is not our concern , what they do suffer ; but what we may , if we trust those , that keep no faith with them : and that we 'le take a care of : when they are gone , then we are the common enemy ; so are the laws of god , and of the nation , and such is every man that loves them . what this malignant party is , these people talk of , we neither know , nor meddle ; the gentry 't is we live by , and by the laws of gratitude , and hospitality , we are bound to protect them , and resolved to do it , within our walls , against any other power , than that of the known law. the short of the design is this ; a danger is pretended to the city , from the late kings party , and to prevent the mischief , the kind committee banishes the gentlemen ; with order to the mayor to make strict searches for delinquents . now in pursuance of this precious order , our houses must be forced , and we disarmed , and then , our throats cut , to preserve the city . let those that would be chronicled for slaves , and fools ; submit to suffer this ; and after that infamous hour , may a yellow coat , and a wooden dagger , be the badge and distinction of a citizen . to conclude , we our selves are that city , so much the care and cry of the proclamation ; and this is our unanimous sense , and resolve . the army proposes to pillage , and murther us , the mayor , and his worthy advisers , ireton , &c. — are to hold our hands , while they give the blow ; so , that we are now to provide both against force and treason ; having one enemy 〈◊〉 in our walls , and another in our counsels . but withall , we have our swords in our hands , and our brains in our heads ; and only to strike the one , and to disbelieve the other , is to subdue , and disappoint them both. we do therefore declare to the world , that we will by violence oppose all violence whatsoever , which is not warranted by the letter of the established law : and that in pursuance of this duty , both toward the nation , and city , an insolent souldier , and an apostate magistrate shall be to us as the same thing . — not to word it much further , as we will not be baffled , by affronts , so neither will we be fooled , by flatieries . after the loss of trade and liberty , a vast expence of blood , and treasure ; after many injuries received , more threatned , and none returned , we made a sober , and regular application , to the authority of the city , for redresse . this they promised , and we expected , till at last , in stead of a reparation for past wrongs , or a security against worse to come ; we are paid with an expectation of a parliament in ianuary . this is a logique we understand not . it is in english , lye still , till we cut your throats it would be well to commit the disposition of our fortunes , co tho● people , that are at this instant designing an execution upon our persons ; and to requite those worthies , that have already robb'd us of all we have lost , with the offer of that little rest they have left. but this will not do our business ; we will not have our murtherers , for our iudges : nor will we wait . that parliament they babble of so much , will scarce vote up the city again out of ashes , nor all the saints in that holy assembly , bring the poor cobler into the world again , that was kill'd by order of his brother hewson . no , the cheat is too stale , and we are determined to redeem our selves ; but with this caution , we do solemnly profess , that we will exercise all the tendernesse which possibly the case will bear : the common souldier is engaged rather out of a heedless , than malicious interest : we do therefore protest , that such of those as shall not evidence their malice , by their obstinacy , shall receive a fair consideration : but , for such as lead them , we do resolve , not to allow quarter to any one of them , that draws his sword in the quarrel : and in order to the quicker , and gentler dispatch of the business : we conclude with a text , fight neither with small nor great , but with the king of israel . and so god give a blessing to the endeavours of all honest men. it makes me blush to think how like vanity , and ostentation , this appendix may appear to any man that does not duly consider the occasion of reprinting it . the end. the compendium, or, a short view of the late tryals in relation to the present plot against his majesty and government with the speeches of those that have been executed : as also an humble address, at the close, to all the worthy patriots of this once flourishing and happy kingdom. castlemaine, roger palmer, earl of, 1634-1705. 1679 approx. 309 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 45 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a31231 wing c1241 estc r5075 13202616 ocm 13202616 98466 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a31231) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 98466) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 449:6) the compendium, or, a short view of the late tryals in relation to the present plot against his majesty and government with the speeches of those that have been executed : as also an humble address, at the close, to all the worthy patriots of this once flourishing and happy kingdom. castlemaine, roger palmer, earl of, 1634-1705. 88 p. [s.n.], london : 1679. attributed to roger palmer castlemaine. cf. blc. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678 -sources. great britain -politics and government -1660-1688 -sources. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685 -sources. 2006-07 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-08 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2006-09 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the most material omissions and erratas , are these which follow : page 1. line 1. read at the king's bench , on p. 3. l. the last , r. they are distinctly enough by , &c. p. 5. l. 25. & 26. r. in all the last trial p. 7. l. 34. r. there reader any p. 9. l. 32. r. white , alias whitebread p. 11. l. 17. r. writ , and left with a friend there & l. 28. r. time for which p. 24. l. 31. r. changes that can p. 33. l. 9. r. pretend it to be p. 44. l. 37. r. the party were ready p. 57. l. 7. r. there was hope . l. 4. circumstance is p. 64. l. 21. second evidence p. 65 , & 66. margent r. 1675. p. 69. l. 20. r. on our behalf p. 71. l. 29. r. emplicitly p. 85. l. 11. r. bin found ( except in coleman's case of which we have already treated ) p. 86. l. 27. r. proclaim it to no manner of purpose at an ale-house , p. 87. l. 6. r. ( nor the liberties & l. 14. r. pretend to in the margent is printed sometimes pag. 16. for ib. and the marks that refer to the figures in the margent , are sometimes wrong plac'd , especially in the beginning . the compendium : or , a short view of the late tryals , in relation to the present plot against his majesty and government : with the speeches of those that have been executed . as also , an humble address ( at the close ) to all the worthy patriots of this once flourishing and happy kingdom . — quis talia fando myrmidonum dolopumve aut duri miles ulissei temperet a lachrymis ! — aen. 2. london , printed in the year 1679. to all our worthy patriots , of what rank or condition soever they are . my lords and gentlemen , having considered with great admiration , how it could possibly happen , notwithstanding so many legal trials , ( and those also publisht by my lord chief justice , and others in authority ) to shew the world how guilty the papists have been , that the dispute should yet continue , and that each champion keeping still his ground , should think the other extreamly willful and unreasonable . i say , having considered this with admiration , i at last found , that one main matter , besides prejudice , was , that people had never well examined the said trials ; and therefore i took the pains ( and truly it is no little pains ) to present you with a compendium , by which at the first glimps , you shall see both how well the witnesses have made good their part , and how the accused have defended themselves . i have been exact to a tittle , defying any man to shew me that i have lessened the force either of the charge or answer : nor does the one party , or the other , alledge any thing here , but that the margent gives the very page where it is in the original treatise ; for as to mine , and other spectators's reflexions , they are by themselves ; so that every reader may presently judge , whether they are just or no. but now my lords and gentlemen , before i end , i must acquaint you ; that yesterday , as i was sending this to the press , i found that somebody had so far jumpt with me in my design , as to abbreviate all the late judicial proceedings , by the title of the history of the plot ; which upon consideration , has not hindred me from publishing this ; because the author of the said history has on the one side past by , or sluber'd over , several things which the parties concern'd may justly insist upon to be of great force in their business , as you will here plainly see ; and on the other side , my bare compendium is not much more than a fifth part of his , as his is about the fifth of the whole . peruse then , what i present you with , and by and by , i shall again kiss your hands . concerning mr. coleman . mr. coleman was tryed at the old bayly , on thursday the 28 th . of november , 1678. and was thus charged by oates : * that in november 77. the said mr. coleman did write letters by him to st. omers , in which he called the king tyrant ; and that the late marriage with the prince of orange , would prove the traytor 's and tyrant's ruine : that a latin letter in mr. coleman's hand , was also then enclosed to fr. la chaise , thanking him for the 10000 l. which should be imploy'd ( he said ) to no other use , but to cut off the king. that this letter was written by the provincial , strange's directions , because † he had hurt his hand , and mico his secretary was ill : that oates carryed the said letters to paris ; that la chaise askt him there , how the dutchess's secretary did ? that the answer ( written by la chaise ) was sent mr. coleman , after it was first perused by the st. omer● fathers , in oates his presence ; for he ( the said oates ) was by a ‖ patent● to be of the consults , and had power also to * open letters . that there was ( in † april 78. ) a consult of the jesuits , at the white-horse-tavern in the strand , to send cary to rome : that afterwards , they adjourned into several clubs , and pitcht upon grove and pickering , to kill the king ; the one being to have 1500 l. and the other 30000. masses . that this resolve was communicated in ‖ oates's hearing , to mr. coleman . that the jesuits that then came over with oates , were f. williams , f. pool , sir thomas preston , sir john warner , &c. that in august , there was a consult of the * benedictines , ( which , in all the 〈◊〉 tryals , he positively fixes on the 21 th . of the said month ) and then letters came from talbot ( bishop of dublin ) that four jesuits were to kill the duke of ormona ; and if they mist , dr. fogarthy was to poyson him : so that , mr. coleman would have him presently sent away . that † forty thousand black bills were provided for ireland . that mr. coleman told fenwick , that he had found a way to send two-hundred-thousand pound thither , to promote the rebellion . that the four other ruffians , ( procured by fogarthy ) were sent in august , to kill the king at windsor . that the next day after ( being ‖ about the 21 th . of that month ) hartcourt made a provision of * 80 l. to be sent them ; and that mr. coleman gave the messenger a guinney , to be nimble and expedite . that mr. coleman saw the instructions , which ashby brought from white the provincial , ( who was then at st. omers ) about † 10000 l. for sir george wakeman , to poyson the king , in case the assassines fail'd . that ‖ mr. coleman thought it too little , and took a copy of these instructions to send into the country , to several conspirators , to encourage their contributions . that he heard mr. coleman ( in * mr. fenwick's chamber ) acknowledge the receipt of his commission for secretary of state ; which was sealed with the jesuits seal , and sign'd by their general . to this mr. coleman answered : that now forsooth , oates pretends to be † extreamly well acquainted with him , and a world of intimacy , ( even at consults , and meetings about the king's death ) whereas before the council , he told his majesty , he did not know him : that oates was then so far from laying any positive treason to his charge , ( for as to the payment of the 5000 l. to sir george wakeman , 't was a hear-say , as not ‖ seen by oates ) that the board ( after they had heard his defence ) did , instead of sending him to * newgate , commit him only to a † messenger , 'till his papers were examin'd . and whereas oates accuses him at present , of ordering ( about the ‖ 21 th . of august ) 80 l. for the windsor-russians , and giving of the messenger a guinney ; he was then in warwick-shire , having left london on the * 15th . of august , without ever returning till the 31th . late at night . oates reply'd , that he said at the † council , he could not swear he had seen him before ; for his eyes were bad by candle-light , and candle-light alters the sight much : but when he heard him speak , he could have sworn , it was he ; yet did not say so , ‖ because he was not askt . besides , he design'd then to lay no more to his charge , than was matter for an * information ; for prisoners might supplant evidence , when they know it . that the information , which he then gave against him , was ( as near as he could remember ) his writing news , letters with base reflections . moreover , he was so weak and tired , ( through his late fatigue and watchings ) that upon his salvation , he could scarce stand upon his legs ; which ( together with his † want of mem●ry ) was the best ‖ answer he gave the court , why he omitted the present weighty matters ; as also , the account of the 80 l. and the other particulars , in relation to the king's murder at windsor . nor could sir robert southwel witness any thing new , to oates's advantage , more than that he did in council say ; that if mr. coleman's papers were searcht , there would be matter ( he believ'd ) found in them , that would cost him his neck : which , on the one side ▪ most people deemed an easie surmise , seeing coleman was generally known to be a great intriguer ; and on the other side , they imagin'd , oates might as well have then charged him with down-right treason , if what he here alleadged , had not been a fiction of a later date : for 't was impossible to say , he thought there was hanging matter in a man's letters , and through lassitude , or any other pretence , not to be able to tell the king , that the same person had contriv'd his death , if it were really design'd . but as for mr. coleman's absence on the 21 th . of august , ( as before ) the chief justice told him , † that if the cause did turn on that matter , he would stay 'till his book were brought ; ( which mr. coleman urg'd , could prove his said absence ) but that he doubted , the cause would not stand on that foot ; and yet , if that were the case , it would do him little good. this is the sum of the reply to mr. coleman's plea , in relation to oates : but sir thomas doleman ( who was one of the clerks of the council ) attested in court , not only , that ‖ oates said at the board , he knew not mr. coleman well ; and ( to the best of his remembrance ) that he had no acquaintance with him , but also , that mr. coleman was examin'd before oates spake : which evidently shews , that oates knew him no better after his speaking , than before . as for bedlow's charge , 't was to this effect : that sir * henry tichbourn told him , that he brought a commission for mr. coleman , and the lords , from the principal jesuits of rome : that he carried a pacquet from mr. coleman to † la chaise , dated april 75. that he delivered the said letters to la chaise , and brought mr. coleman and answer : that he did not understand what was in it ; because it was in a † language he did not well understand ; but it was about carrying-on the plot. that mr. hartcourt went to mr. coleman with letters , and took him ( the said bedlow ) along with him ; but made him stay over the way : that hartcourt afterwards beckon'd him in ; and there he heard mr. coleman say , † if he had a hundred lives , and a sea of blood , to carry on the cause , he would spend it all for the establishment of the church here ; and if there were a hundred heretical kings , he would see them all destroy'd . ‖ that mr. coleman saw him in somerset-house-gallery , coming from a consult , with great persons ; which he is not to name here , but 't would make the bottom of the plot to tremble . mr. coleman made little answer to him , besides protesting , that he never * saw him before : nor was there any of mr. coleman's family , that had ever seen him , which had been morally impossible , had he received and brought letters , as he pretended . besides , few of the auditory could comprehend , how bedlow did know , that the letter , which ( he said ) he brought from paris , and yet understood not , was about carrying on the plot ; or why mr. hartcourt should just call him in from over the way , for no other reason , ( for bedlow gives not the least ) but to hear mr. coleman's treasonable expressions , in his zeal for the church : but more especially , how the said bedlow could carry la chaise a letter from mr. coleman , dated april 75. and yet mr. coleman's first letter to h●m , was † his long one of september 29 , 75. and came to the said father's hands , on the ‖ 22 of october following . now for mr. coleman's letters : though he acknowledged them full of very * extravagant expressions ; yet he hoped ( he said ) they were not treasonable ; and that some of the † expressions would explain , there was no plot , or intention to kill the king. for the reader may not only find him telling la chaise , ‖ that the labourers were few , and the harvest great , ( which assures us , that few were concern'd with him ; ) but shewing him all along , that the promis'd advantages to the french king and religion , were to accrew by the dissolution of the parliament , which money ( the * aid and assistance he expected from france , and not ‖ force ) was to effect . no wonder then , money being the thing he aimed at , and hinted also by him , in almost every other line of each letter , if he kept no correspondence ( ‖ as he solemnly protested , he did not ) with france , after the year 75. when we see him complain in his last * letter , that his * christian majesty was not with him , and his party , to the degree of helping them with ten thousand crowns : for the truth is , that court presently found , ( for all his pretences ) that he had no interest with the duke , or with our leading men : nay , we see , he could not so much as perswade his highness , to † sign a letter , which he had prepared without ‖ order , ( as he confesses , and the court acknowledges ) to give him countenance with la chaise . besides , who can imagine , mr. coleman should expect or dream to wheedle in la chaise , without telling him of a * pestilent heresie to be subdued ; of a mighty work on their hands , to wit , the conversion of three nations ; as also , of their never having such hopes , since the dayes of q. mary , with the like rhetorical flowers . mr. coleman , being then found guilty upon the account of his letters , ( for my lord chief justice told him , ( as i already mention'd ) † that the cause hung not on the matter he insisted upon , to wit , on the consult of august , which oates pretends him to be at ) he was next day condemned at the same bar , where he declar'd , with all the execrations imaginable , ‖ that he told the house of commons , all that he knew of this business : that he never heard of proposition , or knew of any to supplant the king , or government , by invasion , disturbance ▪ or the like : that he thought , ( 't is true ) by liberty of corscience , popery might come in ; and that every body is bound , to wish all people of the religion be professes , with much more to the same purpose . then being carryed back to prison , where his wife had only private admittance ; he was on tuesday , the third of december , brought to tyburn , where he made the following speech : mr. coleman's speech . it is now expected i should speak , and make some discovery of a very great plot ; i know not whether i shall have the good fortune to be believed better now , than formerly ; if so , i do here solemnly declare upon the words of a dying man , i know nothing of it ; and as for the raising of sedition , subverting the government , stirring up the people to rebellion , altering the known laws , and contriving the death of the king , i am wholly ignorant of it ; nor did ever i think to advance that religion ( which people think i am so zealous of ) hereby . i thank god i am of it , and declare i dye of it ; nor do i think it prejudicial to king or government : but though i am ( as i said ) a roman catholick , and have been so for many years , yet i renounce that doctrine ( which , some say the remish church doth usher in to promote their interest ) that kings may be murder'd , and the like ; i say i abominate it . here mr. coleman being interrupted by being told , that if he had any thing to say by way of confession or contrition for the fact , he might proceed , otherwise it was unseasonable to go on , and spend time with such like expressions ; mr. coleman then reply'd no! but he thought it was expected ; then being told to the contrary , he concluded with these few words following ; i do say i had no intention to subvert the government , or to act any thing contrary to law , but what every man of a contrary religion , would do in a peaceable manner , if he could . and if i may be believ'd ▪ the witness , that swore against me did me wrong ; and that * witnesses , that swore , he was with me in sommerset-house-gallery , upon the words of a dying man , i never saw his face before . being afterwards ask'd , if he knew any thing of the death of sir edmund bury godfrey , he also declared on the words of a dying man he knew nothing of it : concerning mr. ireland , grove and pickering . with these three , mr. white the provincial , and mr. fenwick procurator of saint omer's , held up their hands at the old baily on the seventeenth of december , and though they were charg'd home by oates , yet bedlow had so little against the said mr. white and fenwick , that after a tryal of several hours , they were for want of two witnesses ( as the law requires in treason ) remanded to newgate , where we will leave them till by and by , being now only to treat of the others . oates then not only repeats the beforementioned april consult at the † white-horse-tavern ; his comming over with ‖ sir john warner , sir thomas preston , fa. williams , nevil , hildesley , and others : his lying * close in the time of the said consult at groves's ( when as the prisoners attest that he was then † actually at saint omers ) but he further deposes , that mr. ireland was caballing in mr. fenwicks chamber about a ‖ fortnight or ten days in august , and that the said mr. ireland gave him particularly on the first or second of september twenty shillings . * then he sayes that two jesuits were sent into scotland to stir up the presbiterians there ; that at the aforesaid april meeting there was a formal resolve ( drawn up by † mico their secretary , signed by at least ‖ forty , and entered into a * book or register ) † that grove and pickering should go on with their attempt to kill the king , and that the first should have 1500 l. and the other 30000. masses : that it was to be done by ‖ long pistols , something shorter than carbines , and that the bullets were silver , which grove said he would * champ , that the wound might be uncureable . that pickering had mist an opportunity in the preceding march , by reason his flint was loose , for which he underwent a penance of twenty or thirty stroakes with a discipline . † that the duke was also to be deposed , if he were not ! vigorous for the cause ; that he saw in their entry book that sir george wakeman had accepted of 15000. l. to poyson the king if the others fail'd ; that he perus'd the entry-book of the ‖ peter-pence which grove and smith had gathered ; that * grove told him , that he fir'd southwark , and that his , the said oates's business of comming now over , was to † kill doctor tongue for translating the jesuits morals . bedlow being called , acknowledges the entry-book , and adds that mr. * langhorn was the register ; ‖ that the earl of shaftsbury , the duke of buckingham , the earl of ossory and duke of ormond were to be kill'd ; that * mr. ireland was at mr. hartcourts chamber in the latter end of august , where it was agreed ( the other plot not succeeding ) coniers should go with pickering and grove to new-market , to kill the king in his morning-walk there ; that pickering & grove were also present in the said chamber ; † that his brother james bedlow , heard him often talking of the prisoners , and as one acquainted with priests , and that he brought him ( as the said james attested ) fifty and sixty pòunds at a time from the jesuits . the charge was solemnly deny'd by them all , and besides their own constant loyalty , they alledg'd that of their respective ‖ relations , who had been great sufferers both in their lives and fortunes for the king ; and pickering ( as to his particular ) protested he never * shot off a pistol in his life , which by his very mine and looks seem'd not very improbable to the spectators . then mr. ireland ▪ ( after answers to the several other particulars ) affirm'd , that he was constantly out of london from the third of † august till above a week after the beginning of * september , which he prov'd by three witnesses got together by ‖ chance by his sister . he also urg'd * that he had witnesses , that there were more witnesses , but that he and the rest were kept so † strict , that they were not permitted to send for any body ; nay that he was refus'd ‖ paper , and expresly deny'd to send for his witnesses . besides mrs. yorke ( who actually liv'd both before and after april in her brother grove's house ) * attested , that she saw not oates there , which he excus'd by his being forsooth in disguise . in conclusion , there were three that gave evidence against mr. ireland ▪ for oates produced one sarah paine ( an ordinary maid that had formerly serv'd grove ) who swore she saw him about the twelfth of † august in town at the door of his lodging ; whereupon the prisoners were all condemn'd , and being carried back to newgate , mr. ireland writ there under his own hand a journal which shew'd where he was every day , and who saw him from the third of august to the fourteenth of september , being the time of his absence from london . the chief places were tixhal , holy well , wolver-hampton and boscobel ; the persons that saw him were of great quality , as my lord aston and his family ; sir john south●●● and his family ; madam harwel and hers ; several of the giffords of chillington ; several of sir john winfords relations ; madam crompton , and mr. bidolph of bidolph ; sir thomas whitgrave , mr. chetwin , mr. gerard and his family ; mr. heningham and his ; the pendrels of boscobel and above forty more ; nor is there one day during the whole time 〈◊〉 which there cannot be produced above a dozen of these witnesses . on fryday the twenty fourth of january , mr. ireland and mr. grove were carried to tyburn ; where they spoke as follows . mr. irelands speech . we are come hither as on the last theater of the world , and do therefore conceive we are obliged to speak : first , then we do confess that we pardon all and every one whatsoever , that have any interest , concern or hand in this our death . secondly , we do publickly profess and acknowledge that we are here obliged , if we were guilty our selves of any treason , to declare it , and that if we knew any person faulty therein , ( although he were our father ) we would detect and discover him ; and as for our selves , we would beg a thousand and a thousand pardons both of god and man ; but seeing we cannot be believed , we must beg leave to commit our selves to the mercy of almightly god , and hope to find pardon of him through christ . as for my own part , having been twenty years in the low-countries , and then comming over in june was twelve month , i had return'd again , had not i been hindred by a fit of sickness . on the third of august last i took a journey into stafford-shire , and did not come back to town before the fourteenth day of september , as many can witness , for a hundred and more saw me in stafford-shire and thereabouts ; therefore how i should in this time be acting here treasonable stratagems , i do not well know or understand . here one of the sherifs told him he would do well to make better use of his time , than to spend it in such like expressions , for no body would believe him ; not that they thought much fo their time , for they would stay ; but such kind of words did arraign the proceedings of the court by which they were tryed . then mr. ireland proceeded , and said , i do here beg of god almighty to showr down a thousand and a thousand blessings upon his majesty , on her sacred majesty , on the duke of york and all the royal family , and also on the whole kingdom . as for those catholicks that are here , we desire their prayers for a happy passage into a better world , and that he would be merciful to all christian souls . and as for all our enemies we earnestly desire , that god would pardon them again and again , for we pardon them heartily from the bottom of our hearts ; and so i beseech all good people to pray for us and with us . then mr. groves said . we are innocent , we loose our lives wrongfully , we pray god to forgive them that are the causers of it . mr. pickering being repriev'd till the nineth of may , was then brought to the place of execution , expressing infinit joy at that great happiness , and taking it upon his salvation , that he was innocent in thought , word , and deed , of all that was laid to his charge . being taxed for a priest , he smilingly deny'd it , saying , he was but a lay-brother ; then praying for his accusers and enemies , he said to the hang-man , friend do thy office ; and presently after was turn'd over , being regretted by many , as seeming a very harmless man , and altogether unfit for the desperate employment put upon him . concerning mr. hill , green and berry . mr. hill ( servant to doctor godwin ) green an antient ●eeble man ( cushion-keeper of the chappel ) and berry the porter of somerset-house were tryed at the kings bench bar , on munday the tenth of feb. 1678. where oates swore , ‖ that he was told by sir edmund godfrey the week before he was missing ▪ that after the plot was known , several popish lords ( some of whom are now in the tower ) had threatned him , asking what he had to do with it ; that other persons desirous of the full discovery , threatned him with the parliament for his remisness ; that he was in a great fright saying , he went in ●ear of his life by the popish party , as having bin often dogg'd ; that he came some times to the said oates for encouragement , that he did encourage him , by telling him , that he would suffer for a just cause , and the like . prance swore , ‖ that at the plow , girald and kelley ( two priests ) did about a fortnight before the murder , entice him to it , saying , that sir edmund-godfrey was a busy , man and would do a great deal of mischief ; that ‖ green , girald and hill dogg'd sir edmund godfrey to a house at st. clements : that green came about seven at night to tell prance of it , ( kelly and girald being at watch there ) but the said green did not tell him where at st. clements sir edmund godfrey was , nor did any of the rest do it ; that about the hour of eight or nine , sir edmund godfrey came homewards ; that hill ran before to give the conspirators notice of it at sommerset-house ▪ and then going to the gate , he told sir edmund that two men were quarelling within , and desir'd him being a justice to qualify them ; that he consented to it , but when he came to the bottom of the railes , green threw a twisted hand●ercher about his neck , and cast him behind the railes , and throtled and punch'd him ; that within a quarter after , prance ( who had bin before watching above at the water-gate , ) came down , and laying his ‖ hand upon the body , found the leggs to totter and shake , and then green wrung his neck quite round . but here the reader is to take notice , that prance having related the matter of fact in this manner , mr. attorney askt him on a sudden , if he saw green thus w●ing his neck ? no ; ( answered he , forgeting what he had just before said ) but green did afterwards tell me , that he did it ; which words supris'd not a ●ew . then he proceeded and said , that being thus kill'd , they carried the corps to a ‖ chamber of hills at dr godwins , where lying till munday night , they brought it to a room in the ‖ lower part of sommerset-house , and then hill ▪ shewd it prance by a dark lanthorn ; green , berry , and the rest being by . that on tuesday , it was brought to sir john arundels , where lying till wednesday , it was convey'd to the first lodging , and from thence ( about twelve ) in a sedan to the ‖ so-ho , and then on a horse before hill to the place where it was afterwards found ; that † girald and one vernat spake to him the said prance of a great reward , and that there was to be a good one from my lord bellasis ; that in the beginning of * november , girrald , lewson , vernat , one dethick and himself met at bow , where reading all the writings of the said murther , they were very merry , and a drawer listning , prance threatned to kick him down stairs ; but the ‖ boy being call'd said he knew nothing , but that dethic was with company there , and that in reading a paper he heard sir edmund-godfrey's name , and that some body threatned to kick him . bedlow swore , ‖ that le-phair , prichard , keines , and other priests ( but girald he knew not ) did treat with him , concerning the murther of a gentleman about the beginning of october last ; that he having a mind about ‖ two years ago to discover the plot , was prevented , but now drill'd them on to know the party , that he might prevent them ; but they would not tell him who it was . that they set him to insinuate † himself into the acquaintance of sir edmund godfrey not telling their design ; that on saturday , ( the day that sir edmund godfery , was murther'd , ) le phair having mist bedlo in the morning , met him by accident in ‖ lincolns-inn-fields about four , and at the palsgraves tavern told him , that a material man was to be put out of the way that night , who had all oates's and tongue 's informations ; which if not taken from him , would discover their business to that degree , that they must stay till another age to effect it : that le phair then told him he should have four thousand pound for a reward , that no worse man than my lord bellasis was engaged for it , and mr. coleman had order to pay it , yet named not sir edmund godfrey to him ; that he parted then with , le phair , but came not according to his engagement ( to somerset-house ; that le phair met him on monday in ‖ fleetstreet and charged him with breach of promise ; that he answered , that he knew not but the murthered person might be his friend , whereupon le phair appointed him to meet at eight in the evening at sommerset-house , and he should know more ; that coming there , the said le phair told him the man was kill'd ; and that if he would help to carry off the body he should have ‖ half the reward : that he then shew'd him the body by a dark lanthorn ; but that he saw neither ‖ hill , green , nor berry , there , green being in the court ; that he had such a remembrance of * faces , that he can tell all he saw there , though the light were small . and by the way reader , now it was ( as appears by the lords journal ) that bedlo deposes he saw prance , and that wa●s , † le phair , atkins , and my lord ●ell●si●'● man were wi●h him , being is you see quite different actors from those mention'd by pra●er . then he tells 〈◊〉 . t●●●●he corps had a * cravat about the neck , like that about his 〈◊〉 now ; but so streight , that he could not put his finger between ; which ( reader ) one would think , were no very proper instrument , to strang●● a strong man so cleverly , and without noise . that he knew sir e. godfrey presently , though they said , he belong'd to a man of quality● that the jesuits now with him , ( the said bedlow ) were not those , who had formerly imploy'd him to insinuate himself into this knight's company ; and yet ( reader ) his worship inform'd us ( as you see ) but just before , that his present introducer , le phair , was one of them , who had thus , imploy'd him . he further sayes , that for his part , he advised them to throw the body with weights into the river ; that they thinking that not safe , answer'd , they would put it on himself . that upon asking le phair , how they could get him away ? they said , in a chair , and berry was to let them out . that upon his saying , t was too early , ( eleven or twelve being better for their purpose ) and that he would come again , le phair conjur'd him not to fail that night , on the sacrament he had taken on thursday ; for after oa●es his discovery of the plot , the sacrament was administred to him twice a week : that he hasted away ; and ( having so great a charge upon him as the ‖ sacrament ) he grew disturb'd , and went to bristow , where god put it into his mind to discover all , and so writ to the secretary . the premises were endeavour'd also to be confirm'd by four colateral testimonies ; as first , by † mr. robinson , of the common-pleas ; who attested , that sir edm. godfrey said to him , that he believed , he should be the first martyr ; but if they came fairly , he would not part with his life tamely . secondly , by one curtis , a poor chair-woman belonging to sir e. godfrey , who said ‖ she saw hill with her master , about nine or ten in the morning , on the saturday he was murther'd : thirdly , by * hill's denying before the council , that ever he saw girald , whenas the boy at the plow prov'd in court , that they met there . and lastly , by † berry's sending away the prince ( whilst this intrigue was on foot ) upon pretence , that he had orders to acquaint all persons of quality , that the queen received no , visits : and then being askt at his examination by the lords , whether he had ever had such orders before ? he then said no ; which contradicts his present answer . to this charge the prisoners answer'd with all imaginable protestations , that they were innocent : nor did sir robert southwe●'s testimony advantage them a little , in the opinion of many ; for firsts he ( being summon'd as a witness for the king , to acquaint the court with several particulars about prance's examination before the council ) was askt , whether his present description and account of places , were suitable to what 〈…〉 which sir robert answered , yes : but that it was 〈…〉 had said ▪ in the next place the a●turney general demanding whether prance did hesitate , when he shew'd the lords the several places in relation to the murther ? he answered , that he went positively and directly , till they ask● him where in sommerset-●ouse the body was carried , but that then ( after going into several rooms ) he was in great● * distraction ; yet ( because in that confusion , he said ; th●● 〈…〉 we are right ) the c. justice would have it , that his doubtfulness gave credit to his testimony , since a knight of the post never sticks at any thing . now as to the prisoners themselves , they struk at the root , ) for † hill desired that prance's testimony might not stand good against them ; for he urg'd that the said prance had deny'd all not only before the king , as ‖ mr. chiffins attested , but before the council , as captain * richardson acknowledged ; to which † lord c. j. answered , that no body did believe prance's denyal , because his discovery was so particular ; & mr. ‖ atturney said ▪ that whilst he was a papist , and not sure of his pardon , he was ( t is true ) under disturbances and fears , yet no soone● return'd he to prison , but he desir'd the captain to carry him back to his majesty , offering to make good his first confession ; which gave several of the auditory but small satisfaction , considering that a ●o●ler , whose interest it was to further the plot , might easily ( if the thing were true ) at the sight of a prison obtain such a promise ; besides , not a few knew how he had been us'd and what crys were heard where he lay for many days together , as mrs. hill * urg'd . but prance's own reason for his recantation , seem'd yet odder ; for he said , it was out of apprehension of his † trade , as fearing to lose the queens employment , and the catholicks , which was the most of his business , and also because he had no pardon . the prisoners plea being over rul'd , and prance his testimony adjudg'd good . hill calls for his masters niece , & mrs. broadstreet ( who look't after the house ) as also the maid in his behalf ; the sum of whose testimony was this , ‖ that he was a trusty servant , that he never kept ill hours , and alwayes came in by eight of the clock ; that he could not go out afterwards , because the maid did lock up the doors , and that they were still up till eleven ; that he was at home on * saturday night , when sir e. godfrey was kill'd , and on the wednesday night , when carried away . that their house and staires were so little , † that it was impossible that any thing could be brought in or out , without their knowledge ; that the room ( where the body is said to have lain ) was not only over against the dining-room , but a room that had the * key in it alwayes , and that ‖ every day they went often into it for something or other , and that the foot-boys staid there when any body visited the young lady ; nay the servant maid , ( whom * judge wild commended , as wary in what she said ) attested , that she call'd in every day at the door of that chamber , and was the last up every night . prance his main reply ( having first * declared , that he laid nothing to their charge ) was , that mrs. broadstreet had said before the † duke of monmouth , that there were six or seven keys ; and consequently he would have it , that hill might go out . but whether the court thought it improbable , that any door should have so many keys , or that they took the young ladies word , who said , there was but one ‖ key to that which fasten'd the door ; they never sent to the duke , or question'd sir robert southwel about it . and whereas prance also tax't mrs. broadstreet of saying , * that hill was gone from them before sir edmond's death , 't was cleerly prov'd , that said hill was then there , not only by his former examinations , ( where he sayes , he was then treating with his landlord about his new house , and that he did not go to it , till about a week , or a fortnight after ) but also by the testimony of daniel gray , who positively affirm'd , † that he came not to it till the 22d . of october . after this , hill call'd on mr. archbold , ( a gentleman of the life-guard ) who said , ‖ that his taylor being at hills , he went thither ; and being ask't , what news ? he told them , how prance was taken about sir e. godfrey's murther ; whereupon hill reply'd , he was glad of it , wishing them all taken ; and that next morning , the said hill was taken out of his bed. this mr. ravenscroft confirm'd ; * adding , that hill's wife told him the same night , that the neighbors spoke strangely of it ; but that her husband did defy prance , and all his works : from which hill inferr'd his innocence , † since he might ( as every body also acknowledg'd ) have escap'd , if he pleased ; nor could he doubt ( had he been guilty ) but that he would be empeach'd and question'd . green also call'd for his landlord warrier , and his wife , being both protestants ; and the man attested , that ‖ green came in on saturday night ( the 12th . of october ) at seven , and went not from them till after ten. upon this home-evidence , the judge askt him , how long after sir edmond's murther he began to recollect ? he answer'd , a month after , green being in prison ; and that he remembred the time particularly , because green had not bin at his house but fourteen dayes before he was apprehended . 't was reply'd , that green was then in prison about the oaths : that it was the 24 th . of december , before he was secur'd upon the score of the murther : and that he ( the said warrier ) had told captain richardson , that he and his wife could do green no good. * to this he answered , he call'd it not then to memory , though he had since done it by his work , and the time green came to his house ; for he had been a lodger there not above fourteen or fifteen dayes in all : and besides , he never knew him out after nine in his life . the woman also affirmed the same with many particulars ; but calling the day , † saturday fortnight after michaelmass , and michaelmass being on a sunday , this in rigour was the 19 th . of october ; so that , their testimony was rejected , whenas the woman , it seems , meant only by the expression , a bare fortnight after michaelmass ; for otherwise saturday the 19 th . being the day after fryday the 18 th . ( which she ‖ expresly said , was the time when her milk woman told her of the finding of sir edm. godfrey's body ) she must have known , that what she had to say , was nothing to green's purpose . after this , berry calls his maid , who witness't , * that on the 16 th . of october , ( or night when sir edm. godfrey was said to be carryed away ) her master came home from bowls at the dusk of the evening ; that he was not out an hour all night after : that he lay within her chamber ; and that she went to bed about twelve . but that which surpriz'd people most , was the testimony of the three † centinels , who watcht that night from seven till four in the morning , at the great gate of sommerset-house , through which the body was affirm'd to be carryed in the sedan ; for they attested , ( and their corporal was also with them ) that there came in no sedan , ‖ besides that which stands there every night ; but that none ever went out , during their respective watches ; it being impossible for any to pass-by , or for the gate to be open'd without their knowledge ; nor did they drink one drop whil'st they watch'd , nor stir'd a pike's length from the gate : and moreover , that they were examin'd twice about this very matter by the committee , before ever prance was taken up . as for the collateral evidence against the prisoners ; first , mr. robinson's was not insisted upon , ( we suppose ) because sir edm. godfrey did not say , he feared to be a martyr by the papists ; and most people had heard , that he had bin very much threatned by great persons , that were not papists . nor did the court longer insist on hill's denying before the council , that he knew girald , when sir robert southwel shew'd them , that it was * kelly he spoke of : and the ‖ master of the plow could not say , he had seen kelly and hill together . now , as for curtis's ( the chair-woman's ) evidence of seeing hill with sir edm. godfrey about nine or ten that very morning before he was kill'd , it was both contradicted by * how , ( who witness't , that hill was with him that morning from about nine , till two ) and by hill himself , who protested , that she said at newgate ▪ † she never had seen him in her life before : to which answer , neither the bench , nor the king's council , nor the woman her self , ever made the least denyal or reply . and lastly ▪ as to prince rupert's non-admittance , berry not only declar'd , that the ‖ gentleman vsher brought him his orders about the answer he gave to the persons of quality , that came to see the queen , and that the prince might have enter'd if he had pleas'd , since several did go in , but he added also , that he never deny'd , he had such orders before ; for ( the truth was ) he had had them formerly : so that the court , when they commanded his * examination to be read , found not the least mention there of the pretended denyal ; nor did they so much as send for the gentleman vsher , which inferr'd , they were satisfyed : and besides , every body knew , that the queen's receiving no visits by day was little advantage to the conspirators in their deeds of darkness ; especially , since all the family , and who else pleas'd , might come in and out , as before . nor was it possible , for the said conspirators , to assure themselves of wheedling sir edmond into the palace , and more particularly , at a prefixt and certain time , which shew'd the allegation to be vain and frivolous . this was the prisoners plea ; but the jury finding them guilty , they were condemned the next day ; and ten dayes after , ( viz. fryday , the 21 th . of february ) hill and green were carryed to tyburn ▪ where hill spoke thus much of the speech , which was found in his pocket , and being since printed , is often put at the end of his tyral . mr. hill's speech . i am now come to the fatal place of execution , and in a little time , must appear before the tribunal of god almighty , who knoweth all things ; and i hope , it will be happy for me , because i am innocently put to death . i take god , men , and angels to witness , i am innocent of the death of justice godfrey ; and believe , it will be well for me , because i dye innocently ; and hope , through the merits of my blessed saviour , to be saved . i do confess , as i lived , so i dye a roman-chatholick , desiring such to pray for me . god bless and preserve his majesty , and this poor nation , and lay not innocent blood to its charge : so i bid you all farewel in jesus christ , into whose hands i commend my spirit . then turning to some of the officers , he said , there is a report up and down , that i have confessed the murther of sir edm. godfrey to dr. lloyd ; i do deny it . then mr. green spake thus . i desire all your prayers : and as for sir edmundberry godfrey , i know not whether he be dead or alive ; for in my dayes , i never saw him with my eyes , as i know of : and if false people will swear against me , i cannot help it ; i pray to god to bless my king , and all good people . then captain richardson told him ▪ he had a fair tryal , and wisht him not to reflect upon others , but to prepare himself for death . to which mr. green reply'd , i pray god almighty forgive them all : i never saw sir edm. godfrey to my knowledge , in my life . mr. berry was executed on the 28 th . of the same month ; and though he was brought back to the church of england by the pains of dr. lloyd , or rather declar'd , that he had for interest pretended himself for some time a catholick : i say , notwithstanding this , he absolutely deny'd at the very gallows , the fact : nay , as the cart was drawing away , he lifted up his hands , and said , as i am innocent , so receive my soul , o jesus . concerning mr. white , harcourt , fenwick , gaven and turner . on the thirteenth of june , 1679. the aforesaid provincial mr. white , and mr. fenwick , together with mr. harcourt ( rector of london ) mr. gaven , and mr. turner ( two other jesuits ) were tried at the old bayly , being * indicted for meeting in london at a traitorous consult on the twenty fourth of april , 78. where 't was agreed upon , that the king should be-kill'd by grove and pickering , and upon their failure by four others , as it has been formerly mentioned . mr. white † told the court , that he had already ( viz. with mr. ireland on the seventeenth of last december ) been indicted , the jury empanell'd , witnesses call'd , and he examin'd during many hours , and that he humbly conceiv'd , he could not by law be put again in jeopardy of his life for the same fact ; for otherwise a man might be tried 100. times . to which the chief justice answered , that it was supposed , when he was endited , there would have been two witnesses , but that fell otherwise ; that he was not in jeopardy , being discharged before the jury went together , and that his case was no more , than if a witness were taken sick , and should that happen , it would not be reasonable a malefactor should therefore escape . chief justice north affirm'd the same , and said , that he knew this often done , and besides that his plea was not good , because there was no record of it extant ; which surpris'd many of the auditors to hear of the necessity of a record about a publick fact done in that very court ▪ and before the same judges . hereupon mr. white demanded counsel as his right , as also , whether he ought not at his former trial to have been condemn'd or acquitted ; but the chief justice answering , that it lay in the discretion of the court , and that he must plead ; he did it at l●st , and so did mr. fenwick ( whose case was the same with his ) after he had urg'd in his own , and in mr. whites behalf , this reason ; ‖ that not being formerly proceeded against , because the second witness declared he had nothing against them , it follow'd that his silence ought to have then discharged them , since his evidence would certainly have condemn'd them ; which not satisfying the chief justice , he reply'd , that this lay in the breast of the court , for it was unreasonable that a man accus'd of a capital crime by the express oath of one witness , should go scot-free for want of a second . now the consequence of mr. fenwick's argument tended to this , that if the law were so , a man thus accus'd might possibly never be freed , though innocent ; seeing he might be remanded from one trial to another , and so in infinitum , on pre●ence of more witnesses ; a power which many lawyers think the freedom of england , can by no means allow . the dispute thus ended , and the prisoners having all pleaded not guilty , oates began the charge , the main of which was to this effect ; that mr. white * having order'd preaching at st. omers against the oaths , and given them an account how ready the irish were to rise , he summon'd a consult ( which began april twenty four , 78. at the white-horse tavern in the strand ) where they pitcht upon cary to go to rome , and resolv'd ( the paper being afterward signed by some at mr. white 's chamber , others at mr. harcourt's , others at mr. ireland's and others at mr. fenwick's ) that the king should be kill'd as aforesaid . moreover he affirmed , † that mr. white did about the beginning or middle of july send from st. omers instructions by mr. ashby , concerning ten t●onsand pounds for sir george wakeman to poyson the king , and a commission for sir john gage , &c. that in ‖ july or august , but he thinks 't was at the latter end of july , he saw mr. gaven in mr. irelands chamber , and though he had seen letters from the said gaven in june ( about the affairs of stafford-shire and shrop shire ) yet he never saw him write till then ; for he there drew a * bill of exchange upon sir william andrews , and that between the eighth and twelfth of august , mr. ireland took leave of them , as if he were to go to st. omers . as for harcourt and fenwick , he affirm'd , they were with blundel and others , on the twenty first of the said month at wild-house ▪ where lay before them the eighty pounds for the windsor● russians , and that coleman coming in , gave the messenger a guinny . that a day after ( as he thinks ) there was held a consult at the ‖ benedictines , where hartcourt and fenwick were present , and there they understood of the conspiracy against ormond , by bishop tal●ot's letters , who also desir'd commissions and money . that on the fourth of september , white being return'd , oates went to him , but was beaton and reviled by him ; for the jesuits suspected he had hetray'd them , they having understood , that one in such * cloathes as oates's , had been with the king ; yet the said white told him , he would be friends with him , if he gave an account of the party and minister that went to his majesty . then declaring he had no more to say against the prisoners at the bar ( except it were concerning the additional 5000. l. which by letter from flanders , mr. white offer'd sir george wakeman , and rejoyet at the acceptance of it ) heends with this , that he remembred not perfectly that gaven was at the consult of april , though he remembers he saw then his subscription , but as for ‖ turner , he could positively say , he was there , at the lesser clubs or colloquies , to wit , in fenwicks chamber . * dugdale follow'd oates , and said , he had very liitle acquaintance with mr. white , but had seen him at my lord astons about two or three years ago ; that white did send a letter ( enclos'd in groves's ) to ewers , that he should choose trusty , stout , and desperate men to kill the king , no matter whether gentlemen or no : that mr. whites name was to it : that he knew it was his hand , because he had seen him once write a letter when he was at my lords , as aforesaid : that mr. ewers , letters were all directed to dugdale ; that he intercepted this letter , and read it , the words ‖ killing the king being in it , and that the said letter was sent by * the ordinary post , which seeming strange and wonderful to the † chief justice , and all the court , he salv'd it by a far madder answer , viz ‖ that the letters being directed to him , if they were intercepted , he should be hang'd , and they sav'd . he further said , † that he had bin at several consults in his own , and in ewer's chamber , about this matter ; that gaven was the orator to perswade people ; that my lord stafford was at one about the twenty second of september ; that he the said dugdale himself was then chosen out for the assassination ; that he heard of the kings death two years before , ‖ gaven often encouraging him to it , and upon his giving them 400 l. to pray for his soul , and promising them 100 more to go on with the work , the said gaven assur'd him , he should be canoniz'd for a saint : that an army was to come from beyond seas ; that the massacre was to be put upon on the * presbyterians ; that the killing of kings was a thing which gaven endeavor'd to prove out of scripture , but that he could not call now the text to mind ; that he saw a letter from ‖ harcourt to ewers on monday the 14. of october , and in it were these words , this very saturday night sir edm. godfrey is dispatch'd ; whereupon he the said dugdale told ewers , that he would be hang'd , if that action did not overthrow their design ; that the next day he went to an alehouse , and askt there , if they had heard of a knights being kill'd at london ? now that this demand of his was true , he could prove by mr. chetwin , who being called in , attested , * that one sandbidge told him on that very tuesday , that being at the said alehouse in the morning , a † girle told him that dugdale had reported there , the killing a justice of westmi●ster ; besides the said chetwin attested , that he discoursed with dugdale about this letter &c. when he came to london to be examin'd by the council ; that going out of town , he understood at his return that the said dugdale was no witness , though his evidence had been * very material at the trials of hill , green , and berry . dugdale having ended with this account against white , hartcourt , gaven , and turner , ( for he said , ‖ turner did in mr. ewer's chamber , about two years ago , assent to the former treason , and was to carry on the design in worcestershire . ) prance stood up next , and said , that having made an † image for mr. harcourt , which was sent to mary-land , in the portugal's countrey , the said mr. hartcourt , as he paid him for it , about a year ago , told him , there was a design of killing the king. but when afterwards , mr. * hartcourt askt him earnestly thus ; can you say , that i ever spoke to you about such a business ? yes ( answer'd he , with an asserveration ) and one tompson came with you , when you paid me for four candlesticks : which either contradicts his former evidence , or the image must be turned into candlesticks . then he proceeded , and said , that mr. fenwick in mr. ireland's chamber , talk't of † fifty thousand men , which should be raised for the catholick cause , under the command of my lord bellasis , powis , and arundel ; and that there should be trade enough for him and others , in church-work : that he going to mr. fenwick's chamber , and his confessarius , father james , being dead , mr. fenwick would have had him come to confession to him , ‖ and enjoyn'd him secresie once or twice . then bedlow was call'd , who said , that he question'd not , but mr. white and fenwick would now object his former , slender evidence against them ; but that it was then convenient ; for otherwise , it would have stopt a design ; there being a treaty with mr. reading about them two , as well as the lords in the tower : so that , mr. reading depended on him , as to the favouring the said lords , according as he dealt with these ; which made him then apologize in court , ( as some of the justices he believ'd , did remember ) that he could not then safely declare all he had to say ; and in truth , he was so far from saying all , that he did not say half of it . now , as to the particulars of his then evidence , it was ( he affirm'd ) thus : that he had seen mr. white at several consults ; but this he said with a caution , viz. that he never heard mr. white was so very much concern'd in the plot , because he had no reaeson to say otherwise , since he heard of it from mr. white himself , and so could not well speak it from a hear-say . and for mr. fenwick , he never heard him ( 't is true ) give in any answer ; but yet he had seen him at the consults . this was bedlow's prelude ; but whether satisfactory or not , the auditors then , and the readers now , can best judge ; and especially since his former charge was not as he would now have it to be ; it being without any apology or advertisement to the court , that he had more to say against them ; as it most manifestly appears by † ireland's printed tryal : for being then ask't , whether he knew any thing of mr. white 's being present at any of the consults ? his answer was , that he had the least acquaintance with him , of any of all the society ; yet both he , and mr. fenwick had been several times at consultations ; but he knew not the particular resolves of them , nor had he heard them speak any thing in particular ; only he was often told , that nothing was done without fenwick ; but this evidence not being enough , the jury was discharged of them , and they remanded to prison . the court taking no notice of bedlow's pretence and plea , or of mr. white 's demand , viz. whether any thing he had now said , was in the last tryal ? the chief justice askt bedlow , if they had told him any thing of killing the king ? who answered , yes : for white had told coleman the manner of sending the * four ruffians to windsor : that he saw hartcourt take out of a cabinet 80. or a 100 l. that hartcourt paid them the money by coleman's order , and gave the messenger a guinney to drink his health ; for coleman was gone before he ( the said bedlow ) came in . moreover , he had seen ‖ mr. fenwick at mr. hartcourt's and white 's chamber , when this whole business was spoken of : that he heard from mr. white , and others , in mr. hartcourt's chamber , of grove's and pickering's reward or killing the king , as aforesaid : that pickering had received checks for slipping many opportunities ; for once his flint was loose ; another time there was no power in the pan ; a third time he charg'd the pistol with bullets , and no powder ; and a fourth time , ( as one that was at the tryal assur'd me , though the common print has omitted it ) he charg'd it with powder only : which reader ( if these attempts had bin bells ) are all the charges that can be rung on them . that mr. white was in mr. hartcourt's chamber with him and others , where 't was agreed , that the additional 5000 l. should be given sir george wak●man ; and yet ‖ oats in his evidence told us , that mr. white order'd it by letter from flanders . he further sayes , that * fenwick was to go to new-market along with coniers , &c. to destory the king there , in his morning-walk : that he knew nothing in particular of turner and gaven : that ●e had brought hartcourt many pacquets from spain , † france , flanders , &c. about this affair : that he had often carryed the papers of business to mr. langhorne , to register them : that he saw hartcourt in sir william aderson's presence , give a bill of exchange to sir ‖ george wakeman of 2000 l. in part of a greater sum ; that sir george then said , 15000 l. was too small a reward for setling religion ; but that sir george did not read out the merchant's name on whom it was drawn . after this , two letters were produc'd , taken among mr. hartcourt's papers ; the first being from mr. * peters here in england , in which the 24 th . of april was mention'd , as the day of the meeting . now because it was there enjoyn'd , that they should not appear much about town till the meeting were over , lest their design should be suspected ; and because of the word design , as also that secrecy was much recommended , as in its own nature necessary , the c. justice thought it extremly conduc'd to the making out of the plot. as for the † second , it was from mr. anderton at rome , bearing date the 5th . of february was twelve month , where mention being made of patents that were sent , and patents being in the plural number , 't was thought that these were the commissions so often spoken of . the charge being finish'd , it became soon very dubious as to gaven and turner , because oates knew them not at their apprehension ; and his own words in court make it good ; for first ‖ he confest , that ( when he met gaven after his apprehension in the lobby , and was askt by a gentleman about him ) he did not well know him , nor could say any thing against him then , because being under an ill favour'd perriwig , and being a man he knew had a good head of hair , he did not understand the mystery of it , and so spar'd his evidence , and informing the councel against him . again , gaven produc'd several staffordshire witnesses , and among others * sir john winford's neece , and her maid , where he sojourned , who attested that they were very confident of his being with them ( besides other moneths ) all june and july , 'till the 23th . because they remember not his absence ; yet they would not † positively say , that 't was impossible for him to be away some days , since they had no particular circumstances in readinesse ; but both they and the rest of his ‖ witnesses did averr , that he was in wolver-hampton , from the 23th . to the end of july ; for then to their knowledge , he was in the spiritual exercise ; which in truth included the very time of oates his accusation ; for by his saying , that gaven was in london either in * july or august , and then absolutely agreeing that it was in ‖ july , it in manner follows , that the time in dispute was in the latter end of the said moneth ; and besides in the † beginning of his charge , he himself sayes , that he believ'd it to be in the latter part of it ; but when once oates came to be prest with it , and especially with a counter-evidence , he flew back , taking the utmost extent and compass for his plea that he could . now for mr. turner , he inform'd the court , that oates not only , did not know him at ‖ whitehall , but call'd him there by another name ; nor could oates give the court any better reason for it , than that turner was at that time in a disguised habit , and a nasty perriwig ; when as the poor man was in his ordinary cloaths and accoutrements ; neither had he ( and the voluntary surrendry of himself most evidently proves it ) the least aim or design of concealing himself from any body . mr. turner further urg'd , that though * oates deposed now , that he saw him at a colloquy in fenwick's chamber , yet by his former evidence , it was at wild-house ; to which oates had nothing to reply , but this ; that because the chiefest part of the consult sat at wild house , ' t was call'd by them the consult of wild-house . as for dugdale , the said turner protested that he had not been in stafford-shire these † four years , which made no little impression upon many present ; since no body in all appearance could seem a more unfit man for intrigues than he ; and besides had dugdale nam'd any of my lord astons family , as witnesses of the said turner's being there later , than the time he prefixt , it would have been to his confusion , not only in that point , but in all things else for the future . nor were many less surpris'd with mr. hartcourt's answer to dugdale ; for though he acknowledged he had written ‖ several letters to mr. evers directed to him , yet he affirm'd he had left off corresponding divers years ; for reader you must know , that about three years ago , he was from procurator of the province ( which keeps a general and frequent correspondency with all the principal members ) made rector of london . now dugdale to prove mr. hartcourt's later correspondency with him , to wit , with evers ; for priests have generally their letters directed to others , so that mr. hartcourt never took notice at dugdales mentioning the receipt of letters from him ; i say dugdale , to prove a later correspondence , urges this wild and unheard of circumstance : * that mr. hartcourt having written at least eight letters last year , to mr. ireland , whilst he was in stafford-shire , two of them made mention of mr. edward astons death at paris , which dugdale intercepting , pretended to conjure , by telling the accident , before any of the said gentlemen's friends knew of it ; so that mr. ireland chid mr. hartcourt , for not acquainting him sooner ; who reply'd ▪ that he had sent him word of it ; and yet it seems mr. ireland , and mr. evers were so far from questioning dugdale about this silly interception and treachery , that he was a greater confident than ever , as chosen to murther his majesty himself . mr. hartcourt also further shew'd , how little this fellow had knowledge either of him or his letters ; for first , he came ( and several of these witnesses reader , have under false names served other prisoners thus ) to the gate-house to entrap him ; and then he ( the said dugdale ) did not so much as know his hand before the committee , when they made him write there for a tryal ; to which the chief justice reply'd , that hartcourt might write more hands , as well as have more names than one : but people thought there could then be no cheat in that , since the many papers which had been taken from hartcourt , would presently have made it apparent . but above all , how incredible is it , that dugdale ( who was so apprehensive , as he † told the court , of the danger that might en●ue to the main plot or design by godfrey's murther ) should go to an ale house ( the very next morning after notice or the accident ) and proclaim it there , before any man dreamt of it in the countrey . now upon mr. hartcourts protesting , that , as to bedlow ( who pretended to bring him ‖ divers and divers portmantles full of letters ) he had never seen him but twice before his apprehension , ●●z . * once about five years ago , with some letters from dunkir● 〈◊〉 others , though under his cover ( for then reader he was procurator ) and once again , when he borrow'd twenty shillings of him , as one deserted by most of his friends for his religion . i say , upon mr. hartcourt's protesting thus , bedlow reply'd , † that he had seven or eight witnesses out of town , to make his familiarity evident and clear ; but that he could not get them together , because the trials had been so put off ; whereas on the contrary ( reader ) all the world knew , that they were positively order'd above ten days before , and and the prisoners had accordingly provided . mr. white now ‖ question'd bedlow , where he was a lieutenant , as he had * formerly sworn ; who answering in flanders ▪ in the prince of frizland's regiment of foot , he reply'd , that there was no lieutenant in all the flanders companies ; whereupon bedlow said , he would send for his commission , and a while after something was brought in , * which chief justice north took and look't upon , but no further words were made of it ; and without any manner of doubt , 't was a paper of his own making ; for we had several officers in flanders all the last war , yet no man ever heard of him or his name there , either then or since , as a soldier . as for the two letters produc'd against the prisoners , and first as to that from mr. peters , it was answered by mr. hartcourt , mr. white , and the rest , * that it was a summons to their triennial congregation ; there being a meeting of the society every three years in france , spain , germany , &c. as all the world knows . that the secresy enjoyn'd was necessary ; for since every body's eye was upon them , they ought to be cautious of appearing in such numbers as might give offence , and especially at a time , when the parliament was meeting . that as to the word ‖ design ( which the chief justice did so much insist upon ) it was a hard thing to bring mens lives into danger upon the meer nicety of a word , and especially when it was proper in it self , for they had a design to choose a procurator for rome , and to consult about the whole concern of the english jesuits . now as to the † roman letter of february the 5 th . mr. white answer'd , that the patents there mentioned were the literae patentes , that constituted him ( on the fourteenth of the preceding january ) provincial , that the expression ( though in the plural ) was genuine and applicaple to any single man ; nor did mr. anderton the writer , know at the sending of them , whether he the said mr. white would accept the office or no ; which mr. recorder much doubting of , ( as being a too self-denying action for a jesuit ) oates presently affirm'd , that he was bound on pain of damnation , not to disobey his superior , and if he choose him or others to a place , they must take it upon them ; and yet every body knows ( that knows any thing ) that nothing is more frequent , than for a jesuit in these cases to reply ( as they term it ) to the general , and consequently to free himself , even after nomination . after this , the prisoners call'd for witnesses to prove mr. ireland's absence out of london , from the 3d. of august to the 14th . of september , contrary to the positive oath both of oats and bedlow , which several of the judges were against , because that business had * received tryal : others urg'd , † that the jury was not to take notice of any thing done at a former tryal , unless it were then spoken of ; which seemed hard and strange to many , because in reason the accused were to lay hold of all matters , that could lessen the credit of their accusers , and more especially of things relating to the plot. but the court ( even according to their own rules ) were at last , forc'd to grant them their demand ; because oates did in this very tryal say , that ‖ ireland was in town between the 8th . and 12th . of august , and that mr. * fenwick was with him . then the witnesses ( to wit , sir john southcot , my lady , their son and daughter ) were called ; † whereupon sir edward southcot the son affirm'd , that he was told , that mr. ireland came to his uncles ( my lord astons in hartford-shire ) on the 3 d. of august at night , but he saw him not there , till early on the 4 th . and that he went with him , and his family to tixhal , ( my lord 's usual residence in stafford-shire ) continuing every day with them till the sixteenth . my lady southcot ( who was my lord aston's sister ) said , that he was with her from the fifth to the sixteenth . sir john the father , said to the same purpose , to wit , that he met mr. ireland at st. albans on the fifth , and that he was in their company for twelve dayes after . to them succeeded mrs. harwel the mother , mrs. harwel the daughter , and their maid ; as also , sir john winford's ncece , four giffords of the chillington-family , mr. biddulph of biddulph , and two of the perdrels of boscobel , son and daughter to him who had there saved the king in his escape from worcester . these ‖ proved mr. ireland's being at wolverhampton from the 17 th . to the 26 th . when he returned to my lord 's at tixhal : and five of them , to wit , † mr. biddulph , two of the giffords , and the two pendrels , attested , that they saw him on the 2 d. of september , some at boscobel , and others hard by : which 2 d. of september , was the very day , or the day after , that oates * positively swore , mr. ireland gave him twenty shillings in london . but oates fore-seeing this evidence , did ( notwithstanding the fact was in print , and that he had made oath of it in that very court , even in the hearing of several of the judges , and two of the prisoners at the bar ) insi●● now , ‖ that it was the day , ‖ to the best of his remembrance ; but whether it was the 1 st . 2 d. 7 th . 8 th . or 9 th . of september , he would not positively say : whereupon mr. gifford ( who had bin a summon'd witness in ireland's tryal ) stood up , and affirm'd , * that when oates after much pressing , would not be positive as to the dayes in august , he came at last to a circumstance , and aver'd , that on the 1 st or 2d . of september , ireland gave him ( in london ) twenty shillings . the said mr. gifford also , and his wife , ( when the court objected , whether it were the same ireland that dyed , that was in staffordshire ) declared , ‖ that they had seen him in the country , and afterwards tryed and executed . this evidence being full and clear , and the witnesses that appeared , persons of great quality , ( nay , there were twice as many more in the countrey , that could not come by reason of their domestick affairs ) oates had nothing to ballance it , but the testimony of * sarah paine , the servant-maid which he had produc'd formerly in ireland's tryal , about his being in town on the 12 th . of august , as i said . and here 't is to be remember'd , that there were two mrs. giffords witnesses in this affair , which confounds the reader at the first sight , when he peruses the printed tryal ; for the short-hand-writer makes little distinction between those gentlewomen ; and therefore , sometimes the same person seems , as it were , to answer negatively and positively to the same question . besides , the said writer is not alwayes exact ( when the witnesses are many ) who speaks ; so that he sayes sometimes john a nikes spoke , when 't was ( in truth ) john a stiles . the prisoners then having cleverly proved this point , strike at all that oates had ever said ; for having in mr. ireland's tryal often said , that he was here at the consult of april 1678. he endeavor'd ( as a greater satisfaction to the court ) to further prove it by these circumstances , viz. ‖ that he came over with fa. williams , pa nevil , fa. pool , sir thomas preston , sir john warner , hildesley , a young scholar , and others . so that , * mr. fenwick demanding now , whether he did not own his coming over with the said hildesley ? oates would have avoyded it , by bidding him ask questions of what he said to day ; but mr. fenwick insisting upon this , as necessary and † threatning oates , that he had witnesses to prove his asserting his thus coming from beyond sea ; oates at last owned it : whereupon mr. hildesley ( who is a gentleman's son of quality ) appear'd , and deny'd it , protesting , that he left him at st. omers behind ; which oates granted , but would have it , that he met him at calis the next day ; and to confirm this , alledged , that hildesley lost his mony there , that fa. williams did relieve him , and that he went not streight to london with them . hildesley readily confest the loss of his mony , &c. saying ; he knew how oates understood this , to wit , by a * gentleman , that ( having met hildesley ) came to st. omexs , with whom oates was very familiar on the 2 d , of may , as several witnesses present would prove . then were called in nineteen witnesses from beyond sea , fourteen of which were from st. omers ; and among them sir james d●rington's son , sir philip palmer's son ; sir r. dalison's son , and sir richard colester's son ; son-in-law to colonel charles gifford , who was so instrumental in saving of the king after worcester ; but dalison not hearing when the rest were called , appeared not , and so could not be a witness till next day . the substance of the st. omarian evidence was this ; some remember'd ( by very good circumstances ) oates at st. omers at , and after hildersley's departure , which was on the 24 th . of april , new stile . others of burnaby's coming to them on the first of may , who was the person ( you must know , reader ) that could tell hildesley's adventures , by meeting him on the way : others of oates his familiarity with the said burnab 〈◊〉 others , that they saw oates whil'st he was in the infirmary : others ; that they saw him in the spiritual exercise : others , that father nevil , and fa. pool were not absent , as he said : and others told many particulars relating to him on the latter end of april , and first week of may ; but all agreed in this , that he came to them a little before christmass , 77. and went not away till the following june , living there the whole time as a scholar ; nor did they remember , that in all that while , he was a night out of the seminary , but on at watten , a house of theirs two leagues distant from st. omers . they gave also these reasons of their assurance , that he could not be absent without their knowledge , because first , the whole colledge would have rung of it , the discourse of coming and going being their news , and which all continually mind . secondly , because he sate in the hall , or rectory alone , at a distinct table from them , viz. between theirs , and the fathers ; so that , being thus in the eye of all , every body would have been missing him . and lastly , that from about lady-day to his expulsion in june , he was reader of the spiritual books in the sodality , and therefore , he could not be away or sunday or holy-day , but that they must most particularly have known it . now , for the other * five witnesses , three of them ( besides one of the former ) affirmed sir john warner to be at watten all april and may , because being superior there in fa. william's absence , they were sure they saw him almost dayly . the like did the † porter and caterer , as to sir thomas preston's being then at leige ; nor could the court find the least incoherence or disagreement in their evidence , ( though they were all strictly examin'd , and cross question'd ) but in cox's , who being a stranger , and speaking english ill , made ( by his odd expressions , and giddy answers ) the auditors often merry : yet the only thing objected to him by the court was his saying , that oates left the colledge in ‖ july , when it was on the 23 th . of june , as the scholars , and oates himself acknowledg'd ; whereupon , answering as to this , that it was after may he was sure , and that it was no matter for the month , whether june or july , the people laught : but his meaning reader , was that being sure , that oates was never absent ( as he alwayes said ) from his coming , ( which was before christmass ) 'till his going away for good and all , after may , ( except to wa●ten , as before ) it was no matter for the month , whether in june or july . though these st. omarians had ( at least in appearance ) as well by the innocence of their vvords and behaviour , as by their punctuality in all the material parts of their evidence , given oates a deadly blow , yet he was far from leaving the lists ; for sir william waller having a while before taken three of these scholars , as papists , in town ; they upon their examination , declar'd what they came for , and told oates to his very face , that he never was but one night out of their colledge , from december to june : so that , by this time he had provided himself for the storm , and therefore brought into court first ; one * walker a minister , who deposed , that about the latter end of march , or the beginning of april , 78 ( and then presently , according to oates his usual method , extended the time to the middle of the said , month ) he saw one in disguise near lecester-house , but could not recollect who it was , till a little before he rose next morning ; and then having drawn him within the scheme of his knowledge to be titus oates , he went and told sarah ives of it at her shop ; who now attested , that walker had said so to her in april , but she knew not the day . then apeared cecily mayo , a servant-maid to one sir richard barker of ba●bican , ( who from a parrier , had by posted bills , made himself a doctor ) and * she swore ; that the week before whitsuntide , 78 ( and whitsuntide ●ell then , reader , on the 19 th . of may ) she saw a man in sir richard barker's yard , whom a servant-boy , that is since dead , jeer'd at , telling her , that the said man had chang'd his coat from black to white , and was turn'd either quaker or papist . that she saw him the week after in the garden with another , but discontented because he was no more countenanc'd by the family , ( the young ladies being shie of him ) and that the afore-mention'd boy said to her , yonder is oates again , does he not look like a jesuit ? therefore , when the plot was discover'd , she went to see oates , and knew him ; who spoke slightingly to her , seeming offended with the family , because they had scorn'd him ; but she excus'd it , as proceeding from his being then a papist : and further told him , that she hoped , he would never forget the bread he had eaten there . after her philip page ( one of the same house ) witness't , ‖ that he saw oates there , about the beginning of may , 78. to the best of his knowledge , by the token , his master had a patient at that time at islington , sick of a feaver , whose name he knows not ; but the doctor told the court , she was aldram milvars daughter . the coach man also said , * that oates in the beginning of may , was there to ask for dr. tongue , and when he came out of the house he seemed troubled . then the knight himself being present deposed , * that he was at the time of the evidence abroad in the countrey , as his business often leads him ; that his servants ( to the best of his remembrance ) told him after witsuntide the story of oates his being there in two disguises , the one in short-hair , which made them think him turn'd quaker , the other in a long-perriwig , and then they thought him turn'd papist . that upon the visiting a gentleman he fell ill , in which time oates was gone , and upon his recovery , he the said oates came to enquire for dr. tongue , which was the latter end of june , or beginning of july . these witnesses were follow'd by one smith and clay . smith was oates his master , as vsher of merchant taylor 's , and he positively swore , that on the first monday in may , 78. ( i. e. on the sixth of the said month ) oates din'd with him , and staid three or four hours after discoursing of several things . clay was an old weak , and doating man , who being taken as a priest , was thrown into the gate-house , and suffer'd to see no friend ; so that oates ( to whom all prisons were open ) visiting him , and caressing him dayly , brought him also for a witness into the court , where he attested , that he saw ( he thinks ) oates in apil was twelve-month at mr. charles howards lodgings in arundel-house , and in may also at the same place , as he thinks . to this reply , the jesuits make a smart rejoynder , proving the whole ( by the contradictions that must follow ) either a down-right perjury , or a mistake ; for mr. white ‖ remembred the court , how that when ( at that very bar ) he had formerly prest oates to name any body , that had seen him then in town , he had nothing to say , but that he lay privately at groves's . nay reader he deem'd it , in a manner , an unreasonable thing to be then askt such a question ; for directing himself to the lord chief justice , he answered in these very words ( as notoriously appears in mr. irelands tryal ) ‖ my lord ( saies he ) when i came to london , i was order'd to keep very close ; and lay at mr. groves's house , let him deny it if he can . this was ( you see ) the best of his game then , and this made him fly to the former circumstances ( which the late witnesses have now proved also false ) viz. of his coming over with hildesley , williams , preston , warner , &c. whereas had the present evidence in his behalf been true , it would have been impossible for a man of his ranck and acquaintance to have been more publick ; and yet a greater impossibility for him , ( when demanded so pertment a question ) to have forgotten all these persons , especially when the seeing of any one of them in his then pretended condition , was a great and dangerous fault , and consequently must have imprinted them in his memory . but mr. gavens chief plea was about the time of oates his chimerical stay in england , and therefore cry'd out ex ore tuo te judico ; for since it was ( as he urg'd ) only a matter of * six dayes , ( not did the kings † councel ●●tend it to be above eight or ten ) and since ( according to the computation of the court ) hildesley ‖ landed on the 17th of april our stile , and consequently reacht not london , till the 19th , what could become of the ministers testimony , that saw him the latter end of march or middle of april , or of the school-masters , that dined and discours'd with him on the 6th of may for four or five hours ; and especially of the knight's family , that saw him often that moneth even after whitsontide . now for clay and the invalidity of his testimony , there shall be a fuller account of it in mr. langh●rnes tryal , and more also said of the rest . mr. gaven further insisted on the quality of his witnesses and the fullness of their testimony as to * mr. ireland's being out of town in august ; of the clearness of the proof in relation to sir thomas preston's and sir john warner's absence ; of the positiveness of the evidence concerning his own being at wolver-hampton , at least the last week in july , and that all the witnesses did incline rather to think him there the other weeks also , than not , with much more of this nature . nor did mr. fenwick forget to tell the court ( besides the repetition of the former unanswerable arguments ) † that there was not the least commission found , or the least letter to show that there were such , or any money paid , or armes provided , and the like ; but that all depended on the word of these witnesses . nay if they were guilty , he said , they ought to be hang'd ' twice , once for knaves and then for fools , for trusting a matter of this nature to such a fellow as oates , who was not only expell'd their colledges , but necessitous and beggarly even to the last moment before the discovery . and reader you must also remember , that ( among others ) one captain hill did witnesse , that bedlo ( who had been long his fellow prisoner in the marshalsea ) was in may was twelve month , ( which was the may just before the discovery ) so poor there , that he lived upon the very ‖ basket. but notwithstanding this , or mr. white 's wondering , how he could be thought ( were he of a fighting disposition ) to * beat oates , to whom such a secret was committed , or to send a letter by the common † post about killing the king as dugdale witness't ; and notwithstanding mr. gavans great eloquence ( which every body much commended ) or mr. ‖ hartcourts appealing to the integrity of his life for 70 years , and to the infamy of his accusers ; or his concluding thus , that since a negative cannot be well proved , he hoped innocence will find some to defend it ; i say notwithstanding this , they were all found guilty , and ( being condemned the next day ) were on the fryday following ( to wit the 20 of june ) executed together at tyburn , where they made these following speeches . but reader be pleas'd first to know that they were drawn on several hurdles : on the foremost went mr. thomas whitebread , and mr. vvilliam harcourt . on the second , mr. anthony turner , and mr. john gavan . and on the third , mr. john fenwick . and being come to the gallows , they were all put into one cart. then mr. gavan said , if god give us his grace , it 's no matter where we die , at the gallows or elsewhere . the executioner being fastning the halters . gavan said , i hope you will be civil to dying men. executioner . i will be civil to you . gavan . i hope they will give us leave to speak . mr. whitebread's speech . i suppose it is expected i should speak something to the matter i am condemned for , and brought hither to suffer : it is no less then the contriving and plotting his majesty's death , and the alteration of the government of the church and state. you all either know , or ought to know , i am to make my appearance before the face of almighty god , and with all imaginable certainty and evidence to receive a final judgement , for all the thoughts , words , and actions of my whole life . so that i am not now upon terms to speak other than the truth , and therefore in his most holy pre●ence , and as i hope for mercy from his divine majesty , i do declare to you here present , and to the whole world , that i go out of the world as innocent , and as free from any guilt of these things laid to my charge in this matter , as i came into the world from my mothers womb : and that i do renounce from my heart all manner of pardons , absolutions , dispensations for swearing , as occasions or interest may seem to require , which some have been pleased to lay to our charge , as matter of our practice and doctrine , but is a thing so unjustifiable and unlawful , that i believe , and ever did , that no power on earth can authorize me , or any body so to do . as for those who have most falsly accused me ( as time , either in this world , or in the next , will make appear ) i do heartily forgive them , and beg of god to grant them his holy grace , that they may repent their unjust proceedings against me ; otherwise they will in conclusion find they ha●e done themselves more wrong than i have suffered from them , though that has been a great deal . i pray god bless his majesty both temporally and eternally , which has been my daily prayer for him , and is all the harm that i ever intended or imagined against him . and i do with this my last breath , in the sight of god declare , that i never did learn , or teach , or believe , nor can as a catholick believe , that it is lawful upon any occasion or pretence whatsoever , to design or contrive the death of his majesty , or any hurt to his person ; but on the contrary , all are bound to obey , defend , and preserve his sacred person , to the utmost of their power . and i do moreover declare , that this is the true and plain sence of my soul , in the sight of him who knows the secrets of my heart , and as i hope to see his blessed face , without any equivocation , or mental reservation . this is all i have to say concerning the matter of my condemnation ; that which remains for me now to do , is to recommend my soul into the hands of my blessed redeemer , by whose only merit and passion i hope for salvation . mr. hartcourt's speech . the words of dying persons have been always esteem'd as of greatest authority , because uttered then , when shortly after they are to be cited before the high tribunal of almighty god. this gives me hopes that mine may be look'd upon as such : therefore i do here declare in the presence of almighty god , the whole court of heaven , and this numerous assembly , that as i hope by the merits and passion of my lord and sweet saviour jesus christ for eternal bliss , i am as innocent as the child unborn of any thing laid to my charge , and for which i am here to die . sher. how. or sir edmund-bury godfry's death ? hartcourt . or sir edmund-bury godfry's death . sher. how. did not you write that letter concerning the dispatch of sir edmund bury godfry ? harcourt . no sir , these are the words of a dying man , i would not do it for a thousand worlds . sher. how. how have you lived ? harcourt , i have lived like a man of repute all my life , and never was before the face of a judge till my tryal : no man can accuse me . i have from my youth been bred up in the education of my duty towards god , and man. harcourt . and i do utterly abhor and detest that abominable false doctrine laid to our charge , that we can have licenses to commit perjury , or any sin to advantage our cause , being expresly against the doctrine of st. paul , saying non sunt facienda mala , ut eveniant bona ; evil is not to be done that good may come thereof , and therefore we hold it in all cases unlawful to kill or murder any person whatsoever , much more our lawful king now reigning ; whose personal and temporal dominions we are ready to defend with our lives and fortunes , against any opponent whatsoever , none excepted . i forgive all that have contriv'd my death , and humbly beg pardon of almighty god for them . and i ask pardon of all the world. i pray god bless his majesty , and grant him a prosperous reign . the like i wish to his royal consort , the best of queens . i humbly beg the prayers of all those who are in the communion of the roman church , if any such be present . mr. turner's speech . being now , good people , very near my end , and summon'd by a violent death to appear before god's tribunal , there to render an account of all my thoughts , words , and actions , before a just judge , i conceive i am bound in conscience to do my self that justice , as to declare upon oath my innocence from the horrid crime of treason , with which i am falsely accused : and i esteem it a duty i owe to christian charity , to publish to the world before my death , all that i know in this point , concerning those catholicks i have conversed with since the first noise of the plot , desiring from the bottom of my heart , that the whole truth may appear , that innocence may be clear'd , to the great glory of god , and the peace and welfare of the king and country . as to my self , i call god to vvitness , that i was never in my whole life present at any consult or meeting of the jesuits , where any oath of secrecy was taken , or the sacrament , as a bond of secresy , either by me or any one of them , to conceal any plot against his sacred majesty ; nor was i ever present at any meeting or consult of theirs , where any proposal was made , or resolve taken or signed , either by me or any of them , for taking away the life of our dread soveraign ; an impiety of such a nature , that had i been present at any such meeting , i should have been bound by the laws of god , and by the principles of my religion , ( and by god's grace would have acted accordingly ) to have dicovered such a devilish treason to the civil magistrate , to the end they might have been brought to condign punishment . i was so far , good people , from being in september last at a consult of the jesuits at tixall , in mr. ewer's chamber , that i vow to god , as i hope for salvation , i never was so much as once that year at tixall , my lord astons house . 't is true , i was at the congregation of the jesuits held on the 24 th . of april was twelve month , but in that meeting , as i hope to be saved , we meddled not with state affairs , but only treated about the concerns of our province , which is usually done by us , without offence to temporal princes , every third year all the vvorld over . sheriff how. you do only justify your selves here . we will not believe a word that you say . spend your time in prayer , and we will not think our time too long . i am , good people , as free from the treason i am accused of , as the child that is unborn , and being innocent i never accused my self in confession of any thing that i am charged with , certainly , if i had been conscious to my self of any guilt in this kind , i should not so franckly and freely , as i did , of my own accord , have presented my self before the kings most honourable privy council . as for those catholicks which i have conversed with since the noise of the plot , i protest before god , in the words of a dying man , that i never heard any one of them , either priest or layman , express to me the least knowledg of any plot , that was then on foot amongst the catholicks , against the king's most excellent majesty , for the advancing the catholick religion . i die a roman catholick , and humbly beg the prayers of such , for my happy passage into a better life . i have been of that religion above thirty years , and now give god almighty infinite thanks for calling me by his holy grace to the knowledge of this truth , notwithstanding the prejudice of my former education . god of his infinite goodness bless the king , and all the royal family , and grant his majesty a prosperous reign here , and a crown of glory hereafter . god in his mercy forgive all those which have falsely accused me , or have had any hand in my death ; i forgive them from the bottom of my heart , as i hope my self for forgiveness at the hands of god. mr. turner's prayer . o god , who hast created me to a supernatural end ▪ to serve thee in this life by grace , and injoy thee in the next by glory , be pleased to grant by the merits of thy bitter death and passion , that after this wretched life shall be ended ▪ i may not fail of a full injoyment of thee my last end and soverain good ▪ i humbly beg pardon for all the sins which i have committed against thy divine majesty , since the first instant i came to the use of reason to this very time . i am heartily sorry from the very bottom of my heart , for having offended thee so good , so powerful , so wise , and so just a god , and purpose by the help of thy grace ; never more to offend thee my good god , whom i love above all things . o sweet jesus , who hast suffer'd a most painful and ignominious death upon the cross for our salvation , apply , i beseech thee , unto me the merits of thy sacred passion , and sanctify unto me these sufferings of mine , which i humbly accept of for thy sake in union of the sufferings of thy sacred majesty , and in punishment and satisfaction of my sins . o my dear saviour and redeemer , i return thee immortal thanks for all thou hast pleased to do for me in the whole course of my life , and now in the hour of my death , with a firm belief of all things thou hast revealed , and a stedfast hope of obtaining everlasting bliss . i chearfully cast my self into the arms of thy mercy , whose arms were stretched upon the cross for my redemption . sweet jesus , receive my spirit . mr. gavan's speach . dearly beloved countrey-men , i am come to the last scene of mortality , to the hour of my death , an hour which is the horizon between time and eternity , an hour which must either make me a star to shine for ever in heaven above , or a firebrand to burn everlastingly amongst the damned souls in hell below ; an hour in which if i deal sincerely , and with a hearty sorrow acknowledge my crimes , i may hope for mercy ; but if i falsely deny them , i must expect nothing but eternal damnation : and therefore , what i shall say in this great hour , i hope you will believe . and now in this hour i do solemnly swear , protest , and vow , by all that is sacred in heaven and on earth , and as i hope to see the face of god in glory , that i am as innocent as the child unborn of those treasonable crimes , which mr. oates , and mr. dugdale , have sworn against me in my trial ; and for which , sentence of death was pronounced against me the day after my trial. and that you may be assured that what i say is true , i do in like manner protest , vow , and swear , as i hope to see the face of god in glory , that i do not in what i say unto you , make use of any equivocation , or mental reservation , or material prolation , or any such like way to palliate truth . neither do i make use of any dispensations from the pope , or any body else ; or of any oath of secresy , or any absolutions in confesion or out of confession to deny the truth ; but i speak in the plain sence which the words bear ; and if i do speak in any other sence , to palliate or hide the truth , i wish with all my soul that god may exclude me from his heavenly glory , and condemn me to the lowest place of hell fire : and so much to that point . and now dear country-men , in the second place , i do confess and own to the whole world , that i am a roman catholick , and a priest , and one of that sort of priests called jesuits ; and now because they are so falsly charged for holding king-killing doctrine , i think it my duty to protest to you with my last dying words , that neither i in particular , nor the jesuits in general , hold any such opinion , but utterly abhor and detest it : and i assure you , that amongst the vast number of authors , which among the jesuits have printed philosophy , divinity , cases , or sermons , there is not one to the best of my knowledge , that allows of king killing doctrine , or holds this position , that it is lawful for a private person to kill a king although an heretick , although a pagan , although a tyrant : there is , i say , not one jesuit that holds this , except mariana , the spanish jesuit , and he defends it not absolutely , but only problematically , for which his book was called in , and that opinion expunged and censured . aud is it not a sad thing , that for the rashness of one single man , whilst the rest cry out against him , and hold the contrary , that a whole religious order should be sentenc'd ? but i have not time to discuss this point at large , and therefore i refer you all to a royal author , i mean the wise and victorious king henry the fourth of france , the royal grandfather of our present gracious king , in a publick oration which he pronounced , in defence of the jesuits , amongst other things , declaring , that he was very well satisfied with the jesuits doctrine concerning kings , as being conformable to the best doctors in the church . but why do i relate the testimony of one single prince , when the whole catholick world is the jesuits advocate therein ? does not germany , france , italy , spain , and flanders , trust the education of their youth to them in a very great measure ? do not they trust their own souls to be governed by them , in the administration of the sacraments . and can you imagin so many great kings and princes , and so many wise states should do , or permit this to be done in their kingdoms , if the jesuits were men of such damnable principles as they are now taken for in england . in the third place , dear countrey-men , i do protest , that as i never in my life did machine , or contrive either the deposition or death of the king , so now at my death , i do hartily desire of god to grant him a quiet and happy reign upon earth , and an everlasting crown in heaven . for the judges also , and the jury , and all those that were any ways concern'd , either in my tryal , accusation , or condemnation , i do humbly beg of god , to grant them both temporal and eternal happiness . and as for mr. oates , and mr. dugdale , i call god to witness , they by false oaths have brought me to this untimely end . i hartily forgive them , because god commands me so to do ; and i beg god for his infinite mercy to grant them true sorrow and repentance in this world , that they may be capable of eternal happiness in the next . and having discharged my duty towards my self , and my own innocence ; towards my order , and its doctrine ; to my neighbour and the world , i have nothing else to do now , my great god , but to cast my self into the arms of your mercy . i believe you are one divine essence and three divine persons , i believe that you in the second person of the trinity became man to redeem me ; and i believe you are an eternal rewarder of the good , and an eternal chastiser of the bad. in sine , i belive all you have reveal'd for your own infinite veracity ; i hope in you above all things , for your infinite fidelity ; and i love you above all things , for your infinte beauty and goodness ; and i am heartily sorry that ever i offended so great a god with my whole heart : i am contented to undergo an ignominious deth for the love of you , my dear jesu , seeing you have been pleased to undergo an ignominious death for the love of me . mr. fenwicks speech good people , i suppose you expect i should say something as to the crime i am condemned for , and either acknowledge my guilt , or assert my innocency . i do therefore declare before god and the whole world , and call god to witness that what i say is true , that i am innocent of what is laid to my charge of plotting the king's death , and endeavouring to subvert the government , and bring in a foreign power , as the child unborn ; and that i know nothing of it , but what i have learn'd from mr. oates and his companions , and what comes originally from them . sher. how. if you can make a good conclusion to your own life , it will do well ; consider if your letters did not agree with the evidence , that ' s another matter . fenwick . i assure you ; i do renounce all treason from my very heart . i have always , and ever shall disown the opinion of such devillish practises as these are of king-killing . if i speak not the whole frame of my heart , i wish god may exclude me from his glory . sher. how. those that murdered sir edmun bury godsrey , said as you do . fenwick . as for sir edmund-bury godfrey , i protest before god , i know nothing of it : i never saw the man in my life . sher. how. for my part i am of opinion you had a hand in it . fenwick . now that i am a dying man , do you think i would go and damn my soul ? sher. how. i wish you all the good i can , but i le assure you , i believe never a word you say . fenwick . i pray for his majesty every day , and wish him all happiness with all my heart . also i do with all my soul pardon all my accusers . if the judge or jury did any thing amiss , i pardon them with all my soul , and all persons directly or indirectly . i am very willing and ready to suffer this death . i pray god pardon me my sins . and save my soul. and as to what is said and commonly believed of roman catholicks , that they are not to be believed or trusted , because they can have dispensations for lying , perjury , killing kings , and other the most enormous crimes , i do utterly renounce all such pardons , dispensations , and withall declare , that it is a most wicked and malicious calumny cast upon catholicks , who do all with all their hearts and souls hate and detest all such wicked and damnable practises ; and in the words of a dying man , and as i hope for mercy at the hands of god , before whom i must shortly appear and give an account of all my actions , i do again declare , that what i have said is true , and i hope christian charity will not let you think , that by the last act of my life , i would cast away my soul , by sealing up my last breath with a damnable lye. then they were at their private devotions for about an hour . and mr. sheriff how spake to them ; pray aloud , gentlemen , that we may joyn with you ; we shall do you no hurt , if we do you no good . are you asham'd of your prayers ? then he spake to mr. gavan , and said , it is reported you did preach at the quakers metting . gavan . to which he made answer , no sir , i never preached there in my life . concerning mr. langhorn . mr. langhorn was tryed at the old baily on saturday the 14th of june 1679 , & to make good the charge of high treason against him dugdale first appeared , who proved the plot in general , * as having been at several consults with the jesuits , about the alteration of the governm●nt and introducing popery , where they spoke of an army to be raised , of killing the king , and a massacre ; and that he knew of † sir edm. godfry's death by ewers letter on the munday night , which began thus , this very nig●t sir edm. godfry is dispatch't : that upon his being concern'd , that the plot might be spoild by it , ewers said it would be put upon debauch't persons , for he was severe with such ; yet he the said dugdale , could not ( it ran so much in his mind ) but the next morning he spoke of it at an alehouse hard by , and thence it was carried to mr. ch●twin . prance rose next , and deposed , ‖ that mr. messenger ( gentleman of the horse to my lord arundel ) was employed by his lord , and my lord powis , to kill the king , and this he was told of by my lord's butler ; that meeting messenger , he askt him , what his reason was , that he would kill the king ; who answered , he was off of it , now ; which question and answer ( reader ) made many smile : then he proceeded & sayd , that presently 50000 men should be raised and governed by the said lords , to kill all that were not catholick● ; that he heard it from mr. ireland , fenwick , and grove , who spake of it to him together ; that mr. har●court acquainted him ( before one thompson ) that the king was to be killed by several ; and that fenwic said , that langhorn was to have a great hand in it ; so that still we see here are new men and ( mean ones too ) who know of the king's death , and tell it one another for pastime , and ordinary news . oates followed next , saying , * he went into spain in april 1677 , that returning in november , he brought letters from mr. langhorn's sons , who studied there ; that mr. langhorn at the receit of them , was informed by him , that the youths would enter into the society , which much rejoyced mr. langhorn , being a great votary of the jesuits , but said , if they would continue secular priests , they would have great promotions in england , since things would not last long in this posture ; that mr. langhorn did upon oates his going to st. omers in november give him a packet , and in his letter to the fathers , he mentioned his writing to fa. la chaise , in order to their concerns , and that coleman had written very largely to that father , which made him the more brief ; that mr. langhorn writ another in march. or april , about ordering five pounds to his son , that had bin in rebellion and turn'd soldier , but was now reconcil'd to him by the intercession of the fathers ; in this letter also mr. langhorn exprest at large his great care of the catholick design , and told them among other things , that the parliament flagging , they had a fair opportunity to give the blow ; which seem'd very odd to many , that in an ordinary letter of domestick concerns , he should treat of such high and secret matters . then oates go's on and say's ; that after the great consult of april , he was order'd to acquaint mr. langhorn ( in the temple ) of the ‖ minuts , past at the said consult , by which he understood of grove's and pickerings employment and reward ; that mr. langhorn ( with lifted up hands and eyes for the good successe : ) did then sign also the consult , and told him , that he had receiv'd about fifty † commissions from rome ; and among others shew'd him the commissions for my l'd. arundel , powis , stafford , bellassis and peters ; as also mr. langhorn's own to be advocate of the army , which were all ‖ sealed with the jesuits cross or cipher , and signed by their general ; the seal and hand being the same as that of the patent which oates had then in court , viz. a † pattent constituting f. stapleton . rector of st omers ▪ and found it seemes among the jesuits papers . that he the said , oates saw those commissions in his study upon his desk ; when as mr. langhorn appeals ( in his ‖ memoires ) to all that great company which frequented his chamber ; whether any of them ever saw a desk in his study ? that mr. langhorn gave him several ‖ originals from f. anderton and la chaise , who did assure them of his constancy in carrying on the cause , and that the french king would stand by them with * men and money . that mr. langhorn being sollicitor for the jesuits , did communicate the design to the benedictins , who promis'd 6000 l. that mr. langhorn call'd sr. george wakeman , a narrow soul'd phisitian , for not being content with 10000. l. that he , the said oates , never stir'd out of the ‖ colledge of st. omer from december till his coming away in april , except a night or two at watten , and when he went to paris . 't was here ( some two questions before ) that mr. langhorn began to be nice about the time of his coming to st. omers , &c. whereupon the court answer'd , that all the defences of the papists lay in catches about time , a thing which no man living could be positive in , which heartned oates not a little ; for he being presently askt by mr. langhorn , when he return'd in april into england , he answered , about the middle of that moneth , and that he stay'd ‖ under twenty dayes , a latitude which he would now have fain granted him , by reason of his ill success in the former tryal , though the court never then pretended ( as you ‖ saw ) to extend it to above eight ▪ or ten ; and because he fear'd mr. langhorn , he desired the court to ask the questions , adding , that he knew they would be so † kind , as to ask him such questions as were reasonable . after this , mr. langhorn demanded whether he came with hildestey from dover by coach or on horseback ? to which oates ( after much hesitation ) answer'd , * that the question was so sudden , that he could not be positive ; but at last said , that as near as he could remember , it was by coach. this strange uncertainty amaz'd many , but more smild at it , considering that in truth , he had reason for what he did , as not knowing the question was casual , but that mr. langhorn might have witnesses ready to prove how mr. hildesley made that journey ; nay , he would not tell mr. langhorn positively , whether he lay at † grove's the first night of his coming to london , or no ; though he 〈◊〉 directly sworn in irelands tryal ( as has bin mention'd before ) ‖ that he was commanded to lie close at that house ; so that if he had had such instructions , it was impossible for him not to remember whether he broke them or no , and more especially at his first arrival about so dangerous and great an affair . bedlow brought up the reer , and after he had also produc't ( as oates had done before ) a private patent of the jesuits , found by him in the search of mr. arthur's house , and which ( reader you must know ) is written ( forsooth ) in the same hand , and seal'd with the same seal , as the commissions were he had seen at paris ; i say , after this he askt ( fearing there would be witnesses to what he said ) whether a † papist might take notes ? the court at first thought not ; but when they understood , that the scribe was the marchioness dowager of winchester , 't was answer'd , that a womans notes would signifie no more than her tongue ; and then he thus began . * that coleman carried him about three years ago , to mr. langhorn's chamber , who in his presence register'd several treasonable letters for la-chaise , &c. some of which had been read in court at coleman's trial ; † that there was no a penny of money receiv'd or paid , or the least thing done in relation to the plot , that was not registered by mr. langhorn . that a year and a half ago , he carried a pacquet from hartcourt to be registred , that he was registred by the name of captain williams , and not by his own , which he wondring at , hartcourt answer'd , that this was but a blind register , and that there should be a new one ; that one of these letters , was from the rector of the irish college at salamanca , who desir'd the lords , and the rest here to be ready ; for that he had provided at the groin , as pilgrims , several irish cashier'd soldiers and bandits , as also a great many lay-brothers , who landing at milford , should be joyn'd with the army my lord powis was to raise , ‖ that in may 76. he carried a letter to mr. stapleton the benedictin , to raise money for england : that pritchard told him ; that mr. langhorn had commissions ; that sir h. * tichbourn shew'd him three at paris , sign'd by the general of the jesuits , and seal'd with their seal , like the before-mention'd patent . that he knows only by report , of mr. langhorn's being privy to grove's and pickering's design of killing the king ; for having a mind to go to windasor , to see what the assassines did , he askt hartcourt leave , as if he went to a friend at plimouth ; who answer'd , he could not be spared , till they knew how the gentlemen had succeeded ; and that he , the said hartcourt , was going to mr. langhorns , to take the minvtes , which was the contrivance of sending down the assassines to new-market . that † the letter , which he saw mr. langhorn register to the benedictins beyond sea , was to sollicit them to get their contributions ready , since the hearts and arms of the party 〈◊〉 ready here ; and , that in the french letter to f. la chaise ( registred also by mr. langhorn ) there were invitations to that king to invade us . now upon mr. langhorn's saying that he understood only law-french , as an argument that he could be no register , and upon bedlow's confessing he never heard him discourse in french , oates ( to salve the difficulty ) cry'd out ( and thereby made not a few laugh ) that he himself could neither write not read french , but he could translate it . and when bedlow ▪ was askt by mr. langhorn , whether mr. coleman's letter ( transcrib'd by him ) were long like those in the narrative or no ; the said bedlow answer'd , the best part of half a sheet of paper ; for coleman writ a curious fine small hand , and would thereby put a great deal in a little room ; which very much surpris'd all that knew coleman , who was far from writing a curious , or fine hand , and far from a small one also . nor was this the only thing that amaz'd the auditors , for both oates and bedlow openly declar'd in court , when mr. langhorn charg'd them with rewards , gratifications ▪ and the like , that they were so far from any benefit by the discovery , ‖ that they were out of pocket 700. l. a pece , and yet the one was proved the day before , to line 〈◊〉 gaol on the * basket , and the 〈◊〉 as deplorable ? as a man of ●e●p●ll'd the college , and des●tut of friends could● be 〈◊〉 nay , there were several witnesses at hand ▪ to prove also oiteo's , wretched poverty , but by not appearing presently at call , the ' court went on to other matters . besides reader , you may imagine that mr. langhorn's friends and acquaintance , were not a little confounded , to find bedlow saying thus. ‖ i saw him register colemauys letter to his studjl , whilst coleman and i walk●●● in his chamber ; when as all knew ( as he hints in his * memoires ) that 't is impossible to see one out of his chamber writing in his study . mr. langhorn being askt , † what he had to say to all this , answer'd , ‖ that he had been a close prisoner from the seventeenth of october , and never convers'd with any friend to tell him news , nor could he fore-see what these men would testify ; so that the main of his defence was to lessen their evidence , and thereupon he called the 19 st. omer's witnesses , &c. who proved as before , both oates his being constantly at st. omers from december to june , and that sir thomas ●reston , sir john warner , &c. were not in england either in april or may. but here the court too 〈◊〉 great exceptions at the gardener of watten , who was a dutch man , and could scarce speak english , for being askt how he could be so ●onctual as to sir j. warners being there all april and may , and not so in july and other months . * he answer'd , because sir john , in the rector's absence ( who went then into england , ) supply'd his place ; that he did not take so much notice of him ( at other times : and besides , that the question that he came for , did fall in those moneths and not in july , &c. whereupon the court inferr'd ▪ that he had his part given him , and the rest , and consequently , that there was no credit to be given to them . now his meaning was this ( and every body was thought to understand him so ) viz. that all the world ringing by reason of the printed tryals and the like , with the noise , that sir john was at london in such and such moneths , he had reflected on the several circumstances in relation to the said months , and therefore could positively speak to them , when as for the others he never consider'd or dreamt of them . then mrs. grove and her maid a protestant appeared , who witness'd ‖ that oates never lay there , for they knew him not ; that all march , april , and may , the house was full of lodgers , whom they knew ; and that mrs. fitzherbert lay : then in that room which oates pretended was his ; but because the mistress ( being demanded who lay there in june and july ) answer'd ▪ that she was not to be examin'd further then april and may they were both slighted and dismist like the gardiner , though the maid positively * nam'd mrs fitzberbert as there then ; nor did mrs. grove mean any thing else by the words , but that april and may were the only months which oates pretended to , as lodging at her house . * after this , mr. langhorn call'd for the authentick copy of the record out of the lords house , which though it were in the beginning of his tryal granted not only by oates , but by the court also , that ( if he had one ) it should be † read , yet now 't was deny'd , and chief-justice north said ▪ ‖ it was unreasonable to think a man should be prepared to justify all he has sworn in his life ; besides 't was absolutely determin'd , that he should not prove even by † witnesses , what oates had said against him at another tryal ; which was thought very hard after this , came the mistress of the white-horse , a protestant also , † who said she had kept that tavern seven years , that she had never seen mr. oates before . that it was a small inconsiderable house , that there was no room would hold above a dozen , and that she remembers not so great a company at one time , unless at a parish jury , ‖ who were divided into three rooms : now oates fearing much this witness at first insisted on his priviledge of not answering to any question relating to a former tryal , and therefore would not tell the prisoner how many jesuits met here ; but the chief justice perswading him to speak ‖ he answer'd at last , about eighteen or twenty ( and not fifty reader , as formerly ) and that these were also , in two or three several rooms ; which not a few deem'd non-sense , and contrary to the nature of a consult ; for that requires that the members should be together ; and besides the meeting according to this rate comes but to about three clubs or colloquies ( as he calls them ) which were still kept ( according to his usual story ) in other places , the general randezvous being only here . but oates was soon comforted ; for upon the womans evidence there stood up one that attested , that there were rooms there , that would hold thirty ; and then another , that he was at a wedding there , where dined above twenty , and so she made her exit like the rest , and retir'd . but this ended not thus ; for after the tryal , several went to view this so much talkt of tavern , and though it 's back part be rebuilt since april 78. yet the jesuits famous room still remains , being about four yards and a half square , and consequently not able with any convenience to contain above a dozen ; no wonder therefore , if people can hardly comprehend how such a number of polititians could meet there ; or why they should choose the poorest tavern in all london or westminster , and where every extraordinary company , must necessarily be taken notice of ; i say people cannot comprehend this , and especially they that knew mr. white 's , mr. hartcourt's , and mr. ireland's chambers , either of which ( besides the us doubtless of the respective houses , upon any extraordinary occasion ) is almost twice as big as the pretended one , and would have been 100 times more convenient to all intents and purposes whatsoever . after this , the prisoner askt oates about his distributing the commissions who averred , that * he ( the said prisoner ) had told him in july or august , that he had distributed them , which ▪ mr. langhorn urg'd to be quite contrary to his former oath ▪ as having sworn in coleman's tryal , † that he never saw him after the day in april , when he brought him the result , and particulars of that grand meeting as aforesaid . but this home charge came to nothing , because there were no witnesses ready to prove it viva voce ; for as to the print , ( though publisht by the chief ▪ justice . ) it was refus'd , since a man was not ( as ‖ mr. justice pemberton answer'd ) to be convicted by a history . the prisoner urged again the record of the lords house , which could shew , that bedlow had there sworn , * that he had no persons more to accuse either in or out of the house ▪ than those he had already mention'd ; so that he mr. langhorn , not being one of them , the said bedlow must be perjur'd ; but this was deny'd him , as was also the hearing of witnesses to prove , that bedlow had own'd in mr. reading's tryal , that he had formerly minc't his evidence against mr. whitebread , which was plain perjury , since he then swore , to speak the whole . truth , as well as nothing but truth . mr. langhorn ( though he thought he had hard measure ) patiently acquiest , for he was a very quiet and modest man ; and then the court called the witnesses that proved ( in the preceding tryal ) oates's being here in april ; but all of them in some material thing or other ‖ varied from their former depositions ; for , walker the minister ( finding it necessary to advance in his computation about the time when he drew oates the next morning within the scheme of his knowledge ( as he worded it in the former tryal ) tells us now , † that he believes it was in april , and towards the middle of it , though in the said former tryal he made it every whit as likely to be in the ‖ latter end of march ; and yet half april could not then serve ( you see ) oates his turn . but cicily mayo on the contrary ( finding it as necessary to shorten her time ) will have it , * that it was a matter of a fortnight before whitsuntide ( as she remembers ) when she saw oates at the doctor 's ; & yet before , she not only depos'd , that it was the week before whit suntide ( or may the 19 ) but that he came again to them a week after . as for the doctor or knight himself ( who was to assure the court that his servants told him of oates his visits ) he now tells us , that he was then sick in the * countrey , whereas before he swears in these words , ‖ at that time ( says he ) that they have given in evidence , i was abroad , as my business leads me often abroad into the countrey ; and then he add's a little after , that upon the visit of a gentleman he fell ill , in which time oates was gone , but upon his recovery ( to wit in june or july ) he came to enquire for dr. tongue : so that if the said doctor or knight were sick and out of town from february , to whitsun week or latter end of may , as his * coach-man and † he both now depose , what becomes of his boy page's testimony , that remembred ( the day before ) oates to have been at his masters in the beginning of may , because his said master had a patient in ‖ i slington sick of a feavor ; nay , what shall be thought of the said doctor himself , who ( to vouch the boy , and to satisfy the jury ) swore then , that that patient of his was * aldram milvers daughter , when as here we find him not in the country about his business , but under the care of doctor needham , and to be a patient himself by his own confession for a great many weeks together . the school-master's also shewd that he understood his business ; for having well consider'd mr. gavans late inferences , he swore at present only , that it was on the first munday in may , * to the best , for sooth , of his remembrance , and , as he takes it ; which are expressions far different from the words yes i do , when ▪ the judge askt him , ‖ if he swere positively and directly . as for clay the old priest , he was confronted by mr. charles howard ( the duke of norfolks brother ) who was only examin'd , though his wife and two servants were also present to attest , that oates was never with them after april 77 , till july , 78. nor were these the sole witnesses that were past by ; for it had often happened thus both in this and the jesuits tryal , there being above 30 , who never came to their examinations , either for want of hearing or of being called . now because mr. howard fear'd his testimony in court might be alter'd by the writers of the tryal , he gave the following account to several of his friends , under his own hand , one of which came accidentally into mine : nay he sent one to oates himself , to the end no foul play might be us'd with him . an account of what the honourable charles howard said at the old baily , june , 14. 1679. as he attest's under his own hand . june , 14. 1679. at the old baily i'was examin'd how long i had been acquainted with mr. oates , and at what times i had seen him ? i answered , that i had bin acquainted with him two years or something more , that i did see him in arundel house , in april 1677. that upon the fifth day of may following my son charles died . and that i have another son living ; that after that time i did not see dr. oates until the third day of july , 1678. that after the said third of july , mr. clay did see dr. oates with me at arundel house in my chamber , and not before in my sight , but how many times i do not remember . that possibly mr. clay might see dr. oates before i did , but as to that , i could say nothing . charles howard . besides , it must be remembred , that mr. howard ( above a moneth before ) had bin examin'd by a committee of the lords about this business , in the presence of clay and oates , where he satisfy'd their lordships so well by the time of his son charles's death ( who had ( as he told the said lords ) bin examin'd or posed by oates in april 77 ) and by many other circumstances concerning the whole matter , that clay himself confest he might be mistaken in time , and that since mr. howard ( who had a better memory than he , ) sayd oates was not at his house in april 78. he would no longer gainsay it , or words to that purpose . mr. langhorn being found guilty , was condemned with the five jesuits that very day , and on the fourteenth of july he was drawn to tyburn , where he publickly declar'd his innocence , as appears by the following speech , which he left written under his own hand . mr. langhorns's written speech , and prologue . in regard i could not foresee whether i should be permitted to speak at my death , so as to make a publick declaration of my innocence and loyalty , as a christian ought to do ; considering likewise , that if it should be permitted unto me , it would be more advisable for me rather to prepare before hand , and set down in writing the very words in which i should make my declaration , than to trust my memory with them ; to the end that the same may be well considered of , and digested by me , and that all mistakes might be prevented , as far as may be : i say , in regard of this , i have in the present paper reduced what i have to declare , as to my innocence and loyalty ; and 't is in these following words . i do solemnly and sincerely , in the presence of almighty god , profess , testify and declare , as followeth : that is to say , 1. that i do with my heart and soul , believe and own my most gracious soveraign lord , the kings majesty , king charles the second , to be my true and lawful soveraign , prince and king , in the same sence and latitude , to all intents and purposes , as in the oath commonly called , the oath of allegiance , his said majesty is expressed to be king of this realm of england . 2. that i do in my soul believe , that neither the pope , nor any prince , potentate , or forreign authority , nor the people of england , nor any authority out of this kingdom , or within the same , hath or have any right to dispossess . his said majesty of the crown or government of england , or to depose him therefrom , for any cause or pretended cause whatsoever , or to give licence to me , or to any other of his said ma●esties subjects whatsoever , to bear arms against his said majesty , or to take away his life , or to do him any bodily harm , or to disturb the government of this kingdom , as the same is now established by law , or to alter , or go about to alter the said government , or the religion now established in england , by any way of force . 3. that i neither am , nor ever was , at any time or times , guilty so ( much as in my most secret thoughts , of any treason , or misprision of treason whatsoever . 4. that i did not in the month of november , or at any other time or times whatsoever , say unto mr. oates , or unto any other person or persons whatsoever , in relation to my sons in spain , or either of them , or in relation to any other person or persons whatsoever , that if they did continue in the world , ( as secular priests , of otherwise ) they should suddenly have great promotions in england , for that things would not last long in the posture wherein they then were ; nor did i ever say any words to that or the like effect to any person or persons whatsoever . 5. that i did never in all my life-time write any letter , or other thing whatsoever , unto , or receive any letter or other thing , from father la chese , or any french jesuit whatsoever , or from father . anderton , or cardinal barbarino ; or any other cardinal ; nor did i ever see any letter , or the copy of any letter , or other paper , or other thing , written or purporting to be written unto the said la chese , or unto the said father anderton , or the said cardinal barbarina , by any person or persons whatsoever , other than the printed letters , printed in the narrative of the trial of mr. coleman , lately executed , which i never saw otherwise than in the said printed narrative ; nor did i ever hear any mention made by any person whatsoever of the name of la chese , or father la chese , before i read the said printed narrative . 6. that i did never in all my life-time make any entry or entries , into any book or books , or take , or make , or write , or cause to be written into any book or books , or otherwise any letter or letters , or any copy or copies of any letter or letters , written by the said edward coleman , to any person or persons whatsoever . 7. that i did never in all my life-time enter or register into any book or books , paper or papers whatsoever , or take , or make , or write , or cause to be written , any copy or copies , of any act or acts , consult or consults , determination or determinations , order or orders , resolve or resolves , or other matter or thing , at any time made , determined , resolved , passed , decreed or agitated , at any congregation or congregations , consult or consults , chapter or chapters , assembly or assemblies , of the society or order of the jesuits , or of any other religions order whatsoever ; nor did i ever see , read , or heard read , nor did any person or persons , at any time whatsoever , ever communicate unto me , any such act , consult , determination , order , resolve , matter or thing whatsoever . 8. that i did never in all my life-time , to my knowledg , belief or remembrane , see or speak with mr. bedloe , who gave evidence against me at my tryal , until i saw him in that court wherein he gave evidence against me . 9. that after the moneth of november , which was in the year of our lord 1677. i did never see or speak with mr. titus oates before named , until i saw him in the same court where he gave evidence against me at my tryal . 10. that i did never see in all my life-time , to my knowledge , belief or remembrance , any commission or commissions , pattent or patents , grant or grants , order or orders , instrument or instruments , writing or writings , or other matter or thing whatsoever , under , or pretended to be under the hand and seal , or the hand or the seal of johannes paulus de oliva , or any other general of the jesuits whatsoever , other then the paper or instrument produced and shewed unto me in the said court at my tryal , which whether it was signed or sealed by the said de oliva , i do not know . 11. that i did never in all my life-time write , or cause or procure to be written , any treasonable letter or letters whatsoever , or any thing which was or is treason , or treasonable in any letter or letters , book or books , paper or papers , or otherwise howsoever . 12. that i believe , that if i did know , or should know of any treason or treasonable design , that was or is intended , or should be intended , against his said majesty , or the government of this his majesties kingdom , or for the alteration by force , advice or otherwise , of the said government , or of the religion now established in this kingdom , and should conceal and not discover the same unto his said majesty , or his said majesties council or ministers or some of them ; that such concealment would be in me a sin unto death , and eternal damnation . 13. that i do believe , that it is no ways lawful for me to lye , or speak any thing which i know to be untrue ; or to commit any sin , or do any evil , that good may come of it . and that it is not in the power of any priest , or of the pope , or of god himself , to give me a licence to lie , or to speak any thing which i know to be untrue , because every such lye would be a sin against truth : and almighty god , who is perfect truth , cannot give me a license to commit a sin against his own essence . and i do solemnly in the presence of god , profess , testify and declare , that as i hope for salvation , and expect any benefit by the blood and passion of my dearest saviour jesus christ , i do make this declaration and protestation and every part thereof in the plain and ordinary sense , wherein the same stands written , as they are commonly understood by english protestants and the courts of justice of england without any evasion , or equivocation , or delusion , or mental reservation whatsoever . and without any dispensation or pardon , or absolution already granted to me , for this or any other purpose by the pope or any other power , authority or person whatsoever , or , without any hope , expectation or desire of any such dispensation ; and without thinking or believing that i am or can be acquitted before god or man , or absolved of this declaration or any part thereof , although the pope or any other person or persons , or power or authority whatsoever should dispence with , or take upon him or them to dispence with , or annul the same , or declare that it was , or is , or ought to be null or void in part , or in the whole , from the beginning , or otherwise howsoever . having made this declaration and protestation in the most plain terms that i can possibly imagin to express my sincere loyalty and innocency , and the clear intention of my soul , i leave it to the judgment of all good and charitable persons whether they will believe what is here in this manner affirmed and sworn by me in my present circumstances , or what is sworn by my accusers . i do now farther declare , that i die a member ( though an unworthy one ) of that holy catholick and apostolick church of christ , mentioned in the three holy and publick creeds of which church our lord jesus ▪ christ is the invisible head of influence , to illuminate , guide , protect ▪ and govern it by his holy spirit and grace , and of which church , the bishop of rome , as the successor of st. peter , the prince of the apostles , is the visible head of government and unity . i take it to be clear , that my religion is the sole cause , which moved my accusers to charge me with the crime , for which upon their evidence i am adjudged to die , and that my being of that religion , which i here prosess , was the only ground which could give them any hope to be believed , or which could move my ju●●y to believe the evidence of such men . i have had not only a pardon , but also great advantages , as to preferments and estates offered unto me , since this judgment was against me , in case i would have forsaken my religion , and owned my self guilty of the crime charged against me , and charged the same crimes upon others : but blessed be my god , who by his grace hath preserved me from yeilding to those temptations , and strengthened me rather to choose this death , than to stain my soul with sin , and to charge others , against truth , with crimes , of which i do not know that any person is guilty . having said what concerns me to say as to my self , i now humbly beseech god to bless the kings majesty with all temporal and eternal blessings , and to preserve him and his government from all treasons and traitors whatsoever , and that his majesty may never fall into such hands , as his royal father of glorious memory fell into . i also humbly beseeh thee ( o god ) to give true repentance and pardon to all my enemies , and most particularly to the said mr. oates and mr. bedloe , and to all who have been any ways accessary to the taking away of my life , and the shedding of my innocent blood , or to the preventing the king's mercy from being extended unto me ; and likewise to all those who rejoyced at the judgment given against me , or at the execution of the said judgment ; and to all those who are or shall be so unchristianly uncharitable , as to disbelieve , and to refuse to give credit unto my now protestations . and i beseech thee ( o my god ) to bless this whole nation , and not to lay the guilt of my blood unto the charge of this nation , or of any other particular person or persons of this nation . unite all ( o my god ) unto thee and thy church , by true faith , hope , and charity , for thy mercies sake . and for all those who have shewed charity to me , i humbly beg ( o my jesus ) that thou wilt reward them with all blessings both temporal and eternal . 13 july , 1679. r. langhorn . mr. langhorns's speech at the time of execution . when the hangman was putting the rope over his head , he took it into his hands , and kissed it . afterwards he said : i would gladly speak to mr. sheriff how ; who coming up to him he addressed himself thus : mr. sheriff . i having some doubt , whether i should be suffered to speak , in relation to my innocency and loyalty , i did , for that reason , prepare what i had to say , and what i intended to say in writing , and it is delivered into your hands , mr. sheriff ; and therefore for the particular and precise words and expressions , i do refer my self to that , and i hope you will be so just to my memory , that you will permit it to be seen . i shall therefore make only a short preface , and i do declare , in the presence of the eternal god , and as i hope to be saved by the merits and death of my dear jesus , that i am not guilty directly or indirectly , of any crime that was sworn against me ; i do not speak this to arraign the court of publick justice , either judges or jury , but those men that did swear it ; and the jury had liberty to believe , or not believe , as they pleased ; and i do like wise say , with the same averrment , that i did never in my life see any commission or patent , or any writing , or any other thing , under the hand of johannes paulus de oliva . &c. s. nor under no other hand . ? l. no , nor under any other hand , of any commission or patents , for the raising of an army , or any thing else against the king. s. what was the patent for ? for nothing ! l. i never saw any , nor do i believe there was any : and whereas i have read in a narrative , that i sent a commission by my son , to the lord arundel of warder , and that i delive'rd another to the lord petre ( or petres ) with my own hands , i take god to witness , that i never knew him in my life , or ever , to my knowledge , saw the face of that lord ; nor did i send or know of any thing that was sent to my lord arundel of warder , of that nature . s. shorten your business , you have , mr. langhorn , and your party , so many ways to equivocate , and after absolution you may say any thing . l. i refer my self to that paper i gave you , mr. sheriff . s. i think it is not fit to be printed . i will do you no wrong . l. i do not think you will. s. you have already printed a paper , or some body for you . l. sir , i did not print it , and it was done without any direction or permission of mine . the lord preserve his majesty from all manner of treason , and preserve him from falling into such hands , as his royal father , of glorious memory , fell under ; i pray god forgive my enemies , as i freely do those that accused me , those that witnessed against me ; and all others that either desired my blood , or rejoyce at the shedding of it ; and all persons that have any ways concern'd themselves with me , i freely forgive them with all my soul , and beg my dear jesus to forgive them , and all others . god almighty bless you , and bless the whole nation , and the government , and preserve it from all evil and mischief that i am afraid is coming on it , for the shedding of innocent blood. sweet jesus , lay not my innocent blood to their charge . i shall say no more now publickly . asked the executioner , whether the rope was right or no ? he said , yes ; and he asked him , whether he did forgive him ? to which mr. langhorne said , i freely do . i shall now recommend my self to god in private . s. you may have liberty . the writer . the lord have mercy on your soul. l. the lord in heaven reward your charity . crost himself , pray'd again . blessed jesus , into thy hands i recommend my soul and spirit , now at this instant take me into paradice ; i am desirous to be with my jesus ; i am ready , and you need stay no longer for me . concerning sr. george wakeman , mr. corker , mr marsh , alias marshal , and mr. rumley . these were tryed at the old bayley on the 18. of july , against whom dugdale first appearing , repeats his former story of his knowing long ago somthing of the ‖ plot , but more particularly , about two years since ; that the killing of the king ▪ and duke of monmouth was told him by the * priests and my l'd. stafford . that hartcourts letters ( besides others ) were ever directed to him , frought with the business of the plot ; that he open'd many of them privately , and that he kept those , he could not handsomly seal again ; which reader , infinitly amaz'd the auditory , as not being able to imagin , why if he were such a privado , he should play such tricks with his fellows , and especially when there was no design or advantage in it ; for he had not one of them to produce , as the ‖ prisoners urg'd ; nor could any body comprehend how the conspirators themselves should have letters of such concern intercepted , and not be presently in an uproar . then he said * that sr. james symons , mr. howard , mr. gerard and mr. adderley were to be officers in the army which was to be rais'd ; that he saw st. omer acquittances of july last , of the payment of the money for this affair ; that in a letter directed to him , there was also caution given . that no rumor should be of armes , or any thing else , till the king were dispatch'd ; but he could not now recollect , either who wrot it , or its date , or from whence it came , and yet 't was brought by the ‖ common post ; all which seem'd very strange to the court , nor did the prisoners ( besides the other mad assertions ) fail often to insist upon this letter , so that † dugdal ( being perplex'd & confounded ) was forc'd to run to another ( forsooth ) brought by a particular messenger , and communicated also to my lord aston , which at last prov'd as wild and odd as the former ; for it came he said , from paris , and from sr. john warner as he thinks , promising them not only all assistance , but advising them also to lay the kings murther on the king-killing presbiterians , which would make the church of england joyn with the papists , to cut them off ; and that my lord stafford , bellasis , and arundel did approve of this advice , by setting their very * hands to it , which reader was incredible . moreover he affirmed ( besides the notice of sr. e. godfreys death as before ) that my lord stafford ( who came down about july last ) offer'd him ‖ 500 l. as a present encouragement for killing the king , and to be received at his arrival at london in october ; that they had all a great confidence in him ; for he had bin free of his purse in giving the priests † 400 l. secur'd upon lands , and 100 l. more on promise ; a passage * mr. corker made sport with , as thinking it very pleasant and prety , for him to give 500 l. with one hand , for the promotion of the cause , and then for encouragement , to receive as much with the other . nor had d●gdal any better reply ready , than that my lord stafford ( he supposes ) knew not of the money given before by him ; which was far from answering the difficulty , why such a zealot as he should have encouragement for his bare personal help , even out of the present publick stock , especially when he ‖ confesses , the contributions were so backward , that mr. peter ' s complain'd to him of it . but the evidence that made the most mirth , both then and since , was mr. whites letter , sent by the common post ( as he also mentions in the former tryal ) to command mr. evers in express terms , to choose hardy persons to kill the king ; for the * expedient in case letters did miscarry ( which made not a few laugh outright ) was , that he the said dugdal should be the only person hang'd ; the jesuits having , ( as he assures the ‖ court so devised it , that they never subscib'd but two letters of their names , and the packet being directed to him , he was upon all accidents to deny it , and to observe the secrecy , ( which they had at least ten times sworn him to ) and then they could not be discover'd ( he said ) but must go ‖ free , seeing all was flung upon him . this evidence being thus without either head or taile , rhyme , or reason , the king's counsel told the prisoners . that it was not to affect any in particular , but to prove the plot in general , whereupon † sr. g. wakeman readily answered , that it was the worst made out , that ever any thing was , he believes . ●rance therfore being next , repeats also his old tale , ‖ and among the particulars , of my lord arundel's butler's acquainting him that the king was to be killed by mr. messenger and then mr. messenger's answering him afterwards in surprize when he found ●rance knew it , that they were now off the business : and then he adds as new , that mr. paston told him , that sr. henry benningfield mr. stoner , and mr. talbot of long-ford had commissions to to raise an army , which was to be govern'd by the ld's bellasis , powis , and peters , as g●ove assur'd him , whilst he was buying silver spoons of him for a christning . then stood up a new witness , to wit , mr. robert jennison , who said , * that mr. ireland told him in june 78 , ( his sister anne ireland being by , ) that there was hope of the restauration of their religion ; that only one stood in the gap ; and that it was easie to poyson the king : that he ( the said witness ) call'd it a horrid action ; that mrs ireland did rebuke her brother for talking so , who answered , that he thought it ought not to be done ; that mr. jennison reply'd that violence would never do the thing , it being a scandal to their religion , as appear'd by the gun-powder plot , which mr. ireland said , was a state-trick and cicils invention . that he was then a papist though now a protestant ; † that he went to windsor on saturday the 17th of august ; that on monday the 19th , he return'd about noon , and then positively saw mr. ireland in his chamber in russel street pulling off his boots as newly come from staffordshire . that mr. ireland ( upon his the said mr. jenison's telling him , that the king in his fishing divertisements at windsor had usually but three or four with him , ) answer'd ‖ he wondred he went with so few , for he might easiely be taken off ; that he reply'd , god forbid ; which mr. ireland qualifieing , he made no ill reflections on it , 'till after the discovery of the plot , and then speaking of it to his father and sisters ( for he went hence homewards on the 4th of september ) he said , to them , pray god there be nothing in the plot , for 't is suspitious by reason of my cousin ireland's discourse ; besides he writ ( as he pretends ) on the 19th of december last a letter of these particulars to one * mr. bowes , who produc'd it in court , and is since printed in mr. chetwins † narrative , where he declares , that all that he lays hold on in the kings then proclamation ( for the encouragement of discoverers ) was pardon for concealing the aforesaid circumstances ; for 't is all he can tell , as he hopes for the forgiveness of his sins , and eternal salvation ; nor did he ever hear ( as he hopes for life everlasting , ) either mr. ireland or any of them defend or maintain in the least , the damnable doctrine of , deposing kings , which made him have no ill opinion then of the expressions . one circumstance ( he says ) there is more , which has ( considering the times ) an ill sound with it , ‖ and then he will have clear'd his soul ; the circumstances is , that mr. ireland said ' twice or thrice at their parting , that he had some business to communicate to him , but when he urg'd him to tell it , he answer'd , he would take some other occasion to do it , but never did . thus , is seen , what this witness has said , or can credibly say as to this business ; for he that in a letter or otherwise , will with imprecations and oaths declare , he has no more to say to a thing , is upon any further evidence as much a perjur'd man in conscience , ( and consequently as little to be believed ) as he that deviating from his recorded despositions in a court of judicature , has been therefore punish'd with his ears as the law orders and awards . now that you may also know what this person is , i must tell you his father is a gentleman in durham of about 500 a year at most ; he is the eldest son as to the estate , in case his brother thomas ( who they say is a priest ) turns not protestant after his example ; so that his temporal gain depends wholly on the spiritual loss , and popish blindness of the other ; who ( by the way ) is reputed a very notable and quick sighted scholar in all learning , and yet is as unfit a man , ( i 'le assure you ) for a plot of this nature , as ever was ; and truely so most of the conspirators have been . his father sent the aforesaid robert a while agoe ( with a small allowance ) to greys inn to study the law , but instead of it , he has learn'd to run in debt , and is a proficient to that degree ( as all that know him can testifie ) , that no body would longer trust him , and therefore was forc'd to pawn all the little necessaries he had . besides he has had a mother in law , by whom his father has a very plentifull stock of children , and consequently want's no heirs ; nay there is a third brother , besides daughters by the first venter , so that considering his late life and other accidents , neither oates nor bedlow had more need of their present employment and profession than he . as for his knowledge of the plot , or of mr. ireland's being here , take this short account ; that at easter last , ( the lords providing for their tryal ) summon'd by an order of the house several persons of quality out of staffordshire , as witnesses of mr. ireland's being there all august ; and among them madam harwell mr. jennison's aunt , his cousin her daughter , and others of his acquaintance came to town , whom he often visited , and show'd them also letters newly received from his brother thomas in new-gate , which mention'd several witnesses that could prove him in lincolnshire and else where in the countrey , whilst oates in his narrative says he was at consults here in london : nor did mr. robert fail of railing at the said oates and bedlow , and the rest of the cabal for their villainy ; and was so far from pretending then , that mr. ireland was in town on the 19th of august , that he knew his said relations were come purposely to prove him with them that very day ; nay ( on the 13 of june , or the jesuits tryal ) he came to the three cranes among the crow'd of witnesses , and even usher'd into court his young cousin harwell to that very end , who ( besides several others ) * averr'd ( as it appears in the print ) that mr. ireland was to her knowledge every day ( but the 23th . ) in her mothers house , from the 17th of august to the 26th , the time he returned to tixhal . let the world therefore judge , what a witness he is ; and moreover it can , and shall be made appear by two and twenty persons ( many of them of quality , and many also protestants ) that mr. ireland was on the said 19th with his aunt in hampton , as i now mention'd . the like ill luck also befell sarah paine , who pitch't ( as you have seen ) on the 12 of this month , as the day of her saluting mr. ireland in town ; for then he was in the midst of his holy well journey with 35 in company , as my lady southcot and her family with several others of note and fashion will witnesse . here it was , that the king's council admonish'd the prisoners , † that now it would behove them to take notes , ( as if , reader , hector himself with all his god's were at hand ) and they no longer to be dallied with : whereupon oates being called he began at the first onset with the most stupendious circumstance that ever was heard of ; for he deposed , that mr. ash●y arriving here ill from st omers in july , sir george order'd him to go to the bath , and sending him a letter of physical instructions how to govern himself ( viz to take a pint of milk every morning , and as much at night , and 100 stroakes of the pump ) he ( the said sir george ) mention'd in it , not only , poysoning the king , ‖ but that the queen would also assist him in it . then he proceed's saying , that he knew this to be sir george's hand by another letter a day or two after , which could not be but his , for sir george had it before him in a writing posture , and he saw him put by the pen , and found the ink not yet dry , nor was there any body else to write , mr. ashby being lame . that oates heard ashby talk to him of the commission he had received of being physitian to the army ; that presently there came one sir richard or sir robert ( a brisk man , about 45 years old ) to call father keines , langworth , fenwick , hartcourt , and another to wait on her majesty at somersethouse ; that oates accompany'd them , and staying in the anti-chamber whilst they went into her room , he heard a woman , ( after expressing much zeal for her religion and the violation of her bed ) say , that she would assist sir george in poysoning the king ; that when the fathers came out , he ( oates ) desir'd to see the queen , who gave him a gracious smile , and spoke to mr. hartcourt in the former voice about 1000 l. nor did he see there any other woman ; and reader you may easily imagine how ridiculous this stuff seem'd to every body ; that a lady eminent in vertue , should not only make such a declaration in a publick consult , ( for the resolves of all consults are known at one time or other ) but also in the hearing of such a pittiful wretch as oates , who could help neither her nor any body else in any part of the plot more than the first kennel raker you meet with . after this , he tells the court , that he heard ashby ( in express terms ) offer sir george 10000 l. to poyson the king , which he refus'd , as too little for so great a work. * that mr. white sent to offer him 5000 l. more , which he accepted and received ; for he saw it thus register'd in the jesuits entry book , ( which langhorn sometimes kept ) , mem. the — day of august 15000 l. was proposed to sir george wakeman ; and then under it was written . received of mr. hartcourt by the order of ed. coleman 5000 l. in part . g. w. now reader he that can swallow such a register , or such unnecessary , and unheard of entrys , and memorandums , let him him never for the future think any thing either romantick , or sottish . as for † mr. corker , he say'd he had a patent , which oates saw in his hand to be bishop of london ; that he , being ‖ president of the benedictines , did consent to the raising of the 6000 l. contributed by them . that he heard mr. corker dislike the choice of pickering to kill the king ; * because he commonly attended upon the altar , and might miss an opportunity by being at high mass ; that mr. marshall knew of pickering's design ; and that he went * halves with coniers that the king should eat no more mince pies . that mr. rumley was privy to the giving of 6000 l. that he saw mr. marshall at the consult in august ; but mr. marshall asking him what day , he answer'd , ‖ ●twas a great priviledge he named the moneth . at last with much ado , he said , ' t was either the day before , or day after the ( 15th or ) assumption . whereupon mr. marshal answer'd with heat and briskness , now he hath avouch'd this positively ; so that oates fearing the consequence , cry'd ; nay i will not be positive , and continu'd so all along as good as his word ; only he said , that the benedictin consult , in which they had an account from a. b● . talbot of the irish affaires , was positively on the ‖ one and twentyeth if it fell on a wednesday , as it did ; which contradicts his former depositions ( and therefore he is not to be blam'd if he refuses to be positive ) for in mr. whites tryal , he fixes the † consult about sending the 80l . to the ruffians on this day ; and yet those two consults are by his account on different dayes all along . bedlo succeeding oates said , ‖ that being at mr. harcourts about the beginning of august , sir george came in angry and discontented at put offs , and askt mr. h. if he had any thing for him ; who after some words gave him a bill of 2000 l. saying , it was brought him by a gentleman . ( whose name bedlo had forgotten ▪ ) who received it from such a one , that said it was by the queen's order ; that the bill was charg'd on a goldsmith's ( as he thinks ) neer st denstans , but his name he had forgotten also ; that sir george upon reading the bill said●he found more encouragement from his good mistress than from all the rest ; * that sir george asking mr. hartcourt ▪ who bedlo was , answered , a friend long engaged in our business , and is to do the next great work ; which bedlo thought a sufficient answer to sir george's wonder , † that upon the first sight of a man he should discover such high and dangerous secrets . nay after sir george's protesting he had never seen bedlo before his now appearing in court , for he had too remarkable a face ( he said ) to be forgotten , bedlo replyed , that sir george was his physician three years before at the bath ; which by the premisses ( reader ) is absolutely false you see ; for how could sir george ask hartcourt now , who he was , or bedlo need mr. hartcourts character , if there had been such an ‖ acquaintance between them formerly , as he pretends ? bedlo moreover says , * that presently after this discourse in mr. hartcourts chamber , ‖ sir george told him the said bedlo near the temple , that the bill was accepted and would be paid in the afternoon , † that upon asking hartcourt a while after , he told him , that he the said hartcourt had made up the former summ , 5000 , l. it being for the old business ; for , if they should fail at windsor , then this way was to be taken , and if this fail , they should be sure to do it at new-market ; and that so was the discourse with sir george . that he had heard corker speak of a design , army &c , and of letters he had receiv'd from beyond sea in relation to it ; ‖ that mr. marshall was one that knew the affairs ; that he communicated all to sir francis ratcliff , and used to be one of the club that saw and examin'd the letters he brought . that for * mr. rumley , he heard he was one employ'd , when secret letters were sent into the countrey , and so knew of the plot. here sir george , asking bedlo , ( what day he had this bill , he answer'd , he had no dispensations ( as formerly ) to lie , and had no delight to damn his soul , and therefore could only tell him , it was in the beginning of august or thereabouts , nor remembred he any names but those relating to his business . now when the evidence came to be stated , the ‖ c. justice said , that bedlo had heard ( t is true ) doubtfull words told sir george , but that hartcourt had not fully spoken of the business to him in the said bedlow's presence ; so that in effect 't was no more than , that sir george receiv'd from hartcourt a bill , he know's not upon whom , nor for what . but bedlow being call'd to repeat his former evidence and finding now where he had been too short , ‖ declar'd , that hartcourt ( † in one intire discourse ) said in his hearing to sir george , this is to be well followed and closely observ'd , because so much depends on it , for if we should miss to kill him at windsor , or you miss in your way , we will do it at new-market . this impudent and notorious addition ; for if there were any hint of such a design in bedlow's before recited evidence , it was ( you see ) only in doubtful words , or as a thing told bedlo by hartcourt ; i say this impudent and notorious addition amaz'd the c. justice and most of the auditory ; but when sir george saw that some seem'd in earnest to allow it , and consider'd the fate of all that had been yet tryed , he turn'd himself to his fellow-prisoners , and with a disdainfull smile said , there is my business done ; but resolving nevertheless not to die a mute , he and they fell to their defence , the main of which is as follows . first sir george proved by the present mayor of bath ( his apothecary , ) * who had read ( and his son did the like ) the letter of directions for mr. ashby ; that there was not the least mention of the † king or queen besides the baths called by their names . that he had the ‖ physical part still by him , having torn it off the * bottom of the said letter , and that milk was ridiculous , and never prescribed by any physitian . oates being thus pinch'd , would fain have the milk to be mr. ashby's direction in town , before his going to the bath , and that there were then two letters . to this † sir george reply'd that it was non sense to think he should write ‖ two letters of directions for the same man at the same place ; and that mr. ashby went to the bath presently after the writing of them ; so that what he had order'd was for him there , which he prov'd by young madam heningham , and his man hunt ; for he attested , that his * master coming in late and weary , and understanding by him that mr. ashby was going next day to the bath , the said sir george made the witness write his directions ( mrs. heningham being also all the while present , who averr'd the same ) and that he carried them that very night to mr. ashby ; nor was there any mention of milk , only mr. ashby told him the said hunt , that a friend had advised , him to drink it . besides † sir george told the court , that oates at his first examination before the king and council , declar'd , he never saw him , and consequently could not see him write , that he charg'd him there so slightly that the board thought it not fit so much as to commit him . ‖ that he had his liberty 24 days after his being accus'd before the council ▪ that when oates had accus'd him a new at the common's bar , the lords ( as appear's by the journal ) examin'd oates about this very pretended letter ; and when the chancellor askt him , if he knew sir george his hand , he answered , no ; and that he only knew it was his letter by being subscrib'd , george wakeman ; which is ( reader ) directly contrary to his present charge . then sir philip lloyd being called by sir george , he said , * that on the 31 of september , oates declared in council , that fenwick writ to st omers , that sir george had undertaken to poyson the king for 15000 l. of which 5000 l. was paid by coleman ; that sir george deny'd the thing , and demanded reparation ; that the board not likeing his carriage , the chancellor askt oates , if he knew any thing personally more than by hear say , desiring a sufficient ground for a commitment ; that he lifting up his hands , answer'd , no ; god forbid i should say any thing against sir george , for i know nothing more against him ; and the said sir philip , for the truth of what he attested , appeal'd to the whole board . to this killing stroak and unquestionable evidence ; for every body knew sir philip durst not for his head have asserted a false thing , since the council ( before whom oates had depos'd ) would have certainly question'd him ; i say to this killing stroak , oates had no other answer , but his former to coleman , that he was weak by his two nights fatigue , and that he was not † compos mentis : whereupon the c. justice replyed ‖ that it requir'd not much strength to say he saw a letter under sir george's hand ; which was a plain and full answer also to * sir tho. doleman , who witness'd , that oates was in a very weak and feeble condition at the council ; for can any body ( reader ) life up his hands , and cry , god forbid i should say more than i know , and yet be so feeble as not to be able to say , i know he has written treason in a letter ? now when oates saw this foolish excuse would not do , he openly cry'd ; it was such a council as would commit no body ; which was not only a most rascally reflection , ( and for it the court reprehended him ) but a most notorious lye , since they secur'd every body , whom he personally accus'd ; i say this was not only a reflection , and a lie , but enough to perjure him also ; for if he thought that this partial councel would not secure sir george , then he has forsworn himself , by saying , that the remisness of his accusation proceeded from forgetfulness and lassitude . after this sir george desir'd that the record of the house of lords might be read , but the court † refus'd it , and then mr. corker began his plea. he told the court , ‖ that it was swearing with probable circumstances , that must render a man guilty and not a ridiculous charge by scandalous men ; for otherwise no-innocent person could ever escape an oates , or a bedlow , * that the record or lords journal shows that oates acknowledg'd he had nothing to say against any man but those already accused , and that his name was not there ; ‖ that when oates came to seize on mr. pickering , he & the officers ask't , who was in the house ? and when the names of mr. pickering , mr. corker , & mr. marshal were mention'd , they said they had nothing to do with any body but mr. pickering , as ellen rigby the house-maid attested ; which plainly mproves , that had mr. corker and mr. marsh been . traytors to oates his knowledge , they would have been apprehended also . that the said mr. corker was not president of the benedictines as oates had depos'd , and this he proved by three , to wit † madam sheldon , mrs broad-head and the said ellen rigby , who declared , that mr. stapleton was in that office , and had been so for many years . besides , this el. righby ( who had also with others attended the court the two former tryals ) witnest , ‖ that oates last summer came to their house a begging to pickerings , and that pickering bad her not let him come in any more ; which shew'd to all the court what a plotter oates was , being forc'd to beg even in the very heat of the plot , and contemn'd also by his pretended partisans . mr. marsh . added also ( and had the messenger in court ) ‖ that he sent for witnesses out of the countrey against his former tryal , and that they were then here to disprove oates's charge , but that neither his purse was sufficient to keep them , nor could their business permit them to come up upon any uncertainty ; bvt now the time being sure , if the court would respite his tryal for four days at most , they would be here he was confident . this being refus'd him , and the rest having done , he fell into an * harangue so pathetical , weighty , and moving , concerning the death of the former prisoners , and their present case , that it affected the whole assembly ; but it being thought at last reflecting , the c. justice gave him a reprimand , and then summing up the whole evidence he told the jury in short , ‖ that if they were satisfyd that oates and bedlo swore true , they would do well to find them guilty ; if otherwise to acquit them ; for they ought ( he said ) to consider their conscience , and not what the world would say . the jury then went out , resolving at the very first not to condemn them ; but two or three being timorous propos'd this expedient viz : to find it misprision , which they thought might satisfy the clamorous , and yet be no such great inconvenience to the prisoners , especially since the king 's merciful temper was known to every body . but the court declaring , that they must either be convicted of high-treason or discharg'd , they presently brought them in , not guilty ; for prance and dudgal ( the two collateral witnesses ) had made ( you see ) a most lamentable , and ( if possible ) a more ridiculous story of it then ever ; bedlo's impudent perjury , by his new and second evidenced ) was also so manifest and shocking that all good people abhorrd it ; and lastly oates his beggary ; his falsly accusing mr. corker of being president ; his ignorance of him and mr. marshall when pickering was apprehended ; and his not knowing either sir george , or his hand , ( as the said oates had himself declar'd to the council , and to the house of lords ) was so notorious , that no man could fear , that persons of repute and worth would do otherwise than they did ; and more especially since the scandalous and ill lives of these accusers were now written with a sun-beam , and no longer hidden from any body . an humble address to all worthy patriots , of what rank soever they be . having ( my lords and gentlemen ) given you this exact and short account of the late judicial proceedings ; for when should i have ended , had i not ( in spight of the continual follies that occurr'd ) forc'd my self to bounds ? i say , having given you this short account . i know not whether you are now more surpris'd ( for surpris'd i am sure you are ) at the strang incoherencies , nay , impossibilties , in the charge all along , or at the mighty weight of the defence , though the accusers themselves had bin men of repute and probity . for , after a sober and close consideration ( to which nothing can more conduce than an abstract , or compendium ) what have they lay'd at the dores of catholicks , that ▪ by its●monstrous and disagreeing parts , shows not it self to be wholly vain and chimerical ? or if any thing has at last bin reduc'd to the appearance of some little proportion , by the efforts , and skill of better artists , yet how has the positive testimony of so many vntainted persons still discover'd its defects , and consequently prov'd the whole as fabulous as before ? vntainted i call them , and with justice i may do it , who are not only masters of a reputation by law , but have also so liv'd among their neighbors and acquaintance , that their word has on all occasions bin as readily taken , as any body 's in the same rank and station ; when as there is not one witness against us , who has not either bin amost profligated wretch , by the unanimous consent of all that knew him , or given at least prognosticks by his poverty or temper , that the first opportunity would infallibly make him so . let us therefore consider a little the four props or pillars on which this scene of so much trouble , and distraction to the whole kingdom stands ; and having first taken a view of oates ; what can be said to his bare word , when i defy man-kind to produce any one of repute , who formerly knowing him , gave the least manner of credit to it ? do's not sir denny ashburnham ( a parliament man ) declare as much in * irelands trial ? and do not the ‖ records of hastings , and the order of council notoriously make it good ; for , being minister in that town , he accused young parker of sodomy , and attested it at the bar with all the oaths and impudence imaginable ; but the jury nevertheless brought in the prisoner not guilty , as remembring what an accuser he had , and understanding by their neigbours , that he was making merry with some of them at the very time of the pretended fact. this so enraged the very women of hastings ( as oates complain's in a bill of equity , drawn for his relief , after he was arrested by parker , in an ▪ action of the case ) that they stood at the hall dore with rods to whip him , and tubs of water to wash him when bloody , that so they might whip him again . did he not also accuse old parker the father ( thereby to hinder the son of all assistance ) of speaking scandalous and opprobrious words against the lords of the privy council ; which the king in person examining , ( as the then ‖ order testifies ) he forthwith graciously discharged the old man , having found by the certificats of the neigbouring justices , both his and oates's true caracter . infinite are his prancks of this nature in that very one place , and therefore , no wonder that such a witness should now ( in the house of lords ) swear , that mr. preston ( who is yet in prison upon that account ) was a priest , and his confessarius too ; when as the poor gentleman has not only a wife , and has lived in town with her these many years , even in the publick view of all catholicks , but has several at hand , that can prove the very marriage it self ? was not also his old pretended camarade ( mr. blundel , the jesuit ) taken by him with the like truth ? for the person is now found so far from being blundel ( and therefore one may plainly see how oates know's those he accuses ) that he is one of the caryls , who never went so much as by the name of blundel , nor has the least relation to the jesuits . there is no end of these kind of perjuries , as may be seen at first sight in his charge all along , and which by and by we shall again touch upon ; so that now we will treat a litle of bedlo , who by his former villainies has long agoe forfited all his lives , had he as many as cats are said to have . for does not every body know how he has taken upon him names of my l. cornwallis , gerard , nay of almost every body else ( whom accidents made to abscond ) the better to accomplish his pittiful tricks and designs ? has not mr. sanders of oxfordshire known this by experience ? how often has he bin forc'd to fly from chepstow by the officers of justice , that would have apprehended him ? was not captain spalding , ( the now governor there ) accus'd by him for a traytor , and papist ( though no man could shew a more constant zeal for the king and protestant religion , than he ) only because , he seis'd upon the horses he had stoln , as he would have done on him , had he not then gotten away by chance ? has he not committed a hundred late mean and wretched cheats here in london even for bread ? and has he not lain in ga●l ( as * books of the marshalsea , show us ) for seven mouths this very last year , and reduc'd also to the basket , though the spark were then ( forsooth ) every noble mans privado , and the great negotiator in the very plot ? h●s he not accus'd my lord brundel for a grand conspirator ( ●s his several depositions testify , and most particularly in the lords journal ) and yet , either his lordships conversion has made him as innocent as the child unhorn , or else his worship's testimony is lookt upon as false as it ought to be . but what shall we say of this unheard of , nay , childish perjury ; that whilst he was shirking ( as we see ) for a meer livelyhood , and dipt also in the plot ( as he pretends ) to the destruction of the king and government , he should scrupulously refuse 4000 l. to assist in the murther of sir e● . godfrey , and 2000 l. for carrying away his very body , which had not bin death , though known . but why should we wonder at any thing now , since a man could have the impudence to take his oath ( in a high court of judicature ) to say all the truth , as well as nothing but the truth , and yet at one trial we shall find him ( as you have seen in mr. white 's ) lay several positive treasons to his and mr. fenwick's charge , whenas in the former , he seemd hardly to know them ? is not prance also a witness of great value , were there ( besides the extravagancy of his tale all along ) no more to be urgd against him , than his notorious and solemn recantation before the king and councel ? for what can render a testimony invalid , if this will not ? nay , our very law which grants and supposes that there may be knights of the post , leaves them no possibility , or way to stop the mischief when begun , but by making ( as he has done ) an humble and hearty confession of their villainy ? but now , if on the one side , we consider the advantages he was to have by continuing an accuser ( as oates and bedlo too plainly showd him ) and on the other side , the inconveniences , that would necessarily ensue by a pali●ode or retraction ; for this was to make him a perjurd man ●n record ; this was to submit him to all the cruelties and hardships of a prison ; and this was to endanger his very neck ▪ as being an actor ( by his own confession ) in a great and horrid murther ; i say , if we consider all this , can there be any equality or proportion between one action and the other , let our greatest enemies themselves be the judges ? as pain then and terror drove this unhappy man ( as has been already hinted in the trial , ) to proceed , contrary to the touches of his own conscience , in this wickedness , so the motives that first induced him to it were revenge , and profit ; for what mountains had the success and good fortune of the forementioned couple created in his fancy ? and how quit did he imagin he should now be with the queen , for refusing to let his name ( though he were only a workman to the chappel ) be put into the list of her servants , after the late proclamation had banished all catholick artizans out of town ? now for dugdal● the fourth worrthy , both the town and county of stafford know not only what an idle and inconsiderable companion he was , but how ill he behav'd himself in my lord aston's service ; nay my lord took him in flagranti at last ; even making a tenant a debter , who had but just before show'd his lordship the acquittance for his rent . this put the fellow into the utmost confusion , especially when call'd to give up his accounts , which knowing he could not possibly do , he conveighed his things out of his chamber , and went away privately by night ; so that skulking a while , he was in the end arrested by some creditors , and then other great actions being ▪ enter'd against him , he laid hold on the kings proclamation , and presently knew the whole plot , with the management of it , as you● see , for several years together . 't is with the utmost regret ( my lords and gentlemen ) that i am forc'd upon this ungrateful subject ; but since impending dangers have made the very dumb to speak , what pen can stop in its cariere , when the writer sees not only himself and relations under the talons of such bloody vultures , but even his very countrey at their mercy also ? for if whole parties may be thus devoured , which of them , ( and in england we know there are many ) can assure it self , but the like trick may be put upon it ; especially seeing besides our transcendent loyalty and service to the crown ( which two of our great monarchs have amply own'd ) there was a time when episcopacy was as much hated as popery , and a time too , when papists were far more esteem'd , than any sictary whatever ? the changes and chances of time are ineffable : and therefore , let him that thinketh that he stands , take heed least he falls ; nor is the caution unnecessary , when we consider the precipice on which every good protestant is at present plac'd ; for how many of them have already been either sacrific'd to the private malice of these birds of prey , or singled out by them to satisfy some patron 's revenge ? nay what patron can really deem himself secure , since several that have stifly abetted them , have also felt their unparallel'd treachery and falshood ? fallacious without doubt is the world in general , but most fallacious are such particular servants ; yet how unconceivable is it , that these should impose or put the dice on any man , since their abandond and prostituted reputation was like a smoke by day , and a flame by night , to give every body warning of them . but seeing the death of sir edmund bury-godfrey , has with many bolster'd up their dying credit , some sew considerations and reflexions on that affair , cannot but be at present very pertinent and necessary . were it not a sufficient assurance to any one , even against the positive testimony of ten travellers , though of some ordinary credit , that the grand seignior did not send the visier here to kill this knight ; because , his death being of no import to him , he would never order so vain a thing ; and certainly the confirmation of it would be yet greater , were the witnesses of different stories among themselves ? if then ( my lords and gentlemen ) this be enough to show the falsity of such an evidence , we have it in our present concern , and infinitely more , which demonstrates the unspeakable wrong , that has been done us , or rather the poor nation in general . for does not every body know , that sir edmund-bury-godfrey was so far from being our enemy , that he was a friend to all , a most kind one to many , and in this affair , so extraordinary and particular , that he no sooner receiv'd oates his depositions , but he presently acquainted mr. coleman with them , who went to windsor and divulg'd the whole matter to all he knew . if no turk then can be thought ( with deliberation and in cool blood ) to kill another , that has neither done him harm , nor can bring him the least emolument by his death , what christians can be imagin'd so nonsensically stupid , as to lay their heads together , in relation to the murther of a person , who was so far even from accidentally provoking , that he had perform'd the utmost service on our behalf , that friendship it self could suggest ? but how unconceiveable is it now , that there should be such a number , and rabble of conspirators , and that they should execute this design , when not only his death would ( in the judgment of any fool ) infallibly ruin us all , if known , but when his life also was so infinitely useful to us ? for he was able , and he had also courage to confront oates , and consequently to witness how impudently , and beyond all measure he had now deviated from his former depositions . no wonder then , that the wits of our enemies every where have been on the rack to find pretences for this murther ; but after all , how ridiculous and weak they are , let any man judge that will ? did prance and his friends offer at better reasons ( and certainly they had time and concern enough for invention ) than , * that sir edmund-bury-godfrey was a busy man in the opinion of the priests , and that he had done , and would yet do us a great deal of mischief ; when as in the first place his kindness to us was ( as i have already shown you ) extraordinary , and in the next , what a work should we have on our hands , if we must kill all that are busy , and all that would do us harm ? as for bedlow , let us consider his account , and we shall find in it , ‖ that tongue 's and oates his information , was their sole drift and aim : nay the conspirators tell him forsooth , that the plot without these papers would be discover'd to that d●gree , that they should not be able to bring it to pass , till another age. is not this more than extravagant , and what bedlams do they fancy the people to be , that believe them ? for how could the assassines hope ( the plot having been a full fortnight before the councel , and several of the main plotters in prison ) that sir edmund-bury-godfrey had not already ( as de facto he did ) deliver'd up those papers to the board , or supposing the contrary , what expectation was there , that he should have them then in his pocket ? and lastly if they had been about him ; what advantage could men imagin by the action , when oates was still at hand , to give ( as often as the ministers of state pleas'd ) a perfect account of all he knew ? are these reasons for the killing of a dog , much less a man , that had acquainted us with the design even when it was a secret ? but now ( my lords & gentlemen ) what shall we say , when this is pretended to be done in somerset house , notwithstanding the queen's whole court , and god knows how many protestant guards were there to be alarmed at the least noise ; that this knight should be presently strangled ( though stout and strong ) by a feeble antient man without resistance or bustle , and with a cravat also ; that he should be removed into many different places of the house ( and that to no manner of purpose ) without ever being discover'd by any ; that he should for the most part be hid in a little lodging full of people , who neither saw him carried in or out , nor found him lying in the pretended chamber , which was both over against their dining-room , and a place also where the whole family , as it was ‖ proved ) were necessitated to go often every day ; that he could being a very tall man , be crowded when stiff into a sedan ; nay that the sedan could be not only conducted and carried out by men , that were then in other places ( as several , testified , ( you see ) at the trial ) but thorow the great gate of the palace too , without being scen by the centinels , though they never stirr'd a pikes length from it ? can there be within the reach of fancy such impossibilities ? yes ( my lords and gentlemen ) that bedlo should be offered almost ‖ three times more for this murther , than grove was to have for killing the king , and ( for the meer carrying away the body ) ‖ four times as much as dugdal pretends for his enterprise ; and yet the said bedlo refus'd ( as i already mention'd both these vast summes , though he were then an actual conspirator ( if you will believe him ) in the main of the treason , and in such want also , that he was forc'd to hazard his neck , or at least his back , by cheates and the like , for meer bread and necessaries . to conclude in short ; for i cannot now stay to trouble you with the different actors , and all the several contradictions which these two sons of belial mention in their respective accounts ; i say to conclude in short , can any man believe , if the accused had bin guilty , they would have denied ( with the utmost execrations ) the fact at the gallowes , when a single confession had saved their lives ; and especially , when one of them to wit berry , was a convert to the protestant church , and such a one also ( as the ordinary of newgate in his late * treatise declares ) as did much lament his ever having bin of our communion . shew me then ( my lords and gentlemen a plainer demonstration since the creation of the world for the innocence of any man , or more contradictions for the detection of an accusers villany ? yet if sir edmund must have bin made away by a consultation and cabal , lay it then i beseech you at some bodys dore , that had reason to wish his destruction ; and enquire ( as has bin formerly hinted to you ) of doctor loyd , who it was that told him , even before the finding of the body , that he lay murder'd with two wounds , and his own sword through him , as he publickly declared in his printed * funeral sermon . but since i have mentioned the solemn denyal made by those that were executed for it , i must desire your considerations on a new charge , i mean on the dispensations , which they say we have for our lying at our very death ; and truly before i begin i cannot but profess , that i know not whether i am more confounded with the infinit arguments that crowd on all hands , or with the thought that christians and those englishmen too , should soberly and in earnest charge us with so sottish and senseles a crime . for first , was there ever a party in this nation , that has so eminently as ours refused ( ever since the very reformation ) the preferments , to which their great birth and quality gave them pretences , or more heroically underwent the rage and fury of all the other lawes , when one halt , or one false step would have put them within the capacity of their birth-right ? have not all our protestant parliaments , ownd this ●mplicity by the penal acts , which from time to time they have made ; for he that denies it , makes them worse than gotams , since every body now knows , that no cuckow can be hedg'd in , that has wings to fly over the enclosure ? nay did they not explicitly also confess it , when in the next session , after the act passed , for putting catholicks out of ‖ offices , they publicly congratulated the success of the test , and then went on to new rigors ? are not these then invincible arguments , that there can be jugling with us in religion ? and do not they also amply prove , that we are ( as i first hinted ) the persons that stand most on principles , seeing there was not one man , of any one party here besides our selves , that left the least employment upon the score of the said test , though it commanded not only a kneeling at the communion , and a compliance with several other popish ceremonies , as they are call'd , but contained also some speculative points , which many of the church of england themselves thought very new and thwarting ? besides this i appeal to any man of fashion or credit ; that has bin of our religion ( and you may assure your selves he will not be over partial ) whether he has heard , that a catholick without mortal sin ( and any ill man may do it at that rate ) can deny the least point of faith , or whether we do not look upon every church papist , or any one else , that for by-ends , and other pretences defer's to reconcile himself , to be in a far worse spiritual state and condition ( let him be never so kind and advantagious to us by underhand favours ) than an open protestant following the dictates of his conscience and reason ? if then we are so se●●re in their life time with the nicodemus's and dissemblers in religion ( notwithstanding all the good they can do us ) what shall we be with those that sin at their death , even by calling god as witness to a ly ? we have therefore reason certainly to complain of our late usage , when thirteen christian men of great probity ( even among all their protestant friends ) should be decry'd as most infamous lyars , because with their last breath , they solemnly asserted an innocence , which was never question'd or blasted , but by the now testimony of four execrable persons , who did not urge the least circumstance , matter or thing against them , that depends not wholly on their bare word and credit . nay was there ever imputation more weak and silly than this , that the expression in their last speeches , as innocent as the child unborn , was misterious and design'd and yet every body knows it to be the common phrase of the kingdom , and that eighteen out of twenty will certainly use it , when they are to assert either their own or anothers innocence ? is it not also pleasant that there could be a dispensation for dissembling & lyes , when these poor men ( on the one side ) with their blood disown the power both in the pope and church , and we on the other , deny it also with the loss of our liberties and estates , seeing we could save both in any storm , if ( water-men like ) we could look one way and and row another . in the name of jesus , let us not impose such fanatical nonsense on our countrey ; for if you see that no person is at any time out of the reach of law , but some young , or looseman , that owns himself to the whole nation a convert and desertor , where is the benefit of these dispensations , if we had them ? but perchance his holiness is never thus indulgent , you 'l say , but when a plot of state is to be concealed ; and if so , i wonder first how he knows that no weak brother in hopes of life , will discover the design and stratagem ? for take but twelve protestants casually , and they perchance will hardly find many sureties , that all of them shall rather choose the gallows , than the alcora● ; and yet christianity is a far plainer doctrine than the pope's power of dispensing , even in the opinion of any jesuit . no ( my lords and gentlemen ) there is nothing but innocence can make us thus resolute and constant : nay humane nature it self is too impotent and feeble for such an enterprise ; it being impossible that any number of conspirators in the hands of justice , should all upon the strength of fancy , or their mutual promises prefer death to confession , especially when , besides self-preservation ( which their respective tempers and passions are still suggesting ) each of them may reasonably fear the weakness of his companion , and consequently deem it madness to be longer obstinate , and behind hand . in the next place , may i not truly say , of this pretended fortitude of ours what doctor pierce once fondly said of our religion , non fuit sic abinitio , it was not formerly thus ? for does not judge cook ( the then attorney ) in his famous speech against garnet acknowledg , † that all the treasons against her majesty , viz. squire 's , william's , york's , &c. were freely confes't by the parties themselves under their own hands , and that they remain'd yet extant to be seen ? how easily in the beginning of king james's raign , might the two priests , watson and clerke ( had the present doctrin bin true ) have sav'd the danger , or at least the scandal , which was to fall on their party ? for , being drawn ( you know ) into that protestant conspiracy , by the lord grey , cobham , rawleigh , &c. the queen 's old favourites ( who dislikeing this new prince , fancy'd a couple of priests sufficient to get them the assistance of spain and the other catholick princes ) it had then bin but swearing they were innocent , and taking it upon their death , that these ( their formerly known enemies ) had thrown the calumny on them to discredit their friends and religion with the king at his first coming ; i say it had bin but doing thus , at least ( i am sure ) if their consciences could have dispens'd with so horrid a thing , there was matter enough for pretences ; but on the contrary , how far were they from it , when they both publickly and humbly confest their crime against his majesty , and when watson also acknowledged that infamous death to be a just judgment for his former factious writings and designs , as may be seen in ‖ father moors history ? again , who had seal'd up their plot with deeper and solemner oaths , than the gunpowder traytors ; and if their religion could permit them ( upon a sober consideration ) to be obstinat , and to forswear themselves , what needed fawkes to have made so particular a confession and discovery , as is printed in ‖ king james his works ? for there was no necessity that his imprisonment , or the finding out of the mine , ( had the promise of secrecy bin valid ) must have discover'd his complices ; nay we find in the said treatise that he hufft in the beginning like a ‖ scaevola , and declar'd he would confess nothing , laying all the blame upon himself , which the wise lords of the counsel laught at , knowing that the gentleman being in hold , they would , for all his bravadoes , find presently ( and so it happen'd ) the depth of the whole intrigue . 't was the knowledg of this ( i mean , that in a discover'd treason there is no reliance on oaths ) that made winter with both t●e wrights , upon fawkes his apprehension post out of town , as he * confess●s they did ; for had they not bin desperate and without further hopes of secrecy and faith , they would never have run to seven or eight gentlemen , suppos'd then in armes , who had now up against them both king and kingdom to their own particular knowledg ; nor coul'd tresham himself escape you see , though he still continued ( as * how tells us ) about the court , that he might thereby seem wholy free and innocent . in fine their own declarations were such , that the publisher of the proceedings against them in the very epistle say's , that justice pass'd on the several confesions of all the capital offenders , which they openly confes'd , and confirm'd at their arraignments in the hearing of multitudes of people . and by the way , be pleased to remember , that no catholick ever denied this treason , only some question , whether protestant history it self dos not shew us , that cecil ( to ruin the party ) drew those fiery men into it by his subtil tricks and artifices . this one would think were more than enough to show you , how you are by ill men deceiv'd , and we abus'd ; but because no present pretence shall be left untoucht , i will speak a word of the two examples which our weak enemies deem so strong , and pertinent to prove this calumny . the first is of one curphy ( an irish papist , ) who being condemn'd ( they say ) in his countrey for burglary , deny'd it with great asseverations at his execution ; but the rope by chance breaking before he was quite dead , he thankt god , confessing the fact , and then ( in spight of the sheriffs great intercession ) was again hanged by the judge's special order and command . the next is of the before mention'd tresham , who protested , ( as they will have it ) in writing upon his salvation , and this just before his death , that he had not seen garnet in 16 years , whereas garnet and mrs vaux did both confess , that they had been often since that time together . as to curphy then ( though truly i know not why any christian or pagan , should be responsible for every atheist or libertine of his pro●ession ) give me leave to ask first , how our adversaries can think this so nicking a blow ? for since they themselves must acknowledge him already to have been an impudent lyar and an ill man , why may it not be as possible , nay as probable also ( and then how is the argument convincing ) that seeing he could not save his life by asserting a trvth , he now hop'd to work on the judge , by attacking him with a lye on the other hand ; for the denying of a fact to death never pleases him , that gave sentence , especially if the evidence be in the least questionable ; nor was the said curphy's expectations it seems wholy frustrated , since the sheriff and others did ( as you see ) earnestly intercede for him . now for tresham , the case is plain , and at most but a poor simple womans project , and mr. att. cook cannot but † confess it in the aforesaid speech ; for there he tell 's us , that tresham's wife understanding with great concer●ment , that he had confest all against garnet , got him a little before his death ( even when he could not write himself ) , to dictate the protestation to her servant ; so that 't is no wonder ( since the meer changing of a word , nay a figure might do it ) if there were an error , as to the number of years in question . but ( my lords and gent ) if both the examples were as our adversaries would have them , what resemblance or analogy has the action ( i beseech you ) of a single man once in a century to twelve that dyed together , who were not only free from the least matter or circumstance , that could make them suspected , besides the testimony of most nefarious persons , but had also life add preferment offer'd them upon their bare confession . besides do they that thus charge us think their religion so harmless , or us so ignorant , that we can show no precedents against them of this nature ? certainly we can , and ( as i suppose ) much more to the purpose , nay witnest also by protestants themselves . for does not first that most learned new-gate-divine declare in the before mention'd ‖ treatise , that in his late experience ( as ordinary there ) he knew some malefactors condemn'd for murther and burglary to have gone out of the world with a notorious asserting their integrity , although they had twice or thrice confest to him , with some seeming remorse , that theywere justly condemn'd for the said crimes ; so that here reader we have not only protestant penitents denying the truth at their death , but a protestant confessarius revealing secrets ; and such another , or one at least very like him , hind ( the famous robber ) met with at worcester , being there convicted and hang'd by the evidence of his spiritual guide . but what do you think of a far more eminent example , to wit that of my lord castle haven , who ( as all the writers of king charles's reign will tell you ) was after a netorious ill life charg'd and condemn'd at last , for prostituting his daughter in law ; for holding his own wife whilst his servant forc'd her ; and lastly for sodomy it self ; and yet though these crimes were proved by several plain circumstances , by his wife and daughters testimony , and lastly by brodway and patrick , his abus'd patizans ( who were both hang'd for the facts , and own'd the committing of them to the last ) he at his execution most solemnly deny'd all , dying ( as * sanderson affirms ) not only a true protestant , but assisted also by his † chaplain's , to wit the dean of st paul's and doctor wickham . thus then you see ( besides the former evident and unanswerable reasons ) that we are not only free from this imputation our selves , but that the protestant doctrine is guilty of it , if the actions of some few men are sufficient to determine and adjudge the point . in fine then was it not very pertinently askt by the author of the new plot ; ‖ that seeing the councel of trent has positively declar'd , no absolution available which is not preceded by detestation of the sin committed , and seeing it is impossible freely to do a thing , and at the same time to detest it , how could it be imagin'd , that the late executed catholicks should hope for any benefit by such an absolution as is pretended , or be thought with the least appearance of reason to make use of so wretched an artifice to cheat the world , and manifestly to damn their souls , even according to their own profest doctrine and tenets ? besides do not our adversaries ( by this wild dream ) show not only their own barbarity and ignorance , but affront , and call villains the greatest and the most eminent parts of the civiliz'd world ? and certainly should one of them say to a knight of maltha , or to a teutonick knight , or to any other catholick cavalier , that he was not to be belie●ed , since he might by his principles lye an● forswear at pleasure , he would ( i must tell him ) be soon kick'd and bastanado'd for it . but ( my lords and gent : ) if this calumny which carrys some alleviation in it ( as having the ignorant and rabble for it's chief abettors ) be never the less shocking , what must the aspersion do , which is reviv'd by a nobler and learneder hand , i mean , by the present bishop of lincoln ? yet if it be a breach of christianity to crush the bruised reed , and of generosity also to trample on the oppressed , i wish his lordship may be found guilty of neither , and that there never rise any such , who , in hopes of applause , shall contrary to the light of their own consciences reprint a martyn-marprelate , a cobler of glocester , or any scandalous pasquil , should episcopacy , by some foolish accident or misfortune , fall again within the fury of the people . but who could think , that his lordships heat against us , should force himeven to a title that has confuted his whole book , viz. that popish principles and positions ( when really believed ) are destructive and dangerous to all kings , especially protestants ; for he cannot term them principles of faith , because they were never thus believ'd by any catholick , nor never thus approved of by the church , and consequently nothing to his purpose . but if on the other side he means , that there have been popish doctors of the opinion , that princes might be deposed upon the account of religion , what advantage i would fain know , can that be to his lordship or his treatise , since not onlyall the prime leaders of the reformation ( as luther , calvin , zainglus , beza , &c. ) have in express termes held the same , and in pursuance of it rais'd rebellions and confusions , in all countrys where they had footing , but also since very great pillars of the church of england it self have taught it too , as appears in queen mary's case , in that of the queen of scots ( who was at least the vnd●ubted heir ) and in later efforts also of the same nature ; and doubtless he that believes he can disinherit a lawfull successor with justice upon the account of religion , will hardly find arguments of force to keep the prince in being , on his throne , when ever this happen's to be imputed to him . nay we have several protestants here , who cry up the bishop of lincoln's book at a strange ra●e and yet avow this * printed doctrine : that god not only rais'd johu to purge the idolaters of ahab's house , &c. but that there is no reformed church from the first waldenses to this day , that have not held such a procedure lawful . these things consider'd , ( as they have been often ( i dare say ) by his lordship ) he expected not certainly of us to think , that he believ'd what he writ ; for then we should ( he knew ) have requir'd him to shew us at least , some catholick potentate or other ( nor want they worldly wit or inclinations , we see ) abandoning this pretended dangerous and troublesom religion , either out of ambition or safety . no ( my lords and gentlemen ) that is now a thing hardly within the reach of speculation ; for , who find themselves so flourishing and great , as they ? or can it be said , that the monarchy of england has gotten by the reformation , when protestants acknowledge , ( and what desperate enemies that has created us , may be easily imagin'd ) that nothing but popery , or at least its principles , can make it again emerge or lasting ? does not his lordship therefore play at cross-purposes with us ? and is not his meaning in truth this , that protestant principles ( when really believ'd ) are-destructive to all kings , and especially to catholick ones ; since we see , that the lawful monarchs and princes of england , scotland , swedland , denmark , the vnited provinces , transilvania , geneva , &c. have been actually depos'd by their protestant subjects , not only as florimundus raimundus , and popish writers shew us , but as dr. heylin , and other protestants have laboriously made it appear ? nor has the pope , in all that time , pretended to the giving away of any crowns , except those of france and england ; for the defence of which , several zealous and noted catholicks appear'd as well with their swords as pens . nor could this imputation have been worse timed , as to his lordships purpose by him , seeing there was a protestant rebellion then actually in hungary , to the great danger of christendom ; and another newly broken out in scotland , for the subversion of the english monarchy ; and this also usher'd in by the barbarous murther of the arch-bishop of st. andrews . what parity then is there between vs , and our adversaries , either in our actions , or books of this nature ? and truely ; we are so far from holding the deposing power of the church , an article of faith , that the greatest defenders of it have absolutely declared the contrary . for does not cardinal peron , in his famous speech to the nobility of france , tell us , that the proposition is problematical ? and does not c. bellarmine , the pope's great champion , in his answer to barclay , ( who writ so smartly against it ) call the assertion only ‖ arrogant and temerariovs . in short , there is no writer , though never so zealous for the opinion , that sayes , that men of the contrary sentiment are out of the state of grace , ( as in truth they are ) that asse●t not to articles of faith. this also plainly shews , that no council ever impos'd it on our belief , seeing it has been , and is still without censure denyed , even by those , that would dye for the pope's supremacy . nay ( besides former authors ) the catholicks ●f england have written * four books ( since the king's restauration ) to this very purpose ; i say , the catholick's of england have done it , who are so scrupulous in doctrines of faith , that they deem it damnation , to deny the least article , and therefore will not ( you see ) to save their lives and estates , profess one thing , and believe another . but his lordship ( which adds nothing to his ingenuity ) is so far from answering these authors , by shewing their fallacies and errors , that he never so much as cites them to this purpose , so that we must conclude them unanswerable ; for he could not but have heard of them , when we find him pretending to so great an insight in all our books , that ( to shew his reading ) he has quoted our very almanack . but since his lordship has mention'd this notable tome , i hope he will not take it ill , if i say , that his whole work has been already answered by a treatise of the price and value of an almanack ; i mean , by one of the common * london-gazets . for was it not a home blow , and a just one also , that in the thus publishing of his erroneous book to the nation , which pretends popery so destructive to kings , there should be there proclaimed , even in the very next advertisement , the trials of twenty-nine protestant regicides , as deposers and murtherers of their glorious soveraign under the cloak of justice ; a villany of a dye , which the worst of papists never yet arriv'd to ? but to go on yet further in our vindication , was there ever on the one side , any catholick country , or pope , that has censur'd either man or book , for the denying the said deposing-power of the church ? and have not the venetians on the other side , openly profest it in their very writings ? has not mariana's opinion been condemned in spain , and yet his lordship * cites this author against us ? has not ‖ sanctarellus's book been censur'd in france , with all the formality imaginable ; as also bellarmine , suarez , schoppius , and others of the same subject ? and have not the college of sorbon , the vniversities of paris , caen , rheimes , poitiers , and god knows how many others joyn'd in this condemnation ? nay , does not * bishop moutague himself tell us , that not only becanus was corrected at rome , but that no state dis-own'd this ( independency ) or power of kings . this then being matter of fact , and this being the publick declaration of the church of rome , may i not with justice call upon his lordship to turn to our religion , seeing in the very last paragraph of this his book , he professes , that if any popish priest , or gentleman , can make it appear , that the church of rome by any publick declaration , has disown'd such principles , and damn'd them as erroneous and impious , he will turn ( one of the worst sort of christians ) viz a roman catholick . truly ( my lords and gentlemen ) i shall expect this of him , or he is not as good as his word : besides , i do here declare , that supposing the premisses , to wit , that the chief reformed doctors have speculatively taught this deposing doctrine ; that they have actually depos'd and murder'd their princes , upon account of religion ; that the catholick princes are more absolute , than the protestant ; that our monarchy of england is not a whit safer or powerfuller , than formerly ; that catholick kingdoms and states have condemned the said doctrine : that no catholick country , or pope , has censur'd any that have done so ; and that no council ever imposed it on our faith : i say , granting these premisses , ( which are also of themselves evident ) i do here declare , that i my self will turn protestant , if his lordship shews me but one single paragraph in all his book , in relation to our dangerous principles , ( which is the scope of the whole ) that is not here , either fully answer'd , or does not at least wound the whole protestant party by its consequence , more than vs : and more-over , i must tell his lordship , he may find a great deal more to this purpose , in the before-mention'd † reply to the answer of the catholick apology . to conclude , let me once more remind his lordship of his promise , and then tell him ( for i know he is a man of parts ) what dr. taylor said to a friend of mine , concerning his disswa●●e from popery , viz. that though 't were lik'd , yet 't was but turning the tables , and he could write a book twice as good . having thus ( my lords and gentlemen ) run over in hast , the odd pretences , and accidents , that have been so advantagious to the saviours of the nation ; i shall desire you before we part , to take a second consideration of them , ( for second thoughts are still the best ) and then you will find more extravagancies in their relations , than in any romance extant . for ' bating the ridiculousness of the army we were raising , when the king had forty thousand men in pay , besides a very considerable fleet ; and ' bating the wildness of civil and military commissions , granted ( as both oates and bedlow have it ) to a whole nation by the general or superior of religious men , and seal'd with the very seal of their order ; things that would make not only a canonist , but any forreigner run mad to hear of : and ' bating the carrying on by † eighty-six men and women , the fire of london , in as great a method , as the machins move in ba●tholomew-fair , without any bodies being ever yet taken in the action ; and bating ‖ oates his particular story of the jesuits plundering during these fires , to the value of several thousands of pounds ; of magazins full of stolen goods , orderly brought and received ; * of their taking a thousand carracts of diamonds from a man , who escap'd and run away , after they had knock'd him down ; and no words ever made in london , either of him , or the loss : † of their banc● of one hundred thous●nd pounds , and lending it out at fifty per cent : ‖ of entry-books for all the treasonable debates and resolves ; of acquittances of money , received for killing the king ; of poysoning of silver-bullets , by chawing of them : of gathering peter-pence ; and of a thousand such unconceivable whimfies , which appear in the trials , in the journal of the lords , and in the narrative printed by oates his special directions , and also solemnly sworn to by him : i say , ●bating this ridiculous and unconceivable stuff ; how was it possible , that the jesuits should make this fellow so particular a confident , when the whole world sees he is master of no one thing , that could render him in the least advantagious ? for , being a beggar , he could not tempt them with money ; being a weaver's son , and ( like one of jeroboam's priests ) of the meanest of the people , he had no relations to countenance , or help them ; being no manner of scholar , but as ignorant as any other poor curate may be imagin'd , ( for i will be a bond slave for ever , if he can translate six lines into latin , without a solaecism ) these jesuits could not have the least hopes of him that way ; being no greater a linguist than his mother made him , there was little expectation of his proving a good trouchman or interpreter : in fine , being also ill in his mine and beh●viour , ill in his elocution , ill in his writing , and ill in every thing else , that can recommend one man to another , how was it possible , ( as i mention'd ) that they should make him such a particular confident , as he pretends ; and especially , send one of this guise ambassadour to the crowns of spain and france ; i mean , to don john , and fa ▪ la chaise , as he has sworn ? now , though these english fathers should be such easy and silly men , how came it i would fain know , or what wonderful advantages could be propos'd to the general , and his assistants at rome , that they must grant him those privileges , that were never before heard of , since the institution of their order ; to wit , that a lay-man should be admitted into their congregations and consults ; and more-over , should have power ( as you have heard in † mr. col●man's tryal ) to open●their very betters ? but suppose , that the refined romans are in truth , as weak as the tramontans , what did our gentlemen , nay our neblemen , and the queen her self , find so admirable in oates , that they should so unanimously also receive him for a privy-councellor ? has the recommendation of a jesuit , or two such power , as to make men of this ranck , trust their lives , honours , and estates ▪ in the hands of one that could not be so serviceable to them , as any of their respective footmen ; and yet no part of this plot was thought fit ( it seems ) to be communicated to my lord shrewsbury , my lord arundel , my lord brudnel , my lord lumley , or to any of the other late converts , who were ( one would have thought ) as likely to be then trusted with any thing that tended to the wealfare of our religion , as the heroes , that now appear as our accusers ? but after all the mighty and great employments , which this fool boasts of , could any body have thought him yet so simple , as to declare upon oath in the face of the world * that the business they sent him now into england about , was , to kill doctor tongue for having translated the iesuits morals ; as if that forsooth were an action so horrid and inconvenient to the whole catholick cause , that it deserv'd such a punishment , even in the principal time of the plot , and by his hand also , that manag'd the whole , and knew all the secrets of it ; nor was his reward ( though one might be hang'd as well for doctor tongue as sir edmund-bury godfrey ) any more than fifty pound , as he swears in the † lords journal , and in his * narrative . is not this a happy poet , to flag thus in the very top , and flight of his fancy ? and does he not also , ( do you think ) well personate his former offices and caracter , when in the lords journal he swears ; that collonel roper gave him ten shillings for bringing him his comission , a gift ( one would have imagin'd fitter for an ordinary keeper , that brought him a hanch of venison , than a present for a great envoye and states-man ? but money and he were ever such strangers ( that according to his idaea ) the sums and business did fully quadrate and agree . neither was his foresight greater in the story about collonel howards , commission , for in the lords ‖ journal he not only swears , that he himself delivered him one in wild●garden in may or june , but tells us also in his † narrative , ( to make it a clear and indisputable lye ) that the said collonel deceast , confest he had received and accepted his commission ; for , had this bin true , would not the king do you think ) would not the council , would not the parliament , and would not the whole nation have told us of it , as having now found out the thing , they had so long sought after . but why do i stand thus on a single perjury , when there are undeniable and evident ones in every trial. for in mr. coleman's , does he not ( besides a hundred other falsities ) accuse him , of sending relief from london to the ruffians at windsor , on the twenty first of avgvst , when as all his servants could attest , that he was then , and several days before in warwick-shire ? does he not swear in mr. ireland's , that he the said mr. ireland was in town between the eighth and twelveth of that moneth , though he were notoriously and constantly absent from the third to the fovrteenth of the following september , as i formerly show'd you ? is he not forsworn in hills tryal , for saying that sir ed. godfrey told him , that he went in fear of his life by the popish party ; whenas he has since declared in the presence of several , that this knight was ( he believed ) a papist ; that he frequented the benedictins ▪ and was most cruelly threatned by a protestant of great power and interest . is he not also forsworn in sir geo. wakeman's trial by the testimony of sir philip lloyd , and the clear proof of mr. corkers not being president of the benedict●ines , as he positively swore he was ? and as for mr. langhorn's and the jesuit's tryal has he not among his other egregious untruths depos'd , that he was in town the twenty fourth of april with sir thomas preston and sir john warner , whenas six have plainly proved ( you see ) the last perjury , and fourteen the former . but now , that i mention these st. omer witnesses let me appeal to you , my lords and gentlemen , if such testimony be invalid and not to be beleived ( because they have studied under the jesuits , or witness for their own party . ) whether there can be any more commerce between nation and nation , and whether it lies not in the power of a villain to father what ridiculous fact he pleases , on any man , as committed in the very streets of paris , without p●ssibility of desproving him , though a thousand persons could testify the contrary to their own certain knowledge ; for there are few there comparatively , that are not catholicks , and of them also that study , most have bin taught by the jesuits ? besides if this doctrine had bin formerly allow'd of , how easily might all the cavaliers in england have bin destroy'd in the late times ? for ( seeing parties convers chiefly together ) it had bin but finding out an oates and a bedlow , and then any charge must have past muster , if the testimony of other cavaliers were to go for nothing ? 't is not bare swearing ( as mr. corker well observ'd ) that makes an evidence credible , but probable circumstances , together with an absolute and intire proportion , which is always the concomitant of truth . as for those youths then , many of them were gentleman , and of prime families too , ; many had left the school , and had no more to do with the jesuits ; nay some ( as oates tells us of hildesley's usage in † ireland's tryal ) had piques and grudges against them ; nor did they averr any private intrigue , but a thing obvious to a whole college , which consists of about 200 persons , and might if false be contradicted to their shame when they least dream't of it ; i say , they averrd a thing obvious to the whole colledge ; viz. that oates was constantly there , but one night , from his first coming to his expulsion or going away for good and all . besides their testmony was not single , and barely said , but confirmd by sir john warner and sir thomas preston's not being in town ; by the before-mention'd improbabilities of oates his admitance to the knowledge of such weighty affairs ; by his extreme poverty all along ; by mrs grove and her maid , where he pretended to have lodg'd ; by the mrs. of the white horse tavern , who deny'd that any considerable company was then there , she being at that time in a very low condition , and just leaving the tavern ; so that she could not have forgotten so unwonted a meeting , had there bin any ; and lastly , by his palpable and impudent flinshing from his former testimony in this affair ; i mean from his keeping himself then close and private as he publickly declared upon oath in mr. ireland's tryal ; and from the time of his pretended stay in town after the said meeting , which was but three or four days , as he swore in his narrative and before the lords also , though now he would fain extend it to twenty ; which two particulars prove sufficiently , without other circumstances ( as i show'd you before ) the downright perjury of the witnesses , that saw then his doctorship here so long , and so publickly also . and since i have mention'd this title or dignity , it is truly so prodigiously odd and simple , that i cannot pass it by , without some few reflexions : for if he were thus graduated , it was either out of favour , in relation to his particular merits and service in the present affairs , or upon the score of his learning . as for the first , can any one believe , ( if there had been a plot , and he employ'd it ) that he would have been suffer'd , in the midst of his negotiation and business , to go out of his way , not only to lose time on so foolish an errand , but to render himself suspected by so unusual a grace ? nor could he himself hope to make any advantage by a dignity , since it was to be conceal'd ( you may be sure ) 'till after the success of this wonderful design in england ; and then 't would be wholly useless , seeing he might ( we suppose ) expect far greater honors and preferments . now , if his learning promoted him , ( and you must remember , that doctors at salamanca do defend in the open schools , a whole course of divinity against every body that will oppose them ) let any man that knows oates , judge of his doctorship by it ; and as for those , that have no acquaintance with him , or his abilities . they are to understand , that he went to the english college at valladolid , in april 77. to begin his logick , and return'd home in november following , as dismist for his good qualities : nor in truth , was he ever within many miles of salamanca in his life . in short , we will joyn issue in this , for the point may be easily decided , that he shall chuse one , and we will chuse another to be sent to this v●iversity ; and if they find him to have commenced there , or if they shall be deny'd the sight of the publick registers , or perceive in them blots , or any thing tending to a falsi●ication , we will for the future , own him not only a doctor , but to have prov'd once in his life , a thing contradicted by us , which will give no little lustre to his other evidence . but to end with him for the present . ( though i confess , i have not half done ; nay , ( as i mention'd before ) there is no end when one reflects on his strange assertions and follies ) take this circumstance as a demonstration , that there is not one true word in all his charge : and therefore i may here well say to each of you , — accipe nunc danaum insidias , & crimine ab uno , disce omnes — aen. lib. 2. for on the one fide , he has declar'd in his very * narrative , that it was presented to the king on the thirteenth of august , by the means of mr. kirkby , who on the twelfth was made acquainted with the matters contained in it by dr. tongue , as appears in the little pamphlet called , the † narrative or manner of discovery of the plot to his majesty . on the other side , if we consider the various particulars , and the number of persons concern'd , 't was impossible for him , and dr. tongue to digest and methodize the whole under a moneths time ; so that we may suppose it to be begun about the xii . of jvly : nor can we allow less than a fortnight between his first debate about the discovery , and his falling to work on the said narrative ; so that his head was full of it , and consequently more particularly nice and observing , from the end of jvne at least , and especially in jvly , avgvst , and september ; for then protestants knew of the treasor as well as himself . but now , when he comes to be prest about time , circumstances , papers , and the like , in relation to what he urges against the prisoners , he is so far ( though the matter happens within the said moneths ) from producing any one note , ( as certainly he might have done , had his charge been true ) that he will come to no positive day , when the accused at the bar require it of him ; and yet in his flourishes , throughout his said narrative , he is so exact , ( for nothing there , he knows , can be brought as evidence against him ) that besides consults , accidents , and several particularities , he remembers above a hundred letters , with their respective dates , how , and whence they came , and who subscribed them ; though sometimes ten or twelve do it together , according to his relation : i say , he is so far from producing letters or notes , that at the bar , he will come to no positive day : and thus he has notoriously done in every trial. for , in mr. coleman's , he shuffles you see , about the 21 th . of august , as soon as he perceiv'd , that the said mr. coleman was absent in that moneth ; though since his death , ( and no further fear of the business ) he is again ‖ positive . the like you find in mr. ireland's about the time of his being in town that moneth . as for the jesuit's trial , he absolutely hang'd ( you see ) mr. gavan , by not standing ( as he first accus'd him ) to the latter end of july , and beginning of august , when he understood , that the said mr. gavan could prove himself then at hampton . and here also he would fain have gotten off ( you see ) from the 2 d. of september , the day positive he pretended to have received twenty shillings from ireland in london . in mr. langhorn's , ( besides other particulars ) he was not certain , ( though on so remarkable an occasion , and so little a while ago ) whether he came from dover by coach , or on horse-back . and in the last trial , he had not only the impudence to tell mr. marsh , ( when the dispute was about a day in august ) that it was a great priviledge , that he nam'd the month ; but flew also ( as i shew'd you ) from the fifteenth , ( though he once granted it ) as soon as he began to suspect that there would be counter-witnesses . is not this then ( as i said ) a clear demonstration of their villainy , and lying all along ? for was it possible for him , who had now discover'd all to the king himself , and was to make it good at a bar , to go afterwards to consults with the conspirators , and not know the time precisely ; and to see and peruse several of their papers and letters , without being able to produce the least scrip or scroll , or to have any circumstance , that has not been most evidently disprov'd ? whenas , on the contrary , notwithstanding the strict searches , that have been made in all our houses , and the reading of our secret letters , and notwithstanding our examinations before magistrates , and our imprisonments afterwards ; and by the way these wretches have had a sight of every private writing , by which they came not only to know our hands , but had oftentimes hints , the better to frame their accusations : i say notwithstanding all these accidents , there has not been found ▪ any ill letter , any commission , any bill of exchange , any money , any arms , any horses , or any thing else suspicious ; but to the confusion of our enemies , an innocency , a patience , and a loyal zeal beyond example . i have been ( my lords and gent : ) the more particular with oates ( though as i said , i have not half done ) to the end you might see not only how impossible it was , that he should have any knowledge of a plot , had there been one ; but that his whole information also is a most vain fiction ; and consequently , if 100 men ( and all of them of some repute ) should vouch and justify his fopperies , it could but show us , what encouragements and temptations will do ; for since he has most evidently lyed all along , how can their testimony make him to have spoken truth ? if therefore upon force you must judge thus of all , that shall witness for him , though their credit should be a little tollerable ( of which i 'le assure you , we have no apprehension ) what are we to think of his declared coadjutors and partizans , who are so known , and not one whit behind him in any impudent or apparent falsity ! as for bedlow's part , nothing can be a greater proof of it , than that he should at first solemnly profess to the very secretaries in his examination upon oath , that he knew nothing of the plot further than of sr. edm. godfreys murther . besides when he was askt , where they laid his corps in somerset house , he mention'd the room next to that where the duke of albemarle lay in state ; but being caught tardy there , because it belong'd to my lord ossory's protestant servants , he went and show'd them another , in which he was yet more unfortunate , it being the common place for pages and other forraign attendants , and had to boot ( during the queens stay ) centinells still by it . prance also you see ( for i must be very brief in my instances ) acquaints us of god knows how many , that menton'd the killing the king to him , and this ( as a trivial matter ) even , whilst they were buying spoons , candlesticks , and the like . and to confirm the raising an army by us , he come's to the very number of men it was to consist of , to wit , fifty thousand , and yet there are not so many men , women and children of our religion in england ; nor were we to expect much help from abroad seeing the kings navy was not only then in a good forwardness , but all forraign princes were together by the eares , and wanted recruits as they still do , who are in an actual war. but considering dugdale is the junior of all ; for as to jenison ▪ i shall only add this at present to what i have said ‖ before , that he has already demanded a pension for his services ; which shews both his plentiful condition , and his aim ; i say as to dugdale , he is no ill proficient ( i 'le assure you ) in proceedures of this nature , having had ▪ the luck ( as well as the rest of the fraternity ) to be proved in open court a villain ; for at the last staffor'd assizes , mr. sambige a protestant gent , together with mr. philips the parson of the parish , represented to the court , that dugdal never mention'd to them the killing of a justice of westminster , as he deposes in sir george wakeman's trial ; and least such a testimony should endanger the spilling of innocent blood , they were willing to swear to the truth of this averment ; nor could this ill man say any thing then to it , only ( after some days search ) he got two wretched fellows of his gang , who privately made oath , that dugdal had told them , the said deponents that story ; which contradicts nothing ( had their depositions been true ) of what sambige and mr. philips attested to his confusion ; and how mr. chetwin also ( who makes mr. sambige in the jesvits * trial his author ) will avoid this blow , let any man tell me that can ? besides , were there no such persons as mr. sambige and m. philips living , is not yet the lie most apparant and clear ? for how is it possible ( as i mention'd before ) that dugdale that was so greatly concern'd in the plot , and so surpris'd and disturb'd ( as † he assures us ) at this murther , least it might ruin the whole business , should run the very next morning ( after mr. ewers had forsooth with great secresy told him of it ) and proclame to no manner of purpose at an al● before any man dreamt of it in the country● thus stands our case my lords and gent ) & thus you see that no good protestant can be safe , if such notorious perjuries shall be countenanc'd . nay if popery should be thus deprest , could it be , do you think , either for the honour or interest of your religion , since the history of all country : as well as our own , ( for no tittle of this can fall to the ground and be unrecorded ) will like the ghost of a murther'd man be ever haunting you , which must raise in yours , and your childrens thoughts great detestation and horror ? for to what height is the effrontery of these sons of perdition come , when they can threaten juries for not going against their consciences , and tell judges of writs of ease , if they take notice of most apparent and impudent contradictions . have not they then destroy'd all law ? and will not our moderate and excellent government ( if these precedents stand good ) be the most despotical & uncertain one , that ever was but to add yet to our amazement , who could have ever thought ( unless it were to make the folly every where proportionable ) that we who have so eminently hazarded our all for the king , that have so entirely loved his person & have so constantly even doted on monarchy , should be accus'd as the grand parricides , and that they that are generally reputed to hate king , and king-ship , should be now the sticklers and zealots for both . is there not then some further trick & design in this new loyalty ? and may not the papists ( as the dogs in the fable ) be thought too great a safety for the fold ? yes certainly ; for as the * apologist has long ago observ'd , the prerogative never suffer'd ; no great states man has ever been disgrac't ; nor the church of england it self , ( n●● the libertyes of the people ) ever wounded , but a fearful out cry against popery has still preceded . and now that i speak of the liberties & rights of the people , shew me an instance in story , even in the reputed worst of times ( and therefore you may see , what judgments ever follow the falling upon the innocent ) that whole corporations ( as appears now in the buckingham case , & in other places also ) were ever before publickly libell'd for their choice , which takes away the chiefest liberty and priviledge we can possibly pretend . therefore for liberties sake , for monarchies sake , for religions sake ; or in short , for the sake of all that is good and holy , put a stop to this present tempest , which bearing up perjury , has not only destroy'd all trade and commerce among us , but render'd us a laughing-stock to the whole world , and shaken the very basis and foundation of our island . finis . the certificate of the city of st. omer , concerning titus oates . we the mayor and sherifs of the city of st omer , being surpris'd at the report , that the english fathers residing with us , had about the beginning of the present year ( by the negotiation of one titus oates , in france and england ) contrived and plotted a wicked and bloody treason against their natural lord , the most excellent ▪ king of great britain , and being the more amazed at it , since they had given through a long ●cries of years , a rare example among us , not only of learning and piety in particular , but of obedience in general , to all civil magistrates and governors ; a thing which makes the whole society of jesus highly respected and esteemed , by most of the christian princes of the world : we say that being surpris'd at this report , we took ( as far as we could ) the examination of the matter into hand , and therefore certify , that it has appeared to us by the oaths of several of the best , and antientest scholars of that seminary ( the * whole college having offer'd to make the same oath ) that the said titus oates , was not only effectively in the said seminary at the end of april and beginning of may , 1678 but did constantly reside there , from the tenth of december , 1677. to the twenty third of june following , without ever being absent from thence , except one night in january , at which time he was at watten , two leagues distant from us ▪ the said deponents , also have alledg'd as a reason of this their knowledge , that they lodg'd , convers'd , drunk , and eat with the said oates , in the said seminary , all that while , he being at a distinct table alone , and did parti●ularly take notice that he was there in april and may as abovesaid , as having seen him at that time constantly perform the office of reader in the sodality of the students in the said seminary , and as being present at the departure of one killembeck alias pool , an english scholar , who went from this city the fifth day of the said moneth of may new stile , to take his journey into england . in witness whereof we have caus'd the seal of the said city to be hereunto put this 28 of december , 1678. loco sigilli ✚ j. ganon . the certificate of the city of liege , in relation to sir thomas preston . we the eschevines of the high court of justice of his most serene highness , in the city and countrey of liege , to all those to whom these presents shall come , greeting , do certify and attest , that a petition being presented to us , in our ordinary consistory in the palace of his said highness ▪ on the behalf of sir thomas preston knight and baronet , residing at the english college of this city ; that whereas the said sir thomas preston during the greatest part of the year one thousand six hundred seventy and eight , and more especially in the moneths of march , april ▪ may , and june , did constantly reside in the said college , be the said sir thomas preston having petition'd that we would in favour of the truth , hear a great many witnesses , which he had to produce , we condeseended unto his said petition as reasonable and just , and have accordingly heard upon oath , fourteen creditable persons , who have all unanimously upon their respective oaths , declared and attested that the said sir thomas preston knight and baronet , did reside all the time aforesaid , at the college aforesaid , and particularly in the moneths of march , april , may , and june , in the year 1678. and that he was not absent , s● much as one-night during the said time ; and they further have attested that they knew this to be true , in that they resided all in the said college ▪ and there saw , and convers'd dayly with him. given at our court of justice this 28 of march , 1679. by order of the high court of justice abovesaid . locus sigilli . ✚ de bernimolin per bonhomme . the like certificate came from watten about sir john. warner , the witnesses names being albert bapthorpe william bitchfielt . tousaint vanden cruys . f. caeles . augustin elmers jaques broos . nicholas willaert . thomas higgenson . marc. bartolet . charles verons . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a31231-e810 * vid. trial. pag. 17 , & 18. † pag. 19. ‖ pag. 20. * pag. 28. † pag. 21 ▪ ‖ pag. 29. * pag. 22. † pag. 23. ‖ pag. 72. * pag. 24. † pag. 25. ‖ pag. 26. * pag. 27. † pag. 30. ‖ pag. 40. * pag. 39. † pag. 16. ‖ pag. 72. * pag. 80. and 96. † pag. 30. ‖ pag. 38. * pag. 30. † pag. 32. ‖ pag. 31. pag. 40. † pag. 80. ‖ pag. 38. * pag. 41. † pag. 42. † pag. ib. † pag. 43. ‖ pag. 44. * pag. 72. † pag. 68. ‖ pag. 57. * pag. 73. † pag. 16. ‖ pag. 69. * pag. 72. ‖ pag. 102. ‖ pag. 102. & 103. * pag. 70. * pag. 68. † pag. 66. ‖ pag. 69. * pag. 80. ‖ pag. 161. * bedlow . notes for div a31231-e4070 † vid. trial. ‖ pag. 35. pag. 19. * pag. 36. † pag. 34. ‖ pag. 60. * pag. 22. † p. 19. ‖ p. 26 * pag. 47. † pag. 19 , & 26. ‖ pag. 23. * pag. 24. † pag. 22. ‖ pag. 30. * pag. 32. † pag. 20. * pag. 47. ‖ pag. 46. * pag. 41 , & 44. † pag. 49. ‖ pag. 67. * pag. 25. † pag. 56. * pag. 59. ‖ pag. 62. * pag. 65. † pag. 56. ‖ pag. 56 , & 62. * pag. 65. † pag. 57. notes for div a31231-e6250 ‖ pag. 12. ‖ pag. 14. ‖ pag. 16. ‖ pag. ib. ‖ pag. 18. ‖ pag. 19. ‖ pag. 20. † pag. 22. * pag. 21. ‖ pag. 44. ‖ pag. 29. ‖ pag. 28. † pag. 29. ‖ pag. 30. ‖ pag. 31. ‖ pag. 32. ‖ pag. 33. * pag. 32. * pag. 32. ‖ pag. 33. † pag. 14. ‖ pag. 40. * pag. 41. † pag. 49. * pag. 46. * pag. 47. † pag. 23. ‖ pag. 71. * pag. 26. † pag. 24. ‖ pag. 25. * pag. 71. † pag. 70. ‖ pag. 52. * pag. 53. † pag. 54. * pag. 56. ‖ pag. 58. * pag. ib. * pag. 56. † pag. 54. ‖ pag. 55. * p. 56 , & 57. † pag. 59. ‖ pag. 61. * pag. 67. † pag. 62. ‖ pag. 63. * pag. 64. † pag. 65. ‖ pag. 65. * pag. 70. † pag. 68. ‖ pag. 69. * pag. 48. ‖ pag. 43. * pag. 60. † pag. 40. ‖ pag. 49. * pag. 50. notes for div a31231-e10500 * vid. trial. pag. 3. † p. 4. & 5. ‖ pag. 6. * pag. 12. † pag. 13. ‖ p. 14. & 15. * pag. 15. ‖ pag. 16. * pag. 17. ‖ pag. 21. * pag. 22. ‖ pag. 29. * pag. ib. † pag. 44. ‖ pag. 29. † pag. 23. ‖ pag. 24. * pag. 25. ‖ pag. 26. * pag. 27. † pag. 28. * pag. 29. ‖ pag. 30. † pag. ib. * pag. 31. † pag. ib. ‖ pag. 32. † ireland ' s trial. pag. 42 , & 43. * pr●s . tryal . pag. 32. ‖ pag. 33. ‖ pag. 17. * pag. 33. † pag. 34. ‖ pag. 35. * pag. 37. † pag. 41. ‖ pag. 14. * p. 63 , & 64. † pag. 65. ‖ p. 68. & 69. * pag. 14. ‖ pag. 19. † pag. 15. ‖ pag. 21. * pag. ib. † pag. 30. ‖ pag. 27. * pag. ib. † pag. 26. ‖ pag. 33. * pag. 34. † pag. 33. ‖ pag. 34. * vid. ireland ' s tryal . pag. 37. * pag. 36. * pag. 37. ‖ pag. 38. † pag. 42. * p. 71. † 69. ‖ pag. 15. * pag. 72. † pag. 73. ‖ pag. 73. † p. 74 , & 75. * vid. ireland's tryal . pag. 60. ‖ the pres . tryal . ‖ pag. 71. * pag. ib. ‖ pag. 75. * pag. 78. ‖ vid. irel. tryal . pag. 35. * pres . tryal . pag. 45. † pag. 46. * pag. 47. * pag. 60. † p. 61. & 62. ‖ pag. 53. * p. 79 , & 80. * pag. 81. ‖ pag. 82. * pag. 83. * pag. 82. & 83. ‖ pag. 85. ‖ ireland ' s trial. pag. 36. * pag. 86. † pag. 77. ‖ pag. 85. * p. 87 , & 89. † pag. 91. ‖ pag. 76. * pag. 91. † pag. 90. ‖ pag. 91. notes for div a31231-e21190 * pag. 6. † pag. 7. ‖ pag. 8. * pag. 9. ‖ pag. 10. † pag. 12. ‖ pag. 11. † pag. 14. ‖ mem. p. 6. ‖ pag. 12. † * pag. 13. ‖ pag. 14. ‖ pag. 15. ‖ vid. whites tryal , p. 77. † present tryal , p. 14. * pag. 15. † pag. 16. ‖ vid. irel. tryal , p. 36. † pag. 18. * pag. 19. † pag. 20. ‖ pag. 21. * pag. 22. † pag. 23. ‖ pag. 27. & ▪ 28. * vid. whites tryal , p. 76. † ibid. p. 91. ‖ pres . tryal pag ; 20. * pag. 6. † the pres . tryal . p. 26. ‖ pag. 28. * pag. 33. ‖ pag. 42 , & 43. * pag. 43. † pag. 15. ‖ pag. 44. † pag. ib. † pag. 46. ‖ pag. 47. ‖ pag. 46. * pag. 49. † vid. col. tryal . p. 29. ‖ pres . trial. pag. 50. * pag. 48. ‖ pag. 52. † pag. 52. ‖ vid. whites trial. p. 80. * pag. 54. * pag. ib. ‖ vid. whites trial. p. 82. or this treatise , p. 32. * pres . trial. pag. 53. † pag. 54. ‖ vid. whites tryal , p. 82. * ibid. * present tryal , p. 56. ‖ vid. whites tryal , p. 84. notes for div a31231-e27640 ‖ pag. 8. * pag. 9. ‖ pag. 18. * pag. 9. ‖ pag. 14. † ibid. * ibid. ‖ pag. 11. † pag. 13. * pag. 19. ‖ pag. 13. * p. 10 , & 1 6. ‖ pag. 10. ‖ pag. 16. † pag. 12. ‖ pag. 20. * pag. 21. † pag. 22. ‖ pag. 23. * pag. 24. † nar. p. 3. ‖ nar. p. 4. * vid. white 's tryal , p. 73. † pag. 25. ‖ pag. 26. * p. 27. & 28. † p. 31 , & 34. ‖ p. 31 , & 33. * pag. 33. * pag. 35. ‖ ibid. ‖ pag. 36. ‖ vid whites trial. p. 15. ‖ pag. 37. * ibid. ‖ pag. 40. ‖ page . 41. * pag. 37. ‖ pag. 38. ‖ pag. 39. * pag. 40. ‖ pag. 45. ‖ pag. 46. † pag. 47. * pag. 49. † p. 48 , & 50. ‖ pag. 49. * pag. 51. ‖ pag. 50. † pag. 48. ‖ pag. 51. * p. 52 , & 53. † pag. 30. ‖ pag. 53. * pag. 55. † pag. 55. ‖ pag. 56 * pag. 59. † pag. 61. ‖ ibid. * pag. 66. ‖ pag. 72. † pag. 75. ‖ pag. 73 , ‖ ibid. * pag. 76. ‖ pag. 83. notes for div a31231-e33570 of oates . * pag. 66. ‖ vid. records of the session held there may 27. 167● . ‖ vid. order of council april 28. 1675. of bedl●w . * frō 15 dec. to 22 jun. 7● of prance . of dugdale . of sir e. godfry's death . * vid. hill's tryal , p. 14. ‖ ibid. p. 30. ‖ vid. trial. ‖ 4000. l. ‖ 2000. l. * the behaviour of the malefactors pag. 17. * pag. 24. of dispensations . ‖ 1673. † vid. proceedings against the traytors pag. 117. ‖ pag. 275. ‖ pag. 231. ‖ ibid. * vid winter ' s confession . * k. jam. pag. 880. † vid. letter of e. of ess●x printed , 1679 , † vid proceedings &c. pag. 143. ‖ pag. 30. * k. i. p. 160. † ibid and h. l. ch. i. 121. ‖ pag. 11. of the bishop of lincoln's book . * vid pereat papa . ‖ opusc . pag. 830. * 1. f. caron . 2. provincial letters . 3. reply to the answer of the catholick apology . 4. answer to the jesuits loyalty . * numb . ●377 . * p. 75. &c. ‖ vid. french mercure , an. 1626. * vid. pref. k. i. work● . † sect. 6. † oates ' s narrative p. 24 , & 25. ‖ vid. also lords journal , par . 24. * ibid. † ibid. ‖ vid. ireland's , whit's and langhorne's tryals . † p. 20. & 28. * irelands trial. p. 20. † parag. 30. * pag. 19. † pag. 59. of the st. omer witnesses . † pag. 35. * vid epistle to the reader . † page 1. ‖ white ' s tryal , pag. 15. ‖ pag. 57. * pag. 27. † ib. p. 26. * reply , pag. 562. notes for div a31231-e44910 * consisting of 200. persons . discourses on the present state of the protestant princes of europe exhorting them to an union and league amongst themselves against all opposite interest, from the great endeavours of the court of france and rome to influence all roman catholick princes, against the protestant states and religion, and the advantage that our divisions give to their party : wherein the general scope of this horrid popish plot is laid down, and presented to publick view / by edmund everard ... everard, edmund. 1679 approx. 138 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 25 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a38820 wing e3528 estc r176794 13016872 ocm 13016872 96566 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a38820) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 96566) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 738:5) discourses on the present state of the protestant princes of europe exhorting them to an union and league amongst themselves against all opposite interest, from the great endeavours of the court of france and rome to influence all roman catholick princes, against the protestant states and religion, and the advantage that our divisions give to their party : wherein the general scope of this horrid popish plot is laid down, and presented to publick view / by edmund everard ... everard, edmund. [4], 44 p. printed for dorman newman ..., london : 1679. imperfect? half-title lacking in filmed copy? cf. collation in bibliotheca lindesiana, v. 2. reproduction of original in the university of illinois (urbana-champaign campus). library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. europe -politics and government -1648-1715. 2006-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-11 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-01 jonathan blaney sampled and proofread 2007-01 jonathan blaney text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion discourses on the present state of the protestant princes of europe : exhorting them to an union and league amongst themselves , against all opposite interest , from the great endeavours of the court of france and rome to influence all roman catholick princes , against the protestant states and religion ; and the advantage that our divisions give to their party ; wherein the general scope of this horrid popish plot is laid down , and presented to publick view . by edmund everard esquire . kept four years close prisoner in the tower by the contrivance of some english subjects plotting against us in france , whom he five years since discovered ; and was lately justified and released by his majesty . london , printed for dorman newman at the king's arms in the poultrey , 1679. may the first , 1679. i have appointed dorman newman citizen and stationer of london to print this treatise . edmund everard . essayes of politick discourses on the present state of the protestant princes of europe : exhorting them to an union and league amongst themselves , against all opposite interests . part i. the ancient and modern histories furnish us successively with very good examples , that the greatest part of the monarchies , kingdoms , common-wealths , which have heretofore flourished with great glory , and have afterwards for the most part been entirely demolished , fell into that miserable destruction by two defaults , especially . first , by degenerating and totally abandoning their pristine virtues , and a soft negligence in not applying themselves to those means which might have re-established them in the practice of the same virtues as the principle whence their former puissance was to be derived , and from the practice whereof they might be in a condition to preserve it . and secondly , by internal divisions , which ambition , jealousie , avarice or vain glory fomented by the artifices of their enemies , have frequently produced amongst princes , or the directors of their flourishing estates . now then , since these pernicious courses have caused the ruine of all the greatest puissances of the world ; i conceive that no man will be so imprudent , as not to be of accord with me in this point ; that it is the wisdom of those in whose hand god hath trusted the direction of any soveraign and lawful power , diligently with all their care and might to avoid falling into such accidents . and i also believe , that every wise man will likewise agree ; that they more especially have the strongest reasons to keep themselves most exactly on their guard , who cannot be ignorant by many pressing experiences , that they have on their necks very many both secret and publick , armed , subtle , powerful and active enemies , who are perpetually in motion to take advantages of all favourable conjunctures to procure their ruine , which they endeavour with very great care , and by all sorts of means to procure and foment . this foundation being laid ; let us briefly examine whether in the modern conduct of the protestant states in europe , they have strictly guided themselves in every thing which may be called the interest of their preservation , according to such rules as are sufficient , not only to contribute to their maintenance in their estate , but to procure unto them the most considerable augmentations therein ; or whether a good part of them have not rather been visibly engaged by the modern artifices of their natural enemies , into such paths as are capable not only to enervate their principal forces , but by consequence to draw them on , like the aforesaid states into an entire destruction . no man can deny , as it seems to me , that god's blessing was abundantly powred out on the labours of those great persons , whom his providence was pleased to make use of in the last age for the advancement of the work of reformation and extirpating out of the christian communion , all the abuses and idolatrous errours , which the spirit of darkness , by the ministry of the papacy had established throughout the whole extent of the western church . by this success it came to pass that two parties were formed ; which in what concerns spirituals and temporals , divided all this part of europe , which composes the said church . now being the first-fruits of this reformation were such as suddenly stopped the progress of the papacy , and broke the greatest part of the measures which the bishops of rome had taken up , successively since the reign of the parricide phocas , to establish a despotick and universal monarchy over all christendom , as well in temporals as spirituals . this truth being perfectly well known by the see of rome , it were extreme folly to doubt of the true resentments which those bishops have against the protestants , and especially against the kingdoms and states that protect and profess this faith ; so that it ought to be the more observed , that since the providence of god gave this overthrow to the papal tyranny , this beast which hath horns like those of the lamb , is in a condition to speak with the power of the first beast ; that is to say , the bishop of rome , with the title of servant of servants , which they craftily affect to assume , have so well ordered their conduct , that they have thereby been enabled no less than the ancient caesars by sword and fire , ( as greg. 7. urb. 2. paschall 2. boniface the eighth did ) to attempt to make themselves to be acknowledged for despotick and universal monarchs of christendome , as well over temporals as spirituals . and to prove in a few words , and in an uncontrolable manner , what we have propounded we may conclude for certain , as to temporal concerns ; that since the reign of charles the bald , the roman bishops after many debates and cruel wars , which they caused to be raised on all hands against the emperors of the west , have not only been dispensed with from being named ; or approved by the emperors themselves , as the ancient custom was ; but having by succession of time and a thousand unjust ways , so highly advanced themselves above them , that these monarchs have been forced afterwards , as history assures us , until charles the fifth inclusively , not only to acknowledge the roman bishops for their superiors ; but unless they would incur their indignation ( which usually was followed with their ruine ) to abase themselves unto that abjectness of spirit , as to go and kiss their feet , in all humble prostration , or as they mounted to or lighted from their horses ; and the most part of them durst not take upon them to be emperors , till after their approbation or coronation by their or their legates hands . the chief monarchs of all christendom being reduced to this pass ; is it not true , that the bishops of rome , who hold it for a maxim , never to let go their pretentions , and to make every thing that falls out for their advantage , a prescription , have really usurped and effectually enjoyed the superiority over the principal temporal dominion of christendom ? and this is so true , that before the holy work of reformation this petty priest hath been seen insolently many times to take the imperial crown from the father after he had trod one of the most illustrious emperors as a basilisk under his feet , to transfer it to his son ; or if indeed the emperor's children were more careful to observe the law of god in this point , than that of this man of sin , and would not recede from the respect and obedience due unto their father , then to transfer it to the first ambitious person , who could be found of a seditious humour , his presumption being risen to that insolency , that he made not more difficulty in the quality of a supreme dispenser both of the imperial , and all other crowns of christendom , than to dispose of them of an inferiour order , albeit they were hereditary for the most part , in favour of whom he pleased : of this navarre affords us a living example , which abides entire unto this day . passing by ( to avoid prolixity ) the subsidies and burdensome homages which have been established on the kingdoms of england , poland , hungary , naples and arragon , as well as what they have endeavoured to execute on all the other states of christendom ; this may suffice ( as seems to me ) to make all these states to see the interest they have unanimously to oppose the progress of the papacy , so as to prove what i have above propounded , what these proud bishops have attempted upon the temporal dominion of all christendom until the time aforesaid . to prove what progress the same bishops have made in their usurpations upon the spiritual power , it is sufficient to read their own decretals , and what they have been able to cause to be decreed in the greater part of the last councils , and to know the doctrine which all the sophisters of the vatican do openly teach and preach more or less , according to the places where they reside , and which is universally received ( save in the estates of the republick of venice ) in all the extent of italy , and in the monarchy of spain , and hath taken but too pernicious roots in all other states where the magistrate is of the roman communion . and the protestant states flatter themselves extreamly , if they be perswaded ; that by the progress which the work of reformation hath made in europe , and the infeebling which in its process it hath caused in the papal power , this enemy is so far weakned ; that he is not to be feared any more : for it is so far from being so , that it is the more dangerous , as well for its formidable power wherein it still appears , having in some degree abated its politick severity , as not judging it necessary any longer since the checks that have befallen it by the advancement of the reformation , or imprudence of some of its bishops ; so also for that the court of rome is now more than ever rectified in its refined policy , to be able by imperceptible and secret ways to recover its self to its first glorious lustre . and being rome cannot attain thereto but by the total ruine of its natural enemies , which consist ( as i have shewed above according to my supposition ) in the protestant party , it is not to be admired if after this shock , they have stirred every stone to bring about the destruction of that party , and that so long as there are any roman bishops , rome still labours it with all its forces , and all its diligence . for this reason , when the imperial house of austria was in condition by its great inheritances , which successively fell to it in the two last ages , by its immense indian treasures , by its greatness and dignity of the first and most considerable monarchy of christendom , and by its numerous and formidable armies to push on the progress of its great and vast designs of an universal monarchy : the court of rome was subtle and happy enough to perswade it that it could not attain thereto , but by taking on it the quality of its principal protector , and in being the cruel executioner of the establishment of its authority , and all its freques . france , germany , hungary , bohemia , and the princes of the low-countries know what rivers of blood have flowed from this pretence ; and all europe knows the enfeeblement which this illustrious house hath brought on it self by being surprised by maxims so little enlivened by the spirit of true christianity , and of so little discretion and judgment . for this same reason also rome after it had served it self of the puissance and forces of this imperial house so far as to have reduced it to an extenuation and feebleness capable to draw on its total destruction , if the providence of god by the generous succours of its allies had not prevented ; knowing otherwise that this house was not any longer in condition to serve and advance its projects , but in the quality of a suffering party , and that its diminution seemed to give place to his most christian majesty by the formidable power of his forces , and his numerous treasures to pursue with success the career of the universal monarchy . rome i say , which hold for a maxim from the time of its first progress , to spend the forces of the most puissant for its own elevation , hath been also crafty and fortunate enough to perswade this monarch against all the rules of a judicious policy , that he could not attain his great and vast designs , but by attempting at the same time ( as the house of austria had before done , the ruine of the states and protestant religion in holland , and by taking contrived measures without the privity of his majesty of great britain , with many of his subjects , to re-establish the romish religion in england , and also to ruine the protestant religion in germany , and all his own dominions . and to speak the truth , this last enterprize , which by this principle hath been in a great part managed by the emissaries of the court of rome , hath been so subtly conducted , that it may be said nothing hindred his majesty the most christian king for many days , but that by the surprise of amsterdam , after that of utrich and naerden , he might have made himself in less than four months , absolute prince of the principal part of the seventeen provinces of the low-countries , and thereby to have become in one campania , the absolute arbiter of all christendom both at sea and land : and those who more specially understand the errour of estate , which this monarch hath made on this occasion , may know somewhat of the true reason of that great traverse of state in particular , which for my part i attribute to a formal protection of the king of kings , who in his supreme councils had doubtless ordained otherwise , of that affair , and understand that if his majesty after he had surprised utrich and naerden , had sent only 500 horse to amsterdam ; it was probable that the magistrate and burgesses of that town in the consternation into which the rapidity of his conquests had put them , would have delivered up the keys and gates thereof purely and simply into the hands of the conquerour . yea , i am assured from good hands , the major part had concluded to send him them without staying for summons , had not a doctor of physick in their company threatned to call and mutiny the common people against them , and so compelled them to change their resolves . now they who know the treasures and sea-forces of this single town , may thence deduce solid proofs of the consequences , that would thereupon have followed . by this only blow , and the manner after which the ministers of france had begun thereupon to behave themselves in the states of the palatinate , cleve , the marquisatte , and all the protestant states in europe ; all they who love their faith and their liberties may see the fatal point , whereby they were about to be deprived of both ; for the most part , and all this , by the ministry of the emissaries of the court of rome , and by their own neglecting too much the solid means of their conservation . awake thou who slumberest , that thou be not surprized with sleep , which will draw on thee ruine and desolation . making a serious reflection on the active conduct of the roman party , for the extension and maintenance of their faith , and the soft effeminateness and indifferency wherewith the protestant party are accustomed to act in the propagation and support of theirs ; i think i may say , that the former may be justly compared to an army not only numerous , but very well disciplined , provided of very good leaders of excellent counsel , who marching in the field make their scouts to advance carefully on their right and left , to make all sorts of discoveries , who when encamped retrench themselves always very well , who cause every night their rounds and guards to be made very regularly , and who as persons accomplished in worldly wisdom know subtly to foment in their enemies camp perpetual divisions amongst their chieftains , and cause an infinite number of crafty , subtle and faithful spies to slide in amongst them , who render a most exact account of all their motions and condition . on the contrary , i think that the protestant party , may be compared to an army very numerous indeed , and provided of excellent commanders , who want neither experience nor courage , but who are by some unhappy jealousies , fomented for the greatest part by the artifices of the contrary party , divided amongst themselves , and so reduced to that misery , that this army which is capable by the excellency of its captains , and nature of its forces to fall upon what part it could desire , of the enemies army , having abandoned all use of retrenchment , and of corps de guard to secure its safety , and also neglected all the means whereby it might be informed of the motions of the enemies camp ; so great disorder is thereupon ensued , that the army of the enemy doth often , to their shame , beat up their quarters , and make them actually fall into confusions , unworthy the honour and courage of the heroick commanders , which the providence of god hath established in the head of their army . every kingdom divided against it self , comes to destruction , saith the saviour of our souls : in truth this is a lesson of which all the protestant states ought very carefully to make their advantage , and on the account of their glory , their faith , and their interest think a little more seriously then hitherto they have done , for the last half age , of the means to procure their union as the fundamental point of their preservation . the providence of god , which is miraculous in all the cares it taketh for the conservation of his children , hath established a natural opposition betwixt the two principal puissances of christendom , which same are the two principal balwark● of the roman communion in this part of the world , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so great are the depths of satan , that this crafty and sub●●● spirit knows to suggest never failing means to this roman court to make this division ( which were capable to bring about us entire ruine , if the protestant states knew how to use their advantages ) turn to its profit ; so that whatsoever opposition or disunion hath hitherto happened , betwixt these two states , rome knows the secret thereof effectually to make an advantage as it designs . for in the first place is it not by the effect of this opposition , that rome , as the great rohan observes , doth preserve its temporal authority entire in a great part of italy , which would be in a pitiful 〈…〉 of these monarchs after he had defeated his concurrent , had free elbow-room in that pleasant part of europe ? in the second place , during the sitting of the council of trent , the cardinal of lorrain being the chief mouth of france , and so qualified became the head of that party of the fathers , who in this council insisted on a real and actual reformation to be made in the church ; rome was too clear sighted not to perceive that this single proposition carries in it the means to undermine at one blow all the foundations of its monarchick designs , as manifestly did appear in that troublesome conjuncture ; for at that time more than half christendom had shoke off the yoke of its tyranny , and had openly embraced the reformation with little difference in the less or more , and the other half extremely disposed to receive it ; nevertheless in this extremity , rome know to mannage her interest with so great dexterity by means of the jealousie which raged betwixt these two houses , that having promised philip the second , the destruction or conquest of france , and to the cardinal of lorrain to make the crown of france fall into their house , the league which should have destroyed france being signed thereupon , by this diabolical expedient , rome made not only all the pretensions of the council illusory , which it disposed of afterwards how it pleased ; but by the opposition it raised by philip the second , and the house of lorrain to henry the third , and henry the fourth ; rome brought the business so about that it was impossible for the later to reign in france without embracing its communion , and by that means rome continues there triumphant unto this day , and the protestants have been and are still most severely dealt with . thirdly , it is not an effect of the jealousie that reigns betwixt these two houses , that rome hath had opportunity to inspire them so strongly to contend mutually in making out whether of them were more zealous of the worship of the roman faith ; so that contrary to all the most essential rights of their states and crowns , the former to preserve himself in the quality of the catholick king , hath suffered the new emissaries of the papacy in less than one age to invade many very good inheritances ; so that the church at this day enjoys near a third part of the temporal estate through the whole extent of that monarchy , and the other to maintain the quality of the most christian king , though he hath seen two of his most illustrious predecessors assissinated by their parricides or ministers in a very short time , and the laws of his kingdom are repugnant to such establishments ; yet nevertheless hath and doth still every day tollerate the same , so far that the cities of france may be seen as well provided of fortresses and colonies of the papacy under the names of covents , religious houses , colleges and abbeys , as those of spain and italy , which may be called the triumph of the papal policy , it being infallibly certain that in process of time , if god redress it not , the successors of these monarchies must by all the rules of a judicious policy , together with their subjects , become the miserable slaves of the despotick monarchy of the papacy ? in the fourth place , spain being no longer in a condition to patronize the emissaries of the court of rome with a real establishment in amsterdam , nor in the remaining extent of the whole united provinces , nor durst any more enterprize any thing openly against england , nor the protestants of germany , hath not rome now served it self of the opposition which reigneth betwixt these houses , sacrificing impudently that of austria at this blow , to the violation of all sorts of treaties , to make his most christian majesty to attempt in our dayes in this particular , what all the forces of the house of austria could not do heretofore , and well it was that god was pleased to blow upon all these designs ; for otherwise the states of the united provinces had not been the only miserable , but all european christians must have changed face as to the liberty of their faith and estates in a very little space of time ? in the fifth place , as rome hath the art to subtilize all the advantages that it can draw from all conjunctures , and as it embraceth nothing more readily in all its projects , than any design to destroy the protestant party , from their heads , to the meanest member of them , that the poor protestants of high hungary might not escape this general persecution ; was it not an effect of the opposition which rages betwixt those houses , that rome , being about to draw a cruel storm over the protestants , the emissaries of the papacy had the craft to make his most christian majesty to understand , that there being none but his imperial majesty , who could vigorously traverse his designs on holland ; it was his interest to give him business in his own state , and that this could not be done by any probability otherwise , than by somenting the revolt on the coast of high hungary , therefore he must of necessity purchase the heads of the protestants in that country to his part ? now at the same time that these emissaries caused this doctrine to be solicited in the court of france , and by their solicitation obtained money and treaties in france , and insinuated themselves into high hungary ; the brethren of the same emissaries , who are as puissant in the imperial court , as the former in the court of france , by intelligence and conspiracy with the former , had the dexterity without notice it may be precisely given thereof at first to his imperial majesty , to cause it to be determined at the court of vienna , that cruel persecutions should be raised against those miserable people ; we must not wonder then , that those poor people , members of our faith , persecuted on one hand , and flattered on the other , are fallen into the trap set for them by the court of rome with so great dexterity , and that thereupon we have seen the protestant body in that country in this last conjuncture , agitated with such furious convulsions . in the sixth place , the tripple league of england , sweden , and the united provinces , having made peace between france and spain in the year 1668. because by the continuance of this league the protestant party might have made themselves really the figure in the number of the true arbiters of the worldly powers , is it not by an effect of the same opposition , that rome in this last conjuncture , making use of the ambitions , forces , and management of the ministers of france , knew by its charms cast upon england and sweden , to dissolve this gordian knot of peace , and force out of the hands of the protestant party the advantage to them so glorious , and which might have been so profitable to the repose and tranquillity of all christendom ? and that posterity may not be ignorant of the success of these managements in this point , was it not in the seventh place by the infallible consequences of the aforesaid breach , that for a praeludium to all the advantages which this mother of tares might hope from this dissolution which we have seen ; she knew to arm england against the republick of the united provinces with so much cruel obstinacy , that at the same time , when this last was hurried by the land-flood of one of her ministers passionate or corrupted , and was to sustain on the continent all the forces of france , and its allies , after an unhappy invasion upon 46 or 47 places , the former joyns all its sea-forces with those of france , and gave fiercely in one expedition three cruel battles to this later , capable to have wrought its total destruction , if in this conjuncture god had openly declared himself for their protection ? for the eighth consideration , is it not from the natural consequences of the said management , that we now see since the last campania , the three puissent protestants of the north have entred into the entanglement of a war , which cannot but prove fatal to one of those three potentates ; and so to the general protestant body , which we may say is to know very well by a dexterity worthy of their principal , to make their enemies destroy one another , a policy which a thousand experiments one following the other have taught us very vell to know , that rome doth possess in greatest excellency , and whereuuto without doubt she ows her elevation ? but if the court of rome from such an opposition as ought in all appearance , to be fatal unto it ( if the protestant party knew to make use of it ) hath notwithstanding the dexterity to draw from thence such real advantages for the advancement and maintenance of its greatness , and is by the same means arrived at a power to draw to its self such considerable ones , as it hath already or would have attained had the invasion of the united provinces succeeded ; then the protestants themselves ought not to doubt ( if for their sins god should ever permit the effective union of these two puissances , whether by some treaty advantagious to both , as the division of some protestant estates may be , or naturally by right or succession which may happen in the greatest part ) that in such case rome will know to take its advantage and infallible measures , if god hinder not to destroy at once the protestant party in europe : and from thus much i think every man who is but a little clear sighted , and makes reflection seriously on the conduct of the papal court , must needs be put out of doubt concerning this matter . rome besides hath found out an infallible means by the disposal of its purple without being at a penny charge , to acquire the suffrage and protection of the greater part of all the ministers of state to the most crowned heads of their communion ; for as they are commonly men of mean birth , so , if they were of the most illustrious , a cardinal's cap by the corruption of blindness of these last ages , is so great a glory to a family , that there are very few who to procure this vanity to their house in causing it to be conferred on a son , brother , or nephew , would not submit and render themselves slaves to this court as much as the most passionate of all their monks , and as those ministers are for the most part persons corrupted with the affairs of the world , and who know perfectly the weaknesses of their princes ; it is no wonder if they know and will take exactly the favourable moments to perswade them what they please , so that rome hath infallibly all the satisfaction it desires by the counterpoise of the principles of these interests to cast all the princes of its communion when it pleases ; and it is by these maxims which cannot rise but from the bottomless pit , that we see the protestants so cruelly persecuted in many places of christendom , as in france , hungary and savoy ; and hence it was that our grandfathers saw or suffered in the execrable day of saint bartholomew in france , with the massacre ; that have been made in bohemia , hungary , and the low countries , ireland the valley of piedmond , the valtoline , without setting in the particulars of this reckoning what the ancient hussites , vandois and albingois have suffered in their times on the same accompt in divers places in europe . and it will infallibly come to pass , that unless the protestant states , with regard of what i give them to know , do restifie their conduct at the moment they least suspect , and when they have consumed their principal forces by their wars and divisions amongst themselves , or perhaps by maintaining the interests of some power of the roman communion , and when they confide in the faith of some treaties ; this roman dame ( by her managers reuniting all the forces of her communion ) will feed them with a dish of her cooking , to their total destruction , which is the principal butt of all her applications and all her labours , the sallies and retreats of all her guards , which she sends out into all parts , in the mean time all this while till a blow come , the whole protestant camp sleep all in perfect rest , or at most , they are but half awake , or perhaps busie themselves to cooperate by the destruction of its own members unto its own ruine , as they of the republick of the united provinces in the conjuncture of the siege of rochelle , and england in the last place against that republick , have furnished us with two capital and lamentable examples . but if england and holland on the foresaid occasions have provided us of unhappy proofs of what i above propounded , what hath the swede done in an almost equal case ? for what had the swede more to desire than to preserve peaceably the glorious conquests which the great gustavus had made in germany , and chartos gustavus had made in poland and denmark but to see himself at the same time , by his confederation with england and holland , to be one of the principal , who was in a condition to regulate the bounds and frontiers of all the powers of christendom . all which advantages this crown had naturally preserved to it self , if acting as a true member of the empire , it had put it self in a posture , as their electoral highnesses of brandenburg , saxony , and the palatinate , to oppose it self with the head and other members against the enemy , who did invade it with all his force ; it being certain , that by one advance of this nature , the swede had infallibly brought about three things which had been very profitable and glorious for him . 1. he had taken away all lawful pretence from the emperor and empire , whereon they could assail his estate in germany . 2. he had raised no occasion to the king of denmark to put him in condition to recover his estates , which the swede had possessed in the reign of his late majesty of denmark his father . 3. if france had not flattered himself into a perswasion , or rather had not been assured by his managery and tampering with some corrupt ministers of that crown , that the swede was engaged in his interests , he durst never have attempted what he enterprized upon the empire ; and thereby this war , whereof god knows when we shall see an end , had probably been immediately concluded after his irruption into holland was defeated ; which would have given an infallible means to the swede and england , to reassume their true interest , to renew much more strongly than ever the tripple league , and so to become again the pillars of peace in europe , from which the one and the other are very far removed , if god provide not a remedy ; the swede for his part seeing himself in this unhappy condition about to loose , it may be , in a very little time , ( by suffering himself to be seized by the current of france , and carried away to the management of the papal emissaries ) all the conquests which the great gustavus had gloriously made , for having opposed with all its forces the establishment of its tyranny . let it not displease the swedish ministers of state , that were of the opinion to declare themselves against the empire , to understand that there was a very great difference of the time of great gustavus from this . that heroick monarch leagued himself with france for the advancement of his progress in germany , because he entered into it in the quality of a restorer of the protestant and german liberty , and when france at the same time declared for sustaining the same liberty . but in this juncture the swede himself was an essential member of the empire ; and whereas france formerly imployed his arms to sustain that liberty he in this juncture imploys them to oppress the same . it is hence evident , that the swede joyning himself unto his own true interest , ought in common , with the rest of the empire , head and members , to have opposed all his forces against this puissance ; and so much the more , because he might see by what france had endeavoured to execute against holland , and their electoral highnesses of the palatinate of the rhine and brandenburg , what he was himself to expect of france , if they had prospered in their first invasion , and in all his vast designes against the empire . but if the swede , to secure all in case that france , by the sequel of the war , had lost its establishments in alsatia ( which is the point that seemed to have produced this declaration against his electoral highness of brandenburg ) had desired any president and particular stipulation of his imperial majesty and his allies , it is very probable that in the beginning of the war , when all sorts of events were dubious , his imperial majesty and his allies , would have given that crown all the satisfactions and securities which it could reasonably desire in that point : and that which may justifie this against all objections , is , that it was very remarkable and manifest , that his electoral highness and his allies , did not , till the very last extremity , take those strong resolutions of opposing his enterprise : so that it is certain , that if the swede , by his invasion of the estates of brandenburg , had not drawn on him the storm which at present overwhelms him , he had till now , according to all appearances , been in the peaceable possession of all his estates and establishments through the whole extent of the empire . but whatever have been the counter-marches of holland , and england , and sweden , on the said occasions , it being impossible to hinder what is already done , i believe it becomes the generosity and prudence of protestant princes , to strip themselves from all prejudices which might divide them , and apply themselves seriously to all the means that may unite them , as the fundamental point of their preservation ; and which may render vain all the deceits their common enemies can project or take in hand for their destruction : and so much the more , because they ought formally to conclude it for a positive truth , that the court of rome , which by the principle of its interest , neglects nothing that may procure their destruction , directs indifferently in certain cases , the state-councils of the monarchies of its communion , though otherwise cruelly divided by their particular interests , or will find an infallible secret to delude their deliberations , when they find them contrary to their interests and intentions . and to prove this truth in an uncontroulable manner , i will make it good , without departing from this age , by four positive and cogent examples upon this subject . example 1. france neglects nothing in the conjuncture of the last troubles of bohemia , to perswade his electoral highness the elector palatine of the rhine , to attempt the conquest of that realm , ingaging himself for that purpose , to furnish him with all sorts of real assistances and succours , which in that conjuncture , by all sorts of circmstances , appeared to be the true interest of france , without all contradiction ; notwithstanding , when the prince was ingaged in the affair , because the matter of religion was concerned therein , rome knew so well to manage the councils of france , by the means of spanish pistols , that france did not only fail of all those points in this matter , but by an imparallel'd treachery , ( the palatine house being oppressed in the consequences through the evil suits of that war ) made a private league with the house of bavaria , of the roman communion , who had invaded the state of the former , and in consequence thereof , france was the capital and principle cause , which hindred that his serene highness , the elector palatine of the rhine , hath not been fully re-established in all the estates and dignities of his house . example 2. a fatal experience , as i have else-where observed , hath been but too apparent in the most illustrious house of austria , which in the surrender of rochel , hath felt that fatal point which hath broken all its forces , when in its greatest state of glory , and reduced it to such an abasement , as was capable to have drawn on it a total destruction , if two thirds of europe had not generously confederated with all their forces , in this last conjuncture to sustain it . the great spinola who past by rochel in the time of the siege , fore-seeing the surrender of this place , [ by the means he foolishly suggested of shutting them out from the sea ] if it were not readily relieved , and therewith the losses that thereupon would follow to the prejudice of this house , insisted like a man of worth , at the council-table at madrid , pressed it with all his judgment and experience , to cause that place to be relieved ; his reasons were strong , and the greater part of the ministers of the council were convinced ; nevertheless , because the affairs of religion were concerned , or rather a point of the roman mummery and bigottery , one single word of the pope's nuntio overbore all , and caused rochel to be abandoned on that accompt , and with it the most essential interests of this imperial house , were sacrificed at the only appearance of a papal emissary . example 3. the three united grisons were oppressed by the house of austria , this common-wealth put themselves under the protection of france , who for some time , by the help it sent by the marquess of coevres , and the duke of rohan acted with vigour enough for their protection , so much the more , for that the latter in a few months did such things in the valley of valtolline , as surpassed all imagination , and have immortalized his memory . but because rome by a principle of its interest made it self a party to the event of this war , as gave in this conjuncture most real proofs of its authority in these courts ; france made its treaty so with the house of austria , without concerning the grisons therein , for excluding the exercise of the reformed religion from the valleys of borneo , the valtoline , and county of chavanes , that these two powers were reconciled upon this point in effect to force that republick to pass it by articles before provided by the pope's nuntio ; which caused the grisons , seeing themselves betrayed by the french , through timerousness , corruption , or otherwise , to make a second treaty with the house of austria with very burdensome clauses , as to the concern of these exercises , whereof i shall speak hereafter in the sequel of this discourse . example 4. in the year 1672 , when the arms of france were in so high a point of prosperity , that all europe looked on the republick of the united provinces as an estate almost undone ; his most serene electoral highness , the duke of brandenburg , who judged profoundly of all consequences which were to be expected from the ambitious enterprizes of france , if no opposition were made to the current of these prosperities , acquired to himself both the glory of being the first prince of christendome who generously drew his sword for the protection of this distressed state , and did also by his most vigorous representations at the court of vienna , cause his imperial majesty ( rising out of his unhappy lethargy , whereinto some corrupted counsellors had plunged him ) to resolve to arm vigorously , and league with his said electoral highness , for the maintainance and protection of this republick . in consequence of this determination , his electoral highness being advanced to the bank of the rhine with a considerable army , the count montecuculi commanding an imperial army , marched therewith to that end , and were in prospect of doing together some considerable thing in favour of that common-wealth . france allarmed with the march of these two german armies , sent away marshal turenne with a body of an army , who might observe the motions of these two ; but by the divers marches and counter-marches which these two armies made , and specially that of brandenburg , sometimes making as if he would pass the rhine in many places , and sometimes as if he would fall on the allies of france on the other side the rhine ; the army of turenne was so beaten out , that in the end of the campania it was in a manner wholly dissipated , and was indeed in so pitious an estate , that it is certain , that all what turenne could have done in that conjuncture , was onely to bring himself into a condition to defend himself against one of these armies ; but if their conjunction had really followed upon a publick confidence and appointment , turenne's destruction had been notoriously inevitable : and his electoral highness of brandenburg , who knew how easie it was to destroy turenne , and the consequences which might ensue , made all these things to be vigorously represented at the court and council of vienna ; this representation took effect , and thereupon positive orders were expedited and sent to montecuculli to joyn with his electoral highness , and in conjunction without delay to fight turenne ; which by that single success would have dissolved all the secret and manifest contrivances of france , and by this blow alone have withdrawn the whole empire and holland from oppression . but for the interest of the roman court the matter was carried quite otherwise ; his majesty of great britain suffered himself to be perswaded in this juncture to consent , by an express declaration which he reported himself to his parliament , to give liberty of the exercise of religion in favour of the non-conformists of his realms ; which was not done so much , as we may easily conceive , to favour the conventicles of some particular puritans or anabaptists , as under this name to indulge somewhat with the roman catholicks . now as this counter-march of england was one of the first-fruits which the court of rome had promised it self from the ruine and destruction of the united provinces , we must not be surprised , if that court have , and then did actually move every stone to make this destruction solidly real : but as that which capitally opposed this design , consisted in the success of his electoral highness of brandenburg's success in his undertakings against turenne , ( the destruction of that army being sufficient to re-establish the republick of the united provinces , and its re-establishment to overturn all the progresses of the church of rome in england ) it was here that the jesuite took up his rest to break off that blow , in which he succeeded too well , against the universal interest of all europe ; for montecuculi , instead of receiving an order to joyn with the army of brandenburg , and to fight turenne , received one quite contrary , which formally forbad him both the one and the other ; and as nothing is comparable to the impudence of these venerable fathers for pushing forward this affair to their end , their first endeavours were by different attempts to make his electoral highness of brandenburg to suspect the sincere intentions of his imperial majesty ; which was so much the more easie for them to do , because his electoral highness of brandenburg had received formal letters from the court at vienna , which related unto him precisely the very order which his imperial majesty had sent to montecuculi to joyn and fight ; and his electoral highness having thereupon summoned montecuculi to execute the order , montecuculi , who knew he had received an order quite contrary , and had no knowledge of the former , could do no less than refuse both the one and the other of his electoral highness's proposition ; nor could his electoral highness otherwise than doubt of his imperial majestie 's sincere intentions upon this refusal : and at the same time that they practised to inject these suspitions into the mind of his electoral highness , the same emissaries neglected nothing that might bring montecuculi to suspect the sincere intentions of his electoral highness ; which suspitions were but too much impressed upon him for his part : so that it was not to be wondred at , if his electoral highness did at last suffer himself to be perswaded , as these emissaries had insinuated by a third hand , that the house of austria did privately carry on a particular treaty with that of france ; which seemed so much the more likely , because his electoral highness saw daily the miserable condition of turenne's army to increase , and yet montecuculi to continue in his obstinate refusal to fight it . but as all this was nothing but mis-understanding , so yet notwithstanding these emissaries had the means to imploy his serene highness the duke of newburg to busie himself mightily to manage a particular peace for his electoral highness with france ; which this prince in suspition and despight of the imperial conduct , suffered himself to be drawn to accept , with so much the more reason , because on the part of holland , it was pretended they had not performed all they were ingaged to ; and as for the empires interest , he should preserve his entire liberty if france should attack it . now by the whole sincere warp of this history here related , we may see how rash a thing it is to judge of the actions of a great prince ; it being certain , that in this juncture , all europe found themselves extremely divided about what they were to judge of the proceedings of his electoral highness . but as this prince for his own honour would have his imperial majesty well to know , that he had a just resentment of the proceedings of montecuculi ; so this general was greatly surpriz'd at his return to vienna , that his master demanded so rigorous an account of his conduct , and the reasons why he had not joyned the army of brandenburg , and fought turenne , after he sent him precisely an express order : but if montecuculi was surprised with this demand , his imperial majesty was no less , to see what his wise general replied for his entire discharge , a precise order of his majesty in very good form , which forbad him all conjunction with brandenburg , and fighting with turenne ; and for certain , this general had then need of all the justice of his cause , and of the knowledge his master had of his fidelity , to extricate himself from this troublesome affair . i know very well that this intrigue was one of those engines which we never could have well penetrated , had not the author thereof voluntarily given us the key . i know that it is from this foundation that one of the most unhappy of this court hath been formally accused to be ▪ the principal of this cheat ; but to speak truth , he was not culpable at all in this affair , but to those emissaries of the court of rome in this court , in combination with those of france upon the aforesaid principles ; the chief of whom found means to intercept the said original order , so as to transmit by the same dispatch , a false order , but very well counterfeit both in the sign and seal , and that by those people who have not begun now first of all to contrive such surprizes ; it being certain that high hungary had not been so often in flames , had it not been that these emistaries had held so great credit and relation in the said court. his imperial majesty , his electoral highness of brandenburg , and the count montecuculi , know if i speak true , in every particular which hath come to their notice , in this affair . i know that scarce one of these three , or perhaps none of them , yet know well the original , nor the principles of these secret engines which have been set at work in this conjuncture ; and what i know thereof is not from them , but from a place where no particular of this whole negotiation is unknown , nor of the principles that animated it ; it being most certain , that if the catholick account had not been found in england , france could not have brought about this cheat so easily ; but upon the feasibleness of this last principle , the venerable society having voluntarily taken on them to act all the principal seenes of this tragi-comedy , they applied themselves with so much greater ardour thereunto , because , besides that they expected thence to prosper in their capital design , they hoped also by that success to find some means to blemish in some sort the reputation and glory of a prince , who in the latter part of this age hath been the principal mortification of the court of rome . by the four rehearsed examples , to which i could joyn many modern ones , ( if some respects hindred not ) the protestant princes of europe may see what the emissaries of the court of rome can do in the courts of their communion , whenever the interest of religious matters are concerned : and since these emissaries have been , and are , as history convinces us , in full possession of the power of promoting the greatest part of the wars which for many ages past have from time to time molested christendom ; and that all these wars , as well as the present , have been kindled by them only in prospect to some particulars conducing to dilate the papal dominion , and to work the destruction of the powers and people who are naturally opposite to such projects and designes , i leave it to all the protestant princes of europe to judge if their safety can be solidly established in their leagues and confederations with the princes of the roman communion , as it may be undoubtably effected by their leagues and consederations amongst themselves , if the matter be practicable : and all these are so many arguments to prove the necessity they have to reconcile , without delay and loss of time , all the different interests which divide them . i know , by the engagements that have been made since the last year against the swede it will be very difficult to reconcile this affair ; so much the more , because it is without doubt the interest of the empire to expulse out of all the extent of its territories all forreign powers , amongst whom the swede is unhappily comprized under his prejudice , with so much the more justice , in that by his unhappy conduct he hath imprudently drawn the storm on his own head ; nevertheless , i dare say , speaking as a protestant , and pretending to speak to protestants , that i believe all the protestant states of germany ought to yield somewhat to the memory of the great gustavus ; that hero of our faith did so great things to sustain the protestant communion throughout the whole extent of the empire , &c. here i have omitted the apology for the swede , which this author pursues heartily and largely from his 65 to his 84 page , wherein he excuses the king by his minority , corruption of his council , and power of his unkle count magnus de la guardie . but page 67 , he would have restitution to be made to the dane and brandenburg ; that is , wismar and schonen to the one , and stetin to the other . as for brunswick and osnaburg , he pretends they had no ancient quarrels with the swedes , but have particular reasons to favour him ; and that they are heroically generous , and would sacrifice some part of their estates for the publick peace . page 69 , he saith , that whilst france retains a sooting in alsatia , the swede ought also to be retained in the empire to balance ; and that denmark , brandenburg , and brunswick united , cannot avail so much as the swede . and page 70 , that he will at least enjoy deux-ponts ; and therefore ought not to be so much provoked by extreme rigour , by reason of his alliances with the palatine and french families . page 71 and 72 , he represents the danger of the families of austria , newburg , and bavaria , united by league or marriage ; the palatinate family , for default of heirs , to fall to newburg , and the austrian to the same , or lorain ; who by combination with the ecclesiasticks and other romans , may endanger the protestants , divided and watched by rome . page 75 , he apologizes for his apology , and would have it to be understood upon supposition the swede should change his conduct , forsake france , and adhere to the empire : so page 76 and 77 brandenburg's arms may assist against france with the dane and brunswick also , and all together make a diversion , hasten peace , recover flanders . page 78 and 79 , otherwise whilst sweden adheres to france , peace cannot be attained without restitution to sweden . and page 82 and 83 , sweden expelled from germany will be better able to prolong the war in denmark , and so draw succours out of germany to the weakening of their forces against france . page 83. the hollander will not willingly suffer the dane to be sole master of the sound , nor the english if the hollander were content . page 84. he saith , the swede ought the rather to make the desired satisfaction , because the first breach of the articles of munster were made by the enterprize of france upon treves , colmar , schelstead , and all the banks of the rhine , &c. to the violation of that peace . ibid. he proceeds ; now this peace betwixt the protestant princes of the north may be made for ought i can see to hinder it ; and being england and holland have accorded their differences , all the protestant powers may make also a politick union for the preservation of every one of them in particular , which union as to the protestant states , which are members or vassals of the empire under which i comprehend also the two northern crowns , may be establish'd , as i conceive , on these conditions . first , for the maintenance of the interests of the empire , and his imperial majesty . secondly , for their own particular preservation , and that of their allies , and in the matter of the second article they may make a politick union with reservation for the interests of the first with his majesty of great brittain , and the united provinces for their particular preservation , and principally for the preservation of the protestant religion in all places wherever it should be assailed or oppressed by the artifices of the court of rome , or princes of that communion . and as to some ancient grudges upon some pretensions betwixt some protestant states in the empire , which are yet to be regulated , it should be ordered that every one should continue in his rights , and that no armed hostility should be practised betwixt these states , but they should rather endeavour to clear and avoid their differences by the moderation of their friends , allies , and confederates . for this being established in this manner , his imperial majesty and the whole empire could not but well approve , that a body so considerable should unanimously agree for the first article of their confederation to sustain one anothers interests against all ; and it would naturally follow upon this agreement , that as the republick of venice hath very judiciously taken for its particular interest the general of all italy ; the protestants of germany taking for their principal interest that of the empire in general ; this would necessarily follow thereupon , that the emperor and empire would be politically oblig'd to take for their interest the preservation of the protestant states , which would by consequence draw on very favourable successes to the advantage of the protestant body through the whole extent of the empire and elsewhere : and the emperour and empire ought so much the more cleave to this interest ; for that it is certain , that if this great blow were once given , the emperour and empire needed no more to fear the practises or secret workings of france with the electors and private princes of the empire of the roman communion , nor of all their armed attempts on that part ; and this being not established , the emperour and empire shall be in a perpetual condition to fear every thing as they both have at present , if the principal princes of the protestant body in the empire had not generally joined their forces to those of his imperial majesty ; and the empire in that juncture , when france by its formidable armies and publick and secret leagues with the greater part of the princes and electors of roman communion in germany , thought to extend his victorious progress to the danube or beyond , which without the assistance of the protestants he had doubtless executed too well . being then an union of this nature can produce such good effects , by all these reasons according to the small intelligence i have , i conclude afresh , that if the northern peace be a thing possible , and the union of the protestant states in the form and under the clauses and reservations aforesaid ; in as much as to establish the repose and glory of the empire on the side of france , no more is required than to force the french army to repass the rhine ; whoever counselleth the emperour and empire , and all its allies , according to the pressing sollicitation of a certain party to treat with france in the estate things now stand , should do the same thing with a physician , who seeing his patient assailed with a mortal disease , if not fundamentally cured , should notwithstanding advise him to take no other than palliative remedies . and one of the first truths which ought to be considered , is , that all the arms of the emperour and empire , spain , holland , and their allies , have not hitherto taken one single piece of ground of the ancient patrimony of france , and that france brought its arms actually into campania , and in the places of the empire , flanders , brabant , haynalt , luxemburg , limburg , lorain and burgoigne , and hath actually advanced its conquests in some of these provinces . now to make an honourable and sure peace , it 's necessary to imploy solid means for the expulsion of the french armies from the said countries , and to force them to submit to such a peace which may work the security and satisfaction of all the said estates , and this satisfaction and assurance , if it must be such as i have declared , it must herein essentially consist . first , as to the empire , that he willingly reduce himself to the fortress of brissac , unless his imperial majesty shall choose rather to consent that this place , if it be conquered from france , should be absolutely demolished , or together with its dependences given to some prince of the protestant communion ; for in this second case it cannot but be altogether safe and wholesome to expel all the french out of the dominions of the empire , the same is to be concluded of the bishoprick in the country of metz. secondly , as to what concerns spain , france should be content to reduce it self to the state of the pirenean peace . thirdly , that to recompence holland for mastrick , which this republick is obliged to concede unto spain to save shipwrack , and for satisfaction for the dammage of the unjust war which france had made on them , dunkirk or some other place of equal value shall be given them . and in the fourth place , that his highness of lorain shall be fully established in his dukedoms of lorain and bar. i must be excused from speaking of what remains to be speculated in favour of other confederate states , because i have no good nor precise cognizance thereof . but to come to a peace both sure and honourable , there are preliminaries without which it is certain our end cannot be attained , and when it doth succeed , all that cannot be called solid and sure . to attain to the one and assure the other , we must proceed to means to establish in france what would so settled make france to contain it self modestly in its just bounds , without unreasonable interposing and attempting on its neighbours . the one and only means to reduce france to this point , is to re-establish , as i have said above , the civil and protestant liberty throughout the whole extent of that estate , the one of the said establishments being notoriously inseperable from the other , and that all the confederate states should stifly stand , not to hearken to any propositions of peace , till this double establishment were made , and that for the securing it , the protestant party should be possessed of some of the strong and maritime places they formerly had . neither ought any person to imagine that i am herein carried only with passion for my religion : for i absolutely affirm , that withont a real execution of the said two articles , nor solid peace can be made with france , and that it is the only means to stop at once the ambitious sallies of the monarch of that nation by a total incapacity , whereof this establishment only can be a possible execution . and that the reader may more sensibly apprehend this truth , i intreat him to read with a little consideration before he proceeds any farther , my particular observations of the effects which followed in europe upon the fatal surrender of rochel ; the reading of that alone will make him understand that which we are about , and the solidity of my precedent proposition . but notwithstanding all the unhappy mischiefs successively befallen the house of austria by this only error of state on its part , for not having imployed all its forces to hinder this surrender , it will for all that perhaps not be easie for that illustrious house ( such is the zeal it unhappily reserves still for the interests of a court which hath caused all its misfortunes ) to be perswaded to favour the establishment of the protestant party in the kingdom of france ; to help nature herein , i believe it is necessary for their content by way of prelude thereto , unanimously and in a publick way to demand a session of the states general of france , to effect the establishment of the common liberty , which will be unanimously embraced by the three orders of that estate , and in the consequent explication of the means of security for its maintenance , it will not be absolutely impossible to attain our purpose of the second part of my proposal . now all the confederate states with the house of austria and that illustrious house , are more than positively concluded of this point , in this present conjuncture not to hearken to any peace , but in doing what heretofore the kings of england and dukes of burgundy practised in common with the kings of france and states general of his realm ; for this imperial house and all its allies have more than sufficiently proved by what succeeded upon the pirenean peace , that no security can be re-established by any treaties made with the present ministers of that realm by the most solemn oaths and straitest ties of consanguinity , which were not strong enough to hinder the violation of that peace ; there is therefore a necessity to reduce him thereto , in the manner aforesaid and no other way , which will infallibly draw after it such consequences as will be wholly for the advantage of the said confederation , and the protestant party in france . these propositions are too advantagious to the house of austria for them to reject them ; and it is certain , that if all the aforesaid states , act in combination and with a perfect union to procure all these benefits , they will be able fully to attain them , and bring all france perhaps into a mutiny to make their monarch consent thereto . but as it would not be just that the protestant states should act in the foresaid union to bring about all these benefits for the illustrious house of austria and all the people of france , and forget themselves , but that at the same time they should procure for those of their body all the advantages that so favourable a conjunction could procure ; i am bold to say , that all those states by the principles of their faith , of their interests , and of their glory , should bring them to an unanimous resolution to labour in this conjuncture two things in favour of the electoral house palatine of the rhine , with a pure and truly politick respect unto the said confederation , and other particular managements . the first is to procure to this illustrious house a justice that speaks sufficiently for it self , it being certain that the same reasons which caused it to lose part of its establishments , ought to cause a restitution thereof to be made unto it in this conjuncture , and if the league of the protestant states were solidly made , and they would act with necessary vigour , they would without doubt be in an estate to do all things that were just and reasonable in this point . the second is , not to neglect by pressing instances to urge his palatine highness prince robert to a suitable marriage , which might give hopes of successors to this illustrious house , least ( by an unpardonable neglect ) the estates and electoral dignity may fall into the hands of a prince of the roman communion . and these are two capital points whereunto all the said protestant states , as well they who have openly armed themselves , as those who have been content to supply their several quota's to the arms of the circles , as being all naturally interessed in the cause , ought to apply themselves , as to a point which capitally concerns them all , and whose consequents if not prevented must needs be fatal to the whole . but as there is no rule so general that admits of no exception , it may be gathered from all that i have written above , that notwithstanding my scruples against confederations made with princes of the roman communion ; i am far from blaming those protestant states , who in this last conjuncture embraced the interests of the house of austria , i am perswaded they could not dispense therewith , without betraying their true interest , it being certain that since the providence of god hath suffered the houses of austria and bourbon to ascend in europe , its necessary that all the protestant states should since then be confederated , and should put themselves into a condition to ballance these two , that whensoever the one should invade the estates of the other his corrival , he might not be able to subdue all the rest to his blind obedience ; and as it is manifest that france at the present , is the unjust aggressor , and by the principles of a devouring ambition alone , without any right , but that of his own honour or bienseance , would raise to himself the title of the conquerour , by invading the soveraign dominions of his neighbours , the empire , austria , holland , and lorrain , it may be truly said , that all the protestant princes who have listed themselves with the opposite parties , by all the rules of a judicious and strict policy have ranged themselves without contradiction in the line of their true interests . first of all it ought to be considered , that in the modern irruptions which the arms of france made into holland four years since , by the manner whereby france attempted it , and management precedent to it , or which followed on the enterprize ; the monarch of this nation hath plainly taken off his mask , and made us visibly to know that he ought to be considered in this conjuncture , not only in the same character of conquerours of former ages towards all estates who had the unhappiness to have dominions adjacent to their frontiers , but that he ought also formally to be look'd on as the declared protector of the tyrannick designs of the papacy , and so the premeditated and positive enemy and destroyer ( if the matter had been possible for him ) of all the states and people whose faith is naturally opposite to that tyranny . the second thing is , that the imperial house of austria forced by the threats of its utter ruine , having in this occasion now leagued and confederated its politick interests with the greater part of the protestant states of europe , to oppose it self by a joint endeavour and force to the ambitious designs of france ; it is for the honour of all these states to cause this imperial house in this conjuncture to acknowledge that justice , reason , and equity hath been the base , the solid and unmoveable foundation whereon they have laid all their motions ; and that it is also in the protestant , that all the oppressed powers of christendom may find the bulwark of their security . for considerations of this force serve to confirm the respects of interests and glory which establish the justice of these motions of all the protestant states in favour of the house of austria in a solid manner : and these motions are so much more glorious for these princes , and they may draw from thence so much the more happy events , because the houses of austria and bourbon by what hath happened in times past and present , cannot hinder it , but must needs thereupon make reflexions sufficient to open their eyes and make them know in the conclusion : in the first place their imprudence in regulating their councils and sallies by the passions of the emissaries of the roman communion . secondly , the temerity and danger of attempting the ruine of any protestant people , prince , or estate . thirdly , what the united forces of this party are naturally capable to execute . and fourthly , the honour , candour , and constancy of that party ; when they are concerned to oppose unjust enterprises , or to maintain the part of equity and justice . reflections of this nature ought in consequence teach these two houses , the regard , esteem , and respect which they ought to have and reserve for a body so puissant and illustrious , as is by god's grace that of the said protestant powers , and the people whereof they consist , and if this party were always so managed , as to insinuate into these two houses , the doctrine of these four particulars , we should certainly not see those who are natives and inhabitants of the estates of those two potentates ( france and hungary ) handled any more in the manner they now are , nor would these two families , whatever solicitations should be made on the behalf of rome , attempt with so much injustice as they have both done at divers times , the ruine of the principal members of this communion . but if in this present conjuncture all the protestant states ( except england and sweden ) have followed their true interest ; i persist affirming that the same interest engages them capitally to rectifie the conduct of england and sweden ; so as to neglect nothing to gain unto them these two crowns , in prospect of using all possible endeavours to effect an union of all the aforesaid protestant states ; that when by many happy successes , the arms of his imperial majesty , the empire , and all the confederate states have reduced france to that abatement that their said interest can require , and in almost in the manner which i have above unfolded ; all these states may be in a condition to nail the wheel , and to produce an universal peace in christendom with all the advantages and solemnities aforesaid , both for their own particular and general interests , and for their particular of their brethren through the whole extent of the empire , and without it , which by the said union they may be capable to effect ( if god permit ) without any impediment from any power ; and without this union , it may be , some nuncio or emissary of rome may possibly at a moment , when they think least of it , secretly manage some marriage betwixt these families , so as to reconcile their principal differences , and they not be in an estate to oppose them , nor to gather the fruits which they might have justly expected . and i insist so much the more on this that the protestant states should put themselves in such a condition as i have said above ; because it being certain that the emissaries of rome have been the instruments of the underworkings which have raised this war , and of the league of france with the electors of colen and bavaria , the bishops of strasburg and munster , and the princes of newburg and hanover , and of the measures taken for the destruction of the protestant party in europe , as is too well proved ; we must not doubt , but that rome will make all its uttermost possible endeavours to procure it self the honour of making peace . but that all europe may know how far the morality of the protestant faith is distant from the black and earthly malice of the papacy ; i think it belongs to the reputation of the protestant states without any mixture with the nuncio or any emissary of the court of rome , to procure to themselves the glory of establishing an universal peace in christendom to the satisfaction of all honest men , which by the foresaid union they will find at one blow to be in their power to effect , if by their private interests and jealousies they bury not the talent which god hath put naturally in their hands , not only for obtaining so great a present good , but also for coustituting themselves for ever the infallible guardians and preservers thereof ; which is the capital point at which all these states ought to aim , as which will give them the inestimable character of the supreme arbiters of all the potentates of christendom and invincible bulwarks of their security . and if i may be allowed to continue to unfold my apprehensions as ingenuously as i have begun as to what i believe will be consequence of a success of such force , for the good and advantage of the protestant body through the extent of the empire , and by relation to them in several other places ; i conceive that all the aforesaid protestant states having laid down their arms , ought seriously to apply themselves to solid means to obtain of his imperial majesty a modification of the article touching the bishop of osnaburg , in such manner as this bishoprick may be successively enjoyed by the successors of his highness of osnaburg , without any mixture of roman catholicks , it being certain that as his imperial majesty is very full of a generous benignity , he seeing with what vigour this illustrious house hath acted in this conjuncture ; for his interests he will certainly be very easily perswaded to testifie toward that house his imperial resentment and acknowledgement , i doubt not but that a matter of this nature will be entangled with many difficulties ; but the said union compleatly made or to the greater part , will be a rock to all the slights and machinatious of the roman court , against which they shall effectually split and miscarry . but if an article of this force may , and as i believe it would also , be very easie for the said states to cause to be inserted in the same instrument of peace which shall be made , some little negotiations which are necessary to pacifie and lay asleep all matter of jealousie and discontent betwixt the two protestant communions tollerated in europe , so as to deliver them both from some sensible displeasures . for example , in some imperial cities of the protestant body , to the shame of the princes of that communion , the pastors of the lutheran congregation are obliged to wear , with a kind of ignominy , a bonnet like the jews ; it seemed to me a just thing to dispense with them in this for the future , and leave them to their liberty ; there being no reason to constrain them to the like infamy , this being only an unnecessary mark of the animosity which reigned heretofore amongst the princes of different communion , which ought upon all principles of a judicious policy be entirely suppressed and abolished throughout all the extent of the empire . in other places in many imperial cities , where the magistracy is of the communion of ausburg , it is ridiculous to see that whilst the jews have there , all liberty in the exercise of their religion ; the reformed are forced with great inconvenience to walk to the exercises of their devotion without the wall of the city , who agree with lutherans in all the principal doctrines of the christian faith , and are , together with them , the common butt of all the impressions of the papal malice , which neglects nothing which might foment their division , and thereby to walk on to solid means of their destruction : wherefore i conceive , that the states of the protestant communion , though of different belief in certain points ought unanimously to endeavour to cause an article to be inserted in the said instrument of peace , which might for the future redress such incongruities which whilst they continue , can be only seeds of divisions which both their proper interest and their charity oblige them to suppress continually in the protestant body . but as all that appears in christian faith is commonly animated with the spirit of charity , which engages us not only to adhere to what is our peculiar , but to what respects our brethrens interest , especially theirs , whom we cannot be ignorant to be actually in tribulation : i think the aforesaid protestant states should do a very heroick act , if by their mediation , the interests of their poor brethren might be regulated in such manner , that at least the emissaries of rome might not have so ample matter , whereupon to raise persecution against them . for example , now for a whole age , europe hath heard no discourse but of the disorders which from time to time have risen in high hungary , silesia , and other the hereditary countries of the house of austria : i commend not those of the protestant body of that kingdom who for their private interests or ambition may be the cause of these revolts and seditions in those countries ; but if a great part of those disorders arise from the discontents which the want of means to attend their spiritual exercises do cause , which without doubt is almost the only cause , i conceive it were a work very pleasing to be able by humble representations to his imperial majesty to cause him to establish an order which might for the future banish from that country all matter of discontent , which i judge to be very feasible . for if his imperial majesty shall consider the merits of all the successors whom all the said protestant state should leave behind them ; so that for politick reasons which engage him to prevent such disorders , he would make an establishment for the future , that so oft as in any country , or in any particular place , protestants should be found to a certain number , and should desire to have a free exercise of their religion , they should be qualified to procure it without other obligation , then that of signifying by a simple act their number and desire to the magistrate of the place ; i conceive that by such an expedient his imperial majesty might cut up the root of all those unhappy revolts which engage him to extraordinary expences , and of the perpetual cares and alarms , and other practices , which the court of rom's emissaries furnish and trouble him with to redress these mischiefs , which are more proper to cast those countries into flames then to establish their repose , as fatal experience of a whole age cannot but have too well taught him . and as the peace which shall intervene will infallibly be an universal peace to all christendom , and so different interests which concern its tranquility may therein be regarded , following still my intent , which is to respect the extent and advantage of the protestant faith , i must say that it will be of great importance for the said protestant states to obtain of his catholick majesty a modification of the instrument of the last peace , which france made with the republick of the grisons , as touching the matter of the reformed religion in chaveine and the valtoline , for the inhabitants of both parts of that religion who are in the said places though their magistrates are for the greatest part reformed , are obliged by a corruption inserted in the treaty of peace to walk at least three or four leagues on the lord's days to attend their exercises of devotion : it is most certain that it is a considerable interest of his majesty to consent to the modification of this article , if he would preserve the amity of this republick ; and of this i have very precise knowledge ; for if the abbot of st. roman , embassadour for his most christian majesty in switzerland in the propositions he made to some of the republick , had been advised to let fall a word , that the king his master would consent to a free exercise of the reformed religion in those places ; i know that the league of that republick with the house of austria had been in danger to be dissolved : for thus i judge that this represented and maintained in such manner as it may by the plenipotentiaries of the protestant states , it will not be absolutely impossible to annul this article , which will be of extraordinary consideration for the good of the protestant faith in that quarter ; many good souls which profess that religion , though they reside in italy , ardently desire this consolation , and this i can say of my certain knowledge . but we have insisted long enough upon some accessaries , let us go to the principal ; it is so common with very many protestants of all orders who enjoy peaceably according to their wish all conveniences temporal and spiritual , not to be able to dispose themselves by the principles of charity to compassionate the miseries and afflictions of their oppressed brethren , that it is for this reason that i have applied my self to make them know whereunto they are engaged in this particular for their temporal interest . but if in the first point i have prospered somewhat to make known the connexion and indissoluble bond of interests which the providence of god hath established betwixt the subsistence of the politick interests of all the potentates of christendom , and of the protestants more especially with the re-establishment of the protestant party in france , by the sincere rehearsal which i am about succinctly to make of the miseries wherein that body of our brethren in that kingdom are plunged ; i would shew the protestant states for my second head whereto their pity , their charity and their glory ought to engage them . to make known sincerely the estate of the protestant body in france ; i will not amuse my self in expounding what is publickly known to the greatest part of understanding persons who have travelled through that realm , or who have taken the pains to get some information thereof ; i will content my self only to observe that the emissaries of the court of rome having successively insinuated into the spirits of the monarchs of this nation , that they could not think of advancing their progress abroad till after they were solidly assured of all at home , and that therefore it was necessary for them wholly to exterminate the protestant party out of their kingdom ; this counsel hath so strongly prevailed in the councils of these monarks , that since cardinal richelieux ministry , nothing hath been omitted to make it fully succeed . for this purpose all the bishops in every diocess have had order to give instructions to all the parish priests , to hold an actual eye on all solid means to proceed unto this destruction ; and the governours , counsellours and intendents of the provinces , as well as all the officers of justice have had like order to concur with the solicitations of those bishops ; wherefore we need not admire at the tribulation which these poor miserables do suffer ; for it is from these fomentations that we see dayly in all parts of that kingdom ; children rebel against their parents , wives against their husbands , vassals and subjects against their lords , houshold servants against their masters , for what ever injury or violence is committed in these sorts of rebellions , he that embraceth the religion of his prince hath always reason on his side , and he that persists in the protestant faith hath always wrong . so that as it is very hard in a house to regulate every thing so well that there should not naturally arrive some accident betwixt the said parties , these emissaries never loose any occasion directly or indirectly to bring about such contests to kindle the fire more strongly , and thence the heat more fiercely , and if this succeeds , to insinuate their poyson . hereby it may appear what bitter potions the most happy and wise of the reformed in popish dominions are forced to swallow . more than two thirds of their temples have been demolished within these ten years : more than half their colledges supprest . no protestant can have the least place in the offices nor troops of the king's houshold ; and if in the common troops persons of the highest merit rise to the place of a lieutenant colonel , it is rarely seen that they pass farther : what hath befallen the mareschal schomberg , is not an argument to prove , that the french protestants that deserve well may rise thither ; he is at present that phenix which appears but once in an age. but if any protestant be so unhappy as to have any suit against any roman catholick , he may assure himself , how little dubious soever his cause is , his affair is lost . if two protestants have any suits , he that apostotizeth is sure to carry it against him that persists in his faith , who shall never fail to loose his cause . but all this abovesaid is nothing at all to that which was provided for them , if the invasion of holland had succeeded , for warrant whereof i can alledge one of the most heroick princes of all europe , who read himself the declaration ready provided , and who thereupon was struck with an horrour , and spoke immediatly with liberty his thoughts upon that point to considerable persons ; but the ill success of that irruption and some other respects have caused that monster for the present to be laid up in due darkness . first of all the king declared himself by this goodly declaration , tutor of all the infant pupils of protestant fathers , and so condemned all those poor unhappy creatures to be sacrificed to the adoration of idols . in the second place all the temples and colledges of all the royal or episcopal cities or places belonging to catholick lords were suppressed throughout all france . in regard that by the edict of nantes every lord having right of fee-simple , might have at his house the exercise of religion more or less extended according to the nature of his fee ; by this declaration it was expounded not to extend to any places but those , which at the time of that edict did belong to protestant lords ; now for that many lords had since changed their religion , and the greater part of the lands had by a natural vicissitude of things changed masters , thence it would have followed that no exercise of religion in those fees would have been preserved in that kingdom , though it be those only that , so many as they be , have in the furious overthrows of protestant temples made the exercises of religion to subsist abroad in the country . in the fourth place , all the chambers of the edict or miparties , were by this infamous declaration suppressed , and all the miparti●● mayoralties which were established in former times in favour of those of the r. religion . and to complete their misery by the same declaration ; all children born in marriages , not blest by the priests of the roman communion after the publication of that declaration , were declared uncapable to succeed their fathers and their mothers in their goods and possessions . note that by a former declaration all the protestants in france , who had received a blessing on their marriage by the hands of a priest of the roman communion with abjuration , in case they returned to communicate in the exercises of the protestant religion wherein they were born , were declared relaps'd , and their goods confiscate . i forbear to set down here some other articles not so considerable as the former , which yet were no less unjust nor malicious ; the reading of the preceding seem sufficient to me , whereby the more sound party of the protestants of europe may examine ( as i do with all my heart intreat them ) the pernicious fare which the papal council had prepared for the protestants of holland , at that very time , wherein they pretended to make them submit unto the dominion , protection , or discretion of france , and that england and sweden in particular may see the surprize , which the court of rome by the channel of france's ministers had provided for them , and the iniquity of the cause they have put themselves into a condition of protecting , in authorizing the irruptions , burnings , and ambitious enterprizes of france on the low-country provinces , and the empire . and all these states , and all the people of their dominions being instructed in their interests , which engaged them to sustain the cause of the re-establishment of liberty in france , both temporal and spiritual , which as to the second head consists in the common cause of their brethren in this estate ; all these benefits cannot be effected but by a positive union of their good will and forces ; i leave them to consider whether i had ground to insinuate this with all my power , praying the good god with all the ardour of my soul that he would inspire into this illustrious body sentiments and resolutions of piety and glory , such as a cause so solid , so just , and so holy requires . i finish the first part of my discourse , reserving my self to press home this matter more strongly , assaying in good earnest to open the eyes of the protestant body in europe , to make them sensibly apprehend what they are to expect from their enemies , and what they are in condition to do by the forces , which god's providence hath put in their hand , not only to deliver themselves from all these judicious apprehensions , but also to become the indisputable arbiters of the fortunes of their friends and enemies . part ii. the error of estate made by many potentates in the business of the reduction of rochelle ; the consequences whereof have been the cause of most considerable conversions of estate , wars and disorders of europe , which we have seen since that time . cardinal of richelieu , who without doubt was the greatest person and minister of state that france hath of many years produced , or which it may be it shall have hereafter for a long time , was he who first laid the axe , to the foot and roots of the imperial family of austria , and having in an admirable manner pierced into the knowledge of that wherein the true interest of france might consist , to raise the glory of its kings to the highest degree of all greatness ; he knew also to adhere only to essential maxims , whence so glorious a work ought to be commenced : and this is so true , that we may positively conclude as a most certain thing , that whatever mazarin hath executed since , and whatever messieurs le tellier , colbert , louvois , and de pompone have since performed in our days for the grandeur and exaltation of their monarch , are no other than the fruits of the heroick labours of that great minister , and the execution of the memoires and secret instructions of his ministery ; it being certain that so far as they have not departed therefrom , their glory and success have been inseperably united to the greater part of their expeditions , and so far as they have departed from them , their enterprises have many times been attended with loss of glory to their master ; these are things which we observe sometimes by the way , whilst we confine our selves to the pursuit of our observations and remarks upon some errors of estate in the ministry of france ; but our design at present is to begin to observe for our private satisfaction that point alone for the reduction of rochelle , a capital quid pro quo of estate of the most part of the potentates of europe , who might have hindered it ; if they on that occasion had known their true interest , and the excellent conduct of that great minister at the same time . and first of all we will apply our selves only to observe what is but too well known , i mean the misadventures , which have successively fallen out in europe , to the prejudice of the most powerful estates therein , by this reduction only , and those greater which are ready to befall them , if some part of them redress it not . the siege of rochelle being settled about it , the town was but weakly relieved by the english , so that we may affirm that their last expedition which seemed to be set out for that purpose after the death of buckingham , was rather a succour of show and appearance than reality , if it might not be said rather that the good king then could not do all he would for their relief , holland blind to their enemies own true interest upon this occasion lent their maritime forces to advance this reduction . spain who ought more than any other potentate to have known and apprehended the consequences thereof , thought it better to give credence to its pretended council of conscience , then to great spinola , who having personally visited rochelle in the conjunctures of the siege , and perceived the infallibility of its reduction , unless speedily relieved ( for it was he that gave that advice to the cardinal to shut it out from the sea , the infallible means of its reduction , and repented thereof too late ) he prophesied punctually at the council at madrid , all the misadventures which befel them , and followed upon this reduction , to the prejudice of the greatness of the austrian family . all the roman catholick party of france made it so strong a point of religion to contribute what lay in them to this reduction , that we may say of them as sometimes the deceased and very wise marshal of bassompiere ; they were great fools who gave themselves no repose until by the sacrifice of their goods , blood and lives they had effected it . let us now examine apart in a few words that which consequently did happen upon this error of estate to the imperial house of austria , to holland and france it self ; i speak of state affairs , and also by the consequences thereof to the greater part of the rest of europe . for england we need only take a small tast of the travels and addresses of the late monsieur president de thou , embassadour of france in england ; to understand that upon the king of england's failing to succour rochelle , was the foundation whereon that insinuation was advanced into the spirits of the people of that kingdom , that his late majesty of great britain had in secret by the perswasion of henrietta de bourbon his wife , embraced the roman religion , and that his designs tended to nothing more then to procure the destruction of the protestant religion in england as well as in france , if it could possibly be done ; which supposition though doubtlesly false against that pious and learned prince , yet it was ocasioned by that unhappy slackness of supplies for the relief of rochelle : we may say that it was upon this foundation that france , by the means of the said lord thou , gave life to the universal revolt of all england , and to that unfortunate catastrophe which all europe have beheld with horrour and astonishment ; and this is the very truth , that the departed monsieur de thou , who was not a person that would speak untruth , did affirm before his death to several of his confidents , of which some are yet alive , that he protested that he died with sore regret , that he had intermedled with that unfortunate affair . as for the most illustrious family of austria , in examining what hath befallen it on these two heads , since that fatal reddition . first , with respect to the imperialists , the king of denmark , the elector of saxony , the elector palatine of the rhine , the princes of transylvania , and all their confederates being humbled or destroyed ; we may truly say it was in a condition to do what it could reasonably desire in germany ; but by the consequence of that reduction , france was in condition to send its aids abroad , and to make alliances , and having in consequence thereof subscribed to the swedish league , it is easie to see what , after the great gustavus did set foot in the empire , did happen through the whole extent thereof to the prejudice of this illustrious house till the peace of munster and osnaburg . the eight electorate , brisac and philipsburg , with all the conquests of the swede in the empire , and the enfeebling the body of the german church for the recompences made to the elector of brandenburg and prince of meckleburg , are the living monuments of the failures on that side . for spain we may say , that till the reduction of rochelle it was not always triumphant , but it had thitherto supported the weight of its greatness with glory ; and was in an estate to make all them to fear it , who did not love it ; till then flanders , italy , and germany beheld a numerous armies on their side ; the sea also beheld their nval forces of some consideration , and the frontiers of the pirennes with the two seas were their only neighbours and frontiers through all the extent of spain , and all that isthmos acknowledged their laws from the pirennes to hercules pillars and farther ; till then they preserved to their advantage friends and pensioners secretly in all the courts of europe , france it self not excepted , but as if all that glory had been buried in the reduction of rochelle , it may be truly said that whosoever shall examine the ruines of the greatness of spain , with their miscarriages in the greatest part of their designs almost perpetual since the reduction of this petty carthage , so that the astonishing dismembrings which this puissance hath suffered , and the hard treaties which it hath been forced to subscribe will evince that its glory seems to be interred in the ruines of the fortifications of this town ; for whether it were through its military expeditions , or the conduct of its ministers , or the little care it hath had to keep its intelligence amongst its enemies , and after with its allies , as well as the facility wherewith the ministers of france after richelieu , pierced into the most secret deliberations of the council of madrid ; it is most true that after the error of estate on their part , this puissance did flutter only with one wing , which gave courage together with other accidents of a different nature ; to the catalonians , portugese and neopolitans , and likewise to the messinese of late to enterprise by incitation and puissant succours of france , what they have hitherto attempted ; it being most certain that without vigorous succours from its allies , it would be at present exposed to an entire invasion of the most considerable part of its estate , as well in the old as in the new world. for holland , the case is so hot and fresh in the miseries which have befallen them within these four years by their error of estate in the conjuncture of that siege , that certainly it is needless for me to make a long discourse to evince this truth ; for i believe there is not any man of perfect understanding , who knows not readily , and is not well perswaded , that if rochelle in the time that his most christian majesty did attempt to subject holland , had been in the hands of the protestants of france , in such manner as it was before , and as it probably might have been if this republick had not furnished out its sea forces to make this reduction , his most christian majesty had never dared to enterprise an expedition of that nature , and that for two unanswerable reasons . the first because rochelle by its subsistence gave life to two millions of reformed christian souls which are yet in france , whatever the jesuits please to say , that there are but 1500000 , france having in its bowels so considerable a number of protestants , would never have determined to have undertaken the destruction of a protestant republick , which by its scituation so favourable as it had to rochelle , was in condition to put france it self into disorder . secondly , they would have found themselves without a possibility or force to have attempted this enterprise ; for the liberty of france ( i mean that of estate ) being in force and its prime ( as without doubt it would have been to this time , had rochelle been unsubdued ) the ministers of france and their monarch would have been more cautious than to have attempted it : if then this foundation be truly laid , as i shall prove it more largely hereafter , my masters the estates of the united provinces , who are persons that commonly understand strictly to take the account of their interest , may calculate , after they have set on one side the profits which they received from france for vessels which they lent or sold them to advance this reduction , and have set on the other side the loss which by the late expedition of his most christian majesty against them they have sustained , that which arises of gain or loss at the foot of the account in this commerce of theirs , and the quid pro quo of estate in this juncture shall be plain . as for france considered in it self , i speak of its state in its three estates , we may admire in this point the wonderful light of the deceased monsieur marshal de bassompiere , which i quoted above ; for it is a truth no more disputed , but generally known of all persons of worth and intelligence in france of the roman communion ; that the liberty of all france was buried in the reduction and demolition of the fortifications of the town of rochelle : it was this city that sustained the dying liberty of france since the reign of lewis the eleventh , and which was in a condition to re-establish it , and with its liberty to uphold also the liberty of all europe , both in their religious and civil concerns . if the aforesaid powers as well as france it self , ignorant of their true interest , had not by their connivance or by their succours brought about the aforesaid reduction ; for to what purpose serves it for the gentry of france to see their monarch triumph over all his neighboury princes ; if this only tend to increase the number of slaves under his dominion , or rather to give them the sensible and tormenting displeasure to see the forces and power of some estates broken in pieces , who by their subsistence and ayds might have had time and place to have holpen them in some favourable conjuncture to break the chains and shake off the yoke which oppresseth them ; whereas if no power be in a condition to make head against their prince , who shall be able to lend them assistance to free them from their oppressions . but that it may not be thought that i advance a strange notion , in that i would build the safety of a whole realm , and also of the greatest part of europe on the simple surrender of one town , which hath been entitled with the name of a rebel , we must examine it : and to penetrate into the bottom of this matter , i consider , that in the estate the king of france's authority now is there can be no other then the re-establishment of one of the three means which i shall after expound , or some equivalent , which can hinder these kings absolutely to dispose of the lives and goods of their subjects , and that thereby they may not be able by the formidable multitude of people of all degrees which are in france , their industry , courage and martial activity , to hold all their neighbours in perpetual and well grounded alarms ; i would be understood to speak of the means which france hath had or may have in it self to maintain or establish its liberty . the first of these means is as ancient an institution as the office and name of a king in france ; for it hath been since the time the ancient franks did conquer the gauls ; that is the election of a palatine or major of the palace , who was the consul and head of the people , and the true protector of the liberty of his country , who had power to deal as an arbitrator betwixt the king and his people , and to regulate and decide all their differences , and in truth the ancient kings of france were no other to speak properly than the chief captains general of their realm , and in the palatine resided the principal charges of the estate ; as the chancellour , constable and admiral , and it is very true that in this manner the authority was very well parted betwixt the king and his people , who were represented as for this last regard by the palatine : but hugh capet knowing very well by the consequence of what he and pepin had done , that the same palatines might one day act the very same against their successours , he with dexterity suppressed the office of the palatine , and annexed it unto the royalty : see here the manner wherein appears the first means whereby the liberty of estate in france hath subsisted during the two first races of its kings , suppressed and abolished by a palatine himself , in whose person the third race of those very kings did commence , whose successours have reigned in a continued succession unto this day . but as hugh capet could not come to this crown but with the satisfaction of all the principal members , and especially those of his own degree ; this was the cause that the evil consequences which would have arisen from the office of palatine were not perceived nor redressed , as the interest of state without doubt required ; and that he might take away all resentments thereof ; hugh capet being too subtle and refined a politician to leave any suspicion in his peoples minds , he made use of this contrivance to substitute the sessions of the states general of the kingdom under the name of parliaments , of which we find very little mention during the reign of the kings of the two first races : for in as much as the deputies of the three estates compose this assembly , it may seem at first view that hugh capet had not suppressed the office of palatine for other purpose then to diffuse all the authority of this eminent charge upon the particular members of the said assembly ; but these good souls did not reflect that the office of palatine was perpetual , and that the session of the parliament was only then held when the king had a fancy to assemble them ; albeit it is true that the states general of france , if they were in possession would understand it otherwise , notwithstanding by the consequence we may understand , how dangerous it is to change under what pretence soever the fundamental laws of estate , let the appearances be never so specious that the same advantage is retained , it being certain that they who have the courage or dexterity to modulize or conquer sovereign estates know better than any other by what maxims their successours may be enabled to maintain themselves therein ; for when the french first conquered the gauls they chose a king out of the number of their generals , they also wisely devised as i touched above , all that might hinder their kings from ever becoming tyrants . now in the estates generals or parliaments consisted the second means whereby the publick liberty in france did subsist , so long as their sessions were frequent ; but in process of time lewis the ninth having reunited the greatest part of the particular principalities which were in france unto the crown , charles the eighth having accomplished that great work by his marriage with anne the heiress of the dukedome of britain , these princes believing and finding themselves above all accidents , the assembling of the estates general of the kingdom hath been so long discontinued , that at length all use of it hath been as it were quite lost ; and thereby the second means of maintaining the liberty of france through the whole extent thereof is vanished and dissipated as the former , then the publick liberty was in a pitiful estate until such time as the reformation began to get footing in france : for as the reformation of luther was doubtless the means of saving the german liberty , so the reformation of calvin in france did not help a little to revive the dying liberty of that estate . now by the following cruel and bloody persecutions wherewith the reformed were thereupon pursued in france , the head of that party being inclosed in rochelle , and from thence giving life to the rest of the party through the whole extent of france , it may be truly said that rochelle in the defect of palatines and general assemblies with the rest of its party did little less in france then what a pit or excellent cistern of pure water doth in a dry and parched place , in the times of greatest heat , for the use of water being of an indispensable necessity for the service of life , and these dry places in the most ardent heat being destitute of fountains or rivers , as in the defect of these natural means we think our selves happy in the comfort of cisterns , though they be means extraordinary , so of the like nature was the subsistence of the protestant party in france : for the palatines and sessions of the states general in france by their total or tacite suppression , being not able to sustain any longer the liberty of the state ; rochelle and its partisans as an extraordinary means so long as it subsisted , did in one manner or other maintain this accidental liberty , which hath entirely disappeared since the reddition thereof , so that at this day all france is wholly fallen into a domination purely despotick , and to speak the truth being a body sick of ill humours which subsisted by one only sort of nourishment , and wholly excluded from it , its death by consequent is inevitable . as to the tacite interest which the greater part of other powers of europe might have had to oppose themselves against this rendition with as much vigour as spain , england , holland and france it self ought to have done , if they had followed their true interest , for this they need only in the first place see into what estate all the potentates of europe would have been reduced , if the irruption into holland had succeeded , and if the sovereign lord of all things had not taken away their light and spirit from the ministers of france , after they had taken utrich and narden , to make themselves masters of the town of amsterdam , which might have been done for some days more easily than the commonwealth of the united provinces could by means of this place alone preserved have recovered unto it self in a small time the possession of the greatest part of their conquered estate . in the second place we must examine what by the loss of the liberty of the people of france , this monarch disposing absolutely as i have said before of the wealth and industry of all his subjects is able to do and execute against all his neighbours , with relation thereto against all the potentates of christendom , and by this reflection all the powers concerned to deliver themselves from such apprehensions may see how much it imports them to redress such an evil ; as this cannot be done without bringing about an establishment of the liberty of estate in france , and that re-establishment cannot probably be effected without restoring life to the protestant party of france , and being that party cannot re-establish it self without puissant forreign aid , all these powers interessed in this re-establishment may see , that if so terrible a quid pro quo of estate have been rendred them for suffering the protestant party to be subdued by the rendition of the town of rochelle , they shall make it altogether irreparable , if before they dissolve their confederacy and put off their arms , they hearken to any propositions of peace until they have by succours and real encouragements brought about so desirable a re-establishment ; for without this foundation neither peace nor precautions can be found , which may possibly deliver the christian world from the apprehension of changing as to the greatest part of it , the state and face , both temporal and spiritual , wherewith i conclude my small observations concerning the aforesaid error of state. though in these observations nothing was said of the lords , bishops and clergy of france , nor of their great and absolute master the pope , yet it will be very easie from the principles here laid down compared with the attempts this king of france hath made for reforming his subjects into a neutral religion contained in the following articles , to evince that the pope and clergy both of france and other neighbour countries , as much as they hate the calvinists can hope for no other than a mongril and precarious religion , discipline and arbitrary maintenance and tolleration from the kings of france , if once the reformed religion were expelled out of his dominions , besides that if any one king of france should at any time change his faith , or this king pursue his intended reformation and re-union , their utter ruine must thereon necessarily ensue . and it was for this reason the present pope did herein imitate the wise counsel of his predecessors , and did enter the league with this present emperour , the king of spain , and other catholick and protestant princes against the kings of france and sweden to procure the liberty of france , as he did with the king of france against charles the fifth , emperour and king of spaine for the liberty of germany , remembring how unkindly his catholick majesty detained his holiness in captivity , and what reformations he designed and had certainly made , had his design taken effect in germany , a body though greater yet not so united as this of france . the articles of a new french reformed religion , follow . 1. a confession of faith shall be drawn up in general terms , which shall comprehend the faith professed by both religions without touching at all upon these points in which they are not agreed . 2. there shall be no disputes about controverted perswasions , and the preachers shall be forbidden to preach pro or con , and the reading of the school-divines shall be prohibited in the schools . 3. there shall be a patriarch created , who shall depend on the king alone , who shall not be married nor the bishops . 4. the patriarch shall dispence with vowes and degrees of consanguinity , and shall be head of all the clergy . 5. the archbishops and bishops shall be chosen by the clergy of their respective diocesses , who shall name three venerable and learned persons of the age of thirty years at least , of which the king shall choose one . 6. in like manner benefices shall not be any more resigned , but they shall be all in the king's nomination , except the rectors and parish priests , who shall be chosen by their chapters , together with the parish priests , and those of the cathedrals or chief encorporated churches of each city where they inhabit , the bishop or his vicar being president , and the prebendaries shall be fitted with learned and pious men of the age of thirty years at least , whereof some shall be preachers and professors of divinity , to the intent that they may instruct the youth ; others shall visit the diocess and have inspection over their manners , their revenues shall be distributed according to the first intention . 7. there shall be an university established in every bishoprick , which shall be furnished with the best learned professors that can be found , which may be composed partly of the clergy and canons , and shall be only a school . 8. a seminary shall also be established in every bishoprick on the same foundation , to instruct those that are candidates of the priesthood , if it be not found more , convenient to imploy the canons therein according to their first institution . 9. the parochial priests alone of all the clergy may marry , and shall not be received without first undergoing a severe examination of their capacity and shall be obliged to make a sermon or exhortation of half an hour at least every lords day . 10. the ministers shall be provided of cures in the places of their residence , and where they cannot be provided they shall part the service with the curates of the place , and shall be in the mean time provided on the place with wages as formerly , and some of them shall also be imployed in the universities and schools of divinity , according to their abilities , and to take away all doubts from the scrupulous , they shall be obliged to assist every lord's day in the service of the parish , and to communicate on yearly festivals by the hands of such as shall be in orders . 11. the one half of the cloisters shall be suppressed , and none of the female sex shall be suffered to make a vow , unless they be above thirty years of age. 12. the liturgy shall be reformed , and put into an intelligible language , whereunto extraordinary prayers may be added according to occasion , and the curates and preachers may also make prayers of their own invention in the beginning and at the end of their exhortations . the vespers or evening prayers shall be composed of hymns and psalms in french , and some part only of ancient use shall be retained in another language . 13. a good part also of the less needful ceremonies shall be reformed as torches at funerals , part of the canonizations , procession and pilgrimages , and the postures of the priest at the altar , and the spirits of the people shall be taken off as much as can be from the exteriour of religion . 14. images shall be taken out of churches . 15. the communion shall be delivered to the people on their knees before the host in both kinds . 16. confession shall be made before the communion , and the communion shall be administred only on the lord's days . 17. every one shall be obliged to communicate once every year in his own parish church , on pain of excommunication the first and second time , and banishment the third . 18. no man shall be obliged to fall on his knees before the host , save only at the communion . 19. confession shall not be so frequent , and none other save the curates and ancient preachers shall take confessions . 20. baptism and the eucharist shall be the greater sacraments , confirmation shall be a consequent of baptism , or an examen in order to the communion , and shall be administred by the canons or parochial priests ; the extreme , unction shall be a sacrament , orders and marriage shall be administred by those who have right to confess , penance shall be a necessary work , which the bishops , curates , and confessors shall appoint unto sinners according to the greatness of their crimes , and when the scandal is publick the penance shall also be publick , but with moderation and discretion . 21. the festivals shall continue , but shall not be observed with the same exactness as the lord's day . 22. lent and the fasting-days shall be observed , but there may be exception made of all the lord's days in lent , the saturdays of all the year and all the vigils . 23. the saints shall be honoured , but without invoking them directly , and all prayers shall be directed to god alone . 24. pardons and indulgences shall be reformed , and endeavours shall be used to instruct the people as much as possible to make them apprehend that they ought to ground the remission of their sins on the blood of christ . all this and what else they can agree on shall be approved by an assembly general , which shall be composed of the most learned divines of the one and the other religion , and they shall prepare the confession which is spoken of above . but herein is the difficulty , that the greater part of the catholicks fancy that is too loose , and they of the reformed religion think it too little , and are afraid they shall be deceived in what is promised them . these articles were testified and made notoriously known through all france by those to whom they were addressed , by him who was sent by the king to sollicite the re-union , a reformade of the king's guards , bacary by name , and nephew ( as he saith ) of the deceased mr. gauches minister at charenton . his warrant from the king was in these words . the bearer of this paper having order to make some propositions on my part to the ministers of the pretended reformed religion , they may confide in whatsoever he shall say unto them , and perswade them that it is not my intent to do any thing against the edicts and declarations i have made at ath. june 18. 1671. lewis . his certificate all written in marshal turenne's own hand , hath these words . you may give entire credit to him , who shews you this paper , and to what he saith , having order from the king to tell you , that he will perform all the things which he shall promise you , and that this comes in the behalf of his majesty . turenne . the bearer of this paper tells the ministers to whom he applies himself , that 4● bishops have promised the king , that for the advantage of the re-union they will cut off the adoration of images , invocation of saints , purgatory , prayers for the dead , that they will establish the service in the vulgar tongue , communion in both kinds , and that for the real presence , the divines on both sides shall accord thereon , and that if the pope oppose himself , he shall be removed , and a patriarch established in france . these are the reformado's own words . finis . some seasonable reflections on the discovery of the late plot being a sermon preacht on that occasion / by william sherlock ... sherlock, william, 1641?-1707. 1683 approx. 54 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 16 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a59895 wing s3366 estc r10020 11906836 ocm 11906836 50722 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a59895) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 50722) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 512:9) some seasonable reflections on the discovery of the late plot being a sermon preacht on that occasion / by william sherlock ... sherlock, william, 1641?-1707. 2 p.l., 26 p. printed for thomas basset ..., london : 1683. reproduction of original in university of pennsylvania library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng bible. -o.t. -psalms xviii, 50 -sermons. popish plot, 1678. sermons, english -17th century. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-12 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-12 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2004-12 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-01 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion some seasonable reflections on the discovery of the late plot. being a sermon preacht on that occasion . by william sherlock , d. d. rector of st. george buttolph-lane , london . london : printed for thomas basset , at the george in fleet-street . and fincham gardiner , at the white horse in ludgate-street . 1683. the preface to the reader . the reason , why i publish this sermon , is partly to gratifie the desires of some , partly to prevent the misrepresentations of others , but chiefly for the same end , for which i preacht it , viz. to take the advantage of this present opportunity , to make some impressions upon mens minds , which i fear at other times , they will not so easily receive . i hope all honest men , even dissenters themselves , do from their hearts abhor those villanous designs against the life of our king , which god of his great mercy to these kingdoms , has so lately brought to light : and while they are possest with such an abhorrence of the treason , it seems to me , to be a very proper season to put them in mind by what means such evil designs have been first formed and encouraged and brought to ripeness and perfection ; that those , who have been cheated into a faction by some plausible pretences , and have followed the general noise and outcry in the simplicity of their hearts , may take warning for the future , and avoid every step and advance towards sedition and treason , as well as abhor the treason it self . it was impossible to do this , without calling to mind a great many things , which to be sure , those who are any ways concerned , are not now willing to hear of ; and that with such plainness , as is necessary to convince men of the evil nature and tendency of such practices : but god is my witness , that i did not this with the least design to upbraid or reproach any men , or party of men , but with the same honest and charitable intentions , though it may be not with the same skill , that a chirurgeon uses in searching a wound to the very bottom ; which is very painful indeed , but absolutely necessary to a cure. some persons , i hear , have objected against this discourse , that i seem to charge this plot upon the protestant dissenters , and insinuate that it is a fanatick , a true protestant plot. god forbid that all protestant dissenters should be concerned in this plot , i hope better things of many of them ; nor do i undertake to meddle with such matters . all that i meant , is nothing but what is evident to any man , who believes a plot , that this horrible conspiracy has been contrived and carried on by those men , who of late have pretended to be the only true protestants ; a name , which they would not allow to any man , who appeared zealously concerned either for the king , or the church of england . whether such men have any religion or none , whether they go to conventicles , or to give the better grace to the business , sometimes hear the common prayer , is all one to me . i am sure the turbulent spirit , which has of late acted our dissenters , and their unwillingness to believe any plot still , gives too just a suspicion of many of them . though we are all bound to praise and adore the divine goodness in defeating such wicked designs , yet i am so far from triumphing over these men , that i cannot but pity and mourn over them ; my heart bleeds for that scandal , that is done to religion , that advantage which is given to the common enemy , for the sin and the fall of great men , and the ruine of noble families ; but what is done , cannot be undone again : our care must look forward , to times to come , to remove the occasions , to root up the very seeds and principles of sedition , that these shakings and convulsions of state may at last settle in a profound and secure peace and tranquillity . if this plain discourse can contribute any thing to so happy an end , i have all that i aim'd at both in preaching and printing it ; however , i have the satisfaction of an honest design , which is a reward to its self ; and gives that inward contentment and pleasure , which the reproaches and censures of the world , which too often attend such undertakings , can never disturb . a sermon . xviii . psalm , v. 50. great deliverance giveth he to his king , and sheweth mercy to his anointed , to david and to his seed for evermore . this psalm was pen'd by david in a thankful remembrance of those many wonderful deliverances , which god had wrought for him ; and particularly his deliverance from the hands of saul , a jealous , powerful , and implacable enemy , as we are expresly told , 2 sam. 22. 1. this pious prince , though he were immediately advanced to the throne by god himself , could not escape the conspiracies of his enemies both at home and abroad : for men of turbulent and restless spirits , will be sure to find or make some pretences or occasions of quarrel , under the most just and equal government . sometimes men dispute the right of succession ; but this they could not do here , unless they would dispute gods right to place and displace princes ; for david was immediately chosen by god , and anointed by his prophet , and yet this could not secure him from conspiracies and rebellions . others pretend great oppression and male-administration of government , though their licentious noises and clamours sufficiently confute it ; for men , who are most opprest dare say the least of it . the liberties and properties of the subject , is an admirable pretence to deprive the prince of his liberties and properties ; and those who have any liberty and property to loose , seldom gain any thing by this : for when they have secured their liberties and properties against their prince , it is a much harder task to secure themselves from their fellow-subjects . men who have no property have some encouragement to rebel , and fight for property ; for it is possible they may get something in the scramble , when all law and property ceases , but the property of the sword : but methinks men of honour and plentiful fortune , should not be so zealous for transferring properties , to enrich beggars , and submit their necks to the yoke and government of their own slaves ; which our late experience has taught us to be the glorious effect of rebelling for liberty and property . others make religion a pretence for their rebellion , religion , the greatest and the dearest interest of all ; but methinks it is a dangerous way for men to rebel to save their souls , when god has threatned damnation against those who rebel : but this is as vain a pretence as liberty and property ; for no men fight for religion , who have any . religion is a quiet , peaceable , governable thing ; it teaches men to suffer patiently , but not to rebel . and were there any true concernment for religion in this pretence , can we imagine , that the most profest atheists , the most lewd profligate wretches , the greatest prodigies and monsters of wickedness , should be so zealous for religion ? but it 's evident , it is not religion , such men are zealous for , but a liberty in religion ; that is , that every one may have his liberty to be of any religion , or of none ; which serves the atheists turn , as well as the sectaries , but is not much for the honour or interest of true religion . so that whatever the pretences are , it is an ambitious , discontented , revengeful spirit , an uneasie , restless , fickle and changeable humour , which disturbs publick government , and undermines the thrones of princes ; and therefore it is no wonder , if the best princes and the best governments in the world be disturbed by such men ; david himself could not escape , he had a great many enemies , but davids god was greater than they all , for great deliverance giveth he to his king , and sheweth mercy to his anointed , to david and to his seed for evermore . there is something peculiar in these words , which cannot be applied to any other prince : for as david was king of israel , so he was a type of the messias , who was to descend from his loynes , and that promise or prediction that he would shew mercy to his anointed , to david and to his seed for evermore , received its full accomplishment , in the kingdom of the messias , who is said to set upon the throne of david ; but yet those deliverances god wrought for david , were personal too , and an example of gods care and protection of pious and religious princes . and when we see the same good providence watching over our prince , and securing him from the bloody designs of wicked men , we have reason thankfully to acknowledge it , as david did ; great deliverance he hath given to our prince , he hath shewn mercy to his anointed . now know we , that the lord saveth his anointed , he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand . some trust in chariots , and some in horses , but we will remember the name of the lord our god : they are brought down and fallen , but we are risen and stand upright . my present discourse therefore shall consist of those two parts . 1. briefly to observe to you , those many great deliverances which god hath wrought for our king. 2. i shall make some practical reflections on it , especially with reference to this late discovery . 1. to observe to you , those many great deliverances which god hath wrought for our king. his troubles have not been much unlike , i am sure not inferiour to davids , and his deliverances have not been less strange and wonderful . i am not a going to give you a history of his life , but only to point you to some remarkable passages of it , which it becomes us all thankfully to remember . i suppose no man doubts , how many dangers a prince is exposed to , who flies before an enraged and victorious enemy ; who knows not whither to go , where to hide himself , whom to trust : this was the condition of our dread soveraign , who was hunted as a partridge in the mountains , pursued by his own rebellious subjects , who had usurpt his throne , and thirsted after his blood. but then god found a hiding place for him , and delivered him from the desire and expectation of his enemies . but still his condition was calamitous , he was forc't to live in exile and banishment , divested of royal power , and all the ensignes of majesty , reduced to a precarious , and sometimes a necessitous state , while he saw his friends impoverisht and ruined , his loyal subjects opprest , his enemies triumphant , too vigilant , and too powerful to allow any hope to see an end of these troubles . but that god , who can do what he pleases , and oftentimes does such things , as no humane force nor power can effect , put an end to these troubles also ; and restored him to his fathers throne in peace and honour , and with the universal joy and triumph of his subjects : and i suppose you will reckon this a deliverance , a great and wonderful deliverance both to prince and people ; a deliverance immediately wrought by god ; without humane policy , contrivance , or power . to see a prince whose father was murdered , and himself forc't into banishment by his own subjects , without any power of his own , without the help and assistance of forreign allies ; while his friends at home were opprest , while the same power that drove him out , was still in the hands of his enemies ; while so many persons who were in greatest power were concerned for their own preservation to keep him out ; while those who wisht his return , durst not whisper any thing tending to call the king back again ; i say , to see a prince in such circumstances , without striking a blow , without shedding a drop of blood , return again in the throngs and crouds , and with the acclamations of his subjects , is no less a miracle , than dividing the sea to give a safe passage to the israelites : for the psalmist represents it as an argument of equal power to still the noise of the the seas , the noise of their waves , and the tumult of the people . this is the lords doings , and it is marvellous in our eyes ; now know we , that the lord saveth his anointed , he will hear him from his holy heaven with the saving strength of his right hand . and that good providence , which brought our king back again , has watcht over him ever since . though he returned in a happy day , when the seas were smooth and calm , when no frowns were to be seen on mens forheads , but such cheerful looks as signifyed the inward pleasure and serenity of their minds , yet it could not be expected , that this calm would always last . i think we may now venture to say , without fear of being censured , that there are two sorts of men , that are restless and implacable , and always working under ground , and both of them with an equal pretence of religion : i mean the papist and the fanatick . i shall not take notice of those several weak attempts they have made since the happy restauration of our prince ; there is something greater to imploy our thoughts at this time , some more signal demonstrations of that great deliverance god giveth to his king. we have now for many years had little other discourse than of a popish plot , a wicked hellish design against the life of our king , and the religion and liberties of his subjects . this was a formidable design , laid close and in the dark , prosecuted with deep counsels and combined interests . we may remember , for i think we cannot easily forget , what horror and consternation surprized us at the news ; we lived in perpetual fear of the life of our prince , in perpetual fear of our own : how did the name of popery deservedly stink among us ! how did men abhor a religion , which is nourisht with blood , with royal and innocent blood ! how zealous were men in their discoveries , how watchful in their guards , how devout in their prayers for the preservation of their prince , and of their religion ! and though possibly we have not seen to the bottom of that plot to this day , and it may be never shall , yet blessed be god , there was enough discovered to prevent the mischief ; we still enjoy our religion , we still see our prince , and rejoyce under the benigne influences of his government ; hitherto god hath saved his anointed from a popish , i pray god still defend him from a fanatick plot. a fanatick , a true protestant plot ? surely that is impossible ; there can be no danger from that corner ; this is only a scandal cast upon innocent and peaceable men . truly this has been so often said , and with so much confidence , that we had like not to have believed it possible , till it had been too late . it was sufficient to prove any man to be a papist , who durst own it possible , for such good men to rebel , or plot against the king and government ; and yet it was very hard not to think that possible to be done , which had been done once already , and that so lately , as not to be forgot , though it was pardoned ; an act of oblivion could not wipe it out of mens memories , especially when they saw the same things begin to be acted over again , with the same religious pretences . i am apt to think , we had been more secure from the popish plot , than for ought i know , we may yet be , had not these men abused peoples fears and dangers of popery to the disturbance of the government , and to the carrying on their antimonarchical and fanatick designs . we remember how soon the popish plot was turned into a great noise and cry against the church of england ; and no way was thought so fit to keep out popery , as to pull down the church ; and thus the poor church of england , which had escaped the rage and fury of rome , had like to have been sacrificed to a true protestant zeal , which no doubt had given a fatal blow to popery . hoc ithacus velit , & magni mercentur atridae . how things proceeded after this to the disturbance of the publick peace , and the interruption of the ordinary course of justice , you all know , as well as i ; and wise men quickly saw , and honest men could not forbear warning the people , whither these things tended : and they met with a good reward for it ; they were all papists in masquerade , and especially the loyal clergy were loaded with all the contempt and ignominy , which an inraged and envenomed zeal , and some witless scriblers could cast on them . whole vollies of pamphlets flew about to poyson the people with lewd and seditious principles ; but to talk or write or preach about obedience to government , or patient suffering for a good cause , was to betray the protestant interest , and to invite a popish successour to cut our throats : and what all this ends in , thanks be to god , we now see , and i hope , time enough to prevent it . i do not pretend to tell you any thing which you do not all know ; time , and the care of our governours , and the guilty consciences of rebels , and the good providence of god , i hope , will make further discoveries , and bring these secret works of darkness into open view ; but we know enough to praise god for his great deliverance , which he hath given his king ; we know enough to admire and adore that infinite wisdom who by the most seemingly casual and contingent events , can so easily disappoint and defeat the designs of wicked and bloody men . who ever suspected , that the fire at newmarket was sent by god for the preservation of our king and his royal brother , for the preservation of these kingdoms , of our liberties and religion ? wonderful are thy works , o lord , and thy ways past finding out . this short account i have given you , is an excellent comment upon my text , a case very parallel to davids . the deliverances of our prince are no way inferiour to that mercy god shewed to david , when he delivered him from the lyon and the bear , from the uncircumcised philistin , from a persecuting saul , from a rebellious absolom , from a treacherous achitophel , from the strivings of the people . great deliverance sheweth he to his king , and sheweth mercy to his anointed . 2. and thus i proceed to make some practical remarks and observations on this , which was the thing i principally designed . and they are these . 1. what a vain and fruitless attempt it is to plot against the life and crown and dignity of our prince , when god undertakes the defence and protection of him . setting aside the wickedness and impiety of it , it is a foolish and dangerous design . whoever considers only the probable events of humane actions , will be easily convinc't , how unlikely it is , that such plots should take effect . to miss the very critical m●nute , spoils all the design ; and yet after all the skill and contrivance they can use , there are ten thousand casualties to disappoint them . such designs cannot be acted alone , but require numerous confederates ; and what security can there be , that no one man in such a number shall betray the secret ? some possibly may be toucht with remorse and horror of conscience , may be frighted with the very thoughts of that villany which they designed to act ; and then they need no body to betray them but themselves , for no man can long together conceal the fire , which burns in his own breast . other men may get into the company , and acquaint themselves with all their intrigues , and act so cunning a part , as to be mistaken for confiding persons ; may appear most zealous and most forward in the business , and all this while betray their counsels , and put an effectual stop to them , when they are ripe for execution : and it is impossible for the cunningest men to prevent this , who have not a casement into mens breasts . other men , who enter into the confederacy to make their fortunes , may happen to consider , that it is much the safest and most effectual way to do this by discovering the plot , than by acting it . the power of wine sometimes unlocks a secret , and saves a kingdom ; some unexpected quarrels and animosities among the conspirators , a mutual jealousie of each others greatness ; a hasty dispute about dividing the riches and honours and power of the nation , before they have it , may tempt them to hang one another , and leave the spoil which they had already devoured in their hopes and expectations , to the right owners . a desire to rescue some friend out of the common ruin , may save a kingdom . walls and hedges have ears , and the very birds of the air may tell the matter . their cabals may be observed and suspected , and their affectation of secrecy may betray them . their guilt is often seen in their looks , and creates jealousies and suspicions of some secret design ; and an unlucky word , which he meant nothing by , who spoke it , may make them think themselves discovered ; and this is a ready way to make them discover themselves . the heart of the stoutest rebel may fail him , when he comes to give the fatal blow ; or he may miss of his aim , or his gun may not go off , or he may distrust his own escape , and not be hardy enough to sacrifice his own life in the cause ; and a thousand other accidents , which it is impossible for me to reckon up , may save the devoted prince , and hang the conspirators : and those had need be men of very desperate fortunes , or very little understanding , who engage in such desperate designs . but when to this we add the consideration of the divine providence , which peculiarly interests it self in the disposal of kingdoms , and in all the great changes and revolutions of publick affairs , unless these men were of the privy-council of heaven , and could hold intelligence with the secret decrees and purposes of god for the government of the world , they can never be secure of success , how hopeful soever their projects and designs appear . if god take any care of human affairs , if he concern himself at all in the government of the world , we may certainly conclude that his providence does principally order the fate and revolutions of kingdoms and common-wealths . some philosophers have questioned , whether god condescended so far , as to take notice of particular creatures ; but all who acknowledged his providence , thought the great concernments of kingdoms , the placing or displacing of princes , worthy of his care and peculiar regard : and therefore we , who are assured by our saviour , that gods care and providence extends to the sparrows , and the lilies of the field , cannot doubt , whether he rules and governs in the kingdoms of men , whether he who takes care of every particular creature , takes care of the general concernments of humane societies , wherein the happiness of all particular men is involved . and can these men then think to pull down and to set up princes at their pleasure ? god may sometimes suffer treason and rebellion to be prosperous , but it can never prosper , but when god pleases ; and it is impossible rebels should ever know that , and therefore it is impossible , they should have any reasonable security of success . there is nothing more expresly contrary to the revealed will of god , than treasonable plots and conspiracies against soveraign princes : and though god does many times permit those things to be done , which he has forbid to be done , or else no man could ever be guilty of any sin ; yet his forbidding of it is a plain argument , that he does not approve it , that he will not countenance it , nay , that he will not permit it , but where he sees great and wise reasons to do so . god never indeed interposes by an irresistible power to hinder men from choosing that which is wicked , for he offers no force and violence to mens wills : but when this wickedness is injurious to others , who are the objects of his care and providence , he many times interposes to prevent the mischief . the lives of private men are not at the disposal of every ruffian ; not a sparrow falls to the ground without our father , much less a man , much less a prince , on whose life and fortune the lives and fortunes of so many thousands depend . and therefore no man can reasonably promise himself success in plotting against his prince , but he who certainly knows , that god for some wise but hidden reasons , will suffer such a villany to take effect ; which no man can know without a revelation ; and we cannot think , that god will encourage any man by an extraordinary revelation to do that , which he himself has expresly forbid , and threatned with eternal death . so that all such men act at infinite uncertainties ; besides the punishments of the other world , which are reserved for traitors ; besides the many natural contingencies and uncertainties of humane actions : if they believe , that there is a providence which governs the world , they have ten thousand to one against them , that god will not permit them to do , what they design : and those are bold men indeed , who dare vie stratagems and power with god! especially when they plot against a prince who seems to be the darling of providence , who has received so many wonderful and miraculous deliverances , as if he were still reserved for some extraordinary service in the world. one would have thought , the discoverie of the popish plot , which no doubt was managed with as much secrecy , with as wary councils , and deep intrigues , as any thing ever was , should have discouraged any new attempts in this age : it should have brought to mind that triumphant psalm , why do the heathen rage , and the people imagine a vain thing ? the kings of the earth stand up , and the rulers take counsel together ( a more powerful faction than some private male-contents ) against the lord , and against his anointed , saying , let us break their bonds asunder , and cast away their cords from us . he that dwelleth in the heavens shall laugh them to scorn , the lord shall have them in derision . at least it is time now to take warning , lest we be found fighters against god : it is a vain and a dangerous attempt to conspire his ruine , whom god hath hitherto so miraculously preserved . secondly , there is another observation on these late plots and conspiracies , which no man can avoid making , and that is , how dangerous the disputes and differences of religion are to the publick peace and welfare of any nation . christian religion indeed is the greatest security of government , both in its precepts and examples ; it commands every soul to be subject to the higher powers , and threatens eternal damnation against rebels ; it teaches us to give to every one their due ; tribute to whom tribute is due , custom to whom custom , fear to whom fear , honour to whom honour . it strictly enjoyns the practise of all sociable vertues , and charms those boisterous passions , which disturb humane conversation ; it requires us to obey our superiours in all lawful things , and quietly to submit and suffer , when we can't obey . and the blessed jesus , who was the author of our religion , and our great pattern and example , did himself practise these laws , which he gave to us . he lived in obedience to the civil powers ; and though the jewish nation , which was a free people , the lot and inheritance of god himself , were then in subjection to the romans , yet he would not give them the least encouragement to shake off the yoak , but commands them to give nnto caesar the things that are caesars , and to god the things that are gods. though he was a king , yet he was not caesars rival ; for his kingdom was not of this world , & therefore he did not arm his subjects to fight for him , as he told pilate . his kingdom was not to be set up in the world by force and power , but he gave testimony to the truth with his blood , and commanded his disciples to do so too . he died himself upon the cross , and made this the condition of our discipleship , to take up our cross and follow him ; and thus the apostles and the primitive christians did , they cheerfully followed their master to the cross , and conquered by suffering . christianity was planted in the world by no other arts but the foolishness of preaching , by preaching that absurd and ridiculous doctrine , as the world then accounted it , of a crucified jesus ; and it defended it self only by a resolute and patient suffering for the name of christ. this is the true temper and spirit of christianity . under the most barbarous and persecuting emperours , no christian ever suffered as a rebel ; they gave no other disturbance to the government , than by confessing themselves christians , and suffering for it . their numbers indeed were very formidable , but nothing else ; for in imitation of their great master , they went as lambs to the slaughter , and as sleep before their shearers are dumb , so they opened not their mouths . but notwithstanding this , our daily experience tells us , that when religion is divided into factions and parties , or rather men are divided into factions and parties upon account of religion , there is nothing more imbitters mens spirits against each other , nor gives greater disturbance to publick government . all the troubles and miseries , which for these late years have overwhelmed this unfortunate island , have been owing to this cause ; religion has been made either the reason or the pretence of all : papists plot and conspire the death of a protestant prince to bring in popery , and profest protestants , it seems , do the same thing to keep out popery ; and thus a protestant prince , and a truly protestant , or rather a true primitive and apostolick church , is in danger of both . and is there not great reason then for princes , who love their lives and their crowns , to keep a watchful eye over such busie , potent , and dangerous factions ? shall it be called persecution for religion , to punish traitors , or to keep under a factious and turbulent spirit ? if the consciences of subjects will serve them to rebel for religion , it seems a very hard case , if the conscience of the prince must not allow him to hang 'em for their rebellion : and yet no wise prince will put it upon that hazard neither , if he can help it , to suffer his subjects to deserve to be hanged . to curb a growing faction by prudent and timely restraints , is a much better and safer way . the truth of this is readily owned , when it is applied to the papists . they are men of such dangerous principles and practices , as not to be suffered to live in any protestant kingdom ; and truly so they are , and thanks be to god , we have very good laws against them ; and whatever they may do in private , they dare not out-face government with their publick and numerous conventicles ; they walk in the dark , and dare not own themselves to be what they are . but yet i cannot but wonder upon what principles those men act , who are so zealous against popery , and think it such an unpardonable fault in governors , to suffer any papist , especially a popish priest , though never so obscurely and privately , to live among us , and yet at the same time think it persecution , a horrible persecution , not to grant a general liberty and indulgence to all other dissenters . the difference between these two cases must either respect their religion , or the security of the government . as for their religion , i believe popery to be a very corrupt religion , and the greatest apostacy from christianity of any other sect or profession , which deserves the name of christian ; but yet i am so profest an enemy to popery , that iabhor that popish principle of persecuting men meerly for religions sake , which can no more be justified in protestants against papists , than in papists against protestants . it is certainly the duty of a prince to use his power and interest to establish the true religion in his kingdoms , to encourage the sincere professors of it , and to lay such restraints upon others , as may be sufficient to make them consider , and hearken to wise instructions , that it may be no mans temporal interest to dissent from the religion of his prince : and it is the duty of church-governors not to receive any into the communion of the church , or to cast them out again , who do not profess the same faith , or will not conform to the worship and discipline of the church . and this is all , that i know of in this matter ; and if men will call this persecution , it is a sign , they know not what persecution means ; for the primitive christians , who were indeed persecuted , would have thought such usage as this , a very easie and prosperous state. so that the difference must lie , if any where , in the security of the government . that no protestant prince or kingdom , can be secured from the attempts and conspiracies of papists , whose principles and practices are destructive to government : and this is the very true reason of those severe laws , which were made in this kingdom against popery . and it must be acknowleged , that there was formerly a vast difference between papists and protestants upon this account , and therefore a sufficient reason for any prince to make a difference between them ; and i wish , i could say , it were so still , but i dare not , i cannot say so . to deny that profest protestants have ever rebelled against their prince , is to deny , that there ever was a civil war in england , that there ever was a protestant prince murdered by his protestant subjects with all the mock-formalities of law and justice ; and he must have somewhat more than the impudence of a jesuit , that can deny this . and i would to god , we had but one instance of this , though that was a very bad one ; it might have left some place for hope still , that this was not the temper nor the principles of the men , but some unlucky juncture of affairs , which transported them beyond the bounds of their duty , and their own avowed principles . the happy restauration of our banisht prince might in some measure have expiated their former guilt , and they might have recovered their innocence , and the reputation of protestant loyalty , had they manifested the sincerity of their repentance by abhorring all the principles and practices of rebellion : but he must be a bold man indeed , who dares make excuses for those who prove rebels a second time ; and he must be a bolder prince , who will trust them . and when every little creature is so vastly concerned for liberty and property , can we think our prince should be the onely unconcerned person , when the liberty and property of his own life and crown is at stake ? or can any reasonable man expect , that he should encourage those religious factions , which by frequent experience he finds troublesom and dangerous to his throne ? when religion turns into a state-faction , to curb and restrain and quell such pretences , is not to invade the rights of conscience , or the liberties of religion , but to secure the publick peace , and to prevent the occassions of new rebellions . and no sober dissenter can reasonably blame his prince for this , though he may blame those , and ought to express a just indignation against them , who forfeit this liberty by abusing it for a cloak of maliciousness . and if we ever desire to see the peace and prosperity of our sion , is it not high time to unite in religion , which is the onely thing , that can bless us with a firm and lasting peace ? all our late troubles have been owing to the differences of religion ; and while the cause of dissentions remains , though there may be some expedients at present found out to palliate the distemper , yet nothing can remove it . all men seem to be very sensible of this , and very desirous of an union ; but the question is , how or in what we shall unite . shall we unite in popery ? god forbid ! the salvation of our souls is somewhat dearer to us than temporal peace , and that we believe to be exposed to infinite hazard in the communion of so corrupt a church . a firm and universal agreement indeed in any thing , will secure the publick peace , but we must not make our religion so wholly subordinate to temporal ends . if we can save our souls , and secure the publick peace together , such a religion ought to be chosen upon a double account ; but if both these interests cannot be united , we must take care to save our souls , and trust the providence of god with our other concernments . shall we then unite with the different sects and parties of christians , which are among us ? this is to unite without union . it is to unite indeed against something , but to unite in nothing . the several parties of dissenters , who separate from the church of england , differ as much from each other , as they do from us . they may unite and combine together in pulling down , but they can never unite in setting up any thing : they can unite in tumults , and publick disturbances , but they can never unite in peace . when they had pulled down the church of england , they could set up nothing in its room , but a prodigious encrease of heresies and schisms . there is nothing then to unite in , but the church of england , as by law established , which will both secure the interests of our souls and the publick peace . and why should we not unite in this church ? which is the glory and the bulwark of the reformation , the envy and the terror of rome . whose fathers and first reformers were martyrs against popery , and who her self has been a martyr for loyalty . those infinite dangers we are surrounded with on all hands , methinks should strongly encline all honest men , impartially to examine the reasons of their separation : and i am confident , not onely what has been formerly written in the defence of this church , but what has been lately offered for the satisfaction of dissenters , would open the eyes of all sincere men to see their mistakes , if they would but calmly , without prejudice or passion , read and consider it . it is demonstrable , we can unite no where else ; and is it a desirable state , to be perpetually strugling and contending with intestine commotions ? to be hating , reviling , undermining , each other ? for gods sake , beloved christians , let us at last consider the things which make for peace , and those things , whereby we may edifie each other . and in order to do this , i observe further , 3. how dangerous a rash boisterous intemperate zeal is , though it be for the best things , and against the worst . whatever private discontents , revengeful or ambitious designs , might secretly act some great men , who know how to practise upon the zeal and the ignorance of the people ; yet nothing is more evident , than that the first visible occasion of these new troubles and conspiracies , which have endangered the life of our king , and the ruine of his government , was laid in a mighty zeal against popery , and for the preservation of the protestant religion . the popish plot was the first scene in this new tragedy . those bloody designs raised the fears , the jealousies , the indignation of men ; and a love to their prince and to their religion , kindled and blew up their zeal into such a violent flame , as threatned an universal desolation , and became more formidable , than the danger it intended to remove . a great and passionate zeal , like a distempered love , blinds mens eyes , and makes them mistake both their enemies and their friends . it fills their head with endless jealousies and fears , and makes them start and run away from their own shadow . such a boisterous zeal is the frenzy and calenture of religion , which makes men uncapable of all sober counsel , and prudent resolves , and precipitates them into the most wild extravagant and irreligious attempts . there is nothing more pernicious than zeal when it gets a head , and bears down all the considerations of reason and religion before it . when men are conscious to themselves , that they are engaged in a good cause , and have honest designs , it makes them more bold and venturous : for though few men dare own it , yet the actions of too many sufficiently proclaim , that they think they may strain a point , and dispense with strict duty , when it is to serve a good cause , when the honour of god , and the interest of religion is concerned : such a zeal does violently push men forward , but it does not steer well , nor observe its compass ; and thus it is too often seen , that men who begin with a zeal for religion , insensibly slip into state-factions , and are engaged vastly beyond what they first designed , and engaged so far , that they cannot retreat with safety or honour , but must either conquer or be conquered . let us then above all things have a care of our zeal , that we may not mistake an earthly fire , which burns and consumes , for that divine and harmless flame , which is kindled at gods altar . a true zeal for religion , is nothing more nor less , than such a hearty love for it , as makes us very diligent in the practise of it our selves , and contented , if god sees it fit , to lay down our lives for it , and very industrious to promote the knowledge and practise of religion in the world by all lawful and prudent means . a true christian zeal will not suffer us to transgress the strict bounds of our duty to god , or of our duty to men , especially to kings and princes , whatever flattering prospect of advantage it may give . to lie , to forswear our selves , to hate and revile each other , to reproach and libel governours in church and state , to stir up , or countenance with the least thought , any plots , seditions , or rebellions against the king , is not a zeal for god , nor for religion ; for this wisdom is not from above , but is earthly , sensual and devilish : for where strife and contention is , there is confusion , and every evil work . 4. let our past experience therefore teach us , to watch over the least stirrings , and first appearances of a seditious and factious spirit , either in our selves or others , however it may be disguised with a pretence of religion . faction , like other vices , has but very small beginnings ; but when those beginnings are indulged , it soon improves and gests strength . omne in proecipiti vitium stetit : when men once espouse a party , like those , who are a running down hill , they cannot stop , when they please . discontents and jealousies are easily fomented , when we have once given admission to them ; and the busie factors and agents for sedition , when they find us never so little disposed and prepared to receive the impression , use their utmost art and skill , all the methods of insinuation and address , to make us proselytes . i doubt not but many men have died rebels , and suffered as traitors , who at first did as much abhor the thoughts of treason and rebellion , as any of us can . thus i doubt not but it was in our late troubles , and thus i believe it is at this day . let such examples as these make us wary , how we begin to entertain , or to whisper our discontents and fears ; how we begin to listen to suspicions of our prince , or of his government , and to hear with pleasure , any scandalous stories or reflexions on either : those who can with content and pleasure hear their prince , and his government reviled , will soon think him not fit to be their king. and the great danger of such beginnings is , that we are not apt to observe them in our selves or others , when religion is concerned in the quarrel . we think it all zeal , pure zeal , and cannot suspect our selves or others , to be in any danger of turning rebels . but whatever is in its own nature a degree and tendency towards rebellion , is so , where ever , and in whomsoever it is found ; and there is always more danger , that the beginnings of vice should corrupt the best temper of mind , than any hope , that a sound and religious disposition should correct the malign influences of such a vice. some mens religion does as much incline them to faction , as secular interest does other men ; and there is no such dangerous faction , as that which is bred and nourished by the corruptions of religion . the jewish zealots , and the christian enthusiasts of all sorts , are too plain an example of it . and therefore when men , who make great pretences to religion begin to talk or act factiously , a fair opportunity is as like to make them rebels as any other men . thus we often see it is , and this is a sufficient reason to suspect all such beginnings , either in our selves or others , whatever glorious pretences we may have . let this at last teach us to learn from experience . one would wonder ▪ that there should be any occasion for such an observation as this : for those , who have not understanding nor reach enough to foresee the issues and events of things , yet when they have once seen , what the events of such actions have been , when they see the same things acted over again , they expect to see the same effects . thus indeed it usually is , thus it ought to be , if men ever intend to grow wise and happy ; and yet our late observations will tell us , that it is not always thus . for if it had , the same game would never have been played over twice , by many of the same men , in the same age , and by the same arts and methods , and yet the people deluded , and the world bore in hand , that they designed nothing less , than to play the same game again . we saw all the zeal , and all the intrigues of 40. and 41. return again , and yet it was an unpardonable crime for any man to say so , or for any man to look as if he thought so . the cry against popery was renewed , but indeed with a great deal more reason , than they formerly had , for we were in eminent danger of popery ; which is the onely difference between those times and ours : but then our real fears and dangers of popery were presently abused to factious designs , and made a property of to serve some more secret intrigues . the old cry was against popish bishops , and a popish liturgy , and popish ceremonies , and in a word , against the popish church of england ; but one would have thought it impossible , that ever the church should at this time have been charged with popery , when the popish plot was principally intended against the church of england , and our king as the supream governour and defender of it ; and yet this was done too , and the king and the church had like to have been brought into the plot against themselves . we heard new stories told of the growth of popery and arbitrary government , when thanks be to god , we saw nor felt no such thing . this was the main subject of those infinite numbers of pamphlets , that flew about ; the bishops and clergy were sure never to escape , besides those many oblique and scurrilous reflections , which were made upon the king and his government : and it is hard to name any step , which was formerly taken to ruine church and state , which these men could possibly take , and did not . and yet few men would see , whither all this tended , though no men were thought fit for any publick trust or office , but those who were eminent for their disaffection to church or state. i hope your eyes are opened now , to see what all this meant ; and methinks it is but a reasonable request to you , that if ever we should be so unhappy , as to see these things acted over again , you would not need being put in mind , what the natural tendencies and consequents are ; which is the onely reason why i mention them now . we had like to have paid very dear for disbelieving our own eyes and senses , and former experience ; it is certainly a cheaper and safer way to learn by former experiences than by new ones . 6. let us now learn how dangerous a thing it is to interrupt the ordinary course and methods of justice , let the pretence be what it will. justice is the only support and security of humane societies ; and a stop or a breach here , is as fatal and dangerous , as a failure in the foundation , or the main pillars , which support the building . when men are rescued from the hands of justice , against the most clear and notorious evidence , upon a meer presumption of their innocence , and a good opinion of them . what security can there be to the government , when let men do what they will , if they can get and maintain a reputation of zealous patriots for their country and religion , they are out of the reach of justice ? had not the good providence of god interposed , this very thing might have cost our king his life and his crown , and involved this miserable nation in a bloody war this plot might possibly have been discovered sooner , before it was so ripe for execution , had justice had its due course ; which i think , it becomes all persons , who are concerned in it , seriously to consider , with such guilt and confusion , as it deserves . 7. i observe , that in times of publick danger , when we have enemies on both sides , it concerns us to keep a watchful eye upon both extreams . it is indeed a very hard thing to do this , but it is impossible we should be safe without it . while our thoughts are wholly employed to secure our selves on one hand , where our danger is present and visible , it gives opportunity to an unseen and unobserved enemy , to assault us on the other . when the popish plot was discover'd , all mens mouths were opened against popery ; we saw no other enemy , we feared none , we suspected none ; nay , when there was too much reason for our suspicions , we would believe none ; we thought it impossible , that men , who exprest such an abhorrence and detestation of the popish plot , should be laying new plots themselves . and we see now , what advantage they made of our security . and now the great danger is , that the discovery of this anti-popish plot , should make men secure of popery , and think there is no danger now from that corner . for my part , i am abundantly satisfied , that we are in great danger of both , and in the greater danger of both , because their contrary assaults give great advantages to each other . the papists now may father their plots upon protestants , and protestants upon papists ; and we may be involved in blood and confusion , and neither know our friends nor our enemies . god of his infinite mercy preserve our king and these kingdoms , our liberties , laws , and religion , from the wicked conspiracies ▪ of all our enemies . which is the last thing i shall recommend to you , to praise god for his preservation of our king hitherto , and earnestly to beg , that the same good providence would still watch over him for the time to come . and certainly if ever we had reason to praise god for any deliverance , we have for this , which is such a comprehensive mercy , as extends to all our concernments of soul and body in this world . if we value our own lives , our liberties , and religion , if we value the security of the government , and the publick peace and safety , we have reason to bless god for the preservation of our king. who can without horrour consider , what a distracted face of things we had seen at this day , had this plot taken effect ? who knows , who should have acted his part in that tragedy ? by what mark or test , they would have distinguished friends from enemies ? or what comfort had it been to any loyal subject , and good christian , to have survived the murder of his prince , and the ruines of church and state , and to have been an eye-witness of those barbarous villanies , which would have been acted under a mask of religion ? blessed be that god , who giveth deliverance to his king , and sheweth mercy to his anointed . blessed be that alwise being , who sits upon the circle of the heavens , and sees and laughs at , and defeats all the most secret plots and conspiracies of wicked men . let us bless god , and let us honour our king , and receive him with joy and thanksgiving as a new gift and present from the hands of god. when we are heartily thankful for the mercies we have already received , this will make our prayers more effectual for the continuance of them . o lord save the king , who putteth his trust in thee : send him help from thy holy place , and evermore mightily defend him : let his enemies have no advantage against him , nor the wicked approach to hurt him . which god of his infinite mercy grant , through our lord iesus christ , to whom with the father and the holy ghost , be honour and glory and power , now and for ever . amen . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a59895-e280 13 rom. 2. 20 psalm , 6 , 7 , 8. 65 psal. 7. 2 psal. 1 , 2 , 3 , 4. 18 joh. 36. whereas the late horrid plot & conspiracy of divers priests and jesuits, and other papists, against his majesties sacred person, and for the subversion of the protestant religion and his majesties government, hath been so far discovered, that the said effects thereof have by his majesties care and the blessing of almighty god been hitherto prevented, and the most notorious offenders therein brought to condigne punishment in england, or are secur'd, or fled from justice ... by the lord lieutenant and council, ormonde. ireland. lord lieutenant (1677-1685 : ormonde) 1679 approx. 3 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a46182 wing i908 estc r36944 16159296 ocm 16159296 104934 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a46182) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 104934) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1595:52) whereas the late horrid plot & conspiracy of divers priests and jesuits, and other papists, against his majesties sacred person, and for the subversion of the protestant religion and his majesties government, hath been so far discovered, that the said effects thereof have by his majesties care and the blessing of almighty god been hitherto prevented, and the most notorious offenders therein brought to condigne punishment in england, or are secur'd, or fled from justice ... by the lord lieutenant and council, ormonde. ireland. lord lieutenant (1677-1685 : ormonde) ormonde, james butler, duke of, 1610-1688. 1 broadside. printed by benjamin took and john crook ... and are to be sold by mary crook ..., dublin : [1679] title from first 11 lines of text. statement of responsibility transposed from head of title. date of publication suggested by wing. "given at the council chamber in dublin, the 10th. day of december, 1679." reproduction of original in the society of antiquaries library, london. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. ireland -history -1649-1775. ireland -politics and government -17th century. 2007-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-01 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-03 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-03 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion diev et mon droit honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms by the lord lieutenant and council ormonde . whereas the late horrid plot & conspiracy of divers priests and jesuits , and other papists , against his majesties sacred person , and for the subversion of the protestant religion and his majesties government , hath been so far discovered , that the said effects thereof have by his majesties care and the blessing of almighty god , been hitherto prevented , and the most notorio●s offenders therein brought to condigne punishment in england , or are secur'd , or fled from justice . and whereas nothing would more conduce to the lasting safety of his majestie , his kingdom , and the protestant religion therein established , then that there might be a full and perfect discovery of the said conspiracy ; and it is to be suspected , that many persons contrary to the duty of their allegiance , do still conceal their knowledg of the said plot , and the conspirators therein , presuming that at any time hereafter ( though never so late ) when they shall offer a discovery , they may obtain his majesties pardon for all their offences . now for the more speedy and full discovery of the said conspiracy , and to deter all persons whatsoever from concealing any longer their knowledg thereof . we the lord lieutenant and council by his majesties commands , do by this our proclamation , strictly require and command all and every person and persons whatsoever within this kingdom of ireland , who know , or can make discovery of any person or persons ingag'd in the said conspiracy , or of any matter or circumstance relating thereunto , to discover and make known the same to us the lord lieutenant and council , or his majesties principal secretary of state , or to the lord chief justice , or one of the justices of the court of kings bench within this kingdom , before the last day of february next ; his majestie having declared , that after that time his pardon is not to be expected for any such treasons or misprisions of treason . given at the council chamber in dublin , the 10th , day of december , 1679 . mich. armach . c. arran . blesinton . granard . lanesborough . hen. midensis . r. coote . ro. fitz-gerald . ca : ●illon . char. meredith . ro. booth . john keating . jo. davys . theo. jones . wm. flower tho : newcomen . god save the king. dublin , printed by benjamin took and john crook , printers ; to the king 's most excellent majestie and are to be sold by mary crook at his majesties printing-house , in skinner-row . the lawyer outlaw'd, or, a brief answer to mr. hunts defence of the charter with some useful remarks on the commons proceedings in the last parliament at westminster, in a letter to a friend. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1683 approx. 141 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 21 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47876 wing l1266 estc r25476 08988646 ocm 08988646 42140 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47876) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 42140) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1289:1) the lawyer outlaw'd, or, a brief answer to mr. hunts defence of the charter with some useful remarks on the commons proceedings in the last parliament at westminster, in a letter to a friend. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 38 p. printed by n.t. for the author, [london] : 1683. attributed to roger l'estrange--wing. reproduction of original in the union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng hunt, thomas, 1627?-1688. -defence of the charter, and municipal rights of the city of london. popish plot, 1678. london (england) -charters, grants, privileges. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-12 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-02 andrew kuster sampled and proofread 2005-02 andrew kuster text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion lawyer outlaw'd ; or a brief answer to mr. hunts defence of the charter . with some useful remarks on the commons proceedings in the last parliament at westminster . in a letter to a friend . printed by n. t. for the author , mdclxxxiii . sir , your importunities have at last prevail'd , and since abler pens have hitherto declin'd to espouse the quarrel , i will for once force my own inclination to silence and reservedness , and briefly give you my thoughts on that unlucky pamphlet , call'd , a defence of the charter and municipal rights of london . the author , i find , is a gentleman of the long robe , a person so well known of late for his unweary'd diligence , and extraordinary faculty in scribling ▪ that i need not give you any other character of him , but that some three years ago he writ a book in vindication of the bishops right of judicature in parliament ; and for this piece of service expected no less than to be made lord-chief-baron of the exchequer in ireland . but missing of that preferment , he grows peevish and angry with the court and clergy , and to be even with both , and perhaps to appease his angry brethren of the separation for his former mercenary undertaking , he adds a baboons tail to his picture , a postscript to his book , the most virulent and malicious , that has yet escap'd the hands of justice . ever since , he has continu'd firm to the cause , laid aside his useless law , and zealously imploy'd his better talent against the church and state , in favour of the faction ; and this about the charter is the last effort of that wise head-piece , which he has stuff'd with such a miscellany of wild paradoxes , interwoven with some impertinent truths , that 't is far more difficult to digest them into method , than to answer and confute them . first , to lay a solid foundation for his great design , he tells us , that monarchs , as well as republicks , have often erected municipal cities , and by their charters bestow'd upon them several franchises and priviledges , as to choose their own magistrates , and governby their own laws , while subservient to the publick laws of the sovereign authority , pag. 1. this is certainly very true ; but how far it makes for the charter of london , against the quo warranto , is a mystery not to be comprehended by every vulgar capacity : for 't is no less plain in history , that not only tyrants and vsurpers , as he mentions , but just and lawful sovereigns , have divers times suppress'd such municipal cities , for good and necessary causes , as for being disloyal to their prince , or factious and seditious against the government ; and then the main question will be , how far the city of london has of late been guilty of such crimes , as by law deserve the like punishment ? this , in short , is the plain state of the question ; for 't is most unreasonable to think , that any king or republick ever gave their municipal cities any such liberties or immunities , as were not forfeitable upon their abusing the power they receiv'd ; when otherwise , neither prince nor people cou'd be secure from the insolence of such uncontroulable citizens , without a standing army to keep them in awe . but our gentleman , it seems , is unwilling to touch upon this critical point of speculation ; and as the defence of the charter is the least part of his pamphlet , so now he runs quite from the purpose , to tell the king like a dutiful subject , he may , if he please , take his quietus-est , and let his people govern themselves ; for it is impossible ( saith he ) that mankind should miscarry in their own hands , pag. 2. now , since they have often miscarry'd in the hands of princes , is it not more expedient for the publick good , if this maxim will hold , that the prince shou'd mind his own private business , and not trouble himself with the government , which the people can do better without him ? this is mr. hunt's new model of government , who out of pure love and kindness to the monarchy , chalks out a ready way for his sovereign to ease himself of all the thorns and prickles of his crown , and become a glorious king like his father ; and therefore seems very angry , that the court , ( i. e. the king ) should be troubl'd with the power of appointing officers in any city or corporation in the kingdom , tho' it be found of absolute necessity for the keeping his crown upon his head , and protecting his best subjects from a band of associators and ignoramus-juries . oh! but by this new form of corporations , it will be in the power of a popish successor to put the government of all corporated towns in england into the hands of papists ▪ p 5. and without it , i say , it will be no less in the power of the faction , to put the same government into the hands of fanaticks . what a bugbear is this popish successor ! whose very name turns the brains of a whig into a magnifying-glass , that will transform ants into gyants , and mole-hills into mountains ! we have as good laws as the wit of man can devise , to secure us from the encroachments of popery , and to disable papists from bearing any office , civil or military , either in or out of corporations : and yet this popish successor , who possibly may never succeed , this great goliah , can break through all those laws , and will certainly do it , to curry favour with a handful of papists , and make himself a slave to the pope . this is not all ; for this mode ( saith he ) of incorporating cities and towns , doth ipso facto change the government ; for that one of the three states , an essential part of the government , which is made up of the representatives of the people , and ought to be chosen by the people , will by this means have five sixth parts of such representatives , upon the matter , of the courts nomination , and not of the peoples choice ; — and at the next turn we shall have a parliament of papists and red-coats , pag. 6. o profound politician ! has not our government been regal and monarchical from the beginning ? how then can the house of commons , in comparison but a late institution , necessary not for the being , but for the well-being of the monarchy , be an essential part of it ? or how can any rul●r be term'd a monarch , that has 500 demagogues joynt-governours with him ? these , and such other republican maxims , have been in a great measure the main foundation of all the miseries and confusions we suffer'd under the late tyranny of the rump-parliament ; and after our sad experience of those tragical times , surely we have reason to think , that none but such as wou'd bring us back to the same calamities , and sing the second part to the same tune , would now endeavour to assert or maintain them : yet they are so very familiar to our irish chief-baron , that there is hardly a page in most of his pamphlets , but has a strong tincture of them . in his great and weighty considerations considered , he says , the parliament derive their authority from the same original the king derives his ▪ the king hath not his power from them , nor they theirs from the king : they both derive their authority from the consent of the people , either tacit or express , in the first institution of the government , or in the subsequent alterations of it , pag. 16. is not this a rare assertor of the monarchy , that makes both houses thus co-ordinate with the prince , and all the three subordinate to the people ; turns the governed into govornours , and leaves to the king the title only , but to his subjects the power and dominion ? the law tells us , that all authority and jurisdiction , spiritual and temporal , is derived from the king , 1 ed. 6. c. 2. § . 3. and plowden , as great a lawyer perhaps as mr. hunt , says , that the king has the sole government of his subjects , fol. 234 , a. how then can mr. hunt make the people the original of power , since all is derived from the prince ? or how can either or both houses of parliament pretend of themselves to have any share in the government , which is wholly in the king ? or claim any authority or jurisdiction over the people , but as deriv'd from the sovereign ? let us therefore explode these republican notions , that have cost us so dear , and cannot in the least avail either parliament or people , but will always make the prince jealous of their proceedings , who can better hear the complaints and humble petitions of his dutiful subjects , the constant * stile of our ancient acts of parliament , than the imperious dictates of his fellow-governours ; for , experience confirms what lucan long since has told us , nulla fides regni sociis , omnisque potestas impatiens consortis erit . but how shou'd this new form of corporations make their representatives in parliament , not of the peoples choice , but of the courts nomination , is not very intellig●ble in my apprehension : since every cobler can tell , the free-men of corporations , and not their officers , have the sole power of electing their representatives . where then is the danger of a parliament of papists and red-coats , ( tho' there had been no law to disable the former from sitting in the house , till they forswear themselves , or abjure their principles ) unless the major part of the free-men of england , which i hope shall never happen , be suppos'd to embrace the popish religion ? we have seen , to our cost and to our shame , a pretended parliament of red-coats and round-heads , which like the aegyptian locusts devour'd all the fruit of the land , and turn'd europes paradise into a field of blood ; and this blessing we owe to mr. hunt's poor harmless dissenters ; which i hope will make us so wise for the future , as never to give them the like opportunities . it were endless to follow this lawless scribler through every page and paragraph , or severally to take notice of all his incoherences , and impertinent digressions . to come therefore close to the business of the charter , we must turn over many pages , and step from the beginning almost to the end of his pamphlet , to find out something that may seem to the purpose . three points he offers at last in defence of the charter , which he says to the londoners , he comes to defend against theirs , and he might add as well , his own , reason and understanding , p. 31. for if he has a grain of law or sense left , he knows that of these points the first is impertinent to what he undertakes , and the rest but fallacious cavillings , to impose upon the vulgar , and make them obstinate to their cost . first , he says , that the dissenters , tho' excommunicate , have a vote in the election of their officers . 2ly . that the common-council cannot destroy or surrender the charter . 3ly . that the sherivalties of london and middlesex are in the city by common or statute-law ; and consequently not to be displac'd , but by act of parliament , tho' with the consent of every individual citizen , p. 32. for the first , he takes a world of pains to prove , that the excommunication of dissenters does not render them uncapable of giving their vote in the election of the city-officers . and what then ? is the charter never to be forfeited , while the dissenters have a vote or suffrage in such elections ? or are they so numerous in the common-council , as to out-vote the members of the church of england ? are their tender consciences still so plyable , as to receive the sacrament in their parish-church to serve a turn , and run to a conventicle all the year after ? to take tests and oaths to get into imployments , and break all with a breath to promote the good old cause ? nay , venture to forfeit their ears to the pillory , and their souls to the devil , to help off an active brother catch'd by the tongue ? these are the harmless clients of our irish-chief-baron , of whom we may well say with the poet , — mille adde catenas , effugiet tamen hac sceleratus vincula proteus . these , i mean , not the mis-led or seduc'd , but the heads and ring-leaders of the faction , who always hold with the hare , and run with the hound , and make conscience of nothing but conformity , and yet conform for preferment . to these their deluded followers owe all the severities of late used against them , and the city this so-much-talk'd-of quo warranto , with all the unlucky consequences , which mr. hunt says are like to attend it : there being no other way to rescue the government out of their hands , or secure his majesty's crown and dignity , and the lives of his good subjects , from pack'd juries , and perjur'd ignoramus's . but they have ( says our lawyer ) an utter abhorrence against popery and the plot , and joyn forwardly and zealously against it , p. 16. 't is true , they make a great noise and bussle about that horrid conspiracy , but in reality they have done more than the papists were able to do , to stifle and confound it . they attaqu'd the church of england , whilst in the heat of prosecuting the conspirators , and labour'd under the umbrage of the popish-plot , to carry on another of their own , to subvert the establish'd government , and insensibly to decoy us into presbytery , and their darling commonwealth ; as the tryal and condemnation of their proto-martyr colledge ; their green-ribbon-clubs , and ignoramus-juries ; their vox patriae's , and vox populi's ; their appeal from the countrey to the city ; the speech of their noble peer ; and in short , the tendency of all their seditious libels , back'd with the depositions of several witnesses ▪ do as plainly demonstrate , as coleman's letters and execution prove the wicked designs of the papists . they inveigl'd some of the principal discoverers of the popish-plot to espouse their party , and vilifie the church ; which frightn'd many a loyal gentleman , that cou'd not forget the contrivances of the late times , where popery was the first , but monarchy the last act of the tragedy , and made them suspect these same persons , now their hand was in , might at last be wrought upon , to turn against the obedient sons of the church , whom they had already stigmatiz'd with the ignominious names of tories , masqueraders , and church-papists . in short , they contriv'd so many shams and silly stories , as made the very truth questionable ; and when they saw the english plot was not like to embroil the nation , they invited a number of profligate wretches out of ireland , gave them cloaths and money in abundance , and took so much pains to set up these unmanageable tools , that in fine they dash'd both plots to pieces , one against the other . are we not then beholding to our true-blew-protestants , after all these fine exploits , for their abhorrence against popery and the plot , and to mr ; hunt , for his zealous vindication of their proceedings ? he was formerly suspected to be a man of no religion ; but now , like a generous soul , he owns his party in their greatest distress , and openly declares against the church of england , as betrayers of god's cause , and the peoples liberties . some of little understanding among you ( saith he ) that thus behave your selves , are excusable , as misguided by some of your ministers , who are in good earnest begging preferments , dignities and benefices for themselves , by offering and betraying our church to a voluntary martyrdom , p. 12. i need not comment upon this scurrilous reflection , 't is enough to say , 't is the product of mr. hunt's own brains , who , according to his fee , tho' against his conscience , spoke for his clyents ; for lawyers , he tells us , ( and who more fit to know ? ) have opinions to sell at any time , tho' they have not the least colour of reason to support them , p. 19. if this confounder both of law and gospel , be thus for fouling his own nest , we need not wonder at his frequent snarlings at the loyal and christian resolutions of our reverend clergy , or expect better usage from a man that openly sides with the enemies of our church . i come now to his second point , which is so wild and so extravagant a paradox , as deserves rather to be laugh'd at by men of sense , than to be answer'd or confuted : since , besides several that have done it within these two years past , there are not many corporations in england , whose charters have not been surrendred by their common-council , without so much as consulting their common-halls ; and yet were never question'd for it , as betrayers of their trust , or of the liberties of the people . but he drives home the nail in his 3d. assertion , where he says , that the sherivalties of london and middlesex , or the right of choosing their sheriffs , ( the main point now in dispute , and what most concerns the king , after our late experience , to have in his own disposal ) cannot be parted with , without an act of parliament , tho' with the consent of every individual citizen . but sure the gentleman is not in earnest ; for i hope he will allow us , that tho' alone they cannot , yet with the consent and approbation of the common-hall , or of every citizen , the common-council may surrender the charter : who then , the charter being thus surrendred , has the power of choosing the sheriffs , when the corporation , the city and the county is dissolv'd , neither mayor nor alderman , citizen nor free man to found ? the inhabitants in general cannot choose them , for they have no right now to do it , neither do they receive any new power by the surrender of the charter ; and yet the free-men cannot , when there is no such thing in being , no more in london than in westminster , or any other dissolv'd corporation . but to be short in a case so plain , since the gentleman requires an act of parliament for displacing the citizens right of choosing their sheriffs , here is one ready to his hand , for taking away , upon their neglect or misgovernment , all their franchises and liberties , and consequently this power of electing their own officers and magistrates ; an act found by the prudence of our ancestors , so necessary for to maintain the publick peace , and keep that over-grown city within the bounds of duty , that henry iv. tho' he sought occasions to ingratiate himself with the people of london , the better to secure his usurpation , yet cou'd not be wrought upon by their intreaties to have any material part of it alter'd , much less annull'd or repeal'd . the act take as followeth . 280 . edwardi 3 i. cap. 10 o. because that the errors , defaults and misprisions , which be notoriously used in the city of london , for default of good governance of the mayor , of the sheriffs , and the aldermen , cannot be enquired nor found by people of the same city : it is ordained and established , that the said mayor , sheriffs and aldermen , which have the governance of the same city , shall cause to be redressed and correated the defaults , errors , and misprisions above-named , and the same duly punish from time to time upon a certain pain ; that is to say , at the first default a thousand marks to the king , and at the second default two thousand marks , and at the third default , that the franchise and liberty of the city be taken into the king's hand . and be it begun to enquire upon them at st. michael next coming , so that if ▪ they do not cause to be made due redress , as afore is said , it shall be enquired of their defaults by enquests of people of foreign . counties ; that is to say , of kent , essex , sussex , hertford , buckingham , and berk , as well at the king's suit , as others that will complain . and if the mayor , sheriffs and aldermen , be by such enquests thereto assigned , indiaed , they shall be caused to come by due process before the king's justices , which shall be to the same ▪ assigned out of the said city , before whom they shall have their . answer , as well to the king as to the party . and if they put them in enquests , such enquests shall be taken by foreign people , as afore is said . and if they be attainsed , the said pain shall incurr and be levied of the said mayor , sheriffs and aldermen , for default of their governance . and nevertheless , the plaintiffs shall recover the treble damages against the said mayor , sheriffs , and aldermen . and because that the sheriffs of london be parties to this business , the constable of the tower , or his lieutenant , shall serve in the place of the sheriffs , to receive the writs , as well originals of the chancery as judicials , under the seal of the justices , to do thereof execution in the said city . and process shall be made by attachment , and distress , and by exigent , if need be : so that at the king's suit the exigent shall be awarded after the first capias returned , and at the third capias returned at the suit of the party . and if the mayor , sheriffs and aldermen have lands or tenements out of the city , process shall be made against them by attachments and distresses , in the same counties where the lands or tenements be . and that every of the said mayors , sheriffs and aldermen , which do appear before the said justices , shall answer particularly for himself , as well at the peril of other which be absent , as of himself . and this ordinance shall be holden firm and stable , notwithstanding any manner franchise , priviledges or customs . and this ordinance shall extend to all cities and boroughs of the realm , where such defaults or misprisions be used , and not duly corrected nor redressed : saving that the enquests shall be taken by foreign people of the same county where such cities or boroughs be . and that the pain of those of the said boroughs and tolws , which shall be thereof attainted , shall be judged by the discretion of the justices , which shall be thereto assigned . this act was a great curb to the people of london , and kept them for many years after , very obsequious and dutiful to their sovereign ; but in process of time , finding it was not duly put in execution , they began to forget it at last , and wou'd now and then break out into some extravagance , which afterwards cost them very dear . finding therefore themselves very uneasie under this restraint , tho' neither in edward iii. nor his successor's reign they durst motion to have that statute repeal ▪ d , yet when the vsurper henry iv. came to the crown , they labour'd hard to get themselves rid of it , but cou'd gain no more than the following clause ; which many in london , who always think ill of the king and his ministers , will think of no great advantage to the defence of the charter . our lord the king considering the good and lawful behaviour of the mayor , sheriffs and aldermen , and of all the commonalty of the same city of london towards him , and therefore willing to ease and mitigate the penalty aforesaid , by the assent of the lords spiritual and temporal , and of the commons aforesaid , hath ordained and established , that the penalty aforesaid , as well of the thousand marks , and of the two thousand marks , and of the seizure of the franchise comprized in the said statute , shall not be limited in a certainty , but that the penalties in this case be by the advice and discretion of the justices thereto assigned , as other cities and boroughs be within the realm ; and that the remnant of the same statute , and the process thereof , stand in their force , 1 h. 4. cap. 15. now , i appeal to mr. hunt's own judgment , provided he has so much moral honesty , to speak nothing of his skill in the laws , as will qualifie him for an irish chief-baron , whether or no these two statutes be not as plain against the charter , supposing the mayor , sheriffs and aldermen to have been negligent in their duty , and a fortiori if they and the common-council be found guilty of the crimes laid to their charge , as magna charta or the petition of right is for the liberty and property of the subject ; for , that 't is neither treason nor felony , nor yet the subversion of the government , but crimes of a far inferiour nature , that are meant by the errors and misdemeanors mentioned in the said acts , is apparent by another statute made some three years after , by the same king edward iii. where it is enacted , that the mayor and aldermen of london shall rule and redress the defaults of fishers , butchers , and poulters , and put the same in execution , upon the pain late ordained touching the city of london , 31 ed. 3. cap. 10. now , if the whole city , for a bare neglect of duty in their officers , as for omitting to punish the misdemeanors of silly trades-men , were by these acts of edward iii. so grievously punishable , as for the first offence to forfeit a thousand 〈…〉 no less in the 〈◊〉 value than 2000 l of our now 〈…〉 so much in the 〈◊〉 use and price of things ) 〈…〉 for the second offence , and for the third to forfeit their franchise and liberties to the king : what shall be thought of others , if they are found not only to have laid an illegal arbitrary tax upon their fellow-subjects , and in a tumultuous manner invaded their properties ; but wink'd at , if not encourag'd , the publishing of treasonable papers and pamphlets ; and instead of suppressing others , presented their prince with a most scurrilous one of their own , by way of petition , to tax his majesty with misgovernment , and endeavour to bring him into hatred and contempt with his people ? as for the aforesaid clause of 1 h. 4. tho' intended for ( as really it was ) a great favour to the city , that they shou'd not for every trisling fault be oblig'd to pay such a vast fine as a thousand marks , twenty times greater than that sum now ; yet if their crimes had been found of a transcendent nature , striking at the very root and life of the government , we may be sure the justices , by vertue of this very clause , wou'd have immediately seiz'd their charter , without bringing them to any further tryal . so that this clause , tho' in small inferiour misdemeanors it be a great advantage to the city , yet in crimes of state , where the crown and the monarchy are concern'd , 't is no less an advantage to the king. thus , sir , you have seen how well mr. hunt has defended the charter against all the power both of law and reason , and you will find him altogether as happy in the rest of his undertakings . i omit his impertinence on the play , call'd , the duke of guise , his unmannerly application of the characters , and his framing of parallels where little or no similitude can be found : yet en passent i cannot but pity the condition our lawyers innocent and gentle prince is reduc'd to , by the slie insinuations and bewitching flatteries of this and such other sycophants of the faction , who puff'd him up , and possess'd him with such chymerical hopes of a crown , as made him forget his obedidence to his princes will , and the positive command of his natural father ; natural , i say , because in our laws the maxim is , qui ex damnato coitu nascuntur , inter liberos non computantur , i.e. bastards are not counted amongst sons , coke 1 instit. f. 3. or as littleton says , a bastard is quasi nullius filius , because he cannot be heir to any , apud coke 2 instit. § . 188. now , if by law this prince can be heir to none , what a madness it was to advise him to aspire to three hereditary kingdoms , or think to carry them tamely by popular applause , when nothing but the sword can establish a crack'd title ? but the best people of england ( says this non-sensical scribler ) have no other way left to shew their loyalty to the king , and love to their religion and government , in the long intervals of parliament , than by prosecuting his son , for the sake of the king , and his own merit , with all the demonstrations of the highest esteem , p. 28. they are certainly very hard put to it , if this ( not to prosecute his silly latinism ) be the only shift they can make to express their loyalty , when children can tell , they might , if they had any , better shew it , by prostrating themselves at his majesty's feet , and declaring their readiness to venture their lives and fortunes in defence of his sacred person , and the rights of his crown , against all the attempts of the popish plotters and whiggish associators . 't is true , some of the best people in england have had , for the king's sake , and in some measure for his own merits , sufficient kindness for his grace , and still wish him more grace and consideration , than to continue obstinately disobedient , contrary to common prudence , and to all the ties and obligations of nature , of duty , and of gratitude : but as for mr. hunt's best people of england , tho' pretended his only friends , they have been upon all occasions his real enemies , made a property and a tool of him , to set him up , like another perkin warbeck , in opposition to the royal line ; and if that succeeded , to kick him down again , as they did richard cromwell , to make room for themselves and their darling commonwealth . but to return from this digression , and examine what is left yet unanswer'd of this idle pamphlet : i find our chief-baron wou●d-be has stumbl'd at last on those two famous statutes of edward iii * to prove , that parliaments must be held once every year ; which ( saith he ) is confirm'd by an act of this king , call'd , the trienial act , p. 21. but by his lordships good leave ▪ these statutes , if well consider'd , will be found to have been made rather to oblige the commons ( who then grumbl'd no less at the frequent calling , than the factious do now at the long intermission of parliaments ) to send their representatives to the king 's great councel , than to bind the king to summon them when there was no occasion for their meeting ; and therefore , to make the case more plain , the conditional clause , if need be , which may aptly refer to the whole period , is expresly provided in the said statutes . for to affirm , it was absolutely enacted that a parliament shou'd be held once every year , whether there was any , or no need of their meeting , when the choosing of members was so troublesom , and their expences eundo morando & ad propria redeundo so chargeable to the people , besides the great taxes they usually granted , is altogether unreasonable . as for the triennial act of this * king , it makes more against than for his lordships design ; since it requires but to have a parliament once in three years , and not sooner , without some extraordinary occasion ; which , i doubt not , but his majesty , according to his late most gracious declaration , will see punctually observ'd , as he has been pleas'd to do in the whole course of his reign . and the statute of provisors , 25 ed 3. is no less impertinent to his purpose ; for tho' it be the right of the crown of england , and that the law of the said realm is such , that upon the mischiefs and damages which happen to his realm , the king ought , and is bound by oath , with the accord of his people in parliament , to make remedy and law , in removing the mischiefs and damages which thereof ensue : yet if his people in parliament prove peevish and obstinate , and will not accept of his majesty's gracious condescensions , nor of the expedients by him propos'd ; who then is to be blam'd , the king or his people ? how many proposals and overtures of accomodation have been made by his majesty to his last parliament at westminster ? and how undutifully they were rejected by some leading-members in the house of commons ? how often did he offer to consent to any reasonable expedient they cou'd find out , for securing the establish'd religion , in case of a popish successor ? but all was slighted , as if nothing but the subversion of the monarchy was able to secure some gentlemen in their religion , that were shrewdly suspected to have none to lose : this discourse , i know , will not relish with our irish chief-baron , who seems already very angry , that a cabal ( as he calls the loyal addressers of the nation ) shou'd take upon themselves to arraign the proceedings of our latest parliaments , p. 8. and yet his unmannerly worship , because he thinks 't is a priviledge peculiar to the godly to speak evil of dignities , scruples not to rail at the best parliament that ever met in his time , which really was ( what he scoffingly calls it ) a parliament of famous loyalty ; tho' in their latter days , when by the death of several good members , too many of the old leaven had crept in , that vigor was much abated , which they always express'd in their former resolutions ; and for which this factious lawyer presumes to say , that obliquely they gave the papists many assistances , p. 14. and in plain terms calls them , the corrupt villains of the late long-parliament . considerations consider'd . p. 19. but to clear this point , without insisting upon retortions and recriminations ; i say , to arraign the proceedings of the parliament , in its true and legal sense , that is , of king , lords , and commons , is a very great and a very hainous crime , not to be conniv'd at , or endur'd in any subject whatsoever ; because it tends to the vilifying , and consequently to the subverting the government ; for as seneca well observ'd , nihil valet regum potestas , nisi prius valeat authorit as : if princes lose their authority , the awe and reverence due to them from the people , they have lost their power and command , and are in effect more than half depos'd . but to arraign the proceedings of the parliament , when this name is abusively appropriated to the house of commons , to whom this lawless scribler attributes a high and uncontroulable power , ( p. 9. ) as if the king and lords were only cyphers , the crime is not near so unpardonable as some people wou'd have us believe . i am sure mr. justice hutton in his argument against ship-money , ( which so pleas'd even that rebellious conventicle of forty-one , who swallow'd up the king's prerogative and the peoples liberties in their parliament-priviledges , that they gave express orders to get it printed ) thought it no such crime to say , i know not whether the last meeting in parliament , either by ill choice of the members of the house , or by the great encrease of the number , or by the ambitious humour of some members of that house , who aim'd more at their own ends and designs , than the good of the commonwealth , things were so carry'd , not as was us'd in ancient times , but so disastrously that it hath wrought such a distast of this course of parliaments , as we and all that love the commonwealth have just cause to be sorry for it . p. 33. nevertheless , i must confess , that even in this sense 't is not becoming every private pen to censure or condemn them , upon every slight occasion ; and the motives must be very extraordinary , when such practices are allowable . yet when we consider , that matters have been so carry'd on for some years past , that of necessity we must e●ther mislike our princes wisdom and councils , for proroguing and dissolving so many parliaments ; or conclude , as undoubtedly we must , that the unseasonable heat of the leading-members in the house of commons , necessitated his majesty to take such unwelcom resolutions : and withal , when we find , not only the king , but the generality of the nation in their repeated addresses , express their dislike to the proceedings of a prevailing party in that house ; all loyal subjects , i think , concern'd in the election of such members , ought to be so just to themselves and the publick as to declare their own integrity , and their constant affection to the king , that the world may see they are no abettors of the unwarrantable resolutions of their representatives ; who perhaps ran into such unusual extravagancies , in hopes to be seconded by their principals . but tho' the occasion be never so extraordinary , it must nevertheless be granted for an undeniable maxim , that whatsoever misdemeanors any members of that honourable house happen to commit ▪ it ought not to reflection the house in general , nor yet the errors of the whole house at any time , put either prince or people out of love with that wholsom and excellent constitution . for such is the instability of mundan affairs , that ( as the poet said ) nihil est ab omni parte beatum ; there is nothing upon earth but hath its failings , and even the best of governments has sometimes its own inconveniences : thus princes are now and then apt to give too much credit to their flattering favourites , and be led for a while by their evil counsels till time and experience convince them of their error ; and 't is pla●n , the wisest assembly that ever sate ●n the house of commons cannot be always free free from the like mistakes , but are sometimes mpos'd upon , by the plausible pretences of some designing politicians , and cunningly decoy'd in , to act contrary to their inclination to their interest , and their duty . of this kind we have several remarkable passages in the intestine-troubles of forty-one , where a few factious members in both houses insensibly inveigl'd the rest , and inflam'd the whole nation into a general combustion ; and these four years past can sufficiently furnish us with fresh instances almost of the like nature , but that through the great prudence of our sovereign and his most honourable house of lords , mindful of their fathers miscarriages , all these endeavours prov'd abortive and unsuccessful . if we ser●ously consider what measures some persons of greater parts than honesty made use of at that time , as well in as out of parliament , we shall find cause enough to admire how people that pretend so much religion & loyalty , so much affection to their king and countr●y , cou'd be wrought upon to run head-long into such extravagant courses , so destructive of the prerogative-royal , and of the peace and settlement of the three kingdoms . the horrid popish-plot , which has already cost us so many millions in our trade and commerce , and , i am afraid , a great deal more in our credit and reputation abroad , was made a stalking-horse by the ambitious to attain to their expected greatness , of being chief ministers , if not chief magistrates of all the k's dominions : and because his majesty , wisely considering it was impossible to make a just and impartial enquiry into that hellish conspiracy , whi●e the people were so far transported with heat and passion , * which nothing but time cou'd cure ; and withal discovering what use some designing demagogues intended to make of this plot against the monarchy , thought it convenient , or rather necessary , sometimes to prorogue , sometimes to dissolve his parliament , and call another , in hopes to meet with one of a better temper , and more moderation ; our cunning machiavellians took hold of this opportunity , to enflame the unthinking multitude , and make them believe their all was betray'd , without a speedy parliament , to enquire into the popish-plot , and redress the grievances of the nation ; and therefore they clamour'd , it was absolutely necessary they shou'd all joyn in a petition to his majesty for that purpose : whereby they were sure , either to gain their point , and get the parliament to sit , which they might model and influence , as they pleas'd ; or at least know the strength of their party by the number of subscribers , and lessen his majesty's credit in the hearts of his people . to this end agents are sent about ▪ and the petition is sign'd by many legions of the goaly party . none so forward to subscribe this petition to the son , as they who petition'd for justice aga●nst the father . there you might see presbyterians , independents , quakers , brownists , and anabaptists , all in a string , to petition his majesty for a speedy parliament . a mysterious riddle to all sober and understanding men , that fanaticks , who always but in forty-one dreaded the face of that august assembly , shou'd now be more zealous for their sitting , than the true-protestants of the church of england . it was certainly an omen that cou'd portend no good either to church or state ; and therefore , as the king had reason to mistrust there lay a snake in the grass , the brethrens zealous petitioning to that purpose , did rather hinder than forward their meeting . at last , when it could not be thought the effect of the fanaticks importunity , but of his majesty's grace and goodness , the parliament met on the 23 of octob ▪ 1680 , and the king having solemnly renew'd them his former promises of complying with any thing they cou'd in reason propose , desir'd them to wave all unseasonable disputes , and hasten to settle the affairs of the nation , and bring their meeting to a happy conclusion . the people were generally big with expectation , to see the issue of this famous session , and doubted not but all their jealousies and distractions wou'd now be fully removed , the three nations settl'd and compos'd , and the popish plot speedily shifted to the bottom . parturiunt montes . they sate almost for three entire months without any lett or interruption : and what have they done all this while towards the effecting these weighty matters that lay before them ? what great progress have they made towards the suppressing of popery , or putting a period to that hellish conspiracy ? they spent nine or ten days about my lord stafford's tryal ; and when all expected the other lords shou'd immediately follow , our charitable patriots , tender it seems of shedding more popish-blood , sate down to breath themselves , and not a word more of the papists to the end of the chapter . the truth is , the leading-members , that govern'd all in the house of commons , had other fish to fry . they were ferreting out papists in masquerade , or half-reform'd protestants , now thought more dangerous than the profess'd romanists . a reformation they intended both in church and state , and god knows where it shou'd have ended it was enough they fix'd the popish-plot by the conviction of my lord stafford ; but it seems it was their interest to keep it on foot for other purposes , perhaps in imitation of the wise romans ; who thought it impolitick to demolish their great rival carthage , which , while standing , might serve to keep them from idleness and exercise their valour . the papists therefore must have a time to breath , and the fanaticks are the great favourites of the house , while known protestants of the church of england , under the odious names of abhorrers , are forc'd to bear the brunt , and suffer as betrayers of the peoples rights and liberties , for obeying their sovereigns proclamation , tho' not repugnant to any known law or statute , but approv'd of by the judges , and other sages of the law , and conformable to an express act of parliament in the like case provided . 13 car. 2. c. 5. 't is the peoples right , i know , or to speak more properly , 't is their duty , to petition their prince for relief and redress of their grievances ; but still 't is the undoubted prerogative of the sovereign to judge whether such grievances be real or pretended ; fit to be granted , or necessary to be rejected : and when upon weighty considerations , as the subject ought in duty to suppose , the prince openly expresses his dislike to such petitions , to importune him any further is very unmannerly , and plainly tending to sedition . 't is an undutiful part in subjects ( saith our british solomon ) to press their king , wherein they know before-hand he will refuse them . in his speech to the parliament . anno 1609. the evil consequences of these tumultuous petitions are too well known to those that remember our late unhappy confusions , to be dwelt upon , or describ'd in so small a treatise . 't is enough , that the wisdom of the nation , both king and parliament , after his majesty's miraculous restauration , have declar'd , it hath been found by sad experience , that tumultuous and other disorderly soliciting and procuring of hands by private persons to petitions , complaints , remonstrances , declarations , and other addresses to the king , or to both or either houses of parliament , for alteration of matters establish'd by law , redress of pretended grievances in church or state , or other publick concernments , have been made use of , to serve the ends of factious and seditious persons gotten into power , to the violation of the publick peace , and have been a great mens of the late unhappy wars , confusions and calamities in this nation . 13 car. 2. c. 5. besides , our lawyers tell us , and king james declares in his speech to the parliament , on the last of march 1607 , * that rex est lex loquens ; and where the law is silent , the king's will is a temporary law. upon what account then were the abhorrers of the late tumultuous petitions , so exactly resembling those of forty , and so contrary to his majesty's express orders and proclamation , censur'd or imprison'd ? what crime have they committed , or law have they violated ? or can there be any transgression , where there is no law ; or punishment , where there is no transgression ? oh! ( say they ) tho' there be no positive law directly against abhorrers , yet 't is the great fundamental law , lex & consuetudo parliamenti , and the priviledge of parliament , that they may judge what crimes are punishable ex post facto , and by their arbitrary power punish any man for what they please . this , i must confess , is a pretty knack to help us off at a dead lift , and will serve as well to vindicate the most exorbitant proceed●ngs of a mad parliament , as self-preservation is generally wrested to justifie the horrid conspiracies of rebellious subjects . it proves the great earl of strafford has been lawfully executed , tho' his very enemies then gave us reason to believe , and both king and parliament since have declar'd , him innocent ; and the known laws of the land are at this rate very defective , since they are not the entire rule of the peoples civil obedience , but are further liable to be try'd by that mysterious riddle , lex & , consuetudo parliamenti ; which neither our fathers , nor we , were able to understand . 't is an undoubted maxim both in law and reason , that promulgation is absolutely necessary to the obligation of all positive constitutions , insomuch that the immediate laws even of the almighty , are not obligatory , where they were never preach'd , or made known . how then comes it to pass , that so many loyal subjects and good protestants have been troubl'd upon the account of those mystical riddles , lex & consuetudo parliamenti , and the priviledges of parliament , which were never publish'd or made known to the people , but lie dormant in the house of commons , till started up as occasion requires ? it were to be wish'd , that honourable senate wou'd so far oblige the nation , as to give them a true description of this law and custom of parliament , and an exact account of their priviledges ; that people might in some measure for the future be able to shun those dangerous rocks , and not be surpriz'd or shipwrack'd on such hidden shelves . till then all those loud pretences of securing the subject from slavery and arbitrary government , must seem very ridiculous to the sober and judicious , who as they cannot be easily impos'd upon by outward appearances , to believe peoples words not suitable to their actions , will be apt to mistrust , that what these gentlemen so stifly oppose in others , they design wholly for themselves . but to come closer to the purpose , let us suppose the parliament has this arbitrary prerogative , to turn our most innocent actions into misdemeanors , and make what they please a breach of priviledge : yet by what authority can the house of commons alone pretend to execute that power ; or take upon them to be sole judges , that cannot act as justices of the peace ? our ancestors , it seems , have brought their hogs to a fair market , who have struggled for many ages to preserve themselves and posterity from the unbounded rule of arbitrary pleasure , and having wrested that power from their soveraign , like wise politicians , have left it in the hands of their fellow-subjects , nay , of their attorneys and servants , to whom as such , they always allow'd their daily wages for their attendance in parliament . 't is certainly an odd kind of liberty , that the people can neither be fin'd nor imprison'd by their soveraign , unless for transgressing some known penal law of the land ; but their deputies and trustees may uncontroulably punish them for any thing they are pleas'd to call criminal . is this the great happiness of freeborn subjects , instead of one to have five hundred masters , and see the fundamental laws of the nation , magna charta , and all the good statutes confirming and explaining the same , thus eluded and made useless by a pretended custom of parliament ? what are we the better at this rate , that by the great charter of the liberties of england , c. 29 't is declar'd , that no freeman shall be taken or imprison'd , or be disseiz'd of his freehold or liberties , or his free customs , or be outlaw'd , or exil'd , or in any manner destroy'd , but by the lawful judgement of his peers , or by the law of the land ? or that 28 edw. 3. c 3. 't is enacted , that no man of what estate or condition he be , shall be put out of his land or tenements , nor taken , nor imprison'd , nor disinherited , nor put to death , without being brought to answer by due process of law. or , to omit many others , that 42 ed. 3. c. 3. it is assented and accorded for the good governance of the commons , that no man be put to answer without presentment before justices , or matter of record , or by due process and writ original , according to the old law of the land ; and if any thing be done to the contrary , it shall be void in law , and holden for error . what are we the better , i say , to have these and several other statutes to the same purpose , if they are not of force to secure us on all sides from the slavish yoke of arbitrary power ? if a breach be once made in these great bulwarks of our liberties , and that even by those sentinels appointed to guard us from all illegal incroachments , where is our security ? what will it avail the flock , that they are safe from wolves , if they are in danger to be devour'd by the very dogs that shou'd defend them ? or to what purpose shou'd people struggle to avoid scylla , if at the same time they suffer themselves to be swallow'd up in charybdis ? 't is an old saying ▪ infeliciter aegrotat , cui plus mali venit a medico ●uam a morbo ; and we have found this too true by a dear-bought experience . god preserve us from receiving any further confirmations of it from those state-empyricks , that labour to make us exchange the reality for the name , and the substance for the shadow , or liberty . 't is plain by the foregoing statutes , that no man ought to be taken or imprison'd , without being brought to answer by due course of law ; and that none can be brought thus to answer , without presen●ment before justices , or matter of record , or by due process and writ original , according to the old law of the land. what pretence then have the house of commons , who can bring none to answer in this manner , to any right or legal power to take or imprison any criminal whatsoever ? 't is true , the common , and generally all men in authority , are inclin'd to enlarge their own jurisdiction , and stretch it as far as possible ; but sure a bare vote of that house in favour of themselves , or a late practice never heard of in former ages , shall not be of force enough in any court of justice to elude the solemn acts of king and parliament . besides these statutes , too plain to admit of any comment , even by the common law of this realm no subject can imprison another , but our ancient courts of record , and such as have the kings express commission for so doing . i say courts of record , because ( as appears by divers adjudg'd cases in our law reports ) no other court can fine or imprison the subject : courts ( saith coke ) which are not of record , cannot impose a fine , or commit any to prison , lib. 8. f. 38. and again , nulla curia , quae recordum non habet , potest imponere finem , neque aliquem mandare carceri ; quia ista tantummodo spectant ad curias de * recordo . now our best lawyers will tell us , that the house of commons is no court of record , nay properly speaking is no court at all . 1. because there is no court , but what is establish ▪ d by the kings patent , by act of parliament , or by the common-law , i.e. the constant immemorial custom of former ages . plowdens comment . fol. 319. and coke 1 instit. f. 260. but the house of commons cannot pretend to have any patent or act of parliament to be a court , and yet the common-law makes nothing for their purpose : for they were never own'd as such , nor ever had as much as a journal-book , much less records , till ed. 6's . time : and moreover , it was never heard before sir edward cokes fancy , there were two distinct courts in the same parliament ; since therefore the house of lords is undoubtedly the supream court of all england , they are properly the high court of parliament , and consequently the house of commons is no court in law. secondly , there is no court without a power of tryal ; but the house of commons have no power to try any crime or offence ; for they cannot ; nor ever pretended to examine upon oath : and therefore since there can be no legal tryal without witnesses , nor are witnesses of any force in law , unless examin'd upon oath , the house of commons not claiming the power to administer oaths , cannot bring any matter to a tryal , and consequently can be no court. i must confess sir edward coke ( who in his latter days thinking himself disoblig'd , was no friend to the monarchy , and therefore took a great deal of pains to extol the power of the commons , in opposition to the kings prerogative and the jurisdiction of the lords ) is , or at least pretends to be , of another opinion . in the 4th . part of his institutes he tells us , that the house of commons is to many purposes a distinct court , p 28. which he very learnedly proves by this rare demonstration , that upon signification of the kings pleasure to the speaker , they do and may prorogue or adjourn themselves , and are not prorogu'd or adjourned by the house of lords , ib. whereas ( to say nothing of commissioners for examining witnesses , or regulating any publick business , of arbitrators , referees and the like ) every committee of lords and commons , tho never so few in number , must upon this account be a distinct court , because they may thus adjourn and prorogue themselves , without their respective houses . but he goes on , and to prove the house of commons , is not only a court , but a court of judicature and record , he says p. 23. that the clerks book of the house of commons is a record , and so declared by act of parliament , 6 h. 8. c. 16. whereas that house , as i have already hinted , had no such book as a journal , much less any authentick record , before the first year of edward the sixth ; all their material proceedings till then being drawn in minutes by a clerk appointed to attend them for that purpose , and by him entr'd of record in the house of lords : and therefore the words of the statute are , that the speakers license for members going into the country , be entred of record in the book of the clerk of the parliament , appointed for the commons house : which undoubtedly must be meant , not of the commons , tho order'd now and then to wait upon them , but of the lords clerk , who alone is stil'd clerk of the parliament . i omit , that altho the act had expresly call'd the commons book , a record , yet this cou'd no more make it so , than the words of the common-law , recordari facias loquelam in curia comitatus vel baronis tui — & recordum illud habere coram justiciari●s nostris , &c. us'd in the writt for removing a plaint out of the court-baron , or county-court to the common-pleas , can prove the county-court and court-baron ; to be courts of record ; which yet coke himself denyes in several places of his institutes . see 1 inst. f. 117. and 260. and rolls in his abridg. f. 527. this is not all , the lords and commons must be made all fellows at foot-ball , and of equal authority , in point of judicature : the lords ( saith he ) in their house have power of judicature , and the commons in their house have power of judicature , and both together have power of judicature , p 23 : but i wish , since the lords judicial power , as well with as without the commons , is beyond all dispute , this great lawyer had so far oblig'd posterity , as to have left us some convincing argument to make the world believe the like of the house of commons ; or at least given us some instances of their using this power in former ages , as the lords have done time out of mind . in the mean time , 't is a shrewd argument against his assertion , that in h. 4. time the commons themselves in their petition to the king , declar'd , that the judgments of parliament appertained only to the king and lords , and not to the commons ; and therefore they prayed the king out of his special grace to shew unto them the said judgments and the cause of them ; that so no record might be made in parliament against the said commons , without their privity . to which the bishop of canterbury answer'd by the kings command , that the commons are petitioners and demanders , and that the king and lords always had , and of right shall have the judgments in parliament , even as the commons themselves have shewed ; saving that in statutes to be made , or grants and subsidies , or such things as are to be done for the publick profit of the realm , the king will have especially their advice and assent , 1 h. 4. rol. parl n. 79. who now is to be believ'd , sir edward coke attributing to the commons , or the commons themselves wholly disclaiming all power of judicature ? or shall a single lawyers ipse dixit , or proofless assertion , be of greater weight , than so solemn a declaration upon record , approv'd off by king , lords , and commons ? but to be short , and to argue ad hominem against our late demagogues at wesminster , if they thought themselves a court of judicature and record , as sir edward coke is pleas'd to make them , 't is strange what cou'd be their motive ( unless to shew their arbitrary power to the world ) to imprison so many of his majesties loyal subjects , and after a long and chargeable confinement , release them , without offering to bring them to any legal tryal : for if these gentlemen were reputed criminal , they ought to have been try'd according to law ; if innocent , they shou'd not have been imprison'd . and to say their confinement was by the house design'd for a punishment of their suppos'd misdemeanors , 't is contrary to common sense and to all laws both humane and divine . for at this rate , people will be condemn●d before they are heard , and punish'd before they are convicted ; nay , which is worse than abington-law , to hang a man first , and try him after , they shall be punish'd at will , and never brought to a tryal . what can be safe , if this be admitted ? or who can be secure either of life or liberty , if a prevailing faction in the house of commons may toss him thus in a blanket without any rhime or reason , contrary to the undoubted right of the subject , and the fundamental laws of the nation ? but we are told , the commons have often imprison'd people for misdemeanors , and releas'd them again at their own discretion . i wish they had shew'd us withal by what authority or law they committed them ; for a facto ad jus is no good argument with any man of sense or judgment . how many appeals have been made to rome , and provisions of benefices procur'd from thence , during the papal usurpation ? yet these being contrary to law , the authors were still punishable , and it was no excuse for any , that others had done the like before . the commons have been a constituent part of the great council of the kingdom , either since the 16th . of henry i. as some historians write , or since the 49th . of h. 3. in the year 1364. as most authors agree ; and yet all this while we cannot find , that by their own authority they imprison'd any criminal , till in the 4th . of ed. 6. about the year 1550 they committed criketost to the tower , when the king was an infant , and all govern'd by the ambitious duke of somerset : who to be sure wou'd not expostulate with the house of commons about such a trifle , as he thought it , whilst they forbore to question him for his more illegal and arbitrary proceedings . now , if there be no other argument to justifie the commons imprisoning delinquents , but the practice of their house since the 4th . of ed. 6. 't is plain , the commitment of criketost was illegal , because not justifiable by any former practice of that house ; and consequently , cou'd be no fit precedent to be imitated in succeeding parliaments . and if their first essays of this kind were unwarrantable by law , their subsequent commitments cou'd be no better ; for , quod ab initio non valuit , tractu temporis non convalescit . to what purpose then are such unwarrantable examples alledg'd to justifie the late proceedings of the commons , if not to prove one absurdity by another ? since they can hardly think of any thing , how wild and unreasonable soever ; but they may find one instance or another , to offer as a precedent , in some of our former parliaments . for experience tells us , this great council , much less the * meanest of the three estates , ( tho' our modern republicans wou'd fain snatch the great priviledge of infallibility from the pope's cushion , and place it in the speakers chair ) has not been always free from mistakes , but is found to have often deviated from justice , truth , and loyalty . we must therefore , with seneca , look , non qua●itur , sed qua eundum , not what is , but what ought to be done ; and consider , that 't is not the example of frail men , impos'd upon through ignorance , or led by passion , or private interest , but the approv'd laws of the land , ought to be the rule both of the magistrates government , and of the subjects obedience . what! says a factious petitioner , cannot the house of commons imprison any criminal ? have they no authority to chastise their own members , or punish the invaders of their priviledges ? have they not often exerciz'd this power ; and is it possible the king and lords wou'd have so long conniv'd at their proceedings , had they been illegal or unjust ? does not the house of peers punish the breakers of their priviledges ; why then may not the house of commons be allow'd to do the like ? these are the mighty arguments our great champions for the house of commons always insist upon ; but how weak and insignificant they are , is very obvious to any , tho' but meanly vers'd in our laws , and the constitution of our government . for my part , i have always been , and still am , as much for maintaining the just priviledges of that house , as any man whatsoever ; 't is my interest to do it , and nothing but truth and loyalty shall ever induce me to speak against any of their pretensions : yet i must say , the power they claim now-a-days , to punish all sorts of misdemeanors , and what they please to term a breach of priviledge , is not to be endur'd by any free-born subject ; for , besides that 't is needless , because such offences may , and by law ought to be try'd in the ordinary courts of justice , 't is very dangerous to the publick , least the grand inquest of the nation , appointed to represent the peoples grievances , and pray redress , shou'd upon this account be diverted from pursuing those weighty affairs , by every sawcy footman belonging to the meanest burgess in their house . i confess , it were somewhat tolerable in the commons to imprison and punish their own members , for words by them spoken , or misdemeanors committed in the house : 1. because by 4 h. 8. c. 8. they are not punishable elsewhere for any rashness in parliament , that does not amount to treason felony , or breach of the peace , which the commons neither * can , nor i hope will , as in forty-one , endeavour to protect . 2ly . because 't is suppos'd , the members upon their entring into that assembly , unanimously agreed the lesser number shou'd always submit to the greater , and the major vote be observ'd as the act and sense of the whole house ; if therefore by consent and original compact every single member submits himself to the rest , he cannot complain , tho' otherwise they had no authority , if they imprison him for his misdemeanors , because scienti & volenti non fit injuria , provided always they exceed not the common rules of justice , nor the bounds of our establish'd laws ; for then no private act can bind a subject , tho' made with his own free consent ; as appears by clark's case against the mayor and burgesses of st. albans ; coke lib. 5. p. 64. i cannot therefore but think the power assum'd of late years by the house of commons over their fellow-members , to expel them the house , when and for what they please , without any legal tryal , ( which the lords never practic'd against any of their peers ) is in it self most unreasonable , and of very dangerous consequence ; as mr. prynne , tho' otherwise a great champion for the priviledges of parliament , proves at large in divers of his treatises ▪ the practice ( saith he ) of sequestring and expelling commons by their fellow-commons only , is a late , dangerous , unparliamentary usurpation , unknown to our ancestors , destructive to the priviledges and freedom of parliaments , and injurious to those counties , cities , and boroughs , whose trustees are secluded : the house of commons being no court of justice , to give either oath or final sentence , and having no more authority to dismember their fellow-members , than any judges , justices of the peace , or committees , have to dis-judge , dis-justice , or dis-committee their fellow judges , justices , or committee-men , being all of equal authority , and made members only by the king 's writ , and the peoples election , not by the houses , or other members votes ; who yet now presume both to make and unmake , seclude and recal , expel and restore their fellow-members at their pleasure , contrary to the practice and resolution of former ages , to patch up a factious conventicle , instead of an english parliament . in his legal vindication of the liberties of england ▪ p. 10. but whatever power the commons can pretend to have over their own members , to say they can lawfully punish others , tho for a breach of priviledge , much less for any other crime , seems to me a very groundless assertion , not warrantable by the ancient law and custom of parliament , but rather contrary to the fundamental constitutions of our government : first , because 't is impossible to make out from whom this power is deriv'd ; from the king ? the factious will not own it , and none can prove it : for they have neither patent nor statute to shew for 't , nor yet any legal prescription , which is a constant immemorial custom , such as the lords have in point of judicature , to warrant it ; the ancientest president they can alledge , being that of 4 ed. 6. or the case of ferrers referr'd to them by the lords in the 34 h. 8 about sevenscore years ago . do they deri●e it then from the people , from the freeholders and freemen , their electors ? these have no such power of themselves , they can imprison none without his majesties commission ; and what they have not , sure they cannot give : nemo dat , quod non habet . as for the power given by the electors to their chosen members , who are order'd by the writ of summons to have from the persons they represent , plenam & sufficientem potestatem , 't is no judicial power , nor political jurisdiction , which the people have not , and consequently cannot give , but only a power of consenting as well for their principals , as for themselves , to the kings laws and ordinances . and certainly , if the king be the suprem , and the only suprem governour of this realm , as we affirm in the oath of supremacy ; and if all authority and jurisdiction spiritual and temporal be derived and deducted from the kings majesty , as 't is expresly declar●d 1 ed. 6. c. 2. § 3. or as old bracton saith , ea quae sunt jurisdictionis & pacis , ad nullum pertinent nisi ad regiam dignitatem . lib. 3. c. 24. unless the commons can make out they have their power from the king , they can have no manner of jurisdiction , and by consequence cannot lawfully punish or imprison any criminal , if not perchance their own members in the cases aforesaid : besides , in the first parliament of queen mary 't is declar'd , that the most ancient statutes of this kingdom do give , assign , and appoint the correction and punishment of all offenders against the regality and dignity of the crown , and the laws of this realm , unto the king 1 mar. sess. 3. c. what then are the breakers of the commons priviledges ; are they offenders against the dignity of the crown , or the laws of the realm ? if so , they ought according to this act to be punish'd by the king ; if not , they are not punishable at all : for to trouble any , that does not offend against the crown , or the law of the land , is very illegal and arbitrary , and a high breach of the liberty of the subject . secondly , because the law has expresly provided where and how breaches of priviledge ought to be punish'd , and gives the house of commons no power to take any cognizance of them ; for by several statutes it appears , that if a parliament-man , or his menial-servant , be assaulted , beaten or wounded , in parliament-time , proclamation shall be made where the deed is done , that the offendor shall render himself to the kings-bench within half a year after , there to be tryed ; and if the offendor will not appear , he shall be attainted of the deed , and pay to the party griev'd his double damages , to be tax'd by the discretion of the judges of the said bench for the time being , or by inquest , if need be , and also make fine and ransom at the kings will. moreover , it is accorded in the same parliamenti , that likewise it be done in time to come in like case , 5 h. 4. c. 6. and 11 h. 6. c. 11. as for the commons freedom from arrests ▪ 't is certainly a very ancient priviledge , granted by our kings to that house , the better to enable them to attend the publick service , to which they were summon'd ; as appears by edward the first 's answer to the templars , who having some tenants in the parliament , that were behind with their rents , petition'd the king to have leave to distrain for the said arrears in parliament-time ; which he utterly refus'd , saying , non videtur honestum quod rex concedat quod illi de consilio suo distring antur tempore parliament . 18 ed. 1. rot. 7. in thesaur . receptoris scaccar . yet that it was not formerly held so sacred , nor did extend near so far , as some people now imagine , is plain from the case of thorpe 31 h. 6. who , tho speaker of the house of commons at that time , was imprison'd in the fleet during the prorogation of the parliament , for a 1000. marks damages given against him for a trespass done to the duke of york . and the parliament being re-assembled , the commons earnestly desir'd to have their speaker discharg'd , but it was adjudg'd by the lords , that he shou'd remain in prison according to his sentence , and they choose another speaker : whereupon they elected sir thomas charlton , and made no further clamours , as some now wou'd do , that their priviledges were invaded , 31 h. 6 rot. parliam . n. 25 , 26 , &c. seldens baronage fol. 115. now for the tryal of a breach of this priviledge , tho i find no positive or express statute , that orders it to be decided in the ordinary courts of justice , yet that they may lawfully do it , is a plain consequence of the foregoing acts of parliament : for to argue a majori ad minus , since assaults upon parliament-men are far more criminal than arrests , if the ordinary courts of justice can try the greater , they may certainly try the lesser crime . and accordingly they have often taken cognizance as well of this as other priviledges of parliament ; as appears in the case of done against * welsh , and of * river against cosyn , * skewish against trewynnard , and many others . but the most usual practice of former times was , to make application to the king and lords for redress in this particular , for as sir edward coke himself confesses , the determination and knowledge of this priviledge belongs to the lords of parliament , in his select cases 63. and therefore the house of commons , upon the restraint of any of their members or menial servants , of which themselves took no cognizance till of very late days , always made their humble request to the king and lords for his enlargement . thus when william lake servant to william milred , a member of the house , was taken in execution of debt , and committed to the fleet , the * commons petition'd the king and lords for his liberty . the like they did in walter * clarks case ; and in the case of william * hide : and to omit several other precedents , even in the 43 eliz. when a bill was preferr'd in the star-chamber against belgrave a member of that house , the parliament then sitting , for misdemeanors by him committed against the earl of huntington ; the commons well knowing they had no authority of themselves to protect their member , made their earnest , but ineffectual , application to the lords for relief . sir simon d' ewes journals p. 612 and in the same parliament a great asserter of priviledges , upon a debate about subpaena's , said openly in the house , our use at this day is not warranted by ancient course of precedents ; for if a man had been arrested upon a subpaena , upon notice given , he shou'd have had a writ of priviledge , which of course her majesty must have allow'd : d'ewes journals pag. 655. which is conformable to the report made 18 eliz. by mr. attourney of the dutchy upon a committee appointed for setting mr. halls man at liberty ; that the committee found no precedent for setting at large by the mace any person in arrest , but only by * writ ; and that by divers precedents of records perus'd by the said committee , it appeareth that every knight , citizen or burgess , which doth require priviledge , hath us'd in that case to take a corporal oath before the lord chancellor or lord keeper , that the party for whom such writ is pray'd , came up with him , and was his servant at the time of the arrest made , d'ewes p. 249. the famous case of ferrers , burgess of plimouth 34 h. 8. tho often alleadg'd in favour of the commons , is so far from making any thing for their purpose , that it plainly shews they never offer'd till then to punish any breach of priviledge , for altho they found , not only that the sheriffs of london deny'd to deliver their burgess , but that the officers of the counter beat their serjeant and broke his mace ; yet knowing they had no coactive power of themselves , they were forc'd to repair to the upper house , ( which they wou'd never have done , had their own authority been sufficient ) and complain to the lords of the injury they receiv'd ; who judging the contempt to be very high , for the commons greater satisfaction referr'd the punishment thereof wholly to themselves : which condescension , it seems , gave such encouragement to that house , in succeeding parliaments , who have been always sure never to loose , but still to gain ground upon the prerogative and the house of peers , that now and then they made bold , even without any warrant or direction from the lords , to punish some breaches of priviledge , and at last other misdemeanors . for king edward the sixth , because of his minority , and his two sisters by reason of their sex , being not so active , nor so fit for business , as their predecessors , the commons took hold on this opportunity to get themselves into power , and endeavour'd by punishing offenders to render themselves the more formidable to the people . from hence they proceeded to regulate elections , and tho the law is very plain and positive in this case also ; yet the commons have taken upon them of late days , not only to decide who is duely chosen , and who unduly return'd ; but have further assum'd the power to punish the offenders , contrary to divers acts of parliament in that case provided : for by several statutes it appears , that if the sheriff makes an undue return , his punishment is 200 l. one to the king , and the other to the party duely elected ; besides a years imprisonment without bail or mainprise : and the person unduely return'd is to continue a member of the house , but at his own charges , without any allowance from the place , for which he serves . as for the return , if any makes complaint thereof , it ought to be tryed , not by a committee of elections , but before the justices of assizes in the proper county , or by action of debt in any court of record ; as appears 11 h. 4. c. 1. and 8 h. 6. c. 7. and 23 h. 6. c. 15. these are the laws for regulating elections , and pursuant to them queen elizabeth , in whose time the commons busi'd themselves too much in that matter , sent a notable check to the house in the 28 year of her reign , for their medling with choosing and returning knights of the shire for norfolk ; a thing ( said she ) impertinent for the house to deal withall , and only belonging to the office and charge of the lord chancellor , from whom the writs issue and are return'd , d'ewes journal , p. 393. which message wrought then so far upon the house , that for some years after they forbore to medle much in any thing of that nature , but apply'd themselves , when occasion requir'd , to the lord chancellor or keeper , who proceeded therein as the law directed , without taking any great notice of the commons votes or resolves ; as we find by a remarkable instance in the 35 of this queen , when sir edward coke then speaker , was order'd by the house to attend upon my lord keeper , to move his lordship to direct a new writ for choosing a burgess for southwark instead of richard hutton , suppos'd to have been unduly elected ; and another for allowing sir george carew , who was duely elected , but not return'd , to be burgess for camelsford in cornwall ; and a third for changing the name of john dudley , return'd burgess for new-town in the county of southampton , into the name of thomas dudley , alleadg'd to be the same person , but his name mistaken . my lord keeper answer'd , that the returns for southwark and camelsford shou'd stand good , but as for the said john dudley , he wou'd direct a new writ for choosing another burgess in his stead for newtown , d'ewes journals , p. 494. now if this was the legal way of proceeding in queen elizabeth's reign , warranted by the statutes lately quoted , and allow'd by the great lawyer sir edward coke , and the whole house of commons at that time , by what authority cou'd it be alter'd in succeeding parliaments ? or is it just that the ancient precedents of former ages shou'd be avoided by unwarrantable new-ones of later times ? without question , had the house of commons then known , they had any power to mend the said returns , or punish the offendors , they wou'd never have sent their speaker to wait on the lord keeper's pleasure about it ; and if that house had no such authority , 't is strange how can their successors pretend to have any . thus we see the house of commons was not in former times allow'd to regulate the election of their own members , nor to imprison any for undue elections or returns , nor yet for a breach of priviledge , much less for any other crime or misdemeanor . nothing was heard in those better days of that terrible sentence , take him topham ; not a word of the subjects imprisonment during the will and pleasure of the house of commons . the sitting of parliaments then was * short and sweet , dispatching more business in three days , than of late they have done in so many months . their study was , to redress , not create grievances , and preserve or procure a good understanding betwixt the king and his people ; and not like banbury-tinkers , instead of mending one hole , make a great many . oh! but ( say some ) the connivance of king and lords is a strong argument that the commons have done nothing herein contrary to law. i answer , 't is rather a very weak and frivolous plea ; first , because tho the king be oblig'd by his coronation-oath to govern by law , yet all knowing men will allow he has a prudential power to suspend the execution of such laws , as he thinks prejudicial to the publick interest ; and consequently may , when he sees occasion , wink at some illegal attempts of his subjects , to avoid a great inconvenience . if thefore of late times the king , and if you will , the house of lords , did connive at some unwarrantable resolutions of the commons , rather than exasperate the whole house , too jealous of their own priviledges , and thereby frustrate the chief end of calling his parliament , the security of the publick ; it was policy and great prudence to wave it at that time , tho now 't is the height of folly to make this a warrant for doing the like again , contrary to so many legal presidents , and express acts of parliament . secondly , because the gathering of peter-pence in this kingdom , has been conniv'd at by king , lords and commons , for divers centuries of years ; yet it was an illegal tax upon the subject , contrary to magna charta and the fundamental laws of the nation , 25 h. 8. c. 21. likewise the clergy made divers canons and constitutions , which have been conniv'd at for several ages both by king and parliament ; yet are declar'd by 25 h. 8. c. 19 to be much prejudicial to the kings prerogative royal , and repugnant to the laws and statutes of this realm . the same may be said of the ancient custom of archbishops and bishops , declar'd by 1 ed. 6. c. 2. to be contrary to the common-law of of the land , tho practic'd and conniv'd at , time out of mind . and to omit several other instances , cardinal wolsey for exercising his legantine power , and the whole clergy for receiving it , tho conniv'd at for many years as well in as out of parliament , were nevertheless found guilty in a premunire in his majesties court of kings-bench . connivance therefore is no good argument of any things being legal , and the tolerating of a custom , tho never so long , cannot warrant its continuance , while the law is against it . presidents indeed of former ages , when legal and just from the beginning , are of great force in judicial proceedings ; but no new president of late days can have that weight in any court of justice , and to be sure will never be allow'd , if contrary to law and the authentick records of antiquity . but the house of lords ( say they ) use to punish the breaches of their priviledges , and several other misdemeanors ; why then may not the house of commons do the like ? a most ridiculous parity ; for they might argue as well , the court of kings-bench fines and imprisons delinquents , therefore the grand-jury may do the like when they please . for the commons in parliament are really the grand-jury of the nation , appointed to enquire after briberyes , extortions , monopolies , and other publick oppressions , and complain thereof to the king and lords , and humbly pray redress ; yet they are no judges in any case themselves , but are * parties , as being the attorneys and representatives of those that are injur'd . so far they are from having any judicial power , that they cannot as much as administer an oath upon any occasion whatsoever ; which undoubtedly the law wou'd not have deny'd them , but that they were never design'd for * judges or punishers of any criminal ; because qui negat medium , negat & finem . but the house of lords is not only a court of judicature , but the supream court of the whole kingdom ; they are look'd upon by our laws as persons of no less integrity , than honour , in the distribution of justice ; and besides , are assisted by all the judges of england , by the 12 masters of chancery , by the kings learned council , and by his attorney and solicitor general ; in consideration whereof the same laws have repos'd that extraordinary trust in this august assembly , that to them alone it belongs to redress delays , and reform the erroneous judgments of other courts of justice , and give a final decision to all manner of appeals . now by the laws of other nations , as well as ours , 't is the nature of superior courts , that they may determine matters tryable by an inferior ; and therefore it must be allow'd , that tho the house of commons cannot , because no court of judicature , yet the house of lords , the dernier resort of all suits and actions , may , if they please , punish the invaders of their priviledges , notwithstanding that the law directs them to be try'd in inferiour courts . having thus sufficiently demonstrated , that the house of commons have neither common nor statute-law , nor yet any legal precedents to warrant their fining or imprisoning the meanest of their fellow-subjects , 't is high time , i think , tho a great deal more might be said on this subject very useful to be known , to give you a brief account of other particulars , and examine whether the remedies propos'd in parliament by our late mountebanks of state be not equally dangerous , if not really worse , than our disease . but to expose the designs of some ill men there , and the unwarrantable votes and resolves they got pass'd in the lower house , is a task no less tedious than difficult for me to undertake . i will therefore tell you in short , that notwithstanding all the noise and clamour they made about the protestant religion and the liberty of the subject , the nation had too much reason to believe , they minded more their own ends , than the common good of the people . the kings best subjects , who having so many years experience of his majesties most happy government , declar'd themselves satisfi'd with his prudent management of affairs , and in obedience to his royal proclamation , express'd their aversion to all tumultuous petitions , were no more run down on the one side , than the factious fanaticks , even such as signaliz'd themselves in the late rebellion , were countenanc'd and favour'd on the other ; insomuch that many were of opinion , people had no surer way to ingratiate themselves with some of the leading memberr , than openly to asperse the government , and reflect upon the king and his ministers as favorers of popery , and designers of arbitrary power . 't is almost incredible what pains they took to get the notorious anabaptist ben. harris discharg'd out of prison , for no other reason that i find , but because a dissenter , who with a great deal of favour was condemn'd only to the pillory instead of tyburn , for publishing that treasonable pamphlet , the appeal . neither is this all ; the main bulwark of our church must be broke down , the penal laws against the non-conformists repeal'd , to let in a deluge of sectaries , the scandal of the reformation , who have nothing of christianity but the name , to profane the temple of god : and because this project luckily miscarry'd , their friends in the house endeavour'd to leave them a new kind of dispensation , and the very last * day of their sitting , that with their dying breath they might testify to the world their great zeal for the dissenters in general , of what sect or perswasion soever , to the admiration of most men , they pass'd the following vote . resolved , that it is the opinion of this house , that the prosecution of protestant dissenters upon the penal laws , is at this time grievous to the subject , a weakening of the protestant interest , an encouragement to popery , and dangerous to the peace of the kingdom . i need not comment upon this unwarrantable resolve , by which our worthy patriots , even without the king and house of lords , once more were pleas'd to assume to themselves a power of suspending , and consequently of making , acts of parliament . the encouragement this gave to the republicans to pursue their wicked designs against the crown and the church , like to have prov'd fatal to both , is enough to convince the world , they cou'd hardly do the nation a greater mischief ; and that their confining several gentlemen , tho contrary to law and reason , was not near so dangerous to the government , as their breaking down the rails of the church , to let a swarm of sectaries creep in at the windows . it was observ'd with some admiration , how during this session of parliament , there was not one fanatick imprison'd , nor so much as question'd by the commons for any crime or insolence whatsoever , very few papists molested ; but the true sons of the church of england daily prosecuted in vast numbers , to their great loss and vexation , tho it prov'd at last the eternal shame and confusion of the authors . i cou'd not but smile to see the perplexity they were in , when one of the judges , to his never-dying fame , for giving the first precedent of that kind , made application to the house of commons about the execution of his trust , and desir'd their opinion whether he shou'd do justice to one of their prisoners , by granting the writ of habeas corpus to mr. sheridan , then in the custody of serjeant topham . three several days the case was stifly debated in the house , the act read twice or thrice over , and yet no resolution taken . the warrant of committment , which order'd the gentleman to be confin'd , without any cause shown , during the will and pleasure of the house of commons , was look'd upon so illegal and arbitrary a procedure , even by several members of the house , that serjeant m. till he heard it was already made publick , wou'd have them immediately recal the old , and grant a new warrant more conformable to law. besides , the words of the statute were so full , as admitted of no comment , and so plain for the liberty of the subject , as made it undenyable , that prisoners , unless for treason or felony , were still bailable , by what person or persons soever committed , not excepting the king and council , much less the house of commons , who had no legal power to commit any criminal . but still the point was very nice , and the leading members no less uncertain what resolution to take ; for if they openly declar'd against the habeas corpus , the nation wou'd be much alarm'd , and suspect these gentleman , instead of securing , intended to invade , the subjects liberty ; but if they allow'd the writ , the delicious power of imprisoning such as they had a picque to , was utterly lost , and all persons referr'd to the ordinary courts of justice , or upon their failure , to the house of lords , the suprem tribunal of england . at last sir william jones , like an imperious dictator , starts up to decide the matter , and having made a bawling harangue concerning the power of the house , and their intention of not binding themselves by that act , which yet must bind the king , tho it might as well be alleadg'd he did not intend it , he boldly concludes with threatning and daring the judges to do their duty ; precibusque minas regaliter addit : the same reasons ( says he ) which may be given for discharging such as are not committed for breach of priviledge , if it be grounded on the act for the habeas corpus , will hold as strong for discharging of persons committed for breach of priviledge ; and so consequently deprive this house of all its power and dignity , and make it insignificant . this is so plain and obvious , that all the judges ought to know it ; and i think it below you to make any resolve therein , but rather leave the judges to do otherwise at their peril ; and let the debate fall without any question , see the debates of the house , pag. 217. was not this a rare assertor of our liberties , who instead of allowing us the benefit of the laws , wou'd have us all made beasts of burden to maintain the grandeur of some arbitrary demagogues in the house of commons ; and be content to turn gally-slaves , rather than their power shou'd become useless or insignificant ? but i find this daring speech did not frighten all the judges ; for baron weston , to his immortal renown , had still the courage to grant the habeas corpus , and rather expose himself to the malice of the faction , than deny or delay justice , contrary to his oath . our religion and liberty being thus secur'd , have we not reason to be fond of these worthy patriots , who tugg'd so hard against popery , the better to bring in presbytery ; and to make sure that the prince shou'd not use arbitrary power , took all possible care to keep it in their own possession . it was the kings prerogative in the days of yore to have the power of making war and peace , and declaring who shou'd be counted friends , and who reputed enemies to the kingdom . but now the tribunes of the people are willing to ease him of that trouble , and take upon themselves by the following * vote , to declare some of his majesties best subjects and most faithful friends , enemies to the king and kingdom . resolved , that all persons who advis'd his majesty in his last message to this house , to insist upon an opinion against the bill for excluding the duke of york , have given pernicious councel to his majesty , and are promoters of popery , and enemies to the king and kingdom : and this extravagant vote they are pleas'd particularly to apply to four noble peers of the realm , exposing them to the rable , without the least colour of proof , for promoters of popery , and enemies to their soveraign ; for no other reason , but because they were truly loyal , and free from the contagious leaven of the faction . what a happiness it is , to live within the walls of the house of commons , where the knave becomes honest , and the fool a politician ? where people are sure never to be in the wrong , but always impeccable , and may freely rail and reflect upon their betters , which without doors wou'd cost them very dear . yet i cannot but wonder , why these noblemen ( unless they , as well as many others , took that character for a mark of honour from the givers ) have taken no course , at least with the printer and bookseller , if not with the then speaker , for ordering such scandalous votes to be publish'd , contrary to express * acts of parliament . for if the kings immediate command cannot be allow'd as a good excuse in law for any illegal act , so that altho the prince be unaccountable , yet the minister is to suffer for his obedience ; sure a vote of the house of commons shall not be thought of force , at least out of parliament-time , to protect any offender from justice ; because whatever title the members , within the sacred walls of the house , may claim in some cases to impunity , their officers and servants , who execute their illegal commands abroad , cannot in the least pretend to have any . but how shou'd these noblemen be enemies to the king and kingdom , for their advising his majesty against the bill of exclusion , when the whole house of peers , ( few discontented lords dissenting , who by their lives and conversation never shew'd themselves the truest protestants , nor the best subjects ) openly declar'd against it , and upon the first reading threw it out of doors , is a mystery not easily to be understood . his majesty in his message to the commons , declar'd , he was confirm'd in his opinion against that bill by the judgment of the house of lords , who rejected it ; why then are four lords singl'd out , and not the whole house declar'd promoters of popery , and enemies to the king and kingdom ? the reason some will guess , that the leading members saw matters were not yet ripe , to shew themselves bare-fac'd , or discover the bottom of their designs , and once more to vote the house of lords dangerous and useless , and therefore to be laid aside . but why the opposers of the bill of exclusion enemies to the king and kingdom ? when 't is made plain even to demonstration in several treatises publish'd these four years past about the succession , that the promoters of that bill , tho some perhaps meant otherwise , were in fact enemies to the monarchy , and no friends to the king nor to the true protestant religion . 't is strange that such as loudly exclaim against popery , shou'd have the face at the same time to practice the worst of popish , or rather jesuitical principles , and endeavour to force their soveraign to disinherit his only brother , upon a bare suspicion of his being of another religion ; which henry the 3. of france , being tender of the monarchy , and of the hereditary right of succession , was so far from offering to the king of navarre , tho a known protestant and but a remote kinsman , that he cou'd never be perswaded to give the royal assent to the bill , which the powerful influence of the factious duke of guise got pass'd by the three estates , for his exclusion . oh! but ( say they ) popery and slavery will break in upon us , if the duke succeeds . and i am sure , anarchy and presbytery , and an intestine civil war , will undoubtedly follow , if he be excluded , the king expos'd to danger , and the kingdom to ruine . how fatal it prov'd to henry 6. that he suffer'd the good duke of gloucester to be made away by his prosecutors , which made way for his own deposition , and consequently for his untimely end , historians do abundantly testify ; and baker tells us , how the great duke of somerset , then protector , by sacrificing his brother the lord admiral to the malice of his enemies , in hopes to stop their mouths by yielding to their demands , clear'd the way for himself to the scaffold . a warrant ( saith this historian ) was sent , under the hand of his brother the protector , to cut off his head ; wherein ( as afterwards it prov'd ) he did as much , as if he had laid his own head upon the block : for whilst these brothers lived and held together , they were as a strong fortress one to the other ; the admirals courage supporting the protectors authority , and the protectors authority maintaining the admirals stoutness ; but the admiral once gone , the protectors authority as wanting support , began to totter , and fell at last to utter ruine . besides , there was at this time , amongst the nobility , a kind of faction ; protestants , who favour'd the protector for his own sake ; and other of the papal inclination , who favour'd him for his brothers sake : but his brother being gone , both sides forsook him ; even his own side , as thinking they could expect little assistance from him , who gave no more assistance to his own brother , bakers chronicle p. 307. what a noise they make about these terrible bugbears , popery and slavery , as if both were inseparable , and actually breaking in upon the nation , or rather come as far as the lobby of the house of commons ? for my part , tho i have no reason to be fond of either , the one being no less contrary to my nature , than the other to my principles , yet i cannot be startl'd at every shadow , nor believe that the duke , having already spent the prime of his days , let him succeed never so soon , will be able to introduce amongst us any new , much less the popish religion . neither can i be perswaded , contrary to common sense and the experience of so many ages , but that the papists are as fond of their liberty and property , and consequently as great enemies to slavery , as any protestant whatsoever . for , to them we owe the unparallel'd common-law of this realm , magna charta and all those wholesom statutes grounded thereupon ; to them we are oblig'd for the incomparable frame of our well-temper'd monarchy , which affords very much to the industry and happiness of the subject , yet preserves enough for the majesty and prerogative of any king , that will own his people as subjects , and not as slaves or villains . who then but a fool or a mad-man , wou'd think slavery the unavoidable consequence of that religion , the professors whereof , even in the time of their blindest zeal and greatest darkness , ( for since then they are much refin'd ) made such impregnable bulwarks against it , and provided such wholesome laws to defend themselves from all the encroachments of arbitrary power : insomuch that the high and mighty pope himself , who often endeavour'd to enslave this kingdom , and make it tributary to his avarice , found to his great grief , that tho some ignorant bigots wou'd contribute to fill his coffers , yet the generality of the nation were so tender of their own and their princes rights , that they always oppos'd him with true english courage ; as appears not only by hundreds of adjudg'd cases reported in our law-books , but by divers records and acts of parliament . for 25 ed. 3. stat. of provisors , 't is enacted , that such persons as obtain provisions , or collation of benefices from rome , and thereupon disturb the presentees of the king , or of other patrons of holy church , or of their advowees , the said provisors , their procurators , executors and notaries , shall be attached by their body , and brought in to answer : and if they be convict , they shall abide in prison without being let to mainprise or bail , or otherwise delivered , till they have made fine and ransom to the king at his will , and gree to the party that shall feel himself grieved : and nevertheless before they be delivered , they shall make full renunciation , and find surety , that they shall not attempt such things in time to come , nor sue any process by them , nor by other against any man in the court of rome , nor in any part elsewhere , for any such imprisonments , or renunciations , nor any other thing depending of them . and in the same year it was enacted , that he that purchas'd a provision in rome for an abbey , shou'd be out of the kings protection , and any man might do with him , as with the kings enemy , 25 ed. 3. c. 22. 2● ed. 3. c. 1. upon the grievous complaints of the lords and commons in parliament , it was ordain'd , that all people of the kings l●geance , of what condition that they be , which shall draw any out of the realm in plea , whereof the cognizance pertaineth to the kings court , or of things whereof judgements be given in the kings court ; or which do sue in any other court to defeat or impeach the judgements given in the kings court , if they appear not within two months after warning given , shall be put out of the kings protection , and their lands , goods and chattles forfeit to the king , and their bodies wheresoever they may be found , shall be taken and imprisoned , and ransomed at the kings will. 13 r. c. 2. 't is enacted , that if any do accept of a benefice of holy church contrary to this * statute , and that duly prov'd , he shall within six weeks next after such acceptation , be exiled and banished out of the realm for ever , and his lands and tenements , goods and chattles shall be forfeit to the king. and if any receive any such person banished , coming from beyond the sea , or being within the realm after the said six weeks , knowing thereof , he shall be also exiled and banished , and incurr such forfeiture as afore is said . and their procurators , notaries , executors , and summoners shall have the pain and forfeiture aforesaid . and c. 3 it is ordained and established , that if any man bring or send within the realm or the king's power , any summons , sentence , or excommunication against any person , of what condition that he be , for the cause of making motion , assent , or execution of the said statute of provisors , he shall be taken , arrested and put in prison , and forfeit all his lands and tenements , goods and chattels for ever , and incur the pain of life and of member . and if a prelate make execution of such summons , sentences or excommunications , that his temporalties be taken and abide in the kings hands , till due redress and correction thereof be made . and if any person of less estate than a prelate , of what condition that he be , make such execution , he shall be taken , arrested , and put in prison , and have imprisonment , and make fine and ransom by the discretion of the kings councel . 16 r. 2. 't is declar'd , that the crown of england , which hath been so free at all times , that it hath been in no earthly subjection , but immediately subject to god in all things touching the regalty of the same crown , ought not to be submitted to the pope , nor the laws and statutes of the realm by him defeated and avoided at his will , in perpetual destruction of the sovereignty of the king our lord , his crown , his regalty , and of all his realm . and moreover , the commons affirmed , that the things attempted by the pope , be clearly against the king's crown and his regality , used and approved of in the time of all his progenitors : wherefore they and all the leige-commons of the same realm , will stand by the king , and his crown , and his regalty , in the cases aforesaid , and in all other cases attempted against him , his crown , and his regalty , in all points , to live and to die . these , and several other * statutes , too tedious 〈◊〉 to be inserted , have been provided in former ages when the pope's power was at the highest , and provided even by popish kings and popish parliaments , to secure themselves and the nation from all papal encroachments . neither have our judges been less severe against the popes unwarrantable pretensions , who in pursuance of the common-law of the land , tho' no statute had been made to that purpose , judg'd it a very hainous crime in any subject of england to obey , or put them in execution . in the reign of king edward i ; when a subject brought a bull of excommunication from rome , against another subject of this realm , and publish'd it to the lord treasurer of england : this was by the common-law of the land adjudg'd treason against the king , his crown and dignity , 30 lib. ass. pla . 19. brook tit . praemunire , pl● 10. an excommunication by the archbishop , albeit it be disallow'd by the pope or his legate , is to be allow'd ; neither ought the judges give any allowance of any such sentence of the pope or his legate , 16 e. 3. tit . excom . 4. an * excommunication under the popes bull is of no force to disable any man in england . and the judges said , that he that pleadeth such bulls , tho they concern the excommunication of a subject , were in a hard case , if the king would extend his justice against him 30 e. 3. lib. ass. pl. 19. the king presented to a benefice , and his presentee was disturb'd by one that had obtain'd bulls from rome ; for which offence he was confin'd to perpetual imprisonment , 21 ed. 3. f. 40. one morris being elected abbot of waltham , sent to rome for a bull of confirmation ; but it was resolved by all the judges , that this bull was against the laws of england , and that the abbot , for obtaining the same , was fallen into the king's mercy ; whereupon all his possessions were seiz'd into the king's hands , 46 ed. 3. tit . praemunire , 6. in the reign of ed. 4. the pope granted to the prior of st. johns to have sanctuary within his priory ; but it was resolved by the judges , that the pope had no power to grant sanctuary within this realm ; and therefore by judgment of the law the same was disallowed ▪ 1 h. 7. f 20. in the same king's reign , a legate from the pope came to callis , to have come into england ; but the king and his councel would not suffer him to come within the kingdom , until he had taken an oath , that he should attempt nothing against the king or his crown , 1 h. 7. f. 10. and in the reign of h. 7. the pope had excommunicated all such persons whatsoever as had bought allom of the florentines ; but it was resolved by all the judges of england , that the popes excommunication ought not to be obeyed , or to be put in execution within the realm of england , 1 h. 7. f. 10. these , and many other such cases , you may see in the first part of coke's 5 th . reports . now , if not only the judges , but the representative-wisdom of the nation , even king , lords , and commons , in the thickest mist of popish ignorance , were so resolute against the bishop of rome , and so careful to preserve their own rights and liberties inviolable : who can be so silly , as to believe , that a popish prince in this kingdom , and at this time of the day , when popery it self is much refin'd , and the whole nation irreconcilably bent against it , will ever submit to any papal usurpation , much less make himself or his people slaves to the court of rome ? alas ! says one , but our sweet abbey-lands are in danger to be lost , and reassum'd by the popish clergy , what course then shall we take to secure them ? believe me , if the law will not do it , i know no other way , but a project i hear shortly to be set on foot for insuring all the church-lands in the kingdom these 40 years to come . the parties concern'd will propose very reasonable terms , and will undertake , the squinting trimmer , who maliciously whispers about , he wou'd take seven years purchase for his church-lands , in case of a popish successor , shall have fourteen well secur'd , whenever the duke succeeds . but why our abbey-lands more in danger , than any other part of our estates ? since we have the same security for the one as for the other , and both as firmly secur'd , as the law can make them , or the wit of man devise . 't is well known , that the popish * clergy in queen maries time , the better to forward the peoples reconciliation with the church of rome , by their petition to the queen , consented that all the church-lands dispos'd of to lay-men , shou'd be settl'd on the possessors and their heirs for ever , without any danger of revocation ; and this was approv'd of by the pope's legate a latere cardinal pool , * willing and ordaining , ( as he says ) that the present possessors of ecclesiastical goods , as well movable as immovable , shall not at this time , nor in time to come , be disquieted nor molested in the possession of the said goods , either by the disposal or order of any general or provincial councils , or by the decretal epistles of the bishop of rome , or by any other ecclesiastical censure whatsoever . and besides this , to crown the work beyond all exception , and bind it with a triple cord which is not easily broken , all is confirm'd in full parliament , by the queen , by the cardinal and clergy , and by the lords and commons ; by whom 't is enacted , that all and every article , clause , sentence and proviso contained or specified in any act or acts of parliament , concerning or touching the assurance or conveyance of any the said monasteries , priories , nunneries , commandries , deanries , prebends , colledges , chantries , hospitals , houses of fryers , rectories , vicarages , churches , chappels , archbishopricks , bishopricks , and other religious and ecclesiastical houses and places , or any of them , or in any ways concerning any manors , lands , tenements , profits , commodities , hereditaments , or other the things before specified to the said k. h. 8. or k. ed. 6. or either of them , or any other person or persons , or body-politick or corporate , and every of them ; and all and every writing , deed , and instrument concerning the assurance of any the same , shall stand , remain , and be in as good force , effect and strength , and shall be pleaded , and taken advantage of , to all intents , constructions , and purposes , as the same should , might or could have been by the laws and statutes of this realm , in case this present act had never been had or made , 1. & 2 phil. & mar. c. 8 § . 39. and 't is further enacted , that whosoever shall by any process obtained out of any ecclesiastical court within this realm or without , or by pretence of any spiritual jurisdiction , or otherwise contrary to the laws of this realm , inquiet or molest any person or persons , or body-politick for any manors , lands , tenements , hereditaments , or things above-specified , contrary to the words , sentences and meaning of this act , shall incur the danger of the act of praemunire , ib. § . 41. what cou'd the wit of man contrive or devise more firm in law , or more satisfactory to all parties concern'd in church or abbey-lands , than these and several other paragraphs provided in the same act of parliament ? why then are people by groundless and imaginary fears discompos'd , or frightn'd out of their wits , and made tools to drive on the designs of some ill men , against the monarchy and the church , who will have nothing sufficient to secure them in the religion they have not , but what will unavoidably shake the very foundation of the government ? 't is true , our state-mountebanks in their address presented in the name of the house of commons , are so dutiful to their sovereign , as humbly to threaten , this may possibly happen , if the duke succeeds : we further humbly beseech your majesty ( say they ) in your great wisdom to consider , whether , in case the imperial crown of this protestant kingdom should descend to the duke of york , the opposition , which may possibly be made to his possessing it , may not only endanger the farther descent in the royal line , but even monarchy it self , 21 dec. 1680. but that season , i hope , is over , and the nation now thorowly sensible of the fatal consequences of such resolutions , and can never forget the unparallell'd tyranny of the rump , nor the doleful tragedies that ensu'd the quarrel between york and lancaster , which made england a field of blood. but what has this great prince , once the peoples darling , done to deserve so severe a treatment , or be thought so dangerous a person to the publick ? has he defrauded any of an ox or an ass ; or was he ever found worse than his word , or unjust in his dealings ? if he has chang'd his opinion , which yet is improbable , about the modes and circumstances of religion , 't is plain he has not chang'd his moral principles , nor his natural affection to his countrey . i need not instance how often he expos'd his person to danger , like a common sea-man , to fight our battles ; nor how zealously he always studied the true interest of the english nation , in opposition to french designs ; a truth too well known even to his most inveterate enemies , but ill rewarded with ingratitude . 't is prodigious , what tricks and arts have been us'd of late to incense the unthinking multitude against his highness , and set them a-madding with the apprehension of stakes and faggots , and all the chymoera's of a crack-brain'd fancy : when 't is palpably evident , it is not in the power of any prince , tho' the greatest bigot of papists , to force this nation in point of conscience , or alter the establish'd religion ; since the laws de haeretico comb●rendo , ( which in queen maries time were in force , and warranted the cruelties then committed upon the protestants , as the statutes made by queen elizabeth , do the executing of priests and jesuits as traytors , both uncharitable and ill-becoming a christian-magistrate ) are now happily repeal'd and abolish'd . why then shou'd people be bugbear'd out of their senses , with imaginary fears of smithfield-faggots ; or think that the duke , who never advis'd his own children to become papists , wou'd offer , tho' able , to compel any other to renounce his religion ? if he has express'd some kindness for such romanists ▪ as had signaliz'd their loyalty to his father here , or to his brother abroad , when those that now call themselves true protestants , openly absur'd his title , 't is an instance of his gratitude and good nature , but no argument of his approving the opinions of that party . and yet we have no better proof , than such groundless whispers and surmises , unless we believe the ridiculous salamunca doctor 's peeping through the key-hole , of his being a papist , or any way inclin'd to the popish communion . how false then is the preamble ( and therefore justly rejected , had there been no other reason , by the house of lords ) of the intended bill of exclusion , that the duke of york is notoriously known to have been perverted from the protestant to the popish religion ? or the extravagant vote , whereon they grounded this abortive bill ? resolved , that the duke of york's being a papist , and the hopes of his coming such to the crown , hath given the greatest countenance and encouragement to the present designs and conspiracies against the king and the protestant religion . — 2 nov. 1680. whereas it might with greater truth and justice be resolved , that the late endeavours of some leading men in the house of commons in favour of the fanaticks , and their declaring , that if his majesty should come by any violent death , they would revenge it to the utmost upon the papists ; has given the greatest countenance and encouragement to colledge and his accomplices to conspire against the king and the church ; and has openly expos'd his majesties sacred life to the blind zeal of the faction ; to whom , besides the prospect of destroying their enemies , it was a great temptation to commit the villany , that they cou'd safely leave it at anothers door . thus , sir , i have given you in short my opinion on mr. hunts defence of the charter ; and for your further satisfaction have added some remarks on the proceedings of our worthy patriots ( so much commended by that gentleman ) in the last parliament at westminster . there remains a great deal more to be said as well of this , as of the other that follow'd at oxford ; but some earnest business requiring my attendance , i will at present give you no further trouble , only speak a word or two to the general calumny cast by the factions on all that dare oppose their designs , and which i cannot well expect to escape , viz. that we are no friends to parliaments . but i appeal to any man of sense , whether i , who wou'd have the commons freely enjoy their priviledges , yet confin'd within their ancient and legal bounds , or the fanatick that labours to make their power absolute and uncontroulable , be a greater friend to that honourable assembly ? and whether they can possibly have more pernicious enemies , than such as make them controullers , instead of councellors , to their soveraign , and competitors with him in the government ; when their being wholly depends on his will and pleasure , and can expect to fit no longer than during their good behaviour ? how fatal the insolencies of the 3d. estate in france , anno 1614. prov'd to that nation in general , who never since had the like assembly , is particularly observ'd by several historians . 't is true , we have no reason to mistrust any such thing , having so good and so gracious a prince , as has solemnly engag'd his royal word , that no irregularities in parliament shall ever make him out of love with parliaments , declar. p. 9. besides that our constitution is such , that we cannot reasonably fear it . nevertheless , policy as well as duty requires , that the commons give no such distast for the future , as will justly occasion even any long intermission of their meeting ; since parliaments , provided they behave themselves with prudence and moderation , are the best method ( as his majesty says ) for healing the distempers of the kingdom , and the only means to preserve the monarchy in that due credit and respect , which it ought to have both at hom and abroad . ibid. finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a47876-e90 * in making our ancient laws , ( saith the great antiquary mr selden ) the commons did petere , the lords assentire , & the king concludere : in his judicature in parliament , pag. 132. pag. 27. * 4 ed. 3. 14. 36 ed. 3. 10. * 16 ▪ car. 2. 1. * ne frena animo permitte calenti ; da spacium . tenuemque moram ; male cuncta ministrat impetus . * you all know , that rex è lex loquens ; and you often heard me say , that the king's will and intention being the speaking law , ought to be luce clarius . and again ; in any case , wherein no positive law is resolute , rex e judex ; for he is lex loquens , and is to supply the law ▪ where the law wants . * ib. f. 60. beechers case . the like he hath fol. 120. bonham's case , and lib. 11. f. 43. godfrey's case , and in several other places . * dyer f. 60. a. says , the parliament consists of three parts , viz. the king , as chief head ; the lords , the chief and principal members of the body ; and the commons , the inferiour members . * coke 4. inst. p. 25. & 31 h. 6. n. 26 , 27. * mich. 12. ed. 4. rot. 20. in the exchequer . * hill. 14 e. 4. rot. 7. * dyer fol. 59. * 8 h. 6. rot. parl. n. 57. * 39 h. 6. n. 9. * 14 ed. 4. n. 55. * the lords themselves cannot by priviledge of parliament set any at liberty by their immediate orders to the gentleman vsher , or serjeant at arms , but only by a writ of priviledge from the lord keeper ; as appears 43 elizab. d'ewes journals , p. 608. * see prynn's remarks on coke's 4 inst. p. 42. * none can be judge and party , coke's 8 reports , dr. bouham's case . f. 118. b. * the constant custom of the commons , even to this day , to stand bare with their hats in their hands , while the lords sit cover'd , at all conferences and tryals , is a plain argument they are not fellows or colleagues in judgment . * 10 jan. 1681 / 80 ; . * 7 jan. 1680. * 2 r. 2. 5. 11 r. 2. 11. &c. de scandalis magnatum . * 25 ed. 3. statute of provisors . * 38 ed. 3. stat. 2. c. 1. 2 h. c. 4. 7. h. 4. c. 6. 3 h. 5. c. 4. * the same is resolved , 12 h. 4. f. 16. 14 h. 4. f. 14. 8 h. 6. f. 3. 20 h. 6. 1. 35 h. 6. 42. 7 e. 4. 14. 12 e. 4. 16. * 1 & 2 phil. & mar. c. 8. num . 32. * volentes ac decernentes , quod dictorum bonorum ecclesiasticorum ram mobilium quam immobilium possessores praefati non possiut in praesenti nec in posterum , seu per conciliorum generalium vel provincialium dispositiones , seu decretales rom. pontificum epistolas , seu aliam quamconque censuram . ecclesiasticam in dictis bonis , seu eorundem possessione molestari vel inquietari , 1 & 2 phil. & mar. c. 8. num . 33. a postscript to the observators first volume, or, the answer of miles prance to several of those papers wherein he finds himself most traduced and slandered with some notes to be added to observator numb. 8 of the 2d volumn [sic]. prance, miles, fl. 1678-1689. 1684 approx. 109 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 13 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a55631 wing p3175 estc r28157 10440437 ocm 10440437 45023 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a55631) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 45023) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1388:26) a postscript to the observators first volume, or, the answer of miles prance to several of those papers wherein he finds himself most traduced and slandered with some notes to be added to observator numb. 8 of the 2d volumn [sic]. prance, miles, fl. 1678-1689. l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. [2], 20 p. printed for the author and are to be sold by r. janeway, london : 1684. signed: miles prance. reproduction of original in the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng observator in dialogue. popish plot, 1678. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-12 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-02 melanie sanders sampled and proofread 2005-02 melanie sanders text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a postscript to the observators first volumn . or , the answer of miles prance , to several of those papers , wherein he finds himself most traduced and slandered . with some notes to be added to observator numb . 8. of the 2d . volumn . psalm lii . thy tongue imagineth wickedness , and with lies thou cuttest like a sharp razor . thou hast loved to speak all words that may do hurt , o thou false tongue . therefore shall god destroy thee for ever , he shall take thee and pluck thee out of thy dwelling , and root thee out of the land of the living . london : printed for the author , and are to be sold by r. janeway in queens-head-alley in pater-noster-row . 1684. to the loyal protestant readers . having made so long an apology in the first pages for the necessity as well as justice of my appearing now in print , i intended not to have troubled my self or you with any particular address , till finding new scandals dayly sprung upon me , the refuting whereof , rendred these papers more tedious , then at first designed , i must therefore begg pardon for their bulk ; but , why all this stir and so many sheets ? what is it to us , you 'l say , whether prance be a cheat , or the observator a lyar ! not much perhaps to you , but of great importance to me , i 'le assure you gentlemen ; since i perceive my dayly conversation is beset with spies , and no man ( though never so honest and loyal ) that comes into my company , but is presently in danger of being exposed as a phanatick , and markt out ( right or wrong ) to the fury of the rabble , and destruction of his fortune and family : and considering that this usage may be any other mans case to morrow , as well as mine to day ; whenever the observator for his own glory , or on any secret design , shall think fit to proclaim war against him ; i thought it high time to give all the world satisfaction of the truth of the case between mr. l'estrange and my self ; that all persons of this age , and such as shall write histories in the next ( which i find our observator much values his numerous sheets upon , as the just standard for them to take measures from ) may have the cognizance as well of the defence as of the charge ; for he that has a tongue to condemn , before he imploys both his ears to hear either party , deserves to be appeal'd from , as an incompetent judge . the observator makes large professions , that his engagement is for the government , and the establisht church ; but i humbly conceive , 't is no honour or service to either , that he intermixes so much his own personal piques and animosities , & takes liberty meerly on the tales of his busy emissaries , to expose any honest loyal subject , that gives not up all the faculties of his soul , to a blind admiration of , and acquiescence in his papers , which are in many particulars ( for i speak only as to what i am concern'd in ) as false and malicious , as triffling and illogical . the gentleman has liberally bestow'd on me the titles of cheat , rogue , rascal , blasphemer , almost always drunk , &c. but i thought it below the gravity of a citizen , or any moral man , much more of a christian , to reply in the scurrilous language of an oyster boat ; and therefore as far as the matter would possibly bear , i have abstained from any vndecent terms ; how much soever deserv'd . nor dare vye with so great a master in the mysteries of buffoonery and fooling : soft words and hard arguments , as little droll , and as much reason as may be afforded , is the best method for all controversies . yet to divert the reader ; i have now and then descended to answer the gentleman a little in his own way , to shew that what some men so highly admire , is no such transcendent quality , but it might be imitated . a little wit , joyn'd with a vast ill nature , and qualify'd for lyes , as well as satyr ; may easily commence an observator . but not to enlarge the porch to a building which is already too bigg — the whole matter , loyal readers , is before you , and having first considered impartially , you are at liberty to pass your judgments as you find cause . if any object the following leaves are not all of my own composing , it shall readily he granted ; nor can i find any body will swear , that all the observators are wholly of mr. l'estrange's own handy work ; let it therefore suffice , that there is nothing here said on my behalf , which i do not approve , and know to be true . and therefore am ready to justify every tittle ; witness my hand , miles prance . a postscript , &c. the noise mr. l'estrange has laboriously ( and even to many of his own admirers , nauseously ) made about brass-screws , &c. was in it self so improbable as well as false ; and his naked suggestions ( unconfirm'd with the least proof , or his being able to vouch any authors or witnesses for so heinous a charge ) having been already refuted by the positive affidavit of an uninteressed person , and a romanist too , disproving the same ; that , as i doubt not , but most sober considerate persons , are long since satisfied of the injustice of that accusation , so i had the charity to hope the observator himself , however at first misinform'd , might e're this be asham'd on 't . but finding that gentleman , in his observators , numb . 470 , and 471 , challenging all the world to instance wherein he has misreported , or partially represented any one matter of fact , and particularly reviving this thred-bare story , as one of the trophies of his atchievements , and consigning the same over , as a matter undeniable to the belief of posterity : i should be wanting to truth and my own innocency , if i should not publickly check , and yet further detect those scandals , which tend not only to the blasting of my reputation , spoiling of my trade , and ruin of my family , ( which i can prove , mr. l'estrange with his own mouth , most unchristianly own'd to be his design ) but also ( which i conceive the first forgers of this scandal principally intend ) the discrediting that evidence , i have faithfully given touching the manner of sir edmund-bury godfrey's murther : that indelible stain , which all the popes holy-water shall never be able to wash off . i foresee under what disadvantages i appear , and am sorry i cannot avoid a contest , with a gentleman of known abilities , and reputed loyalty , so high in popular esteem , of so large an invention , and taking expressions , and one who will be sure to have the last word ; nor do i forget his character , as now qualified , a magistrate ; but truth is truth , even in the courser language of a silver-smith : and falshoods and calumnies are no better than lies and devices of the devil to be abhorr'd by all christians and honest men , though dressed up in never so rich embroideries of craft and oratory . and though god and nature have not endued me with equal parts , nor fortune with so liberal an education , ( which the loyalty of my father to his king , was the chief occasion that disabled him to afford me ) so that i may not be so useful ; yet i am bound to be , and by gods grace , will never fail to approve my self as honest a man , as faithful and obedient a subject , and as hearty and dutiful a son of the church of england , by law establisht , as the wittiest observator in christendom . the veneration i have for his sacred majesty , my soveraign , guides my willing duty to pay all justrespects to every person ( though never so much my particular enemy ) that is vested with any subordinate authority under him . 't is not with mr. l'estrange the justice , but l'estrange the observator my dispute lies ; if he send out a legal warrant , i will readily obey ; but if he publish things false and scandalous of me , i see not , why i may not answer it , without being taxt as guilty of any disrespect to the government . his gracious majesty imploying any in the commission of the peace , does not , i am sure , thereby intend to priviledge him , to injure the meanest of his subjects . what i attempt is no more than all laws divine and humane allow , viz. the liberty of an unblamable defence ; to wipe off dirt ( or rather venom ) causelesly thrown upon me : in doing which , if any of it shall , by the beams of truth , be reflected back on the first author , who can help it ? for whatever service mr. l'estrange has done the government and the church , against the factious , or the enemies to either , i cordially applaud and thank him . nor do i repine at his ( reported ) presents and new-years-gifts of a 1000 ( nay , were they ten sand ) guineys , since for ought i know , he has deserved them ; for in this close-fisted age , people are not apt to part with their money , but on good considerations . however i am pleased to hear that charity or gratitude ( call it which you will ) is so great and general amongst protestants , and hope we shall hereby silence the papists , upbraiding us for neglect of good works : i like a chedder-cheese ( to borrow the metaphor from a well known author ) never the worse for being made great by the milk of the whole parish ; nor shall i ever envy any mans growing fat on the alms-basket . in a word , i have as good an esteem for the active and ingenious squire l'estrange , as i ought to have . and if ( as the author of the pacquet of advice from geneva , * numb . 2. p. 10. affirms . he be one undoubtedly sent from above to act here in his generation , for the great good of his king and country , and to be vere malleus rebellium & phanaticorum ( which , i am told , signifies , a mawler of rebels and fanaticks ) i only wish , he had kept altogether to that work ; let him mawl them o' gods name , as long as he lift , till his observators out-swell the volumes of bellarmine ; and scourge them more severely than ever he did ( as himself has told us ) the wicked cats that haunted his bird-cage , that is , till he has made them leave off their rogueries . but if he will abandon his province , and pull me head and ears out of the church of england , and not only make me a phanatick in spight of my teeth , but also point me out as a rogue , one that have for sworn my se●f against him : and that i cheated her majesty with brass screws ; and design'd to defraud a man of a tankard , and made away my servant , and sent for him , the said l'estrange , to the old dog-tavern , and then d●n●●d it , with such and such horrid oaths , when not a word of all this is true ; i hope i may have leave to say — your worship in these particulars is mistaken ; and to disabuse the world therein , even in like publick manner ; since , as himself says , observator , num. 473. nothing but print can answer print . besides , i have his own allowance , observator 470. you are at liberty to shew the world my errors . now therefore to the matter — and first , the old job of brass-screws — that which mr. l'estrange affirms , is — that i being imploy'd to make an antependium to the altar of her majesties chappel , did fraudulently either make brass-screws and reckon for them as silver , or having made silver , and being paid for them as such , did purloin the silver ones , and put brass ones , with only silver heads in their stead — here 's no less than cheat , and felony , and sacriledge , all charg'd in a lump , but where 's the proof ? as for that , you have only the bare suggestion of the observator : now , though that authors opinion , when he talks of the politicks , may ( for ought i know ) be indisputable ; yet as to matter of fact , if he shall tell us , it rains butter'd parsnips , and that the thames is turned into a dish of clouted cream , when we see nothing but snow falling , and ice under-foot , he must excuse , such as wear eyes about them , if they demur a little to the belief of those miracles . for the readers satisfaction ; who possibly may not be so well skill'd in chappel-furniture , as an observator , that owns , he has been forty times at mass : i must here first describe what an antependium is , viz. an ornament set before the front of the altar , of which there are several sorts , some more rich for great festivals , some more mean , for ordinary times ; some mourning ones used , when mass is said for souls in purgatory , which ( if i do not mis-remember ) is every monday ; and accordingly these antependiums are frequently remov'd , as occasion requires . that which i was concerned about , was a very rich one , to be used on high days ; and doctor godden , treasurer of her majesties chappel , by the means of father james , ( who was then my confessor ) imployed me , it being proposed to me and mr. m. ( a roman goldsmith in fleet-street , ) and both of us made draughts or models , which , the doctor told me , were presented to the queen , and her majesty was graciously pleased to approve of mine , and so i was pitcht upon to do it ; the rather ( as i believe , ) for that the same doctor told me , mr. m. ask'd a 4th part more per ounce , for work and fashion , than i offered to do it for . being thus imployed , and having made a punctual bargain at fixt rates and prizes , to make an antependium , and steps to the altar , and two large flower-pots ; i was furnished with a quantity of old broken silver belonging to the chappel , which i spent several days time and labour , in taking off from the wood , &c. which silver was intended both to supply matter for the work to be done , and with it's overplus to pay me for doing it , and was all exactly weighed when delivered to me ; which was as near as i can remember , about the moneth of september , 1674. and i was enjoyned to smish against the feast of our saviours nativity , so there was a necessity to imploy more hands , ( in so large a piece of work ) than my own and my servants ( yet the observator objects as a crime that i did not do it all my self , whereas had i design'd a cheat , i should my self have endeavoured to do it all . ) but i caused the old silver to be melted down by others , ( who might be able to attest it ) which , tho' i confess i did not do out of any foresight , yet 't was happy for me , since otherwise i might now have been liable to a far greater scandal of embasing it , ( a more tempting bait to nibble at , than this pedling business of a few brass screws . ) having thus caus'd it to be melted , and several assays to be made thereof at our hall , ( whereby it appeared not to be worth above four shillings an ounce ) and shew'd them to doctor godden , ( who i must tell mr. l'estrange , was a person so faithful to her majesties interests , and in himself so curious , exact , and sagacious , as not easily to be imposed upon ) he thereupon by a note under his hand , ( which i have yet to shew ) dated september 28 , 1674. allowed the overplus to me , towards my payment at four shillings per ounce , expressing the reason in these words — the coursness of the silver , and waste ( which was not small ) considered . the work going on , and screws to fix the silver to the wood , which was to support it , being requisite , some few of those screws were at first made of silver , but perceiving the silver allow'd , was not like to hold out to be enough to finish the work and to pay me , as was designed , i acquainted the doctor and mr. plum ( his man ) and mr. coupledyke , one of her majesties servants , therewith , withall advertising them ; that i thought screws of brass would be altogether as serviceable , and so that silver might be spared if they thought fit , only on the outside to affix to them thin silver plates for heads to answer to the rest of the work , which they readily consented to , and so those few screws made , were melted down and imploy'd in the work , and all the screws made of brass , or if any one were left in by over-sight , 't is more than i know . the work being done , mr. plum saw it all weighed and set up , and some of the screws being found to be too long , mr. smith ( a workman employed by me , and who made at least several of these brass screws ) did cut off the ends to shorten them , and soon after came doctor godden himself , and would have it weighed again , saying , though he doubted not my word , and his mans relation , yet he could with more assurance satisfie her majesty , when he had seen it weighed himself , and so it was taken asunder again , and weighed in parts , ( the brazen screws being apparent before him , but not weighed , only the heads of silver reckon'd for , which were weighed before they were put on , and being very inconsiderable , were not disputed ) and so the work was sent home to the chappel ; and tho' , the surplusage of the silver falling short as aforesaid , i was not fully paid according to the bargain , yet considering how good a mistress i had of her majesty , from whom i had almost work continually ; and not doubting but in time i should be satisfied , it rested all the years , 1675 , 76 , 77 , and 78. towards the latter end of which last year , i having given a discovery of justice godfreys murder , most of the romans began to be very much my enemies , and several libels , as the compendium , &c. were th● 〈◊〉 abroad ; reflecting amongst others on me ; but still not a word of this matter , nor any hint of my being an unjust or dishonest man , before i forsook their church . but , ( almost eight years after the work done , ) viz. the first of april ( the day fools are wont to be sent on errands ) 1682. mr. l'estrange the first of all merliving ( as far as i can learn ) broacht this story in observator , numb . 117. very tenderly ( forsooth ) at first by way of quaere or advertisement , but afterwards , as some witty people , by heat of fancy , invent pretty tales , and tell them so often , that at last they themselves begin to believe them , so he grew more positive in the business ; and now , observator 471 , is pleased to scoff at all thoughts of repentance for it , which yet i hope god will give him , e're he goes out of this world , or else his account is like to be very dreadful in the next , for if for every idle word we must answer , much more for forging and promoting lies and scandals , designed to ruine our neighbour ▪ and all persisted in and boasted of . in the mean time , i shall first shew the unlikelyhood of the matter thus charg'd upon me ; which against nude averments ( tho' never so confident ) is a sufficient defence . secondly , i shall disprove his suggestions by testimony upon oath , and undeniable demonstrations ? when a man is falsly and maliciously attacqued with calumnies , that which otherwise would be insufferable vanity , becomes necessity ; and on that score , i must crave the readers excuse for mentioning some truths , which without such a forc'd putt , i would have been far enough from relating of my self : as , 1. that having now been a trader towards twenty years , i dare appeal to all , that i have had dealings with , ( papists or protestants ) if they can justly say , i ever wrong'd them , or can instance in any particulars , wherein they found me addicted or inclinable to little sharking tricks , injustice , fraud , or over-reaching ? nay , whether on the other side , it be not true , that amongst the roman catholicks , ( with whom my chief dealings lay , untill i left them , ) i were not generally call'd by the name of honest prance ? if any such ill practices could have been proved , as mr. l'estrange has not been wanting by his frequent proclamations to invite accusers , so i want not ill-willers , who would be glad of the opportunity , and you would e're this , have heard of some other pranks besides the brass screws , yet no such thing has appeared . but on the contrary , even since i have renounced their religion , father lewis the jesuit , and father hanslipp the monk ( upon my happening into their company , when brought up to newgate , ) did declare before several witnesses , that they always lookt upon me to be as honest a man ( speaking as to my dealing ) as any in the world ; and this was spoken on a long experience too , for with that father lewis ( afterwards executed upon a conviction of priesthood in wales ) i had very considerable dealings in the way of my trade , now 't is very strange , that i , that had managed matters so squarely with all the rest of my customers , should so basely begin my cheats upon her majesty , who was the best mistress i had , or could ever hope for , and whose work ( which was a considerable part of my lively-hood ) i must certainly expect to lose , as soon as the cheat should be discovered , which ( as i shall prove presently ) 't was impossible ( had it been so ) to conceal for a day . 2 ly . further , as to my integrity , and scorning to grow rich by unlawful and dishonest gain ; i might give several instances ; but i shall trouble the reader only with two ; viz. several years ago ( about the time , as i remember , that i made this antipendium ) my lady gage lost a jewel , and long after , near half a year , when the bills given out , on the first missing it , were forgot , and the lady despaired of ever hearing of it , this jewel was proffered me , and i knew it worth about 45 l. and might have had it for 10 l. but reflecting on the parties readiness to part with it on such terms , and thereupon calling to mind the bill , i stopt it , and restored the jewel to the lady . now here might have been a secure prize of 30 l. for the reward in the bill was but 5 l. ( to the best of my memory ) and if i had bought it for 10 l. i might have made above 40 l. of it , and having taken out the stones , there would have been little fear of its ever being discovered , but i detested any such lewd design . and of this , that honourable lady , a roman catholick , and whom i suppose yet living , will , i doubt not , afford me the justice of her attestation to any that shall enquire . since that , having an accompt with one mr. ridge , upon our reckoning i perceived he had forgot to ●harge me with some ounces of gold , amounting to about 12 l. and was so far from calling the same to mind , that he allow'd himself a debtor for about that value ; and so it must have pass'd , had i not voluntarily shew'd him his mistake from my book . now , that i , who used so much tenderness in these cases , should thus impudently attempt to defraud her majesty , will i suppose need some proof before it be credited by impartial men . especially , if they consider me then a strict and zealous catholick ; for , that so i was , i appeal to all that know me , being as bigotted therein as any , and meerly on that score , the priests kelly , &c. had the confidence to trust me with their wicked intrigue against sir edmund-bury godfrey . now being thus principled , tho' i had been so immoral , as to have wronged persons in other cases , yet 't is hard to think , i should do it here , where fraud must become sacriledge , and no less impiety than robbing that very holy altar , before which i so constanlty pay'd my devotions , wherein the thoughts of the present instances of my cousenage , must continually upbraid and torture me . all this severally and jointly considered , may amount at least to a violent presumption , of the falsity of the observators simple allegation , to any man , whose prejudices or interest have not made him resolve to believe any scandals , tho' never so unreasonable , of prance , and blindly to swallow , without chewing , any thing he meets with in an observator . for nothing can be more absurd , than to imagin , that i , thus circumstanc'd , should be guilty of the grand cheat he would now fix upon me , so contrary to the common bent of my inclinations , as well as justice , and so highly against all gratitude as well as the apprehensions of religion , and attended with such apparent hazards and under a certainty of being discovered , and all this for so paltry a profit , as could be expected from such a business ; and also when i had not the least temptations of want to prompt to it ; for 't is well known , that , by her majesties favour and the interest i had with the roman clergy , and gentlemen of that perswasion , i had a very competent trade , and tho' i always liv'd freely for a person of my condition , yet i may justly averr that when i fell into my troubles in 78. i was worth a 1000. l. and no less was attested ( as i have been credibly informed ) to his majesty and council by a worthy gentleman , still in the commission of the peace , on his view of my shop , and house , when i was first seized . but the observators suggestions are not only improbable , but notoriously false , which if i make appear by sufficient testimony upon oath , and reasons necessarily conclusive ( than which two , i know not amongst men any stronger proof ) i hope i shall convince mr. l'estrange , or at least , the rest of the world , that i am grosly abused and standered by him in this matter . first , therefore , be pleased to read the following affidavit ; and withall , note , that the person , that made it , is of the roman catholick communion . sarah billing , wife of robert billing , of the savoy , in the county of middlesex goldsmith , maketh oath ; that she this deponent about eight years since , did board with mr. miles prance goldsmith , at his house in princess-street near covent garden , for the space of a whole year and upwards . in which time , she this deponent , knows and does well remember , that the said miles prance was imployed to make an antependium for the altar , with steps to the said altar , at her majesties chappel ( then ) at sommerset-house ; and she , this deponent did diverse times see and observe the several parts of that work , and see the screws made thereunto , which were of brass , onely on the heads there were silver plates sodered under . and this deponent saith , that the making of the said screws of brass in that manner , was with the knowledge and consent of the persons concerned ; for she , this deponent , did know mr. plum and mr. coupledyke , who were some of the persons , as she then understood , that imployed mr. prance above that worke , and she hath seen them viewing the said work , and having the said brass screws in their presence , looking on them , and heard them discoursing mr. prance about the same : they saying , that the said screws being of brass , would do as well as if they had been silver , or words to that very effect and purpose . and also she hath seen doctor godden ( as she was then told that was his name ) viewing the same : and the screws were brass , and that only the fashion , or making , and silver on the heads of them reckoned for , was notorious not only to mr. prances servants and workmen , but to the gentlemen before named , and several others or her majesties servants , who frequently came to view the same , being a very fine and extraordinary piece of work , which ( together with her being continually about the house and shop ) caused this deponent to take the more particular notice of , and better to remember the same . sarah billing . jurat . coram me 10 die aprilis , 1682 john frederick . the observator , numb . 129. undertakes to comment after this manner , upon this affidavit , and says , the gentlewoman was imposed upon in the wording ( which is a civil way of telling her , she was perjur'd ) for says he , she declares since , that by seeing the screws made , she only meant after they were made — now whether she did ever so declare , i know not , but however if she did , 't is nothing to the purpose , the question in dispute not being whether she stood by , all the while every one of the brass screws were making , nor is it to be imagined she could , since they were made at several times , and perhaps by several hands . but whether i made , or caused them to be made clandestinly , and without the privacy or consent of doctor godden and his man plum , and mr. coupledyke , who were the lookers after the work ; or chang'd them , after they were reckon'd for as silver ; now to this she swears positively , that they all saw them , and that she heard plum and coupledyke say , those brass-screws would do as well as silver ones . but to take this off , mr. l'estrange observator , numb . 126 , tells the world , that plum and coupledyke had drank many a pot of good ale with me . — and what then sir ? the excise was paid , and the good wife that draw'd it , had a license ; and therefore your worship had nothing to do with it . ale , especially good ale , is the old catholick drink of england , had we carouz'd in other puritanical liquors , you might have been offended , and cryed out with little doctor edwards . — there 's heresy in hopps , give calvin beer . but without fooling , who can think , but the observator ( who trades much in hints and innuendo's ) intends by this reflection to possess his readers with an opinion , that this plum and coupledyke were confederates with me in this business of the screws , so that to support the scandal , here 's two dead men must be exposed as drunkards and treacherous cheats to their mistress the queen . but says he , they were no orderers , as i assure you , — now one would wonder , this gentleman who vows and swears so bloodily , that he never was at sommerset-chappel , since his majesties restauration , should become so intimate with these two men , as to know what liquor they lov'd , and be able to aver so positively , that he can assure us , they were no orderers — but against ten thousand of his assurances , i tell him they were orderers , as well as good ale-drinkers ; for they have several times given me orders , and brought directions for work , and particularly about this antependium . mr. l'estrange proceeds and says , that she knows nothing , who imployed prance , or that brass screws were consented to by the persons concern'd ; all which is utterly false . she swears the just contrary , and names in particular doctor goddin , plum , and coupledyke , and tho' she says , that she then understood plum and coupledyke , were some of the persons that imployed prance , 't is not the least blemish to her oath ; for so they were mediately under her majesty and doctor godden ; and seeing them frequently coming to enquire after the work , and give directions about , and weigh it , &c. how could she then think otherwise ? yet she says only , that she understood them to be some of the persons , and presently adds , that she also saw doctor godden viewing the same brass screws . the observator alledges further , that this affidavit was drawn from her upon pretence , that she was to be a witness in a suit at law , against a woman that had scandaliz'd me . to which i answer , 1 st . that this is another contrived falshood , there was no such pretence ; 2 ly . 't is absurd , for all the world knows , that affidavits are not allowed in such suits , where the witness is living and at hand , able to testifie viva voce . and 3 ly . 't is impertinent , for had it been so , it concerns not the truth of what she deposes , whatever use i intend to put it to . and i cannot fathom the gentlemans reach in this objection , unless it be to signifie , that the gentlewoman being a romanist , might needs have such a kindness for him , that she would not have testified the truth , if she ' had known it would turn to his prejudice and confusion : but if he had any such thoughts , i must do her the justice as to acquaint the world , he was grosly mistaken ; for the gentlewoman soon after , went to him , the said mr. l'estrange , and expostulated with him about the abuses put upon her in subsequent observators , and amongst the rest , his affirming that she had been my servant ( which had it been true , had nothing impaired her evidence ) but the same was altogether false , for her father honestly paid 15 l. a year for her board , whilst she lay at my house . in which discourse of hers with mr. l'estrange , another passage happened , that might give some indications of that gentlemans temper : for she rounding him up for broaching such false stories against me , which tended to the ruine of my family : he answered ( as she has declared ) that he did it on purpose to ruine me , and wondered that she [ he understood her to be a roman catholick ] would appear in the behalf of such a raskal . but besides this full proof on oath , the circumstances of these brass-screws , undeniably evince the impossibility of any intended fraud : for first , had i designed any such thing , i must have been a conjurer , ( which i suppose the observator does not take me for ) before i could have effected the cheat , and cast a mist before peoples eyes ; for besides that , 't is not pretended these celebrated screws were gilt or silvered over , but plain , open , visible brass , only silver heads to them on the out-side ; and besides , that they were made abroad by my work-men ; you are to note , that the use of them was ( as aforesaid ) to fix the silver work to the wood that upheld it , through which they came ; and were there made fast with nuts , and the antependium being a moveable , only used on solemn festivals , and then set aside into the sacrastry , for which purpose , there were on the back-side two large iron handles to bear it away by , as often as the same was so removed from the altar ; these brass screws were to be seen on that side , as plain as the iron handles , or the very nose on the observators face : and i question , whether i owe it not to the gentlemans forgetfulness , that ( when his hand was in ) he did not also charge me with transubstantiating these handles into iron , as well as the screws into brass . the gentlewoman , as you have heard , swears , that the screws being brass , was notorious , not only to my servants and work-men , but to the gentlemen before named , ( viz. doctor godden , plum , and coupledyke ) and several other of her majesties servants — now , though , in my confinement in 78 , and the hurry and confusion of my family on that account , i had the unhappiness to lose a shop-book , which would more fully have demonstrated it ; yet by good providence , i have one old book still remaining in my castody , which enough corroborates her testimony ; there being entered a memorial in these words , viz. for a brass screw for the holy ghost , [ a figure in the antependium ] 10 — 6 , that is weighing a halfpenny weight and six grains , being the hand-writing of thomas evely , then my servant , and since porter to his grace , the late deceased duke of norfolk ; and though a roman catholick , yet i have that charity to believe , he will not deny his own hand , which is ready to be shewn for any gentlemans satisfaction . nor do i doubt to appeal to doctor godden himself , who i hear is still living , tho' he cannot be presumed to have now any kindness for me ; yet i so much confide in his generosity , veracity , and morality , as to believe , he would do me right herein : nor is it credible , though i know not where that doctor is , but that the observator , who could with a wet finger , bring certificates from salamanca in spain , and has shewed his correspondence at roan , and with a foreign minister of state about hubert ( legally executed for firing london in 66 ) that he was not guilty of that flagitious crime , for which he suffered , or was a protestant , or distracted , could not but as easily have found means to procure a testimonial from doctor godden , had he not despaired of any relief from that learned gentleman . let me add to this , that , when after the antependium had been a considerable time in the chappel , some of the nuts were lost ; her majesties servants have brought the brass-screws to me , to make and fit new nuts to them , which i think demonstrates the brass-ness of the screws could be no such new thing , as that monsieur coquus ( the man the observator means ) should with such surprize , like a second archimedes , magnifie his discovery , and cry out — here 's a damnable cheat , brass-screws , &c. as you will find romanc'd , observator 127. the gentlemans talk about sodering of brass unto , or upon silver , and noise of felony , or a pillory , is altogether impertinent here . 't is true , to incorporate brass , or any base metal with silver , or to soder it to silver , where 't is not visible , as in the handle of a tankard , or the like , is justly criminal ; but to adjoin or affix an head of silver open and visible on a screw or pin of brass , or the like ; as it carries nothing with it of a cheat , so neither is it in any way punishable ; but daily practis'd , as in looking-glass-frames , the hafts of knives , and a thousand other things , — and so much for brass-screws . another matter the observator would seem willing to have believed , is , that a tankard which i lost out of my shop , being brought to me to have some bruises beat out , was , after i had pretended the same was stoln , found in my wives trunk . this is likewise absolutely false , and all the proof brought for it , is , the observator , numb . 120 , says a person being questioned by me for this scandal , did upon his oath declare , my servant said — i thank god , the tankard i was suspected for , was found in my mistresses trunk , amongst other plate : now what evidence such an hear-say from an idle boy amounts to , is left to consideration . the very same observator acknowledges , that i did in the year 1678 , give out bills of notice , that this tankard , mark'd at bottom r. b. and of such value , was taken out of my shop ; with an offer of reward to the discoverer , which is true , and therein was also promised , that if any had bought it , i would reimburse the full value ; and in getting these bills printed and publish'd , and otherwise about it , i was out of pocket above 20 s. now to what intent i should do this , if indeed the tankard were not stoln , is a riddle : for the tankard was brought to my wife at my shop , by a servant of the horse-shoe tavern in drury lane , and so the delivery easie proveable ; consequently stoln or not stoln , lost or only concealed , i was compellable by law to make satisfaction for it ; therefore so to hide it up in a trunk , and yet to be at the charge aforesaid in bills , must be madness as well as dishonesty . but , so far were both i and my wife from any thoughts of defrauding the people of their tankard , that nothing was more upon her mind and endeavours in the highest disorder of our troubles , than to make satisfaction ; for , she , having upon my seisure , removed to one madam lees in the pall-mall , a trunk wherein were eleven silver tankards , and amongst them , two bought of one mr. strickling , which were not paid for , and another second-hand one , which i had bought of a gentlewoman living at a dancing masters in duke-street , my wife before madam lee took out the said second-hand tankard , and two tankards unpaid for , telling her , that a tankard belonging to the aforementioned tavern , was lately lost at our shop , and she would not for the world , but it should be made good , and therefore she would allow them this second-hand tankard for it , tho' it were of better value , and return mr. strickling his two tankards again . but it being very late , madam lee perswaded her not to carry them that night , and so the business rested till after i had my liberty , and then i gave the tavern another tankard in lieu of theirs , which had been so stollen , and the beforementioned tankard which had been in my wifes trunk , ( and which must be the tankard intended by the boy , if he did ever talk at such a rate , for all the rest were new ones ) i sold to one mr. where the owners of the other may easily satisfie themselves , whether it be the same . but the observator , not content with buzzing this sensless scandal , would insinuate further , as if i made away that servant of mine ; for thus he puts the question — but what became of this prentice ? and shapes an answer thus — the report of the neighbourhood is , that ( tho' he was not out of his apprenticeship ) they never heard of him since . 't is true , observator 126 , says , this imports no more than that he had left the neighbourhood , and that by all the other story , i was not accused of saying a tankard was stoln , when it was not ; but then i pray , to what purpose were these stories told in print ? is it not the usual artifice of a base and cowardly malice , to cast scandals and calumnies on those they have a spight against , by sly hints and insinuations , sometimes by seeming praise , sometimes by pretended good wishes , sometimes by dark items , &c. all which wound as deep , and both more certainly , and irremediably , than the most broad fac'd aspersions : thus the same observator numb 127 , affirms , he has not charg'd me with changing the screws . here i appeal to all serious readers , if this be not the grossest shuffling and prevarication , for what then is it he would be at ? or to what intent has he amused the world with all this bustle and clamour ? but i think mr. l'estranges design herein is not unknown : and i am sure i have in my trade deeply felt ( tho' most causelesly and unjustly ) the effects on 't . and i know no man that can promise himself security from having his reputation fly-blown with the most damnable scandals , if he happen to fall under the observators displeasure , and such lewd practises be suffered to pass with impunity . and now to the old dog-story , which as the observator tells it , runs thus , that i , june 16. 1682 , sent to sam 's coffe-house for mr. l'estrange to that tavern ( which he will have to be with a design of some horrid plot against him ) and soon after , he being a man of foresight , not thinking fit to come , but sending some friends , i with most wicked oaths and imprecations denyed that i sent for him — this he undertakes to prove by the testimony of three boys of the wonder-tavern ; how they were induced to give it , i will not enquire at present , but can prove some of them have since disowned it . but the truth of the matter was thus , i and one thomas jennings a cloth-drawer , a very honest man , and ingenious above most of his quality , but frolicksome , and apt to droll , went to the old dog tavern , and having seated our selves in the kitchin , ( no very fit room for carrying on an intrigue ) jennings having an occasion to speak with one , whom he thought might be at sam 's coffee-house , ordered one thomas harris a little boy in the house , ( who has since own'd himself not to be above 12 years old , tho' thompson advanced him to 20. ) to go thither to ask for him , and knowing , mr. l'estrange frequented that coffee-house , and what a kindness he had for me , merrily added — if he be not there , inquire for mr. l'estrange and tell him here are one or two would speak with him . — and tho' he spoke it with such an air of droll , that it might be easily known to be wholly jest , nor was it imaginable a person of mr. l'estranges figure would on such a slight invitation , without sending any name , regard it , yet the messenger being a raw boy , not finding the person he first ask't for there , very formally ( it seems ) dispatcht the latter part of his message , and mr. l'estrange being in the coffee-house , and perhaps understanding from the lad , i was in the company , presently after , several persons came to us from sam 's , and began to quarrel with me for sending for mr. l'estrange ; which i being wholly innocent of , as earnestly , as justly denyed , i having never had the least thought of any such matter ; for as i had no business with the gentleman , so i had little reason to desire his company ; but that i used any such oaths and imprecations is false ; and tho' of all mankind the observator may be the unfittest to upbraid any body with swearing , i shall here subjoyn the affidavit of the said jennings , who sat close by me during all this time . thomas jennings , citizen and haberdasher of london , maketh oath , that on friday the 16 th . of june last about ten of the clock in the evening , this deponent went with mr. miles prance to the old-dog tavern within ludgate , and sate down in the kitching , with him , and this deponent sent one thomas harris ( servant to mr. allen , that keeps the said tavern ) to sam 's coffee-house , to enquire for a friend of this deponent , that he heard was there , and if he was not there , to enquire for one mr. roger l'estrange , to tell him , there was one or two would speak with him , and some time after there came three or four persons from sam 's coffee-house , into the aforesaid kitching , where mr. miles prance and this deponent were , and began to quarrel with mr. prance , and using provoking words to him , to know his reason , why he sent for roger l'estrange , which he denyed he did , but not with such imprecations , as , by god's wounds , and by gods blood , and god dam ' me , as this deponent to the best of his knowledge heard , who was in the same kitching with mr. miles prance all the time ; this deponent saith further , that he enquired twice of the aforesaid thomas harris ( that he sent ) whether he ever heard mr. miles prance swear such oaths , who denied , he ever did , ( as i , this deponent can prove by witnesses . ) thomas jennings . jurat . 8 , die augusti . 1682 . coram job charlton . for further confirmation hereof , if the attestation of a dying man may add any weight , this mr. jennings , being since dead in may 1683 , during his sickness , he voluntarily endors'd the aforesaid affidavit with his own hand , which is known to hundreds , ( for the man was acquainted with persons of most conditions , in this city ) and ready to be produced , to any that desire it , in these words . march the 7 th . 1682 / 3 i thomas jennings being in a weakly state of body , not knowing whether i shall live a week , do attest , all that i have sworn on the other side , before sir job charlton is truth , witness my hand . thomas jennings . written in the presence of john horton . robert pimm . and on this issue , i must leave this matter ( there 's no sence against a flail ) 't is plain we were in a tavern kitching , the boys say , i sent for mr. l'estrange ( the most improbable thing in nature ) and then deny'd it with oaths . mr. jennings swears , that he sent for him , and not i , and on his death-bed confirms , that he , who sat next to me , heard me not use such lew'd oaths , as they pretend , and that the chief witness disown'd it afterwards , which is further probable , in that none of the persons sent by mr. l'estrange , and whom i discoursed , who might sure have taken notice of it , as well as 2 or 3 ubiquitary drawers , have appeared to attest it . — and this i think enough at present for that business . another thing that mr. l'estrange often harps upon , is , that i should swear he was a papist , and this he makes to be the ground of his quarrel with me : now , if i never swore , nay , never so much as said any such thing , 't is then plain , that either mr. l'estrange has some other deeper and important design , in his continual out-cries , and baiting me thus , or else , that he has troubled the world with so many sheets of railing upon no provocatiom , and to as little purpose . the words of my affidavit were as follow . midd ss . the information of miles prance , taken upon oath , the 25 th of october , 1680 , before the right honourable the earl of clarendon , and the earl of craven , two of his majesties justices of the peace , for the said county . this deponent saith , that about three years since , he saw mr. roger l'estrange three or four times kneeling at mass in the queens-chappel . miles prance . here 's not one word of his being a papist , for he might have come out of curiosity to observe whether the ceremonies here , were the same with those in other mass-houses beyond the seas , where he acknowledges he has been at that idolatry forty times , or , it maybe , being a lover of musick , he came only to hear the delicacy of the voices ; whatever brought him in thither , there he was , let him protest never so much , and write a thousand observators to the contrary : he says , indeed , i could not say , i saw him receive ; 't is very right ; and so i told his majesty , and the honourable lords of the council ; for i saw no such thing , and therefore i swore to no more than i saw ; 't is the fairer argument , that what i swore was truth . but as i never swore , so neither did i ever say , he was , or is a papist ; for i must avow , i do not know what religion the gentleman has been , is , or may be of , nor whether he have any religion at all . i confess , i have seen him sometime since he was questioned about being a papist , at his parish-church , and once met him at the blessed sacrament ; ( to which he came , under such circumstances as might justly make any sensible man tremble ) but i have not met with any of the parish that can say , that they ever saw him at sacrament , or church in times past ; though he had liv'd , i believe , a dozen years before the discovery of the popish plot , in that parish . but it will be objected , there is a book with my name to it , and wherein this affidavit of mine is recited , and the title , l'estrange a papist ; the matter of the book i own ; but that title was added by the book-seller ; for all the title i intended was , depositions and animadversions upon roger l'estrange , esq ; as evidently appears under my hand , on the left-hand page of the title , and in the first page of the book , and in several places of the animadversions , and expresly , fol. 18. in these words — whether mr. l'estrange be a papist or no , i will not determine . the other affidavits there mentioned , are as follow . midd. ss . the information of lawrence mowbray , taken upon oath the 25 th of october , 1680 , before the right honourable the earl of clarendon , and the earl of craven , two of his majesties justices of the peace for the said county . this deponent saith , that about the first or second sunday in june , 77. an acquaintance of one anderson ( which anderson was servant to mr. allabon in grays-inn ) being with him in the queens-chappel , saluted , immediately after mass , a person , whom he told this deponent , was mr. l'estrange , who licensed books . this deponent saith , that he hath once since seen the said mr. l'estrange at mass in the queens-chappel , and saw him to be the same man he formerly saw there . this affidavit was voluntarily made by mr. mowbray , and i knew nothing that be would or could swear it , till he had done it . the information of richard fletcher of st. vedast alias foster , london , physician . who saith , that about 3 years ago , he met roger l'estrange , esq at the half-moon tavern in cheap-side , about licensing a book intituled , the works of geber , an arabian prince , and philosopher , and gave mr. l'estrange a guiney for his license ; and a discourse happening about religion ; mr. l'estrange asked , of what religion this informant was ? who answered , a catholick l'estrange replyed ; are you a roman catholick ? this informant answered , that was nonsence ; catholick being vniversal , and not to be circumscrib'd . then l'estrange bid this informant explain himself . i answered , that faith , that wrought the fear of god and to do righteously , doth declare those that are of the catholick church , which i take to be the church of england . mr. l'estrange then declared himself to be a catholick of rome , and to believe the faith of that church , and told this informant , that his definition was too large . this informant then asked the said l'estrange , whether the pope were the head of that church , of which he acknowledged himself a member ? who answered , he was , and hoped e're long , many others would return to that church , or to that effect , and further saith not . this mr. fletcher was to me altogether a stranger , nor can i imagine , why he should come in to testifie such a thing , if it were not true ; but for my own part 't is plain , i swore no such matter , as that mr. l'estrange was a papist , nor will i trouble my self about it ; at his own everlasting peril be it . there is yet another scandal brought , observator , numb . 226 , with this title — prance cures the kings-evil ; where he tells a story , that i , offering a woman a pint of wine , should tell her , she had the evil , and sware by g — i had cured several families my self of that said evil , by the great faith i have in the king , that i could do any thing at court , and that if she had ever a neighbour she would oblige , i would see it done . and then should say to her , come , prithee let me stroke thee a little , &c. now suppose it had been true , that i had play'd the fool to talk at this rate , yet i conceive , it would not have been absolutely necessary to the preservation either of church or state , that mr. l'estrange should take the pains to print it . but the whole truth was thus , i and my wife and some neighbours being at the horse-shoe , a woman that was also a near neighbour , happening to come in , i askt her to drink , she began to complain to my wife , how she was troubled with the evil ; i advised her to be touched by his sacred majesty , which she said had been done , i replyed , then i doubted you have not faith , but for my own part , i verily believe , that thousands by that means have received cure , and thereupon told her , how once an acquaintance of mine , that was of a contrary opinion , and had argued against me , as if there were nothing in it , but conceit ; it pleased god soon after to visit him , his wife , and child , all with the same disease ; then he was willing to apply himself to his majesties healing hands , and i was an instrument to facilitate their access , and they were all three in a very short time after cured , which relation is a known truth , and the parties still living to justifie it . therefore i told the woman she should have faith ; this was all that pass'd ( my wife and several others being all the while there . ) there was no swearing , no boasting , that i had cured several families my self , or that i would do any thing at court , nay , nor no kissing , nor no stroking in the case ; so that here are at least five notorious lies all on a heap in one column , and yet the challenges the world to instance his mistakes in 470 papers . but it may be , the informer was to blame ; for a dull tool of a razor-maker happening to be in company , tho' he drank most of the white wine call'd for by the woman , yet refusing to pay his club , was taxt for spunging , who , in revenge , 't is like , ran to mr. l'estrange with a tale , and added as much as his sorry invention could furnish , and the man of observations the rest . now , who can but blush , to see a gentleman of his parts and figure , a man of the age of threescore and ten or thereabouts , if not upward , a person that besides quevedo and politicks , has read seneca's morals and cardinal bona , to see , i say , such an one spending the last minutes of his life in blowing of sope bubbles , in exercises more childish , but only somewhat more mischievous than taw and span-farthing ; and in making himself a common pack-horse to bring to town two or three times a week in form and method the idle tales of every malicious cockscomb , and in printing stories that carry neither truth nor salt with them , but would be a disgrace to the very conversation of a gossiping . and now , i thought , as in pag. 35. i had done , and that the screws , the tankard , and the old dog-story , &c. had been competently accounted for , and the first volume of the observators enough explained , as far as i am materially concern'd ; for , as my protestation was before receiving of the holy and blessed sacrament , ( which i here again most solemnly avow to be in all points true ) i think it not necessary to repeat any thing further , since all that the observator has replyed thereunto , will appear to every considerate reader , altogether sham and prevarication . and as i am not at leisure to play the fool with the observator , meerly for company , so i should lose by the game , he getting money ( and perhaps love and credit with some people ) for abusing of me ; whereas i must defend my self wholly at my own charge , and have no small difficulty to get a few innocent sheets printed , such is the dread of his name , whilst he , besides the elemosynary guinyes in abundance , makes a revenue weekly , by flurting out papers fill'd ( amongst other things , with which i meddle not ) which most egregious scandals upon me , designed for the ruine of my self and my family . but still here 's new matter , an observator of the second volume attacques me — i find i am to be made a continual subject of mr. l'estrange's wit and malice , an everlasting incom to madam broom and her author ; and as a pleasant lady defied her gallant to frame a letter ; barring him only the use of half a score modish-words [ as flames , divinity , passion , stars , darts , &c. ] so i scarce know , whether it be possible for mr. l'estrange in his present mood , to compose an observator without mention of , or some squint-reflection upon oats or prance . but let us review the paper , and i think the fairest way will be , to transcribe it , and only add a few notes . — . vol. 2. the observator . numb . 8. with the leave of mr. claxton the phanatical tayler in exeter court. this is miles prance's observator ? this is the contents of the chapter , after a new fashion ; the parade to the prize . the dreadful hundred-handed gyant of high-holbourn , arm'd with more quills than a porcupine , is setting himself in battel array against the taylor of exeter court , and resolv'd to confound a man of fashion . behold how indignation sparkles at his eyes , like a turky-cocks at the sight of a red herring , how grim wrath , more fierce than a school-master's , sits upon his storming brow , and he breaths nothing but fire and tow , then , wo to the knight of the thimble and all his host ? fly claxton ! fly , the observator comes , beating his printers balls for kettle-drums , and mounts at thee the dead-doing gun from bromes . why , phanatical taylor ? the man i believe will be found as much a church-man as mr. l'estrange — but he must and shall be a phanatick , for as you 'l hear presently , he was such an impudent heretick , as to talk against transubstantiation , even over against sommerset-house-stairs . trim. don't you know one mr. claxton , a taylor in exeter court yonder by exeter exchange . observ. yes , yes . — [ hold , i am afraid this is a whisker , for i believe , the observator knows claxton no more than the pope of rome — but let 's go on ] — a great crony of miles prance [ no more his crony , than the little bodies-maker , that carried this idle tale , is to mr. l'estrange , whom he then affirmed to have seen but the day before ] they were at the grecian coffee-house together , upon saturday last , in catherine-street against sommerset-house-stairs , [ very true ] and they went afterwards to hudsons coffee-house in drury lane [ right again ; for i love to acknowledge all the truths i find in an observator , they are so rare . ] trim. i heard 'em upon a discourse of transubstantiation , [ i told you why he branded the honest man for a phanatick ] one would not think , that two plain fellowes should talk so shrewdly about religion . [ your worship must excuse me ; for since i left the roman church , i have read the bible , whereby i find not only transubstantiation to be a meer fiction , but also that back-biting and slandering are very grievous sins , and without repentance damnable . let me beg of you to read that good book , which , if well heeded , will profit you more than all your collected guinneys . ] observ. oh! there 's no body understands the transubstantiating ( as a body may say ) [ pray observe by this parentheses , how tender the gentleman is , lest he should profane that accursed word , which has been the occasion of destroying above a million of bodies , and god knowes how many millions of souls ] of silver into brass , better than prance . [ this scandal is already answered ] and then claxton's old dog at the light within . but i 'me afraid prance's religion will never carry him to heaven ; for he 's almost always so damnable drunk , that the narrow way will hardly hold him . [ as to my being almost always drunk , 't is only an observatorism● , that is , a scandal without proof or pretence ; not that i will phar●saically excuse my self from a vice which in this age is grown almost epidemical , and not to take up one's cups freely , is enough to brand one with the title of a phanatick . and those that shall peruse the observators writings , shall find him elsewhere apologizing for such debauchees ; but as to my own guilt or innocence this way , i appeal to my neighbours and those i convers'd with for five years past ; in the mean time i doubt not but the christian reader will be astonisht to find mr. l'estrange whilst he 's charging me with drunkenness , at the same time wallowing himself in profaneness , by such an unseemly and irreverent abuse in scurrilous drollery of the words of our blessed saviour — straight is the gate , and narrow is the way , &c. ] trim. come , come , keep a good tongue in your head , [ good advice , but i am affraid the observator will never observe it ] for mr. claxton i can tell ye is a rising man , come to me at 8 a clock to morrow morning , says mr. prance , ( on sunday that is ) and thou shalt take measure of my wife , my daughter , and my cozen ; miles prance says it , and thou shalt have my custom , claxton , [ this is mr. observators dream , i never talkt of wife , or cozen , or my custom , only i might perhaps bid the man come one morning , and take measure of my daughter , that being the only business i had with him ; but since the observator is become so great a zealot for the strict observation of the sabbath , i being a plain fellow , and he so great a casuist , would gladly be resolv'd , which is the greatest sin — suffering a taylor to take measure at 8 a clock , ( and so before divine service ) on a sunday , or imploying ( and upon the matter inforcing ) a printer to work the greatest part of that sacred day ? and as to my own keeping thereof , i dare appeal to the reverend doctor sharp ( in whose parish both i and mr. l'estrange dwell , and whose worthy pains in the ministry , i can never enough acknowledge , and to the rest of that parish , which of the two , mr. l'estrange or i have most constantly frequented divine service , or been oftnest at receiving the holy communion there ? — but let us go on with the observator . ] — this was mighty kindly taken , let me tell ye , and if mr. prance goes on with a certain business this term ; mr. claxton will stand by him as far as 100 l. goes , for his civility . observ. and what may that business be ? trim. he 's resolv'd to try a touch with you about the scandal of the screws , you 'd give an hundred guinneys composition for it , with all your heart , he says , [ this is still the dreams of the observator , he first charges claxton with champerty and maintenaire , crimes highly punishable by our laws , and then avers , that i should say , he ( that is , the observator ) would give mea 100 guinneys composition . 't is most true , i believe that his papers ( i mean wherein i am concern'd ) are most justly indictable for libels , and besides the author answerable on an action of scandal , but that i then threatned it , or had any discourse tending that way , is false ; what if formerly , i declin'd suing him on advice , of a good old proverb , or what if i still have a mind , to be reveng'd on him by forgiving him , the gentleman is not to prescribe to me , either the time or measures , i shall take for righting my self . observ. yes , yes , i heard as much , [ from whom i beseech you ? ] and that he had a guinney for an halter for me , [ 't was ill husbandry , a two-penny one , would serve as well ] and so prance and claxton took their turns at the ribaldry , [ and you and your spies were nobly imploy'd , to make observators on 't , ] while a splay-fac'd animal that was there , made at third man , and gave a wry-mouth , amen to 't : ( this latter clause may serve as an index of mr. l'estranges conscience , respect to truth , honesty , and common civility , since therein with an vnmannerly bussconry , bestows the language of his oft cited authors ; western barg-men , upon a gentleman of as comely a person , as good quality ( setting commission aside ) and i believe , i may say , as fair an estate as himself , so over credulous he is to reports , and so rash , in stinging abroad his squibbs and scandals in print , without the least colour of truth , any appearance of reason , or pretence of provocation : for the truth of this matter was thus , claxton and i did go into the grecian coffee-house , and sat chatting there for some time , two strange gentlemen in the room , being officiously informed , ( as i understand ) of my name , did , it seems , eves-drop our talk , and at last removed to us , and began to quarrel with me , about mr. l'estrange , alledging that i should say , i would give a guinney for an halter for him : tho'l do not know , nor to the best of my remembrance , believe , that i said any such thing ; hereupon words being mutually bandied , and another matter ( of which by and by ) falling into debate , the gentlemen grew so furious , that one of them threatned to cane me , and i observing , he had never a cane , and unwilling a gentleman should lose his humour , civilly profer'd him mine , but he was not pleas'd to make use on 't , and so claxton and i went out of the house , as soon after the said two persons also did . and tho' they were , and are altogether strangers , to both of us , yet by their garb and meen , i take them still to be gentlemen , and consequently , do not believe , they were the observators mercuries , but rather think that the little dapper boddice-maker , ( who possibly had no better imployment , ) might be the observators intelligencer , only this is to be noted , that whilst the two unknown , were railing and upbraiding me , with several stories , which i suppose , they had taken up , meerly on the credit of an observator , there happening to be in the room , by chance , one squire penny , ( and who was , if he still be not a roman catholick ) he was generously pleased , to stand up , and say to this effect — gentlemen i have known mr. prance for 20 years and above , and never knew , or heard that ever he wrong'd man , woman , or child : for his late actions , i have nothing to say , i pity him ; meerly for which civil attestation of truth , from a gentleman , that had known me from my youth , mr. observator falls foul upon him with the slovenly epithets of splay-fac'd , wry-mouth'd , &c. now if this be sufferable , i know not any gentleman that can be safe from being exposed at the like , or a worse rate in print , if he do not quickly fee the observator with a present . but mr. observator , that feigns so many things as said there which were not , omits one matter which was the chief subject of our debate ; which was , whether mr. l'estrange did not hand the paper , intituled the lord petre's letter , to the press ( which no doubt his informers told him of , as well as the rest , and i believe 't was that put him into such an heat , tho' he prudently declines to mention it ) for i did tell the gentlemen , that i heard , and doubted not to prove , that mr. braddil in bartholomew close , who printed the letter , had declared that mr. l'estrange brought or sent the same to him to be printed , but withall gave him instructions not to print his ( the said mr. braddils ) name to it : now if this should happen to be true , that mr. l'estrange was the occasion of publishing that paper , wherein all our worthy protestant-writers , ( and amongst them , the most learned king iames , and the right reverend the present bishop of lincoln ) who have charg'd the church of rome with holding and teaching the doctrine of deposing and taking up arms against , and murdering of heretical kings , are traduc'd as false accusers , and therein to have been malicious and ignorant ; nay , a paper which on the same score flyes in the face of the whole church of england , and directly gives her the lye , who for many years in her publick establish't liturgy , avow'd the faith of the church of rome to be faction , and her religion rebellion . i would demand of mr. l'estrange , or any of his guinney-givers , whether the causing of such a paper to be publish't , be to be numbered amongst the good-services he has done for the church of england . in the mean time , go on . but faith , trimmer ! [ remember mr. l'estrange is a severe magistrate against swearing ] when prance ' s hand is in , he should do well to go through with his work ; and i 'le give ye now a piece of history that is new to ye , [ and yet this new-by-blow is of such a ricketty feeble constitution , that it has been four years crawling in the dark , before it could waddle abroad in the standing stool of an observator ] and puts down forty of his antependiums . [ some lies , 't is acknowledg'd are heavier than others ] for 't were a thousand pities that a man that is so willing , should want materials . trim. we shall have some tedious tale now , but pray will you make it as short as the matter will permit . and without any jesustical equivocations , shifts , or mental reservations . [ this trimmer , i find , is an honest foresighted fellow , he knows , this sly gray-bearded youth the observator , is much given to tell meer tales , and long ones , season'd for fools-palates , to make them to go merrily down , with jesustical sawce . ] observ. why , then be it known to all men , that miles prance silver-smith , screws and nails-maker , sacrament-protester , old dog blasphemer , and evidence for the cutting of the duke of york ' s picture . [ thes shews you the rhetorick of an observator ; only as to the last words , 't is fit to acquaint the reader , that some time after the grand insolence committed in cutting the picture of his royal highness in guild-hall , i being in company with several others , there happened to come in , one john brooks formerly ( if not still ) a papist , who in discourse own'd and avow'd more than once , that he cut the said picture ; now i appeal to all the world , what i could do less in respect of the publick , and his royal highness my soveraigns brother , than to take notice of it , that the matter on a fair legal tryal might be further examined and discussed ? accordingly i and another person present , gave information thereof ( viz. that such an one had to said and acknowledg'd ) and thereupon brooks was bound over , and i and the other person attended at sessions to evidence his words , and a third witness present , was ready to have deposed the words , if it had proceeded to a tryal . but when we desired an indictment to be drawn , could not procure it . and so the matter was pass'd , tho' the party accused did not ( as far as i could understand ) deny the words , but only pretended he was drunk when he spoke them . upon which whole matter , whether i did any thing unbecoming a loyal subject , tender of the honour of the royal family , is left to consideration . ] go on , did , in february 1679 , accuse mr. richard fincham of being a priest [ he means popish ] which said mr. fincham was taken into the custody of a messenger upon that information . [ here are several falsities ; i did not accuse mr. richard fincham of being a priest , nor secondly , was he taken on my information ; but as he was apprehended upon suspicion , so i was examined whether i knew him ? and what account i could give of him ? ] brought before the council to answer the charge , and mr. miles prance silver-smith there present to make good his information , the council askt him how became to know mr. fincham to be a priest , the silver-smith did there upon his oath declare ; that john fincham the brother of the said richard told him so ; upon this the earl of essex demanded of what religion and what sort of man the said john fincham was ? prance replyed , that he was a good church of england man , and a very honest gentleman , and a justice of peace in the isle of ely , whereupon she said richard fincham was continued in custody . [ this is a whole scheme of of untruths twisted up , and , to unravel it , i must rightly state the matter of fact ; the question before the council was , whether richard fincham was a popish priest ? and i was examined to it , and tho' with a common-knowledge grounded on the most violent presumptions , i did not question but he was so , as having made him a chalice and other priestly utensils , and knew he was generally reputed amongst catholicks to be my lady savils priest , tho' passing ( as 't is common ) under the notion of her steward , yet , not being able positively to swear him to be a priest , because i had never been present , when he officiated the mass , i was so justly tender in a case , where a man's life was concern'd , that i only deposed as to my belief grounded on hear-say , and that his brother acknowledged it to me , which is most true , and if the gentelman have a bad memory , i cannot help it . and being hereupon interrogated by some of the honourable lords ( that it was by the earl of essex may be true , but do not remember it ) touching the said brother mr. john fincham , i answered , that he was a justice of peace in the isle of ely ; and 't is possible i might add , a very honest gentleman , as far as i knew . but whereas the observator averrs , that i then deposed he was a good church of england-man ; ( though for ought i know , or ever said , he may be so ) yet that i then swore it , is false ; for how should i assert such a thing , that never had an opportunity to see him in a protestant church in my life ? and besides , it thwarts that evidence which i then truly gave , ( and which i should not , but upon this provocation recite ) for my own vindication ( not to cast any scandal on the gentleman ) according to the copy , as it was taken and delivered to me soon after i was examined by one of the sub-clarks , belonging to the honourable board , viz. that not long before the plot was discovered , i went to one mrs. halls in eagle-court , about some business to mr. jeremy jennings a priest belonging to mr. ramsey , living near norwich , where i met with mr. fincham , a justice of the peace for the life of ely , and one mr. poulton , a jesuit , and some others , ( whom i knew to be priests though i knew not their names ) after mr. fincham was gone , i asked mr. jennings , what he came thither for , and how he durst trust himself with him , being a justice of the peace . pough said he ) he is acquainted with many priests in that country , as their friend , and will do us no harm , but what good he can , being a catholick in his heart , and will shew himself so , if the times turn , but now cannot in respect of his place ; yet , says he , he does us all the kindness he can . then speaking to mrs. hall , the landlady of the house , thereof , she replyed , he comes often hither , when he is in town . but whether mr. john fincham knew these persons , that he then was there in company with , to be popish priests , or whether , what they said of him were true , i know not , they being men of intrigue , who often love to cast scandals on the most zealous protestants , to render them suspected ; all the intent i recite for , is to shew how improbable it was , that , at the same time i swore this , i should also swear ( as mr. observator says ) the same gentleman to be a good church of england man ; though still , as aforesaid , for ought i know , or ever said , he may be such . my acquaintance with mr. richard fincham was very intimate ; for besides the work i had done for him , i have yet several letters of his by me ( though more or less ) which i am ready to shew his brother , or any gentleman that desires it , dated from red-hall in yorkshire , subscribed — your friend , servant , and country-man , richard fincham , and the like obliging terms , and particularly one dated january 25 , 77 ▪ whereby having ordered me the receipt of some money , he has these words — i have by the bearer hereof ( a protestant gentleman , and neighbour of mine ) sent you , &c. which parenthesis , protestant gentleman , will , i think , to any unbyassed understanding , signifie no less than an item given me , that i should not take notice to him , of the writers being a a priest , or to call him father fincham , as amongst roman catholicks is usual , and without such precaution i might have done : now this gentleman that paid me the money , was , as i understand , a justice of peace near leeds , though i have forgot his name ; if he be still living , he cannot but remember it . in a word , whether mr. richard fincham be a popish priest or no , if mr. l'estrange ( that seems so intimate with the family ) will be pleas'd to tell the world his lodgings at present ; 't is odds , but somthing more may be said . in the interim , here his apologist , the observator , mr. richard fincham immediately upon this proceeding , gave his brother john fincham an account of what had passed , by the very next post , who applyed himself forthwith , upon the receipt of the letter , to francis bell esq ( a justice of the peace in the said isle ) before whom , he swore this following affidavit . john fincham of outwell , within the isle of ely and county of cambridge esquire , did upon the 5th of march , 1678 , make this following affidavit before francis bell , esq one of his majesties justices of the peace of the said isle that whereas the said john fincham , is informed that one mr. prance hath lately declared upon oath , to the lords of his majesties most honourable privy-council , that he the said mr. prance was told by the said john fincham , that mr. richard fincham , his brother was a priest. he this deponent doth swear and aver , that the same is wholly false and untrue ; and that he is , and hath been so far from ever saying so , that he doth depose , he doth not know any such thing , as his brothers being a priest ; nor did he ever know the said mr. prance , or to his knowledge , ever see him in his whole life . this affidavit being sent up to the lord chancellor , the king and council thereupon ordered mr. fincham's discharge . as to this affidavit of mr. richard fincham's , as far as it contradicts mine , i avow mine still to be true , and if i am not misinform'd , by the civil law at least , a domestick witness , that is , one so near related , is scarce allowable , or at least lyes under suspicions — but leaving that , i shall only remark , that the gentleman swears , he doth not know any such thing as his brother 's being a priest , which signifies no more than that he did not see him take orders ; now can it be imagined , ( especially at such a juncture as that was ) but the gentleman , had he not believed his brother to be a priest , would have added — nor believes him so to be , or some such words ? note also , that the observator says , what i deposed was in february 79. and this affidavit of mr. john fincham's , he dates march the 5 th . 1678 , ( almost a whole year before ) which would intimate , that mr. john fincham swore prophetically , or by way of prevention . but the observator numb . 10. having recollected himself , pretends 't was a mistake for want of a fraction ; and if it were so , i believe it was the first affidavit in england , that e're was dated with such a fraction , as 1678 / 9 , but since he is pleased to lay the blame on the sot of a compositor , as young princes in schools are whipt by proxy , and perhaps old authors have the like priviledge ; let it pass . but whereas mr. john fincham swears he never knew prance ( to his knowledge , or saw him in his life . i must remembe● that gentleman , besides my being in his company at mrs. hall's afore-mentioned , and else-where in london , i once went to his house , at the request of his brother , the goldsmith , then living in the strand , to see a child of his there , and was civilly entertained by mr. john fincham , and did eat and drink there : and another time before that , he procured me a place at the court holden at wisbitch , to hear the tryals and proceedings there , where i stood just behind his back , as he sat on the bench. trimmer . well-and here 's one oath against t'other . [ ay , and let the readers impartially impanell'd give their verdicts . ] observator . patience , i prithee , in august 1679 , prance being in the isle of ely , and finding that his credit was sunk from silver to brass , by the confounding a deposition of mr. john fincham [ of which prance never heard word or syllable , till in this observator , january 26 , 1683. ] he burst out presently into invectives against the said john fincham , and said , he was a papist , and that he had a priest in 's house , and that he had sometimes 4 or 5 priests and jesuits ; and that he had seen him in the company of as many in london : all which he was ready to prove : and these words were made out by the informations of two gentlemen of the neighbourhood , as they were taken before francis bell and thomas edwards , esquires , justices of the peace within the said isle , on the 11 th and 12 th of august , 1679. the information of edward squire gent. chief constable of the north part of the hundred of witchford , taken before us francis bell and thomas edwards , esquires , justices of the peace within the isle of ely , &c. august 11 : 1679. this informant saith , that on fryday the 8th instant , he happened in the company of one miles prance , where discoursing about the next election to be of parliament-men , prance was very earnest for the chusing of one mr. partherich , for knight of the shire for cambridg-shire , declaring that he was a fit man for that purpose : and presently after he began to discourse of one mr. fincham , a justice of the peace , and said that he would prove him a papist , and that he hath a priest now in his house , and sometimes he hath four or five ; and that he the said prance had seen the said mr. fincham in the company of as many priests and jesuits in london ; and told this informant , that he wondered , the justices of the peace should be so much fools , or had so little wit , as to make him , this informant , chief constable ; and said he would have most of the gentlemen in the country up , with several other reflecting and scandalous discourses upon , as well the said mr. fincham , as the gentlemen in the country . edward squire . the information of william gent , of march , taken ut supra , august 12 , 1679. this informant saith , that upon fryday at night , the 8th of this instant august , one mr. miles prance , and another person , to this deponent unknown , came into the company of him , this deponent . he , this deponent , having then some neighbours in company with him , at the house of one william phillipson , in march aforesaid ; and after some familiar discourse had passed , between him , the said mr. prance , and this deponent , the said mr. prance being very intimately acquainted with him , this deponent , he , the said mr. prance , did ask this deponent , where one mr. fincham was ? to which this deponent answered , he liveth very near me in the country ; and thereupon he , this deponent ; did tell him , it was reported , that he should say he was a papist ; to which mr. prance replyed , he was a papist , and he would justify him to be a papist ; and he believed that he had a priest at his house at that time ; and that he knew him to have been in the company of four or five jesuits at a time : and the said mr. prance did also give other reproachful speeches , which he , this deponent , did not take any particular notice of . francis bell. thomas edwards . william gent. as to all this , i desire the reader to observe , 1 st . that these informatio● 〈◊〉 not said to be sworn to , and truly for the persons sake concern'd , i hope they are not upon oath . 2 ly . the two informers ( like the two witnesses in the story of susanna ) do not much agree . mr. squire says , that prance was very earnest for chusing of one mr. partherich for knight of the shire for cambridge-shire , declaring that he was a fit man for that purpose . now , mr. gent ( who was present all the time of our cotloquy ) says nothing of that , and so far is it from truth , that i do protest i do not know , nor never saw that mr. partherich , here mentioned , in my whole life . and tho' possibly i might then have had some pretence to have concern'd my self in the election of parliament-men for that county , yet , i appeal to all the inhabitants , whether ever i endeavoured to move any one of them ( except only this worthy squire , if he say true ) to give their votes for mr. partherich or any other person whatsoever ? for indeed , i living elsewhere , never thought it fit to concern my self with any such matters . 2 ly . mr. squire says , i said , mr. justice hath a priest now in his house , but mr. gent says . i said — i believed he had a priest at his house at that time . now he that forgot so much , and took no particular notice of our talk , as he says , might possibly misremember all the rest . 3 ly . mr. gent says , i askt him , where one mr. fincham was ? to which the deponent answered , he liveth very near in the country ; a likely business ! as if i , that was born within five miles of mr. justice fincham , and have been so frequently in that country , i , that was so well acquainted with richard fincham , so intimate with his brother the goldsmith , and with another brother of theirs the sea-man , i that have visited their near relation , fincham in wisbitch-goal , besides my familiarity with the justice in london , at his house at well , &c. should yet be such an ignoramus to ask the advice of this small lawyer , where ( forsooth ) one mr. fincham was , and receive for answer , as news — that he liv'd near in the country — let all mankind judge of the probability of such an information . fourthly , mr. squires own words ( as here printed , for if either of the gentlemen are wrong'd , they must seek satisfaction from their over-officious friend the observator ) i say by his own words it appears , there was a fewd and something of malice in the case ; for at the same time , he charges me ( tho' falsly ) with saying , that i wondered the justices of peace should be so much fools , or had so little wit , as to make him chief constable . and i might add , that mr. gent , the other informer ( as they are here styled ) was not likely to be guilty of any good will to me ; retaining so this day a bond of mine , about the surrender of some land , the condition whereof is satisfied , and the whole story of which i am not willing to tire the reader with , unless further provok'd . these remarks being premised , i shall next subjoin the truth of the matter of fact , not in my own words , but attested by the person that was then with me , viz. mr. pask , a citizen of london , one well known to be far from any suspicion of disloyalty , who immediately after this bustle happened at march , did with his own hand , write down and deliver to me this following attestation , viz. memorandum , on the 8 th day of august 1679. mr. miles prance and my self were at the white-heart inn in march , asking for mr. gent , the landlord answered , he was in the house , mr. prance went to the company 's room , desired leave , if not business , where he was received seemingly in kindness , and also desired me to walk in : where presently mr. squire and mr. harrison asked him , if he was come to choose esq partherich parliament-man , intimating he was a dissaffected person , and not fit to be chose . mr. prance made answer to mr. harrison he was an ass , for to tell him such a thing , and he was not to acquaint him , what he came about . mr. squire and mr. harrison made answer , that prance was a rogue , and esq patherich a phanatick rogue , so was all that stood for him . they abused mr. prance with the language of rogue , a fellow not to be trusted , a murthering rogue , and what he had said was all false , bid him make haste home , and give the king confession . but further , most true it is , that this mr. squire , and one mr. harrison , did not only use ill language to me , but pursued me to one mrs. walsomes house , threatned to knock me o' th' head , and throw me into the river , and afterwards offered to assault me in my lodging , so that mr. pask was forc'd to draw his sword to keep them down . for which i did , as justly i might , tell them i would call them to an account , which it seems , he is pleased to express by the phrase ; that i would have most of the gentlemen in the country up . but whether this titular squire and mr. harrison the tape-seller be gentlemen , or most of the gentlemen of the country , i leave to the heralds . this is certain , i had sought reparations from the rioters for the abuse , had not squire williamson interceded , alledging they were in drink , and so i civilly pass'd it by , and never heard more of that matter , till now i found the gentlemens information in print — le ts go on , the observator next brings to light two other papers , in these words . you shall now have two certificates of august the 12th , 1679 , in justification of m. john fincham . we whose names are hereunto subscribed , do humbly certifie , that we have known john fincham , of outwell , in the isle of ely , and county of cambridge , esq by the space of twenty years , during all which time , we have had a frequent converse with him , as being our neighbour , and of whom we have observ'd a constant and dutiful complyance with the commands of the church of england , of which we do believe him to be a true member . august 12. 1679. francis bell. thomas edwards . this is humbly to certifie , that i john leigh , clerk , have been rector of the parish church of outwell , in the county of norfolk , by the space of 27 years ; all which time , i have had a personal knowledge of john fincham , esq and with whom , being one of my parishoners , i have had , both in health and sickness , very particular converse . and in all my conversation with him , i have ever observed him to bear a great regard to the commands of the church of england . of which church i do with great reason believe him to be a true and obedient son. august 12 , 1679. john leigh . i question not the truth of these certificates ; for neither do i know , nor ever said ( with the leave of the observator , and his informers , be it spoken ) that justice fincham was a papist ( and yet had i no value for an oath ( as the observator pretends ) i might as readily have sworn that , and that i saw him at mass ; for mass was frequently said in mrs. hall's house ; but i did never see him so concerned , and therefore only deposed what i knew , and what i saw and heard ) therefore i again repeat it , that i never knew , or said the gentleman was a papist or roman catholick , or that 4 or 5 , or any romish priests were in his house . but this i will say , that i conceive these certificates might have been better worded in favour of the gentleman , than only by these terms of his , complyance with , and regard to the commands of the church of england , since it would have done well ( especially at such a juncture as that was ) to have likewise expressed his zeal in and for the doctrines of our church , and to have certified his active diligence in discountenancing and suppressing papists , &c. trimmer . and now we have done i hope . [ better never have begun . ] observator . within a trifle , trimmer , july 13. 1681 , it happened . that prance and another with him , came into the house of one greenwood in the isle , where john fincham , henry oxburgh , and edm. williamson , esquires , were in company : mr. williamson having told mr. fincham , which of the two was prance ; mr. fincham upon this , fell to talk with prance at a distance , of his being in the country , about two years before , which he owned . and he told him of a neighbour of his ▪ one mr. fincham , that complained of very ill language he had given him . but prance denied it , and desired much to know how the story went : so mr. fincham up and told france the whole business , according to the informations ; who swore heartily , 't was no such matter , and that he never spake an ill word of mr. fineham , but knew him to be a protestant and a worthy man. this passed in a great deal of company : but prances eyes are as bad by day-light , as oats are by candle-light ; and he knew mr. fincham no more than the man in the moon , till at last mr. fincham himself brought the silver-smith to a better unstanding . i am apt to think mr. fincham will con the observator no thanks for this paragraph , for sure the whole town of march , who were almost all alarm'd with this accident , have not quite forgot it . however for their sakes , and the justices , and my own , i must set the story right . 't is most true , that about the time mentioned , i and another or two happened to come to greenwoods house , being an inn , where several gentlemen , and amongst them , mr. justice fincham , were ( as i afterwards understood ) about taking horse to ride away , but mr. fincham having , as i believe , some design to expose me , after they saw me come in , they staid , and squire williamson , who was one of the gentlemen , came out , and invited me into their room ; i excused my self at first , as being weary with my journey , but at last consented , when i and my company came in , there were several gentlemen in the room , and some that i did not know . presently some of them began to ask me what news ? i told them , i seldome much minded any news , but my own business , and besides had been several days out of london , and so could tell them nothing , but what i believed they had already heard , then one of them askt me , if i knew justice fincham ? to which i answered , yes , i do , and presently looking amongst the company ( for i was but newly come into the room ) i saw the justice leaning on a bench or couch , with his mounteer-cap placed in an odd unusual fashion , viz. the corners not forwards and backwards , but cross his head , sideways , looking in that posture somewhat like a country morrice-dancer , with a cushion on his head ; but for all that i knew his worship well enough , and addressing my self to him with the respect becoming me , said — mr. fincham , your humble servant . at which all the company fell a laughing , ( and his worships being deceived in thinking i should not know him in that posture , became soon after a frequent talk in the town . ) and then , and not till then , mr. fincham did speak , ( for before i was come into the room he had not utter'd a word , much less askt such questions , and had such discourse with me as the observator pretends ) but then indeed he did say , that he never saw mebefore in his life , that he knew of , nor never told me that his brother was a priest. but as i then to his face justified the latter , so as to the first , i gave him some tokens to refresh his memory , as my coming to his house to see his brothers son , and his particular entertainment of me there . but he spake not a word about my calling him papist , nor was there any the least mention of these informations , nor any swearing heartily or unheartily , as the observator suggests . and i believe squire williamson will do me the right to justifie this to be in substance the truth of all that then past between us ; and there were also present two other persons , who will be ready to attest it . novv since mr. l'estrange has the conscience so grossly to pervert and falsifie a matter thus notorious , vvhat esteem his writings in other cases ( as relateing to me i mean , for i meddle no further ) may deserve , let the world judge . in his observator numb . 10. of the 2 d. volumn he has some touches at me , and reckons up several affidavits of mine , and says , they took no effect , yes sir , they took all the effect i desired , which was only to acquaint the magistrates with the truth of what they examined me about , as far as i knew and no further ; and the tenderness i used , strongly argues the candor and sincerity of my evidence , no way casts any disparagement upon it ; if the law in some cases require two witnesses , and for want thereof , some , i justly accused , were released , or if perhaps others were not prosecuted , what is that to me . the author of the late paper , pretending to be a reply to the observations on the lord petre's letter , argues the veracity of the late evidence , because so many that they accused are at liberty ; mr. l'estrange for the very same reason , would render mine unworthy of belief . these two authors should best consult together and reconcile themselves . but i fear i have wearied the reader as well as my self , in taking so much notice of , and detecting the malice , the falsities , the shams and idle tales , which the observator has invented , or pickt up and spread about me ; which of themselves sufficiently appear to every judicious eye to be mere calumnies and the effects of a cankered spleen . however to undeceive all the world , if they are not resolv'd to believe his fictions , in defiance both of truth and reason , i have once for all , taken this pains , resolving never to trouble my self further with the noise he shall make about them ; henceforth he may talk his pleasure , i shall take no more notice on 't , than to hear a serpent hiss , or an ass bray . only i desire all persons to bind up this my answer and defence with their observators , and that as oft as mr. l'estrange shall repeat the same stories ( for he has much of the cuckow in him , and sings an hundred times over the same note ) they would be so just , as to turn as ofen to these papers , where i doubt not , but every impartial peruser , will find a sufficient answer thereunto . and so i take leave of mr. l'estrange , who being an antient gentleman , and by the course of nature on the brink of the grave ; i wish , he would better regulate his conduct , and not spend his precious time , and abuse those great parts , god has given him , in such trifling , false , mischievous and scandalous stories against a neighbour , a parishioner , and a member of the same protestant church ( if he be really what he professes : ) who , as i never wrong'd him ; so i am ready , on his acknowledgment , heartily to forgive him all these injuries : and pray god to give him the grace to repent , before he be called to that dreadful tribunal , before which we must both shortly appear . miles prance . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a55631-e340 * a pamphlet lately suppressed , by the order ( as i am informed ) of the right honourable and reverend , my lord the bishop of london , as scandalizing the whole reformation , under pretence of exposing presbyterians . the author of which was one mr. pratt ( that calls himself doctor ) one that heretofore was always not only a professed , but virulent papist , and i never heard of his conversion . the tryal and condemnation of george busby for high-treason as a romish priest and jesuite, upon the statute of 27 eliz., cap.2, at the assizes and general goal-delivery held at derby, for the county of derby, the 25th day of july, in the 33th year of the reign of our soveraign lord king charles the second, &c : before the honourable sir thomas street, knight, one of the barons of his majesties exchequer / as it was faithfully taken, by a person of quality. busby, george, 1638-1695, defendant. 1681 approx. 89 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 21 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63144 wing t2142 estc r28367 10580946 ocm 10580946 45247 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63144) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 45247) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1391:2) the tryal and condemnation of george busby for high-treason as a romish priest and jesuite, upon the statute of 27 eliz., cap.2, at the assizes and general goal-delivery held at derby, for the county of derby, the 25th day of july, in the 33th year of the reign of our soveraign lord king charles the second, &c : before the honourable sir thomas street, knight, one of the barons of his majesties exchequer / as it was faithfully taken, by a person of quality. busby, george, 1638-1695, defendant. person of quality. england and wales. court of quarter sessions of the peace (derby) [2], 38 p. printed for randolph taylor, london : 1681. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng busby, george, 1638-1695, -defendant. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -restoration, 1660-1688. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-03 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-06 jason colman sampled and proofread 2006-06 jason colman text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the tryal and condemnation of george busby , for high-treason , as a romish priest and jesuite , upon the statute of 27. eliz. cap. 2. at the assizes and general goal-delivery , held at derby , for the county of derby , the 25th day of july , in the 33th year of the reign of our soveraign lord king charles the second , &c. before the honourable sir thomas street knight , one of the barons of his majesties exchequer . as it was faithfully taken , by a person of quality . london , printed for randolph taylor . 1681. the tryal and condemnation of george busby for high-treason , as a romish-priest and jesuite , upon the statute of 27. eliz. cap. 2. the court being sate , and the usual formalities preceding business over , the pannel of the grand-jury was called over , and nineteen of them sworn . the names of which gentlemen of the grand-jury , which found the bill of indictment , &c. against george busby , were as follows . 1. sir henry every of eggington baronet . 2. sir robert coke of langford , baronet . 3. sir william boothby of ashborn , kt. and baronet . 4. sir robert clark of chilcote , knight . 5. william fitz-herbert of tissington , esq 6. henry cavendish of douebridg , esq 7. william mundy of darlcy , esq 8. john lowe of denby , esq 9. william berrisford of bently , esq 10. john allen of gresely , esq 11. william hopkinson of bonsall , esq 12. william lees , gent. 13. lionel parshaw of dionfield , gent. 14. joseph harpur of yeavely , gent. 15. john stuffin of hopton , gent. 16. matthew smith of denby , gent. 17. john whigly of cromford , gent. 18. paul jenkinson , gent. 19. george birds of stanton , gent. the indictment being brought into court , billa vera . clerk of the assizes . goaler , set george busby to the bar which was done . cl. of the arraignment . george buzby , hold up thy hand , which he delayed to do . cl. again . george busby , hold up thy hand . which he did not do , but instead thereof , presented a petition to the court to this effect ; that he was committed to the goale in march last , for being a popish-priest , and that great industry has been used to procure witnesses to swear against him , and that having obtained his habeas corpus to be removed to london , the under-sheriff falling sick and being since dead , the habeas corpus was not executed ; he prays he may be removed to the kings-bench , that he may have time to make his defence , he depending upon his habeas-corpus , his most material evidence to clear him , and to prove his being an alian , being then in london , &c. baron street . mr. busby , notwithstanding i must proceed to try you , the grand jury having found the bill billa vera ; you say you are an alian , if that be so , then you are without this law of the 27th eliz. busby . i had not my habeas corpus , and so am deprived of my witnesses to prove that i am an alian born . baron street . if they prove you not a native , then the indictment falls . then the clerk of arraignments proceeded to arraign the prisoner . clerk. george busby , hold up thy hand , which he did thou standest indicted by the name of george busby , late of west-hallam in the county of derby clerk , for that thou being a subject of our soveraign lord the king that now is , and being likewise born within this kingdom of england , was made and ordained a priest by the authority derived and pretended from the see of rome after the feast of the nativity of st. john baptist in the first year of the reign of our lady elizabeth , late queen of england , &c. and before the 16 th day of march , in the 33 th year of the reign of our sovereign lord charles the second , of england , scotland , france and ireland king , defendor of the faith , &c. the laws and statutes of this kingdom of england little weighing , nor the punishments in the same contained not at all regarding ; with force and arms , &c. at the parish of west-hallam aforesaid , in the county of derby aforesaid , being within this ringdome of england , voluntarily , freely and treasonably the 16 th day of march in the 33 th year of the reign aforesaid , hath been and remained , contrary to the form of the statute in that case made and provided ; and against the peace of our sovereign lord the king , his crown and dignity , &c. baron street . how sayest thou , george busby , art thou guilty of this fellony and treason whereof thou standest indicted , or not guilty ? busby . this indictment , my lord , is not full , it recites not the particular case in the statute of queen elizabeth , viz. that i took orders beyond sea , and another point , that i am a native of the kings dominions . baron street . you may be made a priest in england by the authority of the bishop of rome , as well at rome . busby . how can i be made a priest in england by the authority of the bishop of rome , where there is no such authority ? baron street . you must plead to your indictment as it stands . busby . then my lord , i humbly beg i may be allowed council . baron street . if any point in law arise you shall be allowed council . busby . the time and place is not specified in the indictment . baron street . if that be so 't is material , but upon view of the indictment , 't was found right . cl. of arraignments . george busby , hold up thy hand , art thou guilty of this indictment , or not guilty ? busby . then holding up his hand said , not guilty . cl. of arraignments . culprit . how wilt thou be tryed ? busby . by god and my country . cl. god send thee a good deliverance . baron street . now we will see if your objections be of any weight , you hear the indictment read , which was vt ante , being a subject of the kings , born within this realm , you may be made a priest by the authority of rome . in england , ireland , or germany , or any where elce , and that will make you a priest within this law. busby . i am no native , i was born beyond the sea. baron street . your being a native , is matter of fact and must be proved . busby . my lord , i move i may have right of challenging the jury . baron street . sure we must have the jury before us first , before you can challenge any of them . so the jury being called , busby challenged peremptorily near the number allowed by the law , viz. john burrows gent. henry goodyer gent. john hawksworth gent. thomas cockayn gent. cornelius dale gent. thomas wetton gent. thomas wingfield gent. william kirkland gent. john agan gent. henry wild gent. thomas cexon . james dawson . john rose . william salt. john hurd . john stone . robert rowland . robert cooper . edvard ridge . william alsop . james cooper . john wallat . gregory seele . the kings council did except against two persons only , viz , robert doxey , christopher holmes . baron street . have a care mr. busby , at your peril , if you challenge peremptorily above the number of 35. the names of the petty-jury sworn , 1. samuel ward , gent. 2. tho. wilson , gent. 3. john steer . 4. john ratcliff . 5. ed. wolmesly gent. 6. william horn gent. 7. george tricket gent. 8. jeremiah ward . 9. john roper . 10. john creswel gent. 11. edmund woodhead . 12. anthony bowne . then mr. bridges council for the king opened the indictment . mr. bridges . may it please your lordship and the gentlemen of the jury , the prisoner at the bar george busby , stands indicted for high-treason , as it is alledged in the indictment , that he being born within the kings dominions and made a priest , and having received orders by pretended authority from the see of rome , did the 16th day of march last come into the realm of england , as 't is laid in the indictment , to west-hallam , in the county of derby , and there he did abide , contrary to the form of the statute , and this is laid to be traiterously done . to this he hath pleaded not guilty ; and we are to prove it upon him , by the kings evidence , whom we are now to call . mr. coombes . a council for the king. gentlemen of the jury , you have heard the indictment read and opened , you will presently have it fully proved , and highly aggravated by our evidence , for gentlemen , we shall prove that the prisoner at the bar , is not only a popish-priest , but a jesuite , and this by his own confession ; and that his name was inserted in sir william wallers warrant , when he came down into this country to search for jesuites . that he has held a secret and dangerous correspondence with harcourt , ireland , and other popish traytors . that he has been their procurator , and disburst and received great sums of money for them . gentlemen , the prisoner hath been a person highly suspected , as well as dangerous to the government for some years , for treasonable matters of another nature , than he stands indicted of , have been deposed against him upon oath at the council board and thereupon a strict warrant to apprehend him was directed to mr. gilbert , ( a worthy gentleman and justice of peace of this county ) mr. gilbert gentlemen , will presently tell you the manner of his taking him in an obscure place in the roof of one mr. powtrels house at west-hallam , in this county : but here i must beg leave to digress , for i cannot but take notice of the malicious temper and base practices of this sort of men , for though mr. gilbert acted by vertue of a vvarrant from the lords of the council , and has since received an approbation from his majesty of what he did , under the hand of a secretary of state , yet could not those people forbear to raise false and scandalous reports of , and make false accusations against him , upon this very account ; but what is it they will not do to discourage protestant magistrates from doing their duty against them ? i confess nothing is to be wondered at , since the barbarous murder of sir edmund-bury-godfrey . but to proceed , gentlemen , we shall also prove to you that the prisoner is so little a friend even to the civil-government of this nation , that he would not suffer his nephew mr. powtrel to take so much as the oath of allegiance , which is scrupled only by the jesuites , for i think their secular priests will generally take it . gentlemen , the things i have already opened , are matters of high aggravation , and come in by way of indictment . but that which in this case we rely upon is this , that the prisoner has baptized , married , confest , and absolved in the popish way , that he has given the sacrament , and said mass very frequently in his popish vestments , and for proof of this we have a cloud of vvitnesses . gentlemen , you hear the prisoner is indicted upon a statute made in the 27th eliz. which makes it treason for any subject born to take orders from the see of rome , and afterwards to remain in england , which law i conceive was not only made for the security of the government , but also in favour of the lay-papists themselves , for though several statutes were made to keep them within the bounds of their allegiance and to secure the government from their villanous designes ; yet it was experimentally found true , that no dangers or penalties whatsoever , could deter or hinder them from plotting against the state , in order to bring us back again to the slavery of rome : whilst those jugling managers of their consciences were suffered to come amongst us . and therefore i may well call this statute upon which the prisoner stands indicted , an act of charity , to the common papists , for it was made to prevent the dangers , they would otherwise run themselves into , as well as the nation , 't is true indeed , gentlemen , that the lively execution of this law has ( by the clemency of our princes and good nature of the goverenment ) been many times suspended , and might yet have continued in the shade , had not the popish priests and jesuits roused up this sleeping lyon against themselves by a damnable & hellish plot against his majesties life , the true religion and well established government of this nation , the reality of which has been confirmed to us , not only by the unanswerable evidence of colemans papers , and other loyal proofs , but also by frequent proclamations , and the uniform votes and resolutions of several parliaments : i may therefore very well borrow the words of a great man upon the like occasion , and say that at this time of the day it s much better to be rid of one priest than many fellons : and therefore gentlemen , if our evidence shall make good the indictment , i hope you will do your king , your country and your selves the right to find the prisoner guilty . mr. coombes . we shall call our evidence . call mr. gilbert , who was sworn . pray tell my lord and the jury what you can say concerning the prisoner at the bar. mr. gilbert . my lord , i dwell within two miles of mr. powtrells house at west hallam the place where the prisoner was taken , and have heard that he hath been a priest in that family six or seven years , though i did never know him personally , nor to the best of my knowledge ever saw him till i apprehended him , which was the sixteenth of march last , the very day on which the judges went out of derby the last lent assizes ; the first enquiry i made after him was occasioned by a letter and a messenger from sir simon degg about november 1678 , at which time i sent a warrant to the constable of west-hallam to search for the said george busby , but he could not then be found , at that time it was reported that he was a jesuit and concerned in the plot , which i had reason to believe , because when mr. gray came to search mr. powtrells house for some jesuits the january following , by order from the lords of the council ( in which service he commanded me to attend him ) we perceived mrs. powtrel ( who is bu●bys neece ) to be much troubled , and in great passion , the cause whereof mr. powtrell declared to be for fear the said search was made for her uncle busby , who as i heard afterwards was then in the house , though at that time was reported to be fled . however the government had a jealous eye on this busby , above two years ago , as may appear by a warrant from the lords of the council , which warrant i have ready and humbly pray your lordship it may be read openly in court. bar : street . let it be read . clerk whereas information hath been given to his majesty in council upon oath that george busby late of west-hallam in the county of derby is a reputed priest and jesuit , and has had a considerable part in the late conspiracy against the life of his sacred majesty , and the peace of the goverment , these are therefore to will and ●●quire you to repair to the place aforesaid ▪ o● where ever else the said george busby shall be found , and him to seize and apprehend and convey to the next county gaole , there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 n in close custody , until he shall be de●●●●● by due course of law. and all m●●●●●● sheriff● , justices of the peace , constables , and other his majesties officers and loving subjects are to be assisting unto you in the execution hereof , as they will answer the contrary , for which this shall be your warrant , dated at the council-chamber in white-hallthe 19 th . day of march , 1678. indorsed , to henry gilbert esq at lockco in the county of derby . worcester , clarendon , ailsbury , h. london . sunderland , essex , folconbridge john nicolas . then mr. gilbert proceeded . mr. gilbert . my lord , i received this order on saturday the 22 th . day of march , 1678. and on sunday afternoon i sent to mr. john bagnall of derby , who was then under sheriff , requiring him to meet me early on munday the 24 th . at mr. powtrells house at west-hallam about some earnest business lately sent down from the lords of the council , wherewith i would acquaint him at our meeting . as soon as he came i shewed him the warrant , after which we searched very diligently in every place we could see , but could not find him ; though afterwards i was informed he was in the house at that time also . about august 1679. mr. powtrel obtained a licence from his majesty to travel beyond-sea , and it was confidently reported by the papists , that this mr. busby was gone over too , insomuch , that when sir william waller came into these parts in january 1679. with warrants to search for jesuites ( in one whereof i saw busbys name ) and would have searched at hallam . i disswaded him , and did assure him i believed he was gone beyond-sea , and tould him how often i had searched for him in vain , whereupon , sir william waller diverted to another place , though i have been informed since , that busby was never out of england , since the discovery of the plot. but about christmas last , and since , i haveing had notice that busby was in england , and particularly at west-hallam , and had been seen last corn-harvest to walk in mr. powtrels garden with one ann smally a widdow . i thought it my duty to make some further enquiry after him , which i did on the first day of march last , and came to the house to buy some wood for my cole-pits , and then brought five or six persons with me , and sent for the constable to help me to search for him , which we did most part of the afternoon , but could not find him , though he was seen to be walking in the garden with the said ann smally when i came first into the house , as i was afterwards informed , but when i asked the said ann smally for him , she affirmed with many protestations , that he was in flanders , and not in england , and that if i had any business with him , i must go beyond-sea to him , for she had not seen him for above two years ; though she had helped to convey him out of the garden into his hiding-hole , but a few minutes before : however , i proceeded in my search , and found in the chamber where busby lodged , a crimson-damask vestment , wherein was packed up a stole & maniple of the same ( as the papist call them ) an alter stone , surplice , and a box of vvaffers mass-books , and divers other popish things , then i told mistress braylsford ( a kinswoman of mr. powtrels ) and the said ann smally , those things did signify that a priest belonged to the house , for the book had lately been used , as was apparent by the string which was put betwixt two leaves whereof festa februarij was on the one side , and festa martij was on the other side , but they stifly affirmed that no priest had been there of above two years before , and jeared me when i could not find him , and said if there was a priest in the house , why did not i take him ? vvhen i had done searching and could not find him , i took away the vestment , and other things which i brought to the assizes a fortnight after , and did ask mr. justice charlton ( who came that circuit ) his opinion what i should do with them ; he told me they must be burnt according to law ; i intreated his favour , that i might send them again to the same place , for two or three days to make the priest more confident , that i might better apprehend him : he told me he could give no such permission , but insisted , that they ought to be destroyed . vvhen all the business was done at the assizes on the crown side , ( where i was obliged to attend ) on march the 15th day at night , i went to the judge again , and craved his lordships pardon for presuming to send back the popish things contrary to his opinion , but acquainted him that i intended to go after them to west-hallam that night , and if i could not catch the priest , i resolved to bring the same things again ; and after i had asked his lordship some questions , and received his directions , i came to my own house , and went about eleven of the clock at night ( with some company to assist me ) to hallam , and set two men to watch in the garden , and one in the church-yard ( joyning to another side of the house , ) to see if they could spye any light , or hear any walking , in the lofts or false floores , when i made a noise on the other side of the house . i sent a man before to call up the constable , and when he and two or three more came , i knockt at mistriss ann smally's window , about twelve of the clock in the night , and said aloud , mistriss smally , open the doors , i am come to search for a popish priest ; she started up , and said , who was there ? i told her , it was i , she knew me well enough , i dwelt at lockco . then i staid a pretty space of time , and called aloud to her again , and spoke the like words , but by that time , i suppose she and her bedfellow mistriss braylsford , were gone to give the priest notice , and to help him to his hiding hole , for no body answered me ; then after a pretty space , i called to her a third time , and required her in the kings name to open the doors , for i was come to search for busby the jesuite , who was a traytor by law , and if she would not open the doors , i would cause the constable to force them open ; and when i could have no answer from her , i went to joseph dudleys chamber window , and called there , charging him in the kings name to open the doors , but no answer at all was returned , for he also was gone into the priests chamber , and found ann smalley busy in helping busby to secure himself , as the said joseph dudley did afterwards inform me . after i had stayed about a quarter of an hour , i commanded the constable in the kings name to break the doors open , which was done ; and when we came into the priests chamber i found the fire had been lately extinguished , the counterpain and the blankets laid in confused heaps on the bed , and some part of them warm and some part cold : the upper part of the feather-bed was cold , which i wondered at , then i put my hand underneath and the bed was warm ; for they had turned it . i looked for the pillow , sheets , cap , &c. but ann smally ( as i was afterwards informed ) had taken them into the chamber where she lay . i asked her divers questions about the person , that had layn in that bed that night , and particularly , vvhether or no it was not busby ? she told me , no body had layn in that bed that night , i told her i was sure some person had layn there , for the feather-bed was warm on the under side : she took many protestations , that no body had layn thereof divers nights before : i replyed , if she would discover the person who had layn there , it would save her and me much trouble : but when all i could say , would not prevaile , i told her , i must search , for i was confident , that busby was in the house , because she would not declare who it was that lay there . i began to search about one of the clock , and continued till after ten next morning before i could find him : and though the watchers in the garden , told me , they heard his paces and steps very plainly amongst the lofts and false floores , and described on the out-side of the house the place where they last heard him , within the space of nine and ten foot where he was hid : yet were we almost so many hours before we could find him . at last when the searchers were almost all tyred , ann smally , and others of the family scossed at us , and asked , what have you not found him yet , you said there was a priest in the house , why do you not find him then ? why do you not take him ? i said , all in good time , i was resolved to find him , or starve him out : nay , the foot-boy of the house , seeing my servant look within the kitchin chimney , where there hung a port-mantua , said jeering to my man , look if he be not in the port-mantua . after those persons had pleased themselves a good while with mocking us for our disappointment , i perswaded two or three of the searchers once again to climb upon the lofts ( which i could not do my self , by reason of a lameness in my shoulder , ) and to look well near the place where busby's last steps were heard . vvhich when they had done some while and found nothing , i took my sword and scabbard , ( being in the rooms underneath ) and knocked on the plaster-floores over my head , and caused them to answer me with the like knocking as near the same place as they could , and when we had examined the floores , in this manner , i knocked near unto a stock of three chimneys , but they could not answer within a yard , i knock'd again in two or three places near the chimneys , yet still they could not answer near those places , but told me there was nothing but tiles and roofing , i bid them break open those tiles , which they did and espied under them a wooden door , and a little iron hinge , i bade them break the door , then one of the searchers put in his hand , into a little hole that was broken in the door and felt a hat , then he told me some body was in that place , for a man had thrown his hand off the hat , then i caused them to break open the entrance , which when they had done , busby spoke to them , and desired them to be civil ; when they told me what he said to them , i charged them to be civil to him , and bring him to me , which they did . then i arrested him in his majesties name , for high-treason , and after he had refreshed himself a little , i told him he must get on his boots , and prepare himself to go to derby . soon after his apprehension , ( i perceiving him to be a little dismay'd ) i encouraged him , and said , he should have all the favour a person in his circumstances could expect , for i told him i understood he was a gentleman of a good family in buckinghamshire or oxfordshire , and that his brother lived at coddington in oxfordshire . which he acknowledged , and thanked me for my civility . i was so well satisfied that we had apprehended him , after much tedious watching and searching , that i never thought of sending any man to look what was in the hiding-hole with him , but after an hours stay , or there abouts , i took him away from hallam between eleven and twelve a clock on the 16th of march last , and brought him to derby between one and two of the clock where , after i had taken his examination , i made a mittimus and committed him to derby-goale . on satturday following , i writ a letter to oxford , to the right honourable the earl of conway , one of his majesties principal secretaries of state , informing his lordship of the apprehending and commitment of busby , and inclosed a copy of his examination , to which his lordship writ me a letter in answer , that he had acquainted his majesty with my proceedings , who did very well approve of what i had done . busby . my lord i am an alian born at brussels . baron-street . was your father of that place ? it is a very good family . busby . my father lived at coddington , my mother was an heiriss , and here is an affidavit ready to be produced of what children my father had before he went beyond-sea , born at coddington , out of the register of that place , i have had no time to bring a particular certificate where i was born , and what other children my fathar had beyond-sea ; my father went over about the begining of the troubles , and i am about forty years of age. after the judge had told busby of the act for naturalisatin . says busby . i suppose ( my lord ) that act may stand good as to priviledges of the subject , but not as to penalties . baron street . yes as to all intents and purposes . anno xxix . caroli ii. regis . an act for the naturalizing of children of his majesties english subjects , born in foreign countreys during the late troubles . whereas during the late unhappy troubles in england , which began in the year of our lord one thousand six hundred forty one , and continued until the time of his majesties most happy restauration , divers of his majesties english subiects , as well of the nobility as others , did either by reason of their attendance upon his majesty , or for fear of the then vsurped powers , reside in parts beyond the seas out of his majesties dominions , and it may hereafter become difficult to make proof of the occasion of such their residence ; now for preventing of all disputes and questions that may arise , whether the children of such his majesties subjects of this realm are natural born subjects of our sovereign lord the king , and to erpress a due sense of the merit of all such loyal persons , as out of their duty and fidelity to his majesty and his father of blessed memory , did forego , or were driven from their native country , be it declared and enacted by the kings most excellent majesty , by and with the consent of the lords spiritual and temporal , and the commons in this present parliament assembled , and by the authority of the same , that charles gerard , and elizabeth gerard children of the right honourable charles lord gerard of brandon , trever wheler , and dorothy elizabeth wheler children of sir charles wheler baronet , anne ravenscroft the wife of edward ravenscroft of bretton in the county of flint esquire , one of the daughters of sir richard lloyd knight deceased , born at calice in france , and all other persons who at any time between the fourteenth day of june in the said year of our lord one thousand six hundred forty one , and the four and twentieth day of march in the year of our lord one thousand six hundred and sixty , were born out of his majesties dominions , and whose fathers or mothers were natural born subjects of this realm , are hereby declared , and shall for ever be esteemed and taken , to all intents and purposes , to be and to have been the kings natural born subjects of this kingdom ; and that the said children , and all other persons born as aforesaid , and every of them , are and shall be adjudged , reputed , and taken to be and to have been in every respect and degree , natural born subjects , and free to all intents , purposes and constructions , as if they and every of them had been born in england . and be it further enacted and declared by the authority aforesaid , that the children , and all other persons as aforesaid , and every of them , shall be , and are hereby enabled and adjudged able , to all intents , constructions and purposes whatsoever , as well to demand , as to have and enjoy any titles of honour , manors , lands , tenements and hereditaments , and all other priviledges and emmunities belonging to the liege people and natural subjects of this kingdom , and to make his or their resort or pedegree , as heir to his , their or any of their ancestors , lineal or collateral , by reason of any descent , remainder , reverter , right or other title , conveyance , legacy or bequest whatsoever , which hath , may or shall descend , remain , revert , accrue , come or grow unto the said children , the or persons born as aforesaid , or any of them as also to have and enjoy all manors , lands and tenements , or other hereditaments , by way of purchase or gift of any person or persons whatsoever ; as also to prosecute , pursue , maintain , avow and justifie all and all manner of actions , suits and causes , and all other things to do as lawfully , liberaly , freely and fully , as if the said children , and the persons born as aforesaid , and every of them , had been and were born of english parents within this kingdom , or as any other person or persons born within this kingdom may lawfully in any wise do ; any law , act , statute , provision , custom , or other thing whatsoever , had , made , done , promulged , proclaimed , or provided , to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding ; provided always , that no person , other then the persons expresly named in this act , shall have any benefit thereby , except such person shall within seven years next ensuing ; receive the sacrament of the lords supper , and within one month next after such receiving the sacrament , take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy in some of his majesties courts at westminster , and deliver into the court at the same time , a certificate of such his receiving the said sacrament , and then make proof thereof by witnesses to be ezamined viva voce upon oath . and be it further enacted , that no person or persons , other then the persons expresly named in this act , shall have any benefit thereby , until he or they shall have received the sacrament , and made proof thereof by certificate and witnesses , and taken the said oath in manner aforesaid . and for the better manifestation and proof of such qualifications as may entitle any person to the benefit of this act , which in process of time may be very hard to be proved ; be it further enacted , that any person having received the sacrament , and made proof thereof by certificate and witnesses , and taken the said oaths within the time aforesaid , in any of his majesties courts , in manner aforesaid , shall and may be admitted to make proof of such his qualification in the said court by witnesses viva voce to be examined upon oath ; and if he shall make proof thereof to the satisfaction of the said court , he shall thereupon have a certificate thereof under the seal of the said court , to be likewise enrolled in the said court , and for ever after upon shewing such certificate or enrollment thereof , every such person shall have full benefit of this law , as if he had been therein expresly named . bar. street , then you are a natural born subject by the late act of parliament ; whereby it appears that all persons born abroad in the late troubles , who went out of the kingdom by reason of their sufferings for the king , are made natural born subjects , as if born here . then joseph dudley was called and sworn . bar. street , joseph dudley , do you know the prisoner at the bar , look upon him ? joseph dudley , i have known him these six years and more , to belong to mr. powtrells at west-hallam , to whom i was for that time a servant , where he officiated as a priest , and was kept to do that office ; where i have heard him say mass , preach , pray , and have seen ten , twenty , or thirty , or more at a time before him in the chappel there , when he hath officiated with his priestly robes upon him ; and likwise seen children brought to be christened by him , others to be catechised , which he frequently did , as if he had been a parish priest , but with what privacy he could , and i my self have taken care of the doors at such times , which care they left to me , though i was not of their opinion ; yet upon my promising to be so , they did repose that trust and confidence in me . bar. street , tell us what you know concerning mr. busbys being an alien , as he pretends , which i cannot believe . jos . dudley , he tells you that when the civil wars were here in england , his father and mother with their family , went beyond sea , where he was born ; but my lord , in discoursing with my master and others of the late wars , i have heard mr. busby relate what hapned to their family in those times , and that their house was often plundered , and his father and mother living at coddington in oxfordshire ( as he tells you ) the first time the souldiers came to plunder the house , he was about two years old or more , and being frighted at the souldiers , he hid himself behind the bed in the curtains , so that while they were there , none of the house knew where to find him , which made them believe that the souldiers had taken him , or made him away , but when the soldiers were gone , his mother and some of the family lamenting for him in her chamber , he hearing them , appear'd ; so that with great joy they received him . my lord , i think the place was coddington , where he tells you his mother lived , and that it was hers , she being an heiress . at least i am very certain i have heard him speak of the place where he was born , to be in or about oxfordshire , i think it was coddington ; for it is the place where mr. charles busby his eldest brother now liveth , and he saith , that from thence his father and mother went beyond sea. busby , when did you hear me discourse any such thing as you have related , and with whom ; you speak this by hear-say , do you not ? jos . dudley , several times with my master and others , as i said before , when they have been talking how some families have been ruined by the great oppressions of those times , some being plundered , others sequestred , and forced to leave their estates and friends , which you said was your mothers case , for their great sufferings forced them to go from their own house : and my lord , when he was about five years old , he did also say that he could remember souldiers coming again to plunder , and he being at that time in the garden or orchard , he did hide himself in the hedge , where he did continue till they were gone , and then he came forth when it was late in the evening , but his mother nor any of the family knowing where he was , did very much fear they had lost him ; but when he came to them they were not a little joy'd : but after this they went immediatly beyond sea , and took him with them , where his mother continued several years , and had several children there , the which i have heard her say of her self , and of her being at brussels . bar. street , mr. busby the evidence says that you told a story of your mothers house being plundered , and how you hid your self in the curtains , when you was two years old , and in the garden hedge , when five years old , for fear of the souldiers , and that soon after your mother went beyond sea , where she had several children , which your self told , from your own mouth , and he had it not from other people . bar. street , but mr. dudley , what can you say , as to his being a priest or jesuit ? jos . dudley , my lord , my master and his family , and all papists that were acquainted with him , ever owned him to be a jesuit ; and several of them have many times told me so : besides he himself hath owned that he was of the society of jesus , particularly one time , when i should have been his convert ; telling me , while i was out of the true faith , i could not be saved ; and there was no way to be saved , but by believing the catholick church , which was the roman catholick , as tradition makes appear ; for god help me , i was a poor heretick , and led by weak and blind pastors ; for they had their religion only from calvin and luther , and every silly fellow was made now a preacher of the gospel before he understood it : but that he and all jesuits were fifteen years labouring in their studies and degrees before they came to be ordained . busby , i pray you where and when was it i said all this to you ? jos . dudley , in the gardens at west-hallam , where my master mr. william powtrell and mrs. anne smalley , after great perswasions sent me to you ; and told me they had sent you before : and that i should find you there where i did . and your first discourse was of the gardens , withal giving me a description of the gardens of the jesuits colledge in liege , where you did ( as i remember ) own your receiving orders . besides i have heard my master , mrs. smally , mrs winnifred attwood , and george harrison ( who lived in the colledges beyond sea ) own it . and your self said , that mr. evers my lord aston 's priest ( who hath been with you at west-hallam ) was your master and tutor , when as i think you were a scholar at st. omers . busby , how long do you say you have lived at west-hallam ? jos . dudley , betwixt six and seven years . busby , when was that i talked of the gardens at the colledge of liege ? and whether i told you i was a jesuit , when i spoke of leige gardens ? what time was it , what year ? jos . dudley , i cannot say the time , but 't was since i lived at hallam , and 't was when you perswaded me to be a catholick . busby , you take a compass of six years , this is a meer story ; pray what were my arguments ? bar. street , you were about to convert him , and then you told him this ; 't is enough you have endeavoured to make him change his religion , but it seems your arguments were not of so much weight as to be remembred . busby , i pray you , was i ever with you alone , to tell you i was a jesuit ? let me know the year and time , and what induced me to say so ? jos . dudley , i cannot satisfie you when the discourse was , but i have been alone with you in the garden a hundred times and more ; when you did satisfie me that you was a jesuit , was the time , when you did move me to be of your perswasion ; the which i did so far condescend to , that ever since there was none in the family more trusted than i ; for , my lord , i did give them all the assurance that might be , of being of their religion , but the times being troublesome , and the fear of disobliging my friends , particularly one or two , who had the care and management of a house of mine ( which was then in trouble ) that i durst not consent , yet my seeming inclination did very much please them , and they did so far credit me , that my master did intend ( as he told me ) to take me beyond sea with him , nor did i know the contrary , till i was upon the road for dover , and then he told me that his uncle busby was inserted in the pass ( by the name of thomas jackson ) which he shewed me ; but he having no mind to go , stayed in england ( and for the most part at hallam ) so that my master commanded me back , to look after his affairs there : and for some time before he was to return , he said he would send for me over . ever since he left hallam , mr. busby hath continued privately there , for none besides mr. george brent and my self and the women of the house , were suffered to know of him ; nay some of his relations who have lain in the house . have not known but that he was beyond sea , though they were papists , yet he would not suffer them , but concealed himself . busby , i pray will you tell me what day , month , or year it was , you and i had this discourse you speak of ; and tell me how it came that i was so familiar with you ? bar. street , what need you impose it upon him , when he saith he hath lived with you six years and more : he cannot remember it , but he tells you that it was in the garden , where he has been with you an hundred times and more , not thinking further of it ; 't is impossible to satisfie you the particular time , therefore why do you ask him such a foolish question ? busby , i desire you will let me know how you , as you pretend , come to know i was a jesuit ? jos . dudley , sir , it is what you know to be truth , and i am sure you cannot but remember , it was in the walk at the head of the orchard , where you was before me expecting my coming to you , and did then use all the perswading means that might be to confirm me in your opinion ; in which i seemed so well satisfied , that you told me you would leave me to consider of it , but that i ought to forsake my friends , and whatever else , to come to god almighty , of which you did not doubt ; but bid me be careful , for delays were dangerous : and my lord , as to his being a jesuit , he did own it when my master was committed to prison for refusing the oaths of supremacy and allegiance : ( for he was then private at west hallam ) withal saying , in his conscience he ought not to take them , for their church would not allow it , but on the contrary did expresly forbid it : nevertheless mrs. powtrell , mr. william powtrell , and divers of the family did argue for his so doing , especially after mr. thomas cannynge came from st. thomas in stafford-shire , and said that his uncle fowler , he , and all belonging to him , had taken the oath of allegiance : and that it was the opinion ▪ and with the consent of mr. fitter their priest , that they might do it , and for that reason mr. cannynge came to advise my master the like : but mr. busby did reject the motion , and said no secular priest could give leave so to do , and for his part he was absolutely against it , and so was all the society : but if seculars gave too much liberty , he would not be guilty of their fault ; so when all would not prevail with him , then mrs. powtrell and i went to mr. william brent at fox coat in warwick-shire , her grand father , and mr. busbys father-in-law a councellor , to have his advice ; and upon his writing several letters to my master , and mr. busby , that it was proper for my master so to do , nor could he avoid it ; then in compliance to mr. brent , he did not much oppose the taking of the oath of allegiance : and those letters , the next night after mr. gilbert had taken mr. busby , mrs. smally ( for fear he should find them ) did burn , but shewed them to me as she was looking over many papers more , the most of which , she did likewise burn . mr. gilbert , for your lordships and the juries further confirmation , that the prisoner is a jesuit as well as a priest , and that he held a dangerous correspondence with some of his order , which have been executed for their treasons in relation to the plot : i must acquaint your lordship that this busby was procurator for the jesuits , and that he received the rents of their lands , from 1673 till 1677 , and that he disbursed and returned several great summs of money to divers jesuits , as may appear by letters , and his account book , which i took ; where may be seen what dealings and transactions he had with gawen , harcourt , turner , ireland , pool , bennet , heaton , tomson , and others of his tribe : he could not deny it to be his own hand writing . my lord here is the book . ( which was presented to the judge and perused by him ) then mr. gilbert proceeded . my lord , i did also search at west-hallam house for popish priestly garments , ( and being well informed that there were such in the house ) and found divers suits of vestments and other popish trinkets , which i brought away ; together with those i formerly sent back from the last assizes ; all which i have ready in court to be produced , and have also a minister here ( who has formerly been a popish priest himself ) to inform your lordship the names and use of all the particulars ; here are also ( my lord ) a box of wafers , which i suppose they use for the sacrament at the mass , the larger sort i am told are for the priests use , the lesser for the people ; and here are the wafer irons which made them . mr. sheppey , pray tell my lord and the jury the names of all those things , and how the priest useth them at mass . mr. sheppey taking up the things , said , my lord , this is a vestment used when the mass is said , this is a stole , and this is a maniple , and this an antipendiana : and so gave an account of the rest of the trinkets . then thomas houis was called and sworn . bar. street , what can you say , friend , of the prisoner ? see if you know him , look upon him . thomas houis , i know him well enough , he perswaded me to be a roman catholick , when i was about to marry a mans daughter that was a papist , whom i could not have , until i turned to their religion . mr. busby perswaded me , and when he had converted me , bound me to believe that matrimony was a sacrament ; he gave me absolution , and made me do pennance ; the words of the absolution i cannot pronounce , but i have been several times at mass when he said it , when i had absolution from him , after confession i was to say these words : for all which , and whatever else i cannot at this present call to mind , i am heartily sorrow for , for the love of god ; and purpose by gods grace to amend , beseeching you my ghostly father to pray to god for me , and to give me absolution and pennance . afterward you know you marryed me , and i was cited to lichfield court for being marryed privately by you . my lord , i have been present when mr. busby said mass at west-hallam , and have heard and seen him say mass several days in his priestly robes : i never knew any other priest but him at west-hallam ; most sundays and holy days he said mass , where were present most of the roman catholicks in those parts ; i have heard him preach three times , and no more . busby , did i come to you , or you to me ? tho. houis , i came to you . busby , then i did not perswade you to turn catholick , you was satisfied upon the first perswasion before you came to me , and declared you would turn catholick . tho. houis , i was perswaded by mr. shirborn of standly grange , yet not fully convinced but by you . mr. gilbert , my lord , this shirborn , he speaks of , was one captain shirborn a great papist who lived near me , a letter carrier ( as was reported ) and one that sold them books and trinkets . tho. houis , for i was fully satisfied then in all things by your instructions , and hearing your sermons ; as for mass , i did not understand it , but you said it was mass ; besides , others called it so . busby , how can you swear to a thing you do not understand ? tho. houis , if i did not , you told me so , and i believed you , because you did the office of a priest . bar. street , it seems this is the matter , you courted a papist for your wife , and busby told you the way to have her was to be a papist , and you did hearken to busby to perswade you ; he told you matrimony was a sacrament , and before you were married , you must be confest , and have absolution ; and mr. busby , you put words into his mouth to desire absolution , but gave it in such language as he understood not , he says he has heard you say mass frequently : but preach only three times . busby , it is an easie matter for him to say such things , but how does he prove it to be absolution of mass , when he says he understands not the language ? tho. houis , my lord , i have not only been present at that which they call their mass , but i have also received the sacrament from mr. busby then , and have seen him give the sacrament to divers other persons too , and besides , my lord , i did send my eldest child to the chappel at standly grange to have it christened by mr. busby : this woman ( pointing to sarah clark who stood by ) carried it : when we came there , dr. richard needham ( who lived there ) said to me , are you the father of this child , i answered yes : then says dr. needham , you ought not to be present when your child is christned , whereupon , my lord , i went into a corner of the room , but could perceive well enough what was done , and mr. busby did christen my child , and gave her the name of ann , mr. peter waldron was godfather , and mrs. ann smally godmother . kings council , we shall now call elizabeth evans for further proof of mr. busby's exercising his priestly office : who was also sworn . bar. street , come good woman , what can you say of the prisoner at the bar , do you know him ? eliz. evans , yes , i know the prisoner at the bar , its mr. busby , my lord , and have seen him in his priestly habit say mass , in the chappel at mr. powtrells house at west hallam , i saw him christen henry avery's child of stauton , i was godmother to the child . he has confest me several times ; and i have received absolution from him : i have received the sacrament from him . bar. street , what was it he gave you , when you received the sacrament from him ? eliz. evans , i know not what it was mr. busby gave me . then the waffers were called for ; they were of several sizes in a box. and being shewed to her , she said , yes my lord , these are what he gave us at mass for the sacrament ; i remember them , they were just such . busby , waffers are things usually put under biskets and macaroons , therefore how can she say those are the sacrament , for they are what i have seen given to children to eat and to play withal . bar. street , they are things indeed to give to children . kings coun. pray call dorothy saunders . who appeared , and was sworn . bar. street , well dorothy sanders , what say you ? dorothy saunders , he has several times absolved me , and given me the sacrament , and has said mass , where the company were sometimes more , and sometimes less ; and having a waffer given her into her hand and he held up the waffer thus and shewed the court and the jury the manner of his elevation of the host and being asked by the judge whether she knew priestly vestments ? answered dorothy saunders , yes i know priestly vestments when i see them which being shewed to her she said she had seen busby in some of them ; but for his christning of children , i know nothing of that . busby , is that the sacrament ? those waffers in the box , is that the sacrament ? d. saunders , we took it at your hands for the sacrament . bar. street , mr. busby you are so impertinent in your questions , you think you have weak persons to deal with , i hope the jury will take notice of it . kings council , call sarah clark. who appeared and was sworn . bar. street , sarah clark , have you heard mr. busby say mass ? sa. clark , yes my lord , that which he told us was mass , but i did not understand it , for it was in another tongue , which they said was latin. bar. street , but had he his vestments on , or how was it , tell us good woman ? s. clark , yes , my lord , he had vestments on , and he did then give us the sacrament as he called it , which was a wafer , and that he put into our mouths after that he had elevated the host : and he himself told me it was the sacrament . bar. street , well and have you made confession to him , and has he absolved you after you have done so ? s. clark , i have been at confession before him upon my knees , and when i had done he spoke something to me in latin ( as i think ) which he said was absolution , and i did take it to be so , and i have sometimes my lord , heard him preach , and that i understood , because it was in english . he told me what absolution was , and the mass , and the same was to be read in english , and those that could read , at those times said the same . bar. street , several witnesses have spoken closely that he has exercised his office in all things as a priest , have you known him marry any body , and christen children , if you have speak ? s. clark , my lord , he did not marry me , one mr. gavan married me , but i have heard that he did marry thomas houis , and i am sure he did christen thomas houis his first child , for i carried it to him , and mr. waldron , and mrs. ann smally were godfather and godmother , and he did name it ann ; it was christened at standly grange at dr. needhams house , and several others were there at the same time , and afterwards i brought it home . busby , how do you know it to be mass and absolution , when you say you do not understand the language i spoke in ? s. clark , though i did not understand what you said , you told me what every thing meaned , and i did believe you , because others told me so too ; besides all papists thought it their duty ( as you told us ) to be there all holy days and sundays , to prevent a venial sin , which if we omitted we were lyable to pennance . mr. gilbert , my lord , we have three or four more witnesses , but we are loath to trouble your lordship and the court with any further testimony of this nature ; hoping the matter of the indictment has been fully proved against the prisoner , and if your lordship please we will rest here . bar. street , i suppose the jury will believe there has been sufficient evidence given to convict him ; but mr. busby what can you say for your self ? busby , joseph dudley tells your lordship how i should tell a childish storry of hiding my self in the curtains , when i was two years old ; pray my lord , consider how i could remember what i did at two years old ; i know not how i could . i have told your lordship i was born beyond sea , i am sure i was bred there ; i hope your lordship will not take notice of an hear-say ; my mother went beyond sea at the beginning of the troubles , not after , 't was before edge-hill fight . as to what houis says , he himself does acknowledge , that he does not understand what language i absolved him in , nor the language of the mass , and therefore he cannot swear to it ; and for ought i know as to his being married , it was in a priviledg'd place , and could not be cited to litchfield court ; and for what the other witnesses says , their evidence is only that they heard something read in an unknown language , usually women pray in an unknown language , and those publick prayers were only family duties ; they swear not what it was , because they understand it not . bar. street , i believe not one in a hundred understands your prayers that hear them ; else they would not be so juggled by you . busby , there are vespers and mattins , and evensong ; he does not distinguish what it was that vvas said , by reason 't was in an unknown language to him : it was only family-duty . i can produce a witness to prove it , that women do family-duty in an unknown language . bar. street , i know women do not officiate in your church . busby , he swears my lord , to what he does not understand . as for elizabeth evans , she swears concerning saying mass , and understands not one service from another , and this proves not particularly my priestly office. bar. street , mr. busby , you forget christening avery's child , and houis's child , confessing , and absolving divers persons , the material evidence : you onely offer some little diversions . busby , dorothy saunders knows not what she swears , nor sarah clark , none of the witnesses can distinguish one service from another , they cannot therefore swear what was , and what was not ; giving of bread is not the priestly office , they do not swear positively to my exercising the priestly office , other persons wear those garments as well as priests : those things are monuments and heyre-loomes to the family , they were taken out of churches in former times at the reformation : there are now to be seen in the cathedral at york church stuff and vestments , which are kept for antiquity , and so were these . bar. street , mr. sheppey has been a priest , and he knows the use of those things as well as you . busby , my lord , those things lay-men do wear as well as priests , i desire to call a witness to prove it . bar. street , you may if you will , but to what purpose ? busby , pray call robert needham . who was called , and appeared . bar. street , well needham do you know these things ? the vestments being shewed unto him . robert needham , i have had these things on my self , my lord , and have said my prayers in them , and have thought my prayers more acceptable when i had them on ; and i have seen them used by others several times . busby , more wear them that are lay-men , then such as are priests . bar. street , needham , it seems you wore them whilst you said your prayers , that they might be more acceptable ? r. needham , such like vestments are worn by lay-men in several places . busby , i desire one mr. charles vmphrevill may be called , to speak to my being an alien born . who being called for the prisoner , was not sworn . charles vmphrevill , to mr. busbys being an alien , i have known mr. busby several years , and i have heard his mother and brother affirm he was born at brussels : and i have an affidavit from the register at coddington of all their children born in england , and we do not find mr. george busbys name in the register . bar. street , how can you be sure of that ? you ought to have brought the man along with you , to testifie it . charles vmphrevill , my lord , the sexton is an old man above sixty years of age , and could not come , but he made affidavit of it , which is here . bar. street , that does not signifie any thing at all , that affidavit cannot be allowed , for he might be born there , and yet not registred ; but what makes you say we ? what makes you concerned ? c. vmphrevill , i say we , because i was one of those imploy'd to get mr. busbys habeas corpus . ( vpon mr. umphrevills being at a stand , and busby directing him to tell what he had seen beyond sea. ) the judge taking notice thereof , said , bar. street , what would you have him say mr. busby ? tell him . c. vmphrevil , i have seen cannons beyond sea , wear such vestments , that are not in orders : i have seen children wear them , and they i am sure are not in orders . busby , i call mr. mayo to prove that i am not a natural born subject of the kings . bar. street , ( come sir , though you are not upon your oath , yet you must tell us the truth , as faithfully as if you were . ) edward mayo , i have searched the register at coddington , and i do not find george busbys name , the prisoner , registred ; i have searched all the books , and i find no register of him . bar. street , an hundred children may be born in that parish within this 2● years , and not registred : all that are baptized , are registred only . busby , mr. mayo , satisfie my lord of the disappointment i had of my habeas corpus , which you got for me . bar. street , to what purpose : but mr. busby you shall not say but i will hear him ; what say you mayo ? ed. mayo , my lord i was imployed about an habeas corpus for mr. busby in easter term last , and did obtain one for him then , but by reason of some slackness it was presently out of date , and so became ineffectual . also in trinity term , i procured another habeas corpus for him , which was delivered to the under sheriff of this county of derby , who was then very sick at london , of which sickness he dyed there at last , and that habeas corpus , for that reason did likewise fall short , by which disappointments mr. busby is not so prepared for his tryal at this time as otherwise he might , if he had not really depended upon his being removed to london by habeas corpus . bar. street ; all this is too little to the purpose , for if he expected to have had his tryal there , and was prepared for it a term or two ago , hovv comes it to pass he is not prepared novv ? come , come mr. busby what can you say more ? prisoner , i could not be born at coddington , i was born beyond sea , out of the kingdom . my lord , here is not one word proved of the substance of the indictment , not a word proved that i took orders beyond sea , nor here , from any person that saw me take orders ; not a word of that proved : nor not a word of the substance of that statute of queen elizabeth , which i am indicted upon ; only some fevv women say they heard me pray in an unknovvn language , vvhich vvas no more then family-duty , and i can produce a witness that women say their prayers publickly in an unknovvn tongue , and all ansvver ; and by these circumstances i am accused for being a priest . bar. street , i find mr. busby you understand the law , but pray you , is the sacrament given by women ? and is absolution given by women ? busby , if they understand not the language , they understand not the thing : treason may be spoke in french , and i know it not to be so . bar. street . then it seems no man can prove a priest , that does not understand the latine tongue . busby . none of the witnesses has sworn that i gave absolution , nor that i said mass , but in an unknown tongue . what they have said are only circumstances , and do not prove the indictment ; and what they say i i did , are things that are performed by those that are not priests . i offer it again to your lordships consideration that i have not been proved a born subject of the kings . i vvas deprived of my habeas corpus vvhich vvas detained in the sheriffs hand , and so lost the benefit of it , ( those things are material ) and have not had time to produce witnesses that i was not born in england , but beyond sea : at london i could have got evidence to prove that ; and here has been no proof made of that , but a story told of me when i was a child : i have proved that my name cannot be found in the register at coddington . for the rest i have not had time ; if i had had the benefit of my habeas corpus , to have been tryed at london , i had friends there that could have proved me born beyond sea : this dudley that appears an evidence against me , was a servant of mr. powtrells , who was gone away upon disgust ; he sent out of the garden several loads of goods , and now he comes to swear against me , i am verily confident that he carryed away above three horse load of goods that he carryed privately out of the garden , of plants and such things , and sent them all away . mr. gilbert , my lord , they were his cloaths , and other things of his own , which he took with him when he went away . bar. street , all this signifies nothing , if it be proved ; but bring what witnesses you will to prove it . busby , i hope your lordship will consider that i am an alien born , and that by the loss of my habeas corpus i had not time to bring my witnesses ; and that the prayers i said were only family duties : i hope that will be considered ; and that those people that have sworn i said mass and absolved , do not know what mass is , nor absolution . my lord here is nothing proved of the indictment against me . bar. street , you have said all this six times over , if you have nothing farther to say in your defence , i must sum up the evidence to the jury . bar. street , you of the jury , the prisoner at the bar , george busby , stands indicted of treason upon the statute of xxvii eliz. cap. ii. the principal branch whereof is this : and be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid , that it shall not be lawful to or for any jesuit , seminary priest , or other such priest , deacon , or religious or ecclesiastical person whatsoever , being born within this realm , or any other of her highness dominions , and heretofore , since the said feast of the nativity of st. john baptist in the first year of her majesties reign , made , ordained , or professed , or hereafter to be made , ordained , or professed , by any authority or jurisdiction , derived , challenged , or pretended from the see of rome ; by or of what name , title , or degree soever the same shall be called or known , to come into , be , or remain , in any part of this realm , or any other her highness dominions , after the end of the same forty days , other then in such special cases , and upon such special occasions only , and for such time only , as is expressed in this act : and if he do , that then every such offence shall be taken and adjudged to be high treason . and every person so offending , shall for his offence be adjudged a traitor ; and shall suffer , lose , and forfeit , as in case of high treason . bar. street , this makes every offender against this statute a capital offender , and guilty of high treason ; now whether he is within this law , you are to consider ? mr. gilbert has told you that he is a reputed priest and jesuit , in the neighbourhood , and that as such he had an order from his majesty to apprehend him . he used his endeavors to take him for some time , but could not apprehend him , till the sixteenth of march last , and then he found him ; but in such an obscure hole , that no body would hide himself in , but such an extraordinary offender . innocent people do not obscure themselves in that manner . joseph dudley , to prove him a native and not an alien , tells you , that when souldiers in the time of the late wars , came to plunder his fathers house , he heard him say , that at two years old he hid himself in the curtains in his mothers chamber for fear of the souldiers . but ( says the prisoner ) my memory could not serve me at two years old to retain what i did then . but our parents tell us what we did then . if a man be asked , what age are you of ? no man can tell , but as his parents tells him . my father told me i was six years old , and from thence i remember it . his father and mother were not out of england ( as appears ) till about 1646 , and then the war was ended ; and the prisoner confess'd himself to be about forty years of age , which shews him born in england . he that but observes his language , will find that the tone of the english language remains with him . one born in wales , ( though he come young from thence ) he will have a welsh tone as long as he lives . the prisoner tells you , that no man has proved his being in orders of the church of rome , nor where , when , or by whom , made a priest : but if all that were to be proved , it would make the law idle and insignificant . if he be made a priest in england , 't is as much as if made at st. omers or rome . he did own io joseph dudley , that he was made a jesuit , and laboured to make a convert of him in the garden , when he was alone with him . the next was thomas houis , who courted a woman , and must not have her , unless he turn'd roman catholick . busby must discourse him , and make a convert of him . he hears busby preach three times , and heard him say mass several times ; and was not only married by him , but has been confess'd and absolved by him divers times . but busby's fallacious argument has no weight in it , that because he understands not latine , therefore he proves it not mass , nor other services of the church of rome . dorothy saunders speaks to the same purpose , that he confess'd and absolved her . and she tells you , that she has seen him elevate the host , and has shewed you the manner how ; and he gave her the sacrament , which she and the rest took from him , as the sacrament . and that she has seen him officiate in some of the robes produced in court. sarah clark speaks to the same purpose , and so did elizabeth evans . but busby says , because this was done in an unknown tongue , they cannot swear it ; and that he is no priest , because they do not swear where , and when , he received his orders . whoever does exercise that profession , we do believe him of that church . when a minister of our church preaches or officiates , we do not say , pray let us see your orders first ; but if he officiate usually as a priest , 't is taken for granted that he is one . he can tell where he received his orders , but it may be cannot produce them upon all occasions . must he therefore be no priest ? upon the whole , if you believe the witnesses or any two of them , you are to find the prisoner guilty ; i believe you have had full evidence , go together and consider of it . the jury went forth , and after a short stay came back into the court. and then clerk , gentlemen of the jury , have you agreed on your verdict ? jury , yes . clerk , who shall say for you ? jury , the fore-man . clerk , george busby , hold up thy hand , look upon the prisoner . clerk , do you find george busby guilty of the high treason and felony he hath been arraigned of , or not guilty ? fore-man , guilty . clerk , and so you say all ? jury , yes . clerk , look to him jailor . bar. street , though i must pass sentence upon you of course , the jury having found you guilty ; yet i must tell you , that his majesty hath commanded me to reprieve you from execution . then mr. bar. street passed sentence . bar. street , that you the prisoner now at the bar be conveyed hence to the place from whence you came , and that you be conveyed thence on a hurdle to the place of execution ; where you are to be hanged by the neck : that you be cut down alive , that your privy members be cut off , your bowels taken out and burnt in your view ; that your head be severed from your body ; that your body be divided into four quarters ; which are to be disposed of at the kings pleasure : and god of his infinite mercy have mercy upon your soul. to the right honourable the lords commissioners of the treasury . where is his majesty by royal proclamation dated the 12th day of november 1679 , was graciously pleased to promise and add to the reward of twenty pounds , the sum of fourscore pound● more ; in all one hundred pounds , to any person who should discover and apprehend any popish priest or jesuit . and his majesty doth appoint by the said proclamation the lords commissioners of the treasury , or the lord high treasurer of england , to pay the same accordingly without delay or abatement ; as in and by the said proclamation at large it doth appear . now know all whom it may concern , that at the assizes and general goal delivery of our soveraign lord the king , held at derby on monday the 25th of july last past , in and for the said county , before us sir edward atkyns knight , and sir thomas street knight , justices of assizes , and other the justices of our said soveraign lord the king for the said county , that george busby clerk , was indicted , for that he the said george busby being a subject of our sovereign lord the king , born in the kingdom of england , and a priest ordained by authority derived from the see of rome , continued in england against the statute in that case made and provided : upon which it was then and there fully proved that the said george busby was both a priest and jesuit . whereupon he was legally convicted and attainted of high treason , as in and by the record of the same may fully appear . these are therefore humbly to certifie , that it likewise appeared to the said court , then and there , that henry gilbert esq one of his majesties justices of the peace for the said county of derby , was the person that did discover and apprehend him the said george busby , for the felonies and treason aforesaid . in witness whereof , and at the request of the said henry gilbert , that he may receive the said reward of one hundred pounds , pursuant to his majesties said gracious proclamation , we have hereunto set our hands this 27th day of july , in the three and thirtieth year of the reign of our soveraign lord king charles the second , over england , &c. annoque dom. 1681. edward atkyns . thomas street . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a63144-e190 derb. ss . stafford's memoires, or, a brief and impartial account of the birth and quality, imprisonment, tryal, principles, declaration, comportment, devotion, last speech, and final end, of william, late lord viscount stafford, beheaded upon tower-hill on wednesday the 29. of december 1681 hereunto is also annexed a short appendix concerning some passages in stephen colleges trial. corker, james maurus, 1636-1715. 1681 approx. 324 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 40 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2006-06 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a34573 wing c6306 estc r20377 11771379 ocm 11771379 48868 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a34573) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 48868) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 811:19) stafford's memoires, or, a brief and impartial account of the birth and quality, imprisonment, tryal, principles, declaration, comportment, devotion, last speech, and final end, of william, late lord viscount stafford, beheaded upon tower-hill on wednesday the 29. of december 1681 hereunto is also annexed a short appendix concerning some passages in stephen colleges trial. corker, james maurus, 1636-1715. [2], 76 p. s.n.], [london : 1681. reproduction of original in huntington library. attributed to james corker. cf. nuc pre-1956. "an appendix, containing some remarques upon the late tryal of stephen colledge ..." p. 71-76. errata: p. 76. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng stafford, william howard, -viscount, 1614-1680. colledge, stephen, 1635?-1681. popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-03 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2006-03 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion stafford's memoires : or , a brief and impartial account of the birth and quality , imprisonment , tryal , principles , declaration , comportment , devotion , last speech , and final end , of william , late lord viscount stafford , beheaded upon tower-hill on wednesday the 29. of december 1681. published for rectifying all mistakes upon this subject . wisd . 4. vitam illorum estimabamus insaniam , & finem illorum sine honore , &c. hereunto is also annexed a short appendix concerning some passages in stephen colledges trial . printed in the year , mdclxxxi . the introduction . it is a wonder to see how passion and interest predominate over reason in mankind ; nothing is done , nothing said , without some tincture of either , or both . even common occurrences are usually related as men would have them to be , rather then as they are . plain-dealing is almost fled : and all things now a days , whether private or publick , sacred or prophane , are according to different inclinations , without regard to truth , promiscuously made the subject of a satyr or panegirick . an obvious example of this we have in the several accounts given of the tryal , declaration , demeanor , and death of the late lord stafford ; concerning whose tragedy , though acted for the most part in the face of the whole nation , yet there have flown about in a manner as many , and those contradictory stories , as there are relaters ; and such as know least , commonly talk most , to compleat the error . it is true , the printed tryal set forth by authority is no wise liable to these gross mistakes ; but it hath swelled in the press , by forms , &c. to so vast a volume , that few can spare either money to buy it , or time to read it . besides , it is in a manner silent of matters chiefly designed for the subject of this treatise ( viz. ) my lords comportment , declaration , devotion , last speech , and other occurrences , which happened inclusively from the time of his tryal , to his final end . having therefore attained to a most exact and certain knowledge of these particulars , i shall for the satisfaction of the curious , and manifestation of truth , give ( together with an abstract of the whole tryal , and some occurrences concerning it ) a plain and sincere relation of what i know , and can by unquestionable evidence justify to be true . and herein i shall also totally abstain from any the les● moralizing upon transactions , whereby to forestal the readers judgment . but contenting my self with a plain and candid relation of things , as i find them , leave every one to the freedom of his own censure and verdict upon them . sect . i. my lords birth , education , quality , &c. william howard , viscount stafford , was second son to thomas earl of arundel , and uncle to the now duke of norfolk . in his youth he was educated with all care and industry imaginable to improve in him the endowments of nature and grace . and to speak truth , he was ever held to be of a generous disposition , very charitable , devout , addicted to sobriety , inoffensive in his words , and a lover of justice . when he arrived to years of maturity , he married mary , descended from the ancient dukes of buckingham , grandchild to edward , and sister , and sole heiress to henry lord stafford ; to whose title he succeeded ( being created by the late king charles of glorious memory ) baron . anno 1640. and soon after viscount stafford . during the time of the last bloody rebellion , he suffer'd much for his loyalty to the king ; always behaving himself with that courage and constancy , as became a nobleman , a good christian , and a faithful subject . after his present majesties joyful restauration , he lived in peace , plenty , and happiness , being blessed with a most virtuous lady to his wife , and many pious and dutiful children . in which state he remained till the 66. year of his age , when happened this revolution of his fortune , as followeth . sect . ii. my lords imprisonment , charge and arraignment , &c. about michaelmas anno 1678. mr. titus oates ( formerly a minister of the church of england ) accused upon oath , before the king and council , and not long after also before the two houses of parliament , several roman catholicks , some persons of quality ; ( and amongst the rest , the lord viscount stafford , ) of high treason , for intending and designing the death of the king , the introducing of popery , and subversion of the government . my lord , though he immediately heard of this impeachment , yet relying ( as he said ) on his own innocence , never left his family , nor withdrew himself from his ordinary known acquaintance and affairs till the 25th of october , ( 78. ) when by virtue of a warrant from the lord chief justice , he was sent prisoner to the kings bench , and from thence , soon after to the tower , where he remained above two years before he could be admitted to tryal . during this interval , the whole nation was surprized and allarm'd with the noise of an horrid plot , contriv'd by the pope , priests , and jesuits , wherein , the king was to be murthered , armies raised , protestants massacred , and the three kingdoms destroyed , by fire and sword , the people were affrighted , searches made , guards doubled , and all in an uproar . the king hereupon consulted the parliament , and both houses declared it a plot. yet to strengthen the evidence ( as yet , but weak ) and make farther discoveries ; indempnities are promised , rewards proposed , and encouragements , given by proclamation to any who would make out upon oath the particulars of what in substance was already declar'd . by this , and the like sedulity of the king , and three succeeding parliaments , several new witnesses came in ; first , captain bedlow . next dugdale , prance , and two others bolron , and mowbray , out of the north ; then mr. jennison , smith , seigneur francisco dangerfield , zeile , lewis , &c. lastly one mr. turbervile , who , together with oates and dugdale , gave evidence against this lord stafford , of whom we now treat . after two years imprisonment , when many roman catholicks , both priests and others , had been executed , and most of the rest imprisoned or fled ; at length my lord was brought to his tryal , on the 30 th . day of novem. 1680. at the peers bar in westminster-hall ; the house of commons being present , and the lord chancellor high-steward of england . the impeachment was drawn in the name of the commons of england . wherein my lord was charged , together with other papists , for having imagin'd and contriv'd to murder the king , to introduce popery , and subvert the good government of church and state established by law. to this impeachment my lord , being thereupon arraigned , pleaded not guilty . allegations in proof of the plot in general . ¶ 1. then the cause was opened , and the commons learned counsel , who were appointed managers of the tryal , set forth the charge in most copious and eloquent language ; and beginning first with the plot in general , they shew'd to the life the wickedness , the malice , the horror of so dreadful , bloudy and hellish a design . they strongly insisted on the express positive oaths of the witnesses , upon whose testimony the credit of this plot chiefly depended . they amply dilated upon the letters of coleman , and others , clearly demonstrating the busie designs and activity of the writers . they pressed home the execrable murder of sir edmundbury godfrey , charged upon the papists , as well by the oaths of captain bedlow and mr. prance , self-acknowledged partners in the assasination , as also by a certain letter sent from london to tixall , intimating the murder of a justice of peace , and communicated by dugdale to divers gentlemen in stassordshire , the third day after the murder was committed . they displayed to the full view the sham-plots and counter-contrivances , whereby ( t is said ) the papists would have suborned the kings evidence , and turn'd all their guilt upon his majesty 's known and well-experienced loyal protestant subjects . they urg'd the firing the city , the burning the navy , the calling in french-armies , wild-irish , spanish-pilgrims , &c. asserted in the several depositions and narratives of dr. oats , captain bedlow , mr. dangerfield , &c. they recapitulated the several tryals of ireland ; whitebread , langhorn , &c. and alledged the votes of both houses of parliament declaring it a plot. to strengthen all this , they ript up the cruelties of queen mary , the french and irish massacres , the powder-plot , &c. they anatomiz'd the wicked principles ( from whence spring evil practices ) of murdering , lying , swearing , faith-breaking , equivocating , &c. imputed to the papists , as held by them lawful , and matters of faith. in short , nothing was omitted , nothing neglected throughout the whole process ; but every the least circumstance enforced and advanced to its full proportion , with such vigour of wit and industry as sitly corresponded to so great a cause , prosecuted by so high an authority , before so illustrious judges , and august an assembly . when the managers themselves had made these efforts to shew the vniversal conspiracy , ( as they term'd it ) they produc'd six witnesses to the same effect , whereby to second and confirm what they had thus in general asserted . mr. smith's deposition . the first was mr. smith , who deposed , that going into france , he became acquainted with abbot montague and one father bennet ; these persons , to induce him to be a catholick , told him he should have an imployment amongst them ; and that in a few years they would bring in their religion into england , right or wrong ; but this was not sufficiently prevalent with him to turn papist ; yet he lived with them several years . that at last he went into italy , where the jesuits perswaded him to discourse with cardinal grimaldi , the which he did ; that the cardinal made much of him ; and he it was perverted him to the romish religion ; that , upon occasion of shewing him a pair of hangings , this cardinal told him , he had great assurances the popish religion would prevail in england ; that there was but one in the way ; and that , to accomplish their designs , they must take him out of the way . that the jesuits there also publickly preached , and privately taught , that the king of england being an heretick , whoever took him out of the way , would do a meritorious act . that after this , he studied several years at rome ; and that , whilst he was in the colledge , he saw several of coleman's letters . that , being made a priest , he was sent into england with instructions to inform the papists , they were not obliged to obey the king ; but that they should endeavour to promote the popish religion . that upon his arrival in england , he was placed with one mr. jenison in the bishoprick of durham , where his main imployment was to root out the jesuits , ( as men ill-principled ) and to disswade the papists from sending moneys to colledges beyond-seas . that one thomas smith told him he received a letter from the lord stafford , wherein my lord said , he expected some sudden change. dugdale's deposition . next to mr. smith was stephen dugdale , who deposed , that for about 15 or 16 years together , he had been acquainted , by several letters , and other means , there was a design carrying on for the bringing in of the romish religion . that the papists were to have money and arms ready against the king's death , ( for he said he heard nothing of killing the king till the year 78. ) that in october ( 78. ) my lord aston and others should go to dispose of certain arms they received , to the value of 30000 l. that the king of france was acquainted with all these designs ; and that he would furnish the papists with men , and afford them other aid and assistance , if the king should die , or be taken away . that he saw a letter writ to mr. evers , ( for all the jesuits letters were returned to him ) wherein were these words , this night sir edmundbury godfrey is dispatch'd . that he himself had contributed 500 l. for arms , &c. to carry on the design . that about the year 78. there was an indulgence published at all private chappels , wherein whosoever was active for killing the king , should have a free pardon of all their sins . that he was told at meetings , that the king being an heretick , it was lawful to kill him ; and that it was no more then to kill a dog ; that he had heard , that about the time the king should be killed , several parties should be provided with arms , and rise all on a sudden at an hours warning , and so come in upon the protestants , and cut their throats ; and if any did escape , there should be an army to cut them off in their flight ; that he heard the pope's daily in come was 24000 l. a day . and that the same pope ( as he thought ) had promised to contribute in the whole 1000 l. for the raising of armies , and carrying on the above mentioned design . mr. prance his deposition then mr. prance was produced , who deposed , that one mr. singleton a priest told him , he would make no more to stab forty parliament men , then to eat his dinner , which he was then at . dr. oates his deposition . next doctor oates gave evidence , that in the year ( 76 ) he being then a protestant , and chaplain in the duke of norfolk's family , one mr. kemish and one mr. singleton priests , advised him to hasten betimes to the church of rome , for that the protestant religion was now upon its last leggs . that hereupon ( having had before some suspicion of the designs of the papists , and growth of popery ) to satisfie his curiosity , he feigned himself a convert : was seemingly reconciled ; presently admitted by the jesuits to do their business , entrusted in their secrets ; and sent by them in april ( 77 ) with treasonable letters into spain . that e're he arrived at validolid , there were letters got before him from england , wherein was expressed ; that the king was dispatched , which was a cause of great joy to the fathers there ; but that this proved a mistake . that during his abode in spain , he found the ministers of that court were very ready to advance money , which money was returned into england ; and that the provincial of the jesuits of castile had also advanced 10000 l. that soon after this , he was present at a sermon preached to some students , against the oaths of allegiance and supremacy , wherein likewise the kings legitimacy was villified and abused ; and it was declared , that his religion entitled him to nothing but sudden death and destruction . that returning into england in november following and bringing letters for mr. strange , he heard mr. keines say in mr. strange's chamber ; he was mighty sorry for honest will ( meaning the ruffian that was to kill the king ) that he had missed in his enterprise . [ here mr. oates thought good to tell their lordships . that the papists were not so zealous for the destruction of the king , till the king had refused coleman the dissolving of the long parliament : then he went on to acquaint them , ] that in december he departed from london to st. omers , loaded with letters from strange and others , importing the hope they had the next year to effect their design . that being at st. omers he saw letters out of ireland , whereby he found that there , the talbots and other persons were very zealous in raising of forces , and resolved to let in the french king. that in february , several of st. omers were imployed to several places in germany and flanders , to fetch and carry correspondences . that in march , pickering attempting to kill the king , the flint of his gun was loose , and the king escaped , for which pickering received a discipline , and the other ( viz. william groves ) a chiding . that in april he returned to london ; and that there was then a consult held , first at the white-horse-tavern , and then afterwards adjourned into particular clubs , where the confederates did resolve on the death of the king ; and that groves should have 500l . for his pains ; and pickering ( being a religious man ) should have 30000 masses . that in june he saw more letters , and heard new proposals , wherein a reward of 15000 l. was offered to sir george wakemen for poysoning the king. that in july mr. strange very frankly told him how london was fired , and how many of those concerned were seized , and afterwards discharged by the duke's guards and order . mr. jennison's deposition . after oates , mr. jennison was called in , who deposed , that in frequent discourses with mr. ireland ( now executed ) he heard him often say , that it was necessary , for the introducing of catholick religion , that the government should be changed ; and that it was an easie matter to kill or poyson the king. that he answered , god forbid . that hereupon ireland told him he would remit the twenty pounds he owed him , if he would go to windsor , to assist to take off the king ; but he expressed a great detestation of it . then ireland desired him to name some stout couragious irish-men , proper for the assasination ; which he did , and ireland approved of them . that he heard one mr. thomas jennison , a jesuit , say , if c. r. would not be r. c. he should not be long c. r. and that the said jesuit added , if the king were excontmunicated or deposed , he was no longer king , and it was no great sin to take him off . that about two months after , the said jesuit told him there was a design on foot , and that the queen , duke of york , the lords in the tower , and greatest papists in england were in it. that there was a new army to be raised , to bring in catholick religion ; and that he ( the said jesuit ) would procure him from the duke a commission in it , when the king was taken off . that he being surprized hereat , the jesuit told him he should receive the sacrament of secrecy . mr. dennis his deposition . the last witness was mr. dennis , who deposed , that he saw dr. oates in spain , where he seemed to be a man of much business , and had a bag of money , some of which he lent him . that the archbishop of tuam told him in the presence of dr. oates , that mr. plunket , primate of ireland , was resolved to bring the french power into ireland ; and that there were several collections of money made in ireland to support the plot. this is the sum of what the six witnesses deposed ; to whose depositions were annexed , and produced in court ( in order to the same end ) the sevcral records of attainder of coleman , ireland , whitebread , langhorn , &c. that of coleman was read at length , and the others deposited on the clerks table , to be made use of as occasion should serve . the papists plea to the above-specified allegations . ¶ 2. thus far hath been ( as i may say ) indicted , arraigned , and tryed , the plot in general . my lord stafford ( as the managers declared ) is not hitherto proved , but only supposed a party in the conspiracy ; the plot in general is directly charged upon the papists in general , and they must answer to the general indictment ; wherefore , though it be not my design to defend popery , yet i think it very pertinent and necessary , before we enter upon my lord 's special charge and defension , to insert here some of those many things the papists in general often did , and still do constantly alledge against the premisses , in vindication of their innocence . if in this i shall be accounted a papist , or popishly affected , it will only be amongst those who love not to see truth , contrary to their interest ; not to do justice , though to an adversary . to proceed then . the papists plead , that it is not the clamour of the hainousness and horror of a crime imputed , but the guilt and clear couviction of a crime proved , that renders a man accountable to justice , and punishable by the law. that as treason is the worst of crimes , so is the stain of innocent bloud ( shed by perjury ) hard to be washed off . that the bare positive swearing of every person in every matter or manner , hand over head , is no sufficient conviction of anothers guilt ; for if so , it would be in the power of any six knights of the post to kill whomsoever they pleased , though never so innocent ; and for what they pleased , though never so absurd or impossible , by meer dint of affidavit . that false accusations may be so laid , as that the contrary cannot possibly be demonstrated by the party accused ; seeing no mortal man can distinctly prove where he was , and what he did , said , or heard , every day and every hour of his whole life ; wherefore , to make justly valid an accusation against another , the laws of god and man require , first , that the accuser be a credible witness , that is , not tainted with notorious crimes or villanies ; for he that hath lost a sense of moral honesty , hath lost his right to moral credit , and may be indifferently presumed to swear any thing . secondly , that the accusation be strengthened with probable circumstances ; circumstances which bring along with them some appearance of truth , distinct from the bare accusation it self ; for otherwise , where the ballance is equal in point of repute , between the accuser and the accused , it is as presumptive that the one should be guilty of perjury , as the other of the crimes charged upon him ; and herein , the weaker the credit of the accusers are , the stronger ought the presumption of circumstances to be , as natural reason and justice dictate . now neither of these two essential conditions are found in the evidence given of this pretended plot. as for the first condition ; what manner of men the witnesses are who make these discoveries ; how notoriously infamous ; how stigmatiz'd with all sorts of felonies , forgeries , cheats , debaucheries and wickedness , many intelligent protestants in their consciences know ; the wittnesses themselves have been often forced to acknowledge , and several courts of judicature , can , upon record give publick testimony . as for the second condition ; there are not only no circumstances confirming the bare oaths ; but the whole series of the evidence , is a meer bundle of moral imposibilities , contradictions , aud nonsence . here is a plot ( forsooth ) contrived by the papists , at a time when they had least , or rather no reason , to seek a change ; to kill the king , by whose merciful indulgence they lived in peace ; to wade through blood to an uncertain liberty , which they already sufficiently enjoyed ; to overthrow the government for the restablishing of which they so frankly in the late wars exposed their lives and for tunes ; this plot must be managed by persons of quality , most remarkable peradventure of all others for firmness of loyalty , and now through age and infirmities , retired from publick business and weary of the world ; the whole body of roman catholicks , ( men , before this hour , of known worth , vertue , integrity , and unblemished reputation , ) must all be involved by vows , and sacrements , in a design so black , and execrable , that god and nature abhorr to think on it . they must hazard their honor , their estates , their families , their bodies , their souls , their all , in an enterprize , so desperate and sottish , that none but mad-men would attempt it , and nothing but a miracle could either effect , or conceal it . in this plot are said to have been engaged for several years together divers nations , england , scotland , ireland , france , italy , spain , germany , &c. ( an affront , shame and scandal unto the greatest part of christendom ) wherein many thousands of both sexes , of different interests , of all sorts , states and conditions , must necessarily have been privy to , and partners in the villany . now , that none of all this vast number should have any remorse for so bloudy a treason ; none all this while the worth , wit or grace to reveal it ; no intervening accident , no levity , no disagreement of parties , happen to detect it , till at last dr. oates captain bedlow , and by degrees their other companions , raked out of gaols , whipt , pillory'd , and one way or other branded with infamy , made this grand discovery , ( good men ) out of tenderness of conscience . this is somewhat hard to believe . to prosecute this plot the witnesses attest there were huge armies of papists ( dugdale mentioneth two hundred thousands ) immediately to be raised ; these numberless swarms , were to be provided with proportionable stores of weapons , ammunitions , &c. and all in a readiness for a general massacre of protestants at an hours warning ; oates and the rest likewise affirm they were well acquainted with all the most deep , and secret intrigues the papists had , of this nature ; yet after all , when it comes to it ; they cannot shew or direct where these millions of men , and mountains of magazines are ; the kings officers , after thirty months diligent scrutiny , could never find the least footsteps of any such thing . and 't is imposible they should or could be invisibly dispersed or conveyed away upon so suddain and unexpected a discovery , especially in the very nick of time when they were to be made use on . we are farther told of hundreds of sealed commissions for all sorts of military offices ; my lord stafford ( because no good accountant ) must be paymaster general ; divers patents granted for dignities of state ; many bulls and breifs for ecclesiastical preferments ; and god knows how many even bushels of letters , and pacquets , all containing most damnable treason , sent nevertheless up and down at randam , some by the common post . others by such messengers as oates , bedlow , dugdale and dangerfield , who , as bosom councellours , were still privy to the contents of what they carried too and fro , and became so dexterous in taking remarques , that they could exactly tell ( when their memories failed not for fear of contradictions ) the particular dates , when , where , to whom , and from whom ; nay they could punctually recite upon their singers ends , the very express words of almost every letter ; oates moreover declares , he was never a real catholick , but only pretended to be so , on purpose to make discoveries : and he was so successful in this stratagem , that he gained from the jesuits a patent a to be taken into the consult . is it possible then , that none of these men thus circumstanced , could get or preserve one single letter , one sealed commission , one scrip of paper , one original writing , ( a thousand manner of ways easily compassed in such a conjuncture ) whereby to credit their monstrous evidence ? how came it about they did not at the first discovery ( having both time and opportunity to do it ) seize by surprize some of these things , together with the persons , where they were lodged ? did all the plotters burn their commissions , bulls , and briefs , as well as their letters , as soon as they received them ? why did not oates shew us at least his own patent received from the jesuits ? surely it would have been of mighty force to strengthen his testimony . why did not the other witnesses also produce some of those treasonable letters , writ , ( as they said , ) and directed to themselves ? nothing appear ; nothing extant ; nothing feisible , but a few naked , harmless men , in their several private chambers ? and this too , just when the grand design was to break into action ? what mortal man can reconcile these endless contradictions ? from these , and other the like grounds , the papists would infer , that no credit ought to be given to the bare oaths of these men , swearing at this wild incoherent rate . and they farther appeal to the judgment of every impartial conscientious man , whether it be not more likely that a few debauch'd wretches , of lost consciences , and desperate fortunes , allured by gain , and encouraged by indempnities , should be induced out of malice or interest , to swear a lie ; then that so many , so noble , so prudent , so known loyal and virtuous persons , should be guilty of so horrid , so bloudy , so absurd , so morally impossible , and ( in all circumstances ) contradictory a design ? nay whether , if such evidence be allowed and countenanced , any man , either papist or protestant , can be long secure of his reputation , fortune , or life . to what was argued from the acknowledged letters of mr. coleman , and others ; it is answered , that those letters indeed manifestly denote the busie designs and activity of the writers ; yet are they withal so far from confirming a plot , such as oates and his companions pretend to discover , that they directly evince the contrary . for , the whole subject and context of those letters bear a plain and open face of what the authors intended ; and the writers were persons , who , ( had there been a plot. ) were the most likely of all others to have been the main engines and contrivers of it : nevertheless , we do not find one single world or sillable in them , from whence may be gathered any such design ; the substance of them being only some imaginary conceits , and over-weening policies of four or five aspiring men , willing to be great , or at least to be thought so ; and desiring perhaps , in some measure , a liberty of conscience ; yet without confronting , much less destroying the king or government . wherein also ( as far as appeareth by the letters ) they were nowise seconded by the catholicks in general , nor much countenanced by those whose favorites they pretended to be ; so that , upon the whole matter , these letters , rightly considered , are rather ( as is said before ) a manifest vindication of the roman catholicks innocense , then a confirmation of the plot. concerning the death of sir edmundbury godfrey , there is nothing to fasten that murder on the roman catholicks , but the bare improbable ( though gainful ) oathes of two infamous persons : the one ( viz. ) bedlow , notorious for cheats and misdemeanours : the other ( viz. ) prance , self condemned of falshood herein , by the testimony of his own mouth ; for he once swore he was an actor in the said murder ; and soon after before the king and council , unswore what he had said , and protested upon his salvation , he knew nothing of it . there are furthermore some remarkable and pressing circumstances , which the papists urge in their own defence herein ; one is , that sir edmnndbury godfrey was esteemed by all , a moderate man , and particularly indulgent to catholicks . and 't is not credible the papists would murder their friends ; especially in a conjuncture of time , when it was to no purpose , not could any ways stifle the discovery of the plot already made ; nay , when they could not but see such an horrid action , ( if known ) must needs draw the wrath and detestation of the whole nation upon them . the other is , that the whole ( though premeditated ) series of this murder , as it is related by the witnesses , seems to be involved with innumerable absurdities , contradictions , moral impossibilities , and pregnant appearences of perjury . the scene of the tragedy must be ( forsooth ) the publick yard of somerset-house ( a place , or rather thorow-fare , of continual intercourse ) within twenty paces of the common guards , where watch is kept night and day ; the assassines , to effect their design , must feign a quarrel , and call justice godfrey out of the street ( a notable policy ) to keep the peace , though none , passengers , soldiers or neighbours , perceived any thing of this tumult . when they had him in the yard , they strangled him with an hankerchief , ( a very proper instrument , studyed and contrived before-hand , to strangle a man. ) after the business was done , they let him lie exposed in this open place , half living , half dead , above a quarter of an hour . at length they dragged him into a chamber in doctor godwin's lodgings ( a room attested to be of daily use to the servants , never lock'd , but constantly obvious to all comers and goers ; ) here they kept him two days , and then carryed him through several courts , into several rooms , and apartments in somerset-house ; and having thus ( to no purpose ) tossed him up and down from saturday till wednesday , they finally placed him ( though stiff and inflexible ) in a sedan , and carryed him to the soho , and there set him astride on horse-back , to ride before hill to the place where he was afterwards found . bedlow deposeth sir edmundbury godfrey was throtl'd with a cravat ; prance swears it was with an handkerchief ; the names of the assassines cited by bedlow , are prichard , welsh , le phaire , and other jesuits . but the murderers nominated by prance , are greene , hill , bury , gyrald and kelly ; and these two parties are quite different actors ; and as far as apears by the evidence , neither their designs , nor persons well known to each other . prance saith , he saw the dead body very plainly in a low room , by the light of a dark lanthorn , but what was thrown over it , he could not tell ; nor could he afterwards when required , go to the room where he said he saw it . bedlow tells us he refused to have any hand in the murder , for which cause the jesuits , did not acquaint him who it was ; yet they shewed him the dead body in the presence of many , who neither knew him , nor he them ; prance himself further declared , he never was in bedlow company , till he came to prison . the main assassines were ignorant of what reward they were to have ; but bedlow ( though no compartner in the murder , ) could tell there were four thousand pounds ordered , of which two thousand pounds were proffered to him alone , if he would but assist the rest to convey away the corps . this murder is affirmed to have been committed on saturday , the twelfth day of october ( 78. ) at nine a clock at night ; and the body conveyed away on the wednesday following , about midnight . in direct opposition to which , hill , green , and bury ( who were accused , tryed and executed for this fact , ) produced these witnesses . one mrs. tilden and mrs. broadstreet , attested that hill ( who dwelt with them ) never kept ill hours , but always came in by eight of the clock ; that he could not go out afterwards , because he waited at table , and the maid catherine lee locked up the doors , and the family went not to bed till eleven ; that particularly he was at home on saturday night , when sir edmundbury godfrey is said to be kill'd ; and on wednesday night when carried away . james warrier attested , that green ( his lodger ) was in his house and company on saturday october the 12th . from seven till after ten at night , and that he exactly remembred it by his work. the three centinels , who successively kept strict guard on the aforesaid wednesday night , at the great gate at somerset-house ( through which 't is affirmed the body was carried out in a sedan ) declared there went out that way no sedan at any hour whatsoever , from seven a clock that night , to four the next morning ; the amplitude of which testimony includes at least three hours immediatly before and after the time sworn to by prance and bedlow . eury's maid attested , that her master came in that same wednesday in the dusk of the evening ; went to bed about 12. and could not well after that go out again , without her knowledge ; the passage to his chamber being through hers . and it is most worthy of observation , that this bury was , and professed himself to be ( both during his imprisonment , and at his very death , ) a protestant of the church of england ; yet this man , though after condemnation he was proffered his life , if he would own the fact ; nevertheless absolutely denyed it to his last breath . and when the very cart was drawing away from under him , he lifted up his hands and said , as i am innocent , so receive my soul , o jesus ; wherefore if the last words of a dying protestant , who might , but would not live , ( by a false accusation of himself or others , ) may be credited ; the papists were innocent of this murder , and the forenamed witnesses perjured in their evidence . as for what is objected about a letter sent from london to tixall , &c. it is answered ( supposing such a letter was really sent and received ) that a letter intimating the murder of a justice of the peace , might well be writ from london on saturday ( when sir edmundbury godfrey was known to be missing ) and arrive at tixall in staffordshire , by the common post on munday following ; and thereupon dugdale might tell the news the self same day , to divers gentlemen at tixall . what of all this ? where 's the inference against the papists ? yet this is all some gentlemen seemed to attest , ( whilst others denyed , ) and all can be necessarily deduced from the receipt of such a letter ; but that this justice of the peace was sir edmundbury godfrey , and that the papists had murdred him , is proved only by the common tract of dugdales peremptory swearing , without any rational motive of credibility . thus much of sir edmundbury godfrey . as for the narratives , and from them deduced stories , of firing the city , burning the navy , black-bills , fire-balls , sham-plots , wild-irish , spanish-pilgrims , with other the like innumerable popperies , and known contradictions to wise men ; though they make a dreadful sound amongst the mobile ; yet carry along with them such an excess of gross and ridiculous nonsence ; that to sober understandings they only serve to demonstrate the perjury of the witnesses , and need no confutation in equitable courts ( such as ours are , ) no wise disposed per fas & nefas , without appearance of justice , to oppress the innocent . and whereas it is alledged , as a main argument of popish guilt , that the two houses of parliament have declared it a plot ; and several persons in several courts of judicature have been tryed , condemned , and executed for it . the papists answer ( with all due submission to the government , in defence of innocence , ) that it is not impossible , nor altogether without president , that a lawful authority proceeding secundum allegata & probata , should be abused ; and consequently drawn into a mistake , by the malice and perjury of wicked men. those who make it their study and trade , to frame artificial lyes , and have time , assistance , and all imaginable encouragement and opportunity for it , may easily invent plausible stories ( with more coherence then any hitherto devised , ) such as may amuse and deceive the most just and prudent persons ; especially in a conjuncture , when a transporting zeal to the protestant , and ( as papists say ) a misconceived prejudice to the catholick religion , influenceth the nation ; nor have all been convicted , who were impeached and tryed upon the plot , but as some have been condemned , so others impeached upon the same evidence , and in the same courts of judicature , have been * acquitted , the wickedness and forgery of the witnesses detected , and their depositions rejected , as unworthy of credit . it is further hoped , the wisdom , justice , and integrity of the state , will at length discover the whole imposture , vindicate the innocent , and punish the injury herein done , to god , to the king , to the nation , and to almost all europe . to the instances given of popish malice , and bloodiness from former examples , ( viz. ) queen mary's cruelties , the powder plot , the irish barbarisme , the french massacre , &c. committed by profest papists . it is answered , that by the same reason , and to as good purpose , the trayterous seditions , and outrages in germany , france , bohemia and holland , authorized and fomented by calvin , swinglins , beza , and other reformers ; the late bloody wars in england , the almost yesterday's remonstrances , and practices in scotland ; the even now actual rebellion in hungary , raised and managed by protestants , for protestanizm ; but above all , that never to be paralelled , hellish murder of the lords annointed , our glorious soveraign charles the first , in cold blood , by outward form of justice , on pretence of reformation , might be imputed to the protestant religion . for all these now mentioned horrid villanies were committed by protestants ; protestants who gloried in being more then ordinarily refined , from popish errors and superstitions . if it be said ( as most justly it may ) the church of england never taught such practices , the same say , and protest the papists in behalf of their church ; but because meer recrimination is no justification on either side ; and for that , a full decision of this heavy charge , dependeth much on the right understanding of roman catholick principles , in matter of obedience to god and the king ; we shall treat of this subject apart by it self , when we come to examine the principles of my lords faith and religion . reflections upon the several above-cited depositions of smith , dugdale , oates and jenison . lastly , the above-cited depositions , respectively made by smith , dugdale , oates , and jenison , in proof of the plot in general , are liable also to divers remarkable exceptions . and the papists stick not here to say , they wonder how so many and gross incongruities , and falshoods , attested only by infamous men , could pass for currunt truths amongst persons of justice , worth , and prudence . for instance . smith in his deposition gives us to understand , that being as yet a protestant , but troubled it seems with some doubts in matters of religion ; he applyed himself for satisfaction to certain priests in france ; they to settle his mind told him , they would shortly bring in their religion into england , right or wrong . ( a notable argument to convince a well-meaning protestant . ) but ne●●er this ( as you may well think , ) nor all the jesuits could say , or do ●ould prevail with him ; so that he lived and studied with them several years , ( a likely story ) remaining still a professed protestant , at length the jesuits desponding ( as well they might ) of their own abilities , herein , sent him to be converted by cardinal grimaldi , and he it was did the feat , which none of the priests or jesuits could compass . the cardinal ( to remove all scruples from the tender conscience of his new convert ; and further to convince his judgment in the truth of his religion , ) entertained him one day with this learned and pious discourse , ( viz. ) that he had great assurances , the popish religion would prevail in england , and that there was but one in the way , and that to accomplish their designs , they must take him out of the way . thus the young man being now well confirmed in his faith , was made a priest , and sent into england with instructions to teach his countrey-men , they were not obliged to obey their king ; and that to murder him was a meritorious act. but the misfortune was , that arriving in england , he quite mistook his errand . and though he continued firm in the belief of the popish doctrine and principles ; yet made it his whole business to root out the jesuits , ( the popes chief emissaries , ) and disswade roman catholicks from sending moneys to colledges beyond seas . dugdale tells us , all the jesuits letters containing damnable treason , and sent for the most part by the common post , came to his hands , most of which he saw and read , but could never produce one single letter . he informs us also of dreadful oaths and sacraments of secrecy , administred to the conspirators , before they were made privy to any dangerous design ; yet with the same breath declares , there were whole armies both privy and ready , to a design no less then of cutting all the protestants throats , throughout the nation at an hours warning . nay he assures us , there was a free pardon of all sins proclaimed every where , at the chappels to all persons , men and women , whosoever would be active in killing the king , ( a notable way of concealing secrets . ) is it possible this fellow should find credit in such gross , such palpable forgeries . oates likewise relates , how that whilst he was chaplain to the duke of norfolk , the priests attempted the utmost of their skill , to perswade him out of his religion , by telling him , the church of england was upon it's last legs . surely the priests took him to be either a notorious fool or knave , for otherwise they might doubtless have devised some more plausible and less dangerous argument to convert a protestant minister ; yet he feigned to be convinced by their reasons , and was hereupon presently entertained by the jesuits , ( the sottish careless jesuits , ) who on a suddain intrusted this neophite with all their concerns , made him privy to all their most damnable intrigues ; and in short , 't is most certain , nothing of treason , murder , or villany , was contrived or even thought on , by them , without him ; by this means he became acquainted , not only with the strange adventures of pickerings loose flint , whipping , thirty thousand masses , &c. but also with the manner of firing the city , introducing chimerical armies , french , irish , spanish , &c. mustered up in the deposition ; nor is it a wonder the jesuits should be so rash in discovering their secrets to oates ; seeing he himself ( if you will believe him ) here also deposeth that some of them were so ●●sperately mad , as to preach a publick sermon before a company of ●●dents ; wherein the kings legitimacy was vilified and abused ; and it was declared , his majesties religion entituled him to nothing but sudden death and destruction . i● i● credible a jesuit or any other in his wits , should publickly preach such black treason to a company of boyes ? but what shall we say of the doctor 's tender conscience and zeal , in preserving the king ? he tells us here , he only feigned himself a catholick on purpose to make discoveries ; ( alas good man ) it was to save his majesties life , made him seem to the papists what he really was not . yet ( o prodigious impudence ) he owns at the same time , he was conscious for above a year together , of the daily attempts made by groves and pickering to shoot the king ; he hourly expected for several months the horrid effects of sir george wakeman's poyson ; he was privy ( as he ad's else-where ) to the designed assassination of the king at windsor ; he knew the ruffians were actually upon the place , and ready for the villany ; he saw the money sent to them for their encouragement , and every moment waited to hear , the fatal stroke was given . nevertheless this man of conscience , whose watchful eye so carefully guarded the king's life , all this while made no discovery ; though he knew for certain , that the pistols were all ready , even at the king's breast ; the cup of poyson at his lips ; and the dagger almost at his very heart ; yet he never cryed out murder upon the lord 's annointed ; never called for immediate succour ; never warned the king of his eminent danger ; never diverted the impending mischief ; never so much as opened his mouth , to disclose any of these horrid treasons , until such time as the king might have been killed a thousand times over . is this the doctors vigilancy ? or rather , is it not perfect demonstration , that all he hath sworn of the plot , is damnable perjury ? jenison declares , that though he often expressed to mr. ireland , an horrid detestation of treason and bloodshed ; yet ireland ( as if he had a mind to hang himself ) was still urging this conscientious man to murder the king ; and when he could not prevail with him herein , he would needs have him at last to nominate some irish ruffians , whom he judged most proper for this execrable villany . and thus far indeed jenison acknowledgeth , he condescended . now one would think a man , who had taken so deep an impression of horrour and detestation of bloodshed , should have had some scruple in concealing so hellish a design ; and much more in nominating the very persons who were to effect it . but that which seems above all most strange is , the mighty reward the jesuits proffered him , in case he would joyn with the four ruffians , in this devilish enterprize . oates informs us , sir george wakeman was to have fifteen thousand pounds to poyson the king , and groves fifteen hundred for shooting him. dugdale also assures us , he had not much less promised for the like attempt ; yet when these jesuits come to beat the price with jenison ( though a man hard to be wrought upon ) they could afford him no more then twenty pounds ; and this only to be remitted of an old debt ; a wonderful encouragement to a scrupulous man , for so desperate and damned an exploit . to conclude this whole matter , the papists aver , if the justice and equity of their cause be impartially considered , the integrity of their principles rightly understood , their formerly experienced loyalty regarded . the contrary practices of their chiefest adversaries remembered . the infamy of the witnesses , and inconsistancy of their evidence duly weighed , there will remain no colour of proof , or even suspicion of this fatal plot , which hath already drawn so much innocent blood , and brought no small confusion both to church and state. the process against my lord in particular . ¶ 3. after a long and accurate discussion of the plot in general , the court proceeded to take cognizance of what in particular affected my lord , the prisoner at the bar. in pursuance hereof , the managers regarding in all things a methodical exactness , first demanded before they produced their evidence , that none of my lords councel might stand near to prompt , or advise him what he should say ; or answer , as to matters of fact , wherewith he was charged . then they began by way of introduction to shew , that they had made it out there was a plot. that this plot was a general design of the popish party ; that it was not likely such a design could be carried on , without the concurrence of persons of great quality . that therefore it was to be presumed , my lord at the bar , a nobleman , and a zealous papist had a share in it ; but what that share was , and how far my lord was engaged , was to appear from the positive evidence . it will not be expected that my lord , one single person of 68. years of age , long imprisoned , no great rhetorician , nor much versed in the law , should take all advantages , improve favourable circumstances , and keep equal measures , in sharpness of wit , and effluence of speech , with his opponents , who were ten or twelve of the greatest lawyers , and ablest judgments of the nation ; nor is it any wonder , if my lord confounded with the multiplicity of arguments ; astonished at the horrour of the objected crimes , discountenanced by the auditory ; and ( as he acknowledged ) half stupified with continual pleading , day after day , without intermission ; did sometimes insist upon matters of less , and omit matters of greater moment , in his own behalf ; yet he seemed to manifest much of candour and sincerity , in all his comportment , and addressing himself to my lords his judges , before he began his plea to the particular evidence against him ; he spoke to this effect . that he was much afflicted to see himself accused by so high an authority , for a crime which above all others , he ever from his heart utterly abhorred ; he renounced and detested with much exaggeration all plots against the king and government ; he abjured all principles leading to such ends ; and disowned all authority upon earth , which might in the least pretend to absolve him from his allegiance . he further shewed how faithful and affectionate he had been , both to the late king in his wars , and to this in his exile ; he declared he had timely notice of his being impeached , and thereupon might ( if he would ) have easily fled ; he likewise acknowledged , that after he was in the tower , both the king and the house of lords had sent him word , that in case he would make a discovery , though he were never so guilty he should have a pardon ; if therefore he had been really conscious of his own guilt , and might have secured himself by either of these means , and would not , he ought to dye for his folly , as well as his crime . he professed he had always a natural abhorrence of blood-shed , insomuch that he could not wish the death , even of his adversaries that swore against him . lastly , he desired ( as necessary to his defence , ) copies of some depositions made by the witnesses before several authorities , on several occasions ; which copies after a long debate upon it , were granted . now begin the particular depositions , of each particular witness directly against my lord , upon which the house of commons grounded their impeachment . to these depositions as they severally occur , i shall adjoyn my lords immediate answer ; and to his answer , the mannagers reply , that so both confusion and unnecessary repetitions , inconsistent with a compendium , may be avoided ; furthermore , because the mannagers in summing up their evidence , made divers ingenious observations , and urged many reasons to uphold their several charges , not mentioned in the body of the tryal . and also for that the papists afirm , there was more of flourishing rhetorick , then strength of argument in the said observations ; the order of law , not premitting my lord , in the close of the tryal to rejoyn upon them . i shall ( to give the best satisfaction i can to all parties ) annex here the plain substance , both of the said mannagers observations , and the papists answers , as they respectively occur , to each particular evidence . dugdale's deposition against my lord. the first witness that gave evidence to the particular impeachment , was stephen dugdale , who swore : that at a certain meeting held at tixal in stafford-shire , about the latter end of august , or the beginning of september ; ( 78. ) my lord did ( together with the lord aston and others , in the presence of dug-dale ) give his deliberate full consent , to take away the kings life , and introduce the popish religion . that on the 20th . or 21st . of september ( 78. ) in the forenoon , my lord then residing at tixal , sent for him the said dugdale to his chamber , by one of his servants , either his gentleman or page , whilst he was dressing ; that when he came in , my lord sent out his servants , and being there alone together ; my lord offered him 500 l. for his charges and encouragement , to take away the kings life , and farther told him he , should have free pardon of all his sins , and should be sainted ; for the king had been excommunicated , and was likewise a traitor and a rebel , and an enemy to jesus christ . my lords exceptions . to this deposition my lord made several grand exceptions . the first was , that dugdale was a person of an infamous life . that he had cheated the lord aston his master , and defrauded work-men and servants of their wages . that by his extravagancies and misdemeanours , he had run himself into several hundred pounds debt ; for which he was thrown into goal , and despaired of ever getting out from thence , otherwise then by making the pretended discoveries . for proof of all which my lord produced these witnesses . mr. sandbidge , an old man , and a protestant attested , that dugdale was a knave , and notoriously known , both by him and all the countrey to be a wicked man. thomas sawyer attested , dugdale went from my lord astons , involved in deep debts ; that whilst he was bayliff to my lord aston , he received and placed to my lord's account , several work-mens wages , which he never paid to the said work-men ; whereupon great clamours and complaints were made of him in the countrey ; that being arrested for debt , my lord aston would not own him for his servant , at which dugdale swore he would be revenged on him . the same thing as to dugdales sinister dealing , his being in debt , imprisoned , and disowned by the lord aston , were attested by sir walter baggot , mr. whitby , a justice of peace , and mr. phillips minister of tixal . from hence my lord drew a second iuference , ( viz ) that had the lord aston , and the rest been guilty , ( as dugdale accused them , ) it was highly improbable , the said lord should adventure to exasperate , discard , and leave to goal and ruin , a man , at whose mercy they all lay , and who might to retreive his desperate fortune , by making discoveries , utterly destroy both their designs and them . to confront the testimony of the foregoing witnesses , the mannagers produced others in favour of dugdale ; and as to the matters of his debts and beggery . mr. noble , stephen colledge , ( the protestant joyner , lately executed for high-treason at oxford ) and mr. boson a lawyer , deposed , that at dugdale's intreaty , they went with him to the tower , to assist him in adjusting his accounts with the lord aston , but could not accomplish it , by reason my lord would not , ( till the return of a certain councellour out of the countrey , ) let them see a book , wherein dugdale said his discharges were ; and that dugdale told them , my lord aston was indebted to him ( things rightly stated ) two hundred pounds . to this my lord stafford reply'd , he should have something to say ; and desired the lord aston might be admitted to give an account of this matter ; but it was answer'd , that the lord aston stood indicted for the same treason , and could not be a witness . then my lord desired mr. lievtenant of the tower might speak what he knew . hereupon mr. lievtenant declared , that the lord aston would have come to an account with dugdale in his ( the lievtenants ) presence ; but that dugdale put it off , and said he would come some other time ; but from that time to this , he never heard of him . upon these testimonies the mannagers made these following observations ▪ first , it was manifest from several circumstances , that dugdale went not away from tixal for debt , ( as seems here to be pretended , ) but for fear of being apprehended for the plot , which argues he was then conscious of his own guilt in that matter . secondly , whereas sawyer attests , that dugdale swore he would be revenged on my lord aston , because he would not own him for his servant , when arrested for debt ; if this were true , yet seeing this revenge was not intended against my lord stafford , but against my lord aston ; it is impertinent to be urged against dugdale's present evidence . to which the papists answer . to the first , it is no wonder , if at a time when roman catholicks were universally suspected and persecuted on account of the plot ; dugdale though not conscious of any guilt , either in himself or others ; yet being then a catholick , and hitherto undetermined to set up for an evidence , was in some apprehensions of comming into trouble , and might therefore withdraw upon that score . but what is that to the present purpose ? is it not also undeniably proved here . that dugdale was in debt : that for debt he was arrested and imprisoned : that for his misdemeanors , and not for religion he was discarded by his master ; that at last beggery had surrounded him , revenge possessed him , and desperation seized him . if this hath been clearly proved , 't is no hard matter to judge what was his end and aim in making his discoveries ; and my lords further inferences hereupon are soild and good ▪ to the second , the evidence given of dugdale's revenge , was not produced as if the said revenge was chiefly intended against my lord stafford , but only to shew that dugdale was now upon the point of bidding adieu to conscience and honesty , and desirous to satisfie at once , both his malice , and penury ; he contrived his plot ( after the model given him by oates and bedlow ) wherein he accused some out of revenge , and others , ( amongst whom my lord stafford ) as the most proper persons , to compleat the number of actors in his tragick farce . in defence of dugdale's reputation in point of honesty . mr. whitby declared , that dugdale had been long my lord aston's servant , received my lord's rents , made his bargains , and governed the rest of the family : that he dealt honestly with him ; that he had heard indeed some trades-men complain he put them off without money , and would not pay them : but that my lord would hear nothing against him . william southal a coroner deposed , that he knew no ill of mr. dugdale , that he was the lord aston's bayliff , and had a good repute with all those people who had dependence on the family ; but that he himself never had any business with him . then he ( the said southal ) gave a large relation how he had perswaded dugdale ( being then in custody for debt ) to discover the plot ; by putting him in mind of his duty and allegiance to the king ; and assuring him , if he would make a timely discovery , he should not only obtain his majesties gracious paerdon , but also a reward of two hundred ponnds . by force of which argument , dugdale at last assented to make discoveries ; and accordingly gave in his several depositions , first in the countrey before two justices of the peace , afterwards before the councel ; and lastly before the two houses of parliament . concerning this southal , the lord ferrers informed the court , that he had been very active against the king in the late wars , and had the repute of a pernicious man against the government . to impugne which information , the lord brook declared in behalf of southal , that his mother had imployed him , and found him honest in their affairs ; and mr. gower farther testified , that he found southal extraordinarily zealous in prosecuting the papists . upon these evidences , the mannagers made these observations , first , mr. whitby not only declares , that dugdale had dealt honestly by him ; but that my lord aston himself would hear nothing against him . secondly , it is not always the stewards fault , if workmen to great persons sometimes want their wages . thirdly , mr. southal an understanding and zealous man , had ( with much difficulty and strong arguments , ) the good fortune ▪ at last to succeed , in parswading mr. dugdale to make a fair and plain discovery of the whole plot , to the great happiness , not only of mr. dugaale , but of the whole nation to which the papists answer : to the first , though dugdale perhaps dealt honestly with mr. whitby , yet he might be a knave , and deal dishonestly with other people for all that . and if my lord aston refused to hear any thing against him , this very refusal argues there were complaints made of him ; and my lord himself , in time both gave ear to his crimes , and discarded him for them , as is already proved . to the second , those stowards who receiving moneys of their masters , to pay poor labourers their wages , shall ( as dugdale did ) defrand them of it ▪ the better to defray their own extravagant expences , are no honest men. to the third , the papists do not understand , to what purpose this testimony of southal's is here produced ; for it is granted , that dugdale being in goal , and brought to extremity , did after much struggling and reluctancy of conscience , abandon his soul to perjury ; and conceiving fair hopes of success , by the prosperous adventures of oates and bedlow , by the present promise of 200 l. and by the perswasion of southal , a notorious cromwellian , at last plunged himself into deep and horrid oaths , not only incredible , but morally impossible to be true . the second weighty exception made by my lord against dugdale's deposition was , that he had directly and palpably perjured himself , in divers parts and circumstances of his said deposition . for instance of this , first , dugdale now swears , he had an exact knowledge , and deep concern in the plot. he was not only a confident , but an assistant in raising armies , killing the king , &c. now my lord proved by several irrefragable witnesses ; that the said dugdale had before at sundry times , and on sundry occasions , with dreadful oaths and execrations , professed he knew nothing of any such thing . the witnesses were these . sir walter baggot and mr. kinnersley , both parliament-men , attested ; that dugdale being examined before them , and other justices of the peace , though he then took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy in their presence , yet absolutely denyed any knowledge of the plot. mr. whitgrave also a justice of the peace , attested , that he earnestly pressed and encouraged dugdale to make a discovery of what he knew ; telling him , now he had taken the oaths , they looked upon him as one of them ; and that he would do him all the kindness he could : to which dugdale answered , truly for his part , though he had the misfortune to live amongst papists , yet he never liked their religion . then mr. whitgrave urged him home , saying , sir you may do your self a kindness , and oblige your king and country : i am confident you know of this horrid plot ; pray do not stifle your conscience with an oath of secrecy : let it come out ; dugdale replyed , as he hoped to be saved , be knew nothing of it . thomas sawyer attested , that two or three days before dugdale began to impeach , being then at stafford under the serjeants hands for debt , he took a glass of drink in the presence of sawyer , and said , thomas , i wish this may be my damnation , and my poison , if i know of any plot or priest . upon these evidences the mannagers made this observation , ( viz. ) that dugdale 's denying , and with execrations forswearing any knowledge of the plot , is no manner of objection ; for he forswore it at a time , when he never intended to reveal it , and was in danger of his own life ; but afterwards he changed his mind , and discovered all to southal , and others . to which the papists answer : it is very strange , so palpable a perjury proved upon dugdale by so substantial witnesses , in the whole system and essence of his testimony , should be so slightly evaded . is it no manner of objection to prove that dugdale is forsworn in his whole discovery ? must credit be given to the depositions of a man , in a matter , whereof he himself with dreadful oaths and execrations hath often protested the contrary ? is the conviction of perjury by the testimony of his own mouth nothing ? why ? because out of fear in his former oaths , he never intended to swear truth . is this a rational answer ? nay is it not rather perfectly demonstrative from what is already proved ; that for fear , for lucre , for revenge , for liberty , this man hath actually sworn to express coniradictions , and will not stick upon the same motives to swear any thing . secondly , dugdale had determinately sworn at sir george wakeman's tryal ( as my lord proved by two substantial witnesses , the lady marchioness of winchester , and madam howard ) that the meeting or consult at tixal , mentioned in the deposition , wherein my lord is said to have been present , and consenting to the killing of the king ; was held precisely in the month of august ( 78. ) now my lord proved he never was at or near tixal during that whole month ; nor came thither till the 12th of september following . this he shewed by giving an exact account where he was , every week and day throughout that month. the witnesses who gave respective evidence to each particular time and place , were , the marquess of worcester , the marchioness of winchester , mr. bonny , white and bevan , servants to the said marquess . upon those testimonies , the mannagers made these observations : first , the two ladies who gave evidence to dugdale's words spoken at sir george wakeman's tryal , were roman catholicks and relations to my lord. secondly , they did not agree in their evidence with one another . the lady marchioness saying , dugdale swore that my lord stafford was to come down into staffordshire in june or july , and was present at the consult at tixal in august . madam howard saying , dugdale swore my lord stafford did come down into stafforashire in june or july ; and was present at the consult at tixal in august . thirdly , the said ladies having much concern upon them for sir george wakeman the popish physitian , they might easily mistake in what they heard . fourthly , in the printed tryal ; there are no such words of dugdale's mentioned . to which the papists answer : to the first , the two ladies , though roman catholicks , are persons of that quality and known vertue , as admit of no comparison in point of credit with the witnesses produced against my lord. that to vilify my lord's witnesses because roman catholicks , is contrary to law , and denotes an exasperated mind , willing to deprive catholicks of a just defence . to the second , the different manner or phrase the ladies used in expressing themselves in point of circumstance , is not at all material , seeing they both joyntly agree , and determinately attest ; that dugdale swore my lord was at tixal in august , and then and there present at the consult . which was the substantial thing wherein my lord proveth him perjured . to the third , a deep concern occasioneth an attention rather then a mistake : and a pretence of a mistake in a positive witness , is an evasion , whereby any verbal testimony whatsoever may be eluded . to the fourth , catholicks have experience that many considerable matters have been omitted , or otherwise inserted in the printed tryals , to the disadvantage of their cause : and as those printed copies , though pleaded , were never allowed to be good evidence for them , so ought they not to be alledged against them . thirdly , dugdale swears in his deposition : that at tixal on the 20th . or 21th . of september ( 78. ) my lord sent for him by one of his servants to his chamber , in the morning whilst he was dressing ; ( which servant also dugdale swears , was either mr. furnesse my lords gentleman , or george leigh his page : ) and that when dugdale came into the chamber , my lord sent out his said servants ; and being thus with him alone , offered him five hundred pounds to kill the king. in direct opposition to these particulars , my lord proved , by the attestation of the self same servants , mr. furnesse and george leigh ; that he never sent for dugdale , never was with him alone in his chamber ; nor never dismissed his servants for that end , all that morning . for the evincing of which , mr. furnesse my lords gentleman attested : that he about eight a clock that morning , coming to my lords chamber , met dugdale in the hall. dugdale desired him he would intreat my lord to intercede to the lord aston his master in his behalf , that he might go to etching race : hereupon furnesse went into my lords chamber , and having spoken to my lord , as dugdale desired , my lord bid him be called in ; accordingly furnesse conducted dugdale into the chamber ; when he came in , my lord asked him several questions about the race , telling him , he himself would bett twenty pounds for staffordshire sake ; then , after some discourse to this purpose , my lord stafford told him , he would speak to his lord for him ; during all which time furnesse was present in the chamber , together with my lord and dugdale , and heard the discourse between them . when dugdale had obtained his request , he went out of my lord's chamber , leaving furnesse still there ; my lord also as soon as he was drest went out of his chamber to my lord aston , to ask him leave for dugdale ; bidding furnesse make himself ready to go to the race . furnesse accordingly made himself ready about nine a clock , and coming down the back-stairs my lord stafford met him : go ( saith he ) to etching-hill , and see what betts there are , and take stephen dugdale along with you to shew you the way , for i have asked his lord leave for him to go : upon this dugdale having now leave , went along with furnesse to the stable , and took horse ; furnesse his horse was not ready , but he overtook dugdale within half a mile , and they arrived at the race together about twelve a clock : my lord himself ( with other persons of quality ) came to the race not long after , and returned back to tixal about seven at night . the same mr. furnesse and george leigh both attested , that my lord never sent either of them for dugdale ; that he never bid them go out of the chamber , or absent themselves whilst dugdale alone remained with him : no , nor did they know that my lord was ever alone with dugdale , either that morning , or in his whole life . to infringe the last particle of this last evidence , the mannagers produced these witnesses . mr. hanson deposed ; that he once saw dugdale with my lord in the parlour at tixal ; but durst not be positive whether they were alone or not . william ansell deposed , that passing through the court at tixal , he saw my lord walking with dugdale ; that he heard no discourse between them ; that there might be more in the company , but he saw no more : and lastly added , that talking one day with dugdale about the plot , dugdale answered : god blast him if he knew any thing of it . upon these evidences the mannagers made these observations . first , my lords two witnesses , furness and leigh , were his own servants . secondly , they were very positive in a matter hard to remember , ( viz ) that dugdale never was in my lords company : and therefore that easie credit should not be given to them , but rather to hanson and ansell , who both swear , that they have seen my lord and dugdale together . to which the papists answer : these common sophismes and weak objections made to the convincing evidence here given by my lord in confutation of the main matter laid to his charge , argue the mannagers at a loss for an answer . to the first , whom could my lord produce but his servants , to contradict the falsities of a man that pretends to have heard him speak treason whilst he was dressing in his bed-chamber ? are ponest servants , because servants no good witnesses ? to the second ; though it should be granted that at other times ▪ and upon other occasions , dugdale might have been in my lord's company , either unknown to his servants , or not remembred by them , or even by my lord himself , ( which is the utmost of what the testimony of hanson and ansell can amount to ) yet this doth not at all weaken my lord's evidence , nor clear dugdale from perjury herein : for the chief things which my lord ▪ s two servants well remembred , distinctly attested , and by most remarkable circumstances fully proved ; was , that my lord did not send either of them for dugdale ; nor was dugdale alone with my lord in his chamber , on the 21th ▪ of september in the morning : on all which particulars dugdale laid the stress of his evidence ; and here it is , he is directly perjured . fourthly dugdale at the forenamed tryal of sir george wakeman positively swore ( as my lord proved by two witnesses , mr. gyfford and mr. lydcot , both present at the said tryal , ) that he the said dugdale , having received a letter on the 14th . of october , which mentioned the death of a justice of peace , did the same day at an ale-house in tixal , impart the contents of the said letter to mr. sambidge , kinsman to my lord aston , and mr. philips , minister of tixal ; and that they answered , they heard nothing of it before . now to confute this , my lord produced for witnesses the same mr. sambidge and mr. philips . mr. sambidge protested upon his salvation , dugdale never told him any such thing ; nor did he ever hear of it , till the friday or saturday sir edmundbury godfrey was found at bury-hill . mr. philips attested , that he never heard of it , either by letter or word of mouth , from dugdale or any other , till the death of sir edmundbury godfrey was publickly known . to ballance this evidence , the mannagers produced these witnesses . mr. ansel deposed , that at the ale-house , and day above named , he heard mr. dugdale mention the death of a justice of peace ; mr. sambidge and mr. philips being then both in the house , but not in the same room with ansel , when dugdale told the news . william hanson deposed ; that at the time and place aforesaid , he heard dugdale say , there was a justice of peace murdered , that lived at westminster ; and that when dugdale told this news , mr. sambidge , and mr. philips were by , and might have heard it , if they would . mr. birch and mr. turton both attested , that about the fifteenth or sixteenth of the same october , the news of sir edmundbury godfreys death , was spread about the countrey , and seemed to take its first rise from tixal . upon these several evidences , the mannagers made these observations . first , mr. sambidge was something deaf , and might not here when dugdale told him the news of the death of a justice of peace . secondly , mr. phillips the parson ▪ being perhaps very studious in his employment , might be wanting in point of memory . thirdly , the other witnesses produced in confirmation of dugdel's evidence , make it our , that he did impart the news at the time , place , and in the presence of the parties above-mentioned . to which the papists answer . to the first , if what the mannagers alledge be true , then is dugdale here also proved perjured by the mannagers themselves ; for he expresly swore at the said tryal of sir george wakeman , that mr. sambidge both heard and answered him . saying , he heard nothing of the news before . to the second , no honest man affirms or denies any past words or actions , but according as he remembers ; and to pretend want of memory in a direct evidence , is the common road , whereby to evade all humane testimony . to the third , the other witnesses on behalf of dugdale , do in no sort make out the thing for which they are produced ; for ansel doth not own , that philips and sambidge were so much as in the same room with dugdale , when he mentioned the death of a justice of peace . hanson indeed ( herein contradicting ansel ) tells us they were in the room , but could not say they heard , much less answered , to the discourse of dugdale ; which is the chief matter of perjury here charged upon him . as for what mr. birch and turton declared , concerning the rumour soon after spread of the death of sir edmundbury godfrey , it nothing at all enervates the present proof of periury , seeing it may well be true , there was such a report , and yet false , that dugdale had such a discourse with sambidge and philips , as he positively swears , and they both as positively deny . but enough hath been already said upon this subject , where we treated of the death of sir edmundbury godfrey . fifthly , dugdale in an information given upon oath , swore ; that presently after one howard , almoner to the queen went beyond the seas , he was told by george hobson , then servant to the lord aston , that there was a design intended for the reformation of the government to the popish religion . now it was owned and acknowledged in court , point blank contrary to this information : that the said hobson was not servant to the lord aston , nor known by dugdale , three years after the departure of the said almoner out of england . upon this proof of dugdale's perjury the mannagers made this observation , ( viz ) that dugdale's words cited in the information , are capable of two senses , either they may import , hobson told him there was a design ever since the almoner went away ; or they may import , hobson told him presently after the almoner went away , there was a design ; the first sense may refer to the matter told : the second to the time when told : the words taken in the first sense , argue no contradiction in dugdale's testimony . to which the papists answer : the words of the information taken in their plain , obvious and connatural sense , clearly import ; hobson related to dugdale , there was a design , which relation hobson made to dugdale presently after the time one howard went beyond the seas ; nor can any other construction be put upon the words , without manifestly wresting them from their genuine signinification , as every impartial reader may see ; so that the proof here given of dugdales perjury is unanswerable . the third main exception made by my lord against dugdale's deposition , was , that he , being conscious of his ill grounded evidence , had endeavoured to suborn divers persons , to make false oaths ; that so he might strenghten his own , by others perjury . to make good this exception . samuel holt a protestant , attested , that dugdale desiring to speak privately with him , told him , if he would swear that walter moore carryed mr. evers away , he would give him forty pounds ; bidding him not be affraid to swear for fear of my lord aston , for he would hire him an horse to get to london , and place him so , that where he now got one shilling , he should then get five . william robinson attested , that meeting with dugdale about a twelve month ago , he the said dugdale perceiving robinson to be then dejected and poor ; endeavoured to corrupt him , by giving him a treat , and assuring him , he should not want money , if he would please to be ruled by him ; then he took an handkerchief out of his pocket , wherein there seem'd to be about ten pounds , and bid him , if he wanted , take money there . and lastly told him , he could furnish him with money , and put him in a way to get money , if he would come in as evidence against my lord stafford ; which robinson refused to do , not knowing my lord , or any thing of him . john morral a barber , gave attestation in these words , mr. dugdale , the 6th . of august last was twelve month , sent for me to the white horse in ridgley ; and there when i came to him , he told me , i knew as much of the plot as he : i told him , i was innocent of the thing ; he swore , god dam him , i knew as much as he . then i told him , if he knew no more of it then i did , he knew no more then my lord mayors great horse did . then he took me aside ; come ( said he ) you are a poor man , and live poorly , i can put you in a way whereby you may live gallantly ; i will give you fifty pounds in hand , if so be you will swear against mr. howard , sir james simmons , mr. herbert aston , and other gentlemen of the countrey ; that they were at such meetings , at mr. herbert astons upon the conspiracy of the plot. to take off the credit of the two first witnesses in this matter , ( viz. ) holt and robinson ( nothing material being objected against morral or his evidence , ) the mannager ▪ s produced witnesses to prove they were persons of evil reputation . against holt , one sampson rawlins a taylor deposed , that holt was a drunken lewd fellow ; that he heard him say , there were none but rogues would take dugdale's part ; that he stole some bottles of wine out of my lord astons celler ; that he called him the said rawlins rogue , because he came up in his majesties service ; and would have murdered him , because he took dugdales part . against robinson , the earl of macklesfield , and mr. booth a parliament man , both deposed , that robinson was a person of evil and prophane conversation , making a practice of cheating at dice , cock-fighting , &c. that he owned himself , upon examination , to be a rogue ; and had no other imployment or livelihood . to these unquestionable evidences against robinson , my lord reply'd , he knew nothing of robinson before ; and added , it was very observable , that dugdale knowing , it seems his friend and comrade robinson to be a cheat , and then in want , thought him a tool fittest for his purpose , the most easily prevailed upon , and most proper to make a knight of the post . so that the two last worthy witnesses , did by their evidence , rather confirm then lessen the belief of dugdale's tampering with robinson herein . upon these several evidences , the mannagers made these observations : first , it was not likely , that dugdale a stranger to robinson , should attempt to suborn him to swear against a person he knew not , and in a matter whereof he was wholly ignorant . secondly , it doth not appear , that dugdale had any ill will to moore , that should induce him to suborn holt to swear against him . thirdly , both robinson and holt were infamous men ; the one being a common cheat , the other a drunken quarrelsom fellow , and seeming to favour the plotters . fourthly , morral was but a poor barber , of no reputation , and one who might easily be brought to say what he did . to which the papists answer : to the first , robinson was no stranger to dugdale ; he was ( as the earl of macklesfeild and mr. booth attested ) every where about staffordshire , remarkably known for cheating at dice , cock-sightings , races , &c. ( exercises also frequent with dugdale himself ; ) nor is it material that robinson knew not my lord stafford , nor any thing of him : it was not dugdale's ▪ business to find out a man , who to discharge a good conscience would swear what he knew ; but who to get money would swear what he knew not ; for which purpose dugdale had good reason to think robinson a very proper instrument . to the second , it is plain matter of fact , that dugdale having accused and imprisoned moore for carrying away e●ers , but not able to prove it , he would have hired holt to make out his false accusation . to the third , if robinson and holt were cheats and rogues , my lord well inferred , they were the more likely to be chosen by dugdale for such imployments as he had for them ▪ though for holt , the greatest offence laid to his charge seems to be , that he quarrelled with dugdale's witnesses , as thinking no honest man would take his part . to the fourth , though morral was poor , yet it doth not appear but that he was so honest , as not to be suborned to perjury by dugdale ; and therefore his clear and positive evidence in this matter ought to stand good . but let it be granted , what the mannagers contest for , ( viz ▪ ) that because morral was poor , holt quarrelsome , and robinson infamous ; none of these three witnesses ought to be believed ; what then will become of all the kings witnesses ? ( as they term them , ) what shall we believe or say of them ? are they persons of repute , riches , and honour ? are they not rather the scum and refuse of the nation ? why must credit be denyed to beggers or knaves , when they accuse their coequals in probable matters ? without hopes of gain ? and yet the same credit be allowed to the like beggars and knaves , when they swear against persons of honour , moral impossibilities and contradictions upon large hopes and promises of reward ? this the papists take to be hard measure . to counterpoise in some sort this charge of subornation laid to dugdale . the mannagers alledged the like proceedings on my lords side : to prove which , thomas launder deposed , that my lord astons friends had summoned him up to my lord astons tryal , to give evidence against ansel and dugdale ; and that he was to have an horse to ride on , and money in his pocket . simon wright , barber to dugdale , deposed , that mr. plessington told him , if he could find a way to take off dugdale's evidence , or destory him , he should have seven hundred pounds . and that the said plessington and others , would have had him swear point blank , that dugdale would have hired him to give evidence against mrs. price , and mr. tasborough . my lord at once to confound this man , by his own testimony , and further to detect the subornation of dugdale also in this matter ; produced a letter or paper , writ and signed by wright himself to sir james simmons : in these words , i can , i bless god ▪ with a safe conscience declare , upon oath ; that mr. dugdale hath been unkind to me , in taking his opportunity of my poverty ; by reason of a private meeting of us two by his appointment ; he did at that time proffer , if i would swear against you , and mr. gerrard , he would protect me as one of the kings evidence , and i should not want money . and in the hall at westminster , he said , if i did discover it that day at mrs. price 's tryal , he would set me in the pillory . this i have owned to his face , and shall not go back from this , and more , for fear , nor favour . so i rest as you shall find by your servant : simon wright . this letter wright acknowledged to be his own hand word for word ▪ but said , plessington and others had perswaded him to write it . thus the man swearing and vnswearing contradictions against himself ; my lord only reply'd , see what you have under his own hand , i have no more to say to him . upon this diversity of evidence , the mannagers made this observation , ( viz. ) that the attempts made to silborn launder and wright , were manifest signs my lords agents endeavoured by sinister ways to vindicate his cause . to which the papists answer . it is not conceivable how the evidence given by launder and wright can draw the least suspision of subornation on my lord or his friends : for the proposal made to launder was by my lord aston's friends , and in behalf of my lord aston , and not of my lord stafford . besides the words understood with that candor and sincerity they seem to have been spoken by my lord aston's friends , import no more then this . that if launder would like an honest man , give true testimony of what he knew against ansel and dugdale , at my lord aston's intended tryal at london ; his necessary expences should be born , and the convenience of an horse provided for his journey thither . where 's the subornation here ? as for wright indeed , he is a person of that matchless worth , and hath given so clear proofs , both of his own unshaken integrity , and dugdale's innocence ; that he hath highly d●●erved the title , credit , dignity , and other the emoluments of an associate to the king's evidence . in fine , he hath said so much both for himself and dugdale , the papists know not what , or how to say more . the last great exception made by my lord against dugdale's deposition was : that dugdale swore in this very tryal , the jesuits had entrusted him with all their letters , that there came to his hands whole packets to and from several persons , in several places , all containing most damnable treason ; many of which , he said , he opened , read and knew the contents : yet though the preserving two or three ; nay , even one single letter , under the authors hand , might have been so highly advantageous to the proving the truth , both of his own evidence , and the whole plot in general : nevertheless he could not produce one scrip or line to back his assertion , or clear himself from the forgeries laid to his charge . to obviate this exception ; the mannagers brought in two sisters , elizabeth and anne elder : these sisters deposed ; that dugdale coming one day to their house with several bundles of papers in his pockets and breeches , desired them to burn them ; saying , the times were troublesome , and he being to travel to divers places , if he were taken people would think him a plotter , having all those papers about him : that hereupon elizabeth burnt all the papers , except one book , concerning which anne asked dugdale , whether or no that also should be burnt ? he answered no , lay that by , it may do good seven years hence ; there is no treason in it . elizabeth reply'd , is there any thing of treason in the others ? he said , do you think there is ? elizabeth further deposed ; she did see mr. dugdale take a glass of sider , and hear him say , and wish it might be his damnation ; and he might sink in the place where he stood , if he knew any thing of the plot. from the testimony of these two sisters , the managers drew these inferences . first dugdale 's fears and apprehensions in burning so many bundles of papers , denote there were matters contained in them , which if known , would have discovered the plot. secondly , when the question was proposed to dugdale , whether his little book should be burnt or no : he answered ; no , there was no treason in it ; which ambiguous manner of expression , argues there was something of treason in the other bundles . to which the papists answer . to the first , it is not credible ; that dugdale as yet a catholick should bring to an alehouse , and deliver to two women , in the very heat of the discovery of the plot , his pockets and breeches full of papers , containing high treason : surely he might with more secrecy and safety , have burnt them in his chamber . but in short , if what the women attest be true ; it is very easie to learn from the very words of dugdale himself , the reason why he brought , and caused to be burnt those useless writings , ( viz. ) not because there was any treason in them , but because the times , ( as he said ) being troublesome , such bundles of papers found about a travelling papist , though never so innocent , would afford matter of search , and suspition of his being a plotter . to the second , why should we amuse our selves or others with extorted inferences drawn from ambiguous expressions here ; none surely knows dugdale's mind better then dugdale himself ; we have his words attested by this very witness , to declare his meaning , let him tell us in plain english his own sentiment in this affair . i wish ( saith he ) this may be my damnation , and that i may sink in the place where i stand , if i know any thing of the plot. now let the world judge of dugdale and his meaning . titus oates's deposition against my lord. the next witness that gave evidence to the impeachment against my lord , was titus oates , who swore , that in the year ( 77. ) whilst he remained in spain , and at st. omers , he saw several letters signed stafford , wherein my lord assured the jesuits of his fidelity and zeal , in promoting the catholick design . that in the year ( 78. ) the said oates being then in london , my lord came to the chamber of one ●enwick a jesuit now executed , and there received a commission from him in oats's presence , to be pay master-general to the army : that upon a discourse with the said fenwick , my lord said , he was of necessity to go down into the country to take account how affairs stood there : and did not doubt , but at his return groves should do the busines and further added , speaking of the king ; he hath deceived us a great while , and we can bear no longer . my lords exceptions . against these depositions , my lord made these several exceptions . the first was grounded thus ; it was not to be imagin'd , that so many and great conspirators , so well provided with moneys , and preferments , as oates pretends ; all engaged in a design so dangerous , so important to them to be kept secret , would or durst permit doctor oates their cabinet councellour , and main engine , to be reduced to such an extremity of want and penury , that he had not bread to put in his mouth . yet my lord was ready to prove in open court , that at the very nick of time , when this oates would have men believe , he was most entrusted and employed in carrying on the conspiracy , just then he was in so poor and despicable a condition , so forsaken and contemned by all , for his debauched life ; that he begged at doors for six-pence . to this doctor oates himself answered , he would save my lord the trouble of proving any such thing ; saying , a mans poverty was no objection against his honesty ; and as he had not six-pence in his pocket when he began the discovery , so hath he often wanted two-pence since the same discovery ; having expended several hundreds of pounds in his majesties service , more then he had received : to prove this he made a calculation of sums given him by great persons , sums allowed for taking of jesuits , and sums gained by printing of narratives , of all which he said , he had nothing left . upon this argument of my lord 's drawn from oates beggery &c. the managers made no observations . why they did not , is a question ; some say because the doctor himself undertook to answer it : others affirm , because they knew the more they stirred in it , the worse it would be ; and so thought best to bury it in silence and oblivion . to the answer therefore given by doctor oates ; the papists reply , poverty is an objection against honesty in a person addicted ( as oates was ) to idleness , vice , and debanchery : and though a man may be poor and honest too , yet the same man at the same time , and in the same circumstances oates pretends to have been in , could never be poor and a plotter too : could he be privy to all the grand commissions ? could he be imployed in all the deep and damnable consults ? could he have at his mercy the lives and fortunes of all the chief conspirators ? men stocked with banks of money , sufficient ( if we will believe him ) to raise armies , and provide for two hundred thousand soldiers ? could this man nevertheless starve in a manner for bread ? could he beg for an alms at the papists doors ? could he be rejected and contemned as an idle vagabond , by the very persons who thus had put their lives into his hand ? this is such a paradox , as none in their senses will ever believe . but the most pleasant passage ( if there could be any pleasure in bloody perjury ) is his miraculous way of spending great sums out of nothing , in his majesties service : he confesseth he had not six-pence at the breaking forth of the plot ; yet he swears he is several hundreds of pounds worse since the discovery of it . how came he then by all this money ? why , he got it by way of presents from some great persons , by taking of jesuits , and printing of narratives : but did not all these gains accure unto him on the account of the plot ? on what other score were these presents made by great persons ? had he any other trade or livelyhood then that of the kings evidence ? is it not too manifest those guifts were bestowed on him as a reward of past , and encouragement of future swearing ? would to god such great persons would duly consider the dismal consequences which necessarily follow such rewards : the second exception made by my lord against oates's evidence , was ; that the said oates had perjured himself in two depositions , directly contradictory to each other : for proof of this , my lord appealed to divers of the lords themselves , who were present at both the said depositons ; amongst whom the earl of berckley being required to speak what he knew : attested , that my lord chancellour did ask doctor oates at the bar of the house this question , ( viz. ) my lords desire to know if you can accuse any other person or persons of what quality soever ? and you are encouraged by their lordships to accuse them . oates his answer was , my lords , i have no more to accuse in relation to england : notwithstanding which deposition , he afterwards in another ( with unspeakable insolence ) expresly accused the queen in a matter ( as he thought ) of no less then high treason , from hence my lord concluded , if the first deposition was true , oates was perjured in the latter : if the latter was true , he was perjur'd in the first ; so that which of the two soever is true or false , he is guilty of perjury . upon this proof , the managers made these observations . first doctor oates having said much , and having many things in his head , could peradventure not remember on a sudden this particular of the queen . secondly , the evidence which doctor oates gave afterwards of the queen was not positive , nor of his own knowledge , but words which he heard spoken in a room in which he was not himself ; but coming in afterwards , he saw the queen there . thirdly , it might not be so clear to doctor oates whether the queen was a person capable of an accusation , so as to be tryed for treason . to which the papists answer . to the first , 't is an evasion contradictory to common sense ; that a man whose business and study it was to discover a plot against the life of the king , and who by several long premeditated depositions , had ( as he said ) discharged himself of all he knew should notwithstanding all this while never remember the most essential part . ( viz. ) the inhumane murder of the king , designed and consented to by his own royal consort . to the second , oates depos●ed upon oath he heard such words , and circumstanced them with such particulars of time and place , as plainly denote he intended a full and home accusation against the queen . and granted , his evidence was not positive , yet the matter was of such dangerous consequence , as ought not to to be concealed , especially , at a time when he was upon his oath , to speak all he knew , and when he pretended by discoveries to save the life of the king. to the third , though oates left to himself 〈◊〉 be very stupid , yet he could not be so ignorant as not to know , that a queen designing to murder the king her husband , is guilty of treason ; and whether she was lyable to a tryal or no. oates was guilty of perjury ; in that being commanded and encouraged by the lords to make an entire discovery of all he knew against any person of what degree or quality soever ; he expresly swore , he had no more to accuse in england . indeed the transcendent lustre of the queens virtue , innocence and endeared affection to his majesty , leaves no place for calumny to six upon : and the bare charge of so soul a crime , upon so renowned a goodness , is of it self independent of other contradictions , a more then sufficient conviction of oates's perjury . the third exception made by my lord against oates's evidence was ; that though oates in his several depositions ( particularly those taken before the privy councel , and house of lords ) did often affirm he had given an entire and faithful account , to the best of his remembrance , of all whatsoever he knew , as to the matters and persons concerned in the plot : and though he had then also time and opportunity to reflect and deliberate upon what might any wise relate to my lord stafford in that affair ; yet he never accused him of any other thing , then only , that he had seen beyond the seas some letters signed stafford , wherein the writer had testifyed his zeal for the catholick design : but when afterwards consulting with himself , and possibly with some others , he found this flamm of his would not amount to any thing material whereon to ground an impeachment , he invented and imposed upon my lord a commission of pay-master-general to the army ; a device he never once thought on before . from which proceeding my lord argued ; if there were such a commission , received by my lord at fenwick's chamber , in such a manner as oates relates ; this commission being a matter of so grand importance , and the delivery of it accompanied with so many remarkable circumstances in the very presence of oates . it is impossible that the said oates , who ( as he saith ) on purpose for discovery , had taken notes and memorials , even of trivial occurrences , should forget , and by consequence omit a thing of this high concern in his former depositions . but if there were no such commission , ( as most assuredly there was none ) then is oates perjured in his present evidence : and verily ( added my lord ) if it be permitted to this man dayly to frame new accusations ; if easie credit be given to all his fables , and whatsoever he shall from time to time invent , may pass for good evidence ; who can be secure ? at this rate , he may by deegrees impeach the whole nation , for crimes which neither he , nor any man else ever yet dream'd on . upon these arguments and inferences made by my lord ; the managers would not ; and the papists say , they need not make any remarks . the fourth exception made by my lord against oates his evidence , was : that whereas oates now declares , he never was really a roman catholick , but only feigned himself to be so ; my lord often and strongly insisted , that a protestant of the church of england , who convinced in his judgment of the truth of his religion , shall nevertheless , on what pretence soever provoke god , belye his own conscience , and violate all sacred things ; so as to make a solemn abrenuntiation of his faith and church . to profess himself a roman catholick , to live amongst them , to practice religious duties with them , for three years together ; and this to such an height of sacriledge , as frequently to receive the sacrament , and perform daily external worship ; to it , ( which in the judgment both of protestants and catholicks was to him , so believing direct , and gross idolatry ) cannot rationally be supposed to stick at perjury , when advantageous to him ; and , ought not by the law of god or man , to be credited or admitted for an evidence against any one ; but rather detested and abhorred , by all good men , as undeserving the name of a christian . upon this pressing inference the mannagers made this following observation : suppose dr. oates did out of levity , or for want of being well grounded in his own , turn to another religion . it is hard , that the matter of changing his religion , when nothing else is laid to his charge , should disparage his testimony , seeing many who have changed their religion more then once ( example mr. chillingworth ) are yet esteemed credible persons . to which the papists answer : to change from a wrong to a right religion , is no disparagement ; but protestants will hardly allow oate's first pretended change to be such . however my lord insisted not upon the changing but the seigning religion . oates did not out of levity or conviction of judgment ( as mr. chillingworth ) turn from his own to another religion . but remaining interiourly of the same belief , he exteriously renounced what he so believed , and sacrilegiously practised the direct contrary , than which nothing can be more detestable . nay he affirmeth , he often received the sacrament ▪ and took dreadful oaths of secrecy in pursuance of most bloody and hellish designs . if this be true , what credit can be given to a monster accustomed and insured ( by his own cofession ) to such damnable oaths . but if it be false ( as indeed it is ) then is he perjured in his evidence . edward turbervil's deposition against my lord. the last witness that gave direct evidence to my lord's impeachment , was edward turbervil , who swore , that in the year ( 75. ) he was perswaded by his friends , to take upon him the fryers habit at doway ; that being weary of that state , he left it , and came into england , for which he incurred the displeasure of his friends , and relations , who ( he said ) discountenanced him , and could not endure to see him ; that hereupon he went into france , and arrived at paris , and became acquainted with the now prisoner , my lord stafford , by means of two priests , father nelson , and father turbervil ; that after a fortnights acquaintance , and promise of secrecy , my lord proposed unto him a way , whereby as he said , he might not only retrieve his credit with his relations , but also make himself an happy man ; which way , at last my lord told him in direct terms , was , to take away the life of the king of england , who was an heretick , and consequently a rebel against god almighty ; for circumstantial instances of this , turbervil swore , that he had , during that fortnights acquaintance , frequent access to my lord at his lodgings ; that when he took leave of him to come for england , his lordship was troubled with the gout , and had his foot on a stool ; that my lord had appointed him to wait for him at diepe in order to his coming over with him in a yacht ; that accordingly turbervil went to diepe , but that being there , my lord writ him word , he had altered his resolution , and would take his journey by the way of callice , and that he should hasten to attend his lordship at london ; that hereupon he came into england , but soon after returned again into france , because not being willing to undertake my lord's proposals , he was discountenanced by his friends , reduced to poverty . and thought himself not safe even amongst his own relations . my lord's exceptions . to this deposition my lord pleaded in his defence , that turbervil had perjured himself in several parts of this , and other his depositions . first , turbervil here swears my lord made a proposal to him in direct terms , to take away the life of the king. now my lord proved ; that since the discovery of the plot , the said turbervil did absolutely forswear any knowledge he ever had of any design , or any plot whatsoever against the king's person , life or government ; the witnesses were these . john porter , a protestant , attested , that turbervil told him several times , he did verily believe , neither the lord powis , nor the rest of the lords were in the plot ; and the witnesses that swore against them , he believed were all perjured , and could not believe any thing of it . porter answered , if there was such a thing , he ( turbervil , ) having been beyond seas , must certainly know of it ; turbervil reply'd , as he hoped for salvation , he knew nothing of it , neither directly nor indirectly , against the kings sacred person , nor subversion of the government . and he further added , although i am a little low at present , and my friends will not look upon me , yet i hope god almighty will never leave me so much , as to let me swear against innocent persons , and forswear and damn my self . mr. yalden a protestant and barrister at law , attested , that he heard turbervil say , in an heat , these words , ( viz. ) god damn me , now there is no trade good , but that of a discoverer ; but the devil take the duke of york , monmouth , plot and all , for i know nothing of it . to confront these testimonies , the mannagers produced one mr. powel and mr. arnold , who deposed , that turbervil told them , he had much to say in relation to the plot , but did not name any particulars , fearing ( he said ) he might be discouraged in it . upon these testimonies of mr. porter and mr. yalden , the mannagers made these observations . first , it is not probable , that turbervil designing to be a discoverer , should disable himself ever to be so , by swearing horrid oaths , he knew nothing of the plot. secondly , the testimony of porter and yalden are opposed by the contrary testimony of powel and arnold , to which the papists answer : to the first , it is not improbable , but very likely , that turbervil as yet not fully resolved , to make shipwrack of his conscience and honesty , did often protest , he knew nothing of the plot ; and if the positive attestation of two credible witnesses may be admitted for good evidence : it is not bare probability , but just and solid proof that he did so ; and by consequence , his present discoveries ought not to be regarded , otherwise then as the new and gainful inventions of a perjured man. to the second , the testimony of powel , and arnold hath no manner of weight against my lord's evidence , but rather compleats the charge of perjury against turbervil . for it is granted , that turbervil hath said and swore , both to powel , arnold , and the whole house of parliament , he knew much of the plot. but this being directly contradictory to the dreadful oaths here attested by porter and yalden , and no wise denyed by powel and arnold ; it followeth by the testimony of all the four witnesses , that turbervil is guilty of perjury . secondly , turbervil swears : that during the fortnights acquaintance with my lord at paris , he had , by means of the priests , frequent access to him , at his lodgings there . now my lord's gentleman and page , who both then constantly waited on him , attested , they never once saw turbervil there ; and turbervil himself acknowledged in court , he knew them not . to qualify this evidence , thomas mort was called , who deposed ; that he being at paris and desirous to return into england ; turbervil told him , his brother the monk , had introduced him into the savour of a lord , by which means they might both of them have the convenience of passage in a yacht , which staid for my lord at diep . that hereupon they went to diep , but finding no yacht there , turbervil told him , if they went to calis , they might go over with my lord from thence in the yacht . at last they light on a fisher-boat at diep , and so came over in it ; but that this forementioned lord was my lord stafford , or that he ever saw turbervil in my lord's lodgings , or company at paris , or else-where , he could not say . upon these testimonies , the mannagers made this observation : ( v●z ) the priests had such a transcendent insluence over my lord , as might gain admittance for any whom they pleased , not only into my lord's house , but also into my lord's heart , without the privity or knowledge of his servants . now it plainly appears by the attestation of mort , that turbervil , through his brother the monk's means , was become my lord's favourite . to which the papists answer : it is not proved , either that the priests had such a transcendent influence over my lord's house and heart , or that turbervil through their means , became a favourite ? mort indeed tells us , turbervil told him , his brother the monk had introduced him into the favour of a lord ; and this favour only , to come over with him in a yacht . for the truth of which also he had only turbervil's word , and the thing it self never performed . must we from hence infer , my lord had given his heart to the priests , and they had introduced turbervil into it ? a strange inference : but let it be granted , my lord had a real friendship and kindness for the monks , what then ? how is it proved , they imployed their interest with him , in trayterous designs ? why ? turbervil swears it . thus one forgery is made use of to support another , and nothing but proofless fictions to make all out : yet to come more close to the present evidence . had the priests introduced turbervil into my lords acquaintance and favour ; this could not be done invisibly to the servants ; some body must needs see and know , when they came in and out ; my lord was then in lodgings , and had none but two servants about him ; turbervil never pretends either the priests , or he , made a secret of their visits ; their accesses to my lord ( he saith ) were very frequent , as the nature of the business , and pretended intimacy with my lord , seem'd to require . the condition of turbervil was also such , as might well render him desirous of the servants acquaintance and friendship ; especially being then ( as he said ) immeditrly to go over in the yacht with them , and to continue employed in my lords designs and service at london . now that a man in these circumstaces , should not know these servants , nor be known , or so much as once seen by them ; is morally impossible . thirdly turbervil swears , that when he took leave of my lord at paris , to come for england , his lordship was troubled with the gout in his foot. now my lord protested in the presence of all that knew him , he never had the gout in all his life ; his servants also who then lived with him , ( viz. mr. furness and mr. leigh ) gave attestation , they never knew him subject to that infirmity ; only several years since , he had been troubled with the sciatica , which my lord confessed , and the earl of stamsord testisied ; made him sometimes formerly ( though never at paris ) walk with a staff. upon these testimonies , the mannagers made no observations . but the papists avouch , here is also direct perjury proved upon turbervil , by two credible witnesses . and though the subject of the perjury seems not to be matterial to the main accusation , yet he that shall wilfully perjure himself in any one circumstance , ought not to be credited in the whole ; seeing nature it self , abhors the testimony of a man , who hath once invoked almighty god to bear witness to a lye. fourthly turbervil swears , that after his refusing to be a fryer , he was discountenanced by the lord powis , and others of his friends and relations , so that he durst not appear amongst them . now my lord proved , by several witnesses . that after his return from the said fryers , he was civilly treated , and charitably entertained , by his said friends and relations . to make this good , john minehead attested , that turbervil after his coming from doway , lay in the house of the earl of powis , his former master , and was courteously entertained , both by my lord , and the whole family . john turbervil , brother to the deponent , attested , he never knew that any of his relations gave him an angry word ; but on the contrary , when he went to paris , his sister bestowed on him seven pounds to bear his charges ; upon which he said , he would never trouble them more . upon these testimonies , the mannagers made these observations , first , though turbervil might peradventure ( as minehead attests ) be civily treated by my lord powis in publick , yet what reproaches or unkind words might pass between my lord and him in private , minehead might not hear . secondly , it was no great kindness in turbervil 's relations , to give him seven pounds ( as his brother attests ) never to see him more ; they rather purchased his absence , then did him a kindness by such a favour . to which the papists answer : to the first , groundless surmises of private unkindnesses , which none ever yet came to the knowledge of , nor turbervil himself so much as pretends , is a strange way of clearing a man in open court from the guilt of perjury ; to frame and fancy things that possibly might be , and draw prejudicial inferences from thence , as if they actually had been , is unjust proceeding . to the second , turbervil ( as his brother attests ) never had one angry word from his relations ; and when his sister gave him seven pounds , it was not to purchase his absence , nor did they turn him away . but he himself , ashamed it seems of his past misdemeanours , and confounded at the goodness of his friends . said , he would never trouble them more . fifthly , turbervil in his information given to the house of commons swore : that be came to live with the lord powis in the year ( 73. ) and came into england in the year ( 76. ) but the next day after he had given in this information , he altered the aforenamed dates ; and instead of ( 73. ) caused to be inserted ( 72. ) and instead of ( 76. ) caused to be inserted ( 75. ) which alteration , my lord affirmed , included perjury . upon this proof the managers made this observation : an honest man may mistake as to point of time in an evidence given even upon oath : and to rectify such a mistake the very next day after it was committed , denotes rather tenderness of conscience then perjury in turbervil . to which the papists answer . no honest man will positively swear to what he knows not : and it is argued , turbervil when he gave in his information , certainly knew whether the matters and circumstances he then swore to , were true , or false , or dubious : it the first , he is perjured in the alteration ; if the second , he is ●●jured in the information ; if the third , he is not a person of honesty and credit , who will positively swear without hesitation to a thing of which he is ignorant whether true or false ? and therefore the alteration made upon second though s● cannot in such a case be justly imputed to tenderness of conscience , but to some , not before conceived apprehensions , of being taken tardy in a lye. sixthly , turbervil in the information given to the said house of commons , and exhibited in court , peremptorily swore : that my lord came over out of france in the company of count gramount , by the way of calais . in direct opposition to this information , my lord proved , that he neither came out of france in the company of count gramount , not by the way of calais ; but by the way of deep , a month after count gramount was in england . the witnesses who gave attestation of this , were mr. wyborne , who went over from england to deep in the same yacht which fetched my lord ; and mr. ●urness and george leigh my lords servants , who came with my lord in the said yacht from deep to england . upon these proofs of perjury , the managers made this observation . when mr. turbervil deposed , my lord came over by the way of calais in the company of count gramount ; it could not be his intention to say this as a matter of his own knowledge , seeing he himself in the same affidavit tells us , he came away before my lord , and had not his passage with him : put the words candidly taken , are to be understood , that he was informed , my lord came over by the way of calais in the company of count gramoun : now that mr. turbervil was thus informed , is evident , as well by the letter which ( he saith ) he received at deep from my lord , as also by the asorementioned attestation of mort who sayeth , that being at deep , turbervil told him , if they went to calais , they might go over with my lord in the yacht ; so that in the whole , mr. turbervil may be said to have been peradventure something unwary in expressing himself , but not perjured in his evidence . to which the papists answer : to excuse a man from pejury , by pretending an occuls meaning and intention in the swearer , not expressed in the words of his oath , is such an evasion , as if admitted , would destroy the integrity of an oath , and elude all proof of perjury whatsoever : turbervil swears in down , right terms , my lord came over by the way of calais in the company of count gramount , without any addition that he was informed so . in which oath he is directly perjured ; for he swears as an absolute truth , and without restriction , what of it self is an absolute lye , and what at best he could but guess at , by report and hera-say . it is true indeed , he contradicts himself in the sequel of his information , by saying he came away before my lord , and had not his passage with him ; but it is connatural to perjury , to include contradictions ; wicked men are often blinded with malice , passion , or interest ; and no wonder to find incoherence of parts , in a story divested of truth . the only thing can be collected of probability in this whole matter is , that turbervil being at paris , in an indigent condition , and desirous to return home , got imperfect intelligence that an english lord ( whose name as yet he knew not ) and a french count called gramount , had a yacht waited for them at diep . and having also a brother then in paris , he sought by his means to gain admittance for a passage in the said yacht . this design of his he imparts to mort , a person in the same condition , and who had the same purpose with himself . hereupon mort and he go to diep in hopes to find the yacht there , but they fail'd of their expectation , and turbervil missing the yacht , would have perswaded mort to go in the search of it to calais ; whilst they were in this debate , they lighted on a fisher-boat , and so came over in it into england . thus much may be conjectured from the relation of mort. but that turbervil during his stay at diep , reccived a letter from my lord , intimating his intention of coming for england , by the way of calais , and that he should hasten to meet him at london , is a most palpable forgery ; for neither could turbervil , when required , produce any such letter , nor did my lord come over by the way of calais as turbervil would have us believe that letter imported . and indeed who can imagine , my lord should send word to his new confederate at diep , to hasten to meet him at london , when he himself remained at paris , ( as hath been proved ) above a month after : and at length also came not to calais , but to diep and from thence home , so that here is nothing but contradictions in the whole course of turbervil's evidence . seventhly , turbervil in the last mentioned information positively swore : that the lord castlemain was present at certain fraiterous consults at powis-castle , several times within the years ( 72 , ) or ( 73 ) now my lord proved , that the said earl of casilemain was never at powis-castle within the compass of that whole time . this was demonstrated by the attestation of mr. lidcot a protestant , and fellow of kings-colledge in cambridge , who having lived with the earl nine years , and particularly accompanied him in all his journeys and residences , during those two above named years ; gave this distinct account out of his book of journals ( viz. ) my lord set forth from liege to paris january 1st . ( 72. ) stilo novo , where he remained three weeks ; and from thence arrived at london january 24. stil ' vet , there he staid till may ( 73 ) from thence he went to liege again in june , and from liege he set forth to london in august ; and returned back to liege october the 3. stilo novo ( 73. ) where he remained till january ( 74. ) &c. thus much to the charge of perjury . upon this proof of perjury the mannagers made this observation : mr. lydcot the fellow of kings-colledge ( as he call'd himself ) was indeed so out in his arithmatick , so mistaken in the year ; and used the roman stile ( or date ) so much more then the english . that they suspected he was not so great a protcstant as he pretended to be . to which the papists answer : that a solid witness ought not be railed out of his evidence , in a matter of life and death , mr. lydcot ( however skilled in arithmatick , however great or little protestant ) substantially proved the earl of castlemain , never was at , or near powis-castle , from the first of january ( 72 ) till past december ( 73. ) the inclusive time wherein turbervil swears , he was at a consult there . and it is strange , so weighty and convincing a proof of perjury , in a matter of so high and serious a concern , should be shifted off by a trissing jest . lastly , my lord upon occasion made some remarks upon turbervil's beggery , loose manner of life , and divers odd circumstances in the course of his evidence , which much reflected upon his reputation : to support it therefore , the managers produced these witnesses . mr. arnold , jones , hobby and scudamore , deposed ; that they knew turbervil , but for their parts never heard , or saw any evil by him . mr. matthews a minister deposed the same , as to turbervil's reputation ; and added : that turbervil a little before he made his discovery , owned himself a roman-catholick ; but seemed to have a mind to quit that religion , being convinced by the arguments matthews gave him , of the excellency of the principles and practices of the protestant church ; yet would never acknowledge he knew one syllable of the plot. upon these several remarques , the mannagers made this observation : the good character here given of turbervil , by four witnesses , shew him a man of much vertue and integrity ; and it ought to be considered as a farther addition to his praise , that he had the grace ( though indigent ) to refuse the proposal made to him by my lord , of killing the king. to which the papists answer : it is no sufficient proof of turbervil's vertue and integrity , that four persons say , they know no ill of him ; he may be guilty nevertheless of a thousand crimes unknown to them ; few or none are so intirely abandoned or detested by all mankind , as not to find four persons in the world who will make a favourable report of them . but it is evident from what hath been already proved ; that turbervil was a man in all points compleatly equipped for a knight of the post : for first , he was indigent ; secondly , he was horridly addicted to cursing and swearing ; thirdly , he looked upon feigning discoveries , as the only way to get moneys . all this is manifested by his own words and conversation with mr. yalden and mr. porter before mentioned ; as i hope for salvation ( said he ) i know nothing of the plot. the devil take the duke of york , monmouth , and all . god damn me , there is now no trade good but that of a discoverer . who shall ever want witnesses , that can find men thus qualified ? and whereas it is said , he had the grace to refuse the proposal made to him , of killing the king. it ought first to be proved , otherwise then by his own assertion ; he had such a proposal made , before the refusal of it can be justly alledged as an argument of grace in him . finally , it is very remarkable what parson matthews the last of the witnesses here deposeth , ( viz. ) that though turbervil had a mind to quit the roman catholick religion , being ( as he said ) convinced by the arguments matthews gave him , of the excellency of the principles and practices of the protestant church ; yet he would never acknowledge to the said matthews , his new ghostly father , that he knew one sillable of the plot. the sum of the whole evidence , both for and against my lord. ¶ 4. in this sort passed and ended the particular evidences , given as well by the mannagers against my lord , as by my lord in his own defence . after this the court required each party to sum up their respective evidence ; and it being by course of law , my lord's turn to begin ; he performed it to this purpose . first , he pleaded his age , his want of endowments , his exhausted spirits and strength in this long tryal ; in consideration of which he hoped their lordships ( who were both his judges and councel , ) would pardon the many defects he must needs commit in summing up his defence : then he recapitulated the whole evidence ( already specified ) as well as his weak memory , and discomposed condition would permit . he reminded their lordships of the several points wherein he had proved the witnesses forsworn : he recounted their sayings , and unsayings to the same things . the various contradictions , the moral impossibilities , and absurdities , as to divers ( though before-hand studied ) parts of their evidence ; inferring from hence , that he who will forswear himself in one thing , is not to be credited in any . he insisted upon the infamy of the witnesses , and wickedness of their lives , especially the more the atheistical sacriledge of some of them , acknowledged in open court ; he inculcated their former beggery , compared to the present encouragement , carasses , and allurements of gain , and applause , they find in their new employment . he alledged their subornation of others , to make good their forgeries , their bare oaths without any corroborating circumstances , but what depended on the same oaths ; concluding , that such as will swear lyes , will never stick at swearing of false circumstances , to hancle those lyes together . and having thus summed up his defence , as well as a weak old man , harrassed and spent with five days pleading . and ( as he said ) deprived of sleep , could do on a suddain ; he cast himself into their lordships hands , desiring them to remember how faithfully he had served the king in the late wars ; how much himself , his wife , and family had suffered on that account ; how easily he might have prevented those miseries , if he would , as others did , have turned a rebel ; and consequently , how-unlikely it is , he should now in his old age , and settled contented state , be guilty of so horrid a crime , proved only against him by the incredible stories of three infamous men. then he proceeded to propose certain points or doubts in law , which occurred in his case , concerning the manner of his impeachment ; the continuance of it from parliament to parliament ; whether the indictment contained an overt act , necessary to a conviction of treason ? whether men , who swear for money , ought to be credited , or admitted for witnesses ? whether the plot , being supposed a plot of the papists , was as yet legally proved so ? lastly , whether there being but one particular witness to any one particular point , such an evidence be sufficient in law. when my lord had ended his queries , the learned mannagers those dexterous masters of law and eloquence addressed themselves , to sum up the evidence , and illustrate the proofs on their side . that part which regards the especial matters charged by the witnesses upon my lord in particular , i have already incerted in the body of the tryal , as the said several matters respectively occurred ; the other arguments made use of to enforce a belief of my lord's guilt , and advance the credit of the witnesses , take here ( together with the papists answers ) in short , as followeth . the managers therefore argued , they had made it plain and apparent in the beginning of the tryal , by the testimonies of fix positive witnesses ; by the declaration of both houses of parliament ; by coleman's letters ; by the tryal and conviction of other traytors ; that there was a general design amongst the papists , to introduce their religion , by raising of armies , murdering the king , and subverting the government . the papists answer : it is clear and manifest from the reasons given , and arguments answered , in the preamble to this tryal ; that there never was any such general design , any such armies raised , &c. amongst the papists . these being the meer groundless suggestions of infamous men , whom lucre and malice instigated to perjury against innocent catholicks . the managers farther argued , it was necessary this great design of the papists should be managed by the greatest persons amongst them : now my l. stafford was a man whose quality and merit might well entitle him to an office as great as pay-master general to the army ; from whence they inferred , that the particular evidence given herein against my lord , was highly credible . the papists answer : it is a wrested inference , and that also bottomed upon a false supposition ; for first , there never was ( as is said before ) any such design , nor by consequence any armies or officers , other then what were the chymerical product of perjured men. secondly , though there had been such a design in general , as is here pretended ; it is a strangely far fetched conjecture ( surely not allowable in a case of life and death ) that my lord stafford because a nobleman , must needs have a great , or indeed any part in it . great offices ( especially amongst traitors ) are not usually committed to the best born , but to the best qualified for such employments . now all the world that knew my lord , his humour , his condition , his economy in money matters , will avouch , ( so incongruous are the witnesses in their lyes , ) there was not peradventure amongst all the persons of quality , catholicks in england , one less proper then he for pay-master general to an army . in fine , if there were a plot in general , 't is no necessary consequence my lord was guilty . but if there were none ( as most certainly there was not ) 't is absolute demonstration my lord was innocent . the managers argued , they had amply proved by their witnesses , that the priests and jesuits , in their sermons and discourses , had justified the lawfulness , and incited their votaries , to the practice of treason , rebellion , and murder of heretick princes ; conformably hereunto , whenever my lord undertook any treasonable designs , it was still when the priests and jesuits were at his elbow ; still when they were egging him on ; still when they were giving him ghostly counsel ; when my lord was amongst them , or but newly come from them , then it was he uttered the treason of killing the king. these notable circumstances must needs ( say they ) render credible the testimony of the witnesses against my lord. the papists answer , here are trayterous sermons and discourses alledged ; how are they proved ? why , by the oaths of the witnesses that heard them . but the credit of these witnesses are questioned ; how is that made out ? why , by the trayterous sermons and discourses which they heard . thus still the question is begged , and nothing proved but by bare swearing , peremptory swearing , of infamous men , without any face of one single circumstance to support their evidence , other than what dependeth on the same swearing : as if those that stick not to swear a false oath , should stick at circumstances to second their perjury . had the managers flourished upon the honesty of the witnesses ; the vprightness of their lives ; the integrity of their manners ; their dis-engagement from self-interest ; the circumstances inducing a probability , distinct from the bare oaths , ( things necessary to a legal conviction ) the tryal would have had another appearence . it is therefore again urged , that there are such wretches as knights of the post. that men may , and often do , break god's great commandment , thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour . that wicked persons , of lost consciences and desperate fortunes , are most propense to commit this crime . that this propension is much augmented by an assured prospect of indempnities from punishment , and advantage of gain . and consequently , the bare , and otherwise improbable , oaths of such men , so circumstanced , cannot ( especially in matters of life and death ) be credited against honest and vertuous persons ; nay against whole nations , without a dreadful hazard of injustice . but there will be a further occasion to speak of these alledged trayterous sermons and discourses , when we come to treat of my lord's principles . the managers still argued , the three witnesses were all express and positive in their evidence against my lord. the papists still answer , it is not positive swearing of evil , but probable swearing of good men , should convict my lord , or any other , of guilt , especially in matters of high-treason . the managers likewise argued , it was impossible there could be a contrivance amongst the witnesses themselves to depose the same crimes against my lord , seeing there was no intercourse between oates and dugdale ; nor did they know each other till long after oates's accusation of my lord ; and it is as little credible , they could concurr in the same thing , unless the evidence of both were true . the papists answer , though there were no contrivance arising from any acquaintance or intercourse had between oates and dugdale , before their several discoveries , yet the latter might well take example and encouragement , from the practice of the former ; and so indeed it was ; for dugdale being involved in debts , and thrown into gaol , cast about how to retrieve his desperate fortune ; and hearing that oates and bedlow ( men before sunk to the bottom of reproach and beggery ) had by perjury and impudence freed themselves from the punishment of the laws , gained immense rewards , and now lived in a degree above the port and expence of ordinary gentlemen ; he at last ( yet not without frequent anguish , and reluctance of conscience ) swallowed the alluring bait ; and knowing my lord stafford ( whom he had seen at tixal ) was already in the tower , and accused by oates of the plot , he devised a like fabulous story of the plot also , making my lord , and other gentlemen , where he lived and served in staffordshire , the chief actors in it . by which means dugdale became partner with oates and bedlow , both in the title and profit of the king's evidence . the managers argued , oates and dugdale were so ready in their answers , when any question was asked them , and confirmed still their precedent discourses by their subsequent replies ; nay , the whole frame and series of the plot , though consisting of many particulars , and attested by persons of no great natural capacities , is yet so coherent in every part of it , that it is impossible the same should be false . the papists answer , oates and dugdale were often so confounded , when any question was asked them out of the road ; and their precedent discourses were usually so inconsistent with their subsequent replies ; nay the whole story ( though studied before-hand , and the authors all manner of ways encouraged and assisted in their invention ) is yet stuffed and involved with so many absurdities , contradictions , and impracticable chymaera's , ( as has been already often and fully proved ) that it is impossible the same should be true ; for falshood may , but truth cannot be inconsistent of parts . lastly , the managers having amply dilated and descanted upon each particular evidence and argument , alledged , as well against my lord , as in his defence ; and making even critical remarks upon whatever might be drawn either to the advantage of the one , or prejudice of the other , ( the substance of all which hath been already specified in its proper place . ) at length they concluded , with sharp and moving aggravations against the popish principles , ( whereof also we shall by and by , according to promise , give a distinct account ; ) and insisting a while on this subject , with much accuteness of wit , and seeming applause , they closed up their evidence . thus , when there was a period put to proof in matters of fact , there began a debate as to matter of law , concerning a doubt proposed by my lord , ( the other of his queries not being admitted disputable ) ( viz. ) whether two witnesses be necessary to every overt-act , in point of treason ? this question being referred to the judges , they determined it to the negative . after this , my lord petitioned the court ( as a peculiar favour ) that he might offer some things to their lordships consideration , the purport of which was , that he had proved direct perjury upon all the three witnesses against him : that , as well at the instance of his wife , daughter and friends , as out of sincerity of conscience , he would , in the presence of almighty god , declare to them , all that he knew : that he verily believed there had been in former times plots and designs against the crown and government , ( as the gun-powder-treason , &c. owned by the traytors themselves at their death ) wherein some roman catholicks , as well as others , might be concerned ; which plots he from his heart ( as both his duty and religion taught him ) detested and abhorred : that it was ever indeed his opinion , that an act of comprehension for dissenting protestants , and a tolleration for roman catholicks ( yet so as not to admit them into any offices of profit or dignity ) would much conduce to the happiness of the nation ; but this not otherwise to be procured or desired , then by a free consent of the king , lords , and commons , in parliament assembled : that he never read or knew of coleman's letters , or consultations for tolleration , till he saw the letters themselves in the printed tryal : how far coleman was criminal he did not know , but he believed he did that which was not justifiable by law : that , as to the damnable doctrine of king-killing , if he were of any church whatsoever , and found that to be its principle , he would leave it . that he knew the disadvantage he was under , in being forced , alone , to stand a contest with the learned gentlemen the mannagers , who have those great helps of memory , parts , and understanding in the law , all which he wanted . that therefore he hoped their lordships would not conclude barely upon the manner , either of his ; or their expressions . but seriously debating the merits of the cause in it self , would please to be his councel , as well as his judges . that seeing he was to be acquitted , or condemned by their lordships judgement ; he knew they would lay their hands upon their heart , consult their consciences , and their honours ; and then he doubted not , they would do what was just and equitable ; that ( with submission to their lordships ) he thought it hard measure , and contrary to law , that any one should be imprisoned above two years , without being admitted to tryal ; and that it was of evil consequence for any one to have justice denyed him , so long till his opponents had found occasion to gain their ends ; that however those large allowances , and rewards granted to the witnesses , for swearing , might peradventure be an effect of his majesties grace and bounty ; yet it was not easily conceivable , how the hopes and promises of so great sums should not prove to dissolute , indigent persons , strong allurements and temptations to perjury . finally , that the defence he had made , he owed it to the worth and dignity of his family ; he owed it to his dear wife and children ; ( at which words he was observed to weep , ) he owed it to his innocense ; he owed it to god , the author of life . that he confided , their lordships would duly reflect , what a dreadful thing murder is , and the bloud of innocents : and that he verily believed none of the house of commons , desired his death for a crime of which he was not guilty . that he hoped their lordships would not permit him to be run down by the shouts of the rable , ( the emblem of our past calamity . ) it began in the late times with the lord stafford , and so continued , till it ended in the death of the king , the most execrable murder , that ever was committed ; and where this will end ( said he , ) god knows . to conclude , he again declared in the presence of god , of his angels , of their lordships , and all who heard him , that he was intirely innocent of what was laid to his charge ; that he left it to their lordships to do justice , and with all submission resigned himself to them . to this discourse of my lords , the mannagers returned for answer : that his lordships last address was not regular , nor according to the due method of proceedings ; for if after his lordship had summed up his evidence , and the prosecutors had concluded theirs , he should begin that work again , and they by consequence be admitted to reply , he might still rejoyn upon them , and so there would be no end of proceedings . they therefore desired this indulgence granted to my lord , might not serve for a future president . the conclusion of the tryal . ¶ 5. here then the lord high steward wholly terminating all further process on either side ; the court gave final judgment ; and the lord high steward collecting the votes , my lord stafford was pronounced guilty , by fifty five votes against thirty one . when the votes were passed , the lord high steward , declared to the prisoner , he was found guilty of high treason , whereof he was impeached . to which my lord stafford answered , gods holy name be praised my lord for it . then the lord high steward asked him , what he could say for himself , why judgment of death should not be given upon him according to law ? he reply'd , my lord , i have very little to say ; i confess i am surprized at it , for i did not expect it . but gods will be done , and your lordships ; i will not murmur at it . god forgive those who have falsly sworn against me . we are now come to the final sentence of death , for a prologue to which the lord high steward made a short pathetick speech ; wherein after some reflections upon the plot in general , he descended to my lords case in particular ; and then advised his lordship ( as now a supposed guilty person , ) to bething himself of the state and condition he was in : of his religion and guides , that ( 't is said ) had seduced him : of the repentance due to so hainous crimes : and concluded with an assurance to his lordship , that a true penitential sorrow joyned with an humble and hearty confession , was of mighty power and efficacy , both with god and man. he then pronounced sentence upon him , in these words . the judgment of the law is , and the court doth award it , that you go to the place from whence you came , from thence you must be drawn upon an hurdle to the place of execution ; when you come there , you must be hanged up by the neck , but not till you are dead , for you must be cut down alive ; your privy members must be cut off ; and your bowels ript up before your face , and thrown into the fire : then your head must be severed from your body , and your body divided into four quarters . and these must be at the disposal of the king. and god almighty have mercy on your soul. my lord received this dismal sentence , with a meek and resigned countenance : he declared in the presence of almighty god , he had no malice in his heart to them that had condemned him : but freely forgave them all . he made one , and only one humble request to their lordships , ( viz. ) that for the short time he had to live a prisoner , his wife , children , and friends might be permitted to come at him . my lord high steward told him , their lordships had so far a compassion for him , they would be humble suiters to the king. that he will remit all the punishments , but the taking off his head. thus sentence being passed the lord high steward broke his staff , and my lord stafford was led back from the bar to the tower. the ax being carryed before him , ( as the custom is in such cases ) with the edge toward him . sect . iii. my lords principles of faith and loyalty . doubtless the thing which most weighed to my lord's prejudice ; most advanced the credit of the evidence ; and most influenced both his prosecutors , and judges against him , was a pre-possessed opinion of wicked principles , supposed to be held and practised by my lord , as the matter of his faith and religion . it is by many taken for granted , the papists hold it an article of faith , that to depose and murder kings , to massacre their neighbours , and destroy their native countrey by fire and sword , ( when the interest of their religon requires it ) are acts dispensable by the pope , and meritorious of heaven . now what thing so wicked however , slenderly proved , will not easily be believed against men so principled . my lord therefore to clear himself , and his religion from this heavy , and ( as the papists say ) injurious aspersion , protested and declared in the presence of almighty god , and their lordships his judges ; that he hated and detested such principles , as he did damnation to himself ; and that he could not be more desirous of salvation , then he was cordial in hating such principles . that he ever held treason to be the worst of crimes , and knew no term ill enough to express it . that he heard with horrour the late wicked practices in scotland . that he acknowledged the king his lawful soveraign , and knew no person or authority on earth , could absolve him from his allegiance . and least this might seem a meerly extorted profession of a despairing man ; my lord endeavoured to prove by several convincing testimonies , he had ever been instructed and educated in the same sentiments , as the established doctrine of the roman catholick church . his first testimony was taken from places of holy scripture , particularly that of st. math. 22. v. 21. render to caesar the things that are caesars , &c. from the plain and clear sense of which , and other texts of holy writ , nothing ( he said ) in this world was able to remove him . his second testimony was taken from the authority of the general council of constance , ( to which all roman catholicks are obliged to submit ; ) the 15 th . canon and definition of which council is this : quilibit tyrannus potest & debet licité & meritorié occidi per quemcunque vasallum suum vel subditum , etiam per clanculares insidias , & subtiles blanditias vel adulationes non obstante quocunque praestito juramento seu confoederatione factis cum eo , non expectatâ sententiâ vel mandato judicis cujuscunque adversus hunc errorem satagens haec sancta synodus , exurgere , & ipsum funditùs tollere , declarat & desinit , hujusmodi doctrinam erroneam esse in fide , & in moribus , ipsamque tanquam haereticam , scandalosam , & ad ●raudes , deceptiones , mendacia , proditiones , perjuria , vias dantem , reprobat , & condemnat . declarat insuper & decernii quod pertinaciter doctrinam hanc perniciocissimam asserentes sunt haeretici , & tanquam tales juxta canonicas sanctiones puniendi . englished thus , every tyrant lawfully and meritoriously , may , and ought to be killed by any vassal or subject whatsoever ; even by hidden treacheries and subtle flatteries or adulations , notwithstanding any oath given , or confederation made with him ; without expecting the sentence or command of any judge whatsoever , ( which clause is added in regard of the right of supreme temporal monarchs , over inferior princes subordinate to them . ) against which error this holy synod ( industrious to withstand , and utterly to extirpate it , ) doth declare and define , that this doctrine is erroneous in faith and manners , and the same as heretical , scandalous , and opening a way to frauds , deceipts , lyes , treasons and perjuries doth dissaprove and condemn ; it farther declares and decrees , that those who obstinately maintain this most pernicious doctrine , are hereticks , and as such ought to be punished , according to canonical sanctions . my lords third testimony was taken from the annotations upon the 13 th . chapter of st. paul's epistle to the romans , in the english catholick edition of the new testament , set forth by the colledge of divines at rhemes ! the words are these ( upon the text , he that resisteth , &c. v. 2. ) whosoever resisteth , of obeyeth not his lawful superior , in those causes wherein he is subject to him , resisteth gods appointment , and sinneth deadly and is worthy to be punished both in this world by his superior , and by god in the next life . for in temporal government and causes , the christians were bound in conscience to obey , even their heathen emperours . and ( upon the text , beareth not the sword , &c. v. 4. ) there were certain hereticks called begardi , that took away all rule and superiority ; the wickleffists also would obey no prince nor prelate , if he were once in deadly sin : some protestants of our time , care neither for the one , nor for the other ; though they extol only secular power , when it maketh for them . the catholicks only most humbly obey both , according to gods ordinance ; the one in temporal causes , and the other in spiritual ; in which order both these states have blessedly flourished in all christian countreys ever since christs time . my lords fourth testimony , was taken from the censure of the doctors of the famous faculty of sorbon , in the vniversity of paris , against a book of anthony sanctarelus , treating of heresie , schism , &c. particularly against the 30 th . and 31 st . chapters of the said book . the censure of the faculty my lord produced in court , and is as followeth . upon the first of april in the year of our lord 1626. after mass of the holy ghost ; the usual assembly of doctors being met in solemn manner , in the hall of the sorbon colledge , was heard the relation of the masters of the same faculty deputed for that end , who declared , that in those two above-mentioned chapters , these propositions were contained . that the pope can punish kings and princes , with temporal penalties , and depose and deprive them , of their kingdoms for the crime of heresie , and free their subjects from their obedience ; and that it had been always the custom in the church ; and for other causes also , as for faults , if it be expedient ; if the princes be negligent ; for the insufficiency , and unprofitableness of their persons ; likewise that the pope has right and power over spirituals ; and all temporals also , and that both the powers , spiritual and temporal are in him by divine right ; that it was to be believed , that power was granted to the church and its chief pastors , to punish with temporal penalties , ( princes ) the transgressors of divine and humane laws , especially if the crime be heresie . they said likewise , that the same sanctarelus did affirm , that the apostles were subject to secular princes , de facto , non de jure ; by fact , not by right ; moreover , that as soon as the pope is installed , all princes begin to be subject unto him . lastly , they related that he , ( sanctarelus ) expounded the words of christ , whatsoever ye shall bind upon earth , &c. to be understood not only of the spiritual , but of the temporal power : that he imposes upon st. paul , changing his words , by withdrawing the negation ; and upon many , authors cited by him . they related many other things out of the said sanctarelus , which seemed to them very well to deserve the grave animadversions and censure of the faculty . the matter therefore being brought into debate by the dean , the mature deliberations of all and every master being heard , the faculty hath dissapproved and condemned the doctrine contained in these propositions and other like expressions in the same chapters , as new ; false , erroneous , contrary to the word of god : drawing hatred upon the pontificial dignity ; giving occasion to schism ; derogatory from the supreme authority of kings dependant on god alone , hindring the conversion of heathen and heretical princes ; disturbing the publick peace ; destructive to kingdoms , states , and common-wealths ; withdrawing subjects from obedience and subjection ; and exciting to factions , rebellions , seditions , and murder of princes . given in the sorbon the 4 th . of april 1626. taken out of the archives of the foresaid faculty , by me secretary thereof , the 26 th . of september 1679. massin . my lords fifth testimony , was taken from a little treatise , writ ( as my lord said ) by a priest of the church of rome , and entituled , roman-catholick principles , in reference to god and the king. the chief contents of which treatise ; because it in short explains the above-named principles , and clears the objections usually made on this subject . i shall here insert in the authors own words , for the readers more ample satisfaction . is it not strange and severe , ( saith this author ) that principles , ( of treason , rebellion , murder , &c. ) and those pretended of faith too , should be imposed upon men , which they themselves renounce and detest ? if the turk's alcoran should in like manner be urg'd upon us , and we hang'd up for mahumetans , all we could do or say in such a case , would be patiently to die , with protestation of our own innocence . and this is the posture of our present condition ; we abhor , we renounce , we a●●minate such principles ; we protest against them , and seal our protestations with our dying breaths . what shall we say ? what can we do more ? to accuse men as guilty in matters of faith , which they never own'd , is the same thing , as to condemn them for matters of fact , which they never did . you press the question , and say , some of our general councils , several papal decrees , and many of our doctors and divines , assert the fore-mentioned principles . sir , i have been instructed in the articles of my faith , and i acknowledge the lawful authority of general councils : yet i profess i never learnt , or found asserted in any of them , any such principles . and i propose unto you this plain and short dilemma ; either the above-named principles are esteem'd by us as matters of faith , or not : if they be , what further can be required of us , than to deny and forsake such a faith ? and this we constantly do . but if they be not matters of catholick faith , nor owned by us as such , why are catholicks , as catholicks , punished for them ? why is our religion persecuted on that account ? let those , in god's name , if any therebe , of what religion soever , who bold such tenents , suffer for them : why should the innocent be involv'd with the guilty ? there is neither reason nor justice in it . hereunto some persons ( i hope out of zeal and mis-information , rather than malice ) stick not to say , that dispensations , and i know not what indulgences and pardons , whereby to legitimate the crimes of lying and forswearing , when the interest of our church requires it , is a main part of our religion : and by consequence , the denial of our principles , is no sufficient justification of our innocence . i answer ; first , it is in the highest measure censorious in any one , to impose upon all our ancestors , and the greatest part of mankind , who are , or have been so long together members of our religion , such an excess of folly and wickedness , as must needs have perverted all humane society . secondly , if we could lawfully deny the principles of our faith when interest requires , why have we lost our estates , our liberties , our lives for the profession of it ? to what purpose are oaths and tests devised to intangle us ? how impertinently is the frequenting the protestant church , and receiving the communion , proposed unto us , and refused by us ? thirdly , though many men may be induced to lie , and forswear , when they have some hopes or prospect thereby of temporal advantage ; yet , that persons dying for their conscience and religion , ( as divers have done , and those no fools , even by the confession of our adversaries ) should be so stupendiously sottish and mad , either to imagine , that lies and perjuries , for concealment of treason , murder , massacre , and destruction of others by fire and sword , should be acts of virtue , pleasing to god , dispensable by the pope , and meritorious of heaven ; or that , on the contrary , knowing and believing ( as needs they must ) such monsters and horrours to be odious and detestable in the sight both of god and man , they should nevertheless , upon the very brink of eternity , wittingly and willingly , cast themselves headlong into an assured damnation ; and this at a time when they might have saved both bodies and souls , by meerly discharging a good conscience , in acknowledging the truth , and becoming honest men . this , i say , is inhumane , and contradictory to all sense and reason to believe . now therefore , i come to what you so often , and so earnestly press me to , viz. to satisfie the world , and clear my self , my fellow sufferers , and my religion , from the imputation laid upon us , on pretence of such principles , by a true and candid explanation of my belief and judgment in the main points of faith and loyalty , controverted between catholicks and protestants , as they severally relate to god and the king . paragraph i. of the catholick faith , and church in general . 1. the fruition of god , and remission of sin , is not attainable by man , otherwise then a in , and by the merits of jesus christ , who ( gratis ) purchased it for us . 2. these merits of christ are not applied to us , otherwise than by a right b faith in christ . 3. this faith is but c one , entire and conformable to its object , being divine revelation ; to all which d faith gives an undoubted assent . 4. these revelations contain many mysteries e transcending the natural reach of humane wit and industry : wherefore , 5. it became the divine wisdom and goodness , to provide man of some f way or means whereby he might arrive to the knowledge of these mysteries ; means g visible and apparent to all ; means h proportionable to the capacities of all ; means i sure and certain to all . 6. this way or means is not the reading of scripture , interpreted according to the private k reason or l spirit of every disjunctive person , or nation in particular ; but , 7. it is an attention and m submission to the doctrine of the catholick or vniversal church , established by christ for the instruction of all ; n spread for that end throughout all nations ; and visibly continued in a succession of pastors , and people throughout all ages : from which church o guided in truth , and secured from error in matters of faith , by the p promised assistance of the holy ghost , every one may , and ought to q learn both the right sense of scripture , and all other christian mysteries and duties , respectively necessary to salvation . 8. this church , thus spread , thus guided , thus visibly continued , r in one vniform faith , and subordination of government , is that self-same which is termed the roman catholick church ; the qualifications above-mentioned , ( viz. ) vnity , indeficiency , visibility , succession , and vniversality , ) being applicable to no other church , or assembly whatsoever . 9. from the testimony and authority of this church , it is , that we receive , and believe the scriptures to be god's word : and as she can s assuredly tell us , this or that book is god's word ; so can she with the like assurance , tell us also the true sense and meaning of it , in controverted points of faith ; the same spirit that writ the scripture , t enlightning her to understand , both it , and all matters necessary to salvation . from these grounds it follows , 10. all , and only divine revelations deliver'd by god unto the church , and proposed by her to be believ'd as such , are , and ought to be esteem'd articles of faith ; and the contraty opinions , heresie . and , 11. as an obstinate separation from the vnity of the church , in known declared matters of faith , is formal u heresie ; so a wilful separation from the visible vnity of the same church , in matters of subordination and government , is formal x schism . 12. the church proposeth unto us matters of faith : first , and chiefly , by the y holy scripture , in points plain and intelligible in it . secondly , by z definitions of general councils , in points not sufficiently explained in scripture . thirdly , by a apostolical traditions , deriv'd from christ and his apostles , to all succeeding ages . fourthly , by her b practice , worship , and ceremonies , confirming her doctrines . paragraph ii. of spiritual and temporal authority . 1. general councils ( which are the church of god , representative ) have no commission from christ to frame new matters of faith , ( these being sole divine revelations ) but only to c explain and ascertain unto us , what antiently was , and is received and retained , as of faith in the church , upon arising debates and controversies about them . the definitions of which , general councils , in matters of faith only , and proposed in such , oblige , under pain of heresie , all the faithful , to a submission of judgment . but , 2. it is no article of faith to believe , that general councils cannot err , either in matters of fact or discipline , alterable by circumstances of time and place ; or in matters of speculation or civil policy , depending on meer humane judgment , or testimony . neither of these being divine revelations d deposited in the catholick church ; in regard to which alone , she hath the e promised assistance of the holy ghost . hence it is deduced , 3. if a general council ( much less a papal consistory ) should undertake to depose a king , and absolve his subjects from their allegiance ; no catholick , as catholick , is bound to submit to such a decree . hence also it followeth : 4. the subjects of the king of england lawfully may , without the least breach of any catholick principle , renounce , even upon oath , the teaching , mantaining , or practising the doctrine of deposing kings excommunicated for heresie , by any authority whatsoever , as repugnant to the fundamental laws of the nation , injurious to soveraign power , destructive to the peace and government ; and by consequence , in his majesties subjects , impious and damnable . yet not properly heretical , taking the word heretical in that connatural , genuine sense , it is usually understood in the catholik church ; on account of which , and other expressions , ( no wise appertaining to loyalty , ) it is , that catholicks of tender consciences refuse the oath commonly call ▪ d the oath of allegience . 5. catholicks believe , that the bishop of rome is the successor of st peter , d vicar of jesns christ upon earth , and head of the whole catholick church ; which church is therefore sitly stiled roman catholick , being an universal body e united under one visible head. nevertheless , 6. it is no matter of faith to believe , that the pope is in himself infallible , seperate from a general council , even in expounding the faith : by consequence papal definitions or decrees , though ex cathedra , as they term them , ( taken exclusively from a general council , or vniversal acceptance of the church ) oblige none under pain of heresie , to an interior assent . 7. nor do catholicks as catholicks believe , that the pope hath any direct , or indirect authority over the temporal power and jurisdiction of princes . hence , if the pope should pretend to absolve or dispence with his maiesties subjects from their allegiance , upon account of heresie or schism , such dispensation would be vain , and null ; and all cathelick subjects ( notwithstanding such dispensation or absolution ) would be still bound in conscience to defend their king and countrey , at the hazard of their lives and fortunes , even against the pope himself , in case he should invade the nation . 8. and as for problematical disputes , or errors of particular divines , in this , or any other matter whatsoever , the catholick church is no wise responsible for them : nor , are catholicks as catholicks , justly punishable on their account . but , 9. as for the king killing doctrine , or murder of princes , excommunicated for heresie ; it is an article of faith in the catholick church , and expresly declared in the general council of constance , that such doctrine is damnable and heretical , being contrary to the known laws of god , and nature . 10. personal misdemeanors of what nature soever , ought not to be imputed to the catholick church , when not justifyable 〈◊〉 the tenents of her faith and doctrine ; for which reason , though the stories of the paris massacre ; the irish cruelties ; or powder-plot , had been exactly true , ( which yet for the most part are notoriously mis-related ) nevertheless catholicks as catholicks ought not to suffer for such offences , any more then the eleven apostles ought to have suffered for judas's treachery . it is an article of the catholick faith to believe , that no power on earth can license men to lye , to forswear , and perjure themselves , to massacre their neighbours , or destroy their native countrey , on pretence of promoting the catholick cause , or religion ; furthermore , all pardons and dispensations granted , or pretended to be granted , in order to any such ends or designs ▪ have no other validity or effect , then to add sacriledge and blasphemy to the above-mentioned crimes . 12. the doctrine of equivocation or mental reservation , however wrongfully imposed on the catholick religion , is notwithstanding , neither taught , nor approved by the church , as any part of her belief . on the contrary , simplicity , and godly sincerity , are constantly recommended by her , as truly christian vertues , necessary to the conservation of justice , truth , and common society . paragraph iii. of some particular controverted points of faith. 1. every catholick is obliged to believe , that when a sinner a repenteth him of his sins from the bottom of his heart , and b acknowledgeth his transgressions to god and his c ministers , the dispensers of the mysteries of christ , resolving to turn from his evil ways , d and bring forth fruits worthy of penance , there is ( then and no otherwise ) an authority left by christ to absolve such a penitent sinner from his sins : which authority christ gave to his e apostles , and their successors , the bishops and priests of the catholick church , in those words , when he said , receive ye the holy ghost , whose sins you shall forgive , they are forgiven unto them , &c. 2. though no creature whatsoever can make f condign satisfaction , either for the guilt of sin , or the pain eternal due to it ; g this satisfaction being proper to christ our saviour only ; yet penitent sinners redeemed by christ , may , as members of christ , in some measure h satisfie by prayer , fasting , almes deeds , and other works of piety , for the temporal paine , which by order of divine justice sometimes remains due , after the guilt of sin , and pains eternal are ( gratis ) remitted . these penitential works are notwithstanding satisfactory no otherwise , than as joyned and applyed to that satisfaction , which jesus made upon the cross ; in vertue of which alone , all our good works find a grateful i acceptance in god's sight . 3. the guilt of sin , or pain eternal due to it , is never remitted by indulgences ; but only such k temporal punishments as remain due after the guilt is remitted ; these indulgences being nothing else than a l mitigation or relaxation upon just causes , of canonical penances , enjoyned by the pastors of the church on penitent sinners , according to their several degrees of demerit . and if any abuses or mistakes be sometimes committed , in point either of granting or gaining indulgences , through the remisness , or ignorance of particular persons , contrary to the ancient custom and discipline of the church ; such abuses or mistakes cannot rationally be charged on the church , nor rendred matter of derision , in prejudice to her faith and doctrine . 4. catholicks hold there is a purgatory , that is to say , a place , or state , where souls departing this life , with remission of their sins , as to the eternal guilt or pain m yet obnoxious to some temporal punishment still remaining due , or not perfectly freed from the blemish of some n venial defects or deordinations , ( as idle words , &c. not liable to damnation ) are o purged before their admittence into heaven ; where nothing that is p defiled can enter . furthermore , 5. catholicks also hold , that such souls so detained in purgatory , being the living members of christ jesus , are relieved by the q prayers and suffrages of their fellow members here on earth : but where this place is ? of what nature or quality the pains are ? how long each souls is detained there ; after what manner the suffrages made in their behalf are applyed ? whether by way of satisfaction or intercession ? &c. are questions superfluous , and impertinent as to faith. 6. no man , though just , r can merit either an increase of sanctity or happiness in this life , or eternal glory in the next , independent on the merits and passion of christ ; nevertheless in , and by the merits of christ jesus , s the good works of a just man , proceeding from grace and charity , are acceptable to god , so far forth as to be , through his goodness , and sacred promise , truly meritorious of eternal life . 7. it is an article of the catholick faith ; that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist , there is truly , and really , contained the t body of christ , which was delivered for us , and his bloud , which was shed for the remission of sins ; the substance of bread and wine , being by the powerful words of christ , changed into the substance of his blessed body and bloud , the species or accidents of bread , and wine still remaining . thus , 8. christ is not present in this sacrament , according to his natural way of existence , that is , with extension of parts , in order to place &c. but after a supernatural manner , one , and the same , in many places , and whole , in every part of the symbols . this therefore is a real , substantial , yet sacramental presence of christ's body and blood , not exposed to the external senses , nor obnoxious to corporeal contingences . 9. neither is the body of christ in this holy sacrament , seperated from his bloud , or his bloud from his body , or either of both disjoyned from his soul and divinity , but all and whole n living jesus is entirely contained under either species ; so that whosoever receiveth under one kind , is truly partaker of the whole sacrament , and no wise deprived either of the body or bloud of christ . true it is , 10. our saviour jesus christ left unto us his body and bloud , under two distinct species or kinds ; in doing of which , he instituted not only a sacrament , but also a sacrifice ; x a commemorative sacrifice distinctly y shewing his death or bloudy passion , until he come . for as the sacrifice of the cross was performed by a distinct effusion of bloud , so is the same sacrifice commemorated in that of the z altar , by a distinction of the symbols . jesus therefore is here given not only to us , but a for us : and the church thereby enriched with a true , proper , and propitiatory b sacrifice , usually termed mass . 11. catholicks renounce all divine worship , and adoration of images or pictures c god alone we worship and adore : nevertheless we make use of pictures , and place them in d churches and oratories , to reduce our wandering thoughts , and enliven our memories towards heavenly things . and farther , we allow a certain honour and veneration to the picture of christ , of the virgin mary , &c. beyond what is due to every prophane figure ; not that we believe any divinity , or vertue in the pictures themselves , for which they ought to be honoured , but because the honour given to the pictures is referred to the prototype , or things represented . in like manner . 12. there is a kind of honour and veneration respectively due to the bible , to the cross , to the name of jesus , to churches , to the sacraments , &c. as e things peculiarly appertaining to god ; also to the f glorified saints in heaven , as the domestick friends of god ; yea , g to kings , magistrates , and superiors on earth , as the vicegerents of god ; to whom honour is due , honour may be given , without any derogation to the majesty of god , or that divine worship appropriate to him . furthermore , 13. catholicks believe , that the blessed saints in heaven replenished with charity , h pray for us their fellow-members here on earth ; that they i rejoyce at our conversion ; that seeing god , they k see and know in him all things suitable to their happy state ; that god is inclinable to hear their requests made in our behalf ; l and for their sakes , grants us many favours ; that therefore it is good , and profitable to desire their intercession ; and that this manner of invocation is no more injurious to christ our mediator , nor superabundant in it self , than it is for one christian to beg the prayers and assistence of m another in this world. notwithstanding all which , catholicks are taught not so to relie on the prayers of others , as to neglect their own n duty to god : in imploring his divine mercy and goodness : o in mortifying the deeds of the flesh : in p despising the world : in loving and q serving god , and their neighbours : in following the footsteps of christ our lord , who is the r way , the truth , and the life : to whom be honour and glory for ever , and ever , amen . these are the principles , these the treasons , these the idolatryes , and superstitions , which , though no other then what we have receiv'd of our forefathers , and what the greatest part of the christian world now profess : yet have drawn upon us poor catholicks in england such dreadful punishments . i beseech you sir , consider our case , without passion or prejudice , and i am confident you will see , we are not such monsters , as our adversaries represent us to be : nor entertain such principles , as are inconsistent with our duty to god and the king. you seem to say , this very plot , with which we are charged , proves us guilty of wicked principles . but , under favour , you here commit a vicious circle in way of arguing : for first , here are wicked principles alledg'd to make good the proof of a plot : and these being deny'd , the plot is introduced to make out the wicked principles : as if a man should say a thing , because he thought so : and give no reason why he thought so , but only because he said so ; which instead of proof , is to beg the question . certain i am , catholicks both taught , and practis●d principles of loyalty , at a time , when the king and kingdom felt the dire effects of contrary perswasions . in fine , whatsoever is pretended against us , it is manifest we suffer for our religion , and for our religion wrongfully traduced . it is a farther comfort to us , that our sufferings ( god be praised ) are in some measure , not unlike to those of christ our lord : for it was laid to his charge , as it is to ours , that he was a traytor to a caesar ; that he perverted the people , and endeavovred the b destruction of church and state : nor were there wanting , then as now , an oats and bedloe , c two false witnesses to swear all this . thus god , i hope , hath predestinated us , ( as the apostle saith ) to be conform to the image of his son : to the end , that suffering with him , we may ( through his mercy ) be glorified together with him . sweet jesus bless our soveraign : pardon our enemies : grant us patience : and establish peace , and charity in our nation . thus much of my lord's principles in reference to god and the king ; whether they be agreeable to reason ; and conformable to the law and ghospel of christ , i leave to the impartial reader to judge . sect . iv. my lord's declaration before the house of lords after his condemnation . soon after my lords tryal , several of his relations and acquaintance , ( some out of zeal against popery , and others out of kindness to my lord , ) were daily urgent with him to make discoveries of all he knew , as the only remaining remedy whereby to save his life , regain the kings favour , and attract the applause of the whole nation . my lord always reply'd , he was most willing and ready out of a meer sense of duty and conscience ( independent of any temporal advantage to himself ) to discover with all imaginable sincerity , the utmost utmost of what he knew , either to the king , or house of lords , when ever they required it . the lords being informed hereof , ordered his appearance before them the next day . when he came , and had audience granted , he made his acknowledgments to this effect . that he thought it no crime in any man to wish his neighbour might be of the same religion wherein he himself hoped to be saved ; nay to seek , and promote it by such ways and means , as the laws of god , and the nation allow . that there had been at divers times , and on sundry occasions , endeavours used , and overtures made to obtain an abrogation , or at least a mitigation of severities against catholicks : but this to be procured no otherwise then by legal and parliamentary means . that he himself went to breda , whilst the king was there , and propounded 100000 l. in behalf of the catholicks , to take off the penal laws . that after the king came in , there was a bill brought into the house , in favovr of catholicks , but it was opposed by my lord chancellour hide . that there had likewise been framed by the lord bristol and others , ( in order to the proposing of them in parliament , ) several forms of oaths , contained in such terms as might fully express all duty and allegiance to the king ; yet not entangle tender consciences with clauses and provisoes , disagreeable to faith , and no wise appertaining to loyalty ; but neither did this succeed . that afterwards he had offered some proposals , as well to the lord chancellour at his house at kenfington , as to the duke of york , concerning some lawful expedients , conducing to the good , ( as he thought , ) both of catholicks and the whole nation . and also about dissolving the long parliament ; the substance of which he likewise communicated to my lord sbastsbury , who said , he doubted not , but that there would come great advantages to the king by it . these he avouched were the chief , and only designs he ever had , or knew of amongst catholicks , for promoting their religion ; of more then these he protested before almighty god and their lordships , he was wholly ignorant . but this declaration not being satisfactory towards the detecting any damnable conspiracy , the lords thought sit without any further examination to remand him back to the tower. on this occasion , there run about both town and countrey an universal rumor . that the lord stafford had now made a full and perfect discovery of the whole plot ; and that the papists could not for the future have the impudence to deny it , after the confession ( though to save his life , ) of so honourable a person ; but this proved a mistake . and by the way it was very observable , my lords adversaries took this false alarm with so much eagerness and joy , as sufficiently denoted , they were not well assured of the truth of the former evidence given against him . sect . v. my lord's comportment and exercise after sentence . the greatest part of his time from his last sentence to his final end , he employed in serious recollection and fervent prayer , wherein he seemed to receive a daily encrease , both of courage and comfort , as if the divine goodness ( say the papists ) intended to ripen him for martyrdom , and give him a taste of heaven before-hand . indeed he behaved himself in all things like a man , whose innocence had banished the fear and horrour of death . some few days before his execution he received a letter , which because it is fouly suspected to have come from some colledge or seminary beyond seas , i shall here set it down verbatim , to the end every one may see how the priests treat their penitents , in the condition and circumstances my lord was in . my lord , the character i bear , gives me some title , and the singular esteem i have for your noble and truly virtuous person and family , gives me confidence to present your lordship , in this your last and grand affair , with a consolatory or rather congratulatory letter . as i daily make my supplication to god on your behalf ; so i hope i may make my addresses to you on gods behalf . you are chosen by the king of kings , to share with him in immortal crowns : you are called from an abisse of misery to the top of felicity : you now pay a debt on the score of grace , which is due , and which you must shortly have paid to the course of nature . and herein my lord , you are adorned with all the trophies of jesus's victory ; he was condemned of a high treason by false witnesses for the love of you : and you stand condemned of the same crimes , by the like evidence for the love of him . yet you shall not die my lord : 't is a mistake of this blind world , you shall only pass from a state of b death to a state of life ; true life , eternal life ; you shall be transformed into him , whose c essence is to live ; d in whom , with whom , and by whom ; you shall enjoy all that is e good ; all that is lovely ; alt that is pleasant : and this enjoyment shall be in all its fulness , altogether , all at once ; without interruption , without bound , limit , or end. the omnipotent creator● of heaven and earth ; the searcher of hearts ; the dreadful judge of men and angels : he who justly might otherwise peradventure have cast you into eternal fire ; from whose sentence there is no appeal . he , i say , will now be forgetful of past frailties , regard you with a merciful eye , with a pleasing countenance , a loving heart , an open arm , an endeared affection ; millions of lawrels hang over your head ; thousands of millions of glories and sweets , attend you , which neither f eye hath seen , nor ear hath heard , nor hath entered into the heart of man. the virgin mother shall meet and conduct you to her beloved son ; the apostles , martyrs , and confessors , shall receive and accompany you ; and all the blessed quires of saints and angels shall celebrate your victory , and g sing halleluja's to their celestial king for his inspeakable goodness to you . my lord , you were made for the enjoyment of god , and now you arrive at the accomplishment of that end ; you owe to god all you have , and all you are ; and now you restore to him all , both what you have , and what you are . o happy restauration , where the advantage is wholly yours , where misery is turned into bliss , where temporal into eternal , where god is found , where death ( as the apostle saith ) is h gain . the innocence of your cause , the dignity of your religion for which you suffer , entitles you to the merits of the cross , and incorporates you to the bloud and passion of jesus your saviour . i if we shall be dead with him ( saith st. paul , ) we shall live together with him ; if we suffer with him , we shall reign with him . hence our saviour himself ; he k that looseth his life for me , shall save it . again , if l any man will serve me , let him follow me . and where i am , there shall my servant be also . you are going to the m nuptials of the lamb. god who is all good , is pleased to n impart himself entirely to you . love hath made him wholly yours ; what need you fear ? what can you desire ? he that dyed for the love of you , will now reap the fruits of his pains , and joy himself in you , with delights proportionable to his own goodness and merits . you are select from amongst o thousands for the espousals of love ; let nothing either past or present deject you ; nothing disturb you nothing retard you ; p let not your heart be troubled , ( saith our saviour ) nor let it be afraid . as for the crimes for which you stand condemned , god and your own conscience knows you are innocent ; all un-interested men believe you so ; passion and prejudice against your religion , hath advanced the credit of perjured persons , and influenced your adversaries to carry on your death . had you been no catholick , we all know , you had never been a condemned man ; so that it is palpably manifest you die for your religion , and for your religion wrongfully traduced . what greater comfort ? what greater glory ? what greater happiness , can arrive to a true christian ? q blessed shall you be ( saith our saviour , ) when men shall revile you , and persecute you , and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake ; rejoyce and be glad , for great is your reward in heaven . concerning your real defects and frailties ; take courage ; take confidence in god , my lord ; i have already told you , what right you have to the passion of christ ; your present death , is more then a pledge of future pardon . r many sins are forgiven her ( saith our saviour to magdalen , ) because she loved much ; to him that loveth less , less is forgiven . now what it is to love much , he himself sheweth , saying , s no man hath greater love then this ; that a man lay down his life for his friend . hence the spouse in the canticles . t love is strong as death , &c. and our saviour in express terms assureth us . u he that looseth his life for me , shall find it . first therefore , acknowledge your faults , with a penitent heart , and firmly believe what the scripture avoucheth . x if we confess our sins , he is faithful and just , to forgive us our sins , and cleanse us from all iniquity . next offer with a chearful heart your life to god ; in satisfaction for your offences ; in union of the sufferings of jesus christ ; in a sacrifice of love. and then doubt not in the least but that dying , as you do , in , and for the profession of your faith ; jesus hath signed your pardon , and pronounced upon your soul , those life giving words . thy sins are forgiven thee , y thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace . neither let any endearments towards your wife , children , friends or family enfeeble your mind , check your love , or imbitter your joy. remember that sentence of our saviour . z he that loveth son or daughter above me , is not worthy of me . again , a every one that hath forsaken houses , or brethren , or sisters , or wife , or children , or lands , for my names sake , shall receive an hundred fold , and possess eternal life ; you cannot give god too much ; you can bestow nothing on him , but what you have received of him ; and what , upon many accounts , is infinitly due to him . but in reality , my lord , you do not desert your friends , nor they you , by rendring your self and them to god , suffering for jesus ; he it is standeth charged with the care of your wife , children , and family ; he stileth himself , b the father of orphans , and judge of widdows . as he c punisheth to the fourth generation of them that hate him ; so he blesseth , unto thousands of them that love and follow him . assure your self , my lord , that for this one heroick act , of giving your life d for justice , for innocence , for god , and religion ; you will not only secure to your self everlasting salvation , but draw upon all your family and posterity thousands of benedictions . the justice of our lord ( saith david , e upon the childrens children , of them that keep his covenant . again , f blessed is the man that feareth the lord , that delighteth in his precepts , his seed shall be powerful on earth ; the generation of the just shall be blessed . lastly , that sentence of ecclesiastes will fittly appertain to you ; g his memory shall not pass away , and his name shall be preserved from generation to generation . nations shall declare his wisdom , and the church shew forth his praise . i shall not undertake to dictate unto your lordship , what prayers or elevations of heart , are most proper on this occasion ; the holy ghost , whose spouse , whose son , whose temple , whose victim you are , will inspire you with better thoughts then i can suggest ; i shall therefore here content my self with some few citations of sacred texts , out of which you may upon occasion draw the comfort of devotion . h evil witnesses have risen up against me ; and iniquity hath belyed it self ; i believe to see the goods of our lord in the land of the living . i i am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in me , shall not dye for ever . k fear not , for i have redeemed thee ; i have called thee by thy name , thou art mine . l do not fear , for i am with thee , do not decline , for my right hand hath sustained thee . m because he hath trusted in me , i will deliver him ; i will protect him , because he hath known my name ; he shall cry unto me , and i will hear him ; i am with him in tribulation , i will deliver him , and will glorisie him , with length of days will i replenish him , and will shew him my salvation . n in perpetual charity have i loved thee ; therefore i have drawn thee to me , taking compassion on thee . o my heart and my flesh hath fainted . o god of my heart , my inheritance , god for ever . p the world shall rejoyce , and you shall be sorrowful ; but your sorrow shall be turned into joy , and your joy none shall take from you . q be confident , i have overcome the world. r be thou my helper , do not forsake me , neither despise me , o god my saviour . s in thee o lord have i trusted , let me not be confounded . t i live and you shall live ; you shall know that i am in my father , and you in me , and i in you , u certain i am , that neither death nor life , &c. can seperate us from the love of god which is in christ jesus our lord. x whether we live or die , we are our lords . y to me , to live is christ , and to die is gaine . z i desire to be dissolved , and to be with christ . a into thy hands o lord i commend my spirit . b come ye blessed of my father , possess the kingdom prepared for you . c this day shalt thou be with me in paradise . the god of hope fill you with all joy , and peace in believing , that you may abound in hope and vertue of the holy ghost . your lordships most devoted servant in our lord. n. n. those hours he spared from prayer or necessary repose , he bestowed part in the entertainment of his friends ( though indeed none were permitted to come at him , but under severe provisoes and restrictions ) amongst whom he demeaned himself with exceeding sweetness , candor and alacrity of spirit , connatural to him always ; but more especially after he had an assurance of his death ; insomuch that he could not endure to see any in grief of dejection on his account . for this reason his sad and disconsolate lady ( who alone touched his heart , and who could no longer support the weight of her affliction , ) was forced entirely to absent her self , from him the day before his passage out of this world. some moments likewise he allowed to give his last adieu by letters to his nearest relations ; particularly to his aforesaid most dear lady , whose incomparable vertue , and above forty years experienced constant affection to him , had taken a deep impression in his soul ; but because the letters themselves express his mind and disposition better then i can describe it : read here these few copies , which good fortune brought authentick to my hands . to my most dear and kind wife . my dear and most kind wife . god of his mercy and goodness , i mest humbly beseech him to reward you for your extraordinary kindness and love to me ; i am sure , no man ever had a better wife in all kinds , then you have been unto me ; i am most heartily sorry , that i have not been able to shew how happy i have held my self , in the great blessing which god was pleased to afford me in having you , not only for the great family to which you are the undoubted heir ; and estate you brought me and mine ; but for the great love you have always born me . i sincerely ask you pardon with all my heart , for all that i have done to give you any dislike ; i know you will forgive me out of your kindness and affection , you have so often shewn unto me more then i deserved ; if i should repeat all the kindness and affection you have shewn unto me , and of all which i am most sensible , i should not know when to end : god reward you . you were present this day when mr. lievtenent brought me word of the day of my death , i know the trouble it brought unto you . i do most willingly submit my self to gods holy will , and since he know how innocent i am , and how falsly i am sworn against , i am most confident , that the most blessed trinity will , through the merits and passion of our saviour jesus christ , grant me a place in heaven of happiness , to glorify god to all eternity amongst his angels and saints ; the lowest place in heaven being an happiness above all the kingdoms of the earth . i give god most humble thanks , that i am absolutely quiet within my self from being guilty even so much as in a thought , of that treason i am accused of , and never had a thought of any thing against the person or government of his majesty . and what i did towards the introducing of the catholick religion , was no way but that which i thought to be for the good of the kingdom by act of parliament . i do ask of the eternal and merciful god , most humbe pardon for all my great sins , hoping in the mercy of christ jesus , through his most sacred passion , to obtain remission of my sins , and life everlasting in heaven . god protect and keep you , and ours , in his holy grace . my dear i beseech you , by the love you always bore me , afflict your self as little as you can , for the unexpected , yet i doubt not , but blessed end of yours , &c. to my dear and entirely loving and beloved wife . my most dear and loving wife , it hath pleased god of his infinite mercy , to bring me into the condition i am in ; i take it for a mercy much greater then i could deserve or expect . i am heartily sorry , that i have not been so sensible of the blessing god was pleased to bestow on me , by giving you unto me , as i should have been ; for i do from my heart acknowledge , that you have been a most kind loving wife , as any man could have ; and i was not worthy of you : i pray forgive me of any and all things that i have ever done to displease you . i have not now many hours to live , god send me to make a good end ; i humbly thank him , i have a great confidence in his mercy ; and i do hope through the merits and passion of jesus christ our saviour , to obtain everlasting happiness . i beseech god to reward you , and bless you , and send you all happiness . i beseech you by the love you have always born me , to bear this my end as well as possibly you can : and put my innocence into the ballance of my death . i pray god to bless all our children , who i hope will be obedient to you . i must not forget the pains and care , that my daughter winchester hath taken , in an extraordinary kind , and discreet way ; i must likewise own , how groundless that report was , that hath been spread abroad , that you , and shee , by your entreaty and perswasions , have kept me from discovering my knowledge of the plot so much spoken of ; when god knows i know nothing to discover , and shall as totally die innocent , as any man ever did , not having in the least ever had a disloyal heart to his majesty . god preserve you , and ours , and send us an happy meeting in heaven , which is the hearty prayer of him that forty years had the honour to bear your name , and now is returned unto the name of st. stephen's day , 1680. my dear mistress , your most affectionate loving husband , william howard . dear harry , god of his mercy , i am confident hath brought me hither to let me see how vain all worldly things are , and how we deceive our selves , when we think of any thing , but how with devotion we may duly serve him ; i hope by the mercy of god to obtain everlasting salvation ; the all-knowing god sees how innocent i am , from the crimes i am charged with : it is a comfort unto me , that none of my estate will in any way be forfeited , but all comes unto you , as if i had died a natural death . i beseech god to bless you , and make you happy in this world , and the world to come ; and the only way to be so , is never to leave truly serving god upon no account whatsoever . i know you will carry your self with that duty to your mother , and love and kindness to your brothers , as is sit for you to do ; so again beseeching god to protect you and govern you in righteousness , i am your most loving father , william howard . good child , the condition i am in is such , as i doubt not but that god hath brought me into it for the good of my soul , his holy name be praised for it ; i willingly and chearfully submit unto it . i beseech god to bless you , and send you eternal happiness , which is the peayer of your affectionate father william howard . good daughter , i know you will beare what happens unto me with patience and resignation : i thank god that i know my self in every kind innocent ; and that i have confidence in gods mercies , and doubt not but through the mercy and passion of our saviour , to obtain everlasting happiness . i pray god bless you. i am your affectionate father , william howard . my good child , this is the last time i shall write unto you , i pray god bless you . your poor old father hath this comfort , that he is totally innocent of what he was accused of , and confident of gods mercy ; and through the merits of our saviour , i hope for salvation , i take great content in my innocency , and willingly resign my self to gods holy will. i am very much trovbled to leave my wife , who hath been so extraordinary a good and kind wife unto me , more then i could deserve : god reward her . so with my blessing unto you , i am your most loving father , william howard . he writ also upon occasion , several little papers or notes , whereof i have only these two or three copies . ✚ 1680. in the name of the father and of the son , and of the holy ghost . upon tuesday the 30 th . of november the feast of st. andrew , i was brought to my tryal in westminster-hall before the peers , lord chancellor being high steward ; my tryal continued until that day , seaven-night the 7 th . of december ; upon that day i was found guilty of high treason and condemned to die . i give god thanks for his great mercy and goodness that he hath been pleased to think me worthy of this sentence , in satisfaction for my other great and hainous offences which i have committed ; and i hope that through the glorious passion of our savour christ jesus , and through his pretious bloud and merits , he will be mercifully pleased to receive my soul into eternal happiness , in his presence amongst his angels and saints . i conceive this sentence is fallen upon me upon the account of the religion that i am of ; if i had numbers of lives , i would lose them all , rather then forsake that church , that i am of ; and which i am well assured that it maintains nothing but what is well warranted by the word of god. i do with my whole heart forgive those perjured men that swore so falsly against me ; i wish them no greater punishment then to repent , and to acknowledge the wrong they have done me ; i do also heartily forgive my judges ; and if any of them have given their votes contrary to their consciences , god for forgive them , i do it willingly . how extremly should i think my self bound to the king if in this condition that i am brought into by the perjury of villains that swore falsly for gain , his majesty should be graciously pleased to grant me my life ; but how infinitely beyond that hath his divine majesty shewed his mercy and goodness to me , so many times pardoning those great , and many offences , which the least of them deserved an fternal punishment . and of his infinite mercy hath been pleased to preserve me thus long from his just judgments ; and hath brought me hither first a prisoner , when i had not done any thing in the least by the law to deserve it ; and now hath pleased to bring me to my condemnation : how inexplicable are his mercies unto me ; and if i do not cordially and really repent , having this great time to recollect my self , nothing can excuse me . nay even at this time when i am hourly looking to hear of the hour of my execution , i have time by his omnipotent mercy to lay my heart prostrate on the ground , to beg his pardon , and acknowledg his infinite mercy and goodness ; god grant me grace to reflect as i ought on all these assurances , and as i ought to do , love his divinity and nothing created independently of him ; nothing in this world but the holy trinity deserving the whole love and adoration of mankind . god give me grace to love him , and only him ; and though i cannot do it so well as otherwise i ought , yet i hope i do it what i can ; and do firmly resolve by his holy grace i will to the uttermost of my power , so long as it shall please him to give me my life , wholly and willingly to resign my self to his holy will ; and doubt not by his grace but to find more true delight in serving him , then ever i did in the vanities of the world. all glory praise and honour be given unto him for all eterni●● . amen . there was likewise found in his chamber , this following prayer or resignation . thou hast said o lord , he that loves father or mother , &c. more then me is not worthy of me . i acknowledge most dear lord , that i love my wife and children , as much as a loving husband and tender father can love a most deserving wife , and most dutiful children : but to shew that i love thy divine majesty more than them , and my own life to boot ; i willingly render up , and forsake both for the love of thee ; and rather then to offend thee , though by the contrary i may have life and all worldly advantages both for my self and them . receive therefore dear jesus , this voluntary oblation of both . take us into thy protection . o helper in opportunities , in tribulation . be thou a judge and spouse to the widdow ; a father to the orphans , and salvation to all our souls . i rejoyce to have so dear a pledge to offer and present thee , for all thy blessings , and benefits bestowed upon us ; and for thy sake , who offeredst thy self for us to death , to the most ignominious death of the cross . receive therefore sweet jesus , this poor oblation of mine ( though all i am able to offer thee ) in union of all the oblations of thy most sacred life , death and passion , and of all those divine oblations , which have been , are , and ever shall be offered upon thine altars , all which i offer thee , and by thy hands to thy eternal father . o father , look upon the face of thy christ , and turn away thy face from my sins , o holy mary mother of god ; all ye holy angels and saints in heaven make intercession for me , that what i deserve not of my self , may by your intercession be bestowed upon me . amen , jesu . amen . grant and ratisie what i ask , for thy names sake , amen . on sunday the 19 th . of december mr lieutenant of the tower , came to him , and told him , he was sorry , he must bring him the ill news that he must dye on the 29 th . of this month. to which dismal message he undauntedly replyed , i must obey ; then added in latine that text of the psalm haec dies , &c. this is the day which our lord hath made , let us rejoyce and be glad in it ; after which turning himself to his almost dead-struck lady , he said , let us go to our prayers . upon this occasion also he writ a little schedule containing these words ; in the name of the father , and of the son , and of the holy ghost . this day mr. lieutenant came and told me , i must dye . god's holy name be praised ; and i prostrate beseech him , to have mercy on my sinful soul ; and deal with me , as his omnipotence knows i am innocent , of what was falsly sworn against me ; i do not doubt of salvation through the passion of our most blessed saviour . it was truly a matter of wonder and astonishment to those who lived and were conversant with him during this short remnant of his life , to see with what constancy and equal temper of mind he comported himself . what interior quiet , and serenity he seem , d to injoy : what confidence he expressed in god ; what charity to all , even to the worst of his enemies . death hath usually an aspect formidable to nature , especially when treason and murder slie in the face of a guilty conscience . a man who hath warning and leisure deliberately to consider , he is now upon the point of being just dragged out of this mortal state , before the dreadful tribunal of a severe judge , who knows the secrets of his heart ; there to receive an eternal doom of hell and damnation for crimes detested by god and nature . this man surely can never die , without such conflicts of horrour and despair as will almost prevent the hand of the executioner ; yet there appeared in my lord no other symptoms , then those of a most pleasing tranquility , as if innocence had guarded him ; as if the injustice of others had secured him ; as if the holy ghost had fortified him . as if christ jesus had united him to his sufferings , and undertaken his conduct and defence . that very morning he was to dye , he writ a letter to his lady which afterwards he delivered on the scaffold to a friend there present , the contents whereof are these . my dear wife , i have , i give god humble thanks , slept this night some hours very quietly i would not dress me until i had by this given you thanks for all your great love and kindness unto me , i am very sorry , that i have not deserved it from you ; god reward you ; were i to live numbers of years , i assure you i would never omit any occasion to let you know the love i bear you ; i cannot say what i would , nor how well and many ways you have deserved . god of his most infinite mercy send us an happy meeting in heaven . my last request unto you is , that you will bear my death as well as you can , for my sake . i have now no more to do but as well as i can ( though not so well as i would . ) to recommend my sinful soul unto the mercy of the holy trinity who through the passion , bloud and merits of our savour , i hope will mercifully grant me a place , ( though the lowest , ) in heaven , god grant it ; and bless you and ours . st. thomas of canterbury's day 1680 , past six in the morning . your truly loving husband william howard the manner and circumstances of my lord 's final end. when the hour appointed for his death , drew near , he exspected with some impatience the arrival of mr. lieutenant , telling his friends that were about him , he ought not to hasten his own death , yet he thought the time long till they came for him . a gentleman then with him in his chamber put him in mind , that it was a cold day , and that his lordship would do well to put on a cloak or coat to keep him warm ; he answered ; he would ; for ( said he ) i may perhaps shake for cold , but i trust in god , never for fear . after some time spent in spiritual discourses , at length about ten a clock , word was brought him , that mr. lieutenant waited for him below ; upon which he sweetly saluted his friends , bidding them not grieve for him ; for this was the happiest day of all his life ; then he immediately went down , and walked along by the lieutenants chair ( who had the gout ) through a lane of soldiers to the barrs without the tower. there the lieutenant delievered him to the sheriffs , and they from thence guarded him to the scaffold erected on tower-hill . all the way as he passed , several thousands of people crowded to see him ; many civilly saluted him ; and few there were , amongst that vast number , whose hearts were not touched and mollified with compassion for him . having mounted the scaffold there appeared in his countenance such an unusual vivacity , such a ( chearfulness , such a confidence , such a candor , as if the innocence of his soul had shined through his body . nothing of that mortal paleness , nothing of those reluctances , convulsions , and agonies , incident to persons in his condition , could in the least be perceived in him . he looked death in the face with so undaunted a resolution , as gave many occasion to say ; grace had left in him , no resentments of nature . after a short pause , viewing the people , and finding them attentive to what he should say , he stept to one side of the scaffold , and with a graceful air , and intelligible voice pronounced his last speech as followeth . my lord's last speech . by the permission of almighty god , i am this day brought hither to suffer death , as if i were guilty of high treason . i do most truly in the presence of the eternal , omnipotent , and all-knowing god , protest upon my salvation , that i am as innocent as it is possible for any man to be , so much as in a thought , of the crimes laid to my charge . i acknowledge it to be a particular . grace and favour of the holy trinity , to have given me this long time to prepare my self for eternity , i have not made so good use of that grace as i ought to have done ; partly by my not having so well recollected my self , as i might have done ; and partly because not only my friends , but my wife and children , have for several days been forbidden to see me , but in the presence of one of my warders . this hath been a great trouble and distraction unto me , but i hope god of his infinite mercy will pardon my defects , and accept of my good intentions . since my long imprisonment i have considered often what could the original cause of my being thus accused , since i knew my self not culpable , so much as in a thought ; and i cannot believe it to be upon any other account then my being of the church of rome . i have no reason to be ashamed of my religion , for it teacheth nothing but the right worship of god , obedience to the king , and due subordination to the temporal laws of the kingdom . and i do submit to all articles of faith believed and taught in the catholick church , believing them to be most consonant to the word of god. and whereas it hath so much and often been objected , that the church holds that sovereign princes , excommunicated by the pope , way by their subjects be deposed or murthered : as to the murther of princes , i have been taught as a matter of faith in the catholick church , that such doctrine is diabolical , horrid , detestable , and contrary to the law of god , nature , and nations : and as such from my heart i renounce and abominate it . as for the doctrine of deposing princes , i know some divines of the catholick church hold it , but as able and learned as they have written against it : but it was not pretended to be the doctrine of the church , that is , any point of catholick faith : wherefore i do here in my conscience declare , that it is my true and real judgement , that the same doctrine of deposing kings , is contrary to the fundamental laws of this kingdom , injurious to sovereign power , and consequently would be in me or any other of his majesties subjects , impious and damnable . i believe and profess , that there is one god , one saviour , one holy catholick church , of which through the mercy , grace , and goodness of god , i die a member . to my great and unspeakable grief , i have offended god in many things , by many great offences , but i give him most humble thanks , not in any of those crimes of which i was accused . all the members of either house having liberty to propose in the house what they think fit for the good of the kingdom , accordingly i proposed what i thought fit , the house is judge of the fitness or unfitness of it ; and i think i never said any thing that was unsitting there , or contrary to the law and vse of parliament : for certainly if i had , the lords would , ( as they might , ) have punished me : so i am not culpable before god or man. it is much reported of indulgences , dispensations , and pardons , to murther , rebel , lie , forswear , and commit such other crimes held and given in the church ; i do here profess in the presence of god , i never learned , believed , or practised any such thing , but the contrary ; and i speak this without any equivocation , or reservation whatsoever : and certainly were i guilty , either my self , or knew of any one that were guilty , whosoever , that were so , of any of those crimes of which i am accused , i were not only the greatest fool imaginable , but a perfect mad-man , and as wicked as any of those , that so falsly have accused me ; if i should not discover any ill design i knew in any kind , and so upon discovery save my life ; i have so often had so fair occasions proposed unto me ; and so am guilty of self-murther , which is a most grievous and hainous sin ; and though i was last impeached at the lords bar , yet i have great grounds to believe , that i was first brought to tryal , on the belief , that to save my life , i would make some great discovery ; and truly so i would , had i known any such thing of any ill design or illegal dangerous plot , either of my self or any other person whatsoever , without any exception . but had i a thousand lives , i would lose them all , rather then falsly accuse , either my self or any other whatsoever . and if i had known of any treason , and should thus deny it , as i do now upon my salvation , at this time , i should have no hope of salvation , which now i have through the merits of christ jesus . i do beseech god to bless his majestly , who is my lawful king and sovereign , whom i was always by all laws humane and divine , bound to obey , and i am sure that no power upon earth , either singly or all together , can legally allow me , or any body else , to lift up a hand against him , or his legal authority . i do hold that the constitution of the government of this kingdom , is the only way to continue peace and quietness ; which god long continue . next to treason , i hold murther in abhorrence , and have ever done , and do ; and i do sincerely profess , that if i could at this time free my self immediatly , and establish what religion i would , and what government i would , and make my self as great as i could wish , and all by the death of one of these fellows , that by their perjuries have brought me to the place where i am , i so much abhor to be the cause of any mans death , that i would not any way be the cause of their murther ; how much less would i endeavour the assassination of his majesty , whom i hold to be a gracious a king as ever this or any other nation had ; and under whom the people may enjoy their liberties , as much as ever any did ; and if it please god to grant him life and happiness , according as i have always wished and prayed for , i am morally perswaded , that he , and all his dominions , will be as happy and prosperous as ever people were ; which i beseech god grant . i do most humbly ask pardon of the almighty and all-merciful god , for all the great offences i have committed against his divine majesty , and i know he would not have the death and confusion of a sinner , but that he may repent and live : in that assurance i hope , knowing he never despiseth a contrite heart ; and though i have not so feeling a contrition as i would , yet i have it as well as i can ; and i doubt not but that god will accept of the good will. i do desire that all people will forgive me any injury that i have done them in any thing , either wilfully or by chance , and i do heartily forgive all people in this world that have injured me ; i forgive even those perjured men , that so falsly have brought me hither by their perjuries . i do now upon my death and salvation aver , that i never spoke one word either to oates or turbervil , or to my knowledge ever saw them , until my tryal : and for dugdale i never spoke unto him of any thing but about a foot-boy , or foot-man , or foot-race ; and never was then alone with him : all the punishment that i wish them , is , that they may repent and acknowledge the wrong that they have done me ; then it will appear how innocent i am : god forgive them ! i have a great confidence that it will please almighty god , and that he will in a short time bring truth to light ; then you and all the world will see and know what injury they have done me . i hope that i have made it appear , that i have some conscience ; for if i had none , certainly i would have saved my life by acknowledging my self guilty ; which i could have done , though i know i am not in the least guilty . and i having some conscience , make very ill use of it ; for i throw my self into eternal pain , by thus plainly and constantly denying thus at my death , the knowledge of what i am accused of in the least . i have said thus much in discharge of my conscience , and do aver upon my salvation , what i have said to be really true . i shall say little of my tryal ; and whether it were all according to the known law , i am too much a party to say much of it ; if it were not so , god forgive him or them that were the cause of it . my judges were all persons of honour , who were all as much bound to judge rightly , as if they had been upon oath upon what was legally proved ; and not to vote but according as in their consciences they were satisfied ; and if any of them did otherwise , upon any account whatsoever , i beseech god forgive them ; i do heartily . i shall end with my hearty prayers for the happiness of his majesty , that he may enjoy all happiness in this world , and the world to come ; and govern his people according to the laws of god , and that the people may be sensible what a blessing god hath so miraculously given them , and obey him as they ought . i ask pardon with a prostrate heart of almighty god , for all the great offences that i have committed against his divine majesty , and hope through the merits and passion of christ jesus , to obtain everlasting happiness , into whose hands i commit my spirit , asking pardon of every person that i have done any wrong unto : i do freely forgive all that have any ways wronged me ; i do with all the devotion and repentance that i can , humbly invoke the mercy of our blessed saviour . i beseech god not to revenge my innocent bloud upon the nation , or on those that were the cause of it , with my last breath . i do with my last breath truly assert my innocency , and hope the omnipotent all-seeing just god will deal with me accordingly . his speech being ended , he delivered several written copies of it to the sheriffs and others near him , ( one of which , writ with his own hand , he sent to the king , ) then he returned to the middle of the scaffold , where , encompassed by his catholick friends ; he kneeled down , and reverently making the sign of the cross , pronounced aloud , with exceeding devotion , this following prayer . agnosco ( domine jesu ) peccata mea , multa & magna , pro quibus timeo ; sed spero in misericordiâ & miserationibus tuis , quarum non est numerus : secundum igitur magnam misericordiam tuam miserere mei , & secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum dele iniquitatem meam . si peccata mea magnasunt , major est misericordia tua : si multae , infinitae sunt miserationes tuae : si ego commisi , unde me possis condemnare , tu non amisisti , unde potes , & soles salvare . credenti in potentiâ tuâ & dicenti , domine si vis , potes me mundare , tu statim respondisti : volo ; mundare : credo , quod ipse credidit ; spero quod ipse speravit ; imploro quod ipse imploravit . dic igitur animae meae , salus tua ego sum : sana me , domine jesu , & sanabor : salvum me fac , & salvus ero , & misericordias tuas in aeternum cantabo . ne projicias me igitur à faciê tuâ , & spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas à me : sed redde mihi laetitiam salutaris tui , & spiritu principali consirma me . tu dixisti , dulcissime jesu , convertimini ad me , & ego convertar ad vos : ego me , ex toto corde meo , ex totâ animâ , ex totâ mente meâ , converto ad te ; converte te igitur misericordissime , ad indignum famulum tuum quem pretioso sanguine redemisti . tu dixisti , omnis qui confitebitur me , coram hominibus consitebor , & ego eum coram patre meo , qui in coelis est . ego te , & sanctam tuam religionem catholicam vivens confiteor , & moriens , adjuvante gratiâ tuâ , confitebor : dignare me igitur suscipere , & ponfiteri coram patre tuo , qui in coelis est . in thâ promissione , non in meâ justitiâ confido . vitam quam dedisti mihi , libenter tibi reddo secundum beneplacitum tuum : in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum , qui moriens spiritum tuum in aeterni patris manus commendasti . in pace igitur , in id ipsum dormiam & requiescam , quoniam tu domine , singulariter in spe constituisti me . amen , jesu , amen . englished thus . i acknowledge ( o lord jesus ) my sins to be many , and great , for which i am affraid ; but i hope in thy mercy , and commiserations which are without number . have mercy therefore on me according to thy great mercy , and according to the multitude of thy tender mercies , blot out mine iniquity . if my sins be great , thy mercy is greater ; if many , thy commiserations are infinite . if i have committed that , for which thou mayest condemn me , thou hast not lost that , by which thou canst , and art accustomed to save . to him , that believed in thy power , and said , o lord , if thou wilt , thou caust make me clean ; thou presently answeredst , i will ; be thou clean : i believe , what he believed , i hope , for what he hoped , i implored what he implored . say therefore to my soul , i am thy salvation : heal me , o lord jesus , and i shall be healed ; save me , and i shall be saved , and i will sing forth thy mercy for all eternity . cast me not therefore away from thy face , and take not thy holy spirit from me ; but render me the joy of thy salvation , and with thy principal spirit confirm me . thou hast said , o most sweet jesus , turn to me , and i will turn to you : i turn my self to thee with my whole heart , with my whole soul , with my whole mind ; turn thy self therefore ( o most merciful ) unto me , thy unworthy servant , whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious bloud . thou hast said , every one who shall confess me before men , i will confess him before my father which is in heaven . i , living confess thee , and thy holy catholick religion , and through the assistance of thy holy grace will confess thee dying : vouchsafe therefore to receive and confess me before thy father which is in heaven . i confide in thy promise , not in my own justice ; the life , thou hast given me , i willingly render thee according to thy good pleasure . into thy hands i commend my spirit , who dying didst commend thy spirit into the hands of thy eternal father . in peace therefore , in that one thing , will i sleep and rest ; because thou , o lord , hast singularly established me in hope . amen , jesus , amen . to this prayer he adjoyned several other pious ejaculations , wherein with singular compunction , and aboundance of tears ; he implored the divine mercy and pardon for his sins past ; he recommended his soul to his dear redeemer jesus ; he blessed his holy name ; and offered his life to him , a willing sacrifice of gratitude , piety , and love. remaining still on his knees , he again protested his innocence with all the asseverations a dying christian is capable to make . then rising up , he a second time saluted the people and walking to each side of the scaffold , told them , they had as good and gracious a king as ever reigned . he earnestly exhorted them to be faithful and constant in their allegiance to him . and that no pretence whatsoever should withdraw them from their duty . he wished with a feeling resentment that none might be less loyal to his majesty then he had been . and it was very remarkable in him ; he never seemed transported with any fervours , or extasies , but either in his prayers to god , or in his expressions of loyalty to the king ; then indeed he was all flame , and you might read in his very eyes , the tender emotions , and zeal of his heart . he likewise assured them upon his salvation , he knew no design the duke of york ever had against the king , but that he had behaved himself for ought he knew , as a loving loyal brother ought to do ; then he again declared his own innocence , and desired the prayers of all good christians for him ; he prayed to god heartily to bless the king , and preserve him from his enemies ; to bless the nation ; to bless , and be with them all there present , especially the king 's loyal subjects ; he begged gods mercy and pardon for his sins ; he asked forgiveness of all , and forgave all ; beseeching the divine goodness not to revenge his innocent bloud upon the whole kingdom ; no , not upon those by whose perjuries he was brought thither ▪ to whom he wished from his heart no other hurt , then that they should repent , and tell truth . whilest he thus professed his loyaity , his innocence , his piety ; most that heard him were touched with a sensible compassion for him : some , as he spoke , put off their hats , and bowed to him , in sign they accorded to what he said ; others by distinct acclamations answered , we believe you my lord ; god bless you my lord : pray god forgive him his sins , &c. in this conjuncture a protestant minister accosted him , saying , have you received no indulgences from the romish church ? have you received no absolution ? to which my lord answered , what have you to do with my religion ? however i do say , the roman catholick church allow's of no indulgences or dispensations , authorizing treason , murder , lying , or forswearing ; nor have i received any absolution for such ends . pray do not trouble your self , nor me . then turning from the parson , he applyed himself to his friends about him , whom he lovingly embraced , and with a pleasant voice and aspect , bid them adieu , for this world. next he delivered his watch , two rings off his fingers , his staff , and his crucifix about his neck , as legacies to several friends : he desired the sheriffs that such persons as he nominated might have leave ( without the executioners intermeddling ) to assist him , and take care of his body , which was accordingly done : and his gentleman stripping him of his coat and peruke , put on his head a silk cap , and accommodated his hair , shirt , and waistcoat , for the execution . and now being ready for death both in body and mind , he chearfully submitted himself to the block ; before which first kneeling down , and making the sign of the cross , he recommended himself with raptures of devotion to the divine mercy and goodness ; after this , he lay down as it were to try the block . and then ( who could imagine it ? ) with a stupendious courage , embraced the fatal wood , as the dear basis , or point , from whence his soul was now to take its flight to immortal glory . the heads-man put him in mind , that his shirt and waistcoat came too high ; whereupon he raised himself up upon his knees , and bid his gentleman put them lower . whilst this was performing , he was heard continually to breath forth several acts of prayer , as sweet jesus receive my soul ; into thy hands o lord i commend my spirit , &c. when his gentleman had finished ; he again laid down his head upon the block , persevering still in prayer , and expecting the suddain and dismal arrest of death , with a courage ( say the papists ) divinely elevated , a constancy more then humane . no change in his countenance ; no quaking , or trembling in any one joynt of his body , could be discerned . thus he lay , or rather quietly rested , upon the very brink , between time and eternity , a good space ; till at length finding the head's-man delayed the execution of his office ; he once more raised himself up upon his knees , and with an aspect , grave , ( but still serene and lively , ) asked , why they staid ? it was answered , for a sign ; what sign will you give sir ? he replyed , none at all ; take your own time ; god's will be done ; i am ready . the head's-man said , i hope you forgive me ; he answered , i do . then blessing himself again with the sign of the cross , he reposed his head upon the block , never more to lift it up , in this mortal state. the heads'-man took the ax in his hand , and after a short pause ; elevated it on high , as it were to take aim , and set it down again . a second time he did so , and sighed . the third time he gave the fatal blow , which severed my lord's head from his body , save only a small part of the skin and wind-pipe , which was immediatly cut off with a knife . the body after seperation from the head , trembled a little , and stirred no more . the head was received into a black silk scarf , by two of my lord's friends , and retained by them , till the sheriff called for it , and commanded the executioner to hold it up to the view of the multitude ; the which he did , at the four corners of the scaffold ; crying aloud , this is the head of a traytor . but however the people had been formerly possessed with prejudice both against my lord's practices and principles ; yet now , they made no acclamations at the sight of the bloud-dropping head , nor seemed much taken with the jollity of the spectacle ; some went away with confusion and remorse , for their past hard censure of him ; others conceived strange apprehensions and fears of god's judgments ensuing perjury , and bloudshed . some again said , my lord was drunk with brandy ; others said , verily this was a just man. the papists who best knew his innocence ; and who looked upon themselves as in some measure parties in his sufferings ; beheld this whole tragedy with most tender resentments . they regarded him as a victime of religion and innocence . they mutually accompanied him with their prayers , and supplications to god in his behalf . they seemed to receive new comfort and courage from his christian magnanimity . they wept ; they smiled ; they sympathized with him , both in his dolours and joyes . they blessed , and praised almighty god for his goodness to him , and to them , in him. they glorified his holy name , who often sheweth the strength of his power , in the weakest subjects . in fine , many did , ( and still do ) believe , the peculiar grace , and presence of god's spirit , had some effect , and influence upon all in a manner that saw him ; and few there were of his religion , who did not wish themselves in his place . no sooner was execution done , but the sun , ( which before was obscured , and secluded from our sight , ) on a suddain dissipating the clouds , sent forth it 's clear and illustrious beams ; upon which accident , different parties have since made different reflections ; my lord's adversaries say , the sun before srowned at popish guilt , but seemed pleased when justice was done . the papists say , the heavens mourned and were ashamed , and unwilling to be spectators at the shedding of innocent bloud ; but appeared in joy , and splendour , at the reception of a new and glorious inhabitant into their coelestial mansions . when the head had been publickly exposed , it was returned back into the silk scarf , held by a youth that had waited upon my lord , and so laid into the coffin together with the body , vested . ( for out of modesty my lord desired he might not be stripped naked on the scaffold . ) in the interim , divers persons threw up their handkerchiess , to have them dipt in my lord's bloud , wherein some were gratified , and others had their handkerchiefs thrown with derision over the scaffold . after this the coffin was taken down from off the scaffold by several bearers , and by them carried to the bounds of the tower , where a velvet herse cloath being spread over it , it was carried in order to it's interment into the tower ; a place ( say the papists ) as it hath been enobled by his sufferings , so will it remain to future ages , a triumphal monument of his fortitude , and victory . thus lived , thus dyed this famous nobleman , to whose memory i shall only add , of my own ; that if his cause was innocent , and his religion wrongfully traduced , he is happy , and we unfortunate by his untimely death . 1 ep. cor. cap. 15. verse 54. absorpta est mors in victoriâ . an appendix , containing some remarques upon the late tryal of stephen colledge , in relation to the chief witnesses against my lord stafford . here annexed for the more ample satisfaction of the reader in that particular . having in some measure performed what i purposed , and promised in the front of this treatise ; i might well have here put a stop to my pen , had not an extraordinary accident , raised new matter of reflections upon the king's evidence in point of credit , and seemed to call me to a short survey of it , in the close of my discourse . the judgments of the almighty are incomprehensible ; and st. paul had good reason to cry out , as it were in an extasy , o the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of god ; how unsearchable are his judgments , and his ways past finding out ; who could ever have imagined , that the three direct and main witnesses against my lord stafford at his tryal , should all convene together at another , of a quite contrary stamp ; and this in so fatal a conjuncture , as to confound , and destroy by open perjury each others testimony ? my lord ( as you have seen ) endeavoured to shew the infamy of the witnesses : the contradictions in their evidence : the incoherence of parts : and incredibility of circumstances , throughout the whole charge . to make out which he alledged many pressing arguments , and produced many substantial witnesses , both catholicks and protestants , in his behalf : nothing seemed wanting , save only his adversaries themselves , against themselves , to compleat his evidence . and here it is the divine goodness ( say the papists ) who is the defender of innocence , and fountain of truth , hath wonderfully manifested what manner of men , my lord's accusers were , and what credit ought to be given them ; even by the proper testimony of their own mouths ; herein also fulfilling in some sort , what my lord himself ( prophetically ) foretold in his last speech , ( viz. ) i have a great confidence that it will please almighty god ; and that he will in a short time bring truth to light. then all the world will see and know , what injury they ( oates , dugdale , and turbervil , ) have done me . to give a brief account of this affair , there are few who have not heard of the late tryal of stephen colledge , sirnamed the protestant joyner ( a man very active in the death of my lord stafford , and a zealous defender of dugdales honesty . ) he was impeached , arraigned , condemned , and executed for high treason ; in speaking treasonable words ; and having by a designed combination with others , appeared in arms to seize the kings person at oxford . the witnesses against him were , smith , dugdale , turbervil , haines , mr. maisters , and sir william jennings . it is not my intent here , to epitomize colledges whole tryal ; nor to give my censure or verdict upon it ; but only to inform the reader of some passages which chiefly relate to the main witnesses against my lord stafford ; and which are now become the subject of surprize , and astonishment to all considering persons . please then to note , that stephen dugdale , and edward turbervil , ( two of the principal witnesses upon whose testimony my lord was found guilty , ) and john smith , otherwise called narrative smith , ( who at my lords tryal seemed the only plausible deponent , as to the plot in general ) gave respective evidence against this colledge at oxford , as followeth . stephen dugdale swore first . mr. colledge told him ; that the king was a papist , that he was as deep in the plot as any papist of them all ( which the papists themselves also confess . ) that he had an hand in sir edmundbury godferys death ; that he was a rogue ; that nothing was to be expected from him but popery , and arbitrary government . and that the clergy of england were papists in masquerade , secondly , that colledge had framed several notorious libels against the king to render him contemptible . and raised arms with intent to seize his sacred person at oxford , &c. turbervil swore , he heard colledge say ; first . that there was no good to be expected from the king. for that he and his family were papists , and had ever been such . secondly , that his party would seize the king , and secure him , till he came to those terms they would have of him . thirdly , that the parliament which cut off the late king's head , did nothing but what they had just cause for , &c. smith swore ; first . that colledge told him , there were moneys collected to buy arms and amuniton to bring the king to submission to his people ; adding thereunto , that he wondered old rowley ( meaning the king ) did not consider how easily his fathers head came to the block , which he doubted not would be the end of rowley at last . secondly , that colledge had provided himself of a great sword , pistols , blunderbuss , with back , breast , and head-peice . and that he heard him say , the city was provided , and ready with powder and bullets : that he would be one who should seize the king in case he secured any of the members of parliament . and that if any man , nay even rowley himself should attempt to seize upon his arms , he would be the death of him , &c. in direct opposition to these witnesses , colledge produced titus oates ( the third principal witness against my lord stafford . and first grand discoverer of the popish plot ) who gave attestation against the said several witnesses , after this manner . against dugdale . oates deposed ; that the said oates discoursing upon occasion with dugdale concerning his being an intended evidence against my lord shaftsbury and other . dugdale replied , there is no body hath any cause to make any such report of me ; for i call god to witness i know nothing against any protestant in england . but afterwards dugdale having sworn matters of high-treason against colledge , before the grand-jury at the old-baily ; and being hereupon charged by oates , as having gone against his conscience and contrary to what he had declared to him . dugdale answered . it was all long of collonel warcup , for ( said he ) i could get no money else ; and he promised i should have a place in the custom house . in opposition to this testimony , dugdale swore ; vpon the oath he had taken , and as he hoped for salvation , it was not true against the same dugdale , oates farther deposed . that dugdale did confess he had an old clap ; yet gave out he was poysoned ; * which sham passed throughout the kingdom in our intelligences ; but in truth ( said oates ) it was the pox : as i will make appear by the * physician that cured him . in opposition to which dugdale protested , if any doctor would come forth , and say he cured him of a clap , or any such thing ; he would stand guilty of all that is imputed to him . against turbervil also oates gave evidence in these words . a little before the witnesses were sworn against colledge at the old-baily , i ( oates ) met with mr. turbervil . i was in a coach ; but seeing mr. turbervil ; i stept out of the coach , and spoke with him ; for hearing that he was a witness , i did ask him , whether he was a witness or no against colledge ? mr. turbervil said , he would break any ones head , that should say so against him ; for he neither was a witness ; nor could give any evidence against him . so after he came from oxon , i met with mr. turbervil again ; and hearing he had been there ; i asked him , if he had sworn any thing against colledge ? he said , yes ; he had been sworn before the grand-jury . said i ; did not you tell me so and so ? why ( said he ) the protestant citizens have deserted us ; and god damm him , he would not starve . these very words he several times repeated ; but when i asked him , what he had sworn ? he said ; i am not bound to satisfie peoples curiosities . vpon the word of a priest ( said oates ) what i say is true ; as i am a minister , i speak it sincerely ; in the presence of god ; this gentleman did say these words to me ; which made me affraid of the man ; and i went my ways , and never spoke with him afterwards , nor durst i ; for i thought , he that would swear and curse , after that rate , was not fit to be talked with . in opposition to all which , turbervil swore , that he met dr. oates just at his lodgings ; and the dr. alighted out of his coach , and spoke to him , and invited him to come to his old friends . for he told him ; they had some jealousie that he was not true to them ; and he farther told him ; if he would come to the king's head clubb , he should be received with a great deal of kindness . but never afterwards ( said turbervil ) did i speak with the doctor a tittle about any evidence ; vpon my oath ( added he ) i did not ; and truly i always looked upon dr. oates as a very ill man , and never would converse much with him . against smith , oates gave this attestation ; ( viz. ) to my knowledge mr. colledge and mr. smith had some provoking words passed betwixt them at richards coffee-house . and mr. smith comes out , and swears , god damm him he would have colledges bloud ; so when i met him , said i , mr. smith , you profess your self to be a priest , and have stood at the altar : and now you intend to take upon you , the ministery of the church of england ; and these words do not become a minister of the gospel , his reply was ; god damn the gospel . this is truth ( said oates ) i speak it in the presence of god and man. the whole substance of this attestation , smith absolutely forswore , saying ; not one word of this is true , upon my oath . then addressing himself to oates . 't is a wonderful thing ( said he ) you should say this of me , but i will sufficiently prove it against you ; that you have confounded the gospel , and denied the divinity too . this is the sum of the evidence given as well by dr. oates against dugdale , turbervil and smith ; as by dugdale , turbervil and smith against dr : oates . from which fatal manner of self-condemning and perjuring each other ; the papists ( with two good consequence ) draw these deductions . either oates attesting these things against the aforenamed witnesses , in the word of a priest ; as he was a minister of the gospel , sincerly ; in the presence of god and man , &c. did give true evidence , or not ; if he did ; then are dugdale ; turbervil , and smith , both in their testimony against colledge , and in their several oaths here against oates , doubly forsworn . but if oates did not give here true evidence ( as the other three positively swear he did not ) then is he guilty of manifest perjury . so that from the reciprocal testimony of each other , in this matter ; it is an undenyable demonstration ; either oates ( the pillar of the plot , ) or dugdale , turbervil , and smith , ( the joynt supporters of it , ) or both , and all , are perjur'd men , and can justly challenge no right of beleif , or credit to any thing , they ever did , or shall swear . hence the attorney general in this very tryal ingeniously complained : it is an unhappy thing that dr. oates should come in against these men that supported his evidence before . and mr. serjeant jefferies rightly inculcated to the jury ; if dugdale smith and turbervil , be not to be believed , you perjure ( said he ) three men , and ( in them ) trip up the heels of all the evidence and discovery of the plot. in like manner : the papists argue : if oates also , be not to be believed ; the whole fabrick of the plot falls . what ? dr. oates ? the quondam top-evidence , the prime discoverer ; the saviour of the king , and nation from popish massacre ; he swear false ? he not to be believed ? what account shall be given to god , and the world , for the bloud-shed , and the severities used , upon his sole , or chief evidence ? yet it is impossible , if dugdale , smith , and turbervil , swear not false , oates should swear true ; or if he swear not false ; they should swear true ; and as it is impossible , both should swear true ; so is it next to impossible , ( if either swear false ) the plot should be true . however , most assuredly one part of the witnesses against my lord stafford ( without which the other could never have found credit , ) are here , by their very compartners , proved perjur'd men. it is objected . they might all of them peradventure have sworn true before ; though some of them for certain swear false now . the papists answer : so might they all of them for certain have sworn false before , though some of them peradventure swear true now . we are not to judge of men's past , or future proceedings in order to justice , by what they possibly might be , but by what they probably were , or , will be ; and to make a rational judgment herein , we have no other rule to guide us in the knowledge of covert intentions , then the test of overt actions . seing therefore these witnesses are proved actually perjur'd ; we have no rational ground to believe , but that upon the same motives , and in the same concurence of circumstances , they both did , and will commit the same crimes . men of lost consciences , and desperate fortunes , allured by gain , and encouraged by indempnities , regard not what , when , nor how they swear . and my lord stafford had just cause to say , if it be permitted these men daily to frame new accusations : if easy credit be given to all their fables : and whatever they shall from time to time invent , may pass for good evidence : who can be secure ? at this rate they may by degrees , impeach the whole nation , ( both catholicks and protestants , ) for crimes which neither they nor any man else , ever yet dream't on . it is also objected by colledge's party ; that dugdale , smith , and turbervil , are papists in masquerade ; and now made use on to sham off the popish plot , by turning it upon the presbyterians ; wherefore though credit may be given them when they swear against papists , yet the same credit ought to be denyed , when they bear testimony against his majesties true protestant subjects . the papists answer : first , granted , that dugdale , smith , and turbervil be real papists ; how is it proved they were imployed to sham off the plot ? why may not papists , be good witnesses against the presbyterians , in point of treason , without suspition of a sham ? is treason a thing so strange , and unheard of amongst the presbyterians ? or why should credit be given to the witnesses when they swear against the papists , ( who are only charged with a design to kill the king , ) and credit be denyed to the same witnesses , when they swear against those who actually killed the king ? secondly , what the least argument , or appearence , is there , that dugdale , smith , and turbervil are papists , or popishly affected ? they profess the protestant religion ; they frequent the protestant church , they receive the protestant communion , they take all oaths , and tests can be required of them , ( as was acknowledged in this very tryal . ) they practise neither fasting , pennance , nor other works of supererrogation , ( the symptomes of popery . ) they pursue their former design of swearing against the papists , with as much obstinacy , and violence as ever ; ( as was likewise proved in this tryal . ) and is it possible the papists should imploy , in their shams and intrigues , ( if they had any ) the very persons who at the same time make it their trade and lively-hood , to cut their throats ? indeed if any of the witnesses against my lord stafford be popishly affected , it is dr. oates , whose present disparagement of his fellow evidence , look's ( said mr. sollicitor general , ) as if he were again returning to st. omers . lastly , it is argued ; the jury , bringing in colledge guilty of high treason , by that very verdict , cleared dugdale , smith , and turbervil of the perjury , charged upon them by dr. oates . it is answered : first , the jury brought in their verdict against colledge , not upon the sole testimony of dugdale , smith , and turbervil ; but more especially , upon the evidence given by sir william jennings , and mr. maisters , persons of known worth and honesty ; as also upon pregnant proof made , ( and acknowledged in a manner by colledge himself ; ) that he by combination with others , appeared in open arms , at an appointed time , and place , ready for , and designing , publique acts of hostility , in the very presence of the king , yet without his knowledge or authority ; which by the law is adjudged treason . 2ly . the papists do not undertake to make good oates's charge of perjury against dugdale , smith , and turbervil ; nor theirs , against him : but only to shew , that the guilt of this horrid crime lyeth amongst them ; and consequently , whether it be charged upon oates , as the chief swearing-master , and original author of the plot ; or upon dugdale , smith , and turbervil , at his pedants and accessaries in the imposture ; or ( as is most rational ) upon both , and all of them ; it follow 's , that the lord stafford dyed by perjury ; and roman catholicks have wrongfully suffered by their villanies , the loss of their fortunes ; their estates , their liberties , their lives . luke 19. verse 22. out of thine own mouth will i judge thee , thou wicked servant . thus i have here briefly and impartially set down , what occur's to me on this occasion ; and now for an appology to the whole treatise : seing the papists , as well as all other men , have a natural right , when impeached , to defend their innocence , i hope it will not be imputed a fault in me , to have rehearsed some of their arguments , as they lay within the limits , and sphere of my design . if any persons of depraved judgments , shall from hence draw sinister reflections upon the justice of the nation . i declare they abuse both the government , themselves , and me , by such their unjust paraphrase . finis . some errors escaped the press . page 1. line 30. for lesse , read least . p. 14. l. 36. for it is credible , r. is it credible , p. 30. 1. 10. for deposited , r. deposed , ibid. 1. 16. for , left himself to . r. left to himself . p. 31. l. 35. for , injured , r. invred . p. 37. 1. 3. for railed , r. railyed . p. 39. 1. 2. for , addressed , r. addressed . p. 49. 1. 37. for , justifiable to her tenents r. justifiable by her tenents . p. 54. 1. 36. for , creature , r. creator . p. 67. 1. 12. for , implored , r. i implere . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a34573-e590 tryal , p. 4. pag. 7 , &c. pag. 17 , &c , the motives of his perversion . his imployment in england . pag. 21. &c. his contribution for arms , &c. 50. l. armies ready at an hours warning . the popes contribution 1000 l. pag 25. &c pag. 25. &c. his feigned conversion . the provincial of castile contribution 10000 l. pickering receive'd a discipline . afterwards a promise of 30000 masses page 32. a twenty pound debt returned , for a reward to kill the king. page 30 page 17. the papists plea against the plot in general . pag. 70. page 123. a coleman's tryal . coleman's letters . sir edmundbury godfrey's murder . pag. 20. pag. 87. pag. 136. fire-balls , sham-plots , &c. the votes of both houses of parliament declaring it a plot. * see the tryals of wakeman , corker , marshal , earl of castlemain , sir tho. gascoin , lady powis , tempest , &c. gunpowder-treason , french massacre , &c. ireland's tryal . page 40. &c. the first onset against my lord. my lords address . page 25. &c. pag. 24. &c. dugdal 's infamy and beggery . pag. 94. &c. pag. 84. &c. pag. 87. &c. pag. 145 . &c. pag. 163. pag. 175 . pag. 147 . pag. 163. pag. 168. dugdale's perjury . pag. 87. &c. pag. 175. pag. 74. page 147. page . 83. &c page . 80 , &c ▪ page 132 , &c. page 174. page . 177. page 175. page 178. dugdales subornation of oaths . page 90. &c. pag. 138. &c. dugdale 's improbable manner of swearing . page 22. page 46 , &c. page . ●28 , &c. page 130 , &c. this oates affirms in langhorns tryal . page 101. page 179. oates's new porgeries . page 102. page 25. page 126. oates his apostacy and sacriledge . page 123. turbavil's perjury in seven particulars . page 120 &c. pag. 122. pag. 152. page 109. page 151. page 108. page 113. page 181. page 106 page 180. page 112. page 110 page 182. page 101. page 116. turbervil 's loose manner of life . page 154. page 163. &c. the sum of my lord's plea as to matters of fact. page 167. &c. my lord's plea as to matters of law. page 199. &c. the sum of the evidence against my lord. page 170. page 171 , &c. page 184. page ●●● answer to 〈◊〉 lord's plea in matters of law. page 190. my lord 's particular address . page 198. page 212. my lord high steward's speech . his religion imputed to him as the c●●se of his guilt . page 21● . the sentence . notes for div a34573-e27920 page 54. page 53. ibid. ibid ibid. ibid. ibid. an objection , answered . the intent of this epistle . 〈…〉 christ . a eph. 2. 8. 1 cor. 15. 22. applicable by faith. b mark 16. 16 heb. 11. 6. c eph. 4. 4. &c. which is but one , d jam. 2. 10. e 1 cor. 1. 20. mat. 16. 17. supernatural , by the divine providence to be learnt . f isai . 35. 8. by the divine providence to be learnt . g joh. 9. 41. h mat. 11. 25. i john 15. 22. not from private interpretation of scripture . but from the universal church , dilated , continued and guided by the holy ghost for that end . k 2 pet. 3. 16. pro. 14. 12. mat. 22. 29. l 1 jo. 4. 1 , & 6. prov. 12. 15. m mat. 18. 17. luke 10. 16. n psal . 2. 8 sa . 2. 2 &c. 49. 6. matth. 5. 14. o isai . 59. 21. joh. 16. 13. ezek 37. 26. eph. 5. 25. &c. 1 tim. 3. 15. mat. 16. 18. p mat. 28 20. joh. 14 16. q deut 17. ●8 . &c. mat. 23. 2. this church is the same with the roman chtholick , from the testimony of which , we believe the scripture to be gods word . divine revelations only matters of faith. r can. 6. 8. joh. 10. 16. rom. 15. 5. joh. 17. 22. philip 2. 2. s mat. 16. 18. 1 tim. 3. 15. mat. 18. 17. t isai . 59. 21. joh. 14. 26. u 1 cor. 11. 19. mat. 18. 17. what heresie , & what schism ! how matters of faith are proposed by the church . x tit. 3 10. 1 cor. 1. 10. cap. 12. 25. y joh. 5. 39. z acts 15. per tot . a 2 thes . 2. 15. cap. 3. 6. 2 , tim. 2. 2. b jam. 2. 18. gal. 1. 7 , 8. what is the authority of general councils c deut. 17. 8. mat. 18. 17. acts 15. pertot . luke 10 16. heb. 13. 7. 17. an explanation of the same authority . d joh. 14 , 16. e 1 tim. 6. 20. a deduction from thence concerning allegiance . a second deduct on concerning the same . of the oath of allegiance . the bishop of rome supreme head of the church but not infallible . d mat. 16. 17. luke 22. 31. jo 21. 17. e eph. 4 , 11 , &c. nor hath any temporal authority over princes . 1 pet. 2. v. 17. &c. the church not responsible for the errors of particular divines . king-killing doctrine damnable heresie . conc. const . sess , 15. personal misdemeanours not to be imputed to the church . no power on earth can authorise men to lye , forswear , murther , &c. equivocat●on not allowed in the church . of sacramental absolution a ex. 18. 21. 2 cor. 7. 10. b psa . 32. 5. pro. 28. 13. c act. 19. 18. 1 cor. 4 , 1 , jam. 5. 16. d luk. 3. 8. e joh. 20. 21. &c. mat. 18. 18. f tit. 3. 5. of satisfaction by penitential works g 2 cor. 3. 5. h act. 26. 20. jonas 3. 5. &c. psa . 102. 9. &c. psa . 109. 23. dan. 9. 3. joel . 2. 12. luke 11. 41. acts 10. 4. indulgences are not remission of sins , but only of canonical penances . abuses herein not to be charged on the church . i 1 pet. 2. 5. k 1 cor. 5. 3. &c. l 2 cor. 2. 6. &c. there is a purgatory or state , where souls departing this life with some blemish are purifi'd m nu. 14. 20 , &c. 2 sam. 12. 13. &c. n pro. 24. 16. mat. 12. 36. & cap. 5. 22. 26. o mat. 5. 26. 1 cor. 3. 15. p rev. 21. 27. prayers for the dead available to them . superfluous questions about purgatory . q 1 cor. 15. 29. coll. 1. 24. 2 mac. 12. 42 , &c. 1 jo. 5. 16. of the merit of good works , through the merits of christ . r jo. 15. 5. 16. s mat. 16. 27. cap. 5. 12. cap. 10. 42. 2 cor. 5. 10. 2 tim. 4. 8. christ really present in the sacrament of the eucharist . t mat. 25. 26. mark 14. 22. luke 22. 19. 1 cor. 11. 23. &c. cor. 10. 16. but after a supernatural manner whole christ in either species . hence communicants under one kind ; are no wise deprived either of the body or bloud of christ . of the sacrifice of the mass . worship of images wrongfully impos'd on catholicks . yet there is some veneration due both to pictures , n jo. 6. 48. 50 , 51 , 57 , 58. acts 2. 42. x lu 2● . 19 , &c. y 1 cor. 11. 26. z heb. 13. 10. a luke 22. 19. b mal. 1. 11. c luke 4. ● d ex. 25. 18. e jos . 7. 6. ex. 3. 5. psa . 99. 5. ph. 2. 10. luke 3. 16. acts 19. 12. and other sacred things . f jo. 12. 86. g 1 peter 2. 17. rom. 13. 7. h rev. 5. 8. i luke 15. 7. prayers to saints lawful . k 1 cor. 13. 12 ▪ l ex. 32. 13. 2 chron. 6 42. m rom. 15. 30. yet so as not to neglect our duties . n james 2. 17. 30 , &c. o rom. 13. ● p rom. 12. 2. q gal. 5. 6. r john 14. 6. a conclusion from the premises . an objection answered . catholicks suffer for their religion . a lake 23. 2. b john 11. 48. their sufferings not unlike to those of christ our lord. c matt. 26. 60. rom. 8. 29. verse 17. notes for div a34573-e38410 a luke 23. matth. 26. b rom. 7. c exod. 3. 14. d coll. 1. e exod. 33. f 1 cor. 2 g luke 15. h phil. 1. 21. i 2. tim. 2. 12. k luke 9. 24. l john 12. 26. m apoc. 19 n ● john 3 2. o cant. 5. p john 14. 1. q matth. 5. 11. r luke 7. 47. s john 15. 13. t cant. 8. 6. u mat. 10. 39. x 1 john 1. 9. y lu. 7. 48. &c. 50 z mat. 10. 37. a cap. 19. 29. b psal . 63. 5. c exod. 20. 5. d mat. ● 10. e psal . 103. 1● f psal . 112. 1. g eccle. ●9 . h psal . 27. 12. i john 11. 25. k jsa . 43. 1. l 〈…〉 m psal 91. 14. n 〈…〉 o psal 77. 26. p john 16. 20 q verse 33 r psal . 27. 9. s psal . 31. ● t john. 14. 19. u rom. 8. 38. x rom 14. 8. y phil. 1. 21. z verse 23. a psal . 30. 5. b mat. 25. 34. c luke 23. 43 rom. 15 , 13. the first letter to his lady . the second letter to his lady . another to his son henry now lord stafford . for my son john. for my daughter vrsula . for my daughter delphina . another note . psal . 9 9. psal . 84. ● . ps ; al. 51. 10. psal . 181. 2. another note . mat. 10 3● luke 23. psal . 4. luke 23. 48. notes for div a34573-e48570 rom. 11. 33. page 18. &c. page 29. &c. page 27. page 49. &c. page 50. * viz. by the papists . * dr. lower . page 50. page 48. page 49. page 50. page 94. & 97. page 45. page 88. page 90. the several informations of john mac-namarra, maurice fitzgerrald and james nash relating to the horrid popish plot in ireland together with the resolutions of the commons in parliament upon the said informations and message from the lords spiritual and temporal in parliament, thursday the 6th of january, 1680. macnamara, john, gent. 1680 approx. 34 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 10 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a59376 wing s2766 estc r30558 11359068 ocm 11359068 47579 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a59376) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 47579) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1469:13) the several informations of john mac-namarra, maurice fitzgerrald and james nash relating to the horrid popish plot in ireland together with the resolutions of the commons in parliament upon the said informations and message from the lords spiritual and temporal in parliament, thursday the 6th of january, 1680. macnamara, john, gent. fitzgerrald, maurice. nash, james. 15 p. printed for john wright ... and richard chiswell ..., london : 1680. reproduction of original in the university of illinois (urbana-champaign campus). library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng england and wales. -parliament. -house of commons. popish plot, 1678. 2006-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-12 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-01 robyn anspach sampled and proofread 2007-01 robyn anspach text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i appoint john wright , and richard chiswell , to print these informations and resolutions perused by me , according to the order of the house of commons ; and that no other person presume to print them . 6 th . jan. 1680. wi williams , speaker . the several informations of john mac-namarra , gent. mavrice fitzgerrald , gent. and james nash , gent. : relating to the horrid popish plot in ireland : together with the resolutions of the commons in parliament , upon the said informations and message from the lords spiritual and temporal in parliament . thursday the 6th . of january . 1680. london , printed for john wright , at the crown on ludgate-hill , and richard chiswell , at the rose and crown in st. paul's church-yard . 1680. the information of john mac-namarra . who informeth and saith , that william bradley esq ; one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of waterford in the year 1677. gave him the said informant an oath of secrecy touching the plot intended and designed in ireland , by the earl of tyrone and the rest of the confederates against the kings majesty ; at which time he imparted to this informant , the earl of tyrone had received a commission from the french king to be a colonel of horse in the county of waterford , and that the said william bradley was to be his lieutenant colonel , and desired this informant to provide himself with horse and arms , and to procure as many as he could of those he dare trust : and that this informant should have a command of being a captain under the said earl and him. whereupon this informant did provide himself and speak unto john follis , james finican and dennis mac-namarra to provide themselves with such necessaries as were requisite for that purpose ; informing them also , that mr. bradley did impart such matters unto this informant , and who knew that the said mac-namarra had imparted such matters to the said james and dennis , who afterwards did confess the same to his grace the lord lieutenant and council , and before this informant had liberty to speak with them , or they with him , being then kept close prisoner from any one of the kings evidence . the precedent examination this informant gave , when on a petition preferred by the rest of the kings evidences , this informant was kept from any of the earls friends and from quarter-master ely , who was always with this informant before and not denied to be with him ; but on the petition of the aforesaid gent. then it was ordered , that this informant should be kept close and not to have any to come to him : this informant was then very fearful to discover his mind , because of the guilt that was upon him , being condemned ; which after a promise of pardon , if this informant spake the truth , he then resolved to discover so far as he knew , though against himself : upon which he freely declared his mind in this following examination . after the aforesaid vvilliam bradley did impart to this informant the aforesaid treason , this informant met with the earl of tyrone upon the land of gaveston in the county of vvaterford with two of his men , viz. thomas power his gentleman , and garret mac-teige his follower , and another whose name is luke power , this informant having in company with him one vvilliam power , and boetius clausy , being then abroad hunting with dogs ; the said earl knowing this informant at a distance , called to him , upon which this informant went to him : the said earl taking this informant from the company , asked him , whether mr. bradley had imparted to him any matter of secrecy ; this informant replyed , that he had : the said earl then told this informant , that he must be very private and discover it to none , but those he was very sure of . after which , the said earl drew a list out of his pocket , and shewed this informant a list of several persons that were to be superior officers , both in the county of vvaterford , county of cork , county of kerry , county of limerick and county of clare , which this informant took special notice of and knew several of the persons ; amongst the rest , the earl entred my name with my own pen and ink in the list ; the said earl telling this informant , he had his commission sent him from the french king , under hand and seal to be a colonel of a regiment of horse in the county of vvaterford , and said there was hardly a county in ireland , but persons were appointed by the french king for that purpose : and named in the county of limerick , colonel peirce lucy and the lord brittas , sir john fitz-gerrald , david fitz-gerrald and several others in the county of clare , john mac-namarra and several others in the county of kerry , sir turlo mac-mahan and several others in the county of cork , and that the said earl of tyrone was to be colonel in the county of vvaterford , and mr. bradley to be his lieutenant colonel , quarter-master ely his major , mr. john butler senior his captain , with the names of several others of that company , which he did not read unto this informant ; the said earl saying they were to raise several hundreds of men in every county , and that the superior officers were to meet on purpose to return an exact account of their forces to the french king : on which the said king would land many thousands of men in the river thanan , and assoon as they were landed , the next business was to go to the city of limerick with 500 men and divide them into two parts , the one party to enter the city at candle-light , and that at several gates , and such as best knew the city were appointed to set upon the guards and put them all to the sword , and the rest to be hard by the city , and to enter in immediately when the alarm was given , and the body of the army to draw up as fast as they could . by which , said the earl , we do not question but to possess our selves of the city and kings castle , and to banish the english very soon ; and indeed said the earl , 't is the providence of god to bring some downfall on that unjust king , the duke of ormond and his children , that wronged me in so high a nature on the account of villiers : therefore said the earl , go home , lose no time , but make your selves ready , for we know not how soon occasion may require your assistance , and speak to as many friends as you can , which accordingly this informant did and provided horse and arms for that purpose . after discovery made hereof by hubburt bourke as you may read in his information , who partly knew the proceedings , and having discovered the same , was bound by recognizance to prosecute the said earl at the next assize at waterford , he did for want of this informants and others testimonies absent himself from the assizes , unto which he was bound , and for other reasons mentioned in his examination . but in a short time after , the said earl hearing that mr. bourke was going for england to make his application to the king and parliament ; the said earl commanded this informant to write unto the said bourke , which accordingly he did , and signified in his letter , that this informant would very willingly speak with him , but he not answering this informants expectation , this informant went himself to him at waterford , and courted him to go along with this informant to his house , which he prevailed with him to do . this informant then hastened to the said earl , and gave him an account of his proceedings , which the earl liked very well , whereupon he ordered major butler and john rovan , and this informant to confer with the said bourke , and at the mill of carrygninier we met , and according to the said earls order did offer the said bourke a farm stock , together with a sum of mony so as that he would charge mr. villiers ; captain nicholas , mr. bradley , and others with suborning or prompting the said bourke to prosecute the said earl , and that he should acknowledge it , and mr. bradley aforesaid should confess the same , and that so bourke and bradley should be committed witnesses against villiers and nicholas , upon which the said earl would bring his action of scandalum magnatum against villiers and nicholas for 40000 l. which was contrived by mr. andrew lynne and mr. bradley the said earls friends , unto which the said bourke refused to consent . here it is to be observed , that mr. villiers and captain nicholas were at law with the said earl , and therefore the said earl did suppose the world would sooner believe what was laid to their charge , upon the earls account , though falsly alledged against them . bourke not accepting the aforesaid offers , the earl then petition'd the lord lieutenant and council , who sent a summons for the said bourke , and brought him to dublin , and being examined of several matters , he gave in his informations , and got also mr. sampton and mr. jury to be summoned up , and to be examined , upon whole examinations : a summons was issued out against quarter-master ely , john povan , major butler aforesaid , and lawrence smillirand and this informant , who were all sent for to the council-board ; quarter-master ely went first to the earls house to have instructions touching the management thereof . the earl also sent to his gentleman mr. power for this informant , he being then in waterford , the said power came to this informant and told him , that the earl of tyrone and quarter-master ely sent for this informant , to the intent he might repair to dublin , and having no horse with him at waterford , the said power the earls gentleman , provided this informant with a horse , on which he went with him to curronymore to the earls house , where this informant met with the said earl and quarter-master ely together . upon which the said earl and quarter-master ely took this informant into the garden , and there did agree to send to john rovan , who came immediately , at which time the earl and quarter-master ely did instruct us what we should say , when we came to dublin before the council ; and told this informant the great danger , if we should discover any thing of the matter : but proferring an oath unto us , and finding us unwilling to swear what they would have us to swear , the said earl then told us , that we should be absolved by dean powers his cousen and the rest of the clergy , and after instructing us in the garden for a considerable time , the earl gave this informant an horse , and gave john rovan , lawrence swillivant and this informant money to bear our charges to dublin , and when we came there , we were maintained at the earls charge ; with promise to get bayl for this informant , if imprisoned , and we were there always accompanied with the earls friends , who promised this informant great reward , if he would conceal what he knew . this informant also had money from quarter-master ely , whilst he was in the pursivants hand , and several masses were said in the county for the earl and this inforformant , whilst this informant continued from discovering , but since hath excommunicated him . but at length mr. ivy and mr. sampson petition'd the lord lieutenant and council to have this informant kept close prisoner , and to keep the earls friends and sollicitors from this informant , which accordingly was done . now this informant being by himself , and considering the evil case he was in , god so touched this informants conscience , that he confessed the truth : several other things there are relating to the powers , concerning stealing of horses and providing of arms for the same purpose , which is treated of in mr. ivy's examinations and in james finicans , which powers were examined upon oath before sir jo. davis , and since bailed out of goal by means of captain morris the prosecutor , who now goes armed mostly accompanied with the earls friends and kindred . james finican was by the said mr. bradley sollicited not to confess any thing against him , for which the said bradley promised him a good reward in money , and was before the committee , and did for some time endeavour to conceal the matter ; but being kept from the said bradley for a season in the marshals hand , told the said marshal , that he would not be in trouble for concealing others treasons , he the said finican desired to be carried again before the committee , confessed the whole matters , saying , that if mr. bradley were put where he was , he would confess the truth too ; this astonished the said bradley , for as much as the said finicans promise to the said bradley of concealing , made him the said bradley to tell the committee , that he would be saved by the said finicans testimony . you may observe that while this informant denied to confess the truth and conceal the plot , the earls friends got a petition writ against mr. ivy , to be preferred to the lord lieutenant and council , viz. that the said ivy was a man of ill fame and a dishonest man , and that he knew nothing of those treasons and briggs before-mentioned , which petition they gave this informant to send unto , or deliver unto the lord lieutenant and council . in the mean time this informant being kept from them , his conscience forced him to confess the truth . he then shewed the petition unto the said mr. ivy , of which they were much ashamed and would have denied it , but that this informant justified it , and told who brought it unto him ( meaning mr. michael roe ) the hand also being known , which way this informant always observed , they always made use of to endeavour to clear themselves , by calling in question the reputation of their accusors . john mac-namarra . this informant saith , that in the year 1676. one john brenan which was then lately come out of rome was made archbishop of cashell , waterford , and lismore : and that by the titular primate of ireland the said brenan producing bulls from the pope to the said primate for that purpose , together with several other bills brought over by the said brenan , which deane power , the earl of tyrones kinsman informed him of , as hereafter is treated of . in the said year this informant hath observ'd the tumultuous congregation of priests and fryers which resorted to knock-house , a house of entertainment three miles westward of waterford ; and that in the same year 1676. this informant took extraordinary notice of it , being not a thing so usual ; but being in company with several of the said priests in the said house , and that at several times , and especially with dean power aforesaid , who was next in power to the said brenan : this informant began to enquire the reason of their publick meetings so often , it being in time of prosecution ; the said power made answer , that he would satisfie him as to that effect patron-day at kesk , which on our lady following , being within few days after the said time , which accordingly he did , as followeth ; the congregation being gathered together to confess and receive the sacrament after the popish way , one edmond power a jesuit preached a sermon , which was to let the congregation understand that they had indulgences from the pope of rome granted them , and liberty to eat flesh on wednesdays : but in the conclusion told them , there was some consideration whereupon this was granted , which the priest of every parish was to give in charge to his parishioners , at the time of confession , and proceeded no farther : on which , the priests fell to their offices , which was to confess the congregation ; and this informant being then one of that religion , this informant confessed to the aforesaid dean power : but in his confession , the said dean gave this informant in charge as followeth ; that he should not divulge to any person whatsoever on pain of mortal sin and damnation what he would impart to this informant ; which this informant promised he would not : with that he proceeded thus ; that the consideration of the aforesaid indulgence and liberty was , that whoever was in a capacity to help and assist the holy cause , designed & in hand for a long time , was to have great preferments , together with the benefit of the aforesaid indulgences which was a pardon of sins for many years ; and also that the clergy of ireland were to have the benefits and profits of the tithes accrueing out of each parish , with the gleabes and monks lands and appurtenances belonging unto them , which the hereticks did wrongfully possess for a long time : and that the french king and the rest of the popish confederates , together with the assistance of his holiness the pope , did intend imediately to invade the kingdoms of england and ireland , and doubted not but by the assistance of god , to fulfill it e're it belong , and to wash the hands of hereticks out of the estates of our ancestors , for the duke of york gives full consent and is of our side ; together with the assistance of the earl of anglesea and several other persons of quality in that kingdom , whom we are ordered to celebrate several hundreds of masses ; which he the said dean had accordingly ordered all the popish priests within his jurisdiction . after which time this informant observ'd that there were several masses celebrated in the honour of the earl of anglesea through the said county of waterford . and also the said dean said , that the earl of anglesea did indeavour that the parliament should not sit , with the assistance of the duke of york , to prevent the persecution of roman-catholicks . in october 1679 , this informant being then imployed by the earl of tyrone to tamper with mr. bourke , as is set forth in this informants former informations : the said earl shewed him a letter from his father-in-law the earl of anglesea , wherein he read , that the said earl made so many friends both in england and in ireland , that he need not fear what was laid to his charge : and that he spoke to the duke of york about the same ; which the duke promised he would . john mac namarra . the information of maurice fitz gerald , gent. taken before us john odell , and nicholas mounckton , and george aylmer , esqs ; three of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of lymerick . the informant being duly sworn on the holy evangelist , saith , that on , or about winter , 1676 , after captain thomas mac inerina return'd out of flanders and france , whither he had been imploy'd as agent from the irish gentry , there was a very great meeting at collonel peirce lacy's house at curroe , where met , besides the said collonel , the lord of brittas , molowny the popish titular bishop of killalow ; brenane the popish bishop of waterford ; duly the popish bishop of lymerick ; two jesuites , whose names this informant knows nor , sir john fitz gerald , john power son to david power late of killalow , john hurley , eustace white , john bourke of cahirmoyhill , william bourke his brother , capt. john pardon , captain thomas mac inerina , captain richard stephenson , mr. david fitz gerald , this informant , and several others whose names he remembers not : where , and at which time , the said captain mac inerina gave an accompt of the effects of his agency , and what force the french k. had promised to send over into this kingdom of ireland , which to the best of this informants remembrance was , to be about twenty thousand men , and artillery , arms and ammunition for 20000 men more , which were to be raised in munster ; and they then and there consulted how the 20000 men should be raised , and resolved , it should be by their clergy ; made computation , and appointed how many each priest should raise in his parish . and likewise appointed the officers that should command ; and says , that the lord of brittas , collonel peirce lacy , sir john fitz gerald , john mac nemarra of cratelagh , john power , captain suillivane of beerhaven , one carty and several others , were to be collonels : that john bourke of cahirmohill , was to be lieutenant collonel ; and that captain thomas mac inerina was to be lieutenant collonel or major to captain suilivanes regiment ; and that captain john pardon , captain richard stephenson , mr. john hurley , and eustace-white , were to be field-officers ; and he hath heard that mr. john anketill was to be lieutenant collonel ; and that mr. william bourke , mr. theobald dowdall , mr. oliver stephenson , mr. david fitz gerald , now in london , this informant , and several others , were then appointed captains ; and that john bourke of ardagh and several others were appointed lieutenants ; and that john dury , and thady-quin , were to be captains ; and that nicholas bourk , and many others of lymerick , were then pitched on for the surprize of lymerick , whose names at present he remembers not . and saith , that on notice from captain suillivane of beerhaven , of the french's landing there , was a massacre of all the english resolved in one night , and persons particularly assigned to the massacre or murther of every family ; and saith , that the popish servants in each family were to betray and open the doors or some other way let in those irish , and so murther the english in their beds ; and after , if they could not surprize , they were immediately to besiege lymerick ; and saith , that by reason of the emperour , the king of spain and other the confederates joyning and assisting the dutch , the french king was hindred from sending over those forces and arms he promised , and so all things were at a stand till about michaelmas 1679. that all the fore-named persons and john mac nemarra of cratelagh , john anketill of farrihy , capt. levalin , and many others met at mr. william bourks house at lisnekilly , and continued there 2 or 3 days together , and that the said capt. levalin brought and produced a commission for the raising those 20000 men , and uniting them with what forces should be sent out of france and raised in other parts of the kingdom . and saith , he heard that the earl of tyrone was to be a general officer ; and collonel fitz patrick and sir william talbot were to have some great commands : and saith , that all then present at lisnekilly bound themselves by strict oaths and by an instrument under their hands and seals , to be true and faithful and stand by each other . and saith , that the plot is still going on , and that they have daily hopes of the french kings invading : and that he hath heard there was some powder lately landed in the county of clare side of the river of shannon , and that he will labour to discover it ; and saith , he hath some papers which he will peruse , and hopes by them other things may occur to his memory , which he will be ready to add to this information . and further saith , that he hath been told that david fitz gerald discovered the plot both to sir thomas southwell and john pigot , esqs ; and this informant saith , that in case this information should be known , he and his family are in danger of being murdered . maurice fitz gerald. taken before us this 11 decemb. 1680. john odell . nicho. mounckton . george aylmer . the deposition of james nash . james nash of the county of lemerick , deposeth , that about four years ago , captain john purden , after he had heard mass , took this deponent aside , and after several inconsiderable discourses , questioned this deponent why he did not go into france , being the onely place to improve him , and make him a compleat man , for that there were like to be troublesome times , and there would be want of such improved men. but being no further pressed at that time , this deponent took little notice thereof . soon after , this deponent being at mass in the said purden's house , burgatt a priest applyed himself to this deponent much after the manner purden had formerly , and in conclusion , commanded this deponent to go to captain thomas mac everie's house , for there he had somewhat material to impart unto him : and immediately after they had dined , there the said mac everie took this deponent aside , and after having sworn him to secresie , discoursed with him as followeth . you know , saith he , that the king at breda before his restauration , promised the irish gentry to restore them to their estates and religion , but since this is not performed , we have designed to cast off the english bondage and free our selves from their slavery , and to recover our estates and religion . when this is done you shall have your fathers and uncles estates in lieu of your services , for i intend you shall be my own lieutenant , for i am to have a regiment , by which means i shall have an opportunity to advance you ; for the king of france hath promised us aid of ten thousand men and twenty thousand arms to carry on the design . at this time the said mac everie gave this deponent a case of pistols and about thirty shillings in money , to carry letters to collonel ossulivan at beer-haven , and directed him , that if this deponent should be questioned on the way , to declare he belonged to the army ; accordingly this deponent delivered his letters , and returned with answers , pursuant whereunto , captain everie went to captain purdens house , where was a great meeting of the popish gentry of the country , who rejoyced much at the answer of the said letters , but what they were this deponent knoweth not , but that at that time they were sworn to seceresie upon a great book , which this deponent thinks was the life of the saints , viz. john purden , thomas mac everie , eustauce vvhite , john hurley , john bourke , with many others , which this deponent hath forgot at present . that there were several other meetings sometimes at mac everie's , sometimes purdens , where they usually drank a health to the prosperity and good success of the design ; after which they all kneeled down and said an ave maria , with other prayers . that this deponent going another time to beer-haven with letters , saw in the harbour a french man of war , who as this deponent was informed , came on purpose to sound the harbour and to try the peoples minds and the posture of their assistance , if there were an occasion . upon this deponents returning to mr. everies with an answer , there was another great meeting of the gentry , and great rejoycing at the said sullivanes answer . not long after this , the deponent went again to sullivane , but at his return with letters their countenances were much changed to what they were formerly ; for this deponent was given to understand , that the french king being involved in a war with the emperour and spaniard , could not possibly spare those assistances he had formerly promised , for that he rather wanted men to supply his own army , so that for a long time this affair slept , having no encouragement from abroad but of late , by the industry of the priests and some other great agents , their designs begin to take life again , having assurance that the french king being at peace with his neighbours will in a short time make good his promise as to his former intended aid . that this deponent reflecting with much reluctancy on the sad subject he was engaged in to the ruine of the nation , applyed himself to father brodeene the parish priest , and in confession desired to be absolved of his so heinous offence in being assistant to the disturbance of the kingdom ; upon which the said priest bitterly curst him , commanding him to secresie , and that if he did desist from carrying on the design , he should be eternally damned . some little time after , this deponent being from home , had his house broken open , rob'd of his money , the aforesaid pistols , and all his papers wherein he had kept a catalogue of all the names , and the precise times of their several meetings , swearings , &c. by which this deponent guesses that the priest had acquainted them with his confession . the message from the lords to the commons . january the 4 th . 1680. resolved , by the lords spiritual and temporal , and in parlirment assembled , that they do declare that they are fully satisfied that there now is , and for divers years last past there hath been , a horrid and treasonable plot and conspiracy contrived and carryed on by those of the popish religion in ireland , for massacreing the english , and subverting the protestant religion , and the ancient establish'd government of that kingdom , to which their lordships desire the concurrence of this house . the resolution of the commons , upon the consideration of the said message . january the 6 th . 1680. resolved , that this house doth agree with the lords in the said vote with the addition of these words , that the duke of york being a papist , and the expectation of his coming to the crown hath given the greatest countenance and encouragement thereto , as well as to the horrid popish plot in this kingdome of england . finis . a fuller answer to elimas the sorcerer or to the most material part (of a feign'd memoriall) toward the discovery of the popish plot, with modest reflections upon a pretended declaration (of the late dutchess) for charging her religion : prelates ... in a letter addressed to mr. thomas jones by richard watson ... / published by monsieur maimburg ... watson, richard, 1612-1685. 1683 approx. 164 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 16 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-05 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a65264 wing w1090 estc r34094 13764098 ocm 13764098 101706 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a65264) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 101706) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1055:5) a fuller answer to elimas the sorcerer or to the most material part (of a feign'd memoriall) toward the discovery of the popish plot, with modest reflections upon a pretended declaration (of the late dutchess) for charging her religion : prelates ... in a letter addressed to mr. thomas jones by richard watson ... / published by monsieur maimburg ... watson, richard, 1612-1685. [2], 29 p. printed by h. brugis for n. wolf ..., london : mdclxxxiii [1683] reproduction of original in the union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng york, anne hyde, -duchess of, 1637-1671. jones, thomas, 1622?-1682. -elymas the sorcerer. church of england -apologetic works. popish plot, 1678. 2003-12 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2004-02 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-03 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2004-03 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a fuller ansvver to elimas the sorcerer : or to the most material part ( of a feign'd memoriall ) toward the discovery of the popish plot , with modest reflections upon a pretended declaration ( of the late dutchess ) for changing her religion . published by mounsieur maimburg , and the learned resolutions of divers our orthodox prelates . concerning 1. the real presence of christ in the sacrament of the altar and communicating in one kind , or both . 2. infallibility of the universal church . 3. auricular and a particular confession . 4. prayer for the dead . in a letter addressed to mr. thomas iones . by dr. richard watson , chaplain to his r. highness . london , printed by h. brugis , for n. wolf at the seven stars in new-gate street . mdclxxxiii . a fuller ansvver to elimas the sorcerer , &c. sir , in the last letter i had from you , ( and the last may it be for ever ) of iuly 7. 1682. you first acquainted me with mounsieur maimburgs history of calvinisme ; published in several editions , not long before : i made speedy enquiry after it , the rather , because you told me the nation and you ( two aequipollents , doubtless ) had been more beholding , under god , to that ex-iesuit ( so you term him ) than to me and my partners : what partners you mean , i know not , nor what share i am to have among them , nor of what ; untill you make more plain and publick , what you so kindly have assigned me , ecce hic sto , vindicandus mea sorti , in tertullian's phrase . the book i have obtain'd from london , and found annexed to it , what you pointed at ; declaration de madame la princesse d'iork ; by the publication whereof ( for all the other history i am sure you thank him not ) how much you , and your party , are beholding to that french gentleman , will very manifestly be made appear , if but in the second and third paragraphs . ie proteste en la presence de dieutout puissant , &c. where her royal highness makes most solemn protestation , in the presence of almighty god , that , since her return into england , not any person in the world , either directly , or indirectly , carried her from our church , to imbrace the catholick religion ; that the grace of her reconcilement ( as they use to call it ) she owed solely to god's mercy ; that she her self durst not believe it any sequell of her daily prayers ( in the course of her devotion ) ever since she had been in france and flanders , adding . it is very true , that having view'd the fervour and devotion among the catholicks of those countries , and being sensible of none at all , or very little in her self , from that time , she never ceased to ask of god the grace , that if she were not in the true religion , she might be before she died . give me leave , sir , to be of opinion , till you make it otherwise appear , that this pious and prudent lady , after her own conviction , and choice made , ( if chuse she did ) had so much charity for her directors , ( who e're they were ) yea , and for her chaplaines too , as , when ready to turn her back upon them and their offices , she would not spit in their faces , as in defiance , with whom and by whom , so many hundred times she had pay'd her orisons , and made addresses to the throne of grace , ( with as much well-tempered zeal , we thought , though not alike cloud of incense , and other pompous ceremonies , as i had observed any where , either in france , or flanders , ) but rather intercept , as she hoped , with the extended palmes of both her hands , all false aspersions , and calumnies , that might for her sake be cast upon us , by such opprobrious persons as your self , ( if your very self were not the he , she meant to anticipate ) whose measures are wholly broken , and whose maine design is utterly disappointed , by taking upon her self , what with the danger threatned , you would fain have imputed to us ; but this passage , sir , you had no mind to regard , and i cannot blame you for it , being so directly cross to your purpose . the two concealed bishops , we may be sure , shall not escape the fiercest effects of your rage , if you and your blood-hounds can trace them out , whom you precondemn unheard , and deftine as the worst of criminals , to a most severe , a fatal execution , though , for kind mounsieur maimburg's sake , the very iesuites that lately suffer'd , should conditionally be recall'd to life . now , sir , to leave them ( the bishops i mean ) behind , to answer for themselves , when you can bring 'em to your high court of justice , who , you say , pag. 4 , are condemned persons in law , though what law you name not , nor does any of ours , i presume , so deeply sentence the most bigot-papist for his religion , ( as i think was declared from the bench , more then once , in the late tryals ) much less any in our communion , for private sentiments , before publick scandal given , and a fair conviction . i must peremptorily demand of you , ( and i can do no less ) having been so publickly traduced by you , and thereby exposed to the obloquie ( if no worse ) of all true and false protestants in the three kingdomes , as publick a retractation of , and plenary satisfaction for the foul injury you have done me ; else , although i may not deny you the indeleble character of a priest , i shall impress upon your name another , of a like aviternall durance , of a profligate person , and a most malicious calumniator . but , sir , what more yet will be laid to your charge , if that noble lady her self be more grosly and impudently defamed then her chaplaines ? if , notwithstanding those uncertain fluctuations of opinion , agitations of spirit , cross collision of thoughts , and perhaps , alternate in consistent resolutions , she departed either indeterminate in her religion , or not altogether so adverse from that her highness had before professed , from the first maturity of her reason and fit capacity to make her choice ? that you may know me to be in earnest , ( with a civil respect praemised to mounsieur maimburg's historicall narration , and a little suspense made of that credulity you would have us yield to your prophetick inspiration , who pretend a foresight of her change , so many years antecedent to it ) i offer two particulars to the serious consideration of the present age , the feares and jealousies of which flie , too often , swifter then fame it self with such stories ; and to the judgment of posterity , that may be diversly mis-informed by the praejudice , or in observance of many that transmit their reports to 'em , which can meet with little opposition , or good evidence against them , at that distance . the first tender i make , is this , which you will , i hope , allow me to adventure upon my own reputation , if i add , in verbo sacerdotis , which i safely can ; that toward the end of my last quarters waiting in course at white-hall , her r. h. having been long decumbent in her sickness , and many times in great extremity of torture , ( perhaps , as much of mind , in that distraction , or convulsion of thoughts , as of body ) from the violent assaults and paroxysmes of her fever , both yielding alike sad accents , if not articulate complaints , and much astonishing us , whose attendance in our stations drew us within notice of it , there being , as it were , an absolute desertion of her little oratory ; which before , whether her h. were there , or not , us'd to be well frequented by a comfortable audience , that assisted at our mattins and even-song , which , beside that it pleased god , gave countenance to the chaplain , in the performance of his offices , at the houres appointed , i calling to mind the strictness of her commands formerly , and the steadiness of her personall example , in time of health , found it necessary for her r. h. to have knowledge of it , in some seasonable intervall of her griefs , assuring my self her goodness would not take amiss such a dutifull and devout expression of a religious desire she should be daily prayed for by us , when , in that weak condition , she could not present her self before the little altar she had erected to pray there with us . this i did with that caution as became me in the present circumstances , and committed the care of it to a discreet lady of her chamber , who was seldome absent from her bed-side , desiring her , in the summe of all , to say plainly , that the chaplain was in this streight , without her h. suddenly found some expedient , either to set open the doores of her oratory , and read common-prayer to the painted wain-scot ; or keep 'em shut , and read none at all , whereof what sence the court and city would have , must be left at adventure ; the very next day , when i went into the privy-chamber , at the wonted hour , i saw no cause at all either of complaint , or enquiry after her h. pleasure , and new order , it being appointed before my coming , that the reading-desk and books should be made ready , and when the bed-chamber door should be opened , our common-prayer should be read at the very entrance thereinto , whither assembled not only a considerable number without the door , and within , such ladies as were either in immediate attendance , or others priviledged to be there , but her h. personally , as she lay in bed , found , i hope , some comfort and benefit by our prayers , read in her hearing , wherein , i doubt not but at that time , she joyned in communion with us , or else would have ordered it otherwise , this course , for ought i remember , continued while her infirme condition could comply with it , throughout my time ; after my dismission , what method therein was observed , my reverend successor in that employment can best report ; but this , on all hands , i believe will easily be yielded ; that her highnesses sickness more and more every day prevailing , and consequently the strength of nature as much decaying , little abatement , in that anxiety , she had , of mind , and little better satisfaction of doubts and scruples , or settlement in religion , considering her sad condition , can reasonably be supposed ; whether , in this deplorable state , she might send for her spirituall physician , the ecclesiastick person mentioned by her , or some other , i can , with assurance , neither affirm , nor deny ; nor will i doubt more , if he came , of her highnesses patient attention , and submission , to all he said , ( at a time when she wanted somewhat to allay or charm the tumult of her spirits ) then i do of what a learned , and well practised civilian has sometime told me , that many testaments are brought in court , truly signed by the testators , in a dying condition , but upon no other account of will , or consent , then to be rid of their importunate kindred , allies , or friends , that they may be free to dispose their soules to a calm and serene departure out of this unquiet world ; and whether the good father were sent for or no , very well known it is , how the ecclesiastikes of that communion use not to be over-modest , as opportunity may serve , in offering their assistance to exspiring persons , of what church , or of what quality soever , where they may have admission . which puts me in mind of what happened many years since , at bruges in flanders , about the decease of my noble patron , the lord hopton , who , on his last fatal day , being taken speechless somewhat early in the morning , and so continuing , to the great grief , and disappointment , of his few domestiques then about him ; in the afternoon the reverend mother , or lady prioress , of the english nunnery , sent a message , in great haste , to me , that i must needs attend her immediately , at the grate , as if she had praepared some speciall cordiall for our good lord , ( whom she and all her votaries respected highly ) that would not only recover his lordships speech , but renew his age , or protract his life some years longer ; when i went to know her pleasure , the good lady told me somewhat to this purpose . that , understanding my lords condition , she could not be at rest , untill she had finished the great devotion her whole monastery had for his lordship , by recommending two grave franciscan fryars to do their last religious office for him in their way , [ i. e. according to the rituall of the roman church ] ; whereat i was so much surprized , that i had almost forgot the sedate temper i came to her in , being more prone , upon that her motion , either to smile , or be angry , then to lament the loss , i every hour apprehended , might befall me and my fellow-servants in a forreign countrey , by our lord's decease ; at length , being somewhat recomposed , i minded her reverence of what she knew very well , the free converse my lord had often , in time of health , with their fathers and fryars of any order , declining no discourse on any points in controversy they could mention to him , in a calm and christian way ; how acceptable it had been , on both sides , though neither party could convince the other ; and how incongruous it would be , after all the aforesaid frankness and plain-dealing , now to give his lordship the trouble of a faint dispute , if he could have us'd his tongue , but now he could not , how false i must needs prove to him and to my trust , in permitting such religious offices to be practised upon him at the point of death , which he approved not of toward any other person , when in perfect health , and vigour of understanding ; whereupon the over-courteous lady , whether satisfied , or no , acquiesced , and retired , as i returned to my languishing good lord , to perform my last duty at his bed-side , as his chaplain , according to the form or permission of our britannike church . whereas , had i taken other measures , it , most certainly , would have been reported , that the lord hopton , if but by reason of that very ancient ceremony , their extream unction , without a word spoken , had died so good a roman catholique as the best ; and his surviving chaplain , ( or director in mr. iones's sense ) had been no other than a papist in masquerade , and for his treachery to so noble and so good a protestant , had deserved no less then present death by his martial sentence . but i proceed , to make good my word , and produce my second particular , upon better credit then my own , ( as having it from a person twenty times more interessed in the court then my self , and far better acquainted with private passages of moment there ; ) when , not only the reports were warm of her r. highnesses defection from the religion professed by the church of england , but that her father , the earle of clarendon , had taken notice of it by letter , ( the written copy whereof passed from hand to hand ) in discharge of his paternal duty , i being not over-credulous of such a suddain change , upon popular rumour , in a personage so judicious , and deliberate in all her actions , to obtain a certainty of the truth , for my private satisfaction , ( if no more ) writ a letter upon that subject , to a very sage and grave person , my most worthy friend at court , from whom i receiv'd this in answer , or to this effect . that her r. h. ( when this fierce conflict of soul and body was almost finished ) when she must needs be sensible of the few houres or minutes she had to live , and fewer hopes , but by some extraordinary divine assistance , to hold the encounter unto the end , like a good christian lady , desired to have her last viaticum praepared for her , and like a persevering member of our church , appointed it to be administred , expresly by the hand of the bishop of oxford , that then was , who , by what impediment , or unhappy accident , was not expresly writ me , came too late , when , if the doors were not shut , the keepers of the house were trembling , the grinders ceasing , and those that had been looking out of the windows were darkened ; and this daughter of musick being brought low , her desire failed , because she was going to her long home , where i hope her divine manna hath never failed , and her coelestiall , instead of her sacramentall , cup hath overflowed , beyond the satisfaction of her thirsty soul , to her eternal joy and ineffable delight in the god of her salvation . the testimony of my courteous correspondent would be unquaestionable , were his name known , which i will not publish , having not askt his leave , but take any censure , to be made of what he writes , upon my self . the truth of all , or high probability ( without the credit and veracity of which witness ) will , i doubt not , be rationally argued from what here i mean shall follow . now , mr. iones , after two such unexceptionable evidences , in your own expression , let you and i consider , laying aside all praejudice against directors , or confessors , what is reasonable for us to believe of our deceased dutchess ; was all this , think you , a piece of pageantry her r. h. acted , or exposed to the view of the world , in the very last scene of her life ? but mounsieur maimburg prints it , as is supposed , from her own hand ; i will believe it so far , when i see , and know the originall ; but i will not then believe her r. h. persisted in the sense of it to her last hour , inferring rather from what i have here related , that she retracted the said writing in fact , which perhaps , f●r reasons best known to her self , if not because of her infirmity , her h. neither declared it by word of mouth , nor signed any such retractation with her hand ; so that mounsieur maimburg may boast , as you say , of a proselyte in guilded paper , and you charge me , with the party you mean , to little purpose , if no such finall change were resolv'd on , as you surmise ; toward the discovery of which truth , if what i have already writ , be not enough demonstrative , let us , with all due regard to the pious memory of that excellent princess , take a summary review of the declaration it self , and see what we can make probable of its tendency to either term . her protestation is plain and positive , as before i minded you , that neither papist , nor protestant , in masquerade as you suspect , had suggested any thing to withdraw her from that religion , wherein by birth , and so many years education , observation , converse , hearing , and reading , what doctrine was soundly preached , and learnedly written , she had been well-grounded and settled to her hearts content , as was evident by many instances to all in attendance on her , especially the chaplaines , who best know , by the strict duty they were kept to , how sollicitous her h. was , upon all incident occasions that detained , or diverted her from the ordinary hour , between three and four in the afternoon , to have another order'd , though at seven or eight of clock in the evening , as she could personally be present in her oratory at our prayers . which exemplary devotion for the service of our church had such an influence , likewise , upon all , or most of her young ladies , that , when they had obtained leave to make a visit , or otherwise to employ the hour , they would frequently get a little congregation assembled in their mothers chamber , and have the benefit of our evening prayer before they would take coach. as for the more publike offices in the chappell , how praecise her h. was in her orders , and how advertent to see them executed , you best know , mr. iones , whose charge it was on the week-dayes , and we all can testifie for the sundays in our courses , which if we supplied not our selves , were obliged to be accountable , unto whom we resign'd the pulpit for the day , a considerable time before , which yet sometimes , you know , would not serve our turn ; for so select were the persons , of whom her r. h. would approve , to preach before her , that our opinion , or character , of ▪ em would not pass currant , if not conform with that she had made of e'm to her self ; insomuch as , among others , this singular instance , i very well remember ; that a learned person , in great eminency of place , and of no less popular , yea , courtly reputation for the elegancy of his sermons , having with intendment to pay respect unto , and please her h. taken that dayes duty of mine upon himself , when notice thereof was sent into her , a convenient time before , her answer was a plain refusall , and a command given , that i should perform my course my self , ( as i did ) or see it otherwise supplied to her highnesses better satisfaction ; which unexpected disappointment , as it gave me an uneasy task , to revoke my grant in as smooth and gentle language as , with necessary caution , i could penn ; so it coloured my modesty with such a blush , as i never had the confidence to visit that reverend person afterward . her highnesses particular care of the family , with its dependants , at st. iames's , to keep them steady in our religion , you have published in her orders , delivered to you by the reverend bishop of winchester , but with no order , sir , i presume , to make such unhandsome and uncharitable observations on them , as that the first tended to bring you and the liturgy into contempt ; as if the dutchess and his lordship had conspired in that scandalous design ; whereas the true intendment seemes rather for the honour , and preference of the morning liturgy to a morning sermon , if you mean it separate from the service ; and denotes the errour in their choice , who went to it at whitchall , where their presence was not required , nor assistance wanted , when their duty was , to repair unto the chappell at st. iames's , their oeconomicall , though not parochiall place of publick worship ; whose forenoon defect of a sermon was supplied , you know , in the afternoon , by us the chaplaines in our courses , not to mention st. peters westminster , st. margarets , st. martins , all in our vicinage , where they could not miss , nor you , in likelihood , of a congregation , notwithstanding the diversion of many to whitchall ; or , if you had been thereby absolutely deserted , the like remedy might have been found , as i told you before , i succeeded in upon like occasion , and the deviating , or ambulatory , part of their h. highnesses family thereby reclaimed to their duty , without all jealousie of the dutchess , or contempt drawn upon you by his lordship . the fourth order , you say , tended to enrage several of the family against you . i answer , that they might be more , or less , enraged , according to the method you took for discovery , which was not directed by urgent interrogatives . are you protestant , or papist ? so as they might be under constraint to tell an untruth , or betray themselves ; but rather by enquiry of others , whether they made profession of any distinct religion ? what ? and where they frequented any assembly in the practice of it ? this and other such gentle , or concealed , methods used ; what apprehensions could you , sir , have had from their rage in the court , and under the protection of both their h. highnesses ? lastly , you say , you did begin to catechise , but was discouraged by the arts of the said bishop . mr. iones , do not deceive your self by a prejudice against my lord ; for you did not only begin , but went on confidently several dayes , i may say weeks , without that discouragement , untill you became so ridiculous to the very gentlemen you would pretend to instruct , and so much the discourse of others , to my knowledge , about the court , who in some concealed place were your auditours , though unseen ; who reported afterwards what they heard , but could by no means understand ( of which curiosity i was not guilty ) that i am of opinion , my lord of w. could not but be informed of it , and might silence you by his power , if you suppressed not your self by your after-prudence , when some good friend had dealt freely and plainly with you in that particular . so that certainly you forgot your order , which was , to catechise and instruct the pages and others who want instruction , very constantly , according to the orders of the church of england , n. 9. whereas , i fear in your zeal for their speedy and over-full instruction , you ran out to such an excessive length , and so dilated in a confused paraphrase , as the church of england has neither ordered , nor will allow . somewhat like to this order , not of catechise , but enquiry , i had received from her h. long before this of yours , upon notice whereof given , all those young gentlemen , that were then pages , met me at major eyres's house , to sustain the scrutinie , which , with all alacrity , they did singly , every one in turn , out of the others hearing ; my business was , 1. to sound their inclinations , or praepossessions , in matters of religion , as to what was practised in either chappell at st. iames's . 2. to search , whether their tutour or under-governour , mr. collins , a discreet and sober person , had not been tampering with them , at any time , and endeavouring to seduce them toward the other chappell , as you oddly call it , ( according to the style , meseemeth of the other house , you , formerly , may have been accustom'd to ) some suggestion , of like sort with that you now own , having been made , ( by whom i know not ) to her r. h. and mr. collins render'd a dangerous person to have the guidance of those young gentlemen . the account hereof i gave her h. did so well satisfie her , as the said mr. collins was better confirmed in his place , and her highnesses good opinion , then before , who had been otherwise supplanted , and certainly discharged . this passage i recollect , and here recite ( still more in conjunction with you ) to strengthen the argument i am about , that her h. from time to time , was very firm in the religion of our reformed church . i return now to mounsieur maimburg's printed declaration . [ il est bien vray qu' ayant veu la ferveur et la devotion des catholiques de ces pais la , &c. ] whereas her h. so much magnifies the fervour , and devotion , she had beheld in france , and flanders , in comparison with which her own was nothing , or very little , as she judg'd ; that modest opinion justifies more the method of her humility , then christian charity , which in this case , if in any , ought surely to have begun at home ; i mean not with a better opinion of her own person , which yet from others might have deserved it ; for that soul , though of the greatest princess , cannot be layed too low , which the more it is by its self depressed , the higher will it be by god exalted , but of others in the same communion , especially being , as we account , reformed , and well refined from many errours , our divines discover , so well in their breviary , as missal ; and if the eye , or ear , may carry it , i wish the tunsio pectoris , and other ceremonies retain'd , i hope , with very warm devotion , by your pious britaines , mr. iones , had occur'd to her memory , when she beheld the dropping beads , and turning leaves of divers offices , by the nimblest fingers of either of the french or flemish ladies ; yet far be it from you , or me , sir , to derogate from the zeal intended by those good women , ( with or without comparison ) whom i have many times beheld , with a very sensible reflexion , in whole and full congregations , on their bended knees at their vespers , i am sorry to say , and our own , many more , in very undue postures , and gestures , unbecoming our common , or publick prayer , which her r. h. knew very well to be the negligence of our incurious people , not the prophaness of our church , which prescribed much better , and more beseeming , demeanour in her canon . the more retired fervour , and devotion , of those foreign females may be such as among other writers , dr. vane , our relapsed countrey-man , so highly commends them for , after he had done the like courtesie for their clergy , in a glorious harangue , pag. 266. thus and even the weak sex of woman , whose natural delicacy , tenderness , and infirmities , may seem to carry with them a patent of exemption from extraordinary severities and mortifications of themselves , yet such is the omnipotency ( a bold word ) of catholique religion , that even these do equal , if not excel the men , in the tough exercise of denying themselves , of taking up their cross , and imitating of christ ; invited hereunto , more by pure love of god , and gratitude for his doing , and suffering for them , than for the expectation of reward . but little of this came , i presume , within the verge of her r. highnessesview , or observation beyond what she had seen at some solemn anniversary , omgang or procession , if their canvas frock or covering had a woman under it , wherein the fervour , or excessive calenture , of their devotion , has now and then , cost a life , until restrained , or absolutely inhibited by the bishop of the place . their morning devotions were more moderate , their early masses , indeed , well frequented , though the host , to few , or none , of them delivered , some private office , perhaps that of the h. virgin , or other saint seperately acted , or passed over with a silent motion of the lip ; their habit loose , and not over decent , i will not say over modest for a church-assembly ; some slight veil , or huyck● , as they call it , rendred calyptra , or palla , as toga a tegendo , soon put on , and as soon off , much after the rate of our morning lecturers by candel-light heretofore ; at their solemn vespers , on great festivals , i have known their churches well warmed by the zeal of that sex alone , or in the company of few men , beside their priests ; and a person of honour once told me , after he came home soundly crowded , for his curiosity to see their ceremonies , at such a time , that having darted himself sodainly behind some pillar of a church for concealment , when he more deliberately looked about him , and discovered none but women in full congregation from the altar to the very door , apprehending he might be known or suspected to be upon espial , as indeed h was , he soon retreated , with some difficulty , being well pleased he had so made a seasonable escape . but for all this her highnesses credulity of their fervour , and devotion , in one sex , or other , or in both , [ ie n' avois pas neantmoin le moindre doute que la creance d' eglise anglicane ne fust la veritable ; &c. ] she had not the least doubt , as yet of the faith , and truth , professed by the church of england , nor any scruple , or trouble of conscience , upon that subject , until the november before she declared , when she began to read the history of our reformation , composed by dr. heylin , so much esteemed by persons the best able to judge of it in the whole realm , who praepossessed her with good assurance that the said book would clear all doubt , and scruple of conscience , that could be made concerning the said reformation . before i proceed further in my reflexions upon this paragraph , i wish , i could be well satisfied in somewhat i understand not , which seemeth little to authentize the declaration of a so prudent , and wary , princess as you and i , mr. iones , had known her h. to be in all that passed from her , within our notice ; was it not just before , that she declared her self free from all doubt and scruple ? &c. what reason then had those able & judicious persons to put her h. upon the task of reading dr. heylin's history , as the only book stored with sufficiency , to deliver consciences out of all such perplexities , when she had acquainted them , that none she had ? was it ever her custome , think we , in her garden pleasures , to quit a smooth or carpet walk , on set purpose to entangle , and embroyl , her self in a thicket of thorns and bryars , to sting her thoughts with the sense of an overgrown prince's lewdnes in another century , which if it were so ominous , as to dash a blot , at so great a distance upon our escuchion , or entail a curse on posterity to or beyond the third and fourth generation , her highnesses personal share could be apprehended but as of one among the many , having no lineal descent from his loines , nor collateral relation to him . but let the air of this madvertance , or what else it is , expire and vanish ; and take we into consideration the unexpected disappointment her h. met with , in reading the doctor 's book , so highly commended to her , so great as great could be , clear contrary to what was promised [ i' ay trouve au contraire , &c. ] so much it seems , in the generall , as , besides her own dissatisfaction , she thinkes it of no force , or efficacy , to becalme any troubled spirit among the mean and ordinary sort of people ; and i think so too , it being writ in another style then what is levell'd to such low capacities , and in the matter having a mixture of such variety , as at every turne allmost the thread is broken , and they lose their way . but you , and i , mr. iones , can very well remember , that our eminent princess was none of the les esprits mediocres , being more mercuriall then most of the first , or second rank in her sex ; and i believe , it may be our joint opinion , that her r. h. was not , at that time of day , to seek satisfaction about the principles of our reformation , nor a stranger to other faithfull writers upon that subject ; who speak no less truth , and as plain english alltogether , in the case , as the worthy , and never enough magnified , dr. heylyn ; beside , that , on this occasion , comes into my mind an expression to our purpose , uttered , many years since , by a learned and judicious person , who was far better acquainted with her r. h. religious searches in that kind , then you and i can pretend to be , viz. that he was enough assured , she understood the state of the question , better then her noble father , who at the same time was the great minister of state , and , however otherwise unfortunate , the most memorable restorer , and establisher of our ruin'd church . before i come to the three particulars that entangled this pious lady , i can not but take notice of two other , wherewith she antecedently chargeth our reformation ; 1. changing the face of the ancient church ; and , 2. renouncing the catholique religion ; both which are most certainly disclaimed by our most learned and most impartiall controvertists ; and the former of the two disowned by that brisk french gentleman , mounsieur de la militiere , in his address to our king , which , very probably , her r. h. had read , long before her return into england , being printed with the lord bishop of derry's answer , at the hague , 1654. where the french counsellor condescends to say , that the protestants of this kingdome , by episcopacy , liturgy , and ceremonies , [ which were retained ] had preserved the face , or image , of the catholique church ; and i remember , when i was in flanders , an old benedictine of our nation asking me , how i liked the decency of their churches , and solemnity of their service , or publique worship , i answered , to this purpose , that i observed little more in substance , then what he might have formerly seen , if he had pleased , in our king's chappell , st. pauls london , and st. peter's westminster , with the other cathedrals we had in england ; whereto he somewhat sarcastically replied , that in archbishop laud's time , indeed ( which he needed not to have specified in absolute derogation to all the former from the first reformation ) your church washed , and beautified her face a little , but , for all that , more intrinsecally she was a very slut ; let them look to that , if cause be still , who , after some intimations given by bishop andrewes , mountague , and others , should see supplied what may be found wanting , and applied by practice , to render her through-reformed , and preserve her from all such reproach . as for the good old monke , if i had been in another countrey , i should have wiped his mouth with my handkercheif , and opened the eyes of his understanding for a better prospect of truth among us . as to the second , i know none but our rigid calvinists , that became absolute renegadoes , and desertors of the roman church , much less of the catholique , though taken in their own sense , which all good men and moderate among them will allow us to call what they would have it to be roman catholique reformed ; reforme we did , when they would not , by degrees , what was first found to be amiss by themselves , before , and at , their little synod of trent , ( for no other then so was it , compared to a truly generall , or universall councill , italy alone being but a spot , or parsell of the universe ; ) and retain we did so much as the circumstances of those times would permit , of the doctrine and discipline transmitted to us from the more ancient , because being , as called , the primitive church , as it extendeth to the first five centuries at least , if no more ; which her h. might have found averred by all the orthodox fathers , and other learned writers , then , and since then , of our english nation ; whose works , if they had not come to her sight before , all libraries , at her desire , would have been searched for her satisfaction , and why somewhat to that purpose was not seasonably order'd , i am not to be accountable ; and if mr. iones had said no more but that either her r. h. departed from us , or her directors , who e're they were , left her solitary in her choice , upon too easie termes , i could have little contradicted . that somewhat more of what they opin'd , and practis'd , might have been taken in by our first reformers , or may be yet by a nationall synod , or convocation , if commissioned to consider of it , i freely grant , and suppose it to be the sense of our best divines ; for king iames's apophthegm takes not with all , nor may be taken in a strict restraint to what is already done , i like not riding so near ; for better authority then my own , i will cite no other , ( and am sure i can cite no better ) then bishop andrews , nor any more authentick part of his workes , then his private prayers ; who , in his manuall of meditations , and private devotions , for monday every week , beggs of the lord , for the church catholic confirmation , and enlargement ; eastern deliverance and unity ; western ( wherein ours is included ) perfection and peace ; but more expresly for the british ( which is our own ) supply of what is wanting , establishment of what remaines ; ( may the good prelate's prayer be answered to perpetuity in the last , whatsoever becomes of the first ) for why we should quit what we have , because we have not all we would , and go over we well know not , why , or whither , is a riddle i yet understand not ; nor , if i may enjoy my share in what we have , though i never have it of what we want , ( it being no part of my province to gain enlargement , ) i hope my conscience will never be much perplexed about our present , wherein soever defective , state. but the three remarkes her r. h. made in reading dr. heylyn's history seemed so hainous , or odious , as ought not , she thought , to be digested toward a reformation . 1. henry the eight's luxery , the popes restraint of which made him struggle , and at last get loose . 2. the covetousness and sacriledge of the lord protector to edward the sixth ; and 3. the nullity of queen elizabeth's title to the crown . the last of which i do not find asserted , but rather the contrary , by dr. heylyn , who makes the estate of sir thomas bollen's family to have become fortunate by the production of that princess , to the realm of england , pag. 86. who reports the illegitimation of the lady mary , and entailing of the crown , for the default of issue male , upon the princess elizabeth ; somewhat he has of henry the eight's apprehension , when he became as much offended at his second marriage , as he had been at the first , that the legitimation of his daughter elizabeth might be as likely to be called in question , in the time succeeding , as that of mary in the former , pag. 91. yet afterward , that if her mother had only lost her head , though with the loss of her honour , it would have been no bar to her daughter elizabeth from succeeding her father in the throne , pag. 93. and what ground was found out , on which to dissolve the marriage , he cannot tell , it not appearing upon record ; but that it was dissolved , does , by a solemn instrument under the seale of archbishop cranmer &c. pag. 94. and if it were done errante clave , ( as , for ought we know , it might ) our doubting dutchess was not obliged to demurr upon that , unless with intent to suspend her censure , and her change too , ( upon that account ) untill better assurance , which neither the doctor 's history , nor any other , i have heard of , could give her . finally , whatsoever difficulties might be made , that the crown did of right belong to her , when the point was brought to issue , both the doctor ownes , upon the death of queen mary , and the parliament then sitting could not deny it her . pag. 101. her highnesses scruple rested then , it seemes , upon k. henry's lust after change of wives , and her abomination of sacriledge lay'd to the charge of him and others , which i know none of our faithfull historians have much endeavoured to excuse , or palliate ; it being the sense of them all , which my lord bishop of derry thus declared in his schisme garded , pag. 58. posterity is not guilty of their ancestours transgression further then they do imitate them , or maintain them . and as for acts of sacriledge and the like impieties ( as certainly henry the eighth , and some others cannot be freed from such ) they are by us as freely charged upon the actors , as by any romanist they can be , sayeth the sound and learned dr. hammond , ch . 7. of schisme , adding , but yet sacriledge is no more schisme then adultery , and the church , on which one sin hath been committed , cannot be from thence proved to be guilty of every other . these , and a hundred more authorities to intercept such objections , if the dutchess knew not , her h. cannot be well excused ; and if she did , which may more reasonably be supposed , how can you and i mr. iones , afford credit to mounsieur maimburg , that she would use so weak an argument , to justifie her secess . so that her highnesses imagination , was unnecessarily troubled about the concurrence of god's spirit with such hainous acts , and manifest impieties , as the libertinage of k. h. 8. the lord protectour seymour's sacriledge , and q. elizabeth's usurpation , ( if it may be supposed . ) but the h. spirit might go along with a finall renunciation of the pope's usurpt supremacy , and tyranny over our king and nation , after 400 years dispute about the point , with intervalls , and variety of success on either side ; and an oath may be tender'd to maintain the kings independent praerogative in church affairs , quoad extra , without any offence , or resistance of the said h. spirit ; of which praerogative yet if a king ( which i put at large , because all christian kings are alike concern'd in the case ) will at any time remit , and deliver freely , or with some reserve , his ecclesiastike power into the hands of the church , or into his whom he will constitute , for the time , caput unitatis , the head of unity in his realm ( as many have done , and do at this present ) i know no reason , why the subject should not submit to that derivative power , which being held of the king , is ordained of god ; for to say , that , before the reformation made , any subject might have withdrawn his obedience to the king , because the king had vested that part of his power in the pope , i fear had been little less than resisting , or at least declining the ordinance of god ; to go on no further in that text. but i return to our most unhappily perplexed princess , who takes offence at the bishops , that were of the first reformers , for pretending their sole design to have been re-establishing the doctrine and discipline of the primitive church , after henry 8. had enterpriz'd a separation from rome upon no other account but his own satisfaction in criminall pleasures : what k. henry 8's principall , or less principall intents were , i know none but the ghost of his confessour , if raised again , could assure her ; the most reverend archbishop cranmer , no doubt , knew most of his mind , from beginning to end , in the matter of divorce , and what annexes it had of his criminall pleasures , &c. but , in what i have seen of his grace's writing , i met with nothing at all which in that particular could have gratified her highness : yet be k. henry's meaning alltogether so bad as suspected , i understand not why the reverend bishops , who were better inclined , should be involved with him in the sin , being instruments , under god , of bringing good out of evil , and who , by such degrees as k. henry's other policies would permit , made good that pretence , both the rest of his , and in the few years of edward 6. his reign , howsoever managed by that covetous lord protectour in his minority , as in a great part , beside other instances , our historians have mentioned , does undeniably appear in that little code of reformation , as i may call it , entituled , the institution of a christian man , composed and published by , and with the consent of many pious and prudent persons , anno 1537. viz , the two archbishops at that time , nineteen of the bishops , eight archdeacons , and seventeen professours of divinity , ecclesiasticall and civill lawes ; which book and some other like , beside many dedicatory and praefatory epistles praefixed to them , if her h. had neither in possession , nor seen , she was strangely destitute of due assistance , and not well praepared for so severe a censure in a praecipitate declaration . nor yet much better , i fear , for the application , she next made , to instruct her self in the controversiall points between us and the roman-catholiques , having not read , as may be presumed , the primitive fathers , and councels , but relying upon sole scripture , without the conciliators of texts , ( if not opposite , inconsistent in shew ) nor other authentike interpreters , but her own private spirit , perhaps forearmed with prayers and teares , but not praeassured by promise of divine assistance , and all desired success in the revelation of truth , ( the solemn objection thrust upon us , successively by the papists ) and a too forward adventure , which most commonly imports more haste then good speed , as is here manifested by the sequel , in her own confession , that the scripture she believed not her self , by her self , capable to understand ; yet on her h. went , and , notwithstanding the distrust she had of self and solitary abilities , to her astonishment , in the most difficult points of all , drew with her own bucket more truth , as she was mis-perswaded , from the bottom of the well , then the woman of samaria could do with hers , who went her way , and left her water-pot behind her , having her thirst quencht indeed , yet not with the water she her self had drawn , but with that of the spirit , infused from the mouth of the messias , the infallible prophet , the christ , as the samaritan so good as confessed to the citizens she earnestly called upon to come and see , not to suddainly believe , until better attested to 'em ; venite & videte , not venite & credite , as aquinas has it from st. chrysostom ; and proijciat hydriam qui vult evangelizare . he , or she , that will evangelize , or interpret the gospell rightly , must leave his bucket behind him , or break his water-pot in pieces . [ i' ay tronve neantmoins , &c. ] yet notwithstanding her distrust , her h. found what she could not promise her self so soon to discover , severall things , which now appeared so plain , and , according to her judgment , so easie to comprehend , that she wondred a thousand times , how so long time had passed without reflecting on 'em ; the particulars , whereof she now was strongly convinced , [ fortement convaincue ] were , 1. the reall presence of iesus christ in the sacrament of the altar ; 2. the infallibility of the church . 3. confession , auricular she meanes ; and 4. prayers for the dead ; of all which could i be convinced by the strongest argument i have heard , or read , in their controversiall writers , i would soon be so far converted too . of the first so many volumes have been written on both sides , that i am perswaded , there can be little argument invented new on either , to avoid transcript , or the author's disrepute of being plagiary , but what is futile in so serious a quaestion , or what makes the schisme and distance between us unnecessarily , if not affectedly , greater ; for , setting aside the history of opinions in the severall ages of the church , the quotations of fathers , and other modern authors , the variety of expressions , every man desiring to utter his own mind in his own words , i really believe , the substance of what we mean , as relating to the whole controversie , might be as well , and as intelligibly , contracted into one single sheet , as spread upon so many thousand quires of paper which fly about the world . but to the point . the reall presence [ la presence reelle ] in the sacrament of the altar was the first thing her r. h. missed in the church of england ; i hope the reverend d. sutclive did not , whose book she ever had in her hand , when we approached to administer the body and blood of our saviour to her , upon her knees ; if he did , i am sure his equalls , and his superiours , our church dignitaries and others , have not declined the term real , from the beginning of our reformation to this day , nor to declare what is meant by the same , according to the sense and acception of the primitive fathers , whom they cite in multitudes to authorize the doctrine of our church therein ; of some the most eminent i shall render their own words , and afterward apply my self to what follows . let the most reverend archbishop cranmer be the first , who in the preface of his answer unto d. stephen gardiner p. 1. sayeth where i use to speak sometimes ( as the old authors do ) that christ is in the sacraments , i mean the same as they did understand the matter , that is to say , not of christ's carnall presence in the outward sacrament , but sometimes of his sacramentall presence — — — that christ and his holy spirit be truely , and indeed , present by their mighty and sanctifying power , vertue , and grace , in all them that worthily receive the same . again , pag. 8. of his first book of the sacrament . as he giveth the bread , so giveth he his very body to be eaten with our faith. and therefore i say , that christ giveth himself truely to be eaten , chawed , and digested , but all is spiritually with faith , not with mouth . the reader is to take notice , that when his grace useth the termes verily and indeed , which are the same in our church-catechisme , i understand his sense aequivalent to theirs after him , who say , really , upon the like occasion , neither he nor they meaning more , or less , then our church does , nor all otherwise then did the primitive fathers ; for when really is extended to denote transubstantially , his grace afterward utterly disclaimes it . as does likewise the right reverend bishop iewell of sarum , our church apologist against the papists . pag. 319. of his reply to mr. harding's answer ; we teach the people , not that a naked sign , or token , but that christ's body , and blood , indeed and verily is given unto us ; that we verily eat it : that we verily drink it ; that we verily be relieved , and live by it . — yet we say not , either that the substance of the bread or wine is done away : or that christ's body is let down from heaven , or made really , or fleashly present in the sacrament . the most reverend archbishop laud declines not at all the word , but commends it for the best that can be used in the matter of the h. sacrament , pag. 188. of the relat. of his conf. speaking of c. bellarmine , thus ; now if he had left out conversion , and affirmed only christ's reall presence there , after a mysterious ; and indeed an ineffable manner , no man could have spoke better . again pag. 192. and for the church of england , nothing is more plain , than that it believes and teaches the true and reall presence of christ in the eucharist . and this his grace declares ; not only for himself , but urgeth , that archbishop cranmer comes more plainly , and more home to it than frith , [ a martyr for it that had said enough before ] for if you understand ( saith he ) by this word really , reipsa , that is in very deed and effectually ; so christ by the grace and efficacy of his passion , is indeed and truly present , &c. but if by this word really , you understand corporaliter corporally , in his natural and organical body , under the forms of bread and wine , 't is contrary to the holy word of god. and so likewise bishop ridley . nay , bishop ridley addes yet farther , and speaks so fully to this point , as i think no man can add to his expression . both you and i ( saith he ) agree in this : that in the sacrament is the very true and natural body and blood of christ , even that which was born of the virgin mary ; which ascended into heaven , which sits on the right hand of god the father ; which shall come thence to judge the quick and the dead . only we differ in modo , &c. with the aforesaid prelates the learned bishop mountagu thus accords pag. 250. of his answer to the gagger , he gave substance , and really subsisting essence , who said , this is my body : this is my blood : it. pag. 251. poor woodcock or catholique cockscomb , that sendest a protestant to seek a figure , who is as reall and substantiall as any papist . id. afterward in his appeale pag. 289. speaking to the informers . which reall presence , in your divinity , is flat popery ; but not in the divinity of the church of england ; for this he cites bishop bilson , andrews , morton ; and for the easie accommoding the difference between them and us , were it not for the jesuites faction on their side , and the puritans on ours , the incomparable hooker , that puritanomastix , as he calls him . to this effect is the late bishop of durham's first chapter in his accurate history of papal transubstantiation , where the reall , that is , the true , and not imaginary presence of christ in the sacrament of the eucharist , is asserted out of the sacred scriptures , according to the very words praefixed in the title of it . and the most acute , no less solid , bishop ier. taylor in his larger tractate , entituled , the reall presence and spirituall of christ in the blessed sacrament , proved against the doctrine of transubstantiation . which doctrine is , that no question her h. meanes , though couched in the word reall , not considering , perhapps , that real-spiritual may alltogether as well be in conjunction as real-carnal , or corporeal ; otherwise her complaisance in the discovery had not been such as to deserve her astonishment , or wonder , when of so many learned writers we have upon that subject , she could scarce have taken a book in hand which would not have set the terme , or true sense and meaning of it in her view , with the concession of our church , if she had read , or heard other of it , the authours were not well studyed in the point , but took on trust the expressions of our early writers after the reformation , whereas the true state of the controversy was not so clearly understood at first on either side as it is now . sayed the bishop of derry , sch. gard. p. 378. and being so , in the opinion of those i mention'd , and many more may the difference , so formidable as it looks , be much more easily reconciled then heretofore , both sides contributing their symbol to a happy peace , and not struggling for that which never will be made good and evident on either ; for had her h. known or consided , what the authour of fiat lux saies , there have been fifty , or threescore several interpretations of these few words , hoc est corpus meum , this is my body , which , it may be , upon further search he might have multiplied to a hundred by variety of paraphrase in every man's peculiar distinct way of expression , and did all those vanish , or return to their first origen , the literal sense at last , by fixing a more steady eye , or serious thought then formerly upon the text ? bishop mountagu who had many bibles , and interpreters of all sorts about him , after a thorough search , could not so determine it , but much otherwise , viz. transubstantiation , or the change of the substance of bread and wine in the supper of the lord , cannot be proved by holy writt : but it is repugnant to the plain words of scripture , overthroweth the nature of a sacrament , and hath given occasion unto many superstitions . appeal pag. 297. yet allthough we deny the change so called to be reasonable , or intelligible ; i remember not that we deny it to be possible ; by god's omnipotence , which is not limited by rules of reason , and naturall philosophy , in extraordinary transmutations ; but to say , god does it , because he can do it , is no logicall argument ; nor holds it any more in this , then in a thousand other things , within the infinitude of his power , which we be sure , are not , nor do we believe shall be ever actually accomplished . and why her h. should be troubled in conscience about that she knew , or might have known , many learned , honest , and industrious men on both sides ( for that is truth , had her h. taken time to look about her ) could never attain to , beyond the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ! or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ! i confess is my wonder ; yea , and so much the more , because she had in her own power , which was enough to quiet her own conscience , what she alledg'd she wanted ; for i positively demand , who hindred her from believing transubstantiation , if by revelation or self-perswasion , or submission to the opinion of some admired , or endeared person , she was prevailed with to believe it true , or intrinsecally to adhaere to it , as if it were ? who from paying divine worship , after such mis-perswasion or submission , to the body and blood of our saviour , when tender'd to her upon her knees ? the church directed her r. h. among others , what she would have her do , according to the doctrine published in the confession of it , but the church enquired not after what she thought , or with what intention she acted her part in that holy duty , and , i hope her conscience was not troubled , because others did not , upon like principles , or in kind compliance , what she would have them , and tell her h. so at their hazard . our bishop iewell quotes d. tonstall , ( and seemes not to dislike it ) saying thus ; of the manner and meane how this might be ( whether by transubstantiation , or otherwise ) perhaps it had been better to leave every man that would be curious , to his own conjecture : as before the councel of laterane , it was left at liberty , pef. of apol. pag. 237. and in generall upon like occasion ( wherein this may be suppos'd included ) sayes that h. martyr archbishop laud , — how far that belief or any other , sinkes into a man's heart , is for none to judge but god. conf. p. 213. further yet , her ghostly father of the roman church , if none of ours were to be trusted , might have instructed her , that suarez , among divers other , a learned man of great note with them , made plain confession , that , to believe transubstantiation is not necessary to be taken in to the doctrine of fayth ; and why then should her h. be so much concerned for it ? and d. fisher sometime bishop of rochester , that it cannot be proved by any scripture . bishop iewell repl. and if not thence to be proved , her perswasion was groundess , and her labour in the search fruitless , if not fallicious as to her self ; for most certain it is , those deep-learned doctours could dive further into the sense of h. writ , then a lady that meant well , but had little skill in metaphysicks to assist her , which suarez himself sayes this point requires ; but against private illumination , or a self-conceit of it , whether so , or no , i can say nothing . in summe , the change that does so divide us , what e're it be , is a secret of god's own making , and a secret of god's own keeping , wherein her h. might have acquiesced , with the like moderation , as the lady elizabeth shewed , before she came to be queen , which she might have read with the other passages in dr. heylyn's history , very substantially , and significantly , allthough rhythmically thus expressed , 't was god the word that spake it , he took the bread and brake it , and what the word did make it , that i believe and take it . i add but one word more ; the mysteries being so great , and the difficulties being so many ; i much doubt , whether the more intelligent sort of roman-catholiques do themselves believe transubstantiation , though so earnest for it , to obtain the better character among the more simple devotes that do ; which when i was in those countreys , i adventur'd to tell some of them , who had patience enough to hear it , without making a very earnest , much less a reproachfull , answer ; and very glad i am , that , upon this occasion , i have met with countenance , and am confirmed in my suspicion by a most reverend and able authour , archbishop laud conf. pag. 192. where his grace declares opinion in these few lines . as for the learned of those zealous-men , that died in this cause in q. maries dayes , they denied not the reall presence , simply taken , but as their opposites forced transubstantiation upon them , as if that and the reall presence had been all one ; whereas all the ancient christians ever believed the one , and none but modern and superstitious christians believe the other ; if they do believe it : for i , for my part doubt they do not . and as for the un-learned in those times , and all times , their zeal ( they holding the foundation ) may eat out their ignorances , and leave them safe . be contented with , that it is the body of christ , and do not seek , nor define ; how it is so , and we shall not contest , nor contend , sayes bishop mountagu in his appeal , ch. 31. in which happy medium may both parties meet , and be indissolubly or indivisibly for ever reconciled . of infallibility . her highnesses next discovery was an infallibility of the church , but points not to any one or more texts of scripture , by which she owned her self convinced ; nor yet teils us , what she means by the church , nor in what points , or cases , she would have it infallible , unless she intends all ; and where is that , or those texts of scripture that did convince her ? what concerning infallibility she might have learned from our most eminent writers , i shall produce , for their sakes who may be under the same difficulty , and , perhaps , not so successfull , or sodain , in meeting with the like satisfaction as our dutchess did . as for the most learned , and acute dr. ier. taylour , i can not tell , whether i were best advise 'em to read , first , or last of all , his 1. sect. of the second part of the disswalive from popery , where he treateth of it at large ; because , if first , i am afraid they will meet with such moeanders , uncertain windings , and short turnes of subtilty , i mean not sophistry , but scholastike double refined notices , which he makes unavoidable in the inquiry , as they will hardly have courage enough to consult any other authour afterward , nor submission enough to arrest on him . and if they take him last in hand , whatsoever rock of authority , or reason , they may have built on before , the sharpness of his pen and fancy will be such , as to eat or penetrate into every cleft of it , and not onely break it into shivers , but multiply them into heapes of sand , which being washed away by the spring-tyde of his ingenious approaches , and irresistible force of his argumentative assaults , their building must needs fall , and be carryed into an abyss or ocean , which they can never fathome , or sound the depth of . archbishop cranmer , in his answer to smith's preface , speakes not home enough to their purpose , where he sayth ; truth it is , indeed , that the church doth never wholly erre , for ever in most darkness god shineth unto his elect , and in the midst of all iniquity he governeth them so with his holy word and spirit , that the gates of hell prevaile not against them — — — — this church is the piller of truth , because it resteth upon god's word , which is the true and sure foundation , and will not suffer it to erre and fall . pag. 405. 406. it is the invisible church his grace meanes , for of the outward , and visible , he absolutely denies it ; and this proves , i confess , rather the perpetuity , then infallibility , of the church . bishop field recollects several acceptions of the church , book 4. ch. 2. first , as it comprehendeth the whole number of believers , that are , and have been , since christ appeared in the flesh ; which church , he sayes , is absolutely free from all errour and ignorance of divine things , that are to be known by revelation . the second acception is , as it comprehendeth only all those believers , that are , and have been , since the apostles time ; which , in things , that are , of necessity , to be expresly known by all that will be saved , that it should erre , is impossible ; and , further , thinkes it as impossible , that any errour , whatsoever , should be found in all the pastours and guides of the church , thus generally taken . touching the church , as it comprehendeth onely the believers that now are in the world , he sayes , in things necessary to be known , and believed expresly , and distinctly , it never is ignorant , much less doth it erre ; yea , in things that are not absolutely necessary to be known and believed expresly , and distinctly , it never is ignorant , much less doth it erre ; yea , in things that are not absolutely necessary to be so known and believed , we constantly believe , that this church can never erre , nor doubt , pertinaciously , &c. but , because i doubt , whether our princess made reflexion upon the church in such a diffusive sense , and supposing that she wanted such an oracle of infallibility , as to which there could be access for imediate resolve of scruples and doubts , upon all occasions , ( which , i fear , had her h. lived longer to make triall , would have been as much missing in the roman church , as in ours , ) i must lay aside many other excellent writers upon this point , i have before me , or at hand , and take up one , so learned , and orthodox as the best , and him the rather , because he useth not to be so nice in uttering his mind freely and learnedly , and yet making it consistent with the article of our church , though in appearance , point blanck contradictory to what he resolutely concludes , it is bishop mountagu i mean , who in his appeal , where he justifies what he had said in his answer to the gagger ; his position is this , the church representative , true and lawfull , never yet erred in fundamentals , and therefore i see no cause but to vouch , the church representative can not erre , the church representative is a generall councel not titularly so , as the conventicle of trent , but plenarily true , generall and lawfull . points fundamentall be such as are immediate unto faith — — — — — — — let any man living shew me , sayes he , any historicall mistakings , misreportings , where , when , in what any generall councell , according to true acception , or church representative , hath so erred in the resolution and decission of that councell ; for in the debating of doubts , questions , propositions , the case is otherwise , and not the same . i conceive and acknowledge but four councells of this kind , that of nice , of constantinople , of ephesus , of chalcedon . the church of england may seem to have been of a contrary mind in her determinations ; for artic. 21. we read thus generall councels — — — — — when they be gathered together ( forasmuch as they be an assembly of men , whereof all be not governed with the spirit and word of god ) they may erre , and sometime have erred , even in things pertaining unto god. which decision of the article is not home to this purpose , as he particularly proves , and hath the approbation of the reverend dr. francis white , afterward bishop of ely , that he found nothing therein [ in that and his whole book ] but what is agreeable to the publick faith , doctrine and discipline of the church of england , of whose doctrine the said 21 article is a noted part . but because the bishop leaves this infallibility at above a thousand yeares distance , viz : the last generall councel of chalcedon , attributing no such thing to any the pretended generall councels since ; it is necessary i go seek a supplement somewhere else , for the guidance of doubting persons , who may be at loss , what to think the state of the church hath been in so long an intervall ; and , if they take posterity into their care , what it may be in a much longer yet to come , before such another generall councel meet , now the latine church seemes to be finally settled upon the lees of the decisions in the councel of trent . among those many i have turned over , i find not where to furnish my self better then from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , that most glorious martyr , now a resplendent starr of magnitude among the saints above , in his famed book , commended by that royall martyr not long before he drank of the same cup , that bloudy brook in the way to his celestiall crown , archbishop laud's conference with mr. fisher the iesuite ; where his grace sayes , whether a generall councel may erre , or not , is a question of great consequence in the church of christ , to say , it can not erre , leaves the church not onely without remedy against an errour once determined ; but also without sense that it may need a remedy , and so without care to seek it — — to say , it can erre , seemes to expose the members of the church to an uncertainty and wavering in the faith , to make unquiet spirits , not onely to disrespect former councels of the church , but also to slight and contemn whatsoever it may now determine . — — — — i said , the determination of a generall councel erring was to stand in force , and to have external obedience at least yielded to it , till evidence of scripture , or a demonstration to the contrary , made the errour appear ; and until thereupon another councel of equal authority did reverse it . pag. 146. 147. in the following considerations is added , with submission to our mother the church of england , and to the mother of us all , the universall catholick church of christ ; that the assistance of the h. ghost is without errour , that 's no quaestion : and as little there is , that a councel hath it . this , in the abstract , is as home as need to be in the point , but this , afterward , is somewhat moderated , by distinguishing the infallibility of the after-councels from that of the apostles themselves , acts , 15. where they say of themselves , and the councel held by them : it seemes good to the holy ghost and to us , ( who might indeed , well say it ) but he does not find , that any general councel since , though they did implore , as they ought , the assistance of that blessed spirit , did ever take upon them to say , in-terminis , in express terms of their definitions , visum est spiritui sancto , & nobis ; it seemed good to the holy ghost and to us , acknowledging thereby ( as i conceive ) a great deal of difference in the certainty of those things which a generall councel had after determined in the church , and those which were settled by the apostles , when they sate in councel ; but then , again , though he did not find , that they used this speech punctually in terms , yet the fathers , when they met in councel , were confident , and spake it out , that they had assistance from the holy ghost ; yet so , as that they neither took themselves , nor the councels they sate in , as infallibly guided by the holy ghost , as the apostles were ; and he saies , valentia is very right in concluding , that though the councel say , they are gathered together in the holy ghost , yet the fathers are neither arrogant , in using the speech , nor yet infallible for all that . if other their writers had used the like moderation , perhaps her r. h. had not been so much concerned about it . i expect nothing more will be obtained from other our controvertists towards the satisfaction of any in like condition ; yet because mr. chillingworth had a more peircing eye of reason then most of the rest , i will summe up his method so short as i can , and see what we can make good out of it . this he layes as the groundwork of his discourse with f. knott ; that the distinction of points fundamental , and not fundamental , is in this controversie good and pertinent : and that the catholique church may erre in the latter kind of the said points . 2. that it is not so prodigiously strange as his adversary thinkes : that we will never be induced to give in a particular catalogue , what points be fundamental . pag. 119. 3. that may be fundamental and necessary to one , which to another is not so ; which variety of circumstances makes it imposible to set down an exact catalogue of fundamentals — and therefore we must content our selves , by a general description to tell what is fundamental . 4. it is sufficient for any mans salvation , to believe that the scripture is true ; and containes all things necessary for salvation ; and to do his best endeavour to find and believe the true sense of it , without delivering any particular catalogue of fundamentals . pag. 120. 5. though the church may erre in some points not fundamental : yet may she have certainty enough in proposing others . 6. he that grants the church infallible in fundamentals , and ascribes to the apostles the infallible guidance of the spirit , in a more high and absolute manner , than to any since them , limits not the apostles infallibility to fundamentals . 7. the apostles were led into all truths by the spirit efficaciter ; the church is led into all truths , by the apostle writings sufficienter . pag. 131. led so as that she may follow ; but not so , that she must . these assertions of his influence the most part of his long discourse with the learned iesuite ; if ought more there be to strengthen e'm , it may fall in with what i have yet to add , relating to the invaledity of her r. highnesses motive for deserting our church , upon account of any assurance she could have of being , more firmely , and finally , settled in this point , upon the grounds and principles thereof in the church of rome ; for yeilding , pro dato , not concesso what the greatest doctors there would have , more particularly those of ours that went over to them before this good lady ; i demand , what found they there beyond what they had here at home ? i will fix upon one or two of them , in whose conversion they so good as tell us , they are most triumphant . let the first be dr. vane , chaplain to his late majesty , who , in the very entrance to his sixth chapter of the infallibility of the church , begins thus ; now that the catholique church , ( which society of christians soever it be ) is the onely , faithful , and true witness of the matter of god's word , to tell us what it is , and what is not it , the only true interpreter of the meaning of god's word , and the last and finall judge of all controversies , that may arise in matters of religion , and that she is not onely true , but that she can not be otherwise , seeing she is infallible . our church , which is catholique too , in concurrence with that he went to , is , he knew , extended to the first four generall councels to the fathers of the first five or six hundred yeares , from whom we receive the canon we have of the h. bible , and to whose writings we go for the interpretation of any texts that , any way , seem doubtfull , if necessary to be resolved ; in others not so considerable , for ought i know , we leave every man to his own diligence in comparing text with text , for mutuall illustration ; and to his own reason for inference of the best truth from the premises he makes himself ; or if so ignorant , he can make none , we send him to the lips of his parochiall priest , or some other , at his choyce , which certainly should preserve at least , so much knowledge , as to determine the little difficulties brought to him , according to the sense of our nationall church , if such as whereof she hath taken any notice . for catholique tradition we go to the catholique writers , so truely called ; for what is unwritten we have no infallible living oracle to consult , no more have they , for ought i see , whereof any use can be made to present satisfaction ; and therein we may cry quitts , as afterward i shall briefly shew . the conclusion herein lay'd down by d. cressy , is as followeth ; that it belongs alone to the catholique church , which is the onely depositary of divine revelations , authoritatively , and with obligation , to propose those revelations to all christians , &c. to interpret the holy scriptures , and to determine all emergent controversies ; and this to the end of the world , in as much as the church by vertue of christ's promises , and assistance , is not onely indefectible , but continually preserved in all truth . of what divine revelations the catholique church is depositary , i have already owned , viz. of the h. scriptures , and the primitive fathers , in their writings , as being the best and surest interpreters ; the difficulty yet sticks at the determining emergent controversies , which may be multiplied in infinitum , by too dubious , and over-scrupulous persons , so well in smaller , as greater , matters , in whose behalf , for living oracles or other certainty of infallible resolution , i am yet to seek i confess ; and therefore setting aside all nice disputes about indefectibility of their church , and generality of truth preserved by her , i must , and may , i hope , freely demand of mounsieur maimburg's proxy if he have any in england . whether the controversies , or doubts raised in our princess's breast , were not emergent , whereof since her r. h. could not be resolved with us , i may , modestly , ask whither they sent her for satisfaction ; or rather , what infallible judge it was , whom they brought to her bedside in that infirm condition ; i would use no railery in these solemn discourses , but their matter of stating the case in quaestion does , as it were , obliege me to do somewhat like it , after which short apologie , i hope i may be allowed to proceed ; the pope in person it could not be , who is resident at rome , and has enough to do with the controversies and emergences , that from all parts of christendome are carryed to him ; the catholique church it could be less , in what notion soever taken , whether as collective , diffusive , representative , &c. no councel sitting , the dispersed members of any impossibility not consulted ; and from the conclave , i hope , came not the infallible spirit , i say , not in a carriers budget , as my lord of derry hath been pleased , in a little ironie , to word it , with reference to that at trent ; in fine , this infallible judge might be monsieur maimburg himself , or some other ghostly father nearer hand , alwayes readily prepared , in nomine domini , sanctaeque matris ecclesiae , to decide all controversies , and clear all scruples in an instant , that could be suggested to him ; if so , then i come about again to my learned controvertist mr. chillingworth , and borrow two or three questions from him , which i leave to be applyed to the present case , as thought fit ; 1. whether an ignorant man ( i insert , or a knowing , but doubting lady ) be bound to believe any point to be decreed by the church , when his priest or ghostly father assures him , it is so . 2. whether his ghostly father may not err in telling him so : and whether any man can be obliged , under pain of damnation , to believe an errour . 3. whether he be bound to believe such a thing defined , when a number of priests , perhaps ten , or twenty , tell him , it is so ; and what assurance he can have , that they neither err , nor deceive him in this matter . 4. i add another upon my own account , though others may have done it before me ; whether it be not the same church , which now averrs her self to be infallible , that made the first decision of it ; and if so , how she can be sure , she erred not , in making the said decision ; which may carry on the question in infinitum ? where i leave it ; concluding with my lord bishop of derry's question in the case ; what availeth it to say , they have the church for an infallible iudge , whilst they are not certain , or do not know , what the church is ; or who this infallible iudge is , sch. gard. pag. 406. or what satisfaction had her r. h. in deserting our church , because she found no infallibility pretended by it ; and going over to the church of rome , which , though it pretends all that may be to it , yet in reality can have as little , as appears by what is said above . confession . the next point , wherein her r. h. declares she was convinced , is that of confession ; the use whereof our church neither denies , nor discourageth , in any case , as i know ; but , in some , adviseth ; and , in other , wisheth , it might be reduced into practice , no exception being by her made against any frequency , whereunto poor penitents may be inclined , for quiet of conscience , and internal acquiessence ; the necessity of it she rejects , yet layes no censure on them that hold it , so they keep their opinion within their breasts , and neither impose it on any dissenting brethren , nor publish it to the disturbance of her members , who may be well enough satisfied , if , when they see cause , they can open their grief , and , by the ministery of god's holy word , receive the benefit , and comfort of absolution . that i may not be thought , herein , to go beyond my line , or the rule by which i am to draw it , mr. iones , i will consult two or three of our very orthodox fathers , whom , i am sure , you and your party are not able to confute . let the learned bishop mountague be the first , in his books afore cited , who sayes in brief so much as needs , in the case against his informers , who alledged for the opinion of our church , this , that we must not confess our sins but only unto god. 1. shew me any such inhibition . 2. the most that hath been said is , that private confession is free , not tyed , and therefore juris positivi , not divini . 3. therefore happily of conveniency , not of absolute necessity . 4. that in a private confession unto a priest , a peculiar enumeration of all sinns , both commission and omission , with all circumstances , and accidents , is never necessary necessarily ; most an end not expedient , nor yet , all things considered , required . 5. it is confessed , that private confession unto a priest , is of very ancient practise in the church , of excellent use and practice , being discreetly handled . 6. we refuse it to none , if men require it , if need be to have it : we urge it and perswade it in extremis . we require it in case of perplexity , for the quieting of men disturbed , and their consciences . 7. it hath been so acknowledged by those of the church of rome ; in the visitation of the sick , before the receiving of the lord's supper , according to which doctrine , and injunction , our bishops do , and should , enquire in their visitations , touching the use , and neglect of this so good an order , as did that pious , learned , and reverend bishop of norwich , dr. overal in the 21 article , enquired of in his visitation 1619. concerning ministers . and as perhaps would do ( as who of our worthy prelacy , would not do ? ) his learned successor in that see at presentments , were it not for the trouble of vindicating himself from popery in the point , against such as you , and your party , mr. jones ; which i the rather presume , without his lordships leave , because of the excellent sermon on this subject , many years since printed , which i heard preached by him at st. mary's in cambridge , and although question'd by the puritanical pragmatick party , yet cleared by all other the more sound doctors in that consistory , and applauded by all intelligent and right-principled members in that our famous and flourishing university . the more modern and most excellent bishop , ier. taylor , although very censorious and invective , in some circumstances , enjoyn'd , and practis'd in the church of rome , is near so indulgent as his predecessors , in what hath been alledged as allowed by our church ; for in part 2. sect. 11. of disuas : from pop : thus he writes ; whether to confess to a priest be an adviseable discipline , and a good instance , instrument , and ministery of repentance , and may serve many good ends in the church , and to the souls of needing persons , it is no part of the quaestion ..... the church of england is no way engag'd against it , but advises it and practises it ..... ibid. p. 483 indeed in order to counsel or comfort , it may be very useful to tell all that grieves the penitent ; all that for which he hath no rest , and cannot get satisfaction . were it necessary to search more among our prelates and other dignitaries of our church , that have freely delivered , and published their mind in this point or to annex those i have already searched , i could easily comply with it ; but ex copia satietas ; & ne quid nimium , a so good caution for moderation , puts a restraint upon me ; wherefore i much wonder her r. h. should pretend to leave us for want of confessors , more then of preachers ; for if she had lookt back to some of our ancient controvertists ( that novellissime may not be charged on the modern i have produced ) she would have met with bishop iewel , our great apologist , rendring his opinion to like purpose , thus , the abuses and errors set apart , we do no more mislike a private confession , then a private sermon . def. of his apol. part 2 , pag. 133. but if to others of his time or since , calvinistically addicted , so tender-conscienced are they in yielding any thing ( though our church have done it ) toward a charitable and christian accommodation with the church of rome , as what they have written would in likelihood have little relieved her r. h. in the trouble she had about it . the said church of rome , indeed , is very strict in this article , imposing upon her penitents a particular enumeration of all mortall sinnes , with all their severall aggravating circumstances , which our royall martyr in his confer . pag. 172. sayes , is either not possible , or , at least , not necessary ; and hath a colourable argument for that his opinion ; which alone , then applied to the marquiss , if it fully answer not the summe of all the learned portuguise doctors , and radius , ( of whom bishop mountagu , gives this singular elogy above others , qui ad concilium tridentinum attulit & profundissimi theologimentem , & linguam oratoris discrtissimi , that he carried with him to the councel of trent the understanding of a most profound divine , and the tongue of a most eloquent oratour . apparat. 1. ss . 75. ) i say , if it answer's not the summe of all that eminent person hath , of all our opposites most pertinently , amassed for particular and perfect confession , i wish it were strengthened by our most famed controvertists of this time , toward the true stating the difference between us , and then commending the practice of what they approve to the best advantage , and reforming the frequency , and audacity , of sinn in this licentious age ; which the romanists in france , and flanders , do not alltogether with that fervent zeale , and diligent circumspection , as is pretended , at least on their most solemn festivals , when , usually , the greatest number address themselves to their confessors , publikely in their churches , who make such a slight scrutinie , and so indulgently dismiss their penitents , to save time , and to give all that come the satisfaction to take their turn , that i have often censur'd the practice of it there as a meere formall business , without enquiry into many circumstances of aggravation ; nor do i remember that i ever saw one single person arise from the knee with a penitentiall tear of sorrow upon the cheek . yet , that some of their fathers do , with integrity and discretion , mesnage that great concern , i will conclude with a report of what an honest franciscan friar , at st. malo , told me and some other of our nation ; that his course was this ; when any penitent came to him for absolution , he would , the first time , treat him gently , and impose no hard penance , in consideration of humane frailty ; that the second time he confessed a relapse to the same sin ; he would deale more severely with him ; but if the third time he came to be eased of a like burthen , he would not trifle away his time , in discoursing with him , but bid him go seek another confessour , for himself would have no more , at all , to do with him . prayer for the dead . the last conviction our princess mention's , is of prayer for the dead ; whereof she might have been resolved by the same , or other , alike learned writers , on our side , so far as can be justified from the precedent of the ancient church ; and , i know no new discovery hath been of that uncertain state , i mean of the dead , as should move us to more charity toward our deceased friends , then they had for theirs , and so far as they we may adventure without controll . the right reverend bishop of derry gives us in short , what some others more enlarge upon ; schism gard . pag. 231. we condemn not all praying for the dead ; not for their resurrection , and the consummation of their happiness ; but their [ the papists ] prayers for their deliverance out of purgatory ; for it is a great mistake , to think purgatory must needs be yeilded , when we make such prayers ; for which errour , bishop mountagu sharply reproves the gagger , thus ; you are a poor ignaro , that think , soules must needs be in purgatory , that receive assistance from the church ; it may be your poor understanding will wonder at it ; but know , sir , i can admit prayer for the dead , and deny your purgatory . pag. 292. which , i think , he repeats again to the informers somewhere in his appeale . bishop field , book 3. ch. 17. explaineth the manner of it among the ancients , viz. the custome of remembring the departed , naming their names at the holy table , in the time of the holy mysteries , and offering the eucharist , ( that is the sacrifice of praise ) for there was a most ancient and godly custome , neither is it any way disliked by us . — — in this sort they did most religiously observe and keep , at the lord's table , the commemoration of all the patriarches , prophets , apostles , evangelists , martyrs , and confessours — — — : but if they wished any thing , it was the deliverance from the power of death , which , as yet , tyranniseth over one part of them , the speedy destroying of the last enemy , which is death ; the hastning of their resurrection , and joyfull publique acquitall of them in that great day , wherein they shall stand to be judged before the judge of the quick and the dead . this was the practise of the whole church , and this the meaning of their commemorations and prayers , which was good , and no way to be disliked . — — — it was the opinion of many of the fathers , that there is no judgment to pass upon men till the last day ; that all men are holden either in some place under the earth , or else in some other place appointed for that purpose , so that they come not into heaven , nor receive the reward of their labours , till the generall judgment . seven greek and latine fathers he nameth , whose opinion is such , and refers to more , in the forecited chapter . but bishop taylor , ( whose diligence in his researches was indefatigable , and his discoveries , commonly , more successfull then any others ) hath , beyond the forementioned , some peculiar observations about this point , which afford great allowances of prayer for the dead , yet no nearer approaches to purgatory , held by the church of rome . see , part 2. of his dissuasive from popery , book 2. sect. 2. where you will find what followes ; 1. all the fathers did pray for the dead , yet they never prayed for their deliverance out of purgatory , nor ever meant it . 2. though the fathers prayed for the soules departed , that god would shew them mercy ; yet it was , that god would show them mercy in the day of iudgment ; in that formidable and dreadfull day , then there is need of much mercy unto us , saith st. chrysostom ; so , generally , interpreters , ancient and modern , do understand it of onesiphorus . 3. the faithfull departed are in the hands of christ as soon as they die , and they are very well ; and the soules of the wicked are where it pleases god to appoint them to be tormented by a fearfull expectation of the day of iudgment ; but heaven and hell are reserved till the day of iudgment ; and the devils themselves are reserved in chaines of darkness unto the judgment of the great day , saith st. jude , and in that day they shall be sentenc'd , and so shall all the wicked , to everlasting fire , which , as yet , is but prepar'd for the devil and his angels for ever . 4. some of the ancients speak of visitation of angels to be imparted to the soules departed , which is a mercy ; and the hastening of the day of iudgment is a mercy ; and the avenging of the martyrs upon their adversaries is a mercy ; for which the soules under the altar pray , saith st. john in the revelation : and the greek fathers speak of a fiery trial at the day of judgment , through which every one must pass ; and there will be great need of mercy . 5. after all this ; there is a remission of sinnes proper to this world , &c. but at the day of judgment there shall be a pardon of sinnes , that will crown this pardon , when god shall pronounce us pardon'd before all the world ; and when christ shall actually and presentially rescue us from all the paines which our sinnes have deserved ; even from everlasting pain : and that 's the finall pardon , for which , till it be accomplished , all the faithfull do , night and day , pray incessantly , allthough to many , for whom they do pray , they friendly believe , that it is now certain , that they shall then be glorified . 6. st. austin though , he had reason to pray for pardon and remission for his mother , for the reason 's allready expressed , though he never thought his mother was in purgatory . it was upon consideration of the dangers of every soul that dies in adam ; and yet he affirms , she was , even before his death , alive unto christ. 7. in the next page he reproves that initial errour of them that affirm , communicantes & offerentes pro sanctis , imports not a prayer ; and afterward makes it clear , that the greek fathers did really pray for mercy , for pardon , for a place of rest , for eternal glory , for them who never were in purgatory ; for it is a great ignorance , he sayes , to suppose , that when it is said , the sacrifice or oblation is offered , it must mean only thanksgiving , being called in st. dionys , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , an eucharisticall prayer , and the lord's supper is a sacrifice in genere orationis . and what more then this , mr. iones , did the two most able bishops that we have in england confess , as touching prayer for the dead , &c. to her r. h. in the conference she had with ' em ? and less then this how could they own , without a fallacy put on her , and defrauding the church of england of what she indulgeth to her children , in all that reason , and primitive practice will justifie ? and if , as to themselves , they made use thereof in private , without making publique profession thereof , what thence has such a puny presbyter as mr. iones to charge them with , who lets his sling slip at randome , being not furnish'd with the least pebble that can strike either of them in the forehead ? for what is pretended that one of them confessed more , or answered her h. freely , when she pressed him upon the other points of controversy , and principally on the reall presence of iesus chrst in the holy sacrament of the altar . that were he a catholick , he would not change religion ; but that having been educated in a church , in which he believed there was all that was necessary to salvation , and there having received his baptisme , he thought he could not quit it without great scandall ; is no more then what i presume , a great number in the communion of either church would say after him ; and they that say it not , do ordinarily , we find , change sides , when they have once prevailed with themselves to step over that consideration ; and what one noble person , worth many hundreds of mr. iones's inspired party , has seriously owned to me , in his exile , after much earnest discourse upon that and other points , then whom there was , while he lived , no more intelligent and impartiall , free and familiar , antipapist in the peerage of our kings dominions , the lord hopton , my quondam patron , of pious memory , is the peer i mean. and if her r. h. had been presented , seasonably , with such a choice collection , as i have here made , from the highly learned , and very orthodox grandees of our church , ( which will be further authorized , as occasion may require , by thrice the number , alike qualified , yea , and dignified too , ) i see no reason , but she might have understood her self catholick enough where she was , as in these , so in all other points controverted between the church of rome and us ; and no such ardent desire of change , no such inward paines and horrible disquiets upon account of her discourse with the two most able bishops , need have urged her to the least complaint . what other method her h. took in so important an affair , for her entire satisfaction , since she has not thought fit more particularly to declare , it will be no discretion , nor good manners , in me to make conjecture . certain it is , she could not do better , then in praying to god from her whole heart , ( as , she sayes , she did ) to calme the inquietude , and agitation of her troubled spirit , and to give her knowledge of the truth ; but did her h. expect the answer to her prayers should be by immediate divine revelation ? those reverend bishops could , and would have acquainted her with other precedents , beside that of prayer , from devout noble ladies in st. hierome and other fathers ; and had she but opened a little book of my lady faulklands letters , she might have seen the remedy applied to a spirit no less disconsolate and diffident , upon one account , then her own upon another ; but in this unsteady state of doubts and fears , and an unsettled faith , being christmas day , her h. goes to the king's chappell , to participate of the holy sacrament , which , contrary to her hopes , brought new troubles upon her soul , and i wonder not a whitt at it , want of the reall presence , or corporeall in the roman sense , being that which did most afflict her , whereof she might be well assured , little supply , or comfort , was to be had from the king's chappell , and so her labour , she thought , was lost . her next essay was by address to a catholique , for counsell , and if possible , for cure , which now at last , was , as her h. fancied , in some sort , effected by a good priest he sent for [ me fit venir un bon prestre , ] with whom conferring about her interiour condition , and souls salvation , the more she parlied , the more she felt her self intrinsecally carried off , and fortified by grace of the holy spirit toward the change of religion ; a gentleman of quick dispatch was this good priest ; but i hear nothing yet of his infallibility her h. lately lookt for , unless the other catholick , who e're he was , that call'd him to her , passed his word for it in private , which security taken , all could not but be oracular that came from his mouth . of the h. eucharist in one or both kindes . as i find in the very first place , was his decision of receiving the h. sacrament in one kind , in which one element if were not administred both the flesh and bloud of our saviour , christ would never have suffered the other to be substracted , and his church deprived of half himself , who promised to abide with her ( whole and entire , no doubt ) to the end of the world ; nor could her h. think her self free to believe otherwise , or that christ's own words could be frustrate . before i can well apply my self to reflect on this article of half-communion , ( as our writers often call it ) i think it not alltogether impertinent , to declare my dissatisfaction at the sodain change i observe of a disconsolate dejected spirit , to an argumentative and active soul , in search so superficiall , and so definitive , before full discovery ; as if intent upon contradiction of her own practice so many yeares , and not startled at so quick a transition , from the unquestionable security of both elements in the h. eucharist to the hazard of enjoying the intire end and effect of neither , when reduced to one . i am very prone to suspect something like a chasme , or hiatus here , a defect in transcript of the declaration published in her highnesses name , which mounsieur maimburg best knowes wherewith it should be , and , in fidelity to the trust reposed in him , ought , if so , to be made compleat ; howsoever , to let it pass from hand to hand , as delivered to us , and to wait upon her r. h. so immediately as she leads the way from her closet to the publike schooles , i can not but much commend the early exercise of her skill and prudence , in selecting that part of the question which best will bear discussion , and arresting her upon assurance of his word , who never did , nor , being truth it self , can ever break his promise ; for no notice at all is taken , how many yeares the church persisted in submission to the express words of our saviours institution , without substracting or altering ought in the celebration of this h. sacrament ; whence bishop iewell sayes , the question that standeth between us is moved thus , whether the holy communion at any time , within the space of six hundred years after christ , were ever ministred openly in the church unto the people under one kind . repl. to mr. hard. ans. pag. 96. which extent of time he might have drawn out much further , by the concession ( among others ) of cassander , a man professing himself a roman catholique , though of wonderfull modesty , moderation , and learning , sayes bishop mountagu , whose words are these , as by his lordship cited ; it is manifest , that , in administration of the sacred sacrament of the eucharist , the universall church of christ untill this day , and the western or roman church , for more then 1000 yeares after christ , especially in their solemn and ordinary dispensation of this sacrament , did exhibit and give unto all faithfull christians not one only , but both the kinds of bread and wine , as it is most clear and evident out of innumerable testimonies of the old writers , both greek and latine , which i can make good , &c. this he did in part , and the rest we may safely take upon his honest word , and credit ; and 300 yeares more then he voucheth upon bishop mountagu's , who saith after him too , this is every where the custome in all the world unto this day , but in the roman exhorbitant church ; and was not quite abolished in that church , till about 1300 yeares after christ ; and by much art , colluding , and fine forgery , was retained from being cast out of that church , in the late conventicle of trent , onely kept in for a faction , but mightily oppos'd by learned , honest , and conscionable catholiques ; whereupon this resolute and worthy prelate joynes issue with all papists living , that it never was otherwise used in all the church of god , for above 1000 yeares after christ ; and , that if all the papists living prove the contrary , he will subscribe to all popery , ans. to the gagger , ch . 36. which is fair enough . so that i shall need call in no more help upon this account , except i may that observation of bishop taylor and others , that the primitive church did excommunicate them that did not receive the holy sacrament in both kinds . pref. to diss. pag. 5. i return , therefore to her highnessess argument drawn from the promise , and veracity , or fidelity of christ to make it good ; which promise being not particular , not restrained to his sacramental presence , upon which we differ ; much less limitted to the patriarchate of rome , and that under the name or notion of his universal church , exclusive of all other christians not taken into her communion ; he left her free , at her own hazard , to commit sacriledge in this kind as in divers other , and to withdraw her self from him before ever he withdrew from her ; and to afford his fuller presence by both representatives elsewhere , among a greater number of christians , by computation , then those within her pale or communion , in both kinds of this h. sacrament united , altho' in some other doctrines , ceremonies , and customes , or national , or provincial , civical , or rural , or in other dissonancy whatsoever , more , or less , divided ; but her h. had already changed her measures with her religion , and was already principled a new by her good priest , and not permitted to look back upon us unto whom for ever she had bid adieu . by this time , no doubt , she was taught to say , that christ assured us , the holy sacrament , ( though but a wafer ) containeth his flesh and blood , because the church hath at length declared , he , or it , shall be so understood ; else we know not where to find any words of christ that import the real subsistence of both elements in one , wine in bread , or bread in wine ; eating his blood , or drinking his flesh ; his institution was otherwise , and so was , accordingly , the practice of the church for 1300 years together ; and dr. cressey confesseth exom . pag. 602. this is not a matter of doctrine , but meer practise ; the church sayes not , it is unlawful to take it in both kindes ; nor do we know , where christ ever sayd , it is lawful , or allowable , to take it but in one ; extraordinary cases come not under consideration here , and therefore he might have refrained to mention either the sick , or antipathetick people . as the councel of basil ought to have granted the poor bohemians their dispensation , without so hard i say not onely , but most impious condition , if in their consciences they were otherwise perswaded , as is believed , they were ; i shall transcribe it from archbishop laud , conf. pag. 198. — that it may be lawfull for them to receive the sacrament as christ commanded them , but not unless they will acknowledge ( most opposite to truth ) that they are not bound by divine law to receive it in both kindes . at this rate our departed dutchess might very well undertake for christ's both promising and performing , when her good preist , ( whom now she must say after ) has the like effrontery as others to make him say what they will ; like the heretick severus in anastasius sinatia , who maintained it lawfull , and even necessary , according to occasions , and emergent heresies , to alter and change the doctrines of christ : and the cardinal of cusa affirmed it lawfull diversly to expound the scriptures according to the times . see bishop taylor , reall pres. sect. 3. where his lordship very pertinently observes , that in the sixth chapter of st. john's gospell is earnestly pretended , that our saviour taught the mystery of transubstantiation ; but with some different opinions ; — — and yet very many of the romanists affirm , that in this chapter christ does not speak of sacramental or oral manducation , or of the sacrament at all ; and bellarmine going to excuse it , sayes in effect , that they did not do it very honestly , for he affirms , that they did it , that they might confute the hussites , and the lutherans , about the communion under both kinds : and if it be so , and not be so , as it may serve a turn , it is so for transubstantiation , and it is not so for half-communion ; we have but little reason to rely upon their judgment , or candor , in any exposition of scripture . and here sayes archbishop laud , their building with untempered mortar appears most manifestly , for they have no shew to maintain this , but the fiction of thomas of aquin , that he which receives the body of christ , receives also his blood per concomitantiam , by concomitancy ; because the blood goes alwaies with the body ; of which term thomas was the first author i can find , conf. p. 198. who was born , says bellarmine , anno 1224. and died anno 1274. and as he was the first that invented it , so the councel of constance was the first that decreed it , after the year 1400. sayes my lord of derry , in his answer to mounsieur de la militiere . but be the invention whose it will , bishop taylor sayes , it is a new whimsie of theirs , which will not serve their turn ; for which he gives four reasons , which are to be found in the forecited section . and the bishop of derry speakes slightly of it , and good reason why , because we need it not , being secure without it . let what will become of concomitance , sayes he , whilest we keep our selves to the institution of christ , and the universall practice of the primitive church . p. 92. but i know , his lordships christian charity was ever such , as , not to condemn so many millions of devout souls , as , after the councell of constance , if not after the more early invention of thomas aquinas , neither had , nor could have , participated the h. sacrament of the altar otherwise then under one kind , ( as at that time was , and ever since has been the standing decree , or practice , of the latine church ) to all the ill effects and unhappy consequences of a perpetuall profanation and sacriledge in a half-communion ; the fruition and benefit but of a meer skeleton , a bloodless carkass , nor vivified , nor vivifying body of christ ; which carrieth horrour in the very conception , and , where beleeved , utter affrightment from all future so imperfect , so insignificant , if not altogether a null-participation ; i am well assured , neither of their lordships were unacquainted with that special treatise upon this subject written by the pious cassander , dignissimus lectu , a book most worthy the reading , sayes grotious , to whose judgement our moderate divines are prompt enough favourably to attend ; beside what modrevius hath in his on the same argument , vid. h. gr. annot. ad consult . cassand : artic. 21. where he shews , how easily this difference might be accorded , were it not for the sin of sacriledge so fiercely laid to the charge of the roman church , in denying the cup to the laiety , which luther , melanchthon , and bucer , three leading men in the reformation , thought need not discourage well prepared communicants from receivng the sacrament in one kind , which might be done , they thought , without sin . what may be replyed to this , sure enough , that great doctor , and amphibious calvinist , andr. rivet ( on whom i affix that epithet , because of his living so long in france and holland , whence he contracted a perfect knowledge of all that sect in either nation had to urge in any point of controversie against all others in communion with the church of rome ) had in readiness what apologies could be made for those three too indulgent patrons of the reformation , which he seperately , and singly , thus allegeth . 1. that luther , when he came fresh from the papacy , confessed , se fuisse monachum & papistam insanissimum ; that he had been a monk , and a most mad papist , ( i think it was but by dilucid intervalls , when he and his rigid followers became the soberest party of the protestants , ) and requested therefore , that his writings might be read with commiseration ; no wonder then that he saw not alltogether at one prospect or intuition . certainly , if he thought it sacriledge in good earnest , and properly so called , he could not but know it , at first sight , to be a sin ; and the good doctors apology in his behalf is but weak , and accordingly the learned grotius , in his turn , takes no notice of it . what more for luther dr. rivet addes , gr. disc. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 375. that he had brought in excuse his infirmity , and , as it were , infancy , and that , when his mind was more illuminated , he learned to be wise , mends not the matter much ; it takes not off what grotius affirmes , at first he said . 2. let us therefore see what more he can say for melanchthon ; to shew his better opinion in the case , he remits us to some select particles of his writings , where he expostulates about christs institution , which being in generall for the whole church , he demands , why one of the species , or kindes , is taken from part of the church , whereof the romanists gave many reasons , such as they were , in likelihood the same then , as since , which how well they will hold , is still the question whereof anon , this he confesseth , melanchthon added afterward , se ecclesiam excusare , quae hanc injuriam pertulit ; that he excus'd the church which suffer'd the injurie ; and that 's well enough , for we are on the suffering side ; rivet brings up the reer , and passeth his word , that yet melanchthon did not excuse those , that forbad not onely , but excommunicated , such as us'd the cup ; who said he did ? not grotius any where ; as i remember ; who liked well enough where it could be had , and no order of the church wherein he was matriculated , interposed to the contrary that the h. sacrament should be administred in both kindes , whereof as himself participated , when among them whose use it was ; so , it may be supposed , he advised his family to do the like by choice , in a countrey , where both were practised , and a third profession preferr'd to both , as in france ; for when at paris , i officiated at the honorable residents , sir richard brownes , his widow , & daughter , with a third lady of quality , who understood little of our language , after admission asked , communicated in both with us , according to the forme , and ceremonie of the knee prescribed by our church . concerning m. bucer , rivet answers directly , nothing to what by grotius was alledged , but diverts his reader another way , to the 74 th . chapter of his defense of the colonian reformation : which is a usuall shift of his , though imputed by him in this very question , to his more plain-dealing antagonist ; but what find we there , whither he sends us ? why , much after the rate as in melanchthon ; we find that bucer sayes ; quod alteram speciem sacramenti in genere auferre , grave sacrilegium est . that to take away from all christians in generall , either species of the sacrament , is grievous sacriledge ; whereas grotius denies frequently , that they do it , but in severall cases , both of persons , nations , and countries , grant it for the asking ; and they that will not ask it , may go without it , whose fault is it if they do ? and what have we to do with the conditions any foreign church puts upon the members of it ? which i believe was my lord of derry's meaning , who , perhapps , on very good reserved reason , had as little mind to answer positively , were the quaestion thus put , as dr. rivet . do you beleive , or not , that whole christ is present , where by order of any church , which beleives not our saviours institution , or precept , to be so peremptory as we do , either element or species , is separated from the other ? my opinion is , mr. bucer so well as others would have been silent in the case , who , in all his writings i have met with , that relate to the h. eucharist , useth and adviseth speciall caution against humane thoughts , sensible imaginations , logicall or philosophicall arguments and deductions , flying up above all such on the wings of fayth , after an humble resignation of his reason , which he confesseth alltogether uncapable to comprehend in the least , this inscrutable , inaccessible mystery in the veil . to some part of this purpose , peradventure , may be reducible those two axioms in his exomolog . n. 10. and 14. which i shall transcribe for the consideration of the learned , without interpreting to the meer english reader . num. 10. omnes igitur sensibiles mundi imaginationes , omnis cogitatio loci aut continui aut contigui , aut commixtionis , ab hac communione & unitate removendae sunt , admirandaque est in verbo dei apprehensa , & ex effectis ejus , operibus novi hominis , suspicienda , pensitanda & fruenda . num. 14. cavendum est , ne praeceptum domini dilucidum ubique illuminator habentibus oculos fide , ullis superstitionis grandiloquentijs obscuremus . rursus autem cavendum est , ne pondus , majestatem mysteriorum christi , quae spiritus sanctus credenda magis , quam scrutanda ( nostra quidem ratione ) proposuit , iminuamus interpretationibus , quae magis ex nostris proficisuntur cogitationibus , quam ex ipsis dei verbis , & natura mysteriorum ejus : which in sense seems to accord with that of st. augustine , cited by bishop iewel , def. apol. p. 220. rerum absentium praesens est fides , & rerum quae foris sunt , intus est fides : & rerum , quae non videntur , videtur fides . and now i have mentioned bishop iewel , ( both grotius and rivet being foreigners ) i judge it very pertinent and seasonable here to transcribe what the said learned and orthodox bishop hath left us of his judgement impartial concerning those three great patrons and promoters of the reformation in this point . it being alleged by mr. harding , that luther writeth to them of bohemia these very words quoniam pulchrum quidem esset , utraque specie eucharistiae uti , & christus hac in re nihil tanquam necessarium praecepit : praestaret pacem & unitatem , quam christi ubique praecepit , sectari , quam despecietus sacramenti contendere . where as it were a fair thing to use both kinds of the sacrament , yet for that christ herein hath commanded nothing , as necessary , it were better to keep peace and unity , which christ hath every where charged us withal , then to strive for the outward kindes of the sacrament . to this our bishop maketh answer ; the words that luther wrote to them of bohemia , were written by him before god had appointed him to publish the gospel . and when mr. harding ( according to the bishops supposition ) urgeth his saying opposite to the former , thus , si quo casu consilium statueret , &c. if in any case the councel would so ordain , we would in no wise have both the kinds , but even then , in despite of the councel , we would have one kind , or neither of them , and in no wise both ; and hold them for accursed , whosoever by authority of such a councel would have both . the bishop makes this fair apology for him . there was nothing further off from luther's mind then upon any determination of any councel , to minister the sacrament under one kind , and so to break christ's institution into halfes . but he thought it not meet , that god's truth immortal should hang of th'autority of a mortal man , and stand for true no further , then it should please a man to allow of it . this was the thing that d. luther misliked , and thought intollerable . and therefore he said , he would have god's word received , only because it is god's word , and spoken by him , not because it is authorized by a councel : and if the councel would allow the ministration in one kind , then , he said , he would use both , because christ in his institution appointed both. but if the bishops in the councel would agree upon both kinds , as a matter standing wholly in their pleasures , as though they had full power to controle , or to ratifie the will of god , then he said , he would have no regard unto the authority of such a councel , that setteth it self above god , but rather would use one kind only , or none at all . this latter part i understand not how luther could make good , nor how he could be free from arrogancy , wherewith mr. harding chargeth him , though for the credit of our first reformer , the bishop takes little notice of it ; for i perfectly understand not , how the parallels that follow , of st. paul , the emperour tiberius , and the prophet esai run in an even line with luthers case . mr. harding next would prove luthers from that opinion of melanchthon , who had been luther's scholar , and his saying this ; sicut edere suillam , aut abstinere a suilla , sic alterutra signi parte uti , medium esse . that as it is a thing indifferent to eate swines flesh , or to forbear swines flesh , so it is also to use which part of the ligne a man listeth bucer also , saith he , is of the same opinion ; ad controversiam , quae est de una aut utraque specie , tollendam , &c. that the controversie of for the one or both kindes , may be taken away , it shall be very well done ; that holy church made it free to receive the sacrament in one or both kinds ▪ yet under such condition , as hereby no occasion be given to any body , rashly to condemn the use , which the church hath so long time kept , nor to judge one another . so that melanchthon and bucer , he sayes accompted it as a thing indifferent . to which the right worthy bishop makes a more ingenuous answer then did d. rivet to grotious , about the same point and persons , which is this . indeed these godly learned men , when they saw that through the malice of their adversaries , they could not obtain that christ's institution might universally be received , yet they desired at the least it might be left free without restraint , for every church to do therein , as they should think good , and that without murmure , or offence of others . and thus far forth their desire was , it might be judged free : not that they thought , christ had not ordeined the sacrament to be ministred unto the people in both kinds , or that in it selfe it is indifferent : but that the faithful of god might indifferently , and freely use it without controlement , and that it should not be judged heresie , to do as christ had commanded . if i may after all , be allowed to utter freely a word or two of my own opinion , it shall be this in general , without restraint , or particular regard to this difference , or indifference , about one , or both kinds in the administration of the b. sacrament . if the church of england had improved , as she might , her first lutheran reformation ( so far as lutheran it was , or justifiably might have been ) without permitting calvin , one of another spirit then the meeker and more wary melachthon and bucer to put in his foot , our controversies had been fewer , our people steadier , and our domestick peace , at least , by much more entire ; it is that presbyterian colloquintida that hath spoiled all , the weed that geneva sent us , and thither we must remit it , there to take what root it will , or we shall never be at quiet but in our graves , if there , which may well be doubted . i proceed somewhat further to such cases , as on all sides are acknowledged of necessity , in abstemijs & aegrotis , in abstemious and sick persons , the former of which are dispensed with for the wine , and the latter for either species , as they are affected ; for some have such a drought in their jawes and pallate , as they can eat no bread ; others so much offended at the fumes of wine , as they nauseate the very smell . here grotius puts the question home , being resolved to extort an answer ; interim negare non audet , &c. presuming , dr. rivet dares not deny , but , in the foresaid cases , especially , that of the sick the sacrament was received entirely , though administred but in one kind ; which deny he does not ; nor indeed well can he the argument drawn from thence , where any church hath published a prohibition of the cup ; for without doubt it will be owned , that the words of consecration made it a sacrament in the sick mans case ; and why the same words alike pronounced by a priest , in the other , should not have the same effect , will be hard for dr. rivet to assign a satisfactory reason ; the little evasions he seemes to make are not such as his adversary will permit himquietly to go away with , as the rarity of one instance , or frequency of the other , but few are sick , to the many , the innumerable multitudes of them , that from age to age have been denied the cup by the church of rome ; but the sick have it , the other element , in voto & desiderio , in votive wish , and desire why the healthy should not have the like fervency of devotion for what they want , who can tell the cause , or not condemn 'em for their luke-warm indifferency ? or not pitty such of them , who , if not persuaded , they had the whole , would rest content with a half communion ; though bellarmine be so courteous as to afford 'em comfort , that its better for them to participate of an imperfect sacrament then none at all . esti enim sacrificium sit imperfectum sine utraque specie , tamen praestat imperfectum habere , quam nullum . but after all this contest against sacriledge , the violating christs institution and positive command , the separation of his blood from his body , the riffling and robbing so many christian soules of their hereditary right , when of age , or ju●●ement , and otherwise prepared duly to take possession of it ; who would have thought that 〈◊〉 rivet , of all men , should abate the value of that prize he had so much contended for , placing it in a lower rank of those motives , by which , separation was made from rome , and protestancy , atchieved with fire and sword ? neque tamen haec unquam fuit potissima ratio , cur ab ecclesia romana secessionem fecerint ecclesiae reformatae ; one it was indeed of the number ; but many more there were of greater moment , plures alias fuisse , & majoris momenti ; which he well knew , sayes the doctor , that made the objection , apologet. ss . 87. but he well knew withall , as we have likewise known , to our future terrour , that for none of those momentaneous motives , ( nor , perhapps for alltogether of the rest ) was more blood shed , more lives lost , and devastation made every where , as one or other party prevailed , then for this alone ; which , the pious peace-maker thought , might much better have been saved , and so the unity of the church , without that rupture , have been preserved , the contrary whereunto he , good man ! lamented sadly ; illos vero miseror , qui propter symbolum sanguinis christi , tantum sanguinis per illum sanguinem redemti amarunt effundere , let them interpret it , whom he pittieth , as most concerned in it . vot . pro pace . pag. 81. now , it would be worth enquiry , were it not a business of more length then what i am about will well permit ; why the church of rome is so obstinate in the case , if so she be , which some endeavour to qualifie , to the dissatisfaction of a greater number , in a greater part of christendome , then are those in communion with her , and to the hazard among them of so many soules , who , meerly in compliance , or fear of censure , do they know not what , doubting , if not denying , within themselves , that to be a sacrament which they receive , and consequently , if it be , or be not , going away , without the effect of it for want of fayth , or for having too much presumption upon a moiety of divine institution . our great apologist bishop iewell tells us , their own doctors alphonsus de castro , and iohn gerson , have laid them out in this wise particularly , and at large ; the danger of sheadding : the carrying from place to place : the fouling of the cupps : the trouble of men's beards : the reserving for the sick : the turning of the wine into vinegar : the engendring of flees : the corruption , or putrifaction : the lothesomeness that may happen , for so many to drink of one cupp : the impossibility of providing one cupp , that may be sufficient to serve all the people ; in some places wine is dear , in some other places the wine will be frome . these , mr. harding , be the fairest and greatest of your good causes . def. of apol. p. 318. and to these such as they are , that good bishop replies nothing , but after enumeration leaves them to the readers censure . bishop taylor takes notice but of one , which bellarmine suggests about lay-mens beards , which he sayes , is as ridiculous , as the doctrine it self is unreasonable ; and if they would shave lay-mens beards , as they do the clergy , it would be less inconvenience then what they now feel ; and if there be no help for it , they had better lose their beards , than lose their share of the blood of christ. collect. p. 469. alike answer , it is supposed , might be given to the rest , which having no more weight in them require no better . d. rivet sayes , they are of no moment , futile all , quas modrevius exacte refellit , and exactly refuted by modrevius , whose word we will take for it , and trouble our selves no further . only because bishop iewel in his review of gerson , adds one particular in his reply ; before overseen , or omitted in his defence , viz. the incidence of the palsie , which , if beyond what the physicians call a tremour , may have somewhat of moment in it , and more or less weight with us , who have a due veneration for the elements , after sacramental consecration , we may so far consider it as to say , it endures not the test , because being incident so well to the priest , as the people , an expedient should have been found that might equally have secured both , or no notice taken of either , but god's providence , for preventing , or mercy for pardoning be relyed on , who foresaw in every particular inconvenience what hath been found , or can possibly be apprehended , and yet christ himself instituted the administration in both kinds . but to return once again to her r. h. by whom this difficulty was more easily digested , and determined according to the decree and practice of the church of rome ; she is pleased , it seems , to declare , that she would not permit her self , were she able , ( as she will not pretend to be ) to dispute the verities of more grandeur , nor ingage in any other point , beyond some few words for entertainment of discourse , and that without any contestation at all , but simply to express the motives and reasons of her conversion ; which temper of moderation had she been pleas'd to use and observe when with us , toward which the upright open dealing of the two bishops seemed to induce her , ( whose unbiassed judgement i am sorry to see outdone , or undervalued , by the witty artifice , or bolder practice , of a single priest ) her h. might have lived longer , as the only one of her mother ( on whose two breasts , from infancy , she had depended for her spiritual alimony , and thriv'd well by it ) the choice one of her that bare her ; the daughters , whensoe'r they saw her , would have blessed her ; as a wall might she have been , with a palace of silver built upon her , as the wisest of kings allegirizeth most elegantly in his song of divine love . i draw now toward the conclusion , the last paragraph of her declaration . p●atteste dieu &c. her h. solemn attestation of god , that she had never thought of changing her religion , could she have beleeved ( and why could she not ? ) that salvation might have been had here , where was her birth and education , is a very severe sentence on king and people , whom she left behind her , not so much as to allow a bare possibility , what soever in fine , and fact might have become of all ; god be praised , who hath given us more charity toward the worst of them that have least deserv'd it of us ; and god give her r. h. too , in her present state , all the mercy , that may be , by permission , wished her , before , and at , the great day , and above all , that crowning pardon ( as bishop taylor calls it ) which surmounts so much the absolution of her good priest , ( so joyfully pronounced over her , when she first did throw her self into the armes of his all-comprehensive church ) as is the highest arch of heaven from the very centre of the earth . what follows , at last , being left at her highnesses judgement , will & pleasure , ought to have little contradiction from her quondam chaplain , who , in good manners , will but lightly glance , or gloss upon it . 1. that she beleeved it not necessary for her to declare in publick , that it was neither interest , nor prospect of honours , nor of the fading and perishable goods she might have by it ; that carryed to their church , since on the contrary , all the world , she sayes , needs must know , that , by the change of religion , she exposed her self to the peril of losing both her friends and credit ; i am none of the world that know it , nor do i believe them to have been her highnesses friends , who would be lost upon account of her passing from a state of sad perplexity and disquiet to one of certain assurance , satisfaction , and peace within , if so she found it , other friendship in , or with the world , is enmity with god ; religion is not to be chosen , or adhaer'd to , against perswasion of conscience , be it right or wrong , by the deceitful weights or measures of worldly friendship ; the standard of it is more sublime , and credit ought not to be so considerable , as a good conscience , in the case , which i have charity to hope she had , and exercised , without prejudice , or partiality in her new choice . 2. [ pay balance et examine plusteurs fois &c ] that her r. h. had balanced and examined often , whether it were not more expedient for her , to conserve her friends , her rank , and credit in the court , by continuing in the exercise of the religion profess'd and practised by the english church , then to abandon all those things , upon a view and hope of happiness in a future life . i am sorry , i confess , for that plusicurs fois ; that the ballance , if the beam were true , ( which her self was concern'd to look to ) should be taken in hand more then once , ( if once had not been too much ) and expedience put into the scale ; for , alas ! what are the light feathers of fortune , and fame , or reputation , to the weight of eternall glory ? what 's a pebble to the pearle of price ? what the whole world to the worst soul in it , when true merchandize is to be made , but a cruell purchase of false felicity ? and therefore if , for the time , the eyes of her mind were darkened , her understanding clouded , great , indeed , was god's mercy , in that , so on a sodain , he became unto her as the light of the morning , when the sun ariseth , a morning without clouds ; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain . 2 sam. 23. 4. after the many teares she had dropt , in the anxiety of her mind , and dejection of her spirit , so as she felt no pain , no difficulty to make that choice , that so decretory choice , and with what advantage , good lady ! before this time she knowes to the full . 3. that the only trouble remaining upon her spirit was an apprehension she had of what dire influence her change might have upon the poor catholiques of this countrey ; what they might suffer upon account of her conversion ; praying that god would give her the grace to suffer patiently with them the disgraces and afflictions of this life , for the meriting of life eternall . indeed the malice , or zeale ( if it be so ) of the mobile , or common people , is seldome moderated by reason , or measured out by conscience , how much soever pretended by them which might in this case , so well as others , have caused the floods to rise , and lift up their voyce , which , when they do so , by god's permission , we , who had made no such choice , or change , felt to our cost ; but ; god be praised , we since have found , and so might her r. h. too , if she had survived , that the lord , who dwelleth in heaven is mightier ; and under the sacred roof of the kings palace , in the midst of those feares she might have hoped for at least personall protection ; and all her catholiques , who had taken the oathes , might have been secure of theirs , keeping within the limits and boundaries of the law , while his majesty shall keep power enough in his hands to curb and subdue all riotous and rebellious people ; which power may he never part with , nor want a greater at any time , for the safety and honour of his royall person , crown , and kingdome , according as the necessity , or expediency , of all , or any , his state-affairs may require . here my reflexions end , upon her royall highnesses solemn declaration , dated at st. iames's , the eighth of august , 1670. mounsieur maimburg's fine rhetoricall epiphonema , or grand acclamation , yet remaines , which in civil complement , must not pass away without my notice and fit respect . [ une declaration fi forte , si raisonnable , & si sensee , &c. ] a declaration , sayes he , so strong , so reasonable , and so full of sense , by this admirable princess , who instructeth us with so much sincerity , which have been the true motives of her conversion ; and who , in the sequel , is dead holily in the catholique faith , the strength of it will best appear , when the arguments and stanch or stay'd opinions of those worthies i have assembled in my reflexions , the main pillars of the church her highnesses left are weakened , and laid in their ruines ; the reasonableness , when the vizard , her good priest put upon it , is taken off ; and the sense , when the sandy supposition , upon which the pretence of all is ambiguously founded , shall be well-confirmed , and with full assurance settled . that she died holily , who lived religiously , i will not doubt ; but that she died , after due consideration , in the precincts of the roman church , i confess i do ; in the fayth of it that she could not , i am pretty well assured , if but because her weakness would not allow her sufficient opportunities , in the time of decumbency , to consult her judgment , her disturbance being so great , with little , or no , intermission ; less to hear , read , and discourse , with pauses requisite , what might be of strength sufficient ( if ought could be ) for an evincement , and prevaile for a free resignation of her soul to the sense , and conduct , of her good priest ; but , to render the declaration , as taken with the best advantage , so usefull , so powerfull , as by its precedent and greatest efficacy , to convert all sorts , and degrees , of protestants , whatsoever , more then all disputes by tongue , or penn , in which every heretick , when pressed with argument , takes no care but to find evasion , and get away so clear , as he may perswade others he was not vanquish'd , is , in my opinion , to magnifie it overmuch , and to undervalue many learned and plain-dealing disputants , many judicious and impartiall readers , whom he will needs have comprehended in that equivocall name of protestant , as over-facilely to part with their fayth , and reason too , and pusillanimously to yeild their christian liberty to his blind obedience ; wherein yet i leave the gentleman to enjoy his fancy , and others to like submission and imitation as in what they shall find themselves by just authority or argument fairly and clearly convinced , at their own hazard . that , in effect , he sayes , there is no protestant , but who may find a like origine of his heresie , in some passion of despite , jealousie , ambition , or libertinage , ( by which word , and somewhat more , i suspect mounsieur maimburg may have had a finger in forming this declaration , ) toucheth not us in england , who understand the motives and method of our reformation betters , and our selves too , then to be concerned in any errour or heresie , ( were it so ) at this distance , we being no nominals , as the mounsieur and his friends would have us , from luther , calvin , zuinglius , or any other ; but reformed realls , in the first notion , that is , according to the original doctrine , and discipline of the ancient church , the records whereof were laid open before christians of better principles , by which to recover that purity , which the church of rome had lost , and to get clear from those errours they had introduced , of later date . therefore , although , in compliance with mounsieur's advice , such of our english as understand intirely the establishment of our church , and true state of the controversy between them and us , should read this excellent declaration in cold blood , et sans pre occupation , without any prejudice ( as in earnest i have done severall times , since i took this task in hand ) will not judge it a thing so monstrous , une chose monstrease , that what he calls the catholique , but meanes the roman fayth , which , in above 400 years before queen elizabeth , and but few less before that passive re-establishment by queen mary , had no such settlement as he pretends , by the generall consent of our nation , but ( what our histories will make appear , ) were offering many times , at a deliverance from popish thraldome , besides , at an orderly reformation of some doctrinall and practicall corruptions in the religion of those times , should be abolished by that good queen , upon better termes then her sole and single interest , ( for the interest of some deproedatours about her i will not excuse ) ; and that we take not her for the first foundress , but the primitive fathers and learned doctours in the five or six first centuries , for the confounders of the ancient , and , consequently , of our english church , as it stands at distance from the roman . and so i bid a dieu to mounsieur maimburg . i must now turn about to mr. iones , whom , if i should decline , and offer silently to slip away , or withdraw my hand from the table , i am sure , he would pull me by the sleeve , if not the tip of my ear , for not regarding his politicall , or morall , but most illogicall , inferences from the foresaid declaration . there are but few , sayes he , to be found , so forsaken of god , and their own reason , as are not able to discern and allow , that secret enemies are far more dangerous to all men and communities , than open and professed : and that men hate to be betrayed worse then to be destroyed if you intend , sir this , or what may be the extract of it , as a major proposition , you had done well in laying an assumption to it , ( since dolus latet in generalibus ) and not run away with a conclusion , one of the praemises to which is lost ; when you put your argument in better form , and dare deal in explicite syllogismes , ( for enthymems are little other then mental reservations , which you know in whom you hate ) you shall be fairly answered by an express denial , or distinction from what you argue , which will put you to further proof . declining therefore such scholastick doings , i must socratically ask , according to the several hypotheses in this paragraph , 1. what secret enemies you suspect , and upon what ground , either as to seperate individuals , or communities in their conjunction ? unto whom ? or what ? if you cannot make out what you would , why leave you e'm not at their own hazard ? knowing that qui fraudem injustam machinatur alteri , suo ipse damno antecapit eventum mali . 2. what treachery , or destruction from her hignesses conference or declaration , we are to apprehend ? speak out , man , and by no means smother treason , in whom soever it lurkes ; if a new plot be , give us freely what you have discovered , which may serve as a train to the rest , that none may escape . but you proceed thus , they therefore that countenance , or cover , the masquerade enemies of the church , of the church of england , prove themselves to be of the same pernicious conspiracy ; the greater they are in place , and power , the greater is the danger to the publick from them , and their detection therefore the greater service and glory . sententias loquitur — — it is somewhat ominous to be too sententious : the worst of men can speak good proverbs so well as the wise , until themselves become the subjects of such as they best deserve . catiline himself , no quaestion , while he was instructing others in the wayes and methods of his close conspiracy , until it was mature for action , issued out good counsels for the publique peace , and prosperity , being expedite at disguise , and ingenious for masquerade , from his very youth , subdolus & cujuslibet rei simulator ac dissimulator , the historian tells us . having no answer to my former quaestions , i must again to my interrogating , who are they , mr. iones , that do either countenance , or cover ? be you not brib'd with sugar-plums to conceal their names , and the conspiracy they are contriving ; the mobile will not be raised else , and so you will lose the benefit of a common cry ; and tell , man , what , or of what , you would have detection made , for salus poulis's sake at least , that you fall not into condemnation for breaking the highest law. tell me further yet , what glory they are like to gain , proportionate to the service they may do you in the discovery , whether a pension , or a place in the fift or false-hearted monarchie , or by what other spurious title you mean to distinguish that you are erecting , with such applycation . but her late highness , it seems , is gone off , i hope you will not say with concealing treason , though you say little less then with reserve of the names of those whom you point at as the traitors , having not expressed what bishops those two were in particular , whom all sober protestants must look on as the betrayers of her soul , and this church . was not her ex-iesuite , think you in the plot of this concealment , whose principle is for reserve ? for it seems duty , you say , and fidelity to our church and nation , to contribute intelligence and observations to detect them farther . i have heard , sir , that some such intelligences and observations , of as high a nature , have been frequently bought and sold ; and so may these too , for ought i know ; but i never yet traffiqu'd in 'em ; you may have 'em about you , but i know of none in this countrey . yet , to make amends for my ignorance , or negligence of this sort ; i have more then compensated what her highness failed in , having expressed , upon this occasion , more then twice two , which shall be twenty , when cause requires , that , by some parasangs , have out-gone those two mischievous bishops , who e're they were ; and who , i pray are those sober protestants that dare look upon those i named , as betrayers of their souls , who made address to 'em for ghostly counsel , and advice about religion ? much less were they treacherous to our church , who were the principal supporters , and protectours , of it ; whose names are well worth your notice , and their books , such as deserve your reading over , more then once ; which done , mr. iones , tell me seriously , what false steps they have taken , and wherein it is they have betrayed either church , or nation ; till when lay your hand on your mouth , and speak not evil so unadvisedly , concerning the ecclesiastical rulers of the people . but you add , they are not in reason fathers who are condemned persons in law to this calumny you have had my answer , from the very sages of the law , who pronounce no sentence of condemnation for speaking truth , and that according to the dictates of the ancient church , which they appeal to , call you it popery , or treachery , or both , or what you will ; it is your ignorance , not their errour , which puts a false gloss upon what they say ; and your zeal for you know not what that inflames your passion and hurries you beyond the bounds of christian charity and moderation ; so that they have not forfeited their paternal right , or priveledge , by cherishing their children and instructing them in the same paths they had trod themselves , the old paths , wherein is the good way , advising them to walk therein , that they might find rest for their souls p. ier. 6. 16. as for those that are froward , who say , we will not walk therein , they leave them to their crooked wayes , the wayes of darkness , prov. 2. since they will not follow the light they have set before them . yet , you say , the danger and scandal of their ill example is the less , because they never shewed so much learning and integrity , as to justifie before the world , their new perswasions , by pen , or open practice , or resignation . a papist , or a mahometan , that is sincere and resolute &c. since you know not who they are , mr. iones , methinks you might have forborne to judge of what they do , or do not , in publick ; and what revenge you bear in mind , you may call in your party , to exercise upon them whose names are known , and whose writings many where to be had ; whose opinions are published in print , and their practises in our cathedralls , and royall chappell 's , to be well attested at this day ; all which being not otherwise to be answered , nor their persons now to be punished , who lie silent in their graves ; all you can do , when the second time , by the prosperity of the wicked , power shall be in their hands ( which god avert ) will be , to burn their books , wheresoever you meet with them , and , if you have the like malice , the like principles of sacrilegious impiety , as , not many yeares ago some had , do as they did , who scattered the bones of the dead , and threw the dust of kings , ( greater potentates then bishops ) out of their marble chests , or leaden coffins . and if any thing more can be done to those popish prelates , that escapt your judgment , and slipt slyly into their beds of rest , such as overall , andrewes , white , mountagu , taylor , bramhall , and the rest of that babylonish rabble , you being set on hanging in this very page . hang them up in effigie , on the post fact , as having been false to your fayth , while they lived , and multiplying still by their books dayly proselytes to antichrist , perverting , if it were possible , the very saints themselves . yet , in more good earnest , mr. iones , you see , their perswasions were not new ; they send you to such antiquity , as , it seemes , you have not conversed with ; and appeale to better authority then their own , to be justified in what they have written ; which you ought to have enquired into , before you had so sharply censured the two reverend fathers of our church , who were guided by the same rule , in what they said , and what they owned to be their private practice ; hoping , perhapps , by that latitude , and ingenious communication , to have induced her r. h. before it might become too late , to a better opinion of our church , from which they found her wavering , ( if she disguis'd it not ) and for that their plain and sincere dealing , which was as much as any casuist , or director , ( even campanella's confessour himself ) could do , open the closet of his breast , and expose the secrets of it to his , or her , best advantage , by whom he is consulted ; for this faithfull discharge of their trust , you are pleas'd to gratifie them no otherwise , then with the most odious , most detested , title of iudas's amongst our apostles ( it is well you allow us any such as apostles in that sacred order ) and put upon their account the scandal of our present misery , ( wherein you have but a little portion , sir , beside what you wilfully draw upon your self ) the redivision of these kingdomes , the dissenting members of which , since the happy restauration , never would be obliged by acts of oblivion , pardon , and indulgence ; nor ever will be united in any conformity to the government , ecclesiasticall , or temporall , the only bond of our peace , the submissive unity of an humble spirit ; nay , your fears , and fewds , which are made , and multiplied , by the infernal ghosts , the reascended boutefeaus of forty one , must be charged upon these bishops , and , that i may retrive a line or two , which i let pass in the last paragraph , these good bishops , because they will not be perswaded , nor terrified , to give spirituall counsell , contrary to their own conscience ; because they will not practise openly what is inconsistent with the rule of common prudence , in our circumstances ; nor spontaneously resign their demesnes , and dignities ( for that 's the true intendment of it ) to a brood of insatiate cormorants , and sacrilegious seekers , to the still plus-ultra designing impropriators , they must cedere de viâ , give place not onely to professed papists , but to most arrogant , blasphemous , mahomitans , be termed two faced renegadoes , false to their fayth , and trust , and countrey too , because , in reallity , they are true to all . for thus you say , let the reader have it in your own words . a papist , or a mahometan , that is sincere and resolute in the profession of his errour , shew's more religion and vertue , than the most reverend two fac'd renegado , that 's false to his fayth , and trust , and countrey , for worldly interest . and indeed , he that is so false to himself , will hardly be true to any other . therefore campanella advises to chuse for confessor , non qui te diligit , sed qui diligit animam suam , such who loves his own soul , not thee . a little releif , at last , you are pleased to afford 'em , by a lifting courtesie , ( so i will call it ) of the burthen , too heavy for them to bear , multorum manibus — if it should not here be rather magnatum manibus — — laying part of the guilt upon the shoulders of the great ones ; whose frailties if they be of eternall permanence , their condition is desperate , never to be repair'd in this world , nor that to come ; for so you write ; to these iudas's amongst our apostles is cheifly owing the present misery and redivision of these flourishing kingdomes , by new fears , and fewds : and not a little , perhapps , to the eternal frailties of great ones , that had rather be pleas'd than lov'd : how happy were it for the nation , if such carnal compliers for the sake of grandeur , were as hatefull to our princes , as they are to god and the rest of mankind ? i have no better account to give to god and the world , of the latter part of my life , than some zeal and adventures against such betrayers , which i have preferred before all worldly offers and peace . their fault , you say , is , because they had rather be pleas'd then lov'd . the truest love , subjects have for their princes , is best attested by their obedience , and peaceable disposition ; by whom when so beloved , certainly , they are best pleased , there being no inconsistence at all , but if your meaning be , they had rather be flatter'd , you were as good say , they had rather be destroyed ; which princes affect so little as do their people , who pretend so much care of their princes preservation , when , sometimes , they are underhand associating , and contriving their utter ruine . but these great ones , our princes , you think have a destructive gift of clemency , the stream whereof runs in another chanel then you would have it , and , perhaps , of another colour ; they are out of their politicks , in making favourites of such , as are undoubtedly hateful to god and mankind , your intelligence is great , if you write what you know ; and if what you do not , you do it like a man of no understanding , to pronounce you know not whom odious to god and mankind , because loved by their princes , who themselves perhaps expect as little love from your party , as you profess you have from their favourites . so many years are not passed , but that many of us , still surviving , can very well remember , what printed professions of abundant love and honour , what declarations of obedient and loyal subjects , with most humble and affectionate addresses , were made to our late soveraign , of blessed memory ; what specious promises of erecting his royal person , crown and dignity , to the very highest pinnacle of glory ; but , withal , we forget not , what hard and immajestick conditions , these fair but fraudulent , tenders were clogg'd with , how they wrested from him not only his favourites but his forts , and deprived him in vote , before they could accomplish it in fact , both of his private solace , and publick strength ; which , in effect , was , not only to unking , but unman , him , and so we all know , that in no better performance it ended , by these several steps of descent ( which i shall not enlarge on ) so incongruous prov'd their acts to their words , ( when they would not trust him , their liege lord , and soveraign , but an upstart russian , with their protection ) by reviling , rifling , rebelling , chacing , devesting , restraining , dethroning , beheading , attempting to break the image of his soul , and posthume reputation , in peices , by a malicious , and yet a mercenary iconoclast , as a peer of his realm and a loyal gentleman can attest from his own mouth , a fellow that ruffled his father out of his estate , while alive , and cheated his prince of the due reward to his piety , and incomparable vertue , when , otherwise at rest in his grave . you now plainly see , mr. iones , what i reflect on , what a sad unprecedented instance we of these ( then unfortunate ) islands have had in all the most impious particulars , and aggravations recited , with as much detestation as sorrow , to the perpetual infamy of that forty one , and forty eight , party , with whom i fear you are become over-and-above-familiar ; and so ill as you treat me , somewhat afflicted i am in your own behalf , that you have no better account to give unto god , and the world , of the latter part of your life , then what you spontaneously mention , and little better then boast of , some zeal and adventures , against such betrayers , ( the character you injuriously give them ) your warm passion , and unnecessary hazard , had been , by much , more laudably exercis'd , and undertaken , against another party-rampant , who have better deserv'd the justice of your title ; and your preference of such fanciful enterprises , to worldly offers and peace , will bear the empress but of knight errantry , when led into the lists where any true valour is to be shewed . nor ( beleeve me ) will posterity give it any preference to ( if they afford it the like entertainment as our predecessors have done of ) the spanish don in his encounter with the mill : but hermes omnia solus , & ter unus ; you alone are all , as you take the conceit , and may you so triumph in your thoughts , as the world may hear no more of your too adventurous exploits , untill you have clear'd your account of the former , which i fear you will not be able to do with that success as you promise your self ; and , if you will take my friendly advice , put your candel under a bushell , for alltogether hereafter , and leave not the world with an ill scent whensoever your faint light shall exspire . what i leave in arrear of this chapter being but a short forme of transition , or preface , to your following impeachment , i pass it over , untill i send you my finall answer to your devised calumnies of schismaticall protestanism , de macedos dis-ingenuous treatment , with other our brabbles , ( so far as any such really were , not in phantomes ) at sea and st. iames , till when i rest sir , yours on some better termes , then such usage deserves , rich. watson . finis . the answer to the appeal expounded 1680 approx. 101 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 20 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a25572 wing a3385 estc r16973 12725686 ocm 12725686 66370 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a25572) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 66370) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 373:14) the answer to the appeal expounded l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. answer to the appeal from the country to the city. [2], 34 p. s.n.], [london : 1680. place of publication from wing. reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york. marginal notes. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng catholic church -controversial literature. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2003-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-12 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2004-11 melanie sanders sampled and proofread 2004-11 melanie sanders text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-01 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the answer to the appeal , expounded . printed in the year 1680. union theol. sem. library mcalpin the preface . this answerer of the appeal were his politicks as strong as his passions , i should think him a jesuit ; but they are so far from being so , that i should disgrace that order , if i should imagine him to be one of them : he is only an outragious and over-vehement papist , and differs from a jesuit as a wasp does from a hornet , much of the same nature , but not so vigorous ; he would pass for a member of the church of england , ( i mean ) as far as relates to the crown and episcopacy , but furiously rails in effect at the protestants . but ( thanks be to god ) things are not yet come to that pass , as that he dares do it under that name ; therefore he terms them presbyterians , fanaticks , schismaticks , rebels , &c. and then belyes them freely . mark through this whole treatise , and you shall find his main design is to shift away the real popish plot , which the justice of our laws have already found out , and instead thereof would substitute to the executioner innocent protestants ; much like the wicked jews , who to save the murderer barrabas from publick justice , did substitute , and by false witness condemn jesus christ. but not to trouble you with a separate confutation of his whole discourse , wherein he may pretend false quotation , i will only annex to his own text some marginal notes , and leave them to the reader 's use , like salt upon the brims of the dish . the answer to the appeal , expounded . this appeal has made a mighty noise about the town ; and yet , heaven knows , there is neither good faith in it , nor argument : but all things mis-apply'd , or mis-reported , to bring an odium upon the government , and to inflame the multitude . the pretended reasonings of it are no more than fallacies and non-sequiturs , from the beginning to the end ; and yet it serves in a coffee-house for a (a) test of honest men and mutiniers . taking it barely in it self , it is scarce worth an answer : but in the circumstances of the boldness and the malice , it is but reasonable to bestow such a reply upon it , as may give it a recommendation to publique justice ; especially (b) having already taken notice of it by the by , in another place . it is a wonderful thing , the confidence of this audacious pamphlet , in addressing it self to the city , after so fresh , so loyal , and so generous an instance of their scorn , and detestation of any thing that looks like a seditious practice . (c) why should a wat tyler expect better quarter from a lord mayor under charles the second , than he had from a lord mayor under richard the second ? nay , that very rebellion of (d) forty-one is most injuriously (e) charg'd upon the city of london ; for gournay , ricaut , garraway , and the most considerable of the citizens , were not only against it in their opinions , but oppos'd it to the utmost with their estates and persons . and that honourable society has not yet forgotten either the calamities of the war , or the methods and instruments which brought so great a reproach upon the city . beside , that it is as much their interest as their duty , and as much their inclination as either , to support the government . (f) for by a war they must of necessity suffer doubly : and not only in the loss or abatement of their trade , but in the deep proportion of their taxes toward the publique charge . so that these are not a sort of people to be wheedled out of their honour and allegiance . but we shall now take a view of the pamphlet it self . an appeal from the country to the city . it begins ; most brave and noble citizens : and a little lower ; with you we stand , and with you we fail ; your example directs our conduct , &c. now if the greeting had been to the club of subscribers , that which follows would have been much more consequent ; for it is a great truth , that the conspirators of both sides must expect to stand and fall together ; and that the factions in the country can never make any thing on 't , without a tumult in the city , to lead the dance ; which ( god be prais'd ) there is no fear of , and then for the credit which this busie mutineer can pretend to under this present government , with the noble citizens ( as he claws them ) i am perswaded , if the author of the appeal were but known to the court of aldermen and common councel , it might cost him dear , the very complement . not but that in so (a) great a body , there may be some few little fellows a float too , that cry out with the horse-turds among the apples , in the emblem , how we apples swim . in the next clause , the scriber gives to understand that he has read hodge upon the monument ; and writing after that copy , he follows the phansie of the citizens looking about them from the top of the pyramid . now to match this dismal prospect of imaginary calamities to come , we shall give you a parallel in a brief summary of what this nation has really suffer'd in fact ; and in truth brought upon it self , by (b) believing such stories as these , without either foundation or effect . first ( says he ) imagine you see the whole town in a flame ; occasioned this second time by the same popish malice which set it on fire before . (c) first ( say i ) imagine you see the whole nation in a flame , and brought to the extremities of fire and sword , occasioned this second time by the same schismatical and republican malice which embroil'd it before . at the same instant phansie that amongst the distracted crowd , you behold troops of papists ravishing your wives and daughters , dashing your little childrens brains out against the walls , plundering your houses , and cutting your own throats , by the name of heretique dogs . at the same instant , phansie decemb. 1659 , once over again ; whole droves of coblers , dray-men , ostlers , upon free-quarter with you , till some of your wives and daughters are forc'd to prostitute themselves for bread ; your councels affronted by armed troops , and your fellow citizens knockt on the head , like dogs , at their own doors , for not so much as barking ; your apprentices discharg'd of their indentures by an arbitrary power ; your houses rifled ; your account-books examin'd ; your * servants corrupted to betray their masters ; your persons clapt under hatches , transplanted or thrown into nasty dungeons ; or ( in mercy perhaps ) your throats cut , by the name of popish dogs and cavaliers : and all this only for refusing to renounce god and your soveraign . then represent to your selves the tower playing off its cannon , and battering down the houses about your ears then represent to your selves the thimble-maker , once again lieutenant of the tower ; your citizens clapt up ; st. pauls and gresham-colledge turn'd into garrisons ; orders for the demolishing of your gates and chains ; and nothing less than military execution threaten'd you , unless you will redeem your selves with 100000 l. a (d) month contribution , towards the perpetuating of your slavery . also casting your eye toward smithfield , imagine you see your father , or your mother , or some of your nearest and dearest relations ty'd to a stake in the midst of flames ; when with bands and eyes lifted up to heaven , they scream and cry out to that god , for whose cause they die ; which was a frequent spectacle the last time popery reign'd amongst us . also casting your eye toward cheap-side , cornhil , charing-cross , palace-yard , tower-hill , nay , whitehall it self : imagine you see your father , or some of your nearest relations , your citizens , the nobility , gentry ; nay , the king himself , and his best friends , under the hand of the common executioner , appealing to god , in whose cause they dy'd , which was a frequent spectacle , when rebels and vsurpers , under the title of reformers , reign'd last amongst us . phansie ye behold those beautiful churches , erected for the true worship of god , abused and turn'd into idolatrous temples , to the dishonour of christ , and scandal of religion : the ministers of god's holy word , torn in pieces before your eyes , and their best friends not daring even to speak in their behalf . phansie you behold those beautiful churches erected for the true worship of god , abused and turned into stables ; the pulpits into juggling boxes to hocus your wives and daughters out of their bodkins and thimbles ; and nothing to be heard there but heresie and sedition , to the dishonour of christ , and scandal of religion . the ministers of gods holy word cast out of their livings by hundreds , and their children expos'd to the wide world to beg their bread ; and not a friend that dares open his mouth for them . women running with their hair about their ears ; men cover'd with bloud , and children sprawling under horses feet , and only the walls of houses left standing . your women running with their hair about their ears , one half to the works like pioniers , the other dancing attendance at some merciless committee , to put in bail perhaps for some malignant friend or husband ; men cover'd with bloud , lost limbs , and mangled bodies , from edghill , branford , &c. and with horror of conscience over and above ; altars robb'd , churches demolish'd , and only the walls left standing . in fine , what the devil himself would do , were he here upon earth , will in his absence infallibly be acted by his agents the papists : those who had so much ingratitude and baseness to attempt the life of a prince , so indulgent to them , will hardly be less cruel to any of his protestant subjects . (e) in fine , what the devil himself would do , were he here upon earth , will in his absence infallibly be acted ( if they may have their will ) by his agents , the perjurious and hypocritical regicides ; that betray'd their prince and their country by the solemnity of a covenant , and poyson'd the unwary people in that very sacrament . those who had so much ingratitude and baseness , not only to attempt , but take away the life of a prince so indulgent to them as the late king was , who deny'd them nothing but his crown , and his blood , which afterward they took : these , i say again , that are so ungrateful to our present soveraign , as after so much mercy and bounty to the murtherers of his father , and of his friends , have now enter'd into fresh attempts upon his life , his crown and dignity , will hardly be less cruel to any of his majesties obedient subjects . (f) now to shew you that this way of incentive , to the multitude is only the old story new furbish'd , and not our appellants mother-wit and contrivance , as he would have the world imagine . see his majesties declaration of aug. 12. 1642. husbands collection , pag. 540. one day the tower of london is in danger to be taken ; and information given that great multitudes , at least a hundred , had that day resorted to visit a priest , then a prisoner there by order of the lords : and that about the time of the information , about fifty or sixty were then there ; and a warder dispatcht of purpose to give that notice : upon inquiry , but four persons were then found to be there , and but eight all that day , who had visited the priest. another day a taylor in a ditch over-hears two passengers to plot the death of mr. pym , and of many other members of both houses . then libellous letters found in the streets , without names , ( probably contrived by themselves ; and by their power , published , printed , and enter'd in their journals ) and intimations given of the papists training under ground , and of notable provision of ammunition in houses ; where , upon examination , a single sword , and a bow and arrows are found . a design of the inhabitants of covent-garden to murther the city of london news from france , italy , spain , denmark , of armies ready to come for england . and again , pag. 536. they cause discourses to be published , and infusions to be made of incredible dangers to the city and kingdom , by that our coming to the house : ( in the case of the five members . ) an alarm was given to the city in the dead time of the night , that we were coming with horse and foot thither , and thereupon the whole city put in arms : and howsoever the envy seem'd to be cast upon the designs of the papists , mention was only made of actions of our own . upon a fair understanding of the whole , (g) this supposition of his is no more than the counterpart of the old story : and the declamatory dangers that he foresees in vision , were outdone by those sensible cruelties and oppressions that this poor kingdom suffer'd in very deed . if it be true , that these and fourty times more cruelties were committed : and that the people were frighted into these precipices only by shadows : if it be true again , that those glorious pretenders , when they had the king and his papists ( as they call'd his most orthodox friends ) under foot ; that these people , i say , never lookt further after religion ; but fell presently to the (h) sharing of the church and crown revenues among themselves , it will concern every sober man to look well about him , and to make use of his reason , as well as of his faith , for (i) these fore-boders seldom croak but before a storm . we in the country ( says he ) have done our parts , in chusing , for the generality , good members to serve in parliament . but if ( as our two last parliaments were ) they must be dissolv'd or prorogued , when ever they come to redress the grievances of the subject , we may be pitied , but not blam'd . if the plot takes effect , as in all probability it will , our parliaments are not then to be condemn'd , for that their not being suffer'd to sit , occasion'd it ▪ fol. 1. there are just as many affronts put upon the government in these two periods , as ( in the printed folio ) there are lines in 't . first , upon the house of commons ; for a representative constituted , for the generality , of (k) such men as our appealer calls good members , would lay the kingdom in bloud , ( which is manifestly the drift of the libel from the one end of it to the other . ) secondly , the appellant usurps upon the king's authority ; (l) as if his majesty were bound to give an account to every libeller , why he prorogues or dissolves his parliaments ( which is a priviledge inseparable from the supreme power ) in all forms of government . thirdly , (m) it is a tacit charge of tyranny upon the king ; for it is done ( he says ) whenever they come to redress the grievances of the subject . and lastly , he makes the king a promoter of the plot ; but whether with more indignity or folly , it is hard to determine , either in the intimation , or in the supposal of his majesty to be felo de se , and a party to the conspiracy against his own life . (n) the plot ( he says ) will in all probability take effect , and he is the occasion of it , that would not suffer these parliaments to sit . the plot is now got so far out of our enemies reach , that no subtle evasion or trick can ever hope to extinguish it . wherefore they must either suffer all to come out , or begin by force to justifie it , which we see they are going to do , by their endeavouring to get those worthy and brave commanders banished , who ( as they think ) are the most likely persons to conduct and lead us up against any popish army . fol 1. the appellants meaning is , that the popish plot is so notoriously publique , there 's no concealing of it , and so far we are agreed : (o) for we have had legal tryals , proofs , verdicts , sentences , and legal executions in the case . but yet to my thinking , we have had also as competent (p) evidences of another plot under that , as a body would wish . but whoever crosses the second plot , is presently libell'd , as a friend to the former . what do we hear , what do we read , what do we see , but seditious discourses , scandalous invectives , and mutinous practices against the government ? is not the king's administration , and his authority publickly arraigned ? and is not his sacred life struck at in this way of proceeding ? first , (q) they expresly tell the world that his majesty misgoverns . secondly , they lay it down for a maxim , that the people may call him to account , in case he does misgovern . and this being admitted , the next point is , directly ( by an undeniable consequence ) to arraign him as a traytor to the sovereign people . but the faction it self expounds its own meaning . (r) what have they to say for that inhumane and execrable murther acted upon the late arch-bishop of st. andrews in scotland , and to their declaration against the king himself ; which was follow'd with an open , actual , and form'd rebellion ? (s) this is a plot that , me-thinks , a man may see without his spectacles ; and according to our appellant's conceipt , they began by force to justifie it , for fear all should come out . to follow him in his politiques , he tells us further in the passage above-recited , that to facilitate the papists work , (t) his majesty banishes the persons most capable of opposing it . so that he makes his majesty evidently a party to the plot ; or at best , no more than a king upon a chess-board , to be turn'd and carry'd which way the gamester pleases : beside ; the putting of the illustrious duke of monmouth in the head of popish troops , in contradiction to himself . but ( for all this yet ) gentlemen ( says he ) be not dismaid ; the lord of hosts will be of your sides ; for so long as you fight his cause , he will fight your battels : and if god be for you , who dares be against you ? fear nothing , but as your interests are united , so let your resolutions be the same ; and the first hour wherein you hear of the king 's untimely end , let no other noise be heard among you , but that of arm , arm , to revenge your sovereign's death , both upon his murtherers , and their whole party , for that there is no such thing as an english papist , who is not in the plot , at least in his good wishes . fol 2. and why [ be not dismaid ] where 's the danger , i beseech you ? (u) the popish plot is master'd ; and there 's hardly a roman catholique dares shew his head : nay , and for want of popish matter to work upon , the church of england it self is made papal and antichristian . and whoever looks narrowly into this business , will find these bugbears to be of the appellant's own making . what is all this , but curse ye meroz over again : he claps the rabble on the backs , and spits in their mouths , and without more adoe , turns them loose upon the government ? the first hour ( says he ) &c. (w) here 's no supposition of the king's murther to qualifie the matter ▪ but the thing so positively pronouns'd , as if he himself were of the conspiracy . (x) so that without any ifs or and 's , the murther is given for granted ; and upon this instigation , the least rumour in the world that way , puts the people upon a general massacre , which the bare report lately of the french appearing before the isle of purbeck , had like to have done in several places . now if they should arm upon such a mistake , or but an hour too soon , it were enough to put the whole nation in bloud again : and then his orders to the city , to be ready with their arms at an hours warning , are as peremptory , as if he had the command of the militia : (y) beside that , if a fanatique should murther the king , the papists are to be punish'd for 't . because ( says he ) every english papist is in the plot , at least in his good wishes . and it is no less probable on the other side , that (z) every unrepenting covenanter is in the counterplot ; for upon that covenant it was , that they founded the destruction , and the dissolution of the government : and it behoves us to beware of king-killers on the one hand , as well as on the other . now see how he goes on . think not to fare better than the rest , by meddling less ; for the conquerors promises are never kept , especially coming from that sort of people , whose maxim it is , never to keep their word with heretiques , fol. 2. what a wonderful strain of logick is this ? draw your swords ( says he ) and go to the devil for company , for the papists keep no faith with heretiques . this was the song of 41 : and he that would see what faith the covenanters kept , either with god , king , church , or people , has no more to do than to compare their leagues and protestations with their actions . now gentlemen ( says he ) left any amongst you should be ignorant , either of your enemies , or their designs , both against the king and kingdom , — they are young beggarly officers , courtiers ; over-hot church-men , and papists . the young officer , or souldiers interest , makes him wish for a standing army ; the courtier endeavours to advance taxes , oppressive and illegal impositions . the over-hot church-men wish well to popery , in hope of a cardinals cap , or at least the command of some abby , priory , or other ecclesiastical preferment , whereof the roman church hath so great plenty . these are the men who exclaim against our parliaments proceedings , in relation to the plot , as too violent ; calling these times by no other name , but that of forty or forty-one , when to amuse his sacred majesty , and his good people , they again threaten us with another forty-eight : and all this is done under-hand , to vindicate the catholique party , by throwing a suspicion on the fanatiques . these are the episcopal tantivies , who make even the very scriptures pimp for the court ; who out of urim and thummim can extort a sermon to prove the not paying of tyths and taxes to be the sin against the holy ghost : and had rather see the kingdom run down with blood , than part with the least hem of a consecrated frock , which they themselves made holy. here 's a very fair and round distribution of the cities enemies , into a younger brothers , dependants upon the king ; friends to the church , and into profest papists : and the b whole kingdom it self is again split into two parties , the one consisting of mutiniers and schismatiques ; the other of the loyal servants and subjects of the government , which under the three first heads , he brands as the cities enemies . these men he charges with lessening the plot , with resembling the present times to forty-one , and talking of another forty-eight . now how is it possible but the positions of forty-one , should put us in mind of the rebellion of forty-one ; and the regicidal principles of seventy-nine , mind us of the regicide it self of forty-eight . for these principles and practices are nothing in the world but the venom of the old cause swallow'd and spew'd up again : and c all the treasons of the consistory are cast upon the conclave : as if the murther of charles the first , by the treachery of mock-protestants , were ever the less detestable , because the two harries of france were assassinated by profest papists . these are the puritan iesuits , that turn the bible into a nose of wax ; that make god the author of sin ; that depose and murther kings by a text ; and intitle their sacrilege and treason to the inspirations of the holy ghost . d these are the straight-lac'd christians , that make less scruple of robbing the altar , than of kneeling at the communion : they can swallow the blood of widows and orphans , and yet puke at a surplice . let me ask the worthy gentlemen of the city now , which of the two carry'd them the easier , the schismatical and sacrilegious , or the episcopal tantivy ? or which they take for the more dangerous enemies , our appellants young beggarly officers , or their old acquaintances , pen , fulks , and their fellows , who violently thrust out the gravest and most substantial of their citizens , ( as the late king has it ) and took in persons of desperate fortunes and opinions , in their places . let them compare the appellants courtiers too , with the old sequestring , plundring , and decimating committees ; with their court-marshals , and major-generals : when london was made little better then a shambles ; and their merchants only cash-keepers to the tyrants at westminster ; and then against his over-hot church-men , we 'l set the mechanique pulpiteers and tub-preachers ; that not only divided the people from their soveraign , but e wives from their husbands , children from their parents ; and preacht away apprentices , by droves into rebellion : carrying the schism through church and state , into private families . this is the blessed change that is now propounded , and laid before us . lastly , ( says he ) the chief and most dangerous of your enemies are papists , who to make sure of their own game , allure all the three forementioned parties to their side , by the arguments aforesaid . their design is to bring in popery , which they can no ways effect , but either by a popish successor , or by the french arms. there is no doubt of the danger of the papists ; but still while the government has one enemy in front , it is good to secure the flank and rear , from another : so that the cities only safety lies in the mean , betwixt the two extremes of popery , on the one hand , and libertinism on the other . the former ( he says ) can never be effected , but by a popish successor , or the french arms. see now how this hangs together : the same faction clamour'd against the late king just at this rate ; f and yet there was no prospect at that time , of a popish successor , but yet popery was charg'd ( most injuriously , as all the world can witness ) upon the king himself . and then for the french arms , so far was his majesty from calling them in to his assistance , that upon the scottish rebellion they were sollicited and implor'd into a confederacy against him . and yet we remember to our griefs , that those very rumours and apprehensions of popery , even when there was not any danger of it , cast us all into confusion . and now our appellant , to shew how good an english-man he is , as well as a subject , enters his protestation a little lower in the same paragraph , that he would rather of the two , live under a french conqueror , then the duke as successor . i must acknowledge ( says he in the next clause ) that there is some coherence between the beginning of the late civil wars , and this our present age : for as well then as now , the ambitious papists , and french faction were the chief , nay the only incendiaries , which set us all in flame . that the french cardinal did artificially improve the turbulent humour of the english and scottish schismaticks , to the advancing of the interest of france , and to the embroyling of these kingdoms , i make no question : but to call them the g only incendiaries , is to give the lye to the constant current of history , and the known certainty of fact , even within our own remembrance . how were the papists and french factions concern'd in the scottish uproar of 1637. and a hundred sacrilegious tumults , after that , in the course of the rebellion ? and to set him right now in his calculation of his majesties french friends , we shall inform him , that the king 's principal supplies of men , arms , money , and ammunition , were furnished from holland . he tells us further , that the catholique cause , like the chesnut in the fable , hath ever since q. marys days been in the fire : and that both then , and now , the papists make use of the episcopal , and court-parties claw , to take it out ; the first of these , they allure to their assistance , by the fright of presbytery ; the latter by the apprehension of a republique , tho' nothing is less designed , or more improbable . 't is a hard case to have to do with an adversary that has neither candor in his reports , nor any force of argument in his reasonings ; and yet it is the more tolerable here , because it is all that either the story or the cause will bear . h he makes the episcopal and court-party to be the passive instruments of the church of rome , for the advance of popery , ever since the reign of queen mary : which is so notorious a mistake , that queen elizabeth , and the hierarchy in her reign oppos'd the errours , and the power of that church , with all possible constancy , and resolution . king james made himself famous by his pen , as well as by his practices , upon the same subject . the late king lost his life in the defence of the reformed religion , and his majesty that now is , hath manifested his affection to the church of england , ( as by law establisht , ) in despight of all calumnies , and through extream difficulties , with the highest acts of solemnity imaginable . and now on the other side , let but any man trace the history of the schismatiques , from queen mary to this instant ; and the restlesness of that faction will appear , through every step of his way ; and that i whensoever the papists prest upon the government , on the one hand , the separatists never fail'd of pinching it on the other . k and yet again whereas he talks of the fright of presbytery , and the apprehension of a republique , as neither designed , nor probable , there 's no man of thirty years of age , but knows the contrary ; and that this nation was actually enslav'd to that double tyranny , under pretence of delivering us from the danger of arbitrary power , and popery . nay , and but two lines further , he charges the late king for countenancing papists , no less than this : which to every honest man is constructively a vindication of them both. nay , he goes so far toward the owning of a dislike for the form of our government it self , that he says , no government but monarchy can in england ever support , or favour popery , l as who should say ; a common-wealth would put us out of fear on 't . he says again , pag. 3. that the parliament party never entertain'd any papists , unless under a disguise ; and yet we never heard of any more of them , than the king's headsman in a masque . we could shew him several instances of the contrary ; but no man is so sensless , as to imagine that the king was depos'd , pursu'd , rob'd , taken , condemn'd and put to death , by a hundred thousand priests in visors : we have nothing to say to the loyalty of the papists ; but yet m the incongruity of our appellants charge upon them , we cannot but in honesty and common reason , take some notice of , especially when the dust of his objection flies in his own eyes . their loyalty and good service pay'd to the king ( says he ) was meerly in their own defence ; well knowing that the foundation of these commotions was only in opposition to their party . n putting the case now , that they serv'd the king only for their own ends : we have an acknowledgment yet , that there was loyalty , and good service in it , however qualified : and we know that there were o many brave , and eminent men among them , that lost their estates and lives in that service . if it lyes as a reproach upon them , that they did not serve the king out of loyalty , that which they did , was yet better than not serving him at all ; and better , in a higher degree still , than fighting against him . but supposing now that they had no known papists in their army , the case is not one jot mended ; for they were all schismatiques then ; and it is worth the observation , that not a man drew his sword in that cause , who was not a known separatist ; and that , on the other side , not one schismatique ever struck stroke in the king's quarrel : the one side contending according to their duty , in favour of the law , and the other against it . our appellant lyes open to another objection in the clause above-recited . he says , p the commotion was only founded upon an opposition to that party . how came it then , that they seiz'd the crown , and church-lands ; put the king to death , plunder'd , sequester'd , and beheaded his protestant friends , if the opposition was only to popery ? but we have seen their pretences , and we have felt the meaning of them . he insists upon q the papists desiring oliver to accept of the crown . there●s a little book that will inform us better concerning that transaction . it 's call'd monarchy asserted , consisting of a collection of speeches upon that debate . we are at this time ( he says ) acting the same play still , though an old-one newly reviv'd ; and as r that which the papists then acted , was laid upon the fanatiques , so was the like to have been done , in this present plot. it will be easily granted , that this is in a high degree the old-play reviv'd , but we are too well acquainted with the circumstances of the present plot , to carry the resemblance thorough . that which the fanatiques then acted , was laid on the papists ; and when they had master'd the king , under the calumny of a papist , they murther'd him as a protestant . the question at present is not the certainty of one plot , but the superfoetation of another : for it is compossible enough , that a papist may be before his majesty with a dagger , and some rank enthusiast behind him with a pistol . s he proceeds with a story of mr. claypool , not at all to our purpose ; and then gives us further , an account of the papists design in scotland ; who first by their councels procured the poor inhabitants to be oppress'd , and then sending their disguised priests , and emissaries amongst them , encourag'd the poor silly natives to mutiny against those oppressions , hoping to cast the plot upon the presbyterians if the power , number , and industry of these emissaries be such as our appellant would have us believe , t a man would think there should hardly be a rat-trap in the three kingdoms , without a priest in 't . let us but lay together several circumstances in this appeal concerning the miraculous influences of these men upon all sorts of people , and it will be a hard matter to represent any thing more comical . first , he says , that the papists have already made sure of all the young beggarly officers , or souldiers , courtiers , and over-hot church-men ; fol. 2. secondly , he makes them to have an absolute dominion over the king and his councill ; for they have made him banish those officers ( he says ) that should lead the people up against the popish army . thirdly , they govern all the conventicles in the kingdom , as our appellant will have it . and fourthly , they procur'd the scots to be opprest , and after that shifted hands , and made them rebell ; and all this is every man bound to believe , as the thirteenth article of his faith. now can any thing be more wonderful , then that these people that can turn the king and his councill with a twine thread ; that have so absolute a command of the multitude ; and can set governours and subjects handy-dandy , to box one another like punchinello's puppets , when they please : u is it not a wonderful thing ( i say ) that these men with all this interest , are not yet able to save a priest from the gallows ; or any single person of the party from the exact rigour of the law. have they only a power to do the government mischief , and themselves no good ? we insist the more earnestly upon this point , because the comfort of humane society is totally destroy'd , if we come once to be transported , by these stories , into a common diffidence , every man of his neighbour ; and put into such a condition , by the entertainment of these jealousies , that there will be no longer any faith , or confidence in mankind ; for fear of w these invisible and undistinguishable enemies in our daily conversation . now to support , and fortifie himself in his opinion ; he says farther , that not only dr. oates mentions this-in his evidence , but that the papists themselves were so well assured of the scotch rising , before it happen'd , that at the disbanding of this late popish army , many of the officers and souldiers had secret orders not to sell their horses , but to be in a readiness , for that they should have occasion to use them again within a fortnight , and so it happen'd ; for within a fortnight after the disbanding , the rebellion brake out in scotland : so well acquainted were the authors of this mischief , with the time when it would happen : with the appellants leave , x dr. oates only reports what these agents design'd to do , and the hopes of their succeeding in it ; but says nothing positively , that i can find , of what they had done : and in his thirty fifth deposition , expresly makes their project to be the weakening of both the presbyterian , and episcopal faction : as to the casting of the plot upon the presbyterians , it was not so well contriv'd ( me thinks ) as it might have been : for it is no clearing of the papists from one plot upon the kings life , the charging of the presbyterians with another . then there 's another slip ; he will have the papists privy to the scotch rising , because at the disbanding of the popish army , some officers were order'd not to sell their horses , &c. first , it is not y prov'd that they had any such orders : secondly , he calls it a z popish army ; and implies , that these orders were given to popish officers , which officers either went upon the service or not : if they went , they overthrew their own design ; for he makes it the papists interest to entertain those tumults , and these gentlemen made it their business to suppress them . if they did not go , their orders were to no purpose . but why does the appellant call it a popish army ? he should do well to wash his mouth , after so foul and scandalous an expression . but now let us change hands ; and see if it be not more probable that the fanaticks knew before-hand of that rising , then the papists . for though we had at that time greater apprehensions of the french then ever , a yet the importunities of some people were so violent for the immediate disbanding of the army , that it lookt like a design to remove that block out of the scots way . the next passage is a little mysterious . he says , that it was likely the scots would be beaten by the kings forces , that ( says he ) it might make both them and us less apt to rise upon any account whatsoever , so that here is a b tacit confession , that the appellant found some inconvenience in this discouragement to a joynt rebellion : and so he goes on , saying , that if this had been a fanatical plot , the same party would certainly have risen in england at the same time . but this , under favour , will not hold ; for the scots tumulted in 37. and appeared in actual rebellion in 38. whereas their brethren in england did not take up arms till 41 , though privy to and confederate in the tumults of 37. he lays it down for granted in the next line , that the papists murthered the late king , and so proceeds in these words . after the catholiques had thus brought the fathers head to the block , and sent the young princes into exile ; let us reflect upon their vsage of them in france , &c. now to give the devil his due , c i cannot find so much as one papist in the whole list of the regicides ; and yet i have turn'd over all the acts and ordinances ; walkers independency ; and in one word , the whole history of those times ; and can hear no news of them . take notice , that it is not the question here whether or no the papists would have scrupled it upon a fair occasion ; but whether or no , in the truth of the fact , it was the papists that did it : and i do not think it fair , to hang one man , or condemn one party for anothers fault . d put the case one man steals a horse , and another robs a church , 't is no vindication of the horse-stealer , to discharge him of the sacrilege ; no vindication of him that rob'd the church , to acquit him of the horse-stealing ; but it were a high injustice to charge one offender with the crime of another . e his following reflections upon the ill-usage the royal family received in france when his majesty was abroad , and the good offices which france has received from hence in requital , are only meant for a sly and invidious reproach upon the government , and there is more of flourish in them then matter of weight ; only he has one speculation not to be past over . i cannot but ascribe great part of our present calamities ( says he ) to his highnesses education in that arbitrary and popish government . here he pretends to tell us of our miseries , and from whence in a great measure they proceed ; but f it would puzzle a man to find out what these present calamities are , more then the froward and fantastical apprehensions of remote and imaginary evils : nay , the very fear it self is counterfeited as well as the danger , and the men that dress up these goblins to fright the silly multitude , they do but laugh at them themselves . our state empericks do with our politique , as our physicians do with our natural bodies ( for there are intoxicating opinions as well as passions ) they make their patients many times stark raving mad with that which they are not one jot affected withall themselves . do we not live ( or if we will , at least , we may ) in peace and plenty , under the protection of a gracious & a protestant prince , and under the blessing also of so particular a providence , that when all our neighbours have been at fire and sword round about us , this nation has been yet exempt from the common calamities of christendom ? and shall we now expose and abandon our present quiet and security only for future possibilities , and make our selves certainly miserable before-hand for fear of being miserable hereafter ? whosoever soberly considers what we enjoy on the one hand , and what we fear on the other , comparing and examining both parts with their due and reasonable circumstances , he shall find all attempts and proposals of popular prevention of reformation , to be as wild a project , g as if a man should cut off a leg or an arm for fear of corns and chilblains . but what if our fears were yet juster then they seem to be ? how many things may yet intervene , according to the ordinary course of humane affairs , to disappoint the danger ? as h mortality , survivorship , change of thought , &c. or can the appellant prescribe us any remedy , that is not worse then the disease ? shall a man cast himself from the top of bow , for fear of tumbling down stairs ? shall we destroy protestantism for fear of popery ? or a good government for fear of a bad one ? shall we run the hazzard of damnation , for fear of oppression ? nay , what if our present apprehensions were gratify'd ? new ones would yet succeed into their places : for the rage of jealousy is boundless and incurable . and so we found it i in the late rebellion , which was built upon the same foundation . never so mean and so despicable a slavery , as that which we then brought upon our selves for fear of slavery . never was any papacy so tyrannical , and so ridiculous together , as that persecuting , and non-sensical presbytery , which we had in exchange for the best temper'd ecclesiastical government upon the face of the earth . were not those blessed days when our divines had salesmen , and mechaniques for their tryers ; and the laity a supercilious company of classical , and congregational noddies for the inspectors of our lives and manners : when tone , and lungs , without either learning , or honesty , were the distinguishing marks of a gifted brother ? methinks the very memory of these servile and profane indignities should put the bare thought of the second part of it out of countenance . and he seems as much out in the pretended cause of our calamities , as he was in the calamities themselves . k there were no princes educated abroad in the late kings time , and yet the same clamour to a tittle . but if the appellant had been so minded , he might have given us a much more rational account of our misfortunes , then he has done . he might have charg'd them upon those people , who in truth , first sent the young princes into exile , and then kept them there ; and have at present a design upon the exercise of the same arbitrary power again , which they would be thought to fear . they began with a cry against popery , but they concluded in the l murther of the king ; the dislution of the monarchy , and the perpetual exclusion of the royal family , as may be seen in their proclamation of jan. 30.48 . for inhibiting any person to be king. whereas charles stuart king of england , ( say they ) being for the notorious treasons , tyrannies , and murthers , committed by him in the late unnatural and cruel wars , condemned to death , &c. it is remarkable , that though they possest the people against his majesty , as a papist , there is not one word of religion in the reasons , of their putting him to death . the appellant comes now to shew his reading , in two passages out of philip de comines , with an application of his observations upon them . the former concerning certain english pensioners ; which lewis the eleventh of france kept in pay. now though i cannot agree the hundreth part of those persons to be pensioners , which out of an envy to the government , the common people are instructed to call so ; yet i shall never differ with him upon this point , that the money of lewis the fourteenth may perhaps have been current in england , as well as that of lewis the eleventh was . the other story is that of lewis the eleventh to charles duke of burgundy in the case of campobache . the french king advertizes the duke of burgundy ( they being then in hostility ) that the count campobache was a traytor to him : but the duke would not believe it . and there was one cifron also , who was of the plot with campobache : this same cifron , being taken prisoner by the duke before nancy , and condemned to dye ; gave the duke to understand , that he had a most important secret to communicate to him . but the duke neither giving admittance to cifron , nor credit to the king ; lost his life afterward , and his dominions , by being too incredulous . m the appellant applies this to his majesties case , in language so course and scandalous , that there is no repeating of it . and what does all this amount to , but that a n prince may as well be undone by believing too much , as too little ? if he had trusted either less to campobache , or more to the king , it had come all to a purpose . he will have his majesty in danger for not believing enough of the popish plot : but his royal father was ruin'd on the other side , by not believing enough of the presbyterian plot. and god grant that his present majesty may only believe so much of that plot over again , as may stand with his honour and safety . but it appears in this place , by the coursness of the appellants expressions , and by the byass of the whole libel throughout , that he is not so much concern'd for the kings believing or not believing , as o to fasten a scandal upon his majesty , by perswading the people , that the king does not believe it ; and consequently to possess them , that his majesty is a favourer of popery , though never any prince in christendom gave more convincing and irrefragable proofs of the contrary . this passage of the duke of burgundy ( he says fol. 4. ) may be very much to our purpose , to shew you , p that when god designs the destruction of a king or people , he makes them deaf to all discoveries be they never so obvious . and having levelled the application in particular , he speculates in general terms ( toward the bottom of the leaf ) upon the whole matter . there are four several arguments ( he says ) which many times prevail with princes to be incredulous of all pretended conspiracies against themselves . the first is drawn from their being in , or made privy themselves to part of the plot , but not to the whole . the second , from their own good nature , and clemency . the third , from the nature of the evidence . and the fourth from the nature and interest of the pretended conspirators . to begin then with the first , when the prince hath been made acquainted with a design of introducing a new government , or a new religion , but not with the design of taking away his own life , this sometimes hath prevailed with him not to believe , that the same party with whom he himself is in a conspiracy , should have any such other plot against his life . but this i hope is not our case , for &c. — and then he reasons that his majesty could get nothing by it . fol. 3. we shall put him together now , and make english of him , first , he makes the duke of burgundies case , in his deafness to discoveries , to be the kings . secondly , he infers from that deafness , that god has design'd his majesty to destruction . thirdly , he takes upon him to philosophize upon the reasons of princes incredulity in such cases ; and very fairly represents his majesty as a party in-the conspiracy , and consenting to the introduction of a new government and a new religion , though not privy to the plot of taking away his own life . only he concludes with a [ but this i hope is not our case ] in such a way of q doubting as implies believing . and so much for the first point . the second motive ( he says fol. 5. ) which may incline a prince to disbelieve the report of a plot , is , from his own good nature , and clemency ; which makes him not believe any ill of those to whom he has been so kind . but this is a fallacious way of arguing . now by his favour , this is not so much an argument from good nature , on the one side , as from the tye of gratitude , on the other : but whether way soever it be taken , the late king found it indeed a very fallacious way of arguing : for almost all his acts of grace , and bounty , turn'd to his mischief , as appears in his majesties declaration , of aug. 12. 1642. when after delivering up his ministers to impeachments , his concessions in the business of the star-chamber , high-commission court , ship-money , forest-laws , stannery-courts , tonnage and poundage , continuance of the parliament , &c. they improv'd all these trusts , and condescensions even to the formal taking away his authority , revenue , and life . and those particularly whom his late majesty oblig'd to the highest degree , laid the foundation of his ruine . nor is the ingratitude of the same party to the son less notorious , then the other was to the father : none flying so fiercely in the face of the kings authority and person , as those that stand indebted to the king for their lives and estates ; who yet act as confidently , as if one rebellion might be placed in justification of another . for they do now afresh and in publick avow the methods and practises of the late times ; while the true sons and servants both of the english r church and state , lie in the dust , waiting for the righteous judgment of the lord in want , and patience . now if according to the appellants rule those are the most dangerous , to whom the king has been most kind , that danger must be understood of the fanatiques ; for otherwise the appealer runs the hazzard of a premunire , upon the act for the safety of the kings person , in scandalizing his majesty for a favourer of popery . it is not yet that the general rule fails , because of this exception : for the greater the obligation , the greater in reason ought to be the confidence , though the appellant seems to be of another opinion . who betrays you in your beds ? ( says he ) your friend ; for your enemy is not admitted to your house . who betrays you in your estate ? your friend ; for your enemy is not made your trustee . so that nothing is more dangerous then a blind friendship . this is an admirable fetch of his , to prove his royal highness dangerous to his majesty , because he is both a friend and a brother ; and still the nearer , the more dangerous : as if the king were safer in the hands of his enemies , then of his friends . but he expounds himself , that they are more dangerous , in respect of greater confidence , and fairer opportunities . there is no fence against that danger , but utterly to cast off and renounce all the bonds , and dictates of society and good nature . s we must contract no friendships , and trust no relations , for fear they should cut our throats . how much more wretched then the very beasts , has our appealer at this rate made mankind , by poysoning the very fountain of humane comforts ? nor is it a friend that betrays us ; but an enemy , under that appearance : by which rule an episcopal , a fanatical , a popish friend , are all equally dangerous : for a man has no more security of a friend under one denomination , then under another . but the appellant in this place speaks of the danger of a blind friendship ; that is to say , a kindness that is taken up without any consideration , or choice , and runs on without fear or wit : which in this application , must either be very little respectfull , or altogether impertinent .. he produces instances of perfidious favourites and relations : as if there were no other to be found in nature . by his argument , because one woman poyson'd her husband , all men should destroy their wives : because one son supplanted his father , all parents should drown their children like kitlins . because one younger brother offer'd violence to his elder , there should be no longer any confidence , or faith maintain'd among brethren . if little petty interests ( says he ) make one brother-wish the others death , how much more prevalent will the interest of a crown be ? nay of two crowns , viz. one here , and another hereafter in heaven , promis'd him by an old fellow with a bald pate , and a spade-beard . as to the argument , this is only the second part to the same tune ; and a particular instance improv'd into an universal exception . t there are wicked husbands , wives , children ; let there be no more marrying . men have been poyson'd in the sacrament , in their cups , and dishes ; shall we therefore never receive the communion , nor drink , nor eat ? there have been tyrants in all forms of governments , shall we therefore have no government at all ? and moreover , as this way of reasoning lessens all the bonds of humane trust , and concord , and runs us back again into mr. hobb's original state of war , so does it as little serve the appellants purpose , even if it were admitted . first , the temptation of a crown does not work upon any man , either as a brother , or as a stranger : but equally upon both ; and more , or less , as the man is more , or less consciencious or ambitious . so that the danger arises from the u humour of the person , not from the relation . nay secondly , the danger is greater , from a popular faction that has no right at all to a crown , than from a legal pretendent to it , upon a claim of descent . for the one only waits his time , according to the course of nature , whereas the other presses his end by the ways of bloud and violence , having no other way to compass it : he makes it yet a stronger argument , where there is but one life betwixt a successor and three kingdoms : w but does not this argument hold as strong on the other side ? there was only the king's life betwixt the faction of 1641 , and the three kingdoms , which life they took away , and so possest themselves of his dominions . their pretence was only a reformation of abuses ; with horrid , and multiply'd oaths , that they designed only the glory of god , the honour of the king , the preservation of the protestant religion his majesty ( they said ) was misled by popish counsels ; and their business was no more than to rescue him out of the hands of papists , and bring him home to his parliament . and what was the event of all ? a gracious prince was murther'd , and 500 tyrants set up in his stead : our religion , and our laws were trampled upon ; and the free-born english-men subjected to a bondage , below that of gaily-slaves : the whole nation becoming a scandal , a hissing , and a scorn , to all our neighbours , round about us . but what were these people , all this while ? if we may credit the appellant , they were priests and iesuits ; or at least , papists : but the king tells us , they were brownists , anabaptists , and other sectaries ; preaching coachmen , felt-makers , &c. the act for indempnity gives us a list of the regicides : the act of uniformity stiles them schismatiques , and throughout the whole history of their acts , and ordinances , there appear none but dissenting protestants : the church of england being the only sufferer , betwixt the two extreams . and these people had the interest of the two crowns in prospect too ; which the appellant descants so jollily upon : x almost every pulpit promising salvation to the fighters of the lords battels against the lords anointed , with a cursed be he ( at the end on 't , ) that doth the work of the lord negligently . upon the third head he says , that most princes believe , or disbelieve the information which is given them of a plot , according to the nature of the evidence , and credit of the informants . there is no more in this , than that most princes believe , upon the common inducements that move all men of reason whatsoever , to believe ; viz the probability of the matter in question , and the credit of the witnesses . now as to the popish plot ; we shall give him these two points for granted , but without discharging a plot likewise , on the other hand , upon the same principles , and no less pregnant evidence . y we do not speak here of the popish plot , which the papists would most sillily have turn'd upon the presbyterians ; ( the shallowest contrivance certainly that ever was hatch'd , and the most palpable imposture : ) but we speak of a plot that was bred and born in the fanatical party ; z whereof we have as many witnesses almost as readers ; in forty libels of that leaven , and extraction : beside several open and violent attempts upon the government , which do unanimously bear testimony against them . the following parts of this paragraph are wrought into such a complication of zeal and scandal ( one snap at the king , and another at the plot ) that every period is a bait : and whoever touches upon it , is sure of a hook in his nostrils . under colour of asserting and making out the truth of the plot , ( which no sober man doubts of ) he throws dirt upon his majesty and his ministers , for dodging , and imposing upon the people , in favour of it . one while too much comes out , another while too little. the frequent dissolutions and prorogations of parliaments ( he says expresly ) a were to prevent the tryal of the lords : and so the squib runs sputtering on , from the king to his privy councel ; thence , to his courts of justice ; and in one word , b the whole story comes to no more than a political abstract out of harris's domestick intelligence . but why these pamphlets to the multitude ? first , there 's no fear of the peoples running into popery : for 't is their horrour and aversion . secondly , there 's no need of convincing them of the truth of the plot : c but rather to keep them from extravagances , upon the jealousies and apprehensions they conceive of it already . thirdly , there 's no need neither of calling them to our assistance , toward the suppressing of it : for the sifting and examining of this conspiracy , with the bringing of the confederates to publique justice , is a great part of the business of the government . so that these libels cannot be reasonably understood to have any other than these two ends . first , to teaze and chafe the rabble into a rage , disposing and preparing them to entertain any occasion for uproar and tumult . secondly , when their bloud is up against d this detestable plot , with the contrivers , promoters , and abetters of it ; what does he , but turn the rancour of that outragious humour upon the king , privy councel , courts of justice ; and briefly , all his friends ; by marking them out for parties in the treason : and so rendring his majesty , and his government odious , by these malicious insinuations , and endangering the peace of the publique , to the highest degree ? the fourth and last argument ( says he ) which may sometimes prevail with the prince to disbelieve any report of a conspiracy , is taken from the nature and principles , and from the in●erest , of the pretended conspiratours . but neither of these motives can pretend to influence our prince into a disbelief of this popish plot , fol. 7. the appellants observation and inference is this , that the popish plot is to be believ'd , because it squares with the principles and interest of the party . we are better informed in the history and doctrine of massacres , and regicides , then to question the malice of the jesuitical positions , or the credibility of the plot here in debate : and so we shall yield him in the hellish tenet , which he insists upon , of murthering kings , and a hellish tenet it is indeed ; and as hellish undoubtedly in a schismatique , as in a jesuit . for his quarrel otherwise is to the faction , not to the maxim , which is equally dangerous and detestable in all factions . now wheresoever we find the same principles , we have the appellants leave honestly to suspect the same designs . was not this the doctrine of the fanatiques from forty , to sixty ? and did they not make good their doctrine by their practise ? did they not declare the king accountable to the people ? and did they not put him to death , upon that foundation ? we have the very journals themselves of those times , to prove what we say : beside the damned harmony of their best received authors to that purpose . e we propound ( say the remonstrants ) that the person of the king may be speedily brought to justice , for the treason , bloud and mischief he is guilty of . an act ( says another ) agreeing with the laws of god , consonant to the laws of men , and the practices of all well-order'd states and kingdoms . let justice and reason blush ( says another ) and traytors and murtherers , parricides and patricides put on white garments and rejoyce as innocent ones , if this man ( speaking of the late king ) should escape the hands of justice and punishment . the government of england ( says a fourth ) is a mixt monarchy , and govern'd by the major part of the three estates assembled in parliament . whensoever a king ( says a fifth ) or other superior authority , creates an inferior , they invest it with a legitimacy of magistratical power , to punish themselves also , in case they prove evil doers . it is lawful ( says a sixth ) for any , who have the power , to call to account a tyrant or wicked king ; and after due conviction , to depose and put him to death , if the ordinary magistrate have deny'd to do it . detrahere indigno , &c. it is not for private persons to depose a wicked governour ; but that the universality of the people may lawfully do it , i think no body questions . these seditious positions , with many more , ( and some worse , perhaps ) were publiquely printed and avow'd before his majesties return . and the very same principles , with pestilent additions to them , have been expos'd by the same party , in the face of the sun , since his majesties restauration . and there is scarce a pamphlet without something of this mixture , that comes from any of the private and pragmatical intermeddlers in the present controversie . so that the principles are the very same , as to the quality and ingredients , under several colours . and so much for their principles : now to their interests . in his following way of reasoning ; under the countenance of proving it to be the papists interest to murther the king , he does all he can in the world , by a side-wind , to possess them with the necessity of doing it ; and consequently , to force them upon it : only , as good luck is , the arguments will not bear that stress . i should not dare to speak his words after him , if it were not , f first , that the libell is already , by several impressions of it , made as publique as a news-book . and secondly , that his propositions are erected upon a false bottom ▪ upon which two considerations , we shall presume to insert only two periods of his , upon this subject . their interest ( says he ) does unavoidably excite them to murther his sacred ●ajesty ; for first , they know he cannot long subsist without a considerable sum of money , which he must receive either from the party , or from the parliament : now for them to supply him with so vast a sum , is a charge , that ( you may well imagine ) they would desire to get rid of it , if they could , tho by the kings death . on the other side , for the parliament to supply him with money , that , they know , cannot be done but by taking off the heads of their faction ; excluding their succession , and consenting to such laws as must of necessity ruine them : besides , his majesty hath already permitted the executing so many of their party , as they never can or will forgive it . it falls out happily that the force of his argument does not come up to the drift of it . but the weakness of the one , takes off the edge of the other . g he tells the whole world , that the papists have no way in the earth to save themselves , but by the murther of the king. the one half of this spoken in a corner to a knot of priests and jesuits , and fairly prov'd upon a man , would be as much as his head 's worth . and is the crime ever the lesse for doing the same thing in publique , where the provocation is stronger ? these discourses are not to pass for simple declarations of a mans opinion ; but artificial encouragements rather , and advises , toward the doing of the thing ; especially coming from the pen of a person that calls himself h junius brutus , and recommends himself to the city by the borrow'd name of a king-killer . tho' i cannot inform my self of any of that family that lives near richmond . his first argument runs thus . the king wants money ; and there 's none to be got , but either of the papists , or of the parliament . the parliament , he says , will give his majesty none ; and therefore the papists will murther him to save charges . this is a policy far fetch'd : the fathers head ( we know ) was set at a price , but we hope better of the sons : now in his prejudging the parliament , upon an assumption that the king gets not a penny of mony of them , but upon such and such terms ; i he does not so much speak his thought , as vent his proposition ; rather desireing , then foreseeing that the houss of commons will hold the king to such unhappy conditions . and then he finishes his contemplation with this conclusion , that the papists will never forgive his majesty , for what he has done already . wherein , first , he contradicts himself , in supposing the king an en●my to the papists , whom he has hitherto insinuated to be their friend . and secondly , instead of proving the papists design against the king in this particular , he advances one of his own. now if he would have come roundly up to the point of the papists interest , he should have told us of the ecclesiastical dignities and preferments that the church of rome has confer'd upon their emissaries into his majesties dominions : and he should have expounded it to the people , what pains they take , and what hazards they run , only in the playing of their own game , and making way to their advantages in reversion . this is so great a truth , that most of the serious catholiques themselves reflect familiarly upon these busie people , as the common troublers of the peace of christendom : but then i should have oppos'd an interest also on the fanatiques side , to ballance this . for they have their reversionall prospects too : their sequester'd livings and estates ; their plunder'd goods , their profitable offices and commissions , crown and church lands , &c. and they wait for their day again as impatiently as the jews do for their messias . nay to keep their title still a foot , they stand fast to their old covenant still , k as the fanatiques magna charta ; by which they pretend to make out a religious claim to all the advantages they got by sacriledge and oppression . so that their principles and interests lying indifferently against the establisht order both of church and state ; there will be no need of casting either faults upon the other . after a worse then astrological determination upon the kings fate ; he bestows another cast of his cunning upon the city and citizens of london , l which ( he says ) is in danger to be consum'd by fire . it is a lewd and a seditious hint , in both these cases , the putting of it into the head , as it is much in the power of any profligate and desperate villain , to verify his calculation . besides that in telling the citizens what they are to expect , he does at the same time , counsell the papists what to do . they will burn london ; ( he says ) first , as the only united force , able to withstand arbitrary government , and without that , popery can never prevail , if popery cannot come in without arbitrary government , if the iesuits design the burning of london , as the only united force that can withstand that power : either there is no fear of popery and arbitrary government , and ( consequently ) of such a design taking place in this king's reign ; or the whole calumny falls directly upon his majesty himself : or otherwise , if the appellants prospect looks forward into the future , what 's the meaning of all these alarms , so unseasonably , to trouble our present peace with the sickly visions of things to come ? and he should have done well also to have expounded himself a little upon the united force that should withstand , and the arbitrary government to be withstood ? for otherwise , it may be taken for the sounding of a trumpet to a rebellion . m for the arbitrary government which he phansies to himself , must be exercised either by a lawful prince , or by an vsurper : if by the former ▪ his tyranny is no warrant for our opposition ; if the latter , there 's no appearance of any other vsurpation , then ( as we shall see presently ) of his own setting up . secondly , he says that london is the only place where by reason of their excellent preaching and daily instruction in the protestant religion , the people have a lively sense thereof , and doubtless will not part with it , to pleasure a prince ; but perhaps rather lose their lives by the sword in the wars , than by faggots , in smithfield . the passage now is plain english ; and as many indignities upon the government , crouded into one sentence , as could well be brought together . here is first , an exhortation to a rebellion . for the prince here in question , against whom the sword is to be drawn , can be no other , upon his supposition , n than actually the king. and let him take his choice now whether it shall be intended of his present majesty , or of his successour . it is a rebellion against the king that now is , in the one case , and against the next king in the other : and secondly , it is not only a simple rebellion , but ( to the scandal of the reformation , and particularly of the church of england ) a rebellion founded upon the doctrine of the protestant religion : thirdly , it is no other then ( as he himself has worded it ) the hellish tenet of murthering kings , in a disguise : only a jesuitical principle in masquerade . it is , fourthly , a condemnation of the practices and submissions of the primitive christians , and the whole story of our protestant martyrology . he says , thirdly , that the city is too powerful for any prince that governs not by the love of his people , which no popish successour can expect to do . this is the very translation of his name-sake , junius brutus , in his vindiciae contra tyrannos . if the prince fails in his promise ( says he ) the people are exempt from their obedience . the contract is made void , and the right of obligation is of no force . it is therefore permitted to the officers of a kingdom , either all , or some good number of them , to suppress a tyrant . here 's a great deal of virulence in his discourse , without one word of weight , to countenance it . for the well-being of this city is so essentially requisite to the well-being of this kingdom , that the very charge of the government is not to be defray'd without it . so that it is the interest of all governours to cherish , and support it . here he trifles away some half a score lines more about the fire ; and then , from the danger of the city , advances to the further danger accruing to the citizens , as well as to the whole kingdom , upon the king 's untimely death . the greatest danger ( says he ) will proceed from a confusion , and want of some eminent and interested persons , whom you may trust to lead you up against a french and popish army . for which purpose no person is fitter then his grace the duke of monmouth , as well for quality , courage and conduct ; as for that his life and fortune depends upon the same bottom with yours ▪ he will stand by you , therefore ought you to stand by him : and remember the old rule is , he who hath the worst title , ever makes the best king. does he suppose this confusion upon the death of the king ; or the burning of the city , or before , or after ? o or has he consulted either the illustrious person , or the honourable city ( that he makes so bold with ) to know whether or not the one would accept of such a commission upon the appellants terms , or the other offer it ? the character that he is pleas'd to bestow upon his grace , for his quality , courage , and conduct , is not unknown to any man that ever so much as heard of his name . but the appellant never considers that all these glorious circumstances are point blank contradictions to his design . how can he imagine that so brave a person can ever stoop to so mean a thought ; and suffer himself , by a prostitute libell , to be inchanted out of his honour , reason , and allegiance ? or that the most eminent city of christendom for purity of religion , loyalty to their prince , power , good government , wealth and resolution , should be cajol'd out of all these blessings and advantages , by the jesuitical fanaticism of a dark-lanthorn-pamphlet ? but to what end is all this clutter ? the appellant has a mind ( it seems ) to p change his master . he who hath the worst title ( he says ) ever makes the best king ; which is a very fair proposition for setting up of a worse title , in his majesties place . from hence he goes forward , still computing upon his majesties death , as a thing to be taken for granted ; and so recommending himself to the most worthy citizens , he finishes his appeal . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a25572-e140 (a) so that either all honest men are mutiniers , or all mutiniers honest men : which makes him joyn them together . (b) here he shews himself to be an informer , (c) wat tyler's endeavour was to destroy the kings life and government , and plunder the city : whereas the appeal desires to save king , city and government , or at least to revenge their sufferings . (d) this year of 41. is indeed very remarkable for the massacre of 250000 poor irish protestants , by the papists . (e) i suppose our author is the only party that accuses the honourable city . (f) herein i must agree with him , that the city lost many things by the last civil war ; for they lost the star-chamber , high-commission-court , knights-service , court of wards , privy-seals , &c. (a) at first he claws the city , but here you see his complement does not hold long , likening some of them to horse-turds . (b) here he begins to withdraw you from believing or fearing a popish plot. (c) this parallel is no other but an harangue for popery , and against all the protestants , under the name of schismaticks * as many times this fidler hath done . (d) given for the peoples own servi●e and security , th●refore less grievous . (e) the sum of this parallel is , that he wrongfully accuses another of stealing an ox , to justifie his own theft of a horse : & since he cannot have the impudence to clear his own popish party of a plot , yet he hopes at least to extenuate their crime , by unjustly calumniating the protestants . (f) now to shew that this was written by a papist , examine the catholick naked truth , where you may find their usual way of writing is to set up their own doctrine , by making the protestants and fanaticks fall out . (g) sure this author is in the plot himself , that he makes our present danger and the plot to be but a supposition or vision , when both king and parliament have declared it real . (h) as this scribler would do our abby lands , were his religion uppermost . (i) nor papists , till just before a parliaments dissolution . (k) here he supposes the best part of the house of commons would lay the kingdom in bloud , whereas such men as he calls good members would lay the city in ashes . (l) many things are lawful , but not expedient ; and 't is evident by this , he fears nothing more than a sessions of parliament , therefore an enemy to the government by parliament . (m) not upon the king , but such as advise him to it , for we all know that the king can do no wrong . (n) since the appeal first came out , hath not dangerfield discover'd many new plots , in order to the carrying on of the old one ? (o) here he disguises himself , and would be thought a protestant forsooth (p) by this i guess he had a hand in the late forg'd plot. (q) none of these principles are in the appeal , therefore not to his purpose . (r) private malice of some relation of that person , whom the bishop had hang'd after promise of pardon , revenged his bloud upon the bishop ; so as the whole party is not to be blamed . (s) because the unarm'd scotch rabble took up arms against some few that oppressed them , and made a declaration of their grievances , therefore he would have us forget the popish plot that is in england . (t) not upon that score do we think him banish'd , but upon some false furmises suggested to his majesty by his popish enemies , although they did it with that design . (u) witness willoughby's relation : witness the priests daily taken . all this is but to lull us asleep , for them to devour us . (w) this is apparently false , for the words are , the first hour you hear of the king 's untimely end , which i think ▪ supposes the king's murder , and may be so understood by any but our clodpate author . (x) if king james , when he had secret notice of the gunpowder-treason , had seem'd to disbelieve it , this answerer would have esteem'd it the part of a good subject to have been quiet , and suffer'd the king and parliament to have danced in the air , rather than to have been so presumptuous a presbyterian , as to prevent it by a clamour for justice against the popish traitors . (y) here he tells you his design , which is , that when the papists have murder'd the king , it may be laid upon the presbyteriant . (z) sure as can be our author here was to have been one of the evidences in this feign'd presbyterian plot. a i 'le lay my life he is painted in some of these characters , if not in all ; that make him so out of humour with this description . b here be pleas'd to observe , that he divides the kingdom but into two parts : the on● ( as he says ) consisting of mutiniers and schismatiques , by whom he has all along mean● no other than fanatiques : the other party , of loyal servants and subjects of the government , into which classis he must by consequence design to rank the papists , for that he ●e● no room for them elsewhere . c see how bravely he pleads here for our client the conclave ? any thing for money : he can fiddle to all governments . d polemical discourse , anglicè , scolding , or billingsgate is the whole argument of this book . e all against poor protestants , and not one censure of the papists : this is too gross ; examine his faith by his works . f he forgets secretary windebank's orders in savour of them . g only in that place signifies no more but that had it not been for popery , all had been quiet . h did not aaron himself the high-priest turn and comply with the peoples idolatry , in helping them to a golden calf ? what has been , may be again . i for that the separatists ( as he calls them ) were then in most danger . k machiavel ( who was perhaps as old , though not so wise as this scribler ) plainly shews , that england can never long continue a republick , by reason of the ●oo great corruption and scarcity of publitk spirits in the nation . l as who should say , this author loves monarchy for popery's s●ke . m still for the papists . n not worth god-a-mercy . o all this is in behalf of popery . p the consequence extended further than at first design'd . q dr. du moulin will satisfie any in this matter . r since this appeal came forth , the late feign'd plot justifies all this upon the papists , notwithstanding our impotent scribler lays all upon the fanatiques , to clear himself and his party . s this story in the appeal was unanswerable , and therefore not to his purpose . t as if half a hundred priests would set thousands of silly people together by the ears . u it may be policy requires them to let some few die , rather than discover their power at present . w he makes the papists invisible and fictitious evidence , and defames the kings evidence . x very true , for how could dr. oates say they had done it , before they had ? we all agree that he only mentions their design , which was effected long since he gave in his evidence . y because not required ; but many can justifie it upon oath . z so call'd , because many of the officers were papists . a the parliament chiefly desired their disbanding : so as he accuses them for being privy to the scotch insurrection . b this tacit confession is as improper an expression , as exposition . c who knows but many of them were papists in disguise , like our author ? however , they might like pontius pilate , deliver him up to be crucified , and then wash their hands of his death . d this is an answer to his own former parallel , wherein he goes to vindicate the papists , by accusing the fanaticks . e howbeit he here endeavours to justifie the french's ill usage of his majesty , yet being unable to disprove our civilities to the french as false , he takes no notice of it . f the danger of the kings person ' , religion , and government , by reason of the plot ; together with the many jesuitical fires , loss of trade , and danger of the french power , are none of them calamities to our author ? who would rejoyce at them , as being a papist , and would therefore have us think them all imaginary and remote , till they really happen . g all this page is v●x praet●rea n●h●l , nothing but florid nonsence , wherein he compares the fear of his majesties death , to the fear of corns and chilblains . h meaning the duke's death , the king 's surviving , and the duke's conversion : as if no man must take care for the future , because there is a bare possibility of succeeding without it . i still harping upon the same string , so that this pamphlet is nothing but tautology and popery . a man would guess that this author was once so near hanging , as to have a presbyterian rope about his neck , that makes him so much inveigh against them . k did our pr●nces never live in france ? l because one king was ( as he says ) murder'd by protestants , therefore our author would have us fear them more than the papi●ts , who have murder'd many : so partial is a pap●st in his own cause . m male dum recitas , incipit esse tuum : you your self apply it . n i wish he had here shew'd us some example of a prince ruin'd by over-caution ; or shew'd us some argument why the duke of burgundy had come to the same end , if he had credited the kings admonition : abund●us cautela non nocet . o evil to him that evil thinks , p was it not an old observation of the ancients , quos jupiter vult perdere hos prius dementa● q what a way of reasoning is this ? r here he practises that popish doctrine of merit in temporals , as well as spirituals ; when vainly boasting of his own deserts , he doth implicitely tax both king , church and state with ingratitude . s i think any reasonable man will confess , that a papist at this time is a dangerous companion . t this argument in the appeal holds only against such friends or relations who are suspected to have attempted our lives . u and from ●is religion , if popery . w the gain and expectation which is divided among the populace , is not of such power , as when united in one single person , who has all by the others death . especially at this time they can wish nothing more than the king's death , a papist being to succeed him ; for every englishman ought to desire the king should live as long as the duke of york , or any other person : now if the king does live as long as the duke , then the duke can never be king ; therefore every englishman ought to desire the duke may never be their king. x here he takes no notice of the jesuitical k●ng-killing principles ; all his design being to render protestants odious . y but he means it , and blames nothing in the said plot , but the ill conduct of it , calling it only silly , but not impious . z witnesses come from st. omers . a 't is not said were , but did prevent their tryals , and that no man can deny . b why ? because he printed it . c how fearful he is left a pope should be burnt ; or papist upon the account of the plot be affronted . d 't is to be supposed , he has a dispensation for that word detestable . e he cannot here quote his authors , because all these principles were taken out of the iesuits morals , which he here fixes on the fanaticks . f here he does the author of the appeal no small honour unawares , in making his book so generally approv'd of . g everyman that has but so litte w●t as our author , knew the papists interest before : so that i conceive this was written only to demonstrate the danger his majesty is in . h why might not the author of the appeal , like some of the popes , take a name upon him contrary to his nature . i you are well acquainted sure with the author , to know his thoughts . k i hope he doth not esteem all that are for magna charta , to be fanaticks . l i think sad experience hath already justified this hint , which he calls malicious , as if he thought himself concern'd in firing ; 't is evident his principles would let him . m here he pleads for ar●●trary go●●●nment . n the sword is in the appeal no where bid to be drawn but against a popish successor , and that too when the king is murdered . so that at the worst it is but treason by anticipation , which is not mention'd in our law. o notwithstanding this authors flattery of his grace and the city , yet their wisdom will certainly unmask him ; whom if i knew , 't is probable i might get a hundred pound for taking a jesuit . p i cannot perceive the author of the appeal has any such design against the king , but rather the contrary ; since both by the title , arguments against the plot , and prayer for the king at last , he seems to aim at nothing more than his majesties preservation , whom i pray god defend from the hands and counsels of all su●h evil men 25 this author . blundel, the jesuit's letter of intelligence to his friends the jesuites at cambray, taken about him when he was apprehended at lambeth on monday the 23th of june 1679 to madam katherine hall in cambray. blundell, nicholas, 1640-1680. 1679 approx. 10 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a28486 wing b3362 estc r5815 13085817 ocm 13085817 97306 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a28486) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 97306) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 408:18) blundel, the jesuit's letter of intelligence to his friends the jesuites at cambray, taken about him when he was apprehended at lambeth on monday the 23th of june 1679 to madam katherine hall in cambray. blundell, nicholas, 1640-1680. 1 sheet ([1] p.) s.n., [london : printed 23th of june, 1679] place and date of publication from wing. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. broadsides -england -17th century. 2006-06 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-07 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-08 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2006-08 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion blundel the jesuit's letter of intelligence , to his friends the jesuites at cambray , taken about him when he was apprehended at lambeth , on munday the 23th . of june 1679. to madam katharine hall in cambray . my dr. c. issss . a. maria. on the thirteenth of june being fryday , mr. whitebread . mr. harcourt , mr , turner , fenwick and gaven of the society , and mr. corker were brought to the barr in the old bayly , mr. corker moved the court for a longer time being only warned the night before , whereas the other prisoners had eight days warning to prepare themselves , whereupon he was remanded to prison till the next day then was the indictment read against the five above named jesuits , for conspiring the kings death , subversion of government and protestant religion then mr. oats swore that on the 24th . of april there was a consult held in london , where the death of the king was conspired , and that he carryed this resolve from the one to the other , for their subscribing , and swore particular circumstances against each : to corroberate this testimony , other witnesses bedlow , prance , dugdale and chetwin came in with overtures to the matter sworn by oates , then did the prisoners ( after a most solemn and religious protestation of their innocence and ignorance of any conspiracy against his majesty ) desire that their witnesses might be heard , which could demonstrate that mr. oates was actually at s. omers all the whole time , but the judge scroggs askt each witness as he did appear , of what religion he was , and upon answer that he was a roman catholick , the whole court gave a shout of laughter , then the judge would say to them ; well , what have you been taught to say , and by many scoffing questions ( which moved the court to frequent laughter ) he did endeavour to take off the credibility of the witnesses ; then the butler , taylor , and gardiner of st. omers , offered to swear that they saw mr. oates all the time at st. omers , when he swore he was at london , after that the prisoners at the barr produced sixteen witnesses more that proved mr. oats for sworn in mr. irelands tryal , because he was in shropshire , when he attested he was in london , then did gaven one of the prisoners with a great deal of clearness and eloquence and with a cheerful countenance draw up their justification , shewing the face of their evidence , and how fully their witnesses had proved mr. oates purjured . then he did lay open the improbability of such a plott , and how unlikely mr. oates should be intrusted in delivering commissions to persons of honour , and estates , whom he never ( as he acknowledged ) had seen before or since , this was delivered by mr. gawen with a countenance wholly unconcerned , and in a voice very audible , and largely and pertinently exprest , the judge was incensed at this speech which he often interrupted him , but gaven still urg'd my lord , i plead now for my life , and for that which is dearer to me then life , the honour of my religion , therefore i beseech you have a little patience with me . after this plea of mr. gavens the judge made his arrayne to the jury telling them that what the prisoners had brought was only the bare assertions of boyes , who were taught it as a point of their religion , to lye for the honour of their religion , whereas mr. oats mr. bedlow and others were upon their oathes , and if oathes were not to be taken no courts could subsist . then mr. oates brought in four witnesses which he had kept in reserve , an old parson in his canonical gown , an old dominican priest : proh dolor & pudor ! and two women that swore they saw mr. oates in the beginning of may 1678. at this the whole court gave a shout of laughter and hallow , that for almost a quarter the cryers could not still them ; never was bear-bayting more rude and boysterous then this tryal : upon this the judge dismist the jury , to consider and bring in their verdicts , who after half an hours absence brought in the five prisoners at the barr all guilty of high treason ; thereupon the whole court clapt their hands and gave a great hallow , it being now eight at night , the court adjourned till next day at seven a clock which was saturday , i was present from five in the morning till the court broke up , the prisoners componed themselves most apostolically at the barr , not the least passion or alteration appeared in them , at the invectives of the judge , or at the clamours of the people , but made a clear and candid defence , with a cheerful and unconcerned countenance , ( as a stander by said ) if they had been a jury of turke they had been quitted , i was with them both before and after their tryal , and had the honour to be in my function serviceable to them , which i look upon as that god favoured me in , i hope for my future good : next day mr. langhorn a lawyer , sir george wakeman , mr. cooker , mr. marsh , mr. rumbly , the three last benedictines , were brought to the barr , where the indictment being read against them for conspiring the king's death &c. they pleaded all not guilty , then was langhorn first tryed , whose tryal held so long , that they had no time to try the other four , and the commission by which they sate , expiring that day , the judge adjorned the tryal of the other 4 till the 14th of july , and then the judge commanded the keeper to bring the five jesuits , whom with langhorn were sentenced to be hang'd , drawn and quartered , mr. corker and mr. marsh are close prisoners , and have been so this eight months , with whom i have been , god has fitted and is still fitting them as sacrifices for himself , they are very well disposed and resigned to god's holy will , mr. rumbly hath the liberty of the prison , with whom is mr. eskett , all cheerful and expect the good hour ; on thursday the day before the five jesuits were executed , my lord shaftsbury was with turner and gaven , promising the kings pardon if they would acknowledge the conspiracy , mr. gaven answered he would not murder his soul to save his body , for he must acknowledge what he knew not , and what he did believe was not . on friday the 20th . of june mr. whitebread upon one sledge with mr. harcourt , mr. turner and mr. gaven upon another sledge , mr. fenwick upon a sledge by himself , were drawn from newgate to tiburn , mr. langhorn is for a time repreived and promised pardon , if he will ( as t is reported ) discover the estates of the jesuites , he was their lawyer t is certain , my lord shaftsbury has been often with him . in the way they comported themselves seriously and cheerfully , mr. gaven had smug'd himself up as if he had been going to a wedding ; when they arrived at tiburn they each made a speech , first , all averring their ignorance of any plott against his majesty , secondly , pardoning their accusers , thirdly , hartily p●aying for them . but mr. gaven in his speech made an act of contrition which was much liked by all , for he was an excellent preacher : then they all betook themselves to meditation , for more then a good quarter , the multitude was great , yet there was a profound silence , and their most religious comportment has wonderfully allayed the fury of the people ; when they had ended their prayers , and the ropes were about their necks there came an horseman in full speed from white hall , crying as he rode , a pardon , a pardon , so with difficulty he made through the press to the sheriff , who was under the gallows to see execution performed ; then was the pardon read , which expressed , how the king most graciously and out of his inclination to clemency had granted them their lives , which by treason they had forfeited , upon condition they would acknowledge the conspiracy and lay open what they knew thereof . but they all thanked his majesty for his inclination of mercy towards them , but as to any conspiracy they knew of none much less are guilty of any , so they could not accept of any pardon upon those conditions , after a little recollection the cart was driven away , after they were dead they were quartered , but their quarters were given to their friends , sanguis martyrum sit semen ecclesiae . i sent to you an accompt of mr. puckerings death , and will tell you what may happen , but i know not if they come to you , you may cover your letter to me , for mrs. 〈◊〉 at my lady drummonds in queen street , london . printed in the year 1672. a true narrative of the popish-plot against king charles i and the protestant religion as it was discovered by andreas ab habernfeld to sir william boswel ambassador at the hague, and by him transmitted to archbishop laud, who communicated it to the king : the whole discoovery being found amongst the archbishops papers, when a prisoner in the tower, by mr. prynn (who was ordered to search them by a committee of the then parliament) on wednesday, may 31, 1643 : with some historical remarks on the jesuits, and a vindication of the protestant dissenters from disloyalty : also, a compleat history of the papists late presbyterian plot discovered by mr. dangerfield, wherein an account is given of some late transactions of sir robert peyton. habervešl z habernfeldu, ondřej. 1680 approx. 120 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 21 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2003-11 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a67878 wing t2805 wing h164 estc r21657 12226655 ocm 12226655 56562 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a67878) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 56562) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 617:13 or 1672:6) a true narrative of the popish-plot against king charles i and the protestant religion as it was discovered by andreas ab habernfeld to sir william boswel ambassador at the hague, and by him transmitted to archbishop laud, who communicated it to the king : the whole discoovery being found amongst the archbishops papers, when a prisoner in the tower, by mr. prynn (who was ordered to search them by a committee of the then parliament) on wednesday, may 31, 1643 : with some historical remarks on the jesuits, and a vindication of the protestant dissenters from disloyalty : also, a compleat history of the papists late presbyterian plot discovered by mr. dangerfield, wherein an account is given of some late transactions of sir robert peyton. habervešl z habernfeldu, ondřej. boswell, william, sir, d. 1649. laud, william, 1573-1645. prynne, william, 1600-1669. [4], 36 p. printed for robert harford ..., london : 1680. attributed to habervešl z habernfeldu by wing and nuc pre-1956 imprints. this item can be found at reels 617:13 and 1672:6. errors in paging: p. 13 misnumbered 16, and p. 16 misnumbered 13. reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york and the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng charles -i, -king of england, 1600-1649. jesuits. popish plot, 1678. dissenters, religious -england. 2000-00 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2002-01 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2002-03 tcp staff (michigan) sampled and proofread 2002-03 olivia bottum text and markup reviewed and edited 2002-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a true narrative of the popish-plot against king charles i. and the protestant religion : as it was discovered by andreas ab habernfeld to sir william boswel ambassador at the hague , and by him transmitted to archbishop laud , who communicated it to the king. the whole discovery being found amongst the archbishops papers , when a prisoner in the tower , by mr. prynn ( who was ordered to search them by a committee of the then parliament ) on wednesday , may 31. 1643. with some historical remarks on the jesuits , and a vindication of the protestant dissenters from disloyalty . also a compleat history of the papists late presbyterian plot discovered by mr. dangerfield , wherein an account is given of some late transactions of sir robert peyton . london , printed for robert harford at the angel in cornhil , near the royal exchange : m. dc . lxxx . the preface . it may appear strange to some , that this conspiracy against king charles i. was never divulged till found by mr. prynn in 1643. seeing it was known both to the king and archbishop in 1640. but if they do but reflect upon the actions of those times , the wonder will cease : for these romish traytors having by their devillish cunning raised a rebellion in scotland , and fomented the divisions between his majesty and parliament to that heighth , as soon after brake forth into a most bloody and unnatural war between prince and people : his majesty ( as they design'd ) was sufficiently diverted for the present ; and afterwards ( the devil of discontent raised by these wicked incendiaries of rome , proving too head-strong for them , and threatning their ruin ) the conspirators were so disperss'd , that it would have been a difficult thing for his majesty ( if he had been free from the rebellious clamours of be-jesuited men ) to have brought them to conviction . the person who had the greatest opportunity of advancing this design , was sir f. w. a man in all outward appearance a protestant , and verily believed to be so by the archbishop , whose interest with the king made him secretary of state ; as we find it set down by the archbishop in the journal of his life , in these words , june 25. 1631. mr. fr. windebank , my old friend , was sworn secretary of state , which place i obtained for him of my gracious master king charles . how industrious this secretary was in carrying on the plot , may partly appear by the charge against him in parliament , novem. 12. and decem . 1. 1640. viz. seventy four letters of grace to recusants in four years , sixty four priests discharged by his warrants , twenty nine by his verbal order , and twenty three by his authority under read's hand : but he prevented the the necessity of answering to this or any other charge by his flight into france , where he was generously entertained by cardinal richelieu , ( no doubt for the good service he had done the catholick cause in england ) and lived and died a profest papist . his son went to rome , where he was received with the like kindness by cardinal barbarino , the chief contriver of this popish plot . as for read , he was an actor in this plot , much in the same nature as coleman was in that lately discoved by doctor oates , and others ; and because he was a profest papist , the secretary above-mentioned , ( to whom i think he appertain'd as clerk ) procured for him the following protection , which for his greater immunity was recorded in the crown-office , and in the clerk of the peace his book for middlesex in open sessions . by the king . whereas we have received good testimony of the loyalty and duty of our trusty and well-beloved captain john reade , and because he may be subject to the laws for recusancy ; these are to signifie , that we are graciously pleased to extend our special grace towards him : and do hereby command , that no indictment , presentment , information , or suit in our name , or in the name of any other , be henceforth commenced , prosecuted , or accepted against him , by any of our officers or subjects whatsoever , for or concerning recusancy : and if any such shall happen , then our will and pleasure is , that upon sight hereof , the same shall be discharged and made void , or otherwise not prejudicial to him . given under our signet at our court at theobalds , the thirteenth day of july , in the tenth year of our reign . to all and singular our judges of assize , justices of the peace , &c. whom it doth or may concern , and to every of them . thus was that good king so far abused ( by having a traytor represented to him as a loyal subject ) as to grant a protection to this read , who intended to make no other use of it , than thereby to destroy with the more safety his royal protector . this plot against king charles the first , was buried in a bloody civil war , but raised again against king charles the second , in time of peace , by the blood-thirsty jesuits ; the discovery whereof has been sufficiently made known by the tryal and execution of several of them , as well as by the printed narratives thereof . to get up their reputation again , they plotted to throw their guilt upon the dissenting protestants ; but the all-seeing eye of god prevented their villanous designs by a timely discovery : the design and discovery whereof , you will find particularly related at the end of this book . a true relation of the popish-plot against king charles i. and the protestant religion . if there be any professing the protestant religion within his majesties dominions , who are yet so wilfully blinded , as not to believe the reality of the late conspiracies , or that it has not been a long time carrying on to extirpate the protestant religion , reestablish popery , and inthral the people in all the three kingdoms , let them but advisedly fix their eyes and minds , upon the ensuing letters and discoveries , and they will easily find papistical plots have been no new things in this nation . to omit their attempts upon king edward , queen elizabeth , and king james , these papists make it evidently out , that the same design , and the same contrivances were on foot in the reign of our late sovereign charles the first , of blessed memory ; a true narrative whereof these sheets contain , as they were found in the arch-bishop of canterbury's study in the tower , may 31. 1643. the first who discover'd it , was an actor in it , sent hither from rome , by cardinal barbarini , to assist con , the pope's legat , in the pursuit of it , and privy to all the particulars ; who being touch'd with remorse of conscience , for being guilty of so detestable a crime , reveal'd the whole mystery to sir william boswell , the king's leiger embassador at the hague , who gave private notice of the same to the arch-bishop of canterbury , by whom it was declar'd to the king himself . sir william boswell's first letter to the arch-bishop , touching this plot. may it please your grace , the offers ( whereof your grace will find a copy ) here enclos'd toward a farther and more particular discovery , were first made to me at the second hand , and by word of mouth by a friend of good quality and worth in this place . but soon after , as soon as they could be put into order , were avowd by the principal party , and deliver'd me in writing by both together , upon promise and oath , which i was required to give , and gave accordingly , not to reveal the same to any other man living , but your grace , and by your grace's hand to his majestie . in like manner they have tied themselves not to declare these things to any other but my self , untill they should know how his majestie , and your grace would dispose thereof . the principal giving me withall to know , that he puts himself and this secret into your grace's power , as well because it concerns your grace so nearly after his majestie , as that he knows your wisdom to guide the same aright , and is also assur'd of your grace's fidelity to his majesties person , to our state and to our church . first , your grace is earnestly pray'd to signifie his majesties pleasure , with all speed , together with your grace's disposition herein , and purpose to carry all with silence from all but his majestie , until due time . secondly , when your grace shall think fit to shew these things to his majestie , to do it immediately , and not trusting letters , nor permitting any other person to be by , or within hearing , and to intreat and counsel his majestie as in a case of conscience , to keep the same wholly and solely in his own bosom from the knowledge of all other creatures living , but your grace , until the business shall be clear'd out . thirdly , not to enquire or demand the names of the parties from whom these overtures do come , or any farther discoveries or advertisements in pursuit of them , which shall come hereafter , until satisfaction shall be given to every part of them . nor to tell to any person but his majestie , that any thing of this nature is come from me . for as i may believe these overtures are veryfiable in the way they will be laid , and that the parties will not shrink ; so i may account , that if never so little glimpse or shadow of these informations shall appear by his majesties or your grace's words or carriage unto others , the means whereby the business may be brought best unto tryal , will be utterly disappointed . and the parties who have in conscience toward god , devotion to his majestie , affection toward your grace , and compassion to our country disclos'd these things , will run a present and extream hazard of their persons and lives . so easily it will be conjectur'd upon the least occasion given either by his majestie or your grace , who is the discoverer . these are the points and offers which they have prest me to represent more especially to his grace . for my own particular , having already most humbly crav'd pardon of any errour or omissions that have befallen me in the managing this business , i do beseech your grace to let me know , first , whether , and in what order i shall proceed with the parties . secondly , what points of these offers i shall first put them upon to enlarge and clear ? thirdly , what other points and queries i shall propose to them , and in what manner ? fourthly , how far further i shall suffers my self to hear and know these things . fifthly , whether i shall not rather take the parties answers and discoveries sealed up by themselves , and having likewise put my own seal upon them , without questioning or seeing what they contain , so to transmit them to your grace or his majestie . sixthly , whether i may not insinuate upon some fair occasion , that there will be a due regard had of them and their service by his majestie and your grace ; when all particulars undertaken in these general offers , and necessary for perfecting the discovery , and work intended , shall effectually be delivered to his majestie and your grace . upon these heads , and such other as his majesty and your grace shall think proper in the business , i must with all humility beseech your grace to furnish me with instructions , and warrant for my proceedings , under his majesties hand , with your grace's attestation , as by his majesties goodness and royal disposition is usual in like cases . may it please your grace to entertain a cipher with me upon this occasion ; i have sent the counterpart of one here inclos'd . if these overtures happily sort with his majesties and your grace's mind , and shall accordingly prove effectual in their operation , i shall think my self a most happy man , to have any oblation in so pious a work for my most gracious soveraign and master . more particularly in that your grace under his majesty shall be opifex rerum & mundi melioris origo . which i shall incessantly beg in my prayers at his hands , who is the giver of all good things , and will never forsake or fail them , who do not first fail and fall from him , the god of mercy and peace , with which i remain ever more , your grace's most dutiful and obliged servant , william boswell . hague in holland , sept. 9. 1640. stylo loci . i have not dar'd to trust this business ( without a cipher ) but by a sure hand , for which reason , i have sent the bearer my secretary express , but he knows nothing of the contents thereof . superscrib'd for your grace . endors'd by the arch-bishop with his own hand . received sept. 10 1640. sir william boswell , about the plot against the king. andreas ab habernfeld's letter to the arch-bishop , concerning the plot revealed to him , written by him in latin. most illustrious and most reverend lord , all my senses are shaken together as often as i revolve the present business , neither doth my understanding suffice , to conceive what wind hath brought such horrid things , that they should see the sun-shine by me : for unexpectedly this good man became known unto me , who when he had heard me discoursing of these scotch stirs , said , that i knew not the nerve of the business , that those things which are commonly scattered abroad are superficial . from that hour he every day became more familiar to me , who acknowledging my dexterity herein , with a full breast poured forth the burdens of his heart into my bosom , supposing that he had discharged a burden of conscience wherewith he was pressed . hence he related to me the factions of the jesuits , with which the whole earthly world was assaulted ; and shewed , that i might behold how through their poison , bohemia and germany were devoured , and both of them maimed with an irreparable wound ; that the same plague did creep through the realms of england and scotland , the matter whereof , revealed in the adjacent writing , he discovered to me : which things having heard , my bowels were contracted together , my loyns trembled with horrour , that a pernicious gulf should be prepared for so many thousands of souls : with words moving the conscience , i inflamed the mind of the man ; he had scarce one hour concocted my admonitions , but he disclosed all the secrets , and he gave free liberty that i should treat with those whom it concerned , that they might be informed hereof . i thought no delay was to be made about the things : the same hour i went to sir william boswell , the king's leiger , at the hague , who being tied with an oath of secrecy to me , i communicated the business to him , i admonished him to weigh these things by the ballance , neither to deser , but act , that those who were in danger might be speedily succoured : he , as becomes an honest man , mindful of his duty , and having hearer looked into the business , refused not to obey the monitions . moreover , he forthwith caused that an express should be dispatched , and sent word back again what a most acceptable oblation this had been to the king and your grace ; for which we rejoyced from the heart , and we judged , that a sase and favourable deity had interposed it self in this business , whereby you might be perserved . now that the verity of the things elated might be confirmed , some principal heads of the conspiracy were purposely pretermitted , that the knowledge of them might be extorted from the circumvented society of the conspirators . now the things will be speedily and safely promoted into act , if they be warily proceeded in at bruxels . by my advice , that day should be observed wherein the packet of letters are dispatch'd , which under the title of , to monsieur strario arch-deacon of cambray , tyed with one cover , are delivered to the post-master ; such a packet may be secretly brought back from him , yet it will be unprofitable , because all the inclosed letters are written characteristically . likewise another packet coming weekly from rome , which is brought under this superscription , to the most illustrious lord count rossetti , legat for the time ; these are not to be neglected : to whom likewise letters writ in the same characters are included . that they may be understood , reade is to be consulted with . the forenamed day of dispatch shall be expected : in reade's house an accumulated congregation may be circumvented ; which succeeding , it will be your graces part to order the business . the intestine enemy being at length detected by god's grace , all bitterness of mind , which is caused on either side may be abolished , buried in oblivion , deleted and quieted , the enemy be invaded on both parts : thus the king and the kings friend , and both kingdoms neer to danger , shall be preserved and delivered from eminent danger . your grace likewise may have this injunction by you , if you desire to have the best advice given you by others , that you trust not overmuch to your pursevants , for some of them live under the stipend of the popish party . how many rocks , how many scilla 's , how many displeased charybdes appear before your grace , in what a dangerous sea , the cock-boat of your graces life , next to shipwrack , is tossed , your self may judge ; the fore-deck of the ship is speedily to be driven to the harbour . all these things ( i whisper ) into your grace's ear , for i know it bound with an oath of secrecy ; therefore by open name , i would by these presents become known to your grace , hague sept. 14. s. n. 1640. your graces most observant , and most officious , andrew habernfeld . superscribed by andreas ab habernfeld , a noble bohemian , dr. of physick to the queen of bohemia , illustrissimo ac reverendissimo dom. domino gulielmo archiepiscopo cantuariensi , primati & metropolitano totius regni angliae dom. meo . the arch-bishops indorsement with his own hand . received , octob. 14. 1640. andreas ab habernfeld . his letters sent by sir william boswell , about the discovery of the treason . i conceive by the english latin herein , that he must needs be an englishman , with a concealed and changed name . and yet it may be this kind of latin may relate to the italian . or else he lived some good time in england the declaration of this treason i have by his majesties special command , sent to sir w. boswell , that he may there see what proof can be made of any particulars . the general overture and discovery of the plot , sent with sir william boswell's first letter , and written in latin. the king's majesty and the lord arch-bishop of canterbury are to be secretly informed by letters , 1. that the king's majesty , and the lord arch-bishop are both of them in great danger of their lives . 2. that the whole common-wealth is by this means endangered , unless the mischief be speedily prevented . 3. that these scotch troubles are raised , to the end , that under this pretext , the king and arch-bishop might be destroyed . 4. that there is a means to be prescribed , whereby both of them in this case may be preserved , and this tumult speedily composed . 5. that although these scotch tumults be speedily composed , yet that the king is endangered , and that there are many ways , by which destruction is plotted to the king and lord arch-bishop . 6. that a certain society hath conspired the death of the king , and lord arch-bishop , and convulsion of the whole realm . 7. that the same society , every week deposits with the president of the society , what intelligence every of them hath purchased in eight days search , and then confer all into one packet , which is weekly sent to the director of the business . 8. that all the confederates in the said conspiracy may verily be named by the poll. but because they may be made known by other means , it is thought meet to defer it till hereafter . 9. that there is a ready means , whereby the villany may be discovered in one moment , the chief conspirators circumvented , and the primary members of the conjuration apprehended in the very act . 10. that very many about the king , who are accounted most faithful and intimate , to whom likewise the more secret things are intrusted , are traytors to the king , corrupted with a foreign pension , who communicate all secrets of greater or lesser moment to a foreign power . these and other most secret things , which shall be necessary to be known for the security of the king , may be revealed , if these things shall be acceptable to the lord arch-bishop . likewise they may be assured , that whatsoever things are here proposed , are no figments , or fables , nor vain dreams , but such real verities , which may be demonstrated in every small tittle . for those who thrust themselves into this business , are such men , who mind no gain , but the very zeal of christian charity suffers them not to conceal these things : yet both from his majesty and the lord arch-bishop some small exemplar of gratitude will be expected . all these premises have been communicated under good faith , and the sacrament of an oath , to mr. leiger embassadour of the king of great britain , at the hague ; that he should not immediately trust , or communicate these things to any mortal , besides the king , and the lord arch-bishop of canterbury . subscribed , &c. present , &c. hague , com. 6. sept. 1640. in the style of the place . the arch-bishops own indorsement . recieved sept. 10. 1640. the plot against the king. the arch-bishop of canterburies letter to the king , concerning the plot ; with the king's directions in the margin , written with his own hand . [ i beseech your majesty read these letters as they are endorsed by figures , 1 , 2 , 3 , &c. ] may it please your majesty , as great as the secret is which comes herewith , yet i choose rather to send it in this silent covert way , and i hope safe , than to come thither , and bring it my self . first , because i am no way able to make hast enough with it . secondly , because should i come at this time , and antedate the meeting , sept. 24. there would be more jealousie of the business , and more enquiry after it : especially , if i being once there , should return again before that day , as i must , if this be followed , as is most fit . the danger it seems is eminent , and laid by god knows whom ; but to be executed by them which are very near about you . ( for the great honour which i have to be in danger with you , or for you , i pass not , so your sacred person , and the state may be safe . ) now , may it please your majesty , this information is either true , or there is some mistake in it : if it be true , the persons which make the discovery will deserve thanks and reward ; if there should be any mistake in it , your majesty can lose nothing but a little silence . the business , ( if it be ) is extream foul . the discovery thus by god's providence offered , seems fair . i do hereby humbly beg it upon my knees of your majesty , that you will conceal this business from every creature , and his name that sends this to me . and i send his letters to me , to your majesty , that you may see his sence both of the business and the secrecy . and such instructions as you think fit to give him , i beseech you let them be in your own hand for his warrant , without imparting them to any . and if your majesty leave it to his descretion to follow it there in the best way he can , that in your own hand will be instruction and warrant enough for him . and if you please to return it herewith presently to me , i will send an express away with it presently . in the mean time , i have by this express returned him this answer , that i think he shall do well to hold on the treaty with these men , with all care and secrecy , and drive on to the discovery , so soon as the business is ripe for it , that he may assure himself and them , they shall not want reward , if they do the service . that for my part he shall be sure of secrecy , and that i am most confident , that your majesty will not impart it to any . that he have a special eye to the eighth and ninth proposition . sir , for god's sake , and your own safety , secrecy in this business : and i beseech you , send me back this letter , and all that comes with it , speedily and secretly , and trust not your own pockets with them . i shall not eat , nor sleep in quiet , till i receive them . and so soon as i have them again , and your majesties warrant to proceed , no diligence shall be wanting in me to help on the discovery . this is the greatest business that ever was put to me . and if i have herein proposed , or done any thing amiss , i most humbly crave your majesties pardon . but i am willing to hope i have not herein erred in judgment , and in fidelity i never will. these letters came to me on , thursday , sept. 10. at night , and i sent these away according to the date hereof , being extreamly wearied with writing this letter , copying out those other which come with this , and dispatching my letters back to him that sent these , all in my own hand . once again secrecy for god's sake , and your own . to his most blessed protection i commend your majesty and all your affairs : and am , lambeth , sept. 11. 1640. your majesties most humble faithful servant , w. cant. the arch-bishop's postscript . as i had ended these , whether with the labour or indignation , or both , i fell into an extreme faint sweat ; i pray god keep me from a feaver , of which three are down in my family at croyden . these letters came late to me , the express being beaten back by the wind . the arch-bishops indorsement with his own hand . received from the king , sept. 16. 1640. the king's answer to the plot against him , &c. superscrib'd by the arch-bishop , for your sacred majesty : by the king , yours apostyled . sir william boswel's second letter to the arch-bishop . may it please your grace , this evening late i have received your graces dispatch , with the enclosed from his majesty , by my secretary oveart , and shall give due account with all possible speed of the same , according to his majesties and your graces commands , praying heartily that my endeavours , which shall be most faithful , may also prove effectual , to his majesties and your grace's content , with which i do most humbly take leave , being always hague , sept. 24. 1640. s. angelo . your graces most dutiful and humblest servant , william boswell . the arch-bishop's indorsement . received , sept. 30. 1640. sir william boswell his acknowledgement , that he hath received the king's directions in my letters . sir william boswell's third letter to the arch-bishop . sent with the larger discovery of the plot . may it please your grace , upon receipt of his majesties commands , with your grace's letters of 9 , and 18 , sept. last , i dealt with the party to make good his offers formerly put in mine hand , and transmitted to your grace : this he hopes to have done , by the inclosed , so far as will be needful for his majesties satisfaction ; yet if any more particular explanation or discovery shall be required by his majesty or your grace , he hath promised to add thereunto , whatsoever he can remember , and knows of truth . and for better assurance and verification of his integrity , he professeth himself ready ( if required ) to make oath of what he hath already declared , or shall hereafter declare in the business . his name he conjures me still to conceale , though he thinks his majesty and your grace , by the character he gives of himself , will easily imagin who he is , having been known so generally through court and city , as he was for three or four years , in the quality and imployment he acknowlegeth ( by his declaration inclosed ) himself to have held . hereupon he doth also redouble his most humble and earnest suit unto his majesty and your grace , to be most secret and circumspect in the business , that he may not be suspected to have discovered , or had a hand in the same . i shall here humbly beseech your grace to let me know what i may further do for his majesties service , or for your graces particular behoof ; that i may accordingly endeavour to approve my self , as i am , hague , octob. 15. 1640. your grace's mest dutiful and obliged servant , william boswell . the arch-bishop's indorsment . received octob. 14. 1640. sir william boswell in prosecution of the great business . if any thing come to him in cyphers , to send it to him . the large particular discovery of the plot and treason against the king , kingdom , and protestant religion , and to raise the scotish wars , written in latin. most illustrious and reverend lord , we have willingly and cordially perceived , that our offers have been acceptable both to his royal majesty , and likewise to your grace . this is the only index to us , that the blessing of god is present with you , whereby a spur is given , that we should so much the more chearfully and freely utter and detest those things whereby the hazard of both your lives , the subversion of the realm and state both of england and scotland , the tumbling down of his excellent majesty from his throne , is intended . now lest the discourse should be enlarged with superfluous circumstances , we will only premise some things which are meerly necessary to the business . you may first of all know , that this good man , by whom the ensuing things are detected , was born and bred in the popish religion , who spent many years in ecclesiastical dignities . at length being found fit for the expedition of the present design , by the counsel and mandate of the lord cardinal barbarini , he was adjoyned to the assistance of master cuneus ( con ) by whom he was found so diligent and sedulous in his office , that hope of great promotion was given to him . yet he , led by the instinct of the good spirit , hath , howsoever it be , contemned sweet promises , and having known the vanities of the pontifician religion ( of which he had sometime been a most severe defender ) having likewise noted the malice of those who fight under the popish banner , felt his conscience to be burdened ; which burden that he might ease himself of , he converted his mind to the orthodox religion . soon after , that he might exonerate his conscience , he thought fit , that a desperate treason , machinated against so many souls , was to be revealed , and that he should receive ease if he vented such things in the bosom of a friend : which done , he was seriously admonished by the said friend , that he should shew an example of his conversion and charity , and free so many innocent souls from imminent , danger to whose monitions he willingly consented , and delivered the following things to be put in writing , out of which the articles not long since tendered to your grace , may be clearly explicated and demonstrated . 1. first of all , that the hinge of the business may be rightly discerned , it is to be known , that all those factions with which christendom is at this day shaken , do arise from the jesuitical off-spring of cham , of which four orders abound throughout the world. of the first order are ecclesiasticks , whose office it is to take care of things promoting religion . of the second order are politicians , whose office it is by any means to shake , trouble , and reform the state of kingdoms and republicks . of the third order are seculars , whose property it is to obtrude themselves into offices with kings and princes , to insinuate and immix themselves in court businesses , bargains and sales , and to be busied in civil affairs . of the fourth order are intelligencers , ( or spies ) men of inferiour condition , who submit themselves to the services of great men , princes , barons , noble-men , citizens , to deceive ( or corrupt ) the minds of their masters . 2. a society of so many orders , the kingdom of england nourisheth : for scarce all spain , france , and italy , can yield so great a multitude of jesuits , as london alone ; where are found more than 50 scotish jesuits . there the said society hath elected to it self a seat of iniquity , and hath conspired against the king , and the most faithful to the king , especially the lord archbishop of canterbury , and likewise against both kingdoms . 3. for it is more certain than certainty it self , that the forenamed society hath determined to effect an universal reformation of the kingdom of england and scotland . therefore the determination of the end , necessarily infers a determination of means to the end . 4. therefore to promote the undertaken villany , the said society dubbed it self with the title of , the congregation of propagating the faith ; which acknowledgeth the pope of rome the head of the college , and cardinal barbarini his substitute and executor . 5. the chief patron of the society at london , is the popes legat , who takes care of the business ; into whose bosom , these dregs of traytors weekly deposite all their intelligences . now the residence of this legation was obtained at london in the name of the roman pontiff , by whose mediation it might be lawful for cardinal barbarini to work so much the more easily and safely upon the king and kingdom . for none else could so freely circumvent the king , as he who should be palliated with the popes authority . 6. master cuneus did at that time enjoy the office of the popes legat , an universal instrument of the conjured society , and a serious promoter of the business , whose secrets , as likewise those of all other intelligencers , the present good man , the communicator of all these things , did revive and expedite whither the business required . cuneus set upon the chief men of the kingdom , and left nothing unattempted , by what means he might corrupt them all , and incline them to the pontifician party : he inticed many with various incitements , yea , he sought to delude the king himself with gifts of pictures , antiquities , idols , and of other vanities brought from rome , which yet would prevail nothing with the king. having entred familiarity with the king , he is often requested at hampton court , likewise at london , to undertake the cause of the palatine , and that he would interpose his authority , and by his intercession perswade the legat of colen , that the palatine , in the next diet to treat of peace , might be inserted into the conditions ; which verily he promised , but performed the contrary . he writ indeed , that he had been so desired by the king concerning such things , yet he advised that they should not be consented to , lest peradventure it might be said by the spaniard , that the pope of rome had patronized an heretical prince . in the mean time , cuneus smelling from the archbishop , most trusty to the king , that the kings mind was wholly pendulous ( or doubtful , ) resolved , that he would move every stone , and apply his forces , that he might gain him to his party : certainly confiding , that he had a means prepared . for he had a command to offer a cardinals cap to the lord archbishop in the name of the pope of rome , and that he should allure him also with higher promises , that he might corrupt his sincere mind . yet a fitting occasion was never given , whereby he might insinuate himself into the lord archbishop . free access was to be gained by the earl and countess of a — likewise secretary w — the intercession of all which being neglected , he did flie the company or familiarity of cuneus , worse than the plague : he was likewise perswaded by others of no mean rank , well known to him , neither yet was he moved . 7. another also was assayed , who hindred access to the detestable wickedness , secretary cook , he was a most bitter hater of the jesuits , whom he intercepted from acces , to the king , he entertained many ( of them ) according to their deserts , he diligently enquired into their factions ; by which means every incitement , breathing a magnetical ( attractive ) power to the popish party , was ineffectual with him ; for nothing was so dear unto him , that might incline him to wickedness . hereupon being made odious to the patrons of the conspiracy , he was endangered to be discharged from his office ; it was laboured for three years space , and at last obtained . yet notwithstanding there remained on the kings part a knot hard to be untied , for the lord arch-bishop , by his constancy , interposed himself as a most hard rock . when cuneus had understood from the lord arch-bishops part , that he had laboured in vain , his malice and the whole societies waxed boyling hot : soon after ambushes began to be prepared , wherewith the lord arch-bishop together with the king should be taken . likewise a sentence is passed against the king ( for whose sake all this business is disposed ) because nothing is hoped from him which might seem to promote the popish religion ; but especially when he had opened his mind , that he was of this opinion , that every one might be saved in his own religion , so as he be an honest and pious man. 8. to perpetrate the treason undertaken , the criminal execution at westminster , caused by some writings of puritans , gave occasion of the first fire : which thing was so much exasperated and exaggerated by the papists to the puritans , that if it remained unrevenged , it would be thought a blemish to their religion ; the flames of which fire , the scotch book of prayers increases , occasioned by it's alterations . 9. in this heat , a certain scotish earl , called maxfield , if i mistake not , was expedited to the scots by the popish party ; with whom two other scotish earls , papists , held correspondency : he was to stir up the people to commotion , and rub over the injury afresh , that he might enflame their minds , precipitate them to arms , by which the hurtful disturber of the scotish liberty might be slain . 10. by this one labour , snares are prepared for the king ; for this purpose the present business was so ordered , that very many of the english should adhere to the scots ; that the king should remain inferiour in arms , who ( thereupon ) should be compelled to crave assistance from the papists , which yet he should not obtain , unless he would descend unto conditions , by which he should permit universal liberty of the exercise of the popish religion ; for so the affairs of the papists would succeed according to their desire . to which consent , if he should shew himself more difficult , there should be a present remedy at hand . the king is to be dispatched : for an indian nut , stuffed with most sharp poyson , is kept in the society ( which cuneus at that time shewed often to me in a boasting manner ) wherein a poyson was prepared for the king ; after the example of his father . 11. in this scottish commotion , the marquess of hamilton , often dispatched to the scots in the name of the king , to interpose the royal authority , whereby the heat of minds might be mittigated , returned notwithstanding as often without fruit , and without ending the business : his chaplain at that time repaired to us , who communicated some things secretly with cuneus . being demanded of me in jest , whether also the jews agreed with the samaritans ? cuneus thereunto answered ; would to god all ministers were such as he : what you will may be hence conjectured . 12. things standing thus , there arrived at london from cardinal richelieu , mr. thomas chamberlaine , his chaplain and almoner , a scot by nation , who was to assist the college of the confederate society , and seriously to set forward the business , to leave nothing unattempted , whereby the first heat might be exasperated . for which service he was promised the reward of a bishoprick ; he cohabited with the society four months space ; neither was it lawful for him first to depart , until things succeeding according to his wish , he might be able to return back again with good news . 13. sir toby matthew , a jesuited priest , of the order of politicians , a most vigilant man of the chief heads , to whom a bed was never so dear , that he would rest his head thereon , refreshing his body with sleep in a chair for an hour , or two , neither day nor night spared his machinations ; a man principally noxious , and himself the plague of the king and kingdom of england ; a most impudent man , who flies to all banquets and feasts , called or not called ; never quiet , always in action and perpetual motion ; thrusting himself into all conversations of superiours ; he urgeth conferences familiarly , that he may fish out the minds of men ; what ever he observeth thence , which may bring any commodity , or discommodity to the part of the conspirators , he communicates to the pope's legat ; the more secret things he himself writes to the pope , or to cardinal barbarini . in sum , he adjoins himself to any mans company ; no word can be spoken , that he will not lay hold on , and accommodate to his party . in the mean time , whatever he hath fished out , he reduceth into a catalogue , and every summer carrieth it to the general consistory of the jesuits politicks , which secretly meets together in the province of wales , where he is an acceptable guest . there counsels are secretly hammered , which are most meet for the convulsion of the ecclesiastic , and politic estate of both kingdoms . 14. captain read , a scot , dwelling in long-acre-street , near the angel tavern , a secular jesuit , who for his detestable office performed ( whereby he had perverted a certain minister of the church , with secret incitements to the popisn religion , with all his family , taking his daughter to wife ) for a recompence , obtained a rent , or impost upon butter , which the country people are bound to render to him , procured for him by some chief men of the society , who never want a spur , whereby he may be constantly detained in his office. in his house the business of the whole plot is concluded , where the society , which hath conspired against the king , the lord arch-bishop , and both kingdoms , meet together , for the most part every day : but on the day of the carriers ( or posts ) dispatch , which is ordinarily friday , they meet in greater numbers ; for then all the intelligencers assemble , and confer in common , what things every of them hath fished out that week ; who , that they may be without suspition , send their secrets by sir toby matthew , or read himself , to the pope's legat ; he transmits the compacted packet , which he hath purchased from the intelligencers , to rome . with the same read , the letters brought from rome are deposired , under fained titles and names , and by him are delivered to all to whom they appertain : for all and every of their names are known to him . upon the very same occasion , letters also are brought hither under the covert of father philip ; ( he notwithstanding , being ignorant of things ) from whom they are distributed to the conspirators . there is in that very house , a publick chappel , wherein an ordinary jesuit consecrates , and dwells there . in the said chappel masses are daily celebrated by the jesuits , and it serves for the baptizing of the children of the house , and of some of the conspirators . those who assemble in the forenamed house , come frequently in coaches , or on horse-back in lay-mens habit , and with a great train , wherewith they are disguised , that they may not be known , yet they are jesuits , and conjured members of the society . 15. all the papists of england contribute to this assembly , lest any thing should be wanting to promote the undertaken design . out of whose treasury , a widow , owner of the houses , wherein secretary w. now dwelleth , dead above three years since , bestowed forty thousand english pounds ; so likewise others contributed above their abilities , so as the business may be promoted unto its desired end . 16. besides the foresaid houses , there are conventicles also kept in other more secret places , of which they dare not confide , even among themselves , for fear lest they should be discovered . first , every of them are called to certain inns , ( one not knowing of the other ; ) hence they are severally led by spies to the place where they ought to meet ; otherwise ignorant where they ought to assemble , lest peradventure they should be surprised at unawares . 17. the countess of a — a strenuous she-champion of the popish religion , bends all her nerves to the universal reformation ; whatsoever she hears at the king's court , that is done secretly , or openly , in words or deeds , she presently imparts to the pope's legat , with whom she meets thrice a day . sometimes in a — house , now at the court , then at tarthal . he scarce sucks such things by the claw . the earl himself , called now about three years since , this year ought to go to rome , without doubt to consult there of serious things concerning the design . at greenwich , at the earls cost , a feminine school is maintained , which otherwise is a monastery of nuns ; for the young girls therein , are sent forth hither and thither , into foreign monasteries beyond the seas . mr. p — of the king's bed-chamber , most addicted to the popish religion , is a bitter enemy of the king , he reveals all his greatest secrets to the pope's legat ; although he very rarely meets with him , yet his wife meets him so much the oftner , who being informed by her husband , conveys secrets to the legat. in all his actions , he is nothing inferiour to sir toby matthew ; it cannot be uttered , how diligently he watcheth on the business . his sons are secretly instructed in the popish religion ; openly , they profess the reformed . the eldest is now to receive his fathers office , under the king which shall be . a cardinal's hat is provided for the other , if the design shall succeed well . above three years past , the said mr. p — was to be sent away by the king to marocco ; but he was prohibited by the society , lest the business should suffer delay thereby . he is a patron of the jesuits , for whom , for the exercise of religion , he provides chappels both at home and abroad . secretary w — a most fierce papist , is the most unfaithful to the king of all men , who not only betrays and reveals even the king 's greatest secrets , but likewise communicates counsels , by which the design may be best advanced . he , at least thrice every week , converseth with the legat in nocturnal conventicles , and reveals those things which he thinks fit to be known ; for which end , he hired a house near to the legats house , whom he often resorts to , through the garden door ; for by this vicinity , the meeting is facilitated . the said secretary is bribed with gifts to the party of that conjured society , by whom he is sustained , that he may the more seriously execute his office. he sent his son expresly to rome , who was to insinuate himself into the roman pontif. sir d — sir w — mr. m — the younger , who hath been at rome ; my lord s — a cousen of the earl of a — the countess of n — the dutchess of b — and many others , who have sworn into this conspiracy , are all most vigilant in the design . some of these are inticed with the hope of court , others of political offices ; others attend to the sixteen cardinals caps that are vacant , which are therefore detained idle for some years , that they may impose a vain hope on those who expect them . the president of the aforesaid society was my lord gage , a jesuit priest , dead above three years since . he had a palace adorned with lascivious pictures , which counterfeited profaneness in the house , but with them was palliated a monastery , wherein forty nuns were maintained , hid in so great a palace : it is situated in queen-street , which the statue of a golden queen adorns . the secular jesuits have bought all this street , and have design'd it into a quadrangle , where a jesuitical college is built in private , with this hope , that it might be openly finished , as soon as the universal reformation was begun . the pope's legat useth a threefold character or cipher ; one of which he communicates with all nuncioes ; another , with cardinal barbarini only ; with a third , he covers some greater secrets to be communicated . whatsoever things he either receiveth from the society , or other spies , those he packs up together in one bundle , dedicated under this inscription ; to monsieur stravio , arch-deacon of cambray : from whom at last they are promoted to rome . these things being thus ordered , if every thing be laid to the ballance , it will satisfie in special , all the articles propounded . wherein 1. the conspiracy against the king and lord arch-bishop is detected , and the means whereby ruin is threatned to both , demonstrated . 2. the eminent dangers of both kingdoms are rehearsed . 3. the rise and progress of that scottish fire is related . 4. means whereby these scottish troubles may be appeased , are suggested : for after the scots shall know by whom and to what end their minds are incensed , they will speedily look to themselves , neither will they suffer the forces of both parts to be subdued , lest a middle party interpose , which seeks the ruin of both . 5. with what sword the king's throat is assaulted , even when these stirs shall be ended , cuneus his confession , and a visible demonstration , sheweth . 6. the place of the assembly in the house of captain read is nominated 7. the day of the eight days dispatch by read and the legat is prescribed 8. how the names of the conspirators may be known . 9. where this whole congregation may be circumvented . 10. some of the principal unfaithful ones of the king's party are notified by name ; many of whose names occur not , yet their habitations are known ; their names may be easily extorted from read. if these things be warily proceeded in , the strength of the whole business will be brought to light ; so the arrow being foreseen , the danger shall be avoided ; which that it may prosperously succeed , the omnipotent creator grant . the arch-bishops indorsement with his own hand . received , october 14. 1640. the narration of the great treason , concerning which he promised to sir william boswell to discover , against the king and state. historical remarks on the jesuits . whoever shall compare the before-recited plot against king charles the first , of glorious memory , with that against his most sacred majesty now reigning ; shall find them so like in all the parts and circumstances , that never were two brothers more : the design the same , the contrivance the same , the working and machination , all moving upon the same wheels of king-killing , and state-destruction ; and in reference to condition , quality , religion , and motive , the conspirators the very same . from whence it follows , that there is no such improbability of the late discovered plot , as the papists would have us believe . an ill name is half a conviction ; quo semel est imbuta recens , & naturam expellas furcalicet , are the jesuits morals : plot , contrivance , and cruelty are so much the essential attributes of jesuitism , as if like so many romulusses and remusses they had suckt the milk of wolves rather than of christian mothers , that when you hear of plots and designs against kings and princes , you may be assur'd what sort of cyclops were the forgers of such conspiracies . neither is this bare allegation , but matter of fact , there being nothing more frequently taught , nor more frequently practis'd , than the rebellious principles of the jesuits and their adherents . how abominably the reigns of several of our princes here in england has been pester'd with this generation of vipers and blood-suckers , the penal statutes of the kingdom , and the utter expulsion of the popish priests and jesuits out of the nation , are convincing evidences . and as to their behaviour in other countries , take this following account . first then it is a maxim most true and undoubted , that a vacuum in nature may be as soon allow'd , as that there is any court of king of prince where these jesuits do not swarm and abound , if they can but creep in at the least creviss . to come to particulars , we will begin with portugal , a kingdom altogether acknowledging the papal jurisdiction . in the year 1578. the jesuits perswaded sebastian king of that kingdom , to undertake that fatal expedition into africa , to the end that by his ruin they might transfer the kingdom to the dominion of the spaniard . the success answer'd their expectation ; for sebastian being cut off , together with his son , and the greatest part of the portugal nobility , presently philip king of spain prepares to invade portugal with two powerful armies : but well knowing how little right he had on his side , and how much he should be censur'd as well in italy as in portugal for such an action , he began to make it a point of conscience , and referr'd his scruples to be discuss'd by the jesuits and franciscans in the colledge of alcana de henares , and of them he desires to know , whether if it were apparent that he had a right to the crown of portugal by the death of henry , he were not oblig'd in conscience to submit himself to some tribunal , that should adjudge the kingdom to him . secondly , whether if the portugals should refuse to admit him for their king before the difference were decided between the competitors , he might not by force of arms invest himself in the kingdom by his own authority . to which the jesuits and pranciscans made answer , that philip was bound by no tye of conscience to subject himself to the will of another , but might act as he saw fitting by his own authority . which flattering sentence of those irreligious cusuists being approved by philip , he presently began the war. in the heat of which war , the jesuits were they that would have betray'd the chiefest of the azores islands to the spaniards , which so incens'd the people , that some would have had them try'd for their lives , others would have had them and their colledge burnt together . in france , joane albret queen of navarr , was poysoned with a pair of perfumed gloves , at the procurement of the jesuits , for being the patroness of those of the reformed religion . that rebellious league of the guizes against henry the third of france , was carried on and promoted by the jesuits , both at paris and other places : insomuch , that when the league got strength and began to appear , the jesuits making a wrong use of their power of confessing and absolving , would absolve none that professed themselves obedient subjects to the king. this unfortunate prince was not only harrass'd and tormented by this villanous and jesuitical league , not only driven out of his chief city , but at length at the instigation of the jesuits , stabb'd and murder'd by a dominican monk , by them procur'd . the murder was also applauded by pope sixtus the fifth , in a long oration spoke in a full consistory of cardinals in these words : that a monk ( saith he ) should kill the unfortunate king of france in the midst of his army , was a rare , noble , and memorable act. and a little further , this act , saith he , was done by the providence of god , design'd by the inspiration of the holy ghost ; a far greater act than that of judith , who slew holofernes . expressions rather becoming the mouth of a devil , than of a vicar of christ. after him henry the fourth was first attempted by barrier , exhorted and confirm'd in the lawfulness of the fact by varada the jesuit , and others of the same gang. secondly by john castell , at the instigation of gueret and guignard , both jesuits : and francis verona the jesuit , publisht an apology in vindication and justification of the fact : and lastly , murder'd out-right by francis ravaillac a great disciple of the jesuits . and for no worse pranks than these , they were banished out of france by decree of parliament , as corrupters of youth , disturbers of the public peace , and enemies to the king and kingdom . truly very honourable characters for those that pretend to be of the society of jesus . the venetians expell'd them upon this occasion : the senate observing that the ecclesiastics , especially the jesuits , began to engross lands and houses of their territories under the pretence of legacies , to the great damage of the public income , thought it convenient to put a stop to this jesuitical engrossment ; and provide by law that ecclesiastical persons should not possess all the temporal estates in their territories to themselves , but give leave for others to share with them , it being positively against the constitution of their order , and the institution of christ their founder . the jesuits took this in great dudgeon , and wrote to pope paul the fifth about it . the venetians being summon'd to answer , would not relinquish their right , protesting withal , that they had the supreme jurisdiction in their own territories , and consequently to make laws ; and that the pope had nothing to do with them in those matters . upon which answer , the pope thunders out his excommunication . the duke and senate by public decree condemn the excommunication as unjust and invalid ; which done , they call the whole body of their clergy , and to them declare how affairs stood . the elder sort take part with the commonwealth , and maintain the argument against the pope in writing , among whom paulus venetus was most eminently signal : the jesuits not enduring the kneeness of his reasons , hire two ruffians , and upon the fifth of october , 1607. set them to assassinate paulus venetus , who thinking they had done his work , left him for dead , and fled away . this was something near sir edmundbury godfreys case . the senate hearing this , by a new law banish the jesuits for ever out of their territories , and cut them off from all hope of ever returning : and this was their fortune in venice . in the year 1609. the bohemians made a complaint to the emperour against the jesuits , for the same encroachments of which the venetians had accused them before , desiring of caesar that they might no longer be permitted to transfer and translate into their own possession such ample patrimonies , under pretence of donations and legacies , as they did continually . of which when the emperour took little notice , they were by the bohemian states themselves in the year 1618. utterly expelled out of that nation for ever , with these characters : 1. that they were lavish wasters of the public peace and tranquility of the nation . 2. that they endeavour'd to subject all kingdoms and nations to the power of the pope . 3. that they did nothing but set the magistrates together by the ears . 4. that they made particular advantage of confessions , to the destruction of the people : with many other crimes of the same nature . the same year they were expell'd out of moravia for the same reasons ; and the next year out of hungaria for the same causes . in silesia also a decree was made , that the jesuits should not enter that province upon pain of death , as being the onely means to preserve peace in the nation . as to other villanies in poland , a polonian knight , himself a papist , in an oration by him made in a full assembly of the polonian nobility , declares , that cracow the most famous city of poland , and ornament of the kingdom , was so plagu'd by the jesuits , that several good men , though catholicks , affirmed , that they would rather live in the woods among wild beasts , than abide in the city . one time among the rest , these jesuits having brought their conspiracy to perfection , brake into the most ancient monument of antiquity in the city , and to the great danger of the whole city , set it on fire , as being granted to the evangelics by consent of the king , and states of the kingdom . in posnania another great city of the same kingdom , they set fire on the church belonging to those of the augustan confession , and committed so many insolencies without controul , that the nobility refus'd to meet at the dyet shortly after to be held at warsaw , resolving to repair further off to lublin , for the redress of these misdemeanours . neither indeed was there any thing more grievously burdensom to that kingdom than the pride and avarice of those miscreants . in muscovy , upon the death of the great duke basilowich , the jesuits set up one demetrius against the lawful heir , who had made them large promises , if he obtain'd the dukedom . thereupon by the help of these jesuits , the said demetrius gets aid from the king of poland , which was not onely the occasion of a great war in muscovy , but had like to have cost them the alteration of their laws , and loss of their ancient customs and priviledges , had they not prevented it by a desperate attempt upon the impostor , and put him to death ; surrounded with impostors and jesuits . the transilvanians publicly and with one consent laid all the cause of their miseries and calamities , upon the subtilties and contrivances of the jesuits , for which reason by a public decree of the states of that province , they were ejected out of the limits of their territories . nevertheless they secretly fomented the ruin of that country , and were the reason that sigismund bathor involv'd himself in war and trouble , and at length died an inglorious and miserable death . by their contrivance also stephen potski , prince of transilvania , opposing their bloody sect , was put out of the way , as they call it , by poyson , in the year 1607. in styria and carinthia , provinces of germany , they never left till they had voided those provinces of all the inhabitants of the reformed religion . in holland , they never left till they saw the blood of william prince of orange , spilt by the trayterous hand of balthasar gerard , a burgundian and disciple of their own . the same attempts did peter de tour , and other ruffians make upon the person of maurice his son , a brave and martial prince , and all at the instigation of the jesuits , those insatiable sons of blood and perdition . a vindication of the dissenting protestants , from being authors of the rebellion against the late king , and plotters of treason against his majesty now reigning . seeing then no corner of europe has been free from the plots and conspiracies of these jesuitical fiends , it would be a kind of crime and sleepy desertion of our own safety , to suffer our selves to be charm'd by the delusions of insinuating libels and rumors of presbyterian plots , to mistrust the truth of the continu'd jesuitical contrivances against the kingdom . neither can they be thought the best subjects of england , who are so willing to gratifie the popish party , by giving credence to such idle surmizes which they can have so little ground to believe . the jesuits have committed a great piece of villany in this nation ; they have attempted the life of the king , and have been plotting to subvert the established religion of the kingdom , and now they would throw it upon the presbyterians : which is a fourbery so plain , that common sense and policy may easily discover the full intent and meaning of it : and therefore it is fairly to be hop'd , that neither presbyterians , nor any other protestant dissenters will be so unchristian-like disloyal , as to receive any exasperation from these calumnies ; but rather unite against the common enemy , from whom they can expect no more mercy , than the severest champion of episcopacy can hope for . but you will say , the presbyterians are not accus'd of any design to bring in popery , but miraculously discover'd , as the authors of a plot to set up the classes of their own ecclesiastical government . well! if it were so , they were the arrantest bunglers of plotters that ever plotted mischief in this world : for i do not find their plot to be above a years standing ; and it was a plot that was driven on out of pure kindness to the papists . for the presbyterians understanding that the papists , ( their incarnate enemies ) were under a premunire , as being accused of treason and conspiracy against the king and kingdom ; they therefore would needs enter into a plot , which they would so order as to be discover'd a twelve-month after , to ease the papists of the load they groan'd under . so that as considering the time , it fell out most confoundedly unluckily , that the presbyteriaus should conceal this plot from the papists , till so many good , honest , pious and loyal priests of baal , and sons of belial were hang'd , which would never have been done , had there been the least inkling given of the meal-tub in season . but when the names of the persons came to be seen that were to be actors in this presbyterian tragedy , then to the laughter of the whole world , there never appear'd such a dow-bak'd plot out of a meal-tub since the creation , to bring so many great men plotting against their own prosperity and enjoyments ; so many wise and politie states-men , by whom the nation has been so long steer'd , to be plotters and conspirers against their own preservation . these are plots of such a strange nature , that if they could be thought reall , they would occasion the unhinging of the whole frame of order and government , while it were impossible for honour , probity , and reputation to remain upon the earth . obedience and allegiance to government are grounded either upon religion , or moral vertue ; or if these two fail , there is a necessity which obliges the ordinary fore-sight of prudence . against these ambition or revenge are the only combatants ; but neither ambition nor revenge can bear so great a sway in persons that understand the intrigues of policy , or the more mysterious management of prudence , as to delude them into plots and conspiracies where there is no prospect of a secure change. the presbyterians are a sort of people wary and deliberate : neither are their tenents , which had their rise and beginnings from men whom the papists themselves confess to have been men of great learning , eloquence , and exemplary lives , of that crimson constitution , as to prompt them to lay the foundations of their hierarchy in blood and massacre ; or so deeply to wound the reputation of the protestant religion , by the clandestine treachery and secret contrivances of disloyalty . for as for that design of the huguenots under francis the second , king of france , of which the prince of conde , and the admiral coligni were said to be chief ; that was no design against the life or person of the king , but against the exorbitant pride of the guises , duke and cardinal , who were at the same time papists , and were themselves contriving to take away the life of the young king , and translate the royal dignity into their own family . neither could the civil wars of france be said to be the rebellion of the hugonets : but a war of the queen regents , and the two guises own weaving , while they all strove to preserve their own authority . and the queen regent her self was the first that caus'd the prince of conde to take arms , as fearing the guises would wrest the government out of her hands , by recommending to his protection the young king charles the ninth her son , her self , and the kingdom . nay they were so far from being rebels to their king , that they joyn'd with the catholiques for the recovery of haure out of the hands of queen elizabeth , who had been their friend : and though the admiral and danaelot were not at the siege , for fear of being tared by the queen of ingratitude , yet they sent both their forces and friends . some indeed justly deserved to be blamed for the violence of their conduct in the late wars ; but it is a question , of which some make no doubt , whether those violences were not occasion'd by the papists in masquerade , who well knew how to intermix themselves both in their counsels and actions ; whether they did not stand behind the scene and prompt those sons of jehu ? whether they did not pour oyl upon those flames ? for it appears that the presbyterians ( if names of distinction may be us'd among people of the same religion ) were the first that relented , as is evident by votes of addresses , and their treaty at the isle of wight , not broke off by them , but by one that was playing his own game , and meditating the destruction both of his sovereign and them too : who having made his exit , they then considered what ill phaetons they had been before , and return'd the more skilful phoebus the reins of his chariot again . but that you may know that 't is an old dog-trick of the papists to play the devils incarnate , and lay their most wicked actions upon the innocent ; i will repeat this short story out of one of the choicest french historians , and a catholique to boot . the queen regent of france having long design'd the destruction of the protestants in france , and of all the chief heads of the reformed religion ; and among the rest of admiral coligni , the life and soul of the whole party , projects the execution , with the assistance of the duke of anjou , the counts of tavanes and raix , and the chancellor birague , and easily drew in the young king , whom they made believe that there was no safety so long as those persons were alive , and the young guises were as ready as she to revenge their fathers death . as for the king of navar , they had so order'd it , that he was to be marry'd at paris at that time , and that brought the prince of conde to the city . but the admiral more wary kept aloof , till the king had begun the war with spain in the low countries , which the admiral had so passionately desir'd , and of which the king and queen regent , had assur'd him the management . then he came an end , seeing the war begun , and two of his own favourites , noue and genlis , at the head of some thousands in flanders . and these three great personages , the king of navarr , the prince of conde , and the admiral coligni , brought such trains after them , as throng'd all paris with the flower of all the protestant nobility and gentry of france : who being all thus within the net , orders were given to make a general slaughter of all without distinction , excepting the king of navarr , and the prince of conde . hence proceeded that horrible massacre in the year 1572. which lasted for seven days together , to the destruction of above 5000 persons of all ages and sexes ; and among these above 600 persons of quality . after this deluge of blood , and that the queen had sent the head of coligny embalm'd as a present to the pope , the queen regent had contriv'd to lay the load of all the committed impiety upon the guises , who were captains of the massacre , believing that the monmor ancies would certainly seek to revenge the admirals death upon them : so that while those two factions ruin'd and destroy'd one another , she might have all the power in her own hands , and rule according to her own will. but the guises being aware of this design , and having the catholique nobility , the duke of montpensier , and the parisians on their side , caus'd the queen to change her note ; and thereupon she caus'd the king to write abroad , that all was done to prevent the detestable conspiracy of the admiral and his confederates , againsh his life and royal family . thereupon there was a court of justice erected , wherein the admiral was condemn'd , and after they had murder'd him , executed again in effigies , his goods confiscated , and his children degraded : and the better to colour this , two poor innocent gentlemen that had escaped the massacre , were apprehended for saving their lives , briquemaut , and arnaud de covagnes , as his accomplices , condemn'd to the same punishment , and executed accordingly . thus what these did , our late plotters would have done : we may then say to all protestants in general , felices agricole sua si bona norint , happy would they be , would they but know their own strength , would they but make the right use of these wicked contrivances of their enemies , and laying aside all froward puuctilio's of private opinions , joyn unanimously against the common adversary . for if it be a maxim falsly argu'd against , that peace and diversity of religions cannot be preserved in the same nation , as the ambassadors of the germane princes urg'd to charles the ninth of france ; much more truly may it be said , that little matters of difference between persons of the same religion can be no impediment to their union and conformity . but further to clear the dissenting protestants , i shall here add a perfect narration of the management and contrivance of the jesuits , to render the greater part of the principal men in this kingdom , as well those of the church of england , as the dissenters , obnoxious to the government , thereby utterly to ruin them and the protestant religion , which design god of his infinite goodness has been pleased to bring to confusion , and the instruments thereof through the same divine providence , we hope shortly to see brought to condign punishment . a compleat history of the last plot of the papists , upon the dissenting protestants . the late plot of the romish priests and jesuits for murdering his majesty , subverting the government and protestant religion , and introducing popery , being proved by undeniable evidences and circumstances ; the cunning jesuits thought it their best way ( since peoples eyes were too open to be made believe there was no plot ) to confess there was a plot , and to aggravate it too ; but withal to use their utmost skill to prove , that this plot was not a popish-plot , as was generally believed , but a pure design of the presbyterians , and other dissenters from the protestant church of england , to ruin the loyal roman chatholiques , whilst indeed themselves were the conspirators ; who ( whereas they gave out that the papists intended by murdering the king , &c. to bring in popery ) really intended by killing his majesty , to introduce presbytery and a commonwealth , and so at one blow subvert the government both in church and state , and then to set up a new one of their own under the name of conservators of the liberties of england : and for this purpose they had secretly given out commissions for raising an army , the principal officers whereof were such persons who seemed to have the greatest share in the peoples affections . this design being agreed to by these hellish miscreants , all possible diligence was used to bring it to execution ; and for this purpose they drew up the scheme of a government they intended to impeach several of the truly loyal nobility and gentry , and the whole body of dissenting protestants , of conspiring . this being done , they began to form letters of intelligence concerning this presbyterian plot , and also to provide themselves with persons to swear for the truth of their allegations . to this end mrs. cellier ( a zealous papist , and midwife to the lady powis , and other roman catholic ladies ) procures the enlargement of one wiltoughby , aliàs dangerfield , aliàs thomas ; aliàs day , who had been a prisoner in newgate about six weeks , and had been convicted once at salisbury assizes , ( where he was fined five pounds , and sentenced to stand three several times in the pillory , which he did twice , and then brake prison and escaped ; ) and twice at the old bailey , for uttering false guineys , ( where for the first offence he was fined fifty pounds , and for the second he got his majesties pardon . ) he was no sooner released from newgate , but he was arrested and thrown into the counter , from whence by the means of bannister and scarlet she got him removed to the king's-bench , where ( after some fruitless attempts to get some papers relating to captain bedlow from one strode a prisoner there ) he was furnished with money by the five lords in the tower , viz. the lord bellasis , the lord powis , the lord petre , the lord arundel , and the lord stafford , ( mrs. cellier also giving him 5 l. ) to compound all his debts , &c. before mrs. cellier would discharge him from newgate , she made tryal of his wit , by ordering him to draw up articles according as she directed , against captain richardson , which he perform'd to her liking , and confirm'd her in the choice she had made of his being a fit person to carry on the designed plot. the general esteem the conspirators had of him is evident by the trust they reposed in him ; for though they had several others to carry on their new plot , yet he appears to have the chief management of it . being now sufficiently provided with instruments to execute their damnable designs , this dangerfield was recommended to his majesty by a great person , as one who was much concerned in a plot of the presbyterians against his life and government , and that from time to time he would make discovery thereof . thus they endeavoured to insinuate into his majesties mind a belief of the plot , that he might not be surpriz'd at the discovery they intended to make . another of the intended actors in this tragedy , was thomas courtees , once a clerk to sir william bucknal , one of the excise farmers , then a servant to mr. henry nevil , and after to a worthy member of parliament ; from whose service , he fell into a lewd course of life : but being thought a man fit for the design in hand , he was entertained for one of the witnesses . this person was very industrious in promoting a belief of this presbyterian plot ; for being well acquainted with mrs. bradley , who keeps the house called heaven in old palace-yard ; and there being a club of several honest gentlemen kept at her house , he desired her to bring him into their company , which she promised to endeavour . discoursing with her about the late plot , he told her , that it would shortly appear to be a plot of the presbyterians , and that they were privately giving out commissions for raising an army : whereupon she demanded , who gave out the commissions ; to which he replyed , it was mr. blood ; and added further , that if she would use her interest with mr. blood , to get a commission for him , though it were but for an ensign , he would give her 100 l. and told her also that he should get 5000 l. by it . mrs. bradley told this to mr. blood , who fearing the consequence , acquainted his majesty therewith , and from him received encouragement to make a further inquiry into this matter . mr. blood hereupon desired the woman to keep still her correspendency with courtees , and if possible to find out the mystery of this business . courtees came several times afterwards to the house , and discoursed freely with her about the before-mentioned matter , and told her , that he knew seven or eight persons who were employed upon the same account as he was . but that which follows put a stop to his proceedings , and made these wicked agents carry themselves more warily . the jesuits thought it not sufficient to throw the plot upon the presbyterians ; unless they could likewise bring off the evidence that had sworn against them , and by getting them to recant , put their innocency out of question . for this purpose mr. dugdale , one of the kings evidence , is attempted by one mrs. price , ( for whom it is said mr. dugdale had formerly some kindness ; ) she warily discovers her design , and he as warily entertains it ; and after some treaty , one mr. tesborough appears in the case . they promis'd mr. dugdale a great sum of money , upon condition that he would recant what he had sworn , and sign a paper , which they had ready drawn up to this effect . being touched with a true remorse of conscience , and an hearty sorrow for the great evil i have done , in appearing as a witness against the catholicks , and there speaking that which in my own conscience i know to be far from the truth ; i think my self bound in duty to god , to man , and for the safety of my own soul , to make a true acknowledgment , how i was drawn into thesewicked actions ; but being well satisfied that i shall create my self many powerful . enemies upon this account , i have retired my self to a place of safety , where i will with my own hand discover the great wrong that has been done the catholicks , and hope it may gain belief : i do likewise protest before almighty god , that i have no motive to induce me to this confession , but a true repentance for the mischiefs that i have done , and do hope that god almighty will forgive me . having done this , they told him he might immediately withdraw himself beyond the seas into spain , where he should be honourably entertained , during his stay there , which should be no longer than till they had brought their designs to their desired end , and then he should be recalled , and have both riches and honour conferr'd upon him as a reward for faithfully serving the catholick interest . mr. dugdale seemed willing to agree to their proposals , ( though at the same time he acquainted several honest gentlemen of every particular that passed ) if the reward could be ascertained to him ; but as for the two proposers he would not take their security for it ; whereupon they offered the security of a forein ambassador , but he told them that he thought him a person not fit for security , because he might suddenly be commanded home , and then he could have no remedy against him . then they proposed several others , whose security they said he need not question ; but still he found a plausible excuse ; his design being onely to gain time , that he might make a further discovery who set them on work . his delays created a jealousie in them , that he never intended to answer their desires ; wherefore least he should discover this treaty , and render them liable to punishment , ( as it happened in mr. readings case ) they were resolved to begin with him first ; and by the assistance of a great person , a complaint was made against mr. dugdale , that he offered for a sum of money to recant his evidence , and that he would have signed such a paper as before-mentioned ; adding withal , that it was a lamentable thing to consider how much blood had been shed upon such evidence . upon this mr. dugdale was summoned before the king and council , where giving a full relation of the affair , and having those gentlemen ready , whom he had all along acquainted with the intrigue to prove what he said ; and it plainly appearing , that mrs. price and mr. tesbrough had endeavoured to take off the kings evidence , they were both committed to safe custody . this it was that alarm'd courtees . mr. dangerfield in this time had been employed to murder the earl of shaftsbury , which he twice attempted , but could not meet with an opportunity , the earl refusing to speak in private with him ; which he urged , under pretence that he had something to reveal to his lordship of great concern to his lordships person . he waited on his lordship by the name of day , and went armed with a dagger , which he received from mrs. cellier , to whom three or four were brought by mr. rigaut . to perform this murther , he was promised 500 l. by the lords powis and arundel , ( the lord arundel giving him then 10 guineys ) and encouraged by the lady abergaveny , lady powis , mrs. cellier , and others , and his confessor sharp conjur'd him to stab him with all possible speed . after his first disappointment , they advised him to tell the earl that he was in danger of being impeached for high treason , and that from letters under his own hand ; and that when he should find himself in the tower , he would have cause to repent that he had refused to hear what he had to tell him . these instructions he followed , and told his lordship that his servants had copied out his letters , from whence would be drawn matter to form an impeachment : but the earl would not be wheadled by this to give him a private audience , and thereby administer to him an opportunity of taking away his life ; but askt him which of his servants they were that had copied out his letters : to which dangerfield replyed , that he knew not . then the earl answered , that he knew that all he said was false , for that if his letters were made known to all the world , there would not be found matter sufficient to endanger the least hair of his head , much less to form an impeachment . whereupon dangerfield told him , that if that was his lordships opinion , he would take his leave ; and so departed , leaving his lordship a little jealous of his intentions . the lady powis would have perswaded him upon a third attempt , which he refusing , she struck him gently on the hand with her fan , calling him cow-hearted fellow , telling him , she would do it her self ; but mrs. cellier told her , that should not be , for she would perform it . in order to which , the very next day she went armed with a dagger , to wait upon his lordship , who received her very civilly ; but being made more wary than formerly , by dangerfields last carriage , he strictly observ'd her , and perceiving her fumbling about her pocket , betwixt jest and earnest , he clapt his hands upon hers , and there held them , pleasantly drolling with her till she was ready to depart ; but she was not gone so far as the door , before she offer'd to return , which his lordship observing , stept to her again , and clapping his hands upon hers , quite dasht her out of countenance ; so that she departed without attempting further . thus was his lordship thrice , by divine providence , miraculously preserved from the bloody hands of papists . the plot being now ripe for execution , and treasonable letters ready written , to be conveyed into the custody of such persons they intended to accuse , and two or more witnesses prepared to swear the delivery and receit of such letters or commissions against every man in their black list ; dangerfield under the name of thomas , takes a lodging in ax-yard in westminster , ( pretending himself a country-gentleman ) where lay one colonel mansel , whose chamber he soon made himself acquainted with , and therein conveyed about nine or ten of the aforesaid treasonable letters , superscribed to several honest gentlemen and persons of quality , some of which were favourers of the dissenting protestants : when he had so done , he informed some of the officers belonging to the custom-house , that in that house there was concealed great quantities of french-lace , and other prohibited goods , desiring them the next morning to bring a warrant with them and search the house , which they promised . at night he brought one captain bedford to lie with him ( as is supposed ) that he might be a witness against the colonel : next morning after the colonel was gone forth , came the officers to search for prohibited goods ; dangerfield was very officious in assisting them to search the colonel's chamber , and at length from behind the bed brings forth the before-mentioned pacquet of letters ; upon which , casting his eyes , and seeming surprized , he cryed out , treason , these are all treasonable letters ; whereupon the officers carried them away to the commissioners : but the colonel coming in soon after , and being acquainted with all that had past in his absence , found means to retrieve them again ; and when he had so done , he made some enquiry after dangerfield , of whose quality being well informed , he carried the letters to his majesty , with protestations of his own innocency , and dangerfield's villany . whereupon on the 23. of october , the council ordered dangerfield to be taken into custody by a messenger , and after a full hearing of the business before them , oobct . 27. they committed him to newgate . when colonel mansel had thus detected dangerfield , the above-mentioued captain bedford came in very generously of himself , and confessed several things he was privy to , amongst which , one was , that this dangerfield would have perswaded him to swear that sir thomas player spoke treason , thereby to have taken away the life of that honest gentleman . the letters before-mentioned gave light enough to perceive what the design was the papists were then contriving ; whereupon sir william waller ( who has been all along very zealous in discovering the priests , and their wicked plots , notwithstanding their threats and attempts to take away his life ) understanding that dangerfield used to lodge at mrs. celliers , went thither on wednesday , octob. 29. to search her house ; and that he might leave no place unsearcht , he ordered a tub of meal to he emptied , which being done , at the bottom thereof was found a little paper-book tyed with red ribbons , wherein was a list of several persons of quality , and others , to the number of above 500. whom they designed to ruin by this their new plot. they had set down his grace the duke of monmouth for general of the army to be raised ; the lord grey , lord brandon and his son , and sir thomas armstrong , for lieutenant-generals , sir william waller and mr. blood for major-generals , &c. the duke of buckingham , lord shaftsbury , lord essex , lord roberts , lord wharton , and lord hallifax , were to have been accused for the chief counsellors and managers of this plot. many other things were contained in these papers , relating to the management of their design : upon this mrs. cellier was committed to the gatehouse . their plot being now sufficiently laid open , dangerfield ( notwithstanding mrs. celliers encouragement to be constant and firm to the catholick cause ) thought it time to confess the truth , and being brought before the right honourable sir robert clayton lord mayor of london , on friday octob. 31. 1679. he made a large confession , which held them from five of the clock in the afternoon , untill two next morning . part whereof was , that he was sent for to the tower , whither he went in disguise , where after some discourse with the lord powis , the lord arundel asked him , if he were willing to do any thing to advance his fortune ; to which he answered he would do any thing . then the lord arundel asked him if he would kill the king for a good reward ; to which he replyed , he would kill any body but the king , or his royal brother . that then the aforesaid lord asked him the same question again ; and he answered , no. then said the lord powis , no , no , my lord arundel does onely this to try you : but my lord ( continued he ) what would you give him to kill the king ? 't is worth ( said the lord arundel ) 2000 l. that then the lord powis told him , he should have 500 l. to kill the lord shafisbury . that mr. gadbury told him , the lords in the tower were angry with him , as also chiefly the lord castlemain , for that he would not kill the king , when he might easily do it , and no hurt befall him . that here , upon he asked mr. gadbury , how no hurt should befall him , when in his opinion it could be no less than death ? to which gadbury made answer , that he knew he might do it safely , for at the request of the lady powis he had calculated his nativity , and that it was clear from thence . that the lord castlemain very angrily askt him , why he was so unwilling to do that for which he was released out of prison ; and fearing some mischief from him , he left him , and went and told mrs. cellier , that the lord castlemain was angry ; to which she replyed , that it was his custom to fall out one hour , and be good friends the next . that his confessor sharp told him he must do penance for denying to serve god , as the scriptures taught . that he askt him , if they taught him to kill his king ? to which sharp replyed , yes , if he were condemn'd by them . that when he told the lady powis and mrs. cellier , of having been alone with the king in his closet ; they both said , what an opportunity have you lost ? and the lady powis added , how bravely might you have killed him , if you had been provided ! that he was sent by the lady powis to mr. webb's at petterley in buckinghamshire , with a letter directed , for mrs. jean ; which mrs. jean he found to be a priest in womans habit. that upon reading the letter , jean administred the sacrament to him , obliging him thereby to secrecy ; and then gave him papers containing a rough draught of the plot against the presbyterians , which he told him were to be drawn up into particulars by the lords in the tower , and mr. nevil in the kings-bench . that mr. wood told him , the lords in the tower had consulted , that before mr. oates wat indicted , something should be made appear of a presbyterian plot. that one duddel brought him 27 letters , written most by by mr. nevil , which mr. turner the lord powis his priest , desired some catholiques might transcribe ; whereupon mrs. cellier sent for mr. singe who wrote there about a week . that the contents of these letters were , that there business went on well here at london , as they hoped theirs did in the country : that commissioners would shortly be ready ; ( mentioning in some of these letters the names of divers persons of quality ; ) and that they would now be their own choosers in matters of government , and use papists as they pleased . that these letters were to be sent into all parts of the kingdom where any presbyterians liv'd , and privately to be put into their houses , and then their houses were to be searcht , and these papers produced for evidence against them , as they intended against colonel mansel . saturday , novem. 1. his lordship waited on his majesty and council with dangerfield's confession ; and dangerfield being again sent for to come before the council , did further declare , that all the lords in the tower gave him money , more or less , and did desire him to go to turner the popish book-seller to get his remarks on the tryals printed . that the lord powis advised lane should be sent out of the way , lest if mr. oates should find him at his house , they should all be ruin'd . that he saw sir g. wakeman at mr. stamford's house , ( the duke of newburgh's agent ) in whose own room he lay , and that sir george told him , he hid himself there for fear of the people , who had posted a threatning paper over his door ; and that he had received 500 l. by the queens order for his transportation . that sir george asking his advice , how he might get away , he told him , he had best send for a shallop from calice to take him in about six miles from dover , which he did , and escaped to newport . that dormer was author of traytors transform'd into martyrs ; and that gadbury had writ a ballad and several pamphlets . that the second time he visited the earl of shafssbury , he intended to stab him , and then put out the candle , and under pretence of running down to light it , have made his escape . that the two books taken ( whereof one was found in a meal tub ) was writ by him , and that the names therein were all dictated to him by the lady powis . that mrs. cellier and he used the words , lady mary for the king , and lady anne for the duke . in the afternoon mrs. cellier was examin'd , and declar'd , that dangerfield had for some time lain at her house . that she paid 3 l. 10. s. out of the money to be distributed to prisoners for his release , but denyed the paying of twenty pounds , or five pounds , as had been alledged . that she employed dangerfield onely to get in some desperate debts belonging to her husband , and to bail two or three persons out of prison , and in nothing else . that she did lie at the lady powis ; but denied she sent a note to dangerfield in newgate , till the note was produced , and then she own'd it . that she knew nothing of killing the earl of shaftsbury . that she did indeed go to the said earl upon business . that dangerfield did draw up articles against captain richardson , but not by her order . then dangerfield was call'd in again , who said further , that banister and she visted him in the kings-bench , and that she order'd him to get the papers from strode about mr. bedlow ; to which end , hitton the priest advised that opium should be put into strode's drink . that margaret mrs. celliers maid brought him opium from mrs. celliers son-in-law , plasdel ; and that mounson told him how to use it . that knowles and sharp , priests , told him if he continued firm to the business , he would thereby merit heaven . mrs. cellier confess'd , that she hid the papers in the meal-tub : that she did agree with mr. dangerfield to use lady mary in stead of king , and lady anne in stead of duke . and that gadbury did calculate dangerfield's nativity , but said , he would be hang'd . then the lady powis was examined , who denied all , except , that she paid ten shillings per week to mrs. cellier for dangerfields diet. that she saw him in the stone-gallery , but was not near enough to speak to him . that once and no more she discoursed him at mrs. celliers , and that then he told her of some treasonable letters hid at westminster , and that the secretary refused to give him a warrant to search for them , unless he would make affidavit of it ; and that then mrs. cellier advised him to make use of the custom-house officers to search for them . on sunday , nov. 2. mr. gadbury was examined , who acknowledged , that he had seen mr. dangerfield once or twice at his house with mrs. cellier , and that he thought he cast his nativity under the name of thomas , and that looking on his horoscope , he did say , it prognosticated a bold and adventurous man , but does not remember that he told mrs. cellier he would be hang'd . that he likewise cast the lord powis his nativity , and that it was a usual thing with him to cast the nativities of such persons of quality , whose time of birth he could be assured of . but as to other things , he said , he was innocent . nov. 1. susan edwards , mrs. cellier's maid , deposed , that she carried notes to mr. dangerfield from her mistress , when he was in newgate ; as also a guinney , twenty shillings in silver , and two books of accounts : as likewise a message by word of mouth , importing , that mrs. cellier's life lay in mr. dangerfield's hands . and said , that the lady powis had been three times at her mistresses in five weeks time that she lived there , and that once she had discourse with mr. dangerfield . nov. 2. william woodman deposed , that mr. dangerfield was two months at the lord powis's house , and that mrs. cellier and he writ often ; and that he carried letters from them to the lady powis in the tower ; as also letters from the lady powis to nevile in the king's bench ; to whom also he had carried letters from mr. dangerfield and mrs. cellier . mary ayray deposed , that duddel and she carried notes taken by mr. willoughby , aliàs dangerfield , at langhorn's trial , to mr. nevil in the king's bench , and that they left dangerfield at a coffee-house in the mean time . that she carried a letter from nevil to mrs. cellier , and another from mrs. cellier to the lady powis . that she had seen sing often with mrs. cellier . that dangerfield writ the speeches of the five jesuits , as they were dictated to him by mrs. cellier . that she had seen lane ( by mrs. cellier's order called johnson ) at powis-house . bennet duddel a carpenter , deposed , that he had seen mr. dangerfield at powis-house . that he went with mrs. ayray to the king's bench , and mr. dangerfield stayed in the mean time at a coffee-house there by . that they brought papers back with them , and that soon after mrs. ayray went to the tower. that at powis-house he has often seen mr. dangerfield , mrs. cellier , and others , writing . that mr. lane lay in the house , and that mrs. cellier was once much concerned when she thought him lost . that dangerfield once asked him if he could make a printing-press . that he went to the gate-house once or twice with mrs. ayray , who carried money to the prisoners . that by the lady powis's order he made a private place in powis-house . to all these depositions , the lady powis being called in , answered particularly . to susan edwards , that when she came to mrs. cellier , she never lighted from her coach. to woodman , that she never receiv'd a letter from nevil , or sent one to him . that she had received several from mrs. cellier , and perhaps she might have received one from dangerfield . that going to see the lady gage in the kings-bench , some body pointed to nevil as he stood at the window : and excepting once she never saw him besides that time . to duddel , that mrs. ayray did bring her some remarks upon langhorns tryal , but she never saw any thing from nevil . to mrs. ayray , that she never brought her any message from nevil . being demanded , whether mrs. cellier had not been with her in the tower from mr. willoughby ? she answered , yes ; but that she never saw willoughby but twice . hereupon mrs. cellier being called , and askt , whether she had not been in the tower with the lady powis ; she stiffly denied it : but being told , the lady powis her self had own'd it , she then confess'd she had been there . captain bedford was then called in , and said , that he was at several clubs with dangerfield . that he was at thompsons the printers , where was printing , the presbyterian unmask'd . that dangerfield paid money to dormer in s. john's . that dangerfield would have got a list of the club at the kings-head , but the drawer would not give it him . that at the green dragon he got the names of about 60 persons that used to meet there . that he went with him to the sun and ship taverns , where he enquired if the duke of monmouth had not been there the night before he went away . that dangerfield said , gadbury brought him acquainted with sir robert peyton . that dangerfield told him , the lord shafisbury , sir william waller , doctor tongue , and others , had private meetings near fox-hall about the plot. the earl of peterborough being called in , and having an account of what was laid to his charge , made a very plausible speech in answer thereto ; and as to the business of sir robert peyton , he said , that mrs. cellier told him that among others which she had brought over to be serviceable to his majesty and the duke , sir robert peyton was one , who had declared to her , that he would gladly come in , but that he thought the duke of that temper , that he would never forget an injury . that then he assured mrs. cellier , the duke was no such person ; and then she replyed , that sir robert would willingly meet him at mr. gadbury's . that they did meet accordingly at mr. gadbury's , where sir robert did say , that he would serve the king to all purposes ; but seemed to doubt of the dukes being reconciled to him . that afterwards he waited on the duke at his lordships lodgings , and from him received all the assurance of favour he could desire . these are the principal things that were acted before the king and council , the result whereof was , that the earl of castlemain ( first ) and ( after ) the lady powis was committed to the tower , mr. gadbury to the gate-house , mr. 〈◊〉 and mrs. cellier to newgate , and several others to the custody of messengers . about this time sir william waller ( searching a house near the arch in lincolns-inn fields , leading to duke-street ) seized on several habits , vestments , crucifixes , reliques , and other popish trinkets , all very rich ; as allodivers trunks and boxes full of books and papers , that did belong to father hercourt lately executed , wherein are set down several great sums of money paid by him in about 7 or 8 years last past , for carrying on the catholique cause ; as likewise many other things that confirm the truth of the kings evidence . among the relicks was found one great piece of antiquity , and by computation of time near 800 years old . it was a cross of gold , weighing about 4 ounces , upon which on the one side was engraven these words , defendite gentes hanc partem crucis omnipotentis ; in english , defend o ye nations this part of the omnipotent cross : on the other side were engraven the arms of alfred king of england , who dyed in the year 901. besides which engraving , it was empail'd with divers precious stones of a considerable value . within this cross was another cross of ebony , to which the gold one seem'd to serve onely for a case ; and as if it had been a little nest of serpentine idolatry , the ebony cross was inlaid with another cross of a quite different wood , which it is suppos'd , they believ'd to be a piece of our saviour's cross. there was also a gold ring with a motto wrap'd up in white paper , upon which was written , the ring of the bishop of glascow , with several other curiosities , which are as yet preserv'd . on novem. 5. mr. courtees was taken and brought before justice warcup , who having taken his examination , sent him to the gate-house . at his examination , he gave an account of his first acquaintance with mr. willoughby , ( not knowing then that he went by any other name ) and that willoughby told him , that the presbyterians were conspiring against the king and government , and were privately raising an army , and that mr. blood was one that gave out commissions for that purpose ; and perswaded him to use his endeavour to get one , and if he could do so , he would bring him to the king , whereby he should get 5000 l. and that upon this he made his application to mrs. bradley in order thereto , believing what dangerfield said , and that there was really a presbyterian plot on foot : so that what he did , he said was upon a loyal design . but there is some cause to suspect what he said , if we reflect on what mrs. bradley deposed on nov. 1. and what he acknowledged now ; viz. that the last time mrs. bradley saw him , asking him when they should get the 5000 l. he replied , that he would not meddle in it , that it troubled his conscience , and that it would be treachery if it were done , and it is to no purpose to meddle in it now , for there is a list found out . however it be , he is since bailed out of the gate-house : and for a confirmation of his guilt , is gone aside . and now almost every day new discoveries are made , either of priests or their appurtenances , reliques and feditious papers . dormer a priest was seized by dr. oates at the door of the council-chamber , on nov. 4. as he was busie in discourse with the lady powis , and was sent to newgate . on nov. 11. sir william waller seized at turner's in holborn , several seditious and scandalous libels , popish books and pamphlets ; as also divers beads , and priests habits , and some reliques , one of which was a very fine handkerchief , which had been dip'd in the blood of the five jesuits lately executed . not long after sir william seized on one william russel , alias napper , a franciscan fryar , and titular bishop of norwich : with him were taken the garments belonging to his office ; as also the form of an oath of abjuration , for his proselytes , to this effect ; that they did from thenceforth renounce those damnable and heretical doctrines , wherein they had been educated and instructed , and that they did oblige themselves under the penalty of damnation to remainsted fast in the faith of the mother-church of rome , &c. together with a latin prayer , in the margin whereof was written in english , whoever says this prayer shall be free from the plague . and several popish books , &c. on friday . nov. 21. sir robert peyton , mr. nevil , mr. gadbury , mrs. cellier with her maids , and others were severally examin'd ; when it was sworn , that sir robert peyton had had frequent conferences with mr. dangerfield ; and the further hearing of the matter being put off till wednesday , nov. 26. sir robert was then ordered to give bail for his appearance at the kings-bench-bar , the first day of the next term , to answer to such informations as should then be brought against him by the attorney-general . dr. oates during these transactions had two of his servants , lane ( often mentioned in this history ) and osborn , confederated with one knox belonging to the lord treasurers family , against him , who indicted him for no less a crime than sodomy : but it being proved a malicious slander , and his accusers perjured villains , who were hired by the lords in the tower , to invalidate his evidence , the jury brought it in ignoramus . and dr. oates thereupon bringing in an indictment against them in the kings-bench , knox and lane ( osborn being fled ) were tried on tuesday , nov. 25. when the whole design was so particularly laid open , especially by mr. dangerfield , ( whose pardon was perfected the day before ) that every one present was convinc'd of the intended villany , and the jury ( without the lord chief justice's summing up the evidence ) declared them guilty of the indictment : but their sentence is deferred till next term. we shall here close our history with our prayers to god , to bring to light all the dark contrivances of jesuits and wicked men ; and to their plots , and our divis●●●●● dangers , put finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a67878-e1060 ye had reason so to do . it is an unanswerable dilemma . i concur totally with you in opinion , assuring you , that no body doth , or shall know of this business ; and to shew my care to conceal it , i received this but this afternoon , and now i make this dispatch before i sleep . herewith i send his warrant , as you advise , which indeed i judge to be the better way . i like your answer extreme well , and do promise not to deceive your considence , nor make you break your word . i have sent all back . i think these apostyles will be warrant enough for you to proceed , especially , when i expresly command you to do so . in this i am as far from condemning your judgement , as suspecting your fidelity . york , sept. c. r. 13. 1640. the catholick gamesters, or, a dubble match of bowleing with an account of a sharp conference held on the eve of st. jago between his holiness and the mahometan dons in st. katherines bastile ... : to the tune of the plot in the meal-tub, or, tan-ta-ra-ra-ra make shift / published by a by-stander to prevent false reports. by-stander. 1680 approx. 13 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a31346 wing c1493a estc r37537 16968419 ocm 16968419 105549 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a31346) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 105549) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1611:26) the catholick gamesters, or, a dubble match of bowleing with an account of a sharp conference held on the eve of st. jago between his holiness and the mahometan dons in st. katherines bastile ... : to the tune of the plot in the meal-tub, or, tan-ta-ra-ra-ra make shift / published by a by-stander to prevent false reports. by-stander. 1 broadside : ill. printed at the half-way house that stood between bothwel-bridge and holy road-house, [edinburgh] : february 14, 1680. in verse. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng catholic church -controversial literature. anti-catholicism -england. popish plot, 1678. 2006-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-05 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-05 ali jakobson sampled and proofread 2007-05 ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the catholick gamesters or a dubble match of bowleing some of the protestant peers p. rupert d. buckingham bis . hereford bis . lincolne d. monmouth m. winchester e. shastesbury . l. p.c e. essex . l. com. tr● earls kent huntingdon bedford clare stamford salisbury dorset . ●● . middlesex . exeter bridgwater . devonshire manchester . winchelse● chesterfield . rochester burlington . hallifax radnor . lincolne viscount say & seal viscount faulconbridge lords . e●re . wharton pagett . chandos north-grey of rollesto● grey of wark mountague of bough●●n howard of escrick herbert of cherbury lovelace . halton lucas . rockingham holles . dellam●re townesend . crew the loyal protestants of the house of comons . the fatall gap see godfrey dyes ▪ he was the nations sacrafice the kings evidence dr. oates . dr. tong● . capt. bedlow . mr. ●irby . mr. everard . mr. dugdale . mr. prance . mr. baldron . mr. mowbray . mr. dangerfield . mr. genison mr. smith . 3 popish mises doe you see him madam he 's dead a blessed begining london burnt by popish preists and iesuits sep : 2 1666 prov. sinto●s prov. strange prov. whitebread k●imish blundel harcourt strike home theire works done . green bury hill gerrard kelley with others godfreys murderers october 12 : 78 da●bysis the legorn purser here 's your ground sir the vpper games , for lives a peice yee traytors don bellois don staffois don asonis don arundis don p●trois don powwowis that 's the bowle that does it dam yee both wheather will yee thrust uss kind devill here 's youre bowlers yee herriticks deare pope they are holy gamesters if they carry 〈◊〉 corner your'e da●eing gamesters , all at stake to venture but look o' th scaffold ( traitors ) where yee center the nine-pins yeilds uss trotting and serues to hide our plotting bowle on you sonns of rome but know wel 'e hold yee rubbers ere you goe with an account of a sharp conference held on the eve of st. jago , between his holiness and the mahometan dons in st. katherines bastile : wherein their nine-pins are wholly condemned , and their worships severely checkt , for playing at that small game now in the heat of his harvest . to the tune of , the plot in the meal-tub ; or , tan-ta-ra-ra-ra , make shift . [ published by a by-stander , to prevent false reports . ] who likes to read , may judg what 's coming on us , and pray ( in earnest ) lord have mercy upon us . read he that likes , whilst he that likes it not , is fairly judg'd he likes their damned plot. enter pope disguis'd . at nine-pins now ! a pretty hopeful game : was it for this your worships hither came ? a curst mistake ! i find our choicest tools , and greatest knaves , are now the greatest fools . by hell i 'm angry , that ye should so miss the game above , where but one murder'd is ; ye pawn'd your souls t' have ruin'd all ere this , but strangely fail'd in 't ! now you turn your hand and bowl for farthings , whilst they firmly stand like rocks together . tell me , sirs , what you i' th devil's name with me intend to do ? what a damn'd journey have you made me take , allong of you , and mother-churches sake , been tost at sea , and rowl'd about the nore ; i 'le heretick turn before i 'le go it more . then where 's your worships if i leave my beads ? a parl. comes next , and off go all your heads . that must be done before th' incredulous rout will ere believe that i am come about . they know already we dispense with those that go to church , take sacrament , and oaths : therefore not trust us what we say or swear , till t'other's done , that we in earnest are . which way to take my thoughts are undirected , until i find how mounsieur stands affected . but should i turn in truth , it 's good enough for such insipid common nine-pin stuff . my self may get by 't , save a thing more rare than this same triple bawble now i wear , which otherwise is hazarded i swear . howere i 'le venture 't , prove it good or ill , and have a push for 't ere i lose it will. [ and so you may , sir pope ; but one thing know , i miss my mark if ere you get it so . but that 's by th' way , perhaps i do but jest ; i pray go on ( sir ) let us hear the rest . ] ye shall ( quoth he ) i must my stomack ease , and speak the truth , tho some it may displease . when i commissions to your worships sent to be my chieftains in the [ blest intent , ] ( you know my meaning ) then 't was better things , to murder subjects , stob or poison kings , and lay those northern hereticks in blood , who have our see for many years withstood . this was the game ye first did undertake ; but that ye did no better progress make , amus'd the consults , and astonish'd all , to see you baffled by a godfrey fall . by th' mass ( sir dons ) i wonder at your sloth , that damn'd neglect ( in time ) may ruine both . had you pursu'd it then , 't is ten to one you might with ease the royal game have won . i fear my lady spoke the naked truth to that same dangerous ( but apostate ) youth , that all our men of courage now were gone , ( or in fair way to be so ere 't be long . ) what shame is it ( ye gamesters ) for to see your ghostly fathers mount the triple tree , for their bold actions , holy traitors dear , while you , like drones , do trifle out the year . there 's one thing more i ought not to omit , nor you , great dons , in gratitude forget , though they did penance , ye have scapt the hand of commons-foes who 're gathered in the land. but to disperse them was a mystery , too great to think what cost my friends and i , those mortal foes know so much of our plot , that had they chanc't much longer to have sat , by peter's chair , you all had gone to pot. and can you be so idle as to think , we run such hazards , parted with our chink , for game at nine-pins ? no , it gain'd you time , that ye might spring a second counter-mine . then down with pins , and throw aside the bowl , let each man fall to plotting in his soul ( if he have any ) make it now appear they are devoid of either grace or fear . cabal together , guinnies will , i 'm sure , keep argos hands , and hundred eyes secure ; and ere 't be long some stratagem contrive , which may your freedoms and my cause retrieve . let hell direct you ; but if hell be dry , i 'le send some priests shall keep ye company , and that 's as well : a jesuit or two not long ago the devil could out-doe . to make all sure then , this my counsel is , which being follow'd , doubtless cannot miss : pursue the game i' th meal-tub was begun , and he that dares that bold adventure run , shall be my darling , satan's eldest son. follow that close , get presbyterian down , the day 's our own , ye cannot miss the crown . farewell , old friends , i must make haste away , for fear they burn me if i longer stay . here , reader , we the second part begin : mark how the dons rail at the man of sin. we have an old true saying of our own , when knaves fall out , the truth is often known . dons . pox on his picture , and his cause so pure , between 'em both they 've ruin'd us we 're sure . must we , like spaniels , to the work be bang'd of mother-church , and merit to be hang'd ? ruine our fortunes , hazard thus our lives , nay , bin so mad as wheedle in our wives ; but they must go ( they say ) the devil drives : and after all , like common things , rejected , because our projects have not been effected . can we the ill luck of our ruffians help , when here confined prisoners , ye whelp ? had they but acted what we did contrive , there had not been an heretick alive . so full of lies and perjuries they were , not you your self could mend them , were you here . but if they 'r spoil'd in executing , we have done our parts , as all the world may see . pope . hold , mighty dons ! me-thinks too fast ye go . vvhat have ye done , that ye upbraid me so ? all i have gotten by your great projects are a few saints , with ropes about their necks , so hasht and butcher'd , all my labour 's vain ; not lucifer can set them right again . hell keep the rest from justice ( we call fury ) and send them walkman's , or a gascoin jury , pick'd , brib'd , instructed how to murder truth , from grand st. martins bull , and cits wide mouth . dons . what have we done ? fools may that question make . vvhat have not done for your cursed sake ? here 's some among us for this fifty years have traitors been ; engaged by the ears the best of subjects with their lawfull king , of which blest work the universe did ring ; got into arms , then after him we run , and never left him till he was undone . vvhat seignior con could not by poison do , our party did : his end we brought him to . three hundred thousand murdered at least in england , scotland , and the irish feast . and since the nation did his son restore , vve have bin full as active as before ; have hunted counter in his parliaments , got pentioners , who voted by contents . got bills to pass against the common good , and ever yet its happiness withstood . by us their church and state is so divided , they quarrel yet : nor can it be decided , ( impatient we ! ) until dunkirk's sold : 't was got by rebels . but the tangier mould , vvhen finished , will all the shipping hold . us'd all our skill to break the triple league , made james confess to beddingfield and teage . in that ( by hell ) we shew'd our highest art , and stabb'd the protestant int'rest to the heart . imploy'd our priests , who did the city burn , and heretick churches into ashes turn . beat butter boxes when we could come at 'em , which led the way unto the ships at chattam , then all we did , was , bid the devil rot ' em . conjoyn'd our butchers with our friend of france ; and to our councils , petticoats advance ; by whom he knows , as well as heart can wish , what ere we do , as beggar knows his dish . begun a war , then up a peace did smother , to break their allies ; then begin another . to turks and frenchmen did the shipping sell , as heretick marvel late the world did tell . all this we did , and ten times so much more , to serve our ends , and mother-church [ that whore ] before we to the present trick did fall ; and had that took , w' had done the devil and all : and what that is , your holiness can guess , for wee 'l be damn'd ere any on 't confess . nor does it matter whether we do or not , since heretick commons have so much on 't got , by him whose name , and oaten pipe , doth fret our very guts , as on the tenters set , we curse our stars he is not ruin'd yet . but there 's some hopes , by what we hear of late , whose lives he sav'd , requite him with their hate . a good reward ! but had he half on 't done for mother-church , he had the popedom won . and now , dear friends , you jesuits , be judg if 't is not hard his holiness should grudg a little pleasure , which affords us trotting , after whole days [ and nights ] we have bin plotting ; witness our pacquets twice a week that dance to rome , to spain , to portugal , and france , from whence ere long we hope to have such friends shall set us free , accomplish all our ends. tell us 't was hee kept common-foes from sitting ! 't is known he lies : for , did we think it fitting , we other reasons for the same could show , than he ( perhaps infallible ) doth know . but let that pass : 't is done , we thank our stars , those fiery jades that draw in titan's cars . now after all , should we be left i' th lurch , our prayer shall be , the devil take the church . in troth , that 's honest . to conclude , i shall give my amen , the devil take ye all , for plotting villains , worse than canibal . england will nere be safe , nor christendom , till all your necks under the hatchet come . then the tune is , finis , funis . printed at the half-way house that stood betwixt bothwel-bridge and holy rood-house . february 14. 1680. the tryals of robert green, henry berry, & lawrence hill for the murder of sr. edmond-bury godfrey kt., one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex at the kings-bench bar at westminster, before the right honourable sir william scroggs ... on monday the 10th of february 1678/9 : where, upon full evidence they were convicted, and received sentence accordingly on tuesday, the next day following. green, robert, d. 1679. 1679 approx. 242 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 49 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63219 wing t2256 estc r24642 08258552 ocm 08258552 41250 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63219) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 41250) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1242:19) the tryals of robert green, henry berry, & lawrence hill for the murder of sr. edmond-bury godfrey kt., one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex at the kings-bench bar at westminster, before the right honourable sir william scroggs ... on monday the 10th of february 1678/9 : where, upon full evidence they were convicted, and received sentence accordingly on tuesday, the next day following. green, robert, d. 1679. berry, henry, d. 1679. hill, lawrence, d. 1679. england and wales. court of king's bench. 92 p. : port. printed for robert pawlet, london : 1679. reproduction of original in the huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng godfrey, edmund berry, -sir, 1621-1678. popish plot, 1678. 2006-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-05 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-06 jason colman sampled and proofread 2006-06 jason colman text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion february 10. 1671-79 . i do appoint robert pawlet to print the tryals of robert green , henry berry and lawrence hill : and that no other person presume to print the same . william scroggs . veritas ex cineribvs reviviscit aetatis svæ 57 the true effigies of s r edmond bury godfreye knight and iustice of the peace who was murthered by papists the 12 th day of october anno. domini . 1678. aetatis . suae 57. sold by arthur tooker stationer print map , and , picture seller at the royal hand & globe near chareing cross f : h : van. houe . sculp : the tryals of robert green , henry berry , & lawrence hill , for the murder of s r. edmond bury godfrey k nt . one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex ; at the kings-bench bar at westminster , before the right honourable sir william scroggs k nt . lord chief justice of that court , and the rest of his majesties judges there ; on monday the 10 th . of february 1678-79 . where , upon full evidence they were convicted , and received sentence accordingly , on tuesday the next day following . london , printed for robert pawlet at the sign of the bible in chancery-lane near fleet-street , 1679. the tryals of robert green , henry berry and lawrence hill , for the murder of sir edmond bury godfrey knight . on wednesday the 5 th . of february 1678. robert green , henry berry and lawrence hill were brought from his majesties goal of newgate to the bar of the court of kings-bench , to be arraigned for the murder of sir edmondbury godfrey , upon an indictment found by the grand jury for the county of middlesex , on monday the morrow of the purification of the blessed virgin mary ; and the court proceeded thus . mr. just. wild arraign'd the prisoners . clerk of the crown robert green , hold up thy hand . henry berry , hold up thy hand . lawrence hill , hold up thy hand . which they severally did . you stand indicted by the names of robert green late of the parish of st. mary le strand in the county of middlesex labourer . henry berry late of the same parish and county labourer . and lawrence hill late of the same parish and county labourer ; for that you three , together with girald late of the same parish and county clerk : dominick kelly late of the same parish and county clerk : and phillibert vernatt late of the same parish and county labourer , who are withdrawn * not having the fear of god before your eys , but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil , the twelfth day of october , in the thirtieth year of the raign of our soveraign lord charles the second , by the grace of god , of england , scotland , france and ireland , king , defender of the faith , &c. at the parish of st. mary le strand aforesaid , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , in and upon sir edmond-bury godfrey knight , in the peace of god , and of our said soveraign lord the king , then and there being feloniously , voluntarily , and of your malice aforethought , did make an assault ; and that thou the aforesaid robert green a certain linnen handkerchief of the value of six pence about the neck of the said sir edmond-bury godfrey , then and there feloniously , wilfully , and of thy malice aforethought , didst fold and fasten ; and that thou the said robert green , with the handkerchief aforesaid , by thee the said robert green in and about the neck of the said sir edmond-bury godfrey in manner and form aforesaid , folded and fastned then and there him the said sir edmond-bury godfrey , didst choak and strangle , of which said choaking and strangling of him the said sir edmond-bury godfrey in manner and form aforesaid , he the said sir edmond-bury godfry then and there instantly dyed : and that you the said henry berry , and lawrence hill , together with the said girald , dominick kelly and phillibert vernatt , then and there feloniously , voluntarily , and of your malice aforethought , were present , aiding , abetting , comforting and mantaining the aforesaid robert green ; the aforesaid sir edmondbury godfrey in manner and form aforesaid , feloniously , voluntarily , and of his malice aforethought , to kill and murder ; and so you the said robert green , henry berry and lawrence hill , together with the said girald , dominick kelly and phillibert vernatt , in manner and form aforesaid , the aforesaid sir edmond-bury godfrey , feloniously , wilfully , and of your malice aforethought , did kill and murder , against the peace of our soveraign lord the king , his crown and dignity . how sayst thou robert green , art thou guilty of this felony and murder whereof thou standst indicted , and hast been now arraigned , or not guilty ? green , not guilty . clerk of the crown . culprit , how wilt thou be tryed ? green. by god and my countrey . cl. of the cr. god send thee a good deliverance . how sayst thou henry berry , art thou guilty of the felony and murder whereof thou standest indicted , and hast been now arraigned ; or not guilty ? berry . not guilty . cl. of the cr. culprit , how wilt thou be try'd ? berry . by god and my countrey . cl. of cr. god send thee a good deliverance . how sayst thou lawrence hill , art thou guilty of the felony & murder whereof thou stand'st indicted , and hast been arraign'd , or not guilty ? hill. not guilty cl. of the cr. culprit , how wilt thou be try'd ? hill. by god and my countrey . cl. of the cr. god send thee a good deliverance . cap. richardson . i desire to know when they must be brought up to be try'd ? mr. just. wild. upon friday next . cl. of the cr. you shall have a rule to bring them up on friday . but on thursday the 6 th . of february mr. attorney general mov'd the court that it might be defer'd till monday , that the king's evidence might be the more ready , which was granted accordingly . on monday the 10 th . of february 1678. the said robert green , henry berry and lawrence hill , were brought again to the barr for their tryal , which proceeded as followeth . cl. of the cr. make proclaimation . cryer . o yes . cl. of the cr. again , again . cryer . o yes , o yes . our soveraign lord the king doth straightly charge and command all manner of persons to keep silence upon pain of imprisonment . cl. of the cr. make an o yes , cryer . o yes , if any one can inform our soveraign lord the king , the kings serjeant at law , the kings attourney general , or this inquest now to be taken of the felony and murder whereof robert green , henry berry and lawrence hill , the prisoners at the barr stand indicted , let them come forth and they shall be heard , for now the prisoners stand at the barr upon their delivery . and all others that are bound by recognizance to give evidence against the prisoners at the barr , let them come forth and give their evidence , or else they forfeit their recognizance . clerk of the crown . robert green , hold up thy hand , henry berry , hold up thy hand , lawrence hill , hold up thy hand . which they severally did . those good men that you shall hear call'd , and personally appear , are to pass between our soveraign lord the king and you upon tryal of your several lives and deaths ; if therefore you , or any of you will challenge them , or any of them , your time is to speak unto them when they come to the book to be sworn , and before they are sworn . cryer , make an o yes . cryer . o yes , you good men that are impannel'd to enquire between our soveraign lord the king , and robert green , henry berry and lawrence hill , the prisoners at the bar , answer to your names , and save your issues . cl. of the cr. sir william roberts . cryer . vouz avez , sir william roberts . cl. of the cr. sir william roberts to the book . cryer . sir william roberts look upon the prisoners : you prisoners look upon the jury . you shall well and truly trie , and true deliverance make between our soveraign lord the king , and the prisoners at the bar , whom you shall have in charge , and a true verdict give according to your evidence . so help you god. and the same oath was administred to the rest , and their names were as follow . sir william roberts bar nt . sir richard fisher bar nt . sir michael heneage k nt . sir thomas bridges k nt . william avery esq charles umphrevile esq john bathurst esq richard gowre e esq thomas henslowe esq john sharpe esq john haynes esq & walter moyle esq cl. of the cr. cryer , count these . sir. william roberts . cryer . one , &c. cl. of the cr. walter moyle . cryer . twelve , good men and true , stand together , and hear your evidence . gentlemen , are you all sworn ? and you that are not sworn , pray withdraw the standing-place for the jury being so throng'd , that those who were sworn had not room to stand together ; the clerk of the crown was order'd to make proclamation thus . clerk of the crown . cryer make proclamation . cryer . o yes , my lords the kings justices , doth straitly charge and command all persons , that are not of the jury , to withdraw forthwith , upon pain of one hundred pounds a man. clerk of the crown . robert green hold up thy hand , henry berry hold up thy hand , lawrence hill hold up thy hand . which they severally did . gentlemen , you that are sworn look upon the prisoners , and hearken to their charge : you shall understand , that they stand indicted by the names of robert green , late of the parish of saint mary le strand in the county of middlesex , labourer ; henry berry late of the same parish and county , labourer , and lawrence hill late of the same parish and county , labourer ; for that they , together with , &c. ( as before ) against the peace of our soveraign lord the king , his crown and dignity . upon this indictment they have been arraigned , they have thereunto severally pleaded not guilty , and for their trials have severally put themselves upon god and their country , which country you are . your charge is to inquire , whether the prisoners at the bar , robert green , henry berry , and lawrence hill , or any of them are guilty of the felony and murder , whereof they stand indicted , or not guilty , and for them which you shall find guilty , you shall inquire what goods or chattels , lands or tenements , they had at the time of the felony committed , or at any time since . if you find them , or any of them not guilty , you shall inquire , whether they , or any of them , that you find so not guilty , fled for the same , if you find , that they , or any of them fled for the same , you shall enquire of their goods and chattels , as if you had found them guilty : but , if you find them , nor any of them not guilty , nor that they did flie for it , say so , and no more , and hear your evidence . cryer make proclamation . cryer . o yes , if any one will give evidence on behalf of our sovereign lord the king , against robert green , henry berry , and lawrence hill , the prisoners at the bar , let them come forth and they shall be heard . then sir thomas stringer , serjeant at law of counsel with the king in this cause , opened the indictment thus ; mr. serjeant stringer . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of this jury , the prisoners at the bar , robert green , henry berry , and lawrence hill , stand indicted for that they with one girald a priest , one kelly , and one vernat , did the twelfth of october last , at the parish of saint mary le strand in this county , feloniously , willfully , and of their malice afore thought , assault the person of sir edmondbury godfrey , knight , and that the prisoner , robert green , did put about the neck of the said sir edmondbury a twisted handkerchief , and did with that twisted handkercheif so choak and strangle the said sir edmondbury , that he immediately died , and that the other prisoners , henry berry and lawrence hill , with the other persons girald , kelly , and vernat , were aiding and assisting the said robert green to murder the said sir edmondbury , and so the prisoners at the bar , with the said other persons , the said sir edmondbury godfrey , did kill and murder against the kings peace , his crown and dignity . to this they have pleaded not guilty , and for their trial have put themselves upon their country , which country you are . if we prove them , or any of them guilty , you are to find it so . then sir william jones , his majesties attorny general , opened the evidence in this manner , mr. atorney general . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of this jury , the prisoners who stand now at the bar , are indicted for murther . murder , as it is the first , so is it the greatest crime , that is prohibited in the second table . it is a crime of so deep a stain , that nothing can wash it away but the blood of the offender , and unless that be done , the land in which it is shed , will continue polluted . my lord , as murder is always a very great crime , so the murder , which is now to be tryed before your lordship , is , it may be , the most hainous and most barbarous that ever was committed . the murder was committed upon a gentleman , and upon a magistrate , and i wish he had not therefore been murdered , because he was a protestant magistrate . my lord , i will not spend much of your time in making my observations before hand , because i must in this case crave leave to do it in the conclusion of the evidence . for i , that have made a strict examination into this matter , do find , that i shall better spend my time in making observations , and shewing how the witnesses do agree after the evidence given than before . therefore , my lord , i shall at present only make a short narrative of the fact , to shew you the course of our evidence , that it may be the better understood and remembred by the jury . my lord , upon the discovery of the late horrid plot. — lord chief justice . and present plot too , mr. attorny : but pray go on . mr , attorney general . if your lordship please , you may call it so , for t is to be feared they have not yet given it over : but upon the discovery of that plot ( call it late or present ) sir edmondbury godfrey ( whom , i suppose , the jury all knew , and every man , that lived there abouts , must needs remember to have been a very useful and active justice of the peace ) had taken several examinations about this matter , and perhaps some more than now are extant : ( but we have proof he had some ) and was very industrious in finding out the principal actors in this plot , among whom , some priests and jesuits foreseeing their own danger , and likewise the overthrow of a design which they had been so long in contriving , they had several consultations how to prevent the discovery . and as they are men , who never stick at blood but rather account it meritorious to shed it , though never so unjustly when their interest may be profited by it , they did resolve to secure themselves and their design by takeing away the life of this gentleman . in order thereunto they had several meetings , and the place of their meeting , you will find by the evidence , to be at the plow ale-house , and there they did consult how to take away the life of sir edmondbury godfrey , and they made several attempts to do it : one while they dogg'd him into the fields , another while they sent people to spie when he came abroad , that they might follow him into some dark alley , or other obsure or unfrequented place , and there dispatch him ; and at last , after many attempts , they succeeded in that wicked one , when the murder was committed . my lord , there are contained in this indictment six offenders , all principals , three of them , i think , are preists , or at least two of them are so , that is , father girald an irish man , father kelly likewise of the same nation , and one vernat , whether a preist or lay-man , i know not . these preists ( as they are always the first that contrive mischeife , so they are always the first that fly punishment ) have taken care for themselves and run away , and left their blind followers , the prisoners at the bar , whom they had drawn into this bloody act , alone to answer for it . the day , when this murder was committed , was saturday the 12th of october last ; and i must desire your lordship to take notice of the day , for upon that much of the evidence will depend . and we shall prove , that as they did before send several times to sir edmondbury godfrey's house to get intelligence of his going abroad , so this very day in the morning , hill one of the prisoners at the bar came to his house upon pretence of business with him , and as we guess , and have reason to believe , to learn whither he went that day : green ( another of the prisoners ) had been there before on the same errand . and so much we shall prove to you by the people of the house sir edmondbury godfrey happened about noon , or some time in the afternoon of the same day ( as we have it by the confession of one of the parties ) to be at an house near saint clements church , where these murtherers had notice he was , and had prepared a trap for him as he came back . they had appointed men to watch him and give them notice when he did come back , and whatever his business was at the house that he was in ( for it cannot yet be known ) he staid there till about seven or eight a clock at night : and your lordship knows that at that time of the year it is then dark . he coming from about st. clements church towards his own house near charing-cross , notice was given to the murderers of his approach near to sommerset-house . and thus they had laid their bloudy contrivance : some of them were appointed to meet him at the back-gate of sommerset-house , and to inform him that there was a quarrel in the yard , and he being a man alwayes careful to keep the peace and punish them that broke it , they thought it a very apt means to train him into the yard . and when he came near the back-gate they did accordingly acquaint him that two of the queens servants were fighting in the yard , and that they needed his presence to part and quiet them . he at first , thought it might be but some ordinary idle scuffle , and was not willing to go down , but being very much importun'd by them , down he went through the back-gate into the yard , where were indeed two men scuffling together , but counterfeitly , the one was berry the prisoner here , the other was kelly the priest that is run away . and when sir edmundbury godfrey was come , and within their reach , then , as it was before contrived , the fray of it self ended , and berry goes to the lower water-gate , and mr. praunce ( who was in that soul fact , but hath since repented , and hath made this discovery ) to the uppergate , to keep back any casual passengers for a little while , till such time as the murder was over . my lord , things being thus prepared , whilest sir edmundbury godfrey stood still , or was returning , having no more to do there , after the scuffle was thus appeased , green one of the prisoners , coming behind him , puts a cravat , or a twisted linnen cloth , ( which he had ready for the purpose ) about his neck . and he , hill , and those holy fathers girald and kelly ( with great veneration be it spoken , for men of their order to stain their hands with the bloud of an innocent gentleman , and that in so treacherous a manner ) all set upon him , and very manfully , being four upon one , and he altogether surprized , threw him down and strangled him . and this was done ( as it is easie to imagine ) without much noise , so that i doubt not but many that were near the place might be ignorant of it and did not hear it . my lord , though the thing was done with a great zeal , and a very good will to dispatch him , yet it so happened , that when mr. praunce came back from keeping sentinel at the gate , there was some life left in sir edmundbury godfrey , he did stir his feet , and thereby they perceived that he was not quite dead . but to make through work with him , green , ( who begun , and was to give an accomplishment to this bloudy fact ) takes hold of his head and twists his neck round , and stamps upon his breast , the marks of which outragious cruelty did plainly appear in his body after it was found my lord , after they had thus kill'd him , girald the priest thought he was not yet dead enough , and was very willing to run him through with sir edmundbury's own sword , but that was not liked by the rest , lest it might be discovered by a great effusion of bloud in that place : and so they forbore it for that time . having thus dispatch'd him , they removed him to the chamber of hill where they kept him some time , and after that to another chamber . i will not be particular herein because the witness will give the best account of it . but after some time , ( i desire it may be observed ) 't was on monday night ( two nights after the fact was committed ) they brought him into another room and laid him there , with a cloak thrown over him . and i mention this last so particularly , because he then happened to be seen by another witness here present , who concurs as to his lying there dead , and that he saw him by the help of a dark lauthorn , of which , and other circumstances , i shall have occasion to make use hereafter . my lord , after he had lain in sommerset-house some days , they thought it was high time to remove him , or rather to expose him : for having now killed him they did endeavour to kill his reputation , and lay the blame of this foul murder upon the innocent gentleman , as if he had killed himself : and on wednesday night , which by computation was the 16 th of october , they carried him out of sommerset-house in this manner . hill having late in the night procured a sedan , they made a shift by bending the body to a fit posture to crowd him into it ; and berry one of the murderers and porter of sommerset-house was of all men most proper to help them out with privacy , and therefore it was agreed between them , that whenever a man should come before and make an hem , it should be a sign to berry to open the gate . and my lord , having put him into the sedan , mr. praunce and girald first carryed him out in it to covent garden , and there they rested , being something wearied with their burden , and two more supplied their rooms , and carried him to long-acre . then girald and praunce took him up again and carried him to the grecian church near so-ho : and when they had him there , they got an horse ready and mounted him upon it , and hill was set behind him to hold him up ; by which means they carried him to the place where he was found , and there to accomplish the last part of their design , which was to murder his reputation after they had killed his body , they took his own sword and run him through , and left him in such a manner , as that ( according to the weakness of their understanding ) the world should conclude he had killed himself . in that condition was the gentleman found . i have but little more at present to trouble you with , and that shall be to shew you what the murtherers did after they had committed this fact . they gave an account of it the next morning to mr. praunce , who went no further than the sedan went , which was to the grecian church : and the priests were so far from any remorse , and had so little of humanity , ( i believe there is none can think had much of divinity ) that they did in a paper set down a narrative of this heroick act : and i doubt not but by this time it is sent to rome , where it finds as great approbation , and causes as great joy as their other acts of a like nature have heretofore done . some days after the fact was done , and to their everlasting honour thus by themselves recorded , some of these priests had a meeting at the queens head at bow , and there was the paper produced and read , at which they were very merry , and were so loud that some of the house overheard them , and do yet remember that they read and were merry at a paper which concerned sir edmundbury godfrey . my lord , this will be the course of our evidence , and though your lordship and the jury will easily believe that most of these particulars must arise from one who was party to the fact , yet my lord , i will undertake before i have done , so to fortifie almost every patticular he delivers , with a concurrent proof of other testimony , and the things will so depend upon one another , and have such a connexion that little doubt will remain in any mans mind that is come hither without prepossession , but that sir edmundbury godfrey was murthered at sommerset-house , and that the persons who stand now indicted for it were the murtherers . mr. recorder , my lord , if your lordship pleases , according as mr. attorney hath opened it , we desire we may call our witnesses , and first we will call mr. oates . cryer , mr. oates , lay your hand on the book . the evidence you shall give for our soveraign lord the king against robert green , henry berry and laurence hill the prisoners at the bar , shall be the truth , the whole truth , and nothing but the truth . so help you god. mr. sol. gen. pray mr. oates will you give my lord and the jury an account what transactions there were between you and sir edmundbury godfrey , and that , my lord , is all we call him for . mr. att. gen. my lord , i call this gentleman to prove , what examinations sir edmundbury godfrey had taken , and what was his own opinion of himself about them . lord c. j. mr. attorney , i suppose the use you make of it is this , to shew that that might be one of the motives to these persons to do this act because he was forward in the discovery of their plot. l. chief just . come mr. oates , pray tell your knowledge . mr. oates , my lord , upon the sixth of september last , i did go before sir edmundbury godfrey , and there upon oath gave in several depositions , and after that i had made oath of those depositions , we took the record along with us home again . and on the 28 th . of september , after we had taken two or three copies of this record , we went before sir edmundbury godfrey again , and swore all the copies we had taken , and so made them records . my lord , after that , the business was made known to the council by my self , and upon monday mr. godfrey came to me , which was i think the 30 th . of september , and did tell me what affronts he had received from some great persons ( whose names i name not now ) for being so zealous in this business . and my lord , he told me that others who were well inclin'd to have the discovery made , did think that he had not been quick enough in the prosecution , but had been too remiss , and did threaten him that they would complain to the parliament , which was to sit the 21 th . of october following . my lord , that week before sir edmundbury godfrey was missing , he came to me , and told me that several popish lords , some of whom are now in the tower , had threatned him , and asked him what he had to do with it . my lord , i shall name their names when time shall come . my lord , this is all i can say , he was in a great fright and told me he went in fear of his life by the popish party , and that he had been dog'd several days . mr. attor . gen. did he tell you that he was dogg'd ? mr. oates . yes , he did , and i did then ask him why he did not take him man with him , he said , he was a poor weak fellow i then ask'd him why he did not get a good brisk fellow to attend him , but he made no great matter of it , he said he did not fear them , if they came fairly to work , but yet he was often threatened , and came sometimes to me to give him some encouragement , and i did give him what encouragement i could , that he would suffer in a just cause and the like : but he would often tell me he was in continual danger of being hurt by them . mr. attor . gen. we desire mr. robinson may be sworn . which was done accordingly . mr. recorder . pray sir , will you tell the court and the jury , what discourse you had with sir. edmondbury godfrey , and what apprehensions he had concerning this business . tho. robinson esquire , chief prothonotary of the court of common-pleas . my lord , sir edmondbury godfrey and i were of a very ancient acquaintance for above forty years , we were bred up together at westminster school and continued in that acquaintance all along , except in the time of the war , and were for many years together in commission for the peace , both for this county and this city , we met at the quarter-sessions for westminster the seventh of october , which was monday , as i take it , and meeting there , we went after the court was up and dined with the head bayly , as the custome is ; where sir edmondbury godfrey and i did discourse several things about this plot ; i said to sir edmondbury godfrey , i understand you have taken several examinations about this plot , that is now made publick , truely , said he , i have , but , i think , i shall have little thanks for my paines , or some such words : saith he , i did it very unwillingly and would fain have had it done by others ; why , said i , you did but what was your duty to do , and it was a very good act : pray , sir , have you the examinations about you , will you please to let me see them ; no , i have them not , said he , i delivered them to a person of quality , but as soon as i have them you shall see them . but , said i , i should be very glad to understand , sir edmondbury , that the depth of the matter were found out , i am afraid , said he , of that , that it is not , but discoursing further , he said to me , upon my conscience , i believe , i shall be the first martyr . why so , said i , are you afraid ? no , said he , i do not fear them , if they come fairly , and i shall not part with my life tamely . why do not you go with a man , said i , if you have that fear upon you ? why , said he , i do not love it , 't is a clog to a man , but , said i , you should do well to keep a man : i observe you never go with one . mr. attor . gen. but did he tell you , sir , that he did believe , he should be the first martyr ? mr. robinson . yes , he did say , upon his conscience he did believe he should be the first martyr , and this is all i can say of this business . mr. attor . gen. then if your lordship please we will in the next place call mr. praunce , who was drawn in to be present at this businesse , and who knew of all the fact , and will give you an account of the whole matter . then mr. praunce was sworn . mr. attor . gen. pray , sir , begin at the very beginning . the meetings you had at the plow-ale-house , and the sending to sir edmondbury's house , and all the story . l. ch just , mr. praunce , pray tell us the first motives that were used to you to do this thing , and the first time it was mentioned , who they were that first mentioned it , and where . mr. praunce . my lord , it was about a fortnight or three weeks before he was murdered , we met several times at the plow-ale-house . l. chief , just , with whom ? mr. praunce . with mr. girald , mr. green , and mr. kelly . girald and kelly did intice me in , and told me it was no sin. mr. recorder . girald and kelly did ? mr. praunce . yes girald and kelly , mr. recorder . vvhat are they ? mr. praunce . two priests : and they said it was no sin , it was a charitable act : they said he was a busie man , and had done , and would do a great deal of mischief , and it was a deed of charity to do it , and so they told the rest besides . mr. attor . gen. where was it they said thus ? mr. praunce . they said it at the plow , and by the water-side . mr. recorder . well said , how long was it before he died ? mr. praunce . a week or a fortnight before he was murdered , and green , hill , and girald met there together . mr. attor . gen. what discourse had you then ? mr. praunce . there they resolved that the first that could meet with him should give notice to the rest to be ready , and so in the morning , when they went out on saturday — mr. attor . gen. but before you come to that , do you know of any dogging of him into the fields . mr. praunce . yes , it was before that i heard them say , they would and had dogged him into the fields . l. chief . just . who did you hear say so ? mr. praunce . girald , kelly , and green , mr. attor . gen. that green is one of the prisoners . mr. recorder . which way did they dog him ? what fields ? mr. praunce . red lion fields , and those by holborn . mr. attor . gen. why did they not kill him there ? mr. praunce . because they had not opportunity . mr. att. gen. do you know of any sending to his house , or going to it ? mr. praunce . one time i do know of , and that was saturday morning , mr. kelly came to give me notice , that they were gone abroad to dog him , and afterwards they told me , that hill or green did go to his house and ask for him , but the maid told him he was not up , and then went away , and said he would call by and by . hill. what time was that in the morning ? mr. praunce . it was about nine or ten a clock in the morning . hill. and had we been there before or after ? mr. praunce . you had been there before . mr. recorder . pray stay till such time as we have done with our evidence , you shall have all free liberty to ask him any question , but you must stay till we have done . mr. praunce . as soon as they heard he was within , they came out and staid for his coming out , and dogg'd him . l. chief . just . did all three of them go to his house ? mr. praunce . no , my lord , l. ch. just . who was it did go ? mr. praunce . only one , either hill , or green. l. chief just . how do you know that ? mr. praunce . they told me so themselves , for they came to give me notice . l. ch. just. who told you so ? mr. praunce . it was girald and green both . l. ch. just . did green tell you that he had been there ? mr. praunce . he told me one of them , but i am not certain which . and so , my lord , after that , when he came out they dogg'd him that day up and down . mr. justice jones . who dogg'd him ? mr. praunce . girald , green and hill dogg'd him into st. clements ; and about seven a clock , green came and gave me notice , that he was at saint clements , and i came to somerset-house as fast as i could . l. chief . just . where were you ? mr. praunce . at my own house . l. chief . just . how far did you live from somerset-house ? mr. praunce . i lived in princes-street , not far from somerset-house . mr. recorder . who was it gave you notice ? mr. praunce . it was green. he told me that girald and kelly were watching him , and that he was at saint clements . l. chief . just . vvhere vvas he ? mr. praunce . at saint clements , my lord l. ch. just . vvhere there ? mr. praunce . i was not there , they told me so , and no more ; and about eight or nine a clock hill came before up the street , and gave us notice , that we must be ready . and so , my lord , as soon as hill had given us notice , he went up to the gate , and staid there till sir edmondbury godfrey came by , and then told him , there were two men a quarrelling , and desired him to come , and trie whether he could pacifie them ; he was very unwilling ; but pray , sir , ( saith hill ) you being a justice of the peace may qualifie them , and so he vvent dovvn till he came to the bottome of the railes , and vvhen he came to the bottome of the railes , green tvvisted his handkerchief , and threvv it about his neck , and threw him behind the rayles , and there throttled him , and punched him , and then girald would have thrust his sword through him , but the rest would not permit him , for fear it should discover them by the blood . and about a quarter of an hour after , i came down , and found he was not quite dead ; for i laid my hand upon him , and his leggs tottered and shook , and then green wrung his neck quite round . mr. att. gen. who was it that took him by the neck ? mr. praunce . it was green , my lord. l. c. just. did you see him ? mr. praunce . no , but he did tell me afterwards that he did it . l. c. j. who , green himself ? mr. praunce . yes , my lord , for he boasted of it . mr. att. gen. pray what did he do to him besides ? mr. praunce . he punch'd him with his knee . l. c. j. did you see him to do this ? how do you know he did it ? mr. praunce . he and the rest told me so afterwards . l. c. j. where were you at that time that the handkerchief was twisted about his neck ? mr. praunce . as soon as he came down i went towards the gate . l. c. j. who ordered you to stand at the gate ? mr. praunce . it was hill. mr. serj. stringer . you watch'd the water-gate , who watch'd the staires ? mr. praunce . that was berry . mr. recorder . pray give an accompt what they did afterwards . praunce . why afterwards — mr. att. g. who told you that green twisted his neck ? mr. praunce . all spoke of it . mr. att. g. did hill ? mr. praunce . yes , he , and the rest . mr. att. g. how came you to understand that he punch'd his breast ? mr. praunce . green spoke of it himself , and so did the others . mr. att. g. who were about his body when you came down to the gate ? mr. praunce . all four. mr. att. g. name them . mr. praunce . hill , green , girald and kelly . mr. att. g. was berry there ? mr. praunce . he came to them a while after . mr. att. g. when ? mr. praunce . before they carried him into the house . mr. att. g. how can you tell that ? mr. praunce . because he helpt them to carry him in . mr. sol. g. where was berry before they carried him into the house ? mr. praunce . he was about the staires . mr. recorder . who was it that carried him up into the room ? mr. praunce . we all did . mr. recorder . pray name all that were in the company . mr. praunce . there was giral'd , green , hill , kelly , berry and i. mr. att. g. who set their hands to do it ? mr. praunce . we all did help ; hill went before and opened the door , and we carried him into the room . mr. att. g. whose room was that ? mr. praunce . it was at a chamber of hill's in dr. godwin's house . mr. recorder . was hill godwin's man ? praunce . yes , he had been . mr. justice jones . did berry help to carry him in ? mr. praunce . yes , berry did . mr. serj. stringer . was there any discourse of a sword to be thrust through him at that time ? mr. praunce . yes , girald said he would thrust a sword through him , but they would not let him for fear of discovery . mr. att. g. what became of the body ? mr. praunce . it lay there till monday night , and on monday it was removed into somerset-house , and upon monday night hill did shew me it with a dark lanthorn . mr. att. g. who were in the room then ? mr. praunce . girald , and hill , and kelly , and all were there . and on tuesday night it was brought back again : mr. hill would have carried him into his own lodging . l. 6. j whither did they carry him on monday night ? mr. praunce . into somerset-house . mr. justice wild. is not hill's chamber in somerset-house ? mr. serj. stringer . describe the room mr. praunce , as well as you can . mr. praunce . i am not certain of the room , and so cannot describe it . mr. justice wild. but was not hill's chamber in somerset-house ? mr. praunce . 't is in the lower part of the house in a court. mr. att. g. when you saw him in this room , pray , what was thrown over him ? mr. praunce . there was something , i cannot tell what ; for i durst not stay long there . mr. justice dolben . what light was there ? mr. praunce . only a dark lanthorn . mr. att. g. who carried it ? mr. praunce . hill carried it . mr. justice dolben . are you sure you saw the body there ? mr. praunce . yes , i am certain of it . mr. att. g. what became of it after that ? mr. praunce . on tuesday night it was carried to hill's , the chamber where he was first brought after he was murdered ; but there was some body there , and so they could not carry it into the room but they carried him to a room just over against , i think they were sir john arundell's lodgings , i can't tell . there it lay till wednesday night , and about nine a clock on wednesday night they were removing the body into the room where it first lay ; and i happened to come as they were removing it , and they were affrighted , and run away : but i spoke , and berry came back again , and got the body up into the room , and about twelve a clock they carried it away in the sedan . mr. att. g. who brought the sedan ? mr. praunce . hill did . mr. att. g. who put him into it ? mr. praunce . we all set our hands to it . mr. att. g. who carryed him out first ? mr. praunce . i and girald . mr. att. g. out of which gate ? mr. praunce . the upper-gate of the upper-court . mr. att. g. how came you to have the gate opened ? mr. praunce . berry opened it . mr. att. g. how came he to open it ? mr. praunce . some body hem'd , and that was the sign . mr. att. g. who was it that carryed the sedan first ? mr. praunce . i and girald . mr. att. g. who went before ? mr. praunce . green and kelly . mr. recorder . how far did you carry him ? mr. praunce . into covent-garden , and there we rested . mr. att. g. and who took him up then ? mr. praunce . green and kelly . mr. att. g. how far did they carry him ? mr. praunce . they carryed him to long-acre . then we took him up and carryed him to soe-hoe church , and there hill met us with an horse , and wee help'd the body up . mr. att. g. who was it that rid behind him ? mr. praunce . it was hill. mr. att. g. what did you do with your sedan ? mr. praunce . we set it in a new house till we came back again . l. c. j. you say you saw him on horseback ? mr. praunce . yes , my lord , i did . l. c. j. how , in what posture ? mr. praunce . astride , his leggs were forced open , and hill held him up . hill. did i hold him ? mr. praunce . yes , you did . l. c. j. did the others go with him ? mr. praunce . yes , my lord. l. c. j. who did go with him ? mr. praunce . green , hill , girald , and kelly . mr. att. g. pray will you tell my lord and the jury , what accompt they gave you the next morning concerning the body , and how they had disposed of it . mr. praunce . they told me — l. c. j. who told you ? mr. praunce . hill , kelly , and girald . l. c. j. what did they tell you ? mr. praunce . first , that they had run him through with his own sword ; then thrown him into a ditch , and laid his gloves and other things upon the bank. mr. att. g. pray tell now the story of your meeting at bow. what was the house called you met at ? mr. praunce . it was the sign of the queens head. mr. att. g. who was it that did meet there ? mr. praunce . they were priests , i can't so well remember their names , they are written down in this paper . mr. record . look on the paper yourself , you can read i suppose . mr. praunce . there was one luson a priest , i think . mr. att. g. where did he live ? mr. praunce . he was with vernatt . mr. att. g. what was the occasion of your meeting there ? mr. praunce . vernatt told me only it was to be merry there . mr. att. g. what was the man of the house his name ? mr. praunce . one casshes . mr. att. g. did you dine there ? mr. praunce . yes . mr. att. g. what had you for dinner ? mr. praunce . we had a barrel of oysters , and a dish of fish : i bought the fish my self . l. chief just . what day was it ? mr. praunce . the friday after the proclamation , that all the papists were to be gone out of town . mr. record . tell what company you had there , and what discourse . mr. praunce . there was mr. vernatt , and i , and mr. girala , and that other priest , and one mr. dethicke . mr. att. g. who sent for him ? mr. praunce . mr. vernatt sent a note for him by a cobler . mr. att. g. did he come upon that note ? mr. praunce . he came presently . and when he was come , then they read all the writing of the murder ; for mr. vernatt should have been one at the doing of it but something happen'd he could not . mr. att. g. mr. vernatt was very sorrowful at the reading of it , was he not ? mr. praunce . if he was , it was because he was not there . mr. att. g. how did he behave himself ? did he read it with any pleasure and delight ? mr. praunce . we were all very merry . mr. att. g. what can you say about any body 's over-hearing you ? mr. praunce . there was a drawer came and listned at the door , and i hearing the door a little rustle , went to the door , and catch'd him listing , and said i to him , sirrah , i could find in my heart to kick you down stairs ; and away he went. mr. just . wild. was vernatt with you there that night he was murdered , the saturday night ? mr. praunce . no , there was only the six i have named . mr. just . jones . you say that you met at the plow the first night ? mr. praunce . yes . mr. just . jones . and there you were told , that it was very charitable act to kill sir edmundbury godfrey ? mr. praunce . yes , i was so . mr. justice jones . was it agreed there that he should be kill'd ? mr. praunce . it was agreed there ; and the first that met him were to give notice to the rest . mr. just . jones . who were there ? mr. praunce . girald , kelly , green and i. l. c. just. when came hill and berry into this cause ? how came they acquainted with it ? mr. praunce . they were in it before i. l. c. j. who told you they were in it ? mr. praunce . mr. girald , my lord , told me so . mr. just. jones . hill and berry were not at the plow , where did you first hear them speak of it ? mr. praunce . girald and i have been at berry's house divers times . mr. justice dolben . but there were two meetings at the plow , were there not ? mr. praunce . yes , yes , there were . mr. justice dolben . and hill was at the last meeting , was he not ? mr. praunce . yes , he was , my lord. mr. att. g. now i would ask you this question , by the favour of the court , was there any reward proposed by these priests for the doing of it ? mr. praunce . girald and vernatt did speak of a great reward that was to be given for it . mr. att. g. pray , how much ? mr. praunce . i do not remember what . mr. att. g. cannot you tell how much ? mr. praunce . there was to be a good reward from my lord bellasis , as they said . mr. justice dolben . you had several meetings you say , did you there resolve what should be the way of doing it ? mr. praunce . girald was resolved to kill him that night ; and if he could not get him into a more convenient place , he would kill him with his own sword in the street that leads to his own house . mr. record . who was that , that resolved so ? mr. praunce . it was girald . mr. record . the priest rather then fail was resolved to do that act of charity himself . mr. att. g. i would now ask you a question , which though it does not prove the persons guilty , yet gives a great strength to the evidence . do you know mr. bedlow , mr. praunce ? mr. praunce . i do now know him . mr. att. g. had you ever any conference with him before you was committed to prison ? mr. praunce . never in all my life . mr. att. g. were you ever in his company in your life before , that you know of ? mr. praunce . no , not that i remember . mr. att. g. well , you shall see how far he will agree with you . mr. record . now they may ask him any questions , if they please , for we have done with him . l. c. j. let them if they will. hill. my lord , in the first place i humbly pray that mr. praunce's evidence may not stand good against me , as being perjured by his own confession . l. c. j. how ? hill. i suppose my lord , it is not unknown to you that he made such an open confession before the king. l. c. j. look you sir , i will tell you for that , i do not know that ever he made a confession to contradict what he had said upon his oath . hill. he was upon his oath before . l. c. j. yes , he had accused you upon oath , but afterwards , you say he confessed that it was not true ; but that confession that it was not true , was not upon oath : how is he then guilty of perjury ? hill. my lord , if a man can swear a thing , and after deny it , he is certainly perjured . l. c. j. if a man hath great horrors of conscience upon him , and is full of fears , and the guilt of such a thing disorders his mind , so as no make him go back from what he had before discovered upon oath , you can't say that man is perjured if ▪ he don't forswear it : but i believe no body did believe his denyal , because his first discovery was so particular , that every man did think his general denyal did only proceed from the disturbance of his mind . but have you any mind to ask him any questions ? mr. record . we can prove , that immediately after he retracted his recantation . mr. just . dolben . try if you can trap him in any question . hill. pray what hour was it , that i went to sir edmundbury godfrey's ? mr. praunce . about 9 or 10 a clock , i am not certain in the hour . l. c. j. no , no , a man cannot be precise to an hour ; but prove you what you can . hill. i have a great many witnesses besides the justice of my cause , that i was not out of my house that day . l. c. j. you shall be heard for that , but the present matter is , whether you will ask him any questions or no ? hill. my lord , 't is all false that he sayes , and i deny every word of it , and i hope it shall not be good against me . l. c. j. well , mr. berry , will you ask him any questions ? berry . mr. praunce , who was in my house at that time you speak of ? mr. praunce . there was your wife there , and several other persons besides . berry . who were they ? mr. praunce . there were divers people , it is an ale-house . berry . but who ? can you name any of them ? mr. praunce . there was girald , and kelly and i. l. c. j. why , did you not all know mr. praunce ? berry . my lord , i knew him as he pass'd up and down in the house l. c. j. why , what an answer is that ? what do you mean by his passing up and down in the house ? . did you never drink with him ? berry . drink with him , my lord ? yes . l. c. j. yes ? why people don't use to drink as they go along . berry . it was in other company that came to my house , no acquaintance of mine . l. c. just . was not mr. praunce known by you all three ? which of you can deny it ? what say you hill ? hill. my lord , i did know him . l. c. just . what say you green ? greene. yes , i did know him ? mr. att. gen. but yet my lord , we shall prove in the course of our evidence , that upon their examinations , they did deny they ever knew him ; but because the prisoners give us this occasion , i desire mr. praunce may give an account of one thing . he was concerned in this very fact , and there was no other way to get any proof of it , than by the discovery of one among themselves . he was once of that religion , or else he had never been concerned in this thing . and your lordship will find , that mr. praunce , whilc he was of that religion , and not sure of his pardon , was under some disturbances and fears , which prevailed with him to come before the king , and deny what he had sworn . but my lord , which is very observable , this gentleman that had made that denyal before the king , was so far convinc'd , that he had done amiss in it , and so troubled that he had done it , that he desired capt. richardson ( as soon as he returned back to prison ) to carry him back to the king again : for he must go back , and make good that confession which he at first had made ▪ for it was every word true. and being for the king , we desire capt. richardson may be sworn . mr. just . wild. can you tell where sir edmondbury godfrey was dogg'd . mr. praunce . no my lord , i cannot . mr. just . wild. you say they did tell you , that they dogg'd him up and down ; did not they tell you from whence they dogg'd him , when they kill'd him ? mr. praunce . no , they did not . l. c. just . mr. richardson , were you by when mr. praunce denyed all that he had confessed ? capt. richardson . my lord , upon the sunday night before the prorogation of the last parliament , i received a letter from one of the lords of the council , to bring up mr. praunce before the lords of the committee for his examination . when i brought him thither , i found mr. praunce was disturbed , and desired to speak with the king ; and i carried him into the kings closet , where he fell down on his knees , and said , he was innocent , and they were all innocent ; and that was the substance of all he said . i then had him up to the council , where he said the same thing . the lords asked him , whether any body had been tampering with him , he answered no. my lord , when i came home , i was no sooner got within the doors , but he begg'd of me ( for gods sake ) to go back to the king , and to acquaint him , not only that what he had now said , was false ; but that all which he had sworn before , was truth . and if his majesty would send him a pardon , he would make a great discovery . and my lord , more than that , he said , it was fear , that made him recant ; and he gave a full satisfaction , that it was only out of an apprehension that his life was not secure , that his trade would be lost among the roman catholicks ; and in case he had his pardon , and were saved , he should have been in danger of being murthered by them . lord chief justice . now you have an account mr. hill how he came to deny , and how soon he recanted his denyal . mr. just . jones . you are upon your oath mr. praunce , is this all true that he hath said ? mr. praunce . yes , my lord , it is . mr. recorder . how hath he behaved himself since that time ? capt. richardson . as soberly as can be , since he had his pardon . mr. attorney general . pray , since that time , have you had any discourse with him ? and how did he carry himself ? capt. richardson . very soberly . mr. attorney general . did he express any abhorrence of the practice of that church ? capt. richardson . yes , my lord , he did so . mr. attorney general . i hope it will make all people abhor and forsake them in time , if these be their practises . in the next place my lord , we will call mr. bedlow , who , though he was not present at the murther , yet he saw the body after it was dead in somerset-house , which goes to the matter as to the place ; and he will give you some circumstances which will very much corroborate the testimony of mr. praunce . mr. justice vvild. what time was it before they carryed him in , after they had kill'd him . lord chief justice . brother , i think they say , between eight and nine they decoy'd him down through the water-gate . vvas it not so ? mr. praunce . yes , my lord. mr. justice vvild. how long had they kill'd him before they carryed him into the room ? mr. praunce . about a quarter of an hour . mr. justice vvild. had he his sword about him ? mr. praunce . yes , it was found run through him . mr. justice vvild. did sir edmondbury godfrey himself draw his sword ? mr. praunce . no , he was strnngled by surprize , by getting a thing about his neck , and prevented him of drawing his sword. lord chief justice . they were persons that were ready prepared for him , they would not permit him to defend himself . mr. serjeant stringer . my lord , before mr. bedlow be sworn , i desire a little to open what we call him to . my lord , there were four priests that did design this murther . le faire , and vvelsh , and girald and kelly , besides the other priests ; and they treated with mr. bedlow for four thousand pounds to undertake to kill a gentleman . my lord , he did promise to undertake it , but failing of his promise , afterwards . le faire met him , and told him it was done . and told him , he should have half that reward to help to carry him off ; and withall , carryed him into the room where the body was . and he will tell you , that praunce was in the room when he saw him ; and though he never knew praunce before , yet when he met with him in the lobby of the lords house , he knew him again , and charged him as the man that committed this fact. and he will acquaint your lordship , that le faire saw the body likewise , and gave mr. bedlow an accompt of the murther , with the same circumstances that praunce now relates it . then mr. bedlow was sworn . mr. recorder . mr. bedlow , pray do you direct your discourse to the jury . lord chief just . mr. attorney , pray do you ask him your questions , that you may put him in that method you would have him take , to give his evidence . mr. attorney gen. my lord , i would first ask him this question : what conference he had with any persons , priests or others , about murdering any body ? mr. bedlow . my lord and the jury , i have at other times , and in other places , proved what familiarity i have had with the priests and jesuits ; and 〈◊〉 i have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the court , and others , about it , yet i have done my duty in endeavouring so to do . my lord , i have been several times treated with , not only about the plot , but by several persons about murdering of a gentleman . they never told me who it was that was to be murdered ; but if i would undertake it , they , that is , le faire , and prichard , and mr. kaines , and several other priests , who discoursed with me about it , would find out some to assist me , and my reward should be very considerable . lord ch. just . when was this ? mr. bedlow . it was in october last , about the beginning , or latter end of september . lord ch. just . well sir , go on . mr. bedlow . i did adhere to them all along , for i had a mind to discover two years ago , but was prevented ; and i only drill'd them on , to know the party , that i might prevent them . but they would never discover the party . mr. attorney general . prithee come to this particular part of the story . mr. bedlow . afterwards they set me to insinuate my self into the acquaintance of sir edmondbury godfrey , not telling me they had any design upon him . lord ch. just . who did ? mr. bedlow . le fair , and pritchard , and vvelsh . lord ch. just . girald was not one , was he ? mr. bedlow . no my lord. but they told me that afterwards they would have me introduce them into his acquaintance . and i had been , i think , six or seven dayes together with sir edmondbury godfrey , at his house , and had got much into his acquaintance . mr. justice wild. by what means did you get into his acquaintance ? mr. bedlow . why , i pretended to get warrants for the good behaviour against persons , that there were none such . lord chief just . well , and what then ? mr. bedlow . this was the week before the saturday that he was kill'd ; and i was there every day but saturday . on the friday i went to the grey-hound-tavern , and i sent my boy to see if sir edmondbury godfrey were at home . sir edmondbury godfrey was not at home then . lord chief just . when was that ? mr. bedlow . the very day before he was kill'd . if he had been at home , i would have gone over to him , and would have desired him to come over to them . lord chief justice . were the priests there ? mr. bedlow yes , my lord , there was pritchard , and le faire , and vvelch , and kaines , and another ; five jesuites : and as i said , i sent my boy to see if he were at home , and he brought me word he was not ; and if he had , i was to have gone to him , to have fetch'd him thither , that they might insinuate themselves into his acquaintance . and indeed , they had tongue enough to wheedle themselves into any one acquaintance . so he not being at home , we came into the city , two of the jesuites and i. mr. attorn . gen. which two ? mr. bedlow . le faire and vvelsh . the next morning . le faire came to my chamber , and i was not then within ; but by accident i met him , about four of the clock in lincolnes-inn-fields . we went to the palsgraves head tavern ; where falling into discourse , he told me there vvas a gentleman that vvas to be put out of the vvay ; that vvas the phrase he used , he did not really say murther him ; for they don't count it murther . lord chief justice . no , no , they put it into softer termes . mr. bedlow . they told me it vvas to be done to night . i asked vvho it vvas , they said it vvas a very material man : for he had all the informations that mr. oates . and dr. tongue had given in ; that several had been imployed in the doing of it , that several attempts had been made , and that they had miss'd several opportunities , and had not done it till then ; but if he should not be taken out of the way , and the papers taken from him , the business would be so obstructed , and go near to be discovered , to that degree , that they would not be able to bring this design to pass , but must stay till another age before they should effect it . i asked him again , who it was , he sayd he would not tell me , but it was a very material man. i told him , that according to my promise i would assist ; but in such a case , i should need a great many men to be with me , he being so considerable a person . i asked him then , where the money was , that was formerly promised ? he told me no worse a man was engaged for it , than my lord bellasis , and mr. coleman had order to pay it . mr. justice jones . what was that reward ? mr. bedlow . four thousand pound . lord chief justice . who was it that first named this gentleman to you to be sir edmondbury godfrey ? mr. bedlow . they never named him to me at all . lord chief justice . let us know when you first knew it to be sir edmondbury godfrey . mr. bedlow . i parted with him then , but came not according to my promise . i was to meet him at the cloysters at somerset-house that night ; but i knew their design was to murder some body , and i would not come . i saw him no more till monday night , then i met him in red-lyon-court , where he put up his cane to his nose ; as who should say , i was to blame in not keeping my promise . and we went together to the grey-hound-tavern in fleet-street , where he charged me with my breach of promise . i told him i was taken up by other company , and unless they would tell me who it was i was to kill , i would have no hand in it : for i did not know but that it might be my own particular friend . and i would not murther any private person , unless i knew who it was , and for what reason . well , says he , we will tell you more anon if you meet me to night at somerset-house , at nine a clock . i did meet him exactly at that time in the cloysters , where we walk't and talk't a great while . and then he took me into the middle of the court , and told me , you have don ill , that you did not help in this business ; but if you will help to carry him off , you shall have half the reward . why said i , is he murdered ? yes , said he ; may not i see him , sayd i ? yes , you may , sayd he : and so took me by the hand , and led me into the room through a dark entry . in the room were a great many , i can't tell who they all were . mr. attorney gen. how many were there ? mr. bedlow . there might stand a great many behind one another . i saw four or five . mr. justice jones . what kind of light had they , mr. praunce ? mr. praunce . it was a middle-sized lanthorn . mr. just . jones . was it a small light , or a great light ? mr. bedlow . it was a small light. mr. justice jones . had they no light , but that lanthorn ? mr. bedlow . no : and they did not open it till i had had a turn about in the room . lord chief justice . did they discourse of carrying him away then ? mr. bedlow . yes , they did . l. ch. just . did you know him , when he lay dead there ? mr. bedlow . yes , your lordship shall hear how i came to know him . one stept to the body , and threw off the thing that laid upon him , and i went and lookt upon him ; and he had got about his neck , such a kind of a fashion'd cravat as this about my neck ; and i went to try , and could not get my finger in betwixt . so i saw him , his bosome was all open , and i knew him presently : for those jesuits that were there , were not those who had employed me to insinuate my self into his acquaintance ; and so they thought i had not known him . i asked who it was , they said it was a man that belong'd to a person of quality . i was mightily struck and daunted , when i knew him : i would sain have perswaded them to have tyed weights at his head and feet , and thrown him into the river , and afterwards i would have dragg'd for him , and took him up there . but they did not think that so safe . no ( said they ) we will put it upon himself , there are none but friends concerned . i asked le faire , how they would get him out ? they said , in a chair . then i asked them , which way they would get him into the chair , and out of the gate . they said the porter was to sit up to let them out . mr. recorder . what porter ? mr. bedlow . the porter of the house . mr. recorder . who , berry ? mr. bedlow . yes . as for that hill , or the old man , i do not know that i ever had any particular knowledge of them ; but only i looked upon them as ill-designing men , seeing them in the chappel . lord chief just . did you see ere a one of the three prisoners there at that time ? mr. bedlow . no my lord : but i have such a remembrance of faces , that i could tell , if i saw them again , any that i did see there , though the light was but small . they told me they had strangl'd him ; but how , i did not know . when they press'd me to help to carry him out , i then excused my self , and said , it was too early to carry him out yet ; but about eleven or twelve a clock would be a better time . and i assured them i would come again . said le faire to me , upon the sacrament you took on thursday , you will be at the carrying off of this man at night . i promised him i would . and he went away , and left me there . i made what speed away i could , for i was very unsatisfied in my self ; having so great a charge upon me , as the sacrament of the alter , which after the discovery of the plot , was administred to me twice a week to conceal it , i could not tell how to discover : i went then to bristol , but very restless and disturbed in my mind ; and being perswaded by what god was pleased to put into my mind , calling to remembrance that some murders had been already committed , and greater ones were dayly intended , i was at last convinc't , and could not longer forbear discovery . i wrote to the secretary of it , and went to the parliament and gave in my information . and one day i met with mr. praunce in the lobby , and knew him , and apprehended him . mr. att. g. i will ask you one question , had you any discourse with mr. praunce between the time you saw him with the body , and the day he was apprehended . mr. bedlow , no , i never saw him to this day , to have any converse with him . mr. justice wild , did not you see hill that night when you were to have carried him away ? mr. bedlow , no my lord. mr. justice wild , nor green , nor berry ? mr. bedlow , green i did see about the court , and berry i was told was to open the gate that monday night . but my lord , when they found i did not come again , they desisted that night , and kept it off longer , for fear i should come again to stop them . mr. att. g. he did not refuse to help them , but promised to do it and failed : and they finding that he had failed them , would not let the body lye where it was for fear of discovery , but removed back again . mr. justice dolben , what did praunce say , when you first took notice of him ? mr. bedlow , i understood aftewards that he was taken upon suspicion , because at that time , his maid had made a discovery , that he was about that time out of his lodgings . and while he was there in the constables hands mr. oates came by , and he desired to see him ; and presently after i came thither , and the constable asked him , mr. praunce , will you see mr. bedlow ? no , he said , he would not : then he put his hat over his eyes that i might not see his face , and kept it so . the press being great , and being desirous to be private my self , i spoke to the guard to put all out that had no business there , and they cried out , that all should avoid the room but mr. bedlow and his friends . and when he was going out with the rest , he lift up his hat to see his way ; and though before i did not mind him , yet i happened at his passing by me to cast my eyes upon his face , and presently knew him , and cried , oh! pray sir stay , you are one of my friends that must stay here . and i presently charged my guards to take charge of him . saith the constable , he is my prisoner : is he so , said i ? then you have a very good prisoner , and pray look safe to him . and then when i went into the house of lords , i made out my charge against him . mr. recorder , now if the prisoners have any questions to ask mr. bedlow , they may have free liberty to do it . hill , i never saw him before in my life . l. c. j. do you know any of them ? mr. bedlow , i know mr. berry , and green very well . l. c. j. pray mr. praunce , was the dark-lanthorn at hill's lodging , or at the other place ? mr. praunce , at the other place . l. c. j. look you here mr. praunce , they carried him to hill's on saturday night , and he lay there till monday night : what time on monday-night was it that they removed him into somerset-house ? mr. praunce , i was not there when they did remove him . l. c. j. what time did you see him there ? mr. praunce , about nine or ten a clock . l. c. j. what time was it that you saw him there mr. bedlow ? mr. bedlow , it was after nine my lord. mr. praunce , they had then removed him to somerset-house , and mr. hill asked what they intended to do with the body ? they said , they would carry it out that night , but they did not . but there the dark-lanthorn was , and on tuesday-night they removed him back again . mr. att. g. now my lord , if you please , we shall go on to call some witnesses that were not present at the murder ; for direct evidence , as to that , can come only out of the mouth of some that were concerned in it ; but to corroborate by concurrent circumstances , the testimony which hath been already given . and first we shall call the constable , to prove that he found sir edmondbury godfrey in the fields , in the same manner in which mr. praunce says they told him they left him . l. c. j mr. attorney , you promised you would prove , that when these persons were examined , they did deny before the house of lords , that they knew praunce . mr. att. g. my lord , in that we were mistaken , i understand now , it was only berry denied that he did know girald . l. c. j. why , did you never know mr. gerald ? berry , never in my life . l. c. j. mr. praunce , have not you seen girald with berry ? mr. praunce , yes , i have , but they usually went by several names . l. c. j. did you ever see girald in hill's company ? mr. praunce , yes , that i have . l. c. j. was there no sentinel set that monday-night , that saturday-night , and that wednesday-night ? mr. praunce , my lord , i am not certain , i took notice of none ; if there were any , they were at berry's house , and he opened the gate , when we came out with the sedan . mr. att. g. mr. berry , i suppose , could take order with the sentinel , and give them some entertainment in his own lodg. then mr. brown the constable was sworn . mr. recorder , pray , in what posture did you find sir edmundbury godfrey ? mr. brown , i found him , my lord , in a ditch , with his sword through him , and the end of it was two handfulls out of his back . l. c. j. was he bloody ? mr. brown , there was no blood at all , there was no blood in the ditch . l. c. j. was the sword sticking in his body ? mr. brown , yes , my lord , but there was no blood at all when it was taken out ; they had run it into another place , but that happened to be against a rib , and so it could not go through ; but there was no blood there . mr. justice jones , was there any bruises on his breast ? mr. brown , he did look black about the breast . mr. att. g. my lord , i would ask , whether his neck were broken ? mr. brown , yes , i suppose it was . l. c. j. how do you know it ? mr. brown , it was very weak , and one might turn his head from one shoulder to the other . l. c. j. where was his stick and gloves ? mr. brown , they were on the bank-side . l. c. j. whose sword was it ? mr. brown , his servants said it was his own . mr. att. g. pray , had he any money in his pocket ? mr. brown , yes , a great deal of gold and silver . l. c. j. ay , ay , for they count theft sin , but not murder . mr. justice wild , they left that , to let men think he murdered himself . l. c. j. well , will you ask this witness any questions before he goes ? capt. richardson , they say they will ask him none . mr. att. g. then we desire to call the chyrurgeons that view'd and opened the body , mr. skillard , and mr. cambridge ; both whom were sworn . mr. att. g. we begin with mr. skillard , pray , sir , inform my lord and the jury , did you see the body of sir edmondbury godfrey ? mr. skillard , yes , i did view the body . mr. att. g. when ? what time did you see it ? mr. skillard , about twelve of the clock . mr. att. g. what day of the week was it ? mr. skillard , on friday , the next day after he was found . mr. att g. did you observe his breast ? how was it ? mr. skillard . his breast was all beaten with some obtuse weapon , either with the feet or hands , or something . mr. att. g. did you observe his neck ? mr. skillard yes , it was distorted . mr. att. g. how far ? mr. skillard . you might have taken the chin and have set it upon either shoulder . mr. att. g. did you observe the wound ? mr. skillard . yes , i did . it went in at one place and stopt at a rib , the other place it was quite through the body . mr. att. g. do you think he was killed by that wound ? mr. skillard . no , for then there would have been some evacuation of blood , which there was not . and besides his bosome was open , and he had a flannel wastcoat and a shirt on ; and neither those , nor any of his clothes were penetrated . mr. att. g. but are you sure his neck had been broken ? mr. skillard . yes , i am sure . mr. att. g. because some have been of opinion , that he hanged himself , and his relations to save his estate run him through ; i would desire to ask the chyrurgeon what he thinks of it . mr. skillard . there was more done to his neck than an ordinary suffocation ; the wound went through his very heart , and there would have appeared some blood , if it had been done quickly after his death . mr. att. g. did it appear by the view of the body that he was strangled or hanged ? mr. skillard . he was a lean man , and his muscles if he had died of the wound , would have been turgid : and then again all strangled people never swell , because there is a sudden deprivation of all the spirits , and a hindring of the circulation of the blood . mr. att. g. how long do you believe he might be dead before you saw him ? mr. skillard . i believe four or five days . and they might have kept him a week and he never swell'd at all , being a lean man. and when we ript him up , he began for to putrify , we made two incisions to give it vent , and the liquor that was in his body did a little smell . the very lean flesh was so near turned into putrefaction , that it stuck to the instrument when we cut it . mr. recorder . my lord here is another chyrurgeon , mr. cambridge ; pray sir are you sworn . mr. cambridge . yes , i am . mr. recorder . when did you see the body of sir edmondbury godfrey ? mr. cambridge . upon friday , the very same day the gentleman did . i found his neck dislocated , and his breast very much beaten and bruised . and i found two punctures under his left pap , the one went against the rib , the other quite through the body under the left pap. mr. att g. do you believe that wound was the occasion of his death ? mr. cambridge . no , i believe it was given him after his death . l. c. j. and his neck was broke ? mr. cambridge . his neck was dislocated , sir. mr. att. g. why , that is broken . now my lord we shall call sir edmundbury godfreys maid , elizabeth curtis . swear her . which was done . mr. recorder . your lordship knows that mr praunce did say in the beginning , that they had been several times at his house inquiring for him : now we call this person to tell you what she knows about that . mr. att. g. elizabeth curtis , look upon the prisoners , and tell my lord and the jury whether you know any of them or no. elizabeth curtis . this man that i now hear called green , my lord , was at my masters about a fortnight before he died . l. c. j. what to do ? eliz. curtis . i don't know , but he asked for sir edmondbury godfrey . l. c. j. what time of the day was it ? eliz. curtis , it was in the morning . mr. att g. what did he say ? eliz curtis , he asked for sir edmondbury godfrey , and when he came to him , he said , good morrow , sir , in english , and afterwards spoke to him in french , i could not understand him . mr. recorder , i desire she may consider well , and look upon him . eliz. curtis , that is the man. green. upon my soul i never saw him in all my life . eliz. curtis , he had a darker coloured perriwig when he was there , and was about a quarter of an hour talking with my master . mr. att. g. are you sure this was the man ? e. curtis , yes , i am , and that other man hill was there that saturday morning , and did speak with him before he went out . l. c. j. that you will deny too ? hill , yes , i do . l. c. j. how do you know he was there ? e. curtis , i was in the parlor at that time , making up the fire . l. c. j. had you ever seen him before that time ? e. curtis , no , never before that time . i went into the parlor to carry my master his break-fast , and brought a bunch of keys with me in , and there hill was with him . and i went up stairs about some business , and came down again wanting the keys , which i had left upon the table ; and hill was all that time with my master . mr. sol. g. how do you know he was there ? e. curtis , i was in the parlor and stirred up the fire , and he was there a good while . mr. just . jones , how long after did you see him again ? e. curtis , not till i saw him in newgate . mr. just . jones , how long was that afterwards ? e. curtis , a month ago . but it is not the man that brought the note to my master . mr. att. g. what note ? e. curtis , a note that a man brought to my master that night before . mr. att. g. what is become of that note ? e. curtis , my lord , i cannot tell , my master had it . mr. att. g. prithee , tell us the story of it . e. curtis , there was a man came to my masters house , and asked if sir edmondbury godfrey were within . he said he had a letter for him ; and shewed it me , it was tied up in a knot . i told him my master was within , but busy ; but said i , if you please i will carry it into him : he did so , and i gave it to my master ; when i went out again , the man staid and asked for an answer : i went in again and told my master that the man required an answer . prithee , said he , tell him i don't know what to make of it . mr. just . wild , when was that ? e. curtis , on friday night . mr. just . wild , when ? the friday night before he was murdered ? e. curtis , yes . mr. att. g. but you swear that hill was there the saturday morning . e. curtis , yes , he was . mr. sol. g. in what clothes was he then ? e. curtis , the same clothes that he hath now . mr. just . wild , are you sure they are the same clothes ? e. curtis , yes . mr. sol. g. here is a great circumstance my lord. i asked her what clothes he was in when he came to sir edmondbury's ; and she saith , the same that he hath now . l. c. j. have you ever shifted your clothes ? hill , no indeed , i have not . e. curtis , but for the man that brought the note , i cannot swear it is he . hill , but she did say when she came to see me in newgate , that she never saw me in my life ; and my lord i hope i have sufficient vvitnesses to prove where i was that morning . l. c. j. she says , she cannot swear you were the man that brought the note . hill , my lord , i desire she will tell me about what time it was i was there . e. curtis , it was about nine or ten a clock . mr. att. g. that agrees with mr. praunces exactly in point of time . now if your lordship please , we will proceed and call mr. lancellot stringer , and mr. vincent . mr. recorder , my lord , we do call these witnesses to prove , that these men had meetings with mr. praunce at the plow . [ then was lancelot stringer sworn . ] mr. recorder . pray tell my lord and the jury whether you know mr. prance . l. stringer . yes , sir , i do . mr. recorder . have you seen him at the plow at any time ? l. stringer . yes , sir , i have . mr. recorder . in what company there ? was mr. green there ? l. stringer . yes , he was . mr. recorder . which was he ? he points to him . mr. recorder . and who else ? l. stringer . there was that hill. mr. att. gen. how often ? l. stringer . several times . l. c. j. how long before sir edmundbury godfrey was murdered ? l. stringer . i cannot tell , my lord. l. c. j. do you remember any other company was with him ? l. stringer . yes , there were several other company . mr. recorder . name them . l. stringer . there was mr. fitz-girald and mr. hill. mr. att. gen. and yet hill saith he never saw girald . l. stringer . and there was kelly , he was another of them , and prance . l. c. j. did you know vernatt ? l. stringer . yes , my lord. l. c. j. how now ? what say you to it mr. hill , and mr. green ? were you never at the plow , drinking with mr. prance ? hill. yes , my lord , several times . l. c. j. what say you , mr green ? green. i have drank with him there . l. c. j. do you know girald ? hill. i know one girald ? mr. sol. gen. now will your lordship please to let me prove , that at the council he owned he knew girald and kelly , and now 't is proved he hath been in kelly's company , he says he does not know girald . hill. my lord , that was a mistake , for i do know kelly by sight , that is , i knew two men that used the chappel very much , and he was one of them . l. c. j. but you , witness , say you have seen girald and them together ? l. stringer . yes , i have . l. c. j. how many times ? l. stringer . i cannot tell how many , my lord , several times . l. c. j. have you seen them twice together ? l. stringer . yes , i have . mr. recorder . now to settle it i would ask him , with your lordships favour , when he came to live with his master . you , young man , when did you come to live with your master at the plow ? l. stringer . why , i have been with him two years . mr. rec. but when was it you came last to live at the plow ? l. stringer . in bartholomew-tide last . mr. recorder . it was but five weeks before sir edmondbury godfrey was murdered . l. c. j. do you , green , know mr. girald ? green. yes , i do . mr. recorder . then pray swear mr. vincent . [ which was done . mr. recorder . come , pray sir , do you live at the plow ? vincent . yes , sir , i do . mr. recorder . then pray , do you tell my lord , and the jury , if you know any of the prisoners at the bar , and which of them . vincent . i know mr. green. mr. recorder . do you know any body else ? vincent . yes , i know hill , and i know mr. berry . mr. rec. have you seen these persons at your house ? vincent . yes , i have . l. c. j. with whom ? vincent . i can't tell every body with whom they were . l. c. j. were they there with praunce ? vincent . yes , sir. l. c. j. did you know one girald ? vincent . yes , sir. l. c. j. hath he been at your house ? vincent . yes , sir , he hath . l. c. j. who was with him ? vincent . i can't tell justly . l. c. j. did you know kelly ? vincent . yes , i did . l. c. j. hath he been there ? vincent . yes , he hath . l. c. j. in what company ? vincent . with praunce . l. c. j. and with any of the prisoners ? vincent . yes , but i can't tell particularly with whom . mr. attor . gen. now , my lord , as these were meetings before the fact was committed to consult how to do it ; so we at the beginning told you of a meeting after it was done , and that was at bow. we shall therefore call some witnesses as to that ; and they are richard cary , and william evans . first swear richard cary. [ which was done . mr. recorder . do you remember you were sent of a message from the queens-head at bow , and whether ? pray tell my lord , and the jury . cary. i remember it very well ; there were three gentlemen that sent for me to the queens-head , and i being sent for did come , and when i came up stairs , they asked me if i knew poplar , i said i knew it very well . then they asked me if i knew mr. dethick , i told them i thought i did . then said they , you must carry this letter to george dethick , esq at poplar , and deliver it to his own hands , and to no body else . accordingly away i went , and carried the letter : i went to the door , and asked if he were within ; his man said he was above stairs , but they would call him to me ; and calling him to me , sir , said i , there are some gentlemen at the queens-head at bow that have sent me with a letter to you . so he looked upon the letter , and , saith he , go and tell them i will be with them presently . so , may it please you , my lord , i came again , and when i came , the gentlemen were there still . well , said they , go and drink a glass of claret , which stood upon the table , and they gave me six-pence , and i went away . mr. recorder . pray look upon mr. praunce , can you remember whether that man was there ? cary. there were three of them , and he looks like one . mr. recorder . mr. praunce , do you remember this was the man you sent ? mr. praunce . yes , my lord , this was the same man that was sent . l. c. j. well , call the other . [ then william evans , the boy of the house at the queens-head , was sworn ] mr. recorder . hark you , do you remember any company that was at your masters house two or three months agon ? w. evans . yes , i do . mr. recorder . do you remember that you heard them talk any thing there ? w. evans . they pull'd out a paper and read it . l. c. j. you boy , do you know mr. dethick ? w. evans . yes , i do . l. c. j. was he there ? w. evans . he did come to them , my lord. mr. recorder . what had they to dinner there ? w. evans . they had flounders . mr. recorder . who bought them ? w. evans . one of them , i can't tell who . mr. recorder . what had they else ? w. evans . a barrel of oysters . mr. recorder . pray give my lord an accompt what you observed and heard . w. evans . sir , i know nothing but that they pull'd out a paper , and read it , and named sir edmondbury godfrey's name . and while i was at the door , some body came and threatned to kick me down stairs . l. c. j. he saith just as mr. praunce said in every particular . mr. attor . gen. now if it please your lordship , we desire to call sir robert southwell , to prove what mr. praunce said before the council , and how particular he was ; and did to some of the lords , who were sent with him to somerset-house , point out the places . mr. sol. gen. we call him to shew , that when praunce was examined before the king , he was sent with some of the lords , and sir robert southwell , to somerset-house , where he pointed with his finger , and shewed the places where all was done , and so we shall shew your lordship and the jury , how exact he was in every thing . then sir robert southwell was sworn . mr. recorder . pray sir robert , will you tell your knowledge ? sir robert southwell . my lord , i was upon the twenty fourth of december waiting upon his majesty in council , and mr. praunce was sent for , to speak his knowledge concerning this murder , and he then gave a general account of things , which , because it did relate to that bench , and this corner , and that room , and that passage , and that gallery , it was not understood by the board , and thereupon his majesty thought fit to appoint my lord duke of monmouth , and the earl of ossory , and mr. vice-chamberlain to the queen , to go thither , and take the examination upon the place , and report it to the board : and i , being clerk of of the council , though not in waiting at that time , and having taken notice of what mr. praunce had there deposed , i did wait upon those lords , and took the examination upon the place . and what i did take upon the place , this was done here , and that there , i drew up into a report , and the report is signed by those two noble lords , and was read that afternoon at the board ; and to that i referr my self . mr. attorn . gen. pray sir robert , did he shew the particular places to those lords ? sir robert southwell . yes , he did . first , the bench whereon they were sitting when sir edmondbury godfrey was coming down ; then the corner into which they drew him when they had strangled him ; then the place where one berry went to stay , which was at the stairs that lead to the upper court , then a little door at the end of the stables , which lead up a pair of stairs , and at the head of the stairs a long dark entry , and at the top of those staires , a door on the left hand , which being opened , shew'd us eight steps , which lead up to the lodgings that were dr. godwins : in which hill was said to be inhabitant for seven years before . and assoon as we were gone two steps , there was a little closet or cabinet on the right hand , in which there was a bed , and there he shewed my lords , this is the place where we handed him up first , and here we left him , said he , in the care of hill for two nights . mr. justice wild. you were there , sir robert southwell upon the place , when he shew'd them these things ? sir robert southwell . yes sir , i was there . mr. justice wild. was it answerable to what he had declared to the king and council ? sir robert southwell . yes , it was answerable to all things he had said in the morning . mr. justice jones . and suitable to what he says now ? sir robert southwell . yes , suitable to what he sayes now , but only now he sayes more than he said then . and as to what he sayes about the chambers of sir john arundell , they could not be sir john's lodgings , for they were not capable of receiving a person of that quality . mr. praunce . i said , i did believe they did belong to sir john arundell . l. chief just . they were lodgings perhaps that belong'd to his servants , though not to him . mr. attorn . gen. sir robert , i desire to know , whether mr. praunce , when he shew'd these places , and made these descriptions , did he do it with any hesitancy , or did he do it readily ? sir robert southwell . hitherto , my lord , he went directly and positively , as if any body should walk to westminster-hall door . but afterwards , when the lords did desire to know whither the body was carried , he said , it was into some room of the house by the garden ; for this is an outer part of the house , which any body may do any thing in , without their knowledge that are within . and he undertook to lead them to the place as well as he could ; and so away we went through the long dark entry that leads into the outer court of the great house ; and crossing the quadrangle , he leads us to the piazza , and down a pair of stairs , and so far , said he , i am sure i went ; then , assoon as we were down the stairs , there is a great square court , then he began to stagger , as if he did not know his way , but there was no way but to go on hovvever , and on vve vvent , and coming cross the court , vve came into several rooms , and going through them , vve came up stairs again , and so into several other rooms again . sure , said he , vve vvere here , but i can't tell , and he vvas in a great distraction vvhat room he savv the body in ; but , said he , thus far , i am certain i am right ; vvhich vvas according to the paper , and i refer my self to that . mr. justice wild. but , you say , that what he had said to the lords in the council , was the same that he said when you were by upon the place . sir robert southwell . yes . l. chief . just . his doubtfulness of the room does assert , and give credit to his testimony , and confirms it to any honest man in england . here , saith he , i will not be positive , but having sworn the other things which he well remembred , positively , he is made the more credible for his doubtfulness of a thing which he does not remember , which a man that could swear any thing would not stick at . mr. justice jones . besides , he was not there but by night , and all the light he had was a dark lanthorn . mr. sol. gen. now , sir robert , i would ask you one question , if you please , do you remember that hill was examined at the council about this matter ? sir robert southwell . my lord these are the notes that i took upon these mens examinations , if your lordship pleases they may be read . mr. recorder . sir robert , we ask you but as to one particular thing , therefore if you please to look upon it , and refresh your memory , you may read it to your self , and tell us only the substance ; which he did . mr. sol. gen. now sir , if you please , do you remember that hill was there ? sir. rob. southwell . yes , i find he was examined . mr. soll. gen. did not he deny there that he knew kelly , but that he knew girald ? sir rob. southwell . yes , i do find it here set down that he did deny he knew kelly , but that he knew girald . hill. i said i knew one girald , but not that . mr. record . but before the council he said he knew girald , not one girald . l. chief just . this way of answering is like the examination that was taken lately amongst some of them . a person was asked when he saw such a priest ? he denied that he had seen him in fourteen dayes . but then comes one and proves to his face , that he was with him in company all night , within a week and iess . i , sayes he , that 's true , but i said i had not seen him in fourteen dayes . and so they may take oaths to serve the king faithfully all the dayes of their lives , but in the nights they may murther him , and keep their oaths for all that . mr just . dolben . i would know , whether the girald you know be a priest or no ? hill. he is not . mr. justice dolben . then you do not know girald the priest ? hill. no , i do not . mr. recorder . call mr. thomas stringer . and he was sworn . mr. recorder . pray mr. stringer , will you tell my lord and the jury what it was that mr. berry said about any directions he had to keep all persons out of somerset-house , about the twelfth or fourteenth of october last ? mr. t. stringer . my lord , upon his examination before the lords of the committee , berry did say he had orders from the queen , or in the name of the queen , that he should suffer no strangers , nor any persons of quality to come into somerset-house . mr. att. gen. when was it he was to keep them out ? mr. t. stringer . the 12th 13th and 14th of october . mr. att. gen. what , three days ? mr. t. stringer . two or three days . and he said that the prince did come , and he did refuse him , and sent him back again . mr. record . did he say he ever had any such directions before ? mr. t. stringer . no : he said he never before had any . l. ch. just . it was a very unlucky thing that he had it then . berry . the prince might have gone in if he would . mr. t. stringer . you said you did refuse him , you had order to let none come in . l. ch. just . had you any such order ? berry . yes , my lord , i had such an order from the queen's gentleman-usher . l. ch. just. had you never had such before ? berry . yes , i have had before , since the queen came to somerset-house . l. ch. just . mr. stringer swears you said you had not any before . berry . yes , i had . l. ch. just . why did you deny it then ? berry . i did not deny it ; besides , there were several went in . mr. record . we have proved indeed , five or six did go in . l. ch. just . for how many days had you that order ? berry . two days . l. ch. just . which two days ? berry . the eleventh and twelfth , i think thereabouts . mr. record . did you say before the lords , that you never had such orders before ? berry . no , i did not . l. ch. just . mr. berry , when you were examined before the lords , did you not say you never had such orders before ? berry . no , i did not say so , my lord , as i know of ; for they did not examine me about that . l. ch. just . you said you would prove it under his own hand . prove that . mr. att. gen. mr. stringer , did he write his name to his examination ? mr. t. stringer . yes , he did to one examination . mr. att. gen. pray look upon that , is that his hand ? mr. t. stringer . this was read to him before he signed it , and then he did sign it . mr. att. gen. i would sain shew it to him , to see whether he would own it or no. berry . yes , that is my hand . then the clerke of the crown read it . cler. of th' cr. this is subscribed by henry berry . the information of henry berry , porter at the gate of somerset-house ; taken before the right honourable the marquess of winchester . this deponent saith , that about the 12th , 13th , and 14th of october last , he had order to tell all persons of quality , that the queen was private , and that they were not to come in ; and this deponent saith , the queen continued so private for two days . l. ch. just . where is that part of the examination wherein he said , he never had any such order before ? mr. t. sringer . he did say so , but it is not in that that hath his hand to it . mr. just . wild. pray , my lord , observe this is a kind of reflecting evidence , and i would have no more made of it than the thing will bear . l. ch. just . they only bring it , and make use of it against berry , as a pretence of his . m. just . wild. but it is a very reflecting evidence . mr. att. gen. surely there is no body here that offers it as such : we use it only to this purpose , to shew that berry , who was a party to this murder , did use all the means that he could to keep it private ; and ●ndeavoured to prevent strangers coming in that night to discover it , and therefore pretended these orders . if he had any such orders , i suppose he will prove them , we do not say he had them ; but 't is a great evidence , when he pretended to such privacie , that he and his fellows had something to do that was not fit to be known by every body . mr. record . he may make use of any body's name , and pretend what he will ; but i suppose he will prove it from the gentleman-usher , if it be true . mr. att. gen. we have one witness more to call , my lord , and that is one farr . call stephen farr . which was done , and he sworn . mr. att. gen. he is a neighbour to berry , and will give your lordship an account what applications have been made to him , to tamper with him for money , to keep away , and not give evidence in this cause . pray sir , are you mr. berry's neighbour ? farr . yes sir , i am . mr. att gen. pray then tell what you know . farr . i know him very well , his wife hath been with me last week , and asked me if i knew what time he was with me on wednesday , the 16th of october . i desired time to recollect my self : and she called four or five times after , and i did recollect my memory and told her , that i was not with him at all that wednesday . l. ch. just . why , this was reasonable , and fair enough to do . mr. att. gen. it was so , my lord , but pray had you no money offered you ? farr . no sir , none at all ; and i told her i could not remember that i was with him that day . berry . but you may remember it very well , when i came from the queen , i came to you . farr . my lord , i was out of town that wednesday , from two a clock in the afternoon , till nine at night . l. ch. just . well , well , this is nothing : the woman was willing if she could , to have counterproved the evidence , and what she did was fair ; she offered no money , nor did it in an indirect way . mr. att gen. my lord , we have now done with our evidence for the king , and leave it till we hear what they say . l. ch. just . what do you say for your selves , you shall have all the free liberty you will desire ? hill. in the first place , i take god to be my witness , that i am wholly innocent , as to the matter that is charged upon me : and as to what is said , that i dogg'd sir edmund-bury godfrey ; i can prove that i went into my lodging at eight a clock , and did not stir out . l. ch. just . come , call your witnesses . hill. mary tilden , katherine lee , mrs. broadstreet , and daniel gray . l. ch. just . let them come in there . then mary tilden was first examined . mr. att. gen this is doctor godwin's niece , and his house-keeper . l ch. just . well , what do you ask her ? hill. i desire to know what you can say about my being in my lodging , and not going out . mary tilden . he hath lived in our family seven or eight years . l ch. just . your family , what is your family ? mary tilden with my uncle ? l ch. just . who is your uncle . mary tilden . doctor godwin ; we left him in the house always when we were absent from it , he was always a trusty servant , never kept ill hours , always came home by eight a clock at night . mr. just . dolben . always , for how long ? mary tilden . ever since we came over last into england . mr. just dolben . when was that ? mary tilden . in april last . l. ch. just . were you there that night sir edmund-bury godfrey was kill'd ? mary tilden . i was . l. ch. just . vvhat night was that ? mary tilden . i don't know , my lord , i heard of it in the town . l. ch. just . vvhen did you first hear of it ? mary tilden the thursday that he was found . l. ch. just . did you not hear of it on the wednesday ? mary tilden yes , i did . l. ch. just . vvho could tell you the wednesday before ? mary tilden . why , my lord , in the town it was said he was missing from saturday , and a thursday he was found . l. c. j. what can you say concerning hill , that he was not out after eight a clock that night ? mary tilden . he was a very good servant to my unkle , and never kept ill hours , but always came in by eight a clock or before . mr. justice dolben . were not you out your self that night ? mary tilden . no not i , never out after that hour . l. c. j. pray how can you give such an accompt of mr. hill , as if he was always in your company ? mary tilden . he came in to wait at table , and did not stir out afterwards . l. c. j. pray what religion are you of ? are you a papist ? mary , tilden . i know not whether i come here to make a profession of my faith. l. c. j. are you a roman catholick ? mary tilden . yes . l. c. j. have you a dispensation to eat suppers on saturday-nights ? mr. recorder . i hope you did not keep him company after supper all night . mary tilden . no i did not , but he came in to wait at table at supper . l. c. j. i thought you had kept fasting on saturday-nights . mary tilden . no , my lord , not on saturday-nights . mr. justice jones . how many dishes of meat had you to supper ? mary tilden . we had no meat , though we did not fast . l. c. j. can you speak positively as to this night , the saturday that he was kill'd ? mary tilden . he was at home that night . l. c. j. and where was he the sunday ? mary tilden . he was at home . l. c. j. and you are sure he was at home every night ? mary tilden . yes , while we were in town . l. c. j. where was you all that wednesday-night you speak of ? mary tilden . i was at home in my lodging . mr. justice wild. how is it possible for you to say , that hill , who was not your constant companion , did not go out afterwards ? mary tilden . no , he was not my constant companion . mr. justice wild. how then can you charge your memory that he was at home ? l. c. j. come , you are to speak truth , though you are not upon your oath . can you charge your memory to say , that he came in constantly at eight a clock at night ? mary tilden . yes , i can , because i saw him come in constantly ; and when he came in , i always sent my maid to bar the door . l. c. j. maid , can you say that he was always at home at night ? mary tilden . i can say he never was abroad after eight at night . mr. recorder . why you did not watch him till he went to bed , did you ? mary tilden . we were always up till eleven a clock at night . mr. att. g. was he in your company all that while ? mary tilden . i beg your pardon ; if your lordship saw the lodgings , you would say it were impossible for any to go in or out , but that they must know it within . we were constant in our hours of going to supper ; our doors were never opened after he came in to wait at supper . l. c. j. you may say any thing to a heretick for a papist . mr. justice . dolben . this is a mighty improbable business . mr. justice . wild. where was he a wednesday-night ? mary tilden . at home . l. c. j. they have a general answer for all questions . mr. justice jones . who kept the key of your lodgings ? mary tilden . the maid . mr. justice jones . hath hill never kept the key ? mary tilden . no , my lord , the maid . mr. justice jones . how do you know but that the maid might let him out ? mr. praunce . my lord , mrs. broadstreet said at first there was but one key ; but before the duke of monmouth she said there was six or seven keys . l. c. j. look you what tricks you put upon us to blind us . you come and tell us that he was every night at home by eight a clock , and did not stir out , for there was but one lock , and the maid kept the key ; and yet there were three or four keys to it . mary tilden . there was but one key to that which kept the door fast . l. c. j. praunce , how many keys were there ? mr. praunce . she confessed there were four or five . mr. justice wild. what time was it that you carried him out of somerset-house on wednesday-night ? mr. prance . it was about ten or eleven of the clock . hill went to fetch the horse . mary tilden . we had never been out of our lodgings after eight a clock , since we came to town . mr. justice jones . when were you out of town ? mary tilden . in october . mr. justice dolben . nay , now , mistris , you have spoil'd all ; for in october this business was done . mr. justice jones . you have undone the man , instead of saving him . mary tilden . why , my lord ; i only mistook the month. l. c. j. you woman ( speaking to mrs broadstreet what month was it you were out of town ? broadstreet . in september . l. c. j. 't is apparent you consider not what you say , or you come hither to say any thing will serve the turn . mary tilden . no , i do not , for i was out of town in september , came to town the latter end of september . l. c. j. you must remember what you said , that you came to england in april last , and from that time he was always within at eight a clock at night . mary tilden . except that time that we were out of town , which was in september the summer-time . and it is impossible but if the body was in the house , as praunce said it was , but i must see him , or some of us must . i used to go every day into that little room for something or other , and i must needs see him if he were there . l. c. j. you told me just now you were not upon confession ; and i tell you now so , you are not . then mrs. broadstreet was examined . mr. justice jones . well , woman , what say you ? broadstreet . we came to town upon a monday , michaelmas-day was the sunday following ; and from that time neither he nor the maid used to be abroad after eight a clock : we kept very good hours , and he always waited at supper , and never went abroad after he came in to wait at supper : and the lodging was so little , that nothing could be brought in , but they must know that were within . l. c. j. this is a lower room than the chamber , is it not ? mr. praunce . 't is even with the dining-room , my lord. l. c. j. what say you , sir robert southwell ? sir ro. southwell . my lord , it is an extraordinary little place ; as soon as you get up eight steps , there is a little square entry , and there is this room on the one hand , and the dining-room on the other . i think there is a pair of staires to go down at one corner of the entry , as i think , but the body was laid in a little square room at the head of the steps . l. c. j. and must you go into the room to go to the dining-room ? broadstreet . no , 't is a distinct room ; but the key was always in the door , and every day some body went into it for something or another . l. c. j. will you undertake to say it was always in the door ? broadstreet . yes , it constantly was . mr. justice wild. for my own part i will not judge you : but that his body should be carried there about nine a clock at night a saturday-night , and remain there till monday-night , 't is very suspitious , that if you were in the house , as you say you were , and used to go into that room every day , you must either hear it brought in , or see it . broadstreet . but we did neither , my lord. mr. justice dolben . it is well you are not indicted . broadstreet . mr. praunce , you know all these things to be false , mr praunce . mr. praunce . i lay nothing to your charge ; but you said before the duke of monmouth , that hill was gone from his lodgings before that time . l. c. j. what say you , sir rob. southwell ? sr. rob. south . there arose a little quarrel between them about the time that mr. hill did leave those lodgings . prance said it was a fortnight after ; hill said when he was upon his examination , that the same saturday that sr. edmondbury was missing , he was treating with his landlord , and from that time , to the time he went to his new house , it was about a week or a fortnight . l. ch. just . but he did pretend he was gone before ? broadstreet . no my lord , i did not . l. ch. just . to witnesses upon oath sware it , and you said it your self , and gave it under your hand . broadstreet . my lord ? — l. ch. just . nay you will not hear , but you will talk , you say one thing now , and you set another under your hand . mr. att. g. have you not a brother that is in the proclamation , one broadstreet a priest ? broadstreet . i have a brother whose name is broadstreet . mr. att. g. is he not a priest , and in the proclamation ? broadstreet . i hope , i must not impeach my brother here i said upon my oath he came to town a monday , and michaelmas day was the sunday following , and lawrence hill went away a fortnight after . sr. rob. south . she swore then two or three days after michaelmas day . l. ch. just . you must know we can understand you through all your arts. it was not convenient for you at that time to say , that mr. hill went away about a fortnight after michaelmas , for then the thing that was charged to be done part of it in your house , would have been within the fortnight , for it was the 12 th of october , but then you said only two or three days . sr. rob. south . she did say my lord , that about miclemas two or three or four days after he went away : broadstreet . i begg your pardon , i only said i could not tell the time exactly . l. ch. just . well have you any more to say . mary tilden . there was never a day but i went into that room for something or other , and if any body came to see me , there was so little space that the footmen were always forced to be in that room . mr. just . dolben . were you there upon sunday ? mary tilden . yes , my lord , i was . mr. just . dolb. well i will say no more , call another witness . hill. katharine lee. l. ch. just . what can you say , maid ? lee. my lord , i did never miss him out of the house at those hours . l. ch. just . may be you did not look for him . lee. i did go down every night to the door to see if it were lockt , and i went into the parlor to see that things were safe there . l. ch. just . you are a roman catholick , are you not ? lee. yes , i am . mr. just . dolben . might not he go out of the house , and you never the wiser ? lee. yes , for i did not watch him continually . capt. richardson . all that she says may be true by the place . the servants keep down a paire of stayres in the kitchin , and any one may come in or go out having so many keys , and they not know it that are below . lee. i went into the chamber every morning as i went to market . mr. just . wild. have a care what you say , and mind the question i ask you , were you there on the sunday in that room where they say sr. edmondbury godfrey's body was laid ? lee. i cannot say that i was in that room , but i called in at the door every day , and i was the last up every night . mr. just . wild. i le say that for thee , thou hast spoke with more care then any of them all . then daniel gray was examined l. ch. just what can you say ? what questions do you ask him ? hill. i desire him to speak what he can say , where i was those 5 days that sr. edmondbury godfrey was missing . gray . i kept my brother hill company , from the 8 th of october , till he took his house , which was about the 22 or 23. l. ch. just . what time did you use to go to bed ? gray . about 9 or 10 a clock at night . l. ch. just . what time did he go ? gray . when i did , but i did not see him go to bed. l. ch. just . where did you ly ? gray . at my owne house . l. c. just . and you went home about 8 or 9 a clock at night to go to bed ? gray . yes i did . mr. just . jones . you say he took his house the 8 th of october , when did he go thither ? gray . yes , he took his house the 8 th of october , but he did not go thither till the one or two and twentieth ? mr. j. dolb. but you cannot tell what he did at night . gray . no not i. mr. just . dolbin . but you were in his company till 8 or 9 a clock at night ? gray . yes my lord i was . l. ch. just . how far did you live off of him ? gray . about a bows shoot . l. ch. just . look you mr. hill he does you no service at all , for he sayes he left you about 8 or 9 a clock at night , and he does not know what you did afterwards . have you any more ? hill. robert how. l. ch. just . come what say you ? how. my lord , i met with mr. hill the 5 th of october , he asked me whither i was going , i told him home , i wish said he you would go a little back with me , i am about taking of an house , and i would have you view the repairs , accordingly we did go , and treated in the house about an agreement , for said he i will not agree with you , to the landlord , till we know what must be repaired . on tuesday morning we met again about 8 a clock . l. ch. just . what day of the month was that ? how. the eight . and a wednesday about noon we began to work for him , to repaire his house , and wee wrought that week every day , and for twelve days and an half in all , and he was every day with us looking after coals or beer or something . on saturday the 12 th of october we dined together , and parted with him about one or two a clock , and about two a clock i went back again to my work , and he said he was going towards covent garden in st. james , but he came back again , and i was gon first , i asked my man whether he was gon or no , he said , he was there , but did not stay . l. ch. just . what time was that ? how. a little before night . l. c. just . what hour did your man say that he was there ? how. about an hour before they left work. l. ch. just . what time was that ? how. about four a clock i think it was . l. ch. just . can you say where he was that night ? how. no i cannot . l. ch. just . what religion are you of , are you not a protestant ? how. yes , my lord i think so . mr. recorder . my lord askes you , are you a protestant . how. i was never bred up in the protestant religion . mr. prance . he is a catholick my lord , he was the queens carpenter . mr. just . dolben . nay now you spoyl all , you must do pennance for this , what deny your church ? hill. what time was it a saturday morning i was with you ? how. about nine a clock . l. ch. just . how long did he stay ? how. from nine to two . l. c. j are you sure 't was nine ? how no man can swear punctually to an hour . l. c. j. what think you of ten ? how. it was thereabouts . mr. recorder . if i am rightly informed by the clerks , he is outlawed for recusancy . l. c. j. is he so ? pray let us know that . harcourt , one of the clerks of the crown office. my lord , i have made out several writs against him , for several years together , and could never get any of them returned . hill. he tells you that i was with him from nine a clock on saturday morning , till one. mr. j. jones . but that is but as true as he is a protestant , and how true that is , you know . hill. here is another witness , mr. cutler . tho. cutler . upon the twelfth of october , lawrence hill did come into my house about four or five a clock in the evening , and he staid there till between seven or eight , and then his wife came for him , and said some gentlewoman was ready for her supper , and so he went home ; and i saw him no more , till the day after he was taken . l. c. j. look you here , he speaks only about seven or eight a clock . well , have you any thing more to say ? hill. there is one richard lazinby . lazinby . my lord , i was with him on saturday the twelfth of october at the door , about twelve a clock . l. c. j. and you dined with him and how. lazinby . yes , sir. l. c. j. but you did not see him afterwards ? lazinby . yes , i did see him on wednesday night , from five to seven at night . l. c. j. what time was he carried out of somerset-house ? mr. att. gen. about eleven or twelve a clock at night . lazinby . that is the last time i was with him . l. c. j. well , have you any more ? hill. here is one mr. archbold , my lord. archbold . my lord , i had occasion for a taylor , and i came to this mans house , to seek for one mr. gray , that had formerly wrought for me . l. c. j. when was that ? archbold . that was on monday night . and he having formerly wrought for me , i found him at this mans house ; so mr. gray asked me , what news ? i told him , very good news ; for praunce was taken for the murder of sir edmundbury godfrey . sayes hill , i am glad of that , i wish they were all taken . i came the next day after , and they told me he was taken out of his bed , for the marder of sir edmund bury godfrey . l. c. j. was it that very night that you came , that he was taken ? archbold . yes , it was . l. c. j. you said he spoke of it before you at seven a clock , and you left him about nine , and he was taken that night , what then ? hill. why , then i had time enough to make my escape , if i had thought my self guilty . l. c. j. as no doubt you would , if you had thought they would have been so nimble with you . archbold . he knew it the day before . l. c. j. well , have you any more to say ? mrs. hill. there is mr. ravenscroft , my lord. l. c. j. what , that ravenscroft that is sent away ? mrs. hill. yes , my lord. l. c. j. then the marshal must send for him , if he be a witness for the prisoner . in the mean time , what can you say for your self , mr. green ? greene. my lord , i would call my landlord and his wife . l. c. j. what are their names ? greene. james warrier , and his wife . l. c. j. call in greene's wife , and all her witnesses . then mrs. hill , the prisoners wife , offered a paper to the court , containing observations upon the indictment , which she desired them to read ; but it was refused , and she bid to give it her husband . then james warrier was examined . l. c. j. what say you to your landlord ? greene. i ask him no questions at all , but desire him to tell what he knows . warrier . i will say , that the twelfth of october , he was at my house half an hour after seven , and he was not out of my house till after ten . l. c. j. how can you remember that day ? what day of the week was it ? warrier . it was a saturday . l. c. j. how do you remember it was so ? warrier . i have recollected my memory . l. c. j. by what ? warrier . by my work , and every thing exactly . l. c. j. when did you begin to recollect your self ? warrier . a pretty while ago . l. c. j. how long after sir edmund bury godfrey was murdered ? warrier . a month after . l. c. j. what made you to recollect your self a month after ? warrier . because he was in prison in the gatehouse . l. c. j. when was he taken up ? warrier . he was taken up in somerset-house , and not in my house . l. c. j. but when did you recollect your self ? warrier . when he was in prison . l. c. j. but i pray remember the time when you did recollect your self , and the occasion that made you recollect your self when he was taken up . warrier . i remember it very well , for he had been in my house but 14 dayes before he was taken up . sir tho. stringer . he was not taken up for the mudrer of sir edmund bury godfrey , till the 24 of december . mr. j. wyld . pray did you never think of this till he was in prison ? warrier . it was when he was taken up . l. c. j. but pray when you came to recollect your self , how did you come to do it ? warrier . i recollected it by my work . l. c. j. but what gave you occasion to recollect your self since he was in gaol ? sir tho. stringer . my lord , he was put into gaol , for refusing to take the oaths ; but he was not at all charged with the death of sir edmund-bury godfrey at that time . l. c. j. when was he put in for the death of sir edmundbury ? sir the. stringer . the 24 th of december . l. c. j. then there is all the remaining part of october , all november , and the former part of december was past , how could you recollect your self of the particular day ? warrier . i call'd it to mind by my work . capt. richardson . my lord , i will rectifie this mistake : since their arraignment , i went to them , to know what witnesses they had , and greene told me of his landlord and landlady ; i then asked them , if they could say any thing as to this particular day ? and they said they could not do him any good at all . warrier . i did not then call it to memory . l. c. j. when did you call it to memory ? warrier . i did say i could not do it then presently , as i have done since in five or six dayes . l. c. j. how could you recollect it then ? warrier . by the time he came into my house , which was a week before , and by the work that was done . l. c. j. what could the work do as to this ? can you tell by that , any thing that is done at any time ? where were you the ninth of november last ? warrier . truly i can't tell . l. c. j. why how came you then to recollect what you did the twelfth of october , when you did not know where you were the ninth of november ? warrier . i can tell a great many tokens , he was but 14 or 15 dayes in our house . l. c. j. what did he do the twelfth of october , that you remember so particularly that day ? warrier . sir , i remember other dayes besides that ; but i say i never knew the man out after nine a clock , in my life . l. c. j. have you any body else , for this man i can't tell what to make on 't ? greene. here is the man's wife to give evidence . l. c. j. first consider what you say . mrs. warrier . to tell you the truth , i thought the man so clear of this fact , that i never trouble my head with it ; but when captain richardson came to my house , i told him that he was never in our house by day-time , except being cus●ion-layer in the chappel , he used to come at half an hour after eleven , and many times he did desire me , because we were protestants , to put in a little flesh meat with ours ; sometimes he would sit down and eat his meat in the kitchin , and his wife with him ; and his wife would say to him , 't is a troublesom time , pray see that you come home betimes . i did not at all remember the day of the month at the first , nor the action ; but my husband and i have since remembred . we were desired by them once to eat a fowl with them , and my husband did command me the sunday after to invite them to dinner with us , and i went in the morning very early , i think , and bought a dozen of pidgeons , and put them in a pye , and we had a loine of pork roasted ; and when he was gone to the chappel on saturday in the afternoon , his wife came to me and said , my husband is not well , and when he comes home will ask for something of broth ; and away she went to market to buy something to make broth of . while she was at market , her husband came home , and asked where his wife was ? why , mr. greene , said i , she is gone to market : what an old fool , said he , is this , to go out so late , such a night as this is ? but said he again , i will go to the coffee-house , and drink a dish of coffee , and pray tell my wife so . in the mean time she returned , and by that time she had been above a little while , he came in again . and mr. greene being there , my husband came in , and called to me , prithee , sweetheart , what hast thou got for my supper ? prithee , said i , sweetheart thou art always calling for thy victuals when thou comest in . then mr. greene goes to the stairs , and calls to his wife , and bids her bring him down some victuals , and she brings down the bread and cheese , and he stayed there till it was nine a clock ; and then saith mr. greene to his wife , let us go up , for there is a fire . l. c. j. what day was this all this while ? mrs. warrier . why , it was the saturday fortnight after michaelmas day . l. c. j. why might it not be that day three weeks ? mrs. warrier . it was that day he was missing . mr. att. g. why there was no alarum taken of it a sunday . l. c. j. when did you begin to recollect what day it was , that they said he was missing ? mrs. warrier . on friday morning our milkman came and told us , that one mr. godfrey was found murdered ; now i knew one of the exchange of that name , and thought it might be he . and when we went up with him to his chamber , we sate there till the tattooe beat . l. c. j. all the thing is , how do you know it was this saturday ? mrs. war. it was the saturday fortnight after michaelmas day . mr. j. dolben . are you sure it was the saturday fortnight after michaelmas day ? mrs. warier . yes , we did look upon the almanack , and reckon it so . m. j. dolben . then that was the 10 th of october . l. c. j. why you told him you could do him no good , and indeed you do not . m. j. jones . you and your wife speak of the same time , don't you ? warrier . yes . l c. j. have you any more greene ? capt. richardson . there is the maid , let her come in . l. c. j. vvhat say you maid ? maid . i can say that he came in the saturday fortnight after quarter-day , pretty betimes . l. c. j. can you speak of any other time besides that saturday fortnight ? maid . i can tell he came in every night before 9 a clock . greene. i can take my oath i was never out of my lodging after 9 a clock . hill. my lord , here is mr. ravenscroft now . l. c. j. mr. ravenscroft , what can you say ? mr. ravenscroft . vvhat i can say , my lord , is this ; this lawrence hill , i have known him 13 or 14 years , and he served my elder brother so long very faithfully . afterwards he lived with dr. godwin towards the latter end of the two last years , and he married my mothers maid . l. c. j. vvhat religion are you of ? mr. ravenscroft . my father and mother were protestants . l. c. j. but you are a papist , are you not ? mr. ravenscroft . i have not said i am a papist yet . mr. justice dolben . in the mean time i say you are one . mr. ravense . do you so , then pray go to southwark and see . mr. at. g. my lord , i think , he hath taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy . l. c. j. well , pray sir go on with your story . mr. ravenscroft . if it please you , upon a saturday , a little before christmass , there was somebody taken , i think it was one m. praunce , for i never saw the man , neither do i know him at all : and it was reported that he was taken upon the death of sir edmund-bury godfrey , and i was glad to hear it . my house was in the savoy . and my fathers house is in holborn ; and i used often to go and see my father , and coming home again , i went to see the maid at her new house , she had not been long there , and she was standing at the dore of the house . i asked her what news ? says she , here hath been a man here that tells us that praunce hath discover'd several of the murderers of sir edmund-bury godfrey , and they talk up and down strangely of it , and ask me whether my husband be acquainted with him ? then said i to her , is he ? she answered me very well , they have been often together , and so she told me the people did mutter and talk of her husband ; but said i , what says your husband to it ? says she , he desies praunce and all his works . said i , where is your husband ? said she , he is within ; i was very glad to hear it , for , said i , he living in somerset house , and being acquainted with praunce , i am glad to hear that your husband can be so couragious ; so i went away and came again thither the next morning , and found he was taken the night before . all that i say then , is that it , was a good evidence of his innocency , that when he had notice of it he did not fly. l. c. j. so then your discourse was after archbold had been there . mr. ravenscroft . archbold was there before me , and had spoken this in their company . i spake with her that night , and the next morning too ; and all that i say is , it fight be a sign of guilt , as no doubt it is , adam ubi es ? and couragiousness is a sign of innocency , then this man is innocent . l. c. j. but you say she told you they were acquainted . mr. ravenscroft . my lord , i have one thing more to say . upon the occasion of these things , this woman hath been often with me , and hath desired to know of me what defence she should make , for i saw hill's wife and berry's wife were all simple people without defence for themselves , and they did desire that i would examin and see some of the witnesses and see how it was , and she had gotten me some papers , and i conferred them together , there are witnesses that will attest the copy . mr. at. g. what is all this to the purpose ? only this gentleman hath a mind to shew that he can speak latin. mr. ravenscroft . i thank god i can speak latin as well as any man in the court. l. c. j. vvell , all this is nothing . mr. ravenscroft . i declare it my self , if this man were guilty , rather than i would speak for him , if there wanted a hangman , i would do it my self . l. c. j. well berry , what have you to say ? berry . i desire nicholas trollop , and nicholas wright , and gabriel hasket , and elizabeth wilkes , and corporal collet may be called . corporal william collet first examined . berry . did not you place a sentinel on wednesday night ? collet . what wednesday do you speak of sir ? berry . that night the queen went from somerset house to whitehall . collet . yes . this nicholas trollop i placed there first , the 16. of october . l. c. j. how do you remember that ? collet . because i have been called to an account before , and have given good reasons for it . our company was at somerset house when the king came from new-market , and the queen went to whitehall . afterwards we were bid to fetch our sentinels off about 3 or 4 of the clock in the afternoon . l. c. j. did you leave any souldiers there ? collet . no , we did not , all our company went to whitehall . mr. justice dolben . are you sure there were no souldiers that night there ? collet . yes , we were commanded with a party to go thither again that night . l. c. j. what did you do then ? collet . i placed the sentinels by the porters order . l. c. j. who was that , berry ? collet . no , it was one that used to go about , and give orders where we should set them . l. c. j. how did you place them ? collet . this man i placed from 7 to 10 , then nicolas wright releived him at 10 , and stayed till one . l. c. j. at what place ? collet to the strand-ward . mr. justice wild. that was the gate they carried him out at . l. c. j. do you hear , whereabouts did you set the sentinels ? within the gate ? collet . yes , within the wicket . l. c. j. that way he was carried out . nicholas wright . there was no sedan came out in my time . trollop . there was one came in in my time while i stood there . lord ch. just . was it an empty sedan ? trollop . i suppose it was , but we had no order to keep any out . mr. just . wild. but you might know whether it was an empty sedan or no , by the going of it through the wicket . collet . there is an empty sedan that stands there every night . trollop . it was set down within the gate . mr. just jones . if any sedan had gone out , you would not have staid them , would you ? collet . no , my lord , we had no order to stop any . mr. just . dolben . how can you then be positive , that no one did go out ? trollop . none did go out again in my time . mr. just dolben . could not the porter open the gate , as well as you ? collet . yes , my lord , he could , but i should have seen him then : he did not open it in my time . mr. just . wild. let me ask you but one question ; did not you go to drink , nor tipple all that time ? trollop . no , nor walk a pikes length off the place of centry . mr. just . wild. has not berry an house there , hard by ? trollop . yes , but i did not drink one drop . mr. just . dolben . how can you remember so particularly , so long ago ? trollop . why , i was twice before the committee . mr. just . dolben . but how long agoe was it , that you were questioned about this thing , after this night ? trollop . a matter of a month , or six weeks . collet . for we were examined before praunce was taken up . lord ch. just . you trollop , can you say whether it was the sedan that used to be within ? trollop . no , i cannot , but it was brought in in my time , and did not go out again . [ then gabriell hasket was examined . ] berry . you stood there , sir , from one to four. hasket . yes , after the clock struck one , i was put sentinell , and stood till four. lord ch. just . what night ? hasket . that night the king came from new-market , and the queen went from somerset-house . lord ch. just . what day of the month was that ? hasket . the sixteenth . lord ch. just . what day of the week ? hasket . wednesday . lord ch. just . did not you drink at berry's then ? hasket . no , i did not . lord ch. just . did you see berry then ? hasket . no i did not . lord ch. just . he was gone before you came . berry . i was fast enough a bed at that time . lord ch. just . well , what say you more ? berry . here is my maid , elizabeth minshaw , to give her evidence , where i was that night the queen went from somerset-house . mr. just . jones . what can you say ? minshaw . may it please you , my lord , my master was within doors , and about the gate , when the queen went away . lord ch. just . who is your master ? minshaw . mr. berry . he was about the gates all the forenoon . lord ch. just . when was that ? minshaw . the 16 th . octob. wednesday . and assoon as the queen was gone , my master went out to bowls ; and when he came home again , he said he had been at bowls . lord ch. just . what time did he come home ? minshaw . it was dusky , and he was not absent all night an hour , till he went to bed. mr. just . wild. when did he go to bed ? minshaw . my lord , i suppose he went to bed about twelve a clock . mr. just . wild. they do not charge him with any thing but what was done about the gate . mr. just . dolben . what time did you go to bed that night ? minshaw . why i went to bed about twelve a clock . mr. just . dolben . and you saw him no more that night ? minshaw . no , my lord , but he must go through my room to go to bed at night , and therefore i suppose he was a bed. mrs. hill. i desire mr. praunce may swear why he did deny all this ? lord ch. just . stand up , mr. praunce , that gentlewoman does desire to know , what induced you to deny what you had said ? mr. praunce . it was because of my trade , my lord ; and for fear of losing my employment from the queen , and the catholicks , which was the most of my business , and because i had not my pardon . mrs. hill. i desire he may swear whether he were not tortured ? mr. just . dolben . answer her , were you tortured to make this confession ? mr. praunce . no , my lord , captain richardson hath used me as civilly as any man in england ; all that time that i have been there , i have wanted for nothing . lord ch. just . see what he says ; that he did not make this confession by any torture , but he made his recantation through fear , and the thoughts of death , because he had no pardon ; and fear that he might live in want , by the loss of the trade , prevailed with him to deny what he had confessed . mrs. hill. it was reported about town , that he was tortured . mr. just . jones . no , it was no such thing ; it was only the tortures of his conscience , for being an actor in so great a sin. mrs. hill. there are several about the court , that heard him cry out : and he knows all these things to be as false , as god is true ; and you will see it declared hereafter , when 't is too late . lord ch. just . do you think he would swear three men out of their lives for nothing ? mrs. hill. i desire he may be sworn to that particular thing . mr. ju. jon. he is upon his oath already , and swears all this upon his oath . mrs. hill. well , i am dissatisfied ; my witnesses were not rightly examined , they were modest , and the court laught at them . berry . the sentinels that were at the gate all night , let nothing out . lord ch. just . why you could open the gate your self . berry . he says , he could have seen if the gate had been open ; and that as he saw , the gates were never open'd . mr. just . dolben . well , the jury have heard all , and will consider of it . mrs. hill. here is another witness , my lord ; mr. chevins . lord ch. just . well sir , what say you ? chevins . i have nothing to say , but that i heard mr. praunce deny all . lord c. j. why he does not deny that now . well , have you any more ? chevins . we have no more . mr. attor . gen. my lord , i must crave leave to speak a word , or two ; and the evidence having been so very long , i shall be exceeding short . i intended ( when i began to open the evidence ) to have made some observations after the evidence ended ; to shew how each part of it did agree , and how the main was strengthned by concurrent circumstances . but in truth , the king's evidence did fall out much better than i could expect , and the defence of the prisoners much weaker than i could foresee . so that , i think , the proof against the prisoners is so strong ; and so little hath been alleadged by them in their defence , that it would be but loss of time to do , what i at first intended . only i will observe , that mr. bedlow doth agree with mr. praunce , as far forth as is possible ; that is , in those parts of the fact of which he pretends to have any knowledge . yet had they never any communication one with another , as both have sworn . and your lordship will observe in how many particulars they do agree ; namely , as to the dark lanthorn , as to the covering of the body in the room ; how they intended to carry the body out in a sedan , and the rest . so that if they had laid their heads together to contrive a story , they could hardly have agreed in so many circumstances ; and yet this they do without discoursing with each other beforehand . my lord , i must likewise observe to you , that the servants of the plow ale-house concur as to the meetings there : the maid agrees as to the prisoners coming to sir edmondbury godfrey's house , and to the time , viz. that saturday morning ; nay , to the very hours of nine , or ten a clock ; that the constables relation of the posture in which the body was found in the field , doth perfectly agree with the account that the murtherers gave thereof to mr. praunce the next morning . the chirurgions do agree with mr. praunce , as to the manner of sir edmonbury godfrey's being killed , the strangling , the bruising of his stomach , the twisting of his neck . and the witnesses from bow make it out , that dethick was sent for ; that they had a dinner there . the boy proves that he over-heard them reading something about sir edmondbury godfrey , and that they were very merry ; and that for his listning , he was threatned to be kickt down stairs . so that , i think , there never was an evidence that was better fortified with circumstances than this : my lord , i shall be bold to say , here is certainly as much evidence , as the matter is capable of . it is not to be expected that they should call witnesses to be by , when they do such foul facts ; so that none can swear directly the very fact , but such a one as was an actor in it . all circumstances relating to the fact , both before , and after , are made out by concurrent testimony . and , my lord , i must observe , that it was a murther committed through zeal to a false religion , and that religion was a bond of secrecy . we all know , his majesty hath been graciously pleased by his proclamation , to propose a pardon , and a reward to the discoverers . and yet almost without effect ; their zeal to their false religion was a greater obstacle , than the proclamation was an incitement , to the discovery . and i do believe , if mr. praunce had not had some inclination to change his religion , you had still been without so clear a discovery of this work of darkness , as now you have . i shall say no more , but conclude to the jury with that saying , that i remember in the book of judges , ( in the case of a murther too , though of another nature , ) judg. 19. 30. the people said there was no such deed done , nor seen , from the day that the children of israel came out of egypt : and i may say , there was never such a barbarous murther committed in england , since the people of england were freed from the yoke of the pope's tyranny ; and as 't is said there , so say i now , consider of it , take advice , and speak your minds . mr. sol. gen. my lord , i would only make one observation to your lordship , which is this ; i do not find they do in the least pretend to tax mr. praunce , that any person hath bribed him to give this evidence ; nor , that there was the least reward ever proposed to him to bear witness against them , not so much as the hopes of that reward contained in the king's proclamation ; yet mr. praunce , if he had had a mind to bear false witness , might have laid hold of that opportunity ; but so far was he from pretending to discover any thing , that he denied all when he was first apprehended . but after he was in hold , and likely to be brought to justice , and lying under the conviction of a guilty conscience , then , and not till then does he discover it . there is no objection in the world to be made , but that since this discovery , mr. praunce hath retracted what he said before , but he gives you a very good account of it ; the terrors of conscience he then lay under , the fears that he should not be pardoned , and the apprehensions he had from the threats on their side , and the danger of his utter ruine , put him upon that denial . but , my lord , he tells you likewise , that as soon as ever he was brought back to the prison , he owned all he had said at first , and desired he might be carried back again to testifie the truth of what he had first sworn to . this , my lord , he gives you an account of , and the same account does the keeper of the prison give too . i have nothing to say more , but onely just to observe the many circumstances whereby mr. praunce his testimony is fortified . mr. bedlow does agree with him in every circumstance as far as his knowledge went : the maid of the house agrees with his testimony ; that says , she saw green at sir edmondbury godfrey's several times , though here he denies he knew him . that she saw hill there that very morning her master was missed : that he talked with her master a quarter of an hour : that she knew him by a very good token ; not onely by his face , but also that he had the same clothes on then he hath now . mr. praunce hath likewise told you of another circumstance , the meeting at the plow-alehouse , where they laid the whole design of intrapping sir edmondbury godfrey : and herein he is fortified by the concurrent testimony of the master of the house , and the servant too , though they now deny that ever they had been in his company there ; or that they so much as knew girald ; though when they were examined at the council-board , they said , they knew girald , but not kelley : and now they are prest with it here , hill retreats to this , that he knows one girald , but not girald the priest . my lord , i think the matter is so fully , and so plainly proved beyond exception , that there needs no great repetition in the case : it is impossible that mr. praunce a man of that mean capacity should invent a story with so many circumstances , all so consistent , if there were not truth at the bottom of it . he shews you the particular places , from place to place , where they decoyed him in , and how they disposed of him , to the time they carried him out . and in each of these circumstances , there is not the least improbability or cause to disbelieve him . it hath been already so fully repeated , and the plainness of the evidence is so convincing , that i need not make more observations upon it ; but submit it to your lordship and the jury . then the lord chief justice directed the jury in this manner : lord chief justice . look you , gentlemen of the jury , this is an inquisition for innocent blood that hath been shed , and your business is to see if you can find out the murderers . we would not add innocent blood to innocent blood : but on the other-side , if you have received satisfaction so much as the nature of the thing can bear , then the land is defiled , unless this be satisfied . now for that i will urge the witness and their testimony no further than it does appear ; for you and vve are all upon our oaths to do uprightly , neither to spare murderers , nor condemn the innocent . in the first place , vve began with mr. oates , and he told you , that he had some converse with sir edmondbury godfrey , and that he was threatn'd by some , and had no good will for his pains , in taking those examinations he had taken , and he was afraid his life was in danger . this he tells you was the discourse before-hand , and this is produced to lead you to consider what sort of persons they were , of whom he was likely to have these fears ; for his fears did arise from his having done his part , as a justice of peace , in taking the examinations upon oath . for the testimony of the fact they produce first mr. praunce , wherein you will do well to observe all the degrees that he goes by , before the fact , and all the circumstances in the transaction of that affair , and the parties by whom it was to be acted : first he tells you how long it was before they could entice him to consent to such a villany as this was , to murder a man ; he tells you by whom he was thus enticed , which makes the story more probable ; that is , by girald and kelley ( two priests ) and he tells it you still more probably by their doctrine , that it was no sin ; but it was rather an act of charity to kill a man that had done , and was like to do them mischief : so that if you consider the persons that preached to him , and the doctrine they taught , it carries a great shew and presumption of truth in it self . when they had met together at the plow several times ( which was deny'd by some of them , but is most manifestly proved by the master of the house , and the boy ) and the wisht for time was come ; for they were to watch the opportunity , and mr. praunce was to be at home , and they would call him to give his helping hand ; he tells you , that mr. hill did go that morning ; for though he talks of an errand before , yet to keep to that which is most pressing in the evidence , he went to sir edmondbury's house . this he seems to deny ; but the maid does swear it expresly upon him ; and says , she came first to him , and went up stairs , and then came back again , and still he was there . and she swears positively she knows him by his face , and by the clothes he then had on , which are the same clothes he hath on now , and that that is the man that was with her master ; and this , which they cannot disprove , half proves the matter . vvhat had he to do at sir edmondbury godfry's house ? but that would be an hard puzling question to be put to him ; vvhat did you there ? and therefore he is to deny it ; but the maid proves it upon him , as well as praunce . so that i would have you consider how many vvitnesses you have to one thing or another , all conducing to this point . you have first mr. oates , that tells you the discourse that passed between mr. edmondbury godfrey and him , the maid tells you , that both these men were there , one at one time , and the other at another ; and you have mr. praunce that knew the whole affair , who tells you so likewise , and that they were resolved to do the vvork that day , in so much that if they could not doe it , as they had before contrived it ( and sir edmondbury godfrey was sensible that he was dogg'd up and down ) girald did resolve to dogg him to his own door , and kill him in the lane that leads to his house , he would have run him through himself ; and this girald is one of those priests , whose church counts it no sin , but an act of charity , to murther a christian , to propagate christianity . when they had way-laid him and watcht his coming , from what place mr. praunce cannot tell ; for he knows nothing but what they told him , and they only named in general , that he was lodg'd in st. clements ; and thereupon one comes to acquaint him , that they would intice him in at the vvatergate , by sommerset-house , and they would do it with art enough , for they never want a contrivance for so charitable an act ; and it was upon this pretence , that there were two men a wrangling and fighting , and then he being a justice of the peace , was a person that would part the fray easily . and it was a probable invention : for sir edmundbury godfrey was a man that was as willing to do all acts of justice as any one , and as little afraid to do it ; for the witness tells you before , that he said , if they did do him a mischief , they must do it basely , for he did not fear the best of them upon fair play . then when he was desired to get himself a man to follow him , he slighted the advice : and we all know , that he was a man of singular courage , and therefore it was the easier to lay a trap for him . then saith praunce , when he was got in , berry and i were to have several posts , which we were to go to , i to one place , and berry to another ; and i staid , saith he , till green threw the cravat about his neck , and was assisted by girald and the rest that were there . and then , as soon as we could imagine the thing to be done , berry comes in , and praunce comes back from his standing , and by some motions findes that he was alive , and that till green twisted his neck round ; which the chirurgions say was plainly a broken neck , and nothing of the wounds which were in his body were given him while he was alive . when they had done this , he tells you , they carried him to mr. hill's chamber : berry , girald , kelly and the rest , all helpt him in , and there they leave him . then praunce goes away . this was on saturday-night . then praunce comes again on munday-night , and finds him removed to another chamber hard by , where he saw him by the light of a dark lanthorn , with something thrown over his face ; and afterwards on tuesday-night following , they did remove him back to hill's lodgings , and there he lay till wednesday-night , when they carried him out . saith praunce , i saw him that night ; i was the man that help'd to carry him out , for it was praunce and girald that carried him first , and it was green and kelly who went before , and took him up afterward . he tells you , they set him upon an horse-back , and hill behind him . they carried him out in a chair , which was a thing that used to come in and go out there , and so the less notice would be taken of it . i will observe to you afterwards on the prisoners behalf , what is said for them to all this . but as to praunce , you see he hath given you an account from the top to the bottom , from the first transaction between them , from the time of his being called by them to help in the murder , and from his seeing the handkerchief twisted about his neck , his neck twisted round ; how they disposed of his body at first , what removes they made , and when they carried him out , who were in company , who relieved them , and what became of him at last . he says , he saw him set up before hill on horseback , and they told him , they had thrown him in a ditch , and girald had run him through with his own sword , and in that posture , and in that place , the constable found him : the chirurgions tell you , that it was by the twisting of his neck , and the strangling , that he was kill'd , and not by the wounds ; and the very bruisings which praunce speaks of , were found upon the view of the body . so that here is not any one thing , that is not backt either in some particular circumstance or other ; besides mr. praunce's testimony , who ( alone ) could give the narrative of the fact. and it is no argument against mr. praunce in the world , that he should not be believed , because he was a party , or because he after denyed what he first said : first , because you can have no body to discover such a fact , but only one that was privy to it : so that we can have no evidence , but what arises from a party to the crime : and in the next place , his denyal after he had confessed it to me , does not at all sound as an act of falshood , but fear ; it is not a good argument to say that he is not to be believed , because he denyed what he once said : for he tells you , he had not his pardon , he was in great consternation ; the horrour of the fact it self , and the loss of his trade and livelihood was enough to do it . but how short was his denyal , and how quick was his recantation ! for he denyed it before the king not upon oath : he swore it upon oath , but he denies it upon his word only ; but by that time he got home to newgate with captain richardson , he fell down on his knees , and begg'd him for god's sake to carry him back to the king , for what i did say at first , said he , is true , and this denyal is false . and here could be no tampering , no contrivance made use of ; no , 't is plain there could be no art used to make him retract from his first testimony . and these are the particulars as to praunce his evidence . then comes mr. bedlow , and tells you , that he was commanded by le faire , and the priests he was acquainted with , to insinuate himself into the acquaintance of sir edmundbury godfrey ; they did not tell him why ; they themselves knew privately wherefore , and they did intend him as an instrument to do it , as appears afterwards . he tells you , he got into his acquaintance , by pretending to go for warrants for the good behaviour and the peace , as he knew sir edmundbury godfrey was willing to have the peace kept ; and he was with him every day almost , for a week or more . then the priests come a little nearer , and tamper'd with him to kill a man , an ill man for their turn , and that mr. bedlow should be very well rewarded , he should have four thousand pounds to kill that gentleman ; but still they kept the name secret . he promised them fair , but broke his word . afterwards he meets this companion that he had most confidence in , and being tax'd with his breach of promise , said he , i had business , i could not come . well , said his companion , you should have been as good as your word ; but the thing is done , the person is killed , and i would have you help to carry him away . he promises to do it , and to meet him at somerset-house ; accordingly he comes upon munday in the evening , and about 9 or 10 of the clock at night , mr. bedlow swears , that in this chamber that praunce says he was laid in , he did see the body , by the help of a dark lanthorn ; and his face was covered with a cloak or a mantle , or some such thing thrown over him . and these two men , viz. mr. praunce and mr. bedlow , as the counsel have observed , had not any confederacy together , for they both swear , that they never had any converse at all ; and if it be so , then it is impossible for two men so to agree in a tale with all circumstances , if they never conversed together , but it must be true . it is hardly possible for any man to invent such a story , for praunce it is , i believe . i finde it is no hard thing for the priests to contrive such an action ; but for two witnesses to agree in so many material circumstances with one another , that had never conversed together , is impossible . if all this had been a chimaera , and not really so , then praunce must be one of the notablest inventors in the world : and there must have been the mightiest chance in the world , that mr. bedlow and he should agree so in all things ; and that the maid should swear that hill was there that morning ; and that the constable should finde the body , just as they told praunce they had left him . so that upon the matter you have two witnesses almost in every thing ; for mr. bedlow , seeing him in the place murdered , is a plain evidence that the thing was done ; and all the other witnesses , speaking to circumstances both before and after , make the evidence plain , that these were the persons who did it . and i see nothing incoherent in all mr. praunce's testimony . i would not urge this so , if i was not satisfied in my own conscience that the relation is true in the prisoners defence , there is but one thing , that hath any sort of weight ; for the young gentlevvoman talking of his being constantly at home at eight of the clock , is nothing , for she says they always go to bed about nine a clock , and they give no answer to this , but that it could not be done in their house but they must know of it ; but doe not show how that must needs be ; so that all their evidence is slight , and answers it self , or else not possible to be true . all the testimony that is considerable in this matter , is that which berry produces ; and that is concerning the sentinells who kept the guard that wednesday night the body was carried out , and he says there was no sedan carried out . and although this evidence be produced but by one of them , yet 't is to the benefit of them all three ; for if it were certain and infallibly true , that the sentinells did so watch at the gate , that no mortal could go out of the place ; and if the darkness of the night might not hinder him from seeing what might go out ; or that mr. berrys voice being known to him , he might not call to him , and so mr. berry might open the gate without any great caution , or more particular observation by the sentinel , so that this might escape his observation or remembrance , and yet that the sentinel be an honest man and speak true as he thinks to his best remembrance , which i leave to your consideration . but there is one thing the other sentinel tells you , that about eight or nine a clock ( for he went off at tenn ) there was a sedan brought in , and he did not see it go out ; and so says he that watched from tenn to one , and this is the only thing which hath any color in it , in behalf of the prisoners . but he that says there was no body went out , says also that he never saw the sedan ; but the sentinel that was relieved , says ; that he saw it go in . now how far that single testimony of nicolas wright the sentinel will weigh , who says that none went out , i leave with you , which may be mistaken either by reason of the darkness of the night , or those other particulars i have observ'd to you . but this is all that can overthrow the whole series of the evidence that hath been given by mr. prance , upon whom i find not the least reflection , except you will call that one , which to me as it is circumstanced , is rather an argument for him then against him , viz ▪ his going off from what he said . and what sr. robert southwel says is regardable , that when he shewed them the place where he was strangled , the house to which he was first carried , he did it very readily and confidently , but was puzled to find out the room where he was removed , when he saw him by the dark lanthorn , and would not possitively assert where it was , which shews the integrity of the man , who would else have gone through without bogling ; for if all were a ly , why should he stick at one thing more then another , but have shewn some room or other ? but when he was confident , he appeared so , and when he was doubtful he appeared so , and so shewed himself an honest man. these are the particular matters , and as near as i can remember , all that hath been materially offered for the prisoners against the kings evidence . for the testimony of the landlord warrier and his wife , it is plainly spoken of another time , for it was the saturday after the thursday he was found , the 19 th of october . so that they speak nothing but what is true , and yet nothing to the purpose ; for the question is of that which was done the 12 th , but they speak of a time when the tragedy was passed , so that there is only the single evidence of one witness , the sentinel , which must be opposed to all the concurring evidence given against them . berry . there was sentinells placed at every one of the gates . l. ch. just . that is nothing , for we speak only of this gate , the great gate , but i will tell you what there is that does not arise from these witnesses , but from the nature of the thing they were about , and the persons that transacted it , that gives credit to the testimonys of the witnesses , so as to incline any one to believe them , as things stand at this day in reference to the known design of the priests to subvert our religion , for they must justify one ill by another , and the mischiefs they have done will not be safe , unless they do more . and for the priests being the preachers of murder , and your sin , that ' t is charity to kill any man that stands in their way . their doctrine will make you easily believe their practice , and their practice proves their doctrine ; such courses as these we have not known in england till it was brought out of their catholick countrys ; what belongs to secret stranglings and poysonings , are strange to us , though common in italy . but now your priests are come hither to be the popes bravo and to murther men for the honor of his holiness ; and as they are inhumane , so they are unmanly too : for sr. edmondbury godfry had not been afraid of two or three of your priests , if they would have dealt fairely with him . berry he was a gentleman that i never spoke with in all my life . l. ch. just . you must say and believe as your priest will have you , and in such actions as these , as your priests suggest to you , so does the devil to your priests ; if you are upon the matter necessitated to what they will have you think ; for though your priests preach up freedom of will , yet they allow none to the understanding . they hold you may do good or evil , but will not suffer you to understand right and wrong , for you cannot be perfectly theirs , if you have any thing of your own to guide your selves by . i know that every body of that party is apt to say their priests own no such thing , but it is notoriously known to all the world that they both print it and practise it . what shall any of you dispute the power of a pope saith a jesuite , or of a pope and a council say the most moderate priests ? have you power to say how far you will be a papist and how far not ? you may as well bound the sea , and bid it go thus far and no farther , as limit the popes authority . i wonder any man should be of that perswasion , and yet keep his reason , much less turn from our religion to theirs , if he considers how they impose , and what mischiefs and blood you are involved in , by your priests that have allarmed the nation . for i will affirm , the greatest mischief the papists have received , come from their priests , who have such unworthy and unmanly ways of setting up their religion : what do they think it an act of charity to kill men , or is the christian religion or yours , to be promoted by such means as these ? no gentlemen , 't is the fault of your doctrine , and 't is a monstrous mistake in you , if you think that you have any power of your own , whilst you continue in their persvvasion . i know some will ascribe all to conscience that guides them , and that even these mischiefs are but the effects of their religious obedience ; but they are indeed the consequences of the blindness of their obedience . i wonder how any man can have the face thus to disorder a whole nation , and yet pretend conscience for it . let no man tell me , oh! sir , we desire none of these mischiefs you talk of : what , not if religion requires it , or if the pope says it does ? hath not the council of lateran decreed , that every popish prince ought to root out heresie upon pain of damnation ? you must : can you go and tell the pope how far you will believe , or what you ought to do ? you may as well tell me that if he vvere once with us , and had the power he once had , he would leave us to our selves , and that if he had the same ability , he would not have the same tyranny . and therefore all the roman catholik gentlemen in england would do very well to consider , how much it concerns christianity not to give offence ; and if they cannot at this time live in a protestant kingdom with security to their neighbours , but cause such fears and dangers , and that for conscience sake , let them keep their consciences , but leave the kingdom . if they say , why should not we stay here while we do no mischief ; alas that 's not in your power . you cannot be quiet in your own religion , unless you disturb ours ; and therefore , if to shew your consciences , you acquit the country , and let the inconveniencies light on your selves only , i should then think you had zeal , though not according to knowledge ; and not ascribe it to any plot , but to the simplicities of understanding . but in short , there is a monstrous evidence of the whole plot it self by this fact ; for we can ascribe it to none , but such ends as these , that such a man must be kill'd ; for it must be either because he knew something the priests would not have him tell , or they must do it in defiance of justice , and in terrour to all them that dare execute it upon them ; which carries a great evidence in its self , and which i leave to your consideration , having remembred as well as i could , the proofs against them , and all that is considerable for them . add to this , the condition that we are in at this time , and the eagerness of the pursuit that these priests make to gain the kingdom , that for my own part i must put it into my litany , that god would deliver me from the delusion of popery , and the tyranny of the pope : for it is a yoke which we who have known freedom cannot endure , and a burden which none but that beast who was made for burden , will bear . so i leave it to your consideration upon the whole matter , whether the evidence of the fact does not satisfie your consciences , that these men are guilty . and i know you will do like honest men on both sides . then the jury withdrew to consider of their verdict , and after a short space returned again . cl. of the cr. gentlemen , answer to your names . sir william roberts . sir william roberts . here , and so the rest . cl. of cr. gentlemen , are you all agreed of your verdict ? omnes . yes . cl. of cr. who shall say for you ? omnes . our foreman . cl. of cr. robert greene hold up thy hand , ( which he did ) look upon the prisoner ; how say you , is robert greene guilty of the felony and murder whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? foreman . guilty . cl. of cr. what goods or chattels , lands or tenements ? foreman . none to our knowledge . cl. of cr. henry berry , hold up thy hand , ( which he did ) look upon the prisoner . how say you , is henry berry guilty of the felony and murder whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? foreman . guilty . cl. of cr. what goods or chattels , lands or tenements ? foreman . none to our knowledge . cl. of cr. lawrence hill hold up thy hand , ( which he did ) how say you , is lawrence hill , guilty of the felony and murder whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? foreman . guilty . cl. of cr. what goods or chattels , lands or tenements ? foreman . none to our knowledge . cl. of cr. hearken to your verdict as the court hath recorded it . you say that robert greene is guilty of the felony and murder whereof he stands indicted . you say that henry berry is guilty of the felony and murder whereof he stands indicted . you say that lawrence hill. is guilty of the felony and murder whereof he stands indicted ; and that neither they , nor any of them , had any goods or chattels , lands or tenements , at the time of the felony committed , or at any time since to your knowledge . and so you say all . omnes . yes . lord ch. just . gentlemen , you have found the same verdict that i would have found if i had been one with you ; and if it were the last word i were to speak in this world , i should have pronounced them guilty . at which words , the whole assembly gave a great shout of applause . mr. att. gen. will your lordship please to give judgment this evening , i know it is not usual the same day . mr. justice wild. my lord , i am ready . l. c. j. no brother , i am to sit at nisi prius this afternoon , and 't is time we broke up the court. cl. of cr. cap. richardson , you shall have a rule to bring them up to morrow ; and then the court broke up . on tuesday the 11 th . of february , the prisoners were brought again to the bar in order to receive their sentence ; and the court proceeded thus . mr. recorder , my lord , as i was directed by mr. attorney , these prisoners being convicted of murder , i do for the king pray judgment upon them ; but i must first acquaint your lordship , that immediately after their conviction , one of the officers , a tipstaffe , pretending it was his fee , took their cloaths off their backs . l. c. j. who is that officer ? mr. recorder , one ashby . l. c. j. call him , why do you offer to meddle with these mens cloaths ? ashby . it hath been an ancient custom this 40 years , some of us have known it , that the marshal hath the upper garment of all prisoners tried at this bar. l. c. j. is there any such custom mr. waterhouse ? waterhouse . no my lord , that i know of . l. c. j. here is mr. waterhouse that hath known the practice of the court this threescore years , says there is no such thing . either restore them their cloaths , or we will take some other course with you . are they in your custody pray ? mr. j. dolben . i do not know that my lord , i think they always plead in custody of the marshal . mr. j. wyld . but this seems a very barbarous thing , to take their cloaths off their backs . mr. j. dolb. it doth so brother , and they must be restored . l. c. j. yes , yes , you must restore them . ashby . they shall be , my lord. mr. recorder . i pray your judgment . l. c. j. ask them what they can say to hinder judgment . cl. of cr. robert greene hold up thy hand , ( which he did ) thou hast been indicted of felony and murder , thou hast been thereupon arraigned , thou hast pleaded thereunto not guilty , and for thy trial thou hast put thy self upon god and thy country , which country hath found thee guilty , what hast thou to say for thy self , why the court should not proceed to give judgment of death upon thee , and award execution according to the law ? cap. richardson . what have you to say for your self ? greene. i declare to all the world , that i am as innocent of the thing charged upon me , as the child that is in the mothers womb. i die innocent , i do not care for death , i go to my saviour , and i desire all that hear me to pray for me . i never saw the man to my knowledge alive or dead . cl. of cr. henry berry , hold up thy hand , ( which he did ) thou hast been indicted of felony and murder , &c. what canst thou say ? &c. berry . i do declare i am not guilty of any thing in the world of this . l. c. j. we do not expect much from you , and it is no great matter ; for your confession will do us little good , but only for your selves . we regard it not otherwise , because the evidence was so plain , that all mankind is satisfied there is no scruple in the thing ; and we know you have either downright denials , or evasions , or equivocating terms for every thing ; yet in plain dealing , every one that heard your trial hath great satisfaction ; and for my own particular , i have great satisfaction that you are every one of you guilty . cl. of cr. lawrence hill , hold up thy hand , ( which he did ) thou hast been indicted of felony and murder , &c. what canst thou say ? &c. hill. i have nothing to say for my self , but that god almighty knows my innocence . cl. of cr. cryer ▪ make an o yes . cryer , o yes , our soveraign lord the king doth straitly charge and command all manner of persons to keep silence whilst judgement is giving upon the prisoners convicted , upon pain of imprisonment ; peace about the court. then mr. justice wyld , who as second judge in that court , pronounceth the sentence in all criminal matters , ( except high treason ) spoke to the prisoners thus : mr. j. wyld , you that are the prisoners at the bar , you have all three been indicted for a detestable murder , and thereunto have pleaded not guilty , and put your selves for your trial upon your country , and your country , upon a clear and pregnant evidence , i believe to the satisfaction of all good men , that were indifferent , have found you guilty . i have little comfort to say any thing to you , because i observe your obstinacy at the bar ; but it is so generally among you all , you will confess nothing to the death . greene. god forbid sir. mr. j. wyld . but though i am of another perswasion than you , and know you have no charity for me , yet i have charity for you . and if i shall say any thing , it is out of a zealous affection i have for your souls ; god knows , i speak it upon no other grounds ; though the offence be horrid , yet i commiserate your persons . for the nature of your offence it is murder ; he that sheds mans blood , by man shall his blood be shed ; for in the image of god created he him . so saith god to noah , intimating and declaring thereby , that the intention of god almighty in the making of that law , was the preservation of mankind : and that he will not admit or suffer his image to be defaced or destroyed . if it shall be accounted treason against earthly princes to deface their images , is it not much more treason against the great god of heaven and earth , to deface his image , who is the king of kings and lord of lords . the greatness of this sin struck such a damp and horrour upon the soul of cain , that it made him cry out , his punishment was greater than he could bear , or , as our bibles have it in the margin , his iniquity was greater than could be forgiven ; and it shall come to pass , that whosoever meeteth me , shall slay me . being conscious to himself , that it was just and lawful , that whosoever did meet with him should slay him . and god himself doth set forth the hainousness of this offence , when he tells him , his brothers blood cry'd to him , that is , cried unto god from the earth , for vengeance . blood it is of a crying nature , and will never cease crying , till it find out the man-slayer . it is an offence so hainous in the eye of god , that he will not endure it in a beast ; god saith , he will require it of a beast . and doth god require blood of a beast , a brutish creature void of all reason , and will he not require it much more of man , whom he hath endued with those two great faculties of reason and understanding ? and certainly if murder in general be enquired after , i may well say this of yours , there hath not been committed a more impudent and barbarous murder in this civiliz'd nation by one subject upon another . and observe how you did effect this murder , with baseness enough . see the baseness of it : as the devil was the father of lies , so he was a murderer from the beginning ; and you first begun your murder with an hellish studied and premeditated lie. knowing that this gentleman was a person very vigorous in the execution of his place , that would omit no opportunity of doing his office ; you pretend you have occasion for him , and by this means draw him into your snare ; where what you do , you do cowardly and basely , first disarm him , then fall all upon him , and murder him ; as the prophet david saith of the ungodly man , first gets the righteous man in his net , and then ravisheth him . had such a thing as this been acted by us protestants in any popish country in the world , i doubt there would scarce have been one of us left alive . they would not have taken this course that hath been taken with you , to admit us to a fair trial ; no , they would have made their own hands their avengers : but god be praised , we are of another religion , and of another perswasion . we leave vengeance to god , and under him to the magistrate , who beareth not the sword in vain , as you now find . if i could abstract folly from wickedness , certainly it was one of the greatest pieces of folly and sottishness in the world : for what could be your end in it ? did you think that all the magistrates in england were lodged in sir edmondbury godfrey ? that if he were taken out of the way , there were not men of spirit and courage , as faithful and diligent as he was ? trouble not your selves , nor let those of your perswasion trouble themselves , there are a numerous company of magistrates in this kingdom , that will do the same thing , and act in , and execute their offices with the same courage . and as to the manner of the murder , whom have you destroy'd ? a magistrate ; for what ? for the execution of his office. one that was a conservator of the peace ; and whose study it was to preserve you in peace , on him you have violated the peace , and nothing less would satisfie you than his precious life . an affront to the law , to the magistrate , to the king , to the nation ; yea to god himself , upon whom an higher affront could hardly have been put . for the magistrate is gods ordinance , god hath set him up to avenge himself upon the wicked , and to reward the good ; and he doth not bear , as it is a sign by you he hath not born , the sword in vain . i might say much more concerning the hainousness of this offence ; but had i the tongue of men and angels , i could not say enough to set out the horrour of it . and now let me tell you , i do not speak this to insult and domineer over you ; i praise god i am of another spirit ; he knows i have another end in what i say , and my end is meerly this , to perswade you from the foulness of your fact , to make a good use of it ; that the horridness of your sin , may make the greater and deeper impressions on your spirits ; and so make your repentance more sincere and efficacious . had you as many years to live as you have hours , it were little enough to bewail this horrid offence . but on the other side , as that will be little enough , yet let me give you this comfort , you have time enough , if you make a good use of it , to make your peace with god. pray let me dehort you from one thing ; and that is this , do not be of the opinion of those wicked miscreants the jesuites , that have put you upon this matter ; for i have so much charity for you as to believe , they made it a matter of religion to you , and justifiable upon that account . do not think so , for the law of god is indispensible , and no power under heaven can license to murder . so that though the offence in them is abominable , yet in you 't is an offence too , and an horrid one . and when you have consider'd it as such , i then desire you to take a right course to make your peace with god : for you must pass under another judgment than that of man , and that shortly you must stand before the judge of heaven and earth . and therefore if by this means you can prevent that future judgment , you will have just cause to thank god that you had your punishment here on earth . therefore let me advise you to spend every minute you have left , in a free acknowledgment of all your offences : for certainly some sin went before , or this had never come after . one sin dogs another , and makes way for the commission of another . and what must you rely upon ? not upon any trash or trompery , not upon any merit of your own , there is but one saviour and mediatour , the lord jesus christ . and i would advise you in the words of that great cardinal , one that was one of the greatest men of your religion , bellarmine i mean , who , having made a scrutiny , which was the safest way for securing heaven , made the conclusion thus , to trust only upon the lord jesus christ for life and salvation ; which i advise you to do . i have now done what i intended to say to you ; and what i have said , i spoke to deliver my own soul , and upon no other account . i now pronounce the judgment which the law hath appointed to pass upon such malefactors ; and that is this ; that you go from hence to the place from whence you came , and from thence to the place of execution , where you shall be severally hanged by the neck , till you are severally dead ; and the lord have mercy upon your souls . hill , i humbly beg one favour , that i may have the priviledge to see my wife and children , and my brother , before i dye , sometimes . l , c , j , god forbid else , hill , any day i hope my lord. l , c , j , captain richardson , let them have the liberty of seeing their friends , but do it with care and caution . mr. j , wyld , and i will say this more to you , if you will have any religious protestant divines to come to you , they shall be sent you , but none of your priests . hill , i desire only my relations . mr , j. wyld , you shall have them , and we offer you the others . green , i have no relations that are catholicks , but two , and they are not priests . god bless the king ; and i desire all good people to pray for us . l , c , j , mr. astry let the rule be entred for their execution on monday next . cl , of the crown , captain richardson , you shall have the rule for their execution on monday next . then the keeper carried away the prisoners to the gaol to be reserved till their execution . on friday the 21 st . of february following , the prisoners , robert greene and lawrence hill , were executed , according to the sentence pronounced against them . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a63219-e460 speaking to a clerk of the crown-office . no faith or credit to be given to papists being a discourse occasioned by the late conspirators dying in the denyal of their guilt : with particular reflections on the perjury of vvill. viscount stafford, both at his tryal, and in his speech on the scaffold in relation to mr. stephen dugdale and mr. edward turbervill / by john smith gentleman ... smith, john, of walworth. 1681 approx. 176 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 19 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-12 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a60497 wing s4128 estc r12871 11914273 ocm 11914273 50881 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a60497) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 50881) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 513:16) no faith or credit to be given to papists being a discourse occasioned by the late conspirators dying in the denyal of their guilt : with particular reflections on the perjury of vvill. viscount stafford, both at his tryal, and in his speech on the scaffold in relation to mr. stephen dugdale and mr. edward turbervill / by john smith gentleman ... smith, john, of walworth. [4], 32 p. printed for tho. cockerill ..., london : 1681. reproduction of original in university of pennsylvania library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project 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record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng stafford, william howard, -viscount, 1614-1680. popish plot, 1678. 2005-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-05 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-07 john latta sampled and proofread 2005-07 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion no faith or credit to be given to papists . being a discourse occasioned by the late conspirators dying in the denyal of their guilt . with particular reflections on the perjury of uuill . uiscount stafford , both at his tryal , and in his speech on the scaffold in relation to mr. stephen dugdale , and mr. edward turbervill . by john smith gentleman , discoverer of the popish plot. london , printed for tho. cockerill at the three leggs in the poultry over against the stocks-market . 1681. to the right honourable heneage finch , baron of daventry , lord high chancellor of england . the august character which your lordship bore , and the lofty place which you filled at the t●yal of my late lord stafford , render it the indisp●nsible duty of your servant , with the humblest prostration to deposit these pape●s at your feet . and if ever my lord chancellor finch had a theater adopted to these qualifications of nature and acquisition which he is indued with . it was then that he was furnished with an illustrious occasion of displaying and celebrating of them . and the most indelible records of succeeding times , will transmit to the admiration , as well as instruction of future ages , with what wisdom and justice you acquitted your self , and what honour to the envy — of such as may be called to sit there in the like capacity , you entailed upon that high and reverable court. the speech which accompanied the sentence pronounced upon the criminal before you , did at once declare the courage , as well as the righteousness of him that spake it . and for any now to doubt of a popish conspiracy against the king , the protestant religion , and the government established by law in england , is not onely to arraign the most impartial , as well as the greatest tribunal under heaven , but to contradict a person who contrary to a thousand secular byasses , proclaimed the sentiments of his own soul , in publishing the sentence of that tremendous judicature . onely let me with all becoming humility , suggest to your lordship the sensations and resentments of the papal party , namely , that by the condemnation of this one conspirator , you have not onely impeached , but in effect convicted the whole body of the romish faction in england ; and for your lordship henceforth to hope to skrene your self from the effects of their exasperation and rage , but by a zealous prosecution of them according to the demerit of their crimes , were not onely to abandon your self to the neglect of your friends , but the triumph of your enemies . for among all the sins which are enrolled for venial by the roman church , there is no provision of pardon for him that condemns a votary to the triple crown , or adjudgeth those to the gibbet , whose obedience to the infallible chair obliged them to destroy heretical kings and kingdoms . nor was it to the diminution of your glory , that you made your eloquence , wherewith at other times you have blazoned many great and noble subjects , vail in that oration to the strength and uncontrollableness of reason . and did not the formalities of law require the attestation and testimony of oral witnesses , the arguments demonstrative of a horrid conspiracy , wherein the papists are imbarkt and involved , — which enliven that great and solemn speech , might without the accession of any other evidence , be sufficient to ground a verdict upon of a most execrable treason against the whole papal community in these kingdoms . the nation is now instructed upon whom to charge the burning of london , and that from the mouth of him , the authority of whose decrees give for the most part , a terminative and final decision in more dubious cases ; only let me subjoyn , that you have hereby kindled those sparks in the hearts of all english men , as well as londoners , as nothing but the shedding the blood of the authors , and instruments of that conflagration by the hand of justice , will be ever able to quench or extinguish them . my lord , that true christian and protestant charity , which taught you to give that viscount an interest in your prayers to god for the pardon of those crimes above , which the law could not remit here below , and who withall , neither begged , nor put any value upon them , will , i hope , influence your lordship to forgive the confidence of this address . your lordships most dutiful and obedient servant , john smith . reflections on the sincerity of the papists , occasioned by the speech of william late viscount stafford , on the scaffold at tower-hill . § 1. t is matter of no small surprize , that not withstanding the discovery of a horrid popish plot against the king's person , the protestant religion , and the government established by law , yet the nation after the expiration of two years since the first detection of it , doth still lie as much exposed to all the dangers which it threateneth , as the first hour when it was revealed . and that which encreaseth the amazement is , that neither the advantages which we have by enjoying a protestant king , nor the counsels and assistance which three several parliaments have faithfully and chearfully contributed , have been hitherto able to secure our religion , lives and liberties , from the hazards which this papal conspiracy travelleth with , and would involve us under . but that which is most of all astonishing , is the endeavour to discredit the belief of the plot , and this after it hath not only been so fully and legally made evident by the papers and letters of some of the conspirators , the positive and concurring testimonies of many witnesses ; the murders and assassinations committed upon several magistrates , as well as others , for discharging their duty in the detecting of it ; but after it hath been put beyond all rational contradiction as well by the votes and resolves of so many parliaments , as by the conviction and execution of divers of the traitors . and when the hiring and suborning infamous persons to defame and weaken the credit of the witnesses , and the tampering with some of themselves to corrupt and make them retract their depositions , had failed them in the accomplishing what they proposed unto themselves , they thereupon persevere to foment and cherish a disbelief of the plot , by arguments derived from the curses and imprecations , whereby those that were convicted of , and executed for it , did in the affirmation of their innocency , affront the justice of the nation with their last and dying breath . for having found all their other arts , and their manifold subornations , to issue only in the prejudice of their cause , and the punishment of those whom they had employed ; they are therefore forced to stake the reputation of their religion and church , and the safety of their whole party , upon the oaths and curses , whereby those that were condemned , have in the contempt and defiance of the clearest evidence , and most impartial justice , endeavoured to outface us into a persuasion that they were guiltless , and suffered unjustly . now , though this may affect some easie and weak persons , with an opinion that they died not so criminal as their indictment and sentence bore ; yet it can make no impression upon men acquainted with books , or conversant and experienced in the affairs and transactions of the world : seeing it is easie for such to know , that false asseverations and oaths are not only consistent with , and justified by the principles of the papal religion , but that they are agreeable to what popish traitors , and other malefactors within the roman communion , have practised upon less important motives and occasions ; and that likewise in their last hours when they were immediately after to appear before the divine tribunal . and if the romish party in england , were not judically left to betray the highest folly , as well as perpetrate the greatest villanies , it were not possible that after the two learned answers , which were published against the speeches of the five jesuits , who suffered , june the 20th 1679. and notwithstanding all the infamy which hath thereby redounded to their cause , they should still take sanctuary in falshood and perjury . but having no other vindication of their innocency to betake themselves unto , they must either acknowledge their guilt to the eternal reproach of their religion , and the hazard of their total extirpation out of his majesties dominions ; or they must successively as they come to be arraigned and executed , retreat to false and horrid oaths and imprecations , for the preserving the credit of their church , and the protecting their friends from the punishments to which this hellish conspiracy hath made the greatest number , as well as the most considerable of them obnoxious . accordingly the late viscount stafford hath for the honour of mother church , and the promoting the blessed design of overthrowing the protestant religion , and destroying such as profess it in these nations , been prevailed with to shut up the course of a traiterous and criminal life , with most stupendous and astonishing perjury , by assuming the impudence to protest and swear that he was innocent of what he was brought to suffer for . and all this after that the most righteous and impartial , as well as the highest and most august court in the world , had on the fairest trial , and most convincing evidence that ever offender was convicted or sentenced upon , found and pronounced him guilty . § 2. now , though the principles of the papists be such , and the tyes they are under from their interest so strong , that there is no hope or probability left that any regard to truth or justice should influence the consciences of any in that communion to act otherwise , should they be brought to tread a scaffold , or mount a ladder upon the score of the present plot , yet we will not despair but that the infamy which by uncontrollable evidence we shall fix and entail upon the memory of the late viscount stafford , may prevent such as hereafter may come to suffer for this conspiracy , from the indiscretion of dying like fools , and men regardless as much of their names here , as of their salvation hereafter . but if that infatuation and obstinacy which hath hitherto prevailed over the minds and consciences of those of the papal faction , should so powerfully continue upon them , as to render that part of my design unsuccessful , yet i comfort my self with the hopes of being able so far to undeceive and instruct the rest of mankind , as to preserve and secure them from giving faith and credit to papists in any thing they shall say or swear for the future ; especially when their personal interest , or that of their church dependeth upon , or is concerned in it . and indeed this plot is already both so far unvailed and laid open , and so demonstratively confirmed and proved , that none pretending to the name of a protestant , can bring into question either the truth or execrableness of it , unless he be really a papist , and assume the appellation of a protestant only as a safe and fashionable vizard . moreover , the vindicating the justice of the nation , and the clearing the integrity and honour of that high , and so much to be renowned court of judicature , before whom the late viscount stafford was arraigned , and by whom he was with so great solemnity pronounced guilty and condemned , is a matter worthy of our utmost zeal and diligence , and the due performing whereof we shall alwaies esteem a piece of the greatest usefulness we were capable of applying our selves unto in this world. in fine , by discoursing this matter as it ought , and placing things in that light and clearness which are due to them , we hope to render the conviction of those other traitors , who either already are , or may come hereafter to be impeached upon the account of this conspiracy , not only less liable to private censures and obloquies , but more easie and dispatchable . for there are some persons , who though they fully believe a plot , that from the reverence which they would be thought to bear to the solemn appeals which the accused make to god of their innocency , are withheld from giving that entire credit to the witnesses for the king , which the authority of the deponents oaths , the coherence of their testimonies , the intrinsick evidence of their depositions , the correspondence of one part with another , and many material and circumstantial proofs seem to exact from them . but though not only weak and well meaning men , but persons of great prudence and circumspection , and throughly acquainted with all the measures according to which justice is to be administred , and publick trials of offenders transacted , may suffer themselves to be imposed upon by audacious asseverations , before the guile and falshood of them be discovered ; yet if they continue in their credulity after that the highest blasphemy against whatsoever is and should be preserved sacred , comes to be detected and laid open , they must not take it amiss if the generality of mankind not only charge them with easiness of belief , and folly , but father upon them accusations that are more gross and criminal . nor is there any character so black , but that they deserve their names should be eternally loaded with it , who not only suffer themselves to be wheedled by asseverations destitute of all grounds which should command respect and deferrence , but which through the palpableness of their falshood ought to raise a detestation and horror in the minds of all those who maintain any veneration for god , whose name is so audaciously and sacrilegiously prostituted to the attestation of lyes and perjuries . § 3. and seeing the papists have hitherto produced nothing towards their vindication from the plot , that is material or consistent with it self , but that those who have been brought to suffer for it , have asserted their innocency and denyed their guilt when in the immediate prospect of death and eternity . it will not therefore be an unfit remarque in our very entrance on the discourse of this matter , that their criminalness is not only made evident by the testimony of many persons , who through the hopes they enjoy of the continuation of their lives are capable of being tempted by the expectation of profit and greatness , but that it is confirmed and established upon the authority of expiring and dying persons , who as they felt and saw themselves out of all hopes of enjoying the pleasures of life any longer , or compassing riches or advancement to their friends or posterity , so they ought to be judged delivered from the impression of all sublunary allurements in what they said , and no man can suppose that any thing else should influence them to speak falsly : accordingly mr. bedlo in the view and approach of death , affirmed both upon the faith of a christian , and as he hoped for salvation , that he had wronged no man by his testimony , but that whatsoever he had testified concerning the plot was true . shall the advocates for the conspirators , account themselves mightily advantaged in weakning the credit of the king's witnesses , from this that there is not that faith to be given to men not only in the possession of health , but having all legal security of their lives , as there is to persons who both know that they must immediately die , and that they are to appear before the great and righteous god , who hath threatned to punish all falshood and perjury with unconceivable torments ? and shall not we esteem our selves mightily confirmed as to the truth of the whole evidence concerning the plot , by finding that so considerable a witness both in detecting the parts and degrees of it , as well as those that were engaged in its contrivarce and prosecution , should so solemnly seal what he had before deposed with his last and dying breath ? here is one that hath declared their guilt , in the same circumstances wherein the advocats for rome glory so much , that the condemned affirmed their innocency . so that all their harangues concerning the credit that is due to the asseverations of dying persons , are much more applicable to our belief of the plot , on the dying testimony of mr. bedlo , than it is possible they should be to the weakening our faith about it , upon their affirming themselves guiltless , who were so legally convicted and condemned for it . for their concernment to preserve the reputation of their religion , secure the libertïes of many of their party , and the hopes which they might flatter themselves with , to save their own , together with a desire of recommending their memories to the favorable opinion of future generations , may be conceived sufficient grounds and inducements to influence them to a denial . whereas mr. bedlo had no concernment of his own , no expectations of advantage to accrue to his friends or relations , no hopes of avoiding approaching death , which might be conceived to prevail upon him , to breath out his last words in the affirmation of their guilt . besides , the principles of their religion are such , as do both countenance their denial , and justifie them in it ; whereas the principles of the protestant religion , wherein this gentleman dyed , do both prohibit and condemn the asserting every thing that is false , let the motives be never so great and important . the disparity between the asseverations of the one and of the other , is so considerable upon this single and alone account , that should it be admitted that their circumstances were the same in all other things , as well as in that of death immediately in their view , yet there can be no just competition between the weight and authority of what they said in the attestation of their innocency , and what he affirmed in the confirmation of their guilt . and it is remarkable , that he not only dyed in the profession of the protestant religion , which precludeth all hopes of pardon to any that shall persevere in malice , hatred , lying and slandering ; but that during his whole sickness , he was in the exercise of all seeming contrition and remorse , and so far as any one could judge , in the practice of sincere and unseigned repentance , for all the sins whereby he had offended god , or injured men. so that upon all that can rationally sway or determine our belief , entire credit ought to be given to mr. bedlo , upon the declaration he made of their guilt in the juncture and circumstance of dying ; whereas there is nothing that can be justly or rationally alledged , which without abandoning our selves to weakness and easie credulity , can obtain from us the giving the least faith to them , notwithstanding their affirming their innocency in expiring circumstances . and therefore though the publick hath sustained great loss by the removal of a witness , that could have not only testified against so many of the conspirators , but so particularly , and with so many corroborating circumstances ; yet the deposition which he made in his last sickness , whereby in the prospect of approaching death , and in the belief and sense of his speedy appearing at the tribunal of god , he confirmed and ratified upon oath all that he had declared before , hath done more to establish the credit of the plot , and ruine the reputation of the papal party in the minds of all unbiassed men , than ever he could have effected by never so many reiterated testimonies against them at bars , and in courts of judicature . § 4. nor in the next place ought any man to be surprized , that such of the traitors as nave been convicted and condemned for this hellish and damnable plot , should die professing their innocency as to what they were condemned for ; seeing they bound and obliged themselves by such oaths which they account most solemn , and vowed by whatsoever according to the principles of their religion , is esteemed more sacred than other , that they would never discover the conspiracy which they were engaged in . for all those to whom this bloody design was communicated ; and especially such who were to be assisting in it , had taken an oath of secrecy , and the sacrament upon it , as all the witnesses do inform us , never to reveal or disclose what they were either engaged in , or acquainted with . and the tenor of this holy and catholick oath , by which they most sacredly and indispensibly bound themselves , was this , as it was found very happily amongst mr. rusten's papers , a priest , in sir thomas gascoyne's house . i a. b. being in the presence of almighty god , the blessed mary ever virgin , the blessed michael the archangel , the blessed st. john baptist , the holy apostles st. peter and st. paul , and all the saints in heaven , and to you my ghostly father , do declare , and in my heart believe the pope , christ's vicar general , to be the true and only head of christ's church here on earth ; and that by virtue of the keys of binding and loosing given his holiness by our saviour christ , he hath power to depose all heretical kings and princes , and cause them to be killed : therefore to the utmost of my power , i will defend this doctrine , and his holinesses rights , against all usurpers whatsoever ; especially against the now pretended king of england , in regard that he hath broke his vows with his holinesses agents beyond seas , and not performed his promises in bringing into england the holy roman catholick religion . i do renounce and disown my allegiante as due to the said pretended king of england , or obediente to any of his inferiour officers and magistrates ; but do believe the protestant doctrine to be heretical and damnable ; and that all are damned who do not for sake the same ; and to the best of my power , will help his holinesses agents here in england , to extirpate and root out the said protestant doctrine , and to destroy the said pretended king of england , and all such of his subjects as will not adhere to the holy see of rome , and the religion there professed . i do further promise and declare , that i will keep secret and private , and not divulge directly or indirectly , by word , writing , or circumstance , whatsoever shall be proposed , given in charge , or discovered to me , by you my ghostly father , or any other engaged in the promoting of this pious and holy design : and that i will be active , and not desist from the carrying of it on : and that no hopes of rewards threats or punishments , shall make me discover the rest concerned in so pious a work : and if discovered , shall never confess any accessaries with my self concerned in this design . all which i do swear by the blessed trinity , and by the blessed sacrament , which i now purpose to receive , to perform , and on my part , keep inviolable : and do call all the angels and saints in heaven , to witness my real intention to keep this oath . in testimony whereof , i do receive this most holy sacrament of the eucharist . now besides that there is nothing more probable or fuller of moral certainty , than that ; in a business , should it be discovered , of so fatal consequence to their religion and themselves , they would use all imaginable waies and means to bind the consciences of those that were trusted with it from revealing and detecting what was committed unto them ; so the methods which they took in promoting former plots and treasons , and for the prevention of their discovery , having been by the prescription and imposition of an oath of secrecy , may give us all desirable assurance that they were equally careful to ●●●der the detection of this , and that accordingly they made use of some solemn oath of secrecy to that purpose . and that by the engine of such an oath they have endeavoured to setter the consciences , and stop the mouths of their proselytes and complices heretofore , we are abundantly informed in a book stiled a true and perfect relation of the whole proceedings against garnet the jesuit and his confederates , which was published by authority anno 1606 where we have the sum of the said oath thus conveyed unto us and recorded ; viz. you shall swear by the blessed trinity , and by the sacrament you now purpose to receive , never to disclose directly or indirectly , by word or circumstance , the matter that shall be proposed to you to keep secret , nor desist from the execution thereof , until the rest shall give you leave . which oath was administred by gerrard the jesuit to catesby , percy , wright , winter and fawkes , in the second year of the reign of king james , and by greenwell the jesuit to bates in the same year , though in the following month . and as this was an unquestionable copy for our present conspirators to write after ; so we may easily inform our selves from hence , by virtue of what tyes those found guilty of the late plot dyed in the asseveration of their innocency ; for if we do but suppose them to have lived in the practical belief of their own religion , or that they were possessed with any hopes of attaining happiness in the way of it , we must then perswade our selves , that they would not depart out of the world in the violation of an oath which they had so solemnly taken , and which the principles of their faith doth not only approve of , but makes the keeping of it meritorious . as to other oaths , they might be easily dispensed with , both to make and break them , but there was no expectation of any dispensation for , or absolution upon the violation of this oath . for can it be so much as once apprehended , that after they have brought persons under a bond which they esteem so sacred and unviolable , they should then indulge and allow them to transgress against an obligation so necessary to the compassing of their ends , and in the punctual observation whereof they have stated so much of their religion and the future happiness of their proselytes ? to act dissonantly to this oath which so admirably framed and calculated for the good of mother church , and the grandess of the triple crown , were a perjury not to be expiated ; but to forswear themselves in subserviency to the gainful and religious ends of this oath , is at once not only venial , but worthy of immortal glory . i readily grant , that partly by the antecedent oath of secrecy which they had so ceremoniously and augustly taken , and partly by the circumstances under which the papal cause and faction laboured when they came to dye , they were brought into a strait or dilemma of perjuring themselves on the one hand , or upon the other . but now , can we reasonably think that they would perjure themselves by detecting the plot , when they knew that upon so doing , they were both by the principles of their faith , and the sentence of their church , to stand adjudged to eternal torment ? and ought we not rather to assure our selves , that under the security which they had of happiness in the keeping inviolate their first oath , they would in defiance of all truth , attest god above , and call men below to witness , they were altogether innocent of what they were charged with . for against the dread and apprehension of all that this might render them obnoxious unto , they might secure themselves by a dispensation beforehand to do it , or provide for their salvation by an absolution afterwards , or trust to their martyrdom in so holy a cause for the expiation of so small a crime , or at the worst they could but expect that their punishment in hell for so beneficial a perjury to the church , should be only for a season ; and that the prayers of catholicks , the superlative prevalency of masses , and the boundless and unquestionable power of christ's vicar , who hath both the keys of heaven and hell , would soon release them thence , and translate them to happiness . § 5. but that we may the better understand how far papists may lawfully not only endeavour by bare affirmations to impose falshoods upon the world , but forswear themselves for the good of the catholick church , and the grandeur of the papal chair ; we will briefly unfold and lay open how far they allow themselves , and are justified by their writers and ghostly fathers to do so , in subserviency meerly to their own credit and reputation , or at most , in order only to their own personal safety . and without enquiring , till afterwards , upon what maxims of divinity , the roman casuists indulge their disciples and converts to do so , we shall at present produce an instance or two , and those very remarkable , by which it will appear , that this is allowed by the ghostly fathers , and practised by the members of the papal communion ; the first then shall be that which robert perkins gave an information of upon oath , and which sir robert atkins ▪ one of the judges at stafford assizes 1679. took as followeth . this informant saith , that about seven or eight years since mr. arthur fox ( then servant to the present lord aston ) came to him , and to another of his friends , and told them that there was a bastard-child laid to his charge , by one of his lords tenants daughters , and did acknowledge to them that he did several times lye with her , and that by the best computation of time he could make , he had just grounds to believe she had done him no wrong in this her charge ; and that he verily believed himself to be the father of the child , and therefore came to them as his particular friends , for their advice in the case , how to prevent the noise and scandal , and great charge that was like to ensue hereupon , and desired them to treat with the young womans father and mother about it , and to offer them a certain sum of money to free him from all future charge from , or by reason of this business . in pursuance of this request this informant and his friend addressed themselves to the young woman , and to her father and mother . the young woman with the greatest asseverations and protestations did affirm , that she had never layn with any man whatever , but the said mr. fox , and that he was the real father of the child . then they came to a treaty with her father about ascertaining the charge , and agreed that mr. fox should pay thirty pounds , to be for ever discharged from the said child ; part of which sum was accordingly paid . when they returned to mr. fox , and had acquainted him with what agreement they had made for him with the father and mother of the young woman , he seemed exceeding well satisfied therewith , and returned them many thanks , owning himself very much obliged to them both , for their great care and pains in transacting this affair for him , and bringing it to an issue so much to his content . mr. evers the priest belonging to the lord astons house , was abroad whilst this business was in agitation , but returning in few days before all the said thirty pound was paid , was informed by mr. fox himself what agreement was made for him by this informant , and his friend as aforesaid . mr. evers having thus understood the whole case told mr. fox that what he had done was not sufficient to take off the scandal from their church , for to his knowledge this story was much talkt of abroad , and that with very severe reflections upon the roman catholicks in general ; and therefore as his ghostly father , he would advise him what was to be done in order to the taking off so great a scandal from their church , and added that he had consulted mr. peters another priest , about it , and that they were come to a resolve what method should be used , and therefore required him to prepare himself for confession . accordingly mr. fox came to confession to the said mr. evers , and owned the whole matter as aforesaid ; then mr. evers told him again , he continuing upon his knees , that the scandal which was hereby brought to their church , was very great , and therefore for the taking it off , and preventing further scandal for the future to their church , to my lord aston , or to himself ; mr. peters and he had agreed upon this course ; viz. that he should go immediately to his lord aston , and on his knees before his lord and lady , with solemn oaths and asseverations deny that ever he had any thing to do with the said young woman in that nature , and that he was altogether innocent of the crime laid to his charge ; and that after this he should go up to the chappel where the congregation was met , and there in like manner deny it with the like asseverations , and to confirm them in the belief of it , he should then before them receive the sacrament . when mr. evers had finished these instructions , he gave him absolution before he rose from his knees , telling him , that if he observed these instructions , he was absolved from the said crime , and therefore innocent of it altogether , and might so declare himself as aforesaid . all which instructions in every particular the said mr. fox punctually observed . his friend aforesaid being in the chappel when he disowned the fact with solemn oaths , and received the sacrament upon it . here we have not only an instance what little credit is to be given to the oaths and asseverations of papists , but how they prostitute what themselves account most sacred , namely confession , absolution , and the sacrament of the eucharist to their base and secular ends . and if the preserving the reputation of one fellow , or the avoiding the censures which might be reflected upon the papal religion , because of sin of one of the members of their communion , which the doctrine of their church pronounceth at worst to be but venial , could be esteemed motives and inducements weighty enough , and sufficient , for the authorizing of perjury , and the prophaning the institutions of their religion ; can we then judge it strange , or ought we to entertain it with any surprise , that for the saving not only the honour of their church , but the estates and lives of so many of their faction in england , from the just imputations and deserved punishments , which so horrid a treason as that now charged upon them , must both render their religion and party obnoxious unto , they should not only allow , but oblige their votaries , to use the like imprecations and oaths towards the wheedling the unthinking and credulous sort of protestants into a belief of their innocency . the second instance i shall give of the freedom they assume unto themselves of abusing the faith of mankind by oaths , and how for they are from reckoning it any crime to forswear themselves for the advantage of the catholick cause , shall be that of a souldier lately admitted into one of the companies of the king's guards under the command of a captain , who is well known to be an abhorrer of such practice . this fellow having taken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy , the only legal test whereby the government hath provided for the distinguishing betwixt protestants and papists among persons of that degree and employ , was nevertheless suspected by some of his companions , who knew what religion he had been of before , to be still a papist , and that he had only swallowed those oaths for ends which he was willing to conceal , but which according to the romish religion , might sanctifie a prophanation of the name of god. accordingly having resolved for their own satisfaction , and their better instruction what that vile religion countenanceth men in , to have a watchful and observant eye over him , they were so fortunate as the last february , to trace him to the portugal ambassadors , where they saw him not only present at mass , but kneel at the elevation of the host. which from the regard which they bear to his majesties honour , did so inflame their zeal , that they immediately seized him after he was come out of the chapel ; and having carried him whither they thought fit , they first stript him to the middle , and then poured a pale of water leisurely down his body , as a testimony of their resentment , and as a kind of military correction . to this i might subjoyn the known story of one john cummin , who having swallowed the oaths of allegiance and supremacy , in order to his being listed also in his majesties guards , was lately seized upon duty in the tower , and committed to new prison , not only as a papist , but as a priest ; and though there was not legal evidence to evince the last , yet the first is indubitable . however , we see that the papists can forswear as well as dissemble their religion , when it is so much for the interest of the catholick cause , as the winding themselves into the guards , must needs be esteemed . and as we have reason to believe this not the only person who hath had a dispensation to take the aforesaid oaths , in order to the furthering the holy designs of the infallible chair ; so no man can be so ignorant , as not to understand that through their being listed under his majesties ensigns , they are ready for the subversion of our religion , and the destruction of our lives , whensoever they hear of the king's death shall come , which they have so long waited for , and used so many waies to hasten . and besides , this justifies the jealousies of those noble and renowned peers , who in their address to his majesty january the twenty fifth last , told him that they had reason to fear and apprehend that neither lords nor commons will be in safety at oxford , but will be daily exposed to the swords of the papists and their adherents , of whom too many , is to be feared , are crept into his guards . § 6. and whereas some may possibly imagine , that though men may be influenced to perjure themselves , while in a probability to live and enjoy not only the beneficial fruits of their perjuries , but may be ready to delude themselves with hopes of repenting of their villanies afterwards , if they shall at any time arrive at such a persuasion of mind , as to think it necessary ; we shall therefore in the next place give an account of some condemned for crimes , less dangerous to the papal cause , should they be acknowledged , than treasons against the king and government are likely to prove , who yet trusting to the blessed provisions of their religion , and in an implicit obedience to their ghostly fathers , have ventured the going boldly off the stage , affirming and swearing their innocence , when they knew their own guilt . the relations were sent to the right honourable the earl of essex , in a letter from dublin bearing date the fifth of march , 1679. and printed at london for langley curtis , 1679. the first contains an account of one john curphy , a papist , who at lent assizes seven years before , was tryed before baron hene ( then his majesties serjant ) for burglary committed in the county of monaghan , and being found guilty , was condemned to dye . and that the said curphy denyed the fact with great confidence and asseverations of his innocency at the gallows , and 〈◊〉 turned off the ladder persisting in his denials , but that the rope breaking by chance after he had hung some little space , and he coming again to himself , thanked god who had given him time to declare the truth , and not go out of the world with a lye in his mouth , and then confessed himself guilty of the fact for which he was condemned . adding , that a priest had given him absolution , upon condition not to discover any thing , nor to declare his accomplices ; and that he needed not doubt of his salvation , the fact not having been committed against god's people , meaning as he supposed the papists . so that no doubt had but the rope been strong enough , he had in the esteem of our papal notaries and agents , died as innocent of the burglary for which he was condemned , as the late conspirators did of the plot against his. majesties person , the protestant religion , and the government established by law. but there fall out sometimes unhappy accidents , that no humane wisdom could foresee , which contribute to the unfolding and detecting the tricks and villanies of these vile men the priests , — who have prostituted all that is religious and sacred , to a subserviency to worldly ends and designs . yet it were unreasonable that we should in the face and defiance of all evidence demonstrative of the guilt of persons , suffer our selves to be imposed upon to a belief of their innocency , unless convinced of their criminalness by the interposure of a thing so wonted and fortuitous , for though it was the lot of this curphry to be made participant of a providence so merciful to himself , and so instructive to us of the base and wicked artifices of the papal clergy , and with what obduracy and implicitness the laity resign themselves to their hellish and imperious dictates ; yet we must not expect that every malefactor amongst them , who upon the authority of their ghostly fathers , and security of absolution , ventures dying with his mouth full of falshoods and blasphemous execrations , should be reprieved by so unusual a method , or thereupon awakened to an acknowledgment of their guilt . and for this one person , that hath been trusted with such an opportunity of confessing , how many may we conceive to have ended their lives in a guilty silence . and of this we have two instances afforded us in the aforesaid letter to the same honourable peer , whereof one is , that there being a special commission directed to mr. justice johnson , to try several malefactors for murders and robberies , committed in the county of canan ; there were thereupon two of the duffies , and one of the plunkets , all irish papists , indicted : the duffies confest that they were guilty of the crimes laid to their charge , and gave the same evidence against plunket , upon which and other most undeniable circumstances , he was condemned , having also at his first apprehension owned to sir john edgworth , that he was guilty : but yet when he came to suffer for the fact , he died absolutely denying it , and that with curses upon himself , and renunciation of salvation , if he were not innocent . we may be sure by whose influence , and upon what inducements , and in the confidence of what security he did it , in that one brady a priest had accosted the duffies in prison , who were also condemned for the same fact , using arguments to induce them to recant their evidence , and renounce their testimony against plunket . and though his importunities and ghostly authority was unsuccessful upon them , the one of them that suffered , ( the other being reprieved ) persevering in his accusation of plunket , and in the confessing , that himself was guilty of the crime for which he was condemned , yet we may be justly confident , that his applications prevailed with plunket , and that through bradys persuasions , he dyed obstinate in the denial of what was not only proved against him , but what himself had before acknowledged . the other instance mentioned in the same letter , is a narrative , how that one neile o neile an irish papist , being tryed before sir richard reynell one of the judges of the kings-bench in that kingdom , upon a commission of oyer and terminer , for a murther committed at rathrum in the county of wicklow , and the fact clearly proved upon him , for which he was accordingly condemned ; did nevertheless , notwithstanding the fullness of the evidence against him , and that he himself had both in prison , and at his tryal , owned the fact to several persons , at the gallows utterly deny it . § 7. but that it may more evidently appear , that there is nothing in the exit and manner of the late traitors taking their farewell of the world , that should surprise any true english man , or thinking protestant , we shall endeavour to give an original copy of it in the practices of others , who suffered for the like crimes in a former reign . and we will at present take it upon the acknowledgements of our adversaries , that there was such a conspiracy as the gunpowder-plot . though by the way it may be observed as an argument of what sincerity the romish party is of , and how that all they say or print , is only accommodated to the posture of times and seasons , and calculated in subserviency to depending designs , in that many of the papal communion have had the confidence to obtrude upon the world oftner than once , that the gunpowder conspiracy was only a state trick and contrivance , to make them seem guilty and criminal , who were truly innocent . but besides that none of all those who were then convicted and executed for it , did so much as ever pretend , that they were wheedled into it by the cunning and dexterity of a publick and protestant state-minister ; so it must be acknowledged , that they were well disposed and prepared by vertue of romish principles , and throughly inclined of themselves to the committing of treason , otherwise they had never entertained nor complyed with so horrid an overture , as the destroying at once , the king , parliament , and kingdom . but that which i shall insist upon , is the denial of their guilt upon their examinations , and the falshood of their asseverations at their very death , though there was unquestionable evidence both of the treason , and how far the whole papal party was interested in it , not only by the seisure of some of them , when ready to accomplish the execrable villany , and by the insurrection of others in arms , to have protected themselves from the law , and commenced a rebellion , but by the discoveries which had been made from their own scanty and partial confessions upon examination , and by the freer discourses which they were overheard to use one to another in prison , when they little apprehended that there were any near to observe what they said . and i shall the rather insist upon this , because they who have been condemned for the late plot , and such who have undertaken the justification of their innocency , are pleased to tell us , that those executed for the powder-treason did confess their fact at the time of their execution , whereas they that have been executed for the present conspiracy , have at their deaths denied the fact , and resisted all temptations of pardon and reward . nay the late lord stafford was pleased to alledge at his trial , that as it was so horrid a thing , that it cannot be expressed or excused : so he had been told , that all who were engaged in that wicked fact , were heartily sorry for it , and repented of it before they dyed ; and that he never heard any of the church of rome speak a good word of it , and that the men concerned in it , did all acknowledge and confess it , and begged pardon of the king , and god , and all good men for it , and that therefore he thought it was not the interest of religion , but a private interest put them upon it . in which words there are no fewer than four egregious falshoods , which whether they be excused upon the account of the smallness of his converse with men and books , or upon the score of the weakness of his aged memory ; or whether they be not chargeable upon the badness of his conscience intoxicated by ill principles , i leave the reader to judge and determine . the first is , that he never heard any of the church of rome speak a good word of it , whereas widdrington assures us , that garnet had his picture soon after his execution , set up in the jesuits colledge at rome , with this inscription over it , verus christi martyr . and if this be not enough to convince after ages , what opinion the jesuites have , and still maintain of that plot , we will farther add , that both ribadewira hath reckoned garnet , southwell , and oldcorn , all gun powder traitors , among the martyrs of the society of jesus . and alegambe hath likewise inserted garnet's and oldcorn's names amongst the martyrs of the catholick church , and that order . yea not only father parsons , rector of the english colledge at rome , speaking of father garnet , saies , he was an innocent man , and suffered unjustly , and that he lived a saint's life , and accomplished the same with a happy death . but the pope himself preferred greenwell and gerrard , two of the conspirators that escaped , the one to be a confessor in st. * peters in rome , and the other to be his penitentiary . now whether these were testimonies of a detestation of the plot , or evidences of the approbation , which nothing but its miscarriage , prevented their declaring more publickly , i leave all mankind to judge . the second is , that he hath been told , that all who were engaged in that wicked act , were heartily sorry for it , and repented of it before they died . whereas thuanus tells us , that some of the traitors having escaped to calice , and being pittied , and assured by the governour , of the french king's favour , and that though they had lost their own country , they might be received there ; how that one of them thereupon replyed , that the loss of their countrey was the least part of their grief , but that which sensibly afflicted them , was that they could not accomplish so brave and generous a design . nay , sir everard digby , even when a prisoner in the tower for the plot , stiles it , in one of his papers since come to light , a good cause , and that if it had succeeded , there would not have been three worth the saving , that should have been lost , and that he had some friends who would have been in danger , but that he had prevented it . the third is , that he thought it was not the interest of religion , but a private interest put them upon it . whereas not only faux declared , that he was moved into it only for the sake of religion and conscience , because he thought the king not to be his lawful soveraign , seeing he was an heretick . but sir everard digby professed upon his tryal , that it was not ambition , nor discontent with his estate , nor malice to any in parliament , but zeal for his religion , and the hopes of restoring it in england . the fourth and principal thing wherein my lord stafford did either mistake himself , or greatly prevaricate , was in these words , that the men concerned in the powder-plot , did all acknowledge and confess it , and begged pardon of the king , and god , and all good men for it . nor shall i here insist upon this , that i do not see how it was possible for my lord stafford to be assured , that all the persons who were in it , were known and found out , or that he could ever throughly understand , whether even those that confessed after their apprehension , did not conceal much more than they discovered . but i shall confine my self to two things , whereof the first is this , that the conspirators , when under examination , did with oaths and asseverations deny what themselves had full knowledge of , and whereof the state had sufficient evidence : for garnet having by the pretended favour of his keeper , an opportunity allowed him to discourse with hall , and being the next day charged by several lords of the privy council , with divers things which had passed betwixt them two , in that conference , he not only denied the whole upon his soul , and the word of a priest ; but with so many repeated protestations , and terrible execrations , that my lord of salisbury who was then present , said , it wounded all their lordships hearts to hear him . and yet , when confronted by mr. fauset , who was both a learned person , and a justice of peace , and by mr. lockerson one likewise of known reputation , who had overheard all they said , having conveniently placed themselves before hand to that purpose , and withal understanding that hall had confessed what they had discoursed , he then acknowledged what with so many asseverations he had immediately before denied , and begged mercy of the lords , saying , he had offended if equivocation did not help him . and that we may not think equivocations and perjuries peculiar only to the jesuits , we have an example of the like carriage in sir everard digby , who being upon his first apprehension examined , did with most solemn protestations , and all kind of execrations , deny his being privy to the powder-plot ; and yet being afterwards confronted by the testimony of faux , who had confessed , that being at sir everards house in the country , some months before the intended session of parliament , that sir everard having taken him aside , told him he was afraid the powder in the cellar was grown dank , and that some new must be provided , lest that should not take fire ; he did thereupon not only acknowledge it , notwithstanding all his former execrations to the contrary , but when he came to be indicted , he confessed it upon his arraignment . whence we evidently see , that they not only with horrid oaths and astonishing asseverations , denied what they knew themselves guilty of ; but that the confessions they made did not proceed from any tenderness of conscience , or remorse for what they had been engaged in , but were extorted from them by the uncontrollableness of the evidence , and by improving the confessions of some of themselves to oblige others to an acknowledgement . the second thing i would have observed in the gun-powder conspirators , is that several of them went out of the world in the same manner that our late traitors did , denying divers things to their last , which they knew themselves to be guilty of . and of this to avoid prolixity , i shall give but two instances ; one whereof shall be that of francis tresham esq who not only gave it under his hand , but took it upon his soul , and as he hoped for salvation , within three hours before his death , that he had not seen garnet the provincial of the jesuits in sixteen years before ; and yet garnet himself afterwards declared that they had enjoyed frequent conversation with each other within less than the space of three years ; and that he supposed mr. tresham meant to equivocate in denying it . where was now the sense of the omnisciency of god ? or the dread of the future tribunal ? which the advocates , for the late traitors derive their topicks to persuade the world of their innocency from . alas ! the reputation and interest of the catholick cause , and the confidence they reposed in equivocations , dispensations and absolutions , had stifled all such impressions . the other instance shall be sir everard digby , who not only endeavoured to clear all the jesuits from being any waies concerned in that treasonable plot , but gloried in the venturing his salvation and happiness upon it ; whereas they themselves , to the eternal reproach of that poor gentleman's memory , confest and acknowledged it . and as if this had not been enough to witness his own insincerity , and to instruct future generations what little faith is to be given to papists , either living or dying ; he with the same impudence , and to his very last denied that ever father wally ( i. e. garnet ) had been at coughton with him , or that he knew darcy to be the same with garnet , or understood that he was a priest. whereas it appeared that he was not only very well acquainted with him , but even garnet himself confessed that he had been at his house . let our many pleading orators for the late traitors , continue now to argue from the confessions of the gun-powder conspirators , that they acknowledging their guilt , while the others dyed in the denyal of theirs ; as those were criminal , so these must be innocent : whereas we cannot desire a more convincing proof , how little the oaths and asseverations of papists in the very circumstances of dying are to be depended upon , than the assurance which we have from authentick records of the behaviour of those engaged in the gun-powder plot , whom we have mentioned . and that no danger which might arise to particular romanists , may be conceived to have discouraged our late conspirators , i shall subjoyn the case which catesby propounded , namely , whether for the promotion of the catholick cause against hereticks ( the necessity of time and occasion so requiring ) it were lawful among many nocents to take away some innocents ? to which father garnet with the greatest seriousness and utmost fixedness of judgment answered , that if the advantage to the catholick party , were greater by taking away some innocents together with many nocents , then doubtless it was lawful to kill and destroy them all : so that if we do but apprehend , that they were possessed with the least probability of prevailing in the issue , the lives of multitudes of their own faction , that would have been last in the interim , were to be esteemed a small price , for so great a commodity , as the re-establishing popery in england , the rooting out the protestant religion , and destroying of hereticks . § 8. but to make a nearer approach to the present plot , can there be a greater evidence of the papists readiness to forswear their own guilt , than the many examples of hiring and suborning persons to perjure themselves , to make the innocent criminal . a design more horrid in itself , and more destructive to government , and the safety of mankind , than for one that is guilty to protest his innocency with the highest execrations : for by the arraignment of one innocent person upon a countenanced subornation , all who deserve the same character are virtually indicted , and the whole law becomes perverted from its true end , which is to justifie the guiltless , and is turned into an engine to condemn the innocent . and it will prove of such fatal consequence , should it be connived at , or allowed , that all the ligaments of society will become dissolved , and all obligations not only between man and man , but betwixt rulers and people finally cancelled . for who can be so innocent , that it is not in the power of a suborned villain to slander ; or so loyal , whom on the encouragement of a reward , and at the suggestion of a prompter , he will not brand for a traitor . and we may be sure that they who are so void of all conscience , as to undertake so horrid an employment , will be furnished with impudence to swear any charge that their masters dictate and prescribe unto them . and what a damnable religion must that be , that at once inspires them to seek the destruction of protestants , and justifies them in all kind of subornations and falshoods for the accomplishing of it . now besides many instances not yet come to light of this treacherous and romish practice , we have several accounts of their endeavours of this kind , which deserve our observation and remark . the first is that of netternille , an irish papist , his attempting to corrupt mr. william brooks , one of the aldermen of dublin , and captain bery , to swear what should be prescribed unto them , for the fixing of scandalous crimes on dr. oats , and mr. bedloe , and charging the plot on dissenting protestants . the next is , readings attempt upon mr. bedloe , to have obtained of him the renouncing all the material part of his depositions against the lords in the tower , for which he promised him in money and estate a great reward . the third is mr. price's and mr. tasbrough's labouring to persuade mr. dugdale to recant whatsoever he had said concerning the plot , and to call the almighty god to witness that no motive had induced him to retract the testimonies he had given , but remorse of conscience for the mischiefs which he had done , though they were in the mean time to give him a great sum of money in hand , besides a further reward which they assured him of afterwards . the fourth is their suborning thomas knox , and john lane to swear such crimes against dr. oats , as they supposed would not only weaken the credit of all his evidence , but bring him under a sentence of death , and so rob the nation of the most considerable witness in reference to the plot. a fifth is longmores and draxtons endeavouring to bribe simon wright , to declare upon oath , that mr. dugdale had promised to protect him , and give him money as one of the king's evidence , if he would swear against sir james symons , and mr. gerrard . the last which i shall mention , is their employing mr. dangerfield to charge a plot on the presbyterians , wherein they intended to involve most of those that appeared active and zealous for the protesant religion , and english liberty . and to conclude instances of this nature at present , i shall only add two depositions , which may serve to instruct us that they still persevere in the practice of the same villany . the tenor of the first is as followeth . the examination of edward howcott of the city of lichfield , taken at the said city , the first day of jan. 1680 / 1 before me francis bayly , one of his majesties justices of the peace forth county of the said city . the said examinant upon his oath saith , that joseph salt of utoxeter feltmaker , about the month of june last , told this deponent that one john murrall a barber in rugby , in the county of stafford , would have had the said joseph salt to have gone with him to london , and be a witness against mr. stephen dugdale , one of the king's evidence in the late horrid plot , the said murrall pretending as the said salt told this deponent , that he knew as much of the plot as mr. dugdale did ; and if he would but testifie three or four words which murrall would direct him to swear against mr. dugdale , he should live better than ever he did in his life , telling the said salt , that he now lived meanly , but if he would do what he desired him , he should never want whilst he lived ; for in this juncture of time the oath of a protestant would be better accepted than twenty oaths of a papist . and further this deponent saith , that the said murrall had sworn him never to confess what he said to him , and threfore salt said , he would be hanged , and drawn , and quartered , before he would discover the saying of murrall . and this is not only sworn by edward howcott , but by his wife mary howcott , and by one edward blakesly , who were all present when salt declared and acknowledged as is above deposed . the second information declarative also of the like practices , is that of thomas lander of shutborrow in the county of stafford , as it was taken upon oath the 24 of decemb. 1680 / 1. before edmund warcupp esq one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex , &c. this informant saith , that having been employed as a workman several times at the house of my lord aston , at tixall in the county aforesaid , he was solicited by mr. francis hind steward to the lord aston , to become a witness against stephen dugdale , any way to invalidate or take off his evidence in relation to the popish plot , and he served this informant with a supena to come up to london for that purpose , at the late intended tryal of the late lord aston in june last past . but before his coming up , the said hind , francis aston , son to the lord aston , thomas sawyer servant to the said lord aston , sent for this informant into a private room in the said lord aston's house , and there told him , that if he would swear such things as should be dictated to him by the persons aforesaid , to invalidate or take away the evidence of the said mr. dugdale , he should have such reward , as should be to his own content , and not want for money or house , as might become a man of better quality than himself . can any man now have horror enough for that religion , which doth at once both authorise and sanctify such subornations and treacheries ; or can we without abandoning our reason , but believe , that they who labour to suborn , bribe , and persuade others to swear falsly for the safety of persons to whom they have no relation , and the hopes of some small rewards which they propose unto them ; will be ready to perjure themselves for their own sake , the advantage of their posterity , and the interest of the catholick cause , and whole papal party . he that swears falsly , or labours to have another to do so , for the taking away of his neighbours life , will not scruple to perjure himself , in order to avoid infamy upon his name , and to divert ruine from his own person and offspring : for however offensive it be to god , to preserve ones self by unlawful means ; it is both much more provoking to the lord , and prejudicial to the world , first to frame , and then support a plot , by perjury , wherein so many thousand innocent persons must have suffered , as in all probability would have done , in that which mr. dangerfield was suborned and imployed about . § 9. as all the conspirators have been ingaged in the same treason , and influenced thereunto by the same principles ; so it is not unreasonable to conceive , that they should be all instructed to act a like part in the denial of it ; for they that could enter into so bloody a design , as to destroy their lawful king , ruine their native country , and cut the throats of many of their kindred , as well as of their friendly and innocent neighbours may very well be supposed to reckon themselves discharged from all those ties of divine laws and obligations of conscience , which should restrain them from lying and perjury : but the holy god who sometimes leaves men to such wickedness and obduracy , for ends alwaies righteous but often hidden , seldom fails to display his power and wisdom , in affording such means and opportunities of detecting their villanies , as may be improved and managed to the preserving the peace , and securing the safety of nations and societies , if magistrates and people be not wanting to themselves . and accordingly hath the allseeing majesty over-ruled , and strongly infatuated the minds of all the traitors who have suffered for the late plot , that though they have had the impudence to deny their guilt , yet they have left evidences of it , either in their own papers which have come to light , or in the very particulars which they have alledged for the asserting of their innocency . for to begin with coleman , it is to be rationally believed , that having established a correspondence with the french king's confessor , in order to so mighty a work as the conversion of three kingdoms , and the utter subduing of a pestilent heresie , which had domineered over a great part of this northern world a long time ; should immediately give over all forreign correspondence subservient to so blessed a work , after the writing of those letters 1675. alas ! it was enough that he discovered what he knew his own hand attested by his servants , would betray and detect him in ; but this man of so seigned candor and ingenuity , thought it meritorious as well as lawful to deny whatsoever he saw could not be proved against him by his own papers . and had not his former letters been taken , he would have denied all kind of correspondence with the confessor , as well , and with much more probability , than that any such communication was afterwards maintained betwixt them . nor secondly would the consult april 24. 1678. have ever been acknowledged , but that it was mentioned in a letter written by one peters a jesuite to one tonstal of the same society , to meet at the said consult , which letter was taken among harcourt's papers , when his chamber was searched : for had it not been for the finding of that letter , they would have confidently denied the whole thing ; and i am sure with more reputation to their wisdom , than by the endeavouring now to impose upon the world , that the said consult was only upon the score of a trivial meeting . for had that been all the reason for their assembly , what necessity was there for these words ; every one is also to be minded not to hasten to london long before the time appointed , nor to appear much about the town till the meeting be over , lest occasion should be given to suspect the design . finally secrecy as to the time and place is much recommended , to all those that receive summons , as it will appear of its own nature necessary . the whole strain of the letter intimates , that there was more then to be transacted , than it is for their interest to have known . what less doth the judication of design , which was to be industriously concealed , and the giving an account that the nature of the thing , which they were to meet about , required the utmost secrecy , impart and signifie to all impartial men than what dr. oats had declared to be the business of that consult , long before this letter was found . thirdly , when some things which men have affirmed with the highest asseverations , shall be found notoriously false , it is a just ground of suspecting their truth and integrity in other things , though the evidence upon which we disbelieved them be not so apparent and palpable . now , did not gavan acquit all the jesuits save mariana from allowing king-killing doctrine ; and that in near as positive and emphatical , as those wherein he expressed and declared his own innocency with reference to the plot , because the jesuits ( saith gavan ) are so falsly charged for holding king-killing doctrine , i think it my duty to protest to you with my last dying words , that neither i in particular , nor the jesuits in general , hold any such opinion , but utterly abhor and detest it . and i do assure you , that amongst the vast number of authors which among the jesuits have printed philosophy , divinity cases , or sermons , there is not one , to the best of my knowledge , that allows of king-killing doctrine , or holds this position , that it is lawful for a private person to kill a king , although a heretick , although a pagan , although a tyrant ; there is not i say one jesuit that holds this , except mariana the spanish jesuit , and he defenas it not absolutely , but only problematically , for which his book was called in , and that opinion expunged and censured . let us now joyn issue with gavan on this point , and refer it to the readers to judge of this jesuits sincerity and truth in all the rest that he said , by his falshood in this particular . what! not one jesuit that allows the king-killing doctrine ? when father campian tells us expresly , that all the jesuits have entred into a covenant to destroy all heretical kings , by whatsoever waies and means they are able best to effect it ? what! not one jesuit but mariana , that maintains this , and that his book was called in upon that account , whereas that book of mariana was never called in by the authority of the church . and that sanctanellus is known to have written a book containing the same principles , which was therefore condemned to be burnt by the parliament of paris ? what! not one jesuit that holds it lawful for a private person to kill a king , although a heretick , although a pagan , although a tyrant ! whereas not only suarez assures us , that a king being deposed by the papal sentence , he may be slain by any private person ; but emanuelsa , molina , and many others do affirm , that the pope having excommunicated and deposed a prince , any one may thereupon kill him , and be the executioner of the judgment pronounced by the universal and infallible father . it were easie to produce a large catalogue of jesuits , who have all written in justification of the same opinion , but that these are enough to demonstrate how little credit is to be given to the dying speech of this audacious and impudent person , who having the confidence to tell the world , that if he should say any thing falsly at that season , he must expect nothing but eternal damnation , should nevertheless endeavour to impose so grosly upon the world , and that in a matter of fact which is so obvious and palpable . nay , this very gavan , who renounceth all king-killing principles , did nevertheless tell mrs. skipwith that the queen might lawfully kill the king meerly for violating her bed ; yea that she was bound to do it , and that if she did not , she was guilty of his greater damnation in suffering him to continue in sin . and when we doubt but that he who thought it lawful to advise the murdering of his prince for adultery , would much more pursue the destroying of him for heresie . but when men have renounced all fear of god , and regard to truth , and do only consult what may be most subservient to the wicked designs which they have had in agitation , and the accomplishment whereof they would transmit , with as much hopefulness and security as they can to others ; it is righteous with the lord , whose name they so daringly prophane , to suffer them to betray and discover themselves beyond all excuse and palliation in some one particular , that the easie and credulous part of mankind may be cautioned and instructed to distrust as well as suspend believing them in all the rest . nor are coleman and gavan the only persons , who in the asseveratious of their innocency , have betrayed their guilt , and left evident footsteps of their falshood , when they pretended by all that might obtain credit among men , to speak nothing but truth . for mr. harcourt , a man whose age and experience should have rendred him more wary , though his religion did not teach him integrity and candor , hath been left under the same infatuation , and in reference to some particulars of which he would have acquitted himself , hath discovered as much folly as villany . for whereas among other things deposed against him , to prove his being guilty of the plot , mr. dugdale testified that he had seen a letter written with father harcourt's own hand to father evers , declaring the murder of sir edmundbury godfrey , and dated the very night wherein it was done , being the 12th of october 1678. and that upon this intelligence he had declared at one elds , who keeps an ale-house in tixall , on monday october 14. that a justice of the peace who lived at westminster was murdered in london . now as it was not possible that he could have notice of it there so soon , but from one that was accessary to it , and a conspirator in it , not being known in london till the thursday following ; is there any thing more probable , than that he arrived at the certainty of it , in the way and by the means which he declares . this all the papists seemed sensible of , and therefore attempted to prove by some witnesses in whose presence this news was said to be reported by mr. dugdale , that there was no such thing said by him , or heard by them . they have wit enough to understand , that there was no other way to prevent peoples believing their being guilty of that horrid murther , or to discharge harcourt from a suspicion of having given the information that it was effected , but by affirming that there was no such intelligence arrived there , till the saturday sevennight after . and on the confidence that they could bribe the persons in whose presence it was said to be told , to testifie the contrary ; and that there could be no other evidence given of it but mr. dugdales bare affirmation ; mr. harcourt not only assumed the confidence to deny it upon his tryal , but to declare at his death , that as he hoped , by the merits and passion of jesus christ , for salvation , that he was as innocent as the child unborn , of what was laid to his charge . and yet two gentlemen of known worth , and unquestionable reputation , namely , edward birch esq and john turton esq have deposed upon oath that the aforesaid murther was commonly discoursed of about tixall in staffordshire , before it was known here in london , that sir edmundbury godfrey was killed ; nay , as if this were not demonstrative and convincing enough how the intelligence behoved to reach thither , and by whose means that loyal and protestant magistrate was so barbarously massacred ; there are other two persons , viz. james ansell of haywood in staffordshire , and mr. william hanson of wilnal in the same county , who testifie likewise upon oath , that mr. dugdale published the news of the said murder , in their hearing at elds , the alehouse-keeper in tixall , on monday morning ; and as they are of unspotted fame , though of no great rank or quality , so they inform not only as to the time , the house , and the particular place in it where this was declared , but they mentioned divers other circumstances corroborative of the truth of what they say . and whereas my lord stafford thought himself so secure of overthrowing mr. dugdale's credit in reference to all he had testified besides , by detecting him a lyar in this particular , that he not only charged him with perjury in it , but bore himself most confidently in , when upon his defence of having fully disproved this part of his evidence ; it will not be amiss to consider the witnesses he produced , and what they alledged for the invalidating mr. dugdale's testimony in this matter . now the persons he relied so much upon , for this service , and whose authority he ascribed so much unto , as to have expected , that all men should have submitted to what they said with an implicite faith , were mr. phillips incumbent at tixall , and one mr. sambitch who being reported to have been present when mr. dugdale communicated the foresaid intelligence , declared in court that there was no such thing spoken or related in their hearing . but sure it is more rational to receive the testimony of those who depose an affirmative , than those who take upon them to justifie a negative , and especially after the expiration of two years since the thing was said : and it is likewise more agreeable to all the measures of justice , that they are rather to be believed who deposed upon oath , than they who did not . and for one of my lords two witnesses , namely , mr. sambich his deafness might excuse him , in saying he heard no such thing , though at the same nearness to mr. dugdale when the words were spoken , as mr. hanson or mr. ansell were . and besides though his deafness hindred his hearing mr. dugdale when he communicated that morning the news of the murther , nevertheless he had so far arrived at the knowledge of it some time or other that day , that he acquainted charles chetwyn esq with it in the afternoon , as the said charles chetwyn esq deposed upon oath at the tryal of the jesuits , and upon the occasion i have mentioned this gentleman . i shall crave liberty to rectifie one mistake in the printed relation of that tryal , which is , that whereas charles chetwyn esq swore , this was told him by sambich on monday , as edward smith esq and bencher of the middle temple , and justice warcup , who were both present at the said tryal , are ready to depose ; yet through the fault either of the printer , or of him that took the tryal , tuesday is set down in the published account . but to proceed to mr. phillips , the other witness produced to detract from the credit of mr. dugdale in this matter , where we desire to observe , that together with the denyal of his having heard any such words , he denyed likewise his being at that ale-house either that day , or the following , which as none about tixall who know his constant custom of visiting eld's once or twice a day , can easily believe ; so he appears plainly to be a very bold and venturous person in taking upon him to say that he was not such a day in a house where he used constantly to resort , and this after such a compass of time wherein without reflection upon the weakness of his memory , he may be supposed not to remember what he either did , or where he was so long before . but besides this , we have something else to add , whereby the authority of this parson against a protestant is everlastingly blasted and supplanted . for whereas he thought to recommend his testimony by pretending himself a minister of the church of england , there is an information given upon oath before justice warcup against him , that he the said phillips declared his readiness to renounce the protestant religion , and forsake the communion of the church of england , providing a competent annual provision could be settled upon him for the maintenance of himself and his wife and children : and pursuant hereunto he employed a friend to treat with my lord aston about it , who being very fond of a proselyte of such a character , undertook to charge himself with the care of him and his family : but at the same time under the influence of father evers counsel , he advised him to continue his station for a season where he was ; for by pretending himself still a minister of the church of england , he remains better qualified , and more capacitated to promote the romish interest , than if he should immediately pull off his mask , and vouch himself openly for a papal convert . and surely no man can believe him to be a competent witness against the credit and reputation of a protestant , that is first willing to abjure his religion upon so base motives , and then proceeds upon as ill inducements to dissemble the profession of a religion , which he hath declared himself unsatisfied in , and ready to renounce . he that is not afraid to deal falsly in a matter of so great importance as religion , will not scruple to transgress the rules of justice , and prevaricate from the lines of truth in moral concernments . and especially when the acquitting himself as he did , may be supposed his probationership for his plenary admission into the bosom of the roman church , and the compensation he was to make for the annual pension that was to be settled upon him ; nor ought it to surprise any protestant or true englishman , that they have been able to muster up some few persons to detract from the esteem of mr. dugdale , if we do but consider the methods they have used by bribery and subornation to effect and accomplish it ; or that they have proceeded further than to lessen his reputation , namely , by offers of money to engage men to destroy him ; and in reference to the first i shall produce the testimony of simon wright one whom i briefly mentioned before ; this person being known to have been well acquainted with mr. dugdale , for that he used in quality of a barber frequently to trim him , was accordingly applied unto by mr. plessington , and proffered seven hundred pounds if he would appear as a witness to take off his evidence ; or if he would destroy and assassinate him . and for his security as to the obtaining of the money if he would have complied with the proposal , both mr. reeves an apothecary in chancery-lane , and mr. deway the scriviner tendred him their several obligatory notes . yea they framed a paper for him , wherein he was to testifie that mr. dugdale had suborned and hired him to swear against sir james symons , and mr. gerrard , two persons accused about the plot , which they prevailed with him by money and promises to set his hand unto , and would have persuaded him to make an affidavit upon it before a justice of peace ; the tenor of which paper being directed to sir james symons , was as followeth ; i can , bless god , with a safe conscience , declare upon oath , that mr. dugdale hath been unkind to me in taking his opportunity of my poverty by reason of a private meeting of us two by his appointment . he did at that time preffer if i would swear against you and mr. gerrard , he would protect me as one of the king's evidence , and i should not want money . and now as this paper alone is sufficient to detect the waies and methods they have used for overthrowing the reputation of mr. dugdale ; so the providence of god is to be acknowledged in the infatuation of my lord stafford , who to the blasting of the papal cause , and the evidencing of his and others guilt , in the present conspiracy produced it . for being in their hands , it was in their power to have suppressed it , as it appears by the testimony of wright they did another paper of much more consequence , to which also they had suborned , hired , and wheedled him to set his hand . and as if it had not been enough to endeavour to corrupt persons to swear falsly against him , they have dealt with some to assassinate and kill him , as appears not only by the informations of the aforesaid simon wright , who was to have stabbed him , and by the informations of thomas lander , who they would have perswaded to put fire to the room where mr. dugdale lay , and to burn him in his bed ; both which informations are published lately by thomas symmons at the prince's arms in ludgate-street , but also by the following deposition of simon ansell . the information of simon ansell , as it was taken before one of his majesties justices of peace in staffordshire , and transmitted to edmund warcup esq &c. this informant saith , that he was at my lord astons black-smiths to have his horse shodd there , and that in the mean time mr. francis aston eldest son to the lord aston , came to the said black-smith's shop , and calling to this informant , took him apart , and told him , that if he would he might with ease do his father and him the greatest kindness imaginable : he this informant answered he would use all possible means to serve him and his father ; if you do , said mr. francis aston , and be true as to what i shall instruct you , you shall have that piece of ground which you hold of my father in brinsh rent-free for seven years , and ten pounds in present money besides . he this informant answered , that he would be true and faithful to him and his father , and desired to know what they would have him to do : mr. francis aston then told this informant , that mr. dugdale was coming into the country , and that he would have him the said informant go from place to place with the said dugdale , and to watch his opportunity till he could find a convenient place to kill the said dugdale , being his fathers greatest and only enemy : and that the surest way of accomplishing this , was to charge a pistol with a brace of bullets : and as this informant should find conveniency to shoot him in the back , saying he will so certainly kill him : and withal he advised me that thereupon , that i should ride to the next town in a great fright , and tell there , that dugdale and i , being riding on the rode together , were met and assaulted by two men , one of which shot mr. dugdale and killed him : and this , said he , will both oblige my father , my self , and all our friends for ever , and also remove all suspition from your self , considering what the papists think themselves allowed to do against the enemies of their church . and considering how the nation is filled with men of ill principles and profligate lives ; it is no wonder that they have been able to produce some persons to detract from the credit of the kings evidence , but it is rather to be accounted matter of wonder , that they have not found instruments to assassinate every man of them . but to proceed , these conspirators whom we have already mentioned , are not the only persons who have left uncontrollable evidence of their guilt , when with the highest confidence they asserted their innocency ; for mr. ireland also had the fate to betray himself in the same way of indiscretion and folly ; for thinking to have invalidated the testimony of dr. oats and mr. bedloe ; he affirms , he protests , he calls god to witness , that he was in staffordshire , from the fifth of august , till the fourteenth of september : whereas they had sworn that he was , and that they had seen him at lonaon within that time . and as if it had not been enough to have insisted upon it at his tryal , he sealed it with most solemn asseverations at his death and yet it hath appeared since by the testimony of mr. jennison , a person of an ancient and considerable family , and of an unquestionable reputation , and mr. irelands own relation and kinsman ; that dr. oats and mr. bedloe's credit deserved not to be impeached on this account ; ( nor by any other asseverations or oaths , by any of the papal communion offered against them , or either of the king's evidences ) seeing as he affirms , he had both seen and conversed with him at his lodging in russel-street on the 19th . of august , and this he not only affirms upon the word and oath of a gentleman and a christian , but by such particular and undeniable circumstances , that there is no man of sense but must acknowledge himself convinced , that the jesuit dyed with a lye in his mouth ; he that hath ( or will ) read his several narratives concerning this , and what i have observed in mine in reference to it , will soon see that ireland discovered his being in town , not because he was not there , but because the errand he came , and employed himself about was so black and detestable , and with all so positive sworn against him , that he knew no way to vindicate himself from it , but by swearing point blank that he was not so much as upon the spot where these things charged upon him were said to have been transacted . but because there is no sore — and men live to be further confirmed and established in these very things , whereof they are already sufficiently persuaded . i shall subjoyn one testimony more of an honoured and worthy gentleman and a kinsman of mr. ireland , who also saw and discoursed about several things with him in london , when he so positively calls god to witness that he was elsewhere , which confirms mr. jenisons , dr. oats , and mr. bedlow's evidence ; the gentleman is desirous for a season to have his name concealed , but is a person of known worth , and will be ready to confirm what is here said before any magistrate when called thereunto . and whosoever considers , not only the many reproaches fastned upon the names , but the attempts made upon the lives , of several of those who have concerned themselves in detecting and obstructing this hellish plot , will think it no matter of surprise or amasement that gentlemen should be shy in concerning themselves in it , especially when the life of their prince , or the safety of the people doth not so much depend upon it , but that all which their discovery will amount unto , is only the detecting the perjury of a romish priest. nay is it not come to that , that it is very little less than a dishonour to be a discoverer , even where the kings life is eminently in danger ? so that if you would in some company , design the exposing of a man , you can not do it with a greater emphasis , and more to the general gust , than by proclaiming him an evidence : which as it may serve for an apology , why this gentleman conceals his name , so i do here pledge my faith , that the world is not shamm'd by a counterfeit information , but that what is here subjoyned , is no more , than what a person of entire credit and very good quality , will be ready to justifie ; namely , that this gentleman , being about the beginning of bartholomew fair 1678. going up holborn , with an intention to carry a lady and a relation of his to the fair , to entertain her with what the place could afford , or at least what she would principally have a mind to see , he accidentally met with mr. ireland who was also his relation , and between whom and him there had intervened a long acquaintance . and that mr. ireland of whose company , because of their different principles he was never fond , not only accosting him , but being importunate to drink with him , he accordingly attended him into an adjoyning ale-house at the sign of the three pipes . where they not only continued almost an hour together , but had much discourse concerning religion : and that mr. ireland by way of sounding his inclination to the papal church , asked him , whether if their religion were established by law and publickly owned in england , he would not then embrace it , and come over to their communion ; to which the gentleman replied , that the popish religion was so repugnant to the first principles of reason , that he could never abandon his understanding so far as to espause or entertain it , but that if things should come to that pass as mr. ireland suggested , he would submit to the government in popish hands , but not to popery . so that there can be nothing more evident , than that ireland was in london ; when he calls god and angels to witness , and pawns his salvation upon it , that he was in staffordshire . who could have believed that a person not only pretending to be a christian , but of a sacred order in the church , and trusted with the dispensation of sacred mysteries , and assuming the conduct of the souls of men , durst have had the boldness and impudence to dare heaven , and affront the omniscient majesty , as well as abuse mankind , in so horrid a manner . this is a new way of leaving the world with hopes and expectations of happiness , to renounce all right to , and interest in future blessedness , if dissimulation and perjury may not entitle them to it . we may justly conceive , that they think themselves dispensed with to blaspheme the name of god , whensoever their doing so is subservient to the benefit and advantage of the church of rome . and that they reckon , such impieties will not only be forgiven them , upon the account of the end which they are perpetrated for , but become sanctified and commence meritorious . however , i think he forfeits his discretion , as well as proclaims himself unworthy the name of a protestant , that can believe the asseveration of a priest or jesuit in reference to his own innocency , after we have so demonstratively detected mr. ireland , as well as those we have already mentioned , to be such horrid impostors . and we may also gather , with what resignation the popish laity subject themselves to the commands of their ghostly fathers , being so ready to sacrifice their souls to eternal punishments , in their protesting that to be true which they know to be false , rather than to dispute or decline obedience in whatsoever they require of them . for by the amazing prevarication in the first principles of morality , which we find those that they had mustered up from the countrey , guilty of in this matter , we may very well conclude that they had implicitly trusted both their reputations and souls , into the hands of their priests ; and that they account it a criminal matter to enquire how they dispose of them . § . 10. having thus far detected not only the villanous perjuries of romanists which are of a more ancient date , but made some fresh reflections upon , and given ample discoveries of the blasphemous falshoods ; that several executed for this late plot , have dyed guilty of ; we now proceed to lay open the unparallell'd impudence , and brasen impostures of the late viscount stafford . and the first thing we shall take notice of is this , that he renounceth in his last breath all hope of salvation , if ever he were guilty himself , or knew of any that were , of the crimes whereof he was accused . and yet by a letter directed to my lord aston , which was found in his study at tixall when searched , and to which was subscribed stafford , and the letter dated from stafford october 8. 78. the plot is both confessed under his own hand , and his particular interest and co-operation in it acknowledged . the words of which letter were as followeth . my lord the plot is discovered , and we are all undone . and i am going into shropshire to stifle it as much as i can ; and i pray do you the same in staffordshire . this letter was seised by captain thomas lane a justice of peace and deputy lieutenant in staffordshire . and accordingly he deposed before the committee appointed as managers for the tryal of my lord stafford , and was ready to have proved it openly in court if he had been called thereunto . but those worthy gentlemen , that were entrusted by the house of commons to prosecute the impeachment of treason against stafford , did upon some prudential considerations decline the mentioning of this matter ; and the rather because they had other sufficient evidence for the convicting of that criminal . and they were not willing to make any critical enquiry , how this letter under my lords hand came to be suppressed or lost , as it seems it was , from it s not being communicated neither to the committee of secrecy , nor to the committee of managers of the tryal . but this mr. lane deposeth , that having shewn it to mr. mosely a gentleman of quality in the foresaid county , and to diverse others who have attested the same before a committee of parliament , he did transmit it to one of the clerks of the council , and that he received a letter concerning the receipt of it from one of the clerks . had the plot succeeded this late lord would have been proud of it , and endeavoured to derive glory to his family from it ; but being discovered , and it appearing so full of horror to all the sober part of mankind , they have no way left for the preventing the ruine of themselves and posterities , but , though to the loss of their souls , to disclaim and abjure it . alass ! we needed no witnesses to tell us of a plot carried on by the papists for many years past against our religion ; the caballing of the chief factors of the romish party , the raising money upon their estates at home , and promoting collections amongst the papal zealots abroad , the putting themselves under the conduct of forreign councils , and the industriously providing and furnishing themselves throughout the whole kingdom with horse and arms , were so many uncontrollable evidences of it to all persons of ordinary converse and observation . and the depositions of such as have come in to make detection of this conspiracy , do so correspond with what most men have seen and took notice of , that the utmost they amount unto , is only to afford us a legal proof of that , whereof we had before a moral assurance . can it be imagined that coleman , throgmorton , leyborn , should only be acquainted with so great and important a design : and that powis , bellasis , arundel , and stafford should be ignorant of it . who knows not that the former were too inconsiderable to give either authority to so weighty an undertaking , or yield that assistance which was necessary to the effecting and accomplishing of it . none below those of the highest quality in the papal party , were furnished either with wisdom to conduct it , interest to obtain forreign countenance unto it , or treasure and power to possess the meanest with the least hope of success . could coleman judge that their design made so happy an advance , that they should quickly see the ruine of the protestant party ; as his letter to the nuncio bearing date the 9th . of august testifieth ; if there had not been a general confederacy among all the papists in england , to cut off and extirpate those modern hereticks : or is it possible to fasten any other sense upon father irelands letter from st. omers , wherein he tells his correspondents here , that all things were in a readiness there , as soon as the blow should be given here , but that they had both projected the murdering of the king , and having once accomplished that , to proceed immediately to the extirpation of the protestants . i should not have published the foregoing letter , but that the safety as well as the honour of the king , and the vindication of the justice of the nation upon this traiterous malefactor , exacted it of me . and i wish some persons may be advised and instructed , how they behave themselves in reference to papers and informations which arrive with them for the future , seeing they may hereby find and observe , that their carriages and transactions lie not so hid and concealed , as they may to their own ruine at last , though to our danger at present , believe and imagine . but let us in the next place consider how many witnesses have testified my lord stafford's share and part in the plot , and you will possibly be astonished , how he durst shut up his dying speech in saying with so little concernedness with relation to the righteous tribunal he was immediately to appear before ; i do with my last breath truely assert my innocency , and hope the omniscient all-seeing just god will deal with me accordingly . were they not so many , that for any to hope to be acquitted upon bare denying what such a number have deposed , were to make the conviction of malefactors and criminals a thing wholly impossible . and were they not all papists and purposed so to live and dye , if the consideration of this plot had not filled them with horror concerning a religion that justified so execrable a conspiracy . nor was it originally any hatred against the popish religion , that made them accuse the principal members of the roman communion of those villanies and crimes ; but it was the treasons which the roman catholicks were engaged in , that made them renounce that religion which put them upon it , and whose principles made it meritorious to prosecute it with fire and sword. besides , these witnesses were persons whom this lord is never said to have disobliged , so that they can not be thought to have accused him out of malice and revenge ; and which is very material for obtaining belief to their testimony , they were wholly strangers one to another till after the discovery of the plot , so that the charging my lord stafford and others with such and such crimes , was not any contrivance among themselves , nor a thing they can be supposed to have concerted between them . and if we consider the nature and quality of their evidence , it is such that it is impossible any man should have ever ventured upon the giving of it , unless it had been true , and that they had personal and particular knowledge of all the circumstances of it . for they not only declare all with the greatest plainness and distinctness , but whensoever there was any attempt to distract or entangle them by cross questions , they both persevere to answer with the greatest presence and sedateness , and by their replies to reflect further light and certainty on what they said before ; for as the particulars they insisted upon , are too many for the most fertile imagination to have invented , so as to be able to make them cohere , much less to cause one of them support and fortifie another ; so notwithstanding the number of the things they have deposed , and that there was no previous acquaintance amongst them , yet they have in nothing contradicted one another , nor hath any one by endeavouring to support the truth of what himself said , undermined or supplanted the certainty of what others have alledged . or can it be supposed that though they had been never so wicked , and would not have scrupled the destroying the lives of innocent persons in order to profit and advantage , that yet they should not only be such fools but so perfectly mad , as to assault the lives of so many of the chiefest peers of the nation , and so befriended not only in their numerous relations , but in the interest which they had as well in his majesty as those of greatest authority about him . surely nothing but an assured knowledge of the things which they inform concerning , and a conscientious desire to prevent the mischiefs which these great persons in combination with others , were hastning to involve the nation under , could have ever prevailed with them to expose themselves to so many visible dangers , as they must needs have foreseen , the accusing so many peers , would make them obnoxious and liable unto . § . 11. but this is not the only particular wherein we shall detect and lay open this false and perjured person , and therefore we hasten to a second thing wherein this late viscount hath prostituted his conscience by asserting that for a truth , which we shall prove by undubitable testimony to be a gross and impudent falshood . and it is some advantage that we can deal with the papists on a subject , that relates wholly to matter of fact ; for here both the meanest and those of the narrowest understanding , are as capable of being umpires betwixt us and them , and of comprehending what is proved , or what is not , as those of a more elevated condition , and improved abilities . this lord then having both protested upon his tryal , that he never spake with mr. dugdale but once , and averred it upon his death and salvation , that he never spake unto him of any thing save about a foot-boy , or foot-man , or foot-race , and never was then alone with him ; we shall therefore by some of the many undeniable depositions which we could produce , demonstrate that he hath been often with him , and that at times and seasons when there could be no occasion to discourse of any such affair or business betwixt them , and this viscount having also upon his tryal solemnly attested god , that he detested dugdale , as so mean a knave , that often and often , when dry at my lord aston ' s table , he would not call for drink when he saw him by him , but often refused to take drink at his hands ; i shall therefore prove by the testimonies of several persons whose credit can no ways be impeached , that the time was , when he had another kind of value for mr. dugdale , and that he hath withdrawn from the society of very considerable persons to converse with this very dugdale , whom he is pleased to represent as so mean a knave , and that he frequently declined to take drink at his hands . the information of william skelton late of horecross in the county of stafford , now of st. martins in the fields in the county of middlesex gent. taken upon oath this 17th . day of january 1680. before me edmond warcupp esq one of his majesties justices of the peace in the said county and city . middle . & westm. ss . this informant saith , that he waited on robert howard of horecross in the said county of stafford esq to the house of the lord aston at tixall in the said county of stafford , on the 12th . of september 1678. and then and there saw william late lord viscount stafford talking with mr. stephen dugdale . and on the 13th . day of the said month of september 1678. this informant stepping by accident into a room there called the little dining-room or little parlour , some time before dinner , he then and there saw the said william late viscount stafford , and the said stephen dugdale , talking and discoursing together in private , no other person then being in the said room besides themselves , whereupon this informant soon withdrew lest he should interrupt their conference . and this informant is most assured of the premisses , by a certain memorandum , which he then wrote down in his own pocket book , which at the time of this information is produced . and he likewise saw the said william late viscount stafford , and the said stephen dugdale , discoursing together in tixall park in the buck season of the same year 1678. no other person being with them , while the gentry then assembled , were hunting the buck in the said park . and this informant further saith , that as he was walking in tixall hall about the 18th . or 19th . day of september 1678. he observed the said william late lord viscount stafford go into a room called the great parlour , or the dining-room which adjoyned to his lordships lodging chamber , and immediately the said stephen dugdale followed him into the said room , and this informant saw them two alone discoursing together , but how long they continued there , or what their discourse was , he knoweth not . and by these and other observations , this informant did believe that the said stephen dugdale , was in good esteem , and in some trust with the said late viscount stafford . and he further saith , that the said stephen dugdale was then steward to the lord aston , and had great power and command in the said lord astons family at tixall , and bought and sold all things relating to the family or estate at tixall , and was the chiefest man in the lord astons family , and paid the wages of labourers , and had a very good name and reputation among the gentry of that countrey , as well papists as protestants , and was frequently termed honest stephen dugdale . and this informant further saith , that he hath observed the said william late lord viscount stafford , own the said stephen dugdale with respect , calling him mr. dugdale at dinners and suppers before the said lord astons face , both when they did eat in private , and when they did eat in publick with other gentry and persons of quality in the said house , to which there was great resort in that year . and this informant likewise observed the said stephen dugdale was well respected and very civilly treated by the said william late lord viscount stafford in other companies and places , where they occasionally met . and further saith not , william skelton . jurat ' die & anno supradict ' coram me , edm. warcupp . vera copia ex ' per me , edmond warcupp . the information of walter collins of the burrough of stafford gent. taken upon oath the 19th . day of january 1680. before tho. blacks , and sampson byrch , his majesties justices of the peace for the said burrough . stafford burrough ss . who saith , that in or about the year of our lord christ 1678. he saw the late lord stafford , and mr. stephen dugdale , walk together in the court yard belonging to tixall hall , between the gate-house and the said hall , about the space of a quarter of an hour , and that no other person did walk with them , or was in hearing of them . wal. collins . signed in presence of william southall . jurat ' die & anno predict ' coram tho. blake , sam. byrch . thomas jordan of little-haywood in the county of stafford gent. one of the high-constables for the said county , staff. ss . saith , that in the summer time in the year of our lord one thousand six hundred seventy and eight , on a thursday , being a bowling day at tixall in the said county , he this informant saw the lord stafford and the lord aston stand together on the side of the bowling-green , a distance from the rest of the company there , and out of their hearing : and while their lordships stood at that distance , this informant saw mr. stephen dugdale go to their lordships and stand with them in that place out of hearing of the rest of the company about a quarter of an hour , and their lordships and mr. dugdale did discourse together all that time as this informant verily believes , ( this informant being in their sight all that time , but not in their hearing . ) thomas jordan . 15 die january 1680. signed then in the presence of thomas whitbey , edward foden . the information of william suelson of great-haywood nailer , taken upon oath before sir bryan broughton knight and barronet jan. 13. 1680. who saith , that about michaelmas was two years , he saw the lord stafford walking alone with mr. stephen dugdale upon tixall bowling-alley : and this informant saith , that he knew the lord stafford as well as the one hand from the other , for he hath often seen him at tixall . william suelson . jurat ' coram me , b. broughton . the information of richard parkin of shutburrough in the county of stafford taken upon oath in stafford before james lewes of the burrough of stafford , and thomas blake and sampson byrch justices of the said burrough . staff. ss . who upon his oath saith , that in the summer time in the year of our lord christ 1677. he saw william late viscount stafford , and mr. stephen dugdale together by themselves and none else with them in the court at tixall betwixt tixall hall and the stables there . and also that he this informant saw the said lord stafford , and the said mr. dugdale together , and none else with them upon a hempland belonging to walter eld of tixall . rich. parkin his [ a ] mark. signed in the presence of william southall . 15. jan. 1680. jurat ' coram james lewes , tho. blake , samp. byrch . vera copia . the information of tho. creswell of little-haywood cordwayner januar. 11. 1680. staff. who saith , that in the summer time in the year of our lord 1676. he was at tixall to ride horses , and about a month before michaelmas the lord stafford took him to be his page , with whom he lived a year and a quarter , within that time my lord stafford was three or four times at tixall , and staied sometimes two or three nights together , and three or four mornings he hath sent this informant to see for stephen dugdale and bid him come to him for to speak with him : and this informant saith , that he hath seen him at the least three times go into the parlour to my lord stafford and his gentleman , and as soon as mr. dugdale came in , his gentleman came out , and he remained single with the lord stafford , and at several other places he hath seen my lord stafford with mr. stephen dugdale . the information of sampson rawlins of tixall in the county of stafford taylor . staff. who informeth , that in the latter end of summer in the year of our lord 1678. the lord stafford being then at tixall , he this informant saw the said lord stafford and mr. stephen dugdale walk together in tixall hall , and after some time they had been together walking themselves , the said mr. dugdale went and fetcht the lord aston to the said lord stafford . the informations above written were taken upon oath the 11th . of january 1680. before henry vernon esq one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of stafford , in the presence of me , william southall . the information of thomas robinson of ingestry in the county of stafford husbandman , taken upon oath the two and twentieth day of january in the year 1680. before james lewes mayor of the burrough of stafford , and sampson byrch justice of peace for the said burrough . staff. ss . this informant saith , that in the month of september 1678. he this informant being then at tixall hall , he saw william late viscount stafford and mr. stephen dugdale come together and none else with them out of a garden belonging to tixall hall , and afterwards they both walked together themselves in the walks nigh to the said garden , but what discourse they had this informant knows not . and at another time after the time aforesaid , the said late viscount stafford came to tixall hall on horseback , and the said mr. dugdale meeting his lordship , and after he had saluted him and shewed his obedience to his lordship they both did walk themselves together into tixall hall and none else with them . thomas robinson his mark. jur ' apud stafford vicesimo secundo die januarii anno regni caroli secundi nunc ang. xxxii . coram nobis , james lewes mayor , sampson byrch . the information of ann hinckley ( wife of samuel hinckley of penckrich in the county of stafford cordwayner ) taken upon oath the ninth day of febr. 1680. before richard congreve esq one of his majesties justices of peace for the county aforesaid . vvho saith , that in or about the month of august one thousand six hundred seventy and eight , this informant went with her husband to tixall in the said county , to speak with mr. stephen dugdale , and coming to one elds house in tixall , her husband desired her to go into tixall hall to look for the said mr. dugdale , and when she came into the said hall , she saw the said mr. dugdale with an ancient gentleman in the said hall , standing both together and talking , and after some time this informant asked one joseph tarbox ( who stood with this informant ) who that gentleman was , who told her it was the lord stafford , and she saw at that time the said lord stafford pull a paper out of his pocket , and gave it to the said mr. dugdale to read , and after mr. dugdale had looked on the said paper , he gave it again to the said lord stafford , and she further saith , that she continued in sight of the said lord stafford and mr. dugdale above the space of half an hour , and during that time there was no person with them : and she further saith , that afterwards mr. dugdale came to this informant , and bid her go to one dorothy aldridges in tixall aforesaid and he would come to her , which she did , taking her husband with her , and being there with mr. dugdale , he the said mr. dugdale after some discourse , told this informant that he must go again to the said lord stafford , for he had earnest business with him : and further saith , that both in the said hall and the said aldridges house she heard mr. dugdale say , that the person he was talking with was the lord stafford . anne hinkley , [ a ] her mark. she is a papist . die & anno predict ' jurat ' coram me , rich. congreve . the information of john boulton of the burrough of stafford sadler , taken upon oath at stafford aforesaid before tho. blake and sampson byrch his majesties justices of the peace for the said burrough , on the 19th . day of january 1680. stafford burrough . ss . vvho saith , that in the summer time about the year of our lord christ 1678. he saw the lord stafford on a bowling-day on the bowling-green at tixall amongst many gentlemen , and saw mr. stephen dugdale come to the said green , and saw the lord stafford go from the other gentlemen and meet the said mr. dugdale , and ask him where he had been ; mr. dugdale answered he had been at haywood and had got some betts about a race ; after which this informant saw the said lord stafford and mr. stephen dugdale withdraw themselves at a further distance from the said company , and there continued without any other company than themselves for the space of almost a quarter of an hour . john boulton . signed in the presence of william southall . jurat ' die & anno predict ' coram tho. blake , sam. byrch . the information of semer ansell of shutburrough in the county of stafford skinner , taken upon oath in the burrough of stafford the two and twentieth day of january 1680. before james lewes esq mayor of the burrough of stafford , and sampson byrch one of his majesties justices of the peace of the said burrough . staff. ss . vvho saith , in the summer time in the year of our lord 1678. he saw william late lord , alias viscount stafford and mr. stephen dugdale talking together at a place called ruffecroft-gate in tixall and no other person with them , and they both continued together themselves there above a quarter of an hour in the sight of this informant , who staied to speak with the said mr. dugdale , and within few days after he this informant saw the said late lord stafford and mr. dugdale together themselves and none else with them in the place called the hall in tixall for the space of above half an hour , and afterwards both of them went together into the great parlour into tixall hall. semer ansell . jur ' apud stafford xxxii . die januarii anno regni caroli secundi nunc ang. xxxii . coram nobis , james lewes , sampson byrch . now though these be but a few of the many depositions which we could have produced to this purpose , yet they are enough to detect the imposture and perjury of the late viscount stafford , and to convince the world what little credit is to be given to a papist in the solemnest appeals which he makes to god , and that in those very circumstances , when the worst of men are usually found to be candid and ingenuous . for whereas mr. dugdale hath been represented as an infamous person , and one that neither my lord aston , nor any other gentlemen put the least confidence in , or esteemed worthy of common respect ; it is made fully evident by these depositions , that he had not only more than an ordinary reputation in my lord aston's family , the management of my lords chiefest concernments being entrusted with him , but that he was highly valued by the whole countrey for candor , integrity , justice and truth , beyond what other papists under all the recommendation of birth , breeding and inheritance could arrive unto . and as to be accounted and stiled honest mr. dugdale was the greatest honour that a virtuous ambition could make him aspire unto , so his temper and whole conduct , since called forth to appear on a more publick theatre , do proclaim him every way worthy of that compellation . and this character which he obtained in staffordshire doth so correspond with what we have seen and observed of him in london , that all impartial men do readily acknowledge the justness of it . and whereas my lord stafford protested in the presence of god , that as he was never with him alone , so he never spake to him but once , and that only concerning a foot-man ; here are proofs neither to be distrusted nor contradicted , that he had both frequent conversation with him , and admitted him into those privacies which others were debarred and shut out from . and indeed by the familiarity he entertained him with , and the sequestring themselves from all other company whensoever they discoursed together , we may easily imagine what was the subject they treated about . for what else should recommend another persons servant to those privacies which my lord stafford vouchsafed mr. dugdale , or prefer one of so mean a rank to be selected from among the company of the best gentlemen to be discoursed with apart , but that there was some important design on foot of which they two were particularly conscious . and could this in probability be any other , than the mighty affair of destroying the king , and overthrowing the protestant religion , which the whole papal party had so long designed , and were at that time filled with the highest confidences of accomplishing . § . 12. the next thing that lies before us is the consideration of this late lords renouncing all knowledge of mr. turbervill , and with what solemnity he abjured the having so much as at any time seen him . for having at his trial not only declared , that he never saw him before in his life , he repeats it in his speech upon the scaffold , and withall avers upon his death and salvation , that he never spake one word to mr. turbervill , or to his knowledge ever saw him until his trial. some possibly may be ready to believe that my lord viscount stafford had the gift of forgetfulness , and that the papists by a peculiar donation remember nothing that may either asperse themselves or the interest of the catholick cause . but as they can not tell us where such a priviledge is bequeathed unto them , so we shall make it appear by irrefragable testimonies that he was well acquainted with mr. turbervill , and that the spring of this misadventure in denying it , was not the weakness of his memory , but the badness of his conscience . nor shall i insist upon the testimony of mr. mort , who being produced at the trial of my lord stafford , deposed , that being acquainted with mr. turbervill at paris , the said turbervill ( did to the best of his remembrance ) tell him that his brother who was a monk had introduced him into the favour of my lord stafford , and that once being in company with mr. turbervill , the said mr. turbervill withdrew from him to speak with that lord , and that he the said mort walk'd about luxemburg-house till his return . for though this testimony doth mightily strengthen mr. turbervills evidence , being agreeable in several circumstances with what he declared ; yet forasmuch as the whole is to be found in the printed relation of my lord staffords trial , together with the great and convincing improvement which an excellent person made of it , i shall therefore decline enlarging upon it , and shall proceed to advance two other depositions demonstrative of this late lords insincerity and falsehood in renouncing before god and men the having had any former knowledge of mr. turbervill . the information of john showter gent. one of the clerks in the crown-office in chancery , taken upon oath this 3th . day of january 1680. before me edmond warcupp esq one of his majesties justices of the peace in the said county and city . middl. & westm. ss . this informant saith , that about six or seven years ago he did frequently resort to the chappel at tart-hall to mass , the then house of william late viscount stafford , and one of those times he met there one mr. glassie , who asked this informant a list of the names of the justices of the peace in shropshire , which list some few days afterwards this informant carried to tart-hall and delivered it to the said glassie , who in kindness invited this informant to drink a glass of wine in the cellar , and two other gentlemen went to drink with them , and after some time this informant asked the said mr. glassie , who a tall thin gentleman was , who was then one of the company , who answered his name was turbervill , and that he belonged to the lady molineux , and this informant cannot positively say that mr. edward turbervill now produced was the same person then in his company , but believes he may be the same by his stature and thinness , only his hair did then look like a perriwig , and was much longer than it is now . and he further saith that he verily believes , he saw the said mr. turbervill at least forty times in the said house , up and down so commonly , that he believed the said turbervill to be one of the lord staffords family , and did likewise see him several times at mass at the said house . john showter . jurat ' die & anno supradicto coram me , edmond warcupp . vera copia ex ' per me , edmond warcupp . the information of colonel john scott , taken upon oath the 13th . day of february 1680. before me edmond warcupp esq one of his majesties justices of the peace in the said county and city . middl. & westm. ss . this informant saith that he was at paris in france in the month of november 1675. and there met william late viscount stafford ( whom this informant was well acquainted with ) in a cedan , in the street called rue de neuf fosse , about the 18th . or 20th . of the said november , who called to this informant , inviting him to his lodgings which he then said was in a street called la rue de pornoung at a corner house at the lower end of that street , the upper end whereof is fronted by luxemburgh-house , to which lodging this informant went the next day , and was introduc'd into his lordships chamber , who complain'd of a lameness which the informant judg'd to be the gout , and this informant visited him several times afterwards in his chamber which was a lower room in the said corner house , about the latter end of the said month of november 1675. when a certain person came in whom this informant took to be one of his lordships domesticks , and told his lordship that one mr. turbervill would speak with him , whereupon this informant having no other business but visit and respect , and believing his lordship might have some business with that gentleman offer'd to withdraw , but his lordship would not permit it , saying , mr. turbervill might come another time , but before answer was return'd the said gentleman came into the room , which his lordship perceiving , said , mr. turbervill you have not so much hast , or so much to do but i may see you again to morrow , upon which the said gentleman bow'd his body and retir'd . and this informant further saith that mr. edward turbervill now produc't is very like to the said gentleman in stature , whom the said lord stafford then called mr. turbervill , but this informant cannot positively say he is the same man by reason he had so short an interview , and his hair is shorter than that gentleman 's was , but he believes him to be the same gentleman he saw in my lord staffords room as aforesaid , and this informant was so much satisfied that mr. edward turbervill is the same person that he saw in paris in november 1675. that he offer'd justice warcupp a day or two before his lordships execution to go with him to the said lord in the tower , or with any other person to endeavour to convince his lordship that one turbervill , and probably mr. edward turbervill was the same person he saw at paris in november 1675. as is aforesaid . john scott . jurat ' die & anno supradict ' cor'me , edmond warcupp . nor let any object that these gentlemen are not positive that the mr. turbervill who testified against my lord stafford , is the same person whom they saw in the places forementioned and referred unto ; seeing all the peculiar and descriptive accidents which they observed in the one are found in the other ; except that his hair differs in length and cut ( which any mans may do in two days time ) from what it then did . nor are they able to assign any other gentleman of that name , unto whom we may apply what is here sworn and deposed . and the modesty with which these persons do express and deliver themselves , instead of detracting from the probability of their testimony doth greatly add to the weight and moral certainty of what they say . if this therefore be true , that my lord stafford not only frequently saw mr. turbervill , as his being a kind of domestick in his house , as mr. showters deposition doth imply , but that he treated him with that familiarity which colonel scotts information doth import : there can then be nothing more evident than that my lord stafford was wholly regardless of the truth of what he said , and that he died guilty of a high prophanation of the name of god , and in a desperate contempt of all that should be preserved sacred , by taking it upon his salvation , that he never spake one word to mr. turbervill , or to his knowledge ever saw him until his trial. and if he could assume the impudence to aver that he never saw mr. turbervill , when the acknowledging of it , would of it self have derived no danger upon him , we may very reasonably believe that notwithstanding his being never so criminal , he would abjure the treasons which mr. turbervill charged him with , it being so much his interest to do so . so well assured was colonel scott that this very turbervill who gave evidence against my lord stafford at the bar , is the same person whom he heard my lord call by that name in his lodgings at paris , that he offered to go with justice warcupp to the tower to convince the said lord of it , and this mr. justice warcupp is not only ready to testifie to any that shall enquire of him , but hath been pleased to declare it in the paper that is here subjoyned . i do humbly certifie , that colonel john scott did according as he hath sworn in an information hereunto prefixed , offer me in a coffee-house commonly called richard ' s coffee-house near temple-bar , a day or two before the execution of william late viscount stafford , to go to him in the tower for the purposes contained in the said information : but i told him , i had no access to the said lord , and therefore advised him to wait on the right honourable william lord howard of escrick , who being the kinsman of the said late viscount stafford , might have access to him in the tower , and his lordship being a great lover of truth , would without doubt upon his the said colonel scott ' s application to his lordship , go with him to the tower before the death of the said william late viscount stafford . witness my hand this 24. of february 1680. edmond warcupp . § . 13. having laid open the perjuries as well as the insincerity of this late lord in reference to mr. dugdale and mr. turbervill , that which we are next to apply unto , is , how far his word ought to be relied upon in reference to the characters which he fastens upon dr. oats , and how far we are to give credit to him in his renouncing the having seen the doctor before he appeared at the bar to testifie against him . various have been the endeavours to stain and eclipse the reputation of dr. oats , but all of them have been over-ruled unto , and issued in the raising his honour and esteem . they very well knew that could they but once undermine and supplant the credit of that person , the detracting from the credit of all the other witnesses would be a province which with some probability of success they might then go about and attempt . for as all the rest do but confirm and explain what he at first revealed and detected , so were the papal party but once able to convince the world that he were an impostor , most men , though it would be never so contrary to the rules of justice , would immediately entertain suspicions of all the rest . and if we may believe the papists in the account and reports which they divulge either of the doctors intellectuals or prudentials , we can not apprehend that he was able to invent and frame this plot , and consequently that the most which his parts are adopted unto , is only to be a discoverer of what more politick heads had contrived and projected . and by how much they think to reproach him by detracting from the comprehensiveness of his understanding , or the discretion of his conduct ; by so much do they assure all the world that this conspiracy was not invented or forged by him . and though i very much question whether any that reflect upon his conduct , would have comported themselves so well under his circumstances and provocations ; yet his very failours and infirmities are useful to confirm us that he found this conspiracy laid and formed to his hand , and that the meer disclosure and detection of it , is all that can be ascribed unto him , or that he can be allowed to bear himself upon . besides it is not to be thought that any one would pretend to discover a plot of his own framing , till he had before hand secured persons that should vouch and confirm all that he should say . for as the whole that a single testimony could amount unto , was only to awaken the government to a watchfulness in reference to it self , and an enquiry into the actions , and after the papers of those that were complained of ; so he could not be unsensible that the very bringing under a suspicion of treason , persons of that quality and temper that he had taken upon him to accuse , would infallibly bring him into manifold dangers , and expose him to eminent hazards . and yet it is plain , that this honest doctor whom the world doth so traduce , was so far from concerting with any before hand , the matter which he appeared about , that he knew not whether there was one man whom fear or conscience would influence to confess , acknowledge , or any way confirm what he had said . besides were the doctor an impostor , as the papists represent him to be , he hath acted with as much imprudence as falsehood , in taking upon him to depose such a vast number of particulars , and all of them relating to matter of fact , whereas could he be but disproved in any one of them , there would be reason and cause for disbelieving him in all the rest . and if we do but consider how impossible it is to lay so many accusations against any sort of men , and those declarative of things done at different times and distant places , without leaving some one particular incoherent with the rest , if not inconsistent with the whole ; we must necessarily conclude that the doctor is no impostor , seeing among all the things which he hath deposed , there is not any one that interfers with , or weakens the belief of another . whereas had this plot been a forgery of the doctors , it had been as effectual to the design of ruining the papists , and more fafe for himself as well as more agreeable to common prudence , to have charged them only with two or three articles importing a conspiracy against the king , the government , and the protestant religion , and not to have ventured to give a history of so many years transactions of the papal party , name so many consults , instance in so many matters of fact , and mention the places and persons where and by whom such designs were debated and resolved upon . besides , some of those whom he undertook to charge and impeach have been found by their own papers which were seized , not only to be guilty of all he charged them with , but of a great deal more than he pretended to know or accuse them of . and some others whose conspiracies fell not within the acircle of the doctors knowledge , and of whom therefore he presumed to say nothing ; have been detected by their own letters to be guilty of the plot ; which is both an argument of the doctors modesty and conscience in not impeaching men at peradventure meerly because they are papists , and an infallible assurance of his sincerity in reference to all whom he hath impeached , and a convincing proof of the truth of those things which he hath deposed against them . moreover , whatsoever he hath said that is either any way material in it self , or most severe against the romish faction , hath been confirmed by others whom he had neither foreknowledge of , correspondence with , or influence upon , yea , these very things which were most improbable , and of the truth whereof his friends were most suspicious , and concerning which his adversaries have taken occasion to ridicule and expose him , namely his intimacy with , and his esteem among the jesuits , his having been in spain and in favour with the archbishop of tuam , and his integrity in reporting my lord castlemain to be in sacred and religious orders ; have all of them been confirmed by other witnesses , and his credit fully cleared and vindicated in those matters that were most unlikely to be true , and which occasioned some to take so great advantage not only to traduce but lampoon him . and whereas there was one particular wherein they ventured their whole cause towards the overthrowing his reputation , namely , that he was at st. omers all aprill , may , and till towards the latter end of june 1678. and consequently could not have been at the consult in london , april 24 as he had positively deposed and sworn ; it is remarkable that the striplings who were brought from st. omers to testifie that he had not stirred out of that colledge all those months , differed greatly among themselves , some affirming that he left st. omers the 10th of june , others saying that he came from thence about the latter end of it , and one proffering to swear that he was there in july , who being told that he varied from the rest , cried out , he was sure he was there till after the consult , which served to discover what they were pre-instructed to speak unto by the jesuits , whose morality can dispense with a thousand lies , when the interest of the catholick church , or the preserving the honour of their society , doth bespeak a kindness at their hands . but besides there were no less than seven witnesses of unsuspected credit , and who cannot be supposed to have been under the impression of any inducements influencing them to appear in favour of dr. oats , that deposed upon oath his being in london both in aprill and may , the time that the popish youths had averr'd his being at st. omers . and whensoever mr. dudley's depositions ( who is both a papist and a gentleman of good quality and of an ancient family ) which lye at present before his majesty , having been transmitted to one of the secretaries by the justices of the peace who took them in the countrey , come to be published and communicated to the kingdom ; it will then more fully appear what a horrid plot hath been carried on by the papists against the life of the king , the protestant religion , and the safety of his majesties best and most loyal subjects , and how much the nation is indebted to dr. oats for the timely and seasonable detection of it , and by consequence for preventing the execution of their hellish treason against his majesty , and the glutting their brutish rage in the blood of his innocent , and at that time secure an unapprehensive people . and it is to be hop'd that if this unthankful age should not reward him in some proportion to what he doth deserve , that yet our posterity will , if not erect monuments unto him , at least record him in history , as a signal instrument whom god hath made use of and honoured to save his countrey . and i am not yet sunk into that despondency , but that i both hope to see him receive the acknowledgements , and participate of the rewards which the kingdom oweth him , and that some elegant pen will enroll his memory in the registers of time , and thereby leave a pattern to succeeding generations of the loyalty which dr. oats hath expressed to his prince , and of the compassion and duty which he hath testified to his native countrey , which had it not been for him , would not only have been involved in blood , but buried in its own ruines . and in the mean time the credit which not only a great and impartial prince , but the whole kingdom in its representatives in four successive parliaments , and the highest as well as the lowest of the judicial courts of the kingdom , have after the strictest and most critical enquiry given unto him , is enough to vindicate his sincerity , and to leave an indelible stamp of truth upon all his depositions . nor can the asseveration of any papist whose conscience allows him , and whose safety makes it needful for him to protest his innocence , tho he know himself guilty , lessen the reputation of this honest and plain hearted doctors testimony , who in the face of a thousand temptations to the contrary , and in the prospect of innumerable hazards , swears that they are horrid criminals . § . 14. having dispatched all i intend from matter of fact , towards the convincing the world that there is no faith in papists , and that we bewray a very great weakness in giving any credit unto them ; i shall in the last place enquire into those maxims of their religion , by which lying and perjury are legitimate , and made lawful unto them . and here i shall premise two things , whereof the first is this , that in whatsoever cases they may lawfully speak that which is false , they may likewise without the hazard of making themselves guilty of perjury swear it . the parsons mitig. cap. 11. sect . 9. lessius de jure & justit . cap. 42. dub . 9. sanctius select . disput. 46. p. 330. and therefore father garnet gave it under his hand , that every speech which by equivocation might be saved from a lye , the same speech might without perjury be confirmed by an oath , or by any other way , though it were by receiving the sacrament . see casanbons epist. ad front. duc. p. 202. the second thing i would premise is this ; that howsoever a matter may be unlawful and sinful , if measured with respect to the rule , it is nevertheless safe in the practick and may be done without sin , if it be but justified or countenanced by the opinion of one doctor . and this they stile , the doctrine of probability , avowing , that whatsoever is supported by the authority of any one catholick writer , is good and lawful for any man to venture upon the practice of , though both the generality of other casuists , and the person who is concerned immediately in the case depending , be otherwise minded . see layman lib. 1. tract . 1. cap. 5. escobar in praefat. theologiae , problematicae , filutius mor. quest. tract . 21. cap. 4. bonacina , tom. 2. disp. 2. § . 4. accordingly if any priest pronounce it lawful to kill the king , or to swear falsely to take away the life of a protestant , or to call heaven and earth to witness that he himself is innocent of a matter , whereof he knows he is guilty ; all these and a thousand such things may be done upon the authority of our father , and that without deriving any guilt upon the conscience of him that doth them . now these two things being suggested , i shall in the first place enquire by what maxims they have provided that a man may speak dissonantly to what he knows and believes , and yet not lye . secondly , i shall call over some of their theological principles , by which a person may lie and yet not sin . and thirdly , i shall recount some of the blessed provisions of the catholick church , by vertue of which in case one hath both lied and perjured , yet he doth no ways endanger his salvation . § . 15. there are various maxims provided by the roman casuists , according to which those in the papal communion may speak otherwise than they believe , and yet not to be chargeable with imposture or lying , or to have transgressed any command of god , whereby one man is obliged to speak truth to another . ( 1. ) when a person expresseth himself in words significant of things and thoughts , but yet intends not to signifie any thing by them . thus say they , one may pronounce a whole oration articulatly , and yet properly not at all speak ; and if he do not formally speak , he doth not , saith their casuists , lye . praeter modos aequivocandi supra positos addunt aliqui quartum ut nimirum , si quis de re aliquâ interrogatus verba exterius proferat , in quibus plena & integra continetur responsio , qui tamen haec verba profert intendit vel per aliqua illorum , vel etiam per omnia non loqui . unde inquiunt qui his utitur quantumvis verba illa sunt falsa , non tamen mentitur quia non loquitur , nec quidquam intendit per ea significare , sed mere illa profert materialiter , & animi gratia , seu ad exercendam vocem , aut quid simile . citante comptono tom. poster . disput. 24. sect. 3. these aliqui or some whom our author citeth , though he pretend to differ from them , are sufficient according to the doctrine of probability to justifie this in the practick , and to acquit him that doth it from sin . as if words were not invented to be the signs of things , and the conveyancers of the thoughts of him that useth them ! how shall we know but by mens speaking proper and significative words , that they intend to represent things , and communicate their minds unto us ? and if once men may be justified in speaking words without designing to intimate any thing by them , all converse among men is rendred cousenage and meer cheat . and if when any one uttereth words which are apt to be declarative of such a matter , and proper to represent his mind who speaketh concerning it , and which the hearer can no otherwise construe than as expressive of such a thing and purpose ; i say if the speaker may salve himself from lying by pretending that he designed not to signifie any thing by those words , there is not that abuse imposeable upon men by speech , that here is any way left for them to escape or avoid . for example , suppose that one charged with a crime , make a long harrangue in terms materially fit to vindicate his innocency , and which in the acceptation of every hearer can not be otherwise interpreted , than as a justification of the speaker from the crime charged upon him ; and though he be highly criminal and his hearers meerly abused by believing him guiltless , he hath not according to this maxim of jesuitical morality told a lye , because he never designed that the words which he used should signifie any thing , but only pronounced to exercise his lungs and make a noise . 2. when one tells a falsehood and knows it to be so , but supposeth that none will believe him in this case , say some of our papal casuists , he doth not lye . for a lye say they , is , verbum falsum cum intentione fallendi , a falsehood uttered with an intent to deceive , filucius tom. 2. tract . 40. cap. 2. and therefore if he that speaks think that no body will believe him , he cannot be supposed to have a purpose to deceive and consequently is not to be said to lye . thus let what a person speaks disagree never so much with the mind of the speaker , yet if it can be but supposed that the hearers will not believe what the words are expressive of , there is no lye in such case . so that let a man be but of a broken credit , he is of all persons securest from lying , though he never spake a true word from one end of the year to the other . and according to this doctrine the papists are least in danger , of all men in the world , of lying to protestants , notwithstanding every thing they say to them be false , seeing they may very well suppose that protestants will not believe them , as indeed nothing but folly and simplicity can lead them to do it . and by this principle of popish divinity , i can make a shift to justifie that the late romish traitors who have suffered did not lye in their last speeches , though all that they said and sealed with oaths and protestations was false , because they might very well imagine that we had reason to know them better than to believe them . 3. when though all that a person audibly saith be false , yet if with something to be added to , which is concealed in the mind of the speaker , it may be rendred and made true , in that say the roman casuists the person doth not lye . quando verba exterius prolata sunt falsa , juncta nihilominus verbis quibusdam internis quae quis in mente retinet , faciunt sensum verum . compt. carlet . tom. 2. disp. 24. sect. 1. non est mendacium cum quis utitur restrictione tacita , less . de jure & justit . lib. 2. cap. 47. dub. 6. qui habet justam causam celandi mentem suam tacitâ restrictione , non peccat etiamsi alienu sensu juret , quod intellige si necessitas vel utilitas juramentum exigat idem ibid. dub. 9. thus saith sanches , a man may swear that he hath not done a thing though he really have , by understanding within himself , that he did it not on such or such a day , or before he was born , op. mor. lib. 3. cap. 6. and this is what they call the doctrine of mental reservation , than which alone there is nothing more needful to avoid lying , though a person never speak truth to his neighbour . for example , if one should ask another whether he knows any news , he may by this art though he know never so much , yet both affirm and swear that he knows none , providing he have but this reserve in his mind , viz. to tell him ; or if a priest be asked whether such a one did not in confession acknowledge such a sin unto him , he may notwithstanding that the person did so , yet deny it and that with an oath , providing that he have but such a mental reserve as this , namely that it was not confessed to him as a meer man but as god. thus if any papist be examined concerning a design against the state which he not only knows but is a conspirator in , he may nevertheless swear that he knows of no such design , understanding in himself that he doth not know it as a thing which every porter in the town is acquainted with . now if lawful thus to abuse the faith of mankind , it was to no purpose to forbid lying , seeing every one that is not an idiot may save himself in the most solemn asseverations of a falsehood , by some secret reserve in his own mind . and while this doctrine doth obtain , it is impossible to know whether a papist at any time speaks truth . one resolved to poyson his prince , may yet swear that he never designed any such thing , reserving in his own mind that he did not purpose to do it with henbane . so one fully resolved to stab his soveraign , may yet deny it with all the asseverations and oaths imaginable , and never all this while be guilty of lying , providing he have but such a reserve as this , in his mind , namely , that he did not intend to do it with a lath. to what useful purposes , may this sacred knack of mental reservation serve the romanists especially while the necessity of the papal cause , or their own personal safety render it expedient . ( 4. ) as if this were not secure , nay to avoid lying , though a person never speak truth , they have found another which they reckon more safe , namely , when one hath said that which is false aloud , he shall whisper to himself that which being joyned to it will serve to make and render it true , filutius moral . quest. tom. 2. tr. 25. cap. 11. n. 331. thus having sworn aloud that he was not at such a consult , he may add by way of whispering to himself with the secretary of state. or that after he hath said aloud i swear , he then whispers that i say , and so proceeds aloud that i was not in a conspiracy against the king and the government . thus they speak truth only to themselves , but lye to all others . ( 5. ) when though what one says be false in the intention of the speaker , and he knows that the heavens will be imposed upon by such a form of speech , yet if through some ambiguous , or aequivocal terms the proposition be capable of a true sense , in that case say the casuists there is no lye . see compt. carlet ubi prius , & lessius de jure & justit . lib. 2. cap. 46. filutius tom. 2. tr. 25. cap. 11. and is that which they call aequivocation in a proper sense , and by which the papists have sought themselves by lying in innumerable cases , wherein they have been found to abuse the faith of mankind . nor is it to be imagined what feats this may do , when one hath his mind and memory furnished with ambiguous terms . but so much hath been said against the papists on this head , that i shall satisfie my self in having barely mentioned it . § . 16. and as they have theological maxims by which a man may speak dissonantly to what he knows and believes and not lye , so in the second place , they have found out methods and laid down principles according to which a person may lye and not sin . ( 1. ) first , when a person tells a falsehood and knows that the world will be imposed upon by it , yet if in the telling of such an untruth he doth not direct his intention to the deceiving of any body , in that case say the roman casuists , though the party lies yet he doth not sin . the papists have found a mystery which will allow men in committing all the villany in the world , and yet secure them from sinning , and this they call the directing of the intention . for example , if a man say the papal casuists wilfully kill another that either hath , or may hereafter injure him , it is not murder providing he did it not out of malice or revenge , but meerly to repel an injury done him , or prevent one that may be done him . by which maxim i know what account to give of sir edmund-bury godfrey's death , namely that though the papists killed him , yet they were far from murdering of him , unless they who did it were such fools , as not to know how to direct their intention to the securing the popish cause , without designing revenge for his being so busie to defeat and obstruct them in their designs . thus by this directing of the intention , it is no sin to calumniate another falsly , or to charge him with crimes which may both reach his life and his honour , although you know him altogether innocent of what you accuse him of , providing the end you purpose in doing so be some such good thing , as the preserving your safety or the reputation of the holy catholick church , and not the defaming or destroying the party whom you slander and accuse . thus the giving a false testimony in court upon oath , is no sin , if you can but direct your intention in doing it to the saving of one that he hath a kindness for . thus one may say and swear that which is most false , providing he do not direct his intention to the deceiving men , but only to hinder them from doing hurt , namely , their preventing the plot from going on , or their hanging a popish lord or jesuit who had conspired against the king , the protestant religion and the kingdom . by this i think i 'm able to salve the st. omers youths from having sinned in their lying testimonies at the old-bayley : for the striplings did not formally design the abusing the judge or jury , or the discrediting dr. oats , these things would have proved but accidental consequences of what they deposed , had their testimony been believed ; seeing alaz all that they intended was the bringing off their friends and the supporting the credit of their church . and the command of god forbids only a false testimony against my brother , but not a false testimony for him . and thus we know easily how to vindicate the late papal martyrs from having sinned in their last lying speeches ; for poor innocent men they did no ways intend to deceive , but only to prop up the credit of the popish cause and hinder the plot from being believed . welfare diana who tells us in the third part of his casuistical divinity tr. 6. resol . 3. that in his casibus , animus affirmantis aut jurantis non debet esse fallere proximum , sed occultare veritatem quam manifest are non expedit . ( 2. ) if they lye and forswear themselves from a custom and a habit which they have acquired of lying and perjury , in that case to lye or swear falsly is not according to the greatest of our modern casuists any mortal sin , and as some of them say any sin at all . consuetud . blasphemandi , ne vel peccatum , nec falsa juramenta ita prolata . escobar tr. 1. ex. 3. n. 36. 48. talis non peccat , nec proprie blaspemat laiman lib. 1. tr. 2. cap. 3. so that for a papist to acquit himself from sinning by lying oaths and asseverations , it is but before hand to habituate himself never to speak or swear what is true . and the more profligate and obdurate any person hath been in daily blasphemies and perjuries , the more secure he is from sinning in doing so , especially if the advantage of the papal church require such a curtesie at his hand , as to blaspheme the name of god , and perjure himself . nor is it strange that a lord who had contracted as great custom of sinning , as most men of this age had done , should venture to dye with a lie in his mouth upon this blessed security of the supream directors of conscience , that the custom of lying had made it no sin for him to do so . ( 3. ) a lye according to the morality of the romish divines is in such cases no sin , when he that delivers it , though he confirms it with never so many asseverations to be true , is not bound to speak truth . sylvester sum. verb. mendacium , with many others . now they assign several cases , wherein those of their communion are not obliged to speak truth ; ( 1. ) if the pope should forbid them to speak what they believe and know , and on the contrary command them to lye. in that case the authority of the holy father legitimates lying , and to speak truth becomes a crime , si papa erraret praecipiens vitia , & prohibens virtutes , ecclesia credere tenetur vitia esse bona , & virtutes esse malas . bellarm. de rom. pontif. lib. 4. cap. 5. ( 2. ) if they be prohibited by their lawful superior to speak truth , and enjoyned by him to affirm a falshood , the latter becomes thereby sanctified , and the first commenceth an offence and is rendred a sin . for whatsoever a superior commands , those under his conduct are bound implicitly to obey , and how unlawful soever the thing which he requires may be in it self , yet obedience in that case hallows the action . see ignatius epist. de virtute obedientiae ad lusitanos sect. 11. and what a door this sets open to lying , if any ghostly father think it convenient either for his own safety , or the interest of the church to require , may be easily imagined . ( 3. ) it becomes legitimate for them to lye , and they are not bound to speak the truth , if any one doctor or casuist interpose his judgment that it is safe in the practick , and for the advantage of the church that they should aver a falshood . this follows upon their doctrine of probability , for according unto that , whatsoever any one casuist affirms to be lawful , a person may venture upon it without running any hazard of sinning . and is it to be conceived but that some priest or other will in this juncture , not only give liberty for a member of the roman communion in england to lye , especially when their cause can not otherwise subsist , but that he will frame lying speeches for them , which as occasion is , others shall pronounce ? ( 4. ) they are not obliged to speak the truth , when they are before an uncompetent authority . and such are all heretical magistrates , in reference to roman catholicks . or if they be speaking to hereticks , it is the same thing , for they are not under any obligation to entertain them with what is true . alaz , they may cheat such without dishonesty , violate oaths made unto them , without perjury , rob them without theft , kill them without murder , and surely much more may they lye unto them without the violation of the measures of truth and justice . for they whom they may meritoriously destroy , they may innocently deceive . and by the same principle that no faith is to be kept with hereticks , no faith nor truth are due unto them . ( 4. ) lying in a papist is no sin , when he hath beforehand a dispensation for it . for the nature of a dispensation is , that it doth not change the quality of the fact , but makes it cease to be sin to him who hath a dispensation for it . and surely if a papal dispensation may make incest lawful , it may make lying and perjury lawful also . but so much hath been said on this subject by others , that i shall wave enlarging on that particular . sect. 17. and as if it had not been enough to obtrude maxims on the world , by which a man may speak dissonantly to what he knows and believes , and yet not lye ; and by which a man may be guilty of lying and perjury and yet not sin ; they have also made provision that what they themselves both acknowledge to be a lye , and confess to be a sin , yet that it shall no ways endanger the salvation of him who contracted such a guilt . and surely what the papists may do without the hazard of future blessedness , and in subserviency in the mean time to many great and secular ends , they will not much scruple the doing of it . now the provisions which that tender and compassionate church hath made for her children , by vertue of the benefit of which they may be as wicked as they can desire , and yet be in no danger of the vindictive justice of god , or eternal punishments , are such as these . ( 1. ) she allows them the benefit of absolution . now the nature and end of absolution is not to render a thing to be no sin which in it self is a sin , but the making that which is sin not be punishable by the divine tribunal . it doth not make a man to be free from having done that which he hath done , but it secures him from the justice of god though he did it . though a papal pardon doth not make that not to be which is , yet it renders the person as safe as if it were not , or never had been . and guilt implying an obnoxiousness to punishment , they reckon that being by absolution discharged from all obnoxiousness to punishment they are no more guilty than if they had never committed such a fact. and so they aver themselves to be as innocent as the child unborn , not of the fact , but with respect to the demerit of it . how far this popish engine hath served the interest of the papal party , and emboldned them to deny that which they were justly accused of , hath been abundantly declared by many learned pens , and therefore my further pains about it , are superseded by the foregoing labours of others . ( 2. ) the second provision of this kind made by the church of rome , for the votaries of the triple crown and the subjects of the infallible head , is that of indulgences , by which whole orders and many families as well as individual persons , are pardoned not only of all the sins that they have committed , but of all that they shall commit as well for ages as years to come . no doubt but they who could give indulgences of all sins to such as heretofore fought in favour of the pope , and the court and church of rome against emperors or kings that quarrelled with his highnesses usurpations , or that listed themselves under the papal banners for the extirpation of hereticks ; but that they will be as ready to give indulgences of the same form and extent , to such as are engaged for the rooting out of the northern heresie which hath so long tyrannised over these kingdoms . ( 3. ) to this we may subjoin their doctrine of purgatory , supererogations , masses for the dead , which are all calculated to secure the everlasting happiness of papists though they dye in known sins . ( 4. ) of alliance to this , is their opinion concerning the vertue and power of the eucharist , which being received though only with attrition , justifieth any one that is in mortal sin. and for securities sake they may keep it by them , and administer it to themselves , if they should fail of an opportunity of having another to administer it to them ▪ and this course took mary queen of scots . ( lastly . ) their doctrine that martyrdom doth ex opere operato confer grace , is highly useful and subservient to the same purpose . and what a blessed condition are our tyburn and tower-hill martyrs in , though the last things they did was the forswearing of themselves and the invoking god to bear witness to falshood as an authentick and solemn truth . and it is but hanging or losing ones head for the interest of the triple crown , and all is safe . and may many of them have the good fortune to go this secure way ( as they believe ) to heaven . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a60497-e420 see his examination in his last sickness , p. 10. see ireland's tryal , p. 10. p. 28. dugdal's further information , p. 16. the papists oath of secrecy by mr. robert b●leron , printed by order of the house of commons . this is to be had printed by it self , being fold by rich. baldwin in boult-court near the black bull in old baily . see the new plot p. 74. and the compendium p. 75. see the trval of william viscount stafford , pag. 53. and p. 200. in catalog . scriptorum societ . jesu . p. 377. in biblioth . script . societ . jesu . in his book against the oath of allegiance , called . the discussion of the answer , p. 22 , 23. * idem apology . p. 151. hist. an. 1605. pap. 4. pap. 9. see the proceedings against the traitors . see the proceedings against the traitors . ibid. abboti antilogia p. 110. see the proceedings against the traitors . see his papers published in the end of the late editions of the proceedings against the traitors . see the proceedings compared with digby's papers . see the proceedings against the traitors . bellarmin's opinion published and approved of by the holy see. see the narrative of this deposition . see reading's tryal see the tryal of mr. tasbrough . see the tryal of knox and lane , and dr. oats's printed narrative . see my lord staffords tryal , p. 158. see coll. mansfield's narrative , and mr. dangerfield's narrative . the city of lichfield . see coleman's letters in his tryal , p. 69. and published since by sir geo. treby . see the tryal of the five jesuits . see mr. gauans speech before his execution at tyburn . in epist. ad conciliarios reginae augliae , p. 22. alegambe in biblioth . script . societ . jesu , p. 258. in defens . fidei lib 6. n. 14 , &c. aphorism . p. 115. de instit. tom. 4. t. 3. disp . 6. vid. less . de instit . lib. 2. c. 9. dub . 4. see mr. serjeants and mr. morrices informations . see the speeches of the five jesuits . see my lord staffords tryal , p. 134 , 135. see my lord stafford's tryal , p. 141 , 142. ibid. p. 142 , 158. ibid. p. 158. ibid. p. 158. see his speech up-the scaffold . see page 78. see page 50. see the said trial page 151. see page 181. the tryal and condemnation of edw. fitz-harris, esq., for high treason at the barr of the court of king's bench, at westminster, on thursday the 9th of june, in trinity term, 1681 : as also the tryal and condemnation of dr. oliver plunket, titular primate of ireland, for high treason ... fitzharris, edward, 1648?-1681. 1681 approx. 386 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 53 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2006-06 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63142 wing t2140 estc r34666 14551494 ocm 14551494 102574 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63142) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 102574) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1076:1) the tryal and condemnation of edw. fitz-harris, esq., for high treason at the barr of the court of king's bench, at westminster, on thursday the 9th of june, in trinity term, 1681 : as also the tryal and condemnation of dr. oliver plunket, titular primate of ireland, for high treason ... fitzharris, edward, 1648?-1681. england and wales. court of king's bench. [3], 103, [1] p. printed for francis tyton and thomas basset ..., london : 1681. reproduction of original in the union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng plunket, oliver, -saint, 1629-1681. trials (treason) -england. popish plot, 1678. great britain -history -charles ii, 1660-1685. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-01 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-03 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2006-03 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i do appoint francis tyton , and thomas basset , to print the tryals of edward fitz-harris , and oliver plunket ; and that no others presume to print the same . fr. pemberton . the tryal and condemnation of edw. fitz-harris , esq for high-treason , at the barr of the court of king's bench , at westminster , on thursday the 9th of june , in trinity term , 1681. as also the tryal and condemnation of d r oliver plunket , titular primate of ireland , for high-treason , at the barr of the court of king's bench , the same term. london , printed for francis tyton , and thomas basset , booksellers in fleetstreet . 1681. trinity term 33 car. 2. regis . on thursday 9. june 1681. edward fitz-harris was brought to the barr of the court of kings-bench ; and the court being sate , proceeded thus . mr. thompson . my lord , i ●oved you the other day that before mr. fitz-harris tryal , he might give such evidence as he had to give against sir john arundel , and sir richard beiling , concerning the death of sir edmundbury godfrey , before he be convicted of treason ; and we understood that it was the direction of the court , that we might move it this morning before conviction , that he might declare upon oath here in court what he knows of that matter against those gentlemen : for after he is convicted , i believe it will be too late for us to think of it ; mr. godfrey hath a great deal of reason to desire what i now move , that his brothers murderers may be prosecuted , and we hope all the favour that can be granted in such a case , will be granted unto us ; for there has been a design of late set on foot to make it be believed that sir edmundbury godfrey murdered himself , notwithstanding that clear evidence that hath been already given of this matter , and notwithstanding that several persons have been convicted and attainted upon that evidence . so that these gentlemen think themselves obliged to prosecute this matter as far as they can , and begg of your lordship , that what can be done for them may : and particularly , that he may perfect his discovery against the two named at his last examination before the grand-jury , and that his examination about them may now be taken by the court. lord ch. justice . look you mr. thompson , that that you moved before , had some reason in it , that he might be examined , and give evidence to a grand-jury , and we told you he should ; but if there be never a grand-jury sworn , yet who can he give evidence to ? would you have us take his examination , and afterwards give it in evidence to the grand-jury ? mr. thompson . my lord , i only say then 't is our hard hap that he is not examined before a grand-jury . lord ch. justice . but do you think it is fit for you to move this ●ow ? mr. thompson . my lord , i understood it was permitted me by the court the other day to move again , and i move by the direction of my client , and i submit it to your lordship . lord ch. justice . you know it cannot be granted : go on and swear the jury . fitz-harris . my lord , i begg that my wife and solicitor may be by to help and assist my memory . lord ch. justice . let your wife be by you , if she please , and if you think 't is any advantage to you , with all our hear●s ; if she will , let her go down to you . cl. of crown . cryer make an o yes , whoever can inform , &c. mr. att. general . my lord , i know not what the effect of this may be ; if his wife be instructed to instruct him , that ought not to be permitted , with submission ; suppose she should come to prompt him ( and for certain she is well documentized ) that your lordship won't suffer . mr. ser. jeff. my lord , she comes prepared with papers in her hand . mrs. fitz-harris . i won't shew them without my lords permission . lord ch. justice . if she brings any papers that are drawn by council , prepared for him , without doubt 't is not to be allowed . mrs. fitz-harris . no , no , 't is only my own little memorandums . lord ch. justice . whatsoever is written by her husband , for help of his memory , in matter of fact , let her do it . fitz-har . my lord , i humbly begg my solicitor may be by me too . lord ch. just . we allow no solicitors in cases of high-treason . cl. of crown . edward fitz-harris , hold up thy hand ( which he did ) those good men which thou shalt hear called , and personally appear , &c. fitz-harris . my lord , i desire they may be distinctly named as they are in the pannel , that i may know how to make my challenges . mr. sol. gen. my lord , i must humbly offer it to your lordship● consideration for the precedents sake , whether any person can assist the prisoner as to matter of fact ? lord ch. just . yes , and 't is alwayes done to take notes for him , and to help his memory . mr. ser. jefferies . but my lord i would acquaint your lordship what is the thing we find in this case , here is a particular note given into the prisoner , of the jury , pray be sure to challenge such and such , and don 't challenge the rest : god-forbid but his memory should be help'd in matters of fact , as is usual in these cases , but no instructions ought to be given him sure . and my lord , the example will go a great way , and therefore we are in your lordships directions about this matter . fitz-harris . my lord , i hope 't is but just , for i have had all the disadvantages in the world. i have been kept clo●e prisoner , and have not been permitted to have any one come to me , to help me in my preparation for my tryal . mr. att. gen. my lord , i pray your judgment in point of law ▪ i doubt not you will do the king right , as well as the prisoner , i could not get a copy of the pannel , till last night about 4 a clock ; ●ere is prepared a copy with crosses and marks who he should challenge and who not , and truly , my lord , since i had the pannel ▪ upon looking over it , i do find the sheriff hath returned three anabaptist preachers , and i know not how many fanaticks , and since there are such practices as we find in this case , we doubt there may be more , and therefore i pray she may be removed . mrs. fitz-harris . i will not be removed . fitz-harris . is it fit or reasonable for me that i should stand here without any help ? mr. att. gen. in case you be guilty of this , you deserve no great favour . mrs. fitz-harris . surely the court will never suffer the kings council to take away a mans life at this rate . lord ch. just . mrs. fitz-harris , you must give good words : and if you will not be modest , and civil , i promise you we will remove you presently . mrs. fitz-harris . if you do remove me , that is the worst you can do to me , what should i come here for without i may help my husband ? lord ch. just . if she do bring h●m instructions to except against such and such jury men , she does misbehave herself , and must be removed . mr. att. gen. this paper that we speak of is a copy of the pannel , and there are particular marks a great many . mr. sol. gen. a woman hath a very great priviledge to protect her husband , but i never yet knew that she had liberty to bring him instructions ready drawn . mrs. fitz-harris . my lord , the lady marquess of winchester did assist in the case of my lord stafford , and took notes , and gave him what papers she pleased . lord ch. just . sure 't is no such huge matter to let a man's wife stand by him , if she will demean her self handsomely and fairly . mr. att. gen. it is not , if that were all ; but when she comes with papers instructed , and with particular directions , that is the assigning him council in point of fact. lord ch. just . let her stand by her husband , if she be quiet : but if she be troublesome ▪ we shall soon remove her . fitz-harris . 't is impossible i should make my defence without her . mr. ser. jefferies . i see it is a perfect formal brief . mrs. fitz-harris . must he have nothing to help himself ? fitz-harris . in short the kings council would take my life away , without letting me make my defence . mr. att. gen. i desire not to take away any papers from him , if they be such as are permitted by law. mr. sol. gen. my lord , his innocency must make his defence , and nothing else . mr. ser. jeff. my lord , we are in your lordships judgment , whether you will allow these papers . lord ch. just . let us s●e the paper . fitz-harris . my lord , i will deliver them to my wife again . lord ch. just . let it be so . cl. of crown . call sir will. roberts ( who did not appear . ) sir michael heneage . sir michael heneage . my lord , i am so ill i cannot attend this cause . lord ch. just . we cannot excuse you sir michael , if there be not enough besides , 't is not in our power to excuse you . sir mich. heneage . i must suffer all things rather than lose my health . lord ch. just . well stand by till the rest are called . cl. of cro●n . sir will. gulston , nicholas rainton , charles vmphrevile ( they did not appear . ) john wildman . mr. att. gen. my lord , i desire he may be asked , before he be called to the book , whether he be a free-holder in middlesex . major wildman . i am a prosecutor of this person , for i was a parliament man in the last parliament , and i dare not appear , my lord , for fear of being questioned for breach of the priviledges of the commons . mr. att. gen. my lord , i pray he may answer that question , whether he be a free-holder in middlesex ? major wildman , i pray to be excused upon a very go●d reason ; i was one of them that voted the impeachment aga●●●t this man. mr. att. gen. are you a free-holder in middles●x , upon vour oath ? lord ch. just . look you major wildman , you are returned upon a pannel here , you have appeared , and your appearance is recorded ; you must answer such questions as are put to you , 't is not in your power to deny . major wildman . i begg the excuse of the court , i cannot serve upon this jury . lord ch. just . if you be no free-holder the law will excuse you . maj. wild. perhaps there may be some estates in my name , that may be free-holds , perhaps , i may be some trustee or the like . mr. att. gen. have you any free-hold in your own right in middlesex ? major wild. i don't know that i have ; if it be in the right of another or as trustee , i take not that to be a free-hold . cl. of crown . call thomas johnson . mrs. fitz-harris . let him be sworn , there is no exception against him . lord ch. just . hold your peace , or you go out of court if you talk again . mrs. fitz-har . i do not say any thing that is any harm , my lord. cl. of crown . swear tho. johnson , you shall well and truly try , &c. fitz-harris . my lord , i pray the clerk may not skip over the names as they are returned . cl. of crown . sir , i call every one as they are in the pannel , and don't do me wrong . lord ch. just . it may be he does not call them as they are mentioned and set down in the pannel , for all have not appeared ; but calls those only whose appearance is recorded . cl. of crown . i have called them as they are here set down . lord ch. just . well let them all be called for , may be they will appear now that did not appear before . cl. of crown . maximilan beard . mr. beard . my lord , i desire to be excused , i am very infirm and very ancient , threescore and fifteen years of age at least . lord ch. just . why did the sheriff return you , if you be of that age , you should be put out of the free-holders book ; but stay you are here impannel'd , and have appear'd , if there be enough we will excuse you . mr. just . jones . he ought to have witnesses of his age , and if he would not have appeared , he might have had a writ of priviledge for his discharge in regard of his age . lord ch. just . well we will set him by , if there be enough besides we will spare him . cl. of crown . isaac honywood , ( he did not appear ) lucy knig●tley , who ( was sworn . ) henry baker . mr. att. gen. my lord , i challenge him for the king. fitz-harris . my lord , why should he challenge him ? i desire to know the law , whether the 2 foremen should not try the challenge , and not the court or the council . mr. ser. maynard . if the king challenge , he hath time to shew cause till the pannel be gone through ; the law will have the minus suspecti , but yet if there want any , the king must shew good cause . cl. of crown . edward probyn . mr. att. gen. i challenge him for the king. cl. of crown . edward wilford ( was sworn ) fitz-harris . my lord , must not mr. attorney shew his caus● now ? lord ch. just . look you mr. fitz-harris , either side may take their exception to any man , but the cause need not be shewn till the pannel is gone through , or the rest of the jurors challenged . cl. of crown . john kent of stepney . mr. kent . my lord , i am no free-holder . lord ch. just . then you cannot be sworn here upon this jury . cl. of crown . john wilmore . mr. att. gen. we challenge him for the king. fitz-harris . for what cause ? mr. ser. jeff. we will shew you reasons hereafter . cl. of crown . alexander hose● ( was sworn ) giles shute . mr. att. gen. are you a free-holder sir ? mr. shute . no. mr. att. gen. mr. whitaker is got near him , and he tells him what he is to do , my lord. fitz-harris . here is the lieutenant of the tower between me and him . mr. ser. jeff. but the barr is no fit place for mr. whitaker , ●e is not yet called to the barr. cl. of crown . martin james . mr. att. gen. are you a free-holder sir ? mr. james . yes . mr. att. gen. then swear him . ( which was done ) . cl. of crown . nathanael grantham . mr. att. gen. are you a free-holder sir ? mr. grantham . no. cl. of crown . henry beiling . mr. att. gen. are you a free-holder sir ? mr. beiling . yes . mr. fitz-harris . then i challenge him . cl. of crown . benjamin denis . mr. att. gen. is he a free-holder ? mr. denis . no. mr. att. gen. my lord , you ●●e what pra●●ices here are , most of the jury are no free-holders . cl. of crown . john pre●●on . ( did not appear ) john viner of white-chappel . mr. att. gen. he hath fetch'd them from all the corners of the town here , yet not all of them free-holders neither . cl. of crown . swear mr. viner ( which was done ) william withers ( was sworn ) william cleave ( sworn ) thomas goff ( sworn ) abraha● graves . mr. att. gen. ask him , is he a free-holder ? mr. graves . no. cl. of crown . henry jones . mr. att. gen. is he a free-holder ? mr. jones . no. cl. of crown . ralp● farr . mr. att. gen. ask him the same question . cryer . are you a free-holder sir ? mr. fa●r . yes . cl. of crown . then swear him ( which was done ) samuel freebody . mr. att. gen. are you a free-holder sir ? freebody . yes . mr. att. gen. then swear him ( which was done . ) cl. of crown . gilbert vrwin of covent-garden ( did not appear . ) edward watts of westmi●ster . mr. att. gen. are you a free-holder sir ? watts . yes . mr. att. gen. then we challenge you for the king. mr. att. gen. john brads●aw of holborn ( did not appear ) isaac heath of wapping ( no free-holder ) edward hutchins of westmi●s●er . mr. att. gen. we challenge him for the king. cl. of crown . john lo●kier of westminster . mr. att. gen. are you a free-holder ? mr. lockier . yes . mr. att. gen. then swear him . cl. of crown . count these . thomas johnson . cryer . one , &c. the names of the 12 sworn are these ▪ thomas johnson . lucy knightly . edward wilford . alexander hosey . martin james . john vi●er . william withers . william cleave . thomas go●●e . ralph farr . samuel freebody and john lockier . cl , of crown . edward fitz-harris hold up thy hand . gentlemen you that are sworn look upon the prisoner , and hearken to his charge . fitz-harris . my lord , i humbly begg ●en , ink and paper . lord ch. just . let him have pen , ink and paper . cl. of crown . you shall have them presently ( which were given him . ) he stands indicted by the name of edward fitz-harris , late of the parish of st. martin in the fields , in the county of middlesex , gent. for that he as a false traitor against the most illustrious , and most excellent prince our soveraign lord charles the second , by the grace of god king of england , scotland , france and ireland , his natural lord , not having the fear of god in his heart , nor weighing the duty of his allegiance , but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil ; the love , and true , due , and natural obedience , which a true and faithful subject of our said soveraign lord the king , towards him our said soveraign lord the king , should and of right ought to bear , wholly withdrawing ; and with all his might intending the peace and common tranquility within this kingdom of england to disturb , and w●r and rebellion against our said soveraign lord the king to stir up and move , and the government of our said soveraign lord the king , within this kingdom of england to subvert , and our said soveraign lord the king from the title , honour and regal name of the imperial crown of his kingdom of england to depose and deprive , and our said soveraign lord the king to death and final destruction to bring , and put the 22. day of february in the 33. year of the reign of our soveraign lord charles the second , now king of england , &c. and divers other days and times , as well before as after at the parish of st. martin in the fields in the county of middlesex traiterously did compass , imagin and intend the killing , death , and final destructon of our said soveraign lord the king , and the ancient government of this his kingdom to change and alter and wholly to subvert , and him our said soveraign lord the king that now is , from the title honour and regal name of the imperial crown of his kingdom of england to depose and deprive , and war and rebellion against our said soveraign lord the king to stir up and levy within this kingdom of england . and his said wicked treasons and traiterous compassings , imaginations and purposes aforesaid to fulfil and perfect , he the said edward fitz-harris , as a false traitor , together with one emund everard a subject of our said soveraign lord the king , did then and there traiterously assemble himself , meet and consult , and thesame his treasons and traiterous compassings , imaginations and purposes thenand there to the said edmund everard in the hearing of diverse other subjects of our said soveraign lord the king , openly , maliciously , traiterously and advisedly speaking , did publish and declare ; and to perswade and induce the said edmund everard to be aiding and assisting in his said traiterous compassings , imaginations and purposes , he the said edward fitz-harris as a false traitor , maliciously , advisedly and traiterously to the said edmund everard a great reward then and there did offer , and promise to procure ; and for the further compleating of his treasons aforesaid , and to incite the subjects of our said soveraign lord the king as one man to rise , and open rebellion and insurrection within this kingdom of england to raise against our said soveraign lord the king ; and our said soveraign lord the king from the title , honour and regal name of the imperial crown of his kingdom of england to cast down and depose , he the said edward fitz-harris as a false traitor , a certain most wicked and traiterous libel , the title of which is in these english words following , the true english man speaking plain english , traiterously , maliciously and advisedly , in writing to be made and expressed , did then and there cause , procure and publish . in which said libel the said most wicked treasons , and traiterous compassings , imaginations and purposes aforesaid of him the said edward fitz-harris , to excite and perswade the subjects of our said soveraign lord the king of this kingdom of england against our said soveraign lord the king to rise and rebel , and our said soveraign lord the king from the style , honour , and regal name of the imperial crown of this his kingdom of england to deprive and depose , in writing are expressed and declared amongst other things as followeth : if james ( meaning james duke of york , the brother of our said soveraign lord the king ) be conscious and guilty , ch s ( meaning charles the second now king of england ) is so too , believe me ( meaning himself the said edward fitz-harris ) both these ( meaning our said soveraign lord the king , and the said james duke of york ) are brethren in iniquity , they ( meaning our said soveraign lord the king and james duke of york ) are in confederacy with pope and french , to introduce popery and arbitrary government as their actions ( meaning the actions of our said soveraign lord the king and james duke of york ) demonstrate . the parliaments magna charta and liberty of the subject are as heavy yokes they 'd as willingly cast off , for to make themselves ( meaning our said soveraign lord the king and the said duke of york ) as absolute as their brother of france . and if this can be proved to be their aim ( meaning our said soveraign lord the king , and the aforesaid duke of york ) and main endeavour , why should not every true britain be a quaker thus far , and let the english spirit be up and move us ( meaning the subjects of our said soveraign lord the king of this kingdom of england ) all as one man to self defence ? nay and if need be to open action , and fling off these intolerable riders ? ( meaning our said soveraign lord the king and the said duke of york ) and in another place in the said most wicked traiterous lib●l were contained amongst other things , these false seditio●s and traiterous sentences in these english words following . j and c. ( meaning the said charles our soveraign lord the king , and his said brother james duke of york ) both brethren in iniquity , corrupt both in root and ●ranch , as you ( meaning the subjects of our said soveraign lord the king ) have seen they ( meaning our said soveraign lord the king and the said duke of york ) study but to enslave you ( meaning the subjects of our said soveraign lord the king ) to a romish and french-like yoke . is it not plain ? have you ( meaning the subjects of our said soveraign lord the king ) not eyes , sense or feeling ? where is that old english noble spirit ? are you ( meaning the subjects of our said soveraign lord the king ) become french asses to suffer any load to be laid upon you ? and if you ( meaning the subjects of our said soveraign lord the king ) can get no remedy from this next parliament , as certainly you ( meaning again the subjects of our said soveraign lord the king ) will not ; and that the k. ( meaning our said soveraign lord the king that now is ) repents not , complies not with their advice , then up all ( meaning the subjects of our said soveraign lord the king ) as one man. o brave english men ! look to your own defence ere it be too late , rouze up your spirits . and in another place in the said most wicked and traiterous libel are contained amongst other things , these false seditious and trait●rous sentences in these english words following , to wit : i. ( meaning himself the said edward fitz-harris ) will only add that as it is the undoubted right of parliaments to make a law against a popish successor , who would prove destructive to our laws and liberties ; so it is their undoubted right to dethrone any possessor that follows evil ounsellors to the destruction of our government , ( meaning the government of this kingdom of england . ) and in another place in the said traiterous libel are contained these english words following : then let all ( meaning the subjects of our said soveraign lord the k●ng that now is ) be ready , then let the city of london stand by the parliament with offers of any money for the maintaining of their liberties and religion in any extream way , if parliamentary courses be not complied with by the king ; ( meaning our said soveraign lord the king ) against the duty of his allegiance , and against the peace of our said soveraign lord the king , his crown and dignity , &c. and against the form of the statute in this case made and provided upon this indictment . upon this indictment he hath been arraigned , and thereunto hath pleaded not ▪ guilty ; and for his tryal hath put himself upon god and his country , which country you are , &c. cryer make proclamation . o yes if any one will give evidence , &c. mr. heath . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , this is an indictment of high-treason against edward fitz-harris the prisoner at the barr , and the indictment sets forth , that the 21. of february , in the 33 year of the king at st. martins in the fields , he did compass and imagin the death of the king , and to raise war and rebellion within the kingdom . and the indictment does set forth , that for the accomplishment of this , he did meet and assemble with one edmund everard , and several others , and did discover this his traiterous purpose to the said everard , and did perswade him to aid and assist therein ; and offered him great rewards if he would so do . it further sets forth , that for the further perfecting of this treasonable imagination of the said edward fitz-harris , he did frame and make a treasonable libel , and the title of the libel is the true english-man speaking plain english ; and in that treasonable libel , are these treasonable words contained , if james be guilty ( meaning the duke of york ) charles ( meaning the king ) is so too , &c. and the several words , that have been read to you in this indictment , are contained in the said libel , which i shall not repeat . to this indictment he hath pleaded , not guilty ; if we prove it upon him you are to find him guilty . mr. ser. maynard . may it please your lordship , truly 't is a sad thing to consider how many have been found guilty of plotting against the king , but none have gone so far as the prisoner at the barr ; for they designed only his death , but this person would have carried on his treasons by a means to slander him while he was alive , and thereby to excite the people to such a rebellion as you have heard . i shall add no further words , the thing is not aggravatable , 't is so great an offence in it self ; but we will call our witnesses , and go to our proof . mr. attorney . general . my lord , yesterday you had here the primate of ireland , who was found guilty , for a notable high-treason in ireland : you have now this day before you one of his emissaries , who is come over into england , and who has here committed one of the most execrable treasons that ever was brought into a court of justice ; i must needs say that it will appear to all the auditors this day , that here is the highest improvement of the popish plot , and aggravated with such circumstances as shew they have out done themselves in it . hitherto those cases that have been brought into judgment before you , have been the attempts upon the life of the king , in instances either of shooting , stabbing or poysoning : i say hitherto they have gone no further than to practise these things , and that by popish hands , they have kept the plot amongst themselves ; but now they have gone one step further , that is , by attemping to poyson all the protestants of england , as much as in them ●yes , that they should by their own hands destroy one another , and their lawful prince , that is the treason now before you , and i take it with submission , they can go no further . for 't is impossible to arise to a higher p●ece of malice and villany than to set the p●oples hearts against their prince , and to set them together by the eares one against another . this we shall prove in the course of our evidence , to be the design of the prisoner at the barr. the general design hath been opened to you out of the indictment , to kill and destroy the king , and to depose him from his government ; and we shall charge him with all those several overt acts , which i shall open to you : first several meetings to consult about this matter at grays-inn and several other places , which my lord , i think there is no question to be made , but is an overt ▪ act to make high-treason we shall go further , and shew that these designes he had to depose the king , and raise his people against him , he does declare openly to mr. everard , which is another overt-act within the new statute . we shall my lord , go further yet , and prove the great rewards he hath offered to mr. everard for joyning with him , and being assisting to him in this affair , part in ready mony , and part in annual pension . and there your lordship will find where the spring is , from whence all these mischiefs arise , some foreign power , but the papists , the priests are at the bottom of it , they are the persons that set him on , and these must draw in a great person beyond sea , who must reward this gentlemen for being a partner in this plot. and we shall prove some mony paid in hand . but then my lord , that which was the effect of this consult , is the framing this pernicious libel , for so give me leave to call it . my lord , the indictment is modest , but when you come to hear the libel it self read , you will find it so ; and it was not prudence , that so vile a thing should appear upon record . and truly i believe in a protestant kingdom 't is the first attempt of this nature that ever was : for my lord , it is to defame the whole royal family , 't is to stain their blood , and to make them vile in the sight of the whole kingdom , and of all posterity . my lord , this libel in its particulars chargeth that most excellent and innocent person , our late and never to be forgoten soveraign king charles the first , to be the author of the irish rebellion ; it charges our present prince with the exercise of arbitrary government , to be a papist , to be a person that deprives his subjects of all manner of liberty , and property ; in express terms it charges him with this , than which nothing can be more false , for there is none of his subjects , i think , but must say that our most gracious prince , for the time he hath reigned may vie with the best 20. years of any of his predecessours for the preserving the liberty and property of the people , for giving us p●ace and plenty all our time , for the permitting and securing to them the free current of the law , and for securing their civil and r●ligious rights . my lord , when we have gone through the evidence about the contexture , and this libel is read and produced , we shall prove the design of it , and how it was framed , and the eyes of the world will be opened , and you will see that this was no intention , no engine framed to trapan , or ensnare any private person , or as it was secretly bruited abroad , to be put in such mens pockets ; but a piece of the greatest machivilian policy that ever was invented , and prepared for a publick press , as a catholick poyson to infect all the kings subjects , and excite them one against another . and we shall prove that this person in the several methods that i have open'd , hath proceeded to accomplish his traiterous de●●gns of dethroning the king : nay he hath said , 't is resolved among them now that nothing else will do it , but the poysoning the hearts of the people with hatred to their king , and malice against one anot●er . and when we have proved the matter fully , through all the parts , we must leave it to the jury , who i question not will do themselves , and all other protestants right , as well as their prince ; we shall now go to our evidence , and first we will call mr. everard ; but my lord , i would only first observe to you , that this gentleman mr. fitz-harris , and mr. everard , were both imployed in the french kings service , and there acquainted together : mr. everard came early off , and became a protestant , leaving the french kings service , because he found their several plots and designs upon england . then comes mr. fitz-harris to him , and because he looked upon mr. edverard , not to be rewarded according to his merits , invites him over , with telling him those things that the witness himself will tell you , back again to the french interest . then mr. everard was sworn . fitz-harris . look me in the face , mr. everard . mr. everard . i will sir. mr. att. gen. will you acquaint my lord , and the jury how you came first acquainted with the prisoner , and then tell the several passages between you . mr. sol. gen. tell your whole knowledge of this matter . mr. everard . my lord , i came acquainted with mr. fitz-harris beyond seas , when we both were in the french kings service , and upon conference with him of late , especially about the beginning of february last , he renewed his acquaintance , though at several times before we had several discourses , whereof i did not take much notice ; but in those meetings in february last , and in those visits he paid me then , we had several discourses tending to represent the disadvantages , and sufferings i fustained for adhereing to the protestant , and english interest ; and besides comparing in the other ballance , what advantages i might expect if i would re-ingratiate my self into their interest . lord ch. just . what interest ? mr. everard . the french , and the popish interest . and there was an opportunity in my hands , wherein i might be servicable to my self and others ; and he told me there were several persons amongst whom were some parliament men , that did adhere to the french interest , and gave an account to the french ambassador of every daies proceedings ; and as i was looked upon to be the author of a kind of pamphlet , that was called an answer to the kings declaration , concerning the duke of monmouth , therefore i should be fit to serve them , especially to make such another pamphlet to reflect upon the king , and alienate him from his people , and his people from him . whereupon i told him i would do any thing that was for my true interest , but i did conceive with my self , that that was none of it . he appointed a time when we should meet again , but i sent him a note , i could not meet possibly that day , which was munday , as i remember the 21. of februrary : however he was impatient , and came to me and told me he would give me heads and instructions tending to that pamphlet i was to write , to scandalize the king , and r●se a rebellion and alienate the hearts of the kingdom , and set the people together by the ears . upon this he gave me some heads by word of mouth : assoon as i parted from him , i met with one mr. savile of lincolns-inn , and assoon as i met with him i acquainted him with what was passed , and told him i wished rather than 10l . i had met him sooner , half an hour before : why what is the occasion saies he ? why said i , there is a person that hath had such and such discourse with me , and one of his main errands amongst others , is for me to write a scandalous libel reflecting upon his majesty , and the goverment . and upon this i said , mr. savile , i shall not confer with him any further , unless i have some body by to witness what he saies , he speaks most commonly french , and sometimes english ; and therefore it must be one who understands both the tongues well . so we went into the city together that afternoon to one mr. crows , who is a silkman in queen-street ; said we sir , you are a moderate impartial man , and understand french , we desire you will be present to over-hear some proposals that are made to me tending to set our country together by the ears , and he comes from a popish party . mr. crow said he would be willing to undertake any thing to serve the protestant english interest , but he would not undertake to speak french so well as to be able to understand all nice passages , and words that might be proposed . and then mr. savile and i went to mr. smith a durham gentleman , and made him the same proposal , i had made to mr. crow , desiring him that he would come and over-hear our discourse , and i would place him in a fit place . mr. smith assented to the propositions , and said he would . mr. smith asked me what day and time we were to meet ; i told him to morrow at 6 or 7 a clock at night at my chamber in graies-inn ; but further he said we must have other witnesses , for one witness would not be sufficient ; so we went to the exchange coffee house , and there we met with sir william waller , to whom we made the same proposal , that since we must have some that understood french and keep the thing secret , till it were time to have it come out , he would please to undertake it : sir william waller promised to come , but failed that first meeting , which was to be on the tuesday ; then we went to another french merchant , who was proposed by mr. savile , but he was not within ; so then we must rely upon one witness for that meeting . mr. fitz-harris was to meet me about 2 a clock at my chamber in graies-inn , where mr. smith and mr. savile were to meet likewise , and they came first to the tavern just at the corner of fullers rents , which hath a prospect into the court : and from thence i saw mr. fitz-harris in the court pointing to another gentleman that was with him , up to my chamber , and he was walking suspitiously up and down . then i went out of the tavern , and came up to my chamber , and after a little while captain fitz-harris came up to my room , i placed him in another room , where my wife was , and shut the door to whilst i sent word to mr. smith to come into the outer room , and shut himself into my closet . there was mr. smith in the closet , and there was an hole or two for the purpose made through both the planks of the boards , and the hanging ▪ but the hangings hung over the hole that it might not be discerned by mr. fitz-harris , and he could raise it and then see who was in the room and hear their words ; for i placed my chair towards the closet which had an angle outwards , and now and then i did stand against the whole , and now and then sate to give mr. smith advantage , and to give mr. fitz-harris no suspition . when we were so placed mr. fitz-harris asked me what i had done as to the thing proposed , this libel that i was to draw up ; i said i was busie , and had not been able to finish it , but here are some heads of it said i , and shewed him half a dozen lines drawn up together ; and when i had read them , sir said i , is this your mind ? yes said he , but i must add much more than this is to it . then mr. fitz-harris proceeded to give me further instructions ; and so repeated what instructions he had given me before , that the king and all the royal family must be traduced to be popishly , and arbitrarily inclined from the beginning , that king charles the first especially had an hand in the irish rebellion , and that likewise king charles the second , that now is , did countenance the same , as did appear by bis promoting those very officers that were in the irish rebellion , fitz-girald , fitz-patrick , and mont-garrat , which should be named in the libel . besides that , the act made at the kings coming in , forbidding any to call the king papist , was meerly to stop peoples mouths that they should not call him a papist , when he should incline to further popery , and did intend by his actions so to do . and besides his adhering so closely to the duke of yorks interest , was to be another argument of it , his hindering the d. of york from coming to his tryal , and to be proceeded against by the parliament , and hindering the officers that were put in by the d. of york , from being cast out : another argument was because those privy counsellors and justices of the peace , that did adhere to the protestant interest were turned out of all places of trust ; and besides he said it did appear to the people consequently , that the king was conscious to himself , that he was as guilty as his brother , and was as much a papist as his brother , and it was in the peoples power as well to depose a present popish possessor , as a popish successor , and that the people must be stirred up against him , and incouraged to blow the trumpet , and especially that the city , and common council must be incouraged to stand by the parliament ; and seeing the king was such that no hopes was to be had of the parliament at oxon , they were bound to provide for themselves , and to advance some hundreds or thousands of pounds to the parliament to settle the protestant religion without the king , if parliamentary waies would not succeed . these were some of the instructions . mr. att. gen. did he say any thing that day about a reward you should have ? mr. everard . he spake in the general about a reward , but he spoke more fully to that the day after ; he did not then come so much to particulars , then some part of those instructions i writ in my table book which is to be produced here , and others of them in another scrole of paper . he then desired to know of me when the scheme of this thing would be ready ; said i , you may come to morrow ; i will saies he , come about 6 or 7 a clock in the evening . in the mean time i writ a letter to sir william waller in french , which i sent by a porter , and therein i said , sir you have missed a great opportunity of rendring a great service to the king , by not coming to see me when you were expected ; for the person , the french emissary whom i spoke of to you , hath proposed very scandalous s●ditious things to be written , and there fore i desire you not to fail , as you tender the kings interest , to come to my chamber at 6 a clock at night . sir william waller received my letter and came thither accordingly , i placed sir william waller in another room , and i placed my own chair at a narrow table near the place where sir william waller was , and there through the wainscot and hangings , we made a slit , whereby sir william waller might see into the next room where mr. fitz-harris and i sate ; but before i placed him there i shewed sir william waller two copies of the instructions for the libel drawn up : said i , sir , here are 2 copies which are both the same , and i desire you to counter mark them , that you may know them again , and thereby see what alteration will be made ; for here are no blots now , and by that you will find the alteration . sir w●ll●am waller while my back was turned , counter marked those copies . i went into the next room , and i had not been long there , but mr. fitz-harris came in , i placed the table near the alcove , where sir william waller was within his hearing and seeing . mr. fitz-harris asked me what i had done in the business : sir said i , here are 2 copies of it , pray will you see how you like it . so he took one and i took the other . mr. ser. jeff. my lord i must interrupt this gentleman , for i see they continue to give the prisoner papers . fitz-harris . 't is only a paper of the names of my witnesses . lord ch. just . go on sir. mr. everard . my lord , captain fitz-harris did read one copy of this pamphlet and did amend it , he did add somethings and struck out other things , then said i is this sir according to your liking ? yes , saies he , but i must add something for it is not yet full enough ; but saies he this must be fair copyed out ; for 't is not fit for the french embassadors confessor to read , who should present it to the embassador . upon this i told him it should be done against the next day , but in the mean time i told him , sir , these are very treasonable things , and this a very treasonable project : oh , said he the more treasonable the better , and that will do the effect better . what is that sir said i ? that is saies he , to set these people together by the ears , and keep them clashing , and whilst they are so in clashing , and mistrusting one another , the french shall gain flanders ▪ and then said he , we shall make no bones to gain england too . but sir said i , you spoke of some recompence for me , what shall i have for venturing this ? why saies he after this libel is delivered up , and that hath gotten you their confidence that you are trusty , then i w●ll gain the french con●essor who is very shy ▪ and may so well be , because 〈◊〉 of the confessors of an embassador hath been already trapann'd 〈…〉 an occasion . therefore he is very wary , but he must have 〈…〉 under your hand , which he shall have by this libel ; and 〈…〉 daies you shall have 40 guinies , and a monthly pension ▪ 〈…〉 some thousandof crowns , for my master the french 〈…〉 as to these things : the spanish ambassador is so very 〈…〉 a man , that he cannot keep a table ; but sai●●e , you 〈…〉 rewarded by the french king , and be not discouraged by the 〈…〉 for i am in as great danger as you . after some such instructions , and ●●couragements , that mr. fitz-harris gave to go on in the wo●k , he departed , and i cannot well call any thing to mind of more particulars , but upon questions asked me perhaps i may . but then that time , or the next time , captain fit● ▪ h●rris gave me half a sheet of paper , for i told him i may chance to forget part of your instructions , therefore pray wri●e what is in your own mind , and in that paper he writ down that it was in the peoples power to depose a popish possessor , as it was to oppose a popish successor , and certain other treasonable heads ; the half sheet of paper is to be produced in court , under his own hand , which he hath confessed besides other treasonable instructions , that he gave me by word of mouth : but he at that time departed , and came the next day to have a copy of the treasonable libel writ out fair , and promised me ●o meet me at the boarded house , where we usually met in holborn at mr. fashions , and i did there come and deliver him a copy of this treasonable libel , and he said i should hear in a few daies from him , and should have a recompence , and this should be , but as an entrance business ; for i should be brought into the cabal , where several protestants , and parliament men came to give an accompt to the ambassador , how things were transacted , but to morrow said he , i cannot go to receive the libel back again , for i am to go to knights-bridge . fitz-harris . where there ? mr. everard . to my lord howards , for said he , you have seen his son often with me , my lord howard is very civil to me , he was my fathers lawyer . mr. att. gen. will you ask him any questions mr. fitz-harris ? fitz-harris . did you write this libel ? mr. everard . yes , by your instructions i did . fitz-harris . do you believe i had any trayterous intention in it ? mr. everard . yes . mr. serj. jefferies . you said the more treason the better , mr. fitz-harris . fitz-harris . were you put upon this to trapan others ? mr. att. gen. 't is no trapanning to ask them to come , and hear you give him those instructions sure . fitz-harris . but i ask him this question , mr. attorney , was he put upon it to trapan others ? mr. everard . can you mention any person that i was to trapan ? fitz-harris . were you put upon it to trapan the protestant lords , and the house of commons ? mr. everard . no , i was not . fitz-harris . is this the same libel that was read in the house of commons upon which i was impeached ? mr. everard . yes , i believe , mr. fitz-harris , it was . mr. att. gen. mr. everard , because he puts you upon it , and to satisfie all the world , i ask you upon your oath , did any person whatsoever put you upon this to trapan other persons , or to put it into their pockets as 't is reported ? mr. everard . i was put upon it by none but mr. fitz-harris , of whom i asked what will be the use of this , said he we shall disperse them , we know how . mr. att. gen. did he tell you in what manner ? mr. everard . no , he did not tell how . mr. att. gen. to whom was it to be delivered ? mr. everard . i was to deliver it to fitz-harris , who was to deliver it to the french confessor , and it was to be drawn in the name of the non-conformists , and put upon them . mr. serj. jefferies . what religion is mr. fitz-harris of ? mr. everard . he was always looked upon to be a papist . fitz-harris . when did you see me at mass ? mr. att. gen. hath he not owned himself so ? mr. everard . he hath owned himself at several times to be a papist . mr. sol. gen. what did he say to you about your being a protestant , and what cause you had to turn to the popish relig●on . mr. everard . he said i was under great disadvantages , and had much loss by leaving them , i had better have adhered to the● interest still . he had this discourse with me at several meetings , and gave me several visits , some at my chamber , some at gray●●●nn walks , sometimes at the house with black posts in where we talk'd of several things . mrs. fitz-harris . i am sorry he kept such a rogue as you are company . l. c. j. officer take her away if she cann't hold her tongu● , and give better language . fitz-harris . she will speak no more my lord. l. c. j. stand still then , and be quiet . mr. att. gen. what was your discourse at the ale-house ? mr. everard . to give instructions to set the people together by the ears , and one most effectual means was by scandalizing , and libelling the government , and especially the king. mr. jones . did any body else assist you in drawing the libel ? mr. everard . there is at the latter end of the libel a paragraph that was taken out of another book , there was a scandalous libel that was brought by the woman that carries paper-books about , and out of that to make short work , and out of the character of a popish successor , in which he said were many things material , he would have some of the expressions of this libel taken ; so i copyed some of the queries out of that paper which was said to be a letter intercepted to roger l'strange , and that day that i was under examination before mr. secretary jenkins that libel lay before him upon his table . he asked me if i had seen that , i told him yes , for i had copyed in that paper that was the libel , those queries , and then said he here is a warrant to be given out against curtis for it . mr. serj. jefferies . after such time that you had carried him the copy that sir william had marked , and he amended it , did you shew it sir w●lliam w●ller presently . mr. everard . yes immediately , and i asked him , sir says i , is there any alteration , yes said he , i see alterations , and shew'd them one . do you know the difference of hands said i , yes said he i do , and suppose will give you an account of it . mr. johnson . my lord , i humbly beg mr. everard may be asked who those parliam●nt men were , that were to concur with the french ambassador in this design ? l. c. j. did he name any parliament men ? mr. everard . no he did not , he said i should know them hereafter . l. c. j. then he did not name any ? mr. everard . no , he did not . mr. att. gen. then swear mr. smith . ( which was done ) pray sir will you look about , and give an account what you know . mr. smith . will you have an account how it came first to my knowledge ? mr. att. gen. yes the whole , from the bottom to the top , from the beginning to the end . mr. smith . i remember about the 22 th . or the 21 th . of feb. either one or the other mr. everard , and one mr. savile came to my chamber , and told me the same design that mr. everard hath repeated before , and that there was an irish gent. an officer of the french kings army that was to manage the thing ; he was one that could speak french very well , and they desired me to be concerned in it because i understood french. upon this i told him i would willingly undertake such a business if i thought there were any convenient place in the room where i might hear , and see , undiscovered . after he had told me as he has before told your lordships , that it was to make a difference between the king and his people , and to misrepresent the king as i shall inform you by and by . i went to his chamber after we had spoke to mr. crow , who would not undertake to speak french so well as to be capable of understanding all ; but at last we met with sir w. w. who undertook the matter . i walked immediately after dinner to the chamber , and saw the conv●ni●ncies , and the next night we expected sir w. wa●●●r , but he not coming that night i went into the closet my self till ●i●●-harris came according to the appointment . when fitz-harris came there were two chairs set , one chair next the closet where i stood , and another opposite against me , that opposite against me was that where mr. fitz-harris set , and mr. everard was next clos● to me , and i looked out through the hole , and i heard there were some little discourses about the business in hand . at last mr. everard stands up , and goes to the side-board , and brings a peice of pap●r , about hal● a sheet as i think with him , and he read it , which was a seditious kind of paper which i shall tell you of by and by , and he asked him in french whether this were agreeable or no , to which the gent. answered it was well , but something must be added to it . upon this mr. everard took out his note-book , and read something therein , and then mr. everard desired him to instance what heads he would have more than were there , to which fitz-harris replied , that he would have him to represent the king as a papist , which might be demonstrated by several reasons ; first his ad●●ring to the duke of york , and peremptorily resolving to espouse that ●nte●est . the s●con● reason was the preferring such as were the dukes 〈◊〉 ●oth at sea and land , and keeping in office those that were p●●fe●r●d by the duke , known papists , and this was also another reaso● 〈◊〉 pro●e that head of the instructions , that the king after his resto●atio●●●ocured an act to be made , that it should be treason for any to call 〈◊〉 papist , and this was only that he might the better , and with the mor● ease introduce popery into england . he charged likewise king char●●s the first to be a promoter of the irish rebellion , and that charles the second further'd and approv'd it ; that is another instance . that the parliament at oxford was only a sham to delude the people , and that such a king was not to be trusted with such a people , n●●ther as to their lives , liberties , or religion but that the people must prov●de for themselves in time , and blow the trumpet boldly . another instance was , as it was the undoubted right of the people to make laws against , and to oppose a popish successor , so they might depose a popish possessor . to this effect was the substance of what was said . mr. att. gen. did he name a reward that mr. everard was to have ? mr. smith . there was a reward mention'd , but i don't remember any particulars . mr. att. gen. did he tell who set him on work ? mr. smith he said if they did but set england together by the ears the french would get flanders , and at length prevail here , and mr. everard should get an interest in the common council , and make it his business that they should make a kind of an address to the parliament , and promise to stand by them with their lives and fortunes in opposing popery , and arbitrary government , and if parliament-ways failed , to assist in another way ; and if the king hindred the d of yo●k to come to a legal tryal , that then they should take other courses . mr. att. gen. what did he desire from mr. everard , when he seemed to boggle at his instructions ? mr. smith . mr. everard said he would do these things , yet he was in great danger ; why says mr. fitz-harris , so am i and a great many more ; what other conference was betw●en them i know not , for i never saw them together after . mr. serj. jefferies . look you sir , is this the same person ? mr. smith . yes , i did know him to be the same person that night he was taken . l. c. j. you could see him where you were ? mr. smith . my lord , i saw clear enough , there was three candles lighted , and i was as near to him , as i am to your lordship . l. c. j. you were not in the room ? mr. smith . i was in a little closet close by . mr. att. gen. you know nothing of the paper of instructions ? mr. smith . i remember he told me of such an one , but i was not there the second night . sir fr. withins . mr. everard said they were treasonable things , what then said fitz-harris ? mr. smith . he said the more treason was in them the better . mr. serj. jefferies . and the particulars were to set the people together by the ears , and to bring in the french king. mr. smith . it is all one in terms . mr. serj. jefferies . how was it ? mr. smith . that the king and the people should be set at variance , then the french king would fall upon flanders and holland , and afterwards would take england in his way , and make no bones of it . mr. serj. jeff. will you ask him any questions mr. fitz-harris ? fitz-harris . do you believe that i did it with a treasonable intention . mr. smith . sir i am not to judge of that , i am not of your jury , nor to answer any such thing . fitz-harris . what do you think sir pray ? mr. smith . you could have no good design to bring about by any such matter ( i think ) as this paper is . fitz-harris . is this the same paper that was read in the house of commons ? mr. smith . sir , i was not of the house of commons i don't know what was read there . mr. johnson . mr. everard did seem to hint at a design among some protestant lords , and parliament men , and others dissenters from the church of england , i desire to know whether mr. smith heard those words ? l. c. j. that was not the first night . mr. smith . i did not hear it . l. c. j. look you mr. johnson , mr. smith was not present at the second meeting , then sir will. waller was there , it was only the first night mr. smith was there , and he speaks to that . therefore as to the alteration of the copy , and some other things , he tells you that was done the second night , and then was the discourse concerning the french confessor , and those other things which you mention . mr. at. gen. i believe the jury misapprehend mr. ev●rard in that too . l. c. j. it was only what fitz-harris told him . mr. att. gen. but i see the thing stick with the jury ▪ therefore i would fain ask mr. everard this question , did you declare an● such thing , or was it mr. fitz-harris that told you ? mr. ev●rard . mr. fit●-harris told me , that several parliam●●● men were joyned with the french embassador to give him an 〈◊〉 of things , but he told me besides , this must be drawn up as it 〈…〉 the name of the non-conformists to father it upon th●m , y●t 〈◊〉 there was one word in it thou as if it were in the 〈…〉 says he it must not be so , but it must be under the 〈…〉 non-conformists , that it may be common to all the 〈…〉 . l. c. j. so you must take the ●ense of this right 〈…〉 mr. everard tell ▪ you some parliament men , and lord● 〈…〉 in this bus●n●ss but 〈◊〉 fitz-harri●'s design was to ingag● 〈◊〉 and he 〈…〉 to incourage him to it . so that the 〈…〉 ●●me lords and parl●●m●nt m●n 〈…〉 him to go on . mr. 〈◊〉 〈…〉 my lord , so th●t h●re does appear there was so●● othe●●●terest than the french interest in th●s matter , if wh●t mr. fitz-h●●ris said was true . mr. att. gen. fitz-harris said so to ingage him . l. c. j. look you mr. john●on , we do all 〈◊〉 b●lieve and hope , there was no such thing as that any lord , or an● 〈…〉 commons of en●land were so ingaged , it was his interest as mr. fit●-harris took it to mention it so to ingage this g●ntleman . mr. ever●●d . i did not say lords . l. c. j. what did you say th●n ? m● ▪ ev●rard . parliament men in general . mr. a●t gen. then swear s●r will. waller which was done . s●r f●a● . withins . pray sir william will you give an account of what you know of this matter . ●●r will. waller . my lord , the last time i was here in this court being summoned to give in my evidence . i did make some difficul●● of it upon the account that this person was impeached by the commons of england in parliament , but mr. justice jones having declared the law , required me in such a case to give in my evidence , i am now ready to give it in , and shall do it asbriesly as i can . l. c. j. well sir pray go on . sir will. waller . my lord , upon the 22 th . or 23 th . of fe● . last mr. everard met me in the city , and told me he had a business of very great concernment to discover to me , whereupon my lord we went into a place where we might conveniently discourse together , and he told me in short , that mr. edw. fitz-harris that unfortunate gent. at the bar had been with him several times , and endeavoured to ingage him in a business , which would in effect turn all into confusion in england , and render the king very odious in the sight of his subjects . many things he did there tell me , and earnestly pressed me 〈◊〉 joyn in this design to endeavour the discovery of it . i was indeed at the first shie of medling with it being no way in the commission of the peace , and so not liable to ingage in a business of that nature , but i was afraid to discourage mr. smith , who voluntarily , and ingeniously offered himself for the service of his king and countrey , but i did not go that afternoon , being willing to hear whether the business wen● on , and was likely to come to any thing ; the next morning mr. e●●rard writ to me this letter ( plucking out a paper . ) mr. j●st . doil●●n . 〈◊〉 i● sir. sir will. ●●lle● . my lord , in effect it was this , to let me know mr. smith had been with him the night before , and that according as they had laid the● 〈◊〉 mr. fitz-harris did indeed come , and had some discou●se in the 〈◊〉 of mr. smith , several things beyond what the● 〈◊〉 ●cqu●●nted me with , things of the highest nature imagin●ble , an● 〈◊〉 he ●arnestly pressed me , as i tendred the welfare of my 〈…〉 that i would not fail to come that afternoon to be 〈◊〉 ●ar-w●tness of the treasonable practices that were in hand . i 〈◊〉 upon my self then obliged to go , and did according to 〈…〉 he gave me , go about three of the clock in the 〈◊〉 to a tavern at the lower end of fullers-rents near grays-i●● , and there we were to discourse furth●r of the business . i had not been t●ere long , but i looked out of a back window , and spied mr. 〈◊〉 with another gent ▪ in a brown coloured suit , walking just be●ore grays-inn door . i don't know the name of the court , ●●t th●re i saw them walking , but in their going he frequen●●● looked up at mr. everard's chamber , and pointed at it . when he was gone , i told him it may be mr. fitz-harris may come sooner than ●he h●●r a●pointed , therefore i think it will not be amiss to go without ●urther d●lay to your chamber , and s●e what conveniency there may be to lie 〈◊〉 where i may be both an eye and an ear-witness i went to his chamber , and when i came into the room there was a little 〈◊〉 which i thought not so convenient for me , and i rather chose to ●●ok about if i could find another place more convenient . in short in ●●e next room i found by my cane there was a door , and 〈…〉 i turn●d up the hangings there , and in the door there was a 〈…〉 i opened a little with my knife , and ripped a whole in ●he 〈…〉 ●hich looked into the room where the gent. was to 〈…〉 mr. fitz-harris came , mr. everard had given me a large account much after the same manner that he hath given in his t●●timony here , and he shew'd me two papers : i took the two papers , and gave them a private mark that i might know them again , and withal we placed a table , and a chair ready against mr. fitz-harris's coming in , and agreed that he should be placed so , as that through the hole i might have a full sight of him , but lest by an accident he should be removed from thence , i desired mr. everard to ask him three questions . the 1 st . was , whether he had not married a daughter of one captain finch's whose father was killed in his majesties service ; the 2 d. was , whether as he read over the paper it was drawn up according to his instructions ; and the 3 d. was , who was the person that should recompense mr. everard for running so great an hazard . according to these instructions the table being placed and every thing in order about seven a clock , or between six and seven mr. fitz-harris came in , and being fate down he began to ask some questions , amongst others — then some complaint was made by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of papers given to mr. fitz-harris . fitz-harris . pray my lord , i beg that paper may be given to my wife again . mr. att. gen. i pray it may be given to the court. mr. serj. maynard . i pray they may be read . mr. sol. gen. 't is not the duty of a solicitor to 〈◊〉 papers , he was only appointed by the court to run of errands , he is not to advise , or furnish with matter of defence . mr. serj. jefferies . my lord , this is an offence committed in the face of the court , therefore we pray the person that hath done it may be committed . mr. just . dolben . it is nothing but the resolutions of the house of commons , give it him again . l. c. j. if mr. whittaker lies there to trouble the court , we shall find another place for him . mr. sol. gen. my lord , mr. whittaker hath done his duty now , and what service your lordship appointed him , for i think he may be sent away for here is no more business for him . sir will. waller . mr. fitz-harris came in i think it was between six and seven a clock , and coming there he fate himself down in the chair prepared for him , and mr. everard , according to the instruction● i had given him , did ask him several questions , but mr. 〈◊〉 did ask him first whether he had finished the paper according to some instructions he had given him . mr. everard produced two papers , the one was the copy of the other as i counted . mr. fitz-harris had one given into his hand , and the other mr. everard had mr. everard after he had read a little in it did ask whether this was drawn up according to the instructions mr. f●tz-harris had given he answered it was exactly according to the instructions he had given him . after he had read a little further says mr. everard to him , this is a business of very dangerous consequ●nce , what reward shall i have for running so great an hazard , he told him aga●● thus , sir says he i think i run an equal hazard with you ; for 〈◊〉 have a paper under my hand which will r●nder me liable to dan●●● , and then he went on and read further , and if mr. attorney will 〈◊〉 to l●t me see the paper , there is one particular clause it that i to●k special ●otice of . m● . a●t . gen. would you have the libel , or the paper sir william ? s●r will. waller . the libel sir , ▪ which was given him ) there wa● one ●assage in it which i remember , and it was this ( ●●●aking of the kings preferring persons that were ingaged in the late irish 〈◊〉 the paper was first ( prefers ) but says mr. fitz-harris in fr●●ch it must be ( has promoted ) several passages of this nature i heard him alter , and i saw him alter with his pen. for after such time as mr. fitz-harris was gone out of the room i went immediately into the ●oom where mr. everard was and took notice of the paper , and the ●nk upon the paper was hardly dry . mr. att. gen. look upon that , that is the original , and the other the counter part . sir will. waller . here is the mark ( then pointing to the bottom of the paper ▪ these two papers i marked both together , and this is the paper sir was 〈◊〉 i do remember it more particularly , for this paper i ha● 〈◊〉 my own custody , and signed it afterwards . l. c j. 〈…〉 on . 〈…〉 h● was asking him , pray sir said he , what rewa●● 〈…〉 ●●y 〈◊〉 mr. fitz-harris you shall be very well pa●d you shall n●t ne●● to 〈◊〉 you shall have all manner of incouragement . t●is 〈◊〉 will b●●ng a considerable advantage to you , and you shall ●e o●●erwise preferred than when you were in the french kin●●●●vice ●ays 〈◊〉 you cannot but know how you have beenslighted and neglected not with●tanding the service you have done , and the french 〈◊〉 i● the person that is to recompense you for your pains , and he spoke of ●orty ▪ but truly i did not hear whether it were guinys , or what it was that he should have for present payment , and i heard him speak somthing of a pension he named three thousand crowns , but whether annually or how i cannot tell . pray sir said he wh●t shall i do in this ●ase for i do not know , i am but in a low condition , and have occasion for mony , why says he the french em●assador will supply you , and you shall certainly as soon as the paper is perfected have your re●ard and says he there are a great many more that we have employed in businesses of this nature , to create misunderstanding between the king and his people , by which means the french will easily over run flanders and the ●ow-countr●●s , and then england will become an easie morsel . and this is the subs●●nce of what i remember . fitz-harris . do you believe i had any such design as treason in it . sir 〈◊〉 wall●r . i cann't say any thing to that , i only speak as to the matter of ●act . mr. at● . g●n . did he declare he had many more employed in the service ? sir will. w●ller . yes he did say so . and said he there are two pa●l●●ment ●en ●●at frequent my ●ord sha●tesbury's who my lord does not 〈◊〉 ●●at do come and found him , and then go and acquaint the 〈◊〉 ●mbassador with all they can discover . ●it●-har●●s . is th●s the same paper by the oath you have taken , for whic● i was impeached by the commons in parliament ? sir will w●ll●● . 〈◊〉 't is a copy of the same paper , and that paper 〈◊〉 did read i● the house . mr. a●t . gen. 't is the original . mr. joh●●on . my lord , i desire to ask sir w. waller one question , sir you have heard the indictment read , then pray tell us whether this very libel be expressed in the indictment according to what was deli●ered in the house of commons . mr. att. gen. you shall hear that by and by your selves . for you shall hear the paper read to you with the indictment . sir wi●l . waller . this is a copy of that paper . mr. johnson . does mr. fitz-harris stand impeached by the house of commons upon the same treasons mentioned in the indictment ? sir will. waller . yes , sir. mr. att. gen. upon the same treasons ? sir will. waller . upon this treasonable paper he does . for as soon as ever i had communicated this paper to the house , and i had made my report of the treasonable transactions of mr. fitz-harris , the house immediately proceeded to the impeachment . mr. sol. gen. does the impeachment mention that paper ? or what particular treason he was impeached upon ? sir will. waller . i know nothing of that . but upon this paper that impeachment was grounded , that is all i can say . mr. sol. gen. that this libel was spoken of in the house of commons , is true , but it does not appear upon the impeachment that he was impeached for that libel . l. c. j. have you any more witnesses ? mr. att. gen. yes , we have to other matters . but we desire to let them alone till the libel be read . mr. johnson . my lord , we beg we may have the comparison of the libel with the indictment . fitz-harris . i would ask sir w. waller one question more upon his oath , whether he had any design of trapanning me , or any body else in this thing . mr. sol. gen. had you any design to trapan the prisoner , or any body ? sir will. waller . no mr. fitz-harris indeed not i. fitz-harris . i looked upon you always as a person that was my enemy . mr. att. gen. what , because you were a papist ? fitz-harris . no , it was upon another account , i appeal to mr. justice dolben . mr. just . dolben . what do you appeal to me for ? mr s. jeff. have you known mr. fitz-harris before , sir william ? sir will. waller . yes , many years . mr. serj. jefferies . what religion was he reputed to be of ? sir will. waller . a roman catholick . fitz-harris . i am not bound to continue so always . mr. jones . then shew your conversion . mr. att. gen. pray let the libel be read . then the paper was produced . mr. att. gen. sir w. waller , and mr. everard , is that the paper ? mr. everard . this is the paper . mr. att. gen. is it interlined with his own hand ? mr. everard . yes ; for there is the words ( have promoted ) that i said before , he altered . l. c. j. gent. pray mark this now , you will hear the clauses contained in the indictment read , and you shall hear this paper read , and then your selves shall be judges whether it does contain them yea , or no. mr. johnson . we desire to see it at the bar. mr. att. gen. here is a copy of these clauses you may examine it by that . mr. serj. maynard . 't is not the whole libel , but only some clauses of it he is indicted for . l. c. j. yes , brother . but what they desire is only to see whether so much as is contained in the indictment , is also in the libel . mr. att. gen. pray swear mr. astrey then ; which was done . l. c. j. look you gent. this is one that is intrusted with the affairs of the crown . he is now sworn , and i ask him this question for your satisfaction . mr. astrey , are the english sentences that are in the indictment also comprised in the libel ? mr. astrey . my lord , i did examine this indictment with the libel at mr. attorney generals chamber as well as i could , and they are in terminis the same , the words in the indictment , and the words in the libel . mr. johnson . my lord , if all be not in the indictment that is in the libel then perhaps there may be some connexion with what is antecedent , something to explain those clauses the indictment mentions so that they may bear another construction . therefore we would have all read . mr. serj. maynard . it must be all read to them . l. c. j. yes , brother it shall be wholly read to them , though it need not be expressed de verbo in verbum in the indictment , yet for their satisfaction it shall be wholly read to them . mr. sol. gen. these gentlemen are very cautious i perceive . l. c. j. look you gent. if you will attend the court we will give you what satisfaction we can , pray mr. solicitor give them leave to speak to the court ; what you desire gent. is reasonable enough , that you may hear the libel to see whether these are not clauses taken out of a paper which may have another import in the paper than they have when they are taken out . that is your meaning . mr. johnson . yes , my lord. l. c. j. to that intent you shall hear the libel read distinctly , you shall have the very clauses of the indictment by you that you may look upon them . mr. att. gen. the other part of the libel will do it . l. c. j. pray mr. attorney don't direct me , they shall have the indictment whilst mr. astrey reads the libel , that they may see the import of the words . and you do not apprehend it aright . mr. johnson does not desire to see whether mr. astrey read right , but whether those clauses in the indictment are of the same import in the indictment that they are of in the libel . therefore they must have a copy of the indictment whilst mr. astrey reads the libel , and mr. astrey pray mark those clauses when you come to them , for you will find they are dispersed up and down the libel . mr. astrey . i do not swear to that very paper , but i believe you will find they are rightly taken out of the libel in the indictment . mr. att. gen. this is the copy of the indictment clauses . cl. of cr. reads . friend i thank thee for the character of the popish successor — then one of the jury having the copy in his hand , and not finding it exact desired a true copy . sir will. waller . here is a true copy of it i took my self and read in the house . then the libel was read through , and the clauses particularly observed . l. c. j. gentlemen , now you have heard it read . and you may observe there is nothing in this paper can extenuate or mitigate the clauses , but abundance to make them more horrid and exceedingly aggravated . mr. att. gen. then call mr. savile who was the person mr. everard did meet with , and acquaint with this business . ( but he did not appear ) then call sir philip lloyd and mr. bridgman . my lord , the next peice of evidence we shall give is this , sir will. waller and mr. everard do both say , that he gave part of his instructions under his own hand , we shall produce the paper and prove he acknowledged it to be his own hand . then the paper was produced . mr. att. gen. who writ that sir ? mr. everard . mr. fitz-harris . mr. att. gen. are those the instructions he gave you to frame this libel ? mr. everard . these are part of the instructions my lord , other part i took in my table-book before mr. smith . mr. att. gen. we will prove it by other witnesses , sir philip lloyd , and mr. bridgman . mr. bridgman sworn . mr. att. gen. did the prisoner acknowledge that to be all his own hand-writing ? mr. bridgman . yes my lord , mr. fitz-harris did acknowledge it to be all writ with his own hand . sir philip lloyd sworn . sir fr. withins . look upon that paper sir , ( which he did ) did mr. fitz-harris acknowledge it was his hand-writing ? sir philip lloyd . yes he did , and that i might bear testimony of it the better , i writ with my own hand on the back of it , that he did so . mr. att. gen. read it . cl. of cr. read . after this sham meeting of the parliament at oxon which no body expects any good of , it will be necessary , &c. mr. sol. gen. these words are likewise in the indictment . l. c. j. when was that given to you mr. everard , for — mr. fitz-harris it seems owned it before the lords in the council , but mr. everard swears the delivery of it , what time was it ? mr. everard . it was either monday , or tuesday . l. c. j. in february was it not ? mr. everard . yes , and i asked captain fitz-harris according to sir w. wallers queries , whether he had given instructions according to what he would have contained in the thing , yes said he ; but have you not enough under my own hand to do it by . mr. serj. maynard . my lord , we have done our evidence , we will leave it now to hear what the prisoner will say for his defence . l. c. j. mr. fitz-harris if you have any thing to say for your defence this is your time to do it . fitz-harris . yes , my lord dr. oates i desire may be called . mr. att. gen. if you have any witnesses name them . mrs. fitz-harris . yes , yes dr. oates , and ask him what he heard mr. everard say . l. c. j. what say you to dr. oates , here he is . fitz-harris . pray dr. what have you heard mr. everard say about this libel since i was taken . dr. oates . my lord , after this business was talked of abroad having heard that sir william waller and everard had made the discovery , i did discourse mr. everard about the business , and about the libel . he told me he wrote the libel , and when i would not believe it the man was a little angry that i would not believe it . and then i told him he was a man very unfortunate in speaking ; for he spoke but badly ; he said though he was unfortunate in his tongue , yet he was as fortunate in his pen , and that he took a great deal out of the intercepted letter to roger le'strange , and i then asked him what the design of it was , he told me it was to be printed , and to be sent about by the penny post to the protesting lords , and the leading men in the house of commons , and they were to be taken up as soon as they had it , and to be searched , and to have it found about them . i then asked him if there were any other persons concerned in it besides those publickly talked of , he told me the court had an hand in it , and the king had given fitz-harris money already , and would give him more if it had success . this he told me at oxford , and before he went thither , and after . fitz-harris . mr. sheriff cornish , i do beg you would declare what his majesty told you , when you came to him from me , when i was at newgate . mr. sheriff . i do not know what you call me for , mr. fitz-harris . fitz-harris . i desire you to acquaint the court what the king said to you when you came to him from newgate from me . mr. sheriff . my lord , i shall desire your lordships opinion in this matter , whether it be seemly or decent for a subject to declare , what discourse his prince is pleased to have with him . l. c. j. look you sir , if you give any evidence , give it . we are not to direct any witness whether they shall give their evidence , or not . mr. att. gen. mr. sheriff , you ought to do it openly if you give any , therefore pray l●t us hear you . mr. sheriff . my lord , i cannot remember what was said relating to this particular matter . there was a great deal his majesty was pleased to discourse with me concerning things of several kinds and natures , my memory may fail me , but if mr. fitz-harris please to ask as to any particular matter . fitz-harris . what the king said when you came from newgate to him , to acquaint him that i would make a discovery . did he say i was employed by him , and received any money , and what for ? mr. sheriff . my lord , i do remember something of that kind . when i was giving his majesty an account that i found the prisoner at the bar in a disposition to make a discovery , his majesty was pleased to tell me he had often had him before him and his secretaries upon examination , and could make nothing at all of what he did say or discover to them , and his majesty was pleased likewise to say , that he had for near three months before acquainted him , that he was in pursuit of a plot a matter that related mueh to his majesties person and government , and the king did say in as much as he made great protestations of his zeal for his service , he did countenance and give him some money , i know nothing more . mr. att. gen. did the king ever declare that he saw fitz-harris in his life , or that he ever was in his presence ? mr. sheriff . yes . mr. att. gen. ay , but before his appearing at the council table , did the king ever say he saw him , or before he was arrested for this fact ? mr. sheriff . yes , his majesty was pleased to say about three months before , he came to him and pretended he would discover a great plot to him . l. c. j. have you any other questions to ask mr. sheriff . fitz-harris . no. where is colonel mansel . dr. oates . my lord , i desire that if the prisoner have any more questions to ask me he may do it , because the croud is great , and i would go out . fitz harris . sir , i have many more questions to ask you , i desire you would please to stay . l. c. just . you must stay if he have any more questions to ask you . here is col. mansel , what say you to him ? fitz harris . col. what did you hear sir william waller say after this discovery was made ? col. mansel . that which i heard sir william waller say , was this ; i had occasion to speak with sir james hayes , and enquiring for him , i found he was at the dog tavern ; so i went up , and found in the company , sir william waller , and another gentleman one mr. hunt , and some more . after the rest of the company were gone , and only sir james hayes , mr. hunt , my self , and sir william waller left , sir william was giving an account of this business , and said , the king , when i had acquainted him with it , told me i had done him the greatest piece of service that ever i had done him in my life ; and gave me a great many thanks . but i was no sooner gone from thence , but two worthy gentlemen gave me an account , that the king said , i had broken all his measures , and he would have me taken off one way or another . fitz harris . did he say any thing , that it was a design to put the libel upon the protestant lords , and the house of commons ? col. mansel . there was that said . l. c. just . what was said ? don 't come with your imperfect discourses here , but if you give evidence , tell what was said . col. mansell . sir william waller said , that the design was against the protestant lords , and the protestant party . mr. serj. maynard . i do not doubt that it was against the protestant party . mr. attorn . gen. recollect your self ; was it against the protestant lords , or the protestant party ? col. mansell . he said , the protestant party . mr. attorn . gen. so say we. fitz harris . did he not say it was another sham plot , sir , against the phanaticks , and the house of commons ? where is mr. hunt ? [ mr. hunt appeared . mr. hunt. what would you have with me , mr. fitz harris ? i never had any conversation with you in my life . fitz harris . no sir ; but what have you heard sir william waller say concerning my business ? mr. hunt. my lord , i would rather i had lost my hearing for that time , than have heard it to repeat it . sir william waller did tell me , at the dog tavern , where was sir james hayes and col. mansell by , after he had read over the libel to us , there was a great deal of company more , but he only gave us the curiosity to see what the libel was . and when he had read it , he did tell us , that the king gave him particular thanks for that good service he had done him in detecting fitz harris ; but he said he was told by two gentlemen that had heard the king speak it , who were of undoubted credit , that the king was in an extream passion , bestowed many hard names on him , and said , he would give any thing in the world to take him out of the world ; that he was an insufferable vexation to him , and that he had broken all his measures . and he said the same things again , in the presence of sir philip harcourt , and my lord radnor's son mr. roberts , at capt. hall's chamber , in pembrook college in oxon. mr. attorn . gen. what did he say about the prisoner ? mr. hunt. this was about the libel of fitz harris , that the king gave him particular thanks about that business ; and afterwards the king did expr●ss great passion , in some short time after he was gone ; and he did say he was informed by two witnesses that heard the king say it , he knew not what to do with him , he broke all his measures . fitz harris . did he not say this was a design against the protestants ? mr. hunt. he did say it was a design to contrive these papers into the hands of people , to make them evidences of rebellion ; and that was his apprehension of the thing . and he said further , ( for i am a witness here , and must speak all my knowledg ) that he had another plot which he had traced near to a full discovery , a more horrid plot than this or dangerfield's , for , he said , this was the counter-part of dangerfield's plot. i hope he will not deny it , if he be asked , here he is , and upon his oath ; i am not , and i desire not to take credit unsworn , but am willing to give my testimony on oath . fitz harris . where is dr. cary ? mr. sheriff cornish . dr. cary is not well , my lord , and can't come . fitz harris . then mr. sheriff bethell . dr. oates . my lord , i pray i may be discharged . l. ch. just . doctor , we have nothing to say to you , but the prisoner hath more questions to ask you . 't is not we that detain you , but you stay upon the prisoner's account . fitz harris . mr. sheriff bethell desires to know what you can say concerning mr. everard . mr. sheriff bethell . my lord , i know nothing of mr. everard as to this business , save that he told me he writ the libel himself . and i confess , my lord , further , that before ever he knew my face , or before ever he heard me speak a word in his days , he put in an information of treason against me , at the instigation of one that is known to be my mortal enemy ; and it was so groundless , that tho' it was three years ago given in , yet i never heard a word of it till friday last . i can bring witnesses of this , persons that sent the notice of it to me . fitz harris . pray call mrs. wall. ( who came down from her seat. ) fitz harris . mrs. wall , pray will you tell the court , have not i conveyed some libels , and treasonable papers to the king by your means , and received mony upon that account . mrs. wall. not as i know of . fitz harris . did not you receive some of them from me to give to the king ? mrs. wall. no indeed not i. fitz harris . is the footman here that was by , when you paid me the mony ? mrs. wall. yes , and the porter too , tho' you have not subpoena'd them . fitz harris . how long ago is that ? mrs. wall. two years ago . fitz harris . was it not about christmass last was twelve month i gave you the libel about the king and your lady ; and the king thanked me extreamly , and i had 250 l. given me ? come , mrs. wall , don't think to trick me out of my life in the case , for i will not be tricked so . pray tell the court , can you deny that i had the 250 l ? speak , mrs. wall , had i 250 l ? mrs. wall. that was not the question you asked me at first . fitz harris . but speak , had i it ? mrs. wall. there was 250 l. i think it was 200 , or 150 , or 250 l ▪ fitz harris . what use was it for ? and upon what account ? mrs. wall. you do know it was not for any libel . fitz harris . if you have any mind , tell it . mrs. wall. there it is . ( delivering in a paper to be read . ) cl. of cr. the humble petition of edward fitz-harris . — mrs. wall. i really took him for as honest a man as ever i knew in my life , and had it been in my power to have done him a kindness , i should not have failed to have done it . mr. attorn . gen. was he your countryman , madam ? mrs. wall. yes , he is , and my relation too . i knew you to be the son of a very suffering loyal family ; and while his mother was in town , he came often to our house ; and when she went away , he left visiting the house a great while . and you , mr. fitz-harris , did once tell me , you could bring in people to the king's interest , that were very considerable . so i spoke to the secretary of state about you , that there was one that had been with me , and told me , that he could bring in those to the king and duke's interest that were very considerable . the secretary of state desired me to know who they were ; and then he named to me one thomas merrey , and another person who i desire to be excused from naming . the other party he did name , was thought considerable , both for quality and understanding . and the secretary desired me to get him in if i could . mr. attorn . gen. pray , madam , who was it ? mrs. wall. i desire mr. fitz-harris may tell you . fitz harris . no , mrs. wall , pray do you tell it , since you have spoke of it . mrs. wall. i say nothing but what i will take my oath of . fitz harris . then you will never swear that which is true . pray , mrs. wall , speak , who was it ? mrs. wall. i desire i may not name him , but he may . mr. attorn . gen. he will not . mrs. wall. truly , i do not think it convenient for me to name such persons as those are upon such accounts . fitz-harris . pray , mrs. wall , name the person that i would have brought into the king's service . mrs. wall. if the court commands me , i will ; otherwise i will not . fitz-harris . did you ever , upon any such account as this , receive any mony for me , speak the truth ? mrs. wall. god forbid your blood should lie at my door ; i assure you i should be sorry for it . he told me , these persons were considerable for the king's interest , and could do him extraordinary good service . so , as i said , i spoke to the secretary of state ; and he would know who they were . and when he was told who they were , as for one of them , thomas merrey , he was not thought worth the looking after , for he was thought an inconsiderable rascal ; but as for the other gentleman , he was thought a man of worth , and a person , that if he would , could really serve the king. upon this , when you first came , i was never at rest for you ; and therefore , after a while , before you came again , i gave the porter order to tell you , i was not at home ; and i desire the porter may be asked the question . but when i next saw the secretary , i desired that he would give them a positive answer , one way or the other ; and the next time i saw you , this was your business , and i told the secretary of sate of it . you gave me this paper , and desired me to sollicit for your quit-rent in ireland , for you were in great misery , and had been a great sufferer . so i spoke to the dutchess of portsmouth , and she spoke to the secretary of state ; that if this man be so considerable a sufferer , 't is convenient to give him something for his encouragement ; and if you will give him something , said i , give it him quickly . i was 4 , if not 6 months a getting this mony . fitz-harris . but will you say it was upon that account ? when was that mony paid ? mrs. wall. i never thought i should be brought in for a witness ; or that you would have abused me thus for my kindness . fitz-harris . when were those papers given you that you produced ? mrs. wall. i wish i may never see the face of god , if i know any more than what i give evidence ; there are the papers , they will tell you the time . fitz-harris . did i give them you ? mrs. wall. you or your wife did ; and i suppose your wife's condition was yours . fitz-harris . was not the mony received before ever those papers were given you ? mrs. wall. nay , mr. fitz-harris , i will tell you more ; send to mr. henry guy , and let him tell you when he paid it you . fitz-harris . call the porter , and the footman if he be here . l. ch. just . if you will ask any more questions of mrs. vvall , do . fitz-h . did not i come to you the wednesday before i was taken , and told you , i desired to speak with the king , and that i had a libel to present to him ? mrs. vvall. no , so far from that , that it was the thursday before you were taken , you came about nine a clock at night to our lodgings , and sent up to my chamber ; and i sent word that mr. cowling was there , for i did not care to see you ; but you sent word up , you had something of consequence to tell me . so i came down , and you desired me to bring you to the speech of the king ; which was a thing you did never desire before : and you said thus , if you did but see the king , you believed you could say somthing to him that might do him service . fitz-harris . did not i say here is the libel that i come to deliver to the king now ? mrs. vvall. no , as i have a soul to be saved . fitz-harris . mrs. vvall , i did , and this was what you said at the same time ; that since my lord sunderland was gone , you could have no secret service . i did desire to speak with the king privately , those were my words ; and you told me , you could not so easily do business with the king since my lord sunderland's time . l. ch. just . we must not let you hold a dialogue between your selves , you must speak that the court may hear . mr. attorn . gen. was not he a roman catholick ? mr. vvall. yes , we looked upon him so , and upon that account we said it was dangerous for him to go near the king. mr. attorn . gen. did you know that ever he was admitted to the king ? mrs. vvall. never ; but he hath been talking with me in a room as the king passed by . mr. attorn . gen. did the king ever take any notice of him , speak to him ? mrs. vvall. the king never took notice of him , nor spoke with him by my means , nor gave him mony , other than what i speak of , nor the dutch. of portsmouth . l. ch. just . look you , mrs. vvall , i think you do say that there was some mony paid to mr. fitz-harris , pray speak plain upon what account was it paid . mrs. vvall. my lord , it was for the bringing of my lord howard of escrick , who is there ; since you press me to it , i must tell , i think my lord will not deny it . lord howard . i will never deny the truth . fitz-harris . where was my lord howard of escrick ? mrs. vvall. he was not so much for the king's interest , or that which they call the king's interest . fitz-harris . how long is this since ? mrs. vvall. two years ago since he came first to me ; but whether it be a year and an half since my lord met with the king , i cannot tell . fitz-harris . when my lord was admitted in to the king , i did wait on him to that purpose , to bring in my lord howard . mrs. vvall. i desire that my lord howard may be asked , whether he don't remember , when the king was coming , mr. fitz-harris was put out of the room first . fitz-harris . you say , i never shewed any libel to the king. mrs. vvall. i tell you what i said since to this gentleman that is here ; i wish you shad shewn the libel unto me , that i might have been in a capacity of saving your life . fitz-harris . you said , that i had the 250 l. for bringing in my lord howard . mrs. vvall. i say , it was upon promise to bring in persons that would be useful and serviceable to the king. l. ch. just . she is your own witness , and she tells you , two persons you did undertake to bring in , and for that you had this mony. mrs. vvall. it was his poverty and this together . mr. serj. jefferies . mrs. vvall , i conceive he never discovered this libel unto you ; but , pray , did he ever discourse with you about everard ? and what character did he give him ? mrs. wall. once he did , and he said he was an honest man ; and asked me if i would be acquainted with him ? i told him , no , for he had a knavish reputation ; he was an informer , and i cared for no informers . fitz-harris . mrs. wall , to let the world see how you shuffle about me , when did the king see my lord howard first , when i brought him ? mrs. wall. i don't know , ask my lord howard . fitz-harris . did not i speak to the king in the outer room ? and did not you get me to make a stand there ? mrs. wall. mr. fitz-harris , don't make me tell that thing . fitz-harris . pray speak the truth , mrs. wall. mrs. wall. i defie you , and all mankind , to say i do otherwise . you did desire me to tell the duke , that you would first bring my lord to him , and then to the king ; and i spoke to the duke , and he said you were a rascal , and he would not meddle with you ; this you know . fitz-harris . did not my lady portsmouth tell me , the duke was angry , & c ? mrs. wall. mr. fitz-harris , when you came to me upon such an errand , was it reasonable that i should bring you , upon every trifle , to the speech of the king , and i should not bring you then , 't is without sense and reason . l. ch. just . you must not ask questions , but answer . and , mr. fitz-harris , do you design to detect mrs. wall of falshood ? she is your own witness , you consider not you can get nothing by that . fitz-harris . my lord , when you see the papers produced , you will find it is upon another account . mrs. wall. is this your hand , mr. fitz-harris ? ( shewing him a paper . ) fitz-harris . but is not this upon the account of a pension granted in ireland ? pray let the gentlemen of the jury see , this is of another different nature ; i appeal to my lord howard of escrick , whether he did not speak to my lady about it . lord howard . i did so . mrs. wall. my lord did second my lady to get you some charity . fitz-harris . so that the mony received here , was plainly upon another account . l. ch. just . look you , if you will have any papers read , they shall be read . but the gentlemen of the jury must not see any papers but what are read . then the petition of mrs ▪ fitz-harris , and the king's letter to the duke of ormond , was read , about a pension in ireland . fitz-harris . my lord , if you please , i have something further to say to mrs. wall. but i desire to ask mr. cowling a question , and that is , sir , what mrs. wall said to you about my business ? mr. cowling . my lord , i think , the day after this man was examined in the council , i came to mrs. wall , and she told me , that the s●cond or third night before he was taken , he came to her to bring him to the king ; but she sent down stairs , that she would not let him come up . but asked him , why he did not go to one of the secretaries of state ? no , said he , i can't go thither wi●hout being taken notice of ; but i 'le tell you my business . no , said she , if you will write down your business , and give it me in a paper , i will carry it to the king ; and if the king have a mind to speak with you , you shall be sent for . no , said he , i will not do that . then , said she , i must b●g your pardon if i don't bring you to the king. and mrs. wall said further to me , truly her blood did chill when she said so , for she was afraid he was come to do the king a mischief . mr. attorn . general . this was three or four nights before he was taken . fitz-harris . is sir robert thomas here ? ( he did not appear ) then i desire my lord howard to stand up . lord howard . have you any thing to say to me , mr. fitz-harris ? fitz-harris . yes , my lord , if you please . my lord , i desire your lordship will please to tell , what my lady portsmouth did express to you concerning me , at your coming thither ; and whether i did not introduce your lordship ; and how civil she was to me upon that account ; and how she undertook to get my quit-rent for me . lord howard . sir , i shall answer as particularly as i can all your questions ; but it will be necessary to introduce my evidence with the relation of the whole transaction . you know , about october last , about the beginning of the month , for it was , as i take it , ten days , or a fortnight , before the ●itting down of the parliament , you did make applications to me , in the name of the king , whether with or without his privity i cannot say ; but you did make several invitations to me , of putting my self into the possession of an honour i was altogether unworthy of , of waiting upon the king. i gave you my reasons why i thought my self unfit for that honour , because i was not in any capacity of doing the king any service : and i looked upon the king as a person too sacred , and whose time was too precious to be trifled away upon one that had nothing to offer to him , and therefore i refused it . but notwithstanding this , was reinforced by you ; and when i still persisted in the denial of that which was an honour i ought rather to have sought , but only because i thought my self uncapable of deserving it . after several applications , i did at last tell you , besides the impertinency of it , i did also apprehend it might be the occasion of some indecency ; for perhaps i might thereby put my self upon d●claring my self in some of my sentiments , very much differing from those of his majesty . and for me to seek an opportunity to express my contrari●ty to his majesty's thoughts , would be both rudeness and imprudence ; and therefore i did then ultimately answer you , i would by no means be prevailed with . then you did lower it , and said , it should suffice , if i would wait upon the dutches● of portsmouth . truly , i told you , as to that too , you did me a great honour , and greater than i could ▪ expect , for i had nothing ( i was afraid ) worthy her trouble ; and therefore i desired to know what it might mean. in short , you did resolve it into this , that you did find the king under great app●ehension , that there was something deep in the hearts of some , that stood at a distance from his majesty , and opposite to his interest ; and that the parliament stood at an irreconcileable difference with the king. truly , said i , i am a p●rson not ●it to speak in the name of a parliament , for in a little time they will speak for themselves ; but if i were to speak , or should presume to speak in the name of the parliament , or the whole nation , i should say , i believed the king would find his parliament meeting him with as great affection , duty , and loyalty , as any parliament ever met any king of england . you said , then you were confident , and you cited her grace the dutchess of p●rtsmouth for it , that the king came to meet them with inclinations to gratify them in any thing they could d●sire . then , said i , to what end need i come there , for the parliament will speak its own sense speedily . pray do me that kindness , as to go and satisfie the dutchess of portsmouth , and to let her know she may now have an opportunity of declaring how willing she is to be a good instrument between the king and his people . said you , i can assure you , that she is altogether for the same interest that you look towards ; for you are very much mistaken if you think she is a friend to the duke of york . my lord , in short ▪ after much intreaty , i did give my self that honour , which i have no cause to repent or be ashamed of , to go to whitehall , humbly to kiss my lady dutchess's hand , and receive her commands . but when i came there , i was surprized with a greater honour of finding the king there , and i think it was an opportunity , wherein my time was not ill spent as to my self , but i am afraid this 250 l. if it were given for the bringing me thither , his majesty doth not think he hath deserved it at this time . fitz-harris . your lordship came there in october last . lord howard . because i will do you all the right i can , it was , as i take it , the beginning of october , and about the 10 th , because the parliament sat down the 23 d , and as i remember , it was a fortnight before . this was the first time that i owe you thanks for the honour of seeing the king. after that , a matter of ten days , i had a second opportunity , and by your means also . this was the last time i had the honour to se● the king , but in publick . after this , i must confess , when the parliament was ended , i did then , willingly enough , invite my self to the honour of waiting upon the dutchess , and give her thanks , and tell her , i was sensible she had endeavoured , as much as in her lay , to perswade the king into a good opinion of the parliament , and to give them time of sitting , and thereby to give them opportunity of explaining their intentions for his service and advantage . this was also the last time i had the honour of seeing her . at last , parting from her , i did make it my humble request to her , that she would be pleased to represent your condition to the king , since by your means i had the honour to be shewed the way to her graces lodgings . fitz-harris . my lord , did not i come to you with a message , the night before my lord stafford was condemned ? lord howard . you say right , and it was in my thoughts , and yet i thought it too tender a thing to speak of ; and therefore i thought it so , because , i must confess , at that time ( you must excuse me ) i did believe you did not come with that authority you pretended to make use of . after the time that unfortunate lord had had his trial , and the house were preparing their thoughts for the sentence , i was indisposed , and came not to the house that day ; which provoked ▪ the house so much , that they were near committing me to the tower ; but truly i was so ill in body , and had so little a mind to have my vote mixed with his blood , that perhaps i should have run the hazard of going to the tower about it , if that had been all . but the night before you came to me , and told me , as a great secret , that you did bring it as the desire of the king , and as that which he would take as a great instance of my resignation to his will and pleasure , and that for which i might promise my self all the greatest kindnesses possible for a prince to shew to his subjects , if i would go the next day and give my vote for my lord stafford . sir , said i , i have all the obligations of nature and blood to dispose me , as much as can be , to favour my lord stafford , as far as can consist with the integrity and sincerity of a judg ; but though i was wavering in my own thoughts the day before , now by the grace of god i will go , though i be carried on mens backs to the house . now i see there is so great an account put upon it , for i see 't is the concerns , not only of my lord stafford , but the protestant cause ; and then , said i , if all the relations i have were melted down into my lord stafford , if i had but breath enough to pronounce his doom , he shall die . mr. attorn . gen. my lord says , he did not think you came from the king when you came with that message . lord howard . sir , can i do you any more service ? i shall be willing to do it if i can . i cannot deny but i had , by your means , the honour of waiting upon the king and the dutchess , but i have so little reason to value my own worth , that i cannot imagine how it should turn to the king's service . dr. oates . my lord , i desire to have liberty of going away , the croud is so great i cannot stand , and the prisoner hath nothing to say to me . mr. attorn . gen. my lord , that may be part of the popish plot , to keep dr. oates here , to kill him in the crowd . fitz-harris . have not you something more to say doctor ? truly i forget , my memory is so distracted . dr. oates . i know not , if you have any questions to ask me , i will speak truth . ( but he had none , so the doctor went away . ) mrs. fitz-harris . call mr. fanshaw . ( who did not appear . ) fitz-harris . my lady dutchess of portsmouth . mrs. wall. she is not come , because the court is very full ; but if the court will send for her , she will come presently . fitz-harris : my lord , i beg that my lady dutchess of portsmouth may be sent for . mrs. wall. she gave me commission to say , if the court would have her to come , she would so do . l. ch. just . we cannot send for her , if she please to come , so , we have no occasion to send for her . mrs. wall. i presume he can't ask her no questions , but what i can answer . l. ch. just . we will not prejudice the prisoner in his questions , nor send for her , unless she will come . fitz-harris . will you send one of your footmen , mrs. wall , i am a prisoner , and have no body to send . in the mean time , where is the porter ? mrs. wall. here he is . fitz-harris . how long is it since you paid the mony to me from my lady portsmouth ? porter . i cannot tell indeed , 't is so long since . fitz-harris . let him have his oath . l. ch. just . no , that he can't have . fitz-harris . was it not christmass last was twelve month ? porter . i can't indeed tell what time it was . fitz-harris . you dare not speak the truth . mr. just . dol●en . you disparage your own witnesses . mr. serj. jefferies . he hath no witnesses can say any thing for him , and therefore he must find fault with what they say . l. ch. just . have you any other witnesses , mr. fitz-harris ? fitz-harris . yes , my lord , my lord of arran . l. ch. just . what say you to my lord ? fitz-h . did not my wife shew you this libel the sunday that i was taken ? e. of arran . i do not remember i ever heard it , till i heard it read in the house . fitz-harris . did you not read it , my lord ? e. of arran , no , not that i remember . fitz-harris . did not i tell you , i was carrying it to the king ? e. of arran . not that i know of . fitz-harris . was it not a dispute , whether this was treason , or not ? e. of arran . you did shew me a libel , but whether this , or no , i cannot say ; perhaps it was this . i took him for an honest man , my lord ; i have known him five years , and knew his family to be a good family ; i happened to be at dinner with him the day he was taken . after dinner there were some papers he pulled out , and i threw them away . i told you , you would do your self a mischief , some time or other , in medling with such papers . there we drank a bottle or two of wine together , and then we parted . as soon as i came home , i heard this gentleman was seized on , and taken , which surprized me much . and this is all the account i can give of the matter . fitz-harris . then your lordship did not read the paper ? e. of arran . no indeed not i. fitz-harris . did not i tell you , i had a promise of a quit-rent for secret-service ? e. of arran . i do not know particularly what he told me of the quit-rent ; bu● i was willing to do him all the good i could , about a reversion of a pension that he had in the right of his wife ; that was part of my business that day , and thinking he very well deserved it . i am very sorry to see that his fathers son , as the phrase is in ireland , should be accused of such a crime . mr. attorn . gen. my lord , before you go , i desire to ▪ ask you one question ; did you observe ever that he was employed by the french king , or the french ambassador's confessor ? e. of arran . no , my lord , never as i heard of . he used to speak as honestly as any man ; i thought him of the best and loyallest principles of any of his religion . mr. serj. jefferies . what religion did you take him to be of ? e. of arran . he always owned himself a papist , and he and i have had some disputes about it . fitz-harris . mr. secretary jenkins , i desire to know of your honour , what the king said of me ? mr. sec. jenkins . i remember the king did conjure him , to declare who the author of the libel was . fitz-harris . you are a man of honour , sir ; did not the king own he had employed me ? mr. sec. jenkins . i never remember the king did own he had made use of him , by mrs. wall 's means , or otherwise . fitz-harris . my lord conway , don't you remember it ? e. of conway . no , not upon my honour . but i have heard him say , he did formerly imploy you in some trifling things . fitz-harris . did not the king declare in council , that i had gotten mony of him ? e. of conway . that was for my lord howard of escrick's business . mr. serj. jefferies . now your lorship is here , i would ask you , did you ever hear the king declare when he first spoke with the king ? e. of conway . the king never spoke with him till after he was taken ; he was taken the 27 th of february , and the king never spoke with him till the 28 th , the day after . fitz-harris . did not you tell me , if the king did put himself upon the parliament , they would use him as his father was used . mrs. wall. i never told you any such thing . you promised me to bring in my lord howard of escrick ; but they found themselves mightily mistaken in what was promised he would do when he came in . l. ch. just . why , mr. fitz-harris , you cast any thing upon any body to make a noise . fitz-harris . where is mr. peacock ? mrs. fitz harris . i would know of her what mr. bulstrode said . l ch. just . that every body may see you are fairly dealt with , you shall have all the liberty that can be given . you must not ask what another said , but call them themselves to say what they know . here is mr. bulstrode himself . fitz-harris . mr. bulstrode , then , what message did you bring from the king to my wife ? mr. bulstrode . no message at all ; but i 'le tell you what i know . ▪ mrs. fitz-harris , soon after her husband came to be close confined , delivered a petition to the king in the park ; and the king was pleased to give it to me , as he frequently does . mrs. fitz-harris came to me to tell her what the king said to it . said i , the king hath given me no commands at all in it , but this , carry it to the secretary of state , for i cannot say any thing to it . for the king generally tells me what he will have done with such a petition . but she was so very importunate , i asked the king again ; sir , said i , mrs. fitz-harris is very importunate what is your majesty's pleasure in it . said the king , if she have a mind to petition the council , she may , i will neither meddle nor make with it . afterwards i met her several times , and she said , her husband was very severely and hardly used , and she was denied the liberty of coming to him said i , i hear he is guilty of a very foul thing , and there is no way to help him , but by discovering the author of that villanous libel . for she asked me , what i thought of her husband ; and she told me , she intended to try what she could do for him . i said there was no way to do any good , but to make a full discovery of the author . then , said she , if the king would but let me speak with him , i am sure i could do him service , and prevail with him to discover the author . so i told the king of it ; and the king said , if she will come and be examined , with all my heart . and as soon as ever i heard she was come to town , i told her what the king said : and she told me she would willingly come ; and if the king would give her leave to speak with her husband , she did not doubt to prevail with him . that night , about midnight , after i was in bed , and had been in bed two hours , she came to my door and knocked me up . so i rose , and put on my night-gown , and went down , and i heard a voice which i thought was hers . so she came out of the coach to me , and told me , said she , i am come to you to beg of you , that you would be secret , and not to let the court know that i was to come to have any conference with you , for if you do , i am undone and ruined , for there are some persons , my friends , that will not look upon me if they hear any such thing . the next morning i went to her , and told her , the king had directed she should be examined in the afternoon , and she should come down to be examined : which she did ; and as soon as the council was up , i told his majesty she was below . so he ordered some to examine her ; but when i told her of it , said she , if the king will not speak alone with me , i will not speak a word , nor be examined . this is the truth of it , i assure you , my lord , upon my salvation . fitz-harris . where is mr. peacock ? mrs. fitz-harris . what did mr. bulstrode say to me ? l. ch. just . look you , mrs. fitz-harris , and you gentlewoman , you must not be heard to talk of discourses amongst your selves , and to examine what discourse passed between person and person , up and down ; that is not to be permitted in a court , the witness is here , ask him himself . what hath been said to her will be no evidence . mrs. fitz-harris . what offer did you make me ? mr. bulstrode . none ▪ i told you this would be the way to ruin your husband . fitz-harris . my lord , i beg of you , may not i ask what he did say ? l. ch. just. no , 't is no evidence . fitz-harris . then call mr. henry killigrew . ( but he not appearing , the prisoner would have asked what he had been heard to say , but it was not permitted . ) mrs. wall. here is the footman , richard perrot . fitz-harris . how long ago is it since you brought the mony to me from my lady portsmouth ? perrot . i never brought any . fitz-harris . was it not he brought the mony ? mrs. wall. ask him . fitz-harris . was my lord howard ever at your house before october last ? perrot . i do not know . l. ch. just . what use do you make of that ? fitz-harris . pray , my lord , when did you go to my lady dutchesses's ? was it before october last ? lord howard . i think not , i take it as near as i can , it was just before the session of parliament . fitz-harris . it was ten days before the session . then my lady dutchess of portsmouth appeared , and a chair was set for her . fitz-harris . i am sorry to see your grace come here upon any such account , but i hope your grace will excuse me , 't is for my life . i desire to know of your grace , whether i was not employed to bring several papers to the king , and among the rest , the impeachment against your grace : and thereupon your grace was pleased to tell me , that it was a great piece of service to bring those sort of papers ; and if i could find out men serviceable for that purpose , i should do the king good service . i told your grace , i knew one master everard , who knew all the intrigues , and all the clubs in the city , and could tell all the desings of my lord of shaftsbury , and all that party . and your grace did encourage me to go on , and i did , by your grace's direction , and by your means i came to speak with the king about it . lady-dutchess . when must i speak ? sir george jefferies . now madam ; and will you grace now be pleased to stand up . lady-dutchess . i have nothing at all to say to mr. fitz-harris , nor was concerned in any sort of business with him . all i have to say is , he desired me to give a petition to the king to get his estate in ireland ; and i did three or four times speak to the king about it . but i have not any thing else to say to him ; i never spoke to him about any thing else . fitz-harris . does not your grace remember what directions i received about my lord howard ? lady dutchess . i know nothing of that , i sent you not to my lord howard . l. c. just . if you will ask any questions of my lady , do ; but do not make any long discourses . fitz-harris . my lord , my lady may forget . madam , does not your grace remember , you undertook , upon the account of those papers i conveyed , that you would procure me my quit-rent ? lady dutchess . i never had any papers . fitz harris . not that paper of the impeachment against your grace ? lady dutchess . no. fitz-harris . upon what account then had i the mony i received ? lady dutchess . for charity . fitz-harris . i am sorry your grace is so much under mrs. wall 's influence . lady dutchess . i come not here to wrangle with you , mr. fitz-harris , i am come here to say what i know , and will not say one bit more . fitz-h . have i had any money of your grace since you knew my l. howard ? lady dutchess . you never had but that for charity . fitz harris . when did your grace ask it for me ? lady dutchess . i do not remember the time. mr. fitz-harris , if i had any thing in the world to do you good , i would do it ; but i have it not , and so can't see that i am any ways more useful here . ( then her grace went away . ) l. c. j. mr. fitzharris , have you any more witnesses that you would have called ? fitzharris . no , my lord. mr. serj. maynard . will you apply them you have called ? l. c. j. well , have you any thing further to say ? fitzharris . yes , my lord , i have something further to offer for my self : i will tell you what i know , since my witnesses will not do me justice . gentlemen of the jurie , you are my judges in point of law as well as fact , and my bloud will be required at your hands , if you do not do me right . my lord , i cannot forbear complaining to the court of the hard usage i received in prison , contrary to the statute of the 31th of his majesties reign ; greater oppression hath been done to me than to any before : my lord stafford , sir thomas gascoign , and others , had all the libertie they could desire , to enable them to make their defence against their trial ; which i have had denied me . but my defence consists of two heads , and i shall relie upon the consciences of the jurie for the issue : though my lady portsmouth , and mrs. wall , and the rest , are pleased to say , that i was not employed , nor received money for secret services , yet 't is very well known i did so . ▪ as to mr. everard , when i met with him , though now he hath made it a french storie , yet if he would tell the truth , he knows that it was otherwise : he told me he was well acquainted with my lord of shaftsbury and my lord howard , and in several clubs of the citie he knew all their intrigues ; and that speech that went by the name of my lord shaftsbury's , my lord gave it him before it was printed , and he several other things of that kind . so then i told him , it was a business of the greatest consequence that could be , if he would continue those discoveries . and whereas he says , i would betray the people to the french interest , it is very well known i was always an enemie to the french interest ; but i humoured him in his discourse , and discoursed him to reduce the paper that he accuses me of under some heads ; and that paper i no sooner had , but i came to whitehal with it : and though he said he was to have fortie guinnies , and so said sir william waller too , yet it was onely fortie shillings that he desired for his povertie i would lend him . and as to what he talks of three thousand crowns pension , it is a very unlikely business . when i came to whitehal , i was advised to go to my lord clarendon , or mr. hide . accordingly i did shew it to a gentleman who was to give it to my lord clarendon , but before he could get to him , i was taken . now , my lord , i hope what i did was with a designe to serve the king in discovering what was designed against him , according as i was employed , though both the secretaries are so unkind as not to declare it ; when i know i am in the right , i am not ashamed to speak it , though my life be losed upon it , and i refer it to the gentlemen of the jurie : i was taken before i could come to the speech of my lord clarendon . next , i hope , gentlemen of the jurie , you will consider these are great persons that i have to do with ; and where great state-matters are at the bottom , it is hard to make them tell any thing but what is for their advantage : and so i am left in a sad condition . but , my lord , in the next place , i think 't is impossible for any jurie to find me guiltie , without prejudging of those laws which are not to be judged by any jurie or inferiour court : for if they judge me and bring me in guiltie , 't is murder in them ; and let the bench tell them what they will , 't is of that dang●rous consequence , that it overthrows the government . my lord , here is the impeachment of the house of commons , and here is a copie of the votes of the commons thereupon ; and though they be not laws , yet they are such declarations of the parliament , as that afterwards no other court ought to meddle with that matter ; and the inferiour courts do not use to meddle with parliament-matters : and so , gentlemen , you will lay at your own doors what would lie at theirs , if you meddled not . for though the court have over-ruled my plea , yet the matter is plain before you now who are my judges , and my bloud will lie at your doors , and you must answer it if you do me not justice . and there is no insufficiencie of a plea , as to matter of law , will excuse you in point of fact ; and you are obliged , as you will answer the contrarie to god and your consciences , to do me right . and i hope your lordship and the jurie will take particular notice of this : i have been a close prisoner and had no manner of help , nothing at all allowed me to refresh my memorie ; which if i had had means to do as i ought , i could say a great deal more : but this i insist upon , if the gentlemen of the jurie do bring me in guiltie and convict me , they do shed my bloud , and overthrow the law and course of parliaments : whereas if they bring me in not guiltie , my impeachment ●●ands good still , and i am liable to answer that impeachment before the parliament ; and i hope you will consider the persons i have had to deal with , and that it cannot be made so plain as in matters wherein we deal with common persons . i submit to what you shall think fit . l. c. j. you have done , mr. fitzharris . fitzharris . my lord , i have done ; onely i would examine one gentleman if he were here , but he does not appear . but here 's a copie of the impeachment and votes of the house of commons , i desire i may deliver them to the jury . l. c. j. no , no ; that can't be . fitzharris . sir william waller does declare upon oath , that for this very thing i was impeached by the house of commons ; and that i desire them to take notice of . mr. serj. jefferies . therefore you are not guilty : is that the consequence ? mr. soll. gen. may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , you have heard our evidence , and what the prisoner hath said . the crime for which he is accused , that is high-treason , and 't is treason in conspiring the death of the king , in endeavouring to raise rebellion here , and that in order to destroy the king and the liberty of all the people , and bring them under the slavery of the king of france . this is the treason he was indicted for ; and the proof of this treason is very full ; it is proved to you by three positive witnesses , and all men of credit , of whom you cannot have the least suspition . they prove to you , that mr. fitz-harris is the man guilty of this treason ; he was the contriver of it , he was the mover of it first to mr. everard , and he gave him those instructions to pursue those purposes of raising a rebellion here , in order to destroy the king , by contriving a seditious pamphlet to set the people together by the ears ; and he came to him in order to perfect this libel . this is proved by everard , who upon the first motion of it to him , did acquaint mr. smith immediately and sir william waller that such a design was on foot , and desired them to come and be witnesses of it . they both came , and heard the communication between the prisoner and mr. everard to contrive such a libel as hath been opened to you , and they swear it positively . now what defence does the prisoner make to it ? truely i cannot say whether it have more of folly or impudence in it ; for 't is a defence of a strange nature , for it is inconsistent with it self , and shews what a make he is of ; and the latter part is a pursuing the same treason he stands indicted for , which is the rendring the king odious to his people , by those insinuations that he did this by the kings order . the first part of his defence is , i am not guilty , for mr. everard is the man that did contrive it , and he is the author , and it moves from him . now pray consider the parts of your evidence , and see if there be any possibilitie for you to be induced to believe any thing like it . 't is proved by mr. everard positively , that he came to him first ; and when you consider this objection that is made by mr. fitz-harris , and consider on the other side who were the witnesses , and who is the man that makes the objection , you will then see no cause in the world for you to give any credit to it . the prisoner says he was trepan'd into it ; for that , pray consider he is an irish papist , one that hath all along made it his business to defame the proceedings about the popish plot , to ridicule it , to deny that there was ever any such thing , and to laugh at the justice that was executed upon the popish offenders who died for the plot. the witnesses that prove it against him have been zealous prosecutors of the plot , men that have discovered many of those who were guilty of it , and brought them to justice ; men that have been material evidences upon the discoverie . mr. smith is a man that spoke materially in the trial of my lord stafford , and for which service , i believe , the papists , and mr. fitz-harris himself , owe him little thanks . as for sir william waller , all men know how busie and active he hath been to bring in men that were guilty of the plot , and he hath suffered for it . now if you can believe that mr. smith and sir william waller should be guilty of a trepan that was to be put upon fitz-harris , a man of that perswasion you hear of , ( and you must believe that , or you cannot believe the defence the prisoner makes ) i leave it to you . mr. everard could do nothing alone , why then sir william waller must be guilty of this contrivance , and of setting of fitz-harris on work and everard too : but this is so unlikely a storie , that if there were any to assert any such thing ▪ you could not possibly give any credit to it . but when you consider what hath been proved , and what hath been shewed you under the hand of fitz-harris himself , then there is no room i am sure to doubt . they do positively swear , both smith and sir william waller , they heard him own that he had given instructions to everard . they prove to you that he mended this libel in several places , they not coming up to the instructions he had before given . they prove part of the libel written with his own hand , and that is treason enough ; for that is certainly treason , that 't is the undoubted right of the people to dethrone the king. i never heard of that doctrine any where but among the papists , and 't is a papist that preaches that doctrine to you now . as this is an evidence in a matter beyond any contradiction in the world , his own hand-writing of part , and his owning the giving the instructions ; so there is no room in the world for you to believe that ever he was drawn into this by everard ; or that he was the man that was the original contriver of it , and trepan'd him into it . but it appears plainly upon the proof , that it moved originally from fitz-harris ; that it was the malice of his heart that promoted it ; and that the contrivance was how to raise a rebellion here . for when he had read part of the libel , and everard told him that it was treason , why , said he , i meant it so ; and the more treason , the better ; the more odious you make the king to be , the more likely 't is to raise the people into a rebellion ; and the sooner you raise the people into a rebellion , the more like you are to accomplish the design of bringing the people into slavery to the french king , and so at once to destroy all libertie and propertie , and all that is sacred . no body can believe but mr. fitz-harris is guilty of this libel and contrivance to dethrone the king , and raise a rebellion here , as the witnesses have sworn . now as you cannot possibly doubt but this moves from mr. fitz harris , so then consider the inconsistencie of the second part of his defence , and the impudency of it too . for as before he pretended he was drawn into it by mr. everard , so now he would make you believe he did not do it out of a traiterous designe , for that he was employed about these affairs ; and this comes under the title of secret service ; and he would fain have it that you should believe the king should hire him to raise a rebellion against himself , to defame himself , and to incense the minds of the people against him . and this must be the service that he is put upon ; he had no traiterous intent in himself , but he was to trepan all the lords that stood zealously up for the protestant religion and property , and that by direction from whom ? from the king , whom fitz-harris would have all people to believe to be a papist ; and he would have people believe that he is an innocent man , that he was onely employed upon such a special piece of service ; that the king should be at great pains to employ mr. fitz-harris to destroy himself and the whole nation , and to stain his whole family ; and upon what reasons would he have you to belive it ? as first , you observed how inconsistent it is with the former part of his defence , that he was trepann'd into it ; now he did not do it from mr. everard , nor with a treasonable intention . but certainly this is a treason that nothing can be said to palliate or excuse , and i am sure he hath said nothing will do it . yet all the defence he hath made has tended that way : for though he have not arrived to the confidence to say such a thing is , yet he hath insinuated by the method of his proceedings , that he would fain have such a thing believed , and that the man had no traiterous designe in it . now what evidence hath he produced for it ? he hath produced to you evidence that he hath had money from the king , and hath been sometimes at the dutchess of portsmouth's . that he had money from the king is true , but it little became him to mention it , for it was charity to relieve a man in necessity that was ready to starve , and was forced to go all the ways to work he could to move compassion ; he urged the sufferings of his wives father ; you heard the petition read as a ground for supply ; and he hath so far prevailed upon the kings charity ( which he hath abused ) as to have a sum of money given him , and he hath had the benefit of it ; but he hath made a very ill return for it ; for the thanks he hath given to the king for this his charity , is to flie in the face of him , his familie , and the government : he hath endeavoured to raise a rebellion , and when he is brought to his trial , he continues to defame the king , which is an aggravation of his treason if possible . and now having no proof in the world for these malicious insinuations , and all the witnesses that he hath called to make out what he would fain have believed , and dares not mention , ( not proving any such thing ) you will have little reason , gentlemen , to believe any thing that comes from him , especially if you consider the nature of the libel it self , it is impossible this man should ever be set on work to contrive such a thing as this , to defame the king and all his family , to raise a rebellion , to overthrow all religion , liberty , and the king himself ; it is impossible to be believed . but i fear i press too much upon you , as if i did suspect there could be men in this kingdom so bad as to believe such a malicious insinuation . gentlemen , i leave it to you ; you hear what our evidence is , three witnesses that positively swear this treason against the prisoner . now as you have this positive evidence on the one side , so you have no colour of evidence to the contrary ; and 't is impossible for you not to find him guilty . it is to deny the light of the day ; and 't is a thing of that consequence , that all ages , when they hear of it , will say that there is no justice to be had , if an english jury do not find a verdict according to their evidence . for what security hath a man for his life and estate , if twelve substantial men of a jury shall dare to go against plain and full evidence ? 't is all the security an english-man has , for all he enjoys , that he is to pass through the hands of twelve honest men of his own country . and if it be possible for a jury to go against evidence so plain as this is , i say , no man is safe in his life or estate . mr. serj. jefferies . gentlemen , i desire to take notice of what mr. fitzharris was pleased to conclude withal . he says , his bloud is to be required at your hands ; and therefore he would fain by that means insinuate you out of your ●onsciences . but i think if you consider the circumstances that have been given , and all the evidence , it will be impossible for men that have any respect to their credit and their consciences , to acquit this gentleman . in the first place , it is known , and it hath been given in proof to induce the probabilitie of the matter evidenced against the prisoner at the bar , that he is a known roman catholick ; they are all protestants , and good protestants ; and you are all protestants too . and then the case goes thus far further ; you that are protestants must take it upon your oaths ▪ that these gentlemen have sworn false , and convict them of wilful perjurie ; and if you do convict them , it must be upon the bare allegation of a papist : and i hope never to live to see the day that men that are of good credit , and protestants , shall by an allegation ( though never so confidently affirmed at the bar ) be presumed to be guiltie of perjurie . so that i say , my lord , besides the baseness and venome of this impudent libel , which certainly no honest man in the world will give the least countenance to , here is evidence enough from himself ; and you cannot believe it proceeds from any direction from the crown ( as this man would insinuate , ) and therefore he hath given us the greatest evidence by his libelling at the bar : and he hath not onely libelled the crown , but he hath called up some witnesses on purpose to libel the rest of his own . and then i hope you will take notice how he did insinuate with mr. everard at the beginning ; when you were in the french king's service , said he , and have been neglected ever since you left it : if you will come and joyn with me , without peradventure you may get encouragement fitter than that poor and mean way that you are reduced to by embracing the protestant interest . he gives him a method likewise to walk by : he thought him the person that had writ some pamphlets before , and therefore was fit for his purpose , and ought to be encouraged . and he does tell you the words not onely against the present government , but that which every good protestant must needs abhor and tremble at ; he bids him take care to libel the whole familie . he tells him withal , you must be sure to say that the late king of blessed memorie was concerned even in the irish rebellion ; and that this king hath promoted those persons that his father had countenanced for that action : and he tells him the names of those persons that were so promoted . after this is done , what does mr. everard do ? he goes and makes a discoverie : he tells the circumstances and the persons , to whom , when : and the persons he made that discoverie to , do in every circumstance agree with time , place , and all . the first night this appointment was , i hope you will remember , that when mr. everard had so placed that gentleman against whom there is not the least word said or imagined to finde fault with him , he takes notice of the instructions ; owns that he had given him instructions ; and takes particular notice of one passage , that when mr. everard said , but there may be danger in them , is not this treason ? the prisoner made answer , the more treason the better . aye , but then this is dangerous , how shall i venture upon such matters ? why have you not my hand in it ? i am as guiltie as you , and in as much danger . what then was the reward ? there was to be at present fortie guinnies , and an annual pension ; but to whom was mr. fitzharris to discover this ? not to the king , but to the french embassadour , and the conf●ssor was to be the man that was to give the reward ; flanders was first to be subdued , and the parts beyond the seas , and then engl●nd would be but a morsel for them , they could take that in the way . all this was done , which is plainly sworn by witness that had a place made a purpose for him to over-hear all that passed . and , my lord , for the next witness there is sir william waller ; there is this , besides what is sworn , agreeing in circumstance : he tells you both , to their very money , that it was fortie somewhat , but he cannot say guinnies ; and he tells you something of the pension , a great many thousand crowns ; and he tells you particularly of that circumstance of the french confessor and the french embassadour . besides all this , does not sir william waller tell you this very thing , that he espi'd him with a pen and ink , that he gave a note of the libel it self , and he heard him give the directions ? and when he came into the room , he saw the ink fresh upon the paper ; and when he heard him give directions for the alteration of particular words , he said , you have not worded it according to my mind in such and such particular places . but , my lord , there is this venome in it further to be taken notice of , that he gave his instructions to draw it so , as that it might best take effect according to his intention : for when mr. everard thought it might do well to make it with thou and thee , as though it should be the desi●ne of the quakers , he said , no , by no means ; but put it in 〈◊〉 the phrase , as if it was the designe of all the protestant 〈◊〉 and so by that means would draw the odium upon them , and bring them in danger as well as others . and this is confirmed too by sir william waller ; so that in every circumstance he hath snewed the venome of his design . but in the last place , which surel● the gentlemen of the jury will not forget what sir william waller said , that fitzharris did say , i have taken care already to disperse abundance of libels amongst our partie : and when everard told him of a libel that was some while before , he said , he had seen that a great while ago , and there might be somewhat in it to the purpose . and for the answer that hath been given to it , my lord , i think it does not bear any sort of relation to the charge that is upon him : for whatsoever discourse , or whatsoever he hath urged , is not much to his purpose . he hath brought here a noble-man ; but after all , i would put him in mind of one thing that noble-man said , he did believe he came to him in the name of one that sent him not : and so will every body say that hath heard the evidence ; for all his witnesses do positively deny that they ever knew of any such matters as he speaks of . and now , my lord , i could be very glad if this gentleman ( instead of saying as he hath said ) would have come as soon as he had this libel from everard , and discovered it immediately to some-body himself before he had carried it on , as everard did before the thing was perfected . and so , gentlemen , we do think upon this evidence we have left you without all manner of excuse , it being impossible , upon such a proof as this is : and considering the nature and venome of the libel it self , the base venomous malicious instigations he made use of to effect it , and the ends for which it was done , to bring in the french to set us together by the ears , to render the king odious to his people ; and the person 't is acted by , a known irish papist ; i cannot doubt of the issue : and i do hope when i see so many honest gentlemen and protestants at the bar , they will be loth to forfeit their own souls to eternal damnation , to save a man that is guiltie of such a treason as this . l. c. j. have you done , gentlemen ? sir geo. jefferies . yes . l. c. j. then look you , gentlemen of the jurie ; here is mr. fitzharris indicted for treason against the king , and 't is for endeavouring to take away his life , to make him odious to his subjects , to incite them to a rebellion , and to raise arms here in this kingdom against our king our soveraign . and by the indictment it is said that he hath declared these endeavours and these intentions , by causing a scandalous and evil pamphlet or libel to be written , with an intent to be dispersed through the kingdom . the words of the libel you have heard particularly read ; some of them are taken out and mentioned in this indictment . mr. fitzharris hath been arraigned , and hath pleaded not guiltie ; and you are to trie the single matter before you , whether mr. fitzharris be guiltie of this treason . that this is treason , and contains a treasonable matter , gentlemen , is so plain , as no body living can doubt it : but it is a treason of as high a nature as peradventure ever was in the kingdom of england , and tends as much to that which would be the destruction both of the king and kingdom . the king's life , all our lives , all we have that is dear to us , or of any advantage or avail in the world , are concerned in this . for what does it tend to ? it tends to a popular insurrection , to raise the people up in arms , that like a deluge would over ▪ run and sweep away all . it is to undo the government and all order in the kingdom , and to destroy the life and being of all that is good amongst us . amore virulent and villanous book certainly was never written ; nor any thing that tended more to sedition , or to incite the people to a rebellion : such a book as peradventure no well-govern'd kingdom ever heard of the like . it tends to defame the king and all his ancestors , and to blast all that shall come after him , to raise us into a tumult . and what is all this to do ? to settle the roman catholick religion amongst us . and this is such a piece of the art of the jesuits , which peradventure hath out-gone all they have done before . it seems to be their hand directly , and we are all concerned as english-men to take care of such villanies . this is the nature of the treason that is comprised in this book . whether mr. fitzharris was the author , or directer , or contriver of this book , is the question before you . ( for plainly ( without any suppose ) the book contains in it as high a treason as ever was . ) and as to that , gentlemen , you must consider that this appears evidently to be a designe of the roman catholick partie ; 't is a jesuitical designe : for this is that they aim at , to confound all things , that they may fish in troubled waters . and you see they have found out an apt instrument , an irish papist , one that hath been all-along continually concerned with them , and intermedled in several of these plots and papers . gentlemen , the evidence that is given here against him is by three persons , and there is great evidence from the matter that is produced , besides those persons . there is mr. everard does declare to you the whole of this , and mr. fitzharris's application to him to write this book . he tells you the intention of it , and he gives you the very grounds upon which this was to be written ; that is , to raise sedition , that was the first instruction ; to raise a sedition in the kingdom , and this was to busie us at home , that the french king might get flanders and the low countries , while we are confounded at home : and then the catholicks have their game to play , and carry all before them . look you , gentlemen , mr. everard is so cautious , that he walks not alone in the case , but with a great deal of prudence declares it to others , that they may be witnesses in the case for him . mr. smith does agree in all things for the first night that mr. everard hath declared , how that he heard the directions owned as given by mr. fitzharris for the writing this book , and he heard the designe of it , he heard there was a reward promised to him for the doing of it , and he tells you some of the instructions . the next night sir william waller was present ; and he tells you all the instructions of that night , and that fitzharris owned them , that he gave those instructions in the private consult . but that that is not to be answered , gentlemen , is his own instructions in writing ; what can be said to that ? if you were doubtful of the credit of these gentlemen , yet mr. fitzharris's own instructions in writing under his hand , are an evidence beyond all controul in the world that he gave those directions ; and these are treason , that is plain . and therefore it does seem to be as strong an evidence against mr. fitzharris of this treason , as peradventure ever was given against a traytor . there is not any one witness that stands single , but there are two to each night ; and his own instructions written by himself do not stand upon the evidence of a single witness , for he owned it in the presence of three witnesses : so then a stronger evidence cannot be given that he was the author and director of this book . then , gentlemen , you must consider what he says for himself in excuse of this horrid treason that these witnesses seem so fully to fix upon him . the first witness he brings is dr. oates , and he does tell you , that having some discourse with everard , everard should say , this was a designe of the court , and was to be put into some lords , and i think into some parliament-mens pockets ; and then they were to be apprehended . i think this is dr. oates's testimony . mr. everard is here upon his oath , and he testifies no such thing in the world : 't is easie for one to come and say , i heard a man say so ; perhaps he said it by way of conjecture ▪ but that is no answer to direct proof . mr. sheriff cornish is the next witness , and he says , he had some discourse with the king , and the king should say , he thought mr. fitzharris had been an honest man , and had given him some money . mr. sheriff cornish . no , my lord , the king said he took him to be an ill man. l. c. j. then it seems i was mistaken ; his majestie did not tell him he took fitzharris to be an honest man , but an ill man. but that he had formerly some money of the king upon pretence of doing him some service , now that brings it out what the kings meaning was : for it seems there had been begg'd some money for him , and the king at my lady portsmouth's desire , by way of charitie , gave him some little matter of money ; he boasting and telling the king he could do him some service . you see what manner of service it is ●e would have done for him and the kingdom . then as to all the rest of his evidence , there is mrs. wall and my lady dutchess of portsmouth ; and he hath examined them concerning the money he hath received , and they both declare upon what ground that money was given : it was given , they tell you , for a gratuitie from the king to him ; and upon his boasting , says mrs. wall , that he could do the king service , and bring over persons to his interest . i think there is no other witness very material : for as for mr. bulstrode's evidence , it signifies nothing at all ; it is not material for him or against him in the case : a discourse about delivering a petition to the king from his wife . now , gentlemen , you must consider what ill use this gentleman designes to make of the kings charitie and favour to him ; he gave him some money to relieve his wants , and now would he interpret this and insinuate this to be given for ill purposes , for to make him trepan his subjects ; which is another piece of virulencie that these papists always exercise against the king ; they always make an ill use of his best actions , and an ill interpretation of them . for , gentlemen , can it be believed that the king would ever designe such a thing as this is , to blacken his family for ever , to stir up all his subjects against him , to endanger his crown and kingdom , and all that he has in the world ? and all this to what purpose ? no colourable designe can be made of it . this is such a thing to excuse such a villany , as never was heard of , by wresting the kings charitie and generositie to such ill purposes ; but that some men have the confidence to do any thing . i must leave it to you . here are three witness his own hand to these instructions , and his making a declaration that it was not treasonable enough , nor virulent enough . all these things are strong evidences in the case . and if you believe these witnesses and his own hand-writing , 't is a plain case you must find him guilty . fitz-harris . may i have libertie to speak one word ? l. c. j. gentlemen , i had forgot one thing . for fear it make an impression in you , because i see he hath inculcated it often and often , and that is , the impeachment that was by the commons house of treason against mr. fitz-harris in the lords house . i must tell you , gentlemen , that is not before you at all ; the matter of that was by way of abatement pleaded to the jurisdiction of this court , and that is now over . you must have no consideration , nor can have any consideration of that now . your question is not whether we have authority to trie this cause , but you are impannell'd and sworn to one point , and that is , whether fitz-harris be guiltie of this treason or not : whether the court have authoritie to do it , is another question proper for our determination , and we have determined it ; but there is nothing of that lies before you in this case . therefore you must not be mis●ed with any thing that he talks so fondly of concerning the impeachment , or concerning his bloud lying at your doors , that surely will signifie nothing to men of understanding at all . mr. johnson . my lord , 't is our unhappiness to come before you under these circumstances . we have understood there is a vote of the commons of england in parliament , that says this man shall not be tried in any inferiour court ; now we take our selves to be the judges of this man in part under your lordship's directions . mr. serj. maynard . you are not judges of it , you are onely to trie the fact . mr. johnson . i onely offer my sense , and if the other gentlemen think otherwise they will speak it . i think the office of a juror is such , that it is within his power to acquit or condemn according to the evidence as it lies within his own conscience . now if we should acquit this man , ( we have no assurance we shall acquit him , onely suppose it ) then there is nothing against him but what lies in a parliamentary way , and we shall forejudge their cause . therefore , i say , i do not know how far by law we are compellable to give a verdict in this case upon him . l. c. j. look you , gentlemen , we would consult your satisfaction as much as we can in all things ; and 't is reasonable that if you have any doubts you should propose them to us , and to that purpose we are to give you satisfaction , and will in all things . i must tell you , as to the jurisdiction of the court , that is not at all before you ; and as to the vote of the house of commons alleadged by him , if any such there be , that cannot alter the laws of the land , nor justifie any of us in departing from our duties , no more than if a letter or mandate should be gained from the prince or chief magistrate of this kingdom to any of us in derogation of justice , ( as it 's possible by surprize to be ) we are to take notice of the one , no more than the other . we are upon our oaths to do justice according to the laws of the land : you likewise are upon your oaths , and sworn to do justice in your sphere ; and your oath is , that you shall enquire truly whether he be guilty or not ; and if he be guilty in your judgments , you can no more spare him than you can condemn an innocent person . it never was pretended by any man , nor will it be asserted by an● man that understands himself or the constitution of the government of this kingdom , that a vote of the house of commons can change the law of the land. it cannot excuse us , if we deny to try a man that is brought before us ; nor will it excuse you , being under an oath , justly to try him . if you should ( because the ●ommons house have voted that he shall not be tried ) declare that man innocent , who in your own judgement you believe to be nocent ; you nor we are not to consider what will be the consequence of this , if this man be acquitted or condemned ; that is not before us . you and we too are tyed precisely to the laws of the land , and by that law must this man be judged . as to our parts , we must do it as to the law , and you as to the fact. but i 'll tell you further , gentlemen , this doubt was moved to us by the grand jury , before the bill was found ; we had an intimation that they would move such a doubt to us as seems to be your doubt now . therefore for their satisfaction , and the taking away any scruple that might be in the case , all the judges of england did meet together , and seriously debate the matter and substance of all this ; and it was not our opinion of this court onely , but the opinion of all the judges of england , that we had a jurisdiction to try this man. this we have told you , because we would satisfie all men to go on fairly in the things that are before them . therefore that being put out of the case , you must consider of your verdict , and give it in upon this tryal . mr. johnson . we do not doubt , my lord , but your opinion in this case will indempnifie us from any future charge by the commons of england . but it lies before us to consider what we are bound to do in the case . mr. just . jones . gentlemen , i suppose you do not doubt but we are all of the same opinion . it is no marvel indeed to hear a man that stands in fitzharris's place , to object any thing that may cast a mist before your eyes . and yet it cannot but be wondered at too , that when three protestant witnesses have sworn precisely , he should have the confidence to urge any thing of this nature ; he wh● appears by the indictment it self , and the proofs made upon the ●●dictment , to have endeavoured to destroy all the laws of england , all magna charta , all our liberty and our religion , and to inslave us to the king of france : for that appears pla●nly the design , if you have any credit to the witnesses that are produced : he that would have pulled down all that is sacred amongst us , is so zealous for the authority of the house of commons . we have all of us a great reverence for the house of commons , and for their opinions ; but as my lord hath told you , so i tell you my opinion , that a vote of the house of commons does not in the least sort alter the law : for indeed if it did , it were to give a legislative power to the commons , which does onely belong to the king , the house of lords , and the commons together . and , gentlemen , though mr. fitzharris says , if he be acquitted here by you , yet he should remain to be questioned again in parliament ; there is no man in the world can doubt , if he were acquitted here , and were questioned in parliament , but he would say , he hath been upon his legal tryal by his peers , and that he hath been acquitted by his peers upon solemn evidence . but , gentlemen , you are to consider what is your business : your office is to be jurors , not to be judges ; you are not to take upon you any such authority . your commission is your oath , and by that oath you are sworn to inquire whether the prisoner be guilty , as he is indicted , or not : if you , as english-men , can say he is not guilty , let it lie upon your consciences , and the danger of the king's bloud and life be upon you . mr. just . dolben . gentlemen , i desire to speak one word to you , to let you know i am of the same opinion with my lord , and with my brother ; and i cannot but wonder at you for making this scruple : for if there were any thing in what you have said , it concerns us that are judges , and not you at all ; for 't is a matter of jurisdiction : and whether we have a jurisdiction or not , we must satisfie our selves that we have a commission to do it ; it concerns not you . do you but consider the oath you have taken , that you will well and truly trie , and true deliverance make betwixt our soveraign lord the king , and the prisoner at the bar , according to your evidence : and you have sworn a true verdict to give upon it , and do you now scruple whether you should give any verdict or no , when but even now you have sworn you will give a verdict ? if any such thing as this had been in your heads , ( for it might be then in your heads as well as now ) why did not you speak of it before you took your oath ? you now lie under the obligation of an oath to give a verdict according to your evidence , and would you acquit him against such an evidence as hath been given ? for besides what sir william waller , smith , and everard have deposed , the very note sworn by sir philip lloyd and mr. bridgman to be owned by fitzharris as his hand , contains treason enough in it , if there were no more : therefore there must be something more in it , than for the sake of such an unreasonable scruple . mr ▪ just . raymond . i am of the same opinion , truly . mr. johnson . my lord , i took the liberty to speak it now ; i could not speak it before : for i was not then to inquire what i was to be sworn to , nor could i know what would be the matter that would come before us , till we were sworn . therefore i humbly beg your pardon that i made the motion . l. c. j. we are not at all troubled at any thing you have said ; do not mistake us , we do not take it ill from you that you acquaint us with your scruples : we are ready to give all satisfaction we can , to any that are concerned before us ; therefore we are no way troubled that you made any such scruple , but have given you a fair answer to it . mr. johnson . my lord , i desire a note of the names of the jury . l. c. j. give it him , mr. astrey , or else the croud is so great he may not know them . then the jury withdrew for half an hour , and at their return being called over and appearing , the clerk took the verdict . cl. of cr. edward fitzharris , hold up thy hand . ( which he did . ) look upon the prisoner ; how say you , is he guilty of the high-treason whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? foreman . guilty , &c. l. c. j. i think you have found a very good verdict , and upon very full and strong evidence . mr. soll. gen. will your lordship please to give judgment ? l. c. j. we will take time for that . mr. soll. gen. will you give a rule to have him brought up to morrow ? l. c. j. move us another day for it . fitzharris . my lord , i hope i may have the liberty of my wife and some friends now to come to me ▪ l. c. j. any friend i think may come to you : but , mr. fitzharris , you must be modest in the using that liberty we give you . you have heretofore abused your liberty ; i do not love to exasperate things to one in your circumstances , but you must be prudent and careful , knowing your own condition , that you do nothing prejudicial to the king or kingdom . upon wednesday june 15. 1681. edward fitzharris was brought to the bar of the court of kings ▪ bench , to receive his sentence . mr. att. gen. my lord , i humbly pray your judgment against mr fitzharris , who is convicted of high-treason . silence proclaimed during judgment . cl. of cr. edward fitzharris , hold up thy hand . thou hast been indicted and arraigned of high-treason , and hast thereunto pleaded not guilty , and for thy trial put thy self upon god and thy countrie , and thy countrie have found thee guiltie : what can●t thou say for thy self , why judgment of death should not be given against thee , and execution awarded according to law ? fitzharris . my lord , i think it will be prejudicial to the kings service , that sentence should pass before i have made an end of the evidence i have given in against my lord howard . l. c. j. mr. fitzharris , we can take no notice of any thing of that nature . when you are asked what you can say why judgment should not pass against you , it is , what legal matter you have , what matter in law , to excuse your self from that judgment ? for this is nothing , the saying you are to give evidence ; we know nothing of that , it will not delay judgment a minute . and for what you say it will be prejudicial to the kings service , it is the king that prays judgment against you by his attorney . fitzharris . i beg the kings mercie for transportation , my lord. l. c. j. we can do nothing in that . fitzharris . nor to give me time before my execution ? i can say no more , my lord. l. c. j. look you , mr. fitzharris , you have been here indicted for a very great and hainous treason , a treason that is in truth of the first magnitude ; for it is a treason that tends to the rooting up the whole government of this kingdom , and the destroying of us all ; plainly , both of the king and of all his subjects . it does not onely destroy the peace and quiet , but it tends in truth to the utter destruction of the whole kingdom , and to bring us into a confusion and disorder , never to be avoided or retrieved , if your designes should have taken effect . you have been here arraigned , and put your self upon the countrie , and they have found you gultie of this treason : it is a thing you should well consider ; for certainly , you have contracted to your self a mightie guilt in such a thing as this is . you have endeavoured the destruction of the king , and in such a way as must have in truth destroyed all his good subjects together with him . your designe hath been to excite the people to a rebellion , and a popular insurrection , that would have swept away all like a deluge , if it had taken effect . in truth it is a treason against all mankind , the stirring up of the people is ; it is of evil example to all mankind , the stirring up of the people against their natural lord , to whom we owe all allegiance and obedience . but your designe in this was by setting the people of england together by the ears , to bring in the roman catholick religion upon such as should be left . it seems you are an irish papist , and sucked in very ill principles where you have lived ; and you have here endeavoured to do as much mischief in this kingdom by that treasonable book , as lies in any one mans power perhaps to do . it is a mercie and a happiness , that it hath pleased god in his providence to deliver us out of your hands ; for this was your designe , if you could have brought it about : but it hath pleased god now to bring you to justice for it , and the judgement of the law must pass upon you . now that judgment is this : you must return to the tower from whence you came , and from thence you must be drawn through the streets of the city of london to tyburn ; there you shall be hang'd by the neck , but cut down before you are dead ; your bowels shall be taken out and burnt before your face , your head cut off , and your body divided into four quarters to be disposed as shall please the king ; and i pray god to have mercie upon your soul , to give you a sight of your sin , and repentance for it . fitzharris . my lord , i hope i may have the libertie of my wife to come to me , and any friend . l. c. j. you have that liberty already . fitzharris . no , not without the presence of a warder . l. c. j. we will not restrain them as to that , let them come to you . officer . there is no rule of court for it , my lord. l. c. j. we will not restrain any thing of your wife 's coming , there is no rule to restrain her ; but let him have that liberty that other prisoners in his condition usually have had in the tower , his wife to come to him , or any other ●riend or protestant minister whatsoever . officer . pray let it be put into the rule of court , my lord. l. c. j. we make no rule , there does not need any . look you , mr. fitzharris , we lay no restraint upon your wife or any other friend ; but if your wife be in another condition that she can't come to you , we can't meddle with that . mr. just . jones . we are not to deliver her out of prison . l. c. j. no , we make no rule , but take off the hands of the court from restraining any one to come to you . then the prisoner was taken away , and in pursuance of this sentence , the last day of the said trinity-term , being the 22th of june 1681. a writ issued out of the court of kings-bench directed to the lieutenant of the tower of london , reciting the judgment , and commanding him to deliver the prisoner to the sheriff of middlesex upon friday the first day of july next following , to be executed according to the sentence . which writ followeth in these words . carolus secundus dei gratia angl. scot. franc. & hibern . rex fidei defensor , &c. loc. tenen . turris nostrae london . salutem . cum nos in cur. nostra coram nobis consider averimus quod edwardus fitzharris nuper de parochia s. martini in campis in com. midd. gen. pro quibusdum altis proditionibus unde ipse coram nobis indictat . est , & superinde per quandam juratam patrie inde inter nos & prefat . edwardum capt . convict . & attinct . existit , de turr. nostra london . per medium civitatis nostrae london . pred . usque ad furcas de tyborne trahatur , & super furcas illas ibidem suspendatur , & vivens ad terram prosternatur , ac interiora sua extra ventrem suum capiantur , ipsoque vivente comburentur ; et quod caput ejus amputetur , quodque corpus ejus in quatnor partes dividatur , & quod caput & quarter . ill . ponantur ubi nos ea assignare voluerimus : ideo tibi precipimus sirmit . injungend . quod die veneris primo die julii prox . futur . apud tower-hill cum vic. midd. convenias , & pred . edwardum fitzharris eidem vic. midd. deliberari facias , ut idem vic. executionem de eo in forma pred . sieri faciat , prout inde nobis respondere volueris . teste francisco pemberton apud westm . xxij o die junii , anno regni nostri xxxiij o. per cur. astry . and another writ at the same time issued out of the same court , directed to the sheriff of middlesex to receive the prisoner from the lieutenant of the tower at the time appointed , and to execute him according to the sentence . which writ was in these words . carolus secundus dei gratia angl. scot. franc. & hibern . rex fidei defensor , &c. vic. midd. salutem . cum nos in cur. nostra coram nobis consider averimus quod edwardus fitzharris nuper de parochia s. martini in campis in com. midd. gen. pro quibusdam altis proditionibus unde ipse 〈◊〉 nobis indictat . est , & superinde per quandam jur. patrie inde inter nos & prefat . edwardum capt . convict . & attinct . existit , de turr. nostra london . per medium civitatis nostrae london . pred . usque ad furcas de tyborne trahatur , & super furcas illas ibidem suspendatur , & vivens ad terram prosternatur , ac interiora sua extra ventrem suum capiantur , ipsoque vivente comburentur ; et quod caput ejus amputetur , quodque corpus ejus in quatuor partes dividatur , & quod caput & quarter . ill . ponantur ubi nos ea assignare voluerimus : ideo tibi precipimus firmiter injungen . quod cum loc. tenen . turr. nostrae london . pred . die veneris primo die julii prox . futur . apud tower-hill convenias , & ipsum edwardum fitzharris de prefat . loc. tenen . recipias , & executionem de eo in forma pred . facias prout decet . teste francisco pemberton apud westm . xxij o die junii anno regni nostri xxxiij o. per cur. astry . all which was accordingly performed on the day , and at the place appointed . finis . the tryal and condemnation of dr. oliver plunket titular primate of ireland . the third of may 1681 , in easter , 33 car. secund. reg dr. oliver plunket was arraigned at the king's-bench-bar for high-treason , for endeavouring and compassing the kings death , and to levy war in ireland , and to alter the religion there , and to introduce a forreign power : and at his arraignment , before his plea , he urged for himself , that he was indicted of the same high-treason in ireland and arraigned , and at the day for his tryal the witnesses against him did not appear , and therefore he desired to know if he could be tried here for the same fact ? the court told him , that by a statute made in this kingdom , he might be tryed in the court of kings ▪ bench , or by commission of oyer and terminer in any part of england for facts arising in ireland , and that this arraignment there ( he being never tried upon it ) was not sufficient to exempt him from being tried here ; because till a tryal be passed , and there be a conviction or acquittal thereupon , an arraignment , barely , is no plea : for in such cases the party is not put twice in danger of his life , which only is the thing the law in such cas●s looks after to prevent . he then desired time for his witnes●es , which they told him he could not do till after plea pleaded ; whereupon he pleaded not guilty , and put himself upon the country for his tryal ; and after some consideration had about time to be allowed him to bring his witnesses from ireland , the court appointed the day for his tryal , to be the first wednesday in next term , which was full five weeks time . and accordingly on wednesday the 8 th of june , in trinity term , he was brought to his tryal , and proclamation , as in such cases is usual , being made , it proceeded thus . cl. of cr. oliver plunket hold up thy hand , those good men which thou shalt hear called and personally appear , are to pass between , &c. plunket . may it please your lords●ip , i have been kept close prisoner for a long time , a year and an half in prison ; when i came from ireland hither , i was told by persons of good repute , and a councellor at law , that i could not be tryed here ; and the reasons they gave me were , that first the statute of hen. 8. and all other statut●s made here , were not received in ireland ▪ unless there were an express mention made of ireland in them : so that none we●e received there but such as were before poyning's act. so i came with that perswasion that i could not be tr●ed here , till at my arraignment your lordships told me it was not so and that i must ●e tried here , though there was no express mention made of ireland . now , my lord , upon that , whereas my witnesses were in ireland , and i knew nothing of it , and the records upon which i very much relye were in ireland , your lordship was pleased to give me time from the 4 th of the last month to this day ; and in the mean time , as your lordship had the affidavit here yesterday , and as captain richardson can testifie , i have not dispatched only one , ●ut two to ireland , into the counties of armagh , dublin , &c. and where there were records very material to my def●nce ; but the clerk of the crown would not give me any copy of any record at-all , unless he had some express order from your lordship : so that whether it were that they were mistaken , or wilfully refused , i could not get the records which were very material for me . for in some of those records some of those that accuse me were convicted of high crimes , and others were outlawed and imprisoned , and broke prison ; and there were other records also of excommunication against some of them , and i could not get the records , unless your lordship would instruct me in some way or other , how i can get over them that are most material for my defence . the servants that i sent h●nce , and took shipping for ireland , were two days at se● , and cast back again , and from thence w●re forced to go to holly head , and from holly-head in going to dublin they were thirt●●● or fourteen days , the winds were so contra●y ; and then my s●r ●nt went about to go into the county of armagh and derry , that were a hundred miles from dublin , and meath , and other places ; so that in so short a time , my lord , it was morally impossible for them to have brought the witnesses over ; and those that were ready to have come , would nor stir at-all , unless they had a pass from hence , because some of them were roman catholicks , and they had heard that here some were taken prisoners that were roman catholicks , and that none ought to come without a pass ; and th●y being witnesses against the king , they might be clapped up here , and brought into very ill condition : so they sent one over that made affidavit . l. c. j. it was the affidavit was read here yesterday . plunket . so that , my lord , i conceive your lordship will think i did it n●t oat of any intent to put off my tryal , for captain richard●●n is here , who knows that i writ by the post , and desired them to come with the pacquet-boat , and they writ over to the captain after th●y were landed ; so that i depended upon the wind and the weather for my witnesses , and wanted your lordships order for the records to be brought over , and that their examination might be brought into court , and their own original examination here might be compared with it . so i humbly beg your lordships favour , the case is rare , and scarce happens in five hundred years , that one should be in my circumstances . i am come here where no jury knows me , nor the quality of my adversaries ; if i had been in ireland i would have put my self upon my tryal to morrow without any witnesses , before any protestant jury that knew them and me . and when the orders went over , that i should be tryed in ireland , and that no roman catholick should be upon the jury , and so it was in both the grand and other jury ; yet then when i came to my tryal , after i was arraigned , not one appeared : this is manifest upon the record and can be proved . l. c. j. there was no prosecution of you there . plunket . but , my lord , here is no jury that knows me , or the quality of my adversaries ; for they are not a jury of the neighborhood that know them , and therefore my case is not the same with other cases . though i cannot harbor , nor do not , nor will not , nor ought not , the least conceipt of hard measure and injustice ; yet if i have not full time to bring my records and witnesses altogether , i cannot make my defence . some were there then , some afar off , so that it was a miracle that in six or seven counties they could do so much as they did : but they got in seven or eight of them , y●t there were five or six wanting : therefore i beseech your lordship that i may have time to bring my records and witnesses , and then i will defie all that is upon the earth and und●r the earth to say any thing against me . l c. j. look you , mr. plunket , 't is in vain for you to talk and make this discourse here now ; you must know , that by the laws of this kingdom , when a man is indicted and arraigned of treason or felony , 't is not usual to give such time ; 't is rare that any man hath had such time as you have had , five weeks time to provide your witnesses : if your witnesses are so cautious , and are such persons that they dare not , or will not venture for fear of being apprehended , or will not come into england without such and such cautions , we cannot tell how to help it ▪ we can't furnish you with witnesses , you must look to get your witnesses your self ▪ if we should stay till your witnesses will come , perhaps they will never come here , and so you will escape out of the hands of justice . do not be discouraged in this , the jury are strangers to you peradventure , but they are honest gentlemen , and you shall have no other upon your jury ; and you may be confident , that if there be not some fact proved against you , that may amount to treason , you shall be discharged ; they are persons that understand so much , and we will direct them so much . you shall have as fair a tryal as if you were in ireland ; but for us to stay for your witnesses , or send you back to ireland we cannot do it : therefore you must submit to your tryal . we heard your affidavit yesterday , and we did then tell the gentlemen that moved it , as much as we tell you . you are here to be tryed , look to the jury as they are called , and except against them if you will. plunket . my lord , i desire only to have the favour of time , some time this term. l. c. j. we can't do it . cl. of cr. swear sir john roberts . pl●nket . i humbly present this to your lordship , i am then in eminent danger of my life , if i cannot get ten days to have my witnesses over : i desire i may have but to the one and twentieth of this month , and then if they do not come you may go on . l. c. j. we cannot do it , you have had five weeks time already . plunket . i desire but a few days . cryer . sir john roberts , take the book , look upon the prisoner ; you shall well and truly try , &c. plunket . my lord , i desire to know whether they have been of the juries of langhorn , or the five jesuits , or any that were condemned ? l. c. j. what if they have ? that is no exception . then the jury was sworn , whose names follow . sir john roberts , thomas harriott , henry ashurst , ralph bucknall , richard gowre , richard pagett , thomas earsby , john hayne , thomas hodgkins , james partherich , samuel baker , william hardy . cl. of cr. oliver plunket , hold up thy hand . you of the jury look upon the prisoner and hearken to his charge . he stands indicted by the name of oliver plunket , late of westminster , in the county of middlesex dr. of divinity ▪ for that he as a false traytor against the most illustrious and most excellent prince our sovereign lord , charles the second , by the grace of god ▪ of ●ngland , scotland , france and ireland king , and his natural lord ▪ the fear of god in his heart not having , nor weighing the duty of his al●egiance , but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil ▪ the cordial love , and true and due natural obedience ▪ which true and fait●ful subjects of our said sovereign lord the king , towards him our said sovereign lord the king do and of right ought to bear , utterly withdrawing , and contriving , and with all his might intending the peace and common tranquillity within the kingdom of ireland , as also of this kingdom of england to disturb , and war and rebellion against our said sovereign lord the king in the kingdom of ireland , then being the dominion of our said sovereign lord the king in parts beyond the seas , to st●● up and move , and the government of our said sovereign lord the king there to subvert , and our said sovereign lord the king from his regal power and government there to depose and deprive , and our said sovereign lord the king , that now is , to death and final destruction to bring and put , and the true worship of god within the said kingdom of ireland , by law established and used , to alter to the superstition of the romish church ; the first day of december , in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord charles the second , now king of england , &c. the two and thirtieth , and divers other days and times , as well before as after , at dublin in the kingdom of ireland in parts beyond the seas , with divers other false traitors unknown , traitorously did compass , imagine and intend the killing , death and final destruction of our said sovereign lord the king , and the antient government of his said kingdom of ireland to change , alter , and wholly to subvert , and him our said sovereign lord the king , that now is , from the crown and government of his kingdom of ireland a●oresaid to depose and deprive , and the true protestant religion to extirpate , and war and rebellion against our said sovereign lord the king there to move and levy . and to fulfil and accomplish his said most wicked treasons , and traitorous compassings , imaginations and purposes aforesaid ; he the said oliver plunket , the said first day of december , in the abovesaid two and thirtieth year of the reign of our said sovereign lord the king , that now is , with force and arms , &c. at dublin , in the kingdom of ireland , then being the dominion of our said sovereign lord the king in parts beyond the seas , maliciously , devilishly and traitorously did assemble and gather together himself , with divers other traitors unknown , and then and there devilishly , advisedly , maliciously , subtilly and traitorously did consult and agree our said sovereign lord the king , that now is , to death and final destruction to bring , and from his crown and government aforesaid to depose and deprive , and the religion of the romish church into the kingdom of ireland aforesaid to introduce and establish ; and the sooner to fulfil and perfect his said most wicked treasons , and traitorous imaginations and purposes , he the said oliver plunket with divers other false traitors unknown , then and there advisedly , maliciously and traitorously did further consult and agree to contribute , pay and expend divers great sums of money to divers subjects of our said sovereign lord the king , and other persons unknown , to procure th●m the said persons unknown , o●r said sovereign lord the king , that now is , traitorously to kill , and the romish religion into the said kingdom of ireland to introduce and establish . and that he the said oliver plunket and other trait●rs unknown , afterwards , to wit , the said first day of december , in the two and thirtieth year of the reign of our said sovereign lord the king abovesaid , at dublin aforesaid , in the kingdom of ireland aforesaid , within the dominion of our said sovereign lord the king , with force and arms , &c. unlawfully , maliciously , devilishly , and traitorously did receive , collect , pay and expend divers great sums of money to divers persons unknown , to perswade and induce divers other p●rsons also unknow● , the said false traytors in their said treasons to help and maintain , against the duty of his allegiance , and against the peace of our said sovereign lord the king , that now is , his crown and dignity , and against the form of the statutes in that case made and provided . to this indictment he hath pleaded , not guilty . mr. heath . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , this is an indictment of high-treason against dr. oliver plunket the prisoner at the bar , and it sets forth , that the two and thirtieth year of the king , at dublin in the kingdom of ireland , he did compass and imagine the death of the king , and to deprive the king of his kingdom of ireland , and to raise war to extirpate the protestant religion in the kingdom of ireland , and to establish the romish religion there . and it sets forth further , that for the accomplishment of these treasons , the defendant with several others did meet together at several places at dublin in the kingdom of ireland , and elsewhere , and at these several meetings did consult and agree to put the king to death , to raise war , to extirpate the protestant religion , and set up the romish religion . and the indictment further sets forth , that to accomplish these treasons , the defendent did raise great sums of money in the kingdom of ireland , and did get several persons to contribute several sums for these treasons ; and that the defendent with others did disburse several sums of money to several persons , to perswade them and entice them to be aiding and assisting in these treasons , and to recompence them for them . to this indictment the defendant hath pleaded , not guilty . if we prove these things , you are to find him guilty . mr. serj. maynard . my lord , we will quickly come to the evidence . but in short , you have heard his charge is as high as can be against the king , and against the nation , and against all that is good . the design and endeavour of this gentleman was the death of the king , and the destruction of the protestant religion in ireland , and the raising of war : and to accomplish this , we charge him , that there was a confederacy made , assemblies and consultations had to these ends , and raising money to accomplish it . gentlemen , dr. plunket was made as we shall prove to you , as they there call him , primate of ireland , and he got that dignity from the pope upon this very design . he did by vertue of that power , which he thought he had gotten , make out warants , significations , i know not what they call them , to know how many men in ireland could bear arms from sixteen to fourty ; he raises taxes upon the people and the clergy there . but , my lord , the particulars will best fall from the witnesses that we shall call and prove it by , and we need not make any aggravation ; for such a thing as this cannot be more aggravated than ' t is . mr. att. general . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , the character this gentleman bears , as primate under a forreign and usurped jurisdiction , will be a great inducement to you to give credit to that evidence we shall produce before you . we shall prove , that this very preferment was confer'd upon him upon a contract , that he should raise sixty thousand men in ireland , for the pope's service , to settle popery there , and to subvert the government . the evidence that we shall give you , will prove how it leads to destroy the king , and i take it according to the resolutions that have been , to raise war in the kingdom , and to introduce a forreign power , will be certainly evidence of an attempt and machination to destroy the king. assoon as he was in possession of his primacy , he goes about his work . there are two great necessaries to be provided , men and money . for men , having this great spiritual jurisdiction , whereby , indeed , all that are under it are become slaves , he issues out his warrants to all the clergy of ireland , to give an account , and make return from the several parishes , of all the men in them above fourteen and under sixty . and returns were accordingly made by them , that he might accordingly take a measure what men to pick out for the service . the next thing was money , my lord ; and your lordship takes notice , that when the mind is enslaved , the purse , nay all the body bows to it . he issues out his warrants to his clergy , to make a collection of money , in all parts great sums were levied , and when they were levied , we shall give you an accompt by our proofs , that several sums were issued out , and sent into france to further the business . there was also provision made of great ammunition and arms , and we shall prove in particular , several delivered out by this gentleman's order , to carry on this thing ; and to go through stitch with this business , he takes a view of all the several ports and places in ireland , where it would be convenient to land : for they were to have from france an auxiliary forcce , and upon his view he pitched upon carlingford as the place . we shall prove the several correspondencies between rome and him , and france and him , and several messengers imployed , and moneys issued out from time to time for their maintenance . this will be the course of our evidence ; and we shall begin first with some that do not speak so particularly to this doctor , but prove there was a general design in all parts of the kingdom of ireland , to bring in the king of france , and extirpate the protestant rehgion : and then we shall call the particular persons to the particular facts against him . first we call florence wyer . [ who was sworn . ] mr. soll. gen. are you sworn , sir ? wyer . yes , sir. mr. soll. gen. pray give the court and the jury an account of what you know of any plot in ireland , to introduce the romish religion , or to bring in the french king. wyer . yes , i know there was a plot , both before plunket's time , and in his time ; for it was working in the years 65 , and 66. but it was brought to full maturitie in the year 1667. for then col. miles rely , and col. bourne was sent to ireland from the king of france , with a commission to muster as many men as he could , promising to send an army of 40000 men with a commission , upon st. lewis day in august next following , to land at carlingford to destroy all the true subjects , to destroy the religion as it was established there , and to set up the french king's authority and the roman-catholick religion . and one edmond angle that was a justice of peace and clerk of the crown , sent for all the rebels abroad in the north to come up into the county of longford , and they marched into the head-town of the county and fired the town ; the inhabitants fled into the castle : then they came up to the goal , thinking to break it open , and by setting the prisoners free , to joyn them with them ; but then angle was shot , received a deadly wound , and dropt off his horse , and they fled . so then when they were without the town , one charles mac canell alighted , and took away all the papers out of his pocket ; which if they had been found , would have discovered all . this occasioned col. bourne to be suspected ; and being so suspected , he was taken prisoner , and turned to newgate in dublin . then col. riley fled away again to france , and the plot lay under a cloud during th● life of primate raley the prisoner's predecessor . this primate raley died beyond sea. then many of the popish religion would h●ve had the primacie conferred upon one duffy ; but the prisone● at the b●r put in for it ; which might have been opposed , if the prisoner had not engaged and promised that he would so manage affairs , that before the present government were aware , he would surprize the kingdom , provided the pope and king of france would send a competent arm●e to joyn with theirs for the effecting of it . so the first year of his coming over , i was in the frierie●at armagh : i was an acquaintance of the friers , and they invited me . and one quine told the prisoner , that they thought duffy would have been primate . said he , 't is better as it is ; for duffy hath not the wit to do those things that i have undertaken to do ; meaning that he did undertake to supplant the protestant religion , to bring in properie , and put the kingdom under subjection to the king of france . mr. soll. gen. how do you know that ? wyer . those were the words , and in the meaning i knew before , because i had heard it talked of . l. c. j. who was the first of these primates you speak of ? wyer . edmund raley . he set this business on foot first . l. c. j. about what ? wyer . about calling the rebels together out of the north when they came to longford . l. c. j. what year was that ? wyer . it was in the year ( 67. ) l. c. j. when died he ? wyer . he died a little while afterwards . l. c. j. then duffy would have it conferred upon him ? wyer . yes , after raley's decease he would have had it conferred upon him ; and there was a contention between him and the prisoner , who did engage he would bring things to that full maturity , that before the present government were aware he would do the work . l. c. j. how do you know this ? wyer . i know this , because i had an account of it from certain school-fellows that were with me in ireland , then studying in rome ; they wrote this to me , desiring me i would take a good heart with the rest of my country-men , and assuredly in a short time the kingdom would be relieved , and the irish restored to their former patrimonies . l. c. j. this you speak of their information . what do you know of your own knowledge ? wyer . all that i know is , he coming into the friery of armagh — l. c. j. about what time ? wyer . it is either 10 or 11 years ago , and there was a fast there , and i was invited by the friers , being their acquaintance ; one quine one of the friers told him — l. c. j. told whom ? wyer . the prisoner , that he did expect duffy should have been primate ; but the prisoner made answer , 't is better as it is ; for duffy had not the wit to manage the things that i have undertaken for the general good of our religion . l. c. j. now tell me this : what things were those he had undertaken ? did he explain himself ? wyer . no further than those words : but i did conceive this was his meaning ; because i knew partly of it my self , knowing of the former plot. l. c. j. i ask you onely what words came from him ; and you say they were , that duffy had not the wit to manage what he had undertaken for the general good of their religion . wyer . yes ; and then again in his assemblie , kept by him , he charged his inferiours to collect such several sums of money as he thought fit , according to the several parishes and dignities , to assist and supplie the french forces when they came over . l. c. j. how know you that ? wyer . i have seen the money collected ; and i have seen his warrant sub poena suspensionis to bring it in , to redeem their religion from the power of the english government . again , there were those rebels that went to longford — l. c. j. what time were those collections ? wyer . from time to time since he came into ireland . l. c. j. about what time ? wyer . 9 year , 8 year , 7 year ago , and the last year of all . l. c. j. then it was several times , you say ? wyer . yes ; and he procured the macdonels a piece of money out of the exchequer , pretending to do good service to his majestie ; but he sent them for france , meaning they should improve themselves , and bring themselves into favour with the king of france , and come over with the french king to surprize ireland . this one of the said rebels told me . so i have seen the prisoner's letter directed to the grand torie flemming , desiring that they should go to france , and he would see them , in spight of all their e●emies , in ireland ●afe ashoar . and flemming should return again a colonel , to his own glory , and the good of his country . mr. att. gen. do you know his hand ? wyer . yes , i do , as well as my own . i have seen capt. o neal , son of general o neal , coming every year into ireland , and carrying three regiments to the french king into france ; and he used to come over to ireland every year to get a recruit ; and he did get my brother to go with him , and so much importun'd me , that i could hardly withstand him ; but i did not yield to his desire : he told me it was to improve me for my good ; to improve my self in military discipline , and then i should return for ireland a captain under the french king , to surprize the kingdom and settle the popish religion , and then i should be restored to my estate . l. c. j. who told you this ? wyer . capt. o neal. and in the mean while , says he , i hear dr. plunket is the onely man entrusted in ireland to make these preparations , and get things ready against the french king 's coming , who is to land at carlingford . mr. att. gen. how often were you in the doctor 's company ? wyer . not very often . plunket . i never saw him with my eyes before in all my life . wyer . i have seen him in the priory the first year that he came over to ireland ; and you know the meetings held at george blykes house in the fives ; and i have seen him in his own house . mr. just . dolben . how come you to know the prisoners hand ? wyer . because i was well acquainted with his hand , seeing his hand amongst the priests . mr. just . dolben . did you ever see him write ? wyer . yes , in the priory , and in his own house . mr. just . dolben . how often ? wyer . not often . mr. just . dolben . how often ? wyer . ten or a dozen times : i should know his hand from all the writing in london , if it were among never so many . let me but see it , i will know it . l. c. j. have you ever heard him own himself primate ? wyer . yes , my lord , he writes himself oliverus armacanus primas & metropolitanus totius hiberuiae , that is his stile . l. c. j. who did he say made him primate ? wyer . the pope , my lord. l. c. j. have you heard him say so ? wyer . yes , i heard him discourse of it in the priory . mr. att. gen. he was a publick officer , and they might well know his hand . l. c. j. i believe any body that hath seen us write but a little , would soon know our hands . wyer . his hand is as well known over ireland , as mine is among my acquaintance . l. c. j. well , go on . wyer . during the time of his imprisonment , i have seen his commands to some of his inferiour dignitaries , commanding them sub poena suspensionis , to bring in the monies assessed for bringing in the french armie ; and that there was no better time than the time of his imprisonment to bring it in . l. c. j. who were they , you say , that were commanded sub poena suspensionis ? wyer . since his taking , i have seen in the time of his imprisonment his commands to his inferiour dignitaries , not to be forgetful of the monies that were assessed towards the supplying the french army ; and that rhere was no better time to bring in the french , than when he was in prison . l. c. j. how long ago was that ? wyer . the first of february ( 79. ) the second and last of it was in july and november last . l. c. j. and this was to bring in the money ? wyer . yes , to supplie the french armie . and that there was no better time than during his imprisonment , and they should not be so much suspected . l. c. j. and these mandates you have seen under his haud ? wyer . yes , i have , my lord. mr. att. gen. what do you know of his summoning or issuing out these warrants for lists of men ? wyer . i have not seen any of the warrants ; but the priests have told me they were commanded by his warrants to let him know how many there were in all their parishes from 16 to 60. mr. att. gen. you say you never saw the mandates ? wyer . no , i did not . mr. serj. jefferies . what do you know about the prisoner's viewing the ports ? wyer . i have seen him going about from port to port , to derry , to carriefergus , castle down , and carlingford , and all about . mr. serj. j●fferies . when he went to take a view of those ports , can you tell to what purpose he did it ? wyer . yes , i heard it among the church , that he went on purpose to view the sea-ports to know the strength of all the garrisons , and to see which was the most convenient way to bring in the french army . mr. serj. gefferies . did you ever speak with the prisoner at the bar about his going ? wyer . no. mr. serj. gefferies . what place did he pitch on as most convenient ? wyer . carlingford . mr. att. gen. were you in the prisoner's companie when he viewed the ports ? wyer . i have seen him go to and fro ; i did not go all the circuit round with him . plunket . did you ever see me at carlingford ? wyer . no. plunket . did you ever see me at any other of the ports ? wyer . i have seen you at hamiltons coming back from derry . do you not remember that you lodged at at sir geo. ? plunket . i never lodged there in my life . sir. fra. withings . have you any thing more to say concerning the plot in general ? wyer . no , in general i have not . mr. serj. jefferies . he hath not onely given an account of the general , but fixed it upon the prisoner . mr. att. gen. dr. plunket , will you ask him any questions ? plunket . you say you remember you saw me at my first coming as primate ten years ago , and that you were at the priory when i was there ? wyer . yes . plunket . you were invisible to me . l. c. j. if you will ask any question , do ; but do not make these kind of observations . plunket . tell me this , why did not you acquaint some justice of the peace then with what you knew , that which you had heard 7 years ago ? wyer . when i first knew it , i was as willing to have it conceal'd as they . l. c. j. what is your question , dr. plunket ? pray tell it us . plunket . he says , my lord , that ten years ago i had such a design in hand , and he knew the money was collected for these very ends , and he knew of the design from that same capt. o neal whom i employed and sent abroad ; and that i had a design to bring in the french at carlingford , and went about to all the ports in ireland , and pitched upon that as the most convenient ; and yet it is so inconvenient for the bringing in a forein force , that any one that knows any thing of the maps of the world , will easily conclude it otherwise . but , i say , my lord , why did not he tell some justice of the peace that i was upon such a design , but let me live in ireland ten years after , and never speak of it till now ? l. c. j. what say you to the question ? plunket . when he saw me all the time , and to the time of my taking prisoner , and never said one word ; for i was a prisoner six months onely for my religion , not one word of treason spoken of against me for so many years : why did not he acquaint some justice of the peace with it before ? l. c. j. what religion were you of then ? wyer . i was a roman ▪ ca●holick . plunket . and are you not so now ? wyer . yes , i am so . mr. just . dolben . therefore it will be no wonder that you did not discover it . mr. serj. jefferies . but i ask you , why did not you discover it all this time ? wyer . because i was a papist my self : the first that did discover it , he and i did consult about it , i had charged him so to do , and i set him on work ; but he was ill paid for having discovered it : you got him to be trepann'd , that he hath gone in danger of his life for it . plunket . who is that man ? wyre . moyer . sir fra. withins . call henry o neal , ( who was sworn . ) what know you of any design in ireland to introduce the popish religion ? o neal. in august ( 78 ) bishop tirril came with 40 odd horse-men to vicar-general brady's house , and alighted at the door ; and he gave them there an oath , which they took willingly and freely from hand to hand , to forward the popish plot against the protestant religion , to make an end of them all in one hour from end to end in ireland ; and said he , i will come within two days with an order from the ld. oliver plunket ; and you need not be afraid , for the ld. oliver plunket and i have sent some gold and money into france to get men and bring them from france over sea : and do not fear , this will go on in one hour through all ireland from end to end . in september ( 78 ) a little while after , the same meeting was in a place which they call virginia , in the county of connaght , where they took a priest , he is here , and he was with me , and desired me to come up to dublin and discover this ; and there i did discover it to sir john davis ; which is all that i can say : for this plunket , i never saw him in my life . mr. jones . you were a papist then ? o neal. yes , i was . mr. jones . are you a roman-catholick still ? o neal. yes , i am . mr. jones . and were you acquainted with all these orders ? o neal. yes . l. c. j. how came you to know of this oath ? o neal. i was in the house with them ; i was one concerned to take my oath with them , and i durst not but take the oath . l. c. j. had you the oath of secrecie given you ? o neal. yes : and so this priest commanded me to go along to dublin and discover it . mr. serj. gefferies . what is his name ? o neal. john macklegh . sir fra withins . do you know any other transactions about the plot ? o neal. no , i will not swear for all the world more than i know . sir fra. withins . — then call neile o neal , ( who was sworn . ) what do you know of any design carrying on in ireland against the government and the protestant religion ? n. o neal. i will tell you all i know : i was at vicar bradey's house the 21 of august . l. c. j. what year ? n. o neal. ( 78 ) . and bishop tirril came with 40 horse-men to the house , and went into the house , and discoursed a little while ; and they took their oaths every one round to keep secret the plot to destroy the protestant religion and the protestants , that they might have their estates again . and he said they did not need to fear : for , said he , you have a very good man to assist you , and that is the lord oliver plunket , and you need not fear but it will go through all ireland . mr. att. gen. will you ask him any questions ? plunket . why did he not discover it before ? mr. serj. jefferies . were you a roman-catholick at that time ? n. o neal. yes , and am so still . mr. paget jury-man . i desire he may be asked how he came to be there ? l. c. j. you say , i think , this was at vicar-general bradey's ; how came you to be there ? n. o neal. i was there several times before that ; for my nurse , or my foster-mother ( i don't know which you may understand best ) was house-keeper to him . l. c. j. were you required to take the oath ? n. o neal. no , my lord , i was acquainted in the house , i had been there two or three weeks before . plunket . why did not you tell it to some justice of the peace ? l. c. j. he was a papist , and so he is now . n. o neal. there were many there that were wiser than i , that did not discover it . l. c. j. how old are you ? n. o neal. i believe about two and twentie years old . l. c. j. and this was but in ( 78. ) mr. att. gen. swear owen murfey . ( which was done . ) come , what say you ? o. murfey . mr. edmond murfey discovered the plot ; he went to one lieutenant baker and did discover the plot to him , that there was a designe to bring in the french. l. c. j. speak out aloud , i can't hear you . o. murfey . all i know is from mr. edmond murfey — l. c. j. what do you know of any your own knowledge ? o. murfey . mr. lieutenant baker told me , that he did hear of the french — l. c. j. speak what you know your self . o. murfey . if it please your lordship , this is more : i saw that evidence that edmond murfey did produce in ireland , when he was sent to the goal there ; but without trial or any thing . mr. att. gen. then swear hugh duffy . ( which was done . ) speak aloud , and tell my lord what you know of this plot and the prisoner . you know the prisoner , don't you ? duffy . i know him , yes , i know him well enough . l. c. j. what say you more of him ? duffy . my lord , i say , i have seen this dr. oliver plunket raising several sums of money to carrie on this plot ; sometimes 10 s. per an. sometimes 20. mr. soll. gen. of whom ? duffy . of all the priests in ireland ; of every priest according to his pension and parish . l. c. j. in all ireland ? duffy . yes . l. c. j. and towards the proceedings of the plot ? duffy . it was to give to his agent which was at rome , and for the carrying on the business . mr. att. gen. how come you to know this ? duffy . i was servant to dr. duffy , who was infinitely beloved by this man : he was father confessor to the queen of spain : there was nothing that happen'd between them , but i was by all the time . l. c. j. were you chaplain to him ? duffy . yes . l. c. j. you are a papist then ? duffy . yes . mr. att. gen. this man is a friar , my lord. l. c. j. were you in the companie with them ? duffy . yes , i was . l. c. j. what did pass there ? duffy . about the plot , how they could confirm the plot : and this man plunket said , he could prevail with the king of france , and the other with the king of spain . mr. att. gen. pray acquaint my lord particularly when this was , and in what place , and what they said . duffy . it was in ( 73 ) ( 74 ) and ( 75 ) at his own house ; and at he kept three or four jesuits there , and a matter of a hundred priests . mr. att. gen. what passed in the companie ? l. c. j. who else was there ? duffy . the discourse , my lord , was always about the plot , how they could contrive the matter between them ; and so they did conclude afterwards to raise so much money upon several priests , all the priests in ireland , sometimes 20 s. sometimes 40. l. c. j. a piece , do you mean ? duffy . yes . mr. att. gen. what discourse had they about the french at any time ? duffy . yes a hundred times ; he talked several times , that he did not question but he should prevail with the king of france not to invade spain : and i have seen his letter to cardinal bouillon to expostulate with him about the king of france , why he should wage war with the king of spain who was a catholick , but rather should come and redeem ireland out of its heretical jurisdiction . mr. att. gen. did you see the letter ? duffy . yes . mr. att. gen. why , do you know his hand ? duffy . yes , i know it as well as i know my own ; i know it if there were a thousand papers together . mr. att. gen. and what was the import of it , pray ? duffy . that cardinal bouillon should prevail with the king of france not to invade spain : and the contents of the rest of the letter were , that he did admire he should not rather wage war with the king of england ; who hath been an apostate , and help their poor country that was daily tormented with heretical jur●sdiction . mr. att. gen. how came you to be in france ? were you employed ? duffy . i went to france to live there in a covent . plunket . did cardinal bouillon shew you my letter ? duffy . yes . plunket . what year ? duffy . ( 77. ) mr. att. gen. pray sir , you were speaking of raising of money . duffy . yes . mr. att. gen. did you see any precept about it ? duffy . yes . i have seen several precepts ; i was curate to one father murfey ; and while that man was with dr. oliver plunket , and other jesuits , i did officiate in his place , and he sent his letters to me to raise 40 s. and 20 s. a time , several times . l. c. j. you your self ? duffy . yes . mr. att. gen. what for ? duffy . it was to send to dr. who was at rome . mr. att. gen. did you send any money that you know of ? duffy . yes . mr. att. gen. tell what time you gave the money your self . duffy . in ( 73 ) ( 74 ) and ( 75. ) mr. att. gen. where ? duffy . at his own dwelling-place at mr. just . jones . of what qualitie was the prisoner amongst you ? duffy . he was primate of all ireland . mr. just . jones . under whom ? duffy . under whom ? under the pope . mr. just . jones . how do you know he was so ? duffy . we had it in his writings . l. c. j. did he stile himself so in his letters ? duffy . yes , if he writ but to the least man in the country , he would write , oliver us armacanus primas totius hiberniae . l. c. j. and so you always understood him ? duffy . yes . mr. att. gen. were you present at any of the general consultations or meetings ? duffy . yes , i was . mr. att. gen. what number might meet at that time ? duffy . five hundred men and women . mr. att. gen. where was this ? duffy . at clouds . mr. att. gen. what was the occasion and design of that meeting ? duffy . confirmation from the bishop . mr. att. gen. and what was done there besides ? duffy . the second thing was , that the gentlemen of the three counties should conclude together about this matter . l. c. j. about what ? duffey . about joyning the french and spanish together . mr. just . dolben . where was that meeting ? duffy . in the county of monaghan . mr. just . dolben . was the prisoner there ? duffy . yes , he was the chief man. l. c. j. when was this ? duffy . in ( 71 ) to the best of my knowledge . mr. just . dolben . were you there your self ? duffy . yes . mr. att. gen. what was the transaction of that day , besides the sacrament of confirmation ? duffy . it was agreed that the gentry of armagh , monaghan , and conaght should joyn together ; and then they went into a private council to get a list of all the officers that were in the last rebellion , and those that lost their estates . mr. att. gen. how do you know that ? did you go into the consult ? duffy . yes , i was in the same consult my self , and was as willing to proceed in the matter as any one in the world . l. c. j. where was this ? duffy . within two miles of clouds , at one father house . l. c. j. was that at the time when there were so many persons met ? pray speak again what was done there besides confirmation . duffy . why , they were withdrawn aside into a garden ; some stood up , and some sate down ; and oliver plunket stood in the middle of them all as a prelate , and every one kneeled before him and kissed his hand . mr. att. gen. what was then said ? duffy . then they did consult and gave special order to some of them to get a list of all the officers in the late rebellion , and that losed their estates , and that they should be more forward than others to proceed in that wicked design . l. c. j. what was that design ? duffy . to destroy all the protestants together . mr. att. gen. was it to mingle the irish , and spanish , and french armie together ? duffy . yes , it was . mr. att gen. did you hear the prisoner speak about it ? duffy . yes , and he made a speech before them concerning our own fai●h and religion . mr att ▪ gen. was there any mention of money at that time ? duffy . it was , that every man of them that could dispose of money should provide some for those gentlemen that would soon come into ireland . mr. serj. maynard . who were those gentlemen ? duffy . the french army and the spanish army together . mr. att. gen. were you at any other meeting ? duffy . no. mr. att. gen. after he was taken , do you know of any order he sent out to gather money ? duffy . yes , at the assizes of dalkieth , i think it is june two years ago , he was apprehended — mr. att. gen. indeed he was first apprehended as a very busie papist . duffy . i have seen two or three several orders to raise money , and for the same purpose ; and that it was the onely time to bring the matter to an end when he lay in goal himself . mr. att. gen. was that the effect of the letter ? duffy . yes ; and that the french and spanish kings should take the advantage that now was offered whilst he was in prison . mr. just . jones . you say some money was sent to d. cray ? duffy . yes . mr. just . jones . to what end ? duffy . to comply with this design . mr. jones . where was that dr. cray ? duffy . he was at rome , he was made a bishop there . m● . att. gen. who employed him there ? duffy . this man employed him alwaies . l. c. j. what was his name ? duffy . cray . mr. jones . you say some of the priests paid 20 , some 40 ? duffy . yes . mr. jones . did the lay gentrie agree to pay nothing ? duffy . i don't know for the gentrie . l. c. j. but i think you paid something your self ? duffy . yes , i paid for two or three years my self . l. c. j. and that was for the designe ? duffy . yes , for the french and spanish armie , and all the purposes together . mr. att. gen. what do you know of any precept to be given in of all sorts of persons of such an age ? duffy . i gave a list of the age of every person from 16 to 60. mr. att. gen. by whose order ? duffy . by his order . mr. serj. jeff. to whom did you give it ? duffy . to dr. plunket . mr. serj. jeff. that is , to the prisoner ? duffy . yes ; out of my own precinct . mr. att. gen. had you an order from him ? duffy . yes , it was directed to the parish-priest ; and i being curate in his place , received the order . sir fr. with. to what purpose was it ? duffy . to know what men in ireland were able to bear arms. mr. just . jones . what was the number contained in your list ? duffy 250. mr. just . jones . what in one parish ? duffy . yes . mr. serj. jeff. what was the parishes name ? duffy . coghan . mr. att. gen. do you know any thing of his going to view the ports ? duffy . i accompanied him to carlingford . mr. att. gen. did you ? duffy . yes , in person i did . mr. serj. jeff. what did he say ? duffy . he went round about the place where some of the custom-ships come in ; there was a great castle there near the sea , and he went to view the place , and could not get a boat : and there was a great talk of carlingford to be one of the best havens in ireland ; there was no great garison at the place , and any ship might come to the gates of the town and surprize it , being a little town . mr. a●t . gen. what did he conclude upon that ? duffy . that he might get the french armie to land safely there . mr. att. gen. what do you know of delivering any ammunition and arms ? duffy . he did send some of this money to get ammunition into ireland . plunket . you say you were murfey's curate ; can you shew any such institution as you say came to you to raise money ? duff . i could have brought them , but i thought it needless . plunket . can you name any other person i received money from ? duffy . i have seen your paper of the countie of monaghan . plunket . have you seen any of them pay any moneys ? duffy . yes , i have seen twentie of them pay money . mr. just . dolben . why you are acquainted with this man , are you not , mr. plunket ? plunket . my lord , i believe i have seen him . mr. just . dolbin . don't you know he was chaplain to bishop duffy ? plunket . no ; i never was in his companie . mr. serj. jefferies . pray tell him what time of the year it was that you were at carlingford . duffy . it was at the end of the year ( 77 ) and the beginning of the year ( 78. ) mr. att. gen. pray , if you can recollect , was you once , or twice , or twentie times in his companie ? duffy . as i am a christian , i have been a hundred times in his companie . and when you were creating priests , you would always send for me to be present ; and i wonder how the man should forget himself . plunket . i do not say i have not seen him , or that i am a stranger to the man ; but in the companie of bishop duffy i never saw him , nor i never sent him orders to pay any money : and if he did pay any money , he might shew the order . mr. serj. jeff. if he did pay any money , you did ill to take it . mr. att. gen. pray let him have fair play to ask any questions . mr. soll. gen. tell how you came to remember that you saw him at sir nich. plunkets . duffy . dr. duffy did send me to sir nicholas plunkets , and i met dr. plunket as i was coming out of the citie . i had been half a year at the spanish embassadours , and he sent me for ireland again , and then i lived at the convent in dublin ; and then when i knew that he would come to town , i went to rings-end , where the ships came in , to meet him . plunket . you say you were with him at my house ? duffy . yes . plunket . if you were , you were invisible : but i ask you , why did not you tell this to some justice of the peace ? mr. just . dolben . good mr. plunket , he tells you he was as willing to forward it then as you . l. c. j. how come you now to change your mind ? duffy . i went into france in ( 77 ) and i was not there a year altogether ; but when i have seen how the poor people there are brought into such slaverie by the french king , i thought of it , and had rather the devil should reign over us , than the french-man . mr. just . dolben . he gives you a very good rational account why . duffy . i have been at sir nicholas plunkets , and dr. patrick plunkets , where there fell some variance about something this man had done to father duffy . saies bishop duffy , i might have had you drawn and quartered , if i were as ill a man as you ; and i might have been primate of ireland , if i would have undertaken those things that you undertook . upon that , saies sir nicholas plunket , what is that ? why it was said it was to raise 60000 men in ireland at any time whenever the french or the spanish king should wage war with england , scotland , or ireland . and this man did confess before my face to father duffy , that it was not onely to exalt himself , but all the roman clergie , and all the gentrie that had lost their estates . plunket . mr. duffy , one word with you ; is not this out of malice to me for correcting some of the clergie ? duffy . you had nothing to do with me , for i was a friar . mr. att. gen. swear edmond murfey . ( which was done . ) tell your whole knowledge of dr. plunket and the irish plot. murfey . may it please you my lord , i was one of the first discoverers of this plot ; but of nine witnesses , i have but one in town . l. c. j. well , tell your own knowledge . murfey . now i beg your lordship as to dr. plunket , th●t you will respit it till next term , i could bring ten witnesses . mr. att. gen. do you speak your own evidence . murfey . i refer it to the king and council what evidence i have given . l. c. j. do not trouble your self , be directed a little ; you are here now to speak what you know concerning any treasons , or any other matters against the king , done by dr. plunket ; speak your own knowledge ; for as to other witnesses we do not call you . murfey . if i be called in question for this evidence — mr. att. gen. come , sir , you have been at the spanish embassadors lately , answer my question : have you ever been with plunket in ireland ? murfey . yes , sir. mr. att. gen. have you ever heard him own himself primate of ireland ? murfey . yes , titular primate . mr. att. gen. under whom did he claim that authoritie ? under the king , or under the pope ? murfey . i think he could not be under the king at all . mr. att. gen. under whom then ? murfey . it must be either the king or the pope . l. c. j. answer me directly , did he claim to be titular primate under the pope ? murfey . i suppose he did . ● . c j. was he reputed generally so to be ? murfey . yes , my lord. mr at. gen. mr. murfey , remember what you swore before the grand jurie ; pray recollect your self whether that be true , and tell all . l c. j. you are upon your oath , you must speak the truth and the whole truth , you must not mince or conceal any thing . mr. serj. jeff. were you sworn before the grand jurie ? murfey i was sworn before the king and parliament . mr. serj. jeff. did you give in any evidence to the grand jurie ? murfey . yes , i did . mr. serj. jeff was that you swore before the grand j●rie true , upon your oath ? murfey . i can't say but it was . mr. serj. jeff. repeat it , tell my lord and the jurie what it was , and tell the truth . murfey . i have forgot it . mr. att. gen. why then i would ask you a little ; you remember i was by , and 't is no laughing matter , mr. murfey , you will find it so . what do you know of any orders issued out by mr. plunket , to raise money from the priests ? murfey . i know there was orders , and i took the orders my self in my hand . mr. att. gen. from whom had you those orders ? murfey . from another , and not from him . mr. att. gen. under whose hand were those orders ? murfey . they were from the primate . mr. att. gen. did you see any order under plunket's hand for raising of money ? murfey . no , but under the vicar-generals , by his authoritie , as i suppose . m● . att gen. upon your oath , did you not swear before the grand juri● , ●hat you saw the orders under his hand ? murfey . no , i did not : or i was mistaken , for it was onely by his direction . mr. att. gen. pray had ●ou any converse with oliver plunket about the raising of money ? murfey . oliver plunket about the raising of money ? mr. att. gen. yes , that is a plain question . mu●fey . it was about other matters i conversed with him . mr att. gen. but did you converse with him about money ? murfey . no , not about the money . mr. att. gen. upon your oath , did you converse with him about bringing in the french ? mr. serj. jeff. declare the truth , come . l. c. j. come , don't trifle ; what discourse have you had with the prisoner about raising of money , or bringing in the french ? either of them , sir. murfey . i know this , if the d. of york and d. of ormond had proceeded according to their intentions , it was a general expectation at the same time , that all the french and irish would come and fall upon the english nation , as i understood . l. c. j. pray answer the question directly , you must not come and think to trifle with the court , you must speak the truth , you are sworn to it ; you must not come to quibble and run about to this and that and t'other , but answer directly , have you had any discourse with the prisoner about orders for raising of money in ireland ? murfey . yes , i have seen orders from his vicar-general for the raising of money . l. chief just . hath he owned them to be by his direction ▪ murfey . not before me , but others he has . mr. att. gen. have you seen any money paid to him ? murfey . to whom ? mr. att. gen. to plunkett . murfey . to the vicar general i have . l. c. just . but to plunkett . murfey . none to plunkett . l. c. just . have you had any discourse with him at any time about the raising of money , which the vicar-general gave order for ? murf●● . i have had discourse with the vicar-general . l. ch. just . sir , don't trifle , have you had any with him ? murfey . with him ? l. ch. just . yes , with him . murfey . yes , i have had some discourse with him . lord ch. justice , tell me what that discourse was ? murfey . i think it was about this . if the d of york , and the d. of monmouth fell out together , that he had some men to raise about that matter , and if the d. of monmonth would raise the p●●te●●ant religion — mr. att. gen. you see he hath been in spanish hands . l. ch. just . were you a protestant sir. murfey . no , i am a priest . mr. serg. jeff. he is to seek yet . murfey . i am indifferent whether i be a protestant or a papist . mr. att. gen. my lord he is a priest in orders , and so hath acknowledged himself . murfey . yes , i am a priest , but it makes me forget my self to see so many evidences to come in , that never knew plunket . l. ch. just . sir , you refuse to answer those q●estions that we put to you here . murfey . what i said before the parliament i answer punctually . l. ch. just . you are asked questions here , and produced as a witness , will you answer directly or not ? murfey . yes , i will. l. ch. just . then let me hear what discourse you had with the primate plunkett concerning any money raised by him or his vicar general . murfey . may it please your lordship , first of all i did not impeach primate plunket , but the officers and justices of the peace . mr. jones . had you any discourse with him , yea , or no ? murfey . that he should find so many catholicks in ireland if the d. of york and the d. of monmouth fell out . mr. just . jones , why it plainly appears what you drove at at first , to put off this tryal if you could . l. ch. just . the papists in england have been at work with you . mr. serg. jeff. i perceived this gentleman was very busie looking upon his hat , i desire he may be searched if he have no paper about him . mr. att. gen. mr. solicitor and my self heard the evidence he gave to the gran●-jury . then h● went out of the court and would scarce be perswaded to come back again . mr. att. gen. we both heard him , and he gave the fullest evidence , muc● fuller ●o all instances , and particulars of this high treason , much fuller than duffy to the grand-jury . afterwards about 3 weeks ago the tryall coming on , he ran away and lay hid , i took a great deal of pains to find him out , and sent messengers about , at last i heard he was got to the spanish embassadors , i sent , and they spyed him in the chappel ; but the spanish embassadors servants fell upon the messenger and beat ●im , the embassador was first sent to about it , and his excellency promi●ed that he should be brought , and when he was found he told me but the last night , that all he had sworn before the grand-jury was true , and he was ready to make it out again . l. ch. just . and now he says , he knows not what he said then , and pray take notice of that . murfey . i told the grand-jury this , that my lord plunket had a design to get 60 or 70000 men in ireland , if the d. of york and the d. of monmouth should fall out . mr. att. gen. did you tell a word of that to the grand-jury . murfey . yes sir , or i was mistaken . mr. att. gen. not one word of that did he then say . l ch. just . do you own this man , dr. plunket , to be of your religion ? mr. serj. jeff. do you know this seeker ? plunket . he says himself he is indifferent to be a protestant or a papist . mr. serj. jeff. i will only try you by one question more , for you are sought out , and it may be you may be found ; do you know how many men he was to raise in ireland ? remember what you said to the grand jury . murfey . 70000 men. l. ch. just . what were they to do ? murfey . for establishing if occasion should be — mr. serj. jefferies . establishing , establishing what ? murfey . of the romish religion . mr. serj. jefferies . well , so far we have got 70000 men to establish the romish religion , what , was plunkett to do this ? murfey . as far as i understood . mr. just . jones . and you understood it by himself ? murfey . i received letters from the vicar general to get so much money collected , and assoon as i got the letters to my hands , i sent them to a privy councellor . l. ch. just . do you not know that he was ingaged to assist the french army ? murfey . i do not know that by him , but by others . mr. just . dolb. did you ever discourse with him about it ? murfey . i did discourse with him about several matters . mr. just . dolb. about the french army ? murfey . yes . l. ch. just . do you know that he did endeavour to bring them into ireland . murfey . i had a correspondence in france at the same time — l. ch. just . with whom . murfey . with one mac carty . l. ch. just . and do you know that he had correspondence in france . murfey . yes , i know that . mr. just . dolb. with whom had plunket correspondence in france . mu●fey . he had correspondence with dr. cray , and others in france as i understood by others . mr. just . dolb. was the end of that correspondence to bring men from france into ireland . murfey . yes , so far as i understand . 〈◊〉 just . dolb. you understood the letters when you read them , did you not . murfey . i know not how these people come to swear this business , whether they had not malice against him — mr. att. gen. well , sir , pray give you your evidence , we will take care of the rest . mr. just . dolb. i reckon this man hath given the best ev●dence that can be . l. ch. just . yes , it is evidence that the cathol●cks have been tampering with him . mr. ser. jeff. i desire he may be committed my lord ▪ because he hath fenced from the beginning [ which was done accordingly ] mr. att. gen. swear john mac legh . [ which was done . ] sir fran. wyth . tell my lord and the jury what you know of any plot in ireland to bring in the french. mac legh . i was a parish priest in ireland in the county of monagh●n , and dr. oliver plunket received several sums of money in ireland , and especially in the diocess where i am . i raised some of it and paid him 40 s. at one time , and 30 s. another time , in the year ( 74 ) i paid him 40 s. in the year ( 75 ) i paid him 50 s. and it was about july , and it was for the better advancement of the french coming in . mr. jones . did he tell you , that the money was to be employed that way . mac legh . yes , that the money was to be kept for arms and ammunition for the roman catholicks in ireland . l. ch. just . before you paid it , did you receive any order from him ? mac legh . yes , i received an order sub paena su●p●nsion●● , and there was a publick order throughout ireland , or we would not pay it ; nay several would not pay it , and they were to be suspended . plunket . can you shew any of the orders under my hand ? mac legh . yes i can shew them , but only they are a ●ar off , i did not expect to have them asked for . plunket . have you no superiors of your own ? mac legh . yes , but you being lord primate , you could suspend bishops and inferior clergy together . plunket . when was this ? mac legh . in the years ( 74 ) and ( 75. ) plunket . what is the reason you kept it secret all this while ? mac legh . in the year ( 77 ) i did discover it to one mr. o neale , who i sent to dublin to discover this plot. i was in france my self my lord. plunket . how many years is it since you returned from france ? mac legh . in may in the year ( 78. ) plunket . why did you not speak all this while till now ? mac legh . i did send one mr. henry o neale to dublin , for i durst not go , lest i should have been suspended and excommunicated . mr. att. gen. this is the priest that henry . o neale speaks of . l. c. just . is not this a very good reason ; if he had come to dublin to discover , you would have suspended him . plunket . but my lord , then he might have shewn my suspension and brought me into a praemunire . mr. serj. jefferies . if you please dr. let us who are for the king have done with him first . i would ask you another question sir , were you at one vicar bradeys house ? mac legh . yes , i was . mr. att. gen. tell what was done there ? mac legh . there was bishop tyrrell came there with 40 horse-men well mounted and armed , he came into the house about 10 in the morning ▪ and staid till about 11 at night , i was very much among them , and was as willing to be of the plot , as themselves . mr. att. gen. tell what was done there . mac legh . there bishop tyrrell said , that he had order from dr. oliver plunkett and others to partake of the plot to bring in the french and subvert the government in ireland , and destroy the protestant religion and the protestants . mr. att. gen. was there an oath given ? mac legh . yes , they were all put to their oaths , which they did take willingly to keep it private during their lives time , and the reason was they were to have their estates during their lives time . mr. serj. jefferies . now tell us when this was ? mr. att. gen. my lord , henry o neale and phelim o neale speake to the same purpose . mr. serj. jefferies . do you remember whether henry o neale was there ? did he take the oath of secresy ? mac legh . yes . mr. att. gen. what do you know of any letters from plunkett ? mac legh . in france i landed at brest , and going through brittany , i met with bishop tyrell and dr. cray , who was my lord oliver plunketts agent , and duke john of great brittany came into them ; for he heard of these 2 bishops being newly come out of rome , sent for them , and i being a priest of tyrrels diocess , i went along with them , and they were well accepted , and he shewed dr. oliver plunketts conditions with the king of france , which was this ; to get dublin and london derry and all the sea-ports into their own hands , to levy war and destroy the protestant religion , and that they should have him to protect them during his life-time . l. c. just . did you see those conditions ? mac legh . a copy of them i did , the governour of brittany did shew them to the bishop . mr. serjeant jefferies . what language were those conditions in ? mac legh . they were in latine , sir. mr. serj. jefferies . was edmond murfy put out of the diocess . mac legh . not as i know of . l. c. just . what do you know of his being primate ? upon what conditions was he made primate ? mac legh . he was made primate by the election of the king of france . and upon his election , he made those conditions with the king of france , to raise men to join with the french , to destroy the protestant religion . mr. just . jones . you know that man , dr. plunkett ? plunkett . yes , my lord. mr. att. gen. will you ask him any questions . plunket . none , but what i asked the others . mr. just. dolben . then if that is all , he hath given you a good answer to that already , he was as forward then as the rest . mr. att. gen. then swear john moyer , ( which was done . ) mr. j. jones . what do you know concerning any plot in ireland , and dr. plunkets being in it . moyer . i know him first , my lord , to be made primate of ireland , ingaging that he should propagate the roman faith in ireland and to restore it to the catholick government , and i know the time by relation , that i came to rome within two months after his being made primate of ireland upon the same conditions , that have been related to you , and i was brought into the convent of st. francis in rome by one father and this father was very intimate with cardinal spinola , and when he used to go abroad he used to carry me along with him as a companion , and there i found several of the roman cardinals say , that the kingdom of ireland should come under the catholick government by the way and means of the lord primate plunket . mr. att. gen. what do you know of your self ? moyer . as i was coming then from rome , i happened to come into a convent of the order of st. francis , and there came out of ireland a young gentleman of the family of the o neales , who hath been my lord primates page . plunket . i never had a page . moyer . you termed him so my lord in ireland , and as i came , this young man had a pacquet of letters with him , as tho they were commendations to enter him into the colledge de propaganda side , directed to the secretary of that colledge . and thinking them to be letters of recommendation , an old father called one thomas crawley , and i thought it not prejudicial to open the seal ; and the contents were these , i translated them 5 years ago , and here are the contents following , if you please they may be read , i will do my best to read them in english , the original were in latine , and some phrases in italian . and when i was surprized by mr. murfey the last year and taken suddenly , all my papers were taken away before i could return back again , by the soldiers and the tories , i only kept a copy of this letter i had in english as near as i could , and if i did not diminish any thing by the translation ; upon the oath i have taken , i have not put any thing in it , but what the contents of the letter were . l. c. just. was that letter under his own hand ? moyer . my lord cannot deny that . plunket . do you know my own hand writing ? moyer . does your lordship deny , that i know your hand ? plunket . pray sir will you answer it ? moyer . yes i do very well . plunket . when did you leave ireland ? moyer . i will tell you that , my lord 't is some 14 or 15 years ago . mr. serj. jefferies . you were giving an accompt of the letter , read it . moyer . here is the contents , illustrissime domine , it was directed to seignior who is now secretary of the colledge de propaganda side ( so then he read his paper . ) mr. sol. gen. you say , you translated that out of a letter under the prisoners own hand . moyer . yes , i translated it immediately , and to prove it , i have statutes which his lordship made in the general national council , which are under your own hand my lord. mr. sol. gen. when did you make this translation ? moyer . five years ago . mr. sol. gen. where did you make it ? moyer . i made it out of the original in ireland . mr. sol. gen. where is the original ? moyer . when i was taken by mr. murfey and mr. hethrington the last year , the soldiers and tories came and took them away with other papers i had of the same business . l. c. just. was the paper you translated that from , of his hand writing ? moyer . no my lord , the paper i took this out of , was a copy of the original . l. c. just. was the original of his hand writing ? moyer . yes , it was . l. c. just. where did you take it ? moyer . in caprennica , when i met with my lords page . l. c. just. what made you take a copy of it ? moyer . it was in latine and italian , and i translated it afterwards . l. c. just. and the english father , you say , made bold to open it . moyer . yes , because he thought 't was a letter of recommendations , but the original of the statutes made at clouds , i did take the original and gave a copy to the page . l. c. just. have you the original here ? moyer . yes my lord , under his own hand . plunket . that 's another thing . l. c. just. but we would know that other thing . mr. serj. jefferies . my lord , i desire that he would produce it , 't is his own hand writing , see whether his grace can deny it . moyer . the signing of it is his own hand writing , i got the writing along with the letter , and thinking to have a copy of the one as well as of the other ; it was the statutes i got , and i never knew i had them till i was in madrid in spain . then the paper was shewn to the prisoner . plunket . my lord , 't is my hand . moyer . indeed my lord , it is your own hand . mr. serj. jefferies . he owns it . moyer . and there is an order in those statutes , wherein ireland was bound to send so much money to rome upon such a design . then the witness read the title in latine . mr. just. dolben . look out that clause for the raising of the money . moyer . my lord , 't is that i look for . cum toti clero in hibernia necessarium sit . mr. just. dolben . that is but negotia generally . mr. serj. maynard . that was to solicite their affairs . mr. att. gen. 't is 500 l. in the whole . plunket . is it 500 l ? moyer . 't is in figures a 5 and two ( 00 ) plunket . my lord this is counterfeit , 't is put in by other ink. mr. just. dolben . like enough so . l. c. just. nothing more ordinary , you leave a blank for the sum , and then , may be , you put it in with other ink. mr. just. dolben . how much do you say was the money , dr. plunket . plunket . my lord , every agent that is kept at rome hath a maintenance , as all countries have their agents at rome . mr. just. dolben . how much was it ? plunket . it was 50 l. a year . l. c. just. look you mr. plunket , consider with your self 50 or 500 in this case is not 5 farthings difference , but the money was to be raised by your order . plunket . ay , but whether it was not raised to this effect , there is never a nation where the roman catholick religion is professed , but hath an agent for their spiritual affairs at rome , and this was for the spiritual affairs of the clergy of ireland . mr. serj. jefferies . and the letter was for spiritual affairs too , was it not ? plunket . i desire nothing , that is a truth , every nation hath an agent , and that agent must be maintained ; and the reason is this , because we have many colledges beyond sea , and so there is no country of roman catholicks , but hath an agent in ●ome . l. c. just. you had better r●serve your self till by and by , to answer that and the letter together ; for this is but a small part of the evidence . mr. att. gen. about this letter you were speaking of , pray , will you tell what f●ll out about it . moyer . i will tell you how it fell out afterwards . then i came along into marseilles in france , and there were 2 captains that had as much notice as i had in that letter , for they were discoursing that they would advance themselves in the french kings service , and hoped , that by the king of france's help to have the roman catholick faith set up in their own country ; why , that discourse passed off for i was mightily affraid of any such thing , because i was of another opinion ; for perhaps i might think the roman catholick faith would flourish as well as ever it did , and hoped so as well as any body else , but not by the sword. as i came to madrid , there came one hugh o donnell son to o donnell with letters of recommendation , and those letters were to intitle the young man earl of tyrone , and likewise that his majesty , the king of spain , should help him for ireland , according to the form of the letters he had . and then as i came for ireland , speedily after there came letters of recommendation to me , that i should present my self to my lord primate , to hear confessions and be heard preach . i came to his lordship at his own house the 9 th of december ( 74 ) and there he kept me several hours , and approved me ; and the copy of the approbation i have to shew . andafter a long dispute we went aside , and went to to look father patrick , and there he shewed me such and such things . and after a long discourse i told my lord primate , i see your lordships letter , which you sent by young o neale , in such a place , and he shew'd me the contents of it and said , ay , my lord , 't is a good intention and design , if it can be done without bloodshed , then my lord mused a little , and said he , well father francis ( which is my name in religion , my christian name was john ) pray will you keep it secret , well my lord said i , you need not fear ; for said he , what ever i have done herein was not for my own good , but for the publick good of the catholicks . well said i , 't is well . then does he commend me into the parish of where this mr. murfey here was to put in a bull , that i had from my lord primate , which bull was brought here last year ; and there he profered me high promotions , if i would further such things , and solicite such gentlemen as i knew would be private in such a business , such as were old commanders among my friends and relations . shortly after this i saw plunket and bishop tyrrel and captain con o neale , practising to bring soldiers ready for ireland , assoon as they could get opportunity . this captain con o neale coming to the place where we kept our priory , and he and his brothers were sons to general o neale . and there captain con comes in the night time and lodges with us , and discoursed with his brother and i , because i was his companion beyond sea , about these matters , that he expected my lord primate and bishop tyrrels coming thither that night , to make some proposals about the church and other affairs . after 10 a clock or thereabouts , my lord primate and bishop tyrrel came with others in their company , and there they and father o neale did consult amongst themselves , that they should send captain con to france and to barcellona with such and such instruments ; and sending those instruments away , captain con departs the countrey and goes for france soon after ; and speedily my lord primate undertook , that he and bishop tyrrel should view munster and vlster , and other parts of ireland , to see how affairs stood . soon after my lord primate calls a general provincial council , and sends out his orders to levy such and such taxes and subsidies , and warrants to all the parish priests , that they should give them new lists to know whether the numbers they had sent to rome before , would comply with that list . and then o neale went to view the forts of charlemont and dun-gannon , whilest those lords did collect the money ; the orders i have seen with my own proper eyes , and his own man confessed before the council in ireland that my lord gave them under his hand . mr. serj. jefferies . what year was this ? moyer . it was in ( 76 ) to the best of my remembrance . l. c. just . look you sir , was this at a provincial meeting . moyer . yes , my lord , a general national councel , to send over instruments , to tell them , that they were ready to assist any forreign army , that should help on the design . l. c. just . and to raise money ? moyer . yes , my lord. mr. just . dolben . have you paid him any money ? moyer . i was exempted my self ; but i have seen others . mr. just . dolben . how many ? moyer . i believe 30. mr. just. dolben . it was not then a secret thing then , but openly done by them . moyer . yes , i saw them when they came with orders , there were 4 priests , and they had a great cloak-bag going with orders up and down . mr. serj. jefferies . why were you exempted ? moyer . because i am a regular priest . sir fra. wythins . you say you saw the orders for raising of money , how do you know for what it was to be employed ? moyer . it was there specified down . plunket . can you shew any of the orders ? moyer . i could not take them , they did not concern me . sir fra. wythins . how was it specified ? moyer . to levy so much money per priest . i cannot remember the particular summ ; but that every priest should give so much towards an agent in rome to solicite their business , and forward it . l. c. just. what year was it ? moyer . ( 76. ) l. c. just. was any of the money specified for raising an army , or bringing in the french ? moyer . it was both for the agent and to summon a national council , to get things ready prepared to entertain and accept the french army when it should come . i am not so good in expressing my self in english . l. c. just. your sense is good , 't is no matter for your expression . mr. jones . what more do you know ? moyer . i know that he had the same council , and that they did agree upon the business , and this i know by one patrick borne , and i being willing that this w●cked action should be hindred , sent to the next justice to discharge my self of it , which justice was as favourable to the business as my lord himself was . l. c. just . will you ask him any questions , mr. plunket ? plunket . i desire to know when he left ireland . moyer . i cannot tell how to number the years , but i think it was in 62 or 63 , to the best of my remembrance it was 16 or 17 years ago . plunket . when did you return ? moyer . i came back in 74 , you know it my lord. plunket . very well , when did you see the letter with the young man in caprennica . moyer . in ( 72. ) plunket . how then did you know my hand , which you had never seen ? moyer . i have seen it several times to several instruments , to seignior and i have seen several other letters of your hand . plunket . how did you know my hand ? moyer . i cannot positively say , i then knew your hand , but according to relation , i heard it from those cardinals i conversed with at rome . l. c. just . but now you are acquainted with his hand , is it the same hand which you have seen up and down in writings with his name to ? moyer . yes my lord , it is the very same hand . mr. serj. jefferies . i ask you sir , when you came back again and told him you had seen such a letter under his hand with o neale , did he own it to you ? moyer . yes , he did own it , and that he did not do it for his own benefit , but for the publick . mr. serj. jefferies . did he desire you to be secret ? moyer . yes , he did , and to be discreet , and he would see me highly promoted . and my lord , you sent proposals to me , to give me 100 l. that i should not prosecute you , according as they told me , and they gave me one guinny in hand for it . l. c. just. some of it came to the hands of murfey i believe . plunket . my lord , i cannot say any thing to this , my hands are tyed , because my witnesses are not here . my lord , if i had my witnesses and records , i did not care for all these witnesses . l. c. just. but you know , you had time to bring them . plunket . my lord , i d●sire to know whether this be his hand , ( shewing the paper to mr. moyer . ) moyer . yes , i believe it is . plunket . i desire it may be read . moyer . yes , i am very well satisfied it should . cl. of cr. reads . for my very reverend father an●bony guardian of armagh , your letter and citation — 't is dated in july ( 78. ) plunket . he can best read it himself . cl. of cr. read it right ( the paper being delivered him . ) moyer . my lord , i pity him with all my heart , that a man of my own function , should be brought into question for such things as these are , ( he reads ) very reverend father guardian , 't is dated 1 july ( 78. ) your paternities paternal letter and citation homeward , i did instantly peruse . as for my lord oliver plunk●t , i wrote a letter to him the day before i saw your reverends last , that he might cause my fame , which is as dear to me as my life , to be recalled , or i should cause his name to be fixed at every publick place , which by the almighty i will do , nature and all reason compelling me to do it . plunket . my lord , i say this , he says he came to my house when he came over , and i imparted this secret to him , yet you s●e i had denounced him throughout my whole diocess , and he here calls me by all those names of elemas , simon magus , and barjesus , and 't is impossible if i had communicated such a secret to him , that i would deal so with him . mr. just. dolben . he does not say , you imparted this s●cret to him , but he says , when he told you of the letter , you answered him , but you seemed surprized and mused first . l. c. just. you seemed to flatter him then , and told him you hoped to see him , the best of his order , highly promoted . mr. just. dolben . how came you to fall out , moyer ? moyer . when first they had this meeting at brantry , s●●ing a cloud a coming , and dreading a war , and the cons●quences of it , i went and applied my self to sir hamilton one of his majesties privy councellors in ireland , and i gave in all my informations the 7 th december ( 76. ) mr. just . dolben . and thereupon he denounced you excommunicate ? moyer . yes , and afterwards , when he saw i was in communication and familiar with these privy counc●llors , then he was certain i had discovered the matter , and then he got a great many devices to get the letters out of my hand . plunket . you shall see under his own hand all the stratag●m of this , if i had my witnesses here , you should then see under his own hand , upon what account he f●ll out with me . pray my lord ask him if this other letter be his hand . moyer . i believe it is my own hand . l. c. just. read it . moyer . ( reads , ) very reverend father guardian ( then speaking ) my lord , you know that i was loth to discover my self , being among people knowing of the plot. l. c. just. well , read it over . moyer . ( reads ) the 23 th of april ( 78 ) i was somewhat comforted by your letter . but now i hope your reverence hath considered what wrong i have sustained , by my envious adversaries calumnies , only for standing , as i have a soul to save , for your rights and priviledges , as also for endeavouring to hinder my native countries ruine and destruction . mr. just. dolben . read that again . ( which he did . ) plunket . observe , that i was his adversary , for standing for the rights and priviledges of the fryers . mr. just. dolben . as also for endeavouring to hinder his countries ruine and destruction . l. c. just. the one and the other were the reason of your falling out . moyer . ( reads on . ) moyer . my lord , i was i confess a begging fryar , and stood up for the priviledges of the fryars . plunket . did you write any process to rome against me ? moyer . no , i never did it . plunket . my lord , does not he say i was in disgrace at rome ? moyer . no , nothing of that . l. c. just. i don't hear it , but what if he did ? what is that to the purpose ? plunket . to shew his contradictions , now he says , i was great in rome , and but then in his letter he says , i was in disgrace at rome . now he says , all that he had against me , was for his fryers , and to hinder the destruction of his countrey , because i hindred the fryers to beg there , is the destruction of his countrey , as he was doing there . upon that he fell out with me , and upon that his own superiors sent this order . l. c. just. we can't meddle with your superiors orders , they are nothing before us . mr. serj. j●fferies . my lord , i think for the present , we have done our evidence . plunket . my lord , to shew what was part of the falling out , i would ask him if he was indicted for any crime , and found guilty by a jury ? moyer . that was for discovering , for i discovered it before . plunket . my lord , he confesses he was convicted for giving powder and shot to the r●●●ls . mr. just. dolben . no , no he does not say so , produce the record , if you have any of such thi●g . moyer . to satisfie the court. mr. serj. jeff●ries . look you dr. plunket , if you will ask him any questions , that by law he is bound to answer , do it of gods name , we will not interpose , but if you ask him any questions that may tend to accuse himself , we must tell you , he is not bound to answer them . plunket . he hath been convicted and found guilty , he will conf●ss it himself . l. c. just. he is not bound to answer such a question . moyer . it was a tory swore against me , that you did absolve . mr. just. dolben . don't tell us a story of your tories . l. c. just. look you mr. plunket , don't mispend your own time ; for the more you trifle in these things , the less time you will have for your defence , i desire you now to consider , and well husband your time for your defence ; what have you to say for your self ? plunket . my lord , i tell you , i have no way to defend my self , in that i was denied time to bring over my records and my witnesses which are 10 or 12. and if i had them here , i would stand in desiance of all the world to accuse me ; but i have not sufficient time to bring over my records and my witnesses , and i am brought here from out of my native countrey ; were i in ireland , there both i and they should be known : but when i was to be tryed there , they would not appear ; and it is all false and only malice . these men used to call me oliverus cromwellus out of spight . mr. serj. maynard . you are very like him , a destroyer of the government . mr. serj. jefferies . were not you acquainted with him ? plunket . this is all i can say , if i had my witnesses here i could make my defence . l. c. just. here are some things , that if you can give an answer to , you will do well to do it ; for they stick close to you . they do testifie against you here , that you did undertake to raise a body of men in ireland , 70000 men they speak of out of your own natiou , and all these were to joyn with the french , for the introducing the religion of the romish church into ireland , and setling that again there . and that you in order to this , did take a survey of all those roman catholicks that were able to bear arms , from 16 to 60 ; and there is plentiful evidence , that you did go a circuit there to peruse all the towns , and see which might be most convenient for the taking in , and entertaining the french , and landing their forces ; and charlemont , you did design that for one strong place to be taken , and dun gannon for another , and that you did design the french army to land at carlingford , and all that was with you , tells the reason you gave , why that should be the place , that they might come up with a burdened ship to the very gates of the town , that you did in order to the entertaining these forraign forces , raise money , that you did send out your orders sub poena suspens●on●s to all that were of the roman clergy , and that this money was receiv●d , s●veral of them testified that they paid it to you , and this man hath seen great n●mbers of persons pay money to you upon these accounts . all these are treason , what say you to them . it does import you to consider what answer you can give . plunket . my lord , first as to the first point , i answer , that i never receiv'd a farthing of money out of my own district , and but for my own livel●hood , and that i can prove by those that have received it for me , that i never received over threescore pound a year in my life , unless some gentleman would now and then give me 10 s. for my relief . for my lord , this is the way in ireland , every priest hath so many families allotted to him , and every roman catholick family gives 2 s. a year ( as they that profess that way , know ) and the priests give me who am superior over them , in my own district , some 20s . some 30 s. and i never got so much in my life as to maintain a servant , and this was attested before the council in ireland . mr. just . dolb. ay , but the witnesses say , out of your own district you sent into another bishops diocess to collect money . plunket . my lord , i say i could never get so much as to keep a servant , and till now i never got a farthing out of my own diocess , unless i have been called to an arbitration or some such thing , it may be for my journey and expences 40 or 50 miles they would give me something for my maintenance , if you should find any thing else , i will be cont●nt to suffer , and if my evidence were brought from ireland , there is nothing but what would be made clear , both under their own hands and by records , and that is all well known , and was attested in his presence before the council in ireland , which threescore pounds was a very small thing to maintain me , & i never had above one servant , and the house i lived in was a little thatched house , wherein was only a little room for a library , which was not 7 foot high , where once this fellow came to affront me , because i had hindred him from begging ▪ and that 's for th● money . for the men , i defie any one that ever see me make a list of men in my life , or can produce any list made by my order . i was never in my l●●e at kingsale , at corke , at dun-gannon , at lymrick , &c. or those parts of munster which were the chief ports where the french should come in , and not in carlingford which is the narrow seas in vlster , which any one that knows the world will judg to be a very improper place for the french to land in . 't is all one as to say that the french should come in at a poor place where they could get nothing ▪ it being at the narrow-seas , and they never saw me there in their lives . l. ch. just . yes , one does say , he was with you . plunket . well , one does say he saw me there , but if i had my witnesses here , i could prove he was a fryer , and declared an apostate by his own pr●vincial , as this gentleman is , and because i hindred them to beg in my districts , therefore they have this malice against me , that is all . well my lord , that is for that , i was never in my life in connaght , and they cannot say , i took any list in vlster , nor was 12 miles in munster in my life , but thus my lord , sometimes there would be , as our way is , so many families assigned to every priest , ( and this is the plain truth , ) this priest perhaps complains to me of the inequality , my companion near me hath 150 and i have but threescore , which i must rectifie ; though i never knew ●ut one of these complaints . and if i had my witnesses from ireland and the records , i would defie all these witnesses together . for my sending to rome , i had never an agent in rome for these seven years past , because i was not able to maintain him , and indeed it was a great shame to us ; because there is never a community of fryers , that hath a colledg beyond sea , but hath some agent at rome . l. ch. just . 't is a shame to have one there , not to want one . mr. just . dolb. well , if you have witnesses , i cannot tell what to say . plunket . if i had gotten but to the latter end of the term , i had defied them altogether . and your lordship should have seen under their own hands what they were . l. ch. just . you forget this all this while , your own letter ; wherein this matter is , that you had ●earched the towns and considered it . mr. att. gen. he does deny there was such a letter , he does not own there was such a letter . plunket . i my lord , i never did write such a letter . and that young man that he speaks of , i could prove , if i had my witnesses , that he never was in any service or company in ireland , nor writ any letters by him . l. ch. just . did you never send any letter by one o neale ? plunket . no my lord , but he went over a begging . moyer . this young mans brother in law will testifie , that he was your lordships page . plunket . i have 3 witnesses that he came there begging , naked , and was sick 3 months , and went over a begging , and was at rome as a stragler . moyer . call hanlet , ( who came in ) sir fran. wyth . did you know neale o neale ? hanlet . yes . sir fran. wyth . whose servant was he ? hanlet . my lord plunket sent him to rome ; he was sent there with his letters and i saw the young man and the letters . mr. jones . did he come a begging there ? hanlet . no. plunket . where did you see him . hanlet . at mant. plunket . where is that ? hanlet . in france . plunket . and you saw him with my letters ? hanlet . yes . plunket . and this man says , the letters were opened at caprennica , because he thought they were letters of recommendation . hanlet . why , he went that way afterwards , and they were not opened , when i saw them . mr. ser. jeff. did you know he was the doctors servant ? hanlet . yes , he was . plunkett . did you see him in my service ? hanlet . i saw him in mant. mr. j. dolben . how do you know he was the bishops servant . hanlett . because he shew'd me his letter . l. c. j. was he owned for his servant , and was he taken for his servant . hanlett . yes . plunkett . did he go on foot , or on horseback . hanlett . he went on foot . plunkett . he was in a poor condition in a place not above four miles from rome , that i can prove . l. c. j. did he begg as he went. hanlett . no. l. c. j. mr. plunkett , if there is any question you will ask of the witnesses ; or if there be any evidence you would give your self , this is your time for the doing of it ; if not , we must leave your case to the jury , who have heard the evidence all along . plunkett . only this my lord , your lordships sees how i am dealth with . first and foremost , i have not time to bring my witnesses , or my records , which if i had , i would not weigh one farthing to leave my cause with any jury in the world. besides all this , i am brought out of my own native countrey , where these men lived , and i lived , and where my witnesses and records are , which would shew what these people are . i sent by the post and did all that i could , and what can i say when i have not my witnesses against these people , they may swear any thing in the world ; you cannot but observe the improbability of the thing in it self , and unto what a condition i am brought . my lord , my life is in imminent danger , because i am brought out of my own country , where these people would not be believed against me . mr. sol. gen. my lord , i think this matter lies in a narrow compass , the evidence hath been long ; i would only repeat the short heads of that which hath been given at large . he is indicted for a conspiracy to kill the king , the overt act is an endeavour to introduce a forreign power into ireland , to raise an army , and levy war there ; and the proof of it hath been very full . the proof in general , that there was a plot to introduce the french , is plain by all the witnesses , and the proof in particular upon this person at the barr , hath been as plain as any thing can be . they prove to your lordship in general , that there was an expectation that the french should come in , that there was an invitation of florence wyer the first witness , to go over into france , and speedily he should have a command upon his return , in ireland , that there were preparations ; for this appears by the oath of secrecy given to several men . forty men that came along with bishop tyrrel to keep it private during their lives ; and there was a farther proof of that general conspiracy by duffy , that when there was a general meeting of so many thousand people for confirmation , there was by the gentlemen at that meeting a secret consultation how to carry on the design , and how to list men , and to look out the old officers in th● late rebellion , and to see what posture they were in , as to the management of this design , and this comes now particularly to the prisoner who was by at this consultation , so the witnesses do tell you . but that that comes nearer to him , is , that he did issue out orders for the raising of money , and that he did raise money pursuant to those orders , and did receive money for that very purpose ; this is proved by three witnesses , duffy , and mac legh who paid the money , and by moyer the last witness , who saw him receive it from several persons . this is positive upon him ; nay , they say farther , that there was a list made of the several men , in the several parishes , that were able to bear arms upon occasion , from sixteen to sixty , and there was a list of a matter of threescore thousand men that were ready upon any occasion to rise for the purpose , and this list was delivered over into the hands of the prisoner at the barr. there is one witness , duffy , that saies farther , that he saw a letter under his hand in france to the cardinal bouillon , to invite the french king into ireland , and he did wonder that he should spend his time and blood in wars against spain , which was a roman catholick , and not come into ireland to extirpate the hereticks . and this letter is confirmed by another letter , which was seen by moyer , a copy of which is produced , which he translated from the original in latin , and the letter was sent to rome by neale o neale , whom the prisoner saies he had no concern for , but to give him some recommendations . plunkett . i gave him no recommendations . l. c. j. no , he saies he did not give him any , nor sent any letter by him . mr. sol. gen. then he urged , that he went along begging by the way , but 't is proved he was sent by him , and sent with letters , and that by his brother in law , who met him at mants . and 't is proved by moyer , who saw the letter opened , taking it to be but a common letter of recommendation , he read the letter and took a copy of it , and translated that copy , which translation is enough to verify all the matter which the witnesses have sworn , for 't is agreeing to what he said to cardinal bouillon in his other letter , that it was more proper for the catholick princes to agree together to extirpate heresy , than to vary amongst themselves , that now was the time : for there were threescore thousand men ready to rise upon such an invasion . this is the substance of the letter , and this proves fully the conspiracy this man was ingaged in , his receiving money , his listing men , and his invitation of forreign princes . and this is fully proved . mr. serj. maynard . and so his viewing the ports too . mr. sol. gen. it was likewise agreed that carlingford should be the port , and 't is like enough to be the port , for 't is a very large port , that ships of the greatest burthen may come up to the town , and the town it self but a weak town . this is the substance of the evidence , and this is proof enough , we think , to convict any man of this fact. mr. serj. jefferies . my lord , i shall trouble you but with one word that hath been omitted . i think 't is a cause of great example , and that thing which the prisoner seems to make his excuse hath been answered by a favor and indulgence from the court in a very extraordinary manner . for , in as much as this gentleman would make it a very hard case , that he is brought out of his own country , and hath not his witnesses ; it is very well known that by a particular favor of the court , which is not usual in these cases , he had between five and six weeks time for preparation for his tryal : so that truly as to what does appear , i think all the witnesses that have been examined , are witnesses to be credited , except you gentlemen , of your selves can convict upon your own knowledge these persons of any misdemeanor , which i think you cannot , much less of perjury . but besides , the witnesses we have produced , all which speak to the plot in general , and four of them fix it upon the person at the bar ; they speak particularly , and every one agrees in circumstances , and that other that spoke mincingly , i put it upon ; it is the greatest evidence that can be . for that person that could come before a grand-jury , and there be the main witness , but when he comes here , must be scru'd and pump'd to discover the seventy thousand men . and i suppose you did observe how difficult it was to kno ' of him , whether this person was primate of ireland , or whether it were from the authority of the king or the pope , a very probable thing , that he should be such a one as the king designed to be primate and superintendent of ireland . further my lord , this i desire to take notice of too , that wyer , the first witness , fixes four particular things upon the prisoner at the bar , which have not yet been taken notice of . first , he fixes a discourse with another person that was competitor with him for this very office , bishop duffy , and he gives the reason why he was admitted into the office rather than the other , because he was a man of greater ability to carry on the design , and tho' he does not give you an account of the design ; yet the rest of the evidence do , and make it to be the design then carrying on . another thing is , he tells you of the sending one into france , that was to come back again in order to this design , i think his name was mac donnel , and then the great tory flemming and he were to come back again collonels in the army that was to be raised . the next person , that fixes it upon him , is mr. han o neal , and he gives the plainest circumstances , that at a time in august when bishop tyrrell came to the house of one bradey with so many men well equipped with such and such arms , and took the oath of secrecy ; he himself , but not only he , but the other priest mac legh , was present at the same time , and took the said oath , and he does tell you that that very priest was sent to dublin to discover it at that very time , and so he hath fixed the person , and time , and the business they came about . then mac legh comes and tells you the same thing in every circumstance ; ay , but says the prisoner at the bar , and he would make it to be a great objection , how chance that they have concealed this all the while , and not discovered it to some justice of the peace ? why , says one , i was under your jurisdiction in that place , that is the very reason he gives wherefore he durst not , and says another , i was concerned and as earnest as the prisoner or any body else , but going into france , i observed the slavery that all the subjects were under , under the tyranny of that king , and apprehending that the same king was to come into ireland by the means of these gentlemen ; i was concerned at it , and had rather the devil should reign over us than such an one , and therefore i will discover it . and he said very well i think , that he had rather have the devil to reign ; for it seems to be him , or one in his shape that reigns after that manner . and there are two persons that swear to the vey year that they were obliged to raise the money , and swear positively , they saw his orders sub poena suspensio●is , i do not know whether they mean hang'd or suspended from their office. but it seems it was so terrible , that it made them pay twenty shillings a piece for three years successively . and there is another gentleman that tells you , that out of a small living , wherein he was concerned only as curate to a third person it had been paid two or three times , and another tho' he was exempt himself from the payment , yet so great a confident was he of the prisoner's at the bar , that he was present when he saw thirty or fourty pay this tax , and whereas the prisoner at the bar would make it thought a strange thing , that he should raise so much money , who had but an house seven foot high , it seems there is above that thatched house a chappel . plunkett . there is no chappel . sr. geo. jefferies . but now my lord , that which substantially proves what these witnesses say , is the letter that is sent to rome to the secratary of the college de propaganda fide , which is the last letter that the last gentleman speaks of , wherein he does particularly take notice , that he had taken care to raise such moneys , and view all the ports and places of strength . and my lord , that which is a very great circumstance to back the evidence of the first letter to the french cardinal bouillon which was taken notice of by the first witness , and there is such a passage in this too , that the catholick princes should not spill one anothers blood , when they might better employ it here in ireland for the propagation of the faith ; this last letter takes particular notice of that very instance too , that instead of drawing their swords against one another , they had better come to promote the catholick faith in ireland . these four witnesses are punctual and precise in every particular circumstance of the case , and against them there is nothing but the common objection . if i had such records , and witnesses here i could make my defence , that is , if he had those things that he has not , he might appear to be another man than he is ; but i am sure , as it appears upon the evidence that hath been given by all the witnesses , there is a plain proof and a full proof of every treason laid to his charge . plunkett . my lord , i desire these witnesses may be called [ giving in a paper . ] cryer . david fitz-gerard , eustace commines and paul gormar . l. c. j. who gave him this paper , he had it not before ? stranger . i was told that these were good evidences for dr. plunket , and i gave him the names . l. c. j. where are they ? stranger . they are hard by . mr. att. gen. where is eustace commines , for he was one that gave in evidence against the prisoner . then paul gormar appeared . l. c. j. what would you ask him ? plunket . i desire to know of him , whether mr. moyer did allute and intioe him to swear against me ? gormar . indeed my lord he never did . l. c. j. will you ask him any more ? gormar . but this my lord , mr. moyer and i were in discourse , and he said if there was law to be had in ireland , he would shew mr. plunket his share in it . l. c. j. well , what of that ? gormar . my lord , i did come out of ireland to reveal what plots the irish had against the king , and as for this mr. plunket , as i have a soul to save , i never heard of any misdemeanor of him . mr. j. dolben . how came you here to day ? gormar . i was summoned . mr. j. dolben . by whom ? was it the attorney general or plunket that summoned you ? gormar . here is the summons . mr. serj. jefferies . it is a common sub poena . plunket . i never sent for him , gormar . it was not against you , they know i had nothing against you , i thought you did more good in ireland than hurt , so i declare it . l. c. j. have you any more witnesses ? if fitz-gerard or commines will come , we will hear them . plunket . my lord , i have not any more witnesses . l. c. j. look you gentlemen of the jury , this gentleman here mr. plunket , is indicted of high-treason , and 't is for conspiring the king's death , and endeavouring to bring the french army into ireland for to invade that kingdom , and to plant the romish religion in that kingdom . you have had evidence against him that hath been fully examined . and these things do seem to be very plain by the witnesses , that he himself hath taken a commission , or a grant , or what you will please to call it , from the pope to be primate of ireland , that he hath taken upon him to make laws as the provincial , and that he hath undertaken and endeavoured to settle the popish religion in that kingdom , and in order to that , he hath invited the aid of the french army , and that he hath for the better landing of them , looked out what places were most convenient for them ; that he hash set a tax upon the clergy within his province for the facilitating of all this , and for the making preparations for the entertainment of this army . this the wittnesses testifie against him , and that there were some towns , as d●ngannon and another town , that were to be betrayed to the frenh . now you must consider concerning these witnesses : if you believe the evidence that hath been given , and which hath been repeated by the kings counsel , and if you believe that he did design to bring in a french army , to establish the roman religion there again , and that he took upon him to raise money for that purpose , survey'd the ports , and made such provisions , as the witnesses speak of , and was in that conspiracy ; you must find him guilty , i leave it to you , it is a pretty strong evidence , he does not say any thing to it , but that his witnesses are not come over . plunkett . i can say nothing to it , but give my own protestation , that there is not one word of this said against me is true , but all plain romance , i never had any communication with any french minister , cardinal , nor other . then the jury withdrew for a quarter of an hour , and being returned gave this verdict . cl. of cr. oliver plunkett , hold up thy hand . how say you , is he guilty of the high-treason whereof he stands indi cted , or not guilty ? foreman . guilty . plunkett . deo gratia , god be thanked . then the verdict was recorded , and the court rose . and the keeper went away with his prisoner . on wednesday 15 mo . junii , 1681. oliver plunkett was brought to the barr to receive his judgment . mr. att. gen. my lord , i pray your judgment against the prisoner oliver plunkett . cl. of cr. oliver plunkett , hold up thy hand ; thou hast been indicted of high-treason , thou hast been thereupon arraigned , thou haft thereunto pleaded not guilty , and for thy trial hast put thy self upon god and the country , which country hath found thee guilty , what hast thou to say for thy self , why judgment of death should not pass upon thee , and execution be thereupon awarded according to the law. plunkett . my lord , may it please your lordship , i have something to say , which if your lordship will consider seriously , may occasion the courts commiseration and mercy . i have my lord for this fact been arraigned in ireland , and brought to my trial there . at the day of my tryal all the witnesses voluntarily absented themselves , seeing i had records and witnesses to convince them evidently and shew what men they were , and the prepensed malice that they did bear to me , and so finding that i could clear my self evidently , they absented themselves , on the day of my tryal no christian appeared , but hither over they come , and procure that i should be brought hither , where i could not have a jury that knew the qualities of my adversaries , or who knew me , or the circumstances of the places , times , and persons ; the juries here as i say were altogether strangers to these affairs , and so my lord they could not know many things that conduce to a fair tryal , and it was morally impossible they should know it . i have been accused principally and chiefly for surveying the ports , for fixing upon carlingford for the landing of the french , for the having of seventy thousand men ready to joyn with the french , for collecting money for the agents in this matter , for the assisting of the french and this great utopian army . a jury in ireland consisting of men that lived in that country , or any man in th● wo●●d that hath but seen ireland in a map , would easily see there was no probability that that should be a place sit for the french to land in , tho' he never was in ireland , yet by the map , he would see they must come between the narrow seas all along to ulster , and the rocks , and such places would make it very dangerous ; and by their own confession it was a poor town , and of no strength , a very small garrison , which had not been so , if it had been a place of any consideration . and whereas i had influence only upon one province , as is well known , tho' i had the title of primate of all ireland , as the arch-bishop of canterbury hath of all england ; yet the arch-bishop of york will not permit him to meddle with his province ; and 't is well known by the gentry there , and those that are accustomed to the place ; that in all the province of ulster , take men , women , and children of the roman catholicks , they could not make up seventy thousand . this , a jury there my lord had known very well , and therefore the laws of england , which are very favourable to the prisoner , have provided that there should be a jury of the place where the fact was committed , as sr. thomas gascoine , as i have heard , had a yorkshire jury , tho' he was tryed at london . and then after my coming here , i was kept close prisoner for six months , not any christian was permitted to come at me , nor did i know any thing , how things stood in the world. i was brought here the third of may , to be arraigned , and i did petition your lordship to have some time for my tryal , and i would have had it put off till michaelmass , but your lordships did not think fit to grant so long , but only till the eighth of this month , when my witnesses who were ready at the sea side , would not come over without passes , and i could not get over the records without an order from hence ; which records would have shewn that some of the witnesses were indicted and found guilty of high crimes , some wer e imprisoned for robberies , and some of the witnesses were ●nfamous people , so i petitioned the eighth of this month , that i might have time but for twelve days more , but your lordship thought , when the motion was made , that it was only to put off my tryal , and now my witnesses are come to coventry yesterday morning , and they will be here in a few days , and so for want of time to desend my self in , i was exposed to my adversaries , who were some of my own clergy , whom for their debauched lives , i have corrected , as is well known there . i will not deny my self , but that as long as there was any toleration and connivance , i did execute the function of a bishop , and that by the second of elizabeth is only a premunire , and no treason . so that my lord , i was exposed defenceless to my enemies , whereas now my witnesses are come , that could make all appear . i did begg for twelve days time , whereby you might have seen as plain as the sun , what those witnesses are , that began the story , and say these things against me . and my lord , for those depositions of the seventy thousand men , and the monies that are collected of the clergy in ireland , they cannot be true , for they are a p●or clergy that have no revenue nor land ; they live as the presbyterians do here , there is not a priest in all ireland , that hath certainly o● uncertainly above threescore pounds a year , and that i should collect of them forty shillings a piece , for the raising of an army , or for the landing of the french at carlingford ; if it had been brought before a jury in ireland , it would have been thought a meer romance . if they had accused me of a praemunire for the exercise of my episcopal function , perhaps they had said some thing that might have been believed , but my lord , as i am a dying man , and hope for salvation by my lord and savior , i am not guilty of one point of treason they have swore against me , no more than the child that was born , but yesterday . i have an attestation under my lord of essex's hand concerning my good behavior in ireland , and not only from him , but from my lord berkly , who was also governor there , which the kings attorney saw ; but here i was brought , here i was tryed , and having not time to bring my witnesses , i could not prove my innocency , as otherwise i might . so that , if there be any case in the world that deserves compassion , surely my case does ; and 't is such a rare case , as i believe you will not find two of them in print , that one arraigned in ireland , should be tryed here afterwards for the same fact. my lord , if there be any thing in the world that deserves pity , this does , for i can say , as i hope for mercy , i was never guilty of any one point they have swore against me , and if my petition for time had been granted , i could have shewn how all was prepense malice against me , and have produced all circumstances that could make out the innocency of a person . but not having had time , and being tryed , i am at your mercy . l. c. j. well , you have nothing further to say in bar of judgment , you have said all you can ? plunket . i have nothing further to say , but what i have said . then proclamation was made for silence , while judgment was passing upon the prisoner . l. c. j. look you mr. plunket , you have been here indicted of a very great and hainous crime , the greatest and most hainous of all crimes , and that is , high-treason ; and truly yours is a treason of the highest nature , 't is a treason in truth against god and your king , and the countrey where you lived . you have done as much as you could to dishonor god in this case ; for the bottom of your treason was , your setting up your false religion , than which , there is not any thing more displeasing to god , or more pernicious to mankind in the world . a religion that is ten times worse than all the heathenish superstitions , the most dishonorable and derogatory to god and his glory of all religions or pretended religions whatsoever , for it undertakes to dispense with gods laws , and to pardon the breach of them . so that certainly a greater crime there cannot be committed against god , than for a man to endeavour the propagation of that religion ; but you , to effect this , have designed the death of your lawful prince and king. and then your design of blood in the kingdom where you lived , to set all together by the ears , to destroy poor innocent people , to prostitute their lives and liberties , and all that is dear to them , to the tyranny of rome , and france ; and that by introducing a french army . what greater evil can be designed by any man , i mention these things , because they have all been fully proved against you ; and that you may take notice , and repent of them , and make your peace with god , by a particular application for mercy for all these faults ; for it seems to me , that against god , your prince , and fellow subjects , you have behaved your self very ill , designing very great evil to all these ; and now it hath pleased god to bring you to judgment . i must tell you , peradventure what you urge for your self might introduce pity , if it were to be believed , that is , that you are innocent , and had witnesses to prove it , but we cannot suppose any man innocent , that hath had a legal and a fair tryal , and a tryal with as much candor to you , as your case could bear , or as perhaps any man in such a case ever had . you had time upon your request to send for your witnesses , to help you in your defence , and to have proved your innocence , if you could have done it ; time long enough to your own content , you your self thought it so , at the time it was given . to give a prisoner under your circumstances , five or six weeks time to send for witnesses , is not usual , we could have put you upon a present defence , and hurryed you out of the world by a suddain tryal , if we had had any design against you ; but we go on in a fair way , and with legal proceedings , and with as much respect to you , as in such a case could be used , for we gave you all the fair hearing and liberty that you desired to have . look you , as to what you urge , that your trial was in this kingdom , whereas your offence was in another , that is a thing that do's not become you by any means to object ; for you have had a tryal here by honest persons , and that according to the laws which obtain in this kingdom , and that too of ireland , which is by a statute not made on purpose to bring you into a snare , but an antient statute , and not without presidents of its having been put in execution before your time . for your own country will afford you several presidents in this case , as o rurke , and several others that have been arrained and condemned for treason done there . so that you have no reason to except against the legality of your tryal . you say , now you have witnesses that could prove all this matter , why that lyes in the mouth of any man that is condemned to say ; but pray consider with your self , what regard ought to be given to this . we cannot help it , if your witnesses don't come , you may remember they wanted not time nor opportunity to come over , but you told us they would not come unless they had a passeport . plunkett . my lord , they got a pass to come over afterwards , and so in eight days they came hither . l. c. j. you might have provided your self , if they wanted such a thing . in the first place , no body is bound to give it them ; much less could you expect it for them without asking . plunkett . i could not get the copies of the records neither by any means , unless i had an order from the council , and they would not give that order , unless your lordship appointed it . l. c. j. we cannot tell that , you should have petitioned in time . plunkett . how could any one soresee , unless he was god almighty , that they would deny it , or that he could not get out a copy of a record , paying for it , without a petition . all the friends i had , told me upon motion there , it might be had , but here i have it under the lieutenants and councils hands , that they would give no copy of records without order from hence , which before i could know it , it was impossible for me to have them ready against my tryal . l. c. j. look you sir , i do speak this to you , to shew you that those objections , which you seem to make against your tryal , have no weight at all , but in this case it is not the jury that are so material as the witnesses themselves . i appeal to all that heard your tryal , if they could so much as doubt but that you were guilty of what you were charged with . for consider , here were persons that were of your own religion , the most of them priests , i think almost all of them in orders . plunkett . there were two fryers , and a priest whom i have endeavoured to correct this seven years , and they were renegadoes from our religion , and declared apostates . l. c. j. look you sir , they gave an evidence very home to your matter ; you had liberty to examine them , and they gave you a rational accompt of any thing you ask'd . let me but put you in mind of one thing . you made exceptions to one's evidence , ( and indeed that was very much of your exception to all ) why he did not reveal this in all that time : truly he told you he was of your mind , till he went into france , and saw what a slavery and mischief you endeavoured to introduce upon his and your own countrymen , and this his spirit rose against , to see what a condition ireland was like to be brought into . and pray , did not he give you a full answer to that question ? plunkett . i had sufficient witnesses to prove he was an apostate , and was chastised by me , and therefore had prepensed malice against me . l. c. j. therefore i have spoken this to the satisfaction , i hope , of your self and all that hear it . i do now wish you to consider , you are near your end . it seems you have lived in a false religion hitherto ; it is not too late at any time to repent , i wish you may have the grace to do so ; in the mean time there is no room for us here , to grant you any king of mercy , tho' i 'le tell you , we are inclined to pity all malefactors : who ever have done evil , we are inclined to pity them , and wish heartily that they may repent , as we do , that you may , of what you have done . but all we can do now , is to say , what the law saies , and that is to pass judgment upon you . plunkett . may it please your lordship to give me leave to speak one word . if i were a man that had no care of my conscience in this matter , and did not think of god almighty , or conscience , or heaven , or hell , i might have saved my life ; for i was offered it by divers people here , so i would but confess my own guilt , and accuse others . but my lord , i had rather dye ten thousand deaths , than wrongfully accuse any body . and the time will come when your lordship will see what these witnesses are , that have come in against me . i do assure your lordship , if i were a man that had not good principles , i might easily have saved my own life , but i had rather dye ten thousand deaths , than wrongfully to take away one farthing of any man's goods , one day of his liberty , or one minute of his life . l. c. j. i am sorry to see you persist in the principles of that religion . plunkett . they are those principles , that even god almighty cannot dispence with all . l. c. j. well , however the judgment which we give you , is that which the law saies and speaks . and therefore you must goe from hence , to the place from whence you came , that is to newgate , and from thence you shall be drawn through the city of london , to tyburne ; there you shall be hanged by the neck , but cut down before you are dead , your bowels shall be taken out , and burnt before your face , your head shall be cut off , and your body be divided into four quarters , to be disposed of as his majesty pleases . and i pray god to have mercy upon your soul. plunkett . my lord , i hope i may have this favor , of leave , for a servant and some few friends that i have , to come at me . l. c. j. i think you may have liberty for any servant to come to you , i know nothing to the contrary . plunkett . and some friends that i have in town . l. c. j. but i would advise you to have some minister to come to you , some protestant minister . plunkett . my lord , if you please , there are some in prison , that never were indicted , or accused of any crime , and they will do my business very well ; for they will do it according to the rites of our own church , which is the antient usage , they cannot do better , and i would not alter it now . l. c. j. mr. richardson , you may let his servant come to him , and any friend in your presence , to see there be no evil done , nor any contrivances that may hereafter have an influence upon affairs . mr. just . jones . be you present , or some body . plunkett . my servant i hope may come , without his being present . l. c. j. yes , yes , his servant may be with him alone . well ●r . we wish better to you , than you do to your self . plunkett . god almighty bless your lordship . and now my lord , as i am a dead man to this world , and as i hope for mercy in the other world , i was never guilty of any of the treasons laid to my charge , as you will hear in time ; and my character you may receive from my lord chancellor of ireland , my lord berkley , my lord essex , and the duke of ormond . then the keeper took away his prisoner , and upon friday the first of july , he was executed according to the sentence . finis . lately published the arraignment and plea of edward fitz-harris esquire , with all the arguments in law , and proceedings of the court of kings-bench thereupon , in easter term , 1681. price , 1 s. 6 d. the narrative of mr. john smith of walworth ... containing a further discovery of the late horrid and popish-plot ... smith, john, of walworth. 1679 approx. 143 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 21 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2006-02 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a60496 wing s4127 estc r15413 13030684 ocm 13030684 96729 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a60496) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 96729) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 400:18) the narrative of mr. john smith of walworth ... containing a further discovery of the late horrid and popish-plot ... smith, john, of walworth. [7], 35 p. printed, and are to be sold by robert boulter ..., london : 1679. errata: p. 35. reproduction of original in huntington library. marginal notes. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2005-04 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-10 john cords sampled and proofread 2005-10 john cords text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-01 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i do appoint robert boulter to print this my narrative , entituled , a further discovery of the late horrid and popish-plot , &c. and that no others print the same . john smith . october 12. 1679. the narrative of mr. john smith of walworth , in the county-palatine of durham , gent. containing a further discovery of the late horrid and popish-plot . with an account of 1 st . the inconsistency of the popish-principles with the peace of all states . 2 ly . their destructiveness to all protestant kingdoms . 3 ly . the incouragements upon which the papists undertook so hellish a design against england . 4 ly . the progress they had made in it . 5 ly . the reasons of their endeavouring , more especially the death of his present majesty . 6 ly . with a vindication of the justice of the nation upon the traitors already executed . london , printed , and are to be sold by robert boulter at the turks-head in corn-hill , 1679. to the king . as i owe my allegiance , and have dedicated my life to your majesty ; so i desire with all humility in my self , and zeal for your happiness , to offer up these papers unto you. many of your subjects are capable to present you , with what is more sutable to the greatness of your understanding ; but nothing can be laid at your feet which more nearly concerns the preservation of your sacred person , the safety of your crown , and security of your royal dignity . the danger of conspiracies lies in their being concealed , none ever perished by a detected plot , but such as have wilfully abandoned themselves to be destroyed . and therefore , while some of your subjects , to defeat the hellish machinations of the papists against your majesty and people , are contented to expose themselves , not only to secret assassinations , but to the vow'd revenge of a disloyal and desperate party ; it is hoped , that you will not at once both desert your self , and de-relinquish the care of three kingdoms , as well as sacrifice those loyal souls , to gratifie implacable enemies . sir , 't is past the malice and strength of your adversaries , either to destroy your life , or subvert your government , unless ( which god avert ) you joyn in the conspiracy , by some personal accession . and against dangers that you voluntarily expose your self unto , there is no promise that the immense wisdom , or almighty power , should interpose to save you . the conspirators find it convenient to alter the methods of accomplishing their treason ; but they remain unchangeable in their traiterous designs . but sir , it is in your own power , not only to reign in defiance of their violent attempts , but to render your people happy while you live , and relinquish them safe when you dye . for to all this there is no more required , but your hearkning to the advice of your parliament ; who as they are best able to counsel you , so their own interest , and the welfare of those they represent , will always oblige them to it . might your popish adversaries but once divide betwixt you and your people , and dispossess you out of the hearts of your subjects ; the next thing will be ( having left you none to stand by you ) to wrest your crown from you , and deject you from your throne . as it is impossible you should miscarry while you and your people agree , so no humane means can prevent the destruction of these kingdoms , and the unhappiness of your royal self and family in their ruines , if through the clamours of the popish party you should be divided from your people as represented in parliament , and to be withdrawn from hearkning to their advice . your majesties most humble , and most loyal subject , john smith . to the reader . had the many discoveries of the plot already communicated to the world , served either to dismay the conspirators from their further proceeds , or to awaken the nation proportionably to its danger , the conveying of this to the knowledge of the kingdom , had been wholly forborn . 't is true , that the offering this information to his majesty and the council , was an indispensible duty , which could not be superseded without disloyalty to the government : but the divulging it to the kingdom , is to be resolved into that lethargy as the motive of it , which too many still lye under . shall it be said that our supine folly and unreasonable unbelief , promote our ruine beyond what the malice of our enemies was able to accomplish ? shall their address in impudent pamphlets , wheedle a company of easie and silly souls , to disbelieve what the king , the council , and two parliaments ( being first assured themselves ) have both recommended it to the faith of these kingdoms , and consigned it over to posterity , as an unquestionable certainty . it is not without astonishment , that i observe how a generation of men , whose interest makes it necessary , and whose principles makes it lawful , to lye , are able by meer impudence , to out-face the fullest evidence , and most uncontrollable convictions of their guilt . reader , thou wilt therefore find in these following sheets , not only a further attestation given to prove a hellish conspiracy against his majesty , the protestant religion , and the government by law established ; but thou wilt meet with some account , both of the advantages which did facilitate them in their designs , and of the several steps which they had taken to accomplish them . and if after all this , the protestant inhabitants of these nations will suffer themselves to be destroyed , ( by continuing their divisions ) notwithstanding such fair warning , i will only say , that they deserve to perish without compassion and pity . a further discovery of the late horrid and popish-plot . what disturbances and fatal mischiefs , the claim and exercise section 1 of papal authority and jurisdiction , have caused even in kingdoms where both princes and people were in all things else of the romish faith : the histories of foregoing ages do sufficiently inform us . the alone demurring to the usurpations of the roman pontife , hath derived from the pretended infallible chair , the excommunication of princes , the discharging subjects from their allegiance , the alienation of crowns and kingdoms , the interdicting the performance of all divine services in nations , which according to their own stile , were in all things else catholick . for besides the manifold instances which all parts of the western world afford us to this purpose , such as gregory the seventh , his excommunicating henry the fourth ; sylvester the third , his anathematizing henry the fifth ; gregory the ninth , his cursing frederick the second , emperour of germany . and innocent the third , his excommunicating philip august , and setting his kingdom under an interdict ; benedict the thirteenth , charles the sixth , and boniface the eighth , philip the faire , kings of france : i say , besides these , and many other forraign instances of this nature , the kingdom of england alone hath afforded us too many woful proofs of the papal vsurpation , and falsly pretended jurisdiction over temporal monarchs , and their dominions . so that towards the recommending the romish religion , and the authority of the see of rome , to the love of my country-men , i need only put them in mind of the entertainment that william rufus , henry the second , king john , and henry the eighth , princes of this kingdom , met with from the universal father . for even that prince whom i mentioned last , not only lived and died himself in the romish faith , but put to death all such as were arraigned for being otherwise minded ; so that the only reason why he was excommunicated by two popes one after another , his kingdom interdicted , his subjects absolved from the fealty they owed him , and a disposal made of his crown to others , who were intrusted with the exemption of the papal censure , was nothing but his declining the authority and jurisdiction of the pope , and his vindicating those rights which by our ancient law appertained to the imperial crown of this land. let princes and people be never so zealous in all other points of the roman faith , if they do but dispute the universal-jurisdiction of the triple crown , they expose themselves to depositions , interdicts , and whatsoever else it pleases his holiness to denounce against them . it is but for a monarch or state to thwart the capricio , and cross the humour of the pope , or disoblige the court of rome , and they immediately run the hazard of being destroyed , under the very countenance and allowance of those doctrines which have the stamp of articles of faith. the interdict of the state of venice by paul the fifth , the murther of henry the third of france , and the assassination of henry the fourth , likewise of france ; were some of the late commentaries upon the foregoing principles , and items to the world , that though they did not think fit to act up to them at all times , yet they reserved them in their petto , to be made use of upon occasion . and it may not be altogether unworthy of our observation , that the murther of henry the third by james clement a dominican , was not only magnified in a solemn oration by sixtus the fifth , which was afterwards printed and published at rome , but it hath been lately translated by some romish priest , or other , with the latin in one column , and english in another ; and that in all likelihood to inflame some papal votary to the like attempt upon his sacred majesty . section 2 so that were there no dishonour to arise to god , danger to the souls of men , by the re-introduction of popery amongst us , the hazard of enslaving these nations to a forraign power , and of making the crown truckle to the papal mitre ; may awaken every generous as well as loyal soul , both to watch against , and oppose all secret tendencies , as well as open attempts , towards a matter of so pernicious a consequence . nor is it unworthy of our remark , that besides those foregoing advantages which the pope would have over this nation , in common with other nations , by virtue of his monarchy over all persons and things in ordine ad spiritualia , upon which alone he might ( as heretofore he hath done ) anathematize our kings , divest them of their royal power , and not only absolve their subjects from fidelity and obedience , but commissionate and impower them to make war upon their soveraigns ; and both to depose and murder them , under the encouragement of meriting heaven by so doing . i say it is not unworthy of our reflection , what other latent claims ( besides these ) as he may be likely to revive of an absolute and uncontroulable temporal jurisdiction over these kingdoms . the king of england , saith bellarmine , is subject to the pope by a two-fold right , first by reason of his apostolick power , and secondly , by right of proper dominion . for as to england he may be ready to plead , if not king henry the second his submitting his crown to the pope ; yet king john's resignation of it into the hands of the popes legat , and receiving it again as a feudatory to the see of rome . and for scotland , he may possibly revive that title which so long ago as boniface the eighth , he pretended over that kingdom ; namely , that the kingdom of scotland belongs of right to the church of rome , and that it is in the popes power alone , to give it to , or take it from whom he pleases . and lastly for ireland , who knoweth but that they may start , as a pretence for a temporal jurisdiction over that nation , henry the thirds swearing homage to the pope for it , and obliging himself to pay a tribute in recognition of the papal right . it s true , these things are impertinent and ridiculous in themselves ; yet were popery re-established in england , and the people brought under the conduct of the jesuites , who as they labour most effectually in the perversion of the nation , so being the janizaries of the holy see its easie to apprehend how far they may mis-improve them towards the serving the interest of the pope , in case any difference should arise either between the king and him , or any other forraign prince that his holiness , for secular ends shall think fit to befriend . surely it s with respect to these pretensions , that bellarmine so solemnly declareth , that these kingdoms are the diminions of the church ; and that the pope is our natural and direct lord ; and the king at best but his vassal . and it was in pursuance of this right that gregory the thirteenth commissioned tho. stukeley , an english rebel against queen elizabeth , to conquer the kingdom of ireland for his holiness's bastard-son james boncompagnon . and by virtue of the same pretension did innocent the tenth , during the late wars , usurp a royal power over that nation , and accordingly gave forth all kind of commissions by the hands of his nuncio . and if divers principles of popery are unfriendly to the safety of monarchs , section 3 and quiet of kingdoms , even where their religion is nationally received and submitted to ; we cannot imagine that the peace and security of these nations , who not only are of a different religion , but declare against them as antichristians and idolaters , should be better provided for , if occasion serve to do mischief . for besides the liableness of all protestant princes and people to the fatal consequence of the foregoing doctrines of the papal usurpation and jurisdiction over all nations , they have others particularly and especially calculated to authorise and justifie their destruction and ruine . such , as that we are all hereticks , and thereupon are not only de jure excommunicated by the lateran councel under innocent the third , but de facto , pronounced such for ever by paul the fourth , anno 1558. and as if that were not sufficient , we are in de bulla coenae domini , read commonly on maunday thursday , solemnly cursed . and thereupon the papists in the several dominions where the protestant religion obtains , are not only discharged from all allegiance to princes , but all catholicks are obliged by the strictest bond of conscience , and under the penalty of the utmost hazard of their souls , to depose such heretical princes . they are so far from being guilty of murder , saith vrban the third , that kill any who are excommunicate , that they are bound to exterminate hereticks , as they would be esteemed christians themselves , saith the decree of the lateran councel under innocent the third . yea , by the late bull of clement the tenth , for any papist to be loyal to an heretical prince , is publickly declared to be a crime ; and such are solemnly cursed in the view of all the world , for that which the principles of reason and revelation , and without which no government is safe , oblige them unto . bellarmine speaketh intelligibly when he saith , that hereticks are to be destroyed root and branch , if it can possibly be done ; but if it appear that the catholicks are so few that they cannot conveniently with their own safety , attempt such a thing , then it is best in such a case to be quiet , least upon opposition made by hereticks , the catholicks should be worsted . hereupon bannes hath no other apology to make for the english papists , that they do not forcibly rise against the king and his protestant subjects , but that they are not powerful enough for such an undertaking and therefore the attempt would be to their own prejudice and damage . so that upon the whole , protestants do only hold their lives at the courtesie of the papists , till they be in a condition by number and strength to destroy and extirpate them . good natur'd people that forbear to kill us , forasmuch as one of our lives may cost three of their own . and yet though at sometimes they seem to judge it convenient , either to conceal the foregoing principles , or to suffer them for a season to lye dormant by them : yet in reality such hath been their faithfulness to their doctrines , that they have never suffered us to be any considerable while without some testimony of the good will they maintain for hereticks , and how ready they are to do all those meritorious offices of killing and destroying us , which their religion obligeth them to do . i shall not mention here , the vast numbers of christians that have been butchered by the sentence of the roman inquisition , of which it is reported that paul the 4 th should say , that the authority of the see of rome depended upon that office , and that it was setled in spain by the inspiration of the holy ghost . but surely he meant not that which came down from heaven , but that which was sent from rome in a cloak-bag . nor shall i insist upon the infinite slaughters of such as professed jesus christ in sincerity , by crusado's and sanctified wars , though authentick authors tell us , that in france alone there were slain ten hundred thousand persons in the persecution raised against the waldenses , upon no other account but their dissenting from the church of rome . neither shall i dwell upon the parisian massacre , by which in a few days there were murdered above forty thousand persons , and that for no other cause , but because the church of rome had adjudged them hereticks ; but i shall rather call over some of the attempts against these nations , commenced upon , and justified by the foregoing principles of the papal church , in reference to those who differ in religion from them . no sooner was reformation established in england under edward the sixth , than divers rebellions in several parts of the land , were by the influence of the aforesaid doctrines , and the instigation of priests and friars , raised against the king and government , as every one may read in our vulgar chronicles . the number of those rebels may be guessed at by the lists of the killed and taken at some of the defeats given unto them ; and if we will believe our histories , there were above five thousand slain and taken prisoners , of those that rebelled in cornwall and devon-shire ; and above five thousand slain , of those that rose in norfolk and suffolk , besides those which were taken prisoners there , and who were cut off and apprehended in suppression of the rebellion in york-shire . now this excellent prince being dead , and queen mary established on the throne , though she was not of a bloody , or of an ill disposition in her self , yet her religion obliged her to those cruelties , which have at once left an indelible stain upon her memory , and given us to fear what we may expect if the government should at any time fall into the hand of one infected with the papal doctrine . for though her reign was but short , yet there were in the compass of a few years , two hundred seventy seven publickly burnt , besides near as many more who perished by imprisonment , torment and famine . and all these meerly for religion , not so much as one of them being chargeable with any traiterous machination against the government . upon her removal by a natural death , and queen elizabeth succeeding on the throne , the reformed religion was again re-established in the kingdom . and whereas notwithstanding the severity which had been expressed to her self , and the cruelty which had been exercised upon those of the same faith with her ; she not only buried all resentments , but was willing to suffer the papists to live quietly , both in the injoyment of their estates , and the private exercise of their religion : yet it is not to be expressed by what ways of assassination , conspiracy , rebellions at home , and invasions from abroad , they endeavoured to destroy her person , overthrow the government , and make the kingdom a field of blood . in pursuance of what by their religion they owe to hereticks , pius the 5 th did not only solemnly excommunicate and damn her self and all her protestant subjects , but likewise cursed all the papists that should give any obedience to her , or her laws . that whole bull proceeds upon her being a heretick , and for being so , the holy father deprives her of all dominion and dignity , absolves all her subjects from any obligation of allegiance ; and includes them under the same curse , though papists , that should yield any subjection to her . here was a paraphrase upon the principles of the romish religion towards hereticks , which the papists from time to time exemplified by practices sutable to the doctrines of their faith , and the infallible commentaries of the roman mufti . for i may confidently say , that the treasons of one kind and another that were contrived against her , and her protestant subjects , were more for number , than the years of her government . but all their machinations and attempts , being by the infi●ite wisdom and goodness of god , detected , disappointed and defeated ; and she laid in her grave , accompanied with the tears of her people : the like conspiracies continued against king james who succeeded her . for as they had endeavoured by a book published under the counterfeit name of doleman , but wrote by parsons , by communication with cardinal allen , and sir francis inglefield , to disprove at least sully his title to the crown : so they obtained two breve's from clement the 8 th to exclude him , unless he would swear to promote the romish religion . nor is it any matter of amazement or surprise , that the roman see should act in that manner to king james , forasmuch as gregory the 14 th had a little before by two monitory bulls declared henry the 4 th uncapable of the crown of france , and that upon no account , but because he was a heretick ; yea ( which may be a little more startling to those who are not acquainted with transactions of this nature ) notwithstanding that henry the third was both a loyal son of the church of rome , and had been a bloody and severe prosecuter of the hugonots , and had more adored the pope than ever any king of france did , yet the pope did both covenant and agree with the duke of guise , to depose the said prince , and to transfer the crown from those to whom by the laws of france it was to descend ; and to settle it on the said duke and his posterity , only with this proviso , that he would cause the estates of france to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the roman see , and without modification or restriction , to abolish the liberties and priviledges of the gallican church . but to return , king james being in defiance of all papal contrivances , established in the throne ; the first fruits of their loyalty to an heretical king , and the first evidence of their principles to such as renounce the communion of the church of rome , was to welcome him with a plot , contrived by watson and clarke two secular priests , but wheedled into it by the jesuits ( as i have heard themselves often declare ) and afterward● discovered in revenge , for their writing two books ; the one stiled , quodlibets , and the other , important considerations . i know the jesuits and their factors have of late the impudence to say , that they were drawn into that conspiracy by gray , cobham , and rawleigh , protestants ; who having been queen elizabeths old favorites , disliked king james his succession to the crown ; and that watson acknowledged his infamous death to be a just judgment for his factious writings , and designs against their order and society . things as wholly false in themselves , so recorded by no authentick historian of the times when they were transacted . but to pass this : that plot miscarrying , the jesuits , the great crafts-masters in all conspiracies , designed another , and that such a one as might every way correspond to the principles of the roman religion , and bear proportion to the good will which by vertue of those principles , they bear to hereticks . and accordingly they contrived the blowing up the king , lords , and commons ; the whole kingdom , as well in epitome , as in its representatives . and this they did meerly in pursuance of what their religion obliged them unto , being withall quickned to the design by the two briev's received some years before , but hitherto kept dormant to operate upon a convenient occasion , and good opportunity . but being disappointed in that also , ( through its having been discovered by means that i now enquire not into ) and the prodigiousness of the conspiracy , having awakened england to a more signal watchfulness , and effectual care for its own preservation , as it had astonished the whole world , pagan as well as christian , where the report of it arrived ; the kingdom had some reprieve for a few years , from the publick workings of the popish principles , in the catholick service , and office of destroying and murthering hereticks . but even in that interval wherein they seemed to lye most dormant , they gave us instances enough how acceptable those heretick murthering doctrines are at rome . for while all the world stood amazed at the former attempt , and many of the papists abroad seemed to express their detestation of the principles which produced it , the pope and court of rome took all imaginable care to have the traytors magnified and honoured . for garnet the provincial of the jesuits , though by his acknowledgment under his own hand , he dyed for treason ; yet had his name inserted into the english martirology , and his bones were reserved for reliques , and his image erected over altars : and two jesuits who had been principal conspirators in that hellish plot , and had by misfortune escaped the halter , which was the reward due to them for their barbarous conspiracy ; were upon their arrival at rome , both of them advanced to be the popes penitentiaries . and moreover , when the king and parliament for the security of the kings person , and preservation of the government , and the lives of his subjects , were forced to enact and impose on the papists the oath of allegiance ; paul the 5 th published divers bulls against it , and both becanus and bellarmine , besides many more , wrote expresly in opposition to the taking of it . but the next impression of their faith in its sutable and proper works , made amends for their laziness and barrenness during that interim : for through the influence of the same principles , and being animated by the pope , they murdered above two hundred and fifty thousand in ireland , without any other inducement to it , save that they were protestants ; and that in killing of them the catholick cause was promoted . for at no time did the irish enjoy more liberty as to their religion , and more tranquility as to their persons and estates , than immediately before they broke out into that horrid rebellion . nor was that quiet and security they possessed , the fruits only of a connivance , but the effects of many acts of grace , which had a little before past in favour of them . and as there was no alarm given of this , either by foregoing citations to return into the bosom of the mother-church , nor by any solemn publication of their being excommunicated , nor by any proclaimed crusadoes , or a holy war ; least the secure hereticks being numerous , and not willing to part with their lives tamely , might have been roused to self-defence ; so this barbarous massacring of so many thousand persons , who had laid innumerable obligations upon their popish irish neighbours , can be resolved into nothing but the principles of the romish religion , and the obligations that papists are under by vertue of their very faith , to root out hereticks , when a conveniency offereth . and take possession of their estates , which by the decree of the lateran councel under innocent the third , are forfeited to the roman catholicks ; and which not only may , but ought to be seized , whensoever it comes within the circle of their power to accomplish it . there are many other instances which might be re-collected of their readiness to be as kind and merciful to hereticks , as their religion not only instructeth , but obligeth them , were it not that this damnable and hellish plot , which hath been for some years last past , and still is , carried on for murthering the king , subverting the government , and rooting out the protestant religion , supercedeth all further need of insisting upon those things . to make then a nearer approach to the present plot , the agents of section 4 the church of rome having with the utmost diligence , as well as all imaginable craft and art , especially since the restoration of his majesty , projected and pursued the re-introduction of popery into these kingdoms , and the extirpation of heresie , ( as they are pleased to stile the protestant religion ) they were at last ( as they apprehended ) come within view of infallibly compassing their design . now there were some things which afforded them advantages for the attaining these ends , which at no time since the reformation , were they before now possessed of the assistance of . the first was , that interest at court , and universal esteem through the whole kingdom , which the pretented loyalty of many catholicks , during the late unhappy war betwixt his late majesty , and many of his people , who acted under the influence and supposed authority of a parliament ; reconciled and gave unto them . this , together with the assistance which some of the papists , contributed to the escape of his present majesty , and the seeming readiness of many of them , to co-operate with others , in his restauration , gave them not only a share in the peace and quiet which these kingdoms were restored unto ; but procured a further degree of respect to them , than had been either usually , or universally shown them since the reformation . and though i would not endeavour to lessen their loyalty at any time , when they might but seem to pretend to it ; yet to deal plainly , i know very little reason for their pretences of loyalty to king charles the first , more than to his majesty who now happily reigns : yea , i know very much why they ought at least to supercede all right of merit on that foot of account . for not to insist upon what preceded the unhappy war ; though antecedently to that , we are told of a conspiracy to destroy the kings life , whereof the discovery was found in archbishop land's library , being declared by andreas ab haberfeld to sir william boswell , embassador then at the hague , who revealed it to the archbishop . but i say , not to dwell upon this , nor upon that , that i am now to say , namely , that it is affirmed , and that with all the moral certainty imaginable , that the romish emissaries were both the principal authors of that vniformity with england , which was pressed upon scotland , and also prime sticklers to prevent its being entertained there , and all to foment a war betwixt the two kingdoms . the priests names have been oftner then once published to the world , who were sent by cardinal richlieu into that kingdom , to raise and inflame differences betwixt the two nations . and the motives upon which that great boutefeu of europe was so earnest to kindle a war in his majesties dominions , are sufficiently understood , by all who are not wholly strangers to the affairs of that time . but there are two things which overthrow all their pretences of loyalty to his late majesty , of which they so confidently boast , and have made so large advantages . one is their commencing that bloody war in ireland , in the massacring so many of his majesties protestant subjects ; which as it increased the jealousies , that the like might be designed against those of the same religion , in this kingdom ; so the making all assistances ( by the war which they had begun there ) from thence impossible , gave confidence to the parliament to be the more peremptory in those demands , which his majesty finding it necessary to refuse to comply with , proved the causes of that unnatural war which fell out among our selves , and of all the fatal consequences of it . and as a further testimony of their loyalty to that prince , they not only renounced all allegiance to him , and banished his lieutenant , but assumed the royal authority to themselves , owing only a dependance upon the pope and his nuncio . the second is , that accession which they had to the murder of his late majesty . for as the principles upon which those seem to have acted , who publickly destroyed the king , are not only countenanced , but most especially taught by the doctors and casuists of the church of rome ; so the effects of those principles are to be charged as well upon them that teach doctrines of such pernicious consequence , as upon them that practise them . hear then what the greatest authors in the romish church declare to the purpose before us . the power of a nation , saith bellarmine , is setled in the whole multitude as its true and proper subject ; and accordingly they may change a kingdom into an aristocratical , or democratical state , whensoever they find cause for it . if a prince be a tyrant , saith lessius ; he may be deposed , or declared a publick enemy by the common-wealth ; and thereupon it may be lawful to attempt any thing against his person . when the common-wealth , saith mariana , cannot other ways secure and preserve its own peace and safety , it may by a right inherent in it self , declare the king to be the common enemy , and then destroy him with the sword. thus we plainly see , that whatsoever others did , the jesuits had first taught them the principles upon which they might justifie the doing of it . but this is not all , for over and above this , they have not only been openly charged to have had a hand in the contriving and actually compassing the late kings death ; but the person that doth thus accuse them , undertakes the justification of it , either before his present majesty , or before any one who can legally require it of him . and which is an evident demonstration of their guilt , notwithstanding all the interest which they have had of late years , from which they might at least promise themselves justice , if they could not expect favour ; yet though challenged to bring this matter to a hearing , they have not so much as once dared to attempt it . yea the late king himself , was informed a little before his death , that the jesuits at a general meeting in france , in revenge for his condescending in the treaty at the isle of wight , to pass some bills in prejudice of them , and the romish religion , had unanimously resolved by the power , interest , and influence that they had in and upon the army , to bring him to justice , and get him executed . accordingly when the stroke was given , both one that was a romish priest , and a confessor , namely , sarabras , brandished his sword , and proclaimed , that now their greatest enemy was cut off and destroyed . i suppose that the judgment of sir william morrice late secretary of state , will bear some weight with all english men , as well upon the account of his great integrity , as the many opportunities he enjoyed beyond others , of satisfying himself in a matter of this importance ; hear then what he declares in a letter to dr. du moulin , august the 9 th . 1673. this i may say safely , and will do it confidently , that many arguments did create a violent suspition , very near convincing evidences , that the irreligion of the papists , was chiefly guilty of the murder of that excellent prince , the odium whereof they would file — to the account of the protestant religion . however , the papists having not only escaped legal arraignments upon this account , but having since the kings return , been esteemed by some , his late majesties best friends ; they have thereupon arrived at more respect , as well as enjoy'd more peace in their persons and estates , than they were in possession of at any time since the reformation . nor do i believe that there is any protestant that would have envied them the security they enjoyed , or the favour they had attained to , provided they had not abused them to the destruction of his majesties person , the supplanting of his government , and the extirpating the religion which was legally established . but alas , good and peaceable souls , such an opportunity of promoting the catholick interest , was not to be lost . they might now carry on their designs for the triple-crown , none daring to suggest any thing to bring them under a jealousie , who would not be immediately aspersed , as maligners of the kings best friends . and it is not to be apprehended what improvement of that little stock of credit , which some of the popish gentry had gotten by their being on the late kings side in the last war ; the jesuits , priests , and friars , made to the furtherance of the subjugating these nations again to rome , for now were all the principles of the papal religion ( by which those that espouse it , are obliged to root out heresie , and establish the jurisdiction of the pope ) inculcated from day to day upon persons of one quality and another of the papal profession . a second thing , which gave them no less advantage for the carrying on section 5 of their designs , was the division among the protestants themselves . and here two things greatly ministred to the sub-serving the design of the papal agents . ( 1 ) the parties divided were come to a more equal ballance as to numbers on each side respectively , than at any season heretofore . for during the reigns of queen elizabeth , king james , and king charles the first , the dissenters from the established way of the church of england , were but few , in comparison of those who were for episcopacy , and the rites and ceremonies required by law in divine worship . so that there being then little jealousie of any danger to the church of england , from the protestant dissenters , how zealous soever they might even in those days be for their way , the watchfulness of the dignitaries of the church , and the labours of the inferiour clergy , were chiefly exercised and laid out in reference to the papists . but those who stile themselves non-conformists , being now multiplied to that degree , as that they seem to bear a much nearer proportion to the other party , than heretofore they did ; the main care of the over seers of the church , hath thereupon much abated towards the papists , and been exerted towards them . ( 2 ) the animosities between the protestants thus divided into two parties , were become higher , and their mutual exasperations grown fiercer , than heretofore . for partly through the ill entertainment which the bishops and the conformable clergy met with in the late times , and partly through the ill entertainment which the bishops and the conformable clergy met with in the late times , and partly through the retaliation they have measured to protestant dissenters , since they had the authority of the law , and assistance of the government to befriend them , they are wonderfully inflamed in mutual heats towards , and disgust of one another . of which it is easie to imagine , what manifold uses the factors for the roman see , have made to the furthering of their own designs , which tend equally to the ruine of both . for as the pretence of these divisions , hath served as a plea to proselyte such who know not that the divisions of the church of rome are more numerous , and their feuds more irreconcileable ; so the subtile ministers of the papacy have , by winding themselves into all companies , if not the mustering themselves in all parties , endeavoured both to heighten the differences , and to make their animosities against each other , not only hotter , but more immortal . and while the one party of protestants hath been crying out of schism , and the other party of persecution ; the papists have to the reproach of both , been undermining that common faith which they equally centre in , and carrying on a design of destroying the one as well as the other , being in their account both equally hereticks . i would be loath to believe , that through the grandure which the clergy are exalted unto the possession of in the church of rome , that therefore our protestant bishops and other dignitaries of the english church , should think them the less dangerous ; but this i know , that those vulgarly stiled phanaticks , have judged themselves highly justified in their clamours against the conformable clergy , in that they are so severely treated , while in the mean time , no difference in any fundamental doctrine from the church of england , can be objected unto them . and as the jealousies which the differences betwixt dissenting protestants , have caused , have made every overture , though for the preservation of religion in general , and the safety of the nation , ( wherein they are both alike interested ) if proposed by one party , to be suspected by the other ; so the distrust which these divisions have caused in one protestant towards another , hath in no small measure emboldned the papists to hope , that in whatsoever they should attempt , there could be no confederation among protestants , either to resist or oppose them , and though i cannot say it upon my own knowledge , yet i have cause to believe it from the reason of the thing , as well as upon the testimony of mr. dugdale , that they were the more confident in their design privately to assassinate the king , as hoping when they had so done , to have fathered it upon the phanaticks . and as they might very rationably believe , that would the nation have been so possest , they would have avenged it upon that party , even to the extirpating of them ; so they assuredly knew , that thereby their own design of destroying the episcopal protestants , would have been rendred much the more facile . section 6 a third thing that equally contributed with the former , to the introduction of popery into these kingdoms , was the general prophaneness which hath greatly over-spread these nations , beyond what at any time heretofore hath been observed . for besides that every prophane person is truly of no religion , and therefore indifferent to seem to be of any , as interest and temptation sways him ; so no man can care much to be of that religion , which not only condemns all the ways he is resolved upon , but the more because he is of such a religion that doth not allow them . and withall there is this further whereby such men are disposed for popery more than others , viz. that it can both allow them in all the sins which they have a mind to , and secure them from the fears of eternal punishments in the practice of them . for partly by making many things which christ hath forbid , and men from the power of their lusts , and the influence of their interest have a desire to commit , to be no sins : and partly by making such things which the gospel stiles enormous crimes , to be but venial offences , which even in the justice of god do deserve eternal punishment ; and partly by that security from future wrath , which they propose to them who are guilty of the most daring and prodigious enormities , through their doctrines referring to pennances , absolutions , and papal indulgencies ; they had all imaginable grounds of confidence , that no profane protestants ( whatsoever others did ) would withstand them in their designs of introducing a religion which had so carefully provided for them . now being furthered by these several advantages for the introducing section 7 their religion into these kingdoms again , and the overthrowing the ancient and legal government . the next thing to be discoursed of , is the several steps which they had actually taken , and the progress which they had made for the final compassing of those direful and tragical designs . and their first remarkable advance , was their merciless and cruel burning of the city of london , whereof as they were evidently proved the authors , and instruments , by many depositions taken by order and authority of parliament , anno 1667. so it hath been further testified against them by mr. oates and mr. bedloe , with an enumeration of many particulars , clearly demonstrative beyond all controll , of their guilt in that particular . and though they were prevented and disappointed of what they further intended at that time , and whereunto the burning of london was only designed as a prologue ; yet the compassing the devastation of the city ; was in it self alone , no small attainment in the matter of their catholick and main project . for besides the greatly impoverishing the whole nation , as well as the inhabitants of the said city thereby ; the re-building of london , and the providing of bread for distressed families , was subject enough to employ the thoughts and cares of most men for divers years , without affording them leisure to watch , observe and provide against the designs of the papists . besides , it may not be improbably conceived , that through londons lying in ashes , and the whole kingdoms being distressed through the influence which this metropolitan hath upon all parts of the nation ; both the war which his majesty was then engaged in with the dutch , was the less vigorously prosecuted , and they emboldned to that which they perpetrated in burning some of the royal navy in his majesties chambers . and which hath been more fatal , from this fountain of distress that the kingdom laboured under , as an effect of the burning of london , was the french king encouraged to the aggrandising himself , by those conquests which he made upon the spanish provinces in the netherlands . and his majesty , whose wisdom sufficiently instructed him , that it was the interest even of his own dominions , to have the ballance of europe kept even , found himself disabled from giving that check and opposition to that princes designs , which we may very well conceive that otherwise he would have done . a second step , which the unwearied enemies of the protestant religion section 8 in these dominions , had taken , towards both the extirpating of it , and subverting the government was , their having interested the french king in their councels , and their having in a great measure engaged him to assist them with money , and what else might be convenient for the executing their designs and attempts . as the jesuits heretofore laboured in nothing more effectually , than the advancing the king of spain to the universal monarchy of europe : so that crown , being by various ways and means , ( not here to be insisted upon ) much weakned , and rendred wholly uncapable of aspiring any further in that matter ; the pragmatical and treacherous jesuits , have of late years entirely applied themselves , to the serving the interest , and promoting the grandure of the french monarch . and when time , the revealer of truth , shall have discovered the mysterious workings of those sons of pride and deceit , it will then appear how they have both kindled those flames of war , which have for some years past laid many flourishing provinces in europe wast , and rendred all the neighbouring kingdoms and lands , fields of blood ; but that they have by the interest which they have obtained in all courts , influenced some princes to a neutrality , and others to an open confederacy with france ; so that the french monarch is now justly become the dread of all his neighbours . but that which i am observing is this , namely , that the french king being arrived at that formidable greatness which he now stands in , the plotters and contrivers of the ruine of england , drew him into their councels , and obtained promises of assistance towards the rooting out of heresie , ( as according to the roman stile they call the protestant religion ) and nourishing a mis-understanding betwixt his majesty and his people . and as they do conceive this to be a great advance towards their main project , otherwise they would neither have so laboured to compass it , nor bear themselves so much upon it , having gained that point ; so in case that other means for the enslaving of these nations , and subversion of religion , should fail them , which at present they nourish their hopes with the success of , we may rationally look for no better consequences and effects from what i have mentioned , than that the king being excommunicate , and the nation cursed with him ; lewis the 14 th should be intrusted to execute the papal bann . and that innocent the 11 th having made a donation of these kingdoms to him , as pius the 5 th did to philip the 2 d. king of spain , he should with a strength proportionable to the extent of his own dominions , and the greatness of his preparations for less designs , endeavour to take possession of them , as philip the second once did . and how ready they will be to animate the french king to contribute the assistance of his treasure and arms , for the rooting out of english hereticks , we may justly fear and presume from the councels they give him in reference to his own subjects , that are of the reformed religion . for in a late book , to the maxims of which the conduct of his whole affairs seems very much adapted , he is not only informed , that his ancestors never failed to be protectors of the apostolick see , and the church , but that they turned their arms , and exposed their lives against the albigenses ; they vanquished them , they destroyed them , they imprisoned the poor men of lyons . and he is further told , that both by principles of christianity , and maxims of policy , it is necessary for him to reduce all his subjects to one and the same belief ; and that the edict of nantes , as being extorted from his predecessors by violence , and with sword in hand , ought to be no obstruction in the execution of so blessed a design , but that the said edict is to be revoked , or at least neglected . now his compliance with this advice against the protestants in france , evidenced in many instances , whereby he hath endeavoured to extirpate them and their religion , though by degrees , and in the ways of fraud and art , as well as by power and force ; may at once and instruct us what measure and favour his heretical neighbours are to expect from him , if incited against them by the pope , and invited to the undertaking by the english papists . if neither the advancing his granfather henry the great to the crown , nor the securing himself in his royalty , when sought to be dethron'd by the prince of condy , deserve or obtain better measure of requital , that what the hugonots in france daily meet with ; what may these of the protestant religion in england look for from a prince , that besides his knowing the pretensions of the kings of england to the dominion of france , and his remembring the conquests that our ancestors made upon that monarchy , and his sensing that his present majesties council and arms have hindred the carrere of his late successes , i say what may we look for from a prince , who besides all this , is at once encouraged by the pope , invited by the roman catholiques in england , and inflamed by his own ambition and pride , as well as animated by his zeal to the catholique cause , to turn his formidable preparations against these lands ? but to conclude this , i do particularly affirm that the success of the french arms abroad , hath emboldned the papists in england in their designs of subverting not only religion , but the government . a third great step , they had made to the subjugating these kingdoms to section ix their idolatrous religion , and the tyranous yoke of the roman court ; was their preventing the presumptive heir to the crown . for howsoever they can here affirm with all the asseverations imaginable , especially when in conversation with credulous and easie protestants , that the duke of york is still of the established religion , only that he is a prince of more generousness , than to comply with the capricioes of a parliament , in renouncing this , or swearing to that , as they shall in an humour enact : yet they not only know and beleeve the contrary , but both make their boasts of it , and erect their further hopes upon it . father anderton rector of the english college of jesuits at rome , father campion minister of the same college , and father green procurator for their order at monto portio , have often told me when i was in italy , that the duke of york was of their religion . and as the perversion of his royal highness gave them nearer prospects of their establishing their superstition and tyranny , once again in these kingdoms and dominions ; so it contributed to , too effectually to the bringing over many of all ranks and qualities to them . for as i have , when abroad , frequently heard the jesuits glory , both in the acquisition of such a convert , and that many gentlemen through his example had renounced protestancy and embraced the roman catholique doctrine ; so the thing carries a self evidence in it , nothing being more familiar in the observation of ages , than that the influence of a person of the rank , quality , and legal hopes of his royal highness , should sway vast and large numbers of people , to espouse the persuasion that he had taken up . there is a great part of mankind that seems to own this or that religion , who yet do it not upon any rational grounds , or motives of conviction , but with respect of secular interests , wordly advantages , and accomodations . and persons of this figure , being in truth of no religion , will not publickly avow themselves , but vigorously impose that upon others , which appears suited and calculated unto their carnal an worldly ends. and the atheistical principles , which i am afraid too many have imbib'd from a great pretender to philosophy and politicks , namely that all the obligations of the law of god upon the consciences of men , may be violated by the authority of the sovereign in his own dominions , and that no person is accountable at the tribunal of the lord , for renouncing christianity it self , and much less for the disclaiming protestancy , providing he hath the command of a ruler to authorise him in what he doth : i say i am justly apprehensive that these and the like abominable notions , which many have suckt in from mr. hobbs , do not only dispose men to be of the roman faith , if at any time the sovereign proves to be so , but that not a few under the meer prospect of what is likely to be , have judged it most convenient to antidate themselves of that religion , which they foresee that in a little time they must be of . moreover it is not easie to be conceived how the duke of yorks being a papist , hath encouraged vast numbers of romish emissaries to come over hither , afforded them security while here , and emboldned them in their addresses to all ranks and degrees of persons . and as the city and country never swarmed so much with all sort of romish ecclesiasticks both secular and regular , as since the perversion of his royal highness ; so by their accosting the hopes of some , and addressing the fears of others , from the duke's being a papist , they have ( and that upon my own personal knowledge ) prevailed upon many to conform to — his example . for i very well remember , that father campian being returned from england to rome , where i then was , did not only confirm them that were here , in the belief of the duke of yorks being a papist , and of his having been often at mass , but withall affirmed that through his example , many gentlemen were not only turned roman catholicks , but jesuits . surely it was upon a due knowledge , as well as mature deliberation , that the great senate of the nation april 27. 1679. resolved nemine contradicente , that the duke of york 's being a papist , and his hopes of coming to the crown such , hath given the greatest incouragement to the present conspiracy , and designs of the papists , against the king and the protestant religion . section x nor was this either the only progress they had made to the reinslaving the nations to rome ; but through the interest of the duke of york , and the universal influence he had both at sea and land , and likewise at home and abroad , they obtained divers of these persons who were most zealous for the papal jurisdiction , and in whom they could best confide , to be advanced and preferred into places of power and trust. and of this there needs no further evidence ( though many more instances might be assigned ) but the advancement of my lord clifford to be lord high treasurer , and sr. william godolphin to be his majesties embassador in spain , and my lord bellasis to be governor of hull . 't is true that by the late tests — which his majesty and the parliament have provided for such as were to be imployed in publick trusts ( that papists might be the better and more effectually known and distinguished from protestants ) there are both some removed , who had been advanced to places of trust , authority and profit , and some others kept from arriving at those stations in the commonwealth , and in the attaining that place and interest in the manage of publick affairs , which they not only aspired after , but stood recommended unto . yet give me leave to say , that there are some that have taken these tests , who notwithstanding continue still votaries to the church of rome , and are only protestants in masquerade . for as it was for the credit of the roman church , that some should rather resign their employes and places , than renounce the papal jurisdiction , or any part of the tridentine faith ; so it being their interest ( at least for a while ) to have it concealed what persons universally were papists , and it being also for their advantage , to have some of their party continued in publick offices , without suspicion of their religion , the better to promote their further designs , they have accordingly made provision for the one as well as the other . and as the losses which some of the party have appeared willing to undergo , upon the foregoing occasion , have served to enhance — the reputation of their church ; so others being best qualified by their taking — the tests for the enjoying preferments and revenues under the present government , are not only spies upon the councils of the nation , but vipers nourished with the profits of the land , to betray and undermine the government . and whereas some may think that no person cordial in any — religion , should for secular accommodations and worldly advantages , offend against god , and indanger their own souls , by renouncing their faith , and forswearing that , upon which they superstruct all their hopes for salvation : the church of rome hath by more methods than one , secured such , not only from all fear and hazard of future wrath , but from all danger of sinning against god by so doing . and as to this purpose the doctrines of papal absolution and indulgence , are admirably suited , supposing their should be sin in such a case ; so the doctrines of equivocation , mental reservation and authoritative dispensations , are no less calculated for preserving them from all guilt — notwithstanding their taking the oaths , and making the declarations which the law requires . having now made these happy proceeds , as they thought , towards the section xi overthrow of the protestant religion and the established government , there remained only for the accomplishment of these , and all other their execrable designs , but the destroying the life of the king. and there are these ensuing reasons which not only justifie such endeavours in all that are furnished with evidence , for the making a further detection , but which do indispensably oblige them not to conceal any thing that may serve to unravel and unvail the conspiracy . ( 1. ) the vindication of the justice of the nation on those traitors that have suffered , doth bespeak and require this at every mans hand . for though the utmost candor imaginable , was extended to the criminals , and the stricktest scrutiny by interrogations in favour of the malefactors , exercised towards the kings witnesses , and the several juries that were impannelled for their tryal , were of the most knowing , honoured ; and impartial persons that either the city of london , or the neighbouring county could afford ; yet all these have not been sufficient to prevent the arraignment of the justice of the kingdom , for condemning those conspirators . for not to mention what their surviving friends , do as falsly as reproachfully give out in favour of their innocency in all companies ; the very press ( almost to the ignominy of the government that suffereth it ) hath swarmed with pamphlets in justification of their having died guiltless . such pamphlets , are the letter to both houses ; the sober and seasonable queries , in order to the choice of the new parliament ; the second edition with additions , &c. the jesuits plea , in answer to a letter , entituled lying allowable with the papists to deceive protestants : the plot of the papists , to transform traitors into martyrs : the compendium of the late tryals , in relation to the present plot : besides divers other prints equally scurrilous , as well as filled with pernicious reflections upon the honour and justice of the nation , so that every man of sense , is surprised at their impudence , and every person of loyalty , roused to a zeal of vindicating the king and kingdom , from the obloquies of injustice cast upon them . and though the kings witnesses do intend publickly to vindicate themselves from the calumnies with which they are aspersed , and will , i doubt not , perform it both to the universal satisfaction of the nation , and the utter confusion of their adversaries ; yet let me offer these two or three remarks upon the foregoing pamphlets , which i judge not only sufficient to baffle them , but eternally to expose them to contempt , as so many infamous libels . first then , what credit ought to be given to him , that shall dare publish in the view of all the nation , that not one person accused in this pretended conspiracy , did either fly or abscond ( except only the priests who were obnoxious to the law for their priesthood ) when in the mean time ( besides many others of all ranks and qualities , who upon their being some of them accused , and others suspected , have withdrawn themselves ) the four villains who are charged for conspiring to assassinate the king , do notwithstanding his royal proclamation requiring their appearance , either by flight or concealment absent themselves . secondly , who pretending to be either a good christian , or a faithfull subject , can have any faith for such a person , who is not afraid no more than ashamed , openly thus to slander the king himself , namely that though he be both most concerned , and has had the best opportunities of examining the discovery of the plot , yet he is so far from believing it that he openly laughs at it . vile impostor ! that dares thus accuse the king both to the world , and his own people . how often hath his majesty told us in his royal proclamations , that he is fully convinced of a hellish and popish conspiracy , against his own person , the protestant religion , and the government : and yet this impudent generation of romish votaries do not blush to affirm ; that he laughs at it as a fabulous and romantick story . doth not the king in his proclamation octob. 30. 1678. call it a bloody and traiterous design , of popish recusants , against his majesties person , and government , and the protestant religion ? and doth he not by his proclamation nov. 20. 1678. declare that the popish priests and jesuits , lurking within this realm , have contrived , and set on foot divers traiterous plots and designs , against his majesty , his government , and the protestant religion by law established ? and doth he not also by his proclamation for a fast , march 28. 1679. declare , that through the impious and malicious conspiracies , of the popish party , there is a plot not only intended , to the destruction of his royal person , but the total subversion of the government , and of the true protestant religion within the realm by law established ? and doth not my lord chancellor in his speech to both houses of parliament , march the 6. 1678 / 9. assures us , that his majesties royal person hath been in danger , by a conspiracy against his sacred life , malitiously contrived , and industriously carried on by the seminary priests , and jesuits , and their adherents , who think themselves under some obligation of conscience to effect it , and having vowed the subversion of the true religion amongst us , find no way so likely to compass it , as to wound us in the head , and kill the defender of the faith ? and besides what the last parliament declared to that purpose , did not the house of commons of the parliament which was then sitting when the plot was first discovered , with the approbation of the house of lords , resolve , that that house was of opinion , that there hath been , and still is , a damnable and hellish plot , contrived and carried on by popish recusants , for assassinating and murdering the king , and for subverting the government , and rooting out and destroying the protestant religion . so that now upon the whole matter , he that dare assume the boldness to tell us , that the king laughs at the plot , as a ridiculous and ill contrived story , doth brand the king , the lord chancellor , and two parliaments for a company of impostors . and if this be not enough to stigmatise such rascals for the worst of slanderers , and overthrow their credit with all mankind , surely nothing in this world can be alledged more effectual to do it . thirdly , need we more to satisfie us , that there is any thing to be expected from men of a papal complexion , by lies and calumnies , if we will but consider , that after they had inhumanly murdered sr. edmund-bury godfrey , fastned divers slanders upon him before he was found , and afterwards endeavoured to impose plain impossibilities upon our faith , namely that he had killed thimself , when the place where he lay , the manner of his laying , and many other circumstances uncontroulably demonstrated the contrary ; so at last , one of these scandalous and villainous scriblers dare now solemnly avouch , that he was an entire friend to the popish party , and that he had performed the utmost service in their behalf , that friendship it self could suggest . can there be any thing said more effectual at once to convince this fellow of being a slanderer , or to disabuse those men of little understanding , that are inclined to believe him in any thing he says , than that he should offer to obtrude upon the faith of englishmen ; that sr. edmund-bury godfrey was a papist , or at least a very friend to the papal party ? it were to abase the patience of all who knew that worthy gentleman , and are masters of sense or honesty , to offer to prove that sr. edmund-bury godfrey was a protestant , or that he was far enough from supposing himself inrolled in the number of the friends of the popish faction . alas poor gentleman ! as he little dreamed that a professed member of the church of england , and a liberal asserter of the protestant doctrine , and constant reliever of the necessities of those that were of the reformed religion , but one ( as himself frequently related ) that expected to be the first martyr under the popish rage , should be consigned down to posterity as the cordial friend to those avow'd enemies of his own religion , or a principal confident of those bontefeus of the kingdom , for whose peace and safety he was a watchfull magistrate . nothing allyed to truth can be expected , from such who after they had barbarously murdered an innocent gentleman , do by robbing him afterwards of his honour , credit and reputation , assassinate him a second time . it is a great effect of the divine wisdom , to give up impostors to the venting some palpable falshoods , that the easie and credulous world may be the better fortified against those other reports , which they cannot so easily disapprove . for they who are found wilfull and evident slanderers in some things , ought not to be credited in any thing unless it be accompanied with better credentials , than the authority of their testimony . these few remarks are sufficient to take off the credit of those popish scriblers , that have attacked the reputation of the kings witnesses , and slandered the justice of the nation , so a reply being preparing to all the particular instances in which they are slandered , may discharge me from calling those pamphletters to a further account . yet forasmuch as i do not think it enough to have these advocates section xii of the plot proved meerly to be slanderers , i shall therefore moreover show that the papists may not only be publick defamers with a consistancy to their religion , but that the doctrines of their chief casuists , instruct and incourage them to be so . and this i shall perform in a brief consideration of two particulars . first , in that they teach the members of their church , to be under no obligation to speak truth either to , or of hereticks ; but that they may calumniate them without the fear of guilt or divine wrath . it is the common opinion of the jesuits in all their scholastick and casuistical writings , that it is no sin to calumniate those who speak ill of them or the roman church . they are under no moral obligation to hereticks ; but may cheat them without dishonesty , violate oaths made unto them without perjury , rob them without theft , kill them without murder , and lie to them , or concerning them without the violation of the measures of truth or justice . nor is it any ways strange , that while they may meritoriously destroy us , they should with innocency defame us . for by the same principles , that no faith is to be kept with hereticks , no faith is due to them . when we meet with such maxims , as that servants owe no fidelity to heretical masters , nor children obedience to heretical parents , nor wives conjugal duty to heretical husbands , nor subjects loyalty to heretical princes ; ought we after this to be surprised , upon finding it established as a received doctrine at least of the jesuits , that they may innocently slander and defame hereticks of whatsoever quality and degree ? and as by the knowledge of their principles in this matter , i can make a shift to understand balsec , cocleus , sanders , &c. — in their virulent and slanderous books , against calvin , luther , and other blessed reformers , without finding my self obliged to believe them in any one word they speak , to the defamation of those whom they accuse ; so by the same means i judge my self conducted not to give credit to any papist , speaking to the prejudice of an heretick , unless i be otherwise assured of the truth of what he declares . but secondly , if you will add to this , that they are countenanced by the maxims of their divines , to defame any one of what religion soever he be , that doth them an injury , we may then be fully armed against all impressions of disbelieving the plot , that the late scriblers are designed to raise or beget . in all the casuistical divinity of the jesuits , there is hardly a case wherein they do so unanimously conspire and agree as in this , that it is lawfull to invent crimes to ruine their credit who speak ill of them . and this they have not only declared in their books , but maintained in the theses , which they have proposed to be disputed in their schools . i know that which surprizeth many , who know not the rules and measures the papists act by , is the men not only pretending to some religion themselves , but intrusted with the conduct of the consciences of others , should publish and divulge such and such things , if they were not true ; when alas ! the principle they act by , is not whether the thing they affirm be true , but whether it be for their advantage , honour , and secular interest to have it believed . i do maintain saith dicastellus — that calumny when it is used against a calumniator , ( i. e. one that doth them or their order a mischief ) though grounded on absolute falsities , is not for that any mortal sin , either against justice or charity . that is is only any mortal sin to calumniate falsly , to preserve ones honour , is no doubt , saith caramuel , a probable opinion . it is a probable opinion , that we may lawfully slander that person , by charging him with crimes that are false , against whose testimony we are not able otherwise to defend our selves , saith sambourin . nor is it any ways strange that they should hold it lawfull to calumniate any one that accuseth them , seeing they declare it lawfull to kill such a one . we may without mortal sin , saith lessius , kill an accuser , though the crime whereof he accuseth us be true , so it were secret . it is lawfull even for an ecclesiastick or monk , saith amicus , to kill that person who threatens to produce great crimes against him or his order . now having established maxims by which they make it lawfull not only to calumniate , without endangering their salvation , but destroy those that injure them ; is it any thing strange that they should practise what they esteem lawfull , especially when their doing it is so necessary , not only to the preservation of the credit and safety of their order , but of their church , and all their party in england ? can any man imagin , but that having made it lawfull to calumniate , they should at this time , if ever , act accordingly , there being no way left to vindicate themselves , or discredit their accusers , save the making their recourse to lies , slanders and revilings . i desire in reference to all they say , to bring the business to this issue with them ; either their casuists teach such maxims , or they do not . as to their teaching them , let them deny it if they dare , i both assign the men that do so , and the places where . and besides those i have mentioned , shall be ready if called thereunto , to produce many more concurring in the same doctrine . and seeing they do teach these maxims , let them if they can , give but any rational person satisfaction , that any credit is due to such , who may lawfully act ( as every papist may ) upon these principles . let them not then offer to abuse the world any more , by discourses demonstrative of the unlawfulness of lying and calumniating , by arguments from natural light , and divine revelation , seeing neither scripture , nor the light of reason are the measures which they govern themselves by . and all treatises of that nature are but fresh instances of their lying and deceiving , while they are declaring it unlawfull to do so . and let me add this , that the late pamphlets most adapted to impose upon the world , a belief of the credibility and sincerity of the jesuits , such as the letter to the two houses ; the jesuits plea ; and the new plot to transform jesuits into martyrs , &c. do overlook all those maxims of their casuists , which have been advanced against them , by the authors both of the impartial consideration of the speeches of the five jesuits ; and of the letter intituled lying allowable with papists to deceive protestants : and do only insist upon other principles , which by their maxims they are not obliged to govern themselves by . and whereas they are pleased to ask us , whether we take those who have been either condemned , or only arraigned , to have been atheists , that they should do that , which not only the principles of the gospel , but the common sentiments of mankind not only forbid under the greatest penalty , but teach us to detest ? i answer that i take them to have been worse , namely jesuits , or their disciples , who under the names of christians , to the reproach of religion , as well as the debauching of mankind , and ruine of all societies and government , have established that as lawfull , which the gospel threatens with eternal wrath , and with all states punish either with the gibbet or the pillory . a second reason , why it is not only every ones duty , but at this time section xiii indispensally necessary to contribute to the further detection of the popish plot , is the awakening the kingdom to provide in all legal and due ways , for the protection of his majesties person , and its own defence and security . the lethargy that the generality of the nation laboureth under , is that which amaseth its friends , and incourageth its enemies . they are greatly deceived , that think the papists have laid their design , alas they do more industriously than over pursue it . the case is so stated , that there is no retreat , and rather than miss their hopes , they are resolved to stake lives , fortunes , and all upon a venture . they have laboured too long to bring things to the pass they are in , to loose in a moment the fruits of all their toyls and indeavours . though the protestants should be willing to forgive them , yet they know that they have proceeded too far to rely upon mercy ; and therefore their guilt lightning their fears , makes them desperate . the death of traytors who have suffered , instead of dismaying the party , hath greatly enflamed them to revenge . they know too well , that many more both deserve , and may meet with the like measure , and rather than tamely suffer it , they will all run on in the same fortune . they are at present negotiating with all foreign states for assistance , and he must needs be a stranger to conversation , that hath not heard of the liberal contributions providing for them in all popish countries . the boldness they every where express , is not the effect of their innocency , but of their villany and confidence of success , through the aids which they look for . nor hath their slandering the king to his people , and their misrepresenting many of his protestant subjects to him , any other tendency but to prevent mutual confidence between them ; which if they can but hinder , its impossible , as things stand , that they should miscarry in their design , or that either his majesty or his protestant subjects should escape . to tell us by one hand , that the king laughs at the plot as a matter wholly fabulous ; and by another , that the two late parliaments were a company of factious men : what design can this have ? but to beget a distrust betwixt his majesty and his people , and deprive us of that mutual confidence in one another , which is so absolutely necessary to our preservation . when i have told you ( as i shall anon ) that the kings person is more in danger than any of his people , it may serve to promote your confidence in the government , and to unite among your selves in order to his majesties preservation . for as his majesty hath most just cause to apprehend the designs of the papists against his life , so we may not only fear , but too groundedly conclude , that both our religion , and civil liberties , with whatsoever else is dear unto us , will become a sacrifice to the lusts of the romish party , if they succeed in their conspiracies against his life . whoever he be that maketh profession of the protestant religion , and will not seem to believe there is a plot , nor acknowledge the nation to be in danger , he ought to be listed under one of these three ranks of men. first , he is either of the number of those weak fools , whom god hath given riches to , in consideration for having denied them understanding . for there are a kind of silly coxcombs , that are first pusled , and then missed by insinuations , which none but knaves would suggest , and idiots be swayed with . or secondly , he is reduceable to them , whose fears make them both dissemble and ready to deny what they too well know ; for there are a great many , whose dread prescribes to their reason and conscience . now these apprehending it impossible to prevent the designs on foot , though they were not at first in them , and possibly intend not actually to be , yet having a mind to preserve themselves , they are therefore not only willing to connive at that , which they judge impossible to be defeated , but to make an interest with the conspirators , in serving them as far as they can , without running the hazard of the halter . or thirdly , he may be numbred amongst them , who rather than a company of discountenanced protestants , should be a little indulged , they will sacrifice the very protestant religion to the pleasure and lusts of the papists ; through an apprehension which they have , that should the plot be believed , the nonconformists may meet with some degree of favour in order to their better encouragement to ingage among others for the defence of the government ; they are resolved so that they may have the pleasure of seeing them destroyed , to expose ( at least as far as in them lies ) the nation to be ruined with them . nor can i apprehend why the late house of commons comes — to be aspersed by some publick scriblers , as well as in coffee-house twatlers , unless it be that they did not think meet , whilest they were providing for the security of the kings person , and safety of the kingdom from the conspiracies of the papists , at the same time to enact new laws , and those written in blood , against persons of the same religion with themselves , and who do only differ from them in some few rites and ceremonies , nowise essential to the protestant religion . he can therefore be no friend to the protestant religion , to the king , or to the government , that when our ruine is conspired by a company of desperate popish enemies at home , and threatned by a combin'd power of papists from abroad , endeavoureth then to disunite and weaken us , by groundless aspersions and calumnies cast upon men , sound in all the fundamentals of the protestant doctrine , and ready to venture their lives and fortunes as soon as any , for the defence of his majesty and the government . and therefore among other reasons for my contributing all i can to the further detection of the plot to the nation , ( having first discovered what i know of it to his majesty and the privy council ) i do plainly deliver this to be one , that they who question it from principles of weakness and simplicity , may be more fully informed , and they who endeavour to shame it upon base , corrupt , and perverse considerations , may be taken notice of and esteemed abetters of the popish conspirators in their most hellish designs . and that the light i arrived at concerning the design against his section xiv majesties person , and the protestant religion in these nations , may be conveyed to others with the more intelligibleness , as well as the greater credibility ; it is convenient that i should intimate these three things . ( 1. ) that i was originally a protestant , being both trained up in that faith , whilest a child here at home , and further instructed in the reformed doctrine whilest at geneva abroad . but being travelling in france , i was by the art , craft , and unwearied persuasions of abbot mountague , and mr. thomas carr , perverted from the protestant religion , and allured into the communion of the romish church . and as none are so industrious in foreign nations , to debauch his majesties protestant subjects , whom they occasionally there meet with , as the english , scotish , and irish papists , residing in those parts ; so the various methods they take to inveigle those , whom they have opportunity to meet with and address , are not easie to be expressed . for by suting their temptations sometimes to the necessities , and at other times to the lusts and ambitions of those they accost , they prove more successfull in their attempts for seducing young travellers , than can readily be imagined . for if they be persons of quality , they allure them with hopes of esteem in foreign courts , the favour of access to , and correspondence with princes and potentates abroad , and especially with promises of being exalted at home upon the alteration , which they give themselves out as prepared to introduce into these nations . and if they be persons of scholastick abilities , then they assault them with assurances of preferment , and that they shall not only be accomodated and esteemed sutably to their parts in their colleges abroad , but that they shall be made dignitaries of the church here , upon the revolution that is ready to take place in these kingdoms . and if the persons are indigent then they attack them with offers , not only to supply their present wants , but to provide for them even to their own wishes and desires for the future : yea , if those they meet with , chance either to be malefactors , that have fled beyong sea for their crimes , or bankrupts who have withdrawn thither to escape their creditors , unto such they offer either a sanctuary in their monasteries , or to recommend them to some grandee that may imploy them agreeably to their inclination and humour . so that what in one way and what in another , there are none come within their circle , whom they have not temptations prepared for , and futed unto . and i wish that the sad experience of their success upon my self , as well as the many conquests i have seen them make of others ; might not only influence parents to be less forward in sending their sons beyond sea , but awaken the government to provide , if not against the thing , yet against the dangers that attend it . secondly , i would intimate this , that being after manifold persuasions , perverted from the protestant religion and induced to espouse the faith of the church of rome . i was accordingly received with great ceremony into the said church by cardinal grimaldi , archbishop of aix in provence . 't is true , they do not think meet to celebrate the reception of every one that goes over to them , with so much solemnity , but yet it is not without many and considerable reasons , that they think meet sometimes to do it . for though in effect they have only cause of glorying over the ignorance , weakness or lusts of the party they have proselited ; yet they would have it pass for a triumph over the religion which he hath forsaken . and though all that they can truly boast of , be the ensnaring some person , that neither understood the religion which he relinquished , nor that which he espoused , but was meerly captivated with the hopes of pleasure , profit , and preferment ; yet , protestancy must be brought upon the stage as weary of it self , and the popish religion must be recommended to the ignorant multitude , from the victory it hath obtained over such a thinking , learned and conscientious man. thirdly , i would suggest this , that being received into the bosom of the romish church ; i went thereupon to rome , and was entertained in the jesuits college . where , by my continuance four years , and running through my whole course of philosophy , and at last taking orders of priesthood , and through my being sometime prefect of the study , i injoyed these opportunities of knowing their sentiments , and doctrines concerning protestant princes , and of their designs against these nations , with their hopes of reenslaving them , which i shall now declare . nor will it , i hope , be reckoned a piece of immodesty ; and i do affirm that partly through my success in my scholastick exercises , and partly through the favour i had with cardinal rochi , major domo to the pope , to whom i had dedicated all my theses , and partly from the familiarity i had with all the principal fathers of the jesuits in the english college , i had not only the advantage of hearing what was publickly said , either in schools or refectory , but was allowed access to private discourse with the most eminent fathers in the college , where i had their opinions concerning the king of england , and an account of their purposes towards him , and the kingdom , inculcated to me . these things being briefly premised and intimated , that which i have section xv next to offer , is , that whilest i was at rome , i frequently heard the jesuits both teach in schools , and preach in pulpits the doctrine of the pope's power to depose kings . so that according to them no king doth reign , but at the pleasure of the pope . and from hence we may learn these two things . ( 1. ) that it is not only lawfull , but necessary in order to the preservation of the peace and safety of the kingdom , that all who have imbib'd these doctrines , should be accounted traytors , and accordingly proceeded against , though never convicted to acting up to them . the principle it self is the highest of treasons , and therefore there needs no further over-act , for the condemning such criminals . so far as the popish religion hath only an influence upon the future state of men , it was never punished with death in england ; it is only upon the foot of those doctrines , which instruct and countenance them to overthrow the state and government , that romish priests are justly made liable to suffer . and therefore the priests who were lately executed , without being arraigned for any thing , save for their being so , and their withdrawing his majesties subjects from the religion by law established , were as reall traytors , as those who were convinced for conspiracy against the kings life . ( 2. ) i would further infer from the foregoing doctrine , that no security can be had of the loyalty of any person that is so possest . for so long as he holds that any one hath authority to depose the prince , under whose government he lives , it is impossible that such a prince can be secured of the fidelity and allegiance of that subject . and it is very remarkable , that whereas some of the irish papists since his majesties restauration , had in a remonstrance prepared for the persuading the government of their loyalty , only acknowledged ( though they had not sworn it ) that king charles is their lawfull king , and the pope hath no power to depose him , how thereupon they are told from rome , that they had renounced the catholick faith , and that they were fallen under the condemnation of the apostolick see. for as the popes nuncio at brussels by a letter dated july 21. 1662. informs them , how that their remonstrance being examined at rome by cardinals and divines , was found to contain propositions condemned by paul the fifth , and innocent the tenth , and that the pope was so far from approving it , that he did not so much as permit , or connive at it , and therefore condemned it in this form , that it could not be kept without breach of faith , according to the decrees of paul the fifth ; and that it denied the popes authority in matters of faith , according to that of innocent the tenth . i do further declare , that during my abode at rome , i heard the jesuits section xvi often affirm and publish , that it was not only lawfull to kill any prince or person excommunicated , and declared a heretick , but that it was meritorious to do so . nor was this the opinion only of one or two , or of such as might be esteemed rash and giddy , but it was the common doctrine of all the jesuits there . and i do by all that may obtain credit with mankind , testifie that i have heard it asserted by father anderton , rector of the english college of the jesuits at rome , father campion , minister of the said college , father robert southwell assistant to the general of the jesuits , father buckley pentionary for the pope , father green procurator for the jesuits at monto portio within fifteen miles of rome . and from this i desire to make these three remarks . ( 1. ) that every protestant prince is hereby exposed to the mercy of any one , that under the encouragement of meriting heaven , will take the boldness to assassinate him. for all such princes , both by the decrees of their councils , and the cannons of their church , as well as by the bulls of divers popes , are not only pronounced hereticks , but actually excommunicate : nor are the jesuits singular in this opinion , that it is lawfull to kill heretical princes , for the pope himself by a decree in their canon law , hath taught and declared the same . we do not esteem them murderers , saith pope vrban , who shall happen to kill any excommunicate person , out of an ardour and zeal to the catholick church their mother . secondly , i would observe from hence , what opinion we are to have of all that the five jesuits declared upon their salvation in their late dying speeches . god was equally invok'd to be a witness of all they said , and their salvation was alike pawn'd upon the truth of one thing , as well as another . and whereas then we find them evidently tardy by their saying that there is not one jesuit ( except mariana ) that holds it lawfull for a private person to kill a king , although an heretick , although a pagan , although a tyrant ; we may very rationally suspect their sincerity and truth in all the rest . what! is there not one jesuit but mariana , who maintains king-killing doctrine ? yes , i do affirm that i have frequently heard anderton , campion , southwell , &c. in their daily discourses , lectures , and sermons at rome teach the same . and , though all that know me will receive more upon the credit of my word , than this comes to , yet to put it out of doubt , that the jesuits died liars ; i shall convince the world of their teaching the king-killing doctrine from their publick writers . was not cardinal tolet a jesuit , and doth he not declare , that subjects are not bound to maintain unviolate their oath of allegiance to an excommunicate person ? was not cardinal bellarmine a jesuit , and doth he not affirm , that the pope hath the same right and power over kings , as jehoiada had over athalia ? was not gregory valentia a jesuit , and doth he not teach , that the pope may deprive heretical kings of all dominion and superiority over their subjects ? was not creswell a jesuit , and doth he not affirm , that if a prince be not of the romish religion , he looseth all right and title to govern , and his subjects are discharged from all obligation of obedience , and that he may be proceeded against as the enemy of mankind ? was not franciscus varona constantinus a jesuit , and doth he not in his apology for john chastel , who wounded hen. 4. of france , tell us , that it is lawfull for a private man to murder kings , and princes condemned of heresie ? is not this a point so evident , that de harlay , the first president of the parliament of paris , who both knew the doctrine of the jesuits , and had seen the wofull effects of it , in the murder of two kings of france , publickly avow it to be their common opinion in all their writings , that the pope hath a right to excommunicate kings , and that thereupon their subjects may with innocency assault and destroy them ? have englishmen learned from the jesuits the guilt of forgetfulness , so as not to remember that cardinal allen wrote a book to prove that princes excommunicate for heresie , not only might , but were to be deprived of their kingdom and life ? and was not william parry provoked thereby to kill queen elizabeth , which though before he had promised at rome to do , yet he was hesitating in his mind about it , till incouraged by that book ? or is it past into oblivion with us , that father gifford instigated one john savage to kill the same queen , and that upon the bull of pius 5. and which is remarkable at the same time , that they might be the less suspected , and the queen the more secure , they wrote a book , wherein they admonished the papists in england not to attempt any thing against their princess , but to fight against their adversaries only with the weapons of christians , viz. with tears , spiritual reasonings , prayers , watchings and fastings . to all this i shall only add , that going in the company of capt. richardson to visit mr. thomas jenison the jesuit , then in newgate ( but since deceased ) the said mr. jenison acknowledged in discourse , that the jesuits both held for lawfull , and taught in their writings , that an excommunicate king might be lawfully either deposed , or murthered ; but that he himself would not have accession to the practice of these principles . thirdly , i desire to recommend this further to the reader , viz. that though it be both the doctrine of the court of rome , and commonly maintained by the jesuits in their writings , that it is lawfull to kill an heretical prince , yet it is not usual to press it upon their youth , and inculcate it to their scholers , but upon the prospect of some great occasion . they have it always ready in the books of their scholasticks and casuists , to teach their votaries what may lawfully be done , but it is not their custom to urge it in their common discourse , nor to recommend it to their disciples in private or publick conferences , but with respect to something of that nature to be speedily transacted . thus when they had a purpose to murder hen. 4. of france , father generet a jesuit , instructed john chastell in this king-killing and heretical doctrine . and father fayre did the same by francis veron , to dispose him for the same design . yea , when they were ready to perpetrate that barbarous villany upon that generous prince , the very sermons of the jesuits were all fram'd to instigate men to so bloody an attempt , so that ravilliack , when examined about the causes , why he stabb'd the king ? answered , that they might understand them by the sermons of the preachers . i do further declare , that during my residence at rome , i heard the jesuits section xvii frequently affirm , that the king of england was an heretick , and so in form condemned . and when i was leave to the college and return to england , which was about june 1676. the said fathers did both severally and together teach and instruct me , that i was not to pay obedience to an heretical or excommunicated prince . now whereas there are divers other protestant kings and princes in europe , beside the king of great brittain , that which both then gave me amazement , and hath also cost me some thoughts since , is , why only the king of england should be upon all occasions represented as an heretiek , and that no other protestant prince should be so much as once mentioned under that character . nor am i able to resolve it into any thing but this , that it was likely to be more for the advantage of the church of rome to have the king of england murthered , than any other prince besides . for whatsoever ill-will they may bear to them all , yet they are not so foolish as to undertake a thing that carries a hazard of scandal and danger in it , if the success in the attempt may not recompence the difficulties in the atchievement . now there being no prince of the reformed religion at this day in the world , whose death would turn so much to the profit of rome , as that of the king of england , it is the less to be marvelled , that they should be contented to allow others to live , and are only sollicitous to get him removed . and the gain which they promise themselves from the death of his majesty , ariseth from a consideration of these three things . first , that the duke of york , the pesumptive heir to the crown , is a papist . and ought it then to be a matter of any surprize , that to further and hasten his succession , they should conspire the destruction of his majesty , who is the only obstacle in the duke's way to the throne ? are we so unacquainted with the history of our own nation , as not to know how upon the like hopes from mary queen of scots , being next lineal successor to queen elizabeth , the romish party did from time to time contrive and design the death of that excellent princess of ever blessed memory ? and was it not the sense which our ancestors had of this , that influenced them to enter into an association through the whole kingdom ( even in an interval of parliament ) wherein they mutually obliged themselves , in case the queen should be taken off by any undue means , to avenge it upon the papists ? and this association was so far then from being apprehended a seditious or illegal bandying of persons together , that the parliament that assembled the year after , did not only approve it , but ratifie it into a law. well do the papists know , that should they loose this advantage , ( which they have from the duke's being a papist , and of such legal hopes of the crown ) for the reestablishment of their religion , they may never enjoy so fair and probable an opportunity again . they perceive the king as likely to live as the duke , and therefore reckon it absolutely necessary , to anticipate the course of nature , and not trust matters of so great consequence , as the seeing these nations once more subjugated to rome , to such a contingency as the kings dying in a natural way , before the duke . and that which mr. dugdale divulgeth every where to this purpose , deserveth a serious remark ; namely , that the jesuits having calculated the king's and the duke's nativities ( which by the way is treason by law ) and finding that the king would in a course of nature outlive the duke , they thereupon agreed and resolved to have him cut off by violence . the having a popish king again in england , would be of so great concernment to the see of rome , that we may easily conceive ( especially seeing the principles of their religion do befriend them ) that they will not boggle at the murder of his present majesty , to compass and effect it . and whatsoever security the protestants may flatter themselves with , as to their religion , from the promises which his highness may make unto them , yet this may serve to undeceive them , that not only the council of constance hath determined that no faith is to be kept with hereticks , but that martyn the 5. told alexander duke of lithuania , that if he kept his oath with such , he sinned mortally . — secondly , the advantage which they reckon upon the kings death , ariseth not only from the consideration that the presumptive heir is a papist , but that he is more zealous for that religion , than princes of the same religion , either are , or use to be . it is of great concernment to their interest , to see a papist ( how lukewarm and indifferent so ever in that profession ) exalted to the english throne . but to have a prince of burning zeal and ardour for the dignity of the triple crown , to be advanced to sway the english sceptre , is of far greater consequence to them than most persons are willing to apprehend . i know that there are some monarchs of the faith of the church of rome , that are not of the faith of the court of rome , and therefore though they give all due protection and incouragement to the romish religion , yet it is still without suffering it to undermine the state , or to introduce the papal jurisdiction . though they countenance their subjects in the papal worship , yet they are not willing to see them inslaved to the popes usurpation . but whether the duke of york , should he once arrive at the crown , would think it enough to allow the pope only his power in spirituals , without granting him the right which he challengeth in temporals , i cannot tell ; but this i can say , that the hopes which the jesuits have , of seeing the whole papal jurisdiction established by his means , and as fruits of his zeal to the holy see , over these kingdoms , is a great motive to precipitate his advancement to the monarchy , and for their conspiring the destroying of his majesty , who is the only remora in the way . thirdly , the advantage which they count upon by the kings death , ariseth not only from their assurance of the presumptive heir's being a papist , and one of zeal and ardor for the papal chair , but that he is moreover under the conduct of the jesuits . for i do remember , that father campian , and father anderton , did not only frequently declare , that the duke of york was of the romish religion , but that he was brought over by their body , and that they had the greatest influence over him. and as this was the common discourse in the jesuits college at rome , so it was received with great joy and acclamation by the whole society . now as there can be nothing more fatal to any state , than to have the prince under the conduct of the jesuits ; so the power they pretend to have obtained over the duke of york , hath its share in the animating them to hasten his reign , and in order thereunto to destroy his majesty . and to this purpose i shall here add , what i heard some of the fathers say . for father campian having intimated that many set themselves against the establishment of the popish religion in england , he added , that nevertheless it must flourish again in that nation , and we are do the great work , and restore it . and father warner ( upon whom i had a bill of exchange from rome , he being procurator for the jesuits at paris , having paid me the bill ) did thus declare himself unto me , religion must be set up in as high a manner , as ever , in england , and we must be the promoters of it , though many set themselves in opposition to us . blessed promoters and restorers of religion ! who conspire the murder of kings , and overturning of kingdoms in order thereunto . and are they not fit men to have the guidance of the consciences of princes , who , besides all the other ill principles which they are imbued with , are more sworn vassals to the jurisdiction of the pope , than any other order of the roman church ? i do moreover declare , that when i was about to leave rome , and section xviii return into england , both father anderton , father campian , and father green , assured me that there would suddenly be great alterations in church and state in this kingdom ; and that there was but one man in the way ( meaning the king ) who might be soon removed out of it . yea , the same fathers informed me , that they were assured from the most eminent persons of this nation , that their religion should be established again in these dominions , in as great glory , as at any time heretofore , and whosoever opposed the establishment of it , should be removed . and i do withall remember , that waiting upon abbot montague at paris , as i was in my return homeward , the said abbot after he had congratulated the seeing me in a religious habit , and told me that being of the order of secular priests , i was in the apostolical way of teaching ; he further subjoyn'd , that i should suddenly see great changes for the better , both in church and state in england , and that i should receive signal imployment there . so that now from all this , these four things do immediately fall under the view of every person that is but so much as capable to understand common sense . ( first ) that the kings life , is judged the only obstruction to the reenslaving these nations to rome , and that so long as he lives , they do utterly despair of subjugating these kingdoms to the papal tyranny . which as it should make his majesties life the more dear to all his subjects ; so it should influence himself from that regard which he hath so often solemnly profest to bear to the protestant religion , to be the more carefull of his own safety . ( secondly ) notwithstanding their despair , of being ever able to impose their faith and worship upon these nations , whilest his majesty liveth ; yet they are at the same time confident of seeing this all accomplished . which is in effect , as much as if they had told us , that they were resolved and prepared to remove him , and that by some horrid attempt upon his life . ( thirdly ) that the confederacy against the protestant religion , and these kindoms is powerfull and strong . for neither any forreign combination , nor the encouragement which they can have from so small a number as the open and avowed papists in the land amount to , could ever give matter for such towring hopes , nor administer ground for so high a confidence ; no less than the engagement of many of the most eminent persons of the nation , ( to use their own phrase ) could be foundation sufficient to erect so vast expectations upon . and as it is the interest of the kingdom to have these ( hitherto unknown ) persons detected , so it should be the prayer of all , and the endeavour of those chosen to sit in the great senate of the nation , that the kingdom may be secured from their treacherous designs . ( fourthly ) that understanding the size of the persons , who have renounced their allegiance to his majesty , as well as the religion by law established , instead of being thereby intimidate , we would grow sensible of the dangers which threaten us , and provide remedies to withstand them . and seeing there are some persons , of the foregoing bulk and character , actually impeached , let us by prayers and intreaties sollicit his majesty , that he would not abandon himself , his government , and people , to the hazards , which a further procrastination of their tryals may occasion . for if they be innocent , besides the honour of being vindicated , not only from the suspicions they lie under , but the treasons they are charged withall , they will reap the happiness of being restored both to their liberty , and the good opinion of their fellow subjects . and if they be guilty , it is both his majesties interest , as well as the nations , and what his subjects may expect from the justice he oweth his people , as well as the grace he hath hitherto exercised towards them , that such villanous conspirators , as would subjugate these kingdoms to popish idolatry and slavery , may undergo the severest punishments , which by law are due unto their crimes . section xix there is one thing more which i learned from the aforementioned fathers both at rome and paris , namely , that he being removed , who alone stood in the gap , their religion must needs flourish again in these nations . forasmuch as the duke of york and the queen were of their side . now though this way seem to such as know not how to knit two thoughts together , matter of no great moment , yet to persons accustomed to use their understandings in a rational train of discourse , it suggests that which may give us a very sad apprehension . for besides ▪ as i have already observed , that the duk 's being a papist is the fountain of all attempts upon the kings life , and the alone rise of all the danger which his person is daily exposed to ; there is something further , and that of a most tragical consideration , wrapt up as the sense of those expressions . for supposing the duke to be a papist , and that he should come to the crown ( which god by the prolongation of his majesties life avert ) yet without a trampling upon all our laws ( our religion being incorporate into them , and settled by them ) popery cannot flourish again in these nations . protestancy is not only now the religion of the kingdom , but it is become a part of the polity , and an essential ingredient of the constitution of our legal government . nor can any ( as matters are by law established ) supplant religion , which is our legal right , without overthrowing all those laws which secure us of it . so that to tell us that through having the duke on their side , were the king once dead , their religion should be exalted to its greatest heigth , and flourish in these nations as much as at any time heretofore , is in effect to say that our whole government shall be changed , and all those laws subverted , which entitle us to the protestant religion , and protect us in it . what provision his majesty , and his two houses of parliament , may think fit to make , to give the nation security in this matter , as it is to be left to their wisdom , so it is our duty quietly to acquiesce in what they agree about , and enact to this purpose . but if there be any sense in what i have related from the jesuits mouths , they intend not that protestants shall enjoy much benefit by any law that shall be made to such an end. they may improve it indeed to facilitate in the minds of short-sighted people , the duke's accession with quiet to the crown ; but they have told us beforehand , that our religion shall be never the more secured unto us by a law of that kind . it is needfull for the papists at this time to talk of such a law , to promote that which they themselves first aim at , but having under the favour of it once compassed that , it will be as needfull to destroy it , that they may accomplish the rest . having related whatsoever may give light to the horrid plot against section xx these nations , and especially his majesties life , so far as my informations beyond sea inable me to do . i am in the next place , to give an account of the further knowledge i arrived at concerning it , after my return into england . being then after divers years absence , come into my native countrey about december 1676. and being recommended as a secular priest , to minister and officiate in the family of john jenison esquire , in the county palatine of durham . the first thing that i did , was to recollect the disloyal and traiterous doctrines , which i heard the jesuits teach at rome , and elsewhere . for as these principles had given me such a disgust against their order before , that though highly tempted and frequently importuned to be one of that society , i absolutely refused it , and chose rather to be a secular ; so the reflecting upon them at leasure and with sedateness of mind , after i became settled at mr. jenisons , heightned my abhorrency of them . for it is an easier thing to divest a man of the principles of supernatural revelation , than to eradicate out of him the principles of natural religion . we may be sooner brought to renounce the doctrines of faith , than the measures of justice betwixt man and man. and there are some who would more easily let go all the articles , upon which future happiness depends ; then bid farewell to those dictates of natural light , upon which the government of kingdoms and the peace of societies hang and bear . and to deal freely , as i sooner observed the falshood of the romish doctrines , which relate to magistrates , than of those which concern jesus chrìst , and salvation by him ; so the conviction i was under of the erroneousness of the former , was that which led me first to examin , then to doubt of , and at last to renounce all the latter . for as i plainly perceived , that no man can be loyal to his prince , and faithfull to the government he lives under , and withall maintain the universal jurisdiction of the pope , viz. his right to depose kings , and absolve subjects from their allegiance : so i suddenly came to understand , that no one can be a papist , but he who holds them . for to disclaim them , is to disclaim both the infallibility of the pope , and the authority of general councils ; which is in effect to abjure the whole popish religion , as having no other foundation but the decrees of popes , and canons of councils . being then settled ( as i intimated ) at mr. jenisons house , and having called over all the traiterous positions i had heard the jesuits teach , and having found them agreeable unto , and justified by their publick writings ; i thereupon made it my business to exclude both all jesuits , and all other priests jesuitically inclined , from coming to the said house , or wheresoever else mr. jenison had to do . for though i was not yet so far enlightned my self , as to think of converting that family from being papists , yet i was resolved to preserve them from being traytors , and accordingly to hinder all such from coming among them , who might infect them with disloyal principles section xxi now during my abode there , and my converse with the countrey about , the first suspition i received of the plot , was an vniversal collection of moneys , which i observed to be made among the papists . i was my self sollicited by mr. william gascoyne , and other secular priests to assist in it ; but i not only declined cooperating in such a business , but diswaded mr. jenison , and all others i had the conduct of , from contributing money upon any occasion . 't is true , the pretence was to repair the college of doway ( which is penall by the law , should it be granted that the money was so applyed ) but i have reason to apprehend , that under the umbrage of repairing a college , they were providing for the ruine of a kingdom . for the collections were universall in all the northern parts ; and not only the gentry , but most others of the popish religion in those counties contributed their proportions , some to five pounds , some to ten pounds , and some to twenty pounds . he must be of a very shallow understanding , that can once imagine , that so great treasure as this would come to , should be all sacrificed to the repair of a college . no , it must have been some greater design , that so large a supply of ready money was intended for . i grant that my own refusing to assist in that affair , together with the jealousies they had conceived of me , for excluding all the jesuits , and such other priests as were tainted with their principles , from admission into mr. jenisons house , gave them sufficient reason to conceal the disposal of it from me . but this i know , that all the moneys which were collected , were either paid , or to be paid to mr. william stephenson a priest. though the many foregoing passages ( which i have truly reported ) section xx gave me full assurance of a conspiracy against his majesties life , and the protestant religion , as by law established in these nations , yet i knew that it would have been morally impossible , through the interest which the papists had in persons near his majesty to get the jesuits , and much less the romish party convicted upon this general , and withall , single evidence . and therefore i found it necessary for a season to conceal these things , lest i should not only miscarry my self upon attempts to detect them , but withall enrage the papists to precipitate their designs upon the sacred life of the king. however i resolved to be watchfull over all opportunities , whereby i might attain a more perfect insight into their hellish and mysterious conspiracies . and as in this interim , the plot came to be discovered by mr. oates , so an occasion presented it self in a conference thereupon betwixt mr. robert jenison and me , which not only contributed to my own more perfect satisfaction in reference to their bloody designs , but hath given rise to mr. jenisons own discovery . and as it is convenient that the world should know the sense and tenor of that discourse which past betwixt mr. jenison and me , so i think it fittest to deliver it in the words of the information , which i gave in to one of his majesties justices of the peace . middls . west . ss . part of the information of john smith of walworth in the county palatine of durham gentleman , taken upon oath the 8. day of september 1679. before me edmund warcup esquire , one of his majesties justices of the peace in the said county and city . this informant saith , that mr. robert jenison came to his fathers house in september 1678. where , after he had been some days ; sr. edward smith came to walworth , and produced a letter , signifying a discovery of a popish plot in london , and upon enquiry who were in it , ireland and whitebread were named . about three or four days after which , mr. robert jenison before his father , sisters and this informant , said , he believed there was something of a plot , for that he had heard mr. ireland say , 't was an easie matter to take off the king. whereupon this informant asked him , what that ireland was ? who answered , he was a jesuit , and his cousen . and mrs. katherine jenison his sister asked , when he saw mr. ireland ? who answered , a little before he came out of town , at his lodging in russel-street , which was on the day that himself came from windsor , and the same day that mr. ireland came post out of staffordshire , and that he then found him pulling off his boots . mrs. katherine jenison then asked him , how her aunt in staffordshire did ? who replied , mr. ireland said she was well , and that he had been with her in staffordshire at that time . this informant then asked him , what a kind of man mr. ireland was ? who answered , that he was a fine countenanced , smiling man , and swore if he be guilty of this plot , i will never trust a smiling man again . thereupon this informant asked him what he thought of him ? who answered , i doubt there is some guilt in him , because he had enquired of him , when he came from windsor , how the king diverted , and how he went attended ? whereunto he answered , in hawking and fishing , attended only with three or four persons ; mr. ireland replied , he wondred he would go so slenderly guarded , he were easily taken off ; and then he paused . but sometime after , mr. robert jenison repeated , that he feared there was something in that plot , for that mr. ireland said to him at another time , that there was but one in the way , and were he remomoved , the catholique religion must flourish again in england . whereupon this informant said , those were damnable suspitious things , which mr. ireland had spoken about the king. and thereupon old mr. jenison rose up , and swore mr. ireland was a rogue , and so left the room , and determined the discourse at that time . but some time after in this same month , this informant walking on the leads with mr. robert jenison , discoursing of the jesuits being in the plot , the said robert jenison told this informant , that mr. ireland had at another time told him , that sr. george wakeman was a fit person to poyson the king , being the queens physician , and a papist , upon which this informant said , he hoped the king would not take physick of any papist , in regard they might be jesuitically inclined ; and the jesuits were against monarchy in temporal princes , though appointed by god himself . upon which the said mr. robert jenison asked , are the jesuits against monarchy ? whereto this informant replied , you may easily judge that by their taking off many kings and princes , and by their holding it lawfull for the pope to deprive kings of their kingdoms , and to dispose of them at his pleasure , so that though a king be anointed of the lord , and one that should not be touched by violent hands , yet not only his kingdom , but his sacred life lie at the popes pleasure . mr. jenison answered , does the pope allow of this ? this informant answered , yes , they have often practised it in this and other kingdoms , and thereby brought more schism and division into the church , than ever was before such damnable things were practised by the pope and his emissaries . whereto mr. jenison replied , you seculars are generally against the jesuits , and in many things against the pope . whereunto this informant replied , if you please to consider the frauds and devilish artifices the jesuits use in their practice and teaching their politick interest , and industrious self-seeking , all under the hypocritical zeal and characters of religious , though none so irreligious , you would not admire why all secular priests are against them , and the pope for upholding them , and their practices , and principles mr. jenison replied thereunto , he beleeved they were crafty men ; upon which this informant asked him ▪ how he came now to say they were crafty men , having formerly spoke so much of their sanctity ? he replied , because he considered several odd and suspicious expressions mr. ireland had spoken to him . whereupon this informant replied , you will not only give the king and country satisfaction , in declaring the odd and suspicious expressions of ireland , who is now imprisoned for the plot , but also discharge the duty of a christian , and obligation of a subject , urging many other reasons to perswade mr. jenison to make a full discovery to the council . whereunto mr. jenison replied , he doubted the jesuits would prove as black as their habits , adding that his brother mr. thomas jenison the jesuit , told him there was a design in hand , in which if he plaid his part , he might with ease and safety raise his fortune ; and that he answered his brother , he would use all lawfull means ; and that he thereupon replied , the means were not only lawfull but meritorious , otherwise their body , and the chief catholicks of england would not be therein concerned as now they were . whereupon this informant asked him , what he understood by his brothers discourse , and whether he did not understand that the jesuits , and papists , had some design against the king and religion ? who answered , he might well understand and suspect they had some such design in hand . and thereupon this informant again pressed him to make a full discovery to the council , when he came to london , if his evidence were judged material . and this informant told him , that he held himself bound in conscience to discover all that he heard from him , if he omitted to do it himself , urging that his evidence would at least wise , be fortifying to others testimony . and this informant very well remembers , that coming about a week afterwards with mr. robert jenison from mr. fenwick's house at baywell , mr. bowes met them , and drew mr. jenison aside , all discoursed together some time , after which , mr. jenison singled out this informant , and told him , that he believed his own brother mr. thomas jenison , would be hanged , and several other persons of quality , who were concerned in this horrible design . thereupon this informant asked why ? who answered , a handfull of jesuits could not carry on such a design without the assistance of persons of note and power , and the pope himself must be in , because of his purse ; and he believed the plot was universal , because his said brother had told him , the greatest catholiques in england were concerned in that design , wherein he would have had him to have plaid his part. declaring he had reason to believe , it was to destroy the king and government . whereunto this informant replied , can you swear it ? who answered , i will not swear it now , and thereunto this informant replied , will and can are two things . mr. jenison further added , he was once in company of five or six jesuits , and that all their discourse was then tending to the destruction of the king and government , all agreeing to the self-same end , but himself , but that he had not contradicted them in regard he was young , and inferiour in scholarship . and this informant asked him what he meant by persons of note and power ingaged in the plot ? he answered , the chiefest catholiques in england , but refused to name them , saying in passion , do you think i am privy to it ? but added , by god , they will have a bout with the duke , whereby this informant did believe there was a hellish plot , and that the greatest catholiques in england were in it , and that mr. robert jenison knew more of it , than he did at that time lay open . and this informant speaking something of the popish emissaries ingaged in the plot , meaning the jesuits and monks ; mr. jenison asked him , whether he was not a popish emissary ? wherunto this informant replied , no , he did abhor the name , and that he was a preacher after the ancient , apostolical way , which teacheth all to fear god , and honour the king , and to be obedient to all superiour laws and magistrates . to which mr. jenison replied , the jesuits hold it lawfull to depose and murder any heretick kings , and to dispose of their kingdoms . and this informant further saith , that mr. jenison told him also at walworth , that mr. ireland had lent him twenty pounds , which he desired the informant to send him to london to pay mr. ireland again . this being the narrative of the information , so far as it relates to this purpose , which was given in by me to edmund warcup esquire , one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex , and city of westminster . i shall only make these few remarks upon what is here declared . ( 1 ) it strongly and most effectually serveth to corroborate all the depositions which mr. robert jenison hath made . for all these discourses past betwixt him and me , whilest he was a papist , and before ever he had entertained a thought either of changing his religion , or informing concerning the plot. he must be very obstinate , as well as an incredulous person , that can after this deny mr. irelands being in london in august , seeing the very party that conversed with him told it to so many credible witnesses , within so few days after . and which is most remarkable ; all this was declared to his father , sister , and my self , when neither he nor any alive could apprehend , that ever there would be an occasion of bringing this circumstance upon the stage . and this being therefore so demonstratively made out , none but conspirators or abettors of this conspiracy , can either bring into question the truth of the plot , or give credit to papists in any thing they say . nor can there be a greater evidence of the combination of the whole papal party to destroy the nation , then , that rather than the design should miscarry , they will sacrifice their souls and consciences in the justification of a most palpable lie. ( 2. ) it may both induce us to believe , that mr. jenison hath more to discover , than he hath yet declared , and also oblige us to give all credit to what he shall further say . for it is plain from many passages which dropt from him , that his acquaintance with the conspirators , and his knowledge of their devilish machinations , are more considerable than as yet he hath divulged . t is true , he hath neither done wisely , nor with that simplicity which became a christian , either in delaying his informing at first , or in those reserves which he still maintains . yet if we will observe the influence he was under , partly from the regard he bore to the credit of the romish religion ; ( which himself then profest ) partly from the love he had to many of the papists , as his kinsfolk and friends , partly from the concernment he had for his own reputation , which he knew upon his discovering , would be assaulted ; not to insist upon the apprehensions he might entertain , concerning the danger and hazard to his life which would ensue ; we may be not only the less surprized at his backwardness to discover , but admire the over-ruling power of god in conquering his passions and jealousies so far , as that he should make any discovery at all . and besides the divine wisdom , which can serve it self both of our sin and folly , hath turned it to wonderfull advantage , that he informed not sooner . for had he appeared before the trial of mr. ireland , there would never have been any such thing mentioned , as ireland's being in staffordshire all the month of august . no , it was from an opinion , that none who knew of his being in london would appear against him , ( save mr. oates ) that gave him the confidence of betaking himself to that shift . and the confounding them since in this particular , hath both been , and will hereafter prove of wonderfull consequence . ( 3. ) the discourses mentioned in the foregoing depositions , may serve to testifie my own innocency , as to any thing that relates to this horrid plot. for though i had prevailing reasons to persuade me to believe , that there was a design carrying on against the king , the protestant religion , and the government of the kingdom ; yet i neither directly nor indirectly had accession to it , nor assisted in it . yea , so soon as i arrived at that measure of knowing it , as mr. jenisons conferences with me helpt me unto , i did from thence forward , not only by all means promote his coming to inform , but threatned the having himself ( in case he continued obstinate and refractory ) apprehended and proceeded against . for besides those letters of mine , to that purpose printed by himself in his own narrative ; i wrote him many more upon the same occasion ; which , as they had the success upon him , which i aimed at , so having been designed for no other end , but what is already accomplished , i shall not trouble the world with them . finis . page 13. l. 21. read perverting . p. 14. l. 10. dele not . p. 18. l. 47. for only r. not . p. 19. l. 48. r. indispensably . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a60496-e450 lib. cui titulus tortus , p. 19. see baron . ad ann. 1172. matth. westm. lib. 2. polyd. virg. lib. 17. hist. angl. ubi supra . de laicis lib. 3. cap. 22. in 2.2 . th. qu. 12. see compend . of the plot , p. 73. see prynt discovery of a popish plot by haberfeld . de laicis lib. 3. ca. 6. de jure & instit. lib. 2. cap. 6. de rego , lib 6. ca. 6. see moulins vindicat . see colemans trial , and therein his letters . politicks of france , cap. 5. see persecution of the protestants in france . so the new plot to transform , &c. p. 15. letter to both houses , p. 2. compendium of the trials , p. 69. see the mystery of jesuits . let. 15. de justit . lib. 1. tr. disp. 12. theolog. fundamen . n. 1151. lib. 9. decol . 2. sect. 2. de justit . lib. 2. c. 9. see also escobar . morus . theolog. tract . 1. exam. 7. cap. 2. amicus de justit . disp. 36. sect. 5. vbi supt . sect. 7. seasonable queries , p. 1. causa . 23. q. 5. canon excommunicatorum . see gavans speech . lib 1. instruct. c. 13. lib. 5. de rom. pontif . c. 8. tom. 3. in th. disp. 1. q. 12. part 2. c. 2 vide thuan . lib. 130 ad ann. 1604. see cambdens life of queen eliz. see anti-coton . vide crab. tom. 2. p. 4. cochl . hist. hussitar . lib. 5. a narrative and impartial discovery of the horrid popish plot, carried on for the burning and destroying the cities of london and vvestminster, with their suburbs, &c. setting forth the several consults, orders and resolutions of the jesuites, &c. concerning the same. ... / by capt. william bedloe ... one of the popish committee for carrying on such fires. bedloe, william, 1650-1680. 1679 approx. 170 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 19 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2005-12 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a27248 wing b1677 estc r11047 11683427 ocm 11683427 48134 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a27248) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 48134) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 12:8) a narrative and impartial discovery of the horrid popish plot, carried on for the burning and destroying the cities of london and vvestminster, with their suburbs, &c. setting forth the several consults, orders and resolutions of the jesuites, &c. concerning the same. ... / by capt. william bedloe ... one of the popish committee for carrying on such fires. bedloe, william, 1650-1680. [10], 27 p. : port. printed for robert boulter, john hancock, ralph smith, and benjamin harris ..., london : 1679. caption title: a narrative of the popes late fire-works in england. reproduction of original in library of congress. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng jesuits -england. popish plot, 1678. 2004-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-02 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2005-04 olivia bottum sampled and proofread 2005-04 olivia bottum text and markup reviewed and edited 2005-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion cap t : william bedloe discoverer of the popish plott a narrative and impartial discovery of the horrid popish plot : carried on for the burning and destroying the cities of london and vvestminster , with their suburbs , &c. setting forth the several consults , orders and resolutions of the jesuites , &c. concerning the same . and divers depositions and informations , relating thereunto . never before printed . by capt. william bedloe . lately engaged in that horrid design , and one of the popish committee for carrying on such fires . london , printed for robert boulter , john hancock , ralph smith , and benjamin harris , booksellers in cornhil , near the royal exchange . 1679. the epistle dedicatory to the surviving citizens of london ruined by fire sirs , i know not to whom i could address these leaves more properly than to you ; who have been so dismally concern'd in the dreadful effects of the late conflagrations : such deep sufferers by the hellish practises herein more fully than ever yet discovered . you have suddenly and unexpectedly seen a glorious city laid waste , your own habitations turn'd into rubbish , your estates destroyed , your dear incomes of your many years hard labour and careful industry , all in few moments swept away and consumed by devouring flames , together with some of your dear relations and faithful servants ; whilst your selves and families reduc'd from a plentiful , a comfortable trade and fortune over-night , to the extremest misery next morning , without an house to shelter you , goods to accommodate you , or setled course of trade to support you ? have been forc'd ( many of you in old age ) to begin the world anew ; and remain exposed to all the hardships and inconveniences of want and poverty ? the authors and promoters of all these your deplorable calamities have been no other than those common bontefeu's of christendom , the general disturbers of the peace and happiness of europe , and pests of human society , i mean those subtle , active and most cruel engineers of the roman hierarchy , who having long been big with the project of a fifth-monarchy , intending to make all the world slavishly to truckle to their tripple crown'd idol at rome , did meerly in order thereunto contrive your destruction : for as they wellknow , england to be the bull-work of liberty , protestanism , and ( indeed i may justly add ) christian faith in general , throughout the world : the main bank , that hinders the sea of rome from over-whelming all christian nations with an universal inundation of tyranny and superstition : so they are not insensible , what a mighty influence london hath to obstruct their designs upon england : in so much , that i have heard not a few of the principal of them frequently protest , that until that city were ruined or brought low , it was impossible , but all their attempts on this nation must prove abortive . how rigorously , how unweariedly have they endeavoured this ? i shall say nothing of their politick by-strooks , their promoting by influenc'd counsels wars at sea to interrupt your commerce , their setting up a new algier ( and perhaps more formidable and mischievous than the old one ) on the other side the channel : their multiplying buildings in the suburbs and out parts , thereby to drain away the trade , and having stock't many of those colonies with people of their own gang , hope to be able in time to out number and overpower you. these and a thousand other little strategems for discouraging , &c. i shall not insist upon , but only instance , as my present business , their horrid design of burning and destroying treacherously this city . this they counted a master-piece of their cunning , not doubting , when they had laid this noble city in ashes : but that they should soon after have buried your religion too in the same ruines : but notwithstanding all their facinorous performances and more cursed attempts god in his infinite mercy hath restor'd the one , and hitherto preserv'd the other : both as it were by miracle . let therefore the remembrance of sixty six be engraven in indelible characters on the hearts of the posterity , to make them abhor popery , and detest such vile incendiaries : let it remain a monument of gratitude to god , caution to england , and shame to rome , in after times , when even that stately and durable pillar ( erected for that purpose ) shall by the revolutions of many ages be decayed . indeed could you be so shamefully ingrateful as to forget it , these restless furies will not suffer you : but still with fresh alarms and exploits awaken your memories . 't was a shrewd item they bestow'd on you : but a few years since , when grove and his irish ruffians consumed so great a part of your neighbourhood in the borough of southwark ( not to mention other smaller attempts . ) but above all , they have given you , and the whole nation such a catholick memorandum in their detestable plot , lately discovered just before it was ripe for execution , as i trust shall never be forgotten , wherein though all these three kingdoms , nay the whole protestant-interest throughout the world was essentially concern'd , yet none should have drank more deep of that cup of misery , which they had prepared than you the protestant inhabitants of this ( by them hated ) city and parts adjacent : for as soon as ever the fatal blow had been given against the pretious life of our dear and dread soveraign , they would immediately have proceeded to a second devastation , first upon the dwellings , and next upon the persons , and then what horrors and calamities , what a sea of blood and chaos of confusion , you all , long ' ere this should have been involved in ? whilst these sons of cruelty had been acting over their parisian tragedy and irish butcheries amongst you , is no less easy to imagine , than lamentable to have seen , and intollerable to have felt . i am not ignorant , how strenuously they make it their business to deny not only their being any way privy to these mischiefs of fireing , but likewise all other their traiterous designs : and i scarce know which is greatest , their impudence in committing horrid villanies , or in out-facing them , when they are done . the desperate protestations of innocence , lately made by some of them at the place of execution , hath ( i am informed ) mightily unsetled some peoples heads , and a few formal contrived speeches have been so prevalent as to make weak women , and weaker men begin to stagger . and ready to imagine they died for crimes they might not be guilty of . but as for my own part , i bless god , i am throughly satisfied in the truth of every tittle of the evidence , i have given against them , and every of them , and have no checks or guilt on my conscience on that account , nor would in the least be guilty of that bloody perjury , that might tend to the taking away any mans life wrongfully , for more than all england is worth : but if i have erred in any case , it was on the contrary hand in speaking the least of things and persons , so for the satisfaction of others , i desire them to consider , besides the joint testimonies of so many witnesses , speaking to different times , persons , places and circumstances , yet all exactly agreeing in the main , without the least contradiction of falshood , that ever could be found after so many strict examinations before persons of the greatest judgment and quality , and so many cross and insnaring questions started by the prisoners , to which they freely answered ; i say besides all this , and several other corroborating particulars i would have them consider , 1. how customary it is with this sort of men , in all cases where they are over-taken by justice ; to go out of the world with solemn asseverations of their innocence ; there being , i verily believe scarce a president to be given in our age , of any papist that suffered for any crime what soever , who confest the same at his death , especially if he received absolution before ; for i do averr it to be their doctrine , that when a man hath committed any villany , and hath been thereof absolv'd by a priest , if he be afterwards call'd into question touching that fact ; he ought not to cast a scandal on the church , whereof he is a member , by acknowledging himself to have been guilty ; but may lawfully swear and protest in the presence of god , and the world , that he is as innocent thereof as the child unborn , and all this without any equivocation , or mental reservation since t is their beleif , and so they teach and are taught , that they are then so really , and absolutely innocent , even as when they came into the world , the crime being wholly taken off from them by absolution ; much more may they do it in this case where what they are charged with viz. a resolution , to murther a prince whom they count an heretick , and so declared by the pope , subvert his government ; and introduce the roman religion ; as so far from being by them esteemed any treason or crime , that they look upon it to be their duty and meretorious . 2. 't is palpable , that all these fine speeches were studiously prepared by confederacy , and copies industriously spread abroad before they were spoken by the prisoners , their agents and friends ; and they are contrived but just like so many scholars exercises on the theme , set by their grand master , provincial whitebread . not with the freedom of dying men that spoke the truth , and dictates of their consciences , but so elabourately flourisht over as might best work on the affections of the ignorant hearers ; and serve the turn of their party , for where there is so much art , there is always some design . had not hill just such another made speech in the very same strain and method , which he was to spake at his death like a parrot ? sure , they are very dim-sighted that cannot see through such impostures . 3. do these doubting gentlemen , really believe there was any plot at all ? were mr. colemans letters forged by others , and put by magick-art into six boxes ; and and yet his hand so curiously counterfeited , that he himself could not chuse but own it , and his servants swear it , &c. either you must believe all these and many other down right absurdities , or else confess that by those very letters it evidently appears , that there was on foot a damnable horrid plot to subvert the government , and introduce popery ; and can you think mr. coleman alone undertook that mighty work ? ( as himself calls it ) or if he had accomplices , who more proper ? who more ready than the traitors that lately suffered ; for when did the jesuites stand out , when there was any game to play for on the interest of the pope and church of rome ? not to mention , that the matter is almost acknowledged in peter's letter taken with harcourt ; wherein a consult is appointed the 14th . of april 1678 and mention made of great caution to be used by the fathers in coming to it , lest the design there to be transacted and managed should be discovered which in its own nature required secresy : by this letter ( not found till the other day the witnesses evidence , first given so long since , that there was such a consult , and at that time , is undeniably confirmed ; and that there was some great design to be consulted of there that required much caution and secresy , is likewise confest ; how reasonable than is it to believe the witnesses in this case ; thot then and there , the death of the king was consulted of , and resolved upon : that being a design that indeed required in its own horrid nature such caution , and secresy , and the conspirators being not able to assign any other design , they had there of such a nature ; nor could they give any sensible intrepretation of those patents sent to whitebread mentioned in another letter , taken with harcoat , by which was meant the commisions for forces to carry on this hellish rebellion . 4. what think you , was there ever such a man as sr. edmundbury godfry● , was he not murthered ? and who can fall within the suspicion of any probable imagination to have done it , but the papists that is these traytors and their instruments ? which now is more plain upon them than before ; for if they had not been the procurers of it , how was it possible , that the same night that worthy gentleman was murthererd ? harcoat should write word thereof into stafford-shire ; whereas his death was not known in london by any , but those concerned in it , till five days after . but why should i trouble my self , to demonstrate that t is light at noon-day , because bats and moles are and and will be blind ? his most gracious majesty , is satisfied , as appears by several of his royal proclamations ; both houses of parliament is fully satisfied , as is evident from their votes expresly made on that occasion ; the right reverend fathers in god , my lords the bishops , in particular no doubt are satisfied , as is plain by the form of prayers prescribed to be used on the last fast. all the learned judges of the land generally present at the late tryals ; the judicious gentle-men of the several jurys , ( both upon their oaths , as well as the evidence ) and all intelligent auditors ( except papists ) are intirely satisfied and if there be yet any others that are not ; i do not doubt , but in due time ( for as there yet are diverse things behind the curtain ) there will be such open plain sun-beam discoveries made , as shall certainly convince them , unless like papists , they shall at once refuse to believe , either their reason or their senses . as to the discourse , which i here present you with ; the first part is an account of what i know , and was actually imployed in by the benedictines and jesuites for contriving , promoting and carrying on of fires in and about this city ; the rest consists of affidavits informations , &c. of others touching matters of the same nature , of which some tis true , have been formerly published , but many of them imperfectly , others now almost out of print , or not common to be had ; and all before scatteringly set forth in several books ; these i thought fit to insert together here for the fuller satisfaction of the present age , and posterity ; to which is added some account of latter fires , and several observables that occurred relating thereunto not before made publick ; all which i conceive may be both welcom and useful in this juncture : two things i would particularly advertise you to take notice of . the first is the several ways , whereby these mischievous people begin and promote fires , which indeed are so various , that 't is difficult to enumerate them all : but we know they have practised these that follow , viz. 1. by fire-balls put in with poles or otherwise through holes , or open places into houses ; as at mr. farriners house which began the great fire . 2. by hard fire-balls thrown through glass-windows , as at the smiths in black-friars . 3. by flinging the said balls , or other combustible matter fired into cellars through the bars , or grates , where they are left without shutters , as at the oyl-mans in southwork . 4. by firing their own lodgings , as the french-man did in shoe-lane , in the time of the great fire ; and likewise , the two peters near safron-hill . 5. by hiring cellars in dangerous places , filling them with combustibles , and then firing them , which was a course they much advised me to . 6. by firing haylofts , as in smithfield . 7. by strangers faining errands , as in the temple . 8. by untiling houses , breaking windows , &c. and there putting in their combustibles . 9. by getting into empty houses and setting them on fire , as in budge-row . 1670. 10. by creeping into back-yards and firing stacks of bavins , reed , &c. as at lime-house . 11. by going into victualling-houses , and leaving behind them trains for firing , as at the cooks in fetter-lane and in southwark . 12. by consederate servants , as lately at the attorneys in the same lane. and that such fires may be the more destructive , when begun , their instructions are , 1. to do it in select places amongst old buildings , and where engines cannot play . 2. to fire the water-houses , and get the new river-water stopt , if they can , for that time near that place . 3. to have some of their chief friends thereabouts , that may misadvise great persons , that they may blow up houses , where it is not necessary , or where rather it will do harm by opening a passage for the fire . 4. to have some of their active instruments , who under pretence of helping may scatter fire balls in contiguous houses , and break down the windows , roof , &c. to let in the fire more easily . 5. to have others attending , that shall cry out against french and papists ; and mightily pitty the people , thereby getting to be trusted with removing of goods , and so to plunder and steal ; or if they find an oportunity to fire houses at a distance . 6. curiously to observe wind and tide in all attempts , as likewise frosts , and very dry times , and chuse sundays for doing the business , because then there is the least water . the other thing i would advise you of , is not to conceit , because the plot is discovered in some measure , and some few of them brought to justice , that therefore now you are secure , and that they will desist from such attempts : for i know their nature and principles so well , that i dare assure you on the contrary , they will be more active and virulent now than ever : and for some proof of this be pleased to consider , how many fires have either actually hapn'd , or been design'd , or begun , though by providence , prevented , since the discovery of the plot . as , at limehouse , septemb. 18. at the temple . at st. pauls church-yard . fetter-lane , apr. 10. near new-inn . ship-yard . southampton buildings . gray-hound-tavern in the strand under a chair . golden-lane . vinegar-yard . crown-court at the lower end of chancery-lane . at the water-house . in the minories . at new-prison . all these and probably many others , that i never heard of , have been since the begining of september last ; so that you see , they are still going on with the trade of twexbury-mustard-balls , when ever they have an opportunity ; it will therefore concern all protestants , to be careful and cautious to prevent such mischeifs from these wicked incendiaries , who still swarm about this town , thinking themselves more safe here , than in the country , and better able to hold correspondence , &c. i know well , with what envy and malice they behold the city ; and that they will leave no villany unatempted , to lay it once more level with the ground , unless possibly seeing it so gloriously rebuilt , and upon consideration of late circumstances , they should think it now better hubandry to preserve it for their own use , as harcoat the tower , than to destroy it , and so invert the other of their design , and strive first to depopulate and massacre its troublesom inhabitants ; that so themselves and their french friends may take possession of these noble structures ; and quietly enjoy the accomodation of the hereticks pains and charge , as the jewes those of the cananites : this i am certain of , thas you are continually to expect from them the worst , that a most improved subtilty joyned with the most implacable malice , both egg'd on with vast bats of profit and power , and sharpned with the fury of blind zeal and thirst of revenge , can either contrive or execute . to prevent which nothing can be more effectual than union , and a good understanding amongst all protestants , though of different perswasions . to obviate the ill art of this common enemy , whose instruments by a thousand devices dayly seek to exasperate you one against another : you must study to cement , as much as they to divide ; but above all , let no jesuitical impressions howsoever maskt ; be able in the least to impair the loyalty to the king , or wheadle you into any tumultuous disturbances ; you can no way gratifie , or serve their interest , more than by such a wicked folly ; this is the point they would gain upon you ; ( and which they have pusht on so unhappily elsewhere ) and then infallibly you shall bear the whole odium of their hellish-plot . may the god of heaven ever preserve his majesty from the open violences , and secret assassinations of these bloody-minded men , as likewise from their subtle insinuations ; may the same omnipotent power bless and protect these nations in general , and the city of london in particular , that his majesty may have a long and prosperous reign ; the protestant religion flowrish , and the designs of rome be blasted , discovered and confounded ; is , and shall ever be the hearty prayers and endeavours of him , vvho is , a most hearty vvell-wisher to the prosperity of that city , and of the true protestant interest william bedloe . a narrative of the popes late fire-works in england . as there is not a more malicious sort of vermine in the world than the iesuits and other factors for rome ( for let me tell you the benedictines and rest of the orders ; nay , the dullest mass-jobbing seculars , are not at all behind hand with the former , in will to commit roguery , whatever they are in parts and sufficiencies to conduct and manage it ) so there can be none more cursedly ingenious in inventing and promoting the most exquisite , various , and to us still new methods of doing mischief . treason and rebellion , private murthers , and publique massacres , poison'd daggers , and consecrated knives : all these have long since been their daily past-time , the old instruments of their worse than pagan cruelties : but of late years they have thereto added and set on foot in these parts another medium of destruction , to ruine protestants in a more oblique and clandestine way ; since they had not ( as is hop'd they never shall have ) power to re-kindle the marian bonfires , and consume their bodies : they resolv'd , and make it their business treacherously to fire their houses , to destroy their goods and estates , till they might be strong enough to venture on their persons . this hell-hatcht design was hugg'd by these holy fathers as a most ghostly expedient for their purpose , for hereby they could undo hundreds , sometimes thousands of families in a few hours space ; and the poor souls scarce ever imagine who hurts them . hereby they could lay waste our metropolis , and designed the same against other goodly cities , corporations , and chief places of trade ( against which they have a particular spleen ) and then to ascribe the disaster to providence , as a judgment for their heresie , or at least to make the ignorant believe it was only the pure effect of chance , or default of a drowsie negligence ; whilst in the mean time they with triumph warm their own fingers at the flames : and not only weaken and impoverish protestants , but in those distractions necessarily attending such calamities , make great advantages to themselves , by filtching , stealing , plundering , &c. besides the opportunities they ever hoped then to gain , of putting in execution their long designed general massacre . i speak not this by guess or hear-say , but out of certain knowledge : and therefore as i have endeavoured to discharge my duty to my prince and countrey , in discovering other intrigues and machinations of this cursed popish plot , so i think my self obliged to set forth some transactions that i have been privy unto , particularly concerning this matter : and therefore omitting several consults which have been held , and did all more or less relate to the grand design , viz. the destruction of his majesty ( whom god preserve ) his religion and government , i shall at present only undertake to give an account of what i know hath been ordered in these consults ( and in pursuance thereof prosecuted and attempted ) tending to the firing of london , westminster , &c. in the moneth of iune 1676. it was my fortune to be at paris , at the english covent of benedictine monks , with whom ( by several means and on diverse accounts , too tedious and not at all material here to be related ) i had much ingratiated my self ; so that at that time they reposed an intire confidence in me as a fit instrument for their purposes . amongst other discourses that happened there about the great business , which they and others were then most vigoriously carrying on ; viz. to subvert the protestant religion and introduce popery into england : they fell to debate the several wars and means preparatory thereunto , and what might be the best expedients to facilitate and accomplish the same : and as they did nothing without correspondence and communication of counsels from their fellow-conspirators in england , so some or one of them produced several betters from london , wherein were divers particulars relating to the firing of the city and suburbs of london , and other cities and eminent towns in england , which was then and at all times concluded and agreed unto by them , to be the chief way and almost only means in their power , whereby to plain the way for their design : for they were unanimously of opinion , that it was absolutely necessary to weaken and ruin the said city of london , ere they could bring any of their other contrivances to perfection . in this debate some of them thanked god ( such was their impious piety ) that their attempts upon london in that kind had hitherto succeeded very well ; and though the houses beyond all expectation were rebuilt to a greater degree of strength and ornament than ever , yet many thousands of her inhabitants still laboured under the effects , and languisht with incurable consumptions , occasioned by the late burning fevers they had cast her into : adding , that they would never leave that city , till they had pulled down her pride by fire and piracy . after this discourse and much more to the like purpose , which was very freely and earnestly managed , i being all the while present , they at last proceeded to ask me , whether i would be assistant to them in carrying on that business , as i had been in the other great concern ; this being one of the best expedients to ripen and push on that ? to which i readily seem'd to assent ; assuring them that i could and would do more therein than any other could : magnifying what intimate knowledge i had of all parts of london and some other great trading cities , which did capacitate me to effect such a business more certainly and securely than another . in fine , they were extreamly satisfied , and told me , that when i came to england , i should be joyned as an assistant to father gifford for prosecuting the said affair . this gifford was a jesuite , and ( as the said letters did specifie ) the person that had managed the great conflagration in 1666 , and as they said , was concerned in the fire at southwark ( which had happened not above a month before this discourse ) and had attempted the like at many other times and places where he had miss'd of performance . this likewise is the same gifford mentioned in the depositions of mr. stubbs and mary oxley , herein after set forth ; whereby the later was brought to set fire to her masters house in fetter-lane in april last . at this consult of the benedictines there were several letters produced as aforesaid , all relating to the firing of london and its suburbs , and other towns in england ; and very urgent they were with me to be sure at my return to be very diligent and expeditious in dispatching the same : and that i should receive necessary orders , encouragement , and supplies to inable me thereunto . but i being then upon a iourney into spain , heard no more of that business till the year 1678 ; and then i was in a consult with the said gifford and several others , priests and iesuits ( who met in such consults every week , in order to carry on the business of firing ) at this our meeting it was concluded to fire lime-house and wapping first , and then and by that means to burn all or the most of the ships and vessels in the river : for which purpose several of the said consultors and their assistants , were to be ready on the water , as men to help , but indeed to fire the outwardest ships , and cut theirs , or other ships cables ( as should be most convenient ) to make them fall foul on each other , and burn together . in pursuance of this resolution , a real effect thereof was the fire at lime-house , that shortly after followed ; though not doing that great execution that they expected , by reason of the absence of some of the persons that were to have managed the same . after , which fire i was with gifford and others several nights on the thames about london bridge , and there did make strict observations of the houses on either side ; making choice of the widest and the lowest windows in their vaults and cellars , or lower rooms ; and taking notice what houses had the most , and the most dangerous combustible materials in them , and where they might best and most effectually put in their surest fire-balls and instruments in the night under the houses , to burn down the bridge ; which they concluded to do at high-water , when their boats might be brought almost equal to such windows : we considered likewise of means how to fire the tower of london : but father harcourt ( now lately executed for treason ) then told us , they had made sure of that place within ; and therefore ordered us not to concern our selves with that : for it would be more for our advantage , to preserve it for our business , than to destroy it . in short , for near a twelve-month before i came in to make a discovery , i had been imployed to use all arts and endeavors to carry on this design of firing the city of london and other places about it ; and the order and conduct of it , how and where to set my fires , was left chiefly to my management ; but with this limitation , that the iesuites , who were the master-incendiaries , and my imployers , were to see and inspect , how far and how sure i had laid my combustibles and fewel ; which accordingly they did . in august last i did endeavour to rent several old cellars , wherein to stow wood , coal , and other preparations , of which i was ordered to buy several parcels ; which accordingly i bought ; as likewise several barrels of gun-powder and i did place them in many parts of the city and suburbs , in order to this damnable design : and that the reader may not think this a naked affirmation , but that the truth and certainty of what i here aver , may the better appear , i will here set down particularly some of the places that i so took , to hold this wood and coal , and where i did house many chaldrons of coals and hundreds of faggots , &c. to this purpose : viz. some hundreds of faggots and provision of coal , &c. for this very use , i laid in at my lodging in essex garden , at the back-door of the palsgraves-head tavern , near the temple ; which was to burn the temple , with the records and writings there . another parcel was in brewers-yard in the strand , at a cellar and some old buildings there ; which cellar doth belong to mr. morgan at the red bible in bedford-street . another parcel at mr. browns in white friars . some i was to send into an old cellar at mr. withers's at the plough in seething lane : more into red and white-cross-street , bishops gave-street , queen h●ve , and several other places in and about the city . all which i am ready to make truly to appear , when and how , i shall by authority be required . several other designs have been laid , in order to this work , to set divers places on fire ; and not a few persons imployed , but none of them knowing each other ; some of which have taken effect in part , some have not : but without speedy prevention and great care , they will alwayes ( as unwearied in villany ) attempt , and too often ( as we have just cause to fear ) perform what they have laid and contrived by so many and different ways and means ; all still held in read ness , and attending only the dismal blow directed against our sovereigns life ; which god defend . amen . the last consult i had with them about the affair of firing , was in august 1678. when i laid in my stores for the work ; others were then consulting and advising how to put the king out of the way ( for by that phrase they generally express murther ) and such of the magistrates as did most oppose them : and that being done , my firing of london was to follow ; and upon that conflagration , as a general signal , we were openly to appear in arms and declare for the pope . now for a more full satisfaction to all the world , and the further confirmation and justification of what i have said , and to demonstrate that the great fire in 66. and divers others since , were begun and carried on by the contrivance and industry of the papists , especially iesuites and priests , and their instruments ; i shall to this testimony of mine own add the true copies of divers plain and authentick affidavits , depositions , examinations , and informations of many others , given in unto committees of parliament , and taken before iustices of the peace , or other sufficient authority , relating to the same matter : and likewise annex an account of the several notable fires since 66. to this time , with some observations on the circumstances thereof , and remarkable passages therein : all which sufficiently corroborate and make it evident , to whose designs and management it is , that england ows most of the late dismal calamities by fire , which have been so much more frequent and destructive of late years ( notwithstanding the great improvements of care and art to prevent and quench them ) than ever heretofore . and first of all i shall recite those testimonies relating to the dreadful fire in 66. the vast damage whereof may be conceived to be inestimable , by this brief state of the extent of the ground laid desolate , and the number of houses then consumed , extracted from the certificates of the surveyors soon after appointed to survey the ruins : whereby it appeareth , that the fire that began in london upon the second of september 1666. at one mr. farryners house a baker in pudding-lane , between the hours of one and two in the morning , and continued burning until the sixth of that month , did over-run the space of three hundred seventy three acres within the walls of the city of london , and sixty three acres three roods without the vvalls . there remain'd seventy five acres three roods standing within the vvalls unburnt . eighty nine parish churches , besides chappels burnt . eleven parishes within the vvalls standing . houses burnt , thirteen thousand two hundred . surveyors . jonas moore , ralph gatrix , upon the eighteenth of the same september the parliament came together , and upon the 25th . of the same month the house of commons appointed a committee to inquire into the causes of the late fire , before whom the following informations were given in , and proved before the committee ; as by their report will more clearly appear , bearing date the two and twentieth of ianuary 66. but upon the eighth of february following , the parliament was prorogued , before they came to give their judgment thereupon . the order of the house for the committee , die martis 25 septembris 1666. 18 car. 2. resolved , &c. that a committee be appointed to inquire into the causes of the late fire , and that it be referred to sir charles harbord mr. seymour . sir rowland beckley col. strangways sir john charlton mr. sandys mr. finch sir tho. allen sir edward massey lord ancram col. birch lord herbert mr. whorwood sir edm. walpool mr. pepis sir robert brook sir john heath mr. coventry sir robert atkins sir richard everard sir tho. littleton . mr. millward serj. maynard . sir thomas gower mr. crouch mr. prin sir richard ford sir jo. talbot mr. trevor mr. merrel mr. jones mr. rob. milward mr. morley sir thomas clifford sir will. hickman sir solom . swale sir will. lowther mr. garraway sir hen. caesar sir richard brown sir tho. tomlins sir rich. vatley sir fran. goodrick sir john monson mr. maynard . and they are to meet to morrow at two of the clock in the afternoon , in the speakers chamber ; and to send for persons , papers and records . vvill. goldesbrough , cer. dom. com. october 9. 1666. ordered , that these members following be added to the committee appointed to enquire into the causes of the late fire , viz sir john pelham , mr. hugh buscowen , mr. giles hungerford , sir vvilliam lewis , sir gilbert gerrard , sir john brampstone , mr. milward , mr. buscowen ; and all the members that serve for the city of london . vvill. goldesbrough , cler. dom. com. october 16. 1666. ordered . that mr. davies , sir thomas higgons , mr. st. john , sir richard franklin , sir thomas tomkins , mr. devereux , mr. millard , mr. lewis , mr. dowdswell , sir james thyn , sir edm. pierse , mr. coleman , sir tho. allen , mr. giles hungerford , mr. churchill , be added to the committee appointed to enquire into the causes of the late fire . will. goldesbrough , cler. dom. com. the honourable committee , according to the fore-mentioned orders of the house , did meet in the speakers chamber , and having chosen sir robert brook for their chairman , proceeded to receive many considerable informations from divers credible persons , about the matter wherewith they were intrusted ; and thereupon did at last agree that sir robert brook should make the ensuing report to the honourable house of commons . the report of sir robert brook , chair-man to the committee that was appointed by the house of commons to enquire into the firing of the city of london ; made the two and twentieth of january , 1666. that in a letter from alanson of the 23d of august 1666 , new stile , written from one dural to a gentleman lodging in the house of one of the ministers of the french church in london , called monsieur herault , there were these expressions : pray acquaint me with the truth of certain news which is common in this country , that a fire from heaven is fallen upon a city called belke , scituated on the side of the river of thames , where a world of people have been killed and burnt , and houses also consumed : which seemeth a word of cabal , cast out by some that were knowing , and taken up by others that might be ignorant of the signification of it . mrs elizabeth styles informs , that in april last , in an eager discourse she had with a french man servant of sir vere fan , he hastily replied , you english maids will like the frenchmen better , when there is not a house left between temple-bar and london-bridge . to which she answered , i hope your eyes will never see that . he replied , this will come to pass between june and october . william tisdale informs , that he being about the beginning of july at the greyhound in st. martins , with one fitz-harris an irish papist , heard him say , there would be a sad desolation in september , in november a worse , in december all would be united into one . whereupon he asked him , where this desolation would be ? he answered , in london . mr. light of ratcliff , having some discourse with mr. langhorn of the middle-temple , barrister * ( reputed a zealous papist ) about february 65 last , after some discourse in disputation about religion , he took him by the hand , and said to him , you expect great things in sixty six , and think that rome will be destroyed , but what if it be london ? mr. kitley of barkin in essex , informs , that one mrs. yazly , a papist , of ilford in the said county , came unto his house , august the 13th , and being in discourse with his mother , said , they say the next thursday will be the bottest day that ever was in england . she replied , i hope the hottest season of the year is now past . to which she answered , i know not whether it be the hottest for weather or for action , this mrs. yazly coming to the same house the week after the fire , mr. kitley said to her with some trouble , i have often thought of your hot thursday : to which she replyed , it was not indeed upon the thursday , but it happened upon the sunday was sennight after . mrs yazly hearing this evidence produced against her , endeavoured to avoid the words , saying , that upon the 13th of august she did tell mrs. kitley , that they say the next thursday will be the darkest thursday that ever was in england , but not otherwise ; which she affirms to have received from one finchman , an old woman of ilford ; who being examined by a justice of peace to discover the truth thereof , denied that ever she said any such words to mrs yazly , or that she had discoursed with her about any such matter . and as to the subsequent words , she saith mrs yazly denies ever to have spoken them : but mr. kitley offered in her presence ( if it should be demanded ) to bring his mother and wife to testifie the same . william ducket esq a member of the house , informs , that one henry baker of chippenham in the county of wilts , coming from market with one john woodman of kelloway in the same county , the thursday before the fire began in london , they had some discourse about the buying of a yoke of fat bullocks , wherein they differed ; because woodman , who was to sell them , was desired to keep them a while in his hands : but the said woodman denied so to do , for that as he alledged , he could not stay in the country till that time which baker would have them delivered to him in ; and being asked whither he was going , he refused to tell : asking what had he to do to make that question ; but riding a little further , the said woodman exprest these words , you are brave blades at chippenham , you made bonfires lately for beating the dutch ; but since you delight in bonfires , you shall have your bellies full of them ere it be long : adding , that if he lived one week longer , he should see london as sad a london as ever it was since the world began . and in some short time after , he should see as bloody a time as ever was , since england was england . this discourse was not much taken notice of at that time it was spoken . but when the city of london was burnt , the said henry baker gave this information to the said mr. ducket , and thereupon he issued out his warrant to apprehend woodman , but he was gone out of the country , and cannot be heard of since . robert hubert of roan in normandy , who acknowledged that he was one of those that fired the house of mr. farryner a baker in pudding-lane , from whence the fire had its beginning , confessed , that he came out of france with one stephen piedelou , * about four months before the fire , and went into sweden with him , where he also staid with him as his companion four months , and then they came together into england in a swedish ship called the skipper , where he staid on board with the said piedelou till that saturday night , in which the fire brake out . when piedelou taking him out of the ship , carried him into pudding-lane , and he being earnest to know whither he would carry him ? he would not satisfie him till he had brought him to the place , and then he told him , that he had brought three balls , and gave him one of them to throw into the house . and he would have been further satisfied in the design , as he said , before he would execute it : but piedelou was so impatient that he would not hear him , and then he did the fact , which was , that he put a fire-ball at the end of a long pole , and lighting it with a piece of march , he put it in at a window * and staid till he saw the house in a flame . he confessed that there were three and twenty complices , whereof piedelou was the chief . mr. graves a french merchant living in st. mary axe , informed this committee , that he had known hubert ever since he was four years old , and hath ever observed him to be a person of a mischievous inclination , and therefore fit for any villainous enterprize ; and because of his knowledge he had of him , he went to visit him in poison , where when he saw him , he could not but commisorate the condition whereinto he had brought himself . and for his better discovery of the fact , he told him the said hubert , that he did not believe he had done that of which he confessed himself guilty . to which hubert replyed , yes sir , i am guilty of it , and have been brought to it by the instigation of monsieur piedelou ; but not out of any malice to the english nation , but from a desire of reward which he promised me upon my return into france . it is observable , that this miserable creature who confessed himself to the committee to be a protestant , was a papist , and died so . and as for the aforesaid piedelou , the said mr. graves informed , that he had a full knowledge of him , and knew him to be a very deboist person , and apt to any wicked design . moreover , for a clear conviction of the guilt of the aforesaid hubert , mr. lowman , the keeper of the white-lion prison , was appointed to set him upon a horse , and to go with him , and see if he could find out the place where he threw the fire-ball . and what followed thereupon , appears by : mr. lowmans certificate concerning the behaviour of the said robert hubert , at the place where the fire began , when carried thither . in obedience to an order directed to me , from the honourable committee of the house of commons , then sitting in the speakers chamber of the second of october , 1666. i did carry robert hubert to st. katherines-tower by water , to let me know the place where the swedish ship lay , that brought him and other frenchmen from stockholm , and he brought me to the dock over-against mr. corsellis , his brew-house , and did then verifie to me , and mr. corsellis , that the ship lay there , until such time as he with mr. piedelou and others did go and set fire to a house . and this hubert did then further say , that mr. piedelou did fix two fire-balls to a long pole , and put them into a window ; and that he the said robert hubert did fire one in the same manner , and put it in at the same vvindow . but with all the inquiry and diligence that i could use , i could neither find nor hear of any such vessel . and from thence i carried the said robert hubert to tower-hill , and did then desire him to shew me the house that they did fire , and he said , that it was near the bridge . so we went along thames-street towards the bridge ; but before we came to the bridge , the said robert hubert said , that the house was up there ( pointing with his hand up pudding-lane ; ) so i bid him go to the place , and he went along the bricks and rubbish , and made a stand . then did i ask one robert penny , a vvine-porter , which was the bakers house ? and he told me , that was the house where the aforesaid robert hubert stood . so i went to robert hubert and stood by him , and turned my back towards the bakers house , and demanded of him , which house it was that he fired , ( directing to other houses contrary to that house : ) but he turning himself about , said , this was the house ( pointing to the bakers house ) that was first fired . then by reason of his lameness i set him on a horse , and carried him to several other places , but no other place would he acknowledge ; but rode back again to the bakers house , and said again , that that was the house ( pointing at the bakers house ) and this i do humbly certifie to this honourable committee . be me iohn lowman , keeper of his majesties county-goal for surry . it being intimated to the committee , that notwithstanding the confession of the said hubert , it was confidently reported the fire in the forementioned farryners house began by accident : the committee therefore sent for him the said farryner before them , who being examined , said , that it was impossible any fire should happen in his house by accident ; for he had after twelve of the clock that night gone through every room thereof , and found no fire , but in one chimney , where the room was paved with bricks , which fire he diligently raked up in embers . he was then asked , whether no window or door might let in wind to disturb those coals ? he affirmed there was no possibility for any wind to disturb them : and that it was absolutely set on fire of purpose . note , that this hubert was some time after tryed , condemned and executed for this fact , and at his death did acknowledge and own the doing thereof , and that he was instigated thereunto by monsieur piedelou as aforesaid . dawes weymensel esq one of his majestie ▪ justices of the peace , informed , that he saw a man apprehended in the time of the fire , near the temple , with his pockets stuft with combustible matter , made of flax , tow , and such-like materials . doctor iohn packer informs , that he saw a person in the time of the fire , throw some combustible matter into a shop in the old bayly , which he thinks was the shop of an apothecary ; and that immediately thereupon he saw a great smoak , and smelt a smell of brimstone . the person that did this immediately ran away ; but upon the out-cry of the people he was taken by the guards . mr. randal , mr. haslem , and mr. humphrey bowyer , do all agree , that they saw a person flinging something into a house near st. antholines church ; and that thereupon the house was on fire , and the smoak thereof infested the adjacent houses . and when this was done , there was no fire near the place . mr. michael march , an officer in the trained bands in a company of sir richard browns , apprehended a walloon in the time of the fire , at the nags-head in leaden-hall-street , with an instrument like a dark lanthorn , made ( as is conceived ) to lay a train of powder , and it was tilled with gun-powder . there were two more of the same nation in his company . they being asked to what use they employed the same instrument , would give no account thereof . newton killingworth esq informed , that he apprehended a person during the fire about whom he found much combustible matter , and certain black things of a long figure , which he could not indure to hold in his hands , by reason of their extream heat . this person was so surprized at first , that he would not answer to any question ; but being on his way to white-hall , he acted the part of a mad-man , and so continued while he was with him . sir iohn maynard , a member of this house , affirms , that he had some of that combustible matter in his hands ; and though it were in its natural substance , and unfired , yet the heat of it was scarcely to be endured by the touch . mr. freeman of southwark brewer ( whose house was lately fired ) informs , that on the day his house was fired ( about a quarter of an hour before that happened ) a paper with a ball of wild-fire , containing near a pound weight wrapped in it , was found in the nave of a wheel , in a wheelers-yard , where lay a great quantity of timber . how his house was fired , he knoweth not ; but this he affirmed to the committee , that it could not be by accident , because there had not been any candle or fire in the housewhere the hay lay , that whole day ; and that the hay being laid in very dry , and before midsummer , could not possibly be set on fire within it self . moreover he said . that the hay-loft was on fire on the top of the house , and that the fire spread from the one end of the roof to another in an instant . mr. richard harwood informs , that being near the feathers tavern by st. pauls , upon the fourth of september , he saw something through a grate in a cellar , like wild-fire , by the sparkling and spitting of it , he could judge it to be no other : whereupon he gave notice of it to some souldiers that were near the place , who caused it to be quenched . i had order from the committee to acquaint you , that we traced several persons apprehended upon strong suspicion ( during the fire ) to the guards , but could not make further discovery of them . ☞ thus far was the report : what follows was given in to the committee , but not by them reported to the house at that time . a letter from a person of credit to the chair-man of the said committee . sir , hearing that you are chairman to the committee for examining the firing of london , i thought good to acquaint you with this information that i have received . william champneys a hatband-maker , now living upon horslydown , was upon tuesday-morning , september the fourth 1666 , in shoe-lane , and there met with a constable who had apprehended a frenchman , whom he took firing a house there with fire-balls , and charged the said champneys to assist him ; who carried the said frenchman to salisbury court , hoping there to have found a justice ; but finding that place burning down , returned into fleet-street , who was presently called upon by the commander of the life-guard , to know what the matter was . the constable told him , he had apprehended a frenchman firing a house in shoe-lane ; he examined the person and committed him to the guard , and told the constable he would secure him ; and carried him along with him . the constable asked him whether he should go along with him to give in his evidence ? he replied , that he had done enough , and might go home . but what became of the frenchman he knoweth not . your humble servant , s. g. in a letter from ipswich , directed , for the honourable sir robert brook , it is intimated , that about the 30th of august 1666 , one of the constables of cotton in harismer hundred , being about the survey of that town about hearth money , was told by one mr. will am thompson , a roman catholick in that town , that though time , were like to besad , yet if he found any cause to change his religion , he would see he should not want : and further said to him , what will you say , if you hear that london is burnt ? the affdavits touching a frenchman that said , there were three hundred of them engaged in firing the city . the informations of richard ●ou●d of st. giles in the fields , ironmonget ; william cotes , samuel page , francis cogny , edmond dakins , and richard pardoe , taken the 8th day of septemb. 1666 , by sir justlnian lewen knight , one of his majesties justices of the peace for the country of middlesex , upon oath , as followeth : richard bound saith , that upon tuesday night last about twelve or one of the clock , there was a frenchman brought by the watch to this informants fathers house , being at the sign of the white-hart in king-street , taken as a suspicious person : the said person being questioned by them , whether he was not one of those that fired the city , or had a hand therein , or any privity or knowledge of any that had designed the same ? or words to that effect : the said person answered a great while in a perverse manner , quite different from the question . but being further pressed to tell the truth , and being told , that if be were guilty , it would be the only way to save his life : he did at first obstinately deny , that he knew any thing of any plot. whereupon a young man took the prisoner aside to the end of the room , and after some private discourse between them , they both returned to this informant and the rest of the company , and the said young man spake openly to us , in the hearing of the prisoner , that the said frenchman and prisoner had confessed , there were three hundred frenchmen that were in a plot or conspiracy to fire the city . upon which this informant and others spake to the said frenchman in these words or to the same effect : well monsieur , you have done very well to confess what you have done , and no doubt but you may have your pardon , if you will confess all you know of this plot : and thereupon further asked him , are there no more than three hundred persons in the said plot ? he answered , there are no more than three hundred persons . then we inquired who they were , and how he came to know they were three hundred ? to which he would give no direct answer , but put it off with other extravagant discourse . and being asked , why he came to st. giles parish ( where he was apprehended ? ) he told a story , that he came from islington-fields , where his masters goods were : but the goods were now removed , but he could not tell whither ; and that his master bid him go up and down the fields , but would not declare upon what occasion , or for what end he was so to do : and being asked whether there were three hundred persons engaged in this design or plot ? he replied , that there were three hundred engaged in it . the several informations of william cotes of cow-lane of london painter , of samuel page of st. giles in the fields weaver , of edmund dakins of st. giles aforesaid , bookseller ; of francis cockney of st. andrews holbourn ; of richard pardoe victualler , taken upon oath , &c. tend to the confirmation of the fore-going relation . an extract of a letter from heydleburgh , in the palatinate , september the 29th 1666. sir , yours of the sixth currant came on wednesday to me , and brought me the ill tidings of the burning of london , constantly expected and discoursed of amongst the iesuites to my knowledge for these fifteen years last past , as to happen this year . in which they do also promise to themselves and others , the introduction of the publick exercise of the catholick religion . this letter was sent to mr. alton , who lives in new-gravel-lane in shadwell , who negotiates the business of the palatinate , and will produce the original , if there be occasion . the information of john chishul schoolmaster in enfield . upon friday , aug. 31. mrs. st. george and her eldest daughter susanna s. george , both popish recusants , came to visit mrs. rebecca eves widow , at her house in enfield ; where speaking concerning the session of parliament drawing nigh , mrs. st. george told her , that some would hereafter be called to an account for a plot . being asked for what ? she told her in her ear , for burning the city . mrs eves afterwards hearing of the firing of london ( and going to a place where she might behold it ) met with mrs. susanna st. george , and ( amongst other discourse ) told her how much her mothers words , which she spake the friday before , did run in her thoughts ; which she repeated to her daughter : who made this reply , that her mother was very apt to talk , and that sae bid been fain to keep her mother within doors during the fire , fearing lest she should talk . after this ( during the fire ) mrs eves mer with mrs. cook , another popish recusant , and of the same family , to whom she also related mrs. st. george her words ; who made this return , that she was a worthy woman to keep counsel . also the lady st. george at enfield in the lord of lincoln's house , declared to mrs. rebecca eves of the said town , that within a few dayes the city of london would be laid in ashes . this was spoken about two dayes before the fire happened . mrs. eves of enfield her examination before mr. jolliff and mr. marvel , decemb. 20. 1666. concerning mrs. st. george . mrs. rebecca eves of enfield ; three or four days , or within a week before the fire , receiving a visit in her own house from mrs. st. george ( amongst other discourses ) mrs. st. george akt her what news she heard ? and , if she knew when the parliament sate ? mrs. eves replied she thought shortly . the other asked , if she heard of any that were to be called in question before the parliament ? mrs. eves said , about what ? mrs. st. george said , about a i lot . mrs. eves asked , what plot ? mrs. st. george answered . about firing the city mrs. eves said , i hope god will preservs the city , but people use not to be questioned before the fact be committed . so the discourse was waved for that time . at the time of the fine , mrs. eves went out to look towards the fire , and mentioning mrs. st. george , one in the company replied behind her ( but she cannot certainly fix the person ) a prime woman , to keep counsel ! after the fire , mrs. st. george her daughter came to mrs eves , who asked her if she remembred what her mother had said ? she said , my mother is such a woman , she will speak what she thinks . afterwards she said , that she had much ado to keep her mother in at the time of the fire , lest she should speak some things she should be questioned for . at the first discourse , mrs. eves , her daughter , and others of her family were present . mr. st. george , his wife and family , have since left enfield . they are all great papists , and there are many more in the neighbourhood . a letter directed and sent by the post to mr. samuel thurlton in leicestershire , from my friend , 〈…〉 a person unknown , as followeth ; dated october 16. 1666. your presence is now more necessary at london , than where you are , that you may determine how to dispose of your estate in southwark : for it is determined by humane counsel ( if not frustrated by divine power ) that the suburbs will shortly be destroyed . your capacity is large enough to understand . proceed as your genius shall instruct you . cave , cave , fuge . vale. ☞ a true relation from essex . saturday the first of september 1666 , the day before the fire in london , came one urmstraw from ireland , with a letter from thence to one esq holcroft at east-ham in essex ( being related to that family by marriage ) where he supped . after which he askt the esquire , if he had heard any thing of the firing of london ? who answered , no. but urmstraw said , he would shortly , for it was or would be so that night . the esquire answered , if it were , he hoped it might be quenched again , as it had been no any a time . but urmstraw answered , no , it would not be quenched : for it should be said of it , as of troy , repeating a latine verse , nunc seges est ubi ●roja suit , that now corn grows where troy stood this discourse was managed pleasantly by him , after which they went to their beds . and in the morning this urmseram inquires carnestly , whether they had heard of the firing of london that night ? they answered , not but he prayed them to send one of the family out so inquire , and doubtless they would hear of it : upon which a messenger was sent , who brought in word from a man that travelled upon the road , that it was on fire indeed . after dinner this urmstraw desires his horse to be saddled , that he might be gone . the esquire intreats him to stay till next morning : but he answered , if i should stay , i should sleep no more this night than i did the last : therefore i would go see london before its quite burned : for i shall never see it more . sunday morning the fine being begun in london ? a person coming from deptford , when he came to barnaby-street-end in southwark , hears a woman cry but against a frenchman for throwing fire balls , he runs after him , and lays hold of him : he asked him what commission he had for so doing ? he answered , that his-commission was in his chest. the people coming in , they search'd him , and found fire-balls in his pockets . he was delivered to the guard in southwark , but heard of no more . a citizen being burnt out of his house , had hired a lodging in queens-street in covent-garden ; and going up holborn ( there being a crowd of people ) steps in amongst them , and hears a woman say , that she had a hand in firing the city . the people askt her , whether she were an anabaptist ? she said no : are you an independent ? she said no : are you a presbyterian ? she said no : are you a roman catholick ? to which she would give no answer . the citizen asked her , but mistress had you a hand in burning the city ? she answered , what would you have me say ? i have confessed it already , and do deserve to dye for it : this she said with great trembling , and seemed to be much troubled . the citizen enquired for a constable , the people reply'd there was one gone for , but a gallant comes , and takes her by the arm , and leads her away , saying he would have her examined , and forth with another gallant closeth with him , and they both carryed her to the griffin tavern in holborn . the citizen follows them , to see the result of the business . but , they , with the master of the house , shut out the company ( all but the citizen , supposing him to be one of their own companions ) but asking one the other concerning him , and finding him not of them , put him out again . whereupon he goes to the next company of souldiers , and inquires for their captain , who replyed , he was not there , but told him , yonder is my lord craven , unto whom the citizen repaired , and acquainted his lordship , that there was a woman apprehended ( and rescued by a couple of gallants ) that had confessed she had a hand in burning the city , and was at such a tavern . whereupon the lord craven calls to a captain in the street , and ordered him to go with that man and apprehend the woman that he should direct him to ; whereupon he goes with the citizen , and takes her with the first gallant , who stood up highly in her defence , and carries them both to an alehouse on the other side of the way . the citizen perceiving that nothing would be done with her , leaves his name with the captain , and where he might be found , but was never called for to justifie the words spoken by her . a woman standing in white-chappel with a company about her , was askt what the matter was ? she said , that she met two young men in that place , and asked them how it was with the fire : they answered , it s now almost out , if it can be kept so , but the rogues renew it with their fireballs . ay saith another woman , young men , if you have a heart to it , you may be hired to throw fire-balls too ; for i know where twenty were hired yesterday to throw them . it was askt her , what was become of the woman that spake thus ? she answered , that she had apprehended her and delivered her to the under beadle of white-chappel-parish . the woman falling under the accusation ( not being able to deny it ) there being many witnesses at that time that heard it : she was delivered to sir john robinson , but heard of no more . one from france writes to his correspondent in london , to know the truth of what was muttered in paris , whether london were laid in ashes or no. the letter being dated a week before the fire began . from surry in or near darkin , a person in ordinary habit ( who was yet observed to take place of all the nobility and gentry among the papists ) seeing the people of darkin mourn for the burning of the city , he spake slightingly of it , telling them , they should have something else to trouble themselves for , and that shortly darkin should laid be as low as london . whereupon the people made at him , and one mr. howard a great papist rescues him , and sends him away in his coach to london . this was deposed before sir adam brown , a justice of peace and a member of parliament . these following relations ( for substance ) were delivered to sir robert brooks , chairman of the committee , a little before the prorogation of the parliament , and others are ready to be justified . a true relation made by one of the grand jury , at hicks hall , at a general quarter-sessions , presently after the fire in london . that near west-smithfield in cheek lane , there was a man taken in the very act of firing a house , by the inhabitants and neighbours ; and carrying him away through smithfield , to have him before a justice for the fact committed , the kings life guard perceiving it , made up unto them , and demanded their prisoner from them ; but they refused to let him go . the life-guard men told them , that he was one of the kings servants , and said , we will have him ; and thereupon they drew out their swords and pistols , and rescued him out of the peoples hands by force of arms. a bill of indictment was brought against him , and two or three witnesses did swear unto it , and the bill was found by the grand jury , who did carry it to the old-baily , and presented to the lord chief justice ; but it came to no further tryal , nor was ever seen after at the old baily , so far as this person upon his best enquiry could ever hear or learn. concerning a house-keeper at so-ho , who fired his own dwelling-house . first he secured all his goods in his garden , and then went in and fired his house ; which when he had done , he endeavoured to get away out at his fore door . a neighbour demanded of him who had fired his house ? he answered , the devil . upon that , his neighbour bid him stand , or he would run his halbert into his guts . his answer was , if you do , there are enough left behind me to do the work . whereupon he was secured , and a bill of indictment brought against him , and about three witnesses did swear to it , and his son came in a witness against him , who was demanded by the foreman , what he could say as to the firing of his fathers house ? he said , that his father did fire it with a fire-ball . it was demanded of him , whether he did fire it above stairs , or below ? he answered , above-stairs . the bill was likewise found ; but the petty-jury being too much influenced and over-awed by the l. c. j. k. did not find him guilty . humphrey ayrs of white-lion-court in barbican porter is ready to depose upon oath , that on the third of september 1666 , being the monday , at which time the fire was as farre off as walbrook , he coming to budge-row , and no fire near that he could perceive , on a sudden he saw two houses about the middle of budge-row , betwixt st. antholines church and walbrook break out in a light fire in their middle stories , before ever the tops of the said houses catcht or were toucht with fire , so that they burnt downwards till the roof fell into the fire . the like is attested by mr. morton a gold-smith near the end of foster-lane , who averrs , that the people that dwelt in aldersgate , having removed their goods and abandoned the same , he on a sudden saw a fire in one of the rooms , which must needs be set on fire as well because there was no other fire near thereabouts at that time , nor for many hours after , as also for that it began not on the top but inwardly , and so flam'd forth through the very stones ; but by his calling out for help it was for that time quencht , though afterwards fired again ; it being so convenient for their purpose , who design'd to have carryed on the flames further up aldersgate-street , though in that respect god prevented them . in the same manner a person of eminent quality , and another very worthy gentleman both then of the temple , have attested , that in that fire in 1666 , they saw the fire break out at the temple when no fire was near , nor could they possibly make any reasonable apprehension how from the common conflagration any fire should reach thither , or catch at the place where they observ'd it to break out . a maid was taken in the street with two fire-balls in her lap ; some did demand of 〈◊〉 where she had them ? she said , one of the kings life-guard threw them into her lap : she was asked 〈…〉 had not caused him to be apprehended ? she said , that she knew not what they were . she was indicted for this , and the bill found against her , and turned over to the old-baily , but no prosecution upon it . in the time of the fire a constable took a frenchman firing a house , seized on him , and going to a magistrate with him , met with his royal highness the duke of york , who asked the reason of the tumuit : one told him that a frenchman was taken firing a house ; his highness called for the man , who spake to him in french. the duke asked , who would attest it ? the constable said , i took him in the act , and i will attest it . the duke took him into his custody , and said , i will secure him . but he was heard of no more . on munday the third of september , there was a frenchman taken firing a house ; and upon searching of him , fire-balls were found about him . at which time four of the life-guard rescued the frenchman , and took him away from the people , after their usual manner in the whole time of the fire . one mr. belland a frenchman , living at maribone , who bought great store of pastboard for a considerable time before the fire in the city of london , to the quantity of twenty gross in one shop , and much more elsewhere , was asked by a citizen , what he did with all that pastboard ? he answered that he made fire-works for the kings pleasure . the citizen asked him , what doth the king give you ? he replyed , nothing , onely i have respects at court : the citizen said , take heed , mr. belland , you do not expend your estate , and then lose your respects at court , for you are at a great charge . belland answered , sir , do you think this a great matter ? i use all this my self ; but if you did see all the great quantities i have made elsewhere , in three several places , three , four , and five miles off , you would say something . another time , the stationer with whom he dealt for pastboard , being at his house in maribone , and wondring at the many thousands of fire works that lay piled up of several sorts , he said , sir , do you wonder at this ? if you should see the quantity that i have made elsewhere by other men , you would wonder indeed . the sunday before the fire began , this belland came to the shop where he was wont to buy his pastboard , but the stationer being not there , he desired a citizen ( the stationers neighbour ) to speak to him , and to let him know that he had much wronged him in disappointing him of the four gross of pastboard which he should have had of him and said that he should not do his work by the time and that if he had it not by tuesday night , it would come too late , he should have no occasion for it after that ( which was the tuesday night before the the fire ) mr. belland ( said the citizen ) what is the reason of your hast ? have you any shew suddenly before the king ? at which he blusht , and would give no answer . says the citizen , what kind of fire-works do you make , onely such as will crack and run ? belland answered , i make of all sorts ; some that will burn and make no crack at all , but will flye up in in a pure body of flame , higher then the top of pauls , and waver in the ayre . says the citizen , mr. belland , when you make your shew , shall i see it ? yes , said belland , i promise you , and gave him his hand upon it . which citizen in the time of the fire , being upon the thames in a boat , saw , to his great amazement , sundry bodies of fire , burning above the fire of the houses as high again as pauls wavering in the ayre , directly according to bellands description . and after the burning of the city , the stationer and the other citizen agreed to go to maribone , to speak with this belland ; and by the way met with his two maids and his boy : and having some knowledge of them , asked for young mr. belland , who told them he was not at home , neither knew they where he was . but the citizens observing that they carryed with them rabbets and capons ready drest , concluded , they were going to him , and told them so . whereat , they were surly and bad them go look him , for they would not tell them where he was . upon that , the citizens resolved to follow them , and did , till they came to whitehall . the servants went up stairs and down stairs , on purpose to have lost them , but could not , for they kept close to them . and at last , one of the maids went to a door and knocked , crying out , they were dogg'd by two men , that they could not be rid of ; with that young mr. belland opened the door saying to one of the citizens , sir your servant , how do you do ? one of them answered ▪ both i and many thousand families more are the worse for you ; for you under pretence of making fire-works for the king , have destroyed a famous city , and ruined a noble people . to which belland replyes . i make nothing but innocent things , that will do no harm ; for which i have a pattent from the king. but the citizen answered , if the king gave you a pattent , it was but for your self : who answered , no. then said the citizen , what made you then to imploy so many men , in so many places ? no , said belland , i set no man to work , neither know i any man that makes of them , but my self ; though he had often before said otherwise . while they were thus discoursing , old belland looks from under the hanging , sir , said he , i hear you charge my son with suspition of burning the city , i pray you speak lower ( casting his eyes about , fearing the ladies passing by might hear ) and said , my son doth nothing but what he hath a pattent from the king for , and shall have an order to s●e any man , that shall accuse him . and he said , my son is no prisoner , but lodged here to prevent him from the rage of the common people . well said the citizens , you must give an account for what you have done . and so they shut the door upon them . a house in shooe-lane fired by a french-man taken in the act , yet discharged . on tuesday the 4th . of september 1666. a french-man was taken for firing the turn-broach of the temples house , in robin-hood-court in shooe-lane where he lodged . this court was full of pitiful rotten houses , and he did the fact early in the morning before ever any fire was come over fleet bridge or cross the ditch ; but the woman being up and perceiving it just as he was going forth , cryed out to one mr. nicasius a neighbour who was then in that court , saying , this rogue hath fired my house , and withal came running out of the house into the court after him , thereupon mr. nicasius seized the fellow , talkt french to him , searcht his pockets and found a writing purporting to be indentures of covenant for him and another to serve one glowde lantee of the parish of st. leonard shoreditch french-fring-maker for 10 l. per annum wages , dated 10th . of jan. 1665. attested by john underwood publick notary and joshuah thirk●ll his servant . 't is uncertain whether his name was martin de humet , or andrew sommers , because they were both parties to the same indented articles , but 't is more probable it was de humet because the same is a french , whereas sommers is an english name . this person being so taken in the fact , was askt if he were a frenchman which he acknowledged , the people would presently have used violence to him , but mr. nicasius with much ado perswaded them to the contrary ▪ and got their leave to be patient that he might carry him before the duke of york whom he found with his guard about salisbury court , to him he presented the french man , and related the fact with its apparent circumstances in english ▪ on which the duke called one of the horse guard , and delivered him unto him , who rode away with him triumphantly towards westminster . the mounsieurs about the duke making a great noise at his delivery , but the next morning mr. nicasius enquired what became of the french-man , and the people told him he was let go , nor hath he since been heard of by mr. nicasius though he hath used means to inquire and find him out . the turn-broaches house consisted only of two rooms , the uppermost of which was the chamber in which this french-man lay , and which he had fired , and carried away the key with him , but the people perceiving it so soon , broke open the chamber , and had happily quencht the same before mr. nicasius came back from carrying him before the duke of york . the same mr. nicasius had a fair brick house wherein he dwelt , being the furthest house on the right hand in plow yard in fetter-lane adjoyning to thavies-inn garden , this house on the wednesday was by ill councel ordered to be blown up , and powder brought to that purpose , which if it had been done , the fire had undoubtedly proceeded much further : but upon his representing the unreasonableness thereof to the king , and that if by playing with the engine on an house hard by that was on fire , they could so damp the flames that they might not seize his house , then the same being brick would screen and preserve other paper buildings behind it , his majesty was pleased to order that course should be taken , and thereby that house and divers others were saved , though in mr. nicasius occasional absence for a very short time people got into his house with strange pickaxes , and battle-axes , &c. wherewith they broke open his doors , and ( besides what they robbed him of , ) brake down all his windows , and threw a press cupboard , pictures and other combustibles into the fire to encrease it , and endeavoured to break down the turret on the top of the house and did actually break some part of it , which could not be but on purpose to let in the fire and that it might the sooner take hold on such his house , which if it had done 't is most probable all holborn had been destroyed . the information of thomas middleton chyrurgeon , of st. brides , london . i the said thomas middleton do hereby certifie , that upon the sunday in the afternoon ( the day wherein the dreadful fire brake out in pudding lane which consumed the city ) hearing the general outcry , that the city was fired by papists and french , i repaired to the top of a church steeple near the three cranes in the vintrey , where my self and several others observed the motion of the fire for two or three hours together , and we all took notice , that the fire did break forth out of several houses , when the houses which were then burning were at a good distance from them every way , and more particularly , i saw the fire break out from the inside of lawrence-pountney steeple , when there was no fire near it . these and such like observations begat in me a perswasion , that the fire was maintained by design . upon munday i repaired again into the city , and found as the day before , that the fire did break forth in fresh houses at a great distance one from another . and as i was returning home , passing through wailing-street by a tobacco merchants house , i saw the master of the house come down stairs , driving a young fellow before him , saying to him , you rogue , do you come to rob me ? what did you do in my garret ? or words to that purpose , and pushed him out of doors : all which i observed , and he seemed to be a frenchman : he was a short black fellow of about 22 years of age : and as soon as he was out of the house , he having a loose coat on , in a way of privacy , shuffles something under his coat , whereupon i laid hold of him , and said , sirrah , what have you there ? the fellow replyed , what is that to you , the master of the house knows me ? upon that i asked the mr. of the house whether he knew the fellow , he answered , he knew him not . whereupon i searched the fellow , and found a horn of powder about him , and as soon as the powder was discovered , he sell a rubbing his hands , they being all black with powder : he had also about him a book intituled , the jewish government . i charged him that he was a frenchman , because he spake broken english ; but he denyed it , and did much vaunt himself . there coming a constable by with his staffe , i required him to carry him to prison , and i would assist him ; so we conveyed him to old bridewel , and by the way , the people were ready to kill him , calling him french-raskal . i prayed them to forbear , for justice would give him his reward . i told the fellow he would be hanged : he made slight of it , saying , if i die my soul stall be saved , but yours shall be damned . and when he was put into bridewel , i desired that he might be secured and none suffered to speak with him , till he were examined before a magistrate , because the tobacco-merchants house was presently burned upon it . but so it happned , on the next day that the fire came on and consumed my house and goods , so that i was forced with my family to fly into the country , and what became of the fellow i know not , old bridewel being burnt also . and understanding that the parliament hath appointed a committee to enquire after the actors in , and fomenters of that terrible fire , i thought good to inform the honourable committee thereof , that they may send for the keeper of the said bridewel , to know what became of the fellow , that he might receive justice according to his demerit . thus much i thought my self obliged to do , as in duty bound to god and my country . all which i am ready to affirm upon oath , when i shall be thereunto called . a further true relation made by the said thomas middleton , concerning some occurrences in the great fire of london . that upon monday the 3d. of sept. 1666 , being next day after that dreadful fire began , the duke of york being at fleet-bridge in the afternoon , and the fire not being then come to ludgate , did declare that those houses adjoyning upon the bridge should be pulled down the next morning , amongst which was the said tho. middletons , who thereupon endeavour'd that night to get carts to carry away his goods , and had got a country cart and loaded it with goods , but by that time the same was done , there was a strong guard set a cross the street , from shoe-lane to salisbury-court , which the said t. m. perceiving caused the cart to be driven up to shoe-lane , and then he with other neighbours , ( one of which was mr. william wheatly a common council-man ) repaired to the captain of the guard of horse under the aforesaid duke being then in salisbury-court , whose name was peters , whom the said t. m. acquainted , that dwelling on fleet-bridge , and there being order given by the duke that his house amongst others should be pulled down next morning , he therefore prayd that the man which had his load of goods in his cart in order to remove them , might have liberty to pass and repass through the guard to fetch the remaining part of his goods , he having a large house and many loads in it , but the said captain peremptorily denyed such his request , declaring that no cart should pass , except there were an order shewed from the duke , whereas it was then about 12 a clock in the night , and the duke at whitehall , or some where else , not easily to be met with , so that it was in possible to procure such an order so suddenly ; whereupon the said t. m. earnestly desired that the cart might be admitted to pass , and offered money for the same , and said that for as much as the capt. and his souldiers could not save his house , he hoped that they would not be instrumental for the destroying of his goods , adding that he thought he might have some kindness shew'd him in such a difficult hour , for as much as not long before he had voluntarily lent his majesty money . the man that owed the cart standing by all the while , when at last he saw it would not be granted , said it was a very hard thing that when a man cannot save his house , he should be hindred from saving his goods . to which captain peters answered , why your cart has carryed one load , which the man acknowledging , the captain replyed , then you have done enough , your spokes may be knockt out and your cart burnt : so with these unnatural and unchristian replies thomas middleton returns to his house where he was not long before some of those destroyers were got on the top of it , throwing the tiles and bricks down the stairs , so that the said t. m. and his family were forced to leave his house and most of his goods to be consumed . he likewise further saith , that within a little time after the flames were over , he the said t. m. with his son going near the ground where his house had lately stood , saw a man that bad took up a musquet that lay in the ruines not burnt , and as the said t. m. was coming towards him , he saw him take the musquet , and break it , whereupon the said t. m. asked him wherefore he did so , and the fellow replyed , and said it was no matter if thousands of them were destroyed , or words to that purpose , upon which the said t. m. asked him what he was that would destroy the arms of the king ? supposing they were some of the souldiers arms , to which he replyed that he did belong to a major or coll. whose name the said t. m doth not now remember , but t. m. did tell the said fellow that he was a papist , which proved true , for the said t. m. and others searching his pockets , found therein a mass-book printed in latine , with a particular prayer for the queen of spain , &c. in the interim comes a captain , to whom the said t. m. made this relation and delivered the man into his custody , who said he would carry him before the committee that sat in the temple to examine such matters , but of the man or matter , the said t. m. never heard more , save only about a year afterwards the said t. m ' s. son ( who was at the taking of him as aforesaid ) walking in the strand at noon day the said fellow met him and without any provocation struck him withal his force upon the head with a great stick or club , and then supposing he had knockt him down , ran into sommerset house and there sheltred himself . mr. stewarts information . in the time of the fire , near bridewell , there was a man sadly bemoaning the great loss he was like to sustain ( the fire being within five or six houses of him ) who did beseech the people for gods sake , they having no goods of their own in danger , to help him throw out trunks , chests , beds , &c. out at a window , having procured two carts or waggons to carry them away . whereupon i ran into his house with several others , broke down his windows , threw out his goods , and loaded the carts ; and there being some interval of time before the return of the carts , and seeing a room wherein were many books and loose papers ( which seemed to be a library ) i went in and took down a book , which proved to be ovid metamorphosis , and while i was looking upon it , there came into the same room an old man of low stature , with a white frock , who looked also on the book as it was in my hand ; i took him in my mind to be some groom come out of a stable , and thought him to be presumptuously foolish , supposing such a mean like old man ignorant of that language in which the book was written , it being in latin , but i spoke not to him : in the mean time , there brake sorth a fire amongst the papers which were behind us , there being none in the room but he and i. whereupon the rest of the people coming in , cryed out , we had set the room on fire , and rushing in upon us , put out the fire with their feet : whereupon i took hold of the old man by the buttons under the throat , and said , how now father , it must either be you or i must fire these papers . there was a small thing of a black matter , which looked like a piece of a link burning , which questionless set fire on the papers , but it was immediately trod our . a multitude of people thronged in ; and when i said , how now my father , and took hold of him , he said , parce mihi domine : the people which did not understand it , cryed out , he is a frenchman , kill him , and with pulling of him , his perriwig fell off ; then appeared a bald skull , and under his frock he had black clothes , i think of bishops sattin , whereupon he seemed to be a grave ecclesiastick person . i had much a do to save him from the people , but at last brought him before the duke of york : we found in his pocket a bundle of papers closed up with wax like a pacquet , which was delivered to the duke of york . i know not what was written in them , neither do i know what country-man he was ; but methoughts he looked something jesuit-like . this i am certain of , that when i went into the room there was no fire in it , and it was fired when there was none but he and i in it , yet i cannot say i saw him do it , though i cannot but suspect he did it , and the rather , because there were several houses untouched betwixt this house , and where the fire was coming on , when the papers in the library where thus on fire as i have related . what became of this fellow after we had delivered him to his royal highness the duke of york , i have not heard . john stewart . not long after the burning of london , mr. brook bridges , a young gentleman of the temple , as he was going to attend divine service in the temple-church , in a pew there found this following paper , which immediately , either by himself or a relation of his , was delivered to sir william morrice , one of his majesties principal secretaries of state ; the contents of the paper are as follows : a vvarning to protestants . i who have been a papist from my infancy , till of late ; and in zeal for their horrid principles , had too great a share in the fireing of the city ; and did intend to do further mischief to the protestants ( of which i am now , and ever shall be a member ) do upon abhorency of that villany , and religion that hath moved me to it , declare to all protestants the approach of their sudden ruine , that it may be prevented , if it be not too late . when i , together with other papists , both french , irish and english , fired the city ; others were imployed to massacre the protestants , we thinking thereby to destroy the heads of your religion ; but the massacre was disappointed by the fear of him who was the chief agent in this villany . and the fire not having done all its work , they have often endeavoured to fire the remaining part . they intend likewise to land the french upon you : to whose assistance they all intend to come , and for that purpose are stored with armes : and have so far deceived the king , that they have the command of most part of the army and the sea-ports . the french intend to land at dover , that garison being most papists , and the papists in england have express command from rome , to hasten their business before the next parliament , and to dispatch . therefore as you love your lives and fortunes , prevent vour ruine , by removing all the papists in england , especially colonel legg from the tower , and the lord douglass , and all his adherents and souldiers from dover , and by disarming all papists . i have such an abhorrancy , that i would willingly undergo any punishment for it , and declare my self openly , were i not assured that i could do you more good in concealing my name for the present . delay not from following these directions as you love your lives ; and be not deceived by any pretences whatsoever . thus we see , that then , even presently after that dreadful calamity , there wanted not various proofs of its being contrived and carryed on by popish treachery : by what means these informations were smothered , 't is not my business now to inquire ; 't is certain , had they been sufficiently taken notice of , and encouraged , and due prosecution made thereupon , it might have prevented many mischiefs which since happened : but we have now a more full discovery of that villanous intrigue from their own mouths ; for as i my self have more than once heard them own and boast of the exploit , so nothing can be more plain than what dr. oaets hath made out in his depositions sworn before that worthy and since marty'd gentleman , sir edmondbury godfrey , on the 6th of september last , paragraph 34 , to this effect : that in iuly 1678 , richard strang , the then last provincial of the jesuits , did tell him , that their society of jesuits did get 14 thousand pounds in that fire in 66 , and that he the said strang , with three other jesuits and a dominican fryar , all there named ; designed , and were chief instruments in effcting the same ; that they intended to have burnt it sooner , viz. in feb. 1664 , but had not then got persons and things ready for execution : that they commonly met at the green-dragon at puddle-dock , and pretending themselves fifth-monarchy-men , first drew in one green a poor man , by furnishing him with 30l . to joyn in the plot of firing the city , and killing the king , who soon after brought in 8 more of the same gang ; but at last some notice was taken of their design , and away the jesuits are gone , leaving the poor silly seduced new brethren of the fifth-monarchy to suffer for their roguery , and accordingly 8 of them were executed in may 66 , but never spoke a word of the said fathers , nor indeed could they , for they knew not their true names , nor ever suspected them to be jesuits or papists , whereupon the said strang further said , that he himself and the others returned again in iune following , and fell again to prosecute their design , which had been carried on in the mean time by others of their society . in short , he said they got 50 or 60 irish , and divers french , who were very faithful to ply the work , and got one everard , who was chief keeper of their fire-works , a place in the kings service , relating to the publick ammunition , the better to colour it ; that himself by the name of walker , and the said fryaer , took a lodging in aug. 66. in fanchurch-street , that they might be at hand , it having before been resolved where they should begin ; that all things being thus prepared , one neal of vvhite-chappel , whose charge it was to see the fire carried on through thames-street to the tower , called him up about 12 a clock , and before he could make him ready , the fire was begun ; that there was fourscore or upwards imployed therein as servants by the society , and that they spent 700 fire-balls , and had others , both men and women , attending to plunder what they could , having a warehouse in vvild-street , and another at somerset-house , to receive what they so got , which amounted to the value of 14000 pounds , as aforesaid , &c. as for the fifth-monarchy-men that were executed , mentioned by the said strang to mr. oats in this discourse , 't is very observable what account the gazett gave of their tryal . 't is in the gazett published on munday april the 30th 1666. the words are these . at the sessions in the old-baily , john rathbone , an old army-colonel , william saunders , henry tucker , thomas flint , thomas evans , john miles , william wescot , and john cole , ( formerly officers or soldiers in the late rebellion , were indicted for conspiring the death of his majesty , and the overthrow of the government , having laid their plot and contrivance for the surprizal of the tower , the killing his grace the lord general , sir john robinson lieutenant of his majesties tower of london , and sir richard brown , and then to have declared for an equal division of lands , &c. the better to effect this hellish design , the city was to have been fired , and the portcullices to have 〈◊〉 let down to keep out all assistance , the horse-guard to have been surprized in the inns where they were quartered , several ostlers having been gain'd for that purpose , the tower was accordingly viewed , and its surprise ordered by boats over the moat , and from thence to scale the vvall ; one alexander who in not yet taken , had likewise distributed sums of money to these conspirators , and for the carrying on the design more effectually , they were told of a great council of the great ones that sate frequently in london , from whom issued all orders , which council received their directions from another in holland , which sate with the states , and that the third of september was pitcht on for the attempt , as being found by lillies almanack , and a scheme erected for that purpose , to be a lucky day , a planet then ruling which prognosticated the downfal of monarchy . the evidence against these persons was very full and clear , and they accordingly found guilty of high-treason . thus that gazett verbatim . from whence we may observe , 1. how exactly the account given by father strang to mr. oats agrees herewith , as to the number of persons , time , design , &c. 2. how industrious these popish conspiraters are , and how dexterous in turning themselves into all shapes , and complying with all humours to carry on their designes , as here pretending to embrace and promote fifth-monarchy-principles , levelling , &c. which should methinks caution all protestant dissenters from the establisht church-government , yet to abhor all conspiracies , and never to be drawn into any plot or seditious pranks on any pretensions whatsoever , lest whilst by indirect means they fondly hope to advance some little notions and whimsies of their own , they shall but do the jesuits drudgery , and really be found diligent instruments to advance that scarlet vvhore whom they so loudly declaim against and abominate . 3. the jesuits herein acted with that devilish policy , which is so much the study of their society ; for having such an horrid plot , on foot , they thought fit to find out some other party , upon whom they might lay the scandal of it , but it seems could meet with none so ready to be bubbled as the fifth-monarchy-men ; for , said the subtle fathers , if we can perswade them to the business , viz. fireing the city , and killing the king , then not only our work will be done to out hands , but we shall have an excellent occasion to fall not only on these people , but whoever else we shall please to call fanaticks , as their accomplices ; and all the world shall acknowledge , that we do but justice in cutting them off , when they shall be made guilty of such treason and villany . on the other side , if they attempt and fail in it , let the rogues hang , we and our church are free , both from the danger and the odium of it ; nay more , we shall gain this advantage , that when we shall do it in earnest , 't will certainly be laid at their doors , because of their former attempt , and to load them the heavier , they had set down the names of all the most eminent dissenters , and such as had serv'd under the parliament , as concern'd in this plot , and left it with these people , that as a list of the conspirators , it might be taken with them , and consequently all those persons secured in custody at a time when they design'd the french , with whom we were then at war , should invade the kingdom ; and i am credibly inform'd , they had all been taken , had not his grace , the late duke of albemarle interposed . 4. as they had to do with ignorant enthusiastical people , so they managed them accordingly ; telling them a story of an equal division of lands , a councel of great ones that must be nameless , and another yet greater that sate with the states ; but especially they forgat not to name the third of september to them , being the day or next save one , themselves had so long pitcht upon for the burning of london ; and for this purpose , the oracle , lillies almanack , must be consulted , but indeed , it was the astrology of st. omars that resolved the question ; for they did this meerly , that if they should be discovered , that circumstance should likewise be divulged as part of this , fifth-monarchy-plot , and consequently being remembred by people when they should see the city on fire , they might thence take occasion to fall upon the fanaticks as the incendiaries ; and 't is more than probable , that not finding these half-witted fellows very fit to serve their purposes actively , they resolved to make them do it passively , and might themselves cause them to be betray'd , it being nothing infrequent with the jesuits to imitate their father the devil , in tempting people first to villany , and then to be the first that shall accuse them . an account of some other fires since that grand conflagration in 66. next after destroying the city of london , the popish design hath all along been to ruin and lay wast its suburbs ; this several of the fathers , as gifford , and others , have declared to me , and the same is evident by matter of fact ; for knowing the borough of southwark to be a place of eminent trade , and generally a sober industrious people , how oft have they made attempts thereon , till at last they laid the best part thereof in ashes . as first , at the george-inn the 25 of july , about 8 a clock in the morning . concerning the manner of this , iohn whitler head-ostler at the said inn , did attest , that the same morning he was removing some baggs of hopps which lay in a shed near to a flax-shop , in which was some tow and other combustibles ordinarily used to stuff chairs with , and then he did not perceive or smell any smoak or fire , nor had any candle or fire been in the said flax-shop for many months before , to his or any of the families knowledge ; but as he was removing the said packs , there came in 4 persons like gentlemen , to take coach for dover , or that way , which coach was standing by the said shed , and they by it drinking , immediately after which , the said ostler was called into the street , and left all in safety , but in short time returning , met the said coach driving our with all speed , and found the said flax shop on fire . anthony blake the head-tapster attesteth that he waited on those gentlemen , filling them drink , and being sent for 6 canns , at his return the coach was driving away , and the tow in the place aforesaid all on a flame ; mr. weyland the master of the house , and his whole family solemnly attesting , they know not how it came to kindle there , but verily believe it must come through some treachery . this is the more probable , because one harrison , some small time before , had told mr. atkins at the grey-hound-inn in holbourn , that there would within three weeks or a month , be great and dreadful fires about london and southwark , and particularly mentioned the talbot and george-inns , and advised him to put off his house and goods , which harrison in the time of this fire was seen suspitiously lurking about the talbot-inn , ( which suffered much by this fire ) and being known by the said mrs. atkins , daughter of the gentlewoman that kept the talbot , and coming thither to help them , he was seized , and carried to a foot-company that stood in arms near the said inn , and a charge given them by my lord craven and sir iohn smith , then one of the sheriffs of london , to keep him safe ; after the fire was put out , enquiry being made for him , the captain told them he was discharged by the lord craven . however , on the 27 of july , being informed he taught school in thredneedle-street , he was retaken , and examined before the lord mayor and court of aldermen , where the following articles were prov'd against him upon oath . 1. that he had had frequent correspondency with iesuites and papists . 2. that he had spoken to several of his acquaintance to go with him to popish meetings , declaring that he knew of many . 3. that he had been perswaded to turn mendicant fryar , and hath been offered a stipend to turn to the romish religion . 4. that he knew there would be divers great and dreadful fires in and about london within a month . 5. that he advised friends to rid their hands of all their concerns in and about london , for there would be a great consumption of houses there . 6. that when he was in custody of the foot company aforesaid , mr. atkins aforesaid offering to swear the former article ; he threatned him if he did , it should cost him the best house he had . 7. that he said there were forty thousand french papists lately come over , to his knowledge , besides many that were amongst us already . 8. the lord mayor asking him , who perswaded him to turn catholick ? he answered , king's under-barber , phillips . after which he told the court , that when he was first apprehended for these things , my lord craven discharged him , and took him with him in his barge to whitehall . he further told the court , that he was sometime an assistant to mr. lovejoy school-master at canterbury , and that he had letters testimonial of his goood behaviour from the dean of canterbury : upon which my lord mayor remembred that he had seen him with mr. lovejoy , and said , that mr. lovejoy told him , that he was an idle rogue . and so he was committed to newgate . on saturday the 30th of july , it was further desposed upon oath by thomas roe , before sir iohn fredrick , as follows . the information of thomas roe of bernards inn gent. taken the 30th of july 1690 by sir john fredrick , alderman , one of his majesties justices of peace in the city of london , upon oath , as followeth . thomas roe saith , that he hath for at least twelve or thirteen years last past been acquainted with one ioseph harrison , who was examined lately at the guild-hall london , before the honourable the lord mayor and court of aldermen , upon suspition of his being a conspirator in the fireing the city and suburbs in several parts thereof . thomas roe , and ioseph harrison , having been school-fellows at eaton colledge , and being thereby acquainted ; ioseph harrison hath several times lately been with him , and advised him to with-draw his concerns , and remove above twenty miles out of the city ; for that the city , and twenty miles round . would be suddenly destroyed and laid waste ( or to that purpose : ) whereupon thomas roe asked him , whether he were privy to any such conspiracy , or concern'd in its agitation ? pressing him with divers arguments to discover what he was acquainted with of that kind . harrison replyed , that he had no personal and positive knowledge thereof . thomas roe demanded upon what ground then he did thus advise him ? ios. harrison replyed , that he was sometimes conversant among some papists , and perceived a plot or design was carrying on by them against the city of london and the protestant religion ; which plot or design ( said he ) the papists call , the game of trap , or , do you understand trap ad crucem ? which is the watch-word amongst them . further , ios. harrison said , that he was informed of those things by some german protestants , and that he had offers of fifty pounds per annum , made him by some iesuites and papists , to turn to their religion ; but he had refused it , and would not embrace the romish religion . thomas roe further saith , that about five weeks since , he walked through new-cheapside ; and from thence into mark-lane , with ioseph harrison , in company with mr. moseley ( a gentleman belonging to bernards inn likewise ) and one of his acquaintance , together with another man , a stranger to thomas roe . upon their first associating , harrison said unto him , that he would not discover himself to be an englishman , but pretended himself to be a german or italian , ( whether of the two he doth not well remember ) and that he might not detect himself , spake in the company , as occasion offer'd , in latine . but leaving the place where they tarried in mark-lane , going towards bishopsgate-street , mr. harrison told mr. roe secretly , that he believed that mr. mosely understood the game of trapp by some signs he had observed from him , and that he would try him . then going altogether into a house , about the end of thredneedle-street , mr. harrison ( having by this time discovered himself to be an englishman ) said trapp , and made a cross over his face with his finger ; directing himself to mr. moseley ; whereupon mr. moseley did also say trapp , crossing his forehead or race two or three times , and with a quick motion drew his finger over his own throat . upon which , mr. roe asked mr. moseley what was the meaning of trapp ? but he refused to tell , mr. roe urging him again , he replied , he would not , saying , you are not of my religion . then mr. moseley asked mr. harrison what his name was ? ( for he knew him not by name ) he answered , harrison . mr. moseley replied , i never saw your name . mr. harrison made answer , is it don olanso del harrisonto ; if so , saith mr. moseley , i have seen your name . after this , mr. moseley and the other stranger being parted , and mr. roe and mr. harrison being alone , said harrison , i told you mr. moseley did understand trapp ; you may see there is a list of the trapp-gamesters . now , whether mr. moseley's imitation of mr. harrison was feigned or real , mr. roe could not distinguish ; but as they two were passing through cheapside homewards , mr. harrison looking upon the new-buildings , said , to what purpose do they build this poor city ? it will again be destroyed ; at the same time he pointed at two several persons , saying , that is a trapp-gamester , and there goes another trapp-gamester . mr. roe further informs , that since the last term , mr. harrison told him , he would write all the rogueries of the trapp-game and gamesters in a play ; and that he would undertake to shew him twenty six papists meetings in and about the city and suburbs of london ; but ( said he ) some of them are very private , and if you be discovered not to be a papist , you will ( peradventure ) be poysoned or stab'd . mr. roe doth further say , that when the said harrison advised him to remove with all his concerns above twenty miles from london , the said roe asked him if windsor were not far enough , it being both their native place , and about that distance ? the said harrison answered , not ; reflecting upon the castle . and further , harrison told mr. roe , that the jesuits by a composition of ingredients , make such a matter , the fume of which would corrupt any mans intellects ; and that he the said harrison could do it . this harrison ( who 't is probable was some priest , or at least proselyte ) as you have heard , was committed to newgate , but we cannot learn there was any legal prosecution against him . the damage of this fire at the george-inne was considerable , for it burnt three parts of the said . inne and 140 loads of hay ; and at the white-hart there was burnt and blown up one stable , one dwelling-house , and 4 or 5 lodging chambers . at the three-cranes near adjoyning to the said george-inn on the north-side , three dwelling houses and a still-house ; and at the talbot three dwelling houses , a wash-house , and ( which is most lamentable ) two persons kill'd out-right , and six or seven wounded . a brief account of a fire providentially prevented in goat-yard near st. margarets-hill in southwark . another attempt was on thursday aug. 11. 1670. about 10 of the clock at night , a woman siting at her door in goat-yard aforesaid , heard a great hissing noise , and turning to see what might be the cause thereof , she saw a light upon a shed or hovel in a wheel-wrights yard , bounding upon the said goat-yard , on which shed or hovel were old wheels , and such combustible stuff , whereupon she cried out fire ; which caused several neighbours to come forth , who with speedy application of water , quenched the said fire ; which done , they diligently searched the place , where amongst the old wheels , they found a canvas bagg , in which was some sulphurous matter , compounded with other ingredients , and about half a yard of match tied to it , one end of which said match had been fired , and on strict observation , several spoaks had the marks of fire , and scent of gunpowder and sulphur remaining upon them . this villainous design was mischievously placed for the accomplishing of some great desolation ; for , near adjoyning to the said shed was a loft full of hay , the boards of it old and dry , and behind the said shed was also a great quantity of billets , and adjoyning to that hay-loft was a timber-yard , wherein was about an hundred load of boards and timber . a justice of peace inhabiting near the said place , had the match and combustible matter aforesaid delivered to him , and there are sufficient witnesses yet living , of the whole matter , as herein is related . several other attempts were made on southwark , but without any considerable effect , until the 26th of may , 1676. and then they fatally accomplisht their design , setting fire to the house of one mr. vvelsh an oyl-man , scituate near st. margarets-hill , between the george and talbot-inns , ( it seems that was the place ordered by the superiours ) which broke out about four of the clock in the morning , and was carried on with that art and violence , that it consumed 500 dwelling houses or upwards , many stately inns , the meal-market , the prison of the compter , &c. the whole loss , as to what was actually destroyed , was modestly computed to be between eighty and one hundred thousand pounds , besides damage to the inhabitants by loss and interruption of their trade : st. thomas's hospital was happily preserved , chiefly by means of a new invented engine for conveying of water , but he that made it , hath since beeen threatned to have his house burnt for his pains , which has likewise been attempted , as herein after is related : the manner of contriving this fire hath been confessed by iohn groves ( lately executed ) who was chiefly concern'd therein , and did on the 10th of august 1676 , in wild-house garden declare , that having prepared their fire-works , he , with three irishmen , procured by doctor fogarthy , to be his assistants , went over and did the business ; the said groves bragg'd that he himself did set fire to the said shop ; and by the manner of the thing , 't was plain , that it must be done by treachery ; for most of the family being out of town , there had been no fire in the house for 3 or 4 days before ; nor did the watch that stood hard by all night , perceive any danger , but the first that perceived it were some letter-carriers , who , going early to the post-office , as they passed by , saw a great light at the cellar window which opened to the street , and thereupon looking down , they saw a fire in the cellar , but not so great , but if they could presently have got in , they doubted not but three or four pail-fulls of water might have quench'd it ; but whilst they stood calling to wake the people who were fast asleep , and endeavour'd in vain to open the street door ; the fire got through the shop-floor , where meeting with great store of oyle , it instantly set the shop and stairs on a flame , and the people had much ado to get out at a window into the talbot inn to save their lives . the said grove further declared , that for this service , the society ( richard strange then provincial ) gave them a thousand pounds , viz. four hundred pounds to him the said groves , and two hundred pounds apiece to the three irishmen ; and yet ( besides carrying on their designe of weakning and impoverishing protestants ) got considerably by the bargain ; for groves affirm'd they got at least two thousand pounds by that fire , for whilst the fire raged , they had their instruments to plunder houses , and steal what goods they could , and convey them to their ware-houses at vvild-street and sommerset-house . and touching this their gaining two thousand pounds by southwark-fire , the said richard strange the provincial , hath likewise acknowledged it to be true ; yet it should seem they were not content with all this desolation , but endeavoured still to carry it on further ; for after the fire was believ'd to be stopt and mastered , about 10 a clock at night , on a sudden , a house appeared on fire near st. mary overies church , but on the other side thereof furthest from the general-fire , so that it must needs be wilfully set on fire , but by blowing up of one house in time , and good help , it was prevented from spreading further . of the fires at wapping , lime-house , and shadwell . these were places that the conspirators have divers years resolved should be destroyed by fire , and in pursuance thereof , not a few attempts have been made to that purpose . as , first , on the 29th of iune 1673 , there was a fire promoted over against vvapping-dock in a bakers-house amongst his bavins : now that this was wilfully and with design set on fire , besides what i and others know of such their resolutions to destroy that place , the circumstances attending it , may easily convince a considerate impartial man ; for about a month before , there was found in the said heap of bavins a new cordevant glove full of gunpowder and other ingredients , by a boy that happened to be at play there , and that very night it began ; there were seen several gentlemen with swords by their sides , that had that day been drinking at the fortune tavern near the place , with some of the bakers family , and were seen , in the evening the fire happened , to walk round a place called the new-market , which was on the backside of the bakers house , and to go in and out towards the bakers said house backwards , about an hour or two before it happened , which began on saturday . night between the hours of eleven and twelve , and continued most fiercely burning till 8 or 9 in the morning , which made a great devastation , being no doubt carried on and endeavoured to be augmented by the assistance of those wicked instruments who first occasioned it . the great fire at st. katherines was designed for the burning of the ships in the river , though in that respect , by the special providence of god , and timely help , there was no mighty mischief done , but on shore a great number of houses were destroyed . shadwell fire began at shadwell-dock in a brew-house , in which there had not been any fire for a considerable time , nor can account be given how it should happen by accident , and there-we may probably assign it to the same mischievous hands . but all these mischiefs did not satisfie the romish undertakers , but they resolv'd on a more general devastation ; for no longer ago than the 30th of august last , the before named blundel at ●enwicks chamber , produced a scheme or mapp , describing the manner of firing wholly both vvapping , westminster , toolies-street , barnaby-street , &c. for vvestminster , the jesuits and their agents were to begin at the next door to the palsgraves-head tavern without temple-barr ( being my appointed post as aforesaid ) and carry on the fire to the savoy , and then the benedictines to mannage it on both sides the way to charing-cross , and so to vvhite-hall : this was attested on oath before sir edmundbury godfrey in september last , wherein 't is observable , though then , and for long after , he was not at all acquainted with me , yet he mentions the very house where i was lodged , and had prepared materials as aforesaid , to be the place for the commencement of the fire ; so that 't is plain it was not the design of any particular men , but a thing generally known amongst them , and to be prosecuted not only by the iesuites , but benedictines , and others had an hand in it : he there likewise sets forth how this should have been done in the time of the great frost 1676 , but put off , because they were not then assured of the french kings aid , which now they have obtained [ by the negotiations of coleman and others . ] how vvapping and the ships were to be burnt by a fire to be begun near limehouse , and how himself was ordered to ply at the hermitage , with seven more as his assistants , to help carry it on ; for which service he was to have a great reward , and besides a priest was every day to come and say mass in his chamber for the good success of the design , [ so much a work of religion do they think it to be , and that heaven would interest it self to promote their hellish villanies . ] furthermore , that but a very few days before his open discovery , when they began to grow jealous of him , and thereupon had resolv'd to send him beyond the seas , blundel was ordered to supply his place in mannaging the said fire at vvapping . and though the plot were in the mean time partly discovered , yet such was their confidence , that they endeavoured nevertheless to go on with this design ; for on wednesday the 18th of sept. 1678 , a fire was promoted near lime-house , in pursuance of such their former order and resolution , which began there about five of the clock in the morning in a boat-builders-yard in a parcel of reeds , which afterwards being increased by certain dryed and seasoned timber caught hold of a sea-captains house with that violence , that the lower part thereof was possest by the dreadful flames before any of the family perceived it , or at least could get out ; at last ladders were brought , and two or three of the servants made shift to get out at the uppermost windows , but just as they came to save the mistress of the house and a servant-maid which attended her in her room , the floor of the chamber in which they were sunk down , and so they both , without any possibility of help , perished . as also an adventurous seaman , who presuming too far to save some goods afterwards in another house , was interrupted in his return by one of the rafters , which falling on his head , knockt out his brains . this fire was carried on very vigorously , insomuch that in three or four hours time , it burnt down and wholly destroyed between 40 and 50 houses , and had undoubtedly done much more mischief , had not the indefatigable pains and hazards of a great number of seamen , or rather , the accidental absence of some of those agents ordered to promote it as aforesaid , prevented its further progress . but often before this , there were several other fires , or at least attempts of that kind , for destroying the suburbs , as appears by the following depositions , which deserve our notice . the substance of the examination of robert redway victualler , at the red-lyon in fetter-lane , taken the 6th of august , 1670 , by sir thomas bludworth knight , as follows : the examinate saith , that on wednesday the third of august 1670 , about ten of the clock at night , his house was fired up three stories high , by a person or persons ( as he verily believes ) who were strangers , and near about the same time in his said house ; but not presently mistrusted by him , he keeping a victualling-house ( where it is not usual to take such special cognizance of guests . ) the fire was discovered by one of his maid-servants , who had occasion to carry a child to bed , which bed she found on fire , and the chamber so full of smoak , as put her into a sudden fright ; but it being but newly kindled , through the industry of the family , with the assistance of neighbours , it was soon extinguished ; but this examinate was so alarm'd by the unexpected suddenness hereof , and the many fearful occurrences of this kind of late , that he could take no rest in his house , till he had caused narrow search and inspection to be made in every corner thereof ; cleansing it from all such matter as might easily be fired , locking or bolting the doors of every room where any bed was , or that was not common for entertainment . yet notwithstanding all this care and vigilance was used , he saith , that the very next day , viz. thursday the fourth of august 1670 , his house was again fired two stories high , about twelve of the clock at noon , which was discovered by one of his men-servants , who , as he was going up one pair of stairs to attend some guests , heard a very great noise , cracking and bouncing like squibs , but much louder , which caused him to run down stairs , crying out , master , master , the house is on fire , whereupon search was made , and the fire found out two pair of stairs in an inclosed bed , ( commonly called a press-bed ) which was broke out into a perfect flame , the rails thereof , with the deal-boards that inclosed it all round , being on fire , and almost consumed , together with the bed-cloaths , all save the upper rugg . this bed this examinate saith , must of necessity be set on fire by some fire-ball , or such like stuff , conveyed into the bed , ( or cast on some combustible matter about it ) at a hole about an inch and half wide , which was made in a deal-board , instead of a staple to receive the shutter or bolt of the lock . had not the fire been seasonably discovered , it would have consumed the whole house , and probably many more . but by such timely detection thereof , it was suppressed without doing any further hurt , unless to the goods in the room adjoyning , and what else was near it . as to the persons that are violently presumed to be the authors hereof , this examinate saith , that on the said thursday at noon , two persons came to his house and dined above stairs , and by their long continuance there , gave some suspition ; but nothing appearing till they were gone , caused less notice ; yet in less than a quarter of an hour after broke forth the fire , as aforesaid , just upon the discovery of the breaking forth of which , these two men , one in black cloaths , the other in gray , well apparelled , having his hair of a bright brown colour , with a shash tyed about him , were seen as they went , to make a stop near by the examinates house , smiling one upon the other , and pointing at the fire , which was observed by a near neighbour , who was condoling the disaster , and making some compassionate reflections on the neighbourhood , who were like to share in the same affliction ; at which these two men deridingly said , it was either a casualty , or set on fire by the fanaticks , and so departed . now , that these two persons or one of them , were the immediate instruments of this villany , is more than probable by divers circumstances , as well as in the opinion of this examinate and his neighbours , who took some small observation of them the latter time ; for when they departed , they made no stay to change their money ( as is usual ) but had money ready for what they had to pay . and the description of the habit , stature , and complexion , &c. which the neighbours gave of these persons , doth exactly agree with the characters that this examinate and his servants describe them by . but that they were not apprehended or pursued at that instant , must be attributed to the deep surprize the people of the house and neighbourhood were in , every one striving to make provision to secure his own concern , and partly perhaps to the small encouragement and little notice then taken by some in office of such services ; it being less dangerous , as things were sometimes mannaged , to be a traytor and a villain , than to detect or discover one . the substance of the examination of joseph speed , servant to abraham euer upholster in the minories , taken upon oath before the right worshipful sir tho. bludworth , july the 31th . 1670. that he the said joseph speed being sent on the saturday before about eight of the clock at night , by his master to carry some goods into wapping , in his return homewards in new gravel lane was overtaken by two proper men in gentile habit , the one of them in a light coloured periwigg and a stuff suit , black and gray mixed , as near as could be gliessed , by the help of a link that a person passed by withall , it being then grown late in the evening , and a rapier by his side ; the other in a cloath coat , his own hair and a stick in his hand ; who began to discourse with the deponent , and after diverse discourses of the deadness of trade and difficulty of getting money , when they were come into an obscure lonesome place , being a field commonly known by the name of king davids fort , he in the wigg began to declare himself more fully , telling the deponent that there was a way of late come up of geting of money with a great deal of ease . he having some suspicious of them , by their frequent swearing , to found the depth of their intentions , seemed very inquisitive to know what way that was , and how glad and ready he would be to embrace it : whereupon at last the said person in the wig told him it was to be done fireballs and firing them ; at which the deponent , though much surprized , yet concealed his resentments , and pretended to comply with them , discoursing after such a manner as might give them reason to suppose him fit for their pupose . after several words passed , he in the wig tells him he shall be imployed . then the deponent desired to know when and how . whereupon the same person took two fire-balls ( as he called them ) out of his pocket , shews them to him , and tells him he should have twenty shillings to take those balls , and fire them in such places as they should direct ; the which he expressed as follows , viz. in the great ship that was building in such a yard , being wholly or near finished , and newly tarr'd on the outside : ( which ship was afterwards understood to be captain tailors , though the owner was not mentioned by them ; and whose bolt-spit lay cross the street , at wapping ) but if it might not conveniently be done there , then to do it at the house adjoyning to the yard : or if too severe a guard were kept thereabouts then at a tarr-shop , near the armitage bridge , or else at the talbot inn in southwarks , where he said , the deponent might come easily to the house , the back way , and no body observe him . but he principally urged the firing of the said ship ; and as for the time he bid him observe the tide , and be sure to do it within an hour of low water . he also gave him directions touching the manner of firing the said balls , viz. that if he could by any means privately get into the said ship , or any of the said houses , then to wrap one of the balls in half a pound of pitch , with some quantity of tow , and set fire to it . but if that might not be done with safety and secresy , then to observe a hole or narrow passage which was in the middle or centre of the ball , into which he should put some dust of gun-powder , and setting fire to it , throw it into the place intended . after these directions the same fellow gave the deponent one of the said balls into his hand , who then was urgent for his money , but is denyed till the ship or one of the houses should be on fire , they telling him that they would be thereabouts , and when they had observed his work to be done , would go to the bull-head tavern in grace-church-street , where they would meet with him and give him his reward . in this discourse about the money the deponent told them that twenty shillings was too small a matter , and they might well give him four or five pounds , because he ventured his life , being sure to be hanged if discovered : to which was returned by them , that they would certainly procure him a pardon , if it should happen so , but of that there was no danger . after all this talk the deponent willing to apprehend them , tells them he was very dry , and desires that they would give him some drink : to which they would by no means assent : but he was so importunate with them as begot a suspicion in them of his design upon them , whereupon he with the stick said , hang him dog , or hang him rogue , he will not do the business , or words to that effect ; and after some other words , endeavoured to seize the deponent , one of them drawing his sword , but he got away , and they did not pursue him , but run away themselves cross the fields as fast as possibly they could , as he turning back at some distance observ'd . they being thus fled the deponent at once apprehending the hazard of concealment , and the danger those places might be in that they directed him to fire , did immediately repair to captain tailors house , as also to the tarr-shop by the armitage bridge , acquainting them with this affair , as also several people in wapping as he went along , particularly two constables and their watch ; thence he went home to his master , and presently inform'd him of it , who repair'd to the next constable , they to the common council-man of their liberty , and then all together to the watch-house at aldgate , where part of the fire-ball was tryed for an experiment , which burned to their general wonder and amazement . the same night was he to appear before the right honourable the lord mayor at his house , but his lordship being in bed , he was put off till next morning , and then by reason of his lordships indisposition , carried before the worshipful sir thomas bludworth , before whom he deposed the premises , and further declared on his oath , that the before-mentioned persons told him , when the fire came to the midst of the ball , it would flame two yards or two yards and an half high . an account of the apprehending of a scotchman , about the same time , at the cross-keys in fleet-street , about firing . a scotch-man pretending great respect he had for william colborn ( then ) keeping the cross-keys , a victualling-house in fleet-street , near chancery-lane end , came to him , and advised him , that by all means he should remove his goods out of london , and dispose of his house . colborn askt for what reason , the scotch-man replyed , because that he with many others , were imployed to set the remainder of london on fire , and that they would set it on fire at several places at one and the same time , and chancery lane end ( which is near the said colborns house , as aforesaid , ) they intended should be one of the first set on fire . with several other discourses very soberly , and after a friendly manner expressed . whereupon colborn ( according to his duty ) apprehended him , and being brought to his tryal he was sentenced to stand in the pillory , and did accordingly stand three times , once at chancery lane end , and twice elsewhere in the city . a relation of a fire that happened in budge-row , in july , 1670. on the eighth of july about midnight , in a new house , not glazed , in budge-row , a fire began ; the shop-windows and doors were all made and close shut and fastned when the brick-layers went away , which was between six and seven of the clock in the evening before ; ( the carpenters not having been at work that afternoon ) and the bricklayers at that time having nothing to do above stairs , but only to build up a wall in the yard . when the fire was first discovered , it appeared in a room over the front of the shop , right against the chimney , where stood several deal-boards and laths reared against the wall , being prepared in order to floor part of the said house , then unfinished ; some of the next neighbours who heard the first alarm of the fire , do affirm , that if they could presently have got to it , they might easily have quenched it , 't was so small to appearance , or that they could , in case they had wanted water , have thrown it out at the window . but before they could get the doors open , it was grown so outragious , that there was no venturing up stairs to suppress it , and in short time it so far prevailed , as very considerably to prejudice four houses : that this came by treachery there is good reason to believe ; as well because there had been no fire , nay not so much as any person all the day before in the said chamber where it began , as also for that near islington , on the evening before , some persons that were going thitherwards , met two men and one woman , who very earnestly inquired , if there were not a fire in london near cheap-side . the information of one william trigg , taken before sir william turner , knight ; one of his majesties justices of the peace for the city of london , the 13th of august , 1670. as followeth . this informant saith , that he liveth in angel-alley in aldersgate-street , and hath no family but himself , and two young-men and a maid at home at this time ( his wife being at or near hampstead with his said young child ) and that his young men lie at his shop at a distance from his house ; that the next night save one before the fire happened , she call'd him out of his bed , saying , either the house was on fire , or there were thieves in it , neither of which being found true , caused him to have some jealousies she intended some mischief , and therefore last night after she was gone to bed , sent for her candle down , and caus'd search to be made over and under all the beds to see all safe from fire ; that this morning between six and seven of the clock when he went forth to his shop , he did not perceive or smell any fire , and left no body in the house but his said servant maid , and that about eight or nine of the clock his neighbours came to call him , saying , his house was on fire , so he went home , and up stairs , and found it all on fire , two beds , curtains and vallins , and some of the chamber floor under the bed burnt . joseph ashby saith , that he living over against the said mr. trigg , perceived much smoak to come out of his house this morning , and then saw the said maid go up stairs and down again , through the window ; but never heard her cry fire till mr. shirley went up to her room where the said fire was , and that he saw the window curtains of that room close shut , and that about six of the clock the same were open . william sherley , and matthew crockford in effect depose the same . nor could mary torberfeild the maid-servant herself on her examination alledge any thing material , but only denyed that she either went up stairs after the rose in the morning , or that she did open the window-curtains , both which were positively proved to the contrary as aforesaid , so that there was a most violent presumption that she set it on fire , and accordingly she was committed to newgate , but for want of positive witnesses that saw her do it , discharged and bailed out by some of her confederates as 't is credibly related . it is observable that this fire was most mischievously designed , as being in a place where no engine could come , the passages through the entries are so narrow , and that within five or six yards where it began , there lay two or three thousand bavins belonging to a baker : but the providence of god timely prevented , otherwise it had doubtless seized both the alleys , and then quickly would have reached juin-street : but being thus discovered before it had got head , it was suppressed , doing no further damage than to that room where it began . the fire in the savoy , 1670. about the latter end of june , in the savoy , near one a clock in the morning , a fire happened in a back room that had been a strong-water-shop , where it was first discovered , which immediately went on from house to house , eastward and westward , till there were burnt and blown up fourteen dwelling-houses in four or five hours time . there is treachery believed to have been in the bottom , as occasioning this damage : for it is credibly reported , that sr. jeremy whithcot upon his examining the premises had two watermen brought before him , who did affirm , that they carried two persons appearing as gentlemen , over-night , to westminster , who were speaking of the heat of the evening , and one replyed to the other , in the said water-mans hearing , that it would be an hotter morning at the savoy . timely care with the help of engines and blowing up of houses eastwards ; was a prevention of its going further into the strand and towards worcester house . westwards there was a great brick wall , which gave such a check to it , that by gods good providence , and the industry of those that came in to help , it was stopt , but two persons were killed outright and six or seven hurt . an impartial account of the fire happening near the royal exchange , on the 23 of july 1670. at the house of mr. francis nowers , herauld-painter . the watch belonging to that ward , gave in upon oath before the coroner and his inquest , that the said mr. nowers was in his own balcony at twelve a clock that night , and that he talkt to them in as sober and compos'd a frame as ever they saw him in their lives , and about one of the clock it appears his house was on fire ; being first discovered by some passengers going that way , who gave notice to the neighbour-hood . there were in this house , the master and his brother , a nurse and two young children , a maid-servant , and an apprentice : at the time when this fire began the maid was in the kitchin under ground , all the rest of the family being in bed ; but the said maid understood nothing of it till it was noised in the street ; upon which she ran up stairs to her masters room , which she found all on a light fire . by this time her masters brother ( who lay a story higher ) hearing a sudden shriek , awaked , and in his shirt ran down to his brothers chamber , but found the door on fire , and with the strength of the smoak was forced back again having much ado to save himself ; yet remembring the apprentice that lodged on the same story , forthwith awaked him , and they ran together out at the gutter-window and so broke their way into the dolphin tavern near adjoyning . how this fire happened is very uncertain ; though it is suggested that it might come by a careless nurse that lay on the same floor with the masters chamber and used to have a candle burning all night , having in her charge a child of about thirteen weeks old : but whether it happened so or not , the fatal consequence was very sad , for it did destroy the master of the house and a child in bed with him ; and the said nurse and child with her ; yet through the timely help of neighbours it did not much further harm than destroying the said house , with the upper parts of two houses adjoyning . nor were great and unusual fires less frequent in these times in the country ; of which i shall mention only two amongst many . the first at northampton , where on munday the twentieth of september , 1675. a dreadfull fire began in the afternoon , and in few hours space burnt down most part of the high street , the market place ( which was a very goodly one ) the stately church of st. allhallows and two other parish churches , and above three parts in four of the whole town . which being known to be a corporation of great trade and generally sharp enemies to popery , it may probably be supposed there might be something of design in it , but i shall not urge that , because 't is the general opinion it came by accident . another great loss by fire was at cottenham near cambridge happening on saturday the twenty ninth of april , 1676. about ten of the clock in the forenoon , when a great part of the inhabitants , especially the men , were gone to cambridge market , or otherwise imployed abroad : it began in an house almost at the entrance of the town , at a place called green-end , and the next house to it remaining untoucht , the people were in hopes it would have ended there , but on a sudden , another house being the third from it , was on fire , and from thence ( the second still remaining without harm ) the flames were dispersed almost all over the town , furiously raging on both sides of the street , and burnt down the whole street as far as the church before three of the clock in the afternoon . which is in distance of ground near three quarters of a mile , there being about one hundred dwelling houses , besides barns , out-houses , corn , hay , &c. consumed in that short time . i the rather mention these fires in the country , though generally they pass unregarded as common accidents ; because as i well know the design of the jesuits &c. was , that their instruments should do all the mischief in this kind , whereever they came , either in city or country , so 't is well known that about this very time , i mean in 1675. or 76. there were two idle extravagant persons formerly about st. martins le grand , one named robert norris , the other , finch , whose ill course of life to the great trouble of their friends had reduced them to a condition fit to become the agents of any villany . these two came on foot into an inn at hodgsdon in hartfordshire , and having lodged a while there , took an opportunity and with a light burning fire-brand , purposely carried out of the house through the yard down into the stables , set a parcel of straw on fire ; but being observed by a young maid who acquainted the master of the house therewith , he that did it was taken in the very act ; the straw flaming and the fire-brand lying in it ; but being seen so soon was quickly extinguished without much hurt done . one of these companions hereupon run away and made his escape , the other being apprehended confest he put the fire-brand there on purpose to burn down the inn and town if he could do it , and that they came down for that very end , being hired to burn that and some other places , and were to have such a sum ( 5. l. as i remember ) for each town they could fire ; hereupon he was committed to hartford gaol . but in his tryal i know not how things were so ordered that though the fire was actually begun in the straw as aforesaid , yet it was lookt upon only as an intention , and consequently not a felony , but only a misdemeanour , for which he was ordered to stand in the pillory , &c. in town still their work went forward with all the insolence imaginable ; for about the year , 1676. one mr. keeling a smith , a very ingenious workman in black fryars , having made an engine most effectual for quenching of fires , being so contrived that it might be carried into any room , and the pipes of it and consequently the water conveyed by ladders or up stairs into any place where fire may be , the excellency and great use of which engine was notably experimented at the fire in southwark , the hospital there being chiefly by means thereof preserved ; for which he was shortly after upbraided and affronted by a certain person , said to be a frenchman ; telling him plainly that he deserved to have his house burnt for making such an engine ; and several other threatning words : nor did they fail to attempt it : for within few days after such menaces , there was one evening a hard ball thrown out of the street through a glass window breaking a pane as it passed into a chamber of his said house one pair of stairs high , which as providence would have it , fell into the middle of the room where there was nothing near apt to take fire , but only the boards ; into which it burnt a round hole of considerable depth , but did no further harm , whether by reason the matter of the fire-b . was not rightly prepared , or what other accident not known . the whole room was filled with smoak and stench of burning when the people came into it , which much affrighted them , especially when they found this ball which was then almost cold , and saw how it had burnt the boards , and which way it came in , expecting no other but that their house was resolved upon to be burnt . in the winter 1677. at the sign of the shipin shadwell , the house of one peirce a victuallerthere , there was a fire-ball placed ready to be fired under a shed , found and discovered accidentally fore the intended mischief was performed , by some of the watch , it was of the bigness of a large orange , very black in colour , and smelt strong of brimstone , they that found it brought it to shadwell watch , and divided it to several parts , some to wapping , and white-chapel , some to rosemary-lane watch , to try experiments for all their satisfaction . from whence mr. samuel maurice had a small part no bigger than a cherry-stone , and fired it at the house of thomas horn the beadle in rosemary-lane , where that little quantity flamed up at least three foot high , and then the flame suddenly ceasing , the coal left burnt down into an hard walnut-tree-plank a quarter of an inch deep ; this was done in the presence of samuel maurice , thomas horn , and many others in the said horns house , where the hole is yet to be seen . the temple ( as we told you before ) was a place these incendiaries had particularly in their eye , whether it were to revenge themselves in some measure on the lawyers , many worthy members of that honourable profession having from time to time , in our parliaments , been the most active patriots to preserve the protestant religion , and prevent the fly invasions of popery , law being the best humane out-guard to religion ; or whether ( as i rather judge because they have told me so ) that they thereby aimed to destroy what writings and records they could , some of which relating to their conviction of recusancy have ( as i have heard some boast , ) been prevailed with for valuable considerations to have been kept there , and never returned to the proper offices , whence effectual prosecution and levies might have been made on popish estates . but for whatsoever particular intent , or perhaps only for the general design of doing mischief ; or whether they were ( as some would have them thought ) unconcerned therein , this is too certain , there have happened two grievous and lamentable fires in the temple of late . the first on the 28th . of september , 1677. at the kings bench office , which thereby was burnt down with divers good chambers and about a dozen dwelling-houses in white-fryars ; the beginning of this was generally charged on one mr. carpentar , who was reported to have gone to bed in drink , but possibly it might be by some other means : however this is certain , if he were the unhappy occasion , he suffered severely for it , being burnt there , and seven or eight persons killed by the fall of a wall. the next was yet more great and calamitous , beginning at one mr. thornberies chamber ( a gentleman known to be a very sober worthy person ) on sunday the 26th . of january , 1679. about eleven of the clock in the night , the vast desolation hereby caused is yet sadly visible by te hruines , and by the circumstances it is most apparent that the same was fired by design . after this an attempt was made on an inn in smithfield , where a french-man came in the evening , set fire to the stables and ran away , but going into thamestreet was apprehended , and for the present committed , but afterwards for want of a through prosecution got away . on the ninth of april one elizabeth oxley having dwelt about six weeks as a servant-maid with one mr. bird an eminent attorney in fetter-lane , took the opportunity when all the family was in bed , to fire a large press in his closet , in which were kept papers and writings , and when she thought fit , acquainted her master that the house was on fire ; and running down let in the watch : but it being observed that she had packt up her cloaths , and several other suspicious circumstances , she was charged with setting the same on fire , and at last confessed the same , declaring on her examination , that she was imployed to do it by one mr. stubbs , who promised her five pound to do it . hereupon mr. stubbs was seized , and acknowledged that he had perswaded her thereunto , and was to give her five guinneys , besides a crown in hand . and further said , that one father gifford ( the same man that i my self was to be an assistant to for such wicked purposes as aforesaid ) his confessor had put him on this business , and told him it was no sin to fire all the houses of hereticks , and that the said gifford had promised him one hundred pounds for the same , and told him he was to have the money from the church . and further declared that he used to meet the said gifford , and other two persons , in st. james's fields , in the dark of the evening to consult these matters . they likewise declared several other things concerning an insurrection at home by papists , and an invasion speedily to be made by the french , &c. upon which ingenuous confessions , the house of commons became suitors to his majesty to grant them both his gracious pardon , which was granted , and lately allowed in court. the last intrigue of this kind i shall mention is that of daniel clark , an apprentice to a gentle-woman that kept a flax-shop in the minories , who on the fifteenth of may last set fire to his mistresses house by putting a candle to a bundle of flax , but being seen to do it , the same was seasonably extinguisht without much damage , and he committed to newgate , declaring on his examination , that he was hired to do it by an eminent papist ; on the fifth of june he was indicted at the old baily and thereunto pleaded guilty : and though it appeared he had been much tampered with , yet at last the indefatigable pains of the court got the whole truth ( as i am credibly informed ) out of him , and in pity to his youth reprieved him . after these numerous instances i think no ingenuous , impartial man can question that this cursed design of treacherous burning has long time been , and to this day is vigorously carried on by the jesuites and other papists and their instruments . also that no wise man or good subject will be wanting in caution to prevent the future designs of these incendiaries , or in contributing all he can to bring any of them that shall be discovered and apprehended to condign and exemplary punishment . which god grant , and ever preserve his majesty , the protestant religion , and this honourable city . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a27248-e2270 * since condemned for high treason . * piedlou in french , signifies wolves-foot , in english , a right name for a popish incendiary . * the alehouse in buttolphs lane joyning to mr. farrine●s house , was the place to which piedelou brought hubert , and he put in the fire ball through an hole broken in the wall , which he mistaking for a window , made the relation to be suspected . a letter from st. omars in farther confirmation of the truth of the popish plot upon a consideration of divers circumstances in the trials together with several new matters relating to a farther discovery thereof, and particularly, a letter from mr. jennison proving mr. ireland to have been in london the 19th of august, contrary to the staffordshire witnesses and what the five jesuits (lately executed) insisted upon at their trials : with remarks upon the said letter. d. g. 1679 approx. 160 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 13 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a42804 wing g8 estc r11425 13791611 ocm 13791611 101854 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a42804) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 101854) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 454:31) a letter from st. omars in farther confirmation of the truth of the popish plot upon a consideration of divers circumstances in the trials together with several new matters relating to a farther discovery thereof, and particularly, a letter from mr. jennison proving mr. ireland to have been in london the 19th of august, contrary to the staffordshire witnesses and what the five jesuits (lately executed) insisted upon at their trials : with remarks upon the said letter. d. g. jenison, robert, 1648-1688. letter form mr. jenison ... touching mr. ireland's being in london in august 1678. [2], 22 p. [s.n.], london : 1679. dated june 24 and signed (p. 15): d.g. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of 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period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng ireland, william, 1636-1679. popish plot, 1678. 2006-09 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-09 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-11 john latta sampled and proofread 2006-11 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a letter from s t. omars , in farther confirmation of the truth of the popish plot , upon a consideration of divers circumstances in the trials . together with several new matters relating to a farther discovery thereof ; and particularly , a letter from mr. jennison , proving mr. ireland to have been in london the 19 th . of august , contrary to the staffordshire witnesses , and what the five jesuits ( lately executed ) insisted upon at their trials . with remarks upon the said letter . london , printed in the year mdclxxix . a letter from saint omars to a friend in london . sir , i should be unworthy of that care and friendship which you have expressed towards me , if i should not gratefully acknowledge the satisfaction i have taken , not onely in your several letters from time to time , giving me an account of the discovery of that most hellish and horrid plot , so lately made known in england , for the alteration of religion and subversion of government , by massacre , war and fire ; but also the great pleasure i have received in the present which you sent me of all the printed and written papers , publickly made known , and privately dispersed concerning this plot. i must therefore , after i have acknowledged the favour therein , let you know the satisfaction i have taken , how much it has wrought upon my conscience , what impressions they have made on others , the objections some have made , and the answers i have been enabled to give them , grounded on those publick trials and transactions which you have sent me . and as you have truly convinc'd me of the great errour i was run into ; so no doubt , by your argument and assistance , i have been able to do the like on this side the water , to many , who erred not wilfully , but were led aside by the cunning discourses of the adverse party , and to stop the mouths of some of the most malicious and violent enemies of the protestants in england , who here have endeavoured to make us believe there has been no such plot contrived by the jesuits and papists in england , or else that the plot is onely of the making and contriving of those you call sectaries and fanaticks in england ; and that all this is wrought through their cunning and contrivance , to scandalize and extirpate the catholicks and their religion in england : and other stories to the discrediting the king's evidence , as if they had falsely accused , and took away the lives of many holy men and catholicks , innocent and unknowing of any such plot or massacre , thereby begetting a general odium and evil-speaking against the sectaries and hereticks , as they call them , in england . by these cunning artifices and sedulous insinuations , they have been very carefull in these parts , to take away the scandal and reproach so horrid a design might lay upon the catholick party , and to invalidate , as much as they are able , all reports and proofs thereof ; and therefore have endeavoured to stop and suppress all the light thereof , and all books or papers that may any way inform the judgements of the people , who are made to believe quite contrary to what you have made me to see . and i question not but that also , in some measure , the same skill and artifice of the jesuitical party is used amongst you as well as here , and that by their cunning insinuations and contrivances , they have been able ( as you seem to intimate ) to pervert the minds of many in england , and to fix on them a strange blindness and disbelief of the plot , not onely of those of their religion , and well-affected to their way , but also of many of the more moderate and simply honest of the contrary party , who have been led aside by their specious pretences , and sedulous insinuations , and diligent aspersions of the witnesses , and startled and confirmed by the pertinacious denying and seeming innocency of those that suffer'd for the same . if then in england , where these things are transacted , they are able to alienate the minds of many , and to keep them in the mist of ignorance and unbelief , you may be sure that at this distance , and where the power of your adversaries has more force and strength , and where they have far greater means to stifle the breaking forth of the least ray of the light of truth , that the people are much more ignorant , and by that means more prejudiced against you ; though there are none almost , to whom i have made known and communicated those papers and letters you sent me , but are either convinc'd , or know not how to raise any just argument against the truth of what they assert . it has always been the way of these sedulous emissaries of the society , to palliate great miscarriages with specious pretences , and to daub over the most notable deformities with an holy paint and religious fucus , and to colour their detected crimes by pious frauds , lies , and perjuries . and it is not now they begin to practice those things you seem to hint at in your letters , as may by several instances and known eveniments be made appear : and which indeed has been a scandal to many good catholicks , and knowing christians , who have not at all approved of the ways of these jesuitical brethren , who have converted religion to principles of state , and changed christianity to meer policy ; and by endeavouring to maintain their own greatness , and by unjust and politick ways striving to attain their ends of power and dominion , have lost much the opinion , not onely of those of the contrary religion or reformed , but also of many of those who are roman catholicks , who have been distasted at their principles and practices . for as there were roman catholicks before there were jesuits , so were that order not in being , i am apt to believe that their number would not be less : for though by their artifices and policies they have made themselves great , and kept up the power of the bishop of rome , and by their insinuations into all the courts of the princes of christendom made themselves formidable , and knowing of all affairs ; yet on the other hand , by the many miscarriages and detections of many of their plots and contrivances , and their wicked and evil machinations , they have opened the mouths of the protestants against the roman catholicks too justly , and also opened the eyes to see , and alienated the hearts of many of the roman catholicks themselves from their detested ways and abominable courses , which they have manifestly taken to establish themselves , or as they say to propagate religion , and to extirpate heresie . but certainly , truth does not need the hand of policy , and especially evil and immoral maxims , and unvertuous contrivances , to defend it : and as it is far from the doctrine and method of christ and his apostles , and their immediate successours , to propagate his religion or christianity by plots , massacres , force , or cruelty , or by any unjust way or means ; so always the attempt thereof has ever prov'd pernicious , and : has raised up evil thoughts of religion in many , making some atheists , and others hereticks and schismaticks ; and by that means they have lost more from the catholick cause , then ever they have gained thereto by these pernicious courses . for where the dint of argument cannot prevail , and where the conscience cannot be allured , the dint of sword , oppression and persecution , will never be able to overcome ; nor plots and contrivances , though never so well laid , will prevail , as we have often experimentally found . and though by these means any religion may seem for a time to be establish'd , yet at last it will quickly burst out into a flame ; for it is impossible , with the greatest tyranny to establish the greatest truth , unless it be received into the minds and consciences of the people . i must therefore once again acknowledge the great satisfaction i have received by those books , papers and letters which you have sent me , and which have rectified my doubtfull thoughts , and made me very sensible , that there has not onely been a very great conspiracy , and most horrid plot , but also they have made me see who were the contrivers and carriers on of the same : and now i likewise rest satisfied in the punishment of some of the offendours , being assured that they died not for the cause of religion , ( as they would here make us believe ) but as criminals and traytors to their king , country , and laws . i must confess , there has nothing more troubled my conscience , and made me question the verity of the romish faith , in which i was bred , then the laying open of these horrid designs , and the constant practices of these brothers of jesus in all parts : and it has so far awakened me , that i now make it my resolution , to satisfie all those scruples that have arisen thereupon , and to inform my self farther , and to try if those arguments that the protestants have used to justify their separation , be according to those rules laid down in the scriptures or not , and to make a more diligent scrutiny into all those differences between us , that i may be no longer in the dark , and grope after uncertainties . and therefore i shall desire still your assistance and correspondence , in furnishing me with those books and writings that may be fit for this intention : for as i am an english-man i have a natural love to my country , and notwithstanding any difference in point of religion , and distance at present from the same , i constantly wish , as i ought , its prosperity and felicity , as i believe all true english catholicks not jesuited , or perverted by their horrid and destructive principles , doe the same ; and truely hate all these undue and unrighteous ways of propagating religion , and the romish faith. and i cannot but take notice of that cruel and detestable malice of the brothers of the society , who would have cut off berry a priest , for writing in favour of the oaths of allegeance and supremacy , which i think any true catholick may take , without any wrong to his conscience ; and for that end ( as i find in your depositions ) they offer'd 10 li. as a reward to the said deponent to kill the said berry . i cannot therefore blame my countrymen , if after all these doings , which have appeared so horridly unjust , cruel and bloudy in all respects , they are grown severe and bitter against all romish catholicks ; and many thousands , though innocent , must suffer in your thoughts and opinions , for the sake of these wicked wretches . and the plot hath now appeared so general and universal through the nation , and not onely there , but in france , flanders , spain , and italy , that i cannot but wonder at the extent thereof , and admire at the great and abundant mercy of god , that has almost miraculously brought it to light , and prevented it , when even ready to be effected , and even in the height of their security . and this certainly shews , that god does not own such wicked and undue ways and practices , as to bring in any religion whatsoever by bloud , plots , murthers , and designs . and i must here take notice and acknowledge , that long before the discovery of this plot , i have observed in discourse with many on this side the water , that there was a more then usual expectation of something to be done in england ; and sometimes they would darkly intimate , that e're long we should see the true catholick religion flourish again in that kingdom as much or more then ever : so that no doubt , many more here knew of this secret , and had great expectations , besides those who were intrusted in carrying on the design . as to what you seem to desire , how this plot is resented here , among us , and what people say thereof , i must answer , that the stream seems to run two ways , and is divided according to the humour of the people . for the more moderate and just do extreamly blame the authours and promoters of it , and look upon them as the ruiners of the catholick religion in england , who had such indulgence , such favour and kindness shewed them , both from prince , and people , that notwithstanding the severe penal laws against them in that kingdom , they enjoyed fully their own , liv'd quietly without molestation , reproach , and distinction , were admitted into all offices and places in the commonwealth and army , enjoying all the liberty they could expect , or justly desire : and therefore these extreamly blame the jesuitical party , and all those who were conspiratours , and promoters of this plot and horrid design , as wicked and ungrateful persons , that should abuse so much mercy and indulgence shewn to them , and that they could not see their own quiet and happiness in enjoying their liberty and estates without interruption , in a kingdom wholly protestant , and where they are but a handful in comparison of the others , so that they could not hope to prevail , without horrid massacres , much bloud , war and devastation . so that these men seem to be odious , and detested by all that have or make any profession of godliness , religion and piety , who do verily believe , that they have thereby utterly subverted and ruined the catholick cause in england , believing that you will now urge all those penal statutes in force against them , and make others more severe , where they are desicient , or banish them wholly out of the land. and that this will justly open the mouths , and awaken the pens of all the protestants against them , and rip up all their former cruelties , to set the teeth of the people on edge against them , and to render them odious , by shewing their former bloudy doings , which had else been forgotten , and were raked up under the ashes of time. as i perceive by one book you sent , called the antichristian principle discovered , in a brief and true account of all the hellish plots , bloudy persecutions , and horrid massacres , and most inhumane cruelties and tortures , exercised by the papists throughout europe , &c. which shews how much the spirits of people are awakened against them by those new machinations , and that all their former errours , faults and cruelties will be anew laid open , and brought out of the grave of oblivion , to testifie against them . but it is not onely in england , that they have by these unjust and wicked devices done themselves and their party an injury , but they have awakened the jealous eyes of all the protestant party throughout europe , who seem to be startled and troubled at this wicked and horrid design . and as i have heard it lately reported , it hath been so very ill resented by all the protestant princes in germany , that it has put them upon stricter caution or preserving themselves and religion against these sort of men , and the papists in general , when they see england , the prop and glory of protestantism , so desperately struck at , and like to be subverted by these horrid plots , and wicked machinations and conspiracies . but there is another party , who either out of cunning , malice or ignorance , will not believe , or at least seem not to believe this to be any such plot as you in england would make it to be . and these sort of men are very sedulous in raising divers objections , and endeavour to lessen the evidences , and asperse the judges , calumniate both magistrates and people , and by all manner of unjust ways and contrivances seek to instill into the minds of people that there is no such grand conspiracy , and that it is onely a subtle and politick way of some great ones in england , to make new combustions and insurrections there , by which means either to set up the presbyterian party , or to bring in again a second commonwealth ; and that all those who have died for those crimes objected against them , as coleman , ireland , pickering , groves , green , berry , hill , &c. all died innocent , saints and martyrs , without sufficient proof , and undeservedly . and this these sort of men have been so very carefull to promote , and with that confidence and artifice , that truly , they have begot to themselves a very great party , not onely on this side the water , but ( as i understand from some coming from thence ) in england also . and indeed , before i received your last present of all the tryals , which you sent me , i could not tell what to thing of it : but since i have read them , and seriously weigh'd all things in an equal scale and with a just balance , i am thoroughly convinc'd of the reality of the plot , and the justness of those mens sufferings who have died for the same . and since you have given me the liberty and freedom to communicate to you my thoughts fully concerning this plot , i think it will not be impertinent cursorily to take notice of the several objections they have raised against it , to annihilate or invalidate the same , or at least to call off the odium and blackness of such a wicked conspiracy from themselves on others ; and also , the answers i have been able to give them in relation thereto . and since it may be of a publick good and concern , and to the satisfaction of many fluctuating people , if you shall think it requisite , i give you free liberty to publish the same . in the first place then , that they may beget a very ill opinion of the persons that are the discoverers of this plot , and accusers of those concerned therein , they have endeavoured to render , them ill persons in their lives and conversations ; and so by this means to make all they shall say or swear not to be believed or adhered to . they remember the maxime , asperse boldly , something will stick . this is onely to throw dirt in the faces of those persons that god has raised up to detect the most horrid of villanies . and thus mr. ireland , in his tryal , very subtly brings in sir dennis ashburnham to lessen the testimony of mr. oates , by making him a person of little credit and of ill fame , and that he broke prison at dover ; but that onely by hear-say . indeed could they have given any good proof of mr. oates his being formerly perjur'd they might have done something as to taking off his testimony , and weakned his evidence in the opinion of the jury : but what they endeavoured to prove was so very weak and frivolous , that it made rather against them , and onely shewed their malice , for all that sir dennis says , amounts onely to this , that he had known mr. oates in his youth , and that then he was not a person of that credit as to be depended on for what he should say , and that had the discovery of the plot come onely from his testimony , he might have made some doubt of it . but then , the very same person confesses , that it being so corroborated with other circumstances , he was convinced and satisfied in the truth of the thing . see now , from what little shadow of ill , they rais'd a dark mist to blind the eyes of the people , and by it would endeavour to make them believe all that mr. oates should say was false , and that the plot was of his own making and contriving , set on by the enemies of their religion . but let it be granted that mr. oates had been formerly an ill liver , or what they say of him as to his life and conversation in his youth : we know that god makes use of sinners to glorifie his name , and a conspiring and persecuting saul may become a great and glorious apostle . had not mr. oates had ill principles , he never could have been drawn into so horrid a design , ( but the hand of god was in it , who out of evil produces good : ) for the jesuites are so close and subtle , and carry on their designs with that secrecy and contrivance , that it would be impossible to detect them , and to have a plain and evident proof against their treasonable practices , but by one of themselves , and of their conspiracy . and therefore it cannot be thought any hard usage , ( as the lord chief justice scroggs observes , ) to convict offenders by testimony of their fellows , because 't is hardly possible to bring other witnesses : and therefore in that respect witnesses cannot be absolutely spotless . considering the depth of this horrid plot , and the great persons that were collaterally in the same , carrying on great and various designs , mr. oates , the first discoverer , ran a very great risque of his credit and life , so that it behoved him to be cautious and wary , and not to discover a thing of this nature without great proof : and for that by the laws of england , one single testimony , though back'd with other circumstances , will not serve to condemn a person in case of high treason , mr. oates could not of himself have been able to have brought the offenders to condign punishment , had not god ( whose hand was in the discovery ) raised up others also afterwards to give evidence , and to clear up and dilucidate the whole matter . and this very thing it seems , made those concerned in the plot so very bold and confident , as not to fly upon his first discovery of the same : and he had like to have been born down with a strong tyde of opposition , till the murther of sir edmundbury godfry , whose forwardness and activity in doing his duty , and detecting this horrid design , exposed him to their malice and fury ; and they , who had gone so far , as to endeavour to murther their king , and subvert the government of their country , would not stick at the little murther of one that was so active a minister in bringing the business to light , and unravelling the bottom of their wicked designs . but the murther of this person strangely awakened the minds of people , who were before in a great security , and looked but lightly on the plot , ( as i am inform'd by relations from england ) and the cry of his bloud call'd down god's vengeance on the plotters , and no doubt , they gave themselves a mortal blow when they strangled this innocent person . and since it was requisite , that there should be more evidence then one , god made use of this murther , so far as to awaken thereby the conscience of mr. bedlow , who was to have been engaged in the murther of this gentleman , and who knew of it , and was one in the great conspiracy and plot , and who also , though fled for the same , was at last compelled by the force of his troubled conscience to come in voluntarily , to second mr. oates , and to detect both the murther and the plot. i cannot hear , that they have any thing to object against mr. bedlow in particular to take off his evidence , but that they asperse him in general terms , as if he were hired to the same : but if any one of an unbiass'd judgment shall seriously reade and weigh all the several proofs made out against the criminals , by mr. oates and mr. bedlow , agreeing in all circumstances , though no intimacy was ever known to be between them , he must needs acknowledge , that nothing is more clear and evident , then that there could not be any such conspiracy between them , to invent and frame so many strange stories and relations as they have given in under their oaths , with all circumstances as to places , time and persons , without betraying themselves , or being intrapped by those quick ey'd persons by whom they have been examined , and of which we should quickly have heard . so that i cannot but admire at the strange impudence of those persons , who still buz into the ears of the people , that 't is no plot but of oates and bedlow's making , giving the lie in the face of a whole nation to the justices , that have taken the examinations , to the judges , that have sate on the tryals , to the council , that have sifted and looked into the papers and writings belonging to these plotters , traitours and murtherers , and to the lords and nobility of england , and to the parliament , the representative of all the people of england , who in their vote die lunae 24. martii 1678. declared nemine contradicente , that they were fully satisfied by the proofs they had heard , that there now is , and for divers years last past hath been , a horrid and treasonable plot and conspiracy contrived and carried on by those of the popish religion , for the murthering of his majestie 's sacred person , and for subverting the protestant religion , and the ancient and well-established government of this kingdom . i say , that after all this clear evidence against them , and that nothing can be made out more plain and perspicuous , that they should still endeavour to press upon the belief of people , that 't is a fictitious plot , is the most strange piece of impudence i ever heard or read of . can any that entertain such a thought believe that the whole nation are deceived ? and that all these , the wisest of the kingdom , are deluded , or can be made fools and asses of by mr. oates and mr. bedlow ? or in reason think or suppose , that all these persons are so wicked to frame a plot against the papists , and to take away the several lives of these wretches , onely to extirpate a few papists out of the kingdom ? one of these must consequently follow if there be not in reality any such plot , as these sort of men would have people believe . but god seeming to resolve to discover fully the bottom of this design , and to make it apparent to all the world , he has given a cloud of witnesses , and wholly to take away that scruple , hath raised up prance and dugdale , two more , to second and confirm the truth of oates and bedlow's assertions . as to mr. dugdale , i have heard that they have been so far from aspersing him , that they have ( some of them ) been forc'd publickly to acknowledge him a sober , honest man : yet he was drawn into the plot for religion's sake , till he came to know of the intended murther of the king , and then the alarm-bell of his conscience rung so loud that it awaken'd him out of his lethargy , and brought him to a confession of his crimes , and to be an evidence against them . as to mr. prance , god suffer'd him to goe on and to be zealous ( as i observe by his own book ) in this plot , and to be one of the instruments assisting in the murther of that worthy knight sir edmundbury godfry , and to continue without remorse , till he was taken onely upon a bare surmise of his being from home some nights , which caused him to be brought before the council , where he was discovered by mr. bedlow , to be one of those persons that he had seen in the room where sir edmundbury godfry lay murthered ; which mr. prance himself acknowledges to be the immediate hand of god , which so far pressed upon his conscience , as afterwards to make a full and ingenuous confession both of the murther and plot , for which he received the king's pardon . and this is a strenuous evidence against them , and strong confirmation of the assertions of mr. oates and bedlow , and that what they had delivered , was not by combination , or any conspiracy between them . but against mr. prance , i find they had raised three several objections , thinking thereby to make his testimony inconsiderable . the first was , that he was mad. but as to this , i think all that have read his depositions , and the evidence he hath given as to the plot , with the circumstances of his being engaged in the same , and the punctual account of the murther of sir edmundbury godfry , will not judge him to be bereft of his senses . the things too well cohere together to proceed from a distracted person . the second is , that he was tortur'd , and ill used in prison , to make him confess against his conscience ; and that all he had said as to the plot and murther , was through fear and terrour . but i shall onely mention his own words , sufficient to clear this aspersion , pag. 25. of his narrative , that the report was wholly false and scandalous , but that on the contrary , he had received all the kind usage and civilities imaginable , from captain richardson the keeper of newgate , where he was confined all the time of his stay ; and that nothing of compulsion or force was put upon him to declare any thing , but that what he did was freely and voluntarily , not byassed by any sinister end , nor out of any malice , or in wrong to any person whatsoever : and this he declares in the presence of almighty god , the searcher of hearts , before whose just and dreadfull tribunal he expects to appear , and begs and implores the mercy of the king of heaven , on his sincere repentance , for his wicked fact , and great sin committed , in being an accessory to the death of sir edmundbury godfry , as he had obtained that of his king here for the same . the third was , that being through fear and terrour made to acknowledge himself guilty , he was forced in his conscience to deny all again , before his majesty of great britain . and here indeed they have some appearance of truth , and with it they have made a great dust , thinking by this means to blind the eyes of the people . but mr. prance himself in his narrative pag. 22. and 23. so well clears that aspersion , that there can be no more said , and in my judgment renders him more strong and firm after his staggering and fluctuation : for he calls it there his imbecillity and weakness , that though he had onely for his conscience sake made his free confession , being awakened by the horrour of his crimes , yet afterwards he went and declared to the king that he was innocent , and that all those he had accused were also innocent . now they cry out , a man that will thus say now one thing , and then another thing , is not to be believed ; and that his evidence is nothing worth . but pag. 23. mr. prance says this for himself , that the fear and terrour of death ( not then having any assurance of pardon ) lying heavy upon him , and also the fear of being assassinated by the bloudy and revengefull priests and jesuits , and also that if he should escape with life , that he should wholly lose his trade , and so be consequently ruined and undone , since his chief subsistence depended on the trade he had with the roman catholicks , and that his soul was not yet intirely out of the snare of popish thraldom , induced him to think he might lawfully say , that he and all the rest were innocent , because the horrid crime of the murther of sir edmundbury godfry had been declared by the popish priests to be no sin , and so in that sense they were all innocent , though he had not since the fact received absolution . and thus by the way you may observe how they all die innocent , as themselves at the gallows are pleas'd to say . but then he desires you to consider , that to strengthen his first assertion , and to invalidate this act of his weakness and fear , he says , that what he had declared concerning the murther was solemnly and upon oath ; and this supposed retractation , suddenly in passion , consternation and fear , and not upon oath . secondly , that he was no sooner carried back from the king and council to newgate , not being above half an hour after , but that he earnestly requested his keeper to carry him back again , that he might justify his former confession to be true in all circumstances , and that what he had lately said contradictory thereto , was caused by his perplexity of mind , and the terrour he lay under ; and being immediately carried back , he denied his recantation , and voluntarily upon oath confirmed what he had first declared to be true . and afterwards falling sick whilst in newgate , and like to die , he then expecting to die , declared and often asserted to divers his first confession to be true in all points , as also since he recovered his health : so that 't is very plain , all this dust which the priests and jesuits have raised about this matter is blown away , and truth is become perspicuous to any ingenuous man , that will but impartially look into these transactions , and consider them as they are , and not as they are represented by their false perspectives . this is all that i have heard to be objected as to the witnesses , and you may judge by what i have been able to say , how frivolous it is . but these malicious persons have not onely raised objections against those persons before mentioned , who were witnesses against these plotters , but they also endeavour to cast an odium on the judges themselves , especially the lord chief justice ; whom they report to be a very violent and passionate man against them , triumphing in their overthrow , handling the prisoners cruelly and hardly , daunting their witnesses , and lashing out against them and their religion , with many the like bitter reports : and as i have heard , they have not stuck to have sent him letters from this side the water , upbraiding him for walking contrary to the steps of his predecessors in the like cases ; and have also been so impudent , as to send him a book in the french tongue , which endeavours to make this plot to be contrived and laid , not by the papists , but by the factious and sectarian parties in england . but this is fumos vendere , and i think that worthy person needs no justification . i am satisfied , and suppose none that have read or heard the trials of those persons condemned for the plot , and murther of sir edmundbury godfry , but must remain satisfied in the fair and upright dealing of the lord chief justice scroggs , in hearing the evidence fully on all sides , and judging justly and indifferently between the king and the prisoners . and in this extraordinary case , if after an impartial and legall trial , he , in summing up the evidence , pressed it home to the jury to doe justice , and if he spake something as to the catholick religion , and the jesuits , and jesuited party , that has raised these commotions and conspiracies , and brought those men into the snare , he ought not to be blamed ; and i cannot find either in him , or those other judges who gave sentence of death on the offenders , but that they did it according to law , modestly , and without that triumphing and bitterness , as they would seem to intimate . but to what poor shifts are these men drove to hide this abominable plot and wicked contrivance ! when they would insinuate into the people on this side the water , and at a distance from you , that there never was any such person as sir edmundbury godfry , and that you in england have fram'd a story of such a murther , taking a hint from a town called st. edmunds bury , to make the papists odious , and by that means to raise the malice of the people against them . this shews very much the weakness of their cause , or rather the foulness of it , that they are forced to such narrow starting-holes to keep up their reputation here : but with you this needs no answer , that worthy gentleman being so well known in the place where he dwelt , and was too publick a light to be hid in obscurity under a bushel . to make this discovery yet more full and evident , i find that god has brought forth of the tower of london one mr. everard , after four years imprisonment , to give his testimony concerning this very plot , as appears by his evidence and narrative upon oath , who there affirms what he knew of the same , and after what manner he came by it , being informed of it in paris ; so that coming over to england , for the intent of discovering what he knew concerning the same , he was clapt into the tower , under the pretext of having some design of making an attempt against the duke of monmouth's life , where he was kept four years a close prisoner , without ever being brought to any hearing or trial ; and though he had several times made some discovery of this plot to sir john robinson , the then lieutenant of the tower , he either did not or would not believe any thing of it , and would give no information to his majesty concerning the same ; as may more fully appear by the depositions of the said mr. everard : which certainly is a very great testimony , and very much corroborates the assertions of the other witnesses concerned in the plot , this man being none of the confederacy , and so not entrusted with the horrid intrigues thereof ; yet so far knew of the same , as to have given some light to the farther discovery of this dark design , had he not been thus subtly prevented by some of the plotters means , who are since in custody themselves in ireland , the province where they were to act ; for both that kingdom and scotland also was at the same time to have been subverted , as well as england . but things were not then ripe , and god had designed to let them run on yet farther in their wickedness , that his glory might appear more great and perspicuous , and that his mercy , and protecting care of the king , and people of england , might be seen in diverting and making known a plot and conspiracy so impending , and near taking effect , being carried on with such secrecy , skill and power so many years : but to god be given the glory , and let the barking mouths of these currs be stopped at last , and their endeavours to hide and to make this plot of no account be blasted and come to nought . amen . not withstanding the artifices of these men to support their credit here abroad , and in some measure with you also in england , their complices are like to suffer for their treasonable practices . some of the underlings have already paid for their treason , with the forfeiture of their lives ; and the more great and formidable plotters are like also to be called to account , and the very bottom of this horried and hellish design like to be discovered . it is therefore now time for them to bestir themselves , and inded to say the truth , they will leave no stone unturn'd , and having first endeavoured to scandalize the evidence against them , they now try to corrupt it , and to take them off ; and this they have procured a subtle agent to effect , one nathaniel reading , who by great and fair promises of great rewards and some gold in hand , would have taken off mr. bedlow , one of the chief evidence for the king against these plotters ; but i find that mr. bedlow out-witted him , and notwithstanding he was a subtle lawyer , brought him to shame and punishment for his crime , which certainly was of a very high nature , and which was punctually proved against him , so that none can deny the truth thereof . now from this i argue , if there were no plot , as the jesuits here have endeavoured to have made us believe , why should those accused thereof seek by such unjust means of bribery to take off the evidence against them ; and to draw beforehand such matter onely for the evidence to swear to , as might be sure not to make them guilty of treason , and out of the danger of the law ? innocency needs not these shifts , and this also to me , and all rational men , must needs be another proof of their guilt ; and that notwithstanding all this stir that they have made to hide their crime , and most horrid design , they are guilty of the same ; and that there is and hath been a horrid plot and conspiracy . since you have desired me to communicate my mind fully to you , i hope you will not think me tedious in that i cannot yet leave this matter ; and that i resolve as briefly as i can , to mention to you my thoughts on the several trials of those persons condemned , both for the conspiracy , and for the murther of sir edmundbury godfry , and to let you know what here hath been said thereupon : for they have not onely endeavoured by all means and ways to bespatter and calumniate the persons of those who discovered the plot , the judges who gave sentence on the traytors , and the witnesses against them , but also violently to speak against the justice and legality of the trials themselves ; and so far to justify the criminals , and those condemned and executed for traytors , as if they died illegally , without apparent proofs , and innocent , and martyrs . and here i cannot but admire the strange audacity of these men , that they should think to be able , with bold and lying assertions to lessen and pervert matters of fact , and things so notoriously known and acted in the face of a nation ; things not privately or clandestinely acted , but publickly and before the whole world. but what is it that these men will not attempt ? tantum relligio potuit suadere malorum ? t is for the sake of religion , and they may doe any thing . the first that comes upon the stage is mr. coleman , a leading man in this horried plot and conspiracy , and a prime actor and promoter of it , by his great correspondency abroad , both at rome and in the french court. i have read the trial of that person with caution and consideration ; and however plain the proofs may appear to me , and to others of unbyassed judgments , yet they have had the confidence here to assert , and endeavour to impress it on the minds of the people , that nothing could be made out against this man to render him worthy of death , or to make him guilty of treason ; and that he died innocent , a saint , and a martyr ; and that at the execution he utterly denied there was any such thing : a plot , as was pretended , though he own'd himself to be indeed a zealour promoter of the catholick cause . and , as i have heard , many were so sottishly deluded with this opinion of his innocency , that they purchased at dear rates pieces of the halter that strangled him , to keep as reliques of his saintship . that a great argument of his innocency was , that he never endeavoured to make any escape or to fly away , having his liberty several days after the discovery of the plot , and his being question'd about the same . the men who seem thus to believe nothing , and goe about to perswade others to be of their opinion , and who raise the objections and reports to cast a mist before the eyes of the people , are those no doubt whose consciences know the contrary to what they pretend to be absolutely true , and are and have been agents and promoters of that plot and conspiracy they would cry down : and they cannot but know that coleman and the rest had a fair trial ; that the proofs were home and evident against them , and that they suffered justly and by due course of law. but it is their interest to seem of another mind : and notwithstanding they have endeavoured to render the lord chief justice odious , and cunningly to insinuate his illegal proceedings with mr. coleman , those of their own party could not but acknowledge the words that i shewed them in the seventeenth page of his printed trial to be full of honour and integrity . for there speaking to mr. oates , who was then to be sworn as evidence against mr. coleman , he gives him warning to speak nothing but the truth , not to adde the least tirtle that is false for any advantage whatsoever ; for that since the prisoner's bloud and life was at stake , he should stand or fall , be justified or condemned by truth . he also then puts mr. oates in mind of the sacredness of an oath , and that to falsily it , and thereby to take away a man's life , was murther . therefore he desired he would speak nothing but the down-right truth , that he may not be condemned by any circumstances , but by plain evidence of fact ; and so that not onely mr. coleman may be satisfied in the justness of his trial , but all people else . i think this is sufficient to manifest the uprightness of the judge , and that mr. coleman had a free and legal trial for his life , according to the laws of england . but that they should so boldly and with a consident brow assert , that nothing could be made out against him , that should render him guilty of treason or worthy of death , is very strange , when not onely the witnesses that are brought against him do prove sufficient matter of fact , but his own letters produced and read before his face , which he acknowledges for his own , do in plain words say , that he is about a great work , no less then the conversion of three kingdoms , and the total and utter subversion and subduing of that pestilent heresy the protestant religion , which hath reigned so long in this northern part of the world ; and for the doing of which there never was such great hopes since our queen marie ' s days as at this time : pag. 69. now can there be any thing more clear , then that this subversion of a religion so generally received in those three kingdoms , and so long and thoroughly established , could not be effected but by the subversion of those three kingdoms , and by the destruction of the established laws , the liberties , and the lives of many thousands within those three kingdoms ? and all this could not have been done without bringing in of forein force , or raising a rebellion amongst your selves , or both . in his long letter to monsiour le chese he says , pag. 53. he would willingly be in everlasting disgrace with all the world , if by the assistance of 20000. li. to be obtained from the french king , he did not regain to the dvke his master his former offices , and especially that of being admiral of the fleet : and again pag. 54. he tells you for what end this design is , that it might give the greatest blow to the protestant religion in england that ever it received since its birth : and therefore in the conclusion of one of his letters to le chese , the french king's confessour , he desires the power and assistance of france , which next under god he relies upon . so that his own hand convicts him of endeavouring to bring in forein powers into england , to establish the roman catholick religion , and to overthrow that now there established . this was but one way to bring his designs about ; the other most horrid and bloudy was the taking away the sacred life of the king , which mr. oates swears against him , pag. 21. that he was privy to the consult at the white-horse tavern in the strand , wherein it was resolved , that grove and pickering should be employed to effect it , and that mr. coleman did approve of the same : so that by this the proof was plain against him , for by the laws of england his assent made him equally guilty with the assassinates , there being no accessories in treason . and this resolve he swears was communicated to mr. coleman in his hearing in wild-house : and pag. 22. he swears he heard him say the design was well contrived . and pag. 24. oates swears that mr. coleman knew of the four irish russians sent to windsor to kill the king ; and in his hearing asked harcourt at wild-house what care was taken for those four gentlemen that went last night to windsor ; who replied , there was so. li. ordered to be sent to them , which he saw there on the table , most part of it in guinies ; and that mr. coleman gave a guiny to the messenger who was to carry this reward , to be nimble and to expedite his journey . then pag. 25. he swears again , that mr. coleman was privy to the instructions sent by white , provincial of the jesuits , from these parts , to impower the consulters to propose 10000 li. to sir george wakeman to poyson the king ; and that he not onely saw and read these instructions , but copied them out , and transmitted them to several conspirators in this plot within the kingdom . and pag. 26. he swears , mr. coleman said he thought 10000. li. was too little , and that it would be necessary to adde 5000 li. more , that they might be sure to have it done . and pag. 27. he swears that he saw mr. coleman's commission for to be secretary of state , from the general of the society of jesus , by virtue of a brief from the pope ; and that in fenwick's chamber in drury-lane he saw him open it , and own the receipt of it , saying it was a good exchange . one witness is not enough in this case , but i find also mr. bedlow a second to strengthen the other's evidence ; he swears pag. 43. that he heard mr. coleman say at his own house , that if he had an hundred lives , and a sea of bloud to swim through , he would spend it all to carry on the cause of the church of rome , and to establish that church in england : and if there were an hundred heretical kings to be deposed , he would see them all destroyed : so that both swear to the killing of the king , and subverting the government . i cannot find that mr. coleman could make any good or satisfactory defence for himself , but would have sought starting-holes and shifts to have amazed the minds of the jury , with putting the witnesses to have proved to a day what they averr , which is in most things done , and would take that advantage , where mr. oates says pag. 72. he will not be positive that it was such a day ; but mr. coleman cannot bring any positive proof that it was not that day , or that the witness contradicted himself , as he attempted to doe . and indeed though mr. coleman was never so wise a man , sufficient to be secretary of state , in matters of fact so plainly and quite blank proved against him it is a very hard matter to make a good defence , nay impossible , unless he can any ways prove the witnesses perjur'd , or some impossibility or contradiction in their testimony , which mr. coleman was not able to doe . and therefore i cannot but admire that any can say he had not a fair and legal trial , and that nothing could be made out against him worthy of death ; for if knowing of this conspiracy , of subverting religion established by law in the kingdom , of an intent of murthering the king to promote that cause , and also of endeavouring by letters and correspondence to engage a foreign power to assist to bring in this cause , be not worthy of death , nothing is . and when such proof is made out so clearly , whatever mr. coleman may say at his death of his innocency , it ought not to be believed ; for he may have many evasions , and as mr. prance says in pag. 23 , and 24. of his narrative , it is , according to the sense of the jesuiticol doctrine , ( i will not say popish ) to be innocent , when the priests had solemnly declared the fact they were accused of to be no sin or crime , as they look'd on this , of bringing in the romish religion by the death of an heretical prince , to be : or he might be innocent having received full absolution for the same . but what-ever he meant by those words of justification , i believe few will ever believe him innocent of the fact for which he was accused , that either have heard or read his trial. and though he had the considence to deny this plot , hoping perhaps that it might yet take effect , things then not being so fully discovered as since ; or , as i heard , expecting a pardon or reprieve to the last moment : yet it is now too generally received , and all the circumstances more fully appear since his death , and that he was instrumental therein . that he fled not at first for the same argues not his innocency , so much as the confidence he had , that it was not so much known as he found afterwards it was , and relying too much on the hopes of being brought off . but herein also he was deluded , and perhaps repented too late , having been heard to say with great passion at his execution , there is no faith in man. the next who came upon their trial were ireland , pickering , grove , whitebread and fenwick , being accused of this horrid plot and conspiracy : and though the two last were by the oath of mr. oates sufficiently proved to have a great hand in the plot , and contrivance of the murther of the king ; yet because there wanted another concurrent testimony , they were set by till further evidence might be produced : and because these also are said to be innocent , and that the matters of fact were not proved as they ought against them , i shall briefly charge my memory with what i have read in the printed book of their trials ; and as it gave me full satisfaction in that case , perhaps if diligently considered it may doe the like to others . but first i shall observe to you , because many or most of these conspirators are priests and jesuits , and that ireland , if not pickering , is so ; they have given forth abroad , and no doubt spread the same amongst the ignorant at home , that they were tried , and suffered quatenus priests , upon the statute of the 27 eliz. by which statute it is made treason for any person that is a subject born in england , to take orders from the see of rome , and afterwards to come into england , and remain here 40 days , and ipso facto for that offence he shall be found guilty , and suffer as a traytor : so that they would endeavour to perswade the ignorant that they suffer onely as roman catholicks , being priests doing their function , obeying the orders of their superiours , and the dictates of their own consciences ; and not as plotters , traytors , and disturbers of the publick peace . but that they might not fancy to themselves , that they suffered martyrdom for their religion , nor perswade others to the same , as many have had the vanity to believe , and others the confidence to assert , it was declared by the king's council in open court , that these men , though liable to be punished by that statute , were not indicted as priests , nor upon that statute of 27 eliz. but of a more horrid and detestable crime , the killing of the king , and subversion of the government . and to prove this two witnesses are produced , mr. oates and mr. bedlow ; and though both cannot perhaps speak to one and the same consultation , nor to one and the same time , yet are they in law two witnesses to one and the same crime : for thus several witnesses to several overt acts are so many witnesses to the treason ; and the several overt acts which declare the intention , are but as so many evidences of the treason : and this was openly declared to be law in court , upon the trial of these persons . and there is a great deal of reason that it should be so , for men that run the hazard of their lives in such consultations , will hardly suffer two persons to meet twice together , whom they are not well assured of , but so dispose them that they may meet severally , at several times , and in divers places , as mr. oates and mr. bedlow did . as to the proof , mr. oates swears , pag. 19. and 20. that in a consult , begun at the white horse tavern in the strand , and prosecuted at the meetings at their several chambers , it was resolved , that pickering and grove should go on in their attempt to murther the king ; that grove should have 1500 l. for his reward , and pickering 30000. masses for his : ( which at 12 d. a mass comes to the same sum in their account . ) and this resolve was signed by whitebread , fenwick and ireland , and by several others at four clubs . he swears punctually that he saw them sign it , and carryed the instrument from one to another , and that they signed it severally at their chambers . he also swears , pag. 23. that pickering and grove accepted to murther the king on those terms , and that in his presence they took the sacrament and the oath of secrecy upon it , and did agree to effect the bloudy proposal . farther , the same deponent swears , that he saw pickering and grove walking in the park at several times , watching for an opportunity of committing their bloudy design of murthering his majesty , having with them screwed pistols , which were longer then ordinary , and furnished also with silver bullets : and , pag. 24. he swears that grove would have the bullets champt , to make the wound incurable . and farther , that in the month of march , having a fair opportunity of effecting their design , the flint in pickering's pistol being loose , he durst not make an attempt ; for which negligence grove was chidden , and pickering received twenty or thirty strokes of discipline , by way of pennance , for his carelesness . page 22. he swears against whitebread , that he saw his letter , in which he expressed a great deal of joy , that sir george wakeman had accepted the 15000 l. to poison the king ; and also , that he was by , when harcourt , another of these jesuits , and fenwick the prisoner , were at a consult , and agreed to the proposition of fogarthy , of sending four irish russians to kill the king at windsor , and that they were sent accordingly . and pag. 29. swears , that whitebread had sealed some hundreds of commissions , which they called patents , to raise an army , to be in a readiness upon the death of the king , which seals were then produced in court , naming one commission in special , which he the deponent delivered himself to sir john gage of sussex . pag. 22. he swears against fenwick , that he told him that he , the prisoner , and three irishmen more , fired southwark , and that he had 400 l. for his share , and the rest 200 l. a piece . and pag. 20. to shew the great malice of these men , whitebread ordered mr. oates to come purposely from s. omars into england , to murther d. tongue , for writing the jesuits morals ; and pag. 21. the same whitebread sent by him instructions , that care should be taken for the murther of d. stillingfleet , and the bishop of hereford . these are the chief things observable in mr. oates his depositions , and which are sufficient to prove this horrid plot. then the second witness , mr. bedlow , swears pag. 37. that he was employed for the space of near five years as a messenger by these conspiratours for the carrying their letters to several beyond the seas , and returning others back , all or most relating to this plot : for pag. 38. he swears he had a way to open the letters and reade them , whereby he fully informed himself of matters . he swears pag. 37. that he heard some of these conspiratours say , they would not leave any member of an heretick in england that should survive , to tell in the kingdom hereafter , that there ever was any such religion in england as the protestant religion . he swears also the manner of his coming to be first employed by them , and then he brings his brother james bedlow to confirm his being their agent or messenger , who knew nothing of the plot. he swears , pag. 48. and 49. his being so long employed by them , and that he had received oftentimes from these jesuits and priests several summs of money in his brothers behalf , sometimes 50. or 60. pounds at a time : so that by this you may see mr. bedlow must be knowing in this design , employed under them so long in it . pag. 41. he swears that about the latter end of august ( the very day he confesses he cannot swear to ) at mr. harcourts chamber ( one of the conspiratours ) he there met ireland , pickering and grove the prisoners , with some others , where he heard them discourse , that the four russians missing of killing the king at windsor , that pickering and grove should go on in their design , and that one conyers was to be joyned with them to assassinate the king in his morning-walks at new market . and that mr. grove was more eager or forward then the rest , saying , since it could not be done clandestinely , it should be attempted openly ; and that those that do fall had the glory to die in a good cause : but if the discovery should be made , it could never come to that height but their party would be strong enough to bring it to pass . all this he swears very punctually to : and pag. 48. he farther swears that harcourt told him , that grove was to have 1500 l. for his reward , and that pickering was to have so many masses as came to that money . and pag. 45. he swears , that at the same time he heard them discourse of the killing several noble persons , and of several persons that were to execute it ; and in particular names one knight assigned to kill the earl of shaftsbury , pritchard and duke of buckingham , o-neal the earl of ossory , and o-brian the duke of ormond . so that by these two testimonies the evidence is very full against ireland , pickering and grove . the defence they have to make against this , is first , the denial of the fact , though they can bring no witnesses to make any thing out but their own asseverations : but they who can have a dispensation for the breaking of any oath , may be easily indulged for the telling of a lie to save their lives , and to keep off a scandal from their profession . in the next place , they would endeavour to seem not to know mr. oates , and make as if they had scarce seen him : to this he swears by many several circumstances , which they are forced to acknowledge ; and pag. 32. swears fenwick was his father confessour . but ireland raised some little appearance of contradiction or mistake in mr. bedlow's evidence , for he brings two or three to prove , pag. 56 , 57. that he was not in london all the month of august , mr. bedlow swearing that he was at the consult held at harcourts chamber , in the latter end of august , concerning the death of the king. and indeed two positively say the contrary , and that he was from the third of august to the first or second of september in staffordshire , and westchester , and by circumstance that he was in the beginning of september at wolverhampton . but were this granted , that he should mistake in the point of time , yet this is nothing as to the matter of fact expresly sworn against them , and so destroys not the evidence , unless it were necessary to the substance of the thing : for this meeting and treasonable contrivance might be some days or weeks after , and so true . and though such a mistake may somewhat weaken the evidence in the opinion of the jury , it ought not to invalidate the truth of the thing it self , which may be true in substance , though not in circumstance of time. but against the asseverations of these persons , there is the oath of mr. bedlow , who swears it positively ; and besides , mr. oates pag. 60. swears positively , that ten days at least within august he was with him at fenwick's chamber in london , and that in the beginning of september , either the first or second day , he was to his knowledge in london , and that he had 20 s. of him . then a third person is produced , that had been grove's maid-servant , who very well knew ireland , and the swears positively , and by good circumstances , pag. 57 , and 58. that she saw him at a scriveners door in fetter-lane , where he lodged , about the twelfth or thirteenth of august . so that these three concurrent testimonies might very well be credited by the jury in this case , and make them justly bring in their verdicts , as they did , guilty , without any deinur or hesitation . as for pickering and grove , they could not make any defence , besides the denial of all that was sworn against them to be true , and that they were innocent and not guilty . and now let all the world judge who are to be believed in this case , and admire at the obstinacy of these men , who shall deny so clear evidence against them to the last gasp , and die in their impenitency ; and at those wicked ones also , that shall secretly and slanderously go about to make the world believe , that these men had not justice done them , and that they died innocent and martyrs . i find my letter swells to a bigger bulk then i intended , therefore i shall be as brief as i can in mentioning the tryals of those who had a hand in the murther of sir edmundbury godfry , which was as punctually prov'd against them as could be ; for in the case of felony , by the laws of england , one sufficient witness for the king is enough , though here you shall find a very plain concurrent evidence , and the whole stress lies not upon master prance , who was one of the assistants at the murther . the persons accused and convicted for this murther were , robert green , henry berry , and laurence hill , lay-men , who suffer'd for the same : others concerned were mr. prance , who confessed the fact , had the king's pardon , and was the accuser ; besides kelly and girald , priests , who assisted in the murther , and who are fled , and some others , knowing of , and abetting the same , are also fled . the first thing that is proved by two witnesses , pag. 12. and 13. is that one of the motives that these persons might have to murther this knight , was , because of his forwardness in discovering the plot ; and to this mr. oates swears , that this knight sir edmundbury godfry told him he had been threatned by several persons , for being so active in that discovery , and that he told him that he went in fear of his life by the popish party for doing his duty , being a justice of the peace , and that he had been dogg'd several days . mr. robinson a man of credit , and of the knight's long acquaintance , swears also to the same effect , and pag. 14. that sir edmundbury said to him , that he did believe in his conscience , that he should be the first martyr , and that the depth of the plot was not yet found out . by this we may see the reason that these men had to murther this gentleman , hoping by his death to hinder the discovery of the plot , it being then very young , and hardly credited , he having the chief depositions in his hand ; or to deter others from being active or meddling in the business , seeing the revenge they had taken upon him for the same ; or out of malice and revenge to the man , for being active in discovering their villany , and bringing to light their wicked deeds . the next witness is mr. prance , who swears , pag. 14. that girald and kelly , two priests , first drew him into this murther , he being a roman catholick , ( as all the rest were , except berry , who said he died a protestant , and feigned himself otherwise for a livelihood , which i can hardly believe ) telling him it was no sin , but a charitable act , and that he was a busie man , and had done a great deal of mischief : and so they told the rest : and this was at an alehouse , at the sign of the plough , about a fortnight before this gentleman was murthered . he swears also , that they had dogg'd him into several places , to get an opportunity of murthering him ; and that on the saturday ( the twelfth of october ) about seven of the clock in the evening , green and hill , having dogg'd him into a house at s. clements , not far from somerset-house , where he was murthered , hill stay'd to watch his motion , and green came to prance his house , to call him to assist them , and that he immediately went to somerset-house , where were girald , kelly , green and berry , and that about nine of the clock , hill came before , to give them notice of the approach of sir edmundbury godfry , it being in his way to his own house , that hill went up to the gate to watch for the coming by of sir edmundbury godfry , and by a wile to draw him within the gate , pretending two men to be a quarrelling , and desiring his presence to part them , he being a justice of the peace . that this gentleman being at last perswaded to do that good office , followed hill within the gate , till he came to the bottom of the rails , when green , coming behind him , flung a twisted handkerchief about his neck , and threw him down behind the rails , where , assisted by girald , kelly and hill , they strangled him . pag. 16. and 17. mr. prance swears he was not by at the action , for hill ordered him to watch at the water-gate , and berry at the stairs , that none might come in the mean time to interrupt them , and that after a little while , that he thought they might have dispatched him , he went to them , and found the four before mentioned standing about the body , and green boasted to him , how well he had done it , and that the rest told him the manner of their effecting it , and that green , thinking him not quite dead , gave him several punches on his breast with his knee , and twisted his neck about , and that presently after berry also came to them . and pag. 18. he swears they all six help'd to carry him up a pair of stairs , into a certain room in the house where hill lay , where the body lay till monday night , and was then removed into somerset house , and on monday night he was shewn the body by hill , with a dark lanthorn , girald , hill and kelly being by ; and on tuesday night the body was carried back to hill's lodging , where it first lay , but not into the same room , but one over against it ; and about nine of the clock on the wednesday night , they removed it to the room where it first lay , he being there when they removed it , pag. 19. and that about twelve a clock that night , a sedan being brought by hill , they all put the body into it , and that berry at the sign of a hem that was given opened for them the upper gate of the upper court ; that he , mr. prance , and girald the priest ( now the porter ) first carried the sedan , green and kelly going before : and pag. 20. he swears they carried it to covent-garden , where they rested , and that the green and kelly took their turns , and carried it to long-acre , then prance and girald carried it to so-hoe church , where hill met them with an horse , and that they then took the body up and set it before hill on the horse , who held him up , and that kelly , girald and green went along with him , and that he the deponent then left them to return home , for fear of raising a suspicion . but he swears that the next day , they , hill , kelly and girald , told him how they had disposed of the body ; first that they had run him through with his own sword , then thrown him into a ditch , and laid his gloves and other things upon the bank. pag. 22. he swears that they had all agreed to the murther of this gentleman , having had more then one meeting about it , and that the first that met him was to give notice to the rest ; that there was a considerable reward to be given among them for doing it , and that it was to come from ( as they told him ) the lord bellasis . and also , that girald was resolved to kill him that night , and if he could not get him in a more convenient place , he would kill him with his own sword , in the street that leads to his own house . judge now , whether all this be not punctually proved by one witness , which is as much as the law requires in this case : however , that these persons might not have any the least excuse that they had not justice done them , and to satisfie the whole world that they were not condemned onely upon the testimony of mr. prance , i find other strong concurrent witnesses , that by many circumstances corroborate his evidence , among the which mr. bedlow is one , who swears , pag. 28. that he had been several times treated with by le faire , prichard , keins , and other priests , about murthering a certain gentleman they would not name , about the beginning of that october this gentleman was murthered , and desired him also ( not telling him the reason ) to get into the acquaintance of sir edmundbury godfry ; and that he did so : and pag. 30. he swears , that very morning sir edmundbury was murthered , at the palsgraves i lead tavern le faire told him , that there was a gentleman that very night to be put out of the way , a very material man , that had all the informations that mr. oates and d. tongue had given in ; that several had been employed in the doing of it , and that several attempts had been made , and that they had missed several opportunities , but that now it was to be done , for if he were not taken out of the way , the plot would by his means go near to be fully discovered , so that they should not be able to bring their design to pass ; but would not discover to him the name of the party : and also , that there was 4000 l. reward to those that did it , and no worse man then the lord bellasis had engaged for the payment of it . upon which he swears , that he promised to engage in it , and to meet him that night at somerset house , but that he went not according to his promise , knowing they had a design to murther some body : then , pag. 31. he swears farther , that he saw him not till the monday night following , and then he was charged for his breach of promise ; to which mr. bedlow replied , he would not engage in the murther of any private person , till he knew who he was , because he might be his particular friend . that le faire bid him meet him exactly at nine of the clock that night in the cloysters at somerset house , which he did , and that then he told him , that he had done ill that he did not help in the business , but that if he would help to carry the dead person off , he should have half the reward . that then he asked if he was murthered , and le faire answered yes : and upon his desire to see the party , he took him by the hand , and led him through a dark entry into a room , where he saw several persons , where they had a small light in a middle-siz'd lanthorn , by which he saw a corps , over which something was thrown , and one stepping to the body threw off the thing that lay upon him , and he went and look'd upon him , and knew him presently to be sir edmundbury godfry . and pag. 32. swears that they then told him that they had strangled him , and that the cravatte about his neck was so streight he could not get his finger in between it and his neck . that they did not think that he knew him , but told him that he was one that belonged to a person of quality . that he would have perswaded them to have tyed weights to his head and feet , and to have slung him into the thames . but they did not think that so safe , but answered , no , they would put the murther upon himself . then asking how they would get him out , le faire answered in a chair , and that berry the porter was to sit up to let them out . that he then told them that about eleven or twelve of the clock would be the best time to carry him forth , and le faire then made him promise upon the sacrament , that he took on the thursday before , to come and help to carry him off at that hour ; for after the discovery of the plot , he swears , the sacrament was adminished to him twice a week to conceal it . he also swears , that he did not go , but went away for bristol , and that upon the great trouble and disturbance in his conscience for this murther and horrid plot , he revealed the same , &c. that upon his not coming they desisted from carrying out the body that night , and for fear lest he should discover them , he supposed they caused it to be removed . mr. bedlow also swears , pag. 33. that he never had any discourse with mr. prance , from the time that he saw him with the body of sir edmundbury godfry that night in somerset house , and that seeing him in the lobby , being taken upon suspicion onely , he knew him again , and accused him for the murther of that gentleman . and pag. 23. mr. prance swears , that he never had any conference with mr. bedlow in all his life , which extreamly strengthens the evidence , and that there could be no conspiracy between them , to invent a story with so many agreeing circumstances . then pag. 35. they prove , that sir edmundbury's body was found in the ditch just as they had related it to mr. prance , and also the dislocation of his neck , the struggling , and contusion of his breast with some blows , and that the wound made by the sword could not be the occasion of his death , by able chirurgions : with several other circumstances too long to remember now . so that all the circumstances are proved as much as is possible by two several witnesses , not knowing , or ever discoursing one another : so that it would be the strangest miracle in the world , that they should both agree in so many untrue circumstances . had they laid their heads together to contrive this story , which is impossible they should do without discoursing with one another beforehand , yet , there being so many other several witnesses , to prove several other circumstances , as their meeting at bow at the ale-house , and the maid swearing that hill was at sir edmundbury godfry's house , and spake with him that morning he was murthered , and that he had the same cloaths on which he had then at the bar , pag. 39. they also must be thought to have conspired with them , to take away the life of two or three men without any provocation or reward ; a thing so unlikely , that it cannot enter into the thought of any rational man ; nor can any christian believe , so many could joyn together to invent so horrid a lie , to take away mens lives for nothing : nay if it were granted they might , i cannot believe they could have contrived so many several circumstances without the least variation , and without being intrapped by so many wise and judicious men who sifted them ; and the more , because of the strange obstinacy and denial of the criminals . having therefore seriously considered all things , i cannot but admire that any in england should doubt of the guilt of these murtherers . all i can find of any weight in their defences for themselves is of little consideration to invalidate such strong proofs . that they all denyed it very stoutly to the last is true , but that is of no value against such plain evidence , and but aggravates their crime . hill would have invalidated mr. prance his testimony because he had deny'd it : but that has already been cleared , and could no ways legally take off his evidence , for he was no ways perjur'd . but then to evade the matter , he brings several witnesses , all of his own religion , to aver he was never from his lodgings after nine of the clock at night : but these do it so mincingly and generally , that no stress can be laid upon them , it being proved that they had several keys to the door , and that hill might go in and out without their knowledge , and one of his witnesses makes but a mistake of a whole month , pag. 55. and two of green's witnesses a whole week , pag. 66. so ill had they calculated the time which they intended to speak to . there is nothing that can be thought to be of any moment in all that the witnesses said in behalf of the prisoners , but what the souldiers say in behalf of berry , pag. 68. and 69. who were placed at the gate sentinels , and they say that they saw a sedan come in , so far they agree with the king's evidence , but then they confidently aver none went out all that night . but what is this to the matter of fact , and to the murther committed sworn in all circumstances so punctually to ? for the sentinel might be from his post , and mr. prance says ( who knew of the contrivance ) pag. 16. of his printed narrative of this murther , that berry had beforehand got the sentinel into his house to drink , that he might not see the sedan go out ; and the sentinel knowing he had committed a great fault by so doing , was so wise ; though not very honest , to conceal it . and this is the most of colour they could produce that might any ways cause the least hesitation , and how far this single testimony will go to invalidate a testimony so full , and not any ways to be contradicted , let the world judge ; i must confess it has given me full satisfaction , and i hope will give the like to all others , who are impartial men , that shall reade the same . i must indeed declare that it seems somewhat strange , that nothing should work upon these men to acknowledge their crime at their death ; but that they should take it upon their salvation , that they died innocent of this murther they suffer'd for , as the child that was newly born . but i fear they were under some horrid delusion , and were so charm'd and bound up by so many oaths and sacraments , by their ghostly fathers the jesuites , who had brought them to this , that they durst not acknowledge the truth , or that they thought by this means they should do great service to the romish church , and be sainted for it in heaven . and the printed account of hill's confession seems to make it plain , for there was found in his pocket after he was executed a very formal confession , written not with his own hand , neither had he pen , ink or paper all the time he was in prison , and his wife witnessed it was not her husband's hand . how he came by it none could tell , but it was very formally drawn , and in which i observe he stoutly denies the fact , and calls god and angels to witness his innocency , and that he is wrongfully put to death , and for that cause cites all such as had a hand in his death , and particularly the lord chief justice , with the jury and witnesses , &c. shewing a very wicked and uncharitable spirit in the indicter , for i suppose this was given to hill to con against the time of his execution , and of which lesson he repeated as much as he could remember . so that i cannot but believe the obstinacy of these men proceeds from the jesuits , for it is plain this writing was prepared for him by some other , and not by himself . i shall also inform you of another trick invented by these men . upon the general report of the plot , in some parts more remote from us , and where the informations were uncertain , lest it should spread farther , they had framed a formal writing , as under the hand and seal of a person of quality , with several other pretended authentick witnesses , which was shewn about in several borough-towns , and noted places , as a certificate to inform the people that there was no such plot in england , as had been invented by divers factious and seditious people , to the scandal of divers peaceable people of the romish faith in england , and that there had been no such person murther'd as had been reported to be , and that there was not any such person at all as sir edmundbury godfry , and that these reports were wholly false and all lies , raised by malicious and factious people , to cause uproars in england , and to disquiet the peace of the king and kingdom , and such like stuff : which i hear has done them notable service to take off the credit of the report of this horrid plot , among the ignorant and vulgar people : but , as i hear , some have sent letters purposely to the recorder of london to be certified of the truth of this . besides all these tryals and positive proofs of a most horrid and desperate plot , deeply laid and vigorously prosecuted , whereby the plot very manifestly appears to all men of sense and reason , and they must be wilfully blind , or desperately deluded , that will not give credit to what hath been so solemnly sworn , and so openly made known , the narrative published by mr. oates being 81. articles , all sworn to , and deposed by him , before sir edmundbury godfry when alive , and since , before the lords of his majestie 's privy council , doth yet more manifestly set out the grounds and manner of this plot , the progress and discovery thereof , so fully , amply , and with so many concurrent circumstances , that it is the strangest thing in the world any should question the verity and reality of the same ; whenas none appears that can intrap him in contradictions , or disprove what he hath sworn to , and when he is backt by the testimony of others : that yet i say any should be stagger'd with the confidence and obstinacy of a few dying traytors , and the whispering perswasions of the jesuits against the testimony of their own eyes and ears , against both sense and reason it self , 't is strange , and wonderfully strange , and makes me think that they are infatuated , or strangely deluded . for it is plain , that the design extended as well into scotland and ireland , as through england ; and mr. oates swears positively in the first article , that one wright , ireland and morgan were sent into scotland under the notion , and in the disguise of non-conformist ministers , to preach up the covenant , and to promote rebellion by that means : and artic. 11. he swears that letters were sent to s. omars , and to leshee the king of france his confessour , which letters he had seen and read , which gave an account that their emissaries in scotland had stirred up the presbyterians there into a rebellion , and that 20000 would be in arms if his majesty of france would break with the king of england . and artic. 35. deposes , that he was by at a conference with the jesuits in london , wherein they read the order from the provincial for the sending new messengers into scotland , to promote the combustions there ; and this was in july last . and artic. 43. he farther swears , that on the 5. of august two were sent away for scotland , the one named father moor , the other f. saunders alias brown , ( for they have usually divers names ) with full instructions how to behave themselves as non-conformist ministers , and to preach to the disaffected scots the necessity of taking up the sword for the defence of liberty of conscience : and these the deponent saw dispatch'd . and artic. 74. swears he saw letters from white the provincial , dated at s. ontars 4. of sept. new style , which gave an account to rich. blundell , that 12 more jesuits of that nation were sent into scotland , by order of the general of the society , with full instructions how to behave themselves like non-conformist ministers among the presbyterian scots ; and that they had 1000 li. given them by leshee the french king's confessour : so that we may easily perceive by what means the rebellion of scotland is promoted . as to ireland , where they have a far greater interest , they had sufficient means and preparations there to stir up the irish of their own religion , and under their thraldome and command , to rebell . and article 18. mr. oates deposes , letters came from the archbishop of dublin talbot , which letters he saw and read at s. omars , bearing date jan. 1. 1678. new style , which gave an account how vigilant they had been in that kingdom , to prepare the people to rise for the defence of their religion and liberty , and to recover their estates , and that they would open a place there to receive the king of france his army when he should think fit to land them , and advised them to confer with leshee the french king's confessour about the same . and he farther deposes , that letters were thereupon sent to leshee about the same , who returned answers by the same messengers , nevill and busby , one being prefect of the studies , and the other procurator to the seminary , one of which to the rectour of s. omars , richard ashby , the deponent saw , which gave an account that the father general of the society would contribute 800000 crowns , to be paid in the month of june next ensuing , and that his holiness the pope would not be wanting to supply them when they had made some progress in that glorious attempt . and article 21. he there deposes , that he likewise saw letters of feb. 1. 1678. new style , from whitebread , keines , ireland , micho and the rest , to richard ashby rectour of s. omars , to let him understand that they had sent william morgan and f. lovell into ireland , to see how affairs stood in that kingdom ; and that they had instructions given them to incourage the irish natives to defend their religion and liberty ; and that they carried with them 2000 li. to supply their present wants , and order to promise 4000 li. more in case there should be any action . and article 27. he farther deposes , that in the month of april following , he saw the letters which whitebread and the rest of the jesuits in london sent to richard ashby rectour , and those of the seminary at s. omars ; in which they gave them an account that morgan and lovell were returned out of ireland , who gave them to understand , that the irish were ready to rise at 10 days warning with 20000 foot and 5000 horse , and would let in the army of the french king if he would land there ; and also that in the north of ireland , 15000 horse and foot were in a readiness to rise , and that they were also very resolute ; and also that there were arrived commissions from the general of the society , by virtue of a brief from the pope , dated oct. 1. 1673. to several persons , and that they once more resolved to cut the throats of the protestants when they should rise . thus we may perceive what provision they had made , and how well prepared they were in those kingdoms , to effect their horrid plot and conspiracy : but that they might leave no stone unturn'd , and that they might every-where work the destruction of the protestants , i find artic. 38. mr. oates swears , that he saw and read at mr. fenwick's chamber in london , on the 11. of august , letters from s. omars , from the provincial whitebread , that he had ordered 12 jesuits to goe to holland , to inform the dutch privately , that the prince of orange did intend to assume the crown , and to be their king , and to bring them under his government : which was to beget an evil opinion of the prince of orange in the dutch , and so to cause a commotion against the prince and his party . also artic. 56. he farther deposes , that the letters came from the said whitebread and the rest , to john fenwick and the rest ; which letters he also saw and read dated 20. aug. new style , which gave account that the 12 jesuits were safely arrived in holland , and were using all their skill and interest to make a commotion there ; and that appletree will ( by which they meant the prince ) should not be great there , urging the fathers in london to mind their business . by all this you may perceive the general ruine of the protestants was laid , and the large extent of this plot. three kingdoms at once were to be in a flame , and the neighbouring provinces to be put into a combustion . but this plot had been several years a hatching , and if mr. oates swears truth , ( as there is no scruple to be raised but he does , for ought i can see by any objection raised against him ) we now know the manner and authours of the great and famous fire of london 1666. for artic. 34. he deposes , that he had it from the mouth of richard strange , who had been provincial of the jesuits , who told him , that this fire had been several times attempted by him and others in the years 1664 , and 1665. being assisted by one green , and 8 others , under the notion of fifth monarchy men ; but that failing , and some of them being laid in newgate , they desisted till 1666. when they fully effected it by his means , and by the assistence of gray , pennington and barton jesuits , and keimash a dominican frier , with one fitz-girald an irish jesuite , and one neal of white-chappel , and 50 or 60 irish-men , hired for that purpose to ply the work , and sling about the fire-balls ; and that one everard kept them for them , being one then in the king's service , and look'd after the ammunition that was carrying down to the fleet in the dutch war. that this strange went then by the name of walker , and lay in fanchurch-street , and with him lay keimash the dominican ; that pennington and barton lay in shoe-lane , and that gray and fitz-girald lay at neal's house in white chappell , which neal was one that was to see the fire carried along thames-street : and also that as soon as the fire was begun , the said neal knockt them up , and gave them notice about 12 a clock in the night , and that there were in all about 80 or 86 persons employed in the service , and that 700 fire-balls were spent in the service ; and also that they had others , both men and women , who were employed to plunder , and that they got in jewels , plate , fine linens , money , and other things to the value of 14000 li. and that they had a ware-house in wild-street to lay up such goods , with many other particulars : so that you may now see by what means that famous fire was effected . then artic. 49. the same deponent swears , that he had it from john grove's own mouth , in wild-house garden , that he with 3 irish men , having purposely prepared certain fire-works , went into the borough of southwark , where finding an oyl-shop , they set it on fire , and that they had among them 1000 li. reward , that these irish-men were procured by dr. fogarthy , and that they got 2000 li. by that fire ; the same being also told to the deponent at another time by richard strange . this is not sufficient , they had designed another general fire , as the deponent swears , artic. 71. that one blundell , that was engaged in this conspiracy , shewed him in fenwick's chamber a draught of london , and the manner how it was to be fired anew , and to be carried on from wapping to westminster , or from westminster to wapping , according as the wind sate , and named the several parties , who were to carry it on from place to place ; and that the deponent , with 7 others , had order to ply the business about the armitage , and for his reward he was to have 1000 li. and 80 li. more for former services ; and this paper was signed by whitebread in the name of the whole society . and artic. 77. he swears , that richard blundell , after that the deponent had begun to be discovered to desert them , was appointed to supply his place , and to take care of carrying on the fire at wapping in his room . these must be very strange and formal inventions of mr. oates his framing , or horrid and black designs of these mens effecting ; and certainly it appears by all the agreeing circumstances that the latter is true , and that there appears nothing to make the first likely , but the stout denial of those who suffer'd for the same . artic. 28. he swears , that to the number of 50 jesuits met at the consult at the white-horse tavern in the strand , being on purpose called by whitebread , for the effecting this plot and horrid conspiracy , now brought almost to an head ; and that from thence they all adjourned to several clubs , or private meetings , at their several chambers . and artic. 72. he deposes , that the pope had issued out a bull , shewed to him the 30. of august , and bearing date in november or december before , wherein he disposes of several dignitaries in england , and there are named the several archbishops , bishops , abbats , deans , &c. he also gives you a list of the chief of the conspiratours pag. 58. both of the jesuits , and the other orders of priests , secular and lay persons , both in england and beyond the seas , concerned in this most horrid conspiracy : and also pag. 61. gives you a list of the several lords , and other commanders or general officers , colonels , captains , &c. in the militia , making a full and ample discovery of the same , to the great satisfaction of all people , excepting those that are wilfully blind ; and no doubt to the great trouble and consternation of the conspirators . and indeed it was no wonder , that the provincial whitebread was so very angry and enraged against him , as he deposes artic. 77. and that when they had begun to suspect mr. oates , upon the first noise of the discovery of a plot , he ask'd him with what face he could look on him having betrayed them , and box'd him and caned him in his passion , having thereupon taken an order for the sending him the deponent immediately beyond the seas to secure him ; which they had done , had he not hid himself out of the way , and been secured ever since from their clutches . 't is very strange that after all this , any , in england especially , shall openly say , and seem to averr , that this is no plot , but a feigned thing and chimaera . but it is too manifest , and you ought to give god thanks , and solemnly to acknowledge his great care and mercy to your nation , government , and religion ; and also to reward those who have been the instruments of this discovery , what-ever they were before , for by sin grace doth abound . much bloud and many murthers have been prevented , which it is plain they intended ; for otherwise they could not have effected their design : and more especially the death of his sacred majesty was aimed at and contrived by these wicked and execrable men , as appears by these depositions of mr. oates ; and they had contrived several ways to doe it , either to stab him , shoot him , or poison him . for the first they had chosen conyers and anderton , benedictine monks , and four irish russians ; for the second groves and pickering are prepared ; and for the last wakeman is hired . artic. 13. the deponent swears , he saw and read the letter from whitebread and others the chief of the society , wherein they gave order that father leshee should be wrote to , and informed , that they were resolved , for the advancement of their happy design , to find an opportunity to take the king from his kingdom : or if they could not do that , they would take his kingdom from him . and artic. 29. not long after the great consult at london about murthering the king , whitebread being then come to s. omars , he the deponent heard him say in his chamber on the 11. of june to this effect , that he hoped to see the king laid fast enough , for that he was grown secure , and would hear no complaints against them . artic. 68. mr. oates likewise swears , that conyers employed by these jesuits to stab the king , shewed the deponent the dagger which he had bought on purpose to effect it , and cost him 10 s. declaring the manner how he intended to effect it at windsor ; and ( mark the great providence of god in preserving the life of his majesty ) that being on his way thither , with this bloudy design in his heart , his horse fell lame , that he was forced to return , being almost five miles on his way . the several other attempts upon the life of his sacred majesty by groves , pickering , and the russians , and the intention of wakeman , and reward , to poison him , were spoke to before , and sufficiently evidenced . thus having given you at large an account of my thoughts concerning this horrid plot and bloudy conspiracy , with the reasons and proofs that appeared sufficient to convince me , and to make me believe that these traytors that have suffered were guilty , and justly deserved the punishment the laws inflicted upon them for the same , and which has in some measure convinced others , who have seen and read them ; i shall conclude with my prayers for the prosperity of the king and the whole nation , that the one may enjoy an happy peace , liberty and prosperity ; and that the other may continue with long life and all manner of felicity ; and that the care and providence of heaven will protect them both from all evil conspiratours , and wicked plotters ; and that god will work upon the hearts of some of those who are yet in prison for this conspiracy , and e're it be too late , cause them to make a generous and free confession of the whole design , that the world may be better satisfied , and that there may be no scruple left of the verity of these things . and i also hope it will be the care of the parliament , when they meet , to goe on with their good intention of securing the nation for the time to come , and the person of his sacred majesty , from the machinations and conspiracies of the jesuits and their emissaries ; by not onely reviving all the poenal laws in that case , but by making others that may give a certain security to the peace of the nation . i will not stand to beg your pardon , since your commands drew on you the trouble of this long letter ; and therefore i shall onely tell you , that i am , sir , your humble servant , d. g. s. omars , june 24. new style . an appendix to the foregoing letter . the foregoing letter being wrote and received before the trials of the five jesuits , last executed upon the account of the horrid plot and conspiracy , and of mr. langhorn for the same , and being thought by some judicious persons , and lovers of the peace and welfare of their country , fitting to be published for the satisfaction of the people ; the strange obstinacy and denial of these five jesuits , whitebread , harcourt , fenwick , gawin , and turner , at their execution , calling god and angels to witness of their innocency , and taking it upon their salvation , that they were falsly accused , and knew nothing of any such plot as is pretended against them , having made a strange impression upon the minds of some ignorant , and some well-minded people , who cannot believe they could go out of the world with such a lie in their mouths , to the damnation of their souls , i thought it requisite to abbreviate also the trials of these men , that the truth may appear , that they had a just , equal , and legal trial ; and that they could not be guiltless and unknowing of this horrid plot , as they pretend , but were legally and by full proof condemned for the same : for that many people will not go to the price of their trials , that would however give six-pence to be satisfied . and therefore i shall follow the same method my friend at s. omars did in the foregoing trials , and point out to the plain proof and evidence in the printed trials more fully expressed . but i also advertise , that here you shall find some evidence that has since come to light , and has made things yet more apparent . first , take notice that these priests and jesuits are not tried upon the statute of 27 eliz. which would have made them guilty for being in orders , and remaining here in england ; but they are tried as traytors in conspiring the death of the king's majesty , and the utter subversion of the protestant religion , and the bringing in of popery , which was the end of this great plot : and now judge how it is proved against them . the evidences are long and tedious , but the main proof and what is positive appears , first against mr. whitebread pag. 12. where mr. oates swears , that in april 1678. old style , or may new style , according to the order of the said whitebread provincial , there was a consult , in which were whitebread , fenwick , harcourt and turner ; and that all these did in his presence sign the resolve for the death of the king. against these four he swears positively : and that whitebread should say after he was returned to s. omars , in the deponent's hearing , words to this effect , that he hoped to see the king's head laid fast enough . and pag. 16. he swears , that fenwick on the 25. of august ( 78. ) at his chamber in london , did deliver mr. oates some money for necessary charges , and did then admonish him to procure some masses to be said for a prosperous success upon the design . then pag. 22. he swears , that turner was at the consult in fenwick's chamber in london , and that there he saw him sign the resolve of the king's death . and pag. 15. he swears against gawen , that though he did not see him at the consult in april , yet he saw his hand , and makes it out how he knew it to be his hand , and that he gave them in london an account how affairs stood in staffordshire and shropshire july 1678. and how the lord stafford was very diligent , and how prosperous their affairs were in those countries , and that there was two or three thousand pound ready there to carry on the design ; and farther swears , that sometime in july he met gawen at mr. ireland's chamber in london , where he gave to father ireland the same account as he had before written , in his hearing . the next thing i observe is a new evidence , one mr. dugdale , whom the prisoners do not endeavour to bespatter as they had done mr. oates and bedlow : and this man had no knowledge or acquaintance with mr. oates and bedlow , and could not conspire with them to take away the lives of men that were innocent . you will see how far he agrees with them , and what a positive proof he is against the prisoners . pag. 22. mr. dugdale swears against whitebread , that he saw a letter from him to mr. ewers a jesuit , and confessour to mr. dugdale , in which he gave him a caution , to be sure to chuse those that were trully and resolute , no matter whether they were gentlemen , if stout and couragious : and then shews how he knew it to be whitebread's hand . and this he swears too again , that he saw the words in express terms under his hand pag. 29. to kill the king. against gawen he swears positively , that he entertained him to be of the conspiracy to murther the king , as one of those resolute fellows mentioned by whitebread . and pag. 23. he swears . that they had several consultations in the country , in several places which he names , and particularly at boscobel , for the murthering of the king and the bringing in of popery ; ( this sure proves the plot ) in which gawen was a chief oratour to perswade people into this design . another meeting to this purpose he swears was at tixal , where gawen also was in septemb. 1678. and that the consult then was , for the introducing of popery , and the taking away the life of the king : and that he being a person chosen for that purpose , was to be sent to london by mr. harcourt , to be under the tuition of one parsons ; and that mr. gawen discoursed of it to him , and incouraged him in it , pag. 24. and that he had given them 400 li. for the carrying on of this design , and to pray for his soul ; and that he had promised them 100 li. more , for which they told him he should be canoniz'd a saint . and that this discourse of killing the king , and introducing popery , was in the parlour in the lord aston's house , and in ewers chamber . and pag. 25. mr. dugdale farther swears , he heard them discourse at one of these consults , that it was the opinion of those at paris , who were concerned in this conspiracy , that as soon as the deed was done , that is the killing the king , they should lay it on the presbyterians , that they might by that means provoke the other protestants to cut them off , and then they might the more easily cut their throats ; and that they should have an army in readiness to cut off all such as were not ( or would not be ) papists : and also that mr. gawen should tell him , neither men nor money should be wanting from beyond the seas , and endeavoured by several arguments to prove the design lawfull ; and also , by scripture , that it was lawfull and good to destroy any for the advantage of their religion ; and shewed the example of father garnet , and how that several of his reliques beyond sea had done great miracles . and pag. 26. he swears , that he had intercepted and read ( for their letters came under his cover ) an 100 letters to the same purpose , all tending to the introducing popery and the killing the king. and now i am to take notice to you of a most clear and manifest evidence , that sir edmundbury godfry was murthered by the knowledge and contrivance of these men , and which till now never came to light , and proves it as plain as the sun at noon : for pag. 26. the same mr. dugdale swears , that on the monday next after the murther of sir edmundbury godfry , he received a letter directed to mr. ewers the jesuit , being in the countrey , and which letter came from london by the saturday-nights post , the same night sir edmundbury godfry was murthered , from mr. harcourt , signed w. h. his usual mark , and that he knew his hand ; in which letter these words were wrote , this night sir edmundbury godfry is dispatch'd : and that then , he the deponent should say to ewers , that very thing would overthrow their design : and this was three days before any in london ( except those privy to the murther ) could tell what was become of this knight : so as the thing is plain harcourt knew of it . then to prove this is none of dugdale's invention , one mr. chetwin was sworn , pag. 27 , 28. who says , that being at that time in the country near where mr. dugdale was , the next day being tuesday october the 15. another gentleman came to him , and asked him if he had any news of a justice of peace in westminster that was kill'd , for that he had heard it so reported at one eld's house , by mr. dugdale . chetwin replied he heard nothing of it , but that the next saturdays post brought him the news of sir edmundbury godfry's murther , and tells by good circumstances how he knew it to be that very day : and also that he was not in town when the murtherers of sir edmundbury godfry were tried , or else he would have witnessed the same . this is a clear evidence these men knew of this murther . against turner , mr. dugdale swears pag. 30. that he saw him with others at ewers his chamber , where they consulted together to carry on this design , and that he agreed to all that he had sworn as to the plot ; that is the bringing in of popery , and the killing of the king. then pag. 30. mr. prance swears against harcourt , that he told him such a day , when he bought an image of the virgin mary of him , to send into mary-land , that there was a design of killing the king. against fenwick he swears pag. 31. that he told him in mr. ireland's chamber in russel-street , ireland and grove being by , that there should be 50000 men in a readiness to carry on the cause , and settle their religion ; and that he asked fenwick who should govern them , who then replied , the lord bellasis , the lord powis , and the lord arundel . the next witness is mr. bedlow , who gives an account why he did not before give in his evidence against whitebread and fenwick , because he was then finding out the bribery of reading , in behalf of the lords in the tower. but now he positively swears pag. 32. that he had seen both whitebread and fenwick at the consults about this plot , and that he heard whitebread tell coleman the manner of sending the four russians to windsor to kill the king , and this was in harcourt's chamber ; and also , that he saw harcourt take the money out of a cabinet , about 80. or 100 li. and give it the messenger , by mr. coleman's order , with a guiny for the messenger to drink coleman's health , which coleman left , as harcourt himself said . and pag. 33. he swears that whitebread told him , that pickering was to have a great number of masses , and that grove was to have 1500 li. for killing the king. and pag. 35. he swears , that harcourt employed him several times to carry their consults beyond the seas , and that he received , in harcourt's presence , mr. coleman's thanks for his fidelity , and that harcourt recommended him to the lord arundel , who promised him great favour when the times were turned . also , that he saw harcourt give sir george wakeman a bill to receive 2000 li. in part of a greater sum , and that he heard sir george say , 15000 li. was a small reward for the settling religion and preserving three kingdoms from ruine . these are the chief proofs which are punctually sworn to , besides some letters found among harcourt's papers that gave some light of this design , and strengthened the evidence very much , which i pass over . and in this evidence you may observe , that there is the testimony of three , mr. oates , dugdale , and bedlow , against whitebread . and likewise three quite blank against fenwick , viz. oates , bedlow and prance . and against harcourt , very fully four , oates , pugdale , bedlow and prance . against gawen , there is positively dugdale and oates . and against turner two likewise , dugdale and oates . whereby the matter of fact is plainly proved , and the evidence full and legal , notwithstanding their denial of the same . now we will see what defence these learned men do make for themselves : and , as my lord chief justice says , they defend their lives as they do their religion , with weak arguments and fallacious reasons , which take many times with the ignorant , seldom with the judicious . as to the matter of fact charged against them , they can say nothing by way of disproof , excepting their stout denials ; and they are not ashamed to contradict all oaths , how punctually soever sworn to , and in the face of the court to charge them all with perjury , but prove nothing that can truly invalidate the testimony that is brought against them . all they endeavour is by way of evasion , and to catch at circumstances , as to time and place : and to disprove mr. oates , they came as to that prepared , as they thought , and had brought a small regiment of young lads , well trained in their principles , who endeavour'd to have perswaded the jury that mr. oates was at s. omar's , at the time he said he was in london , and that such persons did not come over with him as he had sworn did . but supposing they had made this allegation good , still , i say , it depended upon the nice circumstance of time , which mr. oates might be mistaken in , and yet the truth of the plot no way invalidated , nor those matters of fact charged against them by the other witnesses any ways disproved . but you shall hear their defence , and how far they could make this allegation good , and how well mr. oates has defended himself , and then judge . the first thing that whitebread and fenwick object is , that they had come to a former trial , and therefore thought , legally they ought not to answer for the same fact , pag. 4. but the court cleared that to them , that though indicted they came not upon their trial , and the jury had them not in charge , and so their lives were not in jeopardy , and that it was the constant course of the law so to do , with several reasons and examples for the same , there more fully shewn , pag. 5. and 6. they then pleaded , as the rest , not guilty . as to their evasions and odd interpretations of the letters , and their aspersions of mr. oates and mr. bedlow as insufficient witnesses , they are little to the purpose , therefore i shall pass them by . the main in their defence , is their offering to prove mr. oates mistaken in point of time ; for whereas he had sworn positively against them , that he was with them at their consult , wherein they determined the death of the king , held the twenty fourth of april , old style , in london , they allege and endeavour to prove by at least sixteen witnesses , young lads of the college or seminary at s. omar's , that they saw mr. oates almost every day there in the college , from december 1677. to the middle or latter end of june following , and that he was never out of the college , but that they saw him every day , and convers'd and dined with him all that time , except two days and one night he was absent at watton , and two or three days that he was in the infirmary , he not being well , and that some of them saw and spake with him in the infirmary ; and by several circumstances they seem to make all these asseverations good . so that if this be true , and that they can perswade the jury to believe this testimony , ( as they ought , if no ways to be disproved ) they have done their work , as to mr. oates . and this they do pag. 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51. and so to pag. 63. so that it is impossible that mr. oates should swear truth , and that he should be in london the twenty fourth of april at the consult , if what these witnesses say be true , and that mr. oates was never out of the college , till some time in june , from december before : and so his testimony ought to be invalidate . then , whereas mr. oates had sworn he came over with sir john warner and sir tho. preston jesuits , they endeavour to prove , and from pag. 60. to 63. the witnesses do confidently aver , that the said persons were not , the one from liege , the other from watton in flanders , neither april nor may , and so mr. oates could not come over with them to england as he had sworn . let us now see how mr. oates doth make good his testimony , and what proof he brings to contradict these novices who came so well prepared . first by the way , we must observe , that most of the witnesses say , that mr. oates left their college some time in june , some say the tenth , some at the latter end , &c. but pag. 53. one witness mistakes his month , and avers he is sure it was in july , that mr. oates went away : and being told that he differ'd from all the rest , he cry'd , he was sure he was there till after the consult in london ; which gave a great light to what point of time these novices were instructed to speak to , and caused the people to laugh , to see the young man out in his part . but to let that pass , we will see mr. oates his proofs , and he brings at least seven substantial witnesses , who swear they saw him in london in april and may 1678. the time they aver him to be at s. omar's . page 80. mr. walker a minister swears , that in april ( 78. ) he met mr. oates in s. martin's lane disguised in a serge coat and gray hat , which he wondered at , not knowing he was turn'd jesuite : and the next morning he relates the same to one mrs. ives , who in court swears the same , that in april the said mr. walker came to her shop and told her , that the day before he had met mr. oates at the upper end of saint martins-lane , near leicester-house , in disguise . so that you have here one positive witness , and a strong concurrent testimony . pag. 81. mrs. mayo swears more punctually as to point of time , that a week before whitsuntide , or thereabouts , which was in may , she saw mr. oates in sir richard barker's court-yard in london , and that one of sir richard's men told her , that it was mr. oates , and that he was either turn'd quaker or catholick ; but that she said he was no quaker , because he then wore a perriwig : and that about a week after she saw him again walking in the garden with another gentleman : and swears this mr. oates then in court was the same man she had seen . the other young man that the knew mr. oates was dead . then pag. 81. one page swears that he saw this mr. oates in a gray or light-coloured campaign coat , and discours'd with him at sir richard barker's in may ( 78. ) and tells a circumstance to prove his knowledge that it was in may. then sir richard barker swears , that his servants told him that mr. oates was at his house about whitsuntide , and that he was there in two several disguises , once with short hair , and another time with a perriwig , and that they thought he was turn'd either quaker or papist . then pag. 83. sir richard barker's coachman swears , he was well acquainted with mr. oates , and that he was at sir richard's house in barbican in the beginning of may ( 78. ) with his hair cut close to his ears , in gray cloaths and a gray coat , and then enquired of him for d. tongue ; and that he knew him well for three years before , and is very sure he in court was the same man. pag. 84. mr. smith , schoolmaster at islington , swears , that in the beginning of may 1678. he dined with him at his house in islington , and , as he remembers , it was the first monday in may , and that he knew him well , for he had been his scholar at merchant-taylours school when he was usher there : and that he stayed with him three or four hours after dinner discoursing of his travels . then mr. clay swears , pag. 84. and 85. that he met mr. oates in april and afterwards in may ( 78. ) at mr. howard's , who lived in one corner of arundel-house , and that this was the same man he saw there : and this mr. clay , who testified this , is a roman catholick ; so that they are not all protestants that he brings to annul their evidence , but one of their own religion , who durst speak truth . and now let all the world judge , whether the jury had any reason to think that mr. oates his evidence was any ways weakened by all that those novices had averr'd , knowing that the protestant religion allows in no case of telling a lie , much less of swearing falsely . as to their averring , that sir jo. warner and sir tho. preston were at their several places of residence all april and may , and so could not come over with mr. oates to england , as he had sworn , mr. oates not knowing of what they would have insisted on , was not prepared with witnesses to back that testimony : but it being a matter of little or no consequence , and they failing of making good the more substantial part of their defence , we may well believe they also made a false report in this latter , as well as in the former . then mr. gawen pag. 63. undertakes also to prove that he was in the country in staffordshire all april , june and july , the time of the consult , and the time that mr. oates had sworn he saw his hand to the consult : and for this he brings several witnesses from pag. 63. to 69. but , whoever considers well what the evidence says there in the prisoners behalf , will find , that these witnesses were not so confident as those from s. omar's , and that they speak so mincingly and give so weak reasons , that in truth it appears not by what they say , but that mr. gawen might step up to london , and sign this consult in few days , without their knowledge ; for they cannot but say , he was sometimes at the lord aston's : but pag. 65. mrs. winford says , she knows he could not go to london , because he had not his linnen with him : and this is all the reason , which is a very weak one . to this mr. oates swears again , pag. 67. that he saw him in london , either in the beginning or middle of july : then mr. gawen brings several witnesses pag. 68. and 69. that indeed prove he was not in london , but at wolverhampton the latter end of july , but as to the beginning or middle of the month , none of them can speak ; so that the thing is plain he doth not contradict mr. oates his testimony , for he might be in the country all the time his witnesses aver , and yet be in london at the time mr. oates had sworn . then pag. 69. mr. whitebread offers witnesses to prove that d. oates had sworn an untruth , and therefore he was not probus testis a credible witness , in that he had sworn mr. ireland was in london the middle of august and beginning of september , which he could prove was false : but the court let him know , that having already received a verdict it ought not to be heard again : yet pag. 71. they were so favourable as to hear his witnesses , though to that point ; and 72 , 73. to 76. some witnesses that were not at ireland's tryal do aver , that mr. ireland was in staffordshire from the fourth to the twenty sixth of august , so that it could not be true what mr. oates had sworn , that he was in london about the middle of august . against this evidence you have not onely d. oates his testimony upon his oath , but also sarah pain pag. 78. and 79. appeared in court , who there gave in the same evidence she had done in the former tryal of mr. ireland , that she saw mr. ireland going into mr. groves his house , and that she made a curtisie to him , about the middle of august , which is the time that d. oates charges him to be in town . so that you have two witnesses on oath , that contradict those brought by the prisoners . but since they have made a great talk of this evidence , and have said that they had several witnesses against two , one of them being their accuser , and that some have thought this point not sufficiently cleared , i have for the satisfaction of the world here published what hath since come to my hands , and not at the time of the tryals of these persons known , which is a very great confirmation of the truth of d. oates his testimony , and i hope will give much satisfaction . a letter from mr. jennison , a papist , touching mr. ireland's being in london in august 1678. which more clearly proves , that what he asserted at his tryal , and not onely there , but in articulo mortis , at the gallows , and what his party affirmed in court and offer'd to swear , ( that he was in staffordshire and out of london from the fifth of august ( 78 ) to the seventh of september following , ) is a great untruth : which is a material strengthening to the evidence against him , and confirmation of mr. oates his testimony . which did come to light since the death of mr. ireland , and is now published for the satisfaction of those who might any ways doubt thereof , and think that the king's evidence was not full therein . reading decemb. 19. 1678. dear sir , yours i had bearing date the fifteenth of this instant , and have not missed a post i could send to you by . i am not ignorant of the offer made by his majestie 's proclamation , and lay hold of nothing but pardon for concealing what circumstances i have known so long : yet did not altogether conceal it neither , for i told my cousin smith of it within two or three days , of the breaking out of this damnable conspiracy , which how much it weighs i am not sit to judge . the speaking of truth is an action that rewards it self ; and i would not , were it to gain a million , nay a million of worlds if possible , draw the least drop of innocent bloud upon me , for i know it is a crying sin , therefore i pray god avert it from me . all that i can tell you , as i hope for forgiveness of my sins , and eternal salvation , is ( if you will distinguish betwixt the times ) what follows . being come from windsor , where i promised my self the happiness and satisfaction of seeing you , that i might take my leave before my journey for the north , which , to the best of my memory , was about the latter end of august , i went to do the same to mr. ireland , whom then ( with all the rest ) i did believe a man of the best conversation and life in the world ; for you know the law does presume every man good , unless he be proved otherwise . after my salute , and i had told him i had been at windsor , his interragatory or question was , what news ? my return was the usual , no news but good . then he proceeded to ask me ( to the best of my memory ) how his sacred majesty and the court diverted . i replyed , that i heard his majesty took much delight in hawking and fishing , but chiefly in the latter , which his majesty followed early in the morning , as i heard , accompanied onely with two or three lords , or other attendants . i wonder , says mr. ireland , why his majesty should be so thin guarded , he were easily taken off , or removed ; or some words to that purpose , so sounding . god forbid , i returned . no , subjoyns he , i do not say it is lawfull ; and something else which i cannot call to mind , that did qualifie the former words , that i did then think his meaning was , he was sorry his sacred majesty should go so weakly guarded . i then took it by that handle , having no other reason , for i did believe him a saint , never hearing him or any of them , as i hope for everlasting life , defend or maintain in the least that damnable doctrine of deposing kings : but now i know that passage may be taken by the other handle , and i 'm not fit to judge how far ; yet you know words are to be taken in the milder sense , unless they be positive , which these with their qualification that followed , and the time they were spoke in , i humbly conceive , with submission to better judgments , were not ; for if i had believed they were , they should have seen light sooner . i suppose there is clearer evidence then this from mr. oates , that better knew him then i. taken from the original letter , june 21. ( 79. ) robert jennison . some observations or remarks upon the foregoing letter . first , the words spoken by mr. ireland to mr. jennison , though then with a plain-meaning man , and one ignorant of their plot , though a papist , they might receive that candid interpretation he put upon them ; yet since it hath been made known , we may very well have a suspicion that mr. ireland made those queries in relation to the horrid design of murthering the king , which they then expected to be effected by the four ruffians , which made ireland say , hearing how slenderly he was guarded , that he might then be easily taken off . but not to strain words against a man , when such positive proofs have been brought to condemn him , we bring not here this letter so much to prove the plot , as to be a very strong concurrent evidence against mr. ireland , as to his being in london in august , which he denied , and his evidence seemed to make good : and therefore as to that i desire you will consider , that the king went to windsor the thirteenth or fourteenth of august ( 78 ) as is proved by sir robert southwell and by sir tho. dolman , at the trials ; it was indeed the fourteenth . that mr. jennison in his letter writes thus , being come from windsor , i went to take my leave of mr. ireland , before i took my journey into the north : and mr. ireland asked , what news from windsor ? how does the king pass his time , & c ? which notoriously proves that his discourse with ireland was , when the king was at windsor , and after mr. jennison came from thence , and before he went into the north , to wit , betwixt the nineteenth of august and the fourth of september , and implies that it was immediately after his coming from windsor by the question , what news from thence ? and it is the more likely that it was immediately after , because mr. jennison himself says , he is sure it was a good while before he went into the north. that this time nearly agrees with sarah pain 's testimony at ireland's trial. see the trial , fol. 57. that ireland was try'd the seventeenth of december ( 78. ) and mr. jennison's letter was writ from reading in berks ( whither he was gone in obedience to the proclamation , being a papist then , but has since conform'd ) the nineteenth following , so that he could not then have any knowledge of that trial , or of what ireland had insisted upon . that when mr. jennison wrote this letter , he was under an apprehension that he had offended , and was in danger for having concealed ireland's discourse , of the easiness of taking off the king at windsor , which seems to be the main occasion of his writing that letter to his friend in nature of a confession . i need say no more , for i question not but that all the world will say this is a very great concurrent testimony and strengthening to the king's evidence , as to that point of mr. ireland's being in london , notwithstanding what the staffordshire witnesses had said in the prisoner's behalf . and as to the verity of this you may be easily informed , mr. jennison being a known person , and one of credit and reputation . then pag. 87. mr. gawen starts a point of law , whether as to himself he may be legally condemned for treason , being accused for one thing in staffordshire , and for another thing in london , so that there is but one witness to either . but the court cleared this point to him by sir hen. vanes case , and pag. 88. told him that the law was settled therein , and that they two , though they were witnesses to two several acts done , in two several places , yet it was to the same treason . for dugdale swears to his killing the king , altering the government , and bringing in of popery ; and oates swears he saw his hand to the consult , which was for the same treason , viz. for the murther of the king , raising an army , and the bringing in of popery , which is the same treason : so that it was plain there were two witnesses against him , and his plea not to be admitted . this is the whole substance of their defence and what they have to say for themselves . i need not use any arguments to shew the weakness of it , 't is obvious to all that reade or hear their trials . and as to the matter of fact which is so punctually sworn against them , they can say nothing , but onely their own constant denials of their guilt , and asseverations of their innocency : but how far that will prevail with impartial men , i shall leave themselves to judge : but i am sure there were twelve men of one mind , that thought them guilty , and i am confident that there are twelve thousand of the same opinion , and that all those who say to the contrary , must speak it out of ignorance or prejudice . as to the proofs against mr. langhorn , you will find them very home and positive : and first pag. 6. and 7. mr. dugdale is brought to prove the plot in general , which he again swears to as to their several consultations and design of murthering the king , and massacring the protestants , and bringing in of popery : to which also mr. prance concurs . then as to the particular charge against mr. langhorn , dr. oates swears pag. 10. that he carried several letters from mr. langhorn to persons beyond the seas , in one of which he saw under his own hand , that now they had a fair opportunity to begin and give the blow , with many other expressions plain enough concerning the plot ; and these he saw signed richard langhorn : and then he farther swears , that he had orders from the provincial to give mr. langhorn an account of the resolutions and passages that were form'd and done at this consult of the twenty fourth of april , and that he gave him an account of the same , and of their resolution of killing the king ; and that the said langhorn lift up his hands and eyes , and pray'd to god to give to it a good success . then pag. 11. he swears he saw in his chamber , in the inner-temple , lying on the side of his desk , certain commissions , which he had heard to have been sent over to him for several persons in england , which they called patents ; and that upon dr. oates his desire to see them , he permitted him to peruse several of them , which he did , and there saw one commission to the lord arundel of wardour , and another to the lord powis , the one to be lord high chancellour , the other to be lord high treasurer of england , and to the lord bellasis to be general , to the lord peters to be lieutenant-general , and one for mr. coleman to be secretary of state , and for mr. langhorn himself to be advocate of the army : and that these were signed johannes paulus de oliva , by virtue of a brief granted by the pope . these commissions were signed with the jesuits mark . and that mr. langhorn told him he had sent one of these commissions by his son , to be delivered to the lord arundel of wardour's son , and that it was delivered . and pag. 13. he swears , that mr. langhorn being employed as solicitour for several of the fathers of the society , that upon his solicitation of the benedictine monks , they had promised him 6000 li. for the carrying on of the cause , and that mr. langhorn promised in his hearing , to do his utmost for the procuring the said money . and also , that he was much disgusted with sir george wakeman , because he was not contented with 10000 li. to poison the king : and pag. 14. he swears that mr. langhorn call'd the said sir george wakeman a covetous man , and that since it was a publick concern , it was no matter if he had done it for nothing , but that he was a narrow-spirited and narrow-soul'd physician . then an instrument being produced in court , signed by paulus de oliva , mr. oates swore that the commissions he saw were signed by the same hand , and had all the same mark : but they were all convey'd away , and this being onely concerning an ecclesiastical business was left ; however , this shews he used to receive patents from , and had commerce with the superiour of the jesuits in rome . and this was found in mr. langhorn's chamber a long time after mr. oates had given in his testimony . then pag. 19. mr. bedlow swears , he went with mr. coleman to mr. langhorn's chamber , and there mr. coleman gave him his letters to le chese , and to the pope's nuntio , and to others , open , to reade , and to register in a book by him kept for that purpose ; and that he saw mr. langhorn reade these letters , which were concerning the design they had in hand , and that he registred them in a book in his closet , whilst he and mr. coleman walked in the outer room , and that afterwards coleman sealed up these letters , and gave them to mr. bedlow , who was to carry them to le chese , the king of france his confessour ; and that some of the expressions in those letters were , that all things were now in a readiness , and that they onely wanted money : that the catholicks were now in safety , and that all places and offices had been disposed to them , and that all the garrisons were already in their hands , or would be put into their hands suddenly : and that now they had a fair opportunity , having a king so easy to believe what was dictated to him by their party ; and that if they mist the opportunity , they might despair of ever introducing popery into england . this was the effect of most of the letters , and with them mr. langhorn was made acquainted , and register'd them in a book . pag. 20. he swears he brought letters from harcourt to mr. langhorn to be register'd , which mr. langhorn receiv'd , and register'd accordingly ; for he wrote by him to harcourt , that he had receiv'd the letters by mr. williams , ( which was the name that bedlow then went by ) and that he would transcribe them , and return them to him again . now these letters were one of them declared to be from the rectour of the irish colledge at salamanca , which specified that the lord bellasts , and the rest of the lords concerned , and the whole party should be in a readiness ; and to have it communicated with all expedition : for that they had sent some irish cashier'd souldiers , with many other lay-brothers , under the notion of pilgrims for s. jago , who were to take shipping at the groin , and to land at milford-haven in wales , and there to meet and join with the lord powis . the other letter was from sir william godolphin , which mr. bedlow had brought out of spain , directed to the lord bellasis , which was about the same design , and was also register'd by mr. langhorn in a book which he saw near 3 inches thick , and that he guesses two thirds of the book might be wrote out . now by this judge you whether the indictment of high treason be not proved against mr. langhorn , and whether he be not guilty of this treason and conspiracy of bringing in popery , of levying war , and killing the king , by two several witnesses , who have so positively sworn it against him . the defence mr. langhorn makes for himself , is no other then what his brethren in iniquity had done before him , to deny the fact , and to endeavour to invalidate the credit of the witnesses , by intrapping them in point of time and place . and to this end pag. 14 , 15 , 16 , &c. he asks mr. oates many questions little to the purpose , and onely to amuse the auditours . then pag. 27. he would make mr. oates an approver , as having been pardoned for the same crime ; and that the witnesses had received rewards and gratifications for swearing against them : thus making no defence as to the matter of fact , onely endeavouring to support themselves upon the incompetency of the witnesses . but all these objections or cavillings were well answered by my lord chief justice , who let him know , that unless he could prove any reward to be given by contract or subornation , it could not make an objection if there were any given , for that allowance or sustenance was usually given of old to approvers , &c. the next thing mr. langhorn endeavours , is to invalidate mr. oates his testimony , by making him to be forsworn in point of time ; and he brings the same witnesses from s. omars , as were brought in the behalf of the five jesuits the day before , to prove he was at s. omars april and may , and so could not be in london ; and they being the same evidence , and swearing to the same point , we will not repeat them : onely take notice , that one of them pag. 33. being asked how he came to take more notice of mr. oates being at s. omars all april and may , and not in june and july as well , answers plainly , ( not being well instructed , or more simple then the rest ) that it was because the question he came for did not fall upon that time , which still gives more light to the suspicion , that they came with their lessons in their mouths to save the lives of these men , and not to speak truth . but to confront these witnesses , mr. oates produced in court the same that had the day before sworn they had seen him in london both in april and may , so that he sufficiently clear'd his testimony by 7 witnesses . then pag. 46. mr. langhorn produces the woman that kept the white-horse tavern , where mr. oates had said the consult was held , and she averrs that there is no room in her house would hold above a dozen , and that therefore there could not meet 50 or 18 or 20 persons there at a time . to answer this three several witnesses strangers stood up in court , and being sworn attested , the first , that he knew sixteen to dine often in one room of that house : the second , that he knew two rooms , one backward , the other forward , where thirty might dine at a time : and the third , that at a wedding he knew of above twenty that dined together in one room next the street . so that this evidence did mr. langhorn no kindness : for she that was so peremptory in this falshood , might give a suspicion that the rest of his witnesses might be false in their averrments . then pag. 57. mr. langhorn goes about to prove by several witnesses , that sir tho. preston , mr. poole , and sir john warner did not come over with mr. oates as he had attested , and this rests indeed on mr. oates his single testimony ; but this being onely circumstantial , and not any way contradictory to the matter of fact , it ought not , nor could not legally invalidate his evidence : for it is not much to the purpose , whether sir john warner , sir tho. preston , and mr. pool came over with mr. oates or no ; or if he did commit any mistake therein , these men not being indicted : but it had been more then a circumstantial matter , to have proved mr. oates to have been actually at s. omars the time of the consult , the 24. of april , and would have stuck against him , had he not well clear'd that matter by 7 substantial witnesses , who have sworn they saw him in london about the same time . so that all this consider'd , i think there is none , except he be much prejudic'd , who reads these , but will judge mr. langhorn to have had a fair trial , and that the jury proceeded to find him guilty of treason by the plain proof and testimony of two witnesses , back'd by other circumstances , among which , the letter found amongst harcourt's papers was one , that proved the consult to be the same time , and clearly hints also the design to be of the same nature , as mr. oates had sworn it to be . i think there is none that truely considers the fair trials of these wicked conspiratours , and justly weighs every thing that hath been proved against them , that will think these men innocent , or that there hath not been a most horrid and hellish design amongst them , which they have not yet given over , and which we yet hope god will more fully discover and bring to light in mercy to this nation , and for the glory of his name . will you still be wilfully blind , and will you shut your eyes against all this clear light , and cry it is no plot ? do not you see them still endeavouring to fire the city , as witness those servants hired by stubbs , as hath been manifestly made known , and almost miraculously prevented ? do they not still go on in their wicked design against the life of his sacred majesty ? and will you have your throats cut ere you will believe ? shall the stout denials of those that suffer , and the obstinacy of these traytors , in confessing nothing at their deaths , stagger you in your opinion of their being guilty , against such full proof and evidence ? consider the principles of their religion , and the doctrine these fathers of the church of rome have publickly taught and maintained , the deposing and killing of kings for the sake of their religion , and that it is lawfull in that case to make use of equi vocations and lies , and that thereby they do god good service , if it be for the propagation of the faith : and are not all vows , oaths and sacraments dispensed with by the pope on that occasion ? have we not seen and heard of many examples of the same , enough to have fill'd a volume , and not untruly affixed upon them , but what have been really and publickly committed by them ? what heed then is to be taken to the denials of these men at their deaths ? or what credit to be given to their speeches , when they have yet liberty given them to deceive the people ; and that by their obstinacy they may perswade them into a belief that there is no plot , till the sword is at their throats ? but i will conclude in the recorder's words , that i hope the fair trials these persons have had , and the publishing of them for the satisfaction of all those who will look into them , will not onely confirm all who are protestants , but will prevail upon those whom they have inveagled into their perswasion , to desert such a religion , till such time as they alter their principles from the bloudiness and inhumanity they are stained with , and which these men have instilled into all their proselytes . finis . the tryal and condemnation of two popish priests, andrew brommich and william atkyns, for high treason at stafford assizes, august 16, 1679 with an account of the notable equivocation of some witnesses of the romish church there produced, and the reason thereof from their own authors : mr. stephen dugdale, one of the grand evidences of the popish plot being there present. bromwich, andrew, defendant. 1679 approx. 13 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 5 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2003-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63156 wing t2157 estc r5396 11963151 ocm 11963151 51625 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63156) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 51625) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 518:39) the tryal and condemnation of two popish priests, andrew brommich and william atkyns, for high treason at stafford assizes, august 16, 1679 with an account of the notable equivocation of some witnesses of the romish church there produced, and the reason thereof from their own authors : mr. stephen dugdale, one of the grand evidences of the popish plot being there present. bromwich, andrew, defendant. atkins, william, 1601-1681, defendant. dugdale, stephen, 1640?-1683. 8 p. printed for john amery ..., london : 1679. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng bromwich, andrew. atkins, william, 1601-1681. popish plot, 1678. 2002-05 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2002-06 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2002-07 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2002-07 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2002-08 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the tryal and condemnation of two popish priests , andrew brommich and william atkyns , for high treason at stafford assizes , august 16 , 1679. with an account of the notable equivocation of some witnesses of the romish church there produced . and the reason thereof from their own authors . mr. stephen dugdale , one of the grand evidences of the popish plot being there present . london , printed for iohn amery at the peacock in fleet-street . 1679. the tryal and condemnation of two popish priests , etc. were there no other evidence of a popish plot lately , i wish i could not say still carried on , for subverting the establish'd government and religion of these kingdoms of great britain and ireland , ( the only remaining bulwark of the protestant interest throughout the world ; ) the unusual resort and numerous swarms of jesuits , priests , and other romish locusts from their out-landish seminaries of rome , valladolid , saint omers , doway and rhemes ( those constant nurseries , and for about one hundred years continued rendezvouz of rebellion and treason , ever since allen , afterwards a cardinal , laid the first platform at doway in the year 1568 ) that have of late come into england ; might be a sufficient proof that they had some more than ordinary design in hand . for though by the statute of the twenty seventh of elizabeth , on most just and necessary reasons , viz. their disowning her majesties right to the crown , and justifying her deposal by the pope , and that all 〈◊〉 subjects were discharged from their allegiance , and all obedience to her , &c. it was made capital for any of those seminarists to come into these kingdoms ; so that their first setting a step on english ground was by law high treason , yet such is their confidence , that well knowing the premises , they daily came over in great numbers , and as if they had a publick indulgence , did not stick continually to pervert and seduce his majesties subjects to the idolatries and superstitions of the romish church . yet had this been all , and managed with any modest colourable pretence of conscience , it might possibly have been born with by our most gracious soveraign , the best and most merciful of princes , without exacting the severity of those laws● but when th●se very men so obnoxious before to just punishment , have so far abused his majesties lenity , and compassionate good nature , as to contrive , and vigorously promote horrid designs against his sacred life , and what is yet more dear to him , the true protestant religion , as it is most appa●e●t they lately have done , it cannot but be thought high time to re●train their insolence , by putting in execution those wholesome laws , which their continual treasonable pra●ti●●● 〈◊〉 not only justified , but rendred absolutely n●cess●ry fo● the preservation of his life and crown . in pursuance hereof , in such a juncture of affairs , the honourable judges of assize had particular order to give in charge the strict prosecution of all jesuits and popish priests that might be discovered in their respective circuits ; and 't is wonderful , considering the subtle disguises and caution of that sort of men , and the secresie of their seduced followers , who as strictly conceal their priests , as those do their confessions , that so many should be dis●overed . at the assizes of stafford there were no fewer than nine persons charged as popish priests , whereof two , viz. george hopson and robert peters , as being 't is said obnoxi●us to an indictment of another nature , are to be removed to london , the writs for that purpose being now in the sheriff's hands : five others suspected o● violent pres●mptions to be jesuits , are ordered to remain in custody till the next assizes ; the evidence against them that ●●pears for the present , not being full enough , according to the mercifulness of our english laws , to proceed against them to a legal conviction : though it is credibly reported , and reasonably believed there will , before that time , come in sufficient and demonstrable proof . the other two , viz. andrew brommich , late of perry-●a● , and william atkyns of wolver-hamp●on in this county of s●afford ( for the multitude of papists roosting there● commonly called little rome ) did now come to their tryals . the first was a young lusty brisk fellow , lately come from beyond the seas , and as he pretended ( according to the usual arts of that tribe who are never to seek for an excuse ) a merchant heretofore in france and portugal : which may pass well enough under the favour of a catholick figure . for no doubt he had good store of roman commodities ●o vend amongst his silly popish chapmen , as consecrated b●ads , crucifixes , agnus dei's , pardons , indulgences , and such like trumpery , with not a little sedition , rebellion and treason in to the bargain . the first and most material witness to prove him a priest , was one anne robinson , who about a year ago was a papist , and then seduced to that religion by a wheadling priest , who is since fled ; but upon consideration of the horrid plot carried on by those of that religion , and the charitable pains of some protestant divines , she hath been reduced again to the church of england . the evidence she gave against him , was to this effect . that about christmass last he said mass , and she received the eucharist , or sacrament from him in a wafer , 〈◊〉 a private popish conventicle , six or seven being then in company● and before that time twice at one mr. purcel's , and twice at one mr. birch's . but most observable it was , that there being two o●he●s , known papists , summoned in for evidence , and ●hom she swore positively to have received the sacrament● and heard him say mass the same times with her ; they notwithstanding , according to the common principles and practices of their fraudulent religion , which teaches them ●o dispense with truth , or the most ●acred oath , to save a priest from danger , did foully equivocate in their evi●●nce , and denyed that they knew him ; but the contrary was proved upon them● and thereupon , and other concurrent evidence , and irrefragable circumstances , the ju●y was 〈◊〉 , and brought him in guiltsy . but lest any affron●ed papi●●●hould say , or weak p●o●●stant think , that i wrong the popish church , in asserting , that they teach , a person may lawfully deny the truth , or affirm a lye , though upon oath , to secure one of their priests , i shall here make it good from their own approved authors , and then leave the indifferent reader to judge what account is to be made of these mens perjury , or the late impudent lyes of the novices from s. omers against doctor oates's testimony . our first proof shall be taken from no less than a whole popish college , viz. that of rhemes , who in their annotations on their english translation of the new testament , upon acts 23. verse 12. lay down this doctrine in these express words , — if thou be put to an oath to accuse catholicks for serving god , as they ought to do , or to utter any innocent man to god's enemies , and his , thou oughtest first to refuse , such unlawful 〈◊〉 but if thou have not constancy and courage so to do yet know thou , that such oaths bind not at all in conscience and law of god , but may , and must be broken under pain of damnation . secondly , to shew you how you shall shift and deny the truth in such cases , i shall cite another document of theirs , in a book inti●uled , — a treatise , tending to pacification , printed permissu superiorum , in the year 1607 ; and said to be written by their famous jesuit , parsons . page 426. he thus instructs his catholicks , — our doctors say , and maintn , that when the iudge is not lawful [ so with them is every protestant judge , especially when he meddles with their priests ] or that ●e 〈◊〉 of secrets which appertain not to his jurisdiction , then any witness may refuse to answer , yea , though he hath first 〈◊〉 to answer directly , may use a refuge , that is to say , 〈◊〉 may deny all in ●or● , 〈◊〉 use doubtful , or equivocal words , and 〈…〉 manner of ordinary evasions , which if they prevail not then he may deny , and s●y , nihil scio , nihil vidi , nihil audivi● i know nothing of the matter●● have seen nothing , i have heard nothing , reserving [ pray , observe the horrid chea● , how to baulk an oath● and stifle conscience in roman catholik way ] in his 〈…〉 ( of the intended equivocating sentence ) that 〈…〉 seen nothing , nor heard nothing within 〈…〉 the ●ame 〈…〉 assertin● and justifying the use of equivocation , recites with approbation this case , put by one sotus ● one of 〈…〉 doctors : — if , saith he , i ●a●ing seen peter 〈◊〉 john , 〈◊〉 being afterwards examined upon the same injustly , ( and we guess how far that will extend in a catholick sense ) whether i may say i know nothing thereof ? to which he giveth this answer ; — respondetur quod jure possum respondere , nescio ; quia jure intelligitur , nescio , ut dicam ; aut nescio eo modo quo jure debeam dicere : i affirm , that i may rightly answer , that i know nothing thereof , that is , i know it not to declare it ; or i know it not in such a manner , as by law i ought to utter the same . an hundred such instances might be given from their own approved pens ; and who can think but the private instructions of their little father-confessors are agreeable to these rules of their great doctors ; and therefore 't is no wonder if these two well disciplined papists denyed upon their oaths , that they knew this their ghostly father mr. brommich , that is , they did not know him in their sense to be guilty of treason , or to have taken orders at jerusalem , or any thing else that they should please to have reserv'd in their fallacious minds . as for the other person indicted , mr. atkyns , the evidence was very full and home , that they heard him say mass and prayers in an unknown tongue , that they saw him administer the sacrament in a wafer , after the manner of the church of rome ; and one of the witnesses swore directly , that he himself had been at confession with him , and received absolution from him ; so that he was likewise brought in guilty : and the court proceeded to pronounce sentence of death against them , according to law. but by order , their execution is respited , till his majesty be further informed , and shall declare his gracious pleasure therein . there were likewise these assizes , tryed one mr. keme , a seminary priest at hereford , and one william iones of the same quality at monmouth . but against each of these there being but one positive witness , as to saying mass in their vestments , administring the sacrament , &c. and the rest of ●he evidence only circumstantial , neither of them were brought in guilty . and hereby the whole world may take notice of , and and admire the clemency of his majesty , the tenderness of his laws , and the moderation of his protestant subjects ; and how little reason papists at home , or their brethr●n abroad , have to complain of any hardship used towards them in england , when after such obstinacy in repeated treasons , and contempt of his majesties proclamations , commanding them away , and the unparallelled provocation of their conspiracy , yet still they are proceeded against with all kind of equity , and allowed the utmost privileges of law ; and even those that happen to be convicted , oft-times after condemnation enjoy their lives , by the mercy of that prince whom their merciless faction would of late so impiously and ungratefully have murdered . what rigors and severities would other nations , and the roman catholicks beyond the seas , have exercised upon such an occasion ? had the poor french hugonots , after all the infringements of their liberties , and dayly oppressions , happened thus to have violated their loyalty , they must not have expected the formalities of law to convict them ; nor the patience of authority to hear them , nor the indulgence of majesty to reprieve them . a general massacre , promiscuous destruction , and exquisite tortures had been the least they could have hoped for from the incensed rabble , and their barbarous tyrannick hands , who have formerly , in a base perfidious manner , slaughtered so many thousands of them , without the least pretence either of justice , or provocation . finis . the tryals of vvilliam ireland, thomas pickering, & john grove, for conspiring to murder the king who upon full evidence were found guilty of high treason at the session-house in old-bailye, dec. 1, 1678, and received sentence accordingly. ireland, william, 1636-1679. 1678 approx. 219 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 29 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63228 wing t2269 estc r33696 13550393 ocm 13550393 100180 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63228) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 100180) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1558:29) the tryals of vvilliam ireland, thomas pickering, & john grove, for conspiring to murder the king who upon full evidence were found guilty of high treason at the session-house in old-bailye, dec. 1, 1678, and received sentence accordingly. ireland, william, 1636-1679. pickering, thomas, d. 1679. grove, john, d. 1679. england and wales. court of oyer and terminer and gaol delivery (london and middlesex). 54 p. [s.n.], reprinted at dublin : m.dc.lxxviii [1678] imperfect: pages faded and tightly bound with slight loss of print. reproduction of original in the trinity college library, dublin university. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. trials (treason) -england. 2007-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2007-11 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-01 john latta sampled and proofread 2008-01 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the tryals of vvilliam ireland , thomas pickering , & john grove , for conspiring to murder the king : who upon full evidence were found guilty of high treason , at the session-house in old-bailye , dec. 17. 1678 , and received sentence accordingly : reprinted at dublin , m : dc . lxxviii . the tryals of william ireland , thomas pickering , and john grove . on tuesday the seventeenth day of december , one thousand six hundred seventy and eight , thomas white alias whitebread , william ireland , john fenwick , thomas picker●●ng ●●nd john grove were brought from his majesties gaol of newgate , to the sessions-house ●●t ●●stice-hall in the old-baily , being there indicted for high treason , for contriving and ●●ot ●●iring to murder the king , to receive their tryal ; and the court proceeded thereupon ●●s ●●lloweth . the court being set , proclamation was made for attendance , thus. clerk of crown , cry●●r make proclamation . cryer , o yes , o yes , o yes , all manner of persons that have any thing to do at this general sessions of the peace , holden for the city of london , sessions of oyer and termi●●er and gaol delivery of newgate , holden for the city of london and county of middlesex , draw near and give your attendance , for now the court will proceed to the pleas of the crown for the same city and county . god save the king. clerk of crown , cryer make proclamation . cryer , o yes , all manner of persons are commanded to keep silence upon pain of impri●●onment . peace about the court. clerk of crown , cryer make proclamation . cryer , o yes , you good men of the county of middlesex that are summoned to appear ●●ere this day , to enquire between our soveraign lord the king , and the prisoners that are 〈…〉 shall be at the bar. answer to your names as you shall be called every one at the first ●●all and save your issues . the jurors being called and the defaults recorded , the clerk of the crown called for ●●he prisoners to the bar , viz. thomas white alias whitebread , william ireland , john fenwick , thomas pickering , and john grove , and arraigned them thus , clerk of crown , thomas white alias whitebread , hold up thy hand , which he did . william ireland , hold up thy hand . which he did . john fenwick , hold up thy hand . which he did . thomas pickering , hold up thy hand . which he did . john grove , hold up thy hand . which he did . you stand indicted by the names of thomas white alias whitebread , late of the parish of st. giles in the fields in the county of middlesex , clerk : william ireland , late of the same parish and county , clerk : john fenwick , late of the same parish and county , clerk : tho●●● pickering , late of the same parish and county clerk : and john grove late of the same ●…h and county , gent. for that you five as false traitors . &c. against the peace of our so●●raign lord the king , his crown and dignity , and against the form of the stature in ●●hat case made and provided . how sayst thou thomas vvhite alias whitebread , art thou guilty of this h●●gh treason whereof thou standest indicted or not guilty ? whitebread , not guilty . clerk of the crown , culprit how wilt thou be tryed ? whitebread , by god and my country . clerk of crown , god send thee a good deliverance . how sayst thou william ireland , a●● thou guilty of the same high treason or not guilty ? ireland not guilty . clerk of crown , culprit how wilt thou be tryed ? ireland , by god and my countrey . clerk of crown , god send thee a good deliverance . how saist thou john fenwick , a●● thou guilty of the same high treason or not guilty ? fenwick , not guilty . clerk of crown , culprit how wilt thou be tryed ? fenwick , by god and my countrey . clerk of crown , god send thee a good deliverance . how saist thou thomas pickering , a●● thou guilty of the same high treason or not guilty . pickering , not guilty . clerk of crown , culprit how wilt thou be tryed ? pickering , by god and my country . clerk of crown , god send thee a good deliverance , how saist thou john grove , art tho●● guilty of the same high treason or not guilty ? grove not guilty . clerk of crown , culprit , how wilt thou be tryed ? grove , by god and my countrey , clerk of crown , god send thee a good deliverance . you the prisoners at the bar those men that you shall hear called and do personally appear , are to pass between o●● soveraign lord the king and you : upon tryal of your several lives and deaths ; if therefore you or any of you will challenge them or any of them , your time is to speak unto them as they come to the book to be sworn , before they be sworn . sir philip mathews to the book . sir philip mathews . i desire sir william roberts may be called first . which was granted . clerk of crown , sir william roberts to the book . look upon the prisoners . you shall wel●● and truly try and true deliverance make between our soveraign lord the king , and th●● prisoners at the bar , whom you shall have in your charge according to your evidence . s●● help you god : the same oath was administred to th the rest , the prisoners challenging none , and thei●● names in order were thus . jury . sir william roberts , baronet . sir philip mathews , bar , sir charles lee , knight . edward vvilford , esq john foster , esq joshua galliard , esq john byfield , esquire . thomas egglesfield , esq thomas johnson , esq john pulford , esq thomas earnesby , esq richard vvheeler , gent. clerk of crown , cryer count these . sir vvillam roberts . cryer , one , &c , clerk of crown , richard vvheeler . cryer , twelve , good men and true , stand together and hear your evidence . clerk of crown , cryer make proclamation . cryer , o yes , if any one can inform my lords the kings justices , the kings serjeant , the kings attorney ▪ or this inquest now to betaken ▪ between our sovereign lord the king and the prisoners at the bar , let them come forth and they shall be heard , for now the prisoners stand at the bar upon their deliverance : and all others that are bound by recognizance to give evidence against any of the prisoners at the bar , let them come forth and give their evidence●● or else they forfe●●t their recognizance ▪ and all jury men of midd●●esex that have been summoned and have appeared & are not sworn , may depart the court and take their eases . cl : of crown . make proclamation of silence . cryer , o yes , all manner of persons are commanded to keep silence upon pain of imprisonment . cl : of crown , thomas white alias whitebread hold up thy hand which he did , and so of the rest . you that are sworn look upon the prisoners and harken to their cause . you shall understand , that they stand indicted by the names of thomas white , otherwise whitebread , late of the parish of st. gyles in the fields , in the county of middlesex clerk , william ireland , late of the same parish in the county aforesaid , clerk ; john fenwick , late of the same parish in the county aforesaid , clerk , thomas pickering , late of the same parish in the county aforesaid clerk ; and john grove , late of the same parish in the county aforesaid gentleman ; for that they as false traytors of the most illustrious , se●●ene , and most excellent prince , our soverign lord charles the ii. by the grace of god of england , scotland , france , and ireland , king , defender of the faith , &c. their supreme and natural lord , not haveing the feare of god in their hearts , nor the duties of their allegeance any ways weighing , but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil , the cordial love , and true , due , and natural obedience , which true and faithful subjects of our said soveraign , lord the king , towards our said soverign lord the king , should and of right ought to bear , altogether withdrawing & endeavouring , and with their whole strength intending the peace and common tranquillity of this kingdom of england to disturbe , and the true worship of god within this kingdom of england , used and by law established to overthrow , and to move , stir up , and procure rebellion within this kingdom of england , and the cordial love , and true and due obedience , which true and saithful subjects of our said soveraign lord the king , towards our said soveraign lord the king should and of right ought to bear , wholly to withdraw , vanguish and extinquish , and our said sovereign lord the king to death , and final destruction to bring and put the 24th . day of april . in the year of the reign of our said sovereign l : charles the ii by the grace of god of england , scotland , france , and ireland , king defender of the saith , &c. the 30th . at the parish of st. gyles in the fields aforesaid , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , falsly , maliciously , deceitfully , advisedly and trayterously , they did propose , compa●●e imagine , and intend , to stir up , move , and procure sedition and rebellion within this kingdom of england , and to procure and cause a miserable slaughter among the subjects of our said sovereign l. the king. and wholly to deprive depose , throw down , and disinher it our said sovereign lord the king from his royal state , title , power , and government of this his kingdom of england , and him our said soveraign lord the king to put to death , and utterly to destroy , the government of this kingdom of england , and the sincere religion & worship of god in the same kingdom , rightly and by the laws of the same kingdom established , for their will and pleasure to change and alter , and wholly to subvert and destroy the state of the whole kingdom , being in all parts thereof well instituted and ordered , and to levy war against our said soveraign lord the king within this his realm of england , and to fulfil and bring to pass these their most wicked treasons and trayterous designs and purposes aforesaid , they the said thomas white allas whitebread , william ireland , john fenwick , thomas pickering , & john grove , and other false tr●●ytors unknow●● , the said so ●● and tweentieth day of april , in the said 30th . year of the reign of our said lord the king , with force and arms , &c. at the parish of st. giles in the fields aforesaid , in the county of midelesex aforesaid , falsly , maliciously , deceitfully , advisedly , devillish●●y and traiterously did assemble , unite and gather themselves together , and then and there falsly , maliciously , deceitfully , advisedly , devillishly and traiterously they did consult and agree to put and bring our said soveraign lord the king to death & final destruction , and to alter and change the religion rightly and by the laws of the same kingdom established , to the superstition of the church of rome , and that sooner to bring to pass and accomplish the same , their most wicked treasons and traiterous imaginations and purposes aforesaid , they the said thomas white otherwise whitebread , william ireland , john fenwick , thomas pickering , john grove and other false traitors of our said sovereign lord the king unknown , afterwards ( to wit ) the said 24th day of april , in the said 30th year of the reign of our sovereign lord the king , at the said parish of st. giles in the fields , in the county of midlesex aforesaid , falsly , deceitfully , advisedly , maliciously , devillishly and traiterously they did consult and agree , that they the said thomas pickering and john grove should kill and murther our said sovereign lord the king : and that they the said thomas white otherwise whitebread , william ireland , john frenwick , and other false traitors unknown , should therefore say , celebrate and perform a certain number of masses , ( then and there agreed on among them ) for the good of the soul of the said thomas pickering , and should therefore pay to the said john grove a certain sum of money , ( then and there also agreed on among them : ) and further that the said thomas pickering and john grove upon the agreement aforesaid , then and there falsly ▪ deceitfully , advisedly , maliciously , devillishly & traiterously did undertake , and to the said thomas white otherwise whitebread , william ireland , john fenwick , and other false traitors of our said sovereign lord the king unknown , then and there falsly , deceitfully , advisedly , maliciously , devillishly , and traiterously they did then and there promise , that they the said thomas pickering and john grove our said sovereign lord the king would kill and murther : and further , that they the said thomas white otherwise whitbread , william ireland , john fenwick , thomas pickering and john grove , and other false traitors of our said sovereign lord the king unknown , afterwards ( to wit ) the said 24th day of april , in the thirtieth year of the reign of our said soverign lord the king , at the said parish of st. giles in the fields in the county of middlesex aforesaid , falsly , deceitfully , advisedly , maliciously , devillishly and traiterously did severally plight their faith every one to other of them , and did then and their swear and promise upon the sacrament , to conceal , and not to divulge their said most wicked treasons , and traiterons compassings , consultations , and purposes aforesaid , so among them had traiterously to kill and murther our said sovereign lord the king , and to introduce the roman religion , to be used within this kingdom of england , and to alter & change the true reformed religion , rightly and by the laws of this kingdom of england , in this same kingdom of england established : and further , that they the said thomas pickering and john grove , in execution of their said traiterous agreement , afterwards ( to wit ) the same 24th day of april , in the said thirtieth year of the reign of our said sovereign lord the king , and divers other days and times afterwards at the said parish of st. giles in the fields , in the said county of middlesex , falsly , deceitfully , advisedly , maliciously , devillishly and traiterously they did prepare and obtain to themselves , and had and did keep musquets , pistols , swords , daggers , and other offensive and cruel weapons and instruments , to kill and murther our said sovereign lord the king : and that they the said thomas pickering and john grove afterwards , to wit , the said four and twentieth day of april , in the said thirtieth year of the reign of our said sovereign lord the king , and divers days and times afterwards with force and arms , &c. at the said parish of st. giles in the fields , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , and in other places within the said county of middlesex falsly , deceitfully , advisedly , maliciously and traiterously , did lie in wait , and endeavour to kill and murder our said sovereion lord the king ; and further , that they the said thomas white otherwise whitebread , william ireland , john fenwick and other false traitors unknown , afterwards ( to wit ) the said 24th day of april in the said thirtieth year of the reign of our sovereign lord the king , at the said parish of st : giles in the fields , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , falsly , deceitfully , advisedly , maliciously , devillishly and traiterously did prepare , perswade , excite , abet , comfort and counsel four other persons unknown , and subjects of our said soveraign lord the king , traiterously to kill and murder our said sovereign lord the king , against the duty of their allegiance , against the peace of our said sovereign lord the king , his crown and dignity , and against the form of the statute in that behalf made and provided . upon this indictment they have been arraigned , and thereunto have severally pleaded not guilty , and for their tryal have put themselves upon god and their country , which country you are . your charge therefore is to enquire whether they or any of them be guilty of the high treason , whereof they stand indicted , or not guilty . if you find them guilty you are to enquire what goods or chattels , lands or tenements , those you find guilty had at the time of the high treason committed , or at any time since . if you find them , or any of them not guilty , you are to enquire whether they did flee for it ; if you find that they or any of them fled for it , you are to enquire of their goods and chattels , as if you had found them guilty . if you find them or any of them not guilty , nor that they , nor any of them fled for it , say so , and no more , and hear your evidence . make proclamation for silence on both sides . which was done . then sir creswell levings , one of the kings learned council in the law , opened the indictment , thus : sir cresw . levings ▪ may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury . these prisoners at the bar , thomas white , alias whitebread , william ireland , john fenwick , thomas pickering and john grove do all stand indicted of high treason ; for that whereas they , as false traytors , meaning and designing to disturb the peace of the kingdom , to levy war within the kingdom , to make miserable slaughter amongst the kings subjects , to subvert the religion established by the law of the land , to introduce the superstition of the church of rome and to bring to death and final destruction , and to murder and assassinate our soveraign lord the king , they did , to effect these things , the four and twentieth of april last assemble themselves together with many other false traytors , yet unknown , in the parish of saint giles in the fields , in the county of middlesex , and there , being so assembled , the better to effect these designs did make agreements and conspire together ; first , that pickering and grove should kill the king , and that white and the rest of the persons that stand indicted , with many other traytors , should say a great number of masses for the soul of the said pickering , i think thirty thousand , and they did further agree there that grove should have a great sum of mony , and upon this agre●●ment grove and pickering did undertake and promise they would do this fact , and did then and there take the sacrament and an oath to one another upon the sacrament , that they would conceal these their treasons , that they might the better effect them : and that in pursuance of this , grove and pickering did divers timesly in wait to murder the king , and did provide arms to do it ; and the indictment further sets forth , that white , and ireland and fenwick and many other traytors yet unknown , did procure four other persons , yet also unknown , for to kill the king , against the pea●●e of our sovereign lord the king , his crown and dignity , and against the form of the statute . these are the heads of those facts for which they stand indicted : they have all pleaded not guilty , if we prove them or any of them guilty of these or any of these facts according to the evidence you shall have , we hope you will find it . sir samuel baldwin , one of his majesties serjeants at law opened the charge as followeth . sir samuel baldwin . may it please your lordship and you gentlemen of the jury , the persons here before you stand indicted for high treason , they are five in number , three of them are jesuits , one is a priest , the fifth is a layman , persons fitly prepared for the work in hand . gentlemen , it is not unknown to most persons , nay to every one amongst us , that hath the least observed the former times , how that ever since the reformation there hath been a design carried on to subvert the government , and destroy the protestant religion established here in england , for during all the reign of queen elizabeth severall attempts were made by several priests and jesuits , that came from beyond the seas , ( though the laws were then severe against them ) to destroy the queen , and alter the religion established here in england , and to introduce popery and the superstition of the church of rome . but the conspirators from time to time , during all the queens reign , were disappointed , as edmond camtion and several other jesuits , who came over in that time , and were executed & did suffer for their treasons according to law : at length about the lat●●erend of the queens time , a seminary for the english jesuits was founded at valled●●lid in spain , and you know the emyloyment such persons have . and soon after the queens death , in the beginning of the reign of king james several persons came over into england from this very seminary , who , together with one henry garnet , superior of the jesuits then in england , and divers other english papists , hatched that hellish gunpowder-plot ; whereby what was designed you all know , but as it fell out , these persons , as well as those in queen elizabeths time , were likewise disappointed for their execrable treasons , in the third year of king james , were executed at tyburn and otherplaces . this is evident by the very act of parliament in 30. jacobi in the preamble whereof mention is made that creswel and tesmond jesuits , came from validolid in spain to execute this gunpowder-treason with the poplsh party here in england . and gentlemen , after this treason , so miraculously discovered , was punished , one would not have thought that any future age would have been guilty of the like conspiracy ; but it so falls out , that the mystery of iniquity and jesuitism still worketh , for there hath of late been a sort of cruel bloody minded persons , who , in hopes to have better success than they had in fo●●mer times , during the reigns of queen elizabeth and king james , have set on foot as horrid a design as that of the gunpowder-treason ; i can resemble it to no other plot , or design , or treason in any other time , and truely it does resemble that , in many particulars : i may say , it doth at least equal it , if not exceed it . i shall mention two or three particulars , in which this plot doth resemble that . first , that horrid design was to take away the life of the then king , to subvert the government , to introduce the popish religion , and to destroy the established protestant religion in england , and so gentlemen , we think our prooff will make it out , that in each of these particulars this design is the same that that was . secondly , the great actors in that design were preists and jesuits that came from valedolid in spain and other places beyond the seas . and the great actors in this plot are priests and jesuits , that are come from st. omers , and other places beyond the seas nearer home then spain . thirdly . that plott was chiefly guided and mannaged by henry garnett , superiour and provincial of the jesuits then in england ; and the great actor in this design , is mr. whitebread , superiour and provincial of the jesuits now in england ; so that i say in the several particulars it does resemble the gun powder plot . gentlemen , in this plot of which the prisoners now stand indicted several persons have several parts , some of these persons are imployed to keep correspondence beyond the seas , ( of which more hath been said in another place , and so i shall not speak of it here others were to procure and prepare aid and assistance here in england , who were to be ready when there should be occasion to use it . but the great part these persons ( the prisoners at the bar , ) were to act in this conspiracy , was , to take away the life of our soveraigne lord the king , on whose preservation the safety and welfare of three nations ( and millions of men ) does depend . now the facts for which the five prisoners stand indicted , i shall open thus ; first they are here indicted for conspireing the death of his sacred majesty : they did agree to take away the kings life , and entring into such an agreement ; they hired some persons amongst them to doe it ; and this agreement was made the 24th . of april , last , 1678. secondly , there is another fact they likewise stand indicted for : that they did endeavour and contrive to change and alter the religion established in the nation , and introduce p●●pery in tho room of it . the manner how to effect this , was thus , if my information be right ; you shall hear that from the evidence , mr. whitebread being resident here in england , and superiour of the jesuits , did in february last think fit , ( being impowred by authority from rome ) to give summons to the jesuits abroade , at st. omers , and other places beyond the seas , that they should come over here into england , to be ready at london , on the 24th . of april , the day laid in the indictment and which is the day after st. georges day ; and their design was ( as will appear by the proof ) to contrive how they may take away the life of the king : for , if that were once done , they thought , in all other things , their design would easily be accomplished , after the summons were out , they were so officious for the accomplishing of this great end , that between 40. and 50. jesuits did appear here at london at the time , ( for thither they were summoned ) and there the meeting was appointed to be at the white-horse taverne in the strand they were to meet first ; but being so great a number , that they were likely to be taken notice of , if they came all together , it was so ordered , they should come but a few at a time , and go off in small numbers ; and others should succeed them , till the whole number had been there . and there were directions given , and a course taken , that there should be some person , to tell them whither they should go from thence . after they had met there at several times in the same day , they were appointed , and adjourned to be at several other places , some of them were appointed to be at mr. whitebreads lodging , and that was in wild-street , at one mr. sanders house : others were appointed , to go 〈…〉 lodging , which was in russelstreet , ( and this mr. ireland was treasurer of the society ) : an●● others were to meet at mr. fenwicks chamber in drury-lane ; and he was at that time procurator and agent for that society . others were appointed to meet at harcourts lodging ; and others at other places . when they came there , they all agreed to the general design of the first meeting , which was , to kill the king. then there was a paper ; or some instrument to be subscribed . this was done , and the sacrament was taken for the concealment of it . after that , whitebread , ireland , fenwick ▪ and others , did agree , that mr. grove and mr. pickering should be imployed to assassiaate the king. one of them ( mr. grove ) being a lay brother , was to have 15 , hundred pounds , a great sum , the other , as a more suitable reward for his pains , was to have 30. thousand masses said for his soul : mr. whitebread , mr. ireland , and mr. fenwick , ( were all privy to this design , & this was the 24th . of april . in august after ) they being appointed to kill the king , but it not taking effect , either their hearts misgave them ▪ or they wanted opportunity ) there was another meeting at the savoy , where the witnesses will tell you , ●●our irish persons were hired for to kill the king. and this was ordered , in case the other design took not effect . there was fourscore pounds sent down to them to windsor , where they were to have done the fact . after this , other persons were appointed to do the execution , and they were to take the king at his mornning walk a●● new-market . these persons are all disappointed in their design : but you shall hear what was the agreement , how it was carried on , and what rewards were given to carry it on . we shal acquaint you likewise , that for the bottom of this design ( when so many jesuits should come over , when they should have so many consultations , and when they should resolve to kill the king ) there could be no less then the altering of religion , and introduction of popery here in england . and that time , at the first meeting , they had ordered , that mr. cary a jesuit as their procurator and agent , should go to rome , to act their concern there . all which things and more , will be made out to you by witnesses produced . there are likewise , some other circumstances that will be material to confirm those witnesses . we shall produce to you a letter written in february last , about that time that mr. whitebread sent over his summons for the jesuits to appear here . this letter was written by one mr. peters , a jesuit now in custody ; and t is written to one tunstall a jesuit , to give him notice , that he should be in london about the 21th . of april . , and be ready on th●● 24th . of april . that he knew what the business was ; but he did advise him , that he should conceal himself , lest the plot by observation ) should be discover'd . we shall likewise produce several other evidences , to strengthen and confirm the witnesses : we shall first call our witnesses , and enter upon the proof . mr , finch opened the evidence thus . mr. finch , may it please your lord ship , and you gentlemen of the jury , before we call our witnesses , i would beg leave once more to remind you , of what hath already been open'd unto you , the quality of the offenders themselves and the nature of the offence they stand indicted of . for the offenders , they are most of them , priests and jesuits ; three of them at the least , are so ; the other two , are the accursed instruments of this design : for the offence it self , 't is high treason . and though it be high treason by the statute of 27 , elizabeth , for men of that profession to come into england , yet these men are not indicted upon that law , nor for that treason : this i take notice of to you for the prisoners sake , that they should not fancy to themselves they suffered martyrdom for their religion , as some of them have vainly imagin'd in their case ; and for your sakes too , that as at first , it was treason , repeated acts of treason , in these men ; and those proceeding from a principle of religion too , that justly occasioned the making that law : so here you might observe a pregnant instance of it in the prisoners at the bar , that when ever they had an opportunity , as now they thought they had , they have never failed to put those principles into practice . so now , gentlemen , as they are not indicted for being priests , i must desire you to lay that quite out of the case , and only consider that they stand here accused for treason ; such treason , as , were they lay-men only , they ought to die for it ; though i cannot but observe , they were the sooner traitors for being priests . the treason therefore they stand indicted of , is of the highest nature : it is a conspiracy to kill the king , and that too with circumstances so aggravating ( if any thing can aggravate that offence which is the highest ) that nothing less than the total subversion of the government , and utter destruction of the protestant religion , would serve their turns . and really , when you consider the root from whence this treason springs , you will cease wondring that all this should be attempted , and rather wonder that it was not done . mischiefs have often miscarried for want of wickedness enough ; the horror of conscience , or else , the malice of the aggressor not being equal to the attempt , has sometimes prevented the execution of it . here is no room for any thing of this kind : this treason proceeds from principles of religion , from a sense that it is lawful ; nay , that they ought to do these things ; and every neglect here , is lookt on as a piece of irreligion , a want of zeal ; for which one of the prisoners did pennance , as in the course of our evidence we shall prove unto you . and when we consider too , that this is carried on , not by the fury of two or three busie men over zealous in the cause , but by the deliberate , and steady councels of the whole order , and that too under the obligations of secresie as high as christian religion can lay on them ; you have great reason to wonder that it did not succeed . and yet after all this they have not been able to prevail . not that we can brag of any human policy that did prevent it ; no , all that the wit of man could do , these men had done : but 't was the providence of god , 't was his revelation ; that providence that first enlightened his church , and has preserv'd it against all opposition heretofore , has once more disappointed their councells , and preserved the king and this nation in the profession of that true religion these men have vainly attempted to destroy . gentlemen , i will not open to you the particulars of our evidence , that i had rather should come from the witnesses themselves ; i shall only in general tell you what will be the course of it . we shall prove unto you , that there was a summons for a consultation to be held by these men the 24th of april last , from the provincial mr. whitebread ; that they had a caution given them not to come too soon , nor appear much about the town , till the consultation were over , lest oacasion should be given to suspect the design : that accordingly a consultation was held , as they say , to send cary , their procurator to rome ; though we shall prove to you , it was for other purposes : that they adjourned from their general assembly into lesser companies , where several persons did attend them to carry intelligences of their several resolutions : that at these several consults , they did resolve , the king was to be killed ; that pickering and grove should do it ; for which the one was to have 30000 masses said for his soul : the other 1500 l. that in prosecution of this design , they made several attempts to execute it , that they lay in wait for the king several times in st. james's park and other places ; and that once in particular , it had been done by pickering ; if it had not pleased god to have prevented it by an accident unforeseen ; the flint of his pistol being loose , he durst not then attempt it , though he had an opportunity ; for which neglect , we shall prove unto you , he underwent the pennance of 20 or 30 strokes . that when these men had failed , we shall prove to you they hired four ruffians to murther the king at windsor , and after that at newmarket . thus they way-laid him in all his privacies and retirements , wherever they could think it most convenient to execute their design . and this we shall prove by two witnesses ; who , though they should not speak to the same consultations , nor the same times , yet they are still two witnesses in law : for several witnesses of several overt-acts , are so many witnesses to the treason ; because the treason consists in the intention of the man , in the compassing and imagining the death of the king. the several overt-acts which declare that intention , are but as so many evidences of the treason ; we will call our witnesses , and make out what had been open'd to you . cl. of cr. mr. oates , lay your hand upon the book . the evidence you shall give for our sovereign lord the king against thomas white alas whitebread , william ireland , john fenwick , thomas pickering , and john grove , the prisoners at the bar , shall be the truth , the whole truth , and nothing but the truth , so help you god. mr. serj. baldwin . pray mr. oates , will you declare to the court and the jury , what design there was for the killing of his majesty , and by whom . mr. oates . my lord in the month of december last , mr. thomas whitebread did receive a patent from the general of the jesuits at rome to be provincial of the order ; after he had received this patent , he sent orders to one george conyers a jesuit at st. omers to preach upon st. thomas of canterburys day ; and by virtue of this order , george conyers did preach against oaths of allegiance and supremacy , and did in his doctrine call them anti-christian and devillish . my lord , in the month of january , this mr. whitebread did send several letters to st. omers , in which letters there was contained intimation of his intent to proceed against the kings person to assassinate him , which letters were written to richard asby . my lord , in the month of february , there comes an order from him , as provincial , for several of the jesuits to make their appearance at london , to be there at a consult to be held the 24th of april , old stile . lord ch. just . where was whitebread then . mr. oates . he was then in london , my lord , as i suppose by the dateing of his letters . my lord , from mr. whitebread after this summons , we received a second summons , which came the 5th of april , new stile , and upon the summons there were nine did appear at london , the rector of liege , sir thomas prest●●n , the rector of ghent , whose name is marsh , the rector of wott●●n , whose name is williams , and to one sir john harper and two or three more from st. omers , and there was a special order given us , my lord , to keep our selves close , lest we should be suspected , and so our design disclosed . my lord , upon the four and twentieth of april old stile we did appear in the consult . the consult was begun at the white horse-tavern in the strand , and there they met in several rooms , they came on by degrees , and as the new ones came on , the old ones , those that had been there before them , fell off . and there was one john cary appointed to go procurator for rome , and he was so appointed by the suffrages of the three prisoners at the bar , whitebread , ireland and fenwick . it was afterwards adjourned into several colloquies or little meetings ; one meeting was at mrs. sanders house that butts upon wild-house , a second was at m. ireland's , a third was at mr. harcourt's , a fourth was at mr. grove's , and other meeting or meetings there were , but i cannot give a good accompt of them . my lord , after they had thus met , and debated the state of religion , and the life of the king , they drew up this resolve ; it was drawn up by one mico , who was secretary to the society , and socius or companion to the provincial . l. ch. just . when was that done ? mr. oates . that day , my lord , the resolve , my lord , was this , as near as i can remember the words . it is resolved , that thomas pickering and john grove shall go on in their attempt to assassinate the king ( whether they used the word assassinate i can't remember , but the meaning was , they should make an attempt upon his person , ) and that the reward of the one , that is grove , should be fifteen hundred pounds , and that pickerings reward should be thirty thousand masses . my lord , after this resolution was signed by whitbread , it was signed by fenwick and ireland , and by all the four clubs ; i saw them sign it , for i carried the instrument from one to another . l. ch. just . what was it they signed ? mr. oates . the resolve of the consult . l. c. just . what that which was drawn up by mico ? mr. oates . yes , my lord , that which was drawn up by mico ? whitebread . doth he say that he saw them sign it ? mr. oates , yes ▪ i did see them sign it . jury . we desire he may be asked where he saw them sign it . mr. oates . mr. whitebread signed it at that part of the consult that was at his chamber ; ireland did sign it at that part of the consult that was at his chamber fenwick ; signed it at that part of the consult that was at his chamber . whitebread . were you at all these places . mr. oates . i went with it from place to place , but i mention no more now but only these . whitebread . you were not at all these places , and saw them sign it , were you ? mr. oates . yes , i did see them sign it at all those places . my lord in the month of may , mr. whitebread came over as provincial from england to st. omers , to begin his provincial visitation , and with him came cary and his companion mico . cary left st ▪ omers to begin his journy to rome ; whitebread , after he had given an accompt of what proceedings the catholicks of england had made in order to disturb the peace of the kingdom , what moneys had been gathered , what suffrages dispersed , what means have been used , what noblemen had joyned in this execrable plot ; he did then ( my lord ) order me to come for england . l. ch. just . whitebread did . mr. oates . yes , my lord whitebread did ; and , my lord the business i was to come into england for , was to murder one dr. tongue a dr. in divinity , who had written a book called the jesuits morals ; that is to say , translated them out of french into english , my lord i came over into england on the the 23th of june new stile , i came out of st. omers , that is the 13th in the stile of england , on the 24th new stile i took the packet boat at calice the 25th . new stile i met with mr. fenwick at dover . he was come down with certain youths to send them to st. omers and had ordered their passage . my lord , with mr. fenwick and some other persons , we came to london in a coach , and six miles ( as near as i remember it ) on this side canterbury , at a place called bolton , our coach was stopt by the searchers , and there they did examine a box that was in the coach , directed for the honourable richard blundel esq this box when they opened it , they found full of beads , crucifixes , images , and other sorts of trompery , that i cannot give a good account of ; it 's he can give the best : mr. fenwick went by the name of one thompson , and did personate one thompson , as living near the fountain ▪ tavern at charing-cross ; and did order the searcher to write to him there , as by the name of thompson . when the box was seized , they being prohibited goods , mr. fenwick did say ; that if they had searcht his pockets , they had found such letters about him , as might have cost him his life ; but his letters did escape searching . we came that night to sittenburgh , and lay there on sunday the 26th . new stile , as near as i remember ; and i think we staid there till the afternoon , we took coach in the afternoon and came as far as dartford . on munday morning we came into london ; and ( my lord ) when we came into london ; and had continued there some dayes . ( i now return to mr. whitebread , ) there came one ashby to town , he had been sometime rector of st. omers , and was come to england sick of the gout , and was to go to the ba●●h to be cured . and he brought instructions with him from whitebread , and the instructions contained in them these particulars : instructions or memorials ▪ or what ●●se they called them . first , that ten thousand pounds should be proposed to sir george wakeman . for the killing of the king. secondly , that care should be taken for the murder of the b●●shop of hereford . thirdly , that care should be taken for the murder ●●f doctor 〈…〉 s●●t . fourthly , that though this proposal was made to sir george wakeman 〈…〉 pickering and grove should go on still in their attempts ( my lord ) afterward 〈…〉 taken and copied out , and disperst to the several conspirators in the king●●●●…mes i cannot call to mind , but coleman made several copies and dispe●●st them 〈…〉 ●●hen the 10000 l ▪ was proposed to sir george vvakma●● but it was refused . l. c. j. what , it was too li●● mr. oates , yes , ( my lord ) it was too little. then writebread he writ from st. omers ▪ that in case 10000 l. would not do , 15 should be proposed ▪ and after that he had had that proposed , he accepted of that ▪ l. c j. were you by when he accepted it . mr. oates , no ( my lord , ) i was not : but it appeared upon their entry books , and it appear'd by a letter from this gentleman mr. vvhitebread , wherein he did shew ▪ great deal of joy for sir george vvakemans accepting of the 15 thousand pounds . ( my lord , ) after this was agreed upon , that sir george wakeman should have 15000 and 5000 ▪ of it was paid by coleman or his order . thus the state of affairs stood till august . then one fogarthey who is dead , came to a consult of the jesuits with the benedictus ▪ now at this consult the prisoner at the bar fenwick was , he was one , and harcourt was another ▪ and in this consult there were four ruffians recommended to them , l. c. j. by whom ? mr. oates , by fogarthey , they were recommended , but accepted of by these consulto●● and consented to by fenwick , they were sent away ▪ and the next day after 4 score pound was sent them , the most part of it was gold , and coleman was there and gave the messenger a guiny to expedite his errand . ( my lord ) in the month of august there came other letters from whitebread , wherein he did give an account of what care he had taken of the scotch business , and he ordered one moor and one sanders alias browne , to go down to scotland , and he did order the rector of london , then vvilliam harcourt , to send them ; and he did so send them the 6th . of august in the name of the provincial . whitebread , from whence i pray ? mr. oates from london , and they went to prosecute and carry on the design which fenwick and ireland had plotted , of a rebellion amongst the disaffected scots against the governors appointed them by the king , and they sent down ministers to preach under the notion of presbyterian ministers , in order to get the disaffected scots to rise , by insinuating the sad condition they were likely to be in , by reason of episcopal tyranny , ( as they termed it ) and that they were resolved to dispose of the king , and they did intend to dispose of the duke too ; in case he did not appear vigorous in promoting the catholick religion ; ( i speak their own words . ) l. c. j. have you done with your evidence ? what do you know of the prisoners at the bar ? name them all . mr. oates , there is whitebread , ireland , fenwick , pickering and grove . lord ch. just . are you sure pickering and grove accepted of the terms ? mr. oates . yes , ( my lord ) i was there . l. c. just . where was it ? mr. oates at mr. whitebreads lodgings , at mrs. sanders house . as for grove , indeed he did attend at that time upon fenwick at his chamber ; but after the consult was over he came to whitebread's lodgings , and did take the sacrament and the oaths of secrecy upon it , and did accept it , and agree to it . l. c. just . were you there when he took the sacrament ? mr. oates , yes , ( my lord ) i was . l. c. just . who gave you the sacrament ? mr. oates , it was a jesuit , that goes by the name of one barton . whitebread , ( my lord before i forget it , i desire to say this . he says that at such and such consults in april and may , he was present and carryed the resolutions from one to an other . there are above a hundred and a hundred , that can testifie he was all that while at st. omers . pray tell me when i received the sacrament ? mr. oates ? at the same time . whitebread , what day was that ? mr. oates . the 24 h. of april . whitebread , was i there ? mr. oates , you were there . whitebread , i take god to witness i was not . l. c. just . mr. whitebread you shall have time to make your answer . but mr. oates pray mr. oates , when was mr. cary dispatched away to rome , and what was his errand ? mr. oates , ( my lord ) i 'le tell you , he was approved of to go to rome the 24●●h . of april ; in the month of may or june , whitebread brings cary over to st. omers , and one mico his secretary , or companion with him . l. c. j. when was it ? mr. oates , in the month of may or june , he was brought over by the provincial : then went away on his journy , and at paris received 2●● . l. to bear his charges . mr. finch , what do you know of any attempts to kill the king at st james park ? mr. oates i saw pickering and grove several times walking in the park together with their screw'd pistols , which were longer then ordinary pistols , and shorter then some carbines . they had silver bullets to shoot with , and grove would have had the bullets to be champ't for fear that if he should shoot , if the bullets were round , the wound that might be given , might be cured , l. c. j. did grove intend to champ them ? mr. oates he did say so . l. c , j. did he shew you the bullets ? mr. oates . i did see them . grove when was this . mr , oates i saw the bullets in the month of may and in the month of june . whitebread , pray where did you see them . mr. oates . in groves possession . whitebread , at what times ? mr : oates . in the month of may ▪ whitebread , then was he actually himself at st. omers ? was it in may or june ? mr. oates , the latter end of may or june . i saw them then twice if not thrice , but , pickering's i saw in august . sir cr. levings , do you know any thing of pickerings doing penance , and for what ? mr. oates , yes . ( my lord ) in the month of march last , ( for these persons have followed the king several years ) but he at that time had not look't to the flint of his pistol but it was loose , and he durst not venture to give fire . he had a fair opportunity , as whitehread said ; and because he mist it through his own negligence , he under went penance and had 20 or 30 stroaks of discipline , and grove was chidden for his carelessness . l. c. j. that was in march last ? mr. oates , yes my lord. l. c. j. how do you know that . mr , oates , by letters that i have seen from mr. whitebread , these i saw and read , and i know whitebread's hand . mr. serj. baldwyn , what do you know of the ruffains that went down to windsor ▪ what success had they ? mr. oates , i can give no account of that , because in the beginning of september this gentleman that had been in england some time before , was come to london , and the business had taken air , and one beddingfield had written to him , that the thing was discovered , and that none but such a one could do it , naming me by a name that he knew ▪ i went by ▪ whitebread . when was that sir mr. oats . in the month of september last , i came to the provincial's chamber , the 3th . of september , when i came i could not speak with him , for he was at supper ; but when he had surp'd i was admitted in , and there he shewed me the letter that he had received from beddingfield . whitebread , where did you see it . mr. oats . you read it to me when you chide me , and beat me , and abused me . l. c. j. what did he chide you for ? mr oates . he did charge me with very high language of being with the king , & with a minister , and discovering the matter . i was so unfortunate that the gentleman who was with the king did wear the same colour'd cloathes that i did then wear : and he having given an account that the party wore such cloathes , the suspicion was laid upon me : now my lord , i had not then been with the king , but another gentleman had been with him from me with the draught of some papers concerning this business , which i had drawn up , and i was ready to appear when i should ●●e called to justifie them , only i did not think fit to appear immediately ; and , my lord , this beddingfield he had gotten into it , that it was discovered , and writ the provincial word , he thought it was by me , when he had received this letter he asked me with what face i could look upon him since i had betrayed them : so my lord , i did profess a great deal of innocency , because ●● had not then been with the king ; but he gave me very ill language , and abused me , and i was afraid of a worse mischief from them ; for i could not but conclude , that if they dealt so cruelly with those that only writ against them , i could scarce escape , of whom they had that jealousie that i had betrayed them ; and my lord , though they could not prove that i had discovered it , yet upon the bare suspition i was beaten , and affronted , and reviled , and commanded to go beyond sea again , nay , my lord , i had my lodging asaulted to have murthered me , if they could . whitebread . by whom ? mr. oats . by mr. whitebread , and some of them . whitebread . who beat you ? mr. oates . mr. whitebread did . mr. serj. baldwyn . was it pickering or grove that had the flint of his pistol loose ? mr. oates , pickering . pickering . my lord , i never shot off a pistol in all my life . l. c. j. what say you to the fourscore pounds ? mr. oates , my lord , i will speak to that , that was given to the four ruffians that were to kill the king at vvindsor ; now , my lord that money i saw . l. c. j. where did you see it ? mr. oates . at harcourts chamber . l. c. j. where is that ? mr. oates , in dukestreet , near the arch ▪ l. c. j. who was it given by ? mr , oates . vvilliam harcourt . l. c. j. did you see the four fellows ? mr. oates , no ( my lord ) i never did , nor never knew their names . l. c. j who was the money given to ? mr. oates . a messenger that was to carry it down to them . l. c. j. vvho was that messenger ? mr. oates , one of theirs that i do not know , and i durst not be too inquisitive , ( my lord ) for fear of being suspected . l. c. j. vvho was by when the money was paid ? mr. oates , coleman that is executed ; and my lord , there was this mr. fenwick by , that is the prisoner at the bar ▪ fenwick vvhen was this ? mr. oates , in the month of august . fenwick , vvhere ? mr. oates , at harcourt's chamber . fenwick . i never saw you there in all my ●●●e : are you sure i was by , when the money was there ? m. oates , yes , you were . l. c. j. mr. fenwick you shall have your time by and by to ask him any question : mr. oates let me ask you once again ; when there was the appointment made for grove and pickering to kill the king , who s●●gn'd it ? mr. oates , at least forty signed it . l. c. j. did the other three sign it ? mr. oates yes , my lord all of them . l. c. j. name them . mr. oates , there was vvhitebread , fenwick , and ireland . l. c. j. and you say you went from place to place and saw it signed . mr. oates , yes my lord , i did . l. c. j. were you attendant upon them ? mr oates , my lord i ●●ver was since the year 1666. l. c. j. at whose lodging did you use to attend upon the consultation . m. oates , at the provincials chamber , mr. vvhitebread . l. c. j. where was it first signed ? mr. oates , at the provincials chamber . sir cr. levings . who carried it from lodging to lodging ? mr ▪ oates , i did . l. c. j. when was it ? mr. oates , the 24th of april . mr. j. bertue . you say you carried the result from place to place , pray tell us wh●● that result was . mr. oates , they knew what it was , for they read it before they signed it . mr. j. atkins , but tell us the contents of it . mr. oates . the contents of that resolve was this , ( i le tell you the substance , though●● cannot tell you exactly the words ) that pickering and grove should go on in their attemp●● to assassinate the person of the king , as near as i can remember it was so , that the form●● should have 30000 masses , and the latter 1500 pounds , and the whole consult did consent to it , and signed the agreement that was made with them , and did resolve up●● the kings death all in one resolve . l. c. j. where was this agreed upon ? at the white-horse tavern ? mr. oates ▪ no my lord , after they had agreed at the vvhite ▪ horse tavern that mr. c●● should go procurator to rome , and some other small particulars , which i cannot now ●● member , they did adjourn from the vvhite-horse-tavern , and met at several chamber some at one place , and some at another . l. c. j. but you say mico did draw up the resolution , where was that ? m. oates , at mr. vvhitebreads chamber , for he was socius and secretary to the provicial . l. c. j. were ireland and fenwick present when mico drew it up ? mr. oates , no my lord , but they were at their own chambers after it was drawn ●● there , and signed by mr. vvhitebread , and those of the consult in his chamber , it was caried to the several consults . l. c. j. what all the same day ▪ mr. oates , yes ▪ my lord. l. c. j. and you went along with it . mr oates , yes my lord i d●● mr just , bertue . i only ask you were all the five prisoners privy to it , or do you dis●●guish of any of them , and which ? mr. oates . they were all privy to it . whitebread . my lord , we can prov●● l. c. j. you shall have time sufficient to make what defenee you can , you shall be s●● to have a fair tryal , and be stopt of nothing that you will think fit to say for your sel●● mr. oates . were pickering and grove present ? mr. oates , yes my lord , grove at fenwicks chamber , and pickering at the provinc●● chamber . l. c. j. but they were not required to sign this , were they ? mr. oates , after that the whole consult had signed it , and mass was preparing to be 〈…〉 for it ; before mass they did sign and accept of it . l. c. j. where did they two do it ? mr. oates . at the provincials chamber . l. c. j. what day was it . mr. that day , for they met all together at the provincials chamber to receive the ●●crament , and when m●●ss was going to be said , one said it was too late , for it was after ●● a 〈…〉 but mr. whitebread said it was not after noon ●●i●● we had ▪ din'd ; and you k●●● 〈…〉 that m●●ss●●s have been said at one or two of the clock in the af●●ern●●● mr. just . atkins . how many persons did meet at that consult ? mr. oates . my lord , there were about forty or fifty , and after they had adjourned into several lesser companies , they met altogether at mr. whitebreads chamber . l. c. j. where was that , and when ? mr. oates . that day , at wild-house . l. c. j. where was it that they gave the sacrament ? mr. oates . at a little chappel at wild-house , mrs. sander's . l. c. j. did they accept it before they took the sacrament ? mr. oates ▪ yes , pickering and grove did sign it before they took the sacrament ? mr. just . atkins . you tell us of an oath of secresie that was taken , what was that oath ? mr. oates . i cannot give an account of the form of the oath , but it was an obliga●●ion of secresie . mr. just . atkins . did you see the oath administred ? mr. oates . yes , my lord , i did . l. c. j. who administred it ? mr. oates . mr. whitebread , he did give it unto me , and to all the rest that were there , and mico held the book , it was a mass-book , but they were words of his own invention i believe they were not written down . l. c. j. can't you tell what they were ? mr. oates . no , my lord , i cannot tell , because i did not see them written down . l. c. j. if you will ask this gentleman any thing more , you may . whitebread . my lord , i am in a very weak and doubtful condition as to my health , and therefore i should be very loth to speak any thing but what is true : we are to prove a negative , and i know 't is much harder to prove a negative than to assert an affirmative ; 't is not a very hard thing for a man to swear any thing if he will venture his soul for it ; but truly , i may boldly say , in the sight of almighty god , before whom i am to appear , there have not been three true words spoken by this witness . l. c. j. do you hear , if you could but satisfie , us , that you have no dispensation to call god to witness a lye — whitebread , my lord , i do affirm it with all the protestations imaginable . l. c. j. but if you have a religion that can give a dispensation for oaths , sacraments , protestations , and falshoods that are in the world , how can you expect we should believe you ? whitebread , i know no such thing . l. c. just ▪ we shall see that presently , before we have done . mr. oates , i have one thing more to say , my lord , that comes into my mind . this whitebread received power from the see of rome to grant out commissions to officers military . and , my lord , here are the seals of the office in court , which he hath sealed some hundreds of commissions with , which they call patents . l. c. j. what were those commissions for ? for an army ? mr. oates . yes , my lord , for an army . whitebread . when were those commissions signed ? mr. oates . my lord , several of them were signed in the former provincials time . l. c. j. what , i warrant you , you are not provincial of the jesuits , are you ? whitebread , i cannot deny that , my lord. l. c. j. then there are more than three words he hath spoken are true . mr. just . atkins . i believe , mr. oates , that that army was intended for something , pray what was it for ? mr. oates . my lord , they were to rise upon the death of the king , and let the french king in upon us , and they had made it their business to prepare ireland and scotland for the receiving of a foreign invasion . l. c. just . who were these commissions sealed by ? mr. oates . my lord , the commissions of the great officers were sealed with the generals seal . l. c. just . who was that ? m oats , his name is johannes paulus de oliva : his seal sealed the commissions for the generals , major-generals , and great persons ; but those seals that sealed the several commissions to several inferior officers , were in the custody of the provincial . l. ch. just . can you name any one person that he hath sealed a commission to ? mr. oates . i can name one : to sir john gage , which commission i delivered my self . l. ch. just . what , of sussex ? mr. oates . yes , of sussex . mr. justice atkins , who did you receive the commission from ? mr. oates . my lord , when he went over , he left a great many blank patents to be filled up , and he left one ready sealed for a commission to sir john gage . this was delivered into my hands when he was absent , but it was signed by him , and delivered to me while he was in his visitation beyond the sea●● , but i dare swear it was his hand , as i shall answer it before god and the king. mr. just . atkins . who had it you from ? mr. oates . from mr. ashby , but by whitebreads appointment in his instructions which i saw and read . l. ch. just . what was the commission for ? mr. oates . to be an officer in the army . l. ch : just . did you see the instructions left for ashby ? mr. oates . i did see them and read them , and i did then as i always did , give it as my judgment , that it was more safe to poyson the king than to pistol or stab him . mr. just . bertue ▪ was the commission which you delivered to sir john gage from ashby or from whitebread ? mr. oates . i had it from ashby , but whitebread who was then beyond sea , had signed this commission before he went. my lord , i have something more yet to say , and that is as to mr. grove , that he did go about with one smith to gather peter pence , which was either to carry on the design , or to send them to rome . i saw the book wherein it was entred , and i heard him say that he had been gathering of it . grove , where was this ? mr. oates . in cock-pit-alley , where you know i lodged . grove , did i ever see you at your lodging . mr. oates . you saw me at my own door . l. ch. just . why , don't you know mr. oates ? grove . my lord , i have seen him before . lord. ch. just . why this 't is , ask a papist a question , and shall have a jesuitical anwer . mr. oates . i will convince the court that he does know me , by some circumstances . my lord , in the month of december last by the provincials order — l. ch. just . i would ask him first whether he does know you or no. do you know mr. oates ? grove , i have seen him before . l. chief just . have you been often in his company ? grove , no my lord. lord chief just . what do you call often ? have you been in his company seven or eight times ? ( for we must deal subtilly with such as you are , ) have you been in his company ten times ? grove , no. lord chief just . what say you to three times ? grove , yes , i believe i have seen him twice or thrice . lord chief just . where ? did you never see him at whitebreads ? grove , as , i hope to be saved , and before the eternal god , i did never . mr. oates . i will convince him and the court , that he does know me , and is well acquainted with me : in the month of december last i went to st. omers , i went first to the then provincials house to take my leave of him , and there i met with mr. grove , and he appointed to come to my lodging the next morning , near the red lyon in drury-lane , at one grigsons house , and he was so well acquainted with me then , that he had lent me eight shillings to hire the coach. lord chief just . did you lend him eight shillings ? grove . i did , my lord , i do not deny it . lord ch. just . how came you to do it , when it seems , if you say true , he was a stranger to you ? grove . i thought i should have it again . lord chief just . what , of him ? grove , yes . lord chief just . did he desire you to lend him the eight shillings ? grove , yes , he did my lord. mr. oates , then there is one time that he confesses he saw me . lord chief just . did you not know him before ? grove , i had no acquaintance with him , i had seen him . lord ch. just . how came you then to lend money to one you had no more acquaintance with ? grove , i knew i should go along with him to the coach , and then i thought i should have it again . lord chief just . mr. oates , were you going beyond sea then ? mr. oates , yes , my lord , i was : lord chief just . mr , oates , did you pay him that money ? mr. oates , no , my lord i did not . lord chief just . did you ask him so the money , and had you it ? grove , he did not pay it me . lord chief just . how then were you sure you should have it ? grove , he did order me to go to such a one for it ? lord chief just . who was that ? grove , mr. fenwick , i think . lord ch. just . then mr. o●●tes was known to you all , he was no such stranger to you as you would make ●● believe . mr. oates . thus he confesses three times he had seen me , once before he lent me the money , another time when he lent it and the third time the next day . and i will put him in mind of another time when he and i were in company , where o●●e brought in a note of what was done in the house of commons turned into burlesque , for they used to turn all that was done at the council , or at the parliament , or at the courts in westminster-hall into burlesque , and then translated it in french , and sent it to the french king , for him to laugh at too . but that by the way ; twice more he drank in my company at the red p●●sts in wild-street , and once more when he owned to me that he fired southwark . lord chief just . now by the oath that you have taken , did he own to you that he had fired southwark ? mr. oates . my lord , he did tell me that he with three irishmen did fire southwark , and that they had a thousand pounds given them for it , whereof he had four thousand pounds , and the other two hundred pounds a piece . lord chief just . now for mr. fenwick , do you know mr ▪ oats . fenwick , yes , my lord , i do . lord chief just . were you well acquainted with him ? speak plain . mr. oates , he was my father confessor , my lord , lord chief just . was he so ? were you his gonfessor . fenwick , i believe he never made any confession in his life . l. ch. just . yes , he hath made a very good one now . were you of his acquaintance mr. fenwick ? speak home , and don 't mince the matter . fenwick , my lord , i have seen him . lord ch. j. i wonder what you are made of : ask a protestant , an english one , a plai●● question , and he will scorn to come dallying with an evasive answer . fenw. my lord , i have been several times in his company . lord chief just . did you pay eight shillings for him ? fenwick , yes , i believe i did . l. c. j. how came you to do it ? fenw. he was going to st. omers . l. c. j. why , were you treasurer for the society ? fenw. no , my lord , i was not . l. c. j. you never had your eight shillings again , had you ? fenw. it is upon my book , my lord , if i ever had it . l. c. j. did mr. oates ever pay it again ? fenw. no , sure he was never so hone●● l. c. j. who had you it of then ? fenw. i am certain i had it not from him ; he did not pay it . l. c. j. how can you tell you had it then ? fenw. i do suppose i had it again , but not of mr. oates . l. c. j. had you it of ireland ? fenw. i do not know who i had it of , my lord , nor certainly whether i had it . l. c. j. why did you not ask mr. oates for it ? fenw. he was not able to pay●● l. c. j. why did you then lay it down for him ? fenw. because i was a f●● l. c. j. that must be the conclusion always : when you can't evade being pro●● knaves by answering directly , you will rather suffer your selves to be called foot 's . fenw. my lord , i have done more for him than that comes to ; for he came once●● me in a miserable poor condition , and said , i must turn again and betake my self to ●● minist●●r●● to get b●●ead , for i have eaten nothing these two days : and i then gave h●●●●i●●e shi●●lings to relieve his present necessity . mr. oates . my lord , i will answer to that , i was never in any such streights , i ●● ordered by the provincial to be taken care of by the procurator . fenw. you brought no such order to me . mr. oates . yes , mr. fenwick , you know there was such an order , and i never received so little in my life as five shillings from you : i have received 20 and 30 and 40 shillings at a time , but never so little as five . l. c. j. you are more charitable than you thought for . fenw. he told me he had not eaten a bit in two days . mr. oates , i have indeed gone a whole day without eating , when i have been hurried about your trash ; but i assure you , my lord , i never wanted for any thing among them . l. c. just . perhaps it was fasting-day . l. ch. baron . my lord , their fasting-days are none of the worst . mr. oates . no , we commonly eat best on those days . l. c. j. have you any thing to ask him any of you ? whitebread , my lord , will you be pleased to give me leave to speak for my self . mr. just . atkins , it is not your time yet to make your full defence , but if you will ask him any questions you may . whitebread . i crave your mercy , my lord. l. c. j. will you ask him any questions ? fenw. did not you say that you were at my chamber the 24th of april with the resolve of the consult ? mr. oates . that resolve i did then carry to your chamber . fenw. then was he himself at st. omers . l. c. j. the difference of old flile and new stile may perhaps make some alteration in the circumstance . whitebread . but , my lord , he hath sworn he was present at several consultations in april and may , but from november till june he was constantly at st. omers . l c. j. if you can make it out that he was at st , omers all april and may , then what he hath said cannot be true . ireland . he himself hath confessed that he was at st. omers : l. c. j. if you mean by confession , what stands upon the evidence he hath given , i 'le remember you what that was . he says he came to st. omers . mr. oates . will your lordship give me leave to satisfie the court : in the month of december or november , i went to st. omers ; i remained there all january , february , march , and some part of april : then i came over with the fathers to the consult that was appointed the 24th of that month . fenw. did you go back again ? mr. oates . yes . fenw. when was that ? mr. oates . in the month of may , presently after the consult was over . fenw. and we can prove by abundance of witnesses that he went not from st. omers all that month . l. c. j. you shall have what time you will to prove what you can ; and if you can prove what you say , you were best fix it upon him ; for he saith he was here at the consults in april and may ; if you can proove otherwise pray do . fenw. we can bring an authentick writing ( if there be any such ) from st omers under the seal of the colledge , and testified by all the colledge , that he was there all the while . l. c. j. mr. fenwick that will not do ; for the first , if it were in any other case besides this , it would be no evidence , but i know not what you cannot get from st. omers , or what you will not call authenthick . fenwick does your lordship think there is no justice out of england ? l. c. j. it is not , nor cannot be evidence here . fenwick , it shall be signed by the magistrates of the town . l. c. j. what there ? fenwick . yes there ▪ l c. j. you must be tryed by the laws of england , which sends no piece of fact out of the country to be tryed . fenwick but the evidence of it may be brought hither . l. c. j. then you should have brought it , you shall have a fair tryal ; but we must not depart from the law or the way of tryal , to serve your purposes . you must be tryed according to the law of the land. mr. j. atkins , such evidences as you speak of , we would not allow against you ; and therefore we must not allow it for you ▪ whitebread , may this gentleman be put to this , to produce any two witnesses that see him in town at that time . mr. oates i will give some circumstances and what tokens i have to prove my being h●●re : father warner , sir tho : preston , father williams , and sir john warner , they came hither with me ●●om s●● omers , there was one nevil , &c. i cannot reckon them all . l. c. j. you have named enough . mr. oates , but to convince them , there was a lad in the house that was got to the end of his rhetorick ; this lad was whipt and turned out of the house , and had lost all hi●● money father williams did re-imburs●● this lad in order to his bringing home , i think the lads name was hils●●ey , o●● som●● s●●ch ●●●e . and we came up to london together . l. c. j. what say you to this circumstance ? whitebread , my lord , he knew that two such came to town , but he was not with them . l. c. j. you are now very good at a negative i see , how can you tell that ? whitbread , my lord , he could not come . l. c. j. how can you tell he could not come , whitebread , i can tell it very well , for he had no order to come nor did come . l. c. j. how can you undertake to say that he did not com●● ? whitebread , because he had no order to come . l. c. j. is that all your reason , where were you then ? whitebread , i was here . l. c. j ▪ how do you know he was not here . whitebread , he had no orders to come . l. c. j. have you any other circumstance mr. oates to prove that you were here ther ? mr. oates , my lord , when i came to london , i was ordered to keep very close , and i lay at mr. groves house , let him deny it if he can , i le tell you who lay there then . groves . did you ever ye at my house . mr. oates , the●●e l●●y a flax●●n h●●i●●'d gentlemen , i forgot his name , but i le tell you who lay there besides ; that is strange , that was the late provincial . l. c. j. did strange ever lye at your house ? groves yes , my lord he did l. c. j. did he lye th●●re in april o●● m●●y ? grove , no , he did not in ●●i●●her of them ▪ lr. c. j you will m●●e that appear . grove , yes , that i can by all the house . l. c. j. have you any more questions to ask him ? if you have , do : if you can prove this upon him ▪ that he was ab●●e●● , and n●●t in england in april or may , you have made a great defence for your selves , and it shall be remembred for your advantage , when it comes to your turn : in the mean t●●me , if you have no more to say to him , call another witness ▪ let mr. oates sit down again , and have some refreshment . mr. serjant baldwin , we will now call mr. bedlow , my lord. the●● mr. bedlow was sworne . mr. serj : baldwin . mr. bedlow , pray doe you tell my lord and the jury what you know of any design of ki●●ling the king ▪ and by whom . mr bedlow . my lord. i have been five years almost employed by the society of jesuits and the english monks in paris , to carry and bring letters between them from england and to england ▪ for the promoting of a design tending to the subversion of t●●e government and the extirpating of the protestant religion , to that degree ( which was always concluded on , in all their consults wherein i was , ) that they would not leave any member of any here●●ick in england , that should s●●rvive to tell in the kingdom hereafter that there ever was any such religion in englands as the protestant religion — here whitebread would have interrupted him . my lord i am so well satisfied in their denyalls , that i cannot but believe they who can give a dispensa●●ion and have received the sacrament to kill a king , and destroy a whole kingdom , doe not scruple to give a dispensation for a little lye , to promote such a design , for so much ●●s this expiates any lye or greater crime , sir cr. levines , pray sir will you be pleased , to tell your whole knowledge concerning the prisoners at the b●●rr . mr. bedlow , the first le●●er ●●●●rr●●e●● wa●● from mr. harcourt , at his house next door to the arch in dukes-street . he hath been procurator for the jesuits about 6. years . h●● employed me first and sent for me ov●●r , for i was the●● l●…nt in flanders , and coming home to receive my pay that was due to me — l. c. j. how long is it a goe ? mr. bedlow . michaelmus last was 4. years , when i came to dunkirke ▪ i went to visit the english n●●nnery there , & the lady abbesse finding me very plyable & inclineable , made very much of me , and i did adhe●●e to her ; sh●● k●●pt ●● 6. we●●kes in the covent , & afterwards when i went away recommended me to sir john warner as an instrument fit to be employed in the carrying of letters , or doing any th●●ng that would promote the design against england he kept me at s. omers a forthn●●g●●t , and a●… me to father harcourt to be instructed in my employment , it was th●●n win●●● , the next spring he sends me into england with divers letters , whereby mr. harcourt i was empl●●yed to carry several letters to morton and doway , and o●●her places , that summe●● i was s●●nt into england without an answer , but afterwards in ( 76 ) which was the ●●xt summer i was to carry another pacquett of l●●t●●s to the monks at paris , who s●●nt it to other english monks in france . l. c. j. who sent that pacquet of letters in 76 ? m●● ▪ bedlow ▪ i had it from mr : harcourt , and it was written by harcourt , pritchard & carry . l. c. j. to whom ? mr. bedlow , to the engl●●sh monk●● i●● france , and in it there was a letter ●●o ●● ch●●se . upon the receipt of these l●●t●●ers at paris ●● ch●●se had a co●●sul●●tion with the m●●nk●● , 〈…〉 a french bishop or two about them , i did not then speak french ●●●ugh to ●…d what it was they said , but it was interpreted to me by mr ▪ stapleton an english monk , who told me that it was a letter from my lord bellasis and others of the catholick religion , english gentlemen who were contrivers of the plot here , to satisfie them in what state things stood in england as to popery . i was sent back again with a pacquett of letters directed to mr . vaughan of courtfield in monmouthshire . l. c. j. from whom was that ? mr. bedl●●w , from the english monks at paris . from that consultation i went to ponthois . i there received other letters to carry into england . i had a course to open their letters , and read what was in them ; and in those letters was contained , that the prayers of that house were for the prosperity of that design , and they would not fail to be at the consultation at of warwickshire gentlemen . i fell sick at monmouth , and mr. vaughan sent to me a iesuit to confess me , but i was well before he came , and so was ▪ not confessed by him , i now come to the later times . l. c. j ▪ you must speak it over to the jury , that they and the prisoners may hear you . mr. bedlow , the 25th . of may 77. which was last year , i was sent over with an other pacquet of le●●ters . i had no letters of consequence forward , and therefore did not call then at wotton , but i called upon the lady albesse at dunkirk , and i went thence to bridges and to ghent , where i had some letters for the english n●●nns , which i delivered to them , when i came to doway , i found there that the monks were gone , that was sheldon , stapleton and latham , but the letters were directed to paris , and therefore i made hast , and at cambray i overtooke them . and the letters were to give an account of the consultation held in the gallery at sommerset-house : all tending to the destruction of the protestant religion , and killing the king , but i doe not think fit to declare here who were the persons that were present at that consultation . at cambray they were very joyful that there was so good a proceeding in england . at paris when the letters were shewed , there was a letter written in a language which i did not understand , but ▪ as i was told in that letter , they were charged in paris by my lord bellasis , that they did not proceed according to their promise to them in england ; but said mr. stapleton to me , my lord bellasis nor the society in england need not to write thus to us , for we are not so backward but we can lend men , and money ▪ and armes too , and will upon occasion . from thence they sent me to spain with a letter to an irish father : i did overtake him at sa mora. from thence i went with another letter to the rector of a colledge of irish jesuits in salamanca , by their contrivance i was sent to st. jago in spain , where was another colledge of irish jesuits : there i staid till i had an answer to sir willi : godolphin , and when i had the answer to that letter , i went for the letter from the rector at salamanca , the jesuits there told me , they would take care to send their own answer another way . and when they had made me that promise i came away for england , and landed at mill-ford-haven . all this reaches to none of these persons in particular . but what i now shall say shall be about them , only it was necessary , i should speak of what i have said , l. c. j. the meaning of all this is only to shew the jury and satisfie them , that he was an agent for these men , and hath been employed by them for five years together , and he names you the particular places whither he hath been sent , to shew you the reasons of his knowledge in this matter , and upon what account he comes to be informed of this design . mr. bedlow . having received the newes of that country , i did there take water and landed againe at p●●nsans , and when i came to london i gave the letter to mr. harcourt : what was in that pacquet i cannot particularly tell , for i was not so inquisitive a●● to look into the contents of it , but i know it was tending as all the rest did to the carrying on of this plot , afterwards i was employed by mr. harcourt and mr. coleman to go to ●●me parts of england , to communicate the letters to some of the popish party . l. c. j. now turn to the jury . mr. bedlow . the summer was past in the doing of that ; in the beginning of august last , there was a consultation , and a close one , at mr. harcourts chamber , so as that they did not permit me to know any thing of it , i went out of town for a fortnight , and when i returned , i understood there had been such a meeting , i charged them with their privacy in it , and asked what was the private design of that consultation , they said , it was something i should know in time : that it did not signifie much at present , but in time i should know it . but then i understood by pritchard , who was more my confident , than any of the rest : that it was a design to kill the king : that mr. pickering and grove had undertaken it a great while , and that they had been endeavouring a long while to bring it to pass . fenw. where was this meeting , and when ? mr. bedlow . last august at harcourts chamber . fenwick . who were present the●●e ? mr. bedl , be pleased to give me leave to go on , i 'le tell you by and by . then i understood , as i said , that it was to kill the king , but that pickering and grove failing of it , they had hired four ruffians , , that were to go to windsor , and to do it there , and that if i would come the next day , i should hear from mr. coleman the effect . when i came there i found mr. coleman was gone , but pritchard said there were some sent to windsor , and that coleman was going after them , and that he had given a messenger a guinny that was to carry the money to them ; and he would presently be after them , for fear they should want opportunity to effect their design . then i discoursed them , why they kept their design so long hid from me ? they said it was a resolve of the society , and an order of my lord bellasis that none should know it but the society , and ●●hose that were actors in it . i seemed satisfied with that answer at present . about the latter end of august or the beginning of septem●●er ( but i believe , it was the latter end of august ) i came to harcourts chamber , and there was ireland , and pritchard , & pickering and grove . l. c. j. what part of august was it ? mr. bedlow . the latter end . l. c. j. do you say it positively , that it was the latter end of august ? mr. bedlow . my lord , it was in august , i do not swear positively to a day . l. c. j. but you say , it was in august . ireland . and that we were there present ? mr. bedlow . you were there and mr. grove and mr. pickering . ireland . did you ever see me before ? mr. bedlow . you were there present there , and grove , & pickering , and pritchard , a●●d fogarthy , and harcourt , and i. l. c. j. what did you talk of the●●e ? m●● . bedl. that the ruffians missing of killing the king at windsor , pick●●ring and grove hould go on , and that conyers should be joyned with them ; and that wa●● to assassinate he king in is morning walks at newmarket : and they had taken it so strongly upon ●●hem , that they were very eager upon it : and m. grove was more forward than the ●●●t ; and said , since it could not be done clandestinely , it should be attempted openly . ●●d that those that do fall had the glory to die in a good cause . but ( said he ) if it be ●●scovered , the discovery can never come to that heighth , but their party would be ●…g enough to bring it to pass . l. c. j. and you swear , ireland was there ? mr. bedlow . he was there my lord. l. c. j. and heard all this ? mr. bedlow . yes , my lord ; and so did grove and pickering and the rest . ireland . my lord i never saw him before in my life . l c. j. what was the reward that you were to have , for your pains in this business ? mr. bedlow . my lord , the reward that i was to have , ( as it it was told me by harcourt ) was very considerable : i belonged to one particular part of the society . there are others , and i presume , ●●hey each kept their particular messenger . l. c. j. what was mr. grove to have ? mr. bedlow . grove was to have fifteen hundred po●●nd if he escaped , and to be a co●●tinual favourite , and respected as a great person by all the church . l. c. j. what was pickering to have ? mr. bedlow . he was to have so many masses , i can●●ot presume to tell the numbe●● but they were to be as many as at twelve pence a mass should come to that money : the masse ▪ were to be communicated to all the jesuits beyond the seas , that when he h●● done it he might be sent away immediately . l. c. j. what can you say of any of the rest ? mr. bedlow . my lord , i do not charge any more , but them three ? l. c. j. what say you to whitebread ? mr. bedlow . they have said that he was very active in the plot , but i know it no●● l. c. j. that is not any evidence against him . what can you say as to fenwick ? mr. bedlow , no more than i have said , as to mr. whitebread : i only know him sight . l. c. j. then he charges only these three upon oath , ireland , pickering and grove . ireland , do you know sir john warner ? mr. bedlow . i know father warner at st. omers , and sir john warner at wotton st. omers . ireland . he named sir john warner to be at paris . mr. bedlow . it was sheldon i spoke of ( my lord ) at paris . i●●eland . at least you are certain that i was present at that consultation . mr. bedlow . yes , i am certain you were there . i●●eland . can you produce any witness that you ever spoke to me before in y●● li●●e . mr. serj. baldwin . do you know any thing of mr , whitebreads being present at of the consults ? mr. bedlow . i do know that mr , whitebread and mr. fenwick both have been ●…ral times at consultations ; but i do not know what the particular resolves of ●● consultations were . l. c. j. did you ever hear them speak any thing in particular ? mr. bedlow . no , i have never heard them speak any thing in particular . l. c. j. whe●●e have you seen mr. fenwick ? mr. bedlow , i have seen mr. fenwick at mr. harcourts chamber , and i have ●● heard him talkt of , and it hath been told me , that nothing was done without mr. ●…wick . whitebread , are you sure you know us ? mr. bedlow . i do not say , you are the man that employed me , you are the man i was least acquainted with , of all the society , but i have seen you there . ireland . can you bring any one that can testifie it ? l. c. j. he must then have brought one of your selves , and it may be , he cannot produce any such one . ireland . nor no one else , except such a knight of the pest as mr. oates . l. c. j. you must be corrected for that mr. ireland : you shall not here come to abuse the kings evidence . nothing appears to us that reflects upon mr. oates's testimony ; and we must not suffer any such sort of language . mr. just . atkins . take of his credit as much as you can by proof , but you must not abuse him by ill language . mr. finch . can you tell the court and the jury when it was that by agreement grove should have the fifteen hundred pound ? mr. bedlow . he was to have it put into a friends hands . l. c. j. do you know that friends name ? mr. bedlow . no my lord , i do not . mr. finch ▪ do you know when that was to be delivered out to him ? mr. bedlow . as to the particular time of their agreement i do not know it . mr ▪ finch . but this he says , that when the agreement was made , he was to have fifteen hundred pounds . l. c. j. and he says this ireland was in august last with pickering , and grove , and others , at a consult where he wa●● also . ireland . but what if i prove , i was not in london all august last , from the beginning to the end ? l. c. j. you heard them talk of this matter in august at harcourts chamber , you say : what , did they talk of it , as a matter they had agreed ? mr. bedlow . my lord , they brought it in ▪ as being balked in their design of killing the king at windsor ; and because that had not taken the effect they intended it , they should have conyers joyned with them to do it at newmarket . mr. finch . did they tell you when , and where the agreement was made ? l. c. j. no , he speaks not of that ; but they talkt of the failer at windsor : and therefore they did conclude that conyers should be joyned to them to do it at newmarket . mr. bedlow . yes , my lord. l. c. j have you any more to say ? mr. bedlow . my lord , i would only say this ; if i had any to prove what i say , they must be parties as well as these persons . ireland . my lord , i will prove , that i was not in town in august all the month , by twenty witnesses : i 'le bring those that saw me in staffordshire , and sp●●ke with me all august . l. c. j. have you any more to ask him ? whitebread . no. mr. serj. baldwin . swear mr. james bedlow . and he was sworn . ireland ▪ he does say , that he was familiar with me , and several other persons here ; and therefore i desire he may specifie the place and the company . mr. william bedlow . i do not say , there was a familiarity ; for i was a stranger to that part of the society . l. c. j. you must take him right mr. ireland ; he hath not said that he was of your familiar acquaintance . mr. bedlow . i have seen you often sir. mr. ireland . where ? mr. bedlow . at monsieur le faires . ireland . where was that , mr. bedlows at somerset-house . — ireland , was there any one present besides . mr. bedlow . yes , several other priests and jesuites of sumersethouse . jreland . name one ? mr. bedlow . seignior perrare . ireland . you say , you saw me and perrare together at somersethouse . i suppose , if seignior parrare may be brought hither — mr. bedlow . my lord perrare is a priest in orders , and without doubt , is in this business . l. c. j. if he did see you , he must see you in such company as you keep , they were priests and iesuits , and of your own religion ; and we know very well what answers we are like to be put off with by men of your own perswasion at this time of day jreland , my lord if no bodyes oath can be taken that is of another perswasion than the church of england , it is hard . l. c. j. pray mind , you do not object ingeniously , for you say , this witness swears he saw me in such company , why does he not produce them to testifie it ? why , he does not come prepared to produce them ; if he should , we know well how you are concern'd one for another at this time ; and we can hardly expect they should make true answer . but notwithstanding if you will produce this father perrare , ( he cannot be sworn because t' is against the law , but ) his testimony shall be heard , & let it go as far as it can . mr. bedlow . if your lordship pleases , my lord , i would convince him that he does know me . have you not been , sir , at somerset-house . ●reland , yes , i have . mr. bedlow . do you know le-fair and perrare ? ireland , yes , but i never saw you in their company in somerset house in my life , above once or twice . mr. bedlow . yes you were twice at le fairs . l. c. j. where is that le fair , you would do well to produce him ? mr. bedlow , my lord , he is gone away , and is one against whom the kings proclamation is out . l. c. j. you keep such company as run away , and then you require him to produce them , whom the king's proclamation cannot bring in . ireland . i keep none but honest company . mr. bedlow . if your lordship pleases , i have one thing more that is very material to speakes , at the same time that there was a discourse about these three gentlemen's being to destroy the king at newmarket , at the same time there was a discourse of a designe to kill several noble p●rsons , the particular parts assigned to every one . knight was to kill the earl of shaftesbury , pritchard , the duke of buckingham , oneile , the earl ossery , o bryan , the duke of ormond . l. c. just . well , will you have any more of this ? mr. finch . you say , you saw mr. ireland say masse , where did you see him ? mr. bedllow . not mr. ireland , but mr. fenwick , i have seen him say masse , and at wild-house . mr. oates . my lord i did omit a consult wherein there was a design laid of taking away the duke of ormond's life , and of a rebellion that was to be raised in ireland . my lord , in the month of january last , there came letters from arch-bishop talbot to london , which letters were perused by fenwick and ireland , and whitebread , and when they were perused , they were sent and communicated to the fathers at st. omers . the contents of those letters were thus , that the catholicks had a fair prospect of effecting their design in the kingdom of ireland . and this letter was inclosed in a letter signed by whitebread , ireland , fenwick , and others ( i name no mans name that is not here . ) l , c. just . you saw the letter . mr. oates . yes , i did see it , and read it ; wherein they did give thanks unto god , that he was pleased to prosper their design so fairly in ireland , and withall they did say , that they would not leave a stone unturned , to root out that abominable heresie out of that kingdom ▪ now what that abominable heresie was , i have nothing bur a conjecture . l c. just . we all know what that is well enough ▪ there needs no proof of that . m. r. oat●●s . jn the month of august , fenwick ▪ a little before he went to st. om●●rs , on the one and twentieth of august , ( as i think it was ) that week that barholomew fair begun on ) as i take it , he was then going to fetch home the provincial , and to carry some students with him , and he went unto st. omers the monday following ; but then there was a consult ▪ and at that consult , fenwick did consent to the contrivance of the death of the duke of ormond , and for the rebellion that was to be raised in irela●●d after his death . and he did approve of the four jesuits that were to kill my lord of ormond , and did consent to send fogarthy down to the arch-bishop of dublin , lin case the ●●our good fathers did not hit the business , mr. whitebread my lord did consent when he came over as appears by their entry books , for there came a letter from him dated as from st. omers , but i concluded it did not come from thence because it paid but two penc●● . whitebread , who was it that writ that letter . mr. oates , my lord this letter was dated as the later part of august , and dated as from st. omers , but the post mark upon it was but two pen●● ▪ to b●● paid for it , so that i do conclude thence , mr. whitebread , was then at esq leigh's house in but in that letter he did like the proposal that was made about killing the duke of ormond , in that consult , and the letter was signed with his own hand . l. c. just . i would gladly see that letter ? mr. oates . if i could see it , i could know it ▪ 3 l. c. j. you have not that letter ? mr. oates . no ▪ but they kept a book wherein they registred all their resolutions , and there it was entred ▪ l. j. c. you upon your oath say ▪ that he as superior of them did keep a book wherein they registred all their consults . mr. oates . yes , my lord. l. c. just . you would do well to shew us your book , mr. whitebread . whitebread . we never kept any . mr. oates . the consult did , for though the superior have an absolute power over ●● subject ; yet they never do any thing of consequence without the consult . and this book was kept by the superior , and never opened 〈…〉 the consult and therein all the passages were registred . l. c. j. produce your book , and we 〈…〉 whether you cannot catch mr. oates in ●●omething or other . mr. bedlow . my lord , that book i hav●… therein all their consults are registred ▪ l. c. j. was there books kept by 〈…〉 mr. bedlow . yes my lord , all the consults did keep bookes , and mr. lang●●orn●● ▪ was the person that registred all into one . l. c. j. if an hundred witnesses swore it , they will deny it , well , will you have any more ? mr. s. baldwin . my lord we will now call mr. james bedlow , this gentlemans brother to shew you ▪ that these sort of persons did resort to him frequently . l. c. j. are you sworn s●● ? mr. james bedlow . y●●s my lord , i am . l. c. j. then le●● me ask you one short question . do you know mr. ireland ? m●● . james bedlow . n●● . l. c. j. do you know pickering or grove . mr. james bedlow . i have heard of them . l. c. j. did your brother know any thing of them ? mr. j. bedlow . as for the conspiracy of killing the king , i know nothing of it ; b●● about his knowledg of priests and j●●suits , and the converse he had beyond sea , that can speak to . and i have very often heard these mens names named . l. c. j. in what nature did he talk of them ? mr. j. bedlow . i know nothing of the plot , ●●nd as for any d●●sign ▪ i know not w●● my brother knew , b●●t i have heard him talk of them . l. c. j. how did he talk of them ? mr. j. bedlow . he mentioned them as his acquaintance , the jesuits there did ask 〈…〉 questions about them . l. c. j. and did it appear to you they were of his acquaintance . mr. j. bedlow . but i understood nothing of the ●●lot ●● design , by the oath 〈…〉 taken . l. c. j but did he speak as if he knew any of them ? mr. j. bedlow . for ●…n knowledg that my brother had of them i cannot 〈…〉 but i have often heard him talk of them as people , i thought he kn●●w . mr. finch . did you know , that when he ca●●e over from beyond sea , that hi●… was frequented by any ●●d by whom ? mr. j. bedlow , yes ▪ there were many priests 〈…〉 jesuits came to him ▪ mr. finch . did your brother receive any money from the●● ? mr. j. bedlow , yes my lord , i have fetcht many score of pounds for my brother 〈…〉 them . l. c. j. the use , g●●ntlemen , that the kings council make of this evidence , is only shew , that his brother m●● ▪ bedlow was conversant in their affairs , in that he hath 〈…〉 many a score of ●…ing of their busines●● . sir cr. levings , pr●●y , ●●●m whom had your brother that money ? m●● . j. bedlow i have proved that from the goldsmiths thems●●lves that paid it , 〈…〉 the duke of monmouth , my lord chanc●●lor , and lord treasurer . mr ▪ finch ▪ have you received any consi●●erable ●●● at a time ? mr. bedlow , yes 〈…〉 mr. finch , how muc●● ? mr. j. bedlow , fifty or threescore pounds at a 〈…〉 mr. finch , of wh●●m ? mr. j. bedlow , of priests and j●●suits . m●● . finch , for whom ? mr. j. bedlow , for my brother . l. c. j. will you have any more evidence ? mr. serj. baldwyn , yes : my lord , the next evidence we produce , is concerning a 〈…〉 ●●ere was a letter written by one mr. peters , that is now a prisoner , to one tonstall a jesuit , and this letter does mention , that there was a meeting appointed by order of mr. whitebread to be at london . l. c. j. what is that to them , and how came you by it ? mr. serj. baldwin . peters is now in prison for things of this nature ; and you have he●●rd of one harcourt , and out of his study this letter was taken . mr. w. bedlow . my lord , may i not have liberty to withdraw , my head akes so extreamly , i cannot endure it . l. c. j. mr. bedlow , you may sit down , but we can't part with you yet . ireland . i desire , my lord , that his brother may be asked , how long he had known me . l. c. j. can you recollect by the discourses you have heard , how long he might have known ireland ? mr. j. bedlow . no , my lord , it was out of my way . l. c. j. but he did talk of ireland ? mr. j. bedlow . yes , my lord , he did . ireland . as being where , in what place ? mr. j. bedlow . i cannot tell . ireland . he named one place three years ago , it was at paris . l. c. j. but he does not say that you were there , but that you were familiarly talk'd of there ; so that the meaning is , they were acquainted with you : and this is only brought to shew , that it is not a new-taken-up thing by mr. bedlow , though you seemed never to have known any such man ; yet he swears , saith he , i have heard such persons talkt of as my brothers acquaintance . ireland . if his brother had talkt of me three years ago , why then he must have known me three years ago . l. c. j. ●●e ask him that question : how long is it since you knew him ? mr. w. bedl. i have known him but since august this last summer ; but my lord , i talkt five , and four years ago , of several english monks and jesuits that were then at rome , that i never knew in my life . l. c. j. his answer then i●● th●● , saith his brother , i have heard him talk of them three years ago ; i then asked bedlow how long he had known them ? saith he , i did not know them three years ago , though i did talk of them three years ago ; for we have talkt of many that we never saw in our lives ▪ so it seems he had occasion to make use of your names frequently , and joyn them with these , of some he knew better : but he never knew you t●●ll august last ; but he did discourse of you three years ago , as known for such sort of persons . ireland ▪ he must hear some body speak of us , as being in some place or another . mr. w. bedlow . i will satisfie you in that , we talk of some now in england , that are to be sent a year hence . l. c. j. if you can produce but ha●●court and le faire , they will do you great service now . mr. w. bedlow . my lord , a●● for example , father pritchard is confessor to such a gentleman in england now thi●● year ; a year hence we m●●t ●●●d such a one hither , and he must go back . and we may talk of th●● person as i●● england two years before . l. c. j. you need not trouble your selves about that . mr. ireland , you shall have a fair tryal , but you will not have cunning or art enough to deceive the jury , nor will mr. whitebread have learning enough to baffle the court. then mr. w. bedlow and his brother withdrew . mr. serj. baldwyn . my lord , the next evidence that we shall give , as i said , is a letter from one peters to one tonstall , and this we will bring home to mr ▪ whitebread ; for it is an invitation to be at the consu●●t held in london the 24th of april ; and it was written about that very time , to wit ▪ the 3d of april . it was written from london , and it mentions , that mr. whitebread did fi●● the meeting at that time . we 'll tell you how we came by the letter , mr. harcourt , who is one of the principal persons here , and at whose house was the meeting you heard o●● , he himself is fl●●d away , when they came to look after him upon the discovery that was made : and mr. bradley who was the messenger to seize upon him , did according to direction search his study , and did there find this letter , which we conceive , my lord , to be very good evidence , this harcourt being a party , and one at whose hou●●e the last meeting was , and others was . we do conceive a ●●etter from one of that party , bearing date about the same time , concerning mr. whitebreads summons , who was master of the company , is a very good evidence against them . l. c. j. ●●f you had found it in mr. whitebreads custody , you say something . mr. j●●st . bertue , my brother puts it so ▪ we find a letter directed to mr. whitebread , let the matter of it be what it will , it is found among harcourts papers . mr. serj. baldwin , no , my lord , we find a letter from one mr. peters , now a prisoner , directed to mr. tonstal concerning the consult summoned by whitebread , and this we find in harcourts possession . l. c. j. i can't understand how this may affect mr. whitbread . m. finch . pray , my lord , if your lordship please , this is the use we make of this letter ; we do not produce it as ano●●er evidence of this design , but to fortifie that part of the evidence which hath already been given ; that there was a consult summoned at that time , and to be held with all tht privacy that could be , to prevent discovery . and this is the paper , that we find in the custody of harcourt , one of the conspirators , who is fled for it . l. c. j. look you , mr. finch , if you use it not against any particular person , but as an evidence in general , that there was a plot amongst them , you say right enough ; but it cannot ●●e evidence against any one particular person of the prisoners at the bar. mr ▪ finch . my lord , it can affect no particular person ; but we only use it in the general , and we pray it may be rea●● . l. c. j. gentlemen of the jury , before you hear the letter read , i would say this to you . let them have fair play , whatsoever they me●●e unto ●●thers , we will shew them justice . they shall have as fair play upon their tryals as any persons whatsoever . the thing that is offered to be given in evidence , is a letter written by one peters , a prisoner for this plot ▪ and directed to one tonstal a jesuit , and this is found in harcourts chamber , a priest that is fled , and one whom the king hath commanded to render himself by his proclamation ; but he does not . now in that letter there is a discourse of a design and plot on foo●● . this cannot be evidence to charge any o●●e particular person of these ; but only to satisfie you and all the wo●●ld that those letters and papers that are ●●o●●d amongst their own priests , do fortifie the testimony of mr. oates , that there is a general plot : 't is not applied to any particular person . mr. oates . the day before the consult met , mr. whitebread did ask mr. peters whether he had summoned the consult according to his directio●● . mr. peters told him yes , he had writ into warwick-shire , and worcester-shire . whitebread , when was this ? mr oates , the day before the consult me●● ▪ whitebread , did you hear me ask mr. peters ? mr. oates , yes , i did hear you ; and i did hear him say he had done it , now my lord this letter that is found in harcourts study , shewes that mr. whitebread had directed mr peters in this consult . mr. serj. baldwin , pray swear sir tho : doleman to shew how he came by it ▪ which was done . mr. serj baldwin , sir tho doleman , what do you know of this letter . sir thomas doleman , this letter in my hand was taken amongst harcourts papers in a great bag of papers ; and searching them . i did find this letter amongst the rest ▪ then the letter was shewn to mr. oates . l. c ▪ j. is that mr. peters hand ? mr. oates ▪ yes my lord ▪ it is . l c. j. were you acquainted with his hand ? mr. oates , yes my lord , i have often read it in letters . l. c. j. do you know tonstall ? mr. oates , my lord i do not know him by that name ; if i did see him perhaps i might ; i know men better by their faces . sir cr. levines , pray read it . cl. of the crown , this is dated february 23d . ( 77 ) and superscribed thus ( these for his honourd friend mr. william tonstal at burton . honoured dear sir . i have but time to convey these following particulars to you ▪ first , i am to give you notice , that it hath seemed fitting to ●●ur master consult , prov. &c. to fix the 21st day of april next stylo viteri . for the meeting at london of our congregation , on which day all those that have a suffrage are to be present th●●re , that they may be ready to give a beginning to the same on the 24th . which is the next day after st. georges day ; you are warned to have , jus suffragij , and therefore if your occasions should not permit you to be present , you are to signifie as much , to the end others in their rank●●●● ordered to supply your absence : every one is minded also , not to hasten to london long before the time appointed , nor to appear much about the town till the meeting be over ▪ le●●t occasion should be given to suspect the design . finally , secresie , as to the ●●ime & pl●●ce , is much recomended to all those that receive summons , as it will appear o●● it s own nature necessary . l. c. j. so it was very necessary indeed . cl. of the crown ▪ there is more of it my lord. tertio pro domino solono disco . b●●n●●fact . prov. luniencis . i am strai●●ned for time , that i can only assure you , i shall be much glad of obliging you any ways ▪ sir , your servant edward peters . pray my service where due , &c. l. c. j. you know nothing of this letter , mr. whitebread ? whitebread , no my lord nothing at all . l. c. j. nor you mr. ireland . ireland , t is none of my letter my lord. l. c. j. did you never hear of it before ? ireland , n●●t th●●t i know o●● in particular . l. c. j. w●●ll have you do●● with the evidence for the king ? mr. serj. baldwyn , p●●ay sir thomas doleman ▪ will you tell my lord , did m●● ▪ oates give in this testemony of the consul●● ▪ to be the 24th ▪ of april , before this le●●●● wa●●●●ound l. c. j. how long had you known him before that time . s. paine , my lord , i knew him ; for he came often to our house when i lived at ●● groves ▪ he wa●● the man ●●hat broke ●●pen the packet of letters , that my master carri●● about a●… and he ●●ealed all the packets that went beyond the seas , and he op●●ed them 〈…〉 when the answers returned back again . ire●●●d , now m●●st ●●l the people of ●●y lodging come and witness that i was ●● of my lodging all august last . l. c. j. call them . ireland , there is one ann ireland . l. c. j. cryer ▪ call ●●er . cryer , a●● ireland , here she is . l. c. j. come mistris ▪ what can you say concerning your brothers being out of t●● in august . a●●n ireland my lord on saturday the third of august he set out to go into stafford●… l. c. j. how long did he continue there a ireland till it was a fortnight before michaelmas . l c. j. how can you remember that it was just the 3d. of august . a. ireland , i remember it by a very good circumstance because on the wed●… before , my brother and my mother and i were invited out to dinner we staid the●● night and all thursday night and friday night my brother came home , and on saturd●● set out f●●r staffordshire . ●● . c. j. where was it maid that you saw him . s. paine i saw him go in at the door of their own house l. c. j. when was that . s paine about a week before i went with my lord chamberlaine to windsor ●● was a week after the king went thither . l. c. j. that must be about the 12 or 13 and are you sure you saw him . s. paine yes my lord i am sure i saw him . l. c. j. do you know this maid mr. ireland . ireland , i do not know her my lord. l. c. j. she knows you by a very good token . you used to break open the lette●● her masters house and to seal them . s. paine he knows me very well for i have carried several letters to him that ●● from the carrier as well as those that came from beyond sea ▪ l. c. j. they will deny any thing in the world. ireland , i profess i doe not know her . twenty people may come to me and yet ●● know them , and she haveing been mr. groves servant may have brought me letters ●● yet my lord i remember her no●● , but here is my mother elenor ireland that can testif●● same . l. c. j. call her then ▪ cryer ▪ elenor ireland ▪ elenor ireland , h●●re l. c. j. can you tell when your son went out of town . e. ireland . he went out of town the third of august towards staffordshire . ireland my lord , there is mr. charles gif●●ord will prove that i was a week after th●…gining of september , and the lat●●r ●●nd of august in staffordshire . l. c. j. that will not doe for she said she saw you i●● london about the 10th , or 1●●● august , & she makes it out by a circum●●ance which is better evidence then if she had 〈…〉 and swore the precise day wherein she saw him , i should not have been sati●●fied unl●… 〈◊〉 given me a good account why she did know it to be such a day she does it by circum●●●●ces by which we must calculate that she saw you about the 12th . or 13th . day . she 〈…〉 to my lord arlington's at such a day , a week after the king went to windsor ▪ and that was about the 13th . and she saw you a week before she went to my lord arlingtons , which must be the 12th or 13th . you say you went out of town the third of august , who can swear you did not come back again . ireland . all the ●●ouse can testify i did not come to my lodging . e. ireland . he went out of town the third of august , and did not return till a forthnight before michealmas . l ▪ c. j. did you lye at his house ? e. ireland . i did then my lord l ▪ c. j. what all that while ? e. ireland . yes my lord. d. c. j. so did your daughter too , did she ? e. ireland . yes she did . ireland . there are others that did see me the latter end of august in staffordshire . l. c. j. and you would feign have crampt him up between the 20. and 31. and then ●…ossible you might be in staffordshire . ireland ; if i might have been permitted to send in for such witness as i would have ●●ad i ●●ould have brought them . mr. recorder . why have you not a note of what witnesses you are to call , why don't you call them according to that note . ireland i had that but this morning . l. c. j. why did not you send for them before to have them ready . mr. recorder 't is his sister that brings that note of the witnesses that he should call and 〈…〉 they are not here . a. ireland . there was one engletrap ▪ and one harrison had promised to be here that went with him into staffordshire . mr. oates . my lord when ever we had a mind to come to towne we conmmon●●y writ our letters and let them come to town two dayes after us ▪ ●●oe that we might ●●rove by the writing of such letters if any question did arise that we could not be at such ●● place at such a time . and when we pretended to go into the country we have gon●● and ●●ken a chamber in the city and have had frequent cabal●● at our chambers , there mr. ●●reland writ a letter as dated from s●● . omers , when i took my leave of him at his own ●●hamb●●r which was betwixt the 12th . and 24th . in london ●● was there and afterwards when i ●●r●… fenwicks chamber he came thither a ●…ght or ten dayes at least i am ●●re it was 〈…〉 august . l ▪ c ▪ j. 〈…〉 th●●ee witnesses upon ●●th ●●bout this one thing here is mr. bedlow ●…ct upon which the quest●…s●●s to b●●● august , that you deny and say ●…w●●e out of town , then ●● produces ●● m●●d h●●e and she swears that about that time which by ●●●cu●●a●●on must be about the 11th ▪ o●● 12th . ●●e saw you going into your ●●wn ho●●s●● . and here ●● a third wit●●s who swears he knowes nothing of this matter of ●●ct but he knows you were in town th●● , and that he tooke ●●is leave of you as going to ●●t . omers . mr. oates , whereas ●●e says that a●●●●h●● beginning of september he was in staffordshire he 〈…〉 in town the first of september or second for then i had of him twenty shilli●●gs , ●●●land , this is a most ●●a●●s lie ●●or i was then in staffordshire , and the witnesses contradict ●…elves for the one saith he took his leave of me as going to st. omers the 12th . the o●…aith it was the latter ●●nd of august i was at harcourts chamber . l. ch. j. he does not say you went , but you pretended to goe . a. ireland . here is one harrison , that was a coachman that went with them ▪ l. ch. just . well what say you friend , do you know mr ▪ ireland . harrison . i never saw the man before that time , in my life ; but i met with him at ●● albans . l. ch. just . when ? harrison . the fifth of august . there i met with him , and was in a journey with him the sixteenth . l. ch. just . what day of the week was it ? harrison , of a munday : l. ch. just . did he come from london on that day ? harrison . i cannot tell that , but there i met him . l. ch. just . what tim●● harrison ▪ jn the evening . l. ch. just . whereabouts in st ▪ albans . harrison , at the bull-inn , where we lodged . l. ch. just . mr. ireland , you say , you went on saturday out of town , did you stay st. albons till munday . ireland , no i went to standon that day , and lay there on saturday and sunday nig●● on munday i went to st. albons . l. ch. just . what , from thence ? ireland . yes my lord. l. ch. just . why did you goe thither ? was that in your w●● ireland . i went thither for the company of sir john southcot and his lady . l. ch. just . how did you know that they went thither . ireland . i understood they were to meet my lord aston and lady there . l. ch. just . what , on munday night . ireland . yes my lord. harrison , from thence i went with him to tixwell , to my lord aston's house , ●● we were all with him . l. ch ▪ just ▪ were you my lord aston's coachman . harrison , no my lord , i was servant to sir john southcot . l. ch. just . how cam●● you to go wi●●h them ? harrison ▪ because my lord aston is my l●●dy southcot's brother . l. ch. just . how long was you in his company ? harrison ▪ from the fifth of august to 〈…〉 sixteenth , & then i was with him at w●●stch●… mr. just . a●●kins . you have no●● yet 〈…〉 of being at westchester all this while . ireland , my lord , i must talke of ●…ey by degrees . l. ch. just . before you said , you 〈…〉 august in stafford shire , come you must ●● out some evasion for that . ireland , in stafford shire and t●●e●●eab●… l. ch. just . you witness , who do you live with ? harrison , with sir john sou●… l. ch. just . who brought you hither . harrison , i came only by a messenger last n●… l. ch. just . was not sir john southcot in that journey himself ▪ harrison . yes my lord he was . l. c. j. then you might aswell have sent to sir iohn southcot himself to come . a. ireland , i did it of my selfe i never did such a thing before and did not un●●●stand the way of ●●t . ireland ▪ i●● was meer chance she did send for those she did . l. c. j. but why should she not send for sir john himself . ireland . she did not know that sir john was here ▪ l. c. j. you were not denied to send for any witnesses , were you ? ireland i was expresly denied , they would not let me have one bit of paper . l. c. j. fellow , what town was that in staffordshire tell me quickly . harrison , it was tixwel , by my lord astons there we made a stay for three or four days then we went to nantwich and so to westchester . l. c. j. were not you at wolverhampton with him ? harrison , no my lord i was not there , i left him at westchester . ireland , my lord i was at wolverhampton with mr charles gifford , and here he is to attest it . l. c. j. well sir what say you ? gifford . my lord , i saw him there a day or two after st. bartholomews day , there he continued till the 9th of september the 7 th . of september , i saw him there , and i can bring 20. and twenty more that saw him there . then as he said he was to goe towards london , i came again thither on the 9th , and there , i found him and , this is all i have to say . mr. oates , my lord i do know that day in september i speak of , by a particular circumstance . ireland . there is one william bowdrel that will testifie the same if i might send for him . l. c. j. why ha● you him here ? jreland . she hath done what she can to bring as many as she could . l. c. j. have you any more witnesses to call ? ireland , i can't tell whether there be any more here or no. l. c. j. mr. grove what say you for your self . grove . mr. oates sayes he lay at my house , my lord i have not been able to send for any witnesses , and therefore i know not whether there be any here . they could prove that he did not lye there , he sayes he saw me receive the sacrament at wildhouse , but he never did , and if i had any witnesses here i could prove it . l. c. j. he tells it you with such and such circumstances , who lay there at that times . grove , he did never lye there . l. c. j. why you make as if you never knew mr. oates . grove . my lord i have seen him but he never lay at my house . l. c. j. mr. pickering what say you for your self , you relye upon your masses ? pickering , i never saw mr. oates as i know of in my life . l. c. j. what say you to bedlow , he tells you he was with you in harcourts chamber such a day . pickering , i will take my oath i was never in mr. bedlows company in all my life . l. c. j. i make no question , but you will and have a dispensation for it when you have done , well have you any witnesses to call . pickering , i have not had time to send for any . l. c. j. you might have moved the court when you came at first , and they would have given you an order to send for any . ireland , methinks there should be some witnesses brought that knew mr. oates to attest his reputation , for i am told there are those that can prove very ill things against him , they say he broke prison at dover . l. c. j. why have you not witnesses here to prove it . ireland , we could have had them if we had time . l. c. j. i see what you ask now you would have time , and the jury are ready to goe togather about their verdict . ireland . why we desire but a little time to make out our proof . l. c. j. onely you must tye up the jury , and they must neither eat nor drink till they give in a verdict . ireland . then we must confess there is no justice for inoce●●ce . l. c. j. well if you have any more to say , say it . ireland . my lord i have produced witnesses that prove what i have said . l. c. j. i le tell you what you have prov'd : you have produced your sister and your mother , and the servant of southcott they say you went out the third of august , and he gives an accompt that you came to st. albans on the fifth , and then there is another gentleman mr. gifford , who sayes he saw you at wolverhampton till about a week in september , mr. oates hath gain said him in that , so you have one witness against mr. oates , for tha●● circumstance , it cann●●t be true what mr. oates sayes if you were there all that time , and i●● cannot be true what mr gifford sayes , if you were in london then . and against your two witnesses and the coachm●●n , there are three witnesses that swear the contrary , mr. oates mr. bedlow , and the maid , so that if she and the other two be to be believed , here are 3 upon oath against your three , upon bare affirmation . ireland ▪ i doe desire time that we may bring in more witnesses . l. c. j. come ▪ you are better prepared then you seem to be call whom you have to call ▪ can you prove that against mr. oates which you speak of ? if you can call your witnesse●● on gods name , but only to aspers●● , tho it be the way of your church it shall no●● be the way of tryal amongst us : we know you can call hereticks and ill names fa●● enough . ireland , that hi●●sley that he names can prove if he were here , that mr. oates was all th●● while at st. omers . l. c. j. will you have any more witnesses called , ●●f you will , do it , and don't let u●● spend the time of the court thus . grove , here is mrs. york that is my sister , will your lordship please to ask her whethe●● she see that gentleman at my house , l. c. j. what say you mistriss york no my lord not i ▪ mr. j. at. nor i neither , might not he be there for all that ? mr ▪ oates , to satisfie the court my lord , i was in another habit , and went by anothe●● name . l. c. j lo●●k you , he did as you all do ▪ disguise your selves . ireland , though we have no more witnesses , yet we have witnesses that there are mor●● witnesses . l. c. j. i know your way of arguing is , that is very pretty , you have witnesses that can prove you have witnesses , and th●●se witnesses can prove you have more witnesses and so in infinitum . and thus you a●●gue in every thing you do . ireland , we can go no further than we can go , and can give no answer to what we did not know would be proved against us . l. c. j. then look you gentlemen . a. ireland , my lord , sir denny ashburnham promised to be here to testifie what he can say concerning mr. oates . l. c. j. call him , cryer , sir denny ashurnham . here he is my lord , l. c. j. sir denny , what can you say concerning mr. oates . sir d. ashburnham . my lord i received a letter this morning , which i transmitted to ●●r . attorny , and this letter was only to send to me a copy of an indictment against mr. ●●ates , of perjury : i did send it accordingly with my letter to mr. attorney ; he hath seen the letter , & what the town says to me in i●● . mr. at. g. i have seen it there is nothing in it ▪ l. c. j. do you know any thing of your own knowledg sir d. ashburnham , i do know mr. oates , and have known him a great while , i have known him from his cradle , and i do know that when he was a child , he was not a person of that credit that we could depend upon what he said ▪ l. c. j. what signifies that ? sir d. ashburnham , will you please to hear me out my lord , i have been also solicited ●●y some of the prisoners who sent to me , hoping i could say something that would help them in this matter : particularly , last night one mrs ▪ ireland sister to the prisoner at the bar , a gentlewoman i never saw before in my life , she came to me , & was pressing me hard that i would appear here voluntarily to give evidence for the prisoner , i told her no , i would not by any means in the world , nor could i say any thing as i thought that could advantage ▪ them ; for i told her , though perhaps upon my knowledg of mr. oates in his youth had this discovery come only upon mr. oates testimony , i might have had some little doubt of it , but it was so carroborated with other circumstances that had convinced me , & i would not speak any thing against the kings witnesses , when i my self was satisfied with the truth ●● the thing ; and i do think truly that nothing can be said against mr. oates to take ●●f his credibility ; but what i transmitted to mr. attorny , i had from the town of hastings for which i serve . l. ch. just . what was in that indictment ? sir. d. ashburnham . it is set forth , that he did swear the peace against a man ▪ and at his taking his oath , did say there were some witnesses that would evidence such a point of fact , which when they came would not testifie so much ▪ and so was forsworn . l. ch. just . what was done upon that indictment ? sir. d. ashburnham . they did not proceed upon it ; but here is the letter , and the copy of the indictment . mr ▪ serj. baldwine . my lord we desire it may be read , and see what it is . mr. attor ▪ gen. it is onely a certificate , pray let it be read . l. ch. just . i do not think it authentick evidence . mr ▪ ator . gen. but if i consent to it , it may be read . l. ch. just . if you will read it for the prisoners you may ; you shan't read it against them . if there be any strain , it shall be in favour of the prisoners and not against them . mr. ator ▪ gen. it is nothing against the prisoners nor for them , but however if your lordship be not satisfied it should be read , l●●t it alone . l. c. j. truly i do not think it is sufficient evidence ▪ or fit to be read . a ▪ ireland . i went to another , one colonel shakesby , who was sick and could not come but could have ●…st●●d much mo●● . l. c. j. have you any other witn●●sses ? ireland . i have none nor i have not time to bring them in . l. c. j. if you have none ▪ what time could have brought them in . but you have called a gentleman that does come in ▪ and truly he hath done you very great service , you would have had him te●●●fied against mr. oates , he saith , he hath known him ever since he was a child , and that then he had not so much credit as now he hath : and had it been upon his single testimony , that the discovery of the plot had ▪ depended , he should have doubted of it , but mr. oates his evidence with the testimony of the fact it self , and all the concurring evidences which he produces to back his testimony , hath convinced him , that he is true in his narrative . sir d. ashburnham . your lordship is right in what i have spoken . l. c. j. have you any mo●●e witnesses , or any thing more to say for your selves . ireland . if i may produce on my own behalf pledges of my own loyalty , and that of my family — l. c. j. produce whom you will. ireland . here is my sister and my mother can tell how our relations were plundred for siding with the king. l. c. j , no , i will tell you why it was , it was for being papists , and you went to the king for shelter . ireland . i had an uncle that was killed in the kings service , besides the pendrels and the giffords that were instrumental for saving the king after the fight at worcester , are my near relations . l. c. j. why all those are papists : pi●●kering . my father , my lord , was killed in the kings party . l. c. j. why then do you fall off from your fathers virtue ? pickering . i have not time to produce witnesses on my own behalf . ireland . i do desire time to bring more witnesses . grove . as i have a soul to save , i know nothing of this matter charged upon me . l. c. ●● . well , have you any thing more to say ? ireland . no , my lord. l. c. j. you of the kings council , will you sum up the evidence ? mr. serj. baldwin . no , my lord , we leave it to your lordship . c. of c. cryer , make proclamation of silence . cryer , o yes ! all manner of persons are commanded to keep silence upon pain of imprisonment . then the lord chief justice directed the jury thus . l. c. j. gentlemen , you of the jury ; as to these three persons , ireland , pickering , grove ; ( the other two you are discharged of ; ) one of them ireland , it seems is a priest , i know not whither pickering be or no , grove is none ; but these are the two men that should kill the king , and ireland is a conspirator in that plot. they are all indicted for conspiring the kings death , and endeavouring to subvert the government , and destroy the protestant religion , and bring in popery . the main of the evidence hath gone upon that soul and black offence , endeavouring to kill the king. the utmost end was without all question to bring in popery , and subvert the protestant religion and they thought this a good means to do it by killing the king , that is the thing you have had the greatest evidence of , i will sum up the particulars and leave them with you . 't is sworn by mr , oates expresly , that on the 24th of april last , there was a consultation held of priests and jesuits . they are the men fit only for such a mischief , for i know there are abund●…●● 〈…〉 gentlemen of that perswasion , who could never be drawn t●● do a●●y of these things , unless they were seduced by their priests , that sticke at nothing 〈…〉 own ends , he swears expresly that the ●●onsult was begun at the white-horse-tavern in the strand , that they theee agreed to murther the king ; that pickering and grove were the men that were to do it , who went afterwards and subscribed this holy league of theirs , and signed it every one at his own lodging , whitebread at his , ireland at his , and fenwick at his , two of which are out of the case , but they are repeated to you only to shew you the order of the conspiracy . that afterwards pickering and grove did agree to the same , and they received the sacrament upon it as an oath to make all sacred , and a seal to make all secret . mr. bedlow hath sworn as to that particular time of killing the king by pickering and grove , though they were not to give over the design , but there were four that were sent to kill the king at windsor . mr. oates swears there was an attempt by pickering in march last , but the flint of the pistol happening to be loose , he durst not proceed , for which he was rewarded with pennance . he swears there were four hired to do it . that fourscore pounds was provided for them : he saw the money ; and swears he saw it delivered to the messenger to carry it down . ireland . at what time was that ? lord chief just . in august there was an attempt first by pickering and grove : they then not doing of it , four other persons ( irishmen ) were hired to do it , and ten thousand pounds profered to sir george wakeman , to poison the king. thus still they go on in their attempts , and , that being too little , five thousand pounds more was added . this is to shew you the gross of the plot in general ; and also the particular transactions of these two murtherers grove and pickering , with the conspiracy of ireland . bedl●●w swears directly that in august last , these three and harcourt , & pritchard , and le faire being altogether in a room , did discourse of the disappointment the four had met with , in not killing the king at windsor ; and there the resolution was , the old stagers should go on still , but they had one conyers joyned to them , and they were to kill the king then at newmarket . he swears , they did agree to do it ; that ireland was at it ; and that all three did consent to that resolve . so that here are two witnesses that speak positively , with all the circumstances of this attempt , of the two to kill the king , and the confederacy of ireland all along with them . n●●w , i must tell you , there are no accessaries , but all principals , in treason . it may seem hard perhaps to convict men upon the testimony of their fellow offenders , and if it had been possible to have brought other witnesses , it had been well : but , in things of this nature , you cannot expect that the witnesses should be absolutely spotless . you must take such evidence as the nature of the thing will afford , or you may have the king destroyed and our religion too : for jesuits are too subtle to subject themselves to too plain a proof , such as they cannot evade by equivocation or a flat d●●nial . there is also a letter produced , which speaking of the consult that was to be the 24th of april , proves that there was a conspiracy among them . and , although , it is not evidence to convict any one man of them , yet it is evidence upon mr. oate's testiny to prove the general design . it is from one petre to one of the confederates , and taken amongst harcourt , papers , after mr oates had given in his te●●imony ; and therein it is mentioned , th●●t the superior had taken care , that there should be a meeting the 24th of april , the day after saint george's day , which is the very time oates speaks of ; and that they were not to come to town too soon , that the design might not be discovered . i would sai●● know what the signification of that clause might be . and then it goes farther , that it was to be kept secret , as the nature of the thing do●●h require ; which shews plainly there was such a transaction on foot . but the reason i urge it for , is , to shew you that it is a concurrent evidence with mr. oates , who had never seen this paper ▪ till th●●ee or four days after his information was given in , wherein he swears the time when this agitation was to be , and when they came to look upon the papers ; it agrees with the time precisely . now they do not write in this letter that they intended to kill the king ; but they write to caution them to keep the design undiscovered , and by that you may guess what they mean. what is said to all this by the prisoners , but denya's ? ireland cannot deny but that he knew mr. oates , and had been in his company sometimes ; five times by circumstances , mr. oates hath proved , so that they were acquaintance ; and it appears plainly there was a familiarity between them . ireland objects that bedlow charges him in august , when he was out of town all that time , and that therefore the testimony of one of the witnesses cannot be true . and to prove this he calls his mother , his sister , and sir john southcot's man , and mr. gifford . his mother and sister say expresly , that he went out of town the third of august , and the servant says , that he saw him at st albans , the fifth of august , and continued in his company to the sixteenth ; ( so that , as to that there is a testimony bo●●h against mr. bedlow , and against mr. oates ; ) and gifford comes and says , he saw him at the latter end of of august and beginning of september at wolverhampton ; whereas mr. oates hath sworn , he saw him the twelfth of august , and the first or second of september , and tells it by a particular circumstance , wherein i must tell you , it is impossible that both sides should be true . but if it should be a mistake only in point of time , it destroys not the evidence , unless you think it nec●●ssary to the substance of the thing . if you charge one in the month of august , to have done such a fact , if he deny that he was in that place at that time , and proves it by witnesses , it may go to invalidate the credibility of a mans testimony , but it does not invalidate the truth of the thing it self , which may be true in substance though the circumstance of time differ . and the question is , whether the thing be true ? against this , the council for the king have three , that swear it positively and expresly , that i●●eland was here . here is a young maid that knew him very well , and wa●● acquainted with him and with his breaking up of letters ; and she is one that was grove's servant : she comes , and tells you directly , that about that time which , by computation , was about the twelfth of august , she saw him go into his own house , which cannot be true , if that be true which is said on the other side ▪ and she does swear it upon better circumstances , then if she had barely pitch'd upon a day ; for she must have satisfied me well , for what reason she could remember the day so positively , ere i should have believed her : but she does it remembring her going to my lord arlingtons service , which was a week after the king went to windsor ; which is sworn to be about the thirteenth of august , and a week before her going it was that she saw ireland at his own door . what arts they have of evading this , i know not , for a●● they have t●●rned their learning into subtlety , so they have their integrity too . the study of politicks is their business and art which they make u●●e of upon all occasions , and i find them learned chiefly in cunning , and very subtle in their evasions : so that you see , without great difficulty a man cannot have from them a plain answer to a plain question . but the fact against them is here expresly sworn by two witnesses ; if you have any reason to disbelieve them , i must leave that to you . sir dennis ashburnham wh●… 〈…〉 produced to discredit mr. oates , sayes , than when he was a child there was little or ●…o credit to be given to him , and if the matter had depended solely upon his testimo●●y , those ieregularities of his , when a boy , would have staggered his belief . but ●●hen the matter is so accompanied with so many other circumstances , which are material things , and cannot be evaded or deny'd , it is almost impossible for any man , either to make such a story , or not to believe it when it is told . i know not whether they can frame such a one ; i am sure never a protestant ever did , and i believe never would invent such a one to take away their lives : therefore it is left to your consideration what is sworn . the circumstances of swearing it by two witnesses , and what reasons you have to disbelieve them . it is most plain the plot is discovered , and that by these men , and that it is a plot , and a villanous one , nothing is plainer . no man of common understanding , but must ●●ee there was a conspiracie to bring in popery , and to destroy the protestant religion ; and we know their doctrines , and practices too well ; to be●●ieve they wil stick at any thing , that may effect those ends . they must excuse me , if i be plain with them ; i would not asperse a profession of men as the priests are ▪ with hard words , if they were not very true , and if at this time it were not very necessary . if they had not murthered kings ▪ i would not say they would have done ours . but when it hath been their practice so to do ; when they have debauched mens understandings overturned all morals , destroyed all divinity , what shall i say of them ? when their humility is such ; that they tread upon the necks of emperors , their charity such , as to kill princes , and their vow of poverty such as to covet kingdoms , what shall i judge of them ? when they have licences to lie , and indulgences for fa●●hoods , n●●y , when they make him a saint that dyes in one , and then pray to him , as the carpenter first make●● an image , & after worships it , and can then think to bring in that woodden religion of theirs amongst us in this nation , what shall i think of them ? what shall i say to them ? what shall i do with them ? if there can be a dispensation for the taking of any oath ( & diverse instances may be given of it , that their church does lycence them to do so , it is a cheat upon mens souls , it perverts & breaks off all conversations amongst mankind ; for how can we deal or converse in the world , when there is no sin but can be indulged ; no offence so big , but they can pardon it , & some of the blackest be accounted meritorious ? what is there left for man ▪ kind to lean upon , if a sacrament will not bind them ( unless it be to conceal their wickedness ? ( if they shall take tests and sacraments , and all this , under colour of religion be avoided , and signifie nothing , what is become of all converse ? how can we think obligations and promises between man and man should hold , if a covenant between god and man will not ? we have no such principles nor doctrin●●s in our church , we thank god. to use any prevarications in declaring of the truth is abomniable to naturall reason , much mo●●e to true religion ; and 't is a strange church that will allow a man to be a knave . t is possible some of that communion may be saved , but they can never hope to be so in such a course as this . i know they will say , that these are not their principles , nor these their practices , but they preach otherwise , they print otherwise , and their councels do determine otherwise . some hold , that the pope in council is infalible , & ask any popish jesuit of them all , and he will say the pope is infalible himself in cathedra , or he is not right jesuit , and if so , whatever they command , is to be justified by their authority ; so that if they give a dispensation to kill a king , that king is well killed . this is a religion that quite unhinges all p●●ety , all morality , and all conversation , and to be abominated by all mankind . they have some parts of the foundation 't is true , but they are adulterated and mixed with horrid principles , and impious practices . they eat their god , they kill their king , and saint the murtherer . they indulge all sorts of sins , and no humane bonds can hold them . they must pardon me if i seem sharp , for a papist in england is not to be treated as a protestant ought to be in spain , & if ye ask me why ? he give you this reason , we have no such principles nor practices as they have , if i were in spain , i should think my self a very ill christian , should i offer to disturbe the government of the place where i lived , that i may bring in my religion there , what have i to do to undermine the tranquility & peac●● of a kingdom , because all that dwell in it , are not of my particular perswasion ? they do not so here , there is nothing can quench the thirst of a priest and a jesuit , nor the blood of men , nor of any if he can but propagate his religion , which in truth is b●… his interest . they have not the principles that we have , therefore they are not to have that common credence , which our principles and practices call for . they are not to wonder if they keep no faith , that they have none from others ; and l●… them say what they will , that they do not own any such things as we charge upon them and are like to go hard with them ; for we can shew them out of their own writing and counsels , that they do justifie the power of the pope in excommunicating kings , i●● deposeing them for heresie , & absolving their subjects from their allegiance , their clai●● of authority both in pope and council is the surest foundation they build upon . i have said so much the more in this matter , because their actions are so very pla●● and open , and yet so pernicious ; and 't is a very great providence , that we , and our religion , are delivered from blood and oppression . i believe our religion would ha●● stood notwithstanding their attempts and i would have them to know we are not afrai●● of them ; nay i think we should have maintained it by destroying of them . we should ha●● been all in blood 't is true , but the greatest effusion would have been on their side ; a●● without it , how did they hope it should have been don ? there are honest gentlemen ▪ i believe hundreds of that communion , who could not be openly won upon to engag●● in such a design . they will not tell them that the king shall be killed ; but they insinuat●● into them , that he is but one man , and if he should die , it were fit they were in readin●… to promote the catholick religion , and when it comes to that , they know what to d●● when they have got them to give money to provide arms and be in readiness on their specious pretence , then the jesuits will quickly find them work . one blow shall put ' er to exercise their armes ; and when they have killed the king , the catholick cause must be maintained . but they have done themselves the mischief , and have brought misery upon their whole party , whom they have ensnared into the disign upon other pretences than what was really at the bottom . a popish priest is a certain seducer , and nothing satisfies him ▪ not the b●●ood of kings , if it stands in the way of his ambition . and i hope they have no●● only undeceived some protestants , whose charity might encline them to think them not so bad as they are ; but i believe they have ●●shaken their religion in their own party here , wh●● will be ashamed in time , that such actions should be put upon the score of religion . i return now to the facts which is proved by two wittnesses , and by the concurrent evidence of that letter and the maid , and the matter is as plain and notorious as can be , that there was an intention of bringing in popery by a cruel and bloody way ; for i believe they could never have prayed us into their religion . i leave it therefore to you to consider , whether you have not as much evidence from these two men as can be expected in a case of this nature , and whether mr. oates , be not rather justified by the testimony offered against him , than discredited . let prudence and conscience direct your verdict , and you will be too hard for their art and cunning. gentlemen , if you think you shall be long , we will adjourn the court till the afternoon , and take your verdict then . jury . no , my lord , we shall not be long . then an officer was sworn to keep the jury safe , according to law , and they withdrew to consider of their verdict . after a very short recess , the jury returned , and the clerk of the crown spake to them thus : cl. of the crown . gentlemen answer to your names , sir. william roberts . sir. william roberts . here. and so the rest . cl. of the cr. gentlemen , are you all agreed in your verdict ? omnes . yes . cl. of the cr. who shall say for you ? omnes . the foreman . cl. of the cr. set william ireland to the bar. william ireland , hold up thy hand , look upon the prisoner , how say you , is he guilty of the high treason whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? forman . guilty ? cl. of the cr. what goods and chattels , lands or tenements ? foreman . none to our knowledg cl. of cr. set thomas pickering to the bar. thomas pickering hold up thy hand . look upon the prisoner . how say you , is he guilty of the same high treason , or not guilty ? foreman . guilty . cl. of cr. what goods or chattels , lands , or tenements ? foreman . none to our knowledge . cl. of cr. set john grove to the bar. john grove hold up thy hand look upon the prisoner . how say you , is he guilty of the same high treason , or not guilty . foreman . guilty . cl. of cr. what goods or chattels , lands or tenements ? foreman . none to our knowledge . cl. of cr. hearken to your verdict , as the court hath recorded it . you say that william ireland is guilty of the high treason whereof he stands indicted . you say that thomas pickering is guilty of the same high treason . you say that john grove is guilty of the same high treason . and for them you have found guilty , you say , that they , nor any of them , had any goods or chattels , lands or tenements , at the time of the high treason committed , or at any time since to your knowledg . and so you say all . omnes yes . lord. ch. just . you have done , gentlemen , like very good subjects , and very good christians , that is to say , like very good protestants : and now much good may their thirty thousand masses do them . then the court adjourned by proclamation till four in the afternoon . in the afternoon the same day about 5 of the clock mr. recorder , and a sufficient number of the justices , returned into the court , the judges being departed home ; and proclamation was made for attendance , as in the morning . then the clerk of the crown called for the prisoners convicted of high treason , and spoke to each of them thus . cl. of the cr. set william ireland to the bar , william ireland hold up thy hand , thou standest convicted of high treason ; what canst thou say for thy self , why the court should not give thee judgment to dye according to law. ireland . my lord , i represented all along from the beginning , that we had not time to call in our witnesses to justifie our innocence . mr. recorder , if you have any thing to say in stay of judgment , you have all free liberty to say it . ireland . we had no time allowed us to bring in our witnesses , so that we could have none , but only those that came in by chance , and those things they have declared , though true , were not believed . mr. recorder . these things , mr. ireland , you did not object before the jury gave their verdict , now they have given their verdict , and found you guilty , if you have any thing to say to the court why they should not proceed to judgment according to that verdict , you may speak it , but for these things it is too late . ireland , my lord , i have onely this to say , i desire more time to be heard again , and to call in my witnesses . mr. recorder . call the executioner to do his office. ireland . there are testimonies , my lord , that i could produce of my loyalty , and my relations fidelity to the king. mr. recorder , i believe , mr. ireland , it will be shame to all your relations that have been loyal to the king , that you should be privy to the murther of that good king , whom your relations so well served ; and therefore if that be all that you have to say , it will signifie nothing . the executioner not appearing , the sheriff of middlesex was called to come into court , and give his attendance upon pain of 40 l. but the executioner coming in ; was with a reproof from the recorder for his negligence , commanded to tye him up , which he did . cl. of cr. set thomas pickering to the bar. thomas pikering , hold up thy hand , thou art in the same case with the prisoner last before thee , what canst thou say for thy self , why the court should not give thee judgment to dye according to law ? mr. recorder , what does he say for himself ? capt. richardson , he has nothing to say . mr. recorder , then tye him up . cl. of cr. set john grove to the bar. john grove , hold up thy hand , thou art in the same case with the prisoner last be●● re thee , what canst thou say for thy self , why the court should not give thee judgment to die according to law ? grove . i am as innocent as the child unborn . cl. of cr. tye him up which was done . c. of cr. cryers on both sides make proclamations . gryere , o yes , all manner of persons are commanded to keep silence whilst judgment is upon pain of imprisonment ; peace about the court. mr. recorder , where is the keeper , shew me the prisoners , william ireland , th●●mas pickering and john grove , cap. richardson , those are the three . mr. record . you the prisoners at the bar , you have been arraigned for a very great offence , for the greatest that can be commited against any authority upon earth , for high treason against your king , with all the aggravation that possible can attend so great a crime as that is ; for you did not only strike at the life of the best of kings , but you intended the subversion of the best of religions , wharever you may apprehend ; yet all men that will ●●ay their hopes of salvation upon any thing that is fit for a man to l●●y his hopes upon , which is upon the merits of a crucified saviour , and not upon your masses , tricks or trumperies , ●●o abhor the thoughts of promoting their religion by massacring kings , and murdering their subjects . and though we whom you call hereticks , abhor to own any such religion ; yet we are not afraid to tell you , and all others who are ensnared into your principles ▪ we will maintain the religion and the government as it is established ; with our lives and fortunes . and it is fit that it should be known , that we who live under the government of so mild and pious a prince , and in a country where so good , so moderate a religion is establisht by law , will not be affrighted by all your murders , conspiracies and designs , from declaring , that they who dare kill kings , and massacre their subjects , ●●e the highest violaters , not only of the laws of the land , but of that great law which ●● good christians and protestants , think themselves obliged to pay great reverence and obedience to , i mean the law of god almighty himself . this i speak to you , gentlemen , not vantingly , 't is against my nature to insult upon persons in your sad condition ; god forgive you for what you have done , and i do heartily beg it , though you don 't desire i should ; for , poor men , you may belive that your interest in the world to come is secured to you by your masses , but do not well consider that vast eternity you must e're long enter into , and that great tribunal you must appear before , where his masses ( speaking to pickering ) will not signifie so many groats to him , no not one farthing . and i must say it for the sake of these si●●ly people whom you have imposed upon with such fallacies , that the masses can no more save thee from a future damnation , then they do from a present condemnation . i do not speak this to you , as intending thereby to inveigh against all persons that profess the romish religion ; for there are many that are of that perswasion , that do abhor those base principles of murdering kings , and subverting governments . there are many honest gentlemen in england , i dare say , of that communion , whom none ●●f the most impudent jesuits durst undertake to tempt into such designs ; these are on●●y to be imposed upon silly men , not upon men of conscience and understanding . and ●● pr●● god , as was said lately by a learned gentleman whom we all know , that all pro●●estants may be as safe from the force of your daggers , as they are from those of your ●●rguments ; for i dare say , that you could sooner murder any man that understands ●…e protestant religion , than perswade him to such villanies . and among those many ●●ings which prevailed with the honest gentlemen of the jury , to convict you of this ●…id crime , they could not but take notice ▪ that you ( speaking to ireland ) that do ●…end to learning , did send into forraign parts , that your fellow jesuits sho●●ld take 〈…〉 publickly to preach , that the oath of ●…giance and supremacy , by which the ●…on justice of the nation is preserved signified nothing ; which is a strong evidence of your design , not only to murther the king , but subvert the government , for surely the most probable way to do that ▪ is , to asperse those oaths by which all protestant subiects , those whom you call hereticks , lie under an obligation of obedience to their prince . and ●● think it not unfit to tell yon , that you had a great favour shewed to you to be tried only for the matters contained in this indictment ; for you that are priests must know , that there is a law in the land that would have hanged you for your very residence here ; for if any subject , born in england , shall take orders from the see of rome , and afterwards come into england , and remain there forty days , such , for that offence alone , are made traytors by act of parliament . but you are so far from being under any awe of that law , or submission to it , that you dare not only come to live here in despite thereof , but endeavour what you can , to overthrow both it and the government it self . you dare conspire to murther the king ; nay , not only so , but you da●●e make your consults thereof publick . you dare write your names to those consults . you dare sollicite all your party to do the like , and make all the tie ; of religion and conscience ( that to considering christians are obligations to piety and charity ) as engagements either to act your villanies , or to conceal them . we think no power can dispence with us whom you call hereticks , to falsifie our oaths , much less to break our covenant with god in the holy sacrament . but you ▪ instead of making that a tie and obligation to engage you to the remembrance of our saviour , make it a snare and a gin to oblige your proselites to the assassinating of kings , and murdering their subjects . i am sorry with all my soul , that men who have had their education here , and the benefit of the good examples of others , should not only be le●… into such mischievous principles themselves , but to be of that confidence in their perswasion , as to dare to debauch others also . i am sorry also to hear a lay-man shoul●● with so much malice declare , that a bullet if round and smooth was not safe enou●● for him to execute his villanies by : but he must be sure , not only to set his poysono●● invention on work about it , but he must add thereto his poysonous teeth ; for se●● if the bullet were smooth , it might light in some part where the wound might be ●…red ▪ but such is the height of some mens malice , that they will put all the veno●… and malice they can into their actions . i am sure this was so horrid a design , th●● nothing but a conclave of devils in hell , or a colledge of such jesuits as yours 〈…〉 earth , could have thought upon . this i remember to you for the sake of them that are to live , and for the chari●… i have for you , who are to die : for the sake of them that are to live ; for i hope when they hear that men of your perswasion dare commit those outragious crime and justifie them by a principle of religion , they will not easily be seduced into yo●● opinion : and out of charity to you that are to die , to perswade you to hearty 〈…〉 pentance ; for otherwise i must tell you , , thy fifteen hundred pound ( speaking grove , ) nor thy thirty thousand masses ( speaking to pickering ) will avail but li●… and i thought fit to say this also , that it may be known , that you have had the full ●●nefit of the laws established in england , and those the best of laws ; for such is no●● law of other nations , for if any protestant in any place where the romish religio●● profest , had been but thought guilty of such crimes , he had never come to the fo●●lity and justice of arraignment , and to be tryed by his peers , permitted to make defence , and hear what could be said against him ; but he had been hang'd immediat●● or perhaps suffered a worse death . but you are not only beholding to the happy ●…stitu●… of our laws , but to the more happy constitution of our religion . for ●●he●● are the admirable documents of that religion we in england profess , that we dare not requite massacre for massacre , blood for blood. we disown and abhor all stabbing ; and we are so far from reckoning , that he shall be a saint in heaven for assassinating a prince , and be prayed to in another world , that the protestant is required to believe , that such that begin with murther , must end with damnation , if our blessed lord and saviour do not interpose ; nothing that man can do , papist or protestant , can save any man in such a case . we dare not say , that our religion will permit us to murder dissenters , much less to assassinate our king. and having thus said , let me once more , as a christian , in the name of the great god of heaven , beg of you , for your own souls sake , be not satisfied or overperswaded with any doctrine that you have preached to others , or imbibed from others , but believe that no one can contrive the death of the king , or the overthrow of the government ; but the great god of heaven and earth will have an account of it ▪ and all pardons , absolutions , and the dispensations that you who are priests can give to your lay-brother , or that any of your superiors may give to you , will not serve the turn . i know not , but as i said , you may think i speak this to insult , i take the great god of heaven to witness that i speak it with charity to your souls , and with great sorrow and grief in my own heart , to see men that might have made themselves happy , draw upon themselves so great a ruin ▪ but since you have been so fairly heard , so fairly tryed and convicted , there is but little more to be said ; for i must tell you , because it may not be thought that you had not free liberty to make your full defence , though that gentleman ( speaking to ireland ) seemed to be surprized , he had a kind sister that took care for to bring his witnesses ; i am so far from blaming her for it , that i do commend her , it was the effect of her good nature , and deserves commendation ; but i speak to this purpose , to shew that there was no surprize upon him , nor his life taken away by any such thing ; for he had a greater favour shewed to him than is usually shown to such offenders . and having thus said to you my self , we do also require him whose duty it is to attend in such cases , nay , i do command him in the name of the court , that he attend upon you to give , you all the comfortable assistance that he can , for the advantage of your future state : and not only so , but we will cer●●ainly take care , that if you will have any others come to you , they shall . i would not be mistaken , i do not mean any of your priests and jesuits ; but if you will have the assistance of any protestant divines , they shall not be denyed you . and i hope , god almighty will please to give you pardon in another world , though you have offended beyond hopes of any in this . i once more assure you , all i have said is in perfect charity . i pray god forgive you for what you have done . and so there remains now only for me to pronounce that sentence which by the law of the land the court is required to do against persons convicted of that offence ▪ which you are convicted of . this court doth therefore award , that you , the prisoners at the bar , be conveyed from hence to the place from whence you came , and from thence that you be drawn to the place of execution upon hurdles , that there you be severally hanged by the neck , that you be cut down alive , that your privy members be cut off , and your bowels taken out , and burnt in your view : that your heads be severed from your bodies , that your bodies be divided into quarters , and those quarters be disposed the kings pleasure : and the god of infinite mercy be merciful to your souls . then the prisoners were conveyed back to the goal by the keeper of the goal , according to custome ; and the commission was called over , and the prisoners taken orde●● for according to law. and then the count adjourned by proclamation , thus . cl. of cr. cryer make proclamation . cryer o yes , o yes , o yes , all manner of persons that have any thing more to do at this ge●●er●●l sessions of the peace holden for the city of london , may depart hence for this time an●● give their attendance at the guild-hall london , on fryday the 10th . day of january next , at seven of the clock in the morning ▪ and all manner of persons at this sessions of oyer a●● terminer , and goal delivery of newgate holden for the city of london , and county of middlesex , may depart hence for this time , and give their attendance here again on wednesday i●● 15th , day of january at seven of the clock in the morning and then the court broke up . god save the king. on fryday the 24th . day of january following the prisoners , william ireland , and john grove , were drawn from newgate on a hurdle to the common place of execution , where they were executed , according to the sentence pronounced against them . finis a proclamation for a publick general fast throrowout the realm of scotland scotland. privy council. 1678 approx. 4 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2009-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). b05600 wing s1785 estc r183467 52612324 ocm 52612324 179628 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. b05600) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 179628) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 2794:22) a proclamation for a publick general fast throrowout the realm of scotland scotland. privy council. gibson, alexander, sir, d. 1693. scotland. sovereign (1649-1685 : charles ii) 1 sheet ([1] p.) printed by the heir of andrew anderson, printer to his most sacred majesty, edinburgh : 1678. caption title. royal arms at head of text; initial letter. text in black letter. dated at end: given under our signet at edinburgh, the fifteenth day of november, one thousand six hundred and seventy eight, and of our reign the thirtieth year. signed: al. gibson, cls. sti. concilii. reproduction of the original in the national library of scotland. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng fasting -religious aspects -christianity -early works to 1800. fasting -scotland -early works to 1800. popish plot, 1678 -early works to 1800. broadsides -scotland -17th century. 2008-05 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2008-08 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2008-10 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2008-10 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2009-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion c r honi soit qvi mal y pense royal blazon or coat of arms a proclamation for a publick general fast thorowout the realm of scotland . charles , by the grace of god , king of scoland , england , france and ireland , defender of the faith , &c. to all and sundry our good subjects , greeting ; forasmuch , as we considering the eminent danger our royal person and government , and the protestant religion have been of late , and are still exposed unto , through an damnable and hellish plot , contrived and carried on by the papists , for taking away our sacred life , and for the subversion of the protestant religion , and of the government of these kingdoms ( which god of his infinite mercy hath hitherto prevented and disappointed , and we hope will prevent and disappoint for the future ) and being very sensible of the fatal consequences of such an horrible and sanguinary conspiracy and designe ; we , out of our religious disposition , have readily approven of an humble motion made to us for commanding a general fast , to be religiously kept throughout this whole kingdom , to implore the mercy of almighty god for the preservation of the protestant religion , as it is by law established , and for the protection of our royal person and government ; as also , to pray that god will more and more bring to light , and confound all secret contrivances and machinations against us , and in us , against all our loyal subjects ; we , with advice of our privy council , have therefore thought fit by this our proclamation , to indict a general and publick fast and day of humiliation , that all our loving subjects may send up their fervent prayers and supplications to almighty god , to , and for , the purposes aforesaid . our will is herefore , and we strictly command and charge , that the said fast be religiously and solemnly kept throughout this our whole kingdom , by all subjects and people within the same , upon the third wednesday of december next , being the eighteenth day thereof , to the end that so necessary and religious and exercise may be performed by all at one and the same time . requiring hereby the reverend arch-bishops , and bishops , to give notice hereof to the ministers in their respective dyocesses , that upon the lords-day immediately preceeding the said eighteenth day of december , they cause read and intimate this our proclamation from the pulpit in every parish church , and that they exhort all our subjects to a serious and devout performance of the said prayers , fasting and humiliation , as they tender the favour of almighty god , and the safety and preservation of the protestant religion , and of our sacred life and government , and as they would avoid the wrath and indignation of god against this kingdom : certifying all those who shall contemn or neglect such a religious and necessary duty , they shall be proceeded against , and punished as contemners of our authority , and persons , disaffected to the protestant religion , as well as to our royal person and government . given under our signet at edinburgh , the fifteenth day of november , one thousand six hundred and seventy eight , and of our reign the thirtieth year . per actum dominorum secreti concilii . al. gibson , cls. sti. concilii . god save the king . edinburgh , prited by the heir of andrew anderson , printer to his most sacred majesty , 1678. the depositions and examinations of mr. edmund everard (who was four years close prisoner in the tower of london) concerning the horrid popish plot against the life of his sacred majesty, the government, and the protestant religion with the names of several persons in england, ireland, france, and elsewhere concerned in the conspiracy. everard, edmund. 1679 approx. 37 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 11 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a38819 wing e3527 estc r4864 12791821 ocm 12791821 93950 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a38819) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 93950) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 379:21) the depositions and examinations of mr. edmund everard (who was four years close prisoner in the tower of london) concerning the horrid popish plot against the life of his sacred majesty, the government, and the protestant religion with the names of several persons in england, ireland, france, and elsewhere concerned in the conspiracy. everard, edmund. [4], 16 p. printed for dorman newman ..., london : 1679. reproduction of original in union theological seminary library, new york. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678. 2006-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-11 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-05 robyn anspach sampled and proofread 2007-05 robyn anspach text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i appoint dorman newman , citizen and stationer of london , to print my depositions concerning the plot , and none else . april 30. 1679. edmund everard . the depositions and examinations of mr. edmund everard ( who was four years close prisoner in the tower of london ) concerning the horrid popish plot against the life of his sacred majesty , the government , and the protestant religion . with the names of several persons in england , ireland , france , and elsewhere , concerned in the conspiracy . part whereof was five years since made known to persons herein specified ; and again tendered to the honourable committee of lords sitting in parliament at westminster , upon oath ; and now tendered to the honourable house of commons . london : printed for dorman newman at the kings arms in the poultrey . m dc lxxix . this information of the plot was five years since given by me to persons herein specified , but was suppressed ; and was again now of late tendered a-new to the committee of the lords sitting in parliament at westminster , upon oath , the 21st of december , 1678. and is now tender'd by me to the commons . while i was employed as agent at the french court for the english militia's concerns , one of the officers brought me at paris to the acquaintance of my lady anne gourdon , sister to the now marquess of huntley in scotland . she after about a years frequentation , communicated unto me certain important secrets concerning a popish plot against england . she 's a lady of vast correspondence with the popish clergy and nobility almost through all europe ; living ordinarily as a free person in nunneries , and was then in a convent at paris . at a time i surprized her with two of the chief scotch seminarists of paris , in a deep and dark discourse of the english affairs ; and as soon as my lady made them understand that i was one of her privatest friends , and catholickly affected ( it being fit she should imagine this ) they begun to speak plain enough , to let me perceive that their discourse tended to some sudden design for the subversion of the english government and governour , and the setting up of popery here in england . but on some day of the month of november , 1673 , i enquired of my lady what those mysterious discourses meaned she had with the scotch priest ? she after long importunities and protestations , revealed unto me that which follows . i. that there was now a grand design on foot in england , for the setling of the catholick faith there publickly . ii. that there was also a project against the parliament that made such a stir ( as she spoke ) and was their obstacle , either totally to dissolve it , or to sow some divisions betwixt the king and it ; where his majesty also should find potent adversaries of the romish nobility , who would cut out work for him . iii. that there was a very considerable party in england , who laboured to make the duke of york king , but that the scots indeed were more for the duke of monmouths being such , if means could be made to bring him over to it , wherein she conceived i might be an useful instrument , having been employed under him . but said i , what do they mean to do with the king himself ? she answered , i. that the now king of england would be made away , and dispatcht after his father , so that he would not be shortly in a case to annoy any body . then i askt her by what means they thought to bring such matters about ? and who were the leading-men in the contrivance , and who the under-agents to carry it on ? she said , that all that was too much for me to know at the first time ; besides , that it was then too late at night ; but that at my return within three days ( for avoiding of suspition ) i should be fully satisfied . but i insisted , that these were grand affairs whereof she spoke , for which consequently she needed to have more than common grounds . she replied , that i ought not to doubt but that she had the best correspondency in england , scotland , and france , as having on the one part madam de gourdon her aunt , one of the chief ladies with the dutchess of orleance , which was taken to be of the fittest for intelligence and intrigues at the french court ; and on the other side , that she received letters almost every week from the eminentest church-men on this and that side of the sea , as also from some of the greatest nobility of england and scotland , namely , from her brother the marquess of huntley , my lord oxenford of scotland , mr. maitland ( somewhat concerned , as she said , in the secretaryship of ministry of state of scotland ) and from the earl of roches chancellor there ; but she afterwards run out into some of his love commerce with her ; so that i leave to others to infer from the premises to which , either to love , or the plot-part , or all of this his letter-correspondency must be referred . and to confirm further the credit i must yeild to her words , she drew forth a bag full of letters , a matter of a bushel full , and shewed some more in a cabinet , saying , are these all about trifles , think you ? she further produced a picture in mignature of the said chancellor , and went about to read one of his letters ( of a large and ill-shaped character methought ) , but withheld , referring me till the fore-mentioned three days term . i in fine , asked how she could avoid suspition , if so many letters were directed to her in her own name ? she told me she had taken a good care for that , because her correspondents writ to her under several names by which they called her , and part of her letters were directed to mr. conne a scotch-man , living at paris as agent for the pope , others were addressed to mr. dallison her scotch physician there , some to father joseph , prior of the english benedictines at paris , who was her confessor . ii. now in the interval , having before been recommended by dr. brien , dr. molony priests , and others , to colonel richard talbot , and to his brother peter ( the pretended archbishop of dublin ) for a person that carried on business after the formalities of the court of france , and the colonel himself having made some tryal of me ; he on a time desired me to be assistant to his brother the bishop , not long since come out of england : the bishop desired i should go and complement on his behalf , the marshal bellefond ( grand steward to the king of france ) , and know when he might be introduced by him to the kings audience about the business whereof he treated with the marshal himself while he was in england as ambassador ( in or about the year 1670. ) the marshal being then at court , kept at versaile , the bishop would have one mr. moore , a priest and philosophy-professor at paris , to accompany us thither on the next day , having lain that night at versaile ; and the bishop striving to make us all merry on the good catholick causes success , i took that opportunity to enquire , whether he thought it not fit to communicate unto me the heads and grounds of this affair wherein he was pleased to make me his speaker and introducer at court , lest , said i , any occasion might happen for me to second it . the business that i am to represent to the king of france is this : i. it is a business , said he , which mightily concerns the welfare of the catholicks in england , and of those in ireland especially . ii. that he was to propose ways to the king of france , whereby to relieve them in their present extremities and persecutions , and for to undertake their protection ; and some of his ways was to arm some irish , and to secure some sea-port town in ireland for the french. iii. he said that he had a special good warrant and commission for this his negotiation from some of the greatest persons in england . iv. that he was to solicit his christian majesty for a pension , or the arrears payable to himself . the next morning i went to the kings rising to acquaint the marshal bellefond , that the archbishop talbot was in town to wait on his majesty and him ; he wish't me to introduce him : the marshal knew him at first sight , and imbraced him , and acquainted the king with his coming ; his majesty receiving him with great civility , led him into a private room , where mr. moore and i following them , he beck'ned to mr. moore that had the paper , to advance : but i from the doorward saw the bishop present a letter to the king , and other papers , which i think were sealed . i over-heard he spoke in italian at first entrance , their conference lasted about half an hour ; and though that king is somewhat of a grave , and somewhat morose temper , yet he often smiled , as at propositions that pleased him . but at our coming out from court , i enquired of the bishop of the good success of his negotiation , which i told him seemed to be of other or more matters then he acquainted me with . no , said he , 't is but of the same matter i spoke to you of last night ; whereof he said , i should know more , seeing he must come to court again and again about it , though the king ( continued he ) promised all possible satisfaction and hopes of a good issue . so , not to increase suspicion by further inquiries , i urged him no more , but departed from him for that time to paris . yet note , that mr. moore did also generally touch unto me the matters of the aforesaid articles and plot , having heard it from the said bishop , peter talbot , and his papers . and further observe , that one mr. conne a scotch-man ( who was formerly the popes nuncio , and then his agent at paris ) had almost every day private conferences with both the talbots , and went betwixt them , their nuncio , then being at paris ; and that the talbots and this conne came often to my lady anne huntleys , though my lady had also another pretext to see conne . the very same night i did communicate all that past in this peter talbot's negotiation to sir robert welsh , as i had done before that other plot of lady huntleys , both fearing lest this grand secret might dye with me , i having many enemies daily threatning me then at paris ; and for that this sir robert was a man that still made much profession of his actings , sufferings , and loyalty for the king of england , in such former discoveries ; but sir roberts truer character i found out too late . however sir robert most unfaithfully forthwith discovered all to colonel talbot , both that of my lady huntleys , and the talbots business ; and that i intended speedily to go for england to accuse both him and his brother peter ; the colonel feigning to keep his bed , desires to speak with me at his own lodging . the circumstances of the message with the premisses weighed , i took one or two along with me to his very ▪ chamber door on another pretext ; he presently desired to know when i intended for england , and when i had seen sir robert welsh . but by this much , forthwith perceiving i was betrayed ; i pretended another occasion of that voyage ; for which besides i seemed not to be very earnest , if either in paris , or with the now dutchess of york ( then at paris ) he would procure me some fit employment of secretary , or usher . and at first he went about to perswade me from coming over into england at all . then began to threaten me manfully ; and if he heard i did otherwise than i said , in stealing away for england on such occasions against them and the catholicks , they would infallibly procure i should be forthwith committed to the tower of london or the gate-house , at my arrival ; which accordingly happened according to his spightful prophesie , about seven days after i arrived at london . that seeing the effect of his threatnings fall out so punctually , and not doubting thereupon , but that he , with sir robert welsh , and correspondents here , were the secret contrivers of my four years close imprisonment in the tower ( though a very remote surprise was put in by them for pretext ) therefore i said i was afraid to charge them much , and but warily , whilst i was in the tower , fearing to fare the worse by the means of any secret friend of theirs . evidences . the aforesaid sir robert welsh his evidence , now in london , may first confirm the truth of this my information ; for he being now in london , can witness that i disclosed to him all the said treasons about five years since , in or about the month of november 1673 ; so that it cannot be imagined that this my information is some new matter fitted for the times against papists ; nor that it is some odious new-coined slander , according to the humour and device of some dissenting parties ( as papists cavil ) , seeing that by four or five witnesses hereafter mentioned , who are none of my friends , it undeniably appears that i discovered this said plot many years before these times were thought of ; nay , and in such a time when i never had seen england , or knew any person there , either by letters or otherwise ( except such officers of the army that were then in france ) . i. i did not know but that sir robert welsh or some other had hinted these matters to some minister of state. ii. i began to discover some of these matters to sir john robinson at the beginning of my imprisonment ; but whether it was through any defect of my delivery , or that he took such relations for a devised starting from the only point he would have me confess against the duke of monmouth , against whom i never conceived the least harm ; but whatever it was for , sir john made light of my narration concerning the lady huntley and the said talbots business , which i am sure i began to relate to him , at the least in substance ; but how far he suffered me to proceed , i cannot now well remember , both for that there 's above four years since , and for the hard usages wherewith he still troubled my mind ( whereof neither his majesty nor the duke of monmouth knew their continuance so long ) as my lord of northampton told me . iii. and since my enlargement at the very beginning of this parliament , i yet went to the tower to desire sir john to second me for the discovering of the said matters ; but he at my first speaking rejected my proposal , referring me to the secretaries . and truly i would as heartily have applied my self to the secretaries as to any , but that i feared , lest of some errors which might be found in my carrying on this business , they would be more likely to charge me therewith , as parties for the king and laws , than any other chief parliament-members , who would be more fit to intercede for me , and more at leisure to sue out a pardon for me , if need were . iv. in fine , col. justin maccarty , being then at paris when these matters were vented out of sir robert , of my accusing the lady huntley and the talbots , he , i say , with some of his officers , can testifie that such a report came out then , some years since , if they would speak truth . v. nay , and one capt. barret , with several other officers that were beyond seas , told me about a fortnight ago , that the report went amongst the irish , that the talbots were committed upon my information , though i never spoke of them these four years till now ; but that by a fore-boding guilt they knew perfectly , and heard i had grounds enough wherewith to accuse them ; so that the irish catholicks here did threaten me , alledging me to be an abettor of mr. oate's informations against them , which he neither needs , nor did i ever see him but in publike , before i gave in this information ; nor bedlow . besides , that it appears i made the discovery of the plot , and the aforesaid matters , before they , had i not had some of the trojan prophetesses ill fortune ; yet in time i hope i shall be able to recollect more of the particulars of the matters and persons herein mentioned . edmund everard . jurat . coram me 4 april 1679. william waller . the information of mr. edmond everard , taken upon oath before sir william waller , one of his majesties justices of the peace for the county of middlesex , and city and liberties of westminster , this fourth of april 1679. the true contrivers of my imprisonment were the talbots and lady huntley , who for discovering of their plotings , threatned me in express words , that if ever i came over into england , on that design , i would be secured in the tower or gate-house ; or if i remained in france , they would get me laid fast enough : they put these threatnings into execution , for though both they and i were seemingly reconciled , yet they made such a search for me in paris , that i was faign to change lodgings very often into remote and by-places ; and when i was on my journey for england , one or two of my own servants , whom i dismist at paris , seeing me take coach privately , carried them word of it , and for some pretence or other they sent one mr. perrig , who was their acquaintance and huntley's chief friend , in post to apprehend me ; whereof sir edward hungerford , of this honourable house , can testifie from a friend of his , who heard the same from perrig's mouth ( that is now dead . ) and it 's to be remark'd , that he could not pursue or apprehend a stranger in france , but in a concern against the king of that countrey ; who rather gives protection to strangers that are pursued on any other account . before the talbots fell out with me , and when i first determined in my own mind to come over privately into england , i inquired of one of the talbot's servants ( who was my countreyman ) where one might take cheap and friendly lodgings in london , till one were in fit equipage ( i having never been in england before ) he directed me to one kenedy's house at the pall mall , or to another countreyman's house of his in st. martin's lane , at the sign of the patrick ; the first night and hour i came to that house i told them my ▪ name and imployment from the duke of monmouth , and that it was fit i should go and wait on him immediately , lest he should take it ill ; and desned my landlord to send for some link-boy that knew his grace's house , where i repaired forthwith ; but not finding his grace at home , i acquainted some of the servants of my arrival ▪ to notifie to his grace : the next day i came , he also was abroad earlier than ordinary , on some riding or recreation account : i but unto gentlemen of his chamber , mr. champins and st. giles , i told i would gladly come to kiss his grace's hand , and confer about business , in whatever company he were in ; so that captain watson and mr. vernon were not present , who were my enemies on private accounts , and would move his grace doubtlesly against me , not to grant me my request ; which partly was some arrears or an imployment . the next day i being ill , was let blood and kept my chamber a day or two : i think the sunday morning i went to visit lieutenant collonel trelany , who meeting accidently a day or two before , i came to re-visit on this sunday morning , who at my first sight found more than ordinarily disturbed , and courteously desired to know my lodgings , and whether i had seen the duke ? i told him of the sorry dwelling i had taken up for a little time , and that i would gladly see his grace without the side enemies and with him : he desired me to accompany him to whitehall chappel , where i might at the least be seen of his grace . ( thither we went ) but the collonel desiring me to stay about the chappel door , thronged in with great haste , without coming out to me afterwards : in the mean time hearing of organs and children singing in surplusses , as i had seen and heard in the french kings chappel , where i perceived some of the english nobility come as freely as here ; i did not know what to think , whether i had not been too forward in speaking of any discoveries against that religion which might be perhaps of late changed in england : for that i had not heard or seen such things in the french church at charenton , where i only took my idea of protestanism ; but this erronious state of things ( that i now know to be indifferent ) did however make me pause in my discoveries ; but whilst in these thoughts , captain watson stept out of the chappel , who looking on me a-squint , went down the privy stairs in one end , and the other watson his nephew , speaking a word or two to me more coldly than ordinarily , went out through the guard hall , to the other stairs , and presently follows in the king's company the duke of monmouth ; who eying me only , past by : at all which passages of indifferency from former friends i was astonish'd . but i was in scarlet breeches and stockings , so that i could be easily discerned and dogg'd to my lodgings ; where i went presently from chappel . within two days after two men brought a paper to my said lodging , signed by the secretary whereupon he said he must needs speak with me : i inquired for what ? but they could not or would not tell me ; but it seems by their expressions to my landlord , they were with him the day before to inquire for me : and they could tell that i had been last sunday at morning prayers at whitehall , and there also seen the same night amongst others : after break-fasting peaceably , i went with them to whitehall , not thinking this any commitment business . i told my landlord i thought i would be back within an hour . the secretary at my arrival , inquiring of my name , told me he would go and speak with the king about me ; which i know not whether he did so , or no : but returning soon after spake not one word to me , but going into his clerk , he sent out the same messengers , who called me into the stone gallery ; who said they had orders to carry me to the tower , but for what they could not tell me . sir john robinson after my arrival entertained me to dinner , which continued in the company of his lady and solicitor , in a free and cheerful manner in discourse of the french customs , and of his son , whom i knew at paris . after dinner , and having had a nap with his chaplain , who came in , sir john inquired of me , whether i were not a roman catholique ? i told them i had been such , but not one of late ; and whether i was in orders ? i told them never ▪ inquiring whether i knew for what i was committed ? i told them no , no ; no more do i , said sir john , but in the general ; afterwards he sent for one captain cresset , the then gentleman goaler , he read unto me a paper , he called his warrant , which being but in general words , and giving me no copy of it , made no such impression upon me , as now to remember the contents ; for i thought it was but some tower formality , wherewith others were served as well as i : for sir john never explained nor insisted upon it , no more did i , but followed captain cresset to my appointed lodging ; which was convenient enough , as also the diet : so that at the beginning i being not lock'd up neither day nor night , for a month or thereabouts , and giving my self to reading an english chronicle that belonged to my landlord , i unconcernedly expected a speedy enlargement , after the duke of monmouth should come to hear of my imprisonment ; unto whom i desired sir john to give notice of it ; but i had no return . after some months , sir john sent for me , and said he had order to examine me ; he inquired , what and whom i verily thought were the causes of my imprisonment ? i told him that the lady anne gourdon , alias huntley , with peter talbot , titular bilhop of dublin , were assuredly the causes of it ; and might well contrive by other instruments some false accusation against me , for to weaken the testimony i was to give against them of their plotting against england : for that the said lady had informed me of a design the english catholiques had against the king's person , his government , and religion ; and that she had correspondency with her brother the marquiss of huntley , my lord of rothes , my lord of oxenford of scotland , and other catholiques and priests , this side and beyond seas : that the said peter talbot , before i brought him to the french king's presence , told me , that he was to treat with that king from soine very great person or persons in england , for to raise men in ireland for the french king , and that i had declared these things in france to one sir robert welsh , who desired me to acquaint the duke of ormond therewith . so sir john being in haste to go to whitehall , took these heads in his table-book , and said he would acquaint them above with it ; but bid me not to mention the duke of ormond at all , for he was a goodman . i bring him in onely by occasion , said i. next day sir john sent for me , and desiring to know what other things i could say , i began to particularize the forementioned relations of the plot ; but he broke me off of that , saying , that these were but trifles , and that we cared not in england what priests and women beyond seas , could devise ; and that he took such stories from me but as starting-holes from the only point he had to urge against me . that unless i would confess other matters against the duke of monmouth , he would rack me next day , and afterwards hang me . i said , he might do what he pleased , but that i neither knew or could confess any such design : and so i was sent back to my lodging , but my forwardness to speak ever afterwards of any plot against england was well abated , by this storm . i desired my keepers wife and child , here present to pray for me , for that i was to be rack'd the next day . i asked my keeper , what a rack was ? an instrument , said he , to stretch the body and limbs out of all joynts , sometimes full of needles ; and that it was called the daughter of some duke . i do not now remember which . but this family being weak persons , were themselves frightned at this sad and terrible threatnings ; alledging , that none was ever carried to be executed out of their house . sometime afterwards i was sent for to be examined , to whitehall , before the secretary , my lord of bath , of newport , and some others , i never saw before : they inquired , whether i had been imployed under the duke of monmouth ? and whether i knew some other persons , i do not now remember my self ? with such other questions ; out of which i could not yet know certainly the cause of my commitment ; for no body appeared against me , as i think , at that time , one only at the second time : so they in a general manner urged me still to confess , to confess , what evil design i had in coming to england : i said still , i had none , nor could i confess any : and so was sent back to the tower. some weeks or months afterward i was sent for to whiteball again , where one dallison , who was formerly in france entertained by me for writing , appeared . he there said , that i there in france threatned some persons here in england , and that he thought that it was the duke of monmouth , because of non-payment of arrears . i told him , that that was a bad inference , that because i threatned some body , it must be therefore the duke of monmouth , who had never any ground so to do ; for that he had signed an order for payment of me ; and spoke to captain watson and doctor goase for it : though i never was yet paid . but the pretext or ground from which they took the occasion of this slanderous allogisme , was from the matters of some private quarrels , which one mr. hampton and the lady anne gourdon would have me vindicate against some of their rivals ; which i complimentally was still wont to promise them i would do , the better to insinuate my self into their secrets , concerning the plot and other matters . the lady gourdon would have the earl of rothes his lady to be made away , she being a presbiterian , begot ( as she said ) a great obstacle to the roman catholick religion 's progress in scotland , and her own rival , &c. mrs. wingfield , alias hampton , a benchers wife of the temple , then also in paris , went also about to all english gentlemen there to avenge her quarrels against her husband , who as they say ( not without some good cause ) has cast her off : she applied her self to me , who not approving of those violent means , i obtained for her a letter of recommendation for justice to be done to her , from the french king to the king of england ; signed by secretary pompone , directed to secretary arlington in england : this was in 73 , but she not finding any good by this letter , she went on to propose to me her old ways ; so seeing her incorrigible , fearing she would fall into worse hands , and hoping to get back the money i had lent to her and laid out for her ; i kept in with her till she could get money to pay me : but finding no hopes of either the one or the other , i bid this dallison my man , to take her in hand , to pretend to close to her designs , till i could get my money . i directed him to her lodgings , but he told me that sir robert welsh and himself knew her well enough : and that he would get me one johnson a student in physick , who would act his part in the comedy better than any . i told them i would share with them both of what was due to me by this woman , and what besides they could get from her : she proffered to give some hundreds of pounds , then in the hands of monsieur de basti in london , and her daughter besides in marriage , to any that would kill her husband by the sword , poyson , &c. but finding she could not perform the payment of a far less sum due to me , and that to receive into my company persons of so wicked principles in religion and moralities , was scandalous ; i cast them all off in paris . she some weeks before came over unknown to me into england , but the next day after my arrival here , i met her accidentally , and she brought me to her lodging ; having now cast of dallison . also he there in paris met with the talbots every night , and with sir robert welsh ; amongst them it was contrived that dallison should come over into england , and turn these petit matters wherein i seemed to comply with these ladies , as if i intended them against the duke of monmouth , for not payment of arrears , &c. and by this means they thought to blast my discovery of the plot against them , when i came into england ; and that i would be certainly secured when i arrived there : and they had the assurance to threaten me there-with to my face . their threats came punctually to pass , for i was secured according to their contrivance within a few days after i was in london . now when sir john and the secretary did so oft press me , what might give grounds to this slaunder of some design against the duke of monmouth , i have related these matters abovesaid , unto them concerning these womens proposals , which i conceived to be the only ground and pretext of that slaunder , they made me sign it , i think ; which taking but for a formality of no great importance , i did do ; and though i did but out of a complemental policy hearken to these womens designs , i could not be at quiet there at the tower with sir john and others , till i had said , that i had a real intention to serve these women in the premisses ; though mr. hawkins the tower chaplain , and mr. robinson the tower gentleman jaylor , may witness that i told them and others , that i dallied with these ladies only . but what-ever sir john or the secretary can make of this or any other lie , the popish plotters sent into their hands , to slaunder my evidence , cannot be material to the purpose , and i will be ready to answer it . and though sir john's ill usage and threats of racking of me , and hearing that he was wont to give an account of me to the duke of york ( the talbot's master ) though i say , these things did discourage me to speak further of the plot whilst i was in the tower , either to sir john or the secretary , yet after i had been abroad a while , during the last parliaments sitting , i went to him to the tower , intreating him to second me in the discovering of the said matters aforesaid , for the good of the government ; john bagot his man i think was in hearing ; but he with a check rejected me : which discouraged me so , as almost never to speak any more of the matter . till a lord of the parliament , to whom i discovered the whole , by the means of a friend , had received me again to make the discovery , as i have done on the twenty fourth of december last before the committee of lords upon oath , three months ago before this information i now do give into the commons . jurat . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a38819-e280 articles against the talbots . a poem to his sacred majesty, on the plot. written by a gentlewoman ephelia, fl. 1679. 1678 approx. 3 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 1 1-bit group-iv tiff page image. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a54713 wing p2031a estc r218925 99830476 99830476 34928 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a54713) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 34928) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 2074:11) a poem to his sacred majesty, on the plot. written by a gentlewoman ephelia, fl. 1679. 1 sheet ([1] p.) printed for henry brome at the gun in st. paul's church-yard, london : [1678] by ephelia. attributed by wing to mrs. joan philips. dated at end: nov. 23. 1678. copy torn, slightly affecting text. reproduction of the original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng popish plot, 1678 -early works to 1800. great britain -politics and government -1660-1688 -poetry -early works to 1800. 2006-11 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-11 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-12 mona logarbo sampled and proofread 2006-12 mona logarbo text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a poem to his sacred majesty , on the plot . written by a gentlewoman . hail mighty prince ! whom providence design'd to be the chief delight of humane kind : so many virtues crowd your breast , that we do almost question your humanity : sure every planet that o're virtue reigns , shed it's best influence in your royal veins . you are the glory of monarchal pow'rs , in bounties free , as are descending showrs ; fierce as a tempest , when engag'd in war , in peace more mild than tender virgins are ; in mercy , you not only imitate the heav'nly pow'rs , but also emulate . none but your self , your suff'rings could have born with so much greatness , such heroick scorn : when hated traytors do your life pursue , and all the world is fill'd with cares for you , when every loyal heart is sunk with fear , your self alone , does unconcern'd , appear , your soul within still keeps its awful state , contemns , and dares , the worst effects of fate ; the majesty that shoots from your bright eye , commands your fate , and awes your destiny . and yet thô your brave soul bear you thus high , your solid judgment sees there 's danger nigh , which with such care and prudence you prevent , as if you fear'd not , but wou'd cross th' event : your care so nobly looks , it doth appear , 't is for your subjects , not your self you fear : heavens , make this princes life your nearest care , that does so many heavenly virtues share . if kings may be allow'd to copy you , charles is the likest , nature ever drew : blast every hand , that dares to be so bold an impious weapon 'gainst his life to hold ; burst every heart , that dares but think him ill , their guilty souls with so much terror fill , that of themselves they may their plot unfold , and live no longer , when the tale is told : safe in your care all else would needless prove , yet keep him safe too in his subjects love ; your subjects view you with such loyal eyes , they know not how they may their treasure prize . were you defenceless , they would round you fall , and pile their bodies to build up a wall . were you oppress'd , 't wou'd move a generous strife who first should lose his own , to save your life : but since kind heaven these dangers doth remove , we 'll find out other wayes to express our love. we 'll force the traytors all , their souls resign to herd with them , that taught them their design . finis . lcensed nov. 23. 1678. roger l' estrange . london : printed for henry brome at the gun in st. paul's church-yard . a new narrative of a gent. of grays inn, relating to mr. turbervill's last narrative concerning the horrid popish-plot gent. of grays inn. 1680 approx. 16 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a52939 wing n678 estc r3504 12892141 ocm 12892141 95124 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a52939) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 95124) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 721:21) a new narrative of a gent. of grays inn, relating to mr. turbervill's last narrative concerning the horrid popish-plot gent. of grays inn. 4 p. printed for the author, [london : 1680] imprint from colophon. caption title. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng turberville, edward, 1648?-1681. -full narrative and further discovery of edward turbervill of skerr in the county of glamorgan, gent of the horrid popish plott. popish plot, 1678. 2007-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2007-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-04 celeste ng sampled and proofread 2007-04 celeste ng text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a new narrative of a gent. of grays inn , relating to mr. turbervill's last narrative concerning the horrid popish-plot , parce puer stimulis , & fortius utere loris : ovid. 't is a piece of jesuitism to do evil that good may come thereof , but it is the duty of every good christian to do good for evil : to tell a lie politickly to clear a man's self , is an evil of the church of rome , and a ready way to prove a man a jesuit ; but if that falshood is designed for the ruine of our neighbour , it carries a more ugly aspect , and is a positive contradiction to the purity of that doctrine which commands us , to render good for evil , and to love our neighbours as our selves . i cannot therefore , when i see a lord beheaded , or a traytor hanged , refrain from pity , or with-hold my prayers , and i am not of the humour of the rabble , to insult and glory in anothers misery , i know that it is an argument of a villanous disposition to tyrannize and abuse those wretched ruines , which are under the mercy of the law , whose severity is bitter enough without aggravation : a noble mind ; doth ( out of native goodness ) shew a kind of sweetness in the disposition , which , if not the man , doth pity his misfortune , but never doth increase his sorrow , by baser usage than doth become his justice . in the title-page of a late narrative , which bears the name of mr. turbervill , here are these words ; an account of the gentleman of grays-inn , who appeared in court before the lord high-steward to invalidate mr. turbervill 's evidence , which words are the prologue to an after lying , malicious , imperti●●nt and unchristian-like tragedy , of the said gentleman's reputation , and might much rather have been termed , an horrid account of a barbarous and bloudy design to bury a man alive . what is spoken of me in the title-page is false , and the first scene a lie ; so that what concerns me in that narrative , is like the devil , a lyar from the beginni●g : and thus i prove 〈◊〉 , i did appear barely in obedience to an order of the honourable house of peers , dated 27 november , 1680 ; and i was no voluntary witness , as may appear by the lord stafford's tryal , p. 121 , 122. i take it , there is some difference betwixt summoning upon a design to invalidate , and appearing upon a design to invalidate , which if mr. turbervill had well considered , i verily believe he would never have shewed his teeth so much against me . yet notwithstanding , i was no voluntary witn●ss , i do here profess , and stand upon it , as a principle of my religion , that , had i known any matters certainly true , which would have preserved the lord stafford's life , ( though i were in all li●●●●●hood to be murdered by the papists , or 〈◊〉 being exposed , as now i am to popular fury ) i would and ought to have declared them . cruelty is no sign of courage , in a martial humour , and rashness is a grand impeachment of a man's discretion ▪ i and my family are quite undone , should the world believe what mr. turbervill so cruelly , rashly and impertinently ( to his purpose ) reports of me . let him remember the saying of valence to edward ii. in heat of bloud to kill , may tast of valour , which yet on co●ler terms may touch of murder : your victorious sword is imbrewed with honour , let it not ravage where is no resistance : to spill where you may save obscures your glory , to save where you may spill proclaims your goodness . if due thoughts of this shall not excite his pity , then ●●serere 〈◊〉 deus ! i thank god i have read something , and i do both remember and abhor the damnable principles of the papists , death and destruction are the jesuits m●●hinatius ; and mr. turbervill himself left his cloister , because amongst those brethren ( instead of seraphick piety and purity of religion ) he could observe nothing but malice , envy , backbyting and detraction of one another : how his proceedings against me ( in his last narrative ) with such violent scandals agrees with this so pious an● chri●ian-like resolve , i cannot de●ermine , but this i know , that i am abused . 't is not the least of our happiness , as english-men , that every man is allowed ( by the wholsom laws of this kingdom ) the liberty of being heard , before he can be legally condemned : i therefore , as my birthright , claim that freedom , and humbly begg of all the world , especially all good protestants , not to wrest or enforce , the plain meaning of this my just and absolutely necessary vindication of my self , to deviate from its true design , to the service of malice or popery . and i do sincerely profess , that i do not here intend to detract from the credit of mr. turbervill's testimony ; but if any thing herein shall efface the monstrous ugliness of that character he is pleased to give me , and falsifie what he says in my particular , i humbly beg that it may not be construed to invalidtae his evidenc ; what his narratiue speaks in relation to the truth of that , does not concern me further , than that i am a protestant , and highly obliged to himself and all the rest of those worthy gentlemen , who ( by their timely discoveries ) have been blessed instruments in the preservation of our lives , religion and government . mr. turbervill is pleased to say , that without doubt i had large promises from the popish party , which i thought would be prevalent : 't is beyond a petitio principii , and some sort of presumption in him , to determine what i thought , heaven has reserved that as the peculiar business of his own omniscience : and whether it happens to be right guess'd , or not , i must leave to the judgments of such as know me better , however , it is an uncharitable stabbing censure . the evidence i gave was about a discourse that had happened betwixt mr. turbervill and me , which you may see in the lord stafford's tryal , page 121. i am not here about to vindicate the truth of my testimony , i leave that to the world , to believe as they please . it 's strange to me that mr. turbervill should imagine that i was bribed to give that evidence , which i must needs know ( being a barrister at law ) would be improper for the prisoner's purpose : or that if i had been bribed , i presume no man will believe but that the roman party would have made a better bargain , than for me to declare an impertinent evidence . but yet i do say , that if what i spoke had greater weight than i believe it had , and was received by every body as an undoubted truth , even that could not abate the due credit of mr. turbervill's evidence ; for if he was ( as i believe ) a papist at that time , when he spoke to me , it was then his principle to conceal any thing that might tend to a discovery of their hellish plot : and now , good mr. turbervill , why so angry ? impetit animum , nec potest cernere verum . i would faign know how my wifes fortune concerns his credit ? what he now means by small or great ? and why he seems to summon me to an account , by saying that the same is now almost spent ? o impertinent insulting tyranny ! 't will be good to remember , altius evexit quam te fortuna , ruinam majorem timeas . — juven too great a care improperly exprest , doth often lose the cause it strives to advantage . but that mr : turbervill should know , ( and make it as part of an undoubted truth , in his narrative , ) that i was first called to the bar , and then afterwards , upon the credit of that , married a wife , seems wonderful to me ; and in that , i may say ▪ he is more than omniscient ; for he knows that , and declares it as a positive truth , which really never was , ( as i believe , for i dare not be positive , since he affirms the contrary . ) i take it chst i was first married in april , and afterwards called to the bar in trinity-term 1679. perhaps trinity-tirm might be before april ! who can tell ? no , no , there is something in this more than i understaud , 't is a kind of a charm upon my intellects , and ( i may say ) that i am almost brwitched not to believe my own senses , and yet i do not hold the doctrine of transubstantiation . but suppose i had been married upon the credit of my being called to the bar , what is that to his purpose ? or how does it strengthen his or weaken my evidence ? the long robe is no mean foundation to build a good fortune on . had my condition ever been as calamitous as mr. turbervill would make the world believe it once was , his charitable endeavours are not now wanting to render the same much worse , by exposing me to the hatred and fury of mankind : and i need not fear ( the more 's my sorrow ) of finding some to cut my throat , if he should be so cruel at any time , as to shew me daw●'d after his manner to the rabble . temptations are the works of the devil ; and if at any time he assaulted me , so as to draw me in to be guilty of my own murder , i heartily thank almighty god for his grace , that i am still living , and do defie thee satan . i was never yet guilty of any sort of treasons , murders , felonies , perjuries , forgeries , &c. so that if i was once poor , i kept my self honest . dr. oates says , that a man's poverty is no objection against his honesty : and when , not very long ago , i saw mr. turbervill in a low condition ( as i thought ) i pityed him , and would now fain know how he comes to dash poverty in the teeth of evidence ? if a man ( as he says ) would do much to gratifie a person that had preserved him from starving , i do verily believe he would do much more to keep himself from starving : but that a man ought to perjure himself , on a point of gratitude , or upon any other account whatsoever , i thank god is none of my principle , nor indeed had i ever any temptation that way ; which i protest to be true upon my hopes of salvation . what mr. turbervill designs to do with me i cannot tell , he renders me a man unprincipled , and in that a beast ; ( as far as in him lies ) yet when i think on god's providence , in my preservation , against the hatred of froward men , i have no reason to renounce , my humanity , bu● much rather to admire his divine goo●●●ss . i will now give mr. turbervill a tast of my principles , which i have most r●●son to use in these lamentable ti●es of distraction . true piety bindeth the subject to deliver a good sovereign , to 〈◊〉 with a bad , and to take up the burthen of princes with a bended knee , hoping rather in time to merit abatement , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . the king in his throne , is like the sun in the firmament , whose in●●uence animates all sublunary beings : so the authority of a prince gives life and vigour to every particular member of the body politick ; and he is not only caput , but also anim● relpublicae ; and no member ought to move against that soul which is the life of its being , or presume to accede too near this resplendent head , ( by intermeddling with the scorching influences of the state ar●●● ) lest the brightness thereof should dazle the adventurers into blindness and faction , and the heat thereof scorch them into 〈◊〉 and destruction . but suppose a magistrate really tyrannical ; it is no contemptible question , whether the evils of the redress may not be equivalent to the mischiefs imposed ? i remember livy 's nec morbum ferre pos●●●●● nec remedium : and tacitus ' s ●erend , a regum ingenia , neque 〈◊〉 effe crebras mutati●●● , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 don●● homines ; sed neque haec continua et meliorum interrantu pensantur : and seneca 's infaeliciter aegrotat , cui plus pericull à medico quàm morbo . poise the miseries of a civil-war with the grievances of an unjust magistrate , and the ballance seems to me so unequal , that ( if my christianity fail ) the apprehension of the inevitable miseries by the sword , is sufficient to deter from such a damnable practice ; for though the fury of incensed tyranny may fall heavy upon many particulars , yet the bloudy consequences of an intestine sword are more epidemical and lasting : but if there be such distempers in a state , as shall require amendment , let it be left to the course of providence , and not ( against the disposition of heaven ) be attempted by the sword of violence , for i never read that illegal or tumultuous , or rebellious were proper epithets for reformation . and the learned bodin saith , albeit by the sufferance of the king of england , controversies between the king and his people are determined by the high-court of parliament , and sometimes by the lord chief justice of england : yet all the estates remain in full subjection to the king , who is no ways bound to follow their advice , neither consent to their requests . and yet , as to the right of the subject , i held with fortescue , that rex anglia neque per se , aut ministros suos , subsidia , aut alia quae vis oners , imponit ligeis suis , sine assensu totius regni sui , in parliamento suo expresso . so much for a tast , but should i proceed instead of a compendious narrative i might make a large volumn ; wherefore i will conclude with a few negative votes , viz. that dominion is not founded in grace , as the jesuits and some others hold : that passive obedience is fit for fools , and those that know no better : or that it is lawful to bear arms against the king , and resist him in mattess of religion and conscience , i utterly deny and abhor : and from such as hold the contrary , i will conclude upon our present distractions . novi ego hoc saeculum quibus moribus sit ; malus bonum , malum esse vult , ut sit sui simil●●● turbant , miscent mores mali ; ralpa● , avarus , invi●us , sacrum profanum , publicum privatum habebit ; hiulca gens , &c. from the lords in the tower , and some that are out , from stabbing the king with dagger or vote , from ruine point blank , or nine miles about , good lord deliver us . london : printed for the author , 1680. notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a52939-e10 l. stafford 's tryal , p. 130. stafford's memoires, or, a brief and impartial account of the birth and quality, imprisonment, tryal, principles, declaration, comportment, devotion, last speech, and final end of william, late lord viscount stafford, beheaded on tower-hill wednesday the 29. of decemb. 1680 whereunto is annexed a short appendix concerning some passages in stephen colledges tryal / the whole now again set forth for a more ample illustration of that so wonderfully zealous pamphlet entituled the papists bloody aftergame, writ in answer to the said memoirs, and published by langley curtis, 1682. corker, james maurus, 1636-1715. 1682 approx. 329 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 119 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a34574 wing c6306a estc r40876 19525952 ocm 19525952 108985 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a34574) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 108985) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1684:28) stafford's memoires, or, a brief and impartial account of the birth and quality, imprisonment, tryal, principles, declaration, comportment, devotion, last speech, and final end of william, late lord viscount stafford, beheaded on tower-hill wednesday the 29. of decemb. 1680 whereunto is annexed a short appendix concerning some passages in stephen colledges tryal / the whole now again set forth for a more ample illustration of that so wonderfully zealous pamphlet entituled the papists bloody aftergame, writ in answer to the said memoirs, and published by langley curtis, 1682. corker, james maurus, 1636-1715. curtis, langley, fl. 1668-1725. [10], 216 p. [s.n.], london printed : 1682. attributed to corker by wing and nuc pre-1956 imprints. numerous errors in paging. reproduction of original in the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng stafford, william howard, -viscount, 1614-1680. colledge, stephen, 1635?-1681. popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-06 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-08 john latta sampled and proofread 2006-08 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion stafford's memoires : or , a brief and impartial account of the birth and quality , imprisonment , tryal , principles , declaration , comportment , devotion , last speech , and final end , of william , late lord viscount stafford . beheaded on tower-hill wednesday the 29. of decemb. 1680. whereunto is annexed a short appendix concerning some passages in stephen colledges tryal . the whole now again set forth , for a more ample illustration of that so wonderfuly zealous pamphlet , entituled ; the papists bloody after-game ; writ in answer to the said memoirs , and published by langley curtis , 1682. contraria juxta se posita magis elucescunt . london : printed in the year , 1682. the publisher to the reader . it is the common fate of all treatises writ in matters of contest by opposite parties ; that whilst the one is read without the other , neither of both are rightly understood . there came forth , not long since , in answer to this treatise call'd stafford●s memoires , a pamphlet entituled , the papists bloudy after-game , composed by a zealous protestant-dissenter , and obtruded upon the vulgar , ( even to nauseousness , ) on every bookseller's stall . this pamphlet , ( we confess , ) hath had the misfortune to be generally reguarded no otherwise then as a meer bundle of hideously rude , and scurrilous barbarismes and calumnies , proceeding from the malice and fury of a man , baffled in judgment , and despairing of success from sense and reason ; whilst on the other side the memoires , though they hardly appear'd in open view , have yet gain'd the reputation of modest in expression ; impartial in matter ; convincing in proof ; and innoffensive in stile . it is true these so differrent characters seem to the godly party no wise applicable to the desert of either of the authors : the rather because the one , of them though abounding ( alas ) in passion and cholor , is yet to be commended for his exceeding zeal against the popish plot ; and the other by his reservedness in being exposed , and shrewd arguments , made in defence of the papists innocence , hath given no small umbrage of suspicion ; he yeildeth , not that implicit faith ▪ and deference to the testimony of the kings witnesses , as may clear , him from the imputation of popishly affected . nevertheless , so it is , ( we know not how , ) the memoires are grateful , and the pamphlet odious to all indifferent readers : nay some will needs say ( though we piously believe otherwise ) the framing of this pamphlet was a meer sham-plot , contriv'd by th' jesuits on purpose to advance the credit of the memoires , and prejudice a good cause by an ill vindication . but 't is hoped there will shortly be printed something by way of an apology in behalf of the pamphleteer . in the mean while that the two antagonists may stand in equal balance , and both be impartially submitted to each judicious censure ; ( see the scope of our present design ) the memoires are here made publick ; the pamphlet being already obvious to every eye and ear. the introduction . it is a wonder to see how passion and interest predominate over reason in mankind ; nothing is done , nothing said , without some tincture of either , or both . even common occurrences are usually related as men would have them to be , rather then as they are . plain-dealing is almost fled : and and all things now a days , whether private or publick , sacred or prophane , are according to different inclinations , without regard to truth promiscuously made the subject of a satyr or panegirick . an obvious example of this we have in the several accounts given of the tryal , declaration , demeanor , and death of the late lord stafford ; concerning whose tragedy , though acted for the most part in the face of the whole nation , yet there have flown about in a manner as many , and those contradictory stories , as there are relaters ; and such as know least , commonly talk most , to compleat the error . it is true , the printed tryal set forth by authority is no wise liable to these gross mistakes ; but it hath swelled in the press , by forms , &c. to so vast a volumn , that few can spare either money to buy it , or time to read it . besides , it is in a manner silent of matters chiefly designed for the subject of this treatise , ( viz. ) my lords comportment , declaration , devotion , last speech , and other occurrences , which happened inclusively from the time of his tryal , to his final end. having therefore attained to a most exact and certain knowledge of these particulars , i shall for the satisfaction of the curious , and manifestation of truth , give ( together with an abstract of the whole tryal , and some occurrences concerning it ) a plain and sincere relation of what i know , and can by unquestionable evidence justifie to be true . and herein i shall also totally abstain from any the least moralizing upon transactions , whereby to forestal the readers judgment . but contenting my self with a plain and candid relation of things , as i find them , leave every one to the freedom of his own censure and verdict upon them . sect . i. my lord's birth , education , quality , &c. william howard , viscount stafford , was second son to thomas earl of arundel , and uncle to the now duke of norfolk . in his youth he was educated with all care and industry imaginable to improve in him the endowments of nature and grace . and to speak truth , he was ever held to be of a generous disposition , very charitable , devout , addicted to sobriety , inoffensive in his words , and a lover of justice . when he arrived to years of maturity , he married mary , descended from the antient dukes of buckingham , grand-child to edward , and sister , and sole heiress to henry lord stafford ; to whose title he succeeded ( being created by the late king charles of glorious memory ) baron . anno 1640. and soon after viscount stafford . during the time of the late bloudy rebellion , he suffer'd much for his loyalty to the king ; always behaving himself with that courage and constancy , as became a nobleman , a good christian , and a faithful subject . after his present majesties joyful restauration , he lived in peace , plenty , and happiness , being blessed with a most virtuous lady to his wife , and many pious and dutiful children . in which state he remain'd till the 66. year of his age , when happened this revolution of his fortune , as follows . sect . ii. my lords imprisonment , charge and arraignment , &c. about michaelmas anno 1678. mr. titus oates ( formerly a minister of the church of england ) accus'd upon oath , before the king and council , ( & not long after also before the two houses of parliament ) several roman catholicks : some persons of quality ; ( and amongst the rest , the lord viscount stafford , ) of high treason , for intending and designing the death of the king , the introducing of popery , and subversion of the government , &c. my lord , though he immediately heard of this impeachment , yet relying ( as he said ) on his own innocence , never left his family , nor withdrew himself from his ordinary known acquaintance and affairs till the 25 th . of october , ( 78. ) when by warrant from the lord chief justice , he was sent prisoner to the kings bench , and from thence , soon after to the tower , where he remain'd above two years before he could be admitted to tryal . during this interval , the whole nation was surpriz'd and allarm'd with the noise of an horrid plot , contriv'd by the pope , priests , and jesuits , wherein , the king was to be murthered , armies raised , protestants massacr'd , and the three kingdoms destroy'd , by fire and sword : the people were affrighted , searches made , guards doubled , and all in an uproar . the king hereupon consulted the parliament , and both houses declar'd it a plot : yet to strengthen the evidence ( as yet but weak ) and make farther discoveries ; indempnities are promised , rewards proposed , and encouragments , given by proclamation to any who would make out upon oath the particulars of what in substance was already declar'd . by this , and the like sedulity of the king , and three succeeding parliaments , several new witnesses came in ; first , captain bedlow . next dugdale , prance , and two others , bolron and mowbray , out of the north ; then mr. jennison , smith , seigneur francisco , dangerfield , zeile , lewis , &c. lastly one mr. turbervile , who , ( together with oates and dugdale , ) gave evidence against this lord stafford , of whom we now treat . after two years imprisonment , when many roman catholicks , both priests and others , had been executed , and most of the rest imprisoned or fled ; at length my lord was brought to his tryal , on the 30 th . day of novemb. 1680. at the peers bar in westminster-hall , the house of commons being present , and the lord chancellor high-steward of england . the impeachment was drawn in the name of the commons of england ; wherein my lord was charged , together with other papists , for having imagin'd and contriv'd to murther the king , introduce popery , and subvert the good government of church and state established by law. to this impeachment my lord , being thereupon arraigned , pleaded not guilty . allegations in proof of the plot in general . ¶ 1. then the cause was opened , and the commons learned counsel , ( who were appointed managers of the tryal ▪ ) set forth the charge in most copious and eloquent language ; and beginning first with the plot in general , they shew●d to the life the wickedness , the malice , the horror of so dreadful , bloudy and hellish a design . they strongly insisted on the express positive oaths of the witnesses upon whose testimony the credit of this plot chiefly depended . they amply dilated upon the letters of coleman , and others , clearly demonstrating the busy designs and activity of the writers , they pressed home the execrable murder of sir edmundbury godfrey , charged upon the papists , as well by the oaths of captain bedlow and mr. prance , self-acknowledged partners in the assasination , as also by a certain letter sent from london to tixal , intimating the murder of a justice of peace , and communicated by dugdale to divers gentlemen in staffordshire , the third day after the murder was committed they displayed to the full view the sham-plots and counter-contrivances , whereby ( 't is said ) the papists would have subborned the king's evidence , and turn'd all their guilt upon his majesty 's known and well-experienced loyal protestant subjects . they urg'd the firing the city , the burning the navy , the calling in french-armies , wild irish , spanish-pilgrims , &c. asserted in the several depositions and narratives of dr. oats , captain bedlow , mr. dangerfield , &c. they re-capitulated the several tryals of ireland , whitebread , langhorn , &c. and alledged the votes of both houses of parliament declaring it a plot. to strengthen all this : they ript up the cruelties of queen mary , the french and irish massacres , the powder-plot , &c. they anatomiz'd the wicked principles ( from whence spring evil practices ) of murdering , lying , swearing , faith-breaking , equivocating , &c. imputed to the papists , as held by them lawful , and matters of faith. in short , nothing was omitted , nothing neglected throughout the whole process ; but every the least circumstance enforced and advanced to its full proportion , with such vigour of wit and industry as fitly corresponded to so great a cause , prosecuted by so high an authority , before so illustrious judges , and august an assembly . when the managers themselves had made these efforts to shew the vniversal conspiracy , ( as they term'd it ) they produc'd six witnesses to the same effect , whereby to second and confirm what they had thus in general asserted . mr. smith's deposition . the first was mr. smith , who deposed , that going into france , he became aquainted with abbot montague and one father bennet ; these persons , to induce him to be a catholick , told him he should have an imployment among them ; and that in a few years they would bring in their religion into england , right or wrong ; but this was not sufficiently prevalent with him to turn papist ; yet he lived with them several years . that at last he went into italy , where the jesuits perswaded him to discourse with cardinal grimaldi ; the which he did : that the cardinal made much of him ; and he it was perverted him to the romish religion ; that , upon occasion of shewing him a pair of hangings , this cardinal told him , he had great assurance the popish religion would prevail in england ; that there was but one in the way ; and that , ( to accomplish their designs , ) they must take him out of the way . that the jesuits there also publickly preached , and privately taught , that the king of england being an heretick , whoever took him out of the way would do a meritorious act . that after this , he studied several years at rome ; and that , whilst he was in the colledge , he saw several of coleman's letters . that , being made a priest , he was sent into england with instructions to inform the papists , they were not obliged to obey the king , but that they should endeavour to promote the popish religion . that upon his arrival in england , he was placed with one mr. jenison in the bishoprick of durham , where his main imployment was to root out the jesuits , ( as men ill-principled ) and to disswade the papists from sending money to colledges beyond seas . that one thomas smith told him he received a letter from the lord stafford , wherein my lord said , he expected some suddain change. dugdale's deposition . next to mr. smith was stephen dugdale , who deposed , that for about 15 or 16 years together , he had been acquainted , by several letters , and other means , there was a design carried on for the bringing in of the romish religion . that the papists were to have money and arms ready against the king's death , ( for he said he heard nothing of killing the king till the year 78 ) that in october ( 78. ) my lord aston and others should go to dispose of certain arms they received to the value of 30000 l. that the king of france was acquainted with all these designs ; and that he would furnish the papists with men , and afford them other aid and assistance , if the king should die , or be taken away . that he saw a letter writ to mr. evers , ( for all the jesuits letters were returned to him ) wherein were these words , this night sir edmundbury godfrey is dispatch'd . that he himself had contributed 500 l. for arms , &c. to carry on the design . that about the year 78. there was an indulgence published at all private chappels , wherein , whosoever was active for killing the king , should have a free pardon of all their sins . that he was told at meetings , that the king being an heretick , it was lawful to kill him ; and that it was no more then to kill a dog ; that he had heard , that about the time the king should be kill'd , several parties should be provided with arms , and rise all on a sudden at an hours warning , and so come in upon the protestants , and cut their throats ; and if any did escape , there should be an army to cut them off in their flight ; that he heard the pope's daily in-come was 24000 l. a day . and that the same pope ( as he thought ) had promised to contribute in the whole 1000 l. for the raising armies , and carrying on the above mentioned design . mr. prance his deposition . then mr. prance was produced , who deposed , that one mr. singleton a priest told him , he would make no more to stab forty parliament men , then to eat his dinner , which he was then at . dr. oates his deposition . next dr. oates gave evidence , that in the year ( 76 ) he being then a protestant , and chaplain in the duke of norfolk's family , one mr. kemish and one mr. singleton priests , advised him to hasten betimes to the church of rome , for that the protestant religion was now upon its last leggs . that hereupon ( having had before some suspition of the designs of the papists , and growth of popery ) to satisfie his curiosity , he feigned himself a convert : was seemingly reconciled ; presently admitted by the jesuits to do their business , entrusted in their secrets ; and sent by them in april ( 77 ) with treasonable letters into spain that e're he ar●rived at validolid , there were letters got before him from england , wherein was expressed ; that the king was dispatch'd , which was a cause of great joy to the fathers there ; but that this proved a mistake . that during his abode in spain , he found the ministers of that court were very ready to advance money , which money was return'd into england ; and that the provincial of the jesuits of castile had also advanced 10000 l. that soon after this , he was present at a sermon preach'd to some students , against the oaths of allegiance and supremacy , wherein likewise the king's legitimacy was villified and abused ; and it was declar'd , that his religion entitled him to nothing but suddain death and destruction that returning into england in november following , and bringing letters for mr. strange , he heard mr. keines say in mr. strange's chamber ; he was mighty sorry for honest will ( meaning the ruffian that was to kill the king ) that he had missed in his enterprise . [ here mr. oates thought good to tell their lordships . that the papists were not so zealous for the destruction of the king , till the king had refused coleman the dissolving the long parliament : then he went on to aquaint them , ] that in december he departed from london to st. omers , loaded with letters from strange and others , importing the hope they had the next year to effect their design . that being at st. omers he saw letters out of ireland , whereby he found that there , the talbots and other persons were very zealous in raising of forces , and resolving to let in the french king. that in february , several of st omers were imployed to several places in germany and flanders , to fetch and carry correspondencies . that in march , pickering attempting to kill the king , the flint of his gun was loose , and the king escap'd , for which pickering received a discipline , and the other ( viz. william groves ) a chiding . that in april he returned to london ; and that there was then a consult held , first at the white-horse-tavern , and thence afterwards adjourn'd into particular clubs , where the confederates did resolve on the death of the king ; and that groves should have 500 l for his pains ; and pickering ( being a religious man ) should have 30000 masses . that in june he saw more letters , and heard new proposals , wherein a reward of 15000 l. was offered to sir george wakeman for poysoning the king. that in july mr. strange very frankly told him how london was fired , and how many of those concern'd were seiz'd , and afterwards discharg'd by the duke's guards , and order . mr. jennison's deposition . after oates , mr jennison was called in , who deposed : that in frequent discourses with mr. ireland ( now executed ) he heard him often say , that it was necessary , for the introducing of the catholick religion , that the government should be chang'd ; and that it was an easie matter to kill or poyson the king. that he answer'd , god forbid . that hereupon ireland told him he would remit the twenty pounds he ow'd him , if he would go to windsor , to assist to take off the king ; but he exprest a great detestation of it . then ireland desir'd him to name some stout couragious irish-men , proper for the assassination ; which he did , and ireland approv'd of them . that he heard one mr. thomas jennison , a jesuit , say , if c. r would not be r. c. he should not be long c. r. and that the said jesuit added , if the king were excommunicated or deposed , he was no longer king ; and it was no great sin to take him off . that about two months after , the said jesuit told him , there was a design on foot , and that the queen , duke of york , the lords in the tower , and the greatest papists in england were in it. that there was a new army to be rais'd , to bring in catholick religion ; and that he ( the said jesuit ) would procure him from the duke a commission in it , when the king was taken off . that he being surpriz'd hereat , the jesuit told him he should receive the sacrament of secrecy . mr. dennis his deposition . the last witness was mr. dennis , who depos'd , that he saw dr. oates in spain , where he seem'd to be a man of very much business , and had a bag of money , some of which he lent to him. that the arch-bishop of tuam told him in the presence of dr. oates , that mr. o. plunket , primate of ireland , was resolv'd to bring the french power into ireland ; and that there were several collections of money made in ireland to support the plot. this is the sum of what the six witnesses depos'd ; to whose depositions were annexed , and produc'd in court ( in order to the same end ) the several records of attainder of coleman , ireland , whitebread , langhorn , &c. that of coleman was read at length , and the others deposited on the clerks table , to be made use of as occasion should serve . the papists plea to the above-specified allegations . ¶ 2. thus far hath been ( as i may say ) indicted , arraigned , and tryed , the plot in general . my lord stafford ( as the managers declar'd ) is not hitherto prov'd , but only suppos'd a party in the conspiracy ; the plot in general is directly charged upon the papists in general , and they must answer to the general indictment ; wherefore though it be not my design to defend popery , yet i think it very pertinent and necessary , before we enter upon my lord 's special charge and defension , to insert here some of those many things the papists in general often did , and still do constantly alledge against the premisses , in vindication of their innocence . if in this i shall be accounted a papist or popishly affected , it will only be amongst those who love not to see truth , contrary to their interest ; nor to do justice , though to an adversary . to proceed then . the papists plead , that it is not the clamour of the hainousness and horror of a crime imputed , but the gu●lt and clear conviction of a crime prov'd , that renders a man accountable to justice , and punishable by the law. that as treason is the worst of crimes , so is the stain of innocent bloud ( shed by perjury ) hard to be wash'd off . that the bare positive swearing of every person in every matter or manner , hand over head , is no sufficient conviction of anothers guilt ; for if so , it would be in the power of any six knights of the post to kill whomsoever they pleas'd , though never so innocent ; and for what they pleas'd , though never so absurd or impossible , by meer dint of affidavit . that false accusations may be so laid , as that the contrary cannot possibly be demonstrated by the party accus'd ; seeing no mortal man can distinctly prove where he was , & what he did , said , or heard , every day and every hour of his whole life ; wherefore , to make justly valid an accusation against another , the laws of god and man require , first , that the accuser be a credible witness , that is , not tainted with notorious crimes or villanies ; for he that hath lost a sense of moral honesty , hath lost his right to moral credit , and may be indifferently presum'd to swear any thing . secondly , that the accusation be strengthen'd with probable circumstances ; circumstances which bring along with them some appearance of truth , d●stinct from the bare accusation it self ; for otherwise , where the ballance is equal in point of repute , between the accuser and the accused , it is as presumptive that the one should be guilty of perjury , as the other of the crimes charg'd upon him , and herein , the weaker the credit of the accusers are , the stronger ought the presumption of circumstances to be , as natural reason and justice dictate . now neither of these two essential conditions are found in the evidence given of this pretended plot. as for the first condition ; what manner of men the witnesses are who make these discoveries ; how notoriously infafamous ; how stigmatiz'd with all sorts of felonies , forgeries , cheats , debaucheries and wickedness , many intelligent protestants in their consciences know ; the witnesses themselves have been often forced to acknowledge , and several courts of judicature , can upon record give publick testimony . as for the second condition ; there are not only no circumstances confirming the said oaths ; but the whole series of the evidence , is a meer bundle of moral impossibilities , contradictions , and non-sence . here is a plot ( forsooth ) contriv'd by the papists , at a time when they had least , or rather no reason , to seek a change ; to kill the king , by whose merciful indulgence they liv●d in peace ; to wade through bloud to an uncertain liberty , which they already sufficiently enjoy'd ; to overthrow the government for the re-establishing of which they so frankly in the late wars expos'd their lives and fortunes ; this plot must be manag'd by persons of quality , most remarkable peradventure of all others for firmness of loyalty , and now through age and infirmities , retir'd from publick business , and weary of the world ; the whole body of roman catholicks , ( men , before this hour , of known worth , virtue , integrity , and unblemished reputation , ) must all be involv'd by vows , and sacraments , in a design so black , and execrable , that god and nature abhor to think on it . they must hazard their honour , their estates , their families , their bodies , their souls , their all , in an enterprize , so desperate and sottish , that none but mad men would attempt it , and nothing but a miracle could either effect , or conceal it in this plot are said to have been engaged for several years together divers nations ; england , scotland , ireland , france , italy , spain , germany , &c. ( an affront , shame and scandal unto the greatest part of christendom , ) wherein many thousands of both sexes , of different interests , of all sorts , states and conditions , must necessarily have been privy to , and partners in the villany . now , that none of this vast number should have any remorse for so bloudy a treason ; none all this while the worth , wit or grace to reveal it , no intervening accident , no levity , no dissagreement of parties , happen to detect it , till at last , dr. oates capt. bedlow , and by degrees their other companions rak'd out of goals , whipt , pillory'd , and one way or other branded with infamy , made this grand doscovery , ( good men ) out of tenderness of conscience . this is somewhat hard to believe . to prosecute this plot the witnesses attest there were huge armies of papists ( dugdale mention's two hundred thousand , ) immediately to be raised ; these numberless swarms , were to be provided with proportionable stores of weapons , ammunitions , &c. and all in a readiness for a general massacre of protestants at an hours warning ; oates and the rest likewise affirm they were well acquainted with all the most deep , and secret intrigues the papists had , of this nature ; yet after all , when it comes to it ; they cannot shew or direct where these millions of men , and mountains of magazines are ; the officers , after thirty months diligent scrutiny , could never find the least footsteps of any such thing . and 't is impossible they should or could be invisibly dispers'd or convey'd away upon so sudden and unexpected a discovery , especially in the very nick of time when they were to be made use on . we are farther told of hundreds of sealed commissions for all sorts of military offices ; my lord stafford ( because no good accountant ) must be pay-master-general ; divers patents granted for dignities of state ; many bulls and breves for ecclesiastical preferments ; and god knows how many , even bushels of letters , and pacquets , all containing most damnable treason , sent nevertheless up and down at random , some by the common-post . others by such messengers as oates , bedlow , dugdale and dangerfield , who , as bosom-councellours , were still privy to the contents of what they carry'd to and fro , and became so dexterous in taking remarques , that they could exactly tell ( when their memories fail'd , not for fear of contradictions , ) the particular date , when , where , to whom , and from whom ; nay they could punctually recite upon their fingers ends , the very express words of almost every letter ; oates moreover declares , he was never a real catholick , but only pretended to be so , on purpose to make discoveries : and he was so successful in this stratagem , that he gain'd from the jesuits a patent (a) to be taken into the consult . is it possible then , that none of these men thus circumstanced , could get or preserve one single letter , one seal'd commission , one scrip of paper , one original writing , ( a thousand manner of ways easily compass'd in such a conjuncture , ) whereby to credit their monstrous evidence ? how came it about they did not at the first discovery ( having both time and opportunity to do it , ) seize by surprize some of these things , together with the persons , where they were lodg'd ? did all the plotters burn their commissions , bulls , and briefs , as well as all their letters , as soon as they received them ? why did not oates shew us at least his own patent receiv'd from the jesuits ? surely it would have been of mighty force to strengthen his testimony . why did not the other witnesses also produce some of those treasonable letters , writ , ( as they said , ) and directed to themselves ? nothing appear ; nothing extant ; nothing feisible , but a few naked , harmless men , in their several private chambers ? and this too , just when the grand design was to break into action ? what mortal man can reconcile these endles● contradictions ? from these , and other the like grounds , the papists would inferr , that no credit ought to be given to the bare oaths of these men ; swearing at this wild incoherent rate : and they farther appeal to the judgement of every impartial conscientious man , whether it be not more likely that a few debauch'd wretches , of lost consciences , and desperate fortunes , allured by gain , and encouraged by indempnities , should be induc●d out of malice or interest , to swear a lie ; then that so many , so noble , so prudent , so known loyal and virtuous persons , should be guilty of so horrid , so bloudy , so absurd so morally impossible , and ( in all circumstances ) contradictory a design ? nay whether , if such evidence be allowed and countenanc'd , any man , either papist or protestant , can be long secure of his reputation , fortune , or life . to what was argu'd from the acknowledg'd letters of mr. coleman and others ; it is answer'd , that those letters indeed manifestly denote ●he buisie designs and activity of the writers ; yet are they withal so far from confirming a plot , such as oates and his companions pretend to discover , that they directly evince the contrary . for , the whole subject and context of those letters bear a plain and open face of what the authors intended ; and the writers were persons , who , ( had there been a plot , ) were the most likely of all others to have been the main engines and contrivers of it : nevertheless , we do not find one single word or sillable in them from whence may be gather'd any such design ; the substance of them being only some imaginable conceits , and over-weening policies of four or five aspiring men , willing to be great , or at least to be thought so ; and desiring perhaps , in some measure , a liberty of conscience ; yet without confronting , much less destroying the king or government . wherein also ( as far as appears by the letters ) they were no wise seconded by the catholicks in general , nor much countenanced by those whose favourites they pretended to be ; so that , upon the whole matter , these letters , rightly consider'd , are rather ( as is said before , ) a manifest vindication of the roman catholicks innocence , then a confirmation of the plot. concerning the death of sir edmundbury godfrey , there is nothing to fasten that murder on the roman catholicks , but the the bare improbable ( though gainful ) oathes of two infamous persons : the one ( viz. ) bedlow , notorious for cheats and misdemeanours : the other ( viz. ) prance , self-condemn'd of falshood herein , by the testimony of his own mouth ; for he once swore he was an actor in the said murder ; and soon after before the king and council , unswore what he had said , and protested upon his salvation , he knew nothing of it . there are furthermore some remarkable and pressing circumstances , which the papists urge in their own defence herein ; one is that sir edmundbury godfrey was esteemed by all , a moderate man and particularly indulgent to catholicks . and 't is not credible the papists would murder their friends ; especially in a conjuncture of time , when it was to no purpose , nor could any way stifle the discovery of the plot already made ; nay , when they could not but see such an horrid action , ( if known ) must needs draw the wrath and detestation of the whole nation upon them . another thing is , that the whole ( though premeditated ) series of this murder , as it is related by the witnesses , seems to be involv'd with innumerable absurdities , contradictions , moral impossibilities , and pregnant appearences of perjury . the scene of the tragedy must be ( forsooth ) the publick yard of somerset-house ( a place , or rather thorough-fare of continual intercourse , ) within twenty paces of the common guards , where watch is kept night and day ; the assassines , to effect their design , must feign a quarrel , and call justice godfrey out of the street ( a notable policy ) to keep the peace , though none , passengers , soldiers or neighbours , preceiv'd any thing of this tumult . when they had him in the yard , they strangled him with an hankerchief , ( a very proper instrument , studyed and contriv'd before-hand , to strangle a man. ) after the buisiness was done , they let him lie expos'd in this open place , half living , half dead , above a quarter of an hour . at length they dragged him into a chamber in dr. godwin's lodgings , ( a room attested to be of daily use to the servants , never lock'd , but constantly obvious to all comers and goers ; ) here they kept him two days , and then carry'd him through several courts , into several rooms , and apartments in somerset-house ; and having thus ( to no purpose ) toss'd him up and down ●rom saturday till wednesday ; they finally plac'd him ( though stiff and inflexible , ) in a sedan , and carry'd him to the soho , and there set him astride on horse-back , to ride before h●ll to the place where he was afterwards found . bedlow deposes , sir edmundbury godfrey was throtl'd with a cravat ; prance swears it was with a hankerchief ; the names of the assassines cited by bedlow are prichard , welsh , le phaire , and other jesuits . but the murderers nominated by prance , are green , hill , bury , gyrald and kely ; and these two parties are quite different actors ; and as far as , appears by the evidence , neither the designs , nor ●ersons well known to each other . prance saith , he saw the dead body very plainly in a low room , by the light of a dark lanthorn but what was thrown over it , he could not tell ; nor could be afterwards ( when required ) go to the room where he said he saw it . bedlow tells us he refus'd to have any hand in the murder , for which cause the jesuits did not acquaint him who it was ; yet they shewed him the dead body in the presence of many , who neither knew him , nor he them ; prance himself further declared , he never was in bedlows company , till he came to prison . the main assassines were ignorant of what reward they were to have ; but bedlow ( though no compartner in the murder , ) could tell there were four thousand pounds ordered , of which two thousand pounds were proffer'd to him alone , if he would but assist the rest to convey away the corps . this murder is affirm'd to have been committed on saturday , the twelfth day of october ( 78 ) at nine a clock at night ; and the body convey'd away on the wednesday following , about midnight . in direct opposition to which , hill , green , and bury ( who were accus'd , tryed and executed for this fact , ) produced these witnesses . one mrs. tilden and mrs. broadstreet , attested that hill ( who dwelt with them ) never kept ill hours , but always came in by eight of the clock ; that he could not go out afterwards , because he waited at table , and the maid catherine lee lock'd up the doors , and the family went not to bed till eleven ; that particularly he was at home on saturday night , when sir edmundbury godfrey is said to be kill'd ; and on wednesday night when carry'd away , james warrier attested , that green ( his lodger ) was in his house and company on saturday october the 12 th . from seven till after ten at night , and that he exactly remembred it by his work. three centinels , who successively kept strick guard on the aforesaid wednesday night , at the great gate at someset-house ( through which 't is affirm'd the body was carried out in a sedan , ) declar'd there went out that way no sedan at any hour whatsoever , from seven a clock that night , to four the next morning ; the amplitude of which testimony includes at least three hours immediately before and after the time sworn to by prance and bedlow . berry's maid attested , that her master came in that same wednesday in the dusk of the evening ; went to bed about 12. and could not well after that go out again , without her knowledge ; the passage to his chamber being through hers . and it is most worthy of observation , that this bury was , and professed himself to be ( both during his imprisonment , and at his very death ) a protestant of the church of england ; yet this man ; though after condemnation he was proffer'd his life , if he would own the fact ; nevertheless absolutely deny'd it to his last breath . and when the very cart was drawing away from under him , he lifted up his hands and said , as i am innocent , so receive my soul , o jesus ; wherefore if the last words of a dying protestant , ( who might , but would not live , by a false accusation of himself or others , ) may be credited ; the papists were innocent of this murder , and the forenam'd witnesses perjur'd in their evidence . as for what is objected about a letter sent from london to tixal , &c. it is answer'd , ( supposing such a letter was really sent and receiv'd , ) that a letter intimating the murder of a justice of the peace , might well be writ from london on saturday ( when sir edmundbury godfrey was known to be missing ) and arrive at tixal in staffordshire , by the common post on munday following ; and thereupon dugdale might tell the news the self-same day , to divers gentlemen at tixall . what of all this ? where 's the inferrence against the papists ? yet this is all some gentlemen seemed to attest , ( whilst others denyed , ) and all can be necessarily deduc'd from the receipt of such a letter ; but that this justice of the peace was sir edmundbury godfrey , and that the papists had murder'd him , is proved only by the common tract of dugdales peremptory swearing , without any rational motive of credibility . thus much of sir edmundbury godfrey . as for the narratives , and from them deduced stories , of firing the city , burning the navy , black-balls , fire-balls , sham-plots , wild-irish , spanish-pilgrims , with other the like innumerable fopperies , and known contradictions to wise men ; though they make a dreadful sound amongst the mobile ; yet carry along with them such an excess of gross and ridiculous non-sence ; that to sober understandings they only serve to demonstrate the perjury of the witnesses , and need no confutation in equitable courts ( such as ours are , ) no wise disposed per fas & nefas , without appearence of justice , to oppress the innocent . and whereas it is alledged , as a main argument of popish guilt , that the two houses of parliament have declar'd it a plot ; and several persons in several courts of judicature have been tryed , condemned , and executed for it . the papists answer ( with all due submission to the government , in defence of innocence , ) that it is not impossible , nor altogether without president , that a lawful authority proceeding secundum allegata & probata ; should be abused ; and consequently drawn into a mistake , by the malice and perjury of wicked men. those who make it their study and trade , to frame artificial lyes , and have time , assistance , and all imaginable encouragement and opportunity for it , may easily invent plausible stories ( with more coherence then any hitherto divised , ) such as may amuse and deceive the most just and prudent persons ▪ especially in a conjuncture , when a transporting zeal to the protestant , and ( as papists say ) a misconceived prejudice to the catholick religion , influenceth the nation ; nor have all been convicted , who were impeached and tryed upon the plot , but as some have been condemned , so others impeached upon the same evidence , and in the same courts of judicature , have been * acquitted , the wickedness and forgery of the witnesses detected , and their depositions rejected , as unworthy of credit . it is further hoped , the wisdom , justice , and integrity of the state , will at length discover the whole imposture , vindicate the innocent , and punish the injury herein done , to god , to the king , to the nation , and to almost all europe . to the instances given of popish malice , and bloodiness from former examples , ( viz. ) queen mary's cruelties , the powder plot , the irish barbarisms , the french massacre , &c. committed by profest papists . it is answered , that by the same reason , and to as good purpose , the trayterous seditions , and outrages in germany , france , bohemia and holland , authorized and fomented by calvin , swinglius , b●za , and other reformers ; the late bloudy wars in england , the almost yesterday's remonstrances , and practices in scotland ; the even now actual rebellion in hungary , raised and managed by protestants , for protestanizm ; but above all , that never to be paralelled , hellish murder of the lords annointed , our glorious soveraign charles the i. in cold blood , by outward form of justice , on pretence of reformation , might be imputed to the protestant religion . for all these now mentioned horrid villanies were committed by protestants ; protestants who gloried in being more then ordinarily refined , from popish errors and superstitions . if it be said ( as most justly it may ) the church of england never taught such practices , the same say , and protest the papists in behalf of their church ; but because meer recrimination is no justification on either side ; and for that , a full decision of this heavy charge , dependeth much on the right understanding of roman catholick principles , in matter of obedience to god and the king ; we shall treat of this subject apart by it self , when we come to examine the principles of my lords faith and religion . reflections upon the several above cited depositions of smith , dugdale , oates , and jenison . lastly , the above-cited depositions , respectively made by smith , dugdale , oates , and jenison , in proof of the plot in general , are liable also to divers remarkable exceptions . and the papists stick not here to say , they wonder how so many and gross incongruities , and falsehoods , attested only by infamous men , could pass for current truths amongst persons of justice , worth , and prudence . for instance , smith in his deposition gives us to understand , that being as yet a protestant , but troubled , it seems , with some doubts in matters of religion ; he applyed himself for satisfaction to certain priests in france ; they to settle his mind told him , they would shortly bring in their religion into england , right or wrong . ( a notable argument to convince a well-meaning protestant . ) but neither this ( as you may well think , ) nor all the jesuits could say , or do , would prevail with him ; so that he lived and studied with them several years ( a likely story , ) remaining still a professed protestant . at length the jesuits desponding ( as well they might ) of their own abilities , herein , sent him to be converted by cardinal grimaldi , and he it was did the feat , which none of the priests or jesuits could compass . the cardinal ( to remove all scruples from the tender conscience of his new convert ; and further to convince his judgment in the truth of his religion , ) entertain'd him one day with this learned and pious discourse , ( viz ) that he had great assurances , the popish religion would prevail in england , and that there was but one in the way , and that to accomplish their designs , they must take him out of the way . thus the young man being now well confirmed in his faith ; was made a priest , and sent into england with instructions to teach his countrey-men ; they were not obliged to obey their king ; and that to murder him was a meritorious act. but the misfortune was , that arriving in england he quite mistook his errand . and though he continu'd firm in the belief of the popish doctrine and principles , yet made it his whole business to root out the jesuits , ( the popes chief emissaries , ) and disswade roman catholicks from sending moneys to colledges beyond seas . dugdale tells us , all the jesuits letters containing damnable treason , and sent for the most part by the common post , came to his hands , most of which he saw and read , but could never produce one single letter . he informs us also of dreadful oaths and sacraments of secrecy , administred to the conspirators , before they were made privy to any dangerous design ; yet with the same breath declares , there were whole armies both privy and ready , to a design no less then of cutting all the protestants throats , throughout the nation at an hours warning . nay he assures us ; there was a free pardon of all sins proclaimed every where , at the chappels to all persons , men and women , whosoever would be active in killing the king , ( a notable way of concealing secrets . ) is it possible this fellow should find credit in such gross , such palpable forgeries . oates likewise relates , how that whilst he was chaplain to the duke of norfolk , the priests attempted the utmost of their skill , to perswade him out of his religion , by telling him , the church of england was upon it's last legs . surely the priests took him to be either a notorious fool or knave , for otherwise they might doubtless have devis'd some more plausible and less dangerous argument to convert a protestant minister ; yet he feigned to be convinced by their reasons , and was hereupon presently entertain'd by the jesuits , ( the sottish careless jesuits , ) who on a suddain intrusted this neophite with all their concerns , made him privy to all their most damnable-intrigues ; and in short 't is most certain , nothing of treason , murder , or villany , was contrived or even thought on , by them , without him . by this means he became acquainted , not only with the strange adventures of pickerings loose flint , whipping , thirty thousand masses , &c. but also with the manner of firing the city , introducing chimerical armies , french , irish , spanish , &c. mustered up in the deposition ; nor is it a wonder the jesuits should be so rash in discovering their secrets to oates ; seing he himself ( if you will believe him , ) here also deposeth , that some of them were so desperately mad , as to preach a publick sermon before a company of students ; wherein the kings legitimacy was vilified and abused ; and it was declared , his majesties religion entituled him to nothing but sudden death and destruction . is it credible a jesuit or any other in his wits , should publickly preach such black treason to a company of boyes ? but what shall we say of the doctor 's tender conscience and zeal , in preserving the king ? he tells us here , he only seigned himself a catholick on purpose to make discoveries ; alas ( good man , ) it was to save his majesties l●fe , made him seem to the papists what he really was not . yet ( o prodigious impudence , ) he owns at the same time , he was conscious for above a year together , of the daily attempts made by groves and pickering to shoot the king ; he hourly expected for several months the horrid effects of sir george wakeman's poyson ; he was privy ( as he ad's else-where , ) to the designed assassination of the king at windsor ; he knew the ruffians were actually upon the place , and ready for the villany ; he saw the money sent to them for their encouragement , and every moment waited to hear , the fatal stroke was given . nevertheless this man of conscience , whose watchful eye so carefully guarded the kings life , all this while made no discovery ; though he knew for certain , that the pistols were already , even at the king's breast ; the cup of poyson at his lip ; and the dagger almost at his very heart ; yet he never cryed out murder upon the lords annointed ; never called for immediate succour ; never warned the king of his imminent danger ; never diverted the impending mischief ; never so much as opened his mouth , to disclose any of these horrid treasons , until such time as the king might have been killed a thousand times over . is this the doctors vigilancy ? or rather , is it not perfect demonstration , that all he hath sworn of the plot , is damnable perjury . jenison declares , that though he often expressed to mr. ireland , an horrid detestation of treason and blood-shed ; yet ireland ( as if he had a mind to hang himself , ) was still urging this consciencious man to murder the king ; and when he could not prevail with him herein , he would needs have him at last to nominate some irish ruffians , whom he judged most proper for this execrable villany . and thus far indeed jenison acknowledgeth , he condescended . now one would think a man , who had taken so deep an impression of horrour and detestation of bloodshed , should have had some scruple in concealing so hellish a design ; and much more in nominating the very persons who were to effect it . but that which seems above all most strange , is , the mighty reward the jesuits proffered him , in case he would joyn with the four ruffians , in this devilish enterprize . oates informs us ; sir george wakeman was to have fifteen thousand pounds to poyson the king ; and groves fifteen hundred for shooting him . yet when these jesuits come to beat the price with jenison ( though a man hard to be wrought upon , ) they could afford him no more then twenty pounds ; and this only to be remitted of an old debt ; a wonderful encouragement to a scrupulous man ▪ for so desperate and damned an exploit . to conclude this whole matter , the papists aver● , if the justice and equity of their cause be impartially consider'd ; the integrity of their principles rightly understood , their formerly experienc'd loyalty regarded . the contrary practices of their chiefest adversaries remembered . the infamy of the witnesses , and inconsistency of their evidence duly weighed , there will remain no colour of proof , or even suspition of this fatal plot , which hath already drawn so much innocent blood ▪ and brought no small confusion both to church and state. the process against my lord in particular . ¶ 3 ▪ after a long and accurate discussion of the plot in general , the court proceeded to take cognizance of what in particular affected my lord , the prisoner at the bar. in pursuance hereof , the managers regarding in all things a methodical exactness , first demanded before they produc'd their evidence , that none of my lords councel might stand near to prompt , or advise him what he should say , or answer , as to matters of fact , wherewith he was charged . then they began by way of introduction to shew , that they had made it out there was a plot. that this plot was a general design of the popish party ; that it was not likely such a design could be carried on , without the concurrence of persons of great quality . that therefore it was to be presumed , my lord at the bar , a nobleman , and a zealous papist had a share in it : but what that share was , and how far my lord was engaged , was to appear from the positive evidence . it will not be expected that my lord , one single person of 68. years of age , long imprisoned , no great rhetorician , nor much versed in the law , should take all advantages , improve favourable circumstances , and keep equal measures , in sharpness of wit , and effluence of speech , with his opponents , who were ten or twelve of the greatest lawyers , and ablest judgments of the nation ; nor is it any wonder , if my lord confounded with the multiplicity of arguments ; astonished at the horrour of the objected crimes , discountenanced by the auditory ; and ( as he acknowledged , ) half stupified with continual pleading , day after day , without intermission ; did sometimes insist upon matters of less , and omit matters of greater moment , in his own behalf ; yet he seemed to manifest much of candour and sincerity , in all his comportment , and addressing himself to my lords his judges , before he began his plea to the particular evidence against him ; he spoke to this effect . that he was much afflicted to see himself accused by so high an authority , for a crime which above all others , he ever from his heart utterly abhorred ; he renounced & detested with much exaggeration all plots against the king and government ; he abjured all principles leading to such ends ; and disowned all authority upon earth , which might in the least pretend to absolve him from his allegiance . he further shewed how faithful and affectionate he had been , both to the late king in his wars , and to this in his exile ; he declared he had timely notice of his being impeached , and thereupon might ( if he would ) have easily fled ; he likewise acknowledged , that after he was in the tower , both the king and the house of lords had sent him word ▪ that in case he would make a discovery , though he were never so guilty , he should have a pardon ; if therefore he had been really conscious of his own guilt , and might have secured himself by either of these means , and would not , he ought to die for his folly , as well as his crime , he professed he had always a natural abhorrence of blood-shed , insomuch that he could not wish the death , even of his adversaries that swore against him . lastly , he desired ( as necessary to his defence , ) copies of some depositions made by the witnesses before several authorities , on several occasions ; which copies after a long debate upon it , were granted . now begin the particular depositions , of each particular witness directly against my lord , upon which the house of commons grounded their impeachment . to these depositions as they severally occur , i shall adjoyn my lords immediate answer ; and to his answer , the mannagers reply . that so both confusion and unnecessary repetitions , inconsistent with a compendium , may be avoided ; furthermore , because the mannagers in summing up their evidence , made divers ingenious observations , and urged many reasons to uphold their several charges , not mentioned in the body of the tryal . and also for that the papists affirm , there was more of flourishing rhethorick , then strength of argument in the said observations ; the order of law , not permitting my lord , in the close of the tryal to rejoyn upon them . i shall ( to give the best satisfaction i can to all parties , ) annex here the plain substance , both of the said mannagers observations , and the papists answers , as they respectively occur , to each particular evidence . dugdale's deposition against my lord . the first witness that gave evidence to the particular impeachment , was stephen dugdale , who swore . that at a certain meeting held at tixal in stafford shire , about the latter end of august , or the beginning of september : ( 78. ) my lord did ( together with the lord aston and others , in the presence of dugdale , ) give his deliberate and full consent , to take away the kings life , and introduce the popish religion . that on the 20th . or 21st . of september ( 78. ) in the forenoon , my lord then residing at tixal , sent for him the said dugdale to his chamber , by one of his servants , either his gentleman or page , whilst he was dressing : that when he came in , my lord sent out his servants , and being there alone together ; my lord offered him 500 l. for his charges and encouragement , to take away the kings life , and further told him , he should have free pardon of all his sins , and should be sainted ; for the king had been excommunicated , and was likewise a traitor and a rebel , and an enemy to jesus christ . my lords exceptions . to this deposition my lord made several grand exceptions . the first was , that dugdale was a person of an infamous life . that he had cheated the lord aston his master , and defrauded the work-men and servants of their wages . that by his extravagancies and misdemeanours , he had run himself into several hundred pounds debt : for which he was thrown into goal , and despaired of ever getting out from thence , otherwise then by making the pretended discoveries . for proof of all which my lord produced these witnesses . mr. sandbidge , an old man , and a protestant attested , that dugdale was a knave , and notorious● known , both by him and all the countrey to be a wicked man. thomas sawyer attested , dugdale went from my lord astons , involv'd in deep debts : that whilst he was bayliff to my lord aston , he receiv'd and plac'd to my lord's account , several work-mens wages , which he never paid to the said work-men : whereupon great clamours and complaints were made of him in the countrey ; that being arrested for debt , my lord aston would not own him for his servant , at which dugdale swore , he would be reveng'd on him . the same thing as to dugdal's sinister dealing , his being in debt , imprison'd , and dissown'd by the lord aston , were attested by sir walter baggot , mr. whitby , a justice of peace , and mr. phillips minister of tixal . from hence my lord drew a second inference , ( viz. ) that had the lord aston , and the rest been guilty , ( as dugdale accus'd th●m , ) it was highly improbable , the said lord should adventure to exasperate , discard , and leave to goal and ruin , a man , at whose mercy they all lay , and who might to retrieve his desperate fortune , by making discoveries , utterly destroy both their designs , and them . to confront the testimony of the foregoing witnesses , the managers produced others in favour of dugdale ; and as to the matters of 〈◊〉 debts and beggery . mr. noble , stephen colledge , ( the protestant joyner , lately executed for high-treason at oxford , ) and mr. boson a lawyer , depos'd , that at dugdale's entreaty , they went with him to the tower , to assist him in adjusting his accounts with the lord aston , but could not accomplish it , by reason my lord would not , ( till the return of a certain councellour out of the countrey , ) let them see a book , wherein dugdale said his discharges were ; and that dugdale told them , my lord aston was indebted to him ( things rightly stated , ) 200 l. to this my lord stafford reply'd , he should have something to say ; and desir'd the lord aston might be admitted to give an account of this matter ; but it was answer'd , that the lord aston stood indicted for the same treason , and could not be a witness . then my lord desir'd mr. lievtenant of the tower might speak what he knew . hereupon mr. lievtenant declar'd , that the lord aston would have come to an account with dugdale in his ( the lievtenants ) presence ; but that dugdale put it off , and said he would come some other time : but from that time to this , he never heard of him . upon these testimonies the managers made these following observations ; first , it was manifest from several circomstances , that dugdale went not away from tixall for debt , ( as seems here to be pretended , ) but for fear of being apprehended for the plot , which argues he was then conscious of his own guilt in that matter . secondly , whereas sawyer attests , that dugdale swore he would be revenged on my lord aston , because he would not own him for his servant , when arrested for debt ; if this were true , yet seeing this revenge was not intended against my lord stafford , but against my lord aston ; it is impertinent to be urged against dugdale's present evidence . to which , the papists answer . to the first , it is no wonder , if at a time when roman catholicks were vniversally suspected and persecuted on account of the plot ; dugdale though not conscious of any guilt , either in himself or others ; yet being then a catholick , and hitherto undetermined to set up for an evidence , was in some apprehension of coming into trouble , and might therefore withdraw upon that score . but what is that to the present purpose ? is it not also undeniably proved here . that dugdale was in debt : that for debt he was arrested and imprisoned ; that for his misdemeanors , and not for religion he was discarded by his master ; that at last beggery had surrounded him , revenge possessed h●m , and desperation seizing him ? if this hath been clearly proved , 't is no hard matter to judge what was his end and aim in making his discovevies ; and my lords further inferences hereupon are solid and good. to the second , the evidence given of dugdale 's revenge , was not produced as if the said revenge was chiefly intended against my lord stafford , but only to shew that dugdale was now upon the point of bidding adieu to conscience and honesty , and desirous to satisfie at once , both his malice , and penury ; he contrived his plot ( after the model given him by oates and bedlow ) wherein he accused some out of revenge , and others , ( amongst whom my lord stafford ) as the most proper persons , to compleat the number of actors in his tragick farce . in defence of dugdale's reputation in point of honesty . mr. whitby declared , that dugdale had been long my lord aston's servant , received my lord's rents , made his bargains , and governed the rest of the family : that he dealt honestly with him ; that he had heard indeed some trades-men complain he put them off without money , and would not pay them : but that my lord would hear nothing against him . william southal a coroner deposed , that he knew no ill of mr. dugdale ; that he was the lord aston's bayliff , and had a good repute with all those people who had dependence on the family ; but that he himself never had any business with him . then he ( the said southal ) gave a large relation how he had perswaded dugdale ( being then in custody for debt ) to discover the plot ; by putting him in mind of his duty and allegiance to the king ; and assuring him , if he would make a timely discovery , he should not only obtain his najesty's gracious pardon , but also a reward of two hundred pounds . by force of which argument , dugeale at last assented to make discoveries ; and accordingly gave in his several depositions , first in the countrey before two justices of the peace , afterwards before the council ; and lastly before the two houses of parliament . concerning this southal , the lord ferrers informed the court , that he had been very active against the king in the late wars , and had the repute of a pernicious man against the government . to impunge which information , the lord brook declared in behalf of southal , that his mother had employed him , and found him honest in their affairs ; and mr. gower farther testified , that he found southal extraordinary zealous in prosecuting the papists . upon these evidences , the managers made these observations , first , mr. whitby not only declares , that dugdale had deal● honestly by him ; but that my lord aston himself would hear nothing against him . secondly , it is not always the stewards fault , if workmen to great persons sometimes want their wages . thirdly , mr. southal an understanding zealous man , had ( with much difficulty and strong arguments , ) the good fortune at last to succeed , in perswading mr. dugdale to make a fair and plain discovery of the whole plot , to the great happiness , not only of mr. dugdale , but of the whole nation . to which the papists answer . to the first , though dugdale perhaps dealt honestly with mr. whitby yet he might be a knave and deal dishonestly with other people for all that . and if my lord aston refused to hear any thing against him , this very refusal argues there were complaints made of him : and my lord himself , in time both gave ear to his crimes , and discarded him for them , as is already proved . to the second , those stewards who receiving moneys of their masters , to pay poor labourers their wages , shall ( as dugdale did , ) defraud them of it , the better to defray their own extravagant expences , are no honest men. to the third , the papists do not understand , to what purpose this testimony of southal 's is here produced ; for it is granted , that dugdale being in goal , and brought to extremity , did after much struggling and reluctancy of conscience , abandon his soul to perjury : and conceiving fair hopes of success , by the prosperous adventures of oates and bedlow , by the present promise of 200 l. and by the perswasion of southal , a notorious cromwellian , at last plung'd himself into deep and horrid oaths , not only incredible , but morally impossible to be true . the second weighty exception made by my lord against dugdale's deposition was , that he had directly and palpably perjured himself , in divers parts and circumstances of his said deposition . for instance of this . first . dugdale now swears , he had an exact knowledge , and deep concern in the plot. he was not only a confident , but an assistant in raising armies , killing the king , &c. now my lord prov'd by several irrefragable witnesses : that the said dugdale had before at sundry times , and on sundry occasions , with dreadful oaths and execrations , professed he knew nothing of any such thing . the witnesses were these . sir walter baggot and mr. kinnersley , both parliament-men , attested ; that dugdale being examin'd before them , and other justices of the peace , though he then took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy in their presence , yet absolutely deny'd any knowledge of the plot. mr. whitgrave also a justice of the peace , attested ; that he earnestly pressed and encouraged dugdale to make a discovery of what he knew : telling him ▪ now he had taken the oaths , they look'd upon him as one of them ; and that he would do him all the kindness he could : to which dugdale answer'd , truly for his part , though he had the misfortune to live amongst papists , yet he never lik'd their religion . then mr. whitgrave urg'd him home , saying , sir you may do your self a kindness , and oblige your king and countrey : i am confident you know of this horrid plot : pray do not stifle your conscience with an oath of secrecy : let it come out ; dugdale reply'd , as he hoped to be saved , he knew nothing of it . thomas sawyer attested , that two or three days before dugdale began to impeach , being then at stafford under the serjeants hands for debt , he took a glass of drink in the presence of sawyer , and said , thomas , i wish this may be my damnation , and my poison , if i know of any plot or priest . upon these evidences the mannagers made this observation , viz. that dugdale's denying , and with execrations forswearing any knowledge of the plot , is no manner of objection ; for he forswore it at a time , when he never intended to reveal it , and was in danger of his own life ; but afterwards he changed his mind , and discover'd all to southal , and others . to which the papists answer : it is very strange , so palpable a perjury prov'd upon dugdale by so substantial witnesses , in the whole system and essence of his testimony , should be so slightly evaded . is it no manner of objection to prove that dugdale is forsworn in his whole discovery ? must credit be given to the depositions of a man , in a matter , whereof he himself with dreadful oaths and execrations hath often protested the contrary ? is the conviction of perjury by the testimony of his own mouth nothing ? why ? because out of fear in his former oaths , he never intended to swear truth . is this a rational answer ? nay is it not rather perfectly demonstrative from what is already prov'd ; that for fear , for lucre , for revenge , for liberty , this man hath actually sworn to express contradictions , and will not stick upon the same motives to swear any thing . secondly , dugdale had determinately sworn at sir george wakeman's tryal , ( as my lord prov'd by two substantial witnesses , the lady marchioness of winchester , and madam howard , ) that the meeting or consult at tixal , mention●d in the deposition , wherein my lord is said to have been present , and consenting to the killing of the king ; was held precisely in the month of august ( 78. ) now my lord prov'd he never was at , or near tixal during that whole month ; nor came thither till the 12 th . of september following . this he shew'd by giving an exact account where he was , every week and day throughout that month. the witnesses who gave respective evidence to each particular time and place , were , the marquess of worcester , the marchioness of winchester , mr. bonny , white and bevan , servants to the said marquess . upon these testimonies , the mannagers made these observations : first , the two ladies who gave evidence to dugdale's words spoken at sir george wakeman's tryal , were roman catholicks and relations to my lord. secondly , they did not agree in their evidence with one another ; the lady marchioness saying , dugdale swore that my lord stafford was to come down into stafford shire in june or july , and was present at the consult at tixal in august . madam howard saying , dugdale swore my lord stafford did come down into stafford-shire in june or july , and was present at the consult at tixal in august . thirdly , the said ladies having much concern upon them for sir george wakeman , the popish physitian , they might easily mistake in what they heard . fourthly , in the printed tryal , there are no such words of dugdale's mentioned . to which the papists answer : to the first , the two ladies , though roma● catholicks , are persons o● that qulity ▪ and known vertue , as admit of no comparison in point of credit with the witnesses produced against my lord. that to vilify my lord's witnesses because roman catholicks , is contrary to law , and denotes an exasperated mind , willing to deprive catholicks of a just defence . to the second , the different manner or phrase the ladies us'd in expressing themselves in point of circumstance , is not at all material , seeing they both joyntly agree , and determinately attest ; that dugdale swore my lord was at tixal in august , and then and there present at the consult : which was the substantial thing wherein my lord proveth him perjur'd . to the third , a deep concern occasioneth an attention rather then a mistake : and a pretence of a mistake in a positive witness , is an evasion , whereby any verbal testimony whatsoever may be eluded . to the fourth , catholicks have experience that many considerable matters have been omitted , or otherwise inserted in the printed tryals , to the disadvantage of their cause ; and as those printed copies , though pleaded , were never allowed to be good evidence for them , so ought they not to be alledged against them . thirdly , dugdale swears in his deposition ; that at tixal on the 20 th . or 21 st . of september ( 78 ) my lord sent for him by one of h●s servants to his cham●er , in the morning whilst he was dressing ; ( which servant also dugdale swears , was either mr. furnesse my lords gentleman , or george leigh his page : and that when dugdale came into the chamber , my lord sent out his said servants ; and being thus with him alone , offer'd him five hundred pounds to kill the king. in direct opposition to these particulars , my lord prov'd , by the attestation of the self-same servants , mr. furnesse and george leigh ; that he never sent for dugdale ; never was with him alone in his chamber ; nor never dismissed his servants for that end , all that morning . for the evincing of which , mr. furnesse my lords gentleman attested : that he about eight a clock that morning , coming to my lords chamber , met dugdale in the hall. dugdale desired him he would intreat my lord to intercede to the lord aston his master in his behalf , that he might go to etching race : hereupon furnesse went into my lords chamber , and having spoken to my lord , as dugdale desir'd , my lord bid him be called in ; accordingly furnesse conducted dugdale into the chamber ; when he came in , my lord asked him several questions about the race , telling him , he himself would bett twenty pounds for staffordshire sake , then , after some discourse to this purpose , my lord stafford told him , he would speak to his lord for him ; during all which time furnesse was present in the chamber , together with my lord and dugdale , and heard the di●course between them . when dugdale had obtained his request , he went out of my lords chamber , leaving furnesse still there ; my lord also as soon as he was drest went out of h●s chamber to my lord aston , to ask him leave for dugdale , bidding furnesse make himself ready to go to the race . furnesse accordingly made h●mself ready about nine a clock , and coming down the back-stairs , my lord stafford met him : go ( said he ) to etching-hill , and see what betts there are , and take stephen dugdale along with you to shew you the way , for i have ask'd his lord leave for him to go : upon this dugdale having now leave , went along with furnesse to the stable , and took horse : furnesse his horse was not ready but he overtook dugdale within half a mile , and they arriv'd at the race together about 12. a clock : my lord himself ( with other persons of quality , ) came to the race not long after , and return'd back to tixal about seven at night . the same mr. furnesse and george leigh both attested , that my lord never sent either of them for dugdale ; that he never bid them go out of the chamber , or absent themselves whilst dugdale alone remain'd with him : no , nor did they know that my lord was ever alone with dugdale , either that morning , or in his whole life . to infringe the last particle of this last evidence , the managers produc'd these witnesses . mr. hanson deposed , that he once saw dugdale with my lord in the parlour at tixal ; but durst not be positive whether they were alone or not . william ansell deposed , that passing through the court at tixal , he saw my lord walking with dugdale ; that he heard no discourse between them ; that there might be more in the company , but he saw no more : and lastly added , that talking one day with dugdale about the plot , dugdale answered : god blast him if he knew any thing of it . upon these evidences the managers made these observations . first , my lords two witnesses , furnesse and leigh , were his own servants . secondly , they were very positive in a matter hard to remember , ( viz. ) that dugdale never was in my lords company : and therefore that easie credit should not be given to them , but rather to hanson and ansell , who both swear , that they have seen my lord and dugdale together . to which the papists answer : these common sophisms and weak objections made to the convincing evidence here given by my lord in confutation of the main matter laid to his charge , argue the managers at a loss for an answer . to the first , whom could my lord produce but his servants , to contradict the falsities of a man that pretends to have heard him speak treason whilst he was dressing in his bed-chamber ? are honest servants , because servants , no good witnesses ? to the second ; though it should be granted that at other times and upon other occasions , dugdale might have been in my lord's company , either unknown to his servants , or not remembred by them , or even by my lord himself , ( which is the utmost of what the testimony of hanson and ansell can amount to ) yet this doth not at all weaken my lord's evidence , nor clear dugdale from perjury herein : for the cheif things which my lord 's two servants well remembred , distinctly attested , and by most remarkable circumstances fully proved ; was , that my lord did not send either of them for dugdale ; nor was dugdale ▪ alone with my lord in his chamber , on the 21 st of september in the morning ; on all which particulars dugdale laid the ●tress of his evidence ; and here it is , he is directly perjured . fourthly dugdale at the forenamed tryal of sir george wakeman positively swore ( as my lord proved by two witnesses , mr. gyfford and mr. ●ydcot , both present at the said tryal , ) that he the said dugdale , having received a letter on the 14th of october , which mentioned the death of a justice of peace , did the same day at an ale-house in tixal , impart the contents of the said letter to mr. sambidge , kinsman to my lord aston , and mr philips , minister of tixal , and that they answered , they heard nothing of it before now to confute this my lord produc●d for witnesses the same mr. sambidge and mr. philips . mr. sambidge protested upon his sala● , dugdale never told him any such 〈…〉 nor did he ever hear of it , till 〈…〉 ●y or saturday sir edmund●●frey was found at bury hill. ●ilips attested ▪ that he never heard of it , either by letter or word of mouth , from dugdale or any other , till the death of sir edmundbury godfrey was publickly known . to ballance this evidence , the managers produced these witnesses . mr. ansel deposed , that at the ale-house and day abovenamed , he heard mr. dugdale mention the death of a justice of peace ; mr. sambidge and mr. philips being then both in the house , but not in the same room with ansel , when dugdale told the news . william hanson deposed , that at the time and place aforesaid , he heard dugdale say . there was a justice of the peace murdered , that lived at westminster ; and that when dugdale told this news , mr. sambidge , and mr. philips were by , and might have heard it , if they would . mr birch and mr. turton , both attested , that about the fifteenth or sixteenth of the same october , the news of sir edmundbury godfreys death was spread about the countrey , and seemed to take it's first rice from tixal . upon these several evidences , the managers made these observation● , first , mr. sambidge was something d●a● and might 〈◊〉 hear when dugdale told● him the news of the death of a justice of peace . secondly , mr. philips the parson , being perhaps very studious in his employment , might be wanting in point of memory ; thirdly , the other witnesses produc'd in confirmation of dugdale's evidence , make it out , that he did impart the news at the time , place , and in the presence of the parties above-mentioned . to which the papists answer : to the first , if what the managers alledge be true , then is dugdale here also proved perjur'd by the managers themselves ; for he expresly swore at the said tryal of sir george wakeman , that mr. sambidge both heard and answer'd him . saying , he heard nothing of the news before . to the second , no honest man affirms or denies any past words or actions , but according as he remembers ; and to pretend want of memory in a direct evidence , is the common road , whereby to evade all humane testimony . to the third , the other witnesses on behalf of dugdale , do in no sort make out the thing for which they are produced ; for ansel doth not own , that philips and sambigde were so much as in the same room with dugdale , when he mentioned the death of a justice of peace hanson indeed ( herein contradicting ansel ) tells us they were in the room , but could not say they heard , must less answered , to the discourse of dugdale ; which is the chief matter of perjury here charged upon him . as for what mr. birch and turton declar'd , concerning the rumour soon after spread of the death of sir edmundbury godfrey , it nothing at all enervates the present proof of perjury , seing it may well be true , there was such a report , and yet false , that dugdale had such a discourse with sambidge and philips , as he positively swears , and they both as positively deny . but enough hath been already said upon this subject , where we treated of the death of sir edmundbury godfrey . fifthly , dugdale in an information given upon oath , swore ; that presently after one howard , almoner to the queen , went beyond the seas , he was told by george hobson , then servant to the lord aston , that there was a design intended for the reformation of the government to the popish religion . now it was owned and acknowledged in court , point blank contrary to this information : that the said hobson was not servant to the lord aston , nor known by dugdale , three years after the departure of the said almoner out of england . upon this proof of dugdale's perjury the managers made this observation , ( viz ) that dugdale 's words cited in the information , are capable of two senses , either they may import , hobson told him there was a design ever since the almoner went away ; or they may import , hobson told him presently after the almoner went away , there was a design . the first sense may refer to the matter told ; the second , to the time when old : the words taken in the first sense , argue no contradiction in dugdale's testimony . to which the papists answer : the words of the information taken in their plain , obvious and connatural sense , clearly import ; hobson related to dugdale , there was a design , which relation hobson made to dugdale presently after the time one howard went beyond the seas ; nor can any other construction be put upon the wo● , without manifestly wresting hem●m their genuine signification , as every impartial reader may see ; so that the proof here given of du●da●e's perjury is unanswerable . the third ma●n exception made by my lord against dugdale's deposition , was , that he , being conscious of his ill grounded evidence , had endeavoured to suborn divers persons , to make false oaths ; that so he might strengthen his own , by others perjury . to make good this exception . samuel holt a protestant attested , that dugdale desiring to speak privately with him , told him , if he would swear that walter moore carried mr. evers away , he would give him forty pounds ; bidding him not be affraid to swear for fear of my lord aston , for he would hire him an horse to get to london , and place him so , that where he now got one shilling ; he should th●n get five . william robinson attested , that meeting with dugdale about a twelve month ago , he the said dugdale perceiving robinson to be then dejected and poor ; endeavoured to corrupt him , by giving him a treat , and assuring him , h● should not want money , if he would please to be ruled by him . then he ●ook an handkerchief out of his pocket , wherein there seemed to be about ten pounds and bid him , if he wanted , take money there . ●nd lastly told him , he could furnish ●n wi●h money , and put him in a way to get money , if he would come in a●●dence against my ●ord stafford . when robinson refus'd ●o ●o 〈◊〉 knowing my lord , or any thing of him . john morral a barber , gave attestation in these words , mr. dugdale , the 6th . of august last was twelve month , sent for me to the white horse in ridgley ; and there when i came to him , he told me i knew as much of the plot as he : i told him , i was innocent of the thing ; he swore , god dam him , i knew as much as he . then i told him , if he knew no more of it then i did , he knew no more then my lord mayors great horse did . then he took me aside ; come ( said he ) you are a poor man , and live poorly , i can put you in a way whereby you may live gallantly ; i will give you fifty pounds in hand , if so be you will swear against mr. howard , sir james simmons , mr. herbert aston , and other gentlemen of the countrey ; that they were at such meetings , at mr. herbert astons upon the conspiracy of the plot. to take off the credit of the two first witnesses in this matter , ( viz ) holt and robinson ( nothing material being objected against morral or his evidence , ) the managers produced witnesses to prove they were persons of evil reputation . against holt , one sampson rawlins a taylor deposed , that holt was a drunken lewd fellow ; that he heard him say , there were none but rogues would take dugdale's part ; that he stole some bottles of wine out of my lord astons celler ; that he call'd him ( the said kawlins ) rogue ; because he came up in his majesties service ; and would have murdered him , because he took dugdales part . against robinson , the earl of macklesfield , and mr. booth a parliament-man , both deposed , that robinson was a person of evil and prophane conversation , making a practice of cheating at dice , cock-fighting , &c. that he own'd himself , upon examination , to be a rogue ; and had no other imployment or livlyhood . to these unquestionable evidences against robinson , my lord reply'd , he knew nothing of robinson before , and added , ( it was very observable , ) that dugdale knowing , it seems his friend and comrade robinson to be a cheat , and then in want , thought him a tool fittest for his purpose , the most easily prevailed upon , and most proper to make a knight of the post . so that the two last worthy witnesses , did by their evidence , rather confirm , then lessen the belief of dugdale's tampering with robinson herein . upon these several evidences , the managers made these observations , first , it was not likely , that dugdale a stranger to robinson should attempt to suborn him to swear against a person he knew not , and in a matter whereof he was wholy ignorant ●dly , it doth not appear , that dugdale had any ill will to moor , that should induce him to suborn pol● to swear against him . thirdly , both 〈◊〉 and ●ol● were infamous men ; 〈◊〉 being a common cheat , the other a drunken quarrelsom fellow , and seeming to favour the plotters . fourthly , morral was but a poor barber , of no reputation , and one who might easily be brought to say what he did . to which the papists answer : to the first , robinson was no stranger to dugdale , he was ( as the earl of macklesfield and mr. booth attested , ) every where about staffordshire , remarkably known for cheating a dice , cock-fightings , races , &c. ( exercises also frequent with dugdale himself ; ) nor is it material that robinson knew not my lord stafford , nor any thing of him : it was not dugdale's business to find out a man , who to discharge a good conscience would swear what he knew ; but who to get money would swear what he knew not ; for which purpose dugdale had good reason to think robinson a very proper instrument . to the second , it is plain matter of fact , that dugdale having accus'd and imprison'd moore for carrying away evers , but not able to prove it , he would have hired holt to make out his false accusation . to the third , if robinson and holt were cheats and rogues , my lord well inferred , they were the more likely to be chosen by dugdale for such imployments as he had for them , though for holt , the greatest offence laid to his charge seems to be , that he quarrelled with dugdale's witnesses , as thinking no honest man would take his part . to the fourth , though morral was poor , yet it doth not appear but that he was so honest , as not to be suborned to perjury by dugdale ; and therefore his clear and positive evidence in this matter ought to stand good . but let it be granted , what the managers contest for , ( viz. ) that because morral was poor , holt quarrelsome , and robinson infamous ; none of these three witnesses ought to be believed ; what then will become of all the kings evidence ? ( as they term them ▪ ) what shall we believe or say of them ? are they persons of repute , riches , and honour ? are they not rather the scum and refuse of the nation ? why must credit be denyed to beggers or knaves , when they accuse their co-equals in probable matters ? without hopes of gain ? and yet the same credit be allowed to the like beggars and knaves , when they swear against persons of honour , moral impossibilities and contradictions upon large hopes and promises of reward ? this the papists take to be hard measure . to counterpoise in some sort this charge of subornation laid to dugdale . the managers alledged the like proceedings on my lords side : to prove which , thomas launder deposed , that my lord aston●s friends had summoned him up to my lord aston's tryal , to give evidence against ansel and dugdale ; and that he was to have an horse to ride on , and money in his pocket . simon wright , barber to dugdale , deposed , that mr. plessington told him , if he could find a way to take off dugdale's evidence , or destroy him , he should have seven hundred pounds . and that the said plessington and others , would have had him . swear point blank , that dugdale would have hir'd him to give evidence against mrs. price , and mr. tasborough . my lord at once to confound this man , by his own testimony , and further to detect the subornation of dugdale also in this matter ; produced a letter or paper , writ and sign'd by wright himself to sir james simmons , in these words ; i can , i bless god , with a safe conscience declare , upon oath ; that mr. dugdale hath been unkind to me , in taking his opportunity of my poverty ; by reason of a private meeting of us two by his appointment ; he did at that time proffer , if i would swear against you , and mr. gerrard , he would protect me as one of the kings evidence ; and i should not want money . and in the hall at westminster , he said , if i did discover it that day at mrs. price's tryal , he would set me in the pillory . this i have own'd to his face , and shall not go back from this , and more , for fear , nor favour . so i rest as you shall find by your servant : simon wright . this letter wright acknowledged to be his own hand word for word . but said plessington and others had perswaded him to write it . thus the man swearing and vnswearing contradictions against himself ; my lord only reply'd , see what you have under his own hand , i have no more to say to him . upon this diversity of evidence , the managers made this observation : that the attempts made to suborn launder and wright , were manifest signs my lords agents endeavoured by sinister ways to vindicate his cause . to which the papists answer : it is not conceivable how the evidence given by launder and wright , can draw the least suspicion of subornation on my lord or his friends ; for the proposal made to launder was by my lord aston's friends , and in behalf of my lord aston , and not of my lord stafford ; besides the words understood with that candor and sincerity they seem to have been spoken by my lord aston's friends , import no more then this . that if launder would like an honest man , give true testimony of what he knew against ansel and dugdale , at my lord aston's intended tryal at london ; his necessary expences should be born , and the convenience of an horse provided for his journey thither . where 's the subornation here ? as for wright indeed , he is a person of that matchless worth , and hath given so clear proofs , both of his own unshaken integrity , and dugdale's innocence ; that he hath highly deserved the title , credit , dignity , and other the emoluments of an associate to the kings evidence . in fine , he hath said so much both for himself and dugdale , the papists know not what , or how to say more . the last great exception made by my lord against dugdale's deposition was , that dugdale swore in this very tryal , the jesuits had entrusted him with all their letters , that there came to his hands whole packets to , and from several persons , in several places , all containing most damnable treason ; many of which , he said , he opened , read , and knew the contents ; yet though the preserving two or three ; nay , even one single letter , under the authors hand , might have been so highly advantageous to the proving the truth , both of his own evidence , and the whole plot in general ; nevertheless he could not produce one scrip or line to back his assertion , or clear himself from the forgeries laid to his charge . to obviate this exception , the managers brought in two sisters , elizabeth and anne elder ; these sisters depos'd , that dugdale coming one day to their house with several bundles of papers in his pockets and breeches , desir'd them to burn them ; saying , the times were troublesome , and he being to travel to divers places , if he were taken , people would think him a plotter , having all those papers about him ; that hereupon elizabeth burnt all the papers , except one book , concerning which anne ask'd dugdale whether or no that also should be burnt ? he answered no , lay that by , it may do good seven years hence ; there is no treason in it ; elizabeth reply'd , is there any thing of treason in the others ? he said , do you think there is ? elizabeth further deposed , she did see mr. dugdale take a glass of sider , and hear him say , and wish it might be his damnation ; and he might sink in the place where he stood , if he knew any thing of the plot. from the testimony of these two sisters , the managers drew these inferences . first dugdale 's fears and apprehensions in burning so many bundles of papers , denotes there were matters contained in them , which if known , would have discovered the plot. secondly , when the question was proposed to dugdale , whether his little book should be burnt or no ; he answer'd , no , there was no treason in it ; which ambiguous manner of expression , argues there was something of treason in the other bundles . to which the papists answer ; to the first , it is not credible , that dugdale as yet a catholick should bring to an ale-house , and deliver to two women , in the very heat of the discovery of the plot , his pockets and breeches full of papers , containing high treason : surely he might with more secrecy and safety , have burnt them in his chamber ; but if what the women attest be true ; it is very easie to learn from the very words of dugdale himself , the reason why he brought , and caused to be burnt those useless writings , ( viz. ) not because there was any treason in them , but because the times , ( as he said ) being troublesome , such bundles of papers found about a travelling papist , though never so innocent , would afford matter of search , and suspition of his being a plotter . to the second , why should we amuse our selves , or others with extorted inferences drawn from ambiguous expressions here ? none surely knows dugdale's mind better then dugdale himself ; we have his words attested by this very witness , to declare his meaning , let him tell us in plain english his own sentiment in this affair . i wish ( saith he ) this may be my damnation , and that i may sink in the place where i stand , if i know any thing of the plot. now let the world judge of dugdale and his meaning . titus oates's deposition against my lord . the next witness that gave evidence to the impeachment , against my lord , was titus oates , who swore , that in the year ( 77. ) whilst he remained in spain , and at st. omers , he saw several letters signed stafford , wherein my lord assured the jesuits of his fidelity and zeal , in promoting the catholick design . that in the year ( 78. ) the said oates being then in london , my lord came to the chamber of one fenwick a jesuit , now executed , and there received a commission from him in oates's presence , to be pay master-general to the army ; that upon a discourse with the said fenwick , my lord said , he was of necessity to go down into the country to take account how affairs stood there ; and did not doubt , but at his return groves should do the business . and further added , speaking of the king ; he has deceived us a great while , and we can bear no longer . my lords exceptions . against these depositions , my lord made these several exceptions . the first was grounded thus ; it was not to be imagin'd , that so many and great conspirators , so well provided with moneys , and preferments ▪ as oates pretends ; all engaged in a design so dangerous , so important to them to keep secret , would , or durst permit doctor oates their cabinet councellour , and main engine , to be reduced to such an extremity of want and penury , that he had not bread to put in his mouth . yet my lord was ready to prove in open court , that at the very nick of time , when this oates would have men believe , he was most entrusted and employed in carrying on the conspiracy , just then he was in so poor and despicable a condition , so forsaken and contemned by all , for his debauched life ; that he begged at doors for six-pence . to this doctor oates himself answer'd , he would save my lord the trouble of proving any such thing ; saying , a mans poverty was no objection against his honesty ▪ and as he had not six-pence in his pocket when he began the discovery , so hath he often wanted two-pence since the same discovery ; having expended several hundreds of pounds in his majesties service , more then he had received . to prove this he made a calculation of sums given him by great persons , sums allowed for taking of jesuits , and sums gained by printing of narratives , of all which he said , he had nothing left . upon this argument of my lords drawn from oates's beggery , &c. the managers made no observations . why they did not ? is a question , some say because the doctor himself undertook to answer it ; others affirm , because they knew the more they stirred in it , the worse it would be , and so thought best to bury it in silence and oblivion . to the answer therefore given by dr. oates , the papists reply : poverty is an objection against honesty in a person addicted ( as oates was ) to idlenes , vice , and debauchery ; and though a man may be poor and honest too , yet the same man , at the same time , and in the same circumstances oates pretends to have been in , could never be poor and a plotter too : could he be privy to all the grand commissions ? could he be employed in all the deep and damnable consults ? could he have at his mercy the lives and fortunes of all the chief conspirators ? men stock'd with banks of money , sufficient ( if we will believe him , ) to raise armies , and provide for two hundred thousand soldiers ? could this man nevertheless starve in a manner for bread ? could he beg for an alms at the papists doors ? could he be rejected and contemned as an idle vagabond , by the very persons who thus had put their lives into his hand ? this is such a paradox as none in their senses will ever believe . but the most pleasant passage ( if there could be any pleasure in bloudy perjury , ) is his miraculous way of spending great sums out of nothing , in his majesties service ; he confesseth he had not six-pence at the breaking forth of the plot ; yet he swears he is several hundreds of pounds worse since the discovery of it . how came he then by all this money ? why , he got it by way of presents from some great persons , by taking of jesuits , and printing of narratives : but did not all these gains accrue unto him on the account of the plot ? on what other score were these presents made by great persons ? had he any other trade or livelyhood then that of the kings evidence ? is it not too manifest those gifts were bestowed on him as a reward of past , and encouragement of future swearing ? would to god such great persons would duly consider the dismal consequences which necessarily follow such rewards . the second exception made by my lord against oates's evidence , was , that the said oates had perjur'd himself in two depositions , directly contradictory to each other : for proof of this , my lord appealed to divers of the lords themselves , who were present at both the said depositions ; amongst whom the earl of berkley being required to speak what he knew ; attested , that my lord chancellour did ask dr. oates at the bar of the house this question , ( viz. ) my lords desire to know if you can accuse any other person or persons of what quality soever ? and you are encouraged by their lordships to accuse them . oates his answer was , my lords , i have no more to accuse in relation to england : notwithstanding which deposition , he afterwards in another ( with unspeakable insolence ) expresly accused the queen in a matter ( as he thought ) of no less then high treason ; from hence my lord concluded , if the first deposition was true , oates was perjured in the latter ; if the latter was true , he was perjur'd in the first ; so that which of the two soever is true or false , he is guilty of perjury . upon this proof , the managers made these observations . first , doctor oates having said much , and having many things in his head , could peradventure not remember on a sudden this particular of the queen . secondly . the evidence which doctor oates gave afterwards of the queen was not positive , nor of his own knowledge , but words which he heard spoken in a room in which he was not himself ; but coming in afterward , he saw the queen there . thirdly , it might not be so clear to dr. oates whether the queen was a person capable of an accusation , so as to be tryed for treason . to which the papists answer , to the first , 't is an evasion contradictory to common sense ; that a man whose business and study it was to discover a plot against the life of the king , and who by several long premeditated depositions , had ( as he said ) discharged himself of all he knew , should notwithstanding all this while never remember the most essential part , ( viz ) the inhumane murder of the king , designed and consented to by his own royal consort . to the second , oates deposed upon oath he heard such words , and circumstanced them with such particulars of time and place , as plainly denote he intended a full and home accusation against the queen . and granted , his evidence was not positive , yet the matter was of such dangerous consequence , as ought not to be concealed , especially , at a time when he was upon his oath , to speak all he knew , and when he pretended by discoveries to save the life of the king. to the third , though oates ( left to himself ) be very stupid ; yet he could not be so ignorant us not to know , that a queen designing to murder the king her husband , is guilty of treason ; and whether she was liable to a tryal or no. oates was guilty of perjury ; in that being commanded and encouraged by the lords to make an entire discovery of all he knew against any person of what degree or quality soever ; he expresly swore , he had no more to accuse in england . indeed the transcendent lustre of the queens vertue , innocence and endeared affection to his majesty , leaves no place for calumny to fix upon . and the bare charge of so soul a crime , upon so renowned a goodness , is of it self independent of other contradictions , a more then sufficient conviction of oates's perjury . the third exception made by my lord against oate's evidence was ; that though oates in his several depositions ( particularly those taken before the privy councel , and house of lords ) did often affirm he had given an entire and faithful account , to the best of his rememberance , of all whatsoever he knew , as to the matters and persons concern'd in the plot : and though he had then also time and opportunity to reflect and deliberate upon what might any wise relate to my lord stafford in that affair : yet he never accused him of any other thing , then only , that he had seen beyond the seas some letters signed stafford , wherein the writer had testifyed his zeal for the catholick design : but when afterwards consulting with himself , and possibly with some others , he found this slam of his would not amount to any thing material , whereon to ground an impeachment , he invented and imposed upon my lord a commission of pay-master-general to the army ; a device he never once thought on before . from which proceeding my lord argued ; if there were such a commission , receiv'd by my lord at fenwick's chamber , in such a manner as oates relates ; this commission being a matter of so grand importance , and the delivery of it accompanied with so many remarkable circumstances , in the very presence of oates . it is impossible that the said oates , who ( as he said ) on purpose for discovery , had taken notes and memorials , even of trivial occurrences , should forget , and by consequence omit a thing of this high concern in his former depositions . but if there were no such commission , ( as most assuredly there was none ) then is oates perjur'd in his present evidence : and verily ( added my lord ) if it be permitted to this man daily to frame new accusations ; if easie credit be given to all his fables , and whatsoever he shall from time to time invent , may pass for good evidence ; who can be secure ? at this rate , he may by degrees impeach the whole nation , for crimes which neither he , nor any man else ever yet dream'd on . upon these arguments and inferences made by my lord ; the managers would not ; and the papists say , they need not make any remarks . the fourth exception made by my lord against oates his evidence , was : that whereas oates now declares , he never was really a roman catholick , but only feigned himself to be so ; my lord often and strongly insisted , that a protestant of the church of england , who convinced in his judgment of the truth of his religion , shall nevertheless , on what pretence soever provoke god , belye his own conscience , and violate all sacred things ; so as to make a solemn abre●untiation of his faith and church ; to profess himself a roman catholick ; to live amongst them ; to practice religious duties with them , for three years together ; and this to such an height of sacriledge , as frequently to receive the sacrament , and perform daily external worship to it , ( which in the judgment both of protestants and catholicks was to him , so believing , direct and gross idolatry ) cannot rationally be supposed to stick at perjury , when advantageous to him ; and ought not by the law of god or man , to be credited or admitted for an evidence against any one ; but rather detested and abhorred , by all good men , as undeserving the name of a christian . upon this pressing inference the managers made this following observation : suppose dr. oates did out of levity , or for want of being well grounded in his own , turn to another religion . it is hard , that the matter of changing his religion , when nothing else is laid to his charge , should disparage his testimony , seeing many who have changed their religion more then once ( example mr. chillingworth ) are yet esteemed credible persons . to which the papists answer : to change from a wrong to a right religion , is no disparagement : but protestants will hardly allow oates's first pretended change to be such . however my lord insisted not upon the changing , but the feigning religion . oates did not out of levity or conviction of judgment ( as mr. chillingworth ) turn from his own to another religion ; but remaining interiourly of the same belief , he exteriourly renounced what he so believed , and sacrilegiously practised the direct contrary , than which nothing can be more detestable . nay he affirmeth , he often received the sacrament , and took dreadful oaths of secrecy in pursuance of most bloudy and hellish designs . if this be true , what credit can be given to a monster accustomed and inured ( by his own confession ) to such damnable oaths . but if it be false ( as indeed it is ) then is he perjured in his evidence . edward turbervil's deposition against my lord . the last witness that gave direct evidence to my lords impeachment , was edward turbervil , who swore , that in the year ( 75 ▪ ) he was perswaded by his friends , to take upon him the fryers habit at doway : that being weary of that state , he left it , and came into england , for which he incurred the displeasure of his friends , and relations , who ( he said ) discountenanced him , and could not endure to see him ; that hereupon he went into france , and arrived at paris , and became acquainted with the now prisoner , my lord stafford , by means of two priests , father nelson , and father turbervil ; that after a fortnights acquaintance , and promise of secrecy , my lord proposed unto him a way , whereby ( as he said , ) he might not only retrieve his credit with his relations , but also make himself an happy man ; which way , at last my lord told him in direct terms , was , to take away the life of the king of england , who was an heretick , and consequently a rebel against god almighty ; for circumstantial instances of this , turbervil swore , that he had , during that fortnights acquaintance , frequent access to my lord at his lodgings ; that when he took leave of him to come for england , his lordship was troubled with the gout , and had his foot on a stool ; that my lord had appointed him to wait for him at diep , in order to his coming over with him in a yacht ; that accordingly turbervil went to diep , but that being there , my lord writ him word , he had altered his resolution , and would take his journey by the way of callais , and that he should hasten to attend his lordship at london ; that hereupon he came into england , but soon after returned again into france , because not being willing to undertake my lords proposals , he was discountenanced by his friends , reduced to poverty , and thought himself not safe , even amongst his own relations . my lord's exceptions . to this deposition my lord pleaded in his defence , that turbervil had perjured himself in several parts of this , and other his depositions . first , turbervil here swears my lord made a proposal to him in direct terms , to take away the life of the king. now my lord proved , that since the discovery of the plot , the said turbervil did absolutly forswear any knowledge he ever had of any design , or plot whatsoever against the king's person , life or government ; the witnesses were these . john porter , a protestant attested , that turbervil told him several times , he did verily believe , neither the lord powis , nor the rest of the lords were in the plot ; and the witnesses that swore against them , he believed were all perjured , and could not believe any thing of it . porter answered , if there was such a thing , he ( turbervil ) having been beyond seas , must certainly know of it ; turbervil reply'd , as he hoped for salvation , he knew nothing of it , neither directly nor indirectly , against the kings sacred person , nor subversion of the government . and he further added , although i am a little low at present , and my friends will not look upon me , yet i hope god almighty will never leave me so much , as to let me swear against innocent persons , and forswear and damn my self . mr. yalden , a protestant and barrister at law , attested , that he heard turbervil say , in an heat , these words , ( viz. ) god damn me , now there is no trade good , but that of a discoverer ; but the devil take the duke of york , monmouth , plot and all , for i know nothing of it . to confront these testimonies , the managers produced one mr. powel and mr. arnold , who deposed , that turbervil told them , he had much to say in relation to the plot , but did not name any particulars , fearing ( he said ) he might be discouraged in it . upon these testimonies of mr. porter and mr yalden , the managers made these observations . first , it is not probable , that turbervil designing to be a discoverer , should disable himself ever to be so , by swearing horrid oaths , he knew nothing of the plot. secondly , the testimony of porter and yalden are opposed by the contrary testimony of powel and arnold . to which the papists answer : to the first , it is not improbable , but very likely , that turbervil as yet not fully resolved , to make ship-wrack of his conscience and honesty , did often protest , he knew nothing of the plot ; and if the positive attestation of two credible witnesses may be admitted for good evidence ; it is not bare probability , but just and solid proof that he did so ; and by consequence , his present discoveries ought not to be regarded , otherwise then as the new and gainful inventions of a perjured man. to the second , the testimony of powel and arnold , hath no manner of weight against my lord's evidence , but rather compleats the charge of perjury against turbervil . for it is granted , that turbervil hath said and sworn , both to powel , arnold , and the whole houses of parliament , he knew much of the plot ▪ but this being directly contradictory to the dreadful oaths here attested by porter and yalden , and no wise denyed by powel and arnold ; it followeth by the testimony of all the four witnesses , that turbervil is guilty of perjury . secondly , turbervil swears : that during the fortnights acquaintance with my lord at paris , he had , by means of the priests , frequent access to him , at his lodgings there . now my lords gentleman and page , who both then constantly waited on him , attested , they never once saw turbervil there ; and turbervil himself acknowledged in court , he knew them not . to qualify this evidence , thomas mort was called , who deposed , that he being at paris and desirous to return into england , turbervil told him , his brother the monk , had introduced him into the favour of a lord , by which means they might both of them have the convenience of passage in a yacht , which staid for my lord at diep . that hereupon they went to diep , but finding no yacht there , turbervil told him , if they went to calais , they might go over with my lord from thence in the yacht . at last they lighted on a fisher-boat at diep , and so came over in it ; but that this forementioned lord was my lord stafford , or that he ever saw turbervil in my lords lodgings , or company at paris , or else-where , he could not say ▪ upon these testimonies , the managers made this observation , viz. the priests had such a transcendent influence over my lord , as might gain admittance for any whom they pleased , not only into my lords house , but also into my lords heart , without the privity or knowledge of his servants . now it plainly appears by the attestation of mort , that turbervil , through his brothers the monk's means , was become my lords favourite . to which the papists answer : it is not proved , either that the priests had such a transcendent influence over my lords house and heart , or that turbervil through their means , became a favorite . mort indeed tells us , turbervil told him , his brother the monk had introduced him into the favour of a lord ; and this favour only , to come over with him in a yacht . for the truth of which also he had only turbervil's word , and the thing it self never performed . must we from hence infer , my lord had given his heart to the priests , and they had introduced turbervil into it ; a strange inference : but let it be granted , my lord had a real friendship and kindness for the monks ; what then ? how is it proved , they imployed their interest with him , in trayterous designs ? why , turbervil swears it . thus one forgery is made use of to support another , and nothing but proofless fictions to make all out : yet to come more close to the present evidence . had the papists introduced turbervil into my lords acquaintance and favour ; this could not be done invisibly to the servants ; some body must needs see , and know , when they came in , and out ; my lord was then in lodgings , and had none but two servants about him ; turbervil never pretends either the priests , or he , made a secret of their visits ; their accesses to my lord ( he said ) were very frequent , as the nature of the business , and pretended intimacy with my lord , seem'd to require . the condition of turbervil was also such , as might well render him desirous of the servants acquaintance and friendship ; especially being then ( as he said ) immediatly to go over in the yacht with them , and to continue employed in my lords designs and service at london . now that a man in these circumstances should not know these servants , nor be known , or so much as once seene by them ; is morally impossible . thirdly turbervil swears , that when he took leave of my lord at paris , to come for england , his lordship was troubled with the gout in his foot. now my lord protested in the presence of all that knew him , he never had the gout in all his life ; his servants also who then lived with him , viz. mr. furness and mr. leigh gave attestation , they never knew him subject to that infirmity ; only several years since , he had been troubled with the sciatica , which my lord confessed , and the earl of stamford testified ; made him sometimes formerly ( though never at paris ) walk with a staff. upon these testimonies , the managers made no observations . but the papists avouch , here is also direct perjury proved upon turbervil , by two credible witnesses . and though the subject of the perjury seems not to be material to the main accusation , yet he that shall wilfully perjure himself in any one circumstance ; ought not to be credited in the whole ; seing nature it self , abhors the testimony of a man , who hath once invoked almighty god to bear witness to a lye. fourthly turbervil swears , that after his refusing to be a fryer , he was discountenanced by the lord powis , and others of his friends and relations , so that he durst not appear amongst them . now my lord proved , by several witnesses . that after his return from the said frjers , he was civilly treated , and charitably entertained , by his said friends and relations . to make this good , john minehead attested , that turbervil after his coming from doway , lay in the house of the earl of powis , his former master ; and was courteously entertained , both by my lord , and the whole family . john turbervil , brother to the deponent , attested , he never knew that any of his relations gave him an angry word ; but on the contrary , when he went to paris , his sister bestowed on him seven pounds to bear his charges ; upon which he said , he would never trouble them more . upon these testimonies , the managers made these observations , first , though turbervil might per adventure ( as minehead attests ) be civily treated by my lord powis in publick , yet what reproaches or unkind words might pass between my lord and him in private , minehead might not hear . secondly , it was no great kindness in turbervil 's relations , to give him seven pounds ( as his brother attests , ) never to see him more ; they rather purchased his absence , then did him a kindness by such a favour . to which the papists answer : to the first , groundless surmises of private unkindnesses , which none ever yet came to the knowledge of , nor turbervil himself so much as pretends , is a strange way of clearing a man in open court from the guilt of perjury , to frame and fancy things that possibly might be , and draw prejudicial inferences from thence , as if they actually had been , is unjust proceeding . to the second , turbervil ( as his brother attests ) never had one angry word from his relations ; and when his sister gave him seven pounds , it was not to purchase his absence , nor did they turn him away . but he himself , ashamed it seems of his past misdemeanours , and confounded at the goodness of his friends . said , he would never trouble them more . fifthly , turbervil in his information given to the house of commons swore : that he came to live with the lord powis in the year ( 73. ) and came into england in the year ( 76. ) but the next day after he had given in his information , he altered the aforenamed date , and instead of ( 73. ) caused to be inserted ( 72. ) and instead of ( 76. ) caused to be inserted ( 75. ) which alteration , my lord affirmed , included perjury . upon this proof the managers made this observation ; an honest man may mistake as to point of time in an evidence given even upon oath : and to rectifie such a mistake the very next day after it was committed , denotes rather tenderness of conscience then perjury in turbervil . to which ihe papists answer . no honest man will positively swear to what he knows not : and it is argued , turbervil when he gave in his information , certainly knew whether the matters and circumstances he then swore to , were true , or false , or dubious : if the first , he is perjured in the alteration ; if the second , he is perjured in the information ; if the third , he is not a person of honesty and credit , who will positively swear without hesitation to a thing of which he is ignorant whether true or false ▪ and therefore the alteration made upon second thoughts , cannot in such a case be justly imputed to tenderness of conscience , but to some , not before conceived apprehensions , of being taken tardy in a lye. sixthly , turbervil in the information given to the said house of commons , and exhibited in court , peremptorily swore : that my lord came over out of france in the company of count gramount , by the way of calais . in direct opposition to this information , my lord proved , that he neither came out of france in the company of count gramount , nor by the way of calais ; but by the way of diep , a month after count gramount was in england ▪ the witnesses who gave attestation of this , were mr. wyborne , who went over from england to diep in the same yacht which fetched my lord ; and mr. furness and george leigh my lords servants , who came with my lord in the said yacht from diep to england . upon these proofs of perjury , the managers made this observation . when mr : turbervil deposed , that my lord came over by the way of calais in company of count gramount ; it could not be his intention to say this as a matter of his own knowledge , seing he himself in the same affidavit tells us , he came away before my lord , and had not his passage with him : but the words candidly taken , are to be understood ; that he was informed , my lord came over by the way of calais in the company of count gramount : now that mr. turbervil was thus informed , is evident , as well by the letter which ( he saith ) he received at diep from my lord , as also by the aforementioned attestation of mort who saith , that being at diep , tubervil told him , if they went to calais , they might go over with my lord in the yacht ; so that in the whole , mr. turbervil may be said to have been peradventure something unwary in expressing himself , but not perjured in his evidence . to which the papists answer : to excuse a man from perjury , by pretending an occult meaning and intention in the swearer , not expressed in the words of his oath , is such an evasion , as if admitted , would destroy the integrity of an oath , and elude all proof of perjury whatsoever : mr. turbervil swears in down-right terms , my lord came over by the way of calais in the company of count gramount , without any addition , that he was informed so . in which oath he is directly perjured ; for he swears as an absolute truth , and without restriction , what of it self is an absolute lye , and what at best he could but guess at , by report and hear-say . it is true indeed , he contradicts himself in the sequel of his information , by saying he came away before my lord , and had not his passage with him ; but it is connatural to perjury , to include contradictions ; wicked men are often blinded with malice , passion , or interest ; and no wonder to find incoherence of parts , in a story divested of truth . the only thing can be collected of probability in this whole matter , is , that turbervil being at paris , in an indigent condition , and desirous to return home , got imperfect intelligence that an english lord ( whose name as yet he knew not ) and a french count called gramount , had a yacht waited for them at diep . and having also a brother then in paris , he sought by his means to gain admittance for a passage in the said yacht . this design of his he imparts to mort , a person in the same condition , and who , had the same purpose with himself . hereupon mort and he goes to diep , in hopes to find the yacht there , but they , fail'd of their expectation , and turbervil missing the yacht , would have perswaded mort to go in the search of it to calais ; whilst they were in this debate , they lighted on a fisher-boat , and so came over in it into england . thus much may be conjectured from the relation of mort. but that turbervil during his stay at diep , received a letter from my lord , intimating his intention of coming for england , by the way of calais , and that he should hasten to meet him at london , is a most palpable forgery , for neither could turbervil , ( when required ) produce any such letter , nor did my lord come over by the way of calais , as turbervil would have us believe that letter imported . and indeed who can imagine , my lord should send word to his new consederate at diep , to hasten to meet him at london , when he himself remained at paris ( as hath been proved ) above a month after ; and at length also came not to calais , but to diep , and from thence home ; so that ●here is nothing but contradictions in ●he whole course of turbervil's evidence . seventhly , turbervil in the last mentioned information positively swore : that the lord castlemain was present at certain traiterous consults at powis castle , several times within the years ( 72 ) or ( 73. ) now my lord proved , that the said earl of castlemain was never at powis castle within the compass of that whole time . this was demonstrated by the attestation of mr. lidcot a protestant , and fellow of kings-colledge in cambridge , who having lived with the earl nine years , and particularly accompanied him in all his journeys and residences , during those two above-named years ; gave this distinct account out of his book of journals , ( viz ) my lord set forth from liege to paris , january 1 st . ( 72. ) stilo novo , where he remained three weeks ; and from thence arrived at london , january 24. stil ' ver ' , there he staid till may ( 73. ) from thence he went to liege again in june , and from liege he set forth to london in august , and returned back to liege october the 3. stilo novo ( 73 ) where he remained till january ( 74. ) &c. thus much to the charge of perjury . upon this proof of perjury the managers made this observation mr. lydcot the fellow of kings colledge ( as he call'd himself ) was indeed so out in his arithmetick , so mistaken in the year ; and used the roman stile ( or date ) so much more then the english . that they suspected he was not so great a protestant as he pretended to be . to which the papists answer : that a solid witness ought not to be ralyed out of his evidence , in a matter of life and death ; mr. lydcot , ( however skilled in arithmetick , however great or little protestant , ) substantially proved the earl of castlemain , never was at , or near powis-castle , from the first of january ( 72. ) till past decemb. ( 73. ) the inclusive time wherein turbervil swears , he was at a consult there . and it is strange , so weighty and convincing a proof of perjury , in a matter of so high and serious a concern , should be shifted off by a trifling jest . lastly , my lord upon , occasion made some remarks upon turbervil's beggery , loose manner of life , and divers , odd circumstances in the course of his evidence ; which much reflected upon his reputation : to support it therefore , the managers produced these witnesses . mr. arnold , jones , hobby and scudamore , deposed ; that they knew turbervil , but for their parts never heard , or saw any evil by him . mr. matthews a minister deposed the same , as to turbervil's reputation ; and added : that turbervil a little before he made his discovery , owned himself a roman catholick ; but seemed to have a mind to quit that religion , being convinced by the arguments matthews gave him , of the excellency of the principles and practices of the protestant church ; yet would never acknowledge he knew one syllable of the plot. upon these several remarques , the managers made this observation : the good character here given of turbervil , by four witnesses , shew him a man of much vertue and integrity ; and it ought to be considered as a farther addition to his praise , that he had the grace ( though indigent ) to refuse the proposal made to him by my lord , of killing the king. to which the papists answer : it is no sufficient proof of turbervil ●s vertue and integrity , that four persons say , they know no ill of him ; he may be guilty nevertheless of a thousand crimes unknown to them ; few or none are so entirely abandoned and detested by all mankind , as not to find four persons in the world who will make a favourable report of them . but it is evident from what hath been already proved ; that turbervil was a man in all points compleatly equipped for a knight of the post ; for first , he was indigent , secondly , he was horridly addicted to cursing and swearing ; thirdly , he looked upon feigning discoveries , as the only way to get moneys . all this is manifested by his own words and conversation , with mr. yalden and mr. porter before-mentioned ; as i hope for salvation ( said he , ) i know nothing of the plot. the devil take the duke of york , monmouth , and all . god damn me , there is now no trade good but that of a discoverer . who shall ever want witnesses , that can find men thus qualified ? and wheras it is said , he had the grace to refuse the proposal made to him , of killing the king. it ought first to be proved , otherwise then by his own assertion ; he had such a proposal made , before the refusal of it can be justly alledged as an argument of grace in him . finally , it is very remarkable what parson matthews the last of the witnesses here deposeth , ( viz. ) that though turbervil had a mind to quit the roman-catholick religion , being ( as he said ) convinced by the arguments matthews gave him , of the excellency of the principles and practices of the protestant church ; yet he would never acknowledge to the said matthews , his new ghostly father , that he knew one syllable of the plot. the sum of the whole evidence , both for , and against my lord . ¶ 4. in this sort passed and ended the particular evidence , given as well by the managers against my lord , as by my lord in his own defence . after this the court required each party to sum up their respective evidence ; and it being by course of law , my lord's turn to begin ; he performed it to this purpose . first , he pleaded his age , his want of endowments , his exhausted spirits and strength in his long tryal ; in consideration of which he hoped their lordships ( who were both his judges and councel , ) would pardon the many defects , he must needs commit in summing up his defence : then he recapitulated the whole evidence ( already specified ) as well as his weak memory , and discomposed condition would permit . he reminded their lordships of the several points wherein he had proved the witnesses forsworn : he recounted their sayings , and unsayings to the same things . the various contradictions , the moral impossibilities , and absurdities , as to divers ( though before-hand studied ) parts of their evidence ; inferring from hence , that he who will forswear himself in one thing , is not to be credited in any . he insisted upon the infamy of the witnesses and wickedness of their lives , especially the more the atheistical sacriledge of some of them , acknowledged in open court ; he inculcated their former beggery , compared to the present encouragement , caresses , and allurements of gain , and applause , they find in their new employment . he alledged their subornation of others , to make good their forgeries ; their baere oaths without any corroborating circumstances , but what depended on the same oaths ; concluding , that such as will swear lyes , will never stick at swearing of false circumstances , to handle those lyes together . and having thus summed up his defence , as well as a weak old man , harrassed and spent with five days pleading . and ( as he said ) depriv●d of sleep , could do on a suddain ; he cast himself into their lordships hands desiring them to remember how faithfully he had served the king in the late wars ; how much himself , his wife , and family had suffered on that account ; how easily he might have prevented those miseries , if he would , as others did , have turned a rebel ; and consequently , how unlikely it is , he should now in his old age , and settled contented state , be guilty of so horrid a crime , proved only against him by the incredible stories of three infamous men. then he proceeded to propose certain points or doubts in law , which occurred in his case , concerning the manner of his impeachment ; the continuance of it from parliament to parliament ; whether the indictment contained an overt act , necessary to a conviction of treason ? whether men , who swear for money , ought to be credited , or admitted for witnesses ? whether the plot , being supposed a plot of the papists , was as yet legally proved so ? lastly , whether there being but one particular witness to any one particular point , such an evidence be sufficient in law ? when my lord had ended his queries , the learned managers those dexterous masters of law and eloquence , addressed themselves , to sum up the evidence , and illustrate the proofs on their side . that part which regards the especial matters charged by the witnesses upon my lord in particular , i have already incerted in the body of the tryal , as the said several matters respectively occurred ; the other arguments made use of to enforce a belief of my lord's guilt , and advance the credit of the witnesses : take here ( together with the papists answers , ) in short , as followeth . the managers therefore argued , they had made it plain and apparent in the beginning of the tryal , by the testimonies of six positive witnesses ; by the declaration of both houses of parliament ; by coleman's letters ; by the tryal and conviction of other traytors ; that there was a general design amongst the papists , to introduce their religion , by raising of armies , murdering the king , and subverting the government . the papists answer : it is clear and manifest from the reasons given , and arguments answered , in the preamble of this tryal ; that there never was any such general design ▪ any such armies raised , &c. amongst the papists . these being the meer groundless suggestions of infamous men , whom lucre and malice instigated to perjury against innocent catholicks . the managers further argued , it was necessary this great design of the papists should be managed by the g●atest persons amongst them ; now my lord stafford was a man whose quality and merit might well entitle him to an office as great as pay-master-general to the army ; from whence they infered , that the particular evidence given herein against my lord , was highly credible . the papists answer : it is a wrested inference , and that also bottomed upon a false supposition ; for first , there never was ( as is said before , ) any such design , nor by consequence any armies or officers , other then what were the chymerical product of perjured men. secondly , though there had been such a design in general , as is here pretended ; it is a strangely far fetched conjecture , ( surely not allowable in a case of life and death , ) that my lord stafford because a nobleman , must needs have a great , or indeed any part in it . great offices ( especially amongst traitors , ) are not usually committed to the best born , but to the best qualified for such employments . now all the world that knew my lord , his humour , his condition , his economy in money-matters , will avouch , ( so incongruous are the wittnesses in their lyes , ) there was not peradventure amongst all the persons of quality , catholicks in england , one less proper then he for pay master general to an army . in fine , if there were a plot in general , 't is no necessary consequence my lord was guilty . but if there were none ( as most certainly there was not ) 't is absolute demonstration my lord was innocent . the managers argued , they had amply proved by their witnesses , that the priests and jesuits , in their sermons and discourses , had justified the lawfulnes , and incited their votaries , to the practice of treason , rebellion , and murder of heretick princes ; conformably hereunto , whenever my lord undertook any treasonable design , it was still when the priests and jesuits were at his elbow ; still when they were egging him on ; still when they were giving him ghostly counsel ; when my lord was amongst them , or but newly come from them , then it was he uttered the treason of killing the king. these notable circumstances must needs ( said they ) render credible the testimony of the witnesses against my lord. the papists answer : here are trayterous sermons and discourses alledged ; how are they proved ? why , by the oaths of the witnesses that heard them . but the credit of these witnesses are questioned ; how is that made out ? why , by the trayterous sermons and discourses which they heard . thus still the question is begged , and nothing proved but by bare swearing , peremptory swearing , of infamous men , without any face of one single circumstance to support their evidence , other than what dependeth on the same swearing ; as if those that stick not to swear a false oath , should stick at circumstances to second their perjury . had the managers flourished upon the honesty of the witnesses ; the vprightness of their lives ; the integrity of their manners ; their dis-engagement from self-interest ; the circumstances inducing a probability , distinct from the bare oaths , ( things necessary to a legal conviction , ) the tryal would have had another appearence . it is therefore again urged , that there are such wretches as knights of the post ; that men may , ( and often do ) break god's great commandment , thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour . that wicked persons , of lost consciences and desperate fortunes , are most propense to commit this crime . that this propension is much augmented by an assured prospect of indempnities from punishment , and advantage of gain . and consequently , the bare , and otherwise improbable oaths of such men , so circumstanced , cannot ( especially in matters of life and death , ) be credited against honest and vertuous persons ; nay against whole nations , without a dreadful hazard of injustice . but there will be a further occasion to speak of these alledged trayterous sermons and discourses , when we come to treat of my lord's principles . the managers still argued , the three witnesses were all express and positive in their evidence against my lord. the papists still answer , it is not positive swearing of evil , but probable swearing of good men , should convict my lord , or any other , of guilt , especially in matters of high-treason . the managers likewise argued , it was impossible there could be a contrivance amongst the witnesses themselves , to depose the same crimes against my lord , seing there was no intercourse between oates and dugdale ; nor did they know each other till long after oates 's accusation of my lord ; and it is as little credible , they could concur in the same thing , unless the evidence of both were true . the papists answer , though there were no contrivance arising from any acquaintance or intercourse had between oates and dugdale , before their several discoveries , yet the latter might well take example and encouragement from the practice of the former ; and so indeed it was : for dugdale being involved in debts , and thrown into gaol , cast about how to retrieve his desperate fortune ; and hearing that oates and bedlow ( men before sunk to the bottom of reproach and beggery ) had by perjury and impudence freed themselves from the punishment of the laws , gained immense rewards , and now lived in a degree above the port and expence of ordinary gentlemen ▪ he at last ( yet not without frequent anguish , and reluctance of conscience , ) swallowed the alluring bait ; and knowing my lord stafford ( whom he had seen at tixal , ) was already in the tower , and accused by oates of the plot , he devised a like fabulous story of the plot also , making my lord , and other gentlemen , where he lived and served in staffordshire , the chief actors in it . by which means dugdale became partner with oates and bedlow , both in the title and profit of the king's evidence . the managers argued , oates and dugdale were so ready in their answers , when any question was asked them , and confirmed still their precedent discourses by their subsequent replies ; nay , the whole frame and series of the plot , though consisting of many particulars , and attested by persons of no great natural capacities , is yet so coherent in every part of it , that it is impossible the same should be false . the papists answer , oates and bedlow were often so confounded , when any question was asked them out of the road ; and their precedent discourses were usually so inconsistent with their subsequent replies ; nay , the whole story ( though studied before-hand , and the authors all manner of ways encouraged and assisted in their invention ) is yet stuffed and involved with so many absurdities , contradictions , and impracticable chymaera's , ( as has been already often and fully proved , ) that it is impossible the same should be true ; for falshood may , but truth cannot be inconsistent of parts . lastly , the managers having amply dilated and discanted upon each particular evidence and argument , alledged , as well against my lord , as in his defence ; and making even critical remarks upon whatever might be drawn , either to the advantage of the one , or prejudice of the other , ( the substance of all which hath been already specified in its proper place . ) at length they concluded , with sharp and moving aggravations against the popish principles , ( whereof also we shall by and by , according to promise , give a distinct account ; ) and insisting a while on this subject , with much accuteness of wit , and seeming applause , they closed up their evidence . thus , when there was a period put to proof in matters of fact , there began a debate as to matter of law , concerning a doubt proposed by my lord , ( the other of his queries not being admitted disputable , ) viz. whether two witnesses be necessary to every overt-act , in point of treason ? this question being referred to the judges , they determined it to the negative . after this , my lord petitioned the court ( as a peculiar favour ) that he might offer some things to their lordships consideration , the purport of which was : that he had proved direct perjury upon all the three witnesses against him ; that , as well at the instance of his wife , daughter and friends , as out of sincerity of conscience , he would , in the presence of almighty god , declare to them , all that he knew : that he verily believ'd there had been in former times plots and designs against the crown and government , ( as the gun-powder-treason , &c. owned by the traytors themselves at their death , ) wherein some roman catholicks , as well as others , might be concerned : which plots he from his heart ( as both his duty and religion taught him ) detested and abhorred : that it was ever indeed his opinion , that an act of comprehension for dissenting protestants , and a tolleration for roman catholicks ( yet so as not to admit them into any office of profit or dignity ) would much conduce to the happiness of the nation : but this not otherwise to be procured or desired , then by a free consent of the king , lords , and commons , in parliament assembled : that he never read or knew of coleman's letters , or consultations for tolleration , till he saw the letters themselves in the printed tryal : how far coleman was criminal he did not know , but he believed he did that which was not justifiable by law ; that , as to the damnable doctrine of king killing , if he were of any church whatsoever , and found that to be its principle , he would leave it . that he knew the disadvantage he was under , in being forced , alone , to stand a contest with the learned gentlemen the managers , who have those great helps of memory , parts , and understanding in the law , all which he wanted . that therefore he hoped their lordships would not conclude barely upon the manner , either of his , or their expressions . but seriously debating the merits of the cause in it self , would please to be his councel , as well as his judges . that seing he was to be acquitted , or condemned by their lordships judgments ; he knew they would lay their hands upon their heart , consult their consciences , and their honours ; and then he doubted not , they would do what was just and equitable ; that ( with submission to their lordships ) he thought it hard measure , and contrary to law , that any one should be imprisoned above two years , without being admitted to tryal ; and that it was of evil consequence for any one to have justice denyed him , so long till his opponents had found occasion to gain their ends ; that however those large allowances , and rewards granted to the witnesses , for swearing , might peradventure be an effect of his majesties grace and bounty ; yet it was not easily conceivable , how the hopes and promises of so great sums should not prove to dissolute , indigent persons , ●ong allurements and temptations to perjury finally , that the defence ▪ he had made , he owed it to the worth and dignity of his family ; he owed it to his dear wife and children ; ( at which words he was observed to weep ) he owed it to his innocence ; he owed it to god , the author of life . that he confided , their lordships would duly reflect , what a dreadful thing murder is , and the bloud of innocents : and that he verily believed none of the house of commons , desired his death for a crime of which he was not guilty . that he hoped their lordships would not permit him to be run down by the shouts of the rable ( the emblem of our past calamity . ) it began in the late times with the lord strafford , and so continued , till it ended in the death of the king , the most execrable murder , that ever was committed ; and where this will end ( said he ) god knows . to conclude , he again declared in the presence of god , of his angels , of their lordships , and all who heard him , that he was entirely innocent of what was laid to his charge , that he left it to their lordships to do justice , and with all submission resigned himself to them . to this discourse of my lord's , the managers returned for answer : that his lordship's last address was not regular , nor according to the due method of proceedings ; for if after his lordship had summed up his evidence , and the prosecutors had concluded theirs , he should begin that work again , and they by consequence be admitted to reply , he might still rejoyn upon them , and so there would be no end of proceedings . they therefore desired this indulgence granted to my lord , might not serve for a future precedent . the conclusion of the tryal ¶ 5. here then the lord high steward wholly terminating all further process on either side ; the court gave final judgment ; and the lord high steward collecting the votes , my lord stafford was pronounced guilty , by fifty five votes against thirty one . when the votes were pass'd , the lord high steward , declar'd to the prisoner , he was found guilty of high treason , whereof he was impeached . to which my lord stafford answer'd , god's holy name he praised my lord for it . then the lord high steward ask'd him , what he could say for himself , why judgment of death should not be given upon him according to law ? he reply●d , my lord , i have very little to say ; i confess i am surprized at it , for i did not expect it . but gods will be done , and your lordships ; i will not murmer at it . god forgive those who have falsly sworn against me . we are now come to the final sentence of death , for a prologue to which the lord high steward made a short ●athetick speech ; wherein after some reflections upon the plot in general , he descended to my lords case in particular ; and then advised his lordship ( as now a supposed guilty person , ) to bethink himself of the state and condition he was in ▪ of his religion and guides , that ( t is said ) had seduced him : of the repentance due to so hainous crimes : and concluded with an assurance to his lordship , that a true penitential sorrow joyned with an humble and hearty confession , was of mighty power and efficacy , both with god and man. he then pronounced sentence upon him , in these words . the judgement of the law is , and the court doth award it , that you go to the place from whence you came , from thence you must be draw upon an hurdle to the place of execution ; when you come there , you must be hanged up by the neck , but not till you are dead , for you must be cut down alive ; your privy members must be cut off ; and your bowels ript up before your face , and thrown into the fire : then your head must be severed from your body , and your body divided into four quarters . and these must be at the disposal of the king. and god almighty have mercy on you sovl . my lord received this dismal sentence , with a meek and resigned countenance : he declared in the presence of almighty god , he had no malice in his heart to them that had condemned him : but freely forgave them all : he made one , and only one humble request to their lordships , ( viz ) that for the short time he had to live a prisoner , his wife , children , and friends might be permitted to come at him . my lord high steward told him , their lordships had so far a compassion for him , they would be humble suiters to the king ; that he will remit all the punishments , but the taking off his head. thus sentence being passed the lord high steward broke his staff , and my lord stafford was led bak from the bar to the tower. the ax being carryed before him ( as the custom is in such cases ) with the edge toward him . sect . iii. my lords peincples of faith and loyalty . doubtless the thing which most weighed to my lords prejudice ; most advanced the credit of the evidence ; and most influenced both his prosecutors and judges against him , was a pre possessed opinion of wicked principles , supposed to be held and practised by my lord , as the matter of his faith and religion . it is by many taken for granted , the papists hold it an article of faith , that to depose and murder kings , to massacre their neighbours , and destroy their native countrey by fire and sword ( when the interest of their religion requires it ) are acts dispensable by the pope , and meritorious of heaven . now what thing so wicked , however slenderly proved , will not easily be believed against men so principled . my lord therefore to clear himself , and his religion from this heavy , and his religion from ( as the papists say ) injurious aspersion , protested and declared in the ple●ence of almighty god , and their lordships his judges ; that he hated and detested such principles , as he did damnation to himself ; and that he could not be more desirous of salvation , then he was cordial in hating such principles . that he ever held treason to be the worst of crimes , and knew no term ill enough to express it . that he heard with horrour the late wicked practices in scotland . that he acknowledged the king to be his lawful soveraign , and knew no person or authority on earth , could absolve him from his allegiance . and least this might seem a meerly extorted profession of a despairing man ; my lord endeavoured to prove by several convincing testimonies , he had ever been instructed and educated in the same sentiments , as the established doctrine of the roman catholick church . his first testimony was taken from places of holy scripture , particularly that of st. math. 22. v. 21. render to caesar the things that are caesars , &c. from the plain and clear sense of which , and other texts of holy writ , nothing ( he said ) in this world was able to remove him . his second testimony was taken from the authority of the general council of constance , ( to which all roman catholicks are obliged to submit ; ) the 15 th . cannon and definition of which council is this : quilibit tyrannus potest & debet licité & meritorie occidi per quemcunque vasallum suum vel subditum , etiam per clanculares insidias , & subtiles blanditias vel adulationes non obstante quocunque praestito juramento seu confoederatione factis cum eo , non expectatâ sententiâ vel mandato judicis cujuscunque adversus hunc errorem satagens haec sancta synodus , exurgere , & ipsum jundit ùs tollere , declarat & definit , hujusmodi doctrinam erroneam esse in side , & in moribus , ipsamque tanquam haereticam , scandalosam , & ad fraudes , deceptiones , mendacia , proditiones , perjuria , vias dantem , reprobat , & condemnat . declarat insuper & decernit quod pertinaciter doctrinam hanc perniciocissimam asserentes sunt haeretici , & tanquam tales jnxta canonicas sanctiones puniendi . englished thus , every tyrant lawfully and meritoriously , may and ought to be killed by any vassal or subject whatsoever ; even by hidden treacheries and subtle flatteries or adulations , notwithstanding any oath given , or confederation made with him ; without expecting the sentence or command of any judge whatsoever , ( which clause is added in regard of the right of supreme temporal monarchs , over inferior princes subordinate to them . ) against which error this holy synod ( industrious to withstand , and utterly to extirpate it ) doth declare and define ▪ that this doctrine is erroneous in faith and manners , and the same as heretical , scandalous , and opening a way to frauds , deceipts , lyes , treasons and perjuries doth dissaprove and condemn ; it farther declares and decrees , that those who obstinately maintain this most pernicious doctrine , are hereticks , and as such ought to be punished , according to canonical sanctions . my lords third testimony was taken from the annotations upon the 13 th . chapter of st. paul's epistle to the romans , in the english catholick edition of the new testament , set forth by the colledge of divines at rhemes . the words are these ( upon the text , he that resisteth , &c. v. 2. ) whosoever resisteth , or obeyeth not his lawful superior , in those causes wherein he is subject to him , resisteth gods appointment , and sinneth deadly , and is worthy to be punished both in this world by his superior , and by god in the next life . for in temporal government and causes , the christians were bound in conscience to obey , even their heathen emperours . and ( upon the text , beareth not the sword , &c. v. 4 ) there were certain hereticks called begardi , that took away all rule and superiority ; the wicklesfists also would obey no prince nor prelate , if he were once in deadly sin : some protestants of our time , care neither for the one , nor for the other ; though they extol only secular power , when it maketh for them . the catholicks only most humbly obey both , according to gods ordinance ; the one in temporal causes , and the other in spiritual ; in which order both these states have blessedly flourished in all christian countreys ever since christs time . my lords 4 th . testimony , was taken from the censure of the doctors of the famous faculty of sorbon , in the vniversity of paris , against a book of anthony sanctarelus , treating of heresie , schism , &c. particularly against the 30 th . and 31 st . chapters of the said book . the censure of the faculty my lord produced in court , and is as followeth . upon the first of april in the year of our lord 1626. after mass of the holy ghost ; the usual assembly of doctors being met in solemn manner , in the hall of the sorbon colledge , was heard the relation of the masters of the same faculty deputed for that end , who declared , that in those two above-mentioned chapters , these propositions were contained , that the pope can punish kings and princes , with temporal penalties , and depose and deprive them , of their kingdoms for the crime of heresie , and free their subjects from their obedience ; and that it had been always the custom in the church ; and for other causes also , as for faults , if it le expedient ; if the princes be negligent ; for the insufficiency , and unprofitableness of their persons ; likewise that the pope has right and power over spirituals , and all temporals also , and that both the powers , spiritual and temporal are in him by divine right ; that it was to be believed , that power was granted to the church and its chief pastors , to punish with temporal penalties ( princes ) the transgressors of divine and humane laws , especially if the crime be heresie . they said likewise , that the same sanctarelus did affirm , that the apostles were subject to secular princes , de facto , non de jure ; by fact , not by right ; moreover , that as soon as the pope is installed , all princes begin to be subject unto him . lastly , they related that he ▪ ( sanctarelus ) expounded the words of christ , whatsoever ye shall bind upon earth , &c. to be understood not only of the spiritual , but of the temporal power : that he imposes upon st. paul , changing his words , by withdrawing the negation ; and upon many authors cited by him . they related many other things out of the said sanctarelus , which seemed to them very well to deserve the grave animadversions and censure of the faculty . the matter therefore being brought in to debate by the dean , the mature deliberations of all and every master being heard , the faculty hath dissapproved and condemned the doctrine contained in these propositions , and other like expressions in the same chapters , as new , false , erroneous , contrary to the word of god : drawing hatred upon the pontificial dignity ; giving occasion to schism ; derogatory from the supreme authority of kings dependent on god alone , hindering the conversion of heathen and heretical princes ; disturbing the publick peace ; destructive to kingdoms , states , and common-wealths ; withdrawing subjects from obedience and subjection ; and exciting to factions , rebellions , seditions , and murder of princes . given in the sorban the 4 th . of april 1626. taken out of the archives of the aforesaid faculty , by me secretary thereof , the 26th . of september , 1679. massin . my lords fifth testimony was taken from a little treatise , writ ( as my lord said ) by a priest of the church of rome , and entituled , roman-catholick principles , in reference to god and the king. the chief contents of which treatise ; because it in short explains the above-named principles , and clears the objections usually made on this subject . i shall here insert in the authors own words , for the readers more ample satisfaction . is it not strange and severe , ( saith this author ) that principles , ( of treason , rebellion , murder , &c. ) and those pretended of faith too , should be imposed upon men , which they themselves renounce and detest ? if the tu●k's alcoran should in like manner be urg'd upon us and we hang'd up for mahometans , all we could do , or say in such a case , would be patiently to die , with protestation of our own innocence . and this is the posture of our present condition ; we abhor , we renounce , we abominate such principles ; we protest against them , and seal our protestations with our dying breaths . what shall we say ? what can we do more ? to accuse men as guilty in matters of faith , which they never own'd , is the same thing , as to condemn them for matters of fact , which they never did . you press the question , and say , some of our general councils , several papal decrees , and many of our doctors and divines , assert the forementioned principles . sir , i have been instructed in the articles of my faith , and i acknowledge the lawful authority of general councils : yet i profess i never learnt , or found asserted in any of them , any such principles . and i propose unto you this plain and short dilemma ; either the above-named principles are esteem'd by us as matters of faith , or not : if they be , what further can be required of us , then to deny and forsake such a faith ? and this we constantly do . but if they be not matters of catholick faith , nor owned by us as such , why are catholicks , as catholicks , punished for them ? why is our religion persecuted on that account ? let those , in god's name , if any there be , of what religion soever , who hold such tenents , suffer for them : why should the innocent be involv'd with the guilty ? there is neither reason nor justice in it . hereunto some persons ( i hope out of zeal and mis-information , rather than malice ) stick not to say , that dispensations , and i know not what indulgences and pardons , whereby to legitimate the crimes of lying and forswearing , when the interest of our church requires it , is a main part of our religion : and by consequence , the denial of our principles , is no sufficient justification of our innocence . i answer ; first , it is in the highest measure censorious in any one , to impose upon all our ancestors , and the greatest part of mankind , who are , or have been so long together members of our religion , such an excess of folly and wickedness , as must needs have perverted all humane society . secondly , if we could lawfully deny the principles of our faith when interest requires , why have we lost our estates , our liberties , our lives for the profession of it ? to what purpose are oaths and tests devised to entangle us ? how impertinently is the frequenting the protestant church , and receiving the communion , proposed unto us , and refused by us ? thirdly , though many men may be induced to lie , and forswear , when they have some hopes or prospect thereby of temporal advantage ; yet , that persons dying for their conscience and religion ( as divers have done , and those no fools , even by the confession of our adversaries ) should be so stupendiously sottish and mad , either to imagine , that lies and perjuries , for concealment of treason , murder , massacre , and destruction of others by fire and sword , should be acts of virtue , pleasing to god , dispensable by the pope , and meritorious of heaven ; or that , on the contrary , knowing and believing ( as needs they must ) such monsters and horrours to be odious and detestable in the sight both of god and man , they should nevertheless , upon the very brink of eternity , wittingly and willingly cast themselves headlong into an assured damnation ; and this at a time when they might have saved both bodies and souls , by meerly discharging a good conscience , in acknowledging the truth , and becoming honest men . this , i say , is inhumane , and contradictory to all sense and reason to believe . now therefore , i come to what you so often , and so earnestly press me to , viz. to satisfie the world , and clear myself , my fellow sufferers , and my religion , from the imputation laid upon us , on pretence of such principles , by a true and candid explanation of my belief and judgment in the main points of faith and loyalty , controverted between catholicks and protestants , as they severally relate to god and the king. paragraph i. of the catholick faith , and church in general . 1. the fruition of god , and remission of sin , is not attainable by man , otherwise then a in , and by the merits of jesus christ , who ( gratis ) purchased it for us . 2. these merits of christ are not applied to us , otherwise that by a right b faith in christ . 3. this faith is but c one , entire and conformable to its obiect , being divine revelations ; to all which d faith gives an undoubted assent . 4. these revelations contain many mysteries e transcending the natural reach of humane wit and industry : wherefore , 5. it became the divine wisdom and goodness , to provide man of some f way or means whereby he might arrive to the knowledge of these mysteries ; means g visible and apparent to all ; means h proportionable to the capacities of all ; means i sure and certain to all . 6. this way or means is not the reading of scripture , interpreted according to the private k reason or l spirit of every disjunctive person , or nation in particular ; but , 7 it is an attention and m submission to the doctrine of the catholick or vniversal church , established by christ for the instruction of all ; n spread for that end throughout all nations ; and visibly continued in a succession of pastors , and people throughout all ages : from which ghurch o guided in truth , and secured from error in matters of faith , by the p promised assistance of the holy ghost , every one may , and ought to q learn both the right sense of scripture , and all other christian mysteries and duties , respectively necessary to salvation 8. this church , thus spread , thus guided , thus visibly continued , r in one vniform faith , and subordination of government , is that self same which is termed the roman catholick church ; the qualifications abovementioned , ( viz. vnity , indeficiency , visibility , succession , and vniversality , ) being applicable to no other church , or assembly whatsoever . 9. from the testimony and authority of this church , it is , that we receive , and believe the scriptures to be god's word : and as she can s assuredly tell us , this or that book is god's word ; so can she with the like assurance , tell us also the true sense and meaning of it , in controverted points of faith ; the same spirit that writ the scripture , t enlightning her to understand , both it , and all matters necessary to salvation . from these grounds it follows , 10. all ▪ and only divine revelations deliver'd by god unto the church , and proposed by her to be believed as such , are , and ought to be esteem'd articles of faith ; and the contrary opinions , heresie . and , 11. as an obstinate seperation from the vnity of the church , in known declared matters of faith , is formal u heresie ; so a wilful separation from the visible vnity of the same church , in matters of subordination and government , is formal x schism . 12. the church proposeth unto us matters of faith : first , and chiefly , by the y holy scripture , in points plain and intelligible in it . secondly , by z definitions of general councils , in points not sufficiently explained in scripture . thirdly , by a apostolical traditions , deriv'd from christ and his apostles , to all succeeding ages . fourthly , by her b practice , worship , and ceremonies , confirming her doctrine . paragraph ii. of spiritual and temporal authority . 1. general councils ( which are the church of god , representative ) have no commission from christ to frame new matters of faith , ( these being sole divine revelations ) but only to a explain and ascertain unto us , what antiently was , and is received and retained , as of faith in the church , upon arising debates and controversies about them . the definitions of which , general councils , in matters of faith only , and proposed as such , oblige , under pain of heresie , all the faithful , to a submission of judgment . but , 2. it is no article of faith to believe , that general councils cannot err. either in matters of fact or discipline , alterably by circumstances of time and place ; or in matters of speculation or civil policy , depending on meer humane judgment , or testimony . neither of those being divine revelations b deposited in the catholick church ; in regard to which alone , she hath the c promised assistance of the holy ghost . hence it is deduced , 3 ▪ if a general council ( much less a papal consistory ) should undertake to depose a king , and absolve his subjects from their allegiance ; no catholick , as catholick , is bound to submit to such a decree . hence also it followeth : 4. the subjects of the king of england lawfully may , without the least breach of any catholick principle , renounce , even upon oath , the teaching , mantaining , or practising the doctrine of deposing kings excommunicated for heresie , by any authority whatsoever , as repugnant to the fundamental laws of the nation , injurious to soveraign power , destructive to the peace and government ; and by consequence , in his majesties subjects , impious and damnable . yet not properly heretical , taking the word heretical in that connatural , genuine sense , it is usually understood in the catholick church ; on account of which , and other expressions ( no wise appertaining to loyalty ) it is , that catholicks of tender consciences refuse the oath commonly called the oath of allegiance . 5. catholicks believe , that the bishop of rome is the successor of st. peter , d vicar of jesus christ upon earth , and head of the whole catholick , church ; which church is therefore fitly stiled roman catholick , being an universal body e united under one visible head. nevertheless , 6. it is no matter of faith to be believe , that the pope is in himself infallible , seperate from a general council , even in expounding the faith : by consequence papal definitions or decrees , though ex cathedra , as they term them ( taken exclusively from a general council , or universal acceptance of the church ) oblige none under pain of heresie , to an interior assent . 7. nor do catholicks as catholicks believe , that the pope hath any direct , or indirect authority over the temporal power and jurisdiction of princes . hence , if the pope should pretend to absolve or dispence with his majesties subjects from their allegiance , upon account of heresie or schism ▪ such dispensation would be vain , and null ; and all catholick subjects ( notwithstanding such dispensation or absolution ) would be still bound in conscience to defend their king and countrey , at the hazard of their lives and fortunes , even against the pope himself , in case he should invade the nation . 8. and as for problematical disputes , or errors of particular divines , in this , or any other matter whatsoever , the catholick church is no wise responsible for them : nor are catholicks as catholicks , justly punishable on their account . but , 9 : as for the king-killing doctrine , or murder of princes , excomunicated for heresie ; it is an article of faith in the catholick church , and expresly declared in the general council of constance , that such doctrine is damnable and heretical , being contrary to the known laws of god , and nature . 10. personal misdemeanors of what nature soever , ought not to be imputed to the catholick church , when not justifiable by the tenents of her faith and doctrine , for which reason , though the stories of the paris massacre ; the irish cruelties ; or powder-plot , had been exactly true [ which yet for the most part are notoriously mis-related ] nevertheless catholicks as catholicks , ought not to suffer for such offences , any more then the eleven apostles ought to have suffered for judas's treachery . 11. it is an article of the catholick faith to believe , that no power on earth can licence men to lye , to forswear , and perjure themselves , to massacre their neighbours , or destroy their native countrey , on pretence of promoting the catholick cause , or religion ; furthermore , all pardons and dispensations granted , or pretended to be granted , in order to any such ends or designs , have no other validity or effect , then to add sacriledge and blasphemy to the above-mentioned crimes . 12. the doctrine of equivocation or mental reservation , however wrongfully imposed on the catholick religion , is notwithstanding , neither taught , nor approved by the church , as any part of her belief . on the contrary , simplicity , and godly sincerity , are constantly recomended by her , as truly christian vertues , necessary to the conservation of justice , truth , and common society . paragraph iii. of some particular controverted points of faith. 1. every catholick is oblig'd to believe , that when a sinner a repenteth him of his sins from the bottom of his heart , and b acknowledgeth his transgressions to god and his c ministers , the dispensers of the mysteries of christ resolving to turn from his evil ways , d and bring forth fruits worthy of penance , there is ( then and 〈◊〉 otherwise ) an authority left by christ to absolve such a penitent sinner from his sins : which authority christ gave to his e apostles , and their successors , the bishops and priests of the catholick church , in those words , when he said , receive ye the holy ghost , whose sins you shall ●orgive , they are forgiven unto them , &c. 2. though no creature whatsoever can make f condign satisfaction , either for the guilt of sin , or the pain eternal due to it ; g this satisfaction being proper to christ our saviour only ; yet penitent sinners redeemed by christ , may , as members of christ , in some measure h satisfie by prayer , fasting , almes deeds , and other works of piety , for the temporal paine , which by order of divine justice sometimes remains due , after the guilt of sin , and pains eternal are [ gratis ] remitted . these penitential works are notwithstanding satisfactory no otherwise , than as joyned and applyed to that satisfaction , which jesus made upon the cross ; in vertue of which alone , all our good works find a grateful i acceptance in god's sight . 3. the guilt of sin , or pain eternal due to it , is never remitted by indulgences : but only such k temporal punishments as remain due after the guilt is remitted ; these indulgences being nothing else than a l mitigation or relaxation upon just causes , of canonical penances , enjoyned by the pastors of the church on penitent sinners , according to their several degrees of demerit . and if any abuses or mistakes be sometimes committed , in point either of granting or gaining indulgences , through the remisness , or ignorance of particular persons , contrary to the ancient custom and discipline of the church ; such abuses or mistakes cannot rationally be charged on the church , nor render matter of derision , in prejudice to her faith and doctrine . 4. catholicks hold there is a purgatory , that is to say , a place , or state , where souls departing this life , with remission of their sins , as to the eternal guilt or pain , m yet obnoxious to some temporal punishment still remaining due ; or not perfectly freed from the blemish of some n venial defects or deordinations , [ as idle words , &c. not liable to damnation , ] are o purged before their admittance into heaven ; where nothing that is p defiled can enter . furthermore , 5. catholicks also hold , that such souls so detained in purgatory , being the living members of christ jesus , are relieved by the q prayers and suffrages of their fellow-members here on earth : but where this place is ? of what nature or quality the pains are ? how long each soul is detained there ? after what manner the suffrages made in their behalf are applyed ? whether by way of satisfaction or intercession ? &c. are questions superfluous , and impertinent as to faith. 6. no man , though just r can merit either an increase of sanctity or happiness in this life , or eternal glory in the next , independent on the merits and passion of christ : nevertheless in , and by the merits of christ jesus s the good works of a just man , proceed●ng from grace and charity , are acceptable to god , so far forth as to be , through his goodness , and sacred promise , truly meritorious of eternal life . 7. it is an article of the catholick faith : that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist , there is truly , and really contained the t body of christ , which was delivered for us , and his bloud , which was shed for the remission of sins : the substance of bread and wine , being by the powerful words of christ , changed into the substance of his blessed body and bloud , the species or accidents of bread and wine still remaining . thus , 8. christ is not present in this sacrament , according to his natural way of existence , that is , with extension of parts , in order to place , &c. but after a supernatural manner , one and the same , in many places , and whole in every part of the symbols . this therefore is a real , substantial , yet sacramental presence of christ's body and bloud , not exposed to the external senses , nor obnoxious to corporeal contingences . 9. neither is the body of christ in this holy sacrament , separated from his bloud , or his bloud from his body , or either of both disjoyned from his soul and divinity , but all and whole u living jesus is entirely contained under either species ; so that whosoever receiveth under one kind , is truly partaker of the whole sacrament , and no wise deprived either of the body or bloud of christ . true it is , 10. our saviour jesus christ left unto us his body and bloud , under two distinct species or kinds ; in doing of which , he instituted not only a sacrament , but also a sacrifice ; x a commemorative sacrifice distinctly y shewing his death or bloudy passion , until he come . for as the sacrifice of the cross was performed by a distinct effusion of bloud , so is the same sacrifice commemorated in that of the z altar , by a distinction of the symbols . jesus therefore is here given not only to us , but a for us : and the church thereby enriched with a true , proper , and propitiatory b sacrifice , usually termed mass . 11. catholicks renounce all divine worship , and adoration of images or pictures c god alone we worship and adore ; nevertheless we make use of pictures , and place them in d churches and oratories , to reduce our wandring thoughts , and enliven our memories towards heavenly things . and farther , we allow a certain honour and veneration to the picture of christ , of the virgin mary , &c. beyond what is due to every prophane figure ; not that we believe any divinity , or vertue in the pictures themselves , for which they ought to be honoured , but because the honour given to the pictures is referred to the prototypes , or things represented . in like manner , 12. there is a kind of honour and veneration respectively due to the bible : to the cross , to the name of jesus , to churches , to the sacraments , &c. as e things peculiarly appertaining to god ; also to the f glorified saints in heaven , as the domestick friends of god ; yea , g to kings , magistrates , and superiors on earth , as the vicegerents of god ; to whom honour is due , honour may be given , without any derogation to the majesty of god , or that divine worship appropriate to him . furthermore , 13. catholicks believe , that the blessed saints in heaven replenished with charity , h pray for us their fellow-members here on earth ; that they i rejoyce at our conversion ; that seeing god , they k see and know in him all things suitable to their happy state ; that god is inclinable to hear their requests made in our behalf : l and for their sakes , grants us many favours : that therefore it is good , and profitable to desire their intercession : and that this manner of invocation is no more injurious to christ our mediator , nor superabundant in it self , then it is for one christian to beg the prayers and assistance of m another in this world. notwithstanding all which , catholicks are taught not so to relie on the prayers of others , as to neglect their own n duty to god : in imploring his divine mercy and goodness : o in mortifying the deeds of the flesh : in p despising the world : in loving and q serving god , and their neighbours : in following the footsteps of christ our lord , who is the r way , the truth , and the life : to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever , amen . these are the principles , these the treasons , these the idolatries , and superstitions , which , though no other then what we have received of our fore-fathers , and what the greatest part of the christian world now profess : yet have drawn upon us poor catholicks in england such dreadful punishments . i beseech you sir , consider our cause , without passion or prejudice , and i am confident you will see , we are not such monsters , as our adversaries represent us to be : nor entertain such principles , as are inconsistent with our duty to god and the king. you seem to say , this very plot , with which we are charged , proves us guilty of wicked principles . but , under favour , you here commit a vicious circle in way of arguing : for first , here are wicked principles alledg'd to make good the proof of a plot : and these being deny'd , the plot is introduced to make out the wicked principles ; as if a man should say a thing , because he thought so : and give no reason why he thought so , but only because he said so ; which instead of proof , is to beg the question . certain i am , catholicks both taught and practised principles of loyalty , at a time , when the king and kingdom felt the dire effects of contrary perswasions . in fine , whatsoever is pretended against us , it is manifest we suffer for our religion , and for our religion wrongfully traduced . it is a farther comfort to us , that our sufferings [ god be praised ] are in some measure , not unlike to those of christ our lord : for it was laid to his charge , as it is to ours , that he was a traytor to a caesar ; that he perverted the people , and endeavoured the b destruction of church and state : nor were there wanting , then as now , an oates and bedloe , c two false witnesses to swear all this . thus god , i hope , hath predestinated us , ( as the apostle saith ) to be conform to the image of his son : to the end , that suffering with him , we may ( through his mercy ) be glorified together with him . sweet jesus bless our soveraign : pardon our enemies : grant us patience : and establish peace , and charity in our nation . thus much of my lord's principles in reference to god and the king ; whether they be agreable to reason , and conformable to the law and ghospel of christ , i leave to the impartial reader to judge . sect . iv. my lord's declaration before the house of lords after his condemnation . soon after my lords tryal , several of his relations and acquaintance , ( some out of zeal against popery , and others out of kindness to my lord , ) were daily urgent with him to make discoveries of all he knew , as the only remaining remedy whereby to save his life , regain the kings favour , and attract the applause of the whole nation . my lord always reply'd , he was most willing and ready out of a meer sense of duty and conscience ( independent of any temporal advantage to himself ) to discover with all imaginable sincerity , the utmost of what he knew , either to the king or house of lords , when ever they required it . the lords being informed hereof , ordered his appearance before them the next day . when he came , and had audience granted , he made his acknowledgments to this effect . that he thought it no crime in any man to wish his neighbours might be of the same religion wherein he himself hoped to be saved ; nay to seek , and promote it by such ways and means , as the laws of god , and the nation allow . that there had been at divers times , and on sundry occasions , endeavours used , and overtures made to obtain an abrogation , or at least a mitigation of severities against catholicks : but this to be procured no otherwise then by legal and parliamentary means . that he himself went to breda , whilst the king was there , and propounded 100000 l. in behalf of the catholicks , to take off the penal laws . that after the king came in , there was a bill brought into the house , in favour of catholicks , but it was opposed by my lord chancellour hide . that there had likewise been framed by the lord bristol and others ( in order to the proposing of them in parliament ) several forms of oaths , conceived in such terms as might fully express all duty and allegiance to the king : yet not entangle tender consciences with clauses and provisoes , disagreeable to faith , and no wise appertaining to loyalty ; but neither did this succeed . that afterwards he had offered some proposals , as well to the lord chancellour at his house at kensington , as to the duke of york , concerning some lawful expedients , conducing to the good ( as he thought ) both of catholicks and the whole nation . and also about dissolving the long parliament ; the substance of which he likewise communicated to my lord shaftsbury , who said , he doubted not , but that there would come great advantages to the king by it . these he avouched were the chief , and only designs he ever had , or knew of amongst catholicks , for promoting their religion : of more then these he protested before almighty god and their lordships , he was wholly ignorant . but this declaration not being satisfactory towards the detecting any damnable conspiracy , the lords thought fit without any further examination to remand him back to the tower. on this occasion , there run about both town and countrey an universal rumour , that the lord stafford had now made a full and perfect discovery of the whole plot ; and that the papists could not for the future have the impudence to deny it , after the confession ( though to save his life ) of so honourable a person ; but this proved a mistake . and by the way it was very observable , my lords adversaries took this false alarm with so much eagerness and joy , as sufficiently denoted , they were not well assured of the truth of the former evidence given against him . sect . v. my lord's comportment and exercise after sentence . the greatest part of his time from his last sentence to his final end , he employed in serious recolection and fervent prayer , wherein he seemed to receive a daily encrease , both of courage and comfort , as if the divine goodness ( say the papists ) intended to ripen him for martyrdom , and give him a taste of heaven before-hand . indeed he behaved himself in all things like a man , whose innocence had banished the fear and horrour of death . some few days before his execution he received a letter , which because it is fouly suspected to have come from some colledge or seminary beyond seas , i shall here set it down verbatim , to the end every one may see how the priests treat their penitents , in the condition and circumstances my lord was in . my lord , the character i bear , gives me some title , and the singular esteem i have for your noble and truly vertuous person and family , gives me confidence to present your lordship , in this your last and grand affair , with a consolatory or rather congratulatory letter . as i daily make my supplication to god on your behalf ; so i hope i may make my addresses to you on gods behalf . you are chosen by the king of kings , to share with him in immortal crowns : you are called from an abyss of misery to the top of felicity : you now pay a debt on the score of grace , which is due , and which you must shortly have paid to the course of nature . and herein my lord , you are adorned with all the trophies of jesus's victory , he was condemned of a high treason by false witnesses for the love of you : and you stand condemned of the same crimes , by the like evidence for the love of him . yet you shall not die my lord : 't is a mistake of this blind world , you shall only pass from a state of b death to a state of life ; true life eternal life ; you shall be transformed into him , whose c essence is to live ▪ d in whom , with whom , and by whom ; you shall enjoy all that is e good ; all that is lovely ; all that is pleasant : and this enjoyment shall be in all its fulness ' , altogether , all at once ; without interuption , without bound , limit , or end. the omnipotent creator of heaven and earth ; the searcher of hearts ; the dreadful judge of men and angels : he who justly might otherwise peradventure have cast you into eternal fire ; from whose sentence there is no appeal . he , i say , will now forgetful of past frailties , regard you with a merciful eye , with a pleasing countenance , a loving heart , an open arm , an endeared affection ; millions of lawrels hang over your head ; thousands of millions of glories and sweets , attend you , which neither f eye hath seen , nor ear hath heard , nor hath entred into the heart of man. the virgin mother shall meet and conduct you to her beloved son ; the apostles , martyrs , and confessors , shall receive and accompany you ; and all the blessed choirs of saints and angels shall celebrate your victory , and g sing halleluja's to their celestial king for his unspeakable goodness to you . my lord , you were made for the enjoyment of god , and now you arrive at the accomplishment of that end ; you owe to god all you have , and all you are ; and now you restore to him all , both what you have , and what you are . o happy restauration , where the advantage is wholly yours , where misery is turned into bliss , where temporal into eternal , where god is found , where death ( as the apostle saith ) is h gain . the innocence of your cause , the dignity of your religion for which you suffer , entitles you to the merits of the cross , and incorporates you to the bloud and passion of jesus your saviour . i if we shall be dead with him ( saith st. paul ) we shall live together with him ; if we suffer with him , we shall reign with him . hence our saviour himself ; he k that looseth his life for me , shall save it . again , if l any man will serve me , let him follow me . and where i am , there shall my servant be also . you are going to the m nuptials of the lamb. god who is all good , is pleased to n impart himself entirely to you . love hath made him wholly yours ; what need you fear ? what can you desire ? he that dyed for the love of you , will now reap the fruits of his pains , and joy himself in you , with delights proportionable to his own goodness and merits . you are select from amongst o thousands for the espousals of love ; let nothing either past or present deject you : nothing disturb you , nothing retard you : p let not your heart be troubled [ saith our saviour ] nor let it be afraid . as for the crimes for which you stand condemned , god and your own conscience knows you are innocent ; all un-interested men believe you so ; passion and prejudice against your religion , hath advanced the credit of perjured persons , and influenced your adversaries to carry on your death . had you been no catholick , we all know , you had never been a condemned man ; so that it is palpably manifest you die for your religion , and for your religion wrongfully traduced . what greater comfort ? what greater glory ? what greater happiness , can arrive to a true christian ? q blessed shall you be [ saith our saviour ] when men shall revile you , and persecute you , and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake ; rejoyce and be glad , for great is your reward in heaven . concerning your real defects and frailties ; take courage ; take confidence in god , my lord ; i have already told you , what right you have to the passion of christ ; your present death , is more then a pledge of future pardon . r many sins are forgiven her [ saith our saviour to magdalen ] because she loved much ; to him that loveth less , less it forgiven . now what it is to love much , he himself sheweth , saying , s no man hath greater love then this ; that a man lay down his life for his friend . hence the spouse in the canticles . t love is strong as death , &c. and our saviour in express terms assureth us . u he that loseth his life for me , shall find it . first therefore , acknowledge your faults , with a penitent heart , and firmly believe what the scripture avoucheth . x if we confess our sins , he is faithful and just , to forgive us our sins , and cleanse us from all iniquity . next offer with a chearful heart your life to god ; in satisfaction for your offences ; in union of the sufferings of jesus christ ; in a sacrifice of love. and then doubt not in the least but that dying , as you do , in , and for the profession of your faith : jesus hath signed your pardon , and pronounced upon your soul , those life-giving words . thy sins are forgiven thee , y thy faith hath saved thee ; go in peace . neither let any endearments towards your wife , children , friends or family enfeeble your mind , check your love , or imbitter your joy. remember that sentence of our saviour . z he that loveth son or daughter above me , is not worthy of me . again , a every one that hath forsaken houses , or brethren , or sisters , or wife , or children , or lands , for my names sake shall receive an hundred fold , and possess eternal life ; you cannot give god too much ; you can bestow nothing on him , but what you have received of him ; and what , upon many accounts , is infinitly due to him . but in reality , my lord , you do not desert your friends , nor they you , by rendring your self and them to god ; suffering for jesus , he it is standeth charged with the care of your wife , children , and family ; he stileth himself , b the father of orphans , and judge of widows . as he c punisheth to the fourth generation of then that hate him ; so he blesseth , unto thousands of them love and follow him . assure your self , my lord , that for this one heroick act , of giving your life d for justice , for innocence , for god , and religion ; you will not only secure your self everlasting salvation , but draw upon your family and posterity , thousands of benedictions . the justice of our lord ( saith david , e upon the childrens children , of them that keep his covenant . again , f blessed is the man that feareth the lord , that delighteth in his precepts , his seed shall be powerful on earth ; the generation of the just shall be blessed . lastly , that sentence of ecclesiastes will fittly appertain to you ; g his memory shall not pass away , and his name shall be preserved from generation to generation . nations shall declare his wisdom , and the church shew forth his praise . i shall not undertake to dictate unto your lordship , what prayers or elevations of heart , are most proper on this occasion ; the holy ghost , whose spouse , whose son , whose temple , whose victim you are , will inspire you with better thoughts then i can suggest ; i shall therefore here content my self with some few citations of sacred texts , out of which you may upon occasion draw the comfort of devotion . h evil witnesses have risen up against me ; and iniquity hath belyed it self ; i believe to see the goods of our lord in the land of the living . i i am the resurrection and the life ; he that believeth in me , shall not dye for ever . k fear not , for i have redeemed thee ; i have called thee by thy name , thou art mine ; l do not fear , for i am with thee , do not decline , for my right hand hath sustained thee . m because he hath trusted in me , i will deliver him ; i will protect him , because he hath known my name ; he shall cry unto me , and i will hear him . i am with him in tribulation , i will deliver him , and will glorifie him , with length of days will i replenish him , and will shew him my salvation . n in perpetual charity have i loved thee ; therefore i have drawn thee to me , taking compassion on thee . o my heart and my flesh hath fainted . o god of my heart , my inheritance , god for ever . p the world shall rejoyce , and you shall be sorrowful ; but your sorrow shall be turned into joy , and your joy none shall take from you q be confident , i have overcome the world. r be thou my helper , do not forsake me , neither despise me , o god my saviour . s in thee o lord have i trusted , let me not be confounded . t i live and you shall live ; you shall know that i am in my father , and you in me , and i in you . u certain i am , that neither death nor life , &c. can seperate us from the love of god which is in christ jesus our lord. x whether we live or die , we are our lords . y to me , to live is christ , and to die is gain . z i desire to be dissolved , and to be with christ . a into thy hand o lord i commend my spirit . b come ye blessed of my father , possess the kingdom prepared for you . c this day shalt thou be with me in paradice . the god of hope fill you with all joy , and peace in believing , that you may abound in hope and vertue of the holy ghost . your lordships most devoted servant in our lord. n. n. those hours he spared from prayer or necessary repos● , he bestowed part in the enterta●nment of his friends [ though indeed none were permitted to come at him , but under severe provisoes and restrictions ] amongst whom he demeaned himself with exceeding sweetness , candor and alacrity of spirit , connatural to him always , but more especially after he had an assurance of his death ; insomuch that he could not endure to see any in grief or dejected on his account . for this reason his sad and disconsolate lady ( w●o alone touched his heart , and who could no longer support the weight of her affliction ) was forced entirely to absent herself , from him the day before his passage out of this world. some moments likewise he allowed to give his adieu by letters to his nearest relations ; particularly to his aforesaid most dear lady , whose incomparable vertue , and above forty years experienced , constant affection to him , had taken a deep impression in his soul ; but because the letters themselves express his mind and disposition better then i can describe it : read here these few copies , which good fortune brought authentick to my hands . to my most dear and kind wife . my dear and most kind wife . god of his mercy and goodness , i most humbly beseech him to reward you for your extraordinary kindness and love to me , i am sure , no man ever had a better wife in all kinds , then you have been unto me : i am most heartily sorry , that i have not been able to shew hew happy i have held my self , in the great blessing which god was pleased to afford me in having you , not only for the great family to which you are the undoubted heir , and estate you brought me and mine ▪ but for the great love you have always born me . i sincerly ask you pardon with all my heart , for all that i have done to give you any dislike ; i know you will forgive me out of your kindness and affection , you have so often shewn unto me more then i deserved : if i should repeat all the kindness and affection you have shewn unto me , and of all which i am most sensible , i should not know when to end : god reward you . you were present this day when mr. lieutenant brought me word of the day of my death , i know the trouble it brought unto you . i do most willingly submit my self to gods holy will , and since he knows how innocent i am , and how falsly i am sworn against , i am most confident , that the most blessed trinity will , through the merits and passion of our saviour jesus christ , grant me a place in heaven of happiness , to glorify god to all eternity amongst his angels and saints : the lowest place in heaven being an happiness above all the kingdoms of the earth . i give god most humble thanks , that i am absolutely quiet within my self from being guilty even so much as in a thought , of that treason i am accused of , and never had a thought of any thing against the person or government of his majesty . and what i did towards the introducing of the catholick religion , was no way but that which i thought to be for the good of the kingdom by act of parliament . i do ask of the eternal and merciful god , most humble pardon for all my great sins , hoping in the mercy of christ jesus , through his most sacred passion , to obtain remission of my sins , and life everlasting in heaven . god protect and keep you , and ours , in his holy grace . my dear i beseech you , by the love you always bore me , afflict your self as little as you can , for the unexpected , ( yet i doubt not , ) but blessed end of yours , &c. to my dear and entirely loving and beloved wife . my most dear and loving wife , it hath pleased god of his infinite mercy , to bring me into the condition i am in ; i take it for a mercy much greater then i could deserve or expect . i am heartily sorry , that i have not been so sensible of the blessing god was pleased to bestow on me , by giving you unto me , as i should have been ; for i do from my heart acknowledge , that you have been a most kind loving wife , as any man could have ; and i was not worthy of you ; i pray forgive me of any and all things that i have ever done to displease you . i have not now many hours to live , god send me to make a good end ; i humbly thank him , i have a great confidence in his mercy ; and i do hope through the merits and passion of jesus christ our saviour , to obtain everlasting happiness . i beseech god to reward you , and bless you , and send you all happiness . i beseech you by the love you have always born me , to bear this my end as well as possibly you can : and put my innocence into the ballance of my death . i pray god to bless all our children , who i hope will be obedient to you . i must not forget the pains and care , that my daughter winchester hath taken , in an extraordinary kind , and discreet way ; i must likewise own , how groundless that report was , that hath been spread abroad , that you , and she , by your entreaty and perswasions , have kept me from discovering my knowledge of the plot so much spoken of ; when god knows i know nothing to discover , and shall as totally die innocent , as any man ever did , not having in the least ever had a disloyal heart to his majesty . god preserve you , and ours , and send us an happy meeting in heaven , which is the hearty prayer of him that forty years had the honour to bear your name , and now is returned unto the name of my dear mistress , your most affectionate loving husband . william howard st. stephen's day , 1680 , dear harry , god of his mercy , i am confident hath brought me hither to let me see how vain all worldly things are , and how we deceive our selves ▪ when we think of any thing , but how with devotion we may duly serve him ; i hope by the mercy of god to obtain everlasting salvation : the all-knowing god sees how innocent i am , from the crimes i am charged with : it is a comfort unto me , that none of all my estate will in any way be forfeited , but all comes unto you , as if i had died a natural death i beseech god to bless you , and make you happy in this world , and the world to come : and the only way to be so , is never to leave truly serving god upon no account whatsoever . i know you will carry your self with that duty to your mother , and love and kindness to your brothers , as is fit for you to do : so again beseeching god to protect you and govern you in righteousness , i am your most loving father . william howard . good child , the condition i am in is such , as i doubt not but that god hath brought me into it for the good of my soul , his holy name be praised for it ; i willingly and chearfully submit unto it . i beseech god to bless you , and send you eternal happiness , which is the prayer of your affectionate father , william howard . good daughter , i know you will bear what happens unto me with patience and resignation : i thank god that i know my self in every kind innocent ; and that i have confidence in gods mercies , and doubt not but through the mercy and passion of our saviour , to obtain everlasting happiness . i pray god bless you . i am your affectionate father , william howard . my good child , this is the last time i shall write unto you , i pray god bless you . your poor old father hath this comfort , that he is totally innocent of what he was accused of , and confident of gods mercy ; and through the merits of our saviour , i hope for salvation , i take great content in my innocency , and willingly resign my self to gods holy will i am very much troubled to leave my wife , who hath been so extraordinary a good and kind wife unto me , more then i could deserve : god reward her . so with my blessing unto you , i am your most loving father , william howard . he writ also upon occasion , several little papers or notes , whereof i have only these two or three copies . ✚ 1680. in the name of the father and of the son , and of the holy ghost . upon tuesday the 30 th . of november the feast of st. andrew , i was brought to my tryal in westminster-hall before the peers , lord chancellour being high steward ; my tryal continued until that day , seven-night the 7 th . of december ; upon that day i was found guilty of high treason , and condemned to die . i give god thanks for his great mercy and goodness that he hath been pleased to think me worthy of this sentence , in satisfaction for my other great and hainous offences which i have committed ; and i hope that through the glorious passion of our saviour christ jesus , and through his pretious bloud and merits , he will be mercifully pleased to receive my soul into eternal happiness , in his presence amongst his angels and saints . i conceive this sentence is fallen upon me upon the account of the religion that i am of ; if i had numbers of lives , i would lose them all , rather then forsake that church , that i am of ; and which i am well assured that it maintains nothing but what is well warranted by the word of god. i do with my whole heart forgive those perjured men that swore so falsly against me ; i wish them no greater punishment then to repent , and to acknowledge the wrong they have done me ; i do also heartily forgive my judges ; and if any of them have given their votes contrary to their consciences , god forgive them , i do it willingly . how extremly should i think my self bound to the king , if in this condition that i am brought into by the perjury of villains that swore falsly for gain , his majesty should be graciously pleased to grant me my life : but how infinitely beyond that hath his divine majesty shewed his mercy and goodness to me , so many times pardoning those great and many offences , which the least of them deserved an eternal punishment . and of his infinite mercy hath been pleased to preserve me thus long from his just judgment : and hath brought me hither first a prisoner , when i had not done any thing in the least by the law to deserve it ; and now hath pleased to bring me to my condemnation : how inexplicable are his mercies unto me ; and if i do not cordially and really repent , having this great time to recollect my self , nothing can excuse me . nay even at this time when i am hourly looking to hear of the hour of my execution , i have time by his omnipotent mercy to lay my heart prostrate on the ground , to beg his pardon , and acknowledge his infinite mercy and goodness ; god grant me grace to reflect as i ought on all these assurances , and as i ought to do , love his divinity , and nothing created independently on him : nothing in this world but the holy trinity deserving the whole love and adoration of mankind . god give me grace to love him , and only him ; and though i cannot do it so well as otherwise i ought , yet i hope i do it what i can : and do firmly resolve by his holy grace i will to the uttermost of my power , so long as it shall please him to give me my life , wholly and willingly to resign my self to his holy will ; and doubt not by his grace but to find more true delight in serving him , then ever i did in the vanities of the world. all glory praise and honour be given unto him for all eternity , amen . there was likewise found in his chamber , this following prayer or resignation . thou hast said o lord , he that loves father or mother , &c. more then me , is not worthy of me . i acknowledge most dear lord , that i love my wjfe and children , as much as a loving husband and tender father can love a most deserving wife , and most dutiful children : but to shew that i love thy divine majesty more then them , and my own life to boot ; i willingly render up , and forsake both for the love of thee ; and rather then to offend thee , though by the contrary i may have life and all worldly advantages both for my self and them . receive therefore dear jesus ; this voluntary oblation of both . take us into thy protection o helper in opportunities , in tribulation . be thou a judge and spouse to the widdow ; a father to the orphans , and salvation to all our souls . i rejoyce to have so dear a pledge to offer and present thee , for all thy blessings , and benefits bestowed upon vs ; and for thy sake , who off e●dst thy self for us to death , to the most ignominious death of the cross . receive therefore sweet jesus , this poor oblation of mine ( though all i am able to offer thee ) in union of all the oblations of thy most sacred life , death and passion , and of all those divine oblations , which have been , are , and ever shall be offered upon thine altar , all which i offer thee , and by thy hands to thy eternal father . o father , look upon the face of thy christ , and turn away thy face from my sins , o holy mary mother of god ; all ye holy angels and saints in heaven make intercession for me , that what i deserve not of my self , may by your intercession be bestowed upon me . amen , jesus . amen . grant and ratifie what i ask , for thy names sake , amen . on sunday the 19 th . of december mr. lieutenant of the tower , came to him , and told him , he was sorry , he must bring him the ill news that he must dye on the 29th . of this month. to which dismal message he undauntedly replyed , i must obey ; then added in latine that text of the psalm haec dies , &c. this is the day which our lord hath made , let us rejoyce and be glad in it ; after which turning himself to his almost dead-struck lady , he said , let us go to our prayers . upon this occasion also he writ a little schedule containing these words : in the name of the father , and of the son , and of the holy ghost . this day mr. lieutenant came and told me , i must dye . god's holy name be praised ; and i prostrate beseech him , to have mercy on my sinful soul ; and deal with me , as his omnipotence knows i am innocent , of what was falsly sworn against me ; i do not doubt of salvation through the passion of our most blessed saviour . it was truly a matter of wonder and astonishment to those who lived and were conversant with him during this short remnant of his life , to see with what constancy and equal temper of mind he comported himself . what interiour quiet , and serenity he seem'd to enjoy : what confidence he expressed in god : what charity to all , even to the worst of his enemies . death hath usually an aspect formidable to nature , especially when treason and murder flie in the face of a guilty conscience . a man who hath warning and leisure deliberately to consider , he is now upon the point of being justly dragged out of this mortal state , before the dreadful tribunal of a severe judge , who knows the secrets of his heart ; there to receive an eternal doom of hell and damnation for crimes detested by god and nature . this man surely can never die , without such conflicts of horrour and despair as will almost prevent the hand of the executioner ; yet there appeared in my lord no other symptoms , then those of a most pleasing tranquility , as if innocence had guarded him ; as if the injustice of others had secured him ; as if the holy ghost had fortified him . as if christ jesus had united him to his sufferings , and undertaken his conduct and defence . that very morning he was to dye , he writ a letter to his lady which afterwards he delivered on the scaffold to a friend there present , the contents whereof are these . my dear wife , i have , i give god humble thanks , slept this night some hours very quietly , i would not dress me until i had by this given you thanks for all your great love and kindness unto me , i am very sorry , that i have not deserved it from you ▪ god reward you ; were i to live numbers of years , i assure you i would never omit any occasion to let you know the love i bear you : i cannot say what i would , nor how well and many ways you have deserv'd . god of his most infinite mercy send us an happy meeting in heaven . my last request unto you , is , that you will bear my death as well as you can , for my sake . i have now no more to do but as well as i can ( though not so well as i would , ) to recommend my sinful soul unto the mercy of the holy trinity who through the passion , bloud and merits of our saviour , i hope will mercifully grant me a place ▪ ( though the lowest ) in heaven , god grant it ; and bless you , and ours . your truly loving husband , w. h. st thomas of canterbury 's day 1680. past six in the morning . the manner and circumstances of my lord 's final end. when the hour appointed for his death drew near , he expected with some impatience the arrival of mr. lieutenant , telling his friends that were about him , he ought not to hasten his own death , yet he thought the time long till they came for him . a gentleman then with him in his chamber put him in mind , that it was a cold day , and that his lordship would do well to put on a cloak or coat to keep him warm ; he answered , he would ; for ( said he ) i may perhaps shake for cold , but i trust in god , never for fear . after some time spent in spiritual discourses , at length about ten a clock , word was brought him , that mr. lieutenant waited for him below : upon which he sweetly saluted his friends , bidding them not to grieve for him ▪ for this was the happiest day of all his life ; then he immediatly went down , and walked along by the lieutenants chair ( who had the gout ) through a lane of soldiers to the barrs without the tower. there the lieutenant delivered him to the sheriff● , and they from thence guarded him to the scaffold erected on tower-hill . all the way as he passed , several thousands of people crowded to see him ▪ many civilly saluted him ; and few there were , amongst that vast ●ber , whose hearts were not a li● ●ched and mollified with compassion for him . having mounted the scaffold , there appeared in his countenance such an unusual vivacity ▪ such a chearfulness , such a confidence , such a candor , as if the innocence of his soul had shined through his body . nothing of that mortal paleness , nothing of those reluctances , convulsions , and agonies , incident to persons in his condition , could in the least be perceived in him . he looked death in the ●a●e with so undaunted a resolution , as gave many occasion to say ; gr●e had left in him , no resentment●●f ●ature . after a short pause , viewing th● people , and finding them attend●●o what he should say , he step● to one side of the scaffold , and with a graceful air , and intelligible voice pronounced his last speech as followeth . my lord's last speech . by the permission of almighty god , i am this day brought hither to suffer death , as if i were guilty of high treason . i do most truly in the presence of the eternal , omnipotent , and all-knowing god , protest upon my salvation , that i am as innocent as it is possible for any man to be , so much as in a thought , of the crimes laid to my charge . i acknowledge it to be a particular grace and favour of the holy trinity , to have given me this long time to prepare my self for eternity , i have not made so good use of that grace as i ought to have done ; partly because not only my friends , but my wife and children , have for several days been forbidden to see me , but in the presence of one of my warders . this hath been a great trouble and distraction unto me , but i hope god of his infinite mercy will pardon my defects , and accept of my good intentions . since my long imprisonment i have considered often what could be the original cause of my being thus accused , since i knew my self not culpable , so much as in a thought , and i cannot believe it to be upon any other account then my being of the church of rome . i have no reason to be ashamed of my religion , for it teacheth nothing but the right worship of god , obedience to the king , and due subordination to the temporal laws of the kingdom . and i do submit to all articles of faith believed and taught in the catholick church , believing them to be most consonant to the word of god. and whereas it hath so much and often been objected , that the church holds that soveraign princes , excommunicated by the pope , may by their subjects be deposed or murdered : as to the murder of princes , i have been taught as a matter of faith in the catholick church , that such doctrine is diabolical , horrid , detestable , and contrary to the law of god nature , and nations : as for the doctrine of deposing princes , i know some divines of the catholick church hold it , but as able and learned as they have written against it : but it was not pretended to be the doctrine of the church , that is , any point of catholick faith ▪ wherefore i do here in my conscience declare , that it is my true and 〈◊〉 judgment , that the same doctrine of deposing king● is contrary to the 〈◊〉 a● lawpunc ; of this kingdom , injurious to soveraign power , and consequently would be in me or any other of his majesties subjects , impious and damnable . i believe and profess , that there is one god , one saviour , one holy catholick , church , of which through the mercy , grace , and goodness of god , i die a member . to my great and unspeakable grief , i have offended god in many things , by many great offences , but i give him most humble thanks , not in any of those crimes of which i was accused . all the members of either house having liberty to propose in the house what they think fit for the good of the kingdom , accordingly i proposed what i thought fit , the house is judge of the fitness or unfitness of it ; and i think i never said any thing that was unfitting there , or contrary to the law and vse of parliaments : for certainly if i had , the lords would ( as they might ) have punished me : so i am not culpable before god or man : it is much reported of indulgences , dispensations , and pardons , to murther , rebel , lie , forswear , and commit such other crimes held and given in the church ; i do here profess in the presence of god , i never learned , believed , or practised any such thing , but the contrary ; and i speak this without any equivocation , or reservation whatsoever , and certainly were i guilty , either my self , or knew of any one that were guilty , whosoever , that were so , of any of those crimes of which i am accused , i were not only the greatest fool imaginable , but a perfect mad-man , and as wicked as any of those , that so falsly have accused me ; if i should not discover any ill design i knew in any kind , and so upon discovery save my life ; i have so often had so fair occasions proposed unto me ; and so am guilty of self-murther , which is a most grievous and hainous sin ; and though i was last impeached at the lords bar , yet i have great grounds to believe , that i was first brought to tryal , on the belief , that to save my life , i would make some great discovery ; and truly so i would , had i known any such thing of any ill design or illegal dangerous plot , either of my self or any other person whatsoever , without any exception . but had i a thousand lives , i would loose them all , rather then falsly accuse , either my self or any other whatsoever . and if i had known of any treason , and should thus deny it , as i do now upon my salvation , at this time , i should have no hope of salvation , which now i have through the merits of christ jesus . i do beseech god to bless his majesty , who is my lawful king and soveraign , whom i was always by all laws humane and divine , bound to obey , and i am sure that no power upon earth , either singly or altogether , can legally allow me , or any body else , to lift up a hand against him , or his legal authority . i do hold that the constitution of the government of this kingdom , is the only way to continue peace and quietness ; which god long continue . next to treason , i hold murther in abhorrence , and have ever done , and do ; and i do sincerely profess , that if i could at this time free my self immediatly , and establish what religion i would , and what government i would , and make my self as great as i could wish , and all by the death of one of those fellows , that by their perjuries have brought me to the place where i am , i so much abhor to be the cause of any mans death , that i would not any way be the cause of their murther ; how much less would i endeavour the assassination of his majesty , whom i hold to be as gracious a king as ever this or any other nation had ; and under whom the people may enjoy their liberties , as much as ever any did , and if it please god to grant him life and happiness , according as i have always wished and prayed for , i am morally perswaded , that he , and all his dominions , will be as happy and prosperous as ever people were ; which i beseech god grant . i do most humbly ask pardon of the almighty and all-merciful god , for all the great offences i have committed against his divine majesty , and i know he would not have the death and confusion of a sinner , but that he may repent and live ; in that assurance i hope , knowing he never despiseth a contrite heart ; and though i have not so feeling a contrition as i would , yet i have it as well as i can ; and i doubt not but that god will accept of the good will. i do desire that all people will forgive me any injury that i have done them in any thing , either wilfully or by chance , and i do heartily forgive all people in this world that have injured me ; i forgive even those perjured men , that so falsly have brought me hither by their perjuries . i do now upon my death and salvation aver ▪ that i never spoke one word either to oates or turbervil , or to my knowledge ever saw them , until my tryal ; and for dugdale i never spoke unto him of any thing but about a foot-boy , or foot-man , or foot-race ▪ and never was then alone with him ; all the punishment that i wish them , is , that they may repent and acknowledge the wrong that they have done me ; then it will appear how innocent i am : god forgive them ! i have a great confidence that it please almighty god , and that he will in a short time bring truth to light ; then you , and all the world will see , and know what injury they have done me . i hope that i have made it appear , that i have some conscience ; for if i had none , certainly i would have sav'd my life by acknowledging my self guilty ; which i could have done , though i know i am not in the least guilty ▪ and i having some conscience , make very ill use of it ; for i throw my self into eternal pain , by thus plainly and constantly denying thus at my death , the knowledge of what i am accused of in the least . i have said thus much in discharge of my concience , and do aver upon my salvation , what i have said to be really true . i shall say little of my tryal ; and whether it were all according to the known law , i am two much a party to say much of it ; if it were not so , god forgive him or them that were the cause of it . my judges were all persons of honour , who were all as much bound to judge rightly , as if they had been upon oath upon what was legally proved ; and not to vote but according as in their consciences they were satisfied ; and if any of them did otherwise , upon any account whatsoever , i beseech god to forgive them ; i do heartily . i shall end with my hearty prayers for the happiness of his majesty , that he may enjoy all happiness in this world , and the world to come ; and govern his people according to the laws of god , and that the people may be sensible what a blessing god hath so miraculously given them , and obey him as they ought . i ask pardon with a prostrate heart of almighty god , for all the great offences that i have committed against his divine majesty , and hope through the merits and passion of christ jesus , to obtain everlasting happiness , into whose hands i commit my spirit , asking pardon of every person that i have done any wrong to ; i do freely for give all that have any ways wronged me ; i do with all the devotion and repentance that i can , humbly invoke the mercy of our blessed saviour . i beseech god not to revenge my innocent bloud upon the nation , or on those that were the cause of it , with my last breath . i do with my last breath truly assert my innocence , and hope the omnipotent all-seeing just god will deal with me accordingly . his speech being ended , he delivered several written copies of it to the sheriffs and others near him , ( one of which , writ with his own hand , he sent to the king , ) then he returned to the middle of the scaffold , where , encompassed by his catholick friends : he kneeled down , and reverently making the sign of the cross , pronounced aloud , with exceeding devotion , this following prayer . agnosco ( domine jesu ) peccata mea , multa & magna , pro quibus timeo ; sed spero in misericordiâ & miserationibus tuis , quarum non est numerus ; secundum igitur magnam misericordiam tuam miserere m●i , & secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum dele iniquitatem meam . si peccata mea magna sunt , major est misericordia tua : si mult●ae , inf●itae sunt miserationes tuae : si ego commisi , unde me possis condemnare , tunon amisisti , unde potes , & soles salvare . credenti in potentiâ tuá , & dicenti , domine si vis , potes me mundare , tu statim respondisti : volo ; mundare : credo , quod ipse credidit : spero quod ipse speravit : imploro quod ipse imploravit . dic igitur animae meae , salus tua ego sum : sana me , domine jesu , & sanabor : salvum me fac , & salvus ero , & misericordias tuas in aeternum cantabo . ne projicias me igitur a faciê tuâ , & spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas à me : sed redde mihi laetitiam salutaris tui , & spiritu principali confirma me . tu dixisti , dulcissime jesu , convertimini ad me , & ego convertar ad vos : ego me , ex toto corde meo , ex totâ animâ , ex totâ mente me â , converto ad te : converte te igitur misericordissime , ad indignum samulum tuum quem pretioso sanguine redemisti . tu dixisti , omnis qui confitebitur me , coram hominibus confitebor , & ego eum coram patre meo , qui in coelis est . ego te , & sanctam tuam religionem catholicam vivens confiteor , & moriens , adjuvante gratiâ tuâ , confitebor : dignare me igitur suscipere , & confiteri coram patre tuo , qui in coelis est . in tuâ promissione , non in meâ justitiâ confido . vitam quam dedisti mihi , libenter tibi reddo secundum beneplacitum tuum : in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum , qui moriens spiritum tuum in aeterni patris manus commendasti . in face igitur , in id ipsum dormiam & requiescam , quoniam tu domine , singulariter in spe constituisti me . amen , jesu , amen . englished thus . i acknowledge ( o lord jesus ) my sins to be many , and great , for which i am affraid ; but i hope in thy mercy , and commiserations which are without number . have mercy therefore on me according to thy great mercy , and according to the multitude of thy tender mercies , blot out mine iniquity . if my sins be great , thy mercy is greater ; if many , thy commiserations are infinite . if i have committed that , for which thou mayest condemn me , thou hast not lost that , by which thou canst , and art accustomed to save . to him , that believed in thy power , and said , o lord , if thou wilt , thou canst make me clean ; thou presently answeredst , i will ; be thou clean : i believe , what he believed , i hope , for what he hoped , i implore , what he implored . say therefore to my soul , i am thy salvation ; heal me , o lord jesus , and i shall be healed ; save me , and i shall be saved , and i will sing forth thy mercy for all eternity . cast me not therefore away from thy face , and take not thy holy spirit from me , but render me the joy of thy salvation , and with thy principal spirit confirm me. thou hast said , o most sweet jesus , turn to me , and i will turn to you : i turn myself to thee with my whole heart , with my whole soul , with my whole mind ; turn thy self therefore ( o most merciful ) unto me , thy unworthy servant , whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious bloud . thou hast said , every one who shall confess me before men , i will confess him before my father which is in heaven . i , living confess thee , and thy holy catholick religion , and through thy holy grace will confess thee dying ; vouchsafe therefore to receive and confess me before thy father which is in heaven . i confide in thy promise , not in my own justice ; the life , thou hast given me , i willingly render thee according to thy good pleasure . into thy hands i commend my spirit , who dying didst commend thy spirit into the hands of thy eternal father in peace therefore , in that one thing , will i sleep and rest ; because thou , o lord , hast singularly established me in hope . amen , jesvs , amen . to this prayer he adjoyned several other pious ejaculations , wherein with singular compunction , and aboundance of tears ; he implored the divine mercy and pardon for his sins past ; he recommended his soul to his dear redeemer jesus ; he blessed his holy name : and offered his life to him , a w●lling sacrifice of gratitude , piety , and love. remaining still on his knees , he again protested his innocence with all the asseverations a dying christian is capable to make . then rising up , he a second time saluted the people , and walking to each side of the scaffold , told them : they had as good and gracious a king as ever reigned . he earnestly exhorted them to be faithful and constant in their allegiance to him . and that no pretence whatsoever should withdraw them from their duty . he wished with a feeling resentment , that none might be less loyal to his majesty then he had been . and it was very remarkable in him : he never seemed transported with any fervours , or extasies , but either in his prayers to god , or in his expressions of loyalty to the king ; then indeed he was all flame , and you might read in his very eyes , the tender emotions , and zeal of his heart : he likewise assured them upon his salvation , he knew no design the duke of york ever had against the king , but that he had behaved himself for ought he knew , as a loving loyal brother ought to do ; then he again declared his own innocence , and desired the prayers of all good christians for him ; he prayed to god heartily to bless the king , and preserve him from his enemies ; to bless the nation ; to bless , and be with them all there present , especially the kings loyal subjects ; he begged gods mercy and pardon for his sins ; he asked forgiveness of all , and forgave all ; beseeching the divine goodness not to revenge his innocent bloud upon the whole kingdom ; no , not upon those by whose perjuries he was brought thither , to whom he wished from his heart no other hurt , then that they should repent , and tell truth . whilst he thus professed his loyalty , his innocence , his piety ; most that heard him were touched with a sensible compassion for him ; some , as he spoke , put off their hats , and bowed to him , in sign they accorded to what he said ▪ others by distinct acclamations answered , we believe you my lord ; god bless you my lord : pray god forgive him his sins , &c. in this conjuncture a protestant minister accosted him , saying , have you received no indulgences from the romish-church ? have you received no absolution ? to which my lord answered ▪ what have you to do with my religion ? however i do say , the roman catholick church allows of no indulgences or dispensations , authorizing treason , murder , lying , or forswearing ; nor have i received any absolution for such ends . pray do not trouble your self , nor me . then turning from the parson , he applyed himself to his friends about him , whom he lovingly embraced , and with a pleasant voice and aspect , bid them adieu , for this world. next he delivered his watch , two rings off his fingers , his staff , and his crucifix about his neck , as legacies to several friends ; he desired the sheriffs that such persons as he nominated might have leave ( without the executioners intermeddling ) to assist him , and to take care of his body , which was accordingly done : and his gentleman stripping him of his coat and peruke , put on his head a silk cap , and accommodated his hair , shirt , and waistcoat , for the execution . and he now being ready for death , both in body and mind , he chearfully submitted himself to the block , before which first kneeling down , and making the sign of the cross , he recommended himself with raptures of devotion to the divine mercy and goodness : after this , he lay down as it were to try the block . and then ( who could imagine it ? ) with a stupendious courage , embraced the fatal wood , as the dear basis , or point , from whence his soul was now to take its flight to immortal glory . the heads-man put him in mind , that his shirt and waistcoat came too high : whereupon he raised himself up upon his knees , and bid his gentleman cut them lower . whilst this was p●rforming , he was heard continually to breath forth several acts of prayer , as sweet jesus receive my soul ; into thy hands o lord i commend my spirit , &c. when his gentleman had finished ; he again laid down his head upon the block , persevering still his prayer , and expecting the suddain and dismal arrest of death , with a courage ( say the papists ) divinely elevated , a constancy more then humane . no change in his countenance ; no quaking , or trembling in any one joynt of his body , could be discerned . thus he lay , or rather quietly rested , upon the very brink , between time and eternity , a good space ; till at length finding the head's man delayed the execution of his office ; he once more raised himself up upon his knees , and with an aspect , grave , ( but still serene and lively ) asked , why they staid ? it was answered , for a sign ; what sign will you give sir ? he replyed , none at all ; take your own time ; god●s will he done , i am ready . the head's man said , i hope you will forgive me , he answered , i do . then blessing himself again with the sign of the cross , he reposed his head upon the block , never more to lift it up , in this mortal state. the head's man took the ax in his hand , and after a short pause , elevated it on high , as it were to take aim , and set it down again . a second time he did so , and sighed . the third time he gave the fatal blow , which severed my lords head from his body , save only a small part of the skin and wind-pipe , which was immediatly cut off with a knife . the body after seperation from the head , trembled a little , and stirred no more . the head was received into a black silk scarf , by two of my lord's friends , and retained by them , till the sheriff called for it , and commanded the executioner to hold it up to the view of the multitude ; the which he did , at the four corners of the scaffold ; crying aloud , this is the head of a traytor . but however , the people had been formerly possessed with prejudice both against my lord's practices and principles ; yet now , they made no acclamations at the sight of the ploud-droping head , nor seemed much taken with the jollity of the spectacle ; some went away with confusion and remorse , for their past hard censure of him ; others conceived strange apprehensions and fears of god's judgements ensuing perjury , and bloud-shed . some again said , my lord was drunk with brandy ; others said ; verily this was a just man. the papists who best knew his innocence ; and who looking upon themselves as in some measure parties in his sufferings ; beheld this whole tragedy with most tender resentments . they regarded him as a victim of religion and innocence . they mutually accompanied him with their prayers , and supplications to god in his behalf . they seemed to receive new comfort and courage from his christian magnanimity . they wept ; they smiled ; they sympathized with him , both in his dolours and joye● . they blessed and praised almighty god for his goodness to him , and to them , in him. they glorified his holy name , who often sheweth the strength of his power , in the weakest subjects . in fine , many did , ( and still do . ) believe , the peculiar grace , and presence of cod's spirit , had some effect , and influence upon all in a manner that saw him ; and few there were of his religion , who did not wish themselves in his place . no sooner was execution done , but the sun , ( which before was obscured , and secluded from our sight , ) on a suddain dissipating the clouds , sent forth it 's clear and illustrious beams ; upon which accident , different parties have since made different reflections ; my lord's adversaries say , the sun before frowned at popish guilt , but seemed pleased when justice was done . the papists say , the heavens mourned and were ashamed , and unwilling to be spectators at the shedding of innocent bloud ; but appeared in joy , and splendour , at the reception of a new and glorious inhabitant into their coelestial mansions . when the head had been publickly exposed , it was returned back into the silk scarf , held by a youth that had waited upon my lord , and so laid into the coffin together with the body vested . ( for out of modesty my lord had desired he might not be stripped naked on the scaffold . ) in the interim , divers persons threw up their handkerchiefs , to have them dipt in my lords bloud , wherein some were gratified , and others had their handkerchiefs thrown with derision over the scaffold● . after this the coffin was taken down from off the scaffold by several bearers , and by them carried to the bounds of the tower , where a velvet herse-cloath being spread over it , it was carried in order to its interment into the tower ; a place ( say the papists ) as it hath been enobled by his sufferings , so will it remain to future ages , a triumphal monument of his fortitude , and victory . thus lived , thus dyed this famous nobleman , to whose memory i shall only adde , of my own , that if his cause was innocent , and his religion wrongfully traduced , he is happy , and we unfortunate by his untimely death . 1 ep. cor. cap. 15. verse 54. absorpta est mors in victoriâ . an appendix . containing some remarques upon the late tryal of stephen colledge , in relation to the chief witnesses against my lord stafford : here annexed for the more ample satisfaction of the reader in that particular . having in some measure performed what i purposed , and promised in the front of this treatise ; i might well have here put a stop to my pen , had not an extraordinary accident , raised new matter of reflections upon the king's evidence in point of credit , and seemed to call me to a short survey of it , in the close of my discourse . the judgments of the almighty are incomprehensible ; and st. paul had good reason to cry out , as it were in an extasy , o the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of god ; how unsearchable are his judgments , and his ways past finding out ; who could ever have imagined , that the three direct and main witnesses against my lord stafford at his tryal , should all convene together , at another of a quite contrary stamp ; and this is in so fatal a conjuncture , as to confound , and destroy by open perjury each others testimony ? my lord ( as you have seen ) endeavour'd to shew the infamy of the witnesses : the contradictions in their evidence : the incoherence of parts : and incredibility of circumstances , throughout the whole charge . to make out which he alledged many pressing arguments , and produc'd many substantial witnesses , both catholicks and protestants in his behalf : nothing seem'd wanting , save only his adversaries themselves , against themselves , to compleat his evidence . and here it is the divine goodness ( say the papists ) who is the defender of innocence , and fountain of truth , hath wonderfully manifested what manner of men , my lord's accusers were , and what credit ought to be given them , even by the proper testimony of their own mouths ; herein also fulfilling in some sort , what my lord himself ( prophetically ) foretold in his last speech ( viz ) i have a great confidence that it will please almighty god ; and that he will in a short time bring truth to light. then all the world will see and know , what injury they ( oates , dugdale , and turbervil ) have done me . to give a brief account of this affair , there are few who have not heard of the late tryal of stephen colledge , sirnamed the protestant joyner ( a man very active in the death of my lord stafford , and a zealous defender of dugdales honesty ▪ ) he was impeached , arraigned , condemned , and executed for high treason ; in speaking treasonable words : and having by a designed combination with others , appeard in arms to seize the kings person at oxford . the witnesses against him were , smith , dugdale , turbervil , haines , mr. maisters , and sir william jennings . it is not my intent here , to epitomize colledges whole tryal ; nor to give my censure or verdict upon it , but only to inform the reader of some passages which chiefly relate to the main witnesses against my lord stafford : and which are now become the subject of surprise , and astonishment to all considering persons . please then to note , that stephen dugdale , and edward turbervil , ( two of the principal witnesses upon whose testimony my lord was found guilty , ) and john smith , otherwise called narrative smith ( who at my lords tryal seemed the only plausible deponent , as to the plot in general ) gave respective evidence against this colledge at oxford , as followeth . stephen dugdale swore , 1 st . mr. colledge told him , that the king was a papist ; that he was as deep in the plot as any papist of them all ( which the papists themselves also confess ▪ ) that he had an hand in sir e. godfreys death . that he was a rogue ; that nothing was to be expected from him but popery , and arbitrary government ▪ and that the clergy of england were papists in masquerade . 2ly . that colledge had framed several notorious libels against the king to render him contemptible , and raised arms with intent to seize his sacred person at oxford , &c. turbervil swore , he heard colledge say ; 1 st . that there was no good to be expected from the king ; for that he and his family were papists , and had ever been such 2 ly . that his party would seize the king , and secure him , till he came to those terms they would have of him . 3 ly . that the parliament which cut off the late king's head , did nothing but what they had just cause for , &c. smith swore , 1 st that colledge told him , there were moneys collected to buy arms and amunition to bring the king to submission to his people ; adding thereunto , that he wondered . old rowley ( meaning the king ) did not consider how easily his fathers head came to the block , which he doubted not would be the end of rowley at last . 2 ly . that colledge had provided himself of a great sword ; pistols , blunderbuss , with back , breast , and head-peice . and that he heard him say , the city was provided , and ready with powder and bullets ; that he would be one who should seize the king in case he secured any of the members of parliament . and that if any man , nay even rowley himself should attempt to seize upon his arms , he would be the death of him , &c. in direct opposition to these witnesses , colledge produced titus oates ( the third principal witness against my lord stafford . and first grand discoverer of the popish plot , ) who gave attestation against the said several witnesses , after this manner . against dugdale , oates deposed ; that the said oates discoursing upon occasion with dugdale concerning his being an intended evidence against my lord shaftsbury and others ▪ duglale replied , there is no body hath any cause to make any such report of me ; for i call god to witness i know nothing against any protestant in england . but afterwards dugdale having sworn matters of high treason against colledge , before the grand-jury at the old baily ; and being hereupon charged by oates , as having gone against his conscience , and contrary to what he had declared to him . dugdale answered , it was all long of collonel warcup , for ( said he ) i could get no money else ; and he promised i should have a place in the custom-house . in opposition to this testimony dugdale swore , vpon the oath he had taken , and as he hoped for salvation , it was not true . against the same dugdale , oates farther deposed , that dugdale did confess he had an old clap ; yet gave out he was poysoned ; * which sham passed throughout the kingdom in our intelligences ; but in truth ( said oates ) it was the pox : as i will make appear by the * physician that cured him . in opposition to which dugdale protested , if any doctor would come forth , and say he cured him of a clap , or any such thing ; he would stand guilty of all that is imputed to him . against turbervil also , oates gave ev●dence in these words ▪ a little before the witnesses were sworn against colledge at the old baily , i ( oates ) met with mr. turbervil ▪ i was in a coach ; but seeing mr. turbervil ; i stept out of the coach , and spoke with him , for hearing that he was a witness , i did ask him , whether he was a witness or no against colledge ? mr. turbervil said , he would break any ones head , that should say so against him ; for he neither was a witness ; nor could give any evidence against him so after he came from oxon , i met with mr ▪ turbervil again ; and hearing he had been there , i ask'd him , if he had sworn any thing against colledge ? he said , yes , he had been sworn before the grand jury . said i , did not you tell me so and so ? why ( said he ) the protestant citizens have deserted us ; and god damn him , he would not starve . these very words he several times repeated ; but when i ask'd him , what he had sworn ? he said , i am not bound to satisfie peoples curiosities . upon the words of a priest said oates ) what i say is true ; as i am a minister , i speak it sincerely ; in the presence of god , this gentleman did say these words to me ; which made me affraid of the man , and i went my ways , and never spoke with him afterwards , nor durst i ; for i thought , he that would swear and curse , after that rate , was not fit to be talked with . in opposition to all which , turbervil swore , that he met dr. oates just at his lodgings , and the dr. alighted out of his coach , and spoke to him , and invited him to come to his old friends . for he told him , they had some jealousie that he was not true to them ; and he farther told him , if he would come to the king's-head-club , he should be received with a great deal of kindness but never afterwards ( said turbervil ) did i speak with the dr. a tittle about any evidence ; vpon my oath ( added he ) i did not ; and truly i always looked upon dr. oates , as a very ill man , and never would converse much with him . against smith , oates gave this attestation , viz to my knowledge mr. colledge and mr. smith had some provoking words past betwixt them at rich. coffee-house . and mr. smith comes out , and swears , god damn him he would have colledges blood ; so when i met him , said i , mr. smith , you profess your self to be a priest , and have stood at the altar : and now you intend to take upon you , the ministry of the church of england ▪ and these words do not become a minister of the gospel ; his reply , was , god damn the gospel . this is truth ( said oates ) i speak it in the presence of god and man. the whole substance of this attestation , smith absolutely forswore ; saying , not one word of this is true , upon my oath . then addressing himself to oates , 't is a wonderful thing ( said he ) you should say this of me , but i will sufficiently prove it against you ; that you have confounded the gospel , and denied the divinity t●o . this is the sum of the evidence given as well by dr. oates against dugdale , turbervil and smith ; as by dugdale , turbervil and smith against dr. oates . from which fatal manner of self-condemning and perjuring each other ; the papists ( with two good consequence ) draw these deductions . either oates attesting these things against the aforenamed witnesses , in the word of a priest ; as he was a minister of the gospel , sincerely ; in the presence of god and man , &c. did give true evidence , or not ; if he did , then are dugdale , turbervil and smith , both in their testimony agaist colledge , and in their several oaths here against oates , doubly forsworn . but if oates did not give here true evidence , ( as the other three positively swear he did not ) then is he guilty of manifest perjury so that from the reciprocal testimony of each other , in this matter ; it is an undenyable demonstration ; either oates ( the pillar of the plot ) or dugdale , turbervil and smith , ( the joynt supporters of it , ) or both , and all , are perjur'd men , and can justly challenge no right of belief , or credit to any thing , they ever did , or shall swear . hence the attorney general in this very tryal ingeniously complained ; it is an unhappy thing , that dr. oates should come in , against these men that supported his evidence before . and mr. serjeant jefferies rightly inculcated to the jury ; if dugdale , smith and turbervil , be not to be believed , you perjure ( said he ) three men , and ( in them ) trip up the heels of all the evidence and discovery of the plot. in like manner the papists argue : if oates also be not to be believed , the whole fabrick of the plot falls . what ? dr. oates ? the quondam top-evidence , the prime doscoverer ; the saviour of the king , and nation from popish massacre ; he swear false ? he not to be believed ? what account shall be given to god , and the world , for the bloud-shed , and the severities used upon his sole , or chief evidence ? yet it is impossible , if dugdale , smith and turbervil , swear not false , oates should swear true ; or if he swear not false : they should swear true : and as it is impossible , both should swear true : so is it next to impossible , ( if either swear false ) the plot should be true ▪ however , most assuredly one part of the witnesses against my lord stafford ( without which the other could never have found credit , ) are here , by their very compartners , proved perjured men. it is objected : they might all of them peradventure have sworn true before , though some of them for certain swear false now . the papists answer : so might they all of them for certain have sworn false before , though some of them peradventure swear true now . we are not to judge of men's past , or future proceedings in order to justice , by what they possibly might be , but by what they probably were , or will be ; and to make a rational judgment herein , we have no other rule to guide us in the knowledge of covert intentions , then the test of overt actions . seing therefore these witnesses are proved actually perjur'd ▪ we have no rational ground to believe , but that upon the same motives , and in the same concurrence of circumstances , they both did , and will commit the same crimes . men of lost consciences , and desperate fortunes , allured by gain , and encouraged by indempnities , regard not what , when , nor how they swear . and my lord stafford had just cause to say , if it be permitted these men daily to frame new accusations : if easy credit be given to all their fables : and whatever they shall from time to time invent , may pass for good evidence : who can be secure ? at this rate they may by degrees , impeach the whole nation , ( both catholicks and protestants , ) for crimes which neither they , nor any man else ever yet dream't on . it is also objected by colledge's party : that dugdale , smith and turbervil , are papists in masquerade ; & now made use on to sham off the popish plot , by turning it upon the presbyterians ; wherefore though credit may be given them when they swear against papists , yet the same credit ought to be denyed , when they bear testimony against his majesties true protestant subjects . the papists answer : first , granted , that dugdale , smith and turbervil , be real papists ; how is it proved they were imployed to sham off the plot ? why may not papists , be good witnesses against the presbyterians , in point of treason , without suspition of a sham ? is treason a thing so strange , and unheard of amongst the presbyterians ? or why should credit be given to the witnesses when they swear against the papists ( who are only charged with a design to kill the king ) and credit be denyed to the same witnesses , when they swear against those who actually killed the king ? 2ly . what the least argument , or appearance , is there , that dugdale , smith and turbervil are papists , or ●opishly affected ? they profess the protestant religion , they frequent the protestant church , they receive the protestant communion , they take all oaths , and tests can be required of them ( as was acknowledged in this very tryal ) they practise neither fasting pennance ▪ nor other works of supererogation , ( the symptoms of popery . ) they pursue their former design of swearing against the papists , with as much obstinacy , and violence as ever ( as was likewise prov'd in this tryal . ) and is it possible the papists should employ , in their shams and intrigues ( if they had any ) the very persons who at the same time make it their trade and lively-hood , to cut their throats ? indeed if any of the witnesses against my lord stafford be popishly affected , it is dr. oates , whose present disparagement of his fellow evidence , look● ( said mr. sollicitor general ) as if he were again returning to st. omers . lastly , it is argued ; the jury bringing in colledge guilty of high treason , by that very verdict , cleared dugdale , smith , and turbervil , of the perjury , charged upon them by d. oates . it is answered : 1 st . the jury brought in their verdict against colledge , not upon the sole testimony of dugdale , smith , and turbervil ; but more especially , upon the evidence given by sir william jennings , and mr. maisters , persons of known worth and honesty ; as also upon pregnant proof made , ( and acknowledged in a manner by colledge himself , ) that he , by combination with others appeared in open arms , at an appointed time , and place ready for , and designing , publick acts of hostility , in the very presence of the king , yet without his knowledge or authority ; which by the law is adjudged treason . 2 ly the papists do not undertake to make good oate's charge of perjury against dugdale , smith and turbervil ; nor theirs , against him : but only to shew , that the guilt of this horrid crime lyeth amongst them ; and consequently , whether it be charged upon oates , as the chief swearing-master , and original author of the plot , or upon dugdale , smith and turbervil , as his pedants and accessaries in the imposture ; or ( as is most rational ) upon both , and all of them : it follows , that the lord stafford dyed by perjury : and roman catholicks have wrongfully suffered by their villanies , the loss of their fortunes : their estates , their liberties , their lives . luke 29 verse 22. out of thine own mouth will i judge thee thou wicked servant . thus i have here briefly and impartially set down , what occurs to me on this occasion ; and now for an appology to the whole treatise : seing the papists , as well as all other men , have a natural right , ( when impeached , ) to defend their innocence ; i hope it will not be imputed a fault in me , to have rehearsed some of their arguments , as they lay within the limits , and sphere of my design . if any persons of depraved judgments , shall from hence draw sinister reflections upon the justice of the nation . i declare they abuse both the government , themselves , and me by such their unjust paraphrase . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a34574-e1050 tryal , p 4. pag 7. &c. pag. 17. &c. the motives of his perversion . his imployment in eng. pag. 21 , &c. his contribution for arms , &c. 500 l. armies ready at an hours warning . the popes contribution 1000 l ▪ pag. 25. &c. pag. 25. &c. his feigned conversion . the provincial of castile contribution 10000 l. afterwards a promise of 30000 masses . pag. 32. a twenty pound debt remitted for a reward to kill the king. pag 30. pag. 17. ●e papists 〈◊〉 against 〈◊〉 plot in ●eral . page 123. (a) colemans tryal . coleman's letters . sir edmundbury godfrey's murder . page 20 page 77. page 136 fire-balls , sham-plot : &c. the votes of both houses of parliament declaring it a plot. * see the tryals of wakeman , corker , marshal , earl of castlemain , sir tho. gascoin , lady powis , tempest , &c. gunpowder treason , french massacre , &c. ireland's tryal . page 40. &c. the first onset against my lord. my lords address . page ●5 , &c. pa 24. &c. dugdal's infamy and beggery . pa. 94 &c. pa. 84. &c. pa. 87. &c. pag. 145. &c. pag. 163. pag. 175. pag. 147. pag. 163. pag. 168. dugdale's perjury . pag. 82. &c. pag 175. pag 74. page 147 pag. 83 , &c. pag. 80. &c. pag. 32. &c. page 174. pag. 117. page 175. pag. 178. dugdale's subornation of oaths . pa. 93. &c. pag. 138. &c. page 186. dugdale's improbable manner of swearing . page ●2 . pa. 46. &c. p. 728 &c ▪ pag. 130 ▪ &c. this oates affirms in langhorns tryal . page 101. page 1●9 . oates's new forgeries . pag. 102. page 25. pag. 126. oates his apostacy and sacriledge . page 123. turbervil's perjury in seven particulars . page 120. &c. pag. 122. page 152. page 109. page 131. page 108. page 113. page 181. page 106. page 180. page 112 page 110. page 182. page 101. page 116. turbervil's loose manner of life . page 154. page 163. the sum of my lord's plea as to matters of fact. pag 167. &c. p 199. &c. the sum of the evidence against my lord. page 17● . page 171 ▪ &c. page 184. pag. 151. answer to my lord's plea in matters of law. my lord 's particular address . page 198. page 212. my lord high steward's speech . his relations imputed to him as the cause of his guilt . page 214. the sentence : notes for div a34574-e29600 page 54. page 53. ibid. ibid. ibid. ●bid . ibid. an objection . answer'd . the intent of this epistle . redemption in christ , a eph. 2.8 . 1 cor. 15.22 . applicable by faith. b mar. 16.16 . heb. 11.6 . which is but one ▪ c eph. 4.4 . &c. d jam. 2.10 . supernatural . e 1 cor. 1.20 . mat. 16.17 . by the divine providence to be learnt . f isai . 35.8 . g joh. 9.41 . h mat. 11.25 . i john 15.22 . not from private interpretation of scripture . k 2 pet. 3 16. pro. 14. 12. mat. 22.29 . l 1 jo. 4.1 . and 6. prov. 12.16 . m mat. 18.17 . luk. 10.16 . but from the universal church , dilated , continued and guided by the holy ghost for that end . n psal . 2 8. isa . 2 2. &c. 49.6 . o mat. 5.14 . isai . 59.21 . joh. 16 13. ezek. 37.26 . eph. 5.25 . &c. 1 tim. 3 15. mat. 16.18 . p mat. 28 20. joh. 14 16. q deut. 17 8. &c. mat. 23 2. this church is the same with the roman catholick . r can. 6 8. joh 10.16 . rom. 15 5. joh. 17 22. philip 2.2 . from the testimony of which , we believe the scripture to be gods word . s mat. 16.18 . 1 tim. 3.15 . mat. 18 , 17. t isai . 59.21 joh. 14.26 divine revelations only matters of faith. what heresie and what schism ! u 1 cor. 11.19 . mat. 18.17 . x tit. 3.10 . 1 cor. 1.10 . cap. 12.25 . how matters of faith are proposed by the church . y joh. 5.39 . z acts 15. per toto . a 2 thes . 2.15 . cap. 3.6 . 2 tim. 2.2 . b j●m . 2 ▪ 18. what is the authority of general councels . a deut. 17.8 . mat. 18.17 . acts 15. per toto . luk. 10.16 . hebr. 13.7.17 . gal. 1.7.8 . an explanation of the same authority . b 1 tim. 6 ▪ 20. c joh. 14 16. a deduction from thence concerning allegiance . a second deduct on concerning the same . of the oath of allegiance . the bishop of rome supreme head of the church but not infallible . d mat. 16.17 . luke 22.31 . joh. 21.17 . e eph. 4 . 11● &c. nor hath any temporal authority over princes . 1 pet. 2. v. 17 , &c. the church not responsible for the errors of particular divines . king-killing doctrine damnable heresie . conc. const . sess , 15. personal misdemeanours not to be imputed to the church . no power on earth can authorise men to lye , forswear , murther , &c. equivocation not allowed in the church . of sacramental absolution . a ex. 18.21 . 2 cor. 7.10 . b psa 32.5 . pro. 28.13 . c act. 19.18 . 1 cor. 4.1 . jam. 5.16 . d luk. 3.8 . e john 20 : 21 , &c. mat. 18.18 . of satisfaction by penitential works . f tit. 3.5 . g 2 cor. 3.5 h act. 26.20 . jonas 3.5 , &c. psal . 102.9 . &c. psa . 109.23 . dan. 9.3 . joel . 2.12 . luke 11.41 . acts 10.4 . i 1 pet. 2.5 . indulgences are not remission of sins , but only of canonical penance . k 1 cor. 5.3 , &c. l 2 cor. 2.6 , &c. abuses herein not to be charged on the church . there is a purgatory or state , where ●ouls departing this life with some blemish are purified . m num. 14.20 , &c. 2 sam. 12.13 . &c. n pro. 24.6 . ma● . 12.36 , and cap 5.22.26 . o mat. 5 26. 1 cor. 3.15 . p rev. 21 27. prayers for the dead available to them . q 1 cor. 15.29 . coll. 1.24 . 2 mac. 12.42 , &c. 1 jo. 5.16 . superfluous questions about purgatory . of the merit of good works , through the merits of christ . r jo. 15.51 s mat. 16. ● cap. 5 . 1● cap. 10. ● 2 cor. 5. ● 2 tim. 4● christ really present in the sacrament of the evcharist . t mat. 26 26. mark 14 22. luke 22.19 . 1 cor. 11.23 , &c. cap. 10.16 . but after a supernatural manner . whole christ in either species . u jo. 6.48.50 , 51.57 , 58. acts 2.42 . hence communicants under one kind , are no wise depriv'd either of the body or bloud of christ . of the sacrifice of the mass . x luke 22.19 , &c. y 1 cor. 11.26 . z he. 13.10 . a luk. 22.19 . b mal. 1.11 . worship of images wrongfully imposed on catholicks . c luke 4.8 . d ex. 25.18 . 1 kin. 6.35 . luke 3.22 . numb . 21.8 . acts 5.15 . yet there is some veneration due both to pictures , and other sacred things e jos . 7.6 . exo. 3.5 . psal . 99.5 . phi. 2.10 . luke 3.16 . acts 19.12 . f jo. 12.26 . g 1 pet. 2.17 . rom. 13.7 . prayers to saints lawful . h rev. 5.8 . i luke 15.7 . k 1 co. 13 12. l ex. 32.13 . 2 chro. 6.42 . m ro. 15.30 . n james 2.17.30 , &c. yet so as not to neglect our duties . o ro. 13.14 . p rom. 12 2. q gal. 5.6 . r john 14.6 . a conclusion from the premises . an objection answer'd catholicks suffer for the●r religion : their sufferings not unlike to those of christ our lord. a luke 23.2 b john 11.48 . c mat. 26.60 . rom. 8.29 . verse 17. notes for div a34574-e39620 a luke 23. mat. 26 , b rom. 7. c ex. 3.14 . d coll. ● . e exod. 33. f 1 cor. 2. g luke 15. h phil. 1.21 . i 2 tim. 2.12 . k luk. 9.24 . l john 12.26 . m apoc. 19. n 1 joh. 3 2. o cant. 5. p joh. 14 1. q mat. 5.11 . r luk. 7.47 . s joh. 15.13 . t cant. 8.6 . u mat. 10.39 . x 1 joh. 1.9 . y luke 7 48 , and 50. z mat. 10.37 . a cap. 19.29 . b psa . 68.5 . c exod. 20 5. d mat. 5.10 . e psal . 103 17 f psal . 112.1 . g eccle. 39. h psal . 27.12 . i joh. 11.25 . k isai . 43.1 . l cap. 41.10 . m psal . 91.14 . n jer. 31.3 o psal . 73 26. p joh. 16.20 . q verse 33. r psal . 27.9 . s psal . 31.1 . t joh. 14.19 . u rom. 8.38 , x rom. 14.8 . y phil. 1.21 . z verse 23. a psal . 30.5 . b mat. 25.34 . c luk. 23 43. rom. 15.13 . the first letter to his lady . the second letter to his lady . another to his son henery now l. stafford . for my son francis. for my daughter vrsula . for my daughter delphina . another no●e . psal . 9.9 . psal . 84.9 . psal . 51.10 . psal . 181.24 . another note . psal . 51.12 . math 8.23 . psal . 36.3 . jer. 17.14 . psal . 89.2 ps . 50.13.14 zach. 1.3 . 1 pet. 1.19 . 1 jo. 1.7 . mat. 10.32 . luke 23 46. psal . 4.9 . and 10. luk. 23.48 . notes for div a34574-e49840 rom. 11.33 . page 18. &c. page 23 &c. page 27. page 49. &c. page 50. * by the papists . * dr. lower . page 50 , page 48. page 49 page 50. page 94. and 97. pa●e 45. page 88. page 90. a choice collection of 120 loyal songs, all of them written since the two late plots, (viz.) the horrid salamanca plot in 1678, and the fanatical conspiracy in 1683. intermixt with some new love songs with a table to find every song to which is added, an anagram, and an accrostick on the salamanca doctor thompson, nathaniel, d. 1687. 1684 approx. 443 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 169 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a62418 wing t1004 estc r221730 99832996 99832996 37471 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a62418) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 37471) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 2156:5) a choice collection of 120 loyal songs, all of them written since the two late plots, (viz.) the horrid salamanca plot in 1678, and the fanatical conspiracy in 1683. intermixt with some new love songs with a table to find every song to which is added, an anagram, and an accrostick on the salamanca doctor thompson, nathaniel, d. 1687. [12], 264 p. printed by n.t. at the entrance into the old spring garden near charing-cross, london : 1684. preface signed: n. t., i.e. nathaniel thompson. with two preliminary contents leaves and a preliminary advertisement leaf. stained, torn and cropped, with some loss of print. reproduction of the original in the bodleian library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng political ballads and songs -england -early works to 1800. popish plot, 1678 -poetry -early works to 1800. rye house plot, 1683 -poetry -early works to 1800. great britain -history -stuarts, 1603-1714 -poetry -early works to 1800. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-07 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 john latta sampled and proofread 2006-09 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a choice collection of 120 loyal songs , all of them written since the two late plots , ( viz. ) the horrid salamanca plot in 1678. and the fanatical conspiracy in 1683. intermixt with some new love songs with a table to find every song to which is added , an anagram , and an accrostick on the salamanca doctor . london , printed by n. t. at the entrance into the old spring garden near charing cross . 1684. to the reader . amongst the several means that have been of late years to reduce the deluded multitude to their just allegiance , this of ballads and loyal songs has not been of the least influence . while the fergusons , and heads of the factions were blowing up sedition in every corner of the countrey , these flying choristers were asserting the rights of monarchy , and proclaiming loyalty in every street . the mis-inform'd rabble began to listen ; they began to hear to truth in a song , in time found their errors , and were charm'd into obedience . those that despise the reverend prelate in the pulpit , and the grave judge on the bench ; that will neither submit to the laws of god or man , will yet lend an itching ear to a new song , nay , and often become a convert by it , when all other means prove ineffectual . divine herbert has it excellently exprest , where he says , a verse may find him who a sermon flies , and turn delight into a sacrifice . it cannot be imagin'd how many scatter'd flocks this melodious tingling hath reduced to their princely hives , who otherwise had never been brought under the discipline of obedience or government . and , without ostentation , i may say , i printed my news-papers ( that always ▪ vindicated the king and government ) to undeceive the people , who were daily impos'd upon by curtis , smith , harris , care , vile , baldwin , janeway , &c. when no body else would or durst . for this the malice of the factious party swell'd so high against me , that they , with the assistance of a certain instrument , ( who swore through two brick-walls before oates appear'd ) caused me to be imprison'd six times , so that for near five years i was never free from trouble , having seldom less than 3 , or 4 indictments at a sessions against me ; at other times information upon information in the crown-office , which villainous contrivances of their agents , cost me at last 500 l. in money , besides the loss of my trade and reputation ; the principal crimes they alledged against me , were , let oliver now be forgotten ▪ a song ; a hue and cry after t. o. when turn'd from white-hall ; the character of an ignoramus doctor ; a dialogue between the devil and the doctor ; the prisoners lamentation for the loss of sheriff bethel ; and at last for oates's manifesto ▪ all which phamphlets tended to no other evil than the laying open the villanies of oates and the rest of his perjur'd disciples : but ( thanks be to god ) tempora mutantur , &c. and truth daily shines more & more . these collections ( being of so much use to detect the scandalous lies and falshoods of the factious , and to keep the strong-headed beast within the reins of obedience ) i thought fit to publish , that the world may see i have not been idle in the worst of times , but have done my endeavour ( to the utmost of my talent ) for the interest of the king and government ; which , that they may flourish in spight of all his adversaries , ●s the hearty prayer of your most humble servant , n. t. a table of all the new songs contained in this book . let oliver now be forgotten . page 1. now , now , the tories all shall stoop 3. let us advance the good old cause . 6. now , now , the zealots all must droop . 8. now at last the riddle is expounded . 10. since reformation with whigs in fashion ▪ 13. rouse up great genius of this potent land. 16. since plotting's a trade . 19. bread a geud i think the nation 's mad . 22. from over the seas not long since there came . 26. hail to the knight of the post. 28. once on a time the doctor did swear . 31. what still ye whigs uneasy . 33. listen a while and i 'll tell you a tale. 36. did you not hear of a peer that was try'd . 39. tony was small but of noble race . 42. old jemmy is a lad , &c. 44. the commons now are at a stand . 47. now the tories that glories . 48. rouse up the tories of this factious land. 51. room , room for cavaliers , &c. 53. have you not lately heard , &c. 56. good people of england i hope you have had 59. come now let 's rejoyce , and the city bells ring . 63. now at l●st the matter is decided . 65. fill up the bowl and set it round , &c. 67. let the whigs repine , and tories smile . 70. rouse up great monarch in the royal cause . 73. you free-men and masters and prentices mourn 76. the delights of the bottle are turn'd out of doors . 78. o poland monster of our isle . 82. hay joller ringwood and towzer . 84 ▪ ah cruel bloudy fate , 86. hail to london fair town . 89. prince george at last is come . 91. a tory came late through westminster-hall . 94 the golden age is come . 96. now , now , the plot is all come out . 99. let pickering now be forgotten . 101. oh the mighty innocence , &c. 103. bee my shoul and shoulwation . 106. whigs are now such precious things . 109. the plot god w●t is all broke out . 111. beloved hearken all , o hone. 113. wealth breeds care , love hope and fear . 115. hark the thundring cannons roar. 117. let the moors repine their hopes resign . 119. you calvinists of england . 121. ye whigs and dissenters , i charge you attend . 125 there was a monstrous doctor . 127. i hil tell thee tom the strangest story . 130. twa bony lads were sawny and jocky . 134 ▪ at winchester was a wedding ▪ 136. when traytors did at popery rail . 139. let wine turn a spark and ale huff like a hector . 142 hark , how noll and bradshaw's heads , &c. 145. good people i pray give ear unto me , &c. 148. the second part , ibid. 151. rebellion hath broken up house . 155. remember y● whigs what was formerly done . 158 come listen a while tho the weather be cold . 160. i 'll t●ll you a tale tho before 't was in print . 162 when the plot i first invented . 165. i 'm glad to hear the cannons roar . 167. alas what is like to become of the plot. 170. hells restless factious agents still plot on . 172. no● loyal tories may tryumph in glories . 173. 〈◊〉 and ambition alas will deceive you . 176. 〈◊〉 for great algernoon . 177. joy to great caesar , &c. 179. you london lads rejoyce , &c. 181. hark the fatal day is come , &c. 185. hail to the prince of the plot. 187. have you heard of forty one sir. 189. my bony dear sh●ny , my crony , my hony. 191. from the tap in the guts of the honourable stump . 193. defend us from all popish plots . 195. from councel of 6 where treason prevails . 196. ye london lads be sorry . 198. you loyal lads be merry , &c. 200. who would not be a tory. 202· let the whigs repine and all combine . 205. now the antichristian crew , &c. 207. now , now , the bad old cause is tapt . 209. i hang and behead until you be dead . 212. come all you caballers and parliament votes . 213. 't was a foolish fancy jemmy . 215. rouse , rouse my laisy myrmidons . 217. faction and folly alas will deceive you . 219. let canons roar from sea to shore . 221. have you heard of a festival convent . 222. ods hearty wounds i se not to plowing . 225. now by my love the greatest oaths , &c. 226. o the plot discoverers . 227. drown melancholy in a glass of wine . 228. make room for an honest red-coat . 231. our oates , last week not worth a gr●at . 234. some say , the papists had a plot. 437. now innocent blood 's almost forgot . 236. there is an old story . 241. come , cut again ; the game 's not done . 243. informing of late's a notable trade . 246. since counterfeit plots have affected this age. 248. the deel assist the plotting whigs . 251. jack presbyter's up , and hopes at one swoop . 253. this is the cabal of some protestant lords . 255. come make a good toast . 257. ah! cruel bloody tom. 260. tell me no more there must be something in 't . 263. anagram and acrostick on the salamanca sizer . 264. these songs you may have in a large collection , with the notes . together with several loyal poems , prints , and papers upon several occasions , at the entrance into the old-spring-garden near charing-cross ; also any musick-books or songs may be there printed . books printed and sold by nath. thompson ▪ at the entrance into the old-spring-garden near charing-cross . a narrative of the phanatical plot , setting forth the treasonable and wicked designs which they have been carrying on against the king and government ever since the last westminster parliament . with an account of their treacherous contrivances against several worthy persons , and the measures which was used to take off the evidence by subornation . to which is added a relation of the evil practices of john rouse ( who was lately executed at tyburn ) will. lewis ( who stands convicted ) and others . by john zeal gent. price 1 s. a vindication of the lord russels speech and innocence ; in a dialogue betwixt whig and tory : being the same that was promised to the observator in a penny-post letter . price 4 d. staffords memoirs : or , a brief and impartial account of the birth and quality , imprisonment , tryal and principles , declaration , comportment , devotion , last speech and final end of william late lord viscount stafford , beheaded on tower-hill wednesday the 29th . of december , 1680. whereunto is annexed a short appendix concerning some passages in stephen colledges tryal at oxford . price 1 s. 6 d. the lawyer out-law'd ; or , a brief answer to mr. hunt's defence of the charter . with some useful remarks on the commons proceedings in the last parliament at westminster , in a letter to a friend . price 6 d. a dialoge between the devil & the salamanca dr. a letter to mr. elkana settle , occasioned upon his famous recanting and plot-ridiculing narrative . price 4. d some brief remarks on the debates of the house of commons in the last parliament at oxford , &c. price 6 d. oates's manifesto , or the complaint of titus oates against the dr. of salamanca : and the same dr. against titus oates , occasioned by some inconsistent evidence given about the damnable popish plot. price 6 d. the arraignment of co-ordinate-power ; wherein all arbitrary-proceedings are laid open to all abhorrers and addressers : with a touch at the london petition and charter , &c. very useful for all lawyers and gentlemen ▪ price 1 s. the genealogies of the high-born prince and princess , george ▪ and anne , of denmark , &c. shewing the lineal descent of these two noble and illustrious families : with their matches , issues , times of death , place of sepulcher , impresses , devices , &c. from the year of grace m. to this present year 1684. extracted from the most auth●ntick testimonies of the best hystorians and antiquaries of their times . price bound 1 s. janu● scientiarum : or , a compendious introduction to geography , chronology , government ▪ hystory , phylosophy ; and all gentile sorts of literature . price bound 6 d. anima mundi ; or , an hystorical narration of the opinions of the ancients concerning man's soul after this life ; according to un-enlightened nature . great i● diana of the ephesians ; or , the original of idolatry ; together with the politick institution of the gentiles sacrifices . both bound together , price 1 s. 6 d. all three written by charles blount gent. the compleat swearing-master , &c. the character of an ignoramus doctor . a collection of new loyal songs , made since the beginning of the plot . the tune , how vnhappy is phillis in love. 1. let oliver now be forgotten , his policy 's quite out of dores , let bradshaw and hewson lie rotten , like sons of phanatical whores : for tony's grown a patrician , by voting damn'd sedition , for many years , fam'd politician , the mouth of all presbyter peers . 2. old tony a turn-coat at worster , yet swore he 'd maintain the king 's right ; but tony did swagger and bluster , yet never drew sword on his side . for tony is like an old stallion , he has still the pox of rebellion , and never was sound ; like the camelion , still changing his shape and his ground . 3. old rowley's return'd ( heavens bless him ) from exile and danger set free ; old tony made hast to address him , and swore none more loyal than he the king , who knew him a traytor , and saw him squint like a satyr ; yet through his grace pardon'd the matter , and gave him since the purse and the mace. 4. and now little chancellour tony , with honour had feather'd his wing , and carefully pick'd up the money , but never a groat for the king : but tony's luck was confounded ; the duke who smoak'd him a round-head ; from head to heel tony was sounded , great york soon put a spoke in his wheel . 5. but now little tony in passion , like boy that had nettl'd his breech , maliciously took an occasion , to make a most delicate speech ; he told the king like a croney ; if e're he hop'd to have money , he must be rul'd : oh fine tony ! was ever potent monarch so school'd ? 6. the king issues out a proclamation , by learned and loyal advice ; but tony possesses the nation the councel will never be wise : for tony is madder and madder , and monmouth's blown like a bladder , and l — e too , who grows gladder , that they great york are like to subdue . 7. but destiny shortly will cross it , for tony's grown gouty and sick , in spight of his spiggot and fawcet the states-man must go to old nick : for tony rails at the papists , yet he himself is an atheist ; though so precise , foolish and apish , like holy quack or priest in disguise . 8. but now let this rump of the law see , a maxim as learned in part ; who e're with his prince is too sawcy , 't is fear'd he 's a traytor in 's heart , then tony cease to be witty , by buzzing treason i' th' city ; and love the king , so ends my ditty , or else let him die like a dog in a string . the whigs exaltation , a pleasant new song , to an old tune of forty one. 1. now , now the tories all shall stoop . religion and the laws , and whigs on commonwealth get up to ●a● the good old cause ; tantivy-boys shall all go down , and haughty monarchy , the ●eathern-cap shall brave the throne ; then hey boys up go we . 2. when once that antichristian crew are crush'd , and overthrown , we 'l teach the nobles how to bow , and keep their gentry down , good manners has a bad repute , and tends to pride we see ; we 'l therefore cry all breeding down and hey boys up go we . 3 the name of lord shall be abhorr'd , for ev'ry mans a brother ; what reason 's then in church or state one man should rule another ? thus having peel'd and plunder'd all , and level'd each degree , we 'l make their plump young daughters fall , and hey boys up go we . 4. what though the king and parliament cannot accord together , we have good cause to be content , this is our sun-shine weather ; for if good reason should take place , and they should both agree , d'zounds who wou'd be in a round-heads case ? for hey then up go we . 5. we 'l down with all the ' versities where learning is profes● : for they still practice , and maintain the language of the beast ; we 'l exercise in every grove , and preach beneath a tree ; we 'l make a pulpit of a tub , then hey boys up go we . 6. the whigs shall rule committee-chair , who will such laws invent , as shall exclude the lawful heir by act of parliament : we 'l cut his royal highness down , ev'n shorter by the knee , that he shall never reach the throne , then hey boys up go we . 7. we 'l smite the idol in guild-hall , and then ( as we were wont , ) we 'l cry it was a popish plot , and swear those rogues have don 't ; his royal highness to un-throne our interest will be , for if he e're enjoy his own , then hey boys up go we . 8. we 'l break the windows which the whore of babylon has painted ; and when their bishops are pull'd down , our elders shall be sainted : thus having quite enslav'd the throne , pretending to set free , at length the gallows claims its own , then hey boys up go we . an excellent new hymn , exalting the mobile to loyalty , &c. to the tune of forty one. 1. let us advance the good old cause ; fear not tantivitiers , whose threatnings are as senseless , as our jealousies and fears ; 't is we must perfect this great work , and all the tories slay , and make the king a glorious saint the clean contrary way . 2. it is for liberty we plot , and for the publick good , by making bishops go to pot , and shedding guiltless blood ; we 'l damn the orthodoxal beast , and their adherents slay ; when these are down , we shall be blest the clean contrary way . 3. when we the king have bankrupt lain , of power and crown bereft him , and all his loyal subjects slain , and none but rebels left him ; when we have quite undone the land , by ignoramus sway we 'l settle the succession , and the clean contrary way . 4. 't is to preserve his majesty , that we against him rise , the righteous cause can never die that 's manag'd by the wise , th' association's a just thing , and that does seem to say , who fights for us , fights for the king the clean contrary way . 5. religion still must be th' intent , the nations peace and good , the privledge of parliament so rarely understood ; we 'l pull the laws and reason down , and teach men to obey their sovereign , and the rights o' th' crown the clean contrary way . 6. our properties we 'l upwards set , by imprisonment and plunder , and needy whigs preferment get ▪ to keep all tories under : we 'l keep in pension oates and prance , to swear and to betray the int'rest of the king , t' advance the clean contrary way . 7. what tho' the king be now misled by the old popish crew ? he 'l find our honesty has sped , and give us all our due ; for we ( he knows ) do rail and plot , rebellion to obey , and that we stand for peace and ▪ truth the clean contrary way . 8. and now my noble countrey-men you cannot doubt my zeal , that we have so true and loyal been to king and commonweal ; and if at last we chance to hang for what we do or say ; our comfort is , to heav'n we gang the clean contrary way . a song on his royal highness's return from scotland . to the tune of , hey boys up go we . 1. now , now the zealots all must droop , the synagogues shall down , and truth and loyalty get up , the pillars of the throne ; the whigs ( who loyalty forsook ) shall with one voice agree , to welcom home the mighty duke of york and albany . 2. behold with what a glorious train of noble lords and peers , great york is guarded o're the main , in spight of all our fears ▪ our groundless doubts and jealousies of popish slavery . for who can keep the crowd in peace , but york and albany . 3. the wandring dove that was sent forth to find some landing near , when englands ark was toss●d on floods of jealousies and fears ; returns with olive branch of joy , to set the nation free from whiggish rage , that wou'd destroy great york and albany . 4· and now he is return'd in peace , with all his pompous train , whom heav'n protected o're the seas , to bless this land again ? let us with thankful hearts comply , and joyful harmony ; for scotlands hope , and englands joy , is york and albany . 5. let bumpers flow , and bonfires blaze , and every steeple ring , to set forth royal jemmy's praise , the brother of our king : let trumpets sound , and cannons roar , and with one voice agree , since heav'n again has brought ashoar great york and albany . 6 , these solemn rights they freely gave to ev'y factious brother ; who thought the nation to enslave , and ruine one another ; to monmouth , and each factious lord , to oates and shaftsbury ; but thought it treason to afford to york and albany . 7. now be confounded , all you tribe of ignoramus sway ; who by malicious plots contriv'd to drive the heir away , ( as you did once before to france ) an exile o're the sea ; who ( to your grief ) did home advance great york and albany . 8. and may he , with the joys he wed , together flourish still ; and live to crush the serpents head , whose sting did pierce his heel , till rebels tremble at his name , and all the land agree , the just succession to procliam of york and albany . the riddle of the roundhead . to the tune , now at last the riddle is expounded . 1. now at last the riddle is expounded , which so long the nation has confounded , for the roundhead begins the game again , which so well they play'd in forty four , now with greater hope ; for the fine sham-plots will ne'r give over , till they piously have routed king and pope . 2. anthony that worm of reformation , who of commonwealth has laid foundation , which the nation so hotly does pursue ; let him be rewarded in the tower , for his merits due : by that busie plotting head laid lower , we may perhaps escape what might ensue . 3. perkin make fine legs to the shouting rabble , who to make him king he thinks are able ; but the bauble is only shew'd for use : the silly idiot serves but for a tool still , for knaves to work their feats , and will remain but a dull mistaken fool still , for all their damn'd cabals & wapping treats . 4. the most zealous parliament devoted , for the publick good devoutly voted , pray note it , that the duke must ne'er be king ; and like honest faithfull loyal subjects , his majesty implore , to sign their pious and religious projects , or else the threatn'd king must reign no more . 5. the renowned work of reformation , to be carry'd on throughout the nation , in a passion they vote the canons down : acts and statutes all must be confounded , law and justice too , to make way for the proud rebellious roundhead that they once more the nation may undo . 6. lords and bishops both are useless voted , and the factious crew who gravely plotted , are noted for lords and commons too , whigs and brumighams with shams and stories , are true protestants , and protestants are masquerates and tories , the modern reformation of the saints . 7. old queen bess that made the best indentures , good king jemmy too against dissenters , he ventures ▪ to turn them out of doors ; to take in quakers puritans and ranters , the parliament implores , to build a kirk of whigs and covenanters , and make a lawful race of sons of whores . 8. rowley now with wisdom and grave reason , to prevent the swift approaching treason , in season put a period to their strife ; in oxford all their stratagem● confounded , the roguish joyner too ; and may no better fate attend the roundhead , that wou'd the church and monarchy subdue . 6. oxford loyal youths who scorn to sham us , with a perjur'd bill of ignoramus , or name us for loyal , traytors known ; soon found a flaw i' th bottom of the joyner , by justice and the laws , of church and commonwealth an underminer , who fell a martyr in the good old cause . 10. now for shame ye zealots be confounded , boast no more allegiance , since a roundhead is grounded upon the holy sham : how dare ye talk of loyalty , a hater of justice , king and laws , since the whiggish protestant is found a traytor , and dies a martyr in the good old cause . ignoramus : an excellent song . to the tune of , lay by your pleading 1 since reformation with whig's in fashion , there 's neither equity nor justice in the nation , against their furies , there no such cure is , as lately hath been wrought by ignoramus-juries . compaction of faction that breeds all distraction , is at the zenith point , but will not bear an action . they sham us , and flam us , and ram us , and damn us , and then in spight of law , come off with ignoramus . 2 oh , how they plotted , brimi●hams voted and all the mobile the holy cause promoted ; they preach'd up treason , at ev'ry season , and taught the multitude rebellion was but reason , with breaches , impeaches , and most loyal speeches , with royal bloud again to glut the thirsty leeches . they sham us and flam us , &c. 3 't is such a jury wou'd pass no tory , were he as innocent as a saint in glory : but let a brother ravish his mother , assassinate his king , he wou'd find no other . they shamed , and blamed , at loyallists aimed ; but when a whig's repriev'd the town with beacons flamed they sham us and flam us , &c. 4 this ignoramus with which they sham us , wou'd find against a york , to raise a m — th-amus who clears a traytor ; and a king hater against his lawful prince wou'd find sufficient matter they sought it , and wrought it , like rebels they fought it , and with the price of royal martyrs blood they bought it ▪ they sham us , and flam us , &c. 5 at the old-baily , where rogues flock daily , a greater traytor far then coleman , white or staley was late indicted , witnesses cited , but then he was set free ; so the king was righted ' gainst princes , offences prov'd in all senses ; but ' gainst a whig there 's no truth in evidences ▪ they sham us , and flam us , &c. 6 but wot you what , sir ? they found it not , sir ; 't was ev'ry jurors case , and there lay all the plot , sir. for at this season , shou'd they do reason , which of themselves wou'd scape , if they found it treason ? compassion in fashion , the int'rest of th' nation oh , what a godly point is self-preservation ! they sham us , and flam us , &c. 7 'las what is conscience in baxter's own sense , when int'rest lies at stake , an oath and law is nonsense . now they will banter quaker and ranter , to find a loyallist , and clear a covenanter . they 'l wrangle and brangle , the soul intangle , to save the traytors neck from the old triangle . they flam us , and sham us , &c. 8 alass ! for pitty of this good city , what will the tories say in their drunken dity ? when all abettors . and monarch-haters , the brethren damn'd their souls to save malicious traytors but mind it , long winded , with prejudice blinded , lest what they did reject , another jury find it then sham us , and flam us . and ram us , and damn us . when against king and law you find an ignoramus london's loyalty , to a pleasant new tune , call'd burton-hall . 1 rowze up great genius of this potent land , lest traytors once more get the upper hand ; the rebel crowd their former tenents own , and treason worse than plagues infect the town : the sneaking mayor and his two pimping shreeves , who for their honesty no better are then theeves ; fall from their sov'raigns side , to court the mobile , oh! london , london , where 's thy loyalty ? 2 first , yorkshire patience twirls his copper chain ; and hopes to see a commonwealth again ; the sneaking fool of breaking is affraid ▪ dares not change● is side for fear he lose his trade ; then loyal slingsby does their fate divine — he that abjur'd the king ▪ bnd all his sacred line , and is suppos'd his fathers murderer to be ; oh! bethel , bethel , where 's thy loyalty ? 3 a most noto●ious villain late was caught , and after to the bar of justice brought ; but ●lingsby pack●r a jury of his own , of worser rogues then e're made gallows groan● then dugdales evidence was soon decry'd , that was s● just , and honest● when old stafford dy'd : now was a perjur'd villain , and he ly'd . oh! justice , justice , where 's thy equity ? 4 now cl — ton , murmures treason , unprovok'd , first sup'd the king , and after wish'd him choak't , ' cause danby's place was well bestow'd before , he rebel turns , seduc'd by scarlet whore ; his sawcy pride aspires to high renown , leather breeches are forgot in which he trudg●d to town , nought but the treasury can please the scribling clown oh! robin , robin , where●s thy modesty ? 5 pl — er now grows dull , and pines for want of whore ; poor creswel , she can take his word no more , three hundred pounds , is such a heavy yoak , which not being pay'd , the worn out bawd is broak , these are the instruments by heaven sent , these are the saints petition for a parliament : that would for interest sake , destroy the monarchy : oh! london , london , where 's thy loyalty ? 6 heaven bless fair england , and i'ts monarch here , in scotland , bless your high commissioner , let perkin his ungracious error see and tony scape no more the triple tree : then peace and plenty shall our joyes restore , villains and factions shall oppress the town no more . but every loyal subject then shall happy be , nor need we care for londons loyalty . the loyal health . a court song , to a delicate new tune . 1. since plotting's a trade , like the rest of the nation : let 'em lie and swear on , to keep up the vocation ; let tinkers and weavers , and joyners agree ▪ to find work for the cooper , they 'l have none of me , let politick shams , in the states-men abound , while we quaff off our bumpers , and set the glass round : the jolly true toper's the best subject still , who drinks off his liquor , and thinks no more ill . 2. then let us stand to 't , and like honest men fall , who love king and country ▪ duke , dutchess and all : not such as wou'd blow up the nation by stealth , and out of the flame raise a new commonwealth : not such , who against church and bishops do rage , to advance old jack presbyter , on the new stage . but to all honest tories who 'l fight for their king , and to crown the brave work , with the court wee 'l begin . 3. here 's a health to the king , and his lawful successors to honest tantivies , and loyal addressors ; but a pox take all those , that promoted petitions ▪ to poyson the nation , and stir up seditions ▪ here 's a health to the queen , and her ladies of honour , and a pox take all those , that put sham plots upon her . here 's a health to the duke , and the senate of scotland , and to all honest men , that from bishops ne're got-land . 4 here 's a health to l'estrange , and the boon heraclitus : and true tory thompson , who never did slight us , and forgetting broom , paulin , and alderman wrightus , with tony and bethel , ignoramus and titus ; here 's a health to the church , and all those that are for it , confusion to zealots , and whigs that abhor it , may it ever be safe , from the new mode refiners : and may justice be done upon coopers and joyners . 5. here 's a health to old hall — , who our joys did restore ; and a pox take each popular son of a whore ; to the spaniard and dane , the brave russian and moor , who come from far nations , our king to adore , to all that do worship , the god of the vine , and to old jolly bowman who draws us good wine ; and as for all traytors , whether baptist or whig , may they all trot to tyburn , to dance the old jig . 6 here 's a health to all those , who love the king and his laws , and may they near pledge it that broach'd the old cause here 's a health to the state , and a plague on the pack of commonwealth canters ▪ and presbyrer jack ; to the uppermost pendent that ever did play on the highest top-gallant o th' soveraign o' th' sea ; and he that denies to the standard to lore , may he sink in the ocean , and never drink more . the loyal scot ; an excellent new song , to a new scotch tune . 1. bred of gued ! i think the nation 's ma● and nene but knaves and perjur'd loo● do rule the rost ; and for an honest kerl ne living's to be had why sure the deel is landed on the engl● coast . i ha' ne'r been here sin ' forty three , and now thro' scotland gang , to'l see o● gracious king ; but wunds a gued ! instead of mirth an● mery-glee , i find and s●iv'ling presbyter is coming in . 2. for they talk of horrid popish plots , and heav'n knows what , when au the wiser world knows well what they 'd be at ; for with sike like seeming sanctity the geudest king they did to death and ruine bring . when on the civil-broils they first did enter in , ( as well ye ken ) with popery they did begin ▪ and with liberty and publick geud was muckle din , when the deel a bit they meant the thing . 3 ▪ that machine of monstrous policy , i se mean old shaftsbury for loyalty so ●am'd the voice of all the geudly rabble mobile , the fausest loon that ever envy destin'd damn'd heav'n sure never meant so fou a thing , but to inform the world where villany did dwell : and sike a traytor beath to commonwealth and king the muckle deel did surely never hatch in hell. 4. for , like roman cataline , to gain his pious ends , he pimps for au the loose rebellious fops in toon : and with treats and treason daily crams his city friends , from the link●man to the scarlet-goon . and with high debauchery they carry on the cause , and guedly reformation is the sham pretence ▪ and religiously defie divine and humane laws , with obedience to their rightful prince . 5. then , as speaker , to this grand cabal , old envy tony , seated at the head o●th ' board , his learn'd oration for rebellion makes to all , applauded and approv'd by ev'ry factious lord . cully jemmy then they vote for king , whom curse confound for being sike a senseless loon can they who did their lawful lord to th' scaffold bring be just to him , that has no title to a croon ? 6. but they find he 's a blockhead fitting for their use , a fool by nature , and a knave by custom grown . a gay fop-monarch , that the rabble may abuse and their bus'ness done , will soon unthrone . and jemmy swears and vows , 'gan he can get the croon , he by the laws of forty ene will guided be : and prophane lawn-sleeves and surplices again must doon , then hey for and presbytery . 7. b — m a states-man would be thought , and reason geud that he should bear that rev'rend name , since he was ene of them that first began the plot , how he the king might banter , and three kingdoms sham. au the male-contents his noble grace to this rehearsal did invite , to hear and see : but , whilst he wittily contriv'd it but a farce , the busier noddles turn'd it into tragedy . 8. and now each actor does begin to play his part , and too so well he cons his geer , and takes his cue , till they learn to play the rebel so by rote of heart , that the fictitious story seems most true. and now , without controll , they apprehend and hang and with the nation au is gospel that they swear : then , bonny jockey , prithee back to'l scotland gang , for a loyal lad's in danger here . the state empirick , a new song . to the tune of , which no body can deny . 1. from over the seas not long since there came , a doctor of most notorious fame , if you please you may guess at his vn-christian name . which no body can deny . 2. this doctor came hither to cure three nations . who were so silly as to be his patients ; and first he blooded 'em for the fashions . which no body can deny . 3. the med'cine he brought was called a plot , which was compounded of the devil knows what : when first he arriv'd it was piping-hot . which , &c. 4. but if we may guess at the damn'd composition ▪ 't was a mess of all sorts of english sedition , made up by a presbyterian physician . which , &c. 5. to make each dose go down the safer , what do's the still this learned gaffer , but cover it o'r with a papist●s wafer . which , &c. 6. as soon as 't was swallow'd , the patient began to stare and to talk like a lunatick man , of pistols and daggers , to kill and trapan . which , &c. 7. to some 't was emetick , to others cathartick , ( i mean , to all those who of it did partake , ) in short , it made every honest mans heart-ake . which , &c. 8. to say truth we were all in a filthy condition this voided a libel , that spew'd a petition , for which we may thank in part our physician . which , &c. 9. at last it made our bloud so ferment , that a rancorous sore from men's body's was sent : the vlcer , i mean , of a strange parliament . which , &c. 10. it 's venom upon each member was shed ; the body it almost had over-spread , nay , it had e●en like to have seiz'd on the head. which , &c. 11. but one wiser then all , did giv 't such a thump , that it burst and went out , just next to the rump . which made with joy ev'ry loyal heart jump . which ▪ &c. 12. this vlcer was full of pistol and sword , with blunderbuss and with your things made of board , your protestant flayls to fight for the lord. which , &c 13. o doctor ! i fear , you study'd art magick , to compass your ends , which still were so tragick : but now it is hop'd that we may lead you a jig . which , &c. 14. or else i am sure , without being uncivil , a man my believe you deal with the devil , for no body else could have wrought us such evil. which , &c. 15. your canting was charm , rebellion your witch , with these you gave the poor rabble the itch , when like emp'rick on stage you made 'em a speech . which , &c. 16. y' are jilted you see by faction your whore , your little tap-pug can help you no more : hell ow's both a spite , and will pay ye the score . which no body can deny . titus tell-troth : a song to the tune of , hail to the myrile shades . 1. hail to the knight of the post ; to titus the chief of the town titus who vainly did boast of the salamancha gown ; titus who saw the world o're , from the tower of valadolid , yet stood in the white-horse door , and swore to it , like the creed . 2. titus at watton in may , to titus at islington ; and titus the self same day both here and there again . titus who never swore truth , his politick plots to maintain , and never yet bawk'd an oath , when call'd to the test again . 3. then titus was meekest of all , when never a peny in 's purse , and oft did on pickering call , his charity to imburse . but when he swore damnable oaths , and lying esteemed no sin , then titus was one of those whom the devil had entred in . 4. then titus the frown of heav'n , and titus a plague upon earth ; titus who 'l ne'r be forgiven , curs'd from his fatal birth ; titus the curse and the doom of the rich and the poor man too ; oh titus , thou shred of a loom , what a plague dost thou mean to do ? 5. titus an orthodox beast , and titus a presbyter tall ; titus a popish priest , and titus the shame of all ; titus who ne'r had the skill the wise with his plots to deceive but titus whose tongue can kill ; whom nature has made a sla ▪ 6. titus the light of the town , where zealots and whigs do resort ; titus the shame of the gown , and titus the scorn of the court ; titus who spew'd out the truth , to swallow the covenant ; yet never blush'd at an oath , whom lying has made a saint . 7. yet titus believed cou'd be against any popish lord ; whilst still ag●inst shaftsbury the witness and truth ●s abhor'd ; so titus got credit and gold for lying , an thought it no sin ; but against dissenters bold the truth is not worth a pin . 8. thus titus swore on a pace , ' gainst those whom he never did see ; yet titus with brazen face wou'd our preserver be . but as titus the foremost in trust discover'd this mistery : may titus so be the first that leads to the triple-tree . the compleat swearing-master : to the tune of , now now the fight 's done . 1. once on a time , the dr. did swea● , by the help of his friend the prince of the air. he was busie in consult , one day in spain , and on the same day in england again , and the dr. did wear that noble don john , though little and fair , was a tall black man. 2. the dr. swore he brought commissions to town from father oliva , to men of renown : to raise mighty force , the king to destroy , for which many ruffians the pope did imploy ; and the dr. did swear that little don john , was black , and also a very tall man. 3. that forty thousand pilgrims there were , arm'd with black bills , that march'd in the air and ready to strike when the pope should command , and carry to rome poor little england . and the dr. did swear as few others can , that little don john is a tall black man. 4. and the dr. did swear he had letters full many but for all he swore , he ne'r produc'd any , it 's much he kept none to make out the matter but it may be he lost them , in crossing the water ; but that 's all one the dr. swore on , that little don john was a tall black man. 5. he swore two hundred thousand pounds sent to ireland , which was all to be spent : in squibs to burn houses , amunition and bills , and pay popish doctors for king killing pills : which he swore had been done if the plot had gon on , and then swore don john a very tall man. 6. and the dr. did swear he knew not some men , yet afterwards swore , he knew them again ; and the dr. did swear by the fair candle-light he could not discern a man from a mite : but believe him who will , for i hardly can , that little don john is a tall black man. 7. and he swore he always a protestant was , and ne'r car'd a fart for pope or for mass , and he swore he went to st. omers to find what the jesuits had against england design'd . and the dr. did swear , deny it who can , that little don john was a tall black man 8. and the dr. did swear a thousand things more that discovering the plot had made him so poor , and he swore himself 700 pounds worse , but a pox of all lies , take that with a curse : but i le not beleiv't , although others can , that little don john is a tall black man. 9. now if it should please the dr. to swear to keep his hand in , a man is a bear ; or the dr. will swear his soul to the devil , he wall do it for me , i love to be civil ; every man in his way , let the dr. swear on , but i beg his excuse in the size of don john. 10. the dr. may swear the crow to be white , or a pigmey to be of gygantick height , or double his numbers of pilgrims and bills , and swear them drawn up in lincolns-inn-fields . i hear 't and believ 't as much as i can , that little don john is a tall black man , 11. there 's no stopping the tide , let the dr. swear on . the black is the fair , or the fair the black man , or swear what he will i care not a t — , i 'de as soon as his , take another mans word : so dr. be damn'd and swear all you can , don john is not tall , nor yet a black man : a tory in a whig's coat : to the tune of , vp with aley , &c. 1. what ! still ye whigs uneasie ! will nothing coll your brain , unless great charles , to please-ye , will let ye drive his wain ? then up with prance and oats , and up with knaves a pair ; but down with him that votes against a lawful heir . 2. your grievance is remov'd , old staufford's made a saint , though you but little prov'd , the karle away you sent . then up with all your spight , and shevv us vvhat you mean ; i fear me , by this light , ye long to vent your spleen . 3. that peerless house af commons . so zealous for the lord , meant ( piously ) vvith some on 's to flesh the godly sword : then up vvith au the leaven , with each dissenting loon , then up with bully stephen ; but colledge is gone doon . 4. what wou'd those loons have had ? what makes 'em still to mutter ? i think thy're au gone mad , they keep so muckle clutter : then up with pilk and sute , another blessed pair ; and up with e'ry brute ; but chiefly goatham's mayo ▪ 5. our salamancha-priest has left his flock in hast ; and shrevvdly is he mist ; which makes us all gast : then up vvith lads of vvorth , with baldwin , v●le and care ; for these must novv hold forth , and dick shall nose a pray'r . but is our parson gone ; and whither gone i trow ? what , back agen to spain ? gued faith e'n let him go : then up with blundering s. the tories plague , i trow ; 't is he our cause must bless with characters , and so . — 7. but scurvy heraclitus , and roger too is rude , and nat , who plagues poor titus , which makes us chew the cud : then up with associations , remonstrances and libels ; 't is these must save three nations , and will presreve our bibles 8. the popish fox does seem to sleep his time away ; but his pernicious dream is only to betray : then up with how. the mole , and many more that be ; but up with little pole upon the highest tree . 9. hieraclitus is a debtor , to some within the city , who sent him sike a letter , he 'l pay them in a ditty : then up with au dissenters , up with 'em in a cart : and up with him that ventures his majesty to thwart . 10. but now great york is come , ( whom heaven still be with ) you 'll find ( both all and some ) 't was ill to shew your teeth : then up with e●ry round-head , and e'ry factious brother , you 're luck is now confounded . ye au must up together . the protestant flayl : to the tune of , lacy's maggot ; or , the hobby-horse . 1. listen a while , and i 'l tell you a tale of a new device of a protestant flayl ; with a thump , thump , thump , a thump , thump , a thump , thump . this flayl it was made of the finest vvood , well lin'd vvith lead , and notable good , for splitting of brains , and shedding of bloud of all that withstood , with a thump , thump , &c. 2. this flayl vvas invented to thrash the brain , and leave behind not the vvait of a grain , with a thump , &c. at the handle-end there hung a weight , that carried vvith it unavoidable fate , to take the monarch a rap in the pate , and govern the state. with a thump , &c. 3. it took its degree in oxford-town , and with the carpenter went down , with a thump , &c. if any durst his might oppose , he had you close , in spight of your nose , to carry on clever the good old cause , and down with the laws , with a thump , &c. 4 with this they threatned to fore-stall the church , and give the bishops a mawl with a thump , &c. if king and lords would not submit to the joyner's will while the house did sit , if this in the right place did hit , the cause it would split , with a thump , &c. 5. two handfuls of death , with a thong hung fast , by a zealot who hang'd himself at last , with a thump , &c. with a moving head both stiff and stout , found by the protestant joyner out , to have at the king & the laws t'other bout ▪ and turn them both out , with a thump , &c. 6. invinsibly 't wou'd deal his blovvs , all to maintain the good old cause , with a thump , &c wou'd liberty and freedom bring to every thing except the king , at monarchy it had a fling , and took its svving , with a thump , &c. 7. this flayl vvas made of the nevvest fashion , to heal the breaches of the nation , with a thump , &c. if faction any difference bred , t●vvon'd split the cause in the very head , till monarchy reel'd , and loyalty bled , and vvere knock'd in the head , with a thump , &c. 8. when any strife vvas in the state , this flayl vvou'd end the vvhole debate , with a thump , &c. ' gainst arbitrary power of state , and popery vvhich the zealots hate , it vvou'd give them such a rap on the pate , they must yield to their fate , with a thump , &c. 9. it had a thousand virtues more , and had a salve for every sore , with a thump , &c. with this they thought to have maintain'd , the loyal tribe , and royalists brain'd : but the joyner vvas hang'd , and the flayl vvas arraign●d and the conquest regain'd , with a thump , &c. 10. may tony and all our enemies , meet vvith no better fate then his , with a thump , &c. may charles still live to rule the state , and york , ( vvhom all dissenters hate ) to be reveng'd upon their pate , by timely fate , with a thump , thump , thump a thump , thump , a thump , thump . ignoramus●justice , to the tune of , sir egledemore . 1. did you not hear of a peer that was try'd ? with a fa ▪ la , la , la , la. that looks like a cask with a tap in his side ; with a fa , la , la , la , la. this noble peer to the bar was call'd ; the witnessses sworn , but the fore-man out-baul'd ; with a fa , la , la , la , la. 2. then up sir samuel did start ; with a fa , la , &c. and found the bill not worth a f — ; with a fa , la , &c. with that the court kept such a stir , the fore-man should prove so s●yll a sir , with a fa , la , &c. 3. the witnesses for the king swore plain ; with a fa , la , &c. but had they been as many again ; with a fa , la , &c. the jury before such truths receiv'd , nor them , nor st. peter they wou'd have believ'd ; with a fa , la , &c. 4. the witnesses brought him a traytor in ; with a fa , la , &c. but the jury found it another thing ; with a fa , la , &c. for he who did still his king oppose , is made a true subject in spight of the laws ; with a fa , la , &c. 5. thus this great lord of high renown ; with a fa , la , &c. th' exalted idol of the town ; with a fa , la , &c. is clear'd by ignoramus-sway , for betraying the church and the king in a day , with a fa , la , &c. 6. the rabble to shew their loyalty ; with a fa , la , &c. did in full shouts with the jury agree ; with a fa , la , &c. they bonfires made with great applause , and all to maintain the good old cause ; with a fa , la , &c. 7. and now in spight of king and queen ; with a fa , la , &c. more jollity was in the streets to be seen ; with a fa , la , &c. then on the twenty ninth of may , though it was the restauration-day ; with a fa , la , &c. 8. another passage i chanc●d to hear ; with a fa , la , &c. that the doctor is fallen from the front to the rear ; with a fa , la , &c. he to the saints does now incline , abjures the king , with the rebels combines ; vvith a fa , la , &c ▪ 9. yet these pretend now for to inherit ; vvith a fa , la , &c. ( as heirs do estates ) the light of the spirit ; vvith a fa , la , &c. yet let them say or do what they will , they 'l find themselves ignoramus still ; vvith a fa , la , &c. 10. but had it been a popish lord ; vvith a fa , la , &c. one witness then had serv'd in a word ; vvith a fa , la , &c. they had not then enquir'd so far ; but found it , and never have stept from the bar vvith a fa , la , &c. 11. if by this law the charter be lost ; with a fa , la , &c. will tony's estate repay all the cost ? with a fa , la , &c. the boys will then find out the cheat. and de de witt the old cam●al in his retreat ; with a fa , la , &c. 12. they 'l curse that pate that studied to bring ; with a fa , la , &c. plague to the country , and ruine to th' king ; with a fa , la , &c. divested thus of citophel's pride , they 'l do him that justice which juries deny'd with a fa , la , &c. the loyal feast● ; to the tune of sawney will never be my love again . 1. tony was small , but of noble race , and was beloved of ev'ry one ; he broach'd his tap , and it ran apace to make a solemn treat for all the town he sent to yeoman , knight , and lord , the holy tribe to entertain with all the nation cou'd afford , but tony will never be himself again . 2. he sent to the shambles for all their store , and left behind neither fowl nor beast ; the spiggot ran swift and fain wou'd do more to make all the lords a noble feast ; he sent to market , sent to fair , his loyal guests to entertain , but of the banquet he had no share , and tony will never be himself again . 3. at two great halls in london town , design'd to meet a zealous crew of lords and knights of high renown , and all were protestants true blue . they threw in guineys free as brass , the noble frolick to maintain , but on great charles the sham wou'd not pass and tony will &c. 4. with duty to their lawful prince , a loyal subject every one ; to pray for him is the pretence , and then to rail and plot against the crown from church they did intend to th' hall , their noble guests to entertain ; but they were routed , horse and all , and tony &c. 5. in favour of the king and duke , the heir-apparent of the throne , his highness they exclude , and took a fop-pretender of their own ; the meek guide moses they withstand , a golden calf to entertain ; but royal charles he dispers'd the band , and tony , &c. 6. the bloody papists shall no more contrive against his life and reign : tho' it was themselves did the feat before , and are as ready to do 't again . thus they exclude the rightful heir , the gaudy fop to entertain , but they were met by the good lord mayor , and tony &c. 7. with thanks and pray'rs for our good king they vow'd to sacrifice the day ; but royal charles he smoak'd out the thing ; and sent the rable with a pox away . he sent his summons to the cit , seditious meetings to restrain , the feast was broke , and the guests were besh — , and tony &c. 8 and now the capons flye about , with frigaces of ambergreece , and chickens ready drest they shout about the street for pence a piece : the whigs did wish the council choak'd , who did this noble feast restrain ; all down in the mouth to be thus bawk'd , poor tony will never be himself again . old jemmey . tune of , young jemmey . 1. old jemmy is a lad right lawfully descended ; no bastard born nor bred , nor for a whig suspended : the true and lawful heir to th' crown , by right of birth and laws , and bravely will maintain his own , in spight of all his foes . 2. old jemmy is the top and chief amongst the princes ; no mobile gay fop , with brimigham pretences : a heart and soul so wondrous great and such a conqu'ring eye , that every loyal lad fears not in jemmy's cause to die . old jemmy is a prince of noble resolutions . whose powerful influence can order our confusions : but oh! he fights with such a grace no force can him withstand ; no god of war but must give place where jemmy leads the van 4. to jemmy every swain does pay due veneration ; and scotland does maintain his title to the nation : the pride of all the court he stands the patron of his cause , the joy and hope of all his friends the terrour of his foes . 5. maliciously they vote , to work old jemmy's ruin , and zealously promote a bill for his undoing : both lords and commons most agree to pull his highness down ; but ( ' spight of all their policy ) old jemmy's heir to th' crown . 6. the schismatick and saint , the baptist and the athiest , swear by the covenant , old jemmy is a papist ; whilst all the holy crew did plot to pull his highness down , great albany a noble scot did raise unto a crown . 7. great albany they swear , he before any other , shall be immediate heir unto his royal brother , who will in spight of all his foes , his lawful rights maintain , and all the fops that interpose , old jemmy's york again . 8. the whigs and zealots plot to banish him the nation , but the renowned scot hath wrought his restauration . with high respects they treat his grace his royal cause maintain ; brave albany ( to scotland's praise ) is mighty york again . 9. against his envious fates the kirk hath taught a lesson ; a blessing on the states , to settle the succession . they real were , both knight and lord and will his rights maintain ; by royal parliament restor'd , old jemmy's come again . 10. and now he 's come again , in spight of all pretenders , great albany shall reign amongst the faiths defenders . let whig and brimigham repine ; they shew their teeth in vain ; the glory of the brittish line , old jemmy's come again . the honour of great york and albany , to a new tune . 1. the commons now are at a stand , and evermore i hope shall be ; for scotland will be a help at hand , for great james duke of al-ba-ny . for scotland , 2. a braver nation he can't have , for love , for truth , for loyalty ; each man will fight into his grave , for great james duke of albany . each man , &c. 3. a souldier stout is he , and brave , as ever any man did see , god bless the king , and queen , and save our great james , duke of albany , god bless , &c. 4. he very wise , and pious is , there 's no man knows the contrary ; then damn'd be him that thinks amiss , of great james duke of albany . then damn'd &c. 5 ▪ all loyal subjects him must love , the heir apparent , still is he , next to the king , there 's none above our great james duke of albany . next to the king , &c. 6. then let our reason our ill will sway , and every man upon his knee , i do not mean to drink , but pray , for great james duke of albany . i do not mean , &c. 7. there 's no man is so mad to think , that drinking can availing be , 't is better for to fight than drink , for great james duke of albany . 't is better , &c. 8. yet do not think i 'll bawk his health , but with my cup , most moderately , i 'll drink , i 'll fight , and spend my wealth , for great james duke of albany . i 'll drink , i 'll fight , and spend , &c. the well-wishers to the royal family . to a new tune . 1. now the tories , that glories in royal jemmy's return , the tavern shall roar it and score it , your caps and bonnets burn : let the lads and lasses set foot foot in their turn ; and he that passes his glasses , may he never scape the horn : royal james is come again , there 's for honest men room again , the true heir is come again ; fop pretenders we scorn , then hey boys laugh it , and quaff it , let whigs and zealots mourn . 2. let impeaches and speeches be with the authors pull'd down ; and all that preaches or teaches against the heir of the crown : no more the zealous shall tell us of the succession of the throne ; till the rebellious so zealous , his lawful interest own : monarchy is got up again , every man take his cup again , till we make the whigs stoop again : who our peace wou'd enthrall : and every rebel that libel'd , do at his foot stool fall , 3. let 's be loyal and joy-al , spite of each factious caball , who daily deny all , defie all , that we can loyalty call ; who smoaking , and soaking , with the return of the rump , sadly looking , sit croaking , to see it wore to 'th stump ; then set the glass round again , for our time let 's not spend in vain , but let us now drink a main , fill it up to the brim : come round boys let 's trowl it & bowl it , till our joys they do swim . 4. for him our choices and voices , shall all hereafter be free , whilst each one rejoyces , our noises shall defend the raging o' th sea ; we 'l attend him , befriend him , let malice vote what it will ; coyn we 'l lend him , defend him , and we 'l rejoyce in him still : then let us no mirth refrain , since that now he is safe again , well having escap'd the main ; from the salt waters set free , then hey boys laugh it , and quaff it , and let us mery be . 5. though the zealous , grow jealous , and create much needless fear , by which means they 'd drill us and will us . like themselves to appear ; but no wonder , since plunder , is that at which they aim , that the whigs wander under religious guile , which they shame : but at last we have found them , and from the bottom unwound them , so that each man may found them , and laugh at the old cause , which was the ruine and undoing , of king and kingdoms laws . 6. then let 's rout 'em and flout 'em , who rails at the succession , that would rout him whom we so esteem , beyond all expression ; fill clarret , who 's for it ? and let each bumper go round , who doth bar it , or spare it may he with goats horns be crown'd : here 's a health to the dutchess , grant her long life , health , and riches , and a young prince is all our wishes , whilst all the factious repine then come away wi 't , ne'r stay it , let no man baulk his wine . london's joy and loyalty on his royal highnesses return from scotland . 1. rouze up ye tories of this factious land , now loyalty hath got the upper-hand : the rabble-rout their errours shall disclaim , and homage pay to york's illustrious name ; the london mayor is faithful to his trust , and the two present sh'riffs wou'd fain be counted just ; and every factious rebel through the town agree to shew the heighth of london's loyalty . 2. now the loud threatning tempest is dispers'd , and all their shamming plots are quite revers'd ; great jemmy's happy restauration here makes a new day in london ●s hemisphere : the clouds are gone that did oppress his reign , and joyful day breaks forth in this glad land again . then to the mighty duke of york and albany now london , london , shew thy loyalty . 3. a royal pair with their illustrious train , to london's joy are now return'd again ; great gracious charles does in the front appear , and princely york advances in the rear ; the right successor is return'd again , whom former faction sent an exile o'r the main , then to the mighty duke of york and albany now london , london shew thy loyalty . 4. heave'n bless the king , preserve the lawful heir , let ●ories sing , and brimighams despair : to see great york invested in his own , spight of all fop pretenders to the throne ; then truth and justice shall our joys restore ; associations shall destroy our peace no more , but to our gracious king , with york and albany all subjects seek ▪ to shew their loyalty . the tory song on his highness return from scotland . to the tune of , the prince of orange 's delight . 1. room , room for cavaliers , bring us more wine , his highness is landed , about with the glass ; the brimigham-piece is but counterfeit coyn yet fain for good sterling among as wou'd pass . hey bowman more wine , fill up to the brim ; while zealots repine we 'll frolick and sing ; for oats , is confounded , that turn-coated round-head ; then let us be loyal , and true to our king : 2. a little old conjurer threw so much brass , and pewter and copper amongst the true coyn that hardly a peny of money can pass , but what is clipt , plated , or wash'd very fine but thine boy , and mine , bears the stamp of the king ; then let 's have more wine , while good money we bring ; john thum is confounded , that brazen-fac'd round-head ; then let us be loyal , and true to our king. 3. with such a bold , impudent and brazen-face they'd pass for true mettle , although but wash'd o'r ; the kings stamp & image they only disgrace as they did their lord and creators before ; but thine boy , and mine , bears the stamp of the king , then let 's have more wine , while good money we bring ; for care is confounded , that scismatick round-head ; then let us be loyal , and true to our king. 4. yet ( what is most noted ) these brimigham elves , to bear the true stamp are so brazen'd with art , that they wou'd have nothing to pass but themselves , although they 're but copper and gaul at the heart . but thine boy , and mine , bears the stamp of the king , then let 's have more wine , while good sterling we bring ; for dick is confounded , that libelling roundhead , then let us be loyal , and true to our king. 5. they call themselves loyal , nay more , love the king yet royalists , tory and papist mis call ; and rail at all those who stand up for the thing , with l'strange , heraclitus and thompson , & all gainst these the slaves their libels they fling ; yet they are the knaves , that do libel the king ; but langley's confounded , that pamphletting roundhead ; then let us be loyal , and true to our king. 6. thus brimighams still the stamp royal rebukes with brazen-fac'd impudence guided so fine who hates the king's picture as well as the dukes , and loves it in nothing , unless in his coyn ; but let him still pass for a counterfeit thing , about with the glass , and merrily sing ; for ben is confounded ; that cuckoldly round-head ; then let us be loyal , and true to our king. to the king and the queen , fill it up to the top. the d. & the dutchess , whom heav'n has restor'd ; and next , hans in kelder , the royal blew-cap ; to all the true issue and each loyal lord : crown every glass , fill 'em up to the brim : about let 'em pass , while we merrily sing ; for baldwin's confounded , that impudent round-head ; then let us be loyal , and true to our king. 8. to brave albemarle the next we 'l pursue , with worster and clarendon , seymour , and hall — to all to their king , and their country are true , who loyalty love , and confound the caball . if monarchy shine , and bowman but bring good store of brisk wine , we 'l make the dog ring ; for tony's confounded , that spiggoted round-head ; then let us be loyal , and true to our king. the plot cram'd into jones placket to the tune of , jones placket is torn , &c. 1. have you not lately heard of lords sent to the tower , who ' gainst the popish plotters , seem'd men of chiefest power : but now they 're got into the plot , and all their power 's in vain , for the plot is rent and torn , and can never be mended again , 't is rent and torn , and torn and rent , and rent and torn in twain : for the plot is rent and torn , and will never be mended again . 2. fitz-harris they suppos'd a sitting instrument , the duke , the queen , and king himself to circumvent : but now he 's hang'd and all his gang will follow the same strain , for the plot is rent and torn , and will never be mended again , &c. 3. the joyner he did march to oxford , to be try'd , where he did find a jury , who were not whiggify'd : and for his joyning in the plot , a halter he did gain , for the plot is rent and torn ▪ and will never be mended again , &c. 4. they say that mr. dugdale , so honest and so true , is one of the king●s evidence , against this wicked crew : and now they aim him to defame , but all will be in vain , for the plot is rent and torn , and will never be mended again , &c. 5. the crafty shaftsburyy , is caught in his own snare , he has hired many rogues , themselves for to forswear : are now undone , with hetherington , and all his hired train , for the plot is rent and torn and will never be mended again , &c. 6. thus innocence we see begins for to appear , since rogues for want of pardons , the truth are fain to swear : had it been so , some years ago , we 'd hit on the right vein , for the plot is rent and torn , and will never be mended again ▪ &c. 7. the pious commons vote it was a popish plot , which factious lords promote , 't was death to think it not ; thus piously they all agree a plot for to maintain , but now ' ●is rent and torn , and will never be mended again , &c. 8. against the lawful heir , full many a bill they pass upon the royal chair to place a gawdy ass ; but they may ride to 'th devil astride with noll new plots to feign , for the plot is rent and torn , and will never he mended again , &c. 9. when they cou'd rail no more of pious lords and peers , to set them as before together by the ears ; to shrives and mayor they made this prayer , they wou'd the plot maintain , but now 't is rent and torn , and will never be mended again , &c. 10. brave rich and famous north , ( whom factions did oppose ) for loyalty and worth , the noble mayor has chose , who hand in hand will faithful stand to royal charles's reign , for the plot is rent and torn , and will never be mended again . 't is rent and torn , and torn and rent ; and rent and torn in twain . for the plot is rent and torn , and will never be mended again . the happy return of the old dutch miller . to the tune of the first . 1. good people of england i hope you have had experience of my art in my trade ; for i am the miller that was here before , that ground women young , of four or five score . then make hast customers , bring in your tribes ; i l'e quickly dispatch them without any bribes . for i am so zealous for whiglanders crew i l'e cure their distempers with one turn or two. 2. and now ( for your comfort ) i am come again to cure the defection amongst all your men ; whether they be factious , stupid or lame ; let 's see e're a chymist that can do the same . then make hast customers , &c. 3. if you have e're a city that 's troubl'd with simples ; that 's over-rich grown , and has rebellious pimples i 'le strip it of all these defects in an hour , and make it submit to the king or the tower. then come away customers , &c. 4. if any pretending whigg sheriffs yet dare , ( in the year of his office ) arrest the lord mayor ; let them come to my mill , if their insolence must be taken a peg lower , i 'l grind them to dust then make hast customers , &c. 5. if any grave alderman perjures and swears , till he runs the great hazard of loosing his ears . let him bring but his toll , and to cover his shame i 'le hide him i' th hopper , and dip him i' th' dam ▪ then make hast customers , &c. 6. if any hot zealots , or turbulent cits , with tumults & riots run out of their wits ; for the toll i 'l so tame 'em , that they shall be all like flour of patience , i 'l grind 'em so small . then make hast customers , &c. 7. if you have e're a fop that 's proud of a string , and fain would aspire to the throne of a king bring him to my mill , i will presently show if he 's qualified for a monarch , or no. then make hast customers , &c. 8. if you have e're a lord that 's a pimp to 's wife , and to hide his horns would venture his life : send her to my mill. i 'll venture a tryal , to make her as honest as e're he was loyal . then make hast customers , &c. 9. if you have e're a slabbering lord that 's a fool , and sits in cabals 3 kingdoms to rule , and stands for a states-man , i 'll make him as able as ever a helper in all his own stable then make hast customers , &c. 10. if you have e're a lord that used to preach i'●h ' top of a crab tree , above all your reach , and still the lords super expos'd in lambs wool : send him to my mill , i 'll reform his skull : then make hast customers , &c. 11. if you have ●'re a knight that 's a knave and thred-bare , that deals in neck-laces and such kind of ware : and stole the best plot , now hides it in bristol : bring him to my mill , i 'll make him confess 't all . then make hast customers , &c. 12. if you have , or had , any sheriffs that are whigs , that have cut off some heads , and are cutting off legs . bring them , and their perjur'd juries together , i 'll turn 'em all round in my mill with the weather . then make hast customers , &c. 13. if you have e're a doctor that has ne'r a mouth , but a hole in the place for a nose , nor. & south put him to my mill , i shal make him speak sense behind and before , like a quaker in trance . then make hast customers , &c. 14. if he has been perjur'd ten thousand times o're , and for want of imployment begins to grow poor ; i 'll make him as rich ( if he knows his own name ) as when he came mumping from flanders or spain . then make hast customers , &c. 15. if forty religions he dares to believe , and yet preacheth blasphemy fools to deceive : bring him to my mill , with more of the grist , i 'll make him a devil , a man or a beast . then make hast customers , &c. 16. if you have any plots , either sham ones or true ones , bring out the contrivers , both black ones & ble● ones . i 'll either refine 'em from all their past ill , or else i will strangle them all in my mill . then make hast customers , bring in your tribes , i 'll quickly dispatch them without any bribes ; for i am so zealous for whiglanders crew , i 'll cure their distempers with one turn or two . a congratulation on the happy discovery of the hellish fanatick plot. tune , now , now the fight 's done . 1. come now let 's rejoyce , and the city bells ring , and the bonfires kindle , whilst unto the king ▪ we pay on our knees the grand tribute that 's due , of thanks and oblation , which now we renew , for mercies that we have received of late , from prudence and justice diverting our fate . 2. the curtain is drawn , and the clouds are disperst ; the plot 's come to light , that in darkness did nest , jack calvin's display'd with his colours in grain : and who were the traytors and villains 't is plain : the traps that they laid , and the snares that they set , have caught them at last in their own silly net 3. the foreman himself , that off-spring of hell , in whose wick'd breast all treason doth dwel , to the tower was sent , with his triple name , whilst the triple-tree groans for his carcass again , and many rogues more their leader will follow unto the same place , whilst we whoop and hallow . 4. the libelling tribe that so long have reign'd and sow'd sedition , shall now be arraign●d ; their shams and their lies shall do them no good , when they come to the tree , there 's no shamming that wood : janway and curtis in the forlorn hope , then vile , smith and care shall neck the next rope . 5 so , so , let them dye that would monarchs destroy , and spit all their venom our land to annoy : if that their pow●r were to their malice equal , and their courage the same , they 'd soon ruine all ▪ but their courage is low , and their power but small ; their treason is high , and must have a fall. 6. when trojans of old ( our ancestors ) were in danger of shipwrack , & toss'd here & there great neptune soon quell'd those rebels and storms , with brandished trident , and free'd them from harms ; they ●led from his face , through guilt of their cause , as these from our lion , if he stretch out his paws . 7. go devils , be gone to the region below , here 's no bus'ness of yours , or ought left to do : no tempter we need , we can act all our selves , without any help from you silly elve● ; for what presbyter act , he thinks a disgrace all hell should out-do him , or dare shew their face . 8. for produce all the ill that hell ever hatch'd , 't is nothing at all , when it comes to be match'd with what has been plotted by traytors of late , who aim'd at the ruine of church , and of state : by perjury , bribes , by suborning all evil , by murther , and worse than e're came from the devil . 9. now presbyter come and submit thy stiff neck , thou labour'st in vain our great monarch to check ; whose power divine no mortals controul , but hazard the loss of both body and soul : then banish for ever your commonwealth hope , which tends to destruction , and ends in a rope . epilogue . with wine of all sorts let the conduits run free , and each true heart drink the k's health on his knee : no treason shall lodge in our breasts while we live , to god , and to caesar their due we will give ; we 'l pray with our hearts , and fight with our hands , against all fanat . when great charles commands . the loyal sheriffs of london and midlesex . upon their election . tune , now at last the riddle , &c. 1. now at last the matter is decided , which so long the nation has divided ; misguided by interest and blind zeal , which so well in forty four they acted ; now with greater heat , they again act o're like men distracted , to give to monarchy a new defeat . 2. famous north , of noble birth and breeding , and in loyal principles exceeding ; is pleading to stand his countreys friend , to do justice to the king and nation , some so much oppose , to renew the work of reformation , and carry on again the good old cause ▪ 3. next renowned box as high commended , and of loyal parentage descended ; intended to do the city right , with true courage , and firm resolution , he the hall adorns ; but the heads were all in a confusion : such●d in there was & a ratling with their horns : 4. prick up ears , and push for one another , let not box ( an old malignant ) brother ; nor ' ●other our properties command , he 's a kings-man , north is nothing better , they walk hand in hand he you know is the lord mayor's creature : and therefore 't is not sit that they should stand ▪ 5. where are now our liberties and freedom ? where shall we find friends when we shou'd to bleed 'em and pull the tory's down , to push for our int'rest , who can blame us ? sheriffs rule the town , when we loose our darling ignoramvs : we lose the combat , and the day 's their own : 6. then let every man stand by his brother , poll o're ten times , poll for one another ; what a pother you see the tory's make , now or never , now to save your charter , or your hearts will ake , if it goes for them expect no quarter : if law and justice rule , our heels must shake : 7. rout , a rout , joyn 'prentice , bore and peasant , let the white-hall party call it treason , 't is treason we should our necks defend , routs and ryots , tumults and sedition , poll 'em o're again , these do best agree with our condition ; if monarchy prevail , we 're all lost men . 8. the lord mayor is loyal in his station , 'las what will become o' th reformation ; o' th' nation if the sheriffs be loyal too ? wrangle , brangle , huff and keep a clatter ; if we loose the field , poll 'em o're again , it makes no matter : for tho' we loose the day , we scorn to yield . 9. ten for box , and twenty for papillion , north a thousand , and dubois a million : what villain our interest dare oppose ? with those noble patriots thus they sided , to uphold the cause ; but the good lord mayor the case decided : and once again two loyal worthies chose . 10. noble north , and famous box promoted , by due course and legal choice allotted ; they voted to be the city sheriffs and may they both to londons commendation , her ancient rights restore , to do that justice to the king and nation , which former factions have deny'd before . loyalty triumphant , on the confirmation of mr. north and mr. rich , sheriffs of london and middlesex . tune , joy to the bridegroom . 1. fill up the bowl , and set it round , the day is won , the sheriffs crown'd ; the rabble flies , the tumults yield ; and loyalty maintains the field ; saint george for england , then amain , to royal charles this ocean drain ▪ 2. with justice may it ever flow , and in an endless circle go ; the brim with conqu'ring bays be crown'd , and faction in the dregs lie drown'd : then to the qveen , and royal james , sacrifice your flowing thames . 3. thanks to sir john , our good lord mayor , ' gainst sheriffs tricks he kept the chair ; the court and city's right maintains , while head strong faction broke the reins : then to the famous sir john moor , may after-age that name adore . 4. what zeal ( ye whigs ) to the old cause . thus makes you act against the laws ; that none for sheriff must contend , but your old ignoramvs friend ? but now , your hopes are all destroy'd , and your two champions laid aside . 5. is this your love to church and state , that no good man must serve of late , while you can find one factious rogue , to sway the poll , and get your vogue ? by unjust means your rights you claim , and lawless force maintain the same . 6 but brave sir john , while th'storms increase , his wisdom made the tumults cease ; in spight of all illegal poll , the routs and ryots did controll : whence he shall gain a lasting name , and after-age record his fame . 7 amongst the men of chiefest worth , the vote is given for loyal north , in spight of pilkington and shute , papilion , and the rabble rout : then to brave north a double doze , who the strong factions did oppose . 8. now box withdraws , dubois contends , and noble rich the stage ascends ; by legal ( ' gainst illegal ) vote , the loyal tribune they promote : then to brave rich a health off hand , who the loud tumults did withstand . 9. for ropes and gibbets the next year , the whigs we hope ) need not despair ; if rich find timber , ( give them scope ) brave north will never grudge them rope : then , to conclude , we 'll crown the bowl with a health to th● k. and each loyal soul. london's joy and triumph , on the instalment of sir william pritchard l. mayor for the ensuing year . tune , tangier march : 1. let the whigs revile , the tories smile , that their business is compleated , let all rejoyce with heart and voice , that the whig's at last defeated . the whigs for loyalty so fam'd , with all their hopes are undone ; since now brave pritchard is proclaim'd the loyal mayor of london . 2. you polish brace whose brazen face , to the chair wou'd be aspiring , see the rabble crowd who poll'd so loud ; are bawk'd beyond admiring ; learn in time to mitigate your bold tumultuous fury , er'e you shall find , you trust too late , to ignoramus jury . 3. let player tom receive the doom , so long due for his cheating , who did purloyn the city coyn , to keep up holy meeting ; to rob the orphan , and the poor . his great discharge of trust is , and run upon the widdows score , to do the city justice . 4. let ward repent , and jenks relent , their practice so malitious , let hobland rue with all the crew , that they were so officious ; such jews as these , who did deny their saviour for a tester , no doubt again wou'd crucify their sovereign lord and master . 5. for north and rich , and every such , they set up a papillion ; ' gainst pritchard hold , with cornish , gold , with ryot and rebellion : to love the king can you pretend , who royalists deny all ; and with such vigour dare contend , against the man that 's loyal . 6. for shame in time repent your crime your ryot and commotion ; and to the mayor , who kept the chair , pay all your just devotion ; such was their loyalty of late , to give the king no money : but freely throw away their plate , to joyn with rebel tony. 7. thus you before did run on score with royal charles your master ; like drunk or mad spent all you had to uphold a bold imposture : let not knaves again betray , and rob you of your reason , then leave your factious heads to pay the forfeit of your treason . 8. with all your heat what did you get ? with all your din and quarter ; but to involve with each resolve the more entangled charter ? to charles your just allegiance give , your properties , then plead em , defending the prerogative , you best protect your freedom . ryot upon ryot ; or a song upon the arresting the loyal lord mayor and sheriffs . tune , burton hall. 1. rowze up great monarch in the royal cause ; the great defender of our faith and laws : now , now , or never , crush the serpent's head , or else the poyson ▪ through the land will spread . the noble mayor , and his two loyal sherieves , bearing the sword 's , assaulted by usurping thieves , who their rebellious ryots would maintain by law : oh! london ! london ! where 's thy justice now ? 2. smite , smite , the snakes did first their sting reveal , stabbing thy royal brother in the heel ; and struck so many loyal martyr's dead , now in the sun flies boldly at the head. slaves that resist all power but their own ; he that would usurp the chair , would next usurp the throne , who neither royal heir nor loyal mayors allow : oh! london ! london ! where 's thy charter now ? 3. london , of faction's the eternal spring , yet so much favour'd by a gracious king ; who does such deeds that have no parallel , only to teach thy children to rebel . this will record thee in the books of fame ; this bold attempt no law , nor precedent can claim : blood and the crown , papillion and dubois out-do : oh! london ! london ! where 's thy charter now ? 4. was this the way your ryots to repair ; in spight o●th charter , to arrest the mayor ? and gainst the sh'riffs your sham actions bring , ' cause justly chosen , and approv'd by th' king ? what call you this , but treason ? whilst the fool that did arrest the mayor expects himself to rule ; and , save his own , no other power would allow : oh! london ! london ! where 's thy charter now ? 5. hang up the factious heads that dare oppose the sword of justice , and the ancient laws : who in his office dare arrest the mayor , disowns the pow'r that plac'd him in the chair . tantara ra-ra ! let the trumpets sound , double all your guards ▪ and let the cent'nels stand their ground : he that arrests the mayor , would bind the monarch too : oh! london ! london ! where 's thy charter now ? london's lamentation for the loss of their charter . tune , packington's pound . 1. you free-men , and masters , and prentices mourn , for now you are left with your charter forlorn : since london was london , i dare boldly say , for your ryots you never so dearly did pay ; in westminster-hall your dagon did fall , that caus'd you to ryot and mutiny all : oh london ! oh london ! thou 'dst better had none , than thus with thy charter to vie with the throne . 2. oh london ! oh london ! how cou'dst thou pretend against thy defender thy crimes to defend ? thy freedoms and rights from kind princes did spring , and yet in contempt thou withstandest thy king : with bold brazen face they pleaded thy case , in hopes to the charter the king wou'd give place : oh london ! thou 'dst better no charter at all , than thus for rebellion thy charter shou'd fall . 3. since britains to london came over to dwell , you had an old charter , to buy and to sell ; and whilst in allegiance each honest man lives , then you had a charter for lord mayor and sheriffs : but when , with your pride , you began to backslide , and london of factions did run w'th ' tide ▪ then london , oh london ! 't is time to withdraw , lest the floud of your factions the land over-flow . 4. when faction and fury of rebels prevail'd ; when coblers were kings , & monarchs were jayl'd ; when masters in tumults their prentices led , and the tail did begin to make war with the head ; when thomas and kate did bring in their plate , t' uphold the old cause of the rump of the state then tell me , oh london ! i prethee now tell , hadst thou e'r a charter to fight and rebel ? 5. when zealous sham sheriffs the city oppose , in spight of the charter , the king , and the ●aws , and make such a ryot and rout in the town , that never before such a racket was known ; when ryoters dare arrest the lord may'r , and force the king's substitute out of the chair oh london ! whose charter is now on the lees , did your charter e'r warrant such actions as these ? 6. alas for the brethren ! what now must they do , for choosing whig-sheriffs and burgesses too ? the charter with patience is gone to the pot , and the doctor is lost in the depth of the plot : st. stephen his flayl no more will prevail , nor sir robert's dagger , the charter to bail : oh london ! thou 'dst better have lain in the fire , then thus thy old charter shou'd stick in the mire . 7. but since with your folly , your faction and pride , you sink with the charter , who strove with the tide , let all the lost rivers return to the main from whence they descended ; they 'l spring out again ; submit to the king in every thing , then of a new charter new sonnets we 'll sing : as london , ( the phoenix of england , ) ne'r dies , so out of the flames a new charter will rise . the wine-coop●rs delight , tune of the delights of the bottle . the delights of the bottle are turn'd out of dores , by factious fanatical sons of damn'd whores . french wines prohibition , meant no other thing but to poyson the subject ▪ & begger the king. good nature 's suggested with dregs like to choak her , of fulsom stum'd wine by the cursed wine cooper our plaguy wine cooper has tamper'd so much , to find out the subtilty of the false dutch. he tinctures prickt white wine , that never was good , till it mantles , and sparkles & looks like bulls bloud : but when it declines , and its spirits expire , he adds more ingredients , and makes it look higher his old rotten pipes where he keeps all his trash for fear they should burst ▪ sir , he hoops them with ash . when the sophistication begins for to froth , and boils on the fret , sir , he wisely pulls forth a tap , which gives vent to the grounds of the cause , and then is to vamp up a second red nose . then this dingy wine-cooper stops it up again , and keeps it unvented till 't is all on a flame . the intelligences then were invented to show , where wine of strange vertues in plenty did flow . people from all parts of the nation did come , both lords , knights and gentlemen , doctor & bum. the cooper then pulls the tap out of his side , and drinks to the elders of all the good tribe . but when they had gus●'d about all the bowls , they found a strange freedom it gave to their souls of secrets in nature that never were known , it gave inspiration from beggar to throne . for the cooper himself full brimmers did draw , and all the whole gang were oblig'd to do so . amongst these gabals there was no such thing , as a health once propos'd to the d. or the king. but drank to that idol of hopes in their powers . and sons of most infamous hackney old whores . then the rable had notice from smith and from ben what a heavenly liquor was sent amongst men . both tinkers and coblers the broom men and sweep , before this wine-cooper in flocks they did meet ; and each under-foot stampt his old greazy bonnet to drink m — th's health , boys , whate'r come on it . the cooper preceiving his trade to approach , he then was resolved once more to debauch . to encourage the rable , and shew himself stout , he pull'd out the spigot amongst the whole rout which kindness provok'd them to swear they would bring such a trade to his house as wou'd make him a king. a hat or a bottle was still at the tap ; but zealots sometimes laid their mouths to the fat. they charg'd their brisk bumpers so many times round , till part of the mobile sprawl'd on the ground : but when this damn'd liquor was get in their pates , they fell to bumbasting , disord'ring of states . they began to cant dangers by formal sedition and swear lawful allegiance ' against lawful succession . when these propositions began to take fire , they screw'd their presumptions a hole or two higher ; but still they keep under hugh peters's cloak , to bring in the devil , to drive out the pope . but then they began for to pick at the crown each thinking that he deserv'd one of his own . then all the kings guards they thought fit to indict , swear treason ' gainst all that maintain●d the king's right . both papists and protestants no matter whether , they are not of our party , let 's hang 'em together , next the chief of our game is to keep the king poor , and our senators must the militia secure . the navy & cinque-ports we 'll have in our hands , and then we 'll make th' kingdom obey our commands . then if charles do withstand us , we need not to fight , to make eighty one to out-do forty eight . what ever objections great loyalists bring , old adam liv'd happy without e'r a king. then why may not we , that are much wiser than he , subdue the whole world , sir , by our sov'raignty : if one man alone can keep three nations under , then why may not we that are kings without number ? right , said the cooper , & shak'd his old noddle , three kingdoms we 'll toss , like a child in a cradle stick close to this liquor which i do prepare , 't will make us as splendid as noll in his chair , we 'll kindle old plots , by contriving of new , till none shall be safe but the cooper and you. o brave boys ! o brave boys ! the rabble did rore . tantivies and tories shall hector no more ; by vs they 're out-acted , to vs they shall bend , whilst we to our dignities freely ascend , then they were dead-drunk as the devil cou'd make ' em . and fell fast asleep , as ten drums could not wake ' em . in the piss and the spew the poor cooper did paddle , to stop up his tap , but the knave was not able . for his limbs like a tortoise did shrivle & crease , down drops the wine-cooper with the other beasts and there the whole litter as yet doth abide , at the sign of the butt , with the tap in his side . a song upon the king poland , and the prince o' the land of promise . tune , hold fast thy crown and scepter , charles 1. prince . o poland monster of our isle , corruption of our age ; which on my infant hours didst smile , 'till thou inflam'dst the rage of my ambitious soul , to sore above its defil'd sphear ; and , icarus-like , i now must low'r , transform'd into despair . 2. now all my trophies of success , are in oblivion drown'd ; and none for me dare now address , where i hop●d to be crown'd ▪ i by thy false blind plots am sham'd , fool'd from a glorious sway , snatch'd from a father's arms , and damn'd , like all that disobey 3. thou call'dst my nearest friends at court , soft , easie , abusurd tools , that kings were but for sates-men's sport , the councel knaves and fools . but i , poor i , find now too late , your polish grace can lye ; none prov●d more weak at the foyls of state , than poor silly tom , and i. 4. now , that imperial crown ▪ which thou for me so fit hadst made , is faln and broke , i know not how , and all our wiles betray●d ; our full cabals , and wapping-treats , retrench'd to secret holes : treason the strength our greatness waits in these rough reared walls . 5 poland . thou mighty prince , by me elect , i' th' land of promise sways ▪ thy tim'rous soul is the defect of our declining days . what brighter prospect canst propose , to magnifie thy name , than h●arts , and arms , and power of those , that rule both law and fame . 6. the rustick swains want not the word , no magazines , nor horse ; ' zwounds sixty thousand by the sword , defy both fate and curse . they 'l lay three kingdoms at our feet , in blood and mangled brains ▪ then the train-bands , cinque-ports , and fleet , at our command remains . 7. though rowley , and his brother joyns , and ●heel's around the park ; like two yoak't oxen , tugs and twines , ' gainst our designs i' th' dark , and wisely weighs ; their wits have wrought our potent parties fall ; that conquest must be dearer bought , else tony hangs for all . 7. we have reserv'd machines in store , to raise more daring flames , then morrals ' ere conspir'd before ; or damned furies frames . if e'r a parliament be call'd , our representatives there shall scorn to be out-box'd , or bawl'd , in country , town , or shire . 9. then every member of the cause , amidst the rable rude , who shall decide the poll with blows , and quash the tory crowd . then stick to time , whilst heads are hot , our force together brings : if this best plot , at last fail not , by christ , we'●l both be kings ! the hunting of the fox . tune , now the tories that glories , &c. hay jouler , ringwood , and towzer , ho smoaker , drunkard , and fly ; sweet-lips , light-foot , and bowzer ; brave bowman , lofty , and cry ; and four and twenty brave couple , to make a pack for the downs , sure footed , and your limbs supple ; the scent 's hot yet on the grounds . the old white fox is got loose again ; we think he 's gone to ketch goose again : his cub● they sculk and desert amain . come let●s beleaguer their holes : for they 're past evil ; to th' devil we 'll send 'em with thread-bare souls . 2. they have left the city , 't is pity , and their damn'd party i' th lurch : if to be hang'd , 't would be pretty , for treason ' gainst king and church . for cinque-ports , venus and juno ; for champion , thunder and spark ; let swift beat for caralino , and noser wind 'em i' th' dark . like wasps and flies , they would bite us ; as wolves do sheep , they would treat us ; like crockadiles , they would eat us ; they thirst for innocent blood : then never scruple , but graple for king and country's good. 3. round the dimension o th' nation , beat all the banks on the shore ; and some leap o're the main ocean , if they are gone before . o surround 'em , confound 'em , from sea-port to city-walls ; if there they venter to shelter , 'zounds tear them out of their holes : for making church into stables , and vamping kings up of baubles , and forgoing plots out of fables , and seizing kings in a trice ; that the crooked piper might vapour like rat amongst fifteen mice . 4. scoure the globe to the axels , from pole to pole ; then retire , and center at mother creswels , the fox us'd to harbour there : there , there both wives , whores and virgins , he had them all at his call , t' oblige his captains and surgeons , 'till better occasions fall . at oxford late all his cubs and he , to the exclusion did all agree ; could not budge further , 'till sign'd and free . yet rowley rouzed the rump , and sent 'em all to peg trantams ; and tapsky's worn to the stump . 5. oh , swift's returned , and noser , their hoofs are batter'd with greet : the game shews by the opposer , he 's lodg'd in aldersgate-street . come ring a peal with a courage , the grains o' th' tap makes a train ; he lurks in hole to make forrage of all that uses his name . we 'll fetch him out with mandamus , and hang him with ignoramus ; there 's none but rebels can blame us : more pardons let him not hope ; for all his squinting and blinking , he must to th'hatchet or rope . dagon's fall. tune , philander , &c. 1. ah cruel bloody fate ! what canst thou now do more ? alas ! 't is now too late poor toney to restore : why should the flattering fates persuade , that toney still should live , in england here , or in holland there , yet all our hopes deceive ? 2. a noble peer he was , and of notorious fame ; but now he 's gone ( alas ! ) a pilgrim o're the main : the prop and pillar of our hope the patron of our cause , the scorn and hate of church and state , the urchin of the laws . 3. of matchless policy was this renowned peer , the bane of monarchy , the peoples hope and fear , the joy of all true protestants , the tories scorn and dread ; but now he 's gone who curst the throne , alas ! poor toney's dead . 4. for commonwealth he stood , pretending liberty ; and for the publick good would pull down monarchy : the church and state he would divorce , the holy cause to wed : and in time did hope to confound the pope , to be himself the head. 5. a tap in 's side he bore , to broach all sorts of ill , for which seditious store the crowd ador'd him still : he spit his venom through the town , with which the saints possest , would preach and prate ' gainst church and state , while he perform'd the rest . 6. when any change of state or mischief was at hand , he had a working pate , and devil at command : he forg●d a plot , for which the heads of faction gave their votes ; but now the plot is gone to pot , what will become of oates ? 7. under the fair pretence of right , religion , law , excluding the true prince , the church would overthrow : with such religious shams he brought the rabble on his side ; and , for his sport , the town and court in parties would divide . 8. now what 's become of all his squinting policy , which wrought your dagon●s fall , from justice forc●d to flie ? old and decrepid , full of pains ▪ as he of guilt was full : he fell to fate , and now ( too late ) he leaves us to condole . 9. now , learn ye whigs in time , by his deserved fall , to expiate his crime , e're fate revenge you all ; for rights , religion , liberty , are but the sham-pretence to anarchy ; but loyalty obeys the lawful prince : hue-and-song after patience ward . tune , hail to the myrtle shades . 1. hail to london fair town , all hail to the mayor and the shrieves ; hail to the scarlet gown , whose sentence our patience grieves : justice and law hath prevail'd , with patience a verdict to find , ' gainst patience , whose conscience fail'd ; oh patience ! why art so blind ? 2. patience , the joy of the town , the comfort and hope of the crowd ; patience , who got renown , by perjury , lies and fraud : patience who ne'r had the heart his sovereign's rights to maintain ; but patience he had the art to swear and forswear again . 3. patience for church and for state , and patience for meetings by stealth ; patience , who wou'd translate the state to a commonwealth : whose zeal has his patience betray'd , to lie for the saints in distress ; nay , tho' he●s forsworn , ( 't is said , ) he swore he could do no less . 4. patience , whose zeal did contrive the monument figures and spire , that while there 's a papist alive we may not forget the fire : the pillory now is his lot , he has rais●d such a flame with his crew , that london is now too hot ; oh patience ! where art thou now ? 5. patience for zeal to the cause , did preach to the captives in goal ▪ patience , with great applause , gave large to an hospital : to vse now his money may lend , for pomfret he 'l never more stand , nor warrants for thompson send , t'please titus o' th' perjur'd band. 6. patience with coller of brass , to woful disasters did fall ; patience with copper face , and a conscience worse than all ; to holland , to holland he goes ; for plainly now it appears , that ( in spight of all whiggish laws , ) ignoramus can't save his ears . 7. some say that the saints may not swear , but lie ev'n as much as they can ; yet patience in spight on 's ears , will swear and forswear again : that patience should be so far lost , alas ! who with patience can hear ? that a saint should be knight o' th' post , and an elder without an ear. 8. let ev'ry good subject with me , who patience a virtue doth praise , lest he fall into perjury , with patience pray for grace . but now i with patience have done , lest with patience i keep such a rout , that astray more with patience run , and weary your patience out . a new song on the arrival of prince george , and his intermarriage with the lady anne . tune , old jemmy . 1. prince george at last is come , fill every man his bumper ; for the valiant dane make room , confusion to each rumper , and every prodigal starch'd fool aspires unto a crown , by hopes of plotting knaves to rule , who next wou'd pull him down . 2. preserve great charles our king , and his illustrious brother whilst whigs in halters swing , and hang up one another : the joyful bridegroom and the bride , prince george of royal race , of all the swains the joy and pride , the subject of their ●ays . 3. brave george he is a lad with all perfections shining ; with every virtue clad , and every grace refining : but oh ! of such a war-like race , so conqu'ring are his charms , no mars in field , but must give place to his victorious arms. 4. brave george , great denmark's son , ( a stout and war-like nation ) by birth to england's crown a near and dear relation ; but now the knot is doubly ty'd , which makes him still more near , the knot which knaves would have destroy'd , by cutting off the heir . 5. but now the tribe's dispers'd , their projects are defeated , which walcot and the rest did hope to have compleated : and now they 'l pay for all their scores , who for that int'rest stood , and let 'em hang for sons of whores , who thirst for royal blood. 6 poor perkin ! where 's the hope of all thy high promoting ? now , bully tom , a rope must crown thy cheats and plotting : let ferguson with gray escape , they safe are ev'ry-where , if murder , treason , lust and rape can pass unpunish'd here . 7. let m — for a crown , that hopeful prince so loyal , away with rebels run , to raise an army-royal : brave george for england scorns to fly , old jemmy stout as he , their plots and malice we defie , and all their treachery . 8. may heav'n , which him did raise o' th' protestant profession , in his immortal race maintain the just succession , that no pretending bastard bold in time to come may dare his lawless title to uphold , against the lawful heir . a new song made by a person of quality , and sung before his majesty at winchester tune , cook lawrel . 1. a tory came late through westminster-hall , and as he past by heard a citizen bawl ; the judges are perjur'd , and we are undone , our liberty's lost , and our charter is gone . 2. this comes of our prating since colledge is dead ; this comes of our plotting without ●ony's head : for he had more wit in his treason by half , as he hook●d himself on , he crook'd himself off . 3. he scarce had said this when a baron approac'd that ruin'd two sisters , the younger debauch'd : the reasons he cry'd , i 'm loath to describe , he would have a maiden-head out of the tribe . 4. the next came a peer , & a knight of great fame , one famous for stabbing , the other was lame ; o heavens ! in what a strange age do we dwell , when bully's reform , and cripples rebel . 5. with them the sweet speaker , wi. w — s i saw , his head full of projects , but empty of law ; for he 't is observ'd has been dull as a dog since pe — n batoon'd him for calling him r● 6. peart wa — op and win — on , mutinies breed , yet still in the cause , for no purpose are fee'd ▪ for cradeck will offer himself for a drudge ; if either of them will be fit for a judge . 7. old ma — rd , all ages in faction was chief ; now mumbles by rote , ne'r looks in his brief : but rotten rebellion will never last long , he spit out his teeth , & will cough out his tongue . 8. now by the re — er new cards must be plaid , that body of law with a sarazens-head , that ( span●el-like ) fawns on the king to his face and yet makes the whigs just amends for his place . 9. for magistrate patience , i plainly confess , i 've little to say , because he 's in distress ; but he that sat once in th' cities great chair , would a pillory grace ; so i wish he were there . 10. dubois and papillion , the cities sham shrieves , whose truth and whose loyalty no man believes ; that arrested the mayor and no danger forsaw , to keep from self-hanging i leave to the law. 11. for law they complain'd , of the lawyers they boast , they 'r pleas●d , till by law they their ch ▪ had lost : law , law , was the cry of the mutinous crew , the devil 's in 't if they ha'nt law enough now . 12. scribe cl — n's wife deckt with the spoils of the poor , embroider●d in scarlet like babylon's whore ; but let me advise him to strip off her red , and make her a peticoat of her green-bed . 13. old pl — yer grown rampant , late pickt up a whore and swore he 'd recant , & be whiggish no more ; by tories made drunk in the company 's view . the saint kist her c — t , and drank healths in her shoe. 14 now listen ye whigs , and hear what i speak , a monarch ( like heaven can give and can take ; but you for rebellion no reason can bring , so hang your selves all ; and god save the king. the new-market song tune , old symon the king. 1. the golden age is come , the winter-storms are gone , the flowers spread , and bloom , and smile to see the sun ; who daily gilds each grove , and calms the air and seas , dame nature seems in love , and all the world 's at ease : you rogue so saddle ball , i●ll to new market scour ▪ you never mind when i call , i shou●d have been there this hour ; for there is all sporting and game , without any ●lotting of state ; from whigs , and another such sham , deliver us , deliver us , o fate ! let 's be to each other a ●rey , to be chea●ed be ev'ry ones lot ; or chous'd any sort of a way , but by another damn'd plot. let cullies that lose at the race go venture at hazard , and win ; and he that is bubbl'd at dice , recover 't at cocking again : let jades that are founder'd be bought , let jockeys play crimp to make sport ; for 'faith it was strange , methought , to see vintner beat the court. 2. each corner of the town rings with perpetual noise , the oyster bawling clown joyns with hot pudding-pies ; and both in consort keep , to vend their stinking ware , the drowzy god of sleep hath no dominion there . hey boys ! the jockeys roar . if the mare and the gelding run , i 'll hold you five guineys to four he beats her , and gives half a stone . god d — me , quoth bully , 't is done , or else i 'm a son of a whore ; and fain wou'd i meet with the man would offer it , would offer it once more . see , see the damn'd fa●e of the town ! a fop that was starving of late , and scarcely cou'd borrow a crown , puts in to run for the plate , another makes chousing a trade , and dreams of his projects to come , and many a crimp match has made , by bribing another man's groom . the towns-men are whiggish , god rot 'em , their hearts are but loyal by fits ; for , shou'd you search to the bottom , they 're as nasty as their streets . 3. but now all hearts beware ; see , see on yonder downs ? beauty now tryumphs there , and at this distance wounds : in the amazonian wars thus all the virgins shone , and , like the glittering stars , paid homage to the moon . love proves a tyrant now , and there doth proudly dwell ; for each stubborn heart must bow , he has found a new way to kill : for ne'r was invented before such charms of additional grace nor has divine beauty such pow'r in ev'ry , in ev'ry fair face . ods bud , cries my country-man john , was ever the like before seen ? by hats and by feathers they ve on , i se took 'em e●n all for men : embroider'd and fine as the sun , their horses and trappings of gold ; such a sight i shall ne'r see again , if i live to a hundred years old . this , this is the countreys discourse all wondring at this rare sight : then roger go saddle my hor●e , for i will be there to night . a new song on the fan. plot , tune hey boys up go we now , now the plot is all come out , that caus'd our doubts and fears , and all the tribe that made the rout , both commoners and peers ; the mighty patrns of the cause , gainst pagan popery , who rais'd a gibbet for our foes , and hey boys up go we . 2. with sanctify'd religious zeal the brethren did agree to raise our ancient commonweal on christian liberty : to undermine the church and state , and blow up monarchy ; but now , alas ! 't is our own fate , and hey boys up go we. 3. a holy covenant we took , to sacrifice the king , and next to him the royal duke , a bloody offering ; for which , according to the vote , the papists all shou'd die ; but now the saints have chang'd their note , and hey boys up go we . our zealous covenanting saints , associating peers , each heart for fear with patience pants , to lose more than his fars ; toney's dead , and m — s fled , the helm is turn'd a lee the plot ( the nail ) is knock'd o' th' head , and hey then up go we . no longer may the papists boast their bloody black designs ; old rome thy ancient glory 's lost , for all thy learn'd divines : for royal murders , treasons base , and marchless trachery , the jesuits must now give place , and hey boys up go we . 6. how well did we contrive the plot , and laid it at their door , for which old stafford went to pot , and many guiltless more ; but now the tide is come about , the truth of all we see ; and when the murder all is out , then hey boys up go we. 7. rumsey's gold , and rumbold bold , conspire to kill the king , and pickering in fatal hold , must answer for the thing ; ●elthor● , west , and all the rest , with perkin may agree , to be o' th' tower not throne possest ; then hey boys up go we . 8. our city ryots and country routs , that to rebellion tend , our races , and our hunting-bouts , in insurrections end ; the rebel now is catch'd i' th' snare ●e laid for monarchy ; at last the gallows claims its share , then hey goys up go we . the conspiracy ; or , the discovery of the fanatick plot. tune , let oliver now be forgotten , &c. 1. let pickering now be forgotten , old rumbold has wip'd off his scores ; since presbyter jack went a plotting , the jesuits turn'd out of dores : for brewing , swilling of treason , king-killing without reason , of all the pack , noble or peasant , none can exceed old presbyter jack . 2. first , the hot sectaries voted , 't was treason to murther the king ▪ and next the bold regicides plotted to compass the very same thing : their votes and arbitrary power , that sent the lords to the tower , we now see plain , every hour , they 'd the old game play over again . 3. rumsey and rumbold indented at hodsdon their ambush to bring ; but heav'n and the fire prevented , and providence guarded the king : the whigs the treason propounded ; but when the trumpet sounded for cambridgeshire , all were confounded , taken or fled both peasant and peer . 4 m●nmo●th for wit , who was able to make to a crown a pretence , the head and the hope of the rabble , a ●oyal and politick prince : but now he 's gone into holland , to be a king of no-land , or else must be monarch of poland , was ever son so loyal as he ? 5. lord gray , and armstrong the bully , that prudent and politick knight , who made of his grace such a cully , together have taken their flight : is this your races , horse-matches , his grace's swift dispatches from shire to shire ? under the hatches , now above-deck you dare not appear . 6. brave russel and sidney the bully , that stood for the holy old cause ; and trenchard drawn in for a cully , in spight of allegiance and laws ; and wildman too , with his cannon , with walcot , smith and aaron , with mead and bourn , every man , on to tyburn goes the next in his turn . 7. next valiant and noble lord h — d that formerly dealt in lambs-wool , and knows what it is to be tower●d , by impeaching may fill the jayl● full : and next to him cully brandon the wit ; and famous hambden must take his place , who did abandon all loyalty , religion and grace . 8. hone ▪ and rowse , the king and his brother that they were to kill 'em confest , and now they hang up one another , holms , blaney , lee , walcot and west : may all such traytors discarded , to tyburn be well guarded , and ev'ry thing be so rewarded , that would oppose so gracious a king. rvssel's farewel tune , oh , the merry christ-church bells , &c. oh , the mighty innocence of russel , bedford's son ! that dy'd for the plot , whether guilty , or not , by his last ( equivocating ) speech ! by the words of a dying man , i here protest i know no plot ' gainst the life of the king , or government , either by action , or intent . fy , fy , fy , fy , fy , fy , my lord , what are you about to do ? to sink to hell by th' sound of your knell , both soul and body too . oh , the shallow memory of this blood-thirsty lord ! t'deny and confess , and all to express his guilty insolence the more : i at mr. shepherd's house did hear some little slight discourse , how easie 't was the guards to seize ; yet i am guiltless , if you please ; no , no , no , no , no , no , my lord , your guilt 's too plainly seen , and m — th too , with shaftsbury's crew , to destroy both king and queen 3 next your lordship does protest , no man had ever yet that impudence against his prince , to your face to propose any foul design : then you confess immediately , at the house of politick shaftsbury you heard such words were sharp as swords , the worst can be thought or english affords ; which rais'd your righteous spirit to exclaim against their sense ; yet this you conceal'd , and never reveal'd , till in your blind defence . 4. po●ery ( your lordship says ) is bloody and unjust ; what then ) you design'd with those you combin'd , was farce , to jest our lives away ; for when the duke of monmouth came t' acquaint your honour of his fear of being undone by the heat of some , too violent for the bloody cause , away you go to shepherd ●s strait , where pernicious words were said , in passion all , with judgment small , but consequence of dread . 5. from the time of choosing sheriffs , i did conclude the heat would this produce ; that 's no excuse , but just confession of the fact. presently your lordship says , for farther confirmation still , you are not surpriz●d to find it fall on your honour you deserv'd it all : immediately you would proclaim aloud your innocence why your lordship 's mad , in a cause so bad , to put that sham-pretence . 6. o ye true blew protestants , whose times are yet to come , you see your fate ; early or late follow you must , 't is all your doom . m●th , armstrong , ferguson , gray , goodenough the under-shrieve , with all your ignoramus crew , that justice hate , and treason brew ; scaffold , tyburn , halter , ax , those instruments of death , as 't is your due , may 't you pursue , till you resign your breath . eustace comines the irish evidence , his farewel to england . tune , o hone , o hone 1. bee me shoul and shouluation , o hone , o hone . i 'le go to mee own nawtion : o hone , o hone . old tony hence is fled , and russel lost his head ; i starve for want of bread , o hone , o hone . 2. this sawcy english plot , o hone , o hone . did make ours go to pot : o hone , o hone . what shall i do to go ? let me shee , o ho ! o ho ! pox take me if i know : o hone , o hone . 3. my sauce does red wid shame , o hone , o hone . that ever here i came : o hone , o hone ten , twenty curse upon sham justice heddrington , who made me first leave home , o hone , o hone . 4. a gra eustace , he did say o hone , o hone . you moyle for a groat a day : o hone , o hone . a plot office now is ope , i will advance your hope , if you 'l swear against the pope , o hone , o hone . 5. be creest i will , said i , o hone , o hone . tell you ten hundred lye , o hone , o hone . i 'le swear dem in and out , wee 'l have a merry bout , and make a rabble rout , o hone , o hone . 6. we came to westminster , o hone , o hone . den he call'd me maishter , o hone , o hone . i swore by fait and trote , and by my beeble oate , ( what wee 'd agreed on bote , ) o hone , o hone . 7. then i was put in pay , o hone , o hone . had five , six groat a day , o hone , o hone . which did fine cloads afford , instead of spawde , a sword ; i knew not mee shelf good lord , o hone , o hone . 8. but soon my maishter rogue , o hone , o hone . was in spite of his brogue : o hone , o hone . for the sawce of his tongue , to prisons dragg'd along , magnatum scandalum , o hone , o hone . 9. then was prepar'd a drench , o hone , o hone . oats himshelf to retrench ; o hone , o hone . the meaner swearers then to tremble did begin : as i have a shoul widin : o hone , o hone . 10. by this book i did faint , o hone , o hone . till patrick mee fwhite saint : o hone , o hone . bid me leave off my cryes , and swear no more plot-lies . then streight away he hies : o hone , o hone . 11. deel take this swearing trade , o hone , o hone . i 'le go home to mee spade : o hone , o hone . i 'le fence the patatoes round and keep mee maishters ground ; i am too long hell-hound . o hone , o hone . 12. my book-bussing tribe adieu ; o hone , o hone . it is now bad wid you : o hone , o hone . and if i ' scape the hang , i 've out-done all my gang ; and leave you here t'swing swang . o hone , o hone . monarchy tryumphant ; or , the fatal fall of rebels . tune , the king enjoys his own again . whigs are now such precious things , we see there 's not one to be found ; all roar , god bless and save the king , and the health goes briskly all day round : to the souldier cap in hand the sneaking rascals stand , and wou'd put in for honest men ; but the king he well knows his friends from his foes , and now he enjoys his own again . 2. from this plots first taking air , like lightning all the whigs have run ; nay , they 've left their topping square , to march off with our eldest son ▪ they 've left their states and wives , to save their precious lives , but who can blame their flying ? when 't was plain to 'em all , the great and the small , that the king wou'd have his own again . 3. since the king was thereabouts , they all well knew their heads were his ; so by help of such like scouts the great ones have yet escap'd his phys . his stern and kingly look there 's few of them can brook , since fairly try'd , they know that then the hemp or sharp steel they must all expect to feel , since the king enjoys his own again . 4. this may chance a warning be , ( if e're the saints will warning take ) to leave off hatching villainy , since they 've seen their brethren at the stake , and more must mounted be , ( which god grant we may see ) since juries now are honest men ; and the king lets 'em swing with a hey ding , ding , ding , ding , great charles enjoys his own again . 5. once they voted , that his guards a nuisance was , which now they find ; since they stand betwixt the king and the treason that such dogs design'd : 't is they will you maul , though it cost 'em a fall , in spight of your most mighty men ; for now they are allarm'd , and all loyallists well arm'd ▪ since the king enjoys his own again . 6. to the king some bumpers round , let 's drink ▪ my lads , whilst life doth last ; he that at the core's not found , shall be kick'd out without a tast : since we 're case-harden'd honest men , which makes their crew mad , but us loyal hearts full glad , that the king enjoys his own again . the plot and plotters confounded ; or , the down-fall of whiggism . tune , ah jenny ! 't is your eyn do kill . 1. the plot ( god wot ) is now broke out , confound those brought it in ; let them be damn'd , ( besides being sham'd , ) of their king-killing sin ; down , down with their general council and collonel , joyner and cobler of state , their members of parliament of the new rump , let all repent too late . 2. oh now you whigs led up this jig , what is 't you 'l lead up next ? why saith i hear to tyburn you gang , for being beside your text ▪ to tyburn the high-born , as well as the cobler , concern'd in plot so dire , must hickle-te pickle-te swing on a row ; pray god i am no lyer . 3. did ever fools set up such tools that durst not stand the sho●k of being made , or being marr'd ? a pox on such bully-rocks ! fy , fy , fy , fy , fy , fy for shame , such heroes run the pit , it shews , god knows , their fear of blow● , and eke their want of wit. 4. the king god bless , the queen no less , the duke and dutchess too ; the lady anne , with her good man , and all the royal crew : let those that love the king be bless'd , and those that hate him curs'd ; let tories swim in claret , and the whigs be choakt with thirst . whig upon whig ; or a pleasant dismal song on the old plotters newly found out . tune , o hone , &c. 1. beloved hearken all , o hone , o hone . to my sad rhimes that , shall o hone , o hone . be found in dity sad , which makes me almost mad , but tories hearts full glad , o hone , o hone . 2. essex has cut his throat , o hone , o hone . russel is guilty found , o hone , o hone . walcot being of the crew , and hone the joyner too , must give the devil his due , o hone , o hone . 3. rumsey swears heartily , o hone , o hone . west swears he does not lie , o hone , o hone . l. h — d vows by 's troth , that they are good men both , and take the self same oath , o hone , o hone . 4. i heard some people say , o hone , o hone . m — th is fled away , o hone , o hone . and some do not stick to say , if he falls in their way , he will have damn'd fair play , o hone , o hone . 5. armstrong and gray got wot , o hone , o hone . and ferguson the scot , o hone , o hone . are all run god knows where , ' cause stay they dare not here , to fix the grand affair , o hone , o hone . 6. juries ( alass ) are thus , o hone , o hone . there 's no ignoramus , o hone , o hone . but you 'l have justice done , to evr'y mothers son , and be hang'd one by one . o hone , o hone . 7. now how like fools we look , o hone , o hone . had we not better took o hone , o hone . unto our trades and wives , and have kept in our hives , which might have sav'd our lives , o hone , o hone . 8. the king he says , that all o hone , o hone . that are found guilty , shall o hone , o hone . die by the ax or rope , as they dy'd for the pope ; brethren there is no hope . o hone , o hone . 9. the sisters left behind , o hone , o hone . must with vile tories grind , o hone , o hone . and still be at their call , to play at up-tails-all ; nay , to be poxt and all . o hone , o hone . 10. the tories now will drink , o hone , o hone . the kings health with our chink , o hone , o hone . queen , duke and dutchess too , and all the loyal crew . jerney morblew , morblew . o hone , o hone . the whigs droun'd in an honest tory health . to a pleusant tune . 1. wealth breeds care ; love , hope and fear ; what does love or bus'ness here , while bacchus's navy doth appear ? fight on , and fear not sinking : fill it briskly to the brim , till the flying top-sails swim , we owe the first discovery to him of this great world of drinking 2. grave cabals , who states refine , mingle their debates with wine ; caeres and the god o' th' vine make every great commander : let sober sots small beer subdue , the wise and valiant wine do woe ; the staggarite had the honour too to be drunk with alexander . 3. stand to your arms ! and now advance ▪ a health to the english king of france , and to the next of boon esprance by bacchus and apollo : thus in state i lead the van ; fall in your place by the right-hand-man ! beat drum ! march on ! dub a dub , ran dan ! he 's a whig that will not follow . 4. face about to the right again , britains admiral of the main , york , and his illustrious train crown the days conclusion : but a halter stop his throat who brought in the foremost vote , and of all that did promote the mystery of exclusion . 5. next to denmark's war-like prince ▪ let the following health commence ; to the nymph whose influence brought the hero hither : may their race the tribe annoy , who the grandsire would destroy , and get every year a boy whilst they are together . 6. to the royal family let us close in bumpers three ; may the ax and ●alter be the pledge of every roundhead : to all loyal hearts pursue , who to the monarch dare prove true ; but for him they call ●rue blew , let him be confounded . an excellent new song on the late victories over the turks . to a very pleasant new tune . 1. hark ! the thundring canons roar , ecchoing from the german shore , and the joyful news comes o'● ▪ the turks are all confounded ; lorrain comes , they run , they run ; charge your horse through the grand half-moon we 'l quarter give to none , since staremberg is wounded . 2. close your ranks , and each brave soul take a lusty flowing bowl , a grand carouse to th' royal ●●le , the empires brave defender ; no man leave his post by stealth , plunder the grand visiens wealth , but drink a helmet full to th' health ▪ of the second alexander . 3. mahomet was a sober dog , a small beer drouzy senseless rogue , the juice of the grape so much in vogue to forbid to those adore him ; had he but allow'd the vine , given'em leave to carouze in wine the turk had safely past the rhine , and conquer'd all before him . 4. with dull tea they sought in vain , hopeless vict'ry to obtain , where sprighty wine fills ev'ry vein ; success must needs attend him ; our brains , ( like our canons ) warm with often firing , feels no harm , while the sober sot flies the alarm , no lawrel can befriend him . 5. christians thus with conquests crown'd , conquest with the glass goes round , weak coffee can't keep its ground , against the force of claret : whilst we give them thus the foyl , and the pagan troops recoyl , the valiant poles divide the spoyl , and in brisk nectar share it . 6. infidels are now o'recome , but the most christian turks at home watching the fate of christendom , but all his hopes are shallow ; since the poles have led the dance , let english caesar now advance , and if he sends a fleet to france , he 's a whig that will not follow . tangiers lamentation on the demolishing and blowing up of the town , castle and citadel ▪ tune , tangier march. 1. let the moors repine , their hopes resign , now the pagan troops are cheated ▪ let foot and horse disband their force , since tangier is defeated : alas tangier ! what sudden doom hath wrought this alteration , that thus thy march should now become thy fatal lamentation ? 2. now , alas tangier ! that cost so dear in money , lives , and fortunes , see how the states , the kinder fates , for thy own fate importunes : had this been plotted by the moors , alas ! it were no matter ; but blown up thus by thy own store , thou●dst better swem in water . 3. the old port , tangier , where for good cheer we never paid extortion ; which , whilst it stood , war once thought good to be a monarchs portion . whilst english hearts thy walls possest , they scorn'd e'r to surrender , now to the foe is left a nest for serpents to engender . 4. alas ! what now must the sea-men do , when they come ashore to lord it , for a little fresh store , and a little fresh whore ? which tangier still afforded ▪ no ambuscade of treacherous moor , nor shall ben otter's highness court any more the british shoar , to try the ladies kindness . 5. it would grieve your heart , should i impart the gold and precious matter that lies opprest in every chest drown'd underneath the water ; but now the mold that forc'd the main , the mold so gay and bonny , is with the chests blown up again ▪ but ne'r a cross of money . 6. of how many souls , and large punch-bowls , has this been the undoing ? how many tun of precious coyn lie buried in the ruine ? had this been done some years ago , of horsemen and postillions , 't had sav'd some thou and lives the blow , and sav'd besides some millions . 7. when the pile took fire above the spire , i wish ( for th' good o' th' nation ) the walls well cramm'd , with rebels ramm'd of the ●ssociation : all bethells of a commonwealth , each sullen whig and trimmer , that boggle at a loyal health , yet will not bawk a brimmer . 8. now heav'n preserve ( while rebels starve ) the king and 's royal brother , while traytors fly , and others die , impeaching one another : that gracious prince that values more his subjects lives and pleasure , than all the wealth of africks shoar , and tangiers buried treasure . the history of whiggism , from their rise , to their late horrid and unparallel'd conspiracy . tune , when the stormy winds do blow . 1. you calvinists of england , who surfeit with your ease , and strive to make us whigland , to breed a foul disease : hearken you painted saints , for we will let you know , oh , the cares and the fears that by you whigs do grow ! the first of your pretensions when that you did begin , were gloss'd with good intentions , but false at heart within : no faith in you was ever found , that truth we plainly know , oh the cares and the fears that by you whigs do grow . queen elizabeth she did descry , and soon found what you were ; she made fit laws against you by parliament appear ; which late you 'd have repealed , but just charles too well did know , all the cares and the fears that by you whigs do grow ! such locusts in the nation king james could never love ; wherefore he thought discretion t' advise his son t'disprove of all your false pretended zeal ; for wisely he did know , oh , the cares and the fears that by you whigs do grow ! when best of kings and princes did give your hearts desire , yet you were not contented , to th' crown you did aspire ; you said , you 'd make him great , indeed you did do so ; but oh , the cares and the fears attends such winds that blow ! on the mitre you did trample to make your selves more high , with greater force to give the stroke against his majesty : ah! false and trayterous tekelites , such ways to let us know the great cares and the fears that by you whigs do grow ! the whig he then stood rampant , to us he gave his laws ; yet such he dare not vaunt on 't , so sharp we felt his claws : you then laid open what you were , and smartly made us know oh , the cares and the fears that by you whigs do grow ! the blessed martyrs royal son , whom heav'n guarded sure , and made us happy by 's return , him you could not endure : against his life you did conspire , and mighty james also ; oh , the cares and the fears that by you whigs do grow ! peace , plenty , and all that 's good , through his conduct we have : ungrateful souls ! to seek his blood ▪ who seeks us for to save ; and by your late rebellious ways again to make us know , oh , the cares and the fears that by you whigs do grow ! with furious zeal you do inflame , and cause our countreys burn : you work confusion , but the blame on innocents you turn ▪ your holy masque is dropping off , god grant it may do so , and stop the cares and the fears that by you whigs do grow . may colledge , rouse , and hone , their fate on traytors all attend : what though i● seems a little late ? yet still we know your end . ●ust vengeance does not sleep , though you do think it so ; you 'll have your shares of the cares that by you whigs do grow . long live great charles our pious king who cares when we do sleep , to keep still safe under his wing from ravenous wolves his sheep : he us preserves from bears clutch ▪ the lyons jaw also , and from all cares and all fears that by you whigs do grow the whigs ▪ hard heart the cause of the hard frost . tune , oh london ! th'adst better have built new bordello's , &c. 1. ye whigs and dissenters , i charge you attend , here is a sad story , as ever was told : the river of thames , that once was your friend , is frozen quite over with ice very cold ; and fish which abounded , tho' they can't be drownded , for lack of their liquor , i fear are confounded then leave your rebellious & damn'd presbytering , or you may be glad of poor-jack & red-herring . 2. now , had it been frozen with brimstone and fire , the wonder had been much deeper at bottom ; tho' some do believe your sins do require a punishment great as e'r fell upon sodom : but then the poor fish had been dress'd to your dish , and , stead of a plague , you had then had your wish ; pikes , flounders , together with gudgeons and roaches , had served for the luxury of these debauche●s . 3. but , alas ! to instruct ye this frost now is sent , as if it would shew ye your consciences harden'd ; and if each mothers-child make not hast to repent , how the devil d' ye think ye shall ever be pardon'd 't is a very sad case , as ever yet was , that the river should suffer for every ass ! poor thames ! thou mayst curse the foul lake of geneva , for whose faults thou dost penance , sans hope of reprieve-a . 4. this thames , ( o ye whigs ! ) brought ye plenty & pride , so ye harden'd your hearts with your silver and gold but if ever ye hope to redeem time or tide , ●ot must your repentance , your zeal must be cold ; your damn'd hungry zeal for rank commonweal will hurry ye headlong all down to the deel ; then melt your hard hearts , and your tears spread abroad . as ever ye hope that your thames shall be thaw'd . 5. make hast , and be soon reconcil'd to the truth , or you may lament it , both old men and young ; for , suppose ev'ry shop should be turn'd to a booth oh , were it not sad to be told with a tongue ! should cheapside advance up to pety-france , and londons guild-hall up to westminster dance ; o , what would become of your wealthy brave chamber , if it were forc'd so far westward to clamber ? 6. c●ck shops with rost victuals , and taverns with wine , already are seen on the river with plenty , ●hich are fill'd ev'ry morning before ye can dine , by two's and by three 's , i may truly say twenty ; jack , tom , will , and hary . nan , sue , doll , and mary , come there to devour plum-cakes and canary : and if with their dancing & wine they be tir'd , for a tester a piece there 's a coach to be hir'd . 7. there 's ginger-bread , small-cole , and hot pudding-pies , with bread & cheese , brandy & good ale & beer : besides the plum-cakes too , there 's large cakes of ice , enough to invite him that will come here ; all which does betide to punish your pride ; y' are plagu'd now with ice , ' cause you love to back slide : methinks if should warn you to alter your station . for y 'ave hitherto built on a slippery foundation . 8. ye merchants to greenland , now leave off your sailing , and for your tr●in-oyl you●selves never solicit ; for there is no fear of your merchandise failing , since the whales , i●m afraid , mean to give us a visit : the great leviathan may sail to england , to see a worse monster the presbyterian . was ever a vengeance so wonderful shewn , that a river so great should be turn'd to a town ? the swearers chorus to the presbyterian plot. tune , the merry beggers , &c. 1. there was a monstruous doctor ; this doctor had no peer , a rogue from his cradle and bred to lie and swear ; and a swearing we will go , will go , will go , and a swearing we will go . 2. a bag for my pilgrims ▪ another for black bills , ten thousand blank commissions to move as many hills : and a swearing we will go , &c. 3. a bag for my sallery , from every fool suborns , three brawny bums to follow me , and bugger them by turns : and a bugg ring we will go , &c. 4. a bag for my plunder , sir william's on the scent ; the pole did n●er so thunder in the grand vizier's tent : and a pundring we will go , &c. 5. a bag for my necklace , another for my plate ; and all shall be fish that comes in waller's net ; and a plund'ring we will go , &c. 6. a bag for my pistols ▪ and consecrated knives , and one for tormentillio's , t'fright fools out of their lives : and a plotting we will go , &c. 7. a bag for the parson , another for don john ; though i swore like a whoreson , yet still i did swear on : and a swearing we will go , &c. 8. through four and twenty key-holes i sally'd like a witch , and through as many brick-walls i 'll swear i went through-stitch : and a swearing i did go , &c. 9. to lambeth we will go , where we first made the plot ; while prance and i can swear and lie , they all shall go to pot : and a plotting we will go , &c. 10. then we 'l to godfrey go , and find him kill'd o' th' spot , and swear the papists did it , to make a popish-plot : and a murd'ring we will go , &c. 11. a gown i have for shew amongst the clergy grave , and , when i please , a cloak to hide the double knave : and a plotting we will go , &c. 12. i had a pretty knack , to wheedle , swear and lye , by the rebellious rabble how much admir'd was i ! and a swearing we will go &c. 13. in fair london town i live , and pay no rent ; the brethren they provide for me , and i am well content : and a swearing we will go , &c. 14. of all occupations the swearer is most blest ; for when he swears most falsly , he 's always paid the best : and a swearing we will go , &c. 15. i fear no plot against me , although the whigs rebel ; then who would be honest , since such rogues fare so well ? and a plotting we will go , will go , will go ; and a plotting we will go . a new song . tune , i 'll tell thee , dick , &c. i hil tell thee , tom , the strangest story , because thou art an honest tory ; 't is news beyond expressions : zich zights are no where to be zeen in any lond , ( god zave the queen ) but at our quarter-sessions . vor rogues i zaw in zich a place , as wou'd the gibbet quite disgrace , 't is pity it shou'd want 'em : but how the devil they came there , list , tom , and i hil in brief declare and how they did recant 'em , when i was late at london town , to zee zome zights e●r i went down , to white-hall i did venture ; and having on my best array , as vine as on a holy-day , zoors i made bold to enter . up stairs i went , which were as brooad , and dirty too as any rooad , or as the streets o' th' zity . hadst thou been there , thou wouldst have said his majesty had kept no maid , gods zooks , and that 's a pity . when i was up , i did discern a chamber bigger than a barn , where i did see voke stand , that i was well near vrighted quite , it was so strange and grim a zight , with long things in their hand . their cloathing cannot well be told , on which were things of beaten gold upon their back and breast ; i doft my hat when i came in , quoth i , pray which of you's the king ? which made a woundy jest . at last came by a gentlemon , who made me zoon to understond i need not be avear'd ; quoth he , come on , and vollow me , i hil shew thee straight his majesty ; vor thease are but his guard. but , tom , not any wake or vair can shew zich numbers as are there , still cringing low , and bowing , that i may zwear , and tell no lie , they wearier are , than thou or i with thrashing or with plowing . no ants do vaster lead or drive , or bees buz to or fro' the hive , i ma●l they were not dizzy ; and zure the nations great avairs lay heavily upon their cares , they look'd zo wise and busie . at last came in his majesty , not taller much than thou or i ; yet , whatzoe'r i ail'd , with only gazing on his vace , i trembl'd like a love-zick lass just on the point to yield . he look'd , methought , above the rest , tho not by half zo vinely drest , which made me vall a zwearing , a pox upon the parliament , that will not let us pay him rent , gold's only for his wearing a ribbon vine came cross avore , zich as our landlords bridemen wore at end of which was hung a curious thing , that shone as bright as maudlin's eyes , or morning light , when guilded by the zun , but now the news , i hil tell thee truth , hard by hi● zide there stood a youth , that look●d as trim and gay , as if de had not guilty bin of wishing e'r to be a king , unless a king of may. it was the zame our vicar zed vor treason shou'd have last his head , vor which ●ive hundred pound by proclamation offer'd was to any that shou'd take his grace in any kerson ground . won zunday morn , thou maist remember , i think the twantieth of zeptember , our parson read a thing , how this zame spark , ( a vengeance on him ! ) with vorty moor , did take upon him to kill our gracious king. but scant the vrighted harmless zwain , that meets a wolf upon the plain , was so agast with vear : wounds ! if his majesty ( quoth i ) does keep no better company , i hil stay no longer here . with that , the mon that brought me in by th' jacket pull'd me back again ; quoth he , pray hear ye reason ; he was a what-d'ye-cal't , 't is true , but●s pardon makes him vree as you vrom knavery or treason . whaw , whaw ! quoth i , a pretty nick , to make rogues honest by a trick zo often try'd in vain : as if my bull shou'd gore me once ▪ i 'd trust the zenseless beast with horns to gore me o'r agen . i hil e'en to devonshire agen , where honest men are honest men , and rogues are hang'd v●r rogues . ods wounds ! were i his majesty , e'r zich a zon shou'd counten●nc●d be , chi'd prize him as my dogs . vnfortunate jockey ; or , jenneys lamentation for the loss of jockey . a pleasant tune , sung in the play call'd , the royalist . 1. twa bony lads were sawny and jockey , sawny was lewd , and jockey unluckey , sawney was tall , well favour'd , and witty , but i 'se in my heart thought jockey more prety for when he su'd me , woo'd me , and view'd me , never was lad so like to undo me , fie i cry'd , and almost dy'd , lest jockey should gang and come no more to me . 2. jockey would love , but he would not marry , and i'se had a dread that i'se should miscary his cunning tongue with wit was so guilded , that i'se was afraid my heart would have yielded for daily he press'd me , kiss'd me , and bless'd me , lost was the hour methought when he mist me , crying , denying , and sighing , i woo'd him , and muckle ado i had to get fro him . 3. but cruel fate rob'd me of my jewel , for sawny would make him fight in duel , and down in a dale with cypress surrounded , ha! there to his death poor jockey was wounded but when he thrill'd him , fell'd him , kill'd him , who could express my grief that beheld him ? raging , i tore my hair for to bind him , and vow'd and swore ne'r to stay behind him . 4. i sigh'd and sob'd until i was weary , to think my poor jockey should so miscarry , and never was any in such a sad taking as hapless jenny , whose heart is still a king , to think how i crost him , tost him & lost him ; too late it was to coyn words to accost him , alone then i sate lamenting and crying , still wishing each minute that i were a dying . 5 ah! jockey since thou behind thee hast left me , and death of all joys and all comforts bereft me , thy destiny i will lament very mickle and down my pale cheeks salt tears they shall trickle ; to ease me of trouble each bubble shall double , to think of my jockey so loyal and noble , i 'se grieve for to think that those eyes are benighted wherein mournful jenny so much once delighted 6. that blow oh sawny was base and unlucky , that robbed poor jenny of her dearest jockey , a bony boon youth 't was known he was ever to please his poor jenny was still his endeavor ; but 't was fortune uncertain , our parting , procured & caused this breaking & smarting , but whilst i do live 't is resolved by jenny , for jockeys dear sake ne'r to lig with any . 7. this jenny for jockey lay sighing and weeping , oft wringing her hands while others was sleeping but sawney to see her thus strangely distressed , for the loss of her love , his heart was oppressed , tho' this deluder , view'd her , and sued her , 't was all but in vain , for she call'd him intruder and said , if you die for my love i will mock ye , for you were the cause of the death of my jockey . 8. that bony brave scot hath left nene behind him , that like to himself was worthy of minding , ●is fathers delight , and the joy of his mother ; and scotland before ne'r bred sike another , when i think on his beauty , let duty confute ye . death never before had sike a great booty , for all that do know him , do sigh & bewail him , but oceans of tears now can little avail him . 9. ah! jockey there 's nene that are left to inherit the tythe of thy virtues , thou wonderful merit , but whilst i do live thou shalt not be forgotten , he sing out thy praise when thy carkass is rotten for thou wert the fairest , rarest , and dearest , and now thou art dead like a saint thou appearest , i 'll have on thy tomb-stone these verses inserted , here lies hopeless jockey , who was so true hearted . 10. and when this thy motto shall fairly be written , there 's none shall read but with grief shall be smitten and say 't was pity that one so true hearted should by cruel death from his jenny be parted . and thus i with weeping , creeping , and peeping look into thy grave where thou dost lie sleeping till sighing my self i have brought to my end , to show that poor jenny was jockeys true friend . the winchester wedding ; or , ralph of redding , and black bess of the green. to a new country dance : or , the king 's jigg● 1. at winchester was a wedding , the like was never seen twixt lusty ralph of redding , and bony black bess of the green ▪ the fidlers were crowding before , each lass was as fine as a queen , there was a hundred and more , for all the country came in : brisk robin led rose so fair , she lookt like a lilly o'th'vale , and ruddy-fac'd harry led mary , and roger led bouncing nell . 2 with tommy came smiling katy , he helpt her over the stile , and swore there was none so pretty , in forty and forty long mile : kit gave a green gown to betty , and lent her his hand to rise . but jenny was jeer'd by watty , for looking blew under the eyes : thus merrily chatting all , they pass'd to the bride-house along with jonny and pretty fac'd nanny , the fairest of all the throng . 3. the bridegroom came out to meet 'em , afraid the dinner was spoil'd , and usher'd 'em in to treat 'em , with bak'd , and roasted , and boyl●d ; the lads were so frolick and jolly , for each had his love by his side , but willy was melancholly , for he had a mind to the bride : then philip begins her health , and turns a beer-glass on his thumb , but jenkin was reckon'd for drinking , the best in christendom . 4. and now they had din'd , advancing into the midst of the hall , the fidlers struck up for dancing , and jeremy led up the brawl ; but margery kept a quarter , a lass that was proud of her pelf , ' cause arthur had stoln her garter , and swore he would tye it himself : she strugl'd and blusht , and frown'd , and ready with anger to cry , ' cause arthur with tying her garter , had slip'd his hand too high . 5. and now for throwing the stocking , the bride away was led , the bridegroom got drunk was knocking for candles to light 'em to bed : but robbin that found him silly , most friendly took him aside , the vvhile that his wife vvith willy , vvas playing at hoopers-hide ; and novv the vvarm game begins , the critical minute vvas come , and chatting , and billing , and kissing , vvent merily round the room . 6. pert stephen vvas kind to betty , and blith as a bird in the spring , and ●ommy vvas so to katy , and wedded her vvith a rush ring : sukey that danc'd at the cushion , an hour from the room had been gone , and barnaby knevv by her blushing , that some other dance had been done ; and thus of fifty fair maids , that came to the wedding vvith men , scarce five of the fifty vvas left ye , that so did return again . a narrative of the old plot , being a new song . tune , some say the ●apists had a plot , &c. 1. when traytors did at pop●ry rail , because it taught confession : when bankrupts bawl'd for property , and bastards for succession . 2. when tony durst espouse the cause , spight of his pox and gout : when speaking williams purg'd the house by spewing members out . 3. when hunt a twy-fac't pamphlet wrote , the embleme of his soul : when oats swore whom he pleas'd in 's plot ▪ and reign'd without controul . 4. when l — ce too lampoon'd the court , and libell'd cats and doggs : when witnesses , like mushroms , sprung out of the irish boggs . 5. then perkin thought 't was time to prove his claim to kingship fair ; and 'faith t is sit the peeples son should be the peoples heir . 6. so fill'd with zeal he and his knight caress and court the rout ; and my lord duke goes up and down to shew his grace about . 7. tho' f — d lord g — y would not ingage upon that idle score ; for he would have a common-wealth , as well as common whore . 8. he envy●d his old friend a crown but why i can't devise ; for 's grace had grac't his lordships head with horns of noble size . 9. then johnson wrote his patrons creed , a doctrine fetch 't from hell : 't was christian-like to disobey , and gospel to rebel . 10. julian his pattern and his text ; a meaner theam he scorns : first represents him at the desk , and then apostate turns . 11. like his , his patrons zeal grew high , th' exclusion to advance ; and the right heir must be debarr'd , for fear of rome and france . 12. the zealous commons then resolv'd , ( and they knew what they did ) by whomsoe're the king should fall , the papists throats should bleed ▪ 13. so murd'ring ponyards off are slipt into a guiltless hand : and innocence is sacrific'd , whilst malefactors stand . 14. by hell's assistance then they fram'd their damn'd association : and worthy men , and men worthy , divided all the nation 15. fools oft and madmen leave the less , and choose the greater evil : thus they for fear of popery , run head-long to the devil . 16. at last the loyal souls propose to ease their sovereign's cares ; if he 'll sit down , and first remove their jealousies and fears . 17. just the old trick and sham device of belzebub their sire : he but fall down and worship them , they 'll grant his hearts desire . 18. nay lives and fortunes then shall be entirely all his own ; if he will fairly once disclaim a brother and a crown . the praise of the dairy-maid , with a lick at the cream-pot , or fading rose . tune , packington's pound . 1. let wine turn a spark , & ale huff like a hector . let pluto drink coffee , & jove his rich nector . neither cider nor sherry , metheglin nor perry , shall more make me drunk , which the vulgar call merry : these drinks o're my fancy no more shall prevail but i 'll take a full soop at the mery milk-pail . 2. in praise of a dairy i purpose to sing ; but all things in order ; first god save the king , and the queen i may say , that ev'ry may-day , has many fair dairy-maids all fine and gay . assist me , fair dam'sels to finish this theme , and inspire my fancy with strawberries & cream 3. the first of fair dairy-maids , if you 'll believe , was adam's own wife , your great-grand-mother eve ; she milk'd many a cow , as well she knew how , tho' butter was then not so cheap as 't is now ; she hoarded no butter nor cheese on a shelf , for the butter and cheese in those days made it self . 4. in that age or time there was no damn'd money , yet the children of israel fed on milk & honey ; no queen you could see of the highest degree , but would milk the brown cow with the meanest she their lambs gave them cloathing , their cows gave them meat . in a plentiful peace all their joys were compleat . 5. but now of the making of cheese we shall treat , that nurser of subjects , bold britains chief meat . when they first begin it , to see how the rennet begets the first curd , you wou'd wonder what 's in it . then from the blue whey , when they put the curds by . they look just like amber , or clouds in the sky . 6. your turkey sherbet , and arabian tea , is dish-water-stuff to a dish of new whey ; for it cools head and brains , ill vapours it drains , and tho' your guts rumble , 't will ●e'r hurt your brains . court-ladies i' th morning will drink a whole pottle , and send out their pages with tankard & bottle . 7. thou daughter of milk , and mother of butter , sweet cream , thy due praises how shall i utter ! for when at the best , a thing 's well exprest , we are apt to reply , that 's the cream of the jest : had i been a mouse , i believe in my soul i had long since been drown'd in a cream-bowl . 8 the elixir of milk , the dutch-mens delight , by motion and tumbling thou bringest to light ; but oh , the soft stream that remains of the cream ! old morpheus ne'r tasted so sweet in a dream ; it removes all obstructions , depresses the spleen , and makes an old bawd like a wench of fifteen . 9. amongst the rare virtues that milk does produce a thousand more dainties are daily in use ; for a pudding i 'll tell ye , e'r it goes in the belly , must have good milk , both the cream & the jelly ; for a dainty fine pudding without cream or milk is like a citizen's wife without satten or silk . 10. in the virtues of milk there 's more to be muster'd the charming delights of cheese-cake and custard ; for at totenam-court you can have no sport , unless you give custards and cheese-cakes for 't : and what 's jack pudding that makes us to laugh , unless he hath got a great custard to quaff . 11. both pan-cakes & fritters of milk have good store but a devonshire whit-pot requires much more . no state you can ●hink , tho' you study and wink , from the lusty sack-posset to poor posset-drink ; but milk's the ingredient , tho' sack 's ne'r the worse ; for 't is sack makes the man , tho' milk makes the nurse , 12. but now i shall treat of a dish that is cool , a rich clouted cream , or a goose-berry-fool ; a lady i heard tell , not far off did dwell , made her husband a fool , and yet pleas'd him full well : give thanks to the dairy then every lad , that from good-natur'd women such fools may be had . 13. when the dam'sel has got the cows teat in her hand how she merily sings , while smiling i stand then with pleasure i rub , yet impatient i crub , when i think of the blessings of a syllabub : oh dairy-maids , milk-maids , such bliss ne'r oppose . if e'r you 'll be happy ; i speak under the rose . 14. this rose was a maiden once of your profession , till the rake and the spade had taken possession ; at length it was said , that one mr. edmond did both dig and sow in her parsley bed ; but the fool for his labour deserves not a rush , for grafting a thistle upon a rose-bush . 15. now milk maids , take warning by this maidens fall . keep what is your own , and then you keep all ; mind well your milk-pan , and ne'r touch a man , and you 'll still be a maid , let him do what he can . i am your well-wisher , then list to my word , and give no more milk than the cow can afford a new song sung before the loyal livery-men in wistminster-hall july the 19 th . 16● . 1. hark ! how noll & b●adshaw's heads above us cry , come , come , ye whigs that love us : come , ye faithful sons , fall down , and adore ye your fathers , whose glory was to kill kings before ye ; from treason & plots let your grave heads adjourn , and our glorious pinacle adorn . what though the scaffolds all are down here , to entertain the friends of the crown here ? we , whose lives & whose fortunes great charles will maintain , for monarchy-haters , damn'd associators , whigs , bastards and traytors , we 'll build 'em , we 'll build 'em again , let the infamous cut threats of princes be shamm'd all . their black souls be damn'd all , their blunderbuss ramm'd all with brimstone and fire infernal ; the gods that look o'r him did by wonders restore him , their angels sate round him that hour they crown'd him , and were listed his guards eternal . 2. how , like jove , the monarch of great-britain drives the gyant-sons of titan ! down ye rebel-crew ; ye slaves , lie under : see! charles with his thunder has dash'd 'em all asunder ; down from his bright heav'n the aspirers are hurl'd , lost in the common rubbish of the world : see , how the god returns victorious ! and to make his tryumph still more glorious , see , the whole hosts of heav'n the proud conquerour meet . the stars burn all brighter , the sun mounts uprighter , whilst his steeds gallop lighter , to see , see their jove made so great : with the brands & the stings of a conscience disloyal from the fiery tryal , let the coward slaves flie all , leave vengeance and gibbets behind 'em ; whilst the great desperadoes all turn'd renegadoes , with their old friends took napping , in some cole-hole at wapping shall charles and his justice find ' em . 3. let the malice of fanatick roundhead ( hatch'd in hell ) be still confounded ; the royal brothers no storm e're sever , but new wonders deliver , and their heirs reign for ever , on englands bright throne sit till times last sand runs , and stop their glories chariot with the suns . then for charles's second restauration , snatch'd from the jaws of the imps of damnation , we with feastings & revels will chear up our souls for the safety of caesar , in joy , and in pleasure , till our hearts shall o're-flow like our bowls . for a health to great charles , let the goblets be crown'd there , the huzza go round there , to the skies let it sound there , up to th' throne of great charles's protector , till the pleas'd gods that see , boys , grow as merry as we , boys , joyn their spheres in the chorus , make their whole heav'ns out-roar us , and pledge us in bumpers of nectar . a narrative of the popish-plot , shewing the cunning contrivance thereof . tune , packington 's pound . the contents of the first part. how sir godfrey is kill'd , his body they hide , which brought out in chair , a horseback does ride ; how jesuits disguis'd our houses to fire ; how subtly they plot , and the king's death conspire ; of divers great lords drawn in , to their bane , an irish army , and pilgrims from spain . 1. good people , i pray you , give ear unto me . a story so strange you have never been told how the jesuit , devil and pope did agree our state to destroy , and religion so old : to murder our king , a most horrible thing ! but first of sir godfrey his death i must sing ; for howe'r they disguiss't , we plainly can see , who murdr'd that knight , no good christian cou'd be . the truth of my story if any man doubt , we have witnesses ready to swear it all out . 2. at somerset house , there is plain to be seen a gate which will lead you into the back-court ; this place for the murder most sitting did seem , for thither much people do freely resort : his body they toss'd from pillar to ●ost , and shifted so often , t 'had like t' have been lost ; to which with dark-lanthorn the jesuits did go , but no ways distrusted our honest bedlow . the truth of my story , &c 3. lest such close contrivements at length might take air , when as his dead body corrupted did grow , they quickly did find an invisible chair , and set him on horse-back to ride at sohoe : his own sword to th' hilt. to add to their guilt , they thrust through his body , but no blood was spilt ; t' have it thought he was kill'd by a thief they did mean , so they left all 's money , and made his shoes clean . the truth of my story &c. 4. to shew now th' excess of jesuitical rage , they this loyal city to ruine would bring , ' cause you citizens are so religious and sage , and ever much noted as true to your king : t' your houses they go with fire and with tow , then pilfer your goods , & 't is well you ' scape so ; y'have seen how they once set the town all in flame ; yet 't is their best refuge , if we believe fame . the truth of my story , &c. 5. by bedlow's narration is shewn you most clear , how jesuits disguss●d into houses will creep ; in a porter's or carman's frock they appear , nay , will not disdain to cry chimney sweep ; or sell you small cole , then drop in some hole a fire-ball , or thrust it up by a long pole. but i now must relate a more tragical thing , how these villains conspir'd to murder our king. the truth of my story , &c. 6. at the white-horse in april was their main consul● ▪ where a writing these plotters wickedly frame ; the death of our sovereign was the result , to which at least forty all signed their name : they would not do that , in the place where they sat , trusty oates must convey't from this man to that ; to make sure work , by poyson the deed must be done and by a long dagger , and shot from a gun. the truth of my story . &c. 7. for fear at st. omers their oates might be miss'd , they agreed with the devil t' appear in his place , in a body of air , ( believe 't if you list ) which lookt just like oats ▪ & mov'd with the same grace . 't cou'd plot , it cou'd cant , turn eyes like a saint , and of our great doctor no feature did want : thus hundreds might swear they saw oates ev'ry day but true oats was here , and the devil say they . the truth of my story , &c. 8. from father oliva commissions did come , to raise a great army much treasure is spent ; the old man did once think to take post from rome for to ride at the head of them was his intent ; lord bellas was sit ( who can deny it ? to command in his place , when his gout wou'd permit ; lord stafford was proper'st to trust with their pay old ratcliffe to range them in battle-array . the truth of my story , &c. 9. th' high-treasurers place the l. powis did please , ( men of desp'rate fortunes oft venture too far ; ) lord peters would hazard estate , and his ease , and life for the pope too , in this holy war ; lord ar'ndel , of old so war-like and bold , made choice of a chancellors gown we are told ; all these did conspire with the lord castlemain , who now his good dutchess will ne'r catch again the truth of my story , &c. 10. great store of wild irish , both civil and wise , designed to joyn with the pilgrims of spain ; many thousands being ready all in good guise , had vow'd a long pilgrimage over the main ; to arm well this host when it came on our coast , black bills forty thousand are sent by the post , this army lay privately on the sea shore , and no man e'r heard of 'em since or before . the truth of my story , &c. the second part . the contents of the second part. of arms under-ground for horse and for foot , the king almost kill'd , but gun will not shoot , for which pickring is whip'd . all of them swear to be true to the plot ; yet oats , not for fear , but revenge , being turn'd away , and well hang●d , discovers them all ; the jesuits are hang'd . 1. the plot being thus subtly contriv'd , as you hear , to god knows how many this secret th' impart ; some famous for cheats , yet their faith they don't fear to tie a knave fast they had found a new art. they swore on a book , and sacrament took ; but you 'll find , if into their grave authors you look , to forswear●s no sin ( as th' recorder well notes ) nor treason , rebellion , nor cutting of throats . the truth of my story , &c. 2. still blinded by zeal , and inveigl'd by hope , store of arms they provide for fight & defence ; the lords must command as vice-roys of the pope , and all over england they raise peter-pence : their letters they send by bedlow their friend , or else by the post , to shew what they intend ; some hundreds oats saw , which the jesuits ●id write 't is a wonder not one of them e'r came to light . the truth of my story , &c. 3. pounds two hundred thousand they to ireland sent , fifteen thousand to wakeman for potions and pills , forty thousand in fire-works we guess that they spent , and at least ten thousand for the ' foresaid black-bills fifteen hundred more grove shou'd have , they swore , four gentleman-russians deserved fourscore ; pious pickering they knew was of masses more fond ; and for thirty thousand they gave him a bond. they truth of my story , &c. 4 these two , to kill the king by promises won , had now watch●d for some years in st. james's park , and pickering ( who never yet shot off a gun ) was about to take aim , for he had a fair mark ; just going to begin't , he missed his flint , and looking in pan , there was no powder in 't ; for which he their pardon does humbly beseech , yet had thirty good lashes upon his bare breech . the truth of my story , &c. 5 but a sadder mischance to the plot did befall , for oats their main engine fail'd , when it came to 't no marvel indeed if he cozen'd them all , who turn'd him a begging and beat him to boot . he wheeling about , the whole party did rout and from lurking holes did ferret them out , till running himself blind ; he none of them knew , and fainting at councel , he could not swear true . the truth of my story , &c. 6. to strengthen our doctor , brave bedlow's brought in , a more credible witness was not above-ground ; he vows and protests , what e'r he had been , he wou'd not swear false now for five hundred pound and why should we swear , they falsly would swear , to damn their own souls , and to lose by it here ; for oats , who before had no peny in purse discov'ring the plot , was seven hundred pound worse . the truth of my story , &c. 7 ▪ two witnesses more were let loose from the jayl , though one , 't is confest , did run back from his word ; ( in danger of life a good man may be frail ) and th' other they slander for cheating his lord ▪ t' each one of these men the jesuits brought ten , to disprove em in time & in place ; but what then ? one circumstance lately was sworn most clear , by a man who in hopes has four hundred a year . the truth of my story , &c. 8. besides 't was oft urg'd , we must always suppose , to murder the king a great plot there has been ; and who to contrive it so likely as those who murder and treasons do hold for no sin ; things being thus plain , to plead was in vain , the jury instructed again and again , did find them all guilty , & to shew 't was well done the people gave a shout for victory won . 9. 't is strange how these jesuits , so subtle and wise , should all the pope be so basely trepann'd , to hang with much comfort when he shall advise , and go to the devil too at his command . he may give them leave to lye and deceive ; but what when the rope does of life them bereave can his holiness , think you , dispense with that pain or by his indulgences raise them again ? the truth of my story , &c. 1o . yet , like mad men , of life and contempt they express and of their own happiness careless appear ; for life and for money not one wou'd confess , they 'd rather be damn'd than be rich & live here . but surely they rav'd , when god they out-brav'd , and thought to renounce him the way to be sav'd , and with lies in their mouths go to heav'n in a string so prosper all traytors , and god save the king. the truth of my story , &c. concordat cum kecordo cl. par. a general sale of rebellious houshold-stuff . tune , old simon the king. 1. rebellion hath broken up house , and hath left me old lumber to sell ; come hither and take your choice ; i 'le promise to use you well . will you buy the old speaker's chair , which was warm , and easie to sit-in , and often-times hath been made clean , when as it was fouler than sitting , says old symon the king , says old symon the king , with thread-bare cloaths , and his mamsy nose , sing hey ding , ding , a ding ding . 2. will you buy any bacon-flitches ? they 're the fattest that ever were spent ; they 're the sides of the old committees , fed up with th' long parliament . here 's a pair of bellows and tongs , and for a small matter i 'll sell 'em ; they 're made of the presbyters lungs , to blow up the coals of rebellion , says old symon the king , &c. 3. i had thought to have given them once to some black-smith for his forge ; but , now i have consider'd on 't , they 're consecrated to the church ; for i 'll give them to some choir , to make the organs to rore , and the little pipes squeak higher than ever they did before , says old symon the king , &c. 4. here 's a couple of stools for sale , the one square , and t'other is round ; betwixt them both , the tail of the rvmp fell unto the ground . will you buy the states council-table , which was made of the good wain scot ; the frame was a tottering babel , to uphold the independent-plot ? says old symon the king , &c. 5. here 's the beesom of reformation , which should have made clean the floor ; but it swept the wealth out of th' nation , and left us dirt good store . will you buy the states spinning-wheel , which spun for the ropers trade ? but better it had stood still , for now it has spun a fair threed , says old symon the king , &c. 6. here 's a very good clyster-pipe , which was made of a butchers stump ; and oft-times it hath been us'd to cure the colds of the rvmp . here 's a lump of pilgrims-salve , which once was a justice of peace , who nol and the devil did serve ; but now it is come to this , says old symon the king , &c. 7. here 's a roll of states tobacco , if any good fellow will take it : it 's neither virginia nor spanish , but i 'll tell you how they do make it ; 't is covenant mixt with engagement , with an abjuration-oath ; and many of them that did take it complain it is foul in the mouth , says old symon the king , &c. 8. yet the ashes may happily serve to cure the scab of the nation , when they have an itch to serve a rebellion by innovation . a lanthorn here is be bought , the like was scarce e'r begotten ; for many a plot 't has found out , before they ever were thought on , says old symon the king , &c. 9. will you buy the rump ●s great saddle which once did carry the nation ? and here 's the bitt and the bridle , and curb of dissimulation here 's the breeches of the rump , with a fair dissembling cloak , and a presbyterian jump , with an independant smock , says old symon the king , &c. 10. here 's oliver's brewing-vessels . and here 's his dray and his slings , here 's hewson's aul and his bristles , with divers other odd things . and what doth the price belong to all these matters before-ye ? i 'le sell them all for an old song , and so i do end my story , says old symon the king , says old symon the king , with his thread bare cloaths , and his mainsey nose , sing hey ding , ding , a ding ding . advice to the city : or , the whigs loyalty . to a theorbo . 1. remember ye whigs what was formerly done , remember your mischiefs in forty and one , when friend oppos'd friend , and father the son , then , then the old cause went rarely on ; the cap sat aloft , and low was the crown , the rable got up , and the nobles went down ; lay elders in tubs , rul'd bishops in robes , who mourn'd the sad fate and dreadful disaster , of their royal master , by rebels betray'd . then london be wise , and baffle their power . and let them play the old game no more ; hang , hang up the sheri●●● th● ba● 〈◊〉 in power , those 〈…〉 , thos● rats of the ●ower , whose canting tales the rable believes , in a hurry ▪ and never sorry ▪ merily they still go on , fy for shame , we 're too tame , since they claim the combat ; tan , ta , ra , ra , ra , tan , ta , ra , ra , ra ; dub , a dub , and let the drum beat , the strong militia guard the throne . 2. when faction possesses the popular voice , the cause is supply'd still with non-sense & noise ; and toney their speaker , the rabble leads on , he knows if we prosper , that he must run . carolina must be his next station of ease , and london be rid of her worst disease . from plots and from spies , from treason and lies , we shall ever be free , and the law shall be able , to punish a rebel as cunning as he . then london be wise , &c. 3. rebellion ne'er wanted a loyal pretence ; these villains swear all 's for the good of their prince : oppose our elections , to shew what they dare , and losing their charter , arrest the lord mayor . fool jenks was the first o' th' cuckoldly crew , with ellis , and jeykel , and hubland the jew . fam'd sparks of the town , for wealth and renown , give the devil his due , and such as we fear , had their sovereign been there , th 'had arrested him too . then london be wise , &c. blanket fair , or the history of temple-street . being a relation of the merry pranks plaid on the river of thames during the great frost . tune , packington's pound 1. come listen a while ( though the weather be cold ) in your pockets & plackets your hands you may hold . i●ll tell you a story as t●ue as t is rare , of a river turn'd into a bartholomew fair. since old christmas lust there has been such a frost , that the thames has by half the whole nation been crost . o scullers i pity your fate of extreams , each land-man is now become free of the thames . 2. 't is some ●a●land acquaintance of conjurer oates , that has ty'd up your hands & imprison'd your boats you know he was ever a friend to the crew of all that to admiral james has bin true . where sculls once did row men walk to and fro , but e're four months are ended ' will hardly be so . should your hopes of a tha● by this weather be crost , your fortunes would soon be as hard as the frost . 3. in roast beef and brand ▪ much money is spent in booths made of blankets that pay no ground-rent with old fashion'd chimneys the rooms are secur'd and the houses from danger of fire ensur'd . the chief place you meet is call'd temple-street , if you do not believe me , then you may go see 't . from the temple the students do thither resort , who were always great patrons of revels & sport . 4. the citizen comes with his daughter or wife , and swears he ne'r saw such a sight in his life : the prentices starv'd at home for want of o●als , to catch them a heat do flock thither in shoals , while the country squire does stand and admire at the wondrous conjunction of water and fire . strait comes an arch wag , a young son of a whore , and lays the squires head where his heels ●ere before . 5. the rotterdam dutchman with fleet cutting scates , to pleasure the crowd shews his tricks & his feats , who like a rope-dancer ( for all his sharp steels ) his brains and activity lie in his heels . here are all things like fate are in slippery state , from the sole of the foot to the crown of the pate . while the rabble in sledges run giddily round , and nought but a circle of folly is found . 6. here damsels are handed like nymphs in the bath , by gentlemen-vshers with legs like a lath ; they slide to a tune , and cry give me your hand , when the tottering fops are scarce able to stand . then with fear and with care they arrive at the fair , where wenches sell glasses & crackt earthen ware ; to shew that the world , & the pleasures it brings , are made up of brittle and slippery things . 7. a spark of the bar with his cane and his muff , one day went to treat his new rigg'd kitchinstuff , let slip from her gallant , the gay damsel try'd ( as oft she had done in the country ) to slide , in the way lay a stump , that with a damn'd thump , she broke both her shooe-strings & cripl'd her rump . the heat of her buttocks made such a great thaw . she had like to have drowned the man of the law. 8. all you that are warm both in body and purse , i give you this warning for better or worse , be not there in the moonshine pray take my advice for slippery things have been done on the ice . maids there have been said to lose maiden-head , and sparks from full pockets gone empty to bed. if their brains and their bodies had not been too warm , 't is forty to one they had come to less harm . freezland-fair , or the icey bear-garden . tune , packington's pound . 1. i 'll tell ye a tale tho' before 't was in print ) if you make nothing on 't , than the devil is in 't 't is no tale of a tub , nor the plotting of treason , but of very strange things have been done this strange season . ye know there 's a brook , no , no , i mistook , for i could not find it , tho' long i did look ; yet i do not question , for all these odd freaks , we shall find it again when-e're the frost breaks . 2. if ye do believe what was told us by oats , ye never again will have use of your boats ; without ye do now imploy th' wheelers to do 't , ye never ne'r will be able to bring all about . he talkt of a plot , believe it , or not , to blow up the thames , and to do 't on the spot ; then either the doctor must now be believ'd , or else the doctor and we are deceiv'd 3. no water i see which does fairly incline , to make me believe that he has sprung his mine ; tho' that did not do what the doctor intended , yet he may for one thing be said to be commended : he said that the pope , pray mind , 't is a trope , wou'd send us his bulls , by the way of the hope ; and tho' for the sight we have all along bin waiting i t'other day saw on the ice a bull-baiting . 4. i hope you 'll believe me , 't was a fine sight , as ever i saw on a queen besses night ; tho' i must confess i saw no such dogs there , as us'd to attend on th' infallible chair . yet there were some men. whom i knew again , who bawl'd as they did , when they chose aldermen . and faith it had bin a most excellent show . had there bin but some crackers and serpents to throw . 5. another thing pleas'd me , as i hope for life , i saw of a man that had gotten a wife to see the rare w●imsies , the woman was sick , so never suspected a slippery trick : but when she came there , the ice wou'd not bear , but whether 't was his fault or hers , i can't swear ; yet thus far is true , had he lost his wife , he then might have pray'd for a frost all his life 6. there 's very fine tricks , & new subject for laughter , for there you may take a coach and go by water , so get a tarpauling too , as you are jogging , tho' a nymph t'other day for it got a good flogging . there was an old toast , of beef had a roast , which fell into th' sellar , and fairly was lost . o see in old proverbs sometimes there is truth , a man is not sure of his meat till in 's mouth . 7. but i had forgot my chief bus●ness i swear , to give an account of new temple street fair ; where most of the students do daily resort , to shew the great love they had always for sport . who oft give a token , i hope 't may be spoken , to whore in a mask , who squeaks like a pig a poke in to see such crack't vessels sail is a new matter , who have bin so shatter'd between wind & water . 8. like babel this fair 's not built with brick or stone though here i believe is as great confusion ; now blanckets are forc'd double duty to pay , on beds all the night , and for houses all day ; but there 's something more , some people deplore , their carelesly leaving open sellar door , which puts me in mind of jack presbyter's trick , who from pulpit descends the like way to old nick , 9. come all ye young damsels both swarthy and fair , this is the best place to put off your crackt ware ; here 's chapmen good store who too 't stifly will stand , and scorn to put coin that is false in your hand : while you 're there abiding , and on the ice gliding , let 'em say what they will , 't is but a back-sliding : but if ye shou'd prove , then say i am a prophet , tho' t is a slippery trick there shall come no more of it 10. there 's many more tricks , but too long to be told , which are not all new , tho' there 's none of 'em old there 's the fellow that printeth the old bailey trial who to all the dull printers does give a denyal ; he 'll print for a s●ce , ( for that is his price your name ( that you brag may 't was done ) on the ice . and faith i do think it a very fine thing , so my tale's at an end , but first , god save the king , toney's soliloquies . tune , the lamentation of a bad market . 1. when the plot i first invented , i was ravisht in conceit , to see its frame so well cemented , varnish'd over with deceit . it was an infant of my spirit , nay , the darling of my soul , if its contrivance be a merit , by jove the cooper did well boul. 2. for to give this engine motion , to arrive where it did tend , i fill'd the vulgar ears with ' notions , and gospel of my oaten friend ; i antedated all transactions , distinguisht stiles of new and old , in the state i made such fractions ; some i bought , and some i sold. 3. the mobile i so distemper'd , with the magick of my care , none but wou'd his soul have ventur'd where brave toney bore a share ; have i not in abomination held the miter and lawn sleeves , and itcht at a second sequestration , to pull down such ghostly theeves . 4. have i not taught the sanhedrim ▪ to imperate and not obey ? th' had genuflections done to them , which men to crowned heads do pay . then would i barter for repeal o' th five and thirtieth of q. bess , to make a way for commonweal , ( the centre of our happiness . ) 5. how many hot and high debates , in favour of th' exclusive bill , i bandy'd 'twixt the two estates , th' effects of my depraved will ! by subornation , to the block i brought , a loyal noble peer ; and trusted others to that lock , which cost my buck and me so dear . 6. in fine , poor profligated wretch , for to indulge my minion spight , my seared conscience i did stretch , and did old rowley's guards indict i did espouse all wickedness , and only lov'd what 's purely evil ; in that alone was my excess ; then take thy own associate , devil . rejoyce in tryumph , or a plaudite on the ottamens defeat at vienna . tune , hark how the thundring connons roar . 1. i 'm glad to hear the cannons roar resounding from the german shoar , better news than heretofore , that babels beast is wounded ; the christians brave , both all and some charge with the horse and kettle-drum , the enemy of christendom , till ●urks are quite confounded . 2. the king of poland ( in a phraise ) the great grand-seigneur did amaze , and the noise his siege did raise , couragious solymannus ! ( if you resolve to come again ) you must recruit both might and main , or else it will be all in vain , to think that thy'l trepan us . 3. his christian majesty of france doth booty play , the germans dance , and he doth laugh at our mischance , himself he dare not venter ; but pimp the beast , and babels whore , and he ●o-peep stands at the door , while the wanton cannon roar , then hector-like he 'l enter . 4. but spite on turk , and great mogul , and pox upon the scarlet trull , and we poppie too dare pull , if charles be our commander ; for though he neutral seem to be , he can command both land and sea , and over-throw the big-look'd three , and trace brave alexander . 5. then let no rancor joyn'd with hate make ruptures in the church or state , but all submit to divine fate , and keep within our border ; let none old england then forsake , ( since crowns and kingdoms lye at stake ) if forreign war to undertake , till charles get further order . 6. the germans tall that heretofore , they captive took one bull and boar , the minotaurus of a whore , did roar like any thunder ; then p. p. how could this be the great gibralter of the sea ? whose army was to fight with thee and force the world to wonder . 7. but ottomon pray get you gone , we christians do but draw you on ; we 'l greater booty have , or none , and if you 'l not prevent it ; if ever you turn your face this way we 'l make the cannon musick play , and you shall dance the english hay , till all your bones lament it . 8. our royal james will make you know the sharpness of a york-shire ho , and prove by land , and sea your foe if charles command to do it ; both england , scotland , dutch and dane , and all his islands of the m●●h will not be able to refrain ; if he once say do it . 9 then fill the piss-pot to the swine , heap me a rousing glass of wine , the dancing thames shall pledge the rhine and tyber shall be praeses ; then here 's to charles that rules the main , to poland , holland , scot and dane , to germany , and brave lorrain ; but pray you po●us ne sis . cupid turn'd musqueteer . tune , which no body can deny . alas what 's is like to become of the plot now to●ey ●s dead , and titus is go● in so fair a prospect of going to pot ? which no body can deny . they say he has lately reviv'd an old trick , which he us'd as a med'cine when he was love sick , page , bayliff or bum to take in the nick , which no body can deny . now titus for one of his saints tutelars , had got a young fellow as brawny as mars , with a thousand invincible charms in his a — which no body can deny . a large pair of buttocks as ever was seen , with a delicate nut-brown hole between , and rascally cupid lay lurking within . which no body can deny . whence centinel-like with his gun in his hand , he spy'd out the doctor & charg'd him to stand , not doubting but he would obey his command which no body can deny . but he disobey'd ; which when cupid espy'd , he quickly presented : have-at-you he cry'd , and lodg'd him a bullet in his left side , which no body can deny , &c. 't is true he was arm'd ( as poets have told ) with only a bowe and a quiver of old , and arrows for love , which were headed with gold , which no &c. which still he does use , as h' has formerly done , when th' old way of loving he means to drive on but for this new way he makes use of a gun , which no , &c. the gun went off bounce , yet the dr. n'er started which was some effect of his being stout-hearted , for he only thought that the fellow had farted , which no body can deny . but quickly he found he had cause to repent it , for cupid had poison'd the shot●e●r he sent it , with somthing so strong , you might easily scent it . which no body can deny . this poison so basely debases loves fires , that the foulest of object ▪ ●he lover admires , and so it inclin'd the good doctor 's desires , which no body can deny . for he fell in love ( 't is a kind of a riddle ) immediately with this great fellows bumfiddle ; but chiefly he s●irkt at the slit in the middle , which no body can deny . quoth he in a rage , what a plague have you done ? your barrel is foul , i 'll lay twenty to one ; but i have a rammer will scour your gun , which no body can deny . nay , never refuse , but leave off your winking ; there 's no body near , & 't is just to my thinking , that i shou'd chastize you thus for your stinking which no body can deny . so down went the breeches , and he fell to work ; about him he laid , as he had been a turk : and so this great bus'ness was done with a jerk , which no body can deny . and truly the bus'ness was great in its kind ; for the fellow was very well scour'd behind , and the dr. was eas'd both in body and mind , which no body can deny . no protestent-plot ; or , the whigs loyalty with the doctor 's new discovery , 1. hells restless factious agents still plot on , and eighty three smells rank of forty one ; the royal martyrs foes pursue his son , who seek their lives with blunderbuss and guns ; the infernal regicides so inflam'd with zeal , are for killing king & duke , t' erect a commonweal this is the daily trade & practice of our modern whiggs , tho' they 're always baffled in their damn'd intrigues . 2. what! ho! cryes titus , rise ye sleepy heads , unless you 'l all be murder'd in your beds ; fierce hannibal of france is at your gate , come rascals , mutiny e'er 't is too late : the spanish pilgrims once hir'd to cut your throats are landed now at milford haven , believe your saviour oats ; and the horrid popish army , that were hid under ground , are , i 'll take my oath , within a trumpets sound . 3. see there , a fighting army in the air ! but now it vanishes , and disappears ; a spectre told strange things to honest bess , which much amaz'd the hatfield prophetess ; i told 'em true at first , what black designs would be carry●d on against the king , and royal alban● , by the discontended whiggs ; but rebel tony since , made me contradict my former evidence . 4. i 've lost my swearing trade , now by this hand , must i be forc'd to starve , or leave the land● my injur'd prince has long since on me frown'd , for perjuries against his life and crown : i 'll follow rumbold , wade , nelthrop , walcot , hone , with that cruel blood-hound barton , who 've all fled the town ; for if i carry here any longer , i harbour dreadful fears , that i shall be hang'd , or forfeit both my ears . 5. unparallel'd assassines , that could dare to attempt the life of jove's vice-gerent here : of whom the gods do take such special care , none ought to mutter treason to the air ; but cut-throat protestants may do any thing , and inform the roman catholicks how to murder kings ; they take it in great dudgeon to be equaliz'd yet their hellish crimes must pass for loyalty . 6. but thanks to heaven , who did curb their power , and has preserved us from that fatal hour : when villains were to massacre us all , and noll's successors to possess white-hall ; rumsey has taken up white hall for his bower , and the lord russel is gone to fortifie the tower : whilst we that stand for church and state , with great security can sing . and pray jove to preserve the life of charles our king. the loyal conquest , or destruction of treason . tune , lay by your pleading , the law ly's a bleeding . 1. now loyal tories may tryumph in glories , the fatal plot is now betray'd , the rest were shams and stories . now against treason , we have law and reason ; and e'ry bloody whig must go , to pot in time and season . no shamming , nor flamming , no ramming , nor damming , no ignoramus jury's now , for whigs , but only hanging , 2. look a little farther , place things in order , those that seek to kill their king , godfrey might murther , now they 'r detected , by heaven neglected ; in black dispair cut their throats , thus pluto's work 's effected . no shamming , nor flamming , &c. 3. catch grows in passion , and fears this new fashion ; lest ev'ry traytor hang himself , and spoyl his best profession . tho' four in a morning tyburn adorning ; he cryes out for a score a time , to get his men their learning . no shamming , nor flamming , &c. 4. now we have founded the bottom which confounded , our plotting parliament of late who had our king surrounded . hamden and others , and trenchard were brothers ; who were to kill the king and duke and hang us for their murthers . no shamming , nor flamming , &c. 5. surprising the tower and court in an hour , and enter in at the traytors gate , but was not in their power . our guards now are doubled , e're long they will be trebled , the harmony of gun and drum , makes guilty conscience troubled . no shamming , nor flamming , &c. 6. if grey is retaken , the root o' th' plot is shaken , russel lately lost his head , the bleeding cause to waken . m — h in town still , with armstrong his council ▪ the lady g — y may find him out , under some smock or gown still . no shamming , nor flamming , &c. 7. give 'em no quarter , they aim at crown , and garter , they 're of that bloody regiment , that made their king a martyr . leave none to breed on , they 'd make us to bleed on ; they are the bloody'st caniballs that ever men did read on . no shamming , nor flamming , no ramming nor damming , no ignoramus jury's now , for whiggs , b●t onl● hanging . state and ambition , a new song at the dukes theatre . state and ambition alas will deceive ye , there 's no solid joy but the blessing of love , scorn does of pleasure fair silvia bereave ye , your fame is not perfect till that you remove : monarch's that sway the vast globe in their glory now love is their brightest jewel of power , poor strephon's heart was ordain'd to adore ye , ah ! then disdain his passion no more . 2. jove in his throne was the victim of beauty , his thunder laid by he from heaven came down shap'd like a swan , to fair leda paid duty , and priz'd her far more , than his heavenly crown she too was pleas'd with her beautiful lover , she strok'd his fair plumes and feasted her eye , and he too in loving knew well how to move her , by billing begins the business of joy. 3. since divine powers examples have given , if we do not follow their precepts we sin , sure 't will appear an affront to their heaven , if when the gates open we enter not in ; beauty my dearest was from the beginning , ordained to cool mans amorous rage , and she that against that decree will be sinning in spring , she will find the winter of age. 4. think on the pleasure while love 's in its glory , let not your scorn loves great altar disgrace , the time may come when no swain will adore ye or smooth the least wrinkle age lays on your face ; then hast to enjoyment whilst love is fresh blooming , and in thy height and vigour of day . each minute we lose , our pleasure 's consuming , and seven years to come , will not one past repay . 5. think my dear silvia , the heavenly blessing , of loving in youth , is the crown of our days , short are the hours where love is possessing ; but tedious the minuits when crost with delays love 's the soft anvil where nature's agreeing , all mankind are form'd , and by it they move , 't is thence my dear silvia and i have our being , the caesar and swain spring from almighty love. 6. i see my dear silvia at last has consented , that blush in your cheek does plainly appear , and nought but delay shall be ever repented , so faithful i 'll prove , and so true to my dear then hymen prepare , and light all thy torches , perfume thy head altar , and strew all the way , by little degrees love makes his approaches , but revels at night for the loss of the day . pluto , the prince of darkness , his entertainment of collonel algernoon sidney , upon his arrival at the infernal palace tune , hail to mirtle shade , pluto . room for great algernoon , you furies that stand in his ●ay ; let an officer to me come , who serv'd me every day , promoting sedition and evil , to alter the church and state , he deserves an imployment in hell , he has done great service of late . pluto . he 's one of the damn'd old crew , who voted the death of the king ; at oxford again he did sue to be at the self-same thing . all mischiefs on earth he devis'd , all hazards he also did run , to render my name solemniz'd with the rabble of london town . pluto . to monarchy he was a foe , religion he always disdain'd , ' gainst government and laws too , damn'd anarchy he maintain'd : i 'll give thee preferment here , since england has banisht thee thence , brave sidney thou need'st not fear , thou shalt have great recompence . shaftsbury . now monarchy has prevail'd , our fanatick plots to defeat , on whom is the cause entail'd ? who 'l stand it in spight of fate ? we that maintain'd it so long from justice were forced to flye ; if you then had come along , you needed not there to die . essex . the factious are quite undone , for loss of the fanatick peers : now shaftsbury and i are gone , poor oates has lost his ears ? for m — h our shams and intrigues to th' world has plainly declar'd , and h — d our solemn leagues , in the plot a long time prepar'd . russel . i 'm glad you are safe arriv'd , tho' i doubt you met jack by the way now m — h is reconcil'd , what a plague is become of gray ? rebellion could ne'r disallow conspiring against the prince , though i by a sham-dying vow did plead great innocence . the kings health , set to farrinel's grounds . in six parts , first strain . joy to great caesar , long life , love and pleasure ; 't is a health that divine is , fill the bowl high as mine is ; let none fear a feaver , but take it off thus boys ; let the king leave for ever , 't is no matter for us boys . second strain . try all the loyal , defy all , give denial ; sure none thinks his glass too big here , nor any prig here , or sneaking whig here , of cripple tony's crew , that now looks blew , his heart akes too , the tap wo'nt do , his zeal so true , and projects new , ill fate does now pursue . third strain . let tories guard the king , let whigs in halters swing ; let pilk and shute be sham'd , let bugg'ring oates be damn●d ; let cheating player be nick'd , the turn-coat scribe be kick'd ; let rebel city don 's never beget their sons ; let ev'ry whiggish peer that rapes a lady fair , and leaves his only dear the sheets to gnaw and tear , be punish'd out of hand , and forc'd to pawn his land t' attone the grand affair . fourth strain great charles , like jehovah , spares those would un-king him , and warms with his graces the vipers that sting him ; 'till crown'd with just anger the rebels he seizes : thus heaven can thunder when ever it pleases . jigg . then to the duke fill , fill up the glass , the son of our martyr , belov'd of the king ▪ envy'd and lov'd , yet bless'd from above , secur'd by an angel safe under his wing . sixth strain . faction and folly , and state melancholly , with ●ony in whigland for ever shall dwell ; let wit , wine , and beauty , then teach us our duty , for none e're can love , or be wise and rebel . a new song on the instalment of sir john moor lord mayor of london . tune , st. george for england . you london lads rejoyce , and cast away your care , since with one heart and voice sir john is chosen mayor ; the famous sir john moore , lord mayor of london town , to your eternal praise , shall stand a subject of renown , amongst your famous worthies who have been most esteem'd ; for sir john , sir john , your honour hath redeem'd . sir john he 's for the kings right , which rebels would destroy . vive , vive , vive le roy. when with a hide-bound mayor the town was in distraction , sir john leapt in the chair , and cur'd the hall of faction : he to the people shew'd their duty and allegiance ; how to the sacred king and laws they pay their due obedience . sir george unto the people a loyal speech did give ; but sir john , sir john , your honour did retrieve . sir john is for allegiance , which rebels wou●d destroy . vive , vive , vive le roy. when thou wast lost , o london , in faction and sedition ; by whigs and zealots undone , while they were in commission ; when treason , like old nol's brigade , did gallop through the town , and loyalty , ( a tir'd jade , ) ●ad cast her rider down ; the famous sir george jeffereys your charter did maintain ; but sir john , sir john , restor'd your fame again . sir john is for the monarchy , which rebels wou'd destroy . vive , vive , vive le roy. when th' mayor , with sheriffs mounted , sad jalousies contriv'd , and all the town run after , as if the devil driv'd , then famous sir john moore thy loyalty restor'd , and noble sir george jefferys , who did thy acts record : sir george of all the heroes deserves the formost place ; but sir john , sir john , hath got the sword and mace. sir john he is for justice , which rebels wou'd destroy . vive , vive , vive le roy. sir patience would have the court submit unto the city ; whitehall stoop to the change , and is not that a pity ? sh. bethel ( save allegiance ) thinks nothing a transgression : sir tom rails at the lawful prince , sir bob at the ●uccession : while still the brave sir george does their fury interpose : but sir john , sir john maintains the royal cause . sir john is for his highness , whom rebels wou'd destroy . vive , vive , vive le roy. sir patience for a parliament , sh bethel a petition instead of an address , cram'd brimful of sedition . sir tom he he is for liberty , against prerogative : sir bob is for the subjects right , but will no justice give : and brave sir george does all their famous deeds record ; but sir john , sir john your loyalty restor'd . sir john he 's for the int'rest , which rebels would destroy , vive , vive , vive le roy. sir patience he calls for justice , and then the wretch will sham us . sh● bethel he packs a jury well vers'd in ignoramus : sir tom wou'd hang the tory , and let the whig go free : sir bob wou'd have a● commonwealth , and cry down monarchy . while still the brave sir george does all their deeds record ; but sir john , sir john your loyalty restor'd . sir john he is for justice , which rebels wou'd destroy . vive , vive , vive le roy. and may such loyal mayors as honest sheriffs find ; such sheriffs find a jury will to the king be kind ; and may the king live long , to rule such people here ; and may he such a lord mayor find , and sheriffs every year ; that traytors may receive the justice of the laws , while sir john , sir john maintains the royal cause . sir john is for the king still , whom rebels would destroy . vive , vive , vive le roy. the whig-intelligencer : or , sir samuel in the pound , for publishing scandalous and seditious letters , for which he was flu'd 10000 l. tune , hark! the thundring cannons roar . 1. hark ! the fatal day is come , fatal as the day of doom , for sir samuel there make room , so fam'd for ignoramus : he whose conscience cou'd allow such large favours you know how , if we do him justice now , the brethren will not blame us . 2. stand to the bar , and now advance , morden , kendrick , otes and prance ; but let the foreman lead the dance , the rest in course will follow ; tilden , kendrick , next shall come , and with him receive their doom , ten thousand pound , at which round sum the hall set up a halloo . brave sir barnard — on now , who no main would e'r allow to lose ten thousand at a throw , was pleas'd to all mens thinking : ten thousand pounds ! a dismal note , who before had giv●n his vote , not to give king a groat , to save the throne from sinking 4. but yet there 's a remedy , before the king shall get by me , i 'll quit my darling liberty ; nor will i give bail for 't : for e're the crown shall get a groat in opposition to my vote , i●ll give 'em leave to cut my throat altho' i lye in goal for 't . 5. were 't for mon — h , i 'de not grieve , o● brave russel to retrieve , or that sidney yet might live , twice told , i 'd not complain , sir : nay , what 's more , my whole estate , with my bodkins , spoons , and plate , so i might reduce the state to a commonwealth again , sir. 6. or that mon. were in grace , or sir sam. in jeffery's place , to spit his justice in the face , for acting law and reason , or that the torys went to pot , or we could prove it a sham plot , or essex did not cut his throat ; or plotting were not treason . 7. thus i 'd freely quit my coyn ; but with torys to combine , or keep the heir in the right line , that popery be in fashion , to see the holy cause run down , while mighty york is next the crown and perkin's forc'd to flye the town : oh vile abomination ! 8. sooner than ●bedience owe to their arbitrary law , or my bail in danger draw , for breach of good behaviour ; i with bethel , and the rest o' th' birds , in cage will make my nest , and keep my fine to plot and feast , till mon — be in favour . oates thrash'd in the compter , and sack'd-up in newgate . tune , hail to the myrtle shades ; &c. 1. hail to the prince of the plot , all hail to the knight of the post ; poor titus ! 't is now thy lot to pay for all the rost : from wine and six dishes a day is sure a deplorable fate , to fall to the basket , and pray for an alms through an iron-grate . 2. titus who once was a prince , now titus a captive in gaol ; titus who lov'd a wench , or any thing wore a tail ; titus who made a full pass at a following bum in the room , is clapt up himself by th' ar — , and cannot reverse his doom . 3. did titus swear true for the king , and is the good doctor forsworn ? did titus our freedom bring , and otes in newgate mourn ? was titus the light of the town , the saviour and guardian proclaim'd , and now the poor doctor thrown to a dungeon , in darkness damn'd ? 4. but now , to declare the cause , i 'll tell you as brief as i can , the doctor can't in the close prove titus an honest man : can titus be just to the king , from treason and treachery free , when the doctor hangs in a string , for plotting and perjury ? 5. for damage the doctor has done , poor titus is got in the pound , 'till the doctor produce the sum , full thirty thousand pound : if you knew on what damnable score such perilous words he brought forth , you 'd say his false tongue cost more than ever his head was worth . 6. the doctor an evidence against our great duke did come in ; nay , such was his insolence , to impeach our gracious queen : for which such indictments are brought , such actions of scandal crowd in , that titus could wish , t is thought , he were out of the doctor 's skin . 7. nay , further , while titus swore for the safety and life of the king , the doctor began to roar , and belch'd out his poyson'd sting : the doctor for titus may stretch , h' has so brought his bus'ness about , without the kind help of ketch it 's fear'd he will scarce get out : 8. through sixteen close key-holes , 't is plain , invisible titus did pass , and the doctor got back again , to catch a great don at mass : but now they are both in the trap , 't is a wager but jack in the fields , ( tho' titus may chance to ' scape , ) has the doctor fast by the heels . a new way to play an old game . tune , would you be a man of fashion , 1. have you heard of forty-one sir , when the cause did thrive amain ; tony's tap did freely run sir , tap did freely run sir , and confronted charles his wain ? when the commons thought it reason , and a meritorious thing , to use villany and treason , and made charles a glorious king. have you heard of eighty-three sir , when a deeper plot was lay'n , when the rascals did agree sir , rascals did agree sir ? to play o're the same again ? when to act their reformation , nought their fury would suffice ; but they needs must purge the nation , by a royal sacrifice . 3. have you seen those motly-martys , that did suffer for the cause , swinging in their tyburn garters , in their tyburn-garters , to attone their sacred laws ? if the blunderbuss ▪ shou'd miss sir , and shou'd fail to kill the king , there are other means should hit sir , and perform the glorious thing . 4. to his name a statue's due sir. higher than the monument , who this mighty deed shall do sir , mighty deed shall do sir , so great , so good , so excellent : future ages shall him crown sir , and shall bless the happy hour , and religion shall fall down sir , and adore her saviour . 5. thus the boasting bigots canted , ( big with hopes of common-weal ) thus the priestly villain ranted , priestly villain ranted , in a drunken sit of zeal : but their plots were all in vain sir , and their haughty rash career , signs and wonders make it plain sir , kings are heavens peculiar care. the loyal irish-mam . tune , irish trot , or fingaul jigg . 1. my bony dear shony , my crony , my honey why dost thou grumble and keep in thy words so ; sighing , and crying , and groaning , and frowning , ah why dost thou still lay thy hand on thy sword so ? what if the traytors will talk of state-matters , and rail at the king , without cause or reason : we 'll love on , and let business alone , for billing and kissing will ne'r be found treason , 2. plotting , and sotting , and railing , and fooling ; gods nowns , with the rable is now all the fashion : swearing and tearing , caballing and brawling ; by chriest and st. patrick will ruine the nation : he 's but a widgeon that talks of religion since rebels are now the reformers and teachers , sodom's disciple debauches the people , good heaven defend us from more of such preachers . 3. visions , seditions , and railing petitions , the rable receive , and are wondrous merry : all can remember the fifth of november , but no man the thirtieth of january : talking of treason without any reason , will lose the poor city it s bountiful charter : the commons haranging . will bring them to hanging , though each puppy hopes to be knight of the garter . 4. c — on and p — on papillion that villain , with cornish and ward are the monarchy hunters ; rascals too low are , to lodge in the tower , and scarcely are fitting to fill up the compter ; bethel is ●led too , and toney is dead too , our fate to befriend us , made bold to strike sirs : routed the bigot , and pull'd out the spigot , his fame and his body now stink alike sir. a litany from geneva , in answer to that from st omers . from the tap in the guts of the honorable stump , from which runs rebellion , that stinks like the rump , on purpose to leven the factious lump , libera nos domine . from him that aspires as high as the crown , and vows to pull copes and cathedrals down , fit only to govern the world in the moon . libera nos . from the prick-ear'd levite , that can without pain swear black into white , then vnswear it again ; whose name did design him a villain in grain , libera nos . from his black-bills , and pilgrims with sticks in their hands that came to make a religious band , then ravish our wives , and inhabit our land , libera nos . from the mouth of the city that never gives o●r to complain of oppressions unheard-of before , and yet for his letchery will not quit score , libera nos . from the cent per cent scriv'ner , & all his state-tricks that cryer out of intemp'rance , who yet will not stick to clear a young spend-thrift's estate at a lick , libera nos . from the force and the fire of the insolent rable , that wou'd hurl the government into a babel , and from the nice fare of the mouse-starver's table libera nos . from the elder in new street , that goggles & cants then turns up his whites , to nose it , and pants , and at the same time plays the devil and saint , libera nos . from jenkin's homilies drawn through the nose , from langley , dick , baldwin , and all such as those , and from brawney settle's poem in prose , libera nos . from a surfeit occasion'd by protestant feasts , from sedition for sawce , and republicks for guests , with treason for grace-cup , or faction at least , libera nos . from the conscience of ci●s resembling their dames , that in private are nice , but in publick so tame , that they will not stick out for a touch of the same , libera nos . from the blind zeal of all democratical tools , from whigland , and all its anarchical rules , devised by knaves , and imposed on fools , libera nos . from the late times reviv'd , when religion was gain , and church-plate was seiz'd for reliques prophane , since practic'd by searching sir william again , libera nos . from such reformation where zealots begun , to preach heaven must by firm bulwarks be won and te deum sung from the mouth of a gun , libera nos . from parliamentarians , that out of their love and care for his majesty's safety , wou'd prove the securest way were his guards to remove , libera nos . from sa●cy petitions , that serve to inflame us , from all who for the association are famous , from the devil , the doctor , & the damn'd ignoramus libera nos . the norwich loyal litany . defend us from all popish plots , that so the people fray ; and eke also from treacherous scots , as bad or worse than they . from parliaments long rumps and tails , from house of commons furies , defend us eke from protestant flayls , and ignoramus juries . protect us now , and evermore , from a white sheet and proctor : and from that noble peer brought o're the salamanca doctor . a doctor with a witness sure , both in his rise and fall : his exit almost as obscure as his original . designs and dangers far remove , from this distressed nation , and damn ' the trayterous model of bold tony's association and may the prick-ear'd party that have coin enough in cupboard , forbear to shiver an estate , and splinters mount for hobart . from sixteen self-conceited peers , protect our soveraign still ; and from the dam'd petitioners , for the exclusive bill . guard ( heaven ) great charles , and his estate ' gainst tony upon tony ; and from the house of commons , that will give the king no money . from those that did design and laugh , at tangier in distress ; and were mahometans worse by half , then all the moors of fez from such as with usurping hand , drive princes to extreams ; confound all their devices , and deliver charles , and james . but may the beauteous youth come home , and do the thing that 's fit , or i must tell that absalom , he has more hair then wit. may he be wise , and soon expel th' old fox , th' old fawning elf ; the time draws nigh achitophel , shan't need to hang himself . this jury i 've empanel'd here , of honest lines and true , whom you●l i doubt at westminster , will find ignoramus too . a new litany to be sung in all conventicles for instruction of the whigs tune , call●d cavalilly man. 1. from counsels of six ▪ where treason prevails , from raising rebellion in england and wales , from rumbolds short cannons , and protestant-flayls ▪ for ever o fate deliver me . 2. from shaftsbury's tenets , and sydneys old hint . from seizing the king by the rabbles consent , from owning the fact , and denying the guilt , for ever , &c. 3. from aiming at crowns and indulging the sin , from playing old-noll's game over again ; from a son and a rebel , stuft up in one skin , for ever , &c. 4. from swearing of lyes like a knight of the post , from pilgrims of spain , that should land on our coast , from a plot like a turd , swept about till its lost , for ever , &c. 5. from oats's clear evidence when he was vext , from hearing him squeak out hugh peters old text ▪ from marrying one sister , and raping the next , for ever , &c. 6. from tedious confinement by parliament votes , from b — t s whig sermons with marginal notes ; from saving our heads , by cutting our throats , for ever , &c. 7. from presbyter bandogs , that bite and not bark , from losing ones brains by a blow in the dark ▪ from our friends in more-fields and those at more-park , for ever , &c. 8 from citizens consciences and their wives foul itch , prom marrying a widdow that looks like a witch , from following the court with design to be rich , for ever , &c. 9. from trimmers arraigning a judge on the bench , from slighting the guards , that we know will not flinch , and from the train'd-bands royal-aid at a pinch , for ever , &c. 10. from all that to caesar sham duty express , that cringe at his coach , and smile in his ●ace , and two years ago thought it scorn to address , for ever , &c. 11. from having the gout , and a very fair daughter , from being oblig'd to our friend cross the water from strangling & fleying , & what follows after , for ever , &c. 12. from wit that lies hidden in gay pantaloons , from womens ill nature as frail as the moons , from francky's lame jests , and sir rogers lampoons for ever o fate deliver me . songs never before in print . a new song made on the parliaments removing from london to oxford . tune , you yorkshire lads be merry , &c. 1. ye london lads be merry , yere parliament friands are gene ; that made us an so sorry , and wou'd not let us alene : but pecht us e'ry ene , both papist and protestant too ; but to oxford they are gene , and the deel gang with them i trow . 2. our gude king charles heven bless him , protecting of albanies right ; received from the howse sike a lesson , 't was like to have set us at strife ▪ but charles he swore by his life , heed have ne mete sike a dow ; and he packt them off by this light , and the deel's gang'd with them i trow . 3. there 's essex and jemmy the cully , were mickle too blame i dreed : with shaftsbury that states●bully , and aw the factious breed : and wittal g — gud deed , who pimps when his wife doth mow , and holds the door for a need , but the deel will reward him i trow 4. fool thin and half-witted m — t , with lo — ce , and slabbering k — t ; with gogling flee-catching b — don that nere knew yet what he meant ; and st — rd follows the scent with politick armstrong and how , and they all a petitioning went , and the deel ●s gang'd with them i trow . 5. then heven protect great albany , guide him from pistol and gun , and all the plots of anthony , that malitious baboon : tho● sham'd on the pope of rome ▪ as dugdale and oats do avow ; but in time they 'l hang the fause loons , and the deel hang with them i trow . a new song , to the tune , ye london lads be merry , &c. 1. you loyal lads be merry , for perkin that state buffoon , despis'd by whig and by tory , for being so fause a loon : to sham the court and the town , and muckle did swear and vow : but like prance he has chang'd his tone and the d●el gang with him i trow : 2. his party had taught him his lesson , and low he did sue for grace ; he whin'd out a doleful confession , how great a traytor he was ; and begg'd his pardon might pass , for he was a penitent now ; but he bid the court kiss his arse , and the deel's gang'd with him i trow 3. and once more he 's got above hatches , and means to set up for a king ; the politicks of his scotch dutchess , this matter about did bring : ods wunds she longs to be queen , if perkin and she knew how ; and yet in a hempen-string , they may gang to the deel i trow . 4. and this last mark of his treason , is muckle exceeding the rest , to aw lads of sense and of reason ; t' has gain'd him many a curse : he might have been then at the worst drawn in for a cully of shew , but now 't is past all distrust , that the deels gang'd with him i trew . 5 now heaven bless charles the second , and grant him of brutus ●s mind ; and then his nene son will be reckon'd among the trayterous kind , and equal justice will find , by god and st. andrew i trow ; were he o' my daddy 's nene kind , he should gang to the deel i trew . the discoverers discover'd . a new tune , 1. down discoverers , who so long have plotted with holy shams to gull the nation , both peer and prelacy they useless voted , by the old babes of reformation : property 's all their cry , rights and freedom , laws and religion they pull down ; with old intestine launce to bleed them , from lawn-sleev'd prelate to purple throne . 2 confound the hypocrites , brumighams royal , who think allegiance a trangression ; since to oppose the king is counted loyal , and to rail high at the succession : monarchy's tyrany , justice is cruel , loyalists , tories , and rory knaves ; and dagons liberty's a jewel , that we again may be brewers slaves . 3. drink , drink my boys since plotting is in season , and none loyal call'd but busie brats of faction rome , rome no more thy holy treason , we have those at home of more divine extraction ▪ we have peers and parsons , smiths and coopers too , carpenters and joyners of the reformation ; all your brood of cloister'd jesuits out-do to reduce to duty a divided nation . 4. let whigs and zealots dable deep in treason , and suck from the spiggot heavenly revelation ▪ we in the glass will find more solid reason , and our hearts enflam'd with nobler inquisition , let them boast of honest brumighams and true , and with those compose the kirk of separation : we have honest tories ▪ tom ▪ dick and hugh , we 'll drink on and do more service for the nation . fanatick zeal , or a looking-glass for the whiggs . tune , a swearing we will go , &c. 1. who wou'd not be a tory , when the loyal are call'd so , and a whig is known , to be the nations mortal foe ; so a tory i will be , will be , will be , and a tory i will be . 2. with little band , precise hair presbyterian cutt ; whigg turns up hands and eyes tho' smoaking hot from slut , so a tory i will be , &c. 3. black cap turn'd up with white , with woolfish-neck and face ; and mouth with none-sense stuft , speaks whigg a man of grace ; and a tory i will be , &c. 4. the sisters go to meetings to meet their gallants there ; and oft mistake for my lord , and s●ivle out my dear ; and a tory i will be , &c. 5. example we do own , then precept better is ; for creswel she was safe , when she liv'd a private miss . and a tory i will be , &c. 6. the whigs tho' ne'er so proud , sometimes have been as low ; for there are some of note , have hung a raree-show . and a tory i will be , &c. 7. these mushrooms to have got for their champion turn coat hick , but if the naked truth were known , they 'r assisted by old n●ck and a tory i will be , &c. 8. to be , and to be not at once , is in their power ; for when they 're in they 'r guilty , but clear when out o' th' tower ; 9. to carry on their designs , tho 't contradicts their sense ; they 'll clear a whiggish traytor , against plain evidence , and a tory i will be , ●c . 10. the old proverb does tell us , each dog will have his day ; and pill has had his too , for which he 'll soundly pay ; so a tory i will be , &c. 11. for bodkins and for thimbles , now let your tubsters cant ; for your confounded tyr'd cause , ●ad never yet more want ; so a tory i will be , &c 12. for ignoramus toney , has left you in the lurch ; and you have spent your money , so faite e'en●come to church ; so a tory i will be , &c. 13 : they are of no religion , be it spoken to their glories , for st peter and st. paul , with them both are tories ; and a tory i will be , &c. 14 they 're excellent contrivers , i wonder what they 're not ; for something they can make of nothing , and a plot ; 15. but now your holy cheat is known throughout the nation ; and a whigg is known to be a thing quite out of fashion ; and a tory i will be , will be , will be , and a tory i will be . a new song on the old plot. tune , tangier march. 1. let the whigs repine and all combine , in a damn●d association : let tony fret , and perkin sweat , that their plot 's grown out of fashion , since our royal jemmey's come again to spoil their usurpation ; rising like the splendid sun , to cheer the drooping nation . 2. you dull sham prince , whose impudence to a throne would be aspiring , see the rabble crowd that made you proud , have ceas'd their loud admiring : curse in time those rogues of state , that taught you rebel notions ; and at the true successors feet pay all your just devotions . 3. let bully tom receive his doom , so long since due in reason ; for murders then , and now again for mutiny and treason : to kidnap cully , still has been his business of importance ; and now poor perkin has drawn in , and rook'd out of his fortunes . 4 in old laws we find , the cockold's kind to those that do cornute him ; or why should gray the traytor play , and to perkin be supporting ? but the co●comb fain would be a wittal to a king too ; that his bastards may again , rebel for some such thing too . 5. but of all fools , a pox on tools , that against all law and reason ; the cause maintain , without the gain or the profit of the treason : what from wit , or courage , hopes , that gaping cully brandon ; that does to mungrel perkin stoop , and the royal side abandon . 6. fat turnspit franck with wit so ranck , has some excuse for starting ; whom we despise , in time may rise , to be jester to king perkin : but for essex , s — d , gray and k — t , those fools of land and money ; why what the deel was their intent to set up rebel tony. 7. the polish prince has some pretence , to be whigland rabbles hector ; and with reas●n too may head the crew , and in time become protector : since ambition and revenge are motives very moving ; but a plague on fools that him do bring , to rogues must rule above him . 8. oh! ye tapland crew that treason brew , and of tony make an idol ; and perkin sham with king in name , the king of the golden medall . curse and damn the black-cabal , that inspir'd your rebel knowledge ; e're billa vera find you all the fate of pious colledge . the whigs downfall . tune , hey boys up go we . now , now the antichristian crew shall all go down , because our magistrates do well pursue , and execute the laws : those rascals who do always rail against all law with spight ; would make a law against the law , great york should loose his right . to perfect which , they made their choice of parliaments of late , of members that had nought but voice , and megrims in their pate : wi. williams he the speaker was , and is 't not wondrous strange ; the reasons plain , he told it was , because they would not change . he told you truth , nor think it strange ; he knew well their intent , they never meant themselves to change , but change the government : for now cry they the king 's so poor , he dares not with us part ; and therefore we most loyally will break his royal heart . the habeas corpus act is past , and so far we are safe ; he can't imprison us so fast , but strait we have relief : he can't deny us ought we ask , in so much need he stands ; and before that we do money give , we 'll tye up both his hands . the presidents of forty one , which were till forty eight ; now our presidents are grown , for why they had their weight : so weighty were they , they cut off our royal monarch's head ; the self same reason bids us now , to act the self same deed . and when we have a martyr made of another gracious king , then all the ●aiterous plots we 've laid , we to perfection bring : and to protect our wicked deeds , religion shall go down ; we●ll ●out out all the royal seed , pretenders to the ●ro●n . thus having monarchy destroy'd , we 'll govern by free-will ; the light of the spirit shall be our guide , then what man can do ill : religion is the surest cloak to hide our treachery ; the rabble we 'll confine to th' yoak pretending to set free. therefore my country men , trust not where religion 's the pretence ; for if you do , you 'll find a plot to destroy your innocence : for those who lead you to rebel , you 'll find i' th' close to be , pure instruments were sent from hell to foment treachery . the downfall of the good old cause . tune , hey boys up go we. now the bad old cause is tapt , and the vessel standeth stoop'd ; the cooper may starve for want of work , for the cask shall never be hoop●d : we will burn the association , the covenant , and vow ; the publick cheat of the nation , anthony , now , now , now . no fanatick shall bear the sway , in court , city , or town ; three good kingdoms to betray , and cry the right line down : let them cry , they love the king ; yet if they hate his brother , remember charles they murdered , and so they would the other . weavers and such like fellows in pulpit daily pret ; like the covenanters , against the church and state : yet they cry , they love the king ; but their business will discover , charles the first they murdered , and so they would the tother . where these fellows go to drink , in city or in town ; they villify the bishops , and they cry the stewarts down ; still they cry , they love the king , but their business i 'll discover ; charles the first they murdered , and so they would the tother . when the king wanted money , poor yangier to relieve ; they cryed down his revenue , not a penny they would give : still they cry'd , they love the king ▪ but their business i 'll discover ; charles the first they murdered , and so they would the tother . the noble marquess of worcester , and many such brave lord ; by the king-killing crew , they daily are abhor'd : and call'd evil councello●s , when the truth they did discover ; and charles the first they murdered , and so they would the tother . the papists they would kill the king ▪ but the fanaticks did ; their perjuries and treacheries are not to be parallel'd : let them cry , they love the king , their faults i will discover ; charles the first they murdered , and so they would the tother . charles the 2 d. stands on his guard , like a good politick king ; the fanaticks ought to be abhor'd , for all their flattering : let them cry , they love the king , their tricks i will discover ; charles the first they murdered , and so they will the tother . now let all good subjects be that bear a loyal heart ; stand fast for the king , and each man act his part : and to support his sovereign , religion and the laws , that formerly were establish'd , and down with the cursed cause . jack ke●ch's new song ; or , a warning to conspirators . tune , 1. i hang , and behead , until you be dead , o dire ! raw head , bloody bones , fling members and stones in the fire . 2. is 't not better be merry with claret and sherry ; 't is reason , then to have your soul let out at your poll , for treason ▪ 3. your brains for to puzle , like walcot and russel conspiring ; 't is better be swilling , then plund'ring , and killing , and firing 4. 't is better to save one's neck , and be brave , or be sotting ; then have a chop with a hatchet , or a halter to stretch it for plotting . 5. the drunk , and the brave , nor traytor , nor knave , can be ever their deaths he defyes , but at tilting , he dies or a feavor . 6. to be traytor proclaim'd , describ'd , and be nam'd , and money — this 't is , to be cullies , to the vilest of bullies old tony. 7 to be frighted each hour , with newgate , or tower , and trying . conviction , and sentence , at tyburn repentance and dying . 8 then leave plotting , and treason , to the void of all reason and sense ; your pardon , jack cries , 't is the whigs i advise , no offence . a song of the light of the nation turn'd into darkness . tune , called cavalilly-man . come all you caballers and parliament votes , that stickl'd for hanging & cutting of throats lament the misfortune of perjur'd otes . who first must be pillor'd , and after be hang'd . what devil suspected this , 5 years agon , when i was in hopes to hang up half the town , i swore against miler , and cursed the crown , but now must be pillor'd , and after be hang●d . i curs'd the bishops and hang'd up the priests , i swore my self doctor , yet never could preach , but a cant full of blaspemy's all i could reach , i first must be pillor'd , and after be hang'd . now otes is i' th' cupboard & manger with colt , the caldron may boyl me for fear i should molt , here i 've ne'r a bum for a wheel-barrow jolt , yet now must be pillor'd , and after be hang'd . my thousand commissions and spanish black-blls , invisible armies lodg'd upon hills , such old perjur'd nonsence my narrative fills , that i now must be pillor●d , and after be hang'd . my twelve pounds a week , i want to support ▪ for stinking i' ch' city and fouling the court , like the devil in dungeon , i 'm now hamper'd for t . a first must be pillor●d , and after be hang'd . they hang us in order the devil knows how , 'zounds all that e●e put ●ne paw to the plow , i ne'r fear'd the devil would fail me till now , that i first must be pillor'd , and after be hang'd . for calling the duke a papist and traytor , i often have call'd the king little better , i 'm fast by the heels like a beast in a fetter , i first must be pillor'd , and after be hang'd . i swore that the queen would poyson the king ▪ that wakeman had moneys the poyson to bring ▪ when i knew in my heart there was no such thing . i now must be pillor'd , and after be hang'd . i 'm resolv'd to be hang'd dead drunk like hugh peter , if i can but have my skin stuft with good liquor , then i shall limp to old tapskie much quicker . but i first must be pillor●d , and after be hang'd . a new sgng. to the tune of young jemmy . 1. 't was a foolish fancy jemmy , to put your trust in tony ; he dipt ye all in treason , then humbly dy'd in season ; when his spiggot dropt out , the plot came about ▪ far beyond your graces reason . 2. 't were fit you 'd mind these matters , and help your brother traytors ; you left your friends together , to shift for one another ; who you well all know , were in portingal-row with a lady and her mother . 3. when you went from jerman-street sir , your friends you went to meet sir ; poor betty was much griev'd sir , you could not be believ'd sir ; had she been in the way , you had carry'd the day ; but alas you were deceive'd sir. 4. franck n — t 's wondrous hearty . and argues for the party ; his parts are most inviting , and lately shin'd in writing ; and he hath in his face , as much wir as you 've grace ; which to say the truth is biting . 5. thus sir while you 're attended , your troubles will be ended ; keep franck still for your writer , and p — y for your fighter and to add to your sway , turn ● — r away , ●d make poor ha — t fright her . 6. 〈◊〉 for — s have a place too , ●bout your mighty grace too ; ●h — ton hath great reason 〈◊〉 look out sharp in season , 〈◊〉 gibbons his place 〈◊〉 a nobler race ; 〈◊〉 ●ake sir r — d m-n. 7. 〈◊〉 he hath more wit than any ●o turn and wind the penny ; h●l lye beyond all measure , 〈◊〉 pimping is his pleasure ; a● he 's for his part , ●ore a rogue in his heart , t● gray or armstrong either . 8. may friends like these protect ye , and only these respect ye ; may halters , chains and fetters , crown all rebellious traytors ; then in a short space i 'll wait on your grace , with a list of all your creatures . oates's bug — bug — boarding-school , at camberwell . tune , lord russel's farewel . rowse , rowse my lazy mirmidons , and muster up our tribe ; see how the factious fancies stand , to trim or cross the tyde : invite 'em to my vaulting school , the saints for freedom tell ; how they may live without controul , with me at camberwell . there all provision shall be made to entertain the best , old mother creswel of our trade , for to rub down our guests ; three hundred of the briskest dames , in park or field e're fell : whose am●rous eyes shall charm the flames o' th' saints at camberwell . for my own spending i will keep of boys three hundred more , they are to my appetite , more sweet then bawd or bucksom whore : the turks seraglio we 'll revive , he sinks so fast for hell : our english turks may plot and thrive , with me at camberwell . that sacred place shall tempt his grace , once more from friends to fall : he 'll leave these new-fond sweets to trace both moor-park and whitehall ; for gray and tom ●t shall be their home , to kiss secure and dwell ; where e'ry lass shall hug his grace , ●n my sweet camberwell . ●ence shall from the cock-loft creep , ●nd here have free-access : 〈◊〉 ●ear and drink to whore and sleep , ●h virtues we profess ; 〈◊〉 his pots of venison , 〈◊〉 ●ook for priests , may sell : ●ber-necklaces make known 〈◊〉 saints at camberwell . 〈◊〉 may meet his mistress here , ●times sir robert's wife ; ●ree from care in joys may share , ●ay prolong ones life : ●daring gibbet 'fore my gate , 〈◊〉 tear him down to rights ; 〈◊〉 ●se no emblems of ill fate , ●ll fright our amorous nights . ar● and lob , and ferguson , ●d all absconding saints ; ma●●afely to their saviour come , ●d taste our sweet content : ou●●rgest rooms to frisk and sport , ●s round , and curtains drawn ; the life and scene of venus court , excelling englands throne . all naked round the room we 'll dance , fine limbs and shapes to show : in pairs by candle-light advance , in dazeling postures go : here every man obtains his choice , sister , madam , or nell : we 'll have papillion and duboys , to my sweet camberwell . the royal admiral , an excellent new song on his illustrious highness the duke of york his ●ing confirm'd high-admiral of england . 1. faction and folly ( alas ! ) will deceiv● you , the loyal man still the best subject d● ●ve ; treason of reason ( poor whig ) will berea● 〈◊〉 ; you cannot be bless'd , till this curse yo● 〈◊〉 . charles our great monarch , when heav'n di●●tore with his royal brother , safe on our s● him. ordain'd us , that we next our king shou●●re then johnson play the apostate no mo● ●im , 2. clayton may fret , and bring vows of obedience to ferguson , baxter , to curtis and care ; patience approach with pretended allegiance to his sov'reign lord , yet oppose the right heir can he pretend to be honest or loyal , nay though he late at westminster swore , and yet the next day will ( like perkin ) deny all , whate●r he said , or swore to before ? 3. let trenchard and hambden stir up a commotion , their plotting and voting will prosper no more ; now gallant jemmy commands on the ocean , and mighty charles keeps them in awe on the shoar . let lobb and ferguson preach up sedition at coffee house , conventicle , cabal , now jefferys is justice , and york in commission , their scandal and plots shall pay for 'em all . 4. jemmy the valiant , the champion royal , his own and the monarchs rivals withstood ; the bane and the terrour of all the disloyal , who spilt the late martyr's , and sought for his blood jemmy who quell'd the proud foe on the ocean , and reign'd the sole conqueror over the main to this brave heroe let 's all pay devotion , since he is englands admiral again . 5. york our great adm'ral , the oceans defender , the joy of his friends , & the dread of his foes , the lawful successor , what bastard-pretender ( whom heav'n the true heir has ordain'd ) dare ●ppose ? 〈◊〉 who taught the scotch rebels allegiance , and made the high dutch his standard to low'r , in time will reduce the proud cit to obedience , and make the false whig fall down and adore . 6. let bethel and hambden lie shopt for their treason , and for the new factions express their old zeal ; let false sir samuel rail on without reason , and ev'ry night dream of a new commonweal ; plotters be brought with their plots to confusion , while charles sways the shoar , and york the vast main . till all are confounded who sought the exclusion , then england will be old england again . 7. then to our monarch let 's quaff off a bumper , and next to our sov'reign , the prince of the flood ; the ax and the gibbet crown ev'ry rumper , who york in the lawful succession withstood . may rumbold , gray , armstrong , with sidney be sainted and titus●s long tongue , so often forsworn . may his short neck stretch for 't when oats is attainted . and wish with the world he had never been born . loyalty respected , and faction confounded . to a pleasant new tune . 1. let cannons roar from sea to shoar , ●nd trumpets sound triumphantly ; we 'll fair in wealth while we drink a health to the high born prince of albany . of albany , of albany , to the high born prince of albany : we 'll fair in wealth , while we drink a health to the high born prince of albany . 2. he 's the son of scotlands womb , though his nativity be thames ; he 's of the glorious martyr sprung , and bears the name of good king james . of albany , &c. 3. our princes and our nobles all do not our loyalty disgrace : nor no enormity at all nor bastardize the royal race , of albany , &c. 4. let hagar and her birth be gone , her bottle on her shoulder be ; for sarah said unto her son , he shall not be an heir with thee . an heir with thee , an heir with thee , he shall no be an heir with thee ; for sarah said unto her son , he shall be an heir with thee . 5. put all these fancies quite away , and press down that egyptian pride ; before he wants a seigniory , we 'll place him king on yarrow side , on yarrow side , on yarrow side , we 'll place him king on yarrow side , before he wants a seigniory , we 'll place him king on yarrow side 6. i know not why he should be king , unless for mustering of the whiggs : no wonder , though they act the thing , he spar'd them well at bothwell-brigs . on yarrow side , &c. 6. so nobly he did act his part , by sparing these rebellious clowns ; that he came down and let a fart , and so march'd back with his dragoons , with his dragoons , with his dragoons , and so march'd back with his dragoons , that he came down and let a fart , and so march'd back with his dragoons . the whiggs disappointment upon their intended feast . tune , cook lawrel . 1. have you heard of a festival convent of late , compos'd of a pack of notorious dissenters , appointed by tickets in whigland to meet , to sign and to seal covenanted indentures . 2. the day was appoited , and all things prepar'd in order thereto , by the sages o' th' nation , and a reverend sermon was there to be heard , t'exhort 'em to th' oath of association . 3. all sorts of trades-men were bid to be there , the lords , abhorrers , and commoners too , but the cooper 'fore all was to take the chair , to set forth the matter as well he knew how . 4 the godly gown-man all chain'd and fur'd , two shrieves , & the deel knows what of the rable ; invited on purpose , and set on , and spurr'd , to make a confusion worse than old babel . 5. the chief of the feast was a fop and a mouth , buy'd up by the city cooper and player ; whose name they 'd extended from north to south by th' trick of a black-box to make him an heir . 6. for down into durham an envoy was sent , amongst the chief , the northern clergies , to find out a writing to that very intent : who had thirty good guineys to bear his charges . 7. the reverend titus was chaplain to th' feast , brim-full of plots with oaths to maintain them ; the deel could afford them no such guest , ' mongst all his damn'd crew to entertain them . 8. next in came janway , curtis , vile and care , with his packets of lies thrust under his a●m , then don danger●eldo more subtile by far , then poor mother cellier , that acted no harm , 9. all sorts of informers were bid to be there , and the damn'd ignoramus ●urors too , to participate of this festival cheer , by way of thanksgiving for what they did do . 10. some hundreds more were to be at the feast ; and all things thereunto were fitted , but in steps an order which forestall'd the guests , disbanding the cooks e're the meat was half spitted 11. tag , rag , and long-tail were all to come in , to sit at this king of polands table , the feast i conceive else was not worth a pin , without the consent of an insolent rable . 12. what pining and fretting , and fuming was there , when all the good creatures were laid aside , 't would make a saint both to stamp and stare , to see such a zealous assembly decry●d . 13. here now the nation was thus settled , and all things be brought to a better cue , here a new government was to be settled , and the deel knows what besides they would do 14. some think it was like to the oxford stroke , which was well , being given in season ▪ and some think they 're under a burthens●m yoak , ' cause they may not assemble for sedition 〈◊〉 treason 15. some hold it not prudently acted at all , to check an assembly of so great an intention , who study'd and aim'd at the tory's down-fall , in raising the whigs by a new invention . 16. some say they were nettled , and galled within , to see our great york embrac'd by the city , if that be the cause on 't we care not a pin , let them hang up each other , and so ends my dity . the west-country-man's song at a wedding . 1. uds hearty wounds , i 'se not to plowing , not i sir , because i hear there 's such brave doings hard by sir , thomas the minstrel , he 's gone twinkling before sir and they talk there will be two or three more sir who the rat can mind either byard or ball sir , or any thing at all sir , for thinking of drinking i' th' hall sir , e'gad not i , let master fret it and storm it , i am resolv'd , i 'm sure there can be no harm in 't who would lose the zight of the lasses & pages , and pretty little sue , so true when she ever engages e'gad not i , i 'd rather lose all my wages . 2. there 's my lord has got the curiourest daughter , look but on her , and she 'll make the chops on the water , this is the day the ladies are all about her , zome to veed her , zome to dress her , & clout her , ods bud , she 's grown the veatest , the neatest , the sweetest , the pretty'st little rogue , and all men do say the discreetest , there 's ne'r a girl that wears a head in the nation but must give place , since mrs. betty's creation , she 's zo good , zo witty , zo pretty to please ye ; zo charitably kind , zo courteous & loving & easie , that i 'se be bound to make a maid of my mother , if london town can e're send down such another 3. next my lady in all her gallant apparel , i 'ze not forget the thundring thumping barrel , there 's such drink , the strongest head can't bear it 't will make a vool of zack or whit-wine or claret and zuch plenty that 20 or 30 good vellows , may tipple off their cups until they lie down on their pillows ; then hit off thy vrock and don't stand scratching thy head so , for thither i 'll go , ods wunds because i've zed so the dyet of cowley . now by my love ; the greatest oath that is ; none loves you half so well as i , i do not ask your love for this , bu● for heaven's believe me , or i die ; no servant e're but did deserve , his master should believe that he does serve ; and i 'll ask no more wages though i starve . 2. 't is no luxuri●u diet this , and sure , i can't by 't too lusty prove . yet shall it willingly endure ; i●● can but keep together life and love , being your prisoner and your slave ; i do not feasts or banquets love to have , a little bread and water 's all i crave . 3. on a sigh of pity , i a year can live , one tear will keep me 20 at least , fifty , a gentle look will give ; an 100 one , one kind word i 'll feast : a 1000 , more added be if you an inclination have for me , and all beyond is vast eternity . a prophetical catch . to the tune , of the merry christ-church-bells . 1. oh ! the plot discoverers , oates , bedloe , dugdale , prance ! they are such crafty dogs , that none but scroggs can feage them cuningly , cunningly . 2. oh! the cursed damn'd sham plot , which some believe , but more do not , because the laws have found such flaws , in them of all our ills , the cause . 3. bedlow , they say , tother day at a play , for his impudence was bang'd ; but the plot will not e're be forgot , till oates and all are hang'd . the couragious loyallists ; or , a health to the royal family tune , burton-hall . 1. drown melanchally in a glass of wine ; we will be jolly , let the miser pine : boys drink about , we 'll make the tavern roar , when the bumper's out , we 'll call again for more : it makes good blood to run within our veins , it puts good reason also in our brains : he that will deny it , hanged let him be , here 's to all the royal progeny . 2. boys we 'll be merry , whatsoe'r ensue , drink sack and sherry . till the skie looks blew ; let the whiggs lament , and whiningly complain , we with one consent , drink to the royal train ; heavens bless great charles , and the duke of york , all the lords and earls , and every royal spark ; down with every factious , shamming , whining crew , give them rope and hanging , since it is their due . 3. drawer bring us wine , fill the other bowl , let us lose no time , for he 's an honest soul that doth love his prince , and the ancient laws , he is a man of sense , he shall have our applause ; as for mighty charles , his renowned name , let it be recorded in the books of fame : but he that will deny allegiance to the king , hang him ▪ let him die , and in a halter swing : 4. brave noble sions , be you stout and true , stand in defiance of the rabble crew ; they that design'd our laws to undermine , we will make them flye , like chaff before the wind : those that did consent , yielding to allow , those that did invent the association vow , to conceal their treason , hang 'um let them swing , here 's a health to charles , the most renowned king. 5 now sure the whigs , they will no more rebel , old cromwel's piggs that suck'd up the swill ; their hopes are drowned , as we plainly see , some were counfounded in their villainy ; tommy he is fled , tony he is dead . some of them were hang'd , others lost their had ▪ ketch in conclusion pay'd them their arrears , since this confusion how they hang their ears ! 6. then learn to bow , and in obedience stand , to caesar now the glory of the land , none can convince , for what i speak is true , he is a prince of love and pitty too : those that are loyal , they are perfect free , there 's no denyal of their liberty ; then true hearts be merry , make the tavern ring , fling up your caps , and cry , god save the king . a new song , to an old tune , tom of bedlam . make room for an honest red-coat , ( and that you 'll say's a wonder : ) the gun , and the blade , are his tools , — and his trade , is for pay , to kill , and plunder . then away with the laws , and the good old cause , ne'r talk o' th' rump , or the charter , 't is the cash does the feat , all the rest 's but a cheat , without that there 's no faith , nor quarter . 't is the mark of our coin , god with vs , and the grace of our lord goes along with 't , when the georges are flown , then the cause goes down , for the lord is departed from it . then away , &c. for rome , or for geneva , for the table , or the altar , this spawn of a vote , he cares not a groat — for the pence , he 's your dog in a halter . then away , &c. tho' the name of king , or bishop , to nostrils pure may be loathsom , yet many there are , that agree with the mayor , that their lands are wondrous toothsom . then away , &c. when our masters are poor , we leave 'em , 't is the golden calf we bow to : we kill , and we slay , no● for conscience , but pay ; give us that , we 'll fight for you too . then away , &c. 't was that first turn'd the king out ; the lords next ; then the commons : 't was that kept up noll , till the devil fetch'd his soul ; and then it set the bum on 's . then away , &c. drunken dick was a lame protector , and fleetwood a backslider : these we serv'd as the rest , but the city 's the beast that will never cast her rider . then away , &c. when the mayor holds the stirrop , and the shrieves cry , god save your honours : then 't is but a jump , and up goes the rump , that will spur to the devil upon us . then away , &c. and now for a fling at your thimbles , your bodkins , kings , and whistles , in truck for your toyes we 'll sit you with boys : 't is the doctrine of hugh peters , * then away , &c. when your plate is gone , and your jewels , you must be next intreated , to part with your bags , and strip you to rags , and yet not think y' are cheated . then away &c. the truth is , the town deserves it ; 't is a brainless , heartless monsier : as a club they may bawl , or declare at their hall , and yet a● push not one stir . then away , &c. sir arthur vow'd h●'ll treat 'em , far worse than the men of chester : he●s bold ; now they 're cow'd , but he was nothing so lowd when he lay in the ditch at lester . then away , &c. the lord ha●h left john lambert , and the spirit , feak's anointed , but why oh lord , hast thou sheat●ed thy sword ? lo , thy saints are disappointed ▪ then away , &c. tho' sir henry be departed : sir john makes good the place now , and to help out the work of the glorious kirk , our brethren march apace too , then away , &c. while divines , and states men wrangle , let the rump-ridden nation bite on 't , there are none but we that are sure to go free , for the souldies's still in the right on 't . then away , &c. if our masters w'ont supply us with money , food and clothing : let the state look to 't , we 'll find one that will do 't , let him live , — we 'll not damn for nothing , then away with the laws , and the good old cause , n'er talk o' the rump , or the charter , 't is the cash does the feat , all the rest 's but a cheat , without that there 's no faith nor quarter . oates well thrash'd , being a dialogue between a country farmer , and his man jack . tune , which no body can deny . repeat the burden twice . jack . our oates , last week not worth a groat , have , sir , ( which all do wonder at ) abomination thriv'd of late ; which no body can deny , sir , master . be all the tribe of oates accurs'd , and the old dotard too , that first the brat within his hedges nurst , and sow'd such wicked seed , boy . jack . good master , pray your fury stop ; for , as the saying is , i hope , you 'll shortly shortly see a doctor-crop , and many more besides , sir. master . a curse on every thing , that 's call'd oates ; both old and young , both black and white oates , both long and short , both light and tite oates : i hate the vip'rous seed , boy . jack . your oates , now ripe , sir , do appear ; for they begin to hang the ear ; the time of cu●ting them draws near , if my skill fails me not , sir. master . then down with 'em , and all their train ; let not a blade of them remain , our poor land to infect again ; 't is pitty one sho●ld scape , boy . jack . where shall i reek them , ( the sithe ●s edge they 've felt ) in barn , or under hedge ? for they are fit for cart , or sledge , and a roping only want , sir. master . e'en if thou wilt , lodge them in thy barn ; for they shall ne'r come amongst my corn ; or cart them , if thou wilt , to tyburn ; and there too truss them up , b●y . jack . th' are hous'd , sir ; but the trash all sense exceeds , that 's in 'em : by what means , this filthy oates shall we e're cleanse ? from all that roguish stuff , sir ? master . — jack . go , get a pack of sturdy louts , and let them lustily thresh their coats ; too well you cannot thresh damn'd oates ; which no body can deny , boy . jack th' are thresh'd , and wimb'd and made as clean , as hands can do 't ; but all in vain : for still base oates behind remain : what shall we do with 'em , sir ? master . let 'em divided be like martyrs of royal justice ) into quarters ; then ground in mill , or bray'd in mortars : so oates ought to be serv'd , boy . jack . how shall i use the straw ? 't is good only to cast out into the road , and under foot to dung be tr●d ; and there to lye and r●t , sir , master . burn't , like an here●ick , in flame ; and expiate so our guilt and shame , for giving long-tail'd oates such fame , abhorr'd by all but vs , boy . beyond sea th' are kick't out of door ; but held with us here in such store , that oates we even do adore : but curst be oates , say i , boy jack . what shall we now at last , sir , do with this same paultry oates , by you so hated , and admired by few ; and those both knaves and fools , sir. master . let oates be cast to ravenous hogs , or ground for meat for hungry dogs ; and no where sown , but in deep bogs , or bottom of a jakes , boy . or to the fowls o' th' air be thrown , by vermine to be prey'd upon ; or out o' th' world by whirlwinds blown , to th' devil's arse of peak , boy . let ev'ry tongue , and tail i' th' isle of man , of bird , of beast , defile oates so detestable , oates so vile ; and 't will be so , thou 'lt see , boy . or if to popery thou incline , thou shalt have oates incag'd in shrine , and shew about that trash divine ▪ and this will get thee pence , boy . jack let it , good master , pray be so , and i 'le amongst the papists go , with my o raree shite , and my o brave show , till i a pension get , sir. and then i 'le coach it up and down , from country , and from town to town , till o're the world i●ve made oates known , for a very rogue in grain , sir. the tories tryumph ; or , the point well weather'd . to a new theatre tune , some say , the papists had a plot , against the church and crown ; but be it so , or be it not , the king must please the town . the papists take tyburn by turns , to please the city gulls ; it 's strange , that they who all wear horns , should fear the popish bulls 2. the house of commons blow the coals , the nation to dissettle ; and like two tinkers , make two holes to mend one in a kettle : or else ▪ what needs that precious vote , that if the king should fall by pagan , or phanatick plot , the pope must pay for all ? 3. our royal james of princely race , and high-illustrious fame , was not thought fit by commons base , to follow charles's waine : but let that house of office know , when they have sow'd their leaven , he shall succeed though they say no , by all the laws of heaven . 4. old cavaliers for loyalty they streight clapt up for treason , in hopes to bring in anarchy , ' gainst justice , sense and reason . brave hallifax and feversham , brave worster , just and wise , they did vote down , as dangerous men , that they themselves might rise . 5. but oh! that lord in leistershire , turn'd catchpole , though too late : 't is b●tter ●riests in prison were , then burns should lose their trade . for priest poor waller never sought , but where was golden crosses ; his mirmidons went ●nacks , t is that in all the owners losses . 6. the doctor he has bid farewell to jesus , and the court ; and tony's tap runs fla● and dull , makes catch in hopes of sport. blew protestants can make no work , unless like hungary , they for religion joyn the turk , for christian liberty five years sham plots discovered in one true one . to the tune of , — i told young jenny , &c. now innocent blood 's almost forgot , we have found the original ground of the now every moon-blind rebel may know , plot that providence sees our actions below . now oates for pegs , may pack up his awls , and there inform his master ; to furnish rooms , make fire in the halls for company that comes after . these are not like our plots of old , when evidence swore for silver and gold. there are no armies under ground , no sha● magazines that ne'r were found , no spanish pilgrims , and black-bills , but open profess'd traytors ; where perjury spares , the sword it kills , these are our saint-like satyrs . these are the blades , detected by laws , in contempt of justice decide it with blows these are the blood-hounds of our age , that brought our late monarch upon the stage , yet these more barbarous bruits of ours , would mu●ther both king and 's brother , and ●ay the guilt at innocent doors , and still continue the murther . from thence the sacrifice begins , to massacre others for their own sins : and this has been the plots support , first made in the city , then forc't on the court. but now the mysteries brought to light , true innocency is protection , surprising rebels dare not fight , their souls are imperfections . if they had butcher'd the royal line , to murther its friends they were to joyn , the like was never on record in the wide wilderness of the world ; to rob the kingdom of all that 's good , and none but rebels surviving , to lord it o're three nations in blood ; each to be an oliver striving . the saddle is now on the right ●orse , the whiggs must mount for tyburn in course . for these can be no false alarms , we have their confession the men and their arms , makes catch perceive his harvest is near he swears if his horse do not fail him , he 'll not take a thousand pound this year , for what his trade may avail him . on the throat-cutter of jack-a-napes-lane . tune , hang sorrow , cast away care . 1. there is an old story that 's much to the glory of one who was call'd sophyrus , whose fears may be read , though the man be dead , by any that are desirous . 2. this man had a nose ( as you may suppose ) in the middle of his face ; but he cut it off clear , like a brave cavalier , to get the king 's good grace . 3. the manner is known , so we 'll let that alone : yet by the way you must note , though he slashed his face in every place , he had a great care of his throat . 4. nor will any man dare this wight to compare with an heroe that i can name ; who , by cutting his throat , grew a man of great note , and purchas'd eternal fame . 5. sophyrus did well ; but he doth excel , if he be but right understood : for 't is a plain case as the nose on ones face , it was done for the peoples good . 6. the design was brave , the people to save by letting his own throat bleed ; but the fiend that repines at all good designs , did hinder it to succeed . 7. for his hand being up to spil the last drop of the peoples saving blood , he made him flinch at the other inch , and so prevented the good. 8. so he useth his throat for the people to vote ; yet some are so wicked , to hope this obliging knife ( though it then spar'd his life ) has markt a fair place for the rope . 9. now , whoever bears spleen to the king or the queen , or to james the duke of york , he shall have my vote for cutting his throat , provided he 'll perfect the work. the plotting-cards reviv'd ; or , the new game at forty-one . tune , i 'll tell thee , dick , &c. 1. come , cut again ; the game 's not done , though strangely yet the cards have run , as if they pack'd had been : most likely are to lose , and say they know not what 's next best to play , such shuffling ne'r was seen . 2. look well ( my masters ) to your hits , and have about you all your wits , for high the play does run ; three kingdoms now at stake do lie , and rooks all hocus-tricks do try , that ye may be undone . 3. on clubs and spades some wholly bett ▪ for they the most are like to get . whilst hearts in vain contest ; and diamonds too , ( unto their cost that have them ) sure are to be lost , the blackest cards are best . 4. god bless all kings and queens , though now the best coat-cards , ( the lord knows how ) at this prepostrous game , are like all to commanded be , and trumpt with all their royalty , by every knavish pam — 5. so hewson blind ( though he be dead ) alive was by blind fortune led , and still did winning go ; and ever since we find , that he sweeps all with his effigie , the great pamphilio . 6. nay , trays and duces , which were deem'd the basest cards , are now esteem'd prime ones , to win the day : so that , ( you see ) to gain the prize , poor kings and queens you must despise , and honours throw away . 7. thus the best cards are now the worst , and what was last is become first , no wonder now-a-days : the nation topsy turvey lies , and ( as 't were pleas'd with contraries ) at losing load'em plays . the second part. 1. this is like some utopian game , where servant-maids controll their dame , and kings are subjects made ; felons their judges do indict , and he a traytor is down-right who falsly is betray'd ! 2. a dunce who never took degrees , but such as lead to villainies , a doctor is most sound ; he who , to furnish his own wants , can seize gold-cross , or silver-saints , a justice is renown'd . 3. who horse to battle never led , but has with many horses fled out of his neighbours field , a captain is ; and with his word kills more than with his duller sword he ever made to yield . 4. a villain who can cheat his lord , gets chains of gold instead of cord , and is from prison freed : for him who says he murder'd has , a pardon both for that does pass , and all that e'r he did . 5. who for foul crimes and forgeries has worn the yoak of pillories , and has been whipt about ; if he but add new perjury , he wipes off past iniquity , and speaks truth without doubt . 6. he that had rather choose to die , than to redeem his life with lie , is th' only perjur'd r●gue : and they who damn themselves to live , sure signs of their probation give , for they 're the saints in vogue . 7. then play away , ( good countrey-man ) what hand 's the best is now most-plain , and boldly thou may'st stake : a pack of knaves together get , and never doubt to win the sett , for they the voll will make . a song upon information . tune , conventicles are grown so rief . 1. informing of late's a notable trade ; for he that his neighbour intends to invade , may pack him to tyburn , ( no more 's to be said ) such power hath information . be good , and be just , and fight for your king , or stand for your countreys honour , you 're sure by precise information to swing , such spells she hath got upon her . 2. to six hundred and sixty , from forty-one , she left not a bishop or clergy-man , but compell'd both church and state to run , by the strength of the non-conformist . the dean and chapter , scepter and crown , ( the lords and commons snarling ) by blest information came tumbling down , fair fruits of an over-long parling . 3. 't was this that summon'd the bodk●ns all , the th●mbles and spoons to the city-hall , when saint hugh to the babes of grace did call , to prop up the cause that was sinking : this made the cobler take the sword , the pedlar and the weaver ; by the pow'r of the spirit , and not by the word , made the tinker wear cloak and beaver . 4. 't is information from valadolid makes jesuits , fryars and monks to bleed , occapitates lords ; and what not ( indeed ) doth such damnable information ? it cities burns , and sticks not to boast , without any mincing or scruple , of forty thousand black-bills by the post , brought in with the devil's pupil . 5. this imp with her jealousies and fears puts all men together by the ears , strikes at religion , and kingdoms tears , by voting against the brother . this makes abhorrers , makes lords protest , they know not why , nor wherefore : this strikes at succession , but aims at the rest ; pray look about you therefore 6. this raiseth armies in the air , imagining more than you need have to fear ; keeps horse under-ground , and arms to tear the cities and towns in sunder . 't is this made the knight to newark run , with his fidus acates behind him ; who brought for the father one more like the son , the devil and zeal did so blind him . 7. it whips , it strips , it hangs , and draws ; it pillories also without any cause , by falsly informing the judges and laws , with a trick from salamanca ; this hurly-burlies all the town , makes smith and harris prattle ; who spare neither cassock , cloak , nor gown , in their paltry tittle-tatile . 8. 't is information affrights us all ; by information we rise and fall : without information there 's no plot at all ; and all is but information . that pickering stood in the park with a gun , and godfrey by berry was strangl'd ; 't was by information such stories begun , which the nation so much have entangl'd . a song on the popish plot , by a lady of quality . tune , packington's pound 1. since counterfeit ●lots have affected this age , being acted by fools , and contriv'd by the sage ; in city , nor suburbs , no man can be found , but frighted with fire-balls , their heads turn'd round . from pulpit to pot they talk'd of a plot , till their brains were inslav'd , & each man turn'd sot ; but let us to reason and justice repair , and this popish b●gbear will fly into air. 2 a politick states-man , of body unsound , who once in a tree , with the rabble set round , run monarchy down with fanatick rage , and preach'd up rebellion i' that credulous age ; he now is at work with the devil and turk , pretending a plot , under which he doth lurk , to humble the mitre , wh●le he squints at the crown , till fairly and squarely he pulls them down . 3. he had found out an instrument fit for the devil , whose mind had been train'd up to all that was evil ▪ his fortune sunk low , and detested by many , kick'd out at st. omers , not pity'd by any : some whisperers fix'd him upon this design , and with promis'd reward did him countermine ▪ though his tale was ill told , it serv'd to give fire ; despis'd by the wise , whilst fools did admire . 4. the next that appear'd , was a fool-hardy knave , who 'd ply'd the high-ways , and to vice was a slave ; being fed out of basket , in prison forlorn , no wonder that money should make him forsworn : he boldly dares swear what men tremble to hear , and learns a false lesson without any fear ; for when he is out , there 's one that 's in 's place relieves his invention , and quickens his pace . 5. in a countrey prison another was found , who had cheated his lord of one thousand pound ; he was freed from his fetters , to swear and inform , which very couragiously he did perform : to avoid future strife , he takes away life , to save poor protestants from popish knife : which only has edge to cut a rogue 's ears , for abusing the people with needless fears . 6. another starts up , and tells a false tale , which strait he revok'd , his courage frail : but , to fortifie one that needeth his aid , ( being tempted by money , which much doth persuade ) he swore he knew all that contrived the fall of one , who that day was seen near to white-hall ; where he by an officer's powerful breath more l●kely by far received his death . 7. a gown-man most grave , with fanatical form , with his scribling wit doth blow up this storm ; for moth-eaten records he worships the devil , being now lodg'd at court , he must become civil . he hunts all about , and makes a great rout , to find some o●d prophecy to help him out ; but his friend that was hous'd with him at foxhall , being joyn'd with his master , still strengthens 'em all ▪ 1. then comes a crack'd merchant , with his shallow brain , who first did lead up this stigmatiz'd train : he since is grown useless , his skill being small ; yet at a dead lift he 's still at their call : he has pester'd the press , in ridiculous dress , in this scribling age he could do no less : but to so little purpose as plainly appears , with pen he had as good sate picking his ears . 9. to end with a prayer , as now 't is my lot , confounded be plotters , with their popish plot : god bless and preserve our gracious good king , that he may ne'r feel the presbyters sting ; as they brought his father with rage to the block , so would they extirpate all the whole stock : but with their false plots i hope they will end at tyburn , where the rabble will surely attend . the whigs lamentable condition ; or , the loyallists resolution . to a pleasant new tune . 1. the deel assists the plotting whigs to carry on their damn'd intrigues , and does provide them new supplies , gin any faus and raskal dies ; up starts some bankrupt perjur'd loon , instructed by the polish prince , how to amuse th'unthinking toon , and make the bigots leese their sense . 2. this squinting and curmudgeon sits consulting with his whiggish chits , who treacherously with him combine to root out a● the royal line : but heaven , which has disclos'd their plots , confound their vain inventions , disperse the wretched hai●-brain'd sots , and cross their curs'd intentions . 3. whither d' ye hurry phaeton ? is 't not enough that he 's undone by your persideous treachery , the source of au his infamy ? but , to promote your wretched ends , ye make the lorden a stop-gap ; like croc●diles , ye fawning friends pretendedly mourn his mis-hap . 4. the bearn may see how he is feul'd , tea late may find that he is gull'd : wha● then shall pity his estate , that toil'd to be unfortunate ? he 's now a hardy rebel grown , and glories in base actions ; the silly lad gangs up and down , to make feuds and distractions . 5. wa● to'l the nations scabs and boils , ye that delight in civil broils , wha'd set us by the ears again , ye worriers of loyal men : ●'se mean the pert blew-apron fops , wha meddle with the state affair , leuk to'l your wives , and mind your shops , whig gold nor cornish shan't be may'r . 6. all aegypts plagues seize doctor t.o. who did design the overthrow of church and state : have we forgot 't was he contriv'd the popish plot ? can we forget our martyr'd prince , whose blood does loud for veng'ance ca●l ? shall we not stand in 's son's defence , ' gainst whigs , wha● wish for his doonfal ? 7. take courage , pull a● rebels down , obey the king , and guard his throne ; commit the rest to th' prudent care of our tribunes and geud l●ird may'r : as for our foes the rebel-rout , he timely curb'd the stubborn elves ; their villainy he has found out , and now they 're fit to hang themselves . the present state of england . tune , it was in the prime of cucumber time . jack presbyter's up , and hopes at one swoop to swallow king , bishops , and all●a : the mitre and crown must both tumble down , or the kingdom , he tells you , will fall●a . sure 't is a hard fate , that to prop up the state , we must pull down the state-religion : but the saints have a new one , more holy & true one , composed of fox and wigeon . an engine they 've got , call'd a damn'd popish plot , which will bring in a through-reformation ; which , tho 't be half fable , it mads the poor rable , and puts out of wits half the nation . thus their work 's quickly done for each mothers son that to church or to king is loyal , shall strait be indicted , or else be sore frighted to be brought to their f●ry tryal . t is no more but pretend he 's to pop'ry a friend the brethren cry loud , he 's a traytor ; and their evidences bring against him pretences , and all of a treas'●able nature . th' impeachers are such , so hon'rable and rich , that no bribe can to falshood invite 'em ; tho' they contradict themselves and ev'ry body else , a good lusty vo●e can right ' em . no matter for blood , their oaths shall stand good ▪ ●n despight of all circumstances : the city-cabals say they cannot swear false , and each pamphlet their honour enhances . who dares to deny but one single lie of the many they swear on their credit , must down on his knees , is rebuk'd , and pays fees , and must cry peccavi he did it . if any's so bold their tricks to unfold , or offers to prove them lyars , strait up steps another , and swears for rogue-brother , and flings the poor wretch in the bryars . thus villains bout ten , the worst scum of men , ( while the godly party maintain 'em all england do govern , and each such a sov'reign , the king must not speak again ' em . old noll and dad nick have taught 'em the trick to make plots , and then to reveal 'em : thus runs round the jig of politick whig , sure pardon , if they do not conceal ' em . then inspir'd they bring in for sad men of sin any one that is honest and loyal : but if pardon 's deny'd , all flock on fitz-side , to hector the mercy royal. thus most men for fears dare not for their ears but whig and his rout to second ; which if they refuse , they 're far worse than jews , and papists or traytors are reckon'd . and ev'ry poor ape who for changes does gape , and to be preferr'd by the party , to help good old cause wide stretches his ●aws , with loud lies to shew himself hearty . and those worthies three , care , vile & langley , do publish as fast as they make them : the being in print , signifies something in 't , and the rabble for gospel mistake them . mean while pendent laughs , and at byter scoffs , and at 's hot-headed zeal does flout-a ; the coxcomb to see thus shaking the tree , while he 's ready to gather the fruit-a . let papists be hang'd , and presbyters damn'd , and may goggle-ey'd traytors perish , but let true hearts sing , long live charles our king , the church and the state to cherish . raree show ; or , the true-protestant-procession . tune , the northumberland-man . 1. this is the cabal of some prot. lords , a forging the turn that not long since they had ; here w — ton sitteth , and searcheth records , to find flaws in good statutes , and varnish the bad . 2. this is the lord toney that slily sits here , who to sham and contrive has never deny'd ; and rather than th' cause shou'd fall thro' his fear , he 'll let out rebellion by broaching his side . 3. this is popular perkin that smirks & looks gay , the women extoll the spark up to the sky ▪ none danceth with so great a grace , as they say , yet somebody thinks that he capers too high . 4. here flourishing e — , the tongue o' th' gang , with rhetorical artifice fancies fine things ; first vainly composeth a taking harangue , then fosters a villain in libelling kings . 5. here 's doctor informant , that ne'r wou'd stick out to traffique in oaths , or tell a state-lie ; observe how he firks all the jesuits about , first blaws on a beuk , and so papists god b'we ye . 6. here 's wilmore , that 's troubl'd with scruples and stings , his citizens conscience is nice and demure , a traytor 's indicted for treas'nable things ; but he tells you 'tis false , he 's a protestant sure . 7. these are some sage citizens that you see there , who ( out of their zeal all our rights to maintain , and to keep out all slav'ry ) have taken a care to put up in the streets two posts and a chain . 8. these are some apprentices still do retain some tenets their masters approve and allow ; they come to direct a wise monarch to reign , ' stead of sweeping their shop , and cleaning of shoes . 9. this is the committee where grievance ●s scann'd , which remonstrates dangers that threat●n the state : good service is here by suspicion trepann'd , and allegiance is reckon'd malignancy strait . 10. here 's the synod of saints , that will sometimes refresh the failings of nature with means of their own ; they 'll preach you the mortification of flesh with eyes up to heav'n , and breeches let down . 11. these are the cabal of the covenantiers , that think they maintain the religion the best by pulling down churches and their overseers , and routing the defender of faith with the rest . 12. these are the remains of the levelling rump , that stink in the house , and fresh commons annoy ; and lest the right james shou'd be turn'd up trump , they cry out , a court card will their gaming destroy 13. that lumber of trumpery buzzing abou● ▪ are silly subscribers that come at first dash , to make up a large petitioning rout of link-boys , and all such true-protestant trash . 14. these there are the hucksters that treason retail , they 'll sell you a sheet with a penymorth in 't . that 's courantier care , that never will fail to scrible , while langley dares publish and print . 15. that 's the club of a pack of ingenious friends , that made charles a scotch-pedlar ●th raree show , and i hope that our monarch , to make 'em amends , will give them a yard of st. johnstons or two . the pot-companions ; or , drinking and smoaking preferr'd before caballing and plotting . tune , thus all the day long we 're frolick and gay . 1. come make a good toast , and stir up the fire , and fill the great tankard of what we admire : then bring in a paper of excellent fogoe , that we may perfume the whole house with the 〈◊〉 and here let us sit like honest brave fellows , that neither are tories nor whigs in an ale-house . and here let us sit , &c. 2. we 'll raise no disputes of the church nor the state , to waken the plot , which has slept out its date ; nor came we to treat of the cities great charter , but only to drink to the sons of the martyr : for better it is to be honestly sotting , than live to be hang'd for caballing and plotting . for better it is , &c. 3. since freedom or death is not in our power , what have we to do with the lords in the tower ? we 'll leave them to justice , let that take its course , and set ev'ry saddle upon the right horse ; though the witnesses fade , and the plot 's almost rotten , yet presbyter-jack will ne'r be forgotten . though the witnesses fade , &c. 4. we have nothing to do with the feuds of the nation , with old magna charta , nor the association ▪ let shaftsbury fancy himself to be crowning , or beg his quietus , and venture a drowning ; let black-coat swear on , and raise up his story : that 's nothing to us , let the saints have their glory . let black-coat swear on , &c. 5. though the spaniards were landed , which bedlow recounted , and all the commissions which coat gave were mounted ; and little don john did lead these brave fellows , the devil a foot would we stir from the ale house : when they have rais'd armies by praying and winking , 't is we that maintain them with smoaking and drinking ▪ when they have rais'd armies , &c. 6. then away to the king , let the tankard go round ; may the plots and the plotters each other confound : to his highness the duke , and the royal successors , and every member of loyal addressers ; to the honest lord mayor , and all other old christians ; but guard us , good lord , from these whining philistims . to the honest lord mayor , &c. the bully whig ; or , the poor whores lamentation for the apprehending sir thomas armstrong . tune , ah! cruel bloody fate ! &c. 1. ah ! cruel bloody tom ! what could'st thou hope for more , than to receive the doom of all thy crimes before ? for all thy bold conspiracies thy head must pay the score ; thy cheats and lies , thy box and dice , will serve thy turn no more . 2. ●ngrateful thankless wretch ! how could'st thou hope in vain ●out the reach of ketch ) thy treasons to maintain ? for murders long since done and past , thou pardons hast had store , and yet would'st still stab on , and kill , as if thou hop'dst for more . 3. yet tom , e'r he would starve , more blood resolv'd to'●e spilt ; thy flight did only serve to justifie thy guilt : while they whose harmless innocence submit to chains at home , are each day freed , while traytors bleed , and suffer in their room . 4. when whigs a plot did vote , what peer from justice fled ? in the fanatick plot tom durst not shew his head. now sacred justice rules above , the guiltless are set free , and the napper's napt , and clapper clapt , in his conspiracy . 5. like cain , thou hadst a mark of murder on thy brow ; remote , and in the dark , black guilt did still pursue ; nor england , holland france , or spain ; the traytor can defend ; he will be found in fetters bound , to pay for 't in the end . 6. tom might about the town have bully'd , huff'd and roar'd , by every venus known , been for a ma●s ador'd : by friendly pimping , and false dice , thou might'st have longer liv'd , hector'd and shamm'd , and swore and gam'd , hadst thou no plots contriv'd . 7 tom once was cock-a-hoop of all the huffs in town ; but now his pride must stoop , his courage is pull'd down : so long his spurs are grown , poor tom can neither fly nor fight ; ah cruel fate ! that at this rate the ' squire should foil the knight ! 8 ▪ but now no remedy , it being his just reward ; in his own trap , you see , the ●ygre is ensnar'd : so may all traytors fare , till all who for their guilt did fly , with bully tom by timely doom , like him , unpity'd die . the jealous ladies complaint . to an excellent new tune . 1. tell me no more , there must be something in 't ; think what you swore when first you did begin't , that n●n● but i could e●r your heart suffice ; and my eyes and my thighs , how your mind it did surprize : but now , you bitch , you look so leam , you damn'd confounded stinking quean , are all the words that i can gain for my great pain . 2. can you forget the ●oys you did delight in , and those great pleasures you us●d to spend the night in ? when with sweet raptures so close you did embrace ▪ and your love us'd to move in another pretty place ; but now you turn away your head , and there you lie as tho' you 're dead , and all the joys i had in bed are gone and fled . anagram and acrostick on the salamanca-sizer . ana titus oats , just a sot . gram . when adam proper names on beasts conferr'd , the salamanca-doctor was i' th' herd ; the midwife , she fore-saw 't wou'd prove a dunce , so gave him name and character at once : which but unfold , and joyn again with art , both sot and drunkard lurk in ev'ry part ; nor in his temper thus alone betray'd , 't is on his face in ruby signs display'd . well may we doubt the gospel of that plot , whose chiefest evidence is just a sot . an acrostick traytor to god , damn'd source of blasphemy , insect of hell , grand mass of perjury ; thorough-pac'd villain , second unto none , vnless to judas , ( if by him out-done ; ) satans black agent , hells monopoly of all that 's called sin and villainy ; a cursed parent of an hell-bred brood , teacher of lies , spiller of guiltless blood ; englands dark cloud , eclipsing all her glory ; satans delight , and hells repository . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a62418-e123160 * to the butchers wife the present state of england in relation to popery manifesting the absolute impossibility of introducing popery and arbitrary power into this kingdom : being a full confutation of all fears and apprehensions of the imagined dangers from thence, and particularly of a certain pamphlet, entituled, the character of a popish successor / by e. settle. settle, elkanah, 1648-1724. 1684 approx. 239 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 19 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a59336 wing s2711 estc r35168 15049434 ocm 15049434 103112 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a59336) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 103112) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1578:18) the present state of england in relation to popery manifesting the absolute impossibility of introducing popery and arbitrary power into this kingdom : being a full confutation of all fears and apprehensions of the imagined dangers from thence, and particularly of a certain pamphlet, entituled, the character of a popish successor / by e. settle. settle, elkanah, 1648-1724. [8], 28 p. printed by j. gain for william cademan ..., london : mdclxxxiv [1684] imperfect: pages faded with print show-through and some loss of print. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng phillips, john, 1631-1706. -character of a popish successor. popish plot, 1678. great britain -politics and government -1660-1688. 2005-09 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2005-12 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-10 ali jakobson sampled and proofread 2006-10 ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the present state of england in relation to popery manifesting the absolute impossibility of introducing popery and arbitrary power into this kingdom . being a full confutation of all fears and apprehensions of the imagined dangers from thence ; and particularly of a certain pamphlet , entituled , the character of a popish successor . by e. settle . london , printed by j. gain , for william cademan , at the popes-head in the lower walk of the new-exchange , in the strand ; anno ; mdclxxxiv . to the loyal gentry of kent . gentlemen , writers set out in print , as adventurers to sea : the happy discovery of some extraordinary fortunate coast the first voyage , is an invitation to attempt a plantation there the next . such was the temptation of a new-found golden world : whil'st the sails of a cortez , were only swell'd by the prosperity of a columbvs . the same success , and the same attraction is my loadstar , whil'st the honour of dedicating my first piece , my narrative , to the worthy sir thomas taylor , has brought me , like a bolder inmate amongst you , resolved to plant my self , and my whole labours in no other soyl. i confess indeed my own infinite unworthiness makes my intrusion wholly inexcusable . however that innate goodness that ever attends the loyal and the brave , is no little encouragement ; when i consider , that whatever my past faults have been , yet clemency and forgiveness , as being the brightest emanations of glory from that inexhaustible fountain of mercy , the best of kings , are ever the natural borrow'd beams to that loyalty that shines from him . a more particular portion of which enlightning brightness , is so justly your own , that a never shaken loyalty , and an unsullyed fidelity are the very claim even of your birth rights . for whatever weaker and less fortified hearts the growth and progress of faction may have subdued ; you challenge that native brittish honour , so much of the heroe , derived down from ages to you ; that the vindication of monarchy and the opposing and repelling all republick arts and machinations against the royal-cause , with the same souls and resolution that your renowned ancestors withstood the norman arms , is but asserting your own hereditary glory of kent , that is , of being invincible . the assurance of which generous virtues born and bred with you , that illustrious genius that runs in your very veins , gives me hopes , not only of obtaining your pardon for this presumption , but likewise your patronage and protection from the slanders of my enemies , who endeavour to intercept all favourable thoughts of me , and my writings , by alleadging that i have written so virulently and maliciously , that i ought never to be trusted for a convert . the first part of their accusation , my own guilty part , 't is true , i own , and submit to all the load that justice , reproach and shame can lay upon me . but alas ! am i the onely libeller never to be converted , or never to be believed so ; when some of my own faulty predecessours , the present honour both of the press and pulpit , under as blackning circumstances , have sometimes in their lives play'd the very panegyrists upon a cromwel . and though indeed , a submission to the government of a rebel might come under self-preservation , yet publick encomiums upon him are these super-errogating works of affection and applause both to the traytor and the regicide , which no little penitence could wash off . yet whil'st not only the present generous arms of a pardoning court , and the kindest embraces of an endearing church are those royal credentials of their plenary conversion : with what eyes must the world look on me , either to find that unmalleable impenitency in my temper , or that hardness of belief in their own. 't is probable , i confess that this following discourse may give distast to some of our late members of parliament , written to convince the world that the church of england , and the protestant strength of this kingdom stand upon a rock immoveable ; whereas on the contrary , the false prognosticks of our la●e state-wizards have seated them on bogs and quicksands , just tumbling and sinking . however , for my justification i have this to say ; we live in a kingdom where , thanks to god , and our yet safe monarchical constitution , we are in that temperate region , that ( unless now and then of late in the too sultry dog-days of black-rod , and messenger time ) we are only govern'd by law . and when i find no statute , nor one letter of that law to make my denyal of our popish dangers criminal , i think i may safely with honesty and justice in the open face of day aver , that we are no more bound to believe any such popish dangers near us because this true protestant sham-patriot , or that plot-committee has pronounced them oraculous ; than we ought to stand up for the alcoran , because this mufti and that mussullnam will dye for 't . popery in england being that goblin that is not seen by all eyes : and it being highly unreasonable , because three parts of the kingdom have been troubled with the jaundies and seen all things yellow , that therefore every man with sound health and brains should do so too . for my part , i am of opinion , that no man with three grains in his skull is any more obliged to believe otes his discovery , because so voted , the preservation of the kingdom , than the lending the king money , as voted likewise , had been the betraying of it . nor can i possibly fancy a bill of vnion , because so adjudged ( that is , the incorporating of all sorts of schismes down from the presbyter to the muggletonian into the body of the church , were the way to preserve us from popery , any more than the letting of pickpockets , shoplifts , and ruffians into the house , were the keeping of felons and burglarers out of it . i confess i pay as great a respect to every resolve in parliament that carries reason , honour , and loyalty along with it , as every good subject ought to pay . but i profess , if i should find , resolved by this house , that his majesties life has been twice in imminent danger from a certain screwd gun , most terribly charged , once with all bullets and no powder , and a second time with all powder and no bullets ; and therefore be it likewise resolved , as the only expedient for the safety of his majesties person and the protestant religion from the danger of such bloody popish assassinates , that an address be made to his majesty , that all the men-worthy papists in masquerade be removed from all offices of trust , and the true protestant worthy-men be placed in their room ; and that a bill be likewise brought in for the lodging the militia for forty two days in confiding hands for the king and kingdom 's defence . now i say , if i should read this a thousand times over with an imprimatur wi. williams in letters of gold , confirmed too by the infallibility even of nemine contradicente it self , hang me if i should find out either that wondrous danger to his majesty in the first resolve , or that secure preservation of him in the last . if ten thousand resolves of parliament should declare coleman's papers a confirmation of otes and bedloes popish plot for the murder of the king , or raising armies for cutting the protestant throats . i should be sorry to think that any thing within the pale of rationality should believe it , when there is not one syllable throughout those papers that bear the least tendency that way ; and the whole plot of that false intriguer was more a design of french-jesuit money catching , than french religion , or french government building . and if bedloe himself should rise from the grave , and in a conference betwixt prance and him , should swear as boldly by styx and acheron , as formerly they had done by the four evangelists , that sir edmund-bury godfrey was murder'd with a pillow and long cravate at five in the afternoon in the upper court of somerset-house , by walsh , lephaire , the lord bellasis's two gentlemen , and mr. atkins , mr. pepy's clerk : and murdered likewise the same evening at nine at night , with a twisted handkerchief , at the stables in somerset-house outward court , by the hands of green , gerald , hill , berry , and prance : and if a hundred successive parliaments upon the receipt of such a testimony , should resolve that a disbelief of either of the two relations , and a dispute of the veracity of the two witnesses , were a downright countenancing of popery and a weakning the protestant interest , with all the rest of the dreadful senate-house anathema's at the tayl on 't : maugre all those parliamentary fulminations , i should be loth to see three honest men in three thousand , either convinced by the oaths of the one , or terrifyed out of their senses by the menaces of the other . and when i read upon record our swearing master otes one day upon oath affirming , that he had no other person to accuse of the popish conspiracy than those he had already impeach't , and yet the next day , bringing the very queen her self into the plot against his majesties life : after so damnable a perjury from so impudent a reprobate varlet , lord have mercy upon the strong faith of three kingdoms , that could hang a rat upon an affidavit other credentials to support it , than bare oaths from such a wretch ; without one concurring circumstance , one scrap of treasonable papers , consults , commissions , &c. of so many hundred of them all sworn to , and all trusted in the discoverers hands ; or the least breath of a confession from any one dying malefactour . nay , and more than all this , a discovery too , that with such palpable contradictions , incongruities , and impossibilities throughout it , is such a meer rope of sand , that not all the craft of man or devil can ever make hang together . take all this discovery ( a prodigy which nothing but this one only greater prodigy the crediting of it can exceed ) with some few more of its dependencies along with it , such as that precious hovse of commons vote , of revenging the king 's untimely death upon the papists ; with the subsequent use of that vote , viz. when the most zealous true protestant members , the fiercest promoters of that very vote , were actually themselves engaged in his murder , and resolved to turn their own sham into oracle , by doing the feat with their own fanatical hands , and then lodging the bastard at the popish doors : take the whole plot i say , and this fabrick built upon it together , and 't is a million to a mite but the foundation will at last appear as hellish as the superstructure : and when the popish plot , thus made a property for the fanatical conspirators , shall be duly and througly examined ; he that will but give himself the trouble but of looking or thinking , will have but too much reason to suspect the tool as infernal as the hands that used it . and to give our great witness even the fairest interpretation of his discovery ; i know no unlikelihood why the regicide and massacres of whitebread , fenwick , ireland , and the rest of them should not be of the the same piece with mr. elliots mahumetanisme and circumcision . for perish me , if i can find the least glimpse of reason why he that could be so cursed a limb of lucifer in his evidence at drs. commons , should have so much immaculate divinity in his testimony at the old-bayley , whil'st the same breath that smelt so rank of sulphur one day , should be so heavenly perfumed another . 't is true , there 's a sort of people will call this discourse an arraigning the justice of the nation ; when indeed they are wholly mistaken in the matter . for the justice of the nation is safe whil'st it acts by law : and therefore while the witnesses swore and the jurors believed , not pickering himself fell otherwise than by the sentence of justice . 't is true indeed as to the english latitude of believing in some cases , extraordinary examples may be given . 't was but enough to cry halloo ! popery ! and the whole populace of the kingdom , as natural blood-hounds at that game , would certainly take the false scent so readily , that there needed no more than look there she goes ; and the seven-headed , ten-horned babylonish beast , with all her bloody-pilgrims , black-bills , screw'd-guns , teuxbury mustard-balls , &c. were all as distinctly visible as the french army landed at the isle of purbeck was to two or three whole counties round it . and if the sense , reason , and intellects of whole countries together could be so grossly imposed upon as in that purbeck imposture ; i know neither law nor gospel why it should be a sin to averr a poor jury of twelve may possibly once in their lives be mistaken . nay , or that the opticks within a house of commons may as possibly be no more accurate than those without it , it being not the first time that representatives have been as blear-eyed as their electors . and considering the first fanatick conspiracy of ever infamous memory , made its approaches and attacques , and indeed gain'd its whole triumph by a previous sham popish one , as the only necessary pipe to set the fools of three kingdoms a dancing after it ; i know no reason why our later conspirators under the same necessity , should be less industrious than their predecessours ; and therefore think it not at all an impossibility that the headpiece and interest of a shaftsbury should be able to pick up upon occasion , a brace of vagabonds from the jayls and alms-baskets of three kingdoms to swear a few priests into a halter ; when the same phanatick faction the last age had a whole set of mercinary rogves at their high covrt of justice ready for true protestant evidences against the very life of majesty it self . but to leave the popish plot to the hell that engendred it , the villains that midwiv'd it , the rebels that nurs'd it , and above all , the tap that suckled it : that no man may think i design any reflection upon the constitution of parliaments , ( for though corruptio optimi est pessima , and therefore nothing more detestable than depravity and faction in that great council of the king and kingdom ) to show that no man can have a higher veneration of the nation 's representatives when truly venerable , i hope to see the day , when those great state pilots shall make justice and loyalty the only stars they steer by , whil'st truth , the child of time shall have the honour of their ha●ds to bring it into the world ; and when all our late popish trash , that long unwinnowed chaff , shall be sifted away ; and the security of our religion , and the peace of men's minds shall be cleared from all such dross and rubbish : the disquisition of truth , being that indispensible duty of the nation in parliament assembled , that without a cordial and impartial inspection and suppression of all factions frauds , and all our forged dangers ; all the national ungrounded jealousies , and the violent and fatal effects of them lye at their own door . and therefore it ought to be the prayers of all good men for such a next meeting of that illustrious assembly , who under a true sense of their duty , both as patriots , subjects , and englishmen , shall so effectually provide for the kingdom 's safety as to hang out their best lights and fairest sea-marks to warn a poor deluded people to avoid that old treacherous rock , the false fear of popery and slavery , on which so lately ▪ we so fatally split before . and persuant to this work , i hope to see them so zealous for truth , and the unvizoring of all impostures , that they shall not only unravel the negromancy of our shaftsburian-protestants , and plainly discover that only the old republick rump began to flyeblow again , and all our fears and dangers from rome and popery were but the corrupted insects , , the popular maggots bred in that carrion ; but likewise retrive the sullyed reputation of a derided kingdom , by amending the headlong english credulity , and using even some unhappy records themselves , with almost as little mercy as a noble peers speech , or a fitzharris his libel , as being indeed the more unfortunate , though possibly , less wilful incendiary of the two. and lastly , shall do that justice to the memory even of the top evidence otes himself , as to eternize his due glory of being judas his successor , only with this difference : judas of the two was the more innocent imp of hell. for he ingenuously took the thirty pieces of silver as a barefaced traytor , approach't and seized like one ; and neither acted nor pretended to any other than the visible villain he was . but this profligate miscreant with guilt of a yet deeper dye , to the blackest of forgerys and most diabolical of murders added the fairest and most painted hypocrisy , being the disturber and enflamer of a whole distracted kingdom , under the most specious mask of the protectour and saviour of it . nay , and is yet the more hardened desperado of the two : as his face is more brazen'd , and his heart more steel'd ; and that he has not all this while those horrours of conscience enough about him to make him fly to the same medicinal halter of his predecessour . however as the fanatick overfondling and too much hugging of the late beastly popish discovery gave the government an occasion to suspect the true father of the dow-dye , whil'st the greatest outcrys of popish dangers being bawl'd loudest , and almost only from the geneva throats , warn'd us to look for the old serpent lurking under these new-leaves . and as accordingly never was a more accursed legion of threatning devils rais'd than from that filthy abominable piece of enchantment ; insomuch that the whole genius of the nation was almost all turn'd demoniack : so no common oblation of thanks for a national deliverance , are due to heaven , and heaven's darling vicegerent , the best of kings whose wisdom and princely resolution alone stept boldly and timely forth to play the mighty exorcist . which to his never dying glory he has performed with that wondrous success , that succeeding ages shall justly record him in chronicle , of all our crown'd heads the greatest founder of the church of england , and even of monarchy it self , whil'st the strongest pillar of the first , and cement of the last has been the peculiar work of his own hand , viz. by so great a suppression of the dangerous growth of fanaticism , and this ever memorable defeat of the machinations of those most restless and most formidable enemies , not only of the miter , but of the crown . yet nevertheless as the popish bugbears are not quite vanisht , & the dying confession of the late traytor holloway lays the greatest ferment of the late damnable conspiracy on the yet too spreading panick fear of popery still coming in ; and indeed sidney and the rest , nay russel himself in his highest affectation of dying innocence still concurs in that point , that their whole uneasiness and turbulency , with the intended stirs , anglicè insurrections , were only levell'd against that danger : whil'st in reality the storm now seems to be a little clear'd up with them from the valadoly'd and st. jago quarter , the pilgrim and black-bill region ; and the lowring popish clouds are now only engendring nearer home , the wild-house and white-horse consults and caballings being by the insolent faction removed , and most audaciously lodged in white-hall it self ; considering , i say , how villany and delusion still retain their poyson , and so many weaker constitutions of fear and ignorance have not yet thrown off the infection , this following subject cannot come unseasonable . besides , not only my service to my country , but likewise my own vindication demands it of me . for since the petulant whiggs are angry with so open a deserter : amongst their many snarlings against me , there 's none so common with them as hang him rascal he turn'd only with the tide , and in spight of all his recantations , his popish character has that sense and truth in it , that not he nor any man will ever be able to answer : and in spight of his teeth will stand a perpetual record against the baseness of so vile a turncoat . as this is the general clamour against me , 't is high time publickly to clear my self from that calumny , and by engaging my pen in a good cause , lay open the naked impotence of a bad one , by unravelling the false positions throughout that feeble pamphlet . and though indeed much better pens than my own have long since chastized that licentious libel , yet 't is absolutely necessary my own handy-work should give it this last stroke . and , gentlemen , the better to recommend it to your patronage , i shall not spare my self a tittle , but lash my own faults as heartily as any other severest hand would do it for me . which integrity in this treatise makes it the more presume to throw it self at your feet , and the author more confidently aspire to subscribe himself , gentlemen , your most humble and most obedient servant , elkanah settle . the present state of england in relation to popery , &c. great and terrible have been the pretended dangers of popery ; especially for some late years ; and indefatigable have been the arts and sorceries of faction and villany to conjure up this hideous apparition , to fright the deluded multitude both out of their wits and their allegiance . but not to insist much upon the grosser impostures of fanatical incendiaries , such as the old most impudent cheat of turning both the best of protestant-kings , and a protestant church it self into popish and antichristian ; hoping that the most vulgar eyes and humblest capacities have fully seen through so diabolical a delusion : however , as there still remains upon some weaker understandings , and unsatisfied minds , a terrour yet unvanquish't ; the business of this treatise is to examine what national operation or influence a real popish crown'd head can have over the lives , liberties , or estates of englishmen , as now enjoy'd , and the religion of the kingdom , as at present establish't ; and by confuting even the most substantial of their imagin'd dangers , dissipate those false fears of popery , which no man possibly ( i mean in my humble station ) has more unhappily rais'd than my self . the wonderful state-convulsions that popery ( or rather the sophistry of scriblers upon that theme ) seems to threaten , are no where , i confess , more spightfully , more venemously , or indeed ( considering the weakness of the cause ) more artfully described than in that libel called , the character of a popish successour . but not to answer particularly to a rapsody of rhetorical flourishes , a tautology of gay words and big sounds to little or no signification ; which indeed is almost the whole jargon of that pamphlet , being truly the best reason the subject would bear ; i shall chiefly reply only to the argumentative part of it ; or at least , that which was intended as such . therefore as this following discourse will naturally fall under these two heads , viz. if popery be ever introduced , it can have only these two doors for its admission , presecution , or perswasion , i shall accordingly examine , first , what progress towards a national conversion , and the establishment of popery , the cruelty and tyranny of it under a popish successour is able to make , by an assault on the weak side of mankind their cowardice . and secondly , what advance towards the aforesaid conversion , &c. the subtilty and eloquence of popish emissaryes , and jesuetical seducers under the vmbrage and encouragement of a popish successour are likely to work , by an attacque on the blind side of mankind their ignorance . to begin then with the first of the two , as the more horrible horn of the beast ; persecution . the character is not a little prolix on that old popular arch-devil arbitrary power , whil'st popery and slavery , those always twin monsters , those never seperable feinds are so painted to the life , with all their fire and brimstone round them , that it has little else from the b●ginning to the end but the ratling of chains , the crackling of flames , the blazing of smith-field piles ; and in fine , the universal groans of destruction and desolation through the whole land. and for an unanswerable demonstration of all those most certain calamities from a popish successour . the character tells you , that in the first place , the romish principles are such , that they value neither their word , promise , vows , oaths , nor sacraments , but all their strongest engagements are lighter than the very breath that utters them . next , that they so little consult either their reputation or glory , that there is not the most abject thing , that even grown'd heads themselves shall not undertake , when rome , or rome's interest shall command . and lastly , that the putting all this barbarity into execution , is so highly meritorious in the romish church , that the pope will undoubtedly assign him no common diadem in paradice for this vndertaking . but upon his remissness or tenderness in this point , bethunder him with so many curses and anathema's , as , an undutiful , unactive son of holy mother-church , a scandal to her glory , a traytor to her interest , a deserter of her cause ; one while accusing the lukewarmness of his religion ; another while , the pusillanimity of his nature , &c. till in short , to spare a faggot in smithfield , he does little less than walk upon burning irons himself . but how is it li●ely , that rome's continual b●lls ( as the character fancies ) shall bellow so loud against a popish successor for sparing a faggot in smithfield , when under the infamy ▪ and execration of so tyrannic●●● murderer ( for what in queen mary's days was the sentence of justice , and the legal execution of the law , must now be the highest subversion of justice , and abrogation of law ) he must expose himself to the whole world as a greater monster than nero ; so much a greater than he , as nero's barbarities were committed under the ignorance and darkness of infidelity and paganism , and this man's murders and butcheries under the light of the gospel : nay , the terrible burning , broyling , and roasting denounced in the character , with the heating of popish fiery furnaces like nebuchadnezar's seven times hotter than ordinary , with all the rest of the romantick popish throat-cutting , will be ten times worse from a popish successour than the whole ten primitive christian persecutions . for a nero , caligula , domitian , and the rest of them , as they had the law in their own breath , and a sic volo , sic jubeo , was as much authentick in old heathen rome , as an act of parliament in little england ; and consequently , how barbarous soever the christian persecution was , yet it had the face of law , as being the edict of the absolute prince , and thereby the ordinance of the very government : but such a scheme of cruelty here , as being beyond the reach of the prerogative , and notoriously contrary to the establish't constitution of the kingdom , would , ipso facta , be ten times more dreadfully flagitious , as 't is the highest violation of law , and dissolution of government . and what ever opinion the noysy fools of mankind may have imbibed of jesuitisme , papisme , and all the chimerical terrours from rome , how can that very rome ( if it pretends but to christianity ) that has canoniz'd so many of those suffering primitive martyrs , at the same time likewise make saints of really worse monsters amongst themselves than the very heathen butchers of those very martyrs . 't is true , inquisition houses and lollards towers , and the cruelty of fire and faggot we know have been frequent ; but all this while they were never erected by standing armies , arbitrary cut-throats , nor military execution , but establish't by the legislative power of the respective governments that used them , and consequently introduced with the solemn institution of law , as a necessary support of the community : neither has it been a practice singular only to the papists , to secure the establish't religion , and thereby the peace of the civil government by capital punishments , when the protestant government has done the like . for example , does not the character instance two several acts of parliament ; one of queen elizabeth , in which , not only the popish priests , that shall have taken orders from rome , and afterwards return to england , but likewise all persons withdrawn by them from the protestant religion establish't , to a reconciliation to the church of rome , are equally guilty of high treason , and to suffer as in cases of treason . — and a second act of henry the viii . in which , the refusal of the oath of henry's supremacy , in renuntiation of the pope , was also made high treason . now if every papist in england , without lifting a hand , uttering a word , or imagining the least disloyal thought against his lawful soveraign , his crown and dignity , or against the peace of the nation where he 's a subject , yet nevertheless , out of a point of conscience , and meer matter of faith , cannot be induced to believe a temporal prince capable of being head of a church , but is invincibly perswaded ( how erronious soever ) that the pope is peter's undoubted successour , and christ's unquestioned vicar upon earth , and cannot , without hazard of his soul , so much as consent to acknowledge otherwise ; yet notwithstanding , by the protestant laws of the land , this invincible perswasion , without any other crime , is interpreted high-treason , and punish't as such . now i say , in this case , what wondrous difference is there between the rigour of a popish or a protestant constitution ? this , that makes a defection from their church-establish't treason ; and the other , from theirs , heresy : this that punishes an apostate with hanging and quartering at tiburn ; and the other with burning at smithfield . 't is true , that branch of queen elizabeth's statute that concerns the popish layman's high-treason was never yet put in execution ; and i hope , for the glory of the reformation establish't by that illustrious princess , as so extreamly sanguinary , was never intended to be , being severe enough to give our popish enemies a matter of recrimination , though enacted but in terrorem . but here i beg the reader to be assured , that i urge not this comparison in disparagement of our protestant laws , but only to satisfie the mistaken part of mankind , that all such judicial severities under the government of both religions have ever been introduced by the most awful and sacred authority of the rightful law-makers of the nations , and consequently in the english constitution , not only the king 's , but the peoples acts and decrees ; and so to convince them of the unreasonableness of that senseless surmise , that upon the admission of a popish successour , all the forementioned cruelties , though without any such induction of law ( and consequently with all the injustice , rapine , and cold-blooded murder , even to that formal solemnity of butchery , that humane imagination would tremble at ) must and shall be introduced . for alas ! how ridiculously extravagant must those fears be that can a●dl● men's senses into a dread of that prodigious stroke from popery that was never given by it since the creation . what magnifying glasses therefore must the popular fears see through , to behold such stupendious visions of popery , as that that shall be that never was , whil'st a popish crown'd head in england must be the first , nay , only royal savage of a papist that ever reign'd . however , for once , let us suppose the devil and pope as familiar together as ever they were painted at a queen elizabeth's night , and that this gospel propagation were really the doctrine of his pretended infallibility , and this bloody mandate to a popish successour the special edict of the whole consistory , what would the execution of that mandate make towards the growth or advancement of popery ? god knows , so far from promoting the romish religion , that possibly there wants but that one attempt to shame it almost out of the world. for in the first place , 't is so far from a way or means to convert even one soul in england , that 't is the only course to increase their abhorrence and execration of that religion , and bring the very thovght of popery even below damnation . 't would no more make converts to rome , than the old heathen caldrons and gridirons to paganisme : for as the greatest prejudice of englishmen against popery lyes in their horrour of the cruelties of it : so consequently nothing can contribute to the advancement of it but the clemency and mercy of its professours to reconcile us even into meer charity with them : whil'st the exercising of the formentioned unexampled barbarities would make us fall from our present ill opinion of popery as a corrupted church , to believe it no church at all , but rather an association of monsters , and a den of cannibals and tygers : and the greatest operation such unprecedented cruelty could meet , were at best but to force the frighted people into a superficial , counterfit complyance , and make them temporize a little , only to compound for their lives ; yet that temporizing under so villanous a persecution , would be so far from a true conversion , or any thing like it , that they 'd only play the highest of hypocrites , come perhaps to mass to mutter curses instead of ave-mary's ; or be hunted into the popish fold , only to pray for a favourable opportunity of having a pull at the throats of the wolves that drive them thither . and secondly , besides the impotent effects , 't is certain to find towards the heretick conversion ▪ the pope's command , nay indeed , connivance at any such arbitrary , tyrannick stake-burning , or throat-cutting from a popish successour , instead of advancing of popery by so excentrick a motion , will be enough to stagger half the popish hearts in christendom ; for as implicit as the faith of the romish zealots is , and as intirely devoted as they are to their peter's chair , and mother-church , undoubtedly there are thousands of them , that notwithstanding they can disgest a wafer for a god , can never be wrought to believe the transubstantiation of such visible tyranny and butchery into righteousness and christianity , how zealous soever they may be for the conversion of so heretical a nation as england . and that this would be the infallible consequence of all such barbarous popish measures : they that will but look back to the annals of queen mary , will find historians telling us , that nothing so much advanced the reformation as the mistaken conduct of queen mary and her bloody counsellors in that point . and dr. burnet expresly assures us , that the whole body of the nation grew to dislike the cruelty of rome [ abridg. book the 3 d. pag. 275. ] to that degree , that the popish bishops for their apology , threw it off from themselves , and openly laid it on the king's and queen's commands ; insomuch that king philip , for his excuse , made his confessour preach a sermon at court against the taking of peoples lives for their opinions in religion , and inveighed against the bishops for doing it . by which means a stop was put to it for some time . but nevertheless , as the same severity soon after return'd again , he tells us all along , that the nations dislike of it was universal , and the repeated acclamations , and universal transports of joy at the proclaiming of queen elizabeth proceeded from the people's hopes of better days under her scepter than her sister 's . by which it appeared how weary the nation was of the cruel and weak administration of affairs under the former reign . and the ioy in this change ( he says ) was so great and universal , that but a sad look was thought criminal . so that to ballance cases , if the severity of burning of two hundred and sixty protestants in queen mary's five years reign under the legal sentence of the then law of the land , and in that respect by the hand of justice , begat such a hatred of popery , and made so many converts to the reformation , that possibly 't was one of the greatest lifts to the downfall of the romish religion in england ; insomuch that 't is the opinion of all wise men , that a bonner and a gardiner did more towards the propagation of the protestant religion than a cranmer and a ridley . how much infinitely more therefore must the exercise of such popish cruelties from the hand of the most arbitrary tyranny under the visible monstrous face of the most notorious illegality , and the blackest injustice , increase our irreconcileable detestation of rome , and by making more apostates proselytes to their cause , heap up but fuel for the popish , not protestant confusion : and so at best , this arbitrary bloody tyranny can have no higher prospect than of committing murders for meer murders sake . but to silence all dangers of such stupendious papal excursions . this barbarous model of gospel propagation is at this present age of the world wholly unpractised in all the popish nations in europe , and excepting the spanish inquisition ( and that too , seldom rigorous against any but the open seducers of the people from their religion , to prevent the disturbance of the settled peace of the kingdom under so general and unanimous a conformity of the roman religion in spain ) there is now no popish government whatever , that proceeds against heresy with fire and faggot , or any other sanguinary punishment ; whil'st on the contrary , the reformers are more or less indulged or tolerated through almost all the popish kingdoms in the world ; though 't is true , that indulgence or toleration in the publick exercise of their religion is sometimes more enlarged , and other times more curtil'd , according to the more or less generous temper of the respective kings that grant them ; which though magnifyed at a prodigious rate by the present dreaders of popery , such as the tender-hearted condolers of the true protestant dissenter count tekely , &c. is no more than what is dayly done even by protestant princes in the same nature , whil'st the immunities and priviledges of all dissenting perswasions against the establish't religion of the land , as being but the donation of the governments discretion and curtesy , are increased or diminished , as the favour of the soveraign shall extend , or the policy of the nation shall require . however , as all sanguinary persecutions of heresy are now so universally left off , and that too , considering the popes influence over the royal sons of his own church , undoubtedly with his own pr●vity and consent : 't is certain , that both he and his crown'd heads are by experience convinced of the fatallity of such rigorous ecclesiastick extremities , as wholly ineffectual to the great work designed , the intended propagation of religion . and consequently , the pope must be strangely out of his right senses , to put a popish successour , and that in england , of all the countreys of the universe , upon a projection so long out of fashion in all the world beside ; nay , and to a more monstrous height of extravagance ( as being positively against any law or right whatever ) than was ever practised in the world before . nevertheless , laying policy , prudence , nay , common reason aside ; for once , we 'll dispense with all manner of incoherencies and absurdities whatever , and put the supposition , that the pope should be stung with that strange tarantula , as to begin this frantick dance , and a popish successour , that madman , to follow him . the next question that arises , will be , how he shall set this arbitrary machine agoing ? and which way he shall find hands , tools , and materials to build this terrible colossus , called arbitrary power . 't is true indeed , the character tells us the way of doing it , as follows : let us but rightly consider how far the foundations of popery ( viz. arbitrary power ) may be layed in england . first then , if a papist reign , we very well understand that the judges , sheriffs , justices of the peace , and all the judiciary officers are of the king's creation . and as such , how far may the influence of preferment on baser constitutions culled out for his purpose , are vail even to deprave the very throne of iustice her self , and make our judges use even our protestant laws themselves to open the first gate to sl●very . alas ! the laws in corrupted judges hands , have been too often used as barbarously as the guests of procrustes , who had a bed for all travellers , but then he either cut them shorter , or stretcht them longer to fit them to it . and after all this , the character proceeds , and tells you , that to crown the work , and make the pope absolute , this popish successour wants a standing-army , and he shall have it , &c. this true blew protestant scheme of introduction for arbitrary power , by the way of distorting of our very protestant laws to bring it in , the history of the popish plot only excepted , is one of the most comical whimms that was ever invented . i confess indeed some intricate cases in meum and tuum may occur , where the most impartial judges may be divided in their opinions , even in matter of law , and the diversity of various , and almost absolete records and statutes in several lesser law-matters may sometimes admit of disputes & diverse interpretations , and a corrupt judge under such a latitude , may lean or turn as inclination shall guide . but that part of our english law that concerns our religion and liberties , the long and labour'd work of so many successive parliaments ; nay , and after the very lopping of the prerogative to secure the subject by the abolition of oaths ex officio , star-chamber courts , court of wards , and by the benefit of habeas corpus acts , &c. the continued care and industry of our law-makers for a hundred years together , stands so strongly fortifyed against all romish or arbitrary invasions , that there 's not the least cranny in the law left open for the admission of the one or the other . however , this part of the character was very well timed for the season 't was writ in . for when the very protestant clergy and bishops of the land , the whole court , nay and the king himself not excepted , were all helter skelter , just upon being turn'd into downright papists in masquerade , 't was not at all unseasonable to improve upon the fiction , and bring in the protestant laws too in the crowd for popish masqueraders among their fellows . however , notwithstanding this pretended dangerous inlet to arbitrary power , the character , by a certain fault which i have read in a treatise , called richard and baxter , ( a figure of speech much used by that eloquent divine , and truly much borrow'd in the character , being little else throughout ) makes bold in another place point blank to contradict this passage , and positively affirms , that to set up popery or arbitrary power by law , under the laws we have already against them , is wholly impossible , and that our laws will be but the hedge to keep in the cuckow . for papists and slaves we must and shall be made , as the inseperable concomitants of a popish successour . and to prove all this breaking of all laws whatever , it says in haec verba ; how can the force of laws , made by a protestant predecessour , and a protestant parliament , in any sort b●nd a popish successour ? when the very first advance of the pope's supremacy [ a very nimble leap ] introduces that higher power , those canonical ecclesiastick laws , which no secular , or any other temporal court can or may controul . laws that shall declare , not only the statutes and acts of parliament made against the dignity of mother-church , voyd and null , but the very law-makers themselves , as hereticks , wholly uncapable of ever having any right of making any such laws . no doubt then , but that fire that burns those heretick law-makers , shall give their laws the same martyrdom . here indeed the affairs are alter'd , and truly , the matter much mended . this i confess , says the character , and this , at least three parts of the fools of english mankind believe for oracles . and though all our records , histories , chronicles , and the whole series of all ages since the conquest to this day , do notoriously prove the contrary ; yet this popular maxime , that the romanists by their ecclesiastick laws , pretend to anull and make void all secular laws against their church , and to incapacitate the very prerogative and authority of that majesty , and those law-makers that made them , though one of the most impudent falshoods in nature , is nevertheless one of the most received vulgar traditions that ever startled ideots . for example , to begin with their very heretici comburendi : the very ax and fasces of rome , was it not an act of the secular power ? in the very highest reign of popery , did , or could the pope punish an heretick apostate by imprisonment , fire or faggot , any further than by parliamentary permission , and excepting that the clergy were made judges of heresy , and that too , by concession of the secular authority : was not the execution of that law kept in temporal hands ? nay , though 't is true , the papal power made many vsurp'd encroachments here , through the bigotry of the government ; yet , upon too hard pressures from rome , did not several of our kings many hundred years before the reformation , resume their own original right ; and expresly in the statute against provisoes under penalty of forfeiture of goods , and imprisonment for life , forbid the admitting of the popes legantine power in england , or making appeals to rome , or taking inductions to episcopal sees from the pope . and for queen mary her self , was there one syllable of the laws enacted by her father henry , or her brother edward in favour of the reformation , that she ever pretended to over-rule by any ecclesiastick law or pretence whatever ? nay , and did not the pope's supremacy it self and that not till many a hard tug , and two years after she came to the crown , come in by act of parliament , under several limitations of his power , with the confirmation of the antient statute against provides , &c. and several other boundaries ; as much as to say , move thus far , and no further. but alas ! what 's all this to the author of a popish character● ? popery and arbitrary power in spight of fate , shall and must be set up . and therefore what laws shall , or shall not get uppermost , is ene as mr. scribler pleases . for truly malice put pen to paper , and truth and reason were never minded : and indeed , there was no need of either of them ; for as that pamphlet had the honour in the title-page , of being humbly offered to the consideration of the then hovses of parliament , both truth and reason were immaterial to it● recommendation . for where an o●es his narrative past for gospel , the devil 's in 't , if a popish character could miscarry . however , to confute that sensless fear , that a popish successour will subvert the whole foundations of the government , and erect his own arbitrary edict , for the supreme standard of jvstice , and that he shall find those popish judges , sheriffs , or any other officers or ministers , that under the protection of a standing army , shall make our lives and liberties wholly dependant upon the caprichio and pleasure of the prince , and persuant thereto , shall furnish him with jayls , gibbets , and smithfield piles , or any other arbitrary , though less sanguinary persecution to convert us to popery . first , let us examine the courage of all these arbitrary judges , officers , and state-ministers that embarque in this arbitrary undertaking . they must be all those hardy popish tools , whether corrupted by zeal or interest , that they must not value all their own lives , for notwithstanding whatever protection or impunity they may receive during the life of their royal popish driver ; no sooner shall the next protestant heir succeed him , but every mothers son of them shall be answerable with their necks for the least drop of protestant blood they have shed , or protestant liberty they have invaded . the protestant laws of the land will not be so tamely overthrown , without a certain vengeance attending it ; insomuch that those bold babel builders , these arbitrary popery raisers must either be so generous to their king as the indian wives to their husbands , and make one glorious funeral pile upon his grave ; or else , resolve to live to offer up their throats to the very sword of iustice in the hand of a lawful authority , which themselves before have so vnlawfully abused in their own . and that the liberty of the subject is so tender in the eye of the english government , the very misusing and torturing of hereticks in prison , though under that attainder , lyable to the most ignominious of deaths ; and though done in a popish predecessours reign , was sufficient to have taken the great statesman bonner's head off , but only that queen elizabeth's mercy interposed , as unwilling to stain the beginning of her reign with blood. [ reform ▪ abridg. b. 4. pag. 357. ] and if his illegal compliance with his prince was so capital an offence , what must the more violent irruptions of arbitrary rapines against the untainted liberty of the protestant subjects now pull down upon the bold invaders heads . 't is no difficult matter to possess the overcredulous world , the easy swallowing multitude , with what wondrous atchievements the zealots of popery shall undertake , and what indefatigable labours and hazards they will go through for the re-building of their faln temples , when animated and influenced by a popish soveraign . i acknowledge ( 't is true ) there is no courage more daring than that which zeal inspires ; and no zeal possibly more violent than that of the papists , and undoubtedly for rome's restoration , there would be many venturous and bold champions amongst them in so meritorious a cause . but alas ! every heroe is not a sampson . there are , no doubt , those of them that would spare neither pains nor study to propagate their own religion , though never so indirectly ; those possibly that would have it in their power ( if they could come handsomely by it ) to use their heretick adversaries with as little mercy as he did his philistian enemies ; but alas , not with his hardiness too , as like him , to pull down that roof upon their heads to their own inevitable destruction only to have the pleasure of crushing some of vs with them . we read , i confess , that pro aris & focis men will venture far . yes truly , for their religion and estates together they will do so . but in the popish case , where the founding of the one will be the destruction of the other ; where the setting up of their religion , will be the forfeiting not only their estates , but heads too ; 't is more than a hundred to one , betwixt these two so directly opposite interests , but that the keeping of their skin and bones warm on the one side , may make their zeal a little the cooler on the other . for let me tell you , where the erecting of the altar will at long run make the builders the sacrifice , in all humane probability that popish temple will go but slowly up , whose stones are to be dug out of so fatal a quarry . 't is very remarkable in queen mary's reign , when by the majority of her parliament , the protestant religion then but in its minority was abolish't , and the romish government and papal supremacy re-establish't ; and indeed the grandure of rome even to haeretici comburendi maintain'd . yet that parliament that had it absolutely in their power to gratifie the pope's utmost wishes , refused the returning his church-lands again . nay , the parliament were so averse to the thought of such a restitution , that they had never been wrought up to the restoring of the very supremacy it self , and of making of all those favourable acts towards the re-installing of popery again , but by much pains used ( as burnet in his abridgement , pag. 268 says ) by the policy of bishop gardiner , to ensure the kingdom from the fear of coming under such tyranny from rome as their ancestors had groaned under , and likewise from the loss of the abbey-lands . insomuch that gardiner promised them for removal of all such jealousie , that all the old laws against provisions should continue in force , and to shew them that legates should exercise no dangerous authority in england , he made pool take out a license under the great seal for his legantine power ; and for the other , viz. the abbey-lands , he promised both an act of parliament and convocation confirming them , and undertook that the pope himself should ratifie the alienation of the church-lands ; which , history tells us , was accordingly done . nevertheless , as this papal dispensation came very unwillingly from rome , being only a forced compliance and temporizing with the english obstinacy in that point . the queen her self restored all the church-lands in her possession , and proceeded so far as to the re-building of several religious houses , declaring to her treasurer , and some of her other officers , that she thought her self bound in conscience to restore all the church-lands , as being unlawfully acquired , and not to be held without a sin : ( as baker in his chronicle tells us ) nay , the pope himself set out a bull , excommunicating all that kept any lands belonging to abbeys or churches ; which gave such an alarm to the nation , that gardiner was forced to pacifie them , by telling them , that bull was intended only to the people of germany , and not england . however , the pope continued his high resentments against the undutifulness of england , that he could not forbear telling the queen's ambassadours . ( abridg. pag. 221. ) that it was beyond his power to confirm sacriledge , and all were obliged , under the pain of damnation to restore to the last farthing every thing that belong'd to the church ; he said likewise , that he would send over a collectour to gather the peter-pence ; for they could not expect that st. peter would open heaven to them , so long as they denied him his rights upon earth . yet all this made so little impression on the commons of england , that whatever conscience might dictate , their priests insinuate , their popish successour solicite , or their pope himself endeavour , so powerful was interest above conscience , and all other motives whatever , that several of the commons in parliament lay'd their hands on their swords , and declared that they would not part with their estates , but defend them . and every motion that way , was always carryed in the negative . ( abridg. of the reform . b. 3. pag. 309 ) now , pray , for once , let us compare cases . if the papists in her reign , with the highest papal dominion and soveraignty in their own hands , under an establish't roman church , against both their priests and their prince ; nay , a prince too , with her hereticks under her feet , and her religion in the very saddle , could refuse both their pope , and their popish successour so just and so sacred a right , and so important to his church's interest , and that too , when with all safety round them , they might have confirm'd their oblation even by the strongest bonds of law ; so on the other side , how shall it be suppos'd that the more prodigal papists in our age , in the quite contrary extream , shall gratifie the unjust demands of a more impotent popish successour , under the lowest ebb of popery against all law or pretence of law whatever , by launching out into the most notorious .075 violation of all the highest sanctions of right and justice , and the most openfaced tyranny and most impudent barbarity in the world , and all ( forsooth ) for the establishing of popery ; and all , god wot , too little for the work ; and this too , to the running themselves into unavoidable iayls and halters ; and not only to the ruining of their estates , but to the cutting off of the lives of themselves , and even the very race of papists under the next immediate crown'd-head that succeeds . besides , as boldly as the roman zealots stand up for the interest and dignity of mother-church , and the grandure and dominion of their peter's successour , not only the papists , but the very priests themselves are not so overcouragious in this cause as the world suspects them . for instance , in henry the eighth's reign , the whole clergy of england , by a state-surprize upon them , were found guilty of a premunire , by submitting to cardinal woolsy's legantine-power , as derived only from the pope's authority , and thereby expresly against the statute of provisoes , an old dormient law , made several king's reigns before , though rarely , or never put in force , by reason of the remissness of the government , and the supiness of the nation and kings submission to rome , and therefore unwarily transgrest by the clergy now . by vertue however of which they had forfeited their goods and chattels to the king , and their persons to be imprisoned . upon the king's menace of executing which law ( reformat . book the 2 d. pag. 112. ) the convocation of canterbury , in tenderness to their skins and estates , brought a petition to his majesty , acknowledging him in the title , protectour , and supream head of the church and clergy of england . which was agreed to by nine bishops , 82 abbots , and the majority of the convocation in the province of canterbury , praying him to accept of 100000 l. in leiu of the punishments incurred . and the province of york soon afterwards consented to the same submission , with the offer of 18840 l. for obtaining the same pardon . insomuch that we find the very popish clergy themselves so servilely compounding for their mammon , and their carcases ( not so much in the voluntary tribute of their purses ) as with the renunciation of the pope's ecclesiastical supremacy , the very brightest iewel in the tripple diadem , and consequently by this sordid compliance , even the priesthood it self by their own leading act , gave the fatal original precedent to the succeeding act of parliament to confirm that supremacy in the crown , and so struck the first main blow towards the shaking of the romish prerogative in england , and thereupon conspired to the greatest part of the ensuing fatalities to their religion it self . and therefore , if the ecclesiastical sons of rome could ward themselves from the stroke of law due to that less capital transgression then , by denying their very pope : why must the sons of rome be so prodigiously fool-hardy now , as to run themselves into a more dangerous and more mortal noose of law for his vindication . 't is very easie preaching to fools and madmen ( as the popish character has very rhetorically done ) what miraculous fire and faggot feats , or other arbitrary extravagancies the wonderful papists under a popish successour shall do . but as great a deity as the romanists make of their keeper of the keys of heaven , as the devil ( speaking of job ) makes answer to god almighty , put forth thine hand , and touch him in all that he hath , and he will curse thee to thy face . so let his holiness put these zealots upon that hard task , where their necks are sure to stretch in the service , and obedience will be so little a part of the sacrifice they 'l make his divinityship in such a command , that all his bell , book , and candle will be too little to conjure up half hands enough for so ungrateful and so cursed an employment . whatever pleasure they may take in bringing vs to stakes and gibbets , they are not overfond of martyrdom themselves . and though great is their diana of ephesus , whil'st profit and safety go along with her , and upon reasonable terms , much might be done to exalt her ; yet ther 's that vniversal charm in that thing call'd ovr all , and that strange superseding quality in those potent operators self , , and self-preservation , that it over-rules the highest excursions even of the most daring zeal , and the very biggest devils of outrage and tyranny are laid by no other spell . but perhaps it may be objected , that to incourage the bold labourers in this harvest , this popish king , to prevent the ruine both of his cause and his party , will take care , in case of a protestant heir , to divert the succession , and continue the crown upon some other popish head ; and so by a longer usurpation of this arbitrary supremacy , and a more lasting persecution of the protestants , provide as much as in him lyes , that the propagation of the romish faith may be compleated in succeeding ages , upon so good a foundation lay'd in his own. this foolish supposition is so lewdly ridiculous , that ther 's scarce a shadow for such a fea● : for ( alas ) there will be so little hopes of a popish vsurper's mounting the throne , after so notorious a tyranny under a lawful popish king before him , as nothing can scarcely be more impossible . 't is possible indeed , the duty of our christianity , and the bond of passive obedience , as having the lawful power of no other weapons but our prayers and tears against the tyranny of our lawful prince , may tye up our hands , and keep us in the bounds of peace and resignation during his reign . but the setting up of a popish vsurper after him , in wrong to the imperial protestant right heir , will undoubtedly ingage all the protestant hands and hearts against so impudent an invader ; ( and if occasion require , his protestant royal neighbours in such a cause ) whil'st the taking up arms in such a quarrel , which had been rebellion against his predecessour before , would be the work of their highest duty and allegiance now . and as the remembrance of their past yoke to all true english spi●its , would certainly double edge their very swords ; so , in so just a cause , 't would infallibly spur them to so perfect , and so unanimous a revenge , as to cut off their popish enemies , even to the last man. now what popish vsurper shall venture to pass such an ordeal to a throne ? or what hopes a popish king can have of such a successour , or of accomplishing his own popish designs on such a basis , let common reason judge . and therefore the pope must have a very little paternal care of his royal son of rome , and indeed of all his catholick sons in england , as to imbark them in a cause so apparently derstructive , whil'st by misleading them into such sanguinary , illegal cruelties against the protestants , and all for an impossible conversion of a nation , he runs his own darling people , root and branch into an inevitable fate under the next protestant successor , exposed not only to the highest popular swords and fury , but even to cords and axes , and the severest stroke and vengeance of law it self . but possibly their fate shall not wait so long as the next king's coronation , but overtake them in the first onset of their popish barbarity . for let ut but look back to the gun-powder treason , a plot where faux's powder-barrels were neither like otes his teuxbury mustard-balls , nor his black bills , invisible . a plot too , where the conspirators dyed not tongue-tyed , but confessed their guilt , without that wonder-working dispensation of asserting a counterfeit innocence , to the stretch o their salvation , and renuntiation of their god , on the very brink of eternity . let us look back , i say , to the discovery of that plot : and history informs us , that 't was as much as the king , court and government could possibly do to restrain the peopl's rage from butchering all the papists in england , the guilty and innocent together in the revenge of so barbarous a machination , though uneffected ; tho by providence detected and frustrated . and if the genius of england was so highly exasperated , and so furiously transported in zeal for their prince's and their representativ's danger , though past and escaped . what security shall the pope , or his popish successour promise themselves , that the people's zeal for their own dangers approaching , will not be as much transported too . and that the eruption of smithfield fires , with the dragging of their fathers , their wives , their children , or their kindred ( and possibly their own turn next ) to a popish stake , will not equally , if not more violently inflame them into as great , or greater outrages than the gun-powder plot could do . but whether this certain ruine should persue these arbitrary popish instruments either sooner or later , and that it were really possible ▪ these , or any other illegal popish measures might give us some trouble and disturbance during this popish monarch's reign . how wretched a piece of work must the wisdom of the pope and the whole conclave undertake , to make popery and arbitrary power under a popish successour , those feeble serpents that shall but just bite our heels to provoke our succeeding vengeance to crush their heads . in the second year of queen mary , after the repeal of king edward's laws , but before the restoration of the pope's supremacy , we are told in the history of the reformation : ( abridg. b. 3. pag. 253. ) of a project proposed by the spanish ambassadour to the queen , of assuming the power of a conquerour , and ruling at pleasure ; by which she might restore both the religion and the abbey-lands , and be under no restraint . this she communicated to her chancellour gardiner and charged him to give her his opinion of it sincerely , as he would answer to god for it at the last day . he read it carefully , and told her it was a most pernicious contrivance , and begg'd her not to listen to such platforms which might be brought her by base sycophants . vpon that she burnt the paper , and charged the ambassadour to bring her no more such pro●ects . this gave gardiner great apprehensions of the mischiefs that spanish councils might bring upon the nation : and so he procured the act to be made ; by which the queen was bound by the law , as much as her ancestors were . now if that bloody popish zealot gardiner was so violently averse to the thought of bringing arbitrary power into england , for what service soever to the romish cause , as in his opinion so most pernicious ; when at the same time the majority , or half of the nation at least were of that perswasion . and if popish standing armies could have done the feat , they were ten times easier to be rais'd for any arbitrary popish purpose then ; especially too , when the queen lay in the bosome of that potent spanish husband ( witness his invincible armada soon after against queen elizabeth ) that could have lent her a very considerable helping hand from forreign assistance to push on the project , had her english strength been insufficient . now i say , if nevertheless the design was deem'd so pernicious then , what popish state councellours at this time of day will run their own and their prince's fingers so far in the fire , as to advise him to any such arbitrary projection now , under so low a wane of popery , that scarce the 200 th . part of the nation are of that religion , and therefore infinitely more pernicious than in queen mary's case , and consequently , which nothing but the most abandon'd lunacy can ever pretend to advise , or attempt . 't is true indeed , the popish character lays down a most expeditious method of raising this dreadful standing army , that are to accomplish the mighty feat of popery and slavery under a romish successour ; which for the reader 's diversion take as follows . to make the pope absolute , there wants a standing-army ; and he shall have it . for who shall hinder him ? nay , all his commanders shall be qualify'd even by our present protestant test for the employment . he shall have enough men of the blade out of one half of the gaming houses in town , to officer twice as many forces as he shall want . 't is true , they shall be men of no estates nor principles . but they shall fight as well as those that have both. for people are ever as valiant that have their fortunes to raise , as those that have them to defend : nay , of the two they shall be the more faithful . for they have no property to be concern'd for , and will more zealously serve him , by reason their whole interest and estates lye in him. and that this army may be more quietly raysed , how many honourable pretences may be found ? perhaps the greatest and most important preservation of his kingdom shall call for it : and then upon second thoughts , instead of defeating some forreign enemy , they are opportunely ready to cut our throats at home , &c. this projection i confess is the only passage through the whole character , that endeavours to make out the possibility of any part of the numerous popish mischiefs denounced through the whole pamphlet . for all along it absolutely supposes the power of a popish successour's doing whatever he pleases ; and after so fallacious a petitio principii , it leaps over all mountains in the way , and only labours to prove the depravity of a popish successour's tyrannical inclinations , and give him the will of putting that power into execution . but to examine the depth of this projection , granting such a set of atheistick officers could be found ; what then must their army be ? here 's a forreign invasion , or some other honourable cause proposed , and an army raysed for that seeming intent and purpose : an army of papists they cannot be , for there is not 40000 men , women , and children of that perswasion in the whole kingdom , and consequently , far short of 10000 fighting men amongst them all ; and possibly , not one half of them neither , such foolhardy desperadoes , as to hazard their lives so madly and so extravagantly in so unpromising a cause , so unaccomplishable a design as subjecting of england by the hands of the papists . so that an army of papists can be no part of a popish successour's thoughts . and that the number of the papists in england is really no greater . the king's indulgence formerly to those of that religon , in gratitude for their loyal endeavours at worcester ; and indeed through all his fathers distresses ; has been so far from putting them to the shifts of disguises or concealment of their perswasions , that before the late wakening of the laws against them , the papists were every where as visible , and generally as distinguishable ▪ from the rest of mankind as one sex is from another ; insomuch that ( unless their numbers have increased by converts made since the popish discovery , and the execution of the statutes against them ) there 's scarce one papist in england , that all his neighbours round him cannot particularly point at . and how thin sown those papists are , is notoriously manifest , when in many and many a ten parishes together in england there is not three papists , and the whole number computed through the nation , scarce the 200 th . man of that perswasion . notwithstanding there have been many fanatical pretensions of wonderful popish dispensations ; by vertue of which , there are at least thirty or fourty thousand church-papists as some old oliverian rebels shall tell you , tolerated by the pope to an absolute protestant vniformity , and ready upon occasion , to show themselves in their proper colours . the villany of which damnable falshood is sufficiently apparent , from the forementiond indulgence . for why such a dispensation ? why a playing the basest of hypocrites , and bantring with religion , sacraments , nay , god himself ; ( as such a dispensation is no less ) when under so universal an impunity , there was not the least occasion for it ? there 's a natural pride in all religions to avow their own principles ; and no man , like st. peter , denyes his master , unless , like him too , under some apprehension of danger in owning him . and therefore these papal dispensations must be the second part of otes his commissions , and nothing but the restless malice of schisme , and the diabolical spirit of rebellion can raise so false an alarum of popery , and bugbear the ignorant rabble by so vile and so cursed an imposture . but to return to our standing army . an army of papists is not to be had ; and an army of atheists is as unseizible as the other . for whatever dissolute debauchees might possibly be culled out ( as the character tells you ) of no religion nor principles , for a few particular officers ; the whole gross of an army of the same stamp is not in rerum naturâ : for if a popish successour will have an army of english-men , he must take them as he finds them , the loose and poorer sort of rabble , the bore and peasant , the refuse of the shop and the plough , which are ever the composition of armyes in a kingdom not so extraordinary peopled as england , and these must be the hands that this popish successour must raise for his standing armyes . and if so , how far the genius of the commonalty of england lyes towards such a popish vndertaking , and this no-popish army shall push on to these all-popish designs , is worthy our consideration . here 's an army expresly rais'd for a forreign invasion , or the like ; and on the quite contrary , intended to cut our own throats at home ; rays'd for the kingdom 's preservation , & used for its downright destruction ; and all this , forsooth , because their arbitrary popishly affected officers shall pull off the vizor , and wheel about , and at the word of command , the whole army after them . but the quaery is , whether they 'll obey that command , and be so tamely indifferent pro or con in their obedience , to act the most opposite thing to what they were raysed for , and maintain perhaps the only cause that they abhor . i confess , in the quarrels of princes and states , as to forreign engagements , the vindicating of a national honour , or the enlarging of dominion , &c. armyes are generally of their leaders inclinations , and it boots lit●le possibly to an english army , whether ingaged against a dutch or a french enemy . but in domestick and intestine jarrs , the favour of the cause ever animates the arm that fights it . in all the popish rebellions , or massacres , whether in ireland , piedmont , or paris , whether for or against the prince , or in all the several hugonot rebellions in france , or any other kingdoms of europe ; when religion was the quarrel , 't was not the command of the leader but the principle of the party adhering to him , that was ever the first mover on both sides . and a popish cause in england can never move , but upon the same axle . and nothing is more i●le , than to fancy such an extravagance in any people or religion in the world , as to swallow such implicite obedience to princes , as to do any thing , or all things because commanded . 't is not the first time that through prejudice to the person or the cause , disgusted souldiers have shot through their captains instead of their enemies heads , and the fate of kuniski amongst the cossacks , is no original of the kind ; nor is it any such rarity in history , to find whole armies turn deserters , and not only set up new leaders , but new soveraigns too . and truly upon engaging an english army under so bloody a popish standard , what assurance can this popish successour propose to himself , not so much of going through with so crabbed a piece of work , but even of his own meer safety under the protection of such hands and swords to uphold him ? what security shall he , or indeed can he in common reason expect from the stubborn , obstinate english hands , a people too apt to fly in the very face of princes upon a less provocation than so ungrateful a piece of service : and that upon raising an army for any such kind of purpose , he has not put the sword into their very hands that may guide it to his own throat , whil'st possibly they shall be opportunely raised for some more darling-protestant favourite to step into the head of them , and dismount , not only their popish officers , but popery too , and the very royal popish nimrod himself ; nay , and perhaps use him with as little remorse as the turkish janizaries have done several of their less hated grand seigniours under a much more trivial disgust . but to give an example out of our english chronicles , of the obedience and loyalty of english armyes to a king they hate ; i shall only refer the reader to the fate of king richard the third at bosworth field . baker tells us , that richard's army was double the strength and number of his adversarys , the earl of richmond's . yet see the infidelity of an english army to a prince under the popular dissatisfaction and prejudice . a great part of his army raised for his preservation , was actually ingaged in his destruction . for the lord stanly by a revolt with 2000 horse , sir william stanly with a party of 3000 more ; and with these sir walter hungerford , sir john savage , sir brian stanford , sir simon digby , all commanders , who withdrew likewise with their respective inferiour souldiers , amounting between them , to the majority of richard's whole army , turned all to the earl of richmond , and carryed the whole fortune of the day to the victorious enemies side , to the loss both of richard's crown and life together . nay , he goes further , and expresly tells us , that in this battle henry , earl of northumberland , a commander of richard's party , never strook stroke ; as likewise many other , who follow'd him moreout of fear than love : which neuters upon the same revolt as the lord stanly , might undoubtedly have withdrawn their party to richmond too . so that upon that dangerous and fatal rock , the people's aversion , how easily are the crowns and lives of princes shipwrack't ? and what little trust can monarchs repose in the strength and swords of armies whose hearts are not theirs . but alas ! if richard the third found such treachery from a revolting army ; and an antipathy so destructive to him ; what truth or faith is a popish tyrant like to find from armies under a more universal and inveterate detestation . for wherein was king richard's crime so great ? ( i mean , as to the people ) 't is true , he mounted the throne by the most inhumane of murders . and from that only grievance proceeded the defection of his souldiers , that cost him his life and empire . but still , that was not half so great an incentive to his revolting subjects , as the forementioned barbarities of a popish tyrant now . for though he was so deeply stain'd in royal blood , yet that was not so nearly felt by the people , as a romish tyrants cutting his subjects throats would be , by reason that englishmen have ever a greater tenderness of themselves than their princes . besides , whatever wrong he had done to the royal family , never had prince more endeared himself ( or endeavoured it , at least ) than he to his people . for baker gives this account of him , that having gotten the crown by pestilent courses , he sought to establish it by wholesome laws : for in no king's reign were ever better laws made , for the ease and solace of the people , or more immunities granted to the subject . nor was there any thing of religious difference in his case ( religion , that the character tells you , sets all nations in a flame ) for richard and his souldiers were of one church ; and so no part of the people's hatred ( as in the case of popery now ) nor any part of the coals was blown up from that wind. yet , if under no danger to religion and liberties , no approach nor apprehension of tyranny and slavery , nevertheless his parricides alone outweighed all other merits , and their hatred of richard only on that score , could turn his subjects swords against his own breast ; how much more violent an aversion will the hatred of a popish tyrant , both for his religion and his cause together produce , being enough to exasperate the english constitutions , not only into rebels , but even into savages too . but for a farther instance of revolting armies , the history of demetrius , emperour of russia , is a memorable example . this demetrius , the only heir of the empire , was in his infancy stoln away to be rescued from the danger of his life from the cruelty of the usurper boritz fedoritz , then in possession of the empire , and another body very like him , was exposed dead to the view of the people . this demetrius being brought up in poland with the palatine sandomi● , after he had travelled into germany and italy for the space of twenty years , gave himself to be known for the son of bazil , and heir of russia , and by the assistance of the palatine , the jesuites , and the favour of the king himself , entred into muscovy , well accompanied with germanes , poles , and cossacks . against whom boritz raised a puissant army . nevertheless the infidelity of his people , who rose in arms against him , together with several losses sustained , deprived him both of courage and life , and thereupon he dyed , but left his son to succeed him ; who was received indeed by some of his faction . but the city of muscovy , together with all the country , having joyn'd with demetrius , threw boritz son into prison , and establish't demetrius upon the throne ; whose coronation , ( as 't is largely described in the history of the iron age ) was attended with such loud transports of the people , and such universal acclamations of joy , as could scarce be exceeded . yet this very prince had no sooner ascended the throne , and was scarce yet warm in the seat , but those very subjects whose hands and swords had so chearfully and vigorously asserted the justice of his cause and birthright , and advanced him to the empire ; nevertheless , understanding that he had embraced the romish faith , and acknowledged the pope , and that he had introduced the jesuites , as they apprehended , to endeavour the change of the religion ( which in russia , is the greek church ) fell so totally off from their new allegiance , and entice into so sudden and so perfidious a conspiracy against him , that upon a general uproar they fell upon the poles , and others , as they were going to court , insomuch that they overpower'd all the forreign assistance he had brought with him , and approach't so near to his palace , till the emperour left his queen , and got away , and upon persuit , leapt down from a tower through a window ; at the foot whereof ( being found alive ) he was forthwith dispatcht , and the cruelty of the barbarous multitude continued upon his dead body , which they tore in pieces : and so swift was the change of popular affections , and so violent the fury stirred up by the meer alarum of altering the religion , that all this prodigious revolution was wrought in a month's time after his acquisition of the crown . and if the imaginary introduction of popery ( as this was hitherto no more ) could raise so rapid a torrent , and so sudden a turn of tide from the revolting muscovites ; what miraculous fidelity can a romanist expect from englishmen , under as great an abhorrence of the religion , and a more real appearance of the aforenamed tyrannous effects of it . but put the case , the best and most plausible way , viz. that a popish successour ( as some people will fancy ) though really impossible ) could raise a whole army of the same stretching conscience as the character has raised him officers , a crew of all atheists ▪ and neither principles nor religion were any part of their consideration , and consequently plyable to any purpose whatever ; as a pack of such reprobates as shall obey their prince and his officers in so unjustifyable a command , and so unnatural a piece of service as cutting the protestant throats , or upholding those arbittary judges that shall do it ; what faith shall he dare lodge in an army so qualified ? for what shall hinder them , upon any opportunity or overture of greater advantage , from turning as great reg●es against him as for him ? and truly with as little guilt , and as good conscience on one side as ' tother . for an actual obedience , even to a crown'd head in the execution of an vnlawful act , especially so notorious as the massacring of his subjects , and destruction of the government , is as much against our duty , both as christians and subjects , as downright to rebell against him . and if this army can stretch so far as to such horrid popish outrages , so much against the english grain , 't is very great odds , but they 'd much easier lean to their more natural byass on the other . i need not insist much farther upon the manifest inability of popery's advancement by armies or arbitrary power , when arbitrary power of it self alone ▪ without the other unweildy clog of popery at the heels of it , has been ever adjudged so impracticable in england , that the very conquerour himself , the norman william thought not his victory secure , but by ingaging to adhere to william the confessours laws , or at least , to introduce no noveltyes , excepting such as tryals by juryes , or the like ; and these to the priviledge , not infringement of the peoples liberties . and the long and bloody baron's wars , upon a less invasion of liberty , are a sufficient demonstration of the vneasiness of englishmen under any yoke whatever . insomuch that a popish successour , under the undeniable suspitions , and at best , but faint affections of his people , is so far from a capacity of tyrannizing either with armyes , or without them , that he has no other support both of himself and his whole party , but by following the forementiond measures of richard the third , and either to in dear himself by making of wholesome laws for the people's freedom and tranquility ; or at least by keeping within the bounds of those wholesome ones they have already made for their security . now with all these numerous and undeniable blocks in his way , why must a popish successour be able , or indeed possest with so enthusiastick a presumption ( for nothing less than supernatural inspirations will do it ) as to think himself able to accomplish that very thing in england which was never done by monarch before . nay , to make the presumption a little more prodigious , this very successour , who of all the kings since the creation , has the worst tools for such an atchievement , must be the first and only person that is for undertaking it . for as a national slavery is always the work of time , and can get footing at best but by slow and subtle encroachments ; and likewise , if at all 〈◊〉 a thousand times more feasible from a prince that is the people's darling , than one that is the ●●●version . how unfit a prince will a popish successour be , for so hazardous an attempt , when the continual and united jealousies of his subjects will prevent the first part of the danger , by forewatching even the least surprize or arbitrary encroachment upon them , and next will never furnish him with half hands enough to perfect the vndertaking . well , but notwithstanding all this , there are a sort of people in the world that shall make answer , that arbitrary power in a papist is not a thing so new , nor so unpracticable , when the government of the now french king is so manifest a testimony to the contrary . and truly there are but too many incendiaries in this age , that distract the brainless part of mankind with almost no other gorgon , viz. that the french king's standing-armyes are to be the pattern of a popish successour's government , and the persecution of his hugonots , the very fate of the protestants in england , whil'st under the rose , popery and slavery are to copy from no other original . as this is one of the main pretensions of the whig-fears , and indeed the top-demonstration of popery and arbitrary power ; so when truly examined , you 'll find it just such an apparition as otes's bloody pilgrims ; the more terrible , the more ridiculous . for as 't is the common fate of all popular arguments on that subject ; so much the more formidable , still so much the more ayry the phantom . for first , not to insist much upon the general mistake of mankind , when possibly the french arbitrary power is infinitely magnifyed above what really it is ; for excepting the french king's now and then fleecing an over-rich cheating courtier a little arbitrarily , and thereby , in truth , making but a reprizal of his own , i could never yet learn by those that know the french government , that any man's meum or tuum was illegally taken away , or any man's life or fortune stood or fell , but by the judicial process of the laws of the land. 't is true indeed , his wars have been expensive , but then his revenues have been large to support them ; and not only that , but his forreign depredations have supplyed the greatest part of the expence . nevertheless whatever arbitrary taxes he may have raysed , to the injury of any particular aggrieved subject , or whatever tyranny he may have exercised over the distrest and persecuted hugonots , if either of the two can be properly arbitrary or tyrannick , when past into a law , and made a decree enacted by parliament , as both the taxes and the present hugonot persecution are ; the french king 's arbitrary incroachments in france , are no precedent for a popish successour's imitation in england , and that because the state and constitution of the two kingdoms are so extreamly different , that there is not the least ground for such a foundation here as there . for first as to the nature and genius of the people : in france , the peasants ab origine have not enjoyed half the priviledges and immunityes of the freeborn people of england . and therefore under that sordid education , as knowing no better , and being in a manner inured to slavery , 't is no such great wonder to see the french commonalty submitting to such oppression , as indeed , why should they otherwise , when they submit but to law. and if the french king has any greater ascendance over his parliaments than the kings of england over theirs , to perform all this ; why should that be any rarity , when in reality they are of so different a constitution from those of england , that they are rather the settled magistrrcy of the nation than any thing like our parliaments ; and as ours are of the peopl's election , theirs in a manner only the king 's , every member of the french parliaments holding his office not only for life , but even to his heirs , unless alienated by the prince upon a forfeiture , or any personal dislike ; that in short , as being the creatures of the king , they are truly more like a turkish divan than an english house of commons . but in fine , to make a parallel of our dangers between the state of the two nations , which in truth is bringing north and south together . becavse a popish french king , with the majority of the kingdom of his own religion , the religion established by law , and flourishing in glory ; by help of such vaste armies too , intirely of that religion , and thereby principled for his own service , can squeeze some particular of his subjects purses a little arbitrarily , and oppress and persecute the poor forlorn hugonots , a party infinitely the minority , disabled too from all power , and at highest , but suffered by the indulgence of the state , and that even with the most favourable aspect of the government , under that pittance of encouragment , that ( for example ) to the whole body of the reformers inhabiting in that vaste and populous city of paris , there is tolerated but one hugonot church , and that standing like our pancras , only more miles out of town , because i say , the french king under these circumstances can do all this : therefore ( pray mark it ) a popish english king with his diminitive romish party , the most inconsiderable handful of the nation , under not only the censure of the law , but the utter abhorrence of the people , with the help of an army ( if he has any ) of a quite contrary religion , and thereby wholly unprincipled for the service intended , shall vanquish and subject the protestant establish't religion in all its lustre and strength , upheld by all the fortifications of law , and by numbers even to a more than hundredfold majority ; whil'st the english protestants are not only to feel the french hugonots smart , but ( if either the fanatical suggestions , or the popish character speaks truth ) to groan under a hundred times ( oh! monstrum horrendum ! ) more dismal persecution and slavery : the present french arbitrary stretch being little more than a fleabiting to our total abolition of our laws , libertyes and religion . but to make this french goblin more monstrous still , there are some people that go a bowes shoot farther yet , and will tell you , that by the aforesaid almost omnipotent things called standing-armyes , a popish successour shall not only crush our protestant laws and liberties to pieces himself , but likewise hectour our very parliaments to that degree , as to force them to the giving up our very birthrights to him , nay , to the very passing of at once both popery and slavery into law it self ; and then lord have mercy upon poor lost england . for alas ! the same absolute uncontroulable soveraignty that the french king has over his parliaments , is ( they 'll tell you ) the intended scheme of a popish dominion in england . and then where ! oh where ! is our religion and liberties when that black day once comes ? now in the name of lucifer , what infernal impudence reigns in the world , when such rank , such nonsensical stuff as this can be asserted by rogues , and credited by fools . for besides the most infamous calumny that this execrable imputation throws upon the whole body of the nation , viz. that englishmen shall be such tame , such abject , such despicable wretches and cowards , as out of any personal fear whatever , to yield up their laws , rights , and religion , to the ruine of themselves and their posterity , and thereby offer , as it were , even their own throats to the slaughter . what relation has the present management in france to that of popery in england , or the french king 's parliamentary influence to that of a popish successour's ? for whatever extraordinary obedience or subjection the french parliaments may yield to their king in the grant of any oppressive impositions upon the subject to advance their king 's exorbitant power and greatness ; are the french king 's arbitrary endeavours to root up the foundations of his popish laws and the establish't religion of france , which vice versa , is the case in england ; so that if a popish successour can hector our english parliaments to no farther a complyance than the french king does his , the devil an inch of ground will popery get in england ; for as i take it , the french parliaments are all popish ; and as such , are in so little danger of their religion , that truly their prince in the other extream is in the highest extravagance of advancing it . so that unless we state the parrallel between the two kings thus , viz. ( supposing the french king a hugonot , which is but turning our tables ) that then both his popish armies and popish parliaments would nevertheless be awed and bullyed into that intire submission to him , as to abolish the fundamental laws of the kingdom , and thereby subject themselves and all their brethren papists to the self same persecution and slavery under the hugonots , that the hugonots suffer under them : without which supposition his tyranny is wholly alien to our popish successour's ; and nothing but the most villanous phanatical sophistry dares cant at this wretched rate , to pretend to make the french tyranny a model for english popery to work by . but put the case there were a french hugonot king , and that had the forementioned purpose in agitation , either by armies or parliaments ( as plyable as the french genius is supposed to be ) his ill success in such an exploit might be soon guest , by the difficulties and obstructions of their hugonot henry the 4 th . in his way to the throne under but a suspition of inclining that way . and consequently , what worse success would attend the like popish changes in england , under the manifest disproportion of the english papists to the french hugonots , is past dispute , however , if neither english armies nor english parliaments can do the popish feat , there 's one last expedient yet to vanquish all obstacles , and that i assure you , ( if no small authors may be believed ) a most puissant one , viz. if the popish hands in england are too weak to enslave us , this popish successour shall borrow the assistance of popish neighbours to help out , and so what cannot be done by domestick forces , shall be perform'd by a forreign army , call'd over on purpose . this expedient i confess , is so much the more remarkable , as it has some little affinity to bedlow's st. jago expedition , and truly has sometimes had the honour to be harangued upon even in a house of commons , as no small danger from popery . but notwithstanding the authority and veracity this projection may seem to arrogate from its admission into an honourable house of parliament ; upon due examination , i am half afraid , 't will prove but one of the observator's downright twangers ▪ for if this popish successour be for setting up popery by pitch't battles and plain conquest , and that too , by outlandish ayde ; in the first place he must have far more than tenfold as many forreign popish hands as he has of his own to pretend at least to a strength able to subdue england ▪ nay , and in truth , here 's one unlucky circumstance attending , that is , if he can borrow popish neighbours , 't is odds but the protestants may borrow protestant neighbours too upon occasion ; for princes have as often lent armies to succour opprest subjects , as to assist oppressing tyrants . but let that pass . but supposing the best face of the thing , that there were some chance for him in this bold cast , and that after his setting of honour , life , empire all at a throw upon the hazard of war , there were only an even lay of keeping or loosing them , a caesar aut nullus , 't were a little more pardonable venture . but as the devil would have it , there 's not one syllable of this in the matter . for if overthrown , he 's so irrevocably lost , that possibly not only his own ruine , but that of all his royal family , and of monarchy it self goes together . but admitting he conquers , the question is , whether the caesarship on the other side be so secure or no ? for truly , what if the aforesaid tenfold majority of forreign conquerours should make bold to pass a civil complement upon this successour militant , and the rest of his popish remnant , and fairly keep the victory when they have got it . for i assure him little england is a pritty parcel of terra firma , and 't were no small temptation to popish or no popish fingers to be a little tenacious with so fortunate a prize . and when those triumphant forreigners have tasted the sweet air of so delicate a spot as england , 't is fourty to one whether they , or at least the crown'd head that lends them will be overhasty of resigning so inviting a trophy as the english diadem ; and truly cosidering the blackness of the cause they came over to ingage in , if any forreign prince can lend an army for so dishhonourable a quarrel , which indeed all nations and all religions must cry shame against , with much less dishonour may he wear the lawrel he wins , and assume that vanquish't kingdom to himself , when he robs but a robber , and at most deposes a cut-throat . and therefore to make instance in the case , what popish successour will venture to call over , suppose thirty or forty thousand french to enslave his people ( and thereby at one dash loose his people's hearts beyond all thoughts of a recovery ) as thither indeed the whig fears seem to point ) upon a confidence that the now french king's generosity , though possibly not the best faith-keeper in christendom , after the accomplishment of the conquest , will make so intire a resignation of all pretensions of victory to establish this absolute popish sultan : especially considering the insatiate ambition of that aspiring prince to vniversal monarchy , and particularly to the soveraignty of the seas ; which though with all his present great ships under the maritime weakness of france he cannot atchieve , he might intirely possess by so opportune and so important an addition to his conquests as england . now they must have a wonderful stock of faith , with no small mixture of madness , that can really believe any popish crown'd head in the world will ever play so cursed a loosing game , and take that path towards popery , with two such amnable precipices both on the right hand and the left , that the very masterpiece of the projection is but in effect writing his own mene tekel over his own head. so that all the forementioned impotence and impossibilities of popish and arbitrary tyrannys introduction into england , being fully demonstrated ; i have only this to add ; there is no greater mistake in the generality of mankind , than an imbibed opinion , that the papists think themselves obliged to endeavour the setting up of their religion hap-hazard , right or wrong , hand over head , without consideration or regard to the issue or success of the undertaking ; and that in fine , a popish successour will certainly muster all forces and all engines to attempt the storming of the whole protestant liberty and religion , though under a tenfold odds of laying his very bones at the siege . but the grossness of this popular errour will appear from the past conduct of all the papists in all ages and all countreys , when they never attempted a rebellion , massacre , or any such monstrous design , but where they had , not only proper popish instruments for the service , but also a popish strength capable in all reasonable prospect of going through-stitch with it . besides a bigot in religion is nevertheless a statesman in the establishing of that religion , and excepting such bedlamite enthusiasts as the old fifth monarchy adventurers , there 's policy as well as faith in all churches ; and how far soever faith may stretch , policy moves in the bounds of reason , and he that can believe the greatest lying miracle in a romish legend , will never trust to miracles in a romish battalia . and were a popish successour in his nature ten times , if possible ▪ a bloodyer-minded tyrant than the very character has shaped him , if he wants humane strength to enslave us , let us not suspect his relying on divine or infernal assistance , the ayd of angels or devils to help him . and truly when a popish successour shall seriously consider the temper of the head-strong english , a people always impatient of wrongs , to that degree of ill-nature in the resentment and prosecution of ills above all mankind beside , that whereas all other nations cry [ run rogue ] 't is observable the english note is ever [ stop thief ] but above all , a people so nicely jealous of liberty , that the very name of oppression ( especially from the crown-side ) without the thing , is enough to make them slip the bi●● and run stark mad ; insomuch that a king of england is but too justly call'd a king of devils ; when he considers all this , i say , a popish successour , a thousand to one , will never venture the raising those mutinous english devils , without a charm full strong enough to lay them again . and whatever his inclinations might be for the heretick slavery , yet as vana est sine viribus ira. 't is not the thunder in a popish successour's heart , but his hand that can hurt us , and where the arm 's too weak , and the belt too unweildy , let us never trouble our heads with fearing the blow . but that point , viz. a popish successours power of enslaving , persecuting , burning , &c. being sufficiently discust , let us next examine the veracity of the character in another point , that is , granting he either had , or fancy'd he had the power of doing it ; quaery , whither it necessarily follows that he must have the will to do it . the character , 't is true ( as i said before ) makes him plunge headlong into the breach of all promises , vows , obligations , oaths and sacraments , all the dictates even of morality and common humanity , and what not ; and renders it withall so inseperable an impulse and principle of a popish conscience , that in a manner , that popish prince that neglects so incumbent and meritorious a duty , is little less in the popish ballance than a judas or a julian , &c. though i confess , for all this terrible oathbreaking , the two instances recited in the character to prove this universal popish infidelity are possibly the idlest that a man could wish to meet with . the first of them is queen mary's breach of promise of their quiet exercise of the protestant religion , made to the norfolk and suffolk inhabitants that mounted her to her throne , which i acknowledge was both ungratefully , and in the highest degree dishonourably done ; yet when truly weighed , is far from any thing of that damnable law-breaking popish perjury that the character all along endeavours to blacken all romish princes with ; that on the contrary , though 't is true , she broke her promise given to capitulating rebels ; for the norfolk and suffolk inhabitants were indeed little better ; for as their utmost endeavours of setting their lawful soveraign upon her throne , was their absolute indispensible duty , whatever her requital might be , yet the chronicle tells us they refus'd the queen any assistance whatever till they had first condition'd with her , and extorted that promise from her . and if nevertheless she broke that promise afterwards with them , here was no tyrannick cruelty exercised , nor any coronation oath violated , when she only burnt them by law ; and as her coronation oath obliged her to rule by law , 't was only her misfortune to believe the equity of that sanguinary law , and accordingly , to act by it , and consequently , their misery to feel the scourge of it . the 2 d. instance of a certain gentleman on the other side the water , that once took the sacrament never to invade flanders ; which since he hath so notoriously broken : and the inference from thence , that a popish successour will much more break all oaths , for the meritorious propagation of his religion , when a popish prince has violated even sacraments themselves for his irregular , unjustifyable ambition ; is so impertinently urged , that nothing can be less to the purpose . for that gentleman's breach of his sacramentary oath is no sin of the papist , but the man , not a principle of his religion , but the fault of his little or no religion in so slight a regard of so sacred an obligation , wherein his ambition overpowered his christianity ; and possibly under his lust of power , an oath upon the bible or the alcoran might be much of a strength . but to find a better example of popish perfidy than the character affords , i acknowledge the horrid and most barbarous infidelity of charles the 9 th . of france , and the impious and execrable massacre of the french protestants by that inhumane and treacherous monarch's machinations : which davilah , an historian of his own church describes with detestation , and which all religions must remember with horrour : but at the same time , to do justice likewise to the hugonot guilt , all good men ought to reflect on the three hugonot rebellions in his reign ( though whatever their provocation were ) as wholly unallowable by the laws of god ; and their daylight bloodshed such a blot in a christian scutcheon , which nothing but the others midnight murders could exceed ; and possibly those rebellions no small incentive to that diabolical assassination . i confess likewise , that i have read in a more sacred record , how the jews upon picques and revenges have cut off almost whole tribes amongst them ; but at the same time , as 't is certain , those throat-cuttings committed upon their brethren , were against their religion and the laws of god ; and which nothing but exemplary penitence could atone , so the massacring spirit of charles the 9 th . when rightly scan'd , will not be found so canonizing a qualification in a romanist , as the world suspects it . for if it were really that signally meritorious principle of popery , how comes it about that there 's so few popish champions in so holy a popish war ? for to instance the practices of the romanists in all kingdoms , and all ages since the reformation . in the first place , in france ( as dr. burnet in his preface to his rights of princes assures us ) the hugonots enjoyed their liberties , and the publick unmolested toleration of their worship for several king's reigns together ; nay , and what 's particularly remarkable , the edicts that confirm'd that toleration were granted all by popish kings and a majority of papists in parliament , a favour which was never granted to the papists by any protestant parliament whatever since the first establishment of the reformation in england . nor is this popish good nature peculiar only to the french climate , when so many of the principalities of germany , and of the cantons in switzerland , where popery is the church establish't , have from age to age continued the same toleration of the reformers in the publick impunity of their persons and estates , and the exercise of their devotion . now if persecuting and enslaving of hereticks , &c. were so highly meritorious in the popish church , nay , the very shibboleth of the popish christianity , as the malice of popish characters , and the prejudice and fear of english fools has represented them , and that the highest of papal blessings and seats in heaven were the promis'd reward of such transcendent merit ; what unpardonable apostacy lyes at the doors of almost the whole body of papists through the world , and what curses and anathema's must such wilful , such undutiful , and such graceless omission of a duty so obligatory , the remissness and lethargy of so many kingdoms and principalities from so many generations to generations , deserved . but alas ! as the tree is known by the fruit ; and the test of all principles and inclinations ( i mean , under no restraint ) are their actions ; and as all those popish governments have the popish majority and strength on their side ; and thereby are in a visible capacity of oppressing and persecuting their weaker heretick subjects ; therefore this general indulgence and mercy is an unanserable argument , that under the power of tyranny and cruelty , they manifestly want the will. and whil'st their le●ity and clemency so much exceeds even that of their boasting accusers , and the favourable concession of romanists to hereticks , out does that of hereticks to them ; the injustice of so false an attainder , and so infamous an imputation is sufficiently confronted from such a cloud of numerous examples to the contrary ; whil'st it does no more follow , that a popish successour , by the tenents of his church , must hold himself obliged to be a second charles the 9 th . or any thing like him ( had he the ability of being so ) than that every popish priest must be a mariana or a clements , and every papist a raviliac . so that if it be true , as the character affirms , that a popish successour in england , that keeps faith with hereticks , and rules by law , will be the greatest laughing-stock of the whole world , whil'st all roman catholick princes will deride the feebleness of his arm , and the tameness of his spirit for sparing a faggot in smithfield , &c. 't is very strange that those very princes should so loudly exclaim against him for that very fault in which themselves are five hundred times more criminal than he can be , by reason their greater romish transgression ( if it be one ) is so much more inexcusable , as they have popish opportunity , strength , power and dominion to capacitate them for such a persecution , and the devil an one of them has he. and at the same time ( if it be the doctrine of rome ) the pope himself too , in so extraordinary severe an imposition upon an english romanist , must be prodigiously partial , nay , a worse than egyptian taskmaster , to lay such rigorous injunctions upon so impotent a popish soveraignty here in england , and yet allow such profuse dispensations , and such extravagant latitude to the more powerful papists through all the world beside . now after this pretended brittleness of either promises obligations or oaths , let us come to the next dreadful phaenomenon of tyrant and barbarian in a popish successour . and that is , that his zeal for his church will supersede all the dictates of honour and glory whatever , and nothing so horrid or villanous that a papist , though never so great , either prince or potentate will stand out at , when for the advancement of popery . the intended proof of this assertion is the very master-stroke of the whole character , viz. verbatim , as follows . the glory of a papist ! a pretty ayry notion ! how shall we ever expect that glory shall steer the actions of a popish successour , when there is not that things so abject , that he shall refuse to do ; or that shape or hypocrisy so scandalous he shall not assume , when rome , or rome's interest shall command ; nay , when his own petulant stubborness shall but sway him : as for example ; for one fit he shall come to the protestant church , and be a member of their communion , notwithstanding at the same time his face belyes his heart , and his soul is a romanist : nay , he shall vary his disguises as often as an algerine his colours , and change his flag to conceal the pyrate . as for instance ; another fit , for whole years together , he shall come neither to one church nor 'tother , and participate of neither communion ; till ignobly he plays the unprincely , nay , unmanly hypocrite so long , that he shelters himself under the face of an atheist to shrowd a papist . a vizor more fit for a banditto than a prince . and this methinks is so wretched and so despicable a disguise , that it looks like being ashamed of his god. now to the eternal shame of the contagious air of 79 , and the most flagitious depravity of that infamous season ; as nothing but the most unpardonable malice encouraged and animated by the licentiousness of those libertine days could have produced so exquisite a mass of rancour ; so the reader is to observe that it was exactly calculated for that very age 't was written in , an age when all venome and no reason was in mode . for first , next to the old high court of justice , here 's the most impudent tribunal set up , and a prince most audaciously arraign'd , and sentenced for a downright papist in his heart at the same hour he 's a member of the protestant communion , an accusation beyond the possibility of humane power or knowledge to make proof of , and of which only god , that knows the secrets of hearts could be judge . i remember i read of a tyrant that hang'd a fellow for a sower look , as a certain conviction of a false heart . but the character goes a bows shoot beyond him , and pretends to impeach thoughts , and adjudge souls . and though neither the highest scrutiny of law , or inquest of humane reason can inspect any further than into visible conformity and ocular demonstration : no matter for that , the popish character can out-fadom all laws , and out-see all reason , to find the vilest of dirt to throw in the face of princes . the second inglorious and monstrous blot in the princely scutcheon , as the character designs him , is the being a papist , and yet not daring to go to the popish communion . which by the way , is all supposition still , and no proof . however , granting the supposition , that he is one , does not the express law of the land say , that no papist , at least , no native popish subject of england , though never so princely born , shall go to the popish communion . yet nevertheless , here 's a prince most arrogantly asperst and vilyfyed in the most barbarous terms of vnprincely , vnmanly hypocrite , pyrate , banditto &c. , and all this for obeying the very laws of the land , and consequently , for performing the duty of a subject and a christian : nay , and in the character way of demonstration , he does an act that looks like no less than being ashamed of his god , in submitting to the government , and thereby obeying the very ordinance of god. if this be not a master-stroke , as i told you , i know not what is . but truly to be plain with this single paragraph in the popish character ( no disparagement to the rest of that libel ) no impartial reader but would swear the devil himself could not have crowded more spight and virulence , and less sence into fewer words ; and yet to shew the misery of the time 't was writ in ; i was so far from an original in that almost universal spirit of bitterness that then reigned , that the reader can't forget ( as indeed the whole nation has but too much cause to remember ) that if he at that time walked but westminster or oxfordwards , he might have seen five hundred men together , much my betters , that talk't , and what 's worse , acted as bad as i writ , and truly with as much , or more gall , and full as little reason . having thus fairly stated our case , and proved the imbecility of our fears , and the invalidity of the arguments used for the danger of popery in england this rougher way , through perjury , barbarity , &c. i shall come to the second head of my discourse , and enquire what danger there is of its introduction by perswasion and rhetorick , and all the gentler meanes of a national conversion . now i confess , the pardoning of an offender lyes in the prerogative of the crown , and the punishing , or not punishing of popish priests , or any other romish emissaries , is wholly in the breast of the prince . and upon the admission of a popish soveraign to the throne , 't is presumed , that the numbers of popish visitants from forreign seminaries , will not only encrease , but likewise act less clandestinely than formerly under the confidence of connivance at least , from a prince of their own perswasion , and a relaxation of all the poenal statutes against popery . the eminent danger of popery from this inlet , raises no little dust in the character ; and as if the whole defence of our protestant religion was secured by no other barriere than by keeping out popish emissaries at swords point , and hanging and quartering of priests and jesuits , and the severest execution of the statutes of recusancy ; which by the old figure petitio principii taken for granted , the character most furiously lays about , to prove the moral impossibility of such a barbarous unnatural popish successour that shall hang and quarter those very men that from the bottom of his heart he believes , are the undoubted disciples of heaven , and pillars of christianity , &c. and if he doth not do all this , the protestant religion is upon it last leggs ▪ and our whole church under a manifest prospect of being undermined and blown up . though by the by , here 's another piece of richard and baxterisme in the case : for if popery shall make its entrance , and sweep all before it this way , and by meer dint of logick or sophistry shall pervert the church of england , what need was there of all the aforesaid broyling , roasting and cut-throating , &c. to do the job . however , as this very indulgence and remission of the penal laws is no more than what has been granted by the clemency of the crown even for ages together , and all without one popular murmur , or the least blot in the royal arms ; the next question is , what necessity of shackling the prerogative , and tying up a popish successour to harder meat than all his protestant predecessours ; or what more mortal crime is that indulgence in a papist than in all the protestant crown'd heads before him . oh yes , infinitely more they 'l tell you : for the case is different , the popish hopes will be more lively , their courage more daring , and themselves by their popish prince , more publickly and more solemnly embraced and countenanced ; so that the inconveniences attending us from these more propitious royal smiles to the profest enemies and supplanters of our religion , will , god knows , have those victorious effects , which all the feebler popish efforts before could never obtain . well , imagine all this extraordinary benigne aspect towards popery , and for once , let us put the case the worst that can be . let us suppose all the indulgence or incouragement to popery from a popish successour , that the highest stretch of the prerogative can give it . nay , let us suppose a popish chappel in every hamlet , and mass sung in every parish in england , and to officiate in this work , the whole tribe of st. omers , doway , and all the rest of the english seminaries abroad , transplanted hither , to perform the mighty operation . what would all this do to bring in popery ? nay , let the whole colledge of cardinals come over with them too , they would be almost as inoffensive to the protestant religion as the jewish synagogue , and altogether as unable to make a national conversion to papisme , as the other to iudaisme . for instance , who are they , that these numerous popish missionaries shall convert ? the vnderstanding part of the nation , men of reason and learning ? not at all . for let the popish numbers increase as they please , the popish arguments are but the same , whether defended by ten , or ten hundred romanists . and therefore they that have their principles of faith , and the grounds of their religion rooted and confirmed by sound and well pondered iudgment and mature consideration , will no more be shaken by all the popish numbers they can send over , than all the popish volumes they have written . besides , what greater affront can be put upon our religion it self , than to imagine it so weakly supported , as to be so much as capable of being thus overthrown . who then shall they convert ? the ignorant multitude . no , them less than the other . for as the others have sense to defend themselves , these have that which is as strong , or stronger , and more invincible , viz. deafeness , prejudice and resolution . for let any man seriously consider the genius of the people of england in that point , and but fancy a jesuit , a priest or any other popish emissary , tampering with the poorest high-shoo'd , thick skull'd clown , to possess him with a faith in transsubstantiation , purgatory , saint-praying , the pope's infallibility , or any other of the terrible romish principles , and instead of making him a proselite , upon the least breath of that sort of ayr , he should be so far from hearkening or listening so much as to the means of a popish conversion , so far from attending even to the eloquence of angels upon that subject , that he should sooner look downwards for the cloven-foot of the seducer that utters it . for certainly those very people that have always been so mazed and night-mared with popery , that they have scarce seen any thing else but popish specters and goblins even at the very shadow of it , will fancy nothing less than belzebubs and lucifers at the real appearance of it . the reduction indeed of england to the romish religion is a thing as easily say'd , either in an amsterdam coffee-house , a popish courant , or an oxford house of commons , as a tale out of the seven champions , and truly with as much credibility : but alas ! when it comes to the doing once , the papists will find that the whole body of the people of england , even to a nemine contradicente ( at least , not one in a hundred excepted ) if without any other defence of their belief , are still those opinators in religion , that maugre the general ignorance of the multitude , or the great learning or rhetorick of the jesuites , they 'd be no sooner perswaded to quit their plain english bibles , nay , not so much as poor sternhold and hopkins , to listen to an unintelligible latine mass , or joyn in an ora pro nobis sancte paule , sancte petre , sancte loyola , and the rest of the fraternity of major , or minor saints , then they 'd kneel to the talmude or the alcoran , nor be no more perswaded into the possibility of a wafer's transsubstantiation into a deity , than of a cartwheel into a star : and without these and the rest of the romish fundamentals , where 's the restoration of the romish faith , or the progress of a popish propagation in england . but to confirm this certain truth from a more substantial authority than my own . 't is the very opinion of the reverend dr. burnet himself , a person , let me tell you , under no small pains-taking for the protestant religion , and as a churchman , under no common consternation from popish dangers , and therefore not at all likely to lull us into a false security of our religion . the instance of which opinion i find in the 9 th . page of his preface to the rights of princes , as follows ; t is the maxime of the popes , not to reform abuses in their church , for if some corruptions were once acknowledged , and amended , that would give credit to the complaints which the hereticks made , and be a publick confession , that the church had erred , and would set on foot a humour of making changes , which could not be easily limited or managed . these politicks prevailed at rome , so that instead of removing abuses , all were justifyed and maintained , and yet humanely speaking , it is not to be imagin'd but that if some more palpable abuses in the worship , such as the scandalous use of images , the denying the chalice , and saying the office in an vnknown tongue , had been corrected , the reformation could not have made so great a progress as it did . wise men are unwilling to make great changes , and the rabble are wrought on , not so much by speculations , and subtle and learned arguments , as by prejudices to some publick abuses , of which they are all sensible ; and while these are continued , 't will be easie to heighten their dislike of them , and to lead them almost into any opinions , to which the hatred they bear to the abuses may any way dispose them . and the defending or maintaining of abuses , which cannot be defended , endangers the whole cause in the opinion of those who judge of parties in gross , and not by the retail of particular arguments . so that to summe up the matter : here 's the whole cause of rome in a manner wholly lost by the gross abuses in that communion . and what between the invincible obstinacy of the romanists on one side , never to recede from those abuses ; and the rabble's unanimous disgust against them on the other , as being apparent even to all capacities ; here 's the greatest progress of the reformation , flowing from almost no other channel ; and by consequence , if the original prejudice against those abuses , could open so brord a gate to the protestant religion , the present more irreconciliable antipathy against rome , heightned by so many successive popular inflammations , will make the resumption of that popish vomit so more universally nauseous , that it will undoubtedly much more contribute to the confirmation of the protestant religion , than ever it did to the introduction of it . for let but any reasonable man consider , that during so many ages of impunity to the papists from the long mercy of the late kings of england , when recusancy went unmolested and unregarded , and neither papist , nor popish priest , either punish't , or examined : excepting some few families , that bred up their children in their own perswasion , what conversions have the popish party , and all the romish missionaries made in england for half a hundred years last past ? so far from any increase , that on the contrary , they have from generation to generation apparently dwindled less and less till they are now scarce a handful in consideration of all england . and if popery and jesuitisme , with all their learning and insinuations under such royal indulgence have made such feeble progress in the conversion of england , that they have dayly lost ground , not gain'd it ; shall the yet larger indulgence of a popish successour , with the permission of their popish pr●ests barefaced , the multiplying of their numbers , or the influence of regis ad exemplum do the work ? the quite contrary . for suppose the popish priests a hundred times more numerous , and a hundred times bolder than now , yet as the popish seducers are increased , so likewise under the dismal apprehension of a visible popish successour the popular aversion will so much more increase too , and thereby become the more impregnable , whil'st the vniversality of their fear and hate will make them so much the more fortifyed against the utmost assault . besides , if the jesuites have made so little advances of popery formerly in england , that ( granting it true that 's said of them ) they have been put to the poor shifts of herding with fanaticks , and disguising into conventicle preachers ; what encouragements ( oh wonderful ! ) are they like to meet , when they throw off the vizor , and walk by day , in the open propagation of a religion so universally loathed , that it wants the subtlest of artifices and disguises to obtrude even the least tenet of it into the world ; at least , our part of the world. but surely nothing in nature can be a more ridiculous supposition at this time of day , as that the example or favour of a king in case of popery , shall contribute towards the people's embracing it , when undeniable experience tells us , that the very aspersion of but popishly affected , has lost our kings so many hearts , nay one of them ( with horrour be it spoken ) his very crown and head. by consequence , how many more hearts shall popery in earnest loose a true popish king ? and what little hope of gaining proselites or friends to a real romanist , when the meer imagination has rays'd such contagious desertions and enmity even to the best of protestant crown'd heads . and therefore how wretched a piece of sophistry must that be that imposes on the unreasoning world so impudent a piece of falshood , viz. that popery and a popish successour will find such favourable stars in england , when on the contrary , the bare notion of popery and popish councils have been attended with such fatality . however , to answer a little nearer yet to the danger of popery's coming in through the remissness and neglect of executing the laws against it , and the indulgence and incouragement of the prince to promote it , i have only this request to make to thee , thou poor frighted , half-witted creature , that fearest all this danger ( for nothing of sense can fear it ) to lay thy hand upon thy heart , and answer me this question . amongst those proselites that the aforesaid toleration and encouragement of the popish successour , and the witchcraft of the pope and jesuits are like to make , art thou thy self one of the number that is in that danger of turning papist ? now to answer for thee in thy own dialect , no! god forbid , thou l't say , what , shall i turn to a religion that has nothing in it but superstition and idolatry ! a religion worse than paganisme and judaisme , a religion that consecrates daggers , and canonizes murderers , that makes nothing but stabbing of kings , & massacring whole nations the only meritorious act of christianity ; and do you think that either the insinuations of priests , or the flattery of kings themselves , or any earthly reward shall make me turn such an apostate from truth , as to damne my soul and renounce my god : no , i have more assurance in his good grace than to imagine he 'll abandon me to such a thought : no , no , my fear is not for my self . but alas ! though i shall never turn papist , too many others will ; and when these iesuites , priests , and villains have perverted the greatest part of the nation to their idolatry , and thereby come to be able to set up the romish religion , with all the old fire and faggots that belongs to it , then shall such honest protestants as my self be burnt at a stake , for not turning devil too for company with them . and what a miserable condition will the poor protestants be in in that dreadful day . why thou fool , canst thou thus make this confident & resolute answer for thy self , and art thou so secure for thy own part , and only suspectest the danger of a popish conversion from the weakness of thy neighbour . if that be all , trouble not thy self , nor distract thy little brains for nothing , but for thy comfort , examine thy neighbours hearts as thou hast done thy own , and of ever hundred amongst them thou wilt find almost every where at least ninety nine of them that have the same dreadful opinion of popery as thou hast , and as utter an abomination of it as thy self , with the same confident assurance of themselves too ; nay , and that have only thy very reasons of fearing it . how ridiculous therefore must thy fear be , when if thou art secure , they are so too . and if so , where then are the infinite numbers of those weak brothers that the pope's emissaries shall subdue , and that majority of a perverted nation that shall establish and set up this nebuchadnezar's image , and doom thee to fiery furnaces for not kneeling with them to worship it . if the dint of perswasion and indulgence then be all the introduction of popery , and this the highest flight of a popish successour ( as indeed it is ) all our dangers are quite vanisht , and the more the nation abhors popery , the less cause it has to fear it , whil'st the universality of the detestation is the certain security of keeping it out ; and none but fools or madmen can be frighted by the apprehensions of it that way . for the blacker the feind , the less power he has over us , and they that are above temptation need not fear the devil himself . but beyond all these various pretences for popery's coming in , there 's one more general argument almost in all mouths , which we find dayly urged , and that bears no little sway in vulgar apprehensions , viz. why is it impossible that popery should come in again , and that too , by law establish't ? experience plainly tells us , that henry the eighth lay'd the foundation of the protestant religion , nay , and by a popish parliament too . for by a romish parliament was the pope's supremacy destroyed , by a romish parliament the monastery's and abbey-lands confiscated , and that very monarch , after the continuation of popery by a reign of more than half a thousand years , in the very infancy too of the protestant religion , when possibly the protestants then in england , were a less handful than are the papists in england now . this very king i say , with so small a party of protestants , could nevertheless lay the very corner stone , that the whole reformation was afterwards built upon , and that too by act of parliament . and why on the other side , shall it be so impossible for a popish prince , with henry the eight's courage and conduct withal , after not a hundred and fifty years reign of the protestant religion , to be likewise able to do the same favour for popery , and lay the very basis of it even by parliaments and law. and a protestant parliament now , as a popish one then be so managed or influenced , as to give a main lift to the work. besides , why should the change of the religion be so wondrous or difficult a deed under a popish monarch now , when upon every change of the prince's faith since the conquest , the establish't religion of the kingdom has been changed with it . for instance , after henry's good stroke towards it , did not an infant prince , edward the sixth , in poor seven years time establish the protestant religion by law ? and did not mary his popish successour subvert it again by law , and by law restore the very pope's supremacy ? and lastly , did not the protestant queen elizabeth after her , trample both pope and popery under feet , and confirm that very protestant religion that reigns at this day . and why shall a popish successour now , with as much zeal and industry as his predecessours miscarry in that very work in which not one of them fail'd before him . there is nothing that possibly passes for a more authentick confirmation of all our popish dangers than this one assertion so universally received for currant sterling , by being only taken at a lump upon trust unweighed and unexamined . but when considerately and throughly inspected , all rational men must blush to be deceived by so light and so drossy a popular tradition . for to begin with henry the eighth . in the first place , here neither is , nor can be the least motive for the present protestant people , or their representatives to make the least change whatever in the present church of england , in any kind answerable to the several inducements that wrought those changes in henry the eighth's time. for first , as no small encouragement for the reformation , the people had then contracted a general and just odium of the whole clergy , strangely occasion'd by the murder of hunn , a merchant of london in prison . this hunn being sued in the legates court for non-payment of a mortuary to his parish-priest ; in return , sued the parish priest in the temporal court for a premunire , for bringing the king's subjects before a forreign and illegal court. this incensed the clergy so much , that they threw him into prison for heresy ; where having several articles exhibited against him , upon confession of part of them , and begging mercy , he was only enjoyn'd penance . but not being prevail'd upon to let fall his suite in the temporal court , the bishop's chancellour , a doctor , and other of his officers inhumanely murdered him in prison , by breaking his neck with an iron chain , and other wounds given him upon the belly ; and then hanged him up in his own girdle to possess the world that he hanged himself . and what was yet worse , upon a full detection of the truth of this murder , the bishops of durham and lincoln , to palliate the guilt , proceeded to charge him with new heresies after death , and having sound a wickliffs bible in his house , they condemn'd him as an heretick , and burnt his body . all which proceedings being now looked upon as the act of the whole clergy , they lost the affections of the people to that degree that they could never recover them ; and nothing more disposed the people to the embracing of the new preachers than the resentment of so infamous a murder , committed and patronized by the whole clergy . [ hist . of ref. pag. 14 , and 15. ] and then for the changes made in parliament . the suppression of monasteries , one of their acts , was no more than what was design'd , and begun in some measure by cardinal woolsey , and the pope himself , and that long before the breach betwixt the king and him , who granted a bull to destroy several of them , to convert into bishopricks ; [ ref. pag. 22. ] the scandalous and lewd lives of too many of the monks and fryars being obnoxious even to rome it self . though 't is true , the king and parliament proceeded to a total suppression of them afterwards for the same intent of erecting new episcopal sees ; though indeed the vast profits arising from their sale , through the extravagant profuseness of henry the eighth , were not wholly converted to that use ; notwithstanding , part of his promise was performed , viz. in his constituting six new bishopricks , and making allowance for fourteen deanaryes and prebendariships to fourteen bishop's sees . but to gain the parliament to the king's party in the destruction of monasteries , there was that which governs the world , interest in the case ; which was no small wheel in the machine . for the king selling of the lands at easie rates to the nobility and gentry ; by this policy the parliament members , as purchasers , by the temptation of such good penny-worths , were ingaged to assist the king in the maintenance of the changes made . [ ref. pag. 223. ] and for another part of henry the 8 th's reformation , viz. the censuring and condemning of bulls , indulgenses , shrines , pilgrimages , and relicks , with the pulling down of images ; the scandalous impostures of several of them by the fraud of the priests , being publickly discovered , [ ref. p. 242. ] created no little aversion in the people . but besides all that , here could never be a more pleasing change to them than so beneficial a part of reformation , viz. the freeing them from all those ecclesiastick romish dreins , that had so long swallow'd almost half the wealth of the kingdom , in which too many of them had been too great sufferers , not only through their own , but also the deluded superstition of their bigotted ancestors , and by which no less than whole families had been impoverish't and undone , through the pious frauds and continual suckings of those church horse-leeches . and lastly , for the exclusion of the papal supremacy , the above cited penalty of premunire incurred both by the whole clergy and layty of england in submitting to the pope's legantine power , contrary to law , as against the act of provisoes , contributed no little matter both to the clergy and commons submission to the king in the point of that supremacy . besides , to facilitate the assumption of it , it was plainly proved by that provisoe act , and other substantial records , that the pope's encroachments in england were but vsurpation , and the supremacy in reality ab origine & de jure inherent in the crown ; and therefore the resumption of it by the king , no more than a challange and reprizal of his own invaded prerogative . as these were all the changes made by henry the eighth , the popish religion being so far from abolish't by him , that he rather strook at the court than church of rome ; witness the act of the six articles made by him , defending the greatest and principlest tenets of rome , by no less than capital punishments , and a parlimentary reinforcement of the old statute de hereticis comburendis ; [ ref. pag. 147. ] the heretick burning continuing through his whole reign . as these i say , were all the changes made by henry the eighth , instrumental to the present reformation , and that too , not without obstructions , witness several rebellions occasioned by this change ; the one of 20000 strong in lincolnshire ; another more formidable one in yorkshire , called by the rebels , the pilgrimage of grace , attended with a general insurrection in all the north. however , as i said before , here is no motive or inducement now for the like parliamentary compliance with a popish successour , to make any , the least change instrumental to the romish restoration . for first , supposing ( how notoriously false soever ) an equal mutability or disposition in the people now , to return to rome , as then to depart from it . here 's no stigmatizing brand of murder , or any other publick perpetration or avowing of any villany whatever to taint the whole protestant clergy , and thereby withdraw the people's hearts from them . here 's no holy-cheats and superstitious priest-impostures practised to drein the people's purses to gratifie a scandalous , voracious clergy . or any detected abuses and corruptions to disgust and exasperate the people against them . here 's no least dormient statute or title whatever , for a popish successour to lay hold of , in favour of the papacy's return into england , as there was for its expulsion . the fence of our present protestant constitution being so strong against it , and all pretensions of rome so utterly extinct and abolish't ▪ neither is here any premunire incurred by the whole clergy and nation to affright , or dasterdize them into any sordid condescencion or grants in diskindness to our religion . and lastly , here 's no fleeeing of an overgrown , overrich church in the case . ( the present church revenues under so many impropriations , being no more than will but just support its dignity and pastors but with subsistence and decency . ) no ecclesiastick booty nor prize to bribe or allure an avaricious parliament to weaken or impoverish their church for the temptation of sharing the spoyl . but above all other obstacles against rome , her 's an absolute impossibility of a temporizing clergy to favour popery . for supposing even the most barbarous insinuation of their fanatical enemies , true ; and that mammon , interest , sycophantry , ( how rascally soever that infamous suggestion ) were above religion with them . yet nevertheless the utmost influence of a romish prince could never warp them to any such execrable apostacy ; by reason the indispensable coelibacy of the romish clergy would totally exclude the present members of the church of england , as being marryed men , from any share or hopes under a romish government , whil'st instead of preferment or interest , nothing but degradation and beggery could attend them . and for an unanswerable dispurity between henry the eighth's influence towards the present protestant religion , and a popish successour's towards popery . the protestant religion with an inviting face was in a state of innocence , untainted by any of its corrupted professours with any thing like parisian massacres , irish rebellions , or gun-powder treasons ; enough of themselves alone to open that uncloseable chasme , that never to be cemented breach between englishmen and popery ; that popery could not now gain three proselites to a hundred gain'd in henry the eighth's time to the protestant religion . but here i cannot but take notice of one gross mistake , that 's commonly receiv'd for truth , viz. that henry the eighth hectored his parliaments to what he listed . which is oftentimes made use of as an argument , that a popish successour , with the same courage may do the like with his ; when on the contrary , they acted only by their own inclinations ; and when any thing was proposed by the king that went against the grain ; not all his menaces could force them to a submission . for example , when a bill had past the house of lords for regulating a common practice then in england , of defrauding the king and several of the lords of their advantages made by wards , marriages , and primier seisin , by men's making such settlements of their estates by their last wills , and other deeds to that purpose . yet notwithstanding the utmost pressure both of the king and lords for redressing that abuse , the commons rejected the bill [ ref. pag. 116. ] and as to the reformation , some part of it was of their own seeking . for example , in his 22 d. year , the commons complained to the king of the grievous and intolerable severity of the ecclesiasticks , for calling men before them ex officio , and laying articles to their charge without any accuser , and then admitting no purgation , but causing the party accused either to abjure or burn . reform . pag. 116. and indeed in all the reformation they rather drew with him , than were driven by him . and to shew the vast difference betwixt the operation of the prince , either by edward or mary towards the change of the religion , and the working of a change now . in the first place , besides the dayly converts made to the protestant religion in edward's reign , which added strength and vigour to the reformation wrought by that prince , as the state of religion then stood the popish and protestant party were grown in a manner to be an equal division of the nation , and 't is not to be wondred , that where the weight's even , the soveraign power added to the ballance , could turn the scale ; as both in his and his sister's reign . either party having an easie game to play , whilst the respective monarch might with small difficulty turn up his own religion trump , when he had half the cards in his hands . besides , the law had then so weakly provided for the true settlement of either religion , that the greatest part of the ecclesiastick changes then , lay almost wholly in the pleasure of the prince : for after the parliament had fully invested henry the eighth with the supremacy , they impowered him as head of the church , to dispose of all episcopal sees by letters patents during pleasure . ( abrid . ref. book 2. pag. 4. ) and the bishops by the same authority had the like jurisdiction over the inferiour clergy . this unbounded latitude of the supremacy continuing through both the next reigns , a great part of the changes was owing wholly to this prerogative ; whil'st king edward made choice of a clergy of his own perswasion ▪ and in like manner queen mary placed or displaced her bishops , and removed all the inferiour clergy ad libitum , turning out whom she pleas'd , without any form of process , or special matter objected against them . all which ( abridg. b. 2. pag. 249. ) was done by virtue of the queens being head of the church ; which though she condemned as a sinful and sacraledgious power , yet she now employ'd it against those bishops , whose sees were quickly filled with men for her purpose . so that nothing could make a greater turn of church affairs in the kingdom in those days , when under such a total alteration of the clergy , and all ready at hand to step into their seats , the whole interest of the adverse religion through the forementioned equality of parties could not but be extreamly shaken , and the prevalence in parliament be highly mov'd by no other spring . besides , the act de hereticis comburendis was then unabolish't , and as the determination of heresy lay in the breast of the clergy , here was an easie leap into all the foregoing severities of rome even by the law it self . insomuch that either of the religions could not properly be call'd by law establish't , whil'st our pastors and our fold were in a manner at the will of the soveraign , and there wanted but little more than the royal breath to drive us to the right or the left , the sheep or the goats . but all this is so prodigiously remote from the present state of england , and the religion now establisb't , that light and darkness can be scarce more dissonant . for besides the infinite disproportion of the popish numbers in queen mary's reign , to ours , enough of it self to silence all dispute ; a popish successours removal of the present protestant clergy , and the introduction of priests and jesuits in their room , as head of the church , is no more in his prerogative than the government of transylvania : the present bishops and clergy holding for life , and only to be displaced or silenced upon crimes or insufficiencies adjudged or condemned by the protestant censure and sentence . and all the popish clergy so incapable of their places , that they are aliens to the nation , under an attaint of treason upon the very assumption of their sacerdotal orders ; and so shut out from our church-ministry by parliamentary oaths , tests , and abjurations , that nothing but the most diabolical papal dispensation , and a conscience even brimstone proof could introduce them , were there really room for their admission . but alas ! considering in what equilibrium religion then hung , whatever concurrence the prince could then obtain from his people in parliament in favour of his own perswasion : the genius of england is now quite another thing . all our parliaments for almost a hundred years last past , have been so far from granting even the least concession to the crown in favour of popery , that on the contrary , all their study , votings , labours , and endeavours even to a nemine contradicen●e , have been levell'd at the very root of it ; so far from countenancing of it , that the very sound of it has made them fly out into the most rapid torrent of contradiction even beyond the duty of subjects , and instead of complimenting either pope or popery , they have tyed up their very hands even from the best of protestant crown'd heads , and in their highest extremities denyed them their most reasonable demands in the most pressing necessities of the crown , and all for the apprehension of popish designs , and for keeping the least string of their purses from popish fingers . i need not instance what load of miseries attended the late royal martyr from this fatal original . neither do i urge this in relation to those detestable regicides , the corrupted limbs of that exetrable senate , that under the vizor of religion , were plotting the most infernal of mischiefs ; and so from the false alarum of popery , denyed their soveraign all things only to make him nothing . no , as all men are not monsters , and even in that accursed parliament there were some honest men ; yet those very honest men , those that by the universal delusion were inchanted into false fears , and so design'd nothing but truly the prevention of popery , were yet under that terrour , so jealous of their prince , so deaf to his interest , and so inexorable even to his most crying wants , and all for battring these fancy'd ayry castles , that in the vehemence of their zeal they contributed to the very designs of his murderers ; and how ignorantly soever , heap'd together the very coals to the universal conflagration ; so far too , that they had only time to detect the infernal imposture , and deplore the dire effects of their miserable mistake too late . besides , to come a little nearer home , what dismal consequences were the late malignant conjunction of fears and iealousies in the same fiery trigon producing again ? what demi-gods and nation-saviours did the whole vox populi , nay , the very sensible men of the nation make of those very varlets , which now their opened eyes and waken'd senses ( i appeal to their own consciences ) tell them are those flagitious , unparallel'd villains , that would shame a gibbet . and yet the very loyallest of all our late members of parliament , for they were not all shaftsburys nor all sidneys ; neither such that were for associating to kill-kings , to keep out popes , nor answering of filmers out of buchanan's and miltons , nor seating the good old cause at the right hand of god. not those that made popery the pretence alone to manage their own hellish republick machinations . but only those that ( alas , and well a day ! ) had been beuk-blawd a little out of their right wits by the aforesaid nation-saviours , and so were for combating of popery , possibly for the real preservation of the king and kingdom . yet the very loyallest of these men , i say , were wrapt up to that height of perverseness , that to use the gentlest terms i can find , they thought they could never do little enough even for that very king attested by their own unanimous reiterated acknowledgments to be the very isthinus that kept popery from surrounding us ; and on whose only thread of life the whole fate of the protestant religion depended . i shall not trouble my self with the repeating the diversity of statutes recited in the character to instance the various bandying of the succession of the crown in henry the eighth's reign , designed there as an argument of justice for a parliamentary bill of exclusion against a popish heir . for whatever different settlements of the descent of the crown that king and his parliaments were pleased to make , occasioned by the intricacy of his daughter's titles , grounded upon that long controverted point , the divorce of queen katherine , the mother of queen mary ; and therefore not at all enacted as an exclusion , but a confirmation of the right heir . however , as far soever as a parlimentary power may pretend to extend in that case , all these statutes make nothing to the purpose for justification of an exclusion for matter of religion . for had those parliamentary proceedings been a warrant or precedent for any such exclusion , never was a more urgent necessity than in queen mary's reign , of laying hold of such a pretension . for considering the state of religion in her time , when looking back to the two last king's reigns , so formidable a progress had the protestant perswasion made , and the inclinations of the people lean'd so much towards the reformation , that the very change of the prince was enough to turn the whole ballance ; and therefore as all her popish measures were under a manifest prospect of being broken to pieces under a protestant successour , and that successour was notoriously foreseen in her sister elizabeth , so much that bishop gardiner ( speaking of her ) could say , that their burning of hereticks was only vainly cutting off the branches , whil'st the root was still alive . yet nevertheless it was so far from entring the breasts of a popish soveraign and a popish parliament to exclude a protestant heir , that dr. burnet in his abridgment of the reformation , book the 3 d. page 325. says as follows . a bill was brought into parliament , confirming the letters patents which the queen had granted , or might grant . this related to the foundations of religious houses ; but only coxly opposed this , and insinuated , that perhaps the queen intended to dispose of the crown in prejudice of the right heir ; at which the house express'd so great a dislike , as shew'd they would not have it so much as imagined , that lady elizabeth could be excluded . he had a publick reprimand given him for insinuating a thing so much to the queen's dishonour . now notwithstanding here was a queen so zealous for popery , and a parliament so officiously forward in establishing of it , that they gave their queen possibly one of the most ample royalties that ever parliament lodged in the prerogative , viz. the confirming indefinitely all letters patents that the soveraign either had , or might grant ; yet still this very parliament utterly abhorred even the imagination of so infamous a projection as an exclusion bill : nor did the bigotted queen her self ever debase her self so low as to make use of this act of parliament , or any part of her prerogative for so dishonourable a purpose as the prejudice of her sister's succession . now to compare cases . if both a popish prince and a popish parliament detested the exclusion of a protestant successour , though in so threatning a juncture , and so truly an impending danger to their religion from that succession , and that too , when her parliaments had declared the divorce of queen katherine , queen mary's mother , unlawful ; and consequently might have foreclosed the right of elizabeth under the most specious pretext even of illegitimacy it self . on the contrary , why should a protestant monarch and a protestant parliament now strain honour and consciences beyond the very papists themselves , and exclude a royal heir upon presumption of being a papist , though with never so undoubted a right , and above all pretensions of scruple or dispute , and that under little , or indeed no danger to our religion at all , a religion not only so invincibly fortifyed with so many strong bulwarks of law , but likewise by that most impregnable of all bulwarks , defendit numerus junctaeque umbone phalanges . the almost totality of the nation ( comparatively speaking ) against so feeble and scattered a remnant of papists , and so universal an odium of popery . i shall not think it worth my while to make much reply to that part of the character that treats upon passive obedience , and so boldly justifies the taking up arms againg an oppressing monarch . 't is enough that great point of our christianity has been the subject of nobler pens , and therefore the discussing it is a province above me . i shall only give the reader this quaery . if the great lord of our salvation could enjoyn the turning of the other cheek even to injuries received from our equals ; i would fain know what part of christianity can allow resistance to god's annointed ? let it suffice , that all that part of the character was written by the direction of the right honourable the earl of shaftsbury , after an amendment made in the character by the advise of that loyal peer , bidding me speak more favourably of rebellion . thus have you heard , not only all that the popish character , but likewise the popular fears have urged for the pretended danger of popery and arbitrary-power . and i doubt not but all understanding and unbyassed readers will be fully satisfyed of the unreasonableness of that epidemical jealousie that has so long infected the head and brains of the short-sighted populate through those scare-crows . i shall only now give the reader his last farewell of the popish character in the concluding paragraph of that pamphlet . after that whole libel by a tautological sort of rhetorick , a great many accumulated words , but especially gay allegories , has over and over again drawn a popish successour only in so many several disguises ; as one while making him a nero with his harp , and then his three kingdoms are in one general conflagration : another time an alexander in his cups , and then every honest protestant clytus that doth but thwart his drunken frenzy , is immediately his frenzy's sacrifice . another while he 's in the prophet elisha's dream , and then the poor protestants are the very birds and four legged beasts that bo● at his mouth , with this label over their heads , rise , slay , and eat . in another place , instead of pater patriae , he 's nothing but a downright lupus agri , and then we are only sheep and lambs . cum multis aliis , &c. in short , having danced him through all the elements , and transformed him into more several bestial shapes than ever jupiter whored in ; after the character has all the way brought us to universal and inevitable destruction , and enslaved both vs and our posterity , till the admission of a popish successour at last is no less than a plot of god himself to scourge a nation , and make three kingdoms miserable , a design form'd by the irresistable decree of heaven , either for our sins , or what cause , to its self best known , to lay a groaning country in ruine , &c. after all this , no sooner is this ruinous doom pronounced , but the character immediately proceeds in haec verba . upon the supposition of a popish heir we must not conclude , that 't is only the poor distressed protestants that shall feel the smart , and stand the mark of slavery and martyrdom . a popish king has that pestilential influence , that he blasts even the very party he smiles upon , and entayls a curse upon his dearest darling favourites . as for instance , if after this king's reign , steps up a protestant prince ( for surely the whole royal blood must not all follow his apostacy , and degenerate in secula seculorum ) then what becomes of the popish interest in the next generation ; and all that flourishing party , whom either the witchcrafts of rome , or the contagion of regis ad exemplum has nurst up for ruine . 't is the greatest toyl of the next king's reign , to make those severer statutes for future ages , to suppress the insolencies and follyes of the past ; whil'st those very idols that were saints but yesterday , are now crush't and dash't to pieces . now in the name of blunder egregious , here 's richard and baxter to the highest of perfection . for here 's the whole fo●egoing design of the character quash't at this one last blow . for if really all the popish and arbitrary movements and acquisitions of a romish prince ( as the character it self affirms , which indeed by chance is the very oracle of the pamphlet ) will be totally crusht and destroyed under the next protestant soveraign : and all his popish tools and partizans , nay , the whole romish cause it self given up to the protestant justice and revenge , that shall crush them to pieces ; so that in perfect contradiction , instead of inextricable slavery universal , protestant ruine , and a total extirpation of heresy , prognosticated all along in the character ; here 's at most but a temporary flourishing of popery , and so far from a real protestant suppression , either by persecution or massacres , or the devil knows what , that we shall be strong enough to rise up under the next protestant heir , and to pluck up and demolish even root and foundation all the preceding batteries and machinations against our religion and liberties , whil'st the true ruine lies in fine , not on the protestant , but popish side . if so , i say , as the character has unluckily started this undeniable truth , certainly we lye under no danger of a popish successours ever attempting that irregular popish atchievement , and setting up that short-liv'd arbitrary popish dagon , which , as has been proved before , and is even confest here , will be of so calamitous a consequence to the interest and safety even of his whole party and religion . you see , reader , what incoherence , absurdities , contradictions , and indeed impossibilities the popish character is fraught with , and what notorious stuff that is that revenge and malice obtrudes upon mankind , where popery is the theme . but truely 't is to be consider'd , that that pamphlet was written and publish't , not for the instruction of the seven wise men , but of the seven thousand ill-natured knaves , and the seventy thousand credulous , unreasoning fools of that age , ( the representative patron , to whom that libel was dedicated , not excepted from the number ) that would have swallow'd every syllable of it , had it been ten times more lewdly ridiculous than ' t was . now , as not only the character , but the unpondered and groundless apprehensions of men , have so dreadfully predicted such a terrible bloody revolution under a popish successour , without one jota of proving or examining how that wondrous change is possible to come to pass ; that the reader may not be surprized at that weak sort of arguing in the one , and that headlong credulity in the other , 't is remarkable , that not one pen that ever wrote upon popery and arbitrary-power , ever scribbled otherwise . for as the how and which way they can be introduced into england , are not in posse , those essential circumstances are always slubber'd over , and nothing but a huddle and jingle of general notions of fire and faggot assassinations and massacres , popes and devils , &c. and a declamatory discant upon those tragical heads , are ever the whole contents of the chapter ; and whil'st the peoples fears are set a tingling by this sort of din and gibberish , they are babled out of their senses , and transported into frenzy it self without looking farther , or searching deeper for the grounds of their fears . for example , let us trace up the first alarum of popery and arbitrary-power even to the fountain head. in all the venemous libels in the late blest martyr's reign ( for there were popish character writers in those days too , though in other names ) in all the licentiousness of that villanous age , and the highest encouragement of rebellious senates , there were neither those pens nor tongues within the parliament house , or without it , that could ever go further than to a bare general 〈…〉 and outcry of popery and arbitrary power ; for in all the hideous roarings against popish 〈…〉 ( as 't is not the councellers , but the councel put in execution that can hurt us ) was there 〈◊〉 man of them all that did , or indeed , pretended to particularize those popish counsels , or form the least draught of any dangerous popish machinations whatever under the least probability of shaking our laws , liberties , or religion . 't is true , there were strange and wondrous popish incendiaries represented at work , but about doing of what , the devil a word they inform us . not all the republick rhetorick , nor all the eloquence even of counterfeit fears and jealousies could lay down one tolerable demonstration of the fatal compositions of those popish fireballs those incendiaries were to use , or the conbustableness of what they were to set on fire . nay , those very devils that had impudence enough , not only to murder the best of kings , but to bring him to a scaffold ; with a solemn pageantry of iustice , were nevertheless so far from the confidence of pretending the popish strength or numbers in england to have the least shadow of ability to erect their romish altars , and subvert the protestant religion ; that to carry on the popular fears by that forged sham of popery , and give body and bulk to the gorgon , they were forced to help out one damn'd imposture by a greater , and bring in the very church of england for popish and antichristian to joyn in the plot. nor were our later true protestant rome-dreaders much short of the same artifice , to crutch up the same cripple . nay , for want of any substantial pretext of the introduction of any of the real fundamental superstitions of rome , they were put to the wretched shift of making the harmless book of sports , licensed by bishop laud , and an after-service game at coyts or stool-ball , no less than all over rome and antichrist ; yes , and to push the jest a little farther , the old kings tolerating half a score of priests ( in indulgence to his queen ) to wear the habit of their order , though in reality an object more for the hooting of boys , than the converting of men , was screwed up to no less than a plot upon the whole reformation . now , as the characterizing of such a tyrannick popish successour in england , is but mounting that chimerical jehu in the chariot where neither his wheels can move him , nor the ground will bear him ; and all the pretensions of fears from popery are only suppositions and delusive ; nay , and considering that those most violent asserters of romish dangers in that very age , when they had this advantage to help out , viz. to alledge the old king was a papist in disguise ; by which villanous supposition they had ten times a fairer field for the pretended introduction of popery than can be under a visible popish prince ; could nevertheless urge so little to the purpose , and so weakly support the cause of such fears : the contradictions , noyse , rumble and nonsense in the character on the worse side of the hedge , are a little more excusable . having ( i may with confidence say ) fully answered and confuted all appearances or suppositions of danger from a popish successour ; yet as the minds of some people are so strangely possest and infatuated with those brainsick fancies , and visionary specters of popery and slavery , that scarce the most apparent truth , the most substantial reason , not oracles , nay , not angels from heaven could cure or dispel . i shall therefore go one step further , and to dissipate all storms or clouds whatever from romewards impending , plainly and absolutely convince them , that whatever scruples may yet remain unsatisfyed ; at this present day there is not the least prospect or idea of any such threatning successour in the present royal line of england . for though that illustrious prince , whom the malice of antimonarchal and associating traytors , and the insolence of a pack of seditious and confederate commons , like the old sons of earth , have levell'd their spightful , though feeble vengeance at ; though that great injur'd prince , i say , through the false mirrour of those anarchical boutefeus has been villaniously rendred almost the only object of the greatest part of the popular jealousies , as the intended vnderminer of our laws , religion and liberties ; i shall unanswerably demonstrate the utter impossibility of that glorious prince's ever being that man , or debasing himself so much , as to entertain the least thought that way , be his religion what ever it will. for supposing he were really a convert to the romish perswasion , what pillar is that prince likely to make to the romish cause ? for if he be that convert , either the pope believes a popish heir of england capable of setting up the romish religion , or not capable of doing it . if capable , as that 's the present point ; then undoubtedly ( which is but a reasonable conclusion ) he has left no pains nor industry unmanaged to advance or advantage the popish interest by such a convert as an heir of the english crown . and if so , the only policy , or indeed the only possible means of favouring the least romish hopes whatever , had been to have used the utmost papal authority for enjoyning and perswading him , not only to have kept himself wholly undiscoverd , but likewise wholly unsuspected to the kingdom by any abscenting from our communion , or any other imaginary symtome of such a conversion . for as all the greatest of inconveniencies and misfortunes have attended the whole popish party upon the meer supposition of such a conversion ; and that only founded on the foremention'd occasion of suspition . witness the removing all papists whatever from all offices of trust in the whole kingdom , from all seats , either in state administration or parliaments by the present protestant test , wholly created upon that suspition ; by force of which there is not the least admission of a papist into any place of power in the government , except by taking of the protestant sacrament , and entring into a solemn oath against the popish religion , and subscribing to a recorded abjuration , even of the greatest and most essential articles of their faith as superstitious and idolatrous ; and so by the most impudent premeditated perjury , and setting the notorious brand upon themselves of that sordid and scandalous renuntiation of their very religion , which the poorest soul'd pagan that ever worship't but garlick and onions would blush at . besides all this weeding out of the popish party from all authority and power , being no small blow to their interest under so weak a number of that perswasion in england . there is not any one calamity that for these seven last years has befall'n the whole popish party , that is not truly owing almost wholly to this suspition . and therefore as all the ill consequences ( or worse ) attending them , are really no more than the pope and all his counsellors could in common reason expect from a nation so extravagantly jealous of popery ? whil'st woful experience might have remembranced him bow dangerous and destructive even a less shadow of popish inclinations had been ; nothing was more indispensable ( i mean for the popish interest ) in a popish heir , than all means of avoiding such suspition ; nay , possibly even for his own secure access to the throne . 't is true , some ridiculous people have foolishly objected , that the deserting of our communion was for the advantage of their cause ; it being as it were setting up the standard of popery to call all hearts and hands together ; whereas otherwise the romanists had been kept in ignorance of the champion god had raised for their deliverance ; and thereby might have neglected the glorious opportunity that offered it self . — now in the name of dulness , if any such deliverance were imaginable , or any succour to the romish cause whatever , either sooner or later could be expected from such a convert ; or lastly , if the conscience or unsullyed glory of that heroick prince were possible to be wrought upon to stoop to so ignoble a design , as any unwarrantable popish assistance ; why must the papists be kept in ignorance of his being one of them , if he were so ; without some kind of publick declaration : when 't is notoriously known to all the sensible part of mankind , what advantages of intelligence and correspondence the papists have above all religions in the world ; when their jesuites are by the very duty of their order , the greatest spyes upon christendom , whil'st the privatest affairs and secrets of families , courts and kingdoms through all europe , from hand to hand , and from superiour to superiour of them , are convey'd to the pope himself . so that take the whole matter together with this advantage of communication even under confession it self on the one side , and the foremention'd dangers from a national jealousie on the other , as i said before ; whatever discovery might have been requisite to their own party , the highest policy of rome had been to have concealed the very suspition of it from the protestants ; more especially , if they had had any such thing as a king-killing plot in hand , or the least part of the salamanca conspiracy upon the anvil . for then they might have made use of ruffians , or screw'd gunners , and as dugdale swears , have laid the king's murder upon the presbyterians , or any other of the scatter'd churches with ten times more ease ; and have hastened the mounting a popish successour with more facility into the royal seat. and therefore as nothing can be a plainer or greater ob●tacle to all popish designs whatever than this conduct in the present heir of england , if he be a romanist , and they had an expectation of any considerable advantage to their religion from his being one : undoubtedly there has been no oratory wanting to induce him to so necessary and so venial a disguise , as being the most important prop of their cause . but maugre all the necessity of such a compliance , and all the romish interest depending thereupon , notwithstanding the papal power of a dispensation in that case , and all the arts that may have been used to that purpose ; nothing is more visible than his indisposition and aversion to so dishonourable a condiscension as playing the hypocrite , how dispensable soever in that church , or how advantagious soever to his own circumstances . now i appeal to all mankind what least apparition of popish danger , or what humane possibility of that very princes ever being that so much dreaded romish instrument for arbitrary popish tyranny , through the most execrable violation of the most sacred royal trust , the most flagitious of perjury in the breach of a solemn coronation oath , to trample our laws , religions , and liberties to pieces ; that has already proved himself so incapable of dispensing but with one poor piece of hypocrisy , though against the highest interest of rome , though to the wakening of all the sleeping statutes against recusancy , tho to the raysing of tests , oaths , and sacraments ; and thereby not only excluding the sons of rome from all honours , trusts , and employments , but likewise exposing them to the dayly severities and persecution of the laws , nay , and very near to the shaking of his own hereditary succession to an imperial crown . now ( i say ) if this very prince ( upon presumption of that church ) be nevertheless a person of those rigid principles of honour and conscience , that he durst not so much as digest so inconsiderable a piece of dissimulation , though for the highest and most important service to himself and his whole church ; how much less shall he ever condiscend to the ignominious and indelible brand of downright perjur'd , and launch into all the barbarities and outrages of tyrant and murderer , and all this too , as has been plainly proved before ) with very little , or none ; at least , no reasonable hopes of doing himself or his church any service at all . besides , as t is utterly impossible either for pope or papists , even with the most romantick assurance and confidence of success ever to hope for a national conversion , or a romish establishment in one age ; insomuch that 't is not a single popish successour , but a line of popish successours that can be so much as suppos'd capable of going through with so difficult an vndertaking ; what least shadow of any such intention can we imagine from this royal heir , when he has not only bred up his next immediate heirs , his children in the protestant religion , but likewise lodg'd them in the bosomes of those very protestant princes , as far from the least inclination towards rome , or a look that way , as the whole choice of christendom could have pickt out . so that upon the issue of the whole matter , how contrary to common sense is it , to think that very prince either is , or can be so stupidly infatuated as ever to embark in so hazardous an atchievement , which ( were he crown'd to morrow ) with his years upon his back , he begins but with the latter part of a life , and which the length of a queen elizabeth's reign could never finish . and all this so preposterously too , as to be for building that romish interest with one hand , which he has so palpably destroy'd with the other . considering then , ( as has been fully proved before ) that popery in the present state of england , is something like the vulgar tradition of the basilisk , it must either look vs safely dead , or we shall look that so ; for there 's no medium in the case , between conquering or dying : who in his right wits can imagine this prince will ever begin what he himself before hand has taken care shall never be finish't . and if not finish't , will be but put into a ten times worse condition than if never begun . and therefore not only his meer pride will be our security , it being impossible that any thing that has one spark of glory will ever ingage in a cause under such certainty of a defeat : but likewise supposing even the utmost suggestions true ; under such an impossibility of crowning the work , the greater the zeal , the more inoffensive the zealot : since all irregular exorbitant ferments of popery will but hatch scorpions and warm stings for its own destruction : the greater the tenderness for his own party and religion , the greater the security of ours . moreover the character positively lays down this maxime . that the papists doom all out of their own church to certain damnation : and on that foundation all their bloody principles are built , as thinking no cruelty too severe , nor any tyranny too sanguinary ; but on the contrary , the most barbarous gospel propagation the greatest obligation of their religion . and therefore it tells you , a popish successour will never believe he can do his subjects an injustice in that very thing in which he doth god service , or that he injures vs when he does our souls right . and that therefore all the threatned miseries , horrours and desol●●●o●s , &c. from the beginning to the end of the whole character , flow from no other source . now if this be truly the tenet of a romanist , and all our horrible dangers proceed from that tenet , either our present royal heir must be no romanist at all ; or if he be one , however he absolutely dissents from rome in ●a● particular main principle . for if such were his faith , and such his principles , why has he so wilfully and so egregiously contributed to his own children's damnation , not only in their severest protestant education , but likewise in that additional strengthening that damnable perswasion by such fatal marriages , whereby he has not only endanger'd their living and dying in that erronious faith , but likewise secured the interest and establishment of that protestant religion in likelihood by them and their heirs to the end of the world ; and consequently contributed to the damnation of succeeding heretical generations in secula seculorum . i have only one thing more to add for the safety of our religion . there is not in the world that prince in his nature more grateful for services and obligations received , or a firmer and more unalterable friend than himself ▪ and as the church , and only the church of england has truly and vigorously asserted the iustice and duty of maintaining his unforfeitable succession and inviolable birthright , and has stood alone in the gap against all the whole crowd of his enemys ; we may confidently assure ourselves , that if ever 't is heaven's pleasure he should be our soveraign , that all such kind and signally good offices will never be ungratefully requited by the most generous of mankind . i shall only conclude ; under this manifest security of our religion and government on all hands , they that shall have impudence enough ( no person nor quality , in any station whatever excepted ) to persecute that prince under the pretence of fear , are undoubtedly planting the same batteries against three kingdoms that were rais'd in his royal father's reign ; and a bill of exclusion must truly carry the design of all the old remonstrances , ordinances , covenants , &c. with the soul of a cook , a bradshaw , and a cromwel at the bottom on 't : and all the senate-house church-proppers under that vizor , are only establishing religion with the same brand in their hearts that cain built citys . and i doubt not but the wisdom and loyalty of succeeding times will regain sense enough to countermine all such villany , and redeem the yet unrecovered honour of england by shaming such a second imposture from the world. and now to draw to a period , i have only this warning to give to the great sticklers against popery and arbitrary power , to have a care that they themselves do not bring in what they so zealously endeavour to keep out . for if popery and arbitrary power shall ever get footing in england by a popish successour , it can only be then , when by vnlawful exclusions , and rebellious associations against him , they shall put him upon cutting his way to his throne by his sword , and consequently give him the occasion , both by forreign and domestick assistance , of gaining that right by conquest which is denyed him to assume in peace ; and thereby enable him by the power and right of a conquerour , to abolish what laws , and establish what government he pleases , without either straining his honour or prerogative . and so shall the irregular designs of defending our religion and liberties 〈…〉 of destroying them . and that this will be the undoubted success of such unlawful and trayterous opposition of the royal heir , let all such turbulent spirits ( for their comfort ) consider that the world is much mended of late , and whatever prosperity attended their victorious father's rebellious arms , the old cheat will not pass altogether so glibly a second time ; and the deposing of monarchs will be , in all reasonable prospect , a tougher piece of work in this age than the last . for men's eyes and understandings begin to be more enlightned , and the odds ( thanks be to heaven ) is on the loyal side . however as a caution to those unwary people that may be seduced by the false suggestions of republican conspirators under the plausible pretence of liberty and religion , to ingage in so impious a cause . besides the breach of their christianity and hazard of their souls in so wicked an undertaking ; they are link't into that very rebellion in which they are certain of making themselves miserable , not only if they are subdued , but likewise if they conquer too . for as i said before , there 's not only a certain slavery attends their defeat , the impudence of such flagitious treason being it self alone a sufficient provocation of tyranny , enough to exasperate even the sorenest and best temper'd princes into a spirit of cruelty , and consequently , to make him impose that yoke upon their rebellious necks which they have but too justly deserved ; and so put him upon acting what otherwise had never entred so much as into his soul to think : so on the other side , supposing their strength and fortune would prove so great and successful as should answer their most flattering hopes , and that it would be possible for them to gain that absolute triumph o're the royal cause , as to reach , not only the crown , but also the head that wears it : yet all this while what have they done , but through all the gaping wounds of their poor bleeding country , through all the horrour and miseries of a barbarous civil war , deposed and butcher'd one imaginary tyrant to set up possibly five hundred real ones . for as all victorious rebellion ends in anarchy and confusion , and all the conquests , acquisitions , and trophies devolve into the possession of the greatest ringleaders of the conspiracy , whil'st the popular hands , the working tools that set them up , have little or no share in the booty . what have the deluded wretches gain'd by the change , but only avoided a lesser scylla , to run into a greater charybdis , enslaved themselves and their posterity to a herd of tyrants , to escape a single one . a worse subjection than that they fear'd and fought against . a republican tyranny being so much more intolerable than a monarchical one can be , as this has but the ambition of one man to satisfie , and the other of hundreds , whil'st the particular pride and avarice of each respective dignifyed rebel in power , has so many seperate sinister interests and appetites to gratifie , and thereby our estates and patrimonys continually to be squeez'd and drein'd not only for the chargeable support of standing armies that must uphold this anarchical constitution , but likewise be exposed to the insatiate gorge of every state-cormorant amongst them . a tyranny so much more unsupportable than that of a crown'd head , as there are so many of them to conspire and abet all the the greatest of insolences and injustice , and so many to divide the shame of it . a tyranny yet so much more execrable still as every low-born villain amongst them dare stoop to all those dishonourable , abject , and sordid deeds , that imperial blood and royal heirs would staggar at . finis . a collection of several tracts and discourses written in the years 1678, 1679, 1680, 1681, 1682, 1683, 1684, 1685 by gilbert burnet ; to which are added, a letter written to dr. burnet, giving an account of cardinal pool's secret power, the history of the power treason, with a vindication of the proceedings thereupon, an impartial consideration of the five jesuits dying speeches, who were executed for the popish plot, 1679. selections. 1685 burnet, gilbert, 1643-1715. 1685 approx. 243 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 70 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2004-03 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a30330 wing b5770 estc r214762 12121889 ocm 12121889 54459 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a30330) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 54459) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 885:19) a collection of several tracts and discourses written in the years 1678, 1679, 1680, 1681, 1682, 1683, 1684, 1685 by gilbert burnet ; to which are added, a letter written to dr. burnet, giving an account of cardinal pool's secret power, the history of the power treason, with a vindication of the proceedings thereupon, an impartial consideration of the five jesuits dying speeches, who were executed for the popish plot, 1679. selections. 1685 burnet, gilbert, 1643-1715. [6], 45, [3], 36, [2], 47 p. printed for ric. chiswell ..., london : 1685. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng catholic church -controversial literature. anti-catholicism -early works to 1800. popish plot, 1678. status offenders. 2003-10 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2003-11 apex covantage keyed and coded from proquest page images 2003-12 emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread 2003-12 emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited 2004-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion a collection of several tracts and dsicourses , written in the years 1678 , 1679 , 1680 , 1681 , 1682 , 1683 , 1684 , 1685. by gilbert burnet , d. d. to which are added , a letter written to dr. burnet , giving an account of cardinal pool's secret powers . the history of the powder-treason , with a vindication of the proceedings thereupon . an impartial consideration of the five jesuits dying speeches , who were executed for the popish plot , 1679. london : printed for ric. chiswell , at the rose and crown in st. paul's church-yard . mdclxxxv a table of the titles . mdclxxviii . 1. a letter written upon the discovery of the late plot . 2. the unreasonablness and impiety of popery in a second letter , written upon the discovery of the late plot . 3. a relation of the barbarous and bloody massacre of about an hundred thousand protestants , begun at paris , and carried on over all france by the papists , in the year 1572 , collected out of mezeray , thuanus , and other approved authors . mdclxxix . 4. a decree made at rome , the 2d of march , 1679. condemning some opinions of the iesuits , and other casuists . mdclxxx . 5. the conversion and persecutions of eve cohan , now called elizabeth verboon , a person of quality of the iewish religion , who was baptized the 10th of october , 1680. 6. a sermon preached on the fast day ; december 22. 1680. at st. margarets westminster , before the house of commons , on rev. 3. 2 , 3. 7. a sermon preached before the lord mayor and aldermen of london , on september 2. 1680. being the anniversary fast , for the burning of london , on amos 4. 11 , 12. 8. a sermon preached before the aldermen of london , january 30 ▪ 1680. being the day of the martyrdom of king charles the first , on zech. 8. 19. mdclxxxi . 9. a sermon preached at the election of the lord mayor of london , september 29. 1681. on matth. 12. 25. mdclxxxii . 10. a sermon preached at the funeral of mr. james houblon merchant , june 28. 1682. psal. 37. 37. 11 news from france , in a letter , giving a relation of the present state of the difference between the french king , and the court of rome ; to which is added , the popes brief to the assembly of the clergy , and the protestation made by them. 12. an answer to the animadversions on dr. burnet's history of the rights of princes . mdclxxxiv . 13. a sermon preached at the chappel of the rolls , november 5. 1684. being gun-powder-treason day , on psal. 22. 21. 14. a letter to mr. simon lowth , vicar of cosmus-blene , in the diocess of canterbury , occasioned by his late book , [ of the subject of church power . ] 15. an answer to a letter to dr. burnet , occasioned by his letter to mr. lowth . 16. a letter occasioned by the second letter to dr. burnet . mdclxxxv . 17. a letter written to dr. burnet , giving an account of cardinal pool ' , secret powers , from which it appears , that it was never intended to confirm the alienation that was made of the abby-lands . to which is added , two breves that cardinal pool brought over , and some other of his letters that were never before printed . 18. the history of the powder-treason , with a vindication of the proceedings , and matters relating thereunto , from the exoeptions made against it ; and more particularly of late years , by the author of the catholick apology . to which is added , a parallel betwixt that and the present popish plot. 1681. 19. an impartial consideration of those speeches , which pass under the name of the five iesuits lately executed , viz. mr. whitebread , mr. harcourt , mr. gawen , mr. turner , and mr. fenwick in which it is proved , that according to their principles they not only might , but also ought to dye after that manner , with solemn protestations of their innocency . 1679. a letter , written upon the discovery of the late plot . licensed w. jane , octob. 17. 1678. london : printed for h. brome , and r. chiswell , both living in st. paul's church-yard , 1678. a letter , written upon the discovery of the late plot . sir , i heartily thank you for the news your last brought me , of the discovery of that horrid plot , both against his majesties person , and the whole kingdom . i doubt not but all good men are offering up their acknowledgments to god , for so great a blessing ; which is a fresh demonstration of his care of this church , and state : and that all our crying sins have not provoked him yet to abandon us : of which i pray god make us all sensible , that we may not continue to pull down such judgments , as the malice of wicked men would readily become instrumental in , if the providence of god did not so wonderfully and seasonably interpose . there is only one passage in your letter , that i wonder at . you tell me every body is surprized with this plot now discovered . i confess i am not of their mind ; for although i know there are persons of high honour , and untainted loyalty of the roman religion , who abominate the thoughts of all secret assassinations , much more of murdering his majesty ; yet such practices are so necessarily consequent to the principles of that church , that no member of it , who throughly understands them , can , while they continue in that communion , avoid the being involved in conspiracies , as oft as a fit occasion presents it self . these several years past they have boasted much of their loyalty , and their services and sufferings for his majesty , during the late civil wars . all this was necessary to make the government put confidence in them , that so they might more secretly lay their designs : which were to take effect , when a conjuncture was offered that seemed favourable . but i must again and again repeat , what i often told you in discourse ; that no member of that church can thorowly understand and believe the principles of it , and be a good subject even to a king of his own perswasion : but he can be much less so , to a prince whom he looks on as an heretick , who thereby lies under a general excommunication , and may be brought under a particular and formal one , before he , or any body else , but such as are fit to be entrusted with the secret , shall know it : and then the prince is at the mercy of all his popish subjects , who if they consider aright the doctrine of their own church , must depart from their allegiance to him , and be ready to do any thing that is laid on them , by those who are either directly their superiours , if they have taken religious vows ; or at least , have some authority over their consciences . this i shall open to you in as short and plain terms as is possible ; and the rather , that you may communicate it to some persons of honour of that religion , who i hope upon so fresh a discovery of these practices , may be now not unwilling to examine a point , the consideration of which they before rejected , as an imputation cast on their religion . this will now , i imagine , move them so far to demur , as to consider impartially whether such practises flow only from the ill tempers of particular persons , or from the received principles of their church . this latter i undertake to make out , from the undeniable maximes , to which all of that communion are bound to adhere . there are two principles , which i may well call the fundamental principles of the roman church : since all opinions that are not inconsistent with them , can be tollerated among them : but whatever strikes at these , must needs be abominated , as destructive of that , they call the catholick faith. the one is , the authority of the church , the other is , the certainty of tradition . if then the doctrine of deposing kings , and by consequence killing them ( for if they are justly deposed , it 's as just to kill them as to kill any usurper ) is such , that without denying the authority of the church , and the certainty of tradition , it cannot be denied ; then all men must resolve either to acknowledg it , or to renounce their subjection to a church that must needs believe it . about the authority of the church , two things are to be observed , that serve for clearing what i design to make out . the first is , that the church in any one age has as much authority as ever it had , or can have in any other age : for if christs promises , together with the other arguments they bring for the authority of the church , be good , they are alike strong at all times , and in all ages : and therefore though in writing books of controversies they muster up authorities out of the former ages , because we profess we pay little esteem to the latter ages : yet among themselves all ages are alike , and the decrees of them are of equal authority . secondly , the authority of the church is as little to be disputed in moral matters , that fall under practice , as in articles of faith that only fall under speculation , and in a word , the church must be the infallible expounder of the ten commandments , as well as of the creed . all the arguments from christs promises , from the hazard of trusting to our private reasonings , and the necessity of submitting to a publick judg , are by so much the more concluding in practical matters , as it is of more importance , that men think aright in practical than in speculative opinions . if then there arises a question about a moral matter , or the exposition of any of the commandments , the only certain decision must be expected from the church . for instance , a question arises about images , whether it is lawful to use them in the worship of god , upon the seeming opposition which the worship of them has to the 2d commandment ? since the church has once determin'd that it may be lawfully used , it is heresie to deny it , on this pretence , that we fancy it is contrary to one of the commandments . so if a controversie arise upon the fifth commandment , how far a king is to be acknowledged , if the church has determined the limits of that , it is heresie to carry it further . if also another question arise how much the sixth commandment obliges ? it must be carried so far and no further than the determination of the church allows . i confess by the doctrine of that church , even a general council may err in a point in which any matter of fact is included : because they may be deceived by a false information . but in a general rule about morality , and the extent of any of the ten commandments , the decision of the church must either be certain , and for ever obligatory , or the whole doctrine of the infallibility of the church falls to the ground . concerning the certainty of tradition , the general opinion of that party , is , that tradition is an infallible conveyance of divine truth : and that whatever any age of the church delivers to another as derived from christ and his apostles , must be received with the same veneration and obedience that we pay to the holy scriptures . and for the ways of distinguishing a tradition of the church from any imposture , or novelty : there be four of them . the first , that is the most doubtful , is , that the greatest and most esteemed doctors in any age deliver as a divine truth . nor is it necessary that they formally say , this is a tradition : but if many of them mention an opinion , and declare their own assent to it , this passes as a sufficient proof of the tradition of any age of the church ▪ so in all points of controversie between them and us , the greatest part of their writers , ( some few later and suspected ones only excepted ) think they have sufficiently justified their church , when they bring testimonies out of any of the writings of the fathers , that seem to favour their opinion : and will call it unreasonable for us to reject these , because they only deliver their own opinion , and do not call it the tradition of the church , but conclude , that many writers in any age asserting an opinion , it may well be looked on as the tradition of that age. but , because this is more liable to exception , there is another way , that is more infallible to judg of tradition : and that is , by the conveyance of the see of rome , which they judg the chief depository of the faith ; and for which they fansie they have so many proofs , from the high things some of the fathers have said about the dignity of that see. now if these conclude any thing , it must follow , that whatever has been delivered in any age by a pope , as conveyed down from christ , or his apostles , must either be so indeed , or the see of rome is not a faithful transmitter of tradition . but , there is yet a more certain way of judging of tradition , by what the chief pastors of the church have delivered , when assembled in a general council . this being the supreme tribunal in the church , there can lie no appeal from it : nor can the doctrines delivered or approved by it be questioned . for instance , if it were under debate , how the tradition about transubstantiation can be made out in the thirteenth century ; it is needless to seek any other evidence , than , that one almerick is condemned for denying it , and in opposition to that , it was formally established in a general council . this is as much as can be had , and he were very unreasonable that were not satisfied with it : so if it be asked , how can the tradition of the doctrine of deposing kings , and giving away their dominions in the same century be proved ? the answer is plain , that same very council decreed it : upon which a great prince was deposed , and his dominions were given to another . these are the common standards by which traditions are examined . but to these a new one has been lately added : which is indeed a much shorter and nearer way : and that is , whatever the church holds in any one age , as a material point of religion , she must have received it from the former age , and that age from the former , and so it climbs upwards till the days of the apostles . if this be a certain track of tradition by which we may infallibly trace it ; then for instance , if in any one age , it hath been believed , that st. peter had power from christ , which he left to the see of rome , by which his successor in it can depose kings , then this must be an apostolical tradition , and by consequence of equal authority with any thing written in the scriptures . to these general considerations about the authority of the church , and the certainty of tradition ; i shall add two other , about the nature of supreme and soveraign power : by which we may judg of what extent the popes power must be , if he have an authority to depose kings , and transfer their dominions to other persons . first , when the soveraign powers proceed in a legal way against its subjects ; if either they abscond , so that they cannot be found ; or have such a power about them , that the sovereign cannot bring them to punishment ; he may declare them rebels , and set prices on their heads ; and in that case it is as lawful for any subject to kill them , as it is for an executioner to put a condemned person to death . these being the several ways the law provides in those several cases . so when a pope deposes a prince , he may as lawfully set on private assassinates to kill him , as oblige his subjects to rise with open force against him . for if the pope has a power over him to depose him ; this clearly follows from the nature of sovereign power , and it is the course that sometimes must be followed , when the rebel can be no other way brought to deserved punishment ; and if the pope has the power of deposing , then a prince who after such a sentence , carries himself as a king , is a rebel against his supreme lord : and is also an usurper . for his title being destroyed by the sentence , he has no authority over his subjects : and therefore may be as lawfully killed as any rebel or usurper . secondly , the supreme power may in cases of great necessity , when the thing is in it self materially just , pass over such forms as ought in ordinary cases to be observed . i need not tell you , that in a great fire , subordinate magistrates may blow up houses . but doubtless the supreme power of all , as a king in an absolute monarchy ( and such is the papal power if these opinions be true ) may dispence with some forms , when the matter is in it self just ; and if the chief design of a law be pursued , the circumstantial parts of it may upon extraordinary occasions be superseded : therefore , if the pope is supreme over all kings , and has this deposing power ; then though by the canon , a king ought to be first a year excommunicated for his heresy or favouring hereticks ; and at the years end he may be deposed by the pope , ( there are also other rules for excommunications , tho the summary way in some cases may be used ) yet all these are but circumstantial and lesser matters . the design of that law , is , that no heretical prince , or favourer of heresie , be continued in his power ; the other , are but forms of law , that cannot be indispensibly necessary in all cases . besides , the very canon law teaches , that when there is both a notorietas juris & facti , summary proceedings are legal ; when then it is notorious , that the doctrines of the church ( of england for instance ) are heretical , and that the king is an obstinate favourer of these heresies , and will not extirpate them , summary and secret proceedings are justifiable . there is no hope that bulls , breves , or citations would do any good in this case : these would on the contrary , alarm the state , and bring all the party under great hazards : therefore from the nature of supreme power , it is most justly inferred , that though there have been no publick sentence of deposition ( according to the forms of the canon law ) yet all these may be dispensed with , and a secret and summary one may do as well . these positions are such , that i cannot fansie any just exceptions to which they are liable ; and from all these laid together , the inference will undeniably follow : that according to the doctrine of the church of rome , the power of deposing kings is lodged with the pope , by a divine authority ; and that , by consequence , private persons may conspire to take away the life of a king so deposed : even though there be no publick sentence given about it . but before i bring the evidence for all this , i shall desire the reader will a little reflect on the positions i have laid down : in which he will find an answer to all the exceptions , that can be made against the following evidence . by the first , the authority of the church , being the same in all ages ; he will see it is to no purpose to pretend these were dark ages : so that what was done in an ignorant time , cannot oblige the world when things are seen in a better light . but if the church has an authority from christ , that shall last till the end of the world , it must be the same in all ages . the ignorance of the age is a very good answer when made by a protestant , but can signifie nothing in a papists mouth . by the second , of the churches authority in setling moral rules for practice , it appears how fond that distinction is , which they make between a canon and a decree . it is true , a decree about a particular case , in which there is some matter of fact , may be wrong according to their principles , and yet the authority of the church remain entire . for instance , in the deposing a prince , or condemning a man for heresie , the church may either by false witnesses , or mistaking a man's words , be drawn to pass an unjust sentence , by reason of a mis-representation of the fact. but that is nothing to the purpose here , where a decree is made as a perpetual rule of practice ; this must be of the same authority of a canon about any article of faith. otherwise it will follow , that the church may mislead the people in matters indispensably necessary to salvation : for such is the obedience to the ten commandments . by the first way of judging of the tradition of the church , from what the most received writers in any age deliver , as the doctrine of the church , it will appear ; that the schoolmen and canonists are as competent conveyers of tradition from the twelfth age downward , as the fathers were from the sixth age upward ; and laying this for a principle , that the church is the same in all ages , they are really more competent witnesses than the fathers were . first , because they write more closely to the subject they have in hand ; they consider what is said for , or against an opinion in a more exact manner , than the fathers did , who being carried with the heat they are sometimes in , go off from the purpose : and generally affect eloquence , which is the most improper stile for nice matters : whereas the schoolmen write in a blunt way , only considering the purpose they are about , coyning the most barbarous words they can light on , when they think them the fittest to express their notions . secondly , they were divided into two famous schools , among whom there were great heats , the scotists and thomists : so that if either of these had asserted any thing that was not the received doctrine of the age they lived in , the other party had such emulation against them , that they would not have failed to have laid them open : as they did in the matter of the immaculate conception of the b. virgin. whereas the fathers writing only against hereticks , or other enemies to christianity , they might have mistaken somethings , without so publick a discovery as was likely to ▪ happen among the schoolmen . 3dly . the schoolmen wrote on purpose to deliver the doctrine of the age in which they lived , to those who were to succeed them . their books being generally the divinity lectures they read , either in colledges or religious houses , to their scholars , whereas the fathers wrote upon emergent occasions , either letters or treatises to private persons , regarding more the present , than the succeeding age. in which we cannot expect that exactness , that is to be looked for in a publick lecture . upon all which i assume , that allowing the church to have the same authority in all ages , the schoolmen are more competent witnesses of the tradition of the church in their ages , than the fathers were in theirs . by the second rule for judging of traditions , from the conveyance of the see of rome , it does undeniably follow , that the popes from gregory the sevenths time downward , were as sure depositories of the traditions of the church , as were the popes from gregory the first his time upward . they were both alike christ's vicars , and st. peters successors . so that all the high words that the fathers bestow on the see of rome , were either complements , in which they are not wanting , or were said because of the worth of the bishops , whom they had known in that see. but if they be to be understood in that sence in which the writers of controversy obtrude them on us , then it will follow manifestly , that as to the conveyance of tradition , p. gregory the 7th is as much to be believed , when he says any thing in the name of st. peter , or of christ , as any of the popes are . for in the preamble of bulls and breeves , the reasons are given of what follows , which are most commonly vouched from apostolical authority and tradition . so let the pope be ever so ignorant , or so corrupt in his manners , what he asserts to be apostolical tradition , must be either received as such , or the authority of that see is overthrown : therefore they must either cease to press us any more with tht authority of the see of rome , or acknowledg that all the popes declarations , which they make about traditions , are to be received . it is an answer to be made use of only to ignorant persons , to say , these depositions were the deeds of some popes , who might be ill men , and the church is not concerned to justify them . i confess , whether this or that deposition was justly or lawfully made , is a personal thing , in which only the pope who decreed it is concerned . but if he declares in the preamble , that the power of deposing upon those reasons , is grounded on an apostolical tradition , then the see is concerned in it : for either he declares true or false ; if the former , then that power of deposing comes from apostolical tradition ; if they acknowledge he declares false , then we are not any more to be urged with the authority of that see , as the certain depository of the traditions of the church . by the third mark , to judge of the tradition of any age from the decision of a general council , it appears , that the decisions of the fourth council of lateran are as obligatory as the decrees of the first council of nice : the church having the same power in all ages . if it be said , it was only a council of the western church , the like may be objected against the first general council , which were generally made up of eastern bishops , and very few of the western bishops sat in them . and if we esteem a council general , because it was received by the church , then the whole church of rome having received that council , it must be acknowledged to be general as much as any ever was . but to this , others answer , that a council is only infallible , when a thing is decreed by it according to the tradition of the church . if this be true , the whole controversie between the roman church and us , about the authority of councils , is decided on our side . for if a council has only authority to declare traditions , then it is free for every person to examine , whether this declaration be according to truth or not ? and if it be found that it is not so , they may lawfully reject such decisions . for instance in the second council of nice , the worship of images was established upon a mock-shew of tradition : and yet all the world knows , there were no images allowed in the church the first four ages after christ ; and even in the sixth age p. gregory declared , that though they might be in the church , yet they ought not to be worshipped . nor was there any contest about it , before the eighth century . this being thus examined , and found to be true , then according to the foregoing answer , that decision was of no force , though made by the second council of nice . in a word , if this maxime be true , that councils are only to be submitted to , when they decree according to apostolical tradition , then they have no authority in themselves : and their decisions can have no more force than this , that it may seem probable that they were not mistaken , and in an ignorant age , even this probability will vanish to nothing no body will reject the decision of a council , when the decrees are just and right : but if i●… be upon that score alone , that they are to be submitted to , then none are bound by them , before they have examined them : and if upon a search it appear they decreed against tradition , then their decrees are to be rejected . so it is apparent this answer does plainly , according to their principles , lay the foundation of all heresie ; since it gives every man a right to question the decrees of a general council . besides , how can those persons be assured , that the fourth council of lateran did not decree according to tradition ? the acts of that council are lost : so we cannot know upon what reasons they made their decrees . and it cannot be said , that because there is no mention made of any tradition in the decree , that therefore they considered none . it is seldom found that the reasons of any decree are put with it . but we may reasonably enough believe , that they followed the method in this council , that had been used in some former ones ( particularly in the second council of nice ) which was this , a writing was read , penned perhaps by the pope , or a patriarch , in which the tradition of the church was confidently alledged ; and some quotations were brought ; and very oft out of some later writers . the paper was no sooner read , than a loud and often repeated shout of applause followed , without any further search or canvasing about these authorities . and upon that the decree was made . this was the practice both of the second nicene , and of some more ancient councils ; whose journals are hitherto preserved ; and where the journals are lost , we have reason to believe they followed the same method : so that it is very probable there might have been some such writing read in the council of lateran . and if they did not found their decree upon tradition , they were much to blame ; for they had as venerable a tradition , as either the second council of nice , or some other councils had : a practice about 150 years standing from the days of pope gregory the vii . so that it is not to be denied but they had as good authority from tradition , to make this decree , as to make most of the other decrees , on which they insist much , in the books of controversies that are written by them . by the fourth rule of judging about tradition , the matter is yet much plainer : for if the generally received belief of any age of the church , is a good thread to lead us up to the apostles times , then there needs no more be said . for it is certain , that for near four ages together , this was the universally received doctrine of the church of rome . and the opposition that some princes made to it was condemned as heresy , rebellion , and every thing that was evil . and it is remarkable , that both o●…kam that wrote much for the emperors cause against the pope , and gerson and almain , no great favourers of papal power , are cited by cardinal perrow , as acknowledging the ecclesiastical power of deposing , if a prince were guilty of spiritual crimes . so that the controversies in this matter that were managed between the writers for the popes and emperors , were not , whether the pope in cases of heresy might depose a prince ? but were concerning two things very remote from this . the one was , whether the pope had a direct temporal power over all kings , by which as being lord of the fe●… , he could proceed upon any cause whatsoever against a king , and take his dominions from him . to this indeed gregory the 7th pretended tho more covertly , and boniface the 8th more avowedly . there was great opposition made to this by many writers ; but at the same time they all agreed on it , as an undeniable maxim , that the pope had an indirect power over princes , by which in the cases of heresy he might excommunicate and depose them ; nor was there so much as any debate about it . a second thing about which there was some controversy was , whether the particulars that fell under debate came within the head of heresy , or not ? so in the case of princes giving the investitures into bishopricks , the pope brought it in within the head of heresy , and condemned those persons as simoniacks . the writers on the other side denied this , pretending it was a civil matter , and a right of the crown . the like debates fell in , when princes were sentenced on any other account . the authority of the sentence in the case of heresy was not controverted ; all the question was ; whether the point under debate was heresy or not ? and concerning these things , any who have read the writings in the great collection made of them by goldastus , will receive an easy and full satisfaction . by which it appears , that the popes power of deposing kings in the case of heresy was the received doctrine of the church for several ages , and by consequence it must be looked on as derived down from the apostles , if the doctrine of any one age of the church can lead us backward in a certain track to discover what it was in the apostles days . by the first position about the nature of supreme power , it is apparent , that in the case of heresy , a prince deposed by the pope , if he stands out against the sentence , may be as lawfully killed as any tory or moss-trooper , or bantito , may be ; for he is a rebel against his lord , and an usurper over the people , from that day forward . and therefore tho mariana told a secret too publickly , yet it cannot be denied to be a certain consequent of their principles . it had been indeed more discreetly done to have ordered this only to be infused unto peoples consciences , by their confessors in secret . and for mariana , tho the book in gross is condemned , as they give out , yet the opinions set down in it are not censured . but a suarez writing against k. iames , tells him in plain terms , that a king , who is canonically deposed , may be killed by any man whatsoever . this was not only published with an ordinary license , but the whole university of alcala declared every thing in it to be according to the doctrine of the church . valentia , tho he disguises it a little , yet says , that an heretical prince may by the popes sentence be deprived of his life . b foulis cites ten more doctors for the same opinion of killing kings by private persons . i do not build upon the assertions of these jesuits , as binding authorities in that church , but make use of them to shew , that some of their own eminentest writers acknowledg the force of this consequence ; which is indeed so evident , that nothing but good manners , and some small care not to provoke princes too much by such bare-faced positions , keeps others from asserting it . few princes are so tame as childeric was , to go into a monastery after they are deposed . therefore this doctrine is but a lame provision for the churches security from heresie , if the lawfulness of killing does not follow that of deposing kings . and it was so generally received , that it is told of gerson , that he was at great pains to get it declared that no private cut-throat might kill a king , and that by consequence it was only the popes prerogative to order them to be destroyed . by the second position about the nature of supreme power , that in extraordinary cases forms of law may be superseded ; it is also clear , that tho we know nothing of any sentence of deposition given out against the king , yet he is not a whit the safer , for he lies under an yearly curse every maundy thursday . the notoriousness of his heresy will sufficiently justify a particular sentence , without any further process or citation , according to the maxims of the canon law. and there may be for ought we can know , as valid a deposition as parchment and lead can make it , already expeded . and if it be not yet done , we are sure it may be done very suddenly , and will be done whensoever they see any probability of success . bellarmine hath very sincerely told us the reason why heretical princes are not deposed , because the church has not strength enough to make such a sentence good , or does not think it expedient ; that is to say , they will do it whensoever they find a prince who will execute the sentence , and yet by that conquest not grow so strong , as by that means to turn the ballance . so the two considerations to which we owe our security are , the want of force , and the fear of another prince his becoming too powerful by the conquest . but i must add , that bellarmine , while he was a jesuite , had taught , that heretical princes were not to be deposed , except they endeavoured to turn their people from the faith : this was all his bounty to them of which we could not pretend to a crumb , since there were such laws made against popery among us . yet when he became a cardinal , he considered better of the matter ; so that in his recognitions he retracts that , and says therein be followed durandus his opinion , who maintains it against aquinas , but he thinks the latter was in the right , and says , even in that case they may be deposed , only the church does it not always ; either because she wants strength , or does not judge it expedient . but he concludes , if princes endeavour to draw their subjects from the faith , they may and ought to be deposed . so in our case there is no mercy to be expected , unless we repeal all laws against that religion . but after all this there is another device in the canon-law , called , ipso facto , by which a sentence is incurred immediately upon the doing of a fact. this began in the priviledges granted to monasteries or churches , in most of which this clause is to be found , that if any king or prince , &c. did any thing contrary to these priviledges , he thereby fell from his power and dignity . now that heresy is one of the things upon which a prince is ipso facto under excommunication and deposition , we have the authority of father e parsons , or creswel , who tells us , that the whole school of divines and canonists agree in it , and , that it is certain , and of faith , that a prince falling from the catholick religion , and endeavouring to draw away others from it , does immediately fall from all his power and dignity , even before the pope has pronounced any sentence , and that his subjects are free from their oaths of obedience , and may eject such an one as apostate and heretick . but there is a clearer evidence for this ; the great and famous college of the sorbon , ( seventy doctors being present ) when consulted , whether the people of france were not freed from their obedience to henry the third , upon his putting the duke and cardinal of guise to death ; they , before ever the pope had given sentence , declared , that they were absolved from their obedience , and might with a good conscience make war upon him for the defence of the catholick faith. upon which the parisians wrote to the pope to desire the confirmation of that decision . from all which it appears , that if the deposing power be in the pope , the king is not a whit the safer , because we know nothing of any such sentence pronounced against him . and thus having made good and illustrated the positions i laid down , against all the exceptions which that small and condemned party of widdrirgton's followers make use of , to cover themselves from the charge of treason , that lies against their church ▪ i go next to lay open the evidence , after which i shall leave it to every man's conscience to pass the verdict . there are in ( f ) pope gregory the great 's works , four priviledges granted ; one to the abbey of st. medard , another to the hospital , a third to the nunnery , a fourth to st. martin's church of autim . in which after the priviledges are granted , a sanction is added in these words ; if any kings , &c. shall endeavour to countervene this writing , let him lose the dignity of his power and honour . or shorter , in that of st. medard , let him be deprived of his dignity . these are to be found both in all the mss , and printed editions of that popes works . it is true , the first of these to saint medard's monastery , is looked on as a forged piece , both by cardinal perron , sirmond , and lannoy . but as it went for a true one till of late , and is still defended by others , baronius in particular , concluding from thence for the popes power over kings ; so the other priviledges are not denied to be true by any , except lannoy of late , for ought i know . these have been for above 600 years looked on as the grants of that pope . but this may seem a private writing , and not of such force . about 130 years after that , pope g gregory the 3d deposed leo ▪ the emperor , from all his dominions in italy , because he would not tolerate the worship of i mages . and if that single heresie merited such a sentence , what may we look , for , among whose many imputed errors this is but one , and none of the most considerable ? not many years after that , did his successor zacharias upon a message he received from france , absolve that nation from their oaths to childeric , and ordered boniface to crown pepin in his stead ▪ and not long after that pope adrian gave the empire of rome , and of the west to charles the great . as h bellarmine proves from above 30 of the historians of that time , and the testimony of many soveraign princes . yet these being dark ages , in which there was more of action than dispute , we do not find the grounds laid down , on which those proceedings were founded . but the constant maxim of the papacy , was , once to begin a practice , and then to find arguments to defend it , among which the practice it self was no inconsiderable one ; for he was a mean spirited pope , that would in a tittle fall short of what his predecessors had assumed . about 250 years after charles the great had assumed the empire of the west , there arose a pope ( gregory the seventh ) that resolved to make the most of his see that could be : and reckoning , that the empire of the west was the gift of his predecessors , and building on that known maxim , that none can give that which they have not , he looked on the supreme dominion of it , as one of the perquisites of the see , which he would by no means part with . and therefore in his i dictatis , in which he asserts the several branches of his prerogative , these be three of them : that the pope only may use the imperial ensigns . that he may depose emperours . and , that he can absolve subjects from their fidelity to wicked princes . and to shew he was in earnest in these doctrines , he began soon to lay about him . his first threatnings were against king philip of france , who was a vicious prince : in a letter to the bishops of france , he requires them to admonish the king for his faults , and if he did not mend them , to put the whole kingdom under an interdict : and if after all that he continued still disobedient , he swaggers out in these words , k we will have none to be ignorant , or doubtful , what we intend to do upon it ; for by the help of god we will endeavour by all means , to wrest the kingdom of france out of his possession . but upon the submission of that king , these threatnings came not to any effect : yet he went on against the emperor , hen. the 4th , at the rate he had threatned the king of france . i need not tell what all the world knows : that he first excommunicated and deposed the emperor , in the year 1076. then upon his doing of penance , he received him into his favour . but upon new provocations he deposed him a second , a third , and fourth time , in the years 1080 , 1081 , and 1083. in all which he had the concurrence of so many roman councils , and set up against him , first rodolph , after that herman : as his successors did ; first conrade , and then henry , that emperor 's unnatural sons . the prosecution of the history , is needless to my design . but in his letter to herman , bishop of mets , l we meet with that which is more considerable . for there he largely justifies his proceedings , which he grounds on the keys of the kingdom of heaven , being given to st. peter ; and the power of binding and loosing joined to them . more places of scripture he sought not , but his successor , m boniface the 8th , made use of ecce duo gladii , and the power given to the prophet ieremiah , over kingdoms , to root out , pull down , destroy , throw down , to build , and to plant : and they took it in great dudgeon , if any would compare a single prophet under the law , to christ's vicar under the gospel . but gregory goes on in his proofs , to the tradition of the church : and says , the fathers had often both in general councils , and in their particular writings acknowledged , that this power was in the see of rome ; that it was the mother and head of all other churches : that all matters were to be judged by it , from whose sentence no appeal could lye : nor could there be a review made of the judgments passed in that see. and to confirm what he had asserted , he cites some passages out of gelasius , and iulius , and that clause in the priviledges granted by gregory the great , formerly mentioned . so here he very fully and formally delivers the tradition of the church , and builds upon it . he also cites the precedent of pope zacharias , his deposing childeric , not for any fault he found in him , but because he thought him not fit to govern. from that he goes on to some reasons , ( such as they are ) for the justification of his proceedings . the pope having thus declared the tradition and doctrine of the church , it is not to be wondred at , if both the schoolmen mixt it with the instructions they gave their scholars , and the canonists made it a part of the law of the church . n hugo de sancto victore , alexander alensis , bonaventure , durand , peter of aliac , iohn of paris , almain , gabriel biel , henry of ghant , iohn driodo , iohn de terre ▪ iremata , albert pighius , thomas waldensis , petrus de palude , cajetan , franciscus victoria , dominicus a soto , and many others , ( in all 70 are reckoned by bellarmin , but foulis enlarges the number to 177 , whom he cites , who ) did formally assert it . aquinas also taught it ; tho' in some places he contradicted himself . but o boniface the 8th , thought his predecessors had proceeded in this matter too cautiously , and therefore he went more roundly to work . in the jubilee in the year 1300 , he shewed himself the first day in the pontifical habit , but the second day , he was clothed with the imperial habit , a naked sword being carried before him , and cried out with a loud voice , i am pope and emperor , and have both the earthly , and heavenly empire . this upon so publick an occasion looks very like the teaching the church ex cathedra ▪ but because words vanished into air , he left it in writing , in these terms : p we say and define and pronounce , that it is absolutely necessary to salvation for every humane creature , to be subject to the bishop of rome . this being put into the text of the canon law , in which it is continued to this day ; we cannot think it strange that panorimitan , ostiensis , silvester , with all the other canonists assert the popes direct dominion over all the world. and what can they say less , believing him to be christs vicar on earth , to whom all power in heaven and earth was given of his father , therefore the power in heaven being judged enough for christ to manage himself , they thought all the power in earth was committed to the vicar . this passed down without contradiction among them , but was not received by the rest of the church : yet the indirect , or as they termed it , the ecclesiastical power in cases of heresie was universally agreed to : not one person opposing it , till luther and his followers came , sawcily to look into the popes title to this , and many other pretended rights of the see of rome . but because the plea for an indirect power , was not sufficient , since if a prince did not favour heresie , it was of no use : and the pretention to a direct power was of an harsh sound : therefore a title of another kind was set up . it was pretended , that all the kingdoms in the western and northern parts of europe were by formal surrenders offered up to st. peter , and st. paul ; and therefore whatever the popes did , was said to be done in defence of their rights ; which made gregory the 7th fly to them in that flanting address , with which he begins his sentences against the emperor . first of all , the donation of constantine the great was forged : by which the power of all the west , italy , sicily , sardinia , germany , france , spain , and england , were given to the pope . this was put into the text of the canon law : and was stood to , by all the canonists . it is true the civilians wrote generally against it . among whom bartholus may be reckoned , for in his preface to the digests having mentioned the opinions of some against it , when it comes to his own , he delivers it thus ; take notice that we are now in the territory of the church ( for he taught at bulloigne ) and therefore i say that donation is valid . but till valla discovered the impostures of it so manifestly , that they are now ashamed to maintain it any longer , their plea from it was never laid down . but augustinus steuchus , who undertakes the vindication of that donation against valla , does likewise alledge from some instruments in the vatican , that both the kingdoms of spain , arragon , france , england , denmark , muscovy , sicily , and croatia and dalmatia , did subject their crowns to the see of rome . b kranizius tells us , that lakold king of poland , made it tributary to rome . and for the german empire , tho steuchus says nothing of it , perhaps that he might not offend charles the 5th , yet there is both in the canon law , and the letters of popes , more to be said upon that head , than for any of the rest . they pretend the popes set up first the empire of the west : then gave the princes of germany the right of choosing the emperor , and does still give the imperial crown , upon the emperors swearing an oath of homage to them , according to the verse under that insolent picture set up by pope innocent the 2d . in the lateram r of the emperor lying prostrate at his feet , and receiving the crown from him . post homo fit papae , sumit quo dante coronam . but all these surrenders were made use of only to strengthen the great pretention they had of being christs vicars , and st. peters successours ; which from the end of the 11th century , till the beginning of the 16th . for above 4 ages together was as authoritatively asserted by popes , as positively taught by divines , and as tamely received by the whole church , emperors and kings not presuming to contradict it , as any other article of faith. and for proofs of this we need appeal to no other witnesses than those 3. great cardinals baronius , bellarmin and perron , who may be presumed to have understood the doctrine of their own church , better than any body else . the first of those , through his whole work strains his industry , to discover as many instances as he can of it : and never parts with any without expressing the particular satisfaction he had in so pleasant a discovery . i shall only set down what he says on the two 1st . occasions that he met with . when he takes notice of gregory the great 's priviledges formerly mentioned , he adds , s you see reader , that the popes can make laws , to which if kings themselves do not yield obedience , they shall lose their kingdoms . upon the first deposition made by gregory the 3d. he adds , t the faithful in the west being awakened by this thunder , do immediately fall from the obedience to leo , adhering to this apostolical pope . so this gregory left a worthy precedent to posterity , that heretical princes , be not suffered to reign in the church of christ , if having been often admonished , they continue to persist obstinately in their errors . such strains as these do so often occur afterwards , that they can scarce be reckoned . it is well known what advice he gave p. paul the 5th in the quarrel with the venetians , applying the voice to st. peter , arise and kill , to the case in hand ; and that , with his insolent paraenesis to that republick , are clear evidences of his sence in this matter . what bellarmin taught more shortly and obscur●…ly in his controversies , was afterwards made more plain both by his writings , about the translation of the roman empire , upon the interdict of venice , and against king iimes , and william barklay : and cardinal perrons eloquent speech against the bill put in by the third estate of france , for condemning those pretensions of a deposing power , shews us not only his own sense , but the sense of the whole clergy of france ; in whose name he delivered it . u he calls the contrary opinion , a doctrine that breeds schisms , a gate that leads unto all heresie , and so detestable , that he and his fellow b●…shops will choose to burn at a stake rather than consent to it . he affirming that all the parts of the catholick church , and of the church of france in particular , and all the schools of divinity , till the coming of calvin , held the affi●…mative , and says , that no where in france since the divinity schools w●…re set up , can they find any one doctor , divine , or lawyer , any decree , council , or sentence of parliament , or any one magistrate ecclesiastick , or politick , who had held that in case of heresie or idolatry , subjects might not be absolved from their oaths of fidelity to their princes . it is true , at first he spake more modestly , and pretended the thing was problematical , and so was not fit matter for an oath : but when that modester strain ( tho it tended all to depress the regal , and exalt the papal power ) had so far prevailed with the king , that he ordered the matter to be laid aside , and not to be further insisted on . they were not satisfied with this , but made a new address in the name of the clergy ; and the cardinal spake now in a higher tone , asserting formally the popes indirect power in temporal●… ; and that all who maintained the contrary were schismaticks , and hereticks , even those of the parliament it self ; and did plainly threaten the king , that if he did not raze all the proceedings out of the register , the clergy would leave the assembly , and excommunicate all who denied the popes power of deposing . and if the king would not suffer them to execu●…e these censures , they would proceed upon their hazard tho they were to suffer martyrdom for it . for which zeal , they received a brave from the pope , giving them his solemn thanks for what they had done ; desiring them to persevere in the same mind . so we have in this ●…stance , not only cardinal perrons own mind , but the s●…nse of the whole clergy of france . i do not think it necessary to enquire further into the opinion of later writers ; tho it were easie to shew , that to 〈◊〉 day , both the court of rome , the whole order of the jesuites , the writers both of controversies , and cases of conscience , and the expositors of scripture , do as oft as occasion offers , assert the power of deposing kings to be still in the see of rome . and tho some few writers of that religion , since barkelay and widdrington's time , both of the english and irish nation , have adventured to deny this power ; théy have been censured for it , and branded with heresy . this has been so notorious in the matter of the irish remonstrance , that i need say no more of it . but whether the writers of this age allow it or not , they are bound according to their doctrine about tradition , to acknowledg it ; since two of the characters of tradition are found to agree to it . for it has been delivered in several ages of the church , as true catholick doctrine by all the publick doctors in these times : so that either this is a tradition of the church , or that is not a true mark of tradition : nor is it a certain conveyance of truth , if we may be thus deceived in a clear tradition , for four ages successively . it does also appear , that if the see of rome be a faithful depositary and transmitter of church traditions , this must be one , since it is delivered to the world by so many popes in the names of st. peter and st. paul , and founded on the power of the keys , and of binding and loosing granted to st. peter . but i shall next shew how the third mark of tradition , the authority of general councils , agrees to this doctrine . when this doctrine had been so well spread over europe , then the popes found it was safe , to trust it to the judgment of such an assembly as they esteemed a general council . and they proceeded in this matter , after the same manner that they had done in the worship of images : and as they did afterwards in the points of transubstantiation , and denying the chalice in the communion . they took care first to infuse it into all the clergy , ( which god wo●…'s was no hard thing ) and then brought them together , and made up the pageant of a council , for giving it more authority . so above an hundred years after gregory the vii . had first taught this doctrine , a thing under the name of a general council sate in the later an at rome , where , upon the advantage the popes had against the albigenses and others , who were according ▪ to their opinion most pestiferous hereticks ; they first precured a decree for it . it is true , many provincial councils had concurred with gregory the vii . ( one of these is called a general one , 110 bishops being present ) and the other popes who had formerly given out these thunders : but now the matter was to be more solemnly transacted . in this council many hereticks are condemned and excommunicated ; and all that had sworn oaths of fidelity or hemage to them , are absolved from those oaths : and they are required in order to the obtaining the remission of their sins , to fight against them : and those who die doing penance in that manner , may without doubt expect indulgence for their sins , with eternal rewards . and in conclusion , by the authority of st. peter and st. paul they remit to all who shall rise and fight against them , two years penance . here the council does industriously infuse this doctrine into all people ; and calls rebellion penance ( a very easy one to a poor or discontented subject ) and assures them of a deliverance from purgatory , and that they should be admitted straight to heaven for it . in an age in which these things were believed , more effectual means than those could not be found out , to engage the people in it . by this decree , if we are guilty of the heresies then condemned , ( as no doubt we are of most of them ) without more ado , or any further sentence ▪ upon the declaring us guilty of the heresies of the albigenses , the subjects are delivered from their obligations to the king. and when they conspire or rebel against him , they are only doing penance for their sins ; and he were hard-hearted that would punish men only for doing of penance . about thirty years after that council , the pope had a mind to regulate the former law , that the deposing of kings might be declared a part of his prerogative ; and that thereby he might with authority dispose of their kingdoms to others . for hitherto the popes had only pretended to the power of deposing , and then the states of the kingdom as in an interregne , were to choose a new prince . but p. innocent the iii. thought it was half work , except he could bestow , as well as take away crowns . his predecessor celestine had in a most extravagant humour set the crown on henry the sixth his head , with his two feet , and then kickt it off again ; to shew , according to barronius his comment , that it was in his power to give , to maintain , and take away the empire . a very full assembly therefore being called of about 1200 of one sort or other to the lateran again , it was first decreed , that the aid of secular princes should be required for the extirpating of hereticks ; after that they proceed and enact thus . when the temporal lord required or admonished by the church , shall neglect to purge his territory from heretical wickedness , let him be excommunicated by the metropolitan and his suffragans . and if he persist in neglecting to give satisfaction for the space of a year , let him be signified to the pope : that he from thenceforth may pronounce his subjects discharged from their obedience ; and expose his territory to be seized on by catholicks , who having exterminated the hereticks , shall possess it without contradiction , and preserve it in the purity of the faieh ; so as no injury be done to the right of the supreme lord , where there is such , provided he do not any way oppose himself : and the same law is to take place on them , who have no superiour lord. the deposition of the court of tholouse , being the thing then in their eye , made that the decree runs chiefly against feudatary princes , yet as the last clause takes in soveraign princes , so by the clause before , it was provided , that if the soveraign did any way oppose what was done against his vassal , he was to forfeit his right . i did in the former part of this letter , meet with all the exceptions that are commonly made to this canon . only one pretty answer which a person of honour makes , is yet to be considered . he tells us , that there were so many soveraign princes , or ambassadors from them , at this council , that we are to look on this decree , as a thing to which those princes consented . from whence he infers , it was rather their act , than an invasion of their rights made by that council . but be it so , he knows they allow no prescription against the church . if then those princes consented to it , upon which the power of deposing had that accession to fortifie it by , it can never be recalled nor prescribed against . it is true there were many ambassadors from princes there : but they were all such as either held their dominions by the popes grant , or had been either deposed by him , or threatned with depositions , or were the children of those whom he had deposed . so no wonder they stood in such fear of the pope , that they durst not refuse to consent to every thing he had a mind to . for indeed this council did only give their placet to a paper of decrees penned by the pope . henry called the greek emperor , brother to baldwin , that had seized on constantinople , had no other title to it besides the popes gift . frederick the 2d . who had been the popes ward , was then the elect emperor of germany , made so at the popes instance , who had deposed the two immediately preceding emperours , philip and otho the 4th . the last being at that time alive ; so that he durst not contradict the pope , lest he should have set up otho against him . but no emperor , except henry the 4th , ever suffered more from the popes tyranny , than he did afterwards . one sad instance of it was , that the pope having pressed his march to the holy-land much , did at last excommunicate him for his delays : upon which , he to avoid further censures , carried an army thither : which was so succesful , that the pope who hoped he should have been destroyed in the expedition , ( as the first emperor of that name was ) now being vexed at his success , complained that he should have presumed to go thither , while he lay under excommunication , and was in rebellion against him ; and went about not only to dethrone him , but to get him to be betrayed by the knights hospitallers , and templers , into the sultans hands , who abominating that treachery , revealed it to him . iohn of brenne had the kingdom of ierusalem by that same popes gift , who took it from almeric king of cyprus , and gave it him ; but almeric had no cause to complain , since he held cyprus only by the same copy of the popes gift : so they both were at the popes mercy . our iohn of england was his vassal , as he usually called him ; but his successour went higher , calling the king of england not only his vassal , but his slave ; and declared that at his beck he could procure him to be imprisoned , and disgraced . iames king of arragon , who was also the popes ward , had no less reason to be afraid of the pope , who had deposed his father for assisting the count of tholouse . philip augustus king of france , had his kingdom twice put under an interdict , worse things being also threatned . the like threatnings had been made to andrew king of hungary , but upon his submission he was received into favour . and now is it any wonder , that those princes gave way to such a decree , when they knew not how to help themselves by opposing it , which would have raised a storm , that they could not hope to weather ? anothet thing is remarkable concerning this time , by which the belief of the deposing doctrine in that age will better appear . other princes whom popes had deposed , procured some civilians to write for them ; and got synods of bishops sometimes on their side against the pope . because it was evident the pope proceeded not upon the account of heresie , but of private spite and hatred . but in the case of the count of tholouse , who was a manifest favourer of that , which was esteemed heresie , ( the opinions of the albigenses that were his subjects ) not a writer in all that age durst undertake to defend his cause , nor could he procure one bishop to be of his side . so universally was it received , that in the case of heresie , a prince might be deposed by the pope . the 3d general council that confirmed this power , was the council of lions , held by innocent the 4th against the forementioned frederick the 2d , where ( as the sentence bears ) the pope having consulted with his brethren and the holy council , being christs vicar on earth , to whom it was said in the person of st. peter , whatsoever ye bind on earth , &c. declares the emperor bound in his sins , and thereupon deprived by god of his dominions . whereupon he by his sentence does depose him , and absolves all from their oaths of fidellty to him . straitly charging all persons , to acknowledge him no more either emperor or king. declaring all that did otherwise , excommunicated ipso facto . there are in this process several things very remarkable . it is grounded on a pretence to a divine tradition ; so here the whole council concur with the pope , in asserting this power to flow from that conveyance . and thus either that tradition is true , or the councils are not to be believed when they declare a tradition . 2ly . tho this is but a decree in one particular instance , yet it is founded on the general rule ; and so is a confirmation of it , by which it is put out of doubt that the 4th council of lateran included soveraign princes within their decree . 3ly , when the emperors advocate appeared to plead for him ; he did not at all except to their jurisdiction over him , or power of deposing in the case of heresie , but denyed that the emperor was guilty of the crimes objected , namely heresie , whereby he , at least , waved the denial of their power in that case . he also desired some time might be granted for the emperor to appear and plead for himself in person . whereby he plainly acknowledged their jurisdiction . 4ly when the ambassadors of france and england , interceded that the emperors desire might be granted ; the council gave him near two weeks time to appear in : which was so incompetent a time , and all had declared themselves so prepossest , or rather so overawed by the pope that hated him mortally ; that the emperor would not appear because they were his professed adversaries . and upon that , and other grounds ( none of them touching on the power of deposing in cases of heresie ) he appealed from them , to the next general council ; upon which the pope and prelates sitting in council , with candles burning in their hands , thundred out the sentence against him . here were three very publick judgments , of three general councils on this head , within the compass of sixty years . but it may be imagined , these were councils that wholly depended on the pope ; and so their decrees are to be looked on , only as a ceremony used by the pope to make his own sentence look more solemn . but when upon the long schism in the see of rome , the power of that see was much shaken , and a council met at constance to heal that breach ; in which the bishops taking advantage from that conjuncture , to recover their former dignity , began to regulate many matters . it may be , upon such an occasion , expected , that if any party in the church had disliked these practices , they should have been now condemned ; and that the rather , since by so doing , the bishops might have hoped to get the princes to be of their side , in their contests with the pope . but it fell out quite otherwise . for as the murtherers of his late sacred majesty pretended , when the king was killed , that all his power was devolved on them , and would have even the same precedence allowed their ambassadors in forreign parts , that his had : so the council of constance reckoned , that whatever rights the popes had assumed , did now rest with them , as the supreme power of the church . for in one of their sessions , a decree was framed , made up of all the severe decrees that had ever been made against those who violated the rights of the church : and this clause often returns , that all the breakers of these priviledges , whether they were emperors , kings , or whatsoever other degree , were thereby , ipso facto , subjected to the b●…nns , punishments , and censures set down in the council of lateran . and tho they do not call it the fourth council , yet we are sure it could be no other ; for they relate to that in which frederick the 2d . was consenting to which was the fourth in the lateran and in another decree , by which they hoped to have set up a succession of general councils , at evety ten years end ; this clause is added , that if any person , whether of the papal ( for they had subjected the pope to the council , and had more reason to fear his opposing this decree , than any bodies else ) imperial or regal dignity , &c. should presume to hinder any to come to the next general council , he is declared to be first excommunicated , then under an interdict , and then to be subject to further punishment both temporal and spiritual . and in the pass they gave the king of the romans , to go to the king of arragon , they add this sanction , that whatever person , whether king , cardinal , &c. do hinder him in his iourney , he is ipso facto , deprived of all honour , dignity , office , or benefice , whether ecclesiastical or secular . so here the indirect power over princes , by which they may be both deposed and punished , is plainly assumed . it is true that same council did indeed decree , that no subject should murther his king or prince ; upon which some of our english and irish writers , who condemn these practices , think they have great advantages . that decree was procured by gersons means , who observing that by the many rebellions that had been generally set on by popes , the persons of princes were brought under such contempt , that private assassinations came to be practised : and in particular that of the duke of orleance by the duke of burgundy . therefore to prevent the fatal consequer ces which were like to follow on that , and to hinder such practices for the future , he with great earnestness followed that matter : and tho it had almost cost him his life ( it is like from some of the duke of orleance his faction , who were resolved on a revenge ) yet at last he procured it : but this was only a condemnation of private cut-throats . and the article condemned had a pretty reservation in it , for it strikes only against subjects killing their prince , without waiting for the sentence of any iudg whatsoever . so if a sentence be past by the spiritual judg , then this condemnation notwithstanding , a prince may be murthered . and the other decree of that council passed in the same session , shew they had no mind to part with the deposing power . besides the answer to this decree is clear . it is acknowledged by the defenders of the contrary opinion , that it is not lawful in any case to kill a king ; but when one that was a king is no more such , but becomes a rebel and an usurper , then it is lawful to kill him . pursuant to the decree made at constance , a council met at siena ten years after , in which all the former decrees made against hereticks are confirmed , and the favourers or fautors of heresie are delared liable to all the pains and censures of hereticks , and by consequence to the chief of them all , deposition . after that came the council of basil , which ratified the forementioned decree made at constance about general councils . by which popes , emperors , kings , &c. that presumed to hinder any from coming to the council , are subjected to excommunication , interdicts and other punishments spiritual and temporal . last of all came the council of trent , and tho met ters were at that pass , that the council durst not tread on princes , as others had formerly done , lest they should have been thereby provoked to join with the protestants ; yet they would not quite lay aside the pretence of a deposing power , but resolved to couch it so into some decree , that it might continue their claim to a right , which they would not part with , tho they knew not at that time what to make of it . so in the decree against duels , they declare , that if any emperors , kings , &c. did assign a field for a combat , that they did thereby lose their right to that place , and the city , castle , or other places about it . now it is certain , if by their decrees a prince may forfeit any part of his dominion , he may be also dispossessed of all the rest ; since his title to his whole territory being one individual thing , what shakes it in any part , subjects it entirely to him who has such authority over it . here we have found 7 general councils , as they are esteemed by that church , all either expresly asserting the deposing power , or ratifying former decrees that had asserted it . and from such a succession of councils , it is reasonable to conclude , that this third character of a tradition of the church agrees to it ; and if general councils are fit conveyors of traditions , we have as full evidence as can be desired , for proving this to be a church-tradition . this last character of a tradition is what the whole body of the church has held in any one age. upon which , they say , we may calculate that such opinions must have come down from the apostles , since it seems neither credible nor possible , that the belief of the church could be changed . with this arnold has of late made great noise . and as the new fashions that come from france do please our young gallants best , so some of the writers of controversies among us have taken up the same plea here . that the whole church received the deposing doctrine in cases of heresy , may be inferred from what had been said . the church is made up of popes , bishops , & priests : of soveraign princes , and subjects of all ranks . that the popes believed it , none can doubt . so many definitions of councils , shews us as plainly what the bishops and other prelates believed : the writing of the schoolmen and canonists shew , what the rest of the clergy believed . those princes who suffered under the sentences , give at least a tacit consent to it , since they never question it , but study only to clear themselves of the imputation of heresie . the other princes who made use of the donations of the popes , shew as plainly that they believ'd it . the great armies that were brought about their standards , must have also believed it : and the people who generally deserted the deposed prince , notwithstanding the great vertues of some of them , and the love that subjects naturally carry to their princes , shew that they believed it . so that if st. iames his question , shew me thy faith by thy works , be applied to this particular , the answer will be easie . what shall i mention the frequent depositions of charles the 1st , of henry the 4th , of his son henry the 5th , of frederick the 1st , philip , otho the 4th , frederick the 2d , and lewis the 4th in the empire . the frequent depositions in sicily and naples ; the many attempts upon france ; that terrible bull in particular of iulius the 2d , against that good king lewis the twelfth . by which , besides the sentence against the king , it appears he designed the total destruction of the nation , promising the pardon of sin to every one that killed one french man ; the frequent attempts upon england , both in hen. the 2d , and k. iohn's time ; not to mention their later bulls of deposition against k. henry the 8th , and q. elizabeth ; the many attempts in spain ; particularly , the deposing the king of navarre by p. iulius ; and the sentences against henry the 4th , then king of navarre , and the prince of conde . all these , and a great many more , with the strange effects that followed upon them , are so clear proofs of the worlds believing this doctrine , for many ages together , that if men had any remainders of shame left with them , they could not deny it . and to this day all their writers maintain it , tho perhaps now the greatest part of the laity know little of it ; but whenever the tradition of the church is laid before them , they are obliged to submit , or they fall from the catholick faith , the chief branch of which is , to believe all the traditions of the church . and since the church is the same in all ages , according to their doctrine , the traditions of any one age must be as good as the traditions of any other can be , all being grounded on the same authority . and now let all the reasons that arnold brings to prove , from the churches believing transubstantiation in any age , that she must have always believed it , be considered , and applied with a small variation of the terms to this purpose ; and we shall see if they conclude not as strongly in favour of this doctrine , as for that which he has pursued so much . how can it be imagined , says he ▪ that a doctrine so contrary to common sence and reason , could have been so universally received , if every man had not been taught it by those who instructed him in the faith ? will men easily change their faith ? or , tho particular persons would prevaricate , would the whole clergy conspire to do it ? or would the people take it easily off their hands . these and many more topicks of that sort may be so mustered up , and set off by a man of wit and eloquence , that an ordinary person would stare , and not know what to say . the premises will shew , that there is need but of very little art to change the same plea , and fit it to this purpose , with two great advantages beyond what can be fanci'd to be in the other . the one is , that the generality of mankind is naturally more concerned in the preservation of temporal things , than about nice points of speculation ; the one they see and handle every day , and are much concerned about ; the other they hear little of , and are not much touched with them . so that it is less probable there could be a change made in opinions , on which the titles of princes , and the peace of kingdoms depended , than about subtil discourses concerning mysteries . so that the plea is stronger for the tradition of deposing kings , than for transubstantiation . a second difference is , that there was a continual opposition made to the belief of transubstantiation in all ages , which they themselves do not deny , only they shift it off the best they can , by calling the opposers hereticks ; but for the deposing doctrine , there was not one person in the whole world , that presumed to bring it in question , from the first time it was pretended to , till those whom they call hereticks disputed against it ; and tho some few others , who hold communion with them , have ventured on a canvasing of that doctrine , it is well enough known what thanks they got from rome ; nor can they shew any one book , licensed according to the rules of their church , that denies it . and thus the plea for this doctrine has a double advantage beyond that for transubstantiation . upon the whole matter then , if tradition be a sure conveyance , and if we may pronounce what is truly a tradition , either from the opinions of doctors , the constitutions of popes , the decrees of general councils , and the universal consent of the whole church for some ages ; then the doctrine of deposing kings , to which all these agree , must be reckoned among church-traditions . there is but one other mark that can be devised of a tradition , which is , what the church has taught and believed in all ages ; but for a certain reason , which they know very well , they will not stand to that . they know we do not refuse such traditions , and if only such may be received , then the worship of images , the prayers to saints , the worship in an unknown tongue , the belief of transubstantiation , the sacrifice of the mass , the denying the chalice to the laity , the redeeming souls out of purgatory , with many other things of the like nature , will be soon taken off of the file . and indeed in this sence , the deposing doctrine is so far from being a tradition , that we have as undeniable evidences , that the church for the first six ages knew nothing of it , but on the contrary abhorred the thoughts of it , as we have , that their church these last six ages has set it up : from which , among many other reasons , we conclude , that these latter ages have not been acted with the same spirit , nor followed the same doctrine , that was the rule of the former ages . there is more than enough said to shew , that these doctrines are a part of their faith ; from which they can never extricate themselves , but by confessing , either that their church has erred , or that tradition is no true conveyance ; when they do either of these , they turn their backs on rome , and are in a fair away to come over to our church , with which purpose i pray god inspire them . the mean while , it is no wonder , if those of that communion , have been guilty of such horrid plots and rebellions every where , especially in england , since henry the 8th's time . there was in his reign , first a rebellion in lincolnshire , another greater one in the north , and some lesser ones after that ▪ in edward the 6th's time , there were risings , both in the north , and in the west . but these succeeded so ill , and turned only to the ruine of their own party , that they resolved to try secreter ways in queen elizabeth's time ; in whose long and blessed reign , there scarce passed one year in which there was not some plot against her life . there was not matter enough to work upon , for raising any considerable rebellion in england : but in ireland , there were more frequent attempts that way . it is true , the care and providence of god was too hard for all their plots , how closely soever laid ; and they were turned back on themselves , not so much to the ruine of the chief plotters ( who were wise enough to conveigh themselves out of the way ) as of many noble families , that were poysoned with their ill principles . all the blood which the state was forced to shed , lies at their door , who were continually giving fresh provocations . and for king iames ( not to mention the conspiracies against him in scotland , nor that plot of cobham and watson , upon his first coming to this crown ) the gun-powder treason was a thing that went beyond all the wicked designs that had been ever in any age contrived . and when his late majesty was embroiled in his affairs in this island , how did they take advantage from that conjuncture , to break out into a most horrid rebellion in ireland , joyned with a massacre of persons of whatsoever age , or sex , or condition ? which was so far set on by rome , that a nuncio came publickly to direct their councils . i will not dwell on particulars that are suffciently known , but only name these things , to shew , that no reign of any of our princes , since the reformation , has been free from the dismal effects of these doctrines . and for his sacred majesty who now reigns , ( whom god long preserve from their malice ) they have felt such signal marks of his royal clemency , that they can have no colour to complain , except it be , because they cannot bear any office in the nation . for what noise soever they make , of the severe laws yet in force , both against the clergy and laity of their religion , they cannot pretend that since his majesties happy restauration , any priest has died , or any family has been ruined for their religion . but i confess , it is enough , according to the doctrine of their church , to discharge them of their allegiance , that the king is a favourer of heresy ; and if upon this reason they will still plot and conspire against his person and government , we have no reason to wonder at it , for they act according to their principles . nor have these islands been the only scenes , in which those principles have produced such dismal effects . if we look abroad and reflect on what was done in france , we shall find , they have had the same operation there . i need not mention that perfidious and cruel massacre , that as thuanus tells us was so much extolled in rome and spain : and of which the pope has a memorial kept in the hangings , at the entrance of his chappel , to this day . the barricadoes of paris , the design of deposing henry the 3d , only because he had made pe●…ce with the king of navarre , and the prince of conde ; the whole progress of the holy league ; their taking arms against that king , when the duke and cardinal of guise were killed by his orders , and at last his being stabbed by clement , a dominican friar , are instances beyond exception . the prosecution of the rebellion against henry the 4th , the attempt made upon his person by iohn chastel , which was more successful in ravilliack's hands , shew sufficiently , that a princes turning from that , which they call heresie , over to their church , does not secure him , unless he will extirpate hereticks . for tho henry the 4th changed his religion , yet the favour he shewed the protestants , in the edict of nantes , was a thing never to be forgiven . these things were set on and encouraged from rome , and pleaded for by their writers . that the holy league was authorized from rome , that sixtus the 5th , by his bulls , declared the king of navar incapable of the succession ; that he intended to have deposed henry the 3d , and that he rejoyced at his death , and magnified the fact ; preferring it to eleazar's killing the elephant , and iudeth's killing hollofernes , and ascribed it to a singular providence and disposition of the almighty ; called it a great miracle , and appeared vain that a friar had done it , having been one himself , ( tho no doubt he had liked it better , if clement had been of his own sute ) and would have had himself thought a prophet for foretelling it , ( and so he might well do perhaps ) : and in the end concluded , that unfortunate kings favouring hereticks , to be the unpardonable sin against the holy ghost : these were all so publickly done , that it were a needless labour , to go about the proving them . francis veronne wrote a book , to justify both the facts of clement the dominican , and chastel , ( as well he might from the principles of their church ) . after all these dismal facts , was it not time for the states of france , to think of some effectual remedy , to prevent the like for the future ? and they judged aright , that without condemning the deposing power , it could not be done : to which , as was already hinted , the clergy made such vigorous opposition , that it came to nothing . if these things had flowed only from the heat of some violent spirits , the danger were not so great ; but it is the doctrine of their church , so lessius ( under the name of singletonus ) says , that if the power of deposing lies not in the pope , the church must of necessity err , which has taught it ; and to assert that , is heretical , and a more intollerable error , than any about the sacrament can be . and becanus , confessor to ferdinand the 2d , says , no man doubts , but if princes are contumacious , the pope may order their lives to be taken away . what security then can there be found out from persons , who give up their consciences to the conduct of men of such principles ; and profess an implicite obedience and belief of all that their church teaches and commands , which possesses all its votaries with such cursed rage against hereticks , that not content to adjudg them to eternal flames in another life , they must needs persecute and burn without mercy where they have the power in their hands ; and plot and conspire , kill and massacre without relenting , where they have not power to do it with any colour of law ? men of honour will not be easily drawn in to such practices . but in conclusion , when a fit opportunity appears , they must either forsake their church , or concur in the most mischievous designs , that the masters of their consciences will draw them into ; which i pray god make them see in good time , before they are involved in such snares , that repentance will come too late to do them good , or to preserve the nation from those miseries that they will bring upon it . finis . the unreasonableness and impiety of popery : in a second letter written upon the discovery of the late plot . imprimatur c. alston , nov. 12. 1678. london , printed for r. chiswell , at the rose and crown in st. paul's church-yard , 1678. the unreasonableness and impiety of popery , in a second letter written upon the discovery of the late plot . sir , you are pleased to tell me that my last letter has had some good effect ; and that many who were before carried away with the false colours of the romish religion , are now a little awakned , and seem not unwilling to examin things , which they took formerly upon trust : and therefore you desire me , since you are not master of so much spare time your self , to set down the most material and convincing reasons , and in as few words as may be , that are most likely to open the eyes of honest and simple persons , that have been hitherto misled , and are now willing to be instructed . in all such cases i first consider the temper of the persons to be dealt with : such as take up their religion out of interest or humour , and think it point of honour to continue in it , and so will examine nothing are not to be spoken to . others that are naturally superstitious and credulous , are very hard to be wrought on ; for they believe every thing that is said on the one hand , and distrust all that is told them by any body else . some of those have a vanity in coming to talk with divines , but it is an endless labour to deal with them ; for at every time one must begin of new . but the only persons to be dealt with , are those that are sincere and inquisitive , that having been bred in that religion , or brought over to it by some specious pretences , are now willing to hear reason , and resolved to follow it wherever they find it . and therefore in the first place , their minds must be disingaged from these unjust prejudices , that they conceive of our religion : and such just prejudices must be offered them against the romish religion , as may at least beget in them some jealousies concerning it , by which they may be brought so far , as to think the matter suspicious . if then there be such reasons offered them , for susspecting foul dealing from their priests and church , as would make them suspect an attorney , physician , or any other person with whom they were to deal , they will be prepared to hear reason ; which is all that we desire : and upon this head these following considerations may be laid before them . 1. all people that pretend to great power and dominion over our consciences , are justly to be suspected . if any man designed to make himself master of any of our other liberties , we would examine his title , and suspect all his other motions , when we see they tend to subject us to him : therefore a church that designs to keep all her votaries under an absolute obedience , is justly to be suspected : and our church that pretends to no such power , is more likely to deal fairly . 2. a church that designs to keep her members in ignorance , is more to be suspected , than a church that brings every thing to a fair trial. a church that denies the use of the scriptures in a known tongue , except to a few , and wraps up their worship in a language that is not understood , is reasonably to be suspected , more than a church that gives the free use of the scriptures to all persons , and worships god in a language , which the people understand . 3. a church whose opinions tend to engross the riches of the world to its officers , is more to be suspected , than a church that pretends to nothing but a competent maintenance of the several officers in it . the redeeming souls out of purgatory , and the enriching the shrines , or reliques of saints , pardons , jubilees , and many more tenets of the church of rome , are so calculated for enriching their societies ; that every cautious man must needs suspect some design in it : which he cannot charge on a church that has none of these arts to get money . 4. a church that has carried on its designs , by the most dishonest methods possible , the forging of writings , and deeds , of miracles , visions , prophesies and other things of that nature , is more justly to be suspected , than a church that cannot be charged with any such practices . the forging so many epistles for the popes of the first ages , which are now by themselves confest to be spurious , with many other forgeries , were the engines by which the papal power was chiefly advanced . the legends and extravagant fables of which they are now ashamed , were the chief motives of devotion for many ages . and by these , saints and images were so much magnified , and monasteries so enriched . a noted liar after a discovery is no more to be trusted . 5. any that considers the present state of rome , the manner of electing popes , the practices of that court , and the maximes they move by , must see that every thing there is secular , corrupt , and at best directed by rules of policy . but to fansie the holy ghost can come upon any election so managed , as their own books shew that is , is the most unreasonable thing that can be devised . therefore a church that neither pretends so high , nor can be charged with such proceedings , is more likely to be the true church . 6. a church that teaches cruelty against poor innocent people , that differ in opinion ; and sets on plots , conspiracies , and rebellion against princes , that are judged hereticks , is more likely to be corrupted , than a church that is so merciful , as to condemn all capital proceedings for difference of opinion , and teaches an absolute submission to the soveraign power , even when it persecutes and oppresses them . 7. a church that is false to her own principles , is not so likely to instruct her members aright , as a church that is in all things consistent to her self . the great foundation of their doctrine , is , that there must be a speaking judg to decide all controversies : now they have no such judg , for it is not of faith , that the pope is this judg , or is infallible : and for a general council , they have had none these 112. years , nor are they like to see another in hast . so they have no speaking infallible judg among them . and thus they deceive people by a false pretence : whereas we appeal to nothing , but what we really have among us , which are the scriptures . 8. a church that appeals to marks , which are not possible to be searcht out , is more likely to mislead people , than a church that pretends to nothing but what can be certainly proved . the great thing they appeal to is the constant succession of the bishops of rome , and their other pastors . this cannot be known , no not by a probable conjecture . but there are on the contrary , as great grounds for history to deny it in the see of rome , as in any other ancient see whatsoever : but though they have it , both the greek church , and our church has it likewise . these are such plain things , and the truth of them is so notoriously known , that i should ask any of that communion , whether upon the like reasons he would not be jealous of any person or sort of persons whatsoever ? and if these grounds of jealousie would work in other matters , it is much more reasonable , that they should take place in matters of religion ; in which as an error is of far greater importance ; so impostors in all ages have studied to make gain by religion . therefore it is most just upon these violent presumptions , to look about us , and take care we be not cheated . but before i would descend to particulars , there is one general prejudice that works most universally , on weaker minds to be removed , which is , that the true church cannot erre . if then it be made appear unanswerably , that the true church may erre , and that in a most weighty point , all these arguments fall to the ground . that the church of ▪ the iews , in our saviours days was the true church , cannot be denied ; for our saviour owned it to be such . he joyned with them in their worship , he sent the lepers to the priest , he commanded them to hear the doctors that sate in moses chair , and himself acknowledged the high priest. this is sufficient to prove that it was the true church , and yet this church erred , in a most important point , whether jesus christ was the true messias , in whom the prophecies were fulfilled or not ? they judged falsly : the high priests with all the sanhedrim , declared him a blasphemer , and condemned him guilty of death . here the true church expounds the scriptures falsly , and erred in the foundation of religion . and it is well known , that the chief arguments which they of the romish party bring to prove , that a church cannot err , do agree as well to the iewish , as the christian church : the one being the true church , under that dispensation , as well as the other is now . if then this decision made by the true church in christs time , did not oblige all in that church , to go on in that error , but private persons might have examined their sentence , and depart from them upon it ; then upon the same reasons , though we acknowledge the church of rome a true church , yet we may examine her doctrines , and separate from her errors . this grand prejudice being thus removed , there are two things in the next place to be laid before them . one is , that the scriptures , being acknowledged to come from divine inspiration , on all hands , can only decide the controversies among us : and the places i shall make use of , shall be cited according to the doway translation , to which , being made by themselves , they cannot except . another is , that a man must judg of things as they appear plainly to his reasonable faculties . it is against all reason to say that because it is possible for a man to be mistaken , therefore he ought to doubt his judgment in things that are clear to him . this must turn a man sceptical both to all religions , and all the concerns of human life : therefore every man must follow his judgment , when after a diligent inquiry , any thing appears plain to him . and now to come up close to those of that perswasion , they are to consider , that the chief parts of religion are , first , articles of faith : secondly , rules of life : thirdly , the worship of god chiefly in the sacraments : and fourthly , the government of the church . if then in every one of these heads , the church of england agrees clearly with the scriptures , and the church of rome does either manifestly contradict them , or differs matterially from them , in all these points , in which we and they differ ; then the resolution of the question , whether a man ought to joyn himself to our church , or theirs ? will be easily made . for articles of faith , if either the apostles creed or the creeds of the first 4. general councils , contain a just abstract of the faith ; then we who receive every article in these creeds , do agree more exactly to the apostolical doctrine , than they who have added many new articles to their creed . the chief article of faith , is , the covenant made between god and man through iesus christ , by which upon the account of his merits and intercession , all who follow the rules of the gospel , may expect the blessings of it , both here , and hereafter . pennance toward god , and faith towards our lord iesus christ , being the conditions upon which we hope for eternal life . this we plainly teach , without addition or change : but in how many things have they departed from this simplicity of the gospel ? first , in teaching people to address to god , for the merits and by the intercession of the saints : from whom these things are asked , for which the scriptures direct us only to god and christ. and in the very words pronounced after absolution , the merits of the blessed virgin and the saints , are joined with the passion of christ ; as the grounds on which we obtain pardon of sin , grace , and eternal life . secondly , in perswading people , that a simple attrition with the use of the sacraments , without any real conversion of the soul or change of life , is sufficient to salvation . thirdly , in perswading people , that there is a communication of the merits of saints to other persons , though the scriptures mention only the communication of christs merits . fourthly , by teaching that tho our sins are pardoned thorough christ ; yet , there are terrible and long lasting torments to be endured in another state. f●●tly , that saying masses , and going of pilgrimages can redeem from these . now in all these , the two chief designs of the gospel are plainly contradicted : which be ; first , to change our hearts and lives : secondly , to perswade us to a humble dependance upon christ , and an high acknowledgment of him : but these doctrines of theirs as they shew us a way to be sure of heaven , without a real conversion ; so they take off so much from faith in christ as they carry us to trust to somewhat else . these are errors of great importance : since they corrupt the fountain , and overthrow the chief design of the christian religion . they are also late devices brought in , in the dark and ignorant ages . no mention is made of praying to saints , in any ancient liturgie . there is a great deal against it in the most ancient authors . and though in the fourth century , upon the conversion of many heathens to the christian faith , to humour them in their conceit , of some intermedial agents , between the divinity and us mortals , there was a reverence for the saints set up , to deive out the worship of those secondary deities ; yet , this was no direct adoration , though they then began to use rhetorical addresses to saints like prayers : yet , even in gregory the great his time ( in the beginning of the seventh century ) we find no prayers made to them in all his liturgies . and for the belief of a simple attrition being sufficient with the sacrament , no body ever dreamed of it , before the schoolmen found out the distinction , between attrition and contrition in the later ages . for the communication of the merits of saints , the whole fathers in one voice , speak only of the merits of christ being communicate to us . the fryers first invented it , to invite people at least to die in their habits , by perswading them , that all the merits of the saints of their order , were shared among the whole order . and for redeeming out of purgatory , the first four ages knew nothing of it . in the beginning of the fifth century st. austin plainly speaks of it as an opinion which some had taken up without any ground , and that it was no way certain , nor could we ever be sure of it . and though in gregory the great 's time , the belief of it was pretty far advanced ; yet , the trade of redeeming out of it , by saying masses for departed souls was not even then found out . so that all these are both gross errors , and late inventions . the next branch of religion , is the rule of human life : which one would think could be taken from no other standard so certainly , as the 10. commandments : and the expositions given of these in scripture , chiefly our saviours sermon on the mount. let malice it self appear , to declare wherein our church strikes at any of these : or teaches men to disobey even the least of them . if then our rule of life be exactly the same ; with that which the scriptures prescribe , we are safe as to this , which may be well called , the most important piece of religion . for it is to be considered that god making man after his own image , the end of his creation was , that he might be made like god. the attributes of god to be imitated , are goodness , mercy , justice , wisdom and truth . and it is certain that the design of revealed religion was to give men clearer notions of these moral perfections , to press them by stronger arguments , and encourage our endeavours by suitable rewards and punishments . so that if any religion contradict these moral duties , we are sure it is false ; for the revelation of god's will must be designed to make us better than we would otherwise be , following barely the light of nature , and not worse . if then the church of rome over-throws morality , and contradicts any of the ten commandments we are sure it is not of god. and how far it has done this , they may judge by these particulars . first , whatever church offers cheap and easie pardons for sin , does take off so much from our sense of the evil of sin . we cannot have a very ill opinion of any thing that is easily forgiven . now what are the popes pardons , indulgences , jubilees , priviledged altars , the going of pilgrimages , the saying of some collects , the wearing of agnus dei's , peebles , or other such like trash , but so many engines to root out of mens minds any deep horrour or great sense of sin . is not this the very thing which the people of the iews of old offered at , to bring thousands of rams , ten thousand rivers of oyl , their first born , or the fruit of their body , to offer for their sins ? all which were rejected in the name of god in these words , i will shew thee o man what is good , and what our lord requireth of thee : verily to do iudgment , and to love mercy , and to walk solicitous with thy god. this is a moral matter and unchangable ; therefore whoever go to beat down the sense of sin , by the offer of pardon , on any other terms , but the sincere change of a mans life , destroy morallity , which is the image of god in man. if from this general consideration we descend to examine the commandments in particular , we shall find matter enough for a severe charge against their church . is not the first commandment broken when devotions are offered to saints which import their being omniscient ; omnipresent and almighty ; that are the incommunicable attributes of the god-head : and when pardon of sin , preservation , grace against temptations , and eternal life , are immediately begged from saints . it is true , they say the sence of these prayers , is only that we desire their assistance at gods hands for these blessings . but the words of their offices import no such matter . and though for above one hundred and sixty years these things have been complained of ; and in the correction of their offices , some of them were cast out ; yet , many of them do still continue : in which the plain sence of the words of their offices is idolatrous : only they make a shift with another and forced sence put on them , to defend themselves from that charge . and for such devotions they can shew no warrant for the first thousand years after christ. the second commandment is so openly and confessedly broken by them , that many of them maintain , it does not all oblige christians : but belonged only to the jewish dispensation . and in all their catechisms it is left out , which was done very wisely ; ( with what honesty let them answer ) for it was not fit the people should look on that as a commandment , which they saw so notoriously broken throughout their whole church : a great trade being also driven by the breach of it . that this was not in the primitive church , themselves confess : all the books the fathers wrote against the idolatry of the heathens , demonstrate this . nor were images so much as set up in churches before the sixth century . and then care was taken that they should not be worshipped : and not before the eighth century were they worshipped in any place of the christian church . the doctrine of the popes power of relaxing of oaths , and discharging men from the obligation of them , joyned with the practice of their popes for above 800 years , is as formal an opposition to the third commandment as can be imagined . this was also begun in the eighth century . the vast multiplication of holy-days , made the observation of the lords day of necessity slacken . they have destroyed the order of societies , established in the fifth commandment ; by the power they allow the pope to depose princes , and absolve subjects from their alleageance . they teach the murdering and burning all hereticks , that is to say , all that will not submit to their tyranny : by which infinite numbers of innocent persons have been murdered , against the sixth commandment . and these two doctrines of deposing princes , and putting hereticks to death , were abhorred by the church for the first eight ages , and were brought in by the popes since that time . the frequent practice of the court of rome , in granting divorces , on the pretence either of spiritual kindred , or of degrees not forbidden , either by the law of nature , or the word of god , and allowing second marriages to both parties , upon such divorces , is an avowed breach of the seventh commandment . the setting on , some princes to invade other princes in their just rights , is the doctrine , as well as it has been the practice of their church for some ages . and as their popes have wrested many territories from temporal princes , so for many ages they set on publick robbery against the eighth commandment . the doctrine of equivocating , both taught , and practised , the breaking of safe conducts , and publick faith decreed by their , general councils , is also against the ninth commandment . for the tenth i shall say nothing of it , because the meaning of it is not so generally agreed on . but thus we see all the rules of morality are contradicted by that church . it might be justly added to swell up this charge ; that of late there have been doctrines published to the world by the approved casuists of that church , with licence , which subvert all justice , destroy all security , and take away the most sacred ties of mankind . by the doctrines of probability , and of ordering the intention aright , there is no crime how black soever , but a man may adventure on it with a good conscience . these things were long and openly taught amongst them , without any censure . and when many of the french clergy complained of these at the court of rome ( perhaps more out of spite to the jesuits , than zeal for the truth ) it was long before these so just remonstrances , were heard . and in conclusion a trifling censure was past on them : by which they were declared scandalous ( neither impious , nor wicked ) and all were forbidden to teach them any more , but they stand yet , in the books formerly published with licence . after all these particulars , is it to be wondered at , if the morals of the men of that church be vitiated , when their doctrine is so corrupted , for peoples practices are generally worse than their opinions . and thus the second point is made good , that in our church , we teach the same rules of living that are in the scriptures , which are grosly corrupted by their doctrines . the third branch of the christian religion is the worship of god and that chiefly the use of the sacraments . for the worship of god , let it be considered that we pray to god , and praise him only , for all these things about which the scriptures command us to address to him . our worship is in a language that all the people understand , and so are edified by it according to st. paul , who has enlarged so much on this matter , in a whole chapter , that it is strange , how any who acknowledg the authority of that epistle , can deny it . our liturgies are such , that the romanists cannot except to any part of them : our ceremonies are few , and these be both decent and useful : so that in all the parts of our worship , we do so exactly agree to the rule of the scriptures , and the primitive church , that they cannot blame us for any one rubrick or collect in it . but for their worship , it is in a language not understood by the people : who to be sure can receive no edification , from that they understand not ; nor can they say amen to such devotions . this is as it were in spite to st. paul , who took special care that as long as his authority was in any esteem in the church , such an abuse should never creep into it . nor is there a shadow of authority for such a practice , from the primitive church , in which for many ages , the worship was still in the vulgar tongues . next their worship is so overcharged with many rites and ceremonies , that the seriousness of devotion must needs be much alloyed by them . a great part of the worship is so whispered , as if they were muttering spells . their books of exorcisms are the most indecent things that can be : full of charms and other ridiculous rites . and for the pontifical and ceremonial of their church , they may match with heathenism for superstition . their offices are so various , and numerous , and the rubricks seem so full of disorder , that a man may as soon learn a trade , as know all the several parts of them . how this can be reconciled to the simplicity of the gospel , or the worshipping god in spirit and truth , may be easily judged by those who can compare things . for the sacraments , we have the two that christ instituted , baptism , and the lords supper ; and for pennance , confirmation , ordination and marriage , we have them also among us , as they were appointed by christ and his apostles : though we do not call these sacraments . for extream unction we find no warrant at all for it , as a sacred ordinance : and we are sure the church for many ages did not think of it . for baptism it is done among us , in the very form our saviour appointed : and this they do not deny . but among them they cannot be assured that they are at all baptized : since according to the doctrine of the necessity of the intention of the priest , to the being of a sacrament , they cannot be assured of it : for an atheistical priest can spoil their baptism , so that unless they can be certain of that , which is impossible for them to know , i mean the intention of the priest , they are not sure that they were ever truly baptized . but for the lords supper , if any person will so far trust his own reason and senses , as to compare all the warrants we have in scripture for that ordinance , with the practice of our church and theirs , they will soon see who agree most to them . christ took bread which he blessed and gave , saying , this is my body which is given for you . he also took the chalice and said , drink ye all of it , &c. all this we doe , and no more , so that it is indeed a communion among us : and those who have read the account that iustin martyr gives us of the rites in the communion in his days , would think he were reading the very abstract of our office. but in the church of rome , besides the less material things , of the form of the bread , the consecration of altars and vessels , with the numberless little devices in the canon of the mass , that they seem not of such importance let these considerable changes they have made be looked into . 1. they have brought in the doctrine of transubstantiation , against the clearest evidence both of sense and reason , against the nature of a sacrament , and its being a memorial of christs death , and that by the very words of consecration , the bread and wine are christs body and blood , as the one was given for us , and the other shed for us , on the cross : and not as he is now at the right hand of god. the belief of this crept in by degrees , from the eighth century , in which it was first set on foot , but much contradicted both in the eastern and western church : and was not fully setled till the 13th century . we are sure it was not the doctrine of the churches of rome , constantinople , asia , antioch , nor africk in the 5th and 6th centuries , by express testimonies from the most esteemed authors of that time , gelasius , chrysostom , ephrem , theodoret , and st. austin . 2. they deny the chalice to the laity against the express words of the institution ; and contrary both to the doctrine and tradition of the church for 1300 years . 3. they have declared the priests saying mass , to be an expiatory sacrifice for the dead , and the living , though the scripture plainly says , that christ was once offered for us . it is true the primitive church used the words sacrifice and oblation as our church yet does , but their meaning by that , was only in the general sense of these terms , as prayers , praises , and alms are called sacrifices . 4. they have brought in a new piece of worship , which is the hearing of mass , without receiving the sacrament : and it is now the great devotion of their church . though by the institution , it is as express as can be , that the consecration is only in order to its being a communion . and by the apostolical canons , which some in their church believe to be the work of the apostles , and are by them all acknowledged to be a collection of the rites of the first ages , all persons that were present at the worship , and did not communicate were to be severely censured . 5. the adoring the sacrament , the exposing it on the altar , and carrying it about in solemn processions , to be worshipped , as they are late inventions ; so if transubstantiation be not true , they are by their own confession the grossest idolatries that ever were , and are not these considerable variations from the first institution of this sacrament ? as for their own sacraments , though there is no reason to equal them , to either of these that were instituted by christ ; yet some of them we use , as they were at first appointed . persons baptized , are confirmed with imposition of hands , the only ceremony used by the apostles . we allow the use of confession , and do press it in many cases ; and give the benefit of absolution : but we do not make this an engin to screw peoples secrets from them . for which there is no warrant in scripture ; nor was it thought necessary for many ages after the apostles . confession of publick scandals was enjoyned , and for private sins it was recommended : but this latter was not judged simply necessary for obtaining the pardon of sin . and what noise soever they make of the good that confession , and the enjoyning of pennance , may do , if well managed , we need only appeal to some of their own best writers , now in france , whether as they have been practised , they have not rather driven all true piety out of the world . if these abuses had been only the faults of some priests , the blame could not have been justly cast on their church ; but when the publick rules given to confessors , printed with licence , are their warrants for so doing , then their church is in fault . so that nothing is more common among them , than for persons after a confession made of their sins , with a slight sorrow , and some trifling pennance undergone , together with the priestly absolution , to fancy themselves as clean from all sin , as if they had never offended god. and this being the doctrin of their church , it both lessens the sense of sin , and takes men off from making such earnest applications to god through christ , as the gospel commands . for orders they are among us with the same rites that christ and the apostles gave them first : and a learned man of their own church has lately published the most ancient forms of ordinations he could find : from which it appears , that all the ceremonies in their ordinations , for the want of which they accuse us , were brought in since the eighth century : so that even by their own principles these things cannot be necessary to ordination , otherwise there were no true orders in the church for the first eight ages . for marriage we honour it as gods ordinance ; and since the scriptures declare it honourable in all , without exception , we dare deny it to none who desire it . st. paul delivers the duty of clergy-men towards their wives , with rules for their wives behaviour , which had been very impertinent if clergy-men might have no wives . we find a married clergy in the first ten centuries : and we know by what base arts the caelibate of the clergy was brought in ; and what horrid ill effects it has produced . neither do we allow of any devices to hinder marriage , by degrees of kindred not prohibited in the law of god , or the trade that was long driven in granting dispensations in those degrees , and afterwards annulling these , and avoiding the marriages that followed upon them , upon some pretences of law. thus it appears , how they have corrupted the doctrine of the sacraments , together with the worship of god. the last head of religion is government ; and as to this , we can challenge any to see what they can except to us . first in reference to the civil power , we declare all are bound for conscience sake to obey every lawful command of the supream authority , and to submit when they cannot obey . we pretend to no exemption of clarks from the civil jurisdiction , but give to caesar the things that are caesars . we do not obey the king only because he is of our religion : much less do we allow of conspiracies or rebellions upon our judging him an heretick , so that we deliver no doctrin that can be of any ill consequence to the society we live in . and for the ecclesiastical government we have bishops , priests , and deacons , rightly ordained , and in their due subordination to one another ; every one administring these offices due to his function , which has been the government of the christian church , since the times of the apostles . so that we have a clear vocation of pastors among us , from whose hands every person may without scruple receive all the sacraments of the church . but for the church of rome , how unsafe is the civil government among them ? not to mention the doctrin of deposing princes , for which i refer you to my former letter ; what a security does the exemption of clerks from the civil courts in cases criminal , give to loose and debauched church-men ; and what disturbance must this breed to a common-wealth ? the denying the civil magistrate power to make laws that concern religion , or oblige churchmen , takes away a great deal of his rights ; for scarce any law can be made but wrangling and ill-natur'd churchmen , may draw it within some head of religion . and that this was frequently done in former ages , all that have read history know . the quarrels that were in the beginning of this century between the pope and the republick of venice were a fresh evidence of it . but for the ecclesiastical government , they have spoiled it in all the parts of it . the pope has assumed a power of so vast an extent , and so arbitrary a nature , that all the ancient canons are thrown out of doors by it . we know that originally the bishops of rome were looked on by the rest of the church , as their colleagues and fellow bishops . the dignity of the city made the see more remarkable ; and the belief of st. peters having founded it , with his suffering martrydom there , with st. paul , made it much honoured : so that when the empire became christian , then the dignity of the imperial city made the bishop of rome be acknowledged the first patriarch . from this beginning they arose by many degrees to the height of pretending to a supremacy both civil and spiritual : and then they not only received appeals , which was all they at first pretended to , but set up legantine courts every where , made the bishops swear obedience and homage to them , and the arch-bishops receive the pall from their hands , in sign of their dependance on them : exempted monasteries , and other clarks from episcopal jurisdiction , broke all the laws of the church by their dispensations : so that no shaddow of the primitive government does now remain . and though gregory the great wrote with as much indignation against the title of universal bishop , as ever any protestant did ; yet his successors , have since assumed both the name and thing . and to that height of insolence , has this risen , that in the council of trent , all the papal party opposed the decree that was put in , for declaring bishops to have their jurisdictions by divine right . the court party not being ashamed to affirm , that all jurisdiction was by divine right only in the pope ; and in the other bishops , as the delegates of the apostolick see ; and they were in this too hard for the other party . so that now a bishop , who by the divine appointment ought to feed the flock , can do no more in that , then as the pope gives him leave . the greatest part of the priests have no dependence on their bishops . the monks , fryars , and iesuits , being immediately subordinate to the pope ; so that they do what they please , knowing they can justifie any thing at rome , and they fear no censure any where else . from this so many abuses have crept in , and the canonists have found out , so many devices to make them legal , that there is no hope of reforming these at rome . the whole state of cardinals is one great corruption , who , from being originally the parish priests of rome , and so under all bishops , have raised themselves so high that they do now trample on the whole order ; and pretend to an equality with princes . the giving benefices to children , the unlimitted plurality of benefices in one person ; the comendam's , the reserved pensions , with many other such like , are gross , as well as late corruptions . and no wonder if all men despair of reforming the court of rome , when these abuses are become necessary to it , by which the greatness of the cardinals and the other officers , or ministers there , is kept up . i need not mention the gross simony of that court , where all the world knows , every thing may be had for money . the popes themselves , are often chosen by these arts : and if their own rules be true , such elections , with every thing that follows on them are void . the infinite swarmes of the inferiour clergy , do plainly drive a simoniacal trade , by the masses they say for departed souls , for money . and for publick pennance , they have universally let it fall , in stead whereof private pennance is now in use . and if their own writers say true , this is made an engine to serve other ends , when by enjoyning slight and easie pennances , they draw the people after them ; upon which the jesuites have been loudly accused , these forty years last past . in sum , all the corruptions or rather defects , that are in the government of our church , are only such as they brought in and have not met yet with such effectual remedies , as must cure the church of these inveterate distempers , their ill conduct did cast her into . if any of that party will review these particulars , and so far trust their own reasons , as to judge according to the plainest evidence , they cannot resist the conviction that they must needs meet with : when they see the simplicity of our faith , the morality of our doctrine , the purity of our worship , and our primitive government ; and compare it with their vast superfetation of articles of faith , the immorality of their rules of living , the superstition , if not idolatry of their worship , and the most extravagant innovations in government , that are in the church of rome . and indeed these things are so clear that few could resist the force of so much plain truth , if it were not for some prejudices , with which they are so fettered that they cannot examine matters with that freedom of mind , that is necessary . therefore much care must be taken , to clear these , in the most familiar and demonstrative manner that is possible . they may be reduced to these five chief ones . first , that the true church cannot err. secondly , that out of the true church there is no salvation . thirdly , that the case of the church of rome is much safer than ours is ; since the church of england acknowledges a possibility of salvation in the church of rome ; which they on the other hand deny to the church of england . fourthly , that unless there be a supreme judg set up , we can be sure of nothing in religion , but must fall into many factions and parties . and fiftly , that the reformation was but a novelty begun in the former age , and carried on in this nation , out of an ill design ▪ and managed with much sacriledge . the first of these seemed necessary to be cleared in the beginning of this discourse , and i am deceived if it was not done convincingly . and for the second we agree to it , that out of the true church there is no s●…lvation . but then the question comes , what makes one a member of the true church ? the scriptures call the church the body of christ , of which he is the head. so then whoever are joined to christ according to the gospel , must be within the true church . but the deceit that lies hid under this , is , that from hence they fancy that the unity of the church , does consist in an outward communion with the see of rome . and upon that they calculate , that there must be an unity in the body of the church : and that cannot be , except all be joined to the see of rome . now , we grant there is but one church , but this unity consists not in an outward communion , though that is much to be desired , but consists in an unity of belief , about the essentials of christianity . there is nothing more evident , than , that even according to their own principles , other churches are not bound upon the hazard of damnation to hold communion with the see of rome ; for it is not an article of faith , nor certain according to their own doctrine , that the pope is infallible : and except that were certain , we cannot be obliged to hold communion under such a sanction with that see. for if it be possible that a pope may become an heretick or schismatick ( which many of them confess , and all agree that the contrary is not of faith , ) then other churches are not in that case obliged to hold communion with that see. if therefore the possibility of error in that see be acknowledged , then holding communion with it , cannot be the measure of the unity of the church . so we bring it to this issue , it is not heresie to say , the pope may err : therefore this is no just prejudice against our church , because we have departed from communion with him , when he imposed his errors on us . so all the high things they boast of that see , come to nothing , except they say , this proposition is of faith , that the pope is infallible . and for these meetings that they call general councils ; they were at best but the councils of the western patriarchate artificially packt , and managed with much art ; as appears even from cardinal pallavicini's history of the council of trent . for the third prejudice , it is the most disingenuous thing that can be ; because our church is charitable , and modest in her censures , and theirs is uncharitable , and cruel in her judgments ; therefore to conclude , that communion with them is safer , than with us . if confidence , and presumption , noise , and arrogance , are the marks to judge a church by , we must yield to them in these : but if truth , and peace , charity and holy doctrines , be the better standards , then we are as sure , that our communion is much safer . let this rule be applied to the other concerns of human life , and it will appear how ridiculous an abuse it is to take measures from so false a standard . if a man were sick , the question comes , whether he shall use an approved physitian , or a montebanks . on the one hand , the montebank says , he will certainly cure him , and the doctors will undoubtedly kill him . on the other hand , the doctor modestly says , he will undertake nothing , but will do the best he can ; and for the montebank he tells him , it is very dangerous to trust to him , though he will not deny but sometimes great cures are done by them . the insolence of the montebank will never carry it against a doctors modesty , but among weak and credulous people ; and such must they also be , who are taken with this montebankry in religion . but if this be taken to pieces , the folly of it will yet appear more manifest . for first , the reason we give for a possibility of salvation in the church of rome ▪ is , because we look on such and such things as the essentials of christianity , which are yet retained in that church : and either this reasoning is true or false . if it be true , then it is as true , that we may be saved , who retain these essentials of christianity : if it is false , then no inference can be drawn from it . secondly , though we yield a possibility of salvation in that church , we declare that they are in great danger , by many opinions among them , which if fully understood and believed , do even vitiate the essentials of christanity ; particularly that foundation of religion , the covenant between god and man thorough christ , formerly insisted on . so that we declaring a certainty of salvation to those who sincerely follow the rules of our church , and a great danger in their church , the preferring their communion to ours , upon this account , is , as unreasonable , as to sleep without shutting our doors , because it is possible we shall not be robbed , in so doing : or when we are at sea to prefer a cock-boat to a good clean ship. these are such absurdities , that an ordinary measure of weakness cannot swallow them down . thirdly , we are not so forward as they imagine in yielding a possibility of salvation in their church . for our concession amounts rather to this , that we do not deny it , than that we positively affirm it : and therefore they have no reason to draw these advantages from it . 4. a great difference is to be made between what god in the infiniteness of his mercy may do , and what he is bound to by the covenant made with man in the gospel ; for the former we acknowledg , it is impossible to fix the limits of that mercy which is as far above our thoughts , as the heavens are above the earth . and how far it extends to all sincere minds , we are not so presumptuous as to define ; therefore we will not damn at pleasure , as they do but we do assert , their church is guilty of such gross corruptions , by which the vitals of religion are vitiated , that they have not that reason to claim the mercies of the gospel due by that covenant . 5. the church of rome has a dark and fair side ; the dark side is , what the true consequence of their opinions is , the fair side is , what some witty men have devised to palliate these corruptions with , and to deceive the vulgar by . we know many of that communion , either do not at all know these corrupt doctrines , or have such a fair representation made of them , that they are thereby both more easily and more innocently misled . from hence it is that we are inclined to hope more charitably concerning some , that are abused by them . but for those that have examined things more fully , or that having been bred among us , yet reject the truth , and go over to them , we are not so much enclined to have so good hopes of them , as they imagine : so this is a weak and ill grounded conceit in all the parts of it . the fourth prejudice , is concerning the necessity of submitting to some common judg , of distrusting our own reasons , and believing the church , without which there must be many sects and divisions : and this they aggravate from the many different parties that are among us . but these are only specious pretences to deceive weak people by . for first , if it is necessary that there be a common judg , it is most necessary that it be known , who this judg is , otherwise it is to no purpose to talk of a judge , if they cannot point him out . this is like him that came to discover a huge treasure that he knew was hid under ground ; but being asked in what place it was ? he answered he did not know that : and he believed no body else knew . some say the pope is the judge , others as confidently , that the council is judge even without the pope , others think it is sure work to say , the pope and council together : and others say the body of the church spread over the world. for the popes , some of them have been condemned for heresie , and others for making schism ; many of them have been most horrid men : they are generally ignorant in divinity , being for most part bred to the law : so that a great part of their own church rejects the popes infallibility . for councils , they have had none these 115 years , and the last was so over-ruled by the popes , that no other has been desired since : so that if either a council without the pope , or with him , be the infallible judge they have lost their infallibility ; and except a council were constantly sitting , they can shew no living and speaking judg. so that either this is not necessary to a church , or otherwise they are not a compleat church . and for the body of the church , how shall a man find out their sense , unless gathered together in some assembly ? or must a man go over christendome , and gather the suffrages of all the pastors of the church ? upon the whole matter it is plain that after all their canting about the church , they must say , that it is of faith that the pope is infallible , otherwise they have no infallible judg , and since a council cannot be called but by the pope , what ever authority the council has it can never be exercised , but by the popes leave . and for all the sad consequences they say , follow the want of a common infallible judg , it appears they are under them as well as we ; but with this difference , that we plainly acknowledg , we have none , but do the best we can without one : but they , as they have none , no more than we , yet are under the tyranny of one , and though they are not bound to believe him infallible , yet are as much enslaved to him , and obliged to obey him , as if he were really exempted from all possibility of erring . so that in short , they are slaves and we are freemen . and for these ill consequences , they are , we confess , unavoidable ; for which we have very good authority , from his words , who on all sides is acknowledged to be infallible , that said , wo be to the world for scandals , for it is necessary that scandals do come . but to discuss this objection , which works much on ignorant people , let it be considered that sin and error are the two things , that do chiefly cross the design of the gospel : and of these two , sin , is the more dangerous and destructive : since there is great reason to hope that error cannot be so fatal , when it infects a mind that is otherwise sincere , as sin , which clearly defaces the image of god in the soul. we ought not therefore to expect that the gospel , should give any further security against error , than it gives against sin : on the contrary we should rather expect a further security from sin , because it is most hurtful . but all the provision made against sin , is this , that in the scriptures we are warned of the evil of it , and are directed to such methods , and have the promises of such assistance , that if we use our endeavour , we shall not be overcome by sin , nor perish in it : so as to error , we have the same security . the gospel affords us a very clear light for directing our belief in the most important things , which if we study with due humility , and sincerity , imploring god for the grace of his holy spirit , for our instruction , we shall be preserved from error . and thus the same provision is made against error , that is against sin. and we have no reason to expect more . and as it were not fit , that salvation should be offered without obliging men to use their utmost endeavours , so it were not fit to give such an easie remedy against error , as that a man should not need to employ his reason to discover truth , and avoid mistakes . if our gospel be also hid , it is hid in them that perish . therefore that our searches after truth , may be both encouraged and rewarded , god sets it before us in such a light , that it is our own fault if we do not see and follow it . but if men will either blindly give themselves up , to the conduct of such guides , whose interest it is to mislead them , which is the case of the church of rome ; or out of humour , or other base ends , will invent or follow some erroneous tenets , as other hereticks do , they have themselves to blame ; and shall bear their own iniquity : but they have no reason to cast the fault upon god , or accuse the scriptures , of darkness , or defectiveness , in these things that are necessary to salvation . i come now to the last prejudice , which will require a fuller discussion , because it relates to matter of fact : which as it is better understood , so it makes deeper impressions on people , that are not so much wrought on by speculative points , as by these things that fall under their senses . they first except to the novelty of our reformation , and always insult with this question , where was your religion before luther ? to this , these things are to be opposed . first , we turn back the question , and ask them where was their religion the first six hundred years after christ ? where was the worship of images , the doctrine of the corporal presence , of redeeming out of purgatory , of deposing princes , and of the worshipping saints , before the eighth century ? if the reformation be now to be condemned , because of its novelty , these things were then to be as much condemned , because they were then novelties . secondly . if the reformation had brought in any new doctrine , its novelty were indeed a just prejudice against it : but it was only the throwing out of these corruptions which had been brought in , in some dark and ignorant ages . thirdly . the doctrine of the reformed church , is no other than what christ and his apostles taught ; and what the church believed for many ages after them . and as to the positive part of it , it has been still held by the church of rome , and is yet acknowledged by them : but with so many additions , that there was a necessity of reforming these : and this is often to be inculcated in them , that there is no article of faith , nor any other material point of religion , among us that is condemned by the church of rome . they only blame us because we do not in many other points believe as they do : and this we ought not to do , unless we could see an equal authority binding us to all alike . another exception is , that in the reformation we made a schism , and broke the unity of the church , whereas if there had been any things amiss in the church , they say the reformers should have endeavoured to remove them , without tearing the body of christ in pieces . but in answer to this , we acknowledg if the things complained of , could have been continued without sin , they ought not to have departed from the communion of other churches : but when the publick liturgies and the worship was found to be full of such corruptions , that without idolatry and superstition , they could be no longer kept up , then it was not time to stay for the leisure of their neighbouring churches . yet if there had been any probable hopes , that the see of rome , would have concurred in such a reformation , it had been worth staying for , as long , as was possible . but when it was on the contrary , apparent , that all the most just remonstrances made to that court , were answered at best with delays and excuses , if not with excommunications and other censures ; they had no reason to expect any concurrence from thence . so the case being thus put , that they discovered such corruptions in the worship of god , with which they could not comply any longer ; either they were obliged to worship god against their consciences , or to lay aside all publick worship , or else to cast out these corruptions by a reformation . let any man of good reason judge , whether the last of these was not to be chosen ? there was no obligation lying on this church to wait for the pleasure of the court of rome , or our neighbouring churches in this matter . we are a free and independent church : we owe a charitable and neighbourly correspondence to forreign churches ; but we are subject to none of them . and according to the express decision of one of the first general councils , in the like case , we were no way subordinate to the see of rome , even as it was the patriarchate of the west . themselves do confess that it is no heresie to say , that see is fallible : and therefore we were not obliged to dance attendance at that court , when we discovered the corruptions , with which it had deceived the world ; but might in our national or provincial synods at home , examine and reform whatever errors were among us . and the multitude of those who held these errors , could be no just ground for delaying any advances towards a reformation ; no more than in the ancient church , the orthodox bishops when chosen into a see corrupted with arrianism , were obliged because that contagion was generally spread , to make no attempts toward reformation . they except further , that the reformation was begun here by a vitious prince , king henry the eighth , who partly out of revenge , because the pope would not grant his desire about the divorce of his queen , and partly to enrich himself and his courtiers with the sale of abbey-lands did suffer these doctrins first to take head here : and therefore they can have no good opinion of any thing that came from so wicked a man , and upon such ill motives . if this be a good argument against the reformation , it was as good against christianity upon constantine's turning christian ; for the heathen writers represent him with as black a character as they can do king henry . but we must not think ill of every thing that is done by a bad man , and upon an ill principle : otherwise if we had lived in iehu's days , the same plea would have been as strong , for keeping up the idolatry of baal : since iehu had in a very unsincere manner destroyed it : and yet god rewarded him for what he had done . but whatever might have been king henry's secret motives , his proceedings were regular and justifiable . he found himself married to her that had been his own brothers wife , contrary to the express words of the law of god. the popes legat , and his own confessor and all the bishops of england ( except one ) thought his scruples were well grounded . upon which according to the superstition of that time , he made his applications to the court of rome for a divorce : which were at first well received , and a bull was granted . afterwards some defects being found in that , a more ample one was desired , which was also granted : and legats were appointed to try the matter . but the pope soon after turned over to the emperors party , whose aunt the queen was : and was thereupon prevailed with , to recal the legats commission , destroy the bull , and cite the king to appear at rome , where all things and persons were at the emperors devotion . upon all this , the king did expostulate with the pope , that either his business was just , or unjust : if it was just why did he recall what he had granted , and put him off with such delays . if it was not just , why did he at first grant the bull for the divorce . this was unanswerable , but the pope did still feed him with false hopes , yet would do nothing . upon which he consulted the chief universities , and the most learned men in christendom , about his marriage . twelve famous universities , and above an hundred learned doctors , did declare under their hands and seals ( some writing larger treatises about it ) that his marriage was against the law of god. and that in that case the popes dispensation , which had allowed the marriage , was void of it self . so after the king had been kept in suspence from december 1527 till february 1533 / 4. above six years , he set his divines to examin what authority the pope had in england , either by the law of god , or the practice of the primitive church , or the law of the land , and after a long and accurate search , they found he had no authority at all in england , neither by the laws of god , of the church , nor of the land : so this decision was not made rashly , nor of a sudden . the popes authority being thus cast off , it was natural in the next place to consider , what doctrines were then held in england , upon no other grounds than papal decrees . for it was absurd to reject the popes power ; and yet to retain these opinions , which had no better foundation than his authority . upon this many of the things , which had been for some ages received in the church of rome , fell under debate : and , a great many particulars were reformed . yet , that king was so leavened with the old superstition , that the progress of the reformation , was but slow during his reign . but it was carried on to a further perfection , under king edward , and queen elizabeth . in all their methods of proceeding , there is nothing that can be reasonably censured : if it be confessed that the pope is not infallible , and the whole church of rome , acknowledges that it is no heresie to deny his infallibility . and for the sale of the abby-lands , they only spoiled the spoilers . for the monks , and fryers , had put these publick cheats on the nation , of redeeming souls out of purgatory , going on pilgrimages , with the worship of saints , and images , which were infused in the vulgar , by many lying stories , pretended apparitions , the false shew of miracles , with other such like arts. and the credulous and superstitious multitudes were thereby wrought on , to endow these houses with their best lands , and adorn their churches with their plate and richest furniture . it was not to be expected that when their impostures were discovered , they should enjoy the spoil they had made by them : nor was it for the publick interest of the nation , to give such encouragement to idleness , as the converting all these houses to foundations for an unactive life would have been . many of them were applied to good uses , bishopricks , cathedral and collegiat churches , hospitals , and free schools : and more of them ought indeed to have been converted to these ends . but the excesses of king henry , and his courtiers must not be charged on the reformers ; who did all they could to hinder them . and thus all these prejudices with which the vulgar are misled , appear to be very unjust , and ill grounded . in conclusion , if by these or such like considerations , any that are now of that communion , can be brought to mind religion in earnest , considering it , as a design to save their souls , by making them truly pure and holy ; and so reconciling them to god through christ : and if they will examine matters without partiality , seeking the truth and resolving to follow it , wherever they find it ; and joyn with their enquiries , earnest prayers to god , the father of lights , to open their eyes , and grant them his holy spirit , to lead them into all truth ; there is little doubt to be made , but the great evidence that is in truth , will in due time appear so clear to them as to dissipate all these mists , which education , implicite faith , and superstition have raised , by which they have hitherto darkened . finis . a relation of the barbarous and bloody massacre of about an hundred thousand protestants , begun at paris , and carried on over all france by the papists , in the year 1572. collected out of mezeray , thuanus , and other approved authors . london , printed for richard chiswel , at the rose and crown in st. paul's church-yard , 1678. a relation of the massacre of the protestants , begun in paris , and carried on over all france , in the year 1572. there are no principles of morality more universally received , and that make deeper impressions on the minds of all men , that are more necessary for the good of humane society , and do more resemble the divine perfections , than truth and goodness : so that if our saviour denounced a woe against those who teach men to break the least of his commandments , what may they look for , who design to subvert these that may be justly called the greatest of them ? that the church of rome teaches barbarity and cruelty , against all who receive not their opinions ; and that hereticks are to be delivered to secular princes , who must burn them without mercy ; or if they have either bowels or conscience , so that they will not be the instruments of their cruelty , that they shall lose their kingdoms or dominions , is known to all that have read the decrees of the 4th council in the lateran . the violation of publick faith , was also decreed by another of their general councils at constance ; in which , notwithstanding the safe conduct that sigismund had granted to iohn husse and ierome of prague , care was not only taken that they should be burnt ; but they made it a standing rule for the time to come , that tho hereticks came to the place of judgment , trusting to their safe conduct , and would not have come without it ; yet the prince who granted it , was under no obligation by it , but the church might proceed to censures and punishment . by these decrees , cruelty and treachery are become a part of their doctrine , and they may join them to their creed , upon as good reasons as they can shew for many of their other additions . the nature of man is not yet sunk so low , as easily to hear these things without horror : therefore it is fit they should be kept among the secrets of their religion , till a fit opportunity appear , in which they may serve a turn : and then we need not doubt but they will be made : use of . if any will be so charitable to their church , as not easily to believe this , the history of the parisian massacre may satisfie them to the full : which thuanus says , was a pitch of barbarity beyond any thing that former ages had ever seen : and if the irish massacre , flowing from the same spirit , and the same principles , had not gone beyond it , we might have reasonably concluded , that it could never be matched again . but we may be taught from such precedents , what we ought to expect , when ever we are at the mercy of persons of that religion , who , if they be true sons of the church of rome , must renounce both faith and mercy to all hereticks . i shall give the relation of this massacre from that celebrated late writer of the french history , mr. de mezeray , only adding some passages out of thuanus , davila , and others , where he is defective . but i shall premise a short representation of the civil wars of france , which are made use of as the arguments for justifying that cruelty , and by which they do still blemish the protestant religion , as teaching rebellion against princes . during the reign of francis the 1st , and henry the 2d , the protestant religion got great footing in france ; the usual severities of the church of rome were then employed to extirpate it ; yet tho their numbers were very great , and the persecution most severe , they made no resistance . but upon the death of henry the 2d , catherine de medici , the queen mother , with the cardinal of lorrain , and the duke of guise , took the government in their hands ; pretending that the king ( francis the 2d ) was of age , being then sixteen . the princes of the blood on the other hand alleadged , that the kingdom ought to be under a regency till the king was at least 22 years of age : since charles the 6th had been admitted at that age to the government , as a particular mark of their esteem of him : so that tho the age of majority was at 25 years , and that was a singular exception from a general rule , yet at furthest , it shewed that the king could not assume the government before he was two and twenty . it was also an undoubted right of the princes of the blood to hold the regency , during the minority of their kings : and to administer it , by the direction of the parliaments , and the assembly of the states . upon these points , many things were written on both sides . the princes of the blood pretended , they were excluded from the government , against law , and upon that were projecting how to possess themselves of the power ; which , with the person of the king , were violently kept from them . but the prince of conde being advised to it , by coligny then admiral of france , did also declare for mitigating the severities against the protestants . this being the case , that the point was truly disputable , no man can blame the protestants for joining with their friends against their enemies . and yet this plot was driven no further , than an endeavour to take the king out of the hands of his mother , and the brothers of lorrain , who were all foreigners . the chief promoter of it was a papist , renaudy , and it was discovered by avennelles ; who tho he was most firm to his religion , being a protestant , yet having an aversion to all plots , revealed it out of scruple of conscience . soon after this discovery , francis the 2d died ; and his brother that succeded him , charles the 9th was without dispute under age , he not being then full eleven years old . and according to the resolution of many great lawyers , in the case of his brother , the kingdom ought to have been under a regency , during all the wars that preceded the massacre , for he was then but two and twenty . at first it was agreed to , that the king of navarre , as the first prince of the blood , ought to be regent ; but he being wrought on , by the queen mother and her party , and drawn over to them , the lawyers were again set to examine , how far the power of the regent did extend : many published their opinions , that the other princes of the blood ought to have their share in the regency , and that the regents might be checkt by the courts of parliaments , and were subject to an assembly of the states . the chief point of state , then under consideration , was , what way to proceed with the protestants , whose numbers grew daily , and were now more considerable , having such powerful heads . a severe edict came out against them in iuly 1561 , condemning all meetings for religious worship , except those that were celebrated with the rites of the church of rome , banishing all the protestant ministers , and appointing the bishops to proceed against hereticks ; with this only mitigation of former cruelties , that banishment should be the highest punishment . but the nation could not bear the execution of this : so next ianuary there was a great assembly called of the princes of the blood , the privy counsellors , and eight courts of parliament , in which the edict that carried the name of the month , was passed . by it , the free exercise of that religion was tolerated , and the magistrates were required to punish all who should hinder or interrupt it . not long after that , the duke of guise did disturb a meeting of protestants at vassy , as he was on his journey to paris ; his servants began with reproachful words , and from these they went to blows . it ended in a throwing of stones , one of which hurt the duke ; but that was severely revenged , about 60 were killed , and 200 wounded , no age or sex being spared . upon this he encouraged the violation of the edict every where ; so that it was universally broken . the king of navarre joined with him in these courses ; but the prince of conde , that was next to him in the royal blood , declared for the edicts : many great lawyers were of opinion , that the regents power was not so vast as to suspend , or break the edict , and that therefore the people might follow any person , much more the next prince of the blood , in defence of it . this plea was yet stronger , before the year ended , for the king of navarre being killed , the prince of conde was then by the law of france the rightful regent : so that all the wars that followed afterwards , till the year 1570 , had this to be said for them , that in the opinion of very learned men , the king was all that while under age , that the edicts were broken , the kingdom governed by a woman , and foreigners , against law , and that the lawful regent was excluded from the government ; which made king iames , whose judgment is not to be suspected in this case , always justify the protestants in france , and excuse them from rebellion . this is a piece of history little understood , and generally made use of to blemish the reformation ; therefore i thought it necessary to introduce the following relation , with this just account of these wars , that were the pretended grounds with which the house of guise covered their own ambition , and hatred of the family of burbon . after france had suffered all the miseries which a course of civil wars , for ten years together , carries after it , the king was advised to set on foot a treaty of peace ; not so much out of a design to quiet matters by a happy settlement , as to ensnare the protestants into some fatal trap , in which they being catched , might be safely and easily destroyed . the chief authors of this advice , were the queen mother , the cardinal of lorrain , the duke of nevers , the count of rets , and birague ; the last three were italians , and so better fitted both for designing and carrying on so wicked a council , to which the duke of anjou , afterwards henry the third , was also admitted . they said the extirpation of heresy might be done much cheaper than by a civil war. it was fit first to grant the protestants what conditions they desired , then to treat them with all possible kindness ; by which their jealousies were to be once extinguished ; and a confidence being begotten in them ; then to draw the chief heads of the party to court , upon some specious attractive , and there they were sure of them . the first bait to be offered , was the marriage of the king's sister to the king of navarre , and if that succeded not , they were to invent still a new one , till they found that which would do the business . all the danger of this council was , that the pope and the king of spain would be much provok'd by it ; and there might be some hazard of tumults , among the zealous people of france , if the king seemed to favour the hereticks too much . but they reckoned , that when the design took effect , all who might be discontented with the appearance of favour shewed to them , would be well satisfied , and the more the pope and spaniard complained of it , it would advance their chief end , of creating a confidence in the protestants more effectually . thus were their councils laid . the room in which this was first projected , was the council-chamber of blois , where 16 years after the duke of guise was killed , by henry the third's orders . and it was more fully concluded in that chamber at st. clou , where the same henry the third was murdered by a dominican . the design being agreed on , the queen-mother made some of her spies , among the protestants , assure them , that she hated the king of spain mortally , both on her daughter's account , that was his queen , and as was universally believed , had been poysoned by his orders ; as also upon the consideration of her own family of florence , to which the spaniard was then an uneasy neighbour : and designed to take the territory of siena out of their hands . it was reasonable enough to believe , that upon such motives , a woman of her temper would set on a war with spain . the king did also express a great inclination to the same war , and to undertake the protection of the netherlands , which were then under the tyranny of the duke of alva's government . this wanted not a fair pretence , flanders having been formerly subject to the crown of france . he also seemed weary of the greatness of the duke of guise and his party , which a civil war did still encrease . the king and the queen-mother employed also in these messages , biron , momorancy , cosse and others , who were men of great integrity , and had much friendship for the queen of navarre and the admiral , that were the heads of the protestant party . the queen of navarre was sensible of the great advantages her son would receive from such an alliance . an army was also promised her , for the recovery of her kingdom from the spaniards ; which had been easily regained , if the crown of france had assisted her ; since the southern parts of france were almost all protestants , who would have w●…llingly served her against spain . only she being a most religious woman , had great apprehensions of the unlawfulness , at least the extream danger of matching her son to one of a different religion ; therefore she took some time to consider of that part of the proposition . the admiral was very weary of the civil war , it both ruined his country , and slackened the discipline of war , which he had formerly observed with a roman severity . he thought the conquest of the netherlands would be an easy and a great accession to the crown ; he knew there was none so likely to be employed in it as himself , and he was resolved to carry all the souldiers of the religion with him . and being admiral , he also designed to raise the greatness of the crown both at sea , and in the new-found world , which was then sending over an incredible deal of wealth to spain ; in which the spaniards who had landed in florida , and killed a colony of the french , that was setled there , had given just cause to make war upon them . therefore as he had often expressed his being so averse to a civil war , that he could no longer look on and see the miseries it brought on his country ; so he was made believe the king did in good earnest intend to assist the flemings , which being both against the spaniard , and in defence of those of the same religion , he would by no means hinder . upon these considerations , there was a peace concluded between the king and the protestants , by which the free exercise of their religion was granted : some cautionary towns were also put in their hands , to be kept by them two years , till there were a full settlement made of the edicts , and the other things agreed to , for their security . the king acted his part with all the artifice possible , he became much kinder to the family of momorancy and the rest of the admirals friends , and seemed to neglect those of lorrain . he threatned the parliament of paris , because they made some difficulty in passing the edict in favours of the protestants . he went secretly to meet with lewis count of nassaw , and treated with him about the wars of the netherlands . he married the emperor's daughter , who was thought a protestant in his heart . he entred in a confederacy with q. elizabeth : and the cardinal of chastilion ( the admiral 's brother , who had renounced his red hat , and turned a protestant ) being then in england , was employed to set on foot a treaty of marriage between the duke of anjou and the queen : a peace was also made with the princes of the empire . and tho both the spanish ambassador and the legat did all they could to hinder the peace , and the marriage of the king of navarre , yet they seemed to make no account of that at court : only the king gave the legat great assurances of his fidelity to the apostolick see , and that all that he was doing , was for the interest of the catholick religion . and taking him one day by the hand : he desired him to assure the pope , that his design in this marriage , was that he might be revenged on those that were enemies to god , and rebels against himself , and that he would either punish them severely , and cut them all in pieces , or lose his crown . all which he would do in compliance with the advices he had received from the pope , who had continually set him on to destroy them ; and he saw no way of doing it so securely , as by getting them once to trust him , having tried all other methods in vain . and for a pledg of his faith , he offered him a ring of great value ; which the legat refused to take , pretending that he never took presents from any prince , and that the word of so great a king , was a better security than any pledg whatsoever . upon all these demonstrations of friendship made to the protestants , it was no wonder if persons of such candor , as the queen of navarre , and the admiral , were deceived . the admiral went first to court , where he was received by the king with the greatest shew of kindness and respect that was possible . he embraced him thrice , laid his cheek to his , squeezing his hands , called him father , and left nothing undone that might possess him with a firm opinion of his friendship . nor was the queen-mother less officious to express her kindness to him . he was allowed to keep fifty armed gentlemen about him . an hundred thousand franks were sent him , for furnishing his houses that had been spoiled during the wars . and which was more than all the rest , when complaints were carried by him to the king , of some who violated the edict , great insolencies being committed in many places ; the king ordered them to be exemplarily punished . so that there was a general repining over all france , at the king's kindness to him . the king had also told him , that now he had got him near him , he would never suffer him to leave him any more . the design succeeding so well on the admiral , the proposition of the marriage was also carried on ; and the queen of navarre was next brought to court , but soon after died ( as was generally believed ) of poison , that was given her in some perfumed gloves ; to conceal which , the chirurgeons that opened her , would not touch her head , but pretended she died of an imposthume in her side . the cardinal of chastilion was also at that time poisoned , which tho afterwards confessed by him that had done it , yet was not then so much as suspected . the king seemed more and more set on the war in flanders . he sent both to england , and germany , to consult about the preparations for it , and had agreed with the prince of orange , about the division of the netherlands : that all on their side of antwerp should come to the crown of france : and what lay on the other side of it should belong to the states . he sent a protestant his ambassadour to constantinople , to engage the grand signior unto a war with spain . he also furnished the count of nassaw with mony , and sent some of his best captains with him to try if they could surprize any towns near the frontier , who did their part so dextrously , that mons was surprized by the count of nassaw , and valenciennes by la noiie , according to mezeray ; tho he seems to be mistaken as to valenciennes , for thuanus and davila say nothing of it , but mention mons only . and veremundus frisius , who wrote the history of that massacre the year after , says , that they missed their design in surprising valenciennes , upon which they went to mons and carried it . upon this all reckoned that the king was now engaged , and the war begun . so the king of navarre , and the prince of conde , were brought to court , and received with all the marks of a firm friendship , that could be invented . a dispensation was obtained from the new pope for the marriage . veremundus says , pope pius the 5th had always opposed it , but upon the cardinal of alexandria's return to rome , who went to assist in the conclave , where gregory the 13th was chosen , the new pope easily granted the bull , which was believed to have flowed from the information he received from that cardinal , of the king's design in this marriage , which to be sure his holiness would neither obstruct nor delay . so the bull being sent to the cardinal of burbon , the day was set , and the chief heads of the protestants were all drawn into paris , partly to assist at the solemnities of a marriage , which they hoped would put an end to all their troubles ; partly to get charges in the army , which all people believed would be commanded by the admiral . only many of the hottest of them had followed ienlis and la noiie into flanders , where it was intended to abandon them to the cruelty of the duke of alva , who had intercepted and cut off a great body of them commanded by ienlis . the admiral pressed the king to declare the war immediately ; foreseeing that unless it followed suddenly , his friends that had surprized these towns , would be destroyed , and the whole design spoiled . but the king put him off with delays , in which he expressed much confidence in him , by telling him the secret grounds he had to distrust almost every person about him : and that therefore he must of necessity settle his court and councils first , before he could enter upon such a war. but now the design being ripe , the duke of guise , to whom it had also been communicated , was employed to gather many desperate men about him , who might be fit to execute all orders ; and the thing getting into more hands , took wind , so that they at rochel being informed of some suspicious passages , wrote to the admiral , to disabuse him , and desired he would leave the court , and trust no more to the fair appearances he saw there ; since these were only the masks of some great mischief that was framing . to them he wrote a long answer , and assured them , that the king's heart was wholly changed , that there was never a better prince in the world , and that for his owe part , he would die a thousand deaths , rather than suspect him capable of so base a design . then he laid before them all the reasons which induced him to believe the war with spain was really intended , and therefore he desired , that they would lay dow their groundless jealousies . and when some that were about him , pressed the same things upon him ; he told them plainly , he would rather be destroyed , than make a new rupture ; and would be dragged at horse-heels through paris , rather than begin another civil war. his authority was so great , and his experience so approved , that the whole party submitted to his judgment : and he got some cautionary towns , that were by the treaty of peace to be restored at the end of two years , to be delivered up three weeks before the time was elapsed : only the rochellers were a little more apprehensive , and would not receive a garrison . on the 17th of august was the king of navarre married , and four days were spent in all the gallant diversions , that are usual on such occasions , but were now performed with more than ordinary magnificence and joy. hitherto the mine was working under ground , and now it was time for it to play . there was nothing could be blamed in the conduct of the protestants , but too much candor and too great confidence . they knew they designed nothing , but the quiet of their country , and the greatness of the crown . they were cajol'd with the most engaging tokens of friendship , that ever were shewed on any such occasion ; they thought the king was sincere , and being then but coming to be of age , was taking new measures . and he had so covered the cruelty of his temper , with a shew of good nature , that they expected they should be most happy under him . and for the queen-mother , tho they knew her too well to put any confidence in her ; yet her passion for her family , and her revenge for the poysoning of her daughter , made them think they were also well assured of her . and indeed so deep and so refin'd a dissimulation was perhaps never before acted . there was but one part of the king's deportment that could give any ground for jealousie , the horrid and blasphemous oaths and imprecations , which he made use of on all occasions to persuade them of the reality of his professions ; which always raise suspicion in sober and wary persons . these the king used so frequently , that the writers of that time , say , that he seldom spoke three words without some terrible oath , or blasphemous expression , which from his ill example , was so spread over all france , that none but the protestants , spoke in any other strain . but now when it fell under consideration , how their designs should be executed , the queen with her two italian confidents , the count de rets , and birague , who , next to the protestants , hated the house of guise beyond all the world , yet dissembling it most artificially ; intended that the business should be so managed , as to ruine both the protestants , and that family at once : therefore they thought , that if some of their followers would assassinate the admiral , the protestants would turn their revenge on them , and they knew the parisians , would be easily moved to rise against the protestants ; and so they reckoned , that if an attempt was made upon the admiral , by any of the duke of guise's creatures , his party would presently take a severe revenge on the head of the house of guise , and the parisians would be soon brought out to destroy them . they concealed this part of their design , and in the cabinet-council only proposed , that the duke of guise would find some person to kill the admiral , which should pass like an act of private revenge ; and they said , they did not doubt , but the whole party would upon that take arms , and thereupon , there would be a good colour given , to bring out the city of paris upon them . the duke of guise being young and hot , and boiling with revenge for his father's blood , undertook it , not considering that himself might perish in the first heat of action , as the queen hoped he should . he pitch'd on maurenel , who had formerly assassinated another person , and placed him in the house of one that had been his tutor , near st. german of auxerre , where the admiral used to pass , as he went or came from the louvre . it was now necessary to execute their design quickly , for the protestants were beginning to apprehend some danger . they saw the king was resolved , to let those who had surprized the towns in flanders perish , without sending them any relief . the admiral was resolved to take leave within a few days : his friend , the duke of montmorency , tho no protestant , yet saw the storm coming , and retired to his house : and many little circumstances occurred , which gave them all just cause of fear : so the other party had no time to lose . therefore on the 22d of august , about noon as the admiral was going home from the court , reading a paper that he had in his hand , the assassinate that was laid for him , shot him from the house , where the duke of guise had placed him ; his fuzee was charged with three bullets , that were believed to be poysoned . one of these carried away part of the fore-finger of his right hand ; the other stuck in his left arm , and the third missed him . he received it with great presence of mind , and pointed to the house from whence it came ; he also sent one to the king to give him notice of it , and then ordered his arm to be bound up , and so went home leaning on his servants . some run to the house and broke into it , but found none there , save a lacquey , and a maid , and the fuzee , which the murderer left behind him , when he made his escape . the king was in the tenis-court when the news were brought him : he personated a deep resentment , and said in a tone that seemed full of affliction , and with a terrible oath , shall i never have quiet ! and so threw away his racquet , and went out in a rage . the duke of guise did also counterfeit some surprise . but they missed their designs , both ways , for neither was the admiral killed , nor did the protestants fly out into any disorder . the king of navarre and the prince of conde , came upon this to the king to complain , and desired leave to go out of town , since men were not safe so near the court. the king seemed to resent it , more than they did , and with the horriblest oaths he could think of , swore he would execute such a revenge on all that were found guilty of it , whoever they were , that it should never be forgotten ; and desired them to stay and be witnesses of it . the queen-mother made also shew of inflaming his rage with most vehement expressions , so that they were persuaded to stay . the king ordered the murderer to be pursued , the two servants to be examined , and all the gates of paris ( except two ) to be kept shut . the admirals carriage on this occasion , was suitable to the rest of his behaviour , and equal to what the greatest heroe's had ever shewed . ambrose parè , the famous surgeon , dressed his wound , he madethe incision into his arm , that he might take out the bullet , and did cut off his finger for fear of a gangreen : but his scissars not being sharp enough , he put him to extream pain , and did not cut it off but at the third reprise : during all which , the admiral expressed no impatience nor anger . but as parè told thuanus , he said to mr. maur a minister that stood by , now i perceive that i am beloved of god , since i suffer these wounds for his most holy name . and during the operation , he often repeated these words , o my god , forsake me not , and withdraw not thy wonted favour from me ! and whispered one that was holding his arm , in the ear , that he should distribute an hundred crowns among the poor of paris . next day damvil , cosse , and villars , came to visit and comfort him , but confessed it was needless , for he expressed great resolution of mind and readiness to die , only he desired to see the king , and speak with him before he died . damvil and teligny ( the admirals son in law ) carried this message to the king , who very readily yielded to it . the queen-mother apprehending the great genius of the admiral , and fearing lest he should turn her son to better councils , would needs go with the king. his two brothers , with twelve of the chief persons in the court , waited also on him , to make a shew of putting the more honour on the admiral , but really to watch the king , that he might have no opportunity of speaking with him alone . when the king came to his bed-side , he expressed the greatest tenderness possible , and in his looks , and the of his voice counterfeited a most profound sorrow , and said to him , you , my father , have received the wound , but i feel the smart of it , and will punish it in so severe a manner , that the like was never seen . the admiral thanked him , and told him , by his wound , he might well perceive , who were the authors of the troubles of france . he pressed him earnestly to go on with the war in flanders , and not leave all those gallant persons to the duke of alva's insolence and cruelty , who had trusted to his protection . he complained of the violation of the edict in several parts of france ; and desired the king , to consider how much it concerned him both in honour and interest , to keep his faith inviolated . the king gave him full assurances of this , but avoided the discourse of flanders , and with repeated oaths told him , he would punish this fact against him , as if it had been done against himself . then the admiral desired to speak privately with the king , which lasted not long ; for the queen-mother , apprehending what the subject of his discourse might be , came to the bed-side and told the king , that so long a conversation would much endanger the admirals health , and so broke it off . yet it seems , as short as it was , it made some impression , for when she asked the king , what it was that he had said to him ? he answered , he had advised him to reign himself , and he was resolved to follow it . when this was over , the king asked the admirals friends , and the physicians many questions about his health , and proposed for his greater security , the carrying him to the louvre . but the physicians said , he could not be safely removed . so after he had staied an hour he left him , during which time he acted the part , he intended to play , so well , that all the witnesses were satisfied with the sincerity and passion he expressed . the court of parliament examined the maid , and lackquey , that were taken in the house from whence he was shot , about the murtherer : and many presumptions appeared against the duke of guise , whose servants , they found , had brought him to that house , and had provided an horse for his escape . the king wrote that same day both to his ambassadours in forreign parts , and to the governours of the provinces , shewing them what had befallen the admiral , and how much he resented it . the next day being the 23d , the duke of guise and his uncle the duke of aumale , came and desired leave to go out of town . the king by his looks and carriage seemed to abhor them ; and said , they might do what they pleased ; but as they went away , he said , they might go whither they would , but he should find them out , if they appeared to be guilty of that fact. and so they mounted on horse-back and rode to the port st. anthony , as if they had intended to go out of town , but came back to guise-house : and began to raise a great stir in paris . they called many about them , and sent their agents all over the town , and sent arms to divers places . when news of this was brought to the admiral , he sent to the king to desire a guard , so 50 were sent under the command of cosseins , one of his bitterest enemies . but to cover the matter better , some of the king of navarres swisses , were sent to guard within his house . the king did also order all the papists that lay near his house , to remove their lodgings , that the protestants might have conveniency to be about him , and gather together if there should be any tumult . he also desired the king of navarre , and the prince of conde would gather about them their best friends , that they might be prepared to defend themselves , in case the duke of guise should raise any disorders . all this seemed not only sincere , but kind ; and by these arts were the protestants , not only secured from their fears , but had great hopes raised in them : and thus the greatest part of them were brought within the net , that was laid for their ruine . only the vice-lord ( or vidam ) of chartres saw through the disguise : and a council of their party being held in the admirals chamber , he spoke freely , and told them , the admirals wound was the first act of the tragedy , and more would soon follow . therefore he proposed , that he might be carried to chastilion , ill as he was , in which there was less danger , than to stay in a place where they and all their friends would be suddenly destroyed . teligny and others , that were fully perswaded of the kings good intentions , opposed this much , and said , it would shew such a distrust of the king , as might for ever lose him , that was then beginning to favour their party . but the vidam answered , that stay who would , he would not stay longer than to morrow , for he was assured their stay would be fatal to themselves , and all their friends . there was a perfidious person in that assembly , one bouchavannes , who was an intelligencer to the queen-mother , and carried presently an account of their consultation to her . she and her party were now pressed with time , therefore the execution of their design could be no longer delayed than the next night . so the council met and resolved , that not only the persons of quality of the religion should be killed , but that every one of what condition soever , that were of that profession should be massacred . it was debated long , whether the king of navarre and the prince of conde , should perish with the rest ? for the duke of guise his party had a great mind to destroy the whole family of bourbon : but as for the king of navarre , it was thought contrary to the laws of nations , of hospitality , and of nature , to murder a king , that had come under trust to the court , and was now so nearly allied to the king : and was guilty of no crime , but what he had from his education . so it was resolved , he should be spared , and made change his religion . but for the prince of conde , he was naturally fierce , and that temper , joined with the memory of his father , made them less inclined to save him ; only the duke of nevers , who had married his wifes sister , interposed vigorously for him , and undertook that he should become a good catholick , and a faithful subject : and he prevailed , tho with great difficulty , that he should be spared . but for the rest , it was agreed on , to raise the town of paris , and set them upon them , who were inflamed into such a rage against that party , that they knew it would be an easy work to engage them in any sort of cruely against them . the conduct of it was committed to the duke of guise , who undertook it very chearfully . he did first communicate it to the guards , and ordered them to keep a strict watch , both about the louvre , and the places where the admiral and his friends were lodged , that none might escape ; then he desired the provost ( or major ) of paris , and the chief magistrates and officers of the city , would meet at midnight in the town-house , where they should receive their orders . they met accordingly , and it was intimated to them , that the king was now resolved to destroy the hereticks , who had so long distracted his kingdom : that therefore every one should go to his quarter , and have all people in readiness , with the greatest secrecy that might be , and that they should have many torches and flambeaus ready , to light out at their windows . the sign should be a white linnen sleeve on their left arm , and a white cross in their caps : and at the tolling of the great bell of the palace , which should be done near the break of day , they should light their torches and march . the king in the mean while , was under great irresolution . the horror of the fact , the infamy that would follow it , and the danger he might be in , if it either miscarried , or were not fully executed , could not but fill him with confusion . but the queen , who had overcome all the impressions of tenderness and pity , that are natural to her sex , hearing of it , came to him , and studied to confirm him in his former resolutions , representing to him all the trouble they had given him in the former wars , and that he might expect yet worse , if he would let go this opportunity , of securing the quiet of his whole reign . she knew how to work upon him so well , that in end she prevailed , and the king swore deeply he would go through with it . upon that , she being impatient , and fearing a new turn in the kings thoughts , made the bell of st. germans be tolled , which was the warning for tolling that in the palace . this fatal signal was given the morning of the 24th of august , st. bartholomews day , being sunday ; and was followed with a general rising of the whole city of paris . the march of souldiers , the noise of their arms , and the lightning of so many torches , awakened the poor protestants , who now saw visibly that their ruine was both near and inevitable . some of them went out to the streets , and asked what the matter might be , of so great a concourse , and so many torches and armed men , at such an hour ? some answered , as they had been instructed to say , till all things should be ready , that there was to be a mock-siege of a fort in the louvre , for the kings diversion . so they went forward to satisfy their curiosity , but quickly found it was a real massacre , and not a mock-siege that was intended , and they were the first sacrifices of that bloody festivity . there were now about threescore thousand men brought together . the duke of guise , with his uncle aumale , resolved first to satisfie their revenge on the admiral , and therefore went to his gate , where cosseins kept guard , on design to betray him the more effectually . he called to open the gate ; which being done , they killed the porter and broke into the court. but the king of navarr's swisses barricado'd the next gate , and made some resistance . this dismal noise awakened the admiral , who at first apprehended , it might be some tumult of the populace , which he hoped the king's guards would easily disperse . but when he perceived it encreased , then he saw he was to be destroyed . so he took his night-gown and got up : those that were about him were amazed at the constancy of his mind , his minister merlin prayed ; and when that was ended , he said to those that were about him , i see now what this will end in , but i am prepared to meet death , which i have often looked for , but was never afraid of : i account my self happy since it is so near me , having in this my death , through the grace of god the hope of eternal life . i need no more the help of men , therefore farewel , my friends , and try how you can save your selves , that you be not involved in my ruin , lest by my death i make more widows than one : i have help enough in the presence of god , into whose hands i commit my soul , which is soon to be discharged out of this body . all this he spoke without the least commotion or appearance of fear . then those about him left him , and got up to the roof of the house . by that time the murderers had brook in , and seven of them being all in armour , came into his chamber . besme , that had been one of the duke of guises grooms , advanced towards him ; to whom he said , young man , you ought to reverence my gray hairs , but you cannot shorten my life much . they all stood a while amazed at such undaunted courage , and so composed a behaviour , which as one of them told thuanus , was the most extraordinary thing that ever he saw his whole life . besme did first thrust him into the belly , and then cut him over the face : at which he fell , and the others struck at him , till he was quite dead . the duke of guise being below in the court , heard the noise , and called to them to throw him out at the window , which besme and another did . and either the duke , or the count of angoulesme ( for it is differently reported ) wiped his face , which was disfigured with blood , to know if it was he indeed , and perceiving it was so , trampled on his belly , and went away . an italian cut off his head , and carried it first to the queen-mother , and then embalmed it , and sent it to rome , ( not only as the protestants say , which is disingeniously added , by mezeray , for thuanus affirms it ) : then all the ignominy and barbarity possible , was exercised about the dead carcase , his fingers and hands were cut off , his body dragged about the streets , thrown in the sein , and hanged up in chains his feet uppermost : and a fire was set under to burn it , but it only dried it and did not consume it . some days after monmorancy caused it to be taken down secretly , and buried it in his chappel at chantilly . thus fell the admiral , that for all noble qualities necessary , either to a great captain , or a compleat statesman , may be equalled to any of the ancient greeks or romans ; and for piety and other christian vertues , was the wonder of the age he lived in . but the cruelty of the duke of guise and his party , was rather kindled than satiated with his blood. so he and his company went out to the streets , and cried aloud , it was the king's command they should go on , and finish what they had begun . and so the multitude was let loose , to murder all that were of the religion , and the plunder of their houses was to be their reward . this was followed with the most enraged and cruel massacre that ever was heard of . it exceeded all that either the heathens had done , or their poets had feigned . every man seemed a fury , and as if they had been transformed into tigres and wolves , out-did the very cruelty of beasts of prey . the bare relation of matters of fact , is beyond all that eloquence can invent , by which it may be aggravated : and indeed a strict narrative of what was really done , will appear some ages hence , as a tragical description of an imaginary cruelty , rather than a true history . five hundred persons of quality were murdered , and in all 4000 according to thuanus and mezeray . perefixe the late b. of paris says , there were twenty lords of note killed , and twelve hundred gentlemen , and between three and four thousand others . but veremundus says , they were ten thousand . no age nor sex was spared ; husbands and wives were killed in one anothers arms , after they saw their children murthered at their feet . one butcher'd an innocent babe , as it was playing with his beard . men of fourscore were not left to the course of nature , but hewen down . nor did a single death satisfie their brutal rage , but they made them die many deaths , before death relieved them . one would cut off the nose , another the ear , a third the hands , and a fourth the arms of the same person , before they would be so merciful as to kill him out-right . those that fled up to the tops of their houses , were made leap over to the streets , where they were knocked down with halberts . such as ran out to escape through dark passages , were either instantly killed , or driven to the sein , where they took pleasure to kill and drown them with much art . dead bodies floated all along the seine , and were lying in heaps thorough the streets . in many places the kennels ran blood. there was nothing to be heard but the howlings of mangled and dying persons ; or the horrid blasphemies of their accursed butchers . they searched all the corners of their houses , as hounds pursuing for prey . no man delivered his friend ; no host had pity on his guest : only one brave man saved his enemy . the louvre it self was full of blood , and the dead corpes of those whom the king of navarre and prince of conde had brought about them for their security : but where they expected a sanctuary , they found a massacre . it is needless to reckon up the names of those noble persons who were then destroyed , for the memory of rochfoucant , teligny , renel , piles , pluvial , baudine , guerchy , lavardin , nompar or la force , and five hundred more will be ever sacred ; yet in this nation where these families are not known , the recital would be tedious and useless . of all those guerchy alone died with a sword in his hand , but could hurt none of those that assaulted him , they having armour on them . this horrible confusion , gave the allarm to those who lay in the suburbs on the other side of the seine to make haste and be gone ; and they , having no suspicion of the king himself , were thinking to have gone over and sheltred themselves within the louvre . the parisians had now lost all order , and were fallen to plunder , so that they could not be brought together : therefore the duke of guise sent over some of the swisse guards in boats to kill them , and himself followed with some horse ; and had it not been for the mistake of him who brought the wrong keys of the gate , thorough which he was to pass , they had been all surprized before they had resolved what course to take . but day appearing , they saw enough to convince them , it was not time to delay any more : so in the greatest confusion possible , they got on horseback , and fled away . the duke of guise pursued them , but they were out of his reach , and not being strong enough to defend themselves , and keep in a body , they dispersed and escaped . but the fury that they fled from , continued in paris all that day , and the two following days : in which nothing was left undone that ingenious and desperate cruelty could suggest . six hundred houses were pillaged . and after such a glut of blood , mens minds becoming savage , they fell to revenge private enmities , even upon their fellow papists ; many of whom were in the end also murdered , but those were chiefly monorancy his friends , who were thought cold in the matter of religion . the most enraged of their blood-hounds were tanchou , pesou , and crosier a goldsmith ; the two former drove many to the mills , and forced them to leap from thence into the river . pesou boasted to the king himself , that he had made an hundred and fifty leap that night . and thuanus says , he often heard crosier say , that with that hand he had killed 400 : by which it seems he was thought so sanctified , that he would live no longer a common life , but as a sacred person went to an hermitage ; where yet his cruelty left him not ; for during the warrs of the league , he drew a flemish merchant into his cell and murdered him there . thus were the protestants destroyed in paris , with a treachery and cruelty that the uncivilized nations had never shewed to one another , nor had the heathens been ever guilty of any thing like it towards the christians . the precedent which the church of rome had formerly given in the massare of the albigenses , was the likest thing in history to it for barbarity ; but never had treachery and cruelty met together in such a manner before this execrable day . at court all those generous impressions which follow noble blood , seemed extinguished . men threw off humanity , and women had neither compassion nor modesty . the queen-mother and her ladies took pleasure to look upon the most detestable objects , and greedily beheld some obscene and indecent sights ; but it is not fit to write all that was then done . about nine of the clock , the king sent for the king of navarre and the prince of conde , and told them he was forced to use that severe remedy to put an end to war and rebellion , and had therefore destroyed those , whom he could not induce to obey : and for them , tho he had good reason to hate them mortally , since they had led on a rebellion against him , yet in consideration of their blood and alliance , he was resolved to spare them if they would change their religion , otherwise they must look for no better usage than their servants had met with . the king spake this with great rage , so that the king of navarre being terrified , said , that if the king would save their lives , and leave them their consciences free , they should in all other things be commanded by him . but the prince of conde answered more boldly , that he might dispose of his life and estate as he pleased , but for his religion , he owed an account of it to god alone , from whom he had received the knowledg of it . this resolute answer put the king in such a rage , that after he had treated him with most abusive language , he swore , that if he did not change within three days , he should hang for it . and so ordered them to be strictly guarded . at the same time there were expresses dispatched over all france , to set on the people both in the towns and country , to imitate the example of the parisians , and destroy the hereticks . yet the king either out of some remorse or shame , wrote to his ambassadours and the governours of the provinces , that same day : that the duke of guise , and others that adhered him , having a great interest in the city of paris , and apprehending that the admirals friends were resolved to revenge his wound , had therefore , both to secure themselves , and to prosecute their former quarrels , raised the city of paris : and had broke through the guards set to defend the admiral , and killed him , and many other persons of quality ; the rage of the people being such , that the king's guards could do nothing to repress it : therefore he was forced to keep himself within the louvre , but had , as soon as was possible , quieted the town ; so that all things were put in order again ; and he was resolved still to maintain his edict , made for the free exercise of their religion . veremundus has printed the copies of the letters , directed to the governours of burgundy and tourain , and to the town of bourges , with the memorial sent to the swiss cantons , all to the same purpose , bearing date the 24th of august . and in another letter the king wrote , that he had made up a new agreement with the king of navarre and the prince of conde , and was resolved to run the same hazard with them , for revenging the death of his cousin the late admiral . but the house of guise would not bear this , and made the king own , that all was done by his express orders . so on the 26th of august , the king went to the court of parliament , and after an invidious repetition of all the troubles of his reign , which yet he said , he intended to have quieted by the late treaty of peace , he discovered that the admiral had conspired to kill him , his brothers , and the king of navarre , and to set up the young prince of conde , whom he also designed afterwards to kill , that so the whole royal family being destroyed , he might make himself king : and since extream diseases required extream remedies , he was forced to do what he had done ; and concluded , that all was done by his express order and command . thuanus the father , tho he abhorred the thing , yet out of fear and compliance , made a base flattering speech , of the necessity of dissimulation in princes , and did much commend that saying of lewis the 11th . he who knows not how to dissemble , knows , not how to reign . and pibrac the attourney general , moved the king , that the declaration he had made might be entred in their registers , and that strict orders might be given , to put an end to the blood and confusion with which the city was filled : both which the king ordered to be done . the declaration which was thereupon published on the 28th , is printed by veremundus . by it the king charged all persons , under pain of death , through the whole kingdom , to do no injury to the protestants . and at the same time declared it capital , for the protestants to have any assemblies . this was believed to be done rather on design to destroy , than save the hugonets : that they being out of apprehension of danger , might stay all at home , and so be more easily massacred . on the 28th of august , a jubilee was granted to all , who had been in this butchery ; and they were commanded to go every where to church , and bless god , for the success of that action . so little relenting had they , after all these black crimes , that they imagined they had done god good service : and to that height did their impudence rise , that they presumed to address to that merciful being , who abhors cruel and blood-thirsty men , and that with hands not only defiled with blood , but boasting of it as a sacrifice offered to god , which had been a fitter oblation to him that was a lyar and a murderer from the beginning , than the god of truth , and father of mercies . one remarkable passage fell out , which occasioned much discourse , and was variously constructed by the several parties . on the day of the massacre , about noon , a white thorn in the church-yard of the innocents , that was almost dead , and had no leaves on it , flourished all of a sudden . this was published through the streets of paris , as a sign , that heaven approved their actions , and was made use of to animate them to new heats in their cruelty : for every one was set on to kill one or other , that he might be honoured with the sight of so unusual a thing . some thought it might come from the nature of the tree , and it was said , such things were not extraordinary in trees of that kind , a little before they became quite dead . others believed it might be the trick of some monk , who pouring either hot water , or some prepared water at the root of it , might have done the feat . but the rable did universally ascribe it to some miraculous cause , only they differed about that to which it referred . the protestants said , it signified their innocence , and that a new troop of innocents were sent to heaven , and therefore the tree in the church-yard of the innocents flourished afresh . the papists said , is signified the joy in heaven at that days work , and that the church was to flourish again by the death of the hereticks . but leaving these discantings on this seeming miracle , morvillier that was lord-keeper , advised , that for justifying , or at least mitigating the censures that might be made on these proceedings , there should be a process carried on , against the dead admiral , to prove him guilty of a conspiracy against the king and the royal blood ; and there were some few protestants kept prisoners , who had been taken out of the english ambassadors lodgings , who to save themselves , they hop'd might be brought to accuse the admiral . but while this mock-process was making , there was a real prosecution of the like cruelties in many other parts of france . at meaux , a little town not far from paris , they began on the 25th of august , being monday , and spent the whole week in shedding more blood. they killed two hundred ; many of those were women , whom they forced before they murdered them . at troye in champaigne , about the same number was killed . at orleans , a thousand were also killed . six or seven hundred at roan , tho the governour did what he could to hinder it . at bourges , nevers , and charite , all they found were killed . at tholouse two hundred were killed . at burdeaux , they were for some time in suspence , being afraid of the rochellers ; but the priests did so inflame the multitude , that the governour could not restrain their rage longer , than the beginning of october ; so then they massacred all that they could find . this beginning , was followed by all the towns on the garvinne . but next to paris , lions was the place where the most barbarous cruelties were acted . the governour had a mind to save the protestants , and gathered together about six or seven hundred of them , whom he lodged in several prisons , that so he might preserve them : and to give the people some content , he granted them the pillage of their houses . but they were so heated by the clergie , and by some that were sent from the court , to promote the massacre every where , that they broke open the prisons and murdered them all ▪ dragged their bodies through the streets , and opened the bellies of the fattest of them , to sell their greese to apothecaries . and when they could do no more , they threw ●…em into the river of rhosne , which was coloured with the blood , and filled with the carcases of the slain . these examples were followed in many more places , but detested by others , who were not papists enough , to overcome nature and all morality . the governours in some places restrained the people ; and in many places the souldiers , tho more inured to blood , defended the protestants from the rable , that were set on by the priests . the answer the governour of bayonne made , deserves to be remembred , who wrote to the king in these words . sir , i have communicated your majesty's command to the inhabitants of the town , and the souldiers of the garrison . i find many good citizens , and brave souldiers , but never a hangman here : and therefore in their name and my own , i humbly beg your majesty would employ our arms , and lives in things , which are possible for us to do , how dangerous soever they may be , and we will spend the last drop of our blood in your service . this gave great offence at court , and soon after , both he and the count of tendes , governour of provence , who had also given orders , that there should be no massacre made within his jurisdiction , died very suddenly : and it was believed they were both poisoned . in all there were , as thuanas says , thirty thousand massacred over france , tho he believes they were not quite so many . mezeray estimates them at five and twenty thousand . but perefixè says , that over all france , near an hundred thousand were butchered . and veremundus says , that besides those who were killed , an hundred thousand persons were set a begging , most of those being widows and orphans . many of t●●m fled to the places of strength in france , and great numbers went out of the kingdom . for when they had escaped the first rage of the massacre , they clearly perceived the design of their enemies , was to extirpate them root and branch . and tho the king at first declared he would observe the edict inviolably , they had learned from sad experience , how little his faith was to be depended on , and they were further convinced of it by fresh proofs . for the king pressed the king of navarre , and the prince of conde very hard , to change their religion : the former was tractable and hearkned to instruction ; but the latter continued resolute and would hear nothing . this put the king once into such a rage , that he called for his arms , and was going in person , either to kill him , or see him killed ; had not his vertuous queen , who had been instructed by her father , to abhor all cruel proceedings about religion , cast her self at his feet , and with many tears diverted him from so ignominious an action . but he sent for him and said only these three words to him , mass , death , or the bastil . yet he generously resolved to suffer death , or perpetual imprisonment , rather than go to mass , had they not found out a tool fit to work on him . one sureau-des rosiers , that had been minister of the protestants at orleans , had now to save his life , changed his religion ; but to have some reputation in it , pretended that he had resolved to have done it sooner , tho when that fear was over , he returned to them again , but was never much considered after that . he was therefore employed to perswade the prince of conde : and what by his endeavours , and what by fear of death , both the king of navarre and he went to mass , and wrote letters full of submission and obedience to the pope ; tho they were no sooner out of that snare , than they declared , that what had been obtained of them , was extorted by force . this being done , the king sent his orders over all france , bearing date the 22d of september , to turn all persons out of any considerable imployments , that would not renounce their religion , and a long form of abjuration was sent with it , which was to be the test : both which are printed by veremundus . the process against the admiral was carried on before the parliament of paris , and ( without any proofs that ever were published ) they on the 27th of october , judged him guilty of a conspiracy against the king and his crown : and therefore ordained his body to be hanged , if it could be found ; or if not , that he should be hanged in effigie : his house of chastilion to be razed , and a pillar set up with an inscription to defame his memory , his blood was also attainted , and his children declared ignoble and incapable of any priviledges in france . and the sentence concluded with an order , for celebrating st. bartholomews day in all time coming , with processions and publick thanksgivings for the discovery and punishment of that conspiracy . there were also two other persons of quality , cavagnes and briquemaut who had been dealt with to accuse the admiral , but they would not save themselves by so base a ransom ; so they were both condemned as complices with him . but when the sentence was pronounced against them , thuanus , that was an eye-witness , says , briquemaut cried out , when that part of the judgment was read that concerned his children ; ah innocents ! what have they done ? and then he , who for 50 years together had served in the warrs , with a high and approved valour , being then 70 , what for fear of death , what out of pity to his children , would have done any thing , to have saved himself . he sent the king word , first that he would put rochel in his hands , if he would spare his life : but that being rejected , he offered to accuse the admiral , to preserve himself . but neither was that considered . all that while , his fellow-sufferer cavagnes continued most serious in his devotions , and for three hours together , was either praying or reciting some psalms : and expressed no concern for his life , his thoughts being wholly employed about eternity . he encouraged briquemaut to die as he had lived , and to turn himself to god , and not to stain so honourable a life , as he had led , with an ignominious end . and he seeing , he must die , recollected his thoughts , and seemed ashamed of his former abject behaviour , and composed and prepared himself for death . they both were carried to the place of execution in hurdles , where they not only suffered the reptoches of the multitude , as they went along ( who threw filth and clay at them with their most scurrilous language ) but death it self with much christian patience and magnanimity . they were hanged at the greve , and their bodies , after they were dead , were barbarously mangled by the cruel multitude . with them the brave admiral was hanged in effigie , whose innocence , as well as their own , they did to their last breath assert . the king who delighted in such bloody spectacles , did not only look on himself , with the queen-mother , and the court ; but forced the king of navarre likewise to be a witness of it . it is needless to say much , for evincing the admiral 's innocence , for all the writers of the time acknowledg , the process was only to cover the infamy of the massacre . and thuanus has so fully demonstrated it , that none can so much as doubt of it . if the admiral had any such design , why came he to court ? why to paris , where he knew he had few friends , and a vast number of mortal enemies ? and why did he desire a guard from the king ? but since they could not find a better colour for so foul a business , they must make use of the best they had . they took another course to stop the queen of englands resentments , who , besides the common cause of religion , had a particular esteem for the admiral , for they shewed a memorial , which he had given the king to perswade the war of flanders , to walsingham ( the ever renowned secretary of state ) then her ambassador in france ; in which one of the reasons was ; that if the king would not receive these oppressed provinces into his protection , they would throw themselves into the queen of englands hands ; and if the english made themselves masters of them , or of any considerable ports in them , they would be again uneasy and formidable neighbours to france , which would thereby lose the great security they had in taking calice out of their hands . when walsingham read this , and was asked , what he thought of the admirals friendship to his mistress ? he answered , as became so great a man. that he could not say much of his friendship to the q. of england , but he was sure , it appeared from that , what a faithful subject he was to the king of france . a week after this was done , the king compleated the treachery of this precedure : for by his letters directed to the governours of the provinces , bearing date the 3d of november , he declared he would tollerate no religion , but the roman catholick in all his dominions . upon which the following civil wars began , and in excuse of them , i shall only say , that besides the barbarous and persidious treatment the protestants had now received , they had this legal warrant for standing on their own defence , that by the former treaty the king granted them cautionary towns , for pledges of the observation of the edict . and it is certain , that if a prince grants his subjects cautionary towns for their security , he does thereby relax their alleagiance to him , and gives them a right to defend themselves , if the agreement upon which these pledges were given , should come to be broken . this is the true and just account of that foul and treacherous massacre , even as it is represented by the historians of that age and church , who can neither deny nor excuse the infamy of it ; tho some rejoyced at it , and others wrote in defence of it . the king gloried so much in it , that three meddals were struck , to perpetuate the memory of it . in one , hercules is both with his club , and a flambeau , fighting against the seven-headed serpent , with this motto . ne ferrum temnat , simul ignis obsto . on the reverse , the king with his hand , supports two crowned pillars , ready to fall , with this motto . mira fides , lapsas relevat manus una columnas . hereby intimating , that heresy was the serpent , which was to be destroyed by main force , and by fire : and that by this act , the king had supported religion and justice . in the second , the king sits in his chair of state , with a sword in his right hand , and an hand on the head of a scepter in his left . and many heads lying about his feet , with this motto . virtus in rebelles . on the reverse , were the arms of france , between two pillars and two lawrel branches , with this motto , virtus excitavit iustitiam . the third had , on the one side , a woman environed with rays , and a book open in one hand , and a palmin the other , and at her feet many heads in flames , with this motto , subducendis rationibus . the reverse was the same with the first . the signification of this , was , religion triumphing over heresy . but this was only a false shew of joy , for he was ininvardly tormented with the horrours of a guilty conscience , which the effusion of so much blood did justly raise in him ; so that being often troubled with visions , he was frequently heard say , ah! my poor subjects , what had you done ? but i was forced to it . the strange manner of his death , looked like a signal judgment from heaven for that bloody day ; for after a long sickness , which was believed the effect of a lent poison given him by the queen-mother , blood not only came out through all the conduits of his body , but through the very pores , so that he was sometimes found , all bathed in his own blood. and he that had made his kingdom swim with blood , died thus wallowing in his own . all the servile pens of the lawyers , and the bitter ones of enraged priests , were also set on work , to appear in defence of it ; of whose writings thuanus gives a full account . one mercenary protestant was also hired , to excuse , if not to defend it . i have never been able to meet with any of these books , only rosseus that wrote in defence of the holy league , calls it the iustice of st. bartholomews day . and andreas eudemon iohannes does also commend it . the arguments they used , have been formerly glanced at . the late civil wars ; the pretended conspiracy of the admiral ; the necessity of using desperate remedies in extream cases ; and the sovereign power of kings , were what the lawyers could pretend . but the divines had a better plea , that by one general council , all hereticks were to be extirpated . and by another , faith was not to be kept to them . and it cannot be denied , but this is unanswerable , according to the principles of the roman church . the protestants were not wanting to their own cause , but answered these books , and sufficiently discovered the impudent allegations of those shameless persons , who hired themselves out to defend so horrid an action . maximilian the 2d , the emperor , is the person whose judgment we have least reason to suspect . he was the king of france his father-in-law , and both by blood and alliance was joined to the crown of spain , yet he in a private letter , writing to scuendi his chief minister in hungary , has delivered his sense of this matter so sincerely and fully ; and that whole letter is so excellently well written , and shews so much true piety , and so rare a temper of mind , that i shall not fear the reader 's censure for inserting it at its full length . it is but in one book that i know , and that is very scarce . dear scuendi , i received your letter , and took in good part your christian and friendly condoleance for my late sickness . the eternal god , in whose hands are all things , do with me according to his will. i bless him for every thing that befalls me . he only knows best what is healthful and profitable , and what is hurtful to me : i do patiently and chearfully acquiesce in his divine pleasure . and indeed matters go so in this world , that a man can have little pleasure or quiet in them : for every where there is nothing to be found but trouble , treachery , and foul dealing . god pity us , and deliver his church from these mischiefs . it were no wonder , if from such a prospect of affairs , a man should become stupid or mad ; of which i could say much to you . i begin to recover , and am now so strong , that i walk about with a stick . god be blessed in all his works . for that strange thing which the french have lately acted , most tyrannically against the admiral and his friends , i am far from approving it : and it was a great grief to me , to hear that my son-in-law had been perswaded to that vile massacre ; tho i know that others reign rather than he ; yet that is not sufficient to excuse him , nor to palliate such a wickedness . i would to god he had asked my advice , i should have given him faithful and fatherly counsel , and he should never have had my consent to this crime , which has cast such a blemish on him , that he will never wash it off . god forgive them that lie under such guilt . i apprehend within a little while , they shall perceive what they have gained by this method . for indeed , as you observe well , the matters of religion are not to be handled or decided by the sword : and no man can think otherwise , that is either pious or honest , or desirous of publick peace and happiness . far otherwise did christ teach , and his apostles instruct us ; their sword was their tongue , their doctrine , the word of god , and a life worthy of christ. their example should draw us to follow them , in so far as they were followers of christ. besides , that mad sort of people might have seen after so many years trials , and so many experiments , that by their cruelties , punishments , slaughters and burnings , this business cannot be effected . in a word , their ways do not at all please me , nor can i ever be induced to approve them , unless i should become mad or distracted which i pray god earnestly to preserve me from . and yet i shall not conceal from you , that some impudent and lying knaves , have given out , that whatever the french have done , was by my knowledg and approbation . in this i appeal to god , who knows how deeply i am injured by it ; but such lies and calumnies are no new things to me . i have been often forced to bear them formerly : and in all such cases , i commit my self to god , who knows in his own good time , how to clear me , and vindicate my innocence . as for the netherlands , i can as little approve of the excesses committed there . and i do well remember how often i wrote to the king of spain , advices far different from those they have followed . but what shall i say ? the councils of the spaniards relished better than mine . they now begin to see their error , and that they themselves have occasioned all the mischief that hath since followed . i had a good end be-before me , that these noble and renown'd provinces might not be so miserably destroyed . and tho they would not follow my counsel , so that i may well be excused from medling any more , yet i do not give over , but am sincerely pressing them all i can to follow another method . god grant i may see the wished-for effect of these endeavours , and that men may be at last satisfied with what they have done , and may use no more such violent remedies . in a word , let the spaniards or the french do what they will , they shall be made to give an account of their actions to god , the righteous and just judg. and for my part , by the help of god , i shall carry my self honestly , christianly , and faithfully , with all candour and uprightness ; and i hope god will so assist me with his grace and blessing , that i may approve all my designs and actions , both to him and to all men. and if i do this , i little regard a wicked and malicious world. how the rest of the world looked on this action , may be easily gathered from the inclinations and interests of the several parties . that all protestants did every where abhor it , and hold the remembrance of it , still in detestation , needs not be doubted . all that were noble or generous in the roman church were ashamed of it , but many extolled it to the heavens as a work of angels ; and others did cast the blame of it on the protestants . the court of spain rejoiced openly at it . they delighted in the shedding of protestant blood , and were also glad to see france again embroil'd , and to be freed of the fears they had of a war in flanders . in which if the french king had engaged , he had in all appearance conquered in one year , that for which his successors have been since fighting a whole age. but let us next examine how the tidings of this massacre were received at rome , by which we may judg how fitly that part of antichrist's character , of being drunk with the blood of the saints , agrees to it . the news was brought thither the 6th of september , upon which a consistory of the cardinals was presently called , and the legate's letter , that contained a relation of the massacre , being read , they went straight in a procession to st. mark 's church , where they offered up their solemn thanks to god for this great blessing to the see of rome , and the catholique church . and on monday following , there was another procession made by the pope and cardinals to the minerva , where they had high mass , and then the pope granted a jubilee to all christendom : and one of the reasons was , that they should thank god for the slaughter of the enemies of the church , lately executed in france . two days after that , the cardinal of lorrain , had another great procession of all the clergy , the ambassadours , cardinals , and the pope himself , who came to st. lewis chappel , where the cardinal celebrated mass himself . and in the king of france his name he thanked the pope and the cardinals , for their good councils , the help they had given him , and the assistance he received from their prayers , of which he had found most wonderful effects . he also delivered the king's letters to the pope , in which he wrote , that more heretiques had been destroyed in that one day , than in all the twelve years of the war. nor did the pope think there was yet blood enough shed , but that which all the world condemned as excessive cruelty , he apprehended was too gentle . therefore he sent cardinal ursin his legate in all haste to france , to thank the king for so great a service done the church , and to desire him to go on , and extirpate heresie root and branch , that it might never grow again . in order to which , he was to procure the council of trent to be received in france ; and as the legat passed through , in his journey to paris , he gave a plenary absolution to all that had been actors in the massacre . the best picture-drawers , and workers of tapistry , were also put to work to set off this action with all possible glory , and a sute of these hangings are to this day in the pope's chappel . so well do they like the thing , that they preserve the remembrance of it still , even in the place of their worship . such a representation does indeed very well agree with their devotion , whose religion and doctrine led on their votaries to the thing so expressed . by this we may easily gather what is to be expected from that court , and what we ought to look for , when-ever we are at the mercy of men , whose religion will not only bear them through ▪ but set them on to commit the most treacherous and bloody massacres . finis . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a30330-e1130 a a in regiam majest . b●… . l. 6. c. 4. sect . ●…0 , à quocunque privato poteris interfici . in thom. tom. 3. d●…sp . 151. q 12. p. 2. b b romish tre sons , l. 2. cap 4. the life of gerson before his works , and tom. 1. p. 375. recog . in lib. 5. de rom. pont. e e philopater p. 106 , 107. ( l ) greg. m. l. 2 post . ep. 38. lib. 11. ep. 10 , 11 , 12. siquis regum , &c. contravenire tentaverit potestatis honorisque sui dignitate careat . — in alio honore suo privetur . g g baron . a●… an. 730. n. 5. h h bellar. de trans . imperii romani . i i dictatus l. 2. post ep. 55. k k lib 2. ep. 5. ad ep. france . l l liv. 8. ep ▪ 21. m m extra . de major . & obed. cap. 1. n n bellar. de pont. rom. lib. 5. c. 151. o o cuspiman in vita albert. p p cap. de major . ut ob●…d . exter . b b in vandal l. 8. c. 2. r r chron h●…saug . in vita abb. hartiingi . s s bar. ad ann. 593. num. 86. t t bar. ad an. 730. num. 5. u u 〈◊〉 his di●…●… oevres and r●…ueil general des affaires du cierge de france . conc. late . 3. chap. 27. anno 1287. tom 28. conc. later . 4. can. 3. tom. 28. the same council that established transubstantiation . math. paris . ad an. 1253. conc. lugd. tom. 28. conc. const. tom. 29. sess. 19. sess. 15. sess. 17. sess. 15. con. sien . tom. 29. con. basil tom. 29. conc. trid. sess. 25 c. 19. bud de asse lib. 5. diseuss . decret . con. lateran . p. 46. bec. controv. angl. p. 115. notes for div a30330-e6780 acts 20. 21. micha 6. 8. 1 cor. 14. matt. 28. 19. matt. 26. 26 , 27. 28. ver . heb. 9. 26 , 28. acts 8. 17. morinus . heb. 13. 4. 1 tim. 3. 2. 4. 11. eph. 1. 22 , 23. matt ▪ 18. 7. 2 cor. 3. 3. notes for div a30330-e9630 can. 3. sess. 19. thuanus . the abstract of the books written upon the head , is in the voluminous but anonymous historian of these wars , printed at paris , an. 1581. thuanus , lib. 16. thuanus . mezeray . davila . lib. 3 thuanus lib. 49. caten . vita d●… pio quinto . printed at edingburgh , 1573. mezeray . hist. hen. the 4th . comingii collectio p. 278. historie de france , an. 1581. the arraignment, tryal and condemnation of stephen colledge for high-treason, in conspiring the death of the king, the levying of war, and the subversion of the government before the right honourable sir francis north, lord chief justice of the court of common-pleas, and other commissioners of oyer and terminer and gaol-delivery held at the city of oxon. for the county of oxon. the 17th and 18th of august 1681. i do appoint thomas basset and john fish to print the arraignment, tryal and condemnation of stephen colledge, and that no others presume to print the same. fr. north. 1681 approx. 536 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 74 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a25878 wing a3762 estc r214886 99826937 99826937 31349 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a25878) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 31349) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1901:16) the arraignment, tryal and condemnation of stephen colledge for high-treason, in conspiring the death of the king, the levying of war, and the subversion of the government before the right honourable sir francis north, lord chief justice of the court of common-pleas, and other commissioners of oyer and terminer and gaol-delivery held at the city of oxon. for the county of oxon. the 17th and 18th of august 1681. i do appoint thomas basset and john fish to print the arraignment, tryal and condemnation of stephen colledge, and that no others presume to print the same. fr. north. england and wales. court of common pleas. [4], 140 p. printed by joseph ray at colledge-green for a society of stationers, dublin : 1681. includes colledge's petition to the king. reproduction of original in the cambridge university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng colledge, stephen, 1635?-1681 -early works to 1800. trials (treason) -england -early works to 1800. treason -england -early works to 1800. popish plot, 1678 -early works to 1800. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-01 ali jakobson sampled and proofread 2007-01 ali jakobson text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion 〈◊〉 arraignment , tryal and condemnation of stephen colledge for high-treason , in conspiring the death of the king , the levying of war , and the subversion of the government . before the right honourable sir francis north , lord chief justice of the court of common-pleas , and other commissioners of oyer and terminer and goal-delivery held at the city of oxon. for the county of oxon. the 17th and 18th of august 1681. i do appoint thomas basset and john fish to print the arraignment , tryal and condemnation of stephen colledge , and that no others presume to print the same . fr. north. dvblin , printed by joseph ray at colledge-green for a society of stationers , 1681. to the kings most excellent majesty . the humble petition of stephen colledge , now prisoner in your majesties tower of london , most humbly sheweth , that whereas your petitioner being charged with high-treason , is under strait confinement , that he hath not liberty to see or speak with any of his friends or his children , and being lately informed that it is ordered your petitioner shall come to his tryal at the city of oxon. about the middle of the next month. your petitioner therefore most humbly prays your sacred majesty , that leave may be given for mr. thomas smith , and mr. robert west to come to him ; and also to have the use of pen , ink and paper , in order only to make his legal and just defence ; and also to have the comfort of seeing his two children . and your petitioner , as in duty bound , shall ever pray , &c. a true copy , francis gwyn . at hampton-court , july 28. 1681. upon reading this day at the board the petition of stephen colledge , prisoner in the tower , praying that in order to the making his defence at his tryal / which he hears is to be the middle of the next month / he may be permitted to see his two children / to have the liberty of pen / ink and paper / and that mr. thomas smith , and mr. robert west may come to him . his majesty was pleased to order / that the lieutenant of the said tower of london do permit the said stephen colledge to have pen / ink and paper / and to see his two children / and the said mr. thomas smith , and mr. robert west , and to converse with them as often as he shall desire / in the presence and hearing of the wardour who attends him . a true copy . francis gwyn . to the king 's most excellent majesty , and to the right honourable the lords and others of his majesties most honourable privy council . the humble petition of stephen colledge now a prisoner in the tower of london . humbly sheweth , that your petitioner having been a close prisoner ever since his first commitment , is altogether ignorant of the particular matters charged against him , and of the names of the witnesses who are to prove the same ; upon his knowledge of both which , as well the matter as the manner of his defence must depend ; and because upon the consideration of his case , several matters of law may arise as well before as at the time of his tryal , in which , councel will be necessary to assist him , and several matters of fact preparatory to his tryal ; with which , under his confinement , he cannot be furnisht without the help of a sollicitor , and he is like to be wholly uncapable of receiving any benefit from the priviledge allowed by law , of peremptory challenge to several jurors , especially in a countrey where he is absolutely a stranger , unless he may have some knowledge of them before his tryal . in full assurance therefore of the great justice and clemency of your majesty and this honourable board , which he hath lately had some experience of , and doth with all humility and thankfulness acknowledge , your petitioner doth humbly beseech your majesty and this honourable board , that he may have a copy of the indictment against him , or the particular charges of it ; that his councel and sollicitor may have free access to , and private conference with him ; and because their own private affairs or other accidents may call away some of his councel from his assistance , that mr. wallop , m. smith , m. thompson , m. darnell , mr. west of the middle temple , mr. holles of lincolns-inn , mr. rotherham , mr. lovell , mr. rowny of grayes-inn , mr. pollexfin , mr. ward of the inner-temple , may be assigned him for councel , and aaron smith for his sollicitor ; and that he may have a copy of the jurors to be returned upon his tryal , some days before his tryal . and your petitioner shall ever pray , &c. a true copy , francis gwyn . at hampton court , aug. 11. 1681. it is ordered vp his majesty in council / that the friends and relations of stephen colledge a prisoner in the tower , shall have liberty of visiting and freely conversing with him ; and the lieutenant of the tower having first caused their names to be taken in writing / is to suffer such friends and relations to have access to the said stephen colledge without any interruption from time to time accordingly . a true copy . francis gwyn . the tryal of stephen colledge , &c. present , the lord norreys . lord chief justice north. mr. justice jones . mr. justice raymond . mr. justice levyns . on wednesday the 17th . of august , 1681. the judges and commissioners of oyer and terminer and gaol-delivery , met at the court-house in the city of oxford ; and after proclamation for silence , the commission of gaol-delivery was read , and then the commission of oyer and terminer . proclamation was made for the sheriff to return the precepts to him directed : the justices of the peace of the county of oxford were called over ; and the appearance of the grand jury summoned to attend this commission was taken . lo. ch. just . north. gentlemen , you that are returned of the grand inqust , there has been a sessions so lately , that in all probability there will be no great matter to trouble you with at this time . and so i shall not trouble my self nor you to give you any charge , because we know of no business yet that we shall need you for . the court hath recorded your appearance . you will do well to be in the way , either in the town , or hereabout the court , that you may be ready if any thing should happen . 't is necessary for us to have your attendance ; but we know not of any thing that we have in particular to trouble you with . we have an indictment before us , let us proceed upon that . cl. of the crown . gaoler , have you your prisoner ? gaoler . we will fetch him presently . then the prisoner was brought to the bar. cl. of cr. stephen colledge , hold up thy hand . ( which he did . ) thou art here indicted by the name of stephen colledge , late of oxford , in the county of oxford , carpenter ; for that thou as a false traytor against the most illustrious , most serene , and most excellent prince , our sovereign lord charles the second , by the grace of god , of england , scotland , france and ireland king , defender of the faith , &c. thy supreme and natural lord , the fear of god in thy heart not having , nor weighing the duty of thy allegiance , but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil , the cordial love , and true , due , and natural obedience which true and faithful subjects of our said sovereign lord the king , towards him our said sovereign lord the king , should and of right ought to bear , wholly withdrawing and machinating , and with all thy strength intending the peace and common tranquillity of our said sovereign lord the king of this kingdom of england to disturb , and sedition and rebellion , and war against our sovereign lord the king , within this kingdom of england to move , stir up and procure ; and the cordial love , and true and due obedience which true and faithful subjects of our said sovereign lord the king , towards him our said sovereign lord the king should , and of right ought to bear , wholly to withdraw , put out and extinguish , and him our said sovereign lord the king to death and final destruction to bring , and put , the tenth day of march , in the three and thirtieth year of the reign of our sovereign lord charles the second , by the grace of god , of england , scotland , france and ireland king , defender of the faith , &c. at oxford , in the county of oxford , falsly , maliciously , subtilly and traiterously , did purpose , compass , imagine and intend sedition and rebellion within this kingdom of england , to move , stir up , and procure , and a miserable slaughter among the subjects of our said sovereign lord the king to procure and cause , and our said sovereign lord the king from his regal state , title , power and government of his kingdom of england , to deprive , depose , cast down and disinherit ; and him our said sovereign lord the king to death and final destruction to bring and put , and the government of the said kingdom at thy will and pleasure to change and alter , and the state of all this kingdom of england , in all its parts well instituted and ordained , wholly to subvert and destroy , and war against our said sovereign lord the king , within this kingdom of england to levy ; and thy said most wicked treasons , and trayterous imaginations and purposes aforesaid to fulfil and perfect , thou the said stephen colledge the said tenth day of march , in the three and thirtieth year of the reign of our said sovereign lord the king with force and arms , &c. at oxford aforesaid , in the county of oxford aforesaid , falsly , maliciously , subtilly , advisedly , devilishly and trayterously did prepare arms and warlike offensive habiliments to wage war against our said sovereign lord the king. and thy self in warlike manner for the purposes aforesaid , then and there falsly , maliciously , subtilly , advisedly , devilishly and traiterously didst arm , and one edward turbervill , and other subjects of our said sovereign lord the king , to arm themselves ; to perfect thy traiterous purposes aforesaid , then and there advisedly , maliciously and trayterously didst incite and advise . and further , then and there falsly , maliciously , subtilly , advisedly , devilishly and trayterously didst say and declare , that it was purposed and designed to seize the person of our said sovereign lord the king at oxford aforesaid , in the county of oxford aforesaid . and that thou the said stephen colledge in prosecution of thy trayterous purpose aforesaid , wouldst be one of them who should seize our said sovereign lord the king at oxford aforesaid , in the county aforesaid . and that thou the said stephen colledge thy said most wicked treasons and trayterous imaginations , compassings and purposes aforesaid the sooner to fulfil and perfect , and discords between our said sovereign lord the king and his people to move , cause and procure , then and divers times and days as well before as after at oxford aforesaid , in the county of oxford aforesaid , in the presence and hearing of divers liege subjects of our said sovereign lord the king , then and there being present , falsly , maliciously , subtilly , advisedly , devilishly and traiterously didst say and declare , that nothing of good was to be expected from our said sovereign lord the king ; and that our said sovereign lord the king did mind nothing but beastliness , and the destruction of his people : and that our said sovereign lord the king did endeavour to establish arbitrary government and popery against the duty of thy allegiance , against the peace of our sovereign lord the king , his crown and dignity , and against the form of the statutes in this case made and provided . how sayest thou , stephen colledge , art thou guilty of this high-treason whereof thou standest indicted , and hast been now arraigned , or not guilty ? colledge . my lord , i do desire , if it please your lordship , to be heard a few words . l. ch. just . look you , mr. colledge , the matter that hath been here read unto you is a plain matter , and it hath been read to you in english , that you may understand it . 't is an indictment of high treason ; now you must know , that no plea can be received to it , but either guilty or not guilty as to the fact ; if you can assign any matter in law , do it . colledge . will you please to spare me , that i may be heard a few words . i have been kept close prisoner in the tower ever since i was taken : i was all along unacquainted with what was charged upon me . i knew not what was sworn against me , nor the persons that did swear it against me , and therefore i am wholly ignorant of the matter . i do humbly desire i may have a copy of the indictment , and a copy of the jury that is to pass upon me , and that i may have council assigned me , to advise me , whether i have not something in law pleadable in bar of this indictment . lo. ch. just . these are the things you ask , you would have a copy of the indictment , you would have council assigned to you , to advise you in matter of law , and a copy of the jury . colledge . one word more , my lord , i desire to know upon what statute i am indicted . lo. ch. just . i will tell you for that , is it not contra formam statut. with an abbreviation ? cl. of cr. yes . lo. ch. just . that refers to all manner of statutes that have any relation to the thing in the indictment that is high-treason . for it may be meant contra formam statut. which are all the several statutes that are in force concerning high-treason . now for those things that you demand , you cannot have them by law. no man can have a copy of the indictment by law ; for councel , you cannot have it , unless matter of law arises , and that must be propounded by you ; and then if it be a matter debatable , the court will assign you councel , but it must be upon a matter fit to be argued : for i must tell you , a defence in case of high-treason ought not to be made by artificial cavils , but by plain fact. if you purpose any matter of law , the court will consider of it , and assign you councel , if it be reasonable . for a copy of the jury , that you can't have neither , for there is no such thing as yet ; there is no issue joyned whereupon such a jury should be impannelled . when you have pleaded to issue , then we must award the sheriff to impannel a jury to try that issue . so as to what you say as to want of preparation for your tryal , we cannot enquire what notice you have had ; and yet if you had never so little time , there is no cause why you should not plead , though you were but just now taken and brought to the bar to answer it , and never heard of any thing of it before . so that i think you ought to plead presently . colledge . my lord , i am wholly ignorant of the law , i may ruine my self by mistaking the law ; i desire councel , not to delay my tryal , but only to advise me whether there is not something in law proper for me to plead to this indictment , and those things i alledged were not at all to delay the tryal , but only that i may not be wanting to my self in what i may by law have . lo. ch. just . i tell you , councel cannot be assigned you till the court be possessed of some matter to grant it upon . colledge . i had some papers , my lord , that were taken from me , which i desire may be restored to me . i only plead that i may have my birth-right , and that which the law gives me ; if i may have justice , i desire no more . these papers were taken from me in the house over the way since i was brought from the prison ; they were papers that concerned my defence ; some directions and instructions how to manage my self in that defence . if you please to let me have those papers , i will not take up much of your time ; i desire to have but common justice , and that which is my right by law. l. ch. just . that which you demand , justice , you shall have by the grace of god to the best of our skill , without any partiality in the world. but you must trust the publick justice of the kingdom . we are to be of councel for you , so far as to see that all things proceed fairly on all sides . and when things come before us that are fit for you to have councel upon , you shall have councel assigned you ; for we are tender of the life of a man , as well as of the life of the king , and of the publick justice of the kingdom . but this is no reason why you should not now plead . for the papers you speak of , we will take an examination of them afterwards : if they were papers that are necessary for your defence upon your tryal , in god's name you must have them restored to you ; but we know not which way you came by them , nor what they are . colledge . they were taken from me just now , under the pretence of bringing them to your lordship . lo. ch. just . how comes any body to give you papers ? nobody can solicit for any one that is under an accusation of high-treason , unless he be assigned so to do by the court. colledge . god have mercy upon any man that is so accused then ; for 't is not possible for him to make his defence , if he cannot be at liberty to look after it himself , nor any of his friends permitted to do it for him . lo. ch . just . you can say whether you are guilty or not guilty without any papers . coll. my lord , i know not but there may be something in law for me to plead to this indictment , which i shall lose the benefit of if i plead . i humbly conceive you are to be my councel , and as you are judges , are to proceed according to the law. you are upon your oaths to do me right according to the law. mr. just. jones . but till you have proposed a matter of law fit for councel to argue , there is no councel to be assigned you . colledge . if i had those papers , i could tell what i should plead . my lord , this is one thing , i am a free-man of london , and i am not impleadable by the charter of london , any where out of the liberties of the city in pleas of the crown . lo. ch . just . you are indicted in oxfordshire for high-treason committed here . if there be not any thing of high-treason proved , done in oxfordshire , you will be acquitted . but a free-man of london cannot have a priviledge to commit treason in oxfordshire , but must be tryed for it there . colledge . will you please to order me my papers back that were taken from me ? mr. just . jones . you ought first to plead . you have a right to demand councel in matters of law , but then it must be upon such matters of law as you your self propose to the court , and the court shall judge to be matters of law fit to be debated : till then we cannot assign you councel . colledge . it was so in the tryal of lilburne , and in the tryal of my lord stafford , there was councel assigned to them . mr. just . jones . not before they pleaded to the indictment . colledge . did not your lordships , some of you that are judges of the kings-bench , say , that it was the right of the prisoner to have a copy of the pannel , and of the jury , before the tryal ? mr. just . jones . no sure : here are two of us that are of the court , and we never heard of any such thing . colledge . pray , my lord , do me right , i am ignorant of the law , and through my ignorance may mistake . lo. ch. just . god forbid we should not do you right ; you may expect it from us ; we are upon our oaths to do all the kings subjects right . colledge . i am ignorant in the law , and 't is impossible for me to make my defence without the assistance of my papers . l. ch. just . cannot you tell whether you be guilty or not guilty of this treason ? colledge . i can so , but i know not what error i may run my self into , if i should plead presently , and lose the benefit that the law may give me . lo. ch. just . all matters of law are saved to you after you have pleaded . colledge . pray , my lord , let me have my papers again that were taken from me . cl. of cr. you must plead to the court , guilty or not guilty . colledge . shall i not have my papers after i have pleaded ? lo. ch. just . we will not capitulate with you . move what you will then , but till you have pleaded , we can enter into no other business . colledge . i know not but i might plead some other thing to the indictment . mr. just . jones . propose what you will , if it be a matter in law fit to be argued , you shall have councel assigned you . colledge . pray , my lord , let me have my papers again . if it were not my right to have them , or to have councel , i would not ask it ; but if it be , i would not lose what is my right . l. ch . just . you must plead first . i know not but he may be criminal that brought you those papers : for we allow no sollicitors in cases of treason . colledge . some of those papers were received from me in the tower , and were brought back to me , and taken away but to day , i desire they may be returned . cl. of cr. are you guilty or not guilty ? colledge . those papers tell me i have a plea in law , but what it is , i cannot directly tell without my papers . lo. ch . just . you must mention it , and propose it , and then we will do what is fitting for us to do in it . colledge . i have not that method about me , nor can i directly tell it without my papers ; but 't is something of law about the indictment . lo. ch . just . you are not bound up to forms of law. for if you propose the matter never so loosely , yet if it be a matter of avail , and that which the law is not clearly against you in , you shall have councel , and time to draw it up in form . colledge . i cannot propose the matter so regularly as if i had my papers . mr. just . jones . you are not bound to propose it in formality of law , my lord tells you , only let us know what it is . colledge . i have a priviledge in law , i hope you will give me the benefit of it . lo. ch . just . we will deny you nothing that the law gives you ; but we cannot give you councel . it is not one particular case , but the common course of justice is concerned . without a matter of law arises , we cannot assign you counsel ; if we would , we cannot in justice till you have proposed the matter which the court thinks fit to be argued . colledge . my lord coke says , it is the birth-right of every english-man to have councel in matters of law , and lilburne had it upon solemn argument in his tryal . mr. just . jones . what times were those ? that was before the high court of justice . mr. att. gen. if there be matter in law , it must be proposed to the court , and they are to judge whether it be a point fit to be argued , and then councel is to be assigned you , and not till then . colledge . my lord , i know not but there may be somewhat in law for me to plead to this indictment , till i have my papers i can't tell what it is . lo. ch . just . we know nothing of your papers what they are , you must answer whether you be guilty or not guilty . colledge . if i had my papers , i would answer to it immediately ; but i hope i shall not be murdered . mr. just . jones . have a care of aspersing the court. pray who intends to murder you ? mr. serj. jefferies . i remember in lilburn's tryal that he speaks of , such words were used indeed . colledge . my lord , i hope i shall not be deny'd what is necessary for my defence . this design is not only against me , but against all the protestants . mr. art. gen. how long have you been a protestant , mr. colledge ? colledge . ever since i knew what religion was , sir , i never was any thing else . for gods sake , my lord , let me have the justice of the nation , and what by law an english-man ought to have . lo. ch . just . you must plead guilty or not guilty , or you must shew some matter that you will plead , that is proper for us to assign you councel . if we should record your refusal , you would be judged to stand mute , and sentence would pass upon you . colledge . if i have a priviledge in law as an english-man , i will not forfeit it , if i can help it , for any thing in the world . therefore i desire i may have my papers again , that i may see if i can plead any thing in law ; for if i have a priviledge by the law , before i will forfeit it , you shall do what you please with me . lo. ch . just . you 'll have the advantage of all that matter that is in your papers after you have pleaded , if there be any advantage . colledge . pray , my lord , order me my papers that were taken away from me . lo. ch . just . they were not taken away by me . colledge . they were taken away by the keeper , under pretence to bring them to your lordship . l. ch . just . i know not how you came by them . there came one to me last night that is a common sollicitor , one aaron swith , and desired he might have liberty to go and speak with the prisoner . i told him , i did not understand till he were assigned by the court , that any could justifie solliciting for a man that is accused of high treason nor could any be of councel till they were assigned : for a defence against treason ought to be by plain matters of proof and fact , and not by artificial cavils . but if you will propose any thing of substance , as a matter in law which the court shall think fit to be argued , propose it , and then we will assign you councel . colledge . is it not my right that i ought to have a copy of the jury ? lo. ch . just . look you for that now , you cited the opinion of the judges of the kings-bench . my brothers , two of them that are here , who are judges in that court , say , they know nothing of any such matter : but i must tell you , you have liberty by law to challenge 35. by your sight premptorily , without shewing cause . they are bound to look upon you when they come to be sworn , and if you have any just cause , you may except against as many more as as you will. but now we that proceed upon a commission of gaol-delivery , are to proceed with expedition ; there are no particular men designed for a jury that i know of . but when you have pleaded , we shall award the sheriff to impannel a jury . colledge . if the law allow me the liberty of challenging , it does intend it me that i may challenge those persons that i think will do me no justice ; but where they are strangers unto me , if i can have no information about any of them by my own enquiry , or my friends , i may challenge my friends as well as my foes : and should there be any person that has a prejudice against me , and i not know it , he may chance to be one . l. c. j. i hope they will be neither friends nor foes , but true men . coll. i know not that , my lord. mr. just . jones . this that you say as to a copy of the jury , is unseasonable . there is no jury , nor can be awarded till you have pleaded . there must be first issue joyned , and that cannot be but upon your plea of not guilty . therefore you must plead first , and then say all you will. cl. of cr . are you guilty or not guilty ? coll. my lord , may not i have a pannel of the jury ? mr. just . jo . there is no such thing in being . coll. i know not what to say to it ; pray , my lord , let me have my papers . cl. of cr . you have heard the opinion of the court , you must first plead . coll. i cannot plead first , i must lose my life if i must ; i neither know who accuses me , nor what it is they accuse me of : 't is impossible i should defend my self if i have not my papers . l. c. j. we know not what papers you mean. coll. the gaoler took them from me , and one of the kings messengers . pray , my lord , will you order them to be returned to me again : let me but see whether i have any right or no , and whether i have any thing to plead or no : when i have perused my papers , i will propose it as well as i can to you . pray , my lord , let me have a fair tryal . l. c. j. we promised you a fair tryal , but you must put your self upon that tryal by your pleading . coll. i cannot do that without my papers , my lord. let me but have them again , and i will not delay your time at all . l. c. j. you can tell whether you are guilty or not guilty , can't you ? coll. if i have a plea in law against the indictment , i hope you will not hinder me of that which is my right . it is possible the indictment does not lay it right , either as to the matter of treason , or as to the place . mr. just . jones . that is upon the issue of not guilty upon your tryal . if there be not matter of fact , or words proved that are treason in this place , you will have the advantage of it upon your tryal . coll. i know not , my lord , but that the indictment does mention something of treason , and something of misdemeanour . mr. just . jones . that which is misdemeanour , won't amount to a proof of the treason upon the tryal . l. c. j. if they prove no treason against you here , but only misdemeanour , i do not understand that the jury can find you guilty of that misdemeanour ; for 't is another crime , and there is another sort of proceedings for it . in misdemeanour there are no peremptory challenges ; in misdemeanour councel is to be allowed for the prisoner , but not in treason . coll. pray , my lord , be pleased to order me my papers again : i know not what to say without i have the assistance of my papers : when i have them , i shall be ready to plead presently , according as i shall find i may by law . this i am sure , i have done nothing , nor said nothing of treason , and i pray for nothing but justice , and that which is my right . this is a most horrid conspiracy to take away my life ; and it will not stop here , for it is against all the protestants in england . l. c. j. mr. colledge , you do not only trifle , but run out into very great extravagancies . who has any conspiracy against your life ? you shall be allowed to give in evidence any thing of any conspiracy against you , or contrivance against you when you are upon your tryal . now the question is , are you guilty or not guilty ? i see no use of papers that you can have as to the plea. mr. just . jones . you will run into danger by spending of time . colledge . pray my lord , order me my papers , they are in the hands of mr. murrell the gaoler , and sewell the kings messenger . lo. ch . just . when you have pleaded we will take it into consideration . colledge . my lord , it may be too late then . lo. ch . just . 't is a plain matter before you , whether you be guilty or no. you know what to answer . coll. i will give a direct answer , after i have my papers again . mr. just . jones . you can give an answer to that without papers . lo. ch . just . consult with your own heart , and there you may receive an answer to that question . mr. att. gen. mr. colledge ; can any body tell whether you be guilty or no , better then your self ? mr. just . jones . if you expect any papers , they ought to be framed by your self ; for by law none can advise you what to plead . colledge . i don't expect it in matter of fact , but if matter of law arise . mr. just . jones . but this is a matter of fact , and therefore you may plead not guilty , as well without your papers , as if you had them . colledge . but if there be any matter of law , that i ought to have the advantage of . mr. just . jones . then you ought to have no advice , till they be assigned by the court : for by the law , neither counsel nor advice are allowable to you , till the matter has been proposed , and the court think fit to assign you counsel . mr. just . levinz . you talk of the priviledge of an english man ; you have all the priviledges of an english-man : you are here brought to an open tryal , according to the law , and by that law you must plead . now if a man be indicted for high-treason , he is bound to plead either guilty or not guilty , unless he has a matter in law to excuse him from that plea , which must be proposed to the court , and then counsel will be assigned , and if so be matter of law arises upon any evidence that is given against you at the tryal , you may demurr upon that evidence , and pray counsel of the court to argue that demurrer , and they will not deny you : but i think you must plead presently . colledge . i suppose other persons that have been tried , have had councel before they have pleaded . mr. just . jones . but never before the matter was proposed to the court. l. c. j. it was so in the case of my lord stafford . the court made him propose his matters in law , and so it was in lilburn's case . he did insist upon a great many matters in law , and had the books there himself . coll. i am wholly ignorant of the law , my lord. mr. serj. jeff. your lordships are the judges of law in this case . the question here in short is , whether the prisoner be guilty or not guilty , and that being demanded of him by the court , if he refuses , let him take the consequence of it . coll. what is that pray , sir george ? mr. att. gen. judgment of high-treason . for if a person stand mute , and will not plead to an indictment of high-treason , the common judgment of pressing to death must not pass upon him , but an attainder of high-treason . coll. well , if it be so , i cannot help it . i thank god i am innocent of any treason , or any such thing . l. c. j. why don't you plead not guilty then ? coll. i do not refuse to plead , i am willing to plead with all my heart , if i may have my right . mr. just . jo . if you do not plead , you do refuse to plead . coll. pray , my lord , let me have my papers . mr. att. gen. pray give the court an account where you had those papers . l. c. j. nay , we will not enter into any examination of that matter now , mr. attorney ; he can have no use of papers to see whether he should plead guilty or not guilty . mr. s. jeff. we know nothing of those papers , we desire he may answer to the question shortly , whether he be guilty or not guilty ; if not , we pray your lordships judgment . coll. i had them not all from one person , they were received from my own hands some of them in the tower , and being brought back to me , they were taken from me to day , let me have but one of them : the paper of instructions in point of law , that i may know what is my right , i would not throw away my life , if i have any thing that is my right that can preserve it . l. c. j. you are to give a plain answer , whether you are guilty or not guilty ? now for that you have no use of papers : for you can best tell whether you be guilty or not . if you can propose any matter of law that you can have to plead , do it . coll. if i have any plea that i may plead besides not guilty , i desire i may have my papers to consider of it , and that i may have councel assigned me . l. c. j. if you have any such plea , tell us the matter , and the subststance of it . coll. i do not know what really are matters of law , if i had those instructions that are in my papers , i could give you a direct answer presently . l. c. j. you ought not to have any advice to decline your tryal : when you propose matter of law your self , you may have advice upon it . but you ought not to have advice to decline your tryal before-hand . cl. of cr . are you guilty , or not guilty ? coll. mr. attorney , pray let me have a copy of the indictment . mr. att. gen. apply your self to the court for it , we must receive our directions from thence . l. c. j. you have had the opinion of the court , you can't have it . m. just . levinz . you have been told nothing can be received from you but a plea of guilty or not guilty , and the court have given you their opinion , and that you cannot have a copy of the indictment , nor councel assigned you , till you offer something for them to be assigned upon . l. c. j. and that was it which was done in the king's-bench in the case of fitz-harris , which i suppose you meant when you spake of the judges opinions . mr. just . jones . nothing was done there till he himself assigned the matter in law that he would plead , and then councel was assigned him . mr. serj. jeff. mr. colledge was in the court at that time , and can tell what was done . l. c. j. if you desire the indictment read over again distinctly , that you may have . mr. att. gen. ay , with all my heart . coll. pray let me hear it again , my lord , if you please . l. c. j. read it over again to him , and read it distinctly . cl. of cr . thou art indicted by the name of stephen colledge late of oxon. in the county of oxon. carpenter , as a false traytor . coll. i have observed one thing already , my lord , i pray i may have pen and ink. l. c. j. ay , give him pen and ink , let him make what observations he can . then the clerk read the indictment through . cl. of cr . art thou guilty of this high-treason , or not guilty ? coll. this indictment , if i understand it , says , there was a plot and conspiracy by me and others ; now i know when my lord stafford was tryed , they did proceed to prove first , that there was such a plot , and then that my lord was guilty of it ; first , that there was such a conspiracy by the papists , is it not requisite they should first prove such a plot and conspiracy there was , before they go to prove me guilty of it ? mr. just . jones . what , before you have pleaded ? l. c. j. when you have pleaded , the next thing is to try you , and to give the evidence , but what way the king's councel will take to manage your tryal , that we can't tell . mr. just . jones . but they are not to be directed by you , mr. colledge . colledge . it was so done in my lord stafford's case . lo. ch. just . he pleaded first however , you have not yet pleaded . cl. of cr . are you guilty or not guilty ? l. ch. just . do not trifle any longer , 't is a plain matter , and requires a very short and plain answer . colledge . your lordships are my councel as well as my judges , and i do desire if i have any right to plead any other matter , you will be pleased to declare it to me , for i am ignorant in the law. mr. just . jones . we have declared our opinion already , that you have no right to have any solicitor or councel till matter of law do arise . coll. is it your lordships opinion that i have no plea in law ? mr. just . jones . have you no plea in law ? l. c. j. he would have our judgment whether there be any or no. mr. just . jones . you your self know best , we know nothing you have to plead . colledge . i cannot unless i have counsel , and my papers . l. c. j. there does nothing appear to us . coll. i know nothing of the law. l. c. j. then plead not guilty , that is a ready plea. mr. just . jones . you have heard our opinion over and over again . you have as much counsel as is allowed in these cases , for every man is best judge of his own case , what to plead , whether guilty or not guilty : you have had as fair play as ever any man had . mr. att. gen. mr. colledge has said he knows of no plea in law he has , and therefore there is none ; for de non apparentibus , & non existentibus , the reason is the same . l. c. j. in matter of fact there is no plea but not guilty . coll. the court are judges in matter of law , and they are my counsel . mr. just . jones . and the court have all of them declared they know of nothing in law that you have to plead . coll. is not counsel to be allowed to one under my circumstances ? l. c. j. if you have any thing for councel to be assigned upon , you shall have them . coll. if i am ignorant of that , and cannot propose it , shall i not have the assistance of councel ? mr. just . jones . no , we have told you the law plainly , and that which is frequent in practice in like cases , and you must be contented with the same measure . coll. my lord , i am ignorant of the law . l. c. j. then rely upon the fact , and plead not guilty . coll. but if i have a right to any point in law , let me have it . mr. just . jones . you have a right if you will propose any matter of law , but we cannot propose it for you . mr. att. gen. mr. colledge , no man ought to propose your plea for you , ignoruntia juris non excusat . colledge . shall my ignorance destroy me , mr. attorney ? mr. sol. gen. you have heard the opinion of the court , you have a right to propose any other plea that you can your self , but you have no right to ask counsel before you have pleaded . mr. serj. jeff. if mr. colledge have such a thing as a solicitor , i shall crave leave to put that solicitor in mind of the case of one that was indicted of high-treason , for soliciting for one that was accused of high-treason . mr. att. gen. we shall talk of that by and by . l. c. j. the same methods are used in your case , as are in all cases of the like nature , as far as my knowledge reacheth . colledge . if i have a right to the law , i must not lose it for my own ignorance of the law ; but if you deny me both my counsel and my papers , you take away the means of my coming to that right , and make me uncapable of making my defence . lo. ch . just . you have been told you must plead before you do any thing . colledge . this is the person , ( pointing to a person by him ) that had the papers . be pleased to command him that i may have them again : he said he had order to take them from me , and bring them to your lordship . l. c. j. i know of no use you could have of any papers to plead guilty or not guilty . mr. sol. gen. if there be in those papers advice in matters of law , that you have been told you ought not to have , till the court has assigned you councel to give you advice . coll. then if there be a right in law , and a priviledge which i ought to have , i must lose it by my being ignorant of it , and have no one to advise me about it neither . l. c. j. you may propose it , if you have any , if not you must plead to the indictment . mr. serj. jeff. my lord , it has not been usual for us that are of the kings counsel , to enter into dialogues with prisoners at the bar. the first thing that is to be done in such cases , is for the prisoner to plead guilty , or not guilty or to offer something to the court that may be a matter in law fit to be debated ▪ and this we pray may be done in this case , and that the prisoner may plead presently , or else we desire your judgment . coll. pray let me have my papers again , my lord. lo. ch . just . you go in a circle , and run round from one thing to another , and will receive no answer . we have told you our opinion , and we must tell you , that though you hold long discourses , yet you will be judged lost and 〈◊〉 if you plead not a legal plea. therefore you must plead guilty , or not guilty , or offer something that may be a plea in law , and then you shall have the assistance of councel , but you must have none till then . colledge . but shall i not have my papers my lord ? l. c. j. we know nothing of them . colledge . pray my lord order the man to give them to me , that took them from me . l. ch . just . we will order no such thing . he may be a criminal perhaps that did give them you at first , but when you have pleaded we will hear any motion you will make about them . coll. it may be i ought to plead that the words were spoke in another place , then the place lay'd in the indictment . l. c. j. you will not need to plead any such thing , for if there be nothing proved of treason that you said or did in oxford-shire you must be found not guilty . coll. here is another thing , my lord , i am indicted by the name of colledge carpenter . l. c. j. what then ? coll. i am not a carpenter but a joyner , is that any bar to it ? l. c. j. the addition signifies nothing , i do not know any difference betwixt a carpenter and a joyner in law. mr. just . jones . they might have indicted you by the name of labourer and it had been good . coll. pray my lord either give me my papers or assign me counsel , or else i may throw away my life , for i am wholly ignorant of the law. l. c. j. when you have pleaded we will hear any motion you will make , and do that which is just upon it : but i see no use you can have of papers to plead guilty or not guilty , which is the only question is asked you . cl. of cr . are you guilty , or not guilty ? coll. will you promise me my lord , there shall no advantage be taken against me , if i do plead so ? l. c. j. we will make no bargains with you . plead as you ought by law to do . coll. if matters of law arise , shall i have counsel to speak to them ? mr. just . jones . yes you shall , you need not doubt it . propose any matter now fit to be argued , and you shall have counsel to it . coll. i am not capable of doing it . i know not when i have any right . mr. just . jones . the court is of councel to you . coll. if you are my counsel , then have i any plea in law to make ? mr. just . jones . you have heard the indictment read , what say you ? for you must propose the matter . l. c. j. we know of none but guilty , or not guilty , if you can tell of any do . coll. i pray i may have my papers again ; if there be no other plea for me , pray let me have my papers again . lo. ch . just . you have heard the opinion of the court , you must plead . mr. att. gen. certainly mr. colledge , you can't be guilty of these things , you need not scruple it , to plead not guilty sure . coll. my lord , having been kept a prisoner , as i have been , without pen , ink or paper , no conversation with my friends , no knowledge of the fact , and being ignorant of the law , not knowing where i have a right , nor when i have a right ; if you do force me upon this plea , and it cost me my life , at your doors lye it . mr. just . jones . you will lose your life if you do not plead ; if you plead not guilty , and are not proved guilty , you will save your life by this plea. colledge . i am willing to plead what the law requires of me to plead , and if i have a right in law , i would not lose it . cl. of cr. are you guilty , or not guilty ? colledge . why then , as they have laid it in that indictment , in manner and form as 't is there laid , i am not guilty . cl. of cr. culprit , by whom wilt thou be tryed ? colledge . by god and my countrey . cl. of cr . god send thee a good deliverance . mr. just . jones . got guilty is his plea. lo. ch . just . now he has pleaded , mr. attorney , he speaks of some papers , if there be any memorandums or any thing that must assist him , that is necessary for his defence in his tryal in those papers , it will be hard to deny him them . mr. att. gen. if your lordships please to give me leave ▪ i will give you an account of them . the messenger just now did deliver these papers to be delivered to the court. colledge . pray speak out , mr. attorney , and let me hear . mr. att. gen. when he came to prison he had none , but mr. aaron smith , the messenger informed me , did deliver them to him . l. ch . just . whose hand-writing are the papers in ? coll. he received them from me in the tower. mr. just . jones . you received them from him first . colledge . no. mr. att. gen. what were the papers you delivered to him in the tower ? colledge . the three pieces joyned together that contains directions how to govern my self , there is another of the same purpose which instructs me to demand a copy of the indictment , and of the pannel of the jury , and those were instructions to tell me what the law allows me . mr. att. gen. here is a speech made for you that begins thus . before you plead , speak to this purpose . pray , my lord , i desire that may be examined , and mr. smith may be called to give an account how he came to give the prisoner those papers ; for here are abundance of niceties proposed for him to move , and there will be a strange sort of proceedings at this rate , if men go about to espouse the cause of traytors . colledge . i am no traytor , mr. attorney . mr. att. gen. you stand indicted of high-treason . colledge . that is by a grand jury made up that morning , as i am informed . mr. att. gen. here is a list of the names of several men of the countrey returned to be of the jury , and particular marks set upon them , who are good men , and who bad men , and who moderate men . colledge . ought i not to have that paper , my lord ? mr. att. gen. no i hope not . lo. ch . just . whether they are material or not material , if we should judge them not material for his defence , yet it will look like an hard point upon the prisoner , and to deliver them into an hand that they may be carried away or stifled , in case there were a crime in the delivering of them that would not do well on the other side : therefore i would have these papers put into some safe hands , that what may be for the prisoners use he may not want , and yet they may not be taken away , if there be occasion to use them upon another account . mr. att. gen. but if it please your lordship , i desire you would enter into examination of this matter ; for i have an account from london by a special messenger that there are several persons that go up and down to procure witnesses against the kings evidence , making it a publick cause ; and here my lord , another paper which is a list of men as witnesses picked up together against the kings witnesses . lo. ch . just . he must have that , deliver him that presently . mr. attorn . gen. but my lord , others have gone about and framed witnesses for him . l. ch. just . you must give him a list of his witnesses , for i see not what use you can make of it . mr. serj. jeff. this no man will oppose sure , if any thing that is delivered to him be fit to be delivered , the person that delivers it must come and own it ; but before any person delivers any papers to the prisoner , for him to make use of against the kings evidence , we desire to know what those papers mean , and who gave them . lo. ch. just . look you brother , we will have nothing of heat till the tryal be over , when that is over if there be any thing that requires our examination it will be proper for us to enter into the consideration of it . but in the mean while what hurt is there , if the papers be put into some trusty hands , that the prisoner may make the best use of them he can , and yet they remain ready to be produced upon occasion , if a man be speaking for his life , though he speak that which is not material , or nothing to the purpose , that will be no harm to permit that . mr. serj. jefferies . with submission my lord , that is assigning him counsel with a witness . mr. att. gen. if people are permitted to go up and down and ask counsel of persons and bring it in papers to the prisoner , 't is the same thing as if counsel came to him . here is a busie solicitor and he gets advice from councel and then he delivers it to the prisoner , 't is the first of the kind certainly that ever was allowed ; and if this be not to assign him counsel , i know not what is . lo. ch. just . what think you of our perusing the papers ? mr. att. gen. with all my heart my lord. colledge . if you take away all helps from me , you had as good condemn me without a tryal . mr. att. gen. you ought not to have helps to plead dilatories . colledge . not to help me to my right in law ? mr. att. gen. we are to go upon the fact now : and , my lord , i pray your jugdment about them , when you have perused them . then the judges looked upon that paper that was called the speech . l. c. j. we have read enough of this to suppress it , and to examine it how this came to his hands . mr. just . jones . where is aaron smith ? mr. att. gen. my lord , here is another that is worse than that , charging the justice of the nation . pray call mr. aaron smith , and mr. henry starkey . mr. smith appeared . mr. att. gen. mr. smith , did you deliver these two papers to the prisoner ? mr. smith . does any body accuse me that i did ? mr. att. gen. you are accused for it . mr. smith . i desire proof may be made against me . mr. att. gen. that will be done . l. c. j. look you we will not interrupt the tryal with it , mr. smith must be taken into safe custody only to secure him , till we can examine it ; not as charged with any crime , but only that he may be forth-coming to be examined . mr. att. gen. you do not make a direct answer mr. smith in the case , it will be proved upon you . mr. smith . mr. attorney , i know not what answer to make better than i have given ; our law says no man is bound to accuse himself . mr. att. gen. but our law says , you shall be examined . mr. smith . i come to give no informations here mr. attorney : if i did i should be then examined . mr. att. gen. here are instructions given to the prisoner , they say you gave them . mr. smith . i desire to have it proved . l. c. j. mr. attorney , you will take a recognizance of mr. smith , to be , forth-coming during this sessions . mr. smith . i will not depart my lord i assure you : and i hope mr. attorney will take my word . mr. att. gen. indeed i will not mr. smith , because you have broken it with me already , when i gave you leave to go to the prison , i did not think you would have abused that kindness , to give him papers . lo. ch . just . well take his recognizance . mr. smith . 't is high time to have a care , when our lives and estates , and all are beset here . l. c. j. what do you mean by that mr. smith ? mr. smith . i said it not , meaning by it the court , for i dealare jabhor that expression to be so interpreted , that i reflected upon the court. l. c. j. why do you use such loose expressions then mr. smith ? mr. smith . because i have been threatned since i came to town , though i have not spoke one word in any publik company since i came . mr. just . jones . it seems you will reflect here in the face of the court , and in the face of the countrey , upon the government , upon the justice of the kingdom . mr. smith . no , my lord , i have told you what i meant by it ; i neither reflected upon the court , nor upon the government , nor upon the justice of the kingdom . lo. ch . just . you should have done well to have forborn such expressions as those were . colledge . shall i not have the use of the papers , my lord ; will you not please to deliver them back to me , now you have perused them ? mr. just . jones . one of them is a speech , and a most seditious , libellous speech , to spit venom upon the government in the face of the countrey . we cannot tell who made it , but it seems to be beyond your capacity , and therefore we must enquire into it : but we do not think fit to let you have the use of that paper . l. ch . just . for that which contains the names of the witnesses , that you have again : for the other matters , the instructions in point of law , if they had been written in the first person , in your own name , that we might believe it was your writing , it would have been something ; but when it is written in the second person , you should do so and so ; by which it appears to be written by another person : it is an ill president to permit such things ; that were to give you councel in an indirect way , which the law gives you not directly . coll. if i am ignorant what questions to ask of the witnesses , shall not my friends help me , my lord ? lo. ch. just . we will sift out the truth as well as we can , you need not fear it . coll. some of those things i took out of the books my self . and if you are resolved to take away all my helps , i cannot help it , i know not that mr. smith wrote one of those papers . mr. att. gen. but mr. smith would have given four guineys it seems , as a bribe to the gaoler , and he offered four more to let him have liberty to come to him . mr. s. jeff. 't is time indeed for mr. smith to have a care . keeper . it was mr. starkey that offered me the four guineys . mr. att. gen. pray call mr. henry starkey . ( but he did not appear . ) then the court took a recognizance of 100l . of mr. smith to attend the court durying the session . coll. pray , my lord , let me have my papers delivered to me , i cannot make my defence else . lo. ch. just . we are your councel in matter of fact ; and to give you your papers , were to assign you councel against law , they being not your own papers , but coming from a third hand . colledge . will you please to give me the paper that has the questions in it , to ask the witnesses ? l. c. j. there are no papers with any particular questions to any one witness , but only instructions how to carry your self in this case . coll. a great deal of it is my own , my lord. l. c. j. mr. attorney , truly i think that that do's not contain matter of scandal may be transcribed and given to the prisoner . coll. my lord , i desire i may have that that has in the margent of its the case of lilburn and stafford . mr. just . jones . you shall not have instructions to scandalize the government , all that is necessary for your defence , you shall have . l. c. j. if he had writ it himself i cannot well see how you could take it from him , and truly as 't is , i had rather let him have too much , then too little . coll. my lord , i thought i might have had counsel to have assisted me , but if i may have counsel neither before my plea nor after , i that an ignorant , may be lost by it , but can't help it . l. c. j. if matter of law arise you shall have counsel in it . coll. i know not but it might have admitted of an argument , that which if i had had my papers , i should have offered to you . l. c. j. mr. colledge , we shall not go any farther now , i know not how many witnesses will be produced either of one side or another , but 't is too late to go on this morning , and because we attend here only upon this occasion , we shall go on with the tryal at two a clock in the afternoon . coll. my lord , you will be pleased to order the papers for me to peruse in the mean time . l. c. j. we have ordered that you shall have a transcript of the paper of instructions , leaving out that which is scandalous . coll. i desire i may have a copy of the whole . mr. just . jones . no , we do not think fit to do that . coll. pray let me know which you do except against . l. c. j. look you mr. attorney , i think we may let him have a copy of the whole . mr. att. gen. my lord , before you rise , i desire , you would please to take the examination of mr. gregory , about mr. starkey . l. c. j. sweatr him . ( which was done . ) mr. att. gen. what do you know concerning mr. starkey , and what he did offer you ? gregory . when they came , by your lordships permission , to mr. colledge , they brought some papers which they delivered to him : and afterwards mr. starkey took me aside , and told me it was hard usage that the prisoner could not have his councel permitted to come to him . do him what favour you can , and i shall not be ungrateful ; so he clapped four guineys in my hand , but i immediately laid them down upon the table , and would not take them . mr. att. gen. my lord , i desire you would please to send for mr. starkey ? l. c. j. let him be sent for . cl. of cr . you must go and take up mr. starkey . messenger . must i keep him in custody ? i don't know him . cl. of cr . no , you must order him from the court to attend here . mr. just . jones . these papers colledge shall not be debarr'd of , for his defence , nor you , mr. attorney , from prosecuting upon them . l. c. j. no , we will put them into such hands as shall take care about that . coll. very few , my lord , have appeared to do me any kindness , some have been frightned and imprisoned , others are now in trouble for it . lo. ch. just . well , you shall have the use of your papers . coll. may i have any friends come to see me in the mean time ? l. c. j. they must not come to you in the prison to give you advice ; but i 'll tell you , since you move it , if my brothers think it convenient , whilst the court does withdraw , any body of your friends may come to you , in the presence of your keeper . mr. just . jones . certainly you cannot think we can give a priviledge to any friend of yours to commit any demeanor to offer bribes to any person . coll. i know not of any such thing . mr. just . jones . we do not charge you with it , but mr. starkey did . coll. i have been kept a strict close prisoner , and if my friends are so kind to me , as to help me in order to my defence , i hope you will not be against it . pray , my lord , let me have my papers . l. c. j. you shall have them , but they shall be put into such hands as the court may have command over ; they shall be in the sheriffs sons hands , and you shall have the immediate use of them . coll. if there be any thing else in those papers necessary for my defence , i pray i may have it . l. c. j. the speech is not fit for you , what other papers would you have ? coll. another paper there is , that is something of law. mr. just . jones . nothing but libellous , and what is a scandal to the government . mr. att. gen. you are to have nothing of matter of law , but what you are to propose your self . coll. if you take away all my helps , i cannot propose any thing . mr. serj. jeff. to allow you those papers , is to allow you councel by a side wind. l. c. j. look you , the papers of instructions shall be delivered to the sheriffs son , who shall let you peruse it in this interval , and make use of it in your tryal , but it must be in safe custody , to be used upon further occasion , as the kings attorney shall think fit . then the court adjourn'd till 2 in the afternoon . post meridiem . at 2 a clock the court returned , and proclamation was made for attendance , and for the under-sheriff to return his jury . coll. my lord , ought not i to have a copy of this jury ? l. ch. just . no , they are to look upon you as they come to be sworn , and then you are to challenge them . cl. of cr . stephen colledge , hold up thy hand , and hearken to the court ; those good men that you shall hear called , and personally appear , are to pass , &c. colledge . pray sir let the way be clear , that i may see them . cl. of cr . ay , ay. coll. pray , sir , how many are there of the jury that appear ? mr. att. gen. there are enough . cl. of cr . make proclamation for information , ( which was done . ) cl. of cr . henry standard , ( who was sworn , ) richard croke , ( who was challenged by the prisoner , ) william bigg ( challenged . ) mr. just . jones . do you challenge him peremptorily , or with cause ? l. c. j. if he do not shew cause , it must be supposed it is peremptory . colledge . i suppose he was upon the grand-jury . l. c. j. that would be a challenge with cause . mr. bigg , no , i was not . coll. then i do not challenge him ; i know him not . he was sworn . cl. of cr. thomas marsh , challenged . thomas martin , did not appear . gabriel merry , being almost a hundred years of age , was excused . robert bird , sworn . john shorter , sworn . william windlow , sworn . edward ayres , challenged . william ayres . challenged . and richard ayres , challenged . charles hobbs , sworn . roger browne , sworn . timothy doyley , sworn . richard dutton , challenged . ralph wallis , sworn . john nash , challenged . john benson , sworn . john piercy , sworn . william we●● , challenged . and john lawrence , sworn . then they were counted , and their names in order , thus . henry standard william bigg robert bird john shorter william windlow charles hobbs roger browne timothy doyley ralph wallis john benson john piercy john lawrence l. c. j. mr. sheriff , there are a great many of the jury that are not sworn , they are discharged , let them go out of the court , and so you will make room for the witnesses . cl. of cr . gentlemen , you of the jury , look upon the prisoner , and hearken to his charge . he stands indicted by the name of stephen colledge , late of oxford , in the county of oxford , carpenter ; for that he as a false traytor , &c. proved in the indictment , mutatis mutandis , and upon this indictment he hath been arraigned , &c. mr. north. may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen that are sworn , this is an indictment against stephen colledge , the prisoner at the bar , for an endeavour to raise a rebellion within this kingdom wherein he is accused , and the jury find that he as a false traytor against the kings majesty , contrary to the duty of his allegiance , on the 10th . of march , in the 33d . year of the kings reign , at oxon. here did trayterously conspire , and compass the death of the king , and the subversion of the government , and to raise a rebellion in the kingdom , and to slaughter his majesties subjects , to put the king to death , to levy war against him ▪ and to deprive him of his royal state and government , and to alter the government at his own will and pleasure ; and to accomplish this , he did at oxon. here prepare arms for the carrying on the war , and excited one edward turbervile and others , to arm themselves against the accomplishment of this design , and did declare his purpose was to seise the kings person at oxon. and that he was one of those that was to do it ; and to bring the said turbervile and other subjects to his purpose , did falsly , maliciously , and traiterously declare in their hearing , that there was no good to be expected from the king , that he minded nothing but the destruction of his people , and arbitrary government , and to introduce popery . and this is laid to be against the duty of his allegiance , against the kings peace , and against the form of the statutes in those cases made and provided . the prisoner you hear upon his arraignment hath pleaded not guilty , which issue you are to try , and if the evidence for the king , which are ready to be produced , prove that which is laid to his charge , you are to find it accordingly . mr. att. gen. may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury . the prisoner at the bar stands indicted of a very high crime , no less then high treason , and that too of the deepest dye ; it is for an endeavour to destroy the king , to subvert the government , to raise a rebellion amongst the kings subjects . and gentlemen , those instances that we shall give you , and produce our evidence to for the proof of that , are these . he laid his design to seise the king at oxon. and he did not want his accomplices to do it , but they were not men , gentlemen , that were protestants , but men that were rebels in the late war , they were men of such a kidney , that he associated himself with , and these were the persons that were to assist in this attempt . in order to this he had prepared arms in an extraordinary manner , arms of a great value for one of his condition , who is by trade a joyner ; for if a true estimate were taken of the value of the arms ; i believe they were worth twice his whole estate ; he prepared a good horse , extraordinary pistols , a carbine , a coat of maile , an head-piece , and so being armed cap-a-pee , with that design he came hither to oxon. and you will judge whether these be fit tools for a joyner . colledge . i beseech you sir , have you any body to prove this ? if you have not , you do hurt to the jury as well as me , to speak it . lo. ch. just . be patient mr. colledge , and let mr. attorney go on to open the charge . i will tell you and the jury too , that what he says further then he makes good by proof and witnesses , will serve for nothing . coll. 't is hard the counsel should plead against me , and open things that he can't prove . l. ch . just . i will do you all the right imaginable , and therefore i do tell you again , if they do not prove it , all he says is nothing . colledge . but i beseech you my lord , since there hath been such extraordinary means , and methods used to contrive my death , that the witnesses may be examined apart , and far from the hearing one of another . lo. ch. just . that we will take care of by and by . mr. att. gen. mr. colledge . this shews your temper , you are very inordinate in your way of expressing your self . colledge . mr. attorney , i should not interrupt you , if i were not afraid this was spoken to possess the jury . mr. at. g. i hope to prove what i have said , or every word of it shall pass for nothing . coll. 't is impossible for all the men on earth to prove it . mr. att. gen. gentlemen , these were the particulars i was opening to you , in what manner he was armed , and how accoutred he came hither . we shall likewise shew you that he made it his business to perswade others to undertake the design , and joyn with him , and as if open war were already declared ; he gave out a sign , which was a blue ribbon , a wrought ribbon with letters in it , and this was the mark and sign they were to know one another by . this was given out by him frequently ; and that it may not seem an extraordinary thing , gentlemen , though indeed it was a wild atempt , yet you will cease to wonder when you have heard of the exploit of venner , who with a few men raised such a commotion soon after the kings coming in , and the several exploits that have of late in scotland been carried on by a few discontented persons . so that men of the like principles , as we shall give you an account of this gentlemans principles what they were , may well be thought to ingage in such an extraordinary exploit . and we shall prove what the incouragement was he was to have ; for he boasted of himself , that he should be in a little time a collonel . colledge . what , sir ? mr. att. gen. a collonel , a great preferment for a joyner . colledge . yes , it was so . mr. att. gen. we shall shew to you that this was not a sudden unpremeditated thing : for we shall prove that he had entertained the horridst malice against the king that ever subject entertained against his sovereign : for we shall give this evidence , and his front will not oppose it , that he had made it his common discourse in coffee-houses , and publick houses , ( and i believe i could bring you 40 and 40 witnesses to it ) to defame the king , and murder him in his reputation , and was one of the complices with fitz harris , who lately was executed for that venomous libel : we shall prove that he justified it , and maintained it to be as true as the gospel . we shall give evidence that he carried on the same design with that arch-traytor who was a papist ; and i believe if this gentleman were examined throughly , he would be found to be one of the same stamp , and acted by the same principle ; for i think that no protestant subject would attempt such things as we shall prove to you . i believe , gentlemen , you have frequently heard , as none of us but have , that the king hath been traduced as a designer of arbitrary government , and his reputation blasted maliciously , and falsly , as an introducer of popery : whence comes all this generally , but out of the popish quiver , who make it their business to set the kings good subjects at variance amongst themselves ; and against their prince , by styling the king a papist , as this person hath done ; nay , he hath been so impudent as to report that the king was in the plot against his own life . we shall prove to you , how here and at other places he hath frequently done this . to go further , we shall produce to you the evidence that he drew the king's picture , and exposed him in all the reproachful characters imaginable ; and that the picture might be the better understood , he adds a ballad to it : and that he may not have the confidence to say this is not true , we shall produce to you a whole bundle of these papers , among those which his son made a discovery of , when they were sent to his uncle to be hid , and we shall prove him to be the author of them ; and yet that this man should have the confidence to say he is a good subject and a good protestant , when by all ways imaginable he goes about to ruin the government , and defame the king ! and gentlemen when we have given you this account by witnesses , for i would have you believe me in nothing , but according as i prove it , you will not wonder then that he should say his life is in danger , ( for so it is indeed . ) and if any man ever was guilty of high treason , sure he is , and being guilty of the greatest treason , he deserves the severest punishment . colledge . pray gentlemen of the jury , take mr. attorney at his word , and remember sir , you desire not to be believed your self , but what you prove . mr. ser. holloway . may it please your lordship , and gentlemen , pursuant to what mr. attorney hath opened , we will call our witnesses , and we will begin with mr. dugdale , who was a witness against my lord stafford , at his tryal in parliament , whose credit mr. colledge did attest at that tryal , asserting him to be an honest good man , and i believe his evidence will go in a great measure thro●●l that mr. attorn . hath opened , & when we have done with him , we hope to second him with other witnesses of as good credit , and that will say as much to the purpose . then mr. dugdale was sworn . mr. att. gen. mr. dugdale , look upon the prisoner , and tell the court whether you know him . mr. dugdale . yes , i do know him sir. mr. att. gen. will you give us an account of your knowledge of him ? colledge . my lord , i humbly desire they may be examined apart , and not in the hearing one of another . mr. att. gen. that with submission ought not to be in the kings case , though we think there are none of them , that will speak any more then the truth . colledge . here are several of them my lord , they are all of a gang . mr. serj. jefferies . not of your gang , mr. colledge . colledge . i pray they may go out my lord. ( which was done accordingly . ) mr. dugd. if your lordships please , whether or no i may deliver in these papers ? mr. at. g. by & by , time enough when we ask for them , speak your own knowledg . mr. dugd. my lord , i have been i think acquainted with mr. colledge 2 years or thereabouts . i have been several times in mr. colledges company , and truly sometimes he hath been mightily bent against popery ; he hath at sometimes uttered himself , because the king did not prosecute the papists according as he thought sufficiently , that the king was a papist himself , that he was as deep in the plot as any papist of them all , that he had an hand in sir edmondbury godfry's death . this mr. colledge i appeal to your self , whether you have not said it : and in this town of oxford you have several times told me that nothing was to be expected from him , he would no nothing . mr. just levinz . who did tell you so ? mr. dugdale . mr. colledge did tell me that there was nothing to be expected from the king , but the introducing of popery and arbitrary government , this i belive mr. colledge will acknowledge to be true . coll. where was this spoken ? mr. dugd. this was spoken at a coffee-house , called combe's coffee-house in this town , and at the angel-inn in this town at a barbers shop ; that day the king went out of town , we were in the same shop . coll. who was there besides ? mr. ser. jeff. do not interrupt our witnesses , let us have done with him , and you shall have time to ask him questions after . l. c. j. for your instruction , i will tell you , your time is not yet come , if you chop in , and interrupt the witnesses , you will disturb any man living ; but your way is this , when he hath delivered his testimony , ask him any questions then , and he shall be bound to answer you , and in the mean time you shall have pen , ink and paper , to help your memory . mr. dugd. that day the king went out of town , presently after he went , you and i went into the angel-inn : and we went into the barbers-shop that is just within the inn , and being charging your pistols there , you said rowley was gone , the rogue was afraid of himself , he was shirked away , and here i appeal to your own conscience , whether you did not speak it ? coll. i know nothing of it . mr. att. gen. don't appeal to him , 't is nothing for that . mt. sol. gen. who did he mean by rowley ? mr. dugd. the king. mr. serj. holloway . was that his common application for the king ? mr. dugd. it was his common word concerning the king. and at other times speaking that the king did not do those things that were fair , he hath given mighty great words against him : he hath told me that there was no trust to be put in him ; for it was the people we must trust to , and we must look to arm our selves , and that he would arm himself , and be here at oxford , and he told me here in the town accordingly , when i came out of the countrey , and he said that he had several stout men that would stand by him in it . their intention was , as he said , for the rooting out of popery , by which name he always termed the church that is now established by law , as to be of the same nature the papists were . this i believe mr. colledge will acknowledge . mr. att. gen. well , go on sir. mr. dugd. and at a time when he had dr. tongue at his house , he told me , that as for dr. tongue , he had much ado with him , and he had been at a great charge to keep him in order , that he was forced to neglect his own business to look after him ; for if he had not done so , the rogue , as he said , had a mind to fling all upon the protestants , that is , the dissenters ; for he does not count the church of england to be so ; that he had much ado to keep him in order ; for he had said he had drawn papers to that purpose , but those papers are secured ; for where they are , i can't tell . mr. att. gen. who were they that were to be with him in that design of his ? mr. dugd. he told me captain chinton , captain browne , and one dr. lewes , and he brought them into town here , when he came with him . mr. att. gen. to what purpose did he bring them ? mr. dugd. expecting there would be a rising . mr. jones . did he tell you that here ? mr. dugdale . yes , the friday , i think it was , after the parliament first sat . mr. jones . how did he express himself ? what they had to do . mr. dugdale . they were to be here , in case there were any rising , which he expected . mr. jones . what use did he say he would make of them ? mr. dugd. for the defence of the protestant religion , against the king and all his adherents . mr. jones . what did he say he would do to the king ? i would not lead you . mr. dugd. he did not say what particularly . mr. jones . what did he say if the king did not yield to the parliament ? mr. dugdale . if the king did not yield to the parliament , he should be forced to it . mr. jones . where did you hear him say that ? mr. dugdale . at oxford . mr. serj. holloway . did you hear him declare this at london ? mr. dugd. he did say at london , he expected there would be something done at oxford , and that he would go thither with his horse and arms , and those gentlemen i named before would go with him . and he said , let them begin when they would , he did not care how soon , his party was the greatest party . mr. att. gen. what was that capt. brown ? did you know him ? mr. dugd. yes , i knew him very well ; he did much frequent mr. colledge's company ; he was in the late army against the king. mr. serj. jeff. did you see him have any pistols ? mr. dugd. yes , i have seen him carry pistols about him . mr. serj. jeff. where , in his pocket ? mr. dugd. i saw them in the house . mr. serj. jeff. at oxford ? mr. dugd. yes . mr. serj. hollaway . did you see them in his hand ? mr. dugd. i cannot tell that , he had them in the house , i saw them there . mr. serj. hollaway . did you see him in his silk armour about the parliament-house , the lobby , or any place ? mr. dugd. i cannot say that . mr. att. gen. what did you know of his delivering any marks or signs for persons to be distinguished by ? mr. dugd. i had as much ribbon from him as came to forty shillings , with no popery , no slavery wrought in it ; and he gave it me to distribute among my friends in the countrey , that they might be known by other persons that would wear the same . mr. jones . where had you it ? mr. dugd. at london , from mr. colledge . mr. jones . where was it to be distributed ? mr. dugd. among those that i knew to be dissenters in the countrey . mr. jones . were you to come to oxford ; by agreement , with mr . colledge ? mr. dugd. i promised him to come to oxford , and did so . mr. attorn . gen. well , go on , what more do you know ? mr. dugdale . at london i was once at a coffee-house with mr. colledge , and with some of the members of the house of commons ; it was a little before they met ; and they were earnestly talking of the parliament at oxford ; and of some disturbance that was likely to happen here . and it was then fully agreed , and mr. colledg was by , that it would be the best way , out of every county , where the parliament had the best interest in the people , to leave one in every county that might manage the people . this i appeal to mr. colledge whether it be true . colledge . you appeal to me . shall i speak now , my lord ? mr. jones . no , you will remember it by and by . mr. att. gen. what do you know of any pictures ? mr. sol. gen. pray let him speak that over again which he mentioned last . mr. dugd. being in a coffee-house with mr. colledge , there were some of the members of the house of commons by ; and speaking of a disturbance that might happen here at oxford ; it was then agreed , that in every quarter where the parliament had the most interest in the people , they should not all come up , but some remain there to manage the people . mr. att. gen. what do you know of any pictures or papers , have you any about you : mr. dugdale . yes , i have one thing i have received from mr. colledge , that is , the letter pretended to be intercepted to roger l'estrange . mr. att. gen. pray , what account did he give you of it ? who made it ? mr. dugd. he told me he was the author of it himself , and he shewed me it in manuscript before it was printed ; and he told me , he got one curtis or his wife to print it ; but he would never trust them again , for they cheated him of some of the gain . mr. att. gen. who was the author did he say ? mr. dugdale . he himself . mr. att. gen. pray produce it sir. mr. dugdale . this and others he delivered to me to disperse . lo. ch. just . what is it mr . attorney ? mr. att. gen. it is a letter , and a great part of fitz-harris's libel is taken out ; it seems colledge was the author , and this is the original of the libel . lo. ch . just . did he tell you this was of his making ? mr. dugd. yes . mr. att. gen. did he disperse them to any body else ? mr. dugdale . yes , there were some given to one mr. boson , he had some at the same time , and mr. baldwin had some . then the paper was read . cl. of cr . first q. whether they that talk — mr. att. gen. pray give my lord an account what more papers and libels he delivered to you . mr. dugd. i received one like this , i cannot say it was the same , where all the bishops were changing their hats for cardinal caps . mr. serj. jeff. where is rary shew ; for it seems he hath expounded the meaning of that . ( then it was produced . ) mr. serj. jeff. i suppose 't is his own cutting too . mr. dugd. i heard mr. colledge sing it . mr. serj. jeff. where ? mr. dugd. in oxfordshire , and in oxford town , at my lord lovelace's . mr. serj. jeff. where at my lord lovelace's ? mr. dugd. at his house in the countrey . mr. serj. jeff. who were in the company there ? mr. dugd. sir robert clayton , sir thomas player , mr. rouse , mr. colledge . mr. serj. jeff. you say you heard him in oxford , and in oxfordshire , and at my lord lovelace's , where is that ? l. c. j. my lord. lovelace is here himself , and hears what he says . mr. dugd. i might mistake the county , but i heard him sing it at oxford town , and at my lord lovelace's house again . l. c. j. where is that ? mr. dugd. i cannot tell the town . mr. ser. jeff. how came you there ? mr. dugd. sir thomas player did invite me thither . mr. ser. jeff. where is it in oxfordshire ? mr. dugd. i cannot tell , 't is four miles from henly . mr. ser. jeff. was my lord at home ? mr. dugd. yes , he was . mr. ser. jeff. now for the cut then ; did he shew you this cut ? mr. dugd. yes , he told me he would get it printed . mr. ser. jeff. was it before it was printed then that he sung it ? mr. dugd. yes , it was . mr. ser. jeff. who did he tell you did make it ? mr. dugd. he told me he was the author of this cut , and he gave me one , and we sang it together presently after it was printed . mr. att. gen. how did he describe it to you , when he shewed it to you ? mr. dugd. that which hath the pack on the back of it , he described to be the king ; those that follow him were topham , cooper , hughs , and snow ; and that company of men there is the house of commons . mr. ser. holloway . what was meant by the pack ? mr. dugd. the parliament and all his retinue ; and then here is the king in the mire again , according as 't is represented in the long — mr. ser. jeff. ay , he goes on well . and this here is the bishops which they thrust into the pack when they have got him down into the mire , and then they thrust them all away , as it is in the song , to hoot them away . l. c. j. did he make this explication to you ? mr. dugd. yes . mr. serj. jeff. who were the all ? mr. dugdale . king and clergy-men and all . mr. serj. jefferies . where was this he explained it ? mr. dugd. at london . mr. ser. holloway . is there any thing relating to white-hall ? what name did he give that ? mr. dugd. yes , he said , louse-hall was white-hall , because of its poverty . then the ballad was read . cl. of cr . rarp shew . to the tune of , i am a sensless thing — mr. att. gen. this shews you what sort of man he is . mr. serj. jeff. here you say he explained this with the pack at the back to be the king ? mr. dugd. yes , he told me so . mr. ser. jeff. what did he mean by the two faces ? mr. dugd. that he was half protestant , and half papist . mr. jones . did he make any comparison between his own party and the kings party ? mr. dugd. he said they were but an handful to them . mr. jones . to whom ? mr. dugd. to his party , that was the dissenters . mr. att. gen. speak that out . mr. dugd. that their party was but a handful to theirs . mr. att. gen. theirs and theirs , who did he mean ? mr. dugd. he meant the dissenters , for the church of england he reckoned among the papists . l. c. j. tell us the words he said . mr. dugd. he said , his party was the true church of england , and that which is established by law , were but protestants in masquerade . mr. jones . tell us when he made the comparison , what words he did use , and upon what occasion . mr. dugd. when he perceived the king at oxford would not yield to the house of commons , he said , let him begin as soon as he would , he did not care how soon he did begin , for their party ▪ meaning the king and his party , was but an handful to him and his party , calling them the true protestants , the others were protestants in masquerade . mr. att. gen. what did he desire you to do , to be assisting in any thing ? mr. dugd. he always desired me to be true of that side , he hoped i was , and to get good arms for my self . mr. serj. holloway . did he in oxford desire this of you ? mr. dugd. no he did not . mr. sol. gen. for what purpose did he desire you to arm your self ? mr. dugd. he said the king had a design on the people to introduce popery and arbitrary government , and he expected every day when they would begin , and the sooner the better , he would be provided for them . mr. jones . was that in oxford ? mr. dugd. he spoke it in oxford , and in the city too . mr. jones . did he tell you of any that were listed ? mr. dugd. he spoke of capt. brown , and capt. clinton , and don lewes , and abundance more he said he had . mr. jones . did he tell you he had them here ? mr. dugd. yes , about forty of them were there he said . mr. serj. holloway . did he tell you of any that were listed , in order to the coming down of the parliament at oxford ? mr. dugd. not listed , but were intended to come down ; and at oxford he told me they were come down . mr. just . jones . were you in their company in oxford here ? mr. dugd. yes , i was . mr. just . jones . in the company of whom ? name them . mr. dugd. of capt. brown , don lewes , and several others of that gang ; i know not their names , but i know their faces . mr. sol. gen. did he take notice to you that they were come down . mr. dugd. yes . mr. sol. gen. to what purpose ? mr. dugd. he expected there would be a rising in oxford , and to this purpose . mr. colledge was one that debated it at richard's coffee-house , and it was to be carried from thence to the kings-head club , whether it were not best to leave a parliament man in every county ? mr. att. gen. where was this ? mr. dugdale . this was at richard's coffee-house in london , against they met here . mr. att. gen. we could give you an account of a volume of these things , abundance of scandalous pamphlets , both songs , libels , and ballads , that were made by this gentleman , and all seized in his custody . mr. jones . but he sung this libel ? mr. attorn . gen. all these , gentlemen , ( shewing a great bundle ) were to be dispersed over england . mr. serj. jeff. it was , it seems , expounded and sung by the prisoner at the bar ; he gave you the ballad here at oxford , you say , mr. dugdale . mr. dugd. no , i heard him sing it here . mr. jones . pray , mr. dugdale , what was the use was to be made of this ballad ? mr. att. gen. come , go to the next , we call this evidence to shew you the malice of the man. colledge . pray , my lord , let me ask some questions of mr. dugdale ? mr. ser. jeff. ay , now let the prisoner ask his questions ( to do him right ) before we go to another witness . mr. dugd. my lord , i have a word or two more about a libel in manuscript ; that very day the sheriffs were to be chosen , it was to be printed , and he told me the printer dust not print it , it was so dangerous . mr. serj. jeff. what was it , can you remember any part of it ? mr. dugdale . no , but it was the worst i ever heard in my life , against the king and government . lo. ch . just . now ask him what questions you will. coll. pray , when was the first time you gave this evidence ? mr. dugdale . truly , mr. colledge , i don't keep an account of time , i cannot give an account of time . mr. att. gen. as near as you can , tell him . mr. dugdale . i cannot tell whether it might be in june , i think it was . colledge . how long before i was taken ? mr. dugdale . it might be about the time you were taken . colledge . pray , who did you give it before ? mr. dugd. i gave it to sir lionel jenkins . colledge . where did you swear these particulars were done then ? mr. dugd. what was done in the city , i swore to be done there . colledge . what city ? mr. dugd. london ; the same words were said in the city of london , and over again here . i have repeated , for the most part , only the words you said here , but more was in the city than here . colledge . did you swear then , that the words you swear now were spoken at london ? mr. dugdale . it may be we might not name oxford then . mr. ser. jeff. he says well ; it might not be named then . colledge . then you did give in your information , that i spoke these words at oxford ? mr. dugd. i was not examined about what was done at oxford ; but i believe i have heard you speak the same words to me at my lord lovelace's , but i do not know what county that is in . colledge . i ask you positively , whether you did not swear that what you now say was spoken at oxford , was spoken at london . mr. dugd. i did not name oxford then . colledge . but did not you say that was done at london , that now you say was done here . mr. dugd. truly , you said them both at london , and here . colledge . pray , mr. dugdale , what had you to give this your information ? mr. dugdale . truly i can't say i have received the worth of a groat . colledge . nor was ever promised any thing ? mr. dugd. no , i never received any thing , nor ever was promised , but only what the king gave me for going down into the countrey for my charges . mr. att. gen. was that the same allowance you had when you were witness for the popish plot ? mr. dugd. yes . mr. ser. jeff. have you any other allowance than what you had before , when you gave evidence at my lord stafford's tryal ? mr. dugd. no , nor have got all that yet neither . coll. but pray observe my question , mr. dugdale , and answer it : did you not swear at london that i spoke these words there , which now you say i spoke here . l. c. j. pray observe , he says he did not then name oxford ; but in the giving of his evidence now , he tells you a series of what passed between london and oxford ; and i must tell you further , if a treason be committed , and the evidence prove it to be in two countries , the king may choose which county he will prosecute and bring his indictment in , and give in evidence the facts in both counties . but you shall have your objection to it afterwards , and we will take it into consideration . i tell you this , that it may not seem to you that the witnesses speak impertinently of what was done at london ; but if nothing was done or said at oxford , then it will be taken into consideration , you shall have it saved afterwards , i only him it now , that you may not think it impertinent . coll. i beseech your lordship give me leave to speak one word ; when he made his affidavit before sir lionel jenkins there about seizing the king , about the party i had , and the arms i had provided , ought not he at the same time to have said where i said those words to him ? but he did swear then it was in london that i said those words to him ; and coming before a grand jury of honest gentlemen in london , they were so wise and honest as to do me justice , and not find the bill ; so their design failing there , then they changed it to oxford . l. c. j. you did not come to your tryal there , if you had so done , then they would have asked him in particular what was said at oxford , and what at london , as 't is now , being done in both counties . but look you , if you will ask any particular questions , do , for they have other witnesses to produce . coll. my lord , i only ask this question , whether it be not rational to think , that when he swore before sir lionel jenkins , he should not swear the words were spoken , and things done ? mr. dugd. he hath said the same words to me at my lord lovelace's , as i lay in bed with him , and this i never mentioned but now in my evidence . coll. what words did i say there ? mr. dugd. if you must have them repeated , they were about the king. coll. what were they ? mr. dugd. that he was a papist , and designed arbitrary government . coll. did i say so to you at my lord lovelace's ? mr. dugd. yes , as we lay a bed. mr. sol. gen. did you lye together ? mr. ser. jeff. yes , yes , they were intimates . colledge . i had not six words with you when you went to bed ; for you said you were weary , and went asleep presently . mr. dugd. i say you said this in the morning ; for we had above an hours discourse when we were a bed , and all our discourse was about the parliament and the king. coll. where was it i said those words in oxford ? mr. dugd. at combe's coffe-house was one place . coll. was there no body by ? mr. dugd. no , but at the angel-inn there were several persons standing by . coll. surely then some of those heard the words as well as you . mr. dugd. it may be so , i am sure many at london have been by , as mr. starkey by name , mr. boson , mr. baldwin ? they have rebuked you for it , and i have rebuked you too . coll. what words have they and you heard , and rebuked me for ? mr. dugd. when you have been railing against the king , and said , that he designed nothing but the introducing of popery , and arbitrary government , and that he was a papist . mr. ser. jeff. he loves to hear it repeated . coll. what arms did you see of mine in this town ? mr. dugd. i saw pistols ; you had a case of pistols before you , and you had some pocket-pistols . coll. none but one i borrowed of you , and that you had again ; had i ? pray speak , did you see any more ? mr. dugd. it may be there might not , but there were pocket-pistols in the room , and you had them in your hand . colledge . he swore but now that he saw me have pocket-pistols , when it was but one , and that was his own . mr. serj. jeff. heark you now , you talk of pistols , do you know that he had any pistols in his holsters at oxford . mr. dugd. yes , he had . coll. yes , i know that , i don't deny it . mr. serj. jeff. i think a chissel might have been more proper for a joyner . coll. you say i was confederated with capt. brown , and other men . mr. dugd. you have told me that captain brown had agood allowance , and it was pity he had not a better allowance ; and you would speak he might have a better allowance , for he was able to do good service when the time came . colledge . from whom ? mr. dugd. among you . colledge . among whom ? mr. dugd. you know there were several gatherings among you that i was not privy to . colledge . what do i know ? mr. sol. gen. you know mony was gathered many times . colledge . for what purpose ? mr. dugd. you never told me particulars ; it was to distribute some where , i had none of it . l. c. j. he does not say these men were concerned with you , but you said so . mr. dugd. you know , mr. colledge ▪ there were many gathering of monies . coll. did i tell you there were any gatherings for capt. brown ? mr. serj. jeff. he says you told him no particulars ; if you have a mind to ask him any more questions , do . coll. pray , sir george , don't interrupt me , i am here for my life . did i tell you there were any gatherings for capt. brown ? mr. dugd. i do not say for him , nor whom you distributed it to ; but you gathered mony one among another , and you have paid mony . colledge . i have paid mony ! when , and to whom ? mr. att. gen. you will not deny that , you confessed upon your examination that you gave a guinny . coll. sir , did you see me any more at oxford , than in the coffee-house , and at that inn , when i went out of town , and was going home with the city-members ? mr. dugd. yes . coll. were you in my company any where , but in those two places ? mr. dugd. yes i was with you at the chequer . coll. did you come a purpose to speak with me , or had you any business particularly with me ? mr. dugd. truly , mr. colledge , i have forgot whether i had or no , i was in the room with you there . colledge . where is that room ? mr. dugd. i can't tell all the rooms in that house . coll. was it above stairs , or below ? mr. dugd. both above and below , two days i was there with you . coll. was there any of this discourse you speak of passed there between us . mr. dugd. i know i was with you in those two places i mentioned before ; you called me aside to drink a glass of mum , and there was none in the room but us two at that coffee-house . coll. sir , you came to town but on friday , i think , it must be saturday , sunday or monday this was , for we stayed no longer in oxford . mr. dugd. nay , i came to oxford , either wednesday night or thursday morning ; and i saw mr. hunt and you together the same day i came . coll. did i explain any pictures to you at london , or owned i was the author of them ? mr. dugd. yes , upon my oath , you have explained pictures to me , and there is one picture that i have not shewed yet , which you have explained what the meaning was . mr. serj. jeff. 't is your common trade it seems . mr. dugd. you told me you got them done . clerk reads , a character of a popish successor , &c. mr. ser. holloway . how did he explain it to you ▪ mr. dugdale ? mr. serj. jeff. i would see what opinion he had of the church of england ; there are some church-men , what are they a doing ? mr. dugdale . they are a parcel of tantivy-men riding to rome ; and here 's the duke of york , half man , half devil , trumpeting before them . colledge . you have got somebody to explain these things to you , mr. dugdale . mr. dugd. you did it , upon my oath . colledge . oh , fie upon you , mr. dugdale , consider what you say . mr. serj. jefferies . all this you did explain , it seems . mr. dugd. and in one place of the other libel , the king was termed a rogue , but they put him in by another name . mr. ser. jeff. where is it ? mr. dugd. 't is in rary-shew ; in the manuscript it was , now , now the rogue is down . mr. ser. jeff. let me see it , i took notice of it , 't is , now , now the gyant is down , here . coll. i ask you , sir , whether the song which you say was sung at my lord lovelace's , and other places , was the same with this ? mr. dugd. for the general it is , i can't tell for every word : you sang it half a dozen times there , and the musick plaid to you . coll. i ask you whether it was the same with this ? mr. dugd. i can't tell for every word you sang . coll. was there any body by at my explaining of these pictures ? mr. dugd. mr. baldwyn was by , and reproved and corrected you , that you would be so open . coll. was there any body by at oxford , when you did hear me talk of arming my self ? mr. dugd. they were walking up and down in the barbers shop , and i know not whether they did hear or no. mr. att. gen. was that gentleman sworn at my lord stafford's tryal , mr. dugdale ? colledge . yes , i was sworn there , i acknowledge it . mr. att. gen. did he swear any thing on your behalf , for your credit , mr. dugdale ? coll. that was by hear-say , mr. attorney , at the tower : i know nothing of my own knowledge ; but i did believe him another man than i find him . mr. ser. jeff. no question , or else you would not have trusted him . mr. att. gen. swear stevens . ( which was done . ) do you give my lord , and the jury , an account where you found this precious ballad . stevens . the first draught i found in his bed-chamber . mr. ser jeff. what , of all of them ? which is it ? stevens . the rary shew , we found the first draught of it in his house , when we came to search his papers , by order of council , and the printer that printed the ballad , hath told me since , he had it from him — mr. att. gen. what say you your self ? speak your own knowledge . stevens . and mr. atterbury was by when we searched the house . mr. att. gen. well , mr. atterbury will tell his own story . stevens . i have seen you on horseback , with holsters before you , with some hundreds of men after you , coming out of the bell-savage inn ; they said , you were going to choose parliament-men : i have known you three or four years , you were joyner to our hall. mr. ser. jeff. we call you to that particular of the papers , and you run out in a story of a cock and a bull , and i know not what . lo. ch . just . will you ask him any questions ? coll. no , only this ; do you swear , upon your oath , that you found the original in my house ? stevens , yes , sir , you will see it with my hand to it , and some more of them . mr. att. gen. and you found too those that were printed ? stevens . yes , both our names are to them , that were concerned in the searching of them . mr. ser. jeff. you found the paper in the house ? stevens . yes . mr. ser. jeff. that is towzer ; but you have the original of the rary shew ? ( it was looked for , but could not be found . ) coll. pray , gentlemen , observe , he swears that is an original . mr. ser. jeff. no , no , he found the paper in your house . coll. i ask about the original of rary shew . mr. ser. jeff. he says he saw a paper drawn with a pencil that was like the original . atterbury . there was an original drawn with a pencil , upon dutch paper , 't is lost since , for we do not see it here now , which at the same time we found upon colledge's table in his bed-chamber . coll. did you find an original of that in my chamber ? atterbury . yes , we found a paper drawn with black-lead . coll. pray , where is it ? atterbury . i did see it , it was drawn in black-lead , it was upon dutch-paper , and lay upon the table in your chamber . stevens . sure i am it was taken when we searched the house . coll. i am sure you could never find the original of any such thing in my house . mr. att. gen. then where is mr. sewel , ( who was sworn . ) sir , did you see that trumpery taken ? sewell . i had a warrant to seize mr. spur , and his brother-in-law , mr. colledge . so i went down to seize mr. spur , and search his house for such papers as i should find . i could not find them in the house ; but i enquired of him , after i had searched , and could not find them where they were ; because i saw him at mr. colledge's when we first searched ; he denied them a pretty while , but at last he told me they were in the hay-mow in the barn. when i came there , he was balling , and told me his wife , colledge's sister had taken them down , and carried them into a room where i had searched before , but could not find them ; and the man was angry then , so we run after his wife , and found her with all these papers in a bag . mr. att. gen. are these the same papers ? sewell . yes , and there were two other cuts ; the man himself is about the place somewhere . mr. attorn . gen. swear mr. john smith . which was done . mr. jones . come , mr. smith , do you know mr. colledge ? mr. smith . yes . mr. ser. jeff. give us an account what dealings you have had with him , where , and when ; what he hath said about the king ; and tell us first whether you be intimately acquainted ? mr. smith . we were intimately acquainted . the first time i heard mr. colledge discoursing any thing of this nature , that is , concerning treason , or any such thing , was once at a coffee-house by temple-bar ; there i met colledge , and he told me he was invited to dinner , and he likewise invited me to it . i asked him who provided the dinner , he told me it was one alderman vvilcox ; i told him i was a stranger , and did not care for going : he told me i should be very welcome there , and at last prevailed upon me to go : and as i was going along , i asked him what the alderman was ? he told me he was a man that was as true as steel , and a man that would endeavour to root out popery : said i , that may be done easily , if you can but prevail with the king to pass the bill against the d. of york . no , no , said he , you are mistaken , for rowley is as great a papist as the d. of york is ( now he called the king rowley ) and every way as dangerous to the protestant interest , as is too apparent by his arbitrary ruling . this was the discourse between the coffee-house and the tavern where we went to dine . when we came in , i asked colledge again , whether the alderman was there ; he said he was not there at that time : i asked him the second time what kind of man he was , he said he was one that lived in his countrey-house , and gave freely to several people to buy arms and ammunition . and i asked him to what purpose ? and he said it was to bring the king to submission to his people ; adding thereto , that he wondred old rowley did not consider how easily his fathers head came to the block , which he doubted not would be the end of rowley at the last . after this discourse the alderman came in ; we dined , and every one went his own way about his own business . mr. colledge ▪ then told me , if i would go with him to his own house , i should see how he was prepared with arms and provision . soon after i met with him , and he desired me to go along and dine with him ; and i did so , and there he did shew me his pistols , his blunderbuss , his great sword ; and he shewed me his armour , back and breast ; and he shewed me his head-piece , which , if i am not mistaken , was covered over with chamlet , it was a very fine thing ; and , said he , these are the things which will destroy the pitiful guards of rowley , that are kept up contrary to law and justice , to set up arbitrary power and popery . colledge . what did i say , sir , about my armour ? mr. smith . thus you said ; it was to destroy rowley's guards ( those were your words ) that were kept up contrary to law and justice , to set up arbitrary power and popery . after i had dined with him , i parted with him . a little before the parliament was to meet at oxford , i met him again ; and were discoursing of several things , what preparations the city were making , how they were provided with powder and bullets ; and for his part , he would go down to oxford , for he expected a little sport there , upon the divisions that were like to be between the king and parliament . then said i to him , why , what is the matter there ? why , said he , we expect that the king will seize upon some of the members , and we are as ready as he . and , says he , for my part , i will be there , and be one that shall seize him , if he secure any of the members , ( and i believe he did go down ; ) says he , you know how the city is provided : i told him , no , not so well as he ; but he told me all was very well . after he came up again , i met him another time , and he told me , he went down in expectation of some sport ; but old rowley was afraid , like his grand-father jamy , and so ran away like to beshit himself . mr. ser. jeff. did he say , if he had not ran away , he would have seized him ? mr. smith . he said nothing of that , but before , he said , he would be one of them should seize him , if he seized any of the members . after this he told me , that fitz-gerald and he had had a quarrel at the parliament-door of the house of lords at oxford ; that fitz-gerald had called him rogue ; and , said he , fitz-gerald made my nose bleed ; but before long , i hope to see a great deal more blood shed for the cause . after this again , when there was a discourse of disarming the city , that my lord feversham was to come to do it , he told me , he was well provided , and if feversham , or any man , nay rowley himself should attempt any such thing , he would be the death of him , before any man should seize upon his arms. mr. serj. jeff. did he discourse any thing to you about arms to provide your self ? mr. smith . yes , he did , i had an armour from him . mr. ser. jeff. what did he say to you about it ? mr. smith . he did desire me to get arms , for i did not know how soon i might make use of them . i had an armour from him upon trial ; he said it cost him 30 or 40 s. i had it upon trial , but it was too big for me , so i gave it him back , and bought a new one . mr. attorn . gen. did he tell you to what purpose you should arm your self ? mr. smith . no , he did not name any purpose , but he told me i did not know how soon i might make use of it . mr. att. gen. what did he say to you about any one's seizing the king ? mr. smith . he told me the parliament were agreed to secure the king , and that in order to it , all parliament-men came very well armed , and accompanied with arms and men ; and he told me of a great man that had notice from all the gentlemen of england how well they came armed . mr. jones . what did he say of himself ? mr. smith . he would be one that should secure the king , if he seized any of the members . mr. jones . when he had been there , what did he say ? mr. smith . if they had had any work , he was ready provided for them . mr. att. gen. but pray tell us again what he said of the kings running away ? mr. smith . he said rowley was afraid , like his grand-father jumy , and ran away ready to beshit himself . l. c. j. if you have done with him , mr. attorney , let the prisoner ask him what questions he will. colledge . mr. smith , where was this discourse i had with you ? mr. smith . which do you mean , the former part or the latter ? colledge . the first discourse you talk of , what i told you going to mr. wilcox's to dinner , and when it was ? mr. smith . you know best when it was , i can't exactly remember the time , but you know 't is true . colledge . where was it ? mr. smith . as we went along thither we had the first part of it , and when we came thither , you and i talked till alderman wilcox came in ; and you and i were alone together , and several persons that were there , were drawn into cabals , two by two . colledge . where ? mr. smith . in the room where we dined ; and you know there was a little room by , where some were drinking a glass of wine . coll. you say , by two and two the company were drawn into cabals . mr. smith . i tell you most of them were in cabals , two and two together , only those two gentlemen that belonged to the alderman went up and down , and gave wine . coll. what religion are you of ? mr. smith . is it for this man to ask me , my lord , such a question ? lo. ch . just . yes , answer him . mr. smith . i am a protestant . coll. you were a priest . mr. smith . yes , what then ? and i am in orders now . colledge . that was from the church of rome . mr. smith . yes and that is a good ordination : i came in voluntarily to discover the popish plot , and was no pentioner , nor received any sallary from the king. i have spent several pounds , several scores of pounds , but received no recompence . and i was the darling at one time all over the city , when i did adhere to what they would have me to do . mr. ser. jeff. did not you swear against my lord stafford ? mr. att. gen. were not you a witness , mr. smith , at my lord stafford's tryal ? mr. smith . in that case i did give a general account of the design of the papists ; they did not then question my reputation , and i defie all the world to say any thing against it . colledge . pray hear me sir , if you please ; the first discourse that you speak of about mr. wilcox's being a good man for the cause , and contributing mony , this was when we were at dinner . mr. smith . this was that day when we went to dinner with him , you know it very well . coll. where were the other discourses i had with you ? mr. smith . which part of them ? colledge . when i came from oxford . mr. smith . by the ditch side , by your own house ; i have two or three to prove it , we were an hour or two discoursing together about this business . coll. what business ? l. c. j. he tells you of two discourses , one before you went to oxford , and one after you came from thence . coll. he does say , that i discoursed him about our coming down hither to oxford , that the parliament would secure the king , and that i would be one of them that should seize him , and this was at the time when we dined with alderman wilcox . l. c. j. not so , he says after that time , and before you went to oxford , he had such a discourse with you . mr. smith . yes , my lord , so it was . coll. and does he speak of another time when i shewed him the back , breast and arms ? mr. smith . yes . coll. but he said , i discoursed then , that the city was provided with arms , and that the parliament were resolved to bring the king to submission . mr. smith . when i was in the house with him , he then said mr. wilcox gave mony to provide arms : i asked for what ? he said , it was to bring the king to submission to his people ; and then he added , he admired that rowley did not remeber how easily his fathers head came to the block ; and he doubted not but that would be the end of him too . l. c. j. he spake of several times you know . coll. i do not know one word of it , nor can distinguish the times : but , mr. smith the last discourse you say about oxford business , was by the ditch side . mr. ser. jeff. the discourse about bringing the king to submission , was in the way as you went to dinner . mr. smith . the last discourse when you returned from oxford , was by the ditch side ; but both before and after you spake to me at that place about this design of bringing the king to submission . colledge . you said it was at wilcox's at dinner . mr. ser. jeff. you mistook him then . colledge . nay , sir george , you took him not right . mr. ser. jeff. i have taken him right i assure you , and you shall see it by and by . colledge . he is the falsest man that ever spoke with a tongue . mr. att. gen. swear bryan haynes . ( which was done . tell my lord , and the jury , whether you know this gentleman , what converse you have had with him , and what discourse he hath had with you . apply your self to mr. colledges business only . haynes . i suppose he will not deny but that he knows very well ; i have been acquainted with him ever since march last , before the sitting of the parliament at oxford . my lord , there was a warrant against me for high treason ; and i made my application to mr. colledge , and desired him to go to a certain person of honour in england , and ask his advice , whether i might supercede the warrant by putting in bayl , and carry the supercedeas in my pocket : mr. colledge told me he would go to this person of honour , for he would do nothing of his own head ; and he bid me come to him the next day . my lord , i came to mr. colledge the very next day , and i met him at his house , and i asked him what was the result , and what advice he had from that person of quality ; he bid me be of good chear , that the parliament would be , and sit at oxford soon ; that i should not value the king a pin ; for , said he , the king is in a worse condition than you or i ; for you shall see , said he , he shall be called to an account for all his actions . mr. serj. jeff. who should ? haynes . the king ; for all the world may see , says he , that he does resolve to bring in arbitrary power and popery : and , said he , unless he will let the parliament sit at oxford , since he hath called them together , and put the people to charges in chusing of them , and them in coming down , we will seize him at oxford , and bring him to the block , as we did the logger-head his father . the parliament shall sit at guildhall , and adjust the grievances of the subject , and of the nation . and you shall see , said he , that no king of his race shall ever reign in england after him . l. c. j. where was this he said so ? haynes . at his own house i met him ; and he and i did walk all along from his own house , over the bridge that is against bridewel , and so went all along till we came to the hercules-pillars , and we had some discourse there ; we went up one pair of stairs and called for beef ; and all this discourse was in that very place of the hercules-pillars . mr. serj. holloway . do you know any thing of any arms he had , and for what ? haynes . but , sir , said i to mr. colledge , how can this be done , 't is a thing impossible . you pretend , you say , to the duke of monmouth , that he is a fine prince , and stands up for the protestant interest : alas , said he , we make an idol of him to adumbrate our actions , for fear we should be discovered . do you think the wise people of england shall ever make a bastard upon record king of england : no , said he , for though we praise his actions , yet we cannot endure him , because he is against his own father . but , said he , further , unless the king do expel from his council the earl of clarindon , cunning lory hide , the earl of hallifax , that great turn-coat rogue , that was before so much against the papists , a rascal , we shall see him hang'd , and all the tory counsellors ; except the king do it , we will make england too hot for him . coll. who did i say this to , to you ? haynes . yes , to me . coll. pray , how could this be possible ? haynes . yes , you knew my condition ; and i intimated to you at that time , that i was as much for treason and villany as you : but then said i to him , how can this be done ? here you have neither officers , nor men of experience , nor men of knowledge ; nor you have no ammunition , sea-port towns , nor ships . and besides , the king , said i , hath a great party in the land , and the duke of york likewise ; and for all the men of estates , and the ancient gentlemen , they will not be disturbed , and to quit their ease for a civil war. oh , says he , you are mistaken , for we have in the city 1500 barrels of powder , and we have 100000 men ready at an hours warning ; and we have ordered every thing in a due method against the sitting of the parliament at oxford ; and you shall see england the most glorious nation in the world , when we have cut off that beastly fellow rowley ; and speaking of the king , he said , he came of the race of buggerers , for his grandfather , king james , buggered the old duke of buckingham ; and he called him captain , and sometimes the king , and sometimes rowley . mr. ser. jeff. this was pure protestant discourse upon my word . haynes . then he railed at judge pemberton ; and , said he , let him try fitz-harris if he dare ; i shall see him go to tyburn for it , i hope , a turn-coat rogue . he was for the plot whilst he was a puisne judge , but now he is chief justice , he is the greatest rogue in the world . he is like one of the pensioners in the long parliament . so one day i went along with mrs. fitz-harris , and mr. ivy , and he sent a man to me , and desired me to come to the hog in armor ; thither we came , and met him , and went to his lodgings , and there we dined . then they made some persons of honour believe , that i was a person so and so qualified , and was brim full of the plot ; and he would put me upon charging the king with the firing of london , and the murder of sir edmondbury godfrey , and said he , such and such lords shall live and die by you ; and besides , said he , you need not fear , england shall espouse your cause . but , said i , the law is like the spiders web , that catches the little flies , but the great flies run through the net , and make their escape ; so 't is with these lords , they put you and me on the danger of acting ; and when they get off by interest , a jury of twelve men will hang us by the neck , and so i should perish , whilst others triumphed , and only be a martyr for the phanaticks . so in discourse we were talking of the libel of fitz-harris ; the devil take me , said he , every individual word is as true as god is in heaven ; and said he , if you do not joyn with fitz-harris in his evidence , and charge the king home , you are the basest fellow in the world , for he makes you slaves and beggars , and would make all the world so ; and 't is a kind of charity to charge him home , that we may be rid of such a tyrant . mr. serj. jeff. mr. colledge , if you will ask him any questions , you may . coll. certainly , my lord , the thing speaks it ; he is not to be talked withal ; is it probable i should talk to an irish-man that does not understand sense ? haynes . 't is better to be an honest irish-man than an english rogue . mr. serj. jeff. he does it but to put you into a heat , don't be passionate with him . haynes . no , i am not , i thank god he hath not put me into an heat . coll. where was this discourse about superceding your warrant ? haynes . at london . coll. when ? haynes . it was before the parliament sate at oxon. coll. how long ? haynes . i can't tell positively to an hour or a day . coll. what month as near as you can ? haynes . it was in the month of march. coll. had you ever seen me before ? haynes . can you deny that ? coll. i ask you whether you have or no ? haynes . yes , i have seen you in the coffee-houses bawling against the government . l. c. j. were you an intimate acquaintance of his before march last ? haynes . no intimate acquaintance . coll. then this is the first time you discoursed with me . haynes . oh , no , my lord. one and i fell out at the queens-head tavern at temple-bar , and he set me upon the business , and john macnamarra and others , and truly i did the business for him : for we fell out , and did box , and our swords were taken from us , and i went to john macnamarra , and told him , yonder is such a man at such a place , now you may seize upon him . coll. what man was that ? haynes . one richard ponre . coll. he belonged to my lord tyrone , i think , there were warrants to take him . do you say i set you upon that ? haynes . yes , you were with me the night before , and captain browne , and they gave us a signal , a blue ribband to distinguish that we were protestants from the bishops men . l. c. j. when were you to make use of it ? haynes . when the king was seized . mr. ser. jeff. well , go on , have you any more ? haynes . but , my lord , further , after he came from oxon. i met him , and said i , where are now all your cracks and brags ? now you see the king hath made a fool of you ; now you know not what you would have done . says he , what would you have us do ? we have not done with him yet : for , said he , no servant , no man living did know whether he would dissolve the parliament that day . i was that very nick of time at the lobby of the lords-house , and there was a man came in with a gown under his arm , and every one looked upon him to be a taylor , and no body did suspect , no , not his intimatest friends , except it were fitz-gerald , that he would dissolve the parliament that day ; but presently he puts on his robes , and sends away for the house of commons ; and when he had dissolved them , before ever the house could get down , he took coach and went away , otherwise the parliament had been too hard for him ; for there was never a parliament-man but had divers armed men to wait on him , and i had my blunderbuss and my man to wait upon me . but well , said he , there is a god above will rule all . mr. att. gen. call mr. turbervile . coll. hold , sir , i desire to ask him some questions . you say the first time that i saw you , you had this discourse with me . haynes . do not use tautologies , 't is not the first time i have been examined , i know how to speak as well as you . coll. answer my question , sir. haynes . you know it was after i had made affidavit before the recorder of london , a copy of which was carried to that noble-man ; and you came from him , and returned me his thanks , and told me it was the best service i could do him . i would not trouble the court with circumstantial things ; and you cold me i should be gratified not only in my own property , but a reward for me and my heirs for ever . mr. att. gen. for what ? haynes . i made affidavit before the recorder of london . colledge . about what ? haynes . concerning one fitz-gerald . mr. att. gen. is it to this matter ? haynes . no , nothing at all . l. c. j. let him ask any questions , what he will. coll. i ask when it was the first time you were acquainted with me so much , as to know me well ? haynes . as to the first time of intimacy , here is macnamarra will take his corporal oath that i was as well acquainted with him as any one in the world. coll. pray answer me , sir ; when was the first time i talked to you ? haynes . the first intimate acquaintance we had , was when you put me upon the design about fitz-gerald . colledge . pray sir , you go too fast already , as you are still gallopping ; where was this discourse about his majesty ? haynes . i told you before . coll. what was it ? haynes . i went to you after the affidavit was made , and told you there was a warrant out after me , and desired you to go to that noble-man , and desire his advice what i might do , or whether i might supersede the warrant . you told me you could do nothing without advice , and you would go and advise with that noble-man . colledge . my lord , here is mr. turbervile come in , they will over-hear one another , pray let me have fair play for my life . ( whereupon turbervile withdrew . ) lo. ch . just . can't you answer him ? when was the first time you came acquainted with him ? mr. serj. jeff. when was the first discourse you had with him ? haynes . in april last . coll. you say it was before the sitting of the parliament , and that was in march. haynes . i meant in march. colledge . so indeed you said at first . mr. ser. jeff. he never did say the day of the month , nor the month neither . mr. jones . how long was it before the sitting of the parliament ? haynes . mr. jones , truely i do not remember precisely how long it was before the sitting of the parliament , but i am sure it was before . mr. ser. jeff. i did take it that he said it was before the sitting of the parliament , and now he says , in the month of march. pray at that time he talked to you , did not he tell you of the sitting of the parliament , and that they would stand by you . coll. he hath said it already , you need not direct him , sir george , he goes fast enough . but you say , sir , the first time i ever was acquainted with you was in march , then gentlemen consider whether it be probable that at that time i should discourse to him after this manner . l. c. just . no , i will tell you what he says , he said the first time he was intimately acquainted with you , was in march , he said he had before seen you in coffee-houses , and he is sure it was before the sitting of the parliament ; for he tells you the discourse you had , and by that discourse it appears , it related to a parliament that was afterwards to sit . and then , to give you a more particular circumstance , he says that you put him upon the making of the affidavit about fitz-gerald , and so you came acquainted . haynes . ask mr. attorney . my lord , that day he was taken and carried to whitehall before the secretary of state ; he said , i do not know who it should be that should accuse me , i believe it is ivy ; as for haynes , he was taken t'other day , he was an honest man. coll. you say i desired you to make an affidavit , was it after that or before i had that discourse with you ? haynes . it was after . for i came and desired you to go to such a person of quality , and you went to him and advised with him ; and then the next morning such discourse as i told your lordship and the whole court of , he told me . coll. did i speak these treasonable words after the affidavit made ? haynes . you said i must make such an affidavit concerning fitz-gerald . colledge . but was this treasonable discourse before you made the affidavit , or after ? haynes . after the affidavit made you told me this : when i came to his house , and from thence we went to the hercules-pillars . mr. sol. gen. will you ask him any more questions , mr. colledge ? coll. did you ever speak with me in your life before macnamarra did call me out of the coffe-house to go along with you , where you would discover a design against my lord shaftsbury's life ? haynes . i told you i never had any intimate acquaintance with you in my life before , nor did i ever speak with you before . colledge . when was that discourse , i ask you once again ? haynes . after the affidavit made . colledge . that night ? haynes . within a week or thereabouts after the affidavit made . mr. att. gen. call mr. edward turbervile . but mr. haynes , i would ask you one question , did he deliver you any ribband as a mark of distinction . haynes . yes , here it is . ( and it was shewed to the court. ) then mr. turbervile was sworn . mr. ser. jeff. pray mr. turbervile will you tell my lord and the jury what discourse you had with mr. colledge , and where , and when . turbervile . when the parliament sat at oxon. about the middle of the week , i cant be positive in the day , but i think it was in the middle of the week i dined with mr. colledge , captain brown and don lewes clerk of derby-house , at the chequer inn. after dinner don lewes went out about his own business , and captain brown went to sleep ; mr. colledge and i fell talking of the times , and i was observing , i thought the parliament was not a long lived parliament . said he , there is no good to be expected from the king ; for he and all his family are papists , and have ever been such , you know it , sir. mr. serj. jeff. nay don't appeal to him . turbervile . said i , the king will offer some thing or other by way of surprize to the parliament , said he , i would he would begin ; but if he do not , we will begin with him and seize him ; for there are several brave fellows about this town that will secure him till we have those terms that we expect from him . l. c. j. where was this ? turbervile . at the chequer inn in oxon. l. c. j. what said he further ? turbervile . he said he had got a case of pistols , and a very good sword , and a velvet cap ; and i can't be positive he had armour on , but i believe he had . mr. att. gen. did he tell you he came down for that purpose to seize the king ? turbervile . yes , and he gave me a piece of blew ribband to put upon my hat , he had a great quantity of it . mr. att. gen. what was that for ? turbervile . to be a distinction if there should be any disturbance when the thing should be done . coll. what thing done ? turbervile . i knew nothing but of your telling me of it . coll. where was this ? turberv . at the chequer inn in oxon. m. colledge . you talk much and can't remember all you say . mr. att. gen. what did he discourse to you about arms and an horse . turberv . i told him i had never an horse , and nothing but a case of pistols ; he bid me i should not trouble my self , for he would get me an horse . coll. what to do ? turberv . to carry on your design , i know not what it was , but by your words . mr. sol. gen. tell what he said of it at the chequer inn. turberv . he said there was a design to seize the king. mr. att. gen. did he desire you to be one of them . turberv . he did desire me to be ready to assist . mr. jones . and how much of that ribband had he , pray ? turberv . a very great quantity , 40 or 50 yards . mr. sol. gen. pray mr. turbervile will you give your evidence over again , and let mr. colledge attend to it . turberv . when the parliament sat at oxon. about the middle of the week , i cannot be positive to a day ; i believe it was either wednesday or thursday i dined with mr. colledge , captain brown , and don lewes , who was formerly clerk of derby-house . don lewes after dinner went out , and capt. browne laid him down on the bed , and mr. colledge and i fell a talking of the times , and i told him , i thought this parliament was no long-lived parliament . upon which colledge told me the king and all his family were papists , and there was no good to be expected from him . then i replyed , the king would perhaps surprize the parliament , or use some stratagem to bring them to his terms . said mr. colledge again , i would he would begin ; but if he do not , we will secure him till he comes to those terms we would have from him ; for here are several brave fellows , and many more are coming down that will joyn with it . mr. att. gen. did he name any one ? turberv . no indeed , he did not ; he himself had a case of pistols , a sword , and i believe he might have his armour on . coll. did i discourse who were to joyn with me ? turberv . no , mr. colledge , you did not name any body to me , but captain browne was with you . mr. att. gen. were you examined in my lord staffords tryal ? turberv . yes i was . mr. att. gen. was this gentleman sworn to your reputation there ? turberv . no , not to mine . coll. pray how come we to talk of such things , what occasion was there that i should talk treason of the king to you , was there any body besides us two there . turberv . no , capt. browne was gone to sleep , and lewes was gone out . mr. att. gen. it was not at dinner that you talked so , mr. colledge , he says . coll. had they been at dinner with us there ? turberv . yes , and we had a legg of boyled mutton to dinner . coll. did you stay after dinner ? turberv . yes , and i lay with you afterwards upon the bed . coll. i thought you had said capt. browne went to sleep there . turberv . yes , but he was gone too , when we laid down together . coll. god forgive you , i can say no more , i never spoke one word of any such discourse in my life . mr. att. gen. will you ask him any more questions ? coll. mr. turbervile , when did you give in this information against me ? turbervile . i gave it to the grand jury . colledge . not before ? turbervile . yes , i did . colledge . when was it ? turbervile . truly i can't well tell , i believe it was a day or two before i came to oxon. coll. why did you make it then , and not before ? turbervile . i 'll tell you the occasion . mr. dugdale told me the grand jury of london would not find the bill ; i did admire at it extremely ; for i thought every one that conversed with him might be an evidence against him ; he was always so very lavish against the king and the government . so then colonel warcupp came to me , and took my depositions , and then i came for oxford . colledge . vvhat was the reason you did not discover this treason before ? turbervile . there was no reason for it , it was not necessary . coll. you were not agreed then . turbervile . there was no agreement in the case , there needs nothing of that i think ; but i am not obliged to give you an account of it . colledge . god forgive you , mr. turbervile . turberv . and you too , mr. colledge . mr. att. gen. then call sir vvilliam jennings . mr. serj. jeff. mr. attorney , if you please , till he comes , i will acquaint my lord here is a gentleman that hath not yet been taken notice of , one mr. masters , that is pretty well known to mr. colledge ; now he is a man , he must acknowledge , of an undoubted reputation , and i desire he may give your lordship and the jury an account what he knows of the prisoner ; because he is so curious for english-men , we have brought him an english-man of a very good repute . colledge . my lord , i am charged with treason in this indictment ; here are a great many things made use of that serve only to amuse the jury , i can conjecture nothing else they are brought for ; i desire to know whether the pictures produced are part of the treason . lo. ch . just . stay till the evidence is given ▪ and we will hear what you can say at large when you come to summ up your defence . mr. ser. jeff. pray , my lord , will you be pleased to hear this gentleman . he will tell you what discourse he hath had with the prisoner at the bar. then mr. masters was sworn . mr. masters . mr. colledge and i have been acquainted for a great many years ; and we have often discoursed . i have told him of his being so violent as he hath been several times . but a little before the parliament at oxon. about christmass last , after the parliament at vvestminster , at mr. charlton's shop the woollen-draper in paul's church-yard , we were discoursing together about the government , and he was justifying of the late long parliaments actions in 40 ; and he said , that parliament was as good a parliament as ever was chosen in the nation . said i , i wonder how you have the impudence to justify their proceedings , that raised the rebellion against the king , and cut off his head. said he , they did nothing but what they had just cause for , and the parliament that sate last at vvestminster was of their opinion , and so you would have seen it . mr. ser. jeff. what did he say of the parliament since ? mr. masters . he said the parliament that sate last at vvestminster was of the same opinion that that parliament was . mr. ser. jeff. pray afterwards , what discourse had you about his colonelship ? mr. masters . we were talking at guild-hall that day the common-council was , the 13th . of may , as near as i remember ; so i came to him , how now , colonel colledge , said i , what do you make this bustle for ? you mistook me , and said , cousin , how long have you and i been cousins ? nay prithee , said i , 't is not yet come to that , to own kindred between us , i only called you colonel in jest ; marry mock not , said he , i may be one in a little time . mr. serj. jeff. have you any thing to ask mr. masters ? you know he is your old acquaintance , you know him well . ( then sir william jennings was sworn . ) mr. jones . what is it that you know concerning mr. colledge at oxford , sir ? sir vvilliam jennings . my lord , the first time that i heard any thing of mr. colledge , was , there was some company looking upon a picture , for i knew him not , nor never had any word of discourse with him in my life , any more then seeing him in a publick coffee-house . but there was a picture looking on by 7 or 8 or 10 people , i believe , more or less , and i coming and crowding in my head amongst the rest , looked upon this picture . after the crowd was over , mr. colledge takes a picture out of his pocket ; and , said he , i will give you one of them , if you will. so he gives me a picture ; which picture , if i could see , i could tell what it was ; it was written mac a top , and there were several figures in it . ( then the picture was shewed him . ) this is one of the same that i had of him , and i had not had it long in my custody , but meeting with justice vvarcupp , i shewed it him , who bid me give it him , and so i did . the next thing i did see mr. colledge do , that was in the coffee-house , not the same day , but another time : i saw him bring in a parcel of blue ribband which was wrought , and these words eight times wrought in it , twice wrought in every quarter of a yard , no popery , no slavery . i saw him ●●●l to a member of parliament , as i took him to be , a yard of that ribband for 2 s. and truly i was thinking he would ask me to but some too , and i saw that gentleman ( i took him to be a parliament-man ) take this ribband and tye it upon his sword. as to the other thing i have to say of mr. colledge , that very day the parliament was dissolved he had been in a quarrel , as he told me , with fitz-gerald , and i was standing in the school-house yard , and he comes directly to me without my speaking to him or any thing ; but he comes and tells me fitz-gerald had spit in his face , and , said he , i spit in his face again ; so we went to loggerheads together , i think that was the word , or fisty-cuffs . so , said i , mr. colledge , your nose bleeds ; he takes his handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his nose , and said , i have lost the first blood in the cause , but it will not be long before more be lost . l. c. j. where was this ? sir william jennings . in the school-house yard at oxon. i never discoursed with him afterwards till i met him in london in fleet-street one sunday in the afternoon , and i remember captain crescett was along with me . and when he came up to me , how now , said i , honest joyner ? says he , you call me honest joyner , some call me rogue and rascal , and i have been beating some of them ; so that i believe they will be aware of it . so i told captain crescett i never met this man but he was always in a quarrel . colledge . was it on a sunday that i told you i had been beating of somebody ? sir. will. jenn. you told me so , captain crescett was by . colledge . i remember i met you , but i did not tell you i had been then beating any one . but pray , sir william , when i met you after the parliament was dissolved , and fitz-gerald and i had quarrell'd , did i say , that i had lost the first blood in the cause , but it would not be long e're more were lost . sir william , you are a gentleman ; as for the other men , they don't care what they say , nor do i so much regard them ; but you value your word and honour . these were my words , and pray will you recollect your self before you be positive in the thing , whether i did not say , i have lost the first blood for the parliament , ( for it was upon my vindicating of the commons , and dr. oates , whom fitz-gerald had abused ; and upon that the quarrel began ; so i said , when you met me , and told me my nose bled , i have lost the first blood for the parliament ) i wish it may be the last . sir will. jenn. mr. colledge , if you please i will answer you as to that , i do assure you 't is the first time that ever i came upon this occasion in my days , and i have declared it before , and do declare it now , i would rather have served the king in three engagements , then come in against you , or any man , upon such an occasion . but i declare to you , upon the whole memory of the truth , the words were as i spoke them at first , and no parliament named or mentioned . and , my lord , moreover , i will tell you , when i did tell this story , because mr. crescett that is here , is able to tell you whether i did not relate the words within half an hour , or a little time after . now i never had a prejudice against you in my days , nor other concern , but having told mr. justice vvarcupp this story , i am brought hither to testifie it . coll. sir william , i am sorry you did not better observe and remember my words then . sir vvill. jenn. i must needs say , i could not imagine what the words meant when they were spoken , nor do i understand them to this day ; but soon after they were spoken , i related them to justice vvarcupp , he being a justice of peace . mr. ser. holloway . gentlemen , we shall rest here , and conclude our evidence for the king at present , to hear what the prisoner says to it , only with my lords leave i shall explain the words to you that are in the indictment , and tell you what is meant by compassing and imagining the death of the king. the seizing the person of the king , is in law a compassing and intending his death ; and so it hath been adjudged in several cases , as in 1 jacob , my lord cobham and my lord grey's case , and several other cases ; and so you may fully apprehend what the charge is , and may understand the words in the indictment , that if you are not satisfied with the general words of compassing the kings death , you may know , that the seizing his person extends to it mr. ser. jeff. my lord , we have done with our evidence , now let him go on with his . l. ch . just . now , mr. colledge , you may say what you will for your defence , and call your witnesses that you have to produce . colledge . my lord , i have heard this evidence that is against me , and i would desire your lordship to resolve me some questions upon it ; i think the indictment , is for treasonable practices , for a conspiracy ; now i desire your lordship will be pleased that i may know from you , and the court , whether in all this evidence given in proof against me , a conspiracy is proved ; or if any thing appears besides what they say i said ? l. c. j. for a conspiracy in you , if the witnesses speak truth , there is a plain proof , and of the degrees of it : first of all , by your publishing libels and pictures to make the king odious and contemptible in the eyes of the people , and that you should be the author of some of those pictures , and they were found in your custody . colledge . i conceive that is not proved . lo. ch . just . if the witnesses say true , it is proved . colledge . they do not produce that , they do but say it . lo. ch . just . mr. dugdale swears , that at oxford here , you shew'd him the picture , you sung the song here , and expounded it at my lord lovelace's , and a great many of them are found in your custody . then that you prepared arms , that you shew'd smith the arms in your house , and having those arms , you said you would go to oxford , and if there should be a disturbance there , you would secure the king. and you did come to oxford , where you hear what is said ; for i observe , stephen dugdale and edward turbervile speak of what was done at oxford . john smith and bryan haynes speak of what you said at london before you went to oxford , and after you came from oxford . now i say , if these witnesses speak true , 't is a strong evidence against you , both upon the statute of the 25 edw. the 3d. and that of this king too . for my brother holloway told you true , that whereas the imagining the death of the king is high treason , by the 25 of edw. the 3d. so a seizing of the king , and an endeavour to do that , is a constructive intention of the death of the king ; for kings are never prisoners , but in order to their death . and therefore it hath been held in all times , that by the statute of edw. 3d. that was treason ; but then the statute of this king , in the 13th . year of his reign , is more strong ; for there it says , if any man shall by any words , or malicious speaking , shew the imagination of his heart , that he hath any such intention , that is treason too . coll. my lord , the foundation of this indictment is said to be laid here in oxford , as i suppose ; pray , my lord , here is only mr. dugdale and turbervile that swear against me for what i should say in oxon. all the rest speak to things said and done at london . now , my lord , i desire to know , whether they have proved any treasonable practices , conspiracy or design against the government , i would feign know that , whether there be matter here to ground an indictment upon ; for the one says in one place , the other in the other , which may be distinct matters , and none of them swear facts against me , but only words . mr. just . jones . yes , providing arms for your self and offering others arms. coll. that i shall make this answer to , i had only a case of pistols and a sword , which every footman and horseman had , that came from london , i think . but further my lord , i would ask your lordship , whether there ought not to be witnessesdistinct , to swear words at one and the same time . mr. just . jones . no , no , the resolution of the judges in my lord staffords case is contrary . l. ch . just . look you , it hath been often resolved , that if there be one witness that proves one fact which is an evidence of treason , and another proves another fact , that is an evidence of the same treason , though they be but single witnesses to several facts . yet they are two witnesses to an indictment of treason ; that hath been often publickly resolved , particularly in the case of my lord stafford , mentioned by my brother . and i 'le tell you my opinion further , if there be one witness that proves here what you said at oxford , and another that proves what was said in london , if they be in order to the same treason , it is sufficient ; for if you do conspire to commit such a treason in london , and you come with such an imagination in your heart to oxford to compleat this treason , tho your design was not first formed there , i think 't is enough to maintain an indictment of treason , and they are two good witnesses , though but one speak to what was done at oxford , but i must tell you , in your case there are two full witnesses to that which was done at oxford , besides sir william jennings . colledge . that which sir william jennings speaks of , i told you before what it was i said , it was the first blood that was shed for the parliament . mr. just . jones . the parliament was dissolved before that which sir william jennings speaks of , therefore you could not say it was to defend the parliament . coll. mr. dugdale did say that i spake such and such words in the barbers shop in the angel-inne ; there i was indeed at the time that he does speak of , and the barber was by , i do think , indeed it were convenient to have him here ; but i knew not where he would charge me , or what it was he would charge me with , because i never said any thing in my life that was like treason . l. c. j. mr. colledge , call any witnesses you will. coll. but , my lord , pray let me ask you one question more ; you take these words distinct from any matter of fact don't you ? l. c. j. no , complicated with the fact , which was the overt-act , the coming to oxon. with pistols , to make one if there had been any disturbance , and to seize the king. colledge . then , my lord , i would ask you , whether , any act of treason done at london , shall be given in evidence to prove the treason for which i am now indicted , and which was given in evidence before the grand jury , upon which the tryal was there grounded . l. ch . just . any act of treason this is of the same kind . and i 'le tell you , that was resolved in sir henry vanes case ; those that gave you that paper understand it . but i speak now to your capacity , and to satisfie your question . he was indicted for levying war against the king , he conspired in westminster , the war was levyed in another county ; the conspiracy upon the tryal was proved in the county of middlesex , and the war in another place , and yet it was held sufficient to maintain the indictment in the county of middlesex . colledge . there was a war really levyed , but god be thanked here is only bare words . mr. just . jones . yes , actions too . colledge . what actions , my lord ? mr. just . jones . arming your self and coming to oxford . lo. ch . just . well , i have told you my opinion ; my brothers will speak theirs , if they think otherwise . mr. just . jones . that is not your case neither , though i am of the same opinion with my lord ; for here are two witnesses have proved plain matter of fact at oxford ; the providing arms your self , and encouraging others to take arms — colledge . they name no persons . mr. just . jones . you will have my opinion , and yet you will give me no leave to speak ; i had patience to hear you : you are told there are two witnesses , turbervile and dugdale , that prove your providing and having of arms at oxon. and perswading others to take arms , particularly turbervile , he told you he had no arms , or but a case of pistols , and he had no horse ; but you told him you would provide him an horse . and then there are two other witnesses , smith and bryan haynes , they do not tell you of any thing done at oxford , but they tell you what you said in their hearing of what you had done in oxon. and so i think if the witnesses are to be believed , there is a very full proof against you . mr. just . raymond . i am of the same opinion truly , and i cannot find , but that there is proof enough by two witnesses , turbervile and dugdale , of what was done at oxford . they swear matter of fact , not words only , but actions also . coll. no fact , but that i had pistols and a sword , and that i should tell mr. turbervile i would provide him an horse , which is still but words . mr. just . jones . but you shall hear anon for the full conviction of you and all others , the statute of the 13th . of this king read to you , and you shall there see that such words are made treason . coll. but i beseech your lordship to tell me whether there must not be two witnesses to the same words at the same time . mr. just . jones . no , it was the resolution of all the judges in the case of my lord stafford in the presence of the parliament , and the parliament proceeded upon it . m. ser. jeff. in the same tryal where mr. colledge was a witness . mr. att. gen. all the whole house of commons prayed judgement upon my lord stafford , pursuant to that resolution . l. c. j. come will you call any witnesses ? coll. my lord , i do not question but to prove this one of the hellishest conspiracies that ever was upon the face of the earth , and these the most notorious wicked men , an absolute design to destroy all the protestants of england , that have had the courage to oppose the popish plot. in which no man of my condition hath done more then i have done . i was bred a protestant , and continued so hitherto , and by the grace of god i will dye so . if that they had known of these words that i should speak , and such a design that i should have before the parliament sat at oxon. and be with me in oxon. when the parliament sat , if they had been good subjects , they ought to have had me apprehended . turbervile came several times indeed , and dined with me . i did not bid him go out of doors , nor invited him thither ; he was a man i had no disrespect for , nay he was a man i valued , thinking he had done the nation service against the papists ; that this man should hear me speak such words against his majesty , who was then in this town , and know of such a dangerous design to attempt the seizing of his person , or that i should discover a great party that were ready to do it , i think there is scarce any man of reason , but will say , if this were really done and spoken by me , neither of them would or ought to have concealed it , but discover it ; none of them has ever charged me with any such thing , they have been in my company since . i never had any correspondence with any of them but dugdale , then pray consider how improbable it is , that i should talk of such things to papists , priests and irish-men , who have broke their faith with their own party , that faith which they gave under the penalty of damnation , men that have been concerned in plots and treasons , to murder and cut the throats of protestants , that i should be such a mad man to trust these people , when i could receive no manner of obligation from them , nor could give any trust to them , they having before broke either faith ; especially , considering i could lay no such oaths and obligations upon them , who was a protestant ; then 't is the greatest non sense , to believe that i would say these things before persons whom i could never hope would conceal my treasons , having discovered their own . if they speak truth concerning the general popish plot , that could be no obligation upon me to trust them with another ; and they cannot say , that they ever obliged me in any one respect . my lord , i thank god i have had some acquaintance in the world , and have been concerned with some persons of honour , noblemen and parliament men , that i know are as good subjects as any his majesty has ; these never found me a fool , nor a rascal , so great a knave , as to have any such thoughts in my heart , nor so great a mad-man , or so foolish , as to go to discover them to papists , priests , and irish-men , to men of their condition , that were ready to starve for bread. as for haynes and smith , that run so fast through all their evidence , the first time that ever i set my eyes on haynes , was in the coffee-house that he speaks of ; macnamarra comes in , and desires me to go out with with him , and i should hear the greatest discovery of a piece of villany against my lord of shaftsbury's life , that ever i heard many life . this captain brown , who is now dead , a man that i had not known but a month before ( for i think it was in march last when this was ) could testifie for me ; for i came to him , captain , said i , here is a discovery offered to be made to me , of a design to take away my lord shaftsbury's life . macnamarra asks me to go to the hercules pillars , i went along with him , and took captain brown with us . afterwards he fell sick in april , and is now dead , so i lost a main evidence in the case . he was the only man that was by at the time ; god knows my heart , i speak nothing but the truth , i took him with me , haynes began to discover to us , that fitz-gerald had employed him to fetch over macnamarra , and if he would come in , and swear against my lord of shaftsbury , which was his design , it would not be long e're his head were taken off , and he said , he had given in a paper of high treason against my lord of shaftsbury , i asked what it was , he told me , that my lord should tell fitz-gerald that he had a design to bring this kingdom to a common wealth , and to root out the family of the stuarts . this he said fitz-gerald had given in in a paper under his own hand ; and i think he said , he had sworn it , and sent haynes to fetch macnamarra to swear agaist my lord the same things too . i writ down all the heads of the discourse which captain brown heard as well as i. after he had said it , he desired us to conceal it . sir , said i , you are a stranger to me , and these are great and strange things that you do tell us , macnamarra and browne and ivy , and others were there , which ( if they were honest men ) they would come and testifie . i thought them honest men , and that they had none of those wicked designs in their hearts , that now i find they have . so says haynes , i do not know this man , meaning me ; macnamarra told him , i was an honest man , he might lay his life in my hands . after he had spoken all this , he desired us to conceal it ; said he , i will not only discover this , but a great deal more of their rogueries that i know very well ; said i to him again , i will not conceal it , nor do you no wrong , for if this be true my lord of shaftsbury shall know it to night ; for where there is a design to take away a peer of the realm , i will not conceal it ; but if it be false , and you have said more then comes to your share , recant it again , and we will take no notice of it , only say you are a knave for speaking of it ; he swore dam him it was all true , that and a great deal more , which he said he knew , about seizing and destroying the parliament at oxon. about an army in the north that was to be raised about the time of the sitting of the parliament at oxon. of a french army that was to land in ireland at the same time , that the d. of york was to be at the head of them , and the intention was , to destroy all the protestants . upon this , i was resolved , if i lived , to come along with the parliament , and if there was any such design , i was resolved to live and die with them , but i had no more then common arms , a sword and a case of pistols , and my cap was a velvet cap , and nothing else . my lord , i had the honour to be sent for , when the parliament sat last at westminster , the sessions in october , it was an honourable occasion , and i thank those worthy gentlemen that sent me for the honour of it , there i begun to be popular as to my name , for from that time they began to call me the protestant joyner , because the parliament had intrusted me . my lord grey was pleased to send his footman for me to the crown tavern behind the exchange , where there were several worthy lords , peers of the realm , and one hundred of the commons , that had dined there that day , it was the day before they sat ; after they had dined i came to them , and the duke of monmouth told me , they had heard a good report of me , that i was an honest man , that understood building , and they did confide in me to search under the parliament house ; they did not really know of any design , but they would not be secure , there might be some tricks play'd them by the papists , tho' we are not afraid of them , said the duke , yet we think fit to employ you to search under the houses , whether you can find any such practices . so accordingly my lord , i did go , my lord lovelace was one of the honourable lords , and my lord herbert that went with me , and some of the gentlemen of the house of commons ; and those worthy protestant lords were pleased to thank me for my service , and did believe i was active and zealous to find out and discover the bottom of the popish plot , so far as it came legally in my way to do it . my lord , upon this occasion , there was a great kindness from them to me , and i had upon all occasions testimonies of it ; and this very man who now swears treasons against me ( which god almighty knows is all false ) did swear in his affidavit before sir george treby the recorder of london ( i did never see the affidavit , indeed i was over night at sir george treby's , but he was not then at leisure , but he drew it up next day , and swore it ) that there was a design to destroy the parliament at oxon. and there was not only his oath for it , but it was the general belief , that some evil was intended them . all men had cause to fear and to suspect , the papists did bear them no good will ; and making use of their own observations , they were generally armed with a pistol , or a sword for themselves , in case they should be attck'd by the papists . in order to this , i did come down with my lord howard , my lord of clare , my lord of huntington , and my lord pagett , those four worthy protestant lords ; and it was two days after the parliament was sat , that we came , and i went out of town again with my lord lovelace , sir thomas player and sir robert clayton ; and i am sure , they were all in so great a fear that london should be surprized and seized on by the papists , but there was no mortal man that ever heard of the kings being seized , or thought of it , till these men come and tell me , that i had such a design , and came hither with that purpose ; but my lord , i declare as god is my judge , i would not have it thought i speak it to save my life , were it as certainly a truth , as 't is most wickedly a falshood , that i had had a design to seize the king , i know not of one man who was to stand by me , parliament man , or other persons whatsoever ; and how is it possible for me to attempt that , being a single person , with only a sword and a case of pistols , let any man judge . and i do declare , i know of no conspiracy nor design , against the king or government , i never spoke one of the treasonable words in my life , that is laid against me , nor had ever any thoughts of any such thing . god that is my eternal judge knows , that what i speak is true . l. c. just . well , mr. colledge , will you call your witnesses , for i must tell the jury as i did at your request , concerning mr. attorney , that as nothing he said , so nothing you say is to be believed upon your own allegation ; for then no man would ever be guilty , if his own purgation by words were to be believed . coll. my lord , i thank god , i know my own innocency , and hope to prove it . i have a soul that must live to eternity , either in joy or misery , i act according to those principles , and i hope i have some assurance of my own salvation when i dye : i would not call god to witness to a lye , to save 1000 lives . my lord , this is a villanous conspiracy against me , and if it take place against me , it may go a great way , god knows how far . this is the 17th . or 18th . sham plot the papists have made against the protestants , to get over their own ; but i hope , my lord , god almighty will never suffer it . if they can make me a traytor , they will try it upon others , and so hope to sham off their own treasons ; but i say , i hope god almighty will never suffer it . my lord , i think the first witness that swore against me was mr. dugdale ; and i must call my witnesses as i have them here , i know no person of them hardly , and this tht is done for my defence was done abroad . my lord , i have been kept close prisoner in the tower , and none of them suffered to come to me , whilst the popish lords have had the liberty and priviledge to talk with their friends . here are vvitnesses i hope will prove that those are suborned men , for macnamarra did tell me presently after the parliament broke up at oxon. and whispered it to me in the coffee-house ; said he , there is a design laid to make us retract our evidence , and go over to fitz-gerald . said i , i suppose they have been at that sport a great while . ah , said he , they make large offers . said i , by whom ? said he , colonel warcupp hath been at me , and he tells me — mr. just . jones . macnamarra is not produced against you as a witness at all . coll. no , but he told me this , that there was such a design ; and , said he , i will get you , and some other honest men ; and he desired me to be by when he had something more to tell which would do his business for him ; but the next news i heard of him was , he was put into newgate . lo. ch . just . call your witnesses , mr. colledge , and prove what you can . coll. call mr. hickman . mr. att. gen. my lord , i desire he may observe the same rule he desired about our witnesses , that he may call but one at a time . colledge . yes , yes , i will call them one by one . l. c. j. are not your witnesses together ? send to them . colledge . my lord , i don't know , i have not seen one since i come . this is not the first time , my lord , the papists have designed to take away my life , though it is the first time they go to take it away by a law. l. c. j. i know not of one papist that is a witness against you . colledge . there is never a man of them , except sir william jennings , but what was a papists . mr. att. gen. what say you to mr. masters ? colledge . mr. masters says nothing material , it was only a jocose discourse . mr. serj. jeff. it was very pleasant discourse upon my word ; you were as merry as when you were singing of the rary shew . mr. just . jones . what , do you make mirth of the blackest tragedy that ever was ; that horrid rebellion , and the murther of the late king. colledge . i never justified that parliament in any such thing that they did contrary to law. mr. just . jones . he swears it . mr. att. gen. hickman does not appear , call another . coll. call william shewin , ( who appeared . ) l. c. j. look you here , friend , you are not to be sworn ; but when you speak in a court of justice , and in a course of justice , you must speak as in the presence of god , and only speak what is true . coll. i would not have any body speak any thing for me but what is truth . l. c. j. now ask him what you will. colledge . i don't know the gentleman . but , pray , sir , will you tell what you know of these witnesses . mr. shewin . name any of them that i know , pray , sir , and i 'll tell you . colledge . do you know bryan haynes ? mr. shewin . i know there is such a man , but i have nothing to say to him . colledge . do you know turbervile ? mr. shewin . yes . colledge . pray tell what you know of him . mr. shewin . my lord , i was in turbervile's company on thursday night last at the golden posts at charing-cross , and there i heard him say , that if i were at oxford i should hear strange things against colledge , and he would lay ten to one that mr. bethel and mr. wilmore should be hanged at christmass , and he would lead him by the gold-chain along fleetstreet , and down with his breeches in the middle of the coffee-house , with a band about his neck and a cloak . mr. serj. jefferies . did he say all these things against mr. sheriff bethel , i assure you he is a bold man. coll. what do you know of mr. smith ? mr. shewin . i know him by sight , but i have nothing in particular to say concerning him . i have something to say to macnamarra , sir , if he were here . colledge . do you know any thing of this conspiracy in general ? mr. jones . what , of your conspiracy ? mr. shewin . i know that they did lay who should be hang'd at candlemass , who at christmass , and who at several other times . lo. ch . just . what did you hear turbervile say ? mr. shewin . those words i spake before about sheriff bethel , and about the amsterdam coffee-house . colledge . did they say what time i should be hang'd ? for the discourse ' rose about me . mr. shewin . one told me that there was one that did design to be returned upon this jury , that was resolved to hang him right or wrong . mr. high sher. my , lord , i did hear there was such a one , and i left him out of the jury . l. ch . just . for mr. sheriffs honour we must take notice of what he hath said . he says he heare of a man that spoke something of that nature , and therefore he left him out of the jury . coll. now 't is possible these witnesses were at the same sport . mr. shewin . was mr. peacock , mrs. fitz harris maids father , or she here , either of them witnesses against you ? mr. serj. jeff. no , they were not , sir ? coll. they did swear against me at the finding of the bill . mr. ser. jeff. we have only called these witnesses , if you can say any thing against them , do . coll. call henry hickman , ( who appeared . ) mr. serj. holloway . where do you live , sir ? mr. hickman . at holborn-bridge . mr. att. gen. what trade are you ? mr. hickman . a cabinet-maker . l. ch . just . what do you ask him ? coll. do you know haynes ? hickman . yes , very well , because he used to come to my house to a popish widow that was a lodger in my house where i live now ; and this person was a prisoner at haynes's when he was a prisoner in the fleet. i always had a suspicion he was a priest , not that i could accuse him really of any thing ; but he several times using to come to my house , i thought so of him , and discoursing with my landlady . lo. ch . just . your tenant you mean ? mr. hickman . yes , my tenant . i asked her what this fellow was ; said she , he is a very dangerous fellow , though he is a papist , and i am one my self , yet he is a dangerous person , and he does not much care what he swears against any one . mr. just . jones . this your tenant told you , what do you know your self ? mr. hickman . another time he came to speak with my tenant mrs. scot , who is now gone into ireland ; when he came to the house , he asked me , is mrs. scot within ? yes , said i , mr. haynes , she is above ; and up he goes , and there they locked the door , and plucked out the key ; so i slipt off my shooes , for i thought there might be more danger from such people than i could discover any other way . so i went up stairs , and stood at the door and hearkened , hearing my landlady talk something to him , he wraps out a great oath . god dam me ▪ said he , i care not what i swear , nor who i swear against ; for 't is my trade to get money by swearing . whereupon , my lord , i came down as fast as i could , and a little after i saw him go out , and as soon as my landlady came down , said i , mrs. scot , i desire you would provide your self as soon as you can ; i would be civil to you , and i would not put you to a non-pluss , because your goods by the law will be seized for not departing according to the kings proclamation . so a while ago , since this business of haynes's swearing against my lord of shaftsbury , i bethought my self of some other businesses i had heard . to find out the knavery , i went to the fleet , where he hath a very ill character , as well amongst the papists as the protestants . whereupon i asked one fellow , that was a kind of a porter , if he knew any thing of him ? said he , go you to such an one — mr. ser. jeff. we must not permit this for example sake , to tell what others said . lo. ch. just . nothing is evidence but what you know of your own knowledge ; you must not tell what others said . hickman . this i do say , i heard him say ; and there are those that can produce a letter — mr. serj. jeff. bring those people , but you must speak nothing but upon your own knowledge . hickman . i was at the chamber-door , and looked in at the key-hole , and he sat down at the window . lo. ch . just . how long ago was it , pray ? hickman . a year and an half . mr. att. gen. you are an eves-dropper , i perceive . hickman . i did not know what danger he might bring men into , because he was a papist . i have taken an oath to be true to the king , and i will as long as i live . for this gentleman , i never beheld him , till last night , in all my days ; though he lived by me , i never saw him . lo. c. j. well , call the next . coll. i never saw this gentleman ; but you see what haynes hath declared . mr. serj. jeff. this man says he did say so . colledge . and , for ought i perceive , he does accordingly . call elizabeth oliver : ( who appeared . ) l. ch . just . mrs. oliver , stand up . what do you ask her ? coll. do you know haynes , pray ; bryan haynes . ? mrs. oliver . yes . coll. pray tell the court what you know of him . mrs. oliver . i know him very well . l. c. j. what do you know of him ? mrs. oliver . he writ a letter in my fathers name , unknown to my father . l. c. j. did you see him write it ? mrs. oliver . i saw him write it . l. c. j. read it . by whom is it subscribed ? clerk. by no body . l. c. j. why , how is it written in your fathers name , when it is not subscribed at all ? mrs. oliver . he writ it , as from my father . mr. ser. jeff. whether did he bring it ? mrs. oliver . he sent it into the countrey . mr. ser. jeff. can you write and read , mistress . mrs. oliver . yes . mr. serj. jeff. who did he send it by ? mrs. oliver . the carrier . mr. serj. jeff. when was it dated ? clerk. in 77. l. c. j. read the letter . ( which was done . ) clerk reads . l. c. j. what is all this to the purpose , unless your father were here to prove it was done without his knowledge . mrs. oliver . my father did not write it . l. c. j. was your father in the fleet then ? mrs. oliver . yes , my lord , he was a prisoner then . coll. mrs. oliver , do you know any thing more of him ? mrs. oliver . i have known him a great while , i know him to be a very ill man. mr. serj. jeff. must she tell you all she knows . mr. att. gen. did you ever know him forswear himself . mrs. oliver . no , i do not know that . lo. ch . just . come , call another ; this is nothing to the purpose . coll. call mrs. hall : ( who appeared . ) pray , do you know mr. bryan haynes . mrs. hall. yes , if i see him i know him very well . colledge . what do you know of him . mrs. hall. he lodged at my house , and came there the day before fitz-harris was tryed , and there was a great discourse about his tryal , and i was enquiring of him , and i told him i must expose my ignorance , i did not know what it was he was tried for : and , said he , if you please to sit down , i will tell you : madam portsmouth came to him , and went upon her knees , and begg'd of him , if he had any kindness for his majesty , that he would now shew it at this juncture ; and she told him she had heard he had formerly acquaintance with one mr. everard abroad , and therefore desired him to go now and renew it , and endeavour to get him over , and , if he could possibly , to get over some others to make a presbyterian plot of it . this is true , i very well know it : as for this gentleman , i never saw his face before ; but those were the words i am sure . l. c. j. what were the words ? mrs. hall. that they might make a presbyterian plot of it . coll. did he say so ? mrs. hall. he said that the dutchess of portsmouth did so . l. c. j. what a story is this ? coll. did not he s●y that the dutchess of portsmouth employed him too ? mrs. hall. no , this was about fitz-harris . coll. vvhat do you know more about haynes ? mrs. hall. one night he had been about some business for me in law with one mr. woodward an attorney at law , and when he returned i was busie in the kitchen with my maid about the house , and he came up to me ; madam , said he , this night i had a message from the king ; a justice of peace met me , and brought me word that the king had sent into ireland to enquire into the loyalty of my family , and he hath heard that my father was a loyal subject , but he understood strange things of me ; but if i would come in , he would grant me my pardon . i told him , said he , i did not value his majesties pardon a pin , for i had done nothing that might make me stand in need of it ; but i would do any thing that might tend to the preservation of his majesties person or honour ; but to do such base things as are beneath a man , i will never do it ; and he wisper'd me in the ear as the accusing of several persons ; ) and since , he sent me a letter by his mother in law , mrs. wingfield , that i should not believe it , if i heard he should accuse any body ; but i might be confident he had not , nor would not accuse any body . colledge . was he to swear against the protestants ? mrs. hall. i did not enquire any questions ; but he said , such base things he would never do , as the accusing of several persons . mr. att. gen. pray mistress , did you believe him when he told you he was so honest a man ? mrs. hall. how do you mean , sir ? mr. att. gen. when he said he would not do those base things , did you believe him ? mrs. hall. i never saw his face before he came there to lodge ; but i saw him to be a man that made little conscience of what he said or swore . mr. att. gen. did not you find him a bragging man ? mrs. hall. i had little discourse , but what he said of himself . but there is one thing more about an intelligence : when thompson had written something in his intelligence concerning bryan haynes , he said he would write an answer to it ; and accordingly he reads it to us : he said , he was going that evening to get it put into one of the intelligences : the words were to this purpose . whereas one nathaniel thompson had falsely and maliciously accused one bryan haynes for speaking treasonable words ; he the said bryan haynes doth declare , that he challenges any man to charge him with it : but he owned he had an hand , or was employed to put the plot upon the dissenting protestants . lo. ch . just . did he publish that in the intelligence ? mrs. hall. i never read it published ; but he had writ it , and read it to us several times . mr. att. gen. do you go to church , mistress ? mrs. hall. i hope i do . m. ser. jeff. to what church ? colledge . call mary richards , mrs. halls maid . ( who stood up . ) l. c. j. what will you ask her ? colledge . do you know bryan haynes , pray . richards . yes , he lodged there where i lived . colledge . what do you know of him ? richards . i know he writ that in the intelligence my mistress spoke of ; thompson in his intelligence , accusing him of having spoken treason , he read what he said he would put into the intelligence : that he never spake one word of treason , and he writ it for his own vindication ; that whereas nathaniel thompson , in his intelligence of the 18th . of june , had maliciously accused one bryan haynes of treasonable words ; there was no such thing . l. c. j. and that was to vindicate him , that he never did speak any treasonable words ? richards . yes . l. c. j. will you ask her any thing else ? colledge . i cannot tell what she says . l. c. j. she says , he writ something that was in answer to thompsons intelligence , to vindicate himself , that he never did speak any treasonable words . coll. but did you hear him say any thing of these words , that he was employed in a plot against the protestants ? richards . i read that , in what he writ to put in the intellgence , that he challenged any one to appear , and charge him with treason ; but , said he , i own that i was employed , or had an hand , in putting the plot upon the dissenting protestants : and he telling my mistress he had a message from the king , offering him his pardon ; i asked him why he did not accept the kings pardon . alass , said he , you do not understand what i was to do for it ; i was to do such base things so beneath a man , that i will never do them : i had five hundred pounds offered me , besides the kings pardon , to do such base things as are beneath a man to do . coll. what were the base things he said he was to do , and would not do ? richards . i cannot tell , he did not say to me what they were . mr. att. gen. when was this ? richards . it was a week before he was taken . mr. att. gen. that is two months ago . coll. it was since the parliament sat at oxford : but what was that he was employed to do , did he say ? richards . why , he said in his answer to the intelligence , he was one that had an hand to put the plot upon the dissenting protestants . coll. call mrs. wingfield ; ( who appeared . ) l. c. j. what is your christian name ? mrs. wingfield . mary . l. c. j. what do you ask her ? colledge . do you know this bryan haynes , pray ? mrs. wingfield . yes , very well . colledge . what do you know of him ? mrs. wingfield . i know nothing of him , but he is an honest man ; he married my daughter , and always carried himself like a gentleman , he scorns the thing that is unhandsome , and never did any thing that is unhandsome in my life . mr. ser jeff. pray , how came you by this witness ? have you any more of them ? coll. i never saw her before , but i believe she hath said something else in another place . did you ever say the contrary , pray ? mrs. wingfield . no body can say so ; and i had done the gentleman a great deal of wrong if i had . coll. call mr. whaley , ( who appeared . l. c. j. what is your name , sir ? mr. whaley . john whaley . coll. did you know bryan haynes ? mr. att. gen. where do you dwell , sir ? mr. whaley . at the hermitage , beyond the tower. coll. i don't know you , sir ; but what do you know of him ? mr. vvhaley . i never saw you , sir , till to day ; but that which i think i am called for is this ; though it was upon sunday that i receiv'd this same subpoena to come down hither : but about six years ago , bryan haynes was a prisoner in the kings bench , and he came down to the cellar which i had taken of the marshal to sell drink in ; and coming down to drink in one of the rooms of the cellar that belong to me , he took away a tankard , and went up with it . one of the men followed him up ; so i went to the marshal to complain , and told him of it : and the marshal took him from the masters side , and put him into the common side . that is all i know of him any way , directly or indirectly . l. ch . just . why did you not indict him of it ? mr. vvhaley . i acquainted the next justice of the peace , who was the marshal ; and he put him from the masters side into the common side . l. c. j. he was no good justice of the peace in the mean time . coll. call mr. john lun , ( who appeared . ) do you know bryan haynes , mr. lun ? mr. lun . i have seen him twice : the first time i ever saw him was , i went into the derby-ale-house , to enquire for one miclethwayte , a kinsman of mine , and there this bryan haynes was in a little room next the ditch , near the door that goes out there , as if he were asleep , and he roused himself up ; and , as i was walking there , sir , said he , will you take part of a tankard with me : ( that was his expression . ) with that , said i , i do not care if i do . and the first thing he began was the kings health , then the queens , then the duke of yorks ; then he fell very foul against the grand jury , because they had not found the bill against colledge , who is a gentleman that i never saw before in my life but once , as i know of : and he said , my lord shaftsbury was a little toad , but he would do his business very suddenly . then he raised upon the parliament , and said they were a company of rogues , they would giue the king no mony , but he would help him to mony enough out of the phanaticks estates . and he said , they would damn their souls to the devil before the catholick cause should sink . mr. serj. holloway . when was this ? mr. lun . it was three or four days after the bill was brought in ignoramus by the grand jury . mr. just . jones . was he alone ? mr. lun . yes , he was . colledge . is that all you have to say ? mr. lun . one thing more , my lord. on monday last i was at uxbridge , and a gentleman sent his man on purpose to let me know i must go to colebrook , and stay till they came thither . when i came there , i met bryan haynes at the crown kitchin-window , and he was stirring a glass of brandy , and sweetning it with sugar . said he , sir , will you drink ? here is the kings health to you : so i drank , and i asked him how he did ? do you know me , sir , said he . yes , said i , i drank with you once . says he , you have a good memory . so then a pint of sack was called for , and after that another , and then came down mrs. peacock ; and being very fine , all in her flower'd silks , i asked what gentlewoman that was ? said he , it is mrs. fitz-harris . no , says i , it is not ; they say she is gone . but , said he , it is her maid ; and sheriff bethel is to marry her . as i have a soul to save , i tell you nothing but what is truth . thereupon said i , sheriff bethel is able to maintain her ; he hath a good estate . but , said he , it shall be the kings e're long . coll. so that here is a plain design against all the eminent protestants . mr. lun . so with that , my lord , if it please your honour , i clapped my groat down at the bar , and went out of the room . nay , said he , let us have one health more : and so he had his tankard , and i had mine . haynes . i humbly desire you to call for mr. white , the kings messenger , who was by . i never saw the man before he was at uxbridge ; and asking mr. white who he was , said he , his name is lun , he was my prisoner two years . l. c. just . what say you to the discourse he talks of at fleet-bridge ? haynes . my lord , i am upon my oath , and i never saw him in my life before i saw him at uxbridge . mr. lun . i will take the sacrament upon it , that what i have averred is true . mr. ser. jeff. i suppose you are both known , and then your credit will be left to the jury . mr. att. gen. there is mr. white ; pray , swear him . ( which was done . ) lo. ch . just . do you remember that haynes asked who mr. lun was . mr. white . it was at the bar of the crown inn at uxbridge , and i being there , mr. lun came into the yard , and i knowing mr. lun asked him , how he did ; he said he was glad to see me ; and he called for a pint of sack to make me drink . haynes stood by , and he asked who he was and i told him ; and we drank the kings health ; but for any thing of those words that were spoken there , sir , i did hear not one word of them , but he thanked me for my civility when i summoned him up to court , and seeing mr. haynes by , he asked who he was ? mr. ser. jeff. and you , take it upon your oath , that he asked you , who haynes was ? mr. white . yes , i do . mr. serj. jeff. pray did you hear any discourse that time as if there had been a meeting upon fleet-bridge . mr. white . not one word of that ? mr. lun . i will take the sacrament upon it , what i say is true . m. ser. jeff. we know you , mr. lun ; we only ask questions about you , that the jury may know you too , as well as we . we remember what once you swore about an army . colledge . i don't know him . mr. lun . i don't come here to give evidence of any thing but the truth ; i was never upon my knees before the parliament for any thing . mr. serj. jeff. nor i neither for much ; but yet once you were , when you cryed , scatter them good lord. colledge . call mr. broadgate . l. ch . just . what is your christian name , sir ? mr. broadg. jeremiah . lo. ch . just . what do you ask him ? mr. broadg. my lord , i am a stranger to the prisoner at the bar ; what i have to say , is concerning mr. turbervile , whom i met one day , and he asked me how i did ? said he , i owe you a little money , but i will pay you in a short time ; but if you will go to drink a glass of ale ; no , said i , i am in haste , and do not care for going to drink ; said he , you shall go ; so away we went , and when we were sat , said he , when did you see turbervile that was my lord powis's butler ; said he , he was a great rogue to me , and when i stood up for the nations good , he vilified my evidence , and afterwards he came to me with doctor _____ to beg my pardon ; but i would not forgive him for the whole world : and speaking of the kings evidence , said he , the kings evidence are looked upon as nothing , as poor inconsiderable mean fellows , and their sallaries are lessened ; and , said he , i have had the greatest proffers from court , of preferment and rewards , if i would go from what i have said , and come upon the contrary ; and he repeated it , yes , upon the faith of a man , and from the highest : but , said he , i have a soul and a body ; a body for a time , but my soul for eternity , and i cannot go from it . he went over it again ; i might have what i would if i would go from what i have said , and come upon the contrary . mr. att. gen. but he does not go from any thing of what he hath said . coll. did he say what he was offered , and by whom ? mr. broadg. he said he had very great offers from the court , if he would disown the plot , and go upon the contrary . lo. ch. just . but he does not disown it . mr. just . jones . nay , he had a soul to save , and could not go from it . mr. ser. jeff. you talk of the contrary , and the contrary ; what did he mean by that , what plot should he disown ? mr. broadg. the popish plot. l. c. j. he does not disown it , nor never did disown it . coll. he would have made a presbyterian plot of it now ; for he cannot say i am in the popish plot. sir , do you know any thing more of him , or did he name me , or that he was to swear against me , or any protestant ? mr. broadg. no , only he said the kings evidence were vilified , and looked upon as poor inconsiderable fellows : but it seemed , if he would go on the other side , he might have great preferments and rewards . l. c. j. you make a wrong comment upon it , mr. colledge ; it was if he would retract his evidence , and disown the plot. coll. i leave it to your lordship and the jury to make the sense of it . mr. broadg. i saw mr. turbervile since i come hither , and he asked , are you come , mr. broadgate , to give evidence against me ? says i , i am come to declare the truth , and nothing but the truth . mr. ser. jeff. you might have staid at home for any thing material that you do evidence . colledge . call mr. zeal , ( who appeared . ) l. ch . just . what is your christian name , sir ? mr. zeal . john. l. c. j. what would you ask him ? mr. ser. holloway . where do you dwell , sir ? mr. zeal . in london . mr. ser. jeff. whereabouts ? mr. zeal . in fetter-lane . mr. ser. holl. what countrey-man are you , sir ? mr. zeal . somersetshire . mr. att. gen. whereabouts in somersetshire were you born ? mr. zeal . by sir vvilliam portmans , within six miles of him . mr. ser. jeff. what trade , sir ? mr. zeal . no trade . mr. serj. jeff. have you any estate . mr. zeal . my father has . i was bred to wait upon a person of quality . colledge . do you know turbervile , sir ? mr. zeal . yes sir , i do . coll. vvhat do you know of him ? mr. zeal . sir , i know nothing but what mr. ivy told me with his own mouth . l. c. j. do you know any thing of your own knowledge ? mr. att. gen. has mr. turbervile told you any thing ? mr. zeal . not concerning mr. colledge , he has not . coll. ivy was amongst them . mr. zeal . yes , my lord , he was the first that swore this presbyterian plot. coll. can you say nothing of your own knowledge concerning turbervile ? mr. zeal . nothing but what mr. ivy told me . mr. ser. jeff. that is not of your own knowledge , and so it is nothing , for he is not produced in this cause . coll. pray , my lord , give me leave to call mr. ivy. mr. ser. jeff. do if you will. ( he stood up . ) coll. vvhat was that you heard turbervile say of me , or of any presbyterian plot ? ivy. i never heard him say any thing concerning a presbyterian plot in my life . colledge . did not you tell zeal of such a thing ? ivy. no , i never did . coll. heark you . mr. ivy ; you have sworn against me , have you not ? ivy. what i have sworn against you , or against any other person , is true . coll. vvhat have you sworn against me ? ivy. i am not bound to answer you . coll. did not you call me out , with macnamarra and haynes , to the hercules-pillars ? l. c. j. look you , mr. colledge , i will tell you something for law ; and to set you right ; whatsoever witnesses you call , you call them as witnesses to testifie the truth for you ; and if you ask them any questions , you must take what they have said as truth : therefore you must not think to ask him any question , and afterwards call another witness to disprove your own witness . coll. i ask him , was he the first time with us when i was called out of the coffee-house to hear haynes's discovery ? l. c. j. let him answer you if he will , but you must not afterwards go to disprove him ? coll. if he were sworn against me , i would not ask him any questions , for he is among them . lo. ch. just . ask him what you will. coll. i desire not if he have sworn against me , for truly i can't expect a good answer from him ; but he was by when haynes made his discovery . l. c. j. will you ask him any questions ? coll. i ask whether he hath given any evidence against me any where ? ivy. i am not bound to answer you . l. c. j. tell him if you have . ivy. yes , my lord , i have . colledge . then i think he is no good witness for me , when he hath sworn against me . ivy. i have sworn against him and others . you know that you and i have had a great many intrigues about this business in hand , and how we dealt with mr. haynes . l. c. j. look you , he does not call you for a witness for him , you can testifie nothing , and so you must be quiet . coll. call mr. lewes . ( who appeared ) l. c. j. what is your christian name ? mr. lewes . william . coll. pray , mr. lewes , what do you know about turbervile ? mr. lewes . i know nothing at all , i assure you , of him that is ill . colledge . do you know any thing concerning any of the evidence that hath been given here ? mr. lewes . if i knew any thing relating to you , i would declare it ; but i know something of mr. ivy ; it has no relation to you , as i conceive , but against my lord of shaftsbury . lo. c. j. you would call ivy for a witness , and now you call one against him ; and that i told you you must not do : but ivy is not at all in this case . coll. do you know any thing of the rest of them ; haynes , or smith , or dugdale ? mr. lewes . no more than what mr. zeal told me was told him . coll. do you know any thing of a presbyterian plot ? mr. lewes . if the court please to hear me , i will tell my knowledge of that ; but i know nothing that affects him in the least , only that which concerns my lord of shaftsbury . l. ch . just . that is nothing to the purpose ; call another . mr. lewes . there was not , to my knowledge , a word mentioned of your name : i will do you all the justice i can ; if i knew any thing concerning you , i would be sure to relate it . coll. i cannot say who can , or who cannot : i am a stranger to all of it . lo. ch . just . well , call your next witness . coll. my lord , there was a petition presented to the common council of london , wherein they set out , that they were tamper'd withal about a plot against the protestants . lo. c. j. a petition from whom ? coll. i cannot tell from whom ; from some of these witnesses . l. c. j. who preferred and signed it ? coll. mr. turbervile was one . pray call dr. oates . l. c. j. the prisoner calls upon you , mr. oates . what would you ask him , mr. colledge ? coll. vvhere is the petition to the common council , doctor ? dr. oates . i have it here in my hand . lo. ch . just . by whom was it presented ? dr. oates . it was given by mr. turbervile and mr. macnamarra , to mr. vvilmoe . lo. ch . just . was you by when it was delivered ? dr. oates . mr. vvilmore did deliver it to me before he was apprehended ; for , being to come down as a witness , he was taken up , and committed to prison . lo. ch . just . whose hands are to it ? dr. oates . i know mr. turbervile's hand , he will not disown it . clerk , reads . it is subscribed edward turbervile , john macnamarra . l. c. j. look you , mr. colledge ; what word is there in all this petition that , is a contradiction to what they have said now ? colledge . i did not hear it , my lord. lo. ch . just . they say they are constant witnesses for the king , against the papists ; and they have been tempted to unsay what they have said : how does that contradict what they say now ? coll. i suppose they say they have been tempted to turn the plot upon other people , and to make a plot upon the protestants . l. c. j. they have been tempted , they say , by the papists , to unsay what they have said ; but the jury have heard it read , and will give it its due weight . will you ask mr. oates any questions ? colledge . what do you know of mr. turbervile ? dr. oates . as to turbervile , my lord , a little before the witnesses were sworn at the old-bailey , i met with mr. tubervile : i was in a coach , but seeing mr. turbervile , i stept out of the coach , and spoke with him ; for , hearing that he was a witness , i did ask him whether he was a witness or no against colledge ? mr. turbervile said , he would break any one's head that should say so against him ; for he neither was a witness , nor could give any evidence against him . so after he came from oxon. i met with mr. turbervile again ; and , hearing he had been there , i asked him if he had sworn any thing against colledge ? he said , yes , he had been sworn before the grand jury . said i , did not you tell me so and so ? why , said he , the protestant citizens have deserted us ; and god dam him , he would not starve . lo. c. j. would he say so to you ? dr. oates . yes , my lord , he said those very words . mr. serj. jeff. 't is mr. oates saying , 't is mr. turbervile's oath . dr. oates . several times he did repeat it ; but when i asked him what he had sworn , he said i am not bound to satisfie peoples curiosities . l. c. j. what say you to it , mr. turbervile ? mr. turbervile . my lord , the first part of the doctor 's discourse , in part is true ; i met him just at my lodgings , and the doctor alighted out of his coach , and spoke to me , and invited me to come to my old friends ; for he told me they had some jeajousie that i was not true to them : and he told me , if i would come to the king's-head club , i should be received with a great deal of kindness ; and never afterwards did i speak with the doctor a tittle about any evidence . l. ch . just . he says , you said you would break any one's head , that said you were an evidence against colledge ; for you were not , nor could be . mr. turbervile . there was no such thing said by me . mr. att. gen. upon your oath , did you tell him so ? mr. turberv . upon my oath , i did not . mr. serj. jeff. did you tell him that other passage , when you swore you would not starve ? mr. turbervile . no , i did not . dr. oates . upon the word of a priest , what i say is true . my lord , i do say , as i am a minister , i speak it sincerely , in the presence of god , this gentleman did say these words to me , which made me afraid of the man , and i went my ways , and never spake with him afterwards , nor durst i ; for i thought he that would swear and curse after that rate , was not fit to be talked with . l. c. j. 't is very improbable that he should say so to you . mr. turbervile . i always looked upon dr. oates as a very ill man , and never would converse much with him . l. c. j. will you ask him any thing more ? coll. do you know any thing of the rest , doctor ? dr. oates . i know nothing of turbervile further , but that he did present this petition , wherein he says , he lay under great temptations to go on the other side , and accuse some protestants . and truly till i heard he was an evidence at oxon. after what he had said to me , i did not believe it . mr. att. gen. doctor oates , mr. turbervile hath not changed sides , you have ; he is still an evidence for the king , you are against him . dr. oates . mr. attorney , i am a witness for truth , against falshood and subornation ; and it can plainly be made to appear there is subornation against the protestants . and moreover , my lord , — l. c. j. mr. oates , you would do well to explain your self . mr. serj. jeff. if there be any subornation relating to mr. turbervile , or any of the other witnesses that have now sworn against colledge , make it out , doctor . dr. oates . there is , my lord , and there will be made further to appear in time to come . to my own knowledge as to mr. smith , mr. colledge and mr. smith had some provoking words passed betwixt them at richard's coffee-house , and mr. smith comes out and swears , god dam him , he would have colledge 's blood . so , my lord , when i met him ; said i , mr. smith , you profess your self to be a priest , and have stood at the altar ; and now you intend to take upon you the ministry of the church of england , and these words do not become a minister of the gospel ; his reply was , god dam the gospel ; this is truth , i speak it in the presence of god and man. l. c. j. can you say any thing of any of the other witnesses . dr. oates . as for mr. dugdale , i was ingaged for him for 50 l. for last lent assizes , he wanted money to go down to the assizes , having paid some debts , and paid away all his money ; and so i engaged for 50 l. that he borrowed of richard the coffee-man . after he came from oxon. i called upon him to hasten to get his money of the lords in the treasury ; which , as near as i remember , was ordered him upon his petition , for so i heard . and at that time , said he , sir , i hear there is a great noise of my being an evidence ; against whom , said i , against several protestants , my lord shaftsbury , and others , said i : i never heard any thing of it ; says he , there is no body hath any cause to make any such report of me ; for i call god to witness , i know nothing against any protestant in england . after that i met with dugdale at richard's coffee-house , and pressing him for the money , and he saying he had it not just then , but would pay it in a little time : mr. dugdale , said i , you have gone , i am afraid , against your conscience ; i am sure against what you have declared to me ; said he , it was all long of colonel warcupp , for i could get no money else . mr. att. gen. mr. oates is a thorough-pac'd witness against all the king's evidence . mr. ser. jeff. and yet dr. oates had been alone in some matters , had it not been for some of these witnesses . dr. oates . i had been alone perhaps , and perhaps not ; but yet , mr. serjeant , i had always a better reputation than to need theirs to strengthen it . mr. ser. jeff. does any man speak of your reputation ; i know no body does meddle with it , but you are so tender . colledge . sir george , now a man is upon his life , i think you do not do well to affront his witnesses . mr. serj. jeff. i do not affront him ; but now , my lord , pray give us leave to call our witnesses . mr. smith , pray stand up . l. c. j. mr. smith , do you hear what mr. oates hath said ? mr. smith . no , my lord. l. c. j. then speak it again , mr. oates . dr. oates . yes , my lord , i will speak it to his face . he said , coming out of richard's coffee-house , they having had some provoking words , as i understood when i come in , god dam that colledge , i will have his blood ; and , my lord , when i did reprove him , and said to him , mr. smith , you have been a priest , and stood at the altar , and intend to be a minister of the church of england , these words do not become a minister of the gospel ; and he replied , god dam the gospel ; and away he went. l. ch . just . what say you to it , mr. smith ? mr. smith . not one word of this is true , upon my oath . 't is a wonderful thing you should say this of me ; but i will sufficiently prove it against you , that you have confounded the gospel , and denied the divinity too . mr. serj. jeff. mr. dugdale , you heard what was said against you . dr. oates . my lord , now dugdale is come i will tell you something more . there was a report given out by mr. dugdale's means , that mr. dugdale was poysoned ; and in truth , my lord , it was but the pox. and this sham passed throughout the kingdom in our intelligencies ; and this i will make appear by the physician that cured him . mr. ser. jeff. that is but by a third hand . dr. oates . he did confess that he had an old clap , and yet he gave out he was poysened ; but now , my lord , as to what i said before of him , i was engaged for 50 l. for mr. dugdale , do you own that ? mr. dugdale , i do own it . dr. oates . i did press upon you to hasten the payment of it . mr. dugdale . yes , you did . dr. oates . and did not you come to me and tell me , there was a noise of your being an evidence , it was in time just before my lord shaftsbury was taken up . mr. dugdale . i never spoke to you till you spake to me . dr. oates . my lord , he came , and said to me . there is a noise of my being an evidence ; now i had not heard it then ; but the day after i did hear it , and i did justifie mr. dugdale . because he had said to me that he had nothing against any protestant in england . so i did stand up in vindication of him ; but , my lord , after he had sworn at the old baily i met him again , and pressed him for the money , and urged him with it , why he had sworn against colledge , when he had told me so and so before , and he said it was all long of colonel warcup ; for he could not get his money else ; and colonel warcup did promise he should have a place at the custom-house . mr. dugdale . upon the oath i have taken , and as i hope for salvation , it is not true . mr. serj. jeff. here is dugdale's oath against dr. oats's saying . dr. oates . mr. serjeant , you shall hear of this in another place . mr. att. gen. 't is an unhappy thing that dr. oates should come in against these men that supported his evidence before . mr. dugd. my lord , i say further , if any doctor will come forth and say he cured me of a clap , or any such thing , i will stand guilty of all that is imputed to me . l. c. j. mr. colledge , will you call any other witnesses ? coll. my lord , i think this is not fair dealing with a man for his life ; because these men be upon their oaths , and deny the things again that my witnesses prove , therefore what they swear must needs be taken for truth : but if my witness comes and says such a thing upon the word of a minister , and in the presence of god , and which he is ready to maintain by an oath , sure it is not to stand for nothing ; nor he to be hooted out of court , because mr. dugdale denies it upon his oath , i do suppose he will not acknowledge it . but , my lord , i am the prisoner , and cannot be heard as a witness for my self : but god is my witness , he hath said a great deal more to me formerly ; and he hath told me when i have seen him with warcup , and asked him why he kept company with warcup , and others ; said he , i know they are suspected men , but i must keep company with them to get my money ; what would you have me do , starve . and when i lent him money out of my pocket , and trusted him with my horse , i dunn'd him for money and could not get it ; said i , will you pay me the 5 l. i lent you ; he put me off , said he , i shall have it , for the attorney general hath made up his accompts , and he is very kind to me ; why then , said i , why have you it not ; said he , he is my friend , and i do not question the getting of it ; but here is new work to be done , such work as my conscience will not serve me to do ; there is more roguery , they will never have done plotting , and counterplotting ; but they will make a thousand plots if they can to destroy the real one . l. c. j. can you prove this now ? coll. no , it was spoken to my self ; and no body was by but my self . l. c. j. then you should not speak it . but you asked the question whether a man may not be believed upon his word , as well as he that is upon his oath . your witnesses are not upon their oaths , but they may be witnesses , and their weight is to be left with the jury ; they will consider how improbable it is , that these men should come , three men to one man , and all of them should speak that which would make themselves rogues and villains ; and that one man of them , smith , should say such words , as , god damn him , he would have his blood , and god damn the gospel : that dugdale should confess he was wrought upon by warcup to testifie against his conscience ; and that turbervile should say to that purpose , he would not starve ; they have sworn the contrary , and so there are all these three mens oaths against one mans affirmation ; but it must be left to the jury . coll. there is his affirmation against what they three say . he charges every one of them , and 't is but the single denial of every one of them to his charge . l. c. j. 't is improbable they should own themselves such villains to him . dr. oates . they must be so , if they will do what they have undertaken . i hope my word will be believed as soon as their oaths . coll. it is not to be thought , but when they have sworn so against me , they will deny any such thing when they are charged with it . l. c. j. have you done with your witnesses ? or will you call any more ? coll. what is said upon an honest mans word in the face of a court , is certainly to be believed as well as what is sworn . l. c. j. 't is a testimony , that is most certain , and must be left to the jury , they must weigh one against the other . but pray , mr. colledge will you call your witnesses , for it begins to grow late . coll. there is mr. wilmore , that was a material witness for me , who was foreman of the grand jury , that would not find the bill upon this evidence . what he had to say i don't know , but i am informed it was very material for me . l. c. j. it will be enough for him to clear himself , for he is charged with high treason , and by two witnesses too . colledge . call. alexander blake . lo. ch . just . what do you ask him ? colledge . do you know john smith ? mr. blake . yes , sir. coll. pray will you tell the court what you know of john smith . mr. blake . i suppose you mean this gentleman . mr. john smith , gent. came to me one morning , and told me there was one haynes under examination , and haynes had discovered very material things against some great persons : this passed , and within few days after i met mr. smith at the exchange coffee-house , and having saluted him , i desired him to drink a glass of wine , and so we went to the sun tavern , and when we were there , i asked him , what his sense was of haynes , and his discovery ? said he , 't is a sham plot : i asked him what he meant by that sham plot ? said he , 't is a meal-tub plot. this is all that i know . l. c. j. would you ask him any thing else ? mr. blake . i know nothing more . coll. do you know any thing of turbervill or dugdale ? mr. blake . sir , i have no acquaintance with him , nor desire it . but i was acquainted with this gent. mr. smith , i know him very well . mr. ser. jeff. you say well , stand down . colledge . call mr. samuel smith . l. ch . just . what ask you him ? colledge . what he knows of mr. smith . mr. s. smith . mr. john smith and i have had an intimacy and acquaintaince several months , and since mr. john smith swore at the old baily against mr. colledge , and was gone out of town , several people have talked with me concerning him , and asking me what i thought of him ? i told them , i believed he was an honest man , however i would not believe otherwise till i knew a reason of it . they told me , that he had sworn against mr. colledge , that he was to seize the king at the parliament at oxford , and that there was 1500 barrels of powder , and it was to carry on a presbyterian plot : said i , i will never believe it , and the rather because he hath said to me often , there was a popish plot , but he does not believe any presbyterian or protestant plot ; and said i further , as to his giving in any evidence with irish-men , i believe it the less for that ; for i have heard him often say , they were a company of rogues that had done the protestant interest more harm than ever they would do it good , and bid me have a care of coming into their company , and many other such things , that mr. smith here knows to be true . then , my lord , when mr. smith came home ( for i was very impatient till he did come home to hear every day such things said against him ) i went to see him . said i , cousin smith , i have had great confronts about you since you went away , but i hope you can't be that ill man you are represented to be , and truly i should be sorry it should be so : pray cousin , said i , i have put every man off with this , that i would suspend my belief of you till i had spoken with your self ; what is the evidence you have given ? they say , you have sworn a presbyterian plot , or a protestant plot , a design of seizing the king at oxon. and of so many barrels of gen-powder that were provided . says my cousin , i did swear no such thing , nor never a word of any such thing as a protestant plot , or a presbyterian plot , and pray do not believe it of me . no , said i , i thought you could not swear any such thing , because you have said often to me , you believed there was no such thing . i do not believe it yet , said he , and as to whatsoever colledge said , i did not believe it , for he did not believe it himself . and mr. smith told me after his return that he did not know of any protestant concerned in the plot. l. c. j. he does not say now 't is a protestant plot. mr. s. smith . so far from that , that he told me after his return he did not know any protestant concerned in the plot. l. c. j. mr. smith , thus i understand you . you say that he said to you , that he had not testified any thing of a protestant plot , nor did believe there was any protestant plot , for he did not believe what colledge said himself : so by that discoure it seems he did not deny , but he had testified against mr. colledge , but he did not believe there was any protestant plot ? mr. s. smith . no , my lord , he did not deny but he had sworn against colledge . mr. just jones . nor that what he had said against colledge was true ; mr. s. s. no my lord , but he did not believe him , and he thought colledge did not believe it himself . mr. ser. jeff. it seems mr. colledge thinks the whole protestant interest concerned in him . l. c. j. the question is mr. colledge what you had in your mind , not what was in the mind of all the protestants . mr. s. s. this i do say , i would not speak more nor less than the truth , he did not deny , but he had heard colledge speak those words he swore , but he did not believe him , and i think mr. smith hath said that at another time before mr. gardner . coll. if he knew of no protestant plot , it was very unlikely that i should attempt such a thing my self . mr. s. s. my lord , i find mr. smith hath been very passionate and very inveterate of late against other men that he hath given me a very good report of before ; and when i was talking of this , i was saying , if it be true that people say of you , a man goes in danger of his life to converse with you . mr. smith , said he , i do not care for all the men between wapping and charing-cross , there is never a man that will forbear my company , but would do or say as much as colledge hath done or said . mr. j. smith . 't is true , and i say so still . coll. 't is a contradiction in it self , that there should be such a design and none but my self to do it . god my righteous judge knows my innocency . mr. just . jones . you might say those words in hopes they would be of your party and made so by your libels and poysonous pictures . l. c. j. come , call another witness . colledge . call mr. tho. gardner . but my lord , how likely is it that i should say , that i would seize the king , when he it seems says , he did not believe there was one man to stand by me ? l. c. j. what say you to this gentleman ? coll. i never saw him in my life . mr. gardner . nor i you , sir. colledge . i know not three of all that come here . l. c. j. well , will you ask him any thing ? coll. pray , do you know mr. smith ? mr. gardner . yes . coll. what do you know of him ? can you say any thing concerning this matter that is sworn against of treason ? mr. gardner . my lord , this day fortnight i think it was , mr. s. smith , the gentleman that was just now up before me , sent for me to the rummer in queen-street to drink a glass of wine , where , when i came , i found him and mr. j. smith that is here , whom they call narrative smith , talking very briskly concerning one colledge , i suppose that is the gentleman , and the jury that acquitted him , and he said that two or three of the jury-men were rascals and villains ; and , says he , they talk up and down the town as if i did intend to sham the popish plot , and to make a protestant plot ; which , said he , i vow to god , and i will justifie it before god , and all the world , that i know of no protestant plot , nor is there any protestant concerned in a plot to my knowledge , but this colledge , and upon his tryal i believe he will be made appear to be more a papist than a protestant ; but says mr. smith to him , now you are known to be a witness in this case , it will be a dangerous thing for a man to converse with you . coll. will it be now known that i am a papist ? no man could ever say so in this world. mr. gardner . says he , i care not what all the world says of me , and i do not value all the men from wapping to charing-cross , but that man that will shun my company , will say and do as much to the king as colledge hath done . but then i was saying , methinks it seems an improbable thing , that such a man as colledge should seize upon the king , or provide 1500 barrels of powder , and those other things . upon my word , said he , with some passion , clapping his hand upon his breast , when mr. colledge did say it , i did not believe a word of it ; and upon my faith i believe colledge himself did not believe it when he told me so . colledge . do you know any thing more , sir ? mr. gardner . no indeed , mr. colledge . colledge . call dr. oates again l. c. j. well , what say you to him ? coll. pray , dr. oates , mr. smith charges me that i should speak some treasonable words that time that alderman wilcox gave you a treat at the crown-tavern , you were there , and pray how long ago was it ? dr. oates . my lord , i heard mr. smith speaking of it at the old-bailey , and if you please to take notice , it was thus ; this summer was twelve-month , or i am sure a great while before christmas the alderman had invited me several times to give me a treat , and i had not time , other business calling me off , but finding a time , i sent him word i would come and see him . he said he was a brewer and troubled at home with customers , but he would give me a dinner at the crown tavern without temple-bar , that was the place fixed upon ; there was mr. smith the counsellor , who had been serviceable to me in several instances , i did get him to go along with me , and mr. colledge was with us , and i heard smith swearing at the old baily , that mr. colledge and he had discourse from the rainbow coffee-house where we met , and went together . colledge . there i was invited by alderman wilcox . dr. oates . but my lord , i will tell my story , i am not to tell mr. smiths ; colledge did tell me he was invited ; said i , you shall be welcome as far as i can make you welcome . so colledge ahd i went together from the rainbow coffe-house to the crown tavern : now indeed colledge was very pleasant and merry , and as i think , the discourse betwixt the rainbow coffee-house and the tavern was betwixt mr. colledge and me ; for mr. smith stayed somewhat behind or walked before , i cannot tell which : when we came to the crown tavern we did , to divert our selves till dinner came up , enter into a philosophical discourse with one mr. savage , who was formerly a romish priest , but this savage is since pardoned by the king and is a member of the church of england , and hath been professor of divinity and philosophy beyond sea. this as i remember was the discourse before we dined till we went to dinner , it was concerning the existence of god whether that could be proved by natural demonstration , and whether or no the soul was immortal : my lord , after dinner smith went away ; i did not hear the least discourse of any such thing as he speaks of , and mr. smith and colledge had no discourse in my hearing from the coffee-house to the tavern ; and when we were in the tavern we did discourse about those two points . counsellor smith , my lord , will justifie a great deal of this , and my brother too , who was with us . but when i heard mr. smith swear as he did about this matter at the old baily , i did really , my lord , in my conscience look upon him to be forsworn in that particular . mr. serj. jeff. and he does swear you are out in this . l. c. j. will you ask him any more questions ? dr. oates . if your lordship please he speaks of mr. wilcox to be a man that contributed money to buy arms , powder and shot , i think sir george jefferies knows alderman wilcox is a man of another employment . mr. serj. jeff. sir george jefferies does not intend to be an evidence i assure you . l. ch . just . do you ask him any more questions ? dr. oates . i do not desire sir george jefferies to be an evidence for me , i had credit in parliaments , and sir george had disgrace in one of them . mr. serj. jeff. your servant doctor , you are a witty man and a philosopher . colledge . call mr. thomas smith . l. c. j. what would you ask of him now ? coll. counsellor smith , here is john smith , or narrative smith , which you please to call him , hath charged me with speaking treason at our going to dinner at mr. wilcox's , i remember you were there , and i think you and i , and dr. oates and his brother , and mr. godwin wharton went together ; i did tell mr. smith of it , but i did not stir a step out of the coffee-house with him , but went away before him : how long ago is it since we had that dinner ? mr. t. smith . my lord , if your lordship please , i do very well remember mr. alderman vvilcox , so they called him , did desire to give dr. oates a treat , with some other of his friends , at the crown-tavern without temple-bar ; but really , my lord , as to the certain time i do not remember it , but to my best remembrance , my lord , it was before christmass last , and some time before christmass last . and , my lord , i was there all the time , mr. smith was at that time somewhat a stranger to me , something i had heard of his name , and i did stay there all the while : i remember mr. alderman vvilcox was to go out of town that day ; and truly , as to any thing of matter of treason , or treasonable words ; or any thing tending towards it ; i am confident nothing was , or could be spoken , and the room was a very small room , and our company did fill it up , and the table was so big , that there was little more than for the servitors to go about , so that any man might easily hear from the one end of the room to the other . i remember there was some discourse betwixt dr. oates and mr. savage , who i think hath been a jesuit , and it was about some points of philosophy and divinity ; but for treason , i do not remember the least of it , and i am confident colledge said not any such thing at that time , and my reason is this ; i very well remember mr. colledge did set himself down upon one side of the table , and fell asleep , and unless he talked treason in his sleep , there could not be any such thing said , and if it had been said , it would have been heard . mr. att. gen. mr. smith , did you never hear mr. colledge speak any ill words of the king ? mr. t. smith . never in my life : and if i were now to take the sacrament upon it , i could say so . mr. ser. jeff. you used to converse with him , mr. smith , did he never say any thing like it to you ? mr. t. smith . good mr. serjeant , you know i can take the sacrament ; pray let us have no reflections . mr. serj. jeff. who did reflect upon you , i did not reflect upon you . mr. just . jones . mr. smith , did he never deliver you any of those pictures ? mr. t. smith . no sir , he never did . coll. good sir george don't reflect upon my evidence . it seems smith is mistaken in the time , for he says it was at christmass , but mr. smith says it was some time before . l. ch . just . mr. smith does not say so , the certain time he cannot tell exactly ; but your witnesses say it was then . mr. t. smith . i do speak as much as if i were upon my oath ; and i know what an oath is , i thank god ; and what it is to speak before a court of judicature , and i know , and do speak truth as much as if i were upon my oath ; and i do say i did not hear colledge , or any one else that was in that company at that time , speak any thing reflecting upon the king and government , or any thing tending towards it . mr. just . jones . can you remember a matter so distinctly , which dr. oates says was a year and half ago ? l. c. j. no , this summer was twelve-month . mr. just . jones . and can you tell so long ago , not only your own actions , but testify to all other mens actions too that were in the room ? mr. t. smith . i cannot tell what dr. oates's memory is as to the time , but i remember the place , the occasion , and the persons that were there . mr. just . jones . and you take upon you to have such a perfect memory , as to the actions of all the persons that were in the room . mr. t. smith . i do not speak of all that was done ; but i say i remember no such thing that was said , and i believe no such thing was said , and have given you my reasons why . but , my lord , that which i say further for mr. colledge , is this ; i do hear something pretended , as if he provided arms to go for oxford . i have known him this three years , or thereabouts ; and , my lord , i do know that he did usually ride with a case of pistols before him . and before that time i had occasion to borrow his horse of him , at the election for westminster the last parliament that sat there , and i had it then with a case of pistols . i likewise borrowed it at michaelmas last , the same horse , and the same pistols they were : i did at the same time see a suit of silk-armour , which he told me he did provide against the papists , for he said he did expect we should have a brush with them . said i , do not trouble your self for that , they dare not meddle ; said he , this will do no harm . and , as i remember , it was a suit of armour made of silk , to wear under a coat . colledge . it was silk armour only for the thrust of a sword. and i assure you , my lord , i had but one suit , but one case of pistols , and but one horse , i had two before , but they did not then make a traytor of me , that was all that ever i had ; but if i had ten horses , and never so many armours , i declare it upon my salvation , i intended it for nothing but against the papists , if they should make a disturbance , and whatever i did was with that design , and truly , by the grace of god , i would not have been the last man then ; but i see , whatever i provided my self with for that , they have turned it all another way , that it might be believed the protestants were against the king and the established government . l. c. j. those observations may be proper for you at last : go on now with your evidence . colledge . my lord , i am not a man of that great memory , i may forget it , and therefore i speak it now whilst i think of it . l. c. j. set it down in your paper . coll. smith says i talked with him coming from richard's coffee-house till we came to the tavern ; i do declare it , i went away before him , and went away with dr. oates . l. c. j. ask mr. smith that question , if you will. coll. pray sir , do you know who went together thither ? mr. t. smith . i dare not undertake to say that , i cannot tell whether he went from the rainbow-coffee-house with us , or no. coll. he says after we had dined we divided our selves into cabals , two and two together : i do declare it , as that which is the real truth , i fell asleep behind the table , if any body was divided , it is more than i know ; but mr. smith , you can tell , because he says i spoke treason to him when i was in the room , he and i in one cabal . mr. t. s. my lord , i remember nothing of that , nor do believe it , for i told you the room was so little that we could not divide our selves ; and it is impossible in such a little compass where we were , so many as we were , 14 or 15 of us ; it may be one might talk to another that was next to him , but then the company must hear , and whether they did so or no , i cannot tell , i do not remember mr. smith's saying any thing to any particular person , but the great engagement was between dr. oates and mr. savage , and about some questions in divinity , and that is the great matter i took notice of . coll. however , my lord , i declare it , that was above a twelve-month ago , and i hope your lordship and the jury does observe that there was no new arms were found but what were provided a great while ago : all that know me , know i was never without a case of pistols and an horse , though i was but a joyner , and there is no more that you see now . and as to what smith said about our going into cabals , that you hear mr. smith denies . l. c. j. will you call any other witnesses ? coll. yes , if it please your lordship , do you know no more , sir ? mr. t. smith . i know no other thing , if i did , i would declare it . coll. call dr. oates's brother , mr. samuel oates . my lord , thus you see smith's testimony is false . l. c. j. i do not see this contradicts his oath , for he speaks of several times that he did speak with you , one was at wilcox's , which is this they speak of . coll. mr. smith says there was only that great discourse going on in the room , and there was no such things as cabals which he speaks of . l. c. j. what do you say as to this witness ? coll. do you know narrative smith ? mr. oates . yes sir. coll. what do you know of him ? were you at the dinner which mr. wilcox gave your brother ? mr. oates . yes , yes , i was at that dinner . coll. were you at the coffee-house when i went along with your brother ? mr. oates . yes , we went with you . coll. did mr. smith go with us ? mr. oates . yes , mr. smith followed us . coll. did you hear any treasonable discourse between us ? mr. oates . not the least of a little word . coll. did we go into cabals two and two together there ? mr. oates . there was nothing at all of cabals that i saw , from the time of going to dinner ; for we came just as dinner was going into the room , as i remember . mr. ser. jeff. what do you mean by cabals ? mr. oates . that is , as i discern by mr. colledge , as if there had been cabals amongst the company . mr. just . jones . that is , going by couples . mr. oates . yes , yes . mr. ser. jeff. what did they talk of ? mr. oates . there was nothing at all spoken of ? mr. ser. jeff. what , did they say nothing all the while ? mr. oates . nothing but matter of common discourse , matters of eating and drinking , and talking of countrey affairs , there were several that had lands in the countrey , and they were talking of those things . mr. just . jones . were you there all the while ? mr. oates . yes . mr. ser. jeff. heark you , sir , were there no disputations in divinity ? mr. oates . not at all . mr. ser. jeff. nor of philosophy ? mr. oates . no. mr. ser. jeff. why , pray sir , did not dr. oates and mr. savage talk very pleasantly of two great questions in divinity , the being of god , and the immortality of the soul ? mr. oates . there was not a word of that , but only of common discourse . mr. ser. jeff. are you sure there was no such thing ? mr. oates . not that i know of in the least . i sat at table with them . mr. ser. jeff. was it such a little room that you could hear all was said ? mr. oates . there was room enough . l. c. j. people cannot give a perfect account of all things that have passed so long ago . coll. i did not hear that discourse my self , because i was asleep behind the table ; and perhaps mr. oates cannot remember it . mr. sol. gen. was it before dinner , or after dinner , that colledge fell asleep behind the table ? mr. oates . he was not asleep , to my remembrance , all the while . mr. ser. jeff. recollect your self , pray ; was mr. colledge asleep there ? mr. oates . i do not remember he was . l. c. j. 't is impossible to give an account , and therefore witnesses in negatives are of little value . coll. did mr. smith and you and i go together ? mr. oates . mr. smith followed us . lo. c. j. how do you know that ? mr. oates . for you and i , and my brother went together : you were a saying when we came out of the coffee-house in a jocose way , come dr. i will go along with you , and be one of your guard. you spoke it in a jesting way ; so you may , if you please , said my brother . and so he went by my brother's side , and i went by mr. colledge's side . colledge . do you remember how long ago that was ? mr. oates . it was the last summer , but to say exactly what month , i cannot . mr. s. gen. mr. oates , answer me this question , pray sir. mr. oates . yes , sir. mr. s. gen. from what place did you go . mr. oates . from richards coffee-house . mr. s. gen. who went along with colledge ? m. oates . he came along with my brother and me ; for he said to my brother , i will be one of your guard. mr. s. gen. who went along with mr. smith ? mr. oates . i don't know , i took very little notice of things . mr. serj. jeff. 't is sufficient that he can tell who went with colledge . mr. oates . i remember one thing : mr. smith would fain have perswaded me into something that my brother should talk , but i heard nothing ; said i , do not examine me upon such things , for i took little notice of any thing ; but this i can say , whereas he does charge mr. wilcox , the gentleman did not speak five words all the time he was there . mr. ser. jeff. he does not use to be so melancholy , i assure you . mr. oates . i did wonder at it my self , but he was not long with us , for i do not think he was there a quarter of the time ; it seems he had a son sick in the countrey , and he was going thither . colledge . have you any thing against macnamarra ? l. c. j. he is no witness here . coll. do you know any thing against mr. dugdale ? mr. oates . no , not i. colledge . then i can say no more to you . l. ch . just . call another witness . coll. call mr. bolron . lo. ch . just . what do you ask him ? colledge . do you know john smith ? mr. bolron . yes . colledge . what say you against him ? mr. bolron . may it please your lordship , the last 25th . of july mr. smith , and mr. mowbray , and my self were travelling from york towards london . we lay the 24th . at and the 25th . we were travelling towards london : mr. smith did ask me , if i did remember what discourse there was betwixt sir john brooks and i at ferry-bridge , when we were coming up before to london ? i desired him to tell me what discourse , and i would tell him if i did remember it or no. so my lord , he did say , the discourse was , that sir john brooks did say , there would be cutting of throats at oxford , and that the parliament did go provided , some with 8 , some with 6 , some with 4 men , and they were to meet at grantham , and go together . this discourse i did remember , that sir john brooks said , they went with horse and arms to secure them from high-way-men ; and sir john brooks did then further declare , that the discourse was , there would be cutting of throats at oxford , which made them go with arms to defend themselves . mr. smith did further upon the 25 , 26 , 27 , and 28th . of july ( and it was our frequent discourse ) tell me , that he had given his majesty an account of it , which occasioned the dissolving of the parliament : that discourse that was made to the king , was , that sir john brooks should say , there would be cutting of throats at oxford , and that the parliament-men went provided with 4 or 5 , 6 or 10 men apiece ; and he did tell me , he had given a further account , that there was a consult a● grantham , wherein it was resolved , that it was better to seize the king , than to let him go on . now , this i knew nothing of , but he would have perswaded me to have given in this evidence against sir john brooks , as to this discourse . but i declare , i did never hear it , and mr. smith was the first man that ever i heard it from , i never heard it before in my life . colledge . would he have had you been an evidence , and swore it ? mr. bolron . yes ; he said he had given an account of it to the king , and if i did manage it rightly against my lord shaftsbury and colledge , he would make me for ever ; those two persons were mentioned all along . but i do declare it , i did never hear them speak treason against the king in my life . and he did further tell me , that i must say so and so ; for if we did not agree , it would signifie nothing . but , my lord , i know nothing of the matter , i never heard any one speak of it but mr. smith . my lord , this is true , mr. mowbray was the man that was by when it was discoursed . mr. just . jones . he would have had you sworn it , would he ? mr. bolron . i discovered it to my lord mayor . mr. att. gen. when did you discover it ? mr. bolron . soon after he came to town . mr. att. gen. when was it ? mr. bolron . some time last week . mr. att. gen. was it on saturday last ? mr. bolron . it was the beginning of the week . mr. serj. jeff. thou art such a discoverer . mr. bolron . my lord , 't is very true what i say . if i had known any such thing , i would have discovered it . mr. serj. jeff. thou wouldest have discovered it before that time , of my conscience . colledge . my lord , he hath been an evidence against the papists as well as mr. smith , and therefore pray sir george don't make your flourishes upon him . mr. serj. jeffer . he was an evidence , but he had the misfortune never to be believed . mr. att. gen. do you know any thing of any pictures of mr. colledges making ? have you seen raree shew ? mr. bolron . never in my life . mr. att. gen. did you not shew it in oxford ? mr. bolron . no , never in my life . mr. serj. holloway . did you never declare to any gentleman of oxford , that colledge made this picture ? mr. bolron . i have seen the character of a popish successor , but i never saw raree shew . mr. serj. hollow . here is the very gentleman , my lord , that will make oath of it . mr. bolron . he was supposed to make them , i did not know that he did . mr. ser. jeff. i do only desire one thing , i do not say , that you ever had raree shew , but did you ever tell any body that colledge made any of these pictures ? mr. bolron . i have heard of such a paper , but i did never see it in my life . mr. ser. jeff. do you know that gentleman , mr. bolron ? mr. bolron . i know him not . mr. ser. jeff. i would ask you , whether you ever had any discourse with that gentleman ? mr. bolron . never in my life . then the gentleman was sworn , being a master of arts. mr. ser. jeff. what is the gentlemans name ? mr. serj. holloway . mr. charlett of trinity colledge . mr. serj. jeff. pray sir , do you know that person there ? mr. charlett . my lord , in the new coffee-house that was by the schools , that was set up in the parliament-time , there was a gentleman that is in the court ( i think ) one mr. dashwood , and one mr. box were there together to drink a dish of coffee , and and hearing that some of the evidence were there , we desired their company up , and that gentleman was one ; and among other discourse , they were speaking of some pictures , and they shewed us the picture of the tantivies . mr. serj. jeff. did this man shew it you ? mr. char. this very man ; it was the pictures of the tantivies and the towzer , and he told me they were made by colledge , he was a very ingenious man. mr. bolron . i know nothing of it , the character of a popish successor i have seen , but never the other , i never shewed him any such thing . then the pictures were shewen him . mr. charlett . it was something like this , but i cannot say for any of the other . mr. bolron . the charcter of a popish successor , i say i have seen , and colledge himself hath told me he made the character of a popish successor , i do not deny that i have seen that . l. ch . just . would you ask him any more questions ? mr. bolron . my lord , i have something more to say concerning mr. brian hains ; in january , february and april last , several times i was in his company , and i heard him say , he knew nothing of a popish plot , nor of a presbyterian plot neither , but if he were to be an evidence he did not care what he swore , but would swear and say any thing to get money . mr. just . jones . did he tell you so ? mr. bolron . yes , i did hear him say , to day he would be a papist , to morrow a a presbyterian , he did not care for religion , he would never die for religion , he would be of that religion that had the strongest party . my lord , he told me so at my own house in fleet-street . colledge . he would say any thing for money , pray my lord take notice of that , for so i find he does . mr. bolron . then there is dennis macnamarra , and john macnamarra . mr. serj. jeff. we have nothing to say to them . colledge . they have been evidences against me , though you do not now produce them , they are all in a string , but they are not now brought because my witnesses are prepared to answer them . l. c. j. will you call your next witness . coll. mr. mowbray , pray , sir , do you know narrative smith , as he calls himself ? mowbray . yes , my lord. colledge . what do you know of it ? mowbray . i came up from york with him when i returned , after i was commanded down upon the kings account to give in evidence against sir miles stapleton , he came to me the third of august , and called at my house in yorkshire , and was very importunate for me to come up to london with him , for he said , he had a letter come to him which commanded his presence at london very suddenly , and he produced that letter which he said came from a gentleman of the court , or some court dependent ; so he read the letter in mr. bolrons hearing . we set forward on sunday , and upon our journey to london he told me he had something of importance to impart to me , so upon the road he began to discourse of the parliament , and of the illegal proceedings and arbitrary power of the two last parliaments , he said their proceedings were very illegal and arbitrary , and he began to open some of the votes , as that which they voted , that those that should lend the king money upon the crown lands , should be enemies to the king and kingdom , and those that counselled the king to dissolve the parliament ; and he repeated many votes ; and , said he , these are signs of arbitrary power , and certainly they design to take off the king ; so he proceeded further , to ask me what was the discourse of sir john brooks when we came up before , and he did much importune me to say , that sir john brooks did affirm there would be cutting of throats at oxford , and that the king was to be seized there . i told him , i could have no plausible pretence , because i had no acquaintance with sir john brooks , nor did i come up with him ; upon which he applied himself to mr. bolron , and importuned him for the same , he asked me who i came up with , i told him , i came up with three members of parliament , my lord fairfax , sir john hewly and mr. stern ; he asked what discourse we had upon the road ? and he asked , whether they had any discourse that tended to justifie their former votes ? for he said , if they did think to justifie any thing of those votes , or if they would not allow the king money , and stood upon the bill of exclusion , he said , that was pretence enough for any man to swear that there was a design against the king , and that the king was to be seized at oxford . coll. an excellent pretence indeed , and like the rest . mowbray . he would have tempted me to swear against my lord shaftsbury the same . and he said , it would be well if i did appear on colledges tryal at oxon. for it was a thing of great consequence ; the popish plot was thrown out of doors , and no man was looked upon that did speak of it . mr. just . jones . was all this in the presence of mr. bolron ? mowbr . no , my lord , when he was discoursing about sir john brooks , mr. bolron rid up to us , and he applied himself to him , because i told him i had no plaufible pretence to swear against him , having no acquaintance with him . mr. serj. jeff. pray , sir , let me ask you one question ; when came you from york ? mowb. we set forward the third day of august from wentbridge . mr. ser. jeff. pray who came with you in the company ? mowb. mr. bolron . mr. ser. jeff. that was a sunday , as i take it . mowb. yes . mr. ser. jeff. then pray , how long did you continue before you came to london ? mowbr . i think we came in on the thursday after . ser. jeff. when was the first time mr. smith came into your company ? mowbr . upon the road on sunday . ser. jeff. was that the first time ? mowbray . yes , he had been at york , and went further , and afterwards came to us . ser. jeff. when did you come from york . mowb. about the thursday before , if i be not mistaken . ser. jeff. was it in a week before . mowb. yes , within a week it was . ser. jeff. and you and mr. bolron came together . mowb. yes . ser. jeff. and you left mr. smith behind . mowb. yes . ser. jeff. and he overtook you upon the road . mowb. yes : he was to go further into the north as soon as the tryal of sir miles stapleton was over ; and therefore he did very much importune me to stay in the countrey till he came to go up with me . ser. jeff. what day was the tryal of sir miles stapleton . mowbr . on the monday before . ser. jeff. you are sure of that , and that mr. smith went further into the north. mowbr . i see him take horse . ser. jeff. but he did not come into the company of you and bolron till the sunday after that . mowb. see ye , sir , he did desire me to stay in the countrey till he came , for he had a business of great concernment to impart to me , but it would be a week or a fortnight ere he came , but yet he came in a shorter time ; for he said he had received a letter that brought him up . ser. jeff. you are sure of this . mowb. yes . ser. jeff. and you did not see him from the monday before , till that sunday . mowb. no , no. ser. jeff. now then , i ask you where was that place that he met with you . mowbray . at wentbridge . ser. jeff. and then you came from thence towards london the next day . mow. yes . ser. jeff. now would i desire to know of you , for i perceive he did attack you to say something against sir john brooks , and finding that you could not do it , because you had no acquaintance , he applied himself to bolron . i would know , was it between that place and london . mowb. yes , it was . ser. jeff. and after the third of august . mowb. yes , it was after we set out . ser. jeff. i thought it had been the 24th . of july that you set out , and continued your journey the 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , and 29th . alas , we have lost a great deal of time between bolron and mowbray . bolron said it was the 25th . they lay at such a place , and you are gotten to the third of august ; you are mistaken certainly , as to point of time . mowb. see , sir , i will look in my almanack , 't is all set down there . ser. jeff. let us see now if your oxford journey be as well set down , as your journey to london is . mowb. here is my almanack , sir. mr. jones . here , look upon his almanack . ser. jeff. mr. jones , i don't care for his almanack , i had rather mowbray and bolron could bring their almanacks together , and i would have them compared , to see whether the third of august in one , be the 25th . of july in the other . did you discourse with him upon the road the third of august , and not before ; and bolron that came up with you , discourse with him the 25th . of july . mowb. i am mistaken , i find . ser. jeff. ay , that you are , one of you most grosly . mowbray . see , sir , here is my almanack , whereby . i find that it is my mistake ; but pray see , sir , here it is set down ; the day we came out was the 24th . the day we came to london was the 27th . mr. ser. jeff. how didst thou set out the third of august from that place , and yet come to london the 27th . of july . mowbray . i will refer my self to mr. smith , as to the time we came up , and here is my almanack . mr. ser. jeff. i will believe thy almanack to speak truth , though it have never so many errors about the changes of the weather , sooner than i will believe thee . coll. i perceive the man is mistaken in the month and the time ; but pray , my lord , will you please to see , for justice sake , if the almanack be new writ . lo. c. j. look you , here is the matter , mr. colledge , he was asked again and again , what day it was , and he was positive to the third of august . coll. he was mistaken , but his almanack is right . l. c. j. he speaks rashly , that is the best can be said . mowb. it was a mistake of mine , sir george , but my almanack is right . mr. ser. jeff. nay , mr. mowbray , don't enter into dialogues with me , i only make a little observation upon your almanack . mowbray . it was only my mistake . l. c. j. you are a rash man to affirm so : if you had an almanack , you should have consulted it , or referred to it . mr. ser. jeff. nay , we have lost a day even by your almanack ; for yours says it was the 27th . you came to town , bolron the 28th . mowb. i refer my self to mr. smith , he can't deny but he came up with us at that time . ser. jeff. you were examined at sir miles stapleton's tryal , was you not , mowbray ? mowb. i was an evidence there . ser. jeff. did the jury believe you ? mowbr . they did acquit sir miles stapleton . coll. that is nothing to the purpose ; so was mr. smith too . l. c. j. would you ask any thing further ? coll. call mrs. mary bolron . l. c. j. if you have any more witnesses , pray call them . mr. just . jones . mowbray , was bolron's wife by when this discourse was ? mowbr . no , she was in town , she did not go down with him at all . lo. ch. just . are you bolron's wife ? mrs. bolron . yes . l. c. j. well , what do you ask her ? colledge . mrs. bolron , pray do you know mr. john smith ? mrs. bolron . yes , i do know him . colledge . what can you say of him ? mrs. bolron . he sent several times for my husband and mowbray to my house , something he would have them be concerned in , some business he had in hand . lo. ch . just . when was that ? mrs. bolron . within this three weeks , since he came up from york assizes . colledge . you may see there was an understanding between them then . mr. just . jones . did they go accordingly ? mrs. bol. now and then they have gone to him , but they knew his business , because they had discourse with him , as they said , upon the road , and they would not go . l. c. j. would you ask her any thing else ; what do you know more ? mrs. bolron . nothing , for i am not one that stirs much abroad . colledge . call mr. everard . lo. c. j. what do you ask him ? colledge . as for mr. everard , i need not ask him whether he knows him , for they know one another well enough : but mr. everard , that i would ask you is this ; what do you know of mr. smith , and of this contrivance against me ? mr. everard . mr. smith i have been to see of late , and he told me he knew of no presbyterian or protestant plot ; and when my lord howard was tried , that is , the bill brought against him , he said he wondred how my lord howard could be guilty , and that both himself and i were joyned as evidence to that jury , only to put a gloss upon the evidence ; for , says he , i have nothing material to say . coll. mr. everard . do you know any thing more concerning him , what he hath said at other times concerning me ? mr. everard . i have told you already what i have heard him say , that he thought there was no protestant or presbyterian plot , & that now of late within this little while . colledge . pray sir , was there not some discourse betwixt justice warcupp and you in lincolns-inn walks ? mr. everard . is justice warcupp an evidence here ? l. c. j. no , no. colledge . 't is all but evidence of a presbyterian plot ; therefore , pray sir , what was the discourse between justice warcupp and you , what would he have had you done ? l. c. j. i think it is not material , there is nothing of mr. warcupp in this tryal . mr. everard . if the court does allow of it , i will freely tell it . coll. my lord , the papists design is to make a protestant plot to turn off their own , and they begin with me , but if i should go , they would not be satisfied with me , they would be at others . l. c. j. there is nothing concerning a presbyterian or protestant plot in the case . colledge . my lord , if there be no presbyterian protestant plot , and others to joyn in it , how could i do it by my self ; 't is impossible i should have such a design of seizing the king , and improbable i should speak it . now , my lord , this man was sollicited to come in for an evidence of such a plot. mr. everard . that is true . l. c. j. i tell you it is not material , justice warcupp is not concerned in your tryal . mr. everard . justice warcupp would have perswaded me to have sworn against some lords a presbyterian plot , but i deny that i know any such thing of them . coll. the papists aim is not at me only , but at others . mr. ser. jeff. we have nothing to do with what you and justice warcupp talked of ; for example sake , my lord , let us have no discourses that concern third persons brought in here . l. c. j. would he have perswaded you to say any thing that was not true ? mr. everard . he did not say positively those words , but this he said , i knew seveveral lords — mr. just . jones . now here is mr. justice warcupp's same traduc'd behind his back in the face of the countrey , and it is nothing to this cause before us . coll. my lord , i desire to know what he knows of these things , and that he may speak it out , 't is a material thing for me and others : here is a design of the papists to turn a plot upon the protestants , they begin with me , and if they have my blood , who may feel the effect of it next i cannot tell . lo. ch . just . truly i think it not material to your case , and indeed 't is of ill consequence to have any man traduced behind his back , as justice vvarcupp is . coll. my lord , macnamarra told me , that that man would have seduced him to have retracted his evidence ; upon my salvation 't is true . l. c. j. we meddle not with macnamarra neither , he is no evidence against you . coll. macnamarra hath sworn against me at the old-baily , and at the finding of this bill , but they have laid him by upon some trick or other : i desire mr. everard may tell what he knows . mr. everard . i would not reflect upon any person , nor will i answer it , if the court do not think fit . coll. my lord , this is foul play , if i die my self for my countrey sake , i can do it freely , and the will of god be done ; i would have the truth out for the sake of the protestants . mr. everard . i am very willing to tell the truth , if the court think fit . l. c. j. i see not that he says mr. vvarcupp would have had him swear that which was not true . mr. ever . but this he said , if the court will allow me to speak it ; justice vvarcupp said , that certainly there was a presbyterian plot , and such things ; and that some lords , some of the protestant protesting lords must be guilty of it , and said he , certainly you know much of it , you know such and such things , therefore you may safely swear it , if i knew it ; so by argument he would first prove there was a plot and combination amongst those lords , and then said he this you may safely swear . mr. just . jones . what is this to your purpose , mr. colledge , only mr. warcup's name is brought upon the stage when he is not here to vindicate himself . l. c. j. would you ask him any thing else ? coll. if he does know any thing more of any of them , i desire he would speak it . mr. ev. concerning mr. haynes , he told me it was necessity that drove him to speak any thing against the protestants , and the hard pay and the gratitude he did receive from the citizens . then mr. jones acquainted the court that mr. warcup was just come in , and desired to vindicate himself . but the kings other counsel waved it , saying there was no weight in it . lo. ch . just . where did he tell you this ? mr. ev. in the fields near grays-inn . lo. ch . just . how long since ? mr. ev. about three weeks ago . i asked him , mr. haynes , said i , i would not draw you from your testimony in any thing ; but how can this be congruous to what you have said formerly , that you knew nothing by them ? the truth is , said he , i will not say much to excuse my self , but my wife was reduced to that necessity , that she begg'd at rouse's door , and craved some salary , and mr. rouse would not give her any ; and , said he , meer necessity drove me to it . colledge . he found better pay in another place . mr. ev. and , says he , 't is self-preservation in the next place : for i was brought in guilty when i was taken up , and therefore i was obliged to do some things to save my life . coll. pray , my lord , and gentlemen , observe what this gentleman says , haynes takes this course to destroy innocent persons for his own preservation . mr. ever . besides , he told me , there is a judgment impending upon the nation , said he , either upon the king , or upon the people , i know not which ; but these irish mens swearing against them , is justly fallen upon them for their injustice against the irish in outing them of their estates . coll. so he did it then by way of revenge . for his country-men , i have nothing of their estates , i am sure ; therefore they had no cause to swear against me . but , mr. everard , have you any more to say concerning any of them ? mr. everard . no more concerning those persons that have sworn against you , i can say no more . colledge . as to dugdale or turbervile ? mr. everard . no indeed . colledge . as to this presbyterian plot , sir ? mr. ever . if the court does allow concerning other persons ; but i would not intrude any thing but what the court shall think fit . colledge . i know not but they may come in against me ; therefore pray tell what you know . mr. everard , do you know any thing more ? pray let me know what you know . mr. everard . nothing of any person that hath appeared against you as yet , but what i have told you . coll. they may do , sir. l. c. just . and then we may properly hear him to them , and not before . colledge . i desire to know who they are ; pray let me know their names . mr. everard . fitzgerald . l. c. j. he hath been no witness here . coll. call thomas parkhurst . l. c. j. what do you ask him now he is here ? college . what do you know concerning mr. dugdale ? mr. parkhurst . sir , the latter end of the last november , when the parliament sat at westminster , several times mr. dugdale having promised me his further narrative to publish , which he printed , i met him several times ; one time i met him at richard's coffee-house , and it was towards the evening before we went away ; he told me and mr. symonds , that he was to speak with dr. tongue ; and he told us , that this dr. tongue did lie at mr. colledge's ; and he having spoken the day before , and several times , of the danger he was in of his being assassinated by the papists , m. symonds and i offered to go with him , we took a coach ; for we did not know where mr. colledge lived : he had then a rheum in his eyes , and was not well ; so we accompanied him to mr. colledge's to speak with dr. tongue . it was evening when we went ; and whilst we took a pipe of tobacco , in our discourse we were speaking of the times , and of the danger of the papists ; so colledge took down a steel hat that hung up there , which he said he had , and he said he had a quilted coat of defensive armour , and he said he had a blunderbuss in his house , and two pistols . but i little thought of any thing of this , neither did i know well what i was subpoena'd down for : but these arms i saw in his house , and it was only in discourse that he was provided against the papists ; so i put the steel hat upon my head and pulled it off again , and so did mr. symonds . colledge . did i say any thing , sir , who i had those arms against ? mr. parkhurst . at that time there was no discourse in the world , but of the danger from the papists ; and he said he was provided for them , if they did come to make any disturbance . l. ch . just . when was it , sir ? mr. parkhurst . it was about the latter end of november . i have the narrative that i printed , which was the 23th or 24th ; and i have no directions but that to remember the time . so we carried mr. dugdale . home again in a coach and gave him a pint of wine at his lodgings . l. ch . just . this does not contradict mr. dugdale at all . mr. parkhurst . mr. dugdale does own this for a truth . mr. serj. jeff. so may any body own it . colledge . where is mr. symonds ? pray , sir , what do you know of mr. dugdale ? mr. symonds . what about , sir ? colledge . i have your name here , sir , but i know not for what . mr. symonds . i can say the same that mr. parkhurst did ; that i suppose is the busisiness . all i know of it is this : i was with mr. parkhurst and mr. dugdale at richards coffee-house some time in november , i think it was about the printing of mr. dugdales further information ; and mr. dugdale was saying dr. tongue had sent for him , but spoke as if he was fearful of some danger in going alone ; so we proffered to go along with him , and we took a coach at the coffee-house-door , and went with him to dr. tongue , who lodged at mr. colledges . when we came into the room , mr. parkhurst and i thought fit we should in civility withdraw , which we did ; and mr. colledge brought us down into another room , where we sat and took a pipe of tobacco , and talking about the common discourse of the times , about the papists and the danger from them , there hung up in mr. colledges room some arms ; what they were , i dare not charge my memory with to swear particularly , but i do think there was a silk coat of mail , and there was a cap of steel , and , as i take it , it was covered with cloth or some such thing ; what else i can't well say : i think there was a blunderbuss and a case of pistols : and all the discourse that i remember then , was only this ; speaking of the papists , and some fears as if there would be an insurrection amongst them , said he , let the papist rogues begin when they will , i am ready to defend my self for one . this is all i know . colledge . pray , sir , how long ago was this ? dr. tongue died before christmas at my house . mr. symonds . i cannot tell exactly when it was ; but during the session of parliament i am sure it was , and as i take it , in november the latter end . coll. so then , pray , my lord , see that these arms they charge me withal , were provided before christmas . l. c. j. but there is nothing that contradicts dugdale's testimony in this . coll. it does sufficiently contradict him . l. c. j. i do not see that this does at all contradict what he hath said ; but do you observe what you will upon it , when you come to make your defence . stranger . a gentleman below desires you to call mr. yates . coll. pray , sir , what do you know concerning dugdale ? mr. yates . i know that mr. dugdale sent for me to a coffee-house to bespeak a pistol for you , and told me that when i had made the pistol , i should deliver it to mr. colledge . and mr. dugdale promised to pay for it when i had done it . now some time after i did some small matter for mr. dugdale , cleaned his pistols , or some small business ; and mr. dugdale asked me if i would drink a pint of wine , which i agreed to ; and being at the tavern , mr. dugdale asked me if mr. colledges pistol were done . i told him no , it was not as yet . so i asked mr. dugdale , because he had promised to give mr. colledge a pistol , what obligation there was betwixt mr. colledge and him , that he should give him a pistol ? to which he answered , that mr. colledge had been serviceable to him in lending him a pair of pistols to ride withal sometimes . so he gave him a pistol to satisfie him for the wearing of his pistols now and then . i thought , said i , mr. colledge did impose upon your good nature too much , not but that i believe mr. colledge is a very honest man , and stands up for the good of the king and the government . yes , said mr. dugdale , i believe he does , and i know nothing to the contrary . mr. att. gen. when was this ? mr. yates . a little after the parliament sat at oxford ; for i never knew mr. colledge before mr. dugdale set me a work for him . coll. mr. yates , pray was there nothing in the coffee-house about one that he asked to go with him , when he said he knew nothing against me ? mr. yates . i heard one say — mr. ser. jeff. you must speak your own knowledge , you must not tell a tale of a tub of what you heard one say . yates . i heard it affirmed — mr. ser jeff. but by whom ? yates . by a person in the coffee-house . ser. jeff. who was that person ? yates . by one of the servants of the house . l. c. j. that is no evidence at all : if you know any thing of your own knowledge , speak it . ser. jeff. is he here ? yates . no , i think not . mr. ju . jones . how long do you think we must sit here to hear other peoples stories . l. c. j. if you know any thing of your own knowledge , i say , speak it . mr. att. gen. pray let me ask you that question again : when was this that he said he believed he was an honest man ? yates . it was about three weeks after the parliament sat at oxford . coll. then he does me wrong now ; for if i were an honest man then , it cannot be true that he says of me . l. c. j. who do you call next ? colledge . pray , my lord , who hath been sworn against me ? l. c. j. there is stephen dugdale , john smith , bryan haynes , edward turbervile , sir william jennings , and mr. masters . colledge . call mr. clayton . my lord , at his house it was i lay in oxford , and that dugdale says i spake some of the treasonable words : pray sir , do you know what time i came to oxford ? mr. clayton . i remember it very well , it was at the time the parliament sat at oxford , about two or three days after it began . coll. pray what arms did i bring to your house , sir ? mr. clayton . as to the matter of arms , ther was no other but a sword and a pair of pistols ; a pair of pistols in his holsters , and his sword by his side . mr. att. gen. was there no silk armor ? mr. clayton . i saw none , if it please you ; such a thing might be . coll. my lord , i continued at his house from my coming in to my going out , and that was till after the parliament was dissolved ; and i came after they were sat : but heark you , mr. clayton , mr. dugdale says he was with me at your house : did you ever see him there ? mr. clayton . i remember i have seen dugdale at my house , but never in your company . colledge . did you sell any mum ? mr. clayt . no , i never did sell any in my life . colledge . because he says we had mum there . mr. clayton . i never saw him there with you , nor changed any word with him , as i know of . l. c. j. was he never in the company of colledge at your house ? mr. clayton . not that i saw . mr. just . jones . you don't know all the companies that come into your house . coll. my lord , i am told there are some that came from the town where i was born that know me , and have known me this 24 or 25 years together , if you think that material for me to prove whether i am a protestant or no. lo. ch . just . if you will make out that , you may . but 't is your loyalty that is in question . if you will produce any that can make it appear , that you use to honour the king in your discourse , or so , that is something . coll. if i am a protestant , then the design is plain , these men swear to make a protestant plot , and turn the plot off the papists . mr. serj. jeff. what church do you frequent in london to hear divine service ? colledge . i have received the sacrament several times , sir george . mr. serj. jeff. when were you last at the publick church ? colledge . i hope i may be a protestant if i have not gone thither ; but however , i do use to go to church . lo. ch . just . well , call whom you will. colledge . is thomas deacon there ? mr. deacon . yes . coll. he lives , my lord , in the parish where i was born . if you please mr. deacon to give my lord an account what you know of me from my childhood . mr. deacon . i have known mr. colledge ever since he was a youth , he was born in the town where i live . l. ch . just . where is that ? mr. deacon . at watford , a town in hertfordshire . there he lived till he was a man , and married a neighbours daughter of mine , and lived there while he had two children ; i never knew but that he was a very honest man , frequented and kept to the church of england all along , and paid every man his own . mr. att. gen. how long is it ago since he left that place ? mr. deacon . i can't directly tell how long it is truely , but i think 't is eighteen years since you left watford . coll. 't is fourteen years ago . mr. just . jones . you say fourteen , and they say eighteen . mr. deacon . i say , i cannot exactly tell . coll. but mr. deacon , i have been in your country lately . mr. deacon . he used to come there once or twice a year generally to see his friends i have heard him delare himself against the popish church always very much . l. c. j. did you never hear him talk against the government ? mr. deacon . no , never in my life . mr. ser. jeff. nor against the king : mr. deacon . nor against the king. mr. just . jones . was he in your country the last easter ? mr. deacon . i think it was about easter he was there . mr. just . jones . was he at church there then , and received the sacrament ? mr. deacon . i know not whether he was there of the lords-day or no : he did quarter at another town , at bushy , where he has a brother-in-law . l. c. j. well , call another . coll. mr. whitaker . l. c. j. what is your christian name ? mr. whitaker . william . l. ch . just . what do you ask of him ? coll. whether he knows me and my education . mr. whitaker . sir , i have known him this six and twenty years . i knew his parents , i know his mother , she lives now at watford . i have known his behaviour to be very civil and good ; a very good church-man he was when he lived with us ; and i have inquired , and find he has the same reputation in the parish where he last lived in black-fryers : he was no jesuit nor papist , i dare aver ; he hath flouted them & mocked them with their wooden gods , and the like ; for he never could endure that perswasion . l. c. j. he is not questioned for that , but for treason . coll. did you ever hear me speak any thing against the government ? mr. whitaker . i never knew of any ill behaviour of him in my life . coll. but did you ever hear me say any thing against his majesty or the government ? mr. whitaker . never that i know of . i knew him a souldier for his majesty , in which service he got a fit of sickness , which had like to have cost him his life ; he lay many months ill , to his great charge . mr. serj. jeff. where was it he was in his majesties service ? mr. whitaker . at chatham-business . coll. it was under my lord rochester . but , my lord , i have a testimonial under the hands of seventy people of watford , to give an account of my good behaviour . mr. just . jones . he hath been gone thence these eighteen years . mr. whitaker . he hath come there almost every half year , sometimes three or four times in a year , because his mother lives there now , and he came to pay his respects to her . his children lived and went to school with us . l. c. just . come , who do you call else ? colledge . mr. neal. mr. neal. i can say no more than the other men before me . i know the man , he was bred and born at watford , he lived there several years , he married a wife out of the neighbourhood , frequented the publick worship . l. c. j. how long ago is this ? mr. neal. sixteen or seventeen years ago . but then he used to come once or twice a year into the countrey . coll. did you ever hear me speak any thing against the king or the government . mr. neal. no , never in my life . coll. how long is it ago since you were in my company last ? mr. neal. when you were in town last i never heard you say any thing that was ill . colledge . how long is it ago since we were at the white hart together ? mr. neal. it was about spring . coll. i said right , my lord , i was there about easter . pray did you ever hear me speak for the king ? mr. neal. truly the discourse we had i never used to keep in my mind , but i never heard him speak any thing against the king or the government . l. c. j. were you much conversant with him ? mr. neal. when he came down to give his mother a visit , and see his neighbours , we used always to see one another . coll. pray will you call mr. tanner and mr. remington . [ mr. remington stood up . ] mr. remington . i say i have known stephen colledge these forty years , and i have known that he was always an honest man. he was a souldier some time , but he always went to church , was no conventi●ler ; and used to visit his neighbours when he came down to see his mother , and was always looked upon to be a very good man. mr. serj. jeff. you say you knew him a souldier , pray when was that ? mr. remington . about the time of harwich business . that is all i can say . [ then mr. tanner stood up . ] lo. ch . just . come , what say you ? what do you ask him mr. colledge ? mr. tanner . i have known stephen colledge from a child forty years , he was born at watford , his father worked with my father , and great intimate acquaintance we had with him , and saw him very often ; i never knew any fault in him , and i never heard a bad report of him in all the town of watford . mr. ser. jeff. have you seen him at church lately ? mr. tanner . no , i have not . mr. att. gen. i would fain know whether this man hath been at church himself ; he looks as if he had not . coll. i know not whether he hath been at the church you mean or no ; but he may be an honest man and a protestant for all that . lo. ch . just . call another . coll. mr. peter norreys . l. ch . just . what do you ask him , mr. colledge ? here he is . coll. do you know any thing concerning mr. smith ? mr. norreys . i was once in the hercules pillars , where was sir william waller , macnamarra , mr. joy , and five or six of us together ; and mr. smith was there , and we were talking concerning the parliament approaching at oxon. mr. ser. jeff. tell the names of the rest . mr. noreys . sir william vvaller , macnamarra , mr. ivy , mr. lewes , macnamarra's brother , and i , and mr. smith . mr. ser. jeff. well said ; we don't meddle with any of these , but mr. smith . lo. ch . just . was john smith there ? mr. norreys . he was there . lo. ch. just . well , go on then . mr. norreys . we were talking of the parliament at oxon. says sir vvilliam vvaller , most of the parliament-men are afraid to go up to the parliament . truly , said smith , i hope they will be provided to go , if they do go . says sir vvilliam vvaller , i shall be provided with the rest of my friends ; and mr. colledge said , i will go up with the rest of the parliament-men ; i shall be provided too , says most of the evidence ; says sir vvilliam vvaller , will you go along with me , and i will provide you with an horse ; said he , i have an horse of my own , and if it please god i will have nothing else to do but to go along with the parliament , and i will not neglect it . this was all the discourse of the company for that night . colledge . did you hear mr. smith say any thing against me ? mr. norreys . no , not a word at all . colledge . but this were a material evidence against others of the confederates , if they had been examined . mr. norreys . my lord , i was at the amsterdam coffee-house the 23. of june last , and there was mr. denis macnamarra ; said he , will you go , and i will give you a pot of ale. l. c. j. there is nothing of denis macnamarra in question before us . if you have any thing to say against any of the witnesses that have been sworn , go on with your evidence , we must not hear stories of other people . colledge . he would speak against some men that have sworn against me , but are left out for some reasons i know not . pray call mr. thomas norreys . lo. ch . just . what do you ask him ? coll. my lord , he knew me in this country some fifteen or sixteen years ago . mr. t. norreys . my lord , i have been acquainted with mr. colledge about sixteen or eighteen years , and he hath always carried himself very civilly and well , and he kept to the church for a considerable time as duely as any parishoner did . l. c. j. how long have you known him ? mr. t. norreys . this sixteen years . l. c. j. you live in this country , don't you . mr. t. norreys . yes , at aylworth . coll. i was at astrop-wells last year . i believe mr. justice levins saw me there . mr. t. norreys . yes , i was there with you . coll. vve did discourse commonly then concerning the papists , pray , sir , did you find me inclined to the popish interest ? mr. t. norreys . you spoke very much against them . colledge . did you ever hear me speak against the king or the government ? mr. t. norreys . no , i never heard it ; for if he were my brother , i should have discovered it . l. ch . just . how often have you seen him ? mr. t. norreys . very often , and conversed much with him . collede . my lord , as to the papers charged upon me that they were mine , i declare i know not of them . dugdale says i owned them , and the letter and several prints ; but , my lord , i had done my self a great injury if i had done or owned those things he hath charged me withal . i never could make a picture , nor never did draw a picture in my life ; and that very person that he says i owned i got it to be printed by , hath denied it before the king and council ; for he there testified that he did not know the person that caused it to be printed . l. ch . just . how came you to have so many seized in your house ? colledge . my lord , here is elizabeth hunt , the maid by whom they were taken in , and who can give you an account of it . i cannot deny but that they were in my house ; but that i was the author , or did take them in , is as great a mistake as ever was made . call elizabeth hunt. i do not know whether curtis be in town , but this i am confident , he was examined before the king and council , and he and his vvise denied it . lo. c. j. he shall be called if he be here . colledge . i know nothing of the printing of them , nor was i the author of them . l. c. j. they were dispersed by you up and down . colledge . that they were in my house , i believe , my lord ; and this woman will tell you how , my lord. pray tell the court how these papers that are called the raree-shew came to be in my house . eliz. hunt. a porter brought three bundles to our house , and asked whether my master was not within : i told him no , he was not . said he , these papers are to be left here : said i , who do they come from : said he , 't is all one for that , you must pay me , and i must leave them here ; so i gave him six pence , and he left the papers , but i never saw the man since , nor before . and , my lord , i never read them what they were ; but i saw they were such sort of prints as those . l. c. j. how long was it before they were seized ? eliz. hunt. a matter of seven or eight weeks . coll. my lord , it seems they were put in a box , and left in my counting-house : i never touched them , but there they staid , for ought i know , till they were taken . l. c. j. you were colledge's servant , were you not ? eliz. hunt. yes , my lord. colledge . my lord , i neither knew the printer nor the author ; but i heard a man was in trouble about them , upon a by-law in the stationers company mr. att. gen. how came you by that original ? coll. have you it there ? i know of none was produced . but if i were a person concerned , it were no treason ; and , my lord , i hope you will do me that justice , to let the jury know they are not treason , none of these papers . and i do declare i know nothing of the original , the printer , nor the author . lo. ch . just . you spend time in making observations out of order of time : when you have given your evidence , then make your observations . colledge . i confess i may err as to matter of order , for i was never in this capacity before : but pray do you tell the court how the papers came there , and all the transactions ; for i was a prisoner when they came and searched . l. c. j. no , it was eight weeks before you were taken they were left there . mr. ser. jeff. did you tell you master soon after they were left there ? eliz. hunt. no. mr. ser. jeff. within what time did you tell him ? eliz. hunt. i believe it was a week or a fortnight . mr. att. gen. where was your master all that time ? eliz. hunt. he was in the countrey . colledge . my lord , i did see them there , i must confess , i do not deny but i saw them there , but i knew not whence they came , nor whose they were ; nor did i ever intend to meddle with them , nor concern my self about them . vvhat have you to say more ? eliz. hunt. concerning mr. dugdale , if i may speak . lo. c. j. ay , go on . eliz. hunt. i went to receive the money of mr. dugdale that he owed my master , and asking him for it , he said he would pay me such a time to morrow morning , if i would come for it ; but when i came , he had not the money ready for me . sir , said i , i think 't is very hard that you should keep my masters money from him , and yet you go and swear against his life too : what do you think we shall do at home in the family , if you keep my masters money , and he be in prison ? said he , there is a great deal of do about my swearing against your master , more than needs ; but as i hope for salvation , i do not believe mr. colledge had any more hand in any conspiracy against his majesty , than the child unborn . here is dugdale , let him deny it if he can . dugdale . as i hope for salvation i did not say so . eliz. hunt. upon my salvation 't is true what i say stephens . this was the maid that hid her masters papers when they were searched for . mr. ser. jeff. be quiet ; art thou entring into dialogues with the maid now . coll. mr. stevens , 't is well known what a man you are to propagate witnesses . my lord , she gave me an account of this in the tower before i came away , that dugdale desired to speak with mr. smith , and told her that nothing that he had to say would touch my life . eliz. hunt. as i am alive 't is true . l. c. j. mr. dugdale denies it now . eliz. hunt. he is not a right man if he denies it , for he told it me twice . colledge . i told mr. smith of it , when he had leave to come to me : i told him what the maid said he had said to her , and this was three weeks ago ; said he , i will speak with him with all my heart , if he has a mind to speak with me ; for he hath said that he hath nothing against her master that can touch an hair of his head , nor nothing that can touch his life ; that he knew nothing of a plot or contrivance against the king ; and if i could help it , i had as lieve have given a hundred pound i had never spoken what i have . this he said to her . l. c. j. you tell her what to say . eliz. hunt. sir , he does not tell me ; for mr. dugdale said those very things to me . coll. this is an account i had when i was a prisoner ; i could not direct her . l. c. j. do you deny what they say to be true , mr. dugdale ? mr. dugd. my lord , she came to me for money , i told her i had it not ready , but would pay her ; and in the shop , before the apprentice boy , she desired of me that i would write two or three words what i had to say against her master , and i told mr. graham of it . so , said i , i cannot tell , i have not the papers , nor what informations i have given against him . so she came again the next morning , and she was at me to write down what i said . i wonder , said i , your master will send you ! had not he as good send mr. smith , who is his counsel ? and this was all the words we had . eliz. hunt. my lord , i do solemnly assure you , he said he would write down what he had said against my master , and would fain speak with mr. smith ; for there was more ado made about it than needs . dugd. mr. graham can tell what it was ; for i came and told him immediately . lo. c. j. did you tell her you had nothing to say against her master that would touch his life ? dugdale . i could not say that i had said nothing against her master , for she asked me that i would write down what i had said ; but i told her i knew not what was treason , that must be referred to the court. mr. just . jones . did he speak it openly or privately to you ? eliz. hunt. he did not speak it aloud ; no body heard him but my self . dugd. it was in the shop , and the apprentice-boy was by . mr. just . levins . was this after he had been at the old-baily , or before ? eliz. hunt. yes , it was after he had been at the old-baily , and after he had been at oxon. too . mr. just . levins . then it was before the court , what could be made of it ? coll. she had gone forty times for the money i had lent him out of my pocket , and i lent him that when i had little more for my self . eliz. hunt. i did tell him , mr. dugdale , if you can't let me have my masters money , if you please to tell me what you have made oath against my master . said he , i can't let thee have it now , but thou shalt have what i have to say against him ; i will draw it up in writing , and thou shalt have it to morrow-morning . the next morning i came to him again , and , said i , i am come again , what must i do ? said he , i have no money , such an one hath not hoped me to it . sir , then said i , i hope you will be as good as your word , to let me know what you have made oath against my master . said he , i was about it yesterday , but could not do it : but , sweetheart , said he , ( and took me by the hand ) i will give you a copy of it to day at ten of the clock ; and if i do not , i will tell it thee by word of mouth . so i came to the house at ten , and staid till eleven , but did not see him . mr. just . jones . you had a great mind to be tampering . eliz. hunt. the first time , he asked me who was his counsel ; i told him , mr. smith ; then , said he , i have a great desire to speak with him : so i told my master of it . colledge . my lord , you see it is but black and white , all this whole contrivance upon me : she hath proved i knew nothing of these papers , and indeed i did not . lo. c. j. do you call any more witnesses ? colledge . there is my brother-in-law that received those papers . call george spur , and sarah goodwin . ( mrs. goodwin appeared . ) colledge . do you know any thing of the papers that were carried to my brother george spur ● ? mrs. goodwin . yes , i do . the saturday after my brothers confinement , about eight of the clock in the morning , i having heard of it , came into the house , and in a quarter of an hours time in comes a waterman , and desires an handful or two of shavings . i knowing not who he was , nor what he desired them for , told him he should have them ; so he went up to the working-shop togather them , for he pretended that to be his business . l. c. j. whose waterman was it ? mrs. goodwin . a waterman , i suppose , that belonged to his majesty , for he had a coat marked with r. c. coll. this is after i was in custody . mrs. goodwin . yes , it was the saturday after . so no sooner had he the shavings , but he goes out of the shop , and comes in again with three of his majesties messengers , and they made enquiry after papers , and i being innocent of concealing any papers , or any thing , said i knew of none ; so they came to one box that had the tools for the men to work with , and they demanded the keys : i told him , i knew not where the keys were : so they went to the next , and found it open , but nothing did they find there ; there was a bed wherein formerly my brother's servants did lye . said one to the other , look well whether there be not something hid in that bed ; said i , i suppose there is no such thing as you inquire for : if you please , you may take off the clothes , and gave them free toleration to look ; but for the chest , i would not deliver the keys , because the man was not there that owned it . in their searching they flung down the wainscote , and did a great deal of damage to his goods . gentlemen , said i , i suppose you have order to search , but none to spoil a mans goods . when they were gone , having found none , they threatned , god dam them they would have them , for there they were . but i being ignorant of the concealment of the papers , i requested the maid and my brothers son , whether they knew of any papers , and they satisfied me they knew of some prints that were brought by a porter , to be left at my brothers , but they knew not whence they came , nor what they were : and the same answer gave my brother's son , that he did not know whose the papers were . but since his fathers confinement , they were laid up sure and safe , for they knew not what they concerned . upon this , my lord , my brother in-law george spur , he comes into the house , and if it please your honour , i requested him to carry them into the countrey to his house , to secure them till we knew what they did concern , and who they did belong to . whereupon he replied , my lord , that he was fearful to carry any thing out of the house ; said i , if you will please to take them of me , i will carry them out of the house for your security , because his wife looked every hour ( being with child ) when she should be delivered , and he was fearful of troubling her . so i carried them out of the house , and delivered them to him . l. c. just . to whom ? mrs. goodwin . to my brother-in-law mr. george spur. so at my going out , after i had delivered them to him , in my way back again . i found a small paper-book , and a small parcel of writings ; who dropped them , or who laid them there , i cannot tell . but taking them up unadvisedly , i put them among the prints , which i carried out ; i delivered them to my brother-in-law . this is all i have to say as to the papers . stevens . three parts of what she hath said is false . mr. serj. jeff. well , hold you your tongue . stevens . mr. atterbury is here , my lord , that searched the house . atterbury . be pleased to give me my oath , i will tell you what passed . mr. att. gen. we don't think it material , but you were sworn before , stand up . l. c. j. tell the manner of finding the papers . this woman gives us an account of a waterman that came in , pretending to fetch shavings — atterbury . upon my oath it was not so . the waterman was a waterman that brought me and two more of my fellows , and the waterman followed us into the yard , but came after us : and being ordered to look for papers , i did search the house ; for i had intelligence that there were papers there , but i did not find them there . but upon finding the first papers , i made the more diligent search , but could not find the rest i most chiefly sought after . mr. serj. jeff. did the kings waterman take any shavings by himself ? atterbury . we were all together , we did not move out of any one room , but together ; this gentlewoman was in the house when i came , and there was a little child , a girl , and this maid was there . mr. serj. jeff. did you come for shavings there , mr. atterbury ? atterbury . no , i did not . mrs. goodwin . the waterman did though first . coll. call george spur. ( but he did not appear . ) but mr. atterbury , before you go down , pray tell the court , did you take any of these papers at my house , or at my brother-in-law spurs house ? sewel . my lord , i took the papers , and i took them at bushy at spurs house . and this woman carried out one half to spur , and the maid carried out the other . l. c. j. when did he carry them ? mrs. goodwin . the same day they searched for them , for my brother came in at the same time . l. c. j. how do you know spur carried any ? mrs. goodwin . he carried none out of the house , i carried them out of the house and delivered them to him . lo. c. just then they were in the house . mrs. goodwin . they were in the counting-house ? coll. my lord , if they were in any other place , i know not how they came there , for this was done after i was a prisoner ; and sewel says they were removed when i was a prisoner . where is george spur ? mr. ser. jeff. it is admitted they were at your house , and taken thence , and afterwards carried to spurs . colledge . they carried them abroad , and handed them from one to another , and took them into the countrey , i know not what they did with them ; but my lord , i neither know the printer nor the author , i declare it upon my life . l. c. just . have you any more witnesses ? colledge . no , my lord , i have not . l. c. j. will you that are of counsel for the king call any more ? mr. att. gen. one or two if you please , my lord. call john shirland . and it is to this purpose , it seems very lately mr. bolron would have tempted him to have forsworn himself . colledge . my lord , i hope , if they bring in any persons of new evidence , i may have leave to contradict them . l. c. j. you need not fear but you shall be heard to them . mr. att. gen. we shall prove bolron to be a subornor of witnesses ; and that the jury may know what he is , he and mowbray have gone to give evidence at several trials , and the jury would never believe them when they were upon their oath . mr. ser. jeff. i think it needs not , time hath been spent enough already . coll. no whispering , good my lord. sir geo. jeff. good mr. colledge , you are not to tell me my duty here . mr. just . jones . it is not lawful for the kings counsel to confer together ? coll. not to whisper , my lord , all ought to be spoken out . l. c. j. nothing ought to be said to the jury indeed privately . mr. att gen. but shall not we talk among our selves ? coll. no , i hope , not of any thing that concerns my trial. mr. just . jones . you are deceived in that . colledge . i think t is law , that all ought to be publick , i beg your pardon if i am in the wrong . mr. att. gen. swear john shirland . ( which was done . ) pray give the court and the jury an accompt of bolron , what you knew of him . shirland . bolron my lord , last whitson-tuesday , would have given me ten pound and an horse to go down and swear against sir miles stapleton . i was to swear i was suborned by his friends , and several other persons , which i have discovered upon my oath . l. c. just . is this man sworn ? mr. att. gen. yes . lo. c. just . now call bolron to confront him . colledge . he offered you an horse , as much as i offered turbervile an horse , and i never offered him an horse in the world . [ then bolron appeared . ] l. c. j. is this the man , shirland ? mr. att. gen. did he give you ten pound to swear ? shirland . he bid me ten pound and an horse to swear against sir miles stapleton . mr. ju . jones . did you ever see him , bolron ? mr. bolron . yes , my lord , he was to have been a witness against sir miles stapleton , and he pretended that he was suborned by sir miles , or some of his friends . coll. what are you , sir ? mr. bolron , what is mr. shirland ? mr. bolron . he is a man lives by his shifts : he hath been whip'd in bridewel . colledge . do you know him , sir ? what is he ? mr. bolron . even an idle man. shirland . you , once when you saw me , drew your sword on me , because i would not do as you would have me . mr. bolron . i profess , my lord , 't is not so . mr. att. gen. here is mr. smith , hear what he says against mr. bolron . mr. smith . as we were coming up along , he was speaking to me of colledge , and told me , he had as much to say against him as any body ; and if i would speak for him , he would evidence againce sir john brookes for a discourse at ferry-bridge . mr. bolron . i never did hear any such thing . mr. smith . no man in your own country will believe you . colledge . they believed you no more , it seems neither . l. c. j. do you call any more witnesses , gentlemen ? mr. ser. jeff. no , i think , we need not . l. c. j. look you , mr. colledge , as i understand it , the kings counsel will produce no more witnesses . you may make what observations you will upon the evidence to the court , and then must them make what observations they will to the court ; and then we will give the charge to the jury . colledge . my lord , i have only innocence to pleade ; i have no flourishes to set off my desence . i cannot take the jury nor the court with an oratory ; i am unhappy in those things . but , my lord , i do declare , as to my own particular , in the presence of god almighty , that as to whatsoever is sworn against me , as to the seizing his majesty , providing arms , or having any design either at oxford or london , or any other place in the world , to seize upon the person of the king , or to rebel against the government established ; i vow to god almighty , i never had such a thought in me : 't is a truth , my lord. my lord , they have sworn desperately against me , and it hath appeared , i think , by very credible persons , that they have contradicted one another . it hath been proved that it was a design ; that they were tampered withal ; that they complained they were in poverty , that they wanted maintenance ; and they did confess they were tempted to come over to swear against protestants : and now the lord knows they have closed with it , and they begin with me . i hope the jury have taken notice that i have contradicted them sufficiently in what they have sworn ; and that it is not possible , if i had a grain of sence , for me to discover my self to be such an one to haynes that was an irish-man , and should speak all the treason that he hath galloped through at first sight , that as soon as ever i saw him , that i should speak so to him ; i hope you will consider whether it consists with common reason , when there could be no probability of making any use of him in the world . my lord , all my witnesses that i have brought , your lordship can , and i hope will sum them up better than i can ; for i declare it , i have been so concerned , that i have not been able to write half of it down . but i think there is never a man that hath sworn against me , but hath been sufficiently confuted by persons of integrity and honesty , men of principles , and men of religion ; they are such , my lord , that make conscience of what they say : they are persons altogether unknown to me , most of them , as to what they had to say ; it was what they offered voluntarily ; and i am certain they have had nothing but their bare charges , if they had that , for their pains in coming hither ; and , my lord , there is no probability that they should come and attest any thing that is false , for me who am a stranger , for nothing : no man is a knave for nothing , as i believe these men are not . my lord , i do declare it , i was bred a protestant , and i have lived so ; i am so this very day ; i have been a lover of the church of england , and of all the fundamental points of doctrine believed in it ; i own the same god , the same saviour , the same gospel , and the same faith ; i never had a prejudice against any man in the church in my life , but such as have made it their business to promote the interest of the papists , and such i must beg leave to say there are amongst them : for there is no society in the world without some bad men ; and these do promote the interest of the papists , by dividing the protetestants and allowing none to be true protestants , but those that are within the church of england established by law ; which is a notion so wide i could never close with that . i never had a prejudice against any man but a knave in my life . i have heard , i confess , some of the dissenters , and i have found very honest , just , pious , godly men among them ; men free from oaths and all debauchery ; men that make a conscience of what they say : not like some persons that say they are of the church of england , that carry themselves in their lives and actions , so as that no credit can be gained to the church by them . my lord , i have been an hearty man against the papists ; i have been an hearty man as any person of my condition for parliaments , which i look upon to be my birth-right , and under god almighty , the bulwark of our liberty ; and i am sorry if any man should be an instrument to create a misunderstanding betwixt the king and the parliament : for i always thought i served my country , when i served the parliament , and i served the king , when i served my country . i never made any difference between them , because i thought them both one . i had the honour to be entrusted by them before , and upon that account i came voluntarily down hither . i rid my own horse , i spent my own money , and eat my own bread ; i was not beholding to any man for the value of six pence all the while i was here . my lord , i have ever since the plot hath been discovered , endeavered with all my heart , and all my power , to dedect and come at the very bottom of it : i have spared for no time nor pains , what lay fairly in my way , in every thing to encourage those that discovered the villanies of the popish plot against the life of the king , and for the subversion of the religion and government established by law. now certainly it is not strange to the world ; for i think all christendom is aware how plain the popish plot hath been proved . these men that swear against me , were they that used to follow me sometimes ; they would say , it was they that had come to save our lives , and yet we let them want bread. that argument , my lord , was so fair , that i thought it unreasonable to see them starve : and i have said sometimes to some honest considerable men , that it was hard they should have this to say of us , that they should want bread to eat that were the kings evidence , to detect a popish plot wherein we our selves were concerned ; and that when they had saved our blood in our veins , they should be suffered to starve . and one time , i think , some three or four gentlemen of the city did give me 42 s. or 40 s. and 8 d. or thereabouts ; which i did distribute amongst them : and they never came to me in my life , but to seek relief , they knowing that i had a general acquaintance . and sometimes they thought it might be fit to petition the common council of london to take care of them : sometimes they would speak to particular men that care should be taken of them . at other times indeed it was not this sort of discourse they had with me ; but they would pretend they had something to discover of the popish plot , and so they would apply to me as a man of some acquaintance . and the first time i saw haynes was upon such an account , the beginning of march last , and it was thus : i was at richard's coffee-house at temple-bar , where macnamarra did desire me to go out , and i should hear such a piece of roguery i never did hear in my life , against my lord shaftsbury . so i did go out with them , and i called captain brown , who is since dead , to go with me ; and we went to the hercules pillars , and haynes there discovered what i told your lordship before , a design to destroy the parliament at oxford , an army that was to land in the north , another in ireland , and the duke of york was to be at the head of them . my lord , after i had heard all out , he did desire us all to conceal what he had said till the parliament sat , and then he would not only discover this , but much more . he at the same time told us , that there was a design of fitz-gerald's against my lord shaftsbury to take away his life , and he was employed to come to his cousin macnamarra to get him over to joyn in the design , and he should never want for money , if he would but come over , and do as they would have him . after he had discovered himself , sir , said i , you are a stranger to me , and i never saw him before in my days , if he had seen me , i can't tell : but , sir , said i , either this is true , or this is false . if it be true , said he , 't is all true , and much more . so he up and told us much of coleman , and of the reconciliation between the duke of ormond and the duke of york , and how he came to be lord lieutenant of ireland , and how plunket came to be primate , and by means of whom , and the letters that passed , and how so much a year was given to plunket for carrying on the correspondence ; and he told us so much , that i did wonder to hear any man talk after that rate . after i had heard what he had to say , i told him , sir , said i , this is either true or false that you have said ; if it be true , my lord shaftsbury shall know it to night ; for i will not conceal such a thing concerning a peer of the realm : and if it were a colour , he should know of it . and i did send him word that night ; and , said i , sir , you ought to go , for your own security and ours too , to swear it before a magistrate . said he , if i should , i should be discovered . said i , i can't think you will be discovered ; if you swore it before sir george treby , or sir robert clayton , they will not discover you . so he agreed he would swear before sir george treby , and he did go accordingly ; but he being out of town , i cannot have the affidavit to produse it . there was a letter sent last saturday-night to sir george to bristol , and i hoped he might have been here to day . this was the first acquaintance i ever had with haynes the next time i heard of him , was upon this occasion : ivy comes to me in richard's coffee-house , and , said he , yonder is the man that made that discovery , which i told you before that haynes had said to me ; it was about a month or three weeks before the parliament was at oxford . after the parliament was dissolved at oxford , ivy comes to me , and i think it was betwixt the two terms wherein fitz-harris was arraigned and tried : i know not the names of them , but he comes to me and tells me he had been with my lord shaftsbury , and that there was a friend of his that would confirm all that fitz-harris had discovered concerning the murder of sir edmundbury godfrey ; and , says he , my lord of shaftsbury hath sent me to you to acquaint you with it . where is your friend , said i ? he is without , said he . so we went out of the coffee-house , and when we came out of doors , there was this haynes : we went to the crown-tavern without temple-bar , it was in the forenoon . when we came there into the room , he examined all the corners , and cupboards , and places about the room , to see that no body was there . when he thought all was secure , he began to tell me he had been to acquaint my lord shaftsbury that there was a friend of his that would discover the whole intrigue of the murder of sir edmundbury godfrey , all that fitz-harris had said , and much more : and he desired me that i would intreat my lord shaftsbury to be instrumental to get him his pardon before he discover'd particularly . then i told him , i think 't is convenient , said i , that you discover something in writing , and give under your hand what you can say . he was not willing to do that . can you believe , said i , that my lord of shaftsbury will betray you ? says he , i will not trust any body ; i shall be assassinated . said i , if you will not give it to any body else , will you give it to mr. michael godfrey , sir edmundbury godfrey's brother ? you can have no jealousie of him , that he will ever discover you : said he , if my lord shaftsbury will engage to get me a pardon , i will tell the whole truth : said i , i will go to my lord and acquaint him : so i went to both my lord and mr. godfrey , and sir edmundbury godfrey's two brothers both met me at my lord of shaftsbury's house . this is the thing that he tells me ; he would have me get my lord's protection , and a pardon for treason : but the real truth is , he sent me upon this errand : so i came to my lord shaftsbury , and the two mr. godfreys were in the room ; and after i had told my lord what discourse i had with him , says my lord , colledge , these irish-men have confounded all our business ; and thou and i must have a care they do not put a trick upon us ; this may be a trick of the papists to ruine us ; and if they have such a design , if they will not put it upon you and i , they are fools . upon your lordship , said i , they may ; but i am a poor inconsiderable fellow . says my lord , i 'll tell you , mr. godfrey ; mr. colledge hath not only been an honest man , but a useful and an active man for the protestant interest . so i told my lord how far i had gone with him , and that i desired it might be put in writing : says my lord shaftsbury , if he will put it in writing , i will go once again , for i have been since i saw the fellow , with my lord macclesfield , and my lord chief justice pemberton , and my lord chancellor , and i have told them that there is such a person in general , but i knew not the man , as indeed my lord did not ; for only ivy was the person between them that my lord knew : and i told them , says my lord , that he can confirm all that fitz-harris has said concerning the death of sir edmundbury godfrey , and that he would prove my lord of danby was in it , if he might have his pardon ; and my lord said , they promised to speak to his majesty that it might be granted . but some time the latter end of the week i heard it would not be granted ; and both of these men followed me to know what they should do . said i , my lord shaftsbury knows not but that it may be a trick ; and , said i to ivy , i wonder why he should conceal it all this while , being a necessitous man , and 500 l. proffered by the king in his proclamation . why , says ivy , do you think there is no truth in it ? says i , 't is not my judgment , but my lord shaftsbury and mr. godfrey's judgment too . he answered me again , fitz-harris hath desired he may have a pardon granted for himself and a french-man ; and if so be there were nothing in it , do you think he would move for a pardon ? says i , did mr. fitz-harris move for haynes's pardon ? how do i know that , says ivy again : fitz-harris's wife told me so . says i , let me speak with fitz-harris's wife , let me hear her say so , and i will believe you . the next day he did bring her to me to my house ; and this was the time and the occasion that brought fitz-harris's vvife , and haynes , and ivy , and mr. fitz-harris's maid to my house ; and i never saw fitz-harris in my days till his tryal , nor had any communication with him . but , my lord , she did talk with haynes , and confirmed it to me , that her husband had desired a pardon for him : why then , said i , he would do well to discover what he knows to my lord shaftsbury ; for i was with my lord , and he says he will meddle no more , unless he will give it under his hand what he has to say : and he did confess to me in my own yard , for there we were together , that he saw my lord of danby come into the chappel at sommerset-house , when the body of sir edmundbury godfrey lay under the altar . l. c. j. here hath been nothing of this made appear by proof . coll. my lord , i only tell you which way they introduced themselves into my acquaintance . l. c. j. you may observe what you will upon the evidence , as we told you ; but you ramble from the matter you are to speak to . and as we told mr. attorney , that what he said should go for nothing , unless he made it out by proof ; so must we say to you , what you say goes for nothing , further than you have proved it . now you have quitted the proof quite , and not spoke to that , but run into other stories . i would have you keep your self to your proofs , and make your observations upon them . coll. 't is , as i humbly conceive it , to my purpose but i hope my ignorance may excuse me , if i err . i tell you the truth of things , thus it was . l. c. j. truth ! why if yours , or any mans word in your case , should go for truth , no man that stands at a bar could be convicted ; for every man will say he is an honest man , and all the plausible things in the world . make you your observations upon the proof that is proper for you to do ; and urge it as well as you can , and to the best purpose you can : but to tell us long stories of passages between you and others that are not a whit proved , that is not usual , nor pertinent . colledge . i thought it had been to the point , when this man pretends to have a familiarity with me , to shew how his acquaintance begun . mr. just . jones . why , do you think ▪ 'tis an answer to him in what he proves upon his oath ? have you proved one jot of it ? not that i have heard . 't is your part to sum up the evidence on your own side , and to answer that which is proved upon you , if you can . do that , and we will hear you speak to it as long as you can . but to tell stories to amuse the jury with that are not proved , and to run out into rambling discourses to no purpose , that is not to be allowed , nor never was in any court of justice . mr. just . raymond . not one of your witnesses have mentioned any thing that you say . mr. just . levins . i wonder , mr. colledge , you should forget your self so much : for you found fault with mr. attorney at the beginning for opening the evidence , and you were told , and the jury were told at your request , that what he said , and did not prove , passed for nothing . but i must tell you , 't is much worse in your case : for mr. attorney only opened what he might prove afterwards , but your observations are upon what hath been proved already ; and yet you run out into stories of what hath not been proved at all , after your proof is past . colledge . sir , i could not prove this otherwise than by ivy , who hath been sworn against me . mr. just . jones . would you have the jury to believe you upon your word ? coll. there is no more than his oath against me ; and why my oath , being an englishman , and a protestant , should not be taken as well as his that is an irish man , and hath been a papist ; i know not . l. c. j. you go upon that ground that your word is to be taken , as appears by your defence ; but i must tell you , all the course of justice were destroyed , and no justice against malefactors were to be had , if the word of him that is accused should pass for proof to acquit him . colledge . my lord , i have given your lordship an account of these fellows conversations ; and what other proofs to make , i know not : for i knew not what they would swear against me , and i had not witnesses in my pocket to confront them . mr. just . levins . well ▪ the jury have heard it over and over again , first upon your request , that nothing is to be taken notice of that is not proved . coll. pray , my lord , then as to haynes . my lord , i do observe that there was a witness for me , that did prove he owned he was one that was employed to make a protestant plot , and another that did hear him swear , dam him , he would swear any thing against any body for money ; for it was his trade . mr. just . levins . now you are right ; speak as much as you will as to your proofs . coll. my lord , i think turbervile and dugdale swear as to the tenth of march oxon. i desire it may be proved i was in oxford the tenth of march. mr. just . jones . you your self came down the middle of march. l. c. j. i do not remember that they said the tenth of march. coll. did not the indictment say so ? mr. att. gen. it is only in the indictment . l. c. j. as to the time mentioned in the indictment , it is not material ; that is the constant rule in tryals upon indictments ; as if an horse be laid to be stole the tenth , if it be proved the prisoner stole it another day , it will be sufficient , the time is not material ; the question is whether the indictment be true in substance . mr. colledge , my brothers will all tell you that the law is so . mr. just . levins . though it is laid the tenth of march , yet if it be proved the first or twentieth before or after , it is all one : so the thing be proved , they are not bound to a day . coll. my lord , the punctilio's of law i know not , but it was the twenty fourth or twenty fifth e're i came down . l. c. j. well , go on sir. coll. dugdale says i meant by the word rowley , the king. mr. just . jones . he does so . coll. how does he come to know , that by that word i meant the king ? l. c. j. that we did ask him , and he says you used so to expound it . mr. just . jones . why , look you , he said you and he used to have frequent communication concerning the king and you did most frequently speak of the king by the name of rowley . colledge . but i say , my lord , i never spake of the king by the name of rowley in my life . mr. just . jones . you say it , and he swears the contrary . coll. i don't remember that he says i declared it so , but he said i meant it ; for if i had declared it , then it had been the same thing for me to have named the king downright . mr. just . levins . look you , mr. colledge , as to that , when any witness had done his evdence , you had liberty to cross examine him . l. c. j. would you have him called up again to clear this ? coll. yes , if you please . lo. c. j. stand up , mr. dugdale . i understood by your testimony , when mr. colledge and you discoursed of the king , you sometimes discoursed of him by the name of rowley , and that he explained that name to be the king. mr. dugd. the first time i ever heard what rowley meant , was from him ; for i asked him what he meant by the name of rowley ; i heard it before , but i did not understand it . mr. just . jones . where was it ? dugdale . at richard's coffee-house . mr. just . jones . what was the answer he made you ? dugdale . he said it was the king. coll. upon what occasion did i explain it to you ? dugdale . upon the account of the pictures . colledge . i know not which of the pictures has the name of rowley in it . dugdale . it was when we were talking of one of the pictures you brought in rowley ; and mac was the duke of york , and rowley was the king. coll. upon what picture was it that i took occasion to explain the name rowley to you ? dugdale . i am not certain . coll. remember you have an account to give as well as i. dugd. you have so many pictures that i can't remember them ; you have shewed me more than have been produced in court. coll. where had you that picture from me that they call raree-shew ? dugd. truly i received of them twice at richard's coffee-house . coll. twice , do you say ? dugd. yes , two of them at two several times ; for you having promised me one , you brought it according to your word . colledge . when was that ? dugd. i did not keep an account of the day of the month ; and another i do remember at the green-dragon-tavern you thrust into my pocket , and mr. baldwin was by at that time . and , said he , mr. colledge , you will be so open , that you will come to be discovered at last . coll. then will i be willing to dye for it , if he and i and mr. baldwin were at the green-dragon-tavern together . when was it that i gave you any pictures there ? was it since the parliament at oxon. dugd. do i charge you since the parliament ? coll. i never saw raree-shew before the parliament at oxord . dugd. i do not say it was that ; you gave me one of the others . coll. 't is strange you will stick to nothing . vvhen was it we were at the green-dragon-tavern ; dugd. we were there before the parliament sat at oxon , it was since christmass . coll. vvhat picture was it i gave you there ? dugd. it may be i can't remember which of them it was , it was not raree-shew ; i suppose you gave me one of them concerning the bishops , where you put bishop mew kissing the pope's toe ; for it was a bishop with a patch on , and that you told me was bishop mew . coll. i put it , did i make it ? dugd. you said you were the author . mr. just . jones . mr. colledge ; will you consider upon what mr. dugdale was called up about , the exposition of the name of rowley . coll. i did examine him , and he hath contradicted himself ; for he hath said at the green dragon-tavern i gave him a picture of raree-shew . mr. just . jones . he said no such thing , he said he did not know which it was . colledge . i am certain he meant that then when he spake it ; for he named it before , that he had two from me at richard's coffee-house , and one i thrust into his pocket at the tavern ; and i say i never was at the green-dragon-tavern with mr. dugdale and mr. baldwyn , nor in the tavern these three quarters of a year . mr. just . levins . mr. colledge , you were in the right just now , to manage your evidence , in opposition to the other evidence ; go on that way . coll. my lord , i don't know well what was said , for i could not hear half , nor write a quarter of it ; but , my lord , i hope your lordship has taken notes of it , and will remember it for me . you are my counsel as well as my judges . l. c. j. in matter of fact we are . colledge . my life and your souls lye at stake to do me justice ; therefore i hope you will take notice of what i have not had the opportunity to write down . i have observed that every one of my witnesses have spoken materially to contradict what they have said , to prove that this was done for money , and that there hath been confessions from every man of them ; that they were hired to do it ; that they did it for a livelyhood ; and one of them said ; it was a good trade , dam him , he would do any thing for money : and i hope then you will consider the improbability , that i should speak to an irishman who i had never seen before in my life ; and that i should at the first dash utter all that treason that he gives in evidence , i think it cannot consist with any mans understanding to believe me to be so● mad or so weak . mr. just . levinz . that is as to haynes only . colledge . as to smith now i suppose it does not come within the reach of the statute ; for the dinner that was made by alderman wilcox was made before last july was twelve-month ; all the witnesses do say it was before christmas , and dr. oates says it was in the summer ; i know it by a very good observation , because i went to astrop waters after that , and i saw sir creswell levinz at the wells : now sir you were there before this time twelvemonth . so then whatever he says i said to him there , i cannot be charged withal by the statute , more or less , if i had never a witness against him ; but i have witnesses that have contradicted him sufficiently , that he is forsworn in that ; and if so , he is not to be believed in any thing else ; for he says , he & i went to the coffee-house together , and we discoursed such and such things , which is not above half a bows shoot , and he made it i say a quarter of a miles discourse ; if i had had all the talk , the discourse could not be so long , tho' he had said never a word : so you see what a kind of witness he is . and dr. oates's brother did say , that i did go along with dr. oates , and offered to be one of his guard , and i did so , and went along with them , but mr. smith he came after . and as to what he says he is sufficiently confuted , that is , about the going into cabals after dinner ; for it is proved , that i fell asleep behind the table , and dr. oates was discoursing with mr. savage upon points of divinity ; but i took no notice of it , neither did i see smith any more , but he went away , and so did the rest of the company . but , my lord , when haynes was taken , smith comes to me that day to my house at the ditch-side , and sends in a man for me , his man ; i was writing in my parlour , and drawing the design for wainscoting alhallows church , a platform for it ; his man told me , his master would speak with me , and haynes was taken that morning : but as i understand since , it was by agreement and his own consent , tho' he hath pretended otherwise . you hear , says he , haynes is taken ? yes , says i , i do , he hath been ever since 9 a clock before the secretary upon examination , and he was till 5 a clock at night examining : said he , i believe he confesses a great deal : said i , of what ? said he , of some design of the protestants : said i , what , against the government ? i do not know what they may affright him into ; he is a great rogue if it be true all that he hath said of himself : he says he was concerned in the fire of london , and knew of a design to destroy the protestants then ; of a rebellion that was to be in ireland ; of plunket's being made primate , and a great many of those things : so that if he speaks truth , he hath been a great rogue , and as he hath pretended also , he was a great coward . so then i believe he may say any thing to excuse himself : says mr. smith , i wish you are safe . this was the very night before i was taken . mr. just . jones . have you proved any thing of this ? coll. my lord , pray give me leave to tell you what is proof . mr. just . jones . you are not to repeat this , unless you prove it , sir. coll. he spake cautiously to me , as if he would have intimated to me he would have had me run away . said he , i believe you are not safe , i would have you take care of your self , for you were concerned with him . now , my lord , if i had been a guilty person , i had time enough to get away ; and to prove this , i can only say this was betwixt him and i. but , my lord , you hear dr. oates says , that this very smith did swear he would hare my blood , and that was upon this occasion of my vindicating sampson , whom he had struck and abused ; and i asked why he did it ? said he , i value no mans life , if he affront me , if 't is any man in england , i value him not . my lord , upon this occasion the words rise between us ; and when he came out of doors , and was going away dr. oates said , he swore he would have my blood , and that was the occasion of his speaking that blasphemy . l. c. j. dr. oates did say so . mr. just . levins . well , you are right now , if you will go on in that way . colledge . my lord , this is for smith and haynes , that haynes should say it was a good trade , and dam him , he would swear any thing for money ; and that smith should swear , dam him he would have my blood . i cannot sum up the rest of them , for i have not them here . mr. just . jones . there is turbervile , and dugdale , and smith ; we will help you as to the persons . mr. just . levins . pray keep to the business , and do not run out . colledge . pray , my lord , i have one thing to say about smith ; he says i shewed him my arms , which i have had for any time almost these three years , ever since the plot brake out . i have been armed ready to oppose the papists , and i did my duty in the city in person in the trained-bands , but smith says these arms were to destroy the kings guards , but he does not prove that i was confederate with any other person , but instead of that there were other persons that say with his own mouth , that he did not believe there was any protestant plot ; nay , he did believe i said it only in wantonness . this is all , then how probable was it , that i my self should seize the king , or destroy his guards . mr. just . jones . you remember captain brown , captain chuton , and don lewes , mr. colledge . coll. did he swear they were all in my company at oxon. mr. just . jones . yes , dugdale did . coll. my lord , captain brown and lewes were friends to my lord howard , with whom and other company i came down to oxon. and they lay with me at the chequer , and they were in my company because they were guests in the house , and we came along together , but he does not say they were either of them armed more than my self , nor was he ever in company with us ; how then does he know we were in a conspiracy ? mr. just . jones . because you told him at london first that they were such persons . coll. i never saw lewes in my days till i saw him that morning i came down from oxon. and brown i was not acquainted with a fortnight before . this is a truth , but however they have sworn a plot upon me at oxon. and then come and prove i declared these were the men , and spoke such and such words at london ; i desire your lordships judgment in this matter of law , whether what be done at london can be sufficient matter of proof in law to maintain an indictment against me at oxon. and if not , they do not prove legally that i have spoken such words . besides i conceive 't is not a good proof , because there is but one witness . l. c. j. yes , look you , there are two witnesses , dugdale and turbervile , as to what you said at oxon. and two witnesses as to what you said at london , haynes and smith , who testifie what you said you would do at oxon. now in case you came to oxon. with any such intention , that coming to oxford is an overt-act , and the witnesses that speak what you said in london , is evidence to maintain the indictment here , and to prove what your intention was . coll. does that become an overt-act if i go to oxon. upon an honest occasion , any other occasion , though i had said these words before . l. c. j. if you came with that intent to joy with others , and with a real purpose to seize the king , that is the overt-act , and the words before prove the intention . mr. just . jones . he declared it himself by his words . coll. smith says that about a week after wilcox's dinner , i discoursed with him at the ditch side , that comes not within the compass of the statutes . then there is twice of the 3 times he speaks of , the last day i do not remember when it was . lo. c. just . all was in london that smith speaks of you . coll. how comes that to be proof here , then nothing he says is to go for any thing . mr. just . jones . nothing will serve your turn ; we have declared our opinions once already , that if the witnesses swear true , here are two witnesses ; nay , if one were of what was done at london , and the other of what was done at oxon. if they be to the same treason , they be two witnesses in law. coll. my lord , i observe one thing upon turberviles evidence , he swears there was a discourse in the room when brown was upon the bed , but afterwards if your lordship minds it , he says , i discoursed with him as he and i lay upon the bed . before he said when brown lay upon the bed , and in the room , and afterwards when we lay upon the bed . mr. just . jones . both the one and the other . colledge . but he said first one way , and then the other . mr. just . jones . whilst brown lay upon the bed , and when he was gone , whilst you both lay upon the bed . l. c. just . we will do you no wrong , therefore if you will , turbervile shall stand up and clear it . colledge . my lord , i believe those that have taken the passages can prove he contradicted himself in that . lo. c. just . he said both . but the jury have taken notes of the evidence , and will take notice of it . coll. as to mr. masters , the evidence he gives was , he says that he and i should discourse of the parliament in 40. mr. just . jones . and the justifiableness of the late kings death , that they had done nothing but what they had just cause to do . colledge . he swears that i did say to him , that the late parliament did not cut off the kings head. mr. just . jones . and you said the last parliament that sate at westminster was of the same opinion with that in 40. coll. i dare appeal to esquire charlton , in whose shop the discourse was . i did not know that mr. masters was to be an evidence against me , and truly they have taken that course with me , by which any man may be destroyed with half this evidence , were they of good credit , let his innocence be what it will. i have been used so barbarously in the tower , kept from all conversation , and so in an utter ignorance of what was sworn against me ; for else i coud easily have disproved mr. masters , if i had been in london , and had liberty to provide for my defence ; but they have taken a course to prevent that , and brought me hither because 't is impossible i should here defend my self . lo. c. j. you have not offered any witness to impeach mr. masters credit . coll. mr. masters discourse he speaks of was in mr. charltons shop , i durst have appealed to him about it , for i know if he were here he would do me right . mr. masters did say the parliament cut off the late kings head. we held a dispute upon that which i was not willing to enter into ; i said they did not , and we did then dispute whether they began the war against his majesty : i said they did not that i knew of , neither were they the persons , but the papists that began that war , and that broke off the ereaty at uxbridge , and that the papists carryed it on to that sad issue , and put it upon the protestants , that they had the odium of it , but it was another sort of men that carryed it on . i said that i did always understand that parliament to be an honest parliament , that minded the true interest of the nation , and much of the same opinion with the parliament that sate last at westminster . but before i said this , i said they were persons altogether innocent of the kings murder , and raising the war against the king , i did always understand that so the parliament in 40 were . l. c. j. but they were guilty of a rebellion , and are declared so by act of parliament since his majesty came in . coll. my lord , i am unacquainted with the law , i speak only my own sense of it . and my lord , i did excuse them as to the murder of the king , and the beginning of the war , that according to my understanding they were not guilty of it , and from thence i did maintain they were an honest good parliament , and much of opinion with the parliament that sat last at westminster , which was for the true interest of the nation . l. c. j. and was that the true interest of the nation , to cut off the kings head ? coll. i did argue that with him some time , and i did tell him that it was the papists that did all the mischief . mr. just . jones . but he says no , upon his oath , that when he had said , the parliament begun the rebellion , and the parliament did cut off the kings head , you said the parliament did nothing but what they had just cause for , and the parliament that sat last at westminster was of the same mind . l. c. j. those were his words . coll. pray let him be called again . lo. c. just . let mr. masters stand up again . coll. pray sir relate the whole discourse that passed between you and i , whether i did not argue with you it was not the parliament cut off the kings head , nor begun the war , but the papists . mr. mast . no , you did not say any such thing . we had a great deal of discourse in the shop , and under the arch , and the thing that was said , mr. colledge , was this . you did say to me that you did justifie the late long parliament of 40. and then proceedings , and you said they were a parliament that did nothing but what they had just cause for : said i , how can you be so impudent to say so , when they raised the rebellion against the king and cut off his head : said he again , they did nothing but what they had just cause for , and the parliament that sat last at westminster were of the same opinion . mr. just . jones . i did you no wrong in repeating the evidence , you see , mr. colledge . coll. did i not first dispute with you that , they did not begin the war , nor cut off the king , but the papists did it . mr. mast . look you mr. colledge , you would have had it the king began the war. coll. don't you say so , for i said the papists began the war. sir say no more to me than what you will answer to god almighty ; for i always said the papists did all the mischief in the late times : and i wonder sir you would not be so just to his majesty as to detect me for what i said then , if you did apprehend it to be as you now say ; but i am sure you did not nor could not . mr. mast . mr. colledge , it was so far from that , that i was afraid it was of dangerous consequence , and i gave some persons of honour an accompt of it , and i was sent to but on friday last , to know what it was was said , and i was desired and commanded to come down hither . coll. pray mr. masters , you are upon your oath , do me but justice , and speak upon your own conscience ; look you to it that you speak the truth . mr. masters . i will do you all the right i can in the world . coll. then before the court do you declare whether we did not discourse at that time as i said , for this discourse was at mr. charltons shop at the further end . mr. masters . no it was at the entrance into the shop , mr. colledge ; and did not we go into the arch and talk there . mr. serj. jeff. mr. masters don't trouble your self , your reputation is not upon the level with that gentlemans . coll. i desire he may speak the very truth , and nothing but the truth . mr. masters . i do as near as i can , and do you no wrong ; you did not in your discourse say the parliament did not begin the war , nor cut off the kings head. coll. you did say to me they did cut off the kings head , and i told you no , the papists did . mr. masters . i think you did say that the papists had an hand in it ; but , sir , you have left out the most material part of our discourse , which was , that you said they did nothing but what they had just cause for . coll. i do say , and it was my sense always , that the parliament did not cut off the kings head , for they were long out of doors before that came to pass , and a new unhappy war was begun . l. c. j. the war was a rebellion on the parliaments part , let us not mince the matter , and so it was declared by act of parliament ; and if you argued it after that rate , it shews your temper , and that you are a very ill man ; for they that justifie such things as to the time passed ; would lead us to the same things again if they could . therefore don't go about to palliate it , ad faciendum populum here , 't is nothing to the matter , but only to shew your principles , and the jury have heard what mr. masters says . colledge . i was then a child , and do not know all the passages , but i speak my sense . l. c. j. you should not have justified such things . mr. ju . jones . who appointed the high court of justice that tryed the king and condemned him but the parliament ? mr. just . levins . it was the garbage of that parliament i am sure , that is the rump , but they called themselves the parliament of england , and the parliament it was that begun the war. colledge . my lord , i did not know , nor don 't know that it is proved yet , that the parliament were those that did cut off the kings head. i don't know , mr. masters is pleas'd to say this of me ; but i thought no evil , nor did he understand it so i believe at that time , for he did not seem to take advantage of my discourse . i know he talked violently and passionately with me , as he used to do ; and for mr. masters to say this of me now , is a great unkindness ; for i thought he was so much a gentleman , that if i had spoken any thing that had not become me , he would have taken notice of it then . mr. ser. jeff. he did then he tells you . colledge . had i known of it , i am sure mr. charleton would have done me justice , and set things right ; but this i say , i did first excuse the parliament from being concerned in the murder of the king , or that they did begin the war , but the papists did it : if it were otherwise , it was more than i understood ; and after that i said , i thought that the parliament that sate last at westminster , did stand up for the peoples rights , after the same manner that the parliament in 40. did . mr. just . jones . what , just after the same manner , in raising war and rebellion against the king ? coll. after i had discoursed it thus , my lord , as i told you , it could not be understood that i thought that parliament would cut off the king's head : and therefore you that are my jury , pray consider , and take it all together , there could be no such meaning made of my words ; for i did not conceive that that parliament were concerned in those things , but were a parliament that stood up for the rights of the people : now if it were so , then the parliament at westminster were of the same opinion . l. c. j. i tell you , the long parliaments levying war , is declared rebellion by act of parliament . coll. my lord , if there hath been an act since that says they were guilty of rebellion , i declare it 't is more than ever i knew before . this is the first time that ever i heard of it . mr. serj. jeff. you are a mighty learned gentleman to talk of those points indeed . coll. my lord , i desire to know whether any words that were spoken 6 months before they gave in their depositions , can be a sufficient evidence in law against me now . l. c. j. 't is upon the act of the 13th . of this king you speak . colledge . yes , my lord , i take it upon that statute . l. c. j. i tell you , as to that part of the statute which concerns misdemeanors , there is a particular clause for prosecution , by order of king or council ; but as to that part of the statute that concerns treason , it must be prosecuted within six months , and the indictment within three months after . coll. vvhat statute is this indictment grounded upon ? mr. just . jones . all statutes that concern treason . l. c. j. upon the statute of the 25 of edw. 3. which declares the common-law , and the statute of the 13. of this king , which when you have done , i will have read to the jury . coll. then pray , my lord , let me ask you one question ; whether the statute of the 25th . of edw. 3. does not say that there shall be two positive witnesses to treason ? mr. just . jones . no , but there is another that does . coll. i am ignorant of the law , and therefore i ask the question . l. c. j. well , i will tell you , there must be two witnesses in the case , but one witness to one fact at one time , and another witness to another fact at another time , will be sufficient evidence to maintain an indictment of treason ; this was told you in the morning . mr. just . jones . and it was told you withal , that it was the resolution of all the judges in the case of my lord stafford when he was tryed in parliament . coll. they proved fact in that case , writing of letters , and offering money to kill the king ; but nothing of fact is proved against me , but riding into the countrey with arms that i had three years before . l. c. just . we will read the statute of the 13th . wherein words are declared to be treason coll. i pray it may be read , if you please . ( vvhich was done ) . l. c. j. look you here , to compass or imagine the imprisonment of the king , and to express it by malicious and advised speaking , when proved by two lawful witnesses , is treason by this act. colledge . now whether you will distinguish , that there must be two witnesses to distinct places or times , or whether the statute intends two witnesses to every particular fact and words . l. c. j. we told you our opinion before , that one witness to one fact , and another to another of the same treason , was sufficient . we are upon our oaths in it , and speak not our own opinions , but what hath received publick resolution in cases of the like consequence . coll. vvhat lies before these gentlemen of the jury , as done at oxon. 't is but upon a single testimony . mr. just . levins . nay , mr. dugdale and mr. turbervile both swear the same thing , your design to seize the king at oxon. and it would be the difficultest thing in the world to prove treason against any man , if the law were not so , and a man might commit all sorts of treason securely ; for to be sure he would never say the same things before two witnesses in one time , and the king would be in no sort safe ; for there would never be two witnesses to one and the same thing : but that hath been resolved often and often , over and over again , particularly in my lord stafford's case , as you have been told . coll. my lord , you say the king is not safe upon those terms , and no private man is safe in the other way . mr. just . levins . we say that the law is so , and there is good reason for it . mr. just . jones . we must not alter nor depart from the allowed received law. l. c. j. i say the thing hath been considered in other cases , and the law hath been adjudged and setled . it was so resolved in my lord stafford's case , when the judges , by the command of the parliament did deliver their opinion upon that point moved by him . coll. there is nothing of fact proved against me but a pair of pistols , a sword , and an horse . lo. c. j. we have told you the law , and answered your question . colledge . but as the case stands , if that be the law , all society and conversation must be ruined by it . mr. just . jones . pray go on , when do you think we shall have done else ? colledge . however i do not insist upon that so much , as that the testimonies and oaths of these men are altogether invalidated , by substantial persons that have here testified against them . i do declare upon my salvation , ( i have nothing else to say ) i am wholly innocent , and the jury are my judges ; and i beseech them , as they will answer me at the great day of judgment , where they must appear as sure as i stand at this bar now , that they do me right , and go according to their own consciences ; for if a man shall be sworn against by such fellows as these are , no man is safe . mr. ser. jeff. the worse , the better to be trusted by you . colledge . i am sure it cannot be thought by men of common reason , that i should speak treason at that rate that they have sworn , and to such men , men of their profession , irishmen , and papists , traytors , that have declared they have been in all manner of rogueries , murders , plots , and treasons . therefore , my lord , i cannot do any more for my self , because i have no notes , and cannot recite what hath been said for me , or against me , but i do depend upon your lordship , and i hope you will inform the jury rightly , and do me justice ; and i do pray the jury that they let their consciences be satisfied , as they are english-men , and as they are christians , to consider how the case lyes with me , whether there has not been more occasion of talking of late , and whether a slip of the tongue may be called a premeditated , malicious , advised speaking , i mean my discourse with mr. masters . he talked with me as hot as fire , he was so violent , and i did discourse him at that rate i have told you , and that is truth , as i have a soul to be saved : i did excuse the parliament , that as i understood it , they had no hand in the beginning of the war , or the murder of the king. my lord , as for the rest that have sworn against me so desperately , i must say , that if the jury did not as well consider my evidence as theirs , yet they might well consider , whether it consists with common sense and reason , that i should speak to these men after this rate , when i could lay no obligation upon them , nor have any confidence in them ; necessitous persons , that could not assist me one mite , men that were beholding to me to borrow money of me , and that eat of my cost , that i had always been obliging to , and not they to me . but i hope i need insist upon this no further , the whole nation is sensible what is doing , and what this does signifie : they have begun with me , in order to the making of a presbyterian plot , which they would carry on to stifle the noise of the popish plot ; and this is not the 1st , the 2d . nor the 10th . time that they have been at this game ; how many shams have they endeavoured to raise — mr. att. gen. who do you mean by they ? colledge . the papists . mr. att. gen. there is nothing of popery in the case , they are all protestants . mr. just . jones . they are all persons that have lately receiv'd the sacrament . colledge . they were all papists , and i believe are so still ; for mr. dugdale did justifie to me the church of rome in several things : and when i told him that they were all knaves and fools that were of that religion , he told me , that many of their priests were holy good men . mr. just . jones . have you proved that ? coll. i can't prove it , it was betwixt him and me , my lord. mr. just . jones . then i hope you have done . coll. if i had sworn against him , he had stood in my place . l. c. j. have you done , mr. colledge ? colledge . my lord , i only desire the jury to take all into their serious consideration ; i expect a storm of thunder from the learned counsel to fall upon me , who have liberty to speak , and being learned in the law , understand these things better than i , who must defend my self without counsel . i know not whether it be the practice in any nation , but certainly 't is hard measure , that i being illiterate and ignorant in the law , must stand here all day , they being many , and taking all advantages against me ▪ and i a single person , and not able to use one means or other either of writing or speaking . but gentlemen , i do declare and protest , as i shall answer it at the day of judgment , that as to what these people have sworn against me either as to words , or as to any manner of treason against the king , the government , the laws established , i take god to witness i am as innocent as any person upon earth . and therefore i must beseech you be not frightened nor flattered , do according to your judgments and your consciences ; you are to be my judges both in law and fact ; you are to acquit me , or to condemn me , and my blood will be required at your hands . and whatsoever is said to you by others , you are my true judges , you must give an account of the verdict you give ; and therefore you must see that you do justice , as you will answer it at another bar , where you must all certainly appear , and the lord almighty direct you that you do me true justice , and i ask no more . mr. sol. gen. may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury . here hath been a great deal of time spent , and truly i think for no other reason but to divert you from the matter that is before you , and that you might forget the evidence that hath been given . and therefore i will briefly repeat it to you , that i may refresh your memories about what hath been sworn . gentlemen , the crime charged upon mr. colledge is high-treason , in imagining and compassing the death of the king ; the proof of that hath been by a conspiracy to seize the king here at oxon. which conspiracy he declared he was in , by shewing arms prepared for that purpose , and by coming down to oxon. with that intent ; this is the proof of his design to kill the king. colledge . is the conspiracy proved of that mr. solicitor ? l. c. j. mr. colledge . we have had a great deal of patience with you , you have spent a great deal of time , you must contain your self now , and let them go on . colledge . do not let him do me wrong , my lord. mr. sol. gen. i will do you no wrong , mr. colledge . coll. sir , there is no conspiracy proved . l. c. j. look you , mr. colledge , you have taken up a great deal of time , and we have had much patience , because we consider your condition , and had rather hear too much than be hard upon you ; and because the evidence was long and difficult to repeat , now we have heard you , you must have patience to hear what the king's counsel repeat , and observe upon it . mr. sol. gen. as i was saying the fact that is charged upon him , is a design to kill the king , the manifestation of that design is by preparing arms to that purpose , and by coming down to oxon. to seize the king here , and that this was his manifest intent to seize the king , the proof of it hath been by witnesses , that i think by and by you will have no objections against . these witnesses were dugdale , turbervile , smith and haynes , these are the most material witnesses to the treason ; there are two other witnesses indeed , but they are to other circumstantial matters that i will take notice of to you by and by , and make my observations upon them in their proper place . mr. dugdale was the first witness that was produced , and his evidence is very full , he proves that mr. colledge declared to him at the coffee-house here , that he was come down with an intent to seize the king , that he had an expectation something would be done , that he was armed , and that he did advise mr. dugdale to be armed too , for he was provided for the rooting out of popery , which he explained himself what he meant by it , that was the church of england , and the king and all his adherents . he came hither armed for that purpose gentlemen , and did advise mr. dugdale to arm himself too , that he did declare to him the king was a papist , and all his family were papists , he was as deep in the plot , and as guilty of the murder of sir edmundbury godfrey as any body else . this was what he declared to dugdale here , and this he swore to you when he gave his evidence . the next witness is mr. turbervile , and he is positive to the matter that is laid in the indictment , and swears to you expresly , that he did declare to him at the chequer-inn , that they came down here in expectation of some sport , that something would be done , that they did expect the king would begin with them , but if they did not , they would begin with him , and they would secure him till they had brought him to a complyance . he shewed him his arms , that he was ready to ingage in that design , and advised turbervile to be ready too . and the rather than turbervile should not be ready , he offered to procure him an horse . colledge . every man had the same arms that i had , and i had had them long before that time . mr. sol. gen. but every one had them not with the same intent , but gentlemen , because mr. colledge interrupts me with an objection , i will take notice of it now by the way . he says those arms he had before , and therefore they were not provided for this purpose , gentlemen , we do not pretend to prove when his trayterous intent first began , and how long this design has been hatching , but such a design there was , and such a design he manifested to be in himself when he made the declaration to turbervile , and advised him to arm himself , whether he prepared them against that time or no is not material , if he had them before , and if he had them first innocently , yet if he afterwards designed them for such a purpose , and shewed them in a readiness for it , that is a sufficient evidence to prove this treason . so here are two witnesses you observe against the prisoner of this matter that is laid against him in the indictment , an intent to kill the king , they both prove it positively upon him at oxon. mr. dugdale speaks to matters precedent to , for he tells you , his discourse before they came down , that they would come down for that purpose , that they had an expectation something would be done , and therefore he came down in an equipage not suitable to his profession , for you see he was by trade a carpenter or a joyner , but armed on horseback with a case of pistols , things that don't become such men to travel with , and he did declare to mr. dugdale for what purpose he came down . the next witness is mr. smith , and mr. smith is as positive and full to this matter of treason as any of the rest . col. there is scarce a carpenter or a joyner in london but hath pistols when he rides . l. c. j. mr. colledge , we must not suffer this , we had so much patience with you that we expect you should be quiet now and not interrupt the counsel . coll. my lord , let me not be overborn upon , there is sçarce a poulterer in london , but what hath pistols . mr. sol. gen. we had great patience with you mr. colledge , and did not interrupt you i am sure , but let you say what you would . i think i do you no wrong , if i do , i am under correction of the court , they will reprove me if i do that which does not become me . mr. att. gen. did not you ramble i don't know how , and yet you were suffered to go on ? mr. sol. gen. he tells you of a discourse as he came from the coffee-house to go to a dinner whither he was invited by alderman wilcox ; and the discourse was , that the king was as great a papist as the duke , and much more to that purpose vilifying the king. the alderman wilcox was a man that gave money to buy arms to bring the king to submission . he objects against this , and says , 't is impossible such a discourse should be , and that all this should be talked in so little a time , as in passing from the coffee-house to the crown tavern without temple-bar . coll. pray remember whose company it was proved i went in , mr. solicitor . mr. sol. gen. but gentlemen , when you consider , how busie a man he was , and how ready at talking of treason , you will not think , but that this man might talk much more than this ; but this i mention to do him right , it being one of the arguments he used ; and to give an answer to it , tho' when you consider it , i believe you will think it not to need an answer . but i would do him all the right i can , and now you have heard it , you will consider the weight of it . gentlemen , he tells you of another discourse afterwards that does relate to his being here at oxon. he tells you he had arms in his house , and was ready upon all occasions , and he shew'd mr. smith his arms , and told him , these were the things that were to destroy rowley's guards , as he said , which by the evidence is made to appear he meant the king by that name , his arms he said were for that purpose . that he would go down to oxon. and there he expected some sport , i know not what sport he thinks there is in rebellion ; you see what principles he is of , that does maintain and justifie the greatest and horrid'st rebellion that ever was in england , and says they did nothing but what they had good cause for . he tells smith that he thought the king would seize upon some members , and with that expectation he came down , but he was as ready as the king , and would be one in the securing of him , if he medled with any of the members . this proof mr. smith made ; and that after the parliament was dissolved , he said that the king ran away , and was very much afraid . this is proved by smith likewise , and this colledge did declare after he came to town . smith proves further , that he did wonder the king did not consider how easily his fathers head was brought to the block ; and for mr. colledges part he did declare , that he did believe this king would be served so shortly . and this does confirm what his other witnesses have spoken of his words at oxon. thus then there are three witnesses , tho' two are enough to convict a man , if they be positive to the treason . mr. haynes . is the 4th . witness , and he is as full as any of them . i do but repeat it in short ; you have had it so often canvassed by colledge , that i believe you will easily remember it . he did advise haynes that he should not value the king at all , for the king should be called to account for all his actions ; he said he would seize the king and bring him to the block as they did his father , with an undecent expression of that blessed king not fit to be repeated . and he said , they did intend when they had cut off him , never any more of his race should raign ; this it was haynes says , tho' there are other matters . i would take notice of one thing more , and i need not but mention it , you will remember it , and that is about the libel of fitzharris . haynes tells you upon discourse of that libel , he said , that every word of it was true , as sure as god is in heaven . now that was a libel made by a papist , an irish papist , who hath been tryed , convicted and executed for it , and the horrid'st libel it was , that ever was writ . and this is the libel which this gentleman , who is so very conversant in libels , and books of that sort , avers to be as true as god is in heaven . this is the substance gentlemen of that proof which hath been made to you ; we have other circumstances to prove , that as he came down with that intent to seize the king , and as he expected what he calls some sport , so he did endeavour to begin the sport , he did quarrel in the lobby of the house of lords with fitzgerald , some blows passed , and sir william jennings telling him his nose bled , he did declare , i have lost the first blood in the cause , but it will not be long before there be more lost . thus after he had come down , he endeavoured to begin a commotion ; for from little matters great things do sometimes arise , and when all men were possest with an expectation , such as he himself did declare , he and others came down with an expectation that the parliament should be attacked ; a little matter might have begun such a commotion which no man knows what end it would have had . gentlemen , this hath been our proof . now the objection made to this proof by mr. colledge is , that this is a popish design to raise a new plot ; and cast it upon the protestants , and that these witnesses are now to deny all the evidence they have given of the popish plot , and throw all upon the protestants . this is that he would persuade you to believe , but which i think when you do consider a little of it , it will be impossible for you in the least to have such a thought . for what are the evidence that have proved this ? who are they ? men of credit , that have been evidences against the popish plotters , and against men that have suffered for that plot , men that still stand to the evidence they have given , and affirm it every word to be true , and one of the very men that he brought says , that they still stand to it ; for turbervile who was one of the witnesses against my lord stafford was tempted by some persons to deny the evidence he had given against the papists , but his answer was , no , i can never depart from it , i have a soul to save , that was true which i said , i cannot deny it . if then the witnesses which he would have you believe to be guilty of denying the popish plot , do confirm what they have said as to that discovery , that objection is taken off , and they do stand still to it that every part of it was true , and aver the same thing ; and yet forsooth these men are going about to stifle this plot. gentlemen , these are the men the whole nation have given credit to , the parliament having impeached my lord stafford upon the credit of them , ( for it was upon the credit of dugdale and turbervile that they impeached him , for there was not two witnesses till turbervile came in and made a second , and upon their credit ) after so solemn a tryal , where all the objections that could possibly be made , were made ; the house of lords thought fit to find my lord stafford guilty , and my lord stafford suffered for it , and died upon the credit of these men . these are the witnesses , gentlemen , that this man thinks ought to be blown off with that frivolous objection , that they are persons he would have you believe , who are guilty of a design to throw the plot upon the protestants . but because he hath desired to save himself in an herd , by numbring himself amongst the protestants . i must a little observe to you what a sort of protestant he is , a man he would have you to believe , so popular for his religion , that he hath obtained the name of the protestant joyner . but when you have considered what his actions are , i believe you will a little suspect his religion . if the protestant religion allow any man to vilifie the king , to arraign the government , and to throw off all manner of allegiance , then this man is a protestant : but if this be to act the part of a papist , and if the papists could wish that such an infamy might be put upon the protestant religion , that it should justifie such a rebellion as the late horrid one was , and own such a principle that it is lawful for any subject to asperse and vilifie the king , as this man by those many and scurrilous libels seem to do it ; if they could wish this nation overturned , and the government in confusion , and the church of england destroyed , the best bulwark now in the world against propery , and the best or only refuge at this day left for the poor afflicted protestants abroad . then whilst mr. colledge does thus act the part of a papist , he does very ill to call himself a protestant . gentlemen , i cannot but observe one thing to you , and it was the evidence of dr. oates , when he did first discover the plot , and without his evidence you would easily believe the thing . he told you there were two ways they had to accomplish their design , by direct murdering of the king , or if that failed , by putting all things into confusion here , and raising rebellion and disturbance amongst us , and the way to effect that rebellion , it was by having emissaries sent among us , to work us into a dislike of the church , and by that means into a rebellion against the state. that some men were sent abroad for that purpose to preach at conventicles , some whereof were catched , and some did suffer . now without this evidence it would not be hard to believe that such there are , and have been ; for all that know the history of our reformation , do know that it was an early practice among them , to raise sects amongst us , to bring confusion first into the church , and the● in the state. and we have already found the sad effects of it . now gentlemen , if colledge have all this while under the name of a protestant acted the part of a papist , though i cannot say he is a papist , nor that he is one of those emissaries , yet i may say he is not that good protestant he pretends to be . gentlemen , i must now , to do him right , come to repeat the evidence that he hath given against our witnesses ; for mr. haynes he hath produced several witnesses , one is mr. hickman , who says he overheard haynes say to one that was his tenant , that it was his trade to swear , and he must get money by it . this ●e overheard him , standing and listning at a door . you have another man lun , that is the next witness , and he says that at the fleet-ditch , where he saw him , there he declared the same thing to him , that he would swear any thing for mony , and dam his soul rather than the catholick cause should sink ; and now he comes to prove a plot upon him that is a protestant , and in his person upon all the protestants of england , and this man would fain throw off the credit of the popish plot , and turn it upon the protestants . but gentlemen it is strange , that mr. haynes should have this discourse with lun , the first time that ever he saw him ; for i am sure his own witness lun says it was the first time , and that he should immediately talk to him at this rate is somewhat strange : but for an answer to it , this lun we have confronted with the evidence of white the messenger , who swears , that afterwards meeting him at uxbridge , lun asked him what gentleman that was , and did not know mr. haynes , and yet he takes upon him to prove , that he had spoke such words to him before . i think there is never another material witness against haynes , except whaley , who was an under-officer in the kings-bench ; and he says , that haynes whilst he was a prisoner there ran away with a silver tankard , but he never was indicted or prosecuted for it , tho' he remained afterwards in the house ; and this was 5 or 6 years ago . now gentlemen , i think the nature of this evidence hath not that weight , as to take off the credit of what this man hath said upon his oath , especially when this mans evidence is so backed with the evidence of other men , that i think there is no objection at all against it . for the other witnesses , dugdale , smith and turbervile , are men whose credit has not been impeached , and they have confirmed in substance what the evidence of haynes is ; so that he does not stand alone in what he here swears , but 't is confirmed with concurrent evidence with it . then gentlemen , for the objection against dugdale , turbervile and smith , they produced dr. oates to you , and he must vilifie the credit of those men , whose testimony , as to what he gave at first in discovering the popish plot , received credit by being seconded by these men . and i cannot but observe it as a strange thing , that this man comes now to vilifie the testimony of those , who have given evidence and been credited by the whole kingdom ; that he should come here upon the word of a priest to declare , that mr. dugdale was a man of very lewd conversation , and was a person that had a foul disease on him , when he pretended he was poysoned . i remember this was an objection that hath been made by the papists to him , and i believe you have heard it often out of their mouths ; but it is the first time that ever i heard it from any one that is a witness of the popish plot , and pretends to stand up for the protestant religion . gentlemen , if any such thing as this could have been made out against him , it had been made out e're now , the papists would have taken advantage of it ; and when the wit of all that party was bent against him , he could not have escaped the having it proved , if it had been true , yet dr. oates takes upon him now to vilifie his credit , and takes up those arguments the papists have maliciously suggested , but yet were never able to make out . this looks as if the doctor were again returning to st. omers , that he is thus going about to disparage the evidence of mr. dugdale , which in great measure verified the truth of that discovery , which himself first made of the popish plot. against turbervile , gentlemen , i think , there hath been very little at all objected that can have any weight with you . mr. broadgate , as i suppose you observe , has said enough to confirm turberviles credit ; for he hath proved to you , that when he was tempted to renounce his evidence against the papists , he refused to do it , he had more conscience than to do it , he knew well enough what he said was true , and as he had a soul to save , he could not go from it . this is the evidence that he gives , and which certainly serves much to confirm the truth of turbervile , besides the strict examination he hath been under , and beyond any thing that dr. oates , i think , has been able to contradict him in . dr. oates contradicts smith about his coming from the coffee-house to wilcox's dinner . he says , he did not come along with mr. colledge , but colledge came along with dr. oates , and smith followed them . but , gentlemen , you hear what smith has declared upon his oath , that they came both together out of the coffee-house ; and you hear what his witness mr. smith the counsellor says : he does not positively remember that circumstance , yet one would think he should ; for oates says , mr. smith the lawyer walked just before them , and colledge followed . mr. smith that is the witness for the king , he swears he came along with colledge , but mr. smith the lawyer being asked that question , he does not remember that . then another thing is , dr. oates says , when they were there , colledge was so far from discoursing of any treasonable matters , that he was very merry in the company , and talking innocently , but mr. smith says , he was so far from being merry or talking treason , that he fell fast asleep , and slept behind the table . gentlemen , these objections you see what the weight of them is , and how little the evidence agree one with another , but there is nothing that does contradict mr. smith in his main evidence . 't is possible they may not remember particular circumstances , whether mr. colledge and mr. smith came together , so they might come together for ought they know , and they may remember any circumstance about their retiring , but they can't take upon them to swear it is not so , and their not remembring it does not prove it was not so , and the circumstance it self is so trivial , that there was no necessity they should remember it . so then no evidence that comes from dr. oates can take off that that is given by smith , tho' if mr. smith were out of the case , and mr. haynes too , yet there is evidence sufficient from mr. dugdale and mr. turbervile , who are not impeached , and are both to the fact and to the place . there are two witnesses more that i must mention , and they are bolron and mowbray ; they swear that smith travelling upon the road with them , would have suborned them to swear against john brooks , about a discourse at some place ; but it happened , gentlemen , they differ in point of time in their testimony , the one said it was the 25th . of july , the other was positive it was the 3d. of august . but i think i need say no more of these men , but only to desire you to weigh their credit . bolron and mowbray i confess have been evidence against several men that have been accused of the popish plot , but they have been so unfortunte , as never to gain credit with any jury . mr. smith hath been believed by the whole court of parliament ; but if there were no more in the case , these are two men that never were yet believed , men that have been sworn in their own country , where they are well known , and been evidence upon tryals , but the jury have rejected their testimony : but besides that , comparing the testimonies , and the difference that was between them , is a sufficient evidence to confront all that they have said . i think , gentlemen , this is the substance of what has been offered by his witnesses against the witnesses produced for the king , except that of mr. everard , who says something against haynes , that haynes should say he swore for self-preservation ; and against smith he says , that he heard him say , he did not know of any presbyterian plot. i believe that may be true , and yet it does not contradict smiths evidence against colledge ; for mr. smith does not tell you , that he is privy to any such design of the presbyterians , that he knows of any consultations that they held , or the ways and means by which they would arive at the treason charged upon the prisoner at the bar , but his evidence is , that this man declared there was such a design , that there was a party would do it , and that he would be sure to be one , and armed himself for that purpose ; but his not being privy to any plot , or knowing the particulars , is no contradiction to what he said . this is that he has produced for his defence , and by these things he has endeavoured to take off the credit of our witnesses , and he would have you believe that he is a very good protestant though he does that which no protestant would do , and which is the papists work ; he has produced you witnesses that he has gone to church , but i do not see he has produced any witnesses at all that are now conversant with him , his own parishioners in london ; but if he had brought never so many witnesses of his going to church , and of his conformableness to the church , yet if he were guilty of these practices , he must give me leave to suspect the truth of his profession ; and i think it a great piece of arrogance for him to take upon him the title of a protestant , when he has abused that title by such unsuitable practices : and , gentlemen , if such practices as these are , which we have fully proved , are such as all good men must abhor , i cannot but reflect upon the condition of this man , whose only hopes is , that you should now forget your selves & become as ill as he is . but as that cannot be presumed , so i shall not need to say any more to you ; you are men of that consideration that can judge between things , and the appearances of them , and know very well how to give the due weight to the evidence we have given to you , as well as the objections made by the prisoner ; and so gentlemen i shall leave it to you . mr. ser. jeff. may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury ; it has been a long time that has been spent in the course of this evidence ; whether there has been art or design in protracting the time , on purpose to obtrude upon the patience of the court , or that you gentlemen should forget the force of the evidence that has been given against the prisoner at the bar , when there has been so much time taken up unnecessarily , when there was no occasion , as i must needs say , there was not for such a tedious defence , i leave it to you to determine : but that which was truly intimated by the court at the beginning of the tryal , must at the end of this cause be repeated , and indeed go through it all , that we of the kings counsel , and what the prisoner has affirmed , that has not been given in proof , signifying nothing , and is not to be any guide at all to you . you are upon your oaths , and by the oath you have taken you are bound in conscience to give a verdict according to the evidence that has been given to you , and that is your guide ; so that what we opened and have not proved , is no more to be believed than what the prisoner has said for himself in his own defence ; and whatsoever he says , if he make not god proof of it , is no more to be regarded , than what we who are for the king have alledged , and not made out . so then this being in the first place premised , i shall take care as near as i can to save time of the court , and not to trespass on your patience gentlemen unnecessarily , in a case whereupon as great a concern does depend , as perhaps ever came to tryal at any bar : for i say 't is a case wherein the life and the liberty of the king is concerned , and that is the great concern of the nation ; the religion of the nation is concerned ; i would be understood aright , i mean the protestant religion established by law ; for i know no other religion men ought to sacrifice their lives and fortunes for , but the protestant religion established by law ; and when these things are concerned , 't is a case of great consequence : god forbid any person , protestant or other , should attempt the life of the king , and the subversion of our religion , and by stiling themselves by the name of protestants , should excuse themselves from any such crimes . for the evidence that has been given , i shall not enumerate the particulars against the prisoner at the bar , other than such as have been omitted , ( if i mistake not ) by mr. sollicitor . in the first place are the things that hapned at oxon. for you have had it already sufficiently told you by my lords the judges who are upon the bench , and who ( under mr. colledges favour ) are the prisoners judges in point of law , as you are in point of fact. they have ( i say ) already told you what the law is in relation to treasons ; that in case the treason be in two counties , if the witnesses speak to the self same treason , tho' to different facts , that will be two witnesses to prove high-treason ; and that there has been such a case , the prisoner at the bar , who he says is a protestant ( for his own souls sake i wish he were a good one ) must take notice , that gavan the great priest who was tryed at newgate , and convicted , by what evidence ? by one of them that is a witness now against the prisoner at the bar , that is dugdale , his treason was committed part in london , part in the country , of which part dugdale gave evidence ; but being both to the self same purpose , by the greater part of the judges , who were in the commission , and present at the tryal , they were reckoned a sufficient-testimony to prove him guilty of high treason : and i hope we do not live to that age , that any protestant whatsoever should come to trip up the heels of the popish plot , by saying that any of them who suffered for it , did dye contrary to law , or without sufficient proof : for if mr. dugdale was not a person fit to be believed , or if the rest of the judges who tryed gavan were out in the law , then that man died wrongfully ; for he had as much right to have been tryed according to the law , as any other person whatsoever . therefore , gentlemen , as to that matter , we must submit it to my lords the judges , who are to give you an account what the law is in all its particulars before you ; but as to the fact whereof you are judges , that is the great matter we shall apply our selves to , and for that it stands thus . here is dugdale that does give you an account what his design was in coming to oxford ; how he came to be armed as an index ( gentleman ) of his mind . and pray give me leave to put you in mind of one thing . you have first a libel produced , and read to you ; a pretended letter , wherein there are queries that have been taken notice of , and which seem to back the evidence given by mr. masters ; for there is a vindication in those queries of the proceedings of that parliament of 41. which he has confidence enough now at the bar to justifie too . but gentlemen , you were told by the court , and you know it , that that parliament was guilty of high rebellion : and even in those queries he asperses not only the government , but every man that has any concern in it ; for it takes notice not only of the king , but of all his council : never a judge nor an officer in the nation but is traduced by it ; and which is most material , it was the foundation of that libel which has been mentioned to you , and which fitz-harris was so justly condemned and executed for , that most traiterous and infamous libel in part of it has these queries , and a great paragraph of this libel makes up part of that libel of fitz-harris , which our witnesses say mr. colledge was pleased to affirm was as true as god is in heaven . another thing is this ; this gentleman , whose proper business it had been no manage his employment at london for a joyner , is best seen in his proper place , using the proper tools of his trade . i think it had been much more proper for him , and i believe you will think so too , than to come with pistols and all those accoutrements about him , to be regulating of the government : what have such people to do to interfere with the business of the government ? god be thanked , we have a wise prince , and god be thanked he hath wise counsellors about him , and he and they know well enough how to do their own business , and not to need the advice of a joyner , though he calls himself the protestant joyner . what had he to do to engage himself before his advice was required ? how comes he to concern himself so much , that after he had writ this libel , wherein he is pleased to take notice of tyrants , afterwards should go to make a print , i mean the raree-shew ; and when dugdale comes to enquire of him , what do you mean by such a thing , the tyrant shall go down ? says he , i mean by that the king. and what do you mean by having them go to breda ? why there he explains it , that he puts all the government , the lords and the bishops upon the kings back ; and being asked what he meant to have done with them ? why the bishops and the king , and all were to go to breda . these are the things that himself did acknowledge he was the author of , and these prints he did cause to be made , and he is the person that gives you an account , that it was but the conception and imagination of dugdale , that rowley meant the king ; but dugdale being called again , he tells you after some time , that he was under some difficulty to know the meaning of it ; and then colledge tells him it was meant the king , and so he expounded it to him . and so smith tells you of that same name of old rowley again . gentlemen , thus i tell you what hath been omitted . the evidence hath been long , and therefore we must be pardoned if we can't exactly repeat it . this is the evidence that was done at oxon. the next is mr. smith , who speaks of what was done in london , and he is an evidence both as to the word rowley , as to the coming with arms , and as to the declaring to what end he came , and what he had done : mr. haynes he tells you both before and after the same , and that i must take notice of to you , mr. smith does particularly say he used those words , which i hope every honest man , and every good man , that desires to preserve the government according to law , will hear with the greatest detestation and abhorrence : he talked of the taking away the life of the late king of blessed memory at such an impudent rate , that every true protestants blood would curdle at the hearing of it . and this he said not only to mr. masters , but he justified it to mr. smith too . in the next place you have turbervile , who gives you all the reasons , how he did not only tell of these things himself , but encouraged him to prepare himself accordingly , and he gave him a mark , a ribbon , with no popery , no slavery . these were marks whereby they were to be known , and they were to be one and all , as they call it , that when such a blow was struck , they should be ready to fall in . there is one thing more that i take notice of , that is , what was said by a gentleman , sir william jennings , which is a confirmation of all the other evidence ; that gentleman who hath appeared to you to be a man of honour even by the confession of mr. colledge himself , and by his own words ; for he said like an honest man , and like a loyal man too , that he would rather engage himself in three dangers for the service of the king at sea , than come in cold blood to give evidence against a man for his life at the bar. and yet this man who tells you this of himself , and that very person whom colledge himself calls a worthy person , hath given you this account , that when he told him his nose bled , he answered him , it was the first blood lost in the cause , but it would not be long e're there was more lost ; an excellent cause for a man to venture his blood in . when he was told of this , he began to put it off , and to use his own words , had a great mind to sham off the business , but in truth there was no answer given to it . gentlemen , the objections that have been made against the evidence that have not been taken notice of , i desire to take notice of : i think against three of them there has been only mr. oates , and mr. oates i confess has said in verbo sacerdotis strange things against dugdale , smith , and turbervile . i have only the affirmation of mr. oates , and as ill men may become good men , so may good men become ill men ; or otherwise i know not what would become of some part of mr. oates's testimony . and in the next place , if these men have not sworn true , i am sure mr. oates must stand alone in the greatest point , in which all the evidence agree , that is the popish plot. but gentlemen , i must take notice to you , that it is strange to me , that ever you upon your consciences should perjure three men , who positively upon their oaths deny any such discourses as mr. oates speaks of against them : i do put that upon your consciences , whether you upon the bare affirmation of mr. oates in this place , will convict three men , upon whose testimony the lives of so many as have suffered , have been taken away , and as we protestants do believe justly . i say , whether you will do it upon the bare affirmation of mr. oates against their oaths . in the next place , gentlemen , i must tell you , besides the positive evidence of these gentlemen , there is a circumstance of improbability in the very words which he speaks of : will any man tell me , that after such time as men have given their oaths , as smith had given his that he was concerned , and so had dugdale and turbervile too , that these men should come and voluntarily tell mr. oates they were all forsworn ; are these men such great coxcombs as he would have us ; to believe ? is it so probable a thing , that any men of common knowledge would do it ? do you think a man of that knowledge and consideration , as smith is an allowed scholar , and a man of known learning ; and mr. dugdale , who has been reckoned by all men to be a good evidence ; do you take these men to be such absolute novices , that they must seek an occasion to tell him they were bribed off , and were forsworn ? if you can think this , and if a bare affirmation against these positive oaths can prevail ; gentlemen , upon your consciences be it . in the next place , 't is a strange sort of thing to believe that mr. smith should come out of a coffee-house , where a quarrel is pretended to have been between him and colledge , but mr. smith does upon his oath say he never had any such quarrel with him , and that he should fall a damning and sinking against colledge , and against the gospel ; that there should be such impudence in the world in any man as to desire or wish such a thing ! gentlemen , these are strange sorts of apprehensions , and men must have very strange thoughts , that can strain themselves up to the belief of them . in the next place here it is said by the prisoner , good lord ! what a condition we shall be in ! here is a plot put upon the protestants , i hope in god there is no protestant plot , but i also hope the whole interest of the protestant religion is not involved in the prisoner at the bar , and all will be destroyed , if mr. colledge dies for his treasons . gentlemen , the question is not whether there be a presbyterian ▪ or protestant plot , we declare we know of none , but whether the prisoner at the bar have spoken such words , and done such things as are sworn against him . and i would fain know what all the discourses we have had about irish witnesses and papists signifie , when in all the course of our evidence , there has been but one irish , and never a papist . but here have been great discourses about macnamarra and dennis , and what it hath been for , but to make a noise , and raise a dust , i can't tell ; for in this cause there has not been one irish-man besides haynes , and never a papist throughout the whole evidence : so that it is easie , if men think it will take with the auditory , for a person to cry out , oh lord ! we are all like to be undone , here are irish witnesses brought against us ; and after all this stir , there is but one irish witness , and never a papist . and as for him , truly gentlemen i must take notice , that even colledge himself , till such time as he was taken , reckoned him an honest man. colledge . never in my life . mr. serj. jeff. it was so said . but i do say gentlemen , suppose ( which i do not admit ) that the irishman he speaks of be out of the case , not that the country is an objection against any mans testimony , god forbid it should be so affirmed ; for truth is not confined to places , nor to persons neither , but applyed to all honest men , be they irish-men or others : but i say , set mr. haynes out of the case , suppose there was no such man as haynes in this case , yet i must tell you , gentlemen , you have as great a proof as possibly can be . in the next place , i must take notice to you of some account that hath been given of him by himself : it is wonderful strange , when there was that kindness of intimation given by the court , that he should do well to prove his loyalty , as well as his religion , that he did not produce some of his later acquaintance . if this man that makes himself a protestant , would have it believed he is such , i wish he would have brought some of those men that knew him at london to give you some account of him , and not to stretch backward sixteen years to prove his birth and education ; that is not the best account sure a man can give of himself , to say after he hath been talking at this disloyal rate , that he is a good protestant , because he was thought so 18 years ago . again in the next place , here is an account of the libels given by the old woman that is his sister : truly she would have it , and that is another libel at the bar , as though the man in the red coat , with r. c. upon it , had dropped this kind of libel in his house , and so he or somebody else put a trick upon him ; and because she would inveigle you to such an interpretation , she says that they staid behind till the man in the red coat had fetched away the shavings , and so here is a new sham plot to be put upon the prisoner , by dropping papers in his house ; a pretty kind of insinuation . but gentlemen , against the evidence of this woman , you have the very person that was there , the officer , who swears that he and his fellows came before the waterman into the house : but i suppose you observe how that notable talking maid and she does agree ; for the maid tells you there came a strange fellow seven weeks before , delivered these things into her hands , her master was abroad , and she was not to enquire whence they came , or what they were , but paid him six pence for bringing those things . now 't is very strange that the maid should pay for the bringing of those things , and yet after that should imagine that somebody else should put them there . but now gentlemen , in the next place , i must tell you another thing , which i would beg you to take notice of : here are two gentlemen , mr. bolron and mr. mowbray , and they have given you an account that they have been evidence against the papists , they did well in it ; but it hath been their misfortune hitherto they have not been believed ; but whether they have been believed or not before , is no guidance to you at this time ; but that which is to guide you is , whether or not they have given you now a testimony that you in your own consciences can believe . now can you believe what they have said , nay can you probably believe it without any circumstance to confirm it , against those express objections that arise from themselves , and against the oath of the person , when the one tells you so exactly of the twenty fifth , twenty sixth , twenty seventh , and twenty eighth of july , and the other tells you that smith took post , and yet overtook them not till the sunday after , which was the third of august ; and when the almanack is produced , it was so far from making out what they spake of to be the same time , that whereas one said he came to london the twenty eighth , the others almanack says it was the 27th . then pray how do these persons agree , when the one says that mr. smith talked with him upon the road the 28th . and the other says that they came to london the 27th . these are circumstances , gentlemen , that you must weigh , and you may bring the north and the south together as soon as their two testimonies , they are so far asunder . besides , gentlemen , i hope you take notice of a person that was sworn , a person of some quality , a scholar in the university here , that says balron ( though he denied it ) did shew one of these pictures , and did discover they were mr. colledges ; and balron himself , his own witness , tells you that he did acknowledge one of those pictures was his . it appears then how busie he was , and concerned himself in what belonged not to his profession . so that upon the whole matter , after this long evidence that hath been given , i must wholly appeal to your lordship and the jury ; as to the law , to your lordship and the court ; and as to the fact , to the jury : for i do not desire any sort of evidence should be strained against a prisoner at the bar , who is there to be tried for his life . god forbid if he be innocent , but he should be acquitted ; but on the other side , consider the murder of that great king of ever blessed memory is before you , and remember that base reflection which the witnesses tell you of upon that horrid action ; and as a great evidence , remember that seeming vindication of it at the bar , which certainly no english-man , no protestant according to the church of england , can hear without having his blood stirred in him . and these things are not only testified by dugdale and smith , but by gentlemen of known reputation and quality ; and he hath a little discover'd himself by that defence he hath made against their testimony . but know , gentlemen , that the king is concerned , your religion is concerned , that plot that is so much agreed to by all protestants is concerned ; for if dugdale , smith and turbervile be not to be believed , you trip up the heels of all the evidence and discovery of that plot. then i will conclude to you , gentlemen , and appeal to your consciences , for according to the oath that has been given to you , you are bound in your consciences to go according to your evidence , and are neither to be inveigled by us beyond our proof , nor to be guided by your commiseration to the prisoner at the bar against the proof ; for as god will call you to an account if you do an injury to him , so will the same god call you to account if you do it to your king , to your religion , and to your own souls . lo. ch . just . gentlemen , i shall detain you but a little , and shall be as short as i can , for your patience has been much exercised already : it is a burden , and a necessary one that lies upon us all , for there is nothing more necessary than that such tryals as these should be intire and publick , intire for the dispatch of them , and publick for the satisfaction of the world , that it may appear no man receives his condemnation without evidence , and that no man is acquitted against evidence . gentlemen , there are these two considerations in all cases of this nature ; the one is , the force of the evidence ; the other is , the truth of the evidence . as to the force of the evidence , that is a point in law that belongs to the court , and wherein the court is to direct you ; as to the truth of the evidence , that is a question in fact arising from the witnesses , & must be left upon them , whereof you are the proper judges . as to the force of the evidence in this case , it must be consider'd what the charge is ; it is the compassing the death of the king , and conspiring to seize the person of the king , which is the same thing in effect ; for even by the common law , or upon the interpretation of the statute of the 25. of edw. 3. that mentions compassing the death of the king to be treason , it has always been resolved , that whosoever shall imagine to depose the king , or imprison the king , are guilty of imagining the death of the king ; for they are things that depend one upon another : and never was any king deposed or imprisoned , but with an intention to be put to death , they are in consequences the same thing . now gentlemen , in cases of treason the law is so tender of the life of the king , that the very imagination of the heart is treason , if there be any thought concerning any such thing ; but then it must be manifested by some overt-act , upon the statute of the 25. of edw. 3. but upon the statute of the 13. of this king , made for the preservation of the kings person , if it be manifested by malicious and advised speaking , 't is sufficient . this is as to the charge , and as to the law concerning that charge , i must tell you there must be two witnesses in the case . now then for the force of the evidence , the question will arise there , whether this evidence , admitting it to be true , is sufficient to maintain the indictment ; so that if there be two witnesses , you must find him guilty . now as to this , gentlemen , the prisoner has before-hand called upon the court , and had their resolution ; and i hope you will remember what hath been said , and i shall have occasion to trouble you the less . there have been six witnesses produced for the king ; there are two of them , sir william jennings and mr. masters , that are some way applicable to the case , though they do not go to the treason , they are only to infer the probability of the treason . this of sir william jennings was upon the occasion of the bleeding of the prisoners nose , after his quarrel with fitz-gerald , when he said , he had lost the first bloud , and it would not be long e're there would be more lost ; which shews there were some extraordinary thoughts in his heart concerning some divisions , quarrels , and fighting that he expected should be . that which mr. masters has said , ( besides what he offered concerning his principles in justifying the long parliament ) was this , that when he called him colonel , marry mock not , said he , i may be a colonel in time ; that shews some extraordinary thoughts were in his heart . coll. will not that bear a more favourable interpretation , my lord ? must that necessarily follow upon my saying , i might be a colonel in time , and that more bloud would be lost ? if i had expressed it so . l. c. j. i say you had some extraordinary thoughts in your heart . coll. i am , sure , the fittest to explain my own thoughts . l. c. j. you would have done well to have explained it which way you expected to be a colonel . coll. it was not an expectation , for a may be , may not be ; my word was , mocking is catching : i thought he had called me cozen. l. c. j. well gentlemen , these are witnesses i say that go not to the treason , but only relate and reflect somewhat to shew there were thoughts in his heart , but no body could tell what they were , or know what he meant by them . coll. then always they are to be taken in the best sence . l. c. j. for the other witnesses , stephen dugdale , john smith , bryan haynes , and edward turbervile , they are all of them , taking what they say to be true , very full witnesses . the prisoner hath objected as to two of them , because they speak to nothing that was done in oxfordshire , but turbervile and dugdale they speak to what was said in oxfordshire . now for that i must tell you , if you believe any one of these witnesses , as to what was said in oxford , and any of them as to what was said in london , relating to the same fact of treason , they will be two good witnesses to maintain the indictment , tho' the one is in the one county , and the other in another ; for if a treason be committed in two counties , it is in the kings election where he will exhibit the indictment , and the evidence from both counties is good evidence ; that i take for law , and these four witnesses , with that consideration that they are true , as i think are full witnesses to maintain this indictment . why then the next head is concerning the truth of this evidence , of which you are to be judges , and you are the proper judges whether the witnesses speak true or no ; therefore you must have your own consciences to direct you in that case , and what i shall say about them , shall be only for your assistance . gentlemen , i shall not take upon me to repeat the evidence to you , it has been long ; and for me to speak out of memory , i had rather you should recur to your own memories , and your own notes : only i shall say something in general to contract your consideration of it . and as i told you at first , you must mind nothing of what the kings counsel said , for nothing must have impression upon you , but what they proved ; so you are not to consider any thing of the facts the prisoner spake of , that are not proved neither ; for common justice is concerned in it , and no justice can be done at that rate , if the prisoners own affirmations or purgation should be taken . no man ever can be accused but he will be ready to say he is innocent , and say as flourishing and popular things as ever he can for himself . and therefore these things must not weigh with you further , than as what is said , argues upon the proofs you have had . and you are to consider upon the proofs what the prisoner has produced , not what he says on the other side , for the proofs you have heard a great many witnesses in general produced by him , that say he was bred a protestant , and has been an honest man , that they knew no ill by him , that will be of little weight in a case of this consideration ; for unless he were a man that had committed treason to the knowledge of all the world , there is no man but can produce witnesses that know no ill of him , nor any treason , nor harm in him , therefore the question wiill lye upon the credit of the witnesses produced for the king barely , and that will be the consideration you are only to have , and you are to weigh them in the ballance against the witnesses produced against them . now gentlemen , for these witnesses i shall not repeat them to you , but only this i shall observe in general , that dugdale and turbervile that are the two most mateterial witnesses relating to what was spoke in oxfordshire , have the least said against them . i do not remember , i profess to you i do not ( but your own notes must guide you ) that there was any very material thing said against them except what is said against them by dr. oates , and dr. oates does say against smith , that he came out of the coffee-house , and swore dam him he would have colledges bloud , and when he reproved him , and said it was not fit for a minister of the gospel to use such expressions , he said god damn the gospel , if that be true 't is a great reflection upon the credit of smith . he says as to dugdale , that when he was expostulating with him about his evidence , he excused himself , that he was in want of mony , and was pressed to it , and being asked whether he was pressed to swear against his conscience , he said yes ; and much of the same kind he says as to turbervile , that he said he was disserted and would not starve . now all these three witnesses being called upon their oaths deny that which dr. oates testifies . now if it were in an indifferent and probable matter to have three men condemned , and set aside by the testimony of one is not equal , unless the man were of mighty extraordinary credit , and his testimony of more than ordinary weight . but then i must tell you this matter is very improbable , that after witnesses had sworn a thing they should voluntarily acknowledge themselves to be forsworn , and that without any provocation , they should at several times come to this one man and declare themselves rogues and villaines , but if it were probable , here are three mens oaths against one mans affirmation , this i say as to what concerns dugdale and turbervile , i do not see any thing material against them , besides now if you believe them , they are two witnesses to the full matter of the indictment , and two witnesses to what was done in oxfordshire , and that satisfies all the considerations of law. as to the rest of the witnesses , bryan haynes and john smith , you have had many witnesses produced against them , i shall not undertake to repeat the evidence , 't is your place and duty to weigh their testimony , and i shall leave it to your consideration . mr. just . jones . i shall add nothing to what my lord hath said , nor indeed can . colledge . my lord , i wish you would look upon your notes , you would then find there was much more evidence , that you have not repeated against turbervile and dugdale , besides what your lordship urged . l. c. j. if there be , i refer it to the memory of the jury , i can remember no more . colledge . i desire nothing but justice , and true justice . l. c. j. i am sure i design nothing else , you are a stranger to me , i believe i have seen your face , but i never knew you by name till now . look you , if the jury be like to stay , they may take something to refresh themselves at the bar before they go . colledge . my lord , i did see when the bill was brought against my lord howard , mr. attorney general and mr. sollicitor were an hour and half with the grand jury . mr. ser. jeff. you must say nothing now my lord has given the charge . col. let me have justice done my lord , that 's all i crave , that none may be with the jury . l. c. j. look you mr. colledge , they might be with the grand jury , but as to the petty jury there shall be a bayliff sworn , and neither mr. attorney , nor mr. sollicitor , nor any body else shall come to them till they be agreed of their verdict . mr. just . jones . if that be the thing you ask , you shall have it according to the law. colledge . and any friend of mine may be by . l. c. j. there shall be an officer sworn to keep them . then the court called for two bottles of sack , which the jury divided among themselves at the bar , for their refreshment , in the presence of the prisoner . after which a bayliff was sworn , and the jury withdrawing to consider of their verdict , the court adjourned for half an hour , and when they returned , proclamation being made for attendance , the court sent to see whether the jury were agreed , who immediately came in to court. cl. of cr. gentlemen , are you agreed of your verdict ? omn. yes . cl. of cr. who shall say for you ? omn. foreman . cl. of cr. stephen colledge , hold up thy hand , look upon him you of the jury : how say you , is he guilty of the high treason , whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? foreman . guilty . cl. of cr. look to him gaoler , he is found guilty of high treason ; what goods , &c. at which there was a great shout given , at which the court being offended , one person who was observed by the cryer to be particularly concerned in the shout , was committed to gaol for that night , but the next morning having received a publick reproof , was discharged without fees. then it being about 3 a clock in the morning , the court adjourned to 10. at which hour the court being sat , and first mr. aaron smith having entred into recognizance of 500 l. to appear the first day of the next term , at the court of kings-bench . lo. c. j. where is the prisoner stephen colledge ? cl. of cr. set up stephen colledge . then the prisoner was brought to the bar. cl. of cr. hearken to the court and hold up thy hand ; thou hast been indicted and arraigned of high treason , and for thy tryal hast put thy self upon thy country , and they have found thee guilty , what canst thou say for thy self , why the court should not give judgment on thee to dye according to the law. coll. my lord , i have nothing more to offer , but only that i am innocent of what is laid to my charge ; i think it was severe againste me , now contrary to what was sworn at london : they swear now , i was to seize the king at oxford . in london they swore i would pluck the king out of whitehall , but 't is altered since , and now 't is to seize the king at oxford , but be it either one or t'other ( for the one is as true as the other ) i am wholly innocent of either , i never had such a thought in my life , god forgive them that have sworn against me , i have no more to say , my lord. l. c. j. look you , mr. colledge , it is too late to profess your innocence , you have been tryed and found guilty ; but because you say it now , 't is necessary for me to say something in vindication of the verdict , which i think the court were all very well satisfied with : there were sufficient proofs to warrant it , and the jury did according to justice and right . i thought it was a case , that as you made your own defence , small proof would serve the turn to make any one believe you guilty . for as you would defend your self by pretending to be a protestant . it is wonder , i must confess , when you called so many witnesses to your religion and reputation , that none of them gave an account that they saw you receive the sacrament within these many years , or any of them particularly had seen you at church in many years , or what kind of protestant you were . if we look to your words and actions , it is true , they did prove this , that you were mighty violent and zealous in crying out against popery , and the papists ; but if we look to your actions , they savoured rather to promote the papists ends . for i must tell you , the papists are best extirpated and suppressed by a steady prosecution of the laws against them , not by violent crying out , and putting the people into fervent heats and confusions , for that is the thing the papists aim at ; they have no hopes any other way to creep into the kingdom but by confusion , and after the church is destroyed , that is , under god , the best bulwark against them . but you that cryed so loud against the papists , it was proved here who you called papists . you had the boldness to say that the king was a papist , the bishops were papists , and the church of england were papists . if these be the papists you cry out against , what a kind of protestant you are , i know not , i am sure you can be no good one . but truly i thought you would have made better proof of that thing , when you called so manny witnesses to that purpose : and then if we look to your politicks , what opinion you had of the king , it was proved by your discourse , and by witnesses , that you could have no exception to their testimony , that you did justify the late horrid rebellion , and the consequences of that was the murder of the best king in the world , that you should go to justifie the proceedings of that parliament , and affirm that they did nothing but what they had just cause to do . i say he that will justifie such a thing , if there were the same circumstances , would do the same thing again . then if we look upon another part of your defence , as to your arms , it was objected you went armed to oxon. and that was made the evidence of the overt act , when you said by words your intentions what you would do , that you would make one to seize the king , that you did go armed , you did confess . i expected you should have said , you only wore those things for your own defence upon the road , as a gentleman travelling , or went with your friends to accompany them out of town , and defend them from robbery ; but you said you went to guard the parliament . i did not understand what you meant by it . i do not believe the parliament sent for any guard , or intended to have any guard. i do not believe that any of them in their hearts thought they needed a guard ; for i believe there was not a man that had any thing that looked like that , for any thing of that nature . for we saw , that when the king by the necessity of his affairs , when the two houses differed so much , was pleased to dismiss them ; they all departed quietly , not a man was seen to be disturbed ; there was no appearance of any such thing , and how it should come ●nto your head , that were but a private man , to go to guard the parliament , i much wonder ▪ suppose all men of your condition should have gone to have guarded the parliament , what an assembly had there been ? what a bustle might they have made , and what confusion might there have been on a sudden ? and though you say you are no man of quality , nor likely to be able to do any thing upon the kings guards ; or the kings person ▪ yet if all of your quality had gone upon the same design that you did , what ill consequences might have been of it ? we see what has been done by massianello a mean man in another countrey , what by wat tyler and jack straw in this kingdom ? i confess i know not what you meant by it , but very ill things might have hapned upon it . so that these things when i look upon them ▪ and consider the complexion of your defence , it makes an easie proof have credit . but i think there was a full proof in your case ; yet i say , if there had been a great deal less proof , the jury might with justice have found you guilty . and because you now declare your self innocent of all you are charged with , i think my self bound to declare here in vindication of the countrey , and in vindication of the justice of the court , that it was a verdict well given , and to the satisfaction of the court , and i did not find my brothers did dislike it . this i say to you out of charity , that you may incline your mind to a submission to the justice that has overtaken you , and that you may enter into charity with all men , and prepare your self for another life . there is nothing now remaining , but to pronounce the sentence which the law provides for such an offence ; which is this , and the court does award , that you stephen colledge shall be carried from hence to the place from whence you came , and from thence you shall be drawn on an hurdle to the place of execution , where you shall be hanged up by the neck , and be cut down alive , your privy-members shall be cut off , and your bowels taken out and burnt before your face , your head shall be cut off from your body , your body be divided into four quarters , which are to be at the kings dispose , and the lord have mercy upon your soul. colledge . amen . my lord , i would know what time your lordship is pleased to appoint for my preparation ? lo. ch . just . that will depend upon the king's pleasure : we do not use in these cases of high-treason to precipitate the execution , but we will leave such order with the sheriff to receive the king's pleasure , and obey it . he will not do it so sudden but that you shall have notice to prepare your self ; but it depends upon the king's pleasure ; for your body is to be at his dispose . then the court adjourned . and on wednesday the 31. of august , 1681. being the day appointed by his majesty for his execution , he was according to sentence , executed over against the gate of the castle at oxford . finis . the tryal of roger earl of castlemaine for high treason in conspiring the death of the king, the subversion of the government, and introducing of popery and arbitrary power : before the lord chief justice scroggs &c. at the king's bench bar at westminster the 23th of june 1680 where he was acquitted. castlemaine, roger palmer, earl of, 1634-1705. 1681 approx. 161 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 38 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2006-06 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63190 wing t2214 estc r27542 09933422 ocm 09933422 44372 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63190) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 44372) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1369:13) the tryal of roger earl of castlemaine for high treason in conspiring the death of the king, the subversion of the government, and introducing of popery and arbitrary power : before the lord chief justice scroggs &c. at the king's bench bar at westminster the 23th of june 1680 where he was acquitted. castlemaine, roger palmer, earl of, 1634-1705. england and wales. court of king's bench. 68 p. printed for s.g. and n.e. and are to be sold by randal taylor, london : 1681. reproduction of original in the harvard university library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng charles -ii, -king of england, 1630-1685. trials (treason) -england. popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-03 judith siefring sampled and proofread 2006-03 judith siefring text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion by vertue of an order to me granted by the lords spiritual and temporal in parliament assembled , dated on thursday the 28th of octob. 1680 ; i do appoint randal taylor , near stationers hall , to print this trial of roger earl of castlemaine , and that no other person or persons print the same . jo. combe . london , januar. 12. 1680-1 . the tryal of roger earl of castlemaine for high treason , in conspiring the death of the king , the subversion of the government , and introducing of popery and arbitrary power . before the lord chief justice scroggs , &c. at the king's bench bar at westminster , the 23th june 1680 : where he was acquitted . london , printed for s. g and n. e. and are to be sold by randal taylor near stationers-hall , 1681. the tryal of roger earl of castlemaine . roger palmer esque earl of castlemaine in the kingdom of ireland , having been arraigned at the kings bench bar the sixteenth of june 1680 , for high treason : to which he pleaded not guilty , &c. on wednesday the 23th of june 1680 , being appointed for his trial , the court being sate , and the usual formalities perform'd , the lieutenant of the tower delivered him into court , and then the said court proceeded as followeth . clerk of the crown , cryar , make proclamation . proclamation for silence . cryer , o yes ! our soveraign lord the king doth strictly charge and command all manner of persons to keep silence upon pain of imprisonment . o yes ! if any one can inform our soveraign lord the king , the kings serjeant at law , the kings attourney general , or this inquest , now to be taken of the high treason , whereof roger palmer esq ; earl of castlemain in the kingdom of ireland , stands indicted , let them come forth and they shall be heard ; for the prisoner stands at the bar upon his deliverance . clerk of the crown , cryer , make an o yes . cryer , o yes ! you good men that are empannelled to enquire , between our soveraign lord the king and roger palmer esq ; earl of castlemain within the kingdom of ireland , answer to your names clerk of the crown , roger palmer esq ; earl of castlemain in the kingdom of ireland , hold up thy hand . these good men that were lately called and now here appear , are to pass between our soveraign lord the king and you upon your life or death , if you challenge any of them , you must speak as they come to the book to be sworn , and before they are sworn . jury . sir john cutler knight and baronet . sir reginald foster baronet . henry herriott esq richard cheney esq thomas johnson esq john robert's esq francis dorrington esq hugh squire esq charles good esq john pulford esq edward claxton esq francis mayhew gent. cryer , o yes , our soveraign lord the king doth strictly charge and command all manner of persons to keep silence upon pain of imprisonment . c. of the crown . roger palmer esq ; earl of castlemain in the kingdom of ireland , hold up your hand . you gentlemen of the jury that are now sworn look upon the prisoner and hearken to his charge . you shall understand that he stands indicted by the name of roger palmer esq ; earl of castlemain in the kingdom of ireland ; for that he as a false traytor against our most illustrious and excellent prince and lord , charles the second , by the grace of god of england , scotland , france and ireland king , defender of the faith , &c. and his natural lord ; not having the fear of god before his eyes , nor weighing the duty of his allegiance , but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil , his cordial love , true due and natural obedience , which true and faithful subjects of our said soveraign lord the king ought to bear towards him , altogether withdrawing , and contriving , and with all his might intending , to disturb the peace and common tranquility of this kingdom , and to bring and put our soveraign lord the king to death and final destruction , and alter the true worship of god within this kingdom established to the superstition of the romish church , and to stir up and move war against our said soveraign lord the king within this realm of england , and to subvert the government thereof , the twentieth day of june in the thirtieth year of the reign of our said soveraign lord , charles the second , of england , scotland , france and ireland , king , defender of the faith , &c. at the parish of st. giles in the fields in the county of midd. with divers other false traitors , to the jurors unknown , did traiterously imagine and intend the killing , death and final destruction of our said lord the king , and to change and alter and utterly subvert the ancient government of this kingdom , and to depose and wholly to deprive our said lord the king of his crown and government of this realm of england , and to extirpate the true protestant religion : and to accomplish and fulfil the same most wicked treasons and traiterous imaginations and purposes aforesaid , the said roger palmer esq ; earl of castlemain in the kingdom of ireland , and other false traitors , to the jurors unknown , the same twentieth day of june , in the thirtieth year aforesaid , with force and arms , in the parish of st. giles in the fields aforesaid , in the county aforesaid , advisedly , devilishly , maliciously , and traiterously , did assemble , unite , and gather themselves together , and then and there , advisedly , devilishly , maliciously , subtily , and traiterously did consult and agree , to bring our said soveraign lord the king to death and final destruction , and to deprive him of his crown and government of england , and to introduce and establish the religion of the church of rome in this kingdom ; and the sooner to fulfil and accomplish the same most wicked treasons and traiterous imaginations and purposes aforesaid , he then and there did falsly , maliciously , and trayterously promise divers great rewards , and did pay divers sums of money to several persons unknown ; and then and there falsly and traiter ously did write divers notes , to incite several other persons to accomplish the treasons aforesaid , against the life of our soveraign lord the king , his crown and dignity , and contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided . clerk of the crown , upon this indictment he hath been arraigned , and hath pleaded thereunto not guilty , and for his tryal he puts himself upon god and his countrey , which countrey you are . your charge is to inquire , whether he be guilty of the high treason whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? if you find him guilty , you are to inquire , what goods and chattles , lands and tenements , he had at the time when the high treason was committed , or at any time since ? if you find him not guilty , you are to say so and no more ; and hear your evidence . cryer , o yes , if any one will give evidence on the behalf of our soveraign lord the king , against roger palmer esq ; earl of castlemain in the kingdom of ireland , let him come forth and he shall be heard ; for the prisoner now stands at the bar upon his deliverance . m. bonithon , may it please you my lord , and you gentlemen of the jury , the prisoner at the bar stands indicted for high treason ; for that he intended to disturb the peace within this kingdom establish'd , and to destroy and alter the government , and to bring the king to death and final destruction , and to alter our religion to the superstition of the church of rome , did on the twentieth day of june in the thirtieth year of the reign of our soveraign lord the king , consult and treat with several other persons , and that he with these persons , did agree to destroy the king and alter the religion , and cause rebellion ; and further to accomplish these treasons , he did promise and agree to pay several accompts and deposite several sums of money , and did likewise write and publish several books . to this he hath pleaded not guilty . if we prove these things , you are to find him guilty . att. gen. may it please your lordship , my lord castlemain here stands indicted for high treason ; that is , for designing to murther the king and alter the government and law ; and this is but a parcel of the plot , which hath been carrying on a great while , and many persons tried for it ; and some have suffer'd and been executed for it . and , my lord , we will give your lordship evidence , this my lord castlemain hath at several times conspired the death of the king , and that he hath reproved persons for not doing it . and , my lord , he hath been in consults among jesuits , where these matters have been carried on , and this whole design hath been negotiated . and my lord castlemain hath been consenting and agreeing to all these matters . and , my lord , when the trials were in hand , it did appear upon those trials there were many persons brought from st. omers to be witnesses against dr. oates , to prove he was not in england at that time when he said in his depositions that he did consult with the jesuits ; and these persons my lord castlemain had the management and instruction of at that time . and all along at the old baily my lord castlemain was present there , and did countenance these persons , and was an intercessor for them . these are but branches and circumstances , what is material we will prove by witnesses . art. gen. come doctor oates , pray tell what you know . prisoner , my lord , i have a long time wished for this day ; and your lordship may very well remember it . the reason why i have so much desired a trial , is because i thought it a means , and the best means , and the only means to shew to the world my innocency , and also to shew to the world how much i have been calumniated by this charge . l. c. j. what have you to say ? have you any thing to say against doctor oates ? prisoner , no , my lord. i only say this , here i am a prisoner at the bar , and i have pleaded not guilty , and throw my self upon this court ; and therefore i am very willing to hear what this man will say . d. oates , my lord , i humbly move the court. whether or no , i may use my own method ? l. c. j. give your charge , we direct nothing . d. oates , my lord , in the year 1677 , i was sent ever into spain by the jesuits that were here in england ; where i remained for several months , and transacted business for them ; and my lord , i returned from spain in november , and brought several letters from some english fathers there ; among which there was one directed for my lord castlemain . my lord , i did not deliver the letter to him , but my lord , the contents of the letter were to this effect — l. c. j. how came you to see the contents ? d. oates , my lord , i was at the writing of the letter , and so i did see the contents of it . l. c. j. did the priests shew it to you ? or did you only see it yourself ? d. oates , no , my lord ; it was shewn me by them : and the contents of this letter were , that the fathers in spain were very zealous to concur with the fathers here in england in the design , which was the subversion of the government , altering the religion , and the destruction of the king. l. c. j. was that in the letter ? d. oates , no , my lord , not in words at length . l. c. j. what was , as far as you know , the very expression of the letter ? d. oates , the word design , my lord. l. c. j. only that , to promote the design ? d. oates , yes my lord : and under that word we did comprehend all those things , that is , as we usually took it among one another . l. c. j. did you deliver this letter to my lord castlemain ? d. oates , no , my lord , i did not deliver this letter ; but when i went to st. omers we received an account from my lord castlemain of his receipt of this letter . l. c. j. what did you do with it ? d. oates , i left it with the provincial , my lord , who was then mr. strange . l. c. j. was it not given to you to give it him ? d. oates , it was given me to give the lord castlemain , but being then a stranger to him , i was willing to send one of his own messengers with it . l. c. j. where was my lord ? d. oates , i can't tell , my lord , i did not see him then . i went over to st. omers in december 77 , or the latter end of november . l. c. j. where were you when you gave this letter to the provincial ? d. oates , i was in london , my lord. l. c. j. where did you receive this letter ? d. oates , in spain , my lord , at valledolid , of one armstrong . l. c. j. who was it directed to ? d. oates , to my lord castlemain ; but i did not then know him , and so i gave it the provincial , my lord , i went over to st. omers in the latter end of november or the beginning of december 77 , and after i had been there some few days , there did arrive a packquet from london to st. omers , in which there was a letter from my lord castlemain . l. c. j. to whom ? d. oates , to the fathers of the society of st. omers , in which my lord castlemain gave them an account of a letter that he had lately received from spain . l. c. j. how did you know the contents of this letter ; d. oates , my lord , i was privy to their letters . l. c. j. was you acquainted with my lord castlemains hand ? d. oates , my lord , i will give you an account of that , i did not know it then , but only as it was generally said among us . l. c. j. how was it subscribed ? d. oates , castlemain , my lord , and sometimes , my lord , he subscribed himself palmer . l. c. j. how many letters have you seen ? d. oates , several letters , l. c. j. was this the first ? d. oates , this was the first as near as i can remember . and , my lord , he gave an account in that letter , that he had received a letter from spain , and was glad the fathers in spain had so good an opinion of his integrity in the caused l. c. j. did he say from whom he had received it ? d. oates , my lord , i can't remember that , that he had received a letter i am certain . l. c. j. do you know what the purport of the letter was ? d. oates , yes , my lord , i will give you a plain account . my lord , he wrote he had received a letter from spain , and that he was glad the fathers in spain had so great confidence in his integrity . and , my lord , in march there came another letter from my lord castlemain : for my lord castlemain had left some things at leige , wherein he did complain of the fathers , that they made no more haste for to send his things to him ; some odd things he had left there , and , my lord , he gave an account of a certain letter he received from the rector of liege , whose advice he did not like , for the rector of leige and the rector of gant were mighty zealous that the secular clergy should be personally present in this affair . l. c. j. did he write so ? i would have you say what he writ . d. oates , my lord , i have told you , he gave an account that he was unwilling to have the secular clergy engaged , because they were a loose sort of men , and of no principles , and therefore he thought them not fit to be trusted . my lord , in april there was a consult : i came over from st. omers in april , some three or four , or five daies before the consult , i am not able to guess at the particular time , but it was near upon the consult . my lord , this consult was divided into several companies after they had met at the white-horse tavern , wherein they did some things that did relate to the order , as to send father cary to rome . after that they divided themselves into several companies , wherein they did agree in ordering the death of the king. l. c. j. you were by ? d. oates , my lord , i was imployed by them to give an account of the sense of one company to another . l. c. j. were you by when they concluded the death of the king. d. oates , yes , my lord , i was then present . l. c. j. did you sign among the rest ? d. oates , my lord , i don't come here to accuse my self . l. c. j. you are pardoned if it be so . d. oates , my lord , i did consent . my lord , in this consult they met together , and an oath of secrecy was administred , my lord castlemain was there too within some few days after the consult , that is , the gentleman whom i accuse for treason , i say , did come , and enquired about the copies of some letters for to be sent up into germany , and did desire that an agreement between them and the monks might be made up , there being a difference between them ; so that they might have the assistance of that order to carry on the design . l. c. j. what gentleman was this ? d. oates , it was the prisoner , my lord , at the bar. l. c. j. would the gentleman let you hear him say , that he desired assistance to carry on the design , and you a stranger to him ? d. oates , my lord , i do not think i was a stranger to him so much as he was a stranger to me , he knew i was their servant and employed by them . l. c. j. would he say in your hearing , that he desired their assistance to carry on the design , and you did not know him ? d. oates , my lord , i did not well know him at that time , and i brought several messages from the fathers , and from mr. langhorn , and i gave them an account before him . l. c. j. how often had you seen him ? d. oates , that time he was there , my lord. l. c. j. how many messages had you ? d. oates , i will tell your lordship where i had been , i had been at mr. simmonds's , who was then confessor to the earl of aurundel , who is since turn'd protestant ; confessor to him as he pretended , and we looked upon him to be . and i had been at father cain's , who was in turnmill-street , and i had been , my lord , at mr. langhorn's in the temple , and some other places which i do not now remember , it is so long since . so , my lord , i gave them account of my business , and i did see that gentleman , but did not know his name , till , my lord , in june . l. c. j. when was this ? d. oates , this was , my lord , as near as i can remember in may. l. c. j. so you did not know his name till three weeks or a month after ? d. oates , no , my lord , it was in the latter part of june . j. jones , you saw him first in may ? d. oates , yes , my lord. j. jones , and you did not see him till after the consult ? i don't ask you whether he was there or no , but whether you saw him before the consult was signed ? d. oates , no , my lord. l. c. j. how did you come to know his name ? d. oates , my lord , in june mr. langworth and i were going over lincolns-inn-fields , intending to go to the fountain in fullers rents , because there was a sort of drink that he loved , and we were to drink together , it was in the evening , and so in our way as we went , we met with my lord castlemain , whom mr. langworth did salute , and then we came back to mr. fenwick's chamber . l. c. j. with whom did you come back ? d. oates , with my lord castlemain . l. c. j. did you know his name ? d. oates , mr. langworth told me , it was the prisoner at the bar , my lord , and the prisoner at the bar was giving an account of some letters he had received out of the countrey ; and mr. langworth was giving him an account how forward the rector of leige and the rector of gant were in offering to have the secular clergy engaged with them , and some other discourse they had which i can't remember , but about the design . l. c. j. what did they talk of at that time ? you must as near as you can tell us what discourse they had . d. oates , i will give your lordship this , they were speaking of the transactions of the consult , and how unanmious the fathers were in signing the consult . l. c. j. who was speaking of it ? d. oates , mr. langworth and mr. fenwick , and my lord castlemain was present . l. c. j. they did talk of it ? d. oates , yes . l. c. j. did they mention the particulars of that consult ? d. oates , yes . l. c. j. what was that ? d. oates , laying aside the king. l. c. j. and what else ? d. oates , and bringing in the popish religion , the catholick religion , i speak their own words . l. c. j. and this discourse they had in the hearing of my lord castlemain . d. oates , yes , and my lord castlemain said , now he should be revenged for the injuries done to him . l. c. j. go on . d. oates , i have nothing else to say of my lord castlemain , that i can think of at present l. c. j. now my lord , you may ask him what questions you think fit . prisoner , mr. oates , repeat your journey again . d. oates , my lord , i say this , i went a ship-board in april , i returned from valledolid in november , i arrived in london in november , and staid in london some time , and then i went to st. omers in november or december new stile or old stile , i staid at st. omers , from thence i went to watton , then , my lord , in the month of march we went to leige , and returned back again : in the month of april , we came hither , some time before the consult , and staid here some time after . prisoner , what time were you at leige , pray sir ? d. oates , in march 77. j. jones , the end of 77. d. oates , no , my lord , we were at st. omers again in march. l. c. j. you returned in march 77 / 78 d. oates , yes , my lord , the stile doth so alter . prisoner , that is before lady-day ? d. oates , yes , my lord , it was before lady-day , we arrived here in london in may or in april , and we staid here some few days . prisoner , when did you come over again , pray sir ? d. oates , my lord , it is now two years ago or better , and i can't remember every particular time . my lord , we were here in may. prisoner , i will ask him as many questions as i think reasonable , and when , my lord , i do desire times and he can't tell the times , he must tell me so . l. c. j. mr. oates , answer my lord what questions he asks you . d. oates , i will tell my lord , castlemain as near as i can remember , my lord. prisoner , mr. oates , when was it you came over ? d. oates , really it was some few days before the consult . prisoner , how many days do you think ? d. oates , really i can't remember . l. c. j. i suppose you have your memorials . d. oates , really , my lord , no. l. c. j. have you any thing more to ask ? prisoner , yes , my lord , a great many questions . were you present , mr. oates , pray , at that consult , when i consented to the kings death ? was you by ? d. oates , i was present at the consult ; but i do not charge you to be at the consult . l. c. j. he asks you where it was he agreed to it ? d. oates , at mr. fenwick's chamber , i remember it was about seven or eight a clock that we were going over lincolns-inn-fields . l. c. j. how long might you be at fenwicks ? d. oates , it was about 11 or 12 a clock i came away . prisoner , when you met me in lincolns-inn-fields , was i in a coach or on foot , or was any body with me ? d. oates , i can't say whether your lordship had a man with you , or no. l. c. j. was there any body with him ? d. oates , i did not take notice of that . l. c. j. you were two hours together , pray let me ask you this question , what was your discourse about ? d. oates , that was part of the discourse , my lord. l. c. j. what ? you have given us a very short account of it in four lines : you were two hours together , what was the main of your discourse about ? d. oates , my lord , i will give you as plainly as i can , the discourse at that time . c. l. j. pray let us know what the main of your discourse was about . d. oates , one part of their discourse was about the revenues of their colledges , and how they had suffer'd by the french's taking st. omers , and what losses they had sustained by reason of the change of government by the conquest ; for the crown of spain had entailed on the colledge of st. omers five or six hundred a year , for the maintaining the foundation of their house , or foundation rent , and it was taken away by reason of the conquest that france had made over the spanish dominions there ; and they were consulting how they should write to father le chese to be an instrument to move the french king to restore this annuity , that was a settlement entailed upon it . l. c. j. how came you into this discourse ? d. oates , this was after the other discourse . l. c. j. how came you to discourse this affair here in england ? d. oates , i will tell your lordship as near as i can remember : when we met in lincolns-inn-fields , mr. langworth recommended me to my lord castlemain , and bad me take notice of him . i can't say this is my lord castlemain , but this is that man i saw . l. c. j. did he call him by his name ? d. oates , he told him that i was such a one , and that i was serviceable to them . and upon our way as we went to mr. fenwick's chamber , he inquired into the causes of my coming over so soon again , for he said i went over but last month. said he , how came it to pass he came over so soon again ? saith he , we wanted him to do some business for us . and there were more particulars of the transactions of the consult mentioned to my lord castlemain . l. c. j. how did they bring in the particulars of that design ? d. oates , this is as near as i can remember . l. c. j. how came they to talk of laying aside the king and bringing in the catholick religion ? d. oates , my lord , after they had given an account of the transactions of the consult : this was one part of the consult . l. c. j. pray how came they to bring it in , in discourse ? d. oates , my lord , they spake of the particulars of it . l. c. j. i wonder what introduced the particulars : was it to acquaint him with those particulars ? d. oates , my lord , i have nothing to say to that , they were things so generally talked of by those of the jesuitical party , that when ever they met , they scarce did talk of any thing else but of that , and so they did at this time . l. c. j. pray tell me the whole discourse , as you can remember , that relates to this time . d. oates , my lord , i have told your lordship , we met with my lord castlemain in lincolns-inn-fields . i have told you , my lord , that we went to mr. fenwicks , i have told you , my lord , that after some discourse ( how it was introduced ; i cannot be positive , but as near as i can remember ) they were speaking of my going over and coming again so soon , my going from the consult to st. omers and returning again into england so soon , and so one word brought in another . l. c. j. did you know then that my lord castlemain had ever heard of this matter before ? d. oates , my lord , i don't know ; but i am morally certain as to my self ; but i can't swear he did ? att. general , did he speak of it to him as a stranger to it ? d. oates , no. j. jones , by the letter you spake of he knew before . l. c. j. answer my brother's question , was the letter you had seen , before or after that discourse at fenwicks ? d. oates , my lord , that was after the consult . l. c. j. then you know he did know of the design ? d. oates , my lord , i think not of the particulars of the design . l. c. j. that is , he knew of this design for the main . when you talk of the design you always mean the consult ? d. oates , no , my lord , when we say the consult , we mean what was agreed on at that consult , not concerning these matters that were done six months before . l. c. j. mr. oates , tell me when you mention the design and the consult . do not you alwaies mean the death of the king and the bringing in popery ? d. oates , yes , my lord , but the terms are not convertible : for , my lord , when we say the consult , there was something else done , my lord , as that consult which had not an absolute relation to the design , and of that i will give your lordship one instance , as the sending father cary to rome , which they did in some three years . l. c. j. some trivial matters concerning their own government , but the thing you talk of is the same consult and design . d. oates , when i speak of the word design , it was so taken among us , and so received by my lord castlemain . l. c. j. how can you say it was so received by him ? d. oates , because he used the same word , and answered us according to our interpretation . j. jones , my lord , he speaks of the design thus , there was a design for the killing the king , there was a design of the priests and fathers for it ; but , saith he , afterwards there was a general consultation , and this design came to be form'd by this general consult , which my lord castlemain , as he thinks , had no knowledge of till the time they met together in lincolns-inn fields , and afterward went and discours'd about it . l. c. j. it is very fair , that he doth not know that my lord castlemain had any knowledge before the consult of this business ; but , he says , the design upon which the consult was , that he might know , which was to destroy the king , and bring in popery . and he says , my lord castlemain did understand this word design in that sense they did ; because he answered their letters according to their interpretation of it . how do you know he understood the word design in its utmost capacity as you understood it ? d. oates , when we have our words , we have our keys whereby we understand them . but i will answer this question to the satisfaction of the gentlemen of the jury . my lord , he hath many times spoken in his letters of introducing the popish religion , and annext it to the word design of promoting the catholick religion here in england . l. c. j. now methinks you have brought the word design to something else than killing the king. d. oates , yes , my lord , the subversion of religion and the government . l. c. j. did he put in government ? did he talk of bringing in the catholick religion and altering the government . d. oates , no , my lord , i won't say that . l. c. j. when we are examining concerning mens lives , we must be careful of their words in such matters . d. oates , one part of my evidence i have omitted , your lordship did ask me how i came to know my lord castlemain's hand . my lord , somtimes we received letters from him subscribed palmer , and sometimes subscribed castlemain , sometimes some other name which i may not remember ; and they were generally received as from him . and i have seen my lord castlemain write , for that night , as near as i remember , it was post-night . l. c. j. at fenwick's chamber ? d. oates , at fenwick's chamber , and my lord castlemain did write a letter , subscribed it and sealed it , and i was fain to go to the general post-house , it was so late . j. jones , what did he subscribe then ? d. oates , no , my lord , i saw no more than the superscription . l. c. j. then you did not see his name to it ? d. oates , no , my lord. my lord castlemain did ask , why he had not answers to such and such letters ? for several letters i had seen which were not of much moment . l. c. j. i wish you had one that was of moment . d. oates , it cannot be expected , my lord , that i should have them . l. c. j. my lord , ask him what you please . prisoner , you say , mr. oates , you received letters from me in spain . d. oates , i never said so . prisoner , you saw letters in spain from me ? d. oates , yes , i have seen letters in spain that were from you . prisoner , look you , mr. oates , pray let me ask you a question , you said this , that you did not know me when you met me at the consult ? d. oates , what consult ? prisoner , at fenwick's chamber . d. oates , i did not know you at wild-house . prisoner , there you met me first . d. oates , there i met the prisoner at the bar. l. c. j. he says he did not know you at wild-house , but he came to know you by langworth in lincolns-inn-fields , and then you went together to fenwick's chamber . prisoner , mr. oates , did not you say , that at wild-house you did not know me , nor i you ? l. c. j. he says he can't tell whether you knew him or no , but he did not know you . prisoner , was i familiar with you ? d. oates , no , my lord. prisoner , did i talk treason at wild-house ? d. oates , it was the discourse of the day , but i do not remember every particular of the discourse , but i remember what your opinion was concerning the rector of liege and the rector of gant. prisoner , was there any thing about killing the king at wild-house ? d. oates , really my lord , i can't remember , i wont charge it there because i am upon my oath ; though i morally believe , as to my self , that there was discourse bad enough there . prisoner , mr. oates , pray will you hear me , then the acquaintance i had with you was by mr. langworth , and then we went that night to fenwick's chamber , and there we staid very long , and there we had all this discourse ? d. oates , yes . prisoner , look mr. oates , was there any by besides mr. langworth and mr. fenwick ? d. oates , really , my lord , i don't remember any body was by , unless a maid might come to fill a cup of drink or so . prisoner , mr. oates , pray mr. oates , did you and i ever meet together after that time ? d. oates , really , my lord , i can't be exact in that . prisoner , did you never see me nor discourse with me after that time ? d. oates , i cannot recollect my self as to that i cannot remember . l. c. j. he does not remember that ever he was with you afterwards ? prisoner , you don't know whether ever i discours'd with you afterwards ? d. oates , i don't remember . prisoner , very well , mr. oates , look , you , sir , you don't remember that i ever had any discourse with you after that time ; and no body was by but mr. fenwick and mr. langworth ? d. oates , as i remember . prisoner , was not there another priest there ? d. oates , there is no body occurs to my memory . prisoner , mr. oates , you brought me letters from spain . d. oates , i brought a letter from spain directed to ●ou in 77. prisoner , was i in town or out of town ? d. oates , i delivered it to the provincial . prisoner , you went over to liege ; did not you see me there ? d. oates , no , my lord , i did not see you there , i only went to wait upon a gentleman that was a priest afterwards , that went to take orders . prisoner , did you not see me at liege ? d. oates , no , my lord. prisoner , you were at liege , did you stay there ? d. oates , i lay there one night . att. general , have you any thing to ask , my lord ? prisoner , presently , my lord. j. jones , it is very reasonable my lord should question you . you own him to be the lord castlemain , when was it you did first discover this business concern●●g my lord castlemain ? d. oates , my lord , i did discover my lord castlemain to be in the plot , the last sessions of the long ●arliament , and i accused my lord castlemain this ●rinity term was twelve months , and my lord castlemain was committed : for when mr. dangerfield came in and accused my lord castlemain , i brought a charge a second time against my lord castlemain . j. jones , did you discover all this then ? d. oates , i did charge him for having an hand in the design in general . j. jones , to the parliament ? d. oates . yes , to the parliament . prisoner , you say when i assented to the kings death in fenwick's chamber , that i said , i should now find a time to be reveng'd . d. oates , pray , my lord , don't put me to mention such reflecting evidence . prisoner , when you were before the king , you did in pursuance of this speak of a divorce . d. oates , my lord , i will give evidence as to that if that my lord comes to be indicted for his priesthood . l. c. j. my lord may ask what questions he shall think fit . att. general , my lord says he has said it , and what he said in another place he is not to treat now of . prisoner , suppose i can prove him an ill man in any place , is not that fit to be spoken of here ? since he hath brought the king upon the stage , and since he hath accused me before the king and your lordships of a devorce , i ask him whether he saw it ? d. oates , i will tell your lordship what i said as to the divorce , i heard it discours'd of generally among the fathers beyond sea , and this was some other part of the discourse at wild-house ; and i heard my lord castlemain say that he had been at great charg to carry on that business of the divorce . prisoner , at wild-house ? d. oates , at wild-house . now , my lord , i took no notice of it , because it was not my business . but , my lord , after that there was a priests chamber that was searched , and there was the whole case stated ; now what is become of the state of that case , my lord , i cannot tell . l. c. j. by whom was that case stated ? d. oates , there was a letter found , whereby my lord castlemain should have the matter directed , in order to the carrying on the divorce that was to be between him and his wise barbara . prisoner , did not you tell the king that you saw the divorce in strange's hand ? d. oates , my lord , i will tell you this , i gave an account to the king , that i saw in strange's hand an acconnt of a divorce that was between my lord castlemain and barbara dutcheis of cleaveland . recorder , my lord , if he ask too many questions that don't relate to this matter , it is impossible to give an account of every particular . prisoner , my lords , i humbly submit this case . recorder , ask him what you said to such a man upon the ninth of august was twelve month , must he give an account ? l. c. j. he must say he does not know . recorder , indeed it is reasonable that my lord castlemain should ask him some questions , and that mr. oates should give him an account . att. general , my lord , will you give me leave to speak ? if he may ask questions about such forreign matters as this , no man can justify himself . l. c. j. this is not so mighty remote but use may be made of it . att. general , if he should ask whether he were such a day at such an house , and tell him yes , and mistake the day ; any man may be catch'd thus . prisoner , how can a man be catch'd in the truth ? att. general , my lord castlemain may , if he can , catch him in any thing he gives in evidence here . prisoner , my lord , if your lordship over-rule me , i will say no more . mr. atturney says i come to catch him , i confess i do . att. general , you should not ask him forreign questions . l. c. j. he asks a plain question , why do you labour so much that he should not ask , whether he had seen the divorce ? my lord castlemain , i have askt the question for you , whether or no he said he had seen the divorce ? and he does not remember whether he said so or no. att. general , my lord , i think with your lordships leave , that he is not bound to answer questions , that are not to the evidence . l. c. j. if so be he would come to make application , it may be well enough . att. general , i say it for the method of the evidence , my lord , that i would not have these excursions . prisoner , i desire your lordship that i may say out what i have to say . i say this , that no man in the world that speaks truth can be catch'd , neither will mr. atturney suffer me to catch him . att. general , i say you have liberty to catch him in any thing that doth belong to the evidence . prisoner , i come to shew you the fitness of it to this affair . he comes and tells you , among other consults , of wild-house , and my meeting him in lincolns-inn-fields , the recommendations of mr. langworth , and going to fenwicks chamber , where we talk'd of altering the government , and my assenting to kill the king : and since you have brought the king upon the stage , i will refresh your memory a little , since you talk of revenging my self , look you if you did not mention a divorce to the king and also to my lord chief justice . att. general , my lord , you are under a mistake . prisoner , pray give me leave , mr. atturney . att. general , you make such excursions into forreign matters . prisoner , mr. oates , you did say you saw a divorce , i ask you whether you saw a divorce , and where , or whether you said so ? l. c. j. he says , he does not remember he said so . d. oates , i do not remember whether i said so or no , my lord , i have it down but indeed i did not set my thoughts a-work . att. general , he hath given you an answer that may satisfie you . j. ●aymond , he hath papers wherein he hath entred memorandums to refresh his memory , but these papers he hath not by him . l. c. j. then he may say he hath not . att. general , that he hath already , my lord. l. c. j. have you any more to say ? prisoner , i have , my lord , if you will give me leave to write down two words . prisoner , mr. oates , you told my lords the judges that i did say , i was at great expence about a divorce . dr. oates , yes , prisoner , that is very well , mr. oates . att. general , call mr. dangerfield . [ d. oates was going out of the court. prisoner , may mr. oates go out of the court. court , yes , yes . d. oates , i will be within call , my lord. prisoner , i only submit it to your lordships , whether or no a witness may go out of the court ? d. oates , i will stay then . att. general , swear mr. dangerfield . prisoner , pray stay . l. c. j. why so ? prisoner , here i am a prisoner , my lords , and submit it to your lordships , whether or no mr. dangerfield , who hath had the censure of this court , may be a witness ? whether or no council shall shew reasons to your lordship , whether he may speak or no. j. jones , you must shew your exceptions that you have against him . prisoner , my exception is this , that he was convicted of felony , that he broke prison , and was outlawed upon it . besides this , my lord , he is a stigmatick , hath stood in the pillory and was burnt in the hand . now i humbly beseech your lordships , that you will be pleased to hear what my council can say , and then , my lords , if your over-rule , i shall give place with all my heart . l. c. j. i think it reasonable , if you desire council , that they should be allowed to speak . att. general , if your lordship please , when my lords exceptions appear . j. jones , what are your exceptions , my lord ? prisoner , that i told you , before-hand , he is an outlawed person , he is convicted of felony . j. jones , when was he out-lawed ? att. general , in the 27th . year of the king , and we say he hath a pardon in the 30th year of the king. l. c. j. how do you prove he was burnt in the hand , my lord ? att. general , when was he burnt in the hand ? prisoner , call briscoe . att. general , we bring a pardon unto that , and that will restore him . [ a record produced . att. general , that record we confess , shew the pardon , shew the pardon . l. c. j. now go to that for which he was burnt in the hand . att. general , here is a pardon that extends to them all . [ the pardon read ; decimo tertio die januarii anno regni , &c. l. c. j. this does not do it . att. general , yes , my lord , it does . l. c. j. is that the newgate pardon ? att. general , yes , my lord. l. c. j. we have had it in the court. att general , yes , my lord. l. c. j. and felony and outlawry is in it ▪ att. general , yes , my lord. l. c. j. where is that for which he was burnt in the hand ? att. general , for that we give an answer ; he was received to the benefit of his clergy , and he was burnt in the hand , and his pardon is after that too . l. c. j. so it is . att. general , then his pardon answers them all . l. c. j. now you see , my lord , you think dangerfield ought not to be a witness , who hath gone through so many pnnishments , out-lawed for felony , and burnt in the hand for felony ; mr atturney makes answer , we have a pardon , and by that he is restored , as he says , to be a witness again . if you desire council to speak to this point , whether or no a man branded and burnt in the hand for felony , and afterwards is pardoned , is capable of being a witness ? i see no reason to deny it you . att. general , if there be matter for council to speak in that case , we must submit , if your lordship make it a doubt . l. c. j. i do for my own part ; in this i am clear , if a man were convicted of perjury , that no pardon will make him a witness , because it is to do the subject wrong . a pardon does not make a man an honest man , it takes off reproaches ; and the law is wise in that , the law will not suffer endless contumelies to be heaped upon men , nor to be call'd perjured rascalls , and such things . it is only to prevent upbraiding language , which tends to the breach of the peace . but in my opinion , if a man stands convicted in court , for perjury , no pardon can ever make him a witness and set him upright again . but that is a different case from this , we are upon this single case , whether a man that is burnt in the hand for felony , whether a pardon can set him right or no ? for this i make more doubtful than the other : for a man may be , that hath committed a robery , would be afraid to forswear himself ; for though one is a great , the other is a greater sin , and that in the subject matter ; which considered , i think it reasonable to allow my lord council to speak to that single point , that a person being burnt in the hand for felony , and afterwards pardoned , whether he is capable of being a witness ? prisoner , then i do name mr. jones ; mr. saunders , and mr. darnal . l. c. j. very well . [ mr. saunders was call'd , but was not in court. l. c. j. are you prepared , mr. jones , to speak ? mr. jones , no , my lord. j. jones , my lord , do you except against that one particular ? prisoner , i stand upon both ; his being pillored and burnt in the hand . l. c. j. will you admit that he stood in the pillory ? att. general , i know nothing of it . l. c. j. i will tell you , my lord , you will see whether it be necessary to protract this or no ; for your council will hardly undertake to argue unprepared about this point , and if the tryal should be adjourn'd , it would be very troublesome . i think it the duty of my place to discharge my conscience for you and against you as the matter shall fall out ; and if so be that you should insist upon it ; and he be capable of being a witness , supposing it so ; yet i must say , you may give in the evidence of every record of the conviction of any sort of crimes he hath been guilty of , and they shall be read. they say last day there were sixteen , if there were an hundred they should be read against him , and they shall all go to invalidate any credit that is to be given to any thing he shall swear . prisoner , my lord , i humbly submit my self to your lordship . sixteen we have , i bring but six . you shall have them mr. atturney when you please . l. c. j. my lord , if you think it worth you while to put it to council , to argue , whether he may be a witness , or whether you think it may be as well for you , supposing he be a witness , the producing those things against him , or the records of those crimes that he hath been convicted of ; whether that will be as well for you or no , i leave it to your self to do as you think best ? mr. darnal , i conceive with submission to your lordship that he cannot be a witness . l. c. j. are you prepared to speak to it now ? mr. darnal , my lord , i am ready to offer somewhat to your lordship why i conceive he ought not to be sworn : but i desire first that the pardon may be read , because many persons and offences are comprized in it . l. c. j. it is a pardon for felonies and out-lawries of felony in general . mr. darnal , if the persons and their offences are severally and sufficiently pardoned , then , my lord , i will proceed unto the other point . j. jones , the whole is good . d. darnal , then , my lord , i conceive , notwithstanding this pardon , mr. dangerfield ought not to be sworn , and that no person attainted of felony ( though pardon'd ) can be a witness . my lord , it hath been adjudged in 11 henry the 4th . quadragessimo primo , that a man attainted of felony ( as mr. dangerfield is ) though he be afterwards pardoned , cannot be sworn of a jury . my lord , the same question hath been resolved since , in nono jacobi . it is reported in mr. brownlow's and goldsborough's reports , folio tricessimo quarto . and my lord cook in mr. bulstrode's second reports , 154. in brown and crashaw's case , is of the same opinion . he says , a man attainted and pardon'd , cannot serve upon any inquest , and that by the same reason the testimony of such a man for a witness is in all cases to be rejected . l. c. j. who says so ? mr. darnal , my lord cook. l. c. j. men do not slight my lord cook. where do you say that is ? mr. darnal , it is in mr. bulstrode's second reports , in brown and crashaw's case , fo. 154. j. jones , but you should have brought these books hither . mr. darnal , i suppose sir they may be had in the hall. my lord cook gives this reason for it in that case , he saith , that notwithstanding his pardon he is not probus & legalis homo j. jones , that pardon was before any judgment it was a pardon of felony before any tryal or judgement ; but here is a conviction . mr. darnal , my lord cook puts the case there of a man attainted . and , my lord , induodecime jacobi , it is reported in brownlow's reports , folio . 47. j. raymond , which of his reports ? mr. darnal , i know but of one set out in his name alone , the other ( which is call'd the first part ) is sett out in his and goldsborough's name . i have mr. brownlow's reports here , and if your lordship please you may see it . l. c. j. what is the page ? mr. darnal , forty seven , my lord , the case there reported is , the king pardon'd a man attaint for giving a false verdict ; yet he shall not be at another time empannell'd upon any jury ; and the reason given there is , that though the punishment was pardon'd , yet the guilt remain'd . j. jones , that is a very short note , and not so much in the book as you have mentioned . mr. darnal , i writ it word for word out of the book , sir , and i am sure there is so much in my book . my lord , in mr. justice crooke's elizabeth , fol. 686. in shelborn's case , it is held , that though the king may pardon simony , yet he cannot enable a simoniack to retain a living . l. c. j. the act doth make him not capable . mr. darnal , i conceive , sir , it is upon the same reason , because the pardon cannot take away the guilt , though it may the punishment of the offence . j. raymond , he can't dispense with simony , he can't give a dispensation to take a living . mr. darnal , my lord , upon these resolutions and the reason of them , i humbly submit it to your lordship , whether mr. dangerfield ( having been attainted of felony , though he be since pardon'd ) can be a witness . att. general , my lord , with your lordships favour , this is quite contrary to the constant and general opinion , and contrary to the constant practice : for , my lord , with your lordships favour , when a man is pardon'd for any crime , if a man can't say he is a felon , or he is perjured , then he can't be reckoned so to any intent or purpose whatsoever . l. c. j. i told you before it is consonant to all the reason and law in the world , that a pardon should stop mens mouths from reviling speeches that signifie nothing : but it is one thing to say men shall not go reviling , that can have no consequent good , but which tends to the breach of the peace , and another thing to say he shall be liber . att. general , my lord , when the king gives him a pardon , it is as if he had never committed the offence . l. c. j. he may be outlawed , notwithstanding the kings pardon , and then it is not as if he had never committed the offence . j. jones , it restores him to wage battle , and it makes him liber & legalis homo : for if a man may wage battle , he is liber & legalis homo . att. general , then , my lord , if he be so , he shall be a witness : for my lord , in the point of perjury , a man that after a conviction of perjury had a pardon , hath been admitted several times . l. c. j. was the exception taken , mr. atturney ? att. general , yes , my lord , and he rejected before he had a pardon . j. raymond , how many men have been witnesses that have been convicted of felonies , after the kings have pardon'd them ? recorder , i will not adventure to say that there hath been a particular objection made , and so that the court hath had the debate of it : but i will undertake to give your lordship several instances of men that have been convicted , and the judges sitting there knew them to be so convicted , and did not take notice of it . j. raymond , i speak of witheringon particularly ? recorder , he was a witness , though every man did know that witherington was convicted . i begg your lordships leaves to speak it , that the judges themselves did know that he was convicted and had received sentence of death . sir f. w. the constant practices of the judges is a mighty conclusion . l. c. j. what think you , mr. atturney , if a man be convicted of felony , and afterwards hath a general pardon , is he a witness . att. general , yes , truly , my lord , it signifies the same thing , my lord , as to be a freeman again . j. jones , he cannot be of a jury , if he be attainted of felony , and the reason is because he is not probus & legalis homo : and why he should not as well be of a jury as a witness i cannot understand . att. general , there is a great deal of difference , my lord , a great many men may be admitted to be witnesses that cannot be admitted to be jury men . j. jones , shew me any man that is excluded from a jury and admitted to be a witness , except in the case of kindred . att. general , an hundred . l. c. j. shew me any man who being of a jury was excluded , and yet made a witness . att. general , a villian was not admitted to be a jury man , but a villain was always to be a witness , and that was a point of infamy . l. c. j. what infamy was contain'd in being a villain ? att. general , he was a criminal , he was not liber homo . l. c. j. but though he be not a freeman , he may be an honest man. recorder , my lord hobart says , a pardon takes away the guilt . l. c. j. it takes away guilt so far as he shall never be questioned ; but it does not set a man as if he had neuer offended . it cannot in reason be said , a man guilty of perjury is as innocent as if he had never been perjured . att. general , i say if a man be pardoned he is as if he were not guilty . l. c. j. if i were in my lord castlemain's case , i would submit it ; but when he hath given his testimony , my lord shall have liberty to give in the records against him of what crimes he hath committed . j. jones , i do confess indeed that my lord hales in his little book of the pleas of the crown , saith , that a man that hath had the benefit of his clergy , is restored to his credit . j. raymond , if that case be allowed it is a plain case , for there is no man can wage battle , but he that is liber & legalis homo . recorder , a man broke prison and therefore he could not wage battle , he replies the king hath pardoned me that felony , and thereupon he is admitted to wage battle . j. jones , where there is no judgment given in the case , and the king doth pardon a man , that doth make a very great difference . recorder , in the case of witherington , my lord chief justice did look upon the records , and afterwards said he was a good witness and was admitted . prisoner , if you have law by you i must consent . l. c. j. then you must consent . recorder , there are several persons , who have had pardons after robberies , and we are forced to make use of some of these fellows . l. c. j. before conviction . recorder , no after conviction , my lord , i have known a prisoner at the bar , when my lords the judges have been there ; to be a witness . and if the court had made any doubt , it would have been a question before this time of day . att. general , my lord , if you please mr. dangerfield may be sworn . if your lordship pleases . l. c. j. my lord shall have the benefit of excepting against his credibility . then mr. justice raymond went down to the court of common pleas , to know their opinion . j. jones , have you any other witness in the mean time ? att. general , no , my lord , he is a principal witness . sir f. w. besides the common practice , here is a book that says , he shall wage battle . j. jones , that is , when there is a pardon before conviction . sol. general , but here , my lord , he says the reatum is taken away , and then it takes away his disabilities too . the difference can be nothing here before conviction , and after , because before conviction there is a disability , before conviction he is disabled from waging battle : so that that makes no difference before conviction , and other cases after conviction , and the disability is taken away by the pardon , and he is restored to be a freeman . l. c. j. there is a disability upon presumption , tho not upon conviction . sol. general , there is the same legal impediment in the one as in the other : but his credit is left to the breast of the jury . recorder , when a pardon comes , it takes away not only poenam but reatum , and the reason my lord hobart gives . l. c. j. nay give your reason . recorder , for felony is contra coronam & dignitatem , is a fault against the king , and when the king pardons it , it ceases ; and in another place it is said , it pardons all disabilities incident to him . j. jones , that is before conviction still . l. c. j. don't my lord cook tell you expresly , that the taking a pardon doth not prove any offence ? you take a pardon , it ought not to be concluded that you are guilty ; but the proper conclusion of a wise man is , that you would be safe : it can't be thought that every man that hath a pardon in england is guilty of all those offences that are there pardoned . j. jones , there is a difference between a general pardon and a particular pardon ; when a man doth accept of a special pardon , it must be intended that he hath some consciousness of guilt , or else he would not take it ; but he that is included in a general pardon , may be clear , because all men are included in it , unless some persons particularly excepted ▪ and the difference is taken in that very point from accepting a general and a special pardon . l. c. j. that the acceptance of a general pardon , doth not barely of it self intend men to be guilty of the crimes , is plain , and the reason is most apparent , for besides that men be safe , so there be times that give a reason why men should have a pardon , because no man knows when he is safe ; perjury so abounds that no man can say he is safe , and that is a reason why men should be very willing to accept of pardons . clerk of the crown , here 's my lord hales's book about the pleas of the crown . recorder , he says when the king hath discharged and pardoned him , he hath cleared the person of the crime and infamy . j. jones , it is so no doubt . sir f. w. may we pass upon these authorities ? j. jones , sir francis , we are not willing to go about it till it be concluded , for that purpose we have desired my brother raymond to know the judges opinions of the common pleas. recorder , he doth expresly say it hath restored him to his credit , and in witherington's case he did call for the very records . att. general , if it restore him to his credit , i hope it shall not blemish him so much when he is sworn , that he shall not be believed . l. c. j. we won't have any prepossession in that case , his crimes shall be all taken notice of : is it fit to have men guilty of all sorts of villanies , and not to observe it . j. jones , in that very case , my lord hobart says , a man may say of a pardoned man , he was a felon , though he cannot say now he is a felon , and now what can be objected to this case ? recorder , things may be objected against a person , and his credit left to the jury , but the question now is ; whether he shall be a witness or no ? l. c. j. we have men grown so insolent , they behave themselves with that vile insolence , that now they take upon them to speak against whole societies of men ; as if so be there were any thing in them that should render them better then their former lives or natures . humility becomes penitents , and no wicked man is supposed to be penitent , that hath not that ; but these carry it with that insolency , as if they were not concern'd themselves , when god knows the best of them discover what they do ; by being but parties themselves . [ mr. justice ▪ raymond return'd from the court of common pleas. l. c. j. i will tell you what my brethrens opinions are , he hath put it to them on both accounts , that he was convicted of felony and burnt in the hand for it , that he was outlawed for felony , and hath a general pardon . they say they are of opinion , that a general pardon would not restore him to be a witness after an outlawry for felony , because of the interest that the kings subjects have in him . but they say further , that where a man comes to be burnt in the hand , there they look upon that as a kind of more general discharge , then the pardon alone would amount to , if he had not been burnt in the hand . they say , if he had been convicted of felony , and not burnt in the hand , the pardon would not have set him upright , but being convicted and burnt in the hand , they suppose he is a witness . sir f. w. swear mr. dangerfield . l. c. j. the very attainder is taken away , and so all is gone . att. general , come mr. dangerfield are you sworn ? mr. dangerfield , yes , sir. att. general , pray tell what you know of my lord castlemain . l. c. j. i perceive my brethrens opinion is , that if a man were convicted of perjury , if there be no burning in the hand in the case , that a pardon could not set him upright , because of the interest of the people in the king. att. general , come , mr. dangerfield , are you sworn ? mr. dangerfield , yes , sir. att. general , then pray say what you know of my lord castlemain . mr. dangerfield , about this time twelve month , my lady powis sent me with a letter for the prisoner at the bar , my lord castlemain . l. c. j. don't you know him ? mr. dangerfield , yes , my lord , this is the person . and , my lord , the contents of that letter i know not : but his lordship made me stay till he wrote an answer , and the contents of the answer , my lord , were to this effect : for i return'd with the answer , to the lady powis , and she opened and read it while i was present . l. c. j. aloud ? mr. dangerfield , aloud , my lord. l. c. j. to you . mr. dangerfield , to me . l. c. j. who was there ? mr. dangerfield , mrs. cellier was there besides . and the contents of this letter were , this person i like well , and though he be no scholar , he will serve to instruct the youths as he shall be directed . by the youths were meant the st. omers witnesses . l. c. j. how do you know ? mr. dangerfield , because i know my lord was employed for that purpose . i know his lordship did use to instruct the youths ; and it was a common saying among them , when one of them was out of his part , they used to say , i must go to my lord castlemain . l. c. j. what part ? mr. dangerfield , that which they were to say , and one of them did say , i am out of my lesson , i must go to my lord castlemain . l. c. j. when did he say so ? mr. dangerfield , before the tryal , my lord , and my lord castlemain went along with them to the tryal , and his lordship complained of some ill usage that the witnesses received there . his lordship was one of the persons that imployed me to get lane out of the gate-house , my lord , and his lordship sent me to a sollicitor of his , whose name was mr. lawson ( the person is now in court ) to take an account how far he had proceeded in this affair . i did take an account , and i proceeded in it afterwards and got him discharged . l. c. j. how came you into my lords acquaintance ? mr. dangerfield , that was the first time , when my lady powis sent me with that letter , my lord. a pretty while after this , in the month of july , i went to wait upon his lordship at his house in charing-cross , the same place where i found his lordship before ; and i was to take his advice a bout some letters that came from one nevil alias paine . those letters and list of names i shewed his lordship , and he gave his approbation of them , and desired good store of copies might be writ : for it was of consequence and ought not to be neglected . and ask'd me , are there working persons employ'd in that business ? and said he , encourage them , and i will pay my part . so my lord , after there were a great number of copies writ of these letters , i writ a letter to my lord castlemain , to let his lordship know that the people had finish'd their work , and that there was something more to be done as a gratuity ; and then his lordship in answer to this messenger ( who is here also in court ) with a letter his lordship sent forty shillings for his part . and mrs. cellier told me she received forty shillings and disposed of it to the use intended ; now , my lord , the contents of these letters were to the same effect with those letters and loose papers which i conveyed into collonel mansell's chamber ; and these all tended to the promoting the sham-plot , my lord. l. c. j. pray tell me what was the subject of these letters ; what was the substance of them ? mr. dangerfield , to the promoting the sham-plot . my lord. l. c. j. that is a general no body knows what to make of . mr. dangerfield , i will give your lordship an account in particular : the contents of many of them were to this purpose . l. c. j. were they not all alike ? mr. dangerfield , the copies were the same , and there were so many originals to draw copies from . l. c. j. were not the originals all to the same purpose ? mr. dangerfield , agreeable in point of sense . l. c. j. pray tell us the purpose of them ? mr. dangerfield , the purpose was , that so many letters should be conveyed into the houses of several persons of quality in this kingdom , that were called presbyterians : for that was the notion , that all persons , that were not for the immediate promoting of the catholick interest , lay under ; because they looked upon that notion to be most obnoxious . l. c. j. who and where ? mr. dangerfield , in general , my lord. l. c. j. in general , where ? mr. dangerfield , by my lady powis and the lords in the tower. l. c. j. were you by when the lords in the tower did agree to it ? mr. dangerfield , when my lord peter and my lord arundel did . l. c. j. what did they agree to ? mr. dangerfield , my lord the thing is this , after they received an account from one mr. paine , i brought a billet from that paine ; wherein was contain'd a ground or scheme of the presbyterian plot ; so from thence it derived its first name , my lord : so that when i came to discourse with the lords in the tower about it , they called it the presbyterian plot ; and mrs. cellier and the lady powis said , this is a notion that will do the business , as it is most obnoxious , and as best to our purpose . j. jones , how far was my lord castlemain concern'd in this ? mr. dangerfield , i have not heard his lordship speak of it under that notion . l. c. j. pray let us hear what you can say against my lord castlemain . mr. dangerfield , now , my lord , some considerable time after i had gotten lane out of prison , i was imployed by several other persons , his lordship was one , and he sent me to his lordships sollicitor , that is now in court. a pretty while after this , and the letters and lists of names , containing matter to the same effect as i told you before , as those in mansell's chamber , and all tending to the credit of the sham plot , or the presbyterian plot. now , my lord , a pretty while after this , in august , as near as i can remember ; about the middle of august , i went to wait upon his lordship , the very next day after i had been treated withal in the tower to kill the king , whom god preserve , my lord ; and his lordship had a servant then in the room , and he sent his servant down stairs , and looked upon me with a very austere countenance : said he , why would you offer to refuse the business for which you were taken out of prison ? l. c. j. to you ? mr. dangerfield , to me , my lord. l. c. j. who was by ? mr. dangerfield , no body , but his lordship and my self ; for he sent his servant out before : so he asked me , why i would offer to refuse the business i was taken out of prison for ? i asked his lordship , what that was ? said he , was not you at the tower yesterday ? yes , my lord , i was . would your lordship have me kill the king , i suppose that 's the business . yes , that is , said he upon which my lord fell into such a fury , that i was fore'd rudely to leave the room , and went down stairs . i think at the same time his lordship was writing the compendium of the late plot ; for there i saw some words in a paragraph that lay upon the table , which i afterwards saw in that book . there was ink set upon the table , and open in his lordships hand . and his lordship did use in his discourse to call his majesty tyrant . l. c. j. have you heard him ? in what company ? mr. dangerfield , in his familiar discourse . as to ask when his majesty will return from windsor ? says he , when the tyrant pleases . and i remember i heard his lordship mention the word tyrant to mrs. cellier at powis-house . att. general , how came that discourse about killing the king ? what was the occasion of that discourse ? l. c. j. had you refused it to my lord ? mr. dangerfield , yes , my lord , i refused . l. c. j. what did you say to him ? mr. dangerfield , i said any body but my king , my lord. l. c. j. he said , why did you refuse to do that for which you were taken out of prison ? what is that my lord ? was not you at the tower yesterday ? why won't you do it ? what is it , my ●ord ? is it to kill the king ? i suppose that it is , saith he , that your lordship intends . yes says he , that is it , why won't you do it ? that is what he says . att. general , that is the evidence we give . j. jones , you say he was very violent . l. c. j. was you ever in his company afterwards . mr. dangerfield , no , not after that , my lord , that i know of . l. c. j. what kind of fury did he shew to you at that time ? mr. dangerfield , my lord , he was in a great rage , as his lordship is very cholerick ; he was bustling about , and i knew not what he intended to do , and i was unwilling to stand the test of his anger . his lordship seemed by his look to be meditating revenge . l. c. j. how ? mr. dangerfield , i say this , after his lordship had sent his servant out of the room , said he , why would you offer to refuse the business for which you were taken out of prison ? said he , were not you at the tower yesterday ? said i , yes , my lord , i was ; would you have me kill the king ? is that the business ? yes , that it is , said my lord very angrily . prisoner , when did you go to the tower ? was this the next day after it ? mr. dangerfield , the next day after it . prisoner , mr. dangerfield , pray let me ask you one question , did not i threaten to kill you , or have some of my servants kill you , if you came unto me again ? mr. dangerfield , one time his lordship saw me at my lady powis's house , and he shewed me a very particular favour . i speak it in the presence of almighty god , nothing out of revenge , nor for any sort of interest . prisoner , was i never angry with you but at that time ? mr. dangerfield , no , my lord , i know not or any other time that your lordship was angry . l. c. j. now what say you , my lord ? prisoner , the first thing i desire to do , is , here are two gentlemen gives in evidence against me , the one is mr. oates , the other mr. dangerfield . mr. oates says , that he in spain did see several letters from me : that when he came over into england , he brought a letter from spain to me , that that letter was given to the provincial , and the provincial ( he supposes ) gave it me . now , my lord , i only desire this , that the first thing that shall be done , is , that you will please to call mr. parker , who will shew you what a kind of man mr. oates is . and i am glad , since you say that mr. dangerfield is a good witness , that i can prove that every word he says is a lie . and so begin with mr. oates , prisoner , my lord , i would offer you a record , a record of some particular actions from hastings . l. c. j. read the record . [ the record read. l. c. j. what use can you make of this ? prisoner , my lord , the case is only this , my lord , i will tell you , here is mr. oates , this is only to shew what kind of man this mr. oates is . mr. oates he comes and accuses a man at hastings for buggery , there he is indicted and comes to his tryal , and then he is found innocent : now , my lord , i sent for this mr. parker , to tell your lordship what kind of man this mr. oates was , and for that purpose shew the whole proceeding . l. c. j. my lord , you shall have all the justice in the world ; but we must have right done to the kings evidence . you have brought in a thing , whereby all you can make against mr. oates is this , that he was the prosecutor of a man for the crime of buggery , and is supposed to have taken his oath there , and notwithstanding the jury would not believe him , and found the man not guilty . prisoner , my lord , i come to shew you the motives how the jury came to clear him , that is , by proving this man was in another place at that time , and satisfied the court and jury , that he was from eleven a clock or sooner , till eight or ten a clock with them in company ; where it was only the malice that was between oates and parker . and several witnesses that were in the place where he said the buggery was committed , said that he was not there , and they witnesses positively said they were with him , and all looked upon mr. oates as a detestable man , and sent him out of the court. l. c. j. do you prove this by any but parker ? j. raymond , this ought not to be admitted ; for if it be , mr. oates stands here to answer all the faults that ever he committed . l. c. j. here is the case , supposing it be true now , that mr. oates , prosecuted a man for felony , and he gave testimony , supposing it should be so , and yet the jury acquitted him ; what use can you make of it ? you can make no inference ; it is a thing we must allow all the juries in england : for there is witness generally given on both sides , and when there are for the plantiff , the defendants evidence are all perjured , and when for the defendant the plaintiffs evidence are perjured . prisoner , my lord , this is the inference . thus much i make of it , that this parker is innocent . oates swears positively he did so , the other swears positively this man was not there , to shew the malice oates had against him . l. c. j. my lord , you can go no further than you have gone . the result of all is , that the jury found him not guilty : for what grounds no man can come to say , but the jury men themselves . no man can tell what prevailed with the jury to find him not guilty , that is in their own consciences , and these are things that cannot be examined . his jury , notwithstanding mr. oates was the only prosecutor , they found him not guilty , and it amounts to nothing . prisoner , my lord , there is another thing , while this man was in prison , what does oates do , but comes here to london , accuses the father , who was a considerable man in the town , a justice of the peace , and mayor the year before ; accuses him because he should not assist his son , accuses him before the king of speaking scandalous words . then he gets him by a messenger brought up before the council , the king was present at the hearing , and there it was proved to the king , as the order of council shews , that he was an honest man , and so the council sent oates away with the greatest contempt , and freed the other man. l. c. j. was this before the plot was discovered ? prisoner , yes , my lord , in pursuance of it . l. c. j. you said it was that he should not help his son , his son was not free . prisoner , no , he was in prison , my lord. recorder , my lord , may think hard if he hath not some competent liberty ; but he must keep to the business . you say , that notwithstanding he hath the opinion of the court , that the jury must take notice , then the jury must take notice it signifies nothing . prisoner , very well . having told you this , i desire you would be pleased to take notice , after oates was thus forced to run away from hastings , here it seems he was converted to be a papist , by a person whom mr. oates hath since converted to be a protestant ; and you shall see what an account this gentleman will give of him . l. c. j. what is his name ? prisoner , hutchinson . l. c. j. what will you do against him ? prisoner , several things , my lord. l. c. j. you must not do it . if you are able to disprove mr. oates , in any of these particulars , you may do it . if you alledg testimony against the particular matter he hath sworn , you will do very well ; but pray , my lord , keep to that . prisoner , i will , my lord. i will submit any thing to your lordships commands , and therefore , my lord , i will tell you for what reason i sent for this man , to tell you how mr. oates went to spain , and how he lived in spain . l. c. j. if you can shew the jury any reason why they should not believe his evidence , that will be very proper . l. c. j. what is your name ? hutchinson , my name is hutchinson . prisoner , mr. hutchinson , pray say what you have to say , and not follow mr. oates's method , i only ask you this question , sir , whether you did convert this man , that is , reconcile him to the church of rome ? hutchinson , yes , my lord , that i did . l. c. j. you ought not to ask him such questions ; you bring him in danger of his life ; you are not to ask him such questions . recorder , let us see the statute book . clerk of the crown , it is high treason . l. c. j. you thought this had been meritorious now , and it is high treason . recorder , this it is to abound in a mans own sense . we must beg your lordships advice in this . l. c. j. are you a protestant now ? hutchinson , yes , my lord. prisoner , he was a priest , and confesses his error . l. c. j. did you know oates first in spain ? hutchinson , no , my lord , i knew him first here , and we were in company , and i told him , he could not be a true priest , since he was of the church of england . att. gen. he offers such things as are not evidence . l. c. j. pray what do you know of his imployment in spain ? hutchinson , i received letters from him when he was in spain . he went over to study philosophy and divinity there , and i saw his recommendations to the rector of liege . l. c. j. did you see him ? hutchinson , yes , my lord , i did see him before he made this disturbance . l. c. j. what disturbance ? do you know ? what discourse had you with him ? hutchinson , i employed him in writing for me . l. c. j. writing what ? hutchinson , in writing certain things against the corruption of the church of rome . he had ten shillings i gave him , and this was before the discovery he made ( as he pretends ) of the plot. and he told me he would suffer no more for conscience sake . it is an hard thing , said he , mr. berry , for a man to want bread. upon which i gave him ten shillings . l. c. j. he says , having been formerly with mr. oates , he imployed him to transcribe many things for him , and mr. oates said to him , he was resolved no more to suffer for conscience sake . how , saith he , not so . oh but mr. berry , said he , it is a very sad thing to want bread. and upon that , he says , he gave him ten shillings for his pains in writing . hutchinson , and hereupon , my lord , in may was twelve-month , he sent for me , when i heard he had done some more mischief ▪ and i went to him , my lord. l. c. j. that was after the discovery ? hutchinson , yes , my lord , upon that he was very kind to me , and gave me twenty shillings . said he , mr. berry , you have been civil to me , and you shall never want any thing , so long as i have it . said i , mr. oates , are these things true , that you swear against the jesuits ? said he , as i hope for salvation they are : and that was the truest word he spake these three years . then said i , mr. oates , answer me this only one thing , there are an hundred and twenty persons that saw you every day , and dined and supp'd with you at st. omers , and these you have recommended to me for vertuous people , and i know them to be so . he said , they are outlawed men . l. c. j. what did mr. oates say more ? hutchinson , he was with me frequently , my lord. recorder , he paid you your angel well when he gave you twenty shillings . hutchinson , mr. oates , speak the truth , there is a god in heaven . dr. oates , shall i be allowed to satisfie the court as to this evidence ? i will give the court a very good account . l. c. j. the substance is this , that you were poor . is it true that he gave you ten shillings ? dr. oates , my lord , i believe i might not have much money among them . l. c. j. and you said , you would suffer no more for conscience sake ? dr. oates , that is not so , my lord. l. c. j. and , that it is an hard thing to want bread ? dr. oates , my lord , i never wanted bread. hutchinson , but you said so to me , mr. oates . att. gen. hark , mr. hutchinson — dr. oates , to shew the invalidity of this evidence , my lord , the bishop of london hath turn'd him out of his living at barkin . l. c. j. what is that ? dr. oates , to shew that he is not fit to be trusted . l. c. j. why you have never a living . dr. oates , yes i have , my lord. l. c. j. where ? dr. oates , in kent , my lord. l. c. j. how long have you had it ? dr. oates , i was restored to it last summer . recorder , he says , that he had discourse with him concerning his priesthood , whether mr. oates thought himself to be a good priest , that is , as he was made by the order of the church of england ? att. gen. he says , he converted mr. oates to be a papist . dr. oates , and i have a charge of high treason against that man , for seducing me from my religion , my lord. i will swear he turn'd me to the church of rome , and i desire it may be recorded . dr. d. i have one thing to tell your lordship , the man is mad , he is distracted . l. c. j. this doctor of divinity is a very honest man , he will tell you . dr. d. he was my curate at barkin , and my lord of london having some information against the manner of his preaching , sent me word to rippon , he would provide me another curate . on saturday last , dining with him , my lord told me he was distracted . recorder , his behaviour is a very concurrent testimony . j. raymond , i appeal to my lord , if i did not tell him as he came into the court , that he was a distracted man. l. c. j. call another witness . prisoner , here 's a gentleman was his school-fellow at vallodolid . i ask you mr. armstrong , whether you knew any thing of mr. oates there ? l. c. j. how long had he been there ? armstrong , he was three months there before me . l. c. j. how long was he there in all ▪ armstrong , a matter of a moneth . l. c. j. was he not there four months ? armstrong , yes , a matter of four months in all . l. c. j. he says , he had been there three months before he came , and a month after he came ; and that then he was but a common scholar . dr. oates , my lord , i will satisfie the court when they question me ? l. c. j. in what would you satisfie us ? dr. oates , about being a scholar . i was ready to commence when they came ; but being they were strangers in the town , not being town scholars , and not undertaking philosophical dictates , the fathers did pray me to shew them the way to school ; and i went with them two or three times . l. c. j. call another , my lord. prisoner , mr. palmer and mr. dorrington . l. c. j. did you know mr. oates at st. omers ? palmer , yes , my lord , and he was an ordinary scholar there , and dined and supp'd with us . l. c. j. you said he dined at another table . palmer , yes , my lord , he did dine at a table by himself ; but it was at the same time . dr. oates , had i scholars commons ? pray my lord ask them that . palmer , he had the same commons that we had ; but they had a respect for him as he was an ancienter man , and that was the reason that he had more freedom than the rest . prisoner , my lord , he says he came from st. omers at the consult , pray sir , who did you come along with ? did you come with hilsley ? dr. oates , hilsley came with me in the pacquet-boat . prisoner , call mr. hilsley and osbourne — my lord , this gentleman . i would bring nothing to offend your lordship , or nothing that hath been old , if it had not some new inference from it : therefore , my lord , this is the reason that i sent for mr. hilsley . mr. hilsley did you come with mr. oates in april in the pacquet-boat ? hilsley , no , my lord. prisoner , you left him at st. omers . hilsley , yes , my lord. prisoner , now , my lord , i have several witnesses to prove this . and pray , mr. osbourn , tell my lord what he said to you . osbourn , my lord , about the latter end of april , i heard mr. hilsley was in town , i went to see him , and one time at a coffee-house about the turnstile w● fell in discourse . l. c. j. my lord , you say you have two persons of quality . i will tell you my lord what you shall expect , i will not be for one and not for t'other ; but be equal as near as i can . if he comes only to testifie what hilsley told him , it signifies nothing . prisoner , i do depend upon hilsley , but this is that hilsley told him , that there was one oates at st. omers . l. c. j. that is no evidence , nor can ladies of quality prove by their own experience what mr. hilsley affirms , that oates came not over with him . prisoner , my lord , they can tell , and one lady a protestant , that talking with this gentleman before the plot — l. c. j. this is only discourse what another man says . if mr. oates himself should have said so , then indeed it is proper ; but to shew you this , it is impossible , supposing they speak truth , that is , if they do witness what they do not , that long before they heard of the name of oates , this gentlemau should tell them one oates was left at st. omers ; it signifies nothing . prisoner , does not that confirm mr. hilsley's testimony ? l. c. j. no , indeed . prisoner , i only refer this to you , my lord ; hilsley says in april he did leave oates , and here are four or five witnesses that hilsley told them so . j. jones , all that my lord says , is this , that he did leave mr. oates at st. omers . if it be objected , they are catholicks , as they call them , says my lord , hilsley did tell this story before there was any plot. why should he tell them so ? it is not in favour of that religion that he speaks ; but the time of testifying such a thing , shews he speaks true . this is all . prisoner , this is the inference , this is only to corroborate and shew you the credit of his testimony . j. raymond , it may be a mistake though , and it is of no more force than what he says now . att. gen. they were all mistaken in that matter . dr. oates , my lord , he did leave me at st. omers , but i overtook him at calais . l. c. j. will you swear it mr. oates ? dr. oates , i say upon my oath i did it . l. c. j. it were a great matter if you had any body to prove that this gentleman came alone , but that is still but one mans testimony . prisoner , but here is confirmation to his evidence , that he could not invent it . att. gen. you had sixteen once , but the contrary was proved and believed , and so it may be again . prisoner , call mr. gregson and rigby . mr. gregson were not you landlord to mr. oates before the plot was discovered ? how long before the plot did he lie at your house ? l. c. j. what time ? gregson , a week before easter 77. j. raymond , when did he go away from you , sir ? gregson , the sunday after easter day . j. raymond , when did you see him again ? gregson , he came to me about all saints . j. raymond , the same year ? gregson , yes . dr. oates , who paid for my quarters ? pray ask him that , my lord. gregson , he paid for it himself . dr. oates , did not mr. fenwick pay for it ? gregson , he did after you came from st. omers . dr. oates , my lord , when i came last from st. omers , i went directly to his house . prisoner , was not he in a poor condition ? gregson , he was then indifferently poor . prisoner , my lord , this is only to prove his condition . dr. oates , my lord , i had only what the jesuits allow'd me . l. c. j. you had nothing but what they allow'd you ? dr. oates , nothing else , my lord. j. jones , they allow'd you a very scanty living . prisoner , call mr. littcott . mr. littcott , do you know any thing about a divorce ? l. c. j. what should he know ? prisoner , pray , my lord , don't discourage me . j. raymond , but you must not ask things that are not to the purpose . littcott , my lord , it was morally impossible there should be a divorce . l. c. j. was there any endeavour by my lord concerning it ? littcott , there was no such design . l. c. j. how was that ? but pray mind , you will be morally not believed else : do you know my lord used any endeavours , in order to obtain a divorce ? recorder , that is all that he says , he never knew any thing . prisoner , i only say this , my lord , mr. oates comes here and says , that he heard me say , that i did spend a great deal of money . now if i satisfie the court that i never spent a farthing towards a divorce — l. c. j. if he had said , your lordship laid out sums of money , then it had been an answer to that , if you could prove you had not . prisoner , you know i stand here accused for a great crime , pray give me leave . j. raymond , if it were a matter of moment we would . prisoner , pray , my lord , hear me , here is a man says , i spent a great deal of money about a divorce ; i come to tell your lordship , that this very man , before your lordships , and also before the king ; and if your lordships have forgot it , i will shew you witnesses that he spake it before the king , and before the house of commons ; that i did actually sue out a divorce ▪ now i will shew my lord that i neither could nor did go about it . l. c. j. we are not to take notice of that now . if he did say a false thing before the house of commons , we cannot take notice of it now : for we cannot go to try whether he said so , and whether that be true or false . prisoner , i humbly begg my lord , if this man that is upon his oath hath sworn before the king , that he did actually see the divorce , and i prove that it was impossithat he should see the divorce , because it was impossible to get a divorce — l. c. j. what then ? j. raymond , you must not be permitted to prove that , it is not pertinent to the question . prisoner , my lords , with humble submission to you , he hath told me this before your lordships , that i spent a great deal of money about a divorce . l. c. j. my lord , you will be satisfied , when we have acquainted you what the ordinary proceedings of a court of justice are in this nature ; what is , and what is not to be admitted . if you should come to prove mr. oates had falsly sworn a thing in another court , and five or six witnesses shall come and say it is not true ; we are not to hearken to it . the reason is this , first you must have him perjured , and we are not now to try , whether that thing sworn in another place be true or false ? because that is the way to accuse whom you please ; and that may make a man a liar , that cann't imagine this will be put to him : and so no mans testimony that comes to be a witness , shall leave himself safe . and this is another case , if he swore in another place what is contradictory to what he says now ; then it is proper . if you could prove that he had sworn in another place that he never saw you , it is very proper : but now to us he says , that he doth not remember whether ever he had seen a divorce , or that you had sued out a divorce . all that he remembers is , that you said , you had expended a great deal of money about a divorce , and that is all he testifies here . prisoner , my lord , my evidence against mr. oates is this , that he waves what he said before , when i came to ask him , and says , i don't remember . now , my lord , if he lies in one thing , he may in another . j. raymond , no man can remember all the things that ever he did in his life . prisoner , i have witnesses to appeal to , to witness every thing ; and i represent it here to you , that i would with all my heart have indicted him of perjury , but for mr. atturney general : for i imploy'd two to attend the clerk of the peace for copies of the indictments against mr. langborn and mr. ireland ; they did come to the clerk of the peace , saith the clerk of the peace , i can't do it without mr. atturney's authority . my lord , saith he , i would give them you with all my heart , but i must have leave from the table . att. general , no , my lord , i told you , i would not give it you without you had an order from the king , and the council did not think fit to give it you . prisoner , i think this is a little pertinent . j. jones , how doth any thing that your lordship excepts against in this gentleman's testimony contradict it self ? all that you accuse him of is , that mr oates had said he heard you say , you had spent a great deal of money about a divorce . prisoner , i only shew , if you are pleased to hear it , that he reported to the king that he actually saw the divorce . j. jones , that agrees well enough with what he says now . prisoner , he said so in your lordships hearing . l. c. j. i don't remember it , if i did i would speak of it ; i don't remember it upon my word . j. raymond , i protest i don't remember a word . j. jones , in the court did he say it ? j. raymond , here we are all three that were present , i protest i don't remember it ; but as to the business of the divorce , i might look upon it as impertinent , and so possibly might not mind what he said . prisoner , i only offer this to you , and if your lordships command me to desist i will desist . dr. oates , i desire my evidence to prove that i was in town . j. raymond , pray , mr. oates , you are an evidence , you must be govern'd by mr. atturney . l. c. j. it would be very fit , mr. atturney ▪ to prove that mr. oates did come over with hilsley in the pacquet boat. j. raymond , mr. oates , i remember very well gave an account of his coming over , said he , i did come over with such and such persons , and among the rest was mr. hilsley . this is only to prove that he was at the consult . att. gen. we can prove it . [ records produced against mr. dangerfield . l. c. j. here is , that he was burnt in the hand , and outlawed for felony , pilloryed for cheating , twice pilloryed , and see whether he was whipt or no. sir f. w. i know nothing of the pillory . j. raymond , here was a record of being burnt in the hand , and a record for putting away false guinneys . l. c. j. for that he was to stand in the pillory . clerk of the crown , here is one record for another shilling gilt . l. c. j. was that in the pillory too ? att. gen. he was fined fifty pounds . clerk of the crown , here are three in salisbury for three several guinneys , and he was adjudged to the pillory for them all . att. gen. it was all at one assizes , my lord. l. c. j. my brother tryed him . clerk of the crown , he was tryed before mr. justice jones , and to stand in the pillory for all three . l. c. j. what have you else to say ? prisoner , call mrs. cellier and mr. dowdal . l. c. j. what is your name , sir ? dowdal , my name is bennet dowdal . l. c. j. what have you to say to him , my lord ? prisoner , mr. dowdal the case is this , mr. dangerfield tells me . i was angry with him at such a time for a business at my house ; was i not angry with him at powis house for going to the lords in the tower ? att. general , then he did go about it ? dowdal , mrs. cellier spake to me to speak to mr. dangerfield not to be troubled at your anger . j. raymond , when was this ? dowdal , after the jesuites died . prisoner , he proves this , that mrs. cellier spake to him to pacify mr. dangerfield , and dangerfield did tell him i was angry with him for going in my name to the lords . j. raymond , he says no such thing , my lord. l. c. j. you must not ask him what mrs. cellier said . mrs. cellier , this day twelve month he and i had been employed in writing copies of some letters , and i sent him to my lord to know if he would go something towards the printing them , and he went from him to the lords in the tower. in an hour and half after , my lord came to me very angry : mrs. cellier , said he , i thought you would not forfeit your discretion to send such a rascal to me ; if you send him to me again i will bid my servants kick him . and , said i , to mr. dangerfield , you are not to note that ; for he is a very good man , and may be angry one time and pleased another ; and i would have sent him another time , and said he , pray madam , don't send me thither , i would rather go an hundred miles of your errand . l. c. j. dangerfield , that discourse you had with my lord , was it before the jesuits dyed or after ? mr. dangerfield , what discourse ? l. c. j. when you discours'd about killing the king. mr. dangerfield , no , my lord , two months after . l. c. j. when was the time that these words were spoken ? mr. dangerfield , when his lordship was in that passion . l. c. j. when was that ? mr. dangerfield , my lord , it was about the middle of august . l. c. j. was you ever in his company after ? mr. dangerfield , no my lord , i saw him once at powis house . l. c. j. had he ever been angry before ? mr. dangerfield , no not till this time , my lord. l. c. j. here mrs. cellier witnesses that this day twelve month , my lord was extreamly angry , insomuch that when she would have had you go on an errand you would not . mr. dangerfield , my lord , that time i had been with my lord castlemain , i went home to mrs. celliers house , which i did then call my home , and said i , my lord castlemain is most violently angry with me . l. c. j. when was this ? mr. dangerfield , this was the latter end of august . l. c. j. but she talks of this time twelve-month . mr. dangerfield , it is no such thing my lord. mrs. cellier , i said , pray carry this letter to my lord castlemain : pray excuse me , said he , i had rather go an hundred miles than go by his door . l. c. j. whereas dangerfield says , he had this discourse in august , mrs. cellier says in june or july , this day twelve-month particularly she gave him a letter , and he said , pray excuse me , i would go an hundred miles for you ; but i would not go into my lords company again if i could help it . prisoner , my lord , mr. dowdal can tell it . l. c. j. did he acknowledg to you my lords anger in the beginning of july ? dowdal , it was within a week after the jesuits died . l. c. j. i don't know that . dowdal , it was about the twenty first of june . l. c. j. here are two witnesses , one saies in june or the beginning of july ; says mrs. cellier , this day twelve-month , he came and told me my lord was extreamly angry with him . and she would afterwards have had him carried a letter : but he said , pray excuse me , i would go an hundred miles , but he would not go again to him if he could help it . and dowdal says he told him about that time of my lords anger with him . att. gen. hold your tongue , mr. dangerfield . j. raymond , what jesuits ? dowdal , the five jesuits . prisoner , if you please , my lords , i would only tell you this . my lords , you see that these two witnesses testify , that i was angry with mr. dangerfield , in june , my lords , i only say this to you , that when i was examined at the council before the king of this particular , my lord chancellour asked him the particulars of it , and he did confess this thing which i now prove . now my lords , i inferr this , if i was so angry with him for offering to go to the tower when he went to the tower in my name — l. c. j. that they have said , that you were very angry . dowdal , dangerfield told me so , that he was angry about his going to the tower in my lords name unknown to him . l. c. j. here are two witnesses to prove , that my lord was angry with him for going to the tower in his name , and they both testify he was extreamly high and refused to carry a letter to my lord ; and yet he says in august following he had this discourse . prisoner , i have now only one thing to say , what hath past between mr. oates and mr. dangerfield . l. c. j. do it as near as you can . sir f. w. we have some other evidence to answer this . att. gen. if your lordship please , we will call two or three witnesses to prove the point . first to prove this last thing , that we have been in my lords company later than my lord speaks of . l. c. j. he says august . att. gen. we will prove after that time , that is the time that pinches us . prisoner , my lady powis is in court , will you hear her ? lady powis , my lord , i never did send a letter by mr. dangerfield to any body in my life , nor i never read a letter in mr. dangerfields presence , nor never had him so much in my company to read a letter or any tittle to him . l. c. j. i will tell you gentlemen , what he says , mr. dangerfield swears he carried a letter from my lady powis to my lord castlemain , and there was an answer brought back , and that , that answer of my lord castlemains was read before him , and ( you will do well to call mrs. cellier in again ) my lady powis doth deny that she ever sent a letter by him to my lord castlemain , or any body else , by him in her life ; or that she ever communicated any letter to him : this is apt evidence , this is the truth of it ; for it answers directly to what he says against my lord castlemain . [ sir richard barker . l. c. j. what say you , sir richard barker , can you give any account of oates ? when was mr. oates in town ? what time that you know of ? sir r. b. my lord , i remember we were once upon this before your lordship . l. c. j. in 78 ? sir r. b. yes my lord , the evidence that i gave , my lord , was only this , that my servants told me that mr. oates had been at my house : it was before whitsontide , in may 78 l. c. j. did you see him then ? when was it you saw him ? sir r. b. my lord , i saw him after . l. c. j. how long after ? sir r. b. my lord , it was about the latter end of june . l. c. j. he says to his own knowledg he saw him in june . att. gen. but we have his servants here too , phillip page , and cecily mayo . l. c. j. do you hear , mrs cellier , was there any letter sent by my lord castlemain to my lady powis , that was read before you and dangerfieild ? mrs. cellier , no my lord. l. c. j. here are two witnesses , my lady says there is no such thing , and mrs. cellier says it . prisoner , there is another thing , that is , the teaching the scholars at st. omers , that i taught the scholars their lessons . — turner . sollic . gen. pray inform my lord and the jury , what time it was you saw mr. dangerfield at my lord castlemains . l. c. j. what month can you charge your self to say , you saw dangerfield in my lord castlemains company . turner , i can't say just the time . l. c. j. might it be august ? turner , i can't well tell , i think it might be about july . j. raymond , why do you think so ? l. c. j. you are not asked to accuse your self in any thing , but when you saw them together . turner , i was coming down stairs , my lord. j. raymond , you don't tell when it was . l. c. j. tell us whether you can tell or no : if you are doubtful , say you are doubtful ; but speak the truth . turner , i can't be positive . l. c. j. it might be in june , or july , or august , but you think july ? turner , yes , sir. sir f. w. the sooner it is after that the evidence is , the better against it . att. gen. madam , i think your ladiship says you never sent a letter by dangerfield ? lady powis , yes , sir. att. gen , nor did you never receive any notes from him ? lady powis , i have received some notes from mrs. cellier , which were his writing . l. c. j. but did you ever receive a letter from my lord castlemain ? lady powis , never , my lord. — woodman . j. raymond , what do you say , mr. atturney ? att. gen , heark you , woodman , were you sent with any letter ? woodman , to whom ? att. general , to my lord castlemain , or any body ? woodman , i was sent with one letter , it was mrs. celliers , my lord. l. c. j. to whom ? woodman , to my lord castlemain ; as i remember , my lord , i took it from mrs. celliers daughter . att. gen. did you ever receive any money of my lord castlemain ? woodman , yes , my lord. l. c. j. what was it ? how much was it ? woodman , about three pounds or thirty shillings , i believe . l. c. j. how do you believe it ? woodman , to the best of my thoughts it was . att. gen. was it for dangerfield ? woodman , my lord i don't know that . l. c. j. have you any more ? solic . gen. my lord i have this to say to prove dr. oates was in london in april 78. l. c. j. he doth not deny but he might be here too . prisoner , i don't dispute it , my lord , i have only this one word more . it is not of treason , but it is against my reputation ; because this man , before your lordship , i think hath accused me of it ; and i think , my lord , i shall give you very good satisfction : that is , that the boys that came from st. omers were not instructed and taught by me . now if you please , my lord , to give me leave to shew it , i have done . look , my lord , the thing that i can say , is this , mr. littcott . j. raymond , you see he said it was morally impossible . prisoner , pray my lords . j. raymond , i will undertake you will say it is time lost . l. c. j. i would stay some time to observe to the jury what i have taken notice of with all my heart , but i should be gone . prisoner , i have done my lord , i would not say any thing to disgust any body . l. c. j. gentlemen of the jury , i will deliver my observations in this cause as i would in any cause , to the best of my understanding , and will make those observations that are as natural as i know how to do ; and proper for you to take notice of . it is in vain to dispute what my lord stands indicted of : it is for attempting to murder the king , and change our government and our religion . to prove this , there hath been two witnesses only that are material , and that is mr. oates in the first place , and mr. oates his evidence , the sum of it is to be reduced — l. c. j. mr. atturney , do you stand up to speak any thing ? att. gen. if your lordship pleases , we will sum up the evidence for the king , not to offend your lordship . l. c. j. if you would be short , mr. atturney , we would not hinder you of any thing . att. gen. i 'll be very short . if it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , my lord castlemain is here charged with high treason . the proof that we have against him is by two witnesses , that is , dr. oates and mr. dangerfield . mr. oates he doth swear this , namely , that after the consult ( for i will bring it in short ) that after the consult that was for killing the king and altering the government , my lord castlemain being acquainted with it at mr. fenwick's chamber , did hope it good success , and that he should come to be reveng'd . mr. dangerfield he hath proved , that being treated with to kill the king , and having refused to do it , my lord castlemain was very angry with him for it ; and said , why wan't you do that for which you were taken out of prison ? here are two witnesses express . what is said against mr. oates signifies nothing . as to mr. dangerfield there are some exceptions , which we must confess to be true ; but he is a witness , and my lord , such matters are to be expected to be proved by such witnesses : for if a man will discover robberies , he must go to such persons as do such things ; and if treasons , it must be among them that have been employed in such things . though he were a dishonest man before , yet he may be honest now . he was never guilty of any treason but as he was employed amongst them . there are some witnesses brought to encounter him , and one is my lady powis , who , as he says , sent him with a letter to my lord castlemain ; but she says she did never send a letter by him : and others say he would never come at my lord castlemain after he was angry , which was in june . now for that , gentlemen , you do hear turner say , that in july or august , for he can't tell which , he thinks it might be july , he saw dangerfield at my lord castlemains ; so that that encounters that evidence . l. c. j. if mr. atturney had not interrupted me , i would not have left out any thing of this nature ; for i would be certainly careful , where the kings life lies at stake . i would be sure to preserve my sovereign above all things , and therefore no man ought to think that i should be partial in a cause wherein our religion and the life of the king and the government is in danger . but i must say on the other side , that there should be good competent proofs of these things against those accused , because their lives and fortunes , and honours , and a●l are at stake . and so , gentlemen , we shall discharge our consciences to the best of our understandings , and deal uprightly on both hands . for the case it stands thus , it is truly observed by mr. atturney , that there are but two material witnesses to the charge of this indictment , that is to say , mr. oates and dangerfield . mr. oates his testimony is in two things , the one close , the other is more remote . that more remote , is , that he had a letter to send to my lord castlemain , which he gave to the provincial to send it , and as he says , he saw a letter subscribed castlemain , and that afterwards by seeing him write a superscription , he could recollect the character so well , that he believed that to be his hand which he saw in spain among the jesuits , or the fathers , as they call them there , to whom they communicated that letter ; wherein he mentioned the general design , that is , the bringing in popery ; which is the bringing in the catholick religion , as they call it . that is more remote . he says there were letters past between them , wherein my lord approved of some things and disapproved of others , which related to the design ; by which , says mr. oates , we meant the whole matter and transaction of killing the king ; and that doth appear by that letter he saw of my lord castlemains , for that annexes to design the advancing the catholick religion . the first time he saw him , he did not know who he was , and there , at wild house , he says , that my lord castlemain should drop out some words which were suspicious , and one thing as if he understood something of this matter that they had then in agitation . but more particularly , he says , that when he came to fenwick's chamber , there was the great matter . they talk ▪ d before but of the design in general , at wlld house ; but afterwards meeting in lincolns-inn fields , where he was told who he was , they went to fenwick's chamber , where they fell a discoursing about several things that related to the concern , and at last they tell upon the matter in hand , and said , they were glad to see the fathers so unanimous in this ma●ter . i asked about what matter ? he said , the killing of the king and bringing in popery : to which he says , that my lord should make answer , he wished them good success in their design , and that then he should be revenged . this is the substance of what mr. oates says : against whose testimony , i must tell you there hath been but little . there is but little thrown upon mr. oates by way of disgrace and infamy . for that verdict that the jury sound against his evidence , it is not material ; for then every man must be accused , when the jury does not go according to the testimony he gives . it is not to be denied , but there is something said against him in another particular , and that is his coming over from st. om●rs , where he says that mr. hilsley came over with him in the pacquet boat , but mr. hilsl●y denies it . mr. oates would have salved it , by saying he left him at st. omers . 't is true , says mr. oates , but i overtook him afterwards : but he says to the point , that he came not with him . now it is not denied on the other hand , but mr. oates might be here , and my lord of castlemaine seems to admit it , and it is probable enough mr. oates might be here . this is all i remember in reference to mr. oates . you must weigh well with your selves how probable or not probable , what he does swear is . but i must tell the jury they are to weigh the natures of people among themselves , as they carry probability or not , or else the confidence of a swearer shall take away any man's life whatsoever . and to that that mr. oates says first , i understand not how he should be so free , mr. oates being a stranger to him , when he knew not my lord , and doth not know whether my lord knew him or no. but he says , my lord must needs see the jesuits trusted him , and that might make him more confident : that afterwards going to fenwick's house , he spake broader ; in plain english . they were talking of a design to kill the king and bring in the catholick religion , and mr. oates says , he wished them good success in the design , and that then he should be revenged . how far this oath is to be taken or not , i must leave to your consideration . the next is mr. dangerfield , for nothing infamous is proved against mr. oates . dangerfield is a man of whom there is enough . you see what crimes there are , for it is the duty of every judge , and i can't see how he can discharge his conscience , and the duty he ows to the government , in respect of his oath and place , if he doth not make those just observations to the jury which are done in all cases : that is to say , when men have contracted great crimes upon themselves , though by law they may be witnesses ; yet it hath always been observed , and their credit left to them to consider of . you see how many crimes they have produced , a matter of six great enormous crimes ; and by them you will see how far you ought to consider his testimony . had mr. dangerfield been guilty only of being concern'd in the treason , and come in as a witness , i should have thought him a very competent witness ; for that is mr. oates his case : but they prove crimes of another sort and nature , and whether the man of a sudden be become a saint , by being become a witness , i leave that to you to consider ; and how far you are satisfied in the main . the next thing is the opposition to his testimony . he hath sworn that he carried a letter from my lady powis to my lord castlemain , and an answer return'd lack from my lord to her , and that my lady powis did read it in the presence of mrs. cellier and him . of this my lady powis hath been asked ( it is true they are not upon their oaths , but that is not their fault , the law will not allow it ) and my lady powis hath affirmed to it , as much as lay upon her to do , that she never sent a letter by mr. dangerfield to my lord castlemaine , nor any body else . and whereas he say's mrs. cellier was present , she says , she knows of no such letter , nor was any read in her company ▪ and this is a contradicting his evidence , supposing him to be a man otherwise untouch'd . and whereas dangerfield says that in august he was with my lord , and he said , how chance you would not do that thing for which you were brought out of prison ? what ? would you have me kill the king ? yes , saith he , that it is . and my lord speaking very angrily and very roughly , made him think it time to with-draw out of his company , and never come into his company more ; and that this was the time of his anger , and no other time ; my lord rather complementing him , as he would say , with friendly salutations . but they produce witnesses against this . says mrs. cellier , this day twelve-month , and says t'other about a week after the jesuits were executed , which was about the beginning of july , saith she , i would have you carry a letter to my lord castlemain : saith he , i would not do that , i would go an hundred miles upon another errand , but i would not go to him . another witness says , my lord was mighty angry with him , and told him the cause , because he went in his name to the lords in the tower. first , this contradicts what he said , as if there had been no anger before . the next is , that it is very improbable that my lord should be angry with him so much , that my lord should be very angry with him for going in his name to the tower , and afterwards for his refusing to kill the king ; when he said , why did you not do that you came out of prison for ? what , my lord , to kill the king ? yes , that . this is an argument in opposition to his testimony . the next is a consideration for his testimony , turner-says in an swer to that , in july he takes it , but cann't charge himself , whether june , or july , or august ; but he himself thinks july ; that he saw him at the lord castlemain's house . and the kings council would gather from that , there could not be such an unwillingness to go before that time , it being after the time they speak of , that this man saw him there . whether or no it was in june , or july , or august , is something uncertain . so that i have repeated as near as i can all that is substantial on either part , and i have according to the best of my understanding dealt fairly on both sides ; and observed to you what hath been sworn against my lord , and what hath been said in contradiction to what they swear ; and what appears upon record , as to dangerfield . there is a great deal of difference between mr. oates his testimony and mr. dangerfield's ; for you may believe one , when you may perchance not believe another . there are not those things cast upon mr. oates that are upon mr. dangerfield . now i must tell you , though they have produced two , if you believe but one , i think ( if so be my brethrens opinions be otherwise , i would be very willingly contradicted in this matter ) if two witnesses are produced , both speaking materially to the thing , the one is believed and the other not , whether upon these two witnesses the jury can find a person guilty , or no ? i am of opinion it is but one witness , if you don't believe one ; and i am sure one is not sufficient to find one guilty ; and therefore if so be you are of another opinion , let us deal fairly and above-board ; that it may appear we deal rightly between the king and his subjects , and so preserve men that are accused and not guilty . j. jones , i think in the first place , my lord hath very faithfully delivered the evidence ; and i do think it necessary , in a case of treason , that there must be two witnesses believed by the jury . j. raymond , i never heard any man question it . if the law says , there must be two witnesses produced , it says , they must be both believed . l. c. j. now you have our sense of it . [ the jury went from the bar and returned . ] cler. of the crown , are you all agreed of your verdict ? jury , yes . clerk of the crown , who shall speak for you ? jury , the foreman . clerk of the crown , roger palmer esq ; earl of castlemain in the kingdom of ireland , hold up thy hand , look upon the jury . clerk of the crown , is roger palmer esq ; earl of castlemain in the kingdom of ireland , guilty of the high treason whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? jury , not guilty . clerk of the crown , this is your verdict , you say he is not guilty , so you say all ? jury , yes . finis . the arraignment, tryal and condemnation of stephen colledge for high-treason in conspiring the death of the king, the levying of war, and the subversion of the government : before the right honourable sr. francis north, lord chief justice of the court of common-pleas, and other commissioners of oyer and terminer and gaol delivery held at the city of oxon for the county of oxon, the 17th and 18th of august 1681. colledge, stephen, 1635?-1681, defendant. 1681 approx. 562 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 56 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2007-10 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a25877 wing a3761 estc r15865 12255844 ocm 12255844 57458 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a25877) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 57458) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 163:4) the arraignment, tryal and condemnation of stephen colledge for high-treason in conspiring the death of the king, the levying of war, and the subversion of the government : before the right honourable sr. francis north, lord chief justice of the court of common-pleas, and other commissioners of oyer and terminer and gaol delivery held at the city of oxon for the county of oxon, the 17th and 18th of august 1681. colledge, stephen, 1635?-1681, defendant. [6], 102 [i.e. 106] p. printed for thomas basset ... and john fish ..., london : 1681. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng colledge, stephen, 1635?-1681 -trials, litigation, etc. popish plot, 1678. trials (treason) -great britain. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-07 spi global keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-09 john latta sampled and proofread 2006-09 john latta text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion i do appoint thomas basset and john fish to print the arraignment , tryal and condemnation of stephen colledge , and that no others presume to print the same . fr. north. the arraignment , tryal and condemnation of stephen colledge for high-treason , in conspiring the death of the king , the levying of war , and the subversion of the government . before the right honourable sr. francis north , lord chief justice of the court of common-pleas , and other commissioners of oyer and terminer and gaol delivery held at the city of oxon for the county of oxon , the 17th and 18th of august 1681. london , printed for thomas basset at the george in fleetstreet , and john fish near the golden tun in the strand . 1681. to the king 's most excellent majesty . the humble petition of stephen colledge , now prisoner in your majesty's tower of london , most humbly sheweth , that whereas your petitioner being charged with high-treason , is under strait confinement , that he hath not liberty to see or speak with any of his friends or his children , and being lately informed , that it is ordered your petitioner shall come to his tryal at the city of oxon about the middle of the next month. your petitioner therefore most humbly prayes your sacred majesty , that leave may be given for mr. thomas smith and mr. robert west to come to him ; and also to have the use of pen , ink and paper , in order only to make his legal and just defence , and also to have the comfort of seeing his two children . and your petitioner as in duty bound shall ever pray , &c. a true copy , francis gwyn . at hampton-court , july 28. 1681. upon reading this day at the board the petition of stephen colledge prisoner in the tower , praying that in order to the making his defence at his tryal , which he hears is to be the middle of the next month , he may be permitted to see his two children , to have the liberty of pen , ink and paper , and that mr. thomas smith , and mr. robert west may come to him . his majesty was pleased to order , that the lieutenant of the said tower of london , do permit the said stephen colledge to have pen , ink and paper , and to see his two children , and the said dr. thomas smith , and mr. robert west , and to converse with them as often as he shall desire in the presence and hearing of the wardour who attends him . a true copy , francis gwyn to the king 's most excellent majesty , and to the right honourable the lords and others of his majesties most honourable privy council . the humble petition of stephen colledge now a prisoner in the tower of london , humbly sheweth , that your petitioner having been a close prisoner ever since his first commitment , is altogether ignorant of the particular matters charged against him , and of the names of the witnesses who are to prove the same ; upon his knowledge of both which , as well the nature as the manner of his defence must depend ; and because upon the consideration of his case , several matters of law may arise as well before as at the time of his tryal in which councel will be necessary to assist him , and several matters of fact preparatory to his tryal , with which under his confinement he cannot be furnisht without the help of a sollicitor , and he is like to be wholly uncapable of receiving any benefit from the priviledge allowed by law of peremptory challenge to several jurors , especially in a countrey where he is absolutely a stranger , unless he may have some knowledge of them before his tryal . in full assurance therefore of the great justice and clemency of your majesty and this honourable board which he hath lately had some experience of , and doth with all humility and thankfulness acknowledge , your petitioner doth humbly beseech your majesty and this honourable board , that he may have a copy of the indictment against him , or the particular charges of it , that his councel and sollicitor may have free access to , and private conference with him ; and because their own private affairs or other accidents may call away some of his councel from his assistance , that mr. wallop , mr. smith , mr. thompson , mr. darnell , mr. west of the middle temple , mr. holles of lincolns-inn , mr. rotherham , mr. lovell , mr. rowny of grayes-inn , mr. pollexfin , mr. ward of the inner temple , may be assigned him for councel , and aaron smith for his sollicitor , and that he may have a copy of the jurors to be returned upon his tryal some dayes before his tryal . and your petitioner shall ever pray , &c. a true copy , francis gwyn . at hampton-court , aug . 11. 1681. it is ordered by his majesty in council , that the friends and relations of stephen colledge a prisoner in the tower , shall have liberty of visiting and freely conversing with him ; and the lieutenant of the tower having first caused their names to be taken in writing , is to suffer such friends and relations to have access to the said stephen colledge without any interruption from time to time accordingly . a true copy , francis gwyn . the tryal of stephen colledge , &c. present the lord norreys . lord chief justice north. mr. justice jones . mr. justice raymund . mr. justice levyns . on wednesday the 17 th of august , 1681. the judges and commissioners of oyer and terminer and gaol-delivery , met at the court-house in the city of oxford ; and after proclamation for silence , the commission of gaol-delivery was read , and then the commission of oyer and terminer . proclamation was made for the sheriff to return the precepts to him directed : the justices of the peace of the county of oxford were called over ; and the appearance of the grand jury summoned to attend this commission was taken . l. ch. just . north. gentlemen , you that are returned of the grand inquest , there has been a sessions so lately that in all probability there will be no great matter to trouble you with at this time . and so i shall not trouble my self nor you to give you any charge , because we know of no business yet that we shall need you for . the court hath recorded your appearance . you will do well to be in the way either in the town or here about the court , that you may be ready if any thing should happen . 't is necessary for us to have your attendance , but we know not of any thing that we have in particular to trouble you with . we have an indictment before us , let us proceed upon that . cl. of the crown . gaoler , have you your prisoner ? gaoler . we will fetch him presently . then the prisoner was brought to the bar. cl. of cr. stephen colledge hold up thy hand . ( which he did . ) thou art here indicted by the name of stephen colledge late of oxford , in the county of oxford , carpenter ; for that thou as a false traytor against the most illustrious , most serene , and most excellent prince , our soveraign lord charles the second , by the grace of god , of england , scotland , france and ireland king , defender of the faith , &c. thy supreme and natural lord , the fear of god in thy heart not having , nor weighing the duty of thy allegiance , but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil , the cordial love , and true due and natural obedience which true and faithful subjects of our said sovereign lord the king towards him our said soveraign lord the king , should and of right ought to bear , wholly withdrawing and machinating , and with all thy strength intending the peace and common tranquillity of our said soveraign lord the king of this kingdom of england to disturb , and sedition and rebellion , and war against our sovereign lord the king , within this kingdom of england to move , stir up and procure ; and the cordial love , and true and due obedience which true and faithful subjects of our said soveraign lord the king , towards him our said soveraign lord the king should and of right ought to bear , wholly to withdraw , put out and extinguish , and him our said soveraign lord the king to death and final destruction to bring , and put the tenth day of march , in the three and thirtieth year of the reign of our soveraign lord charles the second , by the grace of god , of england , scotland , france and ireland king , defender of the faith , &c. at oxford , in the county of oxford , falsly , maliciously , subtilly and traiterously , did purpose , compass , imagine , and intend sedition and rebellion within this kingdom of england , to move , stir up , and procure , and a miserable slaughter among the subjects of our said soveraign lord the king to procure and cause , and our said soveraign lord the king from his regal state , title , power and government of his kingdom of england , to deprive , depose , cast down and disinherit ; and him our said soveraign lord the king to death and final destruction to bring and put , and the government of the said kingdom at thy will and pleasure to change and alter , and the state of all this kingdom of england , in all its parts well instituted and ordained , wholly to subvert and destroy , and war against our said soveraign lord the king , within this kingdom of england to levy ; and thy said most wicked treasons and trayterous imaginations and purposes aforesaid to fulfil and perfect , thou the said stephen colledge the said tenth day of march , in the three and thirtieth year of the reign of our said soveraign lord the king with force and arms , &c. at oxford aforesaid , in the county of oxford aforesaid , falsly , maliciously , subtilly , advisedly , devilishly and traiterously did prepare arms and warlike offensive habiliments to wage war against our said soveraign lord the king. and thy self in warlike manner for the purposes aforesaid , then and there falsly , maliciously , subtilly , advisedly , devilishly and traiterously didst arm , and one edward turbervill , and other subjects of our said soveraign lord the king , to arm themselves , to perfect thy traiterous purposes aforesaid , then and there advisedly , maliciously and trayterously didst incite and advise . and further , then and there falsly , maliciously , subtilly , advisedly , devilishly and traiterously didst say and declare , that it was purposed and designed to seize the person of our said soveraign lord the king at oxford aforesaid , in the county of oxford aforesaid . and that thou the said stephen colledge in prosecution of thy traiterous purpose aforesaid , wouldst be one of them who should seize our said soveraign lord the king at oxford aforesaid in the county aforesaid . and that thou the said stephen colledge thy said most wicked treasons and traiterous imaginations , compassings and purposes aforesaid the sooner to fulfill and perfect , and discords between our said soveraign lord the king and his people to move , cause and procure , then and diverse times and dayes as well before as after at oxford aforesaid in the county of oxford aforesaid in the presence and hearing of diverse leige subjects of our said soveraign lord the king , then and there being present , falsly , maliciously , subtilly , advisedly , devillishly and traiterously didst say and declare , that nothing of good was to be expected from our said soveraign lord the king , & that our said soveraign lord the king did mind nothing but beastliness and the destruction of his people : and that our said soveraign lord the king did endeavour to establish arbitrary government and popery against the duty of thy allegiance , against the peace of our soveraign lord the king , his crown and dignity , and against the form of the statutes in this case made and provided . how say'st thou stephen colledge , art thou guilty of this high treason whereof thou standest indicted and hast been now arraigned , or not guilty ? colledge . my lord , i do desire , if it please your lordship , to be heard a few words . l. ch. just . look you mr. colledge , the matter that hath been here read unto you is a plain matter , and it hath been read to you in english , that you may understand it . 't is an indictment of high treason ; now you must know , that no plea can be received to it , but either guilty or not guilty as to the fact ; if you can assign any matter in law , do it . colledge . will you please to spare me , that i may be heard a few words . i have been kept close prisoner in the tower ever since i was taken : i was all along unacquainted with what was charged upon me . i knew not what was sworn against me , nor the persons that did swear it against me , and therefore i am wholly ignorant of the matter . i do humbly desire , i may have a copy of the indictment , and a copy of the jury that is to pass upon me , and that i may have councel assigned me , to advise me , whether i have not something in law pleadable in bar of this indictment . l. ch. just . these are the things you ask , you would have a copy of the indictment , you would have councel assigned to you , to advise you in matter of law , and a copy of the jury . colledge . one word more my lord , i desire to know upon what statute i am indicted . l. ch. just . i will tell you for that , is it not contra formam statut. with an abbreviation ? cl. of c. yes . l. ch. just . that refers to all manner of statutes that have any relation to the thing in the indictment that is high treason . for it may be meant contra formam statut. which are all the several statutes that are in force concerning high treason . now for those things that you demand , you cannot have them by law. no man can have a copy of the indictment by law ; for councel you cannot have it , unless matter of law arises , and that must be propounded by you ; and then if it be a matter debatable , the court will assign you councel , but it must be upon a matter fit to be argued : for i must tell you , a defence in case of high treason ought not to be made by artificial cavils , but by plain fact. if you propose any matter of law , the court will consider of it , and assign you councel if it be reasonable . for a copy of the jury , that you can't have neither , for there is no such thing as yet ; there is no issue joyned whereupon such a jury should be impannelled . when you have pleaded to issue , then we must award the sheriff to impannel a jury to try that issue . so as to what you say as to want of preparation for your tryal , we cannot enquire what notice you have had ; and yet if you had never so little time , there is no cause why you should not plead , though you were but just now taken and brought to the bar to answer it , and never heard of any thing of it before . so that i think you ought to plead presently . colledge . my lord , i am wholly ignorant of the law , i may ruine my self by mistaking the law ; i desire councel , not to delay my tryal , but only to advise me whether there is not something in law proper for me to plead to this indictment , and those things i alledged were not at all to delay the tryal , but only that i may not be wanting to my self in what i may by law have . l. ch. just . i tell you , councel cannot be assigned you , till the court be possessed of some matter to grant it upon . colledge . i had some papers my lord , that were taken from me , which i desire may be restored to me . i only plead , that i may have my birth right , and that which the law gives me ; if i may have justice , i desire no more . those papers were taken from me in the house over the way since i was brought from the prison ; they were papers that concerned my defence ; some directions and instructions how to manage my self in that defence . if you please to let me have those papers , i will not take up much of your time ; i desire to have but common justice , and that which is my right by law. l. ch. just . that which you demand , justice , you shall have by the grace of god to the best of our skill , without any partiality in the world. but you must trust the publick justice of the kingdom . we are to be of councel for you , so far as to see that all things proceed fairly on all sides . and when things come before us that are fit for you to have councel upon , you shall have councel assigned you ; for we are tender of the life of a man , as well as of the life of the king , and of the publick justice of the kingdom . but this is no reason why you should not now plead . for the papers you speak of , we will take an examination of them afterwards . if they were papers that are necessary for your defence upon your tryal , in gods name you must have them restored to you , but we know not which way you came by them , nor what they are . colledge . they were taken from me just now under the pretence of bringing them to your lordship . l. ch. just . how comes any body to give you papers ? no body can solicit for any one that is under an accusation of high treason , unless he be assigned so to do by the court. colledge . god have mercy upon any man that is so accused then ; for 't is not possible for him to make his defence , if he cannot be at liberty to look after it himself , nor any of his friends permitted to do it for him . l. ch. just . you can say , whether you are guilty or not guilty without any papers . colledge . my lord , i know not but there may be something in law for me to plead to this indictment , which i shall lose the benefit of if i plead . i humbly conceive , you are to be my councel , and as you are judges , are to proceed according to the law. you are upon your oaths to do me right according to the law. mr. just . jones . but till you have proposed a matter of law fit for councel to argue , there is no councel to be assigned you . colledge . if i had those papers i could tell what i should plead . my lord , this is one thing , i am a free-man of london , and i am not impleadable by the charter of london any where out of the liberties of the city in pleas of the crown . l. ch. just . you are indicted in oxfordshire for high treason committed here . if there be not any thing of high treason proved , done in oxfordshire , you will be acquitted . but a free-man of london cannot have a priviledge to commit treason in oxfordshire , but must be tryed for it there . colledge . will you please to order me my papers back that were taken from me ? mr. just . jones . you ought first to plead . you have a right to demand councel in matters of law , but then it must be upon such matters of law as you your self propose to the court , and the court shall judge 〈◊〉 matters of law fit to be debated : till then we cannot assign you councel . colledge . it was so in the tryal of lilburne , and in the tryal of my lord stafford , there was councel assigned to them . mr. just . jones . not before they pleaded to the indictment . colledge . did not your lordships , some of you , that are judges of the kings-bench say , that it was the right of the prisoner , to have a copy of the pannel and of the jury before the tryal ? mr. just . jones . no sure : here are two of us that are of the court , and we never heard of any such thing . colledge . pray my lord , do me right , i am ignorant of the law , and through my ignorance may mistake . l. ch. just . god forbid we should not do you right ; you may expect it from us ; we are upon our oaths to do all the kings subjects right . colledge . i am ignorant in the law , and 't is impossible for me to make my defence without the assistance of my papers . l. ch. just . cannot you tell , whether you be guilty or not guilty of this treason ? colledge . i can so , but i know not what error i may run my self into , if i should plead presently , and lose the benefit that the law may give me . l. ch. just . all matters of law are saved to you after you have pleaded . colledge . pray my lord , let me have my papers again that were taken from me ▪ cl. of cr. you must plead to the court , guilty or not guilty . colledge . shall i not have my papers after i have pleaded ? l. ch. just . we will not capitulate with you . move what you will then , but till you have pleaded , we can enter into no other business . colledge . i know not but i might plead some other thing to the indictment . mr. just . jones . propose what you will , if it be a matter in law fit to be argued , you shall have councel assigned you . colledge . pray my lord , let me have my papers again . if it were not my right to have them , or to have councel , i would not ask it ; but if it be , i would not lose what is my right . l. ch. just . you must plead first . i know not but he may be criminal that brought you those papers : for we allow no sollicitors in cases of treason . colledge . some of those papers were received from me in the tower , and were brought back to me , and taken away but to day , i desire they may be returned . cl. of cr. are you guilty or not guilty ? colledge . those papers tell me i have a plea in law , but what it is , i cannot directly tell without my papers . l ch. just . you must mention it and propose it , and then we will do what is fitting for us to do in it . colledge . i have not that method about me , nor can i directly tell it without my papers ; but 't is something of law about the indictment . l. ch. just . you are not bound up to forms of law. for if you propose the matter never so loosely , yet if it be a matter of avail , and that which the law is not clearly against you in , you shall have councel , and time to draw it up in form . colledge . i cannot propose the matter so regularly as if i had my papers . mr. just . jones . you are not bound to propose it in formality of law , my lord tells you , only let us know what it is . colledge . if i have a priviledge in law , i hope you will give me the benefit of it . l. ch. just . we will deny you nothing that the law gives you ; but we cannot give you councel it is not one particular case , but the common course of justice is concerned . without a matter of law arises , we cannot assign you councel ; if we would , we cannot in justice till you have proposed the matter which the court thinks fit to be argued . colledge . my lord coke sayes , it is the birth-right of every english-man to have councel in matters of law , and lilburne had it upon solemn argument in his tryal . mr. just . jones . what times were those ? that was before the high court of justice . mr. att. gen. if there be matter in law , it must be proposed to the court , and they are to judge , whether it be a point fit to be argued , and then councel is to be assigned you , and not till then . colledge . my lord , i know not but there may be somewhat in law for me to plead to this indictment , till i have my papers i can't tell what it is . l. ch. just . we know nothing of your papers what they are , you must answer whether you be guilty or not guilty . colledge . if i had my papers , i would answer to it immediately ; but i hope i shall not be murdered . mr. just . jones . have a care of aspersing the court. pray who intends to murder you ? mr. serj. jefferies . i remember in lilburne's tryal , that he speaks of , such words , were used indeed . colledge . my lord , i hope i shall not be deny'd what is necessary for my defence . this design is not only against me , but against all the protestants . mr. att. gen. how long have you been a protestant , mr. colledge ? colledge . ever since i knew what religion was sir ; i never was any thing else . for gods sake , my lord , let me have the justice of the nation , and what by law an english-man ought to have . l. ch. just . you must plead guilty or not guilty , or you must shew some matter that you will plead , that is proper for us to assign you councel . if we should record your refusal , you would be judged to stand mute , and sentence would pass upon you . colledge . if i have a priviledge in law as an english-man , i will not forfeit it , if i can help it , for any thing in the world . therefore i desire i may have my papers again , that i may see if i can plead any thing in law ; for if i have a priviledge by the law , before i will forfeit it , you shall do what you please with me . l. ch. just . you 'l have the advantage of all that matter that is in your papers after you have pleaded , if there be any advantage . colledge . pray my lord , order me my papers that were taken away from me . l. ch. just . they were not taken away by me . colledge . they were taken away by the keeper , under pretence to bring them to your lordship . l. ch. just . i know not how you came by them . there came one to me last night that is a common sollicitor , one aaron smith , and desired he might have liberty to go and speak with the prisoner . i told him , i did not understand till he were assigned by the court , that any could justifie solliciting for a man that is accused of high treason , nor could any be of councel till they were assigned : for a defence against treason ought to be by plain matters of proof and fact , and not by artificial cavils . but if you will propose any thing of substance as a matter in law which the court shall think fit to be argued , propose it , and then we will assign you councel . colledge . is it not my right , that i ought to have a copy of the jury ? l. ch. just . look you for that now , you cited the opinion of the judges of the kings bench. my brothers two of them that are here who are judges in that court , say , they know nothing of any such matter : but i must tell you , you have liberty by law to challenge 35. by your sight peremptorily without shewing cause . they are bound to look upon you when they come to be sworn , and if you have any just cause , you may except against as many more as you will. but now we that proceed upon a commission of gaol-delivery , are to proceed with expedition ; there are no particular men designed for a jury that i know of . but when you have pleaded , we shall award the sheriff to impannel a jury . colledge . if the law allows me the liberty of challenging , it does intend it me that i may challenge those persons that i think will do me no justice , but where they are strangers unto me , if i can have no information about any of them by my own inquiry or my friends , i may challenge my friends as well as my foes : and should there be any person that has a prejudice against me , and i not know it , he may chance to be one . l. ch. just . i hope they will be neither friends nor foes , but true men . colledge . i know not that my lord. mr. just . jones . this that you say as to a copy of the jury is unseasonable . there is no jury , nor can be awarded till you have pleaded . there must be first issue joyned ; and that cannot be but upon your plea of not guilty . therefore you must plead first , and then say all you will. cl. of cr. are you guilty or not guilty ? colledge . my lord , may not i have a pannel of the jury ? mr. just . jones . there is no such thing in being . colledge . i know not what to say to it ; pray my lord , let me have my papers . cl. of cr. you have heard the opinion of the court , you must first plead . colledge . i cannot plead first . i must lose my life if i must ; i neither know who accuses me , nor what it is they accuse me of : 't is impossible i should defend my self , if i have not my papers . l. ch. just . we know not what papers you mean. colledge . the gaoler took them from me , and one of the kings messengers . pray my lord , will you order them to be returned to me again : let me but see whether i have any right or no , and whether i have any thing to plead or no : when i have perused my papers , i will propose it as well as i can to you . pray my lord , let me have a fair tryal . l. ch. just . we promised you a fair tryal , but you must put your self upon that tryal by your pleading . colledge . i cannot do that without my papers , my lord. let me but have them again , and i will not delay your time at all . l. ch. just . you can tell whether you are guilty or not guilty , can't you ? colledge . if i have a plea in law against the indictment , i hope you will not hinder me of that which is my right . it is possible the indictment does not lay it right , either as to the matter of treason , or as to the place . mr. just . jones . that is upon the issue of not guilty upon your tryal . if there be not matter of fact , or words proved that are treason in this place , you will have the advantage of it upon your tryal . colledge . i know not , my lord , but that the indictment does mention something of treason , and something of misdemeanour . mr. just . jones . that which is misdemeanour , won't amount to a proof of the treason upon the 〈◊〉 . l. ch. just . if they prove no treason against you here , but only misdemeanour , i do not understand that the jury can find you guilty of that misdemeanour , for 't is another crime , and there is another sort of proceedings for it . in misdemeanour , there are no peremptory challenges ; in misdemeanour councel is to be allowed for the prisoner , but not in treason . colledge . pray my lord , be pleased to order me my papers again : i know not what to say without i have the assistance of my papers : when i have them , i shall be ready to plead presently according as i shall find i may by law. this i am sure , i have done nothing , nor said nothing of treason , and i pray for nothing but justice , and that which is my right . this is a most horrid conspiracy to take away my life ; and it will not stop here , for it is against all the protestants in england . l. ch. just . mr. colledge , you do not only trifle , but run out into very great extravagancies . who has any conspiracy against your life ? you shall be allowed to give in evidence any thing of any conspiracy against you , or contrivance against you when you are upon your tryal . now the question is , are you guilty or not guilty ? i see no use of papers that you can have as to the plea. mr. just . jones . you will run into danger by spending of time . colledge . pray my lord , order me my papers , they are in the hands of mr. murrell the goaler , and sewell the kings messenger . l. c. j. when you have pleaded , we will take it into consideration . colledge . my lord , it may be too late then . l. c. j. 't is a plain matter before you , whether you be guilty or no. you know what to answer . colledge . i will give a direct answer , after i have my papers again . mr. just . jones . you can give an answer to that , without papers . l. c. j. consult with your own heart , and there you may receive an answer to that question . mr. att. gen. mr. college ; can any body tell whether you be guilty or no , better then your self ? mr. just . jones . if you expect any papers , they ought to be framed by your self ; for by law , none can advise you what to plead . colledge . i don't expect it in matter of fact , but if matter of law arise . mr. just . jones . but this is a matter of fact , and therefore you may plead not guilty , as well without your papers , as if you had them . colledge . but if there be any matter of law , that i ought to have the advantage of . mr. just . jones . then you ought to have no advice , till they be assigned by the court : for by the law , neither counsel nor advice are allowable to you , till the matter has been proposed , and the court think fit to assign you counsel . mr. just . levinz . you talk of the priviledge of an english man ; you have all the priviledges of an english man : you are here brought to an open tryal , according to the law , and by that law you must plead . now if a man be indicted for high treason , he is bound to plead either guilty or not guilty , unless he has a matter in law to excuse him from that plea , which must be proposed to the court , and then counsel will be assigned , and if so be matter of law arises upon any evidence that is given against you at the tryal , you may demurre upon that evidence , and pray counsel of the court to argue that demurrer , and they will not deny you , but i think you must plead presently . colledge . i suppose other persons that have been tried , have had counsel before they have pleaded . mr. just . jones . but never before the matter was proposed to the court. l. c. j. it was so in the case of my lord stafford . the court made him propose his matters in law , and so it was in lilburne's case . he did insist upon a great many matters in law , and had the books there himself . colledge . i am wholly ignorant of the law , my lord. mr. serj. jefferies . your lordships are the judges of law in this case . the question here in short , is whether the prisoner be guilty or not guilty , and that being demanded of him by the court , if he refuses , let him take the consequence of it . colledge . what is that , pray sr. george ? mr. att. gen. judgment of high treason . for if a person stand mute , and will not plead to an indictment of high treason , the common judgment of pressing to death must not pass upon him , but an attainder of high treason . colledge . well if it be so , i cannot help it . i thank god i am innocent of any treason , or any such thing . l. c. j. why don't you plead , not guilty then . colledge . i do not refuse to plead , i am willing to plead with all my heart , if i may have my right . mr. j. jones . if you do not plead , you do refuse to plead . colledge . pray my lord , let me have my papers . mr. att. gen. pray give the court an account , where had you those papers . l. c. j. nay , we will not enter into any examination of that matter now mr. attorney ; he can have no use of papers to see whether he should plead guilty or not guilty . mr. s. jef. we know nothing of those papers , we desire he may answer to the question shortly whether he be guilty or not guilty , if not , we pray your lordships judgment . colledge . i had them not all from one person , they were received from my own hands some of them in the tower , and being brought back to me they were taken from me to day , let me have but one of them : the paper of instructions in point of law that i may know what is my right , i would not throw away my life , if i have any thing that is my right that can preserve it . l. c. j. you are to give a plain answer , whether you are guilty or not guilty , now for that you have no use of papers : for you can best tell whether you be guilty or not . if you can propose any matter of law that you can have to plead , do it . colledge . if i have any plea , that i may plead besides not guilty , i desire i may have my papers to consider of it , and that i may have counsel assigned me . l. c. j. if you have any such plea , tell us the matter and the substance of it . colledge . i do not know what really are matters of law , if i had those instructions that are in my papers , i could give you a direct answer presently . l. c. j. you ought not to have any advice to decline your tryal : when you propose matter of law your self , you may have advice upon it . but you ought not to have advice to decline your tryal before-hand . cl. of cr. are you guilty , or not guilty ? colledge . mr. attorney , pray let me have a copy of the indictment . mr. att. gen. apply your self to the court for it , we must receive our directions from thence . l. c. j. you have had the opinion of the court you can't have it . mr. just . levinz . you have been told nothing can be received from you , but a plea of guilty or not guilty , and the court have given you their opinion , and that you cannot have a copy of the indictment , nor counsel assigned you , till you offer something for them to be assigned upon . l. c. j. and that was it which was done in the king's bench in the case of fitz harris which i suppose you meant when you spake of the judges opinions . mr. just . jones . nothing was done there till he himself assigned the matter in law that he would plead , and then counsel was assigned him . mr. serj. jeff. mr. colledge was in the court at that time , and can tell what was done . l. c. j. if you desire the indictment read over again distinctly that you may have . mr. att. gen. ay , with all my heart . colledge . pray let me hear it again my lord if you please . l. c. j. read it over again to him , and read it distinctly . cl. of cr. thou art indicted by the name of stephen colledge late of oxon in the county of oxon carpenter , as a false traytor . colledge . i have observed one thing already , my lord , i pray i may have pen and ink. l. c. j. ay give him pen and ink , let him make what observations he can . then the clerk read the indictment through . cl. of cr art thou guilty of this high treason or not guilty ? colledge . this indictment , if i understand it , says , there was a plot and conspiracy by me and others , now i know when my lord stafford was tryed they did proceed to prove , first , that there was such a plot , and then that my lord was guilty of it ; first , that there was such a conspiracy by the papists , is it not requisite they should , first , prove such a plot and conspiracy there was , before they go to prove me guilty of it . mr. just . jones . what before you have pleaded ? l. c. j. when you have pleaded the next thing is to try you , and to give the evidence , but what way the kings councel will take to mannage your tryal , that we can't tell . mr. just . jones . but they are not to be directed by you mr. colledge . colledge . it was so done i say in my stafford's case . l. c. j. he pleaded first however , you have not yet pleaded . cl. of cr. are you guilty or not guilty ? l. c. j. do not trifle any longer , 't is a plain matter and requires a very short and plain answer . colledge . your lordships are my counsel as well as my judges , and i do desire if i have any right to plead any other matter , you will be pleased to declare it to me , for i am ignorant in the law. mr. just . jones . we have declared our opinion already , that you have no right to have any solicitor or counsel , till matter of law do a●ise . colledge . is it your lordships opinion , that i have no plea in law. mr. just . jones . have you no plea in law ? l. c. j. he would have our judgment , whether there be any or no. mr. just . jones . you your self know best , we know nothing you have to plead . colledge . i cannot unless i have counsel , and my papers . l. c. j. there does nothing appear to us . colledge . i know nothing of the law. l. c. j. then plead not guilty , that is a ready plea. mr. just . jones . you have heard our opinion over and over again . you have as much counsel as is allowed in these cases , for every man is best judge of his own case , what to plead , whether guilty or not guilty ; you have had as fair play as ever any man had . mr. att. gen. mr. colledge has said , he knows of no plea in law he has , and therefore there is none , for de non apparentibus , & non existentibus , the reason is the same . l. c. j. in matter of fact , there is no plea but not guilty . colledge . the court are judges in matter of law , and they are my counsel . mr. just . jones . and the court have all of them declared they know of nothing in law that you have to plead . colledge . is not counsel to be allowed to one under my circumstances ? l. c. j. if you have any thing for counsel to be assigned upon , you shall have them . colledge . if i am ignorant of that , and cannot propose it , shall i not have the assistance of counsel . mr. just . jones . no , we have told you the law plainly , and that which is frequent in practise in like cases , and you must be contented with the same measure . colledge . my lord , i am ignorant of the law. l. c. j. then rely upon the fact and plead not guilty . colledge . but if i have a right to any point in law let me have it . mr. just . jones . you have a right if you will propose any matter of law , but we cannot propose it for you mr. att. gen. mr. colledge , no man ought to propose your plea for you , ignorantia juris non excusat . colledge . shall my ignorance destroy me , mr. attorney ? mr. sol. gen. you have heard the opinion of the court , you have a right to propose any other plea that you can your self , but you have no right to ask counsel before you have pleaded . mr. serj. jefferies . if mr. colledge have such a thing as a solicitor , i shall crave leave to put that solicitor in mind of the case of one that was indicted of high treason for soliciting for one that was accused of high-treason . mr. att. gen. we shall talk of that by and by ? l. c. j. the same methods are used in your case , as are in all cases of the like nature , as far as my knowledge reacheth . colledge . if i have a right to the law i must not lose it for my own ignorance of the law , but if you deny me both my counsel and my papers , you take away the means of my coming to that right , and make me uncapable of making my defence . l. c. j. you have been told you must plead before you do any thing . colledge . this is the person , ( pointing to a person by him ) that had the papers . be pleased to command him , that i may have them again ; he said he had order to take them from me , and bring them to your lordship . l. c. j. i know of no use you could have of any papers , to plead guilty or not guilty . mr. sol. gen. if there be in those papers advice in matters of law , that you have been told you ought not to have , till the court has assigned you counsel to give you advice . colledge . then if there be a right in law , and a priviledg which i ought to have ▪ i must lose it by my being ignorant of it , and have no one to advise me about it neither . l. c. j. you may propose it , if you have any , if not you must plead to the indictment . mr. serj. jefferies . my lord , it has not been usual for us , that are of the kings counsel , to enter into dialogues with prisoners at the bar. the first thing that is to be done in such cases , is for the prisoner to plead guilty , or not guilty , or to offer something to the court that may be a matter in law fit to be debated ; and this we pray may be done in this case , and that the prisoner may plead presently , or else we desire your judgment . colledge . pray let me have my papers again my lord. l. c. j. you go in a circle , and run round from one thing to another , and will receive no answer . we have told you our opinion , and we must tell you , that tho you hold long discourses , yet you will be judged lost and mute if you plead not a legal plea. therefore you must plead guilty , or not guilty , or offer something that may be a plea in law , and then you shall have the assistance of counsel , but you must have none till then . colledge . but shall i not have my papers my lord ? l. c. j. we know nothing of them . colledge . pray my lord order the man to give them to me , that took them from me . l. c. j. we will order no such thing . he may be a criminal perhaps that did give them you at first , but when you have pleaded we will hear any motion you will make about them . colledge . it may be i ought to plead that the words were spoke in another place , then the place lay'd in the indictment . l. c. j. you will not need to plead any such thing , for if there be nothing proved of treason that you said or did in oxford-shire you must be found not guilty . colledge . here is another thing my lord , i am indicted by the name of colledge carpenter . l. c. j. what then ? colledge . i am not a carpenter , but a joyner , is that any bar to it ? l. c. j. the addition signifies nothing , i do not know any difference betwixt a carpenter and a joyner in law. mr. just . jones . they might have indicted you by the name of labourer and it had been good . colledge . pray my lord either give me my papers or assign me counsel , or else i may throw away my life for i am wholly ignorant of the law. l. c. j. when you have pleaded we will hear any motion you will make and do that whch is just upon it : but i see no use you can have of papers to plead guilty or not guilty , which is the only question is asked you . cl. of cr. are you guilty , or not guilty ? colledge . will you promise me my lord , there shall no advantage be taken against me , if i do plead so ? l. c. j. we will make no bargains with you . plead as you ought by law to do . colledge . if matters of law arise , shall i have counsel to speak to them ? mr. just . jones . yes you shall , you need not doubt it . propose any matter now fit to be argued , and you shall have counsel to it . colledge . i am not capable of doing it . i know not when i have any right . mr. just . jones . the court is of counsel to you . colledge . if you are my counsel , then have i any plea in law to make ? mr. just . jones . you have heard the indictment read , what say you ? for you must propose the matter . l. c. j. we know of none but guilty , or not guilty , if you can tell of any do . colledge . i pray i may have my papers again ; if there be no other plea for me , pray let me have my papers again . l. c. j. you have heard the opinion of the court , you must plead . mr. att. gen. certainly mr. colledge , you can't be guilty of these things , you need not to scruple it , to plead not guilty sure . colledge . my lord , having been kept a prisoner , as i have been , without pen , ink , or paper , no conversation with my friends , no knowledg of the fact , and being ignorant of the law , not knowing where i have a right , nor when i have a right , if you do force me upon this plea and it cost my me life , at your doors lye it . mr. just . jones . you will lose your life , if you do not plead , if you plead not guilty , and are not proved guilty you will save your life by this plea. colledge . i am willing to plead what the law requires of me to plead , and if i have a right in law i would not lose it . cl. of cr. are you guilty or not guilty ? colledge . why , then as they have lay'd it in that indictment in manner and form as 't is there lay'd , i am not guilty . cl. of cr. culprit , by whom wilt thou be tryed ? colledge . by god , and my country . cl. of cr. god send thee a good deliverance , mr. just . jones . not guilty is his plea ? l. c. j. now he has pleaded mr. attorney ; he speaks of some papers , if there be any memorandums or any thing that must assist him , that is necessary for his defence in his tryal in those papers ; it will be hard to deny him them . mr. att. gen. if your lordships please to give me leave , i will give you an account of them . the messenger just now , did deliver these papers to be delivered to the court. colledge . pray speak out mr. attorney , and let me hear . mr. att. gen. when he came to prison he had none , but mr. aaron smith , the messenger informed me , did deliver them to him . l. c. j. whose hand-writing are the papers in ? colledge . he received them from me in the tower. mr. just . jones . you received them from him first . colledge . no ? mr. att. gen. what were the papers you delivered to him in the tower ? colledge . the three pieces joyned together that contains directions how to govern my self , there is another of the same purpose which instructs me to demand a copy of the indictment , and of the pannel of the jury , and those were instructions to tell me what the law allows me . mr. att. gen. here is a speech made for you that begins thus . before you plead , speak to this purpose . pray my lord i desire that may be examined , and mr. smith may be called to give an account how he came to give the prisoner those papers ; for here are abundance of niceties proposed for him to move , and there will be a strange sort of proceedings at this rate , if men go about to espouse the cause of traytors . colledge . i am noe traytor , mr. attorney . mr. att. gen. you stand indicted of high-treason . colledge . that is by a grand jury made up that morning , as i am informed . mr. att. gen. here is a list of the names of several men , of the country returned to be of the jury ▪ and particular marks set upon them , who are good men , and who bad men , and who moderate men . colledge . ought i not to have that paper my lord ? mr. att. gen. no i hope not . l. c. j. whether they are material or not material , if we should judge them not material for his defence , yet it will look like an hard point upon the prisoner , and to deliver them into an hand that they may be carried away or stifled , in case there were a crime in the delivering of them that would not do well on the other side : therefore i would have these papers put into some safe hands , that what may be for the prisoners use he may not want , and yet they may not be taken away , if there be occasion to use them upon another account . mr. att. gen. but if it please your lordship , i desire you would enter into the examination of this matter ; for i have an account from london by a special messenger that there are several persons that go up and down to procure witnesses against the kings evidence , making it a publick cause ; and here my lord , another paper which is a list of men as witnesses picked up together against the king's witnesses . l. c. j. he must have that , deliver him that presently . mr. att. gen. but my lord others have gone about and framed witnesses for him . l. c. j. you must give him the list of his witnesses , for i see not what use you can make of it . mr. serj. jefferies . this no man will oppose sure , if any thing that is delivered to him be fit to be delivered , the person that delivers it must come and own it ; but before any person delivers any papers to the prisoner , for him to make use of against the kings evidence , we desire to know what those papers mean , and who gave them . l. c. j. look you brother , we will have nothing of heat till the tryal be over , when that is over if there be any thing that requires our examination it will be proper for us to enter into the consideration of it . but in the mean while what hurt is there , if the papers be put into some trusty hands , that the prisoner may make the best use of them he can , and yet they remain ready to be produced upon occasion , if a man be speaking for his life tho he speak that which is not material , or nothing to the purpose that will be no harm to permit that . mr. serj. jefferies . with submission my lord , that is assigning him counsel with a witness . mr. att. gen. if people are permitted to go up and down and ask counsel of persons and bring it in papers to the prisoner , 't is the same thing as if counsel came to him . here is a busie solicitor and he gets advice from counsel and then he delivers it to the prisoner , 't is the first of the kind certainly that ever was allowed ; and if this be not to assign him counsel , i know not what is . l. c. j. what think you of our perusing the papers ? mr. att. gen. with all my heart my lord. colledge . if you take away all helps from me , you had as good condemn me without a tryal . mr. att. gen. you ought not to have helps to plead dilatories . college . not to help me to my right in law ? mr. att. gen. we are to go upon the fact now : and my lord i pray your judgment about them , when you have perused them . then the judges looked upon that paper that was called the speech . l.c.j. we have read enough of this to suppress it , and to examine it how this came to his hands . mr. just . jones . where is aaron smith ? mr. att. gen. my lord , here is another that is worse then that , charging the justice of the nation . pray call mr. aaron smith , and mr. henry starkey . mr. smith appeared . mr. att. gen. mr. smith , did you deliver these two papers to the prisoner ? mr. smith . doe's any body accuse me that i did ? mr. att. gen. you are accused for it . mr. smith . i desire proof may be made against me . mr. att. gen. that will be done . l. c. j. look you we will not interrupt the tryal with it , mr. smith must be taken into safe custody only to secure him , till we can examine it not as charged with any crime , but only that he may be forth-coming to be examined . mr. att. gen. you do not make a direct answer mr. smith in the case , it will be proved upon you . mr. smith . mr attorney , i know not what answer to make better then i have given ; our law says no man is bound to accuse himself . mr. att. gen. but our law says , you shall be examined . mr. smith . i come to give no informations here mr. attorney : if i did i should be then examined . mr. att. gen. here are instructions given to the prisoner , they say you gave them . mr. smith . i desire to have it proved . l. c. j. mr attorney , you will take a recognizance of mr. smith , to be forth-coming during this sessions . mr. smith . i will not depart my lord i assure you : and i hope mr. attorney will take my word . mr. att. gen. indeed i will not mr. smith , because you have broken it with me already , when i gave you leave to go to the prison , i did not think you would have abused that kindness , to give him papers . l. c. j. well , take his recognizance . mr. smith . 't is high time to have a care , when our lives and estates , and all are beset here . l. c. j. what do you mean by that mr. smith ? mr. smith . i said it not , meaning by it the court , for i declare i abhor that expression to be so interpreted , that i reflected upon the court. l. c. j. why do you use such loose expressions then mr. smith ? mr. smith . because i have been threatned since i came to town , tho i have not spoke one word in any publick company since i came . mr. just . jones . it seems you will reflect here in the face of the court , and in the face of the country , upon the government , upon the justice of the kingdom . mr. smith . no my lord , i have told you what i meant by it ; i neither reflected upon the court , nor upon the government , nor upon the justice of the kingdom . l. c. j. you should have done well , to have forborn such expressions as those were . colledge . shall i not have the use of the papers my lord : will you not please to deliver them back to me , now you have perused them ? mr. just . jones . one of them is a speech , and a most seditious libellous speech , to spit venom upon the government in the face of the country . we cannot tell who made it , but it seems to be beyond your capacity : and therefore we must enquire into it , but we do not think fit to let you have the use of that paper . l. c. j. for that which contains the names of the witnesses , that you have again : for the other matters , the instructions in point of law , if they had been written in the first person ▪ in your own name , that we might believe it was your writing , it would have been something ; but when it is written in the second person , you should do so and so ; by which , it appears to be written by another person ; it is an ill president to permit such things ; that were to give you counsel in an indirect way , which the law gives you not directly . colledge . if i am ignorant what questions to ask of the witnesses , shall not my friends help me my lord ? l. c. j. we will sift out the truth as well as we can , you need not fear it . colledge . some of those things i took out of the books my self . and if you are resolved to take away all my helps , i cannot help it , i know not that mr. smith wrote one of those papers . mr. att. gen. but mr. smith would have given four guinneys it seems , as a bribe , to the goaler , and he offered four more to let him have liberty to come to him . mr. serj. jefferies . 't is time indeed for mr. smith to have a care. keeper : it was mr. starkey that offered me the four guinneys . mr. att. gen. pray call mr. henry starkey . ( but he did not appear . ) then the court took a recognizance of 100 l. of mr. smith to attend the court during the session . colledge . pray my lord , let me have my papers delivered to me , i cannot make my defence else . l. c. j. we are your counsel in matter of fact , and to give you your papers were to assign you counsel against law , they being not your own papers , but coming from a third hand . colledge . will you please to give me the paper that has the questions in it , to ask the witnesses . l. c. j. there are no papers with any particular questions to any one witness , but only instructions how to carry your self in this case . colledge . a great deal of it is my own my lord. l. c. j. mr. attorney , truly i think that that doe's not contain matter of scandal may be transcribed and given to the prisoner . colledge . my lord , i desire i may have that , that has in the margent of it , the case of lilburn and stafford . mr. just . jones . you shall not have instructions to scandalize the government , all that is necessary for your defence , you shall have . l. c. j. if he had writ it himself i cannot well see how you could take it from him , and truly as 't is , i had rather let him have too much , then too little . colledge . my lord , i thought i might have had counsel to have assisted me , but if i may have counsel neither before my plea nor after , i that am an ignorant may be lost by it , but can't help it . l. c. j. if matter of law arise you shall have counsel it . colledge . i know not but it might have admitted of an argument , that which if i had had my papers , i should have offered to you . l. c. j. mr. colledge , we shall not go any farther now , i know not how many witnesses will be produced either of one side or another , but 't is too late to go on this morning , and because we attend here only upon this occasion , we shall go on with the tryal at two a clock in the afternoon . colledge . my lord , you will be pleased to order the papers for me to peruse in the mean time . l. c. j. we have ordered that you shall have a transcript of the paper of instructions , leaving out that which is scandalous . colledge . i desire i may have a copy of the whole . mr. just . jones . no , we do not think fit to do that . colledge . pray let me know which you do except against . l. c. j. look you mr. attorney , i think we may let him have a copy of the whole . mr. att. gen. my lord , before you rise , i desire you would please to take the examination of mr. gregory , about mr. starkey . l. c. j. swear him . ( which was done . ) mr. att. gen. what do you know concerning mr. starkey , and what he did offer you ? gregory . when they came by your lordships permission to mr. colledge , they brought some papers which they delivered to him : and afterwards mr. starkey took me aside , and told me it was hard usage that the prisoner could not have his counsel permitted to come to him . do him what favour you can , and i shall not be ungrateful , so he clapped four guinneys in my hand , but i immediately laid them down upon the table , and would not take them . mr. att. gen. my lord , i desire you would please to send for mr. starkey ? l. c. j. let him be sent for . cl. of cr. you must go and take up mr starkey . messenger . must i keep him in custody ? i don't know him . cl. of cr. no , you must order him from the court to attend here . mr. just . jones . these papers colledge shall not be debarr'd of , for his defence , nor you mr. attorney from prosecuting upon them . l. c. j. no , we we will put them into such hands as shall take care about that . colledge . very few my lord , have appeared to do me any kindness , some have been frightned and imprisoned , others are now in trouble for it . l. c. j. well , you shall have the use of your papers . colledge . may i have any friends come to see me in the mean time ? l. c. j. they must not come to you in the prison , to give you advice ; but i 'le tell you since you move it , if my brothers think it convenient , whilst the court does withdraw , any body of your friends may come to you , in the presence of your keeper . mr. just . jones . certainly you cannot think you can give a priviledg to any friend of yours , to commit any demeanor to offer bribes to any person . colledge . i know not of any such thing . mr. just . jones . we do not charge you with it , but mr. starkey did . colledge . i have been kept a strict close prisoner , and if my friends are so kind to me , as to help me in order to my defence , i hope you will not be against it . pray my lord let me have my papers ? l. c. j. you shall have them , but they shall be put into such hands as the court may have command over ; they shall be in the sheriffes sons hands , and you shall have the immediate use of them . colledge . if there be any thing else in those papers necessary for my defence , i pray i may have it . l. c. j. the speech is not fit for you , what other papers would you have ? colledge . another paper there is , that is something of law. mr. just . jones . nothing but libellous , and what is a scandal to the government . mr. att. gen. you are to have nothing of matter of law , but what you are to propose your self . colledge . if you take away all my helps i cannot propose any thing . mr. serj. jefferies . to allow you those papers is to allow you counsel by a side wind. l. c. j. look you the papers of instructions shall be delivered to the sheriff's son , who shall let you peruse it in this interval and make use of it in your tryal , but it must be in safe custody to be used upon further occasion as the kings attorney shall think fit . then the court adjorn'd till 2 in the afternoon . post meridiem . at 2 a clock the court returned , and proclamation was made for attendance , and for the vnder-sheriff to return his jury . colledge . my lord , ought not i to have a copy of this jury ? l. c. j. no , they are to look upon you as they come to be sworn , and then you are to challeng them . cl. of cr. stephen colledge , hold up thy hand , and hearken to the court ; those good men that you shall hear called , and personally appear , are to pass , &c. colledge . pray sr. let the way be clear , that i may see them . cl. of cr. ay , ay. colledge . pray sr. how many are there of the jury that appear ? mr. att. gen. there are enough . cl. of cr. make proclamation for information ( which was done . ) cl. of cr. henry standard , ( who was sworn . ) richard croke ( who was challenged by the prisoner , ) william bigg ( challenged . ) mr. just . jones . do you challenge him peremptorily , or with cause ? l. c. j. if he do not shew cause , it must be supposed it is peremptory . colledge . i suppose he was upon the grand-jury . l. c. j. that would be a chalenge with cause . mr. bigg . no , i was not . colledge . then i do not challenge him ; i know him not . ( he was sworn . ) cl. of cr. thomas marsh , ( challenged . ) thomas martin , ( did not appear . ) gabriel merry , ( being almost a hundred years of age , was excused . ) robert bird , ( sworn . ) john shorter , ( sworn . ) william windlow , ( sworne . ) edward aryes , ( challenged . ) william ayres , ( challenged . ) and richard ayres , ( challenged ) charles hobbs , ( sworn . ) roger browne , ( sworn . ) timothy doyley , ( sworn . ) richard dutton , ( challenged . ) ralph wallis , ( sworn . ) john nash , ( challenged . ) john benson , ( sworn . ) john peircy , ( sworn . ) william webb , ( challenged . ) and john lawrence , ( sworn . ) then they were counted , and their names in order , thus henry standard william bigg robert bird. john shorter william windlow charles hobbs roger browne timothy doyley ralph wallis john benson john peircy john lawrence . l. c. j. mr. sheriffe , there are a great many of the jury that are not sworn , they are discharged , let them go out of the court , and so you will make room for the witnesses . cl. of cr. gentlemen , you of the jury , look upon the prisoner , and hearken to his charge . he stands indicted by the name of stephen colledge , late of oxford , in the county of oxford carpenter , for that he as a false traytor , &c. proved in the indictment , mutatis mutandis , and upon this indictment he hath been arraigned , &c. mr. north. may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen that are sworn , this is an indictment against stephen colledge , the prisoner at the bar , for an endeavour to raise a rebellion within this kingdom wherein he is accused , and the jury find that he as a false traitor against the kings majesty , contrary to the duty or his allegiance , on the 10 th . of march , in the 33 d. year of the kings reign , at oxon here did trayterously conspire , and compass the death of the king , and the subversion of the government , and to raise a rebellion in the kingdom , and to slaughter his majesties subjects , to put the king to death , to levy war against him , and to deprive him of his royal state and government , and to alter the government at his own will and pleasure , and to accomplish this , he did at oxon here prepare arms for the carrying on the war , and excited one edward turbervile and others , to arm themselves against the accomplishment of this design , and did declare his purpose was to seize the kings person at oxon , and that he was one of those that was to do it ; and to bring the said turbervile and other subjects to his purpose , did falsly , malitiously , and trayterously declare in their hearing , that there was no good to be expected from the king , that he minded nothing but the destruction of his people , and arbitrary government , and to introduce popery . and this is laid to be against the duty of his allegiance , against the kings peace , and against the form of the statutes in those cases made and provided . the prisoner you hear upon his arraignment hath pleaded not guilty , which issue you are to try , and if the evidence for the king , which are ready to be produced , prove that which is laid to his charge , you are to find it accordingly . mr. att. gen. may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury . the prisoner at the bar stands indicted of a very high crime , no less then high treason , and that too of the deepest dye ; it is for an endeavour to destroy the king , to subvert the government , to raise a rebellion amongst the kings subjects . and gentlemen , those instances that we shall give you , and produce our evidence to for the proof of that , are these . he laid his design to seize the king at oxon ; and he did not want his accomplices to do it , but they were not men , gentlemen , that were protestants , but men that were rebels in the late war , they were men of such a kidney , that he associated himself with , and these were the persons that were to assist in this attempt . in order to this he had prepared arms in an extraordinary manner , arms of a great value , for one of his condition , who is by trade a joyner ; for if a true estimate were taken of the value of the arms , i believe they were worth twice his whole estate ; he prepared a good horse , extraordinary pistols , a carbine , a coat of maile , an head piece , and so being armed cap a-pee , with that design he came hither to oxon. and you will judge whether these be fit tools for a joyner . colledge . i beseech you sr. have you any body to prove this ? if you have not , you do hurt to the jury as well as me , to speak it . l. c. j. be patient mr. colledge , and let mr. attorney go on to open the charge . i will tell you and the jury too , that what he saies further then he makes good by proof and witnesses , will serve for nothing . colledge . 't is hard the counsel should plead against me , and open things that he cannot prove . l. c. j. i will do you all the right imaginable , and therefore i do tell you again ; if they do not prove it , all he saies is nothing . colledge . but i beseech you my lord , since there hath been such extraordinary means , and methods used to contrive my death , that the witnesses may be examined apart , and far from the hearing one of another . l. c. j. that we will take care of by and by . mr. att. gen. mr. colledge . this shews your temper , you are very inordinate in your way of expressing your self . colledge . mr. attorney , i should not interrupt you , if i were not afraid this was spoken to possess the jury . mr. att. gen. i hope to prove what i have said , or every word of it shall pass for nothing . colledge . 't is impossible for all the men on earth to prove it . mr. att. gen. gentlemen , these were the particulars i was opening to you , in what manner he was armed , and how accoutred he came hither . we shall likewise shew you that he made it his business to perswade others to undertake the design , and joyn with him , and as if open war were already declared ; he gave out a sign which was a blew ribbon , a wrought ribbon with letters in it , and this was the mark and sign , they were to know one another by . this was given out by him frequently ; and that it may not seem an extraordinary thing , gentlemen , tho indeed it was a wild attempt , yet you will cease to wonder when you have heard of the exploit of venner who with a few men raised such a commotion , soon after the kings coming in , and the several exploits that have of late in scotland been carried on , by a few discontented persons . so that men of the like principles , as we shall give you an account of this gentlemans principles what they were , may well be thought to ingage in such an extraordinary exploit . and we shall prove what the incouragment was he was to have ; for he boasted of himself , that he should be in a little time a collonel . colledge . what sir ? mr. att. gen. a collonel , a great preferment for a joyner . colledge . yes it was so . mr. att. gen. we shall shew to you that this was not a sudden unpre-meditated thing ; for we shall prove that he had entertained the horridest malice against the king , that ever subject entertained against his soveraign : for we shall give this evidence , and his front will not oppose it , that he had made it his common discourse in coffee-houses , and publick houses , ( and i believe i could bring you 40 and 40 witnesses to it ) to defame the king and murder him in his reputation , and was one of the complices with fitz harris who lately was executed for that venemous libel : we shall prove that he justified it , and maintained it to be as true as the gospel . we shall give evidence that he carried on the same design , with that arch-traytor who was a papist ; and i believe if this gentleman were examined throughly he would be found to be one of the same stamp , and acted by the same principle ; for i think that no protestant subject would attempt such things as we shall prove to you . i believe gentlemen you have frequently heard , as none of us but have , that the king hath been traduced as a designer of arbitrary government , and his reputation blasted maliciously , and falsly , as an introducer of popery : whence comes all this generally , but out of the popish quiver , who make it their business to set the kings good subjects at variance amongst themselves ; and against their prince , by styling the king a papist as this person hath done , nay , he hath been so impudent as to report that the king was in the plot against his own life . we shall prove to you , how here and at other places he hath frequently done this ; to go further , we shall produce to you the evidence that he drew the kings picture , and exposed him in all the reproachful characters imaginable , and that the picture might be the better understood , he adds a ballad to it : and that he may not have the confidence to say this is not true , we shall produce to you a whole bundle of these papers , among those which his son made a discovery of , when they were sent to his uncle to be hid , and we shall prove him to be the author of them ; and yet that this man should have the confidence to say he is a good subject and a good protestant , when by all ways imaginable he goes about to ruin the government , and defame the king ! and gentlemen when we have given you this account by witnesses , for i would have you believe me in nothing , but according as i prove it , you will not wonder then that he should say his life is in danger , ( for so it is indeed ? ) and if any man ever was guilty of high-treason , sure he is , and being guilty of the greatest treason , he deserves the severest punishment . colledge . pray gentlemen of the jury , take mr. attorney general at his word , and remember sir , you desire not to be believed your self , but what you prove . mr. serj. holloway . may it please your lordship , and gentlemen , pursuant to what mr. attorney hath opened , we will call our witnesses , and we will begin with mr. dugdale ; who was a witness against my lord stafford , at his tryal in parliament , whose credit mr. colledge did attest at that tryal , asserting him to be an honest good man , and i believe his evidence will go in a great measure through all that mr. attorney hath opened , and when we have done with him , we hope to second him with other witnesses of as good credit , and that will say as much to the purpose . then mr. dugdale was sworn . mr. att. gen. mr. dugdale , look upon the prisoner , and tell the court whether you know him . mr. dugdale . yes , i do know him sir. mr. att. gen. will you give us an account of your knowledge of him ? colledge . my lord , i humbly desire they may be examined apart , and not in the hearing one of another . mr. att. gen. that with submission ought not to be in the kings case , tho we think there are none of them , that will speak any more then the truth . colledge . here are several of them my lord , they are all of a gang. mr. serj. jefferies . not of your gang , mr. colledge . colledge . i pray they may go out my lord , ( which was ordered accordingly . ) mr. dugdale . if your lordships please , whether or no i may deliver in these papers ? mr. att. gen. by and by time enough , when we ask for them speak your own knowledge . mr. dugdale . my lord , i have been i think acquainted with mr. colledge 2 years or thereabouts . i have been several times in mr. colledges company , and truly somtimes he hath been mightily bent against popery ; he hath at somtimes uttered himself , because the king did not prosecute the papists according as he thought sufficiently , that the king was a papist himself , that he was as deep in the plot as any papist of them all , that he had an hand in sr. edmondbury godfry's death . this mr. colledge i appeal to your self , whether you have not said it : and in this town of oxford you have several times told me that nothing was to be expected from him , he would do nothing . mr. just . levinz who did tell you so ? mr. dugdale . mr. colledge did tell me that there was nothing to be expected from the king , but the introduceing of popery and arbitrary government , this i believe mr. colledge , will acknowledge to be true. colledge . where was this spoken ? mr. dugdale . this was spoken at a coffee-house , called combes coffee-house in this town , and at the angel-inn in this town at a barbers shop ; that day the king went out of town , we were in the the same shop . colledge . who was there besides ? mr. serj. jefferies . do not interrupt our witnesses , let us have done with him , and you shall have your time to ask him questions after . l. c. j. for your instruction i will tell you , your time is not yet come , if you chop in and interrupt the witnesses , you will disturb any man living , but your way is this , when he hath delivired his testimony ask him any questions then ; and he shall be bound to answer you , and in the mean time you shall have pen ink and paper , to help your memory . mr. dugdale . that day the king went out of town presently after he went , you and i went into the angel-inn : and we went into the barbers-shop that is just within the inn , and being charging your pistols there , you said rowley was gone , the rogue was afraid of himself , he was shirked away , and here i appeal to your own conscience , whether you did not speak it ? collidge . i know nothing of it . mr. att. gen. don't appeal to him , 't is nothing for that , mr. sol. gen. who did he mean by rowley ? mr. dugdale . the king. mr. serj. holloway . was that his common application for the king ? mr. dugdale . it was his common word concerning the king. and at other times speaking that the king did not do those things that were fair , he hath given mighty great words against him : he hath told me that there was no trust to be put in him ; for it was the people we must trust to , and we must look to arm our selves , and that he would arm himself and be here at oxford , and he told me here in the town , accordingly when i came out of the country , and he said that he had several stout men that would stand by him in it . their intention was as he said for the rooting out of popery , by which name he alway termed the church that is now established by law , as to be of the same nature the papists were . this i believe mr. colledge will acknowledge . mr. att. gen. well go on sir ? mr. dugdale . and at a time when he had dr. tongue at his house , he told me that as for dr. tongue he had much a do with him , and he had been at a great charge to keep him in order , that he was forced to neglect his own business to look after him ; for if he had not done so , the rogue as he said had a mind to fling all upon the protestants that is the dissenters , for he does not count the church of england to be so ; that he had much a doe to keep him in order ; for he had said he had drawn papers to that purpose , but those papers are secured , for where they are i can't tell . mr. att. gen. who were they that were to be with him in that design of his ? mr. dugdale . he told me captain chinton , captain browne , and one dr. lewes , and he brought them into town here , when he came with him . mr. att. gen. to what purpose did he bring them ? mr. dugdale . expecting there would be a rising . mr. jones . did he tell you that here ? mr. dugdale . yes , the friday , i think it was , after the parliament first sat . mr. jones . how did he express himself ? what they had to do . mr. dugdale . they were to be here , in case there were any rising which he expected . mr. jones . what use did he say he would make of them ? mr. dugdale . for the defence of the protestant religion , against the king and all his adherents . mr. jones . what did he say he would do to the king ? i would not lead you . mr. dugdale . he did not say what particularly . mr. jones . what did he say if the king did not yield to the parliament ? mr. dugdale . if the king did not yield to the parliament , he should be forced to it . mr. jones , where did you hear him say that ? mr. dugdale . at oxford . mr. serj. holloway . did you hear him declare this at london ? mr. dugdale . he did say at london , he expected there would be some thing done at oxford , and that he would go thither with his horse and arms , and those gentlemen i named before would go with him . and , he said , let them begin when they would , he did not care how soon , his party was the greatest party . mr. attor . gen. what was that capt. brown ? did you know him ? mr. dugdale . yes , i knew him very well ; he did much frequent mr. college's company ; he was in the late army against the king. mr. serj. jefferies . did you see him have any pistol ? mr. dugdale . yes , i have seen him carry pistols about him . mr. serj. jefferies . where , in his pocket ? mr. dugdale . i saw them in the house . mr. serj. jefferies . at oxford ? mr. dugdale . yes . mr. serj. holloway . did you see them in his hand ? mr. dugdale . i cannot tell that , he had them in the house , i saw them there . mr. serj. holloway . did you see him in his silk armour about the parliament-house , the lobby , or any place ? mr. dugdale . i cannot say that . mr. attor . gen. what did you know of his delivering any marks or signs for persons to be distinguished by ? mr. dugdale . i had as much ribband from him as came to 40 s. with no popery no slavery wrought in it , and he gave it me to distribute among my friends in the country , that they might be known by other persons that would wear the same . mr. jones . where had you it ? mr. dugdale . at london , from mr. colledge . mr. jones . where was it to be distributed ? mr. dugdale . among those that i knew to be dissenters in the country . mr. jones . were you to come to oxford , by agreement , with mr. colledge ? mr. dugdale . i promised him to come to oxford , and did so . mr. attor . gen. well , go on , what more do you know ? mr. dugdale . at london i was once at a coffee house with mr. colledge , and with some of the members of the house of commons ; it was a little before they met ; and they were earnestly talking of the parliament at oxford , and of some disturbance that was likely to happen here . and it was then fully agreed , and mr. colledge was by , that it would be the best way , out of every county , where the parliament had the best interest in the people , to leave one in every county that might manage the people . this i appeal to mr. colledge whether it be true . colledge . you appeal to me , shall i speak now , my lord ? mr. jones . no , you will remember it by and by . mr. attor . gen. what do you know of any pictures ? mr. sol. gen. pray let him speak that over again which he mentioned last . mr. dugdale . being in a coffee house with mr. colledge , there were some of the members of the house of commons by ; and speaking of a disturbance that might happen here at oxford ; it was then agreed , that in every quarter where the parliament had the most interest in the people , they should not all come up , but some remain there to manage the people . mr. attor . gen. what do you know of any pictures or papers , have you any about you ? mr. dugdale . yes , i have one thing i received from mr. colledge , that is , the letter pretended to be intercepted to roger l'estrange . mr. attor . gen. pray , what account did he give you of it ? who made it ? mr. dugdale . he told me he was the author of it himself , and he shewed me it in manuscript before it was printed ; and he told me , he got one curtis , or his wife , to print it ; but he would never trust them again , for they cheated him of some of the gain . mr. attor . gen. who was the author did he say ? mr. dugdale . he himself . mr. attor . gen. pray produce it sir. mr. dugdale . this and others he delivered to me to disperse . l. ch. just . what is it mr. attorney ? mr. attor . gen. it is a letter , and a great part of fitz-harris's libel is taken out ; it seems colledge was the author , and this is the original of the libel . l. ch. j. did he tell you this was of his making ? mr. dugdale . yes . mr. attor . gen. did he disperse them to any body else ? mr. dugdale . yes , there were some given to one mr. boson , he had some at the same time , and mr. baldwin had some . then the paper was read . cl. of cr. first q. vvhether they that talk — mr. attor . gen. pray give my lord an account what more papers and libels he delivered to you . mr. dugdale . i received one like this , i cannot say it was the same , where all the bishops were changing their hats for cardinal caps . mr. serj. jefferies . where is rary shew , for it seems he hath expounded the meaning of that . ( then it was produced . ) mr. serj. jefferies . i suppose 't is his own cutting too . mr. dugdale . i heard mr. colledge sing it . mr. serj. jefferies . where ? mr. dugdale . in oxfordshire and in oxford town , at my lord lovelace's . mr. serj. jefferies . where at my lord lovelace's ? mr. dugdale . at his house in the country . mr. serj. jefferies . who were in the company there ? mr. dugdale . sir robert clayton , sir thomas player , mr. rouse , mr. colledge . mr. serj. jefferies . you say you heard him in oxford , and in oxfordshire , and at my lord lovelace's , where is that ? l. ch. j. my lord lovelace is here himself , and hears what he says . mr. dugdale . i might mistake the county , but i heard him sing it at oxford town , and at my lord lovelace's house again . l. ch. j. where is that ? mr. dugdale . i cannot tell the town . mr. serj. jefferies . how came you there ? mr. dugdale . sir thomas player did invite me thither . mr. serj. jefferies . where is it in oxfordshire ? mr. dugdale . i cannot tell , 't is four miles from henley . mr. serj. jefferies . was my lord at home . mr. dugdale . yes , he was . mr. serj. jefferies . now for the cut then ; did he shew you this cut ? mr. dugdale . yes , he told me he would get it printed . mr. serj. jefferies . was it before it was printed then that he sung it ? mr. dugdale . yes , it was . mr. serj. jefferies . who did he tell you did make it ? mr. dugdale . he told me he was the author of this cut , and he gave me one , and we sang it together presently after it was printed . mr. attor . gen. how did he describe it to you , when he shewed it to you ? mr. dugdale . that which hath the pack on the back of it , he described to be the king ; those that follow him were topham , cooper , hughs , and snow ; and that company of men there is the house of commons . mr. serj. holloway . what was meant by the pack ? mr. dugdale . the parliament and all his retinue ; and then here is the king in the mire again , according as 't is represented in the long — mr. serj. jefferies . ay , he goes on well . and this here is the bishops which they thrust into the pack when they have got him down into the mire , and then they thrust them all away , as it is in the song , to hoot them away . l. ch. j. did he make this explication to you ? mr. dugdale . yes . mr. serj. jefferies . who were the all ? mr. dugdale . king , and clergy-men , and all . mr. serj. jefferies . where was this he explained it ? mr. dugdale . at london . mr. serj. halloway . is there any thing relating to white-hall ? what name did he give that ? mr. dugdale . yes , he said , louse-hall was white-hall , because of its poverty . then the ballad was read . cl. of cr. rary shew . to the tune of , i am a sensless thing . — mr. attor . gen. this shews you what sort of man he is . mr. serj. jefferies . here you say he explained this with the pack at the back to be the king ? mr. dugdale . yes , he told me so . mr. serj. jefferies . what did he mean by the two faces ? mr. dugdale . that he was half protestant , and half papist . mr. jones . did he make any comparison between his own party and the king's party ? mr. dugdale . he said they were but an handful to them . mr. jones . to whom ? mr. dugdale . to his party , that was the dissenters . mr. attor . gen. speak that out . mr. dugdale . that their party was but a handful to theirs . mr. attor . gen. theirs and theirs , who did he mean ? mr. dugdale . he meant the dissenters , for the church of england he reckoned among the papists . l. ch. j. tell us the words he said . mr. dugdale . he said , his party was the true church of england , and that which is established by law , were but protestants in masquerade . mr. jones . tell us when he made the comparison , what words he did use , and upon what occasion . mr. dugdale . when he perceived the king at oxford would not yield to the house of commons , he said , let him begin as soon as he would , he did not care how soon he did begin , for their party , meaning the king and his party , was but an handful to him and his party , calling them the true protestants , the others were protestants in masquerade . mr. attor . gen. what did he desire you to do ? to be assisting in any thing ? mr. dugdale . he always desired me to be true of that side , he hoped i was , and to get good arms for my self . mr. serj. holloway . did he in oxford desire this of you ? mr. dugdale . no , he did not . mr. sol. gen. for what purpose did he desire you to arm your self ? mr. dugdale . he said , the king had a design on the people to introduce popery and arbitrary government , and he expected every day when they would begin , and the sooner the better , he would be provided for them . mr. jones . was that in oxford ? mr. dugdale . he spoke it in oxford , and in the city too . mr. jones . did he tell you of any that were listed ? mr. dugdale . he spoke of capt. brown , and capt. clinton , and don lewes , and abundance more he said he had . mr. jones . did he tell you he had them here ? mr. dugdale . yes , about forty of them were there he said . mr. serj. holloway . did he tell you of any that were listed , in order to the coming down of the parliament at oxford ? mr. dugdale . not listed , but were intended to come down ; and at oxford he told me they were come down . mr. just . jones . were you in their company in oxford here ? mr. dugdale . yes , i was . mr. just . jones . in the company of whom ? name them . mr. dugdal . of capt. brown , don lewes , and several others of that gang ; i know not their names , but i know their faces . mr. sol. gen. did he take notice to you that they were come down . mr. dugdale . yes . mr. sol. gen. to what purpose . mr. dugdale . he expected there would be a rising in oxford , and to this purpose ; mr. colledge was one that debated it at richard's coffee house , and it was to be carried from thence to the king's-head club , whether it were not best to leave a parliament man in every county ? mr. attor . gen. where was this ? mr. dugdale . this was at richard's coffee house in london , against they met here . mr. attor . gen. we could give you an account of a volume of these things , abundance of scandalous pamphlets , both songs , libels , and ballads , that were made by this gentleman , and all seized in his custody . mr. jones . but he sung this libel ? mr. attor . gen. all these , gentlemen , ( shewing a great bundle ) were to be dispersed over england . mr. serj. jefferies . it was it seems expounded and sung by the prisoner at the bar ; he gave you the ballad here at oxford , you say , mr. dugdale . mr. dugdale . no , i heard him sing it here . mr. jones . pray , mr. dugdale , what was the use was to be made of this ballad ? mr. attor . gen. come go to the next , we call this evidence to shew you the malice of the man. colledge . pray , my lord , let me ask some questions of mr. dugdale . mr. serj. jefferies . ay , now let the prisoner ask his questions ( to do him right ) before we go to another witness . mr. dugdale . my lord , i have a word or two more about a libel in manuscript , that very day the sheriffs were to be chosen ; it was to be printed , and he told me the printer durst not print it , it was so dangerous . mr. serj. jefferies . what was it , can you remember any part of it ? mr. dugdale . no , but it was the worst i ever heard in my life against the king and government . l. ch. j. now ask him what questions you will. colledge . pray , when was the first time you gave this evidence ? mr. dugdale . truly , mr. colledge , i don't keep an account of time , i cannot give an account of time. mr attor . gen. as near as you can , tell him . mr. dugdale . i cannot tell whether it might be in june , i think it was . colledge . how long before i was taken ? mr. dugdale . it might be about the time you were taken . colledge . pray , who did you give it before ? mr. dugdale . i gave to sir lionel jenkins . colledge . where did you swear these particulars were done then ? mr. dugdale . what was done in the city , i swore to be done there . colledge . what city ? mr. dugdale . london ; the same words were said in the city of london , and over-again here . i have repeated , for the most part , only the words you said here , but more was in the city than here . colledge . did you swear then , that the words you swear now were spoken at london ? mr. dugdale . it may be we might not name oxford then . mr. serj. jefferies . he says well , it might not be named then . colledge . then you did give in your information , that i spoke these words at oxford . mr. dugdale . i was not examined about what was done at oxford ; but i believe i have heard you speak the same words to me at my lord lovelace's , but i do not know what county that is in . colledge . i ask you positively , whether you did not swear that what you now say was spoken at oxford , was spoken at london . mr. dugdale . i did not name oxford then . colledge . but did not you say that was done at london , that now you say was done here . mr. dugdale . truly , you said them both at london , and here . colledge . pray , mr. dugdale , what had you to give this your information ? mr. dugdale . truly i can't say i have received the worth of a groat . colledge . nor was ever promised any thing ? mr. dugdale . no , i never received any thing , nor ever was promised , but only what the king gave me for going down into the country for my charges . mr. attor . gen. was that the same allowance you had when you were witness for the popish plot ? mr. dugdale . yes . mr. serj. jefferies . have you any other allowance than what you had before , when you gave evidence at my lord stafford's tryal ? mr. dugdale . no , nor have got all that yet neither . colledge . but pray observe my question , mr. dugdale , and answer it . did you not swear at london that i spoke these words there , which now you say i spoke here ? l. ch. j. pray observe , he says he did not then name oxford ; but in the giving of his evidence now , he tells you a series of what passed between london and oxford ; and i must tell you further , if a treason be committed , and the evidence prove it to be in two counties , the king may chuse which county he will prosecute and bring his indictment in , and give in evidence the facts in both counties . but you shall have your objection to it afterwards , and we will take it into consideration . i tell you this , that it may not seem to you that the witnesses speak impertinently of what was done at london ; but if nothing was done or said at oxford , then it will be taken into consideration , you shall have it saved afterwards , i only hint it now , that you may not think it impertinent . colledge . i beseech your lordship give me leave to speake one word : when he made his affidavit before sir lionel jenkins there about seizing the king , about the party i had , and the arms i had provided , ought not he at the same time to have said where i said those words to him ? but he did swear then it was in london that i said those words to him ; and coming before a grand jury of honest gentl●men in london , they were so wise and honest as to do me justice , and not find the ●il● ; so their design failing there , then they changed it to oxford . l. ch. j. you did not come to your tryal there if you had so done , then they would have asked him in particular what was said at oxford , and what at london , as 't is now , being done in both counties . but look you , if you will ask any particular questions , do , for they have other witnesses to produce . colledge . my lord , i only ask this question . whether it be not rational to think , that when he swore before sir lionel jenkins , he should not swear the words were spoken , and things done ? mr. dugdale . he hath said the same words to me at my lord lovelace's , as i lay in bed with him , and this i never mentioned but now in my evidence . colledge . what words did i say there ? mr. dugdale . if you must have them repeated , they were about the king. colledge . what were they ? mr. dugdale . that he was a papist , and designed arbitrary government . colledge . did i say so to you at my lord lovelace's ? mr. dugdale . yes , as we lay a bed. mr. sol. gen. did you lie together ? mr. serj. jefferies . yes , yes they were intimates . colledge . i had not six words with you when you went to bed , for you said you were weary , and went asleep presently . mr. dugdale . i say you said this in the morning , for we had above an hours discourse when we were a bed , and all our discourse was about the parliament and the king. colledge . where was it i said those words in oxford ? mr. dugdale . at combe's coffee house was one place . colledge . was there no body by ? mr. dugdale . no , but at the angel inn there were several persons standing by . colledge . surely then some of those heard the words as well as you . mr. dugdale . it may be so , i am sure many at london have been by , as mr. starkey by name ▪ mr. boson , mr. baldwin ; they have rebuked you for it , and i have rebuked you too . coll●dge . what words have they and you heard , and rebuked me for ? mr. dugdale . when you have been railing against the king , and said , that he designed nothing but the introducing of popery , and arbitrary government , and that he was a papist . mr. serj. jefferies . he loves to hear it repeated . colledge . what arms did you see of mine in this town ? m● . dugdale . i saw pistols ; you had a case of pistols before you , and you had some pocket pistols . colledge . none but one i borrowed of you , and that you had again ; had i ? ( pray speak ) did you see any more ? mr. dugdale . it may be there might not , but there were pocket-pistols in the room , and you had them in your hand . colledge . he swore but now that he saw me have pocket-pistols , when it was but one , and that was his own . mr. serj. jefferies . heark you now , you talk of pistols , do you know that he had any pistols in his holsters at oxford ? mr. dugdale . yes , he had . colle●ge . yes , i know that , i don't deny it . mr. ●erj . jefferies . i think a chissel might have been more proper for a joyner . c●lledge you say i was confederated with capt. brown , and other men. mr. dugdale . you have told me that capt. brown had a good allowance , and it was pitty he had not a better allowance ; and you would speak he might have a better allowance for he vvas able to do good service vvhen the time came . colledge . from whom ? mr. dugdale . among you . colledge . among vvhom ? mr. dugdale . you know there vvere several gatherings among you that i vvas not privy to . colledge . what do i know ? mr. sol. gen. you know mony was gathered many times . colledge . for what purpose ? mr. dugdale . you never told me particulars ; it was to distribute some where , i had none of it . l. ch. j. he does not say these men were concerned with you , but you said so . mr. dugdale . you know , mr. colledge , there were many gatherings of moneys . colledge . did i tell you there were any gatherings for capt. brown ? mr. serj. jefferies . he says you told him no particulars ; if you have a mind to ask him any more questions , do . colledge . pray , sir george , don't interrupt me , i am here for my life . did i tell you there were any gatherings for capt. brown ? mr. dugdale . i do not say for him , nor whom you distributed it to ; but you gathered mony one among another , and you have paid mony. colledge . i have paid mony ! when , and to whom ? mr. attor . gen. you will not deny that , you confessed , upon your examination , that you gave a guinny . colledge . sir , did you see me any more at oxford , than in the coffee-house , and at that inn , when i went out of town , and was going home with the city-members ? mr. dugdale . yes . colledge . were you in my company any where , but in those two places ? mr. dugdale . yes , i was with you at the chequer . colledge . did you come a purpose to speak with me , or had you any business particularly with me ? mr. dugdale . truly , mr. colledge , i have forgot whether i had or no , i was in the room with you there . colledge . where is that room ? mr. dugdale . i can't tell all the rooms in that house . colledge . was it above stairs , or below ? mr. dugdale . both above and below , two days i was there with you . colledge . was there any of this discourse you speak of passed there between us ? mr. dugdale . i know i was with you in those two places i mentioned before ; you called me aside to drink a glass of mum , and there was none in the room but us two at that coffee-house . colledge . sir , you came to town but on friday , i think , it must be saturday , sunday , or monday this was , for we stayed no longer in oxford . mr. dugdale . nay , i came to oxford , either wednesday night , or thursday-morning ; and i saw you and mr. hunt together the same day i came . colledge . did i explain any pictures to you at london , or owned i was the author of them . mr. dugdale . yes , upon my oath , you have explained pictures to me , and there is one picture that i have not shewed yet , which you have explained what the meaning was . mr. serj. jefferies . 't is your common trade it seems . mr. dugdale . you told me you got them done . clerk reads , a character of a popish successor , &c. mr. serj. holloway . how did he explain it to you , mr. dugdale ? mr. serj. jefferies . i would see what opinion he had of the church of england ; there are some church-men , what are they a doing ? mr. dugdale . they are a parcel of tantivy-men riding to rome ; and here 's the duke of york , half man , half devil , trumpeting before them . colledge . you have got some body to explain these things to you , mr. dugdale . mr. dugdale . you did it , upon my oath . colledge . oh , fie upon you mr. dugdale , consider what you say . mr. serj. jefferies . all this you did explain it seems . mr. dugdale . and in one place of the other libel the king was termed a rogue , but they put him in by another name . mr. serj. jefferies . where is it ? mr. dugdale . 't is in rary shew ; in the manuscript it was , now , now the rogue is down . mr. serj. jefferies . let me see it , i took notice of it , 't is , now , now the gyant is down , here . colledge . i ask you , sir , whether the song which you say was sung at my lord lovelace's , and other places , was the same with this ? mr. dugdale . for the general it is , i can't tell for every word : you sang it half a dozen times there , and the musick plaid to you . colledge . i ask you whether it was the same with this ? mr. dugdale . i can't tell for every word you sang . colledge . was there any body by at my explaining of these pictures ? mr. dugdale . mr. baldwin was by , and reproved and corrected you , that you would be so open . colledge . was there any body by at oxford , when you did hear me talk of arming my self ? mr. dugdale . they were walking up and down in the barber's shop , and i know not whether they did hear or no. mr. attor . gen. was that gentleman sworn at my lord stafford's tryal , mr. dugdale ? colledge . yes , i was sworn there , i acknowledg it . mr. attorn . gen. did he swear any thing on your behalf , for your credit , mr. dugdale ? colledge . that was by hear-say , mr. attorney , at the tower ; i know nothing of my own knowledg , but i did believe him another man than i find him . mr. serj. jefferies . no question , or else you would not have trusted him . mr. attor . gen. swear stevens . ( which was done . ) do you give my lord , and the jury , an account where you found this precious ballad . stevens . the first draught i found in his bed-chamber . mr. serj. jefferies . what , of all of them ? which is it ? stevens . the rary shew ; we found the first draught of it in his house , when we came to search his papers , by order of council , and the printer that printed the ballad , hath told me since , he had it from him — mr. attor . gen. what say you your self ? speak your own knowledg . stevens . and mr. atterbury was by when we searched the house . mr. attor . gen. well , mr. atterbury will tell his own story . stevens . i have seen you on horse-back , with holsters before you , with some hundreds of men after you , coming out of the bell-savage in ; they said , you were going to chuse parliament men : i have known you three or four years , you were joyner to our hall. mr. serj. jefferies . we call you to that particular of the papers , and you run out in a story of a cock and a bull , and i know not what . l. ch. j. will you ask him any questions ? colledge . no , only this ; do you swear , upon your oath , that you found the original in my house ? stevens . yes , sir , you will see it with my hand to it , and some more of them . mr. attor . gen. and you found too those that were printed ? stevens . yes , both our names are to them , that were concerned in the searching of them . mr. serj. jefferies . you found the paper in the house ? stevens . yes . mr. serj. jefferies . that is towzer ; but have you the original of the rary shew ? ( it was looked for , but could not be found . ) colledge . pray , gentlemen , observe , he swears that is an original . mr. serj. jefferies . no , no he found the paper in your house . colledge . i ask about the original of rary shew . mr. serj. jefferies . he says , he saw a paper drawn with a pencil that was like the original . atterbury . there was an original drawn with a pencil , upon dutch paper , 't is lost since , for we do not see it here now , which at the same time we found upon colledge's table in his bed chamber . colledge . did you find an original of that in my chamber ? atterbury . yes , we found a paper drawn with black-lead . colledge . pray , where is it ? atterbury . i did see it , it was drawn in black-lead , it was upon dutch-paper , and lay upon the table in your chamber . stevens . sure , i am , it was taken when we searched the house . colledge . i am sure you could never find the original of any such thing in my house . mr. attor . gen. then where is mr. sewell , ( who was sworn . ) sir , did you see that trumpery taken ? sewell . i had a warrant to seize mr. spur , and his brother-in-law mr. colledge . so i went down to seize mr. spur , and search his house for such papers as i should find . i could not find them in the house ; but i enquired of him , after i had searched , and could not find them where they were ; because i saw him at mr. colledge's when we first searched ; he denyed them a pretty while , but at last he told me they were in the hay-mow in the barn. when i came there , he was balling , and told me , his wife , colledge's sister had taken them down , and carried them into a room where i had searched before , but could not find them ; and the man was angry then , so we run after his wife , and found her with all these papers in a bag. mr. attor . gen. are these the same papers ? sewell . yes ; and there were two other cuts ; the man himself is about the place somewhere . mr. attor . gen. swear mr. john smith . ( which was done . ) mr. jones . come , mr. smith , do you know mr. colledge ? mr. smith . yes . mr. serj. jefferies . give us an account what dealings you have had with him , where , and when ; what he hath said about the king ; and tell us first whether you be intimately acquainted ? mr. smith . we were intimately acquainted . the first time i heard mr. colledge discoursing any thing of this nature , that is , concerning treason , or any such thing , was once at a coffee-house by temple-bar ; there i met colledge , and he told me he was invited to dinner , and he likewise invited me to it . i asked him , who provided the dinner , he told me it was one alderman wilcox , i told him i was a stranger , and did not care for going ; he told me , i should be very welcome there ; and at last prevailed upon me to go : and as i was going along , i asked him what the alderman was ; he told me , he was a man that was as true as steel , and a man that would endeavour to root out popery : said i , that may be done easily , if you can but prevail with the king to pass the bill against the d. of york . no , no , said he , you are mistaken , for rowley is as great a papist as the duke of york is , ( now he called the king rowley ) and every way as dangerous to the protestant interest , as is too apparent by his arbitrary ruling . this was the discourse between the coffee-house and the tavern where we went to dine . when we came in , i asked colledge again , whether the alderman was there ; he said he was not there at that time : i asked him , the second time , what kind of man he was ; he said , he was one that lived in his country-house , and gave freely to several people to buy arms and ammunition . and i asked him to what purpose ? and he said , it was , to bring the king to submission to his people ; adding thereto , that he wondred old rowley did not consider how easily his fathers head came to the block , which he doubted not would be the end of rowley at the last . after this discourse , the alderman came in ; we dined , and every one went his own way about his own business . mr. colledge then told me , if i would go with him to his own house , i should see how he was prepared with arms and provision . soon after i met with him , and he desired me to go along and dine with him ; and i did so , and there he did shew me his pistols , his blunderbuss , his great sword ; and he shewed me his armour , back and breast ; and he shewed me his head-piece , which , if i am not mistaken , was covered over with chamlet , it was a very fine , thing ; and , said he , these are the things which will destroy the pittiful guards of rowley , that are kept up contrary to law and justice , to set up arbitrary power and popery . colledge . what did i say , sir , about my armour ? mr. smith . thus you said ; it was to destroy rowley's guards , ( those were your words ) that were kept up contrary to law and justice , to set up arbitrary power and popery . after i had dined with him , i parted with him . a little before the parliament was to meet at oxford , i met him again ; and we were discoursing of several things , what preparations the city were making , how they were provided with powder and bullets , and for his part he would go down to oxford , for he expected a little sport there , upon the divisions that were like to be between the king and parliament . then said i to him , why , what is the matter there ? why , said he , we expect that the king will seize upon some of the members , and we are as ready as he . and , says he , for my part , i will be there , and be one that shall seize him if he secure any of the members , ( and i believe he did go down ) ; says he , you know how the city is provided : i told him , no , not so well as he ; but he told me all was very well . after he came up again , i met him another time , and he told me , he went down in expectation of some sport ; but old rowley was afraid , like his grand-father jamy , and so ran away like to beshit himself . mr. serj. jefferies . did he say , if he had not ran away he would have seized him ? mr. smith . he said nothing of that , but before , he said , he would be one of them should seize him , if he seized any of the members . after this he told me , that fitz gerald and he had had a quarrel at the parliament-door of the house of lords at oxford ; that fitz-gerald had called him rogue ; and , said he , fitz-gerald made my nose bleed ; but before long , i hope to see a great deal more blood shed for the cause . after this again , when there was a discourse of disarming the city , that my lord feversham was to come to do it , he told me , he was well provided , and if feversham , or any man , nay rowley himself should attempt any such thing , he would be the death of him , before any man should seize upon his arms. mr. serj. jeff. did he discourse any thing to you about arms to provide your self . mr. smith . yes , he did , i had an armour from him . mr. serj. jefferies . what did he say to you about it ? mr. smith . he did desire me to get me arms , for i did not know how soon i might make use of them . i had an armour from him upon trial ; he said , it cost him 30 or 40 s. i had it upon trial , but it was too big for me , so i gave it him back , and bought a new one . mr. attor . gen. did he tell you to what purpose you should arm your self ? mr. smith . no , he did not name any purpose , but he told me , i did not know how soon i might make use of it . mr. attor . gen. what did he say to you about any one's seizing the king. mr. smith . he told me , the parliament were agreed to secure the king , and that in order to it , all parliament-men came very well armed , and accompanied with arms and men ; and he told me of a great man that had notice from all the gentlemen of england how well they came armed . mr. jones . what did he say of himself ? mr. smith . he would be one that should secure the king , if he seized any of the members ? mr. jones . when he had been there , what did he say ? mr. smith . if they had had any work , he was ready provided for them . mr. attor . gen. but , pray , tell us again what he said of the king 's running away ? mr. smith . he said , rowley was afraid , like his grand-father jamy , and ran away ready to beshit himself . l. ch. j. if you have done with him , mr. attorney , let the prisoner ask him what questions he will. colledge . mr. smith , where was this discourse i had with you ? mr. smith . which do you mean , the former part or the latter ? colledge . the first discourse you talk of , what i told you going to mr. wilcox's to dinner ; and when it was ? mr. smith . you know best when it was , i can't exactly remember the time , but you know 't is true . colledge . where was it ? mr. smith . as we went along thither we had the first part of it , and when we came thither , you and i talked till alderman wilcox came in ; and you and i were alone together , and several persons that were there , were drawn into cabals , two by two . colledge . where ? mr. smith . in the room where we dined ; and you know there was a little room by , where some were drinking a glass of wine . colledge . you say , by two and two , the company were drawn into cabals . mr. smith . i tell you most of them were in cabals , two and two together , only those 2 gentlemen that belonged to the alderman went up & down and gave wine . colledge . what religion are you of ? mr. smith . is it for this man to ask me , my lord , such a question ? l. ch. j. yes , answer him . mr. smith . i am a protestant . colledge . you were a priest ? mr. smith . yes , what then ? and i am in orders now . colledge . that was from the church of rome . mr. smith . yes , and that is a good ordination ; i came in voluntarily to discover the popish plot , and was no pentioner , nor received any sallary from the king. i have spent several pounds , several scores of pounds , but received no recompence . and i was the darling at one time all over the city , when i did adhere to what they would have me to do . mr. serj. jefferies . did not you swear against my lord stafford ? mr. attor . gen. were not you a witness , mr. smith , at my lord stafford's tryal . mr. smith . in that case i did give a general account of the design of the papists ; they did not then question my reputation , and i defie all the world to say any thing against it . colledge . pray hear me sir , if you please ; the first discourse that you speak of about mr. wilcox's being a good man for the cause , and contributing mony , this was when we were at dinner . mr. smith . this was that day when we went to dinner with him , you know it very well . colledge . where were the other discourses i had with you ? mr. smith . which part of them ? colledge . when i came from oxford . mr. smith . by the ditch side , by your own house ; i have two or three to prove it , we were an hour or two discoursing together about this business . colledge . what business ? l. ch. j. he tells you of two discourses , one before you went to oxford , and one after you came from thence . colledge . he does say , that i discoursed him about our coming down hither to oxford , that the parliament would secure the king , and that i would be one of them that should seize him , and this was at the time when we dined with alder. wilcox . l. ch j. not so , he says after that time , and before you went to oxford , he had such a discourse with you . mr. smith . yes , my lord , so it was . colledge . and does he speak of another time when i shewed him the back , breast , and arms ? mr. smith . yes . colledge . but he said , i discoursed then , that the city was provided with arms , and that the parliament were resolved to bring the king to submission . mr. smith . when i was in the house with him , he then said mr. wilcox gave mony to provide arms : i asked for what ? he said , it was to bring the king to submission to his people ; and then he added , he admired that rowley did not remember how easily his fathers head came to the block ; and he doubted not but that would be the end of him too . l. ch. j. he spake of several times you know . colledge . i do not know one word of it , nor can distinguish the times : but , mr. smith , the last discourse you say about oxford business , was by the ditch side . mr. serj. jefferies . the discourse about bringing the king to submission , was in the way as you went to dinner . mr. smith . the last discourse when you returned from oxford , was by the ditch side ; but both before and after you spake to me at that place about this design of bringing the king to submission . colledge . you said it was at wilcox's at dinner . mr. serj. jefferies . you mistook him then . colledge . nay , sir george , you took him not right . mr. serj. jeff. i have taken him right i assure you , and you shall see it by and by . colledge . he is the falsest man that ever spoke with a tongue . mr. attor . gen. swear bryan haynes . ( which was done . ) tell my lord , and the jury , whether you know this gentleman , what converse you have had with him , and what discourse he hath had with you . apply your self to mr. colledges business only . haynes . i suppose he will not deny but that he knows me very well ; i have been acquainted with him ever since march last , before the sitting of the parliament at oxford . my lord , there was a warrant against me for high-treason ; and i made my application to mr. colledge , and desired him to go to a certain person of honour in england , and ask his advice , whether i might supersede the warrant by putting in bayl , and carry the supersedeas in my pocket : mr. colledge told me he would go to this person of honour , for he would do nothing of his own head ; and he bid me come to him the next day . my lord , i came to mr. colledge the very next day , and i met him at his house , and i asked him what was the result , and what advice he had from that person of quality ; he bid me be of good chear , that the parliament would be , and fit at oxford soon ; that i should not value the king a pin , for , said he , the king is in a worse condition than you or i ; for you shall see , said he , he shall be called to an account for all his actions . mr. serj. jefferies . who should ? haynes . the king ; for all the world may see , says he , that he does resolve to bring in arbitrary power , and popery : and , said he , unless he will let the parliament sit at oxford , since he hath called them together , and put the people to charges in chusing of them , and them in coming down , we will seize him at oxford , and bring him to the block , as we did the logger-head his father . the parliament shall sit at guildhall , and adjust the grievances of the subject , and of the nation . and you shall see , said he , that no king of his race shall ever reign in england after him . l. ch. j. where was this he said so ? haynes . at his own house i met him ; and he and i did walk all along from his own house , over the bridge that is against bridewel , and so went all along till we came to the hercules-pillars , and we had some discourse there ; we went up one pair of stairs and called for some beef ; and all this discourse was in that very place of the hercules pillars . mr. serj. holloway . do you know any thing of any arms he had , and for what ? haynes . but , sir , said i to mr. colledge , how can this be done , 't is a thing impossible . you pretend , you say , to the duke of monmouth , that he is a fine prince , and stands up for the protestant interest : alas , said he , we make an idol of him to adumbrate our actions , for fear we should be discovered . do you think the wise people of england shall ever make a bastard upon record king of england ; no , said he , for tho' we praise his actions , yet we cannot endure him , because he is against his own father . but , said he , further , unless the king do expel from his council the earl of clarendon , cunning lory hide ; the earl of hallifax , that great turn coat rogue , that was before so much against the papists , a rascal , we shall see him hang'd , and all the tory counsellors ; except the king do it , we will make england too hot for him . colledge . who did i say this to ? to you ? haynes . yes , to me . colledge . pray , how could this be possible . haynes . yes , you knew my condition ; and i intimated to you at that time , that i was as much for treason and villany as you : but then said i to him , how can this be done ? here you have neither officers , nor men of experience , nor men of knowledg ; nor you have no ammunition , sea-port towns , nor ships . and besides , the king , said i , hath a great party in the land , and the duke of york likewise ; and for all the men of estates , and the ancient gentlemen , they will not be disturbed , and to quit their ease for a civil war. oh , says he , you are mistaken , for we have in the city 1500 barrels of powder , and we have 100000 men ready at an hours warning ; and we have ordered every thing in a due method against the sitting of the parliament at oxford ; and you shall see england the most glorious nation in the world , when we have cut oft that beastly fellow rowley ; and speaking of the king , he said , he came of the race of buggerers , for his grandfather , king james , buggered the old duke of buckingham ; and he called him captain , and sometimes the king , and sometimes rowley . mr. serj. jefferies . this was pure protestant discourse upon my word . haynes . then he railed at judg pemberton ; and , said he , let him try fitz-harris if he dare ; i shall see him go to tyburn for it , i hope , a turn-coat rogue . he was for the plot whilst he was puisne judge , but now he is chief justice , he is the greatest rogue in the world. he is like one of the pentioners in the long parliament . so one day i went along with mrs. fitz-harris , and mr. ivy , and he sent a man to me , and desired me to come to the hog in armor ; thither we came , and met him , and went to his lodgings , and there we dined . then they made some persons of honour believe , that i was a person so and so qualified , and was brim full of the plot ; and he would put me upon charging the king with the firing of london , and the murder of sir edmondbury godfrey , and , said he , such and such lords shall live and die by you ; and besides , said he , you need not fear england shall espouse your cause . but , said i , the law is like a spiders web , that catches the little flies , but the great flies run through the net , and make their escape ; so 't is with these lords , they put you and me on the danger of acting ; and when they get off by interest , a jury of 12 men will hang us by the neck , and so i should perish , whilst others triumphed , and only be a martyr for the phanaticks . so in discourse we were talking of the libel of fitz-harris ; the devil take me , said he , every individual word is as true as god is in heaven , and , said he , if you do not joyn with fitz-harris in his evidence , and charge the king home , you are the basest fellow in the world , for he makes you slaves and beggars , and would make all the world so ; and 't is a kind of charity to charge him home , that we may be rid of such a tyrant . mr. serjeant jefferies . mr. colledge , if you will ask him any questions , you may . colledge . certainly , my lord , the thing speaks it ; he is not to be talked withal ; is it probable i should talk to an irish-man that does not understand sense ? haynes . 't is better to be an honest irish-man , than an english rogue . mr. serjeant jefferies . he does it but to put you into a heat , don't be passionate with him . haynes . no , i am not , i thank god he hath not put me into an heat . colledge . where was this discourse about superseding your warrant ? haynes . at london . colledge . when ? haynes . it was before the parliament fate at oxon. colledge . how long ? haynes . i can't tell positively to an hour or a day ▪ colledge . what moneth as near as you can ? haynes . it was in the moneth of march. colledge . had you ever seen me before ? haynes . can you deny that ? colledge . i ask you whether you have or no ? haynes . yes , i have seen you in the coffee-houses bawling against the government . lord chief just . were you an intimate acquaintance of his before march last ? haynes . no intimate acquaintance . colledge . then this is the first time you discoursed with me . haynes . oh , no my lord. one and i fell out at the queens-head tavern at temple barr , and he sat me upon the business , and john macnamarra and others , and truly i did the business for him . for we fell out and did box , and our swords were taken from us , and i went to john macnamarra and told him , yonder is such a man at such a place , now you may seize upon him . colledge . what man was that ? haynes . one richard ponre . colledge . he belonged to my lord tyrone , i think , there were warrants to take him . do you say i set you upon that ? haynes . yes , you were with me the night before , and capt. browne , and they gave us a signal , a blew ribband to distinguish that we were protestants from the bishops men . l. ch. just. when were you to make use of it ? haynes . when the king was seized . mr. serjeant jefferies . well , go on , have you any more ? haynes . but , my lord further , after he came from oxon. i met him , and said i , where are now all your cracks and brags ? now you see the king hath made a fool of you ; now you know not what you would have done . sayes he , what would you have us do ? we have not done with him yet : for , said he , no servant , no man living did know whether he would dissolve the parliament that day . i was that very nick of time at the lobby of the lords house , and there was a man came in with a gown under his arm , and every one looked upon him to be a taylor , and no body did suspect , no not his intimatest friends , except it were fitz girald , that he would dissolve the parliament that day ; but presently he puts on his robes , and sends away for the house of commons ; and when he had dissolved them , before ever ▪ the house could get down , he took coach and went away , otherwise the parliament had been too hard , for him ; for there was never a parliament-man but had divers armed men to wait on him , and i had my blunderbuss and my man to wait upon me . but well , said he , there is a god above will rule all . mr. att. gen. call mr. turbervile . colledge . hold , sir , i desire to ask him some questions . you say the first time that i saw you , you had this discourse with me . haynes . do not use tautologies , 't is not the first time i have been examined , i know how to speak as well as you . colledge . answer my question , sir. haynes . you know it was after i had made affidavit before the recorder of london , a copy of which was carried to that noble-man ; and you came from him and returned me his thanks , and told me it was the best service i could do him . i would not trouble the court with circumstantial things ; and you told me i should be gratified not only in my own property , but a reward for me and my heirs for ever . mr. att. gen. for what ? haynes . i made affidavit before the recorder of london . colledge . about what ? haynes . concerning one fitz girald . mr. att. gen. is it to this matter ? haynes . no , nothing at all . lord chief just. let him ask any questions what he will. colledge . i ask when it was the first time you were acquainted with me so much as to know me well ? haynes . as to the first time of intimacy , here is macnamarra will take his corporal oath that i was as well acquainted with him as any one in the world. colledge . pray answer me , sir , when was the first time i talked to you ? haynes . the first intimate acquaintance we had , was when you put me upon the design about fitz girald . colledge . pray sir , you go too fast already , as you are still gallopping ; where was this discourse about his majesty ? haynes . i told you before . colledge . what was it ? haynes . i went to you after the affidavit was made , and told you there was a warrant out after me , and desired you to go to that noble-man and desire his advice what i might do , or whether i might supersede the warrant . you told me you could do nothing without advice , and you would go and advise with that noble-man . colledge . my lord , here is mr. turbervile come in , they will over-hear one another ; pray let me have fair play for my life . ( whereupon turbervile withdrew . ) l. c. just . can't you answer him ? when was the first time you came acquainted with him ? mr. serj. jefferies . when was the first discourse you had with him ? haynes . in april last . colledge . you say it was before the sitting of the parliament , and that was in march. haynes . i meant in march. colledge . so indeed you said at first . mr. serj. jefferies . he never did say the day of the month , nor the month neither . mr. jones . how long was it before the sitting of the parliament ? haynes . mr. jones , truely i do not remember precisely how long it was before the sitting of the parliament , but i am sure it was before . mr. serj. jefferies . i did take it that he said it was before the sitting of the parliament , and now he says in the month of march. pray at that time he talked to you , did not he tell you of the sitting of the parliament , and that they would stand by you ? colledge . he hath said it already , you need not direct him , sir george , he goes fast enough . but you say , sir , the first time i ever was acquainted with you was in march , then gentlemen consider whether it be probable that at that time i should discourse to him after this manner . l. c. just . no , i will tell you what he says , he said the first time he was intimately acquainted with you , was in march , he said he had before seen you in coffee-houses , and he is sure it was before the sitting of the parliament ; for he tells you the discourse you had , and by that discourse it appears , it related to a parliament that was afterwards to sit. and then to give you a more particular circumstance , he says that you put him upon the making of the affidavit about fitz-girald , and so you came acquainted . haynes . ask mr. attorney . my lord , that day he was taken and carried to whitehall before the secretary of state ; he said , i do not know who it should be that should accuse me , i believe it is ivy ; as for haynes , he was taken t'other day ; he was an honest man. colledge . you say i desired you to make an affidavit , was it after that or before i had that discourse with you ? haynes . it was after . for i came and desired you to go to such a person of quality , and you went to him and advised with him ; and then the next morning such discourse as i told your lordship and the whole court of , he told me . colledge . did i speak these treasonable words after the affidavit made ? haynes . you said i must make such an affidavit concerning fitz-girald . colledge . but was this treasonable discourse before you made the affidavit , or after ? haynes . after the affidavit made , you told me this . when i came to his house , and from thence , we went to the hercules pillars . mr. sol. gen. will you ask him any more questions , mr. colledge ? colledge . did you ever speak with me in you . life before macnamarra did call me out of the coffee-house to go along with you , where you would discover a design against my lord shaftesbury's life ? haynes . i told you i never had any intimate acquaintance with you in my life before , nor did i ever speak with you before . colledge . when was that discourse , i ask you once again ? haynes . after the affidavit made . colledge . that night ? haynes . within a week or thereabouts after the affidavit made . mr. att. gen. call mr. edward turbervile . but mr. haynes , i would ask you one question , did he deliver you any ribband as a mark of distinction . haynes . yes , here it is . ( and it was shewd to the court. ) then mr. turbervile was sworn . mr. serj. jeff. pray mr. turbervile will you tell my lord and the jury what discourse you had with mr. colledge , and where , and when ? mr. turbervile . when the parliament sat in oxon , about the middle of the week , i can't be positive in the day , but i think it was in the middle of the week i dined with mr. colledge , captain brown and don lewes clerk of derby-house at the chequer inn. after dinner don lewes went out about some business , and captain brown went to sleep ; mr. colledge and i fell talking of the times , and i was observing , i thought the parliament was not a long lived parliament . said he , there is no good to be expected from the king ; for he and all his family are papists , and have ever been such , you know it , sir. mr. serj. jeff. nay don't appeal to him . mr. turbervile . said i , the king will offer some thing or other by way of surprize to the parliament . said he , i would he would begin ; but if he do not , we will begin with him and seize him ; for there are several brave fellows about this town that will secure him till we have those terms that we expect from him . l. c. just. where was this ? mr. turbervile . at the chequer-inn in oxon. l. c. just. what said he further ? mr. turbervile . he said he had got a case of pistols , and a very good sword and a velvet cap ; and i can't be positive he had armour on , but i believe he had . mr. att. gen. did he tell you he came down for that purpose to seize the king ? mr. turbervile . yes , and he gave me a piece of blew ribband to put in my hat , he had a great quantity of it . mr. att. gen. what was that for ? mr. turbervile . to be a distinction if there should be any disturbance when the thing should be done . colledge . what thing done ? mr. turbervile . i knew nothing but of your telling me of it . colledge . where was this ? mr. turbervile . at the chequer-inn in oxon , mr. colledge . you talk much and can't remember all you say . mr. att. gen. what did he discourse to you about arms and an horse . mr. turbervile . i told him i had never an horse , and nothing but a case of pistols ; he bid me i should not trouble my self , for he would get me an horse . colledge . what to do ? mr. turbervile . to carry on your design , i know not what it was , but by your words . mr. att. gen. tell what he said of it at the chequer inne . mr. turbervile . he said there was a design to seize the king. mr. att. gen. did he desire you to be one of them ? mr. turbervile . he did desire me to be ready to assist . mr. jones . and how much of that ribband had he , pray ? mr. turbervile . a very great quantity , 40 or 50 yards . mr. sol. gen. pray mr. turbervile will you give your evidence over again , and let mr. colledge attend to it . mr. turbervile . when the parliament sat at oxon about the middle of the week , i cannot be positive to a day ; i believe it was either wednesday or thursday i dined with mr. colledge , capt. browne , and don lewes , who was formerly clerk of derby house . don lewes after dinner went out , and capt. browne laid him down on the bed , and mr. colledge and i fell a talking of the times , and i told him , i thought this parliament would be no long-lived parliament . upon which colledge told me the king and all his family were papists , and there was no good to be expected from him . then i replyed , the king would perhaps surprize the parliament , or use some stratagem to bring them to his terms . said mr. colledge again , i would he would begin ; but if he do not , we will secure him till he comes to those terms we would have from him ; for here are several brave fellows , and many more are coming down that will joyn with it . mr. att. gen. did he name any one ? mr. turbervile . no indeed , he did not ; he himself had a case of pistols , a sword , and i believe he might have his armor on . colledge . did i discourse who were to joyn with me ? mr. turbervile . no , mr. colledge , you did not name any body to me , but capt. browne was with you . mr. att. gen. were you examined in my lord stafford's tryal ? mr. turbervile . yes , i was . mr. att. gen. was this gentleman sworn to your reputation there ? mr. turbervile . no , not to mine . colledge . pray how come we to talk of such things ? what occasion was there that i should talk treason of the king to you ? was there any body besides us two there ? mr. turbervile . no , capt. browne was gone to sleep , and lewes was gone out . mr. att. gen. it was not at dinner that you talked so , mr. colledge , he sayes . colledge . had they been at dinner with us there ? mr. turbervile . yes , and we had a legg of boyled mutton to dinner . colledge . did you stay after dinner ? mr. turbervile . yes , and i lay with you afterwards upon the bed. colledge . i thought you had said capt. browne went to sleep there . mr. turbervile . yes , but he was gone too , when we laid down together . colledge . god forgive you , i can say no more , i never spoke one word of any such discourse in my life . mr. att. gen. will you ask him any more questions ? colledge . mr. turbervile , when did you give in this information against me ? mr. turbervile . i gave it to the grand jury . colledge . not before ? mr. turbervile . yes , i did . colledge . when was it ? mr. turbervile . truly i can't well tell , i believe it was a day or two before i came to oxon. colledge . why did you make it then , and not before ? mr. turbervile . i 'le tell you the occasion . mr. dugdale told me the grand jury of london would not find the bill ; i did admire at it extreamly : for i thought every one that conversed with him might be an evidence against him ; he was always so very lavish against the king and the government . so then colonel warcup came to me and took my depositions , and then i came for oxford . colledge . what was the reason you did not discover this treason before ? mr. turbervile . there was no reason for it , it was not necessary . colledge . you were not agreed then . mr. turbervile . there was no agreement in the case , there needs nothing of that i think ; but i am not obliged to give you an account of it . colledge . god forgive you mr. turbervile . mr. turbervile . and you too , mr. colledge . mr. att. gen. then call sir william jennings . mr. serjeant jefferies . mr. attorney , if you please , till he comes , i will acquaint my lord here is a gentleman that hath not yet been taken notice of , one mr. masters , that is pretty well known to mr. colledge ; now he is a man , he must acknowledge , of an undoubted reputation , and i desire he may give your lordship and the jury an accompt what he knowes of the prisoner ; because he is so curious for english-men , we have brought him an english-man of a very good repute . colledge . my lord , i am charged with treason in this indictment ; here are a great many things made use of that serve only to amuse the jury , i can conjecture nothing else they are brought for ; i desire to know whether the pictures produced are part of the treason . l. ch. just. stay till the evidence is given , and we will hear what you can say at large when you come to summe up your defence . mr. serjeant jefferies . pray , my lord , will you be pleased to hear this gentleman . he will tell you what discourse he hath had with the prisoner at the barr. then mr. masters was sworn . mr. masters . mr. colledge and i have been acquainted for a great many years ; and we have often discoursed . i have told him of his being so violent as he hath been several times . but a little before the parliament at oxon. about christmas last after the parliament at westminster at mr. charlton's shop the woollen draper in paul's church-yard , we were discoursing together about the government , and he was justifying of the late long parliaments actions in 40 ; and he said , that parliament was as good a parliament as ever was chosen in the nation . said i , i wonder how you have the impudence to justify their proceedings that raised the rebelion against the king , and cut off his head . said he , they did nothing but what they had just cause for , and the parliament that sate last at westminster was of their opinion , and so you would have seen it . mr. serj. jeff. what did he say of the parliament since ? mr. masters . he said the parliament that sate last at westminster was of the same opinion that that parliament was . mr. serj. jeff. pray afterwards what discourse had you about his colonel-ship . mr. masters . we were talking at guild-hall that day the common-council was , the 13 th of may as near as i remember , so i came to him , how now col●nel colledge , said i , what do you make this bustle for ? you mistook me and said , cozen how long have you and i been cozens ; nay prithee , said i , 't is not yet come to that , to own kindred between us , i only called you colonel in jest ; marry mock not , said he , i may be one in a little time . mr. serj. jeff. have you any thing to ask mr. masters ? you know he is your old acquaintance , you know him well . ( then sir william jennings was sworn . ) mr. jones . what is it that you know concerning mr. colledge at oxford , sir ? sir william jennings . my lord , the first time that i heard any thing of mr. colledge , was , there was some company looking upon a picture , for i knew him not , nor never had any word of discourse with him in my life any more then seeing him in a publick coffee-house . but there was a picture looking on by 7 or 8 or 10 people , i believe more or less , and i coming and crowding in my head amongst the rest , looked upon this picture . after the crowd was over , mr. colledge takes a picture out of his pocket , and said he , i will give you one of them if you will. so he gives me a picture ; which picture if i could see , i could tell what it was ; it was written mac a top , and there were several figures in it . ( then the picture was shewed him . ) this is one of the same that i had of him , and i had not had it long in my custody , but meeting with justice warcupp , i shewed it him , who bid me give it him , and so i did . the next thing that i did see mr. colledge do , was in the coffee-house , not the same day , but another time . i saw him bring in a parcel of blew ribband which was wrought , and these words eight times wrought in it , twice wrought in every quarter of a yard , no popery , no slavery . i saw him sell to a member of parliament , as i took him to be , a yard of that ribband for 2 s. and truly i was thinking he would ask me to buy some too , and i saw that gentleman ( i took him to be a parliament man ) take this ribband and tye it upon his sword. as to the other thing i have to say of mr. colledge ; that very day the parliament was dissolved , he had been in a quarrel , as he told me , with mr. fitz girald ; and i was standing in the schoole-house yard , and he comes directly to me without my speaking to him or any thing ; but he comes and tells me mr. fitz girald had spit in his face , and , said he , i spit in his face again ; so we went to loggerheads together , i think that was the word , or fifty cuffs . so , said i , mr. colledge your nose bleeds ; he takes his handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his nose , and said , i have lost the first blood in the cause , but it will not be long before more be lost . l. c. just . where was this ? sir william jennings . in the schoole-house yard at oxon. i never discoursed with him afterwards till i met him at london in fleet-street one sunday in the afternoon , and i remember captain crescett was along with me . and when he came up to me , how now , said i , honest joyner ? sayes he , you call me honest joyner , some call me rogue and rascal , and i have been beating some of them . so that i believe they will be aware of it . so i told captain crescett i never met this man but he was always in a quarrel . colledge . was it on a sunday that i told you i had been beating of some body . sir william jennings . you told me so , captain crescett was by . colledge . i do remember i met you , but i did not tell you i had been then beating any one . but pray , sir william , when i met you after the parliament was dissolved , and fitz girald and i had quarrel'd , did i say , that i had lost the first blood in the cause , but it would not be long e're more were lost . sir william , you are a gentleman ; as for the other men , they don't care what they say , nor do i so much regard them , but you value your word and honour ; these were my words , and pray will you recollect your self before you be positive in the thing , whether i did not say , i have lost the first blood for the parliament ( for it was upon my vindicating of the commons and doctor oates whom fitz girald had abused , and upon that the quarrel began ; so i said when you met me , and told me , my nose bled , i have lost the first blood for the parliament ) i wish it may be the last . sir william jennings . mr. colledge , if you please i will answer you as to that , i do assure you ? t is the first time that ever i came upon this occasion in my days , and i have declared it before , and do declare it now , i would rather have served the king in 3 ingagements , then come in against you or any man upon such an occasion . but i declare to you upon the whole memory of the truth , the words were as i spoke them at first , and no parliament named or mentioned . and , my lord , moreover , i will tell you , when i did tell this story , because mr. crescett that is here is able to tell you whether i did not relate the words within half an hour , or a little time after . now i never had a prejudice against you in my days , nor other concern , but having told mr. justice warcupp this story , i am brought hither to testifie it . colledge . sir william , i am very sorry you did not better observe and remember my words then . sir william jennings . i must needs say , i could not imagine what the words meant when they were spoken , nor do i understand them to this day ; but soon after they were spoken , i related them to justice warcupp , he being a justice of peace . mr. serj. holloway . gentlemen , we shall rest here , and conclude our evidence for the king at present , to hear what the prisoner says to it , only with my lords leave i shall explain the words to you that are in the indictment , and tell you what is meant by compassing and imagining the death of the king. the seizing the person of the king , is in law a compassing and intending his death ; and so it hath been adjudged in several cases , as in 1 jacobi , my lord cobham and my lord greys case , and several other cases ; and so you may fully apprehend what the charge is , and may understand the words in the indictment , that if you are not satisfied with the general words of compassing the king's death , you may know , that the seizing his person extends to it . mr. serj. jefferies . my lord we have done with our evidence , now let him go on with his . l. chief justice . now mr. colledge you may say what you will for your defence , and call your witnesses that you have to produce . colledge . my lord , i have heard this evidence that is against me , and i would desire your lordship to resolve me some questions upon it . i think the indictment is for treasonable practices , for a conspiracy ; now i desire your lordship will be pleased that i may know from you and the court , whether in all this evidence given in proof against me , a conspiracy is proved ; or if any thing appears besides what they say i said . l. chief justice . for a conspiracy in you , if the witnesses speak truth , there is a plain proof , and of the degrees of it : first of all , by your publishing libels and pictures to make the king odious and contemptible in the eyes of the people , and that you should be the author of some of those pictures , and they were found in your custody . colledge . i conceive that is not proved . l. chief justice . if the witnesses say true , it is proved . colledge . they do not produce that , they do but say it . l. chief justice . mr. dugdale swears , that at oxford here , you shew'd him the picture , you sung the song here , and expounded it at my lord lovelace's , and a great many of them are found in your custody . then that you prepared armes , that you shew'd smith the arms in your house , and having those arms , you said , you would go to oxford , and if there should be a disturbance there , you would secure the king. and you did come to oxford , where you hear what is said ; for i observe , stephen dugdale and edward turbervile speak of what was done at oxford . john smith and bryan haynes speak of what you said at london before you went to oxford , and after you came from oxford . now i say , if these witnesses speak true , 't is a strong evidence against you , both upon the statute of the 25 edw. the 3 d. and that of this king too . for my brother holloway told you true , that whereas the imagining the death of the king is high treason , by the 25 of edw. the 3 d. so a seizing of the king , and an endeavor to do that , is a constructive intention of the death of the king ; for kings are never prisoners , but in order to their death . and therefore it hath been held in all times , that by the statute of edw. 3 d. that was treason ; but then the statute of this king , in the 13 year of his reign , is more strong ; for there it says , if any man shall by any words or malitious speaking shew the imagination of his heart , that he hath any such intention , that is treason too . colledge . my lord , the foundation of this indictment is said to be laid here in oxford , as i suppose ; pray , my lord , here is only mr. dugdale and turbervile that swear against me for what i should say in oxon ▪ all the rest speak to things said and done at london . now , my lord , i desire to know , whether they have proved any treasonable practices , conspiracy or design in me against the government , i would feign know that , whether there be matter here to ground an indictment upon ; for the one says in one place , the other in the other , which may be distinct matters , and none of them swear facts against me , but only words . mr. justice jones . yes , providing arms for your self , and offering others arms. colledge . that i shall make this answer to , i had only a case of pistols and a sword , which every footman and horseman had , that came from london , i think . but further my lord , i would ask your lordship , whether there ought not to be two witnesses distinct , to swear words at one and the same time . mr. justice jones . no , no , the resolution of the judges in my lord stafford's case , is contrary . l. chief justice . look you , it hath been often resolved , that if there be one witness that proves one fact which is an evidence of treason , and another proves another fact , that is an evidence of the same treason , tho' they be but single witnesses to several facts , yet they are two witnesses to an indictment of treason ; that hath been often publickly resolved , particularly in the case of my lord stafford , mentioned by my brother . and i 'le tell you my opinion further , if there be one witness that proves here what you said at oxford , and another that proves what was said in london , if they be in order to the same treason , it is sufficient ; for if you do conspire to commit such a treason in london , and you come with such an imagination in your heart to oxford to compleat this treason , tho' your design was not first formed there , i think 't is enough to maintain an indictment of treason , and they are two good witnesses , tho' but one speak to what was done at oxford ; but i must tell you , in your case , there are two full witnesses to that which was done at oxford , besides sir william jennings . colledge . that which sir william jennings speaks of , i told you before what it was i said , it was the first blood that was shed for the parliament . mr. just . jones . the parliament was dissolved before that which sir william jennings speaks of , therefore you could not say it was to defend the parliament . colledge . mr. dugdale did say that i spake such and such words in the barber's shop in the angel inne ; there i was indeed at the time that he does speak of , and the barber was by , i do think , indeed it were convenient to have him here ; but i knew not where he would charge me , or what it was he would charge me with , because i never said any thing in my life that was like treason . lord ch. just . mr. colledge , call any witnesses you will. colledge . but , my lord , pray let me ask you one question more ; you take these words distinct from any matter of fact , don't you ? l. ch. just. no , complicated with the fact , which was the overt-act , the coming to oxon. with pistols to make one if there had been any disturbance , and to seize the king. colledge . then , my lord , i would ask you , whether any act of treason done at london , shall be given in evidence to prove the treason for which i am now indicted , and which was given in evidence before the grand jury , upon which the tryal was there grounded . lord ch. just. any act of treason that is of the same kind . and i 'le tell you , that was resolved in sir vane's case ; those that gave you that paper understand it . but i speak now to your capacity , and to satisfie your question . he was indicted for levying warr against the king , he conspired in westminster , the war was levyed in another county ; the conspiracy upon the tryal was proved in the county of middlesex , and the warr in another place , and yet it was held sufficient to maintain the indictment in the county of middlesex . colledge . there was a warr really levyed , but god be thanked here is only bare words . mr. just . jones . yes , actions too . colledge . what actions , my lord ? mr. just . jones . arming your self , and coming to oxford . lord ch. just . well , i have told you my opinion ; my brothers will speak theirs , if they think otherwise . mr. just . jones . that is not your case neither tho i am of the same opinion with my lord ; for here are two witnesses have proved plain matter of fact at oxford ; the providing arms your self , and encouraging others to take arms — colledge . they name no persons . mr. just . jones . you will have my opinion , and yet you will give me no leave to speak ; i had patience to hear you : you are told there are two witnesses , turbervile and dugdale , that prove your providing and having of arms at oxon. and perswading others to take arms , particularly turbervile , he told you he had no arms , or but a case of pistols , and he had no horse ; but you told him you would provide him an horse . and then there are two other witnesses , smith and bryan haynes , they do not tell you of any thing done at oxford , but they tell you what you said in their hearing of what you had done in oxon , and so i think if the witnesses are to be believed , there is a very full proof against you . mr. just . raymond . i am of the same opinion truely , and i cannot find , but that there is proof enough by two witnesses , turbervile and dugdale , of what was done at oxford . they swear matter of fact , not words only , but actions also . colledge . no fact , but that i had pistols and a sword , and that i should tell mr. turbervile i would provide him an horse , which is still but words . mr. just . jones . but you shall hear anon for the full conviction of you and all others , the statute of the 13 th of this king read to you , and you shall there see that such words are made treason . colledge . but i beseech your lordship to tell me whether there must not be two witnesses to the same words at the same time . mr. just . jones . no it was the resolution of all the judges in the case of my lord stafford in the presence of the parliament , and the parliament proceeded upon it . mr. serj. jefferies . in the same tryal where mr. colledge was a witness . mr. att. general . all the whole house of commons prayed judgment upon my lord stafford , pursuant to that resolution . l. c. just . come will you call any witnesses ? colledge . my lord , i do not question but to prove this one of the hellishest conspiracy that ever was upon the face of the earth , and these the most notorious wicked men , an absolute design to destroy all the protestants of england , that have had the courage to oppose the popish plot. in which no man of my condition hath done more then i have done . i was bred a protestant , and continued so hitherto , and by the grace of god i will dye so . if that they had known of these words that i should speak , and such a design that i should have before the parliament sat at oxon , and be with me in oxon when the parliament sat , if they had been good subjects , they ought to have had me apprehended . turbervile came several times indeed , and dined with me . i did not bid him go out of doors , nor invited him thither ; he was a man i had no disrespect for , nay he was a man i valued , thinking he had done the nation service against the papists , that this man should hear me speak such words against his majesty , who was then in this town , and know of such a dangerous design to attempt the seizing his person , or that i should discover a great party that were ready to do it , i think there is scarce any man of reason , but will say , if this were really done and spoken by me , neither of them would or ought to have concealed it but discover it , none of them has ever charged me with any such thing , they have been in my company since . i never had any correspondence with any of them but dugdale , then pray consider how improbable it is , that i should talk of such things to papists , priests , and irish-men , who have broke their faith , with their own party , that faith which they gave under the penalty of damnation , men that have been concerned in plots and treasons , to murder and cut the throats of protestants , that i should be such a madman to trust these people , when i could receive no manner of obligation from them , nor could give any trust to them , they having before broke their faith ; especially , considering i could lay no such oaths and obligations upon them , who was a protestant ; then 't is the greatest non-sense , to believe that i would say these things before persons whom i could never hope would conceal my treasons , having discovered their own . if they speak truth concerning the general popish plot , that could be no obligation upon me , to trust them with another ; and they cannot say , that they ever obliged me in any one respect . my lord , i thank god i have had some acquaintance in the world , and have been concerned with some persons of honour , noblemen , and parliament men , that i know are as good subjects as any his majesty has ; these never found me a fool , nor a rascal , so great a knave , as to have any such thoughts in my heart , nor so great a mad-man , or so foolish , as to go to discover them to papists , priests , and irish-men , to men of their condition , that were ready to starve for bread. as for haynes and smith that run so fast through all their evidence , the first time that ever i set my eyes on haynes , was in the coffee-house that he speaks of ; macnamarra comes in , and desires me to go out with him , and i should hear the greatest discovery of a piece of villany against my lord shaftsbury's life , that ever i heard in my life . this captain brown who is now dead , a man that i had not known but a month before , ( for i think it was in march last when this was ) could testifie for me ; for , i came to him , captain , said i , here is a discovery offered to be made to me , of a design to take away my lord shaftsbury's life . macnamarra asks me to go to the hercules pillars , i went along with him , and took captain brown with us . afterwards he fell sick in april , and is now dead , so i lossed a main evidence in the case . he was the only man that was by at the time ; god knows my heart , i speak nothing but the truth , i took him with me , haynes began to discover to us , that fitz-girald had employed him to fetch over macnamarra , and if he would come in , and swear against my lord of shaftesbury , which was his design , it would not be long e're his head were taken off , and he said , he had given in a paper of high treason agaist my lord of shaftesbury , i asked what it was , he told me , that my lord should tell fitz girald that he had a design to bring this kingdom to a common wealth , and to rout out the family of the stuarts . this he said , fitz girald had given in in a paper , under his own hand ; and i think he said , he had sworn it , and sent haynes to fetch macnamarra to swear against my lord the same things too . i writ down all the heads of the discourse which captain brown heard as well as i , after he had said it , he desired us to conceal it , sir said i , you are a stranger to me , and these are great and strange things that you do tell us , macnamarra and brown , and ivy , and others were there , which ( if they were honest men ) they would come and testifie . i thought them honest men , and that they had none of those wicked designs in their hearts , that now i find they have . so says haynes , i do not know this man , meaning me ; macnamarra told him , i was an honest man , he might lay his life in my hands . after he had spoken all this , he desired us to conceal it ; said he , i will not only discover this , but a great deal more of their rogeries that i know very well ; said i to him again , i will not conceal it , nor do you no wrong , for if this be true , my lord of shaftsbury shall know it to night ; for where there is a design to take away a peer of the realm , i will not conceal it ; but if it be false , and you have said more then comes to your share , recant it again , and we will take no notice of it , only say you are a knave for speaking of it ; he swore dam him it was all true , that , and a great deal more , which he said he knew , about seizing and destroying the parliament at oxon , about an army in the north that was to be raised about the time of the sitting of the parliament at oxon , of a french army that was to land in ireland at the same time , that the duke of york was to be at the head of them , and the intention was , to destroy all the protestants . upon this , i was resolved , if i lived , to come along with the parliament , and if there was any such design , i was resolved to live and die with them , but i had no more then common arms , a sword and a case of pistols , my cap was a velvet cap , and nothing else . my lord , i had the honor to be sent for , when the parliament sat last at westminster , the sessions in october , it was an honourable occasion , and i thank those worthy gentlemen that sent me for the honor of it , there i begun to be popular as to my name , for from that time they began to call me the protestant joyner , because the parliament had intrusted me . my lord crey was pleased to send his footman for me to the crown tavern behind the exchange , where there were several worthy lords , peers of the realm , and one hundred of the commons , that had dined there that day , it was the day before they sat ; after they had dined i came to them , and the duke of monmouth told me , they had heard a good report of me , that i was an honest man ▪ that understood building , and they did confide in me to search under the parliament house ; they did not really know of any design , but they would not be secure , there might be some tricks play'd them by the papists , tho' we are not afraid of them , said the duke , yet we think fit to employ you to search under the houses , and thereabouts , whether you can find any such practices . so accordingly my lord , i did go , my lord lovelace was one of the honourable lords , and my lord herbert that went with me , and some of the gentlemen of the house of commons ; and those worthy protestant lords were pleased to thank me for my service , and did believe i was active and zealous to find out and discover the bottome of the popish plot , so far as it came legally in my way to do it . my lord , upon this occasion , there was a great kindness from them to me , and i had upon all occasions testimonies of it ; and this very man who now swears treasons against me ( which god almighty knows is all false ) did swear in his affidavit before sir george treby the recorder of london ( i did never see the affidavit , indeed i was over night at sir treby's , but he was not then at leisure , but he drew it up next day , and swore it ) that there was a design to destroy the parliament at oxon , and there was not only his oath for it , but it was the general belief , that some evil was intended them . all men had cause to fear and to suspect , the papists did bear them no great good will ; and making use of their own observations , they were generally armed with a pistol , or a sword , for themselves , in case they should be attack'd by the papists . in order to this , i did come down with my lord howard , my lord of clare , my lord of huntington , and my lord pagett , those four worthy protestant lords ; and it was two days after the parliament was sat , that we came , and i went out of town again with my lord lovelace , sir thomas player , and sir robert clayton ; and i am sure , they were all in so great a fear that london should be surprized and seized on by the papists , but there was no mortal man that ever heard of the kings being seised , or thought of it , till these men come and tell me , that i had such a design , and came hither with that purpose ; but my lord , i declare as god is my judge , i would not have it thought i speak it to save my life , were it as certainly a truth , as 't is most wickedly a falshood , that i had had a design to seize the king , i know not of one man upon the face of the earth , that was to stand by me , parliament man , or other persons whatsoever ; and how it is possible for me to attempt that , being a single person , with only a sword and a case of pistols , let any man judge . and i do declare , i know of no conspiracy nor design , against the king or government , i never spoke one of the treasonable words in my life , that is laid against me , nor had ever any thoughts of any such thing . god that is my eternal judge , knows , that what i speak is true . l. ch. just. well , mr. colledge , will you call your witnesses , for i must tell the jury as i did at your request , concerning mr. attorney , that as nothing he said , so nothing you say is to be believed upon your own allegation ; for then no man would ever be guilty , if his own purgation by words were to be believed . colledge . my lord , i thank god , i know my own innocency , and hope to prove it . i have a soul that must live to eternity , either in joy or misery , i act according to those principles , and i hope i have some assurance of my own salvation when i dye , i would not call god to witness to a lye , to save 1000 lives . my lord , this is a villanous conspiracy against me , and if it take place against me , it may go a great way , god knows how far , this is the 17 th or 18 th sham plot the papists have made against the protestants , to get over their own ; but i hope my lord god almighty will never suffer it . if they can make me a traytor , they will try it upon others , and so hope to sham off their own treasons ; but i say , i hope god almighty will never suffer it . my lord , i think the first witness that swore against me was mr. dugdale ; and i must call my witnesses as i have them here , i know no person of them hardly , and this that is done for my defence was done abroad . my lord , i have been kept close prisoner in the tower , and none of them suffered to come to me , whilst the popish lords have had the liberty and priviledg to talk with their friends . here are witnesses i hope will prove that these are suborned men , for macnamarra did tell me presently after the parliament broke up at oxon , and whispered it to me in the coffee-house , said he , there is a design laid to make us retract our evidence , and go over to fitz girald . said i , i suppose they have been at that sport a great while . ah , said he , they make large offers . said i , by whom ? said he , colonel warcupp hath been at me , and he tells me — mr. just . jones . macnamarra is not produced against you as a witness at all . colledge . no , but he told me this , that there was such a design , and , said he , i will get you , and some other honest men ; and he desired me to be by when he had something more to tell which would do his business for him , but the next news i heard of him was , he was put into newgate . l. ch. just . call your witnesses , mr. colledge , and prove what you can . coll. call mr. hickman . mr. attorn . gen. my lord , i desire he may observe the same rule he desired about our witnesses ; that he may call but one at a time . coll. yes , yes , i will call them one by one . l. ch. just . are not your witnesses together ? send to them . coll. my lord , i don't know , i have not seen one since i come . this is not the first time , my lord , the papists have designed to take away my life , though it is the first time they went about to take it away by a law. l. ch. just . i know not of one papist that is a witness against you . coll. there is never a man of them , except sir william jennings , but what was a papist . mr. attorn . gen. what say you to mr. masters ? coll. mr. masters says nothing material , it was only a jocose discourse . mr. serj. jeff. it was very pleasant discourse upon my word ; you were as merry as when you were singing of the rary shew . mr. just . jones . what do you make mirth of the blackest tragedy that ever was , that horrid rebellion , and the murther of the late king. coll. i never justified that parliament in any such thing that they did contrary to law. mr. just . jones . he swears it . mr. attorn . gen. hickman does not appear , call another . coll. call william shewin , ( who appeared . ) l. ch. just . look you here friend , you are not to be sworn ; but when you speak in a court of justice , and in a course of justice , you must speak as in the presence of god , and only speak what is true . coll. i would not have any body speak any thing for me , but what is truth . l. ch. just . now ask him what you will. coll. i don't know the gentleman . but pray , sir , will you tell what you know of these witnesses . mr. shewin . name any of them that i know , pray sir , and i 'll tell you . coll. do you know bryan haynes ? mr. shewin . i know there is such a man , but i have nothing to say to him . coll. do you know turbervile ? mr. shewin . yes . coll. pray tell what you know of him . mr. shewin . my lord , i was in turbervile's company on thursday night last at the golden posts at charing-cross , and there i heard him say , that if i were at oxford i should hear strange things against colledge , and he would lay ten to one that mr. bethel and mr. wilmore should be hanged at christmas , and he would lead him by the gold chain along fleetstreet , and down with his breeches in the middle of the coffee-house , with a band about his neck and a cloak . mr. serj. jeff. did he say all these things against mr. sheriff bethel , i assure you he is a bold man. coll. what do you know of mr. smith ? mr. shewin . i know him by sight , but i have nothing in particular to say concerning him . i have something to say to macnamarra , sir , if he were here . coll. do you know any thing of this conspiracy in general ? mr. jones . what of your conspiracy ? mr. shewin . i know that they did lay , who should be hang'd at candlemas , who at christmass , and who at several other times . l. ch. just . what did you hear turbervile say ? mr. shewin . those words i spake before about sheriff bethel , and about the amsterdam coffee-house . coll. did they say what time i should be hang'd ? for the discourse ' rose about me . mr. shewin . one told me that there was one that did design to be returned upon this jury , that was resolved to hang him right or wrong . mr high sher. my lord , i did hear there was such a one , and i left him out of the jury . l. ch. just . for mr. sheriffs honour we must take notice of what he hath said . he says he heard of a man that spoke something of that nature , and therefore he left him out of the jury . coll. now 't is possible these witnesses were at the same sport . mr. shewin . was mr. peacock mrs. fits-harris maids father , or she here , either of them witnesses against you ? mr. serj. jeff. no , they were not , sir. coll. they did swear against me at the finding of the bill . mr. serj. jeff. we have only called these witnesses , if you can say any thing against them do . coll. call henry hickman , ( who appeared . ) mr. serj. holl. where do you live , sir ? mr. hickm . at holborn-bridge . mr. attorn . gen. what trade are you ? mr. hickm . a cabinet-maker . l. ch. just . what do you ask him ? coll. do you know haynes ? hickm . yes , very well ; because he used to come to my house to a popish widow that was a lodger in my house where i live now ; and this person was a prisoner at haynes's when he was a prisoner in the fleet. i always had a suspicion he was a priest , not that i could accuse him really of any thing , but he several times using to come to my house i thought so of him , and discoursing with my land-lady . l. ch. just . your tenant you mean ? mr. hickm . yes , my tenant . i asked her , what this fellow was ; said she , he is a very dangerous fellow though he is a papist , and i am one my self , yet he is a dangerous person , and he does not much care what he swears against any one . mr. just . jones . this your tenant told you , what do you know your self ? mr. hickm . another time he came to speak with my tenant mrs. scot , who is now gone into ireland ; when he came to the house , he asked me , is mrs. scot within ? yes , said i , mr. haynes , she is above ; and up he goes , and there they locked the door , and plucked out the key ; so i slipt off my shoes , for i thought there might be more danger from such people than i could discover any other way . so i went up stairs , and stood at the door , and hearkned , hearing my land-lady talk something to him , he wraps out a great oath , god dam me , said he , i care not what i swear , nor who i swear against ; for 't is my trade to get money by swearing . whereupon , my lord , i came down as fast as i could , and a little after i saw him go out , and as soon as my land-lady came down , said i , mrs. scot i desire you would provide your self as soon as you can ; i would be civil to you , and i would not put you to a non-plus , because your goods by the law will be seized for not departing according to the king's proclamation . so a while ago since this business of haynes's swearing against my lord of shaftsbury , i bethought my self of some other businesses i had heard : to find out the knavery i went to the fleet , where he hath a very ill character as well amongst the papists as the protestants . whereupon i asked one fellow that was a kind of a porter , if he knew any thing of him ; said he , go you to such an one — mr. serj. jeff. we must not permit this for example sake , to tell what others said . l. ch. just . nothing is evidence , but what you know of your own knowledge ; you must not tell what others said . hickm . this i do say , i heard him say ; and there are those that can produce a letter — mr. serj. jeff. bring those people , but you must speak nothing , but upon your own knowledge . hickm . i was at the chamber door , and looked in at the key-hole , and he sat down at the window . l. ch. just . how long ago was it , pray ? hickm . a year and an half . mr. attorn . gen. you are an eves-dropper , i percieve . hickm . i did not know what danger he might bring men into , because he was a papist .. i have taken an oath to be true to the king , and i will as long as i live . for this gentleman , i never beheld him , till last night , in all my days ; though he lived by me , i never saw him . l. ch. just . well , call the next . coll. i never saw this gentleman ; but you see what haynes hath declared . mr. serj. jeff. this man says , he did say so . coll. and , for ought i perceive , he does accordingly . call elizabeth oliver ; ( who appeared . ) l. ch. just . mrs. oliver , stand up . what do you ask her ? coll. do you know haynes , pray ? bryan haynes ? mrs. oliver . yes . coll. pray tell the court what you know of him . mrs. oliver . i know him very well . l. ch. just . what do you know of him ? mrs. oliver . he writ a letter in my father's name , unknown to my father . l. ch. just . did you see him write it ? mrs. oliver . i saw him write it . l. ch. just . read it . by whom is it subscribed ? clerk. by no body . l. ch. just . why , how is it written in your father's name , when it is not subscribed at all ? mrs. oliver . he writ it as from my father . mr. serj. jeff. whither did he bring it ? mrs. oliver . he sent it into the country . mr. serj. jeff. can you write and read , mistress ? mrs. oliver . yes . mr. serj. jeff. who did he send it by ? mrs. oliver . the carrier . mr. serj. jeff. when is it dated ? clerk. in 77. l. ch. just . read the letter . ( which was done . ) clerk. reads . l. ch. just . what is all this to the purpose ? unless your father were here to prove it was done without his knowledge . mr. oliver . my father did not write it . l. ch. just . was your father in the fleet then ? mrs. oliver . yes , my lord , he was a prisoner then . coll. mrs. oliver , do you know any thing more of him ? mrs. oliver . i have known him a great while ; i know him to be a very ill man. mr. serj. jeff. must she tell you all she knows ? mr. attorn . gen. did you ever know him forswear himself ? mrs. oliver . no , i do not know that . l. ch. just . come , call another ; this is nothing to the purpose . coll. call mrs. hall : ( who appeared . ) pray , do you know mr. bryan haynes ? mrs. hall. yes , if i see him i know him very well . coll. what do you know of him ? mrs. hall. he lodged at my house , and came there the day before fitz-harris was tryed , and there was a great discourse about his tryal , and i was enquiring of him ; and i told him , i must expose my ignorance , i did not know what it was he was tried for : and , said he , if you please to sit down , i will tell you : madam portsmouth came to him , and went upon her knees , and begg'd of him , if he had any kindness for his majesty , that he would now shew it at this juncture ; and she told him she had heard he had formerly acquaintance with one mr. everard abroad , and therefore desired him to go now and renew it , and endeavour to get him over ; and , if he could possibly , to get over some others to make a presbyterian plot of it . this is true , i very well know it ; as for this gentleman , i never saw his face before , but those were the words i am sure . l. ch. just . what were the words ? mrs. hall. that they might make a presbyterian plot of it . coll. did he say so ? mrs. hall. he said that the dutchess of portsmouth did so . l. ch. just . what a story is this ? coll. did not he say that the dutchess of portsmouth employed him too ? mrs. hall. no , this was about fitz-harris . coll. what do you know more about haynes ? mrs. hall. one night he had been about some business for me in law with one mr. woodward an attorney at law , and when he returned i was busie in the kitchin with my maid about the house , and he came up to me ; madam , said he , this night i had a message from the king ; a justice of peace met me , and brought me word , that the king had sent into ireland , to enquire into the loyalty of my family , and he hath heard that my father was a loyal subject , but he understood strange things of me ; but if i would come in , he would grant me my pardon . i told him , said he , i did not value his majesty's pardon a pin , for i had done nothing that might make me stand in need of it ; but i would do any thing that might tend to the preservation of his majesty's person or honour ; but to do such base things as are beneath a man , i will never do it ; and he whisper'd me in the ear ( as the accusing of several persons ; ) and since , he sent me a letter by his mother in law , mrs. wingfield , that i should not believe it , if i heard he should accuse any body ; but i might be confident he had not , nor would accuse any body . coll. was he to swear against the protestants ? mrs. hall. i did not enquire any questions ; but he said , such base things he would never do as the accusing of several persons . mr. attorn . gen. pray mistress , did you believe him when he told you he was so honest a man ? mrs. hall. how do you mean , sir ? mr. attorn . gen. when he said he would not do those base things , did you believe him ? mrs. hall. i never saw his face before he came there to lodge ; but i saw him to to be a man that made little conscience of what he said or swore . mr. attorn . gen. did not you find him a bragging man ? mrs. hall. i had little discourse , but what he said of himself . but there is one thing more about an intelligence : when thompson had written something in his intelligence concerning bryan haynes , he said he would write an answer to it ; and accordingly , he read it to us : he said , he was going that evening to get it put into one of the intelligences : the words were to this purpose . whereas one nathaniel thompson had falsely and maliciously accused one bryan haynes for speaking treasonable words ; he the said bryan haynes doth declare that he challenges any man to charge him with it : but he owned he had an hand , or was employed to put the plot upon the dissenting protestants . l. ch. just . did he publish that in the intelligence ? mrs. hall. i never read it published ; but he had writ it , and read it to us several times . mr. attorn . gen. do you go to church , mistress ? mrs. hall. i hope i do . sir geo. jeff. to what church ? coll. call mary richards , mrs. halls maid . ( who stood up . ) l. ch. just . what will you ask her ? coll. do you know this bryan haynes , pray . richards . yes , he lodged there where i lived . coll. what do you know of him ? richards . i know he writ that in the intelligence my mistress spoke of ; thomson , in his intelligence , accusing him of having spoken treason , he read what he said he would put into the intelligence : that he never spake one word of treason , and he writ it for his own vindication ; that whereas nathaniel thomson , in his intelligence of the 18th . of june , had maliciously accused one bryan haynes of treasonable words ; there was no such thing . l. ch. just . and that was to vindicate him , that he never did speak any treasonable words . richards . yes . l. ch. just . will you ask her any thing else ? coll. i cannot tell what she says . l. ch. just . she says , he writ something that was in answer to thomson's intelligence , to vindicate himself that he never did speak any treasonable words . coll. but did you hear him say any thing of these words , that he was employed in a plot against the protestants ? richards . i read that , in what he writ to put in the intelligence , that he challenged any one to appear , and charge him with treason ; but , said he , i own that i was employed or had a hand in putting the plot upon the dissenting protestants : and he telling my mistress he had a message from the king , offering him his pardon ; i asked him why he did not accept the king's pardon . alass , said he , you do not understand what i was to do for it ; i was to do such base things so beneath a man , that i will never do them : i had five hundred pounds offered me , besides the king's pardon , to do such base things as are beneath a man to do . coll. what were the base things he said he was to do , and would not do ? richards . i cannot tell , he did not say to me what they were . mr. attorn . gen. when was this ? richards . it was a week before he was taken . mr. attorn . gen. that is two months ago . coll. it was since the parliament sat at oxford : but what was that he was employed to do , did he say ? richards . why , he said in his answer to the intelligence , he was one that had an hand to put the plot upon the dissenting protestants . coll. call mrs. wingfield ; ( who appeared . ) l. ch. just . what is your christian name ? mrs. wingfield . mary . l. ch. just . what do you ask her ? coll. do you know this bryan haynes , pray ? mrs. wingfield . yes , very well . coll. what do you know of him ? mrs. wingfield . i know nothing of him , but he is an honest man ; he married my daughter , and always carried himself like a gentleman ; he scorns the thing that is unhandsome , and never did any thing that is unhandsome in my life . mr. serj. jeff. pray , how came you by this witness ? have you any more of them ? coll. i never saw her before , but i believe she hath said something else in another place . did you ever say the contrary , pray ? mrs. wingfield . no body can say so ; and i had done the gentleman a great deal of wrong if i had . coll. call mr. whaley . ( who appeared . ) l. ch. just . what is your name , sir ? mr. whaley . john whaley . coll. did you know bryan haynes ? mr. attorn . gen. where do you dwell , sir ? mr. whaley . at the hermitage , beyond the tower. coll. i don't know you , sir ; but what do you know of him ? mr. whaley , i never saw you , sir , till to day ; but that which i think i am called for is this , though it was upon sunday that i receiv'd this same subpoena to come down hither : but about six years ago , bryan haynes was a prisoner in the king's bench , and he came down to the cellar which i had taken of the marshal to sell drink in ; and coming down to drink in one of the rooms of the cellar that belong to me , he took away a tankard , and went up with it . one of the men followed him up ; so i went to the marshal to complain , and told him of it : and the marshal took him from the master's side , and put him into the common side . that is all i know of him any way , directly or indirectly . l. ch. just . why did you not indict him of it ? mr. whaley . i acquainted the next justice of the peace , who was the marshal ; and he put him from the master's side , into the common side . l. ch. just . he was no good justice of the peace in the mean time . coll. call mr. john lun . ( who appeared . ) do you know bryan haynes , mr. lun ? mr. lun . i have seen him twice : the first time i ever saw him was , i went into the derby-ale-house , to enquire for one miclethwayte , a kinsman of mine , and there this bryan haynes was in a little room next the ditch , near the door that goes out there , as if he were asleep , and he roused himself up ; and , as i was walking there , sir , said he , will you take part of a tankard with me : ( that was his expression . ) with that , said i , i do not care if i do . and the first thing he began was the king's health , then the queens , then the duke of york's ; then he fell very foul against the grand jury , because they had not found the bill against colledge , who is a gentleman that i never saw before in my life but once , as i know of : and he said , my lord shaftsbury was a little toad , but he would do his business very suddenly . then he railed upon the parliament , and said they were a company of rogues , they would give the king no money , but he would help him to money enough out of the phanaticks estates . and he said , they would damn their souls to the devil before the catholick cause should sink . mr. serj. holloway . when was this ? mr. lun . it was three or four days after the bill was brought in ignoramus by the grand jury . mr. just . jones . was he alone ? mr. lun . yes , he was . coll. is that all you have to say ? mr. lun . one thing more , my lord. on monday last i was at uxbridge , and a gentleman sent his man on purpose to let me know i must go to colebrook , and stay till they came thither . when i came there , i met bryan haynes at the crown-kitchin-window , and he was stirring a glass of brandy , and sweetning it with sugar . said he , sir , will you drink ? here is the king's health to you : so i drank , and i asked him how he did ? do you know me , sir , said he ? yes , said i , i drank with you once . says he , you have a good memory . so then a pint of sack was called for , and after that another , and then came down mrs. peacock ; and being very fine , all in her flower'd silks , i asked what gentlewoman that was ? said he , it is mrs. fitz-harris . no , says i , it is not ; they say she is gone . but , said he , it is her maid ; and sheriff bethel is to marry her . as i have a soul to save , i tell you nothing but what is truth . thereupon , said i , sheriff bethel is able to maintain her ; he hath a good estate . but , said he , it shall be the king 's e'er long . coll. so that here is a plain design against all the eminent protestants . mr. lun . so with that , my lord , if it please your honour , i clapped my groat down at the bar , and went out of the room . nay , said he , let us have one health more : and so he had his tankard , and i had mine . haynes . i humbly desire you to call for mr. white , the king's messenger , who was by . i never saw the man before he was at uxbridge ; and asking mr. white who he was ? said he , his name is lun , he was my prisoner two years . l. ch. just . what say you to the discourse he talks of at fleet-bridge ? haynes . my lord , i am upon my oath , and i never saw him in my life before i saw him at uxbridge . mr. lun . i will take the sacrament upon it , that what i have averred is true . mr. serj. jeff. i suppose you are both known , and then your credit will be left to the jury . mr. attorn . gen. there is mr. white ; pray , swear him . ( which was done . ) l. ch. just . do you remember that haynes asked who mr. lun was . mr. white . it was at the bar of the crown inn at uxbridge , and i being there , mr. lun came into the yard , and i knowing mr. lunn , asked him , how he did ; he said , he was glad to see me ; and he called for a pint of sack to make me drink . haynes stood by , and he asked , who he was ? and i told him ; and we drank the king's health ; but for any thing of those words that were spoken there , sir , i did hear not one word of them , but he thanked me for my civility when i summoned him up to court , and seeing mr. haynes by , he asked , who he was ? mr. serj. jeff. and you take it upon your oath , that he asked you , who haynes was ? mr. white . yes , i do . mr. serj. jeff. pray did you hear any discourse that time as if there had been a meeting upon fleet-bridge ? mr. white . not one word of that ? mr. lun . i will take the sacrament upon it , what i say is true . mr. serj. jeff. we know you , mr. lun ; we only ask questions about you , that the jury may know you too , as well as we . we remember what once you swore about an army . coll. i don't know him . mr. lun . i don't come here to give evidence of any thing but the truth ; i was never upon my knees before the parliament for any thing . mr. serj. jeff. nor i neither for much ; but yet once you were , when you cryed , scatter them good lord. coll. call mr. broadgate . l. ch. just . what is your christian name , sir ? mr. broadg. jeremiah . l. ch. just . what do you ask him ? mr. broadg. my lord , i am a stranger to the prisoner at the bar ; what i have to say is concerning mr. turbervile whom i met one day , and he asked me , how i did ? said he , i owe you a little money , but i will pay you in a short time ; but if you will go to drink a glass of ale ; no , said i , i am in haste , and do not care for going to drink ; said he , you shall go ; so away we went , and when we were sat , said , he , when did you see turbervile that was my lord powis's butler ; said he , he was a great rogue to me ; and when i stood up for the nations good , he villified my evidence , and afterwards he came to me with doctor _____ to beg my pardon ; but i would not forgive him for the whole world : and speaking of the king's evidence ; said he , the king's evidence are looked upon as nothing ; as poor inconsiderable mean fellows , and their sallaries are lessened ; and , said he , i have had the greatest proffers from court of preferment and rewards , if i would go from what i have said , and come upon the contrary ; and he repeated it , yes , upon the faith of a man , and from the highest ; but , said he , i have a soul and a body ; a body for a time , but my soul for eternity , and i cannot go from it . he went over it again ; i might have what i would if i would go from what i have said , and come upon the contrary . mr. attorn . gen. but he does not go from any thing of what he hath said . coll. did he say what he was offered , and by whom ? mr. broadg. he said he had very great offers from the court if he would disown the plot , and go upon the contrary . l. ch. just . but he does not disown it . mr. just . jones . nay , he had a soul to save , and could not go from it . mr. serj. jeff. you talk of the contrary , and the contrary ; what did he mean by that , what plot should he disown ? mr. broadg. the popish plot. l. ch. just . he does not disown it , nor never did disown it . coll. he would make a presbyterian plot of it now , for he cannot say i am in the popish plot. sir , do you know any thing more of him ? or did he name me ? or that he was to swear against me , or any protestant ? mr. broadg. no , only he said the king's evidence were villified , and looked upon , as poor inconsiderable fellows ; but it seemed if he would go on the other side , he might have great preferments and rewards . l. ch. just . you make a wrong comment upon it , mr. colledge ; it was if he would retract his evidence , and disown the plot. coll. i leave it to your lordship , and the jury , to make the sense of it . mr. broadg. i saw mr. turbervile since i come hither , and he asked , are you come , mr. broadgate , to give evidence against me ? says i , i am come to declare the truth , and nothing but the truth . mr. serj. jeff. you might have stay'd at home for any thing material that you do evidence . coll. call mr. zeal , ( who appeared . ) l. ch. just . what is your christian-name , sir ? mr. zeal . john. l. ch. just . what would you ask him ? mr. serj. holloway . where do you dwell , sir ? mr. zeal . in london . mr. serj. jeff. whereabouts ? mr. zeal . in fetter-lane . mr. serj. holl. what countryman are you , sir ? mr. zeal . somersetshire . mr. attorn . gen. whereabouts in somersetshire were you born ? mr zeal . by sir portman's , within six miles of him . mr. serj. jeff. what trade , sir ? mr. zeal . no trade . mr. serj. jeff. have you any estate ? mr. zeal . my father has . i was bred to wait upon a person of quality . coll. do you know turbervile , sir ? mr. zeal . yes sir , i do . coll. what do you know of him ? mr. zeal . sir , i know nothing but what mr. ivy told me with his own mouth . l. ch. just . do you know any thing of your own knowledge ? mr. attorn . gen. has mr. turbervile told you any thing ? mr. zeal . not concerning mr. colledge , he has not . coll. ivy was amongst them . mr. zeal . yes , my lord , he was the first that swore this presbyterian plot. l. ch. just . we know of no presbyterian plot. coll. can you say nothing of your own knowledge concerning turbervile ? mr. zeal . nothing but what mr. ivy told me . mr. serj. jeff. that is not of your own knowledge , and so it is nothing , for he is not produced in this cause . coll. pray , my lord , give me leave to call mr. ivy. mr. serj. jeff. do if you will. ( he stood up . ) coll. what was that you heard turbervile say of me , or of any presbyterian plot ? ivy. i never heard him say any thing concerning a presbyterian plot in my life . coll. did not you tell zeale of such a thing ? ivy. no , i never did . coll. hark you , mr. ivy ; you have sworn against me , have you not ? ivy. what i have sworn against you , or any other person , is true . coll. what have you sworn against me ? ivy. i am not bound to answer you . coll. did not you call me out , with macnamarra and haynes , to the hercules pillars ? l. ch. just . look you , mr. colledge , i will tell you something for law ; and to set you right ; whatsoever witnesses you call , you call them as witnesses to testifie the truth for you ; and if you ask them any questions , you must take what they have said as truth : therefore you must not think to ask him any question , and afterwards call another witness to disprove your own witness . coll. i ask him , was he the first time with us , when i was called out of the coffee-house to hear haynes's discovery ? l. ch. just . let him answer you if he will , but you must not afterwards go to disprove him . coll. if he were sworn against me , i would not ask him any questions , for he is among them . l. ch. just . ask him what you will. coll. i desire not if he have sworn against me , for truly i can't expect a good answer from him ; but he was by when haynes made his discovery . l. ch. just . will you ask him any questions ? coll. i ask whether he hath given any evidence against me any where ? ivy. i am not bound to answer you . l. ch. just . tell him if you have . ivy. yes , my lord , i have . coll. then i think he is no good witness for me , when he hath sworn against me . ivy. i have sworn against him and others . you know that you and i have had a great many intrigues about this business in hand , and how we dealt with mr. haynes . l. ch. just . look you ; he does not call you for a witness for him , you can testifie nothing , and so you must be quiet . coll. call mr. lewes . ( who appeared . ) l. ch. just . what is your christian name ? mr. lewes . william . coll. pray mr. lewes , what do you know about turbervile ? mr. lewes . i know nothing at all , i assure you , of him that is ill . coll. do you know any thing concerning any of the evidence that hath been given here . mr. lewes . if i knew any thing relating to you , i would declare it ; but i know something of mr. ivy : it has no relation to you , as i conceive , but against my lord of shaftsbury . l. ch. just . you would call ivy for a witness , and now you call one against him ; and that i told you ; you must not do , but ivy is not at all in this case . coll. do you know any thing of the rest of them ; haynes , or smith , or dugdale ? mr. lewes . no more than what mr. zeale told me , was told him . coll. do you know any thing of a presbyterian plot ? mr. lewes . if the court please to hear me , i will tell my knowledge of that ; but i know nothing that affects him in the least , only that which concerns my lord of shaftsbury . l. ch. just . that is nothing to the purpose ; call another . mr. lewes . there was not , to my knowledge , a word mentioned of your name : i will do you all the justice i can ; if i knew any thing concerning you , i would be sure to relate it . coll. i cannot say who can , or who cannot ; i am a stranger to all of it . l. ch. just . well , call your next witness . coll. my lord , there was a petition presented to the common council of london , wherein they set out , that they were tamper'd withal about a plot against the protestants . l. ch. just . a petition from whom ? coll. i cannot tell from whom ; from some of these witnesses . l. ch. just . who preferred and signed it ? coll. mr. turbervile was one . pray call doctor oates . l. ch. just . the prisoner calls upon you , mr. oates . what would you ask him , mr. colledge ? coll. where is the petition to the common council , doctor ? dr. oates . i have it here in my hand . l. ch. just . by whom was it presented ? dr. oates . it was given by mr. turbervile and mr. macnamarra , to mr. wilmore . l. ch. just . was you present when it was delivered ? dr. oates . mr. wilmore did deliver it to me before he was apprehended ; for , being to come down as a witness , he was taken up , and committed to prison . l. ch. just . whose hands are to it ? dr. oates . i know mr. turbervile's hand , he will not disown it . clerk. reads . it is subscribed edward turbervile , john macnamarra . l. ch. just . look you , mr. colledge ; what word is there in all this petition that is a contradiction to what they have said now ? coll. i did not hear it , my lord. l. ch. just . they say , they are constant witnesses for the king , against the papists ; and they have been tempted to unsay what they have said : how does that contradict what they say now ? coll. i suppose they say they have been tempted to turn the plot upon other people , and to make a plot upon the protestants . l. ch. just . they have been tempted , they say , by the papists , to unsay what they have said ; but the jury have heard it read , and will give it its due weight . will you ask mr. oates any questions ? coll. what do you know of mr. turbervile ? dr. oates . as to turbervile , my lord , a little before the witnesses were sworn at the old bayley , i met with mr. turbervile ; i was in a coach , but seeing mr. turbervile , i stept out of the coach , and spoke with him ; for , hearing that he was a witness , i did ask him whether he was a witness , or no , against colledge ? mr. turbervile said , he would break any one's head that should say so against him ; for he neither was a witness , nor could give any evidence against him . so , after he came from oxon , i met with mr. turbervile again ; and , hearing he had been there , i asked him if he had sworn any thing against colledge ? he said , yes , he had been sworn before the grand jury . said i , did not you tell me so and so ? why , said he , the protestant citizens have deserted us ; and , god damn him , he would not starve . l. ch. just . would he say so to you ? dr. oates . yes , my lord , he said those very words . mr. serj. jeff. 't is mr. oates saying , 't is mr. turbervile's oath . dr. oates . several times he did repeat it ; but when i asked him what he had sworn , he said i am not bound to satisfie peoples curiosities . l. ch. just . what say you to it , mr. turbervile ? mr. turbervile . my lord , the first part of the doctor 's discourse , in part is true ; i met him just at my lodgings , and the doctor alighted out of his coach , and spoke to me , and invited me to come to my old friends ; for he told me , they had some jealousie that i was not true to them : and he told me , if i would come to the king's head club , i should be received with a great deal of kindness : and never afterwards did i speak with the doctor a tittle about any evidence . l. ch. just . he says , you said you would break any one's head , that said you were an evidence against colledge ; for you were not , nor could be . mr. turbervile . there was no such thing said by me . mr. attorn . gen. upon your oath , did you tell him so ? mr. turbervile . upon my oath , i did not . mr. serj. jeff. did you tell him that other passage , when you swore you would not starve ? mr. turbervile . no , i did not . dr. oates . upon the word of a priest , what i say is true . my lord , i do say , as i am a minister , i speak it sincerely , in the presence of god ; this gentleman did say these words to me ; which made me afraid of the man , and i went my ways , and never spake with him afterwards , nor durst i ; for i thought he that would swear & curse after that rate , was not fit to be talked with . l. ch. just . 't is very improbable that he should say so to you . mr. turbervile . i always looked upon dr. oates as a very ill man , and never would converse much with him . l. ch. just . will you ask him any thing more ? coll. do you know any thing of the rest , doctor ? dr. oates . i know nothing of turbervile further , but that he did present this petition , wherein he says , he lay under great temptations to go on the other side , and accuse some protestants . and truly till i heard he was an evidence at oxon , after what he had said to me , i did not believe it . mr. attorn . gen. doctor oates , mr. turbervile hath not changed sides , you have ; he is still an evidence for the king , you are against him . dr. oates . mr. attorney , i am a witness for truth , against falshood and subornation ; and it cannot plainly be made to appear there is subornation against the protestants . and moreover , my lord , — l. ch. just . mr. oates , you would do well to explain your self . mr. serj. jeff. if there be any subornation relating to mr. turbervile , or any of the other witnesses that have now sworn against colledge , make it out doctor . dr. oates . there is , my lord , and there will be made further to appear in time to come . to my own knowledge as to mr. smith , mr. colledge and mr. smith had some provoking words passed betwixt them at richards coffee-house , and mr. smith comes out and swears , god damn him he would have colledges bloud . so , my lord , when i met him ; said i , mr. smith , you profess your self to be a priest , and have stood at the altar ; and now you intend to take upon you the ministery of the church of england , and these words do not become a minister of the gospel ; his reply was , god damn the gospel ; this is truth , i speak it in the presence of god , and man. l. ch. just . can you say any thing of any of the other witnesses . dr. oates . as for mr. dugdale , i was ingaged for him for 50 li. for last lent assizes , he wanted money to go down to the assizes , having pay'd some debts , and pay'd away all his money ; and so i ingaged for 50 li. that he borrowed of richard the coffee-man . after he came from oxen , i called upon him to hasten to get his money of the lords in the treasury , which , as near as i remember , was ordered him upon his petition , for so i heard . and at that time , said he , sir , i hear there is a great noise of my being an evidence ; against whom , said i , against several protestants , my lord shaftsbury , and others ; said i , i never heard any thing of it ; says he , there is no body hath any cause to make any such report of me , for i call god to witness i know nothing against any protestant in england . after that i met with dugdale at richards coffee-house , and pressing him for the money , and he saying he had it not just then , but would pay it in a little time : mr. dugdale , said i , you have gone i am afraid against your conscience ; i am sure against what you have declared to me ; said he , it was all long of colonel warcup , for i could get no money else . mr. att. gen. mr. oats is a through paced witness against all the king's evidence . mr. serj. jeff. and yet dr. oates had been alone in some matters had it not been for some of these witnesses . dr. oates . i had been alone perhaps , and perhaps not ; but yet , mr. serjeant , i had always a better reputation than to need theirs to strengthen it . mr. serj. jeff. does any man speak of your reputation ; i know no body does meddle with it , but you are so tender . coll. sir george , now a man is upon his life , i think , you do not do well to affront his witnesses . mr. serj. jeff. i do not affront him ; but now , my lord , pray give us leave to call our witnesses . mr. smith , pray stand up . l. ch. just . mr. smith , do you hear what mr. oates hath said . mr. smith . no , my lord. l. ch. just . then speak it again , mr. oates . dr. oates . yes , my lord , i will speak it to his face . he said coming out of richards coffee-house , they having had some provoking words , as i understood when i come in , god damn that colledge , i will have his blood ; and , my lord , when i did reprove him , and said to him , mr. smith , you have been a priest , and stood at the altar , and intend to be a minister of the church of england ; these words do not become a minister of the gospel ; and he replied , god damn the gospel ; and away he went. l. ch. just . what say you to it , mr. smith . mr. smith . not one word of this is true , upon my oath . 't is a wonderful thing you should say this of me ; but , i will sufficiently prove it against you , that you have confounded the gospel , and denied the divinity too . mr. serj. jeff. mr. dugdale , you heard what was said against you . dr. oates . my lord , now dugdale is come i will tell you something more . there was a report given out by mr. dugdale's means , that mr. dugdale was poysoned ; and in truth , my lord , it was but the pox. and this sham passed throughout the kingdom in our intelligencies ; and this i will make appear by the physician that cured him . mr. serj. jeff. that is but by a third hand . dr. oates . he did confess that he had an old clap , and yet he gave out he was poysoned ; but now , my lord , as to what i said before of him , i was ingaged for 50 li. for mr. dugdale , do you own that ? mr. dugdale . i do own it . dr. oates . i did press upon you to hasten the payment of it . mr. dugdale . yes , you did . dr. oates . and did not you come to me and tell me , there was a noise of your being an evidence , it was in time just before my lord shaftsbury was taken up . mr. dugdale . i never spoke to you till you spake to me . dr. oates . my lord , he came , and said to me , there is a noise of my being an evidence ; now i had not heard it then ; but the day after i did hear it , and i did justifie mr. dugdale , because he had said to me that he had nothing against any protestant in england . so i did stand up in vindication of him ; but , my lord , after he had sworn at the old baily i met him again , and pressed him for the money , and urged him with it , why he had sworn against colledge , when he had told me so and so before , and he said it was all long of colonel warcup ; for he could not get his money else ; and colonel warcup did promise he should have a place at the custom-house . mr. dugd. upon the oath i have taken , and as i hope for salvation , it is not true . mr. serj. jeff. here is dugdale's oath against dr. oates's saying . dr. oates . mr. serjeant , you shall hear of this in another place . mr. attorn . gen. 't is an unhappy thing that dr. oates should come in against these men that supported his evidence before . mr. dugd. my lord , i say further , if any doctor will come forth and say he cured me of a clap , or any such thing , i will stand guilty of all that is imputed to me . l. ch. just . mr. colledge , will you call any other witnesses ? coll. my lord , i think this is not fair dealing with a man for his life ; because these men be upon their oaths , and deny the things again that my witnesses prove , therefore what they swear must needs be taken for truth : but if my witness comes and says such a thing upon the word of a minister , and in the presence of god , and which he is ready to maintain by an oath , sure it is not to stand for nothing ; nor he to be hooted out of court , because mr. dugdale denies it upon his oath , i do suppose he will not acknowledge it . but , my lord , i am the prisoner and cannot be heard as a witness for my self : but god is my witness , he hath said a great deal more to me formerly ; and he hath told me when i have seen him with warcup , and asked him why i kept company with warcup , and others ; said he , i know they are suspected men , but i must keep company with them to get my money ; what would you have me do , starve . and when i lent him money out of my pocket , and trusted him with my horse , i dun'd him for money and could not get it ; said i , will you pay me the 5 li. i lent you ; he put me off , said he , i shall have it , for the attorney general hath made up his accompts , and is very kind to me ; why then , said i , why have you it not ; said he , he is my friend , and i do not question the getting of it ; but here is new work to be done , such work as my conscience will not serve me to do ; there is more roguery , they will never have done plotting , and counterplotting ; but they will make a thousand plots if they can to destroy the real one . l. ch. just . can you prove this now ? coll. no , it was spoken to my self ; and no body was by but my self . l. ch. just . then you should not speak it . but you asked the question whether a man may not be believed upon his word , as well as he that is upon his oath . your witnesses are not upon their oaths , but they may be witnesses , and their weight is to be left with the jury ; they will consider how improbable it is , that these men should come , three men to one man , and all of them should speak that which would make themselves rogues and villains ; and that one man of them , smith , should say such vile words , as , god damn him , he would have his blood , and , god damn the gospel : that dugdale should confess he was wrought upon by warcup to testifie against his conscience ; and that turbervile should say to that purpose , he would not starve ; they have sworn the contrary , and so there are all these three mens oaths against one mans affirmation ; but it must be left to the jury . colledge . there is his affirmation against what they three say . he charges every one of them , and 't is but the single denial of every one of them to his charge . l. c. j. 't is improbable they should own themselves such villains to him . dr. oats . they must be so , if they will do what they have undertaken . i hope my word will be believed as soon as their oaths . colledge . it is not to be thought , but when they have sworn so against me , they will deny any such thing when they are charged with it . l. c. j. have you done with your witnesses ? or will you call any more ? colledge . what is said upon an honest mans word in the face of a court , is certainly to be believed as well as what is sworn . l. c. j. 't is a testimony , that is most certain , and must be left to the jury , they must weigh one against the other . but pray mr. colledge will you call your witnesses , for it begins to grow late . colledge . there is mr. wilmore , that was a material witness for me , who was foreman of the grand jury , that would not find the bill upon this evidence . what he had to say i don't know , but i am informed it was very material for me . l. c. j. it will be enough for him to clear himself , for he is charged with high treason , and by two witnesses too . colledge . call alexander blake . l. c. j. what do you ask him ? colledge . do you know john smith ? mr. blake . yes , sir. colledge . pray will you tell the court what you know of john smith . mr. blake . i suppose you mean this gentleman . mr. john smith , gent. came to me one morning , and told me there was one haynes under examination , and this haynes had discovered very material things against some great persons : this passed , and within few days after i met mr. smith at the exchange coffee-house , and having saluted him , i desired him to drink a glass of wine , and so we went to the sun tavern , and when we were there , i asked him , what his sence was of haynes and his discovery ? said he , 't is a sham plot : i asked him , what he meant by that sham plot ? said he , 't is a meal-tub plot. this is all that i know . l. c. j. would you ask him any thing else ? mr. blake . i know nothing more . colledge . do you know any thing of turbervill or dugdale ? mr. blake . sir , i have no acquaintance with him , nor desire it . but i was acquainted with this gent. mr. smith , i know him very well . mr. serg. jefferies . you say well , stand down . colledge . call mr. samuel smith . l. c. j. what ask you him ? colledge . what he knows of mr. smith ? mr. s. smith . mr. john smith and i have had an intimacy and acquaintance several moneths , and since mr. john smith swore at the old baily against mr. colledge , and was gone out of town , several people have talked with me concerning him , and asking me , what i thought of him ? i told them , i believed he was an honest man , however i would not believe otherwise till i knew a reason of it . they told me , that he had sworn against mr. colledge , that he was to seize the king at the parliament at oxford , and that there was 1500 barrels of powder , and it was to carry on a presbyterian plot : said i , i will never believe it , and the rather because he hath said to me often , there was a popish plot , but he does not believe any presbyterian or protestant plot : and , said i further , as to his giving any evidence with irish-men , i believe it the less for that , for i have heard him often say , they were a company of rogues that had done the protestant interest more harm than ever they could do it good , and bid me have a care of coming into their company , and many other such things , that mr. smith here knows to be true . then , my lord , when mr. smith came home ( for i was very impatient till he did come home to hear every day such things said against him ) i went to him to see him . said i , cousin smith , i have had great confronts about you since you went away , but i hope you can't be that ill man you are represented to be , and truly i should be sorry it should be so : pray cousin , said i , i have put every man off with this , that i would suspend my belief of you till i had spoken with you your self ; what is the evidence you have given ? they say , you have sworn a presbyterian plot , or a protestant plot , a design of seizing the king at oxon , and of so many barrels of gun-powder that were provided . says my cousin , i did swear no such thing , nor never a word of any such thing as a protestant plot , or a presbyterian plot , and pray do not believe it of me . no , said i , i thought you could not swear any such thing , because you have said often to me , you believed there was no such thing . i do not believe it yet said he , and as to whatsoever colledge said , i did not believe it , for he did not believe it himself . and mr. smith told me after his return that he did not know of any protestant concerned in the plot. l. c. j. he does not say now 't is a protestant plot. mr. s. smith . so far from that , that he told me after his return he did not know any protestant concerned in the plot. l. c. j. mr. smith , thus i understand you . you say that he said to you , that he had not testified anything of a protestant plot , nor did believe there was any protestant plot , for he did not believe what colledge said himself : so by that discourse it seems he did not deny , but he had testified against mr colledge , but he did not believe there was any protestant plot ? mr. s. smith . no , my lord , he did not deny but he had sworn against colledge . mr. just . jones . nor that what he had said against colledge was true ? mr. s. s. no my lord , but he did not believe him , and he thought colledge did not believe it himself . mr. s. jeff. it seems mr. colledge thinks the whole protestant interest concerned in him . l. c. j. the question is mr. colledge , what you had in your mind , not what was in the mind of all the protestants . mr. s. s. this i do say , i would not speak more nor less than the truth , he did not deny , but he had heard colledge speak those words he swore , but he did not believe him , and i think mr. smith hath said that , at another time before mr. gardner . colledge . if he knew of no protestant plot , it was very unlikely that i should attempt such a thing my self . mr. s. s. my lord , i find mr. smith hath been very passionate and very inveterate of late against other men that he hath given me a very good report of before ; and when i was talking of this , i was saying , if it be true that people say of you , a man goes in danger of his life to converse with you . mr. smith said he , i do not care for all the men between wapping and charing-cross , there is never a man that will forbear my company , but would do or say as much as colledge hath done or said . mr. j. smith . 't is true , and i say so still . colledge . 't is a contradiction in it self , that there should be such a design and none but my self to do it . god my righteous judges knows my innocency . mr. just . jones . you might say those words in hopes they would be of your party and made so by your libels and poysonous pictures . l. c. j. come , call another witness . colledge . call mr. tho. gardner , but my lord , how likely is it that i should say , that i would seize the king , when he it seems says , he did not believe there was one man to stand by me ? l. c. j. what say you to this gentleman ? colledge . i never saw him in my life . mr. gardner . nor i you sir. colledge . i know not three of all that come here . l. c. j. well , will you ask him any thing ? colledge . pray do you know mr. smith ? mr. gardner . yes . colledge . what do you know of him ? can you say any thing concerning this matter that is sworn against me of treason ? mr. gardner . my lord , this day fortnight i think it was , mr. s. smith the gent. that was just now up before me , sent for me to the rummer in queen-street to drink a glass of wine , where when i came , i found him and mr. j. smith that is here , whom they call narrative smith , talking very briskly concerning one colledge , i suppose that is the gentleman , and the jury that acquitted him , and he said that 2 or 3 of the jury-men were rascals and villains , and says he , they talk up and down the town as if i did intend to sham the popish plot , and to make a protestant plot , which said he , i vow to god , and i will justifie it before god and all the world , that i know of no protestant plot , nor is there any protestant concerned in a plot to my knowledge , but this colledge , and upon his tryal i believe he will be made appear to be more a papist than a protestant ; but says mr. smith to him , now you are known to be a witness in this case , it will be a dangerous thing for a man to converse with you . coll. will it be now known that i am a papist ? no man could ever say so in this world . mr. gardner . says he , i care not what all the world says of me , and i do not value all the men from wapping to charing-cross , but that man that will shun my company will say and do as much to the king as colledge hath done . but then i was saying , me thinks it seems an improbable thing , that such a man as colledge should seize upon the king or provide 1500 barrels of powder and those other things . upon my word , said he , with some passion , clapping his hand upon his breast , when mr. colledge did say it , i did not believe a word of it , and upon my faith i believe colledge himself did not believe it when he told me so . colledge . do you know any thing more sir ? mr. gardner . no indeed mr. colledge . colledge . call dr. oats again . l. c. j. well , what say you to him ? colledge . pray dr. oats mr. smith charges me that i should speak some treasonable words that time that alderman wilcox gave you a treat at the crown tavern you were there , and pray how long ago was it ? dr. oats . my lord , i heard mr. smith speaking of it at the old-baily , and if you please to take notice it was thus , this summer was twelve-month , or i am sure a great while before christmas the alderman had invited me several times to give me a treat , and i had not time , other business calling me off , but finding a time , i sent him word i would come and see him . he said he was a brewer and troubled at home with customers , but he would give me a dinner at the grown tavern without temple-bar , that was the place fixed upon ; there was mr. smith the counsellor , who had been serviceable to me in several instances i did get him to go along with me , and mr. colledge was with us , and i heard smith swearing at the old-baily that mr. colledge and he had discourse from the rainbow coffee-house where we met , and went together . colledge . there i was invited by alderman wilcox . dr. oats . but my lord i will tell my story , i am not to tell smith's , colledge did tell me he was invited ; said i , you shall be welcome as far as i can make you welcome . so colledge and i went together from the rainbow coffee-house to the crown tavern : now indeed colledge was very pleasant and merry , and as i think , the discourse betwixt the rainbow coffee-house and the tavern was betwixt mr. colledge and me ; for m. smith stayed somewhat behind or walked before , i cannot tell which : when we came to the crown tavern we did , to divert our selves till dinner came up , enter into a philosophical discourse with one mr. savage who was formerly a romish priest , but this savage is since pardoned by the king and is a member of the church of england , and hath been professor of divinity and philosophy beyond sea. this as i remember was the discourse before we dined till we went to dinner , it was concerning the existence of god , whether that could be proved by natural demonstration , and whether or no the soul was immortal . my lord , after dinner smith went away , i did not hear the least discourse of any such thing as he speaks of , and mr. smith and colledge had no discourse in my hearing from the coffee-house to the tavern ; and when we were in the tavern we did discourse about those two points . counsellor smith , my lord , will justifie a great deal of this , and my brother too , who was with us . but when i heard mr. smith swear as he did about this matter at the old-baily , i did really my lord , in my conscience look upon him to be forsworn in that particular . mr. ser. jeff. and he does swear you are out in this . l. c. j. will you ask him any more questions ? dr. oats . if your lordship please he speaks of mr. wilcox to be a man that contributed money to buy arms , powder , and shot , i think sr. george jefferies knows alderman wilcox is a man of another employment . mr. s. jeff. sir george jefferies does not intend to be an evidence i assure you . l. c. j. do you ask him any more questions ? dr. oats . i do not desire sr. george jefferies to be an evidence for me , i had credit in parliaments , and sr george had disgrace in one of them . mr. ser. jeff. your servant doctor , you are a witty man and a philosopher . colledge . call mr. thomas smith . l. c. j. what would you ask of him now ? colledge . counsellor smith , here is john smith , or narrative smith , which you please to call him , hath charged me with speaking treason at our going to dinner at wilcox's , i remember you were there , and i think you and i and dr. oats and his brother and mr. godwin wharton went together ; i did tell mr. smith of it , but i did not stir a step out of the coffee-house with him , but went away before him , how long ago is it since we had that dinner ? mr. t. smith . my lord , if your lordship please , i do very well remember mr. alderman wilcox , so they called him , did desire to give dr. oates a treat with some other of his friends at the crown tavern without temple-bar ; but really my lord , as to the certain time i do not remember it , but to my best remembrance , my lord , it was before christmas last , and some time before christmas last . and my lord , i was there all the time , mr. smith was at that time somewhat a stranger to me , something i had heard of his name , and i did stay there all the while ; i remember mr. alderman wilcox was to go out of town that day ; and truly as to any thing of matter of treason , or treasonable words , or any thing tending towards it , i am confident nothing was , or could be spoken , and the room was a very small room , and our company did fill it up , and the table was so big , that there was little more than for the servitors to go about , so that any man might easily hear from the one end of the room to the other . i remember there was some discourse betwixt dr. oates and mr. savage , who i think hath been a jesuit , and it was about some points of philosophy and divinity ; but for treason , i do not remember the least of it , and i am confident colledge said not any such thing at that time , and my reason is this , i very well remember mr. colledge did set himself down upon one side of the table , and fell asleep , and unless he talked treason in his sleep , there could not be any such thing said , and if it had been said , it would have been heard . mr. att. gen. mr. smith , did you never hear mr. colledge speak any ill words of the king ? mr. t. smith . never in my life . and if i were now to take the sacrament upon it , i could say so . mr. serg. jefferies . you used to converse with him , mr. smith , did he never say any thing like it to you ? mr. t. smith . good mr. sergeant , you know i can take the sacrament ; pray let us have no reflections . mr. serg. jefferies . who did reflect upon you ? i did not reflect upon you . mr. just . jones . mr. smith , did he never deliver you any of those pictures ? mr. t. smith . no , sir , he never did . colledge . good sir george don't reflect upon my evidence . it seems smith is mistaken in the time , for he says , it was at christmas , but mr. smith says , it was some time before . l. c. j. mr. smith does not say so , the certain time he cannot tell exactly ; but your witnesses say , it was then . mr. t. smith . i do speak as much as if i were upon my oath ; and i know what an oath is , i thank god ; and what it is to speak before a court of judicature , and i know , and do speak truth as much as if i were upon my oath ; and i do say i did not hear colledge , or any one else that was in that company , at that time speak any thing reflecting upon the king and government , or any thing tending towards it . mr. just . jones . can you remember a matter so distinctly , which dr. oates says was a year and half ago ? l. c. j. no , this summer was twelve moneth . mr just . jones . and can you tell so long ago , not onely your own actions , but testifie to all other mens actions too that were in the room ? mr. t. smith . i cannot tell what dr. oates's memory is as to the time , but i remember the place , the occasion , and the persons that were there . mr. just . jones . and you take upon you to have such a perfect memory , as to the actions of all the persons that were in the room ? mr. t. smith . i do not speak of all that was done ; but i say , i remember no such thing that was said , and i believe no such thing was said , and have given you my reasons why . but my lord , that which i say further for mr. colledge , is this ; i do hear something pretended , as if he provided arms to go for oxford . i have known him this three years , or thereabouts ; and my lord , i do know that he did usually ride with a case or pistols before him . and before that time i had occasion to borrow his horse of him , at the election for westminster the last parliament that sat there , and i had it then with a case of pistols . i likewise borrowed it at michaelmas last , the same horse , and the same pistols they were , i did at the same time see a suit of silk armour , which he told me he did provide against the papists , for he said , he did expect we should have a brush with them . said i , do not trouble your self for that , they dare not meddle ; said he , this will do no harm . and as i remember , it was a suit of armour made of silk to wear under a coat . coll. it was silk armour only for the thrust of a sword. and i assure you my lord , i had but one suit , but one case of pistols , and but one horse , i had two before , but they did not then make a traitor of me , that was all that ever i had , but if i had had ten horses , and never so many armors i declare it upon my salvation , i intended it for nothing but against the papists , if they should make a disturbance , and whatever i did was with that design , and truly by the grace of god i would not have been the last man then , but i see whatever i provided my self with for that , they have turned it all another way , that it might be believed the protestants were against the king and the established government . l. c. j. those observations may be proper for you at last , go on now with your evidence . coll. my lord , i am not a man of that great memory , i may forget it , and therefore i speak it now whilst i think of it . l. c. j. set it down in your paper . coll. smith says i talked with him coming from richard's coffee-house till we came to the tavern , i do declare it , i went away before him , and went away with dr. oats . l. c. j. ask mr. smith that question if you will. coll. pray sir , do you know who went together thither ? mr. t. smith . i dare not undertake to say that , i cannot tell whether he went from the rainbow coffee-house with us , or no. coll. he says after we had dined we divided our selves into cabals , two and two together , i do declare it as that which is the real truth i fell asleep behind the table , if any body was divided it is more than i know , but mr. smith you can tell , because he says i spoke treason to him when i was in the room , he and i in one cabal . mr. t. s. my lord , i remember nothing of that , nor do believe it , for i told you the room was so little that we could not divide our selves , and it is impossible in such a little compass where we were so many as we were , 14 , or 15 of us ; it may be one might talk to another that was next to him , but then the company must hear , and whether they did so or no , i cannot tell , i do not remember mr. smith's saying any thing to any particular person , but the great ingagement was between dr. oats and mr. savage , and about some questions in divinity , and that is the great matter i took notice of . coll. however , my lord , i declare it , that was above a 12 month ago , and i hope your lordship and the jury does observe that there was no new arms were found , but what were provided a great while ago ; all that know me , know i was never without a case of pistols and an horse , though i was but a joyner , and there is no more that you see now . and as to what smith said about our going into cabals that you hear mr. smith denies . l. c. j. will you call any other witnesses ? coll. yes , if it please your lordship . do you know no more sir ? mr. t. smith . i know no other thing , if i did , i would declare it . coll. call dr. oats's brother , mr. samuel oats . my lord , thus you see smith's testimony is false . l. c. j. i do not see this contradicts his oath , for he speaks of several times that he did speak with you , one was at wilcox's which is this they speak of . coll. mr. smith says there was only that great discourse going on in the room , and there was no such things as cabals which he speaks of . l. c. j. what do yo say as to this witness ? coll. do you know narrative smith ? mr. oats . yes sir. coll. what do you know of him ? were you at the dinner which mr. wilcox gave your brother ? mr. oats . yes , yes , i was at that dinner . coll. were you at the coffee-house when i went along with your brother ? mr. oats . yes , we went with you . coll. did mr. smith go with us ? mr. oats . yes mr. smith followed us . coll. did you hear any treasonable discourse between us ? mr. oats . not the least of a little word . coll. did we go into cabals two and two together there ? mr. oats . there was nothing at all of cabals that i saw , from the time of going to dinner ; for we came just as dinner was going into the room as i remember . mr. serj. jeff. what do you mean by cabals ? mr. oats . that is as i discern by mr. colledge as if there had been cabals amongst the company . mr. just . jones . that is going by couples . mr. oats . yes , yes . mr. ser. jeff. what did they talk of ? mr. oats . there was nothing at all spoken of ? mr. ser. jeff what did they say nothing all the while ? mr. oats . nothing but matter of common discourse , matters of eating and drinking , and talking of country affairs , there were several that had 〈◊〉 in the countrey and they were talking of those things . mr. just . jones . were you there all the while ? mr. oats . yes . mr. ser. jeff. hark you sir , were there no disputations in divinity ? mr. oats . not at all . mr. s. jeff. nor of philosophy ? mr. oats . no. mr. s. jeff. why pray sir did not dr. oats and mr. savage talk very pleasantly of two great questions in divinity , the being of god , and the immortality of the soul ? mr. oats . there was not a word of that , but only common discourse . mr. s. jeff. are you sure there was no such thing ? mr. oats . not that i know of in the least , i sat at table with them . mr. s. jeff. was it such a little room that you could hear all was said ? mr. oats there was room enough . l. c. j. people cannot give a perfect account of all things that have passed so long ago . coll. i did not hear that discourse my self , because i was asleep behind the table ; and perhaps mr. oats cannot remember it . mr. sol. gen. was it before dinner , or after dinner that colledge fell asleep behind the table ? mr. oats . he was not asleep to my remembrance all the while . mr. s. jeff. recollect your self , pray , was mr. colledge asleep there ? mr. oats . i do not remember he was . l. c. j. 't is impossible to give an account , and therefore witnesses in negatives are of little value . coll. did mr. smith and you and i go together ? mr. oats . mr. smith followed us . l. c. j. how do you know that ? mr. oats . for you and i , and my brother went together ; you were a saying when we came out of the coffee-house in a jocose way , come dr. i will go along with you and be one of your guard. you spoke it in a jesting way , so you may if you please said my brother . and so he went by my brother's side , and i went by mr. colledge's side . coll. do you remember how long ago that was ? mr. oats . it was the last summer but to say exactly what month i cannot . mr. s. gen. mr. oats answer me this question , pray sir. mr. oats . yes , sir. mr. s. gen. from what place did you go . mr. oats . from richards coffee-house . mr. s. g. who went along with colledge ? mr. oats . he came along with my brother and me ; for he said to my brother , i will be one of your guard. mr. s. g. who went along with mr. smith ? mr. oats . i don't know , i took very little notice of things . mr. serg. jeff. 't is sufficient that he can tell who went with colledge . mr. oats . i remember one thing : mr. smith would fain have perswaded me into something that my brother should talk , but i heard nothing ; said i , do not examine me upon such things , for i took little notice of any thing ; but this i can say , whereas he does charge mr. wilcox , the gentleman did not speak five words all the time he was there . mr. ser. jeff. he does not use to be so melancholy , i assure you . mr. oats . i did wonder at it my self , but he was not long with us , for i do not think he was there a quarter of the time ; it seems he had a son sick in the countrey , and he was going thither . colledge . have you any thing against macnamarra ? l. c. j. he is no witness here . coll. do you know any thing against mr. dugdale ? mr. oats . no , not i. coll. then i can say no more to you . l. c. j. call another witness . coll. call mr. bolron . l. c. j. what do you ask him ? coll. do you know john smith ? mr. bolron . yes . colledge . what say you against him ? mr. bolron . may it please your lordship , the last 25 th . of july mr. smith , and mr. mowbray , and my self were travelling from york towards london . we lay the 24 th . at _____ and the 25 th . we were travelling towards london : mr. smith did ask me , if i did remember what discourse there was betwixt sir john brooks and i at ferry-bridge , when we were coming up before to london ? i desired him to tell me what discourse , and i would tell him if i did remember it or no. so my lord he did say , the discourse was , that sir john brooks did say , there would be cutting of throats at oxford , and that the parliament did go provided , some with 8 , some with 6 , some with 4 men , and they were to meet at grantham , and go together . this discourse i did remember , that sir john brooks said , they went with horse and arms to secure them from highway-men ; and sir john brooks did then further declare , that the discourse was , there would be cutting of throats at oxford , which made them go with arms to defend themselves . mr. smith did further upon the 25 , 26 , 27 , and 28 th . of july ( and it was our frequent discourse ) tell me , that he had given his majesty an account of it , which occasioned the dissolving of the parliament : that discourse that was made to the king , was , that sir john brooks should say , there would be cutting of throats at oxford , and that the parliament-men went provided with 4 or 5 , 6 or 10 men a piece ; and he did tell me , he had given a further account , that there was to be a consult at grantham , wherein it was resolved , that it was better to seize the king , than to let him go on . now , this i knew nothing of , but he would have perswaded me to have given in this evidence against sir john brooks , as to this discourse . but i declare , i did never hear it , and mr. smith was the first man that ever i heard it from , i never heard it before in my life . colledge . would he have had you been an evidence , and swore it ? mr. bolron . yes ; he said he had given an account of it to the king , and if i did manage it rightly against my lord shaftesbury and colledge , he would make me for ever ; those two persons were mentioned all along . but i do declare it , i did never hear them speak treason against the king in my life . and he did further tell me , that i must say so and so ; for if we did not agree , it would signifie nothing . but my lord , i know nothing of the matter , i never heard any one speak of it but mr. smith . my lord , this is true , mr. mowbray was the man that was by when it was discoursed . mr. just . jones . he would have had you sworn it , would he ? mr. bolron . i discovered it to my lord mayor . mr. att. gen. when did you discover it ? mr. bolron . soon after i came to town . mr. att. gen. when was it ? mr. bolron . some time last week . mr. att. gen. was it on saturday last ? mr. bolron . it was the beginning of the week . mr. serg. jefferies . thou art such a discoverer . mr. bolron . my lord , 't is very true what i say . if i had known any such thing , i would have discovered it . mr. serg. jefferies . thou wouldest have discovered it before that time , of my conscience . colledge . my lord , he hath been an evidence against the papists as well as mr. smith , and therefore pray sir george don't make your flourishes upon him . mr. serg. jefferies . he was an evidence , but he had the misfortune never to be believed . mr. att. gen. do you know any thing of any pictures of mr. colledge's making ? have you seen raree shew ? mr. bolron . never in my life . mr. att. gen. did you not shew it in oxford ? mr. bolron . no , never in my life . mr. serg. holloway . did you never declare to any gentleman of oxford , that colledge made this picture ? mr. bolron . i have seen the character of a popish successor , but i never saw raree shew . mr. serg. holloway . here is the very gentleman , my lord , that will make oath of it . mr. bolron . he was supposed to make them , i did not know that he did . mr. serg. jefferies . i do only desire one thing , i do not say , that you ever had raree shew , but did you ever tell any body that colledge made any of these pictures ? mr. bolron . i have heard of such a paper , but i did never see it in my life . mr. serg. jefferies . do you know that gentleman , mr. bolron ? mr. bolron . i know him not . mr. serg. jefferies . i would ask you , whether you ever had any discourse with that gentleman ? mr. bolron . never in my life . then the gentleman was sworn , being a master of arts. mr. serg. jefferies . what is the gentlemans name ? mr. serg. holloway . mr. charlett , of trinity colledge . mr. serg. jefferies . pray sir , do you know that person there ? mr. charlett . my lord , in the new coffee-house that was by the schools , that was set up in the parliament-time , there was a gentleman that is in the court ( i think ) one mr. dashwood , and one mr. box were there together to drink a dish of coffee , and hearing that some of the evidence were there , we desired their company up , and that gentleman was one ; and among other discourse , they were speaking of some pictures , and they shewed us the picture of the tantivies . mr. s. jeff. did this man shew it you ? mr. char. this very man , it was the pictures of the tantivies and the towzer , & he told me they were made by colledge , he was a very ingenious man. mr. bolr. i know nothing of it , the character of a popish successor i have seen , but never the other , i never shewed him any such thing . then the pictures were shewn him . mr. char. it was something like this , but i cannot say for any of the other . mr. bolr. the character of a popish successor , i say i have seen , and colledge himself hath told me he made the character of a popish successor , i do not deny that i have seen that . l. c. j. would you ask him any more questions ? mr. bolr. my lord , i have something more to say concerning mr. brian hains ; in january , february and april last , several times i was in his company , and i heard him say , he knew nothing of a popish plot , nor of a presbyterian plot neither , but if he were to be an evidence he did not care what he swore , but would swear and say any thing to get money . mr. just . jones . did he tell you so ? mr. bolr. yes , i did hear him say , to day he would be a papist , to morrow a presbyterian , he did not care for religion , he would never die for religion , he would be of that religion that had the strongest party . my lord , he told me so at my own house in fleetstreet . colledge . he would say any thing for money , pray my lord take notice of that , for so i find he does . mr. bolron . then there is dennis macnamarra , and john macnamarra . mr. ser. jeff. we have nothing to say to them ? colledge . they have been evidences against me , though you do not now produce them , they are all in a string , but they are not now brought because my witnesses are prepared to answer them . l. c. j. will you call your next witness ? colledge . mr. mowbray , pray sir do you know narrative smith , as he calls himself ? mr. mowbray , yes , my lord. colledge . what do you know of it ? mr. mowbray . i came up from york with him when i returned , after i was commanded down upon the kings account to give in evidence against sir miles stapleton , he came to me the third of august , and called at my house in yorkshire , and was very importunate for me to come up to london with him , for he said , he had a letter come to him which commanded his presence at london very suddenly , and he produced that letter which he said came from a gentleman of the court , or some court dependent ; so he read the letter in mr. balron's hearing . we set forward on sunday , and upon our journey to london he told me he had something of importance to impart to me , so upon the road he began to discourse of the parliament and of the illegal proceedings and arbitrary power of the 2 last parliaments , he said their proceedings were very illegal and arbitrary , and he began to open some of the votes as that which they voted , that those that should lend the king money upon the crown lands , should be enemies to the king and kingdom , and those that counselled the king to dissolve the parliament ; and he repeated many votes , and said he , these are signs of arbitrary power , and certainly they design to take off the king ; so he proceeded further to ask me what was the discourse of sir john brooks when we came up before , and he did much importune me to say , that sir john brooks did affirm there would be cutting of throats at oxford , and that the king was to be seized there . i told him i could have no plausible pretence , because i had no acquaintance with sir john brooks , nor did i come up wih him , upon which he applied himself to bolron , and importun'd him for the same , he asked me who i came up with , i told him i came up with 3 members of parliament , my lord fairfax , sir john hewly , and mr. stern ; he asked me what discourse we had upon the road ? and he asked , whether they had any discourse that tended to justifie their former votes ? for he said , if they did think to justifie any thing of those votes , or if they would not allow the king money , and stood upon the bill of exclusion , he said , that was pretence enough for any man to swear that there was a design against the king , and that the king was to be seized at oxford . colledge . an excellent pretence indeed , and like the rest . mr. mow. he would have tempted me to swear against my lord shaftesbury the same . and he said , it would be well if i did appear on colledges tryal at oxon , for it was a thing of great consequence ; the popish plot was thrown out of doors , and no man was looked upon that did speak of it . mr. just . jones . was all this in the presence of mr. bolron ? mr. mow. no , my lord. when he was discoursing about sir john brooks , mr. bolron rid up to us , and he applied himself to him , because i told him i had no plausible pretence to swear against him , having no acquaintance with him . mr. s. jeff. pray sir , let me ask you one question , when came you from york ? mr. mow. we set forward the 3 d. day of august from wentbridge . mr. s. jeff. pray who came with you in the company ? mr. m. mr. bolron . mr. ser. jeff. that was a sunday , as i take it . mr. mow. yes . mr. s. jeff. then pray how long did you continue before you came to lond. mr. mow. i think we came in on the thursday after . mr. s. jeff. when was the first time mr. smith came into your company ? mr. mow. upon the road on sunday . mr. s. jeff. was that the first time ? mr. mow. yes . he had been at york , and went further , and afterwards came to us . mr. s. jeff. when did you come from york ? mr. mow. about the thursday before , if i be not mistaken . mr. s. jeff. was it in a week before ? mr. mow. yes , within a week it was . mr. s. jeff. and you and mr. bolron came together ? mr. mow. yes . mr. ser. jeff. and you left mr. smith behind ? mr. mow. yes . mr. ser. jeff. and he overtook you upon the road ? mr. mow. yes : he was to go further into the north as soon as the tryal of sir miles stapleton was over , and therefore he did very much importune me to stay in the countrey till he came to go up with me . mr. ser. jeff. what day was the tryal of sir miles stapleton ? mr. mow. on the monday before . mr. s. j. you are sure of that , & that mr. smith went further into the north. mr. mow. i see him take horse . mr. ser. jeff. but he did not come into the company of you and mr. bolron till the sunday after that . mr. mow. see ye , sir , he did desire me to stay in the countrey till he came , for he had a business of great concernment to impart to me , but it would be a week or a fortnight ere he came , but yet he came in a shorter time , for he said , he had received a letter that brought him up . mr. serg. jeff. you are sure of this ? mr. mow. yes . mr. serg. jeff. and you did not see him from the monday before , till that sunday ? mr. mow. no , no. mr. s. jeff. now then , i ask you , where was that place that he met with you ? mr. mow. at wentbridge . mr. s.j. and then you came from thence towards london the next day ? mr. mow. yes . mr. s. jeff. now would i desire to know of you , for i perceive he did attack you to say something against sir john brooks , and finding that you could not do it , because you had no acquaintance , he applied himself to bolron . i would know , was it between that place and london ? mr. mow. yes , it was . mr. s. jeff. and after the 3 d. of august ? mr. mow. yes , it was after we set out . mr. s. jeff. i thought it had been the 24 th . of july that you set out , and continued your journey the 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , & 29 th . alas , we have lost a great deal of time between mr. bolron and mr. mowbray . bolron said , it was the 25 th . they lay at such a place , and you are gotten to the 3 d. of august ; you are mistaken certainly , as to point of time . mr. mow. see , sir , i will look in my almanack , 't is all set down there . mr. s.j. let us see now if your oxford journey be as well set down , as your journey to lond. is . mr. mow. here is my almanack , sir. mr. jones . here , look upon his almanack . mr. ser. jeff. mr. jones , i don't care for his almanack , i had rather mr. mow. and mr. bolron could bring their almanacks together , and i would have them compared to see whether the 3 d. of august in one be the 25 th . of july in the other . did you discourse with him upon the road the 3 d. of august , and not before , and bolron that came up with you , discourse with him the 25 th . of july ? mr. mow. i am mistaken , i find . mr. ser. jeff. ay , that you are , one of you most grosly . mr. mow. see , sir , here is my almanack , whereby i find that it is my mistake ; but pray see , sir , here it is set down , the day we came out was the 24. the day we came to london was the 27. mr. s. jeff. how didst thou set out the 3 of august from that place , and yet come to london the 27 th . of july ? mr. mow. i will refer my self to mr. smith , as to the time we came up , & here is my almanack . mr. s. jeff. i will believe thy almanack to speak truth , though it have never so many errors about the changes of the weather , sooner than i will believe thee . coll. i perceive the man is mistaken in the moneth and the time ; but pray my lord will you please to see , for justice sake , if the almanack be new writ . l. c. j. look you , here is the matter , mr. colledge , he was asked again , and again , what day it was , and he was positive to the 3 d. of august . coll. he was mistaken , but his almanack is right . l. c. j. he speaks rashly , that is the best can be said . mr. mow. it was a mistake of mine , sir george , but my almanack is right . mr. ser. jeff. nay , mr. mowbray , don't enter into dialogues with me , i only make a little observation upon your almanack . mr. mow. it was only my mistake . l. c. j. you are a rash man to affirm so : if you had an almanack , you should have consulted it , or referred to it . mr. ser. jeff. nay , we have lost a day even by your almanack ; for yours says , it was the 27 th . you came to town , bolron the 28 th . mr. mow. i refer my self to mr. smith , he can't deny , but he came up with us at that time . mr. s. jeff. you were examined at sir miles stapletons tryal , was you not , mr. mowbray ? mr. mow. i was an evidence there . mr. s. jeff. did the jury believe you ? mr. mow. they did acquit sir miles stapleton . coll. that is nothing to the purpose ; so was mr. smith too . l. c. j. would you ask any thing further ? coll. call mrs. mary bolron . l. c. j. if you have any more witnesses , pray call them . mr. just . jones . mr. mowbray , was bolron's wife by when this discourse was ? mr. mow. no , she was in town , she did not go down with him at all . l. c. j. are you bolron's wife ? mrs. bolron . yes . l. c. j. well , what do you ask her ? coll. mrs. bolron , pray do you know mr. john smith ? mrs. bol. yes , i do know him . coll. what can you say of him ? mrs. bol. he sent several times for my husband and mr. mowbray to my house , something he would have them be concerned in , some business he had in hand . l. c. j. when was that ? mrs. bol. within this 3 weeks , since he came up from york assizes . coll. you may see there was an understanding between them then . mr. just . jones . did they go accordingly ? mrs. bol. now and then they have gone to him , but they knew his business , because they had discourse with him , as they said , upon the road , and they would not go . l. c. j. would you ask her any thing else ? what do you know more ? mrs. bolron . nothing , for i am not one that stirs much abroad . colledge . call mr. everard . l. c. j. what do you ask him ? colledge . as for mr. everard i need not ask him whether he knows him , for they know one another well enough : but mr. everard that i would ask you is this , what do you know of mr. smith , and of this contrivance against me ? mr. everard . mr. smith i have been to see of late , and he told me he knew of no presbyterian or protestant plot , and when my lord howard was tried , that is , the bill brought against him , he said , he wondred how my lord howard could be guilty , and that both himself and i were joyned as evidence to that jury , only to put a gloss upon the evidence , for says he , i have nothing material to say . colledge . mr. everard , do you know any thing more concerning him , what he hath said at other times concerning me ? mr. everard . i have told you already , what i have heard him say , that he thought there was no protestant or presbyterian plot , and that now of late within this little while . coll. pray sir was there not some discourse betwixt just . warcup and you in lincolns-inn walks . mr. everard . is justice warcup an evidence here ? l. c. j. no , no. colledge . 't is all but evidence of a presbyterian plot , therefore pray sir , what was the discourse between justice warcup and you ? what would he have had you done ? l. c. j. i think it is not material , there is nothing of mr. warcup in this tryal . mr. everard . if the court does allow of it , i will freely tell it . coll. my lord , the papists design is to make a protestant plot to turn off their own , and they begin with me , but if i should go they would not be satisfied with me , they would be at others . l. c. j. there is nothing concerning a presbyterian or protestant plot in the case . colledge . my lord , if there be no presbyterian protestant plot , and others to joyn in it , how could i do it by my self , 't is impossible i should have such a design of seizing the king , and improbable i should speak it . now my lord , this man was solicited to come in for an evidence of such a plot. mr. everard . that is true . l. c. j. i tell you it is not material , mr. warcup is not concerned in your trial. mr. everard . justice warcup would have perswaded me to have sworn against some lords a presbyterian plot , but i deny that i know any such thing of them . colledge . the papists aim is not at me only , but at others . mr. s. jeff. we have nothing to do with what you and justice warcup talked of ; for example sake my lord , let us have no discourses that concern third persons brought in here . l. c. j. would he have perswaded you to say any thing that was not true ? mr. ever . he did not say positively those words , but this he said , i knew several lords — mr. just . jones . now here is mr. justice warcup's same traduc'd behind his book in the face of the countrey , and it is nothing to this cause before us . coll. my lord , i desire to know what he knows of these things , and that he may speak it out , 't is a material thing for me and others : here is a design of the papists to turn a plot upon the protestants , they begin with me , and if they have my bloud who may feel the effects of it next i cannot tell . l. c. j. truly i think it not material to your case , and indeed 't is of ill consequence to have any man traduced behind his back , as mr. warcup is . colledge . my lord , macnamarra told me , that that man would have seduced him to have retracted his evidence ; upon my salvation 't is true . l. c. j. we meddle not with macnamarra neither , he is no evidence against you . coll. macnamarra hath sworn against me at the old-baily , and at the finding of this bill , but they have laid him by upon some trick or other , i desire mr. everard may tell what he knows . mr. ev. i would not reflect upon any person , nor will i answer it , if the court do not think fit . coll. my lord , this is foul play , if i die my self for my countreys sake , i can do it freely , and the will of god be done , i would have the truth out for the sake of the protestants . mr. everard . i am very willing to tell the truth if the court think fit . l. c. j. i see not that he says mr. warcup would have had him swear that which was not true . mr. ev. but this he said , if the court will allow me to speak it , just . warcup said , that certainly there was a presbyterian plot , and such things ; and that some lords , some of the protestant protesting lords must be guilty of it , and said he , certainly you know much of it , you know such and such things , therefore you may safely swear it , if i knew it , so by argument he would first prove there was a plot and combination amongst those lords , and then said he this you may safely swear . mr. j. j. what is this to your purpose mr. colledge ? only warcup's name is brought upon the stage when he is not here to vindicate himself . l. c. j. would you ask him any thing else ? coll. if he does know any thing more of any of them , i desire he would speak it . m. ev. concerning mr. haynes , he told me it was necessity that drove him to speak any thing against the protestants and the hard p. and the gratitude he did receive from the citizens . l. c. j. where did he tell you this ? then mr. jones acquainted the court that mr. warcup was just come in , and desired to vindicate himself . but the kings other councel waved it , saying there was no weight in it . mr. everard . in the fields neer grays-inne . l. j. c. how long since ? mr. everard . about three weeks ago . i asked him , mr. haynes , said i , i would not draw you from your testimony in any thing ; but how can this be congruous to what you have said formerly , that you knew nothing by them ? the truth is , said he , i will not say much to excuse my self , but my wife was reduced to that necessity , that she begg'd at rouse's door , and craved some salary , and mr. rouse would not give her any ; and , said he , meer necessity drove me to it . colledge . he found better pay in another place . mr. everard . and , says he , 't is self-preservation in the next place : for i was brought in guilty when i was taken up , and therefore i was obliged to do some things to save my life . colledge . pray , my lord , and gentlemen , observe what this gentleman says , haynes takes this course to destroy innocent persons for his own preservation . mr. everard . besides , he told me there is a judgment impending upon the nation , said he , either upon the king , or upon the people , i know not which ; but these irish mens swearing against them , is justly fallen upon them for their injustice against the irish in outing them of their estates . colledge . so he did it then by way of revenge . for his country-men , i have nothing of their estates , i am sure ; therefore they had no cause to swear against me . but , mr. everard , have you any more to say concerning any of them ? mr. everard . no more concerning those persons that have sworn against you , i can say no more . colledge . as to dugdale or turbervile ? mr. everard . no indeed . colledge . as to this presbyterian plot , sir ? mr. everard . if the court does allow concerning other persons ; but i would not intrude any thing but what the court shall think fit . colledge . i know not but they may come in against me ; therefore pray tell what you know . mr. everard , do you know any thing more ? pray let me know what you know . mr. everard . nothing of any person that hath appeared against you as yet , but what i have told you . colledge . they may do , sir. l. c. j. and then we may properly hear him to them , and not before . colledge . i desire to know who they are ; pray let me know their names . mr. everard . fitzgerald . l. c. j. he hath been no witness here . colledge . call thomas parkhurst . l. c. j. what do you ask him now he is here ? colledge . what do you know concerning mr. dugdale ? mr. parkhurst . sir , the latter end of the last november , when the parliament sat at westminster , several times mr. dugdale having promised me his further narrative to publish which he printed , i met him several times ; one time i met him at richard's coffee-house , and it was towards the evening before we went away ; he told me and mr. symonds , that he was to speak with dr. tongue ; and he told us , that this dr. tongue did lie at mr. colledge's ; and he having spoken the day before , and several times , of the danger he was in of his being assassinated by the papists , mr. symonds and i offered to go with him , and we took a coach ; for we did not know where mr. colledge lived : he had then a rheum in his eyes , and was not well ; so we accompanied him to mr. colledge's to speak with dr. tongue . it was the evening when we went ; and whilst we took a pipe of tobacco , in our discourse we were speaking of the times , and of the danger of the papists ; so colledge took down a steel hat that hung up there , which he said he had , and he said he had a quilted coat of defensive armor , and he said he had a blunderburss in his house , and two pistols . but i little thought of any thing of this , neither did i know well what i was subpoena'd down for : but these arms i saw in his house , and it was onely in discourse that he was provided against the papists ; so i put the steel hat upon my head and pulled it off again , and so did mr. symonds . colledge . did i say any thing , sir , who i had those arms against ? mr. parkhurst . at that time there was no discourse in the world , but of the danger from the papists ; and he said he was provided for them , if they did come to make any disturbance . l. c. j. when was it , sir ? mr. parkhurst . it was about the latter end of november . i have the narrative that i printed , which was the 23th or 24th ; and i have no directions but that to remember the exact time . so we carried mr. dugdale home again in a coach , and gave him a pint of wine at his lodgings . l. c. j. this does not contradict mr. dugdale at all . mr. parkhurst . mr dugdale does own this for a truth . mr. serj. jefferies . so may any body own it . colledge . where is mr. symonds ? pray , sir , what do you know of mr. dugdale ? mr. symonds . what about , sir ? colledge . i have your name here , sir , but i know not for what . mr. symonds . i can say the same that mr. parkhurst did ; that i suppose is the business . all i know of it is this : i was with mr. parkhurst and mr. dugdale at richard's coffee-house some time in november , i think it was about the printing of mr. dugdale's further information ; and mr. dugdale was saying , dr. tongue had sent for him , but spoke as if he was fearful of some danger in going alone ; so we proffered to go along with him , and we took a coach at the coffee-house-door , and went with him to dr. tongue , who lodged at mr. colledges . when we came into the room , mr. parkhurst and i thought fit we should in civility withdraw , which we did ; and mr. colledge brought us down into another room , where we sat and took a pipe of tobacco , and talking about the common discourse of the times , about the papists and the danger from them , there hung up in mr. colledge's room some arms ; what they were , i dare not charge my memory with to swear particularly , but i do think there was a silk coat of mail , and there was a cap of steel , and as i take it , it was covered with cloath or some such thing ; what else i can't well say : i think there was a blunderbuss and a case of pistols : and all the discourse that i remember then , was onely this ; speaking of the papists , and some fears as if there would be an insurrection amongst them , said he , let the papist rogues begin when they will , i am ready to defend my self for one . this is all i know . colledge . pray , sir , how long ago was this ? dr. tongue died before christmas at my house . mr. symonds . i cannot tell exactly when it was ; but during the session of parliament i am sure it was , and as i take it ▪ in november the latter end . colledge . so then , pray , my lord , see that these arms they charge me withal , were provided before christmas . l. c. j. but there is nothing that contradicts dugdale's testimony in all this . colledge . it does sufficiently contradict him . l. c. j. i do not see that this does at all contradict what he hath said ; but do you observe what you will upon it , when you come to make your defence . stranger . a gentleman below desires you to call mr. yates . colledge . pray , sir , what do you know concerning dugdale ? mr. yates . i know that mr. dugdale sent for me to a coffee-house to bespeak a pistol for you , and told me that when i had made the pistol , i should deliver it to mr. colledge , and mr. dugdale promised to pay for it when i had done it . now some time after i did some small matter for mr. dugdale , cleaned his pistols , or some small business ; and mr. dugdale asked me if i would drink a pint of wine , which i agreed to ; and being at the tavern , mr. dugdale asked me if mr. colledges pistol were done . i told him no , it was not as yet . so i asked mr. dugdale , because he had promised to give mr. colledge a pistol , what obligation there was betwixt colledge and him , that he should give him a pistol ? to which he answered , that mr. colledge had been serviceable to him in lending him a pair of pistols to ride withal sometimes . so he gave him a pistol to satisfie him for the wearing of his pistols now and then . i thought , said i , mr. colledge did impose upon your good nature too much , not but that i believe mr. colledge is a very honest man , and stands up for the good of the king and the government . yes , said mr. dugdale , i believe he does , and i know nothing to the contrary . mr. att. gen. when was this ? mr. yates . a little after the parliament sat at oxford ; for i never knew mr. colledge before mr. dugdale set me a work for him . colledge . mr. yates , pray was there nothing in the coffee-house about one that he asked to go with him , when he said he knew nothing against me ? mr. yates . i heard one say mr. serj. jefferies . you must speak your own knowledge , you must not tell a tale of a tub of what you heard one say . mr. yates . i heard it affirmed — mr. serj. jefferies . but by whom ? mr. yates . by a person in the coffee-house . mr. serj. jefferies . who was that person ? mr. yates . by one of the servants of the house . l. c. j. that is no evidence at all : if you know any thing of your own knowledge , speak it . mr. serj. jefferies . is he here ? mr. yates . no , i think not . mr. just . jones . how long do you think must we sit here to hear other peoples stories ? l. c. j. if you know any thing of your own knowledge , i say , speak it . mr. att. gen. pray let me ask you that question again , when was this that he said he believed he was an honest man ? mr. yates . it was about three weeks after the parliament sat at oxford . colledge . then he does me wrong now : for if i were an honest man then , it cannot be true that he says of me . l. c. j. who do you call next ? colledge . pray , my lord , who hath been sworn against me ? l. c. j. there is stephen dugdale , john smith , bryan haynes , edward turbervile , sir william jennings , and mr. masters . colledge . call mr. clayton . my lord , at his house it was i lay in oxford , and that dugdale says i spake some of the treasonable words : pray , sir , do you know what time i came to oxford ? mr. clayton . i remember it very well , it was at the time the parliament sat at oxford , about two or three days after it began . colledge . pray what arms did i bring to your house , sir ? mr. clayton . as to the matter of arms , there was no other , but a sword and a pair of pistols , a pair of pistols in his holsters , and his sword by his side . mr. att. gen. was there no silk armor ? mr. clayton . i saw none , if it please you , such a thing might be . colledge . my lord , i continued at his house from my coming in to my going out and that was till after the parliament was dissolved ; and i came after they were sat : but heark you mr. clayton , mr. dugdale says he was with me at your house , did you ever see him there ? mr. clayton . i remember i have seen dugdale at my house , but never in your company . colledge . did you sell any mum ? mr. clayton . no , i never did sell any in my life . colledge . because he says we had mum there . mr. clayton . i never saw him there with you , nor changed any word with him , as i know of . l. c. j. was he never in the company of colledge at your house ? mr. clayton . not that i saw . mr. j. jones . you don't know all the companies that come into your house . colledge . my lord , i am told there are some that came from the town where i was born that know me , and have known me for twenty four or twenty five years together , if you think that material for me to prove whether i am a protestant or no. l. c. j. if you will make out that , you may . but 't is your loyalty that is in question . if you will produce any that can make it appear ; that you use to honour the king in your discourse , or so , that is something . colledge . if i am a protestant , then the design is plain , these men swear to make a protestant plot , and turn the plot off the papists . mr. serj. jefferies . what church do you frequent in london to hear divine service ? colledge . i have received the sacrament several times , sir george . mr. serj. jefferies . when were you last at the publick church ? colledge . i hope i may be a protestant if i have not gone thither ; but however , i do use to go to church . l. c. j. well , call whom you will. colledge . is thomas deacon there ? mr. deacon . yes . colledge . he lives my lord in the parish where i was born . if you please mr. deacon to give my lord an account what you know of me from my childhood . mr. deacon . i have known mr. colledge ever since he was a youth , he was born in the town where i live . l. c. j. where is that ? mr. deacon . at watford , a town in hertfordshire . there he lived till he was a man , and married a neighbours daughter of mine , and lived there while he had two children ; i never knew but that he was a very honest man , frequented and kept to the church of england all along , and paid every man his own . mr. att. gen. how long is it ago since he left that place ? mr. deacon . i can't directly tell how long it is truely , but i think 't is eighteen years since you left watford . colledge . 't is fourteen years ago . mr. just . jones . you say fourteen , and they say eighteen . mr. deacon . i say , i can't exactly tell . colledge . but mr. deacon , i have been in your country lately . mr. deacon . he used to come there once or twice a year generally to see his friends . i have heard him declare himself against the popish church always very much . l. c. j. did you never hear him talk against the government ? mr. deacon . no , never in my life . mr. serj. jefferies . nor against the king ? mr. deacon . nor against the king. mr. just . jones . was he in your country the last easter ? mr. deacon . i think it was about easter he was there . mr. just . jones . was he at church there then , and received the sacrament ? mr. deacon . i know not whether he was there of the lords-day or no : he did quarter at another town , at bushy , where he has a brother-in-law . l. c. j. well , call another . colledge . mr. whitaker . l. c. j. what is your christian name ? mr. whitaker . william . l. c. j. what do you ask of him ? colledge . whether he knows me and my education ? mr. whitaker . sir , i have known him this six and twenty years . i knew his parents , i know his mother , she lives now at watford . i have known his behaviour to be very civil and good ; a very good church-man he was when he lived with us ; and i have inquired , and find he has the same reputation in the parish where he last lived in black-fryers : he was no jesuit nor papist , i dare aver ; he hath flouted them and mocked them with their wooden gods , and the like ; for he never could endure that perswasion . l. c. j. he is not questioned for that , but for treason . colledge . did you ever hear me speak any thing against the government ? mr. whitaker . i never knew of any ill behaviour of him in my life . colledge . but did you ever hear me say any thing against his majesty or the government ? mr. whitaker . never that i know of . i knew him a souldier for his majesty , in which service he got a fit of sickness , which had like to have cost him his life ; he lay many months ill , to his great charge . mr. serj. jefferies . where was it he was in his majesties service ? mr. whitaker . at chatham-business . colledge . it was under my lord rochester . but , my lord , i have a testimonial under the hands of seventy people of watford , to give an account of my good behaviour . mr. j. jones . he hath been gone thence these eighteen years . mr. whitaker . he hath come there almost every half year , sometimes three or four times in a year , because his mother lives there now , and he came to pay his respects to her . his children lived and went to school with us . l. c. j. come , who do you call else ? colledge . mr. neale . mr. neale . i can say no more than the other men before me . i know the man , he was bred and born at watford , he lived there several years , he married a wife out of the neighbourhood , frequented the publick worship . l. c. j. how long ago is this ? mr. neale . sixteen or seventeen years ago . but then he used to come once or twice a year into the countrey . colledge . did you ever hear me speak any thing against the king or the government ? mr. neale . no , never in my life . colledge . how long is it ago since you were in my company last ? mr. neale . when you were in town last , i never heard you say any thing that was ill . colledge . how long ago is it since we were at the white hart together ? mr. neale . it was about spring . colledge . i said right , my lord , i was there about easter . pray did you ever hear me speak for the king ? mr. neale . truly the discourse we had i never used to keep in my mind , but i never heard him speak any thing against the king or the government . l. c. j. were you much conversant with him ? mr. neale . when he came down to give his mother a visit , and see his neighbours , we used always to see one another . colledge . pray will you call mr. tanner and mr. remington . [ mr. remington stood up . ] mr. remington . i say i have known stephen colledge these forty years , and i have known that he always was an honest man. he was a souldier some time , but he always went to church , was no conventicler ; and used to visit his neighbours when he came down to see his mother , and was always looked upon to be a very good man. mr. serj. jefferies . you say you knew him a souldier , pray when was that ? mr. remington . about the time of harwich business . that is all i can say . [ then mr. tanner stood up . ] l. c. j. come , what say you ? what do you ask him , mr. colledge ? mr. tanner . i have known stephen colledge from a child forty years , he was born at watford , his father worked with my father , and great intimate acquaintance we had with him , and saw him very often ; i never knew any fault in him , and i never heard a bad report of him in all the town of watford . mr. serj. jefferies . have you seen him at church lately ? mr. tanner . no , i have not . mr. att. gen. i would fain know whether this man hath been at church himself ; he looks as if he had not . colledge . i know not whether he hath been at the church you mean or no ; but he may be an honest man and a protestant for all that . l. c. j. call another . colledge . mr. peter norreys . l. c. j. what do you ask him , mr. colledge ? here he is . colledge . do you know any thing concerning mr. smith ? mr. norreys . i was once in the hercules pillars where was sir william waller , macnamarra , mr. joy , and five or six of us together ; and mr. smith was there , and we were talking concerning the parliament approaching at oxon. m. serj. jefferies . tell the names of the rest . mr. norreys . sir william waller , macnamarra , mr. ivy , mr. lewes , macnamarra's brother , and i , and mr. smith . mr. serj. jefferies . well said ; we don't meddle with any of these , but mr. smith . l. c. j. was john smith there ? mr. norreys . he was there . l. c. j. well , go on then . mr. norreys . we were talking of the parliament at oxon. says sir william waller , most of the parliament-men are afraid to go up to the parliament . truly , said smith , i hope they will be provided to go , if they do go . says sir william waller , i shall be provided with the rest of my friends ; and mr. colledge said , i will go up with the rest of the parliament-men ; i shall be provided too , says most of the evidence ; says sir william walter , will you go along with me , and i will provide you with an horse ; said he , i have an horse of my own , and if it please god i will have nothing else to do but to go with the parliament , and i will not neglect it . this was all the discourse of the company for that night . colledge . did you hear mr. smith say any thing against me ? mr. norreys . no , not a word at all . colledge . but this were a material evidence against others of the confederates , if they had been examined . mr. norreys . my lord , i was at the amsterdam coffee-house the twenty third of june last , and there was mr. denis macnamarra ; said he , will you go , and i will give you a pot of ale l. c. j. there is nothing of denis macnamarra in question before us . if you have any thing to say against any of the witnesses that have been sworn , go on with your evidence , we must not hear stories of other people . colledge . he would speak against some men that have sworn against me , but are left out for some reasons i know not . pray call mr. thomas norreys . l. c. j. what do you ask him ? colledge . my lord , he knew me in this country some fifteen or sixteen years ago . mr. t. norreys . my lord , i have been acquainted with mr. colledge about sixteen or eighteen years , and he hath always carried himself very civilly and well , and he kept to the church for a considerable time as duely as any parishioner did . l. c. j. how long have you known him ? mr. t. norreys . this sixteen year . l. c. j. you live in this country , don't you ? mr. t. norreys . yes , at aylworth . colledge . i was at astrop-wells last year . i believe mr. justice levins saw me there . mr. t. norreys . yes , i was there with you . colledge . we did discourse commonly then concerning the papists . pray , sir , did you find me inclined to the popish interest ? mr. t. norreys . you spoke very much against them . colledge . did you ever hear me speak against the king or the government ? mr. t. norreys . no , i never heard it ; for if he were my brother , i should have discovered it . l. c. j. how often have you seen him ? mr. t. norreys . very often , and conversed much with him . colledge . my lord , as to the papers charged upon me that they were mine , i declare i know not of them . dugdale says i owned them , and the letter and several prints ▪ but truly , my lord , i had done my self a great injury if i had done or owned those things he hath charged me withal . i never could make a picture , nor never did draw a picture in my life ; and that very person that he says i owned i got it to be printed by , hath denyed it before the king and council ; for he there testified , that he did not know the person that caused it to be printed . l. c. j. how came you to have so many seized in your house ? colledge . my lord , here is elizabeth hunt , the maid by whom they were taken in , and who can give you an account of it . i cannot deny but that they were in my house ; but that i was the author , or did take them in , is as great a mistake as ever was made . call elizabeth hunt. i do not know whether curtis be in town ; but this i am confident , he was examined before the king and council , and he and his wife denyed it . l. c. j. he shall be called if he be here . colledge . i know nothing of the printing of them , nor was i the author of them . l. c. j. they were dispersed by you up and down . colledge . that they were in my house , i believe , my lord ; and this woman will tell you how , my lord. pray tell the court how these papers that are called the raree-shew came to be in my house . el. hunt. a porter brought three bundles to our house , and asked whether my master was not within . i told him , no , he was not . said he , these papers are to be left here ; said i , who do they come from ? said he , 't is all one for that , you must pay me , and i must leave them here ; so i gave him six pence , and he left the papers , but i never saw the man since nor before . and , my lord , i never read them what they were , but i saw they were such sort of prints as those . l. c. j. how long was it before they were seized ? el. hunt. a matter of seven or eight weeks . colledge . my lord , it seems they were put in a box , and left in my counting house : i never touched them , but there they staid , for ought i know , till they were taken . l. c. j. you were colledges servant , were you not ? el. hunt. yes , my lord. colledge . my lord , i neither knew the printer nor the author ; but i heard a man was in trouble about them , upon a by-law in the stationers company . mr. att. gen. how came you by that original ? colledge . have you it there ? i know of none was produced . but if i were a person concerned , it were no treason ; and , my lord , i hope you will do me that justice , to let the jury know they are not treason , none of these papers . and i do declare i know nothing of the original , the printer , nor the author . l. c. j. you spend time in making observations out of order of time : when you have given your evidence , then make your observations . colledge . i confess i may erre as to matter of order , for i was never in this capacity before . but pray do you tell the court how the papers came there , and all the transactions . for i was a prisoner when they came and searched . l. c. j. no , it was eight weeks before you were taken they were left there . mr. serj. jefferies . did you tell your master soon after they were left there ? el. hunt. no. mr. serj. jefferies . within what time did you tell him ? el. hunt. i believe it was a week or a fortnight . mr. att. gen. where was your master all that time ? el. hunt. he was in the countrey . colledge . my lord , i did see them there , i must confess , i do not deny but i saw them there , but i knew not whence they came , nor whose they were . nor did i ever intend to meddle with them , nor concern my self about them . what have you to say more ? el. hunt. concerning mr. dugdgale , if i may speak . l. c. j. ay , go on . el. hunt. i went to receive the money of mr. dugdale that he owed my master , and asking him for it , he said , he would pay me such a time to morrow morning , if i would come for it ; but when i came , he had not the money ready for me . sir , said i , i think 't is very hard that you should keep my masters money from him , and yet you go and swear against his life too : what do you think we shall do at home in the family , if you keep my masters money and he be in prison ? said he , there is a great deal of do about my swearing against your master , more than needs ; but as i hope for salvation , i do not believe mr. colledge had any more hand in any conspiracy against his majesty , than the child unborn . here is dugdale , let him deny it if he can . mr. dugdale . as i hope for salvation i did not say so . el. hunt. upon my salvation 't is true what i say . stephens . this was the maid that hid her masters papers when they were searched for . mr. serj. jefferies , be quiet ; art thou got into dialogues with the maid now ? colledge . mr. stevens , 't is well known what a man you are to propagate witnesses . my lord , she gave me an account of this in the tower , before i came away , that dugdale desired to speak with mr. smith , and told her , that nothing that he had to say would touch my life . el. hunt. as i am alive 't is true . l. c. j. mr. dugdale denies it now . el. hunt. he is not a right man if he denies it , for he told it me twice . colledge . i told mr. smith of it , when he had leave to come to me : i told him what the maid said he had said to her , and this was three weeks ago ; said he , i will speak with him with all my heart , if he has a mind to speak with me ; for he hath said that he hath nothing against her master that can touch an hair of his head , nor nothing that can touch his life , that he knew nothing of a plot or contrivance against the king ; and if i could help it , i had as lieve have given a hundred pound i had never spoken what i have . this he said to her . l. c. j. you tell her what to say . el. hunt. sir , he does not tell me ; for mr. dugdale said those very things to me . colledge . this is an account i had when i was a prisoner ; i could not direct her . l. c. j. do you deny what they say to be true , mr. dugdale ? mr. dugdale . my lord , she came to me for money ; i told her i had it not ready , but would pay her : and in the shop , before the apprentice-boy , she desired of me that i would write two or three words what i had to say against her master ; and i told mr. graham of it . so , said i , i cannot tell , i have not the papers , nor what informations i have given against him . so she came again the next morning , and she was at me to write down what i said . i wonder , said i , your master will send you ! had not he as good send mr. smith , who is his counsel ? and this was all the words we had . el. hunt. my lord , i do solemnly assure you , he said he would write down what he had said against my master , and would fain speak with mr. smith ; for there was more ado made about it than needs . mr. dugdale . mr. graham can tell what it was ; for i came and told him immediately . l. c. j. did you tell her you had nothing to say against her master that would touch his life ? mr. dugdale . i could not say that i had said nothing against her master ; for she asked me that i would write down what i had said ; but i told her i knew not what was treason , that must be referred to the court. mr. just . jones . did he speak it openly or privately to you ? el. hunt. he did not speak it aloud ; no body heard him but my self . mr. dugdale . it was in the shop , and the apprentice-boy was by . mr. just . levins . was this after he had been at the old-bayly , or before ? el. hunt. yes , it was after he had been at the old-bayly , and after he had been at oxon too . mr. just . levins . then it was before the court what could be made of it . colledge . she hath gone forty times for the money i lent him out of my pocket ; and i lent him that , when i had little more my self . el. hunt. i did tell him , mr. dugdale , if you can't let me have my masters money , if you please to tell me what you have made oath against my master . said he , i can't let thee have it now ; but thou shalt have what i have to say against him : i will draw it up in writing ▪ and thou shalt have it to morrow-morning . the next morning i came to him again , and said i , i am come again ; what must i do ? said he , i have no money ; such an one hath not hoped me to it . sir , then , said i , i hope you will be as good as your word , to let me know what you have made oath against my master . said he , i was about it yesterday , but could not do it : but , sweetheart , said he , ( and took me by the hand ) i will give you a copy of it to day at ten of the clock ; and if i do not , i will tell it thee by word of mouth . so i came to the house at ten , and staid till eleven , but did not see him . mr. just . jones . you had a great mind to be tampering . el. hunt. the first time , he asked me who was his counsel ; i told him , mr. smith ; then said he , i have a great desire to speak with him : so i told my master of it . colledge . my lord , you see it is but black and white , all this whole contrivance upon me . she hath proved i knew nothing of these papers ; and indeed i did not . l. c. j. do you call any more witnesses ? colledge . there is my brother-in-law that received those papers . call george spur and sarah godwin . [ mrs. godwin appeared . ] colledge . do you know any thing of the papers that were carried to my brother george spurrs ? mrs. goodwin . yes , i do . the saturday after my brothers confinement , about eight of the clock in the morning ▪ i having heard of it , came into the house , and in a quarter of an hours time , in comes a waterman and desires an handful or two of shavings . i knowing not who he was , nor what he desired them for , told him , he should have them ; so he went up to the working shop to gather them , for he pretended that to be his business . l.c.j. whose waterman was it ? mrs. goodwin . a waterman i suppose that belonged to his majesty , for he had a coat marked with r. c. colledge . this is after i was in custody . mrs. goodwin . yes , it was the saturday after . so no sooner had he the shavings , but he goes out of the shop , and comes in again with three of his majesties messengers , and they made enquiry after papers , and i being innocent of concealing any papers , or any thing said i knew of none ; so they came to one box that had the tooles for the men to work with , and they demanded the keys . i told him , i knew not where the keys were . so they went to the next and found it open , but nothing did they find there ; there was a bed wherein formerly my brothers servants did lye . said one to the other , look well whether there be not something hid in that bed ; said i , i suppose there is no such thing as you inquire for : if you please , you may take off the cloths , and gave them free toleration to look ; but for the chest , i would not deliver the keys , because the man was not there that owned it . in their searching , they flung down the wainscote , and did a great deal of damage to his goods . gentlemen , said i , i suppose you have order to search , but none to spoil a mans goods . when they were gone , having found none , they threatned god dam them they would have them , for there they were . but i being ignorant of the concealment of the papers , i requested the maid and my brothers son , whether they knew of any papers , and they satisfied me they knew of some prints that were brought by a porter , to be left at my brothers , but they knew not whence they came , nor what they were : and the same answer gave my brothers son , that he did not know whose the papers were . but since his fathers confinement , they were laid up sure and safe , for they knew not what they concerned . upon this , my lord , my brother-in-law george spur , he comes into the house , and if it please your honour , i requested him to carry them into the countrey to his house , to secure them till we knew what they did concern , and who they did belong to . whereupon he replyed , my lord , that he was fearful to carry any thing out of the house ; said i , if you will please to take them of me , i will carry them out of the house for your security , because his wife looked every hour ( being with child ) when she should be delivered , and he was fearful of troubling her . so i carried them out of the house , and delivered them to him . l.c.j. to whom ? mrs. goodwin . to my brother-in-law mr. george spur. so at my going out , after i had delivered them to him , in my way back again , i found a small paper-book , and a small parcel of writings ; who dropped them , or who laid them there , i cannot tell . but taking them up unadvisedly , i put them among the prints , which i carried out ; i delivered them to my brother-in-law . this is all i have to say as to the papers . stevens . three parts of what she hath said is false . mr. serj. jefferies . well , hold you your tongue . stevens . mr. atterbury is here , my lord , that searched the house . atterbury . be pleased to give me my oath , i will tell you what passed . mr. att. gen. we don't think it material , but you were sworn before , stand up . l.c.j. tell the manner of finding the papers . this woman gives us an account of a waterman that came in , pretending to fetch shavings atterbury . upon my oath it was not so . the waterman was a waterman that brought me and two more of my fellows , and the waterman followed us into the yard ▪ but came after us : and being ordered to look for papers , i did search the house ; for i had intelligence that there were papers there , but i did not find them there . but upon finding the first papers , i made the more diligent search , but could not find the rest i most chiefly sought after . mr. serj. jefferies . did the kings waterman take any shavings by himself ? atterbury . we were all together , we did not move out of any one room , but together ; this gentlewoman was in the house when i came , and there was a little child , a girl , and this maid was there . mr. serj. jefferies . did you come for shavings there pray mr. atterbury ? atterbury . no , i did not . mrs. goodwin . the waterman did though first . colledge . call george spur. ( but he did not appear . ) but mr. atterbury , before you go down , pray tell the court , did you take any of these papers at my house , or at my brother-in-law spurs house ? sewel . my lord , i took the papers , and i took them at bushy at spur's house . and this woman carried out one half to spur , and the maid carried out the other . l. c. j. when did he carry them ? mrs. goodwin . the same day they searched for them , for my brother came in at the same time . l. c. j. how do you know spur carried any away ? mrs. goodwin . he carried none out of the house , i carried them out of the house and delivered them to him . l. c. j. then they were in your house ? mrs. goodwin . they were in the counting-house . colledge . my lord , if they were in any other place , i know not how they came there , for this was all done after i was a prisoner ; and sewel says they were removed when i was a prisoner . where is george spur ? mr. serj. jefferies . it is admitted they were at your house , and taken thence , and afterwards carried to spurs . colledge . they carried them abroad and handed them from one to another , and took them into the countrey , i know not what they did with them ; but , my lord , i neither know the printer nor the author , i declare it upon my life . l. c. j. have you any more witnesses ? colledge . no , my lord , i have not . l. c. j. will you that are of counsel for the king call any more ? mr. att. gen. one or two if you please , my lord. call john shirland . and it is to this purpose , it seems very lately mr. bolron would have tempted him to have forsworn himself . colledge . my lord , i hope , if they bring in any persons of new evidence , i may have leave to contradict them . l. c. j. you need not fear , but you shall be heard to them . mr. att. gen. we shall prove bolron to be a suborner of witnesses ; and that the jury may know what he is , he and mowbray have gone to give evidence at several trials , and the jury would never believe them when they were on their oaths . mr. serj. jefferies . i think it needs not , time hath been spent enough already . colledge . no whispering , good my lord. sir g. jefferies . good mr. colledge , you are not to tell me my duty here . mr. just . jones . is it not lawful for the kings counsel to confer together ? colledge . not to whisper , my lord , all ought to be spoken out . l. c. j. nothing ought to be said to the jury indeed privately . mr. att. gen. but shall not we talk among ourselves ? colledge . no , i hope not of any thing that concerns my tryal . mr. just . jones . you are deceived in that . colledge . i think 't is law , that all ought to be publick , i beg your pardon if i am in the wrong . mr. att. gen. swear john shirland . ( which was done ) pray give the court and the jury an accompt of bolron , what you know of him . shirland . bolron , my lord , last whitson-tuesday , would have given me ten pound and an horse to go down and swear against sir miles stapleton . i was to swear i was suborned by his friends , and several other persons , which i have discovered upon my oath . l. c. j. is this man sworn ? mr. att. gen. yes . l. c. j. now call bolron to confront him . colledge . he offered you an horse , as much as i offered turbervil an horse , and i never offered him an horse in the world . [ then bolron appeared . ] l. c. j. is this the man , shirland ? mr. att. gen. did he give you ten pound to swear ? shirland . he bid me ten pound and an horse to swear against sir miles stapleton . mr. just . jones . did you ever see him , bolron ? mr. bolron . yes , my lord , he was to have been a witness against sir miles stapleton , and he pretended that he was suborned by sir miles , or some of his friends . colledge . what are you , sir ? mr. bolron , what is mr. shirland ? mr. bolron . he is a man that lives by his shifts : he hath been whip'd in bridewel . colledge . do you know him , sir ? what is he ? mr. bolron . even an idle man. shirland . you , once when you saw me , drew your sword on me , because i would not do as you would have me . mr. bolron . i profess , my lord , 't is not so . att. gen. here is mr. smith , hear what he says against mr. bolron . mr. smith . as we were coming up along , he was speaking to me of colledge , and told me , he had as much to say against him as any body ; and if i would speak for him , he would evidence against sir john brookes for a discourse at ferry-bridge . mr. bolron . i never did hear any such thing . mr. smith . no man in your own country will believe you . colledge . they believed you no more , it seems , neither . l. c. j. do you call any more witnesses , gentlemen ? mr. serj. jefferies . no , i think we need not . l. c. j. look you , mr. colledge , as i understand it , the kings counsel will produce no more witnesses . you may make what observations you will upon the evidence to the court , and then must them make what observations they will to the court ; and then we will give the charge to the jury . colledge . my lord , i have onely innocence to plead ; i have no flourishes to set off my defence . i cannot take the jury nor the court with an oratory ; i am unhappy in those things . but , my lord , i do declare , as to my own particular , in the presence of god almighty , that as to whatsoever is sworn against me , as to the seizing his majesty , providing arms , or having any designe either at oxford or london , or any other place in the world , to seize upon the person of the king , or to rebel against the government established ; i vow to god almighty , i never had such a thought in me : 't is a truth , my lord. my lord , they have sworn desperately against me , and it hath appeared , i think , by very credible persons , that they have contradicted one another . it hath been proved that this was a designe ; that they were tampered withal ; that they complained they were in poverty , that they wanted maintenance ; and they did confess they were tempted to come over to swear against protestants : and now the lord knows they have closed with it , and they begin with me . i hope the jury have taken notice that i have contradicted them sufficiently in what they have sworn ; and that it is not possible , if i had a grain of sence , for me to discover my self to be such an one to haynes that was an irish-man , and should speak all the treason that he hath galloped through at first sight , that as soon as ever i saw him , that i should speak so to him ; i hope you will consider whether it consists with common reason , when there could be no probability of making any use of him in the world . my lord , all my witnesses that i have brought , your lordship can , and i hope will sum them up better than i can ; for i declare it , i have been so concern'd , that i have not been able to write half of it down . but i think there is never a man that hath sworn against me , but hath been sufficiently confuted by persons of integrity and honesty , men of principles , and men of religion ; they are such , my lord , that make conscience of what they say : they are persons altogether unknown to me , most of them , as to what they had to say , it was what they offered voluntarily ; and i am certain they have had nothing but their bare charges , if they had that , for their pains in coming hither ; and , my lord , there is no probability that they should come and attest any thing that is false , for me who am a stranger , for nothing : no man is a knave for nothing , as i believe these men are not . my lord , i do declare it , i was bred a protestant , and have lived so ; i am so to this very day ; i have been a lover of the church of england , and of all the fundamental points of doctrine believed in it ; i own the same god , the same saviour , the same gospel , and the same faith ; i never had a prejudice against any man in the church in my life , but such as have made it their business to promote the interest of the papists , and such i must beg leave to say there are amongst them : for there is no society in the world , without some bad men ; and these do promote the interest of the papists , by dividing the protestants , and allowing none to be true protestants but those that are within the church of england established by law ; which is a notion so wide i could never close with that . i never had a prejudice against any man but a knave in my life . i have heard , i confess , some of the dissenters , and i have found very honest , just , pious , godly men among them ; men free from oaths and all debauchery ; men that make a conscience of what they say : not like some persons that say they are of the church of england , that carry themselves in their lives and actions , so as that no credit can be gained to the church by them . my lord , i have been an hearty man against the papists ; i have been an hearty man as any person of my condition , for parliaments , which i look upon to be my birth-right , and under god almighty , the bulwark of our liberty ; and i am sorry if any man should be an instrument to create a misunderstanding betwixt the king and the parliament : for i always thought i served my country , when i served the parliament , and i served my king when i served my country . i never made any difference between them , because i thought them both one . i had the honour to be entrusted by them before , and upon that account i came voluntarily down hither . i rid my own horse ▪ i spent my own money , and eat my own bread ; i was not beholding to any man for the value of six pence all the while i was here . my lord , i have ever since the plot hath been discovered , endeavoured with all my heart , and all my power , to detect and come at the very bottom of it : i have spared for no time nor pains , what lay fairly in my way , in every thing to encourage those that discovered the villanies of the popish plot against the life of the king , and for the subversion of the religion and government established by law. now certainly it is not strange to the world ; for i think all christendom is aware how plain the popish plot hath been proved . these men that swear against me , were they that used to follow me sometimes ; they would say , it was they that had come to save our lives and yet we let them want bread. that argument , my lord , was so fair , that i thought it unreasonable to see them starve : and i have said sometimes to some honest considerable men , that it was hard they should have this to say of us , that they should want bread to eat that were the kings evidence , to detect a popish plot wherein we our selves were concerned ; and that when they had saved our bloud in our veins , they should be suffered to starve . and one time , i think , some three or four gentlemen of the city did give me 42 s. or 40 s. and 18 d. or thereabouts ; which i did distribute amongst them : and they never came to me in my life , but to seek relief , they knowing that i had a general acquaintance . and sometimes they thought it might be fit to petition the common council of the city of london to take care of them : sometimes they would speak to me to speak to particular men that care should be taken of them . at other times indeed it was not this sort of discourse they had with me ; but they would pretend they had something to discover of the popish plot , and so they would apply to me as a man of some acquaintance . and the first time i saw haynes , was upon such an account , the beginning of march last , and it was thus : i was at richard's coffee-house at temple-bar , where macknamarra did desire me to go out , and i should hear such a piece of roguery i never did hear in my life , against my lord shaftsbury . so i did go out with them , and i called captain brown , who is since dead , to go with me ; and we went to the hercules pillars , and haynes there discovered what i told your lordship before , a designe to destroy the parliament at oxford ; an army that was to land in the north , and another in ireland , and the duke of york was to be at the head of them . my lord , after i had heard all out , he did desire us all to conceal what he had said till the parliament sat , and then he would not onely discover this , but much more . he at the same time told us , that there was a designe of fitzgerald's against my lord shaftsbury to take away his life , and he was employed to come to his cozen macknamarra to get him over to joyn in the designe , and he should never want for money , if he would but come over and do as they would have him . after he had discovered himself , sir , said i , you are a stranger to me ; and i never saw him before in my days ; if he had seen me i can't tell : but , sir , said i , either this is true , or this is false . if it be true , said he , 't is all true , and much more . so he up and told us much of coleman , and of the reconciliation between the duke of ormond and the duke of york , and how he came to be lord lieutenant of ireland , and how plunket came to be primate , and by means of whom , and the letters that passed , and how so much a year was given to plunket for carrying on the correspondence ; and he told us so much , that i did wonder to hear any man talk after that rate . after i had heard what he had to say , i told him , sir , said i , this is either true or false that you have said : if it be true , my lord shaftsbury shall know it to night ; for i will not conceal such a thing concerning a peer of the realm : and if it were a colour , he should know of it . and i did send him word that night ; and , said i , sir , you ought to go , for your own security and ours too , to swear it before a magistrate . said he , if i should , i should be discovered . said i , i can't think you would be discovered ; if you swore it before sir george treby or sir robert clayton , they will not discover you . so he agreed he would swear before sir george treby ; and he did go accordingly : but he being out of town , i cannot have the affidavit to produce it . there was a letter sent last saturday-night to sir george to bristol , and i hoped he might have been here to day . this was the first acquaintance i ever had with haynes . the next time i heard of him , was upon this occasion . ivy comes to me in richard's coffee-house , and , said he , yonder is the man that made that discovery , which i told you before that haynes had said to me ; it was about a month or three weeks before the parliament was at oxford . after the parliament was dissolved at oxford , ivy comes to me , and i think it was betwixt the two terms wherein fitz-harris was arraigned and tried : i know not the names of them ; but he comes to me and tells me he had been with my lord shaftsbury , and that there was a friend of his that would confirm all that fitz-harris had discovered concerning the murder of sir edmundbury godfrey ; and , says he , my lord of shaftsbury hath sent me to you to acquaint you with it . where is your friend , said i ? he is without , said he . so we went out of the coffee-house ; and when we came out of doors , there was this haynes : we went to the crown-tavern without temple-bar ; it was in the forenoon . when we came there into the room , he examined all the corners , and cupboards , and places about the room , to see that no body was there . when he thought all was secure , he began to tell me he had been to acquaint my lord shaftsbury that there was a friend of his that would discover the whole intrigue of the murder of sir edmundbury godfrey , all that fitz-harris had said , and much more : and he desired me that i would intreat my lord shaftsbury to be instrumental to get him his pardon before he discover'd particularly . then i told him , i think 't is convenient , said i , that you discover something in writing , and give under your hand what you can say . he was not willing to do that . can you believe , said i , that my lord of shaftsbury will betray you ? says he , i will not trust any body ; i shall be assassinated . said i , if you will not give it to any body else , will you give it to mr. michael godfrey , sir godfrey's brother ? you can have no jealousie of him that he will ever discover you . said he , if my lord shaftsbury will engage to get me a pardon , i will tell the whole truth . said i , i will go to my lord and acquaint him : so i went to both my lord and mr. godfrey ; and sir godfrey's two brothers both met me at my lord of shaftsbury's house . this is the thing that he tells me ; he would have me get my lord's protection and a pardon for treason : but the real truth is , he sent me upon this errand . so i came to my lord shaftsbury , and the two mr. godfreys were in the room ; and after i had told my lord what discourse i had with him , says my lord , colledge , these irish-men have confounded all our business ; and thou and i must have a care they do not put a trick upon us : this may be a trick of the papists to ruine us ; and if they have such a designe , if they will not put it upon you and i , they are fools . upon your lordship , said i , they may ; but i am a poor inconsiderable fellow . says my lord , i 'll tell you , mr. godfrey , mr. colledge hath not onely been an honest man , but an useful and an active man for the protestant interest . so i told my lord how far i had gone with him , and that i desired it might be put in writing . says my lord shaftsbury , if he will put it in writing , i will go once again ; for i have been since i saw the fellow , with my lord macclesfield , and my lord chief justice pemberton , and my lord chancellor , and i have told them that there is such a person in general , but i knew not the man ; as indeed my lord did not , for onely ivy was the person between them that my lord knew : and i told them , says my lord , that he can confirm all that fitz-harris has said concerning the death of sir edmundbury godfrey , and that he would prove my lord of danby was in it , if he might have his pardon ; and my lord said , they promised to speak to his majesty that it might be granted . but some time the latter end of the week i heard it would not be granted ; and both of these men followed me to know what they should do . said i , my lord shaftsbury knows not but that it may be a trick ; and said i to ivy , i wonder why he should conceal it all this while , being a necessitous man , and 500 l. proffered by the king in his proclamation . why , says ivy , do you think there is no truth in it ? says i , 't is not my judgment , but my lord shaftsbury and mr. godfrey's judgment too . he answered me again , fitz-harris hath desired he may have a pardon granted for himself and a frenchman ; and if so be there were nothing in it , do you think he would move for a pardon ? says i , did mr. fitz-harris move for haynes pardon ? how do i know that , says ivy again : fitz-harris's wife told me so . says i , let me speak with fitz-harris's wife , let me hear her say so , and i will believe you . the next day he did bring her to me to my house : and this was the time and the occasion that brought fitz-harris's wife , and haynes , and ivy , and mr. fitz-harris's maid to my house ; and i never saw fitz-harris in my days , till his trial , nor had any communication with him . but , my lord , she did talk with haynes , and confirmed it to me , that her husband had desired a pardon for him : why then , said i , he would do well to discover what he knows to my lord shaftsbury ; for i was with my lord , and he says he will meddle no more , unless he will give it under his hand what he has to say . and he did confess to me in my own yard , for there we were together , that he saw my lord of danby come into the chappel at sommerset-house , when the body of sir edmundbury godfrey lay under the altar . l. c. j. here hath been nothing of this made appear by proof . colledge . my lord , i onely tell you which way they introduced themselves into my acquaintance . l. c. j. you may observe what you will upon the evidence , as we told you ; but you ramble from the matter you are to speak to . and as we told mr. attorney , that what he said should go for nothing , unless he made it out by proof ; so must we say to you , what you say goes for nothing , further than you have proved it . now you have quitted the proof quite ▪ and not spoke to that , but run into other stories . i would have you keep your self to your proofs , and make your observations upon them . colledge . 't is , as i humbly conceive it , to my purpose , but i hope my ignorance may excuse me , if i erre . i tell you the truth of things , thus it was . l. c. j. truth ! why if yours or any man's word in your case should go for truth , no man that stands at a bar , could be convicted : for every man will say he is an honest man , and all the plausible things in the world . make you your observations upon the proof , that is proper for you to do ; and urge it as well as you can , and to the best purpose you can : but to tell us long stories of passages between you and others that are not a whit proved , that is not usual , nor pertinent . colledge . i thought it had been to the point , when this man pretends to have a familiarity with me , to shew how his acquaintance begun . mr. just . jones . why do you think 't is an answer to him in what he proves upon his oath ? have you proved one jot of it ? not that i have heard . 't is your part to sum up the evidence on your own side , and to answer that which is proved upon you , if you can . do that , and we will hear you speak to it as long as you can . but to tell stories to amuse the jury with that are not proved , and to run out into rambling discourses to no purpose , that is not to be allowed , nor never was , in any court of justice . mr. just . raymond . not one of your witnesses have mentioned any thing that you say . mr. just . levins . i wonder , mr. colledge , you should forget your self so much ▪ for you found fault with mr. attorney at the beginning for opening the evidence , and you were told , and the jury were told at your request , that what he said , and did not prove , passed for nothing . but i must tell you , 't is much worse in your case : for mr. attorney onely opened what he might prove afterwards , but your observations are upon what hath been proved already ; and yet you run out into stories of what hath not been proved at all , after your proof is past . colledge . sir , i could not prove this otherwise than by ivy , who hath been sworn against me . mr. just . jones . would you have the jury to believe you upon your word ? colledge . there is no more than his oath against me ; and why my oath , being an english-man and a protestant , should not be taken as well as his that is an irish-man and hath been a papist , i know not . l. c. j. you go upon that ground that your word is to be taken , as appears by your defence ; but i must tell you , all the course of justice were destroyed , and no justice against malefactors were to be had , if the word of him that is accused should pass for proof to acquit him . colledge . my lord , i have given your lordship an account of these fellows conversations ; and what other proofs to make , i know not : for i knew not what they would swear against me , and i had not witnesses in my pocket to confront them . mr. just levins . well , the jury have heard it over and over again , first upon your request , that nothing is to be taken notice of that is not proved . colledge . pray , my lord , then as to haynes . my lord , i do observe that there was a witness for me that did prove , he owned he was one that was employed to make a protestant plot , and another that did hear him swear , dam him , he would swear any thing against any body for money , for it was his trade . mr. just . levins . now you are right ; speak as much as you will as to your proofs . colledge . my lord , i think turbervile and dugdale swear as to the tenth of march in oxon ; i desire it may be proved i was in oxford the tenth of march. mr. just . jones . you yourself came down the middle of march. l.c.j. i do not remember that they said the tenth of march. colledge . did not the indictment say so ? mr. att. gen. it is only in the indictment . l.c.j. as to the time mentioned in the indictment , it is not material ; that is the constant rule in tryals upon indictments ; as if an horse be laid to be stole the tenth , if it be proved the prisoner stole it at another day , it will be sufficient , the time is not material ; the question is whether the indictment be true in substance . mr. colledge , my brothers will all tell you that the law is so . mr. just . levins . though it is laid the tenth of march , yet if it be proved the first or twentieth before or after , it is all one ; so the thing be proved , they are not bound to a day . colledge . my lord , the punctilio's of law i know not , but it was the twenty fourth or twenty fifth er'e i came down . l.c.j. well , go on , sir. colledge . dugdale says i meant by the word rowley , the king. mr. just . jones . he does so . colledge . how does he come to know , that by that word i meant the king ? l. c. j. that we did ask him , and he says you used so to expound it . mr. just . jones . why look you , he said you and he used to have frequent communication concerning the king , and you did most frequently speak of the king by the name of rowley . colledge . but i say , my lord , i never spake of the king by the name of rowley in my life . mr. just . jones . you say it , and he swears the contrary . colledge . i don't remember that he says i declared it so , but he said , i meant it ; for if i had declared it , then it had been the same thing for me to have named the king downright . mr. just . levins . look you mr. colledge , as to that , when any witness had done his evidence , you had liberty to cross examine him . l.c.j. would you have him called up again to clear this ? colledge . yes , if you please . l.c.j. stand up mr. dugdale . i understood by you testimony , when mr. colledge and you discoursed of the king , you sometimes discoursed of him by the name of rowley , and that he explained that name to be the king. mr. dugdale . the first time i ever heard what rowley meant , was from him ▪ for i asked him what he meant by the name of rowley ; i heard it before , but i did not understand it . mr. just . jones . where was it ? mr. dugdale . at richards coffee-house . mr. just . jones . what was the answer he made you ? mr. dugdale . he said it was the king. colledge . upon what occasion did i explain it to you ? mr. dugdale . upon the account of the pictures . colledge . i know not which of the pictures has the name of rowley in it . mr. dugdale . it was when we were talking of one of the pictures you brought in rowley , and mack and mac was the duke of york , and rowley was the king. colledge . upon what picture was it , that i took occasion to explain the name rowley to you ? mr. dugdale . i am not certain . colledge . remember you have an account to give as well as i. mr. dugdale . you have so many pictures that i can't remember them ; you have shewed me more than have been produced in court. colledge . where had you that picture from me that they call raree shew ? mr. dugdale . truly i received of them twice at richards coffee-house . colledge . twice , do you say ? mr. dugdale . yes , two of them at two several times ; for you having promised me one , you brought it according to your word . colledge . when was that ? mr. dugdale , i did not keep an account of the day of the month ; and another i do remember at the green dragon tavern you thrust into my pocket ▪ and mr. baldwin was by at that time . and said he , mr. colledge , you will be so open , that you will come to be discovered at last . colledge . then will i be willing to dye for it , if he and i and mr. baldwin were at the green dragon tavern together . when was it that i gave you any pictures there ? was it since the parliament at oxon ? mr. dugdale . do i charge you since the parliament ? colledge . i never saw raree shew before the parliament at oxford . mr. dugdale . i do not say it was that ; you gave me one of the others . colledge . 't is strange you will stick to nothing ; when was it we were at the green dragon tavern ? mr. dugdale . we were there before the parliament sat at oxon ; it was since christmass . colledge . what picture was it i gave you there ? mr. dugdale . it may be i can't remember which of them it was , it was not raree shew ; i suppose you gave me one of them concerning the bishops , where you put bishop mew kissing the popes toe ; for it was a bishop with a patch on , and that you told me was bishop mew . colledge . i put it , did i make it ? mr. dugdale . you said you were the author . mr. just . jones . mr. colledge , will you consider upon what mr. dugdale was called up about , the exposition of the name rowley ? colledge . i did examine him , and he hath contradicted himself ; for he hath said at the green dragon tavern i gave him a picture of raree shew . mr. just . jones . he said no such thing , he said he did not know which it was . colledge . i am certain he meant that then when he spake it ; for he named it before , that he had two from me at richards coffee-house , and one i thrust into his pocket at the tavern ; and i say , i never was at the green dragon tavern with mr. dugdale and mr. baldwyn , nor in the tavern these three quarters of a year . mr. just . levins . mr. colledge , you were in the right way just now to manage your evidence , in opposition to the other evidence ; go on in that way . colledge . my lord , i don't know well what was said , for i could not hear half , nor write a quarter of it ; but , my lord , i hope your lordship hath taken notes of it , and will remember it for me . you are my counsel as well as my judges . l.c.j. in matter of fact we are . colledge . my life and your souls lye at stake to do me justice ; therefore i hope you will take notice of what i have not had the opportunity to write down . i have observed that every one of my witnesses have spoken materially to contradict what they have said , to prove that this was done for money , and that there hath been confessions from every man of them ; that they were hired to do it ; that they did it for a livelyhood ; and one of them said , it was a good trade , dam him , he would do any thing for money : and i hope then you will consider the improbability , that i should speak to an irish man who i had never seen before in my life ; and that i should at the first dash utter all that treason that he gives in evidence , i think it cannot consist with any man's understanding to believe me so mad or so weak . mr. justice levinz . that is as to haynes only . colledge . as to smith now i suppose it does not come within the reach of the statute ; for the dinner that was made by alderman wilcox , was made before last july was twelve-month ; all the witnesses do say it was before christmas , and dr. oates says it was in the summer ; i know it by a very good observation , because i went to astrop waters after that , and i saw sir creswell levinz at the wells : now sir you were there before this time twelvemonth . so then whatever he says i said to him there , i cannot be charged withal by the statute , more or less , if i had never a witness against him ; but i have witnesses that have contradicted him sufficiently that he is forsworn in that ; and if so , he is not to be believed in any thing else ; for he says , he and i went to the coffee-house together , and we discoursed such and such things , which is not above half a bows shoot , and he made it i say a quarter of a miles discourse ; if i had had all the talk , the discourse could not be so long , tho' he had said never a word : so you see what a kind of witness he is . and dr. oates's brother did say , that i did go along with dr. oates , and offered to be one of his guard , and i did say so , and went along with them , but mr. smith he came after . and as to what he says he is sufficiently confuted , that is , about the going into cabals after dinner ; for it is proved , that i fell asleep behind the table , and dr. oates was discoursing with mr. savage upon points of divinity ; but i took no notice of it , neither did i see smith any more , but he went away , and so did the rest of the company . but , my lord , when haynes was taken , smith comes to me that day to my house at the ditch-side , and sends in a man for me , his man ; i was writing in my parlour , and drawing the design for wainscotting alhallows church , a platform for it ; his man told me , his master would speak with me , and haynes was taken that morning : but as i understand since , it was by agreement and his own consent , tho' he hath pretended otherwise . you hear , says he , haynes is taken ? yes , says i , i do , he hath been ever since 9 a clock before the secretary upon examination , and he was till 5 a clock at night examining , said he : i believe he confesses a great deal , said i : of what , said he ? of some design of the protestants , said i : what , against the government ? i do not know what they may affright him into ; he is a great rogue if it be true all that he hath said of himself : he says , he was concerned in the fire of london , and knew of a design to destroy the protestants then ; of a rebellion that was to be in ireland ; of plunket's being made primate , and a great many of those things : so that if he speaks truth , he hath been a great rogue , and as he hath pretended also , he was a great coward . so then i believe he may say any thing to excuse himself ; says mr. smith , i wish you are safe : this was the very night before i was taken . mr. just . jones . have you proved any thing of this ? colledge . my lord , pray give me leave to tell you what is proof . mr. just . jones . you are not to repeat this , unless you prove it , sir. colledge . he spake cautiously to me , as if he would have intimated to me , he would have had me run away . said he , i believe you are not safe , i would have you take care of your self , for you were concerned with him . now , my lord , if i had been a guilty person , i had time enough to get away ; and to prove this , i can only say , this was betwixt him and i. but , my lord , you hear dr. oates says , that this very smith did swear he would have my bloud , and that was upon this occasion of my vindicating sampson , whom he had struck and abused ; and i asked , why he did it ? said he , i value no man's life , if he affront me , if 't is any man in england , i value him not . my lord , upon this occasision the words rise between us ; and when he came out of doors , and was going away , dr. oates said , he swore he would have my bloud , and that was the occasion of his speaking that blasphemy . lord ch. just . dr. oates did say so . mr. just . levinz . well you are right now if you will go on in that way . colledge . my lord , this is for smith and haynes , that haynes should say it was a good trade , and dam him , he would swear any thing for money , and that smith should swear dam him he would have my blood . i cannot sum up the rest of them for i have not them here . mr. just . jones . there is turbervile , and dugdale , and smith ; we will help you as to the persons . mr. just . levinz . pray keep to the business , and do not run out . colledge . pray my lord , i have one thing to say about smith ; he sayes i shewd him my arms , which i have had for any time almost these 3 years , ever since the plot brake out . i have been armed ready to oppose the papists , and i did my duty in the city in person in the trained bands , but smith says these arms were to destroy the kings guards , but he does not prove that i was confederate with any other person , but instead of that there were other persons that say with his own mouth , that he did not believe there was any protestant plot ; nay , he did believe i said it only in wantonness . this is all , then how probable was it , that i my self should seize the king , or destroy his guards . mr. just . jones . you remember captain brown , captain chuton , and don lewes , mr. colledge . colledge . did he swear they were all in my company at oxon ? mr. just . jones . yes , dugdale did . colledge . my lord , captain brown and lewes were friends to my lord howard , with whom and other company i came down to oxon , and they lay with me at the chequer , and they were in my company because they were guests in the house , and we came along together , but he does not say they were either of them armed more than my self , nor was he ever in company with us , how then does he know we were in a conspiracy ? mr. just . jones . because you told him at london first that they were such persons . colledge . i never saw lewes in may days till i saw him that morning i came down from oxon , and brown i was not acquainted with a fortnight before . this is a truth , but however they have sworn a plot upon me at oxon , and then come and prove i declared these were the men , and spoke such and such words at london ; i desire your lordships judgment in this matter of law , whether what be done at london can be sufficient matter of proof in law to maintain an indictment against me at oxon ? and if not ; they do not prove legally that i have spoken such words . besides i conceive 't is not a good proof , because there is but one witness . l. ch. justice . yes , look you , there are two witnesses , dugdale and turbervile , as to what you said at oxon , and two witnesses as to what you said at london , haynes and smith , who testifie what you said you would do at oxon. now in case you came to oxon with any such intention , that coming to oxford is an overt-act , and the witnesses that speak what you said in london , is evidence to maintain the indictment here , and to prove what your intention was . colledge . does that become an overt-act if i go to oxon upon an honest occasion , any other occasion , tho' i had said those words before . l. ch. justice . if you came with that intent to joyn with others , and with a real purpose to seize the king , that is the overt-act , and the words before prove the intention . mr. just . jones . he declared it himself by his words . colledge . smith says that about a week after wilcox's dinner , i disoursed with him at the ditch side , that comes not within the compass of the statutes . then there is twice of the 3 times he speaks of , the last day i do not remember when it was . l. ch. justice . all was in london that smith speaks of you . colledge . how comes that to be proof here , then nothing he says is to go for any thing . mr. just . jones . nothing will serve your turn ; we have declared our opinions once already , that if the witnesses swear true , here are two witnesses ; nay , if one were of what was done at london , and the other of what was done at oxon , if they be to the same treason they are two witnesses in law. colledge . my lord , i observe one thing upon turbervile's evidence , he swears there was a discourse in the room when brown was upon the bed , but afterwards if your lordship minds it , he says , i discoursed with him as he and i lay upon the bed. before he said when brown lay upon the bed , and in the room , and afterwards when we lay upon the bed. mr. just . jones . both the one and the other . colledge . but he said said first one way , and then the other . mr. just . jones . whilst brown lay upon the bed , and when he was gone , whilst you both lay upon the bed. l. ch. justice . we will do you no wrong , therefore if you will , turbervile shall stand up and clear it . colledge . my lord , i believe those that have taken the passages can prove he contradicted himself in that . l. ch. just . he said both . but the jury have taken notes of the evidence , and will take notice of it . colledge . as to mr. masters , the evidence he gives was , he says that he and i should discourse of the parliament in 40. mr. just . jones . and the justifiableness of the late king's death , that they had done nothing but what they had just cause to do . colledge . he swears that i did say to him , that the late parliament did not cut off the kings head . mr. just . jones . and you said the last parliament that sate at westminster , was of the same opinion with that in 40. colledge . i dare appeal to esq charlton , in whose shop the discourse was . i did not know that mr. masters was to be an evidence against me , and truly they have taken that course with me , by which any man may be destroyed with half this evidence , were they of good credit , let his innocence be what it will. i have been used so barbarously in the tower , kept from all conversation , and so in an utter ignorance of what was sworn against me ; for else i could easily have disproved mr. masters , if i had been in london , and had liberty to provide for my defence ; but they have taken a course to prevent that , and brought me hither because 't is impossible i should here defend my self . l. ch. just . you have not offered at any witness to impeach mr. masters credit . colledge . mr. masters discourse he speaks of was in mr. charlton's shop , i durst have appealed to him about it , for i know if he were here he would do me right . mr. masters did say the parliament cut off the late kings head. we held a dispute upon that which i was not willing to enter into ; i said they did not , and we did then dispute whether they began the war against his majesty : i said they did not that i knew of , neither were they the persons , but the papists that began that war and that broke off the treaty at vxbridge , and that the papists carryed it on to that sad issue , and put it upon the protestants , that they had the odium of it , but it was another sort of men that carryed it on . i said that i did always understand that parliament to be an honest parliament , that minded the true interest of the nation , and much of the same opinion with the parliament that fate last at westminster . but before i said this , i said they were persons altogether innocent of the kings murder , and raising the war against the king , i did always understand that so the parliament in 40 were . l. ch. just . but they were guilty of a rebellion , and are declared so by act of parliament since his majesty came in . colledge . my lord , i am unacquainted with the law , i speak only my sense of it . and my lord , i did excuse them as to the murder of the king , and the beginning of the war , that according to my understanding they were not guilty of it , and from thence i did maintain they were an honest good parliament , and much of opinion with the parliament that sat last at westminster , which was for the true interest of the nation . l. ch. just . and was that the true interest of the nation , to cut off the king's head ? colledge . i did argue that with him some time , and i did tell him that it was the papists that did all the mischief . mr. just . jones . but he sayes no , upon his oath , that when he had said , the parliament begun the rebellion , and the parliament did cut off the king's head , you said the parliament did nothing but what they had just cause for , and the parliament that sat last at westminster was of the same mind . l. ch. just . those were his words . colledge . pray let him be called again . l. ch. just . let mr. masters stand up again . colledge . pray sir relate the whole discourse that passed between you and i , whether i did not argue with you it was not the parliament cut off the kings head , nor begun 〈◊〉 war , but the papists . mr masters . no , you did not say any such thing . we had a great deal of discourse in the shop , and under the arch , and the thing that was said , mr. colledge , was this . you did say to me that you did justifie the late long parliament of 40 , and their proceedings , and you said they were a parliament that did nothing but what they had just cause for : said i , how can you be so impudent to say so , when they raised the rebellion against the king , and cut off his head : said he again , they did nothing but what they had just cause for , and the parliament that sat last at westminster were of the same opinion . mr. just . jones . i did you no wrong in repeating the evidence , you see , mr. colledge . colledge . did i not first dispute with you that they did not begin the war , nor cut off the king , but the papists did it . mr. masters . look you mr. colledge , you would have had it the king began the war. colledge . don't you say so , for i said the papists began the war. sir say no more to me than what you will answer to god almighty ; for i always said the papists did all the mischief in the late times : and i wonder sir you would not be so just to his majesty as to detect me for what i said then , if you apprehend it to be as you now say , but i am sure you did not , nor could not . mr. masters . mr. colledge , it was so far from that , that i was afraid it was of dangerous consequence , and i gave some persons of honour an accompt of it , and i was sent to but on friday last , to know what it was was said , and i was desired and commanded to come down hither . colledge . pray mr. masters , you are upon your oath , do me but justice , and speak upon your own conscience ; look you to it that you speak the truth . mr. masters . i will do you all the right i can in the world. colledge . then before the court do you declare whether we did not discourse at that time as i said , for this discourse was at mr. charlton's shop at the further end . mr. masters . no it was at the entrance into the shop , mr. colledge ; and did not we go into the arch and talk there . mr. serj. jefferies . mr. masters don't trouble your self , your reputation is not upon the level with that gentlemans . colledge . i desire he may speak the very truth and nothing but the truth . mr. masters . i do as near as i can , and do you no wrong ; you did not in your discourse say the parliament did not begin the war , nor cut off the king's head. colledge . you did say to me they did cut off the king's head , and i told you no , the papists did . mr. masters . i think you did say that the papists had an hand in it ; but , sir , you have left out the most material part of our discourse , which was , that you said they did nothing but what they had just cause for . colledge . i do say , and it was my sence always , that the parliament did not cut off the king's head , for they were long out of doors before that came to pass , and a new unhappy war was begun . l. ch. just . the war was a rebellion on the parliaments part , let us not mince the matter , and so it was declared by act of parliament ; and if you argued after that rate , it shews your temper , and that you are a very ill man ; for they that justifie such things as to the time passed , would lead us to the same things again if they could . therefore don't go about to palliate it , ad faciendum populum here , 't is nothing to the matter , but only to shew your principles , and the jury have heard what mr. masters says . colledge . i was then a child , and do not know all the passages , but i speak my sence . l. ch. just . you should not have justified such things . mr. just . jones . who appointed the high court of justice that tryed the king and condemned him , but the parliament ? mr. just . levinz . it was the garbage of that parliament i am sure , that is the rump , but they called themselves the parliament of england , and the parliament it was that begun the war. colledge . my lord , i did not know , nor don 't know that it is proved yet , that the parliament were those that did cut off the king's head. i don't know , mr. masters is pleas'd to say this of me ; but i thought no evil , nor did he understand it so i believe at that time , for he did not seem to take advantage of my discourse . i know he talked violently and passionately with me , as he used to do ; and for mr. masters to say this of me now , is a great unkindness ; for i thought he was so much a gentleman , that if i had spoken any thing that had not become me , he would have taken notice of it then . mr. serj. jefferies . he did then he tells you . colledge . had i known of it , i am sure mr. charlton would have done me justice , and set things right ; but this i say , i did first excuse the parliament from being concerned in the murder of the king , or that they did begin the war , but the papists did it : if it were otherwise , it was more than i understood ; and after that i said , i thought that the parliament that sate last at westminster , did stand up for the peoples rights , after the same manner that the parliament in 40. did . mr. just . jones . what just after the same manner , in raising war and rebellion against the king ? colledge . after i had discoursed it thus , my lord , as i told you , it could not be understood that i thought that parliament would cut off the king's head : and therefore you that are my jury , pray consider , and take it all together , there could be no such meaning made of my words ; for i did not conceive that that parliament were concerned in those things , but were a parliament that stood up for the rights of the people ; now if it were so , then the parliament at westminster were of the same opinion . l. ch. just . i tell you the long parliaments levying war is declared rebellion by act of parliament . colledge . my lord , if there hath been an act since that says they were guilty of rebellion , i declare it 't is more than ever i knew before . this is the first time that ever i heard of it . mr. serj. jefferies . you are a mighty learned gentleman to talk of those points indeed . colledge . my lord , i desire to know whether any words that were spoken 6 months before they gave in their depositions can be a sufficient evidence in law against me now ? l. ch. justice . 't is upon the act of the 13th of this king you speak . colledge . yes , my lord , i take it upon that statute . l. ch. justice . i tell you as to that part of the statute which concerns misdemeanors , there is a particular clause for prosecution by order of king or council ; but as to that part of the statute that concerns treason , it must be prosecuted within six months , and the inditement within three months after . colledge . what statute is this inditement grounded upon ? mr. just . jones . all statutes that concern treason . l. ch. justice . upon the statute of the 25 of edw. 3. which declares the common-law , and the statute of the 13th of this king , which when you have done , i will have read to the jury . colledge . then pray my lord , let me ask you one question , whether the statute of the 25th of edw. 3. does not say that there shall be two positive witnesses to treason ? mr. just . jones . no , but there is another that does . colledge . i am ignorant of the law , and therefore i ask the question . l. ch. justice . well , i will tell you , there must be two witnesses in the case , but one witness to one fact at one time , and another witness to another fact at another time , will be sufficient evidence to maintain an indictment of treason ; this was told you in the morning . mr. just . jones . and it was told you withal , that it was the resolution of all the judges in the case of my lord stafford when he was tryed in parliament . colledge . they proved fact in that case , writing of letters , and offering money to kill the king , but nothing of fact is proved against me , but riding into the country with arms that i had three years before . l. ch. justice . we will read the statute of the 13th , wherein words are declared to be treason . colledge . i pray it may be read , if you please . ( which was done . ) l. ch. justice . look you here , to compass or imagine the imprisonment of the king and to express it by malitious and advised speaking , when proved by two lawful witnesses , is treason by this act. colledge . now , whether you will distinguish , that there must be two witnesses to distinct places or times , or whether the statute intends two witnesses to every particular fact and words . l. ch. justice . we told you our opinion before , that one witness to one fact , and another to another of the same treason , was sufficient . we are upon our oaths in it , and speak not our own opinions , but what hath received publick resolution in cases of the like consequence . colledge . what lies before these gentlemen of the jury as done at oxon , 't is but upon a single testimony . mr just . levinz . nay , mr. dugdale and mr. turbervile both swear the same thing , your design to seize the king at oxon. and it would be the difficultest thing in the world to prove treason against any man if the law were not so , and a man might commit all sorts of treason securely ; for to be sure he would never say the same things before two witnesses in one time , and the king would be no sort safe ; for there would never be two witnesses to one and the same thing : but that hath been resolved often and often over and over again , particularly in my lord stafford's case , as you have been told . colledge . my lord , you say the king is not safe upon those terms , and no private man is safe in the other way . mr. just . levinz . we say that the law is so , and there is good reason for it . mr. just . jones . we must not alter nor depart from the allowed received law. l. ch. justice . i say the thing hath been considered in other cases , and the law hath been adjudged and setled . it was so resolved in my lord stafford's case when the judges by the command of the parliament did deliver their opinion upon that point moved by him . colledge . there is nothing of fact proved against me but a pair of pistols , a sword , and an horse . l. ch. justice . we have told you the law , and answered your question . colledge . but as the case stands , if that be the law , all society and conversation must be ruined by it . mr. just . jones . pray go on , when do you think we shall have done else ? colledge . however i do not insist upon that so much , as that the testimonies and oaths of these men are altogether invalidated , by substantial persons that have here testified against them . i do declare upon my salvation , ( i have nothing else to say ) i am wholly innocent , and the jury are my judges , and i beseech them , as they will answer me at the great day of judgement , where they must appear as sure as i stand at this bar now , that they do me right , and go according to their own consciences ; for if a man shall be sworn against by such fellows as these are , no man is safe . mr. serj. jefferies . the worse , the better to be trusted by you . colledge . i am sure it cannot be thought by men of common reason , that i should speak treason at that rate that they have sworn , and to such men , men of their profession , irish men , and papists , traitors that have declared they have been in all manner of rogueries , murders , plots and treasons . therefore , my lord , i cannot do any more for my self , because i have no notes , and cannot recite what hath been said for me or against me ; but i do depend upon your lordship , and i hope you will inform the jury rightly , and do me justice ; and i do pray the jury that they will let their consciences be satisfied , as they are english men , and as they are christians , to consider how the case lyes with me , whether there has not been more occasion of talking of late , and whether a slip of the tongue may be called a premeditated , malicious , advised speaking , i mean , my discourse with mr. masters . he talked with me as hot as fire , he was so violent , and i did discourse him at that rate i have told you , and that is truth , as i have a soul to be saved : i did excuse the parliament , that as i understood it , they had no hand in the beginning of the war , or the murder of the king. my lord , as for the rest that have sworn against me so desperately , i must say , that if the jury did not as well consider my evidence as theirs , yet they might well consider , whether it consists with common sence and reason , that i should speak to these men after this rate , when i could lay no obligation upon them , nor have any confidence in them ; necessitous persons , that could not assist me one mite , men that were beholding to me to borrow money of me , and that eat of my cost , that i had always been obliging to , and not they to me . but i hope i need insist upon this no further ; the whole nation is sensible what is doing , and what this does signifie : they have begun with me in order to the making of a presbyterian plot , which they would carry on to stifle the noise of the popish plot ; and this is not the 1 st . the 2 d. nor the 10 th . time that they have been at this game ; how many shams have they endeavoured to raise — mr. att. gen. who do you mean by they ? colledge . the papists . mr. att. gen. there is nothing of popery in the case ; they are all protestants . mr. just . jones . they are all persons that have lately receiv'd the sacrament . colledge . they were all papists , and i believe are so still ; for mr. dugdale did justifie to me the church of rome in several things : and when i told him that they were all knaves and fools that were of that religion , he told me , that many of their priests were holy good men . mr. just . jones . have you proved that ? colledge . i can't prove it , it was betwixt him and me , my lord. mr. just . jones . then i hope you have done . colledge . if i had sworn against him , he had stood in my place . l. ch. just . have you done , mr. colledge ? colledge . my lord , i only desire the jury to take all into their serious consideration ; i expect a storm of thunder from the learned counsel to fall upon me , who have liberty to speak , and being learned in the law , understand these things better than i , who must defend my self without counsel . i know not whether it be the practice in any nation , but certainly 't is hard measure , that i being illiterate and ignorant in the law must stand here all day , they being many , and taking all advantages against me , and i a single person , and not able to use one means or another either of writing or speaking . but , gentlemen , i do declare and protest , as i shall answer it at the day of judgement , that as to what these people have sworn against me either as to words , or as to any manner of treason against the king , the government , the laws established , i take god to witness i am as innocent as any person upon earth . and therefore i must beseech you be not frightened nor flattered ; do according to your judgements and your consciences ; you are to be my judges both in law and fact ; you are to acquit me or to condemn me , and my bloud will be required at your hands . and whatsoever is said to you by others , you are my true judges , you must give an account of the verdict you give ; and therefore you must see that you do justice , as you will answer it at another bar , where you must all certainly appear , and the lord almighty direct you that you do me true justice , and i ask no more . mr. sol. gen. may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury . here hath been a great deal of time spent , and truly i think for no other reason but to divert you from the matter that is before you , and that you might forget the evidence that hath been given . and therefore i will briefly repeat it to you , that i may refresh your memories about what hath been sworn . gentlemen , the crime charged upon mr. colledge is high treason in imagining and compassing the death of the king ; the proof of that hath been by a conspiracy to seize the king here at oxon , which conspiracy he declared he was in , by shewing arms prepared for that purpose , and by coming down to oxon with that intent , this is the proof of his design to kill the king. colledge . is the conspiracy proved of that mr. solicitor ? l. ch. just . mr. colledge , we have had a great deal of patience with you , you have spent a great deal of time , you must contain your self now , and let them go on . colledge . do not let him do me wrong my lord. mr. sol. gen. i will do you no wrong mr. colledge . colledge . sir , there is no conspiracy proved . l. ch. just . look you mr. colledge , you have taken up a great deal of time , and we have had much patience because we consider your condition , and had rather hear too much than be hard upon you , and because the evidence was long and difficult to repeat , now we have heard you , you must have patience to hear what the kings counsel repeat and observe upon it . mr. sol. gen. as i was saying the fact that is charged upon him , is a design to kill the king , the manifestation of that design is by preparing arms to that purpose , and by coming down to oxon to seize the king here , and that this was his manifest intent to seize the king , the proof of it hath been by witnesses , that i think by and by you will have no objections against . these witnesses were dugdale , turbervile , smith and haynes , these are the most material witnesses to the treason , there are two other witnesses indeed , but they are to other circumstantial matters that i will take notice of to you by and by , and make my observations upon them in their proper place . mr. dugdale was the first witness that was produced , and his evidence is very full , he proves that mr. colledge declared to him at the coffee-house here , that he was come down with an intent to seize the king , that he had an expectation some thing would be done , that he was armed , and that he did advise mr. dugdale to be armed too , for he was provided for the rooting out of popery , which he explained himself what he meant by it , that was the church of england , and the king and all his adherents . he came hither armed for that purpose gentlemen , and did advise mr. dugdale to arm himself too , that he did declare to him the king was a papist , and all his family were papists , he was as deep in the plot , and as guilty of the murder of sir edmond-bury godfrey , as any body else . this was what he declared to dugdale here , and this he swore to you when he gave his evidence . the next witness is mr. turbervile , and he is positive to the matter that is laid in the indictment , and swears to you expresly , that he did declare to him at the chequer-inn , that they came down here in expectation of some sport , that something would be done , that they did expect the king would begin with them , but if they did not , they would begin with him , and they would secure him till they had brought him to complyance . he shewed him his arms , that he was ready to ingage in that design , and advised turbervile to be ready too . and the rather than turbervile should not be ready he offered to procure him an horse . colledge . every man had the same armes that i had , and i had had them long before that time . mr. sol. gen. but every one had them not with the same intent , but gentlemen , because mr. colledge interrupts me with an objection , i will take notice of it now by the way . he says those armes he had before , and therefore they were not provided for this purpose , gentlemen , we do not pretend to prove when this trayterous intent first began , and how long this design hath been hatching , but such a design there was , and such a design he manifested to be in himself when he made the declaration to turbervile , and advised him to arme himself , whether he prepared them against that time or no is not material , if he had them before , and if he had them first innocently , yet if he afterwards designed them for such a purpose , and shewed them in a readiness for it , that is a sufficient evidence to prove this treason . so here are two witnesses you observe against the prisoner of this matter that is laid against him in the indictment , an intent to kill the king , they both prove it positively upon him at oxon. mr. dugdale speaks to matters precedent to , for he tells you , his discourse before they came down , that they would come down for that purpose , that they had an expectation some thing would be done , and therefore he came down in an equipage not suitable to his profession , for you see he was by trade a carpenter or a joyner , but armed on horseback with a case of pistols , things that don't become such men to travel with , and he did declare to mr. dugdale for what purpose he came down . the next witness is mr. smith , and mr. smith is as positive and full to this matter of treason as any of the rest . colledge . there is scarce a carpenter or a joyner in london but hath pistols when he rides . l. ch. just . mr. colledge , we must not suffer this , we had so much patience with you that we expect you should be quiet now and not interrupt the counsel . colledge . my lord , let me not be overborn upon , there is scarce a poulterer in london , but what hath pistols . mr. sol. gen. we had great patience with you mr. colledge , and did not interrupt you i am sure , but let you say what you would . i think i do you no wrong , if i do , i am under the correction of the court , they will reprove me if i do that which does not become me . mr. just . jones . did not you ramble i don't know how , and yet you were suffered to go on ? mr. sol. gen. he tells you of a discourse as he came from the coffee-house to go to a dinner whither he was invited by alderman wilcox ; and the discourse was , that the king was as great a papist as the duke , and much more to that purpose vilifying the king. that alderman wilcox was a man that gave money to buy armes to bring the king to submission . he objects against this , and says , 't is impossible such a discourse should be , and that all this should be talked in so little a time , as in passing from the coffee-house to the crown-tavern without temple-barr . colledge . pray remember whose company it was proved i went in , mr. solicitor . mr. sol. gen. but gentlemen , when you consider , how busie a man he was , and how ready at talking of treason , you will not think , but that this man might talk much more than this ; but this i mention to do him right , it being one of the arguments he used ; and to give an answer to it , tho' when you consider it , i believe you will think it not to need an answer . but i would do him all the right i can , and now you have heard it , you will consider the weight of it . gentlemen , he tells you of another discourse afterwards that does relate to his being here at oxon , he tells you he had armes in his house , and was ready upon all occasions , and he shew'd mr. smith his armes , and told him , these were the things that were to destroy rowley's guards , as he said , which by the evidence is made to appear he meant the king by that name , his armes he said were for that purpose . that he would go down to oxon , and there he expected some sport , i know not what sport he thinks there is in rebellion ; you see what principles he is of , that does maintain and justif●e the greatest and horridest rebellion that ever was in england , and says they did nothing but what they had good cause for . he tells smith that he thought the king would seize upon some members , and with that expectation he came down , but he was as ready as the king , and would be one in the securing of him , if he medled with any of the members . this proof mr. smith made ; and that after the parliament was dissolved , he said , that the king ran away , and was very much afraid . this is proved by smith likewise , and this colledge did declare after he came to town . smith proves further , that he did wonder the king did not consider how easily his father's head was brought to the block ; and for mr. colledge's part he did declare , that he did believe this king would be served so shortly . and this does confirm what his other witnesses have spoken of his words at oxon. thus then there are three witnesses , tho' two are enough to convict a man , if they be positive to the treason . mr. haynes is the 4 th . witness , and he is as full as any of them . i do but repeat it in short ; you have had it so often canvassed by colledge , that i believe you will easily remember it . he did advise haynes that he should not value the king at all , for the king should be called to account for all his actions ; he said he would seize the king and bring him to the block as they did his father , with an undecent expression of that blessed king not fit to be repeated . and he said , they did intend when they had cut off him , never any more of his race should raign ; this it was haynes says , tho' there are other matters . i would take notice of one thing more , and i need not but mention it , you will remember it , and that is about the libel of fitzharris . haynes tells you upon discourse of that libel , he said , that every word of it was true , as sure as god is in heaven . now that was a libel made by a papist , an irish papist , who hath been tryed , convicted , and executed for it , and the horridest libel it was , that ever was writ . and this is the libel which this gentleman , who is so very conversant in libels , and books of that sort , avers to be as true as god is in heaven . this is the substance gentlemen of that proof which hath been made to you ; we have other circumstances to prove , that as he came down with that intent to seize the king , and as he expected what he calls some sport , so he did endeavour to begin the sport , he did quarrel in the lobby of the house of lords with fitz gerald , some blows passed , and sir william jennings telling him his nose bled , he did declare i have lost the first blood in the cause , but it will not be long before there be more lost . thus after he had come down , he endeavoured to begin a commotion , for from little matters great things do sometimes arise , and when all men were possest with an expectation , such as he himself did declare , he and others came down with an expectation that the parliament should be attacked ; a little matter , might have begun such a commotion which no man knows what end it would have had . gentlemen , this hath been our proof . now the objection made to this proof by mr. colledge , is , that this is a popish design to raise a new plot , and cast it upon the protestants , and that these witnesses are now to deny all the evidence they have given of the popish plot , and throw all upon the protestants . this is that he would perswade you to believe , but which i think when you do consider a little of it , it will be impossible for you in the least to have such a thought . for what are the evidence that have ●●●ved this ? who are they ? men of credit , that have been evidences against the popish plotters , and against men that have suffered for that plot , men that still stand to the evidence they have given , and affirm it every word to be true , and one of the very men that he brought says , that they still stand to it ; for turbervile who was one of the witnesses against my lord stafford was tempted by some persons to deny the evidence he had given against the papists , but his answer was , no , i can never depart from it , i have a soul to save , that was true which i said , i cannot deny it . it then the witnesses which he would have you believe to be guilty of denying the popish plott , do confirm what they have said as to that discovery , that objection is taken off , and they doe stand still to if that every part of it was true , and aver the same thing ; and yet forsooth these men are going about to stifle this plot. gentlemen , these are the men the whole nation have given credit to , the parliament having impeached my lord stafford upon the credit of them ( for it was upon the credit of dugdale and turbervile that they impeached him , for there was not two witnesses till turbervile came in and made a second , and upon their credit ) after so solemn a tryal where all the objections that could possibly be made were made , the house of lords thought fit to find my lord stafford guilty , and my lord stafford suffered for it , and dyed upon the credit of these men . these are the witnesses gentlemen , that this man thinks ought to be blown off with that frivolous objection , that they are persons he would have you believe , who are guilty of a design to throw the plot upon the protestants . but because he hath desired to save himself in an herd , by numbring himself amongst the protestants . i must a little observe to you what a sort of protestant he is , a man he would have you to believe , so popular for his religion , that he hath obtained the name of the protestant joyner . but when you have considered what his actions are , i believe you will a little suspect his religion . if the protestant religion allow any man to vilifie the king , to arraign the government , and to throw off all manner of allegiance , then this man is a protestant : but if this be to act the part of a papist , and if the papists could wish that such an infamy might be put upon the protestant religion , that it should justifie such a rebellion as the late horrid one was , and own such a principle that it is lawful for any subject to asperse and vilifie the king , as this man by those many and scurrilous libels seems to do ; if they could wish this nation overturned , and the government in confusion , and the church of england destroyed , the best bulwark now in the world against popery , and the best or only refuge at this day left for the poor afflicted protestants abroad . then whilest mr. colledge does thus act the part of a papist , he does very ill to call himself a protestant . gentlemen , i cannot but observe one thing to you , and it was the evidence of dr. oates , when he did first discover the plot , and without his evidence you would easily believe the thing . he told you there were two ways they had to accomplish their design , by direct murdering of the king , or if that failed , by putting all things into confusion here , and raising rebellion and disturbance amongst us , and the way to affect that rebellion it was by having emissaries sent among us , to work us into a dislike of the church , and by that means into a rebellion against the state. that some men were sent abroad for that purpose to preach at conventicles , some whereof were catched , and some did suffer . now without this evidence it would not be hard to believe , that such there are , and have been , for all that know the history of our reformation do know that it was an early practice among them , to raise sects amongst us , to bring confusion first into the church , and then in the state. and we have already found the sad effects of it . now gentlemen , if colledge have all this while under the name of a protestant acted the part of a papist , though i cannot say he is a papist , nor that he is one of those emissaries , yet i may say he is not that good protestant he pretends to be . gentlemen , i must now to do him right , come to repeat the evidence that he hath given against our witnesses ; for mr. haynes he hath produced several witnesses , one is mr. hickman , who says he overheard haynes say to one that was his tenant , that it was his trade to swear , and he must get money by it . this he overheard him standing and listning at a door . you have another man lun , that is the next witness , and he says that at the fleet-ditch where he saw him , there he declared the same thing to him , that he would swear any thing for money , and dam his soul rather than the catholick cause should sink ; and now he comes to prove a plot upon him that is a protestant , and in his person upon all the protestants of england , and this man would fain throw off the credit of the popish plot , and turn it upon the protestants . but gentlemen it is strange , that mr. haynes should have this discourse with lun , the first time that ever he saw him , for i am sure his own witness lun says it was the first time , and that he should immediately talk to him at this rate is somewhat strange : but for an answer to it , this lun we have confronted with the evidence of white the messenger , who swears , that afterwards meeting him at vxbridge , lun asked him what gentleman that was , and did not know mr. haynes , and yet he takes upon him to prove , that he had spoke such words to him before . i think there is never another material witness against haynes except whaley , who was an under-officer in the kings-bench ; and he says , that haynes while he was a prisoner there ran away with a silver tankard , but he never was indicted or prosecuted for it , tho' he remained afterwards in the house ; and this was 5 or 6 years ago . now gentlemen , i think the nature of this evidence hath not that weight , as to take off the credit of what this man hath said upon his oath , especially when this man's evidence is so backed with the evidence of other men , that i think there is no objection at all against it . for the other witnesses , dugdale , smith and turbervile , are men whose credit has not been impeached , and they have confirmed in substance what the evidence of haynes is ; so that he does not stand alone in what he here swears , but 't is confirmed with concurrent evidence with it . then gentlemen , for the objection against dugdale , turbervile and smith , they have produc'd dr. oates to you , and he must vilifie the credit of those men , whose testimony as to what he gave at first in discovering the popish plot , received credit by being seconded by these men . and i cannot but observe it as a strange thing , that this man comes now to vilifie the testimony of those , who have given evidence and been credited by the whole kingdom ; that he should come here upon the word of a priest to declare , that mr. dugdale was a man of very lewd conversation , and was a person that had a soul disease on him , when he pretended he was poisoned . i remember this was an objection that hath been made by the papists to him , and i believe you have heard it often out of their mouths ; but it is the first time that ever i heard it from any one that is a witness of the popish plot , and pretends to stand up for the protestant religion . gentlemen , if any such thing as this could have been made out against him , it had been made out ere now , the papists would have taken advantage of it ; and when the wit of all that party was bent against him , he could not have escaped the having it proved . if it had been true , yet dr. oates takes upon him now to vilifie his credit , and takes up those arguments the papists have maliciously suggested , but yet were never able to make out . this looks as if the doctor were again returning to st. omers , that he is thus going about to disparage the evidence of mr. dugdale , which in great measure verified the truth of that discovery , which himself first made of the popish plot. against turbervile , gentlemen , i think there hath been very little at all objected that can have weight with you . mr. brodgate , as i suppose you observe , has said enough to confirm turbervile's credit ; for he hath proved to you , that when he was tempted to renounce his evidence against the papists , he refused to do it , he had more conscience than to do it , he knew well enough what he had said was true , and as he had a soul to save , he could not go from it . this is the evidence that he gives , and which certainly serves much to confirm the truth of turbervile , besides the strict examination he hath been under , and beyond any thing that dr. oates , i think , has been able to contradict him in . dr. oates condradicts smith about his coming from the coffee-house to wilcox's dinner . he says , he did not come along with mr. colledge , but colledge came along with dr. oates , and smith followed them . but , gentlemen , you hear what smith hath declared upon his oath , that they came both together out of the coffee-house ; and you hear what his witness mr. smith the councellor says : he does not positively remember that circumstance , yet one would think he should ; for oates says , mr. smith the lawyer walked just before them , and colledge followed . mr. smith that is the witness for the king , he swears he came along with colledge , but mr. smith the lawyer being asked that question , he does not remember that . then another thing is , dr. oates sayes , when they were there , colledge was so far from discoursing of any treasonable matters , that he was very merry in the company , and talking innocently , but mr. smith sayes , he was so far from being merry or talking treason , that he fell fast asleep , and slept behind the table . gentlemen , these objections you see what the weight of them is , and how little the evidence agree one with another , but there is nothing that does contradict mr. smith in his main evidence . 't is possible they may not remember particular circumstances , whether mr. colledge and mr. smith came together , so they might come together for ought they know , and they may not remember any circumstance about their retiring , but they can't take upon them to swear it is not so , and their not remembring it does not prove it was not so , and the circumstance it self is so trivial , that there was no necessity they should remember it . so then no evidence that comes from dr. oates can take off that that is given by smith , tho' if mr. smith were out of the case , and mr. haynes too , yet there is evidence sufficient from mr. dugdale and mr. turbervile who are not impeached , and are both of them positive , both to the fact and to the place . there are two witnesses more that i must mention , and they are balron and mowbray ; they swear that smith travelling upon the road with them , would have subborned them to swear against john brooks , about a discourse at some place ; but it happened gentlemen , they differ in point of time in their testimony , the one said it was the 25 th . of july , the other was positive it was the 3 d. of august . but i think i need say no more to these men , but only to desire you to weigh their credit . balron and mowbray i confess have been evidence against several men that have been accused of the popish-plot , but they have been so unfortunate , as never to gain credit with any jury . mr. smith hath been believed by the whole court of parliament ; but if there were no more in the case , these are two men that never were yet believed , men that have been sworn in their own country , where they are well known , and been evidence upon tryals , but the jury have rejected the credit of their testimony ▪ but besides that , comparing the testimonies , and the difference that was between them , is a sufficient evidence to confront all that they have said . i think gentlemen , this is the substance of what hath been offered by his witnesses against the witnesses produced for the king ▪ except that of mr. everard , who says something against haynes , that haynes should say he swore for self-preservation ; and against mr. smith he says , that he heard him say , he did not know of any presbyterian plot. i believe that may be true , and yet it does not contradict smith's evidence against colledge ; for mr. smith does not tell you , that he was privy to any such design of the presbyterians , that he knows of any consultations that they held , or the ways and means by which they would arrive at the treason charged upon the prisoner at the bar , but his evidence is , that this man declared there was such a design , that there was a party would do it , and that he would be sure to be one , and armed himself for that purpose ; but his not being privy to any plot , or knowing the particulars , is no contradiction to what he said . this is that he hath produced for his defence , and by these things he hath endeavoured to take off the credit of our witnesses , and he would have you believe that he is a very good protestant , though he does that which no protestant would do , and which is the papists work , he hath produced you witnesses that he has gone to church , but i do not see he hath produced any witnesses at all that are now conversant with him , his own parishoners in london ; but if he had brought never so many witnesses of his going to church , and of his conformableness to the church , yet if he were guilty of these practices , he must give me leave to suspect the truth of his profession ; and i think it a great piece of arrogance for him to take upon him the title of a protestant , when he hath abused that title by such unsuitable practices : and gentlemen , if such practices as these are , which we have fully proved , are such as all good men must abhor , i cannot but reflect upon the condition of this man , whose only hopes is , that you should now forget your selves , and become as ill as he is . but as that cannot be presumed , so i shall not need to say any more to you ; you are men of that consideration that can judge between things , and the appearances of them , and know very well how to give the due weight to the evidence we have given to you , as well as the objections made by the prisoner ; and so gentlemen i shall leave it to you . mr. serjeant jeffries , may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury ; it hath been a long time that hath been spent in the course of this evidence ; whether there has been any art or design in protracting the time , on purpose to obtrude upon the patience of the court , or that you gentlemen should forget the force of the evidence that hath been given against the prisoner at the bar , when there hath been so much time taken up unnecessarily , when there was no occasion , as i must needs say , there was not for such a tedious defence , i leave it to you to determine : but that which was truly intimated by the court at the beginning of the tryal , must in the end of this cause be repeated , and indeed go through it all , that we of the kings councel , and what the prisoner has affirmed , that has not been given in proof , signifying nothing , and is not to be any guide at all to you . you are upon your oaths , and by the oath you have taken you are bound in conscience to give a verdict according to the evidence that has been given to you , and that is your guide ; so that what we opened and have not proved , is no more to be believed then what the prisoner has said for himself in his own defence ; and whatsoever he says , if he make not good proof of it , is no more to be regarded , then what we who are for the king have alledged , and not made out . so then this being in the first place premised , i shall take care as near as i can to save the time of the court , and not to trespass on your patience gentlemen unnecessarily , in a case whereupon as great a concern does depend , as perhaps ever came to tryal at any bar : for i say 't is a case wherein the life and the liberty of the king is concerned , and that is the great concern of the nation ; the religion of the nation is concerned ; i would be understood aright , i mean the protestant religion established by law ; for i know of no other religion men ought to sacrifice their lives and fortunes for , but the protestant religion established by law ; and when these thing are concerned , 't is a case of great consequence : god forbid any person , protestant , or other , should attempt the life of the king , and the subversion of our religion , and by stiling themselves by the name of protestants , should excuse themselves from any such crimes . for the evidence that has been given , i shall not enumerate the particulars against the prisoner at the bar , other then such as have been omitted , ( if i mistake not , ) by mr. sollicitor . in the first place there are the things that hapened at oxon , for you have had it already sufficiently told you by my lords the judges who are upon the bench , and who ( under mr. colledges favour ) are the prisoners judges in point of law , as you are his judges in point of fact. they have ( i say ) already told you what the law is in relation to treasons ; that in case the treason be in two counties , if the witnesses speak to the self same treason , though to different facts , that will be two witnesses to prove high-treason ; and that there hath been such a case , the the prisoner at the bar , who he says is a protestant ( for his own souls sake i wish he were a good one ) must take notice , that gavan the great priest who was tryed at newgate , and convicted , by what evidence ? by one of them that is a witness now against the prisoner at the bar , that is dugdale , his treason was committed part in london , part in the country , of which part dugdale gave evidence ; but being both to the self same purpose , by the greater part of the judges , who were in the commission , and present at the tryal , they were reckoned a sufficient testimony to prove him guilty of high treason : and i hope we do not live to that age , that any protestant whatsoever should come to trip up the heels of the popish-plot ▪ by saying , that any of them who suffered for it , did die contrary to law , or without sufficient proof : for if mr. dugdale was not a person fit to be believed ; or if the rest of the judges who tryed gavan were out in the law , then that man died wrongfully ; for he had as much right to have been tryed according to the law , as any other person whatsoever . therefore gentlemen , as to that matter , we must submit it to my lords the judges , who are to give you an account what the law is in all particulars before you ; but as to the fact whereof you are judges , that is the great matter we shall apply our selves to , and for that it stands thus . here is dugdale that does give you an accompt what his design was in coming to oxford ; how he came to be armed as an index ( gentleman ) of his mind . and pray give me leave to put you in mind of one thing . you have first a libel produced , and read to you ; a pretended letter , wherein there are quaeries that have been taken notice of , and which seem to back the evidence given by mr. masters : for there is a vindication in those queries of the proceedings of that parliament of 41. which he has confidence enough now at the barr to justifie too . but gentlemen you were told by the court , and you know it , that that parliament was guilty of high rebellion ; and even in those quaeries he asperses not only the government , but every man that has any concern in it ; for it takes notice not only of the king , but of all his council . never a judge nor an officer in the nation but is traduced by it ; and which is most material , it was the foundation of that libel which has been mentioned to you , and which fitz haris was so justly condemned and executed for , that most traiterous and infamous libel in part of it has these quaeries , and a great paragraph of this libel makes up part of that libel of fitz harris , which our witnesses say mr. colledge was pleased to affirm was as true as god is in heaven . another thing is this , this gentleman whose proper business it had been to manage his employment at london for a joyner , is best seen in his proper place , usiing the proper tools of his trade . i think it had been much more proper for him ▪ and i believe you will think so too , then to come with pistols and all those accoutrements about him , to be regulating of the government ; what have such people to do to interfere with the business of the government , god be thanked we have a wise prince , and god be thanked he hath wise counsellours about him , and he and they know well enough how to do their own business , and not to need the advice of a joyner , tho' he calls himself the protestant joyner . what had he to do to engage himself , before his advice was required ? how comes he to concern himself so much that after he had writ this libel wherein he is pleased to take notice of tyrants afterwards should go to make a print , i mean the rare shew ; and when dugdale comes to inquire of him what do you mean by such a thing , the tyrant shall go down ? says he , i mean by that the king. and what do you mean by having them go to breda ? why there he explains it , that he puts all the government , the lords and the bishops upon the kings back , and being asked what he meant to have done with them , why the bishops , and the king , and all were to go to breda . these are the things that himself did acknowledge he was the author of , and these prints he did cause to be made , and he is the person that gives you an account , that it was but the conception and imagination of dugdale , that rowley meant the king ; but dugdale being called again , he tells you after some time , that he was under some difficulty to know the meaning of it ; and then colledge tells him it was meant the king ▪ and so he expounded it to him . and so smith tells you of that same name of old rowley again . gentlemen , thus i tell you what hath been omitted . the evidence hath been long , and therefore we must be pardoned , if we can't exactly repeat it . this is the evidence that was done at oxon , the next is mr. smith , who speaks of what was done in london , and he is an evidence both as to the word rowley , as to the coming with arms , and as to the declaring to what end he came , and what he had done , mr. haynes he tells you both before and after the same , and that i must take notice of to you , mr. smith does particularly say , he used those words , which i hope every honest man , and every good man , that desires to preserve the government according to law , will hear with the greatest detestation and abhorrence ; he talked of the taking away the life of the late king of blessed memory at such an impudent rate , that every true protestants blood would curdle at the hearing of it . and this he said not only to mr. masters , but he justified it to mr. smith too . in the next place you have turbervile , who gives you all the reasons , how he did not only tell of these things himself , but encouraged him to prepare himself accordingly , and he gave him a mark , a ribbon with no popery ▪ no slavery . these were marks whereby they were to be known , and they were to be one and all , as they call it , that , when such a blow was struck , they should be ready to fall in . there is one thing more that i take notice of , that is , what was said by a gentleman sir william jennings , which is a confirmation of all the other evidence , that gentleman who hath appeared to you to be a man of honour even by the confession of mr. colledge himself , and by his own words , for he said like an honest man , and like a loyal man too , that he would rather engage himself in three dangers for the service of the king at sea , than come in cold blood to give evidence against a man for his life at the bar. and yet this man who tells you this of himself ▪ and that very person whom colledge himself calls a worthy person , hath given you this accompt , that when he told him his nose bled , he answer'd him , it was the first blood lost in the cause , but it would not be long e're there was more lost ; an excellent cause for a man to venture his blood in . when he was told of this , he began to put it off , and to use his own words , had a great mind to sham off the business , but in truth there was no answer given to it . gentlemen , the objections that have been made against the evidence that have not been taken notice of , i desire to take notice of . i think against three of them there has been only mr. oates , and mr. oates i confess has said in verbo sacerdotis strange things against dugdale , smith and turbervile . i have only the affirmation of mr. oates , and as ill men may become good men , so may good men become ill men ; or otherwise i know not what would become of some part of mr. oates's testimony . and in the next place , if these men have not sworn true i am sure mr. oates must stand alone in the greatest point , in which all the evidence agree , that is the popish plot. but , gentlemen , i must take notice to you , that it is strange to me , that ever you upon your consciences should perjure three men who positively upon their oaths deny any such discourses as mr. oates speaks of against them , i do put that upon your consciences whether you upon the bare affirmation of mr. oates in this place will convict three men upon whose testimony the lives of so many as have suffered , have been taken away , and as we protestants do believe justly . i say , whether you will do it upon the bare affirmation of mr. oates against their oaths . in the next place , gentlemen , i must tell you , besides the positive evidence of these gentlemen , there is a circumstance of improbability in the very words which he speaks of , will any man tell me , that after such time as men have given their oaths , as smith had given his that he was concerned , and so had dugdale and turbervile too , that these men should come and voluntarily tell mr. oates they were all forsworn , are these men such great coxcombs as he would have us to believe ? is it so probable a thing , that any men of common knowledge would do it ? do you think a man of that knowledge and consideration , as smith is an allowed scholar , and a man of known learning , and mr. dugdale who has been reckoned by all men to be a good evidence ; do you take these men to be such absolute novices , that they must seek an occasion to tell him they were bribed off and were forsworn ? if you can think this , and if a bare affirmation against these positive oaths can prevail ; gentlemen upon your consciences be it . in the next place , 't is a strange sort of thing to believe that mr. smith should come out of a coffee-house , where a quarrel is pretended to have been between him and colledge , but mr. smith does upon his oath say he never had any such quarrel with him , and that he should fall a damning and sinking against colledge , and against the gospel , that there should be such impudence in the world in any man as to desire or wish such a thing ? gentlemen , these are strange sorts of apprehensions , and men must have very strange thoughts , that can strain themselves up to the belief of them . in the next place here it is said by the prisoner , good lord ! what a condition we shall be in ! here is a plot put upon the protestants , i hope in god there is no protestant plot , but i also hope the whole interest of the protestant religion is not involved in the prisoner at the bar , and all will be destroyed , if mr. colledge dies for his treasons . gentlemen , the question is not whether there be a presbyterian or protestant plot , we declare we know of none , but whether the prisoner at the bar have spoken such words , and done such things as are sworn against him . and i would fain know what all the discourses we have had about irish witnesses and papists signifie , when in all the course of our evidence , there has been but one irish , and never a papist . but here have been great discourses about macnamarra and denis , and what it hath been for , but to make a noise , and raise a dust , i can't tell , for in this cause there has not been one irish man besides haines , and never a papist throughout the whole evidence : so that it is easie , if men think it will take with the auditory , for a person to cry out , oh lord ! we are all like to be undone , here are irish witnesses brought against us ; and yet after all this stir , there is but one irish witness , and never a papist . and as for him , truely gentlemen i must take notice , that even colledge himself , till such time as he was taken , reckoned him an honest man. colledge . never in my life . mr serjeant jefferies . it was so said . but i do say gentlemen , suppose ( which i do not admit ) that the irish man he speaks of be out of the case ; not that the country is an objection against any mans testimony , god forbid it should be so affirmed ; for truth is not confined to places , nor to persons neither , but applyed to all honest men , be they irish men or others ; but i say , set mr. haynes out of the case : suppose there was no such man as haynes in this case ; yet i must tell you gentlemen , you have as great a proof as possibly can be . in the next place , i must take notice to you of some account that hath been given of him by himself : it is wonderful strange when there was that kindness of intimation given by the court , that he should do well to prove his loyalty , as well as his religion , that he did not produce some of his later acquaintance . if this man that makes himself a protestant , would have it believed he is such , i wish he would have brought some of those men that knew him at london to give you some account of him , and not to stretch backward 16 years to prove his birth and education ; that is not the best account sure a man can give of himself , to say after he hath been talking at this disloyal rate , that he is a good protestant , because he was thought so 18 years ago . again in the next place , here is an account of the libels given by the old woman that is his sister : truly she would have it , and that is another libel at the bar , as though the man in the red coat with r. c. upon it , had dropped this kind of libel in his house , and so he or some body else put a trick upon him ; and because she would inveigle you to such an interpretation , she says that they staid behind till the man in the red coat had fetched away the shavings , and so here is a new sham-plot to be put upon the prisoner , by dropping papers in his house ; a pretty kind of insinuation . but gentlemen , against the evidence of this woman , you have the very person that was there , the officer , who swears that he and his fellows came before the watermen into the house : but i suppose you observe how that notable talking maid and she does agree , for the maid tells you there came a strange fellow seven weeks before , delivered these things into her hands , her master was abroad , and she was not to enquire whence they came , or what they were , but paid him 6 d. for bringing those things . now 't is very strange that the maid should pay for the bringing of those things , and yet after that should imagine that some body else should put them there . but now gentlemen , in the next place , i must tell you another thing which i would beg you to take notice of : here are two gentlemen , mr. balron and mr. mowbray , and they have given you an account that they have been evidence against the papists , they did well in it , but it hath been their misfortune hitherto they have not been believed ; but whether they have been believed or not before , is no guidance to you at this time , but that which is to guide you is , whether or not they have given you now a testimony that you in your consciences can believe . now can you believe what they have said , nay can you believe it without any circumstance to confirm it , against those express objections that arise from themselves , and against the oath of the person , when the one tells you so exactly of the 25th . 26th . 27th . and 28th . of july , and the other tells you that smith took post , and yet overtook them not till the sunday after , which was the 3d. of august ; and when the almanack is produced , it was so far from making out what they spake of to be the same time , that whereas one said he came to london the 28th . the others almanack says it was the 27th . then pray how do these persons agree , when the one says that mr. smith talked with him upon the road the 28th . and the other says that they came to london the 27th . these are circumstances , gentlemen , that you must weigh , and you may bring the north and the south together as soon as their two testimonies , they are so far asunder . besides , gentlemen , i hope you take notice of a person that was sworn , a person of some quality , a scholar in the university here , that says balron ( though he denied it ) did shew him one of these pictures , and did discover they were mr. colledges ; and balron himself , his own witness , tells you that he did acknowledge one of those pictures was his . it appears then how busie he was , and concerned himself in what belonged not to his profession . so that upon the whole matter , after this long evidence that hath been given , i must wholly appeal to your lordship and the jury ; as to the law , to your lordship and the court ; and as to the fact , to the jury : for i do not desire any sort of evidence should be strained against a prisoner at the bar , who is there to be tryed for his life . god forbid if he be innocent , but he should be acquitted ; but on the other side , consider the murder of that great king of ever blessed memory is before you , and remember that base reflection which the witnesses tell you of upon that horrid action ; and as a great evidence , remember that seeming vindication of it at the bar , which certainly no english man , no protestant according to the church of england , can hear without having his bloud stirred in him . and these things are not only testified by dugdale and smith , but by gentlemen of known reputation and quality ; and he hath a little discover'd himself by that defence he hath made against their testimony . but know , gentlemen , that the king is concerned , your religion is concerned , that plot that is so much agreed to by all pretestants is concerned ; for if dugdale , smith and turbervile be not to be believed , you trip up the heels of all the evidence and discovery of that plot. then i will conclude to you , gentlemen , and appeal to your consciences , for according to the oath that has been given to you , you are bound in your consciences to go according to your evidence , and are neither to be inveigled by us beyond our proof , nor to be guided by your commiseration to the prisoner at the bar against the proof ; for as god will call you to an account if you do an injury to him , so will the same god call you to account if you do it to your king , to your religion , and to your own souls . l. ch. justice . gentlemen , i shall detain you but a little , and shall be as short as i can , for your patience has been much exercised already : it is a burden , and a necessary one that lies upon us all , for there is nothing more necessary than that such tryals as these should be intire and publick , intire for the dispatch of them , and publick for the satisfaction of the world , that it may appear no man receives his condemnation without evidence , and that no man is acquitted against evidence . gentlemen , there are these two considerations in all cases of this nature ; the one is , the force of the evidence ; the other is , the truth of the evidence . as to the force of the evidence , that is a point in law that belongs to the court , and wherein the court is to direct you ; as to the truth of the evidence , that is a question in fact arising from the witnesses , and must be left upon them , whereof you are the proper judges . as to the force of the evidence in this case , it must be consider'd what the charge is ; it is the compassing the death of the king , and conspiring to seize the person of the king , which is the same thing in effect ; for even by the common law , or upon the interpretation of the statute of the 25th . of edw. 3. that mentions compassing the death of the king to be treason , it hath always been resolved , that whosoever shall imagine to depose the king , or imprison the king , are guilty of imagining the death of the king ; for they are things that depend one upon another : and never was any king deposed or imprisoned , but with an intention to be put to death , they are in consequences the same thing . now gentlemen , in cases of treason the law is so tender of the life of the king , that the very imagination of the heart is treason , if there be any thought concerning any such thing ; but then it must be manifested by some overt-act , upon the statute of the 25th . of edw. 3. but upon the statute of the 13th . of this king , made for the preservation of the king's person , if it be manifested by malicious and advised speaking , 't is sufficient . this is as to the charge , and as to the law concerning that charge , i must tell you there must be two witnesses in the case . now then for the force of the evidence , the question will arise there , whether this evidence , admitting it to be true , is sufficient to maintain the indictment ; so that if there be two witnesses , you must find him guilty . now as to this , gentlemen , the prisoner has before-hand called upon the court , and had their resolution ; and i hope you will remember what hath been said , and i shall have occasion to trouble you the less . there have been six witnesses produced for the king ; there are two of them , sir william jennings and mr. masters , that are some way applicable to the case , though they do not go to the treason , they are only to inferr the probability of the treason . this of sir william jennings , was upon the occasion of the bleeding of the prisoners nose , after his quarrel with fitz-gerald , when he said , he had lost the first bloud , and it would not be long e're there would be more lost ; which shews there were some extraordinary thoughts in his heart , concerning some divisions , quarrels , and fighting that he expected should be . that which mr. masters has said , ( besides what he offered concerning his principles in justifying the long parliament ) was this , that when he called him colonel , marry mock not , said he , i may be a colonel in time ; that shews some extraordinary thoughts were in his heart . colledge . will not that bear a more favourable interpretation , my lord ? must that necessarily follow upon my saying , i might be a colonel in time , and that more bloud would be lost ? if i had expressed it so . l. ch. justice . i say you had some extraordinary thoughts in your heart . colledge . i am sure the fittest to explain my own thoughts . l. ch. justice . you would have done well to have explained it which way you expected to be a colonel . colledge . it was not an expectation , for a may be , may not be ; my word was , mocking is catching : i thought he had called me cozen. l. ch. justice . well gentlemen , these are witnesses i say that go not to the treason , but only relate and reflect somewhat to shew there were thoughts in his heart , but no body could tell what they were , or know what he meant by them . colledge . then always they are to be taken in the best sence . l. ch. justice . for the other witnesses , stephen dugdale , john smith , bryan haynes , and edward turbervile , they are all of them , taking what they say to be true , very full witnesses . the prisoner hath objected as to two of them , because they speak to nothing that was done in oxfordshire , but turbervile and dugdale they speak to what was said in oxfordshire . now for that i must tell you , if you believe any one of these witnesses , as to what was said in oxford , and any of them as to what was said in london , relating to the same fact of treason , they will be two good witnesses to maintain the indictment , though the one is in the one county , and the other in another ; for if a treason be committed in two counties , it is in the kings election where he will exhibit the indictment , and the evidence from both counties is good evidence ; that i take for law , and these four witnesses , with that consideration that they are true , as i think are full witnesses to maintain this indictment . why then the next head is concerning the truth of this evidence , of which you are to be judges , and you are the proper judges whether the witnesses speak true or no ; therefore you must have your own consciences to direct you in that case , and what i shall say about them , shall be only for your assistance . gentlemen , i shall not take upon me to repeat the evidence to you , it has been long ; and for me to speak out of memory , i had rather you should recur to your own memories , and your own notes : only i shall say something in general to contract your consideration of it . and as i told you at first , you must mind nothing of what the kings counsel said , for nothing must have impression upon you , but what they proved ; so you are not to consider any thing of the facts the prisoner spake of , that are not proved neither ; for common justice is concerned in it , and no justice can be done at that rate , if the prisoners own affirmations or purgation should be taken . no man ever can be accused but he will be ready to say he is innocent , and say as flour is hung and popular things as ever he can for himself . and therefore these things must not weigh with you further , then as what is said , argues upon the proofs you have had . and you are to consider upon the proofs what the prisoner has produced , not what he says on the other side , for the proofs you have heard a great many witnesses in general produced by him , that say he was bred a protestant , and has been an honest man , that they knew no ill by him , that will be of little weight in a case of this consideration , for unless he were a man that had committed treason to the knowledge of all the world , there is no man but can produce witnesses that know no ill of him , nor any treason nor harm in him , therefore the question will lye upon the credit of the witnesses produced for the king barely , and that will be the consideration you are only to have , and you are to weigh them in the ballance against the witnesses produced against them . now gentlemen , for these witnesses i shall not repeat them to you , but only this i shall observe in general , that dugdale and turbervile that are the two most material witnesses relating to what was spoken in oxford-shire , have the least said against them . i do not remember i profess to you i do not ( but your own notes must guide you ) that there was any very material thing said against them , except what is said against them by dr. oates , and dr. oates does say against smith that he came out of the coffee-house , and swore damm him he would have colledges blood , and when he reproved him , and said it was not fit for a minister of the gospel to use such expressions , he said god damn the gospel , if that be true 't is a great reflection upon the credit of smith . he says as to dugdale , that when he was expostulating with him about his evidence he excused himself , that he was in want of money , and was pressed to it , and being asked did say he was pressed to swear against his conscience , he said yes , and much of the same kind he says as to turbervile , that he said he was disserted and would not starve . now all these three witnesses being called upon their oaths deny , that which dr. oates testifies . now if it were in an indifferent and probable matter to have three men condemned , and set aside by the testimony of one is not equal , unless the man were of mighty extraordinary credit , and his testimony of more than ordinary weight . but then i must tell you this matter is very probable , that after witnesses had sworn a thing they should voluntarily acknowledg themselves to be forsworn , and that without any provocation , they should at several times come to this one man and declare themselves rogues and villaines , but if it were probable , here are three mens oaths against one mans affirmation , this i say as to what concerns dugdale and turbervile , i do not see any thing material against them , besides now if you believe them , they are two witnesses to the full matter of the indictment , and two witnesses to what was done in oxford-shire , and that satisfies all the considerations of law. as to the rest of the witnesses bryan haynes and john smith , you have had many witnesses produced against them , i shall not undertake to repeat the evidence , 't is your place and duty to weigh their testimony , and i shall leave it to your consideration . mr. just . jones . i shall add nothing to what my lord hath said , nor indeed can . colledge . my lord , i wish you would look upon your notes , you would then find there was much more evidence , that you have not repeated against turbervile and dugdale , besides what you lordship urged . l. ch. just . if there be , i refer it to the memory of the jury , i can remember no more . colledge . i desire nothing but justice , and true justice . l. ch. justice . i am sure i design nothing else , you are a stranger to me , i believe i have seen your face , but i never knew you by name till now . look you if the jury be like to stay , they may take something to refresh themselves at the bar before they go . colledge . my lord i did see when the bill was brought against my lord howard , mr. attorny general and mr. solicitor were an hour and half with the grand jury . mr. serj. jefferies . you must say nothing now my lord has given the charge . colledge . let me have justice done my lord , that 's all i crave , that no body may be with the jury . l. ch. justice . look you mr. colledge , they might be with the grand jury , but as to the petty jury there shall be a bayliff sworn , and neither mr. attorny , nor mr. solicitor , nor no body else shall come to them till they be agreed of their verdict . mr. just . jones . if that be the thing you ask , you shall have it according to the law. colledge . and any friend of mine may be by . l. ch. justice . there shall be an officer sworn to keep them . then the court called for two bottles of sack , which the jury divided among themselves at the bar , for their refreshment in the presence of the prisoner . after which a bailiff was sworn , and the jury withdrawing to consider of their verdict , the court adjourned for half an hour , and when they returned , proclamation being made for attendance , the court sent to see whether the jury were agreed , who immediately came in to court. cl. of cr. gentlemen , are you agreed of your verdict ? om. yes , cl. of cr. who shall say for you ? om. foreman . cl. of cr. stephen colledge , hold up thy hand , look upon him you of the jury : how say you , is he guilty of the high treason , whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? foreman . guilty . cl. of cr. look to him goaler , he is found guilty of high treason ; what goods , &c. at which there was a great shout given ; at which the court being offended , one person who was observed by the cryer to be particularly concerned in the shout , was committed to goal for that night , but the next morning having received a publick reproof , was discharged without fees. then it being about 3 a clock in the morning , the court adjourned to 10. at which hour the court being sate , and first mr. aaron smith having entred into a recognizance of 500 l. to appear the first day of the next term , at the court of kings-bench . l. ch. justice . where is the prisoner stephen colledge ? cl. of cr. set up stephen colledge . then the prisoner was brought to the bar. cl. of cr. hearken to the court and hold up thy hand ; thou hast been indicted and arraigned of high treason , and for thy tryal hast put thy self upon thy country , and they have found thee guilty , what canst thou say for thy self , why the court should not give judgment on thee to dye according to the law. colledge . my lord , i have nothing more to offer , but only that i am innocent of what is laid to my charge ; i think it was severe against me , now contrary to what was sworn at london : they swear now , i was to seize the king at oxon. in london they swore i would pluck the king out of whitehall , but 't is altered since , and now 't is to seize the king at oxon , but be it either one or to'ther ( for the one is as true as the other ) i am wholly innocent of either , i never had such a thought in my life , god forgive them that have sworn against me , i have no more to say , my lord. l. ch. justice . look you mr. colledge , it is too late to profess your innocence , you have been tryed and found guilty ; but because you say it now , 't is necessary for me to say something in vindication of the verdict , which i think the court were all very well satisfied with : there were sufficient proofs to warrant it , and the jury did according to justice and right . i thought it was a case , that as you made your own defence , small proof would serve the turn to make any one believe you guilty . for as you would defend your self by pretending to be a protestant . it is wonder , i must confess , when you called so many witnesses to your religion and reputation , that none of them gave an account that they saw you receive the sacrament within these many years , or any of them particularly had seen you at church in many years , or what kind of protestant you were . if we look to your words and actions , it is true , they did prove this , that you were mighty violent and zealous in crying out against popery and the papists ; but if we look to your actions , they favoured rather to promote the papists ends . for i must tell you , the papists are best extirpated , and suppressed by a steady prosecution of the laws against them , not by violent cryings out , and putting the people into fervent heats and confusions , for that is the thing the papists aim at ; they have no hopes any other way to creep into the kingdome but by confusion , and after the church is destroyed , that is under god the best bulwark against them . but you that cryed so loud against the papists , it was proved here , who you called papists . you had the boldness to say that the king was a papist , the bishops were papists , and the the church of england were papists . if these be the papists you cry out against , what a kind of protestant you are , i know not , i am sure you can be no good one , but truly i thought you would have made better proof of that thing , when you called so many witnesses to that purpose , and then if we look to your politicks , what opinion you had of the king , it was proved by your discourse , and by witnesses , that you could have no exception to their testimony , that you did justify the late horrid rebellion , and the consequents of that was the murder of the best king in the world , that you should go to justify the proceedings of that parliament , and affirm that they did nothing but what they had just cause to do . i say he that will justify such a thing , if there were the same circumstances , would do the same thing again . then if we look upon another part of your defence , as to your arms , it was objected you went armed to oxon , and that was made the evidence of the overt act when you said by words your intentions what you would do , that you would make one to seize the king , that you did go armed , you did confess i expected you should have said , you only wore those things for your own defence upon the road as a gentleman travelling , or went with your friends to accompany them out of town , and defend them from robbery , but you said , you went to guard the parliament . i did not understand what you meant by it . i do not believe the parliament sent for any guard , or intended to have any guard. i do not believe that any of them in their hearts thought they needed a guard ; for i believe there was not a man that had any thing that looked like that , or any thing of that nature . for we saw , that when the king by the necessity of his affairs , when the two houses differed so much , was pleased to dismiss them ; they all departed quietly , not a man was seen to be disturbed ; there was no appearance of any such thing , and how it should come into your head , that were but a private man to go to guard the parliament , i much wonder . suppose all men of your condition should have gon to have guarded the parliament , what an assembly had there been ? what a bustle might they have made , and what confusion might have been on a sudden ? and though you say you are no man of quality , nor likely to be able to do any thing upon the kings guards or the kings person , yet if all of your quality had gon upon the same design that you did , what ill consequences might have been of it , we see what has been done by massianello a mean man in another country , what by wat tyler and jack straw in this kingdom , i confess i know not what you meant by it , but very ill things might have happened upon it . so that these things when i look upon them , and consider the complexion of your defence , it makes an easie proof have credit . but i think there was a full proof in your case , yet i say if there had been a great deal less proof , the jury might with justice have found you guilty . and because you now declare your self innocent of all you are charged with , i think my self bound to declare here in vindication of the country , and in vindication of the justice of the court , that it was a verdict well given , and to the satisfaction of the court , and i did not find my brothers did dislike it . this i say to you out of charity , that you may incline your mind to a submission to the justice that has overtaken you , and that you may enter into charity with all men , and prepare your self for another life . there is nothing now remaining , but to pronounce the sentence which the law provides for such an offence , which is this , and the court does award , that you stephen colledge shall be carried from hence to the place from whence you came , and from thence you shall be drawn on an hurdle to the place of execution , where you shall be hanged up by the neck , and be cut down alive , your privy members shall be cut off , and your bowels taken out and burnt before your face , your head shall be cut off from your body , your body be divided into four quarters , which are to be at the kings dispose , and the lord have mercy upon your soul. colledge . amen . my lord , i would know what time your lordship is pleased to appoint for my preparation . l. ch. justice . that will depend upon the kings pleasure , we do not use in these cases of high treason to precipitate the execution , but we will leave such order with the sheriff to receive the kings pleasure and obey it . he will not do it so sudden but that you shall have notice to prepare your self , but it depends upon the kings pleasure , for your body is to be at his dispose . then the court adjourned . and on wednesday 31. of aug. 1681. being the day appointed by his majesty for his execution , he was according to sentence , executed over against the gate of the castle at oxford . finis . roman-catholick principles in reference to god and the king explained in a letter to a friend and now made publick to shew the connexion between the said principles and the late popish plot. corker, james maurus, 1636-1715. 1680 approx. 46 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 12 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2008-09 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a34571 wing c6303 estc r29274 11062367 ocm 11062367 46200 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. early english books online. (eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a34571) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 46200) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 1421:1) roman-catholick principles in reference to god and the king explained in a letter to a friend and now made publick to shew the connexion between the said principles and the late popish plot. corker, james maurus, 1636-1715. m. b. the third edition, revised. 20, [1] p. s.n.], [london : 1680. signed: m.b. reproduction of original in the british library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed 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guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng catholic church -controversial literature. popish plot, 1678. anti-catholicism -england. 2006-08 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-09 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2007-02 emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread 2007-02 emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion roman-catholick principles , in reference to god and the king , explained in a letter to a friend , and now made publick to shew the connexion between the said principles , and the late popish plot . the third edition , revised . matth. 22. v. 21. render to caesar the things which are caesar's , and and unto god the things that are god's . john 11. v. 48. if we let him thus alone , all men will believe on him , and the romans shall come and take away both our place & nation . printed in the year , 1680. sir , i find your last as full of doubts and inquietudes , as your former was of heat and zeal : whether meer compassion hath altered your judgement , or that you fear your own turn may be next , i cannot tell ; but i easily percieve , you , and the greatest part of honest thinking protestants , as well as you , begin , ( tho late , ) ) to suspect , that catholicks have wrongfully suffered the loss of their fame , their goods , their fortunes , and many their lives . nor do i wonder to see you touch'd with some concern at our miseries ; for besides the sad spectacles of bloodshed , ( which i mention without any resentment , or disrespect to the government , ) the prisons have been filled with us , whole families ruined and exiled ; poor widows and innocent orphans have perished through distress , the very woods and desarts have not wanted men dying with cold and hunger ; and all this upon account of a plot , ( horrid indeed , and detestable in it self , ) but which could never yet be prov'd against us , by any one credible witness , or probable circumstance evincing the crime . true it is , dr. oates , captain bedloe , and others of debauch'd lives , and desperate fortunes , have positively sworn , ( if bare positive swearing , without any other probability of truth , may stand for good evidence , ) to a multiplicity of particulars . but these men have been , and still are , so notoriously stigmatiz'd with all sorts of vice and infamy ; their oaths have been confronted with so many self-contradictions ; their forgeries accompanyed with such incredible , such impossible circumstances ; their lies and fables so stuffed with absurdities , non-sense , and follies ; the crime of perjury so often , and so plainly prov'd against them . in short , both their past and present villanies are now become so apparent and perspicuous , that the greatest part of the nation hath an abhorrence of them. but you tell me , ( and you are in the right , ) that the thing which hath rendred credible the testimony of otherwise incredible witnesses , against us , and which hath invalidated all contrary evidence given in our behalf , is a persuasion many protestants have , that the catholick religion is made up of traiterous principles , destructive to peace and government . you say you have been inform'd by common report , by printed books ; nay , by some ministers in their very pulpits , that catholicks hold it an article of faith to believe , that the pope can depose kings , absolve their subjects from their allegiance , and dispose of kingdoms to whom he pleases : that to murder protestants , and destroy the nation by fire and sword , for propagation of the catholick faith , are works of piety , and meritorious of heaven . these , and the like horrid aspersions ; together with i know not what feigned idolatries , superstitions , and abuses , are ( as you have rightly intimated , ) laid to the charge of roman catholicks , whereby to render both their faith and persons odious to many , ( otherwise well-meaning ) people , who not sufficiently examining the truth of things , but taking all for granted , judge nothing ill enough can be said or done against men so principled . and is it not strange and severe , that principles , and those pretended of faith too , should be imposed upon men , which they themselves renounce and detest ? if the turk's alcoran should in like manner be urg'd upon us , and we hang'd up for mahumetans , all we could do or say in such a case , would be patiently to die , with protestation of our own innocence . and this is the posture of our present condition ; we abhor , we renounce , we abominate such principles ; we protest against them , and seal our protestations with our dying breaths . what shall we say ? what can we do more ? to accuse men as guilty in matters of faith , which they never own'd , is the same thing as to condemn them for matters of fact , which they never did . you press the question , and say , some of our general councils , several papal decrees , and many of our doctors and divines , assert the fore-mentioned principles . sir , i have been instructed in the articles of my faith , and i acknowledge the lawful authority of general councils ; yet i profess i never learnt , or found asserted in any of them any such principles . and i propose unto you , this plain and short dilemma ; either the above-named principles are esteem'd by us ●● matters of faith or not : if they be , what further can be required of us , than to deny , and forsake such a faith ? and this we constantly do . but if they be not matters of catholick faith , nor owned by us as such , why are catholicks , as catholicks , punished for them ? why is our religion persecuted on that account ? let those in gods name , if any there be , of what religion soever , who hold such tenents , suffer for them : why should the innocent be involv'd with the guilty ? there is neither reason nor justice in it . hereunto some persons , ( i hope out of zeal and misinformation , rather than malice , ) stick not to say ; that dispensations , and i know not what indulgences and pardons , wereby to legitimate the crimes of lying and forswearing , when the interest of our church requires ; is a main part of our religion : and by consequence , the denyal of our principles , is no sufficient justification of our innocence . i answer ; first , it is in the highest measure censorious in any one , to impose upon all our ancesters , and the greatest part of mankind , who are , or have been members of our religion , such an excess of folly and wickedness , as must needs have perverted all humane society . secondly , if we could lawfully deny the principles of our faith when interest requires ; why have we lost our estates , our liberties , our lives for the profession of it ? to what purpose are oaths and tests devised to intangle us ? how impertinently is the frequenting the protestant church , and receiving the communion , proposed unto us , and refused by vs ? thirdly , though many men may be induced to lie , and forswear , when they have some hopes or prospect thereby of temporal advantage ; yet that persons dying for their conscience and religion , ( as divers have done , and those no fools , even by the confession of our adversaries , ) should be so stupendiously sottish and mad , either to imagine , that lies and perjuries , for concealment of treason , murder , massacre and destruction of others by fire and sword , should be acts of virtue , pleasing to god , dispensable by the pope , and meritorious of heaven : or that , on the contrary , knowing , and believing , ( as needs they must , ) such monsters and horrours to be odious and detestable in the sight both of god and man , they should nevertheless , upon the very brink of eternity , wittingly and willingly cast themselves head-long into an assured damnation ; and this at a time when they might have saved both bodies and souls , by meerly discharging a good conscience , in acknowledging the truth , and becoming honest men. this , i say is inhumane , and contradictory to all sense and reason to believe . now therefore i am come to what you so often , and so earnestly press me to , ( viz ) to satisfy the world , and clear my self , my fellow-sufferers , and my religion , from the imputation laid upon us , on pretence of such principles , by a true and candid explanation of my belief and judgement , in the main points of faith and loyalty , controverted between catholicks and protestants , as they severally relate to god , and the king. paragraph i. of the catholick faith , and church in general . 1. the fruition of god , and remission of sin is not attainable by man , otherwise then a in and by the merits of jesus christ , who gratis purchased it for us. 2. these merits of christ are not applyed to us , otherwise than by a right b faith in christ . 3. this faith is but c one , entire and conformable to its object , being divine revelations ; to all which d faith gives an undoubted assent . 4. these revelations contain many mystcries e transcending the natural reach of humane wit or industry ; wherefore , 5. it became the divine wisdom and goodness , to provide man of some f way or means whereby he might arrive to the knowledge of these mysteries ; means g visible and apparent to all ; means h proportionable to the capacities of all ; means i sure and certain to all . 6. this way or means is not the reading of scripture , interpreted according to the private k reason or l spirit of every disjunctive person , or nation in particular ; but , 7. it is an attention and m submission to the doctrine of the catholick or vniversal church , established by christ for the instruction of all , n spread for that end throughout all nations , and visibly continued in the succession of pastors , and people throughout all ages : from which church o guided in truth , and secured from error in matters of faith , by the p promised assistance of the holy ghost , every one may , and ought to q learn both the right sense of the scripture , and all other christian mysteries and duties , respectively necessary to salvation . 8. this church , thus spread , thus guided , thus visibly continued , r in one vniform faith , and subordination of government , is that self-same which is termed the roman catholick church , the qualifications above-mentioned , ( viz. ) vnity , indeficiency , visibility , succession , and vniversality , ) being applicable to no other church , or assembly , whatsoever . 9. from the testimony and authority of this church , it is , that we receive , and believe the scriptures to be gods word : and as she can s assuredly tell us , this or that book is gods word , so can she with the like assurance , tell us also the true sense and meaning of it in controverted points of faith ; the same spirit that writ the scripture , t enlightning her to understand , both it , and all matters necessary to salvation . from these grounds it follows , 10. all , and only divine revelations deliver'd by god unto the church , and proposed by her to be believ'd as such , are , and ought to be esteem'd articles of faith ; and the contrary opinions , heresie . and , 11. as an obstinate separation from the vnity of the church , in known declared matters of faith , is formal u heresie ; so a wilful separation from the visible vnity of the same church , in matters of subordination and government , is formal x schism . 12. the church proposeth unto us matters of faith : first , and chiefly , by the y holy scripture , in points plain and intelligible in it . secondly , by z definitions of general councils , in points not sufficiently explained in scripture . thirdly , by a apostolical traditions , deriv'd from christ and his apostles , to all succeding ages . fourthly , by her b practice , worship and ceremonies , confirming her doctrine . paragraph ii. of spiritual and temporal authority . 1. general councils ( which are the church of god , representative ) have no commission from christ to frame new matters of faith , ( these being sole divine revelations , ) but only to a explain and assertain unto us , what anciently was , and is received and retained , as of faith in the church , upon arising debates and controversies about them . the definitions of which , general councils in matters of faith only , and proposed as such , oblige , under pain of heresie , all the faithful , to a submission of judgement . but , 2. it is no article of faith to believe , that general councils cannot err , either in matters of fact or discipline , alterable by circumstances of time and place , or in matters of speculation or civil policy , depending on meer humane judgement or testimony . neither of these being divine revelations b deposited in the catholick church , in regard to which alone , she hath the c promised assistance of the holy ghost . hence it is deduced , 3 if a general council ( much less a papal consistory ) should underta●● 〈◊〉 depose a king , and absolve his subjects from their allegiance , no catholick as catholick is bound to submit to such a decree . hence also it followeth : 4. the subjects of the king of england lawfully may , without the least breach of any catholick principle , renounce , even upon oath , the teaching , mantaining , or practising the doctrine of deposing kings excommunicated for heresie , by any authority whatsoever , as repugnant to the fundamental laws of the nation , injurious to sovereign power , destructive to the peace and government ; and by consequence , in his majesties subjects , impious and damnable . yet not properly heretical , taking the word heretical in that connatural , genuine sense , it is usually understood in the catholick church ; on account of which , and other expressions , ( no wise appertaining to loyalty , ) it is , that cathoclicks of tender consciences refuse the oath commonly call'd the oath of allegiance . 5. catholicks believe , that the bishop of rome is the successor of s. peter , d vicar of jesus christ upon earth , and head of the whole catholick church ; which church is therefore fitly stiled roman catholick , being an universal body e united under one visible head. nevertheless . 6. it is no matter of faith to believe , that the pope is in himself infallible , separated from a general council , even in expounding the faith : by consequence papal definitions or decrees , though ex cathedra , as they term them , ( take exclusively from a general council , or vniversal acceptance of the church , ) oblige none under pain of heresy , to an interior assent . 7. nor do catholicks as catholicks believe that the pope hath any direct , or indirect authority over the temporal power and jurisdiction of princes . hence , if the pope should pretend to absolve or dispence with his majesties subjects from their allegiance , upon account of heresie or schism , such dispensation would be vain and null ; and all catholick subjects ( notwithstanding such dispensation or absolution , ) would be still bound in conscience to defend their king and countrey , at the hazard of their lives and fortunes , even against the pope himself , in case he should invade the nation . 8. and as for problematical disputes , or errors of particular divines , in this or any other matter whatsoever , the catholick church is no wise responsible for them : nor , are catholicks as catholicks , justly punishable on their account . but , 9. as for the king-killing doctrine , or murder of princes , excommunicated for heresie ; it is an article of faith in the catholick church , and expresly declared in the general council of constance , that such doctrine is damnable and heretical , being contrary to the known laws of god and nature . 10. personal misdemeanors of what nature soever , ought not to be imputed to the catholick church , when not justifyable by the tenents of her faith and doctrine ; for which reason though the stories of the paris massacre ; the irish cruelties ; or powder-plot , had been exactly true , ( which yet for the most part are notoriously mis-related ) nevertheless catholicks as catholicks ought not to suffer for such offences , any more then the eleven apostles ought to have suffered for judas's treachery . 11. it is an article of the catholick faith to believe , that no power on earth can license men to lye , to forswear , and perjure themselves , to massacre their neighbours , or destroy their native country , on pretence of promoting the catholick cause , or religion ; furthermore , all pardons and dispensations granted , or pretended to be granted , in order to any such ends or designs , have no other validity or effect , than to add sacriledge and blasphemy to the above-mentioned crimes . 12. the doctrine of equivocation or men●al reservation , however wrongfully imposed on the catholick religion , is notwithstanding , neither taught , nor approved by the church , as any part of her belief . on the contrary , simplicity and godly sincerity are constantly recommended by her as truly christian vertues , necessary to the conservation of justice , truth , and common society . paragraph iii. of some particular controverted points of faith . 1. every catholick is obliged to believe , that when a sinner a repenteth him of his sins from the bottom of his heart , and b acknowledgeth his transgressions to god and his c ministers , the dispensers of the mysteries of christ , resolving to turn from his evil ways , d and bring forth fruits worthy of penance , there is ( then and no otherwise ) an authority left by christ to absolve such a penitent sinner from his sins ; which authority christ gave his e apostles , and their successors , the bishops and priests of the catholick church , in those words , when he said , receive ye the holy ghost , whose sins you shall forgive , they are forgiven unto them , &c. 2. though no creature whatsoever can make f condign satisfaction , either for the guilt of sin , or the pain eternal due to it ; g this satisfaction being proper to christ our saviour only ; yet penitent sinners redeemed by christ , may , as members of christ , in some measure h satisfie by prayer , fasting , alms , deeds , and other works of piety , for the temporal pain , which by order of divine justice sometimes remains due , after the guilt of sin , and pains eternal are ( gratis ) remitted . these penitential works are notwithstanding satisfactory no otherwise than as joyned and applyed to that satisfaction , which jesus made vpon the cross , in vertue of which alone , all our good works find a grateful i acceptance in god's sight . 3. the guilt of sin , or pain eternal due to it , is never remitted by indulgences ; but only such k temporal punishments as remain due after the guilt is remitted ; these indulgences being nothing else than a l mitigation or relaxation upon just causes , of canonical penances , enjoyned by the pastors of the church on penitent sinners , according to their several degrees of demerit . and if any abuses or mistakes be sometimes committed , in point either of granting or gaining indulgencies , through the remisness or ignorance of particular persons , contrary to the ancient custom and discipline of the church ; such abuses or mistakes cannot rationally be charged on the church , nor rendred matter of derision , in prejudice to her faith and doctrine . 4. catholicks hold there is a purgatory , that is to say , a place of state , where souls departing this life , with remission of their sins , as to the eternal guilt or pain , yet m obnoxious to some temporal punishment still remaining due , or not perfectly freed from the blemish of some n venial defects or deordinations , ( as idle words , &c. not liable to damnation ) are o purged before their admittance into heaven , where nothing that is p defiled can enter . furthermore . 5. catholicks also hold , that such souls so detained in purgatory , being the living members of christ jesus , are relieved by the q prayers and suffrages of their fellow-members here on earth : but where this place is ? of what nature or quality the pains are ? how long each soul is detained there ? after what manner the suffrages made in their behalf are applyed ? whether by way of satisfaction or intercession ? &c. are questions superfluous , and impertinent as to faith. 6. no man , though just , r can merit either an increase of sanctity or happiness in this life , or eternal glory in the next , independent on the merits and passion of christ ; nevertheless in and by the merits of christ jesus , s the good work of a just man , proceeding from grace and charity , are acceptable to god , so far forth as to be , through his goodness and sacred promise , truly meritorious of eternal life . 7. it is an article of the catholick faith , that in the most holy sacrament of the eucharist , there is truly and really contained the t body of christ , which was delivered for us , and his bloud , which was shed for the remission of sins ; the substance of bread and wine , being by the powerful words of christ changed into the substance of his blessed body and bloud , the species or accidents of bread and wine still remaining . thus , 8. christ is not present in this sacrament , according to his natural way of existence , that is , with extension of parts , in order to place , &c. but after a supernatural manner , one and the same in many places , and whole in every part of the symbols . this therefore is a real , substantial , yet sacramental presence of christ's body and blood , not exposed to the external senses , nor obnoxious to corporeal contingences . 9. neither is the body of christ in this holy sacrament , separated from his bloud , or his bloud from his body , or either of both disjoyned from his soul and divinity , but all and whole u living jesus is entirely contained under either species ; so that whosoever receiveth under one kind , is truly partaker of the whole sacrament , and no wise deprived either of the body or bloud of christ . true it is , 10. our saviour jesus christ left unto us his body and bloud , under two distinct species or kinds ; in doing of which , he instituted not only a sacrament , but also a sacrifice ; x a commemorative sacrifice distinctly y shewing his death or bloudy passion , until he come . for as the sacrifice of the cross was performed by a distinct effusion of bloud , so is the same sacrifice commemorated in that of the z altar , by a distinction of the symbols . jesus therefore is here given not only to us , but a for us ; and the church thereby enriched with a true , proper , and propitiatory b sacrifice , usually termed mass . 11. catholicks renounce all divine worship , and adoration of images or picturs . c god alone we worship and adore ; nevertheless we make use of pictures , and place them in d churches and oratories , to reduce our wandering thoughts , and enliven our memories towards heavenly things . and farther , we allow a certain honour and veneration to the picture of christ , of the virgin mary , &c. beyond what is due to every prophane figure ; not that we believe any divinity or vertue in the pictures themselves , for which they ought to be honoured , but because the honour given to pictures is referred to the prototype , or things represented . in like manner , 12. there is a kind of honour and veneration respectively due to the bible , to the cross , to the name of jesus , to churches , to the sacraments , &c. as e things peculiarly appertaining to god ; also to the f glorified saints in heaven , as domestick friends of god ; yea , g to kings , magistrates , and superiors on earth , as the vicegerents of god , to whom honour is due , honour may be given , without any derogation to the majesty of god , or that divine worship appropriate to him . furthermore , 13. catholicks believe , that the blessed saints in heaven replenished with charity , h pray for us their fellow-members here on earth ; that they i reioyce at our conversion ; that seeing god , they k see and konw in him all things suitable to their happy state ; that god is inclinable to hear their requests made in our behalf , l and for their sakes grants us many favours ; that therefore it is good and profitable to desire their intercession ; and that this manner of invocation is no more injurious to christ our mediator , nor superabundant in it self , than it is for one christian to beg the prayers and assistance of m another in this world. notwithstanding all which , catholicks are taught not so to relie on the prayers of others , as to neglect their own n duty to god ; in imploring his divine mercy and goodness , o in mortifying the deeds of the flesh ; in p despising the world ; in loving and q serving god and their neighbour ; in following the footsteps of christ our lord , who is the r way , the truth , and the life : to whom be honour and glory for ever and ever , amen . the conclusion . these are the principles , these are the treasons , these are the idolatries , and superstitions , which , though no other than what we have receiv'd of our fore-fathers , and what the greatest part of the christian world now profess , yet have drawn upon us poor catholicks in england such dreadful punishments . i beseech you sir , consider our case , without passion or prejudice , and i am confident you will see , we are not such monsters as our adversaries represent us to be , nor entertain such principles as are inconsistent with our duty to god , and the king . you seem to say , this very plot with which we are charged , proves us guilty of wicked principles . but , under favour , you here commit a vicious circle in way of arguing : for first , here are wicked principles alledg'd to make good the proof of a plot ; and these being deny'd , the plot is introduced to make out the wicked principles ; as if a man should say a thing , because he thought so , and give no reason why he thought so , but only because he said so ; which instead of proof , is to beg the question . certain i am , catholicks both taught , and practised principles of loyalty , at a time when the king and kingdom felt the dire effects of contrary perswasions . you add , the two houses of parliament , the judges , and in a manner , the whole nation , seem'd to believe , and cry up the evidence given of a plot . i answer , the most upright persons , and those even of supreme authority , may sometimes be misinform'd , and consequently abus'd , by the perjury and malice of wicked men ; especially when minds are exasperated , jealousies heightned , and forgeries abetted and multiplyed by the clandestine endeavours of a malignant party , who love to fish in troubled waters ; and who by raising feuds , and fomenting disorders , make their way to sinister ends . you your self are sensible , there are a sort of people , who under a colourable zeal against popery , ( as they term it , ) strike at monarchy , and undermine the government . i shall not need to dilate on this subject ; our nation hath once had a sad experience of this zeal , and i heartily wish the same tragedy may not be acted over again . in fine , whatsoever is pretended against us , it is manifest we suffer for our religion , wrongfully traduced . it is a farther comfort to us , that our sufferings ( god be praised ) are in some measure , not unlike to those of christ our lord ; for it was laid to his charge as it is to ours , that he was a traytor to a caesar ; that he perverted the people , and endeavour'd the b destruction of church and state ; nor were there wanting , then as now , an oats and bedloe , c two false witnesses to swear all this . thus god , i hope , hath predestinated us , ( as the apostle saith ) to be conform to the image of his son ; to the end , that suffering with him , we may ( through his mercy ) be glorified together with him . sweet jesus bless our soveraign , pardon our enemies , grant us patience , and establish peace and charity in our nation . this is the daily prayer of , sir , your faithful though distressed friend , m. b. errors escaped in the marginal texts , page 6. against numb . 5. for isa . 38. 8. r. isa . 35. 8. pag. 6. against numb . 6. for mat. 29. 29. r. mat. 22. 29. pag. 12. against numb . 1. for luk. 3. 18. r. luk. 3. 8. pag. 13. against numb . 2. for acts 10. 44. r. acts 10. 4. psalm 35. verse 11. false witnesses did rise up ; they laid to my charge things that i knew not . matthew 5. verse 11. blessed are ye when men shall revile you , and persecute you , and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly , for my sake ; rejoyce and be glad , for great ir your reward in heaven . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a34571-e140 miseries inflicted on catholicks . through the perjuries , of wicked men. evil principles wrongfully imputed . and always disown'd by catholicks . an objection , answered . the intent of this epistle . redemption in christ , a eph. 2. 8. 1 ▪ cor. 15. 22. applicable by faith. b mark 16 16. heb. 11. 6. which is but one , c eph. 4. 4. &c , d jam. 2. 10 supernatural , e 1 cor. 1. 20. mat. 16. 17 by the divine providence to be learnt , f isa . 38 ▪ 8. g joh. 9. 41 h mat. 11 25. i john 15. 22. not from private interpretation of scripture . k 2 pet. 3. 16. pro. 14. 12. mat. 29. 29 l 1 joh. 4. 1. & 6. m matth. 18. 17. luk ▪ 10. 16 n psal . 2. 8. isa . 2. 2. &c. cap. 49. 6 ▪ matt. 5. 14 o isai . 59. 21. joh. 16. 13. eze. 17. 26 eph. 5. 25 ▪ &c. 1 tim. 3. 15 mat ▪ 16. 18 p mat. 28 20. joh. 14. 16. and guided by the holy ghost for that end . q deu. 17. 8. &c. mat. 23. 2. this church is the same with the roman catholick , r can. 6. 8. joh. 10. 16. rom. 15. 5. joh. 17. 22. philip. 2. 2. from the testimony of which , we receive the scripture to be gods word . s mat. 16. 18 1 tim. 3. 15 mat. 18. 17 ▪ t isai . 59. 21. joh. 14. 26. divine revelations only matters of faith. divine revelations only matters of faith. what heresie , & what sckism ! u 1 cor. 11. 19. mat. 18. 17 x tit. 3. 10 1 cor. 1. 10 cap. 12. 25 how matters of faith are proposed by the church . y joh. 5. 39 z acts. 15. per tot . a 2 thes . 2. 15. cap. 3. 6. 2 tim. 2. 2. b jam. 2. 18. what is the authority of general councils . gal. 1. 7 , 8. a deu. 17. 8. mat 18. 17. act. 15. per tot . lu. 10. 16. heb. 13. 7. 17. an explanation of the same authority . b 1 tim. 6. 20. c jo 14. 16. a deduction from thence concerning allegiance a second deduction concerning the same , declar. fac . sorb . of the oath of allegiance . the bishop of rome supreme head of the church but not infallible . d mat. 16. 17. lu. 22. 31. jo. 21 : 17. e eph. 4. 11 , &c. nor hath any temporal authority over princes . 1 pet. 2. v. 12 , &c. the church not responsible for the errors of particular divines . king-killine , doctring damnable heresie . conc. const . s●ss , 15. personal misdemeanours not to be imputed to the church . no power on earth can authorise men to lie , forswear , murther , &c. equivocation not allowed in the church . 2 cor. 1. 12 of sacramental absolution . a ez. 18. 21. 2 cor. 7. 10 b ps . 32. 5. pro. 28. 13. c act. 19. 18. 1 cor. 4. 1. d lu. 3. 18. jam ▪ 5. 16. e joh. 20. 21 , &c mat 18. 18. f tit. 3. 5. of satisfaction by penitential works . g 2 cor. 3. 5. h act. 26. 20. jonas 3. 5. &c. psa . 102. 9. &c. ps . 109. 23. dan. 9. 3. jo●● 2. 12. luk 11. 41. act. 10. 44. i 1 pe. 2. 5. indulgences are not remission of sins , but only of canonical penances . k 1 cor. 5. 3. &c. l 2 cor. 2. 6. abuses herein not to be charged on the church . there is a purgatory or state , where souls departing this life with some blemish are purify'd m numb . 14. 20 , &c. 2 sam. 12. 13. &c. n pro. 24. 16. ma. 12. 36. and cap. 5. 22. 26. o mat. 5. 26 1 cor. 3. 15. p rev. 21. 27. prayers for the dead available to them . q 1 cor. 15 29. coll. 1. 24. 2 mac , 12. 42 , &c. 1 jo. 5. 16. superfluous questions about purgatory . r jo. 15. 5. 16. of the merit of good works , through the merits of christ . s mat. 16. 27 cap. 5. 12. cap 10. 42. 2 cor 5. 10 2 tim. 4. 8. christ really present in the sacrament of the eucharist . t mat. 26. 26. mar 14. 22. lu. 22. 19. 1 cor. 11. 23. &c. cap. 10. 16. but after a supernatural manner . whole christ in either species . hence communicants under under one kind nowise deprived either of the body or bloud of christ . u jo. 6. 48 50 , 51. 57. 58. acts 2. 42. of the sacrifice of the mass . x luk. 22. 19 , &c. y 1 cor. 11. 26. z heb. 13. 10. a lu. 22. 19. b mal. 1. 11. wo●ship of images wrongfuly imposed on catholicks . yet there is some veneration due both to pictures , c luk 4. 8. d ex. 25. 18. 1 kin. 6. 35 luke 3. 22. num 21. 8. acts 5. 15. and other sacred things . e jos . 7. 6. exod. 3. 5. f jo. 12. 26. psa . 99. 5. phil. 2. 10. g 1 pet. 2. 17. luk. 3. 16. act. 19. 12. ron. 13. 7. prayer to saints lawful . h rev. 5. 8. i lu. 15. 7. k 1 cor. 13. 12. l ex. 32. 13 2 chron. 6. 42. m romons 15. 30. yet so as not to neglect our duties . n jam. 2. 17. 30 , &c. o rom. 13 14. p ro. 12. 2. q gal. 5. 6. r joh. 14. 6 a conclusion from the premimises . an objection answered . a second objection answered catholicks suffer for their religion . their sufferings not unlike to those of christ our lord. a luk. 23. 2 b jo. 11. 48 c matt. 26 60 ▪ rom. 8. 29 ver. 17. the history of the plot, or, a brief and historical account of the charge and defence of edward coleman, esq., william ireland, thomas pickering, john grove : robert greene, henry berry l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. 1679 approx. 395 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 48 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2003-01 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a47868 wing l1258 estc r21508 12738628 ocm 12738628 93059 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books 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(eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a47868) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 93059) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 696:3) the history of the plot, or, a brief and historical account of the charge and defence of edward coleman, esq., william ireland, thomas pickering, john grove : robert greene, henry berry l'estrange, roger, sir, 1616-1704. [4], 88 p. printed for richard tonson ..., london : 1679. reproduction of original in huntington library. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng coleman, edward, d. 1678. ireland, william, 1636-1679. pickering, thomas, d. 1679. grove, john, d. 1679. green, robert, d. 1679. berry, henry, d. 1679. hill, lawrence, d. 1679. whitbread, thomas, 1618-1679. barrow, william, 1610-1679. caldwell, john, 1628-1679. gawen, john, 1640-1679. turner, anthony, 1628 or 9-1679. langhorne, richard, 1654-1679. wakeman, george, -sir, fl. 1668-1685. marshal, william. rumley, william, d. 1717. corker, james maurus, 1636-1715. popish plot, 1678. 2002-06 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2002-07 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2002-08 olivia bottum sampled and proofread 2002-08 olivia bottum text and markup reviewed and edited 2002-10 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the history of the plot : or a brief and historical account of the charge and defence of edward coleman , esq william ireland , thomas pickering , iohn grove . robert greene , henry berry , laurence hill. jesuites . tho. whitebread , william harcourt , iohn fenwick , iohn gavan , anthony turner , richard langhorne , esq sir george wakeman , baronet . benedictine monks . william marshall , william rumley , iames corker , not omitting any one material passage in the whole proceeding . by authority . london . printed for richard tonson within grayes-inn-gate next grayes-inn-lane . 1679. to the reader . there has not been any point , perhaps , in the whole tract of english story , either so dangerous to be mistaken in , or so difficult , and yet so necessary to be understood . as the mystery of this detestable plot now in agitation , ( a iudgment for our sins , augmented by our follies ) but the world is so miserably divided betwixt some that will believe every thing , and others nothing , that not only truth , but christianity it self is almost lost between them ; and no place left for sobriety and moderation . we are come to govern our selves by dreams , and imaginations ; we make every coffee-house tale an article of our faith ; and from incredible fables we raise invincible arguments . a man must be fierce and violent , to get the reputation of being well-affected ; as if the calling of one another damn'd heretique , and popish dog , were the whole sum of the controversie . and what 's all this but the effect of a popular licence and appeal ? when every mercenary scribler shall take upon him to handle matters of faith , and state ; give laws to princes ; and every mechanique sit iudge upon the government ! were not these the very circumstances of the late times ? when the religious iugglers from all quarters fell in with the rabble ; and managed them , as it were , by a certain fleight of hand : the rods were turned into serpents on both sides , and the multitude not able to say , which was aaron , and which the enchanter . let us have a care of the same incantation over again . are we not under the protection of a lawful authority ? nor was there ever any thing more narrowly sifted , or more vigorously discouraged , than this conspiracy . reformation is the proper business of government and council ; but when it comes to work once at the wrong end , there is nothing to be expected from it , but tumult and convulsion . a legal and effectual provision against the danger of romish practices and errours , will never serve their turn , whose quarrel is barely to the name of popery , without understanding the thing it self . and if there were not a roman catholick left in the three kingdoms , they would be never the better satisfied ; for where they cannot find popery , they will make it : nay and be troubled too that they could not find it . it is no new thing for a popular out-cry , in the matter of religion , to have a state-faction in the belly of it . the first late clamor was against downright popery ; and then came on popishly affected ; ( that sweeps all ) the order of bishops , and the discipline of the church took their turns next ; and the next blow was at the crown it self : when every man was made a papist that would not play the knave and the fool , for company , with the common people . these things duly weighed , and considering the ground of our present distempers ; the compiler of this abridgment reckoned that he could not do his countrymen a better office , than ( by laying before them the naked state of things ) to give them at one view , a prospect , both of the subject matter of their apprehensions , and of the vigilance , zeal , and needful severity of the government on their behalf . to which end , he hath here drawn up an historical abstract of the whole matter of fact concerning those persons who have hitherto been tried for their lives , either upon the plot it self , or in relation to it : opposing authentick records to wandring rumours ; and delivering the truth in all simplicity . he hath not omitted any one material point : there is not so much as one partial stroke in it ; not a flourish , nor any thing but a bare and plain collection , without any tincture either of credulity , or passion . and it is brought into so narrow a compass too , that it will ease the readers head , as well as his purse ; by clearing him of the puzzle of forms , and interlocutories , that serve only to amuse and mislead a man , by breaking the order , and confounding the relative part of the proceeding . having this in contemplation ; and being at the same time possest of a most exact summary of all passages here in question ; this reporter was only to cast an extract of these notes into a method : especially finding , that upon comparing the substance of his own papers , with the most warrantable prints that have been published ; his own abstract proved to be not only every jot as correct , but much more intelligible , which being short and full ; he thought might be useful , and find credit in the world upon its own account , without need of a voucher . the history of the charge and defence of edward coleman , esq the first of the conspirators that was brought to publick justice was mr. edward coleman ; who received his trial at the kings bench-bar , novemb. 27. 1678. and pleaded not guilty , to the indictment . the jury consisted of persons of condition , and known integrity ; being sworn , without any exception or challenge from the prisoner . the general heads of his charge were , the conspiring of the death of the king. the endeavour of subverting the government of england ; and the protestant religion . and these treasons , and designs , to be made out against him , partly by witnesses , vivâ voce ; and partly by letters and negotiations under his own hand , proving a correspondence with several sorts of agents for the accomplishing of the aforesaid ends . the charge being read , and the particulars of the matter in evidence , modestly and learnedly opened by his majesties councel , the prisoner past some reflections upon the hard measure of not allowing councel to a prisoner in this case , recommending himself to the justice of the bench to be councel for him , and representing the disadvantage of a roman catholicks appearing at the bar under so violent a prejudice , he insisted further , upon the ingenuity of his confessions in prison ; and it being objected to him , as a thing incredible , that he should break off his correspondences just at ( 75 ) with the date of the last letters of his that were found : his answer was , that he never received any letters after that time , but cursory intelligence , which were either burnt , or used as common paper : and that he had offered all oaths and tests in the world for confirmation of the truth thereof : and that they had seized every one of these letters of general correspondence , for the two or three years last past that he knew of . hereupon the court proceeded to the evidence , the lord chief justice previously inculcating , the sacredness of an oath , and exhorting both the jury , and witnesses , to proceed with all due tenderness and caution : for the life of a man was at stake , and it was not intended that any thing should be put upon the stretch against the prisoner . the witness first called , was mr. oates ; and the first thing demanded of him , was what he could say of the prisoner being any way privy to the design of murthering the king , to which , he gave evidence , as follows ; that is to say : that in november last , making a visit to mr. iohn keyns ( his father confessor , then lodging at mr. colemans in stable-yard ) mr. coleman asked him who that was ? one ( says he ) that is going to st. omers . then says mr. coleman to the witness , i must trouble you with a letter or two ; and i will leave them for you with fenwick ( the procurator of the society in london . ) on the monday following fenwick gave mr. oates the packet mr. coleman had left in his hand ; and away goes he to dover , with it . the outside sheet was a paper of news , which past under the name of colemans letter ; and at the bottom of it these words , pray recommend me to my kinsman playford ( who lived at that time in st. omers . ) this letter was written in english , at length , and addressed to the rector of st. omers ; giving him an account how matters went in england . the witness deposeth that he read this letter , and in it many undutiful expressions concerning the king : and this in particular ; that the match of the lady mary with the prince of orange would prove that traytors , and tyrants ruin . that there was also a letter in latin to la chaise , with a flying seal , and no subscription ; and this letter , with the letter of news , and the postscript , were all in a hand , this was a letter of thanks to la chaise , for 10000 l. which he confest to have received for the service of the catholick cause ; with a promise that it should be wholly imployed as it was designed ; and that no endeavour should be wanting to destroy the protestant religion root and branch . now this letter was in answer to one from la chaise ( dated in august ) which was directed to strange , who at that time was provincial of the society for london , but strange having hurt his hand with a reed , and mico , his secretary , being sick , mr. coleman wrote this letter by direction of the provincial , as the provincial told the deponent himself . that letter from la chaise to which this was an answer , the witness deposed that he saw , and read , and observed instructions in it to this effect . that the 10000 l. should be laid out to no other end than for the killing of the king. the witness did not see coleman write this letter , but delivering it to la chaise himself , la chaise named a gentleman with a french name , and asked how he did ; the witness not well understanding him , ( being at a loss ) one ( says la chaise ) that was formerly secretary to her royal highness : whereupon mr. oates , in latin , asked him if it were not coleman ; but what answer was made to this , mr. oates does not remember . la chaise answered his letter , and the witness brought that answer to st. omers ; from whence it was sent by the society , under cover to mr. coleman , telling him in express terms that this letter was received and owned . the witness having a patent to be taken into the consult , had the sight of this letter at st. omers , and it was sent to mr. coleman , who acknowledged the receipt of it from la chaise ; and in the same hand that wrote the news letter , which was agreed upon to be colemans hand . mr. oates being demanded what he could say to the consultation here in may last , and how far the prisoner was privy to the purpose of murthering the king , he proceeded to this effect . by vertue of a brief from the father general of the society at rome , the jesuits were appointed to have a meeting , which begun at the white-horse-tavern in the strand , in april , old stile , and may , new , and continued there no longer then till they had concluded upon the dispatch of one father cary , an agent , and procurator for rome ; and then they adjourned themselves into clubs and cabals , some at wild-house , some at harcourts , irelands , fenwicks lodgings , and came at length to this result . pickering and grove were to destroy the king , either by shot , or otherwise ; and for their reward , grove was to have fifteen hundred pounds , and pickering ( being a religious person ) 30000 masses , which may be valued an equivalent , at twelve pence a mass. mr. coleman , in this deponents hearing , was told of this determination at wildhouse ; and the witness affirms , to have seen a letter under the prisoners own hand , to one ireland ; expressing his desire that by some means or other , the duke of york might be trapann'd into the plot. there was a p. s. to this letter , recommend me to father la chaise . and besides all this , the witness averrs , that he heard coleman give his opinion at wildhouse , that he thought it was well contrived . the next point was what the witness knew of any rebellion to have been raised in ireland , or of any practice designed upon the duke of ormond : to which mr. oates deposed , that in august , there was a consultation at the savoy , with the iesuits and with the benedictines , and a letter written from talbot , ( the pretended archbishop of dublin ) making mention of one of the popes legates , an italian bishop ( cassay , as he believed ) that maintains the popes claim to the kingdom of ireland . and in this letter , he speaks of four iesuits , that were contriving the death of the duke of ormond , and in case that design should not take place , that then , fogarthy should do it by poyson , ( fogarthy himself being there at that time . ) that before the end of the consult , mr. coleman came in , and earnestly prest the dispatch of fogarthy for ireland , to do the work. the same letter did also say , that they were ready to rise in ireland for the pope . the witness being asked if he knew any thing of arms : gave evidence , that 40000 blank bills were provided to be sent into ireland . and that another letter from talbot , ( of ianuary or february last ) said they were furnished by the popish commission-officers , and that they had them ready in ireland . that coleman , fenwick , and the witness , being together in august last , in fenwicks chamber , in drury lane , without any other company , coleman told fenwick that he had a way now to transmit the 200000 pounds for carrying on the rebellion in ireland , which he said to this deponent also a week before ; so that mr. coleman was privy to it , and a prime actor in it . the witness was now examined about transmitting money to windsor , , or persuading the sending of any thither , and the time ; who deposed as follows : that dr. fogarthy proposed , and provided four irish ruffians to be sent to windsor , in august last , and they were dispatched the same night . that the next day , one william harcourt , rector of london , sent fourscore pounds to them , in the name of the provincial , who was then beyond the seas : and by whose authority the other acted . that mr. coleman told the witness , that he had been to look for harcourt at his house in drury lane , and was there directed to wildhouse , where he sound him . and coleman asking what care was taken for the four gentlemen that went last night to windsor ? harcourt made answer , that eighty pounds was ordered them ; and that the messenger was there that was to carry it . that the money was there upon the table , most in guinnies , and that mr. coleman gave the messenger a guinny to make haste . and that mr. oates never saw the messenger , but that time . the witness was asked what he knew concerning mr. colemans discourse with one ashby ; whose evidence was that one ashby ( in iuly last , and formerly rector of st. omers ) being in london , and ill of the gout , was appointed to go to the bath , that this ashby had certain instructions under the hand of white the provincial , beyond the seas , to authorise ashby , and the consult of london ; to dispatch the king , by poyson , in case groves and pickering failed : and to offer sir george wakeman 10000 l. to effect it ; taking the opportunity of giving his majesty physick , that mr. coleman attended this ashby ; that he saw read , and copyed out the instructions , and sent them over england , to those that were privy to the plot , that this deponent himself saw the reading , and the transcribing of them , mr. coleman declaring the sum to be too little , and that sir george wakeman would hardly undertake it upon those terms ; adding ; that it were well to give 5000 l. more to make the business sure : and that this was said at wild-house , at mr. sandersons house : and that upon mr. colemans dispatch of these suffrages ( the word he used for instructions ) to the principal of the catholick gentry of england , some thousands of pounds were collected , and that coleman told the witness , that he sent these copies about to quicken people in their contributions . the court demanded if mr. coleman was not to have been one of the secretaries of state ; to which mr. oates replyed thus . that in may last new stile , april , old , soon after the consult at mr. langhorns chamber , among other commissions he saw one from the general of the society , iohannes paulus d'oliva ( by vertue of the popes authority ) directed to mr. coleman , and that this deponent saw it at mr. fenwicks chamber in drury-lane in the month of iuly , mr. fenwick being present ; and that mr. coleman , did then , and there , acknowledge the receipt of it , open it , and say that it was a good exchange , for it made him secretary of state , that upon the seal , there was an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a cross , and in english characters i. h. s ; and that he knew this to be the writing of the said general , for he had seen it forty times . that in the month ian. the witness opened at st. omers , certain letters from rome , directed to father harcourt ( he having power so to do ) wherein it was certified that the commissions were already in mr. langhorns hands , which gave the witness a curiosity to ask mr. langhorn about them . now the witness being summoned to be at the consult in april , and appointed by the provincial to wait upon mr. langhorn , he did so , and in discourse about the commissions , asked him if he might not have a sight of them : to which mr. langhorn replyed , that he had received the commissions ; and that he would not scruple to let him have a view of them , the witness giving him that very day an account of the consult . the witness was asked if he were acquainted with langhorn , and he declared , that meeting two of mr. langhorns sons in spain , and doing them some kindnesses , upon the witnesses return out of spain , mr. langhorn received him with great civility at his house , ( somewhere about sheer-lane ) but the wife being zealous another way , mr. langhorn advised the witness rather to come to him for the future at his chamber in the temple ; and that the witness was ordered by the provincial to give mr. langhorn an account from time to time of all results at the white horse , and wild house . being interrogated how many came over in april together with the witness , and how many priests , and jesuits , to his knowledg had been lately in england at one time ? he answered that there were nine jesuits , as the rector of leige , warren , sir thomas preston ; the rector of watton , francis williams , sir iohn warner , charges ; one poole a monk , and the witness the ninth , but for the number of the rest , that he could not remember it , and that to his knowledg there had been in england , at the same time 160 secular priests , 80 iesuits , and by names upon a list , above 300. the prisoner being now permitted to ask any questions , and speak for himself . mr. coleman suggested , that upon his examination before the councel , the witness told his majesty that he had never seen him before , and yet now pretends to great intimacy and acquaintance with him . mr. oates alledged that in truth he said ( his sight being had by candle-light ) that he would not swear that he had ever seen him before ; but so soon as ever heard him speak , he would have sworn him to be coleman . it being demanded , ( when the design upon the king at windsor was before the council ) how the witness came to omit mr. colemans giving the guiny to the messenger ; the time when the fourscore pounds was sent ; the way of remitting the 200000 l. the prisoner consulting and approving of the murther of the king ; and his saying that 10000 l. was too small a reward for sir george wakeman . mr. oates his answer to all this ; . was that his business before the council was rather to exhibit an information , than to deliver a charge ; and that it gives light to a prisoner how to shift , when he knows the whole matter of his accusation beforehand ; and that besides , he was so spent with waiting and watching , that he could scarce stand upon his legs : and that the king and council were sensible of it , and willing to ease him , but yet if he had been prest , he should have enlarged his information . the witness being examined how long it was betwixt the time of his being interrogated , and speaking only to the letters , and that time of communicating to the houses of parliament ; the matter at present in question , his answer was , from monday the 30. of september , until the parliament met . the witness was likewise asked why he did not inform sooner ; and of all together , mr. coleman being so dangerous a person , and engaged in so desperate a design , why he did not name the jesuits he accused . and how he came to charge sir george wakeman by name , and not mr. coleman , mr. oates reply was that he had been a long time accusing other jesuites ; that he spake little but where the persons were face to face . that he had a list of the jesuits names , but only such as were expresly charged were taken up , and that being dosed with sitting up two nights , he forgot mr. coleman , but upon consulting his papers he made upthe accompt which afterwards he delivered . the prisoner urged that the witness was just by him when he says he could not see him ; and further that mr. oates named three or four places where he says he met him about business : the witness answering that the candle was in his eyes , and that the prisoner stood more in the dark : and to the rest , that he wore several peruques at several meetings ; which much disguised him : but that immediately upon speaking he knew him to be coleman , denying that the question was ever put to him whether he knew coleman or no ? the prisoner still insisting upon it , that the witness did declare before the council that he did not know him ; sir thomas doleman , and sir robert southwel ( being clerks of the council , and at that time present ) were examined on the behalf of the prisoner , sir tho. dolemans evidence amounted to this , that mr. oates speaking of coleman ; did say before the council , that he did not well know him ; and that he said these words after mr. coleman was examined , adding that the witness said , he did not know him as he stood there . and speaking of coleman , that he had no acquaintance with that man. it was asked mr. oates , in regard that he knew coleman upon hearing of his voice , why he did not declare himself that he knew him so soon as he had heard him ? to which the witness answered , that he was not asked . sir robert southwel was now interrogated concerning mr. oates his examination before the council , and gave evidence , that mr. oates declared that 10000 pounds promised to sir george wakeman was now made fifteen , and that mr. coleman paid sir george wakeman five thousand pounds in hand . to which mr. coleman replied ; that mr. oates his charge was so slight , that the council were not of his opinion , as appeared by the mitigation of the first order , which was at first to commit him to newgate , but only now into the custody of a messenger . to this sir robert southwel gave an account , how that mr. oates examination was so general , it could not well be fixed ; that mr. colemans papers were found , and seized on sunday night , and that mr. coleman rendred himself voluntarily at the house of sir ioseph williamson , on monday morning , hearing of a warrant out against him : but so many other prisoners were upon examination , that he was not called till afternoon , when he seemed to hear these lewd things charged upon him with great scorn and indignation . the defence he made was such , that though a blank warrant was filled up to send him to newgate , he was only for the present committed to a messenger ; and a special warrant granted to the messenger to secure him against the first order . upon his majesties departure , the next day for newmarket , a committee being appointed to examine several papers , and mr. colemans amongst others ; there were found in a deal box such papers as moved the lords forthwith to sign a warrant for his commitment to newgate . the sum of mr. oates charge , was his traiterous correspondence with the french kings confessor , the 15000 pounds accepted by him , and five of it actually paid to sir george wakeman , and the witnesses opinion that colemans papers would cost him his neck , mr. oates declaring , that he had the stone , and therefore could not be present at the consultation in the savoy , but that he had an account of all things there from those that were upon the place . thus far mr. oates his examination . mr. bedlow sworn and examined . first , what he had seen , or heard , concerning any commission to mr. coleman . secondly , what discourse he ever had with mr. coleman concerning that matter . mr. bedlow swears that he knew nothing of any commission to mr. coleman , more than that sir henry tichbourn told him that he brought him a commission from the principal jesuits at rome , by order from his holiness ; and that he was to be secretary of state , but that he never saw it , nor knows the title of it . as to any discourse with mr. coleman about it , the witness declared , that in april ( 75. ) father harcourt gave him a large pacquet of letters from mr. coleman , who in the witnesses sight delivered the said letters to father harcourt ; that they were directed to mr. la chaise , and other english monks , to whom he delivered the letters , and brought back an answer from la chaise , and certain english monks at paris . mr. bedlow furthur declares , that there met at a consultation two french abbots , and certain english monks , and that he heard them talk of a plot upon the government , and religion of england ; and that the king was to be destroyed in the first place , and the lords of the council ; that this discourse passed upon the consultation ; and there was a pacquet of letters from mr. coleman , they not knowing that the witness understood french. that the pacquet from la chaise was directed to harcourt , with one to coleman enclosed , and addressed a monsieur , monsieur coleman . mr. bedlow being examined what he knew of money received by mr. coleman ; how much , and for what , gave this evidence . that it was to promote the subversion of the government of england , to deliver it from hellish ignorance , and to free catholicks from the tyranny of hereticks . the witness further declareth , that being with harcourt at colemans , may 24. or 25. 1677. harcourt delivered this deponent another pacquet , which he had also from mr. coleman , for the english monks at paris , and the witness to call at douay , in his passage , in case they were not gone for paris before him . that upon the receipt of these letters they applauded the merit of the service , and that upon the consultation 1677 , not having any full assurance what assistance the english catholicks might have from abroad , they resolved to put their design in execution that very summer , the english being in a great forwardness already . that the witness after the consultation gave le faire the letters , and he carried them to harcourt , and harcourt ( though indisposed ) went and carried them to coleman , and this witness along with him , but he stayed over the way while harcourt went in , who soon after gave this witness a back to come over to him , and then , and there , did this witness hear coleman say , if he had a hundred lives he would lose them all to settle the catholick religion in england , and depose , or destroy a hundred heretical kings if they stood in his way . and this at his own house , behind westminster abby ▪ at the foot of the stair-case . here the prisoner demanded of bedlow , if ever he had seen him in his life ? whose answer was , that in the stone-gallery in summerset house , coming from a consult , there he had seen him . after this mr. bradley , the messenger that seized mr. colemans papers , was examined what papers he seized , what he saw , and how he disposed of them . to which mr. bradly rendred this account . that by warrant of council , dated september 29. at six at night , for the apprehending of mr. coleman , and seizing of his papers , he went accordingly , and told mrs. coleman his business , who said he was welcom . and her husband not being at home , he desired her to send for him . that upon the search , he found a great many papers about the house , and put them into several bags ; and looking into a private corner in his own chamber , in a place behind the chimney , he found a deal box tacked together with a nail , with letters in it , which he delivered into the custody of one of his assistants , to take care of it . and going then into his own study , he searched his scritoire , and put up all the papers he could find , in bags without any other papers among them ; sealed them up with his own seal , keeping them constantly in his sight , and so carried every paper of them to the clerk of the council . sir robert southwel , and sir thomas doleman were then examined , whether or no the papers then produced in court , were the papers which were brought by mr. bradley the messenger : and first , sir robert southwel , concerning mr. colemans long letter ; whose answer was that he had not seen that large letter in several days after the papers were brought to him from bradley , remitting the account thereof to the other clerks of the council . sir thomas doleman , in answer to the same question , declared that he found it among mr. colemans papers in a deal box that bradley brought . the next point was to prove both by his own confession , and by two witnesses , that all the papers in question were of his own hand writing . whereupon mr. boatman ( one that had waited upon him five years in his chamber ) was first examined , who declared , that he believed all the papers , then shewed unto him , to be of mr. colemans writing ; acknowledging further , that a pacquet of letters from beyond the seas was directed unto him two or three days after he was made a prisoner : confessing also , that he had received a letter for his master from la chaise ; but denying that ever he wrote any for his master to la chaise ; owning also , that his master kept a large book of entries for his letters and news : but that he knew not what was become of it , and that he had not seen it since two days before his masters commitment . he declared likewise , that he did usually receive news every post , but could not say that any letters of the two years last past were entred in the aforesaid book . the prisoner here interposed that all his letters from the hague , bruxels , france , and rome were before the council , and that these were all he had received . one cattaway ( a kind of an amanuensis to him ) was then examined upon those papers , who positively affirmed them to be of mr. colemans writing . sir philip lloyd was produced next , to prove the long letter against him , upon his own confession : who gave evidence , that he received the papers , then shewed him , from sir thomas doleman , and that the long letter was owned by mr. coleman to be his own hand-writing . it bare date , september 29. 1675. subscribed , your most humble , and most obedient servant , ( without a name . ) and it was read by the clerk of the crown , according to the order of the court , but being too long to be brought into a breviate , and the whole letter it self being little more than the deduction of a three years history of former negotiations ( for the greater part with mr. ferrier , the predecessor of la chaise ) it will suffice to give this brief of the whole : money was the prisoners great design , and the procuring of it , by a pretence of more power , both in the church , and in the state , than effectually he had , is in short the drift of that large discourse . towards the end of it , he has indeed this bold and dangerous passage ; our prevailing in these things would give the greatest blow to the protestant religion that ever it received since its birth . to this foregoing letter was produced an answer from la chaise , owning the receipt of it , and giving mr. coleman thanks for it : concerning which letter , sir robert southwel declared that he found it in mr. colemans canvas bag , the sunday after the papers were seized : and that sir philip lloyd examined it . this letter was read in court by sir robert southwel , first in french , and then in english ; which being a very brief and pertinent proof of the correspondence in question , we shall here insert according to the translation of it there exhibited . the letter . sir , paris , octob. 23. 1675. the letter which you gave yourself the trouble to write to me , came to my hands but the last night : i read it with great satisfaction , and i assure you that its length did not make it seem tedious . i should be very glad on my part to assist in seconding your good intentions ; i will consider of the means to effect it ; and when i am better informed than i am as yet , i will give you an account , to the end i may hold intelligence with you , as you did with my predecessour . i desire you to believe that i will never fail as to my good will , for the service of your master ; whom i honor as much as he deserves , and that it is with great truth that i am your most humble and most obedient servant , d. l. c. as it was the business of the prisoners long letter abovementioned , first to procure mony and then by his interest , as he phansied to himself , to work a dissolution of the parliament : so in case of attaining that end , mr. coleman had by him the draught of a declaration , as from his majesty , shewing the reasons of that dissolution ; promising before the end of the next february to call another parliament , charging all persons to forbear talking irreverently of the proceedings , and offering 20 l. to the discoverer of any seditious talker against it , unto a principal secretary of state. this is in short the substance of that voluminous declaration ; and he did not make more bold with his majesty in this contrivance , out of his own head , then he did in another letter of mr. la chaise , in the name of his master the duke of york , not only without the order and privity of the duke , but incurring his very great displeasure upon the very mention of his project : as he himself confessed before a committee of the house of lords that discoursed with him in newgate , to which point sir philip lloyd deposed the truth of what is here asserted , he himself being then appointed to attend the said committee . the letter itself was read consisting most of complement to the french interest , and of such imaginations as might give mr. coleman some credit and authority in his future undertakings . there was another letter produced , which was also to la chaise , and without date , it is too long to be here inserted , and the pinch of the letter lying in a very narrow compass , we shall only give you so much of it as may be sufficient for our present purpose . we have a mighty work upon our hands , ( says he ) no less than the conversion of three kingdoms ; and by that perhaps the utter subduing of a pestilent heresie , which has domineer'd over a great part of this northern world a long time : there never were such hopes of success since the death of our queen mary , as now in our days . and again , it imports us to get all the aid and assistance we can , for the harvest is great , and the labourers but few . this letter was acknowledged by coleman to be of his own writing as attested by sir thomas dolman and sir philip lloyd from mr. colemans own lips. there were read also divers other letters of the prisoner , and one especially of august 21. ( 74 ) to the popes internuncio at bruxelles where he owns the design to be the utter ruin of the protestant party , but these were never thought fit for the press . the prisoner did here crave the leave of the court to ask mr. oates some questions , who ( having been withdrawn to rest himself ) was called again ; it being also offered by the court , that mr. coleman might speak with mr. bedlow also , but he did not desire it . here the prisoner demanded the particular days of the months , where the consult was held ; who were present at it : to which mr. oates made answer , that it was within two or three days of the consult , in may new stile , and april , old , which began at the white-horse and was afterwards adjourned to several companies , that there were present at it the provincial , mico , strange , and keins ; and that the prisoner came to the provincials chamber two or three days after the consult . as to that at the savoy , in august , old stile , the witness would not charge his memory with the particular day , and touching the consult in may , that mr. coleman was not present at it ; but two or three days after it , approved at wild-house of the resolutions before taken . the prisoner here suggests that he was fourscore miles off , in warwick-shire upon the 21. of august , old stile and so for two or three and twenty days before , solemnly imprecating himself that he never saw mr. oates his face , but in the council chamber , and now in the court , and that he never saw mr. bedlow but now in the court in his whole life . mr. coleman did also endeavour to evade the danger of two witnesses , by alledging that they did not both of them swear the self same fact , which was overruled by shewing that the general fact of killing the king , was sworn to by both , though not the particular manner , either of pistol or poyson . the prisoner laboured likewise to extenuate the malice of his expressions , by calling them only extravagant , and to expound himself , by saying that by the words aid and assistance was intended only mony and not violence , and finding that all this did not avail him , he offered proof that he was in warwick-shire at the time sworn that he was in london , which being allowed him , boatman was called again ; whose testimony was only this , that in august last , mr. coleman was in warwick-shire , all august , to the best of his remembrance ; but he could not say what time of the month the prisoner was in london , and gave no positive answer . when he was asked if coleman was in warwick-shire , and no where else , the prisoner affirmed that he had been at the lord denbys , and mr. francis fishers , at least twenty days , and so concluded with these very words , positively i say , and upon my salvation , i never saw these witnesses , oats but once , and bedlow , never before . the kings council then sum'd up the evidence , the prisoner offerd the same things over again , and his servant was examined as to the time of his masters going out of town ; and of his return ; but could not speak certainly to the day . so that the lord chief justice proceeded to his charge to the jury , whereupon the prisoner was found guilty of the high treason whereof he stood indicted , and remanded to the prison , with order to bring him again the next morning to receive his sentence . the prisoner repeating what he had said before , concerning the two witnesses . mr. coleman , being brought again the next day ( november 28. ) to the bar , first prayed favour for his papers , and then offered a book , to prove him out of town from august 15. to the 31. late at night , referring himself also ( for the truth thereof ) to some papers and books of accompts which were then under seisure , alledging also the improbability of speaking in company of killing the king , desiring the benefit , upon the whole matter , of the act of grace , but his offence being since the last act of pardon , and his other pretensions being found to be of no weight , the lord chief justice , after a grave and pertinent speech , pronounced sentence upon the prisoner to be drawn , hang'd and quartered , &c. according to the usual form . after sentence past , the prisoner denyed the making or receiving ; the knowing or hearing , either directly or indirectly , of any propositions for the destroying of the king ; the subverting of the government ; or the bringing in of popery by violence , or by the help of any forrein power . he declared upon his salvation , that he had given the house of commons a true accompt of all his books , papers , and correspondences , and so desiring and obtaining leave for his wife , and some immediate friends to come to him , he was carried back to newgate . upon the tuesday following , the sentence was executed upon him , at tyburn ; where he thanked god that he dyed a catholick , renouncing upon the word of a dying man , any knowledg of the murther of sir edmond-bury godfrey , and so was turned off . the history of the charge and defence of william ireland , thomas pickering and iohn grove . on the 17. of december ( 78. ) thomas white alias whitebread , william ireland , iohn fenwick , thomas pickering , and iohn grove were indicted at iustice-hall in the old bayly , for conspiring the murther of the king , &c. they all of them pleaded not-guilty , and the jury ( being gentlemen of quality , ) was presented , and sworn , without any challenge or exception . the kings learned council having opened the indictment , the witnesses were called , and mr. oates first sworn , and then demanded what he knew of a design for murthering the king , and by whom : who gave evidence to the effect following . that in december last , mr. whitebread was made provincial of the society ; and then ordered a jesuit at st. omers ( one george conyers ) to preach against the oaths of allegiance and supremacy , upon st. thomas of canterburies day , which he did , declaring them to be hellish and antichristian . that in ianuary following the provincial wrote a letter to st. omers unto richard ashby , giving notice of his intent to destroy the king , and in february that he summoned the jesuits to a consult at london , upon april 24. old stile : the provincial dating his letters at that time from london . that whitebread issued a second summons , which was received , april 5. new-stile , whereupon nine appeared at london ; the rector of liege , sir thomas preston , marsh the rector of ghent , williams , the rector of watton ; sir iohn harper , and from st. omers two or three more , who were all under a caution to lie close , for fear of discovering the design . that the first consult , april 24. old stile , was at the white-horse-tavern in the strand , where iohn cary was ordered by whitebread , ireland , and fenwick , to go procurator for rome . this consult adjourning after that to several places , as mr. sanders's , irelands , harcourts , groves and other places ( not known to the witness ) in little meetings . that having debated upon the matter of religion , and the murther of the king , mico , the secretary to the society , did the same day draw up this following result : it is resolved , that thomas pickering , and iohn grove shall proceed upon their attempt upon the person of the king ; and that groves reward shall be 1500 l. and pickerings 30000 masses . that this resolution was first signed by whitebread , and then by ireland and fenwick , and likewise by all the four clubs at the meetings beforementioned : the witness carrying the instrument from one to another , and seeing them sign it ; whitebread , ireland , and fenwick signing it at that part of the consult which past at their respective chambers , the witness being still present . that in may , mr. whitebread went to st. omers , upon his provincial visitation ; and with him , cary and mico : cary going from thence to rome . that whitebread having rendred an accompt of the state of the catholicks proceedings in england , what monies collected ; what party made and engaged ; what means used to promote the design , he ordered the witness to come over into england , and to murther dr. tongue for publishing a book called the iesuits morals : who left st. omers iune 23. new-stile , took boat at calais on the 24. and on the 25. met fenwick at dover with some youths that he was sending to st. omers . that the witness coming in a coach with fenwick and other passengers for london , the coach being searched some six miles on this side canterbury , they found a box full of beads , crucifixes , images , &c. and directed to richard blundel esq that these things being seized as prohibited goods : mr. fenwick said that if they had searched him they might have found letters in his pocket would have cost him his life , that fenwick passed by the name of thompson , near the fountain tavern at charing-cross , to which place he ordered the searchers to write to him . that coming to london , iune 27. after a few days , one ashby came thither sick of the gout , and was advised to go to the bath for his cure. this ashby had been rector at st omers , and dr. oates declareth that he brought these following instructions from whitebread . first , the offer of 10000 l. to sir george wakeman for making away the king. secondly the bishop of hereford to be murthered . thirdly dr. stillingfleet . fourthly , that ( not withstanding the offer to sir george wakeman ) pickering and grove might go on nevertheless . that copies of these instructions were dispersed among the conspirators : and that sir george wakeman not accepting of 10000 l. whitebread gave order for the making of it 15000 l. which was profered , and accepted as appeared upon their books of entries , and by a letter from whitebread expressing much satisfaction upon the agreement , 5000 l. of it being paid down in hand , by coleman or his order . that in august , one fogarthy ( since dead ) was at a consultation of the iesuits , with the benedictines ; where fenwick , and one harcourt were both present . that at this consult fogarthy recommended four ruffians for the attempt , which the consultors accepted , and they were also approved of by fenwick . that these ruffians were dispatched away , and the next day 80 l. was sent them , ( most of it gold ) coleman giving the messenger a guiny to make hast . that in august , whitebread gave advice of what he had done about the scotch business , ordering w. harcourt ( rector of london ) to send moore , and sanders , alias brown , down into scotland , whither they were accordingly sent from london , august 6. in the name of the provincial . the witness swears further , that moore and sanders were imployed to promote the design of raising a rebellion there , which fenwick , and ireland had projected : sending down people under the disguise of presbyterian ministers , to put the scots into a tumult , by setting forth the sad condition of living under an episcopal tyranny . the witness deposeth also that they had determined to dispose not only of the king , but also of the duke too , unless they found him ( to use their own words ) vigorous in promoting the catholick religion . dr. oates was here examined if he knew the prisoners at the bar , and ordered to call them by their names , and likewise examined what he knew of pickering and groves acceptance of the conditions ; whereupon he named them all . and concerning pickering and grove , dr. oates declared that he himself was present at mr. whitebreads lodgings , when they accepted of the conditions , but that the consult was over , before grove came thither , and that then he took the sacrament , and an oath of secrecy upon it , and so agreed to it , and that a iesuite ( by the name of barton delivered the sacrament . ) hereupon mr. whitebread interposed , that whereas the witness says that in april , and may , he was present at such and such consults , there were hundreds could prove that dr. oates was all that time at st. omers ; the prisoner desiring to know at what time he himself received that sacrament , to which dr. oates testified that he received it , at the same time , the 24. of april , the prisoner taking god to witness he was not there . dr. oates was then examined about the time that mr. cary was sent to rome , and upon what business ; to which dr. oates answered , that april 24. it was resolved that cary should be sent , and that in may , or iune , cary was brought over by whitebread to st. omers , secretary mico with him , and that then cary took his journy , receiving 20 l. at paris for his expences . dr. oates being asked what he knew of any design upon the person of the king in st. iames's park , declared as followeth , that he saw grove and pickering divers times together in the park , with screw'd guns , ( betwixt pistols and carbines ) and that they had silver bullets , which the witness himself saw in the possession of grove , and in the months of may and iune ; and that grove told the witness that he would champ his bullets , that the wound might not be cured , upon this mr. whitebread suggested that the witness was at that time actually at st. omers . but dr. oates averred that he saw grove's bullets twice or thrice in may and iune , and pickerings in august . the witness was now questioned what he knew of pickerings penance , and what was his offence ; who gave evidence , that in march last , pickering slipt a fair opportunity ( as whitebread told him ) for his flint was loose , and he durst not strike for fear of missing fire , and that for this neglect , he had twenty or thirty strokes : and grove was censur'd too for looking not better after it . that he had seen and read this in letters from whitebread , whose hand he knew very well . the witness was then ordered to speak to the business of the ruffians , that were sent to windsor , and how they succeeded ; to which , dr. oates could say little , in regard that at the beginning of september last , one bedingfield had written to whitebread that the plot was discovered , and that none but such a one could do it , calling the witness by his borrowed name . that this deponent coming to speak with the provincial at his chamber , sept. 3. the provincial there shewed and read bedingfields letter to the witness ; reproching , striking , and abusing him ; and charging him with a discovery of the matter to the king : and asking him with what face he could come to him thus , after he had betray'd him . that the witness was not only reviled , and commanded to depart the kingdom , but was assalted in his lodging by whitebread , and others , who would have killed him if they could . dr. oates was called upon next to speak to the fourscore pounds : who gave this evidence ; that he himself saw the mony at harcourts chamber in dukes-street near the arch ; and that it was given by william harcourt ; but for the four irish men that were sent to windsor , that he never saw them , or knew their names , or the name of the messenger that carried it , but that the mony was paid by coleman , and fenwick present at the payment of it : to which fenwick demanding , when this was , and where , dr. oates replyed that it was in august , and in harcourts chamber , fenwick denying that ever he saw dr. oates there in his whole life . dr. oates being examined who signed the resolution concerning grove and pickering ; declared that there were at least forty that signed it , and the five prisoners amongst the rest ; and that the witness carried it from one to another , and saw the signing of it , having been an attendant upon them ever since the year — and chiefly at mr. whitebreads , the provincials chamber , where it was first signed . that mico drew up the resolution at whitebreads chamber , and all the prisoners privy to it , that when the whole consultation had signed it , and mass was ready to be said , grove and pickering did sign it before mass , and approved of it , at the provincials ; where they all met that day to receive the sacrament ; which was delivered in a little chappel at wild-house . as to the oath of secrecy , dr. oates gives evidence that he saw whitebread administer it , to all that were there : mico holding the book , ( a mass-book ) but what the form of the oath was dr. oates could not say . mr. whitebread reasons the matter , that he was in a very doubtful state of health , and that he would be loth to leave the world with a lye in his mouth , how much easier it is to assert an affirmative , than to prove a negative , and declaring before almighty god that the witness had not spoken three words of truth . dr. oates then called to mind that mr. whitebread was authorized to grant military commissions , and informed that the seals of the office were in the court , with which the provincial had sealed some hundreds . that some of them past the seal in the time of the former provincial ; that the commissions of the general officers were sealed by iohannes paulus de oliva , the general of the order ; but that the seals for inferior commissions were in the hands of the provincial . that he had sealed one to sir iohn gage , which was delivered unto him by this witness , who received it from mr. ashby , but by whitebreads appointment : as appeared by a memorial which the witness saw and read . that whitebread , when he went over , lost several commissions with blanks , and one ready sealed , which was delivered in his absence unto this witness . and that the intent of arming , was to rise upon the murther of his majesty , ireland and scotland being already prepared to incourage an invasion . dr. oates offered somthing here concerning grove , informing that he went about with one smith to gather peterpence ; either to advance their design , or to send them to rome : mr. grove faintly denying any acquaintance with the witness , whereupon mr. oates informed the court , that in december last , going to take his leave of the then provincial ; before the witness going to st. omers , he met there with mr. grove , who appointed to come next morning to his lodging , and lent the witness eight shillings for the hire of the coach , by which token it appears that they were acquainted , as well as by other circumstances , and by one very particular ; when as the witness informeth , groves told him that he and three irishmen had fired southwark , and that they had 1000 l. for their pains : grove 400 l. and the other , 200 l. a piece . upon the courts examining mr. fenwick if he knew dr. oates , mr. fenwick owned that he did , and remembred it by divers circumstances , but insisted upon it that dr. oates was at st. omers upon april the 24. which was the time when dr. oates affirms that he brought the resolve of the consultation to the prisoners chamber , and that for the month of may , dr. oates stirred not from st. omers all that month , for the proof whereof , mr. fenwick offered a testimony under the seal of the colledg , and signed by the magistrates of the town . to all which the court gave a very favourable hearing , and offered time to make out a proof . but the evidence propounded not being according to law , the prisoner in this point was overruled . dr. oates on the other side , affirms that in december or november he went to st. omers , stayed there all ianuary , february , march , and part of april , came over to the consult of the 24. and went back again presently after it was over . that father warner , sir tho. preston , father williams , sir iohn warner , one nevil , &c. came over with him : and further , that a lad from st. omers being discharged the house , and having lost his mony , williams supplyed him towards his going home ( as he remembers ) his name was hilsley , and that they came up to london together . that the witness lay at groves , and there was a flaxen-hair'd gentleman , and strange the late provincial , that lay there besides : but that the witness was charged to keep himself very close , groves in the mean time , denying that oates ever lay in his house , and confessing that strange did , but not in either april , or may. mr. whitebreads reply upon dr. oates was ; that williams and hilsley did come up to town together ; and that dr. oates knew of it , but that he was not with them , nor could he be with them , for he had no orders . the court did here very tenderly advise the prisoners to bethink themselves , as a very material point , if they could make it out that dr. oates was not in england in april or may. mr. bedlow was now called and sworn and then examined what he knew of any plot to kill the king , and by whom ; who rendred this account . that he had been near five years a carrier of letters betwixt england and france , for the society , and the english monks in paris . that the first letter he carried , was from mr. harcourt , who sent for him over ( being then a lieutenant in flanders ) about michaelmass last was four years . that the witness visiting the english nunnery at dunkirk , was kindly treated by the lady abbess , who entertained him six weeks in the convent , and afterwards , recommended him to sir iohn warner as a person fit to be intrusted either with letters or any thing else against england : that after a fortnights stay , sir iohn warner sent him to father harcourts , the next spring he sent him with several letters into england , and mr. harcourt gave him several dispatches from thence to morton and doway , and other places . that in 1676. he carried a packet to the monks at paris , which they communicated to the other english monks in france , to whom it was directed , with a letter in it to la chaise , from harcourt , prichard , and cary. that upon the receipt of this packet , there past a consultation betwixt la chaise , some monks , and a french bishop or two , by whom mention was made ( as stapleton an english monk told the witness ) of a letter from the lord bellasis , and other catholicks in the plot ; shewing in what condition affairs stood in england . that from the english monks at paris the witness was sent with a packet addressed to mr. vaughan of courtfield in monmouthshire . that mr. bedlow went from thence to pontois , and carried other letters from thence into england ; which he opened , and found to be only prayers for the success of the design , and an earnest intreaty not to fail meeting at the warwick-shire consult . that may 25. 1677. the witness carried over an other packet , and delivered some letters to the english nuns at bruges and ghent . that coming to doway , the monks sheldon , stapilton and latham being gone , the witness hastened after them , and overtook them at cambray : that the intent of these letters was to give notice of what had passed in a consult at summerset-house , about the destroying the protestant religion ; that there was great joy in cambray at the news ; and at paris the witness was informed that the lord bellasis blamed them for not keeping touch with england , stapleton telling the witness that neither my lord , nor the society in england had any reason to blame them , for they had their men , mony and armies in readiness upon any occasion : from thence the witness was dispatcht into spain to an irish father , whom he overtook at la mora ; and from thence he went to salamanca , and st. iago ; and so came back into england , and landed at milford ▪ haven . that the witness passed thence to london , and delivered the letter to mr. harcourt , that he did not look into the contents of it , but knew that it tended to the same purpose with the rest , and to the advancing of the plot. that he was afterwards sent by harcourt and coleman with letters to some papists in england . that in the beginning of august last there was a close consult at mr. harcourts , as this witness was informed by pritchard . that it was a plot upon the kings life , and that pickering and grove had been long about it , but that for fear of failing , there were four ruffians to be imployed that would do it at windsor , and that the next day , mr. coleman would inform the witness of the success . that pritchard told him further ; that some being sent to windsor , mr. coleman was following them , having given a guiny to the menssenger that carried them their mony . and moreover ; that the witness demanded why they kept him so long a stranger to the design , they answered him that it was the societies resolve , and the lord bellasis's order , that none but those of the society , and the actors in the conspiracy should be made privy to it . that about the latter end of august , as he believes , the witness coming to harcourts chamber , found ireland there , pritchard , pickering and grove . that their discourse was that since the ruffians could not dispatch the king , pickering and grove should take in conyers , and try if they could snap him in his morning walk at newmarket . that they were all of them eager upon it , and especially grove , who said that if it could not be done by surprize , it must be openly , and that at the worst it would be an honourable miscarriage ; and that in spight of all discoveries the party was yet strong enough to bring it about . the witness swears also , that fogarthy and harcourt were there , and that ireland , grove , pickering and the rest heard all this . that harcourt promised the witness a considerable reward , grove to have 1500 l. if he came off , and to be the favourite of the church ; pickering to have as many masses at twelve pence a piece as would come to that mony . ireland denies that ever he saw bedlow before that time in the court , and bade him produce a witness if he could , that he had ever spoken to him . mr. bedlow was examined what he could say of the rest ; and his answer was , that he charged only those three ; that as to whitebread ; that he had heard he was deep in the plot , but did not know it , and only knew him by sight , but that whitebread and fenwick had been at many consultations . mr. bedlow came now to speak to groves agreement ; and the 1500 l. his evidence was , that grove was to put it into a friends hand , but he knew not his name , nor the certain time of their agreement . ireland affirms that he was not in london the whole month of august , and offers to prove by twenty witnesses that he was in staffordshire from one end of the month to the other , and desires that mr. bedlow would name the place , and the company where ever they were together . mr. bedlow replyed that he did not pretend to a familiarity with him , but that he had seen him often , and particularly at le fairs at somerset-house in company with several other priests and jesuites : upon irelands bidding him name one , mr. bedlow named segnior perrare : i suppose ( says ireland ) if perrare may be brought hither , at which words dispute concerned in the business . the reader may here take notice that the printed tryal has this passage in it page 45. mr. bedlow askes mr. ireland . do you know le faire and parrare ? to which ireland replies yes ; but i never saw you in their company , in somerset-house in my life , but once or twice , yes ( says mr. bedlow ) you have twice at le faires . here is a contradiction in the one part , and an incongruity in the other , which neither finding in my own notes , nor any notice taken of it in the court , the reader is left to judg if it may not be some slip in the press . mr. bedlow gave evidence also of his seeing mr. fenwick say mass at somerset-house , and of another plot discoursed of upon the lives of certain noble persons : knight to kill the earl of shaftsbury ; pritchard , the duke of buckingham ; o neale the earl of ossory , and obrian the duke of ormond . dr. oates informs the court of a consult he had forgotten , where there was a plot laid to kill the duke of ormond , and raise a rebellion in ireland , declaring that in ianuary last , fenwick , ireland , and whitebread had the perusal of some letters from talbot sent to london , which they communicated to the society at st. omers . the letters speaking to this effect , that the catholicks stood fair to do their business in ireland . and the witness also swears , that he saw a letter under covert , signed by whitebread , ireland , fenwick , &c. of thanksgiving for their hopes in ireland , and declaring withal , that no stone should be left unturned for the extirpation of that abominable heresie out of that kingdom . that fenwick , about the 21. of august , a little before his going to st. omers , to bring home the provincial , was at a consult , and did there consent to a design upon the duke of ormonds life , and the moving of a rebellion , after his death ; and likewise approve of the four iesuites that were to do the work , and of sending fogarthy over to talbot , in case the four iesuites should not do their business . and also that mr. whitebread agreed to it , at his coming over , as may appear by his books of entry ; for a letter from mr. whitebread , dated as from st. omers , about the latter end of august , and taxed at but two pence , made this witness suspect that it was written nearer hand : in that letter whitebread approved of the design upon the duke , and the witness swears that it was signed with his own hand , informing the court , that the said result might be found in the book wherein all the consults are registred . mr. iames bedlow being sworn , declareth that he did not know ireland , that he had heard of pickering , and grove , and could say nothing to the conspiracy against the king , but he had heard his brother talk of the priests and jesuites , as people that he knew , and that many of them visited his brother . that he had fetched many sums from them for his brother , ( as 50 or 60 l. at a time ) as he had proved to the duke of monmouth , the lord chancellor , and lord treasurer ; from the persons that paid the mony . mr. iames bedlow being examined what he had heard his brother say concerning mr. ireland , and how long he had known him , made answer that he had heard his brother speak of him , but where , or in what place , he could not tell . mr. ireland urged that mr. bedlow made mention of one place , some three years since , and that it was at paris , and that if he talked of him so long , he must have known him so long ; whereupon the question being put to mr. bedlow how long he had known mr. ireland , mr. bedlow made answer that he had only known him since august last ; but that a man might talk of people that he never saw in his life . mr. william bedlow , with his brother , did not withdraw , and dr. oates speaking to the summoning of a consult , did aver that he heard mr. whitebread ask mr. peters , if he had summoned the consult , as he directed , him and that mr. peters answered him , yes , and that he had written into warwick-shire and worcester-shire about it . there was now a letter produced from mr. peters a prisoner about this plot , sir tho. doleman declaring in court , that he found it amongst harcourts papers , the hand being likewise sworn by dr. oates to be mr. peters hand ; which letter , as it follows , was read in the court. feb. 23. 1677. these for his honored friend mr. william tonstal , at burton . honored dear sir , i have but time to convey these following particulars to you . first i am to give you notice , that it hath seemed siting to our master consult pro , &c. to fix the 21. day of april next , stylo veteri , for the meeting at london of our congregation , on which day , all those that have a suffrage are to be present there , that they may be ready to give a beginning to the same , on the 24 , which is the next day after st. georges-day , you are warned to have jus suffragii , and therefore if your occasions should not permit you to be present , you are to signifie as much , to the end others in their ranks be ordered to supply your absence : every one is minded also , not to hasten to london long before the time appointed , nor to appear much about the town till the meeting be over ; left occasion should be given to suspect the design ; finally , secrecy , as to the time and place , is much recommended to all those that receive summons , as it will appear of its own nature necessary . tertio pro domino solovo disco . benefact . prov. luniensis . i am straitned for time , that i can only assure you , i shall be much glad of obliging you any ways . sir , your servant edward petre. pray my service where due , &c. mr. whitebread declared that he knew nothing at all of this letter , and mr. ireland that it was none of his letter , and that he had not heard of it before in particular . upon this matter , sir thomas doleman informed the court , that dr. oates gave an account of this consult to his majesty and council , four or five days before this letter was found . the seals were now produced in court , dr. oates affirming them to have been seized in the provincials chamber , and mr. whitebread confessing as much . the jury were now dischaged of mr. fenwick and mr. whitebread , upon a tenderness of not screwing up any evidence to an over rigorous construction ; so that they were taken from the bar , to attend the event of a farther discovery . the prisoners being now called upon to make their defence , with an assurance that their witnesses should be fairly heard , and a free ingress and regress allow'd them , without trouble , mr. ireland came on first , alledging , that there were not tow witnesses against him , for he could not be at harcourts chamber in august , being that whole month out of town , that he went into staffordshire , august 3. in company with the lord aston , his lady , and his son ; sir iohn southcot , and his lady , and that mr. iohn aston can witness for him , he being in staffordshire all august . mr. aston was then called , but did not appear , mr. ireland complaining that he had not liberty to send a note to any body , but it appeared that his sister was free to solicit his business . upon irelands denyal of his being in town in august , sarah pain ( whom grove owned to have been formerly his servant ) was sworn , who gave this evidence ; that she knew mr. ireland , and that she saw him at his own house about a week after the kings going to windsor , who went about the 13. of august so that about the 20. she saw him , and it was at a scriveners in fetter-lane . that she knew him very well , for he came often to mr. groves , and opened all the packets of letters , which her master delivered afterwards , and sealed those that went beyond seas . there was then called ann ireland , on the behalf of the prisoner , who informed that august 3. mr. ireland set out for staffordshire , and continued there till about a fortnight before michaelmas . upon mr. irelands denying that he knew sarah pain , she minded him of her bringing him divers letters , that came by the carriers , as well as by the post , to which mr. ireland replyed , that it might very well be so , and yet he not remember it . mr. irelands mother ( eleanor ireland ) was then called , who declared that he went , and returned , as was informed by the daughter , and that she and her daughter lay in the same house with him , all the time : whereupon it was objected , that he might go from the house and come again , as is suggested , and yet be in london in the mean time . dr. oates declared that he was with mr. ireland in london , to take his leave of him , betwixt the 12. and 24. and that he saw him afterward within the month of august , at mr. fenwicks chamber : and further , that upon the first or second of september he himself had 20 s. of him in town , which mr. ireland said was a most false lie , he being then in staffordshire ; and he minded them of a contradiction in the witnesses , the one speaking of him as going to st. omers the 12. and the other charging him with being at harcourts chamber at the end of the month ; which was solved thus , that he might be going , or pretending to go and yet not go . there was next produced one harrison , the coachman that carried him down , who informed ; that he met the prisoner ( mr. ireland ) aug. 5. in the evening at the bull inn , in st. albans , and travelled with him till the 16. that he knew not whether he came from london that day , or not ; and that he had never seen him before . that he was a servant to sir iohn southcot , who married the sister of the lord aston , and that he carried the prisoner to tixal the lord astons house : that after three or four days stay at tixal he went to nantwich , and so to westchester , where he left him , and that he was now called up to town by a messenger the night before . mr. ireland gives this account of his passage , that aug. 3. he went out of london to standen , where he lodged that night and the next , and on the 5. went to st. albans , going out of his way for sir iohn southcot and his ladies company , who he knew were to meet the lord aston and his lady at st. albans ; and being asked how he could prove himself to be that whole month in staffordshire , when yet it appears that he was in westchester , mr. ireland made answer that he was in staffordshire and thereabouts : and that he was at wolverhampton , he desired mr. charles gifford might be called to bear him witness ; who gave testimony , that from a day or two after st. bartholomew he continued there till the 9. of september , and could say no more . mr. ireland then reflected upon the credit of dr. oates's testimony , having been told that he broke prison at dover , and other ill things of him ; so that he offered it as reasonable , that some witnesses might be brought to attesst his reputation , desiring time to produce more witnesses , having witnesses already to prove that there are more , and naming hilsley for one that would prove , that when dr. oates said he came over with him , dr. oates was all that time at st. omers , but ( says ireland ) no man can answer to a charge he was not aware of . sir denny ashburnham being solicited to appear , and testifie what he could say concerning dr. oates , was now called ; and he informed that upon a letter received that morning , with the copy of an indictment of perjury against dr. oates , from the town of hastings , for which he served , he sent them to mr. atturney , but it being only a certificate , and the indictment not proceeded upon , and no warrantable evidence , and neither for nor against the prisoners , it was not thought worth a reading . sir denny ashburnham's information was , that he had known dr. oates from a child , and that in his youth he was lookt upon to be a person not much to be confided in , that being the night before importuned by the sister of mr. ireland to give evidence for the prisoner , he refused so to do , declaring that he could not speak any thing to his advantage : for though perhaps having known dr. oates in youth , he might have suspended in his belief upon dr. oates his single testimony , yet finding it so seconded , he was clearly convinced , and satisfied with the truth of the thing , and he declared farther that he could say nothing to take off dr. oates evidence . that the matter of the indictment in question was only dr. oates swearing the peace against a man , and saying that there were witnesses could prove such a fact , which they would not do when they were called . mr. ireland pleaded the loyalty of himself , and family , his relations plundered , an unkle killed in the kings service , the pendrels , and the giffords , that preserved the king after his defeat at worcester , and so only desiring time for more witnesses , he remitted himself to the court. mr. groves said little more than that dr. oates never lay at his house , and that he never saw him take the sacrament at wildhouse , as he could prove , if he were able to send for witnesses , his sister declaring that she never saw dr. oates there , at her brothers house ( dr. oates deposing that he was there in a disguise , and by another name . ) the prisoner concluding all with these words . as i have a soul to save , i know nothing of this matter charged upon me . mr. pickering affirms that he never shot off a pistol in his life , that he never saw dr. oates that he knew of ; offers to swear that he never was in mr. bedlows company ; urges that his father was slain on the kings side , and pleads that he had no time to summons his witnesses . after the lord chief justice had given his directions to the jury which were exact and impartial , together with some learned reflections upon the errors of the church of rome ; the jury went out to consider of their verdict , and in a short time came in again , and returned the three prisoners severally guilty of the high treason whereof they stood indicted , and so the court adjourned till four in the afternoon : when meeting again , according to their adjournment ; mr. recorder , after a grave and weighty discourse upon that occasion , pronounced sentence upon the prisoners according to the usual form in such cases , which sentence was accordingly executed upon ireland , and grove ; ianuary 24. at the common place of execution , pickering being reprieved till may 9. 1679. when he likewise suffered death according to his sentence . the history of the charge and defence of tho. whitebread , will. harcourt , john fenwick , john gavan , and anthony turner . there were tried by an oyer and terminer , at the sessions-house at old bayly , iune 13. 1679. five jesuits and priests , that is to say , tho. white , alias whitebread , ( provincial of the society in england ) will. harcourt , rectour of london , iohn fenwick , procurator for the society , iohn gavan , and anthony turner , upon an indictment of high treason , for a conspiracy against the life of the king , the overturning of the government , and the destruction of the protestant religion . there was also a sixth brought to the barr , one iames corker , but upon his petition to the court for longer time , in regard that he had not sufficient notice for the producing of his witnesses , and the preparing of his defences , he was , for the present , set aside . the indictment being read , mr. whitebread represented to the court , that having been tri'd on the 17. of december last , upon the same indictment , the jury impannell'd , and the evidence found insufficient that was brought in against him , and the jury discharged without verdict , he was informed that no man could be tried , and have his life put in jeopardy twice for the same cause ; and therefore made it his suit , that he might have counsell to direct him upon that point in the matter of law. he pressed that his life was in jeopardy , being deliver'd over in charge to the jury ; and cited sayer's case eliz. 31. who having pleaded to a former indictment for a burglary , was indicted a second time ; the judges declaring that he could not be indicted again for the same fact. he desired a sight of the record , and to be informed whether or no , being come upon his trial , a man ought not to be either condemned , or acquitted . upon which motion and proposal it was opened unto him , that the jury being discharg'd of him , his life was in no danger ; and that the jury being sworn to make true deliverance of the prisoners in their charge , their charge is not full till the last charge of the court , after evidence . and farther , that their plea was not to be supported without a record ; and moreover that there was no record of december 17. concerning them , for there was no verdict , because there was no trial , nor was it the same indictment , but contained new matter . upon which , mr. whitebread submitted himself to the court. mr. fenwick offered the same plea with mr. whitebread , inlarging himself upon it ; that they two were in the fame danger with the other three that suffered , for if mr. bedlow ( who declared he could say nothing against them ) had given the same evidence as against the rest , they should have been likewise condemned : so that the evidence falling short , he supposed that they ought to have been discharged . the court proceeded now upon the prisoners , who did all plead not guilty ; and the jury being called , they did unanimously except ( without naming them ) to all those persons that had served before as jury-men in the same cause . when the king's counsell had opened the indictment , mr. oates was the first witness called , and sworn : who giving the court to understand , that he should have occasion for several witnesses , which he desired might be called in , mr. gavan objected against it , for fear of giving them instructions ; so that mr. oates giving in their names , a note was taken of them , and they were sent for to be in readiness upon occasion , and then mr. oates came to his evidence , declaring , that mr. whitebread was made provincial december last was twelve-month , and ordered conyers to preach this doctrine in the english seminary upon s. thomas of becket's day , that the oaths of allegeance and supremacy were antichristian , heretical , and devillish : which was done accordingly . and that whitebread wrote letters in ianuary , or february , to s. omers , of what talbot had written to him about the state of ireland ; which was , that thousands would be in readiness to rise when the blow was given : signifying by the word blow , as was usual among them , the murther of the king. farther declaring , that this expression was in whitebread's letter , and that he said ( for the blow ) he hoped it would not be long first . that in ianuary whitebread sent two jesuits to see how things were in ireland , of whose return in april whitebread delivered an accompt : mentioning a consult appointed in april , old stile , may , new ; where there met whitebread , fenwick , harcourt , and turner , who did all of them sign the resolve ; whitebread at wild-house , fenwick in drury-lane , harcourt in duke-street . that the consult began at the white-horse tavern in the strand , where cary was made procurator to be sent to rome : after this they adjourned into small meeting , at whitebread's chamber , ireland's , harcourt's , fenwick's . the witness durst not charge mr. gavan with this point . that the resolve signed as aforesaid , was ▪ that pickering and grovo should proceed to dispatch the king ; ( as a good expedient . ) and that after this consult , the witness and 8 or 9 more returned to s. omers ; and in iune whitebread went over to flanders , ( being provincial ) to look to his charge ; where , upon discourse with some of the fathers , he had this expression , that he hoped to see the — at whitehall laid fast enough ; and that if the brother should appear to follow in his footsteps , his passport should be made too . that iune 13. old stile the witness came for england by order , took boat at calais on the 14. and on the 15. betimes in the morning he landed at dover , where mr. fenwick was with some students that he was sending over . that fenwick , the witness , and some others took coach , baited at canterbury , and when they came six miles farther , there was a box taken by the searchers , directed to the honourable richard blundell , esq at london , and brought up by mr. fenwick . it was full of beads , crucifixes , and the like : and fenwick desired the searchers to send it with a letter for mr. thompson , ( so he called himself ) to the fountain tavern near charing cross. he swears farther , that fenwick said , if they had searched his pockets , as they did his box , it might have cost him his life ; for he had letters there about the concern in hand . that he came to london about noon , iune 17. old stile ; and that in iuly , one ashby ( or rather thimbleby ) and fenwick brought over instructions from whitebread , for the offering sir george wakeman 10000 li. to poyson his majesty , and for the filling up of a blank commission for sir iohn gage , to be an officer in the army ; and that by fenwick's own order the witness gave it one sunday into sir iohn's own hand ; the commission being filled at wild-house by whitebread's order , but signed and sealed by whitebread , who ordered ashby in iuly , while he was at s. omers , to have it filled up : which order the witness saw , and knew the hand . that there were present at the filling of it up , mr. harcourt , mr. ashby , and mr. ireland : and that fenwick and harcourt did counsell ashby upon his leaving of the bath , ( whither he went about the latter end of iuly , ) to take his circuit in somersetshire , and possess the people there with the matter ; not doubting but the gentleman at whitehall would be dispatch'd before he came back . as to mr. gavan , mr. oates declares , that seeing him in the lobby , disguis'd in a periwigg , and one enquiring if he knew him , the witness did not then well know him in that dress , and so gave no information against him at that time ; not conceiving the mystery of it , knowing him to have a very good head of hair of his own . that mr. gavan , in iuly 1678. informed the fathers at london how things went in staffordshire and shropshire , and how industrious father ewers was to order matters in those countries . the letter did not say from what place , neither did the witness at first know the hand , but afterwards he did , as he shall make appear ; and it was iuly , or august , that the witness saw mr. gavan at mr. ireland's chamber . mr. gavan here interposed , upon his salvation , that he was as innocent as a child unborn : which gave the court occasion to forbid the interrupting of the evidence . mr. oates declared likewise , that meeting gavan at ireland's chamber , he gave ireland the same account of staffordshire , and shropshire , as he had before in his letter : and for the proof of his hand , the witness saw him draw a bill for payment of money to some little priest ; which was the same writing with that letter . that gavan talked of two or three thousand pounds that would be ready thereabouts for the design . that betwixt august 8. and 12. ireland took leave of the witness , and others , at his own chamber , as if he were going to s. omers ; and that he leaving the town , fenwick , in the other's absence , executed the place of treasurer and procurator . that august 21. fenwick , harcourt , keins and blundell were together at wild-house , and 80 li. before them , the greater part in guinneys ; which was for those that were to kill the king at windsor : and that the matter being agreed , coleman came , and gave the messenger a guinny to quicken him in his dispatch . that from wild-house they removed to harcourt's chamber for the papers that were to goe to windsor : and that there the messenger received his money . that a day or two after this , fenwick and harcourt being at a consult at the benedictines , he had fresh news out of ireland , from talbot , of a design upon the life of the duke of ormond : he enquiring how things stood in england , and desiring commissions , and money , for advancing the design . that fenwick sent commissions ( as he told this witness ) to chester , by an express ; but concerning the letters by the post , the witness speaks his own knowledge . that mr. fenwick delivered this witness some money for necessary expences , charging him to get some masses said for the success of the undertaking . that august 25. after noon , he saw fenwick at his chamber , he being next day to depart for s. omers , with 8 or 10 students : after which time the witness never saw him more till he was in custody . that the first or second of september , a letter coming from mr. whitebread that was charged but two pence , and yet passed for a forrein letter , the witness concluded that mr. whitebread lay close somewhere in england . that september 3. the witness went at night to visit mr. whitebread , but could not speak with him , because he was at supper : but that next morning he gave the witness ill language , and blows , asking him how he could look him in the face , having done so falsly by him . and that the witness asking him what injury he had done him ; his answer was , that the witness had discovered the business : upon this mistake , that the person to whom the witness had communicated his information by dr. tongue , went to his majesty in the same-coloured cloaths that the witness wore , and mr. whitebread having received a description of his cloaths , concluded it to be the witness . that the witness having countenanced the matter as well as he could to mr. whitebread , he shewed the witness a letter from bedingfield , informing that the design had taken air ; and that if the five letters sent to windsor , and intercepted , had not made the rest look like a counterfeit , all had been spoil'd . that the witness having pacified mr. whitebread , he offer'd to be friends with him , upon condition he would tell him the person , and the minister that went with him . mr. oates declared this to be all he had to say to the prisoner at the barr , saving onely that upon sir george wakeman's refusing to poyson the king for 10000 li. mr. whitebread advised the adding of five thousand pounds more , and exceedingly rejoyced to find it accepted . concerning mr. turner , and his being present at the consult in april , and signing the resolve of murthering the king , mr. oates has something to say . as to mr. gavan , mr. oates swears that he was summoned to the consult of april 24. but cannot swear he was there , but onely that he saw his name to the resolve , which was all one with the letter about staffordshire , the witness still declaring , that he never saw gavan write any thing but the aforesaid bill of exchange . that whitebread , fenwick , harcourt and turner were there , and that the mony was raised for furthering the design of destroying the king and government . that gavan wrote a letter to mr. ireland , which he received by the hands of grove , for the taking up of mony : declaring farther , that that letter was received by grove , and delivered to ireland , giving an account of the affairs of staffordshire as is before related : and that this account was given in london the beginning , or middle of iuly , when mr. ashby was in town . here gavan alledged that mr. oates said but even now , that it was in the latter end of iuly : upon which mr. oates moved that the witness might be examined by the court , and not by the prisoners , that would put things upon the evidence which they never said . after this the prisoners put several questions to the witness . whitebread ask'd him how long he had known him before the april consult . mr. oates answered , that he never saw his face before . mr. whitebread demanded how he was to be employed , and what recompence . mr. oates told him , that when he left s. omers , he was to wait upon the fathers at mr. whitebread's chamber , and to carry the result from place to place , where respectively they met . to fenwick's questions , if mr. oates was at the white-horse tavern , if he din'd there , how long he stayed in town , who came over with him , and their names , mr. oates made answer , that he was at the white horse , that he did not dine there , that his stay in england was under twenty days , and that he could not punctually remember who they were that came over with him , it was so long since . whereupon mr. fenwick told the witness , that he need not charge his memory , for he had them in his narrative . mr. oates , upon this , naming divers of them , as father williams , the rector of watton , the rectour of liege , sir iohn warner , sir thomas preston , &c. mr. whitebread asked the witness , if mr. nevil and sir robert brett were there , he having said so in his narrative . mr. oates answered , that he believed that they were there . mr. fenwick offered mr. oates's narrative , as an evidence upon oath , being sworn before a justice of the peace ; insisting upon it , that his evidence in court ought to agree with his narrative . but he was answered , that they were to proceed according to law , which would not admit a pamphlet in evidence . mr. gavan demanded of mr. oates , whether it were in august , or july , that mr. oates saw him , what time of the month , and whether before mr. ashby went to the bath , or not . to which mr. oates replied , that it was towards the middle or latter end of iuly , that he saw the prisoner in town , ashby being then also in town , and gavan telling the witness that he would go see him ; the witness declaring particularly , that about mid-iuly ashby came to town , stayed not above a fortnight , designing for the bath , and that at this time it was that gavan communicated the subject of that letter . gavan demanded of the witness , in which of the two weeks it was ( ashby staying but a fortnight ) that mr. oates saw him in town . the prisoner expounding to the court the intent of that question , that he might endeavour to disprove it either in the one week or in the other . but mr. oates could not charge his memory with the precise week . mr. gavan put it then to mr. oates , how often he had seen him in london . whose answer was , onely one day , but two several times that day , as he remembered , by the token that an apothecary brought mr. gavan a cordiall in the afternoon to mr. ireland's chamber , he being then and there indisposed . that the apothecary was called walpoole , but that the witness could not say whether it was he himself that brought it , or his servant . mr. gavan brake out here into this expression , i do as truely believe that there is a god , a heaven , and a hell , as any one here does . as i hope for salvation , as i hope to see god in heaven , i never saw mr. oates before that day in january , when he says i had the periwigg on , and he did not know me . and as for july , i call god to witness , i never saw him then . vpon my salvation , i was not in london . liberty being allowed to the prisoners to ask any questions in their own defence , mr. turner asked mr. oates , if whitehall was not the first place that ever he saw him in , when he told the prisoner that he went by another name . mr. oates told him , that in that disguise , and beastly periwigg , he did not so well call him to mind ; and that he did not consider names , but he was the man. he saw him at the consult , where there were 40 or 50 in the meeting . that he could not say he saw him at the white horse , but at mr. fenwick's chamber he did . turner laid hold of that , and minded him that at whitehall he said it was at wild-house : which mr. oates explained , by telling the court , that in regard the greatest business was done at wild-house , they called all consults the consults of wild-house . mr. dugdale being sworn , was examined what he could say of whitebread and harcourt , but to begin with whitebread . he declared , that he had seen whitebread some two or three years agoe with the old lady aston , at tixall , having no great acquaintance with him . but that in a letter from mr. groves to mr. ewers , he saw one of mr. whitebread's inclosed , cautioning ewers to chuse men that were hardy , and desperate , ( or to that purpose ) and no matter for their being gentlemen . that he came to know mr. whitebread's hand , by looking upon him as he was writing a letter at tixal , which he gave him to convey . that his name was to the letter , and that it was so like the hand which the witness saw him write , that he might almost positively swear it was the same . that he came to the sight of this letter , by intercepting it , and reading it ; and that he saw it at tixall : all letters coming to mr. ewers under cover from mr. groves , being directed to the witness ; the said mr. ewers being a iesuite , and the witnesse's confessour . mr. dugdale swears farther , that he was engaged in the plot upon the life of the king by gavan and divers others . that at mr. ewers's chamber , this witnesse's ; at boscobel ; and elsewhere ; there were divers consultations about the death of the king , and bringing in of popery ; wherein mr. gavan was a great man , having a good tongue , and the faculty of moving the people : and the witness believeth that mr. ireland was then in the country . that at tixall there was one meeting about september last , where my lord stafford was present , mr. peters , mr. leveson , mr. ewers , and many more ; mr. gavan among the rest : and the meeting was to advise upon the design of change of religion , and taking off the king. that this was sept. 21. 1678. but that the witness hath heard it spoken of two years agoe . that upon this occasion , the witness was by mr. harcourt chosen to be disposed of at london , under the government of mr. parsons . that ewers and gavan were the first that brake this business to the witness , mr. gavan often perswading and incouraging him to it . the court appearing to be much affected with this evidence , laid great weight upon it , as a thing wholly new to them . upon which expression , gavan made an exclamation in these words , 't is so to me too , upon my soul ; for upon my conscience i never heard of it before ; bidding the witness look upon him with confidence if he could . mr. dugdale presently desiring mr. gavan to inform the court , whether he ever had the witness under his tuition or no , or knew any ill thing by him ; gavan acknowledged that he had been acquainted with mr. dugdale , living within 11 miles of tixall , and conversing with the family ; and that he knew mr. ewers very well , but never was in his chamber . dugdale proceeded , that some of the discourse already given in evidence was in the little parlour , and some in mr. ewers's chamber . and for a farther argument of friendship betwixt them , that this witness gave them 400 li. to pray for his soul , and to set forward this design , and promised them 100 li. more , upon their complaint that they should want mony ; mr. gavan assuring the witness that he should be canonized for what he had done . mr. dugdale swears farther , that in his hearing they talked as if they look'd for forces from abroad ; and that mr. gavan said , that though they were in great troubles themselves , they would yet have men and mony enough to spare for such a design . and then , as to a massacre , the witness swears , that he hath heard it talk'd at several consultations . but they were first advised by a letter from paris , that passed through harcourt's hands , to make the death of the king to be a presbyterian plot , and in case of his miscarriage , to engage the protestants in a revenge upon the presbyterian party , as guilty of the fact ; and after that , to go on to a massacre , and those that scap'd it to be afterwards cut off by an army . the witness saith moreover , that mr. gavan hath many times endeavoured to perswade him of the lawfulness , if not the merit , of killing any body for the advancement of their religion ; giving reasons for it out of scripture , and instancing in the example of garnet , and the miracles wrought by his reliques . he declareth farther , that he hath seen several treasonable letters from beyond seas striking at the life of the king , and the protestant religion , which this witness hath intercepted , and read , at least 100 of them , which were sent from harcourt to ewers under a cover from groves . the witness says farther , that the first intelligence they had in the country of the death of sir edmundbury godfry was from harcourt ; that it came to ewers on the monday , and bore date on the saturday that he was murthered . that the intelligence was in these words , this very night sir edmundbury godfry is dispatch'd . it was not said by whom he was murthered , but that he was killed , and they knew by whom . upon the sight of harcourt's ( or harrison's ) letters , which were usually sign'd with w. h. which stands for both , this witness went the next day to an ale-house hard by , and ask'd if they heard any thing of a knight thas was murthered at london : and that he had an evidence in court for the truth of what he deliver'd . mr. dugdale was demanded a farther account of whitebread's letters to ewers ; who said , that he particularly remembred one , but could not say how many he had seen . mr. harcourt then asking the witness the date of the last letter the witness had received from him ; mr. dugdale answered , that as he remembred , it was that concerning the death of sir edmundbury godfry in october : and then harcourt affirmed , that he had not written to him this year and half . mr. dugdale now applying himself to the prisoner , minded him , that upon mr. ireland's being last year in the country , the prisoner was used to send the s. omers letters to mr. ireland , and so they were dispatch'd down to my lord aston's . that the witness had the sight of eight of those letters , by the token , that he pretended to conjure in telling the death of mr. edward aston , before it was known to any of his relations ; which the witness came to understand upon reading two of these letters . that mr. ireland took it ill that he heard it no sooner , and the prisoner wrote him word of the sending these letters . mr. harcourt opposed , that mr. dugdale , but five weeks since , owned before a committee of parliament , that he did not know him , and came also to the gatehouse to entrap him , before the gent. of the committee ; but he denieth that he hath written to him for several years , and the writing of any such letter as he mentions , or that he ever approved of putting any man to death : informing , that the gent. for experiment-sake , desired the prisoner to write his own hand and name , and three of them also wrote their names , and he could not say which was the prisoner's ; who does not disown all this while that he hath often writ to ewers , and address'd to dugdale . mr. chetwin was now sworn to speak to a discourse that past betwixt him and mr. dugdale the last summer , what it was , and at what time ; who gave this evidence . that being in staffordshire , in a family which mr. sanbridge ( my lord aston's kinsman ) much frequented , the gent. coming to him in october last , askt him if he heard any thing of a westminster iustice that was killed . the witness told him , that he heard nothing of it . i was told ( says mr. sanbridge , ) by a girl of the house this morning at elds , that mr. dugdale had reported such a thing there . this was upon tuesday morning , and the saturday following the witness received an account at litchfield that sir edmundbury was murthered . upon mr. dugdale's coming to town , this witness , with some others , went to him before his examination , the witness asking him what he could say about that gentleman's death ; who made answer , that he remembred a letter from father harcourt to father ewers with these words in it , this night sir edmundbury godfry is dispatched . that this witness being out of town when the murtherers were tried , upon his return to london , enquired if dugdale was there ; and finding that he was not , the witness past this reflection upon it , that there was lost a very material witness . mr. dugdale informs , that whitebread charged ewers in his letter to take none but stout desperate fellows , and that they were to kill the king ; to take away the king's life , in those very words , as the witness remembreth . that these letters were sent by the ordinary post , and it being wondred at , that any man would venture such words in a letter , the witness made answer , that he was to have been an actour , and that they directed their letters to him ; that if they were discovered , he should be hanged , and they come off . the witness declaring , that he had been dealt with before by the lord stafford and mr. ewers , to kill the king. mr. whitebread demanding of him , whether he intercepted and read them himself ; and the witness replying , that he did so : whereof mr. whitebread desired the jury to take notice . mr. dugdale was then examined concerning mr. turner and m. fenwick ; who informs , that he had seen turner , ewers and leveson , with others , together at mr. ewers's chamber at tixall , and in other places , about two years since ; and that he had heard them discourse , and agree upon the whole design ; and that this witness had heard from ewers , that turner was to manage the plot in worcestershire : but that for fenwick , the witness cannot say that ever he saw him before . turner , on the other side , did own that he had been 3 or 4 times in his whole life at tixall , but not so much as in staffordshire for these four last years . mr. prance sworn and examined : who informs that harcourt told him about a year agoe , as he was paying him for an image of our lady , that there was a plot upon the life of the king. and that mr. ireland , mr. fenwick and mr. grove , at mr. ireland's chamber , were saying , that there would be 50000 men in readiness , to set up the catholick religion : and mr. fenwick told him , that my lords bellasis , powis , and arundel should command them : and that grove afterwards told the witness , the aforesaid lords had commissions to give places . the witness deposeth farther , that asking mr. fenwick what would become of trades-men , if we should come to have wars ; he bad the witness never fear want of trade , for there would be church-work enough for images , crucifixes , and the like . that the witness going to mr. fenwick's chamber , after father iames ( his ghostly father ) was dead , mr. fenwick would have had the witness come to confession to him . ( this was about a week before michaelmas last . ) mr. fenwick denying all , the witness minded him of a table for the altar that was brought him at the same time . mr. harcourt asking the witness if ever he had discoursed with him about any such matter ; mr. prance affirmed that he had , and that he paid the witness for some candlesticks , one thompson being in his company . harcourt owning that he knew thompson , and bought such candlesticks of him . mr. bedlow sworn : who informs the court , that he declined the giving of full evidence against whitebread and fenwick , for fear of disappointing a design he had then afoot , being at that time treating with reading about mr. whitebread and mr. fenwick , as well as the lords in the tower ; appealing to some of the justices upon the bench for the truth thereof , and referring to his apology at that time in the court , for keeping himself upon a reserve . mr. whitebread asking him thereupon , if he said any such thing at the last trial. mr. bedlow chargeth it upon mr. whitebread , that he gave mr. coleman an account of sending the four irish-men to windsor , and that he saw harcourt take out some 80 or 100 li. which mony he paid upon coleman's order , and gave the messenger a guinny from mr. coleman , to drink his health , as harcourt told this witness , coleman being gone before he came in . touching the reward of pickering and grove ; that grove was to have fifteen hundred pound , with an assurance of the good will of the lords ; and pickering as many masses , as at twelve pence a piece would amount to that summe : this allotment being made at harcourt's chamber , where the witness heard it from whitebread , pritchard , le faire , and keins . that the reward was for killing the king. pickering having been disciplin'd for his neglects : one while the flint 's loose ; then no powder in the pan ; and another time laden onely with bullets , and no powder . that he had seen fenwick at harcourt's and whitebread's chambers , when the thing was discoursed of , and that they all agreed upon it . that he saw whitebread at harcourt's chamber onely twice ; harcourt himself was there once , and pritchard and le faire , with others , at another time : where they discoursed of sir george wakeman's sticking at the 10000 li. and so made it up 15000 li. that the business of the consult was , first to advise upon their manner of doing it ; and then what after-course to take if they fail'd . mr. ireland propounding the taking off the king at his morning-walk at newmarket ; fenwick , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and conyers to be employed , and three or four more , as the witness was inform'd . that the witness knew nothing of turner but by hearsay . nor of gavan , more then that he had heard he was an actour in the plot. as to mr. harcourt , that he was very well acquainted with the witnesse's practice of bringing pacquets and portmantles from beyond sea , having brought over several for himself . harcourt replied , that the witness never brought him but one pacquet , and never any portmantle ; and that he never saw him more then twice , before that time in the court , and once before the councill . mr. bedlow informed the court , that he had got 8 to have proved this , but the putting off the trials so from time to time , had disappointed him of his witnesses . proceeding , that he had brought the prisoner letters from watton , s. omers , bruges , paris , valladolid , and salamanca , all of them concerning the plot of changing the religion of england , and overturning the government ; what men and moneys in readiness , both at home and abroad , and what more expected : the contributions and accounts mostly in mr. harcourt's hands , the witness having carried several papers from harcourt to langhorne concerning this matter . mr. whitebread now ( with leave of the court ) ask'd if mr. bedlow was a lieutenant in flanders or not ; and whether of horse , or foot. the witness replied that he was a lieutenant of foot in the p. of frieseland's regiment . upon which mr. whitebread replied , that the flanders companies had no such officers , but onely captains and alfarez . so mr. bedlow sent for his commission to clear it . mr. harcourt pleaded , that some five years since mr. bedlow brought him a pacquet from dunkirk ; and that upon the opening of it , the prisoner found the letters enclosed addressed to other persons , to whom he sent them , the outside cover being onely directed to him . this was the first time the prisoner ever saw him ; and the second was , when he came afterwards to his chamber , lamenting his condition , that he was newly turn'd catholick , and had lost his friends , when the prisoner lent him 20 s. upon his promise of repaying it , but never saw him after , till lately at the privy councill . this was about four years since . mr. bedlow affirmed , that he had ten pounds of the prisoner for the sending for , but he could not properly produce his witnesses before the trial of the lords ; and that he might honestly speak a hundred times more of mr. harcourt . the witness saith farther , that the consult which he carried to s. omers he had from mr. coleman , to whom mr. harcourt went with him , and in that consult was the main of the design ; and that he was also presented by mr. harcourt to the lord arundell , who promised him great matters when the times were come about . harcourt interjecting , that he spake not one true word ; mr. bedlow demanded of the prisoner , if in august or september last he was not in company with le faire , or le fevre . to which mr. harcourt said , he knew no le faire , but le fevre he did ; and believes that he saw him then , but never since . and the witness went on , that pritchard recommended him to him , as a person tri'd and trusty , and fit to be taken into the privacy of the design ; pritchard declaring to the witness in their presence , that the death of the king was one part of it . and the witness says farther , that going another time from pritchard to harcourt , he saw harcourt give sir george wakeman a bill of exchange upon some citizen for 2000 li. keins and sir william anderson being present : which bill sir george wakeman read , folded up , and went and received the mony . and that mr. harcourt told sir george wakeman upon delivering the bill , that that 2000 li. was in part of a greater summe . sir george wakeman replying upon it , that 15000 li. was but a small consideration for the 〈◊〉 of religion , and the saving of three kingdoms . harcourt desired he might name the citizen upon whom it was drawn ; for it would then be found upon the merchant's book . fenwick urg'd , that it was not enough to averr that he saw a bill of exchange , if he cannot say from whom it came , and to whom it was directed . but the court found that to be of little moment , mr. bedlow himself not being concerned in the bill . mr. bedlow's commission for lieutenant was read . sir thomas doleman was now sworn concerning a letter produced in court , who delivered that it was found about a week after that dr. oates had inform'd the councill of the plot , in a bag of mr. harcourt's papers , which sir thomas was appointed to examine . and then the letter it self was read . honoured dear sir , i have but time to convey these following particulars to you . first , i am to give you notice , that it hath seem'd fitting to our mr. consult prov. &c. to fix the 21. of april next stilo veteri for the meeting at london of our congregation : on which day all those that have a suffrage are to be present there , that they may be ready to give a beginning to the same on the 24. which is the next day after s. george's day . you are warned to have jus suffragii ; and therefore if your occasions should not permit you to be present , you are to signify as much , to the end others in their ranks be ordered to supply your absence . every one is minded also not to hasten to london long before the time appointed ; nor to appear much about the town , till the meeting be over , lest occasion should be given to suspect the design . finally , secrecy , as to the time and place , is much recommended to all those that receive summons , as it will appear of its own nature necessary . tertio pro domino solone disco benefact . prov. luniensis . i am streightned for time , that i can onely assure you i shall be much glad of obliging you any ways . sir , your servant , edward petre. mr. harcourt being called upon to explain this letter , informed the court , that this letter was written to one that had a vote in the meeting , which by the order of the society is to assemble once in three years , and advise about their particular affairs : that the chief business was about the choice of a procurator to be dispatch'd to rome , wherein secrecy was requisite , because it was dangerous to have it known . as to the caution of not hastening before the time , or being too publick , for fear the design should be suspected , wherein secrecy was naturally necessary ; mr. whitebread expounded it , that the design was the getting of a congregation , which it was prudential to keep secret , as a thing not permitted in this nation ; declaring upon his salvation , that there was no other reason for the enjoyning of that secrecy : offering farther , that it would be very hard to take away mens lives upon a word , that may as well bear one construction as another : instancing in the usual way of speech , i have a design to dine here or there tomorrow , where the word design is properly enough made use of . it was returned upon them , that the word design , with a caution of privacy , and the business being matter of secrecy in its own nature , must necessarily imply something of greater consequence then the election of an officer . mr. gavan in reply offer'd his exposition , that the jesuits in all places meeting once in 3 years for the inspection of their officers , and the regulation of their members , this was their time for their meeting here : applying the word design to the great concernment of both worlds , which was the subject matter of this meeting : declaring , upon his salvation , that though he was not at this consult himself , yet he believed that which he had delivered was the true and onely cause of their meeting : adding hereunto , that it being in time of the parliament sitting , secrecy was necessary , that they might not give offence ; and that it concerned them not to be taken notice of , when their lives depended upon the discovery . that the design was the design of a congregation . dr. oates objected , that though they justify the consult now , yet when there was but one proof of it , they denied at first that there was any such consult . at which fenwick disown'd the denial of it . mr. bedlow declared , that whereas mr. gavan says , that their desire of secrecy was out of a respect to the parliament , he and others had been employed to bring more jesuits into england in parliament-time , then in any other ; for that they were then in least danger . dr. oates adding , that they were more bold , and publick in the lobbies and court of requests , in sessions of parliament , and not forbearing to threaten the protestants . another letter was now produced , and sir thomas doleman called to speak to 't ; who declared , that he found it some two days after that which was read before , among mr. harcourt's papers ; and that reflecting upon dr. oates's information to the councill , concerning commissions given out , and some ambiguous passages in the letter , he , the witness , presented it to the councill with theis quaere upon it : enqu . what is meant by the word patents ? it was signed christopher anderton , hilton , febr. 1. 1677 / 8. oates representing that by hilton was meant rome , which harcourt acknowledged . the letter it self was now read . worthy sir , i know not from whence it proceeds , but i perceive that both your letters and mine have bad fortune by the way ; for my correspondents with you complain they hear not from me , whereas i write constantly intire pacquets , and since the bills i received from your self for sir william goring , and for mr. ireland , from mr. shelly , i have not had one letter but what i received this week ; which in part made recompence for the former , for it brought me three of yours , and one of mr. ireland's , for which i render you many humble thanks , and acknowledge the fifteen pounds from my lord castlemain , though mr. ireland made no mention of it in his . we are all here very glad of the promotion of mr. thomas harcourt . when i writ that the patents were sent , although i guess for whom they were , yet i know not for certain , because our patrons do not use to discover things or resolutions till they know they have effect . and therefore in these kind of matters i dare not be too hasty , lest some will say , a fool's bolt is soon shot . there arose a great difficulty upon the plurality of the word patents . mr. whitebread expounded it to be meant of his patent for provinciall ; which being but one , would not have been called patents . which mr. whitebread qualified by making it a latinism , and called it literae patentes . it was objected , that he being made provincial ianuary 14. and this bearing date feb. 5. the word patents could not be intended of his commission . to which m. whitebread answers , that possibly they did not know till then ; and that it was not known what exceptions might be exhibited against the person named : besides , that every patent is called literae patentes . dr. oates affirmed , that if a man be chosen to a place , he must execute it , upon pain of damnation if he disobey his superiour . to which mr. whitebread replied , that a hundred instances might be given of refusalls in the case ; and that he would have refused it himself , if he had foreseen the trouble of it ; appealing to almighty god , as he was to answer at the last day , that he knew nothing at all of this business . dr. oates declared that the patents spoken of in this letter were sent , a great many of them , in april and may before . the prisoners being now called to their defence , dr. oates's witnesses were sent for , to be in readiness . mr. whitebread beginning , that though he did not fear death , he would be loth to die by injustice : and that he hop'd that he should be allow'd the common freedome of endeavouring to preserve himself ; for that a man's life might be taken away by perjury , as well as by a pistoll : so that he trusted that no man should be admitted as an evidence against him , that was not probus testis ; offering that d. oates was not such a man , and he craved leave to say that he was perjured . he says that he did such and such things by whitebread's appointment , was present with him april 24. and that the prisoner acquainted dr. oates with the whole design : a thing so improbable , that whoever believes it must take the prisoner for a mad-man , to trust any body with such a concern at first sight ; ( for he confesseth that so it was ; ) and then to trust a man that had his livelyhood from the society , ( for they maintain'd him , ) that is to say , first the prisoner's predecessor , and then himself . upon his importunity to be entertain'd in the society , the prisoner perswaded him to withdraw , reflecting upon him as a person not answerable to the purpose he pretended to ; and that for severall reasons . first , for his principles ; for he held severall opinions that were not sound . secondly , his life was loose , and therefore he was desired to retire . to which end , he had a suit of cloaths given him , a periwigg , and 4 li. in his pocket , which he promised to repay upon the fale of his library in london ; but he never did . the prisoner took notice of the just wonder of the court at writing to dugdale by the post in so plain and dangerous terms ; and the like in his discourse to dr. oates : but concluded in craving the court's leave to produce witnesses , that from the 10. of decem. to the 23. of iune following dr. oates was at s. omers , and lodg'd but one night out of the house . it was observed upon mr. whitebread , as a strange thing , that they should still maintain a man that they had so ill an opinion of : but mr. whitebread denied the maintaining of him , affirming , that he was not sent over by them , as he said he was , and undertaking to prove it : allowing all this while that they had maintained him before ; and distinguishing betwixt an office of charity to a man of letters , and in necessity , and a confidence of intrigueing with him in such a case as this . mr. fenwick then recommended it to the court to consider , that dr. oates's evidence from one end to the other was supported by the sight of such and such letters from one person or another ; and all the testimony is , the sight of the letters : as if fenwick , that knew dr. oates was turn'd away from s. omers for his misdemeanors , should after that make him privy to all his letters . the prisoner desired the court to take notice , that he had a thousand letters taken from him , and not one syllable either of treason , or of solliciting people to come over , was charged upon him out of those letters . urging , that all the proof made was but saying and swearing ; and defying any man to make out any probability to any unbyassed judgement , how this could possibly be . here the prisoners were minded , that there is no other evidence to be given , then by saying and swearing . fenwick pursued his discourse , declaring , that he did no more think of his being taken or accused , then of his death ; and that he removed nothing ; and that besides letters , there were seized in bonds and bills to the value of five or six thousand pounds ; and it seems strange , that out of all this there should nothing of a design appear . for god's sake ( said the prisoner ) where are the commissions sign'd ? and the moneys paid ? mr. hilsley being presented to the court as a witness on the behalf of the prisoners , mr. whitebread begs that their witnesses might be sworn : which though it would not be granted , because it was against the king ; yet the jury were directed to value the testimony according to the credit of the persons , and the matter in question . mr. gavan offered that there was no positive law ; and the lord coke in his institutes says , that there is not so much as scintilla iuris against it . but this being against constant usage and custome , it could not be granted . mr. whitebread shews , that in mr. ireland's triall , pag. 35 and 36 , dr. oates declares that he came from s. omers with sir iohn warner , father williams , and mr. hilsley : but it was answered , that printed trialls are no evidence ; there may be errata's in them . then mr. fenwick asked dr. oates , if he did not acknowledge that he came over with hilsley : and dr. oates told him , that to any question of that day , if the court thought it reasonable , he would give an answer . fenwick insisted upon it , that dr. oates was forsworn in affirming he did ; but not being convict , that could not be prest : so that fenwick offered to prove his affirmation by witnesses , that heard it ; asking dr. oates again , if he came over with hilsley . to which dr. oates made answer , that to put them out of their pain , as he said then , so he said now , that one hilsley did come over with him . to which hilsley answered , that he did not , for he left him at s. omers . dr. oates acknowledged that hilsley left him at s. omers , but that he came away a day after him , and overtook him at calais . hilsley denied it , saying , there were a great many there that could prove the contrary . dr. oates informed the court , that hilsley lost his mony at calais , and that he prevailed with father williams to relieve him . hilsley confess'd the loss of his mony , but utterly denied that ever dr. oates and he were in a ship together . dr. oates urged , that he might be examined if he were not in orders : but it was not thought reasonable to press him to accuse himself . hilsley offers witnesses to make out that dr. oates was in s. omers the day after hilsley came out , and several weeks after . dr. oates swears that hilsley left them upon the way , and did not come throughout with them to london . hilsley says that he believes dr. oates was told of his losing his mony by one that was with him the second of may , and that there was one in court who ( he supposed ) could speak to 't . mr. william parry offered then to swear , that dr. oates was at s. omers upon that day when he affirms he came over , that is , that he was there upon the 25 ; that he stirr'd not from thence that day ; that the evidence din'd with him , and he went into the infirmary , for he was sick ; that he was at s. omers till after the 20. of iune , by the token that he was there at a play upon the 20. day . dr. oates denied the business of the infirmary , and offered to make appear to the court , that hilsley had been several years of the sodality of the iesuits ; and that they dare not but say what their superiours bid them . as to the 20. of iune , dr. oates averrs that he was at s. omers at that action , but affirms that he was then come back again from london . parry on the other side denied that dr. oates ever went out of the colledge ; for that he constantly din'd and supp'd with him , saving 3 or 4 days when he was in the infirmary , where he entred april the 25. old stile . dr. oates advertised the court of a contradiction in the prisoner's evidence , upon the difference between old stile and new . mr. parry affirms that dr. oates came to s. omers in december , and went not out from the colledge till the end of iune , and that onely to watton , for two days and a night ; and that he is confident of what he says ; for a scholar never removes from thence to england , but 't is the talk of the whole colledge . and then ( says mr. gavan ) they goe away in secular garments , that no notice may be taken of their leaving the place . dr. oates admitted this as a general rule , but that his case was a particular exception to that rule ; and that he resum'd the habit of the house upon his coming back to london , and appear'd as one of it still , not knowing that it was taken notice of that he had been out , having never shewed himself in the colledge in a lay-habit . mr. whitebread followed it , that let his cloaths be what they would , his place and seniority was the same , so that at meals he was visible to the whole house . there stood up for the prisoners one mr. doddington , ( another witness ) that passed at s. omers by the name of hollis , betwixt 18 and 19 years of age , who gave this account of dr. oates : that he entred the colledge about a fortnight before christmas , and betwixt that and iune was never out , but one night at watton . that he saw him at least every other day , and in particular the day after hilsley departed , which was april 24. new stile ; and falling sick , he went the next day into the infirmary : affirming , that he saw him in the garden , upon the 2. of may , with one blood or burnaby . this witness came into england in april last , about two months since , in part upon the proclamation for recalling such as were in seminaries , and partly for want of health . mr. gifford was next examined , who declared that he came from s. omers about a month before , and that the occasion of his coming was to justify that dr. oates was at s. omers when he said he was here . he affirmed , that he saw him may-day was twelvemonth and april 21. at s. omers , and kept him company the whole week after . that he remembers the first of may , by the token that one mr. burnaby coming that day to the colledge , dr. oates made an acquaintance with him , and this witness saw them together ; and at the colledge-hour of recreation , for a week at least , he came every day after dinner . that he was not in the infirmary till the day after hilsley was gone away , continuing there about three days ; and from that time till iune at least , gifford solemnly averrs that he saw him at least every other day , for he never was out all that time , but one night at watton , for his relaxation . and he could not but be taken notice of : for though there were a matter of 150 that eat all in the same room ; yet he sitting at a table apart , betwixt the religious and the youths , could not chuse but be taken notice of . mr. palmer stood up next ; who inform'd , that he came from s. omers 2 or 3 months since , and that he came because he car'd not for staying any longer : that his father lives by windsor : that he saw mr. oates on may-day , new stile , by the token that there were strangers that day ; and that the witness saw him in the afternoon playing with the other boys at nine-pins . ( they call all those boys that are not of the religious : and though he sate at a table distinct , yet going to school , he was still reckon'd among the boys . ) the witness saw him the next day with mr. burnaby , and it was wondred at , his thrusting himself into his company , having never seen him before , as mr. burnaby said himself . that the witness saw him also at the action ; and also with mr. killingbeck on the 5. of may , who was then departing ; and likewise with mr. poole , at his going away . that the 11. day , at a play , dr. oates would needs sit in the place of the musick , and one mr. watson quarrelled with him . seeing him also betwixt these times , and so from time to time , till iune following . mr. cox informed , that he came away from s. omers in november after dr. oates : that he knew dr. oates very well , and saw him at s. omers at the time when he affirms that he was in england ; for he was often with mr. poole when he was sick , which mr. poole was the witnesse's musick-master . that he went away in iuly , and never stirr'd from s. omers till he went quite away . that the witness was there also till dr. oates went , which was after the consult of the jesuits , which he affirms to have been in april , and himself to have been at . the witnesse's jumbling of the months caused the people to laugh : and the witness still persisted , that dr. oates was at s. omers till the jesuits consult was over . he informed that he came thither , and was onely one night out of the house , at watton , all the time he was there . that he did not goe away with mr. hilsley , for a gent. that was going that day for england , being loth to rise , dr. oates told a story of him how loth he was to leave his bed , which was the day after hisley went away . the other gent. went upon the 5. of may , and mr. poole and mr. nevil , who he says were with him in england , were neither of them absent at that time . that dr. oates was at s. omers all may and iune . the witness being prest to name the month when d. oates came away , he said he could not remember it . mr. thomas billing informed , that he came about 3 months since from s. omers : that he knew dr. oates very well , and saw him at s. omers the very day , or the day after that he came thither ; ( the 10. of december ; ) and that he continued there till toward the end of iune , never out of the house but once at watton in christmas ; this witness being then in the infirmary , and dr. oates came in , saying that he had been at watton . that he had been twice in the infirmary , and the second time was in april , where ( as the witness remembers ) he was 3 or 4 days : that he saw him in the colledge from december till about the end of iune . that he was there all may , and could not be 8 days in england , as he says ; for being entred into the sodality march 25. he was appointed to read at six a clock every sunday morning , and after he had begun , he read constantly in course till he went away : for he was never sick on a sunday in april , but somewhat indisposed , so that he went to the infirmary upon occasion for some 3 or 4 days , and once in 2 or 3 days the witness constantly saw him . that upon the second of may he saw him with mr. blunt in the garden , and also with one mr. rushton , by certain tokens . mr. townley informed , that he knew oates , and saw him in april , may , and iune . dr. oates departed from s. omers about the 10. of iune : he believeth that he saw him every other day for all . april and all may : for sitting at a single table , as he did , he might be easily mist. mr. fall informed , that he came from s. omers some 2 months agoe : that he saw dr. oates about christmas was twelvemonth , and so from that time till iune , save while he was at watton . this witness hath been in the convent 2 years and a half . mr. iohn hall informeth , that he came from s. omers in iuly 1678. having been there above 7 years : that he saw dr. oates there in april , may , and till about the 23. of iune ; the witness taking a more particular notice of him , by serving as a butler , and laying the table , and drawing beer , and the like ; serving dr. oates himself most days . that he came away for his health , beginning to be ill , at christmas ( 77. ) that he lives with his father in radnorshire , and came up to london upon a summons as a witness . mr. cook informs , that he came from s. omers last ianuary , upon this occasion , and that he hath been ever since in town . that he saw dr. oates there in iune , and that he went away upon the 23 ; which he knows , being a taylour , and having made him some cloaths . that he saw him every day , and sometimes 20 times in a day . that he was there all april , and all may , and he came twice every week to the witnesse's shop for things . that the witness liv'd in the colledge , and remembers that dr. oates was at watton onely one night in april , but he cannot say the very day ; onely it was spoken of over the house . mr. gavan offers , that dr. oates says in his narrative , he came over in company with sir iohn warner and sir thomas preston ; and that to prove him perjured , clears the prisoners . but being told , that they should have indicted him , and made that out before , if any such thing were ; mr. whitebread replied , that they were kept close prisoners ; pressing again the business of his coming over with sir iohn warner . dr. oates , to clear himself of all contradictions , says , that he named some persons at one time , and some at another , as his memory served him ; naming the rectour of liege , sir iohn warner , father williams , father marsh , father warner , sir thomas preston , &c. one bartlet a dutchman , but speaking a little english , informed , that he came from s. omers may 23. ( 78. ) new stile : that sir iohn warner was at watton all april and may ; and that he was there himself , and saw sir iohn there : that he had been some five or six weeks in england , and came over about the latter end of iune . but bartlet being minded that he said the 23. of may before , he excused himself , that he thought the question had been ask'd concerning dr. oates's coming over , which he heard of beyond seas . mr. tisser was then sworn to be a true interpreter to one carlier , a witness for the prisoners that could not speak english. mr. tisser informs , that carlier came into england about seven or eight weeks since , and that he was for the last two years in watton : that he was the last sunday in april , and all may , at his house there , the witness having been his gardener . then mr. tisser stood interpreter for another witness , charles verron , who speaks no english. verron says , that sir iohn warner was at watton all april and may was twelve-month , and so till september : and the witness affirms it , for he passes with a vessel between s. omers and watton , and for the most part sees sir iohn every day : and that the witness is of the roman religion . bailleé ( a servant to sir iohn warner ) informs also , that sir iohn was all april and may was twelve-month at watton : and that he being a mason , sir iohn gave him directions about a building , and look'd after the doing of it himself . iohn ioseph informs , that he knows sir thomas preston , and that he saw him almost every day in april , may , and iune , or however , 2 or 3 days in a week . that the witness was porter of the gate to the english house at liege , where sir thomas preston was in the months of april , may , and iune . but that sir thomas preston was away in the time of vacancy , which is in august . peter carpentier informs , that being caterer at liege , he knew sir thomas preston very well , and saw him there every day , all april , and may. mr. gavan told the court , that he had no more witnesses to this point : and then offered the difference of his case from the rest ; and that dr. oates did not charge him as sitting in the consult , but as seeing his hand to it afterwards : representing , that onely a profest iesuit has a right of sitting there , ( which as then he was not . ) the prisoner insists upon a witness that he has , to prove , that at that time he was at wolverhampton in staffordshire . being told that it was his hand to the consult , not his being present at it , that was charg'd upon him : gavan replied , that he could not sign it at london , unless he were at london ; and so he offered to prove himself at wolverhampton the four and the five and twentieth of april . but dr. oates swearing that it was in iune , or iuly , that he saw mr. gavan's hand to the consult , it was considered , that it might be sign'd at any time during that intervall ; and so the proving mr. gavan at wolverhampton the four or five and twentieth of april would doe him no good : but however his witness was called . catharine winford inform'd , that for the greatest part of the summer , mr. gavan sojourn'd in her house at wolverhampton in staffordshire , in iune , and so to the 23. of iuly , when he went to another lodging in the town , more convenient for his turn . the witness said , that he was never from thence in all that time , and that he sojourn'd longer with her , but she onely speaks to the months in question . that after he went , she seldom failed a day of seeing him : and that she was a roman catholick . mary poole informed , that she had known mr. gavan 6 or 7 years , and that being a servant to mrs. winford at wolverhampton , she saw mr. gavan at this time twelvemonth at her mistresse's ; and that he was there in april ; and that she believes he was there in may , for she does not remember his going away till the end of iuly ; and he was there also in iune . it was asked her why she stuck more at may then the other months : and her answer was , that any body might mistake . she own'd her self likewise to be a roman catholick . mrs. winford was further examined , what circumstances she could call to mind at the time when he went from her . to which she answered , that not knowing what she should be examined upon , she could not well recollect her self ; but that he went often abroad to my lord aston's : that she knew not how long he stay'd there , but that she was confident that he did not goe to london , for he had no linen with him then , as he had when he used to goe a journey . dr. oates suggested to the court , that he took a chamber to goe into the exercise , and that under that pretence he might slip to london and no body the nearer , because upon that occasion they are close shut up . to which mrs. winford answered , that she knew nothing of it , but upon any urgent business people are then admitted to see them ; and that she her self could speak it upon her own knowledge , and that about the end of iuly she went often to him after he had left her lodgings . that the former part of iuly he was in the witnesse's house , from whence he went upon the 23. that he was not shut up in the witnesse's house , and that the last eight days she was allowed to come to him : not but that he was shut up , but still upon business , either of bringing any thing , or speaking with him , there was admittance to him . touching the point of his having time enough to be at london , and back again , while she did not see him ; the witness declared that she thought he had not ; but that she was confident that he did not go . but it was observed upon her , that she had said , peradventure he might be away 5 or 6 days ; but she still persisted , that she was confident he had not been at london in the interim . mr. gavan then prest the court for liberty of speech , and urged it , that dr. oates charged him directly to have been in town in iuly , and that he met the prisoner with mr. ashby , who was then in town ; so that the prisoner's being in town must be betwixt mr. ashby's coming to town , and his going out again ; which he computed to be a fortnight's time . the prisoner reasoning the point , in such sort , that if he could make it out that he was in staffordshire from the 15. or 16. of iuly to the end of the month , he had then acquitted himself . dr. oates makes it to be either the beginning or middle of iuly that mr. ashby came to town , but does not swear which ; onely he rather inclines to think it was the middle : and while mr. ashby was here , mr. gavan came up , and told the witness that he would go visit mr. ashby . mr. gavan having given evidence where he was at the end of iuly , was now called upon to prove where he was at the beginning of the month . but he told the court that his witnesses were not here ; and then addressed himself to the court to this effect : that being innocent , it was not possible for him to imagine upon what point they would accuse him ; but yet he cast his thoughts every way , to see where he was most liable , and what he had ever done that might yield the most plausible pretence for a charge : and that finding nothing so colourable as his being engaged at that april consult , the prisoner had provided himself at his own expence with witnesses to clear that matter . and now having discharged himself , by the use of all prudential means for his clearing , and having done it effectually as to the 24. of april , upon which the main pretension of a conspiracy was founded ; he cast himself with all submission upon the honour and justice of the court , offering proofs that he was not in london in august ; protesting solemnly , and upon his salvation , that he was not in london ; and imprecating upon himself most exemplary judgments from almighty god , if he were not innocent . after this , he offered himself to the court to pass the ordeal , as a test of his innocence , which in capital cases was in practice for a thousand years together , where there was onely the oath of the accuser against the denial of the accused . but this custome being now out , and the proposal favouring of a popular artifice , it was not allowed him . here six witnesses more are produced for him . the first witness saw him every day the last week of iuly . the second witness saw him the last fortnight in staffordshire , as he believes , but cannot positively averr it . the third witness , living in the same town ; could not say that he was out of it all iuly ; but the last week he was in the witnesse's house . the fourth witness spake onely to the last week too . mr. whitebread offered in his defence , that dr. oates failing in his testimony against ireland , was not probus testis , but improbus , and so an incompetent witness , and not to be credited in one case , after being convict of perjury in another ; recommending to the jury , to take notice of it , that he fled from his former testimony . where the prisoner was admonished , that he was gone from the present question : and that there was no conviction of perjury without a record ; and to prove it , that record must be produc'd too . mr. harcourt pressed it , that mr. bedlow , mr. prance , dr. oates , and mr. dugdale , were men of desperate fortunes , and flagitious persons , and that false swearing was their livelihood ; and that these were the men by whom he was charg'd . and then again , if the evidence on his side should be rejected because they were roman catholicks , it would be a very hard case in his own particular ; and destructive also of common commerce with other countries : and it would be vain to call witnesses , if a roman catholick should not be taken as a good evidence . mr. harcourt was here inform'd of his mistake , for roman catholicks were allowed to be witnesses , and none refused upon this triall . mr. harcourt said farther , that dr. oates charged him one while with paying the 80 li. for the ruffians at his chamber , and another while at wild house ; and that he had witnesses to that point . dr. oates lays it , that mr. ireland was by too , whereas the witnesses were now in court that would prove him to have been all august in staffordshire ; producing it in the printed trialls . but the print being no record , and what dr. oates said before not being the point now in issue , that suggestion could not avail the prisoner . dr. oates denying also that ever he said that ireland and harcourt were together at the paiment of the 80 li. to the villains , and affirming that they were not together . mr. gavan acknowledged that the proof of his not being in town was rather a negative , then a positive evidence : but however , as to dr. oates's testimony , he charg'd the borrowing of 20 s. of mr. ireland upon september 2. at which time mr. ireland was at boscobell . but dr. oates denied the speaking precisely to the day , and would not be positive whether first , second , or any certain day ; but that , as he remembred , it was the second . the prisoner then produc'd pendrell and gifford , and their wives . mr. gifford gave evidence , that being last sessions in court to prove that he saw mr. ireland upon the 24. and 25. days of aug. in staffordshire , ( the day that dr. oates affirmed he saw him in london , ) dr. oates being at a loss upon the particulars , affirmed at last , that he had 20 s. of ireland , in mr. harcourt's chamber , on the first or second of september , about the fast day . dr. oates said here , that he spake to the best of his memory ; and mr. gifford went on , saying , that he saw him there some other of those days ; but that there were divers then in court that were every day in his company . but they were now upon the wrong trial again . dr. oates informed , that it was not ireland , but harcourt , that he charged with being at wild house , where coleman met him ; and that most of the money was there , and carried back to harcourt's chamber , where it was delivered to the man that carried it to windsor ; coleman leaving a guinny for the messenger , but he himself going away before . dr. oates farther delivered , that mr. fenwick took leave of mr. ireland , as going to s. omers , betwixt august 8. and 12 : but whether they met about the plot or no , or what they said , he does not remember the particulars . to the question , whether fenwick had any communication with ireland in august for the furtherance of the plot , dr. oates gave evidence that he had . the lady southcott was now produced , with her son , and her daughter . the lady southcott informing , that she saw mr. ireland every day from the 5. of august to the 16. wherein she was positively certain ▪ sir iohn southcott was then called , and inform'd , that he knew mr. ireland's face , and that he travelled with him from the 5. of august to the 9. and saw him severall days afterward , in the whole , at least 12 days . mr. edward southcott then inform'd , that he was in company with mr. ireland , from the 4. to the 16. but that he was not at his triall . mrs. harwell informed , that she saw mr. ireland on august 17 , when he came to her house at wolverhampton , and lodged there every night till the six and twentieth . young mrs. harwell informed the same , from the 17. to the 26. saving that on s. bartholmew's eve he went to litchfield , and came back again , upon which day she did not see him . mr. gavan here offered evidence of a prisoner in newgate to the same point , desiring to be instructed , whether a man charg'd with , but not convict of the same crime , might not be a good evidence . but he had no encouragement to make use of him . elizabeth keeling inform'd , that she saw mr. ireland at wolverhampton , from the 17. of august to the 19. when she went out of town ; and coming back on thursday , found him there , where he continued till the 26. mr. pendrell then informed , that he saw mr. ireland , septemb. 2. and 3. at boscobell ; which he knew by his wife's book , where she set down the day for his diet , he being with him for his meals . that the witnesse kept the royall oak there : that the gentleman called himself ireland , and so did others : that he knew him no otherwise , and that he did not see him in august . mrs. pendrell inform'd , that she knew mr. ireland onely by report : that she saw him at boscobell in august or september according to the question , and never before that time : that she knows it was he that suffered , for she was in town when he died . mrs. gifford informed , that mr. ireland was at wolverhampton from the 17. of august to the 26. and that she also saw him sept. 2. 7. 10. and 11. and that her brother told her it was the same man that was executed . mr. gifford then in court declaring , that he saw him in staffordshire , and he saw him die . another mrs. gifford informeth , that she saw mr. ireland at pancrass fair in staffordshire ; that she did not see him suffer ; but her sister shew'd him to her at a window , saying , that 's mr. ireland : that she saw him try'd , and found him to be the same man : and that it was sept. 7. that her sister told her of him . mr. beadle informeth , that he saw mr. ireland sept. 2. at millage in staffordshire , and that they said it was mr. ireland the jesuite : that he never saw him before , and onely supposes him to be the man that suffered : owning himself ( upon the question ) to be a roman catholick . mr. turner represented , that he stood charged with being at tixall ( where he had not been in four years ) at a consult in september , and demanded who saw him there : and it was answered , that there was onely mr. dugdale to witness that . mr. fenwick produced captain hill against mr. bedlow ; and offered to prove by a clark of sir iames boteler's , that he couzen'd a cuttler of a silver-hilted sword . but the clark being called , and not present , nothing was done about it ; mr. fenwick still reproaching him with several cheats . his pardon being objected ; the prisoner replied , that a pardon did not make a good witness , and pretended to prove something since his pardon . mr. whitebread charges mr. bedlow with giving evidence against him this trial , in contradiction to his declaration that he had nothing to say against him the last ; insisting upon it , that the reason now suggested of his forbearance , was no way intimated at that trial ; and that not swearing the whole truth , he had broken his oath , and is perjur'd . this objection was left to the jury . and then captain hill inform'd onely of mr. bedlow's condition in the marshalsea ; which was found to be of no moment to the matter in question . the king's councell having summ'd up the whole proceedings , thus far , into a brief deduction and narrative , and so laying it before the jury , the king's witnesses were called . sarah paine was sworn , and informed , that passing in russell-street she saw mr. ireland at his own door there , no body with him ; that she knew him very well , and then saw his face , and made him a curtesy : which was about a week after the king went to windsor , the king going thither about the twelfth or thirteenth of august ; the witness saw ireland about the twentieth . she had lived with mr. grove , where mr. ireland came often ; and she had carried divers letters to him . william walker was sworn , and informed , that he had known titus oates a long time , but for above five years he had not seen him ; onely some two years since , that he met him in newgate-market ; and after that , in march ( 78 ) or the beginning of april , he saw him in a gray serge coat , and ( as he remembers ) a gray hat , not knowing him , till it came in his head as he was in bed , that this was titus oates : so that he went next morning to enquire of him at a place where he had seen him a year before ; and the woman of the house cry'd out that he was an undone man , for he was gone over to the church of rome , and that she knew not where he was . the witness telling the woman , that he saw him the day before , about nine or ten in the morning , at the end of s. martins lane near leicester house . he informed , that this was some time betwixt the latter end of march , and the middle of april , and that he saw him onely there , and that he look'd as if he were afraid . that he had seen him in his habit a matter of a year before , and not before that , of five years . which was observ'd as a contradiction to the s. omer evidences , who would have him beyond seas all march , april , and may. sarah ives was then sworn , and confirmed mr. walker's coming to her shop , and saying as aforesaid . this was april was twelvemonth , and about the middle of the month , as she thought . mrs. mayo was sworn , who informed , that a week before whitsuntide , and in the month of may , a servant of sir richard barker's told the witness , there 's dr. oates , he has turn'd his black coat into a white one : dr. oates being then in the court-yard , and the witness in the kitchin. the witness then asked what he was : and he answered , he had been a minister , but he was now either a quaker , or a catholick . the witness replying , that he was no quaker , for he wore a perriwigg : when he jearing at him , the witness reprov'd him for it , being a friend of sir richard barker's . that dr. oates came about a week after , and another came with him , and they walk'd into the garden . that the ladies of the house being shy of them , hearing he was turn'd iesuite , dr. oates , seemed discontented , that he had not so much respect now in the house as formerly . that dr. oates afterwards going into the garden , sir richard's servant told the witness that oates was there again , and had brought one with him : prithee look , ( says he ) does he not look like a iesuite ? but the witness hearing that he came over about the plot , went to him , and excused the family's coldness to him , when they thought he was a papist : swearing also that dr. oates , the witness in court , was the person she saw there . philip page was sworn , and informed , that he had known dr. oates four or five years ; that he saw him at sir richard barker's about the beginning of may last 1678 ; that he spake with him then ; he was in a light-colour'd campagne coat : that he went into the house , and then away again , as soon as he had enquired for sir richard. the witness remembers the time , for sir richard at his house at islington had a patient then that was ill of a fever . ( sir richard barker inform'd the court , that it was mr. milver's daughter . ) the witness being positive that it was about that time , and that he spake with him ; by the token that he had an old flapping black hat on , and spanish-leather shoes . sir richard barker was sworn , and informed , that about the time given in evidence , returning out of the country , he was told that dr. oates had been at his house in a disguise , as if he were either a quaker , or a papist : nay , that they told the witness of two disguises , the one in short hair , the other in a long perriwigg : and that his coachman , then in court , told him of it first . that the witness falling sick in that interim , dr. oates was gone ; but came to his house after his recovery , to ask for dr. tongue , about the latter end of iune , or beginning of iuly . that the witness had known him from a child , and saw him the last summer , but not till iune ; and that in iune ( as he remembred ) he did see him : but that his servants had seen him , as they themselves told him , in may , before whitsuntide . one butler was sworn , and informed , that he had three years knowledge of dr. oates ; and that he saw him at his master's house in barbican , about the beginning of may last was twelvemonth . that the witness , being sir richard barker's coachman , was cleaning his coach , and dr. oates came in , and enquired for dr. tongue . the witness telling him that he was not within ; he seem'd much discontented , but yet went into the house , and presently out again , and away . he was in gray cloaths like a shepherd , and his hair cropt to his ears ; but yet the witness knew him so soon as he saw him . that the witness saw him some six weeks after , in a long black coat and perriwigg . that he was sure it was dr. oates , and that he told his master of it soon after . mr. smith was sworn , and informed , that he knew dr. oates , ( being usher of merchant-taylors school , and dr. oates his scholar there . ) that he saw him at dinner at his own house in islington , at the beginning of may 1678 , the first monday in may , as he remembred : swearing this positively , and that he was with him three or four hours after dinner , in coloured ribbands , and a green knot upon his shoulder . that their discourse was about his travells , and nothing at all about the times . that he knew he had chang'd his religion ; and that he saw him not in two months after . mr. clay was sworn , and informed , that the first knowledge he had of dr. oates was about april last was twelvemonth , at mr. charles howard's , in a corner of old arundel house , where he met him by chance upon a visit to mr. howard , as an acquaintance and friend : and that he saw him there the second time in may also ; but the day he could not say ; nor whether he saw him afterwards or not : but that dr. oates in court was the person he saw there . dr. oates offering to the court , that mr. clay was a priest in orders : but that question was not put to him ; onely he own'd himself to be a papist . mr. whitebread's plea was , that urging dr. oates at the last triall , to name any one that he had seen in town , he could not name any body . and so likewise afterwards , at the committee , he told that the prisoner lay privately at grove's ; and the prisoner can prove that he never lay there at all : and then he was positive , that he stay'd here but six days , and saw little company . now the evidence affirms , that at the end of march , or the middle of april , he saw him here : and yet dr. oates himself declares , that he passed the sea with hilsley , the twenty fourth of april . if he landed in england the seventeenth of april , as is said , and continued here a good part of may , how can this stand with his being in england but six days ? the prisoners were answered , that the precise day was not so punctually sworn to : so that dr. oates might be seen here the latter end of april , and the beginning of may , and yet his testimony stand good . mr. gavan offered to the court , that the evidence against them spake onely to one or two particular days ; one to his dining with him , and another to his disguise : and that in the very evidence there was a manifest contradiction ; for he could not come over with hilsley , as he said he did , and appear here in may , and all this within six days . that it might be farther considered also , the disproportion in the number of the witnesses ; sixteen for the prisoners , and such as conversed with dr. oates every day . or allowing that a less number for the king should weigh down a greater number on the part of the prisoners , the exception to his evidence about the rectour of liege , sir iohn warner , and sir thomas preston , remains yet untouch'd . or supposing a mistake in what concerns dr. oate's being at s. omers , there are yet six that prove he has sworn false . and the prisoner humbly represented , that no body ought to be condemned but upon two sufficient witnesses . and after all , that mr. ireland was prov'd to have been out of london , from august 3. to september 14 ▪ by at least 16 staffordshire witnesses . which two points remain without answer : for dr. oates says that he was with him here august 12. when they agree that he was in staffordshire . as to the maid , she onely says that she saw him , without speaking to him . the prisoner here appealing to the honour and conscience of the court , how far to believe a witness that hath even in one point falsify'd . and then there is sir iohn southcott , and his family , that give an account of mr. ireland in the country from august 5. to the 19. ( which was after the precise day that the maid speaks of in london . there are seven or eight of them that agree upon the seeing of him from the first day to the last . and whereas it is objected in the business of iuly , that the prisoner's witnesses speak positively onely to the last week ; the prisoner offers , that they rather incline to think him there the other weeks also then not ; and that being shut up in the last , they took a more particular notice of him . he minded the court also of the evidence of mr. ashby's coming to town about mid-iuly , and of the prisoner's coming likewise within the fortnight which mr. ashby staid ; and of the prisoner's saying he would wait upon father ashby ; where the discourse past that he speaks of : adding , that he is neither prov'd to have been at the great consult , nor capable of it ; appealing to mr. harcourt and the rest , whether he were there or not , and upon the word of a dying man denying it . as to the prisoner's name being to it , ( which is laid in iuly ) he proves himself in staffordshire the last week of that month , and has evidences of being there till the 14. and the last week ; which he hoped would be considered . he mov'd farther , whether standing accused by one witness , about one fact in london , and by another , concerning another fact in staffordshire , these two witnesses are to be reckoned good in law. but this being already resolved in sir henry vane's case , where severall witnesses prov'd severall facts in severall countries , and yet all overt acts of one and the same treason ; mr. gavan suggested , that serjeant rolls was of another opinion . mr. gavan's second plea was grounded upon the circumstances of credible witnesses , and of clear evidence ; but that in his case there was neither the one , nor the other ; and therefore that he ought not to be convicted by such a witness , and upon such an evidence . wherein the court informed him , that they were lawfull witnesses , because not convict of any crime to destroy their testimony : and for the credibility of them , that was left to the iury. whereupon the prisoner addressed himself to the iury to this following effect . that his life was in their hands : that he was not at the consult , nor of age to be there : that to the making of a credible witness , there must be integrity of life , and truth of testimony : that dr. oates was turned out of s. omers as a person of ill moralls : that in sir iohn warner's , sir thomas preston's , and the business of mr. ireland's being here august 12. he is unanswerably disporv'd : and that though he be not convicted of perjury , he might have been ; so that there was enough before them to shake his testimony . and then in mr. ireland's business , betwixt august 8. and 12. how many proofs of his being in staffordshire , to one woman that says she saw him in town ? sixteen witnesses that were daily in his company that affirm'd the contrary . he inculcated over again the business of the s. omers witnesses ; sixteen , to three or four : the contradiction of dr. oates his coming over with hilsley , and staying but six days ; with the evidence that saw him in town april and may ; his being at wolverhampton from iuly 16. upwards . as to mr. dugdale , he had the knowledge of him five or six years ; severall disco urses with him , but none treasonous , upon his salvation : and that he came away from his lord after he had embezelled 300 li. of his money . that he ( mr. gavan ) had been twenty weeks a prisoner , without the means of sending for witnesses . concluding with an asseveration of his innocence , as he hoped to see the face of god , and with a prayer for the king and the court. mr. whitebread minded the court of an excellent observation made upon that rank and dangerous letter , which mr. dugdale pretends to have intercepted from the prisoner to mr. ewers ; that none but a mad-man would send such a letter by the post. and so he recommended the improbability of it to the jury . mr. fenwick desired the court and jury to consider the evidence on both sides . the one spake to the whole time , upon a daily conversation ; the other , onely to this or that day , or seeing dr. oates in a disguise : on the one side , so many youths train'd up in vertue ; and on the other , a beggerly sort of people , that might be drawn in to mend their fortunes by their evidence . his testimony then is false as to sir iohn warner , mr. williams , and sir thomas preston ; for they came not over with him . or suppose the witnesses to be equal , what support has he for his evidence ? such and such letters he pretends from mr. whitebread ; which if it were true , the prisoners deserved to be hang'd for fools , as well as for knaves , for trusting a creature that they never had any esteem for , and who was expelled the colledge . and then for the commissions and letters he speaks of , 't is almost a year that this discovery hath been afoot , and thousands of letters seiz'd : and yet not one commission appears ; not one penny of mony , or any order for it ; no arms found ; nor out of all these letters any thing discovered towards this design . and for all the writings signed , which he says were hundreds , from one consult to another , there is not one single paper produced in confirmation of it . ending in these words , there is no reason brought among them all , but saying and swearing ; and that i 'll stand by . mr. whitebread told the court and jury , that whereas dr. oates charg'd him with beating of him ; first , the prisoner neither was , nor ever had been a fighting man : and he appeal'd to their considerations , how he should dare to strike a person , whom he had made privy to so dangerous a secret. reflecting then upon the strangeness of the thing , that so many eminent persons should be concerned in it , the plot discovered , and yet no footsteps of it appear . and so he recommended himself to god , and the jury . mr. harcourt then declared , that being now arrived at seventy years of age , this was the first time in his whole life that he had been accused before a magistrate : but that a negative cannot be proved ; and that there was no evidence against them , but downright swearing . mr. fenwick was about to pass a reflection upon the life and conversation of the witnesses ; but bringing no proof , he put an end to the discourse . mr. turner being demanded what he had to say , he did ask , if it were reasonable to admit of those people to an oath in evidence , who for scandall were debarr'd the sacrament ; as he would prove by one hastings . but he being called , and not appearing , the court proceeded to give directions to the jury : wherein the evidences were so fully and distinctly summ'd up by my lord chief justice , that there was nothing to be added to them . the jury were then sent out to consider of their verdict ; and after about a quarter of an hour , they returned , and found all the prisoners guilty of the high treason whereof they stood indicted . and after a short and pithy speech of the recorder to the jury , they were remanded to newgate , and the court adjourned till next morning . the history of the charge and defence of richard. langhorn esq upon iune 14. 1679. mr. richard langhorn was brought to his trial at the sessions-house in the old bayly , according to an adjournment of the day before ; standing indicted of high treason , for contriving the death of the king , the subversion of the protestant religion , and of the establisht government . he pleaded not guilty to the indictment . the jury was sworn without any challenge . the king's councell open'd the charge , and so the court entred upon the trial ; beginning with some evidences upon the main design . mr. dugdale and mr. prance were both sworn : and mr. dugdale spake first to the plot upon the life of the king ; declaring , that he himself had been engaged in divers consultations for the destruction of his majesty , and of the present government , and for bringing in of popery . that being at most of their meetings , he heard these very expressions us'd ; and was tempted with reward to be instrumental in it , and to kill the king. the men that put him upon it were all jesuits , as mr. ewers , mr. gavan , mr. leveson , and vavasour . that upon the killing of the king , they were to be ready with an army , but not before : though at first it was resolved to raise an army out of hand . they had some thoughts of beginning with a massacre , and then to cut off those that scap'd with an army ; but this witness did not hear of any certain number resolved upon . these consultations were at tixal , boscobel , my lord aston's , and mr. gerrard's ; all in staffordshire : and the protestants were to be destroy'd in the first place . touching sir edmundbury godfry's death , harcourt wrote a letter to ewers , that began thus , this very night sir edmundbury godfry is dispatch'd ; and more to that purpose . the witness saying thus to mr. ewers about it ; i 'll be hang'd if this don't spoil the design : whose answer was , that he was a great enemy of loose people , and it would be judg'd some of them had done it in revenge . the letter was received upon monday night , and dated on saturday . mr. prance declared , that one mr. messenger was engaged by the lord arundell of wardour and the lord powis , to murther the king ; and was promised a considerable reward , as my lord's butler told this witness : who afterwards meeting with messenger , and asking him why he would do it ; his answer was , that he was off on 't now . the king being dispatch'd , 50000 men were forthwith to be raised , as fenwick , ireland , and grove said in the witnesse's hearing , being all together . that this army was to set up the romish religion , and all the protestants to be destroyed : the lords arundell and powis to command these forces . and he says , that one harcourt ( twice , at his chamber in dukes-street ) told him , that there were several to kill his majesty . this was in the hearing of one mr. thompson : and m. fenwick told the witness , that m. langhorn was deeply concerned in 't ; and that was all the witness knew . dr. oates was then sworn , and this is the summe of his evidence . that returning out of spain into england in november 1677 , he brought mr. langhorn letters from two sons that he had in spain , in english colledges ; the one at madrid , the other at valladolid . he delivered the letters within a day or two after his arrivall , to mr. langhorn , at his chamber in the middle temple ; who treated the witness very respectfully : and upon telling him that the witness thought his sons would enter themselves into the society , mr. langhorn ( standing that way affected himself ) was very glad of it ; for matters would not hold long in england as they were , ( he said ) and that if they kept themselves in the world , they might quickly come to great preferment in england . the witness was once more with mr. langhorn before his coming to s. omers , ( which was in november old stile , december new , ) when he gave him a pacquet of letters to carry with him . in this pacquet was a letter of thanks to the fathers at s. omers , for their kindness to his sons in their journey for spain ; and promising the repayment of twenty pound which they had furnished his sons with upon their passage . this letter was subscribed richard langhorn , and it made mention of one written to father le chaise , in order to our concerns . ( these were the very words . ) now the letter to le chaise this witness did not see , but onely the other that took notice of it : and he said , that mr. coleman having written to him at large , he should not trouble his reverence with many words at that time . the witness remembers also another letter , either in march , or april , ( he could not say which ) wherein mr. langhorn ( among divers ill passages ) expressed a wonderfull zeal for the catholick design ; and saying that the parliament began to cool in the business of the protestant religion ; and that now was the time to give the blow : that was the word ( the blow ; ) but the letter was too large to give a particular account of . dr. oates minded the court of the consult here in april . the witness and divers others came from s. omers , and other parts , to that consult . mr. langhorn himself was not at it ; but the witness was ordered by the provinciall to tell mr. langhorn from time to time what passed there : and upon the report the witness made him to their proceedings , mr. langhorn , with his hands and eyes up to heaven , prayed god to prosper them . the summe of the witnesse's report to mr. langhorn was this , that cary was to go procurator to rome : that they had concluded upon the death of the king : that pickering and grove were to attempt the king's person ; 1500 li. to grove , and 30000 masses to pickering , to be the reward . he told him also , that they had all signed the agreement . and this past a day or two after the signing of it . the witness swears that there were at that time divers parchments lying upon mr. langhorn's study-table , which he found to be commissions for the 1 s. arundell of wardour , powis , bellasis , and petre ; to be chancellour , treasurer , general , lieutenant-general . that there was one for coleman to be secretary of state , and another for mr. langhorn to be advocate of the army . they were authoriz'd by a brief from the pope , directed to the general of the society ; with the jesuits cross upon them , and signed , iohannes paulus de oliva . the witness being demanded , if they lay open ; he told the court , that they lay upon a corner of a desk folded up , and that he came to take notice of them , by having information from one father anderton , that these patents ( as he call'd them ) were come ; whereupon the witness spake of them to mr. langhorn , and upon his desire , he let the witnesse have the sight of them ; who remembers that there was one more , for a son of the lord arundell , and something for the lord stafford too , concerning the army . the witness saw severall of these commissions , and the greater part of them in mr. langhorn's study ; but he could not say all . the prisoner told the witness , that for inferiour officers and all , there were about 50 ; but a matter of 6 or 8 were all that the witness saw . dr. oates swears , that in april and may he saw the answer to several of mr. langhorn's letters to la chaise ; and that the fathers desiring to have the originals , mr. langhorne delivered them to this witness , who carried them to the fathers . they came from the fathers , la chaise , ( confessor to the french king ) and anderton , ( rector of the colledge at rome . ) the witness saw them in mr. langhornes custody ; but he cannot say that they were directed to him : the substance of la chaise's was , to assure them of his firmness to the english society , and that the french king would assist them for the advancing of the cause . that mr. langhorne ( being the iesuits sollicitor ) went with harcourt , fenwick , keines and langworth to the benedictine monks , to desire their aid towards the work : and the witness hath heard , that at the prisoners instance they contributed 6000 pounds ; which was by them paid to the society ; and mr. langhorne was said to have received it , toward the murther of the king , and the change of religion . this witness did not see the payment of the money ; but about iuly , or august , he heard mr. langhorne say , discoursing of it , that he would do what he could towards the getting of it ; and how troubled he was , that sir george wakeman made such a difficulty of accepting of ten thousand pounds for poysoning the king : adding , that it was a publick work , and a body would have done it for nothing ; but that he was a very covetous and narrow-soul'd-man . a writing under the iesuits seal being shew'd in court to mr. oates , he presently declared , that to be the very hand which was to the other , and just such a seal . several questions being put to the witness , by , or in the name of the prisoner , dr. oates answer'd , that he went towards st. omers at the latter end of november , and that he arrived there about the tenth of december , new style ; that he went in the dover-coach , and stayed there till april following , without stirring from thence : saving only , that he went to paris , and was a night or two at watton , and then came away in april : whether about the middle , or latter end , he could not say : but he was in england under twenty days . there came over with him nine or ten in all ; as father williams , father march , the rector of liege , sir iohn warner : and that he could not name any more . the prisoner objecting to him , that the names of all the rest were in the record of the lords-house ; dr. oates referred him to the record . the prisoner ask'd him also , if sr. tho. preston and poole came over with him ? and the witness said , they did . to the objection , that this was but a repetition of what was proved the day before , the prisoner humbly offered , that the trial of the day before was in another county , and by another iury , and therefore he presumed , in his own defence , to urge this ; in which liberty he was not debarr'd . the witness said also , that he thought sir robert brett was there . the prisoner express'd the drift of his questions to be only this ; to see if dr. oates would now affirm what he swore in the lords house : dr. oates telling him , that he might produce that record ; and the court allowing , that a sworn copy of that record would be good evidence . the prisoner ask'd , if the witness came from dover by coach , or on horseback ? dr. oates replied that it was a sudden question , but that as he remembers , he came by coach. the prisoner then giving the reason of his question ; because upon a trial at the kings bench , the witness said he came in a coach with mr. hilsley ; mr. oates declaring , that they came over together in the boat , but upon landing they parted . mr. langhorne ask'd him , where he lodged at his coming into town ? and his answer was , that when he came in april , he lay at mr. groves : but being ask'd where he lay the first night , dr. oates could not speak certainly to that ; but in general , that he lay there , and as he remembers some three or four nights . † dr. oates swears , that he acquainted mr. langhorne with the consult within a day or two after it ; that he returned to st. omers , as he believ'd , the first week in may. and being then told , that he had said the day before , that his stay there was but six days ; he said that was a mistake , for he said , under twenty . * the prisoner demanded , if dr. oates saw him write those letters he spake of ? he said no ; but he knew his hand , for he saw an order of his for the paying of money to his sons , and the money was paid upon that order . † the prisoner demanded , if he could say that la chaise , or anderton ever wrote to him ? to which dr. oates answer'd , that he had letters subscribed with their names , and that langhorne himself told him that they came from them ; and that they were to be imparted to priests and iesuites ; and that he delivered those letters to the witness to that end . * the prisoner desired to know , how long he staid at st. omers ? dr. oates told him , till iune 23 new style . the prisoner then demanded , ( seeing him to be come over from the church of rome to the church of england ) when it was that he went over from the church of england to that of rome ; and if he was then beneficed ? the time , dr. oates told him , was in february or march 1676 / 7 , and that he was for some time in a vicaridge at bobbing in kent : and that he came to that vicaridge in 1672. mr. langhorne taking notice that he turn'd papist in 1677 , ask'd him whether or no he had left his living first ? dr. oates answer'd , that he had left the place not very long before ; for the air did not agree with him : besides , that he had other private reasons for leaving it . mr. langhorne ask'd , if turning papist he became a iesuite also ; because he says in his narrative , there came nine of us over , all iesuites ? the court told him first , that it was not a fair question ; and then , that what he offered was no evidence . † the prisoner then ask'd the witness , if he had ever been in his company since that business in his chamber of the consult and commissions ? dr. oates made answer , he had been twice with him about the time of the consult , and twice or thrice after his coming over again . mr. bedloe is sworn . mr. bedloe declares upon a question concerning a writing signed by the superiour of the iesuites , that he had it at mr. daniel arthurs ; and that finding it to agree with the hand and seal that he had observed upon commissions in paris , he presented it to the council . [ let the reader observe here , that this was a business only of a private concern . ] the witness swears to this effect : that he had no familiarity with mr. langhorne ; but some three years since , being entrusted by mr. harcourt and coleman with certain letters to la chaise ; mr. coleman carried him to mr. langhorne's chamber , who there entred them ; and they were then sealed up by mr. coleman , who delivered them to the vvitness to carry them : the letters being written at mr. colemans , and only registred by mr. langhorne . some of these letters were read in court at mr. colemans trial. the scope of them was only to inform la chaise , that he wanted nothing but money now in england to accomplish the work ; and to learn what supplies they might expect from france . that the catholicks were safe in england ; all places of trust in their hands , or at least , in such as were well inclined : and that , considering the conjuncture of the present power of the french king , and a general disposition of circumstances here , there never was so fair an occasion of accomplishing their ends . this was to father stapylton in english : but the other to the nuncio , and la chaise , were in french , and to the same purpose . mr. langhorne copied these before the witness : he went into his study , and wrote while mr. coleman and the witness walked in the chamber . the witness declared , that there was not a penny of money in this business , but some way or other past his accounts . the witness cannot say that ever mr. langhorne spake to him expressly of the kings death , but only of the main design . the witness was with him a second time , about a year and half since , and it was from harcourt , for the registring of another pacquet of letters . he took the pacquet , and without much heeding the messenger , sent word to mr. harcourt , that mr. williams ( a name that this witness was known by ) had brought him some letters ; which he would return again the next day , as soon as he had coppy'd them . that mr. harcourt shew'd this witness the answer : in this pacquet there were two letters , one ( says the vvitness ) that he brought out of spain from sir william godolphin , directed to the lord bellassis , which was sent to mr. langhorne some three weeks after to be entred : the other , from the irish iesuites in salamanca , directing that the rest of the lords concerned , and the whole popish party in england should be in readiness ; for they had now gotten some irish casheer'd souldiers that should be laid to embarque at the groyn , under the colour of pilgrims , and then to land at milford haven ; where ( as the vvitness said ) the lord powis whould have a considerable body of men to help forward the design . the prisoner enter'd colemans letters into a large parchment book , but the vvitness did not see him enter the other : the book seem'd at least three inches thick , and that two thirds of it were filled . pritchard telling the vvitness , that the commissions were in mr. langhornes hand , and every thing now ready ; the vvitness asking about his commission , pritchard made answer , that mr. langhornes commissions were only for the general officers : and that the vvitness must have his from the lord bellassis . as to the money to be advanced by the benedictine monks , the vvitness says , that in the pacquet to la chaise of may 1676 there was a letter inclosed to mr. stapylton ( a benedictine monk ) to furnish the money they had promised : the sum was not named , but the vvitness says that la chaise told him , that the french king was sure enough , and the money not to be doubted . nay , that part of it was already sent over to coleman , and ireland ; and the rest should follow so soon as they were ready for it . the vvitness declares , that he never discoursed with mr. langhorne about commissions , not ever saw any in his hand , only pritchard told it to this vvitness but that st. henry tichburne at paris shewed the vvitness three commissions , signed and seal'd in form , which made him take so much notice of the writing produced this day in court of mr. arthurs , having the same hand and seal to it . how far mr. langhorne was privy to the treachery of pickering , and grove , this vvitness cannot say : but mr. harcourt told the vvitness upon a particular occasion , that he was going to mr. langhornes to enter the minutes of that morning resolution ; which was a result for the dispatch of those people to new market that were to murther the king. but hearsay being no evidence , mr. bedloe was examined what he remembred out of any letter that he saw mr. langhorne transcribe : and so he informed the court , that in a letter of 1676 , an account was desired of the religious at doway and paris , what progress they had made with the rest of their friends , towards the furnishing of money ; for the hearts and arms of the english were ready ; the garrisons plac'd in good hands , and nothing but money wanting . there were three of these letters transcribed by mr. langhorne : one to la chaise , another to the popes nuntio , and a third to the english monks at paris . there were in these letters expressions of arms and garrisons ; and in that to la chaise , an invitation of the assistance of the french. the letter it self did not mention the destruction of the king , and of the protestant religion ; but mr. langhornes and mr. colemans discourse expounded the meaning of it , and that it was to overthrow the government , and set up popery ; and they did also lay their heads together after the letters were transcribed . here mr. langhorne asked , if this were all that mr. bedloe had to charge upon him ? whose answer was , that he thought of no more at present , but something else might come into his mind hereafter . dr. oates now minded the court of one thing which he had forgotten : there were 800000 crowns ( he said ) as a contribution from the congregation at rome to be remitted into england : mr. langhorne was inquisitive after this money , having advice that it was received in france ; and mr. langhorne himself told father harcourt , keines and fenwick , in iuly or august , that the money was lodg'd in france . mr. bedloe also recollected himself , that keines told him one day , i must go immediately to mr. langhorne ; and when he returned afterward , with a letter in his hand , he told the vvitness that cardinal barbarini had sent mr. langhorne a chiding letter , for slipping their opportunities , and making to more half . this vvitness did not see the letter , but keines told him the tenour of it ; and that he had it from mr. langhorne . these vvitnesses having delivered their evidence , the prisoner desired they might not depart the court. thomas busse declares , that in september last , drinking with an old acquaintance that was newly come out of italy , and just going over again , one anthony being in the company ; you must have a special care ( says he to anthony ) of those four worthy gentlemen that i brought over with me . what ( said this vvitness ) from italy ? no ( says he ) but they are four worthy irish gentlemen , that will do our business . this vvitness neither asking any question , nor heeding the matter till colemans trial , that speaks of the irish men that were to attempt the king at windsor ; and then he reflected upon it . he that spake it , had some relation to the benedictine monks in the savoy ; and anthony was something about the queens chappel ; both of them strong papists . so that an order was granted , with all reverence to her majesty , for the enquiring after antonio , hankinson being gone again beyond sea before . mr. langhorn offered to the court , that the two vvitnesses against him were parties in the crime charged upon him ; and he desired to know , whether they had their pardon , or not ? mr. bedloe made answer , that he had three ; and dr. oates , that he had two , under the broad seal : mr. bedloe saying , that he gave no evidence till he had it . it was declared that they were witnesses , whether they had or not ; or otherwise , that they should not have been admitted . mr. langhorne however remitted himself to the court , as to his councel , whether having had their pardons , they might not fall under the same prospect in law with an approver ; not as directly being approvers , but under some equivalence of reason with them . if the approver be pardon'd , the appellee ought also to be discharged : it seems hard that those that were participes criminis , and having now got their pardons , should be admitted for allowable vvitnesses against the prisoner . mr. langhorne desired also to know , if they had either received , or if they did not expect gratifications or rewards for their discoveries ? dr. oates , to acquit himself , declared that he had been rewarded by expending six or seven hundred pounds out of his own pocket , without knowing whether ever he should see it again . mr. langhorne said , that a prisoner ( mr. reading ) told him mr. bedlow had received five hundred pounds . to which it was answer'd , that first , mr. reading was an incompetent vvitness ; and secondly , his 500 l. was for the discovery of sir edmondb . godfreys murther ; not for the plot. * mr. bedlow affirmed , that he was so far from gaining by his discovery , that he was seven hundred pounds out of pocket . as to the approver the court told him , he was ever allowed maintenance , and there must be a proof of corrupt contract , or subornation , to invalidate a witness . mr. langhorne gave the court the reason of pressing this , for though it might be very prudential to invite any man to come in by the promise of a reward towards the discovery of a plot , where such a person absents himself ; yet it seems very hard , that when a man is once in custody , vvitnesses should be call'd in against him by such means : the prisoner was here advised to speak first to the fact , and afterwards to the witnesses . the prisoner , upon this , represented to the court , that he had no possibility of making any other defence ; setting forth , that from the 17 of october , to that day seven-night , or friday last , he had been kept so close that he knew nothing of what was done abroad ; no friend or relation admitted to him ; he could never hear what was charged upon him , and could not foresee what would be , and therefore the he had no other plea left him , but the incompetency of the witnesses . it was objected to him as a scandal to the kings proclamation to suppose an incouragement to the swearing of a plot , where there was none ; and that king , lords , and commons were touch'd in such a reflection . mr. langhorne said no more , but that there was a reward propos'd ; and so call'd his vvitnesses . dr. oates informed the court , that there were papists come in with their swords on : but that apprehension being compos'd , mr. langhorne desired that mr. hilsley might be set up first ; who gave this account , that he came over from st. omers april 24 new style , that he left him at st. omers , and that he did not overtake him at calais , as is suggested . that 't is true he lost his money , as dr. oates says , and that he himself had met one by the way that told dr. oates the story . mr. gifford declared , that he did see dr. oates ; and that he told them at st. omers that hilsley was gone away ; and this was some three or four days after he was gone : he did not remember what passed in the particular discourse ; nor whether any body was by , when dr. oates and he were speaking concerning hilsleys being gone away . there stood up a third witness then ; who said , that dr. oates was with him , and mr. burnaby came into the company , and told him that he met with mr. hilsley , and that he was cousen'd of his money : he did not say how , but by a shirking fellow ; and the vvitness does not know whether he named the place , or no. to prove now that dr. oates must know this by another hand , the third witness affirmed further , that dr. oates had been at st. omers from december , till iune , except one day that he was at watton , where he saw him almost every day : that he saw him in the refectory , where he had a little table by himself ; that this witness was there every day , and there he saw dr. oates . mr. langhorne offered then , what appears both in his narrative , and upon his oath in the lords house ; that he affirm'd sir robert brett came over with him . but mr. langhorne was to have spoken to something that was sworn there . mr. langhorne prest it , that dr. oates had own'd that what he swore was truth ; and so proceeded to his vvitnesses , concerning sir iohn warner coming over with him . the fourth witness was sir iohn warners gardener ; who affirmed , that his master was at watton all april and may 1678 ; that the witness was only four days away at st. omers , and left his master , and found him at watton : that for the last of april , the first , second and third of may he saw dr. oates at st. omers ; and when he went away , he did not know . he affirm'd , that st. iohn warner was at watton all april and may , but he would not speak to all iune : being asked , why not to the one as well as to the other ? his answer was , that the rector ( sir francis williams ) came then for england , and in the absence of the rector he took upon him the charge of the house . this was the 24 th of april ; where sir iohn warner was in iune and iuly he could not tell , nor where in august and september ; more than that he went out of town then , and the vvitness knew not whither . the court ask'd him , how he came to be more doubtful of these months than of the rest ? and his answer was , because that the question fell upon the other months . it was then reflected upon , that april 24 was the very day that dr. oates came over ; and the rector , one of those that he said came over with him : but the vvitness reply'd , that the rector came single , having onely one officer of the college . mr. gifford was then examined , as to sir iohn warner ; who declared , that he saw him about iune in st. omers , and then in iune or iuly , when he invited the vvitness to watton . the fifth witness affirmes , that the first of may being a great feast , he saw dr. oates for four days ; and afterwards all the month of may : and that he also saw mr. pool , and sr. robert brett , at the same time ; but where sir iohn warner was then , he knew not ; dr. oates affirmed that mr. pool came over with him . the fifth witness further informed , that mr. pool ( being his musick-master ) could not be away without his missing of him . that mr. pool came from st. omers in the month of iune ; affirming , that mr. pool was at st. omers all may. there was a forreigner then produc'd ; who , by an interpreter , said , that he saw sir iohn warner actually at st. omers in april and may , and that he conversed where he was all may , and saw him every day from the first sunday in april to may 14 th , upon which day he went to st. omers , and back again , sr. iohn warner having then employed him about a building . carpentiere then informed , that he saw sr. tho. preston at liege all through march , april , may ; and in iune he was there : in the vacancies of august and september he was gone , and about the second of october he returned . the vvitness hath been four years there , and can answer that for these three years last past , sr. tho. preston never was in england . another forreigner informed ; that he saw sr. iohn warner at watton , from april 14 th to the 25 th , and that he was there to the 16 th of may ; that at the beginning of april he was superiour , and governed in the house ; and he was also in the house the latter end of may ; save one day , and then he went to st. omers . iohn ioseph informed ; that sir tho. preston , in march , april , may and iune , was at liege , and so likewise in iuly ; but in the vacancies he was absent : that he saw him constantly , and in two or three days , and that he never heard it said , that he was in england ; and that after the vacancies he return'd , in the beginning of october . a tenth witness informed , that april 25th dr. oates went into the infirmary and stirred not out of the college ; that he saw him at st. omers all april and may , and a great part of iune , positively to the 20 th ; and he was there also in february and march ; but in ianuary he lay one night at watton ; and that he did not come over april the 24 th . the eleventh witness informed ; that mr. pool was at st. omers all april and may , and went by the name of killingbeck ; and that he believes so was mr. brett . a twelfth witness informed ; that he saw dr. oates at st. omers almost every other day , so long as he was there : that he saw him first at the beginning of december . that he saw him positively in april , and the first of may ▪ and that he staid till iune ; by tokens that he saw him in april at an action , and the first of may , being a great feast , he saw him at nine-pins in the garden . touching sir robert brett , and mr. nevil , he could not speak to the former ; but for the latter , once in three days he believes he saw him . a thirteenth witness informed ; that he saw dr. oates at st. omers , first in december ; and so forward throughout all the months , till towards the latter end of iune . another witness inform'd ; that he saw dr. oates at st. omers all the months of april , may , and a good part of iune ; and that mr. pool was the third of may in the infirmary , which he remembred , it being a festival , and the day before there was an action . mr. hilsley went away a day or two after , and the witness had half an hours discourse with dr. oates : he saw him also a day or two after walking in the gallery ; and the second of may with one mr. burnaby ; and then he saw him the third , fourth and fifth of may with mr. burnaby again . and then one mr. hall informed , that between december 1677 , and iune 78 , dr. oates lay every night in the college ; except one , in ianuary , at watton ; and that for the time that he was there , this witness never mist seeing of him two days together ; save when he was in the infirmary : and in march dr. oates was there also with mr. burnaby , after mr. hilsley had been gone a week ; and he was confirmed there may 26th ; he was there all april and all may. as to pool and nevil , they were there march , april , may , iune and iuly . a forreigner , by an interpreter , informed ; that he saw dr. oates sometimes in the house , sometimes in the garden , till towards the end of iune ; that he was in the infirmary about christmas : nevil and pool were there all iune ; and mr. pool left them in iuly . this witness was a waterman , and carried williams and march , the last sunday in april , in his boat. the next witness informed , that in april and may he saw dr. oates at st. omers ; and that mr. pool , mr. nevil , and mr. brett , were there too . this witness was a taylor , and having a suit of cloathes to make for mr. killingbeck , dr. oates came into the shop , and ask'd him questions about them . mrs. grove then informed , that she never saw dr. oates : that she had lodgers in her house april was twelvemonth ; and that she knew them not till they came to lie there ; and that dr. oates could not be there , but she must know him ; for there was no place to lodge him . dr. oates affirmed , that he lay alone when he lay there ; and that it was the place where two men were seized , and carried away . the witness owned that such men had been seized there ; but denied that dr. oates ever lay in that place : dr. oates swears that he did lie there three or four nights , more or less . it was considered , that dr. oates being in a disguise might not be known ; but the vvitness said that she knew them all , and nam'd them : one strange and mrs. fitz-herbert lay one pair of stairs , her sister above , and there they lay all april and may , and in march too there lay one mr. crupper in the room where the men were taken , and a young man with him ; which young man was a prisoner by mr. oates procurement , and mrs. fitz-herbert lodged there too . mrs. groves maid inform'd , that her mistresses brother and sister lay in the room , and no men but mr. strange ; he and mrs. fitz-herbert lay there in april , may , iune , iuly and august . mr. langhorne desires liberty to prove a copy of the record in the lords house ; which not being allowed for evidence , he told the court that it was an extract out of their iournals ; and the particular he insisted on , was concerning the company that dr. oates says came over with him from st. omers : it is that which dr. oates remitted himself to , and has gone over and over with it , that sir iohn warner , sir thomas preston , and mr. pool , came all along with him . the prisoner was told , that if he had a record to overthrow his present evidence , he might produce it ; mr laughorne then desired that those that took irelands trial might be called , and that he might be permitted to make proof by witnesses of what was there sworn , with regard to the prisoner at the barr ; and being told that it was not to be done , the prisoner desired to know why not ; for he had a witness to prove that such words were spoken ; without which he had no means of defence ? the answer to him was , that as it would be no proof against him , so it could be none for him . there was a complaint here brought in by the lord castlemain , of violence offered , by the rabble , to the prisoners witnesses ; and that they were in danger of their lives , for their coming to give evidence : which was highly resented by the court , as an affront to publick justice , and direction given to enquire out the offenders , tht they might be punished . a witness was now called to speak to one point ; about the meeting at the whitehorse taverne : who informed , that she had kept the house seven years , and left it last iuly . the question was about the number that met at that consult ? dr. oates answered , that there might be some eighteen or twenty there at a time , and that they were divided into several rooms . the witness said , that she knew the greatest part of those that used her house , and that she could say nothing to the particular of who was in her house april the 24 th 1678 ; but that she did not remember that ever she saw dr. oates there . it was plain however that he might be there , and she not know on 't . mr. langhorne gave this reason for asking how many , because dr. oates , both in his depositions before the lords , and in colemans trial , affirmed , there were fifty persons at that meeting ; and that then they adjourned into several small meetings . but it was returned , that so there might be , at several times of the same day ; and dr. oates explained himself , that though the meeting was the 24 th day , the consult continued yet till the 26 th at night . the witness urged , that she never knew so many in the house together , but once , in all her time , and that was upon a iury ; and they were forc'd to put them into three rooms , for there was not a chamber to receive above a dozen : upon this three witnesses made oath ; the first , that he had seen a dozen or sixteen at dinner there in a room together ; and that it would hold twenty : the second , that there were two rooms in the house , where twenty five or thirty might dine together in either of them : and a third , that he himself was at a wedding-dinner there , towards the street , where there were above twenty persons . the prisoner thought it material however , if the room would not hold fifty ; and he spake only upon information , for he had never been there . mr. langhorne being ask'd , if he had any more witnesses , mov'd that he might reserve them till the kings council had spoken ; but that was not found allowable : so he pray'd an answer to a question or two , if the court pleas'd . the one ; was mr. ireland here in london in august , or not ? to which it was reply'd , that it was a point forreign to the matter in question . the other was , since mr. oates affirm'd himself six or seven hundred pound out of purse since his discovery , if the prisoner might examine two witnesses upon the probability of that assertion ; for if he were extreamly necessitous before , how should he get credit for it since , but by his evidence ? but it was found to be a matter clear from the point to demand of him , how he came by his money . mr. langhorne then offer'd a copy of a record of the house of lords , to prove that mr. bedloe had there declared , that he had no person more to charge , either in the house , or out of the house , than what he there charged ; and that he the prisoner was none of the persons there charged . it was objected , that he might forget things at that time , and call them to mind afterwards ; and besides , that some body should have been produced to prove , that mr. bedloe took that oath . mr. langhorne offered a question now concerning the commissions , asking whether or no ( and to whom ) the prisoner distributed those commissions , as the vvitness says he did ? dr. oates replyed , that he only said the commissions were delivered , but not to whom ; but that he affirms they were for those five persons , and that the prisoner himself told him in iuly , or august , that he had dispos'd of them , without naming to whom ; only speaking of one , which he sent his son with to my lord arundell's eldest son : he told this vvitness , it was delivered , not calling to mind that he knew of any other . this question is put ( says mr. langhorne ) because dr. oates charged the prisoner before the lords , with sending the commission to the lord arundel himself . dr. oates affirming also , that he saw a letter in the prisoners chamber , acknowledging the receipt of it . mr. langhorne desired , that mr. lidcott might be examined to a point of dr. oates's evidence at colemans trial ; where he says , that he came , and communicated to the prisoner the matter of the consult the very next day after it , and never saw the prisoner any more ; but mr. lidcott ( though present there ) was not able to speak to the particulars of the trial ; so mr. blany was ask'd what he could testifie upon that point ; who acknowledged , that he took the notes , and remembred something about mr. langhorne ; but could not charge his memory upon it without book : so mr. langhorne presented the narrative ; which mr. blany said was not printed from his copy . but an historical narrative was agreed to be no evidence in law. mr. langhorne offer'd , that without some light to his charge he could not prepare himself for his defence : and that in other cases people are confronted before a magistrate , and so come to understand the matter of their charge . mrs. sillyard was called ; but affirming that she durst not give evidence without being secur'd from the rabble : and the court being only able to promise justice upon any offender in that kind that should be brought before them , she was discharged , by mr. langhornes consent , without examination . mr. langhorne said , that he intended to make use of her evidence to a deposition of mr. bedloes at readings trial ; which was , that he could have said more against whitebread , and fenwick , then he did at their first trials ; which concealment he took to be perjury , for not having told all the truth ; and that however impertinent it might seem , it was yet of great effect to the prisoner , to shew that the vvitness against him was not to be believed . but mr. whitebread , having before receiv'd an answer to that objection , the kings council summ'd up the whole matter in brief to the jury ; and then more of the kings vvitnesses were sworn . william walker deposeth , that he had known dr. oates seven or eight years . that towards the end of march 1678 , or the middle of april following , he had seen him in england in a disguise , and could not call him to mind that night ; but early in the morning it came into his head that it was titus oates : and so he rose early to enquire of a gentlewoman concerning him , that knew him ; and asking her how dr. oates did , she struck her hand upon the counter , and cried , he is an undone man , for he was turn'd papist . the vvitness asking her then , if she knew were he was ? no , said she , he is skulking somewhere up and down here , and dares not shew his head in the day . whereupon this vvitness told her , that he had seen him the day before , about ten in the morning , betwixt st. martins lane and leicester house ; but that he was disguised : and the vvitness described his habit to her . mr. langhorne prayed he might speak to the time as near as he could ; and the vvitness said , that he did rather think ( but could not be positive ) that it was about the middle of april , and that it was 1678 , not 1677 ; about the time of the year , when he usually came to town to receive money . and the vvitness affirms , that it was dr. oates whom he saw , and that he was brought up for a vvitness , having spoken of this passage to several persons after the report of the plot ; which he supposes might come to dr. oates's ear by chance . mrs. ives then deposed , that mr. walker told her , ( being the mistress of the house ) the substance of what he gave in evidence concerning her ; adding , that it was about the middle of april was twelve-month , and that dr. oates's father coming to her shop , and eating some cream-cheese , upon their first coming in , she told him the story that walker had told her . one butler was sworn ( sr. richard barkers servant ) and affirmed , that he had known dr. oates two or three years , and that he saw him the beginning of may last was twelve-month at his masters house , enquiring for dr. tongue : that he was so disguised , as that he heardly knew him . that the witness in court was the man , and titus oates his name . this vvitness bad him welcome into england , but he went in , and came forth again , without taking any notice of the witness . he was in a grey-coat , a flopping-hat , plain-shoes , his hair cropt to his ears ; and one would rather have taken him for a shepheard than a minister . mr. langhorne ask'd , if it were in 1678 , or in 1677 ? the vvitness affirmed it to be in may was twelve-month , and that he told his master about a week after , at his coming out of the country , that dr. oates had been there , in a strange dress , to ask for doctor tongue . cecily mayo was then sworn ; and said , she never saw dr. oates's face till about a fortnight before whitsontide was twelve-month ; and that then a servant of sir richard barkers shew'd him to her at the window ; and that this gentleman ( dr. oates ) in court is that man. philip page deposed , that he had known dr. oates five years ; and that he saw him at sr. richard barkers about the beginning of may was twelvemonth : and that he was positive that dr. oates , then in court , was the same man. sir richard barker deposed ; that he had known dr. oates from a child , and that his servants told him , that they had seen him about a year ago ; and that he himself had not seen him , which he wondred at , having lately seen his father , who said nothing of it : and that he the vvitness had thoughts of bestowing a living upon him . it was in whitson-week , at the vvitnesses coming home , that he was told by his servant of dr. oates's being there , and of his dress ; but upon enquiry what message he had left , it was answered , that he only asked for the vvitness , and for dr. tongue ; and this was in the beginning of may was twelvemonth . mr. langhorne seemed to admire that the vvitness should intend him a benefice under these circumstances . sir richard barker was certain that this was in 1678 : and informed the court likewise , that a grandson of sir william thorold ( now sr. william thorold ) and two or three of the vniversity had a conversation with dr. oates at the same time , which he presented only as a circumstance . mr. clay deposed , that he had known dr. oates since april last was twelvemonth ; and that he had seen him twice in april and may , at the house of mr. charles howard , which was a part of arundel-house , that was since turn'd into a street : he remembring it by this token , that mr. charles howard told the vvitness he had been at st. omers , and was now come over again , and that he had some inclinations of entring into the society ; but that he thought he should put him off : the witness declaring himself to be of the church , but not of the court of rome . and that he was certain that this was in 1678. mr. langhorne desired to know , whether mr. clay rememberd any thing of dr. oates's playing at that time with mr. howards son , or talking to him about his book , or asking him questions ? but mr. clay remembred nothing of it , nor that mr. howards son was in the room . mr. smith deposed , that dr. oates had been his scholar ; that he knew him before the fire of london , and that dr. oates gave him a visit , and dined with him , at islington , at the beginning of may , the first monday in may , as he remembred ; and that he was with him 3 or 4 hours . that the vvitnesses wife was there , and that they discours'd of dr. oates travels into spain , valadolid and salamanca ; that he had a cinnamon coloured suit on , and green ribbands . mr. charles howard declareth , that he knew dr. oates very well , and that he had known him upward of two years , and that he had been divers times at arundel-house ; and particularly about two years ago . that he remembred him there after iuly was twelvemonth , but not in may ; and that the vvitnesses son dy'd in may 1677. mr. howard declaring , that in april 77 his child was living , and that dr. oates and mr. clay dined there with him : dr. oates affirming , that he had not been two years acquainted with mr. clay mr. clay alledging , that he never knew dr. oates before the end of april last year : and likewise , that mr. howard had a son yet living at that time . dr. oates informing the court , that one son of his was dead a twelvemonth before mr. clay and dr. oates met there . mr. howard explaining himself , that he spake of his eldest son , who deceased two years since . mr. langhorne being called upon to speak what he had to say , represented his case ; that he was accused by two vvitnesses : the first , mr. oates , against whom , if he could prove any thing false given in evidence , he conceived that he ought not to be regarded . as for sir tho. prestons coming over with him in april , it hath been clearly made out that he was then at liege : and for sr. iohn warner , mr. pool , and others , coming in the same passage , he said , that the falsity was proved against him beyond dispute . then as to himself , it was proved likewise that he was sick in the infirmary after mr. hilsley was come away ; he deposing that they came together . these particulars being clearly proved , he thought sufficient to take off dr. oates credit ; averring also , that from november 1677 to that minute , he never set eye on him . the prisoner set forth , that he had been a great while kept close , and but one week allowed him to prepare his defence ; and therefore depending that he would have delivered the same things here which he has publish'd in his narratives , all that the prisoner could do was to arm himself as well as he could against these points . mr. langhorne did likewise tell the court , that he had seen dr. oates in michaelmas term 1677 once or twice , and that he brought him a letter from his yonger son in spain . he told the prisoner , that he would go over to st. omers , for he could not get himself admitted into any of the colleges in spain . he affirmed , that since that day , till now in the court , he never saw him ; nor knew a face of any of the witnesses from st. omers : and that he hoped the iury could not look upon those youths as capable of driving on a design , or aiming at a reward . it was reflected , they were all papists , and in a common causes . mr. langhorne offer'd to that objection , that if the one side ought not to be credited , as being papists and friends : so neither was the other , as being enemies . if it were clear , that he neither lodg'd at groves , nor came over with hilsley ; or that neither sir thomas preston , warner , or poole came with him , that then his evidence ought not to be look'd upon as valuable . and then as to mr. bedloes evidence , it may be considered ; first , there is no proving of a negative : secondly , that the prisoner had no acquaintance with him , nor can say , that in his whole life , he ever saw him before this occasion : ( but yet 't is possible that he might see him , and not know it . ) is it probable now ( says mr. langhorne ) that the prisoner , if he were guilty , would ever have taken mr. bedloe into a confidence , in a privacy of this nature ; or that a person of the prisoners practice should spend his time in registring letters , and keeping accounts for any particular religious order ? if the prisoner could have known his charge , he might have accommodated his defence to it : and the vvitnesses that he had were only such as his friends thought might be beneficial to him . the other side having had all advantages of bringing their vvitnesses together . the prisoner suggested further , that if he fell under any prejudice for his religion , it would look as if he suffer'd for that . concluding with this declaration , that he did believe it damnation to any one that should go about to kill the king , or deprive him of his government : and he recommended the rest to the court , and to the iury. and the lord chief iustice hereupon gave directions to the iury , with his usual candor and gravity . after directions given , the court reflected upon a letter found amongst harcourts papers , which had been made use of in the trials of the day before ; and was found six or seven days after dr. oates's information of a plot to the council . this letter the court order'd to be read , as a paper that might give some light to the general designe , and it was read accordingly . honoured , dear sir , i have but time , &c. [ see the history of the defence of whitebread , &c. fol. 30. ] the letter being read , mr. langhorne offer'd , that dr. oates might easily have explained it , being no other than such a summons to this meeting , as brought these over from st. omers that attended it : and for the design , it was no more than the holding of a congregation , like that of a dean and chapter in a college ; and for the caution of secrecy , it was but reasonable , where the discovery was dangerous . the iury was now sent out to advise upon their virdict ; and after a little time they brought in mr. langhorne , guilty : and then the prisoners before convicted were brought to the barr , by the direction of mr. recorder to receive iudgment ; which was past upon them to be drawn , hang'd , and quarter'd , according to the common form . which sentence was executed upon the five priests and iesuites , on the 20th of iune ; and upon mr. langhorne , on the 14 th of iuly , 1679. the history of the charge and defence of robert green , henry berry , and lawrence hill , &c. the three prisoners above-named having been arraigned at the kings-bench barr , on the fifth of february 1678 , for the murther of sir edmond bury godfrey ( the grand iury for the county of middlesex having found the indictment two days before ) they were upon the tenth of the same month brought again to the barr , to receive their trials : when his majesties council having open'd the indictment , the kings vvitnesses were called ; and dr. oates first sworn , who gave evidence . that he applied himself to sir edmondh . godfrey , september the sixth last past , with certain informations , and having made oath to the truth thereof , he carried the record back again ; and , september the 28 th repaired to sir edmond godfrey with two or three perfect copies , and swore them also . this being done , the vvitness gave information thereof to the council : after which sir edmond came unto the vvitness ( september the 30 th , as he remembers ) and told him what ill-will he had got ; some reproaching , and threatning him for doing so much ; and others , for doing so little ; and that the parliament should be acquainted with it , being to meet on the one and twentieth of october ensuing . the vvitness also swears , that about a week before sir edmond was wanting , he told the vvitness that some popish lords menac'd him for medling in the business . that he had great apprehensions of mischief from the papist's party ; and he told the vvitness how he had been watched for several days . the vvitness asked him , why he went without a servant ? he had one , he said , but he was a pitiful weak creature : the vvitness then advising him to get him some smart lad to wait upon him ; but he gave little heed to it : telling him , that he did not fear any man upon the square ; but still he would be talking to the vvitness of the danger that he was in ; who gave him this consolation , that if it should be his lot to suffer , it would be in a righteous cause . thomas robinson esquire was sworn ; and deposed , that sir edmond and himself had been school-fellows at westminster ; and for above forty years of a continued acquaintance ( saving only in the late vvar ) and fellow-commissioners for the peace . that having been together at westminster quarter-sessions , october the 7 th ; upon the rising of the court they went to dinner with the head baily . they had a great deal of talk there concerning the plot ; that this vvitness told sir edmondb . that it was said he had taken several depositions about it . to which he made answer , that he had done more in it , than he thought he should have thanks for ; and that he could have been well content if it had fallen into some other hand . this vvitness telling him , that he had but done his duty ; and desiring a sight of the examinations , if he had them about him . but his answer was , that a great person had them , and that when he got them again , the vvitness should see them . they both agreed that they were not yet at the bottom of it ; but upon my conscience , ( said sir edmondb . ) i believe that i shall be the first mariyr : adding , that no man should have his life neither upon easie terms . the vvitness advising him to go with a man , and he not liking it . mr. prance was then sworn : who declared , that before sir edmond was murther'd , for a fortnight or three weeks , there were several meetings at the plow-alehouse , where was green , girald and kelly ; and that the two latter ( who were priests ) drew the vvitness in , perswading him that it was no sin , but rather a piece of charity ; for he was a busie man and would be very troublesome . these words passed at the plow , and at the water-side , some week or fortnight befor the murther . upon the meeting of green , hill and girald , they came to a resolution , that who ever saw him first should immediately give notice to the rest , that they might be ready for him . girlad , kelly and green said in the vvitnesses hearing , that they had dogg'd him into the red-lion fields , but had no opportunity to kill him there . on a sunday-morning mr. kelly came to the vvitness , and told him , that they were then watching of him ; and told the vvitness afterwards , that either hill or green had been at his house to enquire for him ; but the servant telling him , sir edmond was not up , he left word that he would come again by and by : after this they waited their time , and then dogg'd him , as girald and green told this vvitness ; but whether it was green or hill that went , he could not say . and that day girald , green and hill dogg'd him from one place to another , and so into st. clements . about seven of the clock green told the vvitness where sir edmond was ; and he hasten'd away from his own house to somerset-house immediately , the vvitness living in princess-street , not far off . where he was at st. clements this vvitness cannot tell . towards nine a clock notice was given to hill ( who came before ) that the vvitness was to be in readiness . presently upon this hill went away to the gate , and as sir edmond was passing by , he desired him to try , if he could quiet two fellows yonder that were quarrelling ; which he was loath to do : but hill pressing it , that the authority of a iustice might make them friends , sir edmond went along with him ; and as he was at the bottom of the railes green got a handkercher about his neck , which he had twisted , and there pulled him over , and punched him , and choak'd him . girald would have run him through with his sword ; but the rest were against it , for fear that it should be found out by the blood . the vvitness went to the body a matter of a quarter of an hour after , and handling it perceived that he had life in him yet ; for his legs quivered ; but then green took him by the neck and turned it quite round . the vvitness does not say that he saw him do this , but green made his brags of it , and the rest told the vvitness of it too . the witness was ordered by hill to stand at the water-gate , and berry looked to the stairs ; they did all four tell the vvitness of the twisting of his neck , and they were about the body when the vvitness went down . berry was not there at first , but he came before they had him into the house , and helped to carry him up ; and so did this vvitness , with the rest . that is to say girald , green , hill , kelly , berry and the vvitness did all put their helping hands . he was carried into dr. godwins house , where hill ( that had been the doctors man ) had a chamber , and he went before to get the door open , while the rest brought the body , the body was kept there till munday night ; and then it was laid in somerset-house where this vvitness saw it by hills dark-lanthorn , they were all there , and upon tuesday night the body was removed again into hills lodgings , in a court below there . what was thrown over him , this vvitness does not know , hill had a dark-lanthorn which was all the light there was ; but the vvitness was certain that it was sir edmund godfreys body . it should have been laid in hills lodgings , but some body being there they conveyed it into a room that was overagainst it ( sir iohn arundels lodgings as he thought . ) about nine , on wednesday night as they were carrying it into the chamber where it was first , this vvitness had the hap to come just at that time , which started them so , that they ran away ; but upon the vvitnesses speaking berry returned , and the body was got up and so carried off about midnight in a sedan . it was hill that brought the sedan , and all the company helped to get him into it . girald and the vvitness took him up first ; berry stood ready upon a hemm to open the gate , and so he was carried out at the vpper court gate , green and kelly went before , and they took him up in covent-garden to ease the other , in longacre the vvitness and his companion took him up again , and carried him on as far as soho church . hill was ready there with a horse , and there the body was set up astride and hill rode behind it holding it up ; green , hill , girald and kelly , went along with him , the sedan being put into a new-built house till they returned . the next morning hill , kelly , and girald told the vvitness that they had thrust his sword through his body , cast him into a ditch , and his gloves and things were laid upon the bank. as to their meeting at bow , it was at one cashes the queens-head , there was one leueson , vernat , the vvitness , mr. girald and one dethick , that mr. vernat sent for by a cobler ; and he came immediately . there was a barrel of oysters for dinner , and a dish of fish , that the witness bought himself : and it was the friday after the proclamation for sending all papists out of town . the pretence of this meeting ( as mr. vernat told the vvitness ) was only to be merry . while the company was making merry , the vvitnesshearing somthing rustle at the door , he went and found a drawer hearkning there ; and told him he had a good mind to kick him down stairs , and so went away . the vvitness says that hill and berry were in the business before him , as girald said , with whom the vvitness had been several times at berries house ; they met twice at the plow , and the second time hill was there . they said there was a great reward promised , but this witness cannot tell what . girald had taken up a full resolution to destroy him that night : and , rather than fail , he would have killed him in the street ; in the lane that goes down to his house . mr. prance being questioned about mr. bedlow , declared that before the vvitness was in prison , he cannot remember that ever he was in mr. bedlows company . mr. hill desired the court that prances evidence might not be admitted against him , because he had denyed all to the king , that he had before confessed ; and so was perjured ; but he was answered , that his confession was not upon oath . hill asked prance what time it was he went to sir edmond godfreys , who answered that it was nine or ten a clock . hill affirmed that he had not been abroad that day ; and denied every syllable . then berry askt prance what people were in the house , when he said he was there , and bad him name any ; and prance told him that his wife was there , and girald , kelly and the vvitness . but berry could not deny the knowing of prance , no more could hill nor green. prance could give no account from whence they hounded him , when they murthered him ; he was carried into the house some quarter of an hour after he was killed , being taken and by surprise strangled . captain richardson was asked what he knew of prances denying what he had consested : who declared , that he was ordered , the night before the last parliament was prorogued , to carry prance before the committee of lords , to be examined : how that he was in great disorder , and earnest to speak with his majesty ; and that being brought into kings closset , he threw himself upon his knees and cryed , he was innocent , and they were all innocent , and he said as much to the council , denying upon the question that any body had tampered with him . that so soon as ever he was in the prison again he begged of captain richardson that for gods sake he would go tell the king that all he had now said was false , and that true which he before made oath of ; and if he might have his pardon , he would make a considerable discovery . that he recanted purely out of fear , that he had lost all his custom among the catholicks , and though the king should pardon him , they would go near to murther him . and captain richardson declared that after his pardon he demeaned himself very quietly ; and expressing a great detestation of the practices in the church of rome . mr. bedlow sworn , who declared that le faire , pritchard , and divers priests besides had dealt with him for the killing of a person , without naming the man , and that he should have help and a good reward : and that this was in october or september last . after which le faire , pritchard , and welch , put him upon working himself into an acquaintance with sir edmond godfrey . that this vvitness having introduced himself into a familiarity with sir edmund ; insomuch that he had been at his house for about a week together day after day ; they would have had the vvitness have brought them into his company too . that he made his acquaintance by going to him for warrants against people , and this vvitness had been with him every day but saturday the week before he was murthered . that upon friday , the day before , the vvitness sent his boy to know if he were at home , with an intent to have gotten him over to the grey hound tavern , where the confederates then were , five iesuits ; but he was not at home , and so le faire , welch and the vvitness , went into the city . that le faire having been next morning at the vvitnesses chamber , and missing him , they met by chance in the afternoon in lincolns-inn-fields ; and so they went to the palsgraves head taverns together ; where , upon discourse , he told the vvitness , there was a very considerable man , who was that night to be put out of the way ( that was the expression ) for he had gotten all the informations of dr. oates , and dr. tonge ; and if these papers were not taken from him , there would be such discoveries made as would endanger the whole design . the vvitness could not get it from him , who he was ; but there had been several plots upon him , and none of them had hit : and that mr. coleman had orders to pay 4000l . for the service . the vvitness parted with him then , upon his promise to come to him at somerset-house cloyster that night : but the vvitness knowing the business , failed him ; and saw him not again till munday night in red lion court , where he met him . he charged the vvitness with not keeping his word , who told him that he fell into other company ; and besides that he could not ingage to kill any man without knowing , first , who it was . well! ( says he to the vvitness ) be you at nine a clock to night at somerset-house , and you shall hear more . the vvitness went punctually at his time , and they had a great deal of discourse together in the cloyster : from thence he walked the witness into the court , and chid him for not assisting in that affair ; but however , if you will lend us your hand now ( said he ) to get him off , you shall have two thousand pounds of the four . the vvitness then asking if he were murthered ; he answered yes . the vvitness then demanded if he might not see him ; he told him that he might ; and so he led him by the hand through a dark passage into the place where the body lay . there were several people in the room ; but how many , and who they were , he could not say . there was no light in it but a lanthorn ; and by that the vvitness could discern the body . there was a cravat about his neck , drawn so streight , that the vvitness could not get his finger betwixt . they had some discourse then of getting him away ; pretending him to be one that was related to a person of quallity . the vvitness was very much surprised when he found who it was ; and urged the dropping of him into the thames with weights to sink him : but they rather chose to have it put upon himself , and to carry him out in a chair and the porter berry should be ready at the gate to let them out . they owned that they had strangled him and would have had the vvitness to help them out with him . but he excused himself as being yet too early , and that it were better to stay till about eleven or twelve a clock , promising to be with them again : but ( says le faire ) upon the sacrament you took on thursday you will be at the carrying him off to night , which the witness promised ; and so they parted . this lay heavy upon the vvitnesses conscience , who could not resolve to discover that which he had taken two sacraments in a week to conceal . in this trouble of thought , the vvitness went to bristol , where god put it into his heart that some murthers were past , and greater to come ; for the prevention whereof he was at last convinced of the duty of revealing this wickedness ; and so made his application to the king and parliament thereupon . meeting prance afterward in the lobby ; and there apprehending him . mr. bedlow declared also that he saw green was about the court , the night when the body was to be carryed away ; and that he heard berry was to open the gate : but they finding that the vvitness had again disappointed them , put it off that night for fear of further obstruction . mr. bedlow being called upon to say somthing to the business of prance , reported the matter , how that finding the croud to be great in the lords lobby , and being desirous himself to be private , he bad the guard clear the room of all that had no business there ; an order was given for all to quit but mr. bedlow and his friends : when seeing a man lift up his hat ; to find out his way , and finding it to be prance , the vvitness charged his guards with him ; but he being then in custody , and the constable telling him that he was his prisoner , the vvitness bad him have a care of him , and afterwards charged him before the house of lords . as to the prisoners : hill said that he never saw mr. bedlow ; and berry , that he never saw mr. girald . the constable was then sworn , about the finding sir edmund godfreys body ; whose evidence was , that the body was found in a ditch , his sword sticking in it , and two handfuls through his back : neither the sword , nor the place where it lay , was bloody . he had a thrust in another place , but striking upon a rib , it passed no further : and there was no blood there neither . his breast was bruised , his neck broken ( as the vvitness believed ) his gloves and stick by him , upon the bank ; his servant said that it was his masters sword , and he had both gold and silver in his pocket . the prisoners offered this vvitness no questions . the surgeons were then sworn , that viewed the body and opened it . mr. skillard informed , that he viewed the body at twelve a clock the next day after it was found . that the breast was bruised as with blows or stamping on it , his neck distorted : two wounds , one fell on a rib and the other past through his body : but he never dyed of those wounds , and neither his cloths nor his wastcoat were pierced ; his neck was certainly broken ; and probably he might be dead four or five days before these wounds were given : upon the opening of him it appeared that he began to putrifie . mr. cambridge , another chirurgeon , was sworn , who deposed that he saw the body on the same day with mr. skillard ; the neck displaced , bruised upon the breast , one wound on a rib , and another that past through him under the left pap , which wounds were undoubtedly given him after he was dead . elizabeth curtis ( sir edmund godfreys maid ) sworn and examined ; deposing that a matter of a fortnight before her masters death , the prisoner there , that they called green ) was at sir edmund godfreys house in the morning , to inquire for him , and first gave him the time of the day in english , and afterwards said somthing to him in french ( green denying that ever he saw sir edmund godfrey ) the vvitness persisting in it , that he was with her master about a quarter of an hour , and in a darker periwig then that he wore in the court ; and that upon sunday morning hill was there : which hill also denyed ; the vvitness particularly remembring that she was then doing somthing about the fire in the parlour ; that she gave her master his breakfast there , hill being with him , and then went up stairs , and missing her keys , came down again , and found them upon the parlour table ; and hill was yet there , in the very cloths he had on in the court , about nine or ten a clock : which agreed with prances evidence ; hill acknowledging , that he had not changed his clothes , but objecting that she said in newgate , she never saw him : and undertaking to prove , that he was elsewhere that morning , and about a month after she saw him in newgate . but there was another man , that brought a note for sir edmond godfrey , the night before ; which her master had ; and she knows not what became of it . the man came on friday night , with a letter in his hand tyed up , and asked for her master , the vvitness telling him that he was at home , but busie . so she took the letter and gave it him , the man staying a while , and then desiring an answer ; the witness telling her master as much . prethee tell him ( said he ) i don't understand the meaning of it . lancelot stringer , being sworn , declared ; that he had seen mr. prance in company with mr. green , mr. hill , mr. fitz girald , and mr. kelly , at the plow , several times ; and that he knew vernat : hill acknowledging as much ; and that he knew girald : and hill being charged with denying that he knew kelly before ; hill excused it that he knew him by sight , as one that much used the chappel . stringer was a servant to vincent the master of the plow ; where he came to live at last bartholomew . mr. vincent was sworn ; who said that he knew green , hill , and berry , and that they had been at his house with prance ; and likewise that he knew girald . richard cary sworn , who deposed that he was sent for by three gentlemen to the queens head. that he went up to them ; and they examined him , if he knew poplar , and one mr. dethick ; and he told them that he thought he knew the gentleman , but that he knew the place very well : so they gave him a letter for george dethick esq at poplar ; and charged him to be sure to give it to his own hand and not to any other body . the witness carried the letter , and delivered it to the gentleman ; telling him whence it came . so he lookt upon it ; and bad the vvitness tell them , that he would come to them presently : so the vvitness returned and found the gentleman there still that sent him . they gave him a glass of wine and paid him , and so he went away . cary saying that prance looked like one of the three , and prance affirming cary to be the man that was sent . evans , a boy of the queens head , was sworn ; who deposed that some two or three months since , there was some company at his masters , that they read a paper there ; and that mr. dethick came to them . that they had a barrel of oysters , and a dish of flounders to dinner . that he heard them name sir edmond godfrey ; and that one of them found him at the door and threatned to kick him down stairs . sir robert southwel sworn ; who deposed that attending the council december the 24. mr. prance was examined about sir edmond godfreys murther : and that his information having so many particulars in it , of such a bench , such a corner , room , passage and gallery ; the board not understanding it , the king directed the duke of monmouth , lord of ossory , and mr. vicechamberlain to the queen , to repair to the place and there take mr. prances examination , and report it to the board ; and this vvitness waiting upon the lords , took the examination , and drew it up into a report ; which was signed by the two honourable lords , and read that afternoon at the board . mr. prance shewed the lords the bench they sat upon to wait sir edmond godfreys coming ; the corner they lugged him unto , when they had killed him , the stairs where berry was to stay , a little door with a stair case at the stables end ; a long dark entry with a door , and eight steps , that led to dr. godwins lodgings ; up two steps on the right hand , there was a kind of a closet with a bed in it , and mr. prance told the lords , that , first , they got him thither , and left him in hills charge for two nights ; the witness there present , and every thing agreeing with mr. prances relation to the council ; and to what he now delivered in court ; only that his relation was now inlarged , and that the lodgings which he took to be sir iohn arundels , were not capable of any person of quality . mr. prance went thus far ready and directly ; but coming to examine the place whither they had carried the body , he said it was somwhere by the garden . there is a long dark entry that opens into the outer court ; he past through that , and then over the quadrangle to the piazza ; and then went down a pair of stairs , saying thus far we are right i am sure , there is a large square court below ; and there he began to doubt ; but yet went on , and so past into divers rooms on the other side of the court ; and then up stairs again , and into other rooms ; but still at a loss in what room it was that he saw the body : only certain that he had been in that place ; the vvitness still referring himself to his report . sir robert southwel now produced the minutes he had taken upon these mens examinations wherein it appeared , that hill was examined , that he confest he knew girald , but not kelly ; hill then interposing , that he knew one girald who was not a priest , and that he did not know girald the priest. it was charged upon berry , the saying that he had orders not to admit any strangers or persons of condition into somerset-house for two or three days ; and that the p. coming thither , was not suffered to enter ; and that he never had any such orders before . to which berry replyed that the p. might have entred if he had pleased ; that it had been proved ( as was acknowledged by the court ) that five or six had gone in before . that he had an order only for two days , as he remembred , and that he had had such orders formerly . but there being no such orders produced , the court reflected upon the pretence as the best artifice they could invent to keep the design private . the prisoners were now called upon to speak for themselves , and produce their vvitnesses : hill calling upon god to bear him vvitness that he was perfectly innocent . mary tilden informed that hill had lived seven or eight years with her uncle dr. godwin ; and that he seemed to be always a trusty servant , kept good hours , and lookt to their house in her uncles absence ; and was always within by eight at night , ever since last april when they came last into england . that the vvitness was in the house when sir edmond godfrey was killed : that she heard of the murther in the town on the wednesday ; that she herself was never out after eight a clock , nor hill neither : for he waited at the table ; and that constantly the maid barred the door upon his coming in , so that he went out no more that night : that he was at home the saturday night when sir edmond was murthered , and the next night , and every night so long as the vvitness was in town ; and that she herself was at home the wednesday night beforementioned . that she was the more positive because they kept constant supper time , and the doors never opened after ; besides that the lodgings lay so , that no body could go in or out without being taken notice of , that the maid kept the key of the house and not hill. mr. prance then informed the court that mrs. broadstreet would own but one key at first , but before the duke of monmouth , she ackowledged six or seven , to which mrs. tilden answered that there was onely one key which secur'd that door . the vvitness being askt when she was out of town ; answered in october ; but being told that this happened in october , her answer was that she mistook the month . mrs. broadstreet being askt what time , answered in september , and then mrs. tilden recollecting herself , said in september too , and that while she was in town there was not a day but she went into the little room , mentioned by prance , upon some occasion or other ; mrs. broadstreet said they came to town the monday before michaelmas , affirmed the good hours they kept , and that nothing could be brought in , but they in the house must know of it . sir robert southwel then described the place , that it was very little , and over-against the dining room ; and that it was a small square room , where the body was laid , at the stairs head . mrs. broadstreet adding that the key was never out of the door ; and people constantly going into that room . mr. prance informed that mrs. broadstreet told the duke of monmouth that hill had left his lodgings before that time . and sir robert southwel said that there had been some dispute about it ; prance would have it to be a fortnight after , and hill affirming that he was dealing with his land-lord the very saturday that sir edmond godfrey was wanting . and that from that time , it was a week or a fortnight before he removed . but it was urged that hill pretended that he was gone before . mrs. broadstreet averring that hill left the lodgings a fortnight after michaelmas . sir robert southwel informing that the said hill went away only three or four days after . mrs. tilden said further , that the place was so streight , that upon an occasion of visits the footmen always waited in that room . katharine lee did then inform that she lookt to see the doors locked every night ; and the parlour safe , and that she never mist him ; and that every morning , before she went to market , she went into the chamber , or called every day at the door , and that she always went to bed last . being asked if hill might not slip out , and she never know of it ; her answer was that she did not always watch him . but captain richardson informed the court that the servants keeping below stairs in the kitchin , and there being so many keys , people might go in and out and they never the wiser . daniel grey was called and informed that he was with his brother hill , from october the eighteenth to the two and twentieth or three and twentieth : that at nine or ten at night they used to go to bed , but he did not see him , when he went to bed. that the witness lay at his own house , that hill agreed for his house october the eighth , but it was about the twenty first , that he went thither ; and that they lived a matter of a bow-shot a sunder . robert how informed , that october the fifth mr. hill desired him to view a house that he was a taking , to see how it was in repair , and that they went and treated with the land-lord ; appointing tuesday morning , being the eighth , to meet again . that the witness wrought there every day , from wednesday , twelve days and a half : and that mr. hill was there every day . that on saturday the twelfth dining together , they parted about one or two a clock ; mr. hill ( as he says ) toward covent-garden , and this witness to his work : this vvitness told him that mr. hill had been there again about four a clock , but the vvitness was gone first . where he was that night the vvitness could not say ; but that he saw mr. hill about nine or ten in the morning , and that he staid till two. mr. cutler informed that hill was with him at his house from four or five in the evening till seven or eight : when his wife called him to supper , and the vvitness never saw him from that time till the day after he was taken . richard lasingby informed , that on saturday , october the twelfth about noon , he was with mr. hill at the door ; that he dined with him , and how , and that upon wednesday night he saw him from five to seven and not after . archibald was examined , and informed , that upon munday night having occasion for one grey , a taylor , he found him at hills house : and grey asking what news , the vvitness answered him very good , for prance was seized for killing sir edmond godfrey . to which hill replyed that he was very glad of it , and wished them all taken ; and the next morning the vvitness heard that he was taken out of his bed. why then , said hill , if i had been guilty i could have made my escape . iames warrier informed that october 12. green was at his house from betwixt seven and eight till after ten , it was upon a saturday , and he remembred it exactly by his work. that he bethought himself of this about a month after the murther ; and that greens being taken up made him reflect upon it . it was but fourteen days that he had been in the vvitnesses house before he was seized , he was not seized there neither . it was objected that he was not charged with the death of sir edmond godfrey till december 24. but only for refusing the oaths : so that that could not put him in mind of sir edmond godfreys business . mrs. warrier informed that upon the day that sir edmond godfrey was missing , mr. green sat in the vvitness quarter , till nine a clock , and then went up to his chamber , the vvitness and her husband with him , and there staid the beating of the tattoo and that this was the saturday fortnight after michaelmas . mr. ravenscroft informed , that hill had served his elder brother for thirteen or fourteen years very faithfully : and that at last he married a maid-servant in the family . that hearing of one that was seized about the murther of sir edmond godfrey , the vvitness was well pleased to hear it ; that passing from his fathers house in holborn homeward toward the savoy , he saw hill's wife at her own door , and she told the vvitness that some body had been there that said prance had discovered divers of sir edmond godfreys murtherers ; who askt her if her husband knew any thing of it . they used to be much together ( she said ) and perhaps that made them talk ; but for her husband he defied prance and all his works , telling the vvitness likewise that he was then in the house , which made the vvitness hope he was innocent , because he did not fly . the witness declaring such a detestation of the fact , that rather than he should escape if he were guilty , he would be the executioner himself . corporal collett informed , that upon wednesday , october the 16 th , he placed one nicholas trollop sentinel at the strand-ward , within the wicket ; he was upon duty from seven to ten , and then was relieved by nich. wright ; who staid till one. the sentinels being placed by the porters order ; not berry ▪ but one that used to carry orders . trollop informed , that while he was upon his post , a sedan was brought in and set within the gate ; he took it to be empty , but no order to refuse any body's entrance ; collett declaring , that there stands a sedan empty every night ; and trollop affirming , that there went none out in his time , for he was never half a pikes length from his place ; that he did not drink one drop ; and that he remembred every thing particularly , for he had been already twice before the committee . wright also said there passed none in his time ; and trollop evidencing , that it was brought in when he vvas upon duty , but not carried out again . gabriel huskes informed , that he was on from one to four , october the 16 th ; that he neither drank at berries , nor saw him . then eliz. minshaw informed , that mr. berry ( her master ) october the 16 th was the whole forenoon about the gates ; and after that , as he said himself , went to bowls . it was duskish when he came home ; he vvent to bed about 12 , and was not one hour absent . that this vvitness went about twelve to bed also , and saw him no more that night : so that she concludes he was in bed , because the passage to his chamber was through hers . it was then demanded of prance , vvhat made him deny what he had said ? who answered , that he was afraid of losing his trade , and that he had not as then his pardon . mr. prance was then asked at the instance of mrs. hill , if he had not been tortured to make him say this ; for it was the talk of the town , and he was heard to cry out ? who declared himself , that capt. richardson had used him very kindly , and let him want nothing . upon prances denial of this , mrs. hill exclaimed , that the vvitnesses were not duly examined ; and so called mr. chevins , who could say only this , that he had heard mr. prance deny all . the kings council having heard the prisoners and their vvitnesses , summ'd up the evidence : and the lord chief iustice gave directions to the jury ; who brought them all in guilty , and they receiv'd sentence , the day following , to be severally hang'd by the neck till they were dead . and upon the one and twentieth of the same month they were accordingly executed . the history of the charge and defence of s r. george wakeman , william rumly , william marshal , and iames corker . on the eighteenth of iuly 1679 , sir george wakeman , william rumly , william marshall , and iames corker , were brought to their trials at the sessions-house in the old-baily , upon an indictment for conspiring the death of the king , and the subversion of the government , and the protestant religion . but iames corker was first brought to the barr , having been arraigned the former sessions . the jury being sworn , and admitted without exception , the kings council ( as is usual ) opened the indictment , and mr. dugdale was first produced and sworn . and first as to the plot in general , mr. dugdale deposed , that he had some inckling of the plot seven years ago , but that ewers , gavan , peters , leueson , &c. had more particularly acquainted him with it , about two years since , and drew him into the design upon the government and religion , and upon killing the king , and the duke of monmouth . that all harcourts letters were directed to the vvitness , eight or nine at a time ; and almost all of them were concerning the plot. the scope of the letters were to instruct ewers how to proceed towards the getting of money , and engaging the gentlemen of the country , to serve as officers in the army , which was to be raised upon the death of the king. that he saw receipts from st. omers of money paid to that end . that he received a letter directed to himself , which came from harcourt ; but who wrote it he could not say , or if it had any date or no ; only he supposes that it came from beyond-sea to london , and so to him . it gave caution to say nothing of arms , till the king was dead . he deposed a correspondency thrice a week betwixt the conspirators in london and the staffordshire agents : and in a letter from whitebread , ewers was charged to choose stout and hardy men , with this expression in the letter , to kill the king ; which letter was sent by the common post , and superscribed to mr. dugdale , who vvas sworn to secrecy by mr. ewers at least ten times . and the vvitness took the sacrament upon it . he deposeth also , that gavan , leueson , ewers , and my lord stafford , would have had the vvitness destroy the king by shooting , dagger , or the like ; not so as to do it directly himself , but to come to london for directions how to do it ; where mr. ireland was to have him in his care ; and that he was to have come in october last , the resolution being taken the iuly before . this vvitness also deposed , that the lord stafford promised him five hundred pounds in hand upon his coming to london , in october , for an incouragement ; but that a more considerable reward vvas to follow , and that he should have come to london , if it had not been discovered . he deposeth further , that he found ewers reading a letter from london , with these words in it , this very night sir edmond-bury godfrey is dispatch'd , and that it was dated the very night that he was killed ; ewers shewing the prisoner the letter , and telling him also , that sir edmond-bury godfry was grown too inquisitive into the plot , and it would be well to take him off . deposing also , that mr. ewers shew'd the prisoner the letter to comfort him , that one enemy was gone ; and the vvitness reporting it again to the minister of the place . he deposed further , that the protestants were to be destroyed ; and that they had great confidence in the vvitness : he having given them four hundred pounds , and promised another hundred to pray for his soul ; and land made over to mr. girald to raise the money upon the sale. mr. corker demanded , from whom the dangerous letter before mentioned came ? and the vvitness not presently recollecting it , the prisoner appealed to the court , upon the improbability of sending such a letter by the common post , and yet no appearance either to whom , or from whom it came . but mr. dugdale rendred an account of other letters ; one from paris to st. omers , and thence to london , and so to tixall ; where it was read in the presence of the prisoner , by the lord aston and mr. ewers ; it was subscribed i. w. and thought to be from sir iohn warner ; that it was dated from paris , whence they advised the casting of it on the presbyterians , after the death of the king , which would make the church of england men fall in with the papists , to destroy the party . this was the paris letter ; and the london letter approv'd the advice with several lords hands to them , in allowance of the design of killing the king ; and raising an army . the prisoner asked , if it were dated from st. omers ? and mr. dugdale reply'd , that in the pacquet from st. omers there were three letters , paris , st. omers , and london , one from each ; and all in one cover , being cover'd in groves pacquet : the vvitness averring , that he himself was to be of the party that should kill the king , in october . the prisoner here made a reflection , that dr. oates mentioned only three designs to kill the king , by grove and pickering ; by the ruffians , and by poyson : and that now a fourth was found out in october , when the design was charged upon iuly , or august ? but it was reply'd upon him , that there might be more plots than docter oates knew of . mr. marshall offer'd , that the vvitnesses testimony was suspicious , even from the multitude of persons employed and intrusted ; and nothing done upon it , where yet a few might have done the business . the prisoners were here ordered to wait their time without interposing , that the kings evidence might be first heard : whereupon the prisoners desired pen , ink , and paper , which was granted them ; and so the court proceeded . it was much wondred that any body should write by the common post about killing the king. to which mr. dugdale answered , that in case of discovery it was to be cast upon him , and that he was under an oath to deny it : affirming , that the very words were for the killing of the king ; without any superscription to ewers , or name to the letters . the prisoners joyned in admiration , at the folly and madness of any man in putting such words in a letter . mr. dugdale proceeded , that whitebread's letter was directed to himself , and that it came in company with others : that there was a black cross upon what he was to deliver to ewers ; and that he was to disperse them where they were to go . but being ask'd by what mark he should know whither to send them ? the witness answered , that mr. ewers knew their hands , and what every thing meant , and for whom it was . to the question of how many letters ? the witness answered , that in two years he believed he had a hundred , and mr. rumley asking him from how many persons ? and wondring that he had none of them to produce ; mr. dugdale answered , that there were a great many from sir iohn warner , and that so long as he intended to go on with the plot , he burnt them all ; but that he had spoken what he could remember . he deny'd the seeing of any commissions , but affirmed that he spake with some that were to be officers . mr. prance deposed , that some three weeks before michaelmas , he heard fenwick and grove at mr. irelands chamber talking of raising 50000 men , and settling popery : mr. fenwick saying , that it would be easily done , and encouraging the prisoner ( being a silver smith ) with the hope of work enough , about crucifixes , candlesticks , &c. naming the lords that were to command the army : and after that he was told of commissions given out . he deposed further , that my lord arundels butler told him , that one messenger was to murther the king , and this witness meeting mr. messenger , and asking him the question , he was surprised at it , and said to this witness , pray keep counsel , for we are off of that now . mr. iennison deposed , that in iune ( 78 ) upon a discourse with mr. ireland in russell-street about religion ( his sister mrs. aune ireland being by ) mr. ireland spake as if the romish religion would be quickly settled in england , for there was but one stood in the way ; and the king might be easily poyson'd . whereupon this witness speaking of it as a horrid thing , mrs. ireland asked her brother why he talkt at that rate ? and he qualified the matter as a thing which he thought should not be done : and then the witness minding him of the gunpowder treason , he said , it was only a trick of cecils . the witness being at that time a roman catholick , but since converted . the vvitness deposeth further , that he saw mr. ireland positively on the 19 th day of august , being then newly returned from windsor , as he remembers punctually , upon very particular circumstances . the court looking upon this evidence as a most eminent confutation of what ireland affirmed at his death : which was , that betwixt the third of august , and toward the middle of september , he was never in town , but all that time in stafford-shire . mr. iennison then proceeding , that upon the 19 th aforesaid , he saw mr. ireland draw off his boots at his own chamber , upon the frame of a table , as the witness remembers , being come post ( as he said ) out of stafford-shire betimes that morning . that the vvitness telling him ( upon his question where he had been , and what news ? ) that he had been at windsor , and that the king was early up in a morning , went a fishing and hawking : the vvitness telling him , of his own accord , that his majesty had but very little company with him . mr. ireland reflected upon the kings going so thinly guarded , saying , that he might be easily taken off . the witness replying , god forbid : and then mr. ireland smoothing it over , this witness thought no more on it , till the plot was discover'd ; and then he told his father and his sisters this discourse , saying , that it was very suspicoius . this vvitness was very sure it was the 19 th , and knew mr. ireland very well , having been acquainted with him a year and an half : and he went out of town september the 4 th into the north. mr. corker asking the vvitness , when he turned protestant ? and objecting , that he did not for sake his religion till he found it might be for his advantage . mr. bowes was then sworn ; who declared , that he saw mr. iennison in tunbridge about the beginning or middle of august : that he went then from tunbridge . that the vvitness went to windsor , august the 12 th or 13 th ; and that mr. iennison came to windsor when the witness was out of town . mr. burnett deposes , that about the middle of august , ( the very day of dachett-horse-race ) he met mr. iennison on his way to windsor . the court declaring this to be a point , that did not concern the prisoners , but to shew the falsity of irelands affirmation . dr. oates then made oath , that mr. ashby coming sick to town in iuly , sir george wakeman prescribed him a course , how he should govern himself both before he went to bath , and there . that he should take a pint of milk morning and evening , and drink nothing else in the morning ; and at the bath to have a hundred strokes at the pump : sir george telling him in this letter who would help him to poyson the king. some two days after , the vvitness saw sr. george lay by his pen , and leave the paper upon the table with the ink wet upon it , which was an apothecaries bill , ( as he supposed ) and the same character with the letter to mr. ashby : and the vvitness swears , that as sir george wrote , mr. ashby discours'd to him of a commission received for physitian to the army ; which the witness saw at mr. ashby's in sr. george's hand ▪ he deposed further , that he heard one promise to help sir george in the promoting the catholick cause , and in the poysoning of the king ; and that he heard ashby , in the provincials name , offer 10000 l. to sir george for his reward . this was in iuly : harcourt , fenwick , ireland and the witness present . he deposeth , that sir george said , that it was not enough for poysoning the king , and so refused it ; and that the fathers met on purpose to deal with sir george about it , before mr. ashby went to the bath , and that upon sr. george's refusal , they acquainted mr. whitebread with it ; who presently gave the london-fathers commission to offer 5000 l. more ; which , as this vvitness is informed , was accepted ; and 5000 l. of it paid down : the vvitness having seen sir georges name subscribed to the entry-book ; wherein was specified such a proposal to sr. george , with his acceptance of 5000 l. and receipt in part of 15000 l. the receipt from harcourt by colemans order ; and the goldsmith , as this vvitness remembers was stayly , sir georges hand to the receipt , with a memorandum of the day ( in august ) when it was propounded , and accepted . the entry-book it self being in the fathers custody , at wild-house ; but who kept it this vvitness could not say ; only that mr. langhorne had it sometimes , and that the acceptance and receipt were entred the same day . dr. oates saith not that he ever saw sr. george write , but that he saw him lay aside a pen , and a paper newly written , and no body by that could write it but himself . and sr. george charging him with declaring , that he did not know the prisoners hand ; the doctor affirmed , that a letter that he saw signed g. wakeman , was the same hand-writing with that of the receipt , and the physick-bill . sir george demanded a positive answer , if the vvitness had not deny'd the knowledge of his hand , and the knowledge also of his very person , before his majesty and council ? to which dr. oates made answer , that he was so doz'd with sitting up , and his intellectuals so disordered for want of sleep , that perhaps he might speak short before the council ; but now that he had light to see sr. george's face , he could say more to him . the doctor affirming the prisoner to be the same gentleman , and desiring that what he had to ask might be put to the court ; the doctor not calling to mind whether he said he knew sir george , or not : but affirming this to be the person that was called sir george wakeman , but not able to say that it was the person that attended the council , when the witness was there . the doctor deposing likewise , that he saw sir george two several days at mr. ashbyes chamber ; and that he never saw him before , and but once after , which was at wild-house when the 10000 l. was offer'd ; where mr. ashby lay in iuly , before he went to the bath , which was about the end of iuly , or beginning of august ; his stay in town being about fourteen or sixteen days . the prisoner asking the vvitness then , if he knew all this when he was before the council , why he said there that he knew nothing of the prisoner , but about one letter from ashby to fenwick ? and objecting , that if this evidence had been given there , he must doubtless have been committed ; but the prisoner was directed , to reservo what he had to say till his proper time ; and the doctor referred his answer also to its proper place . touching mr. corker , dr. oates deposed him to be a benedictine monk , privy to the 6000 l. raised for this designe : and that in august last he sent his consent out of germany , to the proposal of raising it ; being president of the benedictines . that he gave the english monks in paris , and la chaise , an account how matters went forward in england , and that he had a patent to be bishop of london ; which the vvitness saw in his own hands . that this letter out of germany he had seen , and that it was addressed either to hitchcott , or another father in london . the witness deposing moreover , that as he remembers , mr. corker went over in iuly to lamspring in germany , but that in iune he saw him with mr. fenwick , and that upon discourse about some body that was behind in his pension , mr. corker gave mr. fenwick an order for some 20 or 25 l. to be received of mr. langhorne ; the order subscribed iames corker : the vvitness first seeing this order . and another time , his name to an examination , which agreed with his letter from germany . deposing further , that the prisoner disposed of several parcels of money , as he said , for the advancing of the design . that the prisoner was also privy to the consultation of april , and excepted against the choice of pickering to kill the king , because while he was attending at high mass , an opportunity might be lost . that this exception was at the convent in the savoy , to the vvitness himself , and at the same time , when he gave fenwick his order for money : the 6000 l. was to be advanced upon the benedictines estates ; and the witness believed it was paid , for the fathers acknowledged the receipt of it , and that though mr. corker was against mr. pickerings doing of it , he did yet approve of the thing it self . dr. oates charged mr. marshall also with being present when the 6000 l. was resolv'd upon , and with pickerings design upon the king , making the same exception against him with corker ; but he could not say positively that mr. marshal was at the consult . dr. oates deposed , that mr. rumley knew of the consult for the 6000 l. being either a benedictine monk , or a lay-brother : believing that he consented to it , because he prayed for the success ; and that this was in august . the prisoners being now allowed to make their objections , mr. corker inform'd the court , that lamspring was not in germany ( as the vvitness said ) but in westphalia ; and urg'd an inconsistence of that story , and his seeing la chaise . to which dr. oates reply'd , that it was usual with them to say they would go to one place , when they went to another . dr. oates call'd one thing more to mind ; that conyers laying a wager with another gentleman , that the king should eat no more christmas-pyes ; mr. marshall went half with mr. conyers that he should not . mr. marshall ask'd , how long the vvitness had known him , and where he had ever been with him ? dr. oates answering , that he had seen him often at the altar , but had no acquaintance with him : that he had known him off and on two years , but never heard him speak till the time of the wager ; but had only a knowledge of him by sight . mr. marshall , seeming to admire that the vvitness taking him to be in the plot , should never converse with him . mr. marshall demanded the time , and the place of the consult ? which the doctor told him was in august , and either the day before or after the feast of the assumption ; and the place the savoy . the vvitness charged the prisoner also with another consult in aug. ( of the 21 ; the former being the 15 th : ) at which time came letters from talbot of the state of ireland . it was dated from dublin ; but it was not tax'd at the post-office as an irish letter . he also deposed , that there were some benedictines and iesuites , and mr. marshall in the company ; who agreed , at the same time , about sending commissions for the army-officers : the letter was read at the convent , and the commissions order'd for ireland ; and the poysoning of the duke of ormond was also agreed upon . dr. oates was ask'd the time of pickering being taken ; and if he himself was present ? who answer'd , that he was taken upon michaelmass eve , or morning , and that he the witness was there . it was demanded of dr. oates , what consults he was at ? who answer'd , that there were two consults of the 15 th and 21 of aug. but that the witness was not at the consult for the 5000 l. to sir george wakeman . mr. bedlve deposed , that about the beginning of august last , he the witness , was at mr. harcourts chamber , and sir george wakeman came thither after , much out of humor ; and asked mr. harcourt , if he had not something for him ? whereupon mr. harcourt demanding of him , how he went on ? sir george answer'd him short , that that he did not know whether he should go on or no ; for he did not love to be trifled with in such a business ? stay sir george ( says mr. harcourt ) things are better than you imagine ; and so took some papers out of his cabinet , and a small bill , asking sir george what readiness he was in ; for ( says he ) we have been ready a good while . sr. george asking harcourt what that bill was ? he said it was a bill of 2000 l. from a person whom this vvitness has forgot , and drawn upon a goldsmith ( as he believed ) somewhere near temple-barr . that sir george reading it , and discoursing upon it , enquired of mr. harcourt , who this vvitness was ? mr. harcourt telling him , that it was a friend had been long in the plot , and was to have a very great part in it himself . sir george then telling him ( as this vvitness deposes ) that if the bill were accepted , he should hear from him suddenly ; and so he went his way : this vvitness going presently after him ; and meeting sr. george wakeman again , betwixt the queens-head and chancery-lane ; from whence the vvitness concluded it to be near temple-barr , ( mr. harcourts lodgings being but in duke-street , ) sir george told the vvitness , that the bill was accepted , and that afternoon the money should be paid . this deponent affirming , that he had known sr. geo. a matter of 5 years , though not much acquainted with him . he deposeth further , that upon asking whether or no this was in part of the 15000 l. mr. harcourt made answer , that it was only for the present ; the other being not settled as yet : but the vvitness affirms , that shortly after it was made 5000 l. and that mr. harcourt told the deponent , that it was all upon the same account : and if windsor and this should both fail , the work would be done at new-market . mr. bedloe deposed , that he had been once in company with mr. corker , keines , and le fevre , at somerset-house ; and that he did not hear any thing from mr. corker , that pointed directly at the murther of the king ; but that he heard corker and le fevre talking in general about the plot , and letters of intelligence ; and talking of raising an army , and who were sent to agitate in the country ; what interests they had made , and the like . and this was about iuly was twelvemonth . mr. bedloe moreover deposeth , that he knew mr. marshall , when he saw him in the gate-house ; and that he had been in his company in latham's chamber several times ; that he carried several letters to the catholick party that were in this design ; which letters this witness brought over from beyond-seas ; and more particulary one to sr. fra : ratcliffe . that all the letters this witness brought to the fathers , spake to the point of subverting the government , and religion of england . that mr. marshall was of the club , that saw the letters , and examin'd the answers : and that to this vvitnesses knowledge , the prisoner sent letters twice concerning the destruction of the government , and the bringing in of popery . mr. bedloe could say nothing positively as to mr. rumly ; but that he had heard of his sending of letters , and of his being intrusted when any secret ones were sent ; but that he could not swear mr. rumlyes privity to any letters relating to the plot. sir g. wakeman ask'd mr. bedloe what day it was that he saw him with harcourt when he read the bill ; and how he knew it was for this mony ? and what acquaintance the prisoner had with the witness ? to vvhich mr. bedloe answer'd , that it vvas about the beginning of aug. and he knevv it to be a bill , for the prisoner read it aloud , and that though the witness had no acquaintance vvith him , yet mr. harcourt inform'd him vvho the vvitness vvas . sr. george urging , hovv unlikely it vvas that he should put his life into any mans hand at first sight : but mr. bedloe reply'd , that he vvould have done a great deal more upon mr. harcourts security . adding , that he had forgotten the goldsmiths name , and the gentlemans who subscribed the note : also affirming , that though sr. geo. would not own the knowing of him , yet he had been the witnesses physitian at the bath about 2 years ago . sir g. wakeman reflecting upon several marks of falshood in the evidence . mr. marshall urg'd mr. bedlow to say when ever he saw him , before he came to him in the gate-house ; deni'd his owning the knowledge of him ; and affirmed , that mr. bedlow acknowledged himself a stranger to the prisoner ; appealing to those in the prison that heard it . and likewise the prisoner affirmed , that mr. bedlow , coming to him , used these words , mr. marshall , do not fear , for i will not hurt you : and so prest it upon mr. bedlow to say , where ever he had seen him . mr. bedlow's answer was , that he had seen him at the benedictines in the savoy ; and that the first word the witness said upon coming into the gate-house , was this is mr. marshall , that us'd to carry letters to such and such : referring himself to sir w. waller to attest it . sir w. waller gave evidence , that mr. bedlow , in his hearing , in the gate-house , spake to the prisoner , asking him , mr. marshall , do not you know me ? and mr. marshall answered , that he did not know him ; but yet that he had seen him , mr. marshall suggesting to sir william , that mr. bedlow was gone before he came in ; and sir william affirming , that he was with mr. marshall before mr. bedlow came in . mr. marshall insisting upon it , that he was in a private room with mr. bedlow ; and that sir william asked the prisoner , in the common hall , if mr. bedlow had not been there ; who told him , yes : and that those in the gate-house did know that the prisoner had been private with mr. bedlow before sir william came in . mr. bedlow deposed , that going , by order , to see the prisoner , he met sir william waller , and went in with him ; and that they were onely with the prisoner in the common room ; sir william withdrawing to one end of it , while the witness asked the prisoner some questions ; and mr. bedlow calling the prisoner by his name , upon the first sight of him . sir william waller also affirmed , that mr. bedlow did ask him if his name was not marshall . mr. marshall telling mr. bedlow , that he was first with him in a room on the right hand , where his guards were ; mr. bedlow denied that he knew any such room : and mr. marshall pleaded for himself , that he had no proofs there , because he could not imagine that such a thing would have been mentioned . the prisoner said , that mr. bedlow came to the gate-house a meer stranger to him : and that mr. bedlow asking him , did not you send to such a one to have mr. bedlow questioned about such and such things ? the prisoner denied it ; and the witness did not so much as pretend to have any knowledge of him . besides , that he might learn his name from those that took him : for he deliver'd himself up a prisoner , by the name of marshall , ( though he was otherwise called marsh ) : remitting himself to the people in the gate-house for the truth of what passed there . and that the witness had him have a good heart ; for he should have an honourable bench , and a good iury. but mr. bedlow , on the other side , affirmed , that without hearing of his name at all , he said , as soon as ever he saw him , this is marshall , the benedictine : and moreover , that he had seen the prisoner at the savoy , and at other places . marshall bidding him name any other place , and he would suffer death for it . but mr. bedlow would not be positive in any other place . but that he remembred the savoy more remarkably , as the place of their consults about the letters he carried thither ; and that it was there he had the greatest conversation with the prisoner . mr. marshall telling the witness , that if he could but make it out by any creature , that ever he , the witness , was in the savoy , he would submit to be hang'd , without a word speaking . mr. bedlow replying , first , that he had witnesses , though they were not at hand ; and then that it was a thing sworn before the secret committees . but however , the witness nam'd his landlord , as one that had been often with him there in the convent ; and with his maid that carry'd the portmantle with his letters beyond seas . and moreover , that he lodg'd some six months in the savoy at one woodroff's . the prisoner asking him if it were there that he saw him : mr. bedlow said , no ; for onely monks and messengers came thither . the prisoner asking him also , if he were present at the search of the savoy : he said he was not , but yet that he gave directions to sir william waller where to look . sir william waller deposed , that he had his directions from dr. oates and mr. bedlow where pickering lay , and to search such and such places , and by those directions he searched the savoy : and that this description was made before mr. marshall was seiz'd some two or three days . upon which , it was urg'd that such a description could not be made by one that , had not been there . to which mr. marshall reply'd , that dr. oates had search'd there before , and inform'd mr. bedlow , as might be well enough imagined , both of them joyning in the same charge : and suggesting , how easie it was to describe a house by hearsay . mr. bedlow did here declare , that it was he that gave sir william waller notice to search particularly under such a bench in pickering's quarter , for the gun that was made choice of to kill the king ; and the gun was found accordingly . upon some question of particularities in the evidence , mr. bedlow was call'd up again to repeat his testimonie about sir george wakeman ; which was to the effect as before , of his being at harcourt's chamber , sir george's coming in , and mr. harcourt's taking a bill of exchange out of his cabinet , and saying , sir george , there 's a bill for you , which i have receiv'd at white-hall to day by the queen's order . sir george replying upon it , that he thought his nine years service of her majesty might pretend to deserve it : and that there had been no hurt in 't , if the queen had given him it . mr. chapman informed , that one mr. thimbilby ( an infirm person of 80 years of age ) brought him recommendations to the bath from sir george wakeman . this was the 17. of iuly last . his business was , to get a lodging as near the king and queen's bath as might be ; which was done . and then he shew'd the witness a letter from sir george , whereof the lower part was a direction what to take , and how to govern himself at the bath ; which was now produced in court. that the latin bill the witness kept to himself ; returning the english part of the letter to mr. thimbilby . declaring , that both he and his son read the english part ; and that there was no mention of king or queen in it , more then of the king and queen's bath . a paper was then shew'd the witness , and a question upon it , if it were sir george's hand ; the witness saying that it was not , having severall of his bills to compare it by . that he knew not of any date or name to it ; and that he did not know whose hand it was . it was then considered , that the witnesse's paper could not be the letter dr. oates reflected upon , having neither sir george's hand , nor his name to 't , as was presum'd of the other . sir george wakeman then deny'd the writing any other letter , then that of his servant by his dictate , which ashby carry'd to the bath : and saith that dr. oates had charg'd him before the lords but with one letter . and then reasoning upon it , that if he had been conscious of any guilt , he had time enough to make his escape ; challenged any man to prove , that he had any thing more to do with ashby , then as a physician with his patient ; and alledged , that a physician here in the town would testifie , that they two had been joyn'd in consultations about him . sir george desiring the iury to take notice , that he never wrote any other letter . mr. chapman was ask'd , if there was any thing of milk mentioned in that letter ; who said , no ; and the milk was never prescribed with the waters . dr. oates affirmed , that the letter he saw was in another hand , a kind of a gentile hand . sir george appealing to all the world , that milk was direct poyson in the case . but dr. oates inform'd the court , that he was to take the milk in town . sir george wakeman opposing , that it could not be ; for he staid but two days after the writing of that letter . it came then to be consider'd , that this could not be the same letter . dr. oates confirming it also ; and that the prescription of milk was after the first line or two of complement ; and that there was nothing of a latin recipe in it . sir george wakeman observed to the iury , that admitting any other letter then this in court , he must write two receipts for the same thing ; which was very improbable . and that the reason of his hand not being to it , was , his being ill , and asleep , when his man ( who wrote it over again from a foul copy ) went away with it . mr. chapman repeating the order of the prescription , and declaring that he follow'd it at the bath , for six days together ; dr. oates deposed , that there was no bolus in the other letter ; nor what bath he should go to , as was in this ; and that therefore it could not be the same letter . besides , that it was written above ten days before mr. asbby went away . sir george objecting , that there was no need of telling him of his course in the bath , so long before he went thither . sir george's servant inform'd the court , that telling his master that mr. ashby desir'd directions for the bath , it being well late , and his master indisposed , he bad the witness take pen and ink , and write ; and making some mistakes , his master bad him mend it ; and so he interlin'd the corrections . that this witness wrote it fair that night , and carry'd it next morning , before his master wak'd , to mr. ashby , who was then going for the bath . the witness declaring , that he knew nothing of mr. ashby's drinking of milk , onely that a friend of his had advis'd him to it . but dr. oates deposed , that he himself was with him , and that he drank it night and morning . the witnesses for the prisoners were now call'd . and , first , elizabeth heveningham : who informed , that she was by , when sir george's servant wrote the letter from his master's mouth ; and that she saw the letter , and that there was no such thing in it as is said . wherein the court was satisfy'd as to the truth of the evidence , but that this could not be the same letter dr. oates spoke of ; for that was written ten days before mr. ashby went to the bath . whereupon mrs. heveningham affirm'd , that mr. ashby said , in her hearing , that he wanted directions . sir george wakeman pleaded , that he was left at liberty 24 days after he had been before the councell : and that upon dr. oates's bringing an information upon the letter now in question to the house of commons bar , they sent an address to the lords , with admiration that the present prisoner was not confined : and that thereupon dr. oates was sent for to the lords bar , to repeat the story ; and mentioning the letter now in debate , he consest there , that he did not know sir george wakeman's hand ; and onely knew it to be his letter , by being subscribed g. wakeman . sir george reasoning upon it , that the witness would have told more , if he had known it , at that examination . dr. oates depos'd , that sir g. w. was left at liberty , because the witness was so weak , and distemper'd with watching and toiling about , that he could not perfect his charge ; and that he ( the dr. ) did speak the whole truth of his knowledge , as far as he was able ; denying that he said he onely knew sir george's hand , because george wakeman was subscribed . which sir g. w. opposed ; and offer'd to make good his contradiction by the record . dr. oates deposed , that he could not perfectly remember the very words ; but that if the prisoner prov'd them by an oath upon the record , it must be referr'd to the iury. but to the best of his memory , upon asking him about sir george wakeman's hand , he said , that he saw a letter subscribed with his name , and that upon this information sir g. w. was committed . sir philip lloyd was called , who informed the court , that dr. oates made oath before the council , sept. 3. that he had seen mention made of sir george wakeman's undertaking to poyson the king , in a letter ( as he remember'd ) from mr. whitebread to mr. fenwick at s. omers : and that coleman had paid sir george 5000 li. in part of 15000 li. which he was to have . that sir george wakeman being call'd , and advertis'd of this charge , he did not onely deny the whole matter , and appear otherwise unconcerned ; but mov'd it , as a reasonable thing , that he might have reparation for the scandall . this behaviour of his was ill taken , and it was found reasonable to enquire farther into the matter ; but the evidence coming onely from a third-hand letter , sir george was not committed . dr. oates being call'd in again , was demanded what he could say of his own personal knowledge concerning sir george wakeman . upon which question , dr. oates holding up his hands , no , ( said he ) god forbid that i should say any thing against sir george wakeman , for i know nothing more against him . sir philip remitting himself to the whole council for the truth of what he deliver'd . sir george wakeman minding the jury , that this was a protestant witness ; and dr. oates not remembring a word of the whole matter . dr. oates did very candidly represent to the court , that he onely inform'd the council as by report of sir george wakeman's receipt of the 5000 li. in part : the council not urging the witness to speak upon his knowledge . that the witness believed it to be so , but would not be positive ; for in case he should have made such answer as is informed against him , it was known to the whole board that he was , at that time , hardly compos mentis , and scarce in condition to return an answer . but that this witness did according to the best of his skill , knowledge , and remembrance , acquaint the board with sir george wakeman's letter ; but he would not be positive . sir philip lloyd was then examined as to the letter : who informed , that he remembred nothing of that letter ; and that afterward , this witness observing , in dr. oates's depositions before the lords and commons , an account of such a letter from sir george wakeman to mr. ashby , found upon the table , he , this witness , hath often reflected , since that time , upon dr. oates's declaring at the council , that he had nothing more against sir george wakeman ; repeating dr. oates's action and expression , that , with his hands erected , he said , he knew no more against him . sir george wakeman's , plea , that the council would certainly have committed him , if this evidence had been given to the board , appearing to have something of weight in it ; dr. oates sought to qualify that , by saying , that they were such a council as would commit no body . which was reflected upon by the court , as unadvisedly said . mr. lydcot was call'd , who brought a copy of the lords records ; and informed , that it was a true copy , and that titus oates was set in several places , as to an information : but whether it was his hand or not , mr. lydcot could not say ; onely that it was copied from mr. rolph's hand . to all which it was objected , that the witness not being present when dr. oates said this , not the thing attested by the clerk that made the entry , or saw him subscribe the examination ; that copy amounted to no more then a transcript from the iournall , which could not be allowed in evidence . mr. rumly was offer'd to have his witnesses heard : but the court finding that he had no need of them , the prisoner wav'd them . sir thomas doleman made oath , that dr. oates appearing before his majesty and councill on the saturday , and attending morning and afternoon , and being employ'd that night upon searches , the councill sitting sunday afternoon , ( as the deponent remembred ) dr. oates was then examin'd ; and the council sitting very long , he was appointed that night to search again , when he seiz'd several priests and papers ; the night being wet having much disorder'd him . on monday morning he was examin'd before the council again , and at night in so feeble a condition as ever the witness saw any man. sir george wakeman offer'd , that he appear'd upon sunday , and so was dismist again , till the king himself might have the hearing of the business the next day . sir thomas doleman than proceeded , that sir george wakeman was then call'd in , and deliver'd such an answer , that the council very much wonder'd at the manner of it : several persons being of opinion , that his denial was not so point-blank as it might have been ; insisting much upon his loyalty to the crown , and reparation upon a point of honour . sir george wakeman inform'd the court , that being charg'd with treason before the council , and dr. oates his accuser , he pressed dr. oates to say if he either knew him , or had seen him before . he said , no ; but that upon a consult at s. omers , where ashby was rectour , sir george wakeman was pitch'd upon , by name , for the poysoning of the king : though the dr. is now pleas'd to say that the debate was in england . that the prisoner , finding the charge sos semote , offer'd , that where there was no proof , he hop'd there would not be expected any defence . the prisoner , upon this , taking a freedom to instance in divers actions of loyalty , both from himself , family , and relations , as some testimony of his duty to the government . mr. corker offer'd in plea , that not knowing his accusations , he could not come provided with evidences to support his defence : that nothing is easier , then to accuse an innocent person , so , that he shall never clear himself : and that it is not a positive , but a probable oath , that proves a man a criminal ; and that otherwise , dr. oates , and his companions , might hang up whom they pleas'd , let the men be never so innocent , or the matter charg'd never so ridiculous : and that the circumstances ought to be credible , as well as the witnesses ; neither of which were ( as he suggested ) to be found in his case . proceeding in a reflection upon the extent of the charge ; it involving the whole body of the roman catholicks in the treason : using many flourishes of discourse to affect the bench , and the iury , as to the credit of the very plot it self : raising arguments from improbabilities of circumstances , and incredibility of witnesses , to uphold his pretence . but the court with as much ease answer'd his defence , as they heard it with patience . sir george wakeman recommended one observation to the court ; that in dr. oates's copious narrative , there is not one letter from abroad , but he deposes positively both to the date , and to the receipt of it : and yet in the case of a man's life he will not be confin'd to a month. mr. corker suggested divers mistakes of dr. oates's : as his charging the prisoner with the denial of a truth before a justice ; wherein the prisoner clear'd the errour : and then the business of his going to lamspring . but these were look'd upon as matters of no weight . the prisoner then reflected upon the doctour's deposing him to be president of the congregation ; whereas stapilton is known to have been president of it for several years past . and says , that if this prisoner be not president , dr. oates's accusation of the benedictines waiting for his consent , must fall to the ground . the prisoner being put to prove who was the president of the order , not being provided with witnesses at hand , spake himself ; denying any letter , either written , or received , as was suggested ; any privity to such a consult about the mony ; or any necessity for his being at it , if the thing had been true . and arguing , that in reason , if he had been in the conspiracy with pickering , when pickering was taken , he would certainly have fled . and as to his exception against pickering , because no lay-brother ; the dr. knowing pickering so well , and himself being present at the taking of him , it seemed strange that he should neither know , nor charge , nor apprehend him the prisoner , untill near a month after : especially the officers coming to this prisoner's chamber , when they seiz'd pickering . but dr. oates , hearing afterward that the prisoner had lodg'd there , enter'd him in his list , and so took him . whereas , if ( as dr. oates says ) the prisoner was a fellow-criminal with pickering , he being then in quest of the conspiratours , it was his duty to have taken them both together . beside that the prisoner's name not being upon the doctour's catalogue , he thought might acquit him . but the prisoner being over-rul'd in it , that what he offer'd , was no evidence , he recommended himself to the jury , to lay it to their consciences , whether they did not assent to him in the truth of this matter . mr. marshall being now ask'd what he had to say , spake to this effect : that upon notice , a month agoe , of coming speedily to his trial , he had bethought himself of his defence ; and with good hope to acquit himself . but reflecting upon the issue of the late trials , he had once resolved to submit all to the sentene of the court and the jury , without a word speaking . but that being now encourag'd by the candour and equity of the proceeding , he made it his humble suit to the honourable bench , to take into their own menage the cause of the prisoner . passing from thence to a slight reflection upon dr. oates and mr. bedlow ; and then referring to the unconcernedness upon him at his apprehension , there being no warrant out against him , nor any charge of treason lying upon him : but that coming by chance to enquire for one where they were upon a search , though he saw the officer at the door , and candles up and down the house , yet he went forward ; as all the people can testify , and sir willam waller also , that took him . sir william waller being called , deposed to this point , that going to search there , he gave order to one at the door to let nay body in , but no body out : and that the prisoner came and knockt at the door , ( as sir william supposed , ) not knowing of any search in the house . but being let in , and finding how it was , he did what he could to get away again . but mr. marshall begging pardon for the contradiction , affirmed with a solemn asseveration , that he enter'd without knocking , ( the door being open ) and so went in of his own accord , as the constable would bear him witness . and for his endeavour to get away again , he affirm'd , that while they were searching within , he continu'd in an out-room , the constable and others with him wondering , when he came back , that the prisoner was not gone . the prisoner affirming likewise , that he was left at the door alone : and beside , that he could have slipt out at another door , into an alley , which he had the trick of opening while a man might speak three words . the prisoner insisting upon this confidence , as an argument of his innocence : saying farther , that be was spoken to to take off his perriwigg , and stand with his back to sir william and dr. oates ; which the prisoner did not understand . but sir william being so kind afterwards as to see him at the gate-house , with two worthy gentlemen , sir philip matthews and sir iohn cuttler , upon the prisoner's affirming that dr. oates was wholly a stranger to him , the prisoner was told , that dr. oates ( as a token that he knew him ) describ'd a certain mark upon the hind-part of his head : the prisoner offering himself to the company , to see if there were any such thing or no. the prisoner did now desire , that dr. oates might give an accompt of that mark ; and that the jury would believe of him according as they found it true or false . sir william waller inform'd the court , that he knew nothing of any mark ; but that dr. oates , when he came in , call'd the prisoner by his name . mr. marshall excus'd the trouble he had given the court , his defence depending upon the proof of doctour oates's being a stranger to him ; desiring the jury to observe , that such a description was given ; sir william waller owning a desire to see him without his perriwigg , to look if he had a shaven crown : which mr. marshall said , sir william must needs know could not be ; it being an experss caution , that no religious wear any such testimony of his profession , in england . mr. marshall inform'd the court , that upon dr. oates's first evidence against him , he desired sir william , that it might be put in writing : which sir william refused ; but promised to commit it to memory . hereupon the prisoner did now adjure sir william as a worthy gentleman , and as he should answer for it at the last day , to be as good as his word . the prisoner said farther , that dr. oates looking hard upon him , askt him what his name was : which shew'd him to be a stranger . and upon the prisoner's owning his name to be marshall ; dr. oates told him , that he was call'd marsh. urging it , that dr. oates seeing the prisoner ; saying that he did not know them ; leaving them in bed , and at liberty to be gone ; and he himself declaring that he was looking for traitours ; the prisoner left the jury to judge , whether he had any thing to charge upon them . sir william waller protested solemnly , that there was nothing of all this . marshall exclaiming , that he was astonish'd ; and affirming , that upon a controversie with dr. oates about it , mr. gill the constable averr'd it , and promised to attend in court to make it good . the prisoner averring , that he askt dr. oates why he did not seize him before , when he was searching for traitours , if he knew the prisoner to be a traitour : whose answer was , before sir william , that at that time he had no commission to seize him . but sir william remember'd nothing of this neither . mr. marshall then ask'd sir william , if he remember'd what dr. oates said upon a question of his seeing the prisoner last summer ; which was , that he saw him iune , iuly , and august . sir william waller calling to mind something of that ; mr. marshall averr'd that he could prove himself in warwickshire all those three months ; but that his witnesses were not here ; and that it was impossible to foresee what points would come in question . whereupon he did submissiverly desire respite of the court , for the producing of his witnesses . the prisoner recommends over again the consideration of the false mark ; the dr's . finding him in bed , and yet not knowing him ; his point-blank evidence upon august 21 ; and the most certain means he had of disproving it : still insisting upon a very short time to bring up his witnesses . mr. corker minded the court of the officers , and others , that said , upon the taking of pickering , that they had nothing to say against the prisoners ; which a servant of the house was then ready to attest . elenor rigby informed , that upon the search in the savoy , marshall and corker were both in bed , at the same time when pickering was taken : and that the company ask'd the name of the people in the house ; and that this witness named to them pickering , marsh , corker , and others . they declaring ( dr. oates among the rest ) that their business was onely to pickering . upon the question , who was president of the benedictines , the witness answered , mr. stapilton ; and that he had been so several years : and that she was certain that corker never officiated in that place . and being ask'd , if ever she had seen dr. oates or mr. bedlow there in the house ; she ( the witness ) answer'd , that dr. oates came to mr. pickering for a charity that summer was twelvemonth ; and that mr. pickering forbad his coming into the house . mr. marshall collecting from that evidence , that this being charg'd for the very nick of time to advance the plot , it was not probable that they would treat so necessary an instrument in it at that rate . the prisoner repeating his desire onely of 3 or 4 days time , to provide his witnesses : reasoning upon the thing , that if his life might justly be sav'd , he did presume that the court would not have him lose it . but it was urg'd , on the other side , that he had notice long enough to have brought them up ; and that the iury must be now kept together till they give up their verdict . mrs. elizabeth shelden informed , that mr. stapilton was at present ( and had been for four or five years last past , to her knowledge ) president of , the benedictine monks . and alice broadhead informed likewise to the same effect . upon which evidence mr. corker raised this inference , that dr. oates's accusation was of no validity , depending wholly upon the prisoner's being president , and consenting to the plot under that qualification . sir george wakeman , with a soleman imprecation , disclaimed all the crime in this matter that was charg'd upon him . and so likewise did mr. corker : renouncing both the doctrine of moving a sedition for religion ; and all power of dispensation for so doing . mr. marshall was more copious and rhetorical ; and more upon perswasion then defence . so that the lord chief justice ( after some short remerks upon the romish principles ) summ'd up the evidence , and gave directions to the iury : who after an hour's consideration returned the prisoners not guilty . the contents . the history of the charge and defence of edward coleman , esq pag. 1 the history of the charge and defence of william ireland , thomas pickering , and john grove . pag. 12 the history of the charge and defence of thomas whitebread , will. harcourt , john fenwick , john gavan , and anthony turner . pag. 21 the history of the charge and defence of richard langhorn , esq pag. 47 the history of the charge and defence of robert green , henry berry . and laurence hill. pag. 63 , the history of the charge and defence of sir george wakeman , baronett , william marshall , william rumley , pag. 74 james corker , benedictine monks . the end . notes, typically marginal, from the original text notes for div a47868-e920 mr. oates sworn concerning the plot upon the king. he goes to father keyns at colemans . fenwick gives him colemans packet for st. omers . foul expressions in colemans news letter . a letter of thanks to la chaise for 10000 l. the mony to be imployed for the killing of the king. mr. oates had a patent to be of the consult . a consult at the white-horse in the strand . the result of that meeting . touching a rebellion to have been raised in ireland . a consult at the savoy about it . arms towards the rebellion . 200000 l. towards it . money to be sent to windsor . the four irish ruffians sent away , and 80 l. sent after them . ashbies instructions about the poysoning or murther of the king. mr. colemans commission for secretary of state. mr. langhorn shews mr. oates the commissions . mr. oates's acquaintance with mr. langhorn . how many priests and iesuits in england at one time . mr. colemans defence . mr. oates did not know coleman at the council . not till he spake , for the candle was in his eyes . how came mr. oates to omit his charge before the council ? mr. oates's answer to the former objections . why was this information delayed so long ? with mr. oates's reasons for it . whether mr. oates knew coleman before the council or nor ▪ sir thomas doleman examined to that point . and sir robert southwel . m. colemans defence before the council . mr. oates's charge against coleman . mr. bedlow examined . mr. bedlows evidence about commissions . what mony mr. coleman received , how much , and for what . mr. bradley ( the messenger ) examined . his account about seizing m. colemans papers . sir robert southwel and sir thomas doleman examined about m. colemans long letter . m. colemans letters and papers proved to be of his own hand-writing . sir philip lloyd proves the long letter . the scope and substance of it . sir robert southwel proves la chaises letter . la chaises letter to coleman . the substance of mr. colemans project of a declaration . his letter in the dukes name , which gave his highness great offence . the sum of the letter itself . another letter to la chaise . two material passages out of it . mr. coleman owns the letter . the prisoner asks the witness some questions . dr. oates's answer to them . the prisoner says he was in warwick-shire when charged to be in london . he pleads that both witnesses did not swear to the same fact. he blames his expression and distinguishes upon the word aid . boatman witnesses his being in warwick-shire . his servant examined again but could not speak to the day . the prisoner found guilty . he is brought to the bar again and offers a book to prove he was out of town . pleads the act of grace and receives his sentence . he swears himself innocent . and is executed . notes for div a47868-e7500 the indictment ; for conspiring the death of the king. dr. oates sworn . mr. whitebreads letter to conyers . he summons a consult . a second summons ; and who appeared upon it . the consult of april 24. at the white-horse-tavern . the result drawn up by mico . the sum of the result . who signed it . dr. oates came over iune 24. by dover . in a coach to london . ashbies instructions from whitebread . four ruffians hired to kill the king. broils to be raised in scotland . moore and sanders to promote them . the duke as well as the king to be disposed of . the sacrament taken and an oath of secrecy . the prisoner says dr. oates was at st. omers , when he swears himself in london . cary sent to rome , in may or iune . dr. oates's evidence against pickering and grove . pickerings penance ; and for what . dr. oates's risque upon his discovery of the plot. fourscore pounds sent to windsor to the ruffians . who signed the resolution . the oath of secrecy . mr. whitebread denies all . whitebread charged with issuing out commissions . several commissions with blanks . dr. oates charges grove and three irishmen with firing southwark . fenwick offers the seal of the college , and of the town , to prove that dr. oates was at st. omers april and may. dr. oates came over to the april consult . and lay at groves's . whitebread denies dr. oates's coming up with hilsley . mr. bedlow called and sworn . he carryed letters for harcourt . recommended by the lady abbess to sir iohn warner . a correspondence betwixt harcourt and la chaise . mr. bedlow sent to paris . mony , men , and arms in readiness . letters for promoting the plot. a consult in august at mr. harcourts . conyers joyned to pickering and grove , in the design at newmarket . pickering and grove to be rewarded . ireland denies the knowledg of mr. bedlow . mr. bedlow knows nothing of whitebreads being in the plot. grove to put his 1500 l. into a friends hand . ireland says he was in staffordshire not london . mr. bedlow says he saw ireland at le faires . a doubtful passage in the printed tryal . a plot upon some noble lords . dr. oates calls to mind a plot upon the duke of ormond . mr. fenwick made privy to that plot. mr. iames bedlow swears he had heard of a plot. the seals brought into the court. the jury discharged of mr. fenwick and mr. whitebread . mr. ireland proves his being in staffordshire . sarah pain swears that she saw ireland at his own door at a scriveners in fetter-lane , about aug. 13. mrs. a. ireland proves mr. ireland in staffordshire . and so does mrs. eleanor ireland . dr. oates swears mr. ireland in london at that time . harrison proves ireland in staffordshire . mr. irelands journal of his passage into the country . mr. gifford witnesses it too . mr. ireland reflects upon dr. oates's testimony . sir denny ashburnhams evidence . mr. ireland pleads his loyalty . mr. grove denies that dr. oates ever lay at his house . mr. pickering swears that he was never in mr. bedlows company . the three prisoners found guilty and condemned . notes for div a47868-e16290 mr. whitebread pleads that a man ought not to be tri'd twice for the same fact. his plea answered , and overrul'd . mr. fenwick pleads the same with mr. whitebread . the prisoners challenge all that serv'd in the former jury . mr. oates sworn . his charge upon mr. whitebread for his orders to conyers . mr. whitebread charg'd for a correspondence with father talbot . the resolve of apr. consult sign'd . the substance of the resolve . mr. oates landed at dover iune 15. and came to london about noon , iune 17. instructions to poyson the king , and issue out commissions . mr. ashby went to the bath about the latter end of iuly . mr. oates did not know mr. gavan in the lobby . mr. oates his charge against mr. gavan . mr. oates knew mr. gavan's hand , having seen him write a bill for payment of money . mr. ireland takes leave of the witness . mony sent to the ruffians ; and coleman gives the messenger a guinny . a consult at the benedictines , and news from ireland of a plot upon the duke of ormond . sept. 3. mr. whitebread being at supper , m. oates could not see him till next morning ; and was then abus'd . mr. whitebread and m. oates friends again . mr. whitebread overjoy'd at sir geo. wakeman's accepting the 15000. li. mr. gavan summon'd to the consult of april . mony rais'd to carry on the design . ashby in town the beginning or middle of iuly . gavan objects that m. oates varies in his story . the prisoners put cross questions to the witness . mr. oates stay in england was under 20 days . the prisoners offer mr. oates's narrative for evidence . mr. gavan seeks to entrap m. oates about ashby's being in town . gavan presses mr. oates upon a precise week ; which he does not remember . gavan opposes m. oates's evidence with a solemn imprecation . the prisoners charge mr. oates with mistakes . mr. oates's answer to it . mr. dugdale sworn , and charges mr. whitebread . mr. dugdale knows mr. whitebread's hand , having onceseen him write a letter . dugdale engag'd in the plot by gavan . a meeting at tixall sept. last , to kill the king , and destroy the protestant religion . 400 li. given by the witness to pray for his soul. forces expected from abroad . a massacre intended . king-killing made lawfull . 100 treasonable letters seen by mr. d. harcourt's letter seen by mr. dugdale about the murther of sir edmundbury godfry . m. dugdale's account of whitebread's letters . harcourt charges dugdale with contradicting himself . m. chetwin's evidence concerning sir edmundbury godfry . mr. dugdale dealt with to kill the king. mr. dugdale privy to the whole design . mr. prance told of a plot upon the king's life ; and 50000 men ready to set up popery . mr. bedlow's reasons why he spar'd whitebread in the first trial. an account of sending the irish-men to windsor . pickering and grove to be rewarded . pickering disciplin'd for not having his arms fix'd . a debate upon the odd 5000 li. to sir george wakeman . mr. bedlow brought many pacquets and portmantles of intellingence to harcourt . intelligence from s. omers , bruges , paris , valladolid , salamanca . mr. harcourt denies all , and tells how mr. bedlow and he came acquainted . mr. harcourt in the bottom of the plot. 2000 li. to sir george wakeman , in part of a greater sum . mr. petre's letter . mr. harcourt and mr. whitebread expound the letter : but the court not satisfied . mr. gavan's exposition of it . papists bolder in parliament-time then out of it . anderton's letter . a dispute upon the word patents . mr. whitebread's defence ; with reflections upon the witnesse . m. fenwick's defence . the prisoners beg that their witnesses may be sworn . mr. whitebread charges dr. oates with falsifying . presses the business of hilsley . dr. oates clears the objection . hilsley offers proofs on the prisoners behalf . mr. parry crosses dr. oates's testimony . dr. oates sticks to his affirmation . mr. parry for the prisoners . mr. doddington for prisoners . mr. gifford for the pris. mr. palmer for the prisoners . mr. cox. m. billing . mr. townley . mr. fall. mr. hall. mr. cook. mr. gavan presses dr. oates upon his narrative . dr. oates clears himself . bartlet for the prisoners . carlier by an interpreter . sir iohn warner proved at watton by charles verron . and by bailleé . sir thomas preston proved at liege by iohn ioseph . and by peter carpentier . mr. gavan's different case ; and not at london when charg'd to be . mr. gavan prov'd in staffordshire by mrs. winford . and by mary poole . and by mrs. winford again , more particularly . mr. gavan contradicts dr. oates's evidence , as to his speaking with mr. ashby . mr. gavan proves what he could ; and swears himself innocent as to the rest . he offers himself to the ordeal . six witnesses produc'd for him . mr. whitebread will not allow dr. oates to be probus testis . mr. harcourt reflects upon the credit of the witnesses . roman catholicks good evidence . mr. harcourt charges dr. oates with contradictions in his evidence . and so does mr. gavan . mr. gifford gives evidence against dr. oates . dr. oates speaks to some mistakes . eleven witnesses to prove mr. ireland in staffordshire . mr. turner denies his charge . capt. hill produc'd : and mr. fenwick objects ill things done by mr. bedlow . mr. whitebread charges mr. bedlow with a false oath . the king's witnesses call'd . sarah paine swears mr. ireland in town . will. walker swears dr. oates in town . and so does sarah ives . and mrs. mayo . and philip page . sir richard barker heard dr. oates was in town . butler saw dr. oates in barbican . mr. smith , at islington . mr. clay saw him at mr. charles howard's . mr. whitebread presses dr. oates's several contradictions . mr. gavan summs up his whole defence : insisting upon the incompetency of the evidence against him ; the improbability of things ; and their disagreements among themselves . his application to the iury. he urges the insufficiency of d. oates's testimony . denies any conspiracy with mr. dugdale . makes protestation of his innocence . mr. fenwick arraigns dr. oates's evidence . thousands of letters seiz'd , and no treason in them : nor one commission found in all their searches . mr. whitebread offers to the iury how he should dare to strike dr. oates , if he had his life at his mercy . mr. turner excepted to dr. oates's evidence . all the prisoners found guilty . notes for div a47868-e35350 mr. langhorn brought to his trial. mr. dugdale swears to the general plot. an army to be set afoot upon the killing of the king. some thoughts of a massacre . a letter concerning sir edmundbury godfry's murther . mr. prance swears to the general plot. an army of 50000 to be set on foot upon the killing of the king. dr. oates sworn . his acquaintance and communication with m. langhorn . his second meeting with mr. langhorn . dr. oates charges mr. langhorn with dangerous words . mr. langhorn's prayer for the success of the design . dr. oates's report to mr. langhorn . he swears commissions lying upon mr. langhorn's study-table , six , or eight . commissions upon a corner of mr. langhorn's desk , folded up . mr. langhorn shew'd the witness the commissions . la chaise's letters in answer to laghorne shew'd to this witness . langhorne charg'd by the witness with getting 6000 l. of the benedictines , toward the plot. when , and how dr. oates went to st. omers ; and who came over with him back . dr. oates stay'd in england at his return , under 20 days . the prisoner allow'd all freedom of defence , asks several questions . a sworn copy of a record , in the lords house , admitted to be good evidence . dr. oates came over with hilsley ; and so from dover by coach : but mr. hilsley parted from him . dr. oates could not say where he lay in london the first night after his return : but in general , that he lay at mr. groves's . † dr. oates did not say six days , but under twenty . * dr. oates proves langhorne's hand , having formerly seen an order from him for payment , of money . † dr. oates proves letters from la chaise to langhorne , upon his own confession . * mr. langhorne puts questions about dr. oates's religion . and whether a iesuite , or not . † dr. oates had been with mr. langhorne four or five times . mr. bedloes opinion about the hand and seal of a commission from rome . mr. bedloe sets forth mr. langhorne's correspondences , abroad . and the scope of his letters . mr. langhorn charg'd with makeing entries of the aforesaid letters . mr. bedlow opens the method of the confederacy . irish casheer'd souldiers to embarque as pilgrims . mr. bedloe told , that langhorne had the commissions . money from the benedictines . mr. bedloe deposes the minutes of the result to be enter'd by langhorne . nothing wanting , but money . eight hundred thousand crowns to be remitted from rome . keines told the witness of a chiding letter from barbarini . a discourse about four irish-men . to the prisoners question about the witnesses pardons , mr. bedloe had three , and mr. oates two. to mr. langhorne's objection , that the witness had a reward , dr. oates prov'd the contrary : and that he was 6 or 700 l. out of pocket . * mr. bedloe to the same question answers that he was 700 l. out of purse . the paint of the approver over-rul'd . dr. oates inform'd the court of papists coming in with their swords . hilsley denies his coming over with dr. oates . mr. gifford says , that dr. oates was at st. omers after hilsley's going away . dr. oates still at st. omers . dr. oates sworn to be at st. omers from december till iune . mr. langhorne urg'd dr. oates's narrative and oath , before the lords , against him . st. ioh. warner at watton , when dr. oates came over . and dr. oates at st. omers . dr. oates and mr. pool said to be at st. omers , when dr. oates said , they were in england . dr. oates at st. omers all may. sr. ioh. warner at st. omers from the begining of april to may 14. sr. tho. preston at liege thorough march , april & may. sr. ioh. warner at watton from april 24 to may 16. sr. tho. preston at liege . dr. oates said to be at st. omers all april and may , and part of iune . mr. pool at st. omers all april and may. dr. oates at st. omers . at st. omers from december to iune . dr. oates at st. omers . dr. oates prov'd to be at st. omers from december to iune . mr. pool and nevill at st. omers . dr. oates , nevil and pool , at st. omers . the same evidence again . mrs. grove affirms , that dr. oates never lay at her house . dr. oates swears , that he lay there 3 or 4 nights in a disguise . mr. langhorne charges d. oates with contradicting his evidence before the lords , and his narrative . the witnesses affronted by the rabble , and the court much offended at it . never a room in the white-horse tavern that would hold the consult . being said to be fifty persons . prov'd , that two of the rooms would hold 25 or 30 apiece . mr. langh . offer'd some questions to the court , which were not admitted . mr. langh . urg'd mr. bedloes contradicting his evidence before the lords . mr. langh . asks how the commissions were disposed of . and charges dr. oates with a mistake . the narrative of dr. oates's evidence at colemans trial. no evidence in the law. mr. langhorne insists upon the incompetency of the witnesses . mr. walker deposes , that he saw dr. oates in london in march or april , 1678. mrs. ives swears to the same effect . butl. proves dr. oates in england in may last . cecily mayo , and philip page swear dr. oates in london . sir r. barker told as much by his servants . mr. clay saw dr. oates twice in april & may. mr. smith saw him the first monday in may. mr. charles howard saw him in iuly , but not in may. mr. langhornes defence and exception to dr. oates his testimony . and to mr. bedloes . a letter descanted upon . the prisoner found guilty , and condemned . notes for div a47868-e49850 green , berry and hill brought to their trials . dr. oates's evidence : and law in securing the depositions . sir edmond-bury godfrey foresees his end . mr. robinsons evidence . the witnesses discourse with sr. edmond-bury godfrey about the plot. mr. prance's evidence . drawn in by green , girald , and kelly . sir edmond . dogg'd into red-lion-fields . they had sett him in st. clements . and prepare for the murther . a quarrel pretended . the manner of the murther . green twisted his neck and bragged of it . the body carried off in a sedan . hill meets them with a horse and takes up the body . hill , kelly , and girald , run his sword through him . their consultation at bow. a drawer overheard the conspirators at the tavern . giralds resolution to murther sir edmund . hill objected against prances testimony . the reason of prances flying off . mr. bedlows evidence . he made an acquaintance with sir edmund godfrey . le faire appointed mr. bedlow to meet him . their discourse . mr. bedlow brought to the body . mr. bedlow advised the sinking of the body in the thames . le faire charges him to help away with the body by the sacrament he took on thursday . mr. bedlow troubled in conscience . the providence of mr. bedlows discovering prance . the constables evidence about the body of sir edmund godfrey . evidence upon the view of his body . eliz. curtis swears that green came to her masters house . and that on a satcerday morning hill was there . a note brought the night before . stringer proved their meeting at the plow . caries evidence upon the meeting at the queens head. the drawers evidence of that tavern . sir robert southwets report of prances examination . a relation of all the circumstances delivered by prance , and how the body was removed and disposed of . berries pretended orders not to admit any body . the witnesses for the prisoners . mary tilden gave evidence for hills good behaviour . mrs. broadstreet seconds the former evidence . katharine lees evidence , the servant of mrs. tilden . daniel grey gives evidence for his brother hill. robert how gives an account how hill disposed of himself . mr. cutler and mr. lasingby to the same efect . archibald seemed glad for prances discovery . greens wise called her vvitnesses . mr. warrier and his wife gave evidence where mr. green was . mr. ravenscroft testifies his knowledg of hill. corporal collet and the sentinels examin'd about the chair . the prisoners all found guilty of murther . notes for div a47868-e56260 the cause of indictment . mr. dugdale drawn into the plot. the scope of harcourts letters . bold letters sent by the common post. several designs upon the king. the letter about sir edm. godfrey . mr. dugdale gives 400 l. to pray for his soul. corkers objection against that letter . mr. dugdales answer . corkers objections to the story . why by the common post. the black cross upon whitebreads letter . fifty thousand men to be arm'd . mr. iennison's evidence against ireland . mr. ireland positively here , aug. 19. the king easily taken off . dr. oates's evidence against sr. g. wakeman . concerning the 15000 l. sr. g. wakemans letter . the doctor , charg'd with a contradiction . doz'd with setting up . sir. g. wakeman not committed by the council . dr. oates against corker . corker's letter out of germany . privy to the april consult . mr. marshal charged . the prisoners defence . dr. oates knowledge of mr. marshal . several consults charg'd upon the prisoner . questions to the doctor about pickering . and the consults . sr. g. wakeman's bill for 2000 l. two thousand pounds for the present , in part of more . letters and discourses about the plot. how mr. bedloe know mr. marshal little against rumly . questions about sr. g. wakemans bill . sir g. wakeman's objection . the prisoner denies the witnesse's knowledge of him . the witness affirms the contrary . sir. w. waller speaks to the point above . mr. bedlow affirms that he knew marshall . mr. marshall denies it . mr. bedlow comforts the prisoner . their acquaintance at the savoy . the prisoner positively denies it . the savoy search'd by dr. oates's and mr. bedlow's directions . mr. bedlow's evidence against sir g. w. repeated . sir g. wakeman's letter to ashby . produced , and justify'd . dr. oates insists upon another letter . sir g. owning one , and no more . sir george's servant proves the letter . and elizabeth heveningham . sir g. wakeman's defence . the dr. excuses his omission before the councill . dr. oates's deposition against sir g. w. before the councill . sir george wakeman's reply . dr. oates explains himself . no mention of sir george wakeman's letter , before the council . sir george wakeman's plea. a copy offer'd of the lords records . mr. rumly clear'd . dr. oates very ill and weary before the council . sir george wakeman's plea before the council . mr. corker's plea and argument . sir george wakeman's observation upon the doctour's narrative . mr. corker reflects upon dr. oates's mistakes . mr. corker denies all . he says that dr. oates did not know him . mr. marshal's defence . sir william waller speaks to the manner of taking him . mr. marshall defends himself . mr. marshall appeals to sir william waller . the prisoner recommends himself to the court and iury. witnesses for the prisoners . corker not president , as pretended . mr. stapilton president of the benedictines , the prisoners plead innocence . and brought in not guilty . the tryal of edward coleman, gent. for conspiring the death of the king, and the subversion of the government of england and the protestant religion who upon full evidence was found guilty of high treason, and received sentence accordingly, on thursday, november the 28th, 1678. coleman, edward, d. 1678, defendant. 1678 approx. 262 kb of xml-encoded text transcribed from 50 1-bit group-iv tiff page images. text creation partnership, ann arbor, mi ; oxford (uk) : 2006-06 (eebo-tcp phase 1). a63173 wing t2185 estc r4486 12269514 ocm 12269514 58185 this keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the early english books online text creation partnership. this phase i text is available for reuse, according to the terms of creative commons 0 1.0 universal . the text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial 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(eebo-tcp ; phase 1, no. a63173) transcribed from: (early english books online ; image set 58185) images scanned from microfilm: (early english books, 1641-1700 ; 78:6) the tryal of edward coleman, gent. for conspiring the death of the king, and the subversion of the government of england and the protestant religion who upon full evidence was found guilty of high treason, and received sentence accordingly, on thursday, november the 28th, 1678. coleman, edward, d. 1678, defendant. england and wales. court of king's bench. [2], 104 p. printed for robert pawlet ..., london : 1678. reproduction of original in university of michigan libraries. created by converting tcp files to tei p5 using tcp2tei.xsl, tei @ oxford. re-processed by university of nebraska-lincoln and northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. eebo-tcp is a partnership between the universities of michigan and oxford and the publisher proquest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by proquest via their early english books online (eebo) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). the general aim of eebo-tcp is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic english-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in eebo. eebo-tcp aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the text encoding initiative (http://www.tei-c.org). the eebo-tcp project was divided into two phases. the 25,363 texts created during phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 january 2015. anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source. users should be aware of the process of creating the tcp texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data. text selection was based on the new cambridge bibliography of english literature (ncbel). if an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in ncbel, then their works are eligible for inclusion. selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. in general, first editions of a works in english were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably latin and welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so. image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in oxford and michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet qa standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. after proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of tcp data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a tcp editor. the texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the tei in libraries guidelines. copies of the texts have been issued variously as sgml (tcp schema; ascii text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable xml (tcp schema; characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless xml (tei p5, characters represented either as utf-8 unicode or tei g elements). keying and markup guidelines are available at the text creation partnership web site . eng charles -ii, -king of england, 1630-1685. coleman, edward, d. 1678 -trials, litigation, etc. trials (treason) -england. popish plot, 1678. 2006-01 tcp assigned for keying and markup 2006-01 aptara keyed and coded from proquest page images 2006-03 emma (leeson) huber sampled and proofread 2006-03 emma (leeson) huber text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-04 pfs batch review (qc) and xml conversion the tryal of edward coleman , gent. for conspiring the death of the king , and the subversion of the government of england , and the protestant religion : who upon full evidence was found guilty of high treason , and received sentence accordingly , on thursday november the 28th 1678. london , printed for robert pawlet at the bible in chancery-lane near fleet-street , 1678. november 28. 1678. i do appoint robert pawlet to print the tryal of edward coleman : and that no other person presume to print the same . william scroggs . the tryal of edward coleman , gent. on wednesday the twenty seventh day of november 1678. mr. coleman ( having been arraigned the saturday before for high treason ) was brought to the kings bench bar , to receive his tryal , and the court proceeded thereupon , as followeth . court. cryer , make proclamation . proclamation for silence . cryer . o yes ! our sovereign lord the king do's strictly charge and command all manner of persons to keep silence , upon pain of imprisonmen● . if any one can inform our sovereign lord the king , the king's serjeant , or the king's attorney general , or this inquest now to be taken , of any treason , murder , felony , or any other misdemeanour committed or done by the prisoner at the bar , let them come forth , and they shall be heard , for the prisoner stands at the bar upon his deliverance . court. cryer , make an o yes . cryer . o yes ! you good men that are impannelled to enquire between our sovereign lord the king , and edward coleman prisoner at the bar , answer to your names . court. edward coleman , hold up thy hand . these good men that are now called , and here appear , are those which are to pass between you and our sovereign lord the king , upon your life or death , if you challenge any of them , you must speak as they come to the book to be sworn , and before they are sworn . the prisoner challenging none , the court proceeded , and the jury were sworn , viz. jury . sir reginald foster , baronet . sir charles lee. edward wilford , esquire . john bathurst , esquire . joshua galliard , esquire . john bifield , esquire . simon middleton , esquire , henry johnson , esquire . charles vmfrevile , esquire . thomas johnson , esquire . thomas eaglesfield , esquire . william bohee , esquire . court. cryer , make an o yes . cryer . o yes ! our sovereign lord the king does strictly charge and command all manner of persons to keep silence upon pain of imprisonment . court. edward coleman , hold up thy hand . you gentlemen of the jury that are now sworn , look upon the prisoner , and hearken to his charge . you shall understand , that the prisoner stands indicted by the name of edward coleman late of the parish of st. margarets westminster in the county of middlesex , gent. for that he as a false traytor against our most illustrious , serene , and most excellent prince charles , by the grace of god of england , scotland , france and ireland king , defender of the faith , &c. and his natural lord ; having not the fear of god in his heart , nor duely weighing his allegiance , but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil , his cordial love and true duty , and natural obedience , ( which true and lawful subjects of our said lord the king ought to bear towards him , and by law ought to have ) altogether withdrawing , and devising , and with all his strength intending , the peace and common tranquillity of this kingdom of england to disturb , and the true worship of god within the kingdom of england practised , and by law established , to overthrow , and sedition and rebellion within this realm of england to move , stir up , and procure , and the cordial love and true duty and allegiance , which true and lawful subjects of our sovereign lord the king toward their sovereign bear , and by law ought to have , altogether to withdraw , forsake , and extinguish ; and our said sovereign lord the king to death and final destruction to bring and put , the twenty ninth day of september in the seven and twentieth year of the reign of our said sovereign lord charles the second , of england , scotland , france and ireland king , defender of the faith , &c. at the parish of st. margarets westminster aforesaid , in the county aforesaid , falsly , maliciously , and traiterously proposed , compassed , imagined and intended , to stir up , and raise sedition and rebellion within the kingdom of england , and to procure and cause a miserable destruction among the subjects of our said lord the king , and wholly to deprive , depose , deject , and disinherit our said sovereign lord the king , of his royal state , title , power , and rule of his kingdom of england , and to bring and put our said sovereign lord the king to final death ▪ and destruction , and to overthrow and change the government of the kingdom of england , and to alter the sincere and true religion of god , in this kingdom by law established ; and wholly to subvert and destroy the state of the whole kingdom , being in the universal parts thereof well established and ordained , and to levy war against our said sovereign lord the king , within his realm of england : and to accomplish and fulfill these his most wicked treasons , and trayterous designs and imaginations aforesaid , the said edward coleman afterward , that is to say , the nine and twentieth day of september in the twenty seventh year of the reign of our said lord the king , at the parish of st margarets westminster aforesaid , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , falsly , deceitfully , and trayterously composed , contrived , and writ two letters , to be sent to one monsieur le chese , then servant and confessor of lewis the french king , to desire , procure , and obtain , for the said edward coleman and other false traytors against our said sovereign lord the king , the aid , assistance , and adherence of the said french king , to alter the true religion in this kingdom established , to the superstition of the church of rome , and to subvert the government of this kingdom of england : and afterwards , ( that is to say ) the said nine and twentieth day of september in the year aforesaid , at the parish of st. margarets westminster in the county of middlesex aforesaid , the said edward coleman falsely , trayterously , and maliciously composed and writ two other letters , to be sent to the said monsieur le chese , then servant and confessor to the said french king , to the intent that he the said monsieur le chese should intreat , procure , and obtain for the said edward coleman and other false traytors against our sovereign lord the king , aid , assistance , and adherence of the said french king , to alter the true religion in this kingdom of england established , to the superstition of the church of rome , and to subvert the government of this kingdom of england : and that the said edward coleman , in further prosecution of his treason and trayterous imaginations and intentions , as aforesaid , afterward , viz. the twenty ninth day of september in the seven and twentieth year of the reign of our said sovereign lord king charles of england , &c. the said several letters , from the said parish of st. margarets westminster , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , falsly , maliciously and trayterously , did send to the said monsieur le chese , into parts beyond the seas , there to be delivered to him : and that the said edward coleman , afterward , viz. the first day of december , in the seven and twentieth year of our said sovereign lord the king , at the said parish of st. margarets westminster , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , did receive from the said monsieur le chese , one letter , in answer to one of the said letters first mentioned , and written by him the said edward coleman , to the said monsieur le chese , which said letter in answer , as aforesaid , falsly , maliciously , and trayterously received , the day and year aforesaid , at the parish of st. margarets westminster aforesaid , the said edward coleman did falsly , trayterously and maliciously read over and peruse ; and that the said edward coleman , the letter so as aforesaid , by him in answer to the said letter , received into his custody and possession , the day and year last mentioned , at the parish of st. margarets westminster aforesaid , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , did falsly , maliciously , and trayterously detain , conceal , and keep. by which letter the said monsieur le chese , the day and year last mentioned , at the parish of st. margarets westminster in the county of middlesex aforesaid , did signifie and promise to the said edward coleman , to obtain for the said edward coleman , and other false traytors against our sovereign lord the king , aid , assistance and adherence from the said french king , and that the said edward coleman afterward , viz. the tenth day of december in the seven and twentieth year of the reign of our said sovereign lord the king , at the parish of st. margarets westminster , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , his wicked treasons and traiterous designs and proposals as aforesaid did tell and declare to one , mounsieur revigni , envoy extraordinary from the french king to our most serene and sovereign lord king charles , &c. in the county aforesaid residing , and did falsly , maliciously and trayterously move and excite the said envoy extraordinary to partake in his treason ; and the sooner to fulfil and compleat his traiterous designs , and wicked imaginations and intentions , the said edward coleman afterward , viz. the tenth day of december in the seven and twentieth year of the reign of our sovereign lord king charles , the second of england , &c. aforesaid at the parish of st. margarets westminster , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , did advisedly , maliciously , deceitfully , and traiterously compose and write three other letters to be sent to one sir william throckmorton kt. then a subject of our said soveraign lord the king of this kingdome of england , and residing in france , in parts beyond the seas , viz. at the parish of st. margarets westminster , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , to sollicite the said monsieur le chese to procure and obtain of the said french king , aid , assistance , and adherance , as aforesaid , and the said letters last mentioned afterward , viz. the day and year last named as aforesaid from the said parish of st. margarets westminster , in the county of middlesex aforesaid , did falsly and t●aiterously send , and cause to be delivered to the said sir vvilliam throckmorton in france aforesaid , against his true allegiance , and against the peace of our sovereign lord the king that now is , his crown and dignity , and against the form of the statute in that case made and provided . court. upon this indictment he hath been arraigned , and hath pleaded thereunto not guilty ; and for his tryal he puts himself upon god and his country ; which country you are . your charge is to enquire , whether he be guilty of the high treason whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty . if you find him guilty , you are to enquire what goods and chattels , lands and tenements he had at the time , when the high treason was committed , or at any time since ; if you find him not guilty , you are to say so , and no more , and hear your evidence . cryer . if any one will give evidence on the behalf of our soveraign lord the king , against edward coleman the prisoner at the bar , let him come forth , and he shall be heard ; for the prisoner now stands at the bar upon his deliverance . mr. recorder . may it please you my lord , and you gentlemen of the jury ; mr. edward coleman , now the prisoner at the bar , stands indicted for high treason , and the indictment sets forth , that the said edward coleman , indeavouring to subvert the protestant religion , and to change and alter the same ; and likewise to stir up rebellion and sedition amongst the kings liege people , and also to kill the king ; did on the 29th . of september in the twenty seventh year of the reign of our sovereign lord the king , at the parish of st. margarets vvestminster in this county , compose and write two several letters to one mounsieur le chese , that was then servant and confessor to the french king , and this was to procure the french kings aid and assistance to him and other traitors , to alter the religion practised , and by law established here in england , to the romish superstition . the indictment sets forth likewise , that on the same day , he did write and compose two other letters to the same gentleman , that was servant and confessor to the said king , to prevail with him to procure the french kings assistance to alter the religion in this kingdome established to the romish religion . the indictment sets further forth , that he caused these two letters to be sent beyond the seas . and it also sets forth that on the tenth of december , the same moneth he did receive a letter from the gentleman , that was the confessor , in answer to one of the former letters , and in that letter aid and assistance from the french king was promised ; and that he did traiterously conceal that letter . my lord , the indictment sets out further , that on the tenth day of the same moneth , he did reveal his treasons and traiterous conspiracies to one mounsieur revigni , who was envoy from the french king to his majesty of great britain . and his indictment declares , he afterwards did write three letters more to sir vvilliam throckmorton , then residing in france , to procure the french kings assistance to the alteration of the religion practised here in england . of these several offences he stands hereindicted . to this he hath pleaded not guilty . if we prove these , or either of them in the indictment , you ought to find him guilty . serj. maynard . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury ; this is a cause of great concernment . gentlemen , the prisoner at the bar stands indicted for no less than for an intention and endeavour to murther the king ; for an endeavour and attempt to change the government of the nation , so well settled and instituted , and to bring us all to ruin and slaughter of one another , and for an endeavour to alter the protestant religion , and to introduce instead of it , the romish superstition , and popery . this is the charge ( in general ) of the indictment . we will proceed unto particulars , whereby it may appear , and whereupon he indeavoureth to accomplish his ends . one or two letters written to mounsieur le chese ( he is a foreigner , and we have nothing to say to him , being confessor to the french king ) it was to excite and stir him up to procure aid and assistance ( and you know what aid and assistance means ) from a foreign prince , arms , and other levies . we charge him with it , that he did receive this letter , i and received an answer with a promise , that he should have assistance . he writ other letters to sir william throckmorton , who trayterously conspired with him , and had intelligence from time to time from him . this is the charge in the indictment ; to which he hath pleaded , not guilty . we will go on in our evidence : i shall , but more generally , open our method , that we intend to take . for it may seem strange , and is not reasonably to be imagined , that a private gentleman , as the prisoner at the bar is , should have such vast and great designs as this , to alter religion , destroy the government , i , and destroy the subjects too in a great measure . but 't is not himself alone , but he imploys himself for forreign assistance , great confederacies and combinations with the subjects of that king , many of whom he did pervert . in the course of the evidence i shall not open the particulars , ( mr. attorney , i think , will do that by and by ) those that we have occasion to speak of , and shall in proof mention to you , will be these . le chese , the french kings present confessor we have mentioned : before him there was one father ferryer , with whom he held correspondence . that ferryer being removed by death , the prisoner had an imployment here amongst us , by which he gave to le chese instructions how to proceed . this gentleman is the great contriver and plotter , which gives him instructions how to proceed . he doth give him an account by way of narrative , how all things had stood upon former treaties and negotiations , how businesses were contrived , and how far they were gone ; this he diligently and accurately gives an account of . this ( my lord ) doth discover and delineate what had been done before until 1674. my lord , there was likewise sir william throckmorton and some others , that are englishmen too , there are none of them , but what were first protestants , but when they once renounced their religion , no wonder they should renounce their nation , and their prince too . he was gone beyond the seas , several letters past between them , and all to promote and encourage , and accomplish this design . my lord , there is likewise a consult of jesuits used too , where , in express words they designed to murther the king , or contrived , and advised upon it . my lord , there were four irish men ( i open but the heads of things ) sent to windsor to murther the king , this gentleman received and disbursed money about this business , and one ashby a jesuit here had instructions from him to prosecute the design , and to treat with a physitian to poyson the king , this the prisoner approved of , and contributed to it . there were commissions ( as i take it ) delivered from ferryer ; or by his hand , that came from forreign powers . sir henry titchburn was another that received and delivered commissions . pompone the french gentleman , he maintains intelligence with him about this business , the titular arch-bishop of dublin . there 's cardinal norfolk , by him he had accession to the pope . there was likewise the popes nuncio ( i do not open the transactions of these iustructions ) these particulars will be made out , not only by witness viva voce , and not single only , but by letters of this mr. colemans own writing . but i offer that to the consideration of the jury . mr. oats was the first man , that we hear of , that discovered this treason ; he was the single man that discovered so many active agents in so great a treason , as this was , and it needed to be well seconded , but , he being found to be but single , the boldness and courage of these complotters in it grew great thereupon . we know what followed ; the damnable murther of that gentleman , in execution of his office , so hellishly contrived , and the endeavours that were used to hide it , every body knows : how many stories were told to hide that abominable murther , how many lies there were about it , but it could not be supprest . the nation is awaken'd out of sleep , and it concerns us now to look about us . but all this while , mr. coleman thought himself safe , walked in the fields , goes abroad , jealousie increasing , and he himself still secure . the letters that are produced go but to some part of the year 75 : from 75 unto 78 all lies in the dark , we have no certain proof of it ; but we apprehend he had intelligence until 78 ; that there were the same persons continuing here , and his company increasing here : but this i speak but as probable , ( but very exceeding probable ) that there was other passages of intelligence between this person and other confederates . it seems ( my lord ) that this coleman was aware that he was concerned ; but god blinded and infatuated him , and took away his reason . it 's no question but he carried away some of those papers ; those that were left behind , and are produced , he forgot and neglected ; and by that ( my lord ) those which are produced , are evidence against him at this time . surely he thought we were in such a condition , that had eyes and could not see , and ears that could not hear , and understandings without understanding : for he was bold , and walked abroad , and that until this prosecution was made upon him , he endeavoured to murther the king , change the government , make an alteration of religion , and destruction of protestants , as well as the protestant religion ; and it will be proved by some letters , when they were rejected by the duke , that he sent them in the dukes name . and by this no man will doubt but he is a great traitor . attorn . gen. may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , the kings serjeant hath opened the general parts of our evidence ; and we have reason to foresee that our evidence will be very long , and will take up much of your time ; and therefore i shall spend no more time in opening of it than is just necessary . and indeed ( my lord ) mr. coleman himself hath saved me much of the labour , which otherwise i should have bestowed ; for he hath left such elegant and copious narratives of the whole design under his own hand , that the reading of them will be better than any new one i can make . but ( my lord ) some short account i shall give you , such as may shew you the course of our evidence , and will make our evidence , when it comes to be given , to be more intelligible . my lord , it will appear , that there hath been for many years last past , a more than ordinary design and industry to bring in the popish , and extirpate the protestant religion . i doubt not but this design , in some measure , hath been contriving ever since the reformation , by the jesuits , or some of their emissaries , but hath often received interruption ; so that they have proceeded sometimes more coldly , sometimes more hotly : and i do think , at no time since the reformation , that ever this design was carried on with greater industry , nor with fairer hopes of success , than for these last years . my lord , you will hear from our witnesses , that the first onset , which was to be made upon us , was by whole troops of jesuits and priests , who were sent hither from the seminaries abroad , where they had been trained up in all the subtilty and skill that was fit to work upon the people . my lord , you will hear how active they have been , and what insinuations they used for the perverting of particular persons . after some time spent in such attempts , they quickly grew weary of that course ; though they got some proselytes , they were but few . some bodies , in whom there was a predisposition of humors , were infected , but their numbers were not great . they at last resolve to take a more expeditious way ; for in truth , ( my lord ) they could not far prevail by the former . and i wish with all my heart , that the bodies of protestants may be as much out of danger of the violence of their hands , as their understandings will be of the force of their arguments . but ( my lord ) when this way would not take , they began then to consider they must throw at all at once . no doubt but they would have been glad , that the people of england had had but one neck ; but they knew the people of england had but one head , and therefore they were resolved to strike at that . my lord , you will find , that there was a summons of the principal jesuits , of the most able head-pieces , who were to meet in april or may last , to consult of very great things , of a most diabolical nature , no less than how to take away the life of the king our sovereign my lord , you will find ( as is usually practised in such horrid conspiracies ) to make all secure , that there was an oath of secresie taken , and that upon the sacrament . you will find agreements made , that this most wicked and horrible design should be attempted . you will find two villains were found among them , who undertook to do this execrable work ; and you will hear of the rewards they were to have : money in case they did succeed , and masses good store in case they perished ; so that their bodies were provided for in case they survived , and their souls if they died . my lord , what was the reason they did not effect their design , but either that these villains wanted opportunity , or their hearts failed them , when they came to put in execution this wicked design ; or , perhaps ( which is most probable ) it was the providence of god , which over-rul'd them , that this bloody design did not take its effect . but these gentlemen were not content with one essay , they quickly thought of another ; and there were four irish-men prepared ( men of very mean fortunes , and desperate conditions ) and they were to make the attempt no longer since , than when the king was last at windsor . my lord , i perceive by the proofs , that these last assassinates went down thither ; but it came to pass ( for some of the reasons aforesaid ) that that attempt failed likewise . my lord , these gentlemen , those wise heads , who had met here in consultation , did then , and long before , consider with themselves , that so great a cause as this , was not to be put upon the hazard of some few hands ; they therefore prepared forces , aids , and assistances , both at home and abroad , to second this wicked design ; if it had succeeded as to the person of the king , and if that fail'd , then by their foreign and domestick aids and assistances , to begin and accomplish the whole work of subverting our government and religion . and here we must needs confess , as to the former part of this plot , which we have mentioned , i mean the attempt upon the kings person , mr. coleman was not the contriver , nor to be the executioner ; but yet your lordship knows , in all treasons there is no accessory , but every man is a principal . and thus much we have against him , even as to this part of the design , which will involve him in the whole guilt of it , that mr. coleman consented to it , though his hand were not to do it . mr. coleman encouraged a messenger to carry money down as a reward of these murtherers , that were at windsor ; of this we have proof against him , which is sufficient . my lord , mr. coleman , as a man of greater abilities , is reserved for greater employments , and such wherein , i confess , all his abilities were little enough . there were negotiations to be made with men abroad , money to be procured , partly at home from friends here , and partly abroad from those , that wish'd them well : and in all these negotiations mr. coleman had a mighty hand ; and you will perceive by and by what a great progress he made in them . this conspiracy went so far , as you will hear it proved , that there were general officers named and appointed , that should command their new catholick army , and many were engaged , if not listed . there were not onely in england , but in ireland likewise , where arms and all other necessaries were provided , and whither great sums of money were returned to serve upon occasion . but one thing there is , my lord , that comes nearest mr. coleman ; as there were military officers named , so likewise the great civil places and offices of the kingdom were to be disposed of ; i will not nameto whom at this time , more than what is pertinent to the present business . this gentleman , such were his great abilities , the trust and reliance that his party had upon him , that no less an office would serve his turn than that of principal secretary of state ; and he had a commission , that came to him from the superiours of the jesuits , to enable him to execute that great office. my lord , it seems strange , that so great an office should be conferred by no greater a man than the superior of the jesuits . but if the pope can depose kings , and dispose of kingdoms , no wonder if the superior of the jesuits can , by a power delegated from him , make secretaries . it is not certain what the date of this commission was , nor the very time when he received it : but i believe he was so earnest and forward in this plot , that he began to execute his office long before he had his commission for it ; for i find by his letters , which are of a more early date , that he had proceeded so far as to treat with father ferrier , who was the french kings confessor , before he had actually received this commission . you will understand by the letters , which we shall produce , what he had to do with him , and what with the other confessor , that succeeded father le chese . there were two small matters they treated of , no less than the dissolving the parliament , and the extirpation of the protestant religion . nay , you will find , and you will hear enough , when the letters come to be read , that mr. coleman made many strokes at the parliament , he had no good opinion of them . and we cannot blame him ; for without all peradventure they had made , and i hope ever will , make strong resistance against such designs as these . but a great mind he had to be rid of them ; and he had hopes of great sums of money from abroad , if it had been to be done that way . and it is very remarkable ( and shews the vanity of the man ) he had such an opinion of the success of these negotiations , that he had penn'd a declaration prepared by him , and writ with his own hand , to be published in print , up on the dissolution of the parliament , to justifie that action with many specious and plausible reasons . as he did this without any direction , so he takes upon him to write a declaration , as in the name of the king , without the least shadow of any command to do it , so he prepares a letter also in the name of the duke ; and i would not affirm , unless i could prove it , and that from his own confession , ( being examined before the lords upon oath ) that he had no manner of authority from the duke to prepare such a letter ; and when it was written , and brought to the duke , it was rejected , and the writer justly blamed for his presumption . by this you will perceive the forwardness of this man. and you must of necessity take notice , that in his letters he took upon himself to manage affairs , as authorized by the greatest persons in the kingdom , yet without the least shadow of proof that he was by them impowered to do it . my lord , you shall find , mr. coleman thought himself above all ; and such was his own over-weening opinion of his wit and policy , that he thought himself the sole and supreme director of all the affairs of the catholicks . you will likewise perceive that he held intelligence with cardinal norfolk , with father sheldon , and the popes internuntio at brussels . and i cannot but observe out of the proofs , that as we shall find mr. coleman very ambitious and forward in all great affairs , so he had a little too much eye to the reward ; he looked too much asquint upon the matter of money : his great endeavours were not so much out of conscience , or out of zeal to his religion , as out of temporal interest ; to him gain was instead of godliness . and by his letters to the french confessor monsieur le chese , it will be proved , that he got much money from the catholicks here , and some from abroad , but still he wanted money . what to do ? ( i do not mean the greater sum of two hundred thousand pounds to procure the dissolution of the parliament , but some twenty thousand pounds onely ) to be expended by him in secret service . i do not know what account he would have given of it , if he had been intrusted with it . but that he earnestly thirsted after money , appeareth by most of his letters . my lord , you will observe , besides his intelligences , that he had with father le chese , and several others , one that deserves to be named , and that is his negotiation with sir william frogmorton , who was sent over into france , and there resided a long time to promote these designs . he is dead ; therefore i will not say so much of him , as i would say against him , if he was here to be tri'd . but , my lord , i find in his letters such treasonable , such impious expressions against the king , such undutiful characters of him , that no good subject would write , and no good subject would receive and conceal , as mr. coleman hath done . my lord , it may pass for a wonder , how we come to be masters of all these papers ; it has in part been told you already . there was an information given of the general design , nay of some of the particulars against the kings life . and without all peradventure , mr. coleman knew of this discovery ; and he knew that he had papers , that could speak too much , and he had time and opportunity enough to have made them away , and i make no question , but he did make many away . we are not able to prove the continuance of his correspondence , so as to make it clearly out ; but we suppose that continued until the day he was seized . and there is this to be proved , that letters came for him , though we cannot say any were delivered to him , after he was in prison . but without all peradventure , the man had too much to do , too many papers to conceal : then , you 'll say , he might have burnt them all , ( for many would burn as well as a few : ) but then he had lost much of the honour of a great states-man ; many a fine sentence , and many a deep intrigue had been lost to all posterity . i believe that we owe this discovery to something of mr. coleman's vanity ; he would not lose the glory of managing these important negotiations about so great a design : he thought 't was no small reputation to be intrusted with the secrets of forreign ministers . if this was not his reason , god ( i believe ) took away from him that clearness of judgment , and strength of memory , which he had upon other occasions . my lord , i shall no longer detain you from reading the papers themselves . but i cannot but account this kingdom happy , that these papers are preserved . for ( my lord ) we are to deal with a sort of men , that have that prodigious confidence , that their words and deeds ( though proved by never so unsuspected testimony ) they will still deny . but ( my lord ) no denial of this plot will prevail , for mr. coleman himself hath , with his own hand , recorded this conspiracy ; and we can prove his hand , not onely by his own servants , and relations , but by his own confession . so that ( my lord ) i doubt not , that if there be any of their own party that hear this trial , they themselves will be satisfi'd with the truth of these things . and i believe we have an advantage in this case , which they will not allow us , in another matter ; namely , that we shall be for this once permitted to believe our own senses . our evidence consisteth of two parts ; one is , witnesses viva voce , which we desire ( with the favour of the court ) to begin with ; and when that is done , we shall read several letters , or negotiations , in writing , and so submit the whole to your lordships direction . pris . i beg leave that a poor ignorant man , that is so heavily charged , that it seems a little unequal to consider the reason , why a prisoner , in such a case as this is , is not allowed counsel ; but your lordship is supposed to be counsel for him . but i think it very hard i cannot be admitted counsel ; and i humbly hope your lordship will not suffer me to be lost by things that my self cannot answer . i deny the conclusion , but the premisses are too strong and artificial . l. c. just . you cannot deny the premisses , but that you have done these things ; but you deny the conclusion that you are a traitor . pris . i can safely and honestly . l. c. just . you would make a better secretary of state , than a logician ; for they never deny the conclusion . pris . i grant it your lordship : you see the advantage great men have of me , that do not pretend to logick . l. c. just . the labour lies upon their hands ; the proof belongs to them to make out these intrigues of yours ; therefore you need not have counsel , because the proof must be plain upon you , and then it will be in vain to deny the conclusion . pris . i hope ( my lord ) if there be any point of law , that i am not skill'd in , that your lordship will be pleased not to take the advantage over me . another thing seems most dreadful , that is , the violent prejudices that seem to be against every man in england , that is confess'd to be a roman catholick . it is possible that a roman catholick may be very innocent of these crimes . if one of those innocent roman catholicks should come to this bar , he lies under such disadvantages already , and his prejudices so greatly byasseth humane nature , that unless your lordship will lean extremely much on the other side , justice will hardly stand upright , and lie upon a level . but to satisfie your lordship , i do not think it any service to destroy any of the kings subjects , unless it be in a very plain case . l. c. just . you need not make any preparations for us in this matter , you shall have a fair , just , and legal trial ; if condemned , it will be apparent you ought to be so ; and without a fair proof , there shall be no condemnation . therefore you shall find , we will not do to you , as you do to us , blow up at adventure , kill people because they are not of your perswasion ; our religion teacheth us another doctrine , and you shall find it clearly to your advantage . we seek no mans blood , but our own safety . but you are brought here from the necessity of things , which your selves have made ; and from your own actions you shall be condemned , or acquitted . pris . it is supposed upon evidence , that the examinations that have been of me in prison , are like to be evidence against me now ; i have nothing to say against it : but give me leave to say at this time , that when i was in prison , i was upon my ingenuity charged ; i promised i would confess all i knew . and i onely say this , that what i said in prison is true , and am ready at any time to swear and evidence , that that is all the truth . l. c. just . it is all true that you say : but did you tell all that vvas true ? pris . i know no more , than what i declared to the two houses . l. c. just . mr. coleman , i 'll tell you when you will be apt to gain credit in this matter : you say , that you told all things that you knew , the truth , and the whole truth . can mankind be persuaded , that you , that had this negotiation in 74. and 75. left off just then , at that time when your letters vvere found according to their dates ? do you believe , there was no negotiation after 75. because we have not found them ? have you spoke one vvord to that ? have you confessed , or produced those papers and weekly intelligence ? when you answer that , you may have credit ; vvithout that , it is impossible : for i cannot give credit to one word you say , unless you give an account of the subsequent negotiation . pris . after that time ( as i said to the house of commons ) i did give over corresponding . i did offer to take all oaths and tests in the world , that i never had one letter for at least two years ; yea , ( that i may keep my self within compass ) i think it was for three or four . now i have acknowledged to the house of commons , i have had a cursory correspondence , which i never regarded or valued ; but as the letters came , i burnt them , or made use of them as common paper . i say , that for the general correspondence i have had for two or three years , they have had every one of them letters , that i know of . attor . gen. whether you had or no , you shall have the fairest trial that can be . and we cannot blame the gentleman , for he is more used to greater affairs , than these matters or forms of lavv. but ( my lord ) i desire to go unto evidence , and vvhen that is done , he shall be heard , as long as he pleaseth , vvithout any interruption . if he desire it , before i give my evidence , let him have pen , ink , and paper ( vvith your lordships leave . ) l. c. just . help him to pen , ink , and paper . record . then we desire to go on in our evidence . we desire that mr. oates may not be interrupted . court. he shall not be interrupted . attorn . gen. the first thing we will inquire , what account he can give of the prisoner at the bar , whether he was any way privy to the murther of the king ? lord ch. just . mr. oates , we leave it to your self to take your own way , and your own method : only this we say , here 's a gentleman stands at the bar for his life ; and on the other side , the king is concerned for his life : you are to speak the truth and the whole truth ; for there is no reason in the world that you should adde any one thing that is false . i would not have a tittle added for any advantage , or consequences that may fall , when a man's bloud and life lieth at stake : let him be condemned by truth : you have taken an oath , and you being a minister , know the great regard you ought to have of the sacredness of an oath ; and that to take a man's life away by a false oath is murther , i need not teach you that . but that mr. coleman may be satisfied in the trial , and all people else be satisfied , there is nothing required or expected , but downright plain truth , and without any arts either to conceal , or expatiate , to make things larger then in truth they are ; he must be condemned by plain evidence of fact. mr. oates . my lord , mr. coleman in the month of november last , did entertain in his own house john keins , which john keins was a father confessor to certain persons that were converted , amongst which i was one . my lord , i went and visited this john keins at mr. coleman's house then in stable-yard . mr. coleman inquiring of john keins who i was ? he said , i was one that designed to go over upon business to st. omers . my lord , mr. coleman told me then he should trouble me with a letter or two to st. omers , but he told me he would leave them with one fenwick that was procurator for the society of jesuits in london . i went on monday morning and took coach , went to dover , and had his pacquet with me , which pacquet when i came to st. omers i opened . the out-side sheet of this paper was a letter of news which was called mr. coleman's letter , and at the bottome of this letter there was this recommendation , pray recommend me to my kinsman playford . in this letter of news there were expressions of the king , calling him tyrant , and that the marriage between the prince of orange and the lady mary the duke of york's eldest daughter would prove the traytour's and tyrant's ruine . lord ch. just . in what language was it written ? mr. oats . in plain english words at length . lord ch. just . directed to whom ? mr. oats . it was directed to the rectour of st. omers , to give him intelligence how affairs went in england . lord ch. just . did you break it open ? mr. oates i was at the opening of it , and saw it and read it . there was a letter to father lechees , which was superscribed by the same hand that the treasonable letter of news was written , and the same hand that the recommendation to playford was written in . when this letter was open there was a seal fixt , a flying seal and no mans name to it . lord ch. just . what was the contents of that letter to lechees ? mr. oates . my lord , to give you an account of the import of this letter , it was writ in latine , and in it there were thanks given to father lechees for the ten thousand pounds which was given for the propagation of the catholick religion , and that it should be imployed for no other intent and purpose but that for which it was sent , now that was to cut off the king of england ; those words were not in that letter , but lechees letter , to which this was an answer i saw and read : it was dated the month of august , and as near as i remember there was this instruction in it , that the ten thousand pound should be employed for no other intent and purpose but to cut off the king of england . i do not swear the words , but that 's the sense and substance , i believe i may swear the words . lord ch. just . to whom was that directed ? mr. oates . to one strange that was then provincial of the society in london , which mr. coleman answered . lord ch. just . how came mr. coleman to answer it ? mr. oates . strange having run a reed into his finger , had wounded his hand , and secretary mico was ill , so he got mr. coleman to write an answer unto it . lord ch. just . did he write it as from himself ? mr. oates . yes , by order of the provincial . lord ch. just . what was the substance of that answer ? mr. oates . that thanks was given to him in the name of the whole society for the ten thousand pound which was paid and received here , and that it should be employed to the intent for which it was received . it was superscribed from mr. coleman . lord ch. just . was it subscribed coleman ? mr. oates . it was not subscribed ; i did not see him write it , but i really believe it was by the same hand . i went and delivered this letter . lord ch. just . i understood you because of the accident of his hand he had employed mr. coleman to write this for him . mr. oates . he did write this letter then , the body of the letter was written by mr. coleman . i did not see him write it , but i shall give an account how i can prove he wrote it . i delivered this letter to lechees his own hand . when i opened the letter he asked me how a gentleman ( naming a french name ) did doe . lord ch. just . when you carried this letter , you carried it to lechees , and delivered it to him ; then he asked you of the gentleman of the french name , whom meant he by that name ? mr. oates . i understood it to be mr. coleman . lord ch. just . did he know him by some french name ? what said you ? mr. oates . i could say little to this . lord ch. just . could you guess whom he meant ? mr. oates . he told me he was sometime secretary to the dutchess of york , which i understood to be mr. coleman . i stuck at it , and when he said he was sometime secretary to the dutchess of york , i spoke in latine to him , and asked whether he meant mr. coleman , and his answer i cannot remember . he sends an answer to this letter . i brought it to st. omers , and there it was inclosed in the letter from the society to coleman ; wherein the society expresly told him this letter was delivered and acknowledged . i saw the letter at st. omers , and the letter was sent to him . mr. coleman did acknowledge the receit of this letter from lechees in the same hand with that of the news letter , and so it was understood by all , i saw it . lord ch. just . how came you to see it ? mr. oates . i by a patent from them was of the consult . lord ch. just . you saw the letter of the same hand which the news letter was of with mr. coleman's name subscribed ? mr. oates . the contents of the letter did own the letter from lechees was received ; this letter was presumed to be the hand-writing of mr. coleman , and it was understood to be mr. coleman's letter . lord ch. just . you say the letter was thanks for the ten thousand pound ; what was the other contents ? mr. oates . that all endeavours should be used to cut off the protestant religion root and branch . lord ch. just . you say you delivered this letter , from whom had you it ? mr. oates . from fenwick , it was left in his hand , and he accompanied me from groves to the coach , and gave it to me . lord ch. just . did you hear him speak to mr. coleman to write for him ? mr. oates . strange told me he had spoke to him . lord ch. just . he doth suppose it was mr. coleman's hand because it was just the same hand that the news letter was . are you sure the letter was of his hand ? mr. oates . it was taken for his hand . just . wild. had he such a kinsman there ? mr. oates . yes he hath confessed it . attorn . gen. we desire your lordship he may give an account of the consult here in may last , and how far mr. coleman was privy to the murthering of the king. mr. oates . in the month of april old-stile , in the month of may new-stile , there was a consult held , it was begun at the white horse tavern , it did not continue there . after that there they had consulted to send one father cary to be agent and procurator for rome , they did adjourn themselves to several clubs in companies ; some met at wild-house , and some at harcourt's lodging in dukes-street ; some met at ireland's lodging in russel-street ; and some in fenwick's lodging in drury-lane . they were ordered to meet by virtue of a brief from rome , sent by the father generall of the society : they went on to these resolves , that pickering and groves should go on and continue in attempting to assassinate the king's person by shooting , or other means . groves was to have fifteen hundred pounds . pickering being a religious man was to have thirty thousand masses , which at twelve pence a mass amounted much what to that money . this resolve of the jesuits was communicated to mr. coleman in my hearing at wild-house . my lord , this was not onely so , but in several letters he did mention it ; and in one letter ( i think i was gone a few miles out of london ) he sent to me by a messenger , and did desire the duke might be trappan'd into this plot to murther the king. lord. ch. just . how did he desire it ? mr. oates . in a letter , that all means should be used for the drawing in the duke . this letter was written to one ireland . i saw the letter and read it . lord ch. just . how do you know it was his letter ? mr. oates . because of the instructions , which i saw mr. coleman take a copy of and write , which was the same hand with the news letter , and what else i have mentioned , the subscription was , recommend me to father lechees , and it was the same hand whereof i now speak . lord ch. just . what was the substance of the letter ? mr. oates . nothing but complement , and recommendation , and that all means might be used for the trappanning the duke of york ( as near as i can remember that was the word . ) just . wild. you did say positively that mr. coleman did consent and agree to what was consulted by the jesuits , which was to kill the king , and pickering and groves were the two persons designed to do it . did you hear him consent to it ? mr. oates . i heard him say at wild-house , he thought it was well contrived . recor. do the gentlemen of the jury hear what he saith ? lord. ch. just . gentlemen of the jury , do you hear what he saith ? jury . yes . attorn . gen. what do you know of any rebellion to have been raised in ireland ? and what was to be done with the duke of ormond ? mr. oates . in the month of august there was a consult with the jesuites , and with the benedictine monks at the savoy . in this month of august there was a letter writ from arch-bishop talbot , the titular arch-bishop of dublin ; wherein he gave an account of a legate from the pope , an italian bishop , ( the bishop of cassay i think ) who asserted the pope's right to the kingdom of ireland . in this letter ( to mention in special ) there were four jesuits had contrived to dispatch the duke of ormond ( these were his words ) to find the most expedient way for his death , and fogarthy was to be sent to do it by poyson , if these four good fathers did not hit of their design . my lord , fogarthy was present . and when the consult was almost at a period , mr. coleman came to the savoy to the consult , and was mighty forward to have father fogarthy sent to ireland to dispatch the duke by poyson . this letter did specify they were there ready to rise in rebellion against the king for the pope . attorney generall . do you know any thing of arms ? mr. oates . there were 40000 black bills , i am not so skilfull in arms to know what they meant ( military men know what they are ) that were provided to be sent into ireland ; but they were ready for the use of the catholick party . lord ch. just . who were they provided by ? mr. oates . i do not know . lord ch. just . how do you know they were provided ? mr. oates . that letter doth not mention who they were provided by , but another letter mentioned they were provided by those that were commission officers for the aid and help of the pope ; the popish commissioners they were provided by , and they had them ready in ireland . lord ch. just . who wrote this letter ? mr. oates . it came from talbot , i might forget the day of the month because my information is so large , but it was the former part of the year , i think either january or february , ( 77 ) ( 78 ) last january or february . lord ch. just . was this consult but in august last ? mr. oates . i am forced to run back from that consult to this ; mr. coleman was privy , and was the main agent , and did in the month of august last past say to fenwick , he had found a way to transmit the 200000 li. for the carrying on of this rebellion in ireland . lord ch. just . did you hear him say so ? mr. oates . i did , a week before . lord ch. just . you say he was very forward to send fogarthy into ireland to kill the duke of ormond . mr. oates . yes that i say ; and that he had found a way to transmit 200000 li. to carry on the rebellion in ireland . court. who was by besides fenwick ? mr. oates . my self and no body else . court. where was it said ? mr. oates . in fenwick's chamber in drury-lane . attorn . gen. do you know any thing of transmitting the money to windsor , or perswading any to be sent thither , and the time when ? mr. oates . in the month of august there were four russians procured by dr. fogarthy . these four were not nominated in the consult with the benedictine convent , but ( my lord ) these four ruffians without names were accepted of by them . court. who proposed them ? mr. oates . fogarthy . these four irish men were sent that night to windsor . how they went i know not , but the next day there was a provision of 80 li. ordered to them by the rector of london , which is a jesuite , one will. harcourt in the name of the provincial , because he acted in his name and authority , the provincial being then beyond the seas , visiting his colledges in flanders . lord ch. just . did he order the 80 li. mr. oates . mr. coleman came to this harcourt's house , then lying in duke's street , and harcourt was not within ; but he was directed to come to wild-house , and at wild-house he found harcourt . lord ch. just . how do you know that ? mr. oates . he said he had been at his house , and was not within , finding him at wild-house , he asked what care was taken for those four gentlemen that went last night to windsor ? he said there was 80 li. ordered . lord ch. just . who said so ? mr. oates . harcourt . and there was the messenger that was to carry it , i think the most part of this 80 li. was in guineys : mr. coleman gave the messenger a guiney to be nimble , and to expedite his journey . l. chief . just . how know you they were guinies ? mr. oates , i saw the money upon the table before harcourt , not in his hand . l. chief . just . were the four irish men there ? mr. oates , no , they were gone before i came . l. chief . just . who was to carry it after them , what was his name ? mr. oates , i never saw him before or since ; the money was upon the table : when mr. coleman came in , he gave the messenger a guiney to expedite the business . recorder , you say mr. coleman inquired what care was taken for those ruffians that were to assassinate the king ; pray , mr. oates , tell my lord and the jury what you can say concerning mr. colemans discourse with one ashby . mr. oates , in the moneth of july , one ashby , who was sometimes rector of st. omers , being ill of the gout was ordered to go to the bath ; this ashby being in london , mr. coleman came to attend him ; this ashby brought with him treasonable instructions in order to expedite the king by poison , provided pickering and groves did not do the work : ten thousand pound should be proposed to sir george wakeman to poison the king , in case pistol and stab did not take effect , and opportunity was to be taken at the kings taking physick . i could give other evidence but will not , because of other things which are not fit to be known yet . l. chief . just . who wrote this letter ? mr. oates , it was under the hand of white the provincial beyond the seas , whom ashby left ; it was in the name of memorials to impower ashby and the rest of the consulters at london to propound ten thousand pound to sir george wakeman to take the opportunity to poison the king. these instructions were seen and read by mr. coleman , by him copied out , and transmitted to several conspirators of the kings death , in this kingdom of england , that were privy to this plot. recorder , know you of any commission ? we have hitherto spoken altogether of the work of others ; now we come to his own work a little nearer . l. chief just . who saw mr. coleman read these instructions ? what said he ? mr. oates , he said he thought it was too little , i heard him say so . l. chief just . did you see him take a copy of these instructions ? mr. oates , yes , and he said he did believe sir george wakeman would scarce take it , and thought it necessary the other five thousand pound should be added to it , that they might be sure to have it done . l. chief just . where was it he said this ? mr. oates , it was in the provincials chamber , which ashby had taken for his convenience at london , until he went down to the bath , it was at wild-house , at mr. sandersons house . l. chief just . ashby was imployed by his instructions to acquaint the consult of the jesuits , that there should be ten thousand pound advanced , if doctor wakeman would poison the king , now asbby comes and acquaints him with it . why should coleman take copies ? mr. oates , because he was to send copies to several conspirators in the kingdom of england . l. chief just . to what purpose should mr. coleman take a copy of these instructions ? mr. oates , the reason is plain , they were then a gathering a contribution about the kingdom , and these instructions were sent that they might be incouraged , because they saw there was incouragement from beyond seas to assist them . and another reason was , because now they were assured by this their business would quickly be dispatched , and by this means some thousands of pounds were gathered in the kingdom of england . l. chief just . to whom was mr. coleman to send them ? mr. oates , i know not any of the persons , but mr. coleman did say he had sent his suffrages ( which was a canting word for instructions ) to the principal gentry of the catholicks of the kingdom of england . l. chief just . how know you this , that mr. coleman did take a copy of these instructions for that purpose as you say ? mr. oates , because he said so . l. chief just . did any body ask him why he took them ? mr. oates , saith ashby , you had best make haste and communicate these things . mr. coleman answered , i will make haste with my copies , that i may dispatch them away this night ? recorder , was he not to be one of the principal secretaries of state ? . mr. oates , in the month of may last new stile , april the old stile , i think within a day after our consult , i was at mr. langhorn's chamber , he had several commissions , which he called patents : among his commissions i saw one from the general of the society of jesus , joannes paulus d'ol●●a , by vertue of a brief from the pope by whom he was enabled . l. chief just . did you know his hand ? mr. oates , i believe i have seen it forty times , i have seen forty things under his hand , and this agreed with them , but i never did see him write in my life , we all took it to be his hand , and we all knew the hand and seal . l. chief just . what inscription was upon the seal ? mr. oates , ι.η. σ. with a cross , in english it had the characters of i. h. s. this commission to mr. coleman in the month of july , i saw in fenwicks presence , and at his chamber in drury-lane , where then mr. coleman did acknowledge the receipt of this patent , opened it and said ▪ it was a very good exchange . l. chief just . what was the commission for ? mr. oates , it was to be secretary of state. i saw the commission , and heard him own the receipt of it . just . wild , what other commissions were there at mr. langhorns chamber ? mr. oates , a great many , i cannot remember , there was a commission for my lord arundel of warder , the lord powis , and several other persons . but this belongs not to the prisoner at the bar : i mention his commission . l. chief just . were you acquainted with mr. langhorn ? mr. oates , yes , i 'le tell your lordship how i was acquainted . i was in spain , he had there two sons ; to shew them special favour and kindness ( being meer strangers at the colledge ) i did use to transmit some letters for them to the kingdom of england in my pacquet . when i came out of spain , i did receive recommendations from them to their father , and in great civility he received me . this was in november that i came to his house . he lived in shear-lane or thereabouts . i understood that his wife was a zealous protestant ; therefore he desired me not to come any more to his house , but for the future to come to his chamber in the temple . l. chief . just . had you ever seen mr. langhorn in london before ? mr. oates , i never saw him till nov. ( 77. ) to my knowledge . i was several times in his company at his chamber , and he brought me there to shew me some kindness upon the account of his sons . it was at the temple , for his wife being a protestant was not willing any jesuits should come to the house . i was to carry him a summary of all the results and particulars of the consult at the white horse and wild house . the provincial ordered me to do it , he knowing me , being in that affair often imployed . l. chief just . was it the second time you saw him that you saw the commissions ? mr. oates , i saw him several times in the month of november . l. chief just . when did you see the commissions ? mr. oates , in the month of april old stile , may new stile . l. chief just . how came he to shew you the commissions ? mr. oates , i hearing of their being come , had a curiosity to see them , and he knew me to be privy to the concerns . l. chief just . how did you know he had the commissions ? mr. oates , by letters . l. chief just . from whom ? mr. oates , from those of the society at rome , wherein one harcourt one of the fathers was certified , that the commissions were come to langhorn , and were in his hand , i saw the letters at st. omers before they came to harcourt , we read the letters there before they came to england , i had power to open them . l. chief just . did you open the letters ? mr. oates , yes ? l. chief just . when saw you the letters at st. omers ? mr. oates , i saw the letters at st. omers in the month of january ; then they came from rome ; and after i received summons to be at this consult in the month of april ; and accordingly we came over . l. chief just . vvhat time did you come over ? mr. oates , in the month of april . l. chief just . vvhat time went you to langhorns chamber ? i cannot reconcile the months together . just . dolben . did you not say you came to langhorn in november ? mr. oates . yes , before i went to st. omers . just . wild. how many came over with you ? mr. oates . i cannot tell how many came over together ; there were nine of us all jesuits . l. chief just . did not you say you went to langhorn in november ? mr. oates , that was before i went to st. omers . attorn . gen. tell how many priests or jesuits were lately in england , that you know of , at one time ? mr. oates . there was , and have been to my knowledge in the kingdom of england , secular priests eightscore , and jesuits fourscore , and by name in the catalogue , i think three hundred and odd . l. chief just . how long had you been in england before you were at mr. langhorn's chamber ? mr. oates . not long ; because i had letters in my pacquet from his sons , assoon as i had rested a little , i went to him . l. chief just . what said mr. langhorn to you about the commissions in his chamber ? mr. oats . not a word ; but seem'd glad . l. chief just . did you see them open upon his table ? or did you ask to see them ? mr. oates . they did not lye open upon the table , but the commissions were before him ; i asked to see them . mr. langhorn ( said i ) i hear you have received the commissions from rome ; he said , he had . shall i have the honour to see some of them ? he said , i might ; he thought he might trust me ; and so he might , because that very day i gave him an account of the consult . l. chief just . when was it you gave him an account of the consult ? mr. oates . in the morning . l. chief just . you say you were twice there that day . mr. oates . i was there the whole forenoon . l. chief just . that day you saw the commissions . mr. oates . i had been there several times the same day , and meeting him at last , he asked me how often i was there before , i said said twice or thrice ; but that day was the last time ever i saw him ; i have not seen him since to my knowledge . l. chief just . was that the first time that you saw him after you came from spain ? mr. oates . i saw him thrice in november , then i went to st. omers , the first time i saw him after i came from thence i saw the commissions . attorn . gen. what were the names of those men that came over from st. omers besides your self ? mr. oates . as near as i can remember , the rector of liege was one ; father warren ; sir thomas preston ; the rector of watton ; one francis williams ; sir john warner baronet ; one father charges ; one pool , a monk ; i think i made the ninth . attorn . gen. if the prisoner at the bar be minded , he may ask him any question . prisoner , i am mighty glad to see that gentleman sir thomas dolman in the court , for i think he was upon my examination before the councel , and this man that gives now in evidence against me , there told the king , he never saw me before ; and he is extreamly well acquainted with me now , and hath a world of intimacy . mr. oates at that time gave such an account of my concern in this matter , that i had orders to go to newgate , i never saw mr. oates since i was born , but at that time . l. chief just . you shall have as fair a search , and examination in this matter for your life as can be , therefore mr. oates answer to what mr. coleman saith . mr. oates . my lord , when mr. coleman was upon his examination before the council-board , he saith , i said there that i never saw him before in my life : i then said i would not swear that i had seen him before in my life , because my sight was bad by candle-light , and candle-light alters the sight much , but when i heard him speak i could have sworn it was he , but it was not then my business . i cannot see a great way by candle-light . l. chief . just . the stress of the objection lyeth not upon seeing so much , but how come you that you laid no more to mr. coleman's charge at that time ? mr. oates . i did design to lay no more to his charge then , than was matter for information . for prisoners may supplant evidence when they know it , and bring persons to such circumstances , as time , and place . my lord , i was not bound to give in more than a general information against mr. coleman ; mr. coleman did deny he had correspondence with father le chese at any time , i did then say he had given him an account of several transactions . and ( my lord ) then was i so weak , being up two nights , and having been taking prisoners , upon my salvation , i could scarce stand upon my legs . l. chief just . what was the information you gave at that time to the council against mr. coleman ? mr. oates . the information i gave at that time ( as near as i can remember , but i would not trust to my memory ) was for writing of news-letters , in which i did then excuse the treasonable reflexions , and called them base reflexions at the council-board ; the king was sensible , and so was the council . i was so wearied and tyred ( being all that afternoon before the council , and sunday night , and sitting up night after night ) that the king was willing to discharge me . but if i had been urged , i should have made a larger information . l. chief just . the thing you accused him of was his own letter . pris . he doth not believe it was my letter . l. c. just . you here charge mr. coleman to be the man that gave a guinny to expedite the business at windsor , &c. at the time when you were examined at the council-table , you gave a particular account of attempting to take away the kings life at windsor , and raising twenty thousand pounds and all those great transactions ; why did you not charge mr. coleman to be the man that gave the guinny to the messenger to expedite the business , when the 80 pounds was sent ? that he found out a way of transmitting 200000 pounds to carry on the design ? he consulted the killing the king , and approved of it very well . and of the instructions for 10000 pounds , and said it was too little for to poyson the king . when you were to give an account to the council of the particular contrivance of the murther of the king at windsor , with a reward , you did mention one reward of 10000 pounds to dr. wakeman , and would you omit the guinny to expedite the messenger , and that he said that 10000l . was too little ; would you omit all this ? mr. oates . i being so tyred and weak that i was not able to stand upon my legs , and i remember the council apprehended me to be so weak that one of the lords of the council said , that if there were any occasion further to examine mr. coleman , that mr. oates should be ready again , and bid me retire . l. c. just . you was by when the council were ready to let mr. coleman go almost at large . mr. oates . no ; i never apprehended that , for if i did , i should have given a further account . l. c. just . what was done to mr. coleman at that time ? was he sent away prisoner ? mr. oates . yes , at that time to the messengers house , and within two dayes after he was sent to newgate , and his papers were seized . l. c. just . why did you not name coleman at that time ? mr. oates . because i had spent a great deal of time in accusing other jesuites . just . wild. what time was there betwixt the first time you were at the council before you told of this matter concerning the king ? mr. oates . when i was first at the board ( which was on saturday night ) i made information , which began between six and seven , and lasted almost to ten . i did then give a general account of the affairs to the council without the king. then i went and took prisoners , and before sunday night , i said , i thought if mr. colemans papers were searched into , they would find matter enough against him in those papers to hang him ; i spake those words , or words to the like purpose . after that mr. colemans papers were searched , mr. coleman was not to be found ; but he surrendred himself the next day . so that on sunday i was commanded to give his majesty a general information , as i had given to the council on saturday ; and the next day again , i took prisoners that night five , and next night four . just . wild. how long was it betwixt the time that you were examined , and spoke only as to the letters , to that time you told to the king & council or both of them , concerning this matter you swear now ? mr. oates . my lord , i never told it to the king and council , but i told it to the houses of parliament . l. chief just . how long was it between the one and the other ? mr. oates . i cannot tell exactly the time ; it was when the parliament first sate . l. c. j. how came you ( mr. coleman being so desperate a man as he was ; endeavouring the killing of the king ) to omit your information of it to the council and to the king at both times ? mr. oats . i spoke little of the persons till the persons came face to face . l. chief just . why did you not accuse all thosse jesuits by name ? m. oates . we took a catalogue of their names , but those i did accuse positively and expresly we took up . l. chief just . did you not accuse sir george wakeman by name , and that he accepted his reward ? mr. oates . yes , then i did accuse him by name . l. chief just . why did you not accuse mr. coleman by name ? mr. oates . for want of memory ; being disturbed and wearied in sitting up two nights , i could not give that good account of mr. coleman which i did afterwards , when i consulted my papers ; and when i saw mr. coleman was secured , i had no need to give a farther account . l. chief just . how long was it between the first charging mr. coleman , and your acquainting the parliament with it ? mr. oats . from monday the 30th of september , until the parliament sate . l. chief just . mr. coleman , will you ask him any thing ? prisoner . pray ask mr. oats , whether he was not as near to me as this gentleman is , because he speaks of his eyes being bad ? mr. oats . i had the disadvantage of a candle upon my eyes ; mr. coleman stood more in the dark . prisoner . he names several times that he met with me in this place and that place , a third and fourth place about business . mr. oats . he was altered much by his perriwig in several meetings , and had several perriwiggs , and a perriwigg doth disguise a man very much ; but when i heard him speak , then i knew him to be mr. coleman . l. chief just . did you hear him speak ? how were the questions asked ? were they thus ? was that the person ? or , how often had you seen mr. coleman ? mr. oats . when the question was asked by my lord chancellour , mr. coleman , when were you last in france ? he said at such a time . did you see father le chese ? he said he gave him an accidental visit , my lord chancellor asked him whether or no he had a pass ? he said , no. then he told him , that was a fault for going out of the kingdom without a pass . have you a kinsman whose name is playford at s. omers ? he said he had one ten years old , ( who is in truth sixteen ) that question i desired might be asked . then the king bade me go on . l. ch. just did the king , or council , or lord chancellor ask you whether you knew mr. coleman , or no ? mr. oats . they did not ask me . l. ch. just . mr. oats , answer the question in short , and without confounding it with length . were you demanded if you knew m. coleman ? mr. oats . not to my knowledge . l. ch. just . did you ever see him ? or how often ? pris . he said , he did not know me . l. ch. just . you seemed , when i asked you before , to admit , as if you had been asked this question , how often you had seen him , and gave me no answer , because you were doubtful whether it was the man , by reason of the inconveniency of the light , and your bad fight . mr. oats . i must leave it to the king what answer i made mr. coleman , he wonders i should give an account of so many intimacies , when i said i did not know him at the council table . pris . it is very strange mr. oats should swear now , that he was so well acquainted with me , and had been so often in my company ; when upon his accusation at the council-table , he said nothing of me more than the sending of one letter , which he thought was my hand . mr. oats . i did not say that . pris . and he did seem to say there , he never saw me before in his life . l. ch. just . was he asked whether he was acquainted with you ? ( for those words are to the same purpose ) . pris . i cannot answer directly , i do not say he was asked if he was acquainted with me , but i say this , that he did declare he did not know me . l. ch. just . can you prove that ? pris . i appeal to sir tho. dolman , who is ●ow in court , and was then present at the council-table . l. ch. just . sir thomas , you are not upon your oath , but are to speak on the behalf of the prisoner : what did he say ? sir tho. dolman . that he did not well know him . l. ch. just . did he add , that he did not well know him by the candle light ? but mr. oats , when you heard his voice , you said you knew him ; why did you not come then , and say you did well know him ? mr. oats . because i was not asked . l. ch. just . but , sir thomas , did he say he did not well know him after m. coleman spake ? was mr. coleman examined before mr. oats spake ? sir tho. doleman . yes . l. ch. just . mr. oats , you say you were with him at the savoy and wild-house , pray , sir thomas , did he say he did not know him , or had seen mr. coleman there ? sir tho. dolman . he did not know him as he stood there . l. ch. just . knowing , or not knowing is not the present question ; but did he make an answer to the knowing , or not knowing him ? just . dolben . did he say he did not well know mr. coleman , or that he did not well know that man ? sir tho. dolman he said he had no acquaintance with that man ( to the best of my remembrance . ) l. ch. just . sir robert southwell , you were present at mr. oats his examination before the council ; in what manner did he accuse mr. coleman then ? sir robert southwell . the question is so particular , i cannot give the court satisfaction ; but other material things then said are now omitted by mr. oats ; for he did declare against sir george wakeman , that five thousand pounds was added , in all fifteen thousand pounds , and that mr. coleman paid five of the fifteen to sir george in hand . l. ch. just . this answers much of the objection upon him . the court has asked mr. oats how he should come now to charge you with all these matters of poysoning and killing the king , and yet he mentioned you so slightly at the council-table ; but it is said by sir robert southwell he did charge you with five thousand pounds ( for poisoning the king ) to be added to the ten thousand pounds , and he charged you expresly with it at the council table . pris . the charge was so slight against me by mr. oats , that the council were not of his opinion : for the first order was to go to newgate , and sir robert southwell came with directions to the messenger not to execute the order . i humbly ask whether it was a reasonable thing to conceive that the council should extenuate the punishment , if mr. oats came with such an amazing account to the council , sir rob. south . mr. oats gave so large and general an information to the council , that it could not easily be fixed . mr. coleman came voluntarily in upon monday morning . the warrant was sent out on sunday night for mr. coleman and his papers : his papers were found and seized ; but mr. coleman was not found at that time , nor all night , but came on monday morning voluntarily , and offered himself at sir joseph williamson's house , hearing there was a warrant against him : by reason of so many prisoners that were then under examination , he was not heard till the afternoon , and then he did with great indignation and contempt hear these vile things , as thinking himself innocent . pris . if i thought my self guilty , i should have charged my self : i hope his majesty upon what hath been said , will be so far satisfied as to discharge me . sir rob. south . mr. coleman then made so good a discourse for himself , that though the lords had filled up a blank warrant to send him to newgate , that was respited , and he was only committed to a messenger . i did say to the messenger , be very civil to mr. coleman for things are under examination , but you must keep him safely . saith the messenger , pray let me have a special warrant , that doth dispence with the warrant i had to carry him to newgate , and such a warrant he had . the king went away on tuesday morning to newmarket , and appointed a particular committee to examine the papers brought of mr. coleman and others . his papers were found in a deal box , and several of these papers and declarations sounded so strangely to the lords , that they were amazed ; and presently they signed a warrant for mr. coleman's going to newgate . l. ch. just . did mr. oats give a round charge against mr. coleman ? sir rob. south . he had a great deal to do , he was to repeat in the afternoon on sunday when the king was present , all he had said to the lords on saturday . he did say of mr. coleman , that he had corresponded very wickedly and basely with the french king's confessor , and did believe if mr. coleman's papers were searched , there would be found in them that which would cost him his neck . and did declare that the fifteen thousand pounds was accepted for the murther of the king , and that five thousand pounds was actually paid by mr. coleman to sir george wakeman . but mr. oats at the same time did also declare that he did not see the mony paid , he did not see this particular action of sir george wakeman , because at that time he had the stone and could not be present . mr. oats . i was not present at that consult , where the fifteen thousand pounds was accepted ; but i had an account of it from those that were present . l. ch. just . it appears plainly by this testimony , that he did charge you mr. coleman home , that fifteen thousand pounds was to be paid for poysoning the king ; and that it was generally said among them ( though he did not see it paid ) that it came by your hands , viz. five thousand pounds of it , which answers your objection as if he had not charged you , when you see he did charge you home then for being one of the conspirators , in having a hand in paying of 〈◊〉 for poysoning the king : he charges you now no otherwise than in that manner : he doth not charge you no● as if there were new things started , but with the very conspiracy of having a hand in paying the money for murthering the king. what consultation was that you had at the savoy , in the month of august ? mr. oats . it was about the business of the four irish ruffians proposed to the consult . the end of mr. oats's examination . mr. bedlow . sollicit . gen. we call him to give an account what he knows of the prisoners being privy to the conspiracy of murthering the king , ( particularly to that ) mr. bedlow , pray acquaint my lord and the jury what you know , i desire to know particularly as it concerns mr. coleman , and nothing but mr. coleman . l. ch. just . mr. attorney pray keep to that question close . attorn . gen. i have two short questions to ask him : the first is what he hath seen or heard touching any commission to mr. coleman , what say you ? mr. bedlow . in particular i know not of any commission directed to mr. coleman , i do not know any thing of it but what sir henry tichbourn told me , that he had a commission ; and he brought a commission for mr. coleman and the rest of the lords , from the principal jesuites at rome , by order of the pope . attorn . gen. a commission for what ? mr. bedlow . to be principal secretary of state : the title of it i do not know because i did not see it , but to be principal secretary of state , that was the effect . attorn . gen. i desire to know what discourse you had with mr. coleman about that design . mr. bedlow . if your lordship please , i shall be short in the narrative . l. ch. just . make use of your notes to help your memory , but let not your testimony be merely to read them . mr. bedlow . i carried over to monsieur le chese ( the french kings confessor ) a large packet of letters , april ( 75 ) from mr. coleman , which letters i saw mr. coleman deliver to father harcourt , at his house in dukes-street . council . and harcourt gave them to you ? mr. bedlow . yes ; which letters were directed to be delivered to monsieur le chese , and i did carry them to le chese , and brought him an answer from le chese , and other english monks at paris ? i did not understand what was in it , because it was a language i do not well understand , it was about carrying on the plot ; at a consultation there were present two french abbots and several english monks at paris ; what i heard them say , was about carrying on the plot to subvert the government of england , to destroy the king and the lords of the council . the king was principally to be destroyed , and the government subverted as well as the protestant religion . court. when was this ? when you were to receive the answer ? mr. bedlow . it was upon the consultation : there was a packet of letters from mr. coleman , they did not know i understood french , or if they did , they had tryed me so long i believe they would have trusted me . l. ch. just . the letter that le chese wrote , to whom was it directed ? mr. bedlow . it was directed to mr. coleman , the packet was directed to harcourt , and within that le chese wrote an answer and directed it to mr. coleman , particularly to mr. coleman . l. ch. just . how do you know ? mr. bedlow . the superscription was this [ in french ] a monsieur monsieur coleman ; to mr. coleman , with other letters directed to father harcourt . l. ch. just . he saith plainly the letter was yours , you gave harcourt a packet of letters to be delivered to le chese , harcourt delivered them to him , and he did carry them to le chese , and heard them talk about this plot : that le chese wrote a letter to you ( particularly by name ) inclosed in a letter to harcourt , that answer he brought back . recorder . do you know any thing concerning any money mr. coleman said he had received ? the sums , and for what ? mr. bedlow . it was to carry on the design to subvert the government of england , to free england from damnation and ignorance , and free all catholieks from hard tyranny and oppression of hereticks . attorn . gener. what words did you hear mr. coleman express , what he would do for the catholick cause ? mr. bedlow . may 24 , or 25 , ( 77 ) i was at mr. coleman's with mr. harcourt , and received another packet from mr. harcourt , and he had it from mr. coleman . l. ch. just . you say mr. coleman did give this packet to harcourt ? mr. bedlow . yes , and harcourt delivered it to me to carry it to paris to the english monks . i was to go by doway to see if they were not gone to paris before me . l. ch. just . and what did they say when you delivered the letters to the english monks ? mr. bedlow . they told me how much reward i deserved from the pope and the church , both here , and in the world to come . i overtook three , and that night i went to paris with them ; and upon the consultation ( 1677 ) i believe they sent the bishop of tornes the substance of those letters , and not having a final answer what assistance the catholick party in england might expect from them , they were resolved to neglect their design no longer than that summer , having all things ready to begin in england . recorder . what did you hear mr. coleman say ? mr. bedlow . that he would adventure any thing to bring in the popish religion : after the consultation , i delivered the letters to le faire , and he brought them to harcourt , he delivered the packet of letters to harcourt , who was not well , but yet went and delivered them to mr. coleman , and i went as far as mr. coleman's house , but did not go in , but stayed over the way ; but harcourt went in , and after he had spoke with mr. coleman , he gave me a beck to come to him ; and i heard mr. coleman say , if he had a hundred lives , and a sea of blood to carry on the cause , he would spend it all to further the cause of the church of rome , and to establish the church of rome in england : and if there was an hundred heretical kings to be deposed , he would see them all destroyed . l. ch. just . where was this ? mr. bedlow . at his own house . l. ch. just . where ? mr. bedlow . behind westminster abby . l. ch. just . in what room ? mr. bedlow . at the foot of the stair-case . l. ch. just . where were you then ? mr. bedlow . there , i was called in by harcourt , and was as near to him , as to my lord duras . ( my lord being hard by mr. bedlow in court. ) pris . did i ever see you in my life ? mr. bedlow . you may ask that question ; but in the stone-gallery in somerset-house , when you came from a consult , where were great persons , which i am not to name here ; that would make the bottom of your plot tremble : you saw me then . attorn . gener. we did before acquaint you with something of the substance of the letters ; we shall now acquaint you with something of the manner of finding them . your lordship hath heard mr. oats hath been examined before the council , and there it was said . mr. coleman's papers would make such a discovery ( if they were looked into ) as would be enough to hang him . i remember he said the lords of the council were pleased to order the papers to be seised ; the execution of their warrant they committed to one bradly , who was a messenger that attended the king and council ; and i desire he may be called : he did find and seise as many papers as mr. coleman was pleased to leave , and they are those papers which we now bring before you . the papers seised he put up in a deal box , and four or five several bags , and brings them to the council ; the clerks of the council are here attending the court : they will tell you these papers now produced were papers found in those bags : mr. bradly will tell you the papers seised in the bags and box were brought to them , and they will swear they were the papers and bags that were brought . record . mr. bradly , give my lord and the jury an account whether you went to mr. coleman , whether you seized his papers , and what papers you saw , and how you disposed of them after they were seiz'd . mr. bradly . the 29th . of september being sunday evening at six of the clock , i received a warrant from the council-board to apprehend mr. coleman , and to seize his papers , and to bring them to the council-board : he being not at home , i spoke with his wife , and told her i came to search her house , i had a warrant so to do , she told me i was welcom ; i dedesir'd her to send for her husband : i found in several parts of the house a great many papers ; i put them up in several bags : i found some in a private corner in a deal box. l. ch. just . what kind of corner ? mr. bradly . in mr. coleman's chamber , not in his own study , but in another place behind the chimney ; the box was tack'd together with a nail : i lifted it up ; and saw they were letters , i put it down again as it was , and gave it into the custody of one that was with me , to look to it : then i came to his own study where his ' scritore was , and put up all i could find in several baggs , and sealed them , and brought them to the council-chamber . attorn . gen. did you put up any other papers among them then what you found at mr. coleman's house ? mr. bradly . i did not , ( upon my oath , ) i had them all at mr. coleman's house . attorn . general . did you bring them all to the clerks of the council ? mr. bradly . yes , before i came out i tyed them all up , and sealed them with my own seal , and was constantly with them . at. gen. now we will give your lordship an account how these things were received , that were there found . sir robert southwell , look upon the large letter , and tell my lord and the jury whether that were among the papers brought by this messenger . sir robert southwel . my lord , i did not see this letter in several days after the papers brought me from bradly ; when he came in with three great baggs , and a box of letters on sunday night ; said i , which are mr. coleman's principal papers ? said he , those that are in the large speckled cloath bagg ; for these we took first in the scritore : these i took , and meddled not with the other , i presume other clerks of the council can give a particular account where this paper was found . at. gen. sir thomas doleman , look upon the letter whether you can remember any thing of it . sir th. doleman . i remember i found it in a deal box among mr. coleman's papers , those that bradly brought . court. that 's plain enough . at. gen. that we may not often prove what we shall often make use of , i would prove it fully once for all , that all these papers were of his hand-writing ; this we can prove by two sorts of evidences ; his own confession , and the witness of two persons ; one that was his servant ; and th' other a sub-secretary , that did write very many things for him . mr. boatman , look upon these papers ; tell my lord and the jury whose hand it is : are you acquainted with mr. coleman's hand ? what relation had you to him ? boatman . i was his gentleman that waited on him in his chamber five years : this is very like his hand . lord ch. just . do you believe it is his hand ? boatman . i believe it is . lord ch. just . little proof will serve the turn , because they were taken in his possession . at. gen. i desire to prove it fully ; look upon all the papers , turn all the leaves , see if they be not all one hand , and whether you believe all to be mr. coleman's hand writing or not . boatman . i believe it to be all his hand . lord ch. just . do you know when the last packet of letters came up , that were sent to mr. coleman , from beyond the seas ? boatman . two or three dayes after he was taken prisoner . lord ch. just . do you know where they are bestowed ? did you receive monsieur le chese's letters for mr. coleman ? boatman . yes . lord ch. just . did you ever write any for him to le chese ? boatman . no. at. gen. inform the court whether he kept any book to make entry of letters he sent or received ? boatman . yes , there was a large book my master did enter his letters in , and his news . at. gen. what is become of that book ? boatman . i know not . at. gen. when did you see that book last upon your oath ? boatman . on saturday . at. gen. how long before he was sent to prison ? boat. two days , because the next day was sunday , which he did not make use of it : on monday my master was in prison , and i did not mind the book . l. ch. just . were there any entries of letters in that book within two years last past ? boatman . i cannot be positive . at. gen. did he not usually write and receive letters from beyond sea ? till that time had he not negotiation as usually ? boatman . he had usually news every post from beyond the seas . prisoner . there 's letters from the hague , brussels , france and rome ; they are all with the council , which were all the letters i received . att. gen. we have another witness : cattaway , are you acquainted with coleman's hand-writing ? do you believe it to be his hand-writing ? witness . i believe it is , they are his hand-writing . att. gen. it will appear , if there were no other proof in this cause , his own papers are as good as an hundred witnesses to condemn him ; therefore i desire to prove them fully by his own confession . sir phil. lloyd a witness . these are the papers i received from sir thomas doleman ; i found them ( as he saith , ) in a deal box : among his papers i found this letter . mr. coleman hath owned this was his hand-writing ▪ it 's all one letter . att. gen. 't is all the same hand , and he acknowledged it to be his . mr. recorder . i desire mr. astrey may read it so that the jury may hear it . mr. astrey clerk of the crown reads the letter . the 29th . of september ( 1675. ) it is subscribed thus ; your most humble and most obedient servant , but no name . mr. colemans long letter . since father st. german has been so kind to me , as to recommend me to your reverence so advantagiously , as to encourage you to accept of my correspondency ; i will own to him , that he has done me a favour without consulting me , greater than i could have been capable of if he had advised with me ; because i could not then have had the confidence to have permitted him to ask it on my behalf . and i am so sensible of the honour you are pleased to do me , that though i cannot deserve it ; yet to shew at least the sense i have of it , i will deal as freely and openly with you this first time , as if i had had the honour of your acquaintance all my life ; and shall make no apology for so doing , but only tell you that i know your character perfectly well , though i am not so happy as to know your person ; and that i have an opportunity of putting this letter into the hands of father st. german ●s nephew ( for whose integrity and prudence he has undertaken ) without any sort of hazard . in order then sir to the plainness i profess , i will tell you what has formerly passed between your reverence's predecessor , father ferryer and my self . about three years ago , when the king my master sent a troop of horse guards into his most christian majesties service , under the command of my lord durass ; he sent with it an officer called sir william throckmorton , with whom i had a particular intimacy , and who had then very newly embrac'd the catholick religion : to him did i constantly write , and by him address my self to father ferryer . the first thing of great importance i presumed to offer him ( not to trouble you with lesser matters , or what passed here before , and immediatly after the fatal revocation of the kings declaration for liberty of conscience , ( to which we owe all our miseries and hazards , ) was in july , august , and september 1673. when i constantly inculcated the great danger catholick religion , and his most christian majesties interest would be in at our next sessions of parliament , which was then to be in october following ; at which i plainly foresaw that the king my master would be forced to something in prejudice to his allyance with france , which i saw so evidently and particularly that we should make peace with holland , that i urg'd all the arguments i could , which to me were demonstrations , to convince your court of that mischief ; and press'd all i could to perswade his most christian majesty to use his utmost endeavour to prevent that session of our parliament , and proposed expedients how to do it : but i was answered so often and so positively , that his most christian majesty was so vvell assured by his embassador here , our embassador there , the lord arlington , and even the king himself ; that he had no such apprehensions at all , but vvas fully satisfied of the contrary , and lookt upon what i offered as a very zealous mistake , that i was forced to give over arguing , though not believing as i did ; but confidently appealed to time and success to prove who took their measures rightest . when it happened what i foresaw came to pass , the good father was a little surprized , to see all the great men mistaken , and a little one in the right ; and was pleased by sir william throckmorton to desire the continuance of my correspondence , which i was mighty willing to comply with , knowing the interest of our king , and in a more particular manner of my more immediate master the duke , and his most christian majesty , to be so inseparably united , that it was impossible to divide them , without destroying them all : upon this i shewed that our parliament in the circumstances it was managed , by the timerous councels of our ministers , who then governed , would never be useful either to england , france , or catholick religion , but that we should as certainly be forced from our neutrality at their next meeting , as we had been from our active alliance with france the last year : that a peace in the circumstances we were in , was much more to be desired then the continuance of the war ; and that the dissolution of our parliament would certainly procure a peace ; for that the confederates did more depend upon the power they had in our parliament , then upon any thing else in the world ; and were more encouraged from them to the continuing of the war ; so that if they were dissolved , their measures would be all broken , and they consequently in a manner necessitated to a peace . the good father minding this discourse somewhat more then the court of france thought fit to do my former ; urg'd it so home to the king , that his majesty was pleased to give him orders to signify to his r. h. my master , that his majesty vvas fully satisfyed of his r. h s. good intention tovvards him , and that he esteemed both their interests but as one and the same ; that my lord arlington and the parliament were both to be lookt upon as very unuseful to their interest : that if his r. h. would endeavour to dissolve this parliament , his most christian majesty would assist him with his povver and purse , to have a nevv one as should be for their purpose . this , and a great many more expressions of kindness and confidence father ferryer was pleased to communicate to sir william throckmorton , and commanded them to send them to his r. h. and withall to beg his r. h. to propose to his most christian majesty , what he thought necessary for his own concern , and the advantage of religion , and his majesty would certainly do all he could to advance both or either of them . this sir william throckmorton sent to me by an express , who left paris the 2d of june 1674 stilo novo : i no sooner had it , but i communicated it to his r. h. to which his r. h. commanded me to answer , as i did on the 29th . of the same month : that his r. h. was very sensible of his most christian majesties friendship , and that he would labour to cultivate it with all the good offices he was capable of doing for his majesty ; that he was fully convinced that their interests were both one that my lord arlington and the parliament vvere not only unuseful , but very dangerous both to england and france ; that therefore it was necessary that they should do all they could to dissolve it . and that his r. h's . opinion was , that if his most christian majesty would write his thoughts freely to the king of england upon this subject , and make the same proffer to his majesty of his purse to dissolve this parliament , which he had made to his r h. to call another , he did believe it very possible for him to succeed with the assistance we should be able to give him here ; and that if this parliament were dissolved , there would be no great difficulty of getting a new one , which would be more useful : the constitutions of our parliaments being such , that a new one can never hurt the crown , nor an old one do it good . his r. h. being pleased to own these propositions , which were but only general , i thought it reasonable to be more particular , and come closer to the point , we might go the faster about the work , and come to some issue before the time was too far spent . i laid this for my maxim : the dissolution of our parliament will certainly procure a peace ; which proposition was granted by every body i conversed withall , even by monsieur rouvigny himself , with whom i took liberty of discoursing so far , but durst not say any thing of the intelligence i had with father ferryer . next ; that a sum of money certain , would certainly procure a dissolution ; this some doubted , but i am sure i never did ; for i knew perfectly well that the king had frequent disputes with himself at that time , whether he should dissolve or continue them ; and he several times declared that the arguments were so strong on both sides , that he could not tell to which to incline , but was carried at last to the continuance of them by this one argument : if i try them once more , they may possibly give me money ; if they do , i have gain'd my point : if they do not , i can dissolve them then , and be where i am now ; so that i have a possibility at least of getting money for their continuance , against nothing on the other side : but if we could have turn'd this argument , and said ; sir , their dissolution will certainly procure you money , when you have only a bare possibility of getting any by their continuance , and have shewn how far that bare possibility was from being a foundation to build any reasonable hope upon , which i am sure his majesty was sensible of ; and how much 300000l . sterl . certain ( which was the sum we propos'd ) was better than a bare possibility ( without any reason to hope that that could ever be compassed ) of having half so much more ( which was the most he design'd to ask ) upon some vile dishonourable terms ; and a thousand other hazards , which he had great reason to be afraid of : if i say we had had power to have argued this , i am most confidently assured we could have compassed it , for logick in our court built upon money , has more powerful charms , then any other sort of reasoning . but to secure his most christian majesty from any hazard , as to that point i propos'd his majesty should offer that sum upon that condition , and if the condition were not performed , the money should never be due ; if it were , and that a peace would certainly follow thereupon , ( which no body doubted ) his majesty would gain his ends , and save all the vast expences of the next campaign , by which he could not hope to better his condition , or put himself into more advantagious circumstances of treaty then he was then in ; but might very probably be in a much worse considering the mighty opposition he was like to meet with , and the uncertain chances of war. but admitting that his majesty could by his great strength and conduct maintain himself in as good a condition to treat the next year as he was then in , ( which was as much as could then reasonably be hoped for ▪ ) he should have saved by this proposal , as much as all the men he must needs lose , and all the charges he should be at in a year , would be valued to amount to more then 300000l . sterl . and so much more in case his condition should decay , as it should be worse then it was when this was made ; and the condition of his r. h. and of the catholick religion here ( which dep●nds very much upon the success of his most christian majesty , ) ●●●ivered from a great many frights and real hazards . f. ferryer seem●d to 〈…〉 sensible of the benefit all parties would gain by this proposal ; but yet it was unfortunately delay'd by an unhappy and tedious fit of sickness , which kept him so long from the king in the france comte and made him so unable to wait on his majesty after he did return to paris : but so soon as be could compass it , he was pleased to acquaint his majesty with 〈◊〉 , and wrote to the duke himself ; and did me the honour to write unto me also on the 15th . of september 1674. and sent his letter by sir william throckmorton , who came express upon that errand ; in these letters he gave his r. h. fresh assurance of his most christian majesties friendship , and of his zeal and readiness to comply with every thing his r. h. had , or should think fit to propose in favour of religion , or the business of money ; and that he had commanded monsieur rouvigny as to the latter , to treat and deal with his r. h. and to receive and observe his orders and directions , but desired that he might not at all be concerned as to the former , but that his r. h. would cause what proposition he should think fit to be made about religion , to be offered either to father ferryer , or monsieur pompone . these letters came to us about the middle of september , and his r. h. expected daily when monsieur rouvigny should speak to him about the subject of that letter ; but he took no notice at all of any thing till the 29th . of september , the evening before the king and duke went to newmarket for a fortnight , and then only said , that he had commands from his master to give his r. h. the most firm assurance of his friendship imaginable , or something to that purpose , making his r. h. a general complement , but made no mention of any particular orders relating to father ferryer's letter . the duke wondering at this proceeding , and being obliged to stay a good part of october at newmarket ; and soon after his coming back-hearing of the death of father ferryer , he gave over all further prosecuting of the former project . but i believe i saw monsieur rouvigny's policy all along , who was vvilling to save his masters money , upon assurance that we would do all we could to stave off the parliament for our own sakes , that we would struggle as hard vvithout money as with it ; and vve having by that time , upon our ovvn interest , prevailed to get the parliament prorogued to the 13th . of april , he thought that prorogation being to a day so high in the spring , vvould put the confederates so far beyond their measures , as that it might procure a peace , and be as useful to france , as a dissolution : upon these reasons i suppose he vvent . i had several discourses vvith him ; and did open my self so far to him as to say , i could vvish his master vvould give us leave to offer to our master 300000l . for the dissolution of the parliament ; and shewed him that a peace vvould most certainly follow a dissolution ( which he agreed with me in ) and that vve desir'd not the mony from his master to excite our vvills , or to make us more industrious to use our utmost povvers to procure a dissolution , but to strengthen our povver and credit vvith the king , and to render us more capable to succeed vvith his majesty , as most certainly vve should have done , had vve been fortified vvith such an argument . to this purpose i press'd mounsieur pompone frequently by sir will. throckmorton , who returned hence again into france on the tenth of november , the day our parliament should have met , but was prorogued . mounsieur pompone ( as i was informed by sir william ) did seem to approve the thing ; but yet had two objections against it : first , that the sum we proposed , was great ; and could be very ill spared in the circumstances his most christian majesty was in . to which we answer'd , that if by his expending that sum , he could procure a dissolution of our parliament , and thereby a peace , which every body agreed would necessarily follow ; his most christian majesty would gain his ends , and save five or ten times a greater sum , and so be a good husband by his expence ; and if we did not procure a dissolution , he should not be at that expence at all ; for that we desired him only to promise upon that condition , which we were content to be obliged to perform first . the second objection was , the duke did not move , nor appear in it himself . to that we answered , that he did not indeed to mounsieur pompone , because he had found so ill an effect of the negotiation with father ferryer , when it came into mounsieur rouvigny's hands ; but that he had concerned himself in it to father ferryer . yet i continued to prosecute and press the dissolution of the parliament , detesting all prorogations as only so much loss of time , and a means of strengthning all those who depend upon it in opposition to the crown , the interest of france , and catholick religion , in the opinion they had taken , that our king durst not part with his parliament ; apprehending that another would be much worse . second , that he could not live long without a parliament , therefore they must suddenly meet ; and the longer he kept them off , the greater his necessity would grow ; and consequently their power to make him do what they listed , would increase accordingly : and therefore , if they could but maintain themselves a while , the day would certainly come in a short time , in which they should be able to work their wills. such discourses as these kept the confederates and our male-contents in heart , and made them weather on the war in spight of all our prorogations : therefore i press'd ( as i have said ) a dissolution until february last , when our circumstances were so totally changed , that we were forced to change our councels too , and be as much for the parliaments sitting , as we were before against it . our change was thus ; before that time , the lord arlington was the only minister in credit , who thought himself out of all danger of the parliament ; he having been accused before them and justified , & therefore was zealous for their sitting ; and to increase his reputation with them , and to become a perfect favourite , he sets himself all he could , to persecute the catholick religion , and to oppose the french : to shew his zeal against the first , he revived some old dormant orders for prohibiting roman catholicks to appear before the king , and put them in execution at his first coming into his office of lord chamberlain : and to make sure work with the second , as he thought ; prevailed with the king to give him and the earl of ossory , ( who married two sisters of myne heere odyke's ) leave to go over into holland with the said heere , to make a visit , as they pretended , to their relations ; but indeed , and in truth , to propose the lady mary ( eldest daughter of his r. h. ) as a match for the prince of orange ; not only without the consent , but against the good likeing of his r. h. : in so much , that the lord arlingtons creatures were forced to excuse him , with a distinction , that the said lady was not to be looked upon as the dukes daughter , but as the kings , and a child of the state was , and so the duke's consent not much to be considered in the disposal of her , but only the interest of state. by this he intended to render himself the darling of parliament and protestants , who look'd upon themselves as secured in their religion by such an alliance , and designed further to draw us into a close conjunction with holland , and the enemies of france . the lord arlington set forth upon this errand the tenth of november 1674. and returned not till the sixth of january following ; during his absence , the l. treasurer , l. keeper , & the duke of lauderdale , who were the only ministers of any considerable credit with the king , and who all pretended to be entirely united to the duke , declaimed loudly , & with great violence , against the said lord , & his actions in holland ; and did hope , in his absence , to have totally supplanted him , and to have routed him out of the kings favour ; and after that , thought they might easily enough have dealt with the parliament . but none of them had courage enough to speak against the parliament , till they could get rid of him ; for fear they should not succeed , and that the parliament would sit in spight of them , and come to hear that they had used their endeavours against it ; which would have been so unpardonable a crime with our omnipotent parliament , that no power could have been able to have saved them from punishment : but they finding at his return , that they could not prevail against him , by such means and arts as they had then tryed , resolved upon new councels ; which were to out-run him in his own course ; which accordingly they undertook , & became as fierce apostles , and as zealous for protestant religion , & against popery , as ever my l. arlington had been before them ; and in pursuance thereof , perswaded the king to issue out those severe orders & proclamations against catholicks , which came out in february last ; by which , they did as much as in them lay , to extirpate all catholicks , and catholick religion , out of the kingdom ; which councels , were in my poor opinion so detestable , being levelled ( as they must needs be ) so directly against the duke , by people which he had advanced , and who had professed so much duty and service to him , that we were put upon new thoughts how to save his r. h. now from the deceits and snares of those men , upon whom we formerly depended . we saw well enough , that their design was to make themselves as grateful as they could to the parliament , if it must sit ; they thinking nothing so acceptable to them , as the persecution of popery ; and yet they were so obnoxious to the parliaments displeasure in general , that they would have been glad of any expedient to have kept it off ; though they durst not engage against it openly themselves , but thought this device of theirs might serve for their purposes , hoping the duke would be so alarm'd at their proceedings , and by his being left by every body , that he would be much more afraid of the parliament than ever , and would use his utmost power to prevent its sitting : which they doubted not but he would endeavour ; & they were ready enough to work underhand too for him ( for their own sakes , not his ) in order thereunto , but durst not appear openly ; and to encourage the duke the more to endeavour the dissolution of the parliament , their creatures used to say up and down , that this rigour against the catholicks , was in favour of the duke , and to make a dissolution of the parliament more easy , ( which they knew he coveted ) by obviating one great objection which was commonly made against it , which was , that if the parliament should be dissolved , it would be said , that it was done in favour of popery ; which clamour they had prevented beforehand by the severity they had used against it . as soon as we saw these tricks put upon us , we plainly saw what men we had to deal withal , and what we had to trust to , if we were wholly at their mercy : but yet durst not seem so dissatisfied as we really were , but rather magnified the contrivance , as a device of great cunning and skill : all this we did , purely to hold them in a belief , that we would endeavour to dissolve the parliament , & that they might rely upon his r. h. for that which we knew they long'd for , and were afraid they might do some other way , if they discovered that we were resolved we would not : at length , when we saw the sessions secured , we declared , that we were for the parliaments meeting ; as indeed we were , from the moment we saw our selves handled by all the kings ministers at such a rate , that we had reason to believe , they would sacrifice france , religion , and his r. h. too , to their own interest , if occasion served ; and that they were lead to believe , that that was the only way they had to save themselves at that time : for we saw no expedient fit to stop them in their carreir of persecution , and those other destructive counsels , but the parliament ; which had set it self a long time to dislike every thing the ministers had done , and had appeared violently against popery , whilest the court seemed to favor it ; and therefore we were confident , that the ministers having turned their faces , the parliament would do so too , and still be against them ; and be as little for persecution then , as they had been for popery before . this i undertook to manage for the duke and the king of france's interest ; and assured mounsieur rouvigny ( which i am sure he will testify , if occasion serves ) that that sessions should do neither of them any hurt ; for that i was sure i had power enough to prevent mischief , though i durst not engage for any good they vvould do ; because i had but very few assistances to carry on the vvork , and vvanted those helps , which others had of making friends : the dutch and spaniard spared no pains or expence of mony to animate as many as they could against france ; our lord treasurer , lord keeper , all the bishops , & such as call'd themselves old cavaliers , ( who vvere all then as one man ) were not less industrious against popery , and had the purse at their girdle too ; vvhich is an excellent instrument to gain friends vvith ; and all united against the duke , as patron both of france and catholick religion . to deal with all this force , vve had no money , but vvhat came from a few private hands ; and those so mean ones too , that i dare venture to say , that i spent more my particular self out of my own fortune , and upon my single credit , than all the whole body of catholicks in england besides ; which was so inconsiderable , in comparison of what our adversaries commanded , and we verily believe did bestow in making their party , that it is not worth mentioning : yet notwithstanding all this , we saw that by the help of the nonconformists , as presbyterians , independents , and other sects , ( who were as much afraid of persecution as our selves ) and of the enemies of the ministers , and particularly of the treasurer ; who by that time had supplanted the earl of arlington , and was grown sole manager of all affaires himself , we should be very able to prevent vvhat they designed against us , and so render the sessions ineffectual to their ends , though vve might not be able to compass our own ; which were , to make some brisk step in favour of his r. h. to shew the king , that his majesties affairs in parliament were not obstructed , by reason of any aversion they had to his r. h's person , or apprehensions they had of him , or his religion ; but from faction and ambition in some , and from a real dissatisfaction in others , that we have not had such fruits and good effects of those great sums of money which have been formerly given as was expected . if we could then have made but one such step , the king would certainly have restored his r. h. to all his comissions ; upon which he would have been much greater than ever yet he was in his whole life , or could probably ever have been by any other course in the world , than what he had taken of becoming catholique , &c. and we were so very near gaining this point , that i did humbly beg his r. h. to give me leave to put the parliament upon making an address to the king , that his majesty would be pleased to put the fleet into the hands of his r. h. as the only person likely to give a good accompt of so important a charge as that was to the kingdom ; and shewed his r. h. such reasons to perswade him that we could carry it , that he agreed with me in it , that he believ'd we could . yet others telling him how great a damage it would be to him , if he should miss in such an undertaking ( which for my part i could not then see , nor do i yet ) he was prevailed upon not to venture , though he was perswaded he could carry it . i did communicate this designe of mine to mounsieur rouvigny , who agreed with me , that it would be the greatest advantage immaginable to his master , to have the dukes power and credit so far advanced as this would certainly do , if we could compass it : i shewed him all the difficulty we were like to meet with , and what helps we should have ; but that we should want one very matterial one , money , to carry on the work as we ought ; and therefore i do confess , i did shamefully beg his masters help , and would willingly have been in everlasting disgrace with all the world , if i had not with that assistance of twenty thousand pound sterling , ( which perhaps is not the tenth part of what was spent on the other side ) made it evident to the duke , that he could not have missed it . mounsieur rouvigny used to tell me , that if he could be sure of succeeding in that design , his master would give a very much larger sum ; but that he was not in a condition to throw away money upon uncertainties . i answered , that nothing of that nature could be so infallibly sure , as not to be subject to some possibilities of failing ; but that i durst venture to undertake to make it evident , that there was as great an assurance of succeeding in it , as any husbandman can have of a crop in harvest , vvho sovvs his ground in its due season ; and yet it vvould be counted a very imprudent peice of vvariness in any body , to scruple the venturing so much seed in its proper time , because it is possible it may be totally lost , and no benefit of it found in harvest ; he that mindes the winds and the rains at that rate , shall neither sovv nor reap . i take our case to be much the same as it was the last sessions : if we can advance the duke's interest one step forward , we shall put him out of the reach of chance for ever ; for he makes such a figure already , that cautious men do not care to act against him , nor always without him , because they do not see that he is much out-powred by his enemies ; yet is he not at such a pitch , as to be quite out of danger , or free from opposition : but if he could gain any considerable new addition of power , all would come over to him as to the only steddy center of our government , and no body would contend with him further . then would catholicks be at rest , and his most christian majestie 's interest secured with us in england , beyond all apprehensions whatsoever . in order to this , we have two great designes to attempt this next sessions . first , that which we were about before , viz. to put the parliament upon making it their humble request to the king , that the fleet may be put into his r. h's care. secondly , to get an act for general liberty of conscience . if we carry these two , or either of them , we shall in effect do what we list afterwards ; and truly , we think we do not undertake these great points very unreasonably , but that we have good cards for our game ; not but that we expect great opposition , and have great reason to beg all the assistance we can possibly get ; and therefore , if his most christian majesty would stand by us a little in this conjuncture , and help us with such a sum as 20000. l. sterling ( which is no very great matter to venture upon such an undertaking as this ) i would be content to be sacrificed to the utmost malice of my enemies , if i did not succeed . i have proposed this several times to monsieur rouvigny , who seemed always of my opinion ; and has often told me , that he has writ into france upon this subject , and has desired me to do the like : but i know not whether he will be as zealous in that point as a catholick would be ; because our prevailing in these things would give the greatest blow to the protestant religion here , that ever it received since birth ; which perhaps he would not be very glad to see ; especially when he believes there is another way of doing his masters business well enough without it ; which is by a dissolution of the parliament ; upon which i know he mightily depends , and concludes , that if that comes to be dissolved , it will be asmuch as he needs care for ; proceeding perhaps upon the same manner of discourse which we had this time twelve months . but with submission to his better judgment , i do think that our case is extreamly much altered to what it was , in relation to a dissolution ; for then the body of our governing ministers ( all but the earl of arlington ) were entirely united to the duke ; and would have governed his way , if they had been free from all fear and controul , as they had been , if the parliament had been removed . but they having since that time engaged in quite different councells , and embark't themselves and interests upon other bottoms , having declared themselves against popery , &c. to dissolve the parliament simply , and without any other step made , will be to leave them to govern what way they list , which we have reason to suspect will be to the prejudice of france and catholick religion . and their late declarations and actions have demonstrated to us , that they take that for the most popular way for themselves , and likeliest to keep them in absolute power ; whereas , if the duke should once get above them ( after the tricks they have plaid with him ) they are not sure he will totally forget the usage he has had at their hands : therefore it imports us now to advance our interest a little further , by some such project as i have named , before we dissolve the parliament ; or else perhaps , we shall but change masters ( a parliament for ministers ) and continue still in the same slavery and bondage as before . but one such step as i have proposed , being well made ; we may safely see them dissolved , and not fear the ministers ; but shall be established , and stand firm without any opposition ; for every body will then come over to us , and worship the rising sun. i have here given you the history of three years , as short as i could , though i am afraid it will seem very long and troublesome to your reverence , among the multitude of affairs you are concern'd in : i have also shewn you the present state of our case , vvhich may ( by god's providence and good conduct ) be made of such advantage to gods church ; that for my part , i can scarce believe my self awake , or the thing real , vvhen i think on a prince in such an age as vve live in , converted to such a degree of zeal and piety , as not to regard any thing in the world in comparison of god almighty's glory , the salvation of his own soul , and the conversion of our poor kingdom ; vvhich has been a long time opprest , and miserably harrast vvith heresy and schisme . i doubt not but your reverence will consider our case , and take it to heart , and afford us what help you can ; both with the king of heaven , by your holy prayers , and with his most christian majesty , by that great credit which you most justly have with him . and if ever his majesties affairs ( or your own ) can ever want the service of so inconsiderable a creature as my self , you shall never find any body readyer to obey your commands , or faithfuller in the execution of them , to the best of his power , than your most humble and obedient servant att. gen. that i may make things clear as much as possible ; you see , here 's a letter prepared to be sent , writ with mr. coleman's own hand , to mounsieur le chese : this letter bears date the twenty nineth of september . we have an answer to it from paris , october twenty third , whereby mounsieur le chese owns the receipt of this ; and in this answer , is exprest thanks to mr. coleman for his long letter . sir. robert , pray tell how you came by this letter . sir. rob. southwell , i found this letter in mr. colemans canvas bag ; after we had once looked over the letters , we found it : sr. phillip lloyd examined it ; and we looked over those papers very exactly : because the house of commons were very much concern'd , and thought those papers were not throughly examined , i reviewed them again . this letter was found on sunday following , after the papers were seized . mr. att. sir rob. southwell , i pray read the letter in french first to the court , ( sir. rob. having read the letter in french ) mr. attorney desired him to read it in english . sir. rob. read it it in english ; the letter was dated paris twenty third october 1675. and subscribed , your most humble and obedient servant , dcl at the bottom . the letter . from paris , 23. october 1675. sir , the letter which you gave your self the trouble to write to me , came to my hands but the last night i read it with great satisfaction ; and i assure you , that its length did not make it seem tedious . i should be very glad on my part to assist in seconding your good intentions ; i will consider of the means to effect it ; and when i am better informed than i am as yet , i will give you an account : to the end i may hold intelligence with you , as you did with my predecessour . i desire you to believe that i will never fail as to my good will , for the service of your master , whom i honour as much as he deserves , and that it is with great truth that i am your most humble and most obedient servant d. l. c. at. gen. we made mention of a declaration : by his long narrative it plainly appears , that mr coleman would have had another parliament . and the reason why he was pleased to publish a declaration , was , thereby to shew the reasons for its dissolution . sir philip floyd , did you find this writing among mr coleman's papers ? sir p. f. i did finde it among his papers . at. gen. pray read the declaration . clerk of the crown reads the declaration . the declaration which mr. coleman prepared , thereby shewing his reasons for the dissolution of the parliament . we having taken into our serious consideration the heats and animosities which have of late appeared among many of our very loyal and loving subjects of this kingdom , and the many fears and jealousies which some of them seem to lye under , of having their liberties and properties invaded , or their religion altered ; and withal , carefully reflecting upon our own government since our happy restauration , and the end and aim of it , which has always been the ease and security of our people in all their rights , and advancement of the beauty and splendour of the true protestant religion established in the church of england ; of both which we have given most signal testimonies , even to the stripping our self of many royal prerogatives which our predecessours enjoyed , and were our undoubted due ; as the court of wards , purveyances , and other things of great value ; and denying to our self many advantages , which we might reasonably and legally have taken by the forfeitures made in the times of rebellion , and the great revenues due to the church at our return , which no particular person had any right to : instead of which , we consented to an act of oblivion of all those barbarous usages which our royal father and our self had met withal , much more full and gracious than almost any of our subjects , who were generally become in some measure or other obnoxious to the laws , had confidence to ask ; and freely renounced all our title to the profit which we might have made by the church-lands , in favour of our bishops and other ecclesiastical ministers , out of our zeal to the glory of our protestant church ; which clemency to wards all , and some even high offenders , and zeal for religion , we have to this day constantly continued to exercise . considering all this , we cannot but be sensibly afflicted to see , that the frowardness of some few tumultuous heads should be able to infect our loyal and good people with apprehensions destructive of their own , and the general quiet of our kingdome ; and more especially , their perverseness should be powerful enough to distract our very parliament , and such a parliament , as has given as such testimonies of its loyalty , wisdom , and bounty , and to which we have given as many marks of our affection and esteem , so as to make them mis-conster all our endeavours for to preserve our people in ease and prosperity , and against all reason and evidence to represent them to our subjects as arguments of fear and disquiet ; and under these specious pretences of securing property and religion , to demand unreasonable things , manifestly destructive of what they would be thought to aim at ; and from our frequent condescentions , out of our meer grace , to grant them what we conceived might give them satisfaction , though to the actual prejudice of our royal prerogative , to make them presume to propose to advance such extravagancies into laws , as they themselves have formerly declared detestable ; of which we cannot forbear to give our truly loyal subjects some instances , to undeceive our innocent and well-minded people , who have many of them of late been too easily misled , by the factious endeavours of some turbulent spirits . for example , we having judged it necessary to declare war against the states of holland , during a recess of parliament , which we could not defer longer , without loosing an advantage which then presented it self , nor have done sooner , without exposing our honour to a potent enemy without due preparation , we thought it prudent to unite all our subjects at home , and did believe a general indulgence of tender consciences the most proper expedient to effect it ; and therefore did by our authority in ecclesiasticks , which we thought sufficient to warrant what we did , suspend penal laws against dissenters in religion , upon conditions expressed in our declaration , out of reason of state , as well as to gratifie our own nature , which always we confess abhorr'd rigour , especially in religion , when tenderness might be as useful . after we had engaged in the war , we prorogued our parliament from april to october , being confident we should be able by that time to shew our people such success of our arms , as should make them cheerfully contribute to our charge . at october we could have shewn them success even beyond our own hopes , or what they could possibly expect ; our enemies having lost by that time , near 100 strong towns and forts taken in effect by us , we holding them busie at sea , whilst our allies possessed themselves of their lands , with little or no resistance ; and of which , the great advantage would most visibly have been ours , had not the fewds we now complain of , which have been since unhappily started , and factiously improved by some few , dis-united our people , distracted our counsels , and render'd our late endeavours vain and fruitless ; so that we had no reason to doubt of our peoples ready and liberal concurrence to our assistance in that conjuncture . yet our enemies proposing to us at that time a treaty for peace , which we were always ready to accept upon honourable terms ; and considering with our self that in case that treaty succeeded , a far less sum of money would serve our occasions , than otherwise would be necessary : we out of our tender regard to the ease of our people , prorogued our parliament again to february , to attend the success of our treaty , rather than to demand so much money in october , as would be fit to carry on the war. but we soon finding that our enemies did not intend us any just satisfaction , saw a necessity of prosecuting the war , which we designed to do most vigourously ; and in order to it , resolv'd to press our parliament to supply us as speedily as may be , to enable us to put our fleet to sea early in the spring , which would after their meeting grow on apace . and being informed that many members were dead during the long recess , we issued out our writs for new elections , that our house of commons might be full at the first opening of the sessions , to prevent any delay in our publick affairs , or dislike in our people , as might possibly have risen from the want of so great a number of their representatives , if any thing of moment should be concluded before it had been supplyed . having govern'd our actions all along with such careful respect to the ease of our subjects , we at the meeting of our parliament in february 1672. expected from them some suitable expressions of their sense of our favours ; but quite contrary , found our self alarm'd with clamorous complaints from several cabals against all our proceedings , frighting many of our good subjects into strange conceits of what they must look for , by their seditious and false constructions of what we had so candidly and sincerely done for their good ; and surprised with a vote of our house of commons , against our writs of elections , which we intended for their satisfactions , against many presidents of ours , or without any colour of law of their side , denying our power to issue out such writs , addressing to us to issue out others : which we consented to do at their request choosing rather to yield to our subjects in that point , than to be forced to submit to our enemies in others ; hoping that our parliament being sensibly touched with that our extraordinary condescention , would go on consider the publick concern of the kingdom , without any further to do : but we found another use made of our so easie compliance , which serv'd to encourage them to ask more ; so that soon after we found our declaration for indulging tender consciences arraigned , voted illegal ; though we cannot to this day understand the consistences of that vote , with our undoubted supremacy in all ecclesiasticks , recognizing by so many acts of parliament , and required to be sworn to , by all our subjects , and addresses made to us one after another to recal it , which we condescended to also ; from hence they proceeded to us to weaken our self in an actual war , and to render many of our subjects , of whose loyalty and ability we were well satisfied , incapable to serve us , when we wanted officers and soldiers , and had reason to invite as many experienced men as we could to engage in our arms , rather than to incapacitate or discourage any ; yet this also we gratified them in , to gain their assistance against our enemies , who grew high by these our differences , rather than expose our countrey to their power and fury ; hoping that in time our people would be confounded to see our concessions , and be ashamed of their errors in making such demands . but finding the unfortunate effects of our divisions the following summer , we found our parliament more extravagant at the next meeting than ever , addressing to us to hinder the consummation of our dear brother's marriage , contrary to the law of god , which forbiddeth any to separate any , whom he hath joyned , against our faith and honour engag'd in the solemn treaty , obstinately persisting in that address , after we had acquainted them , that the marriage was then actually ratifyed , and that we had acted in it by our ambassador ; so that we were forced to separate them for a while , hoping they would bethink themselves better at their meeting in january . instead of being more moderate or ready to consider our wants towards the war ; they voted as they had done before , not to assist us still , till their religion were effectually secur'd against popery , aggrievances redressed , and all obnoxious men removed from us ; which we had reason to take for an absolute denyal of all aid ; considering the indefiniteness of what was to proceed , and the moral impossibility of effecting it in their sences : for when will they say their religion is effectually secured from popery , if it were in danger then , by reason of the insolency of papists . when our house of commons , which is made up of members from every corner of our kingdom , with invitations publickly posted up to all men to accuse them , has not yet in so many years as they have complained of them , been able to charge one single member of that communion , with so much as a misdemeanour . or what security could they possibly expect against that body of men , or their religion , more than we had given them ? or how can we hope to live so perfectly , that study and pains may not make a collection of grievances , as considerable as that which was lately presented to us , than which vve could not have wish'd for a better vindication of our government ? or when shall vve be sure that all obnoxious men are removed from us , when common same thinks fit to call them so ; which is to every body , without any proof , sufficient to render any man obnoxious , who is popishly affected , or any thing else that is ill , though they have never so often or lately complyed with their own tests and marks of distinction and discriminations . finding our people thus unhappily disordered , we saw it impossible to prosecute the war any longer ; and therefore did by their advice make a peace upon such conditions as we could get ; hoping that being gratified in that darling point , they would at least have paid our debts , and enabled us to have built some ships for the future security of our honour , and their own properties ; but they being tran●●orted with their success in asking , were resolved to go on still that way , and would needs have us put upon the removing of our judges from those charges , which they have always hitherto held at the vvill and pleasure of the crown , out of our power to alter the ancient laws of trying of peers , and to make it a premunire in our subjects ( in a case supposed ) not to fight against our self ; nay , some had the heart to ask , that the hereditary succession of our crown ( which is the foundation of all our laws ) should be changed into a sort of election , they requiring the heir to be qualified with certain conditions , to make him capable of succeeding , and out-doing that popish doctrine , which we have so long , and so loudly with good reason decryed , that heresie incapacitates kings to reign . they would have had , that the heir of the crown , marrying a papist , though he continued never so orthodox himself , should forfeit his right of inheritance ; not understanding this paradoxical way of securing religion by destroying it , as this would have done that of the church of england , which always taught obedience to their natural kings , as an indispensable duty in all good christians , let the religion or deportment of their prince be what it will ; and not knowing how soon that impediment , which was supposed as sufficient to keep out an heir , might be thought as fit to remove a possessor : and comparing that bill which would have it a premunire in a sheriff not to raise the posse comitatus , against our commission in a case there supposed , though we our self should assist that our commission in our person : for not being excepted , is implyed with the other made by this very parliament in the 14th year of our reign , which all our subjects , or at least many of them , were obliged to swear ( viz. ) that the doctrine of taking up arms by the king's authority against his person , was detestable ; and we soon found that the design was levelled against the good protestant religion of our good church , which its enemies had a mind to blemish , by sliding in slily those damnable doctrines , by such an authority as that of our parliament , into the profession of our faith or practices , and so expose our whole religion to the scorn and reproach of themselves , and all the world : we therefore thought it our duty to be so watchful as to prevent the enemies sowing such mischievous tares as these , in the wholsom field of our church of england , and to guard the unspotted spouse of our blessed lord , from that foul accusation , with which she justly charges other churches , of teaching their children loyalty , with so many reserves and conditions , that they shall never want a distinction to justifie rebellion , nor a text of scripture , as good as curse ye meroz , to encourage them to be traitors : whereas our truly reformed church knows no such subtilties ; but teaches according to the simplicity of christianity , to submit to every ordinance of man for god's sake , according to the natural signification of the words , without equivocation or artificial turns . in order to which , having thought to dissolve that body , which we have these many years so tenderly cherished , and which we are sure consists generally of most dutiful and loyal members , we were forc'd to prorogue our parliament till november next , hoping thereby to cure those disorders , which have been sown amongst the best and loyallest subjects , by a few malicious incendiaries . but understanding since , that such who have sowed that seditious seed , are as industriously careful to water it by their cabals , and emissaries , instructed on purpose to poison our people with discourses in publick places , in hopes of a great crop of confusion , their beloved fruit , the next sessions ; we have found it absolutely necessary to dissolve our parliament , though with great reluctancy and violence to our inclination : but remembring the dayes of our royal father , and the progress of affairs then , how from a cry against popery , the people went on to complain of grievances , and against evil councellors , and his majesties prerogative ; untill they advanc'd into a formal rebellion ; which brought forth the most dire and fatal effects , that ever were yet heard of amongst any men , christians or others ; and withal , finding so great a resemblance between the procedings then and now , that they seem both broth of the same brains : and being confirm'd in that conceit , by observing the actions of many now , who had a great share in the management of the former rebellion , and their zeal for religion , who by their lives give us too much reason to suspect they have none at all ; vve thought it not safe to dally too long , as our royal father did , with submissions and condescentions , endeavouring to cure men infected , without removing them from the air where they got the disease , and in which it still rages and increases daily . for fear of meeting with no better success than he found , in suffering his parliament to challenge power they had nothing to do with , till they had bewitch'd the people into fond desires of such things as quickly destroyed both king and country , which in us would be an intollerable error , having been warn'd so lately by the most execrable murther of our royal father , and the inhumane usage , which we our self in our royal person and family have suffered , and our loyal subjects have endured by such practices ; and least this our great care of this our kingdomes quiet , and our own honour and safety should , as our best actions have hitherto been ; be wrested to some sinister sence , and arguments be made from it to scare our good people into any apprehensions of an arbitrary government , either in church or state ; we do hereby solemnly declare and faithfully engage our royal word ; that vve will in no case either ecclesiastical or civil , violate or alter the known lawes of our kingdom ; or invade any man's property or liberty , without due course of law. but that we will with our utmost indeavours , preserve the true protestant religion , and redress all such things as shall indifferently , and without passion , be judg'd grievances by our next parliament ; which we do by god's blessing intend to call before the end of february next . in the mean time , we do strictly charge and command all manner of persons whatsoever , to forbear to talk seditiously , slightly or irreverently of our dissolving of the parliament , of this our declaration , or of our person or government , as they will answer it at their perils ; vve being resolv'd to prosecute all offenders in that kind with the utmost rigour and severity of the law. and to the end that such licentious persons , if any shall be so impudent and obstinate as to disobey this our royal command , may be detected , and brought to due punishment , we have ordered our lord treasurer to make speedy payment of twenty pounds to any person or persons , who shall discover or bring any such seditious , slight or irreverent talker before any of our principal secretaries of state. record . i would have the jury should know the declaration ends , to one of his majesties principal secretaries of state , whereof he hoped to be one . att. gen. this is written in the name of the king ; for mr. coleman thought himself now secretary of state , and he penns the declaration for the king to give an account , why the parliament was dissolved . serj. maynard . the long letter , it appears , was to dissolve the parliament ; and to make it cock-sure , he provides a declaration to shew the reason of it : it was done in order to bring in popery ; that may appear by the subsequent proof . att. gen. i have other evidence to offer to your lordship , which is , that mr. coleman was not onely so bold as to prepare a declaration for the king , but also out of his own further ingenuity , prepares a letter ( contrary to the duke's knowledg ) for the duke , which before several lords he confessed ; and sir philip floyd is here ready to justifie it . sir phil. floyd . i did attend a committee of the house of lords to newgate , who examined mr. coleman , and told him of the letter mr. attorney mentioneth ; he then confessed , that it was prepared without the order and privity of the duke ; and when he was so bold as to shew it the duke , the duke was very angry and rejected it . l. chief just . he hath been a very forward undertaker on the behalf of the duke . mr. att. gen. i desire the letter may be read . the copy of the letter written to monsieur le chese , the french king's confessor , which mr. coleman confessed he himself wrote , and counterfeited in the duke's name . clerk of the crown reads the letter . the 2 d. of june last past , his most christian majestie offered me most generously his friendship , and the use of his purse to the assistance against the designs of my enemies and his ; and protested unto me , that his interest and mine were so clearly linckt together , that those that opposed the one , should be lookt upon as enemies to the other ; and told me moreover his opinion of my lord arlington , and the parliament ; which is , that he is of opinion that neither the one nor the other , is in his interest or mine : and thereupon he desired me to make such propositions as i should think fit in this conjuncture . all was transacted by the means of father ferrier , who made use of sir william throgmorton , who is an honest man and of truth , who was then at paris , and hath held correspondence with coleman , one of my family , in whom i have great confidence . i was much satisfied to see his most christian majestie altogether of my opinion , so i made him answer the 29 th of june , by the same means he made use of to write to me , that is , by coleman , who addrest himself to father ferrier , ( by the forementioned knight ) and entirely agreed to his most christian majestie , as well to what had respect to the union of our interests , as the unusefulness of my lord arlington , and the parliament , in order to the service of the king my brother , and his most christian majestie ; and that it was necessary to make use of our joynt and utmost credits , to prevent the success of those evil designs , resolved on by the lord arlington and the parliament , against his most christian majestie and my self ; which of my side i promise really to perform ; of which , since that time , i have given reasonable good proof . moreover i made some proposals , which i thought necessary to bring to pass what we were obliged to undertake , assuring him , that nothing could so firmly establish our interest with the king my brother , as that very same offer of the help of his purse , by which means , i had much reason to hope i should be enabled to persuade to the dissolving of the parliament , and to make void the designs of my lord arlington , who works incessantly to advance the interest of the prince of orange and the hollanders , and to lessen that of the king your master , notwithstanding all the protestations he hath made to this hour , to render him service . but as that , which was proposed , was at a stand by reason of the sickness of father ferrier , so our affairs succeeded not according to our designs , only father ferrier wrote to me the ●● th of the last m●●●h that 〈…〉 & that they had been very well lik'd of ; but as they contained things that had regard to the catholick religion , & to the offer and use of his purse , he gave me to understand he did not desire i should treat with monsieur revigny upon the first , but as to the last , and had the same time acquainted me , that monsieur revigny had order to grant me what soever the conjuncture of our affairs did require ; and have expected the effects of it to this very hour : but nothing being done in it , and seeing on the other hand that my lord arlington and several others endeavoured by a thousand deceits to break the good intelligence , which is between the king my brother , his most christian majestie , and my self , to the end they might deceive us all three , i have thought fit to advertise you of all that is past , and desire of you your assistance and friendship to prevent the rogueries of those , who have no other design than to betray the concerns of france and england also , and who by their pretended service , are the occasion they succeed not . as to any thing more , i refer you to sir william throgmorton , and coleman , whom i have commanded to give an account of the whole state of our affair , and of the true condition of england , with many others , and principally my lord arlington's endeavours , to represent to you quite otherwise than it is . the two first i mentioned to you are firm to my interest , so that you may treat with them without any apprehension . serj. maynard . gentlemen of the jury , pray observe that he takes upon him to prepare a letter , and that in the duke's name , but contrary to the duke's knowledge or privacy ; for when he had so much boldness as to tell him of it , the duke was angry and rejected it . but in it we may see what kind of passages there are , he takes very much upon him in this matter , and mr. coleman must keep the secret too . att. general . my lord , i have but one paper more to read , and i have kept it till the last ; because if we had proved nothing by witness , or not read any thing but this , this one letter is sufficient to maintain the charge against him ▪ it plainly appears to whom it was directed , and at what time . it begins thus , ( i sent your reverence a tedious long letter on our 29 th of september , ) i onely mention this , to shew about what time it was sent . there are some clauses in it will speak better than i can ; sir tho. doleman and sir phillip floyd swear who hath confessed and owned it to be his hand writing , 〈…〉 . i desire the letter may be read . clerk of the crown reads the letter . sir , i sent your reverence a tedious long letter on our 29 th of september , to inform you of the progress of affairs for these 2. or 3. last years ; i having now again the opportunity of a very sure hand to convey this by , i have sent you a cipher , because our parliament now drawing on , i may possibly have occasion to send you something which you may be willing enough to know , and may be necessary for us that you should , when we may want the conveniency of a messenger . when any thing occurs of more concern other then which may not be fit to be trusted even to a cipher alone , i will , to make such a thing more secure , write in lemmon between the lines of a letter , which shall have nothing in it visible , but what i care not who sees , but dryed by a warm fire , shall discover what is written ; so that if the letter comes to your hands , and upon drying it , any thing appears more then did before , you may be sure no body has seen it by the way . i will not trouble you with that way of writing , but upon special occasions , and then i will give you a hint to direct you to look for it , by concluding my visible letter with something of fire or burning , by which mark you may please to know , that there is something underneath , and how my letter is to be used to find it out . we have here a mighty work upon our hands , no less than the conversion of three kingdoms , and by that perhaps the utter subduing of a pestilent heresie , which has domineered over great part of this northern world a long time ; there were never such hopes of success since the death of our queen mary , as now in our days . when god has given us a prince , who is become ( may i say a miracle ) zealous of being the author and instrument of so glorious a work ; but the opposition we are sure to meet with , is also like to be great : so that it imports us to get all the aid and assistance we can , for the harvest is great , and the labourers but few . that which we rely upon most , next to god almighty's providence , and the favour of my master the duke , is the mighty mind of his most christian majesty , whose generous soul inclines him to great undertakings , which being managed by your reverence's exemplary piety and prudence , will certainly make him look upon this as most sutable to himself , and best becoming his power and thoughts ; so that i hope you will pardon me if i be very troublesom to you upon this occasion , from whom i expect the greatest help we can hope for . i must confess i think his christian majesty's temporal interest is so much attracted to that of his r. h. ( which can never be considerable , but upon the growth and advancement of the catholick religion ) that his ministers cannot give him better advice , even in a politick sence , abstracting from the considerations of the next world , that of our blessed lord , to seek first the kingdom of heaven , and the righteousness thereof , that all other things may be added unto him . that i know his most christian majesty has more powerful motives suggested to him by his own devotion , and your reverences zeal for god's glory , to engage him to afford us the best help he can in our present circumstances . but we are a little unhappy in this , that we cannot press his majesty by his present minister here upon these latter arguments ( which are most strong ) but only upon the first , mr. rouvigny's sence and ours differing very much upon them , though we agree perfectly upon the rest : and indeed , though he be a very able man as to his master's service in things where religion is not concerned ; yet i believe it were much more happy ( considering the posture he is now in ) that his temper were of such a sort , that we might deal clearly with him throughout , and not be forc'd to stop short in a discourse of consequence , and leave the most material part out , because we know it will shock his particular opinion , and so perhaps meet with dislike and opposition , though never so necessary to the main concern . i am afraid we shall find too much reason for this complaint in this next session of parliament : for had we had one here from his most christian majesty , who had taken the whole business to heart , and who would have represented the state of our case truly , as it is , to his master , i do not doubt but his most christian majesty would have engag'd himself further in the affair than at present i fear he has done , and by his approbation have given such counsels as have been offered to his r. h. by those few catholicks who have access to him , and who are bent to serve him and advance the catholick religion with all their might , and might have more credit with his r. h. than i fear they have found , and have assisted them also with his purse as far as 10000 crowns , or some such sum ( which to him is very inconsiderable , but would have been to them of greater use than can be imagined ) towards gaining others to help them , or at least not to oppose them . if we had been so happy as to have had his most christian majesty with us to this degree , i would have answered with my life for such success this sessions , as would have put the interest of the catholick religion , his r. h. and his most christian majesty out of all danger , for the time to come . but wanting those helps of recommending those necessary counsels , which have been given his r. h. in such manner as to make him think them worth his accepting , and fit to govern himself by , and of those advantages , which a little money well managed , would have gained us . i am afraid we shall not be much better at the end of this sessions than we are now ; i pray god we do not lose ground . by my next , which will be e're long , i shall be able to tell your reverence more particularly , what we are like to expect . in the mean time i most humbly beg your holy prayers for all our undertakings , and that you will be pleased to honour me so far as to esteem me what i am entirely , and without any reserve . mon tres reverend pere le votre r. le plus humble plus obeisant serviteur . [ several other letters were read , but because of prolixity they are omitted , these being most material . ] attorn . gen. i have done with my evidence , we need no more proof against him . prisoner . my lord , i would , if your lordship please , very fain ask of mr. oates ( because he was pleased to say he was present with me in may or april ) whether he knows the particular days of the months . [ here mr. oates ( who being tired , withdrew to rest himself ) was called , and the prisoner was asked , whether he would speak with bedloe , but he desired not to speak with him . ] mr. oates . the consult that was held in may new-stile , is april old-stile , it was within a day or two , or three of the consult . pris . where was the consult ? oates . it was begun at the white-horse tavern , then they did adjourn it to several clubs and companies , and you came two or three days after the consult to the provincial's chamber , we then desiring to go out of town . pris . was you there , and who else ? oates . there was the provincial , and micho , and strange the old provincial , and keins your companion . pris . what day of august was that at the savoy ? oates . i cannot swear the particular day of the month , i cannot so far charge my memory . the result at the consult in may was , that pickering and groves should go on in their attempt , to assassinate the person of his majesty by shooting , or otherwise . mr. coleman knew of this , and said , it was a good design . l. chief just . who was there ? was mr. coleman with them at the consultation ? oates . no my lord , but two or three days after the consultation he was at wild-house , and there he expressed that he approved of it . l. chief just . did he consent to it ? oates . he did consent to it . just . wild. did he use no words about it ? oates . he did shew his approbation of it . but in those instructions that were brought to ashby , he did say it was a very good proposition , but he thought the reward was too little . l. chief just . did he use any words to declare his assent ? oates . two things lie couched in the question , whether your lordship means the consult , or the instructions , he did approve of . l. chief just . how long after the consultation was it that he approved of it ? oates . it was two or three days before he did give his approbation . just . wild. what words did he say ? oates . he did express his consent , but to say the very words i cannot tell . l. chief just . will you ask him any more ? pris . i would know the day in august ? l. chief just . he saith he doth not remember the day . oates . i believe , i will not be positive in it , it was about the 21th day of august . just . wild , and just . jones . was it in august old-stile ? oates . yes . pris . i can prove i was in warwick-shire at that time . that day he guesseth , the 21th of august , i can make it appear i was fourscore miles off . l. chief just . you will do well to prove you was there when the guinny was given . will you ask him any more ? pris . no. l. chief just . you may say as you will , but mr. oates doth charge , that expresly in august ( according to the english stile ) you were at this wild-house , and that he saw fourscore pounds prepared . you mr. coleman asked the question , what preparations were made for the men going to windsor ? it was answered , fourscore pounds are prepared : and your self gave a guinny for expedition . it is a hard matter to press a man to tell the precise day of the month , but positively he doth say it was in august . pris . i was two and twenty or three and twenty days in august in warwick-shire . l. chief just . what have you now more to say ? pris . my lord , i never saw mr. oates but in the council-chamber , i never saw him in rome , in other parts i never saw the face of him , or knew him in my whole life ; nor did i see the other till now in court , as i hope to be saved . and then , my lord , as to their testimony , neither of them swear the self-same fact. l. ch. just . no man shall be guilty , if denial shall make him innocent ; they swear to the fact of killing the king both of them , and that 's enough . if one saith you have a plot to poyson that is killing the king ; and the other swears a plot to shoot , or stab him , that is to the killing of the king also : then there 's your own undertaking , in your letter , under your hand . pris . for treason ( with submission to your lordship ) i hope there 's none in that , though there are very extravagant expressions in it , i hope some expressions explain it , that it was not my design to kill the king. l. ch. just . no , your design was for the conversion of three kingdoms , and subduing of that heresie that had reigned so long in this northern part of the world : and for effecting whereof , there were never more hopes since our queen mary ' s time till now , and therefore pressing the king of france to use his power , aid , and assistance , and does this signifie nothing ? pris . doth aid and assistance signifie more than money ? the word aid in french is power ; they are promiscuous words . l. ch. just . you are charged to have had a correspondency and agency with foreign power to subvert our religion , and bring in foreign authority and power upon us , which must be the necessary consequence : how can this be proved plainer than by your letters , to press the french king that he would use his power . pris . consider the contexture and connexion of things , whether the whole series be not to make the king and the duke ( as far as i thought in my power ) as great as could be . l. ch. just . how well or ill you excuse the fault , that 's not the question ; they relate to the duke most of them , little to the king. you were carrying on such a design , that you intended to put the duke in the head of , in such method and ways as the duke himself would not approve , but rejected . pris . do not think i would throw any thing upon the duke , though i might ( in the beginning of it ) possibly make use of the dukes name , it is possible ( they say i did ) but can any imagine the people will lay down money 200000l . or 20000l . with me upon the dukes name , and not know whether the duke be in it ; and consequently no body will imagine the duke would ever employ any sum to this kings prejudice or disservice while he lived . i take it for granted ( which sure none in the world will deny ) that the law was ever made immediately subject to the king or duke , and consequently to the duke , i cannot think this will ever be expounded by the law of england , or the jury , to be treason . l. ch. just . what a kind of way and talking is this ? you have such a swimming way of melting words , that it is a troublesom thing for a man to collect matter out of them . you give your self up to be a great negotiator in the altering of kingdoms , you would be great with mighty men for that purpose ; and your long discourses and great abilities might have been spared . the thing these letters do seem to import , is this , that your design was to bring in popery into england , and to promote the interest of the french king in this place , for which you hoped to have a pension ( that 's plain . ) the dukes name is often mentioned , that 's true ; sometimes it appears it is against his will , and sometimes he might know of it , and be told that the consequence was not great . now say you these sums of money and all that was done , it did relate to the king or duke , and it was to advance their interest , and you thought it was the way to do it . how can this advance them unless it were done to do them service ; and if they do not consent to it , and how can this be treason , what kind of stuff is this ? you do seem to be a mighty agent , might not you for a colour use the duke of york's name to drive on the catholick cause , which you was driven to by the priests mightily , and think to get 200000l . advance money , and a pension for your self , and make your self somebody for the present , and secretary of state for the future ? if you will make any defence for your self , or call in witnesses , we will hear them ; say what you can ; for these vain inconsequential discourses signifie nothing . pris . i have witnesses to prove i was in warwick-shire . l. ch. just . ( to boatman a witnesse . ) where was mr. coleman in aug. last ? boatm . in warwick-shire . l. ch. just . how long ? boatm . all august , to my best remembrance . l. ch. just . can you say that he was in warwick-shire all august ? that he was not at london ? boatm . i am not certain what time of the month he was in london . l. ch. just . that he was there in august , may be very true ; i do not ask how long he was in warwick-shire , but was he no where else ? ( to which the witness could make no positive answer . ) pris . i was at the lord denby's , and at mr. francis fisher's ; i was there at least twenty days . l. ch. just . have you any more witnesses ? pris . ans . none . l. ch. just . if you have a mind to say any thing more , say what you can . pris . i can say nothing more than what i have said . positively i say ( and upon my salvation ) i never saw these witnesses , oates but once , and bedlow never before . sir francis winnington , his majesty's sollicitor general , sums up the evidence , as followeth . may it please your lordship , and you gentlemen of the jury , the cause before you ( i dare adventure to say ) is a cause of as great a nature , and includes as great crimes , as ever came to this bar. it is not a cause of a particular treason , but ' t is a treason that runs to the whole , the king , the government , and the protestant religion , all are comprehended in it . the defence the prisoner has made is so very short , and of so slight a nature , that i shall contract my self very much in what i had to say , and only state to the court , and jury , the principal things i rely upon . the first crime laid in the indictment , is the design of killing and destroying the royal person of his majesty . the second , the subverting of the government , and in doing that , the destruction of the protestant religion . and these treasons have been punctually proved , as well by two witnesses , as by letters under mr. colemans own hand , whereby he corresponded with monsieur le chese , the french kings confessor , as also by the answers which were sent by monsieur le chese to mr. coleman . as to the proofs made by the witnesses , the substance of them is this . mr. oates swears , that in april last old style , and may new style , there was a general consult or meeting of the jesuites , at the white-horse-tavern in the strand ; and afterwards they divided themselves into several companies , or clubs ; and in those consults they conspired the death of the king , and contrived how to effect it . the manner of it was thus , ( as mr. oates positively swears ) that grove and pickering were imployed to murther the king ; and their design was to pistol him in st. james ' s park . grove was to have fifteen hundred pounds in money , and pickering [ ( being a priest ) was to have thirty thousand masses , which was computed to be of equal value to fifteen hundred pounds , according to the usual price in the church of ] rome . and this conspiracy and contrivance mr. coleman was privy to ▪ and did well approve of the same , as mr. oates affirmeth upon his oath . so that here is a plain treason proved upon the prisoner , by his assenting to the fact to be done , the law not allowing any accessaries in treason . and this in law makes the prisoner as guilty as any of the assassinates , who designed to kill the king with their own hands . if this design should fail , mr. oates swears , that the conspirators intended a farther attempt upon the royal person of the king , when be should be at windsor ; and four irish assassinates were provided by doctor fogarty , whose names he would not tell , and fourscore guinneys were provided by father harcourt ( a jesuit ) to maintain the assassinates at windsor , till they should have effected their wicked design . while the conspiracy was thus in agitation , mr. coleman , the prisoner , went to visit harcourt the jesuit at his house in town ; but finding him not at home , and being informed that he was at wild-house , mr. coleman went thither and found him there ; and mr. coleman asking what provision harcourt had made for the gentlemen at windsor ; harcourt replyed , that there were fourscore guinneys , which then lay upon the table , which were to be sent to them ; and said , that the person who was in the room was to carry them . to which mr. coleman replyed , he liked it very well ; and gave a guinney out of his own pocket to the messenger who was to carry the money to windsor , to encourage him to expedite the business . but in case the design of killing his majesty at windsor should be any ways prevented , then there was a further conspiracy , to destroy the king by poison . mr. oates swears , that in july last , ashby ( a jesuit ) brought instructions to london from flanders , that in case pickering and grove could not kill the king at london , nor the four irish assassinates at windsor , then ten thousand pounds was to be proposed to sir george wakeman to poyson the king. but it did appear by the letters that passed between white the provincial ( here in london ) and ashby , that mr. coleman said , he thought ten thousand pounds was too little ; and therefore thought it necessary to offer five thousand pounds more , which afterwards was assented to by the jesuites abroad . and mr. oates swears , he saw letters from the provincial at london , to the jesuites at st. omer , signifying , that sir george wakeman had accepted of the proposition , and received five thousand pounds of the money . by which testimony , of mr. oates , it plainly appears , that mr. coleman , the prisoner at the bar , was privy to the conspiracy , and aiding and abetting to the wicked and damnable design of murdering the king. the second witness is mr. bedlow , who swears that he was imployed by harcourt , the jesuit , to carry pacquets of letters to monsieur le chese , the french kings confessor ; and further says , he was at a consult in france , where the plot was discoursed on for killing the king ; and did bring back an answer from le chese to harcourt in london , and swears particularly , that on the 24th or 25th of may , 1677. he was at colemans house with father harcourt , and some other persons , where mr. coleman , discoursing of the great design in hand , said these words following . that if he had a sea of blood , and an hundred lives , he would lose them all to carry on the design ; and if to effect this , it were necessary to destroy an hundred heretick kings , he would do it . so that here is another positive oath to an act of treason committed by mr. coleman , in relation to the murthering the king. the other part of the evidence consists of papers and letters , which generally relate to prove the latter part of the indictment ; to wit , the extirpation of the protestant religion , and introducing of popery , and the subverting of the government . and this appears by a letter written by mr. coleman , dated 29. septem 75. and sent to monsieur le chese , the french [ kings confessor ; wherein he gives him an account of the transactions of several years before , and of the correspondence between mr. coleman and monsieur ferrier , predecessor to le chese ; wherein he does also assert , that the true way to carry on the interest of france , and the promoting of the popish religion here in england , was , to get this parliament dissolved ; which ( says he ) had been long since effected , if three hundred thousand pounds could have been obtained from the french king ; and that things yet were in such a posture , that if he had but twenty thousand pounds sent him from france , he would he content to be a sacrifice to the utmost malice of his enemies , if the protestant religion did not receive ] such a blow as it could not subsist . and the receipt of this letter was acknowledged by monsieur le chese , in an answer which he wrote to mr. coleman , dated from paris oct. 23. 75. in which he gives him thanks for his good service , in order to the promoting the popish religion . several other letters have been produced and read , which were written by mr. coleman to monsieur ferrier and others , and more particularly one letter dated august 21. 74. written by coleman to the popes internuntio at brussels , wherein he says the design prospered so well , that he doubted not but in a little time the businesse would be managed , to the utter ruine of the protestant party . and by other letters he writes to the french kings confessor that the assistance of his most christian majesty is necessary , and desires money from the french king to carry on the design . but there is one letter , without date , more bloody than all the rest , which was written to monsieur le chese in some short time after the long letter of september 29. 1675. wherein , amongst many other things , coleman expresses himself thus . we have a mighty work upon our hands , no less than the conversion of three kingdoms , and the utter subduing of a pestilent heresie , which hath for some time domineer'd over this northern part of the world ; and we never had so great hopes of it since our q. mary's days . and in the conclusion of the letter he implores monsieur le chese to get all the aid and assistance he can from france , and that next to god almighty , they did rely upon the mighty mind of his most christian majesty , and therefore did hope le chese would procure money and asistance from him . now any man that considers the contents of these letters , must needs agree , that the latter part of the indictment , to wit , the treason of endeavouring the subverting the government and the protestant religion , is fully proved upon mr. coleman , the prisoner at the bar ; and that these letters were written by him , and the answers received he does not deny . but all he has to say for himself , is that it was to make the king of england great ; whereas the contrary is most manifest , because the jesuits who love force and tyranny , always adhere to those princes that are greatest in strength and power . for it appears in history , that when the house of austria were in their greatness , and like to arrive to the vniversal monarchy in these parts of the world , the jesuits all adhered to that house ; but since the french king hath grown more mighty in power and greatness , they declined the interest of the austrian family , and do now promote the councels of france , thinking that now that king will become the vniversal monarch . i shall therefore now conclude the evidence , only observing to the jury , that the several treasons in the indictment are fully proved . the first as to the destruction of the royal person of the king , by two witnesses , mr. oates , and mr. bedlow ; the other part of it , viz. the subversion of the government , and extirpation of the protestant religion , by the several letters which have been before remembred , which have not been denyed by the prisoner to be his . therefore i hope gentlemen , when you meet with offenders that are guilty of such stupendious crimes , you will do justice upon them , which will be a great comfort and satisfaction to the king and all his good protestant subjects . serj. pembert . gentlemen , you hear the crime is of the highest nature , it 's the subversion of three kingdoms and the subduing of that religion which he defames by the name of pestilent heresie . it concerns us all to look about us , and all the kingdom , when there shall be a design managed in this manner , to destroy our king , and to take away our religion , and to enslave us all to the pope , and make us all truckle to the priests . it is wonderful it is capable ( at this day ) of so great evidence , there is digitus dei in it , or else it would be impossible such a thing should be made so manifest : all the rest that is said in the indictment are but circumstances that declare it : there is a strong evidence of many matters of fact in this design , which declare the intention hatched in his breast for many years together : here hath been a design to kill the king , and he doth not only consent to it , but commend it ; what can be said to his giving the money to him that was to pay the fourscore pieces of gold to those ruffians sent to windsor ? and adding 5000 l. to the 10000l . for the doctor that was to poyson the king ? he denies all . no question but a man that hath had a heart to design such contrivances , will have the face to deny it publickly : it 's a thing to be acted in the dark , but there 's both mr. oates and mr. bedlow plainly prove it upon him , that he consented to the acting the kings death what 's the sence of his letters , but to shew his design , and to beg the assistance of france to them in their necessities ? the whole current is to destroy our religion . i think you gentlemen of the jury have had such evidence as will satisfie any man. pris . i deny all mr. oates his testimony , for his saying to the council he did not know me because he could not see me , when i was as near as the next gentleman but one , but knew me when i spake , and i spoke to almost all the matters asked . he accuseth me of a thing in august , but names not the day : now if there be one error in his testimony it weakens all the rest . i went out of town the 10th of august , it was the latter end i came home , about the middle of bartholomew fair , the last day of august . l. ch. just. have you any witness to prove that ? pris . i cannot say i have a witnesse . l. ch. just . then you say nothing . pris people cannot speak to a day , to a thing they neither imagined or thought of . l. ch. just . i ask your servant , do you know when mr. coleman went out of town ? coleman's serv. in august , i cannot say particularly the day . l. ch. just . do you know when he came home ? serv. i cannot remember . just . wild. where was you the last bartholomew day ? serv. i was in town . just . wild. where was your master ? serv. i do not remember . l. ch. just . you say you went out of town the 10th , and came home the last of august ; you say it is impossible that he should say right , but yet you do not prove it . pris . i have no more to say , but i entered down all my expences every day in a book , which book will shew where i was . l. ch. just . where is your book ? pris . at my lodging in vere-street by covent-garden : in a trunck that came by the carrier , that will shew when they were sent . l. ch. just . if the cause did turn upon that matter , i would be well content to sit untill the book was brought , but i doubt the cause will not stand upon that foot , but if that were the case it would do you little good . observe what i say to the jury . my lord chief justice his speech to the jury upon his summing up of the evidence . gentlemen of the jury ; my care at this time shall be to contract this very long evidence , and to bring it within a short compass , that you may have nothing before you to consider of , as near as i can , but what is really material to the acquitting or condemning of mr. coleman . the things he is accused of are of two sorts ; the one is , to subvert the protestant religion and to introduce popery : the other was to destroy and kill the king. the evidence likewise was of two sorts ; the one by letters of his own hand writing , and the other by witnesses viva voce . the former he seems to confess , the other totally to deny . for that he confesseth , he does not seem to insist upon it , that the letters were not his , he seems to admit they were ; and he rather makes his defence by expounding what the meaning of these letters were , than by denying himself to be the author . i would have you take me right , when i say he doth admit ; he doth not admit the construction , that the kings council here makes upon them : but he admits that these letters were his . he admits it so far , that he does not deny them . so that you are to examine what these letters import in themselves , and what consequences are naturally to be deduced from them . that which is plainly intended , is to bring in the roman catholick , and to subvert the protestant religion . that which is by consequence intended , was the killing the king , as being the most likely means to introduce that , which as 't is apparent by his letters , was designed to be brought in . for the first part of the evidence . all his great long letter that he wrote , was to give the present confessor of the french king an account of what had passed between him and his predecessor ; by which agency , you may see that mr. coleman was in with the former confessor . and when he comes to give an account of the three years transactions to this present confessor , and to begin a correspondence with him , about what is it ? why , the substance of the heads of the long letter comes to this . it was to bring in the catholick as he call'd it , ( that is ) the romish catholick religion , and to establish that here ; and to advance an interest for the french king , be that interest what it will. it 's true , his letters do not express what sort of interest , neither will i determine : but they say it was to promote the french kings interest , which mr. coleman would expound in some such sort , as may consist with the king of englands , and the duke of york's interest . but this is certain , it was to subvert our religion , as it is now by law established . this was the great end thereof , it cannot be denyed : to promote the interest ( i say ) of the french king , and to gain to himself a pention as a reward of his service , is the contents of his first long letter , and one or two more concerning that pention . his last letters expound more plainly what was mea●t by the french kings interest . we are ( saith he ) about a great work , no less than the conversion of three kingdoms , and the totall and utter subversion and subduing of that pestilent heresie ( that is the protestant religion ) which hath reigned so long in this northern part of the world ; and , for the doing of which , there never was such great hopes since our queen maries days , as at this time . now this plainly shews , that our religion was to be subverted , popery established , and the three kingdoms to be converted ; that is indeed , to be brought to confusion . for i say , that when our religion is to be subverted , the nation is to be subverted and destroyed , that is most apparent : for there could be no hope of subverting or destroying the protestant religion , but by a subversion , not conversion of the three kingdoms . how was it to be done otherwise ? why , i would have brought this religion in ( says he ) by dissolving of the parliament . i would have brought it in by an edict and proclamation of liberty of conscience . in these ways i would have brought it in . mr. coleman knows it is not fit for him to own the introducing of his religion by the murder of the king , or by a forein force . the one was too black and the other too bloody , to be owned . and few people ( especially the english ) will be brought to save their lives ( as he may do his ) by confession of so bloody and barbarous a thing , as an intention to kill the king , or of levying a war ; which though it be not a particular , is a general murder . i say , it was not convenient for mr. coleman , when he seem● to speak something for himself , to give such an account , how he would have done it ; therefore he tells us , he would have done it by the dissolving of the parliament and by toleration of religion . now i would very fain know of any man in the world , whether this was not a very fine and artificial covering of his design for the subversion of our religion ? pray , how can any man think , that the dissolving of the parliament could have such a mighty influence to that purpose ? it is true , he might imagine it might in some sort contribute towards it : yet it is so doubtful , that he himself mistrusts it . for he is sometimes for the dissolving of the parliament , and other times not , as appears by his own papers : for which we are not beholding to him , so much as for any one , more than what were found by accident , and produced to the king and council . but in truth , why should mr. coleman believe that another parliament ( if this parliament were dissolved ) should comply with popery ? that is to say , that there should be great hopes of bringing in of popery by a new parliament ? unless he can give me a good reason for this , i shall hold it as insignificant and as unlikely to have that effect , as his other way by a general toleration . and therefore next , upon what ground does he presume this ? i do assure you , that man does not understand the inclinations of the english people , or knows their tempers , that thinks , if they were left to themselves and had their liberty , they would turn papists . it 's true , there are some amongst us that have so little wit as to turn fanaticks , but there is hardly any , but have much more wit than to turn papists . these are therefore the counterfeit pretentions of mr. coleman . now if not by these means , in what way truly did he intend to bring in popery ? why his own letters plainly convict him of one step towards it , in endeavouring with foreign powers to bring in that religion , and to subvert ours . and for the other way of doing it , by killing the king ; i leave it to you whether there were any more probable way than that indeed to do it . and could he think , that the french king would not have thought himself cozened of his money , if he had not given him hopes that he would use the most probable methods that he could , to effect his design ? therefore there must be more in it ; for he that was so earnest for that religion , would not have stuck at any violence to bring it in ; he would not have stuck at blood . for we know their doctrines and their practises , and we know well , with what zeal the priests push them forward to venture their own lives , and to take away other mens , that differ from them , to bring in their religion , and to set up themselves . for indeed in the kingdoms and countries where popery reigns , the priests have dominion over mens consciences , and power over their purses . and they use all arts imaginable of making proselites , and take special care , that those in their communion , shall know no more than the priests shall give them leave to understand . and for this reason they prohibit the use of all books without their license . this blind obedience begets blind ignorance , and this is a great subtilty of theirs to keep them in it , that they may perfectly submit to them , what cannot they command , when they have made others slaves in their understandings , and that they must know no more , then what they give them leave to know ? but in england it is not so mr. coleman ; and therein you would have found a great disappointment . for if liberty of conscience had been tollerated here , that the consequence of it would have been popery , i deny . nothing is more unlikely , for though in the short reign of queen mary , popery came in for some time , which was but for a little time , and then the people were not so well grounded in the protestant religion , nor in the principles of it : but now they are , insomuch , that scarce a cobler but is able to baffle any roman priest that ever i saw or met with . and thanks be to god we have a preaching ministry , and the free use of the scriptures allowed amongst us , which they are not permitted to have . and after this i wonder , that a man , who hath been bred up in the protestant religion ( as i have reason to believe that you mr. coleman have been ) for ( if i am not misinformed ) your father was a minister in suffolk . for such a one to depart from it , is an evidence against you , to prove the indictment . i must make a difference between us , and those who have been always educated that way , and so are under the prepossession of their education , which is a difficult thing to be overcome . and i do assure you , there are but two things , that i know of , can make one do it , interest , or gross ignorance . no man of understanding , but for by-ends , would have left his religion to be a papist . and for you mr. coleman , who are a man of reason and subtilty , i must tell you ( to bring this to your self ) upon this account , that it could not be conscience , i cannot think it to be conscience . your pention was your conscience , and your secretaries place your bait. for such men ( i say ) as have been bred up in the protestant religion , and left it , i can hardly presume that they do it out of conscience , unless they do it upon a mighty search , not leaning upon their own understanding and abilities , nor hearing of one side alone . conscience is a tender thing , conscience will tremble when it leaves the religion it has been bred in , and its sincerity is shown by being fearful , least it should be in the wrong . no man may pretend to conscience truly , that takes not all courses imaginable to know the right , before he lets his religion slip from him . have we so soon forgot our reverence to the late king , and the pious advice he left us ? a king that was truly a defender of the faith , not onely by his title , but by his abilities and writings . a king , who understood the protestant religion so well , that he was able to defend it against any of the cardinals of rome . and when he knew it so throughly , and died so eminently for it , i will leave this characteristical note , that whosoever after that , departs from his judgment , had need have a very good one of his own , to bear him out . i do acknowledge , many of the popish priests formerly , were learned men , and may be so still , beyond the seas : but i could never yet meet with any here , that had other learning or ability but artificial onely , to delude weak women , and weaker men. they have indeed , ways of conversion , and conviction , by enlightning our understandings with a faggot , and by the powerful and irresistable arguments of a dagger : but there are such wicked soloecisms in their religion , that they seem to have left them neither natural sense , nor natural conscience . not natural sense by their absurdity , in so an unreasonable a belief , as of the wine turned into blood : not natural conscience , by their cruelty , who make the protestants blood as wine , and these priests thirst after it . tantum religio potuit suadere malorum ? mr. coleman , in one of his letters , speaks of rooting out our religion , and our party ; and he is in the right , for they can never root out the protestant religion , but they must kill the protestants . but let him and them know , if ever they shall endeavour to bring popery in , by destroying of the king , they shall find , that the papists will thereby bring destruction upon themselves , so that not a man of them would escape . ne catulus quidem relinquendus . our execution shall be as quick as their gunpowder , but more effectual . and so gentlemen , i shall leave it to you , to consider , what his letters prove him guilty of directly , and what by consequence ; what he plainly would have done , and then , how he would have done it ; and whether you think his fiery zeal had so much cold blood in it , as to spare any others ? for the other part of the evidence , which is by the testimony of the present witnesses , you have heard them . — i will not detain you longer now the day is going out . mr. j. jones . you must find the prisoner guilty , or bring in two persons perjured . l. c. j. gentlemen , if your consultation shall be long , then you must lie by it all night , and we 'l take your verdict to morrow morning . if it will not be long , i am content to stay a while . jury . my lord , we shall be short . j. wyld . we do not speak to you to make more haste , or less , but to take a full consultation , and your own time ; there is the death of a man at the stake , and make not too much haste , we do not speak it on that account . the jury went from the bar , and returned . court. are you all agreed of your verdict ? jury . yes . court. who shall speak for you ? jury . the foreman . court. edward coleman , hold up thy hand . court. is edward coleman guilty of the high treason , whereof he stands indicted , or not guilty ? jury . guilty , my lord. court. what goods chattels , &c. prisoner . you were pleased to say to the jury , that they must either bring me in guilty , or two persons perjured : i am a dying man , and upon my death , and expectation of salvation , declare , that i never saw these two gentlemen , excepting mr. oates , but once in all my life , and that was at the council table . l. c. j. mr. coleman , your own papers are enough to condemn you . court. capt. richardson , you must bring mr. coleman hither again to morrow morning , to receive his sentence . the day following , being november the 28th . mr. coleman was brought to the bar , to receive his sentence , and the court proceeded thereupon , as followeth . l. c. j. ask him what he can say for himself ; make silence cryer . court. edward coleman , hold up thy hand , thou hast been indicted of high treason , thou hast thereunto pleaded , not guilty ; thou hast put thy self upon god and thy countrey , which countrey ; hath found thee guilty ; what canst thou say for thy self , wherefore judgment of death should not be given against thee , and an execution awarded according to law ? mr. coleman . may it please you , my lord , i have this to say for my self ; as for my papers , i humbly hope , ( setting aside oral testimony ) that i should not have been found guilty of any crime in them , but what the act of grace would have pardoned , and i hope , i shall have the benefit of that : the evidence against me , namely oral , i do humbly beg , that you would be pleased , to give me a little time to shew you , how impossible it is , that those testimonies should be true ; for that testimony of mr. oates in august , my man , that is now either in the court or hall , hath gotten a book that is able to make it appear , that i was out of town , from the 15th of august to the 31 of august late at night . l. c. j. that will not do , mr. coleman . coleman . i do humbly offer this , for this reason ; because mr. oates , in all his other evidences , was so punctual , as to distinguish between old stile and new , he never mist the month , hardly the week , and often times put the very day ; for his testimony that he gave against me , was , that it was the 21 of august . l. c. j. he thought so , but he was not possitive , but onely as to the month. coleman . he was certain it was the latter end of august , and that about bartholomewtide . l. c. j. he conceived so , he thought so . coleman . now if i was always out of town from the 15 day of august , to the 31 late at night , it is then impossible , my lord , that that should be a true testimony , your lordship was pleased to observe , that it would much enervate any mans testimony , if to the whole he could be proved false in any one thing ; i have further in this matter to say , besides my mans testimony , the king hath since i have been seized on , seized on my papers and my book of accounts where i used punctually to set down where i spent my money ; and if it doth not appear by that book that i was all those days and times , and several other days in august , to be out of town , i desire no favour . you cannot suppose my lord , nor the world believe , that i prepared that book for this purpose in this matter ; and i can make it appear by others , if i had time ; but i only offer this to your lordship , that seeing mr. oates did name so many particulars and circumstances , it 's very strange that he should fail in a particular of such importance as about killing the king ; and no man living of common sense would think or believe that i should speak about such a thing in company that i did not well know , and this to be done frequently and oftentimes as he asserts it , when oates seem'd to the king and council ( and i believe the king himself remembers it ) when i was examined , that he did not know me , that he knew nothing of me , so that here is two things against this witness that can hardly happen again . my circumstances are extraordinary , and it is a great providence , and i think your lordship and the whole world will look upon it as such , if for any crimes that are in my papers , if there be any mercy to be showed me by the kings gracious act of pardon , i humbly beg that i may have it . l. c. j. none . col. if none i do humbly submit ; but i do humbly hope with submission , that those papers would not have been found treasonable papers . l. c. j. those letters of yours mr. coleman , were since the act of pardon , your papers bear date 1674.1675 . and there hath been no act since . but as for what you say concerning mr. oates , you say it in vain now mr. coleman , for the jury hath given in their verdict , and it is not now to be said , for after that rate we shall have no end of any mans trial ; but for your satisfaction mr. coleman , to the best of my remembrance , mr. oates was positive only as to the month of august , he thought it might be about the 21st . day or about bartholomew-fair time ; but he was absolute in nothing but the month . col. he was punctual in all his other evidences , but in this he was not , and when i was examined at the council table , he said he knew little of me . l.c.j. he charged you positively for having held conspiracy to poison the king ; and that there was ten thousand pounds to be paid for it , and afterwards there was five thousand pound more to be added ; and he positively charges you to be the person that amongst all the conspirators was reputed to pay the five thousand pound . col. he said it after such a fashion . l. c. j. he said it after such a fashion that sir robert southwell and sir thomas doleman satisfied us that he did the thing , and that plainly to his understanding ; and what say you he said ? col. that he did not know me . l. c. j. neither of them say so , that he said he did not know you , they deny it . col. he said so upon my death . l. c. j. 't is in vain to dispute it further , there must be an end. cryer , make o yes , our soveraign lord the king doth straightly charge and command all persons to keep silence while judgment is given upon the prisoner convict , upon pain of imprisonment . l. c. j. you are found guilty mr. coleman of high treason , and the crimes are several that you are found guilty of . you are found guilty of conspiring the death of the king ; you are likewise found guilty of endeavouring to subvert the protestant religion as it is by law established , and to bring in popery , and this by the aid and assistance of forraign powers . and i would not have you mr. coleman in your last apprehension of things , to go out of the world with a mistake if i could help it , that is , i would not have you think , that though you only seem to disavow the matter of the death of the king , that therefore you should think your self an innocent man. you are not innocent i am sure , for it is apparent by that which cannot deceive , that you are guilty of contriving and conspiring the destruction of the protestant religion , and to bring in popery , and that by the aid and assistance of forraign powers , and this no man can free you in the least from . and know , that if it should be true , that you would disavow , that you had not an actual hand in the contrivance of the kings death ( which two witnesses have sworn positively against you ) : yet he that will subvert the protestant religion here , and bring in consequentially a forraign authority , do's an act in derogation of the crown , and in diminution of the kings title and soveraign power ; and endeavours to bring a forraign dominion both over our consciences and estates and if any man shall endeavour to subvert our religion to bring in that , though he did not actually contrive to do it by the death of the king , or it may be not by the death of any one man , yet whatsoever follows upon that contrivance , he is guilty of ; insomuch , it is greatly to be fear'd , that though you meant only to bring it in by the way of dissolving of parliaments , or by liberty of conscience , and such kind of innocent ways as you thought , yet if so be those means should not have proved effectual , and worse should have been taken ( though by others of your confederates ) for to go through with the work , as we have great reason to believe there would , you are guilty of all that blood that would have followed . but still you say you did not design that thing ; but to tell you , he that doth a sinful and unlawful act , must answer , and is liable both to god and man for all the consequences that attend it , therefore i say you ought not to think your self innocent . 't is possible you may be penitent , and nothing remains but that . and as i think in your church you allow of a thing called attrition , if you cannot with our church , have contrition , which is a sorrow proceeding from love , pray make use of attrition , which is a sorrow arising from fear . for you may assure your self , there are but a few moments betwixt you and a vast eternity , where will be no dallying , no arts to be used , therefore think on all the good you can do in this little space of time that is left you , all is little enough to wipe off ( besides your private and secret offences ) even your publick ones . i do know that confession is very much owned in your church , and you do well in it ; but as your offence is publick , so should your confession be ; and it will do you more service then all your auricular confessions . were i in your case , there should be nothing at the bottom of my heart that i would not disclose ; perchance you may be deluded with the fond hopes of having your sentence respited . trust not to it mr. coleman , you may be flatter'd to stop your mouth , till they have stopt your breath , and i doubt you will find that to be the event . i think it becomes you as a man , and as a christian , to do all that is now in your power , since you cannot be white , to make your self as clean as you can , and to fit your self for another world , where you will see how vain all resolutions of obstinacy of concealment , and all that sort of bravery which perhaps may be instil'd by some men , will prove . they will not then serve to lessen but they will add to your fault . it concerns us no farther than for your own good , and do as god shall direct you , for the truth is , there are perswasions and inducements in your church to such kind of resolutions and such kind of actions , which you are led into by false principles and false doctrines ( and so you will find when you come once to experiment it , as shortly you will ) that hardly the religion of a turk would own . but when christians by any violent bloody act attempt to propagate religion , they abuse both their disciples and religion too , and change that way that christ himself taught us to follow him by . 't was not by blood or violence ; by no single mans undertaking to disturb and to alter governments ; to make hurly burlies , and all the mischiefs that attend such things as these are . for a church to perswade men even to the committing of the highest violences , under a pretence of doing god good service , looks not ( in my opinion ) like religion , but design ; like an engine , not a holy institution ; artificial as a clock , which follows not the sun but the setter ; goes not according to the bible but the priest , whose interpretations serve their particular ends , and those private advantages which true religion would scorn , and natural religion it self would not endure . i have mr. coleman said thus much to you as you are a christian , and as i am one , and i do it out of great charity and compassion , and with great sense and sorrow that you should be mislead to these great offences under pretence of religion . but seeing you have but a little time , i would have you make use of it to your best advantage ; for i tell you , that though death may be talkt of at a distance in a brave heroick way , yet when a man once comes to the minute , death is a very serious thing ; then you will consider how trifling all plots and contrivances are , and to how little purpose is all your concealments . i only offer these things to your thoughts , and perhaps they may better go down at such a time as this is then at another ; and if they have no effect upon you , i hope they will have some as to my own particular , in that i have done my good will. i do remember you once more , that in this matter you be not deluded with any fantastick hopes and expectations of a pardon , for the truth is mr. coleman , you will be deceived ; therefore set your heart at rest , for we are at this time in such disorders , and the people so continually alarm'd either with secret murthers , or some outrages and violences that are this day on foot , that though the king , who is full of mercy almost to a fault , yet if he should be inclined that way , i verily believe both houses would interpose between that and you . i speak this to shake off all vain hopes from you ; for i tell you i verily believe they would not you should have any twigg to hold by to deceive you ; so that now you may look upon it , there is nothing will save you , for you will assuredly dy-as now you live , and that very suddenly . in which i having discharged my conscience to you as a christian , i will now proceed to pronounce sentence against you , and do my duty as a judge . you shall return to prison , from thence be drawn to the place of execution , where you shall be hanged by the neck , and be cut down alive , your bowels burnt before your face , and your quarters sever'd , and your body disposed of as the king thinks fit ; and so the lord have mercy upon your soul. coleman . my lord , i humbly thank your lordship , and i do admire your charity , that you would be pleased to give me this admirable councel , and i will follow it as well as i can , and i beg your lordship to hear me what i am going to say , your lordship , most christian like , hath observed wisely , that confession is extreamly necessary to a dying man , and i do so too ; but that confession your lordship i suppose means , is of a guilty evil conscience in any of these points that i am condemn'd for , of maliciously contriving , &c. if i thought i had any such guilt , i should assuredly think my self damn'd now i am going out of the world by concealing them , in spite of all pardons or indulgencies , or any act that the pope or the church of rome could do for me , as i believe any one article of faith. therefore pray hear the words of a dying man , i have made a resolution , i thank god , not to tell a lie , no not a single lie , not to save my life . i hope god will not so far leave me as to let me do it ; and i do renounce all manner of mercy that god can sh●w me , if i have not told the house of commons , or offer'd it to the house of commons , all that i know in my whole heart toward this business ; and i never in all my life either made any proposition , or received any proposition , or knew or heard directly or indirectly of any proposition towards the supplanting or invading the kings life , crown or dignity , or to make any invasion or disturbance to introduce any new government , or to bring in popery by any violence or force in the world ; if i have , my lord , been mistaken in my method , as i will not say but i might have been ; for if two men differ , one must be mistaken ; therefore possibly i might be of an opinion , that popery might come in if liberty of conscience had been granted , and perhaps all christians are bound to wish all people of that religion that they profess themselves ; if they are in earnest , i will not dispute those ills that your lordship may imagine to be in the church of rome ; if i thought there was any in them i would be sure to be none of it . i have no design my lord at all in religion but to be saved ; and i had no manner of invitation to invite me to the church of rome , no not one , but to be saved ; if i am out of the way , i am out of the way , as to the next world as well as this ; i have nothing but a sincere conscience , and i desire to follow it as i ought . i do confess i am guilty of many crimes , and i am afraid all of us are guilty in some measure , of some failings and infirmities ; but in matters of this nature that i now stand condemn'd for , though i do not at all complain of the court ; for i do confess i have had all the fair play imaginable ; and i have nothing at all to say against it ; but i say as to any one act of mine , so far as acts require intention to make them acts , as all humane acts do , i am as innocent of any crime that i now stand charg'd as guilty of , as when i was first born . l. c. j. that is not possible . coleman . with submission , i do not say innocent as to any crime in going against any act of parliament , then it is a crime to hear mass , or to do any act that they prohibit ; but for intending and endeavouring to bring in that religion by the aid and assistance of the king of france , i never intended nor meant by that aid and assistance , any force in the world , but such aids and assistances as might procure us liberty of conscience . my lord , if in what i have said no body believes me , i must be content ; if any do believe me , then i have wip'd off those scandalous thoughts and abominable crimes , that , &c. and then i have paid a little debt to truth . l. c. j. one word more and i have done , i am sorry mr. coleman , that i have not charity enough to believe the words of a dying man ; for i will tell you what sticks with me very much , i cannot be perswaded , and no body can , but that your correspondence and negotiations did continue longer than the letters that we have found , that is after 1675. now if you had come and shown us your books and letters , which would have spoke for themselves , i should have thought then that you had dealt plainly and sincerely , and it would have been a mighty motive to have believed the rest ; for certainly your correspondence held even to the time of your apprehension , and you have not discovered so much as one paper , but what was found unknown to you , and against your will. coleman . upon the words of a dying man , and upon the expectation i have of salvation , i tell your lordship , that there is not a book nor paper in the world , that i have laid aside voluntary . l. c. j. no , perhaps you have burnt them . coleman . not , by the living god. l. c. j. i hope mr. coleman you will not say no manner of way . coleman . for my correspondence these two last years past , i have given an account of every letter ; but those that were common letters , and those books that were in my house , what became of them i know not ; they were common letters that i use to write every day , a common journal what past at home and abroad , my men they writ e'm out of that book . l. c. j. what became of those letters ? coleman . i had no letters about this business , but what i have declared to the house of commons , that is , letters from st. germans , which i owned to the house of commons ; and i had no methodical correspondence , and i never valued them nor regarded them , but as they came , i destroyed them . l. c. j. i remember the last letter that is given in evidence against you , discovers what mighty hopes there was , that the time was now come wherein that pestilent heresie , that hath domineer'd in this northern part of the world , should be extirpated ; and that there never was greater hopes of it since our queen maries reign . pray mr. coleman , was that the concluding letter in this affair ? coleman . give me leave to say it upon my dying , i have not one letter , &c. l. c. j. what though you burnt your letters , you may recollect the contents . coleman . i had none since . l. c. j. between god and your conscience be it , i have other apprehensions ; and you deserve your sentence vpon you for your offences , that visibly appear out of your own papers , that you have not , and cannot deny . coleman . i am satisfied . but seeing my time is but short , may i not be permitted to have some immediate friends , and my poor wife to have her freedom to speak with me , and stay with me that little time that i have , that i might speak something to her in order to her living and my dying . l. c. j. you say well , and it is a hard case to deny it ; but i tell you what hardens my heart , the insolencies of your party , the roman catholicks i mean , that they every day offer , which is indeed a proof of their plot , that they are so bold and impudent , and such secret murders committed by them , as would harden any mans heart to do the common favours of justice and charity , that to mankind is usually done : they are so bold and insolent , that i think it is not to be endured in a protestant kingdom ; but for my own parlicular , i think it is a very hard thing for to deny a man the company of his wife , and his friends , so it be done with caution and prudence ; remember that the plot is on foot , and i do not know what arts the priests have , and what tricks they use ; and therefore have a care that no papers nor any such thing , be sent from him . coleman . i do not design it i am sure . l. c. j. but for the company of his wife and his near friends , or any thing in that kind , that may be for his eternal good , and as much for his present satisfaction that he can receive now in the condition that be is in , let him have it , but do it with care and caution . cap. richardson . what , for them to be private alone ? l. c. j. his wife , only she , god forbid else . nor shall you not be deny'd any protestant minister . coleman . but shall not my cosin coleman have liberty to come to me . l. c. j. yes , with mr. richardson . col. or his servant ; because it is a great trouble for him to attend always . l. c. j. if it be his servant , or any he shall appoint , 't is all one , mr. richardsson , use him as reasonably as may be , considering the condition he is in . court. have a care of your prisoner . on tuesday the third of december following , ( being the day of his execution ) mr. coleman was drawn on a sledge from newgate to tyburn and being come thither , he declared , that he had been a roman catholick for many years ; and that he thanked god ▪ he died in that religion . and he said , he did not think that religion at all prejudicial to the king and government . the sheriff told him if he had any thing to say by way of confession or con●●●●ion , he mig●● proceed , otherwise it was not seasonable for him to go 〈…〉 expressions . and being asked if he knew any thing of the 〈…〉 of sir edmondbury godfry , he declared upon the 〈…〉 he knew not any thing of it ; for that he was 〈…〉 . then after some private prayers and ejaculations to 〈…〉 ●he sentence was executed , he was hanged by the neck , cut 〈◊〉 alive , his bowels burnt , and himself 〈◊〉 . ; finis .